"What we see depends mainly on what we look for."-Sir John Lubbock

If I Were....Living Any Life Other Than My Own (Circa....Whenever)

I would:

1. Stop putting love,and its wanton promise,before my sense of self.
2. Eat more,and worry less about its effects on my figure.
3. Adhere to the lessons that I have already learned,ceasing the need to learn them all over again.
4. Travel more in fact and less in fancy.
5. Learn to be-friend women without worrying that they are catty wenches with nothing better to do than judge me.
6. Sleep less
7. Flirt more
8. Admit that I have made mistakes,and that those mistakes HAVE impacted my life,regardless of what the Self-Help gurus tell you. Then move on.
9. Instead of just admitting that Perfection is over-rated and toxic, actually believe it.
10. Learn to be an old-school hostess with new-school attitude (think Amy Sedaris).
11. Get the tattoo that I have been talking about getting for the last 9 years.
12. Quit worrying about what I cannot do and be thankful for the myriad things I can do.
13. Admit,LOUDLY,that I am actually quite happy with the quirky person that I am,faults and all,and any one who does not like me as I am can stick it,politely.
14. Quit making so many damn introspective lists and live life more.
15. Admit to being a bit egotistical about my otherness, and thankful for it all the same.
16. Own up to needing to be the center of attention.
17. Try harder to get my finances in order.
18. Not be ashamed or afraid of ambition and just go for the things that I really want, instead of taking such a meandering path.
19. Quit praying,as I do not believe in it,yet continue to do it out of habit.
20. Put my needs first.

Austen Family Cooks:Cucumbers in Creamy Sauce

This is a great cooling recipe to enjoy on a hot afternoon. It is perfect for barbecues. It is a cinch to prepare. We have been making this in my family for decades:it has the seal of approval of many generations. Its appeal is slightly retro-chic, in the best 1940's family-picnic kind of way.So,throw on a shirt-dress,strap on those espadrilles, and tie on your apron.Enjoy!!

COMBINE:

1 CUCUMBER-SLICED
1 TABLESPOON DICED ONION
SALT AND PEPPER

MIX THE FOLLOWING AND POUR OVER CUCUMBER:

1/2 CUP MIRACLE WHIP SALAD DRESSING
3 TABLESPOONS SUGAR
3 TABLESPOONS VINEGAR
3 TABLESPOONS SOUR CREAM
DASH OF GARLIC POWDER

From My Vault:Myrna Loy-An Appreciation

Old movies first set fire to my imagination when I was 11.It started with "The Moon is Blue"(1953),a romantic trifle starring William Holden and a neophyte Maggie McNamara that ventured to use the V-word (that is, virginity) during the Eisenhower years,hardly a daring exclamation to a 1980's pre-teen.Absurd as this may seem today,this innocuous film was enough to hook me to classic cinema for life.

It didn't take me long to realize that there was higher quality fare to be seen, and I was soon regularly watching old Hollywood classics.'80's television,with few exceptions,paled to a death pallor next to the richness and chic,drama and effervescence of studio-era output.

As a 16-year-old acting student,I breathlessly discovered old-school film stars from a new angle.From Spencer Tracy to Marilyn Monroe,Ronald Colman to Claudette Colbert,they were all beings who dominated the screen.Sometimes glamorous,sometimes tragic,always incandescent,they represented human variety in its stupefying spectrum.

At some point,and with great good fortune (there really is no other phrase for it),I saw a Myrna Loy film.I wish I could say,with assurance,which one it was.My memory leans towards "The Mask of Fu Manchu" (1932),or perhaps one of her earlier 'Oriental' baddie roles.Either way,it was hardly an encouraging introduction to an actress known for her sparkling wit and sophistication, yet it is fitting.In one of the strange twists that Hollywood is so known for Loy,a fresh-faced redhead from Montana,was often cast early in her career as a menacing Asian vamp. Indeed, "The Mask of Fu Manchu" came just 2 years before her star-making turn as Nora Charles in "The Thin Man" (1934).

Combining panache and elegance,she starred in comedies and melodramas,always an intelligent force to be reckoned with.Her star-power was never weakened by the dazzle of her co-stars.The wattage emanating from the likes of Tracy,Clark Gable and,most famously,William Powell only served to play up her command of the screen.Even the shimmering eyeful Jean Harlow,with whom Loy starred in 2 1936 releases ("Libeled Lady" and "Wife Versus Secretary"),did not detract from her vital presence.

At 18,with my acting ambitions still cheerily intact,I received a note from the 86-year-old Loy,by then much my favourite actress.She was gracious to this Ohio teenager with hazy though outlandish ambitions.Let me take a moment here to clarify that I am not,nor have ever been,in spite of my passion for film,star-struck.I am stubbornly hard to impress and wouldn't walk across the room to meet 99% of celebrities who ever drew breath.(Authors,dead ones,are my true weakness).Myrna Loy was the role-model exception.

In "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946),playing a war-weary wife,she proved her mettle in a drama of depth and realism,endowing the character with poignant maturity.She never played a false-scene,in any genre,never betrayed the machinery at work behind her art.The lady could act.

I eventually gave up acting in favour of writing,for me a more comfortable and primal fit,but my Myrna Loy note,hanging on the wall to the left of my writing desk,remains a treasured possession.It serves as a reminder that,as Myrna Loy proved over the decades,cinema and real life can handle smart,sophisticated,complex and witty women.

PHOTOGRAPH:MYRNA LOY IN "SHADOW OF THE THIN MAN" (1941)

THINGS I WANT TO BE (NO FOOLING)

Life is short and full of infinite possibility and wonder.It is never too late to become exactly what you want to be, or enhance who you already are.

1. Photographer (black and white)
2. Collage artist
3. Anthropologist
4. Window dresser
5. Short-film director
6. Boutique owner
7. Saloniere
8. Yoga instructor
9. Nutritionist
10. Bookstore/Tea-Shop Owner
11. More myself than ever I was (this is my life's worthiest goal)
12. Renn-Faire Wench
13. Performance artist
14. Someone who never stops adding to her list of life's possibilities
15. Small-Press publisher (on a letter-press, of course!!!!)

A Reading List a Mile Long:24 May Edition

When The Chef got the mail this morning, he immediately took the "Daedelus Books Early Summer 2009" catalogue and tossed it into the trash.He is certainly no enabler, I will give him that.His thoughts on the subject run the course from "You already have more books than you need" to "You can't afford to buy books right now".He muttered the latter as he pitched the precious trove of literary possibilities.'Tis true,I must admit, but it falls far wide of my reasoning.I love to think about books almost as much as I enjoy reading them.My reading list is destined to grow ever longer--I will never be able to keep pace with my desires.But no matter--perusing a catalogue is something akin to flipping through 'Elle'.I will never own 90% of what catches my fancy but I am all the richer for knowing that they exist.And,unlike haute couture, I can borrow all of the books that I want.I am currently quite intrigued with the following.

