Tag Archives: books

From Lipstick to the Rabbi.

February 13, 2023books, researchbooks, politics, voting, writingSusan Marie Molloy

Writing is rarely accomplished in a vacuum. Within the writing process, in fact, there is research, notes to jot down, paragraphs to edit, thoughts to mull over and to discuss, books to read and ruminate over, and further research to conduct before getting down to brass tacks. And specific research oftentimes leads to different forks in the research road.

For awhile now, I have been in the process of writing a certain book. It’s a story that’s been floating in my head and as scribbled notes for years in a notebook. And therein comes the research that took me down a different fork in the road.

My book needed some information on women’s makeup, fashion, and grooming habits in the 1930s. I knew a little bit about that – I’m a big fan of fashion and culture from the first six decades of the twentieth century – yet I needed specifics: product names, colors, types, where to buy the beauty products, et cetera. An Internet search led me to the November 7, 1934, archived issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune. It had advertisements and a plethora of useful information.

I turned to the front page where the headlines screamed all the news of the mid-term election in which the Democrats won a supermajority, and as I scanned the bottom of the page, there was the following story of the voting rabbi in New York City:

I was curious why Rabbi Wolf was the only voter in the precinct. Did the election officials know there would be only one voter, or did it just turn out that way? Who was Rabbi Wolf? What kind of poems were in the book he carried to the polls?

Off I went down the magical yellow brick road to more discovery. More digging led me to a 1936 Milwaukee Journal article, “Tinted Toes Help Girls Get Higher Quality Husbands,” from which I culled this excerpt:

The Marriage Brokers’ Association . . . reported Friday that tinted toe and fingernails are getting girls more and better husbands. . . . “Every year there is more business,” announced Rabbi Nathan Wolf . . . For example, the girls say ‘Do men like painted nails?’ I say ‘Listen, they want to marry a lady, a pretty one. So make yourself beautiful. Ruby, rose – they look nice. Color your nails if you want to. Even your toenails. It will be a surprise for him.’…The association believes a girl should be beautiful, young in comparison to the man’s age, well-educated and have a dowry of some kind . . .

The rabbi seems to have had an open ‘round-the-clock temple, too, as I discovered:

He was apparently a bit creative when it came to raising a minyan: In a 1936 issue of the Jewish Floridian: “Midtown New York is being treated to the sight of a sandwich man advertising Yiskor and Kaddish services at the Temple and Centre of Times Square. . . . The rabbi of the Temple is Dr. Nathan Wolf . . .” This is the Garment District in the 1930s, an area crammed full of Jewish immigrants working in garment manufacture. There were quite a lot of shuls in the area servicing the workers; Rabbi Wolf’s “Always Open” temple was quite attractive to shift workers and so on who were trying to cram a bit of communal Judaism into their lives. Best guess is that his shul, like many others of the area, declined as the area ceased to be full of Jewish immigrants.

Moreover, I discovered that in 1939, Rabbi Wolf published an encyclopedia of Jewish festivals and holidays.

And now, to return to the mid-term elections in November 1934. The Chicago Tribune’s article was further expanded by this New York Times article:

As you see, the New York Times article reads a bit differently than that of the Chicago Daily Tribune article. The city’s cost is, it reads, considerably less. Moreover, the precinct number moves from the 49^th to the 42^nd. We see the addition of 100 spectators, two policemen, and four election officials. And we discover this is an annual event, and why he is the sole voter.

It’s difficult to discern which of the two newspaper stories are correct, and how much is embellished based on missing information and conflicting data. That is, what is true, and what is not?

It sounds a lot like today’s news, doesn’t it?

As ever,

Lady Susan Marie Molloy

Darkest Before the Awakening?

February 9, 2023books, comportment, current events, essay, etiquette, grooming, opinion, relationships, respectattitude, beauty, books, devil, disrespect, etiquette, good vs evil, hate, hatred, language, lies, movies, perversion, respect, respectfulness, self-loathing, sotu, speech, the end times, the great awakening, vulgarSusan Marie Molloy

A few nights ago, I watched a performance straight out of Washington, DC that brought me to think once again about how much the world has changed.

