Weekend Reading

It's a look...

click to enlarge

[From Reuters: A man wears a suit made of mirrors at a fashion and clothing exhibition in Tehran, Iran.]

THE Dame

"I've never been particularly aware of my age. It's like being on a bicycle - I just put my foot down and keep going."

It is our supreme Patron Saint Dame Angela Lansbury's 96th birthday today.

All hail!

Morning, noon, and night-time, too

This week way back in 1978 saw the birth of a legend...

...as Miss Lily Savage made her world debut at the Black Cap in Camden!

Sad to say, the Black Cap remains boarded-up as the legal wranglings continue over its future, as they have been for the past six years. Happily, that other "venerable drag institution" the Royal Vauxhall Tavern - having won its own, similar, battle aganst developers - remains very much open. Here, in a grainy old bit of footage, Lily joins forces with fellow icons David Dale and Sandra Lush as "LSD" at the RVT back in the 1980s:

LSD (The Playgirls) at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern - All I Do Is Dream of You

...and here she is on top form, live at the Filth concert in aid of the Terence Higgins Trust a few years later, in 1994:

Lily Savage - Filth

A national treasure, indeed.

More of "Our Lil" here, here, here and here.

Burnt orange till the end of time

I recently binge-watched the entire recent Marvel series Loki, and it is impressive. The storyline - typically for Marvel, given its long history of intelligent storytellng - is every bit as convoluted and extraordinary as one might expect, with a careful balance however between the cerebral and the dramatic fight scenes and special effects. The core actors (even Owen Wilson, who I have never liked in anything) give excellent performances. There's even an appearance from Richard E Grant! What's not to like?

However, what impressed me most was the sheer sumptuousness of the sets - in particular the wildly Retro-futurist Brazil-meets-Blade Runner-meets-Grand Budapest Hotel "look" of the sinister "Time Variance Authority" citadel...

...and the Art Deco-meets-neon alien worlds...

Just gorgeous!

Judge for yourself from the trailer:

Loki official trailer

On the Jukebox this weekend at Dolores Delargo Towers - a "the higher the hair, the closer to god" special

[click any image above to enlarge, if you dare]

The funereal thud

Autumn Song (Chant d'automne)
Charles Baudelaire 1857

Soon we shall plunge into cold shadows;
Farewell, vivid light of our too-short summers!
Already I hear the funereal thud
Of echoing logs on the courtyard floor.

I listen, trembling, to the fall of each log;
A gallows being built makes no duller sound.
My spirit is like the tower that falls
To the remorseless blows of the battering-ram.

Rocked by those monotone blows, it seems
Somewhere in haste they are nailing a coffin.
But whose? Yesterday summer; autumn now!
This eerie sound rings like some farewell.

It's the Autumn Equinox - so every night from now until March will be longer than the days...

Sigh.