When the retailer and Dickensian philanthropist Milton Petrie died last month, at age 92, he left his wife, Carroll, a trust fund of $150 million, an awesome array of real estate, planes, cars, jewelry, art and antiques, and an example of extravagant and eccentric giving almost impossible to live up to.
For me, it is what I deem to be the Pressburger ingredient in the films that make these eccentric, extravagant, intelligent and witty fantasies so fascinating.
Nemacolin is a deliriously wacky, eccentric, extravagant, homey, friendly, fun whirlwind of a place, and should you be caught in a storm here, you'll have days upon days worth of things to do, and some of the best wine and food to keep you satisfied.
The Marble House, the eccentric and extravagant TriBeCa triplex that embodies one man's ode to all of the design possibilities inherent in marble, especially the Carrara variant, sold for $9,466,099.64 and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.
"He's even more extravagant than me in his eccentric way," she says.
In Europe, an artist can embody the aspirations of a nation; in America, an artist is an entertainer with "eccentric foibles and extravagant needs".
When I was growing up in New Orleans in the 1960's, a parade of singers sang versions of "Stagger Lee" at proms and dance halls across town: the supreme Aaron Neville, the eccentric Professor Longhair, the extravagant Ernie K-Doe -- though only Professor Longhair, among those three, ever recorded it.
The Summer Olympics are the extravagant, more celebrated cousin of the cozy, eccentric Winter Games, which embrace a sport like curling, perhaps best described as boccie on ice with a broom.
David Jeffries of AllMusic called Yeezus an "extravagant stunt with the high-art packed in, offering an eccentric, audacious, and gripping experience that's vital and truly unlike anything else".
But while he was right to place himself in the couture tradition of Chanel and Balenciaga -- here and there with an extravagant sleeve or an evening wrap puffing off the shoulder -- the eccentric creature he was imagining still belongs to another time.
