Jacob's New Dress

While at the library yesterday, I came across Jacob's New Dress, a cute picture story for preschool to early primary school kids.  It's about Jacob, a boy who likes to wear dresses.  Except for one friend who insists that "boys don't wear dresses" everyone else in the story, including mom, dad and teacher, is understanding and supportive.  Of course, the story is simple and optimistic but it's also very sweet.  It's a "message book" but very well done.

Amazon's description: Jacob loves playing dress-up, when he can be anything he wants to be. Some kids at school say he can't wear "girl" clothes, but Jacob wants to wear a dress to school. Can he convince his parents to let him wear what he wants? This heartwarming story speaks to the unique challenges faced by boys who don't identify with traditional gender roles.

I loved reading the reader reviews on Amazon, too.

CASA VALENTINA Opens on Broadway Tonight

CASA VALENTINA, the new Harvey Fierstein musical based on Casa Susanna, the 60s Catskills resort and oasis for crossdressers, opens on Broadway tonight.

The show features an amazing cast including

• Drama Desk Award winner Reed Birney (Taking Care of Baby at MTC, Blasted)
• Tony Award winner John Cullum (The Scottsboro Boys, "ER", "Northern Exposure")
• Tony Award winner Gabriel Ebert (Matilda, 4000 Miles)
• Obie Award winner Lisa Emery (Lonely, I'm Not; Iron at MTC)
• Tony Award nominee Tom McGowan (Wicked, "Everybody Loves Raymond", Kenny from "Frasier")
• Drama Desk Award nominee Patrick Page (Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, Cyrano de Bergerac)
• Larry Pine (The Royal Family, "House of Cards")
• Drama Desk Award winner Nick Westrate (Loot, Tribes)
• Emmy Award winner and Oscar nominee Mare Winningham (Picnic, "Hatfields & McCoys")

Stana has posted several articles about Casa Valentina (including a great post yesterday) and Casa Susanna.   Wonderful stuff from Stana, as always.

I also found an excellent New York Times article about the play.  Excerpt:

Boas, corsets and high heels are fun, familiar staples of theater. But “Casa Valentina” is about a subculture rarely seen onstage — cross-dressers — and mixes masculinity and femininity in ways that daunted the actors at first, and may do the same to audiences. The play, now in previews, is based on a real Catskills resort where husbands and fathers went in the 1960s to dress and act as women. These were white-collar professionals hobbling in heels, not drag queens sashaying in stilettos; men expressing their femininity without compromising their maleness.


I'm excited to hear about reactions to the play.  Even with the Fierstein's track record, a great cast and what sounds like a top-notch production in every way, there are so many ways for this to go wrong.  I hope they get it right.

I Want Her Outfit

I've been browsing through fashion blogs.  Not the professional ones with impossibly thin models wearing outlandish runway fashions, but the amateur and semi-professional blogs where women show off their every day style and post pictures of other women looking great in outfits that you could see on real people.

That's how I stumbled on to  I Want Her Outfit.   I love most of the posts on this site (although there is a post of a woman wearing pajamas and a headscarf on the street that mystifies me - I know how to look dowdy - I don't need help there - maybe it's a joke, but I don't get it).  I would love to wear those clothes and, of course, look even half as pretty as the women in the pictures.

Although I Want Her Outfit hasn't been updated since last May and only has four months of updates, there are enough fun posts to make a visit worthwhile.

Maybe my favorite thing about I Want Her Outfit is the logo.

I'd love to look and dress like one of the women pictured, at least for a little while.  How amazing to be so pretty.