... Charles Ryder: How's Sebastian?
Julia Flyte: He's fine.
Charles: Fine?
Julia: Did he tell you he was dying?
Charles: Well, I thought... His message said...
Julia: I expect he thought you wouldn't come if you knew.
Charles: He's not badly hurt, then?
Julia: He cracked a bone in his foot so small it hasn't even got a name.
Charles: How did it happen?
Julia: Playing croquet....
... "During the thirties, Man Ray made a large number of drawings while in Paris or travelling in the south of France. Man Ray had shown these drawings to Eluard, who had asked him to leave them with him. On Man Ray’s return, some weeks later, he found to his delight that his friend had 'illustrated' each drawing with a poem. This new and unexpected proof of Eluard's esteem resulted in the publication of Les Mains Libres, a book in which more than sixty pen-and-ink drawings are reproduced, fifty-four of them opposite Eluard's poem." ...
Marcel Duchamp's Secret Masterpiece
by Rachel Wolff
For two decades, Marcel Duchamp fooled the world into thinking he had retired, while quietly creating his last great work. Rachel Wolff on the multiple love affairs that inspired it.
... Working in secret for 20 years, Duchamp constructed much of Étant donnés in his diminutive studio on West 14th Street in New York, confiding only in three women (two lovers, one wife, to be exact) and, in the work’s later stages, artist/collector William Nelson Copley. By the 1940s, Duchamp had gone “underground” with his art, claiming to have given it up entirely for chess. “Nobody had any interest in what he was doing because nobody, including myself, knew he was doing anything,” Copley once said. “This gave him all the freedom in the world.”
Duchamp decided in the 1950s to will his pièce de résistance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to join the largest collection of the artist’s work. Étant donnés was permanently installed at the museum in 1969, one year after Duchamp’s death. It has since beguiled artists, critics, and art historians alike with its uncharacteristic look and perceivably lewd message. Jasper Johns called it “the strangest work of art any museum has ever had in it”; visitors feigned shock, bemoaning the piece to the director and even, at times, to guards and staffers in the galleries; and in his New York Times review, John Canaday wrote: “For the first time, this cleverest of 20th-century masters looks a bit retardataire.” It became sort of an art world in-joke and there’s little existing scholarship on the piece. It seemed, for the longest time, that no one quite got it.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art hopes to change that with Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés, a[n]...exhibition...The show gathers a fascinating array of photographs, documents, objects, and artworks related to Étant donnés and its conception....
by Rachel Wolff
For two decades, Marcel Duchamp fooled the world into thinking he had retired, while quietly creating his last great work. Rachel Wolff on the multiple love affairs that inspired it.
... Working in secret for 20 years, Duchamp constructed much of Étant donnés in his diminutive studio on West 14th Street in New York, confiding only in three women (two lovers, one wife, to be exact) and, in the work’s later stages, artist/collector William Nelson Copley. By the 1940s, Duchamp had gone “underground” with his art, claiming to have given it up entirely for chess. “Nobody had any interest in what he was doing because nobody, including myself, knew he was doing anything,” Copley once said. “This gave him all the freedom in the world.”
Duchamp decided in the 1950s to will his pièce de résistance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to join the largest collection of the artist’s work. Étant donnés was permanently installed at the museum in 1969, one year after Duchamp’s death. It has since beguiled artists, critics, and art historians alike with its uncharacteristic look and perceivably lewd message. Jasper Johns called it “the strangest work of art any museum has ever had in it”; visitors feigned shock, bemoaning the piece to the director and even, at times, to guards and staffers in the galleries; and in his New York Times review, John Canaday wrote: “For the first time, this cleverest of 20th-century masters looks a bit retardataire.” It became sort of an art world in-joke and there’s little existing scholarship on the piece. It seemed, for the longest time, that no one quite got it.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art hopes to change that with Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés, a[n]...exhibition...The show gathers a fascinating array of photographs, documents, objects, and artworks related to Étant donnés and its conception....
In 1913 I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and watch it turn.
A few months later I bought a cheap reproduction of a winter evening landscape, which I called "Pharmacy" after adding two small dots, one red and one yellow, in the horizon.
In New York in 1915 I bought at a hardware store a snow shovel on which I wrote "In advance of the broken arm."
It was around that time that the word "Readymade" came to my mind to designate this form of manifestation.
A point that I want very much to establish is that the choice of these "Readymades" was never dictated by aesthetic delectation.
The choice was based on a reaction of visual indifference with at the same time a total absence of good or bad taste ... in fact a complete anaesthesia.
One important characteristic was the short sentence which I occasionally inscribed on the "Readymade."
That sentence instead of describing the object like a title was meant to carry the mind of the spectator towards other regions more verbal. ...
A few months later I bought a cheap reproduction of a winter evening landscape, which I called "Pharmacy" after adding two small dots, one red and one yellow, in the horizon.
In New York in 1915 I bought at a hardware store a snow shovel on which I wrote "In advance of the broken arm."
It was around that time that the word "Readymade" came to my mind to designate this form of manifestation.
A point that I want very much to establish is that the choice of these "Readymades" was never dictated by aesthetic delectation.
The choice was based on a reaction of visual indifference with at the same time a total absence of good or bad taste ... in fact a complete anaesthesia.
One important characteristic was the short sentence which I occasionally inscribed on the "Readymade."
That sentence instead of describing the object like a title was meant to carry the mind of the spectator towards other regions more verbal. ...
I've tripped out on and adored these since childhood.
I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.
- Marcel Duchamp
- Marcel Duchamp
Everything important that I have done can be put into a little suitcase.
—Marcel Duchamp
New York, March 1952
—Marcel Duchamp
New York, March 1952
Duck Billed Platypus USB Drive
by Ally - on February 19th, 2010
[The] duck billed platypus is such an under loved creature. Thankfully one seller is finally having mercy on the animal. Now you can show your platypus loving side with this handy USB drive. Sure, some people might think it’s silly to carry around a platypus USB drive, but they clearly just don’t know what they’re missing. This happy creature is perfectly content holding onto even the most dull documents that you need.
Of course it’s only half of a platypus instead of the whole thing. Instead of having back legs he just has a USB port. Which is tragic for him, but handy for you. The drive holds 4GB of the necessary items you need to store within it....
Ta much, dear Anneliese
by Ally - on February 19th, 2010
[The] duck billed platypus is such an under loved creature. Thankfully one seller is finally having mercy on the animal. Now you can show your platypus loving side with this handy USB drive. Sure, some people might think it’s silly to carry around a platypus USB drive, but they clearly just don’t know what they’re missing. This happy creature is perfectly content holding onto even the most dull documents that you need.
Of course it’s only half of a platypus instead of the whole thing. Instead of having back legs he just has a USB port. Which is tragic for him, but handy for you. The drive holds 4GB of the necessary items you need to store within it....
Ta much, dear Anneliese
Day of the Dead papercut made in San Salvador Huixcolotla, Mexico (1980s) on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Day of the Dead papercut made in San Salvador Huixcolotla, Mexico (1980s)
My pal Dogs came over tonight, and we watched Luis Buñuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (orig. title, Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie). He'd never seen it before, but Your Humble Narrator has seen it at least four times and is a big fan. We discussed the surrealism of the film many times as we watched it, and how well Buñuel's dream sequences use elements of actual dreams. The washed-out colors (Bar one or two, I've always dreamed in color, but it rarely looks like Kodachrome©), curious perspectives, disappearing people, strange and sudden changes, etc are all trés a propos.
I looked around in the guide to see what else was on, and was delighted when I found TCM was showing Fellini's 8½! We went straight from one surreal film to another; and Dogs'd never seen 8½ either, and I'd only seen bits and pieces. It's not the pleasantest film in places, but for the most part it shifts into silliness when needed.
I looked around in the guide to see what else was on, and was delighted when I found TCM was showing Fellini's 8½! We went straight from one surreal film to another; and Dogs'd never seen 8½ either, and I'd only seen bits and pieces. It's not the pleasantest film in places, but for the most part it shifts into silliness when needed.
LOVE AND ROCKERS
Ted Bafaloukos Taught Us Everything We Know About Jamaica
INTERVIEW BY TASSOS BREKOULAKIS, PORTRAIT BY FREDDIE F.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THEODOROS BAFALOUKOS
Theodoros Bafaloukos wrote and directed Rockers, the film that single-handedly made Jamaica and reggae interesting to couch-cozy white folks, their stoner kids, and a bunch of famous English punks with guitars. Today, Ted is not so reclusive as he is remote, spending his time at his childhood home on the secluded Greek island of Andros. Over 30 years after the film's initial release, we made the long journey for this, his first-ever print interview. ...
Vice: How did you first find yourself in Jamaica?
Theodoros Bafaloukos: I went there in 1975 as a freelance photographer for Island Records with a friend, a young guy in the reggae scene. We took photos of faces on the island. It was interesting and exciting. It was also funny because they arrested me as a CIA spy.
Uh-oh. What happened?
I’d gone to a radio station to speak to someone from the community. I wanted to ask him for equipment and for help shooting a documentary—which is what I wanted to do originally. I was in the car with my friend, who was driving, when suddenly, out of nowhere, a man sticks his hand through the window, grabs a small notebook from my chest pocket, and runs into the building shouting “CIA, CIA!” I got out and tried to run after him, but when I got back, my friend and the car had vanished. I was scared. I found myself completely stranded, surrounded by strangers. The friends who had left told me later that they were terrified. We’re talking about a time when fear reigned and everyone was scared.
When did the police arrive?
Two jeeps appeared out of nowhere, full of cops—some in uniform, others looking like bouncers. The tougher ones with Uzis pounced out of the vehicle and arrested me. They put me in the jeep and paraded me through the streets at low speed so all could see that they had arrested a CIA agent! They took me to the police station, where it became obvious that they had no idea what to do with me. So they took me to another guy, who interviewed me.
An interview?
An interrogation. When I entered the room, the interrogator was seated behind a desk with my notebook next to him. I went over, picked up the notebook from the desk, and put it into my pocket.
Gutsy. What was in the notebook?
The addresses of all the people I had met on the island, mostly musicians. I had promised to send them photographs upon my return to America, which I did.
So did they let you go immediately?
After I put the notebook in my pocket the guy said nothing, didn’t even budge. I answered his questions but he didn’t even know what to ask me. He had probably made a few phone calls and realized that this was all a mistake.
Looking at pictures of you from this period, you looked more like the lead in a Zapatista porn than a CIA agent.
Why, what does a CIA agent look like? [laughs] I had a Greek passport, which made me look even more suspicious. They took it away and kept me there for what seemed like an eternity. Another guy came to interrogate me, but that again led nowhere. It was 10 or 11 at night when suddenly this white guy appears and says, “Come with me,” leads me out of the room, puts me in a cab, and says, “Go, just go.” I said, “What about my passport?” And he said, “Get out of here, man.” So I left. I went to the house I was sharing and found them all there: my friend, Augustus Pablo, the whole gang. They were all younger than me. They were all scared and staring at me as if I had come back from the dead. They basically said, “Sorry, they’ll come to kill you tonight and we don’t want to stick around.”
