Wednesday, December 13

1) Went to bed last night with the news that Doug Jones had won in Alabama, and woke up still very pleased that enough Alabamans went to the polls to make that happen. But even with all that, it was the narrowest of victories. Were it not for Republican encouragement of write-in candidates, something very different might have happened. Fully half of Alabama would rather have sent racist, homophobic Roy Moore to represent them in the Senate. None of us should forget that.

2) In my own life, trying not to fold under the growing realization that I leave for Christmas next week, and no matter where I turn, there is a GREAT deal to do!

3) But Christmas festivities continue tomorrow night as I plan to see Whatever Happened to Baby Jesus? by the celebrated Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans.

Sunday, December 10

1) Woke up before 6 AM with the hungries and an odd determination to have a soft-boiled egg. Not having soft-boiled an egg in some time, the less said the better. #fail

2) No lie, by 7:30 after two cups of coffee and some reading I was back in bed for nearly two hours of nearly sleep. #heaven

3) Christmas brunch hosted by one of my best friends at an oyster house in Kenmore Square. Nine of us gathered around an eight-shaped table. The excellence of the chocolate chip scone was exceeded only by their famous biscuits saturated in honey.

3a) Why is it throughout life that we grow to see less and less of the people we care for most?

4) Time for some Christmas shopping afterward. Trident Bookstore jammed; I kept thinking of the Cocoanut Grove Fire.

5) Rendezvoused with friends in the Derriere du Sud for a drive to a Christmas party just over the border in New Hamster. Glorious afternoon for a drive.

6) Lovely party, especially as I hadn't seen the host in person in at least three years. Two Christmas trees, a Christmas village, a model railroad, lights, champagne punch, and fantastic hors d'oeuvres and Christmas cookies.

6a) And since I'm not really back to 100%, and since the best parties always end up in the kitchen, I got to, ahem, rest my eyes in the living room.

7) Contrary to all expectations, I did not fall asleep in the back seat on the way back to town, but participated in a spirited conversation of whatever it was we were talking about.

8) Arriving home, I ended up chatting on the backstairs for about 15 minutes with the third-floor neighbors, including Little Miss, who showed me all the magnetic wooden fruit in her bag. She had a lemon and a grapefruit and a kiwi fruit and a pear, and even a banana.

9) Bracing myself for a very busy week!

Saturday, December 9

1) Mission Accomplished: round trip train tickets to Penn Station booked.

2) At the Athenaeum I returned The Apparitionist, a book (overdue) about the spirit photographs of the mid-19th century which I just could not get into, and checked out No Boston Olympics, which so far is proving to be much more interesting.

2a) In the reading room I realized The Economist was not exactly compelling my attention for a change.

3) Lunch at the bar at Carrie Nation, looked after by handsome Nima.

4) And all this time the season's first snow is slowly, gently coming down. I walked through the Common and the Public Garden observing the passing show and trying not to be too anxious about slipping in sneakers. #aging

5) I forget who it was who said of making George Cukor's A Star Is Born "We darn near made a black and white picture in color," but that's how I feel about this photo.

6) Popped into the GHM after last night's Repeal Day, and so impressed with how the dining room was beautifully prepared.

7) After grocery shopping and a NAP, an early tea in the parlor, contrasting the yellow lamplight with the graying evening atmosphere enveloping our first snowfall.

Catchup, Week of December 4

1) So if you haven't heard much from me this week, it's because I've been home sick four days out of five. This is dreadful since it's the Christmas season and since the T*** & C****** horoscope says "You can make brilliant connections now, so speak up and reach out." Bleah!

2) Hosting Repeal Day last night with a cold was a wee bit of an adventure for me. Once upon a time, ladies could always use bouquets to keep from shaking hands or fend off embraces (and probably should again). You just keep both hands together grasping that bouquet and that's that. Gentlemen don't have that opportunity, and I felt inhospitable having to say "I've got a cold. Don't let me get my cooties on ya!"

3) The party was a success, as it often is, this time not least because there were four brand-new attendees of a Generation Younger Than Mine who had never been to the House before and really brought a nice energy. Certainly the party broke up later than in previous years!

3a) It should not surprise me that, as an any other party, everyone congregates near the bar. But the dining room is so much more elegant than the kitchen (the traditional location for a home speakeasy bar during Prohibition). But an hour into the party I went downstairs for round two and I counted 18 people squashed into that kitchen clearly having the time of their lives. Who am I to argue with that?

