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voguefashion · 3 months

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Truman Capote's infamous Black and White Ball at New York’s Plaza Hotel on November 28th 1966. The masked ball which was labeled the "party of the century", was thrown in the honor of his dear friend Katharine Graham, whose husband died by suicide in 1961, leaving her to run the family media empire. The guest list contained 540 of his closest friends from affluent families, royalty, fashion designers, models, actors, writers, musicians and his famous "Swans".

Photos: 1. Capote with his favourite "swan" Lee Radziwill, 2. Interior designer Billy Baldwin (pictured on the right) with a fellow guest. 3. Princess Luciana Pignatelli, Peter Gimbel and Contessa Consuelo Crespi. 4. Capote chatting with guests. 5. Françoise de Langlade and Oscar de la Renta. 6. Guests dancing. 7. Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow. 8. Capote dancing with "swan" Gloria Guinness. 9. Candice Bergen dancing with a guest. 10. Capote with guest-of-honor Katharine Graham. 11. Truman socializing with guests.

#truman capote #black and white ball #1966 #lee radziwill #billy baldwin #luciana pignatelli #peter gimbel #consuelo crespi #françoise de langlade #oscar de la renta #frank sinatra #mia farrow #gloria guinness #candice bergen #katharine graham #style #fashion #1960s

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weclassybouquetfun · 4 months

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In 2021 the limited series on the career of designer Halston (Roy Halston Frowick, portrayed by Ewan McGregor) waltzed down Netflix's catwalk. Now we have at least three series chronicling the lives and careers of designers.

Currently on Disney+ in Europe is the exquisite CRISTÓBAL BALENCIAGA centering on, guess who? Spanish designer Cristobal Balenciaga, starring Alberto San Juan (Reyes De La Noche) as Balenciaga.

It's an interesting story about this enigmatic fashion genius that shows his steadfastness in his devotion to fashion to the sacrifice, some may say, of ethics due to the fact that while other fashion houses were shut down during Germany's occupation of some parts of France, he readily made clothes for the significant others of German soldiers.

The series also shines a light on Balenciaga's relationship with his creative partner and love-of-his-life Wladzio d'Attainville (played by Thomas Coumans).

Among the designers who appear or are name-checked in CRISTÓBAL BALENCIAGA is Christian Dior and Coco Chanel. These two fashion legends will appear in AppleTV+'s upcoming mini-series THE NEW LOOK with Ben Mendelsohn as Dior and Juliette Binoche as Coco Chanel and takes place during Germany's occupation of France.

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THE NEW LOOK will feature covers of classics by Florence + and The Machine, Lana del Rey, The 1975, Perfume Genius and more.

Sometimes this year (at least I hope this year) will be KAISER KARL (apparently the title may be changed) starring Daniel Brühl as Kunty Karl Lagerfeld

centering on him as a 38-year old trying to break into the Parisian world of high fashion where he finds himself in competition with he finds himself in competition with French fashion giants like Yves Saint Laurent.

The only Yves Saint Laurent depiction worth a damn. RIP beautiful Gaspard Ulliel

What is fashion if there's no one to wear it? For example, the high society ladies that will be depicted in the upcoming installment of FX's FEUD: CAPOTE VS. THE SWANS.

Hopefully this series will do justice to the mythos behind writer Truman Capote's nuclear fall out with the so-called Swans - a moniker Capote gave the socialites whose company he kept and whose secrets he didn't.

Playing Capote is Tom Hollander

Naomi Watts as Babe Paley, wife of CBS founder William S. Paley (which the annual PaleyFest is named after), Diane Lane as Slim Keith, ex-wife of famed director Howard Hawks, producer Leland Hayward amongst others; Calista Flockhart as Lee Radziwill, sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Demi Moore Ann Woodward who got her place in society by being the wife of a banking heir,

Demi, that looks like a flamingo, not a swan.

Chloe Sevigny as Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali muse C.Z. Guest, Molly Ringwald as JoAnne Carson, ex-wife of late-night talk show host Johnny Carson and the only Swan who remained friends with Capote after his ouster from their social circle.

TBT Elle magazine getting animated with fashion.

Goofy as Kunty Karl Lagerfeld.

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oceancentury · 3 months

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“They know that dear old daddy is just a third rate suburban faggot banker who sticks his uncircumcised mick penis into the glorious asshole of Americas greatest living author.” Tom Hollander and Russell Tovey in Feud: Capote vs The Swans 🦢

#feud #feud capote vs the swans #Tom Hollander #russell tovey #truman capote #tv #tv series #my gif #my gifs #quote #quotes #tv and film #oceancentury

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mariacallous · 4 months

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It was the literary scandal of the decade, the ultimate betrayal and, it turned out, the end of Truman Capote’s career. Published in Esquire in November 1975, “La C��te Basque 1965”, an excerpt from Capote’s then-forthcoming novel Answered Prayers, saw the celebrated writer share the innermost secrets (and most scandalous gossip) entrusted to him by his beloved Swans, the wealthy and glamorous group of high-society women that included Babe Paley, Slim Keith, Gloria Guinness, Lee Radziwill, Marella Agnelli and CZ Guest.

