Paris Cinema—from Palace to Porn to Worcester Icon

Beginning on August 1, I’ll be hanging some digitally-enhanced photos of Worcester landmarks in a two-person exhibit called “Welcome to Worcester.”

The exhibit is the brainchild of Elizabeth Hughes who owns the Futon Company shop at 129 Highland Street in Worcester. Elizabeth doesn’t just sell futons—she also encourages local artists by exhibiting their work on the walls of the store.

It was Elizabeth’s idea to call the show “Welcome to Worcester” and to feature some of the city’s iconic landmarks as portrayed by Doug Chapel in his illustrations and in my photographs, which I have digitally enhanced.

The terrific vintage-style postcard advertising the show was designed by Elizabeth’s sister, Victoria Hughes Waters. It demonstrates how Doug Chapel and I differently portray the Coney Island Hotdogs restaurant with its famous neon sign.

The show will also be featured on Sunday, Aug. 8 at “Art in the Parking Lot” across the street from the Futon Company in the Sole Proprietor’s lot--along with local artists, live art and all sorts of surprises.

The reception for “Welcome to Worcester” will be held on Thursday, Sept. 9, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Futon Company and among the treats will be Coney Island’s famous hot dogs.

While photographing some of the funky Worcester landmarks that Doug has immortalized in his cartoons, I learned a lot about their history.

I already knew about the saga of the Paris Cinema (originally called the Capitol Theatre) which is on Worcester’s Common, behind City Hall. I first researched it for Preservation Worcester back in 2005. By then, what had begun as a palatial movie palace in the 1920’s had deteriorated into a seedy “Adult Cinema” offering gay porn. In January of 2005, according to an article in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, “a series of police raids resulted in the arrests of 22 men for engaging in sexual acts in the theater, some in groups and others by themselves.” City Manager Michael V. O’Brien said that the cinema “painted an ugly picture of downtown at a time he’s pushing for revitalization.”

In January, 2006, the Paris Cinema was closed down by the authorities and has sat empty ever since, awaiting the wrecking ball, but Preservation Worcester has been trying to save it from this fate. The theater was once the pride of Worcester. Inside, much of the original architectural splendor is still there, although in a dilapidated condition.



As I wrote in my summary for Preservation Worcester’s “Most Endangered” list, the Capitol Theatre (now Paris Cinema) is a rare surviving example of the “atmospheric” theaters that were popular across the United States during the movie palace era of the early 20th century. Architect John Eberson developed the atmospheric style of theater design in 1923. He wanted to distract Americans from life’s problems by creating an atmosphere of rest and beauty, “a magnificent amphitheatre under a glorious moonlit sky in an Italian garden, in a Persian court, in a Spanish patio or in a mystic Egyptian templeyard, all canopied by a soft moonlit sky” as he put it.

Eberson had his own alliterative slogan for what he was doing: “Prepare Practical Plans for Pretty Playhouses—Please Patrons—Pay Profits.”

(Don’t you love the alliteration and the optimism of the era—it’s a far cry from being raided by the police for encouraging public group sex.)

Originally seating 2,500, the 1926 Capitol Theatre was the first of three atmospheric palace theaters built in Worcester in the late 1920’s. It allowed its patrons to live the fantasy of attending a show in an outdoor amphitheater in Spain.



Not only was its interior elaborately detailed with decorative plaster and wrought iron in the Spanish style, but the impression was enhanced by projectors that created the effect of twinkling stars and moving clouds on the arched ceiling of its auditorium and second floor mezzanine lobby. Although the building was converted to a multiplex cinema in the 1960’s, much of the interior and ornamental detailing still survives. But no one knows in what condition….

When photographing the Paris Cinema, I made one photo which shows the place in the rather grim (yet graphically sophisticated) condition it’s in today, incorporating an empty storefront and an African hair braiding shop, but in the other photo I’m submitting to the show, I used color to suggest the fantasy palace that it was at the beginning—a place designed to distract the citizens of Worcester from the harsh realities of the Depression by providing them a fantasy for a few hours that they were viewing the glamorous world of 1930’s Hollywood from a seat in a Spanish amphitheater, under the twinkling stars and moving clouds.

World Largest Crustacean Means Summer in Worcester

(Click on Buster to make him bigger.)

( Okay--this blog post was posted last July but it's July again and Buster is on top of the Sole again and I'm frantic-- finishing a photo exhibit and planning a wedding-- so I'm running it over again. Worcester is still as quirky and full of surprises as last year.)

We who live in (or near) Worcester MA, population 170,000, are fiercely loyal, even though big city papers like The New York Times tend to refer to Worcester as a “sleepy industrial backwater”.

Worcesterites fondly refer to their town as “Wormtown” and “The Paris of the Eighties”. The Worcester Historical Museum even sells a T-shirt (below) that makes fun of the way people always mispronounce the city’s name . (The correct pronunciation in the local accent is: ”Wusta.” If you call it “Wor-chester” everyone here will think you are wicked lame.)



With its rows of three-deckers and its mostly deserted brick factories, Worcester is like a time capsule that was sealed in the 1950s or ‘60’s. (It’s also a great place to shoot a movie—and several have been filmed here.) We have at the moment an airport with no scheduled commercial flights (well, I think there’s one to Florida), an auditorium,a courthouse and a vocational high school that stand empty (making great movie sets) and a central downtown discount fashion mall that has been deserted for years awaiting the wrecking ball.

Worcester has a quirky history full of rebels-- from Isaiah Thomas, who took his printing press and exited Boston ahead of the Tories (the Declaration of Independence was first read in public on our courthouse steps) to Abbie Hoffman who grew up in one of Worcester’s three-deckers (they were built for the families of the factory workers.)

We still have Coney Island Hotdogs with its famous neon sign, and the Boulevard Diner where Madonna ate spaghetti after a concert at the Centrum, Table Talk Pies and Sir Morgan’s Cove (now Lucky Dog, I think) where the Rolling Stones in 1981 gave an impromptu free concert. Worcester boasts seven colleges and universities including Holy Cross, WPI and Clark (where, in 1909 Freud gave his only American lectures.)

Luminaries who came from Worcester are a motley bunch including S. N. Berman, Emma Goldman, Stanley Kunitz, Elizabeth Bishop, Dennis Leary and Marcia Cross--the red-headed desperate housewife. Also the Coors twins, Diane and Elaine Klimaszewski.

Worcester is especially proud of its “famous firsts”, including barbed wire, shredded wheat, the monkey wrench, the first commercial Valentines, the birth control pill, the first perfect game in major league baseball and, most famous of all, the ubiquitous yellow Smiley Face icon.

In Worcester, the perennial sign of summer, as sure as the fireworks and concert in Christopher Colombo Park on the Fourth, is the arrival of the gigantic figure of Buster the Crab, lying on the roof and hanging over the Sole Proprietor Restaurant on Highland Street.

My husband and I ate there last week. There was a special menu of crab dishes, in addition to the regular Sole offerings. From the menu, I learned the following fascinating facts: This is Buster’s 17th year at the Sole Proprietor. Buster is the world’s largest inflatable crustacean. It takes 45,000 cubic feet of air to inflate him. He has a 75-foot claw spam. Buster could feed 200,000 people if he were real. That would require 35,116 pounds of butter and 45,447 lemons.

