Is a Puzzlement

Because there's never a bad reason to get a good look at Yul Brynner,
nearly shirtless. No Puzzlement there...

Over in the FaceBookVerse, dear Cookie has come up with a list of 10 Things He Doesn't Understand, and he's challenged his Gentle Readers to do the same. Some dares I can't resist, so herewith, just that number of cultural phenomena that leave me cold:

Birthday Girl: The Big Nine-Oh

Herself, as seen by Mr. David Bailey

There is, I think, very little that can be written about the woman that is in any way new or particularly insightful. 

From Under My Hat: Ten Things I'm Thinking

Hmmm.  Looks like she's just seen a Pinko...

So the long summer break is slowly winding down; on Monday, it's back to the office, or rather off to a new one.

Ten Thoughts on a Low Dive

While we were lolling about in Istanbul, Mr. Muscato and the Egyptian boys decided they wanted to see the real Turkey, to go off the beaten tourist track of Taksim and Sultanahmet.  Through friends of friends, they had heard about a little pub on the wrong side of the tracks, frequented by the right sort of clientele.

That's how we found ourselves, latish one night, rattling along in the tram out past the bright lights of touristland, out along an avenue that grew progressively less cosmopolitan with every stop.  The slight lip-service of at least a little English on signs seen elsewhere in town disappeared, and soon enough we appeared to be the only non-Turks aboard.  I had been the Internet researcher that turned the boys' vague memories of friends' accounts into a name and an address, and so I led us at what seemed to be the right stop out into the darkness.

It turned out I'm a better navigator than you might have thought; we found the place.  It was all that it had been painted, and more.  I'm pretty sure that almost everyone there was a direct descendant of one of the gentleman above.  Hell - I think some of them might have been the gentlemen above.

Following, in no particular order, are the things I learned about a night out at a wholly non-Westernized Turkish nightspot catering to (to steal a phrase from Papa Hemingway) Men without Women:

1.  Nowhere else on earth will you ever feel so completely not-Turkish.

2.  Not to mention not-butch.  In this joint, Charles Bronson would feel like Totie Fields.

3.  When compared to about 80% of the men present, that is.  As one’s eyes adjust to the dim light, one realizes that she was in fact a good deal butcher than about 15% of these boys.

4.  The remaining 5% may in fact be Totie Fields.

5.  Wherever they register, however, they all have moustaches.  If they’re really butch, their moustaches have moustaches.

6.  In general, this is a very good thing indeed.

7.  In the hands of the right house band, Turkish pop combines the energy of its Arab counterpart and the melodramatic darkness of Slavic folksongs.   The result is disconcerting but not unalluring.

8.  Especially when it’s making half of those present dance, and the other half weep.

9.  Whether dancing or weeping, however, everybody’s singing.

10.   When you find yourself dancing, weeping, and singing, it’s time to go home.

In short, we had a Very Good Time. 

A couple of things surprised me about the joint.  For one, even though Turkey remains a country ferociously devoted to smoking as a nearly mandatory social pastime, the place scrupulously observed the no-smoking-in-public rules flouted in cafés and restaurants all across Istanbul.  For another, there was a casual cheerfulness about the place (even with all the minor-key induced weeping - it really was as if every other song were a cross between "Danny Boy" and "Leavin' on a Jet Plane," albeit with a belly-dance beat, from the reaction they were getting) that belied its outside grittiness.  It sort of gave you the impression of a gay Turkish Cheers, if Cheers had been ten times more crowded, and Carla had been a man (actually, one of the barbacks was disctinctly rheaperlmanesque, right down to the perm).

And the regulars really had a very Turkish kind of charm.  They tended either toward the mature:

Just a snap found online, but it conveys, I think, the butch-Totie conundrum...

Or the less so, but still not uninteresting:

Although, just to clarify, everyone that night stayed full dressed.  Pity.

We missed the last tram back to the more-traveled side of town, but all agreed it had been worth the excursion.  Once we stopped weeping and singing, that is...

Ten Tips on Stardom

1.  Have an instinctive understanding of exactly how to hit your key light - something that never failed the Divine Josephine, even when the spotlight was all she had...

