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Manuel Puig

February 24, 2013, 9:24 pm
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Manuel Puig
(1932 - 1990)



Argentine writer and motion-picture scriptwriter, who gained international fame with the publication of Kiss of the Spider Woman(1976), a dialogue of seduction and manipulation, which was also adapted into a movie and a musical. The story, set in a small cell in the Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires, depicts two prisoners – one a young political radical, the other a middle-aged homosexual. At first they have nothing in common, but eventually they develop a strong relationship through retelling romantic plots of old movies. In total, Puig wrote eight novels. He died at the age of fifty-seven.




"How they spoiled me too much as a kid, and that's why I'm the way I am, how I was tied to my mother's apron strings and now I'm this way, and how a person can always straighten out though, and what I really need is a woman, because woman is the best there is." (from Kiss of the Spider Woman)

García Márquez and Manuel Puig

Juan Manuel Puig was born in General Villegas, in the remote Argentine pampas, the first child of María Elena Delledonne and Baldomero Puig. His father tried for success in the livestock and dairy business but failed. However, he struggled hard to build up capital and achieve middle-class status. Puig spent his childhood in Villegas and received there his elementary education. As young boy he used films as an escape from his environment – he liked to dress up as a girl and at school he was assaulted. "I grew up on the pampa in a bad dream, or rather a bad western," he once said. Later in life he had a video library of some 3,000 films. In 1946 Puig moved to Buenos Aires, where he attended US boarding school; he had learned English from films. Puig first studied architecture and changed to philosophy in 1951 at the University of Buenos Aires.

In 1955 Puig went to Rome after receiving a scholarship to study film directing and film technique with Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. After a period he realized that film making at the commercial Cinecittà was not to his tastes. Disappointed he traveled to Paris and London, earning his living as a teacher, and dishwasher. In 1959 he lived in Stockholm and then returned to his home country. From 1957 to 1961 Puig worked an assistant film director and translator of subtitles in Rome, Paris, and Buenos Aires. During this time he had begun to write film scripts. While working for Air France from 1963 to 1967, he moved to New York City to see Broadway musicals. Later he worked as a lecturer at Columbia University, New York. Puig returned to Buenos Aires in 1967.

In 1973-75 Puig lived in Brazil, then in New York (1976-80). He did not stay in Argentina many years. Never a Peronist and at odds with the Latino tradition of machismo, he felt the atmosphere of his home country oppressing. When Argentina's dictator Juan Perón died in office in 1974, and was succeeded by his third wife Isabel Péron, Puig became even more critical with the current policy. Due to Isabelita Perón's personal intervention, he had received no royalties for the film of Heartbreak Tango, and his works were attacked in the press. In the 1980s Puig lived in New York and Rio de Janeiro. His play, El misterio del ramo de rosas (1987, Mystery of the Rose Bouquet) was produced in a London theatre in 1987, but a fire in the theatre ended its performances. After spending years ''in an unsuccessful search for a good husband," he settled in 1989 in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Puig died in Cuernavaca on July 22, 1990.

Puig translated most of his works into English and also wrote in that language. His sevaral awards include the Curzio Malaparte Prize, which he received in 1966 and San Sebastian Festival Jury Prize in 1978 .




"It's just a romance.
 But it's so beautiful." 

(from the film Kiss of the Spider Woman)




Puig's first novel, the semi-autobiographical La traición de Rita Hayworth (1968, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth), portrayed the realities of Argentine life. Although there is no specific social criticism, the tone of the novel was an indirect comment on the years in which the Argentine populist politician Juan Perón was climbing to power. The protagonist is a young boy, who escapes his boredom by fantasizing about the lives of the stars he has seen in motion pictures. "At another level, Betrayed is a record of the oral languages spoken by a very definite segment of the Argentinean people during a period of the country's history. If the emotional and even the imaginative alienation of the characters is shown through their way of elaborating fables out of books or movies, their everyday speech demonstrates how deep the roots of that alienation have gone, because it is a tissue in which is imbedded the contemporary language of serialized novels, popular biographies, soap operas, movie subtitles, plus the rhetoric of the politicians and the pseudo-intellectual utterances of journalists." (from World Authors 1975-1980, ed. by Vineta Colby, 1985) Boquitas pintadas (1969, Heartbreak Tango) was also set in a fictive small town, Colonel Vallejos, where illusions and reality collide. Puig used the form of romance novels, added in letters, newspaper clippings, excerpts from diaries, police reports, and other things. All the material is tied together with narrative tricks inspired by movies.

Sangre de amor correspondido (1982, Blood of Requited Love) focused on the later experiences of two teenage lovers, Maria, a young woman, and Josemar, a construction worker. They spend one night together in a hotel, but Josemar doesn't tell Maria that he is going to abandon her that night. Like Kiss of the Spider Woman, Maldición eterna a quien lea estas páginas (1980, Eternal Curse on Readers of These Pages) was built on dialogue. Two cultures and opposites meet: Mr. Ramirez, an Argentine invalid, and Larry, a writer who is paid to push his wheelchair. In their search for a common language like characters in a Beckett play, Ramirez tells how he knows what nervous breakdown, depression, euphoria signify, but he doesn't know what these words mean. "But maybe I haven't experienced them lately, so I understand them only up to a point..."

Puig was a pessimistic observer of the human race – several of his characters die or live their lives totally disillusioned like Toto, the child-protagonist of Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, or Molina, who is immersed in the fantasy world of the movies, and killed by Valentin's friends. "Of all the writers I have known, the one who seemed least interested in literature was Manuel Puig (1932-90),"Mario Vargas Llosa wrote in The New York Times (August 13, 2000). "He never talked about authors or books, and when a literary topic came up in conversation he would look bored and change the subject." Because Puig's novels explored sexuality and he did not hide his sexual orientation, in his own country he was much criticized for his controversial stand. Puig had a number of relationships. According to Suzanne Jill Levine's biography, Puig's homosexual "conquests'' included the actors Stanley Baker and Yul Brynner.

During his career Puig suffered many disappointments, among others the "massacre" of the off-Broadway musical version of Kiss of the Spider Woman. Also the conservative film version, directed by Hector Babenco, starring William Hurt, Raul Julia, and Sonia Braga, failed to capture the spirit of the novel. According to some sources, Hurt's part was originally offered to Burt Lancaster, but he had to withdraw because of a heart operation. "La Hurt is so bad she probably will win an Oscar," Puig himself said. He started his book with the classic horror movie Cat People by Jacques Tourneur (1942), a poetical film about double life, sexuality, and an old curse. Schrader and Babenco invented purely imaginary films to intervene with the narrative. Some critics considered John Hurt's performance as Molina artificial, but he won a Best Actor Oscar. Molina is a homosexual. He is accused of an ugly crime – child molestation. The warden has offered Molina a reward if he can get his cellmate Valentin to reveal the secrets of his companions. Eventually the men make love.




For further reading: World Authors 1975-1980, ed. by Vineta Colby (1985); Suspended Fictions by Lucille Kert (1987); El Discurso utópico de la sexualided en Manuel Puig by Elías Muñoz (1987); The Necessary Dream by Pamela Bacarisse (1988); Impossible Choices by Pamela Bacarisse (1993); 'Manuel Puig' by Pamela Bacarisse, in Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature, ed. by Verity Smith (1997); Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me by Jaime Manrique (1999); Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions by Suzanne Jill Levine (2000); Juan Carlos Onetti, Manuel Puig and Luisa Valenzuela: Marginality and Gender by Linda Craig (2005); Sub-versions of the Archive: Manuel Puig's and Severo Sarduy's Alternative Identities by Carlos Riobó (2010) 


Selected works:
  • La traición de Rita Haywort, 1968 
    - Betrayed by Rita Hayworth (translated by Suzanne Jill Levine, 1971)
  • The Buenos Aires Affair, 1968 (translated by Suzanne Jill Levine) 
    - The Buenos Aires Affair: novela political  (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1973)
  • Boquitas pintadas, 1969 
    - Heartbreak Tango: A Serial (translated by Suzanne J. Levine, 1973) 
    - film 1974, screenplay by M. Puig and Torre Nilsson, starring Marta Gonzales, Alfredo Alcón, Marlina Ross. The film dealt with a group of friends over the years.
  • El beso de la mujer araña, 1976 
    - Kiss of the Spider Woman (translated by Thomas Colchie, 1979) / Kiss of the Spider Woman and Two Other Plays (translated by Allan Baker and Ronald Christ, 1994) 
    - film 1985, dir. by Hector Babenco, screenplay by Leonard Schrader, starring William Hurt, Raul Julia, Sonia Braga. "Well-intentioned picture, on which director Hector Babenco (Pixote) spent four obsessive years, is one long false note. Leonard Schrader's script is calculated for performance rather than content, and for immediate impact so that we forget the overall picture is vague. We never sufficiently get into the heads of the characters so that we at least can understand why they committed the acts that got them imprisoned."(Danny Peary in Guide for the Film Fanatic, 1986)
  • Pubis angelical, 1979 
    - Pubis Angelical: A Novel (translated by Elena Brunet, 1986)
  • Maldición eterna a quien lea estas páginas, 1980 
    - Eternal Curse on the Readers of These Pages (written first in English; tr. 1982)
  • Sangre de amor correspondido, 1982 
    - Blood of Requited Love (translated by Jan L. Grayson, 1984)
  • Bajo un manto de estrellas: pieza en dos actos, 1983 (play) 
    - Under a Mantle of Stars: A Play in Two Acts (translated by Ronald Christ, 1985)
  • El beso de la mujer araña: adaptación escénica realizada por el autor, 1983 (play) 
    - Kiss of the Spider Woman (translated by Michael Feingold, in Drama Contemporary, 1986; Allan Baker, 1987)
  • La cara de villano; Recuerdos de Tijuana, 1985 (screenplays)
  • El misterio del ramo de rosas, 1987 (play) 
    - Mystery of the Rose Bouquet (translated by Allan Baker, 1988)
  • Cae la noche tropical, 1988 
    - Tropical Night Falling (translated by Suzanne Jill Levine, 1991)
  • Buenos Aires, cuándo será el día que me quieras: conversaciones con Manuel Puig, 1992 (with Armando Almada Roche) 
  • Estertores de una década, Nueva York ’78; seguido de Bye-bye, Babilonia: crónicas de Nueva York, Londres y París, publicadas en Siete días ilustrados, 1969-1970, 1993 
  • Materiales iniciales para La traición de Rita Hayworth, 1996 (edited by José Amícola) 
  • La tajada; Gardel, uma lembrança, 1998
  • Triste golondrina macho; Amor del bueno; Muy señor mío, 1998 (edited by Graciela Goldchluk and Julia Romero)
  • Los 7 pecados tropicales, 2004 
  • Un destino melodramático: argumentos, 2004 
  • Querida familia, 2005- (edited by Graciela Goldchluk) 
  • Puig por Puig: imágenes de un escritor, 2006 (edited by Julia Romero)

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mpuig.htm


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Horacio Quiroga

March 5, 2013, 9:29 am
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Horacio Quiroga
(1878 - 1937)

Uruguayan short story writer who has been compared to Edgar Allan Poe. Quiroga wrote over 200 short stories. Among his famous tales is the haunting 'El almohadón de plumas' (1907, The Feather Pillow), in which the life of a young bride, Alicia, fades away in a large silent house. After Alicia's death, a servant finds from her pillow a grotesque animal with hairy legs, a parasitic creature, swollen from blood it had sucked from her.




"These parasites of feathered creatures, diminutive in their habitual environment, reach enormous proportions under certain conditions. Human blood seems particularly favourable to them, and it is not rare to encounter them in feather pillows." (from 'The Feather Pillow')

Horacio Quiroga and his wife

Horacio Quiroga was born at Salto on the River Uruguay, into a middle-class family. When Horacio was an infant, his father, an Argentinian consular official, was killed accidentally in a shooting incident  The family moved to Córdoba, returned to Salto a few years later, and eventually settled in 1891 in the capital, Montevideo, where Quiroga studied for a short time at the university. From 1897 he started to publish in local magazines and was the founding editor of Revista de Salto (1899-90).
After his stepfather's death – he shot himself – Quiroga visited Paris, but soon realized that the 'bohemian' life was not for him. In Paris he fell under the influence of the French symbolist movement and the works of Poe, although he also read extensively Chekhov and de Maupassant. Quiroga's diary from this period was published in 1950. 
Returning to Uruguay, Quiroga published a volume of Modernist poetry, prose pieces, and stories, Los arrecifes de coral (1902, Coral reefs), and became the centre of a group of young writers, El consistorio del gay saber. Having breathed some of the fin-de-siècle atmosphere in Paris, he experimented with chloroform, opium, ether, and hashish, which were relatively easy to get in Montevideo too.
Quiroga accidentally shot and killed his friend in 1902 while they were inspecting a gun. After a trial, he left for Buenos Aires, where he taught Spanish at the British School. Willing to take a new turn in his life, he accepted the invitation of the poet Leopoldo Lugones to join an expedition as official photographer to Misiones in northeast Argentina. The target was the Jesuit ruins – the Jesuits had been expelled in 1767. Quiroga became enchanted by the wild region and he spent the larger part of his life in remote jungle regions, first not in Misiones, but in Chano province, where he settled in 1904. He planted cotton but the venture failed and he abandoned the project. When the Argentine began to encourage farming in Misiones, he bought some land in San Ignacio, on the river Paraná.
Experiences from this period – accidents, extreme hardships, and realization that man cannot control nature – provided material for a number of his writings. Nature was for Quiroga a hostile element. A simple walk through a cane-brake could be exhausting: "The clumps, arched in a dome chest-high, were tangled in solid blocks. The task of crossing, difficult even on a cool day, was very hard at this hour. Mr Jones crossed it, nevertheless, swimming between the crackling dusty cane over the clay left by the floods, gasping with fatigue and the bitter vapour of nitrates." (from 'La insolación')
From 1906 to 1911 Quiroga taught at the Escuela Normal, Buenos Aires. He married in 1909 Ana María Ciries, his pupil; they had one daughter, named Egle, and one son, named Darío after the pseudonymous surname of Félix Sarmiento. Both these children later killed themselves. With his family Quiroga moved to San Ignacio, Misiones. Besides keeping honey bees, planting yerba maté and oranges, distilling liquor, and hunting, he took jobs as justice of the peace, as civil registrar, and as Uruguayan consul in Misiones. Unable to tolerate the harsh conditions, Quiroga's wife committed suicide by poisoning herself with cyanide – she suffered a full week before she died. Alone with two children, Quiroga wrote a tender collection of children's stories.
In 1916 Quiroga returned to Buenos Aires with his children, but continued to visit his property in Misiones. After failing to marry the seventeen-year-old daughter of a neighbout, he married in 1927 María Elena Bravo, a friend of his daughter. Mária, nearly thirty years his junior, found life impossible in the jungle, too, and the marriage ended in separation.
Throughout his life, Quiroga was plague by his illnesses. He suffered from mental disorder, and to dispel his bouts of tension and anxiety, he began to drink. Quiroga committed suicide by cyanide on February 19, 1937, at a Buenos Aires clinic, after he was told he had cancer.
Obsession with death, human weakness, and emphasis on bizarre situations marked Quiroga's work. Often in his fatalistic stories the protagonist is struck down by a fatal accident or fights against nature, but man rarely if ever wins out: the will of nature cannot be opposed. When Jack London wrote about the barren ice-covered plains of the far North, and Kipling set his stories in the jungles of India, Quiroga's stage was the wilds of the Amazon. His most famous collections are Cuentos de amor, de locura, y de muerte (1917, Stories of Love, Madness, and Death) and Los desterrados (1926, The exiled). Cuentos de selva (1918), animal fables for children, was translated into English by Arthur Livingston under the title South American Jungle Tales(1922). Anaconda (1921) was told in the style of Kipling's Jungle Book and described struggles in the world of snakes. Scorned, mistreated, and tortured, the non-poisonous snakes and the venomous vipers side together against the humans, represented by the Antivenom Institute, which collects snake poison to make serum.
Quiroga also published two novels and a play, but his reputation rests on his short stories. His own technique Quiroga presented in 'Manual de cuentista perfecto' (1927), stressing the need for economy and intensity. In 'El hombre muerto' (The Dead Man) a man falls on a machete knife, he is dying, time stops, and he watches his surroundings with heightened senses. "What had changed? Nothing. And he looked. Isn't this banana plantation his plantation? Doesn't he come here every day to clear the ground? Who knows it as he does? He can see his plantation perfectly; very sparse – and the broad leaves naked from the wind. But now they are not moving. It is the midday calm; soon it will probably be twelve o'clock." In 'A la deriva' (Drifting)  the protagonist is bitten by a deadly snake and dies feeling at last better: he don't have to keep up illusions. 




For further reading: Vida y obra de Horacio Quiroga by J.M. Delgado and A.J. Brignole (1939); Horacio Quiroga by M. Seymour-Smith (1952); Horacio Quiroga by Noé Jitrik (1967); Genio y figura de Horacio Quiroga by Emir Rodríguez Monegal (1967); El desterrado by Emir Rodríguez Monegal (1968); An Introduction to Spanish-American Literature by Jean Franco (1969);Aproximaciones a Horacio Quiroga by Ángel Flores (1976); El estilo de Horacio Quiroga en sus cuentos by Nicolás A.S. Bratosevich (1980); Trayectoria de Horacio Quiroga by Enrique Espinosa (1980); Horacio Quiroga by José Luis Martínez Morales (1982); El Quiroga nue yo conocí by Enrique Amorim (1983); Quiroga by Peter R. Beardsell (1986); World Authors 1900-1950, Vol. 3, ed. by Martin Seymour-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens (1996); Testimonios Autobiograficos De Horacio Quiroga, ed. by Norma Perez Martin (1997); Contemporary Latin American Literature by Gladys M. Varona-Lacey (2001)

Selected works:
  • Los arrecifes de coral, 1902
  • El crimen del otro, 1904
  • Historia de un amor turbio, 1908
  • Cuentos de amor, de locura y de muerte, 1917 (Una estación de amor, Los ojos sombríos, El solitario, La muerte de Isolda, El infierno artificial, La gallina degollada, Los buques suicidantes, El almohadón de pluma, El perro rabioso, A la deriva, La insolación, El alambre de púa, Los Mensú, Yaguaí, Los pescadores de vigas, La miel silvestre, Nuestro primer cigarro, La meningitis y su sombra) 
    - The Decapitated Chicken, The Feather Pillow, Drifting, Sunstroke, in The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories (translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1976)
  • Cuentos de la selva para niños, 1918 (La tortuga gigante, Las medias de los flamencos, El loro pelado, La guerra de los yacarés, La gama ciega, Historia de dos cachorros de coatí y dos cachorros de hombre, El paso del Yabebirí, La abeja haragana) 
    - South American Jungle Tales (translated by Arthur Livingston; illustrated by  A. L. Ripley,  1922)
  • El salvaje, 1920
  • Las sacrificadas, 1920
  • Anaconda, 1921 
    - Anaconda, in The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories (translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1976)
  • El desierto, 1924
  • "La gallina degollada" y otros cuentos, 1925 
  • Los desterrados, 1926 (El Ambiente: Anaconda, El regreso de Anaconda; Los tipos: Los desterrados, Van-Houten, Tacuara-Mansión, El hombre muerto, El techo de incienso, La cámara obscura, Los destiladores de naraja) 
    - The Dead Man, The Incense Tree Roof, in The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories (translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1976)
  • Pasado amor, 1929
  • Suelo natal, 1931
  • El más allá, 1935
  • Cuentos, 1937-1945 (13 vols.)
  • Horacio Quiroga: Sus mejores cuentos, 1943 (with introduction and notes by John A. Crow)
  • Cuentos escogidos, 1950 (preface by Guillermo de Torre)
  • Diario de viaje a París, 1950 (edited by Emir Rodríguez Monegal)
  • Cuentos, 1964 (edited by Ezequiel Martínez Estrada)
  • Obras inéditas y desconocidas, 1967-73 (8 vols., edited by Angel Rama)
  • Cuentos escogidos, 1968 (edited by Jean Franco)
  • Cuentos, 1968 (edited by Raimundo Lazo)
  • Cartas inéditas, 1970
  • El mundo ideal de Horacio Quiroga, 1971 (ed. Antonio Hernán Rodríguez et al.)
  • The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories, 1976 (translated by Margaret Sayers Peden; illustrated by Ed Lindlof)
  • Cuentos completas, 1978 (2 vols.)
  • Novelas completas, 1979
  • Más allá, 1980 (preface by Eduardo Romano)
  • Más cuentos, 1980 (introduction by Arturo Souto Alabarce)
  • El salvaje y otros cuentos, 1982 (preface by María Kodama)
  • The Exiles and Other Stories, 1987 (translated by David Danielson and Elsa K. Gambarini)
  • Peligro en la selva, 1987 (illustrated by Delia Contarbio)
  • A la deriva y otros cuentos, 1989 (edited by Olga Zamboni)
  • Los desterrados y otros textos: antología, 1907-1937, 1990 (edited by Jorge Lafforgue)
  • Cuentos, 1991 (edited by Leonor Fleming)
  • Cuentos, 1994 (edited by Pablo Rocca)
  • Testimonios Autobiograficos De Horacio Quiroga. Cartas Y Diari, 1997 (edited by Norma Perez Martin)
  • Cuentos completos, 1997 (vols., edited by Carlos Dámaso Martínez)
  • Los heroísmos: biografías ejemplares: trabajos publicados en Caras y caretas en 1927, 1998 (edited by Annie Boule)
  • Cartas a Isidoro Escalera: 1922 a 1937, 1999 (edited by Annie Boule)
  • Obras, 2007-  (edited by Jorge Lafforgue et al.)
  • Quiroga íntimo: Correspondencia. Diario de un viaje a Paris, 2010 (edited by Erika Martínez)
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/quiroga.htm


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Oscar Wilde

March 26, 2013, 4:36 am
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Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde
(1854 - 1900)


Irish poet and dramatist whose reputation rests on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere's Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest. Oscar Wilde's other best-known works include his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), which deals very similar theme as Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). Wilde's fairy tales are very popular – the motifs have been compared to those of Hans Christian Andersen.


