Europe – Waldina

Today is the 135th birthday of the artist Paul Klee. His work is the type that I am organically drawn to. I still remember the first time I saw his art: It was on the beginning of every chapter of a textbook my first year of college. I flipped ahead through the entire book, just looking for his next piece. I have no memory of the class, it was either and English or a Sociology and I am only really sure of that because of the building it was in. But his art has stuck with me all along. It made me understand that there is skill in being simple, that making things seem easy is quite technical. I am sure that has been adopted into my everyday life to some extent. The world is a better place because Paul was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Paul Klee
OCCUPATION: Educator, Painter
BIRTH DATE: December 18, 1879
DEATH DATE: June 29, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH: Münchenbuchsee bei Bern, Switzerland
PLACE OF DEATH: Muralto, Switzerland

BEST KNOWN FOR: Paul Klee is a Swiss and German painter whose highly individual style is best known by an often childlike perspective and spidery hieroglyph-like symbols.

Paul Klee (18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and eventually mastered colour theory, and wrote extensively about it; his lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre), published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are considered so important for modern art that they are compared to the importance that Leonardo da Vinci‘s A Treatise on Painting had for Renaissance. He and his colleague, the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the German Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture. His works reflect his dry humour and his sometimes childlike perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality.

A museum dedicated to Klee was built in Bern, Switzerland, by the Italian architect Renzo Piano. Zentrum Paul Klee opened in June 2005 and houses a collection of about 4,000 works by Paul Klee. Another substantial collection of Klee’s works is owned by chemist and playwright Carl Djerassi and displayed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Klee suffered from a wasting disease, scleroderma, toward the end of his life, enduring pain that seems to be reflected in his last works of art. One of his last paintings, “Death and Fire”, features a skull in the center with the German word for death, “Tod”, appearing in the face. He died in Muralto, Locarno, Switzerland, on 29 June 1940 without having obtained Swiss citizenship, despite his birth in that country. His art work was considered too revolutionary, even degenerate, by the Swiss authorities, but eventually they accepted his request six days after his death. His legacy comprises about 9,000 works of art. The words on his tombstone, Klee’s credo, placed there by his son Felix, say, “I cannot be grasped in the here and now, For my dwelling place is as much among the dead, As the yet unborn, Slightly closer to the heart of creation than usual, But still not close enough.” He was buried at Schosshaldenfriedhof, Bern, Switzerland.

Today, a painting by Klee can sell for as much as $7.5 million.

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Today is the 293rd birthday of Madame de Pompador, arguably one of the first fashion icons and one of the most influential women of the 18th century. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Madame de Pompadour
OCCUPATION: Singer, Theater Actress
BIRTH DATE: c. December 29, 1721
DEATH DATE: April 15, 1764
EDUCATION: Convent of the Ursuline Order, Club de l’Entresol
PLACE OF BIRTH: Paris, France
PLACE OF DEATH: Versailles, France
AKA: Madame de Pompadour, Jeanne-Antoinette Le Normant d’Etiolles, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson
FULL NAME: Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour

BEST KNOWN FOR: Madame de Pompadour became the mistress of French King Louis XV in the mid-1700s. She greatly influenced French culture during this time, including decorative arts, architecture and statecraft.

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, better known as Madame de Pompadour, was born sometime at the end of December in 1721 (the date is often fixed at December 29 because she was baptized in the church of Saint-Eustache on December 30 of that year). Her mother, Madeleine de La Motte, was known as a beauty; her father, François Poisson, a financier, fled the country a few years after her birth to avoid being put to death for fraud. François Poisson later returned, but during his absence, tax collector Charles Le Normant de Tournehem, who paid for Jeanne-Antoinette’s education, was frequently assumed to be her real father.

Jeanne-Antoinette was well-educated, first in an Ursuline convent, then with excellent private tutors in voice and elocution from the Parisian opera and theatre (she memorized entire plays). She was later educated at the Club de l’Entresol, an exclusively male political and economic think-tank.

At age 19, Tournehem married Jeanne-Antoinette off to his nephew, furnishing them with an opulent estate at Etoiles. She bore him two children, a son who died in infancy, and a daughter nicknamed “Fanfan.” Jeanne-Antoinette’s beauty, intelligence and passion for the arts led her to instigate “salons” that attracted a varied circle of painters, sculptors, philosophers and writers, including Voltaire.

Jeanne-Antoinette entered the glittering life of the court at the Clipped Yew Tree Ball in 1745. She dressed as a shepherdess, and was determined to meet the magnetic King Louis XV, adorned as the tree. When their paths crossed, their fates were sealed—her carriage was reportedly seen outside of his apartment the next morning.

Louis XV was moody, sometimes languishing in the shadow of his great-grandfather, Louis XIV, the “Sun King.” He was fond of his Polish queen (with whom he would have 10 children); he had been through several mistresses by this time, but “Madame de Pompadour”—a title that Jeanne-Antoinette was soon given, along with an estate—became his chief mistress within a year. Her “office” came with castle apartments beneath the king’s own, as well as an annual income.

A talented seductress, actress and singer, Madame de Pompadour dazzled Louis XV with lively theater productions that she organized and performed in. She also adored the king, so even after their sexual liaison had run its course, she continued to be his loyal companion, and was accorded unprecedented political influence.

So devoted was the king to Madame de Pompadour, he became the stepfather of Fanfan, rushing doctors to her side when she fell ill. Sadly, the little girl died before turning 10; Fanfan’s grandfather, who adored the child, died shortly afterward. Madame de Pompadour is said to have never recovered from the dual loss.

Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour shared an appreciation for architecture and other decorative arts, and of animals, amassing a menagerie that included monkeys, birds and more domestic constant companions: her little dog and his white angora cat. Madame de Pompadour’s romantic ardor waned first, and her maid reported that she lived on a diet of “vanilla, truffles and celery” to stimulate passions for the king.

Madame de Pompadour eventually provided substitutes for herself in the boudoir while engaging Louis XV’s passions in other areas; she had her brother appointed director of buildings and, together, the trio planned and built chateaux, pavilions and palaces, including the Petit Trianon in Versailles. Each construction included extravagant detail and decoration by France’s premier artists, such as painter Francois Boucher. Madame de Pompadour also kick-started the Sèvres porcelain factory, and employed the Rococo style copiously in art and decor; a deep pink popular in this décor became known as “Pompadour Pink.”

Additionally, Madame de Pompadour became a patron to men of science and letters, encouraging the king to hire Voltaire as the court historiographer, and championing the first French encyclopedia. Her personal library held more than 3,500 volumes.

Eventually, Madame de Pompadour was involved in everything from designing the Place de la Concorde in Paris, to court affairs and foreign policy. Careers rose and fell with her favor and she maintained her lofty position, despite many enemies at court, until her death in 1764.

Madame de Pompadour’s weakened health, from several miscarriages and a painful struggle with tuberculosis, brought about her death on Easter Day in 1764 (April 15, 1764), at the Palace of Versailles. She was buried two days later, beside her daughter at the Chapel of the Capuchin Friars in Place Vendome.

Considered one of the three most powerful women of the 18th century, along with Catherine the Great of Russia (Catherine II) and Maria Theresa of Austria, Madame de Pompadour certainly went through fortunes in her zeal for unique and beautiful surroundings. Her enemies blamed her for France’s failure in the Seven Years’ War and its subsequent economic shoals.

However, respect for her vibrant wit, varied interests and keen intelligence has given Madame de Pompadour a better reputation over the years. A British regiment became known as “The Pompadours” for using a shade of purple that is said to have been her favorite. Also named after her are flowers, kitten heels, the hairstyle known as “the Pompadour” and the starship SS Madame de Pompadour—a vessel in the British Dr. Who series; Madame de Pompadour is even portrayed in one episode of Dr. Who, “Girl in the Fireplace.”

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Académie des Beaux-Arts, Associated Press, Baltimore, Bartell Drugs, Ben Paris, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Billiard hall, birthday, Bombardier Inc., Boston, Boston Public Library, Catholicism, Chimney, Chimney sweep, Christmas, Christmas tree, Europe, France, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, Paris

Today is the 92nd birthday of Marcel Marceau. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Marcel Marceau
OCCUPATION: Actor, Artist
BIRTH DATE: March 22, 1923
DEATH DATE: September 22, 2007
EDUCATION: Ecole des Beaux-Arts
PLACE OF BIRTH: Strasbourg, France
PLACE OF DEATH: Cahors, France
ORIGINALLY: Marcel Mangel

BEST KNOWN FOR: Marcel Marceau was best known for his work as a mime artist in France.

Mime artist. Marcel Mangel was born March 22, 1923, in Strasbourg, NE France. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and with Etienne Decroux. In 1948 he founded the Compagnie de Mime Marcel Marceau, developing the art of mime, becoming himself the leading exponent. His white-faced character, Bip, based on the 19th-c French Pierrot, a melancholy vagabond, is famous from his appearances on stage and television throughout the world.

Among the many original performances he has devised are the mime-drama Don Juan (1964), and the ballet Candide (1971). He has also created about 100 pantomimes, such as The Creation of the World. In 1978 he became head of the Ecole de Mimodrame Marcel Marceau.

Marcel Marceau died on September 22, 2007 in Cahors, France.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Abdullah II of Jordan, Agence France-Presse, art, Cahors, Candide, Death anniversary, Europe, European Parliament, France, Islam, Islamic terrorism, Israelis, Marcel Mangel, Marcel Marceau, Mime artist, Muslim world, Paris, Strasbourg

Today is the 84th birthday of Carmen Dell’Orefice. Not everyone can look like this at age 81, but everyone can be inspired to stay active and interested and be fearless. This woman has had a life. We are lucky to have her.

Born: June 3, 1931 New York, NY, USA
Occupation: Model
Height: 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Hair color: Silver
Eye color: Hazel

Carmen Dell’Orefice (born June 3, 1931) is an American model and actress, born in New York, NY. She is known within the fashion industry for being the world’s oldest working model as of the Spring/Summer 2012 season. She covered Vogue at the mere age of 15, and has been modelling ever since.

Carmen’s parents were Italian and Hungarian. They were constantly breaking up and getting back together. Because of this, Carmen lived in foster homes and sometimes with other relatives.

