It's a look

The only way to fly...

Funny to observe?

From the Bilingual by Music website:

Midsummer's Day is one of the most important holidays of the year in Sweden, and probably the most uniquely Swedish in the way it is celebrated.

Raising and dancing around a midsommarstång pole is an activity that attracts families and many others. Before the maypole is raised, greens and flowers are collected and used to cover the entire pole. People dancing around the pole listen to traditional music and sing songs associated with the holiday. Some wear traditional folk costumes or crowns made of wild springs and wildflowers on their heads.

Music plays a big part at the Midsummer celebrations. The most famous song sung when dancing around the maypole is Små grodorna [which in English is “Little frogs”].

[Click here for footage of that.]

The melody originates from a military march from the French revolution La Chanson de l’Oignon (“The onion song”),with the chorus “Au pas, camarade, au pas camarade / au pas, au pas, au pas!” (“In step, comrade”). The enemies of the French at the time, the British, changed the text with condescending irony to “Au pas, grenouilles!” (“In step, little frogs”).

Små grodorna in Swedish:

Små grodorna, små grodorna är lustiga att se.
Små grodorna, små grodorna är lustiga att se.
Ej öron, ej öron, ej svansar hava de.
Ej öron, ej öron, ej svansar hava de.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.

English version (direct translation):

The little frogs, the little frogs are funny to observe.
The little frogs, the little frogs are funny to observe.
No ears, no ears, no tails do they possess.
No ears, no ears, no tails do they possess.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.

How bizarre.

However one chooses to celebrate, it is worth doing - for after today, the nights start drawing in once more...

Summer solstice/Mid-Summer

I've never really hidden who I am

"I've grown up very much living my life very visibly. I've never really hidden who I am."

Many happy returns, Mr "Boy" George Alan O'Dowd - 60 years old today!

Weekend Reading

This weekend, I am mostly dressing casual...

...like the remarkable mezzo-soprano Risë Stevens, whose singing career spanned four decades from 1938 until she retired in 1961 [yet she lived on a further fifty-two years, till she was 99!], and encompassed twenty years at the New York Metropolitan Opera and stage and screen appearances opposite the likes of Ezio Pinza, Licia Albanese, Richard Tucker, Eleanor Steber, Nelson Eddy and - ahem - Bing Crosby!

He's not in this clip...

Risë Stevens - Séguedille [from Bizet's Carmen, 1947]

Sublime.

It is merely a variation

From Summers in Hollywood blog:

Different From the Others (Anders als die Andern), 1919

Starring Conrad Veidt, Different From the Others is a landmark German film which marks the first time a gay character is portrayed on film that we know of. In 1918 the German Revolution resulted in the formation of the Weimar Republic, and a new Social Democratic government was put into place which eliminated all national censorship for film. A lot of filmmakers in Germany then began tackling subjects which previously had been taboo, with sexual politics being discussed openly like they hadn’t been before.

The film was co-written by sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, a famous pioneer of gay rights in the Weimar Republic. The film’s original title was Paragraph 175, which referred to the paragraph in the German Criminal Code that outlawed homosexuality. Although the film was quite successful, it led to huge controversy. Its argument that same-sex relationships were as normal and natural as heterosexual relationships was a controversial stance at the time. This film in particular was one of the reasons why censorship was then reinstated by the National Congress of Germany in the summer of 1920. There is only one known copy of the film to have survived, as the Nazis destroyed the majority of the prints after they came into power in 1933.Below are quotes from the film which highlight how progressive its message really was:

“You must not condemn your son because he is a homosexual, he is not to blame for his orientation. It is not wrong, nor should it be a crime. Indeed, it is not even an illness, merely a variation, and one that is common to all of nature.”

“Love for one of the same sex is no less pure or noble than for one of the opposite. This orientation can be found in all levels of society, and among respected people. Those that say otherwise come only from ignorance and bigotry”

Gay Pride, indeed. It just happens to be 102 years ago...

Different From the Others (Anders als die Andern) on IMDB.

The most familiar name you never knew

She was one of the most recognisable of British character actresses, and was seemingly in just about every classic comedy series on our screens - including Steptoe and Son, Beggar My Neighbour, The Liver Birds, Doctor At Large, On The Buses, And Mother Makes Three, Love Thy Neighbour, Hancock, Mind Your Language, Happy Ever After, Duty Free, One Foot In The Grave and even the saucy film Confessions Of A Driving Instructor! - from 1962 to the mid-90s. Yet how many people would even know her name?

Miss Dolores Hayman (for it is she), who has departed for Fabulon just short of her 92nd birthday, was described by the aptly-named Familiar Unknown blog thus:

The epitome of the eminently respectable horsey lady, Ms Hayman was cast strictly to type, having been born in Kensington and educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College. She was memorably eccentric in the classic Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who story The Daemons [watch a snippet of an interview with her about that], and had a number of appearances on TV, in The Sweeney, The Double Deckers, Wodehouse Playhouse and, perhaps less predictably, The Young Ones and Filthy Rich & Catflap.

Apparently, she was a close friend of the redoubtable Margaret Rutherford. Can you imagine a pair of eccentrics like that in a room together?

RIP, Damaris Hayman (16th June 1929 – 3rd June 2021)

The legend

The one and only Norma Jeane Mortenson, aka Marilyn Monroe, would have been 95 years old today...

The only article I can find that mentions this milestone anniversary is this one in Deutsche Welle (DW), which despite its trendy use of the word "woke" [how much do I loathe that word?!], is worth a read.