I Went to a Marvellous Party by Noel Coward

Quite for no reason,
I'm here for the Season and high as a kite.
Living in error
with Maud at Cape Ferrat, which anyway couldn't be right.
Everyone's here and frightfully gay,
nobody cares what others might say.
Seems really much queerer than Rome at it's height;
and yesterday night -

I went to a marvellous party, with Oona and Nadia and Nell.
It was out in fresh air and when we went there,
we went as we were, which was Hell.
Poor Grace started singing at midnight,
and didn't stop singing till four.
We knew the excitement was bound to begin
when Laura got blind on Dubonnet and gin
and scratched her veneer with a Cartier pin:
I couldn't have liked it more.

I went to a marvellous party, I must say the fun was intense.
We all had to do what the people we knew
would be doing a hundred years hence.
Dear Cecil arrived wearing armour,
some shells and a black feather boa.
Poor Millicent wore a surrealist comb
made of bits of mosaic from St. Peter's in Rome,
But the weight was so great that she had to go home;
I couldn't have liked it more.

People's behaviour when away from Belgravia
would certainly make you aghast.
So much the variety, while watching Society
all as they're scampering past.
If you have any mind at all,
Gibbon's divine "Decline and Fall"
seems pretty flimsy, no more than a whimsy...
By way of contrast, on Saturday last -

I went to a marvellous party, we didn't start dinner till ten.
And young Bobbie Carr
did a stunt at the bar with a lot of extraordinary men.
Dear Baba arrived with a turtle,
which shattered us all to the core.
The Grand Duke was dancing a foxtrot with me,
when suddenly Cyril screamed, "Fiddledidee!"
and ripped off his trousers and jumped in the sea:
I couldn't have liked it more.

I went to a marvellous party, Elise made her entrance with May.
You'd never have guessed
from her fisherman's vest that her bust had been whittled away.
Poor Lulu got fried on Chianti and talked about esprit de corps.
Maurice made a couple of passes at Gus,
and Freddie who hates any kind of a fuss,
did half the Big Apple and twisted his truss:
I couldn't have liked it more.

I went to a marvellous party, we played the most wonderful game.
Maureen disappeared
and came back in a beard, and we all had to guess at her name!
We talked about aging with grace, and Elsie, who's seventy-four,
said "A - it's a question of being sincere;
and B - if you're supple, you've nothing to fear."
Then she swung upside down from a glass chandelier:
I couldn't have liked it more.

Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!

Freud and the Fundamentalist Urge

"According to Freud, we crave strong leaders whose simple dictrines will account for our sufferings, identify our enemies, focus our energies and give us, more enduring than wine or even love, a sense of being whole."

From "Freud and the Fundamentalist Urge" by Mark Edmundson
New York Times Magazine, pp 15-18. April 30, 2006

From the Bible (KJV)

"For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

Psalms 30:5

The Art of Doing Nothing

"...How do you do nothing?" asked Pooh, after he wondered for a long time.

"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it,
'What are you going to do Christopher Robin?'
and you say, 'Oh nothing,'
and then you go and do it."

"Oh, I see," said Pooh.

"This is a nothing sort of thing we're doing now," said Christopher Robin.

Oh, I see," said Pooh again.

"It just means going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

An excerpt from The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

"Neither you nor I can conceive the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God." - Graham Greene

A photograph by John K. McGuirk
Click to enlarge

From the Desk of the Grand Dame, Emeritus

۞ Never put you hand on a man, except in dance

۞ Whispering and giggling at the same time have no place in good society

۞ Don't think you can be rude to anyone, and escape

۞ Whispering is always rude

۞ Don't hang on anyone for sport

۞ Never stand or walk with your chest held in,
and your hips forward in imitation of reverse letter "s".

- From House of the Blue Danube by Malcolm McLaren and the Bootzilla Orchestra

I'm Still Here!

I've gotten through

'Hey Lady! Aren't you "who's it?"
WOW! What a looker you were.'

or better yet,

'Oh, sorry, I thought you were "who's it."
What ever happened to her?'

From Follies by Stephen Sondheim