Each species needs a sex that's fated to be highly decorated

[sovay]

This has been a much better day than expected. I'm burned out, but in a far more pleasant way than I have been for the last couple of weeks.

Late this morning, my brother and I set out into the wilds of Cambridge to see if we could find him a frock coat. And we did, at Keezer's; but he turned out to prefer a black morning coat from 1938 that we shall pick up on Tuesday, when he gets off work. I will have to take photographs. With a good shirt on and his hands leisurely in his pockets, he looks like the lead from an Oscar Wilde play.

In the course of this quest, the power of the apotropaic umbrella was proven once more,* I was tempted by a many-pocketed leather jacket at the Garment District,** and we had an excellent lunch at Legal Sea Foods. I don't usually order drinks, but this one was made out of rum and ginger beer, with a slice of lime and a stick of sugar cane stuck in it. It was awesome.***

And we returned home, and collapsed on the couch, and watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005). Which I liked, particularly Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent and the bits of the Guide as narrated by Stephen Fry. And Bill Nighy, because. He's gone on my list.

I think I should be able to sleep tonight.

*We were half-drowned crossing the street from the subway station, but the thunderstorm stopped as soon as we bought an umbrella from the MIT Coop. It hasn't started up again, either. But it is lowering hot.

**I might return for it, but if I'm to spend money on clothes I don't strictly need, I'd rather they were more anachronistic. Besides, I can fit half a dozen clementines into my current coat's pockets; that takes care of all my basic winter needs.

***It was duly noted why the rum was gone.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

How did you get out of Keezer's without assorted "Top Hats, Derbies, and Fedoras"?

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Or doing Fred Astaire routines with the umbrella?

Nine

Top Hats, Derbies, and Fedoras

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

It's actually a Fred Astaire song-and-dance number... Fred at the haberdasher's with Edward Everett Horton, who is trying to make him select a hat, as Fred's was blown overboard on the ocean liner Horton's aunt arrived on this morning... Fred being difficult because his mind is on Ginger... whom he ran into on deck where she was behind the wheelchair of an elderly tycoon... He assumes Ginger is the man's nurse, or something else... Ginger is in fact the tycoon's only granddaughter and heiress of millions... misunderstandings and high-jinks must, of course, ensue.

Fred tries on a fedora and the number begins:

This hat's worn by Everyman:
It blends in with the crowd.
If you want to be noticed more, ya
Need more flash than a fedora.

Fred chucks the fedoras and tries on bowlers:

This morning she called me a clown
Because I took a fall!
She'll laugh if I run into her be-
neath the brim of Chaplin's derby.

On to the only possible correct hat:

You only wear a top hat
When you're on top
Or heading there!
It says success and opens doors
To the best dinners and ballroom floors.
For moving up from nothing flat
What I need is a top hat.


As the number wraps up, there's a hat-juggling bit with the shop assistants and a lot of complicated business with canes and umbrellas. Miraculously, Fred leaves holding the one he came in with.

Re: Top Hats, Derbies, and Fedoras

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

{{applause}}

Nine

[sovay]

(Yay, Edward Everett Horton.)

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

I can't understand why neither the cinema in Palo Alto nor the Castro have ever had (to my knowledge) an Edward Everett Horton festival. Ideally it should include Fractured Fairy Tales.

[sovay]

an Edward Everett Horton festival.

I would attend that . . .