April 30, 2007

Adventures in American Filmmaking #73


Today's Adventure: Francis Ford Coppola articulates his vision for Apocalypse Now

Men of the West #7


George O'Brien

They Were Collaborators #302


I.A.L. Diamond and Billy Wilder

Kansas City Confidential #3


Mary Lou Williams

Relevant Quote #86


"My master heard me with great appearances of uneasiness in his countenance; because doubting, or not believing, are so little known in this country, that the inhabitants cannot tell how to behave themselves under such circumstances. And I remember, in frequent discourses with my master concerning the nature of manhood in other parts of the world, having occasion to talk of lying and false representation, it was with much difficulty that he comprehended what I meant, although he had otherwise a most acute judgment. For he argued thus: 'that the use of speech was to make us understand one another, and to receive information of facts; now, if any one said the thing which was not, these ends were defeated, because I cannot properly be said to understand him; and I am so far from receiving information, that he leaves me worse than in ignorance; for I am led to believe a thing black, when it is white, and short, when it is long.' And these were all the notions he had concerning that faculty of lying, so perfectly well understood, and so universally practised, among human creatures."
-- Jonathan Swift

April 29, 2007

The Art of Cinema #212

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Kika
(Pedro Almodóvar; 1993)

Artists in Action #181

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Marianne Faithful poses with a dalmation

When Legends Gather #243

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Nico and Brian Jones at the Monterrey Pop festival.

Through the lens of Cyril Arapoff #5

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A group of boys outside a second-hand shop in the vacinity of Aldgate.

From the Sketch Book of Lawson Wood #12

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A land breeze

The Art of the London Underground #17

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Untitled by Charles Pears; 1915

The Art of Travel #5

They Were Collaborators #301


Bill Haley and The Comets

The Art of Socialism #5


Appeal to Reason subscription renewal receipt (1907)

April 28, 2007

Watch the Skies! #1


Italy (1960)

Before and After #62:
Hannah Arendt

Before


After

The Art of Pop #8


Mood to Be Wooed
(Sammy Davis, jr.)
(Decca Records; 1958)

When Legends Gather #242


Elvis Presley, Tennessee Williams, Col. Tom Parker, Laurence Harvey and Hal Wallis

The Cool Hall of Fame #75


Charles Mingus

They Were Collaborators #300


Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Artists in Action #180


Jean Cocteau picks out a tune. Perhaps Smoke Gets In Your Eyes?

April 27, 2007

The Art of Jazz #36


Showcase
(Philly Joe Jones)
(Riverside records; 1959)

The Art of Songwriting #17


Dapper Dan from Dear Old Dixieland
Music: Albert von Tilzer
Lyrics: Lew Brown
(Broadway Music Corp; 1921)

April 26, 2007

Ziegfeld Girls #1


Hazel Forbes

This is the City . . . #11


Hollywood Boulevard (1956)

Seminal Image #646


Koroshi no rakuin
(Branded to Kill)
(Seijun Suzuki; 1967)

(a big and enthusiastic thanks to Nate Bundy of Real Political Face Talk for this image)

G is for Gedney #7


Storage area for street signs (1955)

The Present Day Composer #42


Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)

April 25, 2007

The Native-Americana of Edward S. Curtis #5


Geronimo -- Apache (1905)

April 24, 2007

The Art of Cinema #211


Cabiria
(Giovanni Pastrone; 1914)

Kansas City Confidential #2


Thomas Pendergast

Artists in Action #179


John Wayne signs an autograph

They Were Collaborators #299


Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family

April 23, 2007

David Halberstam Dead at 73


For those among us who despair at the dwlindling number of writers who can truly wield a sentence, some extremely sad news crosses the wires this evening: David Halberstam was killed earlier today in an automobile accident in Menlo Park, CA.

He was, as the obituaries would say, 73.

Of course, he was more than just another New Journalist (though he was among the finest of that species), and more than just a best-selling author with a Pulitzer all his own. Covering the earliest stages of the United States' invasion of South Vietnam for The New York Times, Halberstam's dispatches were so blunt in their portrait of the rapidly deteriorating Diem regime, and so at variance with Washington's own version of events, that then-President John F. Kennedy had the Times' publisher, Arthur Ochs 'Punch' Sulzberger, reassign his ass to the Paris desk (and that's where he went). But he went on. With 1965's The Making of a Quagmire and the majestic The Best and the Brightest (1972), Halberstam established himself as the only journalist in America who could grasp the full spectrum of that blood-soaked folly in Southeast Asia; seeing it as no less than the demonic spawn of third-rate academics fashioning themselves into an intellectual/managerial elite.

