Ars Amatoria

My bride has - not one - but two master's degrees.
So, like the song says, she can spell s-e-x!

Just sayin'...

Caught the first half hour of "Get Yourself A College Girl" last night on TCM; a complete and utter shriek, and you can say I said so.

The title song above is so awful that it seems an almost intentional joke on what were known as "co-eds" back in the day. And compounding the joke is the scene a bit later where "Terri"'s fellow "co-eds" insist that she's, like, Joan of Arc leading them into this brave new world of female liberation. To have s-e-x, apparently. Which is, well, sorta not a real "Joan of Arc" thing, but, whatev'.

I understand that the rest of the film features some early Sixties musical brilliance (the reviewer at the link discusses perhaps the most famous; the appearance of Astrud Gilberto performing The Girl From Ipanema):

"My friends, what any viewer of this sequence has just experienced is pure -- repeat, untainted in any way -- musical perfection. Incredibly talented artists, at the absolute peak of their careers, captured on well photographed 35mm format performing their single most famous number.

It just doesn't get any better than this."

Plus some early British Invasion from The Animals and the Dave Clark Five...well, let's say that if I'd been perkier and the flick on earlier I'd have tried to watch the rest.

Instead I am left with the indelible impression of the 1959 Miss America crooning about how intellectual women are better because they really know how to screw.

Which is not how I recall it, but perhaps I went to the wrong school.

Girls in their Summer Dresses

Sunny day down on the South Waterfront part of Portland.This area is trying desperately to be the new chi-chi urban district in my City of Roses. It was bankrolled during the height of the real-estate bubble, and a whole bunch of chumps figured how smart they were by throwing up some huge condos in this badly-accessed former industrial dumping site.

It even has a ski lift - one of those ginormous gondolas you see taking loads of perky ski-bunnies in Sixties spandex tights up to the Piz von Spitz in the old James Bond movies - that runs up to the Oregon Health Sciences University on what is universally known around here as "Pill Hill".

It's been pretty rainy the last week or so, but this afternoon the sun came blazing out which meant that all the Portlanders did, too.

One thing I noticed is that amid the pale skin and rip-stop poplin that are part of the Portland woman's special charm there were some truly electric toenails.

Fingernails? Not so much; the usual tame shades from pale pink to dark crimson. But the toes, suddenly free from their dark winter prisons, didn't just flower...they buzzed! Electric blue, Stearman orange (like ten little cropdusters...), highlighter yellow, and even more exotic varieties with little flowers, leaves, stars...

What's the deal, gals? Is this some sort of secret winter pick-me-up? Are these vivid toes your way of fighting off the rainy-day blues? Do you combat Portland's everlasting rains by shucking your shoes and socks to bask in the light of those luminescent polished toenails?

I dunno. They ARE pretty. And sunny and bright. I enjoyed the newly-freed colors passing by in their tevas and flip-flops, glinting and gleaming in the frolicsome sun.

I took the picture below because it was such a perfect illustration of the day.

The woman is probably either a doctor or a lawyer - this IS a wealthy part of town and the big hospital is nearby - and she had some sort of report or brief to review, but the day was too nice to stay in her office, so she walked down to the park along the river and kicked off her shoes and read her paperwork.Nothing particularly special about her or the picture, I just enjoyed the sight of a pretty woman relaxing and working on a sunny day.

But...did I mention frolicsome..?

I was there drilling some soil borings right down along the public path at the edge of the river, a very popular place to walk or run. And, sure enough, around midday along the path comes a youngish woman jogging.

Now she wasn't doing anything especially distinctive, except that she was an extremely healthy young woman, very...womanly...in her physique. And she either couldn't afford a lot of running clothing or she just liked form-fitting attire, because her spandex top and running tights didn't hide much, and there was...ummm...a LOT to hide.

Her frontispiece was positively heroic, and her curves lavishly architectural. Her nipples, like two perky little point men, scouted her progress along the sunny asphalt. She was bright, and blonde, and when she jogged she was a masterwork of parabolic motion, and I have to say honestly; I stopped working for a moment to just watch her go past.

Now I adore my wife. She is helpmeet, lover, friend, wise counselor, sweet confidant, brave companion, tender bride. I find her every part winsome and desirable, and consider her in all respects but not least of those in her physical pulchritude the utter Acme of Womanhood.

But I'm also male. And human.

And so I watched her go past.

And tried not to be a total boor as she jogged by, her brave vibrations each way free. And very nice vibrations they were, I must say. So I appreciated the view as she passed, from stem to stern, front to rear, top to bottom. And even that was positively...well, I don't think bottoms can be "perky" so let's call hers "jaunty". And as those jaunty haunches went bounding past I caught a look at the back of her black jogging tights, on which was written, straining valiantly to span that surging fundament, to skywrite across that cloud-puff expanse of derriere;

"Love Pink".


And for the life of me, I still can't think of anything to say.

daughter of Michelangelo

"It will never be those theater beauties,
Corrupt products of a worthless century,
Those feet shod in buskins, those fingers holding castanets,
Who will satisfy a heart like my own.I leave to Gavarni, the poet of chlorosis,
His babbling flock of hospital beauties,
For I cannot find among those pale roses
A flower that ressembles my red ideal.

What this heart, as deep as an abyss, needs
Is you, Lady Macbeth, a soul powerful in crime,
A dream of Aeschylus blooming in a climate of south winds;

Or rather you, great Night, daughter of Michelangelo,Who peacefully twists into a strange pose
Those feminine charms fashioned in the mouths of the Titans!"

