Thursday Morning, February 6

1) This been such a horrible, cataclysmic week: the monumental collapse of the Iowa caucuses, the State of the Union, and the President’s acquittal. I was deeply impressed by the ugliness of social media, especially ye Twyttyr. So I made an impromptu decision yesterday afternoon, sitting in a Cambridge coffee shop, to take a break from word-based social media. I’ll stay active on ye Flyckr and will occasionally poke my nose into ye Yllo, but except for Etiquetteer, will be staying away from ye Fycebykke and ye Twyttyr.

2) And then the loveliest thing happened. Walking through Central Square a signboard in front of the florist read “Come in for a free rose if your name is ROBERT.” So . . . I did! And was given a full-blown Free Spirit rose, a luscious pale peach shading to pink. I felt like Henry Gibson leaving the shop.

3) This morning, parlor coffee and devotional yielded two readings that were helpful to me:

  • II Thessalonians 3:1-2: “Finally brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you; and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for all men have not faith.” [emphasis mine]

  • Baltasar Gracián’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom, #131: “A gallant spirit. The soul has its fine dress cloths, the spiritual dash and boldness that make the heart look splendid. Not everyone has room for gallantry, for it calls for magnanimity. Its first concern is always to speak well of the enemy, and act even better. It shines most brightly when it has the chance to avenge itself. It does not avoide these situations, but takes advantage of them, turning a potential act of vengeance into an unepxected act of generosity. It is also the best part of governing others, the adornment of politics. It never shows off its triumphs - it affects nothing - and when they are due to merit, it knows how to dissimulate.”

Monday Afternoon, February 3

1) Dream imagery: From a balcony above, I view a grassy square surrounded by 18th-century buildings. Suddenly, the square is filled with people fleeing in the direction away from where I’m standing. They are all dressed in the style of the 18th century, and many are wearing regal red or orange colors. I see more than a few ermine collars and billowing royal robes or trains. I hear myself ask “Was there a coronation or something going on?” From above a pair of bodies, a man’s and a woman’s, locked together stiffly at right angles, fall from the sky to the ground. They’re so stiff they might be mannequins. A woman bends to examine the body of the right-angled woman who fell. I wake up.

1a) It’s worth noting that I’m reading A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire, by Amy Butler Greenfield, which might be the cause of all those red and orange clothes. Certainly right now I’m lusting for a bolt of orange silk damask!

2) After an inexcusably lazy morning - I didn’t get out of bed except for coffee until after 11 AM! - I’m now scheduling, planning, and organizing. Feels good.

3) As Lieutenant Guild said in the novel The Thin Man, “See, I want people to talk to.”

Saturday Morning, February 1

1) The end of January bulges with anniversaries for me: the anniversary of my coming out (1989), of my first day of work at ye Instytte (1990), of the start of Etiquetteer* (2001). And because February invariably comes at the end of January, this year I can include for the first time the February 1 death of my mother (2019).

1a) How did I observe all these milestones this year? The first not at all, beyond daily gratitude for being able to live openly and safely. Original Boss and I celebrated our 30th anniversary over an elegant luncheon just off campus (it took all my willpower not to eat my dessert and his while he was away from the table), after which I actually had to drop off a couple things at the old office. For Etiquetteer I cobbled together a hasty Top Ten list (and have already had a thoughtful reader response to it on how to interact with the bereaved).

2) In the year since Mother died, so much has changed. My daily life evolves since I left ye Instytytte six months ago, and I struggle to establish and maintain a routine that is productive. One of Mother’s close friends died a few weeks ago. The Methodist Church is dividing into two distinct congregations. And we all know what’s happening on the national scene.

2a) What has not changed is that I continue to miss Mother every day. I’m not crippled by this, but it’s present.

3) I’ve mentioned before that, impulsively, I took Mother’s Bible when we were clearing out the house last March, and I am so very glad that I decided to do that. This morning, despairing over the national situation on this first anniversary of her death, I asked for her guidance to direct me to an appropriate scripture. That turned out to be Job chapters 34 and 35, strong meat for the current situation that I am still groping to interpret.

3a) Mother often compared Donald Trump to Rahab, along the lines of God using a sinner for His purposes. I would say to her “Mamma, that analogy only works if the United States is Jericho, and Rahab was working for the fall of Jericho. I don’t want the United States to fall!”

* Etiquetteer actually began as an email list in the summer of 2001. I observe the anniversary at the end of January as it coincides with the launch of the first version of the website, which might have been in — oh hell, who can remember?

Tuesday Morning, January 21 - First World Problems

1) This entry was going to start with acknowledging how grateful I am for all the good things and people in my life, but really be a complaint about my occasional housekeeper showing up an hour late after she herself had suggested an earlier-than-typical arrival time, for which I made ample preparation because the only reason I’d indulge in that kind of housekeeping is because of a weekend houseguest. Instead, I’m just going to be grateful that I have a house of my own to clean and a weekend houseguest for whom to clean it. Coffee will carry me through.

1a) Mother, the sweetest person most people ever met in their lives, told me how she once blessed out a tardy housekeeper - and herself felt terrible about it later. Like me, Mother planned her days around scheduled appointments (unlike me, she was often late) and had made arrangements on this particular day to be someplace at a particular time. One of the housekeepers appeared promptly, but the other (perhaps her daughter?) was well over an hour late. And Mother did not appreciate that, and basically ripped her a new one. That kind of behavior was just out of character for Mother!

2) So many people are following the impeachment proceedings intently right now, and I have to confess that I must pull back for my own health and well-being. There’s so much wickedness taking place it’s enough for me to get caught up in the morning. I simply can’t follow it all day and all night.

2a) Phone your senators!

