The future Queen Anne of Great Britain as Princess of Denmark, painted by Willem Wissing and Jan van der Vaart (1685, oil on canvas). Scottish National Gallery.

Camera obscura on female power and rivalry -- 'The Favourite'

January 2, 2019

“The Favourite” — a diabolically dotty Oscar contender about a diva of sorts supplanted by a younger rival — owes something to the 1950 Oscar winner “All About Eve.” Call it “All About Eve” for the PBS' “Masterpiece” set. Like “Eve’ it offers the reminder that life, the ultimate power player, often dictates that winners might actually be losers and losers, winners.

Baby, it's cold outside for culture warriors

December 19, 2018

At the office holiday party the other night, the newly controversial song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” came up on the playlist. I explained to my publisher that the 1949 Oscar-winning song – which composer Frank Loesser had actually written five years earlier and performed with wife Lynn Garland as a kind of calling card at parties – has come under fresh scrutiny in the #MeToo era for its lyrics and the way they’re performed.

“The Rainbow Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I” (1600-02), oil on canvas, Hatfield House.

Queen to pawn in a game of love and death

December 12, 2018

The new movie “Mary, Queen of Scots” — which I am reluctant to see for reasons that will become clear — belongs to what I like to call the Sylvia Plath school of storytelling. That is, if your telling the story of the suicidal poet, the husband will always be the villain. (That he had two wives who killed themselves in exactly the same way doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in him as a spouse. You know what they say. Once is a tragedy. Twice is an unsettling coincidence.)

It’s a hair thing. For more, visit tillys.com.

Don't rain on his parade

November 11, 2018

The election is still not over – with Senate races in Arizona and Florida and governor’s races in Georgia and, again, the ever-conflicted Florida still too close to call – but the fallout has been swift. No sooner did Nancy “With the Laughing Face” Pelosi take to the mike for a victory speech last Tuesday as Dems no longer in disarray took the House from repudiated Repubs, then Beauregard himself, alias Jeff Sessions, was out as AG.

Coping with the Trumpian age of narcissism

September 15, 2018

I once had a job in which the staffers liked to say that we all had a timeshare on the doghouse. We called it “the Pomeranian palace,” which lent – as Jane Austen might’ve observed – such an elegance to our misery, for no matter how talented you were or how much you worked, eventually the wheel turned to you, because that was the way our bosses rolled.

The blog goddess, an appreciation

July 19, 2018

Today is said to mark the birthday of Alexander the Great, who has figured prominently on this blog, in my writings and in my life. But that’s not what I want to talk about today.

Today also marks the last day of work for the administrator of this site and my social media – the blog goddess, as it were …

Royal fever

May 12, 2018

I have a confession to make: I am in love with a much younger man – Prince Louis.

OK, so he’s only 3 weeks old but he has stolen my heart. Prince Louis is already a star — thanks to his shutterbug of a mother, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge — but even he will have to take a backseat this week as we get set for the Olympics of romance. I am talking, of course, about the wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry May 19 at 7 a.m. (EDT).

As with any such event, this is not a sprint for the press but a marathon. In my guise as editor of WAG magazine, I have been among those whetting the appetite with wedding previews …