1-JANE AUSTEN'S GUIDE TO GOOD MANNERS COMPLIMENTS,CHARADES AND HORRIBLE BLUNDERS BY JOSEPHINE ROSS HENRIETTA WEBB ILLUS. (BLOOMSBURY) Although I have no interest in the worshipful cult that has grown up around the witty lady from Bath,I am an unabashed fan of her life and works (that I am an Austen myself makes this somewhat inevitable).This book is an exception to my rule:it looks genuinely engaging.We could all do with a goodly dose of manners, especially as filtered through the Austen sensibility.
2-ALDOUS HUXLEY COMPLETE ESSAYS VOLUME V:1939-1956 and ALDOUS HUXLEY COMPLETE ESSAYS VOLUME VI:1956-1963 ROBERT S. BAKER AND JAMES SEXTON, EDS. (IVAN R. DEE) A compilation series of the non-fiction essays of the famously hard-to-fathom Englishman (at least for high-schoolers trying to work their way through 'A Brave New World').Huxley's contribution to 20th-century literature was immense.These books offer up a fraction of his varied out-put.
3-JOYCE BY IAN PINDAR (HAUS PUBLISHING)I love biographies of dead writers, as I have mentioned on more than one occasion.James Joyce was truly the most fascinating of individuals.Of equal fascination to me is how biographers approach the man and his work in so many odd,convoluted,dense and deep ways, which insures that Joyce as subject will always seem as fresh and new as his writing.
4-ANGUS MCBEAN:PORTRAITS ANGUS MCBEAN,PHOTOS. TERENCE PEPPER, ED. (MONACELLI)Angus McBean was one of the finest photographers of the 20th-Century.His images of British stars from the 1930's onward are amazing:I can only imagine how fabulous this coffee-table edition of his work must be.
5-SUN VALLEY:ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIORS ALAN EDISON AND JO RABJOHN TIM BROWN, PHOTOS. (GIBBS SMITH)Sun Valley is one of the places in America that I would most like to visit--probably because it is so different from my native neck-of-the-woods.Couple that with my well-known love of coffee table books, and it looks like a winner.
6-ALL IS CHANGE THE TWO-THOUSAND-YEAR JOURNEY OF BUDDHISM TO THE WEST BY LAWRENCE SUTIN (LITTLE,BROWN)Buddhism,while ultimately not for me as a life choice, is a subject that I delve into time and again.I like the approach that this book takes, elucidating the long-history of Buddhism's dance with the West.
7-TRUE VAMPIRES BY SONDRA LONDON (FERAL HOUSE) I,like many,find the literary vampire (and its historical origins) of keen interest.However,this book crosses the threshold into reality, by profiling people who truly believe that they are vampires.I am not sure if the result of reading about such people will be horror or pity.
8-WAVE-SWEPT SHORE THE RIGORS OF LIFE ON A ROCKY SHORE BY MIMI KOEHL,ANN WERTHEIM ROSENFELD,PHOTOS. (CALIFORNIA)This appears to be an analytical-visual take on the gritty nature of coastal life.Rugged shores are some of my favourite places to visit. I harbor a kind of artistic-literary fantasy of living on the wild shores of New England or Cape Breton.As that is unlikely, I will make do with the occasional vacation and this book!
9-FLAVORS OF GREECE BY ROSEMARY BARRON (INTERLINK)You can chalk this one up to a combination of hunger and the fact that I ate at a Greek diner with my boss a few days ago.Oh,and because I really do love Greek food.I still regret not ordering Baklava for dessert on Friday.
10-CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG BY IAN FLEMING (YEARLING) I loved this book as a child, and was in the habit of dreaming myself into the story.That it was written by the man who gave us Bond, James Bond really makes me giggle as an adult.It is one of the little gems that I would love to read aloud to my (hypothetical) future children. Sigh.

Plucking

I own a pair of flapper pumps.Beige patent,buckled, with a kicky 20's heel.They are from the class of '09, not genuine at all:but they sublimely send me back to that dizzy,bedazzled time of bee-stung lips,be-curled hair,lariat necklaces and short,boyish silhouettes.They are for dancing-in 'til the sun rises. I should learn how to Charleston just for the extra thrill of giving them the authentic good-time they were made for.It would surely mean hell for my feet but the price is paltry that allows for such an instant,kinetic leap-back-in time.They are,you see, my Nancy Carroll shoes.I write those words as if that explains all,end of story,enough said:as if those words are an all-access pass into my imagination,with all corners and crannies of my psyche immediately illumined for your edification.

Stepping into my shoes,I become saucer-eyed,bow-mouthed, sassy.Was there ever a flapper with down-turned eyes, a generous-mouthed frown,surface sadness? I belong in a smoky nightclub,with nicotine puffs swirling heavily in the air. I have a holder:shiny and black, with inlaid mother-of-pearl. It sparkles in the darkness, a beacon, a tool in my kit of pertness and gaiety.There are dancing girls, on-stage and off, and I am among them. Where the performers leave off and the giddy patrons begin, is hard to tell.We are one laughing mass, of short skirts, rolled-up silk stockings and bobbed hair:brunettes,blondes, redheads.The men are in wilted evening wear,their perfect creases having worn off hours ago: it is 1 in the morning but feels like 4 in the afternoon. We are so young and un-tired that we could go on for hours,days,until next Tuesday,until the music stops.I am drinking an endless glass of Gin Rickeys and grabbing food off of passing trays.I lost the man I came with. I saw him dancing with a sweet-faced blonde hours ago.He is here somewhere, she is here somewhere,I am here, too, somewhere and everywhere.There is a woman wearing the same dress as I am.With so many people packed in this joint, it is really no wonder,and I don't care.It has been hours since I checked a mirror.I don't need to:everything has worn off in the heat of this place. We all feel so good that it cannot possibly matter.I'm flush with happiness and heat and dancing and drinking.We all are.I saw Rudy Vallee earlier, I really did. He wasn't performing,mind you:he was a customer, just like the rest of us,carrying a glass in his hand and laughing, watching the dancing girls, maybe watching me for a second,too.I really wish that I could slip out of my shoes.They are darling but my feet are killing me.Maybe they weren't meant for dancing,just for standing around and looking saucy and pretty in.Don't they know that we are too active for that?We don't sit at tables, not for long, not when there is so much else to do.Being still is for sleeping, not for living. Maybe I can take them off and put them in my pocket book.The girls dancing on the tables are barefoot.I'm becoming delirious with all of this activity. I need to have another drink but I'm bored with Gin Rickeys.I hear bottles of champagne popping.You would think that this is a celebration for the way that we are all acting. Maybe I will have a glass,anyway.Sometimes these parties seem like they are taken straight from the movies,with dancing and flirting and revelry,only in the movies they seem to always live like this.No one does anything real.I don't know how some of those girls pay their rent.They show them standing behind a counter for a few frames and, when they go home, it is always to someplace glorious.Then again, if I looked like Clara Bow I probably wouldn't have to worry about paying the piper, either.When this place shuts down, a bunch of us our going to stop by Flannagan's for breakfast.In a few hours, I will be eating scrambled eggs and toast,and my shoes will definitely be off then.I'll look a mess but it won't matter.I'll be tired,too,but I can sleep later. Tonight,after work, we're going to go see 'Honey' with Nancy Carroll--that is, Burt and me, if he doesn't leave me for that blonde.I love Nancy Carroll.Burt says that I look like her, only I can't sing.I wish I did but I think that he is just talking-sweet so that he can get places with me.I think I see Burt over there. I don't see the blonde with him. No, he's alone and he just winked at me. I think I had better go freshen up.

