Week's End - Presidential Peek-a-boo

"In 2008, half the people who watched the Fox News Channel were over sixty-three...oldest demographic in the cable-news business...the majority...who watched the most strident programs, such as Sean Hannity’s and Bill O’Reilly’s shows...were men. All that chesty fulminating apparently functions as political Cialis. Fox News shows should probably carry a warning: Contact your doctor if you have rage lasting more than four hours."

Louis Menand's New Yorker [November 2, 2009 issue] Comment made me laugh out loud on the Metro recently. I thought, "I know someone like that..."

More cuteness from the White House flickrstream. It serves two purposes: a quick week's end because I'm sick (the thermometer says so anyway) & it'll clear the bile in my system at a family member who ranted at/about me (on my dime!) about things political. So it's official: I am a communist-fascist-America-hating...something or other. Oh, & I'm an Obamaton, or some weird thing like that. This person was in the throes of post-Glenn-Beck-or-similar hysteria. Someone needs an etiquette lesson.

[President Barack Obama plays peek-a-boo with Maeve Beliveau, the daughter of Director of Advance Emmett Beliveau, in the Outer Oval Office, Oct. 30, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)]

Amaryllis & Paperwhites

There's still time to start amaryllis & paperwhites for the holidays. There are newish varieties of paperwhites that don't scent-offend about 50% of the population. (That would be 'Ziva' who so annoys.) If you can still get your hands on the 'minor' bulbs (e.g., muscari) or smallish narcissus, tulips, & so forth, do so, pop into the fridge & follow directions, here. It makes you feel like a genius when they bloom & bunches of tulips are at a premium.

Here's a link to Persuading the Paperwhite, godawful pix & all, from Giulia Geranium blog last winter. For containers, look around the house or apartment before buying a thing; I've forced flowers in just about everything not porous; when done, bowls & so on go straight into the dishwasher & serve as food vessels again. (For near-instant gratification, grab one of the amaryllis or paperwhite kits on sale in food markets right now & water. But do pop in & find some other bulbs for later in winter.)

[Flower photographs via White Flower Farm. Image of Amaryllis via artmagik]

Time, Timing

Time stays long enough for those who use it. --Leonardo da Vinci

That know-it-all.

[lovely & timely photographs by Aimee Ketsdever at deviant art; thelovelyexile/tumbler, & etreh - all via we heart it]

Magic Casements

Poetry should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. --John Keats

"Oh fer cryin' out loud, stop with the Keats." Well, no. I was rereading the odes last night, particularly Nightingale...& it's his birthday. What a good excuse to put in some stills from Jane Campion's Bright Star. (The blueandpurple is swoony.) Click on the Bright Star link...it's Jane Campion's interactive production site--storyboards, rehearsal video, production design images, & the like. I still search for photographs of the director's cat, Topper who plays, well, the Cat. (He's a brilliant scene stealer.)

From today's The Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of the poet John Keats, (books by this author) born in London (1795), who was just starting his career as a poet in 1818 when a series of brutally negative reviews of his first two books appeared. And then, that same year, Keats learned that his brother was dying of tuberculosis. Keats spent the last few months of 1818 taking care of his brother, who died a few weeks before Christmas. In the wake of his brother's death, Keats moved into a duplex with a friend, and in the other half of the duplex lived a beautiful 18-year-old girl named Fanny Brawne, who became the love of his life. He declared his love to her soon after they met, but he decided not to marry her until he'd secured his reputation as a great poet.

Week's End - Happy Hallowe'en!

Boo! Please visit GG's blog. There are all sorts of free sources & links to holiday craft sites. Have a fun weekend! xo

[Ava Gardner & feline friend via myvintagevogue; glow-y mask via LIFE archives, no photographer credit available; Victorian postcard via a great free clipart source, Vintage Holiday Crafts, here.]

Cougar = Cat

"The cougar (Puma concolor), also known as puma, mountain lion, mountain cat, catamount, or panther, depending on the region, is a mammal of the Felidae family, native to the Americas. This large, solitary cat has the greatest range of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere,^[3] extending from Yukon in Canada to the southern Andes of South America. An adaptable, generalist species, the cougar is found in every major American habitat type. It is the second heaviest cat in the American continents after the jaguar, and the fourth heaviest in the world, along with the leopard, after the tiger, lion, and jaguar, although it is most closely related to smaller felines..."

