et Cie

Some words look--and sound--so much prettier en francais.

Get Me To the Brooklyn Museum

Seriously. 

Have any gentle readers ever visited?

This ensemble is by my countryman, Scaasi, who also had quite a way with oversized organza poppies.

Madame Bovary: C'est Toi?

I am rereading Madame Bovary at the moment, and am always struck by how much Flaubert "gets" Emma, even as he critiques her.  (Madame Bovary: c'est lui, I know.)

Someone else who "got" Emma is Isabelle Huppert, pictured here in the title role. 

Although Flaubert's novel was a denunciation, in part, of the bourgeois attention to materialism, director Claude Chabrol knows how to implicate his audience in Emma's yearnings, as he photographs her beautifully in her increasing levels of finery.

The Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal

Long before I lived in Montreal, on Crescent Street, one of the most bustling shopping/cafe streets in town, I visited with my mother and grandmother.

My grandmother was known for taking fabled trips to Montreal, setting up shop in Ogilvy, the gracious department store, energing only to return to her equally gracious hotel, the Queen Elizabeth.

When she returned to the Island, she always brought me a little box, from the wonderful fudge shop beneath the hotel.  And so it was that I associated the Queen E, as Granny called it, with food: first fudge, later with sliced-chicken sandwiches, which I ate in the hotel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I was also introduced to a pastry cart in the Queen E's dining room, and remember well the lemon tart I sampled, some 36 years ago.

I also saw "The World's Greatest Athlete," starring Jan Michael Vincent, as a reward for being good in the shops all morning while my mother and grandmother tried on coats (an utterly tedious experience for a 3rd-grader and perhaps why I still dislike shopping so very much).

But the Queen E is famous for more than food and its proximity to fashion, for in June 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded "Give Peace a Chance" there, during their second bed-in (the first was in an Amsterdam Hilton).

I am not returning to Canada this summer, so I am extra wistful for my home.  Would that I could "give Queen E a chance" in person . . .

Miss America at the Beach

Although white swimsuits are traditionally best reserved for Miss America contestants (seriously), this Norma Kamali beauty might change my mind.

It would look lovely with a snug bathing cap (are there any other kinds?) or slick hair or Veronica Lake hair, or anything, really!

American Woman Exhibit: Everything Old Is New Again

from American Woman, Metropolitan Museum of Art

1895

from Ralph Lauren (in Vogue)

2010

Intermission

Gentle Readers, 

I have been immersed in final rehearsals for a play and will resurface after this weekend. 

In the meantime, here's a vintage postcard image of New York's Metropolitan Opera House to ponder . . .

xo Miss C