I'm in love again. And I love love love it.

To be pefectly candid, I was starting to think maybe I'd seen all the major permutations of the novelty print. But this knocked my socks off. ¡Que viva la novelty!

Just look at this well-read lion. The George Burns style spectacles clutch at my heart strings, but the long lashes seal the deal. And just what is this illustration style called? Faux naive? Artful scribble?

Oh, how I want this dress. I may not be able to resist.

I'd love to wear this dress to visit the stone lions that guard the 42nd Street branch of the New York Public Library.

In the movie version of my life, I'd be at an antiquarian book fair in this frock. I'd be examining a beautiful leaf from a 1405 illuminated manuscript of Christine de Pisan's Le livre de la cité des dames when I'd spot something unusal out of the corner of my eye. And what is it? Well, MacGuffin, of course. (Maybe one of the booksellers would even offer to show me a signed first edition of MacGuffin's Beginnings.) One of these little lions would double as the lens of a video camera. I'd turn around, and one of the lions on my back would open one eye, zoom in and start to film. Everything would be recorded on a mini disc kept in the pocket of the dress.

I know, I know, it's more Get Smart than James Bond. But to quote Il Maestro Sondheim: tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight. Who knew that Mel Brooks was so deeply enbedded in my psyche? Saved in the same folder of my brain which holds A Shot in the Dark.

I always loved Maxwell Smart's shoe phone, but it seems like one's face would get awfully dirty using it.

Why are there no novelty cellphones? I guess it took some time to get from Alexander Bell's crank-operated telephones to princess phones in the shape of red lips, but come on product developers, let's get cracking. I'd like a cellphone that looks like a tiny edition of the Tao Te Ching and fit in the pocket of this dress.