Talking heads

 The commonality of a language. Here are some of the building blocks of that language.



Film History by Decade: 100 Years of Movies written and edited by Tim Dirks

 Anna Christie (1930), 86 minutes, D: Clarence Brown

Film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play. One of the earliest talkies, noted for the film in which silent star Greta Garbo first speaks. Her first line of dialogue: "Gimme a viskey..." Garbo plays an ex-prostitute who returns home to locate her barge captain father. She falls in love with a seaman (Charles Bickford), and must tell him and her father about her past.

Blonde Venus (1932), 92 minutes, D: Josef von Sternberg

A camp classic. Helen Faraday (Marlene Dietrich), a cabaret singer, is also a loving mother and wife who sells herself to nightclub owner and wealthy playboy Nick Townsend (Cary Grant) in order to pay for her scientist husband Edward's (Herbert Marshall) medical bills so that he can go for treatment in Europe. Her husband is an American chemist dying of radium poisoning. Upon his return from treatment, he discovers her liaison with Townsend and files for divorce and custody of their son Johnny (Dickie Moore). In the end, her husband realizes that her sacrifice was for his cure, and they are reconciled.

Grand Hotel (1932), 112 minutes, D: Edmund Goulding

An MGM all-star classic film and soap opera - Best Picture-winning film. World War I is over, and Berlin's beautiful, art-deco Grand Hotel is busy with the intersecting lives and destinies of its glamorous guests in a 24-hour period. The dramatic ensemble cast includes a weary, unloved and lonely ballerina Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo), a financially-destitute nobleman and jewel-thief Baron Felix von Gaigern (John Barrymore) who she falls in love with, a sexy hotel stenographer Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford) who meets a dying clerk Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) searching for a last fling, and a crude industrialist Gen. Director Preysing (Wallace Beery).

Dinner at Eight (1933), 113 minutes, D: George Cukor

A star packed classic masterpiece. A Park Avenue snob Mrs. Oliver Jordan (Billie Burke) invites an assortment of guests to come to a formal dinner party, ignoring the ailments of her husband (Lionel Barrymore). From the time of the invitations to the actual dinner party, vignettes tell the story of the invited individuals, including forgotten stage star Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler), fading matinee idol Larry Renault (John Barrymore), and the battling Packard couple including brassy blonde Kitty (Jean Harlow) and entrepreneur Dan (Wallace Beery)

I'm No Angel (1933), 87 minutes, D: Wesley Ruggles

One of Mae West's funniest films. The star of a side show act is carnival dancer and lion tamer Tira (Mae West). She pursues playboy Jack Clayton (Cary Grant), but later sues him for breach of promise. In the hilarious courtroom scene, he counters by assembling all her ex-lovers, but then allows her to win the case.

Little Women (1933), 117 minutes, D: George Cukor

Regarded as the best of all versions. A delightful and faithful screen adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's classic American story of the March sisters and the sorrows and joys of the New England family. Father March has gone off to fight in the Civil War, so the family is left with four very independent sisters who are all coming of age, including an outstanding Katharine Hepburn as tomboy Jo, who wants to be a writer. Each of the sisters finds independence and strength, and some find romance.

Cleopatra (1934), 102 minutes, D: Cecil B. DeMille

DeMille's extravagant production of the spectacular historical epic of the Egyptian Queen of the Nile. Seductive, mysterious, and voluptuous Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert) flirts openly with Roman lovers. After the death of Julius Caesar (Warren William), she focuses her attention on Marc Antony (Henry Wilcoxon).

Imitation of Life (1934), 106 minutes, D: John M. Stahl

The film adaptation of Fannie Hurst's melodramatic novel. A sentimental soap opera about an ambitious widow/working girl Beatrice Pullman (Claudette Colbert), her daughter Jessie (Rochelle Hudson at age 18), her black housekeeper/maid Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers), and her maid's daughter Peola (Fredi Washington at age 19) whose light complexion enables her to pass for white. Beatrice goes into a successful pancake restaurant business with Delilah. The film deals with disappointments in personal relationships and questions of identity and racial confusion.

