some kind of magic

 [excerpt from Jerry Hall: My life in pictures] --------------

 Mick and I seemed to work some kind of magic together at this time - everything we did was successful and we were being hailed as the glitterati couple.  We were invited to everything, met everyone and were photographed wherever we went - it was all very heady stuff. 

        Perhaps it was because we were so happy.  We really were head over heels in love.  When I first went to Paris to be with Mick, while he recorded an album and I did the catwalk shows ... We never got tired or bored or disagreed.  We were just so in love, becoming closer and closer, sharing our thoughts, our books, our inner fears and always laughing.  He would read me the spiritual poetry of Rumi and I would read him the humorous poetry of Dorothy Parker. 

        We laughed together all the time.  Mick had a great sense of humor, he was always joking and we both loved playing games and fooling around.  I had been a leg-wrestling champion back in Texas.  Bryan had disapproved and the one time he saw me leg-wrestle, at a party in Mustique where everyone was having fun, he was angry with me and told me not to do it.  But Mick thought it was hilarious,  he really got into  leg-wrestling. 

____________________________________

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Imagined portrait

 I was going through the entry here from January 12 of this year. 

Having your portrait painted by Andy Warhol: just imagine. 

        And seeing the Rolling Stones live in concert,  in that era  - imagine that.  

        Typical tour set list, 1976:

"Honky Tonk Women"

"If You Can't Rock Me" / "Get Off of My Cloud"

"Hand of Fate "

"Ain't Too Proud To Beg" (Norman Whitfield,  Eddie Holland)

"Hot Stuff "

"Fool To Cry"

"Star Star"

_____________________________________________

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Mick's hotel room

 

painting of Jerry Hall, by Andy Warhol

So, in the Jerry Hall story, her fiance Bryan Ferry - won't let her have fun; won't set a date for the wedding; gets grouchy; and gets jealous when her onstage performance goes over big with the audience.

(That part about him not setting a date for the wedding:  it's ironic, right after she recounts how he wouldn't let her have fun and made her cry - the next thing that's "wrong" is he "wouldn't commit" to setting a date for their wedding - !  Seriously, you want to marry this guy??

        But isn't that almost always how it is....)

Oooh, the red flags, the foreshadowing....

Then - 'Back in London The Rolling Stones came to town and we went to see their show.'

        Now, we had the foreshadowing - and then, the Rolling Stones coming to town - that, my friend, is what authors call "a cliff-hanger"!

Your fiance is glum and tedious, and - Mick Jagger's coming over??!

(Uh - oh...)

Foreshadowing, red flags, cliff-hangers - Oh My!

----------------------- [excerpt from Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures] ----------------

Back in London The Rolling Stones came to town and we went to see their show.  I was a big Stones fan and loved their music and I was blown away by Mick Jagger's performance.  He seemed to jump so high he could almost fly and the audience were on their feet dancing like crazy.  

After the show we were invited back to Mick's hotel room at the Ritz.  There were half a dozen people there and Mick was wearing a red silk dressing gown.  He was friendly to us both and asked us to dinner.

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trying to have some fun

 

------------------- [excerpts from Jerry Hall's 2010 book] --------------------

...I loved to party and dance and have fun.  But every time I did, Bryan seemed to disapprove.

        Back in Texas I had been a champion leg-wrestler and sometimes I told people about it, and once I even gave a demonstration, accompanied by a lot of hootin' and hollerin'.  Bryan was embarrassed and told me to stop, and I ended up in tears.

        Although we were engaged, Bryan wouldn't commit to setting a date for our wedding.  He was becoming more distant; he would often sit staring into the distance, deep in thought, for hours on end.

        Of course we didn't spend all our time alone.  We were good friends with David Bailey and his model wife Marie Helvin, and with Anthony Price and the rest of Bryan's band.  I would invite people over and try and give dinner parties and have some fun.  But often Bryan would either not join us for dinner or be rude and cold to my friends, especially if they were straight men.

        After the tour was over, late in 1976, Bryan decided to record a solo album.  He had done a lot of cover songs and was trying to write some songs of his own.  He worked in the basement with a keyboard and he became very moody and bad-tempered.  

        It was a cold winter and often dark and rainy and I felt very alone.  I was still only 20 and I missed the sun, my friends and my sisters.

        I used to tell Bryan about my twin Terry and the pact we'd made as kids - 'twins forever stick together'.  We'd put it at the end of our letters.  Bryan wrote a song, Let's Stick Together, which he released on an album of the same name and then as a single.  Both the album and the single were hits and I got to sing along on the video for the song.  

I even did a live performance with him, in New York at a small club called the Bottom Line.  