In 1942, Carmen reunited with her mother and moved to New York City. At the age of 13, while riding a bus to ballet class, she was approached to model by the wife of photographer Herman Landschoff. Her test photos, taken at Jones Beach, were a “flop” according to Carmen. Her godfather though introduced her to Vogue, where Carmen signed a contract for $7.50 per hour in 1946 at age 15. Carmen became a favoured model of photographer Erwin Blumenfeld who took her first Vogue cover in 1947. She appears in the December 15, 1947 issue of US Vogue as Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and Cinderella along with supermodel Dorian Leigh, actors Ray Bolger and Jose Ferrer.

Despite modeling, Carmen and her mother were poor. They had no telephone and Vogue sent runners to their apartment to let Carmen know about modeling jobs. She roller-skated to assignments to save bus fares. Carmen was so malnourished that famed fashion photographers Horst P. Horst and Cecil Beaton had to pin back dresses and stuff her body with tissue. Carmen and her mother were also accomplished seamstresses and made extra money making clothes. One of their customers was Dorian Leigh. Carmen would later become best friends with Dorian’s younger sister, model Suzy Parker. Together they would be bridesmaids at Dorian’s second wedding to Roger Mehle in 1948.

In 1947, Carmen got a raise to $10–$25 per hour. She appeared on the October 1947 cover of Vogue, at age 16, one of the youngest Vogue cover models ever (along with Niki Taylor, Brooke Shields, and Monika Schnarre). Carmen was also on the November 1948 cover of Vogue. She worked with the most famous fashion photographers of the era including Irving Penn, Gleb Derujinsky, Francesco Scavullo, Norman Parkinson, and Richard Avedon. Carmen was photographed by Melvin Sokolsky for Harper’s Bazaar in 1960. The iconic image titled Carmen Las Meninas is world famous and has been collected internationally. Sokolsky also photographed Carmen for the classic Vanity Fair Lingerie campaign in which Carmen obscures her face with her hand. She also became Salvador Dalí’s muse.

Despite early successes at a very young age, modeling agent Eileen Ford refused to represent her and Vogue lost interest in her. After doctors prescribed shots to start puberty, she instead started working for catalogs and lingerie, making $300 per hour. It was then that she joined Ford in 1953.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Carmen lost most of her money in the stock market. She was forced to auction off her famous modeling photographs from the 1940s-1980s through Sotheby’s.

In 1994, with what little money she had left, and with money from boyfriend Norman Levy, she invested with Bernie Madoff. For twelve years, Ruth and Bernie Madoff and Carmen and Norman Levy were a “foursome”, traveling and partying together on lavish yachts.

Levy died in 2005, at age 93, and Madoff was the executor of his will, which had $244 million in assets, according to Carmen. Madoff further used this money to lure in about 13,500 individuals and charities. She continued to regularly have dinner with the Madoffs after Levy’s death.

In December 2008 a 68-year-old friend, who invested her life savings with Madoff, telephoned Carmen to inform her that she too had been swindled. Carmen said, “For the second time in my life, I’ve lost all of my life savings.”.

In April 2009, Carmen was interviewed for Vanity Fair magazine’s story “Madoff’s World”. Photographs of Carmen and photographs she took of Madoff appear in this article.

Filed under: read, Uncategorized, Watch Tagged: Aaron, AARP, Acetone, Aftermath of World War II, American Broadcasting Company, American exceptionalism, American Psychological Association, Andy Warhol, Aristotle, Associated Press, Audio engineering, Avant-garde, Bali, beauty, Bernard Madoff, Brain Pickings, Carmen, Carmen Dell, Carmen Dell'Orefice, Dorian Leigh, erwin blumenfeld, Europe, Eviction, Horst P. Horst, London, Madoff, Melvin Sokolsky, New York, New York City, Salvador Dalí, Spanish language, style icon, Surrealism, United States, Vogue, Vogue (magazine)

Today is the 121st birthday of the author, Aldous Huxley. I first started reading his books at Interlochen Center for the Arts the summer of 1989. The library was in a stone building, cool in temperature and cool in aesthetics. That summer, I read Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited. I was transported. Later, I read somewhere that his writing has inspired a lot of people that I find to be visionaries, it was great to understand a bit more of their inspirational foundations. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Aldous Huxley
OCCUPATION: Author
BIRTH DATE: July 26, 1894
DEATH DATE: November 22, 1963
EDUCATION: Eton, Balliol College
PLACE OF BIRTH: Godalming, United Kingdom
PLACE OF DEATH: Los Angeles, California

BEST KNOWN FOR: Author Aldous Huxley expressed his deep distrust of 20th-century politics and technology in his sci-fi novel Brave New World, a nightmarish vision of the future.

Aldous Huxley, was a British writer. He was born on July 26, 1894 and died on November 22, 1963. He would become most specifically known to the public for his novels, and especially his fifth one, Brave New World, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Aldous Huxley was born on July 26th 1894 in Godalming in the Surrey county in southern England. He would be the son of the English schoolteacher and writer Leonard Huxley (1860 – 1933) and of Julia Arnold (1862 – 1908). More than literature, however, Aldous Huxley would in fact be born into a family of renowned scientists, with two of his three brothers, Julian and Andrew, who would be eminent biologists and a grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley, who would be a famous, controversial naturalist in his time, nicknamed as “Darwin’s Bulldog”.

Aldous Huxley would come to be known mostly as a novelist and essayist but he would also write some short stories, poetry, travelogues and even film scripts. In his novels and essays Aldous Huxley would always play the role of a critical observer of accepted traditions, customs, social norms and ideals. Importantly, he would be concerned in his writings with the potentially harmful applications of so-called scientific progress to mankind.

At the age of 14 Aldous Huxley would lose his mother and he himself would subsequently become ill in 1911 with a disease that would leave him virtually blind. As if all of this was note enough, his other brother, Noel, would kill himself in 1914. Because of his sight he would not be able to do the scientific research that had attracted him earlier. Aldous Huxley would then turn himself to literature. It is important to note that in spite of a partial remission, his eyesight would remain poor for the rest of his life. This would not, however prevent him from obtaining a degree in English literature with high praises.

While continuing his education at Balliol College, one of the institutions at Oxford University in England, Aldous Huxley would not longer be financially supported by his father, which would make him having to earn living. For a brief period in 1918, he would be employed as a clerk of the Air Ministry, which would convince him that he does not want a career in either administration or business. As result, his need for money would lead him to apply his literary talents. It is around those days that he would become friends with the famous writer D.H. Lawrence (1885 – 1930) at Oxford.

Aldous Huxley would finish his first novel, which he would never publish, at the age of seventeen, and he would decisively turn to writing at the age of twenty. At that point he would publish poems and also become a journalist and art critic. This would allow him to frequently travel and mingle with the European intelligentsia of the time. He would meet surrealists in Paris and would as a result of all of this write many literary essays. Aldous Huxley were to be deeply concerned about the important changes occurring at the time in Western civilization. They would prompt him to write great novels in the 1930s about the serious threats posed by the combination of power and technical progress, as well as about what he identified as a drift in parapsychology: behaviorism (as in his Brave New World). Additionally he would write against war and nationalism, as in Eyeless in Gaza (1936), for example.

One of his most known novels, and arguably his most important, would be Brave New World. Aldous Huxley would write it in only four months. It is important to note that at that time Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945) was not yet in power in Germany and that the Stalinist purges had not yet begun. Aldous Huxley had therefore not been able to tap into the reality of his time the dictatorial future he would have the foresight to write about before it had happened. Indeed here Aldous Huxley imagined a society that would use genetics and cloning in order to condition and control individuals. In this future society all children are conceived in test tubes. They are genetically conditioned to belong to one of the five categories of populations, from the most intelligent to the stupidest.

Brave New World would also delineate what the perfect dictatorship would look like. It would have the appearance of a democracy, but would basically be a prison without walls in which the prisoners would not even dream of escaping. It would essentially be, as Aldous Huxley tells us, a system of slavery where, through entertainment and consumption the slaves “would love their servitude”. To many this would and still does resonate with the contemporary status quo. The title of the book comes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610 – 1611), Act 5 Scene 1. Aldous Huxley’s novel would in fact eventually be made into a film in 1998. Although this one contains many elements from the book, the film would however portray a rather different storyline.

In 1937 he would write a book of essays entitled Ends and Means: an Enquiry Into the Nature of Ideals and Into the Methods Employed for Their Realization in which he would explore some of the same themes:

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

In 1958 Aldous Huxley would publish Brave New World Revisited, a collection of essays in which he would think critically about the threats of overpopulation, excessive bureaucracy, as well as some hypnosis techniques for personal freedom. While Aldous Huxley’s early works would clearly be focused on defending a kind of humanism, he would become more and more interested in spiritual questions. He would particularly become interested in parapsychology and mysticism, which would be a subject matter on which he would also write a lot about. It is not really surprising, therefore, that in 1938 Aldous Huxley would become a friend of religious philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 – 1986), considered by some to be a mystique himself, largely because of his early association with the Theosophical Society, from which he would powerfully break away from. In any case, Huxley would become a great admirer of this one’s teachings and would encourage him to put his insights in writings. Aldous Huxley would even write the forward for Jiddu Krishnamurti’s The First and Last Freedom (1954). Tellingly, Huxley would state after having listened to one of Krishnamurti’s talks:

… the most impressive thing I have listened to. It was like listening to a discourse of the Buddha – such power, such intrinsic authority…

In 1937, the writer would move to California and became a screenwriter for Hollywood. At the same time he would continue writing novels and essays, including the satirical novel After Many a Summer (1939) and Ape and Essence (1948). In 1950 the American Academy of Arts and Letters would award him the prestigious Award of Merit for the Novel, a prize that had also been bestowed to illustrious writers such as Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961) and Thomas Mann (1875 – 1955). Aldous Huxley would also be the author of an essay on the environment that would greatly inspire future ecological movements.

