what were you doing down by the watermelons

 

"A Supermarket in California"

        poem by Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the

streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit

       supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

What peaches and what penumbras!  Whole families shopping at night!  Aisles

full of husbands!  Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --- and you,

       Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the

meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.

I heard you asking questions of each:  Who killed the pork chops?  What price

       bananas?  Are you my Angel?

I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and

       followed in my imagination by the store detective.

We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting

artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman?  The doors close in an hour.  Which way does

your beard point tonight?

(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel

       absurd.)

Will we walk all night through solitary streets?  The trees add shade to

       shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in

       driveways, home to our silent cottage?

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you

have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and

       stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

_____________________________

{Howl and Other Poems.  1956.}       

-30-

business as usual

 

Gordon Willis; Woody Allen

On You Tube, I listened to a video:

The Real Story Behind The Making Of The Godfather Mafia Epic Masterpiece

uploader / channel:  RadioClassics

It was very good.

One thing:  one of the people in this documentary said The Godfather (1972) was the first movie to make more money than Gone With The Wind (1939).  But I thought The Sound Of Music (1965) was the first movie to out-do Gone with the wind.... (Wikipedia says I'm right -- uhhm.)

        ----------------------- [excerpt from Vincent Canby's 1972 review, New York Times] ----------------- "The Godfather" plays havoc with the emotions as the sweet things of life -- marriages, baptisms, family feasts -- become an inextricable part of the background for explicitly depicted murders by shotgun, garrote, machine gun and booby-trapped automobile.  

The film is about an empire run from a dark, suburban Tudor palace where people, in siege, eat out of cardboard containers while babies cry and get under foot.  

It is also more than a little disturbing to realize that characters, who are so moving one minute, are likely, in the next scene, to be blowing out the brains of a competitor over a white tablecloth.  

        It's nothing personal, just their way of doing business as usual. ---------------- [end / excerpt]

I re-read that end part:  "over a white tablecloth."  The first time, skimming it quickly, it seemed like someone killed somebody else in an argument "over" -- pertaining to -- a white tablecloth.  Like -- "This tablecloth is mine!" -- BOOM, gunshot.

        Then I read it again and interpreted it to mean someone shot somebody and killed them, they happened to be next to a table with a white tablecloth on it, and the blood showed up on that... The blood flew out and got all over the white tablecloth.

        Makes more sense than killing someone because of a conflict over whose tablecloth it is.

        Different ways of using the word "over."

        Gordon Willis (1931 - 2014) was director of photography for The Godfather, and also for Annie Hall (1977) and All The President's Men (1976).

-30-

without fear or favor

 

headline:  Document Inquiry Poses Unparalleled Test for Justice Dept.

New York Times

reader comments:

Goodgrief99

USA

Ms. Benner, like many pundits, is making this case much more complicated than it is.  For our AG [attorney general], the only question is whether Trump has potentially committed a crime serious enough to warrant prosecution.  

If he has, prosecute; if not, move on!  

        Let political considerations be damned!  Once our AG starts worrying about politics, and acting to avoid them, he would have in effect put Trump above our laws, thus undermining the very foundation of our democracy.

David

Hawaii

This is not complicated.  If the evidence shows serious crimes were committed with full knowledge of the perpetrators, charges MUST be filed; no ifs, ands, or buts.  Again, this is the only way forward.

PagingDrHoward

Boston

"...one of the most challenging and complex criminal cases in recent memory."  Oh, please.  NYTs setting us up for Garland's decision to not prosecute clear criminal conduct.

Anxious

Virginia

AG Garland has said that the Department of Justice will follow the facts and the law and pursue justice without fear or favor.  I take him at his word.

Polaris

New York

This is not the kind of issue that gets decided by popularity, op-ed pieces or political broadsides.  It is a question of what is just, and Merrick Garland appears to be pursuing that.  The law and the just application of it are all that matters.

Jessica

San Diego

I don't understand why this is so difficult.  If he broke the law and there is evidence to support that the law was broken, file charges.  It is very disturbing to me the unwillingness to hold elected officials, particularly presidents accountable.  I thought we believed in law and order as a nation.  The title of President should not give you a free pass.

NYC

I refuse to be cowed by people who threaten violence if charges are brought.  This cannot be a consideration.

