Saturday Night, 4 November -- Mostly Books

1) Remember a month ago I reported having gathered 52 unread or partially read books into one place from every cranny in my house? So of course it’s more like 54, but here’s an update:

1a) This Crazy Thing Called Love: The Golden World and Fatal Marriage of Ann and Billy Woodward, by Susan Braudy. Provenance: Montague Book Mill, purchase in September, 2023. Status: Finished! A poignant, sympathetic, but unsparing look at the accidental 1955 killing of Society scion Billy Woodward by his other-side-of-the-tracks wife Ann, and the icy vengeance of her mother-in-law, backed by all of Society with a capital S. Difficult to put down, but I was so glad when it was over. Bonus mention of Cleveland Amory, who actually mentions the killing in his Who Killed Society? Now shelved in the High Society section of my library.

1b) The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life, by Tom Reiss. Provenance: Montague Book Mill, purchase in September, 2023. Status: Finished! Genuinely absorbing biography of Essad Bey, a popular “Eastern” author in Fascist Europe, born Lev Nussimbaum in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1905, son of a Jewish oil tycoon. Lev spent a lot of his life refugeeing and reinventing himself, writing prodigiously, including a couple best-sellers. It didn’t stop him from dying of a rare form of gangrene in Positano during World War II (spoiler alert: you will never read this book, so I have no qualms sharing the end.) I admire the audacity of anyone who can pass off a steamship ticket as an American passport.

1c) The Age of Decadence: A History of Britain 1880-1914, by Simon Heffer. Provenance: Used bookstore purchase sometime during the pandemic (Time no longer has any meaning). Status: Still plugging away. Finally up to page 303 of 826 after reading bits here and there over the last year. I first got interested in this since Heffer also edited the diaries of Chips Channon (the first two volumes are fabulous). I am learning a lot of Not Very Nice Things about Imperial Britain, particularly around the second Boer War, and now Ireland and Parnell.

1d) I Heard the Owl Call My Name, by Margaret Craven. Provenance: My parent’s house. Status: Just past halfway through. Last night I needed a book small enough to fit in a pocket to read on the T (The Age of Decadence is about two inches thick), and I had wanted to pick this up for awhile. Which bookcase was this on in Mother and Daddy’s house? Or was it on Mother’s table with her devotional books? The story of a young priest sent to remote coast British Columbia by his bishop (who has concealed the knowledge that the young priest has a fatal disease that will kill him in two years), it’s an interesting meditation on life and death, and a beautiful evocation of a remote part of the world and its people. Given that it was first published in 1967, part of me wonders how life there has changed since then.

1e) Our Last Best Act: Planning for the End of Our Lives to Protect the People and Places We Love, by Mallory McDuff. Provenance: Papercuts JP, purchase this year. Status: Not quite 1/4 through. One of the books I forgot in the initial roundup, as it was with my devotional books. I ordered a copy after reading about it in The New York Times. A personal and sometimes moving account of how to prepare for The End in an environmentally friendly way. I’ll admit there’s a whiff of Stuff White People Like: The Unique Taste of Millions about it, but its wisdom and (for me) fresh perspective, provide a lot of helpful information. And having just crossed to a new decade, that’s important to have.

1f) In the last couple days I have been sidetracked by Robert Massie’s Catherine the Great (to reread her coup d’état against her insane husband) and Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of that Famous Star of Stage, Screen and Television, Belle Poitrine, as told to Patrick Dennis (with 150 Photographs by Cris Alexander), because of course — but I’m getting back on track now.

2) Seven weeks left of the year, and three Great Feasts (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s) plus Repeal Day December 1. Sweet mercy goodness!

3) Birthday Week seems to have derailed my diet, which is Not At All Good.

Saturday, 28 October -- Frankly Forty, the Expression

1) If there’s one thing I love it’s an offbeat theme. This is why the Bulwer-Lytton Bad Fiction Contest party was my annual affair in days gone by, why I refer to my kitchen as Howard Johnson’s at Versailles, and why Repeal Day (still at the Gibson House, this year December 1) has appealed to me so much. And the cognoscenti will remember the Margo Channing Memorial three months after my 40th birthday.

2) So now here I am at 60 — 60!* — which meant of course the theme had to be Frankly Forty. And to my mild surprise, no one seems to have heard of this expression. So, allow me to attempt.

3) For me, the expression “frankly forty” means that there is no use pretending to cling to the vain illusion of Dewy Youthfulness and that one frankly, and hopefully gracefully as well, accepts middle age. With luck, Franky Forty can be continued through to the Very End.

3a) I first heard it in college, reading about Edith Head’s costumes for Olivia de Haviland in a movie in which she aged more than 20 years. (I just had to look it up; it’s To Each His Own, which I have not seen.) For the later scenes in which her character was a successful older businesswoman, Head gave de Haviland “a frankly forty foundation.” No, that doesn’t mean makeup, it meant a padded girdle or foundation garment to fill out her figure.

