Stay, City

Presented without comment. That last note, tho...

Rachel, Rachel: Black Like She

Well, I've certainly been wasting more than enough time on the strange saga of Rachel Doležal,* that Jenny Stewart for the Post-Modern century.

Phone Home

So - have you been following the comet-landing?  Who could have thought, in these cynical days, that the adventures of a plucky little techno-pioneer could be so gripping?

What It's All About

Well, rather a surprise this morning, no?  Today's great news has made me think about these two, to whom we owe so much.  In honor of Mildred and Richard Loving - and what author of fiction would ever dare give them that name? - tonight we raised a glass to being fully legal in our home state.  To read Mildred's statement 40 years after her marriage became legal is to realize just how far we've come, and how we walk a path made easier by pioneers.

Eggies! - Royal Edition

Exciting news from Bangkok, kids!  Of course, the above regal creature is not our emerging Café obsession, HRH The Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn (aka the Angel Princess), but instead the rather more, um, down to earth late film sensation Edith Massy, aka Edie the Egg Lady.

The Last Hon

When thinking about a person who has had a really quite marvelous life that spans ten decades, and when one knows the person only at a great remove, it's probably not quite right to mourn, exactly, when at last they go on before.  Still, the death of Deborah, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, does seem a particularly melancholy thing.

Road Trip Angel

At the risk of becoming a tad repetitive, I was thrilled to see that my fave-rave Thai Royal, the Angel Princess herself, has taken to the road - with adorable results.

Up is Down, Black is White...

...And Hello Kitty is not a cat.  At the risk of continuing the feline trend earlier this week, I feel obliged to note how thoroughly my mind has been blown by this startling news from the good people at Sanrio.

One More Ride on the Merry-Go-Round

It can be odd sometimes to be reminded that people once staples of the headlines are still among us.  Lord Snowdon, for example, has emerged from the (comparative) shadows in today's news, having donated a cache of his portraits to the National Portrait Gallery, which is mounting a large-scale show of his work.

Chica-Boom

Well, I thought there ought to be something cheerful and Brazilian today...

Together Forever

Well, I don't know about you, but I think this is an awfully encouraging glance, shared as it is between two people married these 66 years.

When Queens Collide

Oh, Dame Helen - ought one really point at the sovereign?  Well, the lady herself seems unperturbed, as, for that matter, she mostly has for most of the past seven decades or so.

Question Time: Ask the Oracle #7

Well, who knew?  Turns out some people - even serious researchers - really do Ask the Oracle.

Meanwhile, in Amsterdam

I'm a sucker for a little royal extravaganza, and while by Britannic standards the Dutch do things in a very low-key way, I've enjoyed watching events in the Netherlands the last day or two, helped in no small part part by some extremely erudite and amusing bloggers, not least the presiding genius of The Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor and dear Ella of the late lamented Mad Hattery, who now presides over the very thorough A Tiara a Day.

Having lived overseas, I think, gives one a rather personal feeling about the kinds of gatherings seen above, representatives of families ranging from the the House of Orange itself (its central players decked out in blue from head to toe, including some truly startling sapphires - go find some snaps of the new Queen Maxima if you're looking for today's sparkle fix) right on down to our own dear Sultanate.*

As the Sultan rarely joins what Queen Victoria called the Royal Mob, the Al Said family is represented by H.H. Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq (the gentleman at the very top of the back row there, in between the two in more traditional-looking Arabic headgear; he of course is wearing the distinctive Omani massar, or turban).  He's nice; I met him once or twice while living there. He used to pop up occasionally to open an exhibition or some such sundry duty, driving himself and usually startling the organizers by not requiring more fuss.

Also representing the region was the formidable Sheikha Mozah of Qatar, uncharacteristically sober in black and midnight blue, but the clear winner of today's Largest Necklace stakes.  I also like that her purse brooch matches her earrings. It's all in the details, kids.