2.  Let Joan Blondell be your guide:  always have a positive approach to your grueling glamour regimen (and never, ever be seen without eye makeup, bangles, pumps, and, when situationally appropriate, an adoring attendant).

3.  Develop a trademark expression; extra credit if it can be variously read as vulnerable and alluring at the same time.  You may not hit the heights that Marilyn reached in no small part thanks to hers, but you have to start somewhere...

4.  Equally, however, you mustn't neglect the more ferocious aspect of divalicity; nothing so incites the fans to adoration as an affect just this side of disdain.  Dame Joan, despite an off-stage attitude of almost superhuman cosiness, was no slouch in this regard on stage.

5.  Never pass up an opportunity to let the boys in the stills gallery have a little fun.  If you can't face the prospect of yet another Arbor Day photo spread, at least don't hesitate to show off your hobbies, however implausible.  I don't for a moment believe that Mary Boland was a devoted ping-pong enthusiast, but it made a nice snap for the weekend rotogravures, no?

6.  However, never forget that glamour is job one.  Audiences forgave Lana everything for the better part of four decades, just because she could so reliably give that look.  It takes practice, kids, especially when you're balancing as much off stage as our Miss Turner here.

7.  Keep good company.  Peers and counterparts always make good press - that's why Jerry was almost always seen with one or preferably more of his girls...

8.  ...and at a certain point, cultivate the next generation.  Joan was smart enough to know that she could get away with that hat as long as she was standing next to the ravishing young Mr. Chamberlain.  Do you suppose she's goosing him even as the picture was snapped? (On a side note, I always think of this particular expression of Joan's as her "Mommie's had her vodka" look - it's her own special version of "Keep it together, Minnelli," as you can practically see the self-will that it's taking to keep her upright.)

9.  Never forget that you're Queen of the Lot, even if that lot is only Universal.  It takes a special moxie to wave at your minions and drive your own personal go-kart, but Doris takes it all in stride.

10.  Finally, and when all else fails - endure.

Image du Jour: Funnies Business

Ten questions this arresting image provokes:

1.  Who would have thought that Jimmy Olsen would so closely resemble Anne Baxter?

2.  Wouldn't you love to see the rest of the outfit?  Based on the blouse, I'm guessing knee-length navy pencil skirt with rear kick-pleat and coordinating sensible pumps.  Alternate scenarios welcome.

3.  Did he borrow the outfit from Lois, or was it a fresh purchase?  Spend a moment thinking of Jimmy Olsen shopping in the Career Gal section of Gimbels.*

* I just looked this up.  Turns out the department store in Metropolis is Lacey's.  I suppose that means their competition is Mimbels, Kanamakers, or Ultmans.  Fancy metropolites must shop at Pergdorf Doogman.

4. Is it a coincidence that the wig so closely resemble's Ed Woods's in Glen or Glenda?

5.  If so, why isn't there more angora involved?  If not, why not?

6. Haven't we all had a night or two like this?

7.  If your answer to (6) was "no," was the overriding reason: (a) the drag? (b) the armed, J. Edgar-ische heavy? or (c) the bat-toting chimp?

8.  Do you suppose that 7(c) marks the first appearance in English of the phrase "bat-toting chimp"?

9.  In this case, is a cigar just a cigar?

10.  If this is panel No. 8, do you suppose panels 9 through 12 hinged more heavily on the pistol or the baseball bat?  Please submit your concepts, with special points given for (a) the intervention of aliens; (b) the appearance in a pivotal role of Thelma Ritter as Birdie Coogan; or (c) a sex scene not involving the chimp.

Ten Things This Image Makes Me Think About

1. The Truman era was truly a time apart.
2. A time when first ladies appeared in public wearing novelty prints.
3. Perle Mesta (seen here departing for Luxembourg) looks to have been almost as much fun as Ethel Merman.
4. Margaret Truman looked an awful lot like her father. Her father in a black crêpe afternoon dress.
5. Nostalgia for hats may be slightly overvalued.
6. Even the firmest foundations could only do so much.
7. Daytime corsages: when exactly did they leave the scene completely?
8. I really, really wish we could see the shoes.
9. Especially if we could do so without having to see the calves.
10. Do public personages ever look this purely happy in photographs nowadays?