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.

Weekend Reading

Autumn's in the air...

Margaret Lockwood (15th September 1916 – 15th July 1990)

Anne Bancroft (17th September 1931 – 6th June 2005)

Greta Garbo (18th September 1905 – 15th April 1990)

Joey Heatherton (born 14th September 1944)

Dinah Sheridan (17th September 1920 – 25th November 2012)

Janis Paige (born 16th September 1922)

Twiggy (born 19 September 1949)

Lauren Bacall (16th September 1924 – – 12th August 2014)

Rocío Jurado (18th September 1944 – 1st June 2006)

Fay Wray (15th September 1907 – 8th August 2004)

...so wrap up warm!

The glamorous Miss Fogel

Many happy returns to the beautiful model-turned actress Barbara Bain, star of Mission Impossible and Space: 1999, who blows out 90 candles on her cake today...

Barbara Bain (born Mildred Fogel, 13th September 1931)