I painted myself with gold dust and I had on a leopard-skin swimsuit with a long tail at the back.  I came out hollerin' Texas-style and swung the tail around; I really hammed it up.  Antonio came to watch us, and so did Andy Warhol and Eileen and Jerry Ford and they all shouted 'bring back Jerry' once I had finished, which made Bryan very uncomfortable....

        Back in London The Rolling Stones came to town and we went to see their show.

___________________________

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

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young, happy and in love

 

Eileen Ford,

Ford Models

I like Jerry Hall's 2010 book so much.  She is a good writer!  She writes as if she is talking to you.

        When she writes about being with Bryan Ferry, and about his band, Roxy Music, I remember being on a church-sponsored trip to New York City while I was in high school - kids from all around the state went, and we traveled by bus.  One girl advised me that I should listen to Roxy Music, 'they were great.'

In that part of the book excerpted yesterday, events and moods seem to lead, one to the other.  First they get together - Bryan and Jerry - and then pretty soon Jerry has to go back to New York for her modeling work.  Bryan comes to visit her.  They go to a party his record company is having. ...

"We sat at a table with Ahmet Ertegun, the founder and chairman of Atlantic Records, and Earl McGrath who was vice president of Atlantic.  I adored them both and they were so much fun; we laughed all night like old friends, but I noticed that Bryan seemed a little annoyed.  It was the first time I realised that Bryan could be quite a jealous guy....  But it didn't seem important at the time, we were young, happy and in love."

-------------------------- They've been together as a couple for, like, "five minutes," and already he's ticked if she's having a good time. ...At an event that he took her to!  Lol.  She thinks she and Bryan are "happy and in love" and that this overrides anything else.

        In seventh-grade English class, we learned scenarios like this (Bryan Ferry being annoyed) are "foreshadowing."

        In You Tube videos today, they call it "red flags."  Or - ignoring the red flags....

__________________________

---------------- [excerpt from Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures.  Quadrille Publishing.  2010.] ----------------------------

        That week we also had dinner with my surrogate parents and agents, Eileen and Jerry Ford.  They thought Bryan was charming but were slightly annoyed that he lived in London and might be luring me away.  We also had dinner with Alvenia and my gang of girlfriends.  Bryan charmed them all and passed the boyfriend inspection on all fronts.

        When Bryan flew back to London, I promised that I would come and visit him a few weeks later, which I did.  I combined it with a photo shoot for English Vogue and this time I stayed at Bryan's house in Ladbroke Grove.  I was working during the day, but the nights were spent with Bryan.  We fell into an easy intimacy, as if we had known each other longer than we had.  We had a wonderful week together which neither of us wanted to end, but I had to get back to New York.  I had bookings with Richard Avedon for American Vogue and some big-paying commercials and advertising campaigns that I couldn't cancel.

        Bryan invited me to come back a few weeks later to spend Christmas with him and then go on holiday to Mustique in the southern Caribbean for a month.  I knew my booker, Marion at Ford Models, would not be pleased, but living so far away from each other we had to spend some real time together to see if our relationship could work on a long-term basis.

        So a few weeks later I returned to London for a traditional English Christmas with all the trimmings, including crackers from Fortnum and Mason containing little silver shoehorns and cufflinks and tiny hand mirrors for your purse.  We had some of Bryan's friends over - musicians and old school friends - and then on Boxing Day we flew to Mustique where we spent an idyllic four weeks and at the end of it Bryan proposed and we got engaged.  I was stunned when he proposed because we hadn't been together that long.  But I was thrilled too.

        Soon after that I moved to London to live with Bryan.  I worked mostly for English Vogue, and I went on tour with Bryan to Manchester to promote Siren.  I met Bryan's family who were adorable and so kind to me.  They were very proud of Bryan.  He had bought them a new house and they were so happy about it.  His father had been a coal miner and they were quite poor when Bryan was little.

        Siren was a huge success, so Bryan was away on tour a lot and I couldn't always go with him because I was working too.  So while he was away I started to read.  I went through his library and then started buying books by the bagful and bringing them home.  I was getting the education that I had missed by not going to university.  I loved reading about Greek mythology and was fascinated by archetypal images and stories of brave and powerful women.  I often set out to portray these powerful women in the photo shoots I did.

        Life with Bryan settled into a pattern.  A lot of the time we lived quietly - I would shop and cook when I got home and the two of us would eat together.  We had some happy times, but I was beginning to feel a sense of disquiet.  Bryan wanted to be an English gentleman.  He dressed in fine clothes, knew about art and antiques and shopped in Fortnum and Mason.  And he wanted me to be a gentleman's wife, in tweeds and pearls and sipping afternoon tea.  

Actually I quite liked that part; I got in the habit of having afternoon tea every day.  