3) On a lighter note, it seems every time I wear my winter white overcoat with enormous white scarf and dark gray fedora, a total stranger feels it necessary to tell me that I’m lookin’ sharp. It happened again this morning as I was returning from errands, some guy in a car calling to me as he drove by. I confess, I love it!

3a) And whenever I wear that coat out I hear Fats Waller’s “Spreadin’ Rhythm Around.”

Saturday Night, January 11

1) What an unexpectedly heavenly day! The predictions of the weathermen were for nought; instead, I took advantage of sunny, breezy, unusually temperate day by hiking through the arboretum.

1a) I did at least stick to the culinary part of my plan: to boil up a cauldron of soup this evening. That’s usually a cold-weather activity, but I’m still pleased with the results.

2) An unoriginal observation: My temper sometimes gets the better of me when political topics come up online. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped hating myself for it, but there it is.

3) If there were two things my family enjoyed they were the comic strip For Better or For Worse, and the TV series Perry Mason. I grew up on the latter, which played as reruns at 12 noon every day during the summers. This Christmas I gave myself the first two seasons on DVD, and it has been an absolute delight going through them. Of course for me one of the great pleasures is recognizing character actors from earlier movies and shows. Shoot, Aunt Bea from Mayberry is almost a murder suspect herself in one episode! Karen Sharpe, Nancy Kulp (well before her cries of “Chief, chief!” on The Beverly Hillbillies), the actor who played the navigator with the drunk wife in The High and the Mighty, the actress who played the gorgeous blonde wife of the two-timing artist staying at Katharine Hepburn’s pensione in Summertime. Just fantastic.

Four British Films Mostly Pre-WWII

I have been talking enough about some (mostly) newly discovered British Films from Before I Was Born that it makes sense to do a page on all of them for Handy Future Reference.

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)

I first saw this film on television in high school (I think we must have taped it on the VCR!) and fell it love with for many different reasons: the use of Mozart’s A Little Night Music, Merle Oberon, Leslie Howard in soft focus, Mabel Terry-Lewis as the Comtesse de Tournay, and especially the scene in the prison when the day’s roll call for the guillotine takes place. Raymond Massey as the snarling Chauvelin is very much an added attraction! And Joan Gardner is gently delightful as Suzanne de Tournay, the flower of French girlhood.

Fire Over England (1937)

This is the first time Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier appeared together on screen, young, beautiful, and magnetic. And let’s face it, Flora Robson is Elizabeth I, whereas my beloved Bette Davis plays Elizabeth I as Bette Davis. Look for her speech on horseback! Raymond Massey shows up again as Philip of Spain.

Dark Journey (1937)

Vivien Leigh stars with Hollywood’s Future Favorite Nazi Conrad Veidt in an espionage thriller set during World War I but costumed in 1937. And fashion plays a big role in the espionage; Vivien runs a fashion house in Stockholm, selling gowns with coded messages sewn into them from the French that she shares with the Germans. Ursula Jeans and Margery Pickard appear as Vivien’s shop assistants, Gertrude (Austrian) and Colette (French), who get off some snappy dialogue. Gertrude: “Madame! Is it a crime to be German?” Colette: “Worse, it’s a vulgarity!”

Conrad Veidt has some wonderful scenes with “professional beauties” in a hotel bar, especially Joan Gardner as the Brazilian good time girl Lupita. Quite a contrast from her good girl role in Scarlet Pimpernel!

The Man in Grey (1943)

I just randomly looked this up on a whim a month or so ago, remembering that it was mentioned as one of James Mason’s early films in Ron Haver’s book about the restoration of George Cukor’s A Star Is Born. And it became an obsession for a couple weeks! Turns out this Regency-era romantic melodrama made stars of its four principals, especially James Mason and Stewart Granger. But I especially love Phyllis Calvert as Clarissa, and dashingly evil Margaret Lockwood. Look also for redoubtable Martita Hunt as the schoolmistress!

This was, I gather, one of the first of the Gainsborough melodramas made by Gainsborough Pictures that defined an era of popular British cinema. One important scene, a fistfight between James Mason and Stewart Granger, takes place at Vauxhall Gardens, an actual pleasure garden in London; it began life as Spring Gardens, to which Linda Darnell refers in Forever Amber.

Unfortunately, there is a white boy in blackface playing a servant - a theatrical convention that has not aged well for obvious reasons. Otherwise it’s a dashing delight.

OK, and one more: The Wicked Lady (1945)

The Man in Grey led me to another Gainsborough picture, The Wicked Lady, which I don’t actually like as much, but adds a lot of dash and brio to the screen. And Margaret Lockwood in man-drag as a highwayman is compellingly elegant!

So, enjoy!

Friday, December 27

1) Yesterday, Boxing Day, was the sleepiest day ever, as though I was competing in a Boston Lethargathon. The only useful things I did were bathe, go out to buy milk, and continue reading a wonderful Christmas present, John Waters’ new memoir Mr. Know-It-All.

2) Today promises to be more productive, thank goodness. Parlor coffee and devotional included this beautiful reading from my beloved The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian. It’s number 111: “Have friends. They are a second being. To a friend, all friends are good and wise. when you are with them, all turns out well. You are worht as much as others want you to be and say you are, and the way to their mouths likes through their hearts. Nothing bewitches like service to others, and the best way to win friends is to act like one. The most and best we have depends on others. You must live iether with friends or with enemies. Win one each day, if not as a confidant, at least as a follower. Choose well and some will remain whom you can trust.”

3) The most enduring practical lesson of Christmas 2019 is that poinsettias need sunlight even more than they need water. Earlier in December I bought a perfect poinsettia with almost a dozen small to medium white flowers, only to have it start going bald from the bottom up at home. Moral: open the blesséd drapes! Leaf loss has stopped since I started parking it in the windowsill during the sunniest parts of the day.