A Timely Admonition

Apologies from your none-too-faithful correspondent...

Remember, Remember...

...The sad story of poor, ill-fated Juror Number Eight. Fashion's edicts are ignored at your peril.

Café PSA: A Timely Reminder

While I know that such Gentle Readers as regularly pass by here hardly need such basic information, once again I feel obliged to remind a broader cher publique...

It's Not a Question of "If"

Awfully definite, this, don't you think?  Unnervingly, it appears in every elevator in this large hotel complex, and it's getting me down.

Public Service Announcement: An Annual Reminder

Remember:  No white shoes until Tuesday, please.

This message is brought to you by the Café Muscato 

in partnership with the Sutphin Foundation.

A Timely Warning

Morgenstern

Lupino

McKinley

Tarbell

Beware the Idas of March.  Those ladies - sitcom matron, noir siren, first lady, and muckraker alike - will, without question, cut a bitch.

My Day...

...in a nutshell.  Don't ask.  Mother of God, please don't ask.  After a day like this, Mama smack.

Never Forget...

...Mrs. Rittenhouse is judging you.  And on the whole, she's not impressed.

A Memorial Day Reminder...

Whatever the temptations you may face heading into this holiday weekend, keep one thing in mind:  white shoes really ought not to be worn until the morning after the traditional May 30 celebration of this important holiday.  Better safe than sorry.

This has been a public-service message brought to you in memory of Grandmother Muscato, a strict observer of all things Decoration Day.  She might not have approved of each and every one of Mrs. Sutphin's methods, but she would have found her motivation irreproachable.

Shopping Mall Confidential

Consider this a private note to the Café's local (or any other dishdasha-wearing) male readers:

If you feel like stopping for a cup of coffee at the Starbucks tables located outside the Border's Books at the top of the escalator shown in the pre-opening sketch above - and yes, I know, they're the only ones at that Starbucks where you can smoke* - that's all well and good. But please - for the love of God, please - remember that if, while watching the world go by, you decide to get comfortable by, say, putting one foot up on an empty chair and swinging your other leg over just so...

Let's just say that the kilt effect goes into play, and your dishdasha and wissar** ride up, and ...

On a clear day, those lucky folks coming up the elevator get an excellent view of your Ras Al Djinn, if you get my drift.

Frankly, I'd think the draft would have gotten your attention, even if the giggling girls (and not a few interested-looking gents) going for multiple escalator rides didn't...

* for the moment, kids - this town is going smoke-free in a couple of months, and not a moment too soon!

** the local masculine petticoat-equivalent; think a wrapped half-slip.

So Anyway, Where Were We?

Muscato recuperating (artist's impression)

Yes, children, at last I'm home, and I have to say that it's bliss. The travel? Pretty much the opposite, although I will admit to not flying coach, which does help. Still, 25 hours in transit is 25 hours in transit, and the Champers, while it truly does take the edge off, only goes so far in mitigating the horror.

But I've returned to our own little Villa to find that Mr. Muscato has been an extremely busy and predictably praiseworthy person, fearlessly braving the landlord to accomplish all the repairs necessitated by our little flood and ensuring, with the aid of the tireless Ermilia (seen above, trayed), that all is restored to its usual good order. This has made two days spent in more or less complete collapse quite tolerable, and If I'm not entirely geared up for a return to what passes for normality, it's no one's fault but my own.

As for what's ahead, I've hardly even thought, having been wasting far too much energy and attention on this quite maddeningly entrancing time-waster, courtesy of that reliably startling corner of the 'Tubes, omg blog!!. Don't say you weren't warned...

A Timely Reminder

Back there in the world of Saturday-starting weekends, I know, you're heading into a last, langurous long weekend before the autumn. We at the Café hope that you will take a moment from saying farewell to summer to heed this hint from our domestic engineering consultant, homemaker extraordinaire Beverly Sutphin:

You can't wear white

after Labor Day!

And none of this whining about how fashion changes, and don't try to sneak by over the next few months in any so-called "winter white." Beverly has some firm opinions. Which we share. Put that stuff away!

A Word to the Wise

Consider yourselves warned, carissimi - Mama's in a mood today, and maybe just a smidge more of the latter than the former.

Fashion Tip

Mink panties, however fabulous, are not slimming. And I worry about heatrash, especially when worn under lined sequined skirts. Still: mink panties! And what's better than that: matching muffs!