True, he wasn't the only journalist in Vietnam to openly challenge the official line in his reporting (in fact, the above photo, from 1963, shows Halberstam, on the left, with two of the others: Malcolm Browne of the Associated Press and fellow Times maverick Neil Sheehan), and you could never call him a radical with a straight face. But he always devoted himself, even when his work reached a nadir of relevance (his books on Baseball are . . . problematic), to getting the story in all its protean detail.

I think you would agree that the contrast to our present-day reportorial class . . . those J-school grads who content themselves with the magic tricks of CentCom handouts and Pentagon briefings . . . is incalculable.

Women of Paris #2


Sylvia Beach

The Cool Hall of Fame #74


Ricky Nelson

The Children of Lewis Hine #3


School store almost ready to open
(Lawton, OK; 1917)

April 22, 2007

Seminal Image #645


Jack the Giant Killer
(Nathan Juran; 1962)

A Is For Arbus #38


Mae West (January 1965)

Collect 'Em All #27


Claudette Colbert
(No. 12 in a series of 50 from Player's Navy Cut Cigarettes)

Claudette Colbert was born in Paris on September 13th, 1905, and christened Claudette Cauchoin. In 1913 she moved with her family to America, and finished off her education in New York by attending an art school, where a chance meeting with a playwright resulted in a small part in a new production. This was in 1924 and she quickly won fame on Broadway. Her first film, a silent, was made between stage productions in New York, and after two talkies she was given a Hollywood contract. Among her latest successes are It Happened One Night, Cleopatra and Imitation of Life.

Kansas City Confidential #1


Jay McShann

Newspaper(wo)men #13


Adela Rogers St. Johns

Artists in Action #178


George Bernard Shaw holds up a wooden plank

Vietnam: Dramatis Personae #8


Tran Le Xuan (aka Madame Nhu)

April 21, 2007

The Art of the Centerfold #32


Pamela Anne Gordon
(Miss March, 1962)

April 20, 2007

When Legends Gather #241


Charlton Heston, Sidney Poitier, James Baldwin, Marlon Brando
and Harry Belafonte

The Best of Edward Penfield #2

The Art of Wellness #8

C is for Cunningham #2


The Three Ages of Woman (1972)

April 19, 2007

Seminal Image #644
People Who Died #35


Robert Harron in True Heart Susie
(D.W. Griffith; 1919)

(I never bought the 'accidental' shooting story. I'm amazed anyone ever did)

This Week's Lichtenstein #7


Drowning Girl (1963)

Kitty Carlisle Hart Dies at 96
Seminal Image #643
They Were Collaborators #298


Kitty Carlisle Hart and Harpo Marx get cosy in A Night at the Opera.
(Sam Wood; 1935)

Ms. Hart's New York Times obituary can be found here.

April 18, 2007

They Were Collaborators #297


The Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Seminal Image #642


The Duellists
(Ridley Scott; 1977)

(stupendous thanks to Nate Bundy for this here image)

The Art of Adolescence #7

The Cool Hall of Fame #73


Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy

April 17, 2007

Seminal Image #641


The World's Greatest Sinner
(Timothy Carey; 1962)

Relevant Quote #85


"I get drunk, I get mad, I get thrown from horses, I get all sorts of things.
But I don't get edited. I'd rather see my wife get fucked by the stableboy."
-- William Faulkner

Through the lens of Cyril Arapoff #4

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A view from the steps of the National Gallery, looking towards St. Martin's Church.

The Art of the London Underground #16

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Untitled by A. E. Cox; 1919

From the Sketch Book of Lawson Wood #11

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Design for poster to advertise "The White Prophet".

