Summer Ballet

Hello all. A reminder that the summer Ballet in Cinema series has three ballets left: The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère, & La Source. I think this is only in North America. So many of you are elsewhere so please let me know if you have anything comparable. I'll keep looking.

Also in ballet-land: I've recommended Ballet Beautiful streaming videos before & here's an enticement: 15% off for July. Enter BBJULY in the code box as you check out. I recommend Swan Arms to begin. (Also the, um, butt series:)

Hope you're neither too hot nor too cold (nor too wet). This is a summer of extremes around the world. Climate change much? (Fie upon the deniers.)

xo/Susan

(photograph/crop detail by Prabuddha Dasgupta; tulle underskirt by Vivienne Westwood. How I wish I were standing on a boulder at the crashing sea.)

Tutu & Blue Asters

Every flower has a history and every flower symbolizes something. Often the history and symbols are confusing and contradictory but they are still fascinating. If your birthday is in the month of September, your flower is the aster. Here is the story and language of your flower.

The Latin name for the aster is Aster, which literally means star. The association with stars, clearly references the flower’s shape. While we no longer use the word aster to refer to stars, we still use words that use the root aster in words with related meanings. The word asterisk literally means ‘little star,’ while the word disaster refers to something that occurred under a bad omen or something that was ‘ill-starred.’

The colloquial names for the aster are starwort and Michaelmas daisy. (From Suite101 by Melissa Howard)

(Blue aster by zizzy via flickr)

Paris Awaits Pup

The Clever Pup will be visiting Paris soon. I await her distinct take on la belle Paris sans saccharine sentiment. (She will be solo.) Sibiliance. Susurrant. Silly Sunday. Pfhttt. Thwap. I can barely type. La Pup has already mapped out a few excellent walks.

In other breaking canine news, Benjy the Oracle on AUREA, has been visiting & granting everyone the benefit of his Dachsund Wisdom. He's another pup in Paris at the moment. (His maman is in Los Angeles. Don't ask, just go see.) Herewith, his latest postcard. Also, another amusing & fashionable pup is London's Posetta Baddog, Liberty London Girl's sister's dog. OK, it's funnier than that, see Chien Lunatique.

Yep, I'm goofing off. Oh, & on Giulia Geranium I'm hawking, uh, suggesting a fashion night thingy for charity...but mainly I wanted to re-use a beautiful photograph of an equally beautiful blue YSL coat.

So what are these photographs? Well, they are Paris gowns that are pretty but also funny, sorta fishy looking. (ah ouais). I think I'm so snippy ce soir because I can't watch Mad Men until it downloads in iTunes - tomorrow. Which means I must also avoid a related weakness, Basket of Kisses, the Supreme Mad Men Blog (says moi). It's written/wrangled by two smart, sassy sisters.

[fishy frocks by Louise Dahl-Wolfe via LIFE archives but also on myvintagevogue]

Liberty London Girl

Update/Explanation: I drafted the post below on 1 November 2009. It's posting today with no editing (until a point in abstract future) for a few reasons. 1) Whatever happened on Mad Men last night has even non-Mad Men posters busy as bees. So I'd best download it from iTunes & watch. 2) I feel like hell. More about which later this week (because I'll know something then). 3) I arrived home from my lovely house/cat sitting gig on Saturday evening....to open windows & the a/c chugging away. By the date on the "we're finished rehabbing your bathroom"slip (no you are not & I've busted you to the property manager), this state of affairs went on for at least 4 days. No money coming in & everything going -- literally -- out the window is causing huge upset. 4) Sasha, author of Liberty London Girl, is in the midst of blog troll visitation & it pisses me off. (I should explain that LLG was anonymous at the time of this draft; she has since popped out of her shell & is doing very well indeed.)

The Laura Burlton photographs (via here) reminded me of a sister who was a ballerina-in-training. And the sorts of things we used to get up to in old tulle & netting, as thunderstorms approached from Canada, on Lake Erie. It felt so wild & free. Very unlike today.

27 August 2011 Update - Laura Burlton, excellent photographer, stopped by with her new website address.

*********************************

I enjoy this compilation of tidbits on fashion & life (not really in that order) by an English fashion editor living in America. I don't go looking for blogs often as so many of you have great links & recommendations; that's how I came upon this one--sorry but I don't remember where (perhaps, Wee Birdy). I instantly visited as Liberty of London patterns & fabric (& the main store in London) have been important touchstones to another era. One is wrapped around my neck quite often, my grandfather's WWII-era silk paisley scarf. More about which another time.

LLG's post Ex-pat Friends reeled me in again yesterday (Saturday). I can identify, though I'm not an ex-pat at the moment, I know what she means because I could easily be one of the Americans in her group. LLG's LinkedWithin widget popped up a post called Why I Never Lose Hope In America. I was intrigued & clicked on the video. Along with a strongly brewed coffee, it provided the oomph to get on with it another day.

As I watched the video, I thought of the young man who asked me to talk about the Human Rights Campaign & gay marriage last week. I was on my way to arrange my local Amnesty International group's gift-wrap-for-donation gigs at a local bookstore. I was feeling mighty crabby but I know what it's like to pitch one's cause (though I've not done so on a street corner in a zillion years*).

