Category Archives: American culture

Wes Anderson @40

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6l8zrsf4LY]

Seu Jorge sings [1] “Life on Mars?” in Portuguese in The Life Aquatic

Wesley Wales Anderson (born May 1, 1969) is an American writer, producer, and director of films and commercials. In Europe, Anderson came to mainstreamish attention with The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) but my favourite of his films is The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), not in the least because the film is his most surreal effort to date and was rather poorly received compared to his other films. Future films to be expected from Anderson are Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), an animation of a Roald Dahl story and My Best Friend, an adaptation of the film by the same name by personal fave Patrice Leconte.

With the exception of Bottle Rocket, his films employ a similar art direction, primarily through the use of vivid primary colors. He often uses folk music and early rock as the background music in scenes. The depiction of escapism and companionship through chemicals is also one of his trademarks. Anderson, like many European art film directors before him makes use of ensemble casts of the same actors, crew members, and other collaborators. For example, the Wilson brothers (Owen, Luke, and Andrew), Bill Murray, Seymour Cassel, Anjelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman (I Heart Huckabees) and Eric Chase Anderson (Anderson’s brother). Other frequent collaborators are writer Noah Baumbach, who co-wrote The Life Aquatic, and wrote/directed his own film, The Squid and the Whale, with Anderson as producer. Also cinematographer Robert Yeoman and composer Mark Mothersbaugh.

If you like Anderson’s work, you should check the following directors working in North America: David O. Russell, P. T. Anderson, Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, Vincent Gallo, Hal Hartley, Alexander Payne and Terry Zwigoff, a group of directors currently being denoted as indiewood.

RIP Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950 – 2009)

Please let me know if you know the origins of the cover.

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (May 2, 1950 – April 12, 2009) was an American theorist in the fields of queer theory and critical theory. She is best-known for her literary study Epistemology of the Closet (1990) in which she referenced Herman Melville, Henry James, Marcel Proust, and Oscar Wilde. A pity she did not use film as a basis for her analysis. She could have been the American Zizek.

She was popular with the American left, witness the review in The Nation. It’s not hard guessing how she was perceived in the bible belt.

World Cinema Classic #98

Via Ian Kerkhof‘s incredibly prolific blog[1] comes our 98th World Cinema Classic, an ongoing project at the Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia.

This entry goes to The Dogway Melody [2] (1930), one of the Dogville shorts.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II1BkpX03-M]

The Dogway Melody is a 1930 comedy short film that recreates scenes from early musical films, particularly The Broadway Melody. The entire cast are trained dogs with human voiceovers. It was directed by Zion Myers and Jules White and it forms part of the MGM produced series of Dogville shorts.

The history of American erotica: the Falstaff and Panurge presses.

Promotional page for Panurge Press, from Bookleggers and Smuthounds

In the history of American erotica there are two private press publishers of curiosa, Falstaff Press [1] and Panurge Press. Both are well-documented in Bookleggers and Smuthounds, both were at the hight of their activity in the 1930s.

Interestingly, both of the presses’ names are derived from male fictional characters, in the case of Falstaff described as “fat, vainglorious, cowardly, jolly knight” and in the case of Panurge as “an exceedingly crafty knave, a libertine, and a coward.”

Both cowards, both anti-heros. Falstaff as much as Panurge, very much in tune with American modernist literature.

Today, following my binge of French erotica, I’ve been busy researching the “also avaible from this publisher” page from The Erotic History of France[2] by by Henry L. Marchand, a Panurge book.

The Sotadic Zone by Sir Richard Burton, Panurge Press edition, image courtesy vintagesleaze, the site that lives up to its title.

Other publications of Panurge include The Sotadic Zone by Sir Richard Burton, here with an illustration courtesy of vintagesleaze.com [3].

Maurice Girodias @90

In 1934, at the age of 15, Girodias drew the disturbing crab picture seen on the original cover of Tropic of Cancer.

The cover states: “Ne doit pas etre exposé en étalage ou en vitrine,” in English that is: “Cannot be displayed in show window.”

Ah … the good old “sous le manteau” days

“I remember a very funny story told to me by Maurice. He once had to take the train to Belgium, where he needed to bring a great deal of money. He had hidden the money bills in his shorts. Once on the train, he was overcome by diarrhea and forgot to remove the money from his shorts when he went to the toilet with the unfortunate result of soiling this small fortune. He cleaned the money as best as he could and afterwards reserved those bills to use as — quite literally — dirty money.” —Sholem Stein

Maurice Girodias (12 April 1919 – 3 July 1990), was the founder of the The Olympia Press. At one time he was the owner of his father’s Obelisk Press, and spent most of his productive years in Paris.

