Kinda of Warm and Fuzzy

By now you've probably got the idea I'm pretty (read 'very') addicted to images of (non-human) animals.

And so when Alan down there in Florida put some my way this morning, I just couldn't resist ...





And three I hope not too saccharine sweet images ...




... to finish off.

I don't know about you, but I've got the serious warm and fuzzies!

Rudolph Valentino - A Curious Little Tease

Not quite sure what I have here - I guess a publicity teaser, yet again reconstructing the idea of 'The Great Lover'.

Whatever, I find it curiously erotic!

After getting out of his car ...


... Valentino gives one of those desperately self-conscious stretches - exactly as a lot of guys (including me) do in a gay bar just before they say 'Do you cum here often?


After a quick survey and in a prelude to things to come ...


... he takes off his jacket ...


... and goes back to his car ...


... giving some pretty good bubble butt on the way ...



Then Valentino strip teases, unbuttoning his collar ...



... and then his shirt ...



... before getting his suspenders (braces) off his trousers ...



Vulnerable - unbuttoned and with his arms up and back as he peels off his braces - he notices us.

And we can almost smell, on this hot summer day, the sweat of his armpits on his freshly ironed cotton shirt.


Valentino feigns coy modesty ...


... but we sense more an erotic invitation ...


... as he draws down the blind ...



Enhanced by what we now know of Valentino's sexual orientations, I get a real strong homoerotic charge from this footage! Call me crazy ... but!

It's that he's seductive but essentially passive - a dynamite combination for me. You'd need to take all the initiative - from getting into the back seat with him on.

Images can of course only say so much - it's really all about the movie ...

... don't you think?

PS I'm also entranced by the gorgeously shiny paintwork of the car!

News Flash - Postscript to 'Being a Dompteuse de Cirque Is One Answer'

I've just added a postscript to 'Being a Dompteuse de Cirque Is One Answer' - a re-post of an interview I included within 'A Real Cracker of a Story' (LINK).

It is discussion on French television in 1967 with Prince Felix Yusupov about his involvement in the assassination of Gregori Rasputin.

Being A Dompteuse de Cirque Is One Answer

Just how would you go about your life were you the daughter of one of history's, shall we say, less warm-and-fuzzy characters?



Maria (1898-1977) ...



... and her younger sister Varvara were the two daughters of Gregori Rasputin and are perhaps photographed here with their father ...


Maria's less than commonplace story is told in an excellent French documentary I was watching last night - 'Memoires d'Exil: L'autre Russie', which can be found in seven parts on You Tube or alternatively at BluePlayer.com (LINK).

It examines the phenomenon of the White Russian exile, where there is not only separation from country but from a class culture that in fact no longer exists - except in the hot house form of expatriate communities.

There are interviews with a number of descendants of that part of the aristocracy which survived the Revolution. And a great deal of archival film I've not seen before.

Extraordinarily, there is extant footage of Maria Rasputin.

First, she is seen filmed in an open courtyard - at a distance and then closer up. Rather unfortunately, the script writers of this documentary attempt to find in the footage a hypnotic stare to consolidate Maria's connection to the 'mad monk' ...


Rasputin's daughter must have been somewhat complicit in this as she planned her future to depend on the connection.

We then see Maria working life as a 'Dompteur de Cirque' ('Circus Animal Trainer') ...





... with some wonderful close ups towards the end ...



Of course a post like this would be nothing without the footage itself and so without further delay ...

Hope you find Maria Rasputin as compelling and sympathetic as I did.

And in fact, the whole of 'Memoires d'Exil: L'autre Russie' is well worth the watch.

Postscript

A while back I did a post - 'A Real Cracker of a Story' (LINK) - around an interview in 1967 with Prince Felix Yusupov and his wife Princess Irina Alexandrovna, niece of Tsar Nicholas II.

I thought I'd post the interview again here ...

... as it was the Prince who, with accomplices, assassinated Rasputin.

And it was in this year of his death that he first publicly talked about this momentous event.

More Than a Modicum of Levity?

I generally hate, and I do mean hate (even eschew!), jokes of this kind - the type that are almost certainly set-ups. The ' students' ' handwriting just shouts 'ADULT!!!'

After I'd pee-ed my pants over the first few, I overcame myself (!), thought 'What the heck!' and went about posting ...












To be roaring away with tears running down my face, I either have a very 'low' (said in the approved Bette Midler manner of 'Divine Madness') sense of humour or I'm in a very strange mood tonight.

Neither option seems particularly attractive!!!