The 1950s would be a time of experiences with psychedelic drugs for him, especially LSD and mescaline, from which he would write the collection of essays The Doors of Perception (1954), which would become a narrative worshipped by hippies. The book would also inspire the famous singer Jim Morrison (1943 – 1971), to call his band “The Doors”. Aldous Huxley himself had found the title of the book in William Blake’s (1757 – 1827) The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

By the end of his life Aldous Huxley would be considered by many as a visionary thinker. The so-called “New Age” school of thought would often quote his mystical writings and studies of hallucinogens, and in fact it continues to do so today. Considered one of the greatest English writers having written 47 books, Aldous Huxley would die at the age of 69 in Los Angeles on November 22 1963, the same day as President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Aldous Huxley would be cremated and his ashes would be buried in the family vault in the UK.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Aldous Huxley, Anita Loos, Brain Pickings, Brave New World, California, CERN, Debt bondage, Dorothy Gale, Economic restructuring, Elinor Wylie, Europe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (film), Higgs boson, Hollywood, Huxley, Interlochen Center for the Arts, International Monetary Fund, James Joyce, Large Hadron Collider, Leonard Huxley, Los Angeles, Mark Russinovich, Oxford University, Samuel Goldwyn, Thomas Henry Huxley, United Kingdom

Today is the 116th birthday of the photographer Brassaï. I learned about him while researching some of his contemporaries on their birthdays and became fixated on his nighttime Paris photos, the thick fog, the lights fighting to do their jobs and the Parisians that continue to live and love inside of all of it. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Brassaï
OCCUPATION: Poet, Photographer, Sculptor
BIRTH DATE: September 9, 1899
DEATH DATE: July 8, 1984
PLACE OF BIRTH: Brasso, Hungary
PLACE OF DEATH: Eze, France
FULL NAME: Gyula Halász

BEST KNOWN FOR: Brassaï was a Hungarian-born French photographer, poet, and sculptor who became known for his photographs of Paris nightlife in the 1930s.

BRASSAI took his name from the town of his birth, Brasso, in Transylvania, then part of Hungary, later of Roumania, and famous as the home of Court Dracula. He studied art at the academies of Budapest and Berlin before coming to Paris in the mid-twenties. He was completely disinterested in photography, if not scornful of it, until he saw the work being done by his acquaintance Andre Kertesz, which inspired him to take up the medium himself.

In the early thirties he set about photographing the night of Paris, especially at its more colorful and more disreputable levels. The results this project — a fascinatingly tawdry collection of prostitutes, pimps, madams, transvestites, apaches, and assorted cold-eyed pleasure-seekers — was published in 1933 as Paris de Nuit, one of the most remarkable of all photographic books.

Making photographs in the dark bistros and darker streets presented a difficult technical problem. BRASSAI”s solution was direct, primitive, and perfect. He focused his small plate camera on a tripod, opened the shutter when ready, and fired a flashbulb. If the quality of his light did not match that of the places where he worked, it was, for BRASSAI, better: straighter, more merciless, more descriptive of fact, and more in keeping with BRASSAI’s own vision, which was as straightforward as a hammer.

When Paris de Nuit was published, the great photographer and theorist Dr.Peter Henry Emerson, then approaching eighty, wrote BRASSAI in care of his publisher, asking BRASSAI to please send his proper address, so that Emerson could send him the medal that he had awarded him for his splendid book. It is an interesting comment on the chaotic incoherence of photographic history that BRASSAI had never heard of Emerson.

from “Looking at Photographs” by John Szarkowski

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Aberdeen, Academy Award, Accuracy in Academia, AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs, Angela Merkel, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Austria, Austria-Hungary, Balkan Wars, Berlin, Brain Pickings, Brassaï, Europe, European Union, Germany, Hungary, Jews, Member state of the European Union, Museum of Modern Art, Nazism, NPR, Pablo Picasso, Paris, Washington

Today is the 87th birthday of Roddy McDowall. I think I first recognized him in a very late night movie called The Legend of Hell House, a not great mid-70’s supernatural horror film. Satanism, the whole bit, but great. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Roddy McDowall
OCCUPATION: Film Actor
BIRTH DATE: September 17, 1928
DEATH DATE: October 3, 1998
PLACE OF BIRTH: Herne Hill, London, England
PLACE OF DEATH: Studio City, California
AKA: Roddy McDowall
FULL NAME: Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall

BEST KNOWN FOR: Actor Roddy McDowall had a recurring role on the Batman television series, and played Cornelius in the film and TV versions of Planet of the Apes.

Actor and photographer Roddy McDowall was born Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall was born on September 17, 1928, in London, England. He was the only son of Thomas McDowall, a merchant seaman, and his wife, Winifred. As a child, Roddy appeared in a slew of British films, including Yellow Sands (1938) and Just William (1939).

In 1940, Roddy moved to America, with his mother and sister, to escape the World War II bombing of London. Thomas McDowall joined his family shortly thereafter. They settled in Hollywood, where Roddy was immediately contracted by 20th Century-Fox. In 1941, he gave a remarkable performance as the juvenile lead in John Ford’s Oscar-winning drama How Green Was My Valley. McDowall followed the film’s success with equally impressive roles in the children’s classics My Friend Flicka and Lassie Come Home (both 1943).

Like many child stars, McDowall found it hard to transition into adult film roles. Frustrated with dwindling opportunities in Hollywood, he turned to stage acting. He toured in vaudeville and in summer stock before moving to New York in 1954. He was featured in a succession of memorable Broadway productions, including Compulsion (1957) and The Fighting Cock (1959). For the latter, McDowall earned a Supporting Actor Tony Award.

In 1963, McDowall returned to film acting in the more mature role of Octavian in the extravagant feature Cleopatra, costarring with Richard Burton and longtime friend Elizabeth Taylor. Shortly after, he made his mark in television with a recurring role—as the miscreant Bookworm—on the 1966 Batman series, opposite Adam West. His role as The Bookworm, one of Batman’s nemeses—others included Julie Newmar’s Catwoman, Cesar Romero’s Joker and Vincent Price’s Egghead—made McDowall a household name with younger viewers.

In 1968, McDowall starred as the sympathetic scientist Cornelius in the seminal science fiction film Planet of the Apes. With undeniable camp appeal, the film spawned a number of sequels and earned McDowall a cult following. He reprised his role as Cornelius in the third installment, Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971). In the two subsequent releases, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), McDowall assumed the role of Cornelius’ son Caesar.

McDowall made a transition to the small screen with the Planet of the Apes TV series, appearing in a number of episodes in 1974. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he continued to direct his efforts toward television work. He acted in the TV movies The Rhineman Exchange (1977), The Martian Chronicles (1980) and Hollywood Wives (1985). During this period, McDowall’s most notable film credit was as a washed-up movie star in the acclaimed horror film Fright Night (1985).

Toward the end of his prolific career, McDowall lent his voice to a number of animated series, including the Darkwing Duck (1992) and The Adventures of Batman and Robin (1994). In 1998, he provided the voice of Mr. Soil in the Disney/Pixar animated feature A Bug’s Life, which marked his final film role.

McDowall was also an accomplished portrait photographer whose pictures of Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Mia Farrow appeared in Look and Life magazines. He published a series of books: Double Exposure (1966), Double Exposure, Take Two (1989), Double Exposure, Take Three (1992) and Double Exposure, Take Four (1993). An active and respected member of the Hollywood community, McDowall served on the executive boards of the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

McDowall died on October 3, 1998, in Studio City, California, after a long battle with cancer. He was 70 years old.

TELEVISION
The Pirates of Dark Water Niddler (1991-93)
Tales of the Gold Monkey Bon Chance Louie (1982-83)
The Fantastic Journey Dr. Jonathan Willoway (1977)
Planet of the Apes Galen (1974)

FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
The Devil’s Widow (Dec-1970)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
A Bug’s Life (14-Nov-1998) [VOICE]
Something to Believe In (8-May-1998)
The Second Jungle Book: Mowgli & Baloo (16-May-1997)
Unlikely Angel (17-Dec-1996)
Dead Man’s Island (5-Mar-1996)
It’s My Party (11-Jan-1996)
Last Summer in the Hamptons (13-Sep-1995) · Thomas
The Grass Harp (10-Sep-1995)
Star Hunter (1995)
The Color of Evening (1994)
Double Trouble (14-Feb-1992) · Philip Chamberlain
Deadly Game (10-Jul-1991)
Shakma (1990) · Sorenson
Going Under (1990)
The Big Picture (15-Sep-1989)
Cutting Class (Jul-1989)
Around the World in 80 Days (16-Apr-1989)
Fright Night Part II (11-Jan-1989)
Doin’ Time on Planet Earth (1988)
Overboard (16-Dec-1987) · Andrew
Dead of Winter (6-Feb-1987)
GoBots: War of the Rock Lords (21-Mar-1986) [VOICE]
Alice in Wonderland (9-Dec-1985)
Fright Night (2-Aug-1985)
Class of 1984 (20-Aug-1982)
Mae West (2-May-1982)
Evil Under the Sun (5-Mar-1982) · Rex Brewster
Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (Feb-1981)
The Return of the King (11-May-1980) [VOICE]
The Martian Chronicles (27-Jan-1980)
Scavenger Hunt (21-Dec-1979)
Circle of Iron (14-Dec-1978)
The Thief of Baghdad (23-Nov-1978)
The Cat from Outer Space (9-Jun-1978)
Rabbit Test (9-Apr-1978)
Laserblast (1-Mar-1978) · Dr. Mellon
Sixth and Main (1977)
Flood! (24-Nov-1976)
Embryo (21-May-1976)
Mean Johnny Barrows (Jan-1976)
Funny Lady (15-Mar-1975) · Bobby
Arnold (16-Nov-1973)
Battle for the Planet of the Apes (15-Jun-1973) · Caesar
The Legend of Hell House (15-Jun-1973) · Ben Fischer
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (18-Dec-1972)
The Poseidon Adventure (12-Dec-1972) · Acres
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (29-Jun-1972) · Caesar
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (11-Nov-1971)
A Taste of Evil (12-Oct-1971)
Escape from the Planet of the Apes (21-May-1971) · Cornelius
Pretty Maids All in a Row (28-Apr-1971)
Angel, Angel, Down We Go (19-Aug-1969)
Hello Down There (25-Jun-1969)
Midas Run (7-May-1969)
5 Card Stud (31-Jul-1968)
Planet of the Apes (8-Feb-1968) · Cornelius
The Cool Ones (12-Apr-1967) · Tony
The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (3-Mar-1967)
It! (Nov-1966)
The Defector (20-Oct-1966) · Adams
Lord Love a Duck (21-Feb-1966) · Alan Musgrave
Inside Daisy Clover (17-Feb-1966) · Baines
That Darn Cat! (2-Dec-1965)
The Loved One (11-Oct-1965) · D. J. Jr.
The Third Day (4-Aug-1965)
The Greatest Story Ever Told (15-Feb-1965) · Matthew
Shock Treatment (22-Jul-1964) · Martin Ashley
Cleopatra (12-Jun-1963) · Octavian
The Longest Day (Sep-1962) · Pvt. Morris
The Power and the Glory (29-Oct-1961)
Midnight Lace (13-Oct-1960) · Malcolm
The Subterraneans (23-Jun-1960)
The Tempest (3-Feb-1960)
Killer Shark (19-Mar-1950) · Ted
Tuna Clipper (10-Apr-1949)
Kidnapped (28-Nov-1948) · David Balfour
Macbeth (1-Oct-1948)
Holiday in Mexico (15-Aug-1946) · Stanley Owen
Molly and Me (25-May-1945) · Jimmy Graham
Thunderhead: Son of Flicka (15-Mar-1945) · Ken McLaughlin
The Keys of the Kingdom (15-Dec-1944) · Francis Chisholm
The White Cliffs of Dover (11-May-1944) · John Ashwood II
Lassie Come Home (10-Oct-1943) · Joe Carraclough
My Friend Flicka (26-May-1943)
The Pied Piper (8-Jul-1942)
Son of Fury (29-Jan-1942) · Benjamin
Confirm or Deny (19-Nov-1941)
How Green Was My Valley (28-Oct-1941) · Huw
Man Hunt (13-Jun-1941) · Vaner
Saloon Bar (2-Nov-1940)
Just William (20-Jul-1940)