Were they teasing you?
No, they weren’t. Stuff like that happened all the time.
This is a completely different picture of Jamaica than the one you present in Rockers.
There was this idea that everything was going swell, because of Bob Marley’s success. Even for reggae, the reality was different—much harsher. And harsher still for a white guy in the middle of it. I lived there for a couple years before we started shooting. Those Jamaicans living in the ghettoes of Kingston were innocent people in their everyday lives and this is exactly what I wanted to capture in the film—a more realistic picture of who they were, or who they really wanted to be. Something like Robin Hood. Jamaica was a fantasy world where reality as we knew it could not exist. ...
Dirty Harry!
"Hustlin' like raindrops!"
Ted Bafaloukos Taught Us Everything We Know About Jamaica
INTERVIEW BY TASSOS BREKOULAKIS, PORTRAIT BY FREDDIE F.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THEODOROS BAFALOUKOS
Theodoros Bafaloukos wrote and directed Rockers, the film that single-handedly made Jamaica and reggae interesting to couch-cozy white folks, their stoner kids, and a bunch of famous English punks with guitars. Today, Ted is not so reclusive as he is remote, spending his time at his childhood home on the secluded Greek island of Andros. Over 30 years after the film's initial release, we made the long journey for this, his first-ever print interview. ...
Vice: How did you first find yourself in Jamaica?
Theodoros Bafaloukos: I went there in 1975 as a freelance photographer for Island Records with a friend, a young guy in the reggae scene. We took photos of faces on the island. It was interesting and exciting. It was also funny because they arrested me as a CIA spy.
Uh-oh. What happened?
I’d gone to a radio station to speak to someone from the community. I wanted to ask him for equipment and for help shooting a documentary—which is what I wanted to do originally. I was in the car with my friend, who was driving, when suddenly, out of nowhere, a man sticks his hand through the window, grabs a small notebook from my chest pocket, and runs into the building shouting “CIA, CIA!” I got out and tried to run after him, but when I got back, my friend and the car had vanished. I was scared. I found myself completely stranded, surrounded by strangers. The friends who had left told me later that they were terrified. We’re talking about a time when fear reigned and everyone was scared.
When did the police arrive?
Two jeeps appeared out of nowhere, full of cops—some in uniform, others looking like bouncers. The tougher ones with Uzis pounced out of the vehicle and arrested me. They put me in the jeep and paraded me through the streets at low speed so all could see that they had arrested a CIA agent! They took me to the police station, where it became obvious that they had no idea what to do with me. So they took me to another guy, who interviewed me.
An interview?
An interrogation. When I entered the room, the interrogator was seated behind a desk with my notebook next to him. I went over, picked up the notebook from the desk, and put it into my pocket.
Gutsy. What was in the notebook?
The addresses of all the people I had met on the island, mostly musicians. I had promised to send them photographs upon my return to America, which I did.
So did they let you go immediately?
After I put the notebook in my pocket the guy said nothing, didn’t even budge. I answered his questions but he didn’t even know what to ask me. He had probably made a few phone calls and realized that this was all a mistake.
Looking at pictures of you from this period, you looked more like the lead in a Zapatista porn than a CIA agent.
Why, what does a CIA agent look like? [laughs] I had a Greek passport, which made me look even more suspicious. They took it away and kept me there for what seemed like an eternity. Another guy came to interrogate me, but that again led nowhere. It was 10 or 11 at night when suddenly this white guy appears and says, “Come with me,” leads me out of the room, puts me in a cab, and says, “Go, just go.” I said, “What about my passport?” And he said, “Get out of here, man.” So I left. I went to the house I was sharing and found them all there: my friend, Augustus Pablo, the whole gang. They were all younger than me. They were all scared and staring at me as if I had come back from the dead. They basically said, “Sorry, they’ll come to kill you tonight and we don’t want to stick around.”
Were they teasing you?
No, they weren’t. Stuff like that happened all the time.
This is a completely different picture of Jamaica than the one you present in Rockers.
There was this idea that everything was going swell, because of Bob Marley’s success. Even for reggae, the reality was different—much harsher. And harsher still for a white guy in the middle of it. I lived there for a couple years before we started shooting. Those Jamaicans living in the ghettoes of Kingston were innocent people in their everyday lives and this is exactly what I wanted to capture in the film—a more realistic picture of who they were, or who they really wanted to be. Something like Robin Hood. Jamaica was a fantasy world where reality as we knew it could not exist. ...
Dirty Harry!
"Hustlin' like raindrops!"
I kept getting a FORBIDDEN error msg when I visited the site. This is rather amusingly ironic, but also very frustrating: thank God for the Wayback Machine.
Hello there! Your friendly defender of truth and justice here to provide you with a short primer designed to crush mercilessly beneath my bootheels a number of misconceptions surrounding the life and works of H.P. Lovecraft, a mindblowingly scrumptiously amazing author. With no further ado, I present...
Lovecraft Myths and Misconceptions Dispelled Vigorously!
The man was a total recluse. Never left New England!
Yeah, yeah, you know the drill. Lovecraft is constantly portrayed as an introspective hermit who maintained his friendships through voluminous correspondence and ne'er dared venture from the seclusion of his home.
In reality, Lovecraft traveled widely (frequently to visit friends) and wrote about his voyages in often lengthy travelogues. He trekked as far north as Quebec and as far south as De Land, Florida. To me, that implies he was anything but reclusive. His travelogues include what is Lovecraft's most sprawling work at 75 000 words: A Description of the Town of Quebeck, in New France, Lately Added to His Britannick Majesty's Dominions. Whew, what a title! ...
Lovecraft Myths and Misconceptions Dispelled Vigorously!
The man was a total recluse. Never left New England!
Yeah, yeah, you know the drill. Lovecraft is constantly portrayed as an introspective hermit who maintained his friendships through voluminous correspondence and ne'er dared venture from the seclusion of his home.
In reality, Lovecraft traveled widely (frequently to visit friends) and wrote about his voyages in often lengthy travelogues. He trekked as far north as Quebec and as far south as De Land, Florida. To me, that implies he was anything but reclusive. His travelogues include what is Lovecraft's most sprawling work at 75 000 words: A Description of the Town of Quebeck, in New France, Lately Added to His Britannick Majesty's Dominions. Whew, what a title! ...
HP Lovecraft
The Mound by HP Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop
It is only within the last few years that most people have stopped thinking of the West as a new land. I suppose the idea gained ground because our own especial civilisation happens to be new there; but nowadays explorers are digging beneath the surface and bringing up whole chapters of life that rose and fell among these plains and mountains before recorded history began. We think nothing of a Pueblo village 2500 years old, and it hardly jolts us when archaeologists put the sub-pedregal culture of Mexico back to 17,000 or 18,000 B. C. We hear rumours of still older things, too—of primitive man contemporaneous with extinct animals and known today only through a few fragmentary bones and artifacts—so that the idea of newness is fading out pretty rapidly. Europeans usually catch the sense of immemorial ancientness and deep deposits from successive life-streams better than we do. Only a couple of years ago a British author spoke of Arizona as a “moon-dim region, very lovely in its way, and stark and old—an ancient, lonely land”.
Yet I believe I have a deeper sense of the stupefying—almost horrible—ancientness of the West than any European. It all comes from an incident that happened in 1928; an incident which I’d greatly like to dismiss as three-quarters hallucination, but which has left such a frightfully firm impression on my memory that I can’t put it off very easily. It was in Oklahoma, where my work as an American Indian ethnologist constantly takes me and where I had come upon some devilishly strange and disconcerting matters before. Make no mistake—Oklahoma is a lot more than a mere pioneers’ and promoters’ frontier. There are old, old tribes with old, old memories there; and when the tom-toms beat ceaselessly over brooding plains in the autumn the spirits of men are brought dangerously close to primal, whispered things. I am white and Eastern enough myself, but anybody is welcome to know that the rites of Yig, Father of Snakes, can get a real shudder out of me any day. I have heard and seen too much to be “sophisticated” in such matters. And so it is with this incident of 1928. I’d like to laugh it off—but I can’t. ...
Yet I believe I have a deeper sense of the stupefying—almost horrible—ancientness of the West than any European. It all comes from an incident that happened in 1928; an incident which I’d greatly like to dismiss as three-quarters hallucination, but which has left such a frightfully firm impression on my memory that I can’t put it off very easily. It was in Oklahoma, where my work as an American Indian ethnologist constantly takes me and where I had come upon some devilishly strange and disconcerting matters before. Make no mistake—Oklahoma is a lot more than a mere pioneers’ and promoters’ frontier. There are old, old tribes with old, old memories there; and when the tom-toms beat ceaselessly over brooding plains in the autumn the spirits of men are brought dangerously close to primal, whispered things. I am white and Eastern enough myself, but anybody is welcome to know that the rites of Yig, Father of Snakes, can get a real shudder out of me any day. I have heard and seen too much to be “sophisticated” in such matters. And so it is with this incident of 1928. I’d like to laugh it off—but I can’t. ...
Common Kestrel [AKA Chicken Hawk] pursuing a Barn Owl
PUFFING!!!!
Pheasant
Reed Warbler drinking
Ta much, dear Anneliese, who sent this gallery Puffin-first.
... The definitive images, of course, demonstrating the heroic role played by tea in the second world war were those photographs of the air-raid wardens and firemen during the Blitz drinking tea from mugs in the aftermath of bombing raids. Buildings lay in ruins, rubble filled the streets – but the spirit of the Londoners was above all that, and they drank tea to show that they were not going to be cowed by the bombers. Indeed, there were people whose job it was to make tea for the firefighters and the wardens; these tea ladies were brave people, heroines really, and the tea usually got through, no matter what was happening.
It is interesting to read the memoirs of people caught up in those events. They frequently mention how important their mug of tea was, how it calmed and reassured them. Tea represented normality; it represented the continuity of ordinary life in the face of appalling and frightening odds. Even today, the response of many people to a difficult situation is to make tea. To say "I'll put the kettle on" is not necessarily going to solve any problems, but is a comforting thing to say. And if there's nothing else one can say or do, to make tea is at least to do something. Indeed, making tea is vaguely therapeutic; the mind is taken off the crisis and it gives one time to think about things and set them in perspective.
There is also a sense in which making tea for another is a communicative business. If I make a cup of tea for you, I am doing something that we both see as bringing us together. Making tea is a social act. That sounds like pretentious theorising, but it really is true. There surely cannot be a culture in the world where the act of sitting down to eat with another does not mean something in relationship terms. The same can be said for giving somebody something to drink, whether it is buying another a drink in the pub or making him or her a cup of tea. By drinking tea together, particularly where there is at least some level of ritual involved, we share something between us and become closer, even if only for that short time. ...
