Get Happy

This is Phyllis Diller! Isn't she beautiful? I was listening to the Pink Martini album, Get Happy, and the last song came on: "Smile" by Charlie Chaplin. (Yes, Charlie Chaplin! From Modern Times!) Anyhoo, I thought, "I know that voice!"

Sure enough, it was her.

It is her smile, isn't it, that makes her so beautiful. The light coming from her, an openness.

Phyllis Diller was on my mind, since I recently read We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy, by Yael Kohen, which reminded me that many funny women also sang. Wikipedia told me about Diller's actual background in piano. And the Pink Martini notes (on the back of Polaroids) told me "Smile" was her last recording. Oh, thank you, Pink Martini, and thank you, too, for the song "Get Happy," done in Judy Garland & Barbra Streisand style, that is, together with "Happy Days are Here Again," but here it's China Forbes and Rufus Wainwright. (I do like him, even though he whines.) Thank you because I needed to get happy (hunks of snow still and again falling, together with ice pellets, another duet) and the song was over the top and I burst into tears! But I got happy. On a Blue Monday. That's gray.