A Day at the Beach

Beware: here be ear worms.

This charming little archival clip really captures, I think, exactly what a day sur la plage in Dubai is all about: clamdiggers, picture hats, and Jerome-Robbins-meets-Lithium choreography.

A Cautionary Tale

Distinctly not a sequel to Flesh and the Devil. True story: VD strips you of your cocktail sheath, forces you to wear a cardigan and unflattering skirt, ruins your bouff, and may result in your spending time in a flesh pot in Africa. In the immortal words of Bela Lugosi: "Bevare - take care!"

A Word to the Wise

For those planning a festive night out, remember:

Beware the Truth Seekers. And the Givers.

Maximum City

Warning: moralizing ahead.

We are rarely serious hereabouts, and very much on purpose, too (those who love me best know that there's a fine line indeed between serious and maudlin). I've been wondering what to think about the horror going on in India these past days, and now I'm very, very glad that someone has put my inchoate thoughts into eloquent words.

Everyone who loves cities should read this beautiful, mournful, hopeful column by Suketu Mehta:

"But the best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever. Dream of making a good home for all Mumbaikars, not just the denizens of $500-a-night hotel rooms. Dream not just of Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Rai or Shah Rukh Khan, but of clean running water, humane mass transit, better toilets, a responsive government. Make a killing not in God’s name but in the stock market, and then turn up the forbidden music and dance; work hard and party harder.

If the rest of the world wants to help, it should run toward the explosion. It should fly to Mumbai, and spend money. Where else are you going to be safe? New York? London? Madrid?

So I’m booking flights to Mumbai. I’m going to go get a beer at the Leopold, stroll over to the Taj for samosas at the Sea Lounge, and watch a Bollywood movie at the Metro. Stimulus doesn’t have to be just economic."

All of us rootless cosmopolites are well behooved to think this through: we're the targets, we're the city-dwellers, and only we can keep the party going. Someday - as in New York, London, Madrid, now Mumbai - we may be called upon to do so.

The Six O'Clock Alarm, Shinjuku Division

I've long had a soft spot for Tokyo oddities Shonen Knife, a keening trio of power pop devotees who apply their talents, such as they are, to numbers both original (I'm awfully fond of their environmental anthem "Bear up, Bison") and, as here, classic.

Warning: do not click unless you have an inordinate liking for rainbows, kittens, cuteness, jangling guitars, and an almost damejoansutherlandische disregard for consonants. And Monkees covers, of course.

Cinderella

Egyptians are mad about movies, and the big stars of the Egyptian cinema are revered by the general public in the way that more rarefied circles in the West feel about Garbo, Davis, Gable, and Bogart.

They love the triumphs, and almost as much they revel masochistically in the tragedies. Just about the saddest of all of these is the story of Souad Hosni, remembered as "The Cinderella of Arabic Cinema."

Throught the 60s and into the 70s, she was the darling of moviegoers, a lively, gamine sort of girl given the Egyptian versions of the kinds of movies then going to Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn.

She made dozens of movies, some good and some pretty lamentable. One, Khali Balek min Zouzou (Beware of Zouzou) from the early 70s is credited with rescuing Egyptian movies from a rut of politicized, Soviet-style pictures (brawny peasants, noble workers, and not much fun - very not Egyptian).

By the early 80s, the movie industry in Egypt more or less fell apart, and the kinds of sweet, light films audiences loved her for gave way to low-budget action/comedy/romance/dirty joke movies. In 2001, half-forgotten, impoverished, and long ill and a recluse, Souad Hosni fell from the balcony of the London apartment building to which she had retreated.

Some say she jumped; others that mysterious Powers That Be pushed her (and stole the manuscript of her reputedly sensational memoirs). Her funeral was a day of mass public mourning in Cairo, and Egyptians still bitterly berate themselves for having let her down.

Years before all that, though, in 1979, Souad Hosni made a movie called El-Mutawahisha (The Wild Child). At 37, she's a little mature for the kind of romping about that the script calls for, but she's game.

Here, with the dubious help of some disturbing chorus boys, she leads a number called, as you'll soon see, Sheeka-Beeka.

It's fairly appalling. I suppose you could consider it the real-life Egyptian Shumba (it's almost that unnerving). Or maybe an Arabesque Sissy Clown Slap Party. Don't say you haven't been warned.