There was, once upon a time, a world where people created beauty, and everyone saw that beauty around them, to be celebrated and enjoyed by everyone who appreciated such things. This beauty came in the form of decorated buildings, attractive fashion, respectful language, comprehensible music, well-made everyday items, and the like.

Yet lately, the world is quite the opposite. To see beauty, one must search as an archeologist on a dig.

Earlier this week, the Grammys presented a show that featured a quite plump man dressed as a devil in red, bellowing, “Unholy! Unholy!” Around him danced more red devils. Up around him flew pyrotechnics.

Last fall, Jokey the Prez read a gravely malicious speech in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, complete with red lighting on either side of him and he himself shadowed in near total darkness. His State of the Union Speech this week was steeped in lie after lie, and his twisted, creepy smiles had a luciferian charm about them.

Out in the world, I rarely see people that present themselves well. I barely see anyone with combed hair, or dressed in anything other than workout clothes or ripped up clothes.

I hear vulgar language everywhere. I hear it in passing in public. People I meet feel free to pepper in expletives with nary a second thought. Sadly, that kind of tasteless language is also prevalent in print.

This isn’t to say that there was nothing ugly about the world before these currently strange times. Yes, it was there, but the beauty, light, and respect were more prevalent then than today.

I now observe something about people that is really disconcerting: It appears that people want to be intentionally ugly – slovenly, repulsive, and foul – and thereby to blend in with the intentionally ugly world, to become one with the ugliness enveloped in the darkness of hate, self-loathing, and nihility is to become nothing themselves.

In the current fad of eschewing Our Creator, so many, many people are attempting to take on the role of God. They fall into idol worship: They medically and surgically change their sex; they attempt to control climate; they embrace abortion. They go on to celebrate sexual perversions, and they break up the family unit even further. They call names, lie to your face, and spew hatred, and if you don’t go along with them, there’s something wrong with you.

They laugh in the face of God.

I read that people believe that we are now in the End Times. Perhaps we are. And perhaps we are on our way to the next Great Awakening.

We can only hope and have faith.

As ever,

Lady Susan Marie Molloy

Welcome to The Oasis.

November 14, 2022books, dining, gratitude, holidays, thanksgivingappreciation, baking, books, cooking, elegance, gratitude, halloween, holidays, inflation, menu, palms, queen palms, recession, terrace, thanksgiving, the great depression, writingSusan Marie Molloy

Welcome to my essays on life and elegant living at The Oasis at Four Queen Palms.

Upon awakening this morning, I dressed and headed to the kitchen to pour myself a cup of hot black coffee. Before I dressed and left the bedroom, my best friend hurried me to the window to witness the dawn together, where the sun was in the midst of a fiery red and orange rise above the horizon. It was a glorious morning sight, and pity that I did not have film in my camera to capture it for posterity.

A few oohs! and ahhs! were shared between us, a few words of wonderment expressed, whereupon I dressed and headed to the kitchen to make our coffees. I then went on to the terrace to drink my coffee and ponder my thoughts.

There is something to be said about the hazy, lazy days of summer, but what about life after October?

Indeed, once Halloween is over and the decorations and the masquerade costumes go back in storage here at The Oasis of Four Queen Palms, the pages on the calendar seem to invariably flip faster and faster each day. It never fails. In fact, when the calendar turned to November, I put away the few Halloween decorations I have (a ceramic haunted house my aunt and uncle gave me and a Jack O’Lantern from my other aunt). Then, as I was setting up the ancient paper turkey on my cellarette in the foyer and hung the wreath on the front door, I gave a few thoughts about Thanksgiving.

In my thinking and deep ponderings, the act of thanksgiving should be/could be a daily celebration. Sure, it is nice that we have a national holiday dedicated to it, and most working people have the day off. But does it have to be the fourth Thursday in November?