PNUT

This silly notion that a sitting President can't be indicted needs to go away.  It's a license to commit crimes and then dare the DOJ to hold you responsible.  No one should be above the law, even temporarily.

Erik Frederiksen

Asheville, North Carolina

I would submit that the perils of not charging him for those crimes are much worse.  Many other republicans would be emboldened to destroy our democracy.

kc

Missouri

It is time to take the kid gloves off.  If this were you or I, we would already be in jail.  At the very least, this man has proven beyond a shadow of doubt he should never have access to classified information again.

SN

Philadelphia

Let's keep this simple.

Trump broke the law.

Indict him.

Put him on trial.  And when he's found guilty then lock him up.

And for crying out loud Garland move it along!

___________________________

-30-

baby, you're out of time

 

Warren Beatty

--------------- [excerpt from Jerry Hall book] ---------- Sometimes we'd go out to Tramp or Annabel's and bump into Michael Caine and his wife Shakira.  I loved to dance, but Bryan never really did, he was quite shy.  We'd eat in Langan's Brasserie, and sometimes we'd go to the legendary parties thrown by socialite Nona Summers and her husband Martin, where you'd bump into stars like Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson.

        One of the things I loved about being in England was the sense of humour.  The English are like schoolboys -- always playing tricks on each other or making you feel as if you're in on a secret joke.  The Texans and the English have a common bond of eccentricity.  They thrive on it.  But they also have a straight-laced, uptight side.  I have a bit of both myself, and I really enjoyed it.

        It was in the summer of 1976 that I first met Mick, when Bryan and I went to see the Stones in concert in London.  We all went out to dinner after the show, and after that Mick would turn up at our house.  Mick was so different to Bryan, he didn't care what anyone thought and he laughed all the time.  

        He'd be jumping around and joking and Bryan would get very edgy.  I'd go into the kitchen to make tea and Mick would follow me and then Bryan would follow him.  One time Mick started chasing me around the ping-pong table, trying to kiss me, and Bryan came in and chased him out.

        Mick started leaving messages on the answer phone, saying 'Hi Bryan, let's go out again' and Bryan said, 'I'm never going out with him again, all he did was ogle you all night.'  But I found myself thinking about Mick, and that worried me, because Bryan and I were engaged and I didn't want to think about anyone else.  

And then Bryan set off on his world tour and I went back to New York, feeling sad and uncertain about the future.

___________________________

-30-

addicted to love; allergic to tweeds

 

Bryan Ferry, Jerry Hall

"The Mystery of Chaco Canyon" (TV movie, 1999, narrated by Robert Redford) is on Amazon Prime, currently.

        They mention a possible ancient custom of crashing and breaking vases, to represent meaning in a ceremony.  It made me think of Jimi Hendrix, and Pete Townshend of The Who, smashing their guitars at the end of an onstage performance.

_______________________________________

-------------------- [excerpts, Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures] --------------------- Bryan had such a lovely, funny, playful side; but after a year together I was seeing less and less of the Bryan that I had fallen in love with.  He dreamed of being an aristocratic man of leisure, swanning around his country estate in tweeds and handmade shoes.  And he became very critical of me.  He wanted me to dress like Kim Novak in Vertigo -- in a grey suit, with pearls around my neck and my hair in a French twist.

...All my friends in New York thought I was crazy when I moved to London to be with Bryan.  Eileen Ford was devastated and begged me not to go.  But besides being in love, I actually thought it was better for me creatively.  

I had been doing such tremendous photographs with English Vogue and I wanted to do more.  

Grace Coddington, the stylist there was a creative genius and they had some hugely talented photographers -- Norman Parkinson, David Bailey and Terence Donovan.  We were doing really beautiful pictures -- lasting iconic images I felt very proud of.  

It was a more creative, less commercial work environment than in the States.  It was the end of the golden era of Hollywood glamour goddesses and also a time of women's liberation and sexual liberation.  People were looking for strong new women role models and fashion was reflecting that need.

        In London no-one wanted to cut my hair, I was set free creatively and it was such a relief and fun too.

        ...Work was exciting.  I was doing a lot with Bailey, who was the photographer in London then.  And I became very good friends with his wife Marie Helvin.  She'd started modelling at about the same time as me, Antonio and I used to see her in English Vogue and we thought she was so beautiful.  