 
"When they entered they found, hanging upon the wall, a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was." (in The Picture of Dorian Gray)



Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin to unconventional parents. His mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde (1820-96), was a poet and journalist. Her pen name was Sperenza. According to a story she warded off creditors by reciting Aeschylus. Wilde's father was Sir William Wilde, an Irish antiquarian, gifted writer, and specialist in diseases of the eye and ear, who founded a hospital in Dublin a year before Oscar was born. His work gained for him the honorary appointment of Surgeon Oculist in Ordinary to the Queen. Lady Wilde, who was active in the women's rights movement, was reputed to ignore her husbands amorous adventures.

Wilde studied at Portora Royal School, in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh (1864-71), Trinity College, Dublin (1871-74), and Magdalen College, Oxford (1874-78), where he was taught by Walter Patewr and John Ruskin. Already at the age of 13, Wilde's tastes in clothes were dandy's. "The flannel shirts you sent in the hamper are both Willie's mine are one quite scarlet and the other lilac but it is too hot to wear them yet," he wrote in a letter to his mother. Willie, whom he mentioned, was his elder brother. Lady Wilde's third and last child was a daughter, named Isola Francesca, who died young. It has been said that Lady Wilde insisted on dressing Oscar in girl's clothers because she had longed for a girl.
In Oxford Wilde shocked the pious dons with his irreverent attitude towards religion and was jeered at his eccentric clothes. He collected blue china and peacock's feathers, and later his velvet knee-breeches drew much attention. Wilde was taller than most of his contemporaries, and athletically built, but the subject of sport bored him. In 1878 Wilde received his B.A. and on the same year he moved to London.

Soon his lifestyle and humorous wit made him the most talked-about advocate of Aestheticism, the late 19th century movement in England that argued for the idea of art for art's sake. To earn his living, Wilde worked as art reviewer (1881), lectured in the United States and Canada (1882), and in Britain (1883-1884). Since his childhood, Wilde had studied the art of conversation. His talk was articulate, imaginative, and poetic. From the mid-1880s he was regular contributor for Pall Mall Gazette and Dramatic View. Between 1887 and 1889 he edited Woman's World magazine

Wilde married in 1884 Constance Mary Lloyd, the daughter of John Horatio Lloyd, a wealthy barrister, and Ada Atkinson. Constance had enjoyed a throughout education, she played the piano well, was interested in arts, ambroidery, and could read Dante in Italian. For a short period she was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. After she turned away from occultism she became involved in Christian socialism. Wilde himself had joined the Freemasons in the late 1870s.

On honeymoon in Paris Wilde and Constance visited the annual Paris salon, saw there Whistler's Harmony in Grey and Greenand went to opera to see Sarah Bernhardt in Macbeth. It is possible that before the marriage Wilde told Constance something of his sexual past. "... I am content to let the past be buried, it does not belong to me," she said in a letter, "I will hold you fast with chains of love." At Portora Royal School he had had some "sentimental friendships" with boys, and he had a encounter with a female prostitute in Paris while going steady with Constance. Their marriage ended in 1893, but the couple never divorced officially. Wilde's love letters to Constance have not survived.

The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888), a collection of fairy-stories, Wilde wrote for his two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. Possibly one of the strories, 'The Selfish Giant', was a joint effort between Wilde and Constance, who published her own collection, There Was Once in the same year. The Picture of Dorian Gray followed in 1890 and next year he brought out more fairy tales. Wilde had met an few years earlier Lord Alfred Douglas ("Bosie"), an athlete and a poet, who became both the love of the author's life and his downfall. "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it," Wilde once said. Bosie's uncle, Lord Jim, caused a scandal when he filled in the 1891 census describing his wife as a "lunatic" and his stepson as a "shoeblack born in darkest Africa." During a stay in Paris, Wilde wrote Salomé in French. An anonymous English translation, dedicated to Alfred Douglas, was published in 1894. Richard Strauss's operatic version of the play was first performed in Dresden, five years after Wilde's death.
The Picture of Dorian Gray was published first by Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890. Some of the homosexual content was censored by Lippincott editor J. M. Stoddart. Wilde revised the novel still further before it came out in expanded book form in 1891, added with six chapters. The book has some parallels with Wilde's own life. At Oxford he became a close friend of Frank Miles, a painter, and the homosexual aesthete Lord Ronald Gower, and it seems that they both are represented in Dorian Gray. In the story Dorian, a Victorian gentleman, sells his soul to keep his youth and beauty. The tempter is Lord Henry Wotton, who lives selfishly for amoral pleasure. "If only the picture could change and I could be always what I am now. For that, I would give anything. Yes, there's nothing in the whole world I wouldn't give. I'd give my soul for that." (from the film adaptation of 1945). Dorian starts his wicked acts, ruins lives, causes a young woman's suicide and murders Basil Hallward, his portrait painter, his conscience. However, although Dorian retains his youth, his painting ages and catalogues every evil deed, showing his monstrous image, a sign of his moral leprosy. The book highlights the tension between the polished surface of high life and the life of secret vice. In the end sin is punished. When Dorian destroys the painting, his face turns into a human replica of the portrait and he dies. "Ugliness is the only reality,'" summarizes Wilde.
Wilde made his reputation in theatre world between the years 1892 and 1895 with a series of highly popular plays. Lady Windermere's Fan (1892) dealt with a blackmailing divorcée driven to self-sacrifice by maternal love. In A Woman of No Importance (1893) an illegitimate son is torn between his father and mother. An Ideal Husband (1895) was about blackmail, political corruption and public and private honour. In The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), a comedy of manners, John Worthing (who prefers to call himself Jack) and Algernon Moncrieff (Algy) are two fashionable young gentlemen. "Relly, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?" John tells that he has a brother called Ernest, but in town John himself is known as Ernest and Algernon also pretends to be the profligate brother Ernest.  Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew are two ladies whom the two snobbish characters court. Gwendolen declares that she never travels without her diary because "one should always have something sensational to read in the train".

Before the theatrical success Wilde produced several essays, many of these anonymously. "Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature," he once stated. His two major literary-theoretical works were the dialogues 'The Decay of Lying' (1889) and 'The Critic as Artist' (1890). In the latter Wilde lets his character state, that criticism is the superior part of creation, and that the critic must not be fair, rational, and sincere, but possessed of "a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty". The Soul of a Man Under Socialism (1891), a more traditional essay,  takes an optimistic view of the road to socialist future. Wilde rejects the Christian ideal of self-sacrifice in favor of joy. "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

Although married and the father of two children, Wilde's personal  life was open to rumours. Constance had tolerated his infidelties and  long absences from home, but his affair with Alfred Douglas (or 'Bosie') had a catastrophic effect on the marriage. In the midst of the crisis Constance found comfort from reading Dante's Inferno. During a separation from her husband in 1893 she took a portable Kodak camera with her to Italy, where she potographed buildings and some of the art pieces in Florence.

Wilde's years of triumph ended, when his intimate association with Alfred Douglas led to his trial on charges of homosexuality (then illegal in Britain). He was sentenced two years hard labour for the crime of sodomy. Constance went with her childred to Switzerland and then to Germany to escape the public eye. In 1895 she changed her and son's names to Constance, Cyril and Vyvyan Holland, taking the same family name her brother Otho used.

During his first trial Wilde defended himself, that "the 'Love that dare not speak its name' in this century is such a great affection of an eleder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare... There is nothing unnatural about it." Mr. Justice Wills, stated when pronouncing the sentence, that "people who can do these things must be dead to all senses of shame, and one cannot hope to produce any effect upon them." While he served his sentence, Bosie stood by Wilde, planned to dedicate a volume of poems to him, but the author felt himself betrayed and turned against him. Later they met in Naples, where they shared a villa. Constance visited Wilde in prison, too.  Afterwards she wrote: "It was indeed awful more so than I had any conception it could be. I could not see him, I could not touch him, and I scarcely spoke."
Wilde was first in Wandsworth prison, London, and then Reading Gaol. When he was at last allowed pen and paper after more than 19 months of deprivation, Wilde had became inclined to take opposite views on the potential of humankind toward perfection. During this time he wrote De Profundis (1905), a dramatic monologue and autobiography, which was addressed to Alfred Douglas. "Everything about my tragedy has been hideous, mean, repellent, lacking in style. Our very dress makes us grotesques. We are the zanies of sorrow. We are the clowns whose hearts are broken." (in De Profundis)

After his release in 1897 Wilde lived under the name Sebastian Melmoth in  Berneval, near Dieppe, then in Paris. He wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, revealing his concern for inhumane prison conditions. O n his death bed Wilde became a Roman Catholic. Wilde's friend Robbie Ross, who became his literary executor, brought a priest to his bedside. Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on November 30, 1900, penniless, in a cheap Paris hotel at the age of 46. He was first buried in the cemetery in Bagneux, and in 1909 his remains were removed to the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

"Do you want to know the great drama of my life," asked Wilde of André Gide. "It's that I have put my genius into my life; all I've put into my works is my talent." Constance died  in 1898 in Genoa, after a spinal surgery. Her brother Otho blamed the surgeon, Signor Bossi, for his sister's death. Bossi was shot dead in 1919. Cyril was killed by a German sniper in  1915. Vyvyan, who also served in the army during WW I, gained fame as a translator and author. His son Merlin became an acknowledged Wilde scholar.




For further reading: Oscar Wilde: Art and Morality by Stuart Mason (1907); The Life and Confessions of Oscar Wilde by Frank Harris (1914); Oscar Wilde and Myself  by Lord Alfred Douglas (1932); Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage, ed. Karl Beckson (1970);The Trials of Oscar Wilde by H. Montgomery Hyde (1975); Oscar Wilde: A Biography by H. Montgomery Hyde (1975); Oscar Wilde: Art and Egotism by Rodney Shewan (1977); Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellman (1987); Oscar Wilde: The Works of a Conformist Rebelby Norbert Kohl (1989); Rediscovering Oscar Wilde, ed. C. George Sandulescu (1993); Oscar and Bossie by Trevor Fisher (2002); A Portrait of Oscar Wilde by Merlin Holland (2008); Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs Oscar Wilde by Franny Moyle (2011) - See also: André Gide, John Keats - Films: Oscar Wilde (1960), dir. Gregory Ratoff, starring Robert Morley, Phyllis Calvert, John Neville, Ralp Richardson. The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), dir. Ken Hughes, starring Peter Finch, Yvonne Mitchell, Lionel Jeffries, Nigel Patrick, James Mason. Wilde (1998), dir. Brian Gilbert, starring Stephen Fry, Jude Law, Tom Wilkinson, Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Ehle. 


Selected bibliography:
  • Ravenna, 1878
  • Vera, or the Nihilist, 1880 (drama) 
    - Film: De Bannelingen, 1911, dir. Léon Boedels & Caroline van Dommelen, starring Caroline van Dommelen, Cato Mertens-de Jaeger and Louis van Dommelen
  • Poems, 1881
  • The Dutchess of Padua, 1883 (tragedy)
  • Happy Prince and Other Tales, 1888 (contains The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, The Devoted Friend, The Remarkable Rocket) 
    The Decay of Lying: An Observation, 1889 
  • Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories, 1891 
  • - Films: Lord Saviles brott, 1922, starring Carl Alstrup; in Flesh and Fantasy, 1943, dir. Julien Duvivier; Voor donderdagavond twaalf uur Mylord (TV film), 1957, dir. Walter van der Kamp; Le Crime de Lord Arthur Saville, 1968, dir. André Michel; Prestuplenie lorda Artura (TV film), 1991, dir. Aleksandr Orlov; The Sum of Our Choices, 2010, dir. Oskar Flach
  • Intentions, 1891 (includes The Decay of Lying) 
    A House of Pomegranates, 1891
  • 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism,' 1891 (in Pall Mall Gazette; as The Soul of Man, 1895, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, 1912) 
    The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 
  • - Filmed several times: Dorian Grays Portræt, 1910, dir. Axel Strøm, starring Valdemar Psilander; 1913, dir. Phillips Smalley, starring Wallace Reid; Portret Doryana Greya, 1915, dir. Vsevolod Meyerhold, Mikhail Doronin, starring Varvara Yanova; 1915, dir. Matt Moore; 1916, dir. by Fred W. Durrant, starring Henry Victor; Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray, 1917, dir. Richard Oswald, starring Bernd Aldor; Az Élet királya, 1918,dir. Alfréd Deésy; 1945, dir. and written by Albert Lewin, starring Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders, Donna Reed; 1970, Dorian Gray, dir. Massimo Dallamano, starring Helmut Berger; 1977, Le Portrait de Dorian Gray, dir. Pierre Boutron, starring Patrice Alexsandre; Take Off (soft-porn version), 1978, dir. Armand Weston; Dorian, 2001, dir. Allan A. Goldstein, starring Ethan Erickson, Malcolm McDowell; 2004, dir. by David Rosenbaum, starring Josh Duhamel; 2006, dir. Duncan Roy, starring David Gallagher; Dorian Gray, 2009, dir. Oliver Parker, starring Ben Barnes, Colin Firth. See also: Faust theme and Goethe.
  • Salomé, drame en un acte, 1892 (translated into English as Salome: A Tragedy in One Act, 1894) 
    - Salome (suom. 1905) 
    - Films: 1908, dir. J. Stuart Blackton; A Modern Salome, 1920, dir. Léonce Perret; 1923, dir. Charles Bryant; 1970, dir. Rafael Gassent; 1972, dir. Carmelo Bene; 1973, dir. Clive Barker, starring Anne Taylor, Graham Bickley, Clive Barker, Doug Bradley, Phil Rimmer; 1978, dir. Pedro Almodóvar, starring Isabel Mestres; 1986, dir. Claude d'Anna, starring Jo Champa; Salome's Last Dance, 1988, dir. Ken Russell, starring Glenda Jackson, Nickolas Grace, Stratford Johns, Imogen Millais-Scott
  • Lady Windermere's Fan, 1893 (play, prod. 1892) 
    - Films: 1916, dir. Fred Paul, starring Milton Rosmer, Netta Westcott and Nigel Playfair; 1925, dir. Ernst Lubitsch, starring Ronald Colman, May McAvoy, Bert Lytell, Irene Rich; Lady Windermeres Fächer, 1935, starring Lil Dagover, Walter Rilla, Hanna Waag; Shao nai nai de shan zi, 1939, dir. Pingqian Li; El Abanico de Lady Windermere, 1944, dir. Juan José Ortega; Historia de una mala mujer, 1948, dir. Luis Saslavsky, starring Dolores del Rio; The Fan, 1949, dir. Otto Preminger, starring Jeanne Crain, Madeleine Carroll, George Sanders, Richard Greene; A Good Woman, 2004, dir. Mike Barker, starring Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johansson
  • Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal, 1893 (anonymous, commonly attributed to Oscar Wilde) 
    - Teleny (suomentanut Erkki Vainikkala, 1972)
  • A Woman of No Importance, 1894 (comedy, prod.1893) 
    - Films: 1912, prod. Powers Picture Plays; 1921, dir. Denison Clift; Eine Frau ohne Bedeutung, 1936, dir. Hans Steinhoff; Una Mujer sin importancia, 1945, dir. Luis Bayón Herrera; 2012, prod. Horizon Entertainment, Myriad Pictures, dir. Bruce Beresford, screenplay Howard Himelstein
  • Poems in Prose, 1893-94, coll. 1905
  • The Sphinx, 1894
  • The Canterville Ghost, 1887 
    - Films: 1944, dir. Jules Dassin, starring Charles Laughton; Kentervilskoe prividenie, 1962, dir. Valentina Brumberg & Zinaida Brumberg; Das Gespenst von Canterville, 1964, dir. Helmut Käutner, starring Barry McDaniel; O Caçador de Fantasma, 1975, dir. Flávio Migliaccio; TV film 1986, dir. Paul Bogart, starring John Gielgud; Neskolko stranits iz zhizni prizraka (animation), 1988, dir. M. Novogrudskaya; 1990, dir. Al Guest and Jean Mathieson; TV film 1995, dir. Syd Macartney, starring Patrick Stewart; Das Gespenst von Canterville, 2005, dir. Isabel Kleefeld, adaptation by Bettina Platz
  • The Ballad of Reading Gaol, 1898 
    The Importance of Being Earnest, 1899 (comedy, prod. 1895) 
  • - Films: Al compás de tu mentira, 1950, dir. Héctor Canziani; 1952, dir. Anthony Asquith, starring Michael Redgrave, Richard Wattis,Michael Denison, Walter Hudd; TV film 1985, dir. Michael Attenborough, Michael Lindsay- Hogg; TV film 1986, dir. Stuart Burge; 1992, dir. by Kurt Baker; 2002, dir. Oliver Parker, starring Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Frances O'Connor, Reese Witherspoon, Judi Dench; TV film 2011, dir. Brian Bedford, David Stern, starring Dana Ivey, Brian Bedford and Paxton Whitehead
  • An Ideal Husband, 1899 (drama, prod. 1895)
    - Filmed several times: Ein Idealer Gatte, 1935, dir. Herbert Selpin, starring Brigitte Helm, Sybille Schmitz and Karl Ludwig Diehl; Un Marido Ideal, 1947, dir. Luis Bayón Herrera; 1947, dir. by Alexander Korda, starring Paulette Goddard, Michael Wilding; Idealnyy muzh, 1980, dir. Viktor Georgiyev; 1998, dir. by William P. Cartlidge; 1999, dir. Oliver Parker, starring Rupert Everett, Cate Blanchett, Jeremy Northam, Julianne Moore; Ideální manzel (TV film), 2002, dir. Zdenek Zelenka
  • De Profundis, 1905 (ed. Robert Ross, rev. ed. 1909, in full in The Letters, ed. Rupert Hart-Davis, 1962) 
    - De profundis (suom. Helmi Setälä, 1907; Juhani Lindholm, 1997)
  • A Florentine Tragedy, 1908 (tragedy, written 1894?) 
    - Films: Een Florentijns treurspel (TV film), 1965, starring Sigrid Koetse, Ramses Shaffy and Ko van Dijk; En florentinsk tragedi (TV film),1965, dir. Lars Löfgren, starring Gunnel Broström, Allan Edwall and Georg Årlin
  • Works, 1908-10 (4 vols., ed. Robert Ross)
  • Resurgam, 1917 (ed. Clement Shorter)
  • After Reading, 1921 (introduction, anonymously, by Stuart Mason)
  • After Bwerneval, 1922 (introduction by More Adey)
  • Some Letters from Oscar Wilde to Alfred Douglas, 1924 (ed. A.C. Dennison and Harrison Post)
  • Oscar Wilde's Leters to Sarah Bernhardt, 1924 (ed. Sylvestre Dorian)
  • Sixteen Letters from Oscar Wilde, 1930
  • Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde, 1930
  • The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, 1931
  • The Portable Oscar Wilde, 1946 (ed. Richard Aldington)
  • Complete Works, 1948 (ed. Wyvyan Holland)
  • Essays, 1950 (ed. Hesketh Pearson)
  • Selected Essays and Poems, 1954 (as De Profundis and Other Writings, 1973)
  • The Letters of Oscar Wilde, 1962 (ed. Rupert Hart-Davis)
  • Literary Criticism, 1968 (ed. Stanley Weintraub)
  • The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings, 1969 (ed. Richard Ellmann)
  • More Letters of Oscar Wilde, 1985 (ed. Rupert Hart-Davis)
  • The Oxford Authors Oscar Wilde, 1989
  • Oxford Notebooks: A Portrait of Maid in the Making, 1989 (ed. Philip E. Smith II and Michael S. Helfand)
  • The Soul of Man, and Prison Writings, 1990 (ed. Isobel Murray)
  • Aristotle at Afternoon Tea: The Uncollected Oscar Wilde, 1991 (ed. John Wyse Jackson) 
    Works, 1993 (3 vols.. ed. Merlin Holland)
  • Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, 2000 (ed. Merlin Holland & Rupert Hart-Davis)
  • Oscar Wilde: A Life in Letters, 2006 (ed. Merlin Holland)
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Annotated, Uncensored Edition, 2011 (ed. Nicholas Frankel)

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/owilde.htm



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Bob Marley

April 14, 2013, 3:26 am
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BOB MARLEY
(1945 - 1981)

Robert "Bob" Nesta Marley is the greatest ever reggae singer.  He spread reggae and his message of love and unity to a worldwide audience. His live performances were legendary for their passion and energy. Marley’s album ‘Exodus’ was voted by ‘Time’ magazine as the best of the 20th Century. The BBC declared his song ‘One Love’ as the song of the millennium.

Marley was born in 1945 in a small village in Jamaica to a white father and black mother. The racist bullying he received as a child had an impact on his songwriting. He left school at the age of 14 to make music. He met members of his future band The Wailers at a jam session. It took several years before they became famous.

The Wailers' first album ‘Catch a Fire’ was released in 1973 and sold well. Another album followed a year later which included the song ‘I Shot The Sheriff’. Eric Clapton’s cover of the song in 1974 brought Marley a lot of global attention. In 1975, Marley released his breakthrough song ‘No Woman, No Cry’, still regarded as a classic today.

Marley left Jamaica for England in 1976 to record his ‘Exodus’ and ‘Kaya’ albums. He toured the world and performed to campaign against apartheid in South Africa and to celebrate Zimbabwe’s independence. He died of cancer in 1981, aged 36. He was given a state funeral in Jamaica according to the Rastafari tradition. He continues to be an important influence on today’s music.

http://famouspeoplelessons.com/b/bob_marley.html



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Jaime Manrique

May 5, 2013, 3:11 pm
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Jaime Manrique
(1949)

Jaime Manrique (born 16 June 1949) Colombian American author, poet, and journalist.

Writing career

His first poetry volume won Colombia's National Poetry Award. Additionally, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to write his memoirs and has contributed to Shade (1996), a gay, black fiction anthology. He has also produced the non-fictional book, Eminent Maricones which explores the works of Reinaldo Arenas, Manuel Puig and Federico García Lorca. In 1999 he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.




Jaime Manrique was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, on June 16, 1949. The following is an excerpt from the first chapter of his autobiographical bookEminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me.

This is my first memory: I'm taking a shower with one of my young aunts and I'm reaching for her pubis. She giggles and swirls around me. I'm standing on my own, but I don't talk yet. The bathroom where we're showering is the only place in our house I vaguely remember. The white-washed walls are damp, streaked with lichen growing around the edges of the cement floor. The house is in the town of Ciénaga, which means swamp. I know we lived in that house for the first two years of my life because of surviving telegrams sent to our house on Nuevo Callejón for my first two birthdays.