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, Actor, Batman, Batman (TV series), Burnett Guffey, Carnival in Costa Rica, Cesar Romero, Cornelius, Dead of Winter, Europe, Frances Farmer, Frances Farmer Presents, Gene Wilder, George Macready, Hollywood, In Utero (album), Jessica Lange, Legend of Hell House, London, Mary Steenburgen, May Whitty, McDowall, My Name Is Julia Ross, Planet of the Apes, Roddy McDowall, Second Jungle Book: Mowgli & Baloo

Today is the 91st birthday of of the 39th president, philanthropist, human rights activist and the truest christian I know of: Jimmy Carter. The world is a better place because he is in it. We all owe him a great amount of gratitude and should read everything we can about him and hope some of it rubs off on us.NAME: Jimmy Carter
OCCUPATION: U.S. President
BIRTH DATE: October 01, 1924
EDUCATION: Georgia Southwestern College, Georgia Institute of Technology, US Naval Academy
PLACE OF BIRTH: Plains, Georgia

BEST KNOWN FOR: Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States (1977-81) and later was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981) and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Before he became President, Carter served as a U.S. Naval officer, was a peanut farmer, served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia (1971–1975).

As President, Carter created two new cabinet-level departments: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama.

Throughout his career, Carter strongly emphasized human rights. He took office during a period of international stagflation, which persisted throughout his term. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (at the end of 1979), 1980 Summer Olympics boycott by the United States of the Moscow Olympics and the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

By 1980, Carter’s popularity had eroded. He survived a primary challenge against Ted Kennedy for the Democratic Party nomination in the 1980 election, but lost the election to Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. On January 20, 1981, minutes after Carter’s term in office ended, the 52 U.S. captives held at the U.S. embassy in Iran were released, ending the 444-day Iran hostage crisis.

After leaving office, Carter and his wife Rosalynn founded the Carter Center in 1982, a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization that works to advance human rights. He has traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, observe elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations. Carter is a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity project, and also remains particularly vocal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 1982, he established The Carter Center in Atlanta to advance human rights and alleviate unnecessary human suffering. The non-profit, nongovernmental Center promotes democracy, mediates and prevents conflicts, and monitors the electoral process in support of free and fair elections. It also works to improve global health through the control and eradication of diseases such as Guinea worm disease, river blindness, malaria, trachoma, lymphatic filariasis, and schistosomiasis. It also works to diminish the stigma of mental illnesses and improve nutrition through increased crop production in Africa. A major accomplishment of The Carter Center has been the elimination of more than 99% of cases of Guinea worm disease, a debilitating parasite that has existed since ancient times, from an estimated 3.5 million cases in 1986 to 3,190 reported cases in 2009. The Carter Center has monitored 81 elections in 33 countries since 1989. It has worked to resolve conflicts in Haiti, Bosnia, Ethiopia, North Korea, Sudan and other countries. Carter and the Center actively support human rights defenders around the world and have intervened with heads of state on their behalf.

Filed under: read, Uncategorized, Watch Tagged: 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, 2016, Associated Press, Atlanta, Atlanta Braves, Barack Obama, birthday, Carter, Carter Center, Carter's, CarterCenter, Dracunculiasis, Emory University, Europe, George W. Bush, Georgia, Georgia Southwestern State University, Guinea, Human rights group, Inc., Iran, Iran hostage crisis, Jimmy Carter, Kiss cam, Nobel Peace Prize, President of the United States, Rosalynn Carter, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, style icon, Syria, United States, United States presidential election

Today is the 109th birthday of the original “It Girl” Louise Brooks. Her style is often copied or emulated or desired, but never improved.Louise Brooks changed the world without saying a word. She was an original then and an original now. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Louise Brooks
OCCUPATION: Film Actress
BIRTH DATE: November 14, 1906
DEATH DATE: August 08, 1985
PLACE OF BIRTH: Cherryvale, Kansas
PLACE OF DEATH: Rochester, New York

BEST KNOWN FOR: Louise Brooks was a silent-film actress known for bringing a sense of corrupt sensuality to her roles.

Mary Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985), generally known by her stage name Louise Brooks, was an American dancer, model, showgirl and silent film actress, noted for popularizing the bobbed haircut. Brooks is best known for her three feature roles including two G. W. Pabst films: in Pandora’s Box (1929), Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), and Prix de Beauté (Miss Europe) (1930). She starred in 17 silent films and, late in life, authored a memoir, Lulu in Hollywood.

French film historians rediscovered her films in the early 1950s, proclaiming her as an actress who surpassed even Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo as a film icon (Henri Langlois: “There is no Garbo, there is no Dietrich, there is only Louise Brooks!”), much to her amusement. It would lead to the still ongoing Louise Brooks film revivals, and rehabilitated her reputation in her home country. James Card, the film curator for the George Eastman House, discovered Louise living as a recluse in New York City about this time, and persuaded her to move to Rochester, New York to be near the George Eastman House film collection. With his help, she became a noted film writer in her own right. A collection of her witty and cogent writings, Lulu in Hollywood, was published in 1982. She was profiled by the film writer Kenneth Tynan in his essay, “The Girl With The Black Helmet”, the title of which was an allusion to her fabulous bob, worn since childhood, a hairstyle claimed as one of the ten most influential in history by beauty magazines the world over.

“I found that the only well-paying career open to me, as an unsuccessful actress of thirty-six, was that of a call girl…and (I) began to flirt with the fancies related to little bottles filled with yellow sleeping pills.”

Brooks had also been a heavy drinker since age 14, but she remained relatively sober to begin writing about film, which became her second career. During this period she began her first major writing project, an autobiographical novel called Naked on My Goat, a title taken from Goethe’s Faust. After working on the novel for a number of years, she destroyed the manuscript by throwing it into an incinerator.

In an interview with James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio, Liza Minnelli related her preparation for portraying Sally Bowles in the film Cabaret: “I went to my father, and asked him, what can you tell me about thirties glamor? Should I be emulating Marlene Dietrich or something? And he said no, I should study everything I can about Louise Brooks.”

In 1991 the British new wave group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark released a single named “Pandora’s Box” as a tribute to Brooks. The video for the single used extensive footage of Brooks from the movie and included a text intro which explained who Brooks was. And, for the 1988 Siouxsie and The Banshees album (Peepshow) and tour, singer Siouxsie Sioux sported a hairdo and costumes in Brooks’s style.

An exhibit titled “Louise Brooks and the ‘New Woman’ in Weimar Cinema” ran at the International Center of Photography in New York City in 2007, focusing on Brooks’ iconic screen persona and celebrating the hundredth anniversary of her birth.

On August 8, 1985, Brooks was found dead of a heart attack after suffering from arthritis and emphysema for many years. She was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Rochester, New York.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: A Thousand Splendid Suns, Academy Award for Best Actress, Actor, Adventures of Superman (TV series), African American, Alain Ducasse, Alberto Korda, American Civil War, Blonde Venus, Brooks, Clifton Webb, Dickie Moore (actor), Europe, George Eastman House, George Soros, Greta Garbo, Hollywood, Katharine Hepburn, Khaled Hosseini, Louise Brook, Louise Brooks, lulu in hollywood, Marlene Dietrich, New York, Pandora's Box, Prix de Beauté, Rochester, Sigmund Freud, Siouxsie Sioux, style icon, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Today is the 136th birthday of the artist Paul Klee. His work is the type that I am organically drawn to. I still remember the first time I saw his art: It was on the beginning of every chapter of a textbook my first year of college. I flipped ahead through the entire book, just looking for his next piece. I have no memory of the class, it was either and English or a Sociology and I am only really sure of that because of the building it was in. But his art has stuck with me all along. It made me understand that there is skill in being simple, that making things seem easy is quite technical. I am sure that has been adopted into my everyday life to some extent. The world is a better place because Paul was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

BEST KNOWN FOR: Paul Klee is a Swiss and German painter whose highly individual style is best known by an often childlike perspective and spidery hieroglyph-like symbols.

Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and eventually mastered colour theory, and wrote extensively about it; his lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre), published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are considered so important for modern art that they are compared to the importance that Leonardo da Vinci‘s A Treatise on Painting had for Renaissance. He and his colleague, the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the German Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture. His works reflect his dry humour and his sometimes childlike perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality.

Today, a painting by Klee can sell for as much as $7.5 million.

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Filed under: read, Uncategorized, Watch Tagged: 100 metres, A Treatise on Painting (Great Minds Series), Aar, Academy of Fine Arts, Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Applied science, Architect, art, Arts, Bauhaus, bauhaus school of art, Bern, Brain Pickings, Brown bear, Cape Town, Claude Monet, Cornelius Gurlitt (composer), Degenerate Art Exhibition, Discover (magazine), Einsteinhaus, Ekkehard Klemm, Europe, Florian Uhlig, german bauhaus school, Goethe-Institut, illustration, James Galway, Klee, Locarno, Markus Leoson, Münchenbuchsee, Munich, Muralto, Paris, Paul Klee, Paul Klee Notebooks, Renzo Piano, Royal College of Music, South Africa, South African College of Music, Switzerland, Wassily Kandinsky, Zentrum Paul Klee

Today is the 107th birthday of the photographer Yousuf Karsh.

