Diane D–Florida, you are the winner of the ARC of One Naughty Night!! Check your email for details…
Diane D–Florida, you are the winner of the ARC of One Naughty Night!! Check your email for details…
So this weekend there was a little awards show called The Oscars (you might have heard of it??). And as usual I stayed up far too late, eating too much chocolate and drinking wine because I just can’t give up until I see what took Best Picture. This year was good because I actually really enjoyed several of the movies (I adored The Artist, loved Midnight in Paris, admired Tree of Life, and thought The Descendants was pretty good…), and Jean DuJardin is my new French boyfriend.
I also loved many of the gowns! It seemed like an especially good fashion year…
Some of my favorites:
Michelle Williams
Natalie Portman (I wanted to steal this immediately!)
Gwyneth Paltrow (liked it better without the cape, but you know, yay for red carpet capes!)
Rooney Mara (no-one else could have pulled this off, but I love her weird, chilly style)
Penelope Cruz
Jessica Chastain (she is so beautiful and yet so iffy on the rc–I’m glad she pulled it off when it counted most!)
And I didn’t especially like Emma Stone’s dress (I was convinced I had seen her in something just like this before, but it turned out it was Nicole Kidman…), but she was by far the most entertaining thing in a very long evening (except for the Christopher Guest faux “Wizard of Oz” test group), and I just love her…
There wasn’t anyone I totally hated, but I do think Berenice Bejo could have done a lot better…
And what was up with Angelina Jolie and her crazy leg?? The dress was nice, though she was swimming in it, but I could not figure out what was with the weird posing…
I also found out I got my own award–though I don’t get a couture gown with it! The Shy Duchess won Cataromance’s Best Harlequin Historical of 2011…(See the list of winners here…)
Who were your favorite fashionistas at the Oscars this year? Who was your least favorite??
Yesterday, February 6, marks Queen Elizabeth II’s Accession Day, and the start of a momentous Diamond Jubilee year! Though I imagine it’s a day of some personal sadness for her (marking the death of her father, George VI, who she was quite close to), it’s an extraordinary achievement for an extraordinary woman who has seen and done so very much during her long reign. I wish I could be in London for some of the festivities this year (especially the Jubilee River Pageant on the Thames on June 3)!!!
Princess Elizabeth was only 25, a young wife with two small children (Charles, 3, and Anne, 1) when she and Prince Philip were sent off on a Commonwealth tour in February 1952. She probably didn’t expect to assume the responsibilities of queen for some time yet. Her parents waved her off, and only a few days later her father was dead. She was in Kenya, and hurried home to be proclaimed Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, and Defender of the Faith before the Privy Council at St. James’s Palace. It was a solemn occasion, as the king was being brought from Sandringham to lie in state at Westminster Hall and then to St. George’s Chapel at Windsor, where the funeral was held and he was buried, to be joined many years later by Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother.
The coronation didn’t take place until June 2, 1953–I’m sure I will be talking more about that later! In the meatime, I’m in the middle of reading Sally Bedell Smith’s new bio, Elizabeth the Queen…will let everyone know how it is when I finish…
Are you going to be in England this year?? What festivities would you attend if you were there?
This Valentine’s Day is also special because Signet is re-launching its Regency line as ebooks, and my very first Regency, Scandal in Venice, is the first title in the series! I am very excited about that (and hope it means new Regencies out there!), and I also love the new cover. To celebrate, I’m running a contest on my website to win a Venetian glass heart pendant on my Amanda site. You also have until tonight to enter a contest on my Laurel site…
And since I am feeling contest crazy today, I am having one here at the Riskies! I have two brand-new shinny ARCs of my next Laurel McKee book (One Naughty Night, not out until June!). I will give away one copy to a commenter on today’s post!
Here are a few fun history-geek facts I found out about Valentine’s Day…
–Historians trace the origin of Valentine’s Day to the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, a holiday on February 14th to honor the goddess Juno (among other things the patron of women and marriage, though maybe Venus might have been a better Valentine’s Day choice!). On the following day, February 15th began the fertility festival called ‘Feast of Lupercalia,’ which often turned into a big, wild party.
