08 Friday Aug 2014
Posted in Television
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
–Oscar Wilde
It looks like for once, Mr. Wilde was wrong. NBC’s Dracula starring Jonathan Rhys Myers certainly had its share of excess – excess cleavage, excess slo-mo action sequences, excess fake accents – but not even all that excess could save it. Dracula has not been picked up for a second season. So Heather, what are we live-blogging this fall? Sleepy Hollow?
28 Friday Mar 2014
Posted in Victorian Celebrities
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Contemplating all the things.
“All the spring may be hidden in the single bud, and the low ground nest of the lark may hold the joy that is to herald the feet of many rose-red dawns.”
-Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
Today was the first day chez les Vicky A’s that actually felt like Spring. Many happy wishes for a good thaw, warm weather, and a happy weekend to you, our dear Readers.
11 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in Victorian Celebrities
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“I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don’t talk politics.”
~Lord Goring, Act 1, Scene 1 of An Ideal Husband, 1895
It’s been a hell of an 11 or so days here in the States. If any of our readers have been affected by the Shutdown via furloughs, our sincere sympathies and hopes that all this stupidity will come to an end soon. Too bad Oscar isn’t around to provide commentary on all of this; I could see him acting in a role much like Lewis Black does when he pops up on the Daily Show. “Back in Black” becomes “Wilde Times” or something similar.
13 Friday Sep 2013
Posted in Victorian Celebrities
Tags
True friends always stab you in the front.”
Ouch, this one feels personal. In other news, has anyone ever seen this statue of Wilde in Dublin? I can’t tell if I think it’s great or a little freaky. The stonework and colors are lovely but that expression…it’s like the statue is judging itself. “Really? Is this the best you could do?” It’s kind of too much. What do you all think?
(EDIT from Heather: I saw this statue when I was in Dublin. There are lots of statues there of important Irish political and literary figures and the Irish apparently all had cutesy, mildly offensive names for them all. Molly Malone was the “Tart with the Cart/Heart” and dear Oscar here was called….wait for it….”The Fag on the Crag”. No, I cannot make this up.)
16 Friday Aug 2013
Posted in Victorian Celebrities
“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”
~Quoted by Frank Harris, Wilde’s friend and biographer, in Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions (1916).
It’s been one of those weeks here at the Vicky A’s where work and life combine in a loud, obnoxious blender to the delight of absolutely no-one. But here’s to Friday’s and to teas and to whisky’s and to Cumberbatches and headless portraits and Irish dramatists and to all the wonderful things in life! Sláinte, dear ones!
19 Friday Jul 2013
Posted in Letters/Epistolary Art, Literature, Victorian Celebrities
It’s a scorching day at Vicky A headquarters; what better way to celebrate (?) it than with a scorching love letter or two, courtesy of our dear Oscar?
The Morgan Library has posted a collection of Wilde’s letters and manuscripts, including several to his lover, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas. Some of his love letters are spontaneous and immediate in nature; just a quick line here and there. Others reveal a deep longing for Bosie’s company and a youthful ecstasy in his presence that moves us to this day (especially knowing how this particular love story ends).
The Morgan library has a copy of the earliest surviving letter from Wilde to Bosie at the very beginning of their relationship. From the website: “Writing on stationery of the Albemarle Club, probably in late 1892, Wilde expresses candid yearning to be with Douglas … and hopes that Douglas likes the visiting-card case he has given him, perhaps for Douglas’s twenty-second birthday. Douglas later destroyed many of the letters Wilde wrote to him. (Virtually all those he retained are now in the Clark Library at UCLA.)”
Wilde tells him in the letter, dated November 1892: “I should awfully like to go away with you somewhere—where it is hot and coloured—” , which is delightful in its wish to escape the cold November of England and travel to a lush, exotic place of warmth where they could smolder at each other like this:
Weeks later, in response to a letter Bosie had sent, Wilde wrote the following:
“My Own Boy,
Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those red rose-leaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days.
Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury? Do go there to cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic things, and come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place and lacks only you; but go to Salisbury first.
Always, with undying love, yours,
Oscar”
Oh, Oscar. I know I wasn’t your type, but you sure know how to melt a girls heart.
His letters to Bosie grew in ardor and urgency and, eventually, in despair and exasperation. We’ll save more of those for later posts. I know, I know, I’m a horrible tease but we have to save some fun for later! Some antici…..pation?
Happy Friday, everyone! If you’re stuck in this heat wave like we are, stay cool (unless you’re reading Wilde’s love letters; then you might need a fan and a cool drink of water)!
31 Friday May 2013
Posted in Literature, Movies/Television, Parody, Victorian Celebrities
For today’s Wilde Friday, I give you two of the best things in life combined into one incredible video: Oscar Wilde and Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Take special note of how amazing Graham Chapman looks as Wilde. Also keep an eye out for Whistler, Bernard Shaw, and other luminaries.
Witty, witty, witty. Happy Friday, lovelies!
24 Friday May 2013
Posted in Literature, Victorian Celebrities
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“People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately.”
— Letter from Paris, dated May 1900
Some particularly pertinent Wilde Wisdom on a Friday before several major holidays in the States and in the UK. Happy holiday weekend everyone! Stay safe, hug your loved ones, and do count those chickens BEFORE they hatch. (Also take the time to admire the heck out of his outfit. Breathtaking.)
05 Friday Apr 2013
Posted in Literature, Victorian Celebrities
Tags
“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”
Fridays are the best. Happy Friday, everyone!
08 Friday Feb 2013
Posted in Victorian Celebrities
Tags
“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”
(He looks so warm here, doesn’t he?) To all of our readers in the path of Nemo, please stay safe and warm, preferably inside your homes with a good book. Why not Wilde on a Wilde Friday?
