Luz Casal @ 50

Luz Casal (born November 11, 1958 at Boimorto, Galicia) is a Spanish pop singer. She is best-known for songs such as “Un Año de Amor” and “Piensa en mí,” popularized in the films of Pedro Almodóvar.

Introducing Adventures in the Print Trade

Introducing Adventures in the Print Trade [1] by British writer Neil Philip, who currently has a post on Degenerate Art during Nazism, a fave subject of mine, illustrating the beneficial side effects of censorship best illustrated by Lichtenberg:

“The book which most deserved to be banned would be a catalogue of banned books.” —Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms (G 37 in R. J. Hollingdale‘s translation and numeration)

Neil, author of Adventures in the Print Trade, begins his post thus:

“In 1929, the artist Richard Lindner, whose work can be considered the bridge between Cubism, Surrealism, and Pop Art, was appointed art director of the Munich publishing house of Knorr and Hir. Lindner remembered, “I saw Hitler every day in Munich at the Café Heck, a small café with about ten tables and thirty seats… Hitler used to sit there every day at his usual table. Our table was beside his and we knew each other because we avoided direct contact… He always wanted to be with artists.”[2]

The Window, 1958 Original lithograph by Richard Lindner [3]

Child’s Head, 1939 Original lithograph by Paul Klee [4]

Le Jardin d’Amour, 1981 Original silkscreen by Herbert von Arend [5]

Aus de Walpurgisnacht, 1923 Original woodcut by Ernst Barlach [6]

Woodcut for 10 Origin, 1942 Original woodcut by Wassily Kandinsky [7]

Untitled, 1979 Original lithograph by Boris Herbert Kleint [8]

Maschinenwerkstätte, 1921 Original lithograph by Lili Réthi [9]

Fabulously original, my only and usual gripe is that, art blogs should use Flickr or a similar service.

RIP Miriam Makeba

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85_9mKTg_Do]

Live version of “Pata Pata“

South African singer Miriam Makeba died yesterday while touring in Italy. She was 76 and best-known for being a vocal anti-apartheid activist, her 1967 song “Pata Pata“[1][2] and her marriages to fellow country trumpeter Hugh Masekela and American “Black pride“/”Black Power” activist Stokely Carmichael.

“Pata Pata” is a musical composition recorded by South African singer Miriam Makeba and released in 1967 on Reprise Records.

“Pata Pata” was co-written by Miriam Makeba and Jerry Ragovoy. After Makeba was signed to Warner/Reprise Records and published her first singles, the record company needed several songs to finish a Makeba album. Legend has it that she had told Reprise she wanted to do ballads, so they put her together with Jerry Ragovoy, the R&B writer/producer who was on staff at Warner Brothers at the time. Not being familiar with her, the night before their first recording session, he went to see her in a club in Greenwich Village, where she did a show comprised completely of African folk music. He was captivated to the point that, the next day, he just had Makeba and her sister sing a number of the songs into a tape recorder. One of them became “Pata Pata.”

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pygqt0uwnuc&]

Studio version of “Pata Pata“

The song was covered by Osibisa and Percy Faith.

In her political activism, Makeba reminds me of Fela Kuti and most of all, Josephine Baker.

Ennio Morricone @ 80 II

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Nw_yEh6G0&]

“Se telefonando” (1966) by Mina (for previously unreleased footage of Mr. Stein, scrub to 0:39.)

“The extraordinary thing about “Se telefonando” is that it has everything which is expected from a song: verse, structure and melody. Yet it also, very subtly, negates these qualities. The musical elements are reduced to handful of spiraling notes.” —Sholem Stein

Tim Lucas also had the birthday of Ennio Morricone on his mind today and wrote:

“I recently posted here about Morricone’s soul-stirring pop song “Se telefonando,” which comes as close to his own standards of perfection as anything else I’ve heard — but it’s not film music. It was only within the past year or so that I finally heard something else from Morricone’s catalogue that I believe — in its romanticism, melancholy, majesty and drama — stands as a true equal to the likes of such outstanding OUATITW tracks as “Jill’s America“[1] or “Man with a Harmonica.”[2] That cue is “Amore come dolore” (“A Love Like Sorrow”), a haunting 6:10 piece from Luciano Ercoli‘s 1970 giallo thriller “Le foto proibite di una signora per bene[3].[4]

This is a quote from the “previous post” Lucas referred to:

“No less a musical authority than FILM SCORE MONTHLY‘s John Bender considers this song, written by Ennio Morricone and performed by Mina Mazzini, to be the most sublime few minutes in the history of pop music.”[5]

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKSuG1LOaYI&]

“Se telefonando” (1966) by Mina

I agree with both Tim and John, “Telefonando” is on the list of my most cherished YouTube discoveries of the last few years.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cWzxJvgWc8]

“Sunday Morning” (1966) by The Velvet Underground

What both Tim and John have not mentioned is the extraordinary similarity in the opening piano line of “Telefonando” with the opening “bell” line of The Velvet Underground‘s “Sunday Morning“, which was recorded and released a few months after “Telefonando” in that same year 1966.

Ennio Morricone @ 80

Girl with kitten says: happy birthday Ennio. (2008)

Mondo Morricone is a series of three CDs featuring original music by Ennio Morricone taken from cult Italian movies (1968-72). Cult Italian films include Spaghetti Westerns and giallo films such as What Have You Done to Solange?.