Before I was born, my parents kept a house on the outskirts of the Colombian village of Río Frío, on one of my father's banana plantations.

I don't know how my parents met. Because of a surviving telegram to my mother in Barranquilla, dated November 15, 1944, I know that Soledad Ardila and Gustavo Manrique met sometime toward the end of 1944: "Received your telegram. Without you I can't live. Let me know when you're ready to return. Kisses. Gustavo." And, in a letter to my mother of October 11, 1945, my father writes: "You don't know how much I'm thinking of you as we approach the anniversary of the day on which I was so fortunate to meet you."

It seems that my parents met in Barranquilla, where my mother had gone "to sew" (my grandmother told me this when I was forty). My father was a married man and lived with his wife and children in the Caribbean port of Santa Marta. My mother's story is shrouded in mystery. Apparently, she was married to a man by the name of Leal. I conclude this because of a number of telegrams my father sent to my mother when she visited her father's home in El Banco in 1945. The telegrams are addressed to Soledad Ardila de Leal. I remember too seeing, among my mother's papers during my childhood and adolescence, a picture of a little boy in his coffin. This child, it seems, was conceived in that marriage.

Just about everything I know about my parents before I was born I've learned from fifty-six telegrams and thirty-six letters my father sent to my mother from November 15, 1944, to November 16, 1951, and from The Story of Our Baby (my baby book), in which many of the main events of the first six years of my life were recorded. In my childhood my father and mother would often remind my sister and me that these letters represented proof that we were our father's children—because he refused to acknowledge us legally as his offspring. I grew up thinking of these letters as a weapon, precious documents that would eventually entitle me to my rightful share of my father's estate. The letters proved unnecessary in that regard, because my father (as he had always promised) acknowledged us as his children in his last will and testament.

I was at my mother's house for Christmas 1989, rummaging through my bedroom closet one night, when my father's correspondence to my mother, along with my baby book, fell into my hands. I couldn't quite believe my eyes: that spring a fire had raged throughout my mother's house, destroying most of my books and almost all my early manuscripts and correspondence. And yet these documents had survived untouched. That night I read the letters for the first time in many years, and they unsettled me in a way I could not have foreseen. Reading the letters, I heard my father's voice as he was at the time he wrote them—a man in his midforties, a man deeply in love. Because I had hardly known my father, the letters revealed him to me in a surprising way: they were so passionate and eloquent that I realized I was a writer because of him.

To me, these extant documents were an omen. My mother had saved them for almost five decades; they had traveled from Colombia to the States; they had survived a fire. Now I understood that she treasured them as much for being proof of her children's legitimacy as for their being great love letters to her. My father's passion for my mother was so searing that I was overcome with sensual languor just reading these documents. I was almost as old as my father was when he wrote them, and these letters made me sad. I had never loved anyone so intensely, nor had anyone loved me with such an ardent display of passion and for such a long period of time. I felt as though the man who had written them half a century ago was more alive than I felt reading them.

My father was born in Ibagué, a small Andean town in the interior of Colombia, on November 15, 1901. My paternal grandparents were Antonio Manrique Arango and María Eusebia Álvarez Uribe. In Colombian society those names are as blue chip as you can get. I've been told by my mother that my paternal grandfather was a general in the Colombian army. My father enlisted and served on the island of San Andrés in the Caribbean, where he attained the rank of sergeant. I've seen a couple of pictures of my father around this time looking dapper in a white suit and straw hat. He's movie-star handsome, slender, manly, a beautifully bred stud—the picture of a winner.

My father was in his midtwenties when he moved to the mainland, specifically, the Atlantic coast of Colombia. Here he must have met Josefina Danies Bermudes, an heiress and member of one of the most prominent families in Santa Marta, the oldest Spanish city in South America. They were married on April 21, 1932.

Besides his good looks, my father's main asset was his ancient and distinguished name, which goes all the way back to the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The first famous Manriques appear in Spain in the fifteenth century. They are poets as well as warriors. Jorge Manrique, one of the most influential poets in Spanish literature, wrote Couplets on the Death of My Father circa 1476. Manrique, a captain, died in 1479 of wounds sustained in battle and was survived by his wife and several children, one of them male. The last historical reference to this male heir is in 1515, and he apparently died without children. However, Jorge Manrique was one of many children. His father, Don Rodrigo, the famous warrior who in 1474 won military jurisdiction over Castile, freeing it from the Moors, had married three times. The vicereine of New Spain, María Luisa Manrique de Lara y Gonzaga (patron of the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz), and Viceroy Álvaro Manrique y Zuñiga, seventh viceroy of New Spain, were descended from these Manriques. The Viceroy arrived in the New World in 1585. He was an eccentric man who traveled with his coffin, in which he slept. My father's family descends from these Manriques. Several Manriques of note lived during Colombia's colonial period—their portraits hang in many libraries and museums of Bogotá. In the nineteenth century, the Manrique family in Colombia produced a few writers and journalists.

This is one of the few memories I have of my father in my childhood: I am in my parents' bedroom; my father is in bed, wearing aquamarine cotton pajamas. I am holding my nanny's hand and my father asks me to repeat after him: "I am Jaime Manrique Ardila Álvarez Arango Uribe Benítez Salazar Santamaría, a blue blood!"

My maternal grandparents—the Ardilas—were peasants of mixed white, Indian, and African blood. My grandfather, José Ardila Puerta, and my grandmother, Serafina Ardila, were first cousins. José Ardila Puerta, my grandfather, told me his story one December afternoon in 1972 when we were visiting Barranco de Loba, the river hamlet where my grandparents were born. He was an only child who grew up with his mother (he did not mention his father). They were poor. Still in his teens, my grandfather decided to emigrate to Cuba to make his fortune. He journeyed down river to the port of Barranquilla, then a departure point for Havana. To earn money for his passage, my grandfather built a raft and cut wood in the swamps surrounding the city. Eventually, he bought a ticket, but the night before he was to leave he got drunk and missed his boat.

My grandfather decided to return home. Again he earned money chopping wood and used his savings to buy goods to barter in the towns and settlements along the banks of the Magdalena River. Buying and reselling, he eventually made his way back up river to Barranco de Loba. The trip was a success after all: he didn't make it to Cuba, but he made enough money to buy his first cow and his first plot of land, La Esperanza. He became affluent.

Now a man of means, he started his first family with Serafina Ardila, my grandmother. They didn't get married because she was not his equal. Whereas he had "traveled," could read and write, and was moreno (a light-skinned black), my grandmother was illiterate and of pure African descent. Their first child was my mother, Soledad, born in 1919. My uncle José Antonio was born in 1922.

Several years later, my grandfather began his second family with Berta Feria. She was light-skinned enough to pass for white, and she had attended convent school.

My grandmother Serafina (Mamá Fina) is still alive and is almost a hundred years old. After my grandfather deserted her, she bore children by several men. Her children are my aunts and uncles, but because they are poor, uneducated, and black, and because Colombia is a racist and classist society, when I was growing up I wasn't encouraged to acknowledge them as my relatives. In fact, I was ashamed of them.

With my step-grandmother, Papá José had ten children. All went to school, some graduated from college, and a few have been successful in the world. They were the uncles and aunts my mother encouraged me to acknowledge; they were the only family I ever knew. Until a few days before he died, my grandfather remained a Mason and rejected Catholicism.

My grandfather and my father were the same age. At my birth they were in their late forties and they resembled each other: portly men who carried themselves with great dignity, almost majesty. My mother has a photograph of my grandfather as a young man in a suit and hat that bears a strong resemblance to a picture of my father dressed up as a dandy—the peasant impersonating the aristocrat.







Cover of the first edition of 'El cadáver de papá'
Dos cosas hacen de El cadáver de papáun libro fuera de lo común. La primera es que no se trata de uno, sino de dos libros. El primero es de relatos y lleva por título el de una "novella" de 120 páginas; el otro,Versiones poéticas, es una muestra de la poesía contemporánea de lengua inglesa.
La segunda cosa que lo hace extraordinario es su novedad, un tono y una actitud que hacen de Jaime Manrique Ardila el más revolucionario de cuanto escritor escribe hoy en día en Colombia. Aclaro que lo revolucionario, en literatura, no es la ideología del autor sino lo que éste hace con el lenguaje, los nuevos terrenos que explora por medio del él. No se trata, tampoco, de experimentar con él, se trata de usarlo para aclarar dimensiones turbias de la realidad.
El libro de relatos de Manrique y en particular la sorprendente novela del título es una aguda exploración psicológica que penetra en lo más recóndito de la conciencia de sus personajes, así como su poesía ahonda en la suya propia. Los relatos, construídos en torno a elementos autobiográficos, son sin embargo fruto de la desbordante imaginación de un poeta en la plenitud de su vida. Son apasionados y coherentes en su belleza, y escandalizarán a más de uno, lo que siempre suele suceder ante lo revolucionario.
Las excelentes versiones poéticas de Manrique no son una antología académica de la poesía actual en lengua inglesa. Son un magnífico ejemplo de una desenfrenada pasión poética y en ellas hallamos la secreta explicación del vigor y la seguridad de la prosa. Su larga convivencia con estos poetas, no todos de igual nivel, aunque lo parezcan—prácticamente no hay poema malo en la selección—es lo que ha hecho posible que Manrique pueda escribir con libertad. Hay en todos ellos, como en su traductor, una valiente y magnífica voluntad de decir lo indecible."
—Nicolás Suescún

El cadáver de papá

El cadáver de papá
"Tu Cadáver es una verdadera carcajada: la del barroco funerario, que es también carnavalesco y burlón y travesti, etílico, inocente: todo lo que constituye a tu narrador. Tu novela es como una risotada "sur le dos" del trascendente y consabido Extranjero de Camus. En lugar de la compasión y piedad protectora que inspira su narrador, el tuyo, verdadero exiliado de la moral en uso, no suscita más que un ¡qué descaro!—a tal punto va lejos en su no-participación, en su frialdad casi escénica y su sorna.

Ese choteo póstumo, y ese carnaval en que se llora a José como a un muertecito de confite, ese desenfado como un puñado de maicena tirado a los ojos del muriente, son tan nuestros como lo son los esqueletos sangrantes, aferrados a columnas de capiteles corintios, en los grabados de la escuela de Ferrara. Es otra percepción de cantar el manicero, de colgar el sable, de romper la pipa, de sentir los crisantemos por la raíz, o de cualquiera de las múltiples metáforas con que el hombre ha desviado su terror ante esa cara, la cara de la Gran Pelona, repetidamente cortada y rehecha, renavajeada y remodelada, como la cara de Beatriz."
—Severo Sarduy
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Our Lives Are the Rivers
Our Lives Are the Rivers
2006
The Autobiography of Bill Sullivan
The Autobiography of Bill Sullivan
2006
Tarzan, My Body, Christopher Columbus
Tarzan, My Body,
Christopher Columbus
2001
Eminent Maricones
Eminent Maricones:
Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me
1999
Mi cuerpo y otros poemas
Mi cuerpo y otros poemas
1999
Twilight at the Equator
Twilight at the Equator
1997
Sor Juana's Love Poems
Sor Juana's Love Poems
1997
My Night With Federico García Lorca
My Night With
Federico García Lorca
1995
Latin Moon in Manhattan
Latin Moon in Manhattan
1995
Scarecrow
Scarecrow
1990
Colombian Gold
Colombian Gold:
A Novel of Power and Corruption
1983
El cadáver de papá
El cadáver de papá
1980
Notas de cine
Notas de cine:
confesiones de un crítico amateur
1979
Los adoradores de la luna
Los adoradores de la luna
1977



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Nicole Kidman

May 29, 2013, 4:33 am
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Nicole Kidman
(1967)


Nicole Kidman is a highly successful Academy Award-winning actress. In 2006, she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia for her contributions to charity, health care and film. This is Australia’s highest civilian honour. Kidman is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and in 2004, was honoured as a "Citizen of the World" by the UN.

Kidman was born in Hawaii in 1967. Her family returned to Australia permanently when she was four years old. She grew up and went to school in Sydney. After high school, she studied at several Sydney theatres to realize her ambitions to become an actress. Throughout the 1980s she appeared in music videos and TV dramas, including the popular Bangkok Hilton in 1989.

Her breakthrough came in 1990 when she starred opposite Tom Cruise in ‘Days of Thunder’. She was now one of Hollywood’s top stars and landed the lead in many blockbuster movies. She won an Oscar for Best Actress in 2002 for her role in ‘Hours’. Also in 2002, Kidman starred on stage in London and New York in the play ‘The Blue Room’. She got rave reviews.

Kidman’s private life has rarely been out of the headlines. She fell in love with and married Tom Cruise in 1990. For a decade they were Hollywood’s hottest romance, until their divorce just after their tenth wedding anniversary. She married country singer Keith Urvan in 2006. The couple have mansions in Australia and the USA. She holds passports for both countries.

http://famouspeoplelessons.com/n/nicole_kidman.html




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Mark Strand

May 30, 2013, 4:01 am
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Mark Strand
(1934)

Mark Strand (born 11 April 1934) is a Canadian-born American poet, essayist, and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990. Since 2005–06, he has been a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

Mark Strand
by Jay Parini
Strand was born in Canada on Prince Edward Island. He studied at Antioch College, where he took a BA. He also received a BFA from Yale, where he studied painting. At the University of Iowa, he worked closely with poet Donald Justice, completing an MA in 1962. He spent a year in Italy on a Fulbright scholarship, and later taught at Iowa for three years. In 1965 he spent a year as Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Brazil, where he was deeply influenced by contemporary Latin American poets (especially the Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade). Strand has moved around a good deal, teaching at many American universities, including Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Utah, where he is now professor of English.
Strand's poetry is known for a clarity reminiscent of the paintings of Edward Hopper, and for a deeply inward sense of language. Many of the poems aspire to the condition of dreams, shot through with images possessing a strangely haunting vividness, as in 'The Ghost Ship', which summons a mysterious ship that floats 'Through the crowded streets ... / its vague / tonnage like wind'. He frequently invokes everyday images, as in 'The Mailman', where a wraith-like mailman visits the narrator at midnight to deliver 'terrible personal news'. In 'The Last Bus' the poet imagines Rio de Janeiro, calling the sea 'a dream' in which the city 'dies and is reborn'. The poem is surreal in a manner that combines the dreamlike quality of Pablo Neruda with aspects of nightmare that recall such European expressionists as Georg Trakl.
Strand's first book, Sleeping with One Eye Open was published in 1964. His second, Reasons for Moving (1968), attracted widespread attention from critics; it includes 'Eating Poetry' which begins: 'Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. / There is no happiness like mine. / I have been eating poetry.' This antic surrealism also animates poems like 'Moontan', 'The Man in the Tree', and 'The Marriage'. Darker (1970) was an obliquely autobiographical volume, containing such poems as 'My Life' and 'My Death'. These poems are full of a quiet, ironically pictured anguish as the poet teeters on the brink of self-consciousness in pursuit of his via negative. In 1973 Strand published The Story of Our Lives, more explicitly autobiographical than anything he had written before. It includes a striking elegy for the poet's father.
The Late Hour (1978) is among the strongest of Strand's several books, containing poems for the poet's son and daughter, and a number of poems (such as 'The Late Hour', 'Snowfall', and 'The Garden') that possess a deeply elegiac quality. In this book, Strand began writing with a freshness and simplicity that recall the poetry of ancient China.
As the Mexican poet Octavio Paz has written: 'Mark Strand has chosen the negative path, with loss as the first step towards fullness: it is also the opening to a transparent verbal perfection.' Strand's Selected Poems (New York, 1980) adds to previously published work a number of beautifully realized autobiographical poems, including 'Shooting Whales' and 'Nights in Hackett's Cove'. Strand has also published a book of short stories, several translations from European and Latin American poets, and an anthology of contemporary poetry. For criticism, see Richard Howard, Alone with American (New York, 1969).
From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamilton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press.
by Jonathan Aaron
The Monument (1978) . . . showed that Strand had not lost his faith in the uses of self-mockery. A book of "notes, observations, instructions, rants, and revelations" satirizing the notion of literary immortality, it was Strand's answer to a question he'd heard asked at a translation conference: "How would you like to be translated in five hundred years?" Strand thought it a "fabulous question. It stumped everyone." The book was his answer. Harry Ford (Strand's editor then at Atheneum and now at Knopf, to whom Strand has always been devoted) turned The Monument down, thinking "it would ruin my career. I think he meant that it was bad, tasteless, and would offend my contemporaries." In its playfully barbed irreverence, the book seemed out of keeping with Strand's ostensibly more serious writing. It looked then to some like a wrong move. Today it seems a brilliantly prescient entertainment.
After Selected Poems came out in 1980, Strand hit something of a wall. "I gave up [writing poems] that year," he says, looking back. "I didn't like what I was writing, I didn't believe in my autobiographical poems." He began to concentrate on journalism and art criticism. He wrote the sweetly freakish comedies collected in Mr. and Mrs. Baby and Other Stories (1985), which featured the likes of Glover Bartlett, who reveals to his wife that he used to be a collie, or the nameless narrator who's certain his father has returned to life as a fly, then as a horse, and finally as his girlfriend. In settings that ranged from contemporary Southern California to the Arcadia of Greek myth, Strand explored new approaches to parody and satire and, in doing so, began to work himself free of what he felt were the imaginative and stylistic limitations of dramatic self-regard. "And then," he says, "in 1985, I read Robert Fitzgerald's translation of The Aeneid. I decided I'd try a poem, and I wrote `Cento Virgilianus,' and I was off and running."
The Continuous Life, Strand's first book of poems in ten years, appeared in 1990, containing both poems and short prose narratives. More varied in dramatic scope and tone than his previous collections, its humor pointed yet ruminative, The Continuous Life offered dryly poignant views of disappearing worlds ("The Idea," "Cento Virgilianus," "Luminism," "Life in the Valley"), its prose pieces piercingly funny send-ups of various aspects of the literary enterprise ("From a Lost Diary," "Narrative Poetry," "Translation"). It signaled Strand's complete recovery of poetic purpose and poise. His most recent collection, Dark Harbor (1993), a long poem in forty-five parts, reads like a book of dreams and reports on dreams. An episodic journey full of both daily and mythical incident, it amounts to a fearful perception of the self as Dante-like in a twilit world full of beauty and menace, pervaded, finally, by a deep sense of mortality.

Copyright © 1995 by Jonathan Aaron. Excerpted from a longer profile in Ploughshares (Winter 1995-96).

See 
www.emerson.edu/ploughshares/Winter1995/Strand_Profile.html for the full profile.http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/strand/strand.htm


Mark Strand, 1990
 Photo by Denise Eagleson

About Mark Strand: A Profile
by Jonathan Aaron

Born in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada, in 1934, Mark Strand spent much of his childhood in Halifax, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, and Cleveland. As a teenager he lived in Columbia, Peru, and Mexico. Upon graduating from Antioch College, he went to Yale to study painting with Joseph Albers. Turning from painting to poetry "wasn't a conscious thing," he says. "I woke up and found that that's what I was doing. I don't think these kinds of lifetime obsessions are arrived at rationally." After spending 1960-61 in Italy on a Fulbright scholarship, studying nineteenth-century Italian poetry, Strand attended the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop for a year, and then taught there until 1965, when he went to Brazil. A year later, he and his wife and small daughter moved to New York City. He taught at Mt. Holyoke College in 1967 and at Brooklyn College from 1970-72, then held visiting professorships at various places, among them Columbia, the University of Virginia, Yale, and Harvard. In 1981 he accepted a full-time position at the University of Utah, Salt Lake, where he remained until 1993. Strand is now the Elliott Coleman Professor of Poetry at Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches in the Writing Seminars.

Strand's many books include eight volumes of poetry. He has received fellowships from the Ingram Merrill, Rockefeller, and Guggenheim foundations and from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1974 he was awarded the Edgar Allen Poe Award by the Academy of American Poets, and in 1979 the Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets. He received a MacArthur award in 1987. In 1990 he was chosen to succeed Howard Nemerov as Poet Laureate of the United States. In 1992 he won the Bobbitt Prize for Poetry, in 1993 Yale's Bollingen Prize for Poetry.

Mark Strand's attitude toward his own writing is frank, unfussy, and wry. When he talks about himself, it's always with a sense of humor that underscores the absence of solemnity in his seriousness. Reasons for Moving (1968) and Darker (1970) gained him a national reputation as a poet. The disturbing power of their dark conundrums stemmed from the vividness of their comically incongruous details. The tenor of his work shifted in The Story of Our Lives (1973). Reflecting "an emotionally strenuous period," its poems "were more ambitious, longer, and involved than any I had written," as he said at the time. Highly rhetorical, they sought to express sorrow in elevated, passionate terms. The Late Hour followed in 1978, its poems "shorter and more lively," containing "more of the world in them and less of myself."

The Monument, published that same year, showed that Strand had not lost his faith in the uses of self-mockery. A book of "notes, observations, instructions, rants, and revelations" satirizing the notion of literary immortality, it was Strand's answer to a question he'd heard asked at a translation conference: "How would you like to be translated in five hundred years?" Strand thought it a "fabulous question. It stumped everyone." The book was his answer. Harry Ford (Strand's editor then at Atheneum and now at Knopf, to whom Strand has always been devoted) turned The Monument down, thinking "it would ruin my career. I think he meant that it was bad, tasteless, and would offend my contemporaries." In its playfully barbed irreverence, the book seemed out of keeping with Strand's ostensibly more serious writing. It looked then to some like a wrong move. Today it seems a brilliantly prescient entertainment.

After Selected Poems came out in 1980, Strand hit something of a wall. "I gave up [writing poems] that year," he says, looking back. "I didn't like what I was writing, I didn't believe in my autobiographical poems." He began to concentrate on journalism and art criticism. He wrote the sweetly freakish comedies collected in Mr. and Mrs. Baby and Other Stories (1985), which featured the likes of Glover Bartlett, who reveals to his wife that he used to be a collie, or the nameless narrator who's certain his father has returned to life as a fly, then as a horse, and finally as his girlfriend. In settings that ranged from contemporary Southern California to the Arcadia of Greek myth, Strand explored new approaches to parody and satire and, in doing so, began to work himself free of what he felt were the imaginative and stylistic limitations of dramatic self-regard. "And then," he says, "in 1985, I read Robert Fitzgerald's translation of The Aeneid. I decided I'd try a poem, and I wrote 'Cento Virgilianus,' and I was off and running."

