Art, music, whatever
Here’s a picture of the lovely Helena Bonham Carter at some insignificant red carpet event or other, looking quite unlike her normal scraggly self (other than the hairstyle and boho sunglasses):
However, knowing Our Helena as we do, we can have no doubt that her long spotted dress most probably conceals a pair of Army boots. Some things just don’t change… for some reason, leopards come to mind.
Here’s a pic of some ancient (49-year-old) model prancing barefoot through the streets of London, clutching a bottle of wine. (One of those “candid” i.e. posed paparazzi events.)
I have to admit that she’s not too bad for an older broad — apparently she was a model, or still is (see more pics at the link). However, that’s not what I want to talk about here, but the “barefoot in the streets of London” thing.
1) Considering the chances of spearing or slashing one’s foot on a discarded beer bottle in the Brit capital, I wouldn’t prance barefoot through the streets of London for a bet.
2) Given that London’s streets are cleaned about as often as are the streets of Johannesburg, the chances of catching some flesh-eating disease from said injury are higher than the average rock musician in the 1970s.
2) Even assuming that our streets are cleaner than London’s (which they are), if one were to try doing the same thing here in Plano, there is a distinct chance of the blazing-hot surface searing one’s foot in a manner similar to this:
It makes me wince just to think of it.
Okay, I took enough guff from y’all about my Sunday post of Toyah Willcox (sheesh, she’s almost my age, cut the old lady some slack, willya?) so here are a few random hotties floating around my hard drive.
If one of those doesn’t satisfy you, you need help.
Reader Valine76 commented thus on the weekend post on Boldini: “Vera de Nimidoff (1879-1963) was certainly done a favor by Boldini’s portrait of her (1908).”
Indeed he did, but not in the way one might think. Here are the portrait and the photo, l to r:
Went back among my old posts to look something up, and ended up here, where I spoke about Giovanni Boldini.
Well, so much for that search. I ended up wandering along the highways, byways, trains of thought and their branch lines that is Teh Intarwebz.
So: some more Boldini pics — just not the commissioned portraits this time. I do love how he paints women’s faces, though:
But it’s when he gets naughty that I like him the most:
And then there was this one, which caused quite a scandal in its time:
Not yer typical society portrait, is it?
…and even some of those weren’t quite the typical Victoriana, like this one of Madame de Nemidoff:
or of Madame Pages:
Brilliant.
Sheesh… I do a piece on Romanian gymnast Nadia Comeneci — and now everybody’s got to get in on the act.
To be fair, though: Tom Leonard’s article is more far substantial than mine (which was just an excuse to leer at her grownup tatas).
And it reminds us that Commies are unspeakable bastards.
If you look closely at Nemidoff’s face (between portrait and photo), you can see that he captured it rather well. What Boldini did was to take her hair out of that ridiculous corseted Edwardian hairstyle and tousle it into that wild, wanton bush.
Now throw in a little non-Edwardian off-the-shoulder decolletage and a sexy pose with hooded eyes…
…and there you have it: a perfect Boldini portrait.
No wonder they all loved him and he had more business than he could handle.