HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016!

A TRIBUTE TO BURT BACHARACH and HAL DAVID (SOME OF MY FAVORITE LOVE SONGS!)

DREAMING DOE

DECLARATION FOR MISTRESSES - Time for Spiritual Self

"I may be very busy, but I must create time for my spiritual self, even if it's just 20 minutes a day!"

A stereotype of mistresses is that they have little of importance to do (other than body and beauty maintenance) and that they mostly do a lot of waiting around for their man to visit.
While that's true for some, today all it takes to qualify as overbusy is to be a woman. 

TIME in itself is often easy to schedule. You can get up fifteen minutes earlier or maybe use the time you sit waiting in traffic on the freeway to some good use, you think.  But the time for the spiritual self is not so easy to find.  Because this time must be focused only on you, and your relationship to a Higher Power, the Great Spirit, or God, or Goddess, or perhaps your angel, however you may name it or think of it.  Many women find themselves too frazzled and anxious to meditate,  they feel worried, and their prayers are mostly for other people.

As you make your resolutions for 2016, think about your spirituality.  Everyone has potential for it, no matter what their life is.

C 2015 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

DEER WITH BIRDS IN HIS ANTLERS

 

from Imgkid / Google Images Vintage

DIANA KRALL - PEEL ME A GRAPE

HE'S A DEER

ADVICE TO A YOUNG WIFE FROM AN OLD MISTRESS as told to MICHAEL DRURY (a woman) : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

FOUR DIRECTIONS PRESS on ADVICE TO A YOUNG WIFE FROM AN OLD MISTRESS as told to MICHAEL DRURY

EXCERPT: Michael Drury, despite her name, is a woman who was both a free-lance writer and author of several books. She grew up north of San Francisco, graduated from Stanford University, and went on to write for Harper's and Life. This work had originally been published by Doubleday in the 1960s and in demand for 20 years. 

(I note that it is still available on the internet.)

 

BOOK REVIEW BY MISSY

MISTRESS MANIFESTO

 

There is an elegance to the language and a lovingness to the philosophy in this book that is irresistible.  The book is also short but sweet.

 

 "A mistress always knows more than she says to anyone - to other women, to the man in her life, even to herself.  A good woman friend is a marvel, and at times it is wisdom to air one's brains; it unheats them.  But a woman who habitually complaints against a man is quibbling.  Either live with him, and hold your tongue, or act, but don't harp, unless you really mean to keep from being loved.  High praise is no better taste or any less fatal.  Nobody wants his virtues advertised.  A liaison has discretion imposed upon it, but a marriage license is not a permit for publicity."  (Page 37) 

 

"For all her infraction of the rules, a mistress is much more integrated into the larger designs of living than the average wife.  She is not, like a wife, isolated, physically or mentally or emotionally, and thus cornered into defending her own importance.  A mistress is often a very great friend, but she never tries to be a pal or substitute for men friends.  It is simply not the same order of relationship, and she recognizes and defends the right of other orders to exist - partly because she has and needs others for herself.  She is perhaps more like a man, in his human characteristics, that a wife is." (Page 37) 

C 2015  All Rights Reserved  Missy Rapport/ Mistress Manifesto Blogspot

 

 

THE GIFT OF A SMALL TREE

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE FICTION MISTRESS IN LITERATURE? MISSY ASKS YOU!

Mistresses make for very popular fiction in literature and in films.  I think that in literature especially this is because so many women have the fantasy of being a mistress themselves, whatever their actual circumstances in life. 

Do you have a favorite fiction mistress and what do you like about her?

WALKING AGAINST THE WIND

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S - A KEPT MAN and A WOMAN WHO PAYS HER RENT WITH TIPS

IMDb BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S

 

AUDREY HEPBURN BECAME A FASHION ICON WHEN GIVENCHY

DRESSED HER FOR THE ROLE OF A WAIF WHO

REINVENTED HERSELF TO BE A SOCIETY GIRL.

 

The film came out in 1961 and is

considered a Classic Romantic Comedy but it funny?

 

The novel was written by Truman Capote.

