Miniseries #11:
Les grands ballons de Macy's
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
#11
#12
#13
#14
#15
And a very happy Thanksgiving to all our readers.
for the series:
Miniseries'
November 27, 2008
Miniseries #11:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
23 comments so far:
Number nine is just wonderful!
FANTASTIQUE !
these are so much more fun than the oversized commercial symbols they drag around today
I was going to say "That was fantastic," but somebody beat me to it in French, so I'm outclassed again. This is the kind of thing that makes the Gunslinger nonpariel.
¡Una belleza!
Robert, I guess you have been outclassed one more time.
Anyway, let´s pretend Howdy Doody wasn´t an oversized commercial symbol fom the 50´s...
this is so cool ;-)
aaaaaaahhhhhh...
great!
Fantástico.
I was in New York City once over the Thanksgiving holiday. Coldest I have ever been in my life.
Just came back from the parade. Great to see these. Fantastique, indeed!
Have to say that I love the way that #6 is shot, with the alligator looking like he's having a not so stealthy sip of Budweiser during the parade. Reminds me of.....frogs.
Brilliant, as usual!!
#14 is one of those probably unintentional multimedia masterworks.
It reminds me of charcoal drawings by Odile Redon, of a young Howard Crumb doodling his early pictures,of happiness as God in a clowsuit letting himself be held down to the ground for a day.
Love love stuff.
Noticed on picture # 10 the movie marquee reads " Secrets Of The Lone Wolf" which places this in 1941.
The calm before the storm a mere two weeks later.
The mixture of creepiness and innocence, the happy crowd and the rain on the streets, the giant Pierrot being pulled along by dozens of grimfaced tiny Pierrots - the commenter above who mentioned Redon is right on the money, but I also thought of Ray Bradbury for some reason.
Wonderful! The pictures are inspiring, somehow, but I can't put my finger on why.
But, thank you for posting them!
#8 shows Charlton Heston starring in El Cid. That would mean circa 1961 - Secrets Of The Lone Wolf could be replaying in the theater, but this can't be earlier then 1961.
They're from multiple years. Note that #12 and #3 show the same view of the Astor Hotel (1515 Broadway, which is now a giant office tower occupied by Paramount and MTV), but the surrounding advertising signs are significantly different.
#4 all the way. What a great picture is that.
I'd date some of these Thanksgiving Day photos to 1961, note plate #8 of the Warner showing "El Cid." This also corresponds with the marquee for "Unsinkable Molly Brown" (first run in 1960).
Plate #2, the one with the balloon of Commando Cody (who was on TV in the early 50s), shows a marquee for "A Night to Remember," (December 1958)
Plate #7 shows the edge of a billboard for what I suspect is "On the Beach" (1959).
Plate #4 shows a marquee for "The Great Dictator," which UA indeed released in 1940.
I think we know where Tim Burton's balloons in "Batman" found their inspiration.
#4 Hippo rocks
the selection here includes photographs of very mixed quality, and with no credits; the quote at the side is only obliquely relevant (i think i see where it is going, but it doesn't reach its destination with these images)
is the false hope, or the embalmed grins, of the inflatable caricatures supposed to seem transcendent? do the composition of each photo, the detail and the symbolic sense not matter? what much can we read into those generic dumbfounded looks troubled souls bring to public spectacle?
what i see here are lynch mobs ogling the convulsive kicks of shackled fable-dwellers
it's like wow man, we're creating these bubble forms and they really exist, and it's like, they tower above us and everything.
hahaha I love it. thank you.
Post a Comment