NAME: Yousuf Karsh
OCCUPATION: Portrait Photographer
BIRTH DATE: December 23, 1908
DEATH DATE: July 13, 2002
PLACE OF BIRTH: Mardin, Ottoman Empire
PLACE OF DEATH: Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

BEST KNOWN FOR: Armenian–Canadian portrait photographer. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he is “one of the greatest portrait photographers of the twentieth century, [who] achieved a distinct style in his theatrical lighting.”

Yousuf Karsh was born in Mardin, a city in the eastern Ottoman Empire (present Turkey). He grew up during the Armenian Genocide where he wrote, “I saw relatives massacred; my sister died of starvation as we were driven from village to village.” At the age of 16, his parents sent Yousuf to live with his uncle George Nakash, a photographer in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. Karsh briefly attended school there and assisted in his uncle’s studio. Nakash saw great potential in his nephew and in 1928 arranged for Karsh to apprentice with portrait photographer John Garo in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. His brother, Malak Karsh, was also a photographer.

Karsh returned to Canada four years later, eager to make his mark. In 1931 he started working with photographer John Powls, in his studio on the second floor of the Hardy Arcade at 130 Sparks Street in Ottawa, Ontario, close to Parliament Hill. When Powls retired in 1933, Karsh took over the studio. Karsh’s first solo exhibition was in 1936 in the Drawing Room of the Château Laurier hotel. He moved his studio into the hotel in 1973, and it remained there until he retired in 1992.

Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King discovered Karsh and arranged introductions with visiting dignitaries for portrait sittings. Karsh’s work attracted the attention of varied celebrities and on 30 December 1941 he photographed Winston Churchill, after Churchill gave a speech to Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa.

The image of Churchill brought Karsh international prominence, and is claimed to be the most reproduced photographic portrait in history. In 1967, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and in 1990 was promoted to Companion.

Of the 100 most notable people of the century, named by the International Who’s Who [2000], Karsh had photographed 51. Karsh was also the only Canadian to make the list.

In the late 1990s Karsh moved to Boston and on July 13, 2002, aged 93, he died at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital after complications following surgery. He was interred in Notre Dame Cemetery in Ottawa.

Karsh was a master of studio lights. One of Karsh’s distinctive practices was lighting the subject’s hands separately. He photographed many of the great and celebrated personalities of his generation. Throughout most of his career he used the 8×10 bellows Calumet (1997.0319) camera, made circa 1940 in Chicago. Journalist George Perry wrote in the British paper The Sunday Times that “when the famous start thinking of immortality, they call for Karsh of Ottawa.”

Karsh had a gift for capturing the essence of his subject in the instant of his portrait. As Karsh wrote of his own work in Karsh Portfolio in 1967, “Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can. The revelation, if it comes at all, will come in a small fraction of a second with an unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye, a brief lifting of the mask that all humans wear to conceal their innermost selves from the world. In that fleeting interval of opportunity the photographer must act or lose his prize.”

Karsh said “My chief joy is to photograph the great in heart, in mind, and in spirit, whether they be famous or humble.” His work is in permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Bibliotheque nationale de France, the National Portrait Gallery in London, the National Portrait Gallery of Australia and many others. Library and Archives Canada holds his complete collection, including negatives, prints and documents. His photographic equipment was donated to the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa.

Karsh published 15 books of his photographs, which include brief descriptions of the sessions, during which he would ask questions and talk with his subjects to relax them as he composed the portrait. Some famous subjects photographed by Karsh were Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, Muhammad Ali, Marian Anderson, W. H. Auden, Joan Baez, Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Humphrey Bogart, Alexander Calder, Pablo Casals, Fidel Castro, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, Winston Churchill, Joan Crawford, Ruth Draper, Albert Einstein, Dwight Eisenhower, Princess Elizabeth, Robert Frost, Clark Gable, Indira Gandhi, Grey Owl, Ernest Hemingway, Audrey Hepburn, Pope John Paul II, Chuck Jones, Carl Jung, Helen Keller and Polly Thompson, Grace Kelly, Jacqueline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Peter Lorre, The Marx Brothers, Pandit Nehru, Georgia O’Keeffe, Laurence Olivier, General Pershing, Pablo Picasso, Pope Pius XII, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Paul Robeson, the rock band Rush, Albert Schweitzer, George Bernard Shaw, Jean Sibelius, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Andy Warhol, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

The story is often told of how Karsh created his famous portrait of Churchill during the early years of World War II. Churchill, the British prime minister, had just addressed the Canadian Parliament and Karsh was there to record one of the century’s great leaders. “He was in no mood for portraiture and two minutes were all that he would allow me as he passed from the House of Commons chamber to an anteroom,” Karsh wrote in Faces of Our Time. “Two niggardly minutes in which I must try to put on film a man who had already written or inspired a library of books, baffled all his biographers, filled the world with his fame, and me, on this occasion, with dread.”

Churchill marched into the room scowling, “regarding my camera as he might regard the German enemy.” His expression suited Karsh perfectly, but the cigar stuck between his teeth seemed incompatible with such a solemn and formal occasion. “Instinctively, I removed the cigar. At this the Churchillian scowl deepened, the head was thrust forward belligerently, and the hand placed on the hip in an attitude of anger.”

The image captured Churchill and the Britain of the time perfectly — defiant and unconquerable. Churchill later said to him, “You can even make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed.” As such, Karsh titled the photograph, The Roaring Lion.

However, Karsh’s favourite photograph was the one taken immediately after this one where Churchill’s mood had lightened considerably and he is shown much in the same pose, but smiling. It was announced on 26 April 2013 by the Bank of England that the more well-known image would be used on the new £5 note, to be issued in 2016.

In 2009, in Ottawa, Yousuf Karsh’s life and work were celebrated during Festival Karsh, a collaboration between the Canada Museum of Science and Technology and the Portrait Gallery of Canada.

He was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

Canada Post honoured the 100th anniversary of the birth of Yousuf Karsh by releasing an artist’s series of three stamps depicting Karsh images. The famous Churchill portrait figures on the International Rate stamp and has a face value of $1.60CAN, a lithe side-profile taken in 1956 of Audrey Hepburn graces the American Rate stamp with a face value of $0.96CAN, and a self-portrait of Yousuf himself viewing photographic plates appears on the Domestic Rate stamp with a face value of $0.52CAN. A souvenir sheet set depicting an additional 24 Karsh portraits of some of the world’s most famous and interesting persons includes among others: Walt Disney, Muhammad Ali, Mother Teresa, Humphrey Bogart, Indira Gandhi, Sophia Loren, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ernest Hemingway, Nikita Khrushchev, Martin Luther King, Pope John XXIII, Pablo Picasso, Dizzy Gillespie, and Queen Elizabeth II, further confirming the range and scope of Karsh’s work.

Karsh has influenced many other photographers in different styles to become more independent and further motivate other artists.

On December 3, 1959, Karsh appeared as a guest challenger on the TV panel show To Tell the Truth.

In 2005, the city of Ottawa established the Karsh Prize, honoring Ottawa photo-based artists, in honor of Yousuf and Malak Karsh. Karsh also photographed the Canadian rock band Rush for their 1984 album Grace Under Pressure. Geddy Lee of Rush has referred to the picture as a typical bar mitzvah photo.

In 2015, the International Astronomical Union and the Carnegie Institution for Science revealed the winners of a public competition to name five geologically significant impact craters on the planet Mercury imaged by the MESSENGER probe. By rule of the IAU, craters on Mercury are named after figures of historical significance in the world of art. In recognition of Yousuf Karsh’s outstanding contributions to portrait photography, one of the five impact craters was named Karsh.

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Today is the 294th birthday of Madame de Pompador, arguably one of the first fashion icons and one of the most influential women of the 18th century. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

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Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Abercrombie & Fitch, Académie des Beaux-Arts, Agence France-Presse, Anaïs Nin, Arsenal F.C., Associated Press, Association football, Athletic shoe, Baltimore, Bartell Drugs, Ben Paris, Beverly Hills, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Billiard hall, birthday, Bombardier Inc., Boston, Boston Public Library, California, California State Route 2, Catholicism, CCTV, Chimney, Chimney sweep, Christmas, Christmas tree, Europe, France, French language, Louis XV of France, Madame de Pompadour, Madame du Barry, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, Palace of Versailles, Paris

Today is the 172nd birthday of the man with a vision to bring reasonably priced quality merchandise to rural America. Well before Sears created their catalog, Montgomery Ward was fulfilling the needs and wishes of those outside of major towns and cities. I loved the Montgomery Ward catalog, it was like looking into a different family’s life, not that they seemed happier or better, but they did wear a lot of brightly colored clothing, were constantly having some sort of party and were entertained by toys and games I didn’t really see the excitement around. My grandparents had several old Montgomery ward catalogs on the stairs up to their third floor, I would look through them often and loved how vintage they seemed. I had to just assume that was how it was in 1968, that life was exactly like an episode of “Gidget.” It seemed just fine to me. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Aaron Montgomery Ward
BIRTHDATE: February 17, 1844
PLACE OF BIRTH: Chatham, NJ
DATE OF DEATH: December 7, 1913
PLACE OF DEATH: Chicago, IL

BEST KNOWN FOR: American entrepreneur based in Chicago who made his fortune through the use of mail order for retail sales of general merchandise to rural customers. In 1872 he founded Montgomery Ward & Company, which became nationally known.

Aaron Montgomery Ward was born on February 17, 1844, in Chatham, New Jersey, to a family whose forebears had served as officers in the French and Indian War as well as in the American Revolution. When he was about nine years old, his father, Sylvester Ward, moved the family to Niles, Michigan, where Aaron attended public schools until he reached the age of fourteen. He was one of a large family, which at that time was far from wealthy. When he was fourteen, he was apprenticed to a trade to help support the family. According to his brief memoirs, he first earned 25 cents per day at a cutting machine in a barrel stave factory, and then stacking brick in a kiln at 30 cents a day. He noted that the experience greatly increased his knowledge. Energy and ambition drove him onward, and he left the confining bonds of the mechanic’s work to seek employment for himself to give wider scope to his energy and ability. He followed the river to Lake Michigan, went to the town of St. Joseph, a market for outlying fruit orchards, and went to work in a shoe store. This was the initial step toward the project that later sent his name across the United States. Being a fair salesman, within nine months he was engaged as a salesman in a general country store at six dollars per month plus board, a considerable salary at the time. He rose to become head clerk and general manager and remained at this store for three years. By the end of those three years, his salary was one hundred dollars a month plus his board. He left for a better job in a competing store, where he worked another two years. In this period, Ward learned retailing.

