Category Archive:
Toes Mustn’t Show
In 1818 the formidable French etiquette writer Madame de Genlis (1746-1830) reminded proper ladies that when lounging on a divan, chaise longue or daybed, they’d better hide their feet under a couvre-pieds. “Decency demands it because, stretched out like that,…
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…
“Hurrah for Anything”
I have a cartoonish sense of the beatniks, the kind of pop-informed cliche vision—people in black turtlenecks snapping in some 50s era coffeehouse—that poet Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972) would have hated. Patchen pioneered the poetry-jazz movement of the late 50s, donning…
Candy! Daily Candy, that is….
Wow! Really thrilled about being included in DailyCandy’s holiday gift guide. It’s still such a kick every time something like this happens. http://www.dailycandy.com/new-york/flipbook/92090/30-Gifts-Under-30#7
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