Now I finally know why my Father told me there was no way he was letting me go to College in Boston when I wanted to apply to Boston U all those years ago….
Category Archives: Style
How ballet changed the world | Need to Know
There’s a new biography out of Diaghilev that I’m dying to read. This makes me even more anxious to get to it….
From NPR…
“The night in May, 1909, when Diaghilev, the impresario, brought his troupe of musicians, dancers, designers, and choreographers to Paris and opened in a theater was the turning point for all the arts. Those brilliant colors and bold rhythms put an end to the paleness and primness of the early part of the century. Nothing has ever been the same since.”
That is Diana Vreeland, fashion designer and style icon, describing the way Ballets Russes took Paris by storm in the early years of the 20th century. When Sergei Diaghilev, a penniless Russian aristocrat, realized he would never be a great artist himself, he decided to become a patron, a collaborator, a catalyst. And through his passion and hard work, he attracted talent like Coco Chanel, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, Leon Bakst, Vaslav Nijinsky, to name just a few. Together they created ballets and operas that changed every facet of the art world, from music and dance to fashion and design.
Filed under Entertainment, Gay, Style, Theatre
Air rage: Is reclining your seat a right? – CNN.com
I can easily answer this question: Hell, No!
The airlines need to remove all reclining seats. I’m sick of someone taking what little space I have on a plane and having to look at their mottled head all the way across country.
Of course, if we taught people better posture and how to behave in public, we wouldn’t be having this conversation….
Of course, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if airlines treated people like people, instead of cargo, and actually gave them space and tried to make them comfortable…
But this is the real world….
(CNN) — The passenger in seat 9C was ready for a nap after takeoff, so he pushed the button on his armrest and reclined — straight into the path of someone who apparently wouldn’t have it.
Tensions grew quickly on the American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Denver on November 22, court papers show.
The incident adds fuel to a debate that seems to divide air travelers into two camps: those who say that reclining their seat on a plane is a right that comes when they buy a ticket and those who believe it’s a privilege that shouldn’t be abused.
As Brian Dougal leaned back on the Denver-bound flight late last month, he felt someone bump his seat, according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado.
“Are you serious? My knees are up against the seat,” said the man behind him, identified as Tomislav Zelenovic, according to the complaint.
Dougal suggested that Zelenovic also recline, slide into an empty seat next to him or move his legs to the side. Dougal told the man in 10C that he paid for his seat and was going to recline it.
Zelenovic then shook the back of Dougal’s seat and grabbed his right ear, pulling it back and down with enough force to knock Dougal’s glasses off his face, according to the complaint.
When the plane landed in Denver, police officers escorted Zelenovic off the flight. He was charged with assault “by striking, beating, or wounding on an aircraft” and has pleaded not guilty. Zelenovic’s attorney declined to comment on the case for this article.
Heated debate
Few arguments over reclining seats go that far, but as cabins grow more crowded and cramped, it’s easy to find eye rolling, seething frustration or downright resistance coming from behind travelers who choose to push the armrest button.
Steve Collins, an Australian broadcaster who runs the blog Grumpy’s Getaway Guide, argues that he shouldn’t have to put up with passengers who lean back and invade his personal space.
Chapter 45: The Help | My Southern Gothic Life
Yet another new post is up on my other blog.
Here is the beginning and a link to the full post:
I can’t encourage you enough to read the book “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett. If you haven’t read it, put it on your Christmas Wish List. If you have read it, give it to your friends.
I’ve never read a truer book about the interaction between black women who worked as Maids in the early 1960′s and their “white ladies.”
Although the book is set in Mississippi, it could very well have been set in Danville, Virginia. I remember those days too well.
People seem to already be forgetting that the South in those days, from Richmond to Mobile, was like South Africa under Apartheid. I was in South Africa in 1997 and felt just like I did in Virginia in 1965.
Everyone had a place and stayed in it. But the times were beginning to change…
In the 1960′s, the bus line ran near our house. The corner of Brook Drive and Lansbury Drive was a major stop for the Maids. Six or seven women would get off the bus around 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. and walk back down there to go home around 6:00 or so. Some of them wore their bedroom shoes to work as their feet were so tired and broken down from standing all day, all they could wear were scuffs.
Most of the White Ladies in Temple Terrace had maids. They didn’t have jobs, but they had Maids. I remember our “car pool” for Miss Touchstone’s Kindergarten, our Mothers would throw a London Fog all-weather coat over their pajamas to take us to “school” and only get dressed and made up around 4:30 before our Fathers came home from work. I don’t know what they did in the meantime…
Chapter 44: Christmas With the Grannies | My Southern Gothic Life
Another new post is up on my other blog. I’m rather prolific this week…
All the Christmas Drama and mayhem at our house was off set by the simplicity of Christmas at Granny’s.