The spectre at this feast, I think, is the mysterious Crown Princess Masako of Japan, decked out in unflattering thick vanilla brocade and looking as vacant and lost as she has ever since she forsook her career in the Foreign Ministry to join the imperial family. Having lived in Japan when her royal romance was daily tabloid fodder, it's hard to reconcile this woman with the lively, worldly girl who then disappeared into the maze of protocol and tradition.  It was a rare international outing for her (she is said to be fond of the Dutch royal family, who have been especially kind to her, perhaps one reason for the trip), and while it's to be hoped that this means that her lingering malaise may be lifting, her wan appearance is not encouraging.  While I'm dropping names, I suppose I could mention that also I've met her brother-in-law, the Crown Prince's brother (and winner by default as the heir presumptive, Masako not having had a son) who came backstage yonks ago when I was working on a production in London.  No one seemed quite sure who he was, exactly, but he was terribly polite; it turned our star had met him in Tokyo. Smoked like a chimney.

Charles and Camilla are there as well; one wonders what he makes of his Dutch counterpart's smooth transition from heir to monarch.  Watching Queen Beatrix turn herself back into a mere princess, in a simple ceremony that was actually rather moving, it was easy to see the virtue of having abandoned the principal of "the king is dead; long live the king."  Given the Windsor women's ever-expanding longevity (if things go on like this, Princess Anne will make 120), Charles must wonder if he'll ever get to stand in the center of a group of congratulatory visiting royals.

But today belongs to Willem Alexander, the first Dutch king since before Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and his Argentine consort, who as of today commands a jewel box that would send Eva Peron into fits of jealousy.  They seem to have started out very well indeed, and it will be interesting to watch their story play out, the three little girls in blue growing up and now-Princess Beatrix fading properly into the background.  The secret of royalty is the seductive combination of spectacle and time, impassive continuity and little human touches. They look like a pleasant family, and there's something cozy in thinking that when I'm an old man, 30 years or so from now, I'll watch the inauguration of new Queen Amalia, perhaps with whoever the new Windsor now waiting to be born turns out to be looking on...


* One wonders if the Tongans have done something to offend; they seem to have dropped off the invite lists for these affairs...

Shake, Shake, Shake

Well, it's been an interesting day out here in the Sandlands (not that it hasn't anywhere else).

There I am, more or less on the mend from my pulmonary nonsense, having a quiet afternoon at home (having ducked out of the office with what seemed, and may yet be, a migraine).  A little nap seemed in order, but I had no sooner gone into the lightest of dozes when the dogs started annoying me; something they were doing was shaking the bed.

I woke fully up just in time to realize that it wasn't the dogs - who were frozen at the foot of the bed, watching the curtains sway and the pictures lightly rattling on the far wall.  And the bed continued to shake, although now with a rather sickening lateral sway in additional to the shaking.  And then it stopped.  It seems the earthquake - apparently an enormous one - that struck in Iran this afternoon was felt all this way away on the other side of the Gulf.  As with the previous earthquakes I've experienced - in Egypt and Japan, on the exotic side, and in suburban Philadelphia, of all places, on the other - there is a surreality to the moment you realize what's happening, as well as a sound - a low rumble, primordial and relentless - that you can never afterward quite explain or describe, but that, given a choice, you'd opt never, ever to hear again.

I called downstairs to Mrs. Gallapatti-Da Silva, who was serenely washing dishes and had apparently missed the whole thing (she suffers from vertigo and likely just thought it was one of her Lucile Austero moments, although I doubt she thinks of them in that way exactly).  I thought it might have been a dream, but then the stream of calls and texts started coming in:  the office was evacuating (we're on a high-ish floor, and apparently I missed a festival of screaming in the tongues of many nations); people saw the shelves swaying at this mall or the chandelier doing a little dance at that hotel.  And a few hundred miles away, much, much worse.

But here, my Africa training kicked in, and I grabbed the passports and threw them in a bag filled with useful things that we keep for such purposes slung over the back of the bedroom door.  I headed downstairs and outside with the very clearly freaked dogs and by now hardly less freaked tiny Sri Lankan lady, and we sat for a while in the shade of the terrace, me be-laptopped and regularly hitting "refresh" on the U.S. Geological Survey's invaluable real-time earthquake monitor.  The aftermath of an earthquake, a mild one that is, is a funny moment.  You know that something else - and presumably worse - may happen, but that equally it may not.  In the moment, you feel rather foolish.

So that is where we are right now: anticipating aftershocks, nothing worse.  But unnerving all the same.  Perhaps we're getting out of here at the right time...

And Toto, too...

I'm more than a tad suspicious of the new movie Oz the Great and Powerful - let's face it, the track record for successful Oz films, while it dates back to the early silents, pretty much ends in 1939.

If nothing else, though, it has brought a welcome dose of Oziana back into the wider world, and I'm especially struck by the devotion illustrator Steve Murray has shown in documenting every single named character in every one of the canonical Oz books (above is just a detail, although it does include not only the biggies - Dorothy and her friends and a flying monkey - but a number of my personal favorites, including Princess Ozma, General Jinjur, Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter, and the Queen of the Scoodlers among them).  The whole thing is pretty great, as well as a reminder that L. Frank Baum's world (as created by him and embellished by his successors) was infinitely more complex and whimsical than MGM's.  Bravo to the National Post for running it.

So - has anybody braved the prospect of two hours with James Franco and checked the new picture out?

Red Shoe Diary

Oh I used to be disgusted
and now I try to be amused.
But since their wings have got rusted,
you know, the angels wanna wear my red shoes.
But when they told me 'bout their side of the bargain,
that's when I knew that I could not refuse.
And I won't get any older, now the angels wanna wear my red shoes...

- Elvis Costello

I can't say I'm too broken up about the imminent departure of the Nazi hobbit, the world's best-known old gentleman in eyelet lace and scarlet pumps since the heyday of Milton Berle.  I do find it interesting that he's heading down the trail blazed by Queen Beatrix rather than showing the lifelong stamina that has characterized his predecessors since the late thirteenth century.  It's probably too much to hope that we'll get something better on the day the white smoke flutters out of that Italian chimney, but let's try.

In the meantime, of all the richness of inappropriate choices, at least today's surprise announcement gives me a reason to remind the world of my single favorite photo of @Pontifex, ever.

Been There, Done That

Bangs?  Bitch, please.  Love you, but call me when you try something original...  

Portrait Gallery: Remembrance of Scandal Past

In light of today's unflattering headlines in regard to a lesser member of a certain British family, I think it's worth remembering that they've been through this kind of thing before.

For instance, the blue-eyed gentleman seen here, in a typically bravura portrait by dear M. de László, was the cause of many trials in his comparatively short life.  He is George, Duke of Kent, son of the difficult but distinctly longsuffering George V and Queen Mary, uncle of the present monarch and great-great-uncle of today's tabloid miscreant. 

His deeds and misdeeds ranged from a rather too pronounced fondness for the nightlife (he most certainly, in a different decade, would have been a regular on The Disco Round, especially in regard to its pharmaceutical angle) to a reputedly indiscriminate approach to matters of the heart (and other less seemly parts).  He is said to have included among his amours everyone from Barbara Cartland to the scandalous Duchess of Argyll, along with jazz diva Florence Mills, Mr. Noël Coward, and even the mother of Café favorite the Rajmata of Jaipur. 

He married well, to Princess Marina of Greece, and whatever else went on on the side, they seem to have gotten along fine.  In addition to his three Kentish children (all still among us and paragons of royal service, especially his daughter, the estimable Princess Alexandra, said to be the Queen's favorite cousin), he is alleged to have had several others; the Duchess of Westminster tried to start a rumor that one of them was Lee Radziwell's first husband, but that seems a little much even to me.

Rumors are just as rife about his political proclivities as his sex life, although scuttlebutt about his supposed Nazi leanings seem less justified than that that clouds the memory of his brother the ex-king and his harridan of a wife.  He died in service to the nation, in a plane crash en route to a visit to the troops in Iceland, just 70 years ago this coming Saturday.  His widow lived on irreproachable splendor 'til the late '60s, and the blots on his copybook have come, over the decades, to seem more interesting foibles than shameful lapses.

In short, a couple of blurry nudes should not, if all continues to be handled sensibly, go too far in diffusing the impact of these last few triumphant months for the Windsor clan.  They've gotten through Windsor and Wally's affair (not to mention Koo Stark, embarrassing phone calls, killer corgis, and unflattering headlines going all the way back to poor Lady Flora Hastings and beyond), and they'll get through this.

"They told us / What they wanted..."

In light of this weekend's cheerful news that among the "broad range of assets" to be deployed in pursuit of security at the upcoming London Olympics will be a high-tech "sonic weapon" capable of inflicting crippling pain, let's revisit this typically peculiar, unsettlingly prescient little number by the inimitable Kate Bush.  As the kids say, I'll just leave this here...