amuse-bouche

Total Morning Killer ( TMK )

I am sure that where ever you are/ were this am, it was gloppy , snowy and a great big cold mud fest. ( Yes! visit the sparkling Finger Lakes of Upstate New York in the Spring time! ) Koda was out for an early business then back into bed with Neil he went.
I used this time to go down a massive BBC k-hole of

THE SUPERSIZERS GO/EAT

Just the very best tv show ever made!  It comes on Saturday nights on the food channel post TFL (  ) and I had only seen a few when this morning the idea hit me to just look on youtube : cue choirs of angles

The last 500 years of British history  food, morays and fashion ? Sign me up.....There are LOTS of shows so I really can not link, but a quick search on YT will get you there. IN LOVE with both of the hosts. 

really cute picture of me

shameless

yet another March surprise!

 We had movie night tonight, between the two films ( J. Edgar* and Contagion - neither all that great...), I took Koda out and SURPRISE!

WINTER!

 It kept snowing after these photos, 

got to 2-3 inches.

It may not be there by morning...

* Clint Eastwood and Dustin Lance Black want us to think that J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson were in a relationship for like 40 years, more or less living as a couple BUT ... were chaste????? It was a very confusing film. Someone like me should NEVER EVER watch a movie like Contagion.

T.G.I.F.

A very sure sign of Spring

The swallows to Capistrano, the buzzards to Hinkley;

the pot-a-potties to Mendon!

Today was, everything we have crossed, the VERY last day of me feeling the effect of the early Spring pollen. We were out and about for our three miles today, and even though it was a little chilly, I was in shorts and Koda swam.

yes, but is it art ?

As you can see I took a wonderful 0:54 movie of Koda swimming yesterday! I know how much you all love those and may get around to putting it up on the youtube. But, thinking I  had stopped the camera after he has done his shaking and rolling, I just dropped it into my pocket, not knowing it was turned on. So, we get an 18:38 min film of us walking, all dark, because it is inside my pocket. I wondered why it was taking iphoto so long this morning as I went to download .... now I know.
I only watched a few min of the very artsy , Warholesque some would say, film, Then deleted the master work.. 18 min of video takes up lots of iphoto room...

Chilly, Rainy Grey

so we need a little sunshine :

Flotus n Bo

in the WH Kitchen Garden.

This will surprise you

good and good for you

A lovely little piece from THE ATLANTIC on Rochester's #1 tourist attraction. ( at least according to all of our guests ) via Dahn's facebook.

The Anti-Walmart : The Secret Sauce of Wegmans is People

( My pal Rich went straight soilent green on this one )

well, sure, but the flowers and music sucked

Tim is excited.

Really excited, really.

H.B. M.v.d.R.

The Google Doodle for the day, and from Huffpo.

Urban gay men everywhere thank you!

art + beat ( ish )

25+ Million

From todays NYT  : 

Visitors to the High Line, the elevated park on a formerly derelict rail line, might someday be greeted by a vision even more improbable than the park itself, which has become one of Manhattan’s top tourist draws: A massive locomotive dangling from a crane. The sculpture, by Jeff Koons, would be a full-size replica of a 1943 Baldwin 2900 steam locomotive. Called simply “Train,” it has not yet been fabricated. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has conducted its own feasibility studies for the project and is still exploring the possibility of acquiring the artwork, which is estimated to cost at least $25 million to create and install. But Mr. Koons, a polarizing artist whose most famous public sculpture is perhaps his 43-foot-tall flower-covered puppy, has recently been in talks with Robert Hammond and Joshua David, founders of the nonprofit conservancy Friends of the High Line. The group, which fought to save the railway from demolition and now manages the park, will honor Mr. Koons at its annual benefit in May. Mr. Hammond said that Friends of the High Line had long sought to highlight the park’s rail history. Once before, in 2008, the group considered the “Train” sculpture for a plaza at 10th Avenue and 18th Street, but the work was too big to fit there. “We’ve had a crush on the ‘Train’ for a while now,” Mr. Hammond said in a phone interview on Monday. “To me, it looks very industrial and sculptural. The craftsmanship that went into these industrial engines is quite beautiful.” The sculpture, to be constructed of steel and carbon fiber, would weigh several tons. It would also occasionally spin its wheels, blow a horn and emit steam. In a statement, Mr. Koons said, “The power and the dynamic of the ‘Train’ represents the ephemeral energy that runs through the city every day.” The one major obstacle is money. Friends of the High Line is focusing its energy on raising tens of millions of dollars to complete the third and final leg of the park. The last half-mile section, which hugs the West Side rail yards, runs west to 12th Avenue from 30th Street and 10th Avenue, and then continues north to 34th Street. Mr. Hammond said he hoped that a donor would step forward to sponsor the entire artwork, which could either hang permanently or for several years. ( the rest )

Related : Hurricane Irene to hit NYC.