Any object or thought or word can take you anywhere that you want to go,if you are open enough to the experience.I spent an entire,and entirely delicious, lazy Saturday afternoon lost in reverie over a pair of shoes.I could call it wasted time,but it wasn't.I could call myself out on all of the productive things I could have been doing instead, but I won't.I accept that some days it is hard to remember what motivation is,let alone reach deep within and corral it into a meaningful purpose.Some days it vanishes from your vocabulary entirely, and you have to go look it up in a dictionary.When this mood enfolds me, I do not care that I am the sole mistress of my art, and without ferocious self-goading, ideas and words die unplucked.Art or no art, I could have done the dishes or swept the floor.Instead, I chose to indulge in an absurd and guilt-free flight of creativity, a minor symphony of the imagination.One of the major perks of being a writer,of any age, is that you must keep your day-dreaming and creative projection skills well-honed.So what if I created a madly-energetic,pulsing,and riotous Technicolor world from a pretty little pair of shoes?In letting go,however briefly,of my need to write--in allowing imagination to soar, an alternative creativity burst forth anyway.Giving yourself occasional freedom from outside demands,whatever the outcome, is beneficial.Heeding the call of a diverted mind is part of life's wayward journey: it is proof that living fully is about the inner as well as the outer aspect,and that joy and artistry is often to be found in accepting the moment,without demand.

Shaw,Artie Shaw....Woman Magnet

Creat-Your-Own Weekend

I have decided to take Thursday AND Friday off.I will,alas, be housebound the entire holiday weekend (except for romping with the dog in the park).While the rest of you are enjoying your picnics and festivities,I will doubtless go into writing-overload and produce all kinds of riotous bits and bobs.Have a lovely evening!

Cine-spiration:Kay Francis

Kay Francis by amisslis featuring Anya Hindmarch bags

Kay Francis-Part I

Kay Francis' charms are tantalizingly out-of-reach for me, and those of my ilk. She was everything that I am not, and therein resides the sweet mockery of her appeal.Perhaps it is a hiccup in my personal psychology, an erratic call-to-arms,but by my creativity and intellect I am drawn to two types of women-as-inspiration:those within my warm reach and those many-a-mile without it.

The dark,leggy, soignee Kay is firmly classified as the latter.(Since DNA decreed me,quite clearly, to be a saucy Nancy Carroll type, the only thing Ms. Francis and I share is an enchanting speech impediment.)She was as cool and smoky as dry ice, with witty and insouciant clothes-sense to burn.It is for her effortless, slightly off-kilter chic that she is remembered at all.She has been reclaimed, shiny and whole, as an edgy,elegant minx of the 'thirties.And, it is true:she wore clothes with a sleek nonchalance seldom approached even by the outre-stylish. Yet,as an actress, she is on the precipice of being entirely forgotten,a quietly echoing fate shared by hundreds of once-enchanted individuals.They all, to varying degrees, deserve at least a cursory reconsideration.Kay Francis is surely among those whose career and critical reputation is worthy of a full,firm rebirth, conceived from a just and judicious reappraisal.

Above even her striking looks, which only pellucid,living celluloid can do proper justice to, rests,immobile, her strongest contribution to film-culture:her womanliness.Kay Francis possessed not a trace of flirty girlishness,owned not a smidgen of nubile coquettishness,however wily.She was a full-on woman from her first film-frame to her last.She was no youthful matron ala Florence Vidor, but an engaging and sensual female with an over-flowing life-source.This quality allowed her to play the vamp, the wronged hoyden, and the misunderstood heroine with pure perfection.Kay Francis also lent grace and sophistication to her diva-in-the-drawing-room roles,which, though less demanding,required a certain level of lacquered precision,a quality that she had,personally, in excess.

Hollywood traditionally allows its actresses to be sexy,complicated,vital and grown for the span of a few years.That triumphant phase is hemmed in by two endless deserts, those of prolonged youth and premature crone-hood.Dishearteningly few women have been able to strike the mold to the ground,breaking it beyond repair.Tallulah Bankhead comes to my mind as a simmering example of commanding and sexual womanhood, but her film career was spotty,contentious and largely marginal.

Kay Francis was Paramount's maven of melodrama for nearly a decade,before her career was hobbled,though not ended, by inclusion on The Hollywood Reporter's underhanded "Box Office Poison" list, in 1938.A reputation for tetchiness and personal drama was certainly no help.Fate is not a mistress of respect;she cares not a whit for talent,or a fig for incandescence:most Hollywood careers are of relatively short duration.In a market constantly over-sated--even 70 years ago, when attention spans were arguably not as fickle as they have become--staying in the spotlight is nearly impossible.Therefore,it is what you do while it flickers across your face that counts.

Kay Francis left a unique impression on film, proving that women are indelibly beautiful and compelling when allowed full expression to be themselves,and to grow into maturation as ripening and rooted beings.

PHOTO:KAY FRANCIS IN 'THE FEMININE TOUCH' (1941)

Stay tuned:In Part II, I will discuss the films of Kay Francis.

"That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time."-John Stuart Mill

Review:Apartment in Athens

Published just as the conflict it so intimately chronicled came to an end,'Apartment in Athens' was hailed as an important work that was sure to endure as a reminder of the very human nature of war. For good or for ill, the words of critics have no magical powers:they can merely thrust their opinions onto the reading public and hope for the best. Whether a volume sinks under the waves of oblivion or crests to lasting fame is entirely in the hands of the only gauge that matters:readers (and,to one extent or another, publishing houses).

That 'Apartment in Athens' was out-of-print for more than 30 years, republished by the New York Review of Books just a few years ago,is sadly anything but an anomaly. Popular in its own day, it was rather quickly forgotten in the affluent post-war culture of the Fifties. So much for icon status.Fortunately for twenty-first century readers, Glenway Wescott's tale of the desperately insular plight of a single, though tragically far from singular,wartime family is once again readily available.

The wrenching and understated realism of the drama is weighed on a minutely domestic scale that seamlessly nets the wide swathe of violence and upheaval, eloquently capturing the universal experience of war in the daily traumas and uncertainties of one Greek family.The setting of the action is as the title suggests--all but a few short scenes occur in the home of the once-comfortable Helios family.Their lives already dessicated by the death of their revered older son, the German occupation forces hardship after hardship on them.Their privations mingle with those of their neighbors until they are set apart as one of the families forced to provide room and board for a German officer.

For more than a year they house Major Kalter.The practical and psychological ramifications of living with the enemy are revealed in subtle, often mundane ways.The man that they easily come to think of as "their" German is,of course,more complex than his rigid adherence to protocol suggests.The lack of action in the first two-thirds of the novel serves to underscore the sinister tragedy when it finally comes.

For so much of Glenway Wescott's (1901-1987)career he was viewed as a boy wonder on the international literary scene--perhaps unfairly, given his immense and multi-faceted talent.Published in 1945, at the height of his powers, 'Apartment in Athens' gives us a subtle and fleeting glimpse of the richness he was able to develop in his maturation as an artist.

Maetime

In the heady,heedless glory days of cinema, Mae was the name on everyone's lips. Actresses named Mae (and,occasionally,May)came and went,ceaselessly,like the seasons, and for 3 decades they were marquis-dominant.This state of plenty assured variety of characterization.The Maes portrayed vamps,sweethearts,matrons and flappers, painted good-time girls and pale-faced saints.When the kliegs were dimmed for the day,they were limelight seeking gadflies and chaste stay-at-home darlings:there was a Mae for every taste. Headline-grabbers all,they were respected by critics and adored by fans.This legion of like-named stars were cinematic royalty,Goddesses of a charmed realm that, for one actress, held too little magic:she wished to be Queen Bee in a very real sense.That woman was the puzzling,ego-maniacal Mae Murray,the first up in this series.

Mae Murray

The Flapper-era had a louche boldness that seems invigoratingly modern,even through time's nasty 80-year interval.You get the feeling that you could sit down with these women and have a swig of whiskey,swap beauty tips and chat agreeably,even riotously,about art and intellect,men and mores.For all of their appeal,and their sassy cache as the first truly post-modern females,Flappers were very real women living in a time of immense upheaval.The new freedoms that they had were enjoyed on top of the ashes of a dead world;they were the result of the mass disaffection of a tired,war-raped generation,of men and women who had lost too much,far too soon,of a society desperate to put it all behind them as quickly as possible.
As is ever the case when society shifts into its next phase,the 1920's did not burst,whole and wholly uncomplaining,into the world:there were growing pains galore.Women were not all instantly liberated,nor did all wish to be. Men did not collectively cede to the new ways although many accepted the benefits inherent in such a shift.There were still Edwardian,and even Victorian,mores,habits and attitudes at play in ways both profound and cliched.
Mae Murray was an over-the-top, bejeweled, old-school vamp during the transitory period that saw the exotic Theda Bara type eclipsed by modern danger-girls in the mold of Bebe Daniels or Clara Bow.(Cinema Exotica became,in the '20's,the terrain of the boys,when the likes of Rudolph Valentino,Antonio Moreno and Ramon Novarro burned up the screen.)This, along with other acute factors,meant that her sojourn to the peak was short-lived.End-to-end,her career as a film actress lasted 15 years;her time as a star was,although forceful,compressed into the space of a few years in between.
She started her career as that most hoydenish of things, a Ziegfeld girl,which meant that,in later years, dances were woven into her films,whether or not they suited the narrative.The sets dripped with a decadent sumptuousness that was entirely unique to that period, and as far removed from the brightly elegant Art Deco drawing rooms that soon followed.Her characters lived in bizarre splendor,in an entirely fictional universe that was at odds with vibrant,striving reality;the difference is telling.
A few years later,after the Depression had spread her dark wings over the planet,Hollywood faced a similar dilemma:Was it better to mirror reality on celluloid or to hide it behind satin gowns and tuxedos,fast cars and grand pianos? The two paths had their vehement adherents;film from the 1930's is certainly the richer for giving expression to both views.Mae Murray's films had a gingerbread,European-Operetta quality to them that belied the changing nature of her time (indeed, she starred in the famous silent version of "The Merry Widow" opposite the deeply handsome John Gilbert, whose career went considerably beyond playing lover to Garbo).There was dancing, there was debauchery,there was a faux satiety, born of drinking life to the dregs though the cup was ever-flowing.
Always at the center of the reverie was dance-mad Mae herself.She was an attention junkie in a town that is not exactly known for its sit-by-the-fire types. "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" was an unusual looking blonde,with dramatically curly hair;arresting instead of beautiful.Her largest feature,after her coif, was probably her ego.She hungered after the glittering lifestyle as portrayed in her films. To this end, she married Prince David Mdivani (her fourth husband)and left a lucrative career at MGM, convinced that she was worth more.She wasn't, and the sound revolution effectively ended her career.By this time, the landscape of cinema had changed dramatically;the death-knell for her type echoed for awhile, and then died along with her reputation, as she became mired in personal problems and the resultant bad choices.
She lived out the next 30-odd years in mostly horrific poverty and the even more unthinkable obscurity. That one of Silent Cinema's most original divas was arrested for vagrancy on a park bench is immensely sad. That she was unable to trace her path from one point to the other,completely unaware of how her life devolved from grandeur to disavowal, is sadder still.The title of her bravado-fueled autobiography says it all: "The Self-Enchanted".

Miss Dickinson

"A word is dead when it is said, some say.I say it just begins to live that day."-Emily Dickinson.

Crazy 88888888's

Kate Gabrielle tagged me so without further ado....
8 Things I Look Forward to:

1-My morning cuppa (tea, that is)
2-Kissing The Chef in my favourite spot (between the eyes)
3-Writing,thinking about writing, dreaming about writing, and/or talking about writing
4-Catching up on old movies queued in the DVR
5-Deciding what to read next
6-Talking to my mom on the phone (she lives 2 hours away)
7-Thinking about how to celebrate my birthday
8-Launching my zine

8 Things I Did Yesterday:

1-Spoke with my friend Kevin on Skype
2-Flipped through a vintage movie magazine
3-Worked
4-Did dishes
5-Cuddled with the dog
6-Ate 2 dark chocolate truffles washed down with Earl Grey tea. Yum!
7-Watched the season finale of 'Bones'
8-Wrote

8 Things I Wish I Could Do:

1-Travel extensively (Hello,Iceland! Why, it is so nice to meet you, Scotland!)
2-Balance writing and housecleaning better
3-Read minds
4-Procreate (maybe....I am a little on the fence about this one)
5-Pay off all of my pesky,pesky debt.
6-Develop the awesome ability to bring movie/literary characters to life
7-Buy a car
8-Figure out a way to live where I want to yet visit my family at the snap of my fingers (no scary air or lengthy over-the-road travel involved)

8 TV Shows I Watch:

1-Bones
2-Lie to Me
3-Top Gear
4-The Golden Girls
5-Corner Gas
6-Doc Martin
7-What Not to Wear
8-Gordon Ramsay's F Word/Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (I am counting this as one show... They air back-to-back, close enough!)