In 1865 Ward located in Chicago, and worked for Case and Sobin, a lamp house. He traveled for them, and sold goods on commission for a short time. Chicago was the center of the wholesale dry-goods trade, and in the 1860s Ward joined the leading dry-goods house, Field Palmer & Leiter, forerunner of Marshall Field & Co. He worked for Field for two years and then joined the wholesale dry-goods business of Wills, Greg & Co. In tedious rounds of train trips to southern communities, hiring rigs at the local stables, driving out to the crossroads stores and listening to the complaints of the back-country proprietors and their rural customers, he conceived a new merchandising technique: direct mail sales to country people. It was a time when rural consumers longed for the comforts of the city, yet all too often were victimized by monopolists and overcharged by the costs of many middlemen required to bring manufactured products to the countryside. The quality of merchandise also was suspect and the hapless farmer had no recourse in a caveat emptor economy. Ward shaped a plan to buy goods at low cost for cash. By eliminating intermediaries, with their markups and commissions, and drastically cutting selling costs, he could sell goods to people, however remote, at appealing prices. He then invited them to send their orders by mail and delivered the purchases to their nearest railroad station. The only thing he lacked was capital.

None of Ward’s friends or business acquaintances joined in his enthusiasm for his revolutionary idea. Although his idea was generally considered to border on lunacy and his first inventory was destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire, Ward persevered. In August 1872, with two fellow employees and a total capital of $1,600, he rented a small shipping room on North Clark Street and published the world’s first general merchandise mail-order catalog with 163 products listed. It is said that in 1880, Aaron Montgomery Ward himself initially wrote all catalog copy. When the business grew and department heads wrote merchandise descriptions, he still went over every line of copy to be certain that it was accurate.

The following year, both of Ward’s partners left him, but he hung on. Later, Thorne, his future brother-in-law, joined him in his business. This was the turning point for the young company, which grew and prospered. Soon the catalog, frequently reviled and even burned publicly by rural retailers who had been cheating the farmers for so many years, became known fondly as the “Wish Book” and was a favorite in households all across America.

The Montgomery Ward catalog’s place in history was assured when the Grolier Club, a society of bibliophiles in New York, exhibited it in 1946 alongside Webster’s dictionary as one of one hundred American books chosen for their influence on life and culture of the people.

Ward’s catalog soon was copied by other enterprising merchants, most notably Richard W. Sears and Alvah C. Roebuck, who mailed their first general catalog in 1896

Montgomery Ward died December 8, 1913, at the age of 69. His wife bequeathed a large portion of the estate to Northwestern University and other educational institutions. Today, more than a century later, Montgomery Ward & Co. adheres to the philosophy of “satisfaction guaranteed.” This was an unheard-of policy when Ward announced it in 1875. Ward has been called “the first consumerist.”

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Today is the 93rd birthday of the French mime Marcel Marceau. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

BEST KNOWN FOR: Marcel Marceau was best known for his work as a mime artist in France.

Marcel Marceau died on September 22, 2007 in Cahors, France.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story (8-Nov-2007) · Himself
Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin (11-Sep-2003) · Himself
Kinski Paganini (1989)
Silent Movie (16-Jun-1976) · Himself
Shanks (9-Oct-1974)
Barbarella (10-Oct-1968)

Source: Marcel Marceau

Source: Marcel Marceau – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Marcel Marceau – Artist, Actor – Biography.com

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Today is the 108th birthday of of a rebel, a saint and a Righteous Gentile: Oskar Schindler. How do you calculate the number of lives that exist today because he was brave enough to save the lives of 1,100 Jewish people from World War II. How many lives have been changed by his example of standing up for what is right? The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

oskar schindler 1

NAME: Oskar Schindler
OCCUPATION: Entrepreneur
BIRTH DATE: April 28, 1908
DEATH DATE: October 9, 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH: Svitavy [Zwittau], Austro-Hungarian Empire
PLACE OF DEATH: Hildesheim, West Germany

BEST KNOWN FOR: Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist during World War II who sheltered approximately 1,100 Jews from the Nazis by employing them in his factories.

Oskar Schindler was born April 28, 1908, in the city of Svitavy [Zwittau], in the Sudetenland, now part of the Czech Republic. The eldest of two children, Oskar’s father, Hans Schindler, was a farm-equipment manufacturer, his mother, Louisa, was a homemaker. Oscar and his sister, Elfriede, attended a German-language school where he was popular, though not an exceptional student. Forgoing the opportunity to attend college, he went to trade school instead, taking courses in several areas.

Oskar Schindler left school in 1924, taking odd jobs and trying to find a direction in life. In 1928, he met and married Emilie Pelzl and soon after was called into military service. Afterward, he worked for his father’s company until the business failed in the economic depression of the 1930s. When not working, Schindler excelled at drinking and philandering, a lifestyle he would maintain throughout much of his life.

In the 1930s, the political landscape of Europe changed dramatically with the rise Adolf Hitler and the German Nazi Party. Sensing the shift in political momentum, Schindler joined a local pro-Nazi organization and began collecting intelligence for the German military. He was arrested by Czech authorities in 1938, charged with spying and sentenced to death but was released shortly thereafter, when Germany annexed the Sudetenland. Schindler would take advantage of this second chance.

In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II. Schindler left his wife and traveled to Krakow, hoping to profit from the impending war. Looking for business opportunities, he quickly became involved in the black market. By October, Schindler used his charm and doled out “gifts of gratitude” (contraband goods) to bribe high-ranking German officers. Wanting to expand his business interests, Schindler obtained a former Jewish enamelware factory to produce goods for the German military.

Oskar Schindler renamed the factory Deutsche Emaillewaren-Fabrik (German Enamelware Factory) and started production with a small staff. Possessing a certain panache for business and engaging in influence peddling, Schindler secured numerous German army contracts for kitchenware. He soon met Itzhak Stern, a Jewish accountant, who connected Schindler with Krakow’s Jewish community to staff the factory.

oskar schindler Starting out with 45 employees, the company grew to more than 1,700 at its peak in 1944. Initially, Schindler hired Jewish workers because they were a less expensive Polish workforce. But as Nazi atrocities against the Jewish community increased, Schindler’s attitude changed. With the help of Stern, he found reasons to hire more Jewish workers, regardless of their abilities. By 1942, nearly half of his employees were Jewish and were known as Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews). When the Nazis began to relocate Krakow’s Jews to labor camps, Itzhak Stern and several hundred other employees were among them. Schindler raced to the train station and confronted an SS officer, arguing that his workers were essential to the war effort. After several tense minutes of dropping names and making veiled threats, Schindler was able to free his workers and escort them back to the factory.

In early 1943, the Nazis implemented the liquidation of the Krakow Jewish population and opened up the Plaszow work camp, run by the notoriously sadistic commandant, Amon Göth. Schindler cultivated a relationship with Göth, and whenever any of his workers were threatened with deportation to a concentration camp or execution, Schindler managed to provide a black-market gift or bribe to save their lives.

In 1944, Plaszow transitioned from a labor camp to a concentration camp and all Jews were to be sent to the death camp at Auschwitz. Schindler requested Göth allow him to relocate his factory to Brnĕnec, in the Sudetenland, and produce war goods. He was told to draw up a list of workers he wanted to take with him. With Stern’s help, Schindler created a list of 1,100 Jewish names he deemed “essential” for the new factory. Permission was granted and the factory was moved. Not wanting to contribute to the German war effort, Schindler ordered his workers to purposefully make defective products that would fail inspection. The employees spent the remaining months of the war in the factory.

During the war, Emilie joined Oskar in Krakow, and by the war’s end, the couple was penniless, having used his fortune to bribe authorities and save his workers. The day after the war ended, Schindler and his wife fled to Argentina with the help of the Schindlerjuden to avoid prosecution for his previous spying activities. For more than a decade, Schindler tried farming, only to declare bankruptcy in 1957. He left his wife and traveled to West Germany, where he made an unsuccessful attempt in the cement business. Schindler spent the rest of his life supported by donations from the Schindlerjuden. He was named a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem in 1962, and after his death in 1974, at age 66, Oskar Schindler was interred in the Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. In 1993, Steven Spielberg brought the story of Oskar Schindler to the big screen with his film, Schindler’s List.

Source: Oskar Schindler – Entrepreneur – Biography.com

Source: Oskar Schindler

Source: Oskar Schindler – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Today is the 110th birthday of the one and only Josephine Baker. Her iconic everything has cemented her in a time and place forever: Paris between the wars. The first song of hers that I ever heard was J’ai Deaux Amors and I remember really listening to it and seeking out more of her music. Her story is tremendous and her trajectory is that of no other. She started life in St. Louis and by the time of her death, the entire world was in love with her. Parisians named a swimming pool in her honor. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

Josephine Baker - Schwarze Diva in einer wei§en Welt

NAME: Josephine Baker
OCCUPATION: Civil Rights Activist, Dancer, Singer
BIRTH DATE: June 3, 1906
DEATH DATE: April 12, 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH: St. Louis, Missouri
PLACE OF DEATH: Paris, France

BEST KNOWN FOR: Josephine Baker was a dancer and singer who became wildly popular in France during the 1920s. She also devoted much of her life to fighting racism.

Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald on June 3, 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, Carrie McDonald, was a washerwoman who had given up her dreams of becoming a music-hall dancer. Her father, Eddie Carson, was a vaudeville drummer. He abandoned Carrie and Josephine shortly after her birth. Carrie remarried soon thereafter and would have several more children in the coming years.

To help support her growing family, at age 8 Josephine cleaned houses and babysat for wealthy white families, often being poorly treated. She briefly returned to school two years later before running away from home at age 13 and finding work as a waitress at a club. While working there, she married a man named Willie Wells, from whom she divorced only weeks later.