Mondo Morricone (1996) – Ennio Morricone [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

More Mondo Morricone (1996) – Ennio Morricone [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Molto Mondo Morricone – Ennio Morricone [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Ennio Morricone (born November 10, 1928; sometimes also credited as Dan Savio or Leo Nichols) is an Italian composer especially noted for his film scores. He has composed and arranged scores for more than 400 film and television productions, more than any other composer living or deceased. He is best known for the characteristic sparse and memorable soundtracks of Sergio Leone‘s spaghetti westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), immediately recognizable due to Alessandro Alessandroni‘s whistling.

Ivan Turgenev @ 190

I cannot find any interesting visuals for Turgenev, I gave up and give you the above, an ode to the short story. For what is a novel? Is it not a padded short story?

Ivan Turgenev (November 9, 1818 – September 3, 1883) was a Russian novelist and playwright best known for his novel Fathers and Sons. He popularized the concept of superfluous man in The Diary of a Superfluous Man (1850).

He also wrote short stories, such as The Mysterious Tales, some of which are collected in Fantastic Tales: Visionary and Everyday (Calvino) and Blood and Roses : Vampires in 19th Century Literature (Gladwell and Havoc). I just ordered the latter.

Introducing Henri/y Gerbault

Introducing Henri Gerbault

I’m just a jealous guy

Henry Gerbault (June 24, 1863– October 19 1930), also spelled Henri Gerbault was a French illustrator and poster artist. He was a student of Henri Gervex. He was the nephew of Sully Prudhomme.

Poster for the Théatre Libre

The Théâtre Libre (French, Free Theater) was a theater founded by André Antoine that operated from 1887 to 1896 in Paris, France. Théâtre Libre was also the name of a European theatrical movement which celebrated Naturalist theatre and defied theatre censorship by founding subscription-based theatres. In London there was the Independent Theatre Society, which debuted the plays of George Bernard Shaw; and Germany had the Freie Bühne. Henrik Ibsen‘s Ghosts was the landmark play for all of these theatres. —Sholem Stein

His œuvre was dedicated to humourist drawings and illustrations. He illustrated authors such as Félicien Champsaur, Charles Perrault and Marcel Prévost.

He worked for numerous illustrated journals of the Belle Époque: La Vie Parisienne, Le Journal amusant, Le Rire, L’Amour, where he was noted for his voluptuous women.

Byron Lee (1935 – 2008)

Byron Lee (27 June 1935, – 4 November 2008) was a Jamaican musician, record producer, and entrepreneur, best known for his work as leader of Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, who recorded “Jump Up” for the first James Bond film Dr. No, and as the owner of the Dynamic Sounds recording studios.

Along with Randy’s Studio 17, Dynamic Sounds was the recording studio used by Lee Perry for such recordings as Soul Rebels. An interesting selection can be heard on Early Shots At Randy’s & Dynamic Sounds (1968-1972).

Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam @ 170

On the cover: Cornelis Huyberts (1669-1712), a plate from “Thesaurus Anatomicus” (1702) by Frederik Ruysch. (1638-1731). (Thanks Paul)

Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (November 7, 1838 – August 19, 1889) was a French symbolist writer. Villiers’ works, in the decadent/romantic style, are often fantastic in plot and filled with mystery and horror. Important among them are the drama Axel, the novel Tomorrow’s Eve, and the short-story collection, Sardonic Tales. He popularized the term “Android” (Andréide in French) in Tomorrow’s Eve and cruel tale in the epynomous collection. He is one of the authors featured in André Breton’s Anthology of Black Humor and is mentioned in The Symbolist Movement in Literature (Symons), The Romantic Agony (Praz), The Book of Fantasy (Borges), Fantastic Tales: Visionary and Everyday (Calvino), The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (Todorov), Genealogy of the Cruel Tale (Adair) and the World of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Moore).

Nobrow manifesto #3

A day at De Slegte and I like Stupid Things

French Undressing – Naughty Postcards from 1900 to 1920,

L’age d’or de la carte postale and

Kaarten.

I went to De Slegte and found French Undressing by Paul Hammond, along with the previously acquired L’age d’or de la carte postale and Kaarten, a good start for a bibliography regarding postcards, and certainly naughty postcards.

Paul Hammond is a cultural critic on a pair with Colin Wilson, Ado Kyrou and Greil Marcus, to name but a few. He wrote The Shadow and its Shadow (2000) and Marvellous Méliès (1974).

On the first page of French Undressing Hammond quotes from Rimbaud‘s A Season in Hell (“The Alchemy Of The Word“), possibly the earliest defense of popular culture/mass culture. Such a defense always comes from an intellectual, and thus qualifies as a nobrow manifesto, possibly the first of its kind (see prev. once below). I include it here as Nobrow manifesto #3.

“For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes– and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable.

What I liked were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints, old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children’s books, old operas, silly old songs, the naïve rhythms of country rimes.” –Translation Paul Schmidt

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWrFUR_CF6c]

Here is a spoken word version of “The Alchemy Of The Word.”

What else did I buy at De Slegte? A silly volume on Baudrillard (pictured below) and an issue of Le Magazine Littéraire dedicated to drug lit, entitled La littérature et la drogue[1] and The Quincunx (I’ve enjoyed this one while on holiday in Malaysia (Tioman Island) twenty years ago).