Hairy Who

I like to screech the bike to a halt outside at least one of our local book dealers and check out the roadside bargains each week. On Wednesday I found a curious catalogue for a UK touring exhibition from 1980. 

Who Chicago? is an overview of Hairy Who (and affiliates), a group of Chicago Imagists. Running counter to the C20th abstracted and intellectual turn, much of the work is seriously ugly, untimely and ultimately compelling. Hopefully this documentary will make it to the UK soon.

Alain Resnais (1922—2014), Hiroshima mon amour, 1959 [Photo: here]

Girlfriends

Two sick days this week meant that production was down. Sad face. On the upside we were sedentary long enough to watch Claudia Weill’s 1978 debut, Girlfriends. Yay!

• Bernadette Lafont, 1938-2013

• Fontella Bass, 1940—2012

Idling through an advertising annual from 1959, I was struck by this Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) carving, its downbeat countenance and the similarity to the countless characters of Barry McGee. If you've not seen McGee's work or that of his late wife, Margaret Kilgallen, you could always watch this or this. My hipster tolerance is set way too low to watch Beautiful Losers though.

• from 38th Annual of Advertising/Editorial Art/Design, Farrar, Straus & Cudahy

Kiosk

We've been selling this card for over a year now, but every time it went onto screen some aspect of the artwork was missing; once the heart, then the poodle's bow! Finally printing off a few hundred, I got to thinking about the telephone box (the K2 in particular) and how the curve of the roof is based on Sir John Soane's family tomb. Part of his own architectural vernacular, you can see the domed-square especially clearly on The Dulwich Picture Gallery. This seemed like the kind of trivia you might pick up watching The London Nobody Knows (1969) or, even better, Patrick Kellior's elegiac London (1994).

Of all paeans to London though, Patrick Hamilton's Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (1935) steals the best title, suggesting the manifold intertwining narratives of millions, humbled by the city's scale. But then I accidentally read Wordsworth's Upon Westminster Bridge (1802) while searching for something in an entirely different emotional key. Just beautiful.

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

• Chris Marker, 1921-2012 (La Jetée, 1962)

Though I love the name Ira, we'd pretty much settled on Eli for the kid... a pity then that Chris Evans nabbed it so publicly last week. He gets called Meatloaf or Frazzle-Face right now, but I think we're pitching for Orson; it sounds a bit like 'Our Son', teams well with Underwood, and —even better— means bear-like. Trouble is, everybody says 'Like Orson Welles?'... whose real name was George.

 

There's a few other Orsons though; the feral original from a 14th century tale Valentine & Orson (pictured here in a 1566 street theatre study from Bruegel), or the intense looking phrenologist, Orson Squire Fowler, advocator of social reform and octagonal houses. With all this quick Wikipedia knowledge, I should apply for a job as a research assistant!

• model-maker's pic from the amazing smallhousepress

• Incendiary still from Jordan's Dance, 1977, which forms part of Derek Jarman's Jubilee and is reprised this week for a timely screening on The Mall at the ICA.

• Ben Gazzara, 1930-2012

• John Barry (1933-2011). Click on the image to hear Theme from Midnight Cowboy, 1969

25

I laughed out loud when Edward brought home this old red gillet. When he said it reminded him of Marty McFly's 'life preserver', I laughed even harder. Celebrating its 25th birthday this year, I had no idea Back to the Future began shooting with Eric Stoltz as the lead; it's as though the film has one its own alternative futures already written through it. Our studio takes an age to heat up each morning, so he'll have the last laugh come Monday.

Summer Interlude

Minus the tragedy, my annual dream of summer... maybe next year.

• Summer Interlude, 1951 (Images, Ingmar Bergman, Bloomsbury, 1994).

Gena's Genius

I  know it's pretty schmaltzy, but who wouldn't enjoy a night weeping in front of Nick Cassavetes’ The Notebook, like I did when it aired on BBC2 this week. At 74, Nick's mother turns in another exceptional performance.

My interest in Gena Rowlands began after seeing Gloria, where she’s all heels, hair and sassy comic timing. By turns challenging and rewarding, I dedicated nights to watching A Woman Under the Influence, the madness of Minnie & Moskowitz, Love Streams and the gut-wrenching Opening Night… even the DVD interview extras had me bawling.

Of course, hubby John Cassavetes was no slouch either. If you don't know his own films, you'll recognise him as the colluding spouse from Rosemary's Baby. In fact, here's a shot of him with Mia at the Dakota Building. Too stylish. Speaking of Mia, I might try Woody Allen's Another Women or Alice sometime this week.