The crab dishes on the special menu ranged from fried tomato and crab Napoleon with smoky tomato dressing , Spyder Maki with soft-shelled crab, masago, cucumber and asparagus, to crab, mango and pickled cucumber cocktail and Crabmeat Casserole au gratin. I had crab and shrimp salad, which included avocado and tomatoes and sweet lemon herb vinaigrette. My husband had the soft-shelled crabs (sautéed, not fried). It was delicious. On the way out, I even wangled a copy of the Buster the Crab coloring book, usually meant only for kids. When we left, the wind was blowing and Buster’s giant claws waved good-bye.

Planning a Wedding in Corfu

When we landed in Corfu last week, daughter Eleni was off and running to get her wedding plans together. She had informed us, about two weeks earlier, that she planned to marry Emilio in Corfu, Greece, on Oct 10 (10/10/10!) and she had already cleared the date with the church she had always dreamed of –the little peach-colored Church of Panayia Mandrakina at the base of the Fortress in Corfu Town. (That’s Eleni looking at the church above.)

She arrived with a list, which included checking out the reception site, priests, florists, DJs, musicians, cake-bakers, transportation (including horse-drawn carriages and boats) and the venues for the various nights’ activities.

Her sister Marina had already designed the logo that will mark the paperwork, (intertwined E’s for "Emilio" and "Eleni") as well as the invitations, response cards and thank-you notes, and had also assembled spread sheets of guest lists and addresses.

Within four days, everything pretty much got nailed down. I don’t want to give away all the surprises, but can tell the general plan. On Friday night, Oct 8, there will be the decorating of the wedding bed—in a fortress-view suite at the top of a small Italian mansion—now a boutique hotel-- in the old city. (Most of the guests at the wedding will be staying in garden rooms at the Corfu Palace, overlooking the harbor below.)

Traditionally for a Greek wedding the women decorate the nuptial bed with flowers and gold coins, while singing songs sure to bring tears of nostalgia to Eleni’s aunts.



Saturday, the welcome dinner–hosted by the groom and his family—will be held on a magical small island called Vidos. A boat covers the ten-minute ride from the Old Port every hour, and the captain plans to decorate his boat to honor the bride and groom. He can’t wait. Every Greek loves a wedding!

That includes Menios, the wisecracking owner of the taverna on the island, who had strong opinions about the traditional Corfiote dishes he will prepare and the singers who will provide the music for Saturday night. We should leave everything in his hands, he said.

Eleni asked for a meatless main-dish alternative for vegetarians—perhaps tomatoes and peppers stuffed with a herbed rice mixture. Menios retorted that upon tasting meatless yemista, the guests would throw the tomatoes and peppers at his head. He had a reputation to uphold! In the end, Eleni and the vegetarians won, I think.

The island of Vidos is like something out of a fairy tale. It’s completely overrun with rabbits and hares as well as pheasants—all of whom have become tame and will walk right up to you. Every night about sunset Menios makes a ritual of throwing feed to the hundreds of animals who drop by for dinner.



Sunday—the wedding day—will include two weddings—one in the Catholic Church (the Duomo) in the picturesque square which includes the Town Hall and the Opera House, followed by a parade with troubadours toward the Greek Orthodox Church for a second ceremony. (Guests who want to take a break or can’t fit into the churches are encouraged to sit at an outdoor café nearby with a celebratory drink.)

[To avert bringing on the Evil Eye, Eleni wants me to qualify all this by adding the words “weather permitting.” And I should spit a couple of times and keep a clove of garlic in my pocket.]

After the ceremonies finish and photographs are taken, everyone will file across the bridge over the moat into the old fortress and through the winding cobblestone paths down to the Corfu Sailing Club on the water’s edge, where sailboats and yachts are anchored and the lights from above shimmer in the water.

At the Sailing Club there will be music, toasts, delicious food and several surprises, but I promised not to tell.

When meeting with vendors, I learned that the Mother of the Bride has only one important job and that is “Don’t say anything and don’t engage anyone in conversation.” Eleni and her cousin Areti, a Corfu native who will be the maid of honor and koumbara of the wedding—have their own system for interviewing and negotiating, and it was clear that I could seriously mess things up by expressing an opinion or showing interest in anything.

Being a MOB is no easy task.

My husband likes to quote a friend who commented after one festive weekend: “The average Greek has more fun at a wedding than the average WASP has in a lifetime.”

I’m a life-long WASP, now transformed into a Greek MOB, and I suspect that on 10/10/10 I’ll find out if that’s true.

Is it a Yacht or a Floating Museum?

When we were on the Greek island of Hydra recently, I saw a very peculiar-looking yacht dock in the harbor. I had never seen a boat of that shape and certainly not one decorated with what seemed to be pop art. Painted across the stern was the name “Guilty.” I thought it might be the ill-gotten prize of some hedge-fund manager who had been convicted of a white-collar crime, a la Bernie Madoff.

So I took some photos of the mysterious yacht and then asked the nearest donkey driver whose it was. (Those donkey drivers know everything because they stand around the harbor all day waiting for people to hire them to move suitcases and baggage up the hill to their hotel or destination. There are no vehicles on Hydra, only donkeys.)



He told me that the yacht belonged to a very rich Greek who owned two side- by-side houses up above the harbor. But he didn’t know his name.

When I walked back to the Hotel Leto, I typed the words “yacht” and “Guilty” into Google and learned that the peculiar sea craft belonged to a very influential Greek art collector named Dakis Ioannou (or “Joannou” – it depends on how you translate the Greek alphabet.)

I also learned that he had launched the yacht two years earlier, in Athens, at a party attended by the most important art dealers and contemporary artists of the day. The exterior of the yacht had been decorated by Ioannou’s friend, the artist Jeff Koons.

I wrote about Koons’ life-sized statue of Michael Jackson and his chimp Bubbles a year ago, in a posting about how Michael Jackson’s death had inflated the price of Michael Jackson art.



I quoted from a New York Times article about Koons: ““His 1988 sculpture of Mr. Jackson with Bubbles was decorated with gold metallic paint and brought $5.6 million when it sold at Sotheby’s in New York in 2001. Larry Gagosian, the New York dealer who represents Mr. Koons, said on Wednesday that if one from the edition (he made three along with an artist’s proof) was to come up for sale now, it could make more than $20 million. ‘And that’s conservative,’ he added.”

Ioannou, who reportedly made his money in construction, is an extremely influential collector of works of modern art. I believe he owns 20 of Koons’ super-expensive sculptures. The masterpieces he chooses are often macabre and gory He said at the launching of his yacht, “ “These are dark times. The artists recognize that. We should, too.”

Although the exterior of the ship looks like a Roy Lichtenstein cartoon-painting, the Koons told Art Forum that it was based on a World War I camouflage pattern designed to confuse rather than hide.

