Captain Underpants

Man, oh, man, oh, man. I love the new Rodarte collection at Target, but it’s nice that a retailer who sells women’s clothing created by amazing designers  sees fit to also also serve up some exceedingly well-defined (note the piping) kitsch for the menfolk. Or the tall-boy-folk like the young man lurking behind the rack and trying to talk his mom (out of frame) into buying him a pair.  

Dust to Dust

The stunningly beautiful actress Jennifer Jones died yesterday at her Malibu home at age 90. In 1944 she won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Saint Bernadette, but she also took on memorable roles in which she played outrageous sinners and/or quasi-ethnic types in roles that probably wouldn't fly in today's cinema. 

These include the vixenish mestiza Pearl Chavez who’s in love with two brothers in Duel in the Sun (aka Lust in the Dust); the ex-patriot bourgeoise Mary Forbes in Indiscretion of an American Wife; and Dr. Han Suyin, a widowed Eurasian doctor whose family disapproves of her romance with an American journalist played by William Holden in Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (a movie for which my sister has a vaguely embarrassed yet nostalgic fondness). 


Jones married three times. The first was to actor Robert Walker, perhaps best known as the sublimely sociopathic killer Bruno Anthony in Strangers on a Train. Her second marriage was to producer David O. Selznick, whose bad advice was thought to have wrecked her career. Her third marriage was to magnate Norton Simon, and after his death she served as chair of the Board of Directors of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.

Read more at USA Today or the Seattle Times.
Update: a Los Angeles Times appreciation of Jennifer Jones and her work on behalf of the Norton Simon Museum.

Another Big National Cover-Up

national chocolate-covered anything day : : dark chocolate-dipped macaroons * milk chocolate-dipped strawberries * chocolate-covered double-stuff oreos * chocolate-covered kimchi * chocolate-dipped fortune cookies * dark chocolate-dipped cherry ice cream cones * chocolate-covered kettle corn * chocolate-covered bacon * chocolate-dipped mini-cheesecakes with chocolate-covered spoons * chocolate-covered espresso beans * chocolate-covered frogs for young wizards * chocolate-coated marshmallows * chocolate-dipped pretzel rods * chocolate-covered bananas * chocolate-covered peanut butter balls * chocolate-covered matzo * chocolate-covered cheerios * chocolate-dipped potato chips * chocolate-covered carmel macadamia nuts * chocolate-covered peeps...

And Then There’s Mod

H.D. Buttercup, 4:52 pm: never underestimate the power of a black hole-style chair to bring out the nap in you.

Changing How We See Art

Thomas Hoving, who served as director of  the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art during the 1960s-1970s and was the innovator of the blockbuster exhibit -- starting with Tutankhamen -- died on Thursday of lung cancer. Hoving was 78.

A 1992 Publisher's Weekly Review of his book, Making the Mummies Dance: Inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, described his tone as being “preening and amusingly self-deprecating at once.”

He seems to have been a man who courted controversy, and at 6'3", he was a larger-than-life character who described his collecting style as “pure piracy.” One of the acquisitions made during his 10-year tenure at MoMA was a 2,500-year-old Greek vase that had been whisked away from an Etruscan tomb; when he made the purchase, he chose to overlook the questionable methods used to obtain the work. (Years after his departure as director, in 1996, the vase was returned to Italy.)

This isn’t to say that the self-described shark didn’t expect fair play from others, however. During his 1980s sojourn as editor of Connoisseur magazine, he revealed shenanigans perpetuated at the Getty, including a tax fraud scheme and another about a fake Greek kouros that the museum had acquired.

Although I’m interested in reading Mummies to learn more, I’ve already concluded that the way he re-envisioned the museum experience 35 to 40 years ago continues to benefit art enthusiasts everywhere. Aside from developing the blockbuster-style show, he brought about other changes that are now central components. One example -- he brought live artists into the MoMA collection. (Until that time, MoMA trustees only allowed works by dead artists to be shown.)

“We are still working out of the model he set,” said Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in the Los Angeles Times. “Beyond blockbusters, it’s the fundamental assumption that our museums have to be open and accessible to the public. That’s his legacy, and it’s a very important one.”

To read up on Hoving, check out the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times. 

Also, to hear a 1993 interview with Fresh Air’s Terry Gross, occasioned by his memoir, Making the Mummies Dance: Inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, visit NPR.

Animal Farm

My coworker, TerriTwitter, and I took a lunch break yesterday and walked over to a petting zoo at Central and California in Glendale. Zoo is an overstatement -- it was more like a tent and a chain-link fenced-in pen on a Christmas tree lot. She paid 75¢ to enter the pen since that’s all she had with her, but I paid the full $2. Both prices of admission included a bowl of feed, and when we showed up with it, the lambs and goat rushed us like we were rock stars. One of the bunnies, the one with his rear to the camera in the last photo, had a mustache like Groucho Marx. Funny, we didn’t see a pony-ride. I was still picking straw off of my tights two hours later.

Brownie Mania

Hooray -- it’s National Chocolate Brownie Day! 

Here’s Martha Stewart's Caramel Pecan Brownie recipe.

While they’re in the oven, here’s some brownie history from Nibble.com.  (The first brownie was actually a molasses treat.)

Perhaps Brownie cameras are more your speed.

Click here to read up on the history of the Brownie camera.

Or click here to see some brownie photography.

Photo above: Brownie Troop 592, Norwalk, CA, 1962

Keeping Up With The Joneses

Ditto on that ditto.

The First Rock Star

Before Madonna made 
a career of entertaining 
in her underwear, 
before Bjork dressed in outlandish costumes, before Cindy Lauper had fun, before recorded music became the norm rather than a passing fancy, there was vaudeville’s 
Eva Tanguay.
Jody Rosen, Slate’s culture guru, says that “for roughly two decades, from 1904 until the early 1920s, Eva Tanguay was the biggest rock star in the United States.” 
Tanguay was born in Quebec and she died in Los Angeles; Rosen’s article is a fascinating look into the years in between, the rise and fall of a forgotten artist.