The Opera Glove Blog

2004-07-18T15:18:00.000-04:00

Seems to me I should get back to offering Pictures of the Day - after all, it's my own server and my own traffic! Besides, there has been a _lot_ of new material added since my last POTD.

Today's POTD actually fits the celebration mood; here's Gina Lollobrigida from the cover of L'Europeo sometime in the 1950's, blowing streamers at a party with her white opera gloves peeled back over her wrists:

2004-07-18T15:14:00.000-04:00

17 July 1999 to 18 July 2004.

For the Love of Opera Gloves is five years old this weekend. It's been a long, sometimes arduous and frustrating, but almost never boring, trip. As a small gesture of thanks to all the people who've visited over the years, I've caused to be created a new "official" screensaver with nearly 200 of the best images of classic stars in opera gloves. You can access this, and the rest of the update, by going to the What's New page and taking a look at what's on offer today.

Thanks, people. I couldn't have gone on this long if I didn't know that you were out there.

2004-03-14T11:13:00.000-05:00

Good morning, folks! Once again, it's been a very long time since I last posted. What can I say? Well, "I'll post more often from now on" would do just fine, though I don't know how well I can live up to that, the chaos of my life being as it is.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that a new update has been posted today. Here's the "boilerplate" announcement:

For the Love of Opera Gloves goes back for
another visit to the Golden Age of the opera glove, the Edwardian Era, today! We've updated
no less than 18 collections of the great stars of the turn of the last century (including
two new ones, for Carrie Moore and Mabel Love), and also are proud to present a big new
collection of video-capture stills from the classic 1970's BBC miniseries "Edward The King",
chronicling the life of the British king who gave his name to the period - and featuring
lots and lots and lots of beautiful ladies in the opera-glove fashions of the late 1800's
and early 1900's! (Francesca Annis, whose miniseries "Lillie" is featured on our site, first
played Lillie Langtry in this production.) Modern web pin-up stars Kate Donovan (of Kate's
Pinups) and Sister Decadence have also contributed new images for their pages, so be sure
to pay them a visit too!

The complete list of new and updated pages is as follows:

Edwardian Celebrities (general collection) - 13 pages
Ada Reeve
Carrie Moore
The Dare Sisters - 3 pages
Edna May - 2 pages
Ellaline Terriss - 2 pages
Frances Cleveland
Gabrielle Ray
Gaynor Rowlands
Gertie Millar
Isabel Jay
Lillie Langtry - 2 pages
Lily Elsie
Madge Lessing
Mabel Green
Mabel Love
Maie Ash
Marie Studholme
Queenie Leighton
"Edward The King" vidcaps - 28 pages
Kate's Pinups
Sister Decadence

Visit the What's New page for a complete list
of the new vidcap galleries! Please don't forget to support For the Love of Opera Gloves by
clicking on one of our rotating ad sponsor banners or by making a contribution via our
Amazon or PayPal "collection box" buttons - it costs money to keep the website running and
growing and your support is very much appreciated!

I do have one other announcement to make: as of today, hotlinking (the practice of using the < img > tag to link directly to pictures at For the Love of Opera Gloves to bring them up as full-size images at another site) has been disabled except for certain sites such as this one. HOTLINKING STEALS BANDWIDTH!!! I welcome text links to the site, or to any part thereof, from another site, and I'm glad to lend out pictures to anyone who asks, but I will not put up with people using < img > to leech bandwidth - which I have to pay for - from my server. I'm sorry to be so harsh, but there it is.

Anyway, enjoy the new update!

2003-12-07T17:55:00.000-05:00

Good evening, folks! It's been a bit over seven months since I last posted to the Opera Glove Blog, and I do sincerely apologize; I didn't mean to let things slip for that long, but just lost track of the time (and moved For the Love of Opera Gloves to a new server in June). Anyway, I'm back, and I'm going to post more regularly henceforth.

First off, a new update has been uploaded! I'm focusing on supermodels this time around, with the main Supermodels in Opera Gloves collection being brought up to date. The other Supermodels (general) galleries are available at these URL's:

Supermodels in Opera Gloves, Gallery 2

Supermodels in Opera Gloves, Gallery 3

Supermodels in Opera Gloves, Gallery 4

Supermodels in Opera Gloves, Gallery 5

Supermodels in Opera Gloves, Gallery 6

Several of the galleries dedicated to individual star models have also been updated, and I've added several new collections, including galleries devoted to Brazilian sexbomb Tiazinha and Hong Kong superstar Anita Mui. The complete list of new and updated pages is, as always, available at What's New at For the Love of Opera Gloves.

Next item on the agenda; I'm looking for a copy of the DVD of the new French TV miniseries of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", starring Catherine Deneuve. In this version, the story is set in the early 1960's, and Catherine shows up in slinky long black gloves in several scenes. If anyone has this, or can get vidcaps, please contact me! I am also looking for the movie "Pot-Bouille" starring Danielle Darrieux and the films "Nathalie" (English title "Foxiest Girl In Paris") and "Nana", both starring Martine Carol.

You will note that there isn't a image appended to this post. I'm getting more traffic these days and only have a 200GB/month bandwidth allowance on my site's server (though I may look into an upgrade), so I'm going to wait and see how it goes.

2003-05-03T17:37:00.000-04:00

We might not have an update tomorrow, folks, though I'll do my best to get something posted early next week. I'm going to be spending the day tomorrow with my parents who are in from out of town, so my time for working on the site is going to be quite limited.

The AllPosters.com poster store at For the Love of Opera Gloves has been updated this morning with a whole new set of posters, prints and photos available for sale. Support For the Love of Opera Gloves by purchasing from AllPosters.com today! Also, don't forget to drop something into one of the tip jars - PayPal, Amazon.com or c2it - if you want to help out with site bandwidth costs, maintenance and improvement!

Today's picture comes from The Marilyn Monroe Glove Gallery and shows Marilyn with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall at the premiere of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes".

2003-04-27T14:01:00.000-04:00

NEW UPDATE POSTED!!

Today's update is a huge new inflow of images into our Royals in Opera Gloves collection. Six new individual collections - for Marina, Duchess of Kent; Princess Alexandra of Kent (Marina's daughter); Queen Alexandra; Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother; Princess Anne; and Princess Caroline of Monaco have been created. The general Royals galleries have been reduced in number from eight to six, as a lot of photos had been moved to those new galleries, but on the other hand there are also many new images in those galleries. The Queen Elizabeth II collection now has over 700 images, making it one of the largest single collections on the site, and the Princess Margaret collection has over 320 images. Here's Princess Margaret exhibiting the delicious "New Look"-era custom of wearing opera-length gloves in the daytime:

2003-04-20T21:49:00.000-04:00

NEW UPDATE POSTED!!

Got it under the wire in time to go up today - 14 new collections of vidcaps, including _the_ opera-glove film of 2002, "The Cat's Meow". Lots of good stuff and another opportunity to examine the fruits of transferring footage from VHS tapes to MPEG's. Here's a still from Swann In Love, featuring the absolutely gorgeous Ornella Muti:

2003-04-16T04:59:00.000-04:00

For opera-glove fans who are also classic-movie fans: "Les Girls", the 1957 musical, comes out on DVD next week (April 22). This is the film that contains a superb three-for-one white-opera-glove scene with Kay Kendall, Mitzi Gaynor, and Taina Elg.

Here's another biggie image, featuring Linda Darnell in "Centennial Summer":

2003-04-15T04:36:00.000-04:00

The system seems to be working properly now. Hope you're all enjoying the new update! Next time around - more vidcaps, I still have a lot of them to clear off from my home system and get posted.

This is Kim Novak, in black gloves, meeting Brigitte Bardot, in white gloves, sometime in the mid-1950's (another high-resolution image!):

2003-04-14T05:47:00.000-04:00

Had to reboot the server this morning to fix a persistent problem with the email service. Everything seems to be up and running now but I'm still getting some odd readouts from my server control panel, so the host will check it out today and might need to do a fresh reboot to get everything going 100%. Just so you know.