The Thin Man (1934), 93 minutes, D: W.S. Van Dyke

Based on the Dashiell Hammett detective story. The first (and considered the best) in the entertaining series of six films, the debut of the charismatic, beloved team of Powell/Loy as the suave, sophisticated, happy, and fun-loving detective couple. Retired police detective Nick (William Powell) and wealthy wife Nora Charles (Myrna Loy), with the help of their dog Asta, are asked to investigate the disappearance/murder of Dorothy Wynant's (Maureen O'Sullivan) missing father, screwball inventor Clyde Wynant (Edward Ellis). With witty dialogue, clever bantering between the two, wisecracks, sophisticated humor, romance, and an intriguing plot.

The 39 Steps (1935), 87 minutes, D: Alfred Hitchcock

One of the all-time great thrillers, Hitchcock's first great masterpiece. In London, a visiting/vacationing Canadian rancher Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) attends a Palladium vaudeville act. When a shot rings out, he ends up in the company of a frightened woman, a female British agent Miss Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim). He is given a map of Scotland and told about an international spy ring (with vital national security secrets) run by a man missing part of one finger. Sheltering her for the night, she is murdered, and he finds himself as an innocent man who must avoid police authorities (who suspect him of the murder) and avoid pursuit by spies (who want to silence him). He takes on her mission, and following the only clues he has, ends up in Scotland. On the way, he is handcuffed by the spies to a strange woman Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), who at first hates him believing he is a criminal, but ends up in love with him and helping him solve the case.

Camille (1936), 110 minutes, D: George Cukor

The film version of Alexander Dumas' novel, with Greta Garbo's greatest performance in one of the best romantic films of all time. Marguerite, "lady of the camellias" (Greta Garbo), a lovely Parisian courtesan (prostitute) is a kept woman by wealthy Baron de Varville (Henry Daniell). She falls in love with Armand (Robert Taylor), a young innocent man, but then sacrifices herself for him when his father (Lionel Barrymore) asks her to give him up. With a classic, tearjerking death scene conclusion.

My Man Godfrey (1936), 94 minutes, D: Gregory La Cava

One of the first and best of the screwball comedies, a very zany, humorous classic. A group of extremely wealthy Park Avenue socialites holds a scavenger hunt, and one of the participants, ditzy blonde Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard) finds a "forgotten man" at the dump for her list of odd items. The down-and-out, unemployed and homeless bum Godfrey Parke (William Powell) is in fact a blueblood who has had a run of romantic bad luck, a product of the Depression. Back at the party in the hotel, he speaks to the crowd about the insensitivity of their quest. She gives him a job as the family butler and brings him home. In the wealthy, snobbish household, he attempts to set things straight, teaches them a few lessons, and ultimately marries Irene.


Now playing: Morrissey - That's How People Grow Up

Winter requisites

BLAAK HOMME - Goggle sunglasses

 WOOLRICH WOOLEN MILLS - Multi-pocket lumberjack jacket

 

BLAAK HOMME -Donkey jacket

 

LVC: LEVI'S VINTAGE CLOTHING - 1936 Type 1 jacket

 

 ISAAC SELLAM - Deer skin gilet

 VIVIENNE WESTWOOD - Banana jeans

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD - Low crotch cuffed jeans

 

  VIVIENNE WESTWOOD - Alcoholic check trousers

 

CHANEL  -  Coromandel

....an olfactory depiction of the lacquered Coromandel screens Mademoiselle cherished. Created by CHANEL Master Perfumer Jacques Polge in 2007, the elaborate scent unfolds in undulating detail, starting with an amber vibrato, followed by dry notes of Frankincense and Benzoin, then, soulful woody notes that add elegance and depth to the sensuous accord's striking trail.

Now playing: Nat King Cole - Autumn Leaves

Children!

Kevin Aviance - Freak It

They say It Gets Better. The truth is, it gets fucking amazing. One just needs to be open -  what is needed is not always the same as what is desired.

What'll it be, Four Roses, Old Grand-Dad or Wild Turkey?