The magazine reported: “The dizzying, chromatic graphics did make the unusually jutting planes of the ship, designed by architect Ivana Porfiri, hard to make out on the water. The touchy-feely interior was all mirror, silver leather, and dyed materials. ‘Isn’t it wonderful how you just want to touch everything on board?’ Koons asked, smiling. … The decor also included a lot of art… including wall paintings by David Shrigley, another by Albenda, and Guilty, an unusual text painting by Sarah Morris bought because, well, Joannou said, “I had to.” The yacht already had the name. “Guilty,” he said. “It just seemed right.”

Here is a photograph of the piece which now lives in the yacht along with a lot of other expensive works from his collection.


I have to say that, unlike Ioannou, I was not struck by an irresistible urge to buy this painting when I saw it—but then I really don’t understand much of the art that is currently fashionable.

After leaving Hydra, I picked up an airline magazine—I think it was on an Aegean plane—and learned that at the same moment, a collection of Ioannou’s art was being shown in New York at the New Museum. The exhibit was called “Skin Fruit” and was curated by—guess who?-- Jeff Koons. It included 100 works by “50 world-famous artists” from Ioannou’s private collection. According to the magazine, “It’s an exciting exploration of archetype symbols of genesis, evolution and human sexuality. …The exhibition tells the story of humanity’s beginnings. It’s like a fantastic universe imagined by Stanley Kubrick, Tim Burton and David Lynch, filled with twin towers of white chocolate, warped playground swings, androids and demons. Murals, paintings, installations, performance pieces, 3D pieces and live dramatized scenes of human passion make up a stunning display.”

Unfortunately, the exhibit in New York finished on June 20, so I won’t be able to see all the drama, but in the meantime I and the donkeys of Hydra enjoyed our accidental encounter with Mr. Ioannou’s yacht-as-modern art.

A Grave in an English Churchyard

We’re back in Northern Greece after a four-day weekend spent in the English countryside—specifically in Gloucestershire where a dear friend was celebrating her husband’s 90th birthday with a lavish outdoor party at Chastleton House which included tours of the stately home, waiters who were professional opera singers and a picnic lunch which included champagne and smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches in the famous topiary gardens.

The day before—Saturday—an erudite gentleman named Sebastian Halliday gave us a tour of the bucolic villages of the area including Bibury, Swinbrook, Minster Lovell and Burford.

We explored the thatch-roofed cottages and ancient churches covered with climbing roses and honeysuckle vines and ate in a pub overlooking the wide, shallow river that wound through each village.



Along with Japanese tourists we photographed swans, ducks and horses with new foals, sheep and gardens at their peak of glory.
We saw graves of knights and soldiers, church dignitaries and ordinary people who died of the black plague in 1349.

I love exploring cemeteries in every place I visit. (Favorites are in Edinburgh, New Orleans, Pere Lachaise in Paris and the poor cemetery in Martinique.) The green, mossy ancient stones leaning every which way in a rural Cotswold churchyard always remind me of Sir Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” which mourns the many simple peasants and villages who have lived and died without leaving any record of their lives or their talents and abilities.

I photographed the tombs of the Fettiplace knights, all resting on their elbows in the church of St. Mary’s in Swinbrook, and was fascinated by the tombs of several of the Mitford sisters—perhaps the most controversial, scandalous and talented sisters ever produced by England (more about them another time). But the only gravestone that moved me to tears was one near the ruins of the Lovell stately home at Minster Lovell, near the wide shallow river, filled with water lilies, where children and dogs were wading.



I was drawn to the grave because it featured a statue of a sleeping cat. The stone read “Noah Wright/ 14-11-05/ 16-1-05/ May your light shine through.”



This grave was in memory of a little boy, born in November of 2005 who lived only two days—not even surviving to his first Christmas. His parents and mourners had visited his grave repeatedly, leaving flowers (fresh and artificial), a stone, and, on top of the sleeping cat statue, a yellow ceramic star. I picked it up and turned it over, thinking it looked like a Christmas ornament. On the other side someone had lettered in a child-like hand “Noah.”

I put the star back where it was and went into the church to photograph the tomb of a sleeping knight with his hands folded in prayer but I couldn’t get the thought of Noah and his parents out of my mind.

And I remembered the most famous lines from Thomas Gray’s elegy:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air

Hydra's Greek Cats Become LOL Cats

We'v just spent three days on Hydra (had to leave early due to a threatened Ferryboat strike on Weds.) Today it's Thursday and we're off to England for a bit.

On Hydra I took about a thousand photos of Hydra's cats and on the CATamaran back to Pireaus I turned six of those photos into Lols for the ICanHazCheeseburger site. And I'm printing them above.

For those of you who don't like cats or don't know about Lol Cats (who have their own language and spelling rules) I apologize. I'll be back to writing more seriously about art, travel, etc. soon.

For those of you who do like cats, check out my first cat book--The Secret Life of Greek Cats --by clicking on the cover --at upper right--or going to my site at www.greekcats.com.

After interviewing the new generation of cats on Hydra, there may be a sequel one of these days.

Eating My Way through Greece

I always say that on our annual summer vacation in Greece, as soon as I get off the plane and take a deep breath of the air, I instantly put on five pounds.

Eating is just better in this country—a Greek tomato is a thousand times tastier than an American one, and I’d be happy eating nothing but Greek salad as long as I can sop up the olive oil from the bottom of the bowl with crusty Greek bread.

I’ve been four days in Athens eating at some world-class restaurants.

As soon as we arrived at the Grande Bretagne, our favorite hotel, which overlooks Constitution Square and the Parliament building, with its skirted Evzone soldiers in their pleated skirts doing their hourly dance in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, we found in our hotel room a bottle of wine, a bowl of fruit and a white-chocolate figure of one of the Acropolis’s caryatids overlooking a half dozen handmade chocolates. (In my photo you can’t see the chocolates because somebody ate them!)


Lunch was often shared lobster risotto from a restaurant called Passajes in the courtyard of the shopping mall behind the GB Hotel. (Below is the view from the BG roof where we ate breakfast)



One night we walked to a nearby restaurant called Epta Thalassas (Seven Seas) nearby. The tabletops there are made of river stones and the ceiling lights are enclosed by woven fish traps. They feature exotic dishes like fresh sea urchin eggs (Aristotle Onassis used to send his sailors over the side of his yacht to harvest them by the light of the full moon. ) Also on the menu are “smoked eel sautéed with white wine and mustard”, “grilled Santorini sprat stuffed with tomato and coriander “, “hard roe from Mesolongi with blinis and fig pie”, and cockles. I had the “Dogtooth grouper filet cooked in the oven according to a Mt .Athos recipe.”



Thursday night we were invited by a friend to Spondi—probably the finest restaurant in Greece and the only one (he said) with two Michelin Stars. The peculiar thing about Spondi was that nothing you ate looked anything like what it was. For example, the chef sent, as an amuse-gueule, the tray of appetizers below: the round things on a stick like lollipops were foie gras rolled in popcorn crumbs (that’s what the waiter said). The cone-shaped things had a sliver of cheese in some savory cream sauce inside a pastry cone, and the cubes on the bottom are made from fruit with a Jello-like consistency.



I ordered sea bass which came topped with what looked like black caviar but was really some kind of grilled toast topped with black squid ink. Then, after the main dish came another surprise—meant to cleanse the palate before desert. It was a cool drink in a martini-shaped two-part glass containing a delicate a liquid of tomato and fruit juice (I think) with green sherbet in it, and underneath the goblet part of the glass, in a hollow stem, was dry ice (not meant for consumption) so the whole thing seemed to be smoking. For dessert I ordered the famous chocolate sablé mousse. If you look carefully, you’ll see the cigarette-shaped cookie (for want of a better name) has gold leaf on one end.



I knew that gold is edible if it’s pure –so I ate it. I first encountered eible gold at another Athens restaurant called Boschetto’s (now closed for renovation) when a black risotto made with squid ink arrived with a square of gold on top. Divine decadence!


Dinner Friday night on the roof of the Grande Bretagne, with a fabulous view of the Acropolis, was a lobster linguine. Saturday night at Alatsi, behind the Hilton hotel, we had Cretan food, including a traditional wedding dish featuring both chicken and lamb in a risotto, followed by three ice creams—rose, sage, and yogurt with honey and walnuts.

Now you see why I put on weight every time I get off the plane at the Athens airport.

But today, after getting up early, lugging my bags to the flying catamaran, and inhaling a cup of coffee (which basically saved my life), we arrived in Hydra.


But just plain Greek food is better than any haute cuisine covered with gold leaf. For lunch in Hydra’s harbor we had the classic, simple, and perfect Greek meal, which is best when eaten at an outdoor taverna near the water: Greek horiotiko salad with heavenly tomatoes, feta cheese and lots of olive oil for dipping, pan-fried red mullet fish (barbounia), and ice-cold local white wine from the barrel. We threw the fish heads to a half dozen happy taverna cats (who may be featured in my next Greek cat book) and then took a stroll around the harbor.

The Perfect Wedding Dress in Ninety Minutes!

(No, this isn’t the gown Eleni chose. I can’t reveal that one until after the wedding. This is from my collection of vintage wedding photographs-- Grace Weaver Powers who was married to William Denton Bloodgood in New York City on 4/22/1903.)

When daughter Eleni surprised us on June 4 with the news that she was planning to be married to Emilio in Corfu, Greece on 10/10/10—only four months away—she added that she’d made an appointment for us to go shopping on Monday, June 7, at one of the only two places in New York where a bridal gown could be bought off the rack rather than made to order, which takes months. The gowns in this place are all samples, she said, most of them worn once by models and donated by the store or by the designers themselves. Best of all, the gowns are sold for a fraction of what they’d cost at retail and all the proceeds go to charity.

I was about to participate in that hallowed ritual of mother and daughter—the search for the one perfect gown that would showcase her beauty on the most important day of her life. It was a liminal moment—a term Eleni taught me while majoring in folklore and mythology at college—because it marked her stepping across a threshold from one stage of life to another. I felt privileged to be included in the momentous search. (And I mentally swore to keep my opinions to myself and let her find the dress that she’d always dreamed of.)

We drove from Grafton MA to Manhattan and showed up at 12:00 noon at The Bridal Garden on the ninth floor of a grim industrial- looking building on 21st Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue.

Once inside, we were greeted by two salesladies, Winona and Vivienne, in a vast suite lined with gowns, each in a clear plastic zipper bag and sorted by: strapless gowns or gowns with straps and/or sleeves, and gowns with full skirts or straight skirts. They explained to us that they were a non-profit organization and that the profits from selling these donated dresses goes to a charter school in Bedford Stuyvesant.

Eleni, who is only 5 feet tall, already knew that she didn’t want a strapless gown nor a full skirt filled with crinolines. There were two other brides already shopping with their mothers, and each pulled out all the dresses that appealed to them, which Winona and Vivienne carried into their dressing rooms, separated by curtains. (No shoes or moms allowed inside—and a prominent sign warned “no photographs.”)

Once she tried on a gown, the future bride would emerge to view herself in the wall of mirrors while the salesladies provided a small stool to stand on in order to see how the skirt would fall and turned the mirrors so she could see the back.

Next to us was a tall, slender, dark-haired young woman with her mother who originally came from Croatia. The Mom carefully unwrapped two rectangular pieces of lace that had been handmade by the girl’s grandmother. They were hoping to incorporate the lace somehow onto the gown she chose.

That bride gravitated toward gowns that were modern, slim and drape-y, often involving panels of chiffon that drifted about the body, reminding me of something that Isadora Duncan might dance in.

Eleni, on the other hand, who came in thinking she wanted something simple and unembellished, found herself selecting gowns that involved lace, like a bride in one of my vintage photographs. Soon she had narrowed down the 12 original selections to three gowns, but in the end, we all agreed that one gown, an absolute vision in exquisite point d’esprit lace, was the clear favorite.

I knew that when she appeared on her wedding day everyone who saw her would gasp in admiration. Even the salesladies exclaimed at the sight, saying the dress was unique—it had arrived from Barcelona, Spain only a week ago, donated by the designer, Rosa Clara, and it was immaculate, having never been worn. (Dresses that have been soiled are cleaned by the Bridal Garden’s special dry cleaner for $250 – a bargain price.)

I asked Winona about her job; it would be so interesting to watch brides and their mothers choosing a gown. Each mother/daughter team must be a mini-drama as the dynamics of their relationship play out. It’s an emotional experience watching a daughter emerge from the dressing room for the first time dressed as a bride. No longer a child who needs her mother to advise and instruct her—she’s ready to walk down the aisle on her own in a dress of her own choosing.

Do the brides and their mothers often cry? I asked Winona, who had mentioned that she had a background in psychology and education. “Usually when we put the veil on it happens,” she nodded.

She added that most brides, when they find the dress that they love, get a particular expression of delight, a “bride face” when they see themselves reflected in the mirror. At this moment Eleni definitely was wearing her bride face.

Eleni twisted her blonde hair into an up-do and Winona brought out a simple veil and placed it on her head. Like all the other MOB’s, I felt my eyes fill with tears. Because Eleni had decided that she was going to buy it then and there, I got permission to take photos, while Vivienne checked the length and the fit. She told Eleni to bring it back to have it shortened and fitted, once she had the perfect shoes.

When we left carrying the dress, expertly packed and rolled, both Winona and Vivienne hugged and kissed Eleni. We rode the elevator down to the street in high elation. The whole transaction had taken less than an hour and a half, and now we were headed off to a favorite restaurant nearby, Le Singe Vert, to have lunch and raise a glass of wine to the bridal gown which had come all the way from Barcelona just in time to find its destiny as the One Perfect Dress for Eleni.

Suddenly I’m an M.O.B!

Last weekend (starting June 4) was one of those periods when everything seems to come together as if charmed—one fortunate coincidence after another-- and afterwards you realize that a phase of your life has ended and another has begun.

Daughter Eleni and her boyfriend, Emilio, were scheduled to come from New York City to our home in Massachusetts for the weekend to attend the Grecian Festival at our church in Worcester and for Emilio to meet our extended family and see our home for the first time (although my husband and I had met him on several occasions in New York.)

They were taking the Acela train on Friday to Providence where we would pick them up at 8 p.m. I discovered that the date, June 4, coincided with “Waterfire,” when the river in Providence is lighted with fires along with music and entertainment—so we booked a table at a restaurant overlooking the scene.

The train arrived on time (another rare occurrence) and we were seated in the Waterplace Restaurant just as the sun set. With us were the “Big Eleni” and her daughter Frosso. (Big Eleni came to live with us in 1974, a week before daughter Eleni was born, and she became a second mother to our children and the reason all of them speak fluent Greek. She was married in our Massachusetts house in 1976 and her daughter Frosso is like a younger sibling to our three.)

Daughter Eleni and Emilio produced wrapped gifts for all of us. Mine turned out to be the book “Mother of the Bride” by Ilene Beckerman. Nick’s was a DVD of the 1951 movie “Father of the Bride” starring Elizabeth Taylor as the bride and Spencer Tracy as the FOB. I was starting to get the message.

At that point, tears and hugs of joy erupted and Waterfire was forgotten. Emilio and Eleni had decided to get married sooner rather than later, on October 10, 2010 (“ten-ten-ten” as Eleni repeated throughout the weekend, like a mantra.)

Long before she met Emilio, Eleni had decided that she would be married on ten-ten-ten in the church of Panagia Mandrakina on the Ionian island of Corfu. That idea took root in April of 2008 when she traveled to Ohio for the engagement party of her friend Neela, whose Hindu wedding in Jodhpur, India, we attended in January of last year.

At that engagement party in Strongsville, Ohio, the family accountant/astrologer-- Joshi Uncle-- told Eleni that she would get married in Sept. or Oct. 2010 and that she must wear an emerald to help make this happen. That same weekend I had been trying unsuccessfully to sell my emerald ring in Manhattan, but emerald prices were down, so I gave it to Eleni.

Months before she met Emilio last July, Eleni’s aunt, Thitsa Kanta, who is an expert at reading one’s fate in the coffee grounds left over when drinking Greek coffee, started seeing a letter “E” in Eleni’s cup every time she did a reading. (She turns the cup over in its saucer when it’s down to the dregs, makes the sign of the cross over it, and when she turns the cup back over, the dried sludge has made designs that Kanta can read with uncanny accuracy, although she does like to throw in advice along with the predictions.)

Eleni was introduced to Emilio (who is from Nicaragua) by Neela and her husband Dave in March of last year in the Village Lantern bar in Manhattan where they had all gathered to watch a Duke football game. After they began dating, when Kanta would find an “E” in Eleni’s cup, she would say that it stands for “Evtychia” – happiness. Eleni would suggest that maybe it stood for “Emilio”, but Kanta would answer, “No, Emilio starts with an A”.

On May 24, Eleni and Emilio decided to marry—fulfilling the prophecies of the Hindu astrologer and Thitsa Kanta. But before telling anyone, Eleni called Arete, a cousin who lives in Corfu, to make sure that the church in Corfu beneath the Crusader fortress that looms over the harbor would be available on her special date. It was. Arete even wrangled the Greek priest who would conduct the ceremony and a Catholic priest who would assist.

By the time they told us the news, the couple already knew their wedding colors (blue and white—the colors of the Greek flag and—another magical coincidence—the colors of the Nicaraguan flag as well! )

By Saturday, phone calls announcing the joyful news had traveled round the world. On Saturday morning, Eleni sat in our kitchen and created a web site – www.eleniandemilio.com -- with information about the couple, how they met, where and when they would wed. When Emilio’s mother in Nicaragua saw the photos on the web site, she shed tears of joy. Back in Grafton we got pretty choked up too. What every parent wants for their child is a mate who will love them and help them cope with the inevitable bumps in the road ahead. Emilio seemed to be the ideal partner for Eleni, sent by the fates all the way from Nicaragua to encounter her in Manhattan.

On Saturday, Greek relatives began to appear to meet the groom. Despite the their aches and pains, two of the four Thitsas (Aunts) came over to sit under the grape arbor by the pool. Nick asked the Big Eleni to bring coffee, but she said no, on this day we must serve only sweet things—she had whipped up plenty of deep-fried loukoumades—like donut holes drenched in honey. Coffee, she said, was bitter and could not be served on such a happy day.

Later we all went to the Grecian Festival where I learned I had sold three paintings in the art exhibit and Emilio –by accident or by divine design—met a third aunt, lots of cousins and nephews and nieces and their offspring and even our Priest Father Dean, who just happened to have with him his brother-in- law who turned out (another coincidence) to be a customer and close friend of Emilio.

On Sunday, we all went to church and Emilio weathered more introductions with great tact and aplomb. At lunch, Nick produced a bottle of Lafitte Rothschild 1966 that he had set aside 36 years ago.

That evening Nick and I drove the newly engaged couple back to Manhattan. Eleni handed me several Bride’s magazines so I could learn my responsibilities as Mother of the Bride. The articles about schedules and favors and invitations and receptions and appropriate dresses sent me into a total panic. Everything needed be done six months to a year in advance and we only had four months!

But Eleni had already made a start on the momentous search for the Bridal Gown. We had an appointment the next day, Monday, she told me, at one of the two places in Manhattan where gowns could be bought off the rack in sample sizes instead of made to order, which took months.

That night, as the four of us dined at an Italian restaurant near Eleni’s apartment, Nick gave the newly engaged couple advice on the secrets of a good marriage and they listened patiently. (“Keep surprising each other every day. Never take your relationship for granted” seemed to be the major message.)

While he pontificated, I pondered how the stars and the gods and the recent full moon had come together to create a magical moment, full of love and joy; a time of new responsibilities and many tasks, but also a time for letting go, preparing to watch my daughter walk down the aisle and into a new life. In one weekend I had been given a new role in life—after three decades of being just a Mom, I had been transformed into a MOB.

Next: How to find the perfect bridal gown in an hour and a half.

Does Getting Older Mean Getting Happier?

My Aunt Kathleen always used to say, after reciting news of the latest ailments suffered by herself or her friends, “Old age is not for sissies!”

Imagine my surprise at reading in today’s New York Times, in the science section, that a large Gallup poll has determined that “people get happier as they get older; and researchers are not sure why.”

The study questioned 340,000 Americans aged 18 to 85, asking various questions about age, sex, current events, personal finances, health and other matters. They were also asked “How did you feel yesterday? Did you experience the following feelings during a large part of the day: enjoyment, happiness, stress, worry, anger, sadness.”

The researchers discovered, according to the Times reporter, that “people start out at age 18 feeling pretty good about themselves, and then, apparently, life begins to throw curve balls. They feel worse and worse until they hit 50. At that point, there is a sharp reversal and people keep getting happier as they age. By the time they are 85, they are even more satisfied with themselves than they were at 18.”

(This study implicitly echoes a brilliant statement I once read somewhere, namely that the secret to happiness is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.)

So this is good news for crones. At 18 you think you’re great. Life from that point gets continuously worse until you hit bottom at fifty. Then there’s a sharp turn around and you get happier and happier until at 85 you’re even happier than you were at 18.

(Come to think of it, I was pretty miserable throughout my 18th year.)

An English professor of psychology said about the study, “It’s a very encouraging fact that we can expect to be happier in our early 80’s than we were in our 20’s. And it’s not being driven predominantly by things that happen in life. It’s something very deep and quite human that seems to be driving this.”