The Continuous Life, Strand's first book of poems in ten years, appeared in 1990, containing both poems and short prose narratives. More varied in dramatic scope and tone than his previous collections, its humor pointed yet ruminative, The Continuous Life offered dryly poignant views of disappearing worlds ("The Idea," "Cento Virgilianus," "Luminism," "Life in the Valley"), its prose pieces piercingly funny send-ups of various aspects of the literary enterprise ("From a Lost Diary," "Narrative Poetry," "Translation"). It signaled Strand's complete recovery of poetic purpose and poise. His most recent collection, Dark Harbor (1993), a long poem in forty-five parts, reads like a book of dreams and reports on dreams. An episodic journey full of both daily and mythical incident, it amounts to a fearful perception of the self as Dante -- like in a twilit world full of beauty and menace, pervaded, finally, by a deep sense of mortality.

When asked what his next book will be like, he replies, "I just can't predict. I suppose Dark Harbor was a step toward what I'm doing now, which is completely cuckoo. But I don't care. I'm just amusing myself." He's a little reluctant to amplify. "I'm not sure how clear I can be on this matter, because I'm not very scrupulous in keeping track of myself. I think there's a certain evenness of tone that I used to try to establish in my poems, which I now try to disrupt. I try to fracture the poem, crowd the poem with shifts or changes which I might have found too crazy or too disturbing in the past." After a pause, he adds, his voice softer, conspiratorial, "Verbal high-jinx -- without that, there's not much of a difference between poetry and prose, is there?"

Strand aims to read all of Proust during the coming winter. Asked what poetry he reads, he replies, "I tend to read my friends -- Joseph Brodsky, Charles Simic, Charles Wright, Jorie Graham." He keeps returning to Wordsworth's The Prelude. "And the Victorians -- I don't read Browning, but I do read Tennyson, not necessarily the best poems, but I love 'Marianna.' And any number of Christina Rossetti's lyrics, which are so dark and seem to come off so well."

He's written a book on Edward Hopper. The painters William Bailey and Neil Welliver are especially close friends. Moreover, his poems themselves are often pictures -- he makes a point of speaking through images that capture what Charles Simic, thinking of Strand, calls "the amazement of the vivid moment." So it's something of a surprise to hear him say that looking at paintings doesn't help when he feels blocked or stuck in his own writing. "No, when I can't write, I read John Ashbery, oddly enough." John Ashbery? "There's a tremendous vitality there, and he's very unpredictable. Ashbery befuddled me in the old days, because I was always looking for the wrong kind of sense in his poems. I kept trying to paraphrase him. Not that you can't paraphrase him, but if you do, you miss the point of his poems. Anyway, now that I don't try to translate Ashbery anymore, it all makes perfect sense." He laughs. " 'I'm Tense, Hortense.' That's the title of a poem I'm writing. It's very Ashberyesque, don't you think?"


Jonathan Aaron's most recent book of poems is Corridor (Wesleyan/New England). He teaches writing and literature at Emerson College.

http://www.pshares.org/read/article-detail.cfm?intArticleID=3990


BIBLIOGRAPHY

POETRY
1964: Sleeping with One Eye Open, Stone Wall Press
1968: Reasons for Moving: Poems, Atheneum
1970: Darker: Poems, including "The New Poetry Handbook", Atheneum
1973: The Story of Our Lives, Atheneum
1973: The Sargentville Notebook, Burning Deck
1978: Elegy for My Father, Windhover
1978: The Late Hour, Atheneum]
1980: Selected Poems, including "Keeping Things Whole", Atheneum
1990: The Continuous Life, Knopf
1990: New Poems
1991: The Monument, Ecco Press (see also The Monument, 1978, prose)
1993: Dark Harbor: A Poem, long poem divided into 55 sections, Knopf
1998: Blizzard of One: Poems, Knopf winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for poetry
1999: Chicken, Shadow, Moon & More, with illustrations by the author
1999: "89 Clouds" a single poem, monotypes by Wendy Mark and introduction by Thomas Hoving. ACA Galleries (New York)
2006: Man and Camel, Knopf
2007: New Selected Poems
2012: Almost Invisible, Random House,

PROSE
978: The Monument, Ecco (see also The Monument, 1991, poetry)
1982: Contributor: Claims for Poetry, edited by Donald Hall, University of Michigan Press
1982: The Planet of Lost Things, for children
1983: The Art of the Real, art criticism, C. N. Potter
1985: The Night Book, for children
1985: Mr. and Mrs. Baby and Other Stories, short stories, Knopf
1986: Rembrandt Takes a Walk, for children



About Mark Strand's Poetry
by Richard Howard
The poems tell one story and one story only: they narrate the moment when Strand makes Rimbaud's discovery, that je est un autre, that the self is someone else, even something else; "The Mailman," "The Accident," "The Door," "The Tunnel," even "The Last Bus" with its exotic Brazilian stage-properties, all recount the worst, realizing every apprehension, relishing the things possible only in one's wildest fantasies of victimization, and then with a shriek as much of delight as of despair, fall upon the fact--

It will always be this way.
I stand here scared
that you will disappear,
scared that you will stay--
that the victimizer is, precisely, the self, and that the victim is the other, is others.
[. . . .]
Strand is both nervous and morbid, and a consideration of finality is his constant project, sustained here by shifting the responsibility for the imminent wreck from "the reaches of ourselves" to the ambiguity instinct inlanguage.
[. . . .]
Strand’s work since Reason for Moving widens his scope, even as it sharpens his focus; just as he had divided his body against itself in order to discover an identity, he now identifies the body politic with his own in order to recover a division; in a series of political prospects, "Our Death," "From a Litany," "General," and finest of all "The Way It Is," the poet conjugates the nightmares of Fortress America with his own stunned mortality to produce an apocalypse of disordered devotion:

Everyone who has sold himself wants to buy himself back.
Nothing is done. The night
eats into their limbs
like a blight.
Everything dims.
The future is not what it used to be. 
The graves are ready. The dead 
shall inherit the dead.
But what gives these public accents of Strand's their apprehensive relevance is not just a shrewd selection of details ("My neighbor marches in his room, / wearing the sleek / mask of a hawk with a large beak . . . His helmet in a shopping bag, / he sits in the park, waving a small American flag"), nor any cosy contrast of the poet’s intimeries against a gaining outer darkness ("Slowly I dance out of the burning house of my head. /And who isn't borne again and again into heaven?"). Rather it is the sense that public and private degradation, outer and inner weather, tropic and glacial decors (Saint Thomas and Prince Edward Islands, in fact) are all versions and visions of what Coleridge called the One Life, and that the whole of nature and society are no more than the churning content of a single and limitless human body--the poet's own.
From Alone With America: Essay on the Art of Poetry in the United States since 1950. New York: Atheneum, 1980. Copyright © 1980 by Richard Howard.
by Samuel Maio
In his short collection of idiosyncratic musings in verse form, The Sargeantville Notebook (1973), Strand included the following curious statement:

The ultimate self-effacement 
is not the pretense of the minimal, 
but the jocular considerations of the maximal 
in the manner of Wallace Stevens.
Strand admittedly has long admired Stevens's work, and read Stevens even before beginning to write his own poetry. (He once remarked to Wayne Dodd: "I discovered I wasn't destined to be a very good painter, so I became a poet. Now it didn't happen suddenly. I did read a lot, and I had been a reader of poetry before. In fact, I was much more given to reading poems than I was to fiction and the book that I read a lot, and frequently, was The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens") Perhaps Strand, in commenting on what constitutes the "ultimate self-effacement," regards Stevens as a belated Romantic poet, as does Harold Bloom, in that the ostensibly private reflection, which is the subject of the poem, expresses emotions or ideologies that are in fact diffuse. I make this parallel by suggesting that Strand means "the minimal" to be the private, or individual, concern so that a pretense of such occurs when a poet argues for his own life experiences as reflective of a larger than personal theme, and that his phrase "the jocular considerations of the maximal" means the viewing of global concerns with some degree of wit, with a touch of the absurd. A poet betrays his "pretense of the minimal" when he tries to be an impartial observer, a chronicler of an event he has witnessed or of a landscape he has seen; his presence in the poem--his personal "I" speaker--negates his intended impartiality, or objectivity, towards his subject. . . .
Strand reads Stevens, however, as having successfully avoided such pretense by constructing poems that begin about another's concerns, then move outward to embrace universal questions: "Peter Quince at the Clavier," "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle," and "The Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage" are a few examples from his early work. These jocular titles lead us to poems of "maximal" subject matter; in each, Stevens’s presence is not visible. Each poem concentrates on the individual named in its title; consequently, Stevens's discussion of universal matters is filtered through his representation of these paltry and jocular characters. Yet these poems of Stevens employ a particular individual--Peter Quince, the "Oncle," the Nude--(and none acting as a persona) in order to achieve his measure of self-effacement. In this sense, these figures are like dramatis personae. Yet Strand's objective is to achieve the same extent of impartiality, and impersonality, while using an "I" speaker that is neither a persona (that is, a representative "I" speaking in behalf of all) nor one that is entirely confessional.
[. . . .]
The resulting self-effacing voice aids Strand in his personal inquiry into the constitution, the definition, of an individual in a contemporary world to which he feels no relationship or role other than that of filling a void. Such an inquiry--and tentative answers--could not have been effected without his use of the self-effacing voice, for, as we have seen, this voice cannot be distinguished from the self portrayed--and defined--in these poems, whoever it is Strand would have us believe is their author.
From Creating Another Self: Voice in Modern American Personal Poetry. Kirksville, MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1995. Copyright © 1995 by Thomas Jefferson University Press.
by Harold Bloom
The irreality of Borges, though still near, is receding in Darker, as Strand opens himself more to his own vision. These poems instantly touch a universal anguish as no "confessional" poems can, for Strand has the fortune of writing naturally and almost simply (though this must be supreme artifice) out of the involuntary near solipsism that always marks a central poetic imagination in America. An uncanny master of tone, Strand cannot pause for mere wit or argument but generally moves directly to phantasmagoria, a mode so magically disciplined in him as to make redundant for us almost all current questers after the "deep image."
From Southern Review (1972)
by Linda Gregerson
When Mark Strand reinvented the poem, he began by leaving out the world. The self he invented to star in the poems went on with the work of divestment: it jettisoned place, it jettisoned fellows, it jettisoned all distinguishing physical marks, save beauty alone. It was never impeded by personality. Nor was this radical renunciation to be confused with modesty, or asceticism. The self had designs on a readership, and a consummate gift for the musical phrase.
From Parnassus: Poetry in Review (1981)



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Carl Sandburg

June 1, 2013, 5:44 am
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KISS

Carl Sandburg
(1878 - 1967)


Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois, on January 6, 1878. His parents, August and Clara Johnson, had emigrated to America from the north of Sweden. After encountering several August Johnsons in his job for the railroad, the Sandburg's father renamed the family. The Sandburgs were very poor; Carl left school at the age of thirteen to work odd jobs, from laying bricks to dishwashing, to help support his family. At seventeen, he traveled west to Kansas as a hobo. He then served eight months in Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American war. While serving, Sandburg met a student at Lombard College, the small school located in Sandburg's hometown. The young man convinced Sandburg to enroll in Lombard after his return from the war.

Sandburg worked his way through school, where he attracted the attention of Professor Philip Green Wright, who not only encouraged Sandburg's writing, but paid for the publication of his first volume of poetry, a pamphlet called Reckless Ecstasy (1904). While Sandburg attended Lombard for four years, he never received a diploma (he would later receive honorary degrees from Lombard, Knox College, and Northwestern University). After college, Sandburg moved to Milwaukee, where he worked as an advertising writer and a newspaper reporter. While there, he met and married Lillian Steichen (whom he called Paula), sister of the photographer Edward Steichen. A Socialist sympathizer at that point in his life, Sandburg then worked for the Social-Democrat Party in Wisconsin and later acted as secretary to the first Socialist mayor of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912.

The Sandburgs soon moved to Chicago, where Carl became an editorial writer for the Chicago Daily News. Harriet Monroe had just started Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, and began publishing Sandburg's poems, encouraging him to continue writing in the free-verse, Whitman-like style he had cultivated in college. Monroe liked the poems' homely speech, which distinguished Sandburg from his predecessors. It was during this period that Sandburg was recognized as a member of the Chicago literary renaissance, which included Ben Hecht, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, and Edgar Lee Masters. He established his reputation with Chicago Poems (1916), and then Cornhuskers (1918). Soon after the publication of these volumes Sandburg wrote Smoke and Steel (1920), his first prolonged attempt to find beauty in modern industrialism. With these three volumes, Sandburg became known for his free verse poems celebrating industrial and agricultural America, American geography and landscape, and the American common people.

Carl Sanburg and Marilyn Monroe

In the twenties, he started some of his most ambitious projects, including his study of Abraham Lincoln. From childhood, Sandburg loved and admired the legacy of President Lincoln. For thirty years he sought out and collected material, and gradually began the writing of the six-volume definitive biography of the former president. The twenties also saw Sandburg's collections of American folklore, the ballads in The American Songbag and The New American Songbag (1950), and books for children. These later volumes contained pieces collected from brief tours across America which Sandburg took each year, playing his banjo or guitar, singing folk-songs, and reciting poems.

In the 1930s, Sandburg continued his celebration of America with Mary Lincoln, Wife and Widow (1932), The People, Yes (1936), and the second part of his Lincoln biography, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939), for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He received a second Pulitzer Prize for his Complete Poems in 1950. His final volumes of verse were Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960) and Honey and Salt (1963). Carl Sandburg died in 1967.





A Selected Bibliography

Poetry

Chicago Poems (1916)
Complete Poems (1950)
Cornhuskers (1918)
Good Morning, America (1928)
Harvest Poems (1950)
Honey and Salt (1963)
In Reckless Ecstasy (1904)
Selected Poems (1926)
Slabs of the Sunburnt West (1922)
Smoke and Steel (1920)
The People, Yes (1936)

Prose

Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (1926)
Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939)
Mary Lincoln: Wife and Widow (1932)
Steichen the Photographer (1929)
The American Songbag (1927)
The New American Songbag (1950)








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Tom Sharpe

June 7, 2013, 3:04 pm
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Tom Sharpe
(1928 - 2013)
Nationality: British. 
Born: Thomas Ridley Sharpe in London, 1928. 
Education: Lancing College, Sussex, 1942-46; Pembroke College, Cambridge, 1948-51, M.A.; teacher's training, Cambridge University, 1962-63, P.C.G.E. 1963. 
Military Service: Served in the Royal Marines, 1946-48. 
Career: Social worker, 1951-52, and teacher, 1952-56, Natal, South Africa; photographer, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, 1956-61; deported from South Africa on political grounds, 1961; teacher, Aylesbury Secondary Modern School, Buckinghamshire, 1961; Lecturer in History, Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, 1963-71. Since 1971, full-time writer. Agent:Anthony Sheil Associates, 43 Doughty Street, London, WC1N 2LF.


PUBLICATIONS

Novels

Riotous Assembly. London, Secker and Warburg, 1971; New York, Viking Press, 1972.
Indecent Exposure. London, Secker and Warburg, 1973; New York, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987.
Porterhouse Blue. London, Secker and Warburg, and Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 1974.
Blott on the Landscape. London, Secker and Warburg, 1975; New York, Vintage, 1984.
Wilt. London, Secker and Warburg, 1976; New York, Vintage, 1984.
The Great Pursuit. London, Secker and Warburg, 1977; New York, Harper, 1984.
The Throwback. London, Secker and Warburg, 1978; New York, Vintage, 1984.
The Wilt Alternative. London, Secker and Warburg, 1979; New York, St. Martin's Press, 1981(?).
Ancestral Vices. London, Secker and Warburg, 1980.
Vintage Stuff. London, Secker and Warburg, 1982; New York, Vintage, 1984.
Wilt on High. London, Secker and Warburg, 1984; New York, Random House, 1985.
Grantchester Grind: A Porterhouse Chronicle. London, Secker & Warburg, 1995.
The Midden. London, A. Deutsch, Secker & Warburg, 1996; Woodstock, New York, Overlook Press, 1997.

Plays

The South African (produced London, 1961).
Television Play:
She Fell among Thieves, from the novel by Dornford Yates, 1978.

* * *


Tom Sharpe
OBITUARY

Tom Sharpe, who has died in Spain at the age of 85, built a large and loyal following with best-selling books that combined farce, satire and vulgarity.

Porterhouse Blue (1974) and Blott on the Landscape (1975) were among his best-known works and were successfully adapted for television in the 1980s.

Porterhouse Blue saw the forces of tradition and change clash at an Oxbridge college, while Blott on the Landscape explored the impact of a road scheme on a country estate.

But he was perhaps best known for his Wilt series, five novels detailing the comic misadventures of an accident-prone lecturer.

The character, he said, "has the same uncertainties about the world that I have. But he carries them on into the enactment of fantasy and he tends to run into trouble."

Thomas Ridley Sharpe was born in London on 30 March 1928 and educated at Bloxham School in Oxfordshire.

He went on to study at Lancing College, a private boarding school in West Sussex, and to read history at Pembroke College in Cambridge.

His father, a Unitarian clergyman, was sympathetic to the Nazi regime in the 1930s. "I think he must have gone dotty," the author would later remark.

In time, the young Sharpe would completely reject his father's politics. "I discovered that Hitler was not the man I was led to believe he was," he said.

Sharpe did his national service in the Marines from 1946 to 1948 before reading history at Pembroke College in Cambridge.

Going to South Africa in 1951, he did social work in Johannesburg before teaching in Natal and running a photographic studio in Pietermaritzburg.

A vocal critic of the Apartheid regime, he was arrested and deported in 1961 after a play he wrote attacking it was staged in London.

"My advice, if you do go to jail, is to pick a murderer as a cellmate," he told Desert Island Discs' host Roy Plomley in 1984.

"He's very clean and not the professional. Burglars tend to be rather dirty in my experience, and rapists are not particularly pleasant either."

From 1963 to 1972, Sharpe worked as a lecturer in history at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology - experience he would draw on when he came to write Wilt.

A film version of that novel, starring comedy duo Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, was produced in 1989 but was not well received.

Sharpe's first novel - Riotous Assembly, a satire of Apartheid set in a fictional South African town - was published in 1971 when he was 43 and spawned a sequel, Indecent Exposure, two years later.

From that point on he produced a book every year, using one of the 17 typewriters he kept around his Cambridgeshire house.

In 1971 he married his American wife Nancy, and together they had three daughters.


Tom Sharpe, pictured in 1981


"I love England but I don't like the English," he told the Dayly Express in 2010. "I can't bear the Brit culture, the hooliganism."From the 1990s onwards, the author began dividing his time between England and Llafranc in north east Spain.

Sharpe's output became more sporadic in later life as he faced health problems and writer's block.

His final novel, The Wilt Inheritance, was published in 2010, though he had been working on an autobiography.

"I'll die at my typewriter," he said, citing his friend and hero, the prolific comic writer PG Wodehouse.




wilt sharpe Siete razones para leer Wilt de Tom Tom Shape (1976)


Tom Sharpe's comic vision was formed under the pressure of state persecution strong enough to infuriate but not crush him. His initial satires on South Africa set the pattern for all his subsequent fiction. These early works draw their energy from the seditious author's deportation from South Africa in 1961.

Sharpe's first published novel, Riotous Assembly, is as funny as anything he has written. It has as its hero the tormented Anglophile policeman Kommandant Van Heerden. Van Heerden's feud with his scheming subordinate Verkramp (a fanatic Boer) and the murderous blunderings of Konstabel Els are one source of black merriment. Another is the degenerate world of the upper-class English colonials. Bungling authoritarian institutions and the English ruling class reappear as black beasts in all Sharpe's later novels. Indecent Exposure is a straight sequel, with the same principal characters as Riotous Assembly and the same "Piemburg" setting. Its comedy, however, is even broader. (At one point in the narrative the whole of Van Heerden's police force is subjected to electric shock therapy and converted to rampant homosexuality.)

After this novel, Sharpe evidently felt his South African vein was exhausted. Porterhouse Blue is set in a Cambridge college. Most of the plot revolves around the maneuverings of a reform and a reactionary faction. There is the usual play with comic ruthlessness and sexual perversions. (One comic climax has the quad full of inflated condoms.) In the largest sense, Porterhouse Blue can be read as a satire on English life, and its resistance to change. Blott on the Landscape is more straightforwardly funny. The central joke of the narrative is the modernization of Handyman Hall from stately home to theme park. The vivaciously homicidal lady of the house, Maude Lynchwood, is particularly well done.


With his next novel, Wilt, Sharpe created his most durable hero. The first in the series presents Henry Wilt as a henpecked and downtrodden lecturer at "Fenland College" (based transparently on the polytechnic where Sharpe himself taught). There is some effective incidental comedy on Wilt's futile attempts to educate a day release class of butchers ("Meat One"). But the main plot concerns Henry's involvement in suspected murder, following his witnessed disposal of a life-size sex doll which he accidentally came by. This leads to an epic struggle of will with the long-suffering Inspector Flint. Flint and Wilt reappear in The Wilt Alternative, which embroils the hero with international terrorists who mount a siege in his house. Wilt's murderously maternal wife Eva makes a notable comic appearance in this novel. Wilt on High (which brings in Greenham Common-style peace protesters) suggests that a whole saga may evolve around the misadventures of Sharpe's most likeable hero.

The Great Pursuit returns to the high Cambridge of Porterhouse Blue. The title plays on the titles of Cambridge critic F.R. Leavis's best known works. And Sharpe's novel is a jaundiced burlesque on the Leavisite disdain for merely popular literature. The story has a female don of austere critical rectitude who clandestinely writes pulp romance. An ingenuous acolyte, Peter Piper, is manipulated into fronting for her and undertakes an American promotional tour. Cantabrigian snobbishness and transatlantic vulgarity are comically opposed, with the usual fiendish plot complications.