3b) There is almost nothing about this expression online. What I did find was a 1925 newspaper article “Dress for the Frankly Forties.” and a 1921 plea for a less youth-oriented social life, “The Fraternity of the Frankly Forty.” “Let the younger generation solve their own problems. They are quite capable of doing it. What I want to know is why we of the older generation should accept the same social code as the youngsters use?” It’s actually a very good article.

3c) But most enduringly, “Frankly Forty” is the last chapter of Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of that Famous Star of Stage, Screen and Television, Belle Poitrine, as told to Patrick Dennis with 150 photographs by Cris Alexander. Each chapter begins with the year and a précis of the contents. So while Chapter One, “I Am Born,” begins “1900, . . . ” the last chapter, “Frankly Forty,” begins “1960 . . . ” “A grandmother . . . and at my age!”

3c.i) Craig gave me Little Me years ago for either my birthday or Christmas, so this whole thing is entirely his fault. 😉❤️ It is certainly the gift that has kept on giving, as I love it to pieces.

4) So . . . it’s my birthday! I am still in bed, enjoying chicory coffee and chocolate birthday cake for breakfast. It’s so warm today that later I will pretend to wash the windows (it’s been years), and I will take a brisk, vigorous walk through my beloved Forest Hills Cemetery. And then after a NAP I will get into my black tie and go down to Davio’s for a small dinner in a private room with some dear friends.

5) One final note. Back in August at my annual physical, my doctor gently but firmly explained that it would be easier to take care of me if there was less of me to take care of — and proved it. I took him seriously, looked at the calendar, and realized it would be 20 weeks until New Year’s Eve. This led to yet another offbeat theme, Thirty Pounds in Twenty Weeks, and I am pleased to announce that as of today I have lost 15 pounds and am on track to make it back to 198 by the end of the year. Wish me luck!

*As Sally Field so memorably said in Soapdish, “How in the name of God is it possible?!”

Wednesday, 11 October -- National Coming Out Day

“Your comfort is my silence.” — Barbara Kruger

Last month a friend from long ago reached out with a suggestion that I explore the videos of a Prominent Ex-Gay (PXG) who had experienced a conversion to Christ which led him to renounce his homosexuality. This was a surprise for a few reasons: I’d never heard of PXG, the last time my friend communicated with me was perhaps in 2020, and I have been living out and proud almost 35 years — and my friend knows it.

My response to her included this:

“While thanking you for your concern, PXG’s spiritual journey is leading in the opposite direction from mine. I’m now at a place where I can live openly and proudly as a gay man and behave and treat others decently as a Christian living in a democracy*. I’ve been treated more lovingly and compassionately in the life I’ve lived since I came out in 1989 than I ever [was growing up in the church]. And by the grace of God, I came out into a community of gay men, mostly Catholics, who want to have a relationship with their church, and have. I feel very much that God is looking out for me. The evidence greets me daily.”

*And I hope I do. As a miserable sinner beset by the tempest of human emotions, I do not always act or speak with compassion. And I am more aware of it than you might think.

What I did not say, but will express now, is that I am mighty tired of radical conservatives trying to “cure” homosexuals by scripture or any other means when they have so many of their own problems, also identified in scripture, that require their attention first. See Matthew 7:5. It’s so much easier to fix someone else’s “problems” especially when it’s something you don’t experience yourself, isn’t it? How would it be if I started sending my friend materials about turning away from Trump, who has led millions of Americans astray? Would my friend receive that as an expression of my love for her? I haven’t done that -- but I've been tempted.

Religion needs to be a guide for one’s own behavior, not a goad for the behavior of others. And this is especially true in a democracy that guarantees both freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Radical conservatives try to use freedom of religion as an excuse to deny the existence of homosexuals and to erase them from public life. Just look at what’s been going on in Florida and in some other states. Living in a democracy means having to live equally with people you disapprove of. No, it’s not easy. Democracy is messy.

I need to be accepted as I am, as an out gay man on his own religious journey that doesn’t require renouncing any aspect of me for approval. Suggestions to the contrary are not welcome.

Tuesday Morning, 10 October -- Blood and Coffee

1) Up and out early for a blood test at Medical. Autumn is unmistakably in the air and, seeing my old fleece from ye Instytytte in the closet, I impulsively dressed in school colors for this return to campus: red hat, belt, and shoes; gray pants and fleece. Ordering those fleeces for the staff, with the Association logo, may have been the wisest decision that particular director made. Most colleagues kept them at the office, but I loved wearing mine around the house — and still do.

1a) The nice technician instructed me to keep my arm straight after I’d rolled up my sleeve. “Comme ça,” I replied, without thinking. “Oh, you speak French?” she asked. This led to quite a discussion (not in French), and it turns out I visited her hometown in Haiti when I was there with the Methodist Youth Fellowship in 1980. What a friendly conversation to start the day!