By this I mean, my Mother’s Mother, not my Father’s Mother, who was safely packed away to the State Hospital for the Insane in Staunton and, later, Petersburg.
But we did have to go visit my Father’s Mother, Granny Susie, AKA Susan Catherine Rush Michaels, sometime around Christmas. This was always an ordeal.
This was before there was an Interstate Highway to Staunton, so we had to travel along winding mountain roads to get there. With not many restaurants or gas stations to stop.
A few times, my Great Aunts wanted to go along. Aunt Lily and Little Mary were her sisters and her brother Joe’s wife, Big Mary, usually went along, too. The one trip I remember was when we still had the station wagon- before Daddy flipped it coming home in an ice storm from Earl’s Bar and Grill. They were all lined up in the back seat in their black wool coats, hats and white gloves. Aunt Lily would always pack her lunch and refuse to share it. When I was about 5 or 6, I asked once and she told me I should have planned better.
Link to full Post: Chapter 44: Christmas With the Grannies | My Southern Gothic Life.
Filed under Danville, Holidays, My Journey, Social Commentary, Style, The South, Virginia
My Southern Gothic Life | Trying to Stay Sane in a Crazy Southern World…
New post up on my other blog:
When I was growing up in Danville, Virginia, decorating for Christmas was always a very big deal.
My Mother’s goal in life, for several years, was to win the Temple Terrace Women’s Club Home Decorating Contest. Even though she was President of the Club, for several years, she still never won. And she was not above “putting in the fix” if she could have figured out how to do so.
I was never quite sure what the Temple Terrace Woman’s Club did. All I know is my Mother was inordinately proud of the fact that they once voted on something by placing their ballots in one of her bronze trash cans and everyone commented on how clean it was. Thanks to the maid, I might add.
They also had a dish towel sale one year. I don’t know what it was supposed to benefit, but we had several cases of dish towels in our basement for several years. Some are still there even after 45 years…
Anyway, the whole production always began with her moving the previously mentioned cardboard fireplace into it’s place of honor in the basement. After she meaningfully told my Father that she hoped one day she would have a real fireplace, she would make him haul out all the other stuff.
MORE: My Southern Gothic Life | Trying to Stay Sane in a Crazy Southern World….
Filed under Danville, Gay, Holidays, My Journey, Religion, Social Commentary, Style
Style Rules – List of Men’s Style Basics – Esquire
This is wonderful….and accurate.
Thanks to my friend, John, for pointing me to this…
24 Essential Rules of Men’s Style
From how to pretend you’re dressing better than you are to how many socks you should own, these quick and funny tips will guide any man from bedroom to work and back
Filed under My Journey, Social Commentary, Style
New Evidence Proves First Flag Made By Betsy Ross Actually Shirt For Gay Friend | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source
I love The Onion:
PHILADELPHIA—Historians at the University of Pennsylvania announced the discovery this week of a personal diary from the late 18th century that reveals the first U.S. flag sewed by Betsy Ross was originally intended as a shirt for her flamboyant gay friend Nathaniel.
“This has completely upended the accepted narrative behind the first American flag,” said historian Kenneth Atwood, who led the team of scholars analyzing the long-forgotten journal of prominent Philadelphia homosexual Nathaniel Linsley. “Now we can say with certainty that our nation’s most enduring symbol of freedom, strength, and prosperity is actually just the result of Nathaniel’s desire for a sassy, tight-fitting top.”
“We’ve all been taught that the 13 stars and stripes of the first U.S. flag represented the original 13 colonies, but this is simply not the case,” Atwood added. “In fact, Nathaniel thought that stripes were slimming, and he just really, really liked stars.”
Filed under Entertainment, Gay, History, Style
The Weather Girls: “It’s Raining Men”
Another one of my favorite songs from my club days in the ’80’s…
It’s still on my iPod gym mix….
I wonder if they ever played this one at parties at Lambda Chi Alpha at Washington and Lee?
Filed under Entertainment, Gay, History, Music, My Journey, Style
Lost in the 21st Century 
“The Eight Reindeer Monologues”
If you are looking for some great, irreverent Holiday fun, I strongly suggest “The Eight Reindeer Monologues”, a play by Jeff Goode, at The Broach Theatre here in Greensboro, NC.
I don’t want to give away too much information, but let’s just say Santa may be guilty of sex crimes, Mrs Claus has a bit of a drinking problem and the reindeer have much more distinctive personalities than you may have suspected.
Excellent performances from all four actors-Jordan Hayes, Camilla Millican and especially stellar work from Lee Strickland and Tal Fish.
Go see it…It runs through December 18th. More information at www.broachtheatre.org.
You’ll never think of Santa and Rudolph the same way again..
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Filed under Entertainment, Gay, Greensboro, Holidays, North Carolina, Social Commentary, Style
Tagged as Christmas, Greensboro, Holidays, nc, theatre