The Throwback is a routine Sharpe comedy on the British rural gentry, and their inextinguishable capacity for survival even among the persecutions of a democratic age and modern world. Ancestral Vices has much the same theme. Walden Yapp, an American professor of demotic historiography, is hired to write the family history of the Petrefacts. In their native Vale of Bushampton, he discovers unspeakable sexual horrors underlying their prosperity. Ancestral Vices is probably the nastiest of Sharpe's novels, with some incredibly tasteless comedy on the subject of dwarves. But the rule of his fiction is that the more offensive to common decency, the funnier it is.Vintage Stuff finds Sharpe in the territory of the English public school. The novel climaxes in a chase across France, and a chateau siege. (Chases and sieges recur in many of Sharpe's narratives.) Again, the novel comically testifies to the indestructibility and the simultaneous awfulness of England's upper classes.

The main influence on Sharpe's fiction is clearly early Evelyn Waugh. Unlike the mature Waugh, Sharpe seems still to be waiting for something to believe in, to ballast the otherwise increasingly brittle negativities of his fiction. But for his admirers (they remain almost exclusively cis-Atlantic, incidentally) it is probably enough that he is consistently the most amusing novelist writing.

—John Sutherland

http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4730/Sharpe-Tom.html


Tom Sharpe with his wife Nancy and daughters Grace and Jemima in 1975
Tom Sharpe with his wife Nancy and daughters Grace and Jemima in 1975.
Photograph: Dunne/Rex Features

BBC News website readers have sent in their memories of Tom Sharpe:

Keith Baker, Derby

I've read most of the Wilt books, as well as Blott on the Landscape and a few others. Amazingly funny books - several times I would laugh out loud, even when reading them in work at lunchtime! Sad passing of a comic literal genius.

Ian Robertson, Sonning Common, Berkshire

Terrifically funny books. Invoked uncontrollable bursts of laughter. Remember on more than one occasion when commuting to work on the train somebody bursting out involuntarily and then having to quickly regain their composure. Noticed what they were reading and knew just why, even if those all around didn't quite understand & thought them strange. But once you've read the addictive Tom Sharpe you feel part of that club and just want to laugh too!

Bob Steadman, Nailsea, Bristol

Discovered Riotous Assembly in the early 70s and fell in love with Tom Sharpe's writing. Since then, I have read and reread his books over and over again, never tiring. I will never forget seeing the tears of laughter rolling down my blind father's face as my rather straight-laced mother read Wilt to him (swear words and all). Wilt is a work of genius and Tom Sharpe probably the funniest writer in the English language!

Guy Rose, London

Tom Sharpe was my English master for part of the time I spent at a prep school in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa between 1954/8. At the same time, he had a photographic studio in the town he refers to in Riotous Assembly as Piemburg. Sadly, there was a little problem over some photographs he kindly showed my fellow pupils and me. The ladies featured were not exactly fully clothed - far from it - and my friends and I were grateful to Tom for this extension to our syllabus. Unfortunately the headmaster (who himself only died a few weeks ago) came into the staff common room and was less impressed than we were. Tom had to bid us farewell and was subsequently deported from South Africa, something he always rather proud of! The headmaster's wife said to me at a dinner in London a few years ago that if he (her husband) hadn't sacked Tom, he'd have deprived the world of a gifted novelist.

Kevin Reynolds, Cambridge

He was my history lecturer for two years and inspired me to be come a teacher and a writer. He was so funny, kept us amused for hours with his stories about south Africa. When I first met him as a student at Cambs College of arts and technology, he interviewed me on a one-to-one, to go through the rules and said 'Most important rule, no smoking in the classroom,' as he was lighting up his pipe at the same time! A great character.
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Gwyneth Paltrow

March 12, 2013, 11:05 am
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Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow is an American actress. I’m sure you’ve seen her in the movies. Somem interesting facts about Gwyneth Paltrow:
  • Full name – Gwyneth Kate Paltrow.
  • Gwyneth Paltrow was born in a family of film director Bruce Paltrow and actress Blythe Danner known.
  • Paltrow calls Spielberg “Uncle Morty”.
  • Steven Spielberg is the godfather of Gwyneth Paltrow.
  • She has a younger brother, Jake Paltrow.
  • Gwyneth Paltrow has two children from his marriage to Chris Martin, daughter and son – Apple Blythe Alison Martin and Moses Bruce Anthony Martin.
  • In 1999 and 2000, Paltrow became the object of obsessive pursuit by a man named Dante Michael Siou. The actress has received dozens of lettersfrom him each week and more than 1,200 emails in total. He was sentenced to several years of treatment in a psychiatric hospital.

1974
July 4-13

Terrible 2's at the Theater

While watching her mother, Blythe Danner, perform at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, 2-year-old Paltrow is thrust onstage and surprises everyone by reciting her mother's lines. "She could barely talk," Danner later tells Time, "yet she knew the whole speech better than I did. We should have known then, I guess."
1991
Gwyneth Paltrow
July 10-24

A Different Path

Without much experience, 18-year-old Paltrow appears alongside her mother in Picnic at the Williamstown Theater Festival. Her father, television director Bruce Paltrow, is sufficiently impressed with his daughter's performance to encourage her to abandon university studies for acting. Previously, her parents said she should stay in school.
1992
Gwyneth Paltrow
May 17

Mom and Me

In her first television role, Paltrow appears in the NBC miniseries Cruel Doubt alongside her mother. Her more considerable acting background notwithstanding, Danner tells PEOPLE, "She got the part first, and I guess they thought I looked right as her mother.'' The following year, Paltrow takes a small part in the psychological drama Flesh and Bone, but her performance makes her a young actress to watch. The National Society of Film Critics nominates her for Best Supporting Actress for the role.
1994
Gwyneth Paltrow
December

That Girl

Paltrow begins dating Se7en costar Brad Pitt, PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive, catapulting Paltrow into the headlines. "Our first date was at an Italian restaurant in L.A., and no one gave us a glance," Paltrow tells You magazine. "Now it's a case of 'Who's that girl?'" In April, while in St. Barts, a paparazzo captures the couple sunbathing nude, which leads to an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit that Pitt wins.
1996
Gwyneth Paltrow
January 21

All You Need is Love

After a year together, Pitt gushes as he accepts the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in 12 Monkeys, calling Paltrow "the love o' my life, my angel." Equally smitten, Paltrow tells London's You magazine, "I am properly in love for the first time in my life, and I do not care if my former boyfriends read this." That August, PEOPLE names Paltrow one of the Hottest 30 Stars Under 30 and one of the 25 Most Intriguing, calling her "the face that launched a thousand magazine covers."
December 19

I Do, I Don't

After starring as a matchmaker in Jane Austen's Emma, Paltrow, 25, accepts Pitt's proposal to marry while in Mendoza, Argentina. But the engagement is short-lived. Just seven months later, on June 16, 1997, Pitt's publicist announces the couple has broken up.
1997
September

Survivor

Paltrow goes alone to a deserted island in the Caribbean for three days and writes of her adventure for Marie Claire. The actress brings rice, a Swiss Army knife, matches, fish hooks and a hammock. She walks around mostly nude during the day and writes about her seclusion: "I have learned that I am stronger than I thought. I am braver than I thought."
Gwyneth Paltrow
December

Paltrow & Affleck

Paltrow is seen with actor Ben Affleck. The two keep it friendly at first, but two months later are very obviously a romantic item. While at a press junket promoting her film Sliding Doors, the pair kiss for nearly three minutes. The following year though they break up, but are seen together again for a short time in 2000.
1999
Gwyneth Paltrow
March 21

A Teary Thank You

After being named on of PEOPLE's 50 Most Beautiful, Paltrow wins an Oscar for her performance as Lady Viola in Shakespeare in Love. In a pink satin Ralph Lauren gown, Paltrow sobs as she accepts the award and thanks her parents: "I would not have been able to play this role, had I not understood love of a tremendous magnitude, and for that I thank my family."
December

Opposite Matt & Jude

Playing Jude Law's girlfriend in the intelligent thrillerThe Talented Mr. Ripley (also starring Matt Damon), Paltrow easily tackles the tricky emotional role of loving a man who treats her badly.


2001
Gwyneth Paltrow
November

Body Issues

Paltrow stars as an overweight woman in Shallow Hal, but she accepts the role only after learning it is not mean-spirited. The actress also talks about her body issues, telling PEOPLE, "I've always been a slim person, but I've had issues with my body. Through most of junior high I felt very awkward. I was small for my age and very skinny." She also says she has been on a strict macrobiotic diet, eating raw foods and avoiding caffeine and sugars.
2002
Gwyneth Paltrow
August

Groupie in the Making

Backstage at a Coldplay concert in New York City, Paltrow jots down her phone number for Chris Martin, the band's lead singer. Two months later, though still officially just friends, Martin dedicates a song to Paltrow during a London concert.
Gwyneth Paltrow
October 02

A Goodbye

Just five days after Paltrow celebrates her 30th birthday in Italy, her father, Bruce, dies suddenly in his sleep. Since her early days in the spotlight, Paltrow was outspoken about her deep bond with her father. She tells London's Daily Telegraph, "I cannot fathom living the rest of my life without my father, but I have to."
2003
Gwyneth Paltrow
December 03

We're Having a Baby!

After nearly a year with Martin, Paltrow announces she is pregnant. Two days later, the couple marries in an intimate ceremony in Santa Barbara, Calif.
2004
Gwyneth Paltrow
May 14

Apple of Her Eye

Apple Blythe Alison Martin is born in London. Paltrow tells Oprah Winfrey, "When we were first pregnant, her daddy said, 'If it's a girl, I think her name should be Apple. Apples are sweet and they're wholesome, and it's biblical.' I thought it sounded so lovely and clean." The couple chooses not to have a nanny for at least the first year. On motherhood, Paltrow tells EW, "It's like being the most in love you've ever been, but mixed with the worst heartbreak because she's so tender, because life is filled with so much difficulty, because one day you're not going to be together anymore."
2006
Gwyneth Paltrow
April 08

Baby Makes Four

Paltrow gives birth to her and Martin's second child, Moses Bruce, in New York City. He is named after a 2003 Coldplay song Martin wrote for Paltrow and her father, Bruce.
October 20

Paltrow's Screen Return

Paltrow returns to work with supporting roles inRunning with Scissors, with Evan Rachel Wood, and the Truman Capote biopic Infamous. Paltrow tells Oprahthat she loves being a mother and housewife, butworking has made her a better mom. Next up, she starsin The Good Night, written and directed by her younger brother Jake, costarring Penélope Cruz.
2008
Gwyneth Paltrow
May 02

Box Office Iron

With Robert Downey Jr., Paltrow makes her box office mark in the comic blockbuster Iron Man, which opens at No. 1, taking in $100.7 million. Not only does the film impress audiences, but Paltrow's sexy red-carpet returndoes as well. "I've always liked clothes, and it's part of my job," the actress, who returns for the 2010 sequel, tells PEOPLE. "It's fun to dress up!"
2010
Gwyneth Paltrow
November 10

Going Country

Paltrow takes the stage with Vince Gill to perform the title track from her new film, Country Strong, at the CMA Awards. "She worked very hard on the music," director Shana Feste tells PEOPLE of the Oscar winner, who portrays a troubled country star in the film. "She had guitar lessons and vocal lessons and she took it very, very seriously."
2011
Gwyneth Paltrow
February 13

Seeing 'Green'

After covering Cee Lo Green's hit song "Forget You" onGlee, Paltrow shares the Grammys stage with the singer. "She sings like a natural," Green graciously tells PEOPLE of the actress, who also earns praise fromGlee costar Matthew Morrison. "She killed it!" he tellsThe Hollywood Reporter. 









2011
Gwyneth Paltrow
April 13

Kitchen Confidential

After sharing cooking and lifestyle tips on her site GOOP, Paltrow releases her first cookbook, My Father'sDaughter. "My dad was incredible and he gave me the richness in my life by showing me the importance of family relationships," she says of her late father Bruce, who was the inspiration behind her best seller. "One of the best ways to do that is around the dinner table."
2013
Gwyneth Paltrow
April 24

What a Natural

Though she graces the cover of PEOPLE's Most Beautiful issue, Paltrow, 40, insists getting glam is not an important part of her routine. "Around the house, I'm in jeans and a T-shirt. I don't really wear makeup," the actress says, adding husband Chris Martin teases her on the occasions she does. "He'll make a joke about it. If I've gotten fully dressed up, he'll be like, 'Oh, wow! You're Gwyneth Paltrow!' Because he's used to seeing me in like baggy shorts and frizzy hair."





GALLERY


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Antonin Dvořák

March 20, 2013, 8:24 am
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Dvořák


Antonin Dvořák
(1841 - 1904)

September 8th 1841, Nelahozeves CZ – † May 1st 1904, Prague 

Antonin Dvorak employed the idioms and melodies of folk music of his native Bohemia and Moravia in symphonic, oratorial, chamber and operatic works.

When Dvořák composed his second string quintet in 1875, and in 1877 it attracted the attention of Johannes Brahms, whom he later befriended.

When asked later in his life why he did not write a cello concerto, Brahms answered “Dvorak has already written it!”

On Brahms’ recommendation he contacted a publisher, who as a result commissioned Dvořák’sSlavonic Dances. Published in 1878, these were an immediate success.

Dvořák’s Stabat Mater was performed abroad, and after a successful performance in London in 1883, Dvořák was invited to visit England where he appeared to great acclaim in 1884. His Symphony No. 7 was written for London; it premiered there in 1885.

His most popular piece is his New World Symphony composed mostly during his stay in New York during 1892 to 1895 where Dvořák was the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. In 1891 Dvořák received an honorary degree from Cambridge University, and his Requiempremiered later that year in Birmingham at the Triennial Music Festival.


Biography

Dvoøák was born in Nelahozeves near Prague where he spent most of his life. He studied music in Prague's Organ School at the end of the 1850s, and through the 1860s played viola in the Bohemian Provisional Theatre Orchestra which was from 1866 conducted by Bedoich Smetana.

From 1892 to 1895, Dvoøák was director of the National Conservatory in New York City. The Conservatory was founded by a wealthy socialite, Jeannette Thurber, who wanted a well-known composer as director in order to lend prestige to her institution. She wrote to Dvoøák, asking him to accept the position, and he agreed, providing that she were willing to meet his conditions: that talented Native American and African-American students, who could not afford the tuition, must be admitted for free. She agreed to his conditions, and he sailed to America.

It was during his time as director of the Conservatory that Dvoøák formed a friendship with Harry Burleigh, who became an important African-American composer. Dvoøák taught Burleigh composition, and in return, Burleigh spent hours on end singing traditional American Spirituals to Dvoøák. Burleigh went on to compose settings of these Spirituals which compare favorably with European classical composition.

It was during his visit to the United States that he wrote his most popular work, the Symphony No.9 "From the New World".

Also while in the USA he heard a performance of a cello concerto by the composer Victor Herbert. He was so excited by the possibilities of the cello and orchestra combination displayed in this concerto that he wrote a cello concerto of his own, the Cello Concerto in B minor (1895). Since then the concerto he wrote has grown in popularity and today it is frequently performed. He also left an unfinished work, the Cello Concerto in A major (1865), which was completed and orchestrated by the German composer Günter Raphael between 1925 and 1929.

Dvoøák was a colorful personality. In addition to music, there were two particular passions in his life: locomotive engines, and the breeding of pigeons.

He eventually returned to Prague where he was director of the conservatoire from 1901 until his death in 1904. He was interred in the Vysehrad cementery in Prague.

Musical Style and Influence

Dvoøák's works are in a variety of forms: his nine symphonies stick to classical models which Ludwig van Beethoven would have recognised and are comparable to Johannes Brahms, but he also worked in the newly developed symphonic poem form and the influence of Richard Wagner is apparent in some works. Many of his works also show the influence of Czech folk music, both in terms of rhythms and melodic shapes; perhaps the best known examples are the two sets of Slavonic Dances. As well as his already-mentioned works, Dvoøák wrote operas (the best known of which is Rusalka), chamber music (including a number of string quartets, the American among them) and piano music.

Dvoøák's works were catalogued by Jarmil Burghauser in Antonin Dvoøák. Thematic Catalogue. Bibliography. Survey of Life and Work (Export Artia Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1960). In this catalogue, for example, the New World Symphony (Opus 95) is B178. 


Dvoøák's Symphonies

For a while, the numbering of Dvoøák's symphonies was rather unclear; the 'New World' symphony has alternately been called the 5th, 8th and 9th. In this article they are numbered according to the order in which they were written (this is the normal numbering system used today). Dvoøák himself numbered his 9th Symphony as 'number 5,' in a superstitious attempt to cheat the tendency for composers to die after composing their ninth symphonies. The trick did not work, and Dvoøák died before completing a tenth.

Unlike many other composers who shied away from the symphony until their mature years (notably his mentor Johannes Brahms), Dvoøák wrote his Symphony No. 1 in C minor when he was only 24 years of age. Subtitled The Bells of Zlonice after a village in Dvoøák's native Bohemia, it is clearly the work of an inexperienced composer, yet shows a lot of promise. The scherzo is considered to be the strongest movement, but the others are not uninteresting. There are many formal similarities with the 5th Symphony of Ludwin van Beethoven, yet harmonically and in his instrumentation he is more a romantic composer, following Franz Schubert.

Not very remarkable, but not of low quality either, is Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, still looking up to Beethoven. But Symphony No. 3 in E flat major clearly shows the sudden and profound impact of Dvoøák's recent acquaintance with the music of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt.

The influence of Wagner was not lasting, however; it can hardly be heard anymore in Symphony No. 4 in D minor. This last of Dvoøák's early symphonies is also widely regarded as the best. Again the scherzo is the highlight, but already Dvoøák shows his absolute mastery of all formal aspects.

Dvoøák's middle symphonies, Symphony No. 5 in F major (published as No. 3) and Symphony No. 6 in D major (published as No. 1), are happy, pastoral works. They are not as famous as their later cousins, though many consider them just as good. The Fifth is the more pastoral work, although there is a dark slow movement which borrows (or, rather, steals) the first four notes of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto for the main theme. The Sixth shows a very strong resemblance to the Symphony No. 2 of Brahms, particularly the outer movements.

Symphony No. 7 in D minor of 1885 is the most Romantic era symphonies by the composer. The work draws inspiration from Brahms and Tchaikovsky reflecting in the political struggle in Prague. In that sense, it is an intensely patriotic work that balances intense calm with an underlying turmoil. The work, however, is not a programmatic work. The structure is the most ambiguous of his symphonies. The 7th could hardly be a starker contrast to Symphony No. 8 in G major (published as No. 4), a work which Karl Schumann (in booklet notes to a recording of all the symphonies by Rafaek Kubelik) compares to Gustav Mahler. Together with his last symphony, these two are regarded as the peak of Dvoøák's symphonic writing and among the finest symphonies of the 19th century.

By far the most popular, however, is Dvoøák's Symphony No. 9 in E minor (published as No. 5), better known under its subtitle, From the New World. This was written shortly after Dvoøák's arrival in America. At the time of its composition, Dvoøák claimed that he used elements from American music such as Spirituals and Native American music in this work, but he later denied this. The first movement has a solo flute passage very reminiscent of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and one of his students later reported that the second movement depicted, programmatically, the sobbing of Hiawatha. The second movement was so reminiscent of a negro spiritual that lyrics were written for it and it became Goin' Home. Dvoøák was interested in indigenous American music, but in an article published in the New York Herald on December 15, 1893, he wrote 'In the 9th symphony I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of the Indian music.' It is generally accepted that the work has more in common with the folk music of Dvoøák's native Bohemia than with American music.

Neil Armstrong took this symphony to the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission, the first Moon landing mission, in 1969.

Two of the most highly regarded recordings of these symphonies are the cycles by Rafael Kubelik and Libor Pešek.








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Esther Williams

June 16, 2013, 3:48 am
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Obituaries / Esther Williams


Esther Williams
(1921 - 1913)

Born in Los Angeles in 1921, Esther was the youngest of five children. As a teenager, she was determined to become a world champion swimmer, and by the age of 15 had already set records at such events as the Women's Outdoor Nationals and the Pacific Coast Championships. She was slated to participate in the 1940 Olympics, but when they were cancelled due to World War II, Williams went to work for Billy Rose's San Francisco Aquacade. After being spotted by an MGM talent scout, she made her screen debut in 1942 as Mickey Rooney’s love interest in Andy Hardy’s Double Life.
Hoping that a swimming star could surpass a skating queen (Fox’s Sonja Henie), MGM began grooming Miss Williams for the future by completely restructuring her third film. Filming began in 1943 under the title Mr. Co-Ed, starring Red Skelton as the title character. Early into production, producer Jack Cummings soon realized that the leading lady was stealing the picture. The budget increased, and the picture was re-titled, becoming the Technicolor super-spectacular Bathing Beauty. The film was an international smash, and even though Skelton got top billing, it was Esther Williams who walked away with the movie.
Williams immediately clicked with the public and went on to become one of the biggest movie stars of the era. Over the next decade, she captivated audiences in nearly 20 films. Notably, she co-starred with Van Johnson and Lucille Ball in Easy To Wed (1946); played a movie star on a tropical island frolicking with co-stars Peter Lawford, Ricardo Montalban and Jimmy Durante in On an Island with You (1948); sang one of many Frank Loesser tunes, including the Oscar-winning "Baby It's Cold Outside" in Neptune's Daughter (1949); and swam the English Channel, danced with Tom and Jerry and found romance with real-life future husband Fernando Lamas in Dangerous When Wet (1953). All of these films are in this collection.
As Williams’ popularity soared -- she was among the top ten box office stars in 1949 and 1950 – MGM created a special group of movies called “Aqua Musicals,” making her swimming sequences more complex and elaborate with each new picture, and freshening up the act with additions such as trapezes, hang-gliders and fiery hoops.

