Judy-ism

Judy Garland would have been 93 years old today.  In a way, she helped save my life.  Too bad there was no one who could save hers. 

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday to Lucky Blue Smith, who turns 17 today.

Birthdaze

“‘For beauty, my Phædrus, beauty alone, is lovely and visible at once. For, mark you, it is the sole aspect of the spiritual which we can perceive through our senses, or bear so to perceive. Else what should become of us, if the divine, if reason and virtue and truth, were to speak to us through the senses?’”

-Thomas Mann,  born this day in 1875.

Not this Thomas Mann:

21-year-old Thomas Mann, star of Project X

 This Thomas Mann:

Thomas Mann, 138-year-old author of Death In Venice

Other Birthday News

Charlie Hunnam made quite a splash when he played Nathan in the original U.K. version of Queer As Folk, fourteen years ago. Fourteen years ago!  He is now one of the stars of Sons of Anarchy,  and is still a fine figure of a man.  He is thirty-three years old today.

Happy Birthday To My Fake Boyfriend

Alex Pettyfer, still my fake boyfriend after all these years, celebrates his 23rd birthday today.  Despite what the tabloid media reports, he has been in a loving relationship with actress Riley Keough for well over a year. (I try to not hold a grudge.) He will next appear, along with the starriest of all-star casts in Lee Daniels' The Butler, a film that will either be cleaning up at the Oscars next year or a complete trainwreck. In May he will begin filming the lead role in a remake of the eighties schlock classic Endless Love. I must admit that I don't quite know what to make of this.  The original film was based upon a very highly regarded novel, but was... how do I put it... not good.  So, we'll see how this goes.

Thanks to the Planet Pettyfer Blog for the photo above. I don't know its provenance, but golly.

Poetry

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Excerpt from "September 1, 1939"  

W.H. Auden was born on this day in 1907.