...At first, unsweetened tea tasted uncomfortably bitter. Then it started to taste more palatable, and finally it tasted of tea rather than sugar. After that there was no going back, and within a very short time I had the zeal of the convert. "How can you possibly put sugar in your tea?" is a wonderfully superior question to ask of others. That one did the same thing oneself for 20 years or so is beside the point. ...
It is interesting to read the memoirs of people caught up in those events. They frequently mention how important their mug of tea was, how it calmed and reassured them. Tea represented normality; it represented the continuity of ordinary life in the face of appalling and frightening odds. Even today, the response of many people to a difficult situation is to make tea. To say "I'll put the kettle on" is not necessarily going to solve any problems, but is a comforting thing to say. And if there's nothing else one can say or do, to make tea is at least to do something. Indeed, making tea is vaguely therapeutic; the mind is taken off the crisis and it gives one time to think about things and set them in perspective.
There is also a sense in which making tea for another is a communicative business. If I make a cup of tea for you, I am doing something that we both see as bringing us together. Making tea is a social act. That sounds like pretentious theorising, but it really is true. There surely cannot be a culture in the world where the act of sitting down to eat with another does not mean something in relationship terms. The same can be said for giving somebody something to drink, whether it is buying another a drink in the pub or making him or her a cup of tea. By drinking tea together, particularly where there is at least some level of ritual involved, we share something between us and become closer, even if only for that short time. ...
...At first, unsweetened tea tasted uncomfortably bitter. Then it started to taste more palatable, and finally it tasted of tea rather than sugar. After that there was no going back, and within a very short time I had the zeal of the convert. "How can you possibly put sugar in your tea?" is a wonderfully superior question to ask of others. That one did the same thing oneself for 20 years or so is beside the point. ...
The site design is profoundly bad, but...it's The Stig FFS!
On gospel, Abba and the death of the record: an audience with Brian Eno
He's been a Roxy original, the inventor of 'ambient', Bowie's muse, the brain in Talking Heads and U2's 'fifth man'. Now Eno tells us where he's heading next
Paul Morley
Sunday 17 January 2010
... On the end of an era
"I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history's moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it."
He's been a Roxy original, the inventor of 'ambient', Bowie's muse, the brain in Talking Heads and U2's 'fifth man'. Now Eno tells us where he's heading next
Paul Morley
Sunday 17 January 2010
... On the end of an era
"I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history's moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it."
Rust Heinz, heir to the Heinz 57 ketchup fortune, was a young designer who had the means to put into reality his car of tomorrow, better known as the Phantom Corsair. Based on a 1936 Cord Westchester Sedan with a Granatelli modified 192 horsepower supercharged Cord motor, the body was constructed by Maurice Schwartz of Bohman & Schwartz Body Company. Designed in a wind tunnel, the radical fastback body incorporates modern items such as a climate control system and crash padded dash. It starred in the 1938 movie The Young at Heart where it was called the 'Flying Wombat.' Originally intended to be produced in limited numbers for $12,500, the project ended with Heinz' untimely death in 1939. ...
The 1938 Phantom Corsair
THE MAN
The time: 1938. America was emerging from the Great Depression, war was looming on the horizon, and the promise of a bright tomorrow seemed a long way off. Popular design of the time was the "Streamline" look. Architecture, furniture, appliances and cars carried this smooth, flowing design philosophy. The Chrysler Airflow and Pierce Silver Arrow are two of the more familiar examples of this idea. But even these automobiles compromised somewhere in their design. Fenders may have been faired into bodies; noses rounded off. No car from this era carried a truly organic body design. Until the Phantom Corsair. No badges, extra trim, or frills. Rounded contours flow undisturbed from nose to tail, with only headlight and bumper protrusions as a necessity.
It's creator, Rust Heinz, the second son of H.J. Heinz of Pittsburgh, PA, owner of the Heinz condiment empire, knew well how to enjoy financial freedom. He designed and raced motorboats, knew the right people, and attended Choate, Andover, and Yale, majoring in naval architecture. In Pasadena, CA, Heinz collaborated with Christian Bohman and Maurice Schwartz, proprietors of a successful custom body shop. With their help, he began designing his dream car. Though his family in PA was reluctant to finance his vision, Heinz's aunt, a Pasadena resident,was willing to pay the bills. In less than a year, the vision became a reality in the Corsair. After touting the Corsair in brochures for a year, and shortly after showing it at the New York World's Fair in 1939, Heinz died from injuries sustained in a road accident. ...
THE MAN
The time: 1938. America was emerging from the Great Depression, war was looming on the horizon, and the promise of a bright tomorrow seemed a long way off. Popular design of the time was the "Streamline" look. Architecture, furniture, appliances and cars carried this smooth, flowing design philosophy. The Chrysler Airflow and Pierce Silver Arrow are two of the more familiar examples of this idea. But even these automobiles compromised somewhere in their design. Fenders may have been faired into bodies; noses rounded off. No car from this era carried a truly organic body design. Until the Phantom Corsair. No badges, extra trim, or frills. Rounded contours flow undisturbed from nose to tail, with only headlight and bumper protrusions as a necessity.
It's creator, Rust Heinz, the second son of H.J. Heinz of Pittsburgh, PA, owner of the Heinz condiment empire, knew well how to enjoy financial freedom. He designed and raced motorboats, knew the right people, and attended Choate, Andover, and Yale, majoring in naval architecture. In Pasadena, CA, Heinz collaborated with Christian Bohman and Maurice Schwartz, proprietors of a successful custom body shop. With their help, he began designing his dream car. Though his family in PA was reluctant to finance his vision, Heinz's aunt, a Pasadena resident,was willing to pay the bills. In less than a year, the vision became a reality in the Corsair. After touting the Corsair in brochures for a year, and shortly after showing it at the New York World's Fair in 1939, Heinz died from injuries sustained in a road accident. ...
I worship at its Lotus wheels.
Banksy film set for Sundance premiere
Banksy describes his first film Exit Through the Gift Shop as 'the story of how one man set out to film the unfilmable - and failed'
Esther Addley
Thursday 21 January 2010
He is better known for his work on brick, plasterwork, portable toilets and even, on one memorable occasion, an elephant. But until now the artist known as Banksy, in creating his satirical artworks, has largely stuck to the old-fashioned mediums of painting and sculpture.
Today, however, it emerged that the graffiti artist and cultural bête noire has branched into filmmaking, with the release of what is described as "the worlds first street art disaster movie".
Exit Through the Gift Shop, which will have its international premiere on Sunday at the Sundance film festival, is described by its creator as "the story of how one man set out to film the unfilmable - and failed", and by the festival's organisers as "an amazing ride, a cautionary modern fairy tale ... with bolt cutters".
Banksy's spokeswoman, Jo Brooks, declined to elaborate much further on the plot of the 89-minute feature film, though the festival's website helpfully provides some details, describing it as the account of what happened when a French filmmaker, Terry Guetta, set out to record the "secretive world" of street art, only to meet Banksy, at which point "things took a bizarre turn".
Pressed for more detail, the artist himself offered the following, hardly illuminating, elaboration through his publicist: "It's a film about a man who tried to make a film about me. Everything in it is true, especially the bits where we all lie." ...
Banksy describes his first film Exit Through the Gift Shop as 'the story of how one man set out to film the unfilmable - and failed'
Esther Addley
Thursday 21 January 2010
He is better known for his work on brick, plasterwork, portable toilets and even, on one memorable occasion, an elephant. But until now the artist known as Banksy, in creating his satirical artworks, has largely stuck to the old-fashioned mediums of painting and sculpture.
Today, however, it emerged that the graffiti artist and cultural bête noire has branched into filmmaking, with the release of what is described as "the worlds first street art disaster movie".
Exit Through the Gift Shop, which will have its international premiere on Sunday at the Sundance film festival, is described by its creator as "the story of how one man set out to film the unfilmable - and failed", and by the festival's organisers as "an amazing ride, a cautionary modern fairy tale ... with bolt cutters".
Banksy's spokeswoman, Jo Brooks, declined to elaborate much further on the plot of the 89-minute feature film, though the festival's website helpfully provides some details, describing it as the account of what happened when a French filmmaker, Terry Guetta, set out to record the "secretive world" of street art, only to meet Banksy, at which point "things took a bizarre turn".
Pressed for more detail, the artist himself offered the following, hardly illuminating, elaboration through his publicist: "It's a film about a man who tried to make a film about me. Everything in it is true, especially the bits where we all lie." ...
... On its release in 1998, The Big Lebowski was not one of the Coens' more successful films. The convoluted film noir pastiche was built around the amiably flaky Venice Beach dropout – and singularly ill-equipped ad-hoc private eye – known as the Dude (Jeff Bridges). A deadbeat and a loser to the square community, he nevertheless maintains a certain baked poise, consistently eschewing conflict and self-advancement to cultivate recreation and friendship. "I won't say [he's] a hero," hedges the Stranger, the film's bumbling cowboy narrator, at its opening, "because what's a hero? But sometimes there's a man who, well, he's the man for his time and place."
In the decade since its underwhelming debut, The Big Lebowski has become the scripture of the new century's most devout movie cult and the Dude its godhead, his words respectfully cited by the movie's fans, or Achievers. Such quotation is, of course, is a hallmark of movie cultdom but even by such reverent standards, appreciation of Lebowski has been conspicuously religiose.
It perhaps helps that matters of religious observance are attended to, grotesquely, in the film itself. Walter (John Goodman), the Dude's apoplectic bowling partner, cleaves fiercely to the tenets of his adopted Judaism, resulting in a dogmatic contretemps when a game is scheduled for a Saturday. "I don't roll on Shabbas!" Walter barks, to the snorting derision of his oleaginous competitor Jesus Quintana (John Turturro), who offers a foul-mouthed recapitulation of Christ's rejection of orthodoxy: "What's this 'day of rest' shit? What's this bullshit? I don't fucking care! It don't matter to Jesus!"
The bowling lane is not, it seems, as debased a site for such theological debate as one might suppose. In "Fuck It, Let's Go Bowling": The Cultural Connotations of Bowling in The Big Lebowski – one of the 21 scholarly articles about the movie collected in The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies, recently published by Indiana University Press – Bradley D Clissold points out the sport's origins in Kegelspiel, the German game in which pins stood for heathens, the ball righteousness. Clissold reports that Luther had a lane at home and has photographed a statue in Newfoundland that looks distinctly like Christ holding a bowling ball.
Lanes are now congregation sites for members of the Lebowski Fest movement, a circuit of events grounded in the Dude-approved sacraments of bowling, smoking pot and drinking White Russians. Soon after its establishment in 2002, photographs began to appear of Achievers holding chapter-and-verse signs referring to fest dates – for instance, "Lebowski 6:19". It's also not unusual to find festgoers dressed as Moses or the Pope – neither appears on screen but both are mentioned in dialogue. Many fest costumes are exegetical like that. ...