Holly Golightly, a character writer Truman Capote is said to have loosely based on his own divorced mother's search for a new husband, is an adventurer in New York City who came from a hard, impoverished background that included being orphaned and then married at 14.  Run away to New York City, she depends on her youth, beauty, and personality, to survive and hopes to live her life the wife of a rich worldy man.  To do that she must dress right, make friends, and be seen in all the right places.  Is she really fooling anyone though when she jams all her posh friends into a plain apartment?

She has a neighbor, a once published author, make that writer, who needs a patron and has one, a rich married woman.  His keeper has furnished and designed his apartment and he has a closet of beautiful suits she has gifted him.  He spends his days on call and awaiting her visits.  He's kept.

 

These two, Holly and the writer, discover they understand each other enough to be friends and to not hold their lifestyles against each other, so in the scene where they actually enter the exclusive and expensive store, Tiffany's, and go shopping, it's humbling that all they can afford is to have something he already owns engraved. They've both had a taste of the life they can't afford on their own to lead but facing reality leads to real, realistic love.

 

The writer's break up with his rich married keeper is cold.  He gives her attitude. She needs to remind him that he was bought.  No love there.  Just sex on call.  (The worst!)  Holly's final goodbye to her ex husband is handled by her with more sophistication, while he leaves no doubt he was Mr. Wrong all along.

 

Holly is nearing prostitution, though she herself doesn't think of the enormous tips men present her so she can tip the washroom attendants at exclusive restaurants they take her to, as being paid for sex or the promise of sex.  She is a unique combination of pragmatic, goal-oriented, and a dreamer.  She has retained some of her innocence.  The film is careful to show her deferring promises, such as that she might actually pose nude, so we don't actually know if she has slept with anyone or is just expert at being an experienced woman who can keep men hoping.  Her men knowingly over tip her and remind her that she owes them.   She uses the money to just make her rent.  Dinner's out keep her from starving though, she sure is skinny.  The  text on the box of the old VHS tape I rewatched this film with calls her a "playgirl," but I think that might be a 1961 word choice.

 

Holly has goals and while she has not entirely escaped her past or lost her ability to feel, her precarious and financially desperate situation begs a resolution.  Snobbed because of her reputation, "settling," for the writer isn't so bad after all.

C 2015 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights.

QUESTION FOR MISSY! COULD YOU COMMENT ON THE PRODUCTS YOU USE?

QUESTION FOR MISSY

Hi Missy!

You post on books about style and fashion and cosmetics and made some commentary on cosmetic surgery as well.  So I'm wondering if you could reveal more about your own personal tastes.  What's on your vanity table?  What should I go out and buy?

Roger


ANSWER FROM MISSY

For you or your boyfriend?

OK, Roger, I'll have some fun with your question.

I don't have a vanity table that I sit down at with a big mirror lined with light bulbs!  I try to apply my cosmetics with natural light streaming through the window. I know what you mean though.  Some magazines feature the products that a particular celebrity uses, so I'll pretend I'm one.

Most of the winter I wear the perfume Opium by YSL - YSL OPIUM which I love because of the warm spicy scent.  But for spring and summer, I prefer Flower Bomb by Viktor and Rolf - VIKTOR_ROLF FLOWER BOMB.  Once in a while I get in the mood to wear a perfume called Giorgio of Beverly Hills (not to be confused with Armani) - GIORGIO BEVERLY HILLS).  I think the scent  is just glorious, but it's a bit heavy for popular taste now.  Think high summer, white clothes.  Also I have a neroli oil spritz and a sandalwood oil spritz.  Overall, I don't like to announce my presence with too powerful a perfume. It can be rude when people are allergic or forced to smell a chaos of scents from too many people in a room or just one person with it piled on.

Men sometimes wear too much scent too, with their armpits screaming eucalyptus, their cheeks and neck something else...  I think a man should smell - clean - with just a little on his neck to inhale when you kiss him.  Frank Sinatra liked Ivory Soap. 

So, there are two philosophies about  buying scent:

1) You go out and buy what you like the smell of and wear it because after all, you have to smell it too.

2) You wear the scent that your lover bought for you because he or she likes the smell of  you wearing it.

A compromise?  Wear what he bought you on dates.

As you can tell from reading my posts, I advocate as natural look as possible for daytime, using cosmetics to enhance.  I haven't had cosmetic surgery but I read about it and look at the before and after pictures.  I always wonder how fabulously wealthy celebrities, or at least well connected ones who have so many friends who've had surgery, manage to get botched up jobs!  Can't they get good referrals and afford the best?

I've been giving myself clay based facials for years and think they do wonders for your skin, not just because they help you deep clean and buff the skin when you wash them off with a soft cloth, but because of what they do for your facial skin circulation.  I buy clay based facials from the Freeman line - none of them expensive.    Here is a link to FREEMAN FACIAL PRODUCTS ; I use several products on this page.

I see no reason why men shouldn't use clay facials.

After your skin has had nothing but air on it for a few hours after the "mud pack," particularly before you go to bed, you'll probably want to use a light moisturizing cream on it.

I'm a total fan of OPI AVOJUICE  I even use it on my face.  Their entire line of nail polishes and other products are aimed at hands and feet and manicures so I'D LOVE FOR THEM TO MAKE AVOJUICE UNSCENTED.  (Hey OPI, can you send me some free samples?)  I use natural polish on short nails.  I don't like talons or art galleries on my nails.

I use GARNIER BB CREAM.  Ditto.  (But men, be careful as it will rub off on your collar and inside your hat band!)

So many products have some sun screen in them, but I don't wear sun screen on a daily basis or try to get a tan.  I just get tan living life.  I only wear sun screen if I'm going to be outdoors in a pool.

My favorite lipsticks are from REVLON.  They have an amazing inventory of colors to choose from.  I choose colors that are close to my natural lip color, or just a bit darker.  I don't like the Vampire look.  Recently though I tried an inexpensive lip crayon from Wet and Wild, and for less than $3 it really did seem to last four hours.   - Missy

Image from Graphics Fairy

 

 

C 2015  Missy Rapport/ Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved

MISTLETOE

Mistletoe by Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886) illustrated the 1892 book Old Christmas

MISTRESS MANIFESTO - HOLIDAY EDITION 2015

Hello my faithful readers!

I want to thank you for reading MISTRESS MANIFESTO - BLOGSPOT, my pet project for some years now, that focuses on the unconventional and alternative lifestyles of the Mistress and various others who don't restrict themselves to traditional two-partner marriage, while trying to define the term "mistress" in the here and now. 

2015 was another successful year for this Blog and, as I've said before, I will continue to write it so long as I'm learning and enjoying myself at the same time.  I'm so glad there are many mistress-interested readers out there!

This time of year - the Holidays - is generally a down-time for most blogs.  People don't have as much time to read them or write them as we race to complete a year and get to the next one, often with much celebration in the process.  That's why in December I take a vacation from the Mistress of the Month thematics and get into the holidays too.

But I do have some good candidates for Mistresses of the Month for 2016, so I hope however busy you are, you will at least bookmark this site and come back in January!

I look at what the Google Analytics is telling me about my reader's interests but, I have to say that at this point I think that the hits are heavily influenced by what a particular search engine chooses to feature under the heading MISTRESS MANIFESTO.  My all time hit-making post at this point is the one on the two women who called themselves the wife of deceased rock star-singer-poet JIM MORRISON of THE DOORS.  I may have outdone myself on that subject, but there are plenty of other interesting topics in the archives.

Overall, it seems my readers are more interested in 20th and 21st century mistresses than the women who were kept by Kings in previous centuries, and while I think the HISTORY of Courtesans and Kept Women is important to our understanding of women's roles in and surrounding marriage, and I don't forget that gay people keep and are kept too, I will try to keep that in mind as I select candidates to write about in 2016.  I'm going to keep running the GUIDE so new readers can go back to the months they feel most interested in.

Someone asked me recently how far in advance I work this blog.  The truth is that, while I have postponed a featured subject once or twice, and have cancelled one because I became unconvinced that she was a mistress and it was just the press erroneously using the term on anyone who has ever had a fling or affair,  and always have ideas and am in the process of reading around someone, I  tend not to make final decisions until very close to the beginning of a month.  The most delayed subject was the Mistresses of comedian Bob Hope, which I finally did this past year after a couple years of holding off.

Let's get moving towards these last weeks of the year, as the days become shorter and the nights darker.   This month I'll do a review of a book I've had in my personal collection for some time that I think all Mistresses and Mistress-interested people should read and discuss a famous classic movie that features a kept man and a woman who has several men contributing to her support.

I wish you happy ones, full of sweet romance and longing!

Missy