A Face Like Garbo's

"She is like a lovely wilde-wood animal...or a child." -
Photographer Edward Steichen on Garbo. His 1929 photograph of her for Vanity Fair is widely reproduced.

While I take a break from inputting Garbo data into a new Google map, I want to talk about my dog depicted here. While out walking today, a man came up beside me and started chatting about the beauty of my dog. When he asked about her breed, I told him that she was predominately a mixture of rottweiler and chowchow but with a little shepherd tossed into the mix. He said that he thought her coloring was "rare" in its beauty, but he could also see in her a slight intimidating quality. The phrase "femme fatale" came to me, a description sometimes used in respect to Garbo.

This conversation about my dog is repeated each and every day. The toughest dudes in the park will look up and comment, "That's a beautiful dog!" I've seen young women put their hands over their gaping mouths when they spot my dog, like they just saw Johnny Depp. A woman tending to flowers in a nearby community garden went into raptures when she saw my big pretty dog. In a refined English accent, she commented, and with great effect, drawing out and enunciating each word, "Nature...shall...never...copy...that...face...again."
Dinnertime conversation at our house often includes stories about what people said that day about the dog.

Beyond the perfect symmetry and color of her features, the dog exudes a slight air of weariness and caution. If a stranger approaches too close, she's more than happy to act like a trained killer. I love this quality about her. Garbo had it, too.

The dog that I left in the elevator is a fox terrier. He's cute, but he's forever upstaged by the beautiful dog of diverse heritage who spent her formative months in the pound.

See complete Garbo Walks.

Image: BearBear, pastel drawing by WOTBA