Then we met doing the collections and when I moved to London we became close because we were the only girls working there all the time.  For about a year we were on alternate covers of English Vogue -- one month Marie, the next month me, and so on.  Marie and I used to work together, hang out together and go shopping together.  

We had similar taste in clothes -- we both liked well-cut sexy and glamorous clothes and hated boring English tweeds.

-30-

such idyllic parks and cottages (or, Fear of Roombas)

 

Ukraine's Russian 'Liberators' Are Seeing That We Live Better Than They Do

---------------- [excerpt] ---------------- In early April I walked into Andriivka, a village about 40 miles from Kyiv, with my battalion in the Ukrainian territorial defense forces.  We were among the first Ukrainian troops to enter the village after a Russian occupation that had lasted about a month.  Shell casings and boxes of ammunition were scattered everywhere, and the houses were in various states of ruin.  In one of the yards we passed there was an abandoned burned-out tank sitting on the grass.

The Russians killed civilians in Andriivka, and they ransacked and looted houses.  The locals told us something else the Russians had done:  One day they took mopeds and bicycles out of some of the yards and rode around on them in the street like children, filming one another with their phones and laughing with delight, as if they'd gotten some long-awaited birthday present.

A few days earlier we were in Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv that was subjected to an infamously brutal occupation.  The people there told us that when the first Russian convoy entered the town, the troops asked if they were in Kyiv; they could not believe that such idyllic parks and cottages could exist outside a capital.  

        Then they looted the local houses thoroughly.  They took money, cheap electronics, alcohol, clothes and watches.  But, the locals said, they seemed perplexed by the robotic vacuum cleaners, and they always left those. ---------------------------- [end, excerpt]

___________________________________

{Guest essay in the Opinion section, New York Times.  Aug. 23, 2022.  By Yegor Firsov (medic in Ukrainian military)}

-30-

the beat goes on

 

Sonny & Cher

I was surprised to see Internet headlines this weekend about Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck getting married in Georgia.

        I thought they got married in Las Vegas about a month ago - ?

        Well -- I guess they did - ?

        And now, again - - - ...

I don't understand getting married twice -- I mean to the same person and in the same time frame.

        I mean, it's a different thing when it's two different marriages at two different times -- for example, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were married twice, but they didn't have two different ceremonies for the same marriage.  They had two different ceremonies for two separate marriages:  they were married from 1964 to 1974, and then they married again in 1975 and divorced (again) in 1976.

        Jennifer Lopez and Ben A. had two different ceremonies for the same marriage -- one in Las Vegas and now this weekend, another one in Georgia.

        Didn't one of the Kardashians do that, too?  ...Have two marriage ceremonies?  Kourtney, maybe?

        In the case of the Kardashians, one might imagine having two ceremonies instead of one would be for the extra attention.  But for Mr. Affleck & "JLo" it seems doubtful that they would have to have a big expensive "extra" event to get attention.

Maybe it's because it just becomes "the thing" since other people (especially celebrities) have done it, so -- Now we get married twice, whatever.

But to me, having two marriage ceremonies seems kind of -- phony, or show-y, or shallow.  As if you're taking away from the seriousness of the commitment.  (They probably think they're making it more of a commitment...I don't know...)

------------------------- On a tabloid site, I was reading comments on an article about Jennifer Garner not attending the Georgia wedding, even though she was invited.  Lots of comments saying, "I wouldn't attend my ex's wedding! -- what for?!" etc.

That reminded me:  In the 1970s after Sonny & Cher got divorced Cher got married again (to one of the Allman Brothers) and Sonny went to her wedding.  I remember that being in the news.  It was considered very unusual at the time to attend an ex's wedding so it was kind of talked-about and noticed.  

        People were starting to have the conversation about -- Yes we got divorced and No, we don't hate each other, in fact we're friends.  We get along for the sake of our kids.  Etc.

        That was sort of new at the time, because before that, divorce wasn't nearly as common as it became in the '70s.  People -- and society -- were learning how to deal with it.

Within that time frame, The Mary Tyler Moore Show had an episode where Lou Grant's ex-wife Edie was getting married again and she invited Lou Grant to the wedding.  He didn't want to go, but one of his daughters begged him to, and Edie wanted him there, to show everyone we're still friends, or something.

        But he didn't feel that way about it, and as he was trying to talk himself into going to the wedding, Mary advised him that going to one's ex-wife's wedding was something a modern, hip, with-it man would do.  Lou said that's me, modern and hip and with-it.  Mary says, "No, Mr. Grant, that's not you, that's Sonny Bono!"

