Celebrity Look Alike

Way back in 1981, my dear friend Marilyn sent me the above clipping and told me that I looked just like Meryl Streep. I know, I know, she was being over - complimentary, but, I loved her for it (that's what friends are for!) and ever since that day I became a Meryl fan!

A highlight of this year's Oscar Celebration was Frances McDormand's brilliant gesture of inviting all the female nominees in every category stand with her. My favorite part was when she urged Streep, " . . . Meryl, if you do it, everybody else will, c'mon . . . ."

What an honor!

American historian and social observer Sarah Vowell also pays tribute to Streep when explaining the topic and title of her latest (2015) book, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States:

"The thing that drew me to [the Marquis de] Lafayette as a subject -- that he was that rare object of agreement in the ironically named United States -- kept me coming back to why that made him unique. Namely, that we the people have never agreed upon much of anything. Other than a bipartisan consensus on barbeque and Meryl Streep" (25, emphasis added).

Surprisingly, even in the Meryl Streep department, I could name a few dissenters! Even so, what a perfect coincidence that I started reading Vowell's book and came across her reference to Streep on the same day that I wrote this post!

"Inclusion Rider"
Streep & MacDormand

Best Actress Nominees
Academy Awards ~ March 4, 2018

Celebrating Together
Golden Globes ~ January 7, 2018

Forever Stamp

As John Cheever (1912 - 1982) once said:
"I dream that my face appears on a postage stamp."

Betty White (1922 - 2021)

Meryl Streep (b 1949)

Okay, Meryl and I have yet to be featured on a
Forever Stamp -- but we used the app
on our headshots to look like the new Betty Stamp!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In hopes of a better world to come,
here is an amazing poem about
racism, sexism, and a woman on a postage stamp.
Give me Betty White anyday --
and so many more, all stripes and colors!

Stamps

Back when I was nearly blameless and could visit the zoo
and admire the tigers not for what they actually were,
but as monstrous man-eaters that deserved to be caught.
Back when I thought I had already tasted life's worst
disappointment, because I'd fallen in love right after college
and it hadn't worked out. Back when every attractive man—
gay or straight, it didn't matter yet—getting off the bus
caught my eye, I was a Republican. And I went to work
in Washington D.C., and met all the suited villains
I'd been warned about. Still reading about Goldwater's
conscience. Thrilled by the idea of bombs. Strangling
themselves in Limbaugh's neckties. Certain our own
country needed to stage a coup. (Clinton in the White House
doing what Clinton did.) One day, I set off to buy
a thousand dollars worth of stamps. The stuffing
of envelopes would soon follow. The best way to get
money is to send a letter and ask for it, they said. Halfway
to the post office, a breathless boy chased me down.
Red-faced. Panicked. His dizzying tie swung over his shoulder.
He told me what my boss had forgotten to say. We can't
use stamps with women or black people on them. The world
toppled me that day in a business park—so young
and dumb—I left in an instant to become who I really am.

By Kristen Tracy

P.S.
~ March First ~
Rolls Round Again

Choose Me

Read More About Choose Me
About those movies that I like in spite of myself (see August 10th below: "Monday: Pop Quiz"). Here's why:

Talladega Nights (2006): because of the hilarious table grace & the cougar named Karen.

Zoolander (2001): because of the School for Ants.

The Terminator (1984): because, unlike the follow-ups, this one resembles real science fiction (Harlan Ellison &Philip K. Dick), not just special effects.

Another movie that I'm crazy about, not so much in spite of myself, but rather unaccountably, is Choose Me (1984). The setting is dreamy and offbeat, like One From the Heart (1982), which I mentioned on my Fortnightly blog not too long ago (see "Child Beheads Mannequin," Monday, June 15, 2009). Both movies are accompanied perfectly by sultry signature songs: "One From the Heart" by Tom Waits and Crystal Gale; and "You're My Choice Tonight (Choose Me)" by Teddy Pendergrass.

Choose Me is the kind of movie that I recommend to my friends and they say, "Why did you tell me to watch that? What do you like about that odd movie?" Well, first, I have just adored Lesley Anne Warren ever since she portrayed Cinderella on television in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical (1965); and, second, Keith Carradine ever since he sang "I'm Easy," in Nashville (1975); and, third, Genevieve Bujold ever since Coma (1978), not to mention King of Hearts / Le roi de couer (1966) and her portrayal of Cassandra in The Trojan Women (1971).

In Choose Me, Lesley Anne Warren is named Eve (Everywoman) and her bar is called "Eve's" (named not for her but for the previous owner, another Everywoman). I've always been intrigued by the poster you can see on the wall (in the apartment not the bar) that says, if you look really close: "She often thought of killing him." Whoa!

But what I like most about this movie and always have liked is the imperative title -- CHOOSE ME! That's what has stayed in my mind. Isn't that what we all really want? And the people who can't or won't do that -- well, to heck with them. The only people in whom it's worth investing time & emotion are those who are into us, those who choose us. I love lots of movies (everything Christmas, everything Meryl Streep, everything Kristin Scott Thomas), but if I have to choose just one, I always choose Choose Me.