In the decade since its underwhelming debut, The Big Lebowski has become the scripture of the new century's most devout movie cult and the Dude its godhead, his words respectfully cited by the movie's fans, or Achievers. Such quotation is, of course, is a hallmark of movie cultdom but even by such reverent standards, appreciation of Lebowski has been conspicuously religiose.
It perhaps helps that matters of religious observance are attended to, grotesquely, in the film itself. Walter (John Goodman), the Dude's apoplectic bowling partner, cleaves fiercely to the tenets of his adopted Judaism, resulting in a dogmatic contretemps when a game is scheduled for a Saturday. "I don't roll on Shabbas!" Walter barks, to the snorting derision of his oleaginous competitor Jesus Quintana (John Turturro), who offers a foul-mouthed recapitulation of Christ's rejection of orthodoxy: "What's this 'day of rest' shit? What's this bullshit? I don't fucking care! It don't matter to Jesus!"
The bowling lane is not, it seems, as debased a site for such theological debate as one might suppose. In "Fuck It, Let's Go Bowling": The Cultural Connotations of Bowling in The Big Lebowski – one of the 21 scholarly articles about the movie collected in The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies, recently published by Indiana University Press – Bradley D Clissold points out the sport's origins in Kegelspiel, the German game in which pins stood for heathens, the ball righteousness. Clissold reports that Luther had a lane at home and has photographed a statue in Newfoundland that looks distinctly like Christ holding a bowling ball.
Lanes are now congregation sites for members of the Lebowski Fest movement, a circuit of events grounded in the Dude-approved sacraments of bowling, smoking pot and drinking White Russians. Soon after its establishment in 2002, photographs began to appear of Achievers holding chapter-and-verse signs referring to fest dates – for instance, "Lebowski 6:19". It's also not unusual to find festgoers dressed as Moses or the Pope – neither appears on screen but both are mentioned in dialogue. Many fest costumes are exegetical like that. ...
... "Quentin provided an impetus for us to be ourselves, living without apology. He ran away from what was bad and became the talk of the town." ...
One of the planet's best roads.
In the world of global warming very important to save all animals that live on Earth. Some companies even donate money to this target and more one way to pay attention of the peoples - to create USB drives in shape as animals. For example Panda USB drive, Elephant USB drive or USB Zoo series. Today we join new “friend“ – fun Lizard USB drive. Verily, lizard it’s not whale or other rare animal, but we must to save every bug in order to leave the beautiful World to the descendants.
... "Had it in my head for long?" said Raffles, as we strolled through the streets towards dawn, for all the world as though we were returning from a dance. "No, Bunny, I never thought of it till I saw that upper part empty about a month ago, and bought a few things in the shop to get the lie of the land. That reminds me that I never paid for them; but, by Jove, I will tomorrow, and if that isn't poetic justice, what is? One visit showed me the possibilities of the place, but a second convinced me of its impossibilities without a pal. So I had practically given up the idea, when you came along on the very night and in the very plight for it! But here we are at the Albany, and I hope there's some fire left; for I don't know how you feel, Bunny, but for my part I'm as cold as Keats's owl."
He could think of Keats on his way from a felony! He could hanker for his fireside like another! Floodgates were loosed within me, and the plain English of our adventure rushed over me as cold as ice. Raffles was a burglar. I had helped him to commit one burglary, therefore I was a burglar, too. Yet I could stand and warm myself by his fire, and watch him empty his pockets, as though we had done nothing wonderful or wicked!
My blood froze. My heart sickened. My brain whirled. How I had liked this villain! How I had admired him! Now my liking and admiration must turn to loathing and disgust. I waited for the change. I longed to feel it in my heart. But — I longed and I waited in vain!
I saw that he was emptying his pockets; the table sparkled with their hoard. Rings by the dozen, diamonds by the score; bracelets, pendants, aigrettes, necklaces, pearls, rubies, amethysts, sapphires; and diamonds always, diamonds in everything, flashing bayonets of light, dazzling me — blinding me — making me disbelieve because I could no longer forget. Last of all came no gem, indeed, but my own revolver from an inner pocket. And that struck a chord. I suppose I said something — my hand flew out. I can see Raffles now, as he looked at me once more with a high arch over each clear eye. I can see him pick out the cartridges with his quiet, cynical smile, before he would give me my pistol back again.
"You mayn't believe it, Bunny," said he, "but I never carried a loaded one before. On the whole I think it gives one confidence. Yet it would be very awkward if anything went wrong; one might use it, and that's not the game at all, though I have often thought that the murderer who has just done the trick must have great sensations before things get too hot for him. Don't look so distressed, my dear chap. I've never had those sensations, and I don't suppose I ever shall."
"But this much you have done before?" said I hoarsely.
"Before? My dear Bunny, you offend me! Did it look like a first attempt? Of course I have done it before."
"Often?"
"Well — no! Not often enough to destroy the charm, at all events; never, as a matter of fact, unless I'm cursedly hard up. Did you hear about the Thimbleby diamonds? Well, that was the last time — and a poor lot of paste they were. Then there was the little business of the Dormer house-boat at Henley last year. That was mine also — such as it was. I've never brought off a really big coup yet; when I do I shall chuck it up."
Yes, I remembered both cases very well. To think that he was their author! It was incredible, outrageous, inconceivable. Then my eyes would fall upon the table, twinkling and glittering in a hundred places, and incredulity was at an end.
"How came you to begin?" I asked, as curiosity overcame mere wonder, and a fascination for his career gradually wove itself into my fascination for the man.
"Ah! that's a long story," said Raffles. "It was in the Colonies, when I was out there playing cricket. It's too long a story to tell you now, but I was in much the same fix that you were in tonight, and it was my only way out. I never meant it for anything more; but I'd tasted blood, and it was all over with me. Why should I work when I could steal? Why settle down to some humdrum uncongenial billet, when excitement, romance, danger and a decent living were all going begging together? Of course it's very wrong, but we can't all be moralists, and the distribution of wealth is very wrong to begin with. Besides, you're not at it all the time. I'm sick of quoting Gilbert's lines to myself, but they're profoundly true. I only wonder if you'll like the life as much as I do!"
"Like it?" I cried out. "Not I! It's no life for me. Once is enough!"
"You wouldn't give me a hand another time?"
"Don't ask me, Raffles. Don't ask me, for God's sake!"
"Yet you said you would do anything for me! You asked me to name my crime! But I knew at the time you didn't mean it; you didn't go back on me tonight, and that ought to satisfy me, goodness knows! I suppose I'm ungrateful, and unreasonable, and all that. I ought to let it end at this. But you're the very man for me, Bunny, the — very — man! Just think how we got through tonight. Not a scratch — not a hitch! There's nothing very terrible in it, you see; there never would be, while we worked together."
He was standing in front of me with a hand on either shoulder; he was smiling as he knew so well how to smile. I turned on my heel, planted my elbows on the chimney-piece, and my burning head between my hands. Next instant a still heartier hand had fallen on my back.
"All right, my boy! You are quite right and I'm worse than wrong. I'll never ask it again. Go, if you want to, and come again about mid-day for the cash. There was no bargain; but, of course, I'll get you out of your scrape — especially after the way you've stood by me tonight."
I was round again with my blood on fire.
"I'll do it again," I said, through my teeth.
He shook his head. "Not you," he said, smiling quite good-humoredly on my insane enthusiasm.
"I will," I cried with an oath. "I'll lend you a hand as often as you like! What does it matter now? I've been in it once. I'll be in it again. I've gone to the devil anyhow. I can't go back, and wouldn't if I could. Nothing matters another rap! When you want me, I'm your man!"
And that is how Raffles and I joined felonious forces on the Ides of March.
He could think of Keats on his way from a felony! He could hanker for his fireside like another! Floodgates were loosed within me, and the plain English of our adventure rushed over me as cold as ice. Raffles was a burglar. I had helped him to commit one burglary, therefore I was a burglar, too. Yet I could stand and warm myself by his fire, and watch him empty his pockets, as though we had done nothing wonderful or wicked!
My blood froze. My heart sickened. My brain whirled. How I had liked this villain! How I had admired him! Now my liking and admiration must turn to loathing and disgust. I waited for the change. I longed to feel it in my heart. But — I longed and I waited in vain!
I saw that he was emptying his pockets; the table sparkled with their hoard. Rings by the dozen, diamonds by the score; bracelets, pendants, aigrettes, necklaces, pearls, rubies, amethysts, sapphires; and diamonds always, diamonds in everything, flashing bayonets of light, dazzling me — blinding me — making me disbelieve because I could no longer forget. Last of all came no gem, indeed, but my own revolver from an inner pocket. And that struck a chord. I suppose I said something — my hand flew out. I can see Raffles now, as he looked at me once more with a high arch over each clear eye. I can see him pick out the cartridges with his quiet, cynical smile, before he would give me my pistol back again.
"You mayn't believe it, Bunny," said he, "but I never carried a loaded one before. On the whole I think it gives one confidence. Yet it would be very awkward if anything went wrong; one might use it, and that's not the game at all, though I have often thought that the murderer who has just done the trick must have great sensations before things get too hot for him. Don't look so distressed, my dear chap. I've never had those sensations, and I don't suppose I ever shall."
"But this much you have done before?" said I hoarsely.
"Before? My dear Bunny, you offend me! Did it look like a first attempt? Of course I have done it before."
"Often?"
"Well — no! Not often enough to destroy the charm, at all events; never, as a matter of fact, unless I'm cursedly hard up. Did you hear about the Thimbleby diamonds? Well, that was the last time — and a poor lot of paste they were. Then there was the little business of the Dormer house-boat at Henley last year. That was mine also — such as it was. I've never brought off a really big coup yet; when I do I shall chuck it up."
Yes, I remembered both cases very well. To think that he was their author! It was incredible, outrageous, inconceivable. Then my eyes would fall upon the table, twinkling and glittering in a hundred places, and incredulity was at an end.
"How came you to begin?" I asked, as curiosity overcame mere wonder, and a fascination for his career gradually wove itself into my fascination for the man.
"Ah! that's a long story," said Raffles. "It was in the Colonies, when I was out there playing cricket. It's too long a story to tell you now, but I was in much the same fix that you were in tonight, and it was my only way out. I never meant it for anything more; but I'd tasted blood, and it was all over with me. Why should I work when I could steal? Why settle down to some humdrum uncongenial billet, when excitement, romance, danger and a decent living were all going begging together? Of course it's very wrong, but we can't all be moralists, and the distribution of wealth is very wrong to begin with. Besides, you're not at it all the time. I'm sick of quoting Gilbert's lines to myself, but they're profoundly true. I only wonder if you'll like the life as much as I do!"
"Like it?" I cried out. "Not I! It's no life for me. Once is enough!"
"You wouldn't give me a hand another time?"
"Don't ask me, Raffles. Don't ask me, for God's sake!"
