We're having a quiet Hallowe'en this year, but if we were to head to some theoretical costume party, I think I'd like to go as Aunts Enchantra and Hagatha.

This is my favorite bit from The Graduate, and within it much of why I so admired Mike Nichols.

A little escapism in a rather dreary week, darlings, not to mention a reminder of half-forgotten childhood pleasure...

A match made in heaven: today's birthday girl, the splendiferous Jo Anne Worley, and the color red!

...And Hello Kitty is not a cat.  At the risk of continuing the feline trend earlier this week, I feel obliged to note how thoroughly my mind has been blown by this startling news from the good people at Sanrio.

And meet our mystery challenger!

Tania is 60 today.  Feel old?

She was, as all the obituaries today have reminded us, famous in a way that in these days of debased notoriety beggars imagination.

Another time the year goes 'round; another chance to revisit one of my earliest memories...

After yet another day of enforced office festivities, this is just exactly what I needed...

If you remember this song from childhood, and then remember being surprised/annoyed/bereft when it suddenly disappeared from the annual broadcast, you're probably about my age, more or less two-score-and-ten.

It hardly seems possible, but it seems I've never seen Lover, Come Back...

Let's wish a very happy 99, shall we, to the decorative creature seen here on one of your finer Eisenhower-era periodicals?

It must be hard having your name become synonymous, for reasons wholly beyond your control, with a particularly idyllic kind of childhood.  That's certainly a lesson to be taken from the life of Christopher Robin Milne, born this fine August day in 1920.

I first posted this a year ago today, when dear Miss Julia Child would have turned 100.  Today, when I'm distracted and a little sad, I find it has really cheered me up.

Oh, I know.  This one is all over the place and you've already seen it ten times today.  I don't care.  I think it's genius, and a fit and cheerful way to celebrate the centenary of someone whom I geniunely think a Great American, the late and so fondly remembered St. Julia of Child.  Gimmicky, I know, but catchy enough I can almost imagine it being performed in some other context - the lyric, for example, is both witty and, at least to me, oddly moving:

Freshness is essential;
That makes all the difference.
I like to smell something cooking -
It makes me feel at home!

Bring on the roasted potatoes!  Bring on the rosé! 
This is what good cooking is all about!

Cook and cook and keep on cooking!
This is the way to live!

Cook and cook and keep on cooking!
This is the way to eat!

Bon appétit!

Maxfield Parrish turns a spry 143 today, and what a pleasure it is to wish him many happy returns.

Even the most trying day - and this was close, and we're not nearly over the worst, O Best Beloveds - can have its saving graces.