2) The nice young man at the counter of the nearby new coffee shop got bewildered when I handed him a twenty instead of “tapping and going” with a card. Cash is not yet obsolete, dahling! But my goodness, that was excellent coffee, and an excellent breakfast sandwich.

3) I did not have devotional this morning, but yesterday Proverbs 15 offered many currants in the cake, particularly verse 2, “The tongue of the wise uses knowledge aright; but the mouth of the fools pours out curses.”

Friday Afternoon, 6 October -- Old Society and Banned Books

1) I went into the Athenaeum late this morning, thinking I could hunker down over a couple different ideas. But no such luck. I had only 50ish pages to go to finish This Crazy Thing Called Love, about Ann Woodward’s accidental killing of her husband Billy in 1955, and I was compelled to sweep through it. (Spoiler alert: eventually they all die, just as we all will, but it’s really all Truman Capote’s fault.)

1a) That led me back to a book I’d read some years ago, Cleveland Amory’s Who Killed Society? He had editorialized about the Woodwards at the time, considering them “Publi-ciety,” and much of that editorial ends up at the very end of Who Killed Society? Amory’s book, unjustly overshadowed by his The Proper Bostonians, examines the state of perpetual descent of American Society (with a capital S) — first by looking at America’s First Families region by region.

1a.i) The more colorful part of the book is his thorough indictment of several entities for the Killing of Society. Amory accuses almost everyone, from Murder in the First Degree (with deliberation, premeditation and malice aforethought): The Servant Problem, FDR, Hollywood, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (among others), through Manslaughter in the Second Degree (by any culpable negligence . . . ): The Newport Jazz Festival, the April in Paris Ball, and Gamble Benedict (whoever that is, among others). At least he explicitly spares John Roosevelt and Magda Gabor!

2) Last month I discovered that it costs as much for a club sandwich and a cup of coffee in the Parker House dining room as it does for a cheeseburger and a cup of coffee at the faux-Irish pub closer to the Athenaeum — and the tone is far more genteel. Indeed, since the True Ritz-Carlton (now known as the Newbury) seems to have eradicated any ghost of the original décor, this dining room might be Old Boston’s Last Stand.

2a) You know I love the Copley Plaza Bar, but after its transmogrification into the Oak Long Bar and Kitchen, it really cannot be called Old Boston.

2a.i) Of course there was a day when the Plaza was nouveau. When I was working at the Vendome in college, my friend Ken told me that in Days Gone By, his aunt, an antiques dealer, would come down for big antiques fairs at the Plaza — but she would stay at the Vendome.

3) Banned Books Week is coming to an end, which means it’s once again time to quote from Maurice Parmalee’s Nudism in Modern Life, the ban of which was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 1940: “It has taken almost eight years of litigation finally to obtain from a high court the full and complete vindication of this book against every charge of obscenity. The publishers of America know only too well that freedom of the press can only be secured by constant vigilance against every attempt in any wise to delimit or circumvent that freedom. It is the hope of the publishers that in this struggle for a basic American principle they have made a real and genuine contribution.”

Monday Afternoon, 2 October -- Texting, Unread Books, and the Seasonal Gourd Some Love to Hate

1) A text exchange this morning:

• Me: “I’m going for a walk.”

• Friend: “Ah, good time for a walk as the smoke comes back this afternoon.”

• Me: “Smoke?! Have they elected a new Speaker of the House?!”

2) In my dogged flurry to clean house before yesterday’s houseguest arrived, I ended up congregating all the unread or partially read books in the house from their various stacks, corners, and cubbies on the dining room sideboard. To no one’s surprise, but to my mild shock at seeing them en masse, there are 51. Fifty-one. That’s including the eight (!) I bought weekend before last in Brattleboro and at the Montague Book Mill.

2a) I’m trying to think of this as pemmican for the winter, but oof — that’s a lot of books.

2b) I should really say 52, as my current read, This Crazy Thing Called Love, also came from the Montague Book Mill weekend before last. Just over half through, when I’m finished I don’t know if I’ll shelve it under Murder or High Society.

3) Spooky season started a day late at Maison Robaire this year. But no sooner did Weeping Baby Pumpkin Head make his annual appearance than the haters came surgin’ outta the cane break hollering “Eeyew!” Well, go ‘long with you! Haters gonna hate, and it only adds an extra-demonic glow to my smile until Hallowe’en.

3a) And let’s face it, at my age — nearly forty! — I need all the tricks of beauty I can manage.

Friday Morning, 29 September

1) In case you missed it, I was quoted in a Boston Globe article this week about how climate change is disrupting tourism.

1a) An unexpected outcome was email messages from an old volunteer from ye Instytytte (someone who had been particularly kind to me when Mother died) and an old volunteer from ye Ballyt who I still remember with pleasure. And it was lovely to reconnect with both of them!

1a.1) And those contacts have richer meaning in that it was 20 years ago this month that I boomeranged back to ye Instytytte from ye Ballyt.