"Yet you said you would do anything for me! You asked me to name my crime! But I knew at the time you didn't mean it; you didn't go back on me tonight, and that ought to satisfy me, goodness knows! I suppose I'm ungrateful, and unreasonable, and all that. I ought to let it end at this. But you're the very man for me, Bunny, the — very — man! Just think how we got through tonight. Not a scratch — not a hitch! There's nothing very terrible in it, you see; there never would be, while we worked together."
He was standing in front of me with a hand on either shoulder; he was smiling as he knew so well how to smile. I turned on my heel, planted my elbows on the chimney-piece, and my burning head between my hands. Next instant a still heartier hand had fallen on my back.
"All right, my boy! You are quite right and I'm worse than wrong. I'll never ask it again. Go, if you want to, and come again about mid-day for the cash. There was no bargain; but, of course, I'll get you out of your scrape — especially after the way you've stood by me tonight."
I was round again with my blood on fire.
"I'll do it again," I said, through my teeth.
He shook his head. "Not you," he said, smiling quite good-humoredly on my insane enthusiasm.
"I will," I cried with an oath. "I'll lend you a hand as often as you like! What does it matter now? I've been in it once. I'll be in it again. I've gone to the devil anyhow. I can't go back, and wouldn't if I could. Nothing matters another rap! When you want me, I'm your man!"
And that is how Raffles and I joined felonious forces on the Ides of March.
We’re four rows from the front of the MEN Arena, Manchester. With 13,000 people sitting behind us, these are pretty much the best seats in the house — yet, still: we can’t see Eddie Izzard’s eyes.
Well, more specifically, there’s no time to look at Eddie Izzard’s eyes while he’s humming and buzzing across the stage, like some super-bright sunshine kid in full-on “delight” mode. You have time only to register his grin — like a predatory Cheshire cat — as the characters fall out of his one-man phantasmagorical ensemble pieces.
Here comes a traumatised squirrel from Brooklyn; a raptor in a pork-pie hat being pulled over for speeding; a Persian soldier very slowly impaling himself on Spartan spears at Thermopylae. Caring sharks. An entire swarm of bees.
You simply presume that Izzard’s eyes are twinkly, warm, Father Christmas-style eyes. You know what I mean. Tom Hanksy. Like the dog you loved the most from your childhood.
So the jolt when you meet him in the flesh is all the more intense.
“Hello,” he says, at the aftershow, appearing at your shoulder — and, up close, the eyes are glittery, hard; like a silver clockwork owl. The thumb-smeared kohl and eyeliner — sigils of glamour and possibly decadence — merely underline how ferociously present he is. He has eyes like guns. ...
Well, more specifically, there’s no time to look at Eddie Izzard’s eyes while he’s humming and buzzing across the stage, like some super-bright sunshine kid in full-on “delight” mode. You have time only to register his grin — like a predatory Cheshire cat — as the characters fall out of his one-man phantasmagorical ensemble pieces.
Here comes a traumatised squirrel from Brooklyn; a raptor in a pork-pie hat being pulled over for speeding; a Persian soldier very slowly impaling himself on Spartan spears at Thermopylae. Caring sharks. An entire swarm of bees.
You simply presume that Izzard’s eyes are twinkly, warm, Father Christmas-style eyes. You know what I mean. Tom Hanksy. Like the dog you loved the most from your childhood.
So the jolt when you meet him in the flesh is all the more intense.
“Hello,” he says, at the aftershow, appearing at your shoulder — and, up close, the eyes are glittery, hard; like a silver clockwork owl. The thumb-smeared kohl and eyeliner — sigils of glamour and possibly decadence — merely underline how ferociously present he is. He has eyes like guns. ...
... But there was a record called Raw Power. And, yes, Ron played on the record and he played magnificently. He would tell me many, many times — he would call me in his last few years, late at night, at 3 or 4 in the morning, just to let me know, "You know, Jim, I really am my own favorite bass player." [laughs] He loved to play the bass. He loved his own bass playing. And anyone who knows music well or even people who don't but who have a good ear can immediately pick out what his bass playing on that record did for James' guitar playing. Because James does not sound as good without those parts. And Ron wrote every damn bass part on that record. You know, once rock 'n' roll put on cowboy boots, the bass player got this quote-unquote "demoted" position. Which is completely bullshit. Complete bullshit. But you do get a lot of these guys, they put one finger on the thing and string along on the riff — dum, dum, dum — and that's it. But that's not what Ron did. The patterns and the nimbleness, the way he played it, the way his tonality complements the tonality of the guitar and the brutality of the drums. It's an incredible achievement. It's in a direct line from Bill Wyman and Dick Taylor, people like that. Also Paul Samwell-Smith from the Yardbirds. And before them, from the great blues and early rock guitar players — all those licks, like Bo Diddley licks or Jerome Arnold from Billy Boy Arnold. Billy Boy was the drummer; Jerome Arnold was the bass player in the Butterfield Band. So, no, I don't buy that. Raw Power is a particular thing that came out of the Stooges. If somebody doesn't like us, it's a free world, and they can tell the world. But I'll play whatever damn gig I think is good and I want to and I'll answer you right back with some music, you know? ...
Sexy, vast, eggy popover sort of thing.
C'est magnifique.
C'est magnifique.
October 23. 2009 2:47AM
Comedy's pie-faced Soupy Sales dies
Staff and wire reports
Detroit -- Soupy Sales, the rubber-faced comedian whose anything-for-a-chuckle career was built on 20,000 pies to the face and 5,000 live TV appearances across a half-century of laughs, died Thursday. He was 83.
Sales died at Calvary Hospice in Bronx, New York, said his ex-manager and longtime friend, Dave Usher. Sales had many health problems and entered the hospice last week, he said.
At the peak of his fame in the 1950s and '60s, Sales was one of the best-known faces in the nation, Usher said.
"President Eisenhower wouldn't have been noticed before him. He became that popular," Usher said, adding they sometimes had difficulty finding places where he wasn't recognized. "He could never eat a meal because people just slipped over to him ... for autographs. He had a magnetism that was unbelievable."
Many Metro Detroiters fondly recall his "Lunch with Soupy Sales" on WXYZ-TV, where the former radio disc jockey began his TV career in the 1950s.
Entertaining with White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie the Lion and other characters that endeared him both to adults and children, Sales became an icon.
"He had his little world of characters and lived in that during lunchtime," Usher said. "People remembered if they did the Soupy Shuffle, a dance he made up... He was well known for it."
The Detroit Historical Museum featured Sales and others in its recent "Detroit's Classic TV Personalities" exhibit, which ran through Labor Day.
"It was a popular exhibit," said Bob Sadler, the museum's director of public and external relations, "and certainly people remember fondly their memories of Soupy Sales. He had a special place in people's minds and hearts. People grew up with Soupy. They went home and had lunch with Soupy." Sadler said in a previous job, he even had an assistant who showed him the "Soupy Shuffle."
He added noted that local television "is not the same as it was in that era."
"That was an era when local stations produced hours and hours of local programming. They don't do that anymore," Sadler said.
Sales' pie-throwing schtick became his trademark, and celebrities queued up to take one on the chin alongside the comic. During the early 1960s, stars like Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Shirley MacLaine got their just desserts side-by-side with the comedian on his television show.
"I'll probably be remembered for the pies, and that's all right," he said in a 1985 interview. "That's fine and dandy." ...
May you have great and fortunate rebirths, Soupy. We love you.
Comedy's pie-faced Soupy Sales dies
Staff and wire reports
Detroit -- Soupy Sales, the rubber-faced comedian whose anything-for-a-chuckle career was built on 20,000 pies to the face and 5,000 live TV appearances across a half-century of laughs, died Thursday. He was 83.
Sales died at Calvary Hospice in Bronx, New York, said his ex-manager and longtime friend, Dave Usher. Sales had many health problems and entered the hospice last week, he said.
At the peak of his fame in the 1950s and '60s, Sales was one of the best-known faces in the nation, Usher said.
"President Eisenhower wouldn't have been noticed before him. He became that popular," Usher said, adding they sometimes had difficulty finding places where he wasn't recognized. "He could never eat a meal because people just slipped over to him ... for autographs. He had a magnetism that was unbelievable."
Many Metro Detroiters fondly recall his "Lunch with Soupy Sales" on WXYZ-TV, where the former radio disc jockey began his TV career in the 1950s.
Entertaining with White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie the Lion and other characters that endeared him both to adults and children, Sales became an icon.
"He had his little world of characters and lived in that during lunchtime," Usher said. "People remembered if they did the Soupy Shuffle, a dance he made up... He was well known for it."
The Detroit Historical Museum featured Sales and others in its recent "Detroit's Classic TV Personalities" exhibit, which ran through Labor Day.
"It was a popular exhibit," said Bob Sadler, the museum's director of public and external relations, "and certainly people remember fondly their memories of Soupy Sales. He had a special place in people's minds and hearts. People grew up with Soupy. They went home and had lunch with Soupy." Sadler said in a previous job, he even had an assistant who showed him the "Soupy Shuffle."
He added noted that local television "is not the same as it was in that era."
"That was an era when local stations produced hours and hours of local programming. They don't do that anymore," Sadler said.
Sales' pie-throwing schtick became his trademark, and celebrities queued up to take one on the chin alongside the comic. During the early 1960s, stars like Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Shirley MacLaine got their just desserts side-by-side with the comedian on his television show.
"I'll probably be remembered for the pies, and that's all right," he said in a 1985 interview. "That's fine and dandy." ...
May you have great and fortunate rebirths, Soupy. We love you.
... A testy Duke of Bedford asked him why he insisted on making his wife look like a lesbian, but Vidal didn’t think that his clients looked like lesbians. He thought they looked modern, liberated — which they were: liberated from the rollers, the perming, the setting, the back-combing, the huge dryers and the humungous output of aerosol particles that constituted a trip to the salon throughout the Fifties. Vidal, despite having trained with “Mr Teasy Weasy” himself, the great Raymond of Mayfair, had sensed, as a new decade dawned, that the days of teasing and weasing were numbered. The signs could be divined everywhere, even in architecture: “You had only to look at Mies’s [van der Rohe] Seagram [a 1957 New York skyscraper] or Breuer’s Whitney [the 1966 art museum, also in New York] to know.” Or, indeed, at those geometric Sixties clothes. He clipped 4ft from Nancy Kwan’s hair....
Free your head, free your mind, take half the time you once did getting ready, buy shampoo only once a year: cut off your hair.
Yes, I am disgusted that this page also features a link to a "Six steps to the beehive: this season's must-have hair" article. Fuck that teasy-weasy shit. Why be a slave, or look like one?
Free your head, free your mind, take half the time you once did getting ready, buy shampoo only once a year: cut off your hair.
Yes, I am disgusted that this page also features a link to a "Six steps to the beehive: this season's must-have hair" article. Fuck that teasy-weasy shit. Why be a slave, or look like one?
