Birthday Girl: Trouble Proof

Our very dear TJB has reminded me that today is Dusty's birthday. Here puts a wistful, almost anesthetized, and very, very effective spin on a song I don't otherwise associate with her.

Birthday Girl: The Miraculous Miss Mercer

As part of my ongoing cheer-up efforts - and in recognition of her 118th birthday - herewith a half-hour with Miss Mabel Mercer.

Medley Madness

It's hard to not to feel at least a little more cheerful in the presence of the divine Josephine, I find. Isn't she just too too too? If you're not grinning helplessly by the Big Finish, I'm not sure we can be friends...

Birthday Girl: The Dame

Insofar as a force of nature can have a birthday, Dame Shirley Bassey is doing so even as we speak - 81 going on eternal.

Where the Music is Bright

I suppose one occasionally does miss things not watching (non-Arabic) television, so I'm grateful that the YouTube gods conjured up this lovely profile in my Recommendations this morning.

A Pain in the Ice

Two formidable ladies join forces, and the result is... curious.

Fife and Dame

And now for something completely different...

Redux (and an Obit): Up to the Glitter

Word that Hugh Hefner has shuffled off this mortal coil at 91 seems like news from a vanished era. I ran this marvelous clip from 1969, of soul diva Carla Thomas at a televisual Playboy party, a couple of years ago, and it seems right to revisit it today.

Women of Distinction - and an Aesthetic Opportunity

As another blessed week limps to a close, and in the face of bad news from all over, today more than ever I needed a lift...

Birthday Girl: Fresh as the Morning

"Hey Siri," says I, "Play some Judy Garland music." And she does.

Stay, City

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

Birds, Bees, Finns, Eels... and Eartha

This gem recently popped up on my feed over at the FaceBooks, and not having seen it previously, I was even more than usually transported than I generally am by the insinuating charms of Miss Eartha Kitt.

That Happy Feeling

This has popped up hereabouts before, but it appeared in my Facebook feed today and I decided it was just what I needed, and perhaps you do, too. A light in bleak times, the Merm...

You've Got My Heart

Just in time for Valentine's Day, herewith the latest from Egyptian superstar Amr Diab. The subtitles go with "You Own My Heart," but literally the title - "Maak Alby" - is "My Heart is with You."

She Hopes You'll Understand

Well, all right then. Who doesn't remember where they were, one fateful night in 1991, when first this spectacular bit of bizarerie hit one's favorite video bar or dance floor?

Funny That Way

A remarkable little treasure turned up today in The Guardian; I'm genuinely shocked I'd never heard of it.

From Now On

I was going to run this on Wednesday morning.

A Shady Dame Sings a Song

Because I am spending this weekend doing everything possible to avoid thinking about politics in any way, shape or form, here's a rich little gem from Peggy Lee, going Latin with a vengeance.

Girl Singer

So she would have been 75 today. How one wishes she were...

Shameless Monday Camp Explosion: So Special

Thus, the Camp sensibility is one that is alive to a double sense in which some things can be taken. But this is not the familiar split-level construction of a literal meaning, on the one hand, and a symbolic meaning, on the other. It is the difference, rather, between the thing as meaning something, anything, and the thing as pure artifice.

- Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp