Sepia Saturday #128 The Blue Angel - Falling In Love Again

One of my favorite movies is the 1930s German film The Blue Angel starring Marlene Dietrich. The reason I love it so much is the song she sings as a naughty cabaret artist - Falling in Love Again. I recently found some sheet music of the song and just had to buy it.

Here's a youtube version of the song by Miss Dietrich herself:




Don't you just love her risque outfit?  The movie is quite interesting. It's available from Netflix (if you've never seen it). Do you have Netflix in your neck of the woods?

Marlene went on to a very successful film career. She became a U.S. citizen and during WWII she performed before thousands of troops in Algeria, Italy, England and France and sold more war bonds than any other star. When asked why she did all of this touring despite the danger, she replied "out of decency".

She was awarded the US Medal of Freedom by the US in 1947 and the French Legion of Honor.

For other stories relating to sheet music click here Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #127 Market Day in Chichicastenango

There's no better market in the whole world like the one in Chichicastengo, Guatemala. It's way up in the mountains in a beautiful village. Market days are Sunday and Thursday and sellers come from miles around trudging up steep hills with wares strapped to their backs, women with baskets of textiles balanced on their heads. Buyers come from all over the world seeking the beautiful embroidered huipiles (blouses), woven fabrics, pottery, carved wooden items, and much more.  Locals are more interested in the fruits, vegetables, spices and flowers.
(I apologize for the bad photos which are old and fading, kind of like the memories).

As you're shopping in the market, you smell a sweet smell and are enveloped in a kind of haze. This is the incense coming from the steps of the Santo Tomas church. Parishioners are swinging braziers up the steps and into the church leaving an incredible scent that you never quite forget.

My ex-husband (who is Guatemalan), Barbara and I traveled throughout Guatemala in July of 1963. What a beautiful country it is, The Land of Eternal Spring.

We stayed at the most gorgeous hotel, The Mayan Inn. Each room has its own fireplace and you're assigned a man who lights the fireplace every morning.

The rooms were all appointed with colonial style antiques and fresh flowers. Time Magazine did an article years ago about the 10 best places to take your mistress, and the Mayan Inn was on the list. Mainly because it is so remote, no one you know would ever catch you there.

Here I am wearing one of the huipiles that I purchased at the market. My ex and I are relaxing in front of the fire.

Here's Barbara peeking through the door from her room.

To get a taste of the market, check this out.



To visit other markets or related stories, click here:  Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday #126 A Most Unfortunate Wedding

I found these wedding photos in an antique shop. I was buying lots of wedding photos because we were doing a book about weddings and needed lots of resource material and ephemera. These photos never made it into the book. I wonder why!

Here she is—the blushing bride. I'll call her Betty. Doesn't she look like a Betty? He looks kind of happy with that half smile. She doesn't look happy at all. She doesn't want to marry this guy. But she's found herself "in the family way" and her dad told her she better marry this guy if she knows what's good for her. This was probably the 1940s and a woman didn't have too many choices in those days. So the wedding was planned, the unfortunate dress bought and the flowers ordered. Betty had her hair done. But even for the photo, she wasn't going to smile.

And here's the whole family. Betty's perked up a bit here. But her folks and the in-laws don't look a bit pleased. I'll take a clue from Helen's post about the hand gestures - Betty looks like she's ready to claw her way out of this day. Mom looks like she's ready to slap Betty. Dad is hiding his hands so we're not sure what he's thinking. Maybe there's a rifle back there. It's funny, on the back of this photo is written "none". Betty didn't even want to order copies of this wedding photo. She's already hating her in-laws.

Here's Betty and probably her sister who's the happiest person at the wedding. She's probably still single!  Dad is almost smiling here, but still pretty steamed about the whole situation. Mom is thinking "why didn't I wear my pushup bra?"  But Betty liked this photo. According to the back of this one, she ordered 12 5x7s.

March down the aisle to Sepia Saturday for more photos and stories.

Sepia Saturday #125 My Mom's The Best Cook

I know. Everyone thinks their own Mom is the best cook in the world. But mine really was. I wish I could cook anywhere as near as good as she did. Here's a photo of her in the kitchen:

It probably all started when she was about 20 years old and thinking of getting married. So she bought this cookbook.

It remained in her kitchen her whole life. I remember consulting it every once in a while. I really like the book because of its tabs for each chapter.

I wish all cookbooks had these. It would be so much easier to find a recipe.

After my mom died, we had a Celebration of Life for her. We made this little recipe book to hand out as a remembrance. And we served all of her favorite dishes at the celebration.

The book contained all her best recipes

Her best ever recipe was for Lemon Meringue pie. It was even better than Marie Callenders.

You can tell she made it a lot because of all the stains on her recipe card.

Here's the recipe for the meringue. You can't have the pie without that.

I sure miss my mom's cooking. But it's nice that I still have her recipe book and all her recipe cards. They're a wonderful reminder of her.

C'mon over to Sepia Saturday if you smell something good coming from there and want to read other stories about kitchens, cooking and food. 

Sepia Saturday #124 We Rode the Iron Rooster

"Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories."
                                                               from The Great Railway Bazaar
                                                               by Paul Theroux

Barbara and I were invited by one of our suppliers (who we affectionately call The Doily King - since he was at the time the biggest importer of crocheted doilies from China) to an all expense paid trip to China. Wow. How could we refuse?  It was 1985 and we set off with our salesman, Denis and the Doily King himself, Dickie Lo (no I'm not making up that name!).

We met lots of people on that trip that fit the category of stranger's monologues from Russian short stories. And most of our adventures happened on Chinese trains.

Our first train ride was from Shanghai to Beijing where we boarded with the hoards of other passengers at this grand station with the lovely art deco train streaming across the front:

I'm not sure what those two fellows are doing with their ladder that doesn't look like it's going to get them to where they want to go. Maybe they were going to shine up this silvery train.

Another view of the bustling station:

Waiting with Dickie for the train.

Here's our train. All aboard!  Doesn't it have a cartoonish quality?

Here's some of the lady workers who mostly cleaned the bathrooms (what a job!) and when they weren't cleaning they were barking orders at us. They look so happy and funloving, but they were actually quite mean. "Get in your compartment". "Clear the aisles" "Get in line" in their high pitched shrieking voices.

These are some soldiers who were also passengers on the train. They weren't mean like the girls in the white hats. They pretty much kept to themselves. Don't you just love their uniforms? We bought several green army hats with red stars on the front. I never wore mine.

Barbara and I were so happy when we found our way to our luxury compartment. Lace curtains, white embroidered tablecloth and pillows, a thermos of hot water for tea. We were just settling in:

when all of a sudden the conductor led two strange men into our compartment. Yikes, we were to share our tiny little abode with the two men on the right for three days and two nights! 

 

They turned out to be very nice, two doctors on their way to a medical conference. But for medical doctors, they sure smoked a lot. The man on the far right is checking out the video camera I bought in Hong Kong. Doesn't that look like a relic now? 

The guy on the left was a friend of theirs. He didn't share our compartment but he did spend a lot of time there talking and singing to us.  Yes, singing. And he had quite a repertoire - Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (very appropos), Love Me Tender, and Hey Jude among others. 

This is a lady we met on the train. She and Denis are studying his Chinese language book. Capitalism was just creeping into China and this lady was taking full advantage. She had been to the Russian border in the north of China to invest money in property and said she was making a killing. I'll bet she's one of the super rich now that you hear so much about.

Everyone of the people we met could have been characters in those Russian stories, but none could beat Bernard's story. He was quite an unforgettable character. He was just coming off a teaching job in Samoa where he had several custom sarong-type outfits made. How strange in China to see a black man wearing a sarong!  He was on his way to Taian to teach at the Shandong Mining College.  What a surprise the town fathers had when they greeted him at the station. I often wonder what happened to Bernard. He's probably off to some other remote area, wearing a Mao jacket that he had specially made in Taian.

Here's Bernard in the dining car (not a great photo, wish I had one that showed his sarong). That's me on the right showing the magical camera to the dining car workers.

What an interesting train trip it was. Not comfortable, no good food, not much sleep, no card playing, no binges, but lots of great stories.

For other stories about trains, miniatures, and other assorted tales, see Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #123 Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!

I had a feeling that May poles, May queens and May baskets might all be written about this week. So I've decided instead to use the term Mayday, the distress signal, as my inspiration for this post. And I'm tying it to the Titanic disaster even though the signals coming from the sinking ship were CQD and later SOS, not Mayday. 

This is Harold Bride in the message room of the Titanic. Doesn't this photo have a ghostly quality to it?

Now let's go back to 1956, not 1912. Our neighbors the Holts invited our family to join them in Laguna Beach for a vacation.

Barbara and me and friend (under the towel)

They had 2 cottages where we all could stay. But we had to share the cottages with their 2 maiden aunts. We were told not to talk too much to the one aunt because she was very shy, very quiet. That was Aunt Lillian and we were to find out later that she was a Titanic survivor. I've always been intrigued by her story and decided to write about her this week.

Lillian Thorpe was born in 1875. After her first husband died, at 28 Lillian remarried William Minahan, a  wealthy physician from Wisconsin. They were married nine years before they took a trip to Ireland to visit his family. They boarded the Titanic for their return at Queenstown as first class passengers, along with William's sister, Daisy. The three occupied cabin C-78.

William and Lillian

When the ship started to sink, William put Lillian and Daisy in lifeboat #14. His last words to them was, "Be brave."  For some reason, the two ladies were transferred to another boat (maybe their boat was overloaded), and then were later rescued by the S.S. Carpathia which eventually took them to New York where they were met by family members.

William's body was picked up by the CS Mackay-Bennett. Of the 306 bodies picked up by this ship, only 190 made it to Halifax and William's was one of them. The others were buried at sea.

Effects found on William's body:
Pocketbook; papers; gold watch, "Dr. W.E. Minahan"; keys; knife; fountain pen; clinical thermometer; memo book; tie pin; diamond ring; gold cuff link; nickel watch; comb; check book; American Express; $380; 1 collar button; £16 10s in gold; 14 shillings; nail clipper.

Can you imagine that Lillian, in her grief, had to write this letter?:

White Star Steamships
I hereby direct that you turn over to the bearer, V.I. Minahan, the body of my late husband, Dr. W.E. Minahan, and also all effects found thereon.
April 29, 1912
Mrs. Lillian Minahan

William's grave in Wisconsin

Daisy never recovered from the fateful trip. She died in 1919 at 40. Lillian, however, lived to the ripe old age of 86, married two more times and died in 1962.

The little cottages where we stayed are now gone, replaced by a big ugly apartment complex. But, I'll never forget the summer we stayed in Laguna Beach with Aunt Lillian, the brave Titanic survivor.

For more May Day stories click here Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday #122 An "Augh" in the Garden

(Previously posted 8/20/11 - apologies if you've already read it but it fits so well with the Sepia Saturday Garden theme this week.)

With all of the bad news lately—murders, the economy, wars, etc. —just everything in general, I really, really needed a good laugh.

And can you believe it? I actually found one.  I found a laugh in the trash. Here it is:

I saw this strange thing peaking out from a trash can on my way to work. I hadn't quite figured out what it said or what it was, but it looked really intriguing. I love anything with letters and words. But what in the heck was this word - "augh".  Maybe that's what I really got when I desperately wanted a laugh. I got an "augh".  Someone up there was telling me that all I get, all I deserve, is an "augh".

But I still loved this sign. I guess it used to be in someone's garden and the "L" fell off so they just threw it away.  They didn't want an "augh" in their garden. But I do. I love this sign. It really makes me laugh. So I planted it in my garden. Don't you think it looks great?:

After I planted it in the ground, I started thinking about the word "laugh." Especially when you now
see the letters that make up this word.  How can "augh" possibly be pronounced "aff". How did this become "laugh".  So I started researching and this is what I came up with:

"Laugh was hlæhhan in Old English, and my source said it was probably in imitation of haha with a verb ending on it. (We had lots of words starting in hl. The h disappeared. The word lord used to start with hl.) Weird, yes?

English is pretty closely related to German. German laugh is lachen - pretty close. Same in Dutch."

or this:

Much more curious in my opinion is the great vowel shift:
"The values of the long vowels form the main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English and Modern English, and the Great Vowel Shift is one of the historical events marking the separation of Middle and Modern English. Originally, these vowels had "continental" values much like those remaining in Italian and liturgical Latin. However, during the Great Vowel Shift, the two highest long vowels became diphthongs, and the other five underwent an increase in tongue height with one of them coming to the front."

Huh. The Great Vowel Shift? Is that anything like Continental Drift?
Well, I'm still confused. But I guess everything about our language is confusing. Best not to question.


But even though I can't figure out how laugh became laff or laf, I still think we all need a good one. I'm so glad that I found this wonderful garden sign in the trash. Whether it's laugh or augh, I don't really care. It still makes me happy.

Even though you might have seen this video before, it should still bring a smile and an "augh" to your day. After laughing with this baby, take a stroll over to Sepia Saturday for other garden stories.