        That situation comedy was filmed before a live audience, and they exploded in laughter at that line -- partly because it was related to something everyone had heard in the news, and partly because it was still a revolutionary new idea.

That chapter in our ongoing cultural conversation on this topic reminds me of the news in our own era, from just a few years ago, when Gwyneth Paltrow and her then-husband musician Chris Martin announced they were having a "Conscious Uncoupling."  Trying to sort of take the "acrimonious" part, or implication, out of it, by taking away the word "divorce."

        Just saying, hey, we don't need to be married now, and we are going forward and each living our own lives now.

-30-    

no time for sergeants

 

------------- [excerpt from Jerry Hall's book] ------------

A Chilean Adventure

Neiman Marcus was the fashionable Texan store my mother and sisters and I had loved when I was very young.  In those days we couldn't afford to buy anything from there, we just loved to look, so it was exciting to be asked to do a photo shoot for them.  They flew me and five other models to a ski resort in Portillo, Chile, to do a shoot in the snowy mountains for their fur and diamond collections.  We had six bodyguards with us, just to watch the jewels!

        Just after we arrived, our resort was completely covered in deep snow; no cars could get in or out.  We ended up being stuck there for three weeks, and they had to ration the food.  It was a natural disaster -- I know that because that was the wording the clients used as their excuse for not paying us models for the three weeks we were out of work.

        While we were waiting, I decided, or was coaxed by the cute ski instructor, into taking advantage of this extra time to learn to ski.  One day I went out on my own and fell into a hole and I couldn't get out.  I had fallen in bottom first with my skis up in the air, and lay there like a tortoise on its back.  It was freezing and I was stuck squirming for most of the day, yelling at the top of my lungs.  

It was getting dark and I had almost lost my voice when a soldier came up and pulled me out.  I really had begun to believe that I would die that day, I was so happy to be rescued.

        We models were finally airlifted out by army helicopter and we spent a day in military camp.  The soldiers couldn't stop looking at us, they kept getting into trouble with their sergeants.

_______________________________

{Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures.  Curated by Jonathan Phang.  2010.  Quadrille Publishing.}

-30-

blank books

 

The Art of Simplicity

by Wilferd Peterson

Simplicity deepens life.

It magnifies the simple virtues

On which man's survival depends:

humility, faith, courage, serenity,

honesty, patience, justice, tolerance, thrift.

Simplicity is the arrow

Of the spirit.

__________________________________

"Some might call having 52 recordings of Brahms' op. 73 a form of clutter, but walls lined with books and CDs are my defense against the barbarism of the world we live in.  They are a reminder of what I believe in."

~ reader comment, New York Times

vtcynce

Burlington, Vt.

I believe for some of us the need to hold on to stuff and acquire is in our DNA.  My father grew up in the Netherlands during WWII and my mother during the Depression.  

I often find myself thinking if we go to war or the economy collapses will I need this?  As others have mentioned de-cluttering has a psychological component.  

Fortunately, I have  made peace with my belongings and realize that  my 'clutter' is a reflection of all I hold dear.  

And if the world does come to an end and you need an extra blank journal please come to Vermont I have boxes full of them.

Warls

New York

Sorry, I just love that picture:  a cozy study with a nice cup of tea waiting to be sipped and shelves of well-worn books, pictures and memorabilia embracing the occupant.  If that's clutter, sign me up.

-30-

with the thoughts you'd be thinkin' you could be another Lincoln

 

On streaming services and You Tube -- stories, stories, stories.  I was thinking about stories being a way for human beings to process experience, and the world.

        Usually if there's a mystery / suspense type of story, I don't set out consciously to solve it myself, to "get ahead" of the ending and then see if I was right.  I always think I'm just going to watch (or listen while doing things) and see how the story unfolds.

        But then sometimes I involuntarily, automatically, start guessing ahead.

        There was a series where -- in one segment, this woman was in charge of an organization that was working to put human traffickers out of business, and bring them to justice.  She attends an event where people are raising money and supporting her organization and discussing their goals, and the progress that's been made in their cause.

        Then -- there's a bad guy at the event, he wants to cause some kind of disturbance, but then he is spotted and the FBI chases him, and everyone has to clear out of there.