Your own personal Mad Men

Me in 1966

dinner

 Koda, as always, helped me grill

Burgers

Tater Tots

Beans

fingers crossed

 Neil went out and covered a lot of his budding Irises, 

then told me a story about smudge pots in the Florida of his childhood.

So, I am a little bit worried about how I am going to spend my night.

He brought in a giant beautiful bouquet

so much more left in the yard.

Brenda , at some fancy party, with two people that I do not know

just because she looks so pretty!

all good things must end...

Summertime in mid-March came to a fast end this today. I had to get up and rummage for some covers early on this morning! Back on the trail in hat and gloves.
Did not keep Koda out of the water.



Neil's garden is looking so very good, all fingers crossed for tonight.....

"Join the Party!"

Youtube Fun

While searching for Zou bisou bisou, I came across 

THIS GEM 

Yes, she was a real woman.

WHY DON"T they teach these things in American schools!!!

The eastern world it is explodin'

Pour commencer la chanson est Zou bisou bisou.

The first OH, MY GOD! tv in a good long while!

They are back, tan , rested and ready to ..... well, be pissy, have grudge power sex, denigrate African Americans and WEAR lots of  COLOR!  Welcome to the Summer of 1966 kiddies, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore. Camelot has been left by the wayside as we barrel down the highway in our not -safe -at -any -speed Corvair headlong into Woodstock....

The Rapture of Don Draper

or
40 is the new 60

Our anti-hero has gone mod or mad, one of the two ( maybe both ). The perfect Hitchcockian ice blond Betty has been replaced with the red hot Simone Signoret. The 2.3 kids in happy Dick Van Dyke Show land in Ossining have become  the best Apartment in New York City since those Friends kids gave up that rent control in the Village, AND they have really really nice neighbors that don't care if you have a band. DON IS HAPPY ??!?!  How are we supposed to deal with this , and how did he get this way ? Can it last ?!? Do we want it too ? Don ran, as fast as he could from  that world of Betty and the house and kids, doing everything in his power ( sleeping with your kids teacher?!? )to get out. Trapped, scared, haunted by Dick Whitman, he did everything to escape what he always thought he wanted. Living only for work back in the day , well work and drinking - He seemed just fine last night to have a day with with nothing on his calandar all he needed was a most NSFW flash of his wife's boobies! ( he and the wife all but making a Dick Whitman joke!! )
Don and Dick both turned the big 4-0, to painful for the TWENTY FIVE year old new model Mrs. Draper to even say the word, could she be more different (on the surface) from Betty! Forty is 1966 was not the  skateboard riding, long short and hoodie wearing 40 of 2012, this was hard core starched buttoned down adult hood. Over the hill etc. AND, and as a gazillion gallons of ink and film have told us about to run face first into the second American Revolution' because like it or not Don, Madison Ave and all of the world, HERE COME THE BABY BOOMERS, nothing would ever , ever be the same.
You got a whiff of this when the bean man wanted something hip and new, " we want beans " on a protest sign. It is night and day in the ad world , from what Obie Award winning Don was to where the world is going:

Coca Cola mid-50's / mid-60's
"Things GO better with Coke", the world was on the go!

THE REST

in day glo colors!

It was 18 months for us, but less than a year for the folks there in MMW ( mad men world ) Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce has survived the exit of Lucky Strike staying afloat with Butler shoes foot ware and hopefully Heinz Beans, things are not great, but they are goodish. Somewhat of a secretary shortage - and loads of overtime, but we are on the upturn. 

Once BMOC Roger the old man of the story is left to pick off fresh Pete's leftovers, poaching leads and meetings at will, luckily for him he is sitting on all his daddy's hard earned money, so life is not really all that tough. Just like all the other kids there in the sixties, change and the good life can not come fast enough for old Don Draper Pete Campbell, riding the OTHER line of Metro North home to someplace north of Greenwich proper ( a full acre! ) , to a very Draper like Kitchen and a once lovely wife who will now be - HORRORS - be seen in public in a house coat.

