A Flame That Flickered

The Rialto - what's left of it, corporatized, Disneyfied, and be-Lion Kinged - gleams a little less brightly tonight, for tonight one of its longtime, long lost leading ladies bade farewell.

As the Heart Grows Older

Spring and Fall

to a young child 

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; 
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
 Now no matter, child, the name:
 Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
 Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
 What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
 It ís the blight man was born for,
 It is Margaret you mourn for.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Birthday Girl: The Girl for Life

She would have been 123 today, Miss Lillian Gish, which means it's nearly a quarter-century since she left us. Hard to believe.

Reality, Or What Passes For It

As so often in troubled times, my dears, this last little while I've more than once had need of a Garbo Moment. Here we see her displaying a smile that, for me, rivals the one attributed to that Signora Gioconda about whom we hear so much.

Girl Singer

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

Meretriciocracy

Well, kids, don't say I never do you any favors...

Teacher, Teacher

Is it just me, or does Clark not look particularly thrilled to be there? Not his brightest shining hour...

Fifteen Years On: The Hour of Lead

All these years, and still I think Miss Barry, and Miss Dickinson, said it best. Fifteen years, remembered, if outlived.

What is Aleppo?

Ah, this silly season, when the oddest things can suddenly set the blood aboil. This week's tipping point was the tiny little faux pas committed by someone who, for whatever reason, appears to believe he's qualified to lead this benighted country...

Canine Update

As promised, here you go: a rare, unfiltered, utterly candid snap of the Café's bewitching blond, the one and only Koko. If you can't tell, he's waiting for treats.

Autumn Arrives

Rarely have I observed such a clear division between the seasons; the last day of August was fine and hot, and the first of September a dreary gray with a definite, well, perhaps not quite chill, but at least distinct coolness in the air. Here we go...

If You Truly Wish To Be

I'm sorry. Some things I refuse to believe. He couldn't have been 83. That stunning, mad, sparkling mind couldn't have been extinguished even before he boarded the Great Glass Wonkevator this last time. Not that one more thing, right now.

Run Ragged

So this week has featured a houseguest, and at the moment, I feel nearly as weary as poor Miss Mary Cassatt here...

Evening in a Garden

So I didn't kill anybody.

Family Plot

Well, kids, it turns out I'm not immune to friendly (read: highly aggressive) persuasion.

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

I... Like... Lucy?

America's best-loved redhead would have been 105 today.

Ordinary People

It's amazing how, in a time of general confusion and - to steal a word in the news earlier this week - pure malarkey, a simple, solid dose of decent behavior and common sense can resound like a bell. Ghazala and Khizr Khan gave that, and more, in their appearance at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday..

File Under "Commercial Establishments, Unfortunately Named"

O, Egypt. I do love you, but how I wish your entrepreneurs would occasionally invest in a native-language proofreader.

...*والآن رسالة من المعلن لدينا

A little Bondische derring-do, featuring a rather unusual protagonist.

* More or less "And now, a word from our sponsor.".. for all you non-Arabophiles out there.