Visceral in its revelations of substance abuse, sexual assault, a murder cover-up, a graphic description of extra-marital period sex and, to top it off, bestiality, the article was a sensation for all the wrong reasons. It saw Capote deserted by his closest friends and shunned from the New York clique he had yearned to be a part of growing up – and, against the odds, had managed to infiltrate as an adult thanks to the success of his novels In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Capote’s questionable actions (and the irresistible drama they precipitated) form the backbone of Ryan Murphy’s long-awaited Feud, inspired by Laurence Leamer’s bestselling 2021 book, Capote’s Women. An all-star cast will bring the man and his muses back to life when the Gus Van Sant-directed series premieres this month on FX in the US, but what was the real-life fallout from the publication of “La Côte Basque 1965” like for Capote and co?

“He never recovered from it,” says Ebs Burnough, director of the 2021 documentary The Capote Tapes, a five-year discovery project that saw him uncover hours of audio footage of Capote, and which gives the most thorough insight into the flawed figure to date. “[These were] friendships born and nurtured over 20-something years. All of a sudden, not one but all of his friends – who had been like his family, because he didn’t really have any family – were not speaking to him; there was literally nowhere for him to go. He was alone drinking, and the phone stopped ringing. He was a man alone on an island.”

Described by the New York Times as “the high-society temple of French cuisine”, La Côte Basque – just off Fifth Avenue and a stone’s throw from The Plaza – was a fine-dining eatery as famous for its juicy gossip as it was for its succulent Coeur de Filet Périgourdine. No one, however, dared to write about what was said and done there – until Capote. While his ostracising may seem like an obvious consequence for spilling society’s sordid secrets, Capote was flawed by the outrage.

Before publication, he boasted to People that he was planning on assassinating his characters with a pen instead of a gun: “There’s the handle, the trigger, the barrel, and, finally, the bullet. And when that bullet is fired from the gun, it’s going to come out with a speed and power like you’ve never seen – wham!”

Success was, in his head, assured, as Capote had been open about writing “La Côte Basque 1965”, bragging about the stories he would tell, continues Burnough. “He was working on that piece for over 20 years, so in his mind he didn’t anticipate the fall out because all of them knew he was working on it.” Upon the outrage, Capote was, “totally abandoned but also indignant”, he continues. “He even said, ‘Hey! What did they expect from me? I’m a writer!’”

Capote had form. “Remember, this was something he had done with Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” explains Burnough. “When you think about it, Holly Golightly is essentially a call girl, yet with Audrey Hepburn [playing her], and because it was so beautifully written, lots of New York socialites were saying, ‘Holly was based on me!’ There’s [even] a quote in The Capote Tapes where Babe’s daughter [Kate] says, ‘Mummy was so excited to be immortalised by such a famous author.’ So, I think he was certainly expecting great praise.”

Babe Paley was Capote’s most aggrieved victim of “La Côte Basque 1965”. In it, Slim Keith’s alias, Lady Ina Coolbirth, reveals to the fictionalised version of Capote, PB Jones, the story that Paley is said to have told Capote about catching her husband, CBS head Bill, in bed with another woman. When Capote rang the Paley household to see what they thought of “La Côte Basque”, Bill is said to have lied, claiming that it was thrown out before either of them could read it; a distraught Babe, who had read it, and who considered Capote her closest confidante, had terminal lung cancer at the time of its publication and never spoke to Capote again before her death in 1978.

Such dismissal of his work would have affected Capote, says Burnough, but the fallout from the Swans leaving him would have been even worse. “Babe Paley was his North Star. She was everything he aspired to be and everything his mother aspired to be. [His mother] had always wanted to be a socialite, so his obsession came from her wanting but not being a part of that world, and then abandoning him as a child. There’s a lot of mother psychology there.”

It makes total sense that Babe Paley was the victim of Capote’s worst betrayal, says Lisa Pomerantz, the New York-based brand expert with a lifelong obsession with Capote and his era of social commentators. “She was the one that opened up the most to him. He took total advantage of her because the others – Lee Radziwill, CZ Guest [et al] – were always more guarded,” she says. “The question is, did he do it knowingly? He was a tortured soul, mostly because of his relationship with his mother – that combined with his natural obsession with this aspirational life and Babe and Bill being the epitome of it.”

Having been sent from New Orleans to Alabama to be raised by relatives after his parents’ divorce, Capote is said to have been a lonely, introverted child searching for a sense of belonging. So why, having infiltrated the glitzy New York scene as a bonafide player, did he blow it all up?

In tandem with craving acceptance, psychologist Carolyn Mair muses that, deep down, Capote resented the world he had managed to become a part of. “People warmed to him and wanted to protect him as he projected an identity of both child and woman, yet his wit could be razor sharp. His ability to remember conversations verbatim made him a good source of gossip,” she says. “Yet as his psychological problems worsened, it seems reasonable to assume that his judgement also worsened.” Shocking others, she adds, “can also be a way of getting attention”.

The backlash from other circles would also have been keenly felt by Capote, continues Mair. “The Swans were the high society who lived aspirational lives and were the envy of women across the States and elsewhere,” she says. “Ordinary people would have read about these women and their lifestyles in the press and fashion magazines and would relate to them as if they were also their friends. The publication of ‘La Côte Basque 1965’ would likely have triggered a shocked sense of betrayal amongst the readers of popular and fashion press at the time.”

Perhaps the most interesting upshot of the “La Côte Basque 1965” scandal, though? The ways in which it laid the groundwork for tabloid culture, says Burnough. “This was an era [in America] when no one even talked about the fact that Franklin Roosevelt was in a wheelchair, let alone the affairs people were having, let alone as graphically as Truman did. As the late, great John Richardson said, ‘[Capote] took the lid off a pile of shit’ and it started the exposé culture we have today. It was a real ‘gotcha!’ moment for the rich and famous.”

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denimbex1986 · 2 months

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'Last month, the BBC offered an apology of sorts after a red-carpet reporter at the Baftas asked Andrew Scott, star of the film All of Us Strangers, about fellow Irish actor Barry Keoghan’s appendage. This had been the subject of conversation thanks to Keoghan’s naked dancing in the film, Saltburn, in which Keoghan’s floppy bishop steals the final scene. To settle this nagging concern the BBC turned to a gay man. ‘There was a lot of talk about prosthetics. How well do you know him?’ the reporter asked an annoyed Scott who shook his head and walked away.

Had a female actress been asked to authenticate another woman’s breasts, the scandal that would have ensued goes without mentioning, but the BBC dusted it off. ‘Our question to Andrew Scott was meant to be a light-hearted reflection of the discussion around the scene and was not intended to cause offence,’ the organisation said.

The gynarchy has made clear that objectifying men is perfectly fine and, after all, what’s a little light-hearted homophobia when gay movies are having a renaissance? All of Us Strangers – nominated for six Baftas but ultimately snubbed, and Saltburn, nominated for five – joined a handful of other gay titles that studios have banked on attracting an audience beyond the 4 per cent of the population who might traditionally see those films.

Where the box office didn’t pay off, critical acclaim largely has. 2020’s Supernova, staring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci as a 60-something gay couple, and last year’s drama Passages directed by Ira Sachs, have also inched into a market where such movies typically didn’t belong.

‘Why are gay movies always so sad,’ people used to ask in the 1990s. Thirty years later, nothing has changed. Gay flicks tend to have three themes – loneliness, death, and villainy – and this recent batch of movies is no exception. The miniseries Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, released last month and based on writer Truman Capote’s final years, nicely encompasses all three.

‘New film All of us Strangers centers on gay loneliness and trauma,’ a headline on NBC News read, as though that’s anything new. And while I don’t know what ‘trauma’ is, I do know that gay people have always fixated on it and, increasingly, so does everyone else. Gay films haven’t changed, but the audience has. Women are lonelier, more promiscuous, and more atomised than ever and now they’ve discovered a whole sub-genre of cinema speaking to that and aiming to nurture those anxieties. Just a hunch, but the ladies sobbing along at home to Supernova are probably childless and spend many hours a week on Zoom calls.

When a gay film meanders too deeply into gay insider baseball, like Billy Eichner’s 2022 romantic comedy Bros, it bombs. The most resonate gay movie of all time might continue to be 1970’s The Boys in the Band, but the 2020 remake flopped, probably because it’s a story devoid of hope and beauty, only messiness and casual destruction –something gay men understand but remains far too raw and excruciating for women to enjoy.

Then there’s the other side of it – the neutered gay fan fiction written by and for women, like Amazon Prime’s horrendously stupid 2023 film Red, White & Royal Blue, which offers women magical gay pets to carry around in their dreams. When I asked the feminist writer Louise Perry about these films, she said:

"These are usually gay relationships represented in a uniquely feminine way: intensely emotional, no casual sex, very unlike gay porn for men.

I suspect that young women find these gay fantasies attractive because they’re scared of the asymmetries inherent to straight relationships, in which women are always the more physically vulnerable party. So, they invent fictional gay men and give them a style of sexuality more typical of women.

She continued: ‘Will & Grace was obviously created for women because the gay male characters are weirdly asexual,’ reiterating something gay men have speculated for some time, noting that the bitchy and boozy, heterosexual Karen Walker was the only character they gravitated toward.

That’s not to say women can’t write great gay stories. Brokeback Mountain, the most critically acclaimed gay movie of all time, was based on a short story by Annie Proulx, who revealed in a 2009 interview her frustration with fan letters wishing the story had ended on a positive note. Those ‘idiots’ who want a happy ending, she said, overwhelmingly tended to be men.'

#Andrew Scott #BAFTAs #All of Us Strangers #Saltburn #Will & Grace #Brokeback Mountain #Annie Proulx #Karen Walker #Red White & Royal Blue #Supernova #Passages #Feud: Capote Vs The Swans #Bros #The Boys in The Band

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papermoonloveslucy · 3 months

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LUCY & THE SWANS

BALL, CAPOTE & PALEY

The new FX series "Feud: Capote vs. The Swans" depicts a world that Lucille Ball knew all too well - wealth, fame and celebrity. Although she does not inhabit the New York Society of Babe Paley, Slim Keith, Ann Woodward, C.Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness and others, she and her Desilu empire lie just outside of it - her influence on the era keenly felt.

Episode 1 of the teleplay ("Pilot") begins in 1958, and takes us to the executive boardroom of CBS in New York. There, Bill Paley (Treat Williams) holds forth, a photo of Lucy and Desi prominently hovering over his shoulder.

In this room, the Paley and the CBS brass made programming moves played out on a schedule board. The Monday 9pm time slot is occupied by "I Love Lucy", with a small photo of Lucy and Desi (the same one that hung on the wall) tucked into the title card - as if they needed reminding of who they were! The only slight faux pas is that "I Love Lucy" (as a half hour series) did not run in 1958. Its final episode aired in May 1957. It then became an hour-long celebrity-driven musical comedy hour under the banner of "The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse." Paley and CBS probably wanted Lucy and Desi for a 7th season, but Desi had other plans. He wouldn't kill the Ricardos (metaphorically) but relegate them to specials, interspersed with Desilu productions of new drama and comedy. It is possible that the action of "Feud" in this scene lies somewhere in that murky period between Desi's plans, and Paley's wishes for a seventh season of the half-hour format.

In actuality, during 1958, the 9pm Monday time slot was occupied by "The Danny Thomas Show" (filmed at Desilu) and "The Ann Sothern Show" (produced by Desilu). Monday also featured the Desilu Western "The Texan," making the only half hour of CBS's Monday primetime NOT created by Lucy and Desi "Father Knows Best."

Episode 6 ("Hats, Gloves, and Effete Homosexuals") set in 1978 includes a luncheon conversation at La Cote that mentions Lucille Ball and Lucie Arnaz. Truman's new boyfriend Rick (Vito Schnabel) is a handyman who once fixed Ball's air conditioner in Palm Springs.

Truman has promised to bring Rick to see They're Playing our Song on Broadway starring Lucie Arnaz. Rick says that he met little Lucie while she was swimming laps.

BILL & BABE PALEY

The power and influence of William S. Paley cannot be underestimated. He literally built CBS (the Columbia Broadcasting System) from a small radio station to a multi-media conglomerate, serving as Chairman for much of its existence. He shepherded CBS from radio to television, and was responsible for giving the green light to Lucille Ball making the transition from "My Favorite Husband" to "I Love Lucy," bringing her real-life husband along for the ride. Without Paley and Lucy, CBS would not have gotten a foothold in an industry dominated by the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).

Paley's second wife was socialite Barbara Cushing Mortimer, who he married the year before he met Lucille Ball. Mortimer is best known as Babe Paley, and she was Truman Capote's favorite of the Swans. In "Lucy's Barbershop Quartet" (1963), the group needs to find a replacement singer for the group and Viv suggests the unseen character of Barbara Cushing, who is a soloist in their church choir. Although Lucy, Viv, Thelma, and Dorothy were definitely not swans (more like Danfield Ducks) the writers were tipping their hat to the big boss's wife.

A few years later, in "Lucy Meets Danny Kaye" (1964), Kaye telephones Bill Paley to see if he has any spare tickets for his show to give fan Lucy. The best he can do is tickets to "The Jackie Gleason Show." Paley does not appear, nor do we hear his voice.

In real life, Paley and Ball were both in the first group of inductees to the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1984. Ball and Paley sat at the same table together at the ceremony.

In 1976, he joined those paying tribute to Lucy on "Lucy and CBS: The First 25 Years." Paley and his wife Babe had homes in Manhasset Long Island, and Squam New Hampshire, respectively known as Kiluna Farm South, and Kiluna Farm North, where they entertained a myriad of celebrities, Lucille Ball among them.

TRUMAN CAPOTE

On screen Lucille Ball had little to no interaction with writer Truman Capote. But in her personal life, Ball was guest at at least one of his lavish parties. Gary and Lucy's photo album included a photo of the Mortons at a December 13, 1975 party hosted by Capote, Allan Carr, and John O'Shea in Lincoln Heights, a wealthy neighborhood of Los Angeles. The 'mug shot' was part of a party game where guests were 'arrested' and forced to pay bail in order to get released. The money was usually donated to the host's favorite charity.

In July 1978, Capote joined Lucille Ball at Westbury Music Fair to see Lucie Arnaz perform in "Annie Get Your Gun".

Capote's one foray into acting was in Neil Simon's Murder By Death (1976), a camp comedy send-up of Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries where Capote played the eccentric host, Lionel Twain. The film featured a few stars with close connections to Lucille Ball.

Peter Sellars (Sidney Wang) starred in Will The Real Mr. Sellars...?, an oddball film from 1969 with a very brief cameo by Lucille Ball courtesy of hidden camera footage.

Elsa Lanchester (Jessica Marbles) famously guest-starred on "I Love Lucy" as a woman who may - or may not be - a hatchet murderess. In 1973, she appeared on "Here's Lucy" as kooky bank robber Mumsie Westcott.

Although screen writer Neil Simon never wrote for Lucille Ball, or even appeared on the same screen with her, they did share credits on two television shows. He was a staff writer on “The Garry Moore Show,” which Lucy appeared on in 1960. Simon and Ball were both featured on “Bob Hope’s World of Comedy” (1976), but were not onstage at the same time. It was Lucie Arnaz who worked closest with Simon. She starred on Broadway in They’re Playing Our Song (for which Simon wrote the libretto) in 1978. She then took over the role of Bela in Simon's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play Lost in Yonkers in 1992.

MISC. SWANS

Vivian Vance doing an in-character commercial for Swan dish soap on "The Lucy Show." Swan was made by Lever Brothers, and was discontinued in 1974.

SWAN SONGS

LUCY: "Would you begrudge an expectant swan her song?" RICKY: "You seem to forget that this particular swan has no talent." ~ Lucy's Show Biz Swan Song (1952)

LUCY: “It’s time for that swan to hit the come-back trail.” FRED: “That swan’s got a little ham in it.” ~ The Indian Show (1953)

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jessiicalange · 3 months

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The apparition of Capote’s mother, Lillie Mae Faulk, played by Jessica Lange, also showed up at the ball. Posen described her as a “black swan,” and says she posed the question: How does somebody get darkened to become a black swan?

"The history of Truman’s mom her her ambitions to be part of this high society and style, making her way from the South and almost leaving her son” also played a role in his vision for her couture.

#;new #;work: feud season 2

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sweaterkittensahoy · 4 months

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I was telling my dad today that I was going to be watching the new season of Feud. I told him it was about Truman Capote and the rich women in New York who were his friends.

My dad: "Isn't that just a fag hag?"

Me: ::brain short circuiting from hearing the phrase 'fag hag' for the first time in a long time. "Um. He called them his swans."

Dad: ::laughing:: Oh.

Me: ::brain still rewiring:: "And I think this was more a hag fag situation. Capote needed them way more than they needed him, and he exposed their secrets, so they ruined him."

Dad: "Huh. Fair enough."

And, like, no. Not every instance of your nearly 70-year-old father saying 'fag' or 'fag hag' is a fun time, but this time, it very much was.

#queer shit #fags #fag hags #and hag fags i guess #did i make a new thing???#anyway yes the term is outdated #but so's dad

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saintmeghanmarkle · 1 month

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Social relevance: Sussexes vs Windsors by u/Mickleborough

Social relevance: Sussexes vs Windsors Went down a rabbit hole which referred to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, which made me wonder who were the greater social outcasts: Sussexes or Windsors? for my impression of the Windsors was that they lived off what friends, acquaintances, and social climbers would have them.The exit dates are:- Edward VIII abdicated on 10 December 1936, aged 42;- Megxit took place on 31 March 2020.One Moment in TimeOnce the dust from World War II had settled, some truly extravagant balls - seemingly all (justifiably, from all accounts) called the party of the century - were thrown by the very rich for the elite: other rich people, actors, intellectuals, royalty.The Windsors were invited to all of the parties of the century, apart from one:- Le Bal Oriental, the first great ball after WW2 and dubbed The Party of the Century, thrown in 1951 by Count Carlos de Beistegui at his home in Venice, the Palazzo Labia (Windsors were no show)- The Black and White Ball, a masquerade (men in black tie and black mask, women in black or white, white mask), given by the writer Truman Capote at the Plaza Hotel in New York, in 1966 (Windsors again were a no show) - see Vanity Fair article for some idea of the fuss: archived / unarchived- The Proust Ball, held by Baron and Baroness Guy de Rothschild in 1971, at their hunting estate outside Paris, the Château de Ferrières - so the Windsors were relevant even after 35 years.(The Rothschilds topped the Proust Ball with their Surrealist Ball in 1972, to which the Windsors seemingly hadn’t been invited - then again, the Duke of Windsor had died about 7 months earlier.)When You BelieveWorking royalty’s always at the top of the society tree, even in these republican (ie anti-monarchist) days - there simply aren’t that many of them, so they have curiosity value.So Harry’s position is clear. Meghan probably believes that she belongs to the upper echelons because she’s (cough) beautiful, (cough) intelligent, (cough) charming, and can dispense platitudes, I mean sage advice, that’ll revolutionise society.So to what equivalent function have they been invited? All I can think of is the Salute to Freedom Gala in November 2021.Best leg forward, Meghan! Fabulous A Chorus Line legwork precision with Harry.Every other function’s been a bought awards ceremony or connected with Invictus (requiring no evening wear).Didn’t We Almost Have It AllThe Sussexes believed that, following Megxit, they’d be courted and fêted. Because people would be clamouring to have them, they felt compelled to make it clear with whom they’d mingle: Express archived / unarchived.To be fair, times have changed, and grand private balls no longer are given. The equivalent, I suppose, would be fundraisers, the ones where you dress up and fling on jewels. But the Sussexes have neither bought tables, nor been invited. Before every first Monday in May, we’re entertained by the reasons why Meghan won’t be attending the invitation-only fundraiser Met Gala - it started off with them having no time for such frivolity, and now revolves around concerns for their security (Mirror archived / unarchived).I Have NothingThat’s going to be the case if American River Orchil doesn’t produce anything. And by ‘nothing’, I mean reputation.EDIT: It was a Truman Capote vs The Swans rabbit hole. I can recommend the non-fiction Swan Song by Kelleigh Jephcott-Greenberg. post link: https://ift.tt/a4Dk8Lc author: Mickleborough submitted: April 01, 2024 at 10:23PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

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noneedtoamputate · 2 months

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End of Month Roundup - February 2024

Stuff I've Been Reading:

Almost done with Masters of the Air by Donald Miller.

Reading a hockey romance that isn't too good but fulfills one of the prompts for the 2024 PopSugar Reading Challenge.

I'm rereading and commenting on the Pulling Heartbreak Out of Hats series by ReallyLilyReally over on A03. It's a Winters/Talbert/Nixon OT3 fic, and I can't recommend it enough.

Stuff I've Been Watching:

Masters of the Air. I have opinions. Not enough ground crew. Not enough women. Love Rosie and still love Harry, too. It's not his fault. I feel like the pacing is off and I have no idea how they are going to wrap everything up with only two more episodes.

Started Feud: Capote Versus the Swans. I am not caught up, but I have read all about "La Cote Basque" and the backlash after its publication, so it's been great to see it on screen.

Stuff I've Been Making

I created a new OFC, Patsy Harangody, for the Blind Dates OC Fest right before Valentine's Day. I'm really proud how it turned out, and I can tell the difference in my writing since I started back over the summer. I love her, so look out for more and feel free to send in prompts for her.

Every Beautiful Thing Chapter 9 is coming along slowly but steadily. I can't believe it was December since I last updated the fic, but real life has gotten in the way. I feel like I might be able to finally catch my breath a bit since the beginning of the year (knock on wood).

I'm also planning an OFC for MotA. More soon, I hope.

#personal #wip

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aninsecurewriter · 10 months

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100 must-read books!

This is a list of books considered "must-reads" from various lists and online posters. I'll be reviewing them as I go but mainly keeping track of what I have and haven't read here.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Matilda by Roald Dahl

The Secret History by Donna Tart

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Norwegian Wood bt Haruki Murakami

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Lolita Vladimir Nabokov

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling

His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Ulysses by James Joyce

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Wild Swans by Jung Chang

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift

The War of the Worlds by H.G Wells

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt

Persuasion by Jane Austen

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Beloved by Toni Morrison

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

Macbeth by Shakespeare

The Lord of the Rings (trilogy) by J.R.R Tolkien

The Outsiders by S.E Hinton

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally

London Fields by Martin Amis

Sherlock Holmes and the The Hound of the Baskerville's by Arthur Conan Doyle

My Man Jeeves by P.G Wodehouse

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Gladys Aylward the Little Woman by Gladys Aylward

Mindnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas by John Boyne

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian

Dissolution by C.J Sansom

The Time Machine by H.G Wells

Winnie the Pooh (complete collection) by A.A Milne

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Castle by Franz Kafka

Dracula by Bram Stoker

All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Misery by Stephen King

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis

The Shining by Stephen King

The Odyssey by Homer

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson

Tell No One by Harlan Coben

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

#books #reading #literature #100 -must reads #challenge

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weclassybouquetfun · 11 months

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AFC Richmond, you will always be famous.

Rapper Lil Yachty tagged Brett Goldstein showing off his Roy Kent kit.

LeBron was seen wearing an AFC hoodie the day after the Sam and the "shut up and play" episode aired.

Last year W magazine tasked their subjects to dress up as their favourite TV characters. Juno Temple went with Millie Bobby Brown's Eleven from STRANGER THINGS and Quincy Isaiah of HBO's WINNING TIME went with our beloved gaffer.

Last year James D'arcy (AGENT CARTER) and Gal pal channeled Ted and Rebecca.

People just love them. Can't blame them.

I read a fic where Higgins talked about his son in seminary school. How did I miss it's a real thing!

-Apropos of nothing. Street Style James Lance edition. This video reminds me of a TikTok of a guy who interviews the stylish older ladies of New York. Ladies who look like they may have had sex with a Kennedy or two. I guess I'm saying is James is a fancy older lady, not unlike one of Truman Capote's Swans.

#ted lasso cast #tv: ted lasso #james lance #james d'arcy #lil yachty #lebron james #mary roscoe #quincy isaiah #charlie hiscock #stephen manas #david elsendoorn #kola bokinni #billy harris #moe jeudy lamour #cristo fernández #hannah waddingham #jeremy swift #juno temple

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ratherembarrassing · 3 months

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2024: week 5

february, we are in you.

tv: feud: capote vs the swans (fx, episodes 1 and 2). remember how i loved the joan crawford/bette davis season, and thought it was the culmination of all the ways ryan murphy had tried and failed with all his previous projects? anyway, this is not that. it's just sad and drab.

tv: the curse (showtime/binge, episode 1). i had literally never heard of this show before the golden globes, which i should have taken it for the sign it was because if something doesn't at least vaguely cross my notice via tumblr there's probably something wrong with it (but not too much, because obviously we love things that are very very wrong around here).

tv: true detective (hbo/binge, s4 episodes 1 and 2). WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY IS THIS SO SCARY??????????? i thought i was signing up for two dykes solving crimes in alaska and instead. INSTEAD. why does this keep happening to me?

movie: priscilla (dir sophia coppola, 2023). i feel like this was the cinematic equivalent of the way i write fic and it was so damn frustrating.

book: the great hunt (robert jordan, 1990). i'm only halfway through it but i'm suffering immensely from so many feelings. it's interesting that people seemed to like s2 much more than s1, when s2 does so much more rejigging that s1 ever did. but also, the universe feels really different? from both eotw and from the show. i don't precisely know what i even mean by that, but the existence of mirror worlds is like blatantly present here, which it... wasn't? in the show? but also wasn't in eotw either? idk, i am trapped between the books i've read, the spoilers i've spoiled and the rest of the internet that i cannot look at anymore, so i guess i will just have to keep reading.

sunburn: don't go to the beach in 38/100 degree weather, kids. sunscreen doesn't do shit in that.

#this week in ashleigh #very belated because idk

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mariacallous · 4 months

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Truman Capote's "La Côte Basque," originally published in the November 1975 issue of Esquire, was meant to serve as the first taste from his upcoming masterpiece about the inner circles of high society women. That novel, eventually called Answered Prayers, wouldn't publish until after the writer's death, but the passage became famous for the scandals it brought. In 2024, it was adapted for the television screen, for FX's Feud: Capote vs. the Swans. Available in full, below, it contains insensitive descriptions of beauty and body standards. To read every story ever published in Esquire, upgrade to All Access.

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into-the-sky-under-the-sea · 3 months

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𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘴 & 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘴

💠 𝑨𝒄𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒂-𝒊𝒔𝒉

-inspired by Saltburn (2023) and the art it references (or reminded me of) 🏰🍾 ▪ Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh [a fav book of mine] ▪ Brideshead Revisited (1981) miniseries ▪ The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith ▪ and I have to mention Purple Noon (1960), my favorite film, just because it is the first adaptation of the first Ripley book ▪ The Secret History by Donna Tartt [another fav book] -rolledover from autumnal mood -books on my tbr 📚 ▪ Ticky by Stella Gibbons ▪ Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey ▪ Possession by A.S. Byatt, which can also connect to The Romantics below

💠 ℂ𝕒𝕡𝕠𝕥𝕖'𝕤 𝕊𝕨𝕒𝕟𝕤 & 𝕞𝕚𝕕-𝕔𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕪 𝕘𝕝𝕒𝕞𝕠𝕦𝕣

-currently reading Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer, which I've had for a while but am now reading because it is the basis for the new season of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (series on FX) -Answered Prayers by Truman Capote is now one of the next books I want to buy -I read a couple articles pertaining to the book and surrounding figures, which then lead me to watching the documentary Always at the Carlyle (2018)

💠 ƑคเгץՇคɭєร

-I am in my fairytale era 🧚🏼‍♀️✨️🦢⛲️🪷❄️🏹🍎🪞🥀🫧🪺 -seedlings were planted back in December with reading E.T.A. Hoffmann's and Alexandre Dumas' Nutcracker stories, and watching Frozen for the first time and then reading "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen -it was cemented with rewatching Donkey Skin (Peau d'ane) (1970) early in the month and then reading that fairytale 💍 -I've continued / am now I'm continuing to do that with other titles ▪ "The Red Shoes" 👠 ▪ "12 Dancing Princesses" 🩰 ▪ Up Next: "The Little Mermaid" 🧜🏼‍♀️ -specifically, watching (or rewatching) Czech and Soviet adaptations ▪ Снежная королева (The Snow Queen) (1957) ❄️ ▪ Three Wishes for Cinderella (1973) 🦉 ▪ Perinbaba (1985) 🌨 ▪ Up Next: Русалочка (1976) and Malá mořská víla (1976) (both are "The Little Mermaid") 🧜🏼‍♀️, and Двенадцать месяцев (The Twelve Months) (1973) -and on my immediate tbr is The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter 📕

💠 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔡𝔶 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔈𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔩 𝔉𝔢𝔪𝔪𝔢

-this is the only way I can think of describing this mood/interest and it's not even a complete phrase, just adjectives of the aesthetic -I'm just listing movies and books that illustrate this to me ▪ Currently Reading: Brutes by Dizz Tate ▪ Currently Watching: Jean Rollin's vampire films: The Shiver of the Vampires (1971), Fascination (1979), The Living Dead Girl (1982), Two Orphan Vampires (1997) ⚰ ▪ on my book wishlist is Mine-Haha: or On the Bodily Education of Young Girls by Frank Wedekind, which was adapted into the film Innocence (2004) 🌳 ▪ I swear I had other things to put here, but I can always do updates posts later -taken from one of my Letterboxd tags "ethereal femme horror" which I started/came up with when I first watched a couple Jean Rollin films late last summer

🏹 [Also, Fairytale + Moody and Ethereal Femme = my "growing up in a land far far away" list on LB]

💘 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚜

-in October I watched Haunted Summer (1988) and rewatched Gothic (1986) and in doing so I realized I haven't read much from Lord Byron. I then bought his Selected Poems and Don Juan 📜 -reading his work is also likely to lead to finding a biography about him, and works by and about the other Lake Geneva attendees: Mary Wollstonecraft (Shelley), Percy Bysshe Shelley, Claire Clairmont, John Polidori (I have previously read Frankenstein and The Vampyre)

💘 ᑘᘉᕼᓰᘉᘜᘿᕲ ᘺᓍᘻᘿᘉ / ᖴᘿᘻᗩᒪᘿ ᖇᗩᘜᘿ

-at the beginning of January I really wanted to start reading Boy Parts by Eliza Clark, but soon afterwards I found out an internet booktube friend died suddenly, so I was a little out of it last month. Boy Parts was actually on her 2024 tbr, so I definitely want to get to it soon when the spur strikes again. 📷 -honestly, since finding out about her death, though it has taken me some time, I'm even more determined to get to books and movies I've been wanting to read and to watch for years! things I've put off because of high expectations or whatever. things I think will be new all-time favs, 5/5 stars, etc. I'm going to read them! and one of those is A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers 🍖🍇 -I'm now realizing, when you think about it, certain Jean Rollin films could probably be categorized here 🧛🏼‍♀️

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itgirlspectacle · 1 year

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Babe Paley

Babe Paley encompasses the 1950s socialite, not without struggle, however. She married her second husband William Paley in 1947 and she left her job at Vogue shortly after. Babe worked to create her own elite social circle, however; the Paleys were excluded by many in high society due to antisemitic prejudices. This didn’t keep the “it” girl down as she quickly found herself in Truman Capote’s “Swans”, a group that consisted of Slim Keith, Gloria Guinness, C.Z. Guest, and Marella Agnelli. Unbeknownst to Paley, this would later lead to scandal, and “it” girl must. After Capote released an excerpt, “La Côte Basque 1965,” from his expose of New York’s elite, Answered Prayers, the public began to speculate whether the story was based off Paley and her friend, Slim Kieth. Capote writes Babe as the character Cleo, a socialite whose husband (Bill Paley) is cheating on her with the governor’s wife (Mary Rockefeller) (Callahan, n.p.). Bill was known for extramarital affairs and because of this Babe was frequently under scrutiny as she turned a blind eye to his infidelity. Paley dropped Capote from her social circle and the rest of the “swans” iced him out as well (Kashner, n.p.). Before this drama, Paley is most notably known for her expert fashion sense, another commonality between “it” girls. She appeared on the world’s best-dressed list 14 times, 13 of which she was in the top spot, and in 1958 she was inducted into fashion’s Hall of Fame. Paley set the standard in fashion for 3 decades (New, n.p.). She was known for mixing haute couture with costume fashion. She wouldn’t shy away from “cheap” fashion and she created an image completely her own that many women strived to emulate, solidifying her position among America’s “it” girls (A.G. Nauta Couture, n.p.). Bill Blass described her best “I never saw her not grab anyone's attention, the hair, the makeup, the crispness. You were never conscious of what she was wearing; you noticed Babe and nothing else."

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