POCKETS: AN INTIMATE HISTORY….
WE’VE ALL GOT THEM—EVEN WOMEN THESE DAYS. But, as Alexandra Jacobs says in The New York Times Book Review, “In her nifty ‘Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close,’ … Continue reading
GEORGIAN OUTRAGE!
BRITISH HISTORIAN EMILY BRAND has a keen sense of humor—make that “humour”—in BBC History, September 2023. She shares “The scandals of the gossip-hungry Georgian era” in a modern Brit format. … Continue reading
WEAVNG A LIFE OF ART: DOROTHY LIEBES
FIBER ARTS HAVE FASCINATED BOTH Wife Dottie ( “We Keep Sheep, Y’Know”) and Daughter Suz (“On Stage at Scripps College”). Thus I was interested to read Katherine Roth describing “An … Continue reading
MY MY FAIR LADY PART 2
YESTERDAY WE SAW Pygmalion evolve from Greek legend to George Bernard Shaw play to Leslie Howard/Wendy Hiller movie to Broadway’s My Fair Lady and its Hollywood flick to my entertaining … Continue reading
MY MY FAIR LADY PART 1
I’M ENJOYING MY FAIR LADY on Turner Classic Movies in multiple viewings: Conveniently enough, the first one coincided with the closing notes of “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” the second one … Continue reading
NOT SO SILENT
MY FAVORITE TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES are from the pre-Code Thirties, though I confess to enjoying the occasional silent film. Indeed, a couple of the latter are real keepers having been … Continue reading
YOU CAN COUNT ON US
I’M TALKING ABOUT THE CENSUS, not just matters of communal reliance. Indeed, John Lanchester offers 6500 words in “Get a Rabbit,” London Review of Books, September 21, 2023. Here are … Continue reading
TIN PAN ALLEY
NEW YORK CITY’S TWENTY-EIGHTH STREET between Fifth and Sixth Avenues is the legendary Tin Pan Alley, the center of American popular music at the turn of the century. (That old … Continue reading
THE THEATRICAL PRINTS OF THE TORII MASTERS
“CREDIT FOR THE BEGINNING OF KABUKI,” Howard A. Link recounted, “goes to a female shrine dancer from Izumo named Okuni. Around 1600, the very year of Hideyori’s defeat by Ieyasu, … Continue reading
L.J.K. SETRIGHT’S TIMESCALE PART 2
WE’RE CELEBRATING THE WIDE TALENTS of L.J.K. Setright, as exemplified in his Timescale, a multifaceted timeline in his Drive On! A Social History of the Motor Car. Leonard John Kensell … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 