        Then it shows the lady arriving back at the hotel (it's in Europe) and as she passes through her room I noticed it was pretty opulent -- the framed artwork on the walls -- and the thought occurred to me, uninvited -- "maybe she's actually on the other side."

And it turned out -- she was one of the human traffickers!  Being supposedly an anti-trafficking activist was just her cover, her mask, her disguise.

_______________________________

How could anyone really be involved in such a thing as human-trafficking (sex-trafficking, usually)?  Are they inherently evil?

__________________________________

        I was thinking, too, about stories and why we like them, and need them:  taking in a story, whether it's by watching or listening or reading or even, I guess, gaming -- helps us order our thoughts, our emotions, and the world.  We can make sense of things, in a way.  We can feel that things are organized, and are going to be OK.

        When I was little I saw The Wizard of Oz on our black-and-white TV at my home, in my kindergarten year.  Then I watched it every year after that (once at the Lehmans' house in Dover, Ohio, where the TV was color, so when Dorothy, Toto, and the house landed in Oz it went from black-and-white to color) and every year, even though I knew the ending, I was in awe, every minute.

♫

I could while away the hours

Conferrin' with the flowers,

Consulting with the rain;

And my head I'd be scratchin'

While my thoughts are busy hatchin'

If I only had a brain.

So -- I guess we (all of us kids that age, at the time) watched, not because we were in suspense of what would happen, but rather to see the adventure, danger, challenge -- the process -- and then to see the orderly ending:  "There's no place like home."

        Like a walk around the block:  you know the block, you know what is there, but you walk it to walk it -- to have the process, the exercise.

One year I cried at the part where one of the flying monkeys flaps down to the ground and picks up Toto, Dorothy's little dog.

        But then each year after that, I was ready for that part, braced myself, and did not cry because I could remind myself, Toto doesn't get hurt and he's fine at the end, home safe with Dorothy.  Plus it had dawned on me that the Oz part was a dream.

        (Then Bobby Ewing comes back to life and visits Auntie Em and Uncle Henry -- no, wait, that's somethin' else....)

____________________________________

_____________________________

On You Tube, episodes of The Love Boat (a faint groan, in the background).  Didn't really watch that when it was on -- I thought it was lame, and middlebrow.

        However, if you're trying to be a writer you can learn from these stories, too.  Every episode seems to have three storylines -- each with its own title, & written by three different writers or writing teams, which I thought was interesting.  And as the episodes pass by while I'm cleaning and cooking and organizing, I sometimes think there are four storylines in some of those -- Why does it only say three, I wonder... I'm not sure.

        The early scenes of many of the episodes -- the crew members greeting passengers as they board -- and -- hitting on them...!  Oh my God, that's soooooooooo Late Seventies!

        Could not believe it.

And something I really do like on that show, have to admit, is the variety of actors who come on as guest stars -- that's who most of the stories are about, so, if you watch several episodes in a row, it's this parade of ones you remember and ones you don't -- "Is that Janet Leigh?!  It is!  It is!"

        Martha Raye.  Ray Bolger - Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, here he is on The Love Boat!  Florence Henderson, Bert Convy, Rhonda Fleming...

And even though there are different plots to the stories, from episode to episode, you know there will be a happy ending, because that's the kind of show it is.

        And your mind gets the exercise and airing, like it walked around the block that it knows.

___________________________________

{"If I Only Had a Brain," music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Yip Harburg.  1939 film, The Wizard of Oz}

-30-

some righteous nod

 

Ava Gardner, Artie Shaw

That 1940s song whose lyrics I posted here Friday -- I heard of it reading Woody Allen's memoir:

------------------- [excerpt] ---------------- Just imagine a scorching summer day in Flatbush.  The mercury hits ninety-five and the humidity is suffocating.  There was no air-conditioning, that is, unless you went inside a movie house.  You eat your morning soft-boiled eggs in a coffee cup in a tiny kitchen on a linoleum-covered floor and a table draped with oilcloth.  

The radio is playing "Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet".... ---------------------- [end / excerpt]

        That seemed like such an unusual and unique title for a song, I had to go on You Tube as soon as possible and hear the song.  It's good.  The lyrics -- so wild! - with slang expressions of the time:

milk is "bottled moo" -- haha

"That jive" -- must mean unwelcome noise, in Hep-cat

"been jumpin' on the swing shift, all night" -- jumping must be the word for working, or working hard...

