I &heart; William Britain, those ancient makers of tiny tin soldiers... and now they've come out with a Jane Austen collection!
Seemingly the whole Bennet family is represented at 54mm high... except poor Mary Bennet! And she's my favorite odd sister. Meh. Love the house though!
Pride & Prejudice Blu-ray Edition (BBC 1995)
BOOYAH! I'm so excited. P&P prints have been notoriously bad. The Amazon page above has several nice examples of the cleanup they've done to get this print sparkle.
I've owned nearly every edition of this series, from the initial VHS, which I watched til it disintigrated, and 2 subsequent dvd editions of varying states of UGH. Vive le Hi Def! I can't wait.
As we celebrated the almost inauguration of our super cool president, I remembered to light a little candle to Edgar. When I suddenly realized it was his 200th birthday. Looks like someone else noticed too.
Hugs and Dark and Sparkly kisses to my Sepulchritudinous co-horts, who have been stabbing birthday cakes in Edgar's name for many these long gloomy years. Especially Bat, who started when she was like, eight.
All ya'll probably have seen this, but it is so exciting. Rawr!
Volks has posted a sentimental history of super dollfie, contests and games, and a nearly complete sketch of their events for the year! This includes TWO US Dolpas for June and November. View: Super Dollfie 10th Anniversary Events Schedule
Dolpa3 in NYC.
June 7th - 8th 2008
Fashion Institute of Technology NYC, NY
In conjunction with FDQ. Registration will be through the Volks site, when they post it. It looks like Volks is beta-testing a new store interface on the Japanese side. Neat!
Also: greatest thing about the writer's strike? It sent us scurrying for downloadable content on the internet. Yay for BBC programming! Mr. Kallisti has been on a quest to get me mostly Eastenders (I died a little when they cancelled the series on BBC America), every available costume drama and mystery thriller airing. We just transfer it over via wifi on the TiVo and blammo! Plays like TEEVEE.
New favorite show EVAR: Phoo Action
From the genius who brought you Tank Girl and Gorillaz, Jamie Hewlett. Whitey with the red hair back there is wearing Buddha's magic underpants!
(gosh it is hard to get around to posting even when I'm in the moooooood! bizzy, bizzy!)
James Gillray is my true love.
And no, it is not a mistake that the pudgy funster on the right looks like Charles James Fox. o_0
"Following the Fashion" a December 1794 caricature by James Gillray, which satirizes incipient neo-Classical trends in women's clothing styles, particularly the trend towards what were known at the time as "short-bodied gowns" (i.e. short-bodiced or high-waisted dresses). This caricature satirizes the figure-type which is most flattered by high-waisted dresses, contrasting it with a body-type which was not flattered by the style -- as well as playing on the perennial struggle between attempts of the "Cits" (families of rich merchants in the City of London area) to imitate the stylish aristocrats of west London, versus the determination of the aristocrats to socially repulse the Cits, and consider them to be still unstylish.Text in image:
"St. James's giving the Ton: a soul without a body" [i.e. bodice]
"Cheapside aping the mode: a body without a soul."
I love fat ladies in art. Unfortunately, most of them are unflattering caricatures. But because I don't find fat unflattering, I love them anyways. And that last drawing "Dido in Despair" makes me unbelievably happy.
Faces peering out of the past entrance me. Whether or not this portrait is of Jane Austen interests me less than the delightful chapeau on this other young girl.
Johann Zoffany
Title: Portrait of Sophia Dumergue
Oil Painting
Production Date: c. 1780
Material(s): Oil paint
Picked this up last night: Marion Peck's I Cari Estinti (The Dearly Departed). Sentimental portraits of small children and pets.
You can picture how fast my little legs took me to the check out counter at the downtown Berkeley comic shop. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee! The little girl above is how I picture Imogen. Just perfectly. I even have a wig similar. Sigh. I lurves her so much!
Marion Peck favorites: Hair, Divine Swine, and The Happy Captain!
I don't know how I feel about this. Article at New York Times.
I just don't know why they can't do something more rock 'n' roll and keep the costumes more traditional. Or something. I'm not that stuffy, I've loved some non-traditional adaptations. But they have to be good. Like "Titus." Yarm, yarm!
But I really haven't liked much of the recent Tudor pix or series, and one of the reasons is their modernist approach and all that "must get the ignorant masses to relate to crazy tudor england" stuff. I love Jonathon Rhys Meyers though. And Jonathon Rhys Meyers in gold lame even better.
I guess after Anne of the Thousand Days it is all downhill.
Also, why "The Tudors"? Looks like it is just one Tudor to me. Meh.
I'm just sayin'.
It arrived today. Zoink! I had no idea! By the price ($32 discounted) I figured it was typical small format Taschen, but when it arrived Mr. Kallisti thought I had spent a fortune. 24358745 pound box. Double format, hard cover in slip case, huge. And omg, the photographs! First volume 18th-19th century, second is 20th. I'm just sayin'.
Only 4 left as of this morning.
I dream often of living some place less expensive, where I could afford to buy a house, where the people are a little less politically correct, and the cars are fewer... (insert "Swiss Family Robinson" theme music here)...
But I've had such an amazing week, all due to local color and local comforts.
Last thursday we took my uncle to see "Restoration Comedy" at Cal Shakes theater, which neither of us had ever been to. A gorgeous outdoor theater in the wilds of Orinda, nestled amongst the hills in a glade of giant eucalyptus, we were dive bombed by dragonflies throughout the performance, but no mosquitos (pronounced muskeetas if you're like me and yer mama is from the midwest)!
Look! I took a pictures with my new camera phone:
Wow. 1.3 megapixels and it still sucks. Only use in case of emergency! New phone is cool though :p
I'll let you read more about the play here. It is only playing til the 30th. It was so brilliant and so funny, and oft times so very GAY that I was literally falling off my lawn chair I was laughing so hard. And the costumes! Oy! Lots of costume puns and general fabulousness. If this play comes to your town, SEE IT.
We had dinner downtown at "Casa Orinda"... and old timey relic of a restaurant that has gone a bit upscale but still serves awesome fried chicken and and steak and spaghetti and stuff. And they had REAL GRAVY. Like not brown gravy, or craft service yellow gravy... real gravy. I could bathe in it.
The icing on the cake of a perfect evening: when we dropped my Uncle off he loaded me up with yet another chunk of his ancient library... specifically the Restoration plays (printed late 17th century), a contemporary copy of The Beggar's Opera (18th century), and a biography of Henry VII by Sir Francis Bacon (16th century). More on those later. After I roll around in them naked for a bit.
Sunday night, in the middle of our little heat wave (yes, it was 94 in El Cerrito) we went to The Merritt Bakery for dinner in Oakland. Another relic, and old diner, again specializing in fried chicken and cake! It was sooper. We then went and saw the pirate movie at The Grand Lake, yet another beloved anachronism: the gigantic gilded movie house. Used to go there quite a bit as a kid.
Last night we drove to the City for a hair cut. And nipped down to 16th Street and Pancho Villas for burritos. It may be hard to believe, but you just can't get Mission style burritos anywhere but the Mission. Berkeley don't have it. No sir. It is only fifteen miles away, and there ain't nothin' like it no where else. Sigh.
I am replete. Living here is no punishment, despite the high cost of living. I still fantasize daily about Baltimore or Portland or New Orleans or the Wilds of BigFoot Country. Sigh.