        But while I had a very ladylike side, which had been encouraged by my mother, I also had a wild side.  I didn't drink much at all, but I loved to party and dance and have fun.  But every time I did, Bryan seemed to disapprove. -------------------------- [end / excerpt]

_____________________________

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just go with it

 

-------------------- [excerpt from Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures] -------------------------

...I was a bit apprehensive...but figured I'd just go with it and hope it worked.

        It did, and though it was one of the most uncomfortable shoots I've ever done, it looked great and the album was a big success.  We travelled back to London the next evening and Bryan invited me to stay in his house until I went back to New York.

        During the couple of days I spent with him, Bryan and I fell for one another.  I was 19 and he was 30 and we both felt we'd found what we were looking for in someone else.  We laughed a lot, talked over wonderful dinners, and promised to stay in touch.

        After I flew back to New York Bryan phoned me every day and I mooned around playing his albums.  I loved his version of John Lennon's Jealous Guy.

        As soon as he could get away, Bryan came to New York to visit me for a few days.  I spent most of the time with him at The Carlyle; the most elegant hotel in New York.  We went to a party that his record company, Atlantic Records, was giving.  

The Manhattan Transfer were playing there and we sat at a table with Ahmet Ertegun, the founder and chairman of Atlantic Records, and Earl McGrath who was vice president of Atlantic.  

        I adored them both and they were so much fun; we laughed all night like old friends, but I noticed that Bryan seemed a little annoyed.  It was the first time I realised that Bryan could be quite a jealous guy himself.  But it didn't seem important at the time, we were young, happy and in love.

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

Carlyle Hotel Art

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the filmic arts

 

I was so happy when The Sting (1973 - Robert Redford; Paul Newman) showed back up on Netflix.

        Then after I played part of it once, a bunch of other American movies from the same era came popping up whenever I went on Netflix:

The Front Page  (1974)

Chinatown  (1974)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest  (1975)

The Parallax View  (1974)

Murder On The Orient Express  (1974)

Blazing Saddles  (1974)

The Conversation  (1974)

Netflix - fairly marinating in '70s films...

(Murder On The Orient Express was just re-made in 2017, also....)

When I was a teenager I heard of The Parallax View but never saw it or read about it.  I started playing it (streaming it) this past weekend - the beginning is the President Kennedy assassination only with different, fictional characters.  A senator (instead of president) gets shot and killed, and the trigger-man dies almost immediately - OK, that's Oswald, check.  Right?  And then a whole bunch of people who were close by that day wind up dead from various improbable accidents...  It's 1963 all over again...

But then after a while I was losing track of what was supposed to be going on, and when it got to a point where there was some kind of hide-out or something, with a boisterous, shrieking monkey (he wasn't hurt, he was just noisy...) and then different still photographs started appearing on the screen and going away, to be replaced with a word, "mother," or some other word, and then another picture, etc., etc. - then I just felt like, OK, I can't, with this anymore....

I checked on You Tube to see what other people think - I typed in the name of the film, and there was a video titled, "the best scene in the movie" and I clicked on it, and it was playing that crazy picture-and-words dream-scene that had made me turn it off!  LOL.

_____________________

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like a fine skylark

 

Jerry Hall, photo by Norman Parkinson

I'm finding inspiration from the words of 

Jerry Hall, 

Taylor Swift,

and

Stevie Nicks.

I read recently that Stevie Nicks, replying to a journalist's question, said:  "I don't give Taylor Swift advice about fame; she doesn't need it."

♫ ♫ ♪

...Got the radio on, my old blue jeans

And I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve

Feeling lucky today, got the sunshine

Could you tell me what more do I need?

And tomorrow's just a mystery, oh yeah

But that's okay...

~ Swift

...Would you stay if she promised you heaven?

Will you ever win?

She is like a cat in the dark

And then she is the darkness

She rules her life like a fine skylark

And when the sky is starless...

~ Nicks

__________________________

----------------- [excerpt from Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures] -------------------

I flew to London to shoot the cover of Bryan Ferry's album Siren in the summer of 1975.  I was looking forward to meeting him - at the time he as at the height of his fame.  I loved his music and thought he had the most beautiful voice, heartbreakingly touching and sexy.  

His band, Roxy Music, wore camp clothes, uniforms and eye-liner.  They'd invented a great look - very art-house, with a mixture of rock and an element of European elegance thrown in.

        ...We had dinner with Anthony Price, a very talented clothes designer who had come up with the concepts for all Roxy Music's album covers and was working on Siren.

        The two of them were both witty and charming and made me laugh.  I was excited about the photos and Bryan seemed shy and gorgeous.  He was incredibly classy and beautifully dressed and his black hair was slicked back, with just one lock that fell forwards over his eye.  I was dazzled by his glamour.

