I was so young when I was born

[sovay]

Tonight I had dinner at Machu Picchu with two friends who are not on Dreamwidth. There was ceviche and beef heart and papa a la Huancaína and wide-ranging conversation. It was really nice.

1. Courtesy of moon_custafer: Saint Valentine and his army of husbands. Occasionally I wonder if these stories of misapprehension are built up for the internet and then I remember that I always hear the hook of the Rick Springfield song as "I wish that I was Jessie's girl."

2. Courtesy of spatch: James Mason's cats. See also this article. I had no idea James Mason either loved cats or could draw. I am charmed by both.

3. Courtesy of handful_ofdust: Ida Lupino in white tie and tails and Janelle Monáe in several sharp suits. You want to put them in the same movie, I'm fine with that.

4. It's no use longing for a teleporter since I am contracted to spend this weekend in another city, house-sitting for friends' cats, but this year's theme at the Kansas Silent Film Festival is "Women in Silent Film" and the program looks great. Louise Fazenda, Colleen Moore, Alice Guy-Blaché, Lois Weber, Dorothy Gish, Mary Pickford, Mabel Normand, Alla Nazimova, female writers, actors, and directors I've never heard of, and genderqueer sky pirates to boot.

5. I cannot remember when or how I found the video for George Harrison's "Crackerbox Palace" (1976), but I'm really fond of it. Also of Harrison's eyebrows, which minus the moustache and with the mop-top grown out really come into their own.

Comments

[alexxkay]

That Valentine's story is my new headcanon.

Nazimova shows up as a fascinating supporting character in the in-progress podcast biohraphy of Val Lewton; she was his aunt.

[sovay]

That Valentine's story is my new headcanon.

I love the tag.

Nazimova shows up as a fascinating supporting character in the in-progress podcast biohraphy of Val Lewton; she was his aunt.

For some reason I knew that! They were both Leventons originally, right?

[rydra_wong]

She seems to have been a supporting character in many Hollywood lives; she convinced Richard Barthelmess to try acting professionally (having learned English from his mother).

[moon_custafer]

You heard they found a bunch of her costumes in someone’s attic a few years ago, right? When the family who came across the trunks contacted the Alla Nazimova Society (having first looked up who this mysterious “Nazimova” was), they sent a photo of the one they’d opened, and the pearl headdress from Salome was sitting there right on top.
https://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/04/03/42226/long-thought-lost-costumes-of-silent-film-star-all/

[sovay]

When the family who came across the trunks contacted the Alla Nazimova Society (having first looked up who this mysterious “Nazimova” was), they sent a photo of the one they’d opened, and the pearl headdress from Salome was sitting there right on top.

Man, my attic is never like this.

[sovay]

She seems to have been a supporting character in many Hollywood lives; she convinced Richard Barthelmess to try acting professionally (having learned English from his mother).

Right; that's ridiculous and I owe her.