Maybe not.

Best Friend and I discussed this very idea recently. Why couldn’t we have Thanksgiving on another day that we determine? After all, we are not going to the little shindig that our neighborhood diner is setting up (Their offering of Cheese Whiz on Ritz crackers, pressed turkey with canned cranberries and instant potatoes turns us off – and the cost per person is unreasonable for microwaved mass-produced food). No family nor friends are making the trek to holiday with anyone, either. So, we decided to forego the November 24^th date this year and pick another day to have our own private thanksgiving, with our homemade foods, music of our own choice, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Indeed, this will be a different Thanksgiving holiday, one that for the first time in our lives won’t be on the Federal holiday date. It will be on our own terms.

And that brings me around to a question that a friend and fellow author asked me, paraphrased: “Does it take a recession and wild inflation for people to learn to be thankful for what they have?”

Perhaps. Perhaps it does. You see, I published a few short stories about people living during The Depression and learning what is important and what it means to be appreciative. I chose that time in history because I have a great affection for those times. Not that I was alive then, you see, but there is something about the music, the movies, the fashions, and the history that attracts me to no end. I suppose The Depression slapped a little reality into some people, and those heady days before those rough years were thought to never, ever end. Perhaps they thought prosperity and overabundance would remain forever; but who truly knows? Yet hard times did materialize, and sometimes that’s what it takes for people to realize what is truly important. It does not take a depression, recession, or impossible inflation to make a person’s life difficult, either. Circumstances vary.

And now returning to Thanksgiving 2022: Sure, we can make do with a lovely and lavish meal with enough turkey leftovers to make soup from the bones and Turkey Tetrazzini for the week, et al. Yet, the most important feature of whatever day we pick to celebrate, is but one of 364 days of thanksgiving. And that is what we will do on a day we determine to be our day of annual thanksgiving.

With the upcoming Holidays, I put my writing on pause for the next couple of weeks, which could be a good thing. I’ll have time to think about my books and the plots as I make the preparations for the upcoming observances.

I already prepared four batches of cookie dough and froze them, so they’ll be ready for a quick roll, cut, decorate, and bake for both Thanksgiving and Christmas entertainment. (Did you know that cookie dough can be frozen raw for several months before using?) Right now, I am baking my homemade pumpkin bread which will then be made into croutons for salads to be used over the next couple of weeks, including Thanksgiving dinner.

Yet, there are more tasks to accomplish: I need to finish writing out the Thanksgiving dinner menu, decide upon the Holiday décor, finish writing the Christmas letter and review my Christmas card list for this year, and so much more in the realm of secular entertainment and religious observances.

Yet, although the time might be flying, I am getting projects and tasks done. Writing itself isn’t always the mechanics of sitting down and putting pen to paper. It is an involved process, at least for me, that ideas float around my mind and marinate as I formulate plot outlines and conceive witty phrases. It was like that for me in college (for those twenty-plus page dissertations), and at work (for those technical orders and communications) – and it is always this –> take a short break, do something else, and go back to that paper or project. I haven’t had much good quality time to write lately, although I do have a slew of outlines finished. It seems that every time I sit down to work on my books, Mr. Rat Terrier needs something. No matter that Best Friend might be available to meet His Highness’ needs at the moment. Nope. It is I, and I only, who can fulfill Mr. Rat Terrier’s whims, from a doggie snack to being let out in the yard. Thank the heavens above that Miss Doxie and Mademoiselle Petite Chatte require little in the way of attention.

This introductory chapter is the first of my blog, The Oasis at Four Queen Palms. I plan to write an essay each Monday and Thursday within the realms of lifestyle and experiences. Indeed, I have been writing blogs for well over ten years now in different formats and names (and all but one is defunct), but this is the one that will settle specifically on life here at The Oasis of Four Queen Palms.

Well, time to get back to the kitchen. The pumpkin bread should be just about ready to take out of the oven.

As ever,

Lady Susan Marie Molloy

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