Peggy is still Our Miss Peggy, still Protégé to Don , still with the Catholic weigh of the world on her shoulders but with an all the cute lefty boyfriend, and from the looks of things THE creative dept there at SCDP, and what? Boss of the Don's wife? That all seemed very awkward even from today's vantage... not seeing that work out...

smoking and a baby, who knew?!?

Joan is home, with the baby,( the full frontal baby! ) but soon to be roaring back... seems she and Roger are all just fine living in the great state of denial.
Lane had somewhat creepy 1060's very English phone sex. Stan still, thankfully, wears those tight shirts to the office. Harry is not the office super creep - and that is saying a lot.
We did not see the Francis' this episode, but we did see the outside of their HUGE new/ old home in very swell RYE, NY. Previews of catching up with them next week.

The Party

or 

Where was Holly Golightly ?

I had it in my mind the whole time that is was only 1965 and I said to Neil, " NOT that I would ever doubt Matthew Weiner, but I just do not think skirts were THAT short in '65... So, it's 1966 Design and fashion, all on crack . In was in for about 30 seconds till something new came along. Out with Betty's foundation garments, in with pure Mary Quant , I mean Megan's dress was really as short as a dress can go and not come with stirrups.
Negros, Gays and marijuana - all in one person! Things very much are changing, and yes, he was made fun of, but Ken " aspiring writer" Cosgrove was thrilled to go out and smoke a little "tea " with him. ( which seemed to surprise no one,but they had to " hide it from Don ".
Their apartment was a send up, caricature of everything the mid sixties was. I am looking everywhere for a screen cap of them sitting on the floor above the sunken living room, it was sublime! One thing that is a little shocking is how much that is all back in fashion right now, if not the over the top home look then very much the more staid office look. This is the current cover shot of the Mitchell Gold - Bob Williams site

Over look the white carpet, ( not really sure myself about THAT kind of sexual politics in 1966 or 2012, but I am , as always basically a Puritan ( with feminine wilds so lost on me ) but look at these clean lines, the " Happy Modern " the EXACT lamp, even dots... everything old is new again

So back they are, our Sunday nights have meaning again post Downton Abbey, and change is in the air! The time till next Sunday will go by slower than the last 18 months! More to come if I come across more photos....

A LITTLE KISS......

countdown

 mere hours....

From The New Yorker via Huffpo we get some

actual Mad Men era New Yorker ads

 pulled from the early Sixties

dinner

Pork Chop

Squash

Noodles

Cabbage

back in the saddle again

The days of startlingly perfect weather came to and end with some cooler temps and clouds today. I was back to being close to human , touch and go there for a while. So, poor neglected Koda was back on his trail!

 The temps for Monday Night are looking a little big scary for all the things that are in full bloom right now.....

FLOWERS!

I must be feeling better....

you missed a play date

more spring

 Today and yesterday were back to feeling like crap... early Spring, early allergies.

The less we talk about it, the better.

 The same run of SPECTACULAR weather means that 

Neil has been out in the yard dawn to dusk, it does look wonderful

 and this is all just the precursor to the big show to come

Frothy fires a few off

Listen very hard at the :36 mark. " Pretend it's Obama " , yells a woman in the crowd. Mr. Santorum - who DID NOT hear her, he is wearing protective gear - then goes on to fire much better.....
Frothy has Secret Service protection these days, we can only assume that the person who said this was taken in to answer a few questions.....

Good Morning Yesterday.

[commercial ]

Ya'll know from these frames, right?

 Your little darling k-12 and out the door. ALWAYS a horrible idea, always. No matter what the case , the day you glue #13 into place will seem like the blink of an eye, water under the bridge, too too fast ....

Well, breaking the rules,  here is one for all the gay boys out there: our little Madonna, all grown up  :

Billboard Magazine

via JMG :

50 ICONIC MADONNA LOOKS

1984- 2012

The symposium on
The Penn Era Eyebrows : yeah or nay
will be tomorrow at 10 a.m. followed by informal discussion groups of the exact dates of what surgery when, with dinner conversation about her upper arms .

2012

Dear White Male Fox News Watcher,
           No matter what you hear on your much beloved " news" channel, it is not ok to shoot unarmed 17 year old boys, doing nothing but walking to the store for some skittles at the half time of a basketball game, that he was watching with his father. Yes, it appears that Sean Hannity is telling you that " shit happens - move on " , and the Florida Legislature' along with then Governor Jeb Bush tells you that it is just fine. It is not. Nor, Geraldo is fashion a crime ( in this case )
                                                                                                                    Thank- you.