Use the word 'cougar' around me referring to a human female? I'll rip your head off. It won't be pretty. You thought maybe I was nice & had a sense of humor? Yeah, I am & I do; however, this is war. (I can't believe I just used a Wikipedia page.)

Enemies, A Love Story

Saw it again, only the second time. I forgot how good it is; here's the NYTimes review. Also, dragged the book off the shelf, to re-read. You want a scary Hallowe'en story? Oy. Real life is scary enough. Many people just do not get it. (I just looked at some blogs/sites for images--there aren't many.) Oh well. Life is stranger than...etcetera. (You will also laugh--out loud.)

[photographs via scoopy]

Hair Help

Get the idea that I'm under pressure & it's all the worse because I can barely see? A hat always helps (see Lucy) & I have lots, but one must take it off at some point. These Italian beauties' hairdos would be a solution but with avoirdupois (temporary!), I'd look a frump. Also, one can take vintage just too far. Now that so many are buying (literally) into the 1960s Mad Men look, I have to put away my long-ago purchases For now.

My hair grows as fast as that Tressy doll from ancient times. (A cousin had one & I promptly gave it a haircut; apparently I was not technically adept even then; no rewinding the hair for me. Just cut it off -- it looked very Audrey H. Well, I thought so anyway.) Are you obsessed with hair & salons & so on, Susan? Why yes, why do you ask? Because you seem to be off to have something done to your hair quite often; yet, you look the same. That's consistency & avoiding fads, cappellistas. My mother taught me to be loyal to hairdressers who did a great job, not necessarily the most expensive or 'fashionable.' (Although hers was this totally cool guy.) This advice, unlike most of her advice (sorry, Mom), has served me well.

So off to Camille-the-Genius...creeping across town, once again knowing that I will run into people I know who are uncharitable gossips. When I leave, not a soul I know will cross my path. Except possibly other human rights advocates, one of whom told me recently at an evening meeting sort of thing...that he thought I was frivolous about hair & clothes. I was wearing brown trousers, a brown jersey top, brown boots, & my father's Levi jacket (from his youth on a farm). Oh, & some sort of tiny earrings that were certainly not diamonds, & a long skinny scarf from I have no idea where...& dark pink cotton crocheted gloves (sort of 80s) that I bought in France for about 5 FF (so really old). Apparently a Grazie magazine tumbling out of my bag tipped him off to my insensitivity to the multitudes. Meanie.

[photographs from LIFE archives by Yale Joel & Loomis Dean; my now-traditional bangs-in-crisis photograph via Italia Vogue scan, here)

Cat Naps

Even dogs catnap. A friend sent me an email today full of gratuitously cute animals (domestic & wild & two children) catnapping. (It was titled, "Have You Ever Been This Tired?") I don't usually do this (posting without permission or Creative Commons) but I don't know the sources of the photos. If you know, please let me know. I saw one (not posted here) that I used on Giulia Geranium for a St. Francis Blessing of the Animals day last year.

Anyway, Julie is getting a sense that she is not allowed to lie on the keyboard of the new laptop...probably from my semi-shriek when she gets near it.

I'm having a fairly miserable, tiring few weeks. So here are some of the cute pix to cheer myself up. Maybe you, too.

xo

Week's End - Albert in Black & White

Camus, A Romance by Elizabeth Hawes is quite enjoyable. Here's an amusing review about literary obsession. Back to work.

Update: That's it. The end. (I mean for the week.)

bonne nuit

[molto famoso photograph by H. Cartier-Bresson/Magmum; other photographs of Camus at work & play by Loomis Dean via LIFE archives]

Patterns in the Carpet

I don't know what mine are, much less yours, but I am interested. I am not referring to a new book by Margaret Drabble. But of course, a new book playing on a Henry James short story title is out & about. Ah well. It's up for grabs, that phrase/literary preoccupation/allusion/what-have-you. One could look at labels & conclude any number of things. I just did it myself...not really helpful. So here's a Lillian Bassman photo of Evelyn Tripp in the November 1948 Harper's Bazaar via myvintagevogue while I think about it some more. And write out a check to Made4Aid because apparently no one even bothered to go visit their site after my entreaties on both blogs. Wow. I'm pretty annoyed (& really disheartened).