Cuzco Newsboy, 1948. The picture of a Mexican boy was one of the earliest photographs by Irving Penn, who started out in the art department at US Vogue. It is one of the lots being auctioned at Christie's New York on October 8. (All photographs courtesy of Christie's)
October 4, 2009
Top Gear in America's redneck country
Of all the hair-raising escapades in the show, being chased by murderous Alabamans was the scariest says presenter in new book
Richard Hammond
... “They’re comin’ up past here. We’re at the crossroads.” And: “I can see them here, too.” They were using their CB radios to track us. And I was suddenly very aware that television cameras and business cards would not protect us from guns.
I didn’t want to wake up tied to a tree, being invited to squeal like a little piggy for the entertainment of a 20-year-old psychopath in giant dungarees, with three teeth in his head and a bitter hatred of anyone who wasn’t also a 30-stone homophobic racist who shot at things he didn’t understand. ...
Top Gear in America's redneck country
Of all the hair-raising escapades in the show, being chased by murderous Alabamans was the scariest says presenter in new book
Richard Hammond
... “They’re comin’ up past here. We’re at the crossroads.” And: “I can see them here, too.” They were using their CB radios to track us. And I was suddenly very aware that television cameras and business cards would not protect us from guns.
I didn’t want to wake up tied to a tree, being invited to squeal like a little piggy for the entertainment of a 20-year-old psychopath in giant dungarees, with three teeth in his head and a bitter hatred of anyone who wasn’t also a 30-stone homophobic racist who shot at things he didn’t understand. ...
September 30, 2009
Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US’
The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it
... His voice strengthens. “One thing I have hated all my life are LIARS [he says that with bristling anger] and I live in a nation of them. It was not always the case. I don’t demand honour, that can be lies too. I don’t say there was a golden age, but there was an age of general intelligence. We had a watchdog, the media.” The media is too supine? “Would that it was. They’re busy preparing us for an Iranian war.” He retains some optimism about Obama “because he doesn’t lie. We know the fool from Arizona [as he calls John McCain] is a liar. We never got the real story of how McCain crashed his plane [in 1967 near Hanoi, North Vietnam] and was held captive.”
Vidal originally became pro-Obama because he grew up in “a black city” (meaning Washington), as well as being impressed by Obama’s intelligence. “But he believes the generals. Even Bush knew the way to win a general was to give him another star. Obama believes the Republican Party is a party when in fact it’s a mindset, like Hitler Youth, based on hatred — religious hatred, racial hatred. When you foreigners hear the word ‘conservative’ you think of kindly old men hunting foxes. They’re not, they’re fascists.” ...
Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US’
The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it
... His voice strengthens. “One thing I have hated all my life are LIARS [he says that with bristling anger] and I live in a nation of them. It was not always the case. I don’t demand honour, that can be lies too. I don’t say there was a golden age, but there was an age of general intelligence. We had a watchdog, the media.” The media is too supine? “Would that it was. They’re busy preparing us for an Iranian war.” He retains some optimism about Obama “because he doesn’t lie. We know the fool from Arizona [as he calls John McCain] is a liar. We never got the real story of how McCain crashed his plane [in 1967 near Hanoi, North Vietnam] and was held captive.”
Vidal originally became pro-Obama because he grew up in “a black city” (meaning Washington), as well as being impressed by Obama’s intelligence. “But he believes the generals. Even Bush knew the way to win a general was to give him another star. Obama believes the Republican Party is a party when in fact it’s a mindset, like Hitler Youth, based on hatred — religious hatred, racial hatred. When you foreigners hear the word ‘conservative’ you think of kindly old men hunting foxes. They’re not, they’re fascists.” ...
It's not a leopard, it's a cheetah.
May you have great and tasty, most fortunate rebirths Mr Floyd!
My God, the headlamps are like eyeballs!
Yay! Dave the Wave!!!
Dave the Wave is a God!
CM: (Playing piano) "Ma-ma-ma-ma-cita, donde esta Santa Cleese...the vato wit da bony knees...he comin' down da street wit no choos on his feet...and he's going to..." No, no, that ain't it... "Mamamacita, donde esta Santa Claus...da guy wit da hair on his jaws...he's..." Nah. Hey, man, come over here, man. I need some help, man.
TC: Yeah, man. I can dig that. Like, uh, what are ya doin', man?
CM: Aw, I'm trying to write a song about Santa Claus, man, but it's not comin' out...
TC: About who, man?
CM: About Santa Claus, man. You know, Santa Claus, man?
TC: Oh, yeah, man. I played with those dudes, man.
CM: What?
TC: Yeah, last year at the Fillmore, man. Me and the bass player sat in, man.
CM: Oh, hey, man, you think Santa Claus is a group, huh? No, it's not a group, man.
TC: Wha? They break up, man?
CM: No, man. It's one guy, man. Y'know, he had a..a red suit on, man, with black patent leather choos...you know the guy, man.
TC: Oh, yeah...he's with Motown, ain't he? Yeah, I played with that dude, too, man. He's a good singer, man.
CM: No, no, hold on, man. He's not with Motown, man.
TC: Well, then he's with Buddha, man.
CM: No, aw, man, you don't know who Santa Claus is, man!
TM: Yeah, well, I'm not from here, man. Like, I'm from Pittsburgh, man. I don't know too many local dudes.
CM: Ohhh, I see. Well, hey, man, sit back and relax and I'll tell you da story about Santa Claus, man. Listen...
(background music begins)
Once upon a time, about, hmmm, five years ago, there was this groovy dude and has name was Santa Claus, y'know? And he used to live over in the projects with his old lady and they had a pretty good thing together because his old lady was really fine and she could cook and all that stuff like that, y'know. Like, she made da best brownies in town, man! Oh, I could remember 'em now, man. I could eat one of 'em, man, wow...
TC: Wow, did you know these people, man?
CM: Oh, yeah, man. They used to live next door to me, y'know...until they got kicked out, man. ...
TC: Yeah, man. I can dig that. Like, uh, what are ya doin', man?
CM: Aw, I'm trying to write a song about Santa Claus, man, but it's not comin' out...
TC: About who, man?
CM: About Santa Claus, man. You know, Santa Claus, man?
TC: Oh, yeah, man. I played with those dudes, man.
CM: What?
TC: Yeah, last year at the Fillmore, man. Me and the bass player sat in, man.
CM: Oh, hey, man, you think Santa Claus is a group, huh? No, it's not a group, man.
TC: Wha? They break up, man?
CM: No, man. It's one guy, man. Y'know, he had a..a red suit on, man, with black patent leather choos...you know the guy, man.
TC: Oh, yeah...he's with Motown, ain't he? Yeah, I played with that dude, too, man. He's a good singer, man.
CM: No, no, hold on, man. He's not with Motown, man.
TC: Well, then he's with Buddha, man.
CM: No, aw, man, you don't know who Santa Claus is, man!
TM: Yeah, well, I'm not from here, man. Like, I'm from Pittsburgh, man. I don't know too many local dudes.
CM: Ohhh, I see. Well, hey, man, sit back and relax and I'll tell you da story about Santa Claus, man. Listen...
(background music begins)
Once upon a time, about, hmmm, five years ago, there was this groovy dude and has name was Santa Claus, y'know? And he used to live over in the projects with his old lady and they had a pretty good thing together because his old lady was really fine and she could cook and all that stuff like that, y'know. Like, she made da best brownies in town, man! Oh, I could remember 'em now, man. I could eat one of 'em, man, wow...
TC: Wow, did you know these people, man?
CM: Oh, yeah, man. They used to live next door to me, y'know...until they got kicked out, man. ...
... “I’d been fighting, going to therapy, treating what I was as though it were some kind of illness to be cured. But actually, no, I was basically transgender, and just unhappy.” He’s centred enough now to explain the difference calmly: he’s not transsexual, which would mean he felt like a woman, to the extent of wanting an operation to turn him into one; but transgender, which means feeling like neither quite man nor woman. “There is a continuum between male and female,” he says. “Some are hard-wired one way or another, I’m in between. Or a third sex, I could see myself as quite easily.” But at the time, he was not so phlegmatic. “I lost the plot. Paranoid delusions, the works. It was at the time when Bush and Blair ruled the f***ing world, and trying to claw my way back to sanity, I saw no standard norm. I wanted to get back to normal, but where’s the benchmark of sanity? I was drowning and couldn’t find a surface. And then I was talking to my son in Canada, and he told me how much he loved me, how he absolutely . . .”
O’Brien shakes his head in wonder. “It was my children’s love that gave me a centre again. They gave me acceptance of myself, and allowed me to be myself.”
Surely his kids had already guessed that he wasn’t, shall we say, a traditional dad? Even on The Crystal Maze, the Nineties game show that was often Channel 4’s highest rated programme, O’Brien would leap about in skin-tight leather trousers and furry jacket, and speak archly of a backroom figure called “Mumsie”.
“Ha! You’re right!” O’Brien hoots. When he finally plucked up the courage to tell his children he was transgender, their first reaction was: “Dad, and your point is?” ...
O’Brien shakes his head in wonder. “It was my children’s love that gave me a centre again. They gave me acceptance of myself, and allowed me to be myself.”
Surely his kids had already guessed that he wasn’t, shall we say, a traditional dad? Even on The Crystal Maze, the Nineties game show that was often Channel 4’s highest rated programme, O’Brien would leap about in skin-tight leather trousers and furry jacket, and speak archly of a backroom figure called “Mumsie”.
“Ha! You’re right!” O’Brien hoots. When he finally plucked up the courage to tell his children he was transgender, their first reaction was: “Dad, and your point is?” ...
'Nother nice Guardian gallery.
Mr @ - he's where it's @
USB Airplane fan ready to take off, please fasten seat belt!!
An adorable, wheeled aircraft whose propeller becomes a cooling fan once plugged into your PC's USB
Features:
# USB-powered
# Gentle cool breeze
# Soft safe plastic fan blades
# The propeller won't cut your fingers if you decide to play with it.
# Quiet motor
# On/Off power switch
heirloom gardener: Two Perfect Flowering Plants for Arbors: Betty Corning Clematis and Dortmund Rose
CLEMATIS viticella Betty Corning
My favorite of all plants to grow on an arbor is the heirloom Clematis 'Betty Corning.' I have only two arbors in my garden--they both have Betty Corning. My hope is to install additional arbors in the Bird Garden and the Walled Garden. These too will have Betty Corning.
I love this Clematis because of its scent. It has a lovely, sweet scent that hangs in the air just as you pass through the arbor. The scent is never cloying. It's like the perfect perfume that you catch a hint of as someone passes by you.
Betty Corning is also very easy to grow. It is classed in the viticella group which means at the beginning of the spring as the buds swell, cut down last year's growth to the first two to three buds. I fertilize my Clematis liberally with fish and/or seaweed emulsion during the growing season which produces lots of strong growth and lots of bell-shaped flowers.
A charming nodding flower with four petals of light blue-purple. The 2" deep flowers have petals with recurving tips. Excellent cut flower.