1b) Travel suggestions for 2024 and 2025 welcome.

2) In this morning’s devotional, Proverbs 29:22 stood out: “An angry man stirs up strife, and a furious man abounds in transgressions.”

3) October is filling up — meetings, doctor’s appointments, museum exhibitions — and I couldn’t be more pleased. As much as August is my favorite month, I love the autumn, too.

Sunday Morning, 3 September -- Recounting a Tapas Brunch

1) My English friends are champing at the bit for a review of yesterday’s tapas brunch at Barcelona in Brookline. Overall I must say it was perfectly delightful, not least because we got to sit outside on a cool and sunny day.

2) The thing about tapas is that they arrive at random, whenever they’re ready. More often than not they’re like edible jewels. That certainly described my veggie Benedict, a perfectly cooked egg atop thickly sliced cucumber and English muffin, with just enough hollandaise not to be too much. It definitely looked good enough to eat, and I definitely did.

3) Once we established that the truffled bikini was a sandwich, I chose instead the next item on the menu, the jamon and manchego croquetas, practically my go-to tapas in Spain a year ago. The four of them were like jewels in their bed of garlic aioli — an exquisite enjoyment.

4) The main event was the vegetarian paella, which the three of us split. To me it tasted like summer: fresh, light, full of sunshine, substantial.

5) Surprise bonus: near the end of the meal, a former colleague we hadn’t seen in over 15 years walked by, recognized me, and stopped for a pleasant chat.

6) I shall certainly have to go back!

Friday Morning, 1 September - Random

1) A brief timetable through the Arnold Arboretum; viewing the map may help:

• 9:25 AM: Depart home.

• 9:49 AM: Summit Bussey Hill.

• 10:03 AM: Enter Peters Hill.

• 10:09 AM: Summit Peters Hill.

• 10:10 AM: Continue circumnavigation of Peters Hill.

• 10:21 AM: Depart Peters Hill.

• 10:37 AM: Depart arboretum.

• 10:51 AM: Arrive home.

• Total: 86 minutes.

1a) The only thing I can’t control is how long I have to wait at stoplights. For out-of-shape Little Me, rippling in the wind, this feels mighty good.

2) Having dispensed with Bogie and Bacall and the script of Dinner at Eight, I’ve returned to Don Shewey’s Daddy Lover God, which is a good book for my current moment.

3) Sweet mercy goodness, in a month it will be time to bring out the glass pumpkins again, and Weeping Baby Pumpkin Head . . . and then barely a month after that I turn 40!

Wednesday Night, 30 August - Super Blue Moon

While you read this you must of course listen of The Song of the Moon from Rusalka.

1) Did you step out to see this evening’s super blue moon? Do it! In spite of the clouds, the perfection of the moon’s circle seemed specially emphasized. In the words of the late Addison DeWitt, “A dull cliché.” But there it is. I can only report what I see.

1a) Unsurprisingly, all my photos turned out badly.

2) We had The Arrow Book of Ghost Stories when I was a boy, and I’ve never forgotten “The Wonderful Cat of Cobbie Bean:” “Cobbie Bean, Cobbie Bean! When there is a ring around the moon, go to the hobblebush, and there wilt thee find happiness.”

2a) So there would be a ring around the moon tonight — but what the hell is a hobblebush, and why didn’t I plant one?

3) Luna is a fickle mistress, always changing. But when she is beautiful — round, gleaming, full of icy promise — she is a mysterious comfort.

Tuesday Evening, 29 August -- Reading

1) I’ve sort of put aside everything I’ve been reading to devour Bogie and Bacall, William J. Mann’s new double biography (which he himself signed for me at East End Books in Provincetown about a month ago). In five sections — Humphrey, Bogie, Betty, Bogie and Baby, and finally Lauren — all the myths and legends are cleared away to present the facts, which are not always very nice.

1a) I had seen Bogie in Petrified Forest with Leslie Howard and Bette Davis, but I had no idea it was his breakout film and his breakout Broadway show (also with Leslie Howard).

2) But this afternoon, on impulse, I put Betty Bacall aside for the script of Dinner at Eight, heaven knows why. If I was ever to go back on stage I’d love to do Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler is perfection in the movie) . . . but whaddya know, all but one of her good scenes, and a couple of her best lines, are not in the Broadway script! In fact the whole play is much darker. Almost nothing gets resolved as it does in the film.

2a) The script included the original cast, so you can imagine my joy learning that Carlotta Vance had been created by my beloved Constance Collier. Other surprise casting include Cesar Romero as the evil chauffeur Ricci, Sam Levene as Max Kane, the theatrical agent (I learned a lot about him from Harold Kennedy’s memoir No Pickle, No Performance; Levene is famous for playing the producer in Moss Hart’s Light Up the Sky), and Gregory Gaye as Gustave the butler. He turns up in Casablanca as the German banker Rick won’t let in the back room, and also pops up in Ninotchka, I Wake Up Screaming, and as the murdered two-timing baritone in Charlie Chan at the Opera.