Like I told the bartender in the last club of the night, Darlin' at this point it really dosen't matter.

Bourbon Glazed Chops

Bourbon - 3 fingers, 4 if you have small hands or glasses

Brown Sugar - 2 tablespoons

Grainy Mustard - tablespoon

Salt and Pepper

Marinate for an hour 

Pan fry in a heavy skillet, turning once and deglazing pan with the remaining marinade. Finish under a hot preheated grill.  Serve with a hearts of Romaine salad with blue cheese dressing.

Donna Hay's Blue Cheese Dressing

Blend:

• ¼ cup (75g) whole-egg mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons water
• sea salt and cracked black pepper
• 100g soft blue cheese, chopped

Now playing: Billie Holiday - One for my Baby

This too seemingly went unnoticed

 

The greenhouse with its trompe l’oeil murals by Fernand Renard.

 

A detail from the Renard mural. 

View of the arbor from the greenhouse

 The basket house replete with its painting by Georges Braque.

Mrs. Paul Mellon’s fabled Virginia estate, Oak Spring, photographed by Jonathan Becker

 Bunny Mellon’s Secret Garden  

by James Reginato

Vanity Fair, August 2010

Now playing: Dinah Washington - Blue Gardenia

Why?

Pink Cadillac by Natalie Cole

Mrs Blandings and Easy and Elegant Life can tell you.

Narry a whisper

Madame Schlumberger photographed by Eric Boman

Bob Colacello's The Wow of São has seemingly sparked little or no interest in cyberspace. Not one of the ravinshing details created by decorator Gabhan O'Keeffe has been swooned over or glommed onto. Surely the readers of the two or three remaining interiors magazines are the same audience as that of Vanity Fair? Perhaps Madame Schlumberger's rooms were simply too grand, too foreign, and too quixotic...

....nothing shocked Paris—a city where taste is everything—more than her over-the-top new apartment, on Avenue Charles Floquet in the Seventh Arrondissement. Conceived as a neo-Baroque fantasyland by the London decorator Gabhan O’Keeffe, it set São’s contemporary art and 18th-century furniture in a series of rooms that combined France with Portugal, Scotland with Persia, and Egypt with Hollywood. The pièce de résistance was the Andalusian-style terrace, with the Eiffel Tower rising directly above it. Dinner-party debates over whether O’Keeffe’s creation was “innovative” or “abominable” got so out of hand that at one soirée a pair of socialites had to be pulled apart before they came to blows. “It’s simply hideous,” said one visitor, “but totally fabulous!”

 She had more than taste. She had audacity. - Pierre Bergé

Eric Boman for Vanity Fair, October 2010

 The grand salon  photographed by Jean-Louis Garnell for Nest

Mme Schlumberger was living proof that there is more to being a Medici than simply money and influence.





Now playing:  Frank Sinatra - The Lady is a Tramp

This

Broken by Paola Navone for Richard Ginori

Clever and modern, yet charming.

Now playing: Annie Lennox - Walking On Broken Glass

Like sands through the hourglass

So are the gays of our lives.

On the far right, the most original eye I have ever known.




Now playing: Peter Gabriel - This is the Picture

I know it when I see it

Like charity, I believe glamour should begin at home. - Loretta Young

Now playing: Suzanne Vega - Solitude Standing

South of the border

Oval serving dish with a hand chased finish by L. Maciel

Tri-footed bowl with a flared serpentine rim

Serving tray by Sanborns

Down Mexico way, there is treasure to be found in silver. Even 20th century pieces have an old world feel and glamour to them.



Now playing: María Luisa Landín - Somos Diferentes

Tangents

American Late Victorian Mahogany Bombe Desk
Fourth quarter 19th century, the front with a kneehole flanked by a bank of drawers to each side and raised on turned legs, h. 29-1/2", w. 48", d. 30".

Found this wonderful desk in the current sale catalogue at St. Charles Gallery and could not stop thinking about how much it reminded me of the Pushmi-pullyu from Doctor Dolittle (1967). Talk about distant voices.

Now playing: I've Never Seen Anything Like It

It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.

