ARIES IN RED #19

Jezebel: Aries in Red #13

Aries often steps forth with spirited conviction and brings about disastrous consequences. In Jezebel, just for wearing a red gown to the All-White Cotillion, Bette Davis is inundated with humiliation and catastrophe.

Aries in red #8

Clearly Sarah Jessica Parker has a new nose, which has been discussed and analyzed extensively on the web, and I think she should be included in any list of Aries celebrities with disconcerting facial features. Bear in mind that Aries pertains to the face and head. I've already noted J. P. Morgan' famous, scary nose and the powerful eyebrows of Joan Crawford and Henry Paulson. (I keep an eye on Barney frank's Aries eyebrows; and btw happy birthday to Nancy Pelosi.)  And I've recently discerned that Aries atheist Daniel DennettDaniel Dennett in red and Aries author Donald Barthelme (who wrote a notable treatment of "Little Red Riding Hood") Donald Barthelme partake of their sunsign not only in their exploration of solipsism, but in their cultivation of aggressively annoying beards. But back to Sarah Jessica Parker's nose, I am not alone in regarding it the elephant in the room. Witness:I'm forced to bring up Sarah's nose, because of the uncanny echo (chills) of Nikolai Gogol's exemplary tale, The Nose, in which that facial organ separates itself from the head of a civil servant, takes on a mysterious identity of its own, and wreaks havoc in the streets of Saint Petersburg. Gogol was, of course, an Aries (of the red-headed, dipsomaniacal, madman-type like Swinburne, Baudelaire and Van Gogh) one of the few people in all of 19th century Russia with a sense of humor. He himself had a long nose. Here as always astrology indiscriminately circulates its imagery through high and low culture.

Aries in red #7

Sarah Jessica Parker was the third to wear the red dress.

Scarlet women (#6)

Red signifies prostitution is codified in 17th century French legal code and in "scarlet woman" and "red light district". Here are two Aries actresses playing mother and daughter putting on the red in a grim tale of teenage prostitution, Freeway.Reese Witherspoon and Amanda Plummer

Holiday in Red (#5)

Joseph Stone supplied this red rendition of Billie Holiday.

She tells an unforgetable story about a red dress in her autobiography, "Lady Sings the Blues":

When you did something against the rules [in the Catholic institution], at least they didn't beat you . . .

When you were being punished you got a raggedy red dress to wear. When you wore this dress none of the other girls were supposed to go near you or speak to you.

I'll never forget the first girl I saw wear the dress. She was a real wild one and she was alone in the backyard, standing on a swing. She kept swinging higher and higher, shouting and hollering, swinging higher and higher. She worked so hard she was puffing and huffing. And the kids stood around watching her, all eyes.

The Mother Superior tried to keep the kids moving and break up the crowd of gawking girls. The girl in the raggedy red dress kept on swinging and screaming. I guess she figured as long as she stayed up there on the swing no one could touch her. The Mother Superior just looked at ther, then she turned to a group of us and said: "Just remember, God will punish her."

In a few seconds there was a terrible jerk. As she swing to the highest point she could make on the swing, the chair broke and the girl flew through the air. Then there was a terrible thud and then nothing. When they found her, her neck was broken.

The first time I wore the red dress was at Easter.

Aries in Red #4

Isn't it astonishing that Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Bessie Smith, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday are all Aries? Not to mention Alberta Hunter, Pearl Bailey and Mariah Carey. Aries Maya Angelou'a autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", evokes the nascent soul, emprisoned in the negations of blackness and femaleness.