Here's Jeanne Crain in a shot with Jane Russell (in black gloves) at the time of the shooting of "Gentlemen Marry Brunettes". (Warning: big image in term of screen space required though it's only 85k!)

2003-04-13T19:17:00.000-04:00

NEW UPDATE POSTED: Go to What's New at For the Love of Opera Gloves to see the latest images! Over 30 collections updated (and half a dozen new ones added) in the Classic Stars and Modern Stars categories. Here's a sample, from The Sabrina Glove Gallery:

2003-04-07T20:36:00.000-04:00

Mark your calendars, folks: A&E's "Napoleon", with Isabella Rossellini as Josephine, starts tomorrow night at 8 Eastern time. Expect plenty of Directory and Empire gowns with long gloves! In that connection, and continuing this week's theme, here's Gina Lollobrigida as Paolina Bonaparte, Napoleon's sister, in "Imperial Venus":

2003-04-06T20:48:00.000-04:00

My apologies for the long silence. I've been nearly obsessed for the last week, as I expect many of you were, with following the war news, which (from my American perspective, I understand many of you may feel differently) seems to be going quite well. Nonetheless, I haven't completely forgotten about the website, or that it's very much overdue for an update. I do have a large amount of data that's waiting to be posted, and it'll go up as soon as I can get myself organized to do it.

Catching up, or beginning to catch up, with POTD's: The A&E cable network is showing a major new biopic of the life of Napoleon, playing this Tuesday and Wednesday (4/8 and 4/9) at 8 pm Eastern. Isabella Rossellini, Ingrid Bergman's daughter, is to play Josephine, and the whole thing will be coming out on DVD and VHS at the end of the month. Here's an earlier Josephine, Jacqueline Bisset, on the cover of TV Guide for her 1987 miniseries "Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story":

2003-03-28T05:17:00.000-05:00

Obviously no new developments overnight, as I went to bed shortly after posting my last entry; I just wanted to get back on my regular schedule. :) The war has thrown everything off, but I'm looking forward to be able to get back to working on the site again soon. Here's Dorothy Malone in strapless gown with black-opera-gloved arms behind her head:

2003-03-27T20:21:00.000-05:00

Yet another quiet day - so quiet, in fact, that I almost forgot to post an entry. But I do want to make an announcement. It appears that there may be some confusion caused by search engine results which results in For the Love of Opera Gloves incorrectly being linked with another (clothing vendor) site. For the record, one site has nothing to do with the other, we have no claims whatsoever on that other site's trademark, and details will be going up on the main site later with a link to the correct site for people who might have gotten directed to us by accident.

Today's POTD is Gene Tierney in black fringed gown with matching (non-fringed) operas:

2003-03-26T05:17:00.000-05:00

Another quiet day. I'm going to be _very_ careful with my machine today, since this is the canonical day for the Chernobyl worm/virus to strike; I got hit by it last year and ended up having to reinstall Windows (though fortunately I didn't lose any site data). Today's POTD features Dorothy Lamour in a still from "Lulu Belle":

2003-03-25T05:06:00.000-05:00

Whew. I had a bad moment there last night. I was installing a program, and somehow the installer deleted most of the files in the root directory of my C:\ drive thinking that those were temp files. I was able to recover, though, using the root files from my old HD, so I'm back in business. Still nothing to report as far as the site goes....but I'd like to thank folks for the donations I get and continue to get, they really do help! Please do continue to drop whatever you can into the Amazon.com or PayPal collection "jars" (really "boxes"). From the 1950's Blondes collection, this is 1950's sexpot Denise Darcel in an Esquire pinup shot:

2003-03-24T04:51:00.000-05:00

There wasn't a log entry yesterday - sorry for the omission, I seem to have been glued to my TV and to web reports like much of the rest of the country (I didn't even watch the Oscars, but there didn't seem to be much point this year since the stars didn't feel it was politic to do something "frivolous" like dressing up). I'm afraid that I didn't get any work done on the update either - sorry; all I can promise is that I'll get to work on it when I can. I do have two pics to offer you, though, to make up for the skipped blog entry yesterday. First, here's a classy pic of the great Maria Callas in mousquetaires:

And this is Betty Hutton in black elbow-length gloves (the right glove is scrunched down):

2003-03-22T08:46:00.000-05:00

Well, still nothing new to report as far as opera gloves go, but I'll try to do some work on the site this weekend if I can tear myself away from the TV and the various warblogs. Here's Jane Wyman, Ronald Reagan's first wife, in a classy strapless-gown pose with one white mousquetaire rolled back over her wrist:

2003-03-21T05:25:00.000-05:00

Nothing new to report this morning, but I wouldn't let you go without a POTD, even in the middle of a war. Here's Carroll Baker in a formal promo portrait from her movie "Harlow" (I recorded that movie, but I can't seem to find it anywhere!):

2003-03-20T05:27:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been up most of the night watching the news. I expect you all know what's going on now, and I don't really have much to add, especially since this isn't really a political blog at all. I expect to be following world developments very closely for the next little while but will try to do some site maintenance work as time allows. Here's Zsa Zsa Gabor dolled up in fur and long gloves:

2003-03-19T05:10:00.000-05:00

The latest news is that there won't be a red carpet session before the Oscars. This is traditionally where the arriving actresses strut their stuff in their most extravagant finery, so that's one opportunity lost. In fact, there might be a lot of people dressing more soberly than otherwise because of the upcoming war; in fact, I even saw a report that some actresses were planning on renting tuxedoes, Marlene Dietrich-style, as backups! Hope springs eternal, though. (Being American myself, I'd be less than candid if I didn't say I shared the widespread American irritation with the French government at this moment; however, it's very true that we do have France to thank for the raison d'etre of this website - the mousquetaire.) Here's Colleen Miller in a gloved clinch with Tony Curtis in "The Rawhide Years":

2003-03-18T05:00:00.000-05:00

Well, things seem to be heating up outside the opera-glove world. It's a question just how much the Oscars (which are traditionally a night where you can see a star or two in mousquetaires) will be affected , but I'll be keeping an eye on that event if it's not completely disrupted and will bring you any good pics I find. The image for today is Deanna Durbin in mousquetaires:

2003-03-17T05:06:00.000-05:00

Back to the usual early-morning posting schedule, but again, nothing much happened overnight. (Well, yes, I _have_ been monitoring the news, but I mean that nothing much happened with the site!) We'll see what we can do about getting to work on the next site update tonight, though. Your opera-glove eye candy for today is Debra Paget in hot-pink opera gloves with Edwardian-period costume:

2003-03-16T15:20:00.000-05:00

Another post late in the day, I'm afraid! This has been a pretty lazy weekend for me - yes, I _know_ I was supposed to work on the next update. (So tie me upside down and beat me on the soles of my bare feet with wetted-down kid mousquetaires. :) ) I promise I'll get to work on it soon, though. Today, here's Linda Darnell in "The Lady Pays Off":

2003-03-15T18:18:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the late post, I've been basically taking the day off. Thanks to Mike for pointing me to a source of lots of new Pamela Anderson: here's one that's already in our galleries, from "Barb Wire":

2003-03-14T05:18:00.000-05:00

About the only interesting thing I have to report is that, in fact, I did do a little clean-up work last night - I cleared the duplicates out of the Edwardian Celebrities collection. With the dupes gone, and new pics added in (and with some pictures being separated out for a new individual collection), we still will have over 450 images in that particular collection when time comes to update it. (Naturally, I'm pretty fond of that particular collection because, as you know if you've been reading this blog or following the website for any length of time, the Edwardian/late Victorian period was the absolute golden age of the over-the-elbow glove, for day or evening wear.)

As an example of what I mean, consider the actress Grace Palotta in white daytime dress and long white kid gloves (the tops go under the lacy sleeves of her dress) from Edwardian Celebrities in Opera Gloves:

2003-03-13T05:21:00.001-05:00

Still no new news, but here's Doris Day in her elegant white gown and and operas from "Pillow Talk":

2003-03-13T05:21:00.000-05:00

Still no new news, but here's Doris Day in her elegant white gown and and operas from "Pillow Talk":

2003-03-12T05:09:00.000-05:00

Another day without anything new to report - I guess that's what they call the March doldrums. They don't? Oh, never mind, then. It really shouldn't take that long to organize the next update, anyway, it's just a matter of generating the HTML for the thumbnails and plugging it into the gallery page frames. I'm aiming for Saturday or Sunday.

Here's a rare color cabinet card of Lillian Russell:

2003-03-11T05:11:00.000-05:00

It'll be the Modern Stars collection that shall be updated next. Among that, you'll see numerous new photos of Halle Berry at the London premiere of "Die Another Day" in November 2002 (Rosamund Pike has an important scene in the movie in which she wears one black opera as part of a martial-arts costume) and of Pamela Anderson at the Vienna Opera Ball last month.

Here's Ingrid Bergman in a scene from "Anastasia" (the 1950's live-action classic, obviously, not the 1990's animated movie):

2003-03-10T05:06:00.000-05:00

Another day without anything urgent or interesting to report - don't you hate it when everything is running along smooth as brand-new kid leather? :) There _is_, however, a new POTD: Marilyn Monroe in her famous 1955 turn as a circus showgirl in white opera gloves atop a pink elephant:

2003-03-09T09:22:00.000-05:00

Nothing much new to report today - everything seems to be running along properly with the server, and I'm fixing to start getting the next update organized. This is Lana Turner backstage on the set of "The Merry Widow":

2003-03-08T09:37:00.000-05:00

OK, got that problem (referred to in yesterday's post) straightened out. Apparently that other suspicious transacton got sneaked in under the wire just before the card was suspended, and I did get this month's server fees charged properly to my other card. Let all this serve as a reminder to all of you to be _very_ careful about how you use your credit or check cards online (though I'm still not sure that my numbers didn't leak because of something that happened offline.)

I'm going to go ahead and start work on the next update this weekend, though I'm still not sure whether it'll be vidcaps or something else. To keep you company, allow me to introduce you to Natalie Wood in a promo shot for "The Great Race", including long black gloves with her costume:

2003-03-07T05:32:00.000-05:00

I was afraid that my site was going to go down again for a while there. You see, I've been having problems with suspicious/unauthorized charges to my check card recently; this posed a real problem as it was the medium of payment I was using to transfer server fees for the website. I reported it to the bank the other day, and apparently my check card has been suspended until a new card can be issued. Fortunately, I gave the host the proper information for my other card, so the charges were properly transferred last evening. It's just as well because I think I found _another_ suspcious charge, which is peculiar because I thought the card had been suspended. I'm going to check that with the bank today.

For today's enjoyment, I present Jane Russell in black lace slip and black operas!

2003-03-06T05:09:00.000-05:00

Upon reviewing my system mail from last night, I find that there was yet another failure in key services (from which, fortunately, the system was able to recover automatically). My web logs show that somebody yesterday was downloading 131 MB in one visit. People, this kind of thing has to stop. It's placing extreme stress on the box and that's why we're having all those crashes and outages. I _will_ block anyone whose IP I can identify who I determine to be a bandwidth abuser, so take note.

May I present Joan Fontaine in black shoulder-length lace operas from "The Affairs of Susan":

2003-03-05T05:16:00.000-05:00

Good morning, folks! We had an outage yesterday afternoon because the server went down for some still-unknown reason, but it's been rebooted and should now be operating properly. (At this time, I should remind you again that using excessive - and I mean, really _excessive_ - amounts of bandwidth, like, say, 500 MB in a single visit, is a good way to get your IP blocked from accessing the website. I have to *pay* for excess bandwidth now, so I'm going to enforce a zero-tolerance policy on bandwidth abusers.)

I'm still trying to decide what should be posted for the next update, so bear with me. Hopefully I can start work this weekend, but my parents are coming up for a visit, so we'll have to see.

Presenting: Elizabeth Taylor, white-gloved, with one of her Academy Awards!

and, from her movie, Beau Brummell:

2003-03-04T16:22:00.000-05:00

Good afternoon, folks. Sorry not to have posted this morning; I had an emergency to resolve with my checking account (now, happily, taken care of), and since today's my birthday, I've been taking the afternoon off (I found a nice book on Oscar fashions that has quite a few good opera-glove pics!) Going out to dinner with my sister and brother-in-law in a little while. Again, contributions to help defray the cost of running the website are muchly appreciated - it's that time of the month for paying the host - in any amount. :)

For today, here's a lovely shot of my beloved Lollo - Gina Lollobrigida - having her white-mousquetaire'd hand kissed: (big picture!)

and a shot from her hard-to-find movie Imperial Venus:

2003-03-03T05:25:00.000-05:00

Just to repeat what I posted on Saturday morning: The dunning for donations continues. :) Anyone who wants to help For the Love of Opera Gloves cover its monthly costs is more than welcome to drop something into the Amazon and/or PayPal tip jars on this page, or at the website itself (Citibank's c2it is also available at the website). It's my birthday tomorrow, so feel free to be generous. :) I may go ahead and start working on the next update sometime this week, goodness knows I have plenty of material to work with!

Here's Sophia Loren many a year ago, in the 1950's, in black elbow-length leather:

2003-03-02T15:07:00.000-05:00

No new news today. Dullsville. I spent most of the day defragging my hard drive and fiddling around with various computer games. I'm only making this blog entry so nobody complains at me. :)

This is Ava Gardner in a glittery purple gown and white kid operas, sometime in the 1960's:

From the vidcaps archive, here's a still from A New Kind Of Love, starring Joanne Woodward (on the bicycle, in white opera and blonde beehive, having her gown torn off) and Paul Newman:

2003-03-01T08:06:00.000-05:00

The dunning for donations continues. :) Anyone who wants to help For the Love of Opera Gloves cover its monthly costs is more than welcome to drop something into the Amazon and/or PayPal tip jars on this page, or at the website itself (Citibank's c2it is also available at the website).

The snow is already starting to melt. It's a foggy morning and a good glove time, if you're careful about getting fine leather wet. I did make it in to work yesterday; the main roads were already clear and traffic was very light.

You thought Betty Grable was famous for her legs? Well, she was, but she also liked her gloves. Here's a 1943 shot with dancer Hermes Pan:

2003-02-28T05:17:00.000-05:00

Another snow day today, friends. It's not nearly as bad as the nor'easter that socked in the whole region last weekend (and made a lot of shopowners VERY unhappy), but we were told to complete our timesheets yesterday - today is the last day of the biweekly payperiod - in case we couldn't make it in to work. I'm going to see what I can do; I _think_ I can get in, but if not, I'll figure out something to do here. I think there's plenty of work to do on the website.

If you would like to help me celebrate my birthday, which is coming up on Tuesday the 4th, here's a heavy-handed hint: :) drop something into the Amazon or PayPal tipjars here or at the website. Every penny you contribute helps me pay for server rental and for all the other things it takes to keep For the Love of Opera Gloves flourishing.

Here we see Lana Turner, resplendent in glittering black gown and gloves, visiting on the set of "The Merry Widow" sith a young female friend:

2003-02-27T05:16:00.000-05:00

Nothing new to report this morning, I'm afraid. (Don't you hate it when it's such a dull day that you can't even think of anything interesting to say to start it off with?) I do want to remind everyone, though - at the risk of sounding like a broken record - that I really could use your help with the monthly server rental fees. When one's monthly costs have ballooned by a better-than-sixfold factor from $15 to $99 in one year, one really does appreciate any assistance available. Collection boxes (Amazon.com and PayPal) to your left. Thank you!