3) A couple weeks ago I woke up with the surprising revelation that, if I knew I was going to die in a couple weeks, I’d start throwing out all the unread books in this house. And it was a relief to consider it! But then . . . what would I prop my laptop on for Zoom calls?

Tuesday Morning, 29 August -- Random Stimuli

1) Conventional wisdom decrees that, when there is leftover broccoli, it goes into soup. I’ve always managed to ignore that, but yesterday there was too much leftover broccoli to ignore. Happily for me, the NYT Cookbook my friend Maria gave me in 1996 had a cream of broccoli soup recipe in it that was simple enough even for me. By leaving out the ingredients not on the South Beach (carrots, macaroni) and doubling the garlic, I ended up with a superb cold and savory soup.

1a) The success of something like this involves having a meaningful relationship with your food processor or blender — which I don’t really. But at least I kept the soup from turning my kitchen into a Jackson Pollock canvas.

2) Twice in the last four days on my brisk, vigorous walks through the cemetery I’ve come across the large tail feather of a hawk — or perhaps of one of the cemeturkeys, but I’m not getting close enough to either to judge. Naturally I brought them home, where they live in the vase of pencils atop the piano. Who knows, perhaps I’ll collect enough to create a fan like the eagle feather fan Countess Olenska carries to the opera in The Age of Innocence.

2a) I always see something new when I go to the cemetery, and on another of these walks it was a tiny child’s gravestone, topped by a star with the child’s name underneath, Stella. “Stella for star!” cries Blanche DuBois when she sees her sister again in A Streetcar Named Desire! You see how my mind works — always looking for symbolism and Golden Age Hollywood references.

3) An IG reader and friend asked what my favorite hymns were, which reminded me of John Wesley’s Directions for Singing, which include the deathless and exuberant instruction “Sing lustily and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan.” [Emphases mine.]

Three of the cemeturkeys, making a rare appearance in the section of the cemetery I call the Diaspora.

Saturday Morning, 26 August -- Devotionals

Trying to reestablish a morning devotional as an unswerving part of my routine, these were the readings that came to me from the two dozen or so books on that shelf. Several of them really hit home today, but for different reasons:

1. Psalm 88, which begins “O Lord god of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee;” and includes the verse “Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the shadow of death.”

2. A Year with C.S. Lewis, a daily devotional Mother gave me (and which she used herself every day). Today’s reading was from the Screwtape Letters (which was one of Daddy’s favorites), in which “Screwtape offers more advice on the value of daily annoyances in trapping a Patient.”

3. The Calamus Poems by Walt Whitman, stanzas 22 and 23, which include “I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when I sit alone. . . I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again . . .”

4. The Art of Worldly Wisdom, by Baltasar Gracian, number 3, “Keep matters in suspense,” which includes “Once declared, resolutions are never esteemed, and they lie open to criticism. If they turn out badly, you will be twice unfortunate. If you want people to watch and wait on you, imitate the divinity.”

5. “Training Your Mind to be Ready for Insight,” by Scott McDowell, in Manage Your Day-to-Day, which ends “. . . preparing for insight is all about being persistent, throwing a wrench into the works from time to time, and always working to stay one step ahead of complacency.”

6. And I always conclude with Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, by Mason Currey. Today’s entry was Umberto Eco.

Sunday Evening, 13 August: Twenty Years Ago Today

1) Twenty years ago today I became a homeowner. From the closing I remember a stare-down between the attorneys (mine won), and the momentous feeling of being given a manila envelope with all the keys. I stayed there that night on an inflatable mattress reading a new biography of Edith Head.

1a) Happily I had two weeks to move from my South End apartment to Maison Robaire, during which time I was able to have a No More Beige party to celebrate leaving behind the beige walls of rentals forever. A friend had to diaper her baby girl on the floor (because all the furniture was gone at that point) — a baby girl who has now graduated from high school.

1b) The most terrifying moment of the move, possibly of my entire time here, was when the movers arrived with Gramma’s piano. I swear they nearly dropped it three times getting it up the front stairs!

2) In the intervening years I’ve had four roommates (the last one moved out in 2017) and a succession of upstairs neighbors, including a period when there were five children under the age of six living upstairs. In general we have all gotten along very well, for which I am very grateful.

2a) Crises, we’ve had a few. Just about every hot water heater in the building has burst once. A middle-of-the-night leak into one of my bedroom closets led to the the discovery that we had the last tar and gravel roof on the block — and a new roof. An exterior paint job displaced chocolate-brown and white with sage green and cream accented with Caliente Red. We’ve had adventures with falling tree limbs during wind storms. When we discovered that squirrels (!) were getting inside the walls, my determined third-floor neighbor set up cameras to figure out how they were doing it. The answer: leaping from a nearby tree and getting in through a poorly-secured chimney or something on the roof. With the tree cut down and the access point sealed, we found out that two of them were still inside when they gnawed their way out via the third-floor cornice!

