The Escape Route

Well.... not sure if this actually was someone's escape route---no explanatory clipping on the back of this archival photo from the Baltimore Sun.  All it says is 'Penitentiary--Maryland, 1956'; a quick skim in Google doesn't turn up anything obvious.

But what appeals to me most in this picture is the big black inset circle, which lends a graphic and abstract quality to the thing, especially with the dotted white lines and 'X.'  I've got a small mini-collection of photos with such circles.  They were intended, one surmises, to hold a cameo picture of somebody involved in the story.

Maybe I will post some of these 'black spots' tomorrow or the next day.

Baker's Dozen

Not quite sure what those things are that several of them are holding (one fellow is biting into one).  Some sort of pretzel?  Sausages? Peculiarly thin croissants?  Carrots?

All very 1920s and Eastern European.  And some gorgeous young men in the mix.

Czech Titties

A card from a junk shop in Prague this summer.  There was a 'Hooters' around the corner from the slightly seedy Sheraton in which we were ensconced.  This card is truly dreadful.  The idiocy of (Social Realist) rural life.

Oh, Odette...

...as in Odette Myrtil.  As marvelous a name as Ruby Philogene.

Oh, Odette, I need a shot of your tuxedo love. Or else the world's biggest carnation to sniff.  Have been so busy with deadlines, and the dream of a common language, I've had to forego any blog appearances this week. Please forgive me, ladies and gents and lady-gents.

And La Myrtil?--actress, violinist, singer (1898-1978), born in France, ended up in vaudeville in London and New York, followed by a 20-year career in Hollywood films as a character actress. Married twice (can that be the whole story?) and lived in New Hope, Pennsylvania in later life, where she opened a restaurant, Chez Odette.  The latter is supposedly still in existence--one must check.

The Auteur

Mermaid Smoke

We put on our felt clothes and bag hats and had a ball.

Same-Sex Marriage

Raymond Burr and Barbara Stanwyck, one imagines, are celebrating again, in some lovely heavenly place.

Serpent Cucumber . . .

. . . . terrorizing tomato.  Tomato's expression will be mine tomorrow if a certain incumbent is not victorious.

Bacchante from Pompeii

Don't get me wrong: I'm voting for Barack.

Yours diaphanously, TC

Fluttering and Pointing

The American actress and dancer Betta St. John (born 1929).  She appeared at the age of ten in Destry Rides Again (1939)--later in several Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals.  The X crop-marks--like vaunting white cranes, thermaling in the deepest, darkest warm night.