Blowhard, Esq. writes:
I’ve been enjoying this biography of Steve Ditko which also contains a healthy survey of his work. Check out this trippy, psychedelic sampling of some of his comic covers and art from the late 50s and 60s.
Fabrizio once summed it up nicely when he said “Fuck Roy Lichtenstein.”
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Eddie Pensier writes:
The late American tenor Jerry Hadley gives us a haunting and wistful rendition of this tune, from Street Scene.
Like Porgy and Bess, Street Scene is often the basis for pedantic musical arguments about whether it’s an opera or a musical. Its composer, Kurt Weill, didn’t help matters by pronouncing it a “Broadway Opera” or sometimes an “American Opera”. (The piece’s lyrics were written by Langston Hughes, the book by Elmer Rice.) Despite winning the first-ever Tony Award for Best Original Score in 1947, it has never been revived in a legit Broadway theater. When it has been produced, it’s nearly always been in an opera house (or community theater, or school) with operatic-type voices in most of the roles. It actually feels rather dated–a strange thing to say about an opera, I’ll grant you–, but it’s still a powerful and gripping piece of Americana, and this is one of its best numbers.
Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:
Blowhard, Esq. writes:
As this post alluded to, I recently saw the documentary BETTIE PAGE REVEALS ALL, so I’ve been in a pin-up mood recently. (OK, so I’m always in a pin-up mood.) The documentary made me appreciate how, in this age of the butt-kickin’ babe and female bodybuilder, a woman like Dita Von Teese has been carrying the torch for the femme fatale and glamor girl.
Born blonde as Heather Sweet, Von Teese, whose name recalls the Euro decadence of Weimar Berlin, began as a softcore fetish model in the early 90s before making a name for herself in the pages of Playboy and Penthouse. At a time when the ideal was Monroe-desecended blondes like Anna Nicole Smith, Jenny McCarthy, and Pamela Anderson, Von Teese’s raven hair and pale skin provided a contrast by consciously recalling Bettie Page and George Hurrell’s classic studio portraits. (She looks like she’s in a black and white photo even when it’s in color.) While musical acts like the Reverend Horton Heat and Social Distortion pioneered rockabilly, Von Teese (who dated Social D’s Mike Ness) became a key figure in the burlesque revival; her influence today can be seen in sites like SuicideGirls. An entrepreneur, she has carved out a little empire by creating her own line of clothes, lingerie, stockings, and perfume. You could almost think of her as a Martha Stewart for the Kink.com set.
The gallery below the jump is NSFW, so don’t proceed if your boss has a problem with nude and naughty neo-noir dames. Happy Friday.
Blowhard, Esq. writes:
Via Eddie Pensier, I had this particular strip tacked up on my desk for years.
Blowhard, Esq. writes:
One of my favorite places during my New York City trip last month was The Cloisters, a medieval art museum run by the The Met located in northern Manhattan. Nestled in a sprawling park that abuts Washington Heights and Inwood, it’s a welcome area of tranquility away from noise and nervousness of the city. Here are a few photos I took.
Paleo Retiree writes:
When I solicited thoughts and opinions some months ago about whether a snapshot I’d sneaked of a couple of sunbathing cuties in a public park was a Creepshot or not, some visitors concluded A) that it wasn’t, and B) that the reason it wasn’t was that you couldn’t see the girls’ faces. If the girls couldn’t be identified, so what?
Today, in the interests of muddying up the debate, I’m posting a snap of some attractive young women in bikinis, in a park, several of whose faces can be clearly made out. Visitors: Creepshot or not? What’s your opinion?
Some questions that strike me as worth mulling over: When women are stripping off and sunning in a public park, how much “reasonable expectation of privacy” are they entitled to? Should it be legal or not-legal to sneak a snap of them? Perhaps it should be considered legal but also rude. Did these women all give the photographer their approval, both to take the pic and to publish the pic? If not, do they deserve to be able to sue, or perhaps just to protest? Should the taking-and-publishing of this photo be condemned?
Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:
As P.L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books, Emma Thompson projects a grave sort of loneliness. Nested confidently into middle age, yet still grappling with the issues of her childhood, the Travers of “Saving Mr. Banks” uses her literary creation as a bulwark. Fans and business associates she treats as challengers. Travers won’t allow their meddling to threaten the autocracy of her imagination.
The movie, which is an account of Travers’ dealings with Walt Disney in bringing Poppins to the screen, begins as an engaging fish out water story in which the prim, very English-seeming Travers bumps up against the cheery crassness of Los Angeles. And for a while it’s fun to watch this lonely-bird outsider take roost in the studio system of old Hollywood. She brings dryness and formality to the Disney backlot, where everyone is on a first-name basis and no one ever imagines that commerce and merchandising aren’t the natural handmaidens of creativity. The scenes showing Travers, screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford), and songsmiths Robert and Richard Sherman (B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman) pounding “Poppins” into shape are among the movie’s most effective. They highlight the collaborative nature of movie making, and with their buoyant stop-start tempo and intermittent bubblings of song they remind you what movies have lost as they’ve become removed from the heritage of the musical.
Fenster writes:
A different kind of take on Townes Van Zandt’s Flyin’ Shoes: Jonelle Mosser’s piano and organ heavy version.
Blowhard, Esq. writes:
We have officially passed half a million views. Thank you to all the Internet bots who made this possible. Sasha Grey would like to thank our human readers.
Blowhard, Esq.
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