2b) What’s absolutely wonderful now is that my third-floor neighbor’s mother, recently retired, has adopted our garden as a project, and it looks fantastic. Never have we looked so clipped and spruce! Happily my large plot of pink lily-of-the-valley remains. Started from half a dozen that my friend Olive gave me in 2005, it’s now something like six to nine square feet.

2c) I renovated the bathroom about ten years ago (an adventure), and of course the kitchen was completely done over during the pandemic. (Start reading about that adventure here.)

3) My guest book is full of signatures (and a few drawings) from parties, dinners, drop-ins, road race open houses, and Poverty Pastas. Like my Granny Dimmick, I love having people around.

3a) Two friends were here for dinner last week, and one said to me “I was worried about you during the pandemic being cut off from people.” The simple fact is that I love to be in my house, and during the pandemic I was completely content starting the Dress Dinner Challenge and keeping up with people via technology.

4) Twenty years ago this was the first of three momentous life events that came within three months: buying a home, changing jobs, and turning 40. I hope I’ll still be here 20 years from now, when I turn 60.

Friday Morning, 4 August: At Random

1) A Flickr friend posted a photo he took today at Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, which reminded me that I was there exactly a year ago today. That was such an amazing trip. It feels forever ago, not just a year.

1a) And it was so hot that day! Today in Boston is the antithesis of that blazing Barcelona sun: grey and cool, lightly breezy, with the promise of rain later.

2) A few weeks ago there was an article in the NYT about Emma, Duchess of Rutland, chatelaine of Belvoir Castle, and her podcast Duchess. The last two weeks I’ve been bingeing the podcast, and it’s quite good. The daughter of a Welsh farmer, Duchess Emma interviews other chatelaines of Stately Homes to find out how they’re run and how each one experiences living and working in heritage. If That Sort of Thing, particularly horticulture and tourism, interest you, I’d strongly recommend it.

2a) Coincidentally, one of the books I bought in London back in May, The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey, is all about Belvoir and the current Duke’s grandfather, who died while purging the archives of some family secrets. While it could have been condensed by about 50% (just tell us!), it’s quite a good book.

3) Some people have the analytical talent of asking just one small question — and it makes you think about more that just an outcome you desire. I suggested something about [Insert Item of National News Here] to an online friend this morning who asked me “Who does that benefit?” And it really brought me up short, in a good way.

3a) This is similar to “management by influence,” which is often how I had to finesse reunion committees out of bad decisions — but it’s a skill I possess in only the narrowest terms. My point is, I admire those who can express it more calmly and farsightedly.

The western, or Passion, façade of Sagrada Familia.

Bastille Day 2023: Recommended Viewing

1) J’adore le quatorze juillet, and there are a few film clips it is always refreshing to view. First up, this snippet from near the end of a famous French film, Le Collier de la Reine (1946), in which Marie Antoinette finally figures out what’s to come. The entire film used to be up on Yewtybbe, but all I can locate now is this clip.

2) A few years before, Hollywood gave us its version, Marie Antoinette (1938) starring Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power. Someone once asked a famous actor — I think it was Spencer Tracy — for some advice about acting. His response: “Don’t get caught.” Alas poor Norma, she gets caught in every scene! No wonder she’s better remembered for The Women. But the supporting cast is amazing: John Barrymore as Louis XV, Gladys George as La DuBarry, my beloved Anita Louise as the Princesse de Lamballe, Joseph Schildkraut as the Duc d’Orléans (he also appears in The Rains Came), and Robert Morley as Louis XVI. Who knew, he was nominated for an Oscar for this, and it was only his second film!

2a) Sorry, Squarespace won’t let me link to the Internet Archive the same way it will to the Yewtybbe.

2b) This film is based on Stefan Zweig’s biography Marie Antoinette: Portrait of an Average Woman, one of the books I discovered and still have from Boston Book Annex, a favorite haunt in college. A Freudian approach of her life, I vaguely remember that it was later discovered he omitted facts that disproved his thesis. But his descriptive powers are magnificent. Later today I will reread his account of her trial and execution, as I often do.

2c) Production Code censorship required the writers to gloss over the most basic elements of the story (Louis XVI being unable to consummate the marriage, the adulterous affair between Antoinette and Axel Fersen, etc.) which really limits is. And the second half quite frankly plods. So if you don’t feel like watching the second half, I’ll forgive you.

3) Finalment, the beloved rendition of La Marseillaise in Casablanca (1942).

3a) And actually finally, my favorite French phrase ever.

Independence Day 2023: Three Videos

1) My tradition the last few years is to read the Declaration of Independence aloud, and you should, too. Here’s this year’s reading.

2) Forty years ago tonight — Monday, July 4, 1983 — Gramma and I were watching Morley Safer interview Vladimir Horowitz on 60 Minutes when he began to play “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” He hadn’t played it in at least 20 years, and when he stopped we were both so sad. He sounded wonderful to us! (Skip to 10:51 to hear it.)