Here's Ginger Rogers in a very Marilynesque gold-lame gown:

2003-02-26T20:19:00.000-05:00

Tonight's vidcap sample, from Son of Paleface; Jane Russell in black-and-red-striped corset accented with black operas, flirting with Bob Hope!

Don't forget to drop something in the collection boxes. Thank you! :)

2003-02-26T05:06:00.000-05:00

For everyone who's sent in a contribution so far this month, thanks! To everyone else who hasn't yet sent a donation; please do consider doing so. The cost of maintaining the site has gone up exponentially in the past year, from $15/month for shared virtual hosting to $99/month for dedicated server hosting, plus all the other things it takes to keep a website fresh and interesting.

Also, if you have a nice opera-glove-themed wallpaper that you'd like to share, send it in (800x600 or 1024x768 resolution).

Today's POTD features the modern-day queen of pinups, Dita von Teese, in a classic Hollywood-style glamour pose:

2003-02-25T19:23:00.000-05:00

As I promised, tonight begins our series of occasional stills from movies with great opera-glove scenes. Our first exhibit is from the 1955 Gina Lollobrigida magnum opus, Beautiful But Dangerous, known in the original Italian as "La Donna Piu Bella Del Monde" (The Most Beautiful Woman In The World), based on the life of renowned opera diva Lina Cavalieri. In this scene, Gina-as-Lina wows a packed music hall in cancan costume:

At this time, I'd like to make my regular pitch for donations. It'll be time soon to pay the monthly fees for dedicated server rental ($99.00); if you would like to help, please drop something into either the PayPal or Amazon collection boxes. Thank you!

2003-02-25T05:05:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I'm planning to start a new image series on this blog; opera gloves in the movies and on TV. This won't necessarily be every day like the POTD, since the images will be drawn from the site's vidcap archive, which, in site of its size, is somewhat more limited in scope than the main site. All the same, it's time that some of you folks who might not necessarily have visited our vidcap collection before know what's available there.

Here's one of the inspirations for For the Love of Opera Gloves: Geena Davis in the outrageous pouf skirt (saved by shoulder-length white satin operas) that she wore to the 1992 Academy Awards:

2003-02-24T05:05:00.000-05:00

Not much to report this morning. If people were having problems getting into the site yesterday afternoon between approximately 3:15 and 5:45, it appears that the routers at the hosts were taken down for servicing at that time (they were taken down at the same time last week). If this turns out to be a regular thing, we might as well get used to it - eBay goes down for three hours early every Friday morning for maintenance, after all.

How about one of the Italian Celebrities in Opera Gloves today? This is Anna Falchi in jeweled black lace operas:

2003-02-23T16:44:00.000-05:00

Scanning update: I decided to do some more scanning and generated another 110+ images, which means you'll be seeing a big Royals update not too long from now. The only problem is that my scanner, which is one of the cheaper models, is fairly slow and I can't do much better than 50 - 60 images per hour at 300 dpi (for B&W images; color images at the same resolution take two minutes to scan and process). Maybe my next upgrade ought to be a more powerful scanner. Here's another Princess Margaret image (same URL as the previous image); it's a big 1024 x 1362 image, but I think you'll find it worth the size!

2003-02-23T11:47:00.000-05:00

Today's report: I just completed a scanning session with the Royalty books that I've collected over the past couple of months. 130 images were generated from this session, in addition to another 40+ images from other books that were scanned yesterday. There are still a large number of books left to be worked on, I expect to generate two or three hundred new images total from the lot. The new image count in the Brides collection is up to 450. I'm now looking at updating three categories in the near future:

Royals (including individual galleries)
Brides
Modern Stars

With regard to Royals, from The Princess Margaret Glove Gallery, here's a classic color image of Queen Elizabeth's younger sister in black taffeta accented with black kid opera gloves:

2003-02-22T15:43:00.000-05:00

Today's report: I spent the early morning surfing around for pictures of the beauties that Prince (the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince!) has been associated with over the years. I succeeded in pulling together a nice little collection of images which you'll soon be seeing.

Actually, I might take the opportunity with the next update to bring some Modern Stars collections up-to-date as well as working on the Brides collection. I've enough material on hand to expand nineteen of the individual Modern Stars collections and also have enough material for a Sabrina (Norma Sykes) gallery; this was the curvy blonde who was the chief foil on the classic British TV comedy show "The Goons".

Lots of stuff to work on this weekend, so I may as well reboot my computer and get to it. Before I do, though, here's the POTD from Brides and Bridesmaids in Opera Gloves; this is a design from Ian Stuart, one of the bridal fashion designers who makes particularly good use of opera-length gloves:

2003-02-21T05:33:00.000-05:00

Good morning, folks. Not a lot of new news, but you might want to check out the MSN group A Touch of Gloves if you're interested in joining an online glove-oriented community. I'm going to be doing a fair bit of scanning this weekend to take care of the stack of Royalty books and booklets I have sitting on the floor right behind me, and maybe some vidcapping too. The next update might be in the Brides category if I find a large enough number of pictures.

Today's POTD comes from The Princess Michael of Kent Glove Gallery, showing the former Marie-Christine von Reibnitz in fuchsia operas dancing with her husband Prince Michael:

2003-02-20T05:12:00.000-05:00

If anyone had trouble getting to the site earlier this morning, it appears that the server went through an automatic (or, as the logs put it, "automagic") reboot. The Apache server failed and this seems to have triggered an automatic restart. Actually, it's as well because I had been wondering whether I should reboot the server, which had been experiencing some performance problems earlier this week. Everything should work fine now.

I've been considering whether I should expand the scope of this blog to matters beyond the strict scope of opera gloves, namely, political commentary, but I'm not sure how far to go with that. What do you people think? Truthfully, if I stick to site matters, I barely produce enough for one or perhaps two posts a day as it is. If I were to talk about other things (appropriately flagged), I could, obviously, post more often (though my posts would still be restricted to early morning, evening, and weekends because we peons aren't allowed Net access at work).

As I've said before, what type of celebrity would more logically wear opera gloves than a diva of the opera? Today's POTD, from Opera Divas in Opera Gloves, presents the great early-20th-century American soprano Geraldine Farrar in a colorized photo-postcard pose:

2003-02-19T05:28:00.000-05:00

I trust everyone had a good time with yesterday's update. As for me, it's back to the daily grind, provided that the roads aren't too icy this morning; temps got up to 40 degrees F yesterday and there was quite a bit of meltage. (Water is another thing that is bad for fine kid leather, by the way.) I'm a bit at sixes and sevens about what to update next, but I'm looking at going back to start with the Classic category. One thing I need to do in that area is scan a big pile of British Royalty books I recently got - I think I might have mentioned that previously, in fact. There are several _hundred_ images in there that will do very nicely for the Royals section.

Today's POTD selection takes its leave of the ladies of Japanese car shows and goes back to the Belle Epoque, the time of Late Victorian and Edwardian Celebrities in Opera Gloves. Here's Florence Sinclair, a theatrical star of the period, in a delicious pair of white kid operas:

2003-02-18T17:04:00.000-05:00

NEW UPDATE!: Late again! I have a good excuse this time, because I have a new site update to report. The Japanese "Companion"/Event Girl and Cosplay Glove Gallery collection has been expanded today by 27 galleries with over 1,100 new images. Go to What's New at For the Love of Opera Gloves to check the full list of new pages.

Today's POTD comes from the new collection, and shows one of the 2003-model Mazda ladies in her new silver-themed outfit (I mentioned that the Mazda getup is a particular favorite of mine:)

2003-02-17T08:03:00.000-05:00

Good morning, folks! I wasn't able to get a post up yesterday because Blogger was down for some reason, so this will have to make up for two daily log entries. I did get to the anime convention on Saturday and had a fine old time (and the weather wasn't even _that_ bad); and yes, I did see quite a few female cosplayers in gloves of all lengths including some real beauties in operas. Wish I had brought my camera...