So said Oscar Wilde.

Mary Ann in Autumn: A Tales of the City Novel by Armistead Maupin

...it's been 20 years since series anchor Mary Ann Singleton left her family and headed to New York. Maupin's San Francisco is comforting in its familiarity, and the gang is (mostly) all here, older, wiser, and settled in: Michael "Mouse" Tolliver is married to Ben; Shawna, Mary Ann's estranged daughter, is a popular sex blogger who is dating Otto, an enigmatic professional clown; and grand dame Anna Madrigal, once landlady to Michael and Mary Ann, is still kicking in her late 80s. Into this milieu returns Mary Ann, who ditched her husband and the young Shawna for a career in television. Now, nearing 60, she's back with news she can't bear to tell anyone but Michael. From the haven of his tiny garden cottage, Mary Ann regroups and confronts some uncomfortable chapters in her past.

The character of Mary Ann Singleton brilliantly played by Laura Linney

Now playing: Scott McKenzie - San Francisco
Fantastic clip - Mama Cass Eliot introduces McKenzie at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival

Never mind about the six feet, let's talk about the seven inches

Myra Breckinridge (1970), the screen adaptation of Gore Vidal's 1968 novel. Starring Mae West as Leticia Van Allen, John Huston as Buck Loner, Raquel Welch as Myra Breckinridge and Rex Reed as Myron Breckinridge. Directed by Mike Sarne.

Fabulously bizzare from start to finish.

Mae West sings You Gotta Taste All the Fruit to a go-go beat

Now playing: Cameo - She's Strange

Less may indeed be more...

Late spring's white peonies

Early summer's yellow and deep cerise peonies

High summer's dahlias

Last of the season's dahlias and a little tweek

But I find more is more, far more pleasing. And when the walls are finally done I shall be even more pleased.

Now playing: Madness - Our House

Explaining the manner of things

Gauguin: Maker of Myth - Edited by Belinda Thomson

Gauguin

Tate Modern

30 September 2010 – 16 January 2011

The first major Gauguin exhibition in Britain for 50 years.

I shut my eyes in order to see. - Paul Gauguin

Women of Tahiti, 1891

Musée d'Orsay

Teha 'amana has many parents, 1893

The Art Institute of Chicago

Two Tahitian Women, 1899

Now playing: Bali Ha'i

Women behind the wheel

Ulla Procopé (1921 - 1968), one of the unsung heroes that contributed to Arabia's golden age. Hired in 1948 to work in the factory's design department she proved herself in the development of ceramic forms. When in 1951, owing to ill health, she had to stop using the potter's wheel Kaj Franck included her in his product design team. Her interest in the design of utility objects now had to be focused on mass production. The GA teapots (1955–72) and the AL marmalade jar (1953 – 67) are among her best-known pieces.

GA teapot (1955 - 72)

Ruska (1960 – 1999), the extremely dense and solid stoneware service that had over thirty different pieces. Its toned glaze ensured that no two pieces of the service were exactly alike. This distinctively rustic, earthy and practical service came to be regarded as typical of Finnish ceramic design and became a huge export success.

Valencia (1960 – 2002), originally conceived as a fruit service consisting of a tray, plates and two candlesticks. Gradually the pattern was expanded into a complete dinner, coffee and tea service. Undoubtedly, the jewel in Procopé's crown.

Now playing: She Drives Me Crazy 12"mix - Fine Young Cannibals

Mrs Thadeus White

Imperial Masquerade: The Legend of Princess Der Ling by Grant Hayter-Menzies

The 2008 biography of the enigmatic highborn Eurasian author (Two Years in the Forbidden City being the best known of her seven books) who served as translator and lady-in-waiting to China's Empress Dowager Cixi.

Der Ling was a fascinating human battleground of warring identities, a victim of the hallucinogenic effects of too much publicity, much of it prompted by Der Ling herself, and a figure whose life provides a glimpse into one woman’s experience of living not just between two cultures—that of China and the West—but among many worlds: social, religious, moral, political.
- Grant Hayter-Menzies

Now playing: China Girl - David Bowie