"I'm beat right down to the sod" means tired

"catch myself some righteous nod" = get a real good night's sleep

"Grade-A riot" = makin' noise with the milk bottles, waking the hard-working person up, when they need sleep

"lullaby it" = be quiet (I think -- just guessing on these, actually)

I was stumped by "the man with the whiskers" -- then it occurred to me the songwriter might have been referring to "Uncle Sam" in the World War II posters.

______________________________

----------------- [excerpt, Woody Allen memoir] ---------------- Finally, there was the true rainbow of my childhood, my cousin Rita.  Five years older than me,...her companionship had perhaps the most significant influence on my life.  

Rita Wishnick, her father yet another fleeing Russian Jew named Vishnetski, anglicized to Wishnick.  

She...took a liking to me and took me everywhere -- to the movies, the beach, Chinese restaurants, miniature golf, pizza joints....I knew all of popular music because Rita and I sat and listened to the radio together endlessly.  

The Make Believe Ballroom, Your Hit Parade.  In those days, the radio was on from the minute you woke up till you went to sleep.  Music, news, and what music.

        The pop music of the day was Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey.  So here I am inundated with such beautiful music and movies.

_______________________________

{excerpts from Apropos of Nothing, by Woody Allen.  Copyright 2020, Arcade Publishing.}

-30-

bottled moo

 

♪♪ ♫

Milkman, keep those bottles quiet

Can't use that jive on my milk diet

So milkman keep those bottles quiet

Been jumpin' on the swing shift, all night

Turnin' out my quota, all right

Now I'm beat right down to the sod

Gotta catch myself some righteous nod

Milkman, stop that Grade-A riot

Cut out if you can't lullaby it

Oh, milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet

Been knocking out a fast tank, all day

Working on a bomber, okay

Boy, you blast my wig with those clinks

And I got to catch my forty winks

So milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet

Now noise of the riveter rocks, don't mind it

'Cause the man with the whiskers has a lot behind it

But I can't keep punchin' with the victory crew,

When you're making me punchy with that bottled moo

I want to give my all if I'm gonna give it

But I gotta get my shuteye if I'm gonna rivet

So bail out, bud, with the milk barrage

'Cause it's unpatriotic, it's sabotage

Been knocking out a fast tank, all day

Working on a bomber, okay

Boy, you blast my wig with those clinks

And I got to catch my forty winks

So milkman - keep those bottles quiet

Oooo, milkman, keep those bottles quiet

Oooo, milkman, keep those bottles quiet

Quiet!

______________________________

{written by Don Raye and Gene De Paul - copyright, 1943}

-30-

all roads, they lead me here

 

Jerry Hall's book contains a lot of pictures, and something I notice that's kind of amazing is how different she can look from one photograph to another.  And I'm talking about photos from the same era -- not 30 or 40 years apart.

        I don't know how she does that -- makeup, I guess, and attitude.

        Posing.  They call it that -- making a stance, a mood, for the camera -- striking a pose.  And images.  Quite often Jerry Hall refers to what's in a picture as "images."

These people -- models, rock and roll performers -- live a life spread out across the world.  Bali, Mustique, Jamaica, New York City, Wales -- to shoot pictures for the cover of a record album.  

Paris, France.

London -- and etc.

It's a different existence from that of people who process experience through a viewpoint developed while living their entire lives in the town where they were born.

-30-

Village, vintage, and Vogue

 

Jerry Hall by Irving Penn  1975

-------- [excerpt / Jerry Hall:  My Life in Pictures] ---------------

        It was great fun living in the Village.  [Greenwich Village, in New York City] 

Every morning we had coffee at the Italian cafés.  We shopped for vintage clothes and I started to collect a Fiestaware dinner service.  I loved its beautiful colours and shapes; it had been around since the thirties but wasn't made anymore, so finding pieces was always exciting.

        At this time I was appearing on hundreds of magazine covers for publications all over the world and I travelled a lot doing catwalk shows for the designers' collections.  I would travel to Milan and be in 30 fashion shows a week, then go to Paris for 35 shows a week, before heading on to Japan for their shows and then straight back to New York to do another 30.  It was a gruelling non-stop schedule, but I loved it.