The entire northeastern part of the country is in the middle of a big snowstorm. Snowfall is tapering off in the Washington, DC area, but New York and points north are about to get royally socked. The good thing is, this is classic glove weather - though, of course, you don't want to let fine kid leather get too deeply soaked by the snow!

Since, as I said, I missed yesterday's post, I'm going to put up two POTD's, both (like Saturday's picture) from The Japanese "Companion"/Event Girl and Cosplay Glove Gallery. The first one is one of my favorite event-exhibitor getups, one of the models gracing the Mazda exhibition at a recent Japanese car show:

And here's another cosplayer; I'm not sure whether she's from "Sakura Wars" or "Card Captor Sakura", the filename only says "sakura01.jpg":

Might not be able to get in to work until Wednesday, so I'm going to look over the possibility of starting work on the next site update tomorrow. Watch this space, as always...

2003-02-15T07:28:00.000-05:00

Good morning, everyone! The snow is falling, but according to the forecasts it's not supposed to be too severe today (though it's going to really sock us in on Sunday night!), so I am going to be going down to an anime convention today. "Anime", for those few of you who might not know, is the Japanese word for animation, and it sometimes seems like most - if not all - of the female characters in anime wear gloves, whether they be "shorties" or up-to-the-shoulder operas.

A longstanding tradition at anime conventions is "cosplay", which, simply defined, is the practice of dressing up like your favorite character, roaming the halls, staying in character, and generally having a blast. (Similar traditions are in place at science-fiction conventions.) Therefore, today's POTD, from The Japanese "Companion"/Event Girl and Cosplay Glove Gallery, shows one pretty young Japanese lass kitted out in black opera gloves (I don't know which anime character in particular this one is, though!):

2003-02-14T05:12:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Today's the day for the red opera gloves! I hope you folks are having a good time with the new update, and do let me know if you have any problems viewing the new galleries.

Today's POTD comes to you courtesy of The Stephanie Seymour Glove Gallery, and shows Steph in opera gloves of the appropriate color for the day :) ;

2003-02-13T05:24:00.000-05:00

Right - now that the update is posted, that pretty much exhausts me of my news for today. Except for one thing:

I thank you very much for any contributions which you may wish to give for the maintenance and support of For the Love of Opera Gloves via Amazon.com's Honor System or PayPal. It is _much_ more expensive to keep the site up and running than it used to be, as you know if you read this blog regularly, and bandwidth is also a finite (and metered over a certain limit) resource. Therefore, once again, I solicit your donations. Thank you!

For today's POTD, here's an unusual shot from The Suzy Parker Glove Gallery, featuring the redheaded '50's supermodel in black mousquetaires hawking, of all things, Hunt's ketchup:

2003-02-13T01:42:00.000-05:00

UPDATE POSTED: Your webmaster is a bit of an insomniac. Sometimes that's a good thing. :) I woke up about midnight and decided I might as well go ahead and get everything up and posted, and by gum, it is now posted - 156 new galleries of vidcaps! (The Alphabetical Index of For the Love of Opera Gloves has also been updated to reflect the new pages.) You can go to What's New at For the Love of Opera Gloves to get a complete list of the new pages - I hope everything works!

2003-02-12T19:56:00.000-05:00

The new site update will be going up tomorrow evening (barring unexpected interruptions in Comcast HSI service)! I'm going to be posting vidcaps from 25 classic movies (some famous, like "Butterfield 8" and "Conquest", others obscure, like "The Truth About Women" and "The Climax"), a whopping 156 new galleries - well over 10,000 images, closer to 15,000. It'll be one of the biggest updates involving completely new material ever at For the Love of Opera Gloves. Watch for further news here on this blog!

2003-02-12T05:23:00.000-05:00

Before I start, I have yet another message for whoever's accessing the site via the host ether320.ch.uj.edu.pl: KNOCK IT OFF. You've sucked up over 1.5 GB worth of bandwidth so far this month, which is more than *20* times what the next heaviest-downloading visitor has used. You're wasting my finite bandwidth and making it more difficult for other visitors to access the site. Stop whatever you're doing - whether it's hotlinking, spidering, or multiple-download-software using - or I'll have to take other measures.

All right. I've posted another 8 folders of vidcaps for the new update this past night, which makes 21 folders thus far, over 280 MB. I actually have enough to go ahead and formalize the update right now, but I want to make up a few more directories tonight; I may be ready to make the formal post as early as Thursday night, in time for Valentine's Day. One movie I would particularly like to get up for you is "Shine On, Harvest Moon", a '40's musical which is chock-full of glove scenes. Susanna Foster's two horror classics from the same decade, "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Climax", are also crowded with lovely opera-glove sequences and are also waiting in the upload queue.

Continuing the classic-star theme, today's POTD comes from The Arlene Dahl Glove Gallery; we see the leggy redhead, encased in black shoulder-length operas and fishnets, in a classic '50's cheesecake shot:

2003-02-11T05:27:00.000-05:00

I'm continuing to monitor bandwidth and it looks as if traffic jumped yesterday. Not necessarily anything to panic about, because it _always_ jumps on Monday, but since I got booted off my previous host for hogging the bandwidth, I'm paranoid these days. Please refer to my previous entry to see what you can do to help me conserve bandwidth - and in particular, do NOT spider this site without my explicit permission. That uses up lots of traffic.

I began to upload the new update last night, 13 directories worth of new vidcaps, 177 MB. I don't know how many directories I'll eventually post, but I opened up a new top-level directory to hold them and I still have 33 vidcap directories left to work on in the "upload queue" folder on my home HD.

Today's POTD comes from yet another star of classic Hollywood, Susan Hayward, from The Susan Hayward Glove Gallery; this is a promo shot for her role as famous '40's singer Jane Froman in the biopic "With A Song In My Heart":

Incidentially, "With A Song In My Heart" is one of the movies that has been vidcapped and is awaiting posting - and now that I've put this picture up, it will probably be included in the next update!

2003-02-10T18:49:00.000-05:00

Oops. Looks like I forgot to file my daily report yesterday, or this morning. That means I owe you two POTD's. But first, I have a public-service announcement to the owner of this host in Poland, ether320.ch.uj.edu.pl;

Will you please try to cut back on your bandwidth usage? My logs indicate you've used up over 420 MB of bandwidth in seven visits so far, and that's seven times as much as the next most prolific visitor. I ask you - and everyone else - to remember that I have only a finite amount of traffic allowance available to me per month now, and I have to pay for every gig of overage above the limit. I do have a high allowance, but it's got limits.

So, I'm asking three things of all visitors:

1) Please don't spider the site;

2) Please don't "hotlink" to specific images;

3) Please don't use multiple-download software.

Thank you for your cooperation. :)

Moving onward, I have instituted a text-based, alphabetical index yesterday, which you can now find at The Alphabetical Index of For the Love of Opera Gloves. It still needs work, but I think I'm off to a pretty good start. Try it and tell me what you think!

I've started work on the next update - the long-awaited flood of new vidcaps. Well, awaited by me, anyway; I need to get those things posted and off my primary hard drive into storage! :) I'm planning to get the update formally posted no later than President's Day, so you'll be seeing lots of good classic stuff.

Speaking of classic stuff; as I promised at the top of this post, here are your two POTD's. The first one, from The Barbara Stanwyck Glove Gallery, shows the "Ball of Fire" in a beautiful color portrait probably done as a promo for "Lady of Burlesque":

The second POTD, from The Jane Powell Glove Gallery, shows this great singing star of '50's musicals in her famous corset outfit for "Two Weeks With Love":

2003-02-08T06:30:00.000-05:00

*groan* Drank too much sangria last night to celebrate getting the site back online. I didn't used to have headaches when I was younger, but I sure as heck do now! Anyway, I hope everyone's having a good time with the newly-restored galleries. Remember - while the website has a generous bandwidth allowance, it's also a _finite_ bandwidth allowance, so I'm going to be keeping a close eye on just how much traffic comes through over the next few weeks. Everything looks all right so far but I don't want people to go hog-wild, OK? (That means, if you please, in particular, no download managers...)