Other hits included Million Dollar Mermaid and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (also available on DVD from WHV) after which Ms. Williams tried her hand at drama with good performances in films like The Unguarded Moment, Raw Wind in Eden and The Big Show. But she ultimately went back to the water, starring in several TV aquacade spectaculars and acting as spokeswoman for her own swimming-pool company. She retired in 1961 to devote her time to husband Fernando Lamas, her children (including stepson Lorenzo Lamas) and her many business activities. She was rarely seen in public during those years, and was conspicuously absent from the reunion of MGM stars in 1974 participating in the release of That’s Entertainment!, the box-office blockbuster that featured a whole sequence around Esther’s films. Interest in Esther remained high, but she remained out of the public eye until Lamas’ death in 1982. She finally came back to the entertainment world in 1984, when ABC asked her to help provide commentary for the aquatic events at the Los Angeles Olympics, much to the delight of her many fans. The success of her classic films on home video and cable television introduced Esther to a whole new audience, and in 1994, she returned to MGM to serve as one of the hosts in the critically-acclaimed That’s Entertainment! III.







"Esther Williams? Wet, she's a star. Dry, she ain't."



circa 1955: American swimmer and actor who starred in aquatic musicals, Esther Williams, playing with her three children, Susan, Kimball and Ben, in a pool. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
With her three children Susan, Kimball, and Ben in 1955.


Williams married four times. At age 19, she married a "smart, handsome, dependable, and dull" man she met in college. At age 24, she married actor Ben Gage and had three children with him. At age 43, she married her Dangerous While Wet co-star and The Magic Fountain director Fernando Lamas, who forced her give up her career.



Esther Williams during 58th Annual Academy Awards Governor's Ball at Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, United States. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Attended the 58th Annual Academy Awards Governor's Ball in 1986.


After Lamas's death, Williams reemerged into the public eye. She co-hosted the synchronized swimming competition at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, launched a swimwear line, and produced video swimming lessons for children. At age 73, she married actor Edward Bell, with whom she lived out the rest of her life.


About the Films

Bathing Beauty (1944)
Rambunctious funnyman Red Skelton joins Esther Williams in this buoyant (literally) comedy about a lovesick songwriter who enrolls in a women’s college to woo his estranged swimming-teacher wife. Highlights include music from both Harry James and his Music Makers and Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra, Skelton in a pink tutu doing unforgivable things to Tchaikovsky and a spectacular, trendsetting ‘chlorine-and-chorine’ finale.
Special Features:
  • Robert Osborne hosts TCM’s Private Screenings with Esther Williams
  • OscarÒ-nominated Short Main StreetToday
  • Academy AwardÒ-winning Cartoon Mouse Trouble
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Subtitles: English (feature film only)
On an Islandwith You (1948)
Moonlight swims, swaying palms, Technicolor® sunsets and…cannibals?! Esther Williams, Peter Lawford, Ricardo Montalban and Cyd Charisse get the swimming, swaying and sunsets and Jimmy Durante gets the cannibals in this tune-filled paradise for fans of musical comedy. The frothy plot follows a swimming movie star (Williams, who else?) pursued by two handsome suitors on the set of her latest film, but the main point is mostly the songs, romance and Esther in a sizzling series of swimsuits and sarongs.
Special Features:
  • Vintage Romance of Celluloid series short Personalities
  • Classic cartoon The Bear and the Hare
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Subtitles: English (feature film only)
Easy To Wed (1946)
In this fast-paced, romantic comedy – a remake of the screwball 1930’s classic Libeled Lady – the comic bits are legion, with two standouts: Van Johnson afloat with a baleful spaniel who knows a lot more about duck hunting than he does, and a laugh-out-loud drunk scene that uncorks the incomparable lunacy of Lucille Ball. When the local paper runs an untrue story claiming an heiress (Esther Williams) is a husband stealer, she prepares to sue for libel. So a newspaper honcho (Keenan Wynn) devises a counter scheme to compromise her image: He’ll arrange a sham wedding between his fiancée (Lucille Ball) and a newsroom Romeo (Van Johnson), send the Romeo to woo the heiress, and make the phony story come true!
Special Features:
  • OscarÒ-nominated Pete Smith Specialty comedy short Sure Cures
  • Classic cartoon The Unwelcome Guest
  • Theatrical trailers of This Movie and Libeled Lady
  • Subtitles: English (feature film only)
Neptune’s Daughter (1949)
Longing for a Latin lover, boy-crazy Betty Barrett (Betty Garrett) mistakes girl-shy Jack Spratt (Red Skelton) for the South American polo team captain José O’Rourke (Ricardo Montalban). Meanwhile, the real O’Rourke pursues Betty’s elegant sister Eve (Esther Williams). Soon mistaken identities and romantic complications spin into a dizzy mix of slapstick and flirtatious fun. All is set to terrific Frank Loesser songs, including Baby, It’s Cold Outside, winner of the 1949 Best Song Oscar®. The film ends not only happily-ever-after but with (would a Williams fan expect anything less?) a stupendous water ballet.
Special Features:
  • Outtake musical number I Want My Money Back
  • Esther Williams cameo sequence from 1951’s Callaway Went Thataway
  • OscarÒ-Nominated Pete Smith Specialty comedy short Water Trix
  • OscarÒ-nominated cartoon Hatch Up Your Troubles
  • Theatrical trailers of this movie and Take Me Out to the Ball Game
  • Subtitles: English (feature film only)
Dangerous When Wet (1953)
The “just add water” formula works again in this lighthearted mix of romance, music and comedy directed by Charles Walters (Easter Parade). Williams plays Katy, a farm girl who finds romance (with Williams’ future real-life husband Fernando Lamas) while training for a swim across the English Channel. In the film’s key sequence, Williams swims, swirls and swoops with cartoon stars Tom and Jerry in a concoction “brimful of attractive people and attractive performances” (Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical).
Special Features:
  • Outtake musical number C’est La Guerre
  • Pete Smith Specialty comedy short This Is a Living?
  • Classic cartoon Name to Come
  • Esther Williams musicals trailer gallery
  • Subtitles: English (feature film only)




Esther Williams, film and swimming star, 
dies at 91

Swimming champion turned actor, nicknamed Hollywood's Mermaid after her popular aqua-musical roles, dies in her sleep

Reuters in Los Angeles
The Guardian, Thursday 6 June 2013 19.52 BST


Esther Williams
Esther Williams, affectionately known as Queen of the Surf. Photographs: Allstar/Cinetext/MGM

Esther Williams, whose talents as a young swimming champion led to a career starring in Hollywood "aqua-musicals", has died in Beverly Hills,California, aged 91.

Williams, one of the biggest box-office stars of the 1940s and 1950s, died in her sleep and had been in declining health due to old age, her spokesman, Harlan Boll, said.

The actor was nicknamed Hollywood's Mermaid and The Queen of the Surf and, at her peak, the woman with the wide smile and bright eyes was second in earnings only to Betty Grable and often in the top 10 box-office draws.

Williams' aqua-musicals were escapist comedies in lush colour, with lavish song and dance numbers and footage of synchronised swimming. They productions were so popular that some credited her with a jump in the popularity of home swimming pools.

A typical finale featured Williams diving into a pool or lagoon and surfacing to a crescendo of music, with water droplets glistening on her smiling face.

Esther Williams in Bathing Beauty, 1944

She regularly played down her talents, saying: "I can't act, I can't sing, I can't dance. My pictures are put together out of scraps they find in the producer's wastebasket."

After watching the films decades later, she softened that self-deprecating assessment, saying: "I look at that girl and I like her. I can see why she became popular with audiences. There was an unassuming quality about her. She was certainly wholesome."

Williams was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood on 8 August 1921. As a young swimmer, she set what were then world records in the 100m freestyle and 880-yard relay. She also worked as a model.

In her later career, Williams did a few 1960s television specials and hosted swimming events for ABC-TV's coverage of the 1984 Olympic Games.


The Guardian


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James Galdolfini

June 21, 2013, 8:22 am
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(1961 - 2013)


James Gandolfini was an American actor born on September 18, 1961, in Westwood, New Jersey. He discovered acting in the late 1980s and made his Broadway debut in 1992. Gandolfini's breakthrough came in the role of a mobster on the hit 1999 HBO television series The Sopranos. During the show’s six-year run, the actor won numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Emmy. Gandolfini died in Italy after suffering a heart attack on June 19, 2013, at age 51.









James Gandolfini was an American actor best known for his role 
as a mobster on the hit 1999 HBO television series The Sopranos.




Acting Debut

James Joseph Gandolfini Jr. was born on September 18, 1961, in Westwood, New Jersey. Gandolfini grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Rutgers University. He discovered the stage after spending years as a Manhattan bouncer and nightclub manager. When a friend took him to an acting class in the late 1980s, he was left so unsettled and challenged by a focusing exercise that involved threading a needle that he knew he had to return.

Shortly thereafter, James Gandolfini immersed himself in the New York theater world. His Broadway debut came with the 1992 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire with Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin. His New York stage credits also include On the Waterfront, One Day Wonder with the Actor's Studio and Tarantulas Dancing at the Samuel Beckett Theatre.





Breakthrough Role

Gandolfini's breakthrough screen role came with his portrayal of Virgil, the philosophizing hit man, in Tony Scott's True Romancewith Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette. He went on to play a diverse range of roles in more than 25 motion pictures over his decades-long career, including John Cusack's brother in Money for Nothing, Geena Davis's plumber boyfriend in Angie and a loyal Navy lieutenant in Crimson Tide. He also played a pivotal role in Steve Zaillian's A Civil Action alongside John Travolta anda Robert Duvall.




'The Sopranos'

Gandolfini's gift for shedding light on the vulnerable side of seemingly ruthless characters led to his starring role on the acclaimed HBO drama series The Sopranos. In 1999, Gandolfini won both a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of Tony Soprano, a gangster having a midlife crisis. He also won the Emmy Award for outstanding lead actor in a drama series three times—in 2000, 2001 and 2003. Also in 2003, it was announced that The Sopranos would end after its sixth season.
Later Roles

In 2004, Gandolfini appeared in the DreamWorks' comedy Surviving Christmas (2004) with Ben Affleck and the political drama All the King's Men (2006) with Sean Penn. He also continued to work with HBO after The Sopranos ended in 2007, after signing a development deal with the cable channel and its film distribution company, Picturehouse, in August 2006.

Gandolfini began appearing on the big screen again in 2009. He starred in the action dramas The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and In the Loop, and became a voice in the live-action remake of the children's book Where the Wild Things Are (2009).

In 2012, Gandolfini appeared in the crime-thriller Killing Them Softly with Brad Pitt, and played a C.I.A. director in the acclaimed film Zero Dark Thirty alongside Jessica Chastain. He also served as executive producer of the HBO miniseries Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), which explored literary legend Ernest Hemingway's relationship with journalist Martha Gellhorn, who became Hemingway's third wife. The actor took a comedic turn the following year, playing Doug Munny in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) alongside Steve Carell, Jim Carrey and Steve Buscemi.



James Gandolfini and his second wife, Deborah Lin

Personal Life and Death

Gandolfini and his wife, Marcella, married in March 1999 and divorced in December 2002. The couple had one child together, a son named Michael. In January 2004, Gandolfini proposed to his girlfriend, Lora Somoza, but the engagement was later called off.

On June 19, 2013, at the age of 51, Gandolfini died after suffering a heart attack in Rome, Italy, where he had traveled to attend the Taormina Film Festival.






GALLERY


James Gandolfini Dies: Gandolfini as Tony Soprano in season 7 of 'The Sopranos'
Gandolfini as Tony Soprano in the final season of  The Sopranos

James Gandolfini Dies: James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano
James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano

James Gandolfini Dies: James Gandolfini as mob boss Tony Soprano
James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano in an episode from the first season
Photo by Antony Neste

James Gandolfini Dies: Gandolfini as Tony Soprano with Lorraine Bracco as his psychiatrist in 1999
Gandolfini as Tony Soprano
with Lorraine Bracco as his psychiatrist,
1999

James Gandolfini Dies: Director Tony Scott, left, and James Gandolfini
Director Tony Scott, left, and James Gandolfini
on the set of Columbia Pictures' action thriller The Taking of Pelham 123

James Gandolfini Dies: James Gandolfini with his wife Marcy 2000
James Gandolfini with his first wife, Marcy, as he holds his Emmy for lead actor,
won for his starring role in The Sopranos, 2000



James Gandolfini Dies: James Gandolfini and his second wife Deborah Lin
James Gandolfini and his second wife, Deborah Lin, at the 2008 Emmys

James Gandolfini Dies: Gandolfini is congratulated for winning award for best male actor
James Gandolfini is congratulated on winning best male drama actor
for The Sopranos at the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards
in Los Angeles, 2008

James Gandolfini Dies: Gandolfini at Fiamma to Raise Money for the Cancer Research
James Gandolfini signing autographs to raise money
for the Carol M Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund
in New York, 2008

James Gandolfini Dies: James Gandolfini as General Miller in 'In The Loop' a comedy
James Gandolfini as General Miller in In the Loop,
a comedy directed by Armando Iannucci, 2009

James Gandolfini Dies: James Gandolfini in Not Fade Away
James Gandolfini in Not Fade Away, 2012


James Gandolfini Dies: Gandolfini accepting the award for Outstanding Male Actor in a Drama Series
Gandolfini accepting the award for outstanding male actor
in a drama series for his role in The Sopranos
at the ninth annual Screen Actors Guild Awards
Photo by Lucy Nicholson







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Bert Stern

July 1, 2013, 7:54 am
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Bert Stern, 1962
Photo by Irving Penn

Bertram Stern (New York City October 3, 1929 – June 26, 2013) was an American fashion and celebrity portrait photographer.

His best known work is arguably The Last Sitting, a collection of 2,500 photographs taken of Marilyn Monroe over a three-day period, six weeks before her death, taken for Vogue. Stern published Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting in 1992.

Bert Stern, one of the legendary figures in contemporary photography, personified the commercial photographer as cultural hero in the 1960s. Hugely successful in the worlds of fashion and advertising photography, in the late 1960s he operated a studio, not unlike Andy Warhol’s Factory, from which he created countless award-winning ads, editorial features, magazine covers, films, and portraits. His name is firmly associated with the golden age of advertising, and many of his images are classics. 

Stern’s meteoric rise in the 1960s advertising world is represented by such images as his vodka advertisement in which an Egyptian pyramid is seen inverted in a martini glass. Besides working for such clients as IBM, Vogue, Glamour, Life, Revlon, and Smirnoff, he was highly acclaimed for his portraits of celebrities including Gary Cooper and Louis Armstrong. His portraits of stars ranging from Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn to Drew Barrymore, including the spellbinding 1962 “last sitting” photographs of Marilyn Monroe, form a gallery of the most beautiful women of our time. In the 1960s, he became the American prototype of the fashion photographer as media star, and his pictures of models from Twiggy to Iman have become icons to a new generation of photographers. In all of Stern’s works can be seen the remarkable graphic simplicity of his photographic art, as well as his extraordinary rapport with his subjects. 

Born in Brooklyn, New York and self-taught in photography, Stern began his career as assistant to art director Hershel Bramson at Look magazine from 1946 to 1948. Between 1949 and 1951, he was art director at Mayfair magazine, after which he rejoined Bramson at L.C. Gumbiner advertising agency, and helped create the modern advertising photograph. In 1954, he opened the first of four studios in New York, the last closing in 1971. Between 1971 and 1975, Stern lived in Spain. Since 1976, he has continued working in New York on personal as well as commercial assignments. 


Bert Stern
Photo by Neilson Barnard

Talking Talent

Bert Stern



by Laurent Tabach-Bank

April 4, 2013, 11:30 AM



Bert Stern, iconic American photographer of screen sirens Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, has died. The following is our interview from April 2013.

The 83-year-old iconic American photographer Bert Stern, famous for shooting ad campaigns as well as endless screen sirens, will show some never-before-seen images of his famous “last sitting” with Marilyn Monroe at the Staley-Wise Gallery in SoHo today. In conjunction, the filmmaker Shannah Laumeister turns the lens on Stern himself with her no-holds-barred documentary “Bert Stern: Original Mad Man,” which opens on Friday. In the film, Stern is quite candid about his rise from a mailroom boy at Look Magazine in the 1950s to shooting Elizabeth Taylor for Cleopatra, along with his often dark struggles with love, marriage, addiction, financial fallouts and his passion for photography — the one aspect of his life that continues to remain true.

What inspired you to agree to make “Bert Stern: The Original Mad Man”?

The girl, Shannah, who made the movie, is a girl I met when she was 13 and I spent about 20 years photographing, and when she grew up she decided she wanted to make a movie about me. She got interested in films. It wasn’t too hard with her because I like her and she was around a lot, and so it didn’t bother me. I just don’t like being photographed very much.

But you had a camera in your face a great deal to make this.

Yeah, I don’t like being photographed. I don’t do well on camera. I only agreed to do on-camera stuff with her. Because I like her.

Do you think that people will be surprised by how candid you are about your life story?

Well, I’ve got nothing much to hide, so … it is what it is.

There you go. And so I assume you don’t regret anything that you said in it?

I don’t regret anything I said, no. But if I had to live my life over, I certainly would have changed some things. I got into so much trouble with my first marriage with Allegra Kent.

At the beginning of the movie, there’s a quote from you that reads, “I’ve always loved women. I think being a woman must be very difficult. After all, you’re always on the inside.” I’m curious what you mean by that.

I think women are kind of essential. Everything passes through women, and I think they do most of the work in the world, actually.

In a physical way?

In a lot of ways. Women are very essential.

You worked in the mailroom at Look Magazine when then staff photographer Stanley Kubrick befriended you. What was surprising about the notoriously private Kubrick?

He was a great chess player. I used to watch him play chess in Washington Square Park. We were pals when we were both young. He was a wonderful chess player. He was a genius.

Have you spent your entire life in New York?

I was brought up in Brooklyn, and I lived most of the rest of my life in New York City.

How has New York changed in the past 50 years?

I don’t see any change.

Do you think that photography has changed in the past 50 years?

It’s all digital now. It’s much slicker because it’s technologically advanced.


Bert Stern’s photograph of Marilyn Monroe.


Is there any particular photographer working today whose work you admire?

No.

Who was the most challenging person you ever shot?

I don’t know. I guess everybody’s challenging. Usually they ask who’s my favorite. And it’s Marilyn Monroe.

Why do you think the world was, and continues to be, so infatuated with her?

That’s a good one. That’s what they ask me. She’s so American. The American girl.

Do you think her physical appearance would be as popular today as it was in the ’50s?

I think there’s only one Marilyn, so I don’t know. I guess so.

But it seems like the shape of women today is so very different than it was back then, or what’s glamorized.

Well, I don’t know, there’s always some girl. Now it seems to be this girl Kate Upton. She looks interesting to me. I’ve never met her, but I would like to photograph her, if you asked me if there’s anybody I would like to photograph.

Who would you love to shoot that you never had the opportunity to shoot?

I told you. Kate Upton.

But what about like an Angelia Jolie or someone like that?

No, I’m not interested in her.

It’s really just about Kate?

At the moment.

Were you ever interested in shooting men, or only women?

I like men. You know, Gary Cooper, Marcello Mastroianni. There’s always interesting men.

How do you feel about being called a Mad Man in the film’s title?

Well, I think Mad Man refers to advertising, to the show “Mad Men.” I started my career in advertising and made a mark there, when I first started in photography. I was very successful in advertising. So some guy in advertising — I forget his name, he’s in the movie — he called me the original Mad Man, and that kind of became the title for the film.

But people could also read it another way. Considering your wild antics and colorful life.

Well, I think that’s true too. A little crazy, yeah.

Do you agree with that?

Yes.

Do you think the show “Mad Men” is a good representation of advertising in the 1960s?

Yes, I do. I think it’s, um, it’s a little bit later than when I started. I started in advertising with my first Smirnoff ad in 1953 after I got out of the army. But I think it’s pretty good.

“The Pill Book” put you back on the map, after a low point in your career. What inspired you to shoot the iconic cover of that book?

It’s very handy. When I was younger and seeing a therapist during problems with my marriage to Allegra, some doctor had given me a thing called Dexedrine to take if I was tired in the afternoon, and he said, “Well, you shouldn’t be taking that.” So he brought this big book out of his bookshelf, and he said, “Could you show me which one it is?” So I said, “Oh, that’s a far-out book. It has pictures.” So years later when I had problems and I came back from my troubled days in Spain, and I had many problems, I remembered that idea. And I visited a publisher that was doing a book on pills, and I noticed it had no pictures in it. So I thought it was a good time to activate that idea, and I knew that it would be very popular.

And it was huge.

Huge.

It still is.

Still is, yeah. I don’t have anything to do with it anymore, but it became huge, and is huge.

Did you ever want to make another film after making “Jazz on a Summer’s Day”? Or did you ever make another film?

I made some Twiggy documentaries that were on ABC. But I think making films is quite a task. So I’m involved with Shannah, we’re working on a script for a feature based on the documentary, but that’s about it.

Are you still shooting a lot?

No, not too much. I’m archiving. It’s much more difficult.

So it’s really always been about photography?

I’ve always been about being a photographer.



Marilyn in the Nude, Lolita in the Sun, 
Martinis in Egypt: Bert Stern's Lost Lens



by Esther Zuckerman
JUN 27, 2013

Bert Stern, who died Tuesday at the age of 83, was perhaps best known for his raw, uninhibited photograph of Marilyn Monroe lounging in a hotel room just six weeks before she died. But many of Stern's lucid, eye-popping images entered the collective consciousness. Stern was called an "original madmen," according to a recent documentary, and Paul Vitello wrote in his New York Times obituary that Stern was "part of a generation of photographers who made clear, clutter-free, arresting images the language of glossy magazine advertising, which until then had mainly used pictures to illustrate text." To remember him, let's look at some of his most iconic images. 


Marilyn, 1962

Shot for Vogue magazine, Stern's photos of Marilyn—who poses in various states of undress—are tinged with sadness due to their proximity to her death. Per the Times obit, Stern told Newsday: "I didn't say, 'Pose nude.' It was more one thing leading to another: You take clothes off and off and off and off and off. She thought for a while. I'd say something and the pose just led to itself." In 2008 Stern would recreate recreated the shoot for New York with another troubled starlet: Lindsay Lohan. 

Lolita, 1960 

Stern shot images like this one for Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Lolita. As Steven Heller wrote in The Atlantic, Stern directly undercut the studio's wishes to downplay the scandalous nature of the subject matter. "Movie posters are rarely more than mediocre sales tools, but Stern could not abide mediocrity," Hell wrote. "What's more, he couldn't resist the temptation to be bad. So, while driving [actress Sue] Lyon to the photo shoot, Stern recalled that he serendipitously found the sunglasses in Woolworths, bought them, put them on Lyons and instantly had the perfect shot—the studio be damned." 