Another professor of psychology, an American, asked “Why at age 50 does something seem to start to change?”

Nobody knows why happiness hits bottom at fifty and then abruptly things start to get better, or happier. There could be a lot of explanations – even hormonal. But I suspect that part of the answer is that when we’re young, we think we can conquer the world, and by the time we’re fifty, it becomes clear that we’re not ever going to do it. Then, perhaps around the fiftieth birthday, we start to make peace with what we have achieved in life and to notice and appreciate everyday pleasures.

Yesterday, Memorial Day, I went to the cemetery in the morning and in the afternoon I went on a “photography walk” through the Tower Hill Botanical Garden, led by photographer Scott Erb and sponsored by the Worcester Art Museum.

The various gardens and fountains of Tower Hill were in full glory, and I was struck by how many of the visitors photographing, picnicking, or just walking around looking with delight at the landscape were very old. Many of them could barely walk—supporting themselves on canes or walkers or even being pushed in wheelchairs. But they were taking such joy in the flowering dogwood trees and the riot of many-colored peonies, irises and roses.

Perhaps with age comes the wisdom to know what’s really important, and, because life is precarious and nearly over, the happiness that comes from something as simple as seeing the roses burst into bloom one more time is intensified. Money can’t buy happiness but maybe old age can bring it.

Yard Sale Heaven – I’m Obsessed

People can be divided into those who like to sleep late on Saturday morning and maybe go to church or golf on Sunday, and those who are on the road at 8 a.m. both days, clutching the newspaper classified section, searching for flea markets and yard sales, determined to be the first one through the gate. Guess which category I’m in.

Those of us with “I brake for yard sales” bumper stickers are motivated by tales of life-changing finds—an original copy of the Declaration of Independence or a Paul Revere tea pot from grandma’s attic, or those Jackson Pollack paintings someone found in the trash. Every yard saler has a tale of the Big Find.



Here’s mine. Maybe 25 years ago, when I was just starting to collect antique photos, I saw a cardboard box labeled “Instant Ancestors” on a front lawn not far from the village green in my own village. In the box I found a battered small, thick leather-bound album filled with CDVs. “CDV” means Carte de Visite, and the photos, wildly popular around the time after the Civil War, are the size of a business card.

I noticed that maybe a dozen of the photos in the album were of Native Americans. The portraits were identified in type as taken by Joel Emmons Whitney at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, of Dakota warriors imprisoned after the Sioux uprising of 1862. Each one, including Chief Little Crow, was identified along with how many white men he had killed.

I was happy to pay the five-dollar price of the album. When I eventually put it up for auction at Skinner’s Galleries and got $500 return on my investment, I felt very smug. Not so much today, because I know that the value of those Whitney Indian photos has climbed so that each one of them would now bring around $500.

All yard salers are looking for that Big Find and my village of Grafton is a happy hunting grounds. (So is Brimfield MA, about 20 minutes away, where in May, July and September they roll out maybe the biggest flea market in the country.)

I think Grafton is one of the prettiest New England villages, thanks to its carefully preserved historic district around the Common. That’s why they filmed “Ah Wilderness” here back in the 1930’s. And around that historic common, with its 300-year-old Inn, I just KNOW there are treasures that will someday appear in a yard sale on someone’s front lawn.



Today, Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, was a very good day, although I don’t think any of the treasures I bought will make me rich. The first place I hit was the home of Carol and Richard, who for many years owned the Grafton Country Store—one of the longest continuously operating. They have a great collection of primitives and early prints, tools, cookware, etc. not to mention hot coffee and free donut holes to welcome the early birds. I bought 21 things, the most expensive of which was an ironstone butter crock at $20.



The next yard sale, also near the Common, greeted me with a wicker antique doll carriage --the twin of one I had as a little girl. But I wasn’t about to spend over a hundred dollars on a duplicate doll carriage, with no granddaughter to give it to. But I then I saw a stunning set of Madeira Lace work – ten place mats and a table runner—with their own blue brocade carrying case plus a handwritten note that it was “Made on the Island of Madeira for the Beede Family, makers of Madeira Wines”.





I have never been able to resist fine textiles and embroideries, so I bought the set of Madeira work, telling myself it was for a daughter’s trousseau, but at the moment, both daughters have a strict embargo against my bringing another thing into their apartment “if I can’t eat it, drink it or date it” as one put it.




The third yard sale, in a red barn in nearby Shrewsbury, was mostly furniture and there’s no more room in my house for furniture, so I came away with only a child’s rocker, which I cleaned up to put in my booth at a nearby group antique shop.




That’s how I justify my obsessive collecting— I say that it’s merchandise for the store.

So after I got back from the yard sales, I cleaned up my treasures and put price tags on them and took them to North Main Street Antiques—at least the ones I couldn’t fit into my own décor (like the apple-themed bathroom with its red lion-footed cast iron tub or the wall in my kitchen that’s filled with heart-shaped cookie cutters and other objects featuring hearts.)



At least I got to play with my treasures before carting them off to the store. And tomorrow, Sunday, I’ll hit the road early, trolling for that One Big Find.

Joanne's Poem - In Memoriam

Joanne Lykken Stockwell died of T-cell lymphoma on May 8, the day before Mother's Day, at the New Orleans home of her daughter Sarah. She and I both graduated from Edina Morningside High School in Minnesota in 1959, but I didn't really know Joanne until last year when I was trying to collect photos and biographies from classmates for our reunion book that would be published for our 50th Reunion in October 2009.

Joanne balked at writing a page of biography "that quite resembles an obituary" -- she was a poet and in the end submitted the poem below for her page, although she wrote to me: " My poems are never 'finished' and so I will resist the urge to make this one flow more smoothly, since it says what I want it to. ...As Popeye says, 'I yam what I yam!'"

She also wrote "I don't know WHY you like the picture of me with uncombed hair, piled up with dog, chid, quilts and all, but it is also one of my 'joys' so you are welcome to it!"

Joanne really was looking forward to attending the 50th Reunion, but in the end, she was not well enough. I'm reprinting her poem below and the photograph of her with her granddaughter and her beloved dog, Mr. Ferguson.

Her page was one of the most interesting in the book and with it she has left us a fine legacy--a reminder to stop now and then to tote up the simple joys in life that are, in the end, the most important gifts we have.

JOANNE'S POEM

It's not so much what I have done,
But in the end,
What I've become!
This is not in my resumé,
I think you must agree
Unless your interest only lies
With well advanced degrees!
The idea is
Exceedingly contrary,
To send a page that quite resembles
My obituary!
I cannot write a page
Extolling "wondrous
High School years."
They were a mess,
I must confess,
And brought me naught but tears!
So once again, to you I offer
The personal joys
Within my coffer:
Daffodils in Spring
Dahlia in the fall
Working in the garden
Walking in the woods
The sound of water over rocks
Chipmunks chatter
Warblers call
Anchovies in a Caesar Salad
Making oysters "Rockafeller"
Chocolate Cake
Friends I have had since I was five
A winter storm
A fireplace
Dogwood in Spring
Maple in Fall
The sound of the Ocean
No sound at all
One loyal dog
A nest of Carolina wren
And may you all stay well and strong
Filled with the music of life's song,
Until we meet again.