As the bandwidth usage from POTD's on this blog actually seems to be fairly minimal, I think it's OK to go back - cautiously - to posting them, so without further ado, here's today's offering, from The Marilyn Monroe Glove Gallery, showing Marilyn in black velvet operas in a color promo pose about the time of "All About Eve":

2003-02-07T23:18:00.000-05:00

To celebrate, I think I _will_ restart the POTD after all, and see how much that affects the traffic/bandwidth statistics. For the first POTD from the new server, I present an image from The Lisa Fonssagrives Glove Gallery, showing the first great supermodel in black operas on a '40's Vogue cover:

2003-02-07T23:14:00.000-05:00

EVERYTHING'S FINALLY RESTORED TO THE NEW SERVER. Thank heaven that's over. Now I can get a full night's sleep without having to wake up every couple of hours to check to see if the FTP connection is still up. Have a good time with the pictures, all!

2003-02-07T17:40:00.000-05:00

The tragic murder of B-movie queen Lana Clarkson this past weekend (and I express no opinion at this time about whodunnit, though Phil Spector has some very hard questions to answer, for sure) probably has some of you wondering, are there any pictures of her wearing opera gloves? The answer, in a word, is yes, and on searching last night, I found some very fine ones.

Next question: Will those pictures go up anytime soon? Probably not. Third question: Why not? Answer: Chiefly because I don't feel right about doing it at this time, after her death in such a cruel and violent fashion. However, at a later time hopefully not too far off in the future, when the emotions have calmed and the legal process has done its work, I do expect to post some of these pictures. (Anyone, of course, who has good pictures of Lana in operas to contribute may send them to either of the email addresses given on the left side of this window.)

2003-02-07T17:34:00.000-05:00

All's going well with site restoration, in fact, the task is only a few hours away from completion (if my FTP connection holds steady!) I am uploading the last couple of folders in the Vidcaps 3 directory now, and after that, there's only about 140 - 150 MB of files in the Vidcaps 1 and 2 directories. I'll be making a couple of corrections after that, and then I believe I can declare the site open for business once again!

Note to visitors to the Opera Glove Message Board: The package for my website includes software for a message board, which I am considering creating as an alternative to the current EZBoard forum. There would be some changes from the current setup - exactly how things will change, I have yet to determine - but if I am not mistaken, there will be no popup ads on this new board (if it is created), which will be a BIG advantage. (Did I ever mention that I consider popups to be a curse and a murrain?)

The website package also contains chatroom software, but I don't think I'll install it; for one thing, it would use up a good deal of additional bandwidth (whereas the message board, as currently constituted, probably doesn't use up more than 1 or 2 MB a day, especially as there've only been about 550 posts to the main forum in the entire history of its existence), and for another thing, there are already plenty of other highly adequate avenues for real-time chatting, whether it be MSN Messenger, AOL IM, or even good old IRC. (In fact, I am considering opening up an IRC channel if I can find a suitable place to do so - it's been a couple of years since I regularly took part in IRC but I figure it's like the old saying about knowing how to ride a bicycle.)

I have noticed that among the most popular URL's from the site, according to the various tracking programs, are some of the pictures that have appeared here in this blog! As it doesn't seem to use up all that much bandwidth, I _may_ resume the POTD tomorrow morning. If you like, email me to let me know whether you think that would be a good idea.

Oh yeah, and _please_ donate something to help with the costs of keeping For the Love of Opera Gloves running! :) (Sorry folks, I'm just going to have to be more aggressive about drumming up donations from here on out since I have decided - at least for the near future - against turning the site into a pay one...)

2003-02-07T05:06:00.000-05:00

As before, I ask for your help in recouping the costs of maintaining this site ($99/month) via Amazon.com's Honor System and PayPal. If there's anything I've learned from the last few months, it is that "unlimited" bandwidth really isn't, and that a site like this really needs its own dedicated server; and also that whatever's really worth having is usually more expensive than whatever _sounds_ like it's worth having.

No final decision yet on the POTD's, but all POTD's posted over the last two months should now be accessible in the archives.

2003-02-07T05:03:00.000-05:00

Uploading is nearing completion. All non-vidcap images are in place, and I estimate that about 1/2 of vidcaps have also been re-posted to their proper place. The various directories of Vidcaps 3 top-level directory are uploading now; if I can get them all posted today, I hope I can take care of the other two directories (Vidcaps 1 and 2), less than 150 MB, tonight and finish the whole process by Saturday morning. I'm using WinSCP 2, a SSH-based, encrypted file-copy/transfer application which seems to be a good deal more stable than WS-FTP.

2003-02-06T05:47:00.000-05:00

Updating continues. Classic Stars and Modern top-level directories with all subdirectories are now 100% complete. Modern Stars and Superstars are partially completed. I am uploading Vidcaps 3 (over 800 MB!) at this time. I've been having trouble with WS-FTP so have switched over to WinSCP, which uses SSH and encryption and appears to offer more stable connections. Stay tuned...

2003-02-05T05:14:00.000-05:00

Uploading continues. The Brides, Classic, Companion Girls, Companion Girls 2, and Fashion directories with all galleries and images therein have now been completely uploaded to the server. Classic Stars is about 2/3 complete, Modern is about 1/2 complete. The Modern Stars directory is uploading at this time, to be followed (if the FTP connection stays up) by Superstars and Vidcaps 1/2/3. In short, the process of bringing the site back online continues!

2003-02-04T19:44:00.000-05:00

Apologies, once again, for the delay in posting to the blog. I'm very glad to announce that For the Love of Opera Gloves is getting back on its feet again. The new server has been set up and is working properly, the DNS record has been updated and is propagating worldwide, and I'm uploading the site data to its new home, a bit over 500 MB has been put up so far. It will take a couple more days to get everything back up and online, so expect numerous broken links for the next 24 to 48 hours.

I continue to solicit donations for site upkeep and maintenance via Amazon.com and PayPal. The costs of running the site are now fixed at at least $99 per month ($69 for base server rental and $30 for the software needed to maintain the server and site.) Please contribute!

The POTD _may_ return by the weekend, but since I am now running in a finite-bandwidth situation, I need to consider whether that would be the best path. It is going to be necessary in future to keep bandwidth consumption as low as possible in order to save money.

2003-01-31T20:37:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the three day's delay in reporting, I've been working on resolving the situation with the site outage. It develops that I've had to move yet again. I have just opened an account with a new host, which means For the Love of Opera Gloves is moving to a dedicated server. As the move will bring additional expenses (the new monthly cost of hosting is expected to run from $70 to $100 per month, depending on various options selected for the site and also use of bandwidth), I am once again soliciting donations via PayPal or Amazon.com (click the links on the left side of this screen).

The previous host was forced to disable DNS services (essentially, turn the site off) because there was a _huge_ spike in traffic on Monday which resulted in severe strain on server system resources, which in turn negatively impacted the other sites hosted on that machine. As my previous hosting arrangement was a "shared" one (meaning that I shared machine space and resources with other sites), this was a serious problem. The best solution to the problem was to go to a dedicated server, so I spent some time looking for the best-priced option I could find.

As soon as the server is set up, I will begin uploading material. More posts will come as the situation develops.

2003-01-28T19:20:00.000-05:00

PROBLEM: For some reason, my hosting provider has disabled the site, and possibly deleted it entirely. I don't know what's wrong yet, and hope it's just temporary - I have contacted the provider to try to get an answer. I will let you folks know as soon as I hear something.

