OH DOCTOR CARR

jeffchat: Gone! #stvincents #vanishingnewyork #lgbt “Thy...

Sat, 11 May 2013 14:36:00 -0400

Gone! #stvincents #vanishingnewyork #lgbt

“Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.”

Screw Andy Warhol’s Four Marilyns, supposedly estimated at...

Fri, 10 May 2013 09:00:29 -0400

Screw Andy Warhol’s Four Marilyns, supposedly estimated at $35-$50 million. The real action at Phillips de Pury’s Contemporary Art Evening auction; the piece I’d actually spend money on (if I had it!); the best of the spring litter is Wayne Thiebaud’s Cat and Traffic from 1993. Worth every penny of the $400-$600k estimate. I’d pay even more if the cat was Siamese.

I miss her so much already. (Mac, she’s not dead yet!) She...

Wed, 01 May 2013 22:18:32 -0400

I miss her so much already. (Mac, she’s not dead yet!) She left New York. Same difference.

Books I Could Have Written for $500, Alec.

Wed, 01 May 2013 22:06:33 -0400

Books I Could Have Written for $500, Alec.

Oh Marcel.

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 08:19:17 -0400

Oh Marcel.

themorningnews: Pages from the working notebooks, the...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 08:03:42 -0400

themorningnews:

Pages from the working notebooks, the “Cahiers,” are written in fluid, all but illegible script, suggesting that Proust wrote quickly and easily.

These journals really are something else.

eyeyiyi: “Today our staff gathered in the lobby to offer well...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:42:01 -0400

eyeyiyi:

“Today our staff gathered in the lobby to offer well wishes to the one-and-only Elaine Stritch as she checked out of The Carlyle to move back to her home state of Michigan.”

Our Managing Director Giovanni Beretta said it best, “since Elaine Stritch moved into The Carlyle over ten years ago, she has become a beloved member of our family and one of our biggest supporters. We will greatly miss her vibrant and witty personality.”

is this real?!?

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 03:28:45 -0400

is this real?!?

From tonight’s talkback. Audio TK.

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 03:17:00 -0400

From tonight’s talkback. Audio TK.

If you’re a faggot and you’re reading this,...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 23:08:00 -0400

If you’re a faggot and you’re reading this, 1977’s “Too Much Flesh and Jabez” by Coleman Dowell is REQUIRED reading this summer. No ifs, ands or buts. (I had like eight erections on the train reading it. Plus! He wrote songs for Elaine on “Once Upon a Tune” in the ’50s.)

Elaine Stritch reads a fan letter from a third-grader during her...

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 20:20:00 -0400

Elaine Stritch reads a fan letter from a third-grader during her last week at the Cafe Carlyle. Just try not to cry.

That time I read a prompt in Elaine’s Last Show.

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 14:50:34 -0400

That time I read a prompt in Elaine’s Last Show.

eyeyiyi: at Cafe Carlyle

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:42:32 -0400

eyeyiyi:

at Cafe Carlyle

HEADED TO THE CARLYLE FOR ELAINE’S LAST SHOW EVER!!!

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 18:12:11 -0400

HEADED TO THE CARLYLE FOR ELAINE’S LAST SHOW EVER!!!

I assume tonight will sound something like this?

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 17:42:13 -0400

I assume tonight will sound something like this?

I had two dates with your uncle Jack, did you know that? I was...

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:20:24 -0400

I had two dates with your uncle Jack, did you know that? I was nineteen years old. The first date was my idea. I saw him at a cocktail party, as they say, across a crowded room. Some enchanted evening? You had better believe me. I noticed he was about to leave the party and, Chris, he was so adorable, you want to know what I did? (After two martinis, it wasn’t difficult.) I just up and asked him where he was going. “Just for a bite at the Carlyle up the street, a little Bobby Short and then home, I guess.”

“Is it okay if I come with you?”

And Jack Kennedy said, “Why in the world not? Fine with me.”

The second date was a glorious evening at the Stork Club. We got back to my apartment on Fifty-second Street and I invited your uncle Jack up to have a nightcap. “Elaine,” he said, “if going up to your apartment and having a nightcap means having scrambled eggs and listening to Glenn Miller records, then I have to say no.”

