Some pretty black and white versions of fireworks from the 1939-1940 World’s Fair held in New York City. I don’t know whether they all became real fireworks or are in a forever dreamland of their own. Collections of the New York Public Library.
Plates in gorgeous colors that haven’t faded from “The Old Schloss.” Published in Philadelphia in 1906, it was written by Margaret Longstreble Corlies.
Heading back into time and wanting to live the life of a 1960s bride with all new Drexel furniture to fill up my honeymoon cottage. From their Esperanto line and sort of Mediterranean looking. Not sure which country or anything but who cares. Not me
Some of the pages fell out and got lost. Still these are great. The Drexel Furniture Company was founded in Drexel, North Carolina in 1903. In 1956 they merged with another furniture manufacturer and became Drexel Heritage and then changed ownership multiple times before ceasing new production during a corporate bankrupty in 2018.
Out for the evening at Los Angeles’ Cocoanut Grove nightclub. And no I can’t figure out just what is levitating over the gentlemen’s heads in image #1. What makes it interesting LOL. The Cocoanut Grove was a nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel located at 3400 Wilshire Boulevard. It had nothing to do with the Boston nightclub.
Cocoanut Grove. Ambassador Hotel. View 1: Interior view of the Cocoanut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel located in Los Angeles, showing the elegant decor of the room, where palm trees are set amongst the table. American. Undated image, 1930s-1950s ish perhaps. Photographer not given. Security Pacific National Bank Collection, TESSA, the Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library. https://tessa2.lapl.org/digital/collection/photos/id/99950/rec/170
The logo for the Cocoanut Grove nightclub at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California. At least in 1945, the date on this one. American. Shades of Los Angeles Photo Collection. TESSA, the Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library. https://tessa2.lapl.org/digital/collection/photos/id/80121/rec/288
An envisioning. 1985, Seattle on an October Friday and sitting on the bench at the end of the pier waiting on the ferry out to Vashon.
https://sarahbguestperry.substack.com/p/an-envisioning-1985-seattle-on-an
Oh to be here.
Only for the long weekend, and that being for Christopher Columbus, so not bathing-suit-and-sunscreen time. The children playing pine cone toss in a front yard filled with something more garden-store-pretty than sea pebbles that got put down after the roses died. No, out where they have farms instead of grocery stores. Grass that semi-seeds itself and doesn’t care if you can only grow plants indoors.
my new short fiction piece published to my Substack at the link if you’d like to read the rest . The image is from 1967 and is in a Massachusetts archive-
Desserts delicious enough to snack on for days. Imagery from “Katharine Mellish’s Cookery and domestic management, including economic & middle class practical cookery.” Written by Ms. Mellish, it was published in 1901 in London. There are two volumes; these are from Volume II.
Make that wildfire smoke go away or at least think you are. Hand fans that make their own breeze from Fan d’Eventails Paris.
Two Pierrot Astronomer hand-fans with similar designs, both ca. 1910. One with a painted black silk leaf and blue-stained mother-of-pearl sticks and guards and signed Van Garden. The other with horn sticks and guards and a painted black gauze leaf, embroidered with sequins and signed N. Fontte. Image © Fan d’Eventails, Paris. Fair use license. https://www.fandeventails.fr/en/art-nouveau-fans/4731-the-pierrots-astronomers-fans-by-van-garden-and-fontte-circa-1910.html
An envisioning. 1958, high summer, and a spot to rest the rucksack under the smile of the sort of Man in the Mountain that grins at the waves up in Maine.
https://sarahbguestperry.substack.com/p/an-envisioning-1958-high-summer-and
Oh to be here.
A traveling man investment pitching banker for a husband living life as an eternally circulating something, always having to be crisp with every collar and cuff perfect what with the clients all being Rockefellers or wanting to be Rockefellers and in need of advice on where to park their money long enough for a skiff and a little Herreshof sailing something to impress the ladies and gentlemen at the yacht club between regattas.
My new short fiction piece published over on my Substack at the link of you’d like to read the rest. The image is from Buildings of New England, another WordPress blog that I follow-
Heading out in a hat so huge there are three escorts needed to keep the hats from knocking the blossoms off the sunflowers and passersby into the gutter. The 1957 Los Angeles Headdress Ball was the 19th annual Las Floristas charity event held on April 29, 1957, hosted at the Cocoanut Grove inside the Ambassador Hotel. It featured elaborate, custom floral headpieces modeled by prominent society figures. Two of these images are from 1957 with the other ones being from 1958.
Learn more about the Las Floristas Headdress Ball which raises money to support the health and educational programs for special-needs and disabled children at the Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center children’s clinic. here. The article includes a photograph of Lucille Ball dressed to join right in https://thewackytacky.blogspot.com/2016/04/havin-ball-headdress-ball.html
Mural designs for every room in your home. You can pretend you are a Renaissance princess going up and down the stairs or Hera Queen of the Skies instructing the maid on table settings for the next banquet for the goddess. Chromolithographs from the 1890 folio “Plafonds et peintures murales” which was put together by decorative painter Ernest David and his friend and fellow painter F. Lamy. Published in Paris. Where else?