4) By special request for my portion of the program I repeated last year's (?) reading of drunk Agnes Gooch from Patrick Dennis's world-changing novel Auntie Mame, which was received kindly.

5) Smoked salmon macarons. Om nom nom.

6) Afterward my friend James and I dined at Mary Chung's - so soothing, even though we were one of two last parties before closing time.

7) After three large glasses of water and two small aspirin I fell into bed like a stone.

8) Now it's coffee in bed.

Thursday Evening, December 7

1) After a day back at the office yesterday, my cold grabbed back at me with its mucilaginous fingers and I ended up back in my sickbed today. Bleah!

1a) Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, though, I did at least get some work done. Wrestling with website content . . .

2) Five minutes ago would have been a good time to go to dinner, since the children decided to sing the Yelling Song during Stomping Time - but things have quieted down.

3) Repeal Day is tomorrow night! Sweet mercy goodness . . .

BONUS: Just got my train certificates in the mail. Saturday I can run along to the Gare du Sud and book my tickets to New York for New Year's week. Hurrah!

BONUS II: I almost feel obligated to put on Tora! Tora! Tora! since today is Pearl Harbor Day.

Monday Evening, December 4

1) Well, that certainly puts the mental in temperamental.

2) Candlelight toddy in my parlor, trying to come to grips with all the news.

3) Aside from being sick and having work to do at work and Repeal Day preparations for this Friday and not having gotten my Christmas cards yet and really really needing to start my Christmas shopping, I need to start putting some plans in place for my New York trip right after New Year's.

Monday, December 4

1) Official Day Four of cold. Coughing through the night regardless of medication and of head elevation with extra pillow. Bleah.

1a) Breakfast of champions: a bowl of scalding chickarina soup with an egg dropped in. Rich, delicious, and soothing.

2) And someone just said it's Mercury retrograde, which would certainly explain what's going on in Washington.

3) With the news kerfuffle about my airline not having enough pilots, I checked my reservations and, uh-oh, I'm actually leaving two days earlier than I thought.

Thirty Years of "Ask Me About my Sweater"

1987

It occurred to me that I got my well-known Christmas sweater in 1987, and obviously that would be 30 years ago this season. That was the start of my second year on Henchman Street in the North End, of my graduate degree work at Emerson, and of my job at The Tab - and barely more than a year until my coming out. At that time I remember haunting a very small mens boutique in Coolidge Corner called M. Joseph. Over time I got two wonderful summer suits there (one Willi Smith in nearly-sheer blue Indian cotton, the other a white cotton linen blend, each with shoulder pads as befit the era), striped dress shirts, a pale gray sweater vest with silver buttons, and a few other things.

2017

Including this sweater, handmade in Italy. I remember being fascinated with it, especially the buttons and the green yarn; both were practically like malachite. I absolutely loved it and had to have it.

The first day I wore it to the office (see photo at left) it excited a lot of comment, so much so that I made a tag that read "Ask me about my sweater!" The button seen in that photo, though, is another familiar Christmas accessory, my No Fruitcake button. "Want none, have none, not one," I'd always say.

And like all of us with our favorite holiday gear, I trot them both out frequently to almost equal parts of acclaim and derision.

Friday, December 1

1) Yesterday, at a memorial service on campus, I came down with a dry cough that rapidly turned into a cold. I could feel it happening, and of course it's very embarrassing to be the only person coughing in an auditorium full of people honoring the legacy of a dead leader.

1a) I was there early to assist as an usher. These affairs are always interesting in that they bring together the Power Structure of the Past for One Last Appearance. And there they were, all the people who were the Big Deals on Campus when I was in my late 20s and early 30s.

1b) One of my oldest volunteers drove down from a northern state to attend, and the first thing he said to me when we saw each other in the lobby was "Have you been putting on weight?!" I was wearing my best suit (thick, dark gray double-breasted wool, but cut with the shall-we-say highwater profile most fashionable two years ago when I was more established in my relationship with Size 34). This candid question made more than usually discomfited, since earlier that day I discovered a Large Hole at a Most Unfortunate Junction of the suit trousers. #ohdear

2) This morning I knew I would need to stay at home. Bleah.

3) It's been a very long time since I've read so much of a newspaper - two newspapers. So much Boston Globe, so much New York Times. I huddle in my little home aghast and fearful for the future of the nation. I barely have words.

4) The parody WH Advent calendar with Flynn popping out of door number one did remind me that I need to get out my own advent calendar in the cellar.

5) For a/v wallpaper I put on Stage Door, only to realize later that, in a horrible coincidence, it's all about the conniving of a predatory Broadway producer on young actresses.

Wednesday, November 29

1) It wasn't until I was seated in the 9:00 AM software demo that I learned it would be two hours long . . .

2) After work I met the daughter of one of my volunteers in Kenmore Square to do an informational interview on the World of Alumni Relations.

3) Before that, I'd had a meeting at Strobe Alley to discuss a reunion program. After the agenda, the conversation turned to cocktails, and my colleague told me about the Hawthorn in Kenmore Square, tucked alongside the lobby of the Hotel Commonwealth. It's run by an alumnus! After the info interview, I ducked in there - very posh with lots of deep leather chairs - pulled up a corner of the bar, and ordered a La Louisianne cocktail. I settled in with Clemence Dane's enormous novel of 1946 England The Flower Girls.

BONUS: In the absence of a burger on their bar menu, I ordered their small Cobb salad. As you see, they essentially serve a head of lettuce sliced in half, so knife is needed as often as fork. Still tasty nonetheless.

Tuesday Morning, November 28

1) From a dream last night (whatever it was) I came away with a menu item, "salade roué." Waking, I thought, "What the hell is that? Spicy, wilted greens with an oily dressing?" Searching the internet, there appears to be no such thing (which I guess is good), though there's a "salade en forme de roue" and a "salade en roue au fromage bleu."

1a) Which just goes to show, it all depends on how you accent something.

2) Today, November 28, is not only the anniversary of Truman Capote's Black and White Ball, it is also the 75th anniversary of the devastating Cocoanut Grove Fire right here in Boston. Tonight I'm going to a Boston Public Library event with author Stephanie Schorow to commemorate it.

3) I haven't even bought my Christmas cards yet.

Sunday, November 26

1) I slept myself into a fauxhawk!

2) It's easy to see why holly is used so often in making wreaths, because its branches curve into near circles. That makes holly tough to arrange in vases, which is what I'm doing in the house.

3) The day has been productive and social, but not very creative. A brunch guest took up a lot of my time (which was wonderful). Otherwise, it wasn't a good day for writing.

BONUS: It's now the cocktail hour, and I sit in my gold-lit parlor with Island in the Sun as my a/v wallpaper, in a state of complete mellowness.

Saturday Afternoon, November 25

1) The best thing I could have done today is walk again through the arboretum. And I did!

1a) The worst thing I could have done today is take a big ol' NAP in the afternoon. And I did.

2) My God, if it's not Pink's "Beautiful Trauma" it's Cecily Courtnedge hamming her way through "Be at Home When Love (Comes Knocking at the Door)":

2a) Why yes, that IS Edward Everett Horton!

3) Time for a strong cuppa tea so I can put out some Christmas decorations, finish the laundry, change the sheets, clean out the pantry, wash dishes, write thank-you notes, write and film a column, and achieve world peace.

Friday, November 24

1) 10:00 AM: Depart house
10:48 AM: Make the top of Peters Hill at the Arboretum.
11:30 AM: Arrive home.

2) Everyone is more oriented to pop culture than I, so I have only a particularly stylish friend to blame for my becoming addicted to Pink's "Beautiful Trauma." My God, her face!

3) It is now officially the Christmas season, which I have observed by a) packing up all the glass pumpkins, b) harvesting holly from my garden to stuff into vases in the house, and c) wearing red socks with a green shirt.

Florence Foster Jenkins

Last weekend my dear friends David and Hirschel took me to the closing performance of Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins at the Lyric, and to dinner following at Post 390. The occasion was my birthdenouement (birthdaynouement? When you make up a word, you can spell it as you choose. Which do you prefer?), the very end of Birthday 54 celebrations since they were out of town on the Actual Day. Chatting during intermission, I was astonished that David (who has been one of my closest friends lo these many years) had never heard the story of how I was introduced to the magical musical interpretations of FFJ. It astonished me more than learning that he had not heard ANY of her recordings! And then I had dinner with Craig on Wednesday night and he said he had never heard it - just as astonishing! So settle down, boys and girls, and I'll tell you a story.