        ...I cannot tell you the thrill of working for a great artist or photographer and having a kind of telepathy, a symbiotic partnership, striving and working together to achieve a desired effect.  The mutual excitement was breathtaking.  The better the artist or photographer, the greater the possibility of achieving a lasting iconic image; a true work of art.

        At that time the greatest living photographer was Irving Penn.  I first worked with him for American Vogue....I was shocked when Polly [Mellen - Vogue editor] told me one day that Vogue wanted me to have a Dutch boy haircut; a short bob with a fringe, or they wouldn't work with me anymore.  

They said if I cut my hair they would put me on two covers and do twelve pages with Irving Penn.  

It was tempting.  But my hair was so much a part of who I was.  I was the first model to have really long hair and it had worked for me -- I felt it was modern and strong, vital and yet still feminine, so I refused.  ------------- [end / excerpt]

__________________________

        I find that last paragraph - its content - odd.  Like -- to offer her "two covers" and "twelve pages with Irvin Penn" -- seems like they were really trying to "dangle" (like a carrot) something she would want, plus 'threatening' her, in a sense -- Vogue would not work with her anymore if she didn't cut her hair - ?

Sounds creepy, and extreme, to me.

And if they want a different hairstyle on her for some photographs:  wigs!  Hello?!  It's the fashion magazine business.  Surely they wouldn't need us readers to educate them that wigs exist - LOL.  That Polly Mellen sounds like she was a manipulative mischief-maker...

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wonderland

 

Olivia Newton-John

♪ ♪♫

Wherever you go --

Wherever you may wander, in your life

Surely you know

I always want to be there --

Holding your hand,

And standing by to catch you -- when you fall,

Seeing you through --

In everything you do

Let me be there in your morning

Let me be there in your night

Let me change whatever's wrong -- and make it right

Let me take you through that wonderland

That only two can share

All I ask you --

Is let me be there

Watching you grow

And going through the changes -- in your life

That's how I know --

I always want to be there

Whenever you feel

You need a friend to lean on, here I am

Whenever you call,

You know I'll be there

Let me be there in your morning

Let me be there in your night

Let me change whatever's wrong -- and make it right

Let me take you through that wonderland

That only two can share

All I ask you --

Is let me be there

_________________________________

{"Let Me Be There" - written by John Rostill.  Recorded by Olivia Newton-John and released in September 1973, the second single from her studio album of the same name.}

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Italian of the Year

 

American actor James Caan passed away last month at the age of 82.  He was in The Godfather (1972) and many other movies.

First, Ray Liotta passed, at the end of May.  I read about his life, and read and re-printed a lot of Reader Comments under stories about him, because I thought they were interesting, & reflected a variety of perspectives on different life things that people could enjoy contemplating.

But then when James Caan died, I didn't do the same thing, for a couple of reasons.  One was I didn't want my blog to become the Death Blog.  Deaths of actors who portrayed mobsters.

        Mobster Death Blog.

        Then -- two days after Caan, Tony Sirico dies, reinforcing the Mobster Death Blog quandary.  (Sirico played Paulie on The Sopranos, and in his earlier life before he became an actor, he was a mobster.  So that's like -- a double.)

There was another reason I didn't discuss and feature James Caan when the news came out.  He was in a 1993 movie called Flesh and Bone, and his character was so repellent that I sort of couldn't stand James Caan after that!  (When I read that he had died my first involuntary mental reaction was, I didn't care that much.)

        Not very nice!

        And wrong.

In Flesh and Bone, he was the father of the Dennis Quaid character and he shows up unexpectedly, mysteriously, under cover of night and re-enters his son's life, undermining him, low-key bullying and blaming him for stuff that he, the dad, did.

          He's sneaky about it, in conversations -- he acts nice, then wham! -- surprises Dennis Quaid (or ambushes him) with a manipulative remark.  He just uses his son as a blame object, and as a reluctant helper to do whatever he needs.  The son is trying to lead a clean life within the law, and the dad is trying to use him, and drag him down.

        ("We're the same blood -- you're no better than me, blah blah blah"...)

I felt that, and after seeing the movie, I really had a distaste for James Caan's countenance.  

        Could I "lighten up" and -- "let it go" -- since it was 29 years ago when I saw the movie?

        No -- no, I can't -- LOL.

Must have been some cracker-jack acting, right?

________________________________

For years after The Godfather, people thought James Caan was Italian.  Some even thought he was an actual mobster.