Ever the rebel, I tag anyone desirous of being tagged.....

Reviewing My Collection-Passionate Minds by Claudia Roth Pierpont

One of the greatest blessings of being an Indie writer (which is every bit as cool as being an Indie rocker, I insist), is getting to write only on subjects that engender extremes of passion,interest or curiosity in my mind.Nothing short of fascination will induce me to pick up a pen or tap the keys.I've tried, and discipline in the service of money simply does not work for me.While my intellect is fecund, and the range of my appetites immense, I seem to return to the same core of pet subjects.I love history, I love writers, I love richly textured lives and I love reading.'Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World' by Claudia Roth Pierpont contains all of those requirements.

The dozen women profiled between the covers are a lively,forceful, and eclectic bunch.They were outsiders and stratosphere-dwelling superstars,conventional and ahead-of-their time,of enduring and fleeting appeal.They were all dedicated to their craft but pursued the muse in a thousand different ways. They would have made for interesting party-guests but probably wouldn't have gotten along,at least not past the first round.
Among the stamp-sized icons are Margaret Mitchell and Anais Nin.The former wrote the most colossal novel of her--or any--time."Gone with the Wind" is, I am sorry, not a great book, though its controversy still sets people to talking.No wonder,then, that it was more of a commercial success than Tolstoy, in his wildest Russian dreams, could have hoped to achieve.It made the diminutive Southern lady a star, for a time, in the same frenzied sense that movie queens are stars.
Anais Nin was a diarist and writer of erotica. She was, for a time, the paramour of Henry Miller, for which she is best known.Maria de Madeiros played Nin in the acclaimed biopic "Henry and June" (1990).Although she possessed artistic confidence,her real legacy is as a sexual icon.It is for both of those things that she is included in this critical study.Roth Pierpont structured the book around three themes:sexuality,religion and politics, which explains the strange and enthralling cast of characters.Mae West and Gertrude Stein,Doris Lessing and Marina Tsvetaeva have seemingly little in common.The author's complex and enlightening approach (and her acute biographical-critical break-down) to such disparate voices is refreshing and inventive.
Individually, they made interesting if not always tangible or measured contributions to literature.They often seemed to be working against themselves: it is no coincidence that many of the women were thorny specimens.Collectively,they are joined only by the incidental fact of vocation.To quote the biographer herself "These are lives in which success is hard won,retreat and even breakdown are common, love is difficult, and children are nearly impossible, lives in which all that is ever certain is that books and plays and poems are being written." I have difficulty in believing that anything has really changed.

Vintage Ad-COVER GIRL (April 1944)

I had no idea that this advert was in my collection of old film magazines. I was flipping through the April 1944 issue of Silver Screen and there it was!If I haven't convinced you yet to watch "Cover Girl", then I am quite sure that this gorgeous spread of Rita Hayworth will finish the job. If you still aren't sure, well, then there is nothing I can do for you. As I am not the Queen/ Dictator of the Cinema, I reluctantly promise that this is my final (for now) post on the subject.

Austen Family Cooks: Lemon Pudding Cake

I am taking a few minutes away from the worlds of literature and film to write about something really tasty:dessert of the lemon variety.I must have citrus on the brain lately because the last such post I wrote was about Lemon Shake-Ups.I lovely anything that features lemon as the main ingredient, especially during the warm months.
Lemon Pudding Cake is more like a souffle, only much easier to make. It tastes exquisite and is a cinch to prepare, as long as you mind the delicate thread that runs between the concepts of too soupy and too dense.It can be served warm or cold. I imagine that it would be lovely with some vanilla ice cream, although we have never dared dilute the experience by including any accompaniments.

LEMON PUDDING CAKE

2 EGGS,SEPARATED
1 TEASPOON GRATED LEMON PEEL
1/4 CUP LEMON JUICE
2/3 CUP MILK
1 CUP SUGAR
1/2 CUP FLOUR
1/4 TEASPOON SALT

Beat egg whites until stiff. Set aside. Beat egg yolks and add peel,juice and milk. Add sugar,flour and salt;mix well. Gently fold in egg whites. Pour into an ungreased baking dish. Place dish in a pan with 1" hot water. Bake 45-50 minutes @ 350 degrees.

Wisdom

"The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely."-Lorraine Hansberry

"Born originals, how comes it to pass that we all die copies?"-Edmund Young

MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW

Rita Hayworth:Forgetting Gilda

I have always found it strange,if not surprising,that Rita Hayworth is best-known for playing sultry bad girls.Her electric incandescence could,when concentrated,be sold as a solely sexual commodity,and it was.Her natural glow,when caught by a camera,was enough to illumine a football stadium.Yet,her impersonations of tramps,vamps and heartless schemers,however fiery, were a stretch for her, and it shows.Although she turned in a capable dramatic performance or two at the end of her career,Hayworth was at her best in quietly comedic roles that allowed her true strengths as a performer to shine through.The root of her appeal is based on a solid,enchanting sweetness,understated comic timing and dancing skills so fine that Fred Astaire considered her his most technically able partner.

The private woman was mind-numbingly shy. Even her most exuberant roles reflect the demureness that she wore off-screen like a second-skin.Like many great stars,she infused her characters with some of her personal qualities while never falling back on impersonating herself.There is a delicacy and calm at the heart of her best performances, and a lovely serenity that made her so believable as a girl-next-door when her stunning looks should have made such a feat impossible.

The young Rita came to fame through the ambitions of a succession of other people, including her mother and her much-older first husband.That someone so petrified of engaging with the world was in the red-hot spotlight for more than 20 years just to please those she loved is sad. To have all eyes on you, all the time when you just want to be left alone must be a personal,perpetual circle of hell.The world,though, is richer for her having endured a career and level of fame that she was never interested in.Yet she worked immensely hard at her craft,consistently giving her all in a game that did not suit her nature.

She considered herself a comedian who could dance and I think that her assessment is a correct and just one.When she was set free as a performer ,and allowed to harness her quiet yet jewel-like abilities to their proper medium,she was enthralling.Although she was sublime in her two films opposite Astaire, my favourite Hayworth flick is the one she made with Gene Kelly, Phil Silvers and a bevy of models:"Cover Girl" (1944).

There is something about the dynamics of this war-time musical that make it so readily and repeatably watchable.Separately,the components are engaging and worthy yet,when fitted together,they make up one of the breeziest,catchiest, and most believable comedies of the era.

"Cover Girl" was the first film to give Gene Kelly artistic control of the dance sequences.Kelly was much more than a dancing leading man who could act:he was the father-creator of brilliant,ahead-of-its-time cinematic choreography.Witness the scene where he dances with his shop-window reflection;it was but a small sign of what was to come for the innovatory hoofer.

