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Friday, May 30, 2014

Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire and Me.......

In the 1950's, as a teenager, I used to love to go the movies once a week, on a Saturday morning at 10:30am and stay until 5:00pm, when my father would pick me up.
Those days they made movies for adults, not children, today its reversed and there is nothing to see these days or 'movie stars' one can look up to and try to emulate. Thank god, I was around to see the Clark Gables, Gary Coopers, Greg Pecks, Cary Grants, and Audrey Hepburn's and Grace Kelley's and so many other wonderful and exciting people on the silver screen. There was true romance then, not just in the sexual way, but the romance of life, and the romance of places to visit.
Think about it, I was maybe 13 or 14 years old and the movies stars I mentioned about were already in their 40's and 50's and yet, and yet, they excited me as a young man as to someone I wished to be, to dress like, to have great lines to say, to visit exotic locales and the music, ah! the music, was beautiful, stirring, lots of strings and long melodic lines. 
Today, I was thinking about when I first say Paris on the big screen ( not realizing then) how important that city and country would be in my future life. 
The movie was 'Funny Face' ( music by the Gershwin, who could ask for anything more?) starring Paris and Fred Astaire ( who didn't want to be a Fred Astaire?)  and Audrey Hepburn ( and who didn't want a girl like her to be your pal?) 
How lucky to have lived in the 1950's and the movies that came out in that decade!


Saturday, May 3, 2014

Off to France for a Month - Hurrah!

Dear Readers,
I am off to France for a month and will pick up my blogging on my return in late May.
You ask? where in France?
I am spending most of my time in my beloved Brittany and then on to Lyon and Northern Provence.
Lots of good food awaits, LOTS!!!  ( Chez Jacky), solitary walks on the beach and in quaint villages and time with new and old friends ( The French are the best) 





A platter of taste - This is worth getting up each day for -
 As George and Ira Gershwin once penned "Who could ask for anything more?"

Thursday, May 1, 2014

"All I Want is the Best Of Everything and There's Very Little of That Left " - Lucius Beebe

I recently came upon a photo in an old London Magazine taken during WW2 ( in the underground) and the sign on the wall  read
                                    "Temperatures Will Fall, Standards Mustn't'.

My Edwardian grandfather and to a lesser extant my Bostonian father, were constantly hammering that into myself and my brothers. It was not a snob thing, far from it, but an idea to live your life in a style and manner that reflected well on the family, but moreover,a style you wished for yourself. My grandfather use to say ( among so many things) that being a gentleman ( the thing he prized most) was a 24 hour a day profession, not just sometimes. 
Smoking a cigar or having a glass of single malt Scottish whisky was something you did in the quiet of a room,to enjoy the full flavors. You sat there and thought about what you were smoking or drinking, taking time ( 45 minutes to smoke a cigar was the norm) to really get all the satisfaction you could out of it. That was one, of many, of life's pleasures that I was taught. 
As a boy, my grandfather ( many times) took me to visit his cigar maker and to really understand the time and craft that went into it and thus be able to appreciate it to the max. 
He was horrified, as I am today, by people who rudely open bottles of Champagne and let the glorious ingredients spray everywhere as if its the way you do it. 
As I love Champagne ( and cigars, port,whisky, foie gras, Tweed clothing and so many other refinements)  and have spent much time in the French Champagne countryside and see how long it takes to produce a bottle, I always looked at people in horror who let corks fly in all directions and guzzle the 'stuff' . I guess I am just old fashion....I think there is a song by that name by Jerome Kern...
What this all leads up to, as an Edwardian at heart, I live and have lived since I was 13 years old, in a style and manner that has never changed and I am happier for it as the world today seems that ' have gone to hell in a hand basket', my god, have you seen what young men are wearing today and how they groom themselves..I think they all need a bath and manners? Don't ask and young ladies with tattoos? They look like gangster's molls? Is that attractive? Not to me! Never!!!

OK, OK..I am sounding like my grandfather! Well...that's the nicest thing you could ever say to me.
The American highly civilized non-conformist ( and one of my life's heroes) Mr. Lucius Beebe