Goodbye to Ruth Garland-Dewson, the San Francisco milliner.

"Mrs. Dewson owned a celebrated shop on upper Fillmore Street called Mrs. Dewson's Hats for more than 37 years. Among her customers were former Mayor Willie Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Samuel L. Jackson, B.B. King and Sharon Stone. Brown called her "the milliner to high society." Mrs. Dewson designed a hat for him, which she called the Willie Brown Snap Brim. 'It fit my personality,' Brown wrote in his autobiography, 'Basic Brown."

When I was in San Francisco back in 2007, I had a chance encounter with her. I blogged this:

I was traipsing about San Francisco yesterday, and, snapping dozens of pictures, I made my way over to Fillmore Street for a little window shopping. I saw this...



.. and was struggling against the glare and reflections to frame my shot — and also, idiotically, talking on my iPhone — when a woman — who I now understand to be Ruth Garland-Dewson — swept out of the store and flung herself between me and the picture of Barack Obama.

"Are you trying to take a picture of my man?" she said dramatically.

But she wasn't what I for a second thought she was: one of those shopkeepers who are touchy about having their place photographed. She wanted to come out and talk — about Barack Obama and other things as well. I got off my phone conversation and complimented her on the great shop and asked if she had extra large hats. I love women's hats, but since I need a men's extra-large size, I can never find a woman's hat — aside from something stretchy — that fits. She found me what might have been her largest hat, and it almost fit. You know, I should have bought it! It was ocher-colored with a dark purple spiral — a felt hat with a large brim. I think I would have bought it if she'd tried to talk me into it (as so many sales people have nudged me beyond my initial resistance — it's not very hard).

But she wanted to talk about Barack Obama. Do I like him? Yes! I think he's a good man, and that he would be able to do a lot of good. I added, "But I kind of like Giuliani." That was okay with her, it seemed — so long as I don't like Hillary.

I'm sad to read that she's died, and I'm sorry I didn't buy that hat. She was so sociable and nice to me that day. She seemed like she was ready to launch into a conversation with me just because I was the one person who happened to be around just then.

Can you see the printed text in my photograph, above? That's her line, "I would say, 'Go, Obama, you're black enough for me,'" which ended a letter that she had printed in the San Francisco Chronicle on March 1, 2007, reacting to what was then a hot dispute: whether Obama was "black enough."

"A revolution has begun against the perception of beauty in Israel..."

"...  this law shatters the anorexic ideal serving as an example for the country’s youth."

The new law, known as the “photoshop law,” requires models to present their employers with a current doctor’s note confirming that they meet a minimum body mass index (BMI) – a calculation of weight to height proportion – of 18.5, which is considered the lowest threshold for a healthy weight. Advertisements featuring models who are “photoshopped” or otherwise digitally altered to make them appear thinner must be clearly marked as manipulated images.

Here's a BMI calculator if you want to check whether you're too skinny to be a model in Israel. I've been 5'5" for more than 40 years, and I've weighed lots of different weights, including the weight of 107, which I regarded as my ideal weight (based on a chart in the Stillman diet book) when I was a college student. But based on that BMI calculator, I see I'd need to weigh at least 111 to be permitted to be a model in Israel! I know you need to be taller to be a model, but my point is that 107 wasn't anorexic for a 20-year-old.

Certainly, for modeling clothes you want a body that doesn't really call attention to itself, that works more like a clothes hanger. It's an aesthetic choice, a way to feature the clothing, the product. The Israeli law is ridiculously repressive. People need to take responsibility for their own bodies, not blame the fashion/magazine industry and certainly not use the government to cut off messages that supposedly feed their irresponsibility.

Meadhouse, kinkaidified...

... by Chip Ahoy:



... who explains how he did it here.

This is my original, mere reality, deemed too bleak by those who find fulfillment in the work of Thomas Kinkade:



And here's a genuine Kinkade Christmas scene, whose deer look familiar... except it seems that Chip took the trouble to give the older deer an upturned tail to match the fawn's. It's that kind of attention to detail that turns our hearts aglow, like windows in that humble cottage... there, across yon half-frozen stream: