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Saturday, September 26, 2009
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Interactive Sunday: Another Bachelor Girl Weekend


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So who was this Lora? A quick search revealed that there was a Lora DiRenzo who graduated from high school in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1946, and a woman of the same name who published a now out of print book of photographs of unknown topics. If she's still around, she'd be around 79 or 80. Did she stay forever a miss? How did her record collection make it all the way to the Pacific? Did she lose interest in the exotica of Les Baxter (best known for arranging the early records Yma Sumac and regaining hipster status in recent years through frequent samplings on Thievery Corporation albums) or does she also have them uploaded in her iPod? Was the woman with amber tinted white hair talking to herself as she ambled up Valencia pushing a shopping cart?
I prefer to believe that Lora is still out there somewhere, still hip and with it eight decades on, sometimes thinking back to her swinging bachelor girl days in 1950s Manhattan when she'd just come back from Haiti photographing traditional voodoo ceremonies. I picture her putting on a track like "Sway (Quien Era)" from Caribbean Moonlight while having a getting-ready-to-go martini before heading out with some friends to hear Dexter Gordon or Sonny Rollins play at some smoky downtown club until her eyes made contact with some charming yet slightly dodgy guy in a black turtleneck who'd just arrived from Lima.
What's your story on Lora?

Labels: 1950s, bachelor girls, dating, Manhattan, Music