I thought about him, standing up there in the rain, when I watched this video. (And a younger cousin, who is gay & married--& I'm not putting that in quotation marks.)

Thanks, Liberty London Girl. (And for all your excellent tips, too.)

*At 15 (1/2) years-old, I was surrounded, swarmed really, by the meanest bunch of capitalist hyenas in Pittsburgh. They yelled & cursed as I handed out flyers for a Democratic candidate near the plaza of the then-U.S. Steel Building. Two of them were from my church & I thought they were rescuing me from the pitchfork-wielding villagers. Nope. They were incensed that a "nice girl " of their acquaintance was doing this (outrageous, um, Constitutionally-protected) deed. I busted them--to our seminarian, a friend. They were lectured by our minister & shamed into apologies. I think they only felt bad that they swore at a girl from their church. (This was also the minister's opinion & it upset him very much.) Though many steelworkers & other union guys came to my aid, it was a traumatic experience. It felt imminently violent. I can't claim it for sure, but my successful plans to escape to another country for an unspecified amount of time might have been sealed that day.

Week's End - What a Dream I Had

...that tulle-clad, I rushed across the street & fixed the power grid myself. This is also to acknowledge a lovely man-child (at the time) who made this his song for me (& sang it) when he walked me around the chilly forests of Alsace, often late at night. Also rambles on the grounds of a château, close to the Rhine. Yes, we even heard the Cathedral bells, though not the Lorelei. It's the anniversary of a very difficult day & so I thank him. (Yes, too sentimental. Oh well.) Update: better quality video, here.

Continuing unexplained power outages. No one is telling us/answering our questions.

Party Dress

Go, and never darken my towels again. Groucho Marx

I can't help it (about silly Marx business, etc, it's a sickness.) Housekeeping, blog & home.

1) I want to move on from the somberness of the Taj Mahal post & take comments again; 2) this photograph reminds me of someone, ahem, being all dressed up for a fabulous time with real friends (not the air-kiss, embassy kind) & being told once again (by the same guy)...something has come up...somewhere-else-in-the-world-more-important-than-you-will-ever-be. For the 1,000th time This tulle-clad person usually never complained about dashed plans, but will admit to sliding down a wall onto a slightly dirty kitchen floor in a big floofy dress in disappointment.. For about an hour. Not in front of anyone, though. Ever. (OK, two cats.)

and 3) Most Important...

...Jessica aka myvintagevogue has (or will by July's end) closed her flickr account for good. They've given her no end of trouble & I don't know how she stood it as long as she did. Her tumblr blog is in the right sidebar.. I'll add her Blogger site & her website once I get the categories all straightened out. I've been replacing links as time permits from her flickr sets to her website and/or tumblr blog. MEANWHILE, please visit Jessica at the gorgeous myvintagevogue website.

And now, I have spent over an hour looking for the photograph attribution. Because I did not include it in the title when I downloaded it ages ago. Rats. Double rats. I'll find it tomorrow--while I'm waiting for the carpet cleaning fairies to spirit away the hideous-mess-masquerading-as-Persian-rug & return it minus the colonies of criminy-knows-what in the silk/wool. Then I'll become one of those women who make people take off their shoes. I'll just pretend that I'm back, elsewhere...where everyone does that anyway.

Hope your weekends were great.

[Norman Parkinson photograph of Jean Patchett via myvintagevogue]

On the phone, wearing tulle

Hi Suzani. What? No, it's not that uncomfortable; it's quite breezy actually. Do I walk around DC like that photo of the Washington Ballet -- no, where did you see that? It's making the rounds? What a sec, let me bring it up (yes, I got a laptop, stop drooling). Oh, it's darling. Yes, I agree, Septime knows his PR. I think an international society of girls wearing tulle is a great idea.

Quit being so cranky, Susan. I know you've been ill for a while now but still...you were our Audrey. You don't want to be our AH anymore? OK, you don't have to shout. Are you sure it's not jealousy because of the computer, the no camera, rinsing out clothes in the tub? No? A little? It's been a long haul, I know.

Oh, you're upset because you tossed your tulle? You're going to 'toss your tulle'? Is this some sort of new phrase you've coined to drive people crazy? Ah. But you do have tulle. It's sewn into that French navy blue, dotted swiss poofy vintage dress you bought years ago at a marché aux puces...everyone who sees it wants to buy from you. Yes, there is. Go look at the underskirts. I'll wait......................aha, see? That counts.

This was inspired by Tina at the English Muse. I guess it is possible to wear tulle (in a non-ballerina way) & look /be comfortable, though that wasn't Tina's point. That French dress was comfortable--when it fit. Mimph. So want to return to Amalfi, the Tunisian desert, Roma, Strasbourg., even downtown DC. More photographer permissions coming in...[speaking of photograph via myvintagevogue/tumblr blog in sidebar]

What a wasted & crummy week. I'm sick of saying it. I feel like I'm grounded (as in a kid who did something wrong.) I'll post a nice week's end photograph by midnight. My way of forcing self to be positive. ciao, belle.