Take your mind back to Easter Sunday, 1985 - 25 years before ye Fycebykke, long before laptop computers, a few years before compact discs. Cassette tapes are still cutting edge, and LPs are still everywhere. I am a 21-year-old college junior, and since the summer before I've been hanging around with a small group of women about ten years older than I.

Taken on Easter Sunday, 1985, clearly before a monumental recording was played.

As I recall, a lot of this hanging around involved Japanese cinema in Brookline, Culture Club, the Royal Wedding, genealogy, etc. And somewhere along the line one of them had referenced a singer named Florence Foster Jenkins. "Oh, she's wonderfully awful! So bad she's BAD!" I was told. I was intrigued, but nothing more was said, and the current of Life flowed onward to other things.

Came Easter Sunday, and a randomly casual Easter meal had been enjoyed in their Somerville kitchen. While one of them lazily washed strawberries one at a time, the meal had clearly reached the "Well, what on earth are we going to do next?" stage. And I suddenly blurted out "Why don't you put on that Florence Foster Jenkins record you told me about?" One lady immediately bolted for her room and shut the door. She knew what was coming. The rest of the party, with varying degrees of mirth or expectancy, trooped into the book-dominated living room where the stereo was. I sat myself down on an ottoman, with no idea what I was getting myself into. My life was about to change.

The first track on the album was the famous "Queen of the Night" aria from Mozart's Magic Flute:

The finale that begins at 03:27 must be heard to be believed. I was convulsed in laughter, but worse (or better) was still to come. I'll spare linking you to all the tracks on the album, but I was howling by the time we got to the Bell Song from Lakme.

What can I say but "This is a test. This is a test of the emergency broadcasting system . . . " The note that begins at 04:24 simply beggars description, and I just could not control myself at that point. It was becoming difficult to breathe. But the real piece de resistance (or, in my case, the coup de grace) was what I think was the final track on that side, "Adele's Laughing Song" from Der Fledermaus.

At this point, perhaps for the only time in my life, I fell onto the floor laughing so hard it just didn't matter. In the words of Jan Hooks as Bette Davis, "I fell RIGHT out of my chair!" This must have been as she begins her Big Finish at 03:21; I think I fell to the floor at 03:37.

After that, I was hooked. Later that year I bought the album for myself; it's one of the two LPs I still own (wherever it is . . . ) even though I no longer have a stereo on which to play it. While I no longer go into hysterics, I still get a thrill every time I hear one of her recordings. She's so BAD!

But this was hardly a daily, or even an annual, indulgence. Florence isn't usually what is now called "top of mind." So I was surprised to read in the last 2000s that Souvenir was on Broadway. "Why," I asked, "would anyone write a play about Florence Foster Jenkins?" And when my friends Jason and Jack and I sat in the front row of the original Boston production at the Lyric, I found out. For me it's really the story of her long-suffering accompanist Cosmé McMoon, and the depth of the friendship these two performers allowed to flower as they worked together (at least according to the playwright). Seeing the revival (with the same outstanding cast, Leigh Barrett and Will McGarrahan), it was more emotional for me to recognize those moments.

But the performance in 2009 (or whatever year it was) was most memorable for me because I caught the carnations during Clavelitos! Clavelitos was one of Florence's favorite encores (which she never recorded, darn it). It involved tossing flowers into the audience from a little basket. And now I'll try to quote the album liner notes from memory: "On one occasion, in a moment of confusion, the little basket followed the blossoms into the audience. It, too, was received with spirit." (So now you know where "I will receive it with spirit!" comes from.) If Florence had to repeat it, the flowers (and the basket) had to be retrieved from the audience. And again, my memory of the liner notes: "At this point the behavior of the audience beggars description." I just love that!

Jason and Jack and I went to see the 2014 movie together. Let's face it, Mme. Meryl can do no wrong, and she was beautifully supported by Hugh Grant (as Florence's "husband" St. Clair Bayfield) and Simon Helberg (as Cosmé). It's a beautiful evocation of Florence's world.  I'm glad I saw the movie, but I don't feel compelled to see it again.

