Birthday Girl: The Wisdom of Eve

I suppose it says something about me more than anything else, but my feed over at Facebook just plain lit up with the news that yesterday was the birthday of the heavenly Miss Eve Arden.

Three Girls Three

Lo, how the mighty...

All Together, Shout it Now

So here we are, the morning after.  Four more years.  That's terrific, don't get me wrong, but as good as it is, I don't think the re-election of the President is the real game-changer that emerged last night (this morning, actually, out in these parts - it's been a long day).

No - the stunning, astonishing, and unprecedented thing - the thing that to me presages what America's Going to Look Like Next - is that in four separate states, four separate attempts, in different ways, to stop the rise of marriage equality went down in flames.  Not by vast margins, it's true, but decisively enough.  That's simply amazing.  For me, of course, this is a Big Deal issue; for me and Mr. Muscato, the lack of official recognition of our family is what prevents us from living in the U.S.  We love our life, on the whole, as quasi-nomadic expatriates.  In our nine years, we've lived in four countries, dragging our selves and our chattel and our longsuffering animals across two continents.  Even so, maybe it's time to go home, for me, and for Mr. Muscato to come along for the ride.  Last night's wins, I hope, take us that much closer, opening the way for the end of the Defense of Marriage Act and to immigration reform that means I'm no longer an exile.

To celebrate, here's Miss Streisand to sing us in - she's got two numbers, in fact, as I was searching for a killer "Happy Days are Here Again" and ran across this clip, in which she first sings the hell out of "Cry Me a River" (a pleasant  sentiment, I think, to direct at the Republicans and Fundamentalists and general Neanderthals who more or less went down in flames yesterday).  The quality's not great, but we even get a nice little Dinah Shore intro; at least she was wise enough not to sing (only Garland comes off well in a duet with Young Barbra).  I love this phase of Streisand's career, when she's still raw and bizarre and so very, very young. She never seems to be so much performing as just barely containing the voice, never quite sure what's going to come next and just as startled as we at what does.

Speaking of startled - I am, for it seems that this first aired on May 12, 1963.  I was born the next day.  And here we are, all these years later.  Howdy, gay times, indeed.

Why Don't You...

...take up a hobby, like dear Miss Dinah Shore here?  Prolific!  While you're at it, be sure to match your palette to your sofa cushions, for that little something extra.  There's simply no such thing as Too Much Williamsburg Blue.

The Odds of March

Well, an odd couple, certainly.  Thirty years ago today, some long-forgotten event threw together (against a startlingly unflattering curtain) two quite unlike pop-culture figures.  It's strange to remember that Bob Dylan was really comparatively presentable, once upon a time; equally so, to think that Dinah Shore could have ever thought that coat was a good idea.

She gives the impression that she's decided that Dylan could help her get over the heartbreak of her jilting by Burt Reynolds.  He looks like he thinks - but isn't entirely sure - that he's just been goosed.

As is so often the case, one question comes inevitably to mind:  what do you suppose they talked about?

It's Grand, isn't it?

I feel like dear Liza at just about 1:48 in this vintage little slice of Dinah Shore, for something rather wonderful, something almost too good to be true, has happened: just like Mrs. Levi to the Harmonia Gardens, Thom has at long last come back to us. Yes, it's so; he has descended from Fabulon to take up residence at the Chateau Thombeau.

And so, just a tad, I like the life I'm living, just a little bit more, nowadays...