Another year, another parade of beauties to represent America to the world.
Congratulations Katie Stam, Miss Indiana, Miss America 2009
Jiva
HELEN MIRREN
JUDY DENCH
MERYL STREEP
RACHEL MCADAMS
BETTE DAVIS
GENE TIERNEY
INGRID BERGMAN
KATHERINE HEPBURN
LAUREN BACALL
LUCILLE BALL
ROSALIND RUSSELL
NATALIE WOOD
JACQUELINE BISSETT
JANE FONDA
CLAUDETTE COLBERT
GINGER ROGERS
ANGELA LANSBURY
MYRNA LOY
OLIVIA DEHAVILLAND
JANE WYMAN
Aren't they all just too lovely for words?
Jiva
TODAY, 53 YEARS AFTER ROSA PARKS MADE HISTORY, ANOTHER MAN MAKES HISTORY.
HE WAS BORN SIX YEARS AFTER ROSA PARKS WAS ARRESTED. A VERY BRAVE WOMAN.
THE BUS
Rosa Parks riding in the front of a bus. Montgomery, Alabama 
Rosa Parks mugshot 1955
Rosa Parks fingerprinted 1955
Rosa Parks 1995 a legend
A scene in the south, circa 1950.
Rosa Parks Civil Rights Pioneer
THE ROSA PARKS STORY IN BRIEF...
In 1954, I boarded a bus in Miami Beach. I sat in the back of the bus, as I had always done in Chicago, where I lived. The bus sat there for 15 minutes. Everyone was staring at me. I said, "Why isn't the bus moving?" The bus driver said, "The back of the bus is for colored folks. Move to the front of the bus." There were about five people on the entire bus.
In 1955, Rosa Parks changed all that. Today, if there is a heaven, I'm sure she is smiling.
Jiva
The thing was, someone designed hats to go with these costumes. Inevitably, the hats
would be either huge, or have feathers, or something that stuck out in all directions.
Nice to look at maybe, but for dancers performing acrobatics, those were unfriendly hats.
The Merriel Abbott Dancers usually had cartwheels, walkovers, or some such feat in
the dance numbers, and that tropical number featured in the photo had a few.
If you look at the hats, you can see that they are placed precariously
on one's head. There is a lot more hat off the head than is on the head, making it
unsteady, uncertain, and fraught with probabilities. You'd think that a designer,
with years of experience, would know this. But no, those hats kept coming at us.
Every dance number, every costume, had a hat, and the hats were usually cumbersome.
In this particular dance number, the boys had to jump over the girls. Well, you can imagine!
Not a performance went by, that a hat didn't go flying. Once off the head, they were in
danger of being confiscated by the audience, as we danced on the same level as our guests.
They ate and DRANK at their tables, then watched the show on a level dance floor. They
were not beyond a little mild frivolity. We tried not to encourage it.
You could stumble over a hat lying innocently on the floor, when you were tripping the
light fantastic. You could toss an errant hat on the bandstand. You could try to pin it
back where it had been originally, without missing a step. You could! Really.
Heard in the dressing room after a show:
"Has anyone seen my hat?"
Like our current government, it befuddles the mind with the irrationality of it all.
Jiva (who is 18, bottom right)
(Copyright 2009)
I have this desire to live in Wyoming, with a nice big fluffy dog,
a lot of books, and my computer. I found this house on The Internet,
and can't remember where. I just know that it is my dream house.
I've lived in much bigger houses, lived on estates, lived on the shore,
in the woods, in the mountains, just about everywhere I can think of
except maybe Venice, Italy, or Paris, France, wouldn't mind living there either.
Or being in NYC, the center of the theater world.
But no, I want to live in Wyoming. This is the house for me.
I have nothing else to say about it, just wanted you to see it.
Jiva
.JPG)
.JPG)