Magic

It is the 75th anniversary of the release of 1942's 

CASABLANCA

Our local theater , the one that shows the opera had a special viewing this afternoon, hosted by TMC's Robert Osborn. He was not there or anything, it was just a national feed.

I have seen this movie dozens of time, but seeing it on the big screen, in the exact original ratio was just WONDERFUL ! I think it may have been a somewhat longer print that is the  norm. We went with our pal Don and all three of it just LOVED the entire experience.



At some point in the late 70's I saw CITIZEN KANE at the [then] art house in Atlanta, The Screening Room. I remember just loving it so much. This is WAY pre TCM or even VCR's really. Now this today, what a great thing this might be for some theater someplace.

You get much more of a sense of time with in a theater, and that is something that you have to remember with CASABLANCA, this was the news, not just a movie. The war was raging in Europe and the Pacific as people went to the movies to try and forget their troubles, and there was, still in 41/ 42 no one was sure which was the war was going to turn out.
A little side bar : I love the fact that in 1941 Hollywood, Victor and Ilsa are running all over Europe , one foot ahead of the Germans, with LOTS of fabulous cloths, hats and gloves , and a change of evening cloths for him...

This is the original 1942 NYT movie review: ( some un-2012 language )

November 27, 1942

' Casablanca,' With Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, 

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

Against the electric background of a sleek cafe in a North African port, through which swirls a backwash of connivers, crooks and fleeing European refugees, the Warner Brothers are telling a rich, suave, exciting and moving tale in their new film, "Casablanca," which came to the Hollywood yesterday. They are telling it in the high tradition of their hard-boiled romantic-adventure style. And to make it all the more tempting they have given it a top-notch thriller cast of Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veldt and even Claude Rains, and have capped it magnificently with Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid and a Negro "find" named Dooley Wilson.

Yes, indeed, the Warners here have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap. For once more, as in recent Bogart pictures, they have turned the incisive trick of draping a tender love story within the folds of a tight topical theme. They have used Mr. Bogart's personality, so well established in other brilliant films, to inject a cold point of tough resistance to evil forces afoot in Europe today. And they have so combined sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue that the result is a highly entertaining and even inspiring film.

The story, as would be natural, has its devious convolutions of plot. But mainly it tells of a tough fellow named Rick who runs a Casablanca cafe and of what happens (or what happened last December) when there shows up in his joint one night a girl whom he had previously loved in Paris in company with a fugitive Czech patriot. The Nazis are tailing the young Czech; the Vichy officials offer only brief refuge—and Rick holds the only two sure passports which will guarantee his and the girl's escape. But Rick loves the girl very dearly, she is now married to this other man—and whenever his Negro pianist sits there in the dark and sings "As Time Goes By" that old, irresistible feeling consumes him in a choking, maddening wave.

Don't worry; we won't tell you how it all comes out. That would be rankest sabotage. But we will tell you that the urbane detail and the crackling dialogue which has been packed into this film by the scriptwriters, the Epstein brothers and Howard Koch, is of the best. We will tell you that Michael Curtiz has directed for slow suspense and that his camera is always conveying grim tension and uncertainty. Some of the significant incidents, too, are affecting—such as that in which the passionate Czech patriot rouses the customers in Rick's cafe to drown out a chorus of Nazis by singing the Marseillaise, or any moment in which Dooley Wilson is remembering past popular songs in a hushed room.

We will tell you also that the performances of the actors are all of the first order, but especially those of Mr. Bogart and Miss Bergman in the leading roles. Mr. Bogart is, as usual, the cool, cynical, efficient and super-wise guy who operates his business strictly for profit but has a core of sentiment and idealism inside. Conflict becomes his inner character, and he handles it credibly. Miss Bergman is surpassingly lovely, crisp and natural as the girl and lights the romantic passages with a warm and genuine glow.

Mr. Rains is properly slippery and crafty as a minion of Vichy perfidy, and Mr. Veidt plays again a Nazi officer with cold and implacable resolve. Very little is demanded of Mr. Greenstreet as a shrewd black-market trader, but that is good, and Mr. Henreid is forthright and simple as the imperiled Czech patriot. Mr. Wilson's performance as Rick's devoted friend, though rather brief, is filled with a sweetness and compassion which lend a helpful mood to the whole film, and other small roles are played ably by S. Z. Sakall, Joy Page, Leonid Kinskey and Mr. Lorre.

In short, we will say that "Casablanca" is one of the year's most exciting and trenchant films. It certainly won't make Vichy happy—but that's just another point for it.

Keep an eye out in your area to see if this comes , do yourself a big favor and GO!