The last two pieces of the puzzle of Florence Foster Jenkins, which i didn't even know existed, fell into place just this year. Over the summer I discovered her biography in my favorite used bookstore, Tim's Used Books. At last, the truth about her father's wealth and death, her brief career as a music teacher, her move to New York with her mother and their money, her (mostly self-created) niche in the music community, her coterie, her audience, her life as a hotel resident.

That book alluded to undiscovered movie footage of her recitals at the Ritz. Since the publication of that book, someone found them and they're on the Yewytbbe! And you'll see at one point she appears to be tossing flowers into the audience (and perhaps a basket) - the Clavelitos!

Florence Foster Jenkins represents the sense of absurdity and delight we all need. If Leigh Barrett were to come to my house as Florence and sing "Adele's Laughing Song," I know I would kiss the hem of her gown in gratitude and not stop crying . . . or laughing.

Just keep me from falling on the floor this time.

Thanksgiving Gratitude 2017

To be completely honest, the last couple weeks I have been looking at the hole more than the doughnut, but Thanksgiving was created to focus us on gratitude, and I do, in fact, have a lot to grateful for:

• I still have my health. Yeah, I have plantar fasciitis and an undisciplined diet, but I still have my health.
• I have people in my life who love and care for me, and for whom I love and care. I may be a bit of a space about keeping in touch, but I am aware constantly of goodwill directed my way. My family, friends old and new, old and young, close by or far away - where would I be by myself?
• I have a home that is a refuge. With rents what they are in this city now, I can't imagine what my situation might be if I hadn't been able to buy Maison Robaire in 2003. Being able to live here on my own has been a true blessing these last seven months.
• I still live in a country where I can live openly as a gay man. But it's clearer and clearer that it's going to be a fight to keep it that way.
• I work with wonderful people. My colleagues at ye Instytytte are just the gold standard. And I've heard enough in my life about workplace drama (and sometimes lived it) to know.
• I am able to live in a way that does not require me to own a car. it's a life goal not to own a car.
• I live in Boston. Hard to believe I first came to college here 35 years ago, but I can't imagine living anyplace else. I love this city! (As I age, though, and the ice gets slipperier every winter, the idea of the beach does appeal . . . )

This is absolutely an incomplete list but, like cream, these blessings rise to the top.

How to Bake a Three-Day Cake

This year, as in several years past, I'll be spending Thanksgiving with my Mayflower cousins the Hechts. They love my three-day cake, some white trash cookin' that is really the sweetest piece of concrete you'll ever eat. Here's how I make it (after having purchased all the ingredients):

Put on a good old Humphrey Bogart movie.

Search for old Sunbeam mixer Coco gave me when she left The Tab way back in 1988 or so, including the replacement bowl after the original was mysteriously mislaid after that BPA function at Sidney's apartment in 1993.

Briefly suspect the Last Roommate of having tossed out the mixer in a fit of pique, as was his wont, but then reject the idea.

Find mixer at top of the pantry and move all the damn clutter on the floor to put in the stepstool so it can be retrieved.

Assemble other necessary utensils, including the T*****ware cake dome possibly purchased at that T*****ware drag brunch on Worcester Square in the early 1990s, Gramma's stamped metal measuring cups, etc.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Casually grease two cake tins, not being too careful about greasing the bottom only, as indicated on the cake mix box.

Combine cake mix, three eggs, and vegetable oil in mixing bowl and comence mixing. Be sure to keep moving the batter away from the edge of the bowl.

Decide that the setting "One Bowl Cakes" best corresponds with "medium."

Realize that the sound of the mixer is drowning out the dialogue of your favorite scene with Mary Astor ("Oh, help me Mr. Spade, I need help so badly") but that it doesn't really matter since you've seen the film eleventy billion times anyway.

Lick a beater, like your mother used to let you do.

Pour batter into cake tins, attempting to get an equal amount into each tin.

Discover with horror a tiny pocket of cake mix that was not mixed into the batter. Stir by hand with the speed of guilt until completely mixed and add to cake tin.

Understand that your mother would NEVER leave that much batter in the bowl, and remind yourself that it's time to get a new rubber scraper.

Tap each cake tin against the counter a couple time to try to burst a few air bubbles inside the batter.

Toss cake tins into the oven and set timer for 30 minutes.

Wash dishes while waiting.

Take a peek halfway through to see how they look.

Search halfheartedly for toothpicks to test the cake layers, because deep down you know there aren't any in the house.

