Manolo says, over at the Manolo for the Big Girl, Ms. Plumcake asks,

What do we think of the tradition of the fiancé asking Big Daddy’s permission before popping the question? Is it a sweet gesture or patronizing insult?

Manolo says, the Manolo has down the comprehensive interview on the subject of glamour with his internet friend, and all-around smart person, Virginia Postrel for her blog Deep Glamour.

Here is the little portion of what awaits when you go to read the whole thing.

1) How do you define glamour?

Glamour is the peculiar and elusive characteristic that combines, in unspecified and unspecifiable proportions, the qualities of charisma, style, beauty, desirability, confidence, rarity, and mysteriousness. In fact, it is almost impossible to fully define what makes something glamorous. As with the Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of obscenity, we have trouble defining glamour, but know it when we see it.

Having said that, the Manolo further avers that of all the previously mentioned characteristics, the most important are beauty and mysteriousness.

That which can be held closely and examined intimately loses its glamour, which is why the most glamorous of persons (Jackie O, Greta Garbo, Lord Byron, Galla Placidia, Cleopatra, Sappho) have always had something wonderfully opaque about them. Their motives are not well known, perhaps even to themselves, and thus it is this mysteriousness that in large part makes them glamorous. Likewise without beauty, such mysteriousness does not fully compel us.

By this definition, to be glamorous is to be extraordinary, perhaps even uncanny, unheimlich, if you will; the exact opposite of ordinary. What makes someone glamorous cannot be fully and clearly comprehended.

[…]

7) Most glamorous place?

Can the place be glamorous? Yes, but only until you visit it, and then your illusions of glamour are dispelled by the mundane things of the everyday world that you cannot help but notice, like traffic jams, and garbage collection, and sewers that back up when it rains too much. Thus Venice is glamorous, until the breeze off the Adriatic brings in the smell of rotting fish and raw sewage, at which point it is like Hoboken with better architecture.

And so, the Manolo would have to say, that for him, the current most glamorous place in the world is Saint Petersburg, but only because he has never been there.

As the footnote, the Manolo must explain that romantic and glamorous are not the same. The place like Venice, which sometimes smells of rotting fish, or Paris, where the traffic is sometimes horrific, are still terribly romantic, while Hoboken will never be romantic, even if it were to smell constantly of roses and freshly roasted coffee.

There is, of the course, much, much more.

Manolo says, it is Tuesday, time to see what the Manolo is…

Watching…

Reading…

The Manolo cannot believe that he has not seen the Sideways movie before this. Truly, this was the significant gap in his cinematic education, now rectified by the Argentine cable channels’ mania for showing movies in their entirety, uncensored, in the original language with the subtitles.

The movie was enjoyable and well-made, and rang mostly true, if annoying in places. However, what made most enjoyable for the Manolo was how well it shows one of the Manolo’s favorite places in California, the Santa Ynez valley in the northern part of Santa Barbara County, where the Manolo has been many times since the early 1980s, and where he has many friends.

Prominently featured was the justifiably famous Hitching Post in Buellton, where the Manolo has eaten many times (although not nearly as many, it should be noted, as he has eaten in the remoter original Hitching Post in the tiny hamlet of Casmalia).

Until the Manolo’s recent removal to Buenos Aires, the Manolo considered the Santa Ynez and Santa Maria Valleys to be the place where one could obtain the best steaks in the world, and ranked three of the steakhouses in that region: The original Hitching Post, F. McClintocks, and the Far Western Tavern to be among the top four steak restaurants anywhere, the lone outsider being Peter Luger in Brooklyn. (Other contenders for the throne, drawn chiefly from among the over-priced and masculinely kitschy New York and Chicago steak houses, whom the Manolo declines to name, are more for the show than the actual go, being more for taking the clients to impress them than otherwise. And do not get the Manolo started on that entire Ruth’s Chris nonsense.)

These past few weeks in Buenos Aires are forcing the Manolo to reevaluate his opinions regarding beef and how it is to be eaten. And he has not even tried those three our four restaurants which are considered the best parrillas in the city! Still, seeing this movie the other night has invited this comparison, one which the Manolo is still weighing.

Manolo asked, whose shoes?

Manolo answers, it is the Barbara Stanwyck!

Congratulations to the Manolo’s internet friend Long Island, who was able to get this week’s celebrity straight away.