Blooms June thru September. Fragrant. Height 6-10'. Hardiness Zones 3-10. Sun-Shade: Full Sun to Mostly Sunny. Soil Condition: Normal.
Pruning Type 3 or C - This Clematis group blooms later and from new growth. They should be pruned in February or March as new leaf buds begin to show low on the plant; also remove all dead material above the buds and clear out any old or mildewed foliage.
My favorite of all plants to grow on an arbor is the heirloom Clematis 'Betty Corning.' I have only two arbors in my garden--they both have Betty Corning. My hope is to install additional arbors in the Bird Garden and the Walled Garden. These too will have Betty Corning.
I love this Clematis because of its scent. It has a lovely, sweet scent that hangs in the air just as you pass through the arbor. The scent is never cloying. It's like the perfect perfume that you catch a hint of as someone passes by you.
Betty Corning is also very easy to grow. It is classed in the viticella group which means at the beginning of the spring as the buds swell, cut down last year's growth to the first two to three buds. I fertilize my Clematis liberally with fish and/or seaweed emulsion during the growing season which produces lots of strong growth and lots of bell-shaped flowers.
A charming nodding flower with four petals of light blue-purple. The 2" deep flowers have petals with recurving tips. Excellent cut flower.
Blooms June thru September. Fragrant. Height 6-10'. Hardiness Zones 3-10. Sun-Shade: Full Sun to Mostly Sunny. Soil Condition: Normal.
Pruning Type 3 or C - This Clematis group blooms later and from new growth. They should be pruned in February or March as new leaf buds begin to show low on the plant; also remove all dead material above the buds and clear out any old or mildewed foliage.
Ta much, dear MSiegel!!11!!!!
Ta much, dear MSiegel!
Britain’s oldest veteran, who died today, having seen life in three different centuries and two world wars, ultimately came to the conclusion ‘war is stupid’. ...
What it's like to drive a $1.4-million car
BY MARK PHELAN • FREE PRESS AUTO CRITIC • July 16, 2009
$1.4 million. 1,001 Horsepower. Leather from cattle raised in special high-altitude pastures.
The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport roadster is less a car than a visit to an alternative reality.
The 16-cylinder engine produces more power than a small tugboat. It could push a barge of rice up the Mississippi, except the Veyron would exhaust its 26.4-gallon gas tank in about 7 minutes at wide-open throttle.
It's a frighteningly fast car, but as easy to drive as a Ford Taurus and one that justifies its existence both by testing new technologies for the Volkswagen Group and by generating a waiting list of orders -- complete with deposit -- that have the factory fully booked for more than a year. ...
... One potential buyer stopped by Bugatti of Troy -- part of the Suburban Collection -- to take a Grand Sport out for a spin Wednesday morning.
That anonymous high-roller was treated to four turbochargers that whistle like a taxiing Boeing 747 and creamy leather on virtually every surface. Bugatti buys leather from cattle raised in Austrian Alpine meadows, above the elevation where mosquitoes, wasps and other biting insects live.
Bug bites on cows, you see, can lead to blemishes on leather. Bugatti doesn't do blemishes. ...
BY MARK PHELAN • FREE PRESS AUTO CRITIC • July 16, 2009
$1.4 million. 1,001 Horsepower. Leather from cattle raised in special high-altitude pastures.
The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport roadster is less a car than a visit to an alternative reality.
The 16-cylinder engine produces more power than a small tugboat. It could push a barge of rice up the Mississippi, except the Veyron would exhaust its 26.4-gallon gas tank in about 7 minutes at wide-open throttle.
It's a frighteningly fast car, but as easy to drive as a Ford Taurus and one that justifies its existence both by testing new technologies for the Volkswagen Group and by generating a waiting list of orders -- complete with deposit -- that have the factory fully booked for more than a year. ...
... One potential buyer stopped by Bugatti of Troy -- part of the Suburban Collection -- to take a Grand Sport out for a spin Wednesday morning.
That anonymous high-roller was treated to four turbochargers that whistle like a taxiing Boeing 747 and creamy leather on virtually every surface. Bugatti buys leather from cattle raised in Austrian Alpine meadows, above the elevation where mosquitoes, wasps and other biting insects live.
Bug bites on cows, you see, can lead to blemishes on leather. Bugatti doesn't do blemishes. ...
Bonus: Engine And Interior Pr0n!
1924 Silver Ghost Boat Tail
1920 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost 4 Door 8 Window Sedan
1920 Rumpler W-6
1921 Rumpler Tropfenwagen
1921 Rumpler Tropfenwagen Touring
The Tatras are most droooolworthy streamlined machines...........I'd start posting lotsa those, but then I'd end up going to bed around 10 AM.
The video is completely screwed, doubtless thanks to my 56k dial-up modem.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8111984.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8111984.stm
Look carefully at the boot lid of any old M3 or Impreza and you'll probably see a little squiggly sticker in the shape of the infamous Nurburgring Nordschleife. Its a badge of honour; a statement to those in the know that this guy means business!
We thought it's about time we did one of our own. Yep, a sticker to celebrate that most special of circuits: the Test Track - home of Top Gear TV....and the Stig's secret lair.
You'll really have to know your stuff to spot this one!
... (Peter Lorre) Gillie: "I don't think he's quite dead enough yet."
(Basil Rathbone) Black (awakening): "What place is this? Why am I here?"
(Vincent Price) Trumbull: "Why, you're here because you're dead, Mr. Black."
Black: "The hell I am!"
Trumbull: "Everyone else knows you're dead, except apparently you."
Black: "What jiggery-pokery is this?"
Trumbull: "Not jiggery-pokery, Hinchley and Trumbull."
After a brief scuffle, Black has another "attack" and falls over, [again] apparently dead. Trumbull and Gillie get him in the coffin, but shortly he wakes up, lifting the lid of the coffin, saying, "What place is this?" Gillie and Trumbull force Black back into the coffin, and both of them sit on top of the lid. "Let me out!" cries Black.
"We most certainly will not let you out. Will you kindly have the goodness to die?" retorts Trumbull. "I've never had such an uncooperative customer in my life!"
"I regard your actions as inimical to good fellowship."
Eventually Trumbull whacks Black with a mallet, gags him, and chains the coffin closed. Is he really dead this time?
The funeral scene is hilarious....Mr. Hinchley (Karloff) gives the eulogy:
"My friends, we have gathered ourselves together within these bud-wreathed walls to pay homage to the departed soul of--uh, what's-his-name." ...
(Basil Rathbone) Black (awakening): "What place is this? Why am I here?"
(Vincent Price) Trumbull: "Why, you're here because you're dead, Mr. Black."
Black: "The hell I am!"
Trumbull: "Everyone else knows you're dead, except apparently you."
Black: "What jiggery-pokery is this?"
Trumbull: "Not jiggery-pokery, Hinchley and Trumbull."
After a brief scuffle, Black has another "attack" and falls over, [again] apparently dead. Trumbull and Gillie get him in the coffin, but shortly he wakes up, lifting the lid of the coffin, saying, "What place is this?" Gillie and Trumbull force Black back into the coffin, and both of them sit on top of the lid. "Let me out!" cries Black.
"We most certainly will not let you out. Will you kindly have the goodness to die?" retorts Trumbull. "I've never had such an uncooperative customer in my life!"
"I regard your actions as inimical to good fellowship."
Eventually Trumbull whacks Black with a mallet, gags him, and chains the coffin closed. Is he really dead this time?
The funeral scene is hilarious....Mr. Hinchley (Karloff) gives the eulogy:
"My friends, we have gathered ourselves together within these bud-wreathed walls to pay homage to the departed soul of--uh, what's-his-name." ...
HUGE SWASTIKA FILLS THE SCREEN. PULL BACK TO REVEAL OVERLAYED MEL SMITH, GRIFF RHYS-JONES AND PAMELA STEPHENSON AS SKINHEADS. THEY SING:
ALL
They didn't understand him
Some people called him mad
But any friend of Hitler's
Can't have been all bad.
Baronet Oswald Ernald Mosley
Baronet Oswald Ernald Mosley
SMITH
He was popular and handsome
As Richard Burton
'Cause I seen him on the box once
With his black shirt on
And though I cannot claim to be
Any great authority
As far as I'm concerned
The sun shone out of his oratory
ALL
He could have been a great dictator,
Given half a chance
But they treated him like a traitor
So he went to live in France
Baronet Oswald Ernald Mosley
STEPHENSON
And when they heard he was dead...
ALL
Baronet Oswald Ernald Mosley
RHYS-JONES
...this is what the papers all said:
(AS THEY READ, THE FOLLOWING ARE CAPTIONED. THE ACTUAL NEWSPAPERS ARE ALSO ROSTRUMED IN THE BACKGROUND)
RHYS-JONES
"Genuinely eager to champion the unemployed and other underdogs... dynamic and handsome, popular... gifted and a natural leader"
CAPTION ADDS FOOTNOTE 'The Guardian'
STEPHENSON
"Brilliant man in the Commons... compassionate and humane... a man of genuine courage and inspiring leadership"
CAPTION ADDS FOOTNOTE '- The Daily Telegraph'
SMITH
"Thought to have been the most handsome and gifted British political leader of the twentieth century ...brilliant debater, gifted, lucid and compassionate..."
CAPTION ADDS FOOTNOTE ' - The Times'
Not The Nine O'Clock News
Series 3, Show 7 (08/12/80)
© 1980 BBC - EMI Music Ltd
ALL
They didn't understand him
Some people called him mad
But any friend of Hitler's
Can't have been all bad.
Baronet Oswald Ernald Mosley
Baronet Oswald Ernald Mosley
SMITH
He was popular and handsome
As Richard Burton
'Cause I seen him on the box once
With his black shirt on
And though I cannot claim to be
Any great authority
As far as I'm concerned
The sun shone out of his oratory
ALL
He could have been a great dictator,
Given half a chance
But they treated him like a traitor
So he went to live in France
Baronet Oswald Ernald Mosley
STEPHENSON
And when they heard he was dead...
ALL
Baronet Oswald Ernald Mosley
RHYS-JONES
...this is what the papers all said:
(AS THEY READ, THE FOLLOWING ARE CAPTIONED. THE ACTUAL NEWSPAPERS ARE ALSO ROSTRUMED IN THE BACKGROUND)
RHYS-JONES
"Genuinely eager to champion the unemployed and other underdogs... dynamic and handsome, popular... gifted and a natural leader"
CAPTION ADDS FOOTNOTE 'The Guardian'
STEPHENSON
"Brilliant man in the Commons... compassionate and humane... a man of genuine courage and inspiring leadership"
CAPTION ADDS FOOTNOTE '- The Daily Telegraph'
SMITH
"Thought to have been the most handsome and gifted British political leader of the twentieth century ...brilliant debater, gifted, lucid and compassionate..."
