Monday, March 14, 2011

Life This Week: March 14, 1938

I really think I need a themesong--anyway it's that time again.  Bringing cheer to your Monday, it's Life This Week:

How about "Five Lively Ways to Serve Doughnuts"?  I haven't had a chance to try them out, but are any of you dear readers brave enough to try doughnuts spread with cheese and toasted under the broiler?

Scary: this issue reproduces drawings from the Austrian Ministry of Defense depicting "what to do when enemy bombers attack you."  It's amazing how far in advance governments were preparing for World War II.  Photos of preparations in London and Berlin are on this page.

Be like Thomas Jefferson!  Buy Heinz pickles!

Next, we have a fun pictorial on Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  Life was invited to the Comus Ball, which had never been photographed for the press before.  I don't know a lot about New Orleans society, but I do know that Comus Ball invitations are collectors' items because they are so fabulous: this link has photographs of the 1924 invitation.

Poor Gargantua!  I'd be mad if I were in a tiny cage, too!

An article about a Mexican art show features several full-color photos and a black-and-white portrait of Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo.

From Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans

Eddie Cantor takes Deanna Durbin on a tour of New York- I love that they stopped to have a chocolate soda.*  I have a sneaking suspicion that the world might be a more pleasant place if there were lots of soda fountains!  Netflix didn't have Mad About Music, but I did watch Three Smart Girls, which is available on DVD.  I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I liked this one.  It's basically a prototype for The Parent Trap with a few musical numbers thrown in.  Sounds ghastly, right?  Even with teenage girls (three of them) sobbing all over the place, it's a charming little movie.  Ray Milland is as dashing as ever in a supporting role and Deanna Durbin (in her first feature-length film) plays a scheming fourteen-year-old delightfully.  No, it's no Oscar-contender, but it's solid family-friendly fare that won't be too taxing for the grown-ups.  Definitely recommended for pre-teen girls.  Why didn't I know about it when I was twelve?

Deanna Durbin is way more pleasant than the fascist movement in Belgium (which I didn't even know about) or a depressing article about psychiatric treatment.

Thankfully, we get to end with fluff: an article about "loll[ing] in the West Indian sun between parties" in Jamaica.  If you'd like to see some more resort fashion, BaronessVonVintage has featured several posts on the subject recently.  She has some fantastic photos!

*

Neither Paul nor I have ever had a chocolate soda, so we had to try one straight away, especially since we have a fabulous soda siphon of our very own.

Chocolate Soda:

3 tablespoons chocolate syrup (I used melted leftover chocolate glaze from my Sachertorte)
1/4 cup milk (if you melt the glaze, add the milk to it in the saucepan, use very low heat)
Vanilla ice cream (we used about 1 1/2 scoops per glass, or about 1/2-2/3 cup)
Chilled seltzer

Mix the chocolate syrup and milk together in the bottom of a pint-sized glass.  Add ice cream, top with seltzer.  Makes one yummy chocolate soda.

Adapted from "Fantastic Old Fashioned Ice Cream Soda."

8 comments:

  1. chocolate soda??? mmmm! :D

    love, polly

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  2. I have never heard of chocolate soda before! Sounds yummy :)

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  3. I hope you enjoy that soada as much as I enjoyed your post this morning. Have a great day. Blessings...Mary

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  4. Four random unrelated responses:

    What? A chocolate soda and not an egg cream? Hmph. :)

    My mother remembers her mother splitting and frying stale doughnuts for breakfast.

    And, I love the picture of Marlene Dietrich gossiping with Mrs. Jack Warner.

    I know someone (Jewish) who lived in Belgium during the war and she survived because their apartment building neighbors hid the family. I think the whole building worked to hide them from the Nazis.

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  5. In the same magazine as the Heinz pickle ad, there is an article on Page 36 about "How to start a fascist movement." It was meant at the time as reportage, with a little satire. But it's frightening to see in today's context!

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  6. The week of March 14, 1938 was a little scary. But you ended with a delightful movie and an even more delightful soda. I saw a show about egg creams (thought there must be an egg involved, but I was wrong. It seems it may depend on what part of the US you live in as to what a chocolate soda is called. Apparently in New York, it's an egg cream.

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  7. Mmm that chocolate soda looks & sounds delish!

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  8. LOL - your jello posts crack me up. I love Bing Crosby - thanks for all the clips. Have a great weekend!

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