Notes:

Latest blog posts from 1904: The Year Everything Important Happened

Portrait Study
Still Life by Bianca Dorso, including Self-Portrait by Georgia Seaver Thomas (1881-1976). Georgia Gladys Seaver was born in Traynor, Iowa and made the cross-country trek to California in 1883 in a covered wagon.  Her family settled in Pomona, where her father established the First National... Read more...
Published 15 hours ago

Weekend in Review
"worst week" copyright Bianca Dorso"It's only about once in a lifetime that anything sensational ever happens to one, and when it does, you don't want people talking all the colour out of it."  -  Bertie Wooster, in "Right Ho, Jeeves," (1934) by P.G. Wodehouse, who visited America in 1904.A... Read more...
Published 5 days ago

What's Come In the Mail
The Coffee Table Read: Jacques Brel sale catalogue, Sotheby's Paris, 8 October 2008, [Collection particuliere, Manuscrits de chansons, enregistrements, photographies et objets personnels], a clipping from the Style section of the Financial Times on retro Oxbridge fashion, and the Diary of James... Read more...
Published 7 days ago

We Can Not Live With Your Design
 HRH Princess Louis of Battenberg, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, later Victoria Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven, [Source], whose husband Prince Louis of Battenberg, later Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, becomes Rear Admiral of the British Fleet in 1904.... Read more...
Published a week ago

L'Shanah Tovah 5769
Pike Street Synagogue for Congregation Sons of Israel Kalwarie opens to great ceremony, March 1904 [Source].   Noah, by Bianca DorsoI am told by the subject's mother that the star is yellow with a blue border and symbolizes the Star of David used by the Nazis as a badge for labelling Jewish... Read more...
Published 2 weeks ago

Good-bye to All That
is the often-borrowed title of Robert Graves' [1895-1985] anti-war memoir of WWI, published in 1929.*Waving to the Queen of Saugatuck on the Kalamazoo River.  If we had the chance to do it all again...People wonder why I don't get out much.  In my defense I would argue that this city is a... Read more...
Published 2 weeks ago

Make It Work
Tim Gunn should be sent to Washington immediately to help with this corporate bail-out the President wants us to deal with really fast, no-time-to-explain-mushroom-cloud-danger-danger-chop-chop.  Make it work, people.  Last Summer in Saugatuck.  Life seemed so simple then.Barbara Ehrenreich... Read more...
Published 2 weeks ago

Out of Control
liquor, yermo.  Copyright Bianca Dorso.Visiting with friends the other night, the conversation inevitably turned to how quickly life can spiral out of control.  How you stop paying attention for like, a minute, and the next thing you know you've let yourself go, lost your home, lost your job,... Read more...
Published 3 weeks ago

The Difference a Day Makes
Aaron Sillis and Richard Winsor in Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray [Guardian/Murdo MacLeod]"You have a portrait in your attic," a friend exclaimed.  "You were at death's door, and now look at you."My surprising recovery, however, is due entirely to the kind supportive words of you, my dear friends... Read more...
Published 3 weeks ago

What really matters, continued
Jules Pascin, "Hermine in bed" watercolor on paper [Source]Hermine David (1886-1970), was the wife of the artist Jules Pascin, the great-granddaughter of the artist Jacques-Louis David and herself an artist, making her debut at the Women's Salon in 1904. [Source] In bed and feeling under the... Read more...
Published 3 weeks ago

Chinatown, More: The Cost of Things
In 1904 a bottle of Snyders Ketchup is 17 cents, a croquet set will set you back as much as $2.50, they charge fifty cents a bottle for Cod Liver Oil, and back-to-school shoes for the kids will run you $1.98 a pair. [Source]"Chinatown Hop's" photograph copyright Bianca Dorso.You have a... Read more...
Published 4 weeks ago

The Mayan
Devoting much of his life to the study of Mayan civilization, the archaeologist Edward Herbert Thompson proceeds to dredge the Cenote Sagrado in 1904. [Source].The Mayan, 6 September 2008, image copyright Bianca Dorso. There is something exhilarating about riding along with a photographer... Read more...
Published a month ago