Category Archive:
Between Waldorf and Astoria
Yesterday I was reading about New York’s haughty hotel culture at the turn of the century, when the word ‘ritz’ became synonymous with a certain style of urbanized high life. There were ‘the ritzies,’ who often ‘ritzed’ those on the…
Bau, bau….
It’s nearly Mardi Gras already, so it’s high time that I gave a nod to the Venetian masquers of old, who eerily drift through Encyclopedia of the Exquisite. For over half the year, from early October through Lent, the nobles…
“The season of lists and callow hopefulness…”
The great editor and grande dame of New England gardening, Katharine S. White, gives her opinion on dahlias in Encyclopedia of the Exquisite, but she loved this time of year here in Maine almost as much as she did full-blooming…
Anna from Every Angle
Encyclopedia of the Exquisite’s entry on Milk Baths introduces the Ziegfeld sensation Anna Held, who was famously sued by a milk farmer for the amount she owed for keeping her bath tub filled with milk. She’s one of my favorite…
Comments