I SEE you!

Antonieta Rivas Mercado

It still feels strange to find photos, websites and blog posts on Antonieta Rivas Mercado. She was my Abuelita's cousin and I grew up hearing stories of her as well as other family members and ancestors. It wasn't until a film on her life was released in 1982 that I realized how well known she was. I remember a few relatives wrote my mother that the film was awful and not to see it.

MadMen-utiae

It was cool that the season premiere of MadMen referenced Stan Freburg’s John and Marsha routine during a scene with Peggy and her new assistant. The John and Marsha record came out in the 1950's so I wonder why it was being thrown around between Peggy and her assistant. Maybe they were bringing up things from their childhoods, they seem to be of the same age. John and Marsha was often played on KOOP's The Lounge Show and I know I have the record somewhere in my collection. I love Stan Freburg, my brother and I used to love listening to, St George And The Dragonet and Little Blue Ridinghood when we were kids.

Don Draper is becoming darker and darker. He now slips away into his gloomy, cavelike apartment after dating prim blonds. Now that he no longer has Betty to cheat on and can date anyone he wants, he still attempts to recreate the same dynamic he had when married. We find the "brunette in his life" is a prostitute who seems to make routine visits.

While his behavior with  Jantzen can be seen as tough and taking control of things in his own company, I couldn't help but feel the opposite. He is not quite 100%. He screwed up the interview and lost a big money client, that is so Dick Whitman. Ending with Tobacco Road (love that song) evokes the harsh world of Dick Whitman that Don Draper has long tried to keep hidden. That last interview with the Wall Street Journal could be a really powerful self-made-man story if only Don Draper could tell it from the very beginning. When will he be able to?

Betty is like a little girl playing with a doll house, but it's not her house.  She tries to control her children and even Henry in this game of happy suburban family, trying to make everything fit and look perfect. New husband, Henry, asks her if he should "stay or go" when Don shows up. He then defends her when his mother calls it like she sees it,"She's a silly woman". Does he really want to be sleeping in Don's old room? When Don appears to remind Betty she needs to leave she acts like a child. Henry seems to run cold when Betty plays mom.

Betty is now sporting the more matriarchal fashions of the times. At least in this first episode of season 4.
I couldn't help but the notice Joan's dress was a tad above the knee and not at the knee. With the introduction of Twiggy, mini skirts and Vidal Sassoon's boy hair cuts on the horizon, I wonder where Joan find herself, fashion wise, should this season speed into the mid 60's. I hope it doesn't.

Peggy is still learning. Last season, while pitching ideas for telegrams and why they are important she delivers a slogan to Don who then points on it's just a slogan, not a good idea. In the season premier we hear her remind herself and learning the difference between a slogan and a good idea. It is these details that I love so much and the consistency in the writing that makes watching MadMen on Sunday evenings a ritual and not just a show.

The First January Jones

the sweet smell of small successes

The sweet scent of the blooming Maid-of-Orleans Jasmine fills the backyard these days. I was able to finally find some and planted them everywhere I could. The scent reminds me of my Abuelito's walled garden. It was a small paradise filled with tropical plants. He had a papaya, mango, orange and ciruela tree. I've written of it before. It was so impressive and is still very vivid in my mind.

Happiness is being able to pick figs and gather basil only a few steps from the backdoor. My Grandfather has given me a "real" fig tree to plant in the fall. It would be awesome to one day have a big tree covered with figs. The figs see here are from a dwarf fig tree, more of a bush really. This year I was able to get them before the birds did.

My Grandfather loves to start trees. He is always starting trees and giving them away. He got my fig tree from the side of the irrigation canal next to his house. The canals are hundreds of years old and his house is a special place. My Grandfather is nearly 90 so the work he put into getting it for me meant so much. He knows I love figs. I have a Mountain Laurel and Oak that he started from seed years ago with the intention of giving them to me once they reached a certain size. I understand the joy in it. I only wish that one day from me will emerge the ability, skill, talent to grow and maintain natural beauty. I am trying and really get excited over my small achievements.

I want a doll! I want a doll! ...

These "dolls" were passed out at the Paramount before the film Valley of the Dolls was shown. Says to take two with every shot of Patty Duke in an unflattering wig.

Frankly, I loved the movie. I found many scenes that were bad were soooooooo deliciously bad. There were awesome lines, fabulous wardrobe, loved the music, the colorful montages and to be honest, the  bad was soooooooo scrumptiously bad it was almost edifying. This is a "bad" film from an era that was classy and stylish. I thought it was well shot and the colors are amazing. Glad we got to view it on the big screen. The acting was over the top but Patty Duke and Susan Hayward were so awesome and the only way to go if your going to watch an over the top drama.

I don't see it at all as the worse movie ever made. That would be Showgirls. I seriously see nothing cool in that film. It's not so bad it's good to me, not even for kitsch value, it's just rank. Now, Bad Santa ....Showgirls just falls way below Bad Santa. I must say I did appreciate when Cristal says "I'm just a farm girl from Del Rio myself". There are no farms in Del Rio though, only ranches.

Vegas has change a lot since 1995 and I guess the shots of The Stardust, Westward Ho etc... can be of some slight "historical" value?

Voyages Part 2

Dafne was not on holiday alone, she was accompanied by her mother. I look at these photos and notice something missing. I wonder if these women were ahead of their time, not accustomed to them or just vacationing from them as well.

It's Artie

He loves to rearrange his space. This week the litter box was not where he would like. It was moved to the opposite side of his habitat. This morning I found him lounging where the litter box used to be.  He had built a mound like wall out of his toys, hay, food dish and a raffia mat. Artie on one side, stuff on the other. I love his moods and admire his desire for change. His aesthetics...that would be my fault. If I gave him better things to work with I'm sure I'd wake up to prettier configurations.

Harvey Pekar has left earth.

His was a voice from the working class, those of us who put in the unglamorous, forty hour weeks to pay the bills. This VA file clerk possessed what is to me the most enviable of talents, the ability to tell the stories within. His honest perspective is what I'll miss. I met him once at a book signing and for a so called misanthrope, I found him really likable, enjoyable actually.  What was clear to me both from meeting him and reading his work was that Harvey Pekar was an authentic person and there is no higher compliment.

Landlord

I purchased this Mason Bee bungalow at the Eastside Cafe gift shop.  It's a bit late in the season though. Females are done scouting for prime locations by the end of May but I'm putting it out anyway to see if anything happens. I had to buy it because it looked so cute and was so well made.

















Update: Look who showed up a few hours later:


Update to the update: This is no bee, this is actually a Robber Fly! A fly? It was as large as a bumble bee. It's like a fly in a faux bee suit.

Santiago is proud

Read Walden

This week I heard the following quote in the Douglas Sirk film All that Heaven Allows:

"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." ~ Walden by  Henry David Thoreau

It's been too long since I picked up Walden. I used to read it once a year and it would cure all that ailed me. I've gone three or four years without reading it. I'm long over due. I reached for it months ago to read but became busy. It did not travel far from the shelf before it was returned to it's spot, next to Emerson.  Being busy, no time to read...all the more reason to reach for Walden. I pass it several times a day. Nothing in the book is insignificant to me.

When I first learned of the Transcendentalist, in school,  I felt I had finally found my clique. Once I discovered them I went to the public library and checked out a rather old and  precocious book called,  Transcendentalism: a Story of Brook Farm.  I carried it around for weeks.

Nudie

I love the kitsch and excess of the vintage Nudie. The only Nudie suit I have ever seen up close was the one I found at an estate sale in central Austin. It was hanging on a wire hanger under an old, yellowing, plastic bag and looked like it came back from the cleaners fifty years ago. The cleaning tag was still on it but did not give the date of it's last excursion. The contents of the house didn't give any indication that the former owner was a rodeo star or even a country music fan (there was a lot of Perry Como, Al Hirt and easy listening compilations).

There was no price tag and my heart skipped beats at the thought that maybe no one pricing the sale knew what  a Nudie suit was all about. The short walk to the cashier was filled with big ideas and excitement over this white suit with black trim and rhinestones. It was too gorgeous. To think the suit was mad by Nudie Cohn himself.  The man was such a skilled artist. This was a men's suit and was too big for me but to own a vintage Nudie would be too awesome and hard to pass up. Before I could ask, the cashier said , "Nine hundred and fifty for the Nudie".  I just handed it to him and said maybe it would be safer displayed up front. He agreed. Then he said,"We just found it hanging in the closet, the family doesn't know where it came from". All my questions answered.

The more I thought of it the more I convinced myself that a vintage turquoise Nudie suit with embroidery and rhinestones would be a truly awesome find and that what I found was no big deal. Then I realized I was picturing a suit I had seen on a Webb Pierce album cover. Nope, this would probably be the only Nudie I'd ever find out of a museum. It was so cheap too, not even a thousand? I went back to look at it and could see that the rhinestones had yellowed and it the suit smelled of mildew and moth balls and it was not in the best shape.  They new exactly what they had.  I still wonder how it came to hang in the closet of a very small, modest home in the middle of Brentwood.

Gertie

I met Gertie when she was only a few weeks old. She looked like a cartoon. She was the cutest puppy with a giant head, a roly-poly body and tiny, lil legs. When she'd try to drink out of her water bowl she would topple over.  We will all miss you Gertie.