SMIRNOFF, GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZA, 1955


This Smirnoff vodka advertisement was, according to Vitello, the way Stern "made his mark." It was called "the most influential break with traditional advertising photography." 

Stern's film documenting the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival features performances from the likes of Thelonius Monk and Dinah Washington and has a home in the Library of Congress.. 


Twiggy, 1967

Stern said his favorite subjects were models, like Twiggy. "What makes a great model is her need, her desire; and it’s exciting to photograph desire," he said. 



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Vanessa Paradis / An angel

July 7, 2013, 12:41 am
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(1972)

She is called an angel for an angel face and angelic voice. For fifteen years she has become one of the most popular singers, to twenty-five – the most brilliant young actress in France. She beat all the living legends of French cinema – Zhannom Sea, Gerard Depardieu, Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo and put a spell on one of the most handsome men.

Vanessa Paradis was born on 22 December 1972 in the Paris suburb of Saint-Maur. Her parents were both directors raised his daughter in a peaceful and happy atmosphere. The girl was fond of singing and dancing since early childhood. Uncle of Vanessa, a French actor Didier Pain, quickly recognized the vocal talent and persuaded her niece to let her parents Vanessa on television contest of “L’Ecole des fans”. May 3, 1980 7-year-old Vanessa was the first impression of show business, performing on the famous song contest Philip breaker “Emilie Jolie”.

There was a huge success, but the parents of Vanessa is not much enjoy it. They preferred that it would continue its peaceful existence in their new home on the banks of the river Marne. But next year, they have allowed Vanessa to take part in Junior Eurovision pop song at the Eurovision prize in Italy in Turin. Vanessa did not win, but participated in the contest gave her a valuable musical experience for her future career.





In 1985, Vanessa uncle Didier Pain, invited her niece to the studio in Paris, where his friends worked on the musical works for the actress Sophie Marceau. When they heard the voice of a young Vanessa, they were so impressed that he offered to write a song for her. So a song that has received a resounding success “Joe le taxi”. “Joe le taxi” appeared on April 27, 1987, and became very popular in France. By August 1, she became a single N1 – has sold more than 1 million copies. The song became a hit in 15 countries. So the 15-year-old Vanessa Paradis became a star. Her uncle, Didier Pain became her manager, and the parents of Vanessa began to follow closely behind her singing career in order to protect the boy from the operation and to transfer its entire profit to the bank account until she turns 18.

In November 1989 Vanessa Paradis began her acting career, playing a starring role in Jean Claude Brisseau “White Wedding”. Despite all the difficulties, Vanessa played well and proved to the audience that it – not only in Bmpatichnaya muzzle. After explicit erotic scenes, where a young girl posed naked ladies on the streets after her spit and it happened that pulled her hair, and reputable journals published polls “What women hate Vanessa?”. The walls of entrance to the house where she lived Paradis, were filled with obscenities, and her younger sister had to leave college, where she was called “sister whores.” The following year, Vanessa Paradis has received two prestigious awards for this film.

February 21, 1990, the young actress was awarded the “Romy Schneider” and less than a month later, on March 3, she was recognized as “Best Young French actress.” She went albums “Variations Sur Le Meme T’aime” (1990), “Vanessa Paradis” (1992) “Live” (1994). Also, Vanessa Paradis paid tribute to the modeling business, having signed a contract with “Chanel”. Depp she met in 1992 in New York, where Vanessa flew to a meeting with the producers – so breathe a New York draft, chat with friends.

Johnny at the time also had a girlfriend. He was fond of Kate Moss. Kate Moss before he was fond of Winona Ryder. With Kate bound to something deep and serious. She understood him, they were almost engaged, and Kate gave Johnny a black ring in the form of a death’s head. “This is so you do not forget that you are mortal,” – said Kate. Because – that’s it – Johnny never thought about it, as is generally thought about nonsense – of life or death there. He is constantly balancing between. And it is heavily failures that are not saved or Kate, or death’s head, which she gave.

And then there was in their company, Vanessa. She flew from Paris. And then flew away to Paris. It has been nice. She spoke with a French accent. Then she fell badly on the set of Johnny and charmed with his leg in plaster. These two were all that is necessary for the ideal romantic couple: they share the ocean, and social origin. But all were united, even the names, for Johnny in the Russian equivalent – Vanya. Well, nothing a couple: Ivan and Vanessa. No one really knew for whom the angel (the so-called Vanessa) each month crosses the ocean.

There were no photos in love couple in society pages, there was no discussion of the details of the novel in the magazines. In 1997, Vanessa starred in the mystical comedy Rene Manzoni “Spellbound Love”. She plays the young witch, who rescues her baby from an evil sorcerer Milk, played by Jean Reno. “I loved to play the role of the mother …” – More than once in an interview with Vanessa. But journalists did not pay any attention to these words until such time as the love of Vanessa’s role mommy to (and Johnny Depp) does not take concrete form. The first child, daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp, came from Vanessa and Johnny Depp during the filming of this movie.

She was born in Paris, at the American Hospital Noe. After birth, Vanessa changed externally: thin incredible, with her face disappeared puppet, his cheeks became the fashion vpalymi.Vse were shocked. You bet! Johnny Depp – is not just a movie star, a guru of the young generation of Hollywood! Their love was immediately called love angel and demon.

According to Depp, becoming a father – the best thing that happened to him in life. He has changed a lot. I bought a house in the style of the thirties glamora and moved there with baby Vanessa. But their happiness was short-lived: Depp returned to his former girlfriend. Even love is not easy to Vanessa was given. But she was not desperate. As a result of her tenacity and almost childish fascination Johnny returned. Even more: the happy couple gave birth to her second child.
The boy was named Jack. Mr. Depp has said that the baby would live in France, because in America, “too much violence.” Children are not prevented from Vanessa to pursue her musical career.


Synopis

Vanessa Paradis released her first single, "Joe le Taxi, in 1987, and the song became a #1 hit in France. Soon after she began her singing career, she crossed over into acting, making her debut inNoce Blanche at age 17. After several more successful albums and films, establishing Paradis’s status as French superstar, she started modeling (again) and had two children with actor Johnny Depp.

Early Life

Singer, actress. Born Vanessa Chantal Paradis in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, France on December 22, 1972, to interior designers Andre and Corrine. Paradis enjoyed singing from an early age. Her career began to develop when she was eight years old, after her uncle, record producer Didier Pain, used his connections to get his nice on the popular French TV show L'Ecole Des Fans (The School of Fans). The program gave children the opportunity to perform their own renditions of popular songs on a a television talent show. Paradis sang a song from the musical Emilie Jolie by Philippe Chatel, who was the special guest on the program.

At the age of 13, Vanessa Paradis recorded her first single, "La Magie Des Surprises-Parties" ("The Magic of Surprise Parties"). But her career didn't take off until the age of 16, when she released her first single "Joe le Taxi" (1987). The song became a No. 1 hit in France, and a year later she launched her debut album, M&J (1988). The album, featuring her popular single "Joe le Taxi," peaked at No. 13 on the French Album Chart, making Paradis an overnight sensation.

Soon after she began her singing career, Paradis crossed over into acting. She made her debut in the film Noce blanche (White Wedding) in 1989 at the age of 17. In the film, Paradis played a teenage drug addict who has a love affair with her older professor. Her performance earned her a Cesar, France's most prestigious acting award.

Music Successes

Her next album, Variations Sur Le Mme T'aime (1990) (Variations on the Same Theme) featured a remake of the Lou Reed hit, "Walk on the Wild Side," and was produced with the help of French actor and producer, Serge Gainsbourg. The new record was an even greater success, ranking No. 6 on the French charts and receiving high praise from critics. This same year, Vanessa's nymphish looks attracted the attention of the Chanel fashion and cosmetics company. The talented actress and singer became the face of Chanel's perfume line, Coco, in 1991.

When Vanessa turned 20, she released her first English album, the self-titled Vanessa Paradis. Her boyfriend at the time, American musician Lenny Kravitz, helped Paradis write and produce the album. Critics lauded the record as Paradis' greatest achievement to date, and fans agreed. Vanessa Paradis landed at No. 1 on the French music charts, and the single "Be My Baby" made it into the Top 40 in the U.K., Sweden and Austria.



Film Career

After the success of her third recording, Paradis launched a European tour.

She played more than 70 concerts, and released the album Vanessa Paradis Live (1994) before returning to France to star in the drama Elisa (1995) opposite Gerard Depardieu. Once again, Paradis' performance garnered rave reviews from critics, and propelled the starlet firmly into the ranks of A-list actors. After the success of this film, Paradis devoted herself almost entirely to acting.In 1999 Paradis managed to balance pregnancy and a new film project. She played a woman on the edge of death in the movie La Fille du Pont (Girl on the Bridge), which became an arthouse classic in both France and the U.S. That same year, on May 27, 1999, Paradis gave birth to daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp.surprised audiences with her next film choice: the romantic comedyUn Amour de Sorciere (1997) (Witch Way Love). She followed up her performance with the action comedy Une Chance Sux Deux (1998). That same year, Paradis met American actor Johnny Depp while he was in France filming his new movie The Ninth Gate (1999). They instantly hit it off, and by the end of the year the couple announced that they were expecting their first child.

Inspired by her foray into family life, Paradis created the 2000 album, Bliss. Companion Johnny Depp played guitar on several of the tracks, and the voice of Lily Rose was also featured on the album. Bliss was an instant hit and, following the success of her past album, also hit No. 1 on the French charts. She released her second live album, Au Zenith, in 2001. The next year, in April of 2002, she and Depp welcomed son, John Christopher "Jack" Depp III.

Paradis continued to act, model, and sing, appearing in the film Mon Ange (2004), while also promoting Chanel's new line of handbags, Ligne Cambon, and working on a new album.

In 2007, she stepped back into the spotlight with her long-awaited album Divinidylle, which earned the multi-talented Paradis two Les Victoires de la Musique awards and resulted in a successful music tour to promote the album. That same year she also appeared in the film La clef (2007).

Paradis became the new face of fashion line Miu Miu in 2008, shortly after the company released Kirsten Dunst from the campaign. Paradis is also currently at work on the films The Midwife Crisis and Un monstre a Paris April which will be released in 2010.

Paradis, Depp and their children currently split their time between homes in Los Angeles, Paris, New York and the Bahamas.

Beatiful Pictures

Wikipedia


ALBUMES
M & J (1987)Francia #13
Variations Sur Le Même T'aime (1990) Francia #6
Vanessa Paradis (1992) Francia #1 (Reino Unido #45)
Vanessa Paradis Live (1994) Francia #7
Bliss (2000) Francia #1
Vanessa Paradis live au Zenith (2001) Francia #19
Divinidylle (2007), Francia #1
Vanessa Paradis, best of (2010), Francia #1
Love songs (2013),13 de mayo 2013, Francia #1


SINGLES
"Joe Le Taxi" (#1, 1987)
"Manolo Manolete" (#10, 1988)
"Marilyn & John" (#4, 1988)
"Maxou" (#13, 1988)
"Coupe Coupe" (#20, 1989)
"Tandem" (#22, 1990)
"Dis-lui Toi Que Je T'aime" (#41, 1990)
"Be My Baby" (#5, 1992)
"Sunday Mondays" (#41, 1992)
"Commando" (2000)
"Pourtant" (2000)
"Que fait la vie?" (2000)
"Made in asia" (2006)
"Divine Idylle" (2007)
"Dès que j'te vois" (2007)
"L'incendie" (2008)
"Les Piles"(verano del 2008) (en dúo con Matthieu Chédid)
"Joe le taxi" (2008) (directo)
"Il y a" (2009)
"Joe le taxi (versión acústica)" (2010)
Love song (2013)
Station quatre septembre (2013)


FILMOGRAPHY
Noce blance (1989) by Jean-Claude Brisseau.
Elisa (1965) by Jean Becker.
Un amour de sorcière (1997)by René Manzor.
Une chance sur deux (1998) by Patrice Leconte.
La Fille sur le pont (1999) by Patrice Leconte.
Lost in La Mancha (2002) by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe.
Atomik Circus, le retour de James Bataille (2004) by Didier Poiraud and Thierry Poiraud.
Tony 'n' Tinas's Wedding (2004) by Roger Paradiso.
Mon ange (2005) by Serge Frydman.
The Gypsy's Curse (2005) by Philippe Decouflé.
La clef (2007) by Guillaume Nicloux.
L'arnacoeur (2010) by Pascal Chaumeil.
Un monstre á Paris (2011) by Bibo Bergeron.
Café de Flore (2011) by Jean-Marc Vallée.
Je me suis fait tout petit (2012) by Cécilia Rouaud.
Cornouaille (2012) by Anne Le Ny.
Duba ï Flamingo (2012) by Delphine Kreuter.
Fading Gigolo (2013) by John Turturro.

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foto inedita de Vanessa desnuda para Ellen Von Unwerth - Aii nono sale muy sexy con esa ropa transparente ahora entraba a la pagina de vanessa y me encontre con esta foto super sexy de Van de aquella sesion de ellen en la que tenia el yeso el pelo rizado y desnuda con la tela transparente cubriendola que hermosa no puede ser mas perfecta si la quieren esta aca en mi blog sin marcar y en el tamaño real: http://solovelysweetdreams.blogspot.com/2010/05/vanessa-paradis-desnuda-en-una-foto.html http://solovelysweetdreams.blogspot.com/ http://www.fotolog.com/valepp_4ever http://www.fotolog.com/oohlaladies - Fotolog

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Juan Rulfo

July 14, 2013, 3:12 am
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(1917 - 1986)




Mexican novelist and short story writer, one of Spanish America's most esteemed authors. Rulfo's reputation is based on two slim books, El llano en llamas (1953, The Burning Plain), a collection of short stories, which included his admired tale 'Tell Them, Not to Kill Me!', and the timeless novel Pedro Páramo (1955), one of the models for Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. After publishing the work, Rulfo fell silent as a novelist.



Photo by Juan Rulfo


"But that's why they brought him from there, from Palo de Venado. They didn't need to tie him so he'd follow them. He walked alone, tied by his fear. They realized the couldn't run with his old body, with those skinny legs of his like dry bark, cramped up with the fear of dying. Because that's where he was headed. For death. They told him so." (from 'Tell Them Not to Kill Me!')

Photo by Juan Rulfo

Juan Rulfo was born Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Vizcaíno Rulfo in Sayula, in the province of Jalisco, into a family of landowners. (According to one source, his birth year was 1917, not 1918.) His ancestors came to South America from the north of Spain around 1790. During Rulfo's childhood the region was a scene of political unrest, erosion and war, and it later provided the background and atmosphere of his fiction.
Rulfo experienced the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and cristero rebellion. It caused widespread destruction in the late 1920s. Rulfo's family suffered financial ruin. His father and two uncles were murdered in the troubles, and his mother died in 1927 of a heart attack. 
Rulfo was brought up by his grandmother in San Gabriel and sent to the San Gabriel orphanage. After attending the Luis Silva school in Guadaljara from 1928 to 1932 and then seminary and secondary school, Rulfo moved to Mexico City, where he studied for a short time law at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Yet for all his efforts he could never overcome his feeling of depression and solitude. Forced to give up his studies, Rulfo worked for the next two decades as an immigration agent in Mexico City, Tampico, Guadalajara, and Veracruz. In 1947 he married Clara Aparicio, they had one daughter and three sons.
In 1944 Rulfo cofounded with Juan José Arreola and Antonio Alatorre of the literary review Pan. He worked for Goodrich-Euzkadi rubber company (1947-1954), and in 1955-56 he was a staff member of the publishing section of the Papaloapan Commission for land development. In the late 1950s he wrote screenplays in Mexico City and worked then in television in Guadalajara. From the early 1960s Rulfo was a staff member and later the director of the editorial department of National Institute for Indigenous Studies, where he edited seventy anthropological and archaeological volumes on indigenous peoples. The work took him away from writing fiction. In 1980 Rulfo was elected member of the Mexican Academy of Letters. His many  awards include the National Literature Prize in 1970 and Príncipe de Asturias Prize in 1983. Rulfo died in Mexico City on January 7, 1986. 
Rulfo began writing around 1940, but destroyed his first novel. At the age of 35 Rulfo published first collection of short stories, El llano en llamas (The Burning Plain), which consists of fifteen tales. It was published in the series 'Letras Mexicanas'in editions between 2,000 and 4,000 copies. Rulfo was frustrated at the low sales of the book. 
Cruel view of the world marked Rulfo's world – a girl is forced to prostitution, a cuckolded husband dies on a pilgrimage, people are crippled by their poverty. In 1953 he started to write the novel Pedro Páramo. These works sum up the so-called "novel of the Mexican revolution." Rulfo did not talk much of his fiction. Writing, he maintained, was not his profession, but his hobby. Rulfo was known to write a novel entitled La cordillera, but he did not show the manuscript to anybody. However, he wrote several film scripts, of which Gallo de orofrom 1964 is most famous.
The rebellion of the Cristeros (self-designated followers of Christ the King) had a strong impact on Rulfo's imagination, which can be seen in the title story of El llano en llamas, 'La noche que lo dejaron solo.' Autobiographical material, especially the killing of his father, shaped 'Tell Them Not to Kill Me!' In the story about a revenge an old man pleads to his own son, Justino, to intervene on his behalf. Another son, colonel, has come back and orders the damned man to be shot – years ago during a drought he had killed the colonel's father. "There he was, slumped down at the foot of the post. His son Justino had come and his son Justino had gone and had returned and now was coming again."
The theme of the search for the father marks also Pedro Páramo from the start: "I came to Comala because I was told that my father, a certain Pedro Páramo, lived there." (Vine a Comala porque me dijeron que acá vivía mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo. Mi madre me lo dijo. Y lo le prometi que vendría a verlo en cuanto ella muriera.) Rulfo blends black humor and modern experimental techniques with Mexican folklore. Noteworthy, the indigenous people are mentioned only in one passage. He once said: "I never use Indians because it's impossible for me to enter and be able to delve into the indigenous mentality."
The son of the main character, Juan Preciado, travels to his mother's birthplace to search out his father. He only hears in the ghost town voices of phantoms.Comala, a barred dustbowl, is so hot, that when its people die and arrive in Hell they have to come back to fetch a blanket. Doña Eduviges, Damiana who had lived in Páramo's house, Dorotea a mad woman who had procured women for Páramo's son, all these appear as living people to Preciado. Pedro loves Susanna, who dies and allows his land to fall into ruin: "From that moment, the earth remained fallow and as if in ruins. It was terrible to see it overrun with such infirmities and so many scourges which invaded it as soon as it was left alone. And all because of the ideas of Don Pedro, for the conflicts of his soul." But everybody is already dead, his father has also taken the town, Comala, with him to the grave. The reader realizes that Juan Preciado is another afterlife voice in this Mexican Spoon River Anthology. The story ends with Pedro Páramado's murder by one of his other sons. Pedro Páramo has influenced deeply Latin American literature. Gabriel Garcia Marquez included a sentence from the book in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Also Rulfo's ghost town, populated by phantoms, partly inspired García Márquez's portrayal of his mythical town of Macondo.
Rulfo challenged the mainstream of Mexican narrative, its adherence to French naturalism. He mixed reality and fantasy, used short sentences, concentrated on behavior rather than states of consciousness, and avoided clearly judging characters he described. Rulfo's work also showed the influence of such Nordic writers as Knut Hamsum, Selma Lagerlöf, F. E. Sillanpää, and Halldor K. Laxness. Also Emily Brontë and William Faulkner left traces in Rulfo's fiction. Typical for Rulfo's stories were problematic father-son relationships, flashbacks of violence, upside-down chronology, haunting visions, and the burden of guilt and death. Dialogue is often treated as monologue. The Mexican poet Octavio Paz once said that Rulfo is "the only Mexican novelist to have provided us an image – rather than a mere description – of our physical surroundings."



For further reading: (Re)Collecting the Past: History and Collective Memory in Latin American Narrative, ed. Victoria Carpenter (2010);Juan Rulfo's Mexico by Juan Rulfo, Carlos Fuentes, Margo Glantz and Jorge Alberto Lozoya (2002); Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, Vol. 3, ed. by Steven Serafin (1999); Ensayos sobre la obra de Juan Rulfo by Gustavo Fares (1998); Juan Rulfo by Gustavo C. Fares (1994); Los caminos de la creación en Juan Rulfo by Sergio López Mena (1993); Juan Rulfo by Silvia Lorente-Murphy (1988); El Texto En Llamas: El Arte Narrativo De Juan Rulfo by Terry J. Peavler (1988) ; Rulfo: dinámica de la violerncia by Magda Portal (1984); Juan Rulfoby Luis Leal (1983), Analisis Arquetipico, Mitico Y Simbologico De Pedro Paramo by Nicolas E. Alvarez (1983); Claves narrativas de Juan Rulfo by José Carlos Gonzáles Boixo (1980); World Authors 1970-1975, ed. by John Wakeman (1980); El lugar de Rulfo by Jorge Ruffinelli (1980); El Estilo De Juan Rulfo by Nila G. Marrone (1978) ; La narrativa de Juan Rulfo, ed. by Joseph Sommers (1974); Paradise and Fall in Rulfo's "Pedro Páramo" by George Ronald Freeman (1970); An Introduction to Spanish-American Literature by Jean Franco (1969); After the Storm by J. Sommers (1968); Into the Mainstream by L. Harss and B. Dohmann (1966); El arte de Juan Rulfo by Alcalá Rodríguez (1965)



Selected works:
  • El llano en llamas, 1953 
    - The Burning Plain and Other Stories (translated by G.D. Schade, 1967) / The Plain in Flames (translated from the Spanish by Ilan Stavans with Harold Augenbraum, 2012) 
    - Tasanko liekeissä (suom. Tarja Roinila, 1998)
  • Pedro Páramo, 1955 
    - Pedro Páramo (tr.  Lysander Kemp, 1959;  Margaret Sayers Peden; with a foreword by Susan Sontag, 1994) 
    - Pedro Páramo (suom. Tarja Roinila, 1991) 
    - films: 1967, dir. by Carlos Velo, screenplay by Carlos Fuentes, starring John Gavin, Ignacio López Tarso, Pilar Pellicer; 1978, dir. by José Bolaños, starring Manuel Ojeda, Venetia Vianello, Bruno Rey, Narciso Busquets, Blanca Guerra; 2009, dir. by Mateo Gil
  • Tambien ellos tienen ilusiones, 1956 (documentary film; co-writer, dir. by Adolfo Garnica)
  • El Despojo, 1960 (short film; writer, dir. by Antonio Reynoso)
  • Paloma herida, 1963 (film; co-writer, dir. by Emilio Fernández)
  • Que esperen los viejos, 1976 (film; co-writer, dir. by José Bolaños)
  • Obra completa, 1977
  • Antología personal, 1978  
  • El gallo de oro y otros textos para cine, 1980 (edited by Jorge Ayala)
  • Inframundo, El México de Juan Rulfo, 1980 
    - Inframundo: The Mexico of Juan Rulfo (edited by Frank Janney, 1984)
  • Donde quedo nuestra historia: hipotesis sobre historia regional, 1986
  • Toda la obra, 1991 (edited by Claude Fell)
  • Los cuadernos de Juan Rulfo, 1994 (edited by Clara Aparicio de Rulfo)
  • Aire de las colinas: cartas a Clara, 2000
  • Voces y silencios, 2001
  • Letras e imágenes, 2002 (introduction by VÍctor Jiménez)
  • El gallo de oro; Formula secreta, 2010 (introduction by  Jose Carlos Gonzalez Boixo, Douglas Weatherford)
  • 100 photographs, 2010




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Maya Angelou

January 1, 2013, 3:56 am
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(1928)

Maya Angelou is part of the fabric of modern America. She has told her story of being a key part of the civil rights movement through poetry, novels and film. She is best known for her six autobiographies, most notably ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’. In 1993, President Bill Clinton asked her to recite one of her poems at his inauguration.