        That evening Bryan dropped me back at my hotel and the next morning he came to collect me for our trip to do the shoot in Wales.  Anthony came with us and on the way they explained that I would be dressed as a siren, from Greek mythology, and painted blue all over.  I was a bit apprehensive about that, but figured I'd just go with it and hope it worked.

__________________________

{song lyrics from "A Place in This World" by Taylor Swift, and "Rhiannon" by Stevie Nicks}

-30-

22 pages

 

----------------- [excerpts from Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures] -----------------

During this time I went on a three-week trip to India with Vogue Patterns and photographer Steve Horn.  We did some enchanting photos but the dresses were pretty awful!  I was happy to do it, because my mother used to make us dresses from Vogue Patterns, before she discovered the Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue.  The dresses we took to India were very simple, which is why they put them in exotic locations, to make them look glamorous.

        For one shot, Steve made me climb up onto the edge of a building and hang on.  I really could have killed myself - we sometimes had to do crazy things while modelling.

____________________________

Norman Parkinson was an old-style gentleman photographer and I adored him.  He had one of those old fashioned plate cameras in which the shutter is held open for a few minutes while it absorbs the light.  

In that way it records a huge amount of movement.  

I worked with him many times, but one of my favourite shoots was the one we did in Jamaica with Antonio and stylist Grace Coddington, for English Vogue.  

        I had invited Antonio along for the trip and it was Grace's idea to include him in the photographs.  Parks used his special technique to photograph me and Antonio in a waterfall, with the water flowing behind us, so that the movement of the water was captured in a unique way.  I had to stand in front of the waterfall for several minutes, but amazingly only my feet got wet!

        We had great fun on that shoot.  Antonio and I were such great friends and Grace and Parks were brilliant - we had some wonderful dinners in the evenings.  Grace really was a genius artistically.  I think she admired Antonio's work and wanted to do something with him, so she was delighted when I brought him along.  Parks was quite old at that point, in his seventies.  He hadn't really been considered a fashionable photographer until Grace revitalised his career by using him for Vogue.

____________________________

The Jamaican shoot was a fusion of brilliant people.  Grace has a very pictorial eye, Antonio contributed a lot of ideas and Parks' photography was inspired.  It was on that trip that we did what became known as the blue series, with the blue bikini and swimming cap and gold Manolo Blahnik shoes.  

That resulted in my first English Vogue cover and 22 pages in the magazine.  And it was these images which were spotted by Bryan Ferry, the lead singer of Roxy Music, who rang and asked me to appear on his next album cover.

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

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

an early portrait of The Beatles, by photographer Norman Parkinson

-30-

♫ yeah, alright?

 

comin' into 2024

it's the Middle East again

climate change

russiaputin

and crazy people

everywhere you look

when an attorney

on You Tube tells us that

he really got to the true answers

during his encounters 

with psychedelic drugs

...you realize that

maybe it's all 

just 

one 

giant

distraction

_____________________________

-30-

evanescent experience

 

"On Long Island Sound"

Yesterday, along with the merengue music, I wanted to wrap up some thoughts about last week's passsages from The Great Gatsby.  But I couldn't organize commentary - I didn't know what to say about it except that it's terrific.

I like how descriptions of environment seem to tie in, to harmonize, with the narrative.

        In some books, descriptions of surroundings and weather, etc., kind of get in the way of finding out what happens, and the reader may find himself skipping them.

---------------------- [excerpt] ----------------- After the house, we were to see the grounds and the swimming-pool, and the hydroplane and the mid-summer flowers - but outside Gatsby's window it began to rain again, so we stood in a row looking at the corrugated surface of the Sound.

"If it wasn't for the mist we could see your home across the bay," said Gatsby. -------------------- [end / excerpt]

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

Professor Matthew J. Bruccoli wrote:

-------------- Many writers have been distinguished by a sense of the past; Fitzgerald possessed a complex and delicate sense of the passing present.  Malcolm Cowley has observed that Fitzgerald wrote as if surrounded by clocks and calendars.

        Fitzgerald's primary concern was with the rhythms, the colors, the tones associated with time and place - often expressed through synesthesia, as in "yellow cocktail music" (p. 49).  Time and place are inseparable in Fitzgerald:  not just how it was, but how it felt in "a transitory enchanted moment" (p. 217).  

        He later wrote, "After all, any given moment has its value; it can be questioned in the light of after-events, but the moment remains."  His task was to fix and preserve evanescent experience.  Fitzgerald's sense of mood was extraordinary....

Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2013 film version

-30-

merengue

 

I wanted to look up merengue music on You Tube - I found a video titled

Merengue del bueno mix

uploader / channel:  Fernando Alvarenga

one of the comments:

~  Crazy I remember hearing these songs in my family's apartment in New York and we'd been out in the hallway hanging out because there were so many people and random people never cared.  The good old days

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

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