Cheap and easy blog.

I wish I could come up with something witty for today, but I can't. Instead of witty, I've decided to go with beefcake. So pull up a chair and enjoy this little Whitman's Sampler of beefcake flavors.

We have...

a little smoldering Roman delight,






or perhaps you prefer a little smoldering Elizabethan delight.








I personally enjoy some "it should have won an Academy Award for costume design" delight.





How about a more modern budgie smuggler?



Or do you prefer a little more dressing on your beefcake?


Maybe a little cheese with your beefcake?


Just to get the bad taste out of your mouth, here is the final beefcake for today.

All the flavor, none of the calories.

Wednesday Poetry Fun

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society, where none intrudes, 
By the deep sea, and music in its roar: 

I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal 
From all I may be, or have been before, 
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.



This passage from Byron's Childe Harold is one of my favorites.
In it, Byron expresses the human desire for both solitude and a connection to
something much larger than ourselves. Growing up in Southern California,
I've spent countless hours at the beach and this poem captures many of the same
feelings I've experienced while watching the never ending waves roll in.

But I'm getting too deep for a Wednesday.

For all of Byron's deep thoughts, other parts of his work illustrate just how
much a creature of the Regency he really was. Below is a passage from Don Juan.
It's much less spiritual, more nasty perhaps, especially in keeping with male
attitudes towards women at the time.

Some take a love, some take drams or prayers,  
Some mind their household, others dissipation, 
Some run away, and but exchange their cares,  
Losing the advantage of a virtuous station;
Few changes e'er can better their affairs, 
Theirs being an unnatural situation,
From the dull palace to the dirty hovel:
Some play the devil, and then write a novel.

Do we see something of Caroline Lamb
in the last line? 

A Trip Down the Dibley Memory Lane

I watched the series finale of The Vicar of Dibley last night. It was one of my favorite shows ten years ago, before BBC America, when PBS was the only place to see British sitcoms. The Vicar of Dibley is very well-written, combining Dawn French's comic timing with some very offbeat but lovable characters. If you haven't seen the series, I highly suggest catching a few episodes.

Of course, I can't discus the series finale without mentioning Richard Armitage. I didn't think he could get any more handsome or sexy than Mr. Thornton in North and South. Boy, was I wrong. Watching him last night, I swooned over his very sweet suitor. I might just have to start watching Robin Hood.

The Artist Adds Ten Pounds

I think some of our current fascination with youth and beauty stems from a ready access to images of ourselves. Mirrors of polished metal have been around since ancient times. Metal-backed glass mirrors have been around since the middle ages but they were expensive items of the rich until the 19th century when manufacturing techniques improved. However, as we all know, the image in the mirror never quite matches the one on film.

Before Kodak launched the Brownie camera in 1900, the vast majority of people throughout history have not had ready access to pictures of themselves. I think the invention of the photograph radically changed how we view ourselves. At no time in history have we been able to instantaneously see ourselves from every angle, scrutinizing our looks, the size of our bodies or ruining the mental image of ourselves. Only just a few years ago we had to wait until the film was developed before we realized how many bad pictures of us were now printed for posterity. Don’t even get me started on home video cameras. Now we have phones and digital cameras with screens, many of which contain a slimming mode. Sucking it in may be a thing of the past.


Which makes me to wonder what people thought when they saw a drawing or painting of themselves. Did people look at their portraits and exclaim, “Is that what I really look like?!” Did they turn to their spouse and say “does that silhouette makes me look fat” ? I know some artists improved the features of their paying subjects, but did this really help the sitter? One wonders how many tense moments there were when everyone else saw the painting and had to pretend it was an accurate likeness. Can you imagine the awkward silence?

If you want to take a trip to the past, check out my books. They are set in the past. www.Georgie-Lee.com