Angelou was born in Missouri in 1928 into a deeply segregated society. Her parent’s divorce meant she was sent back and forth between her mother and grandmother. Her mother’s boyfriend raped her when she was eight. His later murder left Angelou mute for five years. She studied drama and literature at school, and three weeks after graduating, gave birth to her son.

Angelou struggled to survive for many years. She experienced poverty, crime, prostitution and her son being kidnapped. She won a scholarship to study dance. Her career as a singer and dancer took off. She moved to New York and acted in Broadway plays. She also met Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and became active in the civil rights movement.

Angelou became, and is to this day, a prolific writer. She also toured the USA giving lectures, appeared in TV series and wrote songs. Her screenplay, ‘Georgia, Georgia’ was the first written by a black woman to be made into a movie. Angelou has been highly honored for her significant cultural contributions and has over 30 honorary degrees. She is an American legend.

http://famouspeoplelessons.com/m/maya_angelou.html


File:Angelou Obama.jpg
President Barack Obama presenting Maya Angelou with the Presidential Medal of Freedom
White House, February 2011



List of awards and nominations received by Maya Angelou

African American writer and poet Maya Angelou has been honored by universities, literary organizations, government agencies, and special interest groups. Her honors include a National Book Award nomination for her first autobiographyI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her book of poetry Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, a Tony Award nomination for her role in the 1973 play Look Away, and three Grammys for her spoken word albums. In 1995, Angelou was recognized by her publishing company, Bantam Books, for having the longest-running record (two years) on The New York Times Paperback Nonfiction Bestseller List. She has served on two presidential committees, and was awarded the Lincoln Medal in 2008, the National Medal of Artsin 2000, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. Over 30 health care and medical facilities have been named after Angelou.She has been awarded over thirty honorary degrees.
Awards

Chubb Fellowship, Yale University, 1970.
Coretta Scott King Honor, 1971.
Pulitzer Prize Nomination, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, 1972.
Tony Award Nomination, Look Away, 1973.
Member, American Revolution Bicentennial Council (appointed by President Gerald Ford), 1975-1976.
Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Resident, 1975.
Ladies' Home Journal Award ("Woman of the Year in Communication"), 1976.
Member, Presidential Commission for International Women's Year, appointed by Jimmy Carter, 1977.
Reynold's Professor of American Studies, Wake Forest University (lifetime appointment), 1981.
Ladies' Home Journal, "Top 100 Most Influential Women," 1983.
Matrix Award, Field of Books from Women in Communication, Inc., 1983.
Member, North Carolina Arts Council, 1984.
Fulbright Program 40th Anniversary Distinguished Lecturer, 1986.
The North Carolina Award in Literature, 1987.
Golden Plate Award, Academy of Achievement, 1990.
Candace Award, National Coalition of 100 Black Women, 1990.
Langston Hughes Medal, 1991.
Horatio Alger Award, 1992.
Distinguished Woman of North Carolina, 1992.
Crystal Award, Women in Film, 1992
Inaugural Poet, 1993.
Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, 1993.
Grammy, "Best Spoken Word Album," "On The Pulse of Morning," 1993.[20]
Citizen Diplomat Award, National Council for International Visitors (NCIV), 1993.[21]
Rollins College Walk of Fame, 1994.[22][23]
Spingarn Medal (NAACP), 1994.[24]
Frank G. Wells American Teachers Award, 1995.[25]
Grammy, "Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album," Phenomenal Woman, 1995.
American Ambassador, UNICEF, 1996.
NAACP Image Award, Literary Work, Nonfiction, 1997.
Presidential and Lecture Series Award, University of North Florida, 1997.
Homecoming Award, Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers, 1997.
Alston/Jones International Civil and Human Rights Award, 1998.
Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, 1998.
Christopher Award, 1999.
Shelia Award, Tubman African American Museum, 1999.
Special Olympics World Games, Speaker, Raleigh, NC, 1999.
Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature, 1999.
Named one of "the top 100 best writers of the 20th Century," Writer's Digest, 1999.
National Medal of Arts, 2000.
Ethnic Multicultural Media Awards (EMMAs), Lifetime Achievement, 2002.
Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album, "A Song Flung Up to Heaven," 2002.
American Geriatrics Society's Foundation for Health In Aging Award, 2002
National Conference for Community and Justice, Charles Evans Hughes Award, 2004.
Howard University Heart's Day Honoree, 2005.
John Hope Franklin Award, June 2006.
Black Caucus of American Library Association, Joint Conference of Librarians of Color Author Award, 2006.
New York Times Best Seller List, May 2006.
John Hope Franklin Award, 2006.
Mother Teresa Award, 2006.
Martha Parker Legacy Award, 2007.
Inducted in the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, 2008[44]
Voice of Peace award (first recipient), Hope for Peace and Justice, 2008.
Cornell Medallion, 2008
Gracie Allen Award (Gracie), 2008.
Lincoln Medal, 2008.
Marian Anderson Award, 2008.
Black Caucus of American Library Association, Literary Award, 2009.
Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2010.
Black Cultural Society Award, Elon University, 2012.
Honorary degreesPortland State University, 1973.
Smith College, 1975.
Mills College, 1975.
Lawrence University, 1976.
Wake Forest University, 1977.
Columbia College Chicago, 1979.
Occidental College, 1979.
Atlanta University, 1980.
University of Arkansas at Pinebluff, 1980.
Wheaton College, 1981.
Northeastern University, 1982.
Kean College of New Jersey, 1982.
Claremont Graduate University, 1982.
Spelman College, 1983.
Boston College, 1983.
Winston-Salem State University, 1984
University Brunesis, 1984.
Rollins College, 1985.
Howard University, 1985.
Tufts University, 1985.
University of Vermont, 1985.
North Carolina School of the Arts, 1986.
Mount Holyoke College, 1987.
University of Southern California, 1989.
Skidmore College, 1993.
Northeastern University, 1992.
University of North Carolina, 1993.
Academy of Southern Arts and Letters, 1993.
American Film Institute, 1994.
Bowie State University, 1994.
University of Durham, 1995.
Shaw University, 1997.
Lafayette College, 1999.
Hope College, 2001.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003.
Columbia University, 2003.
Eastern Connecticut University, 2003
Chapman University, 2007
Shenandoah University, 2008Source: Wikipedia


Garden Party Celebration For Dr. Maya Angelou's 82nd Birthday


Global Renaissance Woman

Dr. Maya Angelou is one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. Hailed as a global renaissance woman, Dr. Angelou is a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.

Born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, Dr. Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture.

As a teenager, Dr. Angelou’s love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. At 14, she dropped out to become San Francisco’s first African-American female cable car conductor. She later finished high school, giving birth to her son, Guy, a few weeks after graduation. As a young single mother, she supported her son by working as a waitress and cook, however her passion for music, dance, performance, and poetry would soon take center stage.

In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and, in 1957, recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom.

In 1960, Dr. Angelou moved to Cairo, Egypt where she served as editor of the English language weeklyThe Arab Observer. The next year, she moved to Ghana where she taught at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times.

During her years abroad, Dr. Angelou read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti. While in Ghana, she met with Malcolm X and, in 1964, returned to America to help him build his new Organization of African American Unity.

Shortly after her arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated, and the organization dissolved. Soon after X's assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Angelou to serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King's assassination, falling on her birthday in 1968, left her devastated.

With the guidance of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Published in 1970, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published to international acclaim and enormous popular success. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now includes more than 30 bestselling titles.

A trailblazer in film and television, Dr. Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an African American woman ever to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

She continues to appear on television and in films including the landmark television adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots (1977) and John Singleton's Poetic Justice(1993). In 1996, she directed her first feature film,Down in the Delta. In 2008, she composed poetry for and narrated the award-winning documentary The Black Candle, directed by M. K. Asante.

Dr. Angelou has served on two presidential committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and has received 3 Grammy Awards. President Clinton requested that she compose a poem to read at his inauguration in 1993. Dr. Angelou's reading of her poem "On Pulse of the Morning"  was broadcast live around the world.

Dr. Angelou has received over 30 honorary degrees and is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

Dr. Angelou’s words and actions continue to stir our souls, energize our bodies, liberate our minds, and heal our hearts.


http://mayaangelou.com/bio/



Maya Angelou

A Brave and Startling Truth

by Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.





Books

  • Great Food, All Day Long

    by Maya Angelou | Random House 2010
    Great Food, All Day Long is an essential reference for everyone who wants to eat better and smarter—and a delightful peek into the kitchen and the heart of a remarkable woman.

  • Letter To My Daughter

    by Maya Angelou | Random House, 2008
    Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou's path to living well and living a life with meaning. Told in her own inimitable style, this book transcends genres and categories.

  • The Collected Autobiographies
    of Maya Angelou

    by Maya Angelou | Modern Library, 2004
    Superbly told, with the poet's gift for language and observation, Angelou's autobiography of her childhood in Arkansas - a world of which most Americans are ignorant.

  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

    By Maya Angelou | Ballantine Books
    In the first volume of an extraordinary autobiographical series, one of the most inspiring authors of our time recalls--with candor, humor, poignancy and grace--how her journey began....

  • I Shall Not Be Moved

    by Maya Angelou | Bantam
    The triumph and pain of being black and the struggle to be free. Filled with bittersweet intimacies and ferocious courage, these poems are gems--many-faceted, bright with wisdom, radiant with life.

  • Gather Together in My Name

    by Maya Angelou | Random House Trade
    In this second volume of her poignant autobiographical series, Maya Angelou powerfully captures the struggles and triumphs of her passionate life with dignity, wisdom, humor, and humanity.

  • Singin' and Swingin' and
    Gettin' Merry Like Christmas

    by Maya Angelou | Random House
    Charged with Maya Angelou's remarkable sense of life and love, this is a unique celebration of the human condition–;and an enthralling saga that has touched, inspired, and empowered readers worldwide.

  • Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer

    by Maya Angelou | Random House
    Grace, dignity, and eloquence have long been hallmarks of Maya Angelou’s poetry. Her measured verses have stirred our souls, energized our minds, and healed our hearts. In Celebration, she captures our common voice.

  • Phenomenal Woman

    by Maya Angelou | Random House
    Phenomenal Woman is a phenomenal poem that speaks to us of where we are as women at the dawn of a new century. Here is a poem that radiates wisdom and conviction, renewing our belief in the glory and tender mercies of our gender.

  • My Painted House, My
    Friendly Chicken, and Me

    by Maya Angelou; Illustrated by Margaret Courtney-Clarke
    Full color photographs. "Hello, Stranger-Friend" begins Maya Angelou's story about Thandi, a South African Ndebele girl, her mischievous brother, her beloved chicken, and the astonishing mural art produced by the women of her tribe.

  • A Song Flung Up to Heaven

    by Maya Angelou | Random House
    A Song Flung Up to Heaven opens as Maya Angelou returns from Africa to the United States to work with Malcolm X. But first she has to journey to California to be reunited with her mother and brother.

  • Hallelujah: The Welcome Table

    by Maya Angelou | Random House
    Preparing and enjoying homemade meals provides a sense of purpose and calm, accomplishment and connection.Angelou shares memories pithy and poignant–;and the recipes that helped to make them both indelible and irreplaceable.

  • Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem

    by Maya Angelou | Random House
    Angelou’s moving poem is a radiant affirmation of the goodness of humanity. First read at the 2005 White House tree-lighting ceremony, it comes alive again as a fully illustrated children’s book, celebrating the promise of peace in the holiday

  • All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes

    by Maya Angelou | Random House
    The fifth volume of her compelling autobiography finds Angelou in Ghana, five years after its independence from Britain. Kwame Nkrumah is Ghana's beloved ruler, and there is a sense of pride in the new country.

  • Still I Rise

    by Maya Angelou | Random House
    In this inspiring poem, Angelou celebrates the courage of the human spirit over the harshest of obstacles. An ode to the power that resides in us all to overcome the most difficult circumstances, this poem is truly an inspiration and affirmation of faith.



http://mayaangelou.com/books/



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Larry Clark

January 4, 2013, 9:30 pm
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Larry Clark
by Helmut Newton


Larry Clark
Lawrence Donald "Larry" Clark
(1943)



Larry Clark is one of the most important photographers and artists of the last half-century. His seminal first book, Tulsa (1971), is still dangerous.



His directorial debut, KIDS (1995), established Mr. Clark’s reputation as one of the most controversial and influential filmmakers of our time. Other films that followed like BULLY (2001) and KEN PARK (2002) prompted the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) censorship board to react by advising parents to “hide your children”. Larry Clark’s new film, MARFA GIRL (2012), written and directed by Mr. Clark, continues to refine his unique vision and art.


http://larryclark.com/about/


Larry Clark
Photograph by Richard Blanshard 

Clark has said:

I don’t try to be controversial, I just try to be honest and tell the truth about life. Coming from the art world, I never think there are things you can’t do or show. I think that Hollywood films are really underestimating their audience. I’ve been an artist for many, many years. I’m not interested in making films to make money. I’m interested in making work that I’m satisfied with, showing people’s lives that aren’t shown. If I could see this anywhere else, I wouldn’t have to make these films.

Photograph by Bob Richardson

Lawrence Donald "Larry" Clark (born January 19, 1943) is an  American film director, photographer, writer and film producer who is best known for the movie Kids and his photography book Tulsa. His most common subject is youth who casually engage in illegal drug use, underage sex, and  violence, and who are part of a specific subculture, such as  surfing, punk rock or shateboarding.

Clark was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He learned photography at an early age. His mother was an itinerant baby photographer, and he was enlisted in the family business from the age of 13.

In 1959, Clark began injecting amphetamines with his friends. Routinely carrying a camera, from 1963 to 1971 Clark produced pictures of his drug-shooting coterie that have been described by critics as "exposing the reality of American suburban life at the fringe and ... shattering long-held mythical conventions that drugs and violence were an experience solely indicative of the urban landscape."

Clark attended the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he studied under Walter Sheffer and  Gerhard Bakker. In 1964, he moved to New York City to freelance, but was drafted within two months to serve in the Vietnam War. His experiences there led him to publish the book  Tulsa in 1971, a photo documentary illustrating his young friends' drug use in black and white. His follow-up was Teenage Lust (1983), an "autobiography" of his teen past through the images of others. It included his family photos, more teenage drug use, graphic pictures of teenage sexual activity, and young male hustlers in Times Square, New York City. Clark constructed a photographic essay titled "The Perfect Childhood" that examined the effect of media in youth culture. His photographs are part of public collections at several prestigious art museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In 1993, Clark directed Chris Isaak's music video "Solitary Man". This experience developed into an interest in film direction. After publishing other photographic collections, Clark met Harmony Korine in New York and asked Korine to write the screenplay for his first feature film, Kids which was released to controversy and some critical acclaim in 1995. Clark continued directing, filming a handful of additional independent feature films in the several years after this.

In 2002, Clark spent several hours in a police cell after punching and trying to strangle Hamish McAlpine, the head of Metro Tartan, the UK distributor for Clark's film Ken Park. According to McAlpine, who was left with a broken nose, the incident arose from an argument about Israel and the Middle East, and he claims that he did not provoke Clark. The latter dismissed this version of events as "such bullshit, such a fucking lie," stating that McAlpine had described the September 11, 2001 attacks as "the best thing to have ever happened to America" and opined that child victims of terrorist attacks in Israel "fucking deserve to die." Clark later commented: "When someone gets up in my face with bullshit like this, I’m not gonna roll over and lick my nuts."


Clark is represented by Simon Lee Gallery in London and the Luhring Augustine Gallery in New York City. He has one son and one daughter.







"The serious work starts in 1962. There's also going to be some of my mother's photographs to start the show, because 

I worked for my parents when I was a kid. When I was 14 or 15 I started out taking baby pictures with my mother."


Larry Clark 




Justin Pierce & Larry Clark 

(Kid – 1994)



“If kids think my work is cool, that’s good,” says Clark, taking the comment, and all its misguided enthusiasm, as the ultimate vindication of his work. “It means I don’t bullshit, you know? Yeah, whatever, being cool is fine with me.”

Larry Clark


by Brian Wallis



Widely regarded as one of the most important and influential American photographers of his generation, Larry Clark is known for both his raw and contentious photographs and his controversial films focusing on teen sexuality, violence, and drug use. Clark burst into public consciousness with his landmark book Tulsa in 1971, and has continued to use photography to explore urgent social issues pertaining to youth culture. In particular, he is interested in investigating the perils and vulnerabilities of adolescent masculinity, which he often explores from an autobiographical perspective.

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1943, Clark learned photography early. His mother was an itinerant baby photographer, and Clark himself was enlisted in the family business from the age of thirteen. By sixteen, Clark began shooting amphetamines with his friends. Always armed with a camera, Clark produced remarkably intimate and beautiful pictures of his drug-shooting coterie from 1963 to 1971. These pictures, later published in Tulsa, trace the trajectories of three young men through idealism and ecstasy to trauma and paranoia in the desolate afternoons of the Vietnam-era Midwest. In subsequent works Clark continued to explore and record the challenges faced by male teens: in Teenage Lust (1983) he chronicled the next generation of Tulsa teens as well as young male hustlers in Times Square; in The Perfect Childhood (1992), he looked at tabloid teen criminals and teenage models; and in the photo series “Skaters” (1992-95) and the film Kids (1995), he captured the community of skateboarders in New York's Washington Square Park. In all these works, Clark pursues a set of related themes: the destructiveness of dysfunctional family relationships, masculinity and the roots of violence, the links between mass imagery and social behaviors, and the construction of identity in adolescence.

To address these issues Clark often uses sexually explicit imagery, as well as scenes of overt drug use and violence, actions that are addressed casually by his subjects but which are often shocking to his audiences. These works are at once unimaginable and unforgettable. Reflecting the mission of the International Center of Photography—to show the ways photography represents and transforms the human condition—this exhibition presents influential work that has often been misunderstood. Clark’s challenging work in photography and film, which addresses such socially relevant topics as teen violence, pornography, masculinity, censorship, and the influence of the media, will, we hope, afford viewers the opportunity to engage in a popular dialogue about these controversial issues. Few other artists have addressed these themes with such candor.

– Brian Wallis, Curator


TULSA


Clark’s harrowing photo book Tulsa (1971) documents the aimless drug use, violence, and sex activities of Clark’s circle of friends in his hometown. Taken in three protracted series between 1963 and 1971, the Tulsa photographs combine the documentary style and narrative sequencing of a Life magazine photo essay with startling intimacy and emotional intensity. The graphic and controversial subject matter, the seemingly illicit nature of the viewer's engagement, the remarkable low-light photography, and the restrained editorial pacing distinguish the extraordinary new style of subjective documentary that these pictures announced. But more than that, the pictures and the book were an extension of Clark’s life. The book opens with this succinct narrative: “i was born in tulsa oklahoma in 1943. when i was sixteen i started shooting amphetamine. i shot with my friends everyday for three years and then left town but i’ve gone back through the years. once the needle goes in it never comes out. L.C.”



The set of vintage prints in this exhibition are those that were used in the printing of the original edition of the book, which was published by Clark’s friend and fellow photographer Ralph Gibson. The elusive but tightly edited sequence of Tulsa meant that many great photographs were not published; included here are a selection of vintage Tulsa outtakes. Also included are a selection of materials from Clark’s autobiographical punk Picasso (2003) that comprise Tulsa-era photographs, artifacts, and family memorabilia.


Larry Clark
Teenage Lust,
Japan: Taka Ishi Gallery, 1997


TEENAGE LUST

Clark’s second book, Teenage Lust (1983), was subtitled “An Autobiography of Larry Clark,” though it is not autobiographical in any conventional sense. It includes early family snapshots and follows a rough biographical chronology, but Clark's primary intention seems to be to “turn back the years” and to relive moments of his own teen past through images of others. This installation shows the photographs and other materials that were used to make the original book. Roughly divided into three sections, Teenage Lust begins with Clark’s family photographs and his move to New York City: then contrasts his various run-ins with the law with his quest for a utopian hippie life in New Mexico: and concludes with a powerful and touching series of portraits of young male hustlers in the Times Square area. More sprawling, experimental, and explicit than Tulsa, Teenage Lust has at its core the rawness, vulnerability, and uncertainty of adolescence, a key strain that runs throughout Clark’s work.



Quarto, first Japanese edition (preceded by a 1983 English-language edition), unpaginated with 98 pages of photos, mostly duotone, white illustrated wraps. This is the expanded version with an additional 13 pages of photos and a handwritten page of text by Clark. That's in English, as is all the captioning. The photographer's 23-page essay has been translated into