2a) By the end of the month Gramma had died. I am so grateful to this day that I got to spend as much time with her as I did that summer.

3) John Adams suggested that our National Day “ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.” I couldn’t care less about the games, sports, and guns part, but “The Stars and Stripes Forever” as arranged by Morton Gould for eight pianos and 16 hands covers everything else. Maybe, as Salieri suggested in Amadeus, I just need “a good bang at the end of songs to . . . know when to clap,” but there is nothing more glorious than the sparkling cataract of this finale.

Sunday, July 2: Southern Sweep, Day Last: Winging Homeward

1) MARTA had a stop two blocks from the hotel, with a ticketing system very similar to New York’s. On the plus side, a train going to the airport arrived as I was stepping off the escalator. On the minus side, I was panhandled as soon as the doors closed. Half an hour later I arrived at the airport.

2) En route to the airport, I finished The Picture of Dorian Gray. Much is made of seeing the “before” and “after” versions of the portrait, but I confess I would like to see a painting of Dorian’s last encounter with his portrait — and what happened after. That might be splendid.

3) I’m so used to security at Logan Airport I was unprepared for the sheer volume of people funneled through at the Atlanta airport. And in that process, a novelty: walking two abreast through an enclosure containing a TSA employee with a K-9 security dog frisking about.

4) My flight to PHL left over an hour late due to “maintenance issues we took care of on the ground,” and I was mostly resigned to missing my connecting flight. We had a wee bit of turbulence outside the plane — and a screaming child inside, two rows ahead of me — so you can imagine how pleased I was to learn I could make my connection in 20 minutes, as arrival and departure gates were nearby.

4a) It’s interesting, one has no sympathy at all for a screaming child one cannot see. One is more likely to be concerned for a child one can see.

5) Another child impacted my second flight, sitting by the window next to his mother. As soon as the beverage cart was anchored firmly in place right by our row and I had poured a full cup of club soda, the mother asked the flight attendant, “And can he go to the bathroom?” Logistically, I am already thinking that I will have to empty my tray table and stow my book, all while holding a full glass of club soda as well as the can. As it happened, we all had to wait until all rows near us were served, and I feared the young person might be too late! But it all worked out successfully.

6) During both flights I managed to get through both Lady Windermere’s Fan and Salomé. During moments of turbulence I was able to fall back in my mind to waltz music from the 1949 Hollywood version of the former, The Fan, with Jeanne Crain, George Sanders, Richard Greene (swoon), Richard Ney (also swoon), my beloved Martita Hunt as the Duchess, and the incandescent Madeleine Carroll as Mrs. Erlynne.

6a) Salomé, of course, called forth visions of Alla Nazimova’s beautiful and deranged silent film, with costumes based on Aubrey Beardsley by Natacha Rambova (also the mastermind of her husband Rudolph Valentino’s career). Salomé is every spoiled wealthy woman everywhere who thinks it’s OK to command whatever she wants, no matter how depraved. It would be interesting to set this in the Hamptons or Scottsdale.

7) Back on the MBTA. On the plus side: almost no wait times — a rarity these days! On the minus side: while sitting at State Street waiting for my train, a janitor asked me to stand for a moment so he could sweep up an abandoned hypodermic needle under the bench.

8) Walking home from the station, I realized this weather could be described as Louisianian: humid, hazy, and soft, but much cooler than the fierce days I’d just experienced.

9) In my luggage: chicory coffee from Niece Who Must Not Be Tagged, moon pies from Diane (she insisted I squeeze a box into my luggage), Mother’s bride’s book, and a hefty sheaf of large photos and other ephemera. All proof of a wonderful week reconnecting with family and friends.

Saturday, July 1: Southern Sweep, Day Seven: Atlanta

1) Tea is the dominant caffeine at Jane’s house, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t coffee for me after all. And my God, it would raise the dead!

2) My Scorpio horoscope read: “Today the stars advise you to get back into the swing of things, Scorpio. You will forget your past frame of mind and be able to prepare for a new adventure. Your vitality will be as strong as it has ever been. You will probably meet someone who has a beneficial influence in the days to come.” [emphasis mine] “Vitality” became a byword of the day, Jane continuing to tempt me back to Atlanta at some date in the near future.

2a) Three possible people could “someone who has a beneficial influence . . .” Who is it?

3) We promenaded at a gentle pace through Piedmont Park near Jane’s place — first encountering a tediously long line of scooters (Atlanta seems to be afflicted with scooters; I hope a course of antibiotics will take care of it), but then beautifully rolling green spaces, and then a glorious fully open magnolia blossom.

3a) This of course let me to remember the bit from Clemence Dane’s monumental novel The Flower Girls — I know, you were thinking of it, too! — when Jacy sees a woman who turns out to be his Aunt Myrtle in a vintage moviehouse holding a branch of magnolia blossoms “as upright as an acolyte’s candle.” (I had to look it up to get the quote exact; here it is.)