2003-01-28T05:11:00.000-05:00

Not much to report today, except that I plan to do some more MPEG creation/vidcapping this evening if I have the time. Scanning too, maybe; I have a stack of nearly 30 British Royalty books from the 1950's with hundreds of pictures. In any case, today's POTD is of the person who you can blame, indirectly, for my having started For the Love of Opera Gloves in the first place, Shania Twain. The picture below is from her 1999 Grammys performance of "Man! I Feel Like A Woman" in which she wore what still is one of the most striking pairs of operas I've ever seen:

2003-01-27T05:20:00.000-05:00

Well, I got those DVD vidcaps done yesterday before the Super Bowl, so now I can cycle them back in for the next lot of discs (but there's still a stack of DVD's of my own collection waiting to be vidcapped!). Not much in the way of news to report otherwise, though Monday is already shaping up to be a heavy-traffic day for the site. (Judging by the statistics analyzer provided for me by my hosting service, which appears to be more accurate than either Extreme Tracking or XtremeStats, I've had over 100,000 visitors in the last two months, generating over 9 _million_ hits.)

Opera gloves are commonly thought of as being snug, tight-fitting items of clothing, but that's not necessarily so; in the Regency era, for example, long gloves were often made so as to fit loosely on the arm (which is why many pictures and fashion plates of the period show glove-wearers with garterlike bands on their upper arms to keep their gloves up). This tendency continues even today, as you see in this photograph of Jerry Hall modeling Vivienne Westwood couture in 1997 from The Jerry Hall Glove Gallery

2003-01-26T14:35:00.000-05:00

Another late post this afternoon - hope you're all enjoying the new images; the comics collection seems to be a hit. I MIGHT put up some new vidcap sets later this week; there's a large stack of them that's been weighing down my hard drive for quite some time now, and those need to go on up so that room can be made for new vidcap sets.

Truth to tell, I don't really have any particular scheme or sequence for selecting POTD's; I generally just select whatever collection strikes my fancy on any given day and put up a representative picture. In that spirit, and not making any judgment on what it has to do with anything, here's a promo still of Joan Collins in "Seven Thieves" as today's POTD from The Joan Collins Glove Gallery:

2003-01-25T16:39:00.000-05:00

Sorry I'm late, folks. In plain fact, I have to admit that I've been spending most of today goofing off after this week's effort to get the update posted; I treated myself to a nice steak dinner and then spent most of the afternoon playing the advanced beta of Galactic Civilizations (which is coming out next month). I may do some vidcapping tonight, though, as I have several DVD's that have been sitting around for just about forever that I need to return to Netflix.

Today's POTD is another sample from The Golden Age of the Opera Glove; The Edwardian Era and is a detail from a 1912 photograph by the famous French photographer Artigue, depicting fashionable ladies at the Arteuil racetrack near Paris. There are actually three ladies in the picture, which I had to break up for scanning:

Lady 1 (just look at those slinky black leather operas!)

Lady 2 (this is a B&W picture, but I think her gloves are beige)

Lady 3 (another black-gloved beauty, with her back turned to the camera)

2003-01-24T19:50:00.000-05:00

UPDATE AVAILABLE! New material has just been posted to For the Love of Opera Gloves. A new category, Comic Book Heroines in Opera Gloves (13 galleries), has just been created, and here's a sample from Heroines of Marvel Comics in Opera Gloves:

Several new Classic Stars collections have also been created and posted, and major updates (with many original scans) have been made to various Superstar collection. Visit now!

2003-01-24T04:58:00.000-05:00

The update is just about ready to go up. I did all the indexes and core site files last night; I didn't upload at the time because my bandwidth was occupied by P2P activity, but it'll be going up this evening.

Those who would like to contribute financially to the upkeep of the website should note that, as of this update, a new method of contribution will become available; c2it by Citibank. Full details will be available when the new material is posted.

Today's POTD comes from Opera Gloves in 1950's Fashion. This is a Cecil Beaton photograph dating from 1948 (the dawn of the "New Look") of an evening gown of the period, originally published in the British edition of Vogue:

2003-01-23T05:12:00.000-05:00

OK, folks, I got the galleries done last evening. This evening I will update the indexes and the other core site files and then begin uploading - cross my fingers, I hope it'll only take a few hours over my cable link. I'm putting up a whole new category of images, several new galleries in the Classic Stars category, and updates to over a dozen star collections.

I've been getting a lot of Royalty books in in preparation for another big Royalty update (a shipment comprising a whopping 40 books is due in tomorrow - I hope!), so today's POTD comes from Royalty in Opera Gloves. You're looking at Queen Elizabeth II (ungloved) with the white-gloved ladies-in-waiting who attended her at her coronation in 1953; unfortunately, I don't have all their names to hand though they're listed in one of those books -

2003-01-22T05:27:00.000-05:00

We appear to have had some problems with Blogger yesterday, so yesterday's entry hasn't been formally published yet. Just as well, since I don't have any new news to report - I got diverted by other business so didn't have a chance to finish preparing the update yesterday as I had planned. Will work on it this evening, however.\

Today's POTD comes from Opera Gloves in the Pinup Art of Fritz Willis; Mr. Willis was the classic pinup artist who, more than any other, liked picturing his beauties in opera gloves. He was a very popular commercial artist as well, and these are two cover illustration from the programs for a 1950's ice pageant:

2003-01-21T05:05:00.000-05:00

Today I'm going to finish making up the rest of the new galleries along with the updated core site files, then start uploading them to the server. Watch this space for updates.

I didn't get to see the Golden Globes on Sunday - was anyone wearing long gloves there?

I'm pulling today's POTD from the seemingly bottomless reserves of Edwardian Celebrities in Opera Gloves; today, we see the famous turn-of-the-century actress Camille Clifford, whose marvelously corseted figure was a model for the Gibson Girl, in a rare opera-gloved pose:

2003-01-20T18:49:00.000-05:00

UPDATE UPDATE: I've finally started (!!) on preparing the HTML galleries - in fact, I'm more than halfway through. I will finish doing the HTML tomorrow and then start uploading.

In anticipation of new material, here's a second picture for you today (that rarest of events!); it comes from The Jane Russell Glove Gallery, and you're looking at La Russell in her famous (or, if you like, notorious) one-piece cutout outfit from "The French Line", which was so hot for its time that the Hollywood censors forced the scene it featured in to be shot from medium range to avoid people getting too good a gander at Jane's assets:

2003-01-20T15:58:00.000-05:00

Sorry I'm late today, opera glove lovers. I have to concede that I've been taking advantage of today's federal holiday to goof off - but then again, I did get some work done; I scanned about fifteen more pictures of Gina Lollobrigida, re-thumbnailed the Lollobrigida collection, and also re-thumbnailed the Brigitte Bardot collection. Everything seems to be just about set for the next update.

Today's POTD is from The Grace Kelly Glove Gallery, and the picture is a splendid formal portrait of Princess Grace of Monaco in full royal regalia accented by one of the creamiest-white pairs of kid opera gloves I've ever seen:

2003-01-19T09:39:00.000-05:00

Bought and installed a Radeon 9000 with 128 MB DDR yesterday; the install went fairly smoothly, though I'm not sure how much performance improvement will result in consequence - there's a bug with VIA motherboard drivers that causes many AGP 4x boards to be limited to AGP 2x, though the word is that there's really no performance difference between the two multipliers at all. I goofed up and spent a good deal more money than I should have on something else (not the Radeon, for which I actually got quite a good price) so I'll probably have to put some stuff up on eBay soon; the good news there is that I have a fair bit of junk that I've acquired over the past couple of months that I have no real use for, but which might fetch a good price.

Let's look at haute couture today. The POTD for Sunday, January 19, 2003, is a classic image of a beauty in a black cut-out halter dress with black satin opera gloves:

2003-01-18T08:08:00.000-05:00

Off to the computer show this morning; I'm undecided as to whether to get a new video card or a new CD-R/RW drive, though right now I'm leaning toward the video card; my current Cyberdrive 16x/12x/40x is a good, serviceable unit and the video card I have right now (ATI Radeon 7200), while very good, is a basic unit which might not be capable of handling the new version of DirectX coming down the pike. Therefore, right now I'm looking at getting a Radeon 8500 or 9000 if I can get a good price; I'm not really interested in nVidia GeForces because I had bad experiences with a GeForce MX440 last summer - though, to be candid, that was probably due to the fact that the no-name 350W power supply I had at the time simply couldn't handle the load, whereas the Antec TruePower 430W behemoth I now have _can_. We'll see.