Hayworth,Kelly and Phil Silvers are a trio of performing buddies who nightly fill out the bill at Kelly's off-Broadway establishment.Hayworth, as Rusty, is the star dancer while Silvers, as Genius, is, to no one's surprise, the goofy comedian.Silvers' usually overbearing shtick is kept in check here.He is entertaining, caustic and appealing without crossing over the hair-thin line to murderously annoying, as he was to do later many times.

Rusty's ambitions ultimately take her further than Danny's small stage.She leaves to become a Broadway headliner for an aging impresario who, coincidentally, knew her musical-theatre Grandmother way-back-when. This is as much a necessary plot-twist as it is an excuse to showcase the stunning Hayworth, as her character's Grandmother, in period costume, for which she seems made.

All turns out right in the end, as these things always do;the well-worn convolutions of boy meets/wins/loses/wins girl again is not the point. The originality is in the memorable musical numbers and the lively chemistry of the three leads."Cover Girl" caught, for posterity, three talents then in the ascendant.

Hayworth fell in love with and married a genius of her own during production.Orson Welles became her second husband while the film was shooting.Instead of retiring into the truly private life that she yearned for, she became so much modeling clay to another stronger-willed husband. Yet, Welles and her studio (Columbia),between them, never quite succeeded in transforming her into a believable,careless woman of mystery.As timid and pliant as she was,she ultimately knew herself better than all of the powers-that-be combined, and time has proven her correct.Rita Hayworth was a comedian who could dance, which is a legacy of much rarer composition than any bad girl could ever hope to achieve.

On the Horizon

I am working on an ambitious, structurally difficult piece this week. I hope to have it posted in two or three days' time. I am also preparing a new site that will be ready by the weekend. Those two things,combined,plus dinner out with The Chef have eaten my time tonight but things will be back to normal tomorrow. Have a wonderful evening!!

Happy Birthday, Fred!!!!

Postscipt for Alice

It can be hard to walk away from certain subjects, especially those that elicit a passionate mental or emotional response.When your feelings are neatly arranged or easily explained, it is a simple matter to wrap up an article and move on to the next thing.You are content to know that you addressed the theme or person to whatever extent it takes to satisfy yourself artistically or intellectually.Yet,sometimes loose ends linger.In such cases, you return repeatedly to the obsession, chasing your unsatisfied muse down alternate mental and creative pathways.Such is my current state with Alice James.
The brain behind the wonderful 'Radiation Cinema' leaves astute and thoughtful commentary on many of my posts. As I was getting ready to answer one about Alice James, I realized that whittling down my thoughts to a few sentences would be impossible:too much remains to be said.Though little known,she is a subject guaranteed to lead you down many dark,tricky alleys.So here I stand, a woman staring at the heart of a twisting intersection,like a hydra's head, trying to decide which thought to pursue.
Alice James is intriguing,upsetting and maddening. Even possessing depths of historical perspective, and generous amounts of feminine sympathy, it is easy to become frustrated.Unfortunately,where perspective and sympathy meet, sympathy weakens and splinters off into dozens of other emotions,many of them negative.
She came from a good family. They had some money and, with five children, were not overburdened with a too-large brood.Eccentricity was rampant within the clan, as was intelligence,achievement and artistry.Many women who went after greatness,succeeded in spite of having so much more against them than Alice James ever did.
The list of such women, and what they overcame, could fill a ledger.Between them, Elizabeth Gaskell,George Sand, George Eliot, the Bronte sisters,Harriet Beecher Stowe and Margaret Oliphant--to spotlight a few nineteenth century writers-endured a litany of unimaginable hardships:the loss of young siblings and children,parents and husbands to early death;disease;grinding poverty;abuse;mockery;and social ostracism.That they wrote at all is surprising;that most of them managed to create at least one or two enduring works of faceted,scholarly and imaginative brilliance is remarkable.
Fellow New-Englander Emily Dickinson is, in a superficial way, a natural book-end to Alice James.Instead of openly fighting for intellectual and artistic sovereignty, they chose passive roles within their families and society.Emily's outward compliance hid an astonishing inner richness. She crafted in cherished obscurity the poems for which she is so widely revered.Alice did much the same yet her bitter eloquence gives lie to the fact that she wanted more, and failed to grasp it.This is why her story is so sad, and her self-enforced limitations are ultimately so useless.
Yet the trials and hardships of our inner lives cannot be discounted. The world as it is and the world as we perceive and live it do not always harmonize.Even though Alice James, as a mature woman, had love and companionship in what was then known as a "Boston Marriage",she seems to have been alone in the ways that can hurt the most:creatively,emotionally and psychologically.
Because others chose to march onto the playing field of life, and conquered all comers at any cost,they are rightly remembered for their literary contributions. An English canon without 'Middlemarch' or 'Jane Eyre' is unthinkable.An America without the legacy,however tainted and precious, of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' would be poorer.Dickinson was an anomaly in that she was writing for posterity and not instant gain.Alice James's legacy is a mix of the pathetic and the triumphant. Her aspirations and her means of achieving them were as effective a mix as oil and water yet shards of her unique voice still shine through.

FINIS

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Few films are as full of merriment and rollicking action as 1938's "THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD". Actors have seldom appeared to be having such a rousing time as this troupe does.The mirth remains infectious even a long lifetime later.Not even the tiniest crack of creative manipulation intrudes into this spirited,witty and handsome re-telling of the most rooted of English legends.It is the kind of romp that no one makes any more. Modern day cinematic exuberance is generally relegated to parodies.(A bit of that kind of elan shows up in "The Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise but they are too self-consciously tongue-in-cheek to have the same impact.)

Norma Desmond, in the person of Gloria Swanson, said that "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces." They also had charisma, highly potent and full of an ease that the Studio System bred, through intense training and repetition,into all of its stars.Errol Flynn was one of Hollywood's most dynamic products, possessing a beacon-like charm and natural athleticism that made him the ideal Robin Hood ( in spite of the fact that the brass at Warner Brothers initially wanted James Cagney for the role).It is impossible to imagine a more ideal cast than those chosen to people this Technicolour version of Nottingham, which is like a stunning storybook sprung to ruddy,rude, pulsing life.

Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains,Eugene Pallette, Alan Hale, Una O'Connor and a heartbreakingly lovely Olivia de Havilland join in the intrigue, romance and revelry of the well-known tale.The sword-fights are real,the words are witty and the action is sublimely engaging.Few films hold such wide appeal: little boys,grown men, and women young and old have been mesmerised by Errol Flynn and gang for 70-plus years. This remains the best of the many renderings. It will never be topped for energy,joyousness,lushness or believability.

PHOTO:A portrait of ERROL FLYNN, shot a couple of years after he played Robin Hood.

Enchanted April

In writing a few lines about 'ENCHANTED APRIL', I am flirting with the forbidden.The taboo is self-imposed so I am breaking no rules other than my own.I usually do not write about modern-era films;I leave that to others.However, 17-years after its theatrical release, 'ENCHANTED APRIL' is available on DVD.It came out a scant 4 days ago. This certainly falls under the heading of "what on earth were they thinking and what took so long?".I will definitely be purchasing a copy or, barring that, demanding it for my July birthday.

The fact that it is a period piece does give me some justification for featuring it here, which I will be doing in depth once I have the disc in hand.So, really, I am jumping the gun by saying that I am a rule-breaker. That will come later. Today,I just want to share my happiness that it is finally available.I am already dreaming of the Italian countryside,resplendent villas, aesthetic delights and witty badinage.

Cine-spiration:Maritime Ginger

Ginger by amisslis featuring D&G shorts

Dwelling in the Shadows of the Righteous:Some Thoughts on Alice James

Alice James, as with so many ambitious siblings of the famous, spent a lifetime struggling against her lesser fate. Her ultimate solution, which surely contained as much cunning strategy as helpless surrender, was a uniquely Victorian one:playing the invalid.It was a niche which her celebrated elder brothers would never fill,nor aspire to;she took on the role--and a role it certainly was--with remarkable deftness,humor and astringency.Years after this self-amputation, she privately picked up a pen of her own and became a diarist.Her slight, yet solid, critical reputation rests solely on the musings, opinions and observations recorded in this written web of balm and anguish, helplessness and bravery.No other writings are known to have been created.
In life, she was known, and only in private circles, as the sick younger sister of novelist Henry and psychologist William.Since her death, in 1892, she has gained,inch by painful inch, acclaim as an able wordsmith,wedding grace of language with honest psychological insight.Yet,even in the after-life of their fame, it is just as impossible to separate Alice from her brothers.She was intellectually gifted but a combination of circumstance,personality and family dynamics made her unable to compete on the same playing field as William and Henry.In creating her own uncontested place within the family, and society at large, she was finally able, toward the end of her life, to give voice to her talent.Had she not chosen to disengage herself from the world to the extent she did, she may never have found such a suitable medium of self-expression, or one at all. The threads of choice, action and reaction are too knotted to unravel.
Female invalidism, with no physical or pathological basis, was wide-spread and accepted within Victorian culture to an extent that boggles the modern mind. There were myriad reasons for opting out of an active role in society. Fear of growing up and taking on all of the attendant responsibility (i.e. marriage, childbirth)and attracting attention and love within a large family are two of the reasons that seem to pop up repeatedly in the lives of these women.In the end, it is entirely too easy for us to judge their choices or to assign pat, easy answers to questions that it is not within our ability to understand.Society, resources and attitudes have been altered many times over since the days of Alice James and her peers.Life cannot be tested or its components reconfigured in a lab like a science experiment. There are things that we will simply never know,beyond surface conjecture;the convoluted,deeply personal processes that drove masses of women to take up a life of unnecessary invalidism is surely among them.
The certainties of Alice James's life, therefore,are limited.She had two gifted, tenacious brothers who happened to be famous. She traveled. She lived both actively and passively, in the world's eyes and out. She wrote. She died of a very real disease, cancer.A legacy born of a mix of self-abrogation, association, and ability has sprung up since her death.She will never be judged solely on her writing yet, thanks to this posthumous awakening, she is no longer seen just as the odd sister of the James brothers.She made something of her life,by whatever unconventional means were necessary.She achieved this on her own terms,to her own satisfaction and not the world's. This is a triumph.

Valentino

An Intro to Valentino

The appeal of a select few actors is set in granite. Their charm, talent, looks and personality put them so far beyond the vicissitudes of changing times and tastes as to be untouchable.Gable,Cooper, Brando, Newman, Tracy and Cagney are a few inhabitants of that celluloid Mt. Olympus.

For most stars,mass appeal is an ephemeral,touchy and short-lived phenomena, remaining alive in the general consciousness about as long as a single Presidential term. They are recalled fondly, if vaguely, by their aging contemporaries. To later generations, they are little more than an oddly familiar name, whose face and accomplishments remain hidden.

Rudolph Valentino's name, face and reputation are still easily called to mind, even to those who are not old movie buffs.He was the Silver Screen's original Latin Lover, opening the door for the dozens of imitators who,eager to cash in on his fame, quickly followed.His Italian good looks were considered swarthy and not quite safe:they drew hordes of female fans in to theatres.The name Valentino was--and is--a byword for suave,exotic male sexuality.(Unlike his brunette distaff counterparts,his appearance did not automatically relegate him to the role of villain.)

The scope and avidity of his fame knows no modern correlation. In fact, it is hard to fathom any 21st-century actor attracting such obsessive,naive devotion. Brad Pitt and George Clooney do not come within a light year of the kind of interest that Valentino, in his five years of fame, engendered.He would probably have sympathized with Sinatra or the Beatles during their first few years of acclaim;they are the only male stars to ever reach his level of hysteria-inducing stardom.

With the hollow mask of his image locked into place for nearly ninety years, and all of his original fans having long since followed their idol to the grave,it is only with supreme difficulty that we can break through to the kernel of his appeal.Too much time has passed, and taken with it all remaining vestiges of pop culture naivete, to see, exactly, what his contemporaries saw when they settled into the plush seats of their local movie house to gaze up at his image.

His mannerisms were a little to large for the magnifying quality of the movie camera. Coupled with the improper pace that silent films are usually,and imprecisely, run at on modern equipment, his movements and expressions can come across as jittery or over-wrought.Subtlety,which is found in abundance in the best silent films, was not his strength.What he possessed was an in-born charisma that the camera picked-up on and enhanced beautifully.It made him a commanding figure, and the center of every frame he inhabited, even when the plot was silly.Of course, no one went to a Valentino flick for intellectual stimulation.They flocked to his films because he was exotic eye-candy and,as such, was an ideal starting point for their escapist fantasies.Absurdities of plot or character were part of that fantasy world and,to a degree unthinkable today, not necessarily that far removed from the real world.Rudolph Valentino starred as 'The Sheik' in the same era that Lawrence of Arabia became a legend, setting off a rage for all things generically 'Arabic'. Movie romps were merely one result of what was then a real fascination.

When not kitted out in high-camp theatrical glory as a sheik or matador, he was a decidedly handsome man.This is readily apparent when you study his photographs.Something of the charm and mystery that his peers saw comes through when he is in repose.We are no longer quite as psychologically disposed to dish out the star-worship that he was forced to endure.From that angle, at least, there will never be another Valentino.

Crossing the First One Off the List:Lemonade

Recently I posted an article about all of the things that I want to do once the weather turns reliably warm. Well, those days are upon us. I am ready to put a slash through my first accomplishment of the season:Lemonade or, to be precise, Lemon Shake-Ups.I love roaming through festivals and fairs. The proliferation of such events is another reliable indicator that we are in Mother Nature's time of benevolence.Food and libation is always abundant at these celebrations. Indeed, the variety of indulgences is one of their key attractions.I have always loved Lemon Shake-Ups and buy one from the first appropriate stand that I see.

A few years ago, I decided to start making them myself. I tried the initial concoctions out on my willing mother.I swiftly developed a couple of variations. I have been shaking up these babies at family gatherings ever since. Enjoy!!

LEMON SHAKE-UP (NON-ALCOHOLIC ORIGINAL VERSION) SERVES 1

Fill a mixing glass 1/2 full of ice. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over ice, dropping the lemon into the glass when done. Add 1/2 cup (more or less, depending on preference)sugar. Fill with water to 1/2" from top of glass. Shake vigorously in mixing tin for 20-30 seconds or until sugar dissolves. Add ice until full.

VARIATION #1-CHERRY-LEMON SHAKE-UP (NON-ALCOHOLIC) SERVES 1

Prepare as above except add 1/2 ounce of Grenadine after the sugar. Finish as usual.

VARIATION #2-AMARETTO-CHERRY-LEMON SHAKE-UP (ALCOHOLIC) SERVES 1

Prepare as above except add 1/2 ounce of Grenadine and 1/2-1 ounce of Amaretto after the sugar. Finish as usual.

Painting:"Girl Holding Lemons" by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

REVIEWING MY COLLECTION:Alone!Alone! Lives of Some Outsider Women by Rosemary Dinnage

I was, by the account of every family member senior to myself, a cypher straight from the moment I gasped my first lusty breath.I was certainly a maddening, stubborn and temperamental child bent on having her own way at all costs, including the flat-out refusal to sleep, the latter with which I plagued my family from earliest infancy. I was also preternaturally shy and prematurely bookish, with my reading life commencing at age three. I was, most fortunately, blessed with a mother who encouraged me to be true to my quirky nature. Thus, while I grew up at odds with boring normalcy, I rarely worried about fitting in and was entirely impervious to peer pressure.The path of genuine, unencumbered eccentricity is still a hard one to trek but it is vastly easier to accomplish today than at any previous time.

'Alone! Alone! Lives of Some Outsider Women' focuses on the life journeys of more than 2 dozen individuals, many of them creatives or intellectuals in their own right or, in some cases, appendages or muses of well-known men. Rosemary Dinnage approaches her subjects with temperate illumination, understanding and breadth. She does not overstate things that she cannot know undeniably but presents her hypotheses with grace, thoughtfulness and skillful scholarship.

The women profiled came to inhabit their outsider status through paths varied and predictable; nor can their marginalization and relative isolation be perfectly, neatly pinpointed. With so many personalities,backgrounds and quirks under the magnifying glass of our attention, it is natural to gravitate towards certain of the women while remaining aloof from others.I have always had an affinity for Katherine Mansfield and an aversion born of bafflement for Simone Weil.Both writers were prickly, brilliant, erratic and self-important yet I feel a kindred spark to Mansfield's brand of egoism and sheer annoyance with Weil's inept self-sacrifice, which is full of its own brand of vanity.Although this book did nothing to change that bottom line, it did carve new nuances into my long-held prejudices, which is hard to accomplish.

She gives equal attention to the famous and the obscure, and to those who fall into the netherworld between those parameters.Painter and free-spirit Gwen John and diarist Alice James step,briefly yet unforgettably, out of the shadows of their famous brothers.Dinnage also profiles entire categories of women--including prostitutes and witches--which gives the book a wider imprimatur than it would have if it was limited to a collection of postage-stamp biographies. It becomes, in an informal way, a sort of sociological treatise on rebel women and their place, or lack of it, in society.

PHOTOS, TOP TO BOTTOM: ALICE JAMES,KATHERINE MANSFIELD

MARY ASTOR:PATRICIAN BEAUTY AND FIERCE PATHBURNER

There was a deep chasm between Mary Astor's looks and personality. Her beauty was of the patrician,elegant variety but her mind had a smolderingly modern bent.She was sexually liberated far ahead of her contemporaries, even by louche Hollywood standards. Scandal trailed behind her like a sumptuous mink stole.From teenage bit player to co-star of Barrymore and Bogart, her cinematic career lasted 4 decades and encompassed well over a hundred films.Her performances in fare as diverse as 'Don Juan' (1926), 'Dodsworth' (1936), 'The Maltese Falcon' (1941), 'The Palm Beach Story' (1942) and 'Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte' (1964) has firmly settled the mantle of stardom on her memory.

Yet to her contemporaries she was the locus of a continuing sexual firestorm that gained momentum as the free-living 1920's yielded to the sober new decade.She had a torrid affair with, among others, John Barrymore, who helped jump-start her career. It culminated in a nasty divorce/custody battle with her second husband, over the juicy contents of a diary kept during her affair with playwright George S. Kaufman.Her many divorces and personal demons, which were thrust before a greedy public, only served to eclipse what was a truly stellar and critically acclaimed career.By the time of her last celluloid appearance (in 'Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte'), her celebrity had long been dormant.She was, fortunately, never quite forgotten. LIFE magazine asked, on its February 1980 cover,"Whatever Became of Mary Astor and Other Lost Stars?" It featured a luminous image of Mary from the early Sound Era. It kicked off a renewed interest in the actress that has never ceased.

Mary Astor won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for 1941's 'The Great Lie'.She was impressively adept in all genres: she consistently owned her roles,whether in high comedy or maudlin drama.Her keen presence and ability meant that she was never overshadowed by costars or material, and was seldom required to play a passive role:her characters--villains and heroines alike--were proactive women.

AMAZING MARY ASTOR FILMS:

BEAU BRUMMEL (1924) DON Q SON OF ZORRO (1925) DON JUAN (1926) RED DUST (1932) THE KENNEL MURDER CASE (1933) EASY TO LOVE (1934) PAGE MISS GLORY (1935) DODSWORTH (1936) THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937) MIDNIGHT (1939) THE GREAT LIE (1941) THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)THE PALM BEACH STORY (1942)MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944) LITTLE WOMEN (1949) HUSH...HUSH,SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964)

Sneak Peak

Some things that are floating around in my brain, waiting impatiently to be turned into posses of words:

1)Mary Astor
2)Alone!Alone!
3)The Golden Girls
4)Margaret Sullavan
5)If I Were...(it's a surprise)
6)Lemonade
7)Purple
8)Banana Pudding

Getting There

Little by little, things are being made right. Our wayward computer is up-and-running again, which is enough to infuse me with a sense of bliss. I have a lot to catch up on tonight but will be back to regular posting tomorrow. Thanks for hanging in there!!

A Cup of Tea, Sunshine and You

The title of this post, while sounding something akin to an early 1920's love song,belies the content and ways of my recent days and nights, where Cruel Mistress Fate has reasserted her mastery of things.A litany of inconvenient happenings, though of neither a physical nor mental order, has befallen my small household.I am crafting and typing these words from my mother's sitting room,in my not-so-far-away hometown,where I have come for a relaxing weekend of family togetherness. I hope to be able to write a further thing or two before heading South tomorrow afternoon where, the Gods willing, I will once again be able to produce, with soothing regularity,my happy little oddments of writing.