Take out hot pads, cooling rack, and the grooved bread knife purchased for that disastrous dinner party on Parkvale Avenue in 1988.

When timer goes off, turn off oven, examine cakes, and decide to leave them in the (off) oven for another five minutes, thereby eliminating need for a toothpick test.

After five minutes, remove cakes from oven and put on hot pads to begin cooling. Wait 15 minutes (recipe says ten minutes) and put in a load of laundry.

Assemble ingredients for filling: two cups sugar, two cups coconut, and two cups sour cream.

Add sugar and coconut to mixing bowl, making sure that there are no big clumps of coconut.

Discover with annoyance that you're one cup short of sour cream. Decide with resignation that it's the Official Thanksgiving Gesture to Low Fat.

Stir with forthrightness until sugar begins dissolving, creating a thick but flaky goo.

Reserve one cup of goo for the frosting.

Put on another good old Humphrey Bogart movie.

Now the fun begins! Approach smaller of two cake layers and carefully slice off rounded top so that cake will be flat.

Eat the top. Om nom nom.

Carefully slice cake layer in half horizontally. Accept with annoyed regret that a couple chunks will come off at the end, even while trying to keep the layers even.

Move layer to base of cake dome and spread filling across the top. Make sure to get all the way to the edges, just the way Mother would.

Repeat for remaining layers.

Break out the tub of non-dairy whipped topping, confirming that the tub size is not more than the recipe requires, unlike that one time . . .

Combine topping and reserved cup of goo in a mixing bowl and stir gently but with decision.

Begin frosting from the top.

Continue frosting the sides, remembering that gravity is not your friend.

Be sure to patch up any possible points of exposure.

Make feeble attempt to flatten the frosting, knowing that frosting made with non-dairy whipped topping can never be truly flat in the first place, and fully recognizing that everyone already knows you graduated from Cordon Bleah, not Cordon Bleu.

Et voila, le gateau!

Cover with cake dome and refrigerate undisturbed until Thanksgiving.

Look at all that unused frosting in the bowl and start getting ideas.

Enjoy ONLY ONE spoonful, not wanting to cut short your love affair with Size 36 so soon that you have to start courting Size 38.

Wash dishes and clean off kitchen counters, to make Mother proud.

Remove cake from refrigerator on Thanksgiving Day and bring to the Hechts.

A Letter to Size 34

Dear Size 34,

I don't know if you'll be upset or relieved to get this message, but I've finally had to face the awful truth about us. Our relationship has become more and more confining, and I simply can't take any more. I need freedom, and I've decided that - for now, anyway - I'm moving in with Size 36.

You need to know, Size 34, that I don't blame you; this is not your fault! This is totally on me. My summer fling with B** & J****'s hurt you, I know. After awhile I could tell what a strain it was for you to embrace me, and all this after our years of cosy, supportive intimacy. My unfaithfulness damaged our snug relationship, but even so, I kept trying to make it work. Oh, how I tried! But lately you've become so spiteful. All the pinching, the clinging, the grasping - yes, I've noticed. And now it's just unbearable.

So, we need some time apart. Who knows, after a few months, Size 36 may start to slip away from me, and I know I'll want to come back to you then. But . . . will you have me? Will our memories of the days of our perfect fit be enough to start over? I hope, with enough time to reflect, that we'll both be able to say Yes.

With love and regret,

Me

Friday Morning, November 17

1) One of the most important things about getting beyond depression is awareness, simply recognizing that one is in a depressed state.

1a) And I'm aware that I'm in a depressed state.

2) I had a late volunteer meeting last night and am allowing myself to head in a little late this morning. Lovely we have some sun this morning.

3) Jesus, the news. What could possibly happen to make this annus horribilis even worse?

Tuesday, November 14

1) At the office we get messages - sometimes several a day - about the state of one of the two elevators in the building. Usually it's the freight elevator that's on the fritz, but today it was the passenger elevator. This happens so often I'm about to suggest feng shui and acupuncture as possible repair methods. #justfixit

2) "I may not be a model, lamb, but nobody disputes how I wear clothes!"

3) The Riviera Set, which is basically the history of Chateau de l'Horizon, is quite absorbing, and makes a charming addition to other books about the history of individual buildings, such as George Howe Colt's The Big House, and Versailles: History of a Palace.