CAPTION ADDS FOOTNOTE ' - The Times'
Not The Nine O'Clock News
Series 3, Show 7 (08/12/80)
© 1980 BBC - EMI Music Ltd
May 17, 2009
Iggy Pop on his life's highs and lows
He’s lived the rock’n’roll dream — and the nightmare. Now, at 62, Iggy Pop is facing up to the past he regrets and the family secrets that sent him on the road to self- destruction.
By Bryan Appleyard
I ask Iggy Pop, willy-waver, self-mutilator, stage-diver, car-wrecker, ex-dope fiend, ex-thief, punk progenitor and Stooges singer, why Swiftcover, online seller of car insurance, wanted to use him to front their recent UK advertising campaign.
He squirms and grins sheepishly. There’s a distinct blush beneath the coppery leather, newly scarred skin of his face. “This is so embarrassing. I was afraid you’d ask me that. This is so f***ing embarrassing.”
He bangs the table and breaks into a high-pitched giggle. “They said they wanted this series of ads to be performed by somebody…” long pause, “…somebody you can’t help but like!”
We stare at each other in silence, eyebrows raised, jaws dropped.
“You mean,” I — shocked, disbelieving — say, “that almost 45 years of offensive, obnoxious, downright nasty rock’n’roll, of systematic debauchery and subversion — your life’s work — has come to nothing? People can’t help but like you!”
“Exactly!”
“You did it, Iggy, you failed upwards!”
Now we’re both giggling. “That’s a very nervous position to be in,” he gasps, “to be liked!” ...
I love you, Unca Iggy - I'm marginal myself.
Iggy Pop on his life's highs and lows
He’s lived the rock’n’roll dream — and the nightmare. Now, at 62, Iggy Pop is facing up to the past he regrets and the family secrets that sent him on the road to self- destruction.
By Bryan Appleyard
I ask Iggy Pop, willy-waver, self-mutilator, stage-diver, car-wrecker, ex-dope fiend, ex-thief, punk progenitor and Stooges singer, why Swiftcover, online seller of car insurance, wanted to use him to front their recent UK advertising campaign.
He squirms and grins sheepishly. There’s a distinct blush beneath the coppery leather, newly scarred skin of his face. “This is so embarrassing. I was afraid you’d ask me that. This is so f***ing embarrassing.”
He bangs the table and breaks into a high-pitched giggle. “They said they wanted this series of ads to be performed by somebody…” long pause, “…somebody you can’t help but like!”
We stare at each other in silence, eyebrows raised, jaws dropped.
“You mean,” I — shocked, disbelieving — say, “that almost 45 years of offensive, obnoxious, downright nasty rock’n’roll, of systematic debauchery and subversion — your life’s work — has come to nothing? People can’t help but like you!”
“Exactly!”
“You did it, Iggy, you failed upwards!”
Now we’re both giggling. “That’s a very nervous position to be in,” he gasps, “to be liked!” ...
I love you, Unca Iggy - I'm marginal myself.
Welcome back! We've missed you!
February 5, 2009
Is the black Stig back?
New YouTube video sparks rumours that the BBC's Top Gear is bringing back the original Stig
New footage released on YouTube today shows the Black Stig, Top Gear’s original star driver, climbing out of the ocean, raising speculation that the BBC may consider bringing the character back after the current Stig's identity was revealed last month.
The original Stig, the masked racing driver who became a household name, was the brainchild of Jeremy Clarkson when the programme was relaunched in 2002. The character was retired around the time he was identified as British racing driver Perry McCarthy. The Stig's name was based on the monicker given to new boys at Clarkson’s school, Repton.
A press release that accompanied the video announced: “until now, the original Stig from BBC Top Gear was thought to have been killed back in 2003, when he drove a modified Jaguar XJS off the end of HMS Invincible aircraft carrier at 109mph. . . The nation was shocked that the Stig was dead. However, recent footage has been found on YouTube showing that he miraculously survived.”
Until he was unmasked few people apart from a handful of BBC production staff and journalists knew the true identity of the current white-suited Stig. The name of the Stig, beloved of the show’s hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, has been an open secret within the motoring world for some years, but the media have refrained from publishing his name to uphold the spirit of the programme.
Late last month, however, a newspaper outed Ben Collins, a Bristol-based former American speedway driver and stuntman, after following up a story in a Bristol newspaper about a man commissioning a photographic studio in the city to produce limited edition prints of the character. ...
Is the black Stig back?
New YouTube video sparks rumours that the BBC's Top Gear is bringing back the original Stig
New footage released on YouTube today shows the Black Stig, Top Gear’s original star driver, climbing out of the ocean, raising speculation that the BBC may consider bringing the character back after the current Stig's identity was revealed last month.
The original Stig, the masked racing driver who became a household name, was the brainchild of Jeremy Clarkson when the programme was relaunched in 2002. The character was retired around the time he was identified as British racing driver Perry McCarthy. The Stig's name was based on the monicker given to new boys at Clarkson’s school, Repton.
A press release that accompanied the video announced: “until now, the original Stig from BBC Top Gear was thought to have been killed back in 2003, when he drove a modified Jaguar XJS off the end of HMS Invincible aircraft carrier at 109mph. . . The nation was shocked that the Stig was dead. However, recent footage has been found on YouTube showing that he miraculously survived.”
Until he was unmasked few people apart from a handful of BBC production staff and journalists knew the true identity of the current white-suited Stig. The name of the Stig, beloved of the show’s hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, has been an open secret within the motoring world for some years, but the media have refrained from publishing his name to uphold the spirit of the programme.
Late last month, however, a newspaper outed Ben Collins, a Bristol-based former American speedway driver and stuntman, after following up a story in a Bristol newspaper about a man commissioning a photographic studio in the city to produce limited edition prints of the character. ...
Fandabulous chapeaux!
Christopher Larson: Be careful Mr Solo, please?
Napoleon Solo: I'll be a study in caution.
Napoleon Solo: (after her boss is killed) Isn't it common to follow your boss using the Japanese custom of Hara Kiri?
Tomo: You got the wrong century, Jack.
Illya Kuryakin: The next harvest is scheduled for the 20th. Today is the 17th. That gives you three days.
Napoleon Solo: Exactly three days; that's a relief. I thought it was going to be a rush job.
Napoleon Solo: People who straddle both sides of the street end up sitting in the middle.
Marcel Rudolph: You can't leave me here. They'll kill me.
Napoleon Solo: Not if you run fast enough.
Guard: But the Casbah is not the place for a casual stroll. Especially not for a well-dressed stranger.
Napoleon Solo: This happens to be my oldest suit.
Mr Alexander Waverly: How is that leg of yours coming along?
Napoleon Solo: Healing faster than my dignity.
Illya Kuryakin: Your friends are such complicated people.
Illya Kuryakin: It's a handicap isn't it? Being so obviously American?
Napoleon Solo: (calling on the intercom) Illya, we have a situation here that needs your special talents. Are you free?
Illya Kuryakin: (from intercom) No man is free who works for a living; but I'm available.
Napoleon Solo: I'll be a study in caution.
Napoleon Solo: (after her boss is killed) Isn't it common to follow your boss using the Japanese custom of Hara Kiri?
Tomo: You got the wrong century, Jack.
Illya Kuryakin: The next harvest is scheduled for the 20th. Today is the 17th. That gives you three days.
Napoleon Solo: Exactly three days; that's a relief. I thought it was going to be a rush job.
Napoleon Solo: People who straddle both sides of the street end up sitting in the middle.
Marcel Rudolph: You can't leave me here. They'll kill me.
Napoleon Solo: Not if you run fast enough.
Guard: But the Casbah is not the place for a casual stroll. Especially not for a well-dressed stranger.
Napoleon Solo: This happens to be my oldest suit.
Mr Alexander Waverly: How is that leg of yours coming along?
Napoleon Solo: Healing faster than my dignity.
Illya Kuryakin: It's a handicap isn't it? Being so obviously American?
Napoleon Solo: (calling on the intercom) Illya, we have a situation here that needs your special talents. Are you free?
Illya Kuryakin: (from intercom) No man is free who works for a living; but I'm available.
Aretha Franklin's inauguration hat becomes overnight fashion sensation
Detroit designer flooded with orders
By BILL MCGRAW
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
January 21, 2009
Paris? No.
Milan? No.
New York? No.
New Center? Yes!
Aretha Franklin’s now-famous bow-tied, gift-wrapped, jewel-studded, $179 inaugural hat was designed, produced and sold to the Queen of Soul by Mr. Song Millinery, a family-owned business on Woodward Avenue just south of W. Grand Boulevard, a couple of blocks from the Fisher Building.
Starting minutes after Franklin finished her distinctive rendition of “My County ‘Tis of Thee” Tuesday, the store’s phones started ringing.
By this afternoon, they had sold hundreds of hats. A store they work with in Dallas had sold 500 more, and the material was running out.
“People are calling from England, asking for the hat,” said Luke Song, who designed Franklin’s chapeau. “I’m shocked. I had no idea. We did not expect this.” ...
Detroit designer flooded with orders
By BILL MCGRAW
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
January 21, 2009
Paris? No.
Milan? No.
New York? No.
New Center? Yes!
Aretha Franklin’s now-famous bow-tied, gift-wrapped, jewel-studded, $179 inaugural hat was designed, produced and sold to the Queen of Soul by Mr. Song Millinery, a family-owned business on Woodward Avenue just south of W. Grand Boulevard, a couple of blocks from the Fisher Building.
Starting minutes after Franklin finished her distinctive rendition of “My County ‘Tis of Thee” Tuesday, the store’s phones started ringing.
By this afternoon, they had sold hundreds of hats. A store they work with in Dallas had sold 500 more, and the material was running out.
“People are calling from England, asking for the hat,” said Luke Song, who designed Franklin’s chapeau. “I’m shocked. I had no idea. We did not expect this.” ...
Top Gear Stig's identity revealed?
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
... The BBC has refused to confirm or deny whether Collins is The Stig.
"We never comment on speculation as to whom or what The Stig is" said a spokesperson in a statement.
Perry McCarthy, a former Formula 1 driver, used to be The Stig.
However, he was 'killed off' when he revealed his identity in his 2002 autobiography. ...
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
... The BBC has refused to confirm or deny whether Collins is The Stig.
"We never comment on speculation as to whom or what The Stig is" said a spokesperson in a statement.
Perry McCarthy, a former Formula 1 driver, used to be The Stig.
However, he was 'killed off' when he revealed his identity in his 2002 autobiography. ...
He made 'Retha's inauguration hat.
... The BBC has declined to comment saying, “We never comment on speculation as to who or what The Stig is.”
Henry, The God Of Hats.
"The Serbian God of Lightning" indeed.
Rats! I forgot to tag all the BATs with 'drool'! I'll tag this 'un and get round to the others tomorrow.
This page is auf Deutsch, but English speakers will appreciate the last paragraph.
Brief bio of Albert Kuvezin
sigh................
This man's voice makes your heart vibrate and shakes the rafters.