Today's picture, from The Paulette Goddard Glove Gallery, is a return to classic Hollywood black-and-white glamour photography, showing Ms. Goddard in period costume, including net-veiled hat (I love that type of hat!) and white kid mousquetaires:

2003-01-17T05:15:00.000-05:00

Light coating of snow on the ground this morning; I don't think it'll really impede the commute, especially as this time there was plenty of advance warning and the road crews were (or should have been, for obvious reasons I haven't ventured outdoors yet) on the alert. There's a long holiday weekend coming up, in any case.

I don't think I've featured Jayne Mansfield yet in the POTD series, so I'll remedy that lack today. The source, naturally, is The Jayne Mansfield Glove Gallery, and the item is a very fine portrait (shot from the back, so sorry, no naughty bits!) of Jayne wearing a fur wrap slung low around her waist, a pair of white kid mousquetaires, and a serious expression:

2003-01-16T05:10:00.000-05:00

Feeling pretty groggy this morning, folks; that may be a function of the cold snap we've been having - at least it's supposed to snow again this evening, or maybe not - or I might be coming down with a cold; I guess I really do have what I called yesterday "the January blahs". I did get in another movie via mail yesterday; it turned out not to have anything in the way of usable stuff, but I reviewed another movie (Brigitte Bardot's "Her Bridal Night") and did find several usable scenes.

Again, while groggy, I'm not so groggy as to forego posting today's POTD. I like the fashions of the Napoleonic period (what just about everyone else calls the Regency era, really), so, drawn from The Jacqueline Bisset Glove Gallery, here's a real nice portrait of Jackie B. in her title role in "Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story" (as Josephine, not Napoleon!):

2003-01-15T05:08:00.000-05:00

SSDD (which is a bowdlerized way of a rather profane way of saying that nothing much worth reporting happened yesterday). Traffic was much better yesterday, but it looks like there's going to be some snow here this week, though I don't yet know how much. I'm expecting some new stuff to come in via mail, but it's not here yet and won't likely be here for at least another day or so. And yes, I know, I'm dragging my feet on the update after all my big talk. Call it the January blahs...

I'm not so torpid, though, that I won't post a POTD. Today, from The Marilyn Monroe Glove Gallery, you are seeing a rather rare, very early glamour image (dating from 1949) of MM in black opera gloves on the front lawn of somebody's house:

2003-01-14T05:26:00.000-05:00

Same old same old as yesterday. I really didn't get anything accomplished because I got stuck in traffic on the way home and took more than twice as long to get back as usual; some kind of repair work was being done on a water main or something. Also, a magazine I had been expecting came in today but proved not to have the kind of pictures (i.e., opera-gloved) that I had been expecting/hoping for. Consequently, I wasn't in much of a mood to work on the site when I returned home. Maybe today will be better...

From The Diana Dors Glove Gallery, today's POTD shows "Britain's Marilyn Monroe" black-opera'd in a wicker chair:

2003-01-13T05:24:00.000-05:00

Not much to talk about this morning, but then it's Monday - though it's very cold, if that matters to readers; just the kind of weather for women to put on long gloves.

The POTD for today, as I'm feeling slightly outre, comes from The Dita Von Teese Glove Gallery, and shows everyone's favorite latter-day pinup and burlesque queen on a balcony in Victorian-bordello-style pink-and-black-striped corset and black operas:

2003-01-12T19:26:00.000-05:00

My video capture card is working properly in all respects; I grabbed the glove scenes off "I Can Get It For You Wholesale", the 1950's Susan Hayward classic, today. I also went by a big antique show/flea market and picked up a couple of books with lots of good pictures which I'll be scanning in short order; also found, for almost a literal song, a lovely pair of powder-blue 1950's vintage suede/kid operas which I'm going to set up as a display (it's _extremely_ rare to find opera-length leather gloves, vintage ones, of colors other than white/off-white or black, or sometimes tan).

Getting on to the POTD (which, of course, is late, the reason why having been explained in the previous paragraph), we go back to the zenith of the opera glove, the Edwardian period, with a selection from Opera Gloves in Edwardian Fashion, depicting a plush and curvesome bride in the height of 1900's matrimonial fashion, including snow-white kid opera gloves:

2003-01-11T09:30:00.000-05:00

Well, it turns out I should have put the drives to be worked on on different channels; that would have speeded up the process of data transfer considerably. I probably should also have used disk caching. I'll just have to remember both of those things next time I change a hard drive.

I got in some more stuff today via eBay, so I'm planning to scan that in, also I'm going to be testing my video capture card to make sure it's working properly in the new case. So stand by! Here's the POTD for today, from The Gene Tierney Glove Gallery, showing one of the most beautiful stars of classic Hollywood in an unusually patterned (striped) pair of daytime-style operas circa 1942, when ladies still wore long gloves as part of their chic street wear:

2003-01-10T05:09:00.000-05:00

*groan* All night. Literally all night. That's how long it took to transfer the data on the old secondary hard drive to the new secondary HD - and the truly irritating thing is, there wasn't even all _that_ much of it, only about 20 to 22 GB total on all six of the partitions on the drive. So much for the wonders of ATA100. Bleah. The upside is, I now have lots and lots of storage space (2 x 80 GB Western Digital HDD's) , and my upgrading is finished for now - I hope!! Now to start working - at last - seriously on the update.

At any rate, the process finished in time for me to be able to post today's POTD. From Opera Divas in Opera Gloves, here's a lovely autographed photo of the Italian-American opera star Anna Moffo in black opera gloves as Violetta in "La Traviata":

2003-01-09T05:19:00.000-05:00

Well, last evening I transferred all the innards of my system to the new case. The operation basically went smoothly though I'm still a little worried about the stability of the video capture card, there was a bit of hanging/freezing going on but that might have simply been related to the position of the cable - I moved it a couple of hours ago. Everything appears to be working fine otherwise. The final step is to install the new secondary hard drive, then - at last - get going with the update. (I found fifteen or so new Brigitte Bardot pictures last evening which I'll have to add into the gallery, meaning I need to thumbnail that collection again.)

And speaking of BeBe, she's the subject of today's PotD. From The Brigitte Bardot Glove Gallery comes this perfectly lovely image of the young B.B. (when her hair was as often copper as gold) in bright red strapless gown and white opera gloves looking demurely at herself in the mirror:

2003-01-08T05:24:00.000-05:00

I got all the little parts needed to complete transferring the innards of my system from the old case to the new case, _and_ I found the directions on how to set up front-side USB, so I'm pretty much all set. (Of course, I still don't plan to actually do the deed until this weekend, at which time I also plan to install a new secondary hard drive.) Nothing new to report - _yet_ - on the update.

Just so you don't go away empty, though, I have a new POTD for you today. From The Natalie Wood Glove Gallery, here comes a lovely portrait of Nat in black leather mousquetaires as she appeared in 1964's "Sex and the Single Girl", a fantastic (and increasingly hard-to-find, at least until - and if - it's released on DVD) glove movie:

2003-01-07T05:23:00.000-05:00

I got another computer case last evening. It's a much better one - larger reset button, dual fan emplacements, side window and everything - except for one thing; I don't have the proper size screws for installing a case fan!! Ugh. Gotta go back _again_. Oh, well, I wasn't planning to swap cases until this weekend anyway.

No new news yet on the update, but it's coming!

I do have a POTD to keep you on your toes, though - this comes from The Doris Day Glove Gallery, and shows a sexy, elegant, opera-gloved young Doris in one of her best movies (and best glove movies), "April in Paris":