Seminal Image #640

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Lawrence of Arabia
(David Lean; 1962)

April 16, 2007

Ancient Voices #16


Fred Van Eps

Men of the West #6


Tim McCoy

Broadcasters #17


Studs Terkel

The Art of Communism #14

They Were Collaborators #296

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Alain Resnais and Chris Marker

The Art of Cinema #210

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On the Waterfront
(Elia Kazan; 1954)

When Legends Gather #240

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Ingrid Bergman, Roberto Rosellini and family

April 15, 2007

C is for Cunningham #1


Three Dancers; Mills College (1929)

Artists in Action #177


Emil Jannings attends a memorial service for F.W. Murnau

American Mouthpieces #12


Charles Garry (and a client)

April 14, 2007

Seminal Image #639


Sono otoko, kyôbô ni tsuki
(Violent Cop)
(Takeshi Kitano; 1990)

(immense thanks to Nate Bundy of Real Political Face Talk for this image!)

This Week's Weegee #28

When Legends Gather #239


Kim Novak and Chill Wills

April 13, 2007

They Were Collaborators #295


Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina

(vast and empowering thanks to Jeff Duncanson for this image)

The Present Day Composer #41


Harlan Howard (1927-2002), and one of his interpreters

Stacks o' Wax #18


Albert King, Born Under a Bad Sign
(Stax; 1967)

Artists in Action #176


Brian Jones catches up on his reading

The Art of Cinema #209


The Charm School
(James Cruze; 1921)

Collect 'Em All #26


Mae Clarke
No. 11 in a series of 50 from Players Navy Cut cigarettes.

Born on August 18th, 1910 in Philadelphia, Mae Clarke wished for a stage career even during her schooldays. She studied dancing as a child and later made use of her training by applying for a dancer's job in the chorus. After making a hit in vaudeville and night clubs she went on the legitimate stage, and in 1929 began her screen career. She was soon in demand, and in her recent films she has shown that she is a clever dramatic actress. These include Flaming Gold, Lady of the Boulevards and Straight is the Way.

Great Moments in Moxie #12


Moxie meets Ripley's.

The Cool Hall of Fame #72


Louis Armstrong

April 12, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut dead at 84

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News this morning that Kurt Vonnegut had passed away, link to BBC.

The Art of Science Fiction #6


Utopia 14 by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
(1954 Bantam Books paperback version of Player Piano)

Seminal Image #638
Roscoe Lee Browne dies at 81


Topaz
(Alfred Hitchcock; 1969)

Roscoe Lee Browne's obituary can be found here.

Broadcasters #16


Don Imus

April 11, 2007

Women of Paris #1


Janet Flanner

They Were Collaborators #294


The Brooklyn Dodgers (circa 1947)

The Art of Cinema #208


The MInd Reader
(Roy Del Ruth; 1933)

April 10, 2007

The Best of Edward Penfield #1

When Legends Gather #238


Donald O'Connor and Buster Keaton

(muchas, muchas gracias to the great Jeff Duncanson for this image!)

They Were Collaborators #293


King Oliver's Dixie Syncopaters

The Art of the Chatauqua Tent #3

People Who Died #34


Edwin Howard Armstrong

W is for Winogrand #5


New York City (1968)

Great War Art #8

Before and After #61:
Albert Ayler

Before


After

April 09, 2007

They Were Collaborators #292

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David Lynch and Isabella Rossellini

Through the lens of Cyril Arapoff #3

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Children in the East End of London

The Art of the London Underground #15

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Woods by E. McKnight Kauffer; 1938

From the Sketch Book of Lawson Wood #10

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The Gaffer

April 08, 2007

Seminal Image #637


Sho o suteyo machi e deyou
(Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets)
(Shuji Terayama; 1971)

The Children of Lewis Hine #2


Newsies at Skeeter Branch
(St. Louis, Missouri)
(1910)

The Art of the Big Top #9

April 07, 2007

The Art of the Centerfold #31


Gay Collier
(Miss July, 1965)

They Were Collaborators #291


The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie
(aka Flo and Eddie)
(aka Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan)

April 06, 2007

The Cool Hall of Fame #71:
Good Friday Edition


Johnny Rotten (aka John Lydon)

Movie of the Week #19


Nerone
(Nero; or The Fall of Rome)
(Luigi Maggi; 1909)

Produced by Turin's pioneering Film Ambrosio, Luigi Maggi's Nerone may not be as formally elaborate as the epics of Mario Caserini and Giovanni Pastrone . . . what is, in fact, extraordinary about Italian filmmaking in that period is how its scale vaulted in such a short amount of time; less than a decade . . . but it is a nascent example of the Italian film industry's preoccupation with Imperial Rome (in this case the Nero-Poppea saga), a model it would return to, far less artfully, several decades later with the endless Hercules/Ursus/Maciste/Atlas cycle.