It was also around this time that Josephine first took up dancing, honing her skills both in clubs and in street performances, and by 1919 she was touring the United States with the Jones Family Band and the Dixie Steppers performing comedic skits. In 1921, Josephine married a man named Willie Baker, whose name she would keep for the rest of her life despite their divorce years later. In 1923, Baker landed a role in the musical Shuffle Along as a member of the chorus, and the comic touch that she brought to the part made her popular with audiences. Looking to parlay these early successes, Baker moved to New York City and was soon performing in Chocolate Dandies and, along with Ethel Waters, in the floor show of the Plantation Club, where again she quickly became a crowd favorite.

In 1925, at the peak of France’s obsession with American jazz and all things exotic, Baker traveled to Paris to perform in La Revue Nègre at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. She made an immediate impression on French audiences when, with dance partner Joe Alex, she performed the Danse Sauvage, in which she wore only a feather skirt.

However, it was the following year, at the Folies Bergère music hall, one of the most popular of the era, that Baker’s career would reach a major turning point. In a performance called La Folie du Jour, Baker danced wearing little more than a skirt made of 16 bananas. The show was wildly popular with Parisian audiences and Baker was soon among the most popular and highest-paid performers in Europe, having the admiration of cultural figures like Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway and E. E. Cummings and earning herself nicknames like “Black Venus” and “Black Pearl.” She also received more than 1,000 marriage proposals.

Capitalizing on this success, Baker sang professionally for the first time in 1930, and several years later landed film roles as a singer in Zou-Zou and Princesse Tam-Tam. The money she earned from her performances soon allowed her to purchase an estate in Castelnaud-Fayrac, in the southwest of France. She named the estate Les Milandes, and soon paid to move her family there from St. Louis.

In 1936, riding the wave of popularity she was enjoying in France, Baker returned to the United States to perform in the Ziegfield Follies, hoping to establish herself as a performer in her home country as well. However, she was met with a generally hostile, racist reaction and quickly returned to France, crestfallen at her mistreatment. Upon her return, Baker married French industrialist Jean Lion and obtained citizenship from the country that had embraced her as one of its own.

When World War II erupted later that year, Baker worked for the Red Cross during the occupation of France. As a member of the Free French forces she also entertained troops in both Africa and the Middle East. Perhaps most importantly, however, Baker did work for the French Resistance, at times smuggling messages hidden in her sheet music and even in her underwear. For these efforts, at the war’s end, Baker was awarded both the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour with the rosette of the Resistance, two of France’s highest military honors.

Following the war, Baker spent most of her time at Les Milandes with her family. In 1947, she married French orchestra leader Jo Bouillon, and beginning in 1950 began to adopt babies from around the world. She adopted 12 children in all, creating what she referred to as her “rainbow tribe” and her “experiment in brotherhood.” She often invited people to the estate to see these children, to demonstrate that people of different races could in fact live together harmoniously.

During the 1950s, Baker frequently returned to the United States to lend her support to the Civil Rights Movement, participating in demonstrations and boycotting segregated clubs and concert venues. In 1963, Baker participated, alongside Martin Luther King Jr., in the March on Washington, and was among the many notable speakers that day. In honor of her efforts, the NAACP eventually named May 20th “Josephine Baker Day.”

After decades of rejection by her countrymen and a lifetime spent dealing with racism, in 1973 Baker performed at Carnegie Hall in New York and was greeted with a standing ovation. She was so moved by her reception that she wept openly before her audience. The show was a huge success and marked Baker’s comeback to the stage.

In April 1975, Josephine Baker performed at the Bobino Theater in Paris, in the first of a series of performances celebrating the 50th anniversary of her Paris debut. Numerous celebrities were in attendance, including Sophia Loren and Princess Grace of Monaco, who had been a dear friend to Baker for years. Just days later, on April 12, 1975, Baker died in her sleep of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was 69.

On the day of her funeral, more than 20,000 people lined the streets of Paris to witness the procession, and the French government honored her with a 21-gun salute, making Baker the first American woman in history to be buried in France with military honors.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Princess Tam-Tam (2-Nov-1935)
Zouzou (1934)

Source: Josephine Baker – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Josephine Baker – Civil Rights Activist, Dancer, Singer – Biography.com

Source: Josephine Baker | French entertainer | Britannica.com

Source: Josephine Baker

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Today is the 85th birthday of Carmen Dell’Orefice. Not everyone can look like this at age 81, but everyone can be inspired to stay active and interested and be fearless. This woman has had a life. We are lucky to have her.

NAME: carmen dell’orefice
DATE OF BIRTH: June 3, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH: New York, NY, USA
OCCUPATION: Model
HEIGHT: 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
HAIR COLOR: Silver
EYE COLOR: Hazel

Carmen’s parents were Italian and Hungarian. They were constantly breaking up and getting back together. Because of this, Carmen lived in foster homes and sometimes with other relatives.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Carmen lost most of her money in the stock market. She was forced to auction off her famous modeling photographs from the 1940s-1980s through Sotheby’s.

In April 2009, Carmen was interviewed for Vanity Fair magazine’s story “Madoff’s World”. Photographs of Carmen and photographs she took of Madoff appear in this article.

Source: Carmen Dell’Orefice – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Filed under: read, Uncategorized, Watch Tagged: Aaron, AARP, Academic term, Acetone, Aftermath of World War II, Aid agency, Alexander Calder, American Broadcasting Company, American exceptionalism, American Psychological Association, Andy Warhol, Aristotle, Associated Press, Audio engineering, Avant-garde, Bali, beauty, Bernard Madoff, Brain Pickings, Carmen, Carmen Dell, Carmen Dell'Orefice, Donald Trump, Dorian Leigh, erwin blumenfeld, Europe, Eviction, Final examination, Horst P. Horst, London, Madoff, Melvin Sokolsky, New York, New York City, Palm Beach Lakes Community High School, Salvador Dalí, Spanish language, style icon, Surrealism, Teacher, The Palm Beach Post, United States, Vogue, Vogue (magazine)

Today is the 122nd birthday of the author, Aldous Huxley. I first started reading his books at Interlochen Center for the Arts the summer of 1989. The library was in a stone building, cool in temperature and cool in aesthetics. That summer, I read Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited. I was transported. Later, I read somewhere that his writing has inspired a lot of people that I find to be visionaries, it was great to understand a bit more of their inspirational foundations. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

REMAINS: Buried, Compton Village Cemetery, Guildford, Surrey, England

BEST KNOWN FOR: Author Aldous Huxley expressed his deep distrust of 20th-century politics and technology in his sci-fi novel Brave New World, a nightmarish vision of the future.

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

… the most impressive thing I have listened to. It was like listening to a discourse of the Buddha – such power, such intrinsic authority…

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement (1-Nov-2007) · Himself

Author of books:
The Burning Wheel (1916, poems)
Jonah (1917, poems)
The Defeat of Youth and other poems (1918, poems)
Leda (1920, poems)
Crome Yellow (1921, novel)
Antic Hay (1923, novel)
On the Margin: Notes and Essays (1932, essays)
Those Barren Leaves (1925, novel)
Selected Poems (1925, poems)
Along The Road: Notes and Essays of a Tourist (1925, travel)
Jesting Pilate: An Intellectual Holiday (1926, travel)
Essays New and Old (1926, essays)
Proper Studies (1927, essays)
Point Counter Point (1928, novel)
Arabia Infelix and other poems (1929, poems)
Do What You Will (1929, essays)
Brief Candles (1930, short stories)
Vulgarity in Literature (1930, essays)
Brave New World (1931, novel)
Music At Night (1931, essays)
The Cicadas and other poems (1931, poems)
Texts and Pretexts: An Anthology of Commentaries (1932, essays)
T. H. Huxley as a Man of Letters (1932, biography)
Beyond the Mexique Bay (1934, travel)
Eyeless in Gaza (1936, novel)
The Olive Tree and other Essays (1937, essays)
What Are You Going To Do About It? The Case for Reconstructive Peace (1936, essays)
Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideas and into the Methods Employed for Their Realization (1937, essays)
The Elder Peter Bruegel (1937, novel)
The Most Agreeable Vice (1938, essays)
After Many a Summer Dies The Swan (1939, novel)
Words and Their Meanings (1940, essays)
Grey Eminence: A Study in Religion and Politics (1941, essays)
The Art of Seeing (1942, essays)
The Perennial Philosophy (1942, essays)
Orion (1943, poems)
Time Must Have A Stop (1944, novel)
Science, Liberty and Peace (1946, essays)
Ape and Essence (1948, novel)
Food and People (1949, essays, with John Russell)
Themes and Variations (1950, essays)
A Day in Windsor (1953, essays, with J. A. Kings)
Doors of Perception (1954, essays)
The Genius and the Goddess (1955, novel)
Heaven and Hell (1956, essays)
Brave New World Revised (1958, novel)
On Art and Artists (1960, essays)
Island (1962, novel)
The Politics of Ecology: The Question of Survival (1963, essays)
Form and Substance (1963, essays)
New Fashioned Christmas (1968, essays, posthumous)
America and the Future: An Essay (1970, essay, posthumous)

Wrote plays:
The Discovery (1924)
The World of Light (1931)
The Gioconda Smile (1948)
The Ambassador of Captripedia (1965, posthumous )
Christmas Sketch (1972, posthumous)

Source: Aldous Huxley – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Aldous Huxley – Author, Screenwriter, Writer – Biography.com

Source: Aldous Huxley

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Today is the 133rd birthday of the woman that said, “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” Coco Chanel. I admire a person that creates their life how they wish it to be. Determination, focus, drive and perseverance. Her life is as beautiful as her designs. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Coco Chanel
BIRTH DATE: August 19, 1883
DEATH DATE: January 10, 1971
PLACE OF BIRTH: Saumur, France
PLACE OF DEATH: Paris, France
REMAINS: Buried, Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery, Lausanne, Switzerland

BEST KNOWN FOR: With her trademark suits and little black dresses, fashion designer Coco Chanel created timeless designs that are still popular today.

Famed fashion designer Coco Chanel was born Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel on August 19, 1883, in Saumur, France. With her trademark suits and little black dresses, Coco Chanel created timeless designs that are still popular today. She herself became a much revered style icon known for her simple yet sophisticated outfits paired with great accessories, such as several strands of pearls. As Chanel once said,“luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.”

Fashion fades, only style remains the same.