Artistic Rendering

Back before
Meryl Streep, Mia Farrow, and Glenn Close,
there was the Morton Salt Girl, 1956!

Gerry and I on our courthouse wedding day ~ February 3, 1989
A friend said I looked like Mia Farrow in this pic
-- maybe it was the hairstyle?

A decade or so later, my younger son Sam picked up this movie,
looked closely at Glenn Close, and said "Mommy, is this you?"
Once again, was it the hair? Whatever! I'll take it!

Thanks to my friend Robin for inspiring yet another introspective post! Once again she has triggered my memory -- this time asking: "When did you first identify yourself . . . with the visual of a child?" Of course, Robin's original prompt is more thoughtful and intricate than my summary; I'm merely grasping the essence here and responding from popular culture imagery rather than art museum portraiture. Sure, I love all the Morton Salt Girls, but 1956 remains my favorite!

Truly for me, the iconic Morton Salt Girl
of my early childhood sprang first to mind.
For Robin, it has always been this lovely painting:

Miss Beatrice Townsend (1882)
by John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925).
See the resemblance!

You get the idea!
Thinking about Robin's larger question of ethnic identity, I guess I'd have to say: hopelessly American (as in U.S.A.), perhaps as attested to by the Morton Salt Girl herself. Even though I knew all the stories of the various ancestors from Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, and so forth, I never thought much beyond being from Kansas.

An interesting connection: the other day I was talking to one of my neighbors here about her unusual surname "Bougher." She said that growing up in Indiana, no one seemed to think much about ethnic heritage, but when she lived in Chicago, people would often ask what she knew about the meaning / source / history of her name. So she went home and asked her dear grandmother, who thought about it for minute, and answered: "Well, Honey, I think we're all from Kansas!"

So iconic! Wizard of Oz and Dorothy Gale!

PS.
Thanks to Laura Bougher McLaughlin
for letting me share this anecdote.
I hope I told it right!
It's fun to think of who your art world look alike might be and what that earliest moment of self - other identification might signify about your sense of person and place in our culture.

Even One Day

New Post for the 14th on
The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
"To Live Even One Day"

Vanessa Redgrave as Clarissa Dalloway
In the movie Mrs. Dalloway,
based on the novel by Virginia Woolf

"It was Clarissa!"
Meryl Streep as Clarissa Vaughan
In the movie of The Hours,
based on the novel by Michael Cunningham

"She was for the party!"
For more on these novels and movies,
see today's Fortnightly Post
"To Live Even One Day"
and from last month
"Life -- A Little Strip of Time"

P.S. I want to do this: Mrs. Dalloway Walking Tour

An Ersatz for Happiness

Fake Nails, Fake "Jewels"
(Real Plants)

"Here was happiness; not my drum, to be sure, just an ersatz,
but there is also such a thing as ersatz happiness,
perhaps happiness exists only as an ersatz,
perhaps all happiness is an ersatz for happiness" (444).
~ from The Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass ~

Back in 2003 when Nicole Kidman portrayed Virginia Woolf in The Hours, I read a magazine interview in which she pointed out that her hands were perfect for the role because no matter what she did (moisturizers, manicures, and so forth) she always has scrawny, inelegant hands -- just as Woolf was supposed to have had. Kidman said that for her it is a family trait; her sister suffers from the same beauty flaw.

And so do I! My hands are notoriously dry and worn looking no matter what beauty treatments I try, and they always have been, ever since I was a child and my mother slathered them in glycerin and made me wear little white gloves to bed. From here on out, instead of fighting it, I will just feel honored to share this troublesome trait with the stunning, famous Nicole (and her sister).

Now, if only my agent could find a part for my dry hands to play in a movie!

One of my manicure buddies confided to me that her one misgiving about our fake nails is that it seems, perhaps, a declasse kind of indulgence. I assured her otherwise but was reminded of something that I read years ago in Norah Ephron's old book Crazy Salad (which I keep in the kitchen with my cookbooks, along with her novel Heartburn, which contains actual recipes, including the one I use for Bread Pudding -- remember the movie with Meryl Streep & Jack Nicholson?).

Here's what Ephron writes in Crazy Salad, not about nail care, but about the market success of feminine hygiene products, which she considered to be a big advertising scam: "Secretaries and stewardesses. It figures. Scratch any trend no one you know is into and you will always find secretaries and stewardesses. They are also behind Dr. David Reuben, contemporary cards, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, water beds, Cold Duck, Rod McKuen, and Minute Rice" (81).

I laughed and laughed when I first read that back in 1986; and I'm still laughing now! You know why? -- because I've always been a big fan of Minute Rice, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and even the poetry of Rod McKuen. Maybe Ephron would include fake nails in her list as well; but, hey, I think it's okay to pick and choose!

My ersatz nails (above / below) could hardly be called flashy or trashy. In fact, they are actually rather understated, if you ask me, not like those extra - longs with decals of the American Flag worn by postal workers or the obviously fake, two - toned, sequin - studded tips worn by the receptionists at the mammography center.

On the other hand (no pun intended ~ haha!) if they like that style and it adds a little joy ~ ersatz though it may be ~ to their day, then why not?

Two New Figs & New Nail Color: Electric Eel
See also A Title Like a Book & RED