Girodias’s involvement with his father’s business started early. In 1934, at the age of 15, Girodias drew the disturbing crab picture seen on the original cover of Tropic of Cancer. After his father’s early death in 1939, Girodias took over publishing duties, and at the age of 20 managed to survive Paris, World War II, Occupation and paper shortages.

The Affaire Miller ended with Girodias out of jail, but bankrupt and no longer in control of his company.

Olympia Press

Olympia Press was a Paris-based publisher, launched in 1953 by Maurice Girodias as a rebadged version of the Obelisk Press he inherited from his father Jack Kahane. It published a mix of erotic novels and avant-garde literary works, and is best known for the first print of Vladimir Nabokov‘s Lolita.

Most, if not all, Olympia Press publications were promoted and packaged as “Traveller’s Companion” books, usually with simple text-only covers, and each book in the series was numbered.

Olympia Press was also the first publisher willing to print the controversial William S. Burroughs novel, Naked Lunch. Other notable works included J. P. Donleavy‘s The Ginger Man; the French trilogy Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett; A Tale of Satisfied Desire by Georges Bataille and Story of O by Pauline Réage.

English-language presses in Paris

The Enlish-language literary expatriates depended on the presence in Paris of a substantial number of English-language presses, periodicals, and bookstores. These small presses included such famous names as the Contact Press (of American poet Robert McAlmon), the Three Mountains Press (of Bill Bird), the Hours Press (of Nancy Cunard), the Black Sun Press (of Harry and Caresse Crosby), the Obelisk Press (of Jack Kahane), and the Olympia Press (of Maurice Girodias, son of Kahane).

Gil Scott-Heron @60

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b2F-XX0Ol0]

“The Bottle“

Gil Scott-Heron (born April 1 1949) is an American poet and musician known primarily for his late 1960s and early 1970s work as a spoken word performer. He is associated with African American militant activism, and is best known for his songs “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and “The Bottle” (see above).

RIP Helen Levitt (1913 – 2009)

poster in the city of Amsterdam: Helen Levitt In The Street by Jarr Geerligs

Helen Levitt exhibition poster photo by Jarr Geerligs

Helen Levitt (August 31, 1913 – March 29, 2009) was an American photographer. She was particularly noted for street photography around New York City. Street photography is connected to candid photography, both practices are becoming cumbersome in the internet era with regards to privacy.

RIP Ronald Tavel (1936 – 2009)

RIP Ronald Tavel

Poster by Alan Aldridge for Chelsea Girls (1966), for which Tavel wrote the script.

Ronald Tavel (May 17, 1936 – March 23, 2009) was an American writer, director and actor, and was known for his work with Andy Warhol and The Factory. He was involved in the Playhouse of the Ridiculous and wrote the scripts for Chelsea Girls, Poor Little Rich Girl and Vinyl.

Nelson Algren @100

The Man with the Golden Arm (1949) by Nelson Algren

The classic modern novel about drug addiction.

Nelson Algren (1909 – 1981) was an American writer best-known for The Man with the Golden Arm (see drugs in literature and heroin in literature).

Allow me to digress.

Algren had a torrid affair with Simone de Beauvoir and they travelled to Latin America together in 1949. In her novel The Mandarins (1957), she wrote of Algren (who is “Lewis Brogan” in the book):

“At first I found it amusing meeting in the flesh that classic American species: self-made leftist writer. Now, I began taking an interest in Brogan. Through his stories, you got the feeling that he claimed no rights to life and that nevertheless he had always had a passionate desire to live. I liked that mixture of modesty and eagerness.”

On January 3, 2008, French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur publishes a nude photo of Simone de Beauvoir by Art Shay with the title “Simone de Beauvoir la scandaleuse“.

Simone de Beauvoir photo by Art Shay

End of digression.

Edward Steichen @130

The Pond-Moonlight

Edward Steichen (1879–1973) was a pictorialist American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator, born in Luxembourg, Europe. He is known for such photos as The Pond-Moonlight.

Pictorialism was a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism.

Jahsonic

Aantekeningen uit Dodenstad.