~Baudelaire

The Ugly 'Merkin

It's late, I'm still at work, and I really need to get food, family, and sleep not neccessarily in that order, but before I logged out at work I was perusing the blogsphere and found this;

“The film is set in the 50s, I couldn’t have just had a landing strip! I had to grow the hair down there. But because of years of waxing, as all of us girls know, it doesn’t come back quite the way it used to. They even made me a merkin – a wig – because they were so concerned that I might not be able to grow enough.”

Dear.
God.

There are times when I am apalled at the horror that is mankind. War, murder, rape, genocide, syrupy coffee drinks, Uggs. And there are moments when I am stopped, mute, overwhelmed by the exuberant beauty that is the world and everything in it; birdsong, the unthinking caress, thunderstorms, a sleeping cat, blueberry cheesecake.But...merkins?

I cannot honestly decide what to think.

The Girls In Their Summer Dresses

One nice thing about the warm weather is that the heavy clothes come off.

Nice, for me, because I like the freedom of going without heavy shoes, heavy coats, everything heavy, encompassing; I like the warmth without having to dress to obtain it.

And also nice, in that everyone else gets to come out of their winter clothes and into their light shirts and sandals.

And the Portland women, and girls, so dark and dour through the winter in their rainjackets, fleece, and heavy shoes bloom in a delicious profusion of color and movement.Floaty summer dresses, pretty tops in bright, sunny colors. Toes painted like candy lighten up sandals and flip-flops. Even their movements seem lighter and more joyful. They're lovely, and I enjoy their sudden emergence from winter's drizzly hibernation.

One odd thing I have noticed this summer more than before, though, is the number of women (in particular, though I've been seeing men doing this, too) cycling in flip-flops. This seems peculiarly dangerous; as a kid I scraped the hell out of my foot when I blew out of a cheap rubber flip-flop riding my bike. In a bike-y town like Portland it seems odd that so many people are riding this way. But, there, I'm always amazed at how many Portlanders ride without helmets. Perhaps the cycling-in-flips is just part of the casual style of this town. Seems chancy to me...

One family member who is NOT so enthused about the weather is our little cat Lily. She hates the heat and spends much of her time sleeping in the shade or trying to find shade. That, and she always gets flea-ridden this time of year. She is allergic to their bites and tears at herself until the fleabane medicine and the winter's cold drive them away again.

Speaking of bicycling, I drove home from the Timbers game tonight - nice 2-nil win over Miami - and had to stop at the corner of Willamette and Parks to let a group of riders go by. I turned down Willamette and found that the entire bike lane was full of people on bikes; cruisers, hybrids, trail-a-bikes, unicycles...people wearing tutus, tuxedos, neon, wizard's hats, bridal gowns, all manner and color of chemlight glowsticks sprouting from bikes, helmets, and riders.

Turns out that this is something called the "Night Ride", and it happens every July. I couldn't resist; I stopped at the corner of N. McKenna and Willamette, found someone's put-out-for-the-taking chest of drawers sitting in the city strip along Willamette, and leaned on it watching the show. The riders looked like they were having a great time; there was lots of laughter, lots of bells ringing and little horns honking. I waved to the cheerful unable to stifle a silly grin myself. It was all very goofy, and very Portland. I stayed and enjoyed the impromptu night parade until the last little group of stragglers passed by and left the street to the cold streetlights and the silent houses.

But now it's late, and I have to get to bed.

Hope your summer Sunday is a good one.

Your Kung Fu is not fattening.

Speaking of China, the kiddos were watching "Kung Fu Panda" again last night, and I was reminded that this:

may possibly be one of the classic bits of movie business right up there with Chaplin's Dance of the Bread Rolls, Groucho's mirror scene in "Duck Soup", and Debra Messing's delivery room scene in "The Women" remake.

Nothing serious about it. Enjoy.

(Although, having stumbled across the 2008 "The Women" I should really do a post about it and the original, which is perhaps one of the most delightfully awful Thirties movies of all time. Come to think of it, I will. But that's for later...)

Far above rubies

My friend Lisa is not feeling well.

In a world where it seems to me that undeserved praise, unwarranted ease, slippery self-justification, and special pleading are - and perhaps always have been - the rule rather than the exception, I have always found that Lisa is that rare person who seldom takes the easy path paved with excuses. She is a quality compounded of wit, knowledge, grace and beauty that makes Woman, a certain breed of woman, the crowning achievement of Creation. One that use hairy, less-evolved types would do well to simply admire in seemly silence.

I hope she feels better soon, because, like the sunrise on the ocean or the dawn chorus heard at the edge of the dark forest, she lightens a world which is a grayer and drabber place without her moving through it with lightness and verve.

And for her convalesence, a poem.

TWILIGHT: AFTER HAYING

Yes, long shadows go out
from the bales; and yes, the soul
must part from the body:
what else could it do?

The men sprawl near the baler,
too tired to leave the field.
They talk and smoke,
and the tips of their cigarettes
blaze like small roses
in the night air. (It arrived
and settled among them
before they were aware.)

The moon comes
to count the bales,
and the dispossessed—
Whip-poor-will, Whip-poor-will
—sings from the dusty stubble.

These things happen . . . the soul’s bliss
and suffering are bound together
like the grasses. . . .

The last, sweet exhalations
of timothy and vetch
go out with the song of the bird;
the ravaged field
grows wet with dew.

Jane Kenyon

Hope you're feeling more the thing soon, Lisa. Probae esti in segetem sunt deteriorem datae fruges, tamen ipsae suaptae enitent.