I was very young and inexperienced, if you know what I mean, but I knew exactly what he was talking about. “Well,” I said, “I guess that is what I had in mind.” He kissed me good night, turned me over to the doorman, and, back in his limo, made a U-turn on East Fifty-second and drove off into the night. I got into my elevator and I remember saying to myself going up, “What a straight shooter. I’ll be the house he is, definitely and without a doubt, going places!”

Elaine Stritch, as quoted in Moments of Clarity by Christopher Kennedy Lawford, 2009

Here’s Elaine. And looking spectacularly good and wearing...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 22:34:28 -0400

Here’s Elaine. And looking spectacularly good and wearing a pants suit in tie-dyed blue suede that’s doing it’s best to look like denim and failing majestically.

We have a pre-lunch drink.

‘I’ll have a Bloody Shame, please.’

‘A Bloody Mary without the vodka.’

‘I’ve heard it called a Virgin Mary… . ‘

‘Really?’ Elaine draws on her cigarette and gives me a look, one of those looks which makes me feel thoroughly provincial. ‘I don’t see why we should drag the Virgin Mary into our drinking habits. Mind you, did I tell you about Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In Boston? You know the line about Jesus H. Christ? They changed it to—wait for it—“Mary H. Magdalene”! I can just see God up there sighing, “Are they still picking on that poor girl?”’

Elaine Stritch, as quoted in After Dark by Scot Finch, March 1975

"But ‘boys’ were still serious business. I am reminded here of a story told me by the..."

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 21:05:55 -0400

“

But ‘boys’ were still serious business. I am reminded here of a story told me by the Broadway star, Elaine Stritch. She was dating the actor Jack Cassidy. Her parents, Mildred and George Stritch, came to New York from Birmingham, Michigan, to meet him. They were Old Guard Roman Catholics and Mr. Stritch worked for the B.F. Goodrich tire company. (He always referred to it as the G.D.B.F. Goodrich tire company.) Jack Cassidy had charm, humor and talent galore. But after the four of them dined at ‘21’, things didn’t work out well. When the Stritches returned to the St. Regis, George began to pace, wearing out the carpet.

Finally, Mildred asked, ‘What’s the matter with you, George?’

He spluttered: ‘Mildred! Did you see that guy Elaine is going with? Did you notice? Why that SOB was wearing suede shoes!’

This may not seem so funny these days, but was a perfect comment on the stringencies with which parents still behaved and judged their children’s significant others during the forties and fifties. I recognized instantly that to Mr. Stritch, suede shoes on a man were tantamount to ‘makeup’ or ‘wearing jewelry’, a question of character. I could just see my own father reacting in the same narrow-minded manner.

”

- Liz Smith, Natural Blonde: a Memoir, 2000

Eric Deacon as Bobby, Elaine Stritch as Leona, and Tony Beckley...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 20:15:23 -0400

Eric Deacon as Bobby, Elaine Stritch as Leona, and Tony Beckley as Quentin in Tennessee Williams’ Small Craft Warnings, London 1973

LEONA: Now what went wrong between you before you come in here, you can tell me and maybe I can advise you. I’m practically what they call a faggot’s moll.

QUENTIN: Oh. Are you?

LEONA: Yes, I am. I always locate at least one gay bar in whatever city I’m in. I live in a home on wheels, I live in a trailer so I been in quite a few places. And have a few more to go.

LEONA: Naw, I know the gay scene. I learned it from my kid brother. He came out early, younger than this boy here. I know the gay scene and I know the language of it and I know how full it is of sickness and sadness; it’s so full of sadness and sickness, I could almost be glad that my little brother died before he had time to be infected with all that sadness and sickness in the heart of a gay boy. This kid from Iowa, here, reminds me a little of how my brother was, and you, you remind me of how he might have become if he’d lived.

QUENTIN: Yes, you should be relieved he’s dead, then.

LEONA: You’re lucky you’re sick at your stomach because your stomach can vomit, but when you’re sick at your heart, that’s when it’s awful, because your heart can’t vomit the memories of your lifetime. I wish my heart could vomit, I wish my heart could throw up the heartbreaks of my lifetime, my days in a beauty shop and my nights in a trailer. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if I drove up to Sausalito alone this night. With no one…

Elaine Stritch and Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, October 3,...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 22:02:18 -0400

Elaine Stritch and Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, October 3, 1975