Her early years, however, were anything but glamorous. After her mother’s death, Chanel was put in an orphanage by her father who worked as a peddler. She was raised by nuns who taught her how to sew—a skill that would lead to her life’s work. Her nickname came from another occupation entirely. During her brief career as a singer, Chanel performed in clubs in Vichy and Moulins where she was called “Coco.” Some say that the name comes from one of the songs she used to sing, and Chanel herself said that it was a “shortened version of cocotte, the French word for ‘kept woman,” according to an article in The Atlantic.

Around the age of 20, Chanel became involved with Etienne Balsan who offered to help her start a millinery business in Paris. She soon left him for one of his even wealthier friends, Arthur “Boy” Capel. Both men were instrumental in Chanel’s first fashion venture.

It is always better to be slightly underdressed.

Opening her first shop on Paris’s Rue Cambon in 1910, Chanel started out selling hats. She later added stores in Deauville and Biarritz and began making clothes. Her first taste of clothing success came from a dress she fashioned out of an old jersey on a chilly day. In response to the many people who asked about where she got the dress, she offered to make one for them. “My fortune is built on that old jersey that I’d put on because it was cold in Deauville,” she once told author Paul Morand.

In the 1920s, Chanel took her thriving business to new heights. She launched her first perfume, Chanel No. 5, which was the first to feature a designer’s name. Perfume “is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory of fashion. . . . that heralds your arrival and prolongs your departure,” Chanel once explained.

In 1925, she introduced the now legendary Chanel suit with collarless jacket and well-fitted skirt. Her designs were revolutionary for the time—borrowing elements of men’s wear and emphasizing comfort over the constraints of then-popular fashions. She helped women say good-bye to the days of corsets and other confining garments.

Another 1920s revolutionary design was Chanel’s little black dress. She took a color once associated with mourning and showed just how chic it could be for eveningwear. In addition to fashion, Chanel was a popular figure in the Paris literary and artistic worlds. She designed costumes for the Ballets Russes and for Jean Cocteau’s play Orphée, and counted Cocteau and artist Pablo Picasso among her friends. For a time, Chanel had a relationship with composer Igor Stravinsky.

Another important romance for Chanel began in the 1920s. She met the wealthy duke of Westminster aboard his yacht around 1923, and the two started a decades-long relationship. In response to his marriage proposal, she reportedly said “There have been several Duchesses of Westminster—but there is only one Chanel!”

When I find a colour darker than black, I’ll wear it. But until then, I’m wearing black!

The international economic depression of the 1930s had a negative impact on her company, but it was the outbreak of World War II that led Chanel to close her business. She fired her workers and shut down her shops. During the German occupation of France, Chanel got involved with a German military officer, Hans Gunther von Dincklage. She got special permission to stay in her apartment at the Hotel Ritz. After the war ended, Chanel was interrogated by her relationship with von Dincklage, but she was not charged as a collaborator. Some have wondered whether friend Winston Churchill worked behind the scenes on Chanel’s behalf.

While not officially charged, Chanel suffered in the court of public opinion. Some still viewed her relationship with a Nazi officer as a betrayal of her country. Chanel left Paris, spending some years in Switzerland in a sort of exile. She also lived at her country house in Roquebrune for a time.

At the age of 70, Chanel made a triumphant return to the fashion world. She first received scathing reviews from critics, but her feminine and easy-fitting designs soon won over shoppers around the world.

In 1969, Chanel’s fascinating life story became the basis for the Broadway musical Coco starring Katharine Hepburn as the legendary designer. Alan Jay Lerner wrote the book and lyrics for the show’s song while Andre Prévin composed the music. Cecil Beaton handled the set and costume design for the production. The show received seven Tony Award nominations, and Beaton won for Best Costume Design and René Auberjonois for Best Featured Actor.

Coco Chanel died on January 10, 1971, at her apartment in the Hotel Ritz. She never married, having once said “I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.” Hundreds crowded together at the Church of the Madeleine to bid farewell to the fashion icon. In tribute, many of the mourners wore Chanel suits.

A little more than a decade after her death, designer Karl Lagerfeld took the reins at her company to continue the Chanel legacy. Today her namesake company continues to thrive and is believed to generate hundreds of millions in sales each year.

In addition to the longevity of her designs, Chanel’s life story continues to captivate people’s attention. There have been several biographies of the fashion revolutionary, including Chanel and Her World (2005) written by her friend Edmonde Charles-Roux.

In the recent television biopic, Coco Chanel (2008), Shirley MacLaine starred as the famous designer around the time of her 1954 career resurrection. The actress told WWD that she had long been interested in playing Chanel. “What’s wonderful about her is she’s not a straightforward, easy woman to understand.”

Source: Coco Chanel – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Coco Chanel – Fashion Designer – Biography.com

Source: Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (1883–1971) and the House of Chanel | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Source: Sleeping With the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War — By Hal Vaughan — Book Review – The New York Times

Source: Coco Chanel

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Today is the 126th birthday of the photographer Man Ray. You recognize his images, they are iconic. I think what I most love about them is their timelessness, a lot of his contemporaries have great photographs, but you can pinpoint them to a specific decade. The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Man Ray
OCCUPATION: Painter, Photographer, Filmmaker
BIRTH DATE: August 27, 1890
DEATH DATE: November 18, 1976
PLACE OF BIRTH: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
PLACE OF DEATH: Paris, France
FULL NAME: Man Ray
ORIGINALLY: Emmanuel Radnitzky
REMAINS: Buried, Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France

BEST KNOWN FOR: Man Ray was primarily known for his photography, which spanned both the Dada and Surrealism movements.

Born Emmanuel Rudnitzky, visionary artist Man Ray was the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia. His father worked as a tailor. The family moved to Brooklyn when Ray was a young child. From an early year, Ray showed great artistic ability. After finishing high school in 1908, he followed his passion for art; he studied drawing with Robert Henri at the Ferrer Center, and frequented Alfred Stieglitz‘s gallery 291. It later became apparent that Ray had been influenced by Stieglitz’s photographs. He utilized a similar style, snapping images that provided an unvarnished look at the subject.

Ray also found inspiration at the Armory Show of 1913, which featured the works of Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky and Marcel Duchamp. That same year, he moved to a burgeoning art colony in Ridgefield, New Jersey. His work was also evolving. After experimenting with a Cubist style of painting, he moved toward abstraction.

In 1914, Ray married Belgian poet Adon Lacroix, but their union fell apart after a few years. He made a more lasting friendship around this time, becoming close to fellow artist Marcel Duchamp.

Along with Duchamp and Francis Picabia, Ray became a leading figure in the Dada movement in New York. Dadaism, which takes its name from the French nickname for a rocking horse, challenged existing notions of art and literature, and encouraged spontaneity. One of Ray’s famous works from this time was “The Gift,” a sculpture that incorporated two found objects. He glued tacks to the work surface of an iron to create the piece.

In 1921, Ray moved to Paris. There, he continued to be a part of the artistic avant garde, rubbing elbows with such famous figures as Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. Ray became famous for his portraits of his artistic and literary associates. He also developed a thriving career as a fashion photographer, taking pictures for such magazines as Vogue. These commercial endeavors supported his fine art efforts. A photographic innovator, Ray discovered a new way to create interesting images by accident in his darkroom. Called “Rayographs,” these photos were made by placing and manipulating objects on pieces of photosensitive paper.

One of Ray’s other famous works from this time period was 1924’s “Violin d’Ingres.” This modified photograph features the bare back of his lover, a performer named Kiki, styled after a painting by neoclassical French artist Jean August Dominique Ingres. In a humorous twist, Ray added to two black shapes to make her back look like a musical instrument. He also explored the artistic possibilities of film, creating such now classic Surrealistic works as L’Etoile de Mer (1928). Around this time, Ray also experimented with a technique called the Sabatier effect, or solarization, which adds a silvery, ghostly quality to the image.

Ray soon found another muse, Lee Miller, and featured her in his work. A cut-out of her eye is featured on the 1932 found-object sculpture “Object to Be Destroyed,” and her lips fill the sky of “Observatory Time” (1936). In 1940, Ray fled the war in Europe and moved to California. He married model and dancer Juliet Browner the following year, in a unique double ceremony with artist Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning.

Returning to Paris in 1951, Ray continued to explore different artistic media. He focused much of his energy on painting and sculpture. Branching out in a new direction, Ray began writing his memoir. The project took more than a decade to complete, and his autobiography, Self Portrait, was finally published in 1965.

In his final years, Man Ray continued to exhibit his art, with shows in New York, London, Paris and other cities in the years before his death. He passed away on November 18, 1976, in his beloved Paris. He was 86 years old. His innovative works can be found on display in museums around the world, and he is remembered for his artistic wit and originality. As friend Marcel Duchamp once said, “It was his achievement to treat the camera as he treated the paint brush, as a mere instrument at the service of the mind.”

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Entr’acte (1924)

Source: Man Ray – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Man Ray Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works | The Art Story

Source: Man Ray (Getty Museum)

Source: Man Ray – Painter, Filmmaker, Photographer – Biography.com

Source: Man Ray

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Filed under: read, Watch Tagged: Agence France-Presse, Alexander Calder, Art book, artist, Bauhaus, Belgium, birthday, Brussels, Chimay, Claude Monet, Death anniversary, Degenerate Art Exhibition, Eugène Atget, Europe, France, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, Wassily Kandinsky

Happy Birthday Paul Klee

Happy Birthday Madame de Pompadour

Happy 92nd Birthday Marcel Marceau

Happy 84th Birthday Carmen Dell’Orefice

Happy 121st Birthday Aldous Huxley

Happy 116th Birthday Brassaï

Happy 87th Birthday Roddy McDowall

Happy 91st Birthday Jimmy Carter

Happy 109th Birthday Louise Brooks

Happy 136th Birthday Paul Klee

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Happy 107th Birthday Yousuf Karsh

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Happy 294th Birthday Madame de Pompadour

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Happy 172nd Birthday Aaron Montgomery Ward

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Happy 93rd Birthday Marcel Marceau

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Happy 108th Birthday Oskar Schindler

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Happy 110th Birthday Josephine Baker

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Happy 85th Birthday Carmen Dell’Orefice

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Happy 122nd Birthday Aldous Huxley

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Happy 133rd Birthday Coco Chanel

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Happy 126th Birthday Man Ray

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