She’s the 21st century Woody Allen. Black people don’t exist, especially not in New York.

I love the strap of whatever is hanging on her left hip. It’s a little extra touch of chic.

If Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian got really high one night and for whatever reason decided to design fabric this is what would have resulted. Of course the next morning they would have burned it.

A fun thing to do is find out which famous people share your birthday and realize you have absolutely nothing in common with any of them. I share a birthday with a famous evangelical. a comedian, and a minor member of the British royal family. If you put the four of us in a room I think conversation would be a little…

In New England you can’t go anywhere without seeing a Dunkin Donuts cup. I wouldn’t be surprised to see one perched on a casket or being carried by one of the Celtics on the court.

Alan Cumming was very Chaplin-esque. What was with the umbrella? Isn’t it like 100 degrees in LA and hasn’t rained in three years or something? Is he mocking LA? A sly reference to his Scottish roots?

Whoever chooses the music that concluded each episode deserved an Emmy or two. I’m (just) old enough to remember that Coke commercial and when it came on I literally gasped. Same with the episode where Sally Draper acts out and hacks her hair off and the concluding song is “I Enjoy Being a Girl” (first line: “When I…

Of course Randela! (I saw your post about adding -ela to a name as a term of affection.)

Did you know that the entire Spy archive is available for free on Google Books? Just pick an issue and click on “search inside” and you won’t be searching, the contents of every issue will come up.

And let us not forget Shirley Lord, always described by Spy Magazine as a “bosomy dirty book writer.” She married A. M. Rosenthal, the New York Times’s Executive Editor and the man who single-handedly kept any positive mention of gay people or substantive news about the AIDS crisis out of the paper for many years.

The bio I read was called Destiny of the Republic. It also talked about all kinds of other people and events from the era. It wasn’t written by Erik Larson but it was like one of his books and similarly excellent.

Could have been worse. You could have been reading the New York Post post-9/11. (Sorry the image is so huge! Don’t know how to make smaller.)

No, that would actually be James Garfield, who showed up at the Republican convention in 1880 as the campaign manager for Sherman, gave the nominating speech for him, and then wound up being nominated himself! And Garfield won the election, he became President, but was assassinated shortly thereafter. It’s a really…

I just checked. Judith Krantz is still alive! She’s 87.

You won’t regret it. The whole book is great.

If you liked the Pamela Harriman bio, try to get your hands on David Grafton’s The Sisters. I think it’s out of print. There were three of them, maiden name Cushing. Here’s how they ended up: Babe Mortimer Paley, Betsy Roosevelt Whitney, and Minnie Astor Fosburgh.

God I hope my sister is not on Jezebel because my cover will be blown by this little anecdote. (And this is veering off topic.)

I am a consultant/freelancer and I got into a heated debate with the head of the division I am in contract with. She saw nothing wrong with what they did to that boy in Texas. It is her feeling that any Muslim can be radicalized at any moment so better safe than sorry. Something about little girls being strapped with…

I love the fact that your dog’s bed is visible in the background of the picture. Like she was just lying on the couch watching an Animal Planet marathon and dozed off for a few minutes…