3b) We also encountered Muscovy ducks, which Jane was delighted I recognized. Familiar to me from childhood visits to our camp on the Toledo Bend reservoir.

4) I then transferred to my hotel for the final night of my Southern Sweep, and about 15 minutes after I got established, the final family member I had hoped to see showed up: Oldest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged. He sacrificed his morning to drive into the city for lunch with his Old Neglectful Guncle, and it was a real pleasure to sit in the shade by the hotel pool and have lunch at talk, mostly about his life in Georgia, plans, family, and other interests.

4a) I have remarked so many times “Children grow up but we stay the same.” Oldest Nephew still has the vocal rhythms and cadences I remember from his childhood, which provided me happy memories.

5) The algorithm brings people together, and apart. On ye Ynstygrymme a couple years ago, the algorithm suggested I follow a well-dressed Georgian academic with an interest in both suiting and horticulture. Since that time we have had many interesting discussions — which led to the pleasure of meeting Tom in person at last for cakes and coffee at Café Intermezzo (which Jane assured me was one of the best venues in Midtown). Aside from suiting, we were able to turn our attention to Oscar Wilde, summer travel past and future, pastry, gardening, books (of course), and — well, conversation is so ephemeral! Who can remember all the details?! What remains is the atmosphere of cultivation and friendship.

6) In the evening, my brain starting to wind down and wander home, I dined at the hotel bar, which managed to provide a menu both limited and pricey. Neither of those things are what I really look for in a menu. Now I love a good bacon cheeseburger, and I love thick-cut bacon. But . . . all I can say is, Etiquetteer was aghast watching me bite into a cheeseburger and having an entire strip of bacon come out because it was too thick to be chewed easily. Awkward.

7) About 9 PM, just as I was finishing dinner, Jane texted “Are you free?” Fifteen minutes later she was with me at the bar, and we continued our wonderful conversation, and expanded it even into the realm of Myra Breckinridge, and a possible Etiquetteer connection.

8) And, to quote Mae West as Leticia Van Allen “The end of another busy day!”

9) But who is the “someone who has a beneficial influence” I was to meet today? Is it Jane, who is percolating with plans for my increased engagement? My nephew, exploring his own path and an example to me of focus and discipline? Tom, with whom I expect to continue to have absorbing discussions on important topics? All three of them?

Friday, June 30: Southern Sweep, Day Six: Atlanta

1) After nine hours of solid sleep, I wrote my morning pages by the grey-gold sunlight coming through Diane’s dining room windows with a cup of hazelnut coffee. For a couple hours I had to the house to myself and caught up on yesterday’s doings and the news.

2) It’s wonderful sometimes to have nothing definite on the schedule and to be able to move at a relaxed pace. When Diane joined me we had some good coffee talk while she prepared two dainty breakfast trays of frittata, fruit salad, and croissants. We chattered over breakfast about everything, eventually being joined by her housemate Michael.

2a) Conversation whirled and eddied like the water of a stream, never really remaining with any one topic for very long, and sometimes bringing new things from unexpected currents.

3) Before I knew it it was practically 11 AM! We completed our morning tasks and then Diane showed me some wonderful photo albums of her favorite places. Then we had to take a picture with her celebration tree, an all-year all-celebrations aluminum Christmas tree that used to belong to her mother. I just love it.

4) In Boston people talk about snow shoveling and parking. In Palm Springs they talk about pool maintenance and irrigation. And in Atlanta they talk about traffic. And now I’ve had a true taste of it, I see why. Diane sweetly and generously drove me into town, and the interstate is a true molasses roadway.

4a) Diane dropped me at my destination, my friend Jane’s, and sadly had to return to Hapeville immediately. And I had so wanted to take her to lunch, but I bravely and affectionately bid her farewell. Of any of my cousins she is a true real and pure Ray of Sunshine, and I absolutely adore her.

5) The skies of Atlanta appeared as dark and foreboding as the news from the Supreme Court, so I felt no guilt at all about settling myself and not investigating Atlanta and just reading and napping.

6) Jane arrived, and there was much rejoicing. We had not seen each other since our 40th high school reunion last October. Before that, we had not seen each other since roughly 1986. The average gap between our meeting is reducing dramatically, and Jane is actively conspiring to reduce it further. Over drinks — and then dinner at Pasta da Pulcinella — she gave me some of the lowdown on Atlanta cultural life.

6a) Near the end of dinner, chatting with the waiter, we told him we went to Interlochen — and it turns out he’s in the theatre department at NYU!

Anton Walbrook as the attractively sinister Boris Lermontov in The Red Shoes.

7) Back in October I had sold Jane on the idea of seeing The Red Shoes. So while the Atlanta sky faded to black we were absorbed in Powell and Pressburger’s masterful, colorful, modern retelling of the old Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. It will always be a favorite movie of mine, in part because I do see something new every time I see it.