A Wedding with Hummingbirds

(Please click on the photos to enlarge them. See the hummingbird in the flowers upper left?)


Last weekend, we attended the wedding of my brother’s daughter, Lindsey, at the Parker Hotel in Palm Springs, CA. It was moving and beautiful for many reasons, not least the magnificent grounds and gardens of the hotel, but for me it was very special in an unexpected way, because it seemed that my late mother was there in spirit throughout the ceremony.

Martha Dobson Paulson died in 1985 at the age of 74. At that time Lindsey was only five years old, so she didn’t know much about her paternal grandmother. Last week, Lindsey was the first girl of Martha’s five grandchildren to be married.

Hummingbirds were always a special symbol of my mother. She had hummingbird feeders filled with red syrup hanging in her garden and rejoiced when they were used by the elusive visitors, which zipped around like tiny helicopters. Before she died, Martha chose the mausoleum in a San Pedro cemetery where her ashes and those of my father would be kept in brass boxes shaped like books. She selected their glass-fronted niche in the mausoleum because it had a view of a pond where ducks and swans swam.

When I went back to visit my parents’ graves some years ago, I attached some carved wooden hummingbirds to the window of the niche. I did the same to a framed photo I have in our hall of Martha posing with two of our children in 1976.

Last Saturday, as the wedding guests assembled at 6:30 for the outdoor ceremony, we admired the giant floral arrangements on each side of the altar and the pathway of white rose petals prepared for the wedding party.

We quickly realized that the place was alive with hummingbirds —dozens of them swooping toward the flowers, hovering stock still in the air, then darting away as we tried to photograph them.

The music began and my brother walked the bride down the rose petal path toward Mike, her waiting groom. The judge began to speak, leading them through their vows. Some of us were distracted from his words, watching the hummingbirds at play.

Near the end of the ceremony, a hummingbird flew directly in the face of my older daughter, Eleni, and then stopped, hanging in the air about a foot in front of her, motionless except for the blur of its wings. The bird and Eleni stared into each other’s eyes. I had never seen a hummingbird stay so still for so long —as if trying to communicate. Later I asked my daughter what the bird said and she replied with a smile, ”It said, ‘You look good!’”

After the ceremony, after the newlyweds were showered with yellow rose petals, there were cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in another garden as the sun set. The small tables held bowls in which floated white gardenias, yellow lemon slices and votive candles. I noted, but didn’t mention, that gardenias were my mother’s signature flower. When she was young, she liked to tuck a gardenia into her black hair.

We all moved through a hidden gate into a magical fairyland where we sat at tables for the toasts and the meal. The bride was lovely in her slender strapless lace gown with its long train pinned up for dancing.

I was astonished to learn that the couple had chosen for their first dance “Stardust”, a melody that was popular more than 40 years before they were born. I knew it well—it was my mother’s favorite song, sung by Hoagy Carmichael, and she played it on our old Victrola constantly when I was a child. But Lindsey and Mike had chosen it without knowing that.

The wedding of Martha’s first granddaughter to marry was, from beginning to end, a lovely, never-to-be-forgotten occasion. And I think my mother enjoyed it as much as any of the guests. Maybe more.

Crone Driving Complaints

I just drove from my daughter’s apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to our home in Grafton, MA – a 180-mile, 3 ½-hour drive that I make (usually round trip) at least once a month. Sometimes I do it alone, other times, like today, I share the driving with my husband.
-
Every time I complete the drive — especially by myself -- I’m inordinately proud of the feat. Because I lived in Manhattan for 14 years, I didn’t even get my driver’s license until I was 36 years old, pregnant with our third child and living in the countryside of Massachusetts. (Actually I drove from age 15 to 18 in Minnesota when I was in high school and then quit when I went to college, so had to take driver’s training all over again 18 years later.)

When I got my second driver’s license —pregnant and 36— I tried to avoid ever getting on a main highway, much less driving out of state. But I had to transport the kids to school and on play dates, and eventually I expanded my repertoire.

The drive from Manhattan to Grafton MA is really not bad —up to 96th Street, over to the FDR Drive, over the Triboro (now Robert F. Kennedy) Bridge, then eventually on to the Parkways— Hutchison and Merritt--where commercial vehicles are forbidden, thank God. This is the scenic part —full of wild turkeys and deer and a lot of charming bridges, none of which is identical —like snowflakes.

Then, just before Hartford, I get back on I-91, whether the trucks abound, dwarfing my little Prius. (Those huge double-decker auto carriers seem to rock back and forth because their center of gravity is so high—and I always think they’ll topple over, squashing me like a bug.)

At exit 29, with Hartford in view, I turn off onto I- 84 which is a really boring hour-long stretch until I pick up the Mass Pike at Sturbridge and know I’m only 20 minutes from home.

While driving, I have plenty of time to think about some of the minor annoyances encountered on the road —especially for a crone who is a rather tentative and fearful driver. (Let me say here that in the past 34 years, I’ve never had a speeding ticket and never been in an accident when I was at the wheel --knock on wood! My insurance company ranks me as the safest driver in the family.)

Here are thoughts that passed through my idle mind today as I was driving —not complaints, actually, just observations.

--Have you ever noticed that when some idiot is weaving in and out, speeding like crazy or hanging on your bumper in the silver lane because he thinks you should go faster than 75-- it’s often someone in a red car or red flat-bed truck?

--And when some centenarian ahead of you is going so slowly that you are forced to pass them, it’s often someone in a white or black car? Who is barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel.

--And when you’re trying to merge into a speedy flow of traffic, when someone finally does slow down and wave you in, have you noticed that it’s inevitably a woman?

--But when you’re in the left-hand lane and signal that you want to move to the right lane (because your exit is coming up), most men will immediately speed up upon seeing your turn signal, blocking you and making it impossible for you to change lanes.

--And then, when you discover that there is a long line of cars waiting to turn off at your exit , and you’re sitting patiently in line practicing your deep breathing exercises, some people have no scruples about jumping the line, speeding up to the front and then forcing their way onto the exit ramp, who do you think those line jumpers are? (Hint, I’m married to one. My blue Prius blushes pink every time he does this.)

--And one more observation —who do you think is more likely to jump the queue at the gas station, forget to put the cap back on the gas tank, and neglect to take the receipt for the gas? No hints here.

My kids and my husband think I’m a lousy driver because I frequently move my foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal and never drive over 80 miles per hour (or under the speed limit), but my Prius and my insurance company like my driving just fine. And every time I complete the trek from Manhattan to home I tell myself, “You’ve come a long way, Baby!”

Bring Back the Mlle. Guest Editor Contest!

In the April issue of Vanity Fair Magazine there was an article about the fabled Barbizon Hotel for Women, which served as a protective place for single women to stay in Manhattan. I wrote a letter to the VF editors about my brief stay there when I was a Mademoiselle Magazine guest editor back in 1961. Part of my letter is published in the current (June) issue of VF on page 62. But since they only printed the beginning, I wanted to share the whole letter (below) because there was a point that I’d like to make: There is no opportunity for young women today to get a foot up the ladder of success in the arts like the now-dead Guest Editor contest (and other, similar contests). Instead there are only reality shows which encourage bad behavior and drama instead of actual talent.