An interesting custom of the Feast of Lupercalia was to bring together young men and women who otherwise were strictly separated. On the eve of the festival names of young Roman girls were written on a slip of paper and placed into jars. Each young man drew out a girl’s name from the jar and was paired with the girl for the duration of Lupercalia. Sometime this pairing lasted until the next year’s celebration, and sometimes the couple would fall in love with each other and marry.
–But it was actually due to the Christian priest and martyr St Valentine that today’s holiday got its name. The story goes that during the reign of Emperor Claudius, Rome was involved in several bloody and unpopular wars. Recruting new soliers was hard because a lot of men didn’t want to leave their wives and families to take part in such hopeless campaigning, so Claudius canceled all engagements in Rome. Saint Valentine defied Claudius’s orders. and performed secret marriages. When his defiance was discovered, Valentine was brutally beaten and put to death on February 14, about 270 AD and later became a saint.
Around 498 AD, Pope Gelasius declared February 14 as St. Valentine’s Day to honor the martyr Valentinus and to end the pagan celebration. By the Middle Ages, Valentine became a heroic and romantic figure in England and France, perfect for the cult of chivalry. Valentine’s Day Cards are even said to have originated in medieval France. Charles, Duke of Orleans is said to have written the first Valentine’s Day card. He was captured at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 and wrote a poem or ‘Valentine’ to his wife while locked in the Tower of London. This letter is still in the collection of the British Library in London, England.
–There was a popular belief in Great Britain and France during 14th and 15th century that birds begin to mate on February 14, halfway through the month of February. In the Paston Letters, Dame Elizabeth Brews writes thus about a match she hopes to make for her daughter (spelling modernize), addressing the favored suitor:
And, cousin mine, upon Monday is Saint Valentine’s Day and every bird chooses himself a mate, and if it like you to come on Thursday night, and make provision that you may abide till then, I trust to God that ye shall speak to my husband and I shall pray that we may bring the matter to a conclusion.
–Unmarried girls in Britain and Italy used to wake up before sunrise on Valentine’s Day. They believed that the first man they glimpsed on Valentine’s Day (or someone who looked like him!) would marry them within a year. Girls would wake up early to stand by their window and wait for the right man to pass by. Shakespeare mentions this tradition in Hamlet (1603). Ophelia sings:
Good morrow! ‘Tis St. Valentine’s Day
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your valentine!
What are your plans for the holiday?? What are some of your favorite romantic reads for the day?
Since today is shaping up to be a busy day, I’m re-posting my Mardi Gras info from last year! I hope you’re all having fabulous parties tonight…
Happy Mardi Gras, everyone! Last week I talked about the vampire bar I want to open, and I’ve decided that every year we will have a Mardi Gras party, with a jazz band, Hurricanes, king cake, and costumes. And everyone here is invited! In the meantime, here are a few fun Mardi Gras facts you can tell people at a party tonight…..
–The roots of Mardi Gras are in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was held in mid-February every year to honor the god of fertility. It seems there was much drinking, feasting, and wild sex…
–The phrase “Fat Tuesday” might also arise from this festival, signifying the fatted calf that was paraded and sacrificed to the fertility god
–The roots of Mardi Gras in the US are a bit murky. Some say the French explorer d’Iberville brought it to Louisiana in 1699, while others say the first Mardi Gras was celebrated by French soldiers in Mobile, Alabama in 1703 (it was already a big Carnival tradition in Europe, especially France and Venice). Wherever it started, by 1803 it was firmly entrenched as a New Orleans tradition
–The first parade in the US was in 1837, with a grand total of one float
–The beaded necklaces didn’t come into play until the 1880s
–The Mardi Gras colors are purple (justice), green (faith), and gold (power)
–Everyone has to have a king cake for the holiday, with a little baby figure (Baby Jesus) baked in. Whoever finds the baby will have luck all year, and will have to bring the cake to next year’s party!
Here is a recipe for your very own king cake:
And here are some Hurricane recipes to go with the cake!
For more information on the history of Mardi Gras, take a look here…
What are your plans for the holiday???