Uncouth Reflections

Notes on “Finishing School”

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

This RKO production about young ladies making their way through a stuffy Manhattan finishing school tries its darndest to be a drag, particularly when it focuses on Frances Dee and her involvement with Bruce Cabot’s sturdy do-gooder. (He helps crippled children, if you can believe that.) But it’s worth watching for Ginger Rogers, who is captured at the height of her Ginger-ness. (The movie was released in 1934, around the time she became a superstar with “The Gay Divorcee.”) The screenplay provides her with plenty of opportunities to crack wise in her singularly dry manner. When she wants to impugn the quality of the men present at a chaperoned dance, she says, “If you took all the hair off their combined chests you wouldn’t have enough to make a wig for a grape.” Most of the repartee among the girls is nicely handled, with lots of camera movement and editing that is often a step ahead of your expectations. (Co-director George Nicholls, Jr. got his start as an editor.) In some ways it feels like a dry run for the classic “Stage Door,” which replaces the too-moist Dee with Katharine Hepburn, Rogers’ antithesis and an opponent she can really charge into. Towards the end of the movie Dee’s plight turns campy: she begins to contemplate suicide when her teacher discusses “Anna Karenina.” Money quote: “I will now dispose of Tolstoy and his works in a few brief words.” Billie Burke is sprightly and satirical as Dee’s pampered, motor-mouthed mother.

“Finishing School” is available to stream via Warner Archive Instant.

Posted in Movies, Performers | Tagged Billie Burke, Film, Finishing School, Frances Dee, Ginger Rogers, movies, Pre-Code | 2 Comments

More Umami Confessin’

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

I just posted about umami–how I was at first flummoxed at the term, how I soon came to understand that my cooking was long a quest for umami without thinking of it as its own thing and how I then came to realize the extent of umami fixings I already had around the house, prepackaged or homemade.

After writing the post, I thought again about umami evidence. I’d just finished off large jars of homemade saurkraut and kimchee, but in the freezer and elsewhere I found I currently have additional umami bomb components ready to be deployed.

Here are some.

Continue reading →

Posted in Food and health | Tagged gribenes, schmaltz, sicilian cuisine, ssamjang, szechuan peppercorns, umami | 3 Comments

Quote Du Jour

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Eddie Pensier

Eddie Pensier writes:

The girls today in society
Go for classical poetry.
So to win their hearts one must quote with ease
Aeschylus and Euripides.
One must know Homer, and believe me, Beau
Sophocles, also Sappho-ho.
Unless you know Shelley and Keats and Pope
Dainty debbies will call you a dope.

But the poet of them all
Who will start ’em simply ravin’
Is the poet people call
The Bard of Stratford on Avon

Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow

Just declaim a few lines from Othella
And they’ll think you’re a hell of a fella.
If your blonde won’t respond when you flatter’er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopatterer.
If she fights when her clothes you are mussing,
What are clothes? Much Ado About Nothing!
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they’ll all kow-tow.

With the wife of the British ambassada,
Try a crack out of Troilus and Cressida.
If she says she won’t buy it or “tike” it,
Make her “tike” it, what’s more As You Like It.
If she says your behavior is heinous,
Kick her right in the Coriolanus!
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they’ll all kow-tow.

If you can’t be a ham and do Hamlet,
They will not give a damn or a damlet.
Just recite an occasional sonnet
And your lap will have honey upon it

When your baby is pleading for pleasure,
Let her sample your Measure for Measure!
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they’ll all kow-tow.

Cole Porter, Kiss Me, Kate (1948)

Posted in Music | Tagged Cole Porter, Kiss Me Kate | 6 Comments

8:30 am

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Atypical Neurotic

Atypical Neurotic writes:

Posted in Photography | 2 Comments

Quote Du Jour

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

The mortality in Siena began in May. It was a cruel and horrible thing…It seemed that almost everyone became stupefied seeing the pain. It is impossible for the human tongue to recount the awful truth. Indeed, one who did not see such horribleness can be called blessed.

The victims died almost immediately. They would swell beneath the armpits and in the groin, and fall over while talking. Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through breath and sight. And so they died. None could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship. Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could, without priest, without divine offices.

In many places in Siena great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead. And they died by the hundreds, both day and night, and all were thrown in those ditches and covered with earth. And as soon as those ditches were filled, more were dug.

I, Agnolo di Tura, called the Fat, buried my five children with my own hands. And there were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city. There was no one who wept for any death, for all awaited death. And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world.

— Agnolo di Tura, chronicler of the town of Siena, Italy, describing the Black Death in the 14th century

Posted in Philosophy and Religion | Tagged Black Death, medieval history, Middle Ages | 2 Comments

Gilded Age Gallery

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

I enjoyed Mark Siegel’s Sailor Twain, a dark fantasy-romance graphic novel set during the late 19th century on a Hudson steamboat, quite a bit. I had planned on writing a longer review until I realized that, er, all I had to say was that I really, really liked it! (If for some bizarre reason my enthusiasm isn’t enough of a recommendation, check out these reviews here and here.) I especially loved Siegel’s moody charcoal art.

Click on the images to enlarge.

A major appeal of the book is its Gilded Age setting, which has always had a hold on my imagination. I took an upper-division seminar in college on post-Civil War American history, and man, what a drag that was. The predictable Race-Gender-Class™ critique. Taking that class, you never would’ve known that this era saw the Beaux Arts/City Beautiful movement, the glories of the 1893 Expo in Chicago, the emergence of vaudeville, the beginnings of movies, or indeed the creation of mass popular culture as we know it. And don’t get me started on how art history courses still largely ignore Academic art.

Anyhoo, here’s a collection of images that conveys some of the splendor and sophisticated fussiness of the era to me.

Samuel B. Schuyler's Stock Share, c.1873

Curran Lotus Lilies, Charles Courtney, 1888

Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau), John Singer Sargent, 1884

Related

I shared a gallery of seascapes by a Russian-Armenian painter here and a collection of erotic illustrations here.

Posted in Architecture, Art, Personal reflections, Photography | Tagged Academic art, American history, Gilded Age, Mark Siegel, Sailor Twain, steamboats, traditionalism | 6 Comments

Movie Still Du Jour

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

Click on the image to enlarge.

Natalie Press and Emily Blunt in MY SUMMER OF LOVE. I watched it last night and loved it. It’s currently streaming on Netflix. Thanks to Paleo Retiree/Michael Blowhard for recommending it.

Posted in Movies, Performers | Tagged Emily Blunt, Natalie Press | 3 Comments

NOT The Beatles 2

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

Another installment: My Before and After, by Cotton Mather.

I find this one remarkable. I am simultaneously able to listen to it as a glorious John Lennon song and at the same time as a terrific work in its own right. In fact the entire album this cut if from (Kontiki) is superior in every way.

Here’s a trailer for the 2012 re-release of the 1997 album. Glad it was re-released. It was hard to find for a long time and deserves another hearing.

Posted in Music, Performers | Tagged Beatles, Cotton Mather, Kontiki | 3 Comments

“Who’s the hottest girl in the world?”

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Eddie Pensier

Eddie Pensier writes:

If you have any old relatives (or maybe it’s you: we won’t tell) who watch the grand old movie musicals of days gone by with wistful regret, shaking their head and saying, “they just don’t make movies like this anymore”, I’ve got news for you: they do.

They’re in Hindi and Bengali, though.

I don’t seek out Bollywood movies but I watch them if they’re on TV. Not many other sorts of films revel in the sort of unself-conscious singing and dancing that were once commonplace.

Enjoy this clip of “Desi Girl” from Dostana, the first Bollywood feature filmed in the USA. It features the delectable Priyanka Chopra as well as the suave John Abraham. (Also Abhishek Bachchan, who isn’t quite so dashing to my eyes, but he must have something going for him since he’s married to Aishwarya Rai in real life.)

Somewhere in the beyond, I think Flo Ziegfeld and Vincente Minnelli are smiling and tapping their toes.

Posted in Movies, Music | Tagged Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Bollywood, Dostana, John Abraham, Priyanka Chopra | 3 Comments

Ads Everywhere: A Continuing Series

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

I was just at Ticketmaster buying tickets for an event when the inevitable CAPTCHA gatekeeper popped up. I was surprised to see this:

America: We never let an opportunity pass to sell you something or hawk crappy food. It would be against our religion to do so. Also, aren’t CAPTCHAs supposed to funky and near-illegible to fool computers? All of the sudden they’re perfected an easily-read one?