To: Vanity Fair letters

Reading the article by Michael Callahan about the Barbizon Hotel brought back memories of the day in June 1961 when I walked into my closet-sized room there, fresh from sophomore final exams in Appleton, Wisconsin, to find on the narrow bed a single red rose and a list of the month of activities that awaited me as a Mademoiselle Magazine Guest Editor.

They included interviews with celebrities whose work we admired (mine was artist Larry Rivers), silly photo shoots in Central Park, a makeover, a movie premier, a champagne airplane dinner flight over Manhattan as the sun set, fashion shows and P.R. breakfasts, many featuring caviar, which I had never seen before.

As we headed from the Barbizon toward the Mlle. Magazine offices each day, we Guest Eds smirked at the Katie Gibbs girls who were forced to wear white gloves, heels and stockings to their lessons in shorthand and typing.

That month-long taste of New York sophistication and glamour threw many innocent young women for a loop—just as it drove Sylvia Plath’s character, in The Bell Jar to toss her fashionable clothes off the hotel roof, suffer a nervous breakdown and ultimately attempt suicide.

(When I was there, Plath’s book hadn’t yet been published, but I heard rumors of how her 1953 crop of Guest Eds suffered food poisoning in the Good Housekeeping Test Kitchens-- an episode recreated in The Bell Jar.)

While I was there, I saw Guest Editors change their names to sound more sophisticated, pursue the divorced son of Editor Betsy Talbot Blackwell in hopes of scoring a job, try to talk themselves onto the Today show and desperately volley for a place on the masthead (even though you pretty much needed independent wealth to pay for the necessary wardrobe.)

We were received by Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden. There was always a de rigueur cocktail party at BTB’s apartment overlooking Central Park with a strolling accordionist. (One of the Guest Eds. later told me, “Every time someone started speaking French, I’d dig my heels harder into her cork floor.”)

The young man who was assigned to escort me to the Mlle. Dinner Dance (with Lester Lanin’s orchestra) later asked me to meet his parents at their Long Island country club on the weekend. (He also taught me to eat an artichoke and introduced me to my first Communist—at the White Horse Bar.)

With my Midwestern naiveté, I dressed in “slacks”, but when he arrived to collect me, the Barbizon fashion police at the desk would not allow me to walk the several yards from the elevator across the lobby to the exit. I was sent back to my tiny room to don something more appropriate.

Yes the Barbizon’s rules were insulting and repressive to the women who stayed there. It’s fun to regale my daughters with tales of the bad old days for young would-be career women. But in the Mademoiselle Guest Editor Contest, we had something that is no longer available to ambitious young females. (The program ended in 1979, the magazine folded in 2001.)

We were judged strictly on our talents, not our looks, wealth or personality.

We won the Guest Ed spots, through a series of try-outs—three as I recall, rating our work in art, photography, writing, cartooning, or poetry—unlike Glamour’s Best Dressed College Girls—who were chosen on the basis of how they looked in photographs of three outfits.

Among the women who got their first break through the Mlle. Contest were: Betsey Johnson, Joan Didion, Gael Greene, Carol Brightman, Francine du Plessix Gray, Ann Beattie, Mona Simpson, Linda Allard, and of course Sylvia Plath.

Today, ambitious young women have no opportunity to be judged on the basis of their talents. Their only options are American Idol and reality shows which promote appearance, sexual attraction and outrageous behavior over actual talent in the arts.

So in this enlightened era, despite all the hurdles I faced trying to get a foot into journalism back in the early sixties, I remember the Barbizon, with its parietal rules and the Mlle. Guest Editor contest with nostalgia.

And I have a plea on behalf of young women in the hinterlands of the U.S. who would like a first step up the ladder: bring back something like the Barbizon and the Mlle. Guest Editor contest!

Joan Paulson Gage

The Pill and the Crone Generation

On Mothers' Day the world will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of the contraceptive birth control pill developed by doctors Gregory Pincus and John Rock at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, only a few miles from where I live.

Feminists in 1960 cited the pill as the most important discovery since fire. But for my generation, it turned out to be a mixed blessing, although it has saved countless women from dying after backstreet abortions and has helped families around the world stop having more children than they could feed or care for.

In 1963-64 when I was a 23-year-old graduate student at Columbia University in New York, I knew women with unwanted pregnancies who flew to Puerto Rico, got in a taxicab at the airport and asked the driver to take them to an illegal abortionist, where they would pay a lot of money for a procedure that took place in horrific conditions. (I know one who came back from Puerto Rico only to discover the baby was still growing inside her. She ultimately had it and put it up for adoption.)

When I started dating the man who is now my husband (40th anniversary coming up in September), I called the Columbia University health services and asked for the name of a gynecologist. They suggested a woman with a practice near Park Avenue on the East Side.

I went to see her and after she examined me, I asked for a prescription for the new birth control pills. (They were marketed as “Enovid”.) She wrote out the prescription and then asked me if I wanted her to do the blood test then and there.

“What blood test?” I asked.

“For your marriage license,” she replied.

I told her that I was not scheduled to be married. She stared at me, visibly shocked and disturbed, but said nothing and handed me the prescription. Embarrassed, I left and on the way out, I paid for my visit with a check. It was a small amount — something like ten dollars. As time passed and my bank statements came, I eventually realized that the doctor never cashed my check.

Thinking back, I decided that she may have feared that I was there undercover, testing to see if she would give the pill to a young woman who openly said she was not getting married. (I’m sure all her other patients lied.) Giving me the prescription may have been illegal or risking her medical license. I don’t know.

(I just looked it up and, sure enough, the pill was not legal or available for unmarried women until 1972. So I was a criminal in 1964—or my doctor was.]

Today, with birth control pills constantly advertised on television — citing them as good not only for birth control but also to cure acne and just about everything else — young women may not realize how difficult it once was to obtain any kind of birth control. (Now there are whole aisles in the drug store called “Family Planning!”)

My grandmother, who was married to a Presbyterian minister in Oklahoma Indian Territory, had two college degrees before 1900, but she also gave birth to nine children, the last one when she was 49 years old and had snow-white hair. My mother told me how her mother wept when she learned she was pregnant with the last two.

The birth control pill is definitely a great boon to womankind—even though it did not have the anticipated result of lowering divorce and eliminating all unwanted pregnancies, much less eliminating poverty and war. It has definitely given women more control over their own bodies and fate.

But those first birth control pills taken by my generation in the sixties had much higher levels of hormones than today’s pills (higher than was necessary, it turned out.) Those first pills caused blood clots, and some of the women who took them died. And though I don’t have medical expertise and am certainly not a doctor, I suspect that the breast cancer epidemic that has touched nearly every woman of my age in some way may be partly the result of the amounts of hormones we received during our fertile years from those first pills.

Why do I suspect the pill contributes to breast cancer? Because every time I go in for a mammogram I’m asked how many years I took it and which years they were.

So on the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the birth control pill, we can give thanks for the benefits it has brought to the world and to women in particular, but we should also stop to think of those pioneers who took the first birth control pill and did not survive to enjoy their crone-hood.