        He was voted "Italian of the Year" in New York twice -- and he's not Italian, he's Jewish (not that those are mutually exclusive, but that's the way Mr. Caan stated it).

        Funny.

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it's in there

 

Yesterday here, I showcased something Jerry Hall wrote in her book.  I love the way she writes, and the way she says things!

------------------- excerpt ------------- Karl will say, 'O.K., you're Bette Davis in The Letter', and if you've seen it you know exactly what he wants.  That's the thing I said to my daughters; you've got to watch all the old Hollywood movies because they really did glamour and everything you need to know about modelling is in there. ----------------- end / excerpt ---------------

________________________________

Everything you need to know about modelling is in there.

(It's in there.)

They really did glamour.

They Really. Did. Glamour.

"You've got to watch all the old Hollywood movies" -- (I say that to people all the time, and I'm not even in the fashion modeling business!)

You've got to watch all the old Hollywood movies --

        Everything you need to know about modelling is in there.

_____________________________________

I immediately watched The Letter (1940).  I saw that movie when I lived in Boston, after college.  It was on a local channel at a late-night hour.  Small black-and-white TV.  (Of course the movie is in black-and-white anyway, so no difference there, if had had color....)

        I knew then it was really good -- somehow I had forgotten the ending.  I had to back away from the screen this time, it was getting so suspenseful and scary.  Holy Toledo!  What a movie.

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everything you need to know

 

Bette Davis

        in The Letter

In My Life in Pictures, Jerry Hall writes about working with iconic designer Karl Lagerfeld:

-------------- [excerpt] -------------- Karl will say, 'O.K., you're Bette Davis in The Letter', and if you've seen it you know exactly what he wants.  That's the one thing I said to my daughters; you've got to watch all the old Hollywood movies because they really did glamour and everything you need to know about modelling is in there.

_______________________________________

-------------------- [Filmsite Movie Review]

        The film's credits play above drawings of a tropical plantation company's compound on a sultry, moonlight night with banks of clouds in the sky.  

The setting of the film is a tropical Malayan rubber plantation (a sign reads L Rubber Co., Singapore, Plantation No. 1).  

The film's startling opening presents the film as a mystery - it is one of the most famous opening sequences ever produced.  

A tracking shot moves down a rubber tree where the precious substance drips into containers, across a thatched hut where native laborers listen to musicians, doze, and play games after their day's work.  

As the camera moves further up and right, it passes an exotic white cockatoo.  

In the background is the veranda of a colonial bungalow.  

One gunshot from inside the bungalow unexpectedly disturbs the silence, and the cockatoo.  The bird flutters and flies off.

-30-

no time to wallow in the mire

 

area storm

Watching for the storm

watching the storm

Dark before nightfall, the swirling wind

Increases, but we are at the mere edge

of the storm -- its main huffage

is south of here, moving east (Bye!)

With tumbling rain, ranting thunder,

and indiscriminate lightning - (bam!)

Some people's homes are yet unrepaired from

the last Severe Thunderstorm

that partied here

-------------------------------------------

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who needs a house out in Hackensack?

 

Billy Joel

(1981)

♪ ♪  ♫

Anthony works in the grocery store

Savin' his pennies for some day

Mama Leone left a note on the door

She said

"Sonny, move out to the country"

Oh but workin' too hard can give you a heart attack-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak

You oughta know by now

Who needs a house out in Hackensack?

Is that all you get for your money?

And it seems such a waste of time

If that's what it's all about

Mama, if that's movin' up, then I'm -- movin' out

Sergeant O'Leary is walkin' the beat

At night he becomes a bartender

He works at Mister Cacciatore's down on Sullivan Street

Across from the medical center

And he's tradin' in his Chevy for a Cadillac-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak

You oughta know by now

And if he can't drive

With a broken back

At least he can polish the fenders

And it seems such a waste of time

If that's what it's all about

Mama, if that's movin' up, then I'm -- movin' out

You should never argue with a crazy mind-min-min-min-min-min!

You oughta know by now

You can pay Uncle Sam with the overtime

Is that all you get for your money?

And if that's what you have in mind

Yeah, if that's what you're all about

Good luck, moving up, 'cause I'm -- 

Movin' out

___________________

{"Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)"

written and recorded by Billy Joel

released November 1, 1977

album:  The Stranger

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