Ex Libris
Bookplates! I’ve been doing some research on the personalized bookplates of centuries past, putting together a certain ahem-hem birthday gift lately. Since the first days when anyone lent anyone a book— or at least since the mid-15th century— nobles and monks…
“Completely Wanton”
Encyclopedia of the Exquisite‘s entry on Heels focuses on how Marilyn Monroe wore them with such va-va-voom back in the mid-20th century. In Niagara, a film noir shot in 1952, she played a vixen with a walk so provocative that…
Endings and Beginnings
Just a quick thought on the month of January, named for the two-faced Roman god Janus, who could peer into the future and see into the past at the same time. Who better to represent the New Year? Appropriately enough,…
Freeze, please.
It’s finally time to sharpen up my blades—I’ve been waiting for over eleven months now. The oldest known ice-skates, 4000 year-old strap-on horse bone blades, were dug up near a Finnish lake by archeologists in 2007. But while ice-skates have…
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