Artists in Action #175


Aretha Franklin confers with Jerry Wexler

The Art of American Amusement #7


Sleeping Beauty's Castle
(Disneyland; 1955)

They Were Collaborators #290


Dr. Martin Luther King, jr. and Rev. Ralph Abernathy

Sex Education #80


Jean Simmons

The Art of Baseball #4


Brooks Robinson
(Baltimore Orioles; 1960)

The Art of Wellness #7

April 05, 2007

The Art of Cinema #207


Deranged
(Alan Ormsby, Bob Clark; 1974)

Most people know the work of Bob Clark, who was killed in a car crash on Wednesday morning, from either the junvenile (and for a Canadian film, hugely successful) sex comedy Porky's, or from his true career apex, his adaptation of Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story. But I have a soft spot for Deranged, his low budget fictionalized version of the case of Plainfield, Wisc. killer and cannibal Ed Gein, one of a number of horror titles Clark cut his teeth on, including Death Dream and the breakthrough slasher Black Christmas. Roberts Blossom's eerie performance and a soundtrack that includes Canuck country legend Stompin' Tom Connors make for singularly grimy experience, one that led Clark to have his name removed from the official credits.

It's enough to make you forget Loose Cannons and Baby Geniuses.

Seminal Image #636


Ikiru
(To Live)
(Akira Kurosawa; 1952)

Glamour Jungle! #5

The Art of War #26

Newspapermen #12


Westbrook Pegler

April 04, 2007

This Week's Weegee #27

The Art of Cinema #206

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Blue Velvet
(David Lynch; 1986)

Artists in Action #173

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Looking through a viewfinder, Terence Davies leans back; so as not to get too close.

Through the lens of Cyril Arapoff #2

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Lighters and sailing barges in the Pool of London.

The Art of the London Underground #14

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Wedding by Betty Swanwik; 1938

From the Sketch Book of Lawson Wood #9

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A Strange Code

P is for Pulp #16

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No Time for Marriage
(by David Charlson)
(Venus Books; 1951)

April 03, 2007

The Art of Songwriting #16


You Tell Her I S-T-U-T-T-E-R
Music: Cliff Friend
Lyrics: Billy Rose
(Irving Berlin, Inc; 1921)

Before and After #60:
Aimee Semple Macpherson

Before


After

American Dry Spell #6


An Internal Revenue agent officially closes an illegal drinking establishment (1925)

Seminal Image #635


McCabe and Mrs. Miller
(Robert Altman; 1971)

This Week's Lichtenstein #5


A Painting of the Statue of Liberty (1983)

Ancient Voices #15


The Leake County Revelers

They Were Collaborators #289


The Tuskegee Airmen

Seminal Image #634


Miller's Crossing
(Joel Coen; 1990)

So Loathsome I Could Cry #5


Henry Ford

April 02, 2007

The Cool Hall of Fame #70

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Dion DiMucci

Artists in Action #172

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Tom Waits contorts himself in performance

They Were Collaborators #288


My Bloody Valentine

When Legends Gather #237

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Robert DeNiro and Joe Strummer

Seminal Image #633


The Set Up
(Robert Wise; 1949)

The Art of Jazz #36


Ellington Indigos
(Duke Ellington & His Orchestra)
(Columbia Records; 1958)

Newspapermen #11


James Reston

April 01, 2007

The Art of Orthodoxy #1


The Transfiguration
(St. Demetrius' Church; Zhogatyn, Poland)
(15th Century)

Poets are both clean and warm
And most are far above the norm
Whether here or on the roam
Have a poet in every home! #18


Edna St. Vincent Millay

Thomas Nast's Tammany Hall #3


"Blindman's Bluff - How Long Will This Case Last?"
(Tammany officials go on trial)
(Harper's Weekly; 1871)

They Were Collaborators #287


Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy

A Who's Who of Swinging London #6


Mary Quant

When Legends Gather #236


Noel Coward and Barbara Streisand

Dickens Art #7


"Stuck his hands in his skirt-pocket and swaggered round the corner."
(from Martin Chuzzlewit)
(Fred Barnard; 1843)