New Year's, Baby

Just look at the red cheeks on that bellboy...

Seen in the Souq

A pile of ottomans in Ottoman old Cairo...

Life in a Northern Town

Amid all the political brouhaha (which, I have a sinking feeling, will only continue if not expand and worsen), the Mister and I took a rare road trip this past weekend...

Une Feuille Morte

Behold: the exception that proves the rule...

Saturday Gallimaufry

I'm retreating ever further from what passes for the real world - with very good reason, given its state, if you ask me - and finding ever more consolation in taking pictures that keep my mind off the headlines. Herewith, a late-summer iris from August, recalled today, which has seemed like our first real day of Autumn.

Who Could Ask For Anything More?

As our national discourse continues to descend (with the man who in other circumstances would be Leader of the Free World now basically spending his time sticking out his tongue on social media), a little escapism seems in order...

News of the Rialto

So Miss Peters is set to succeed Miss Midler as Mrs. Levi.  It seems a fully respectable, but somehow deflatingly predictable, sort of choice.

Beautiful Dreamer

Birthmark, 1980

One of the unexpected boons of the sometimes-plague that is Facebook is the chance to catch up with all kinds of onetime crushes.

Women of Distinction - and an Aesthetic Opportunity

As another blessed week limps to a close, and in the face of bad news from all over, today more than ever I needed a lift...

Man About The House

At some point in the last four years, I've realized, I've turned into a thoroughly domesticated husband, almost along the lines of this game if rather puzzled-looking Kennedy-era paragon.

Is a Puzzlement

Because there's never a bad reason to get a good look at Yul Brynner,
nearly shirtless. No Puzzlement there...

Over in the FaceBookVerse, dear Cookie has come up with a list of 10 Things He Doesn't Understand, and he's challenged his Gentle Readers to do the same. Some dares I can't resist, so herewith, just that number of cultural phenomena that leave me cold:

Redux: Now We Know How Happy We Can Be

I wrote this two years ago. Yesterday was Loving Day, and the fiftieth anniversary of that momentous decision. It's a complicated day, though, June 12, and I'm still unpacking what I think it might mean - if anything at all - that it's also the birthday of Anne Frank; the anniversary of the death of Medgar Evers; and, since last year, the day when we will long remember the hopes and dreams of 49 people who went out one night to dance and never came home. It's not a simple world, but with all the madness, I do still believe there's a place for simple songs. And hope. We have to hope. "That's what Loving, and loving, are all about."

Yes, it's two cute boys singing a ukelele-based cover of the Monkees' immortal "Daydream Believer." Just in case you don't think we're up on all the hipster trends here at the Café.

Dinner Then and Now

I suppose because it's Ramadan, or perhaps that it's because I'm once again looking to reduce a little (or perhaps because Peenee has been so grocery-obsessed of late), but things food-related have been much on my mind this week.

Redux 2017: M is for...

M is for... first appeared on May 10, 2009 and has become my Mother's Day tradition. Once, again, Happy Mother's Day, Mother Muscato, wherever you are...

Now We Are Nine

So I was digging around for something a couple of days ago and realized with a start that, as of yesterday, the Café has been around for exactly nine years. Insert profound thought about time flying here. Kay Francis (who has been something of a mascot hereabouts) has stopped in to say hi, looking more glam than one generally thinks of her in the '40s.

Mood: Indigo

"'I,'" said my Grandmother Muscato, regularly, "is the dullest word in the English language."

Working Girl

Like a great many people all of a sudden, I find myself these past few days thinking about Joan Crawford.

Here We Go Again

As if there could be any other star, this New Year's Eve. Hollywood's sweetheart, with so much about which she has no idea at all ahead of her, and as much a trouper in the stills gallery as she was everywhere else.

Make the Yuletide...

Well, against all odds, we managed it.

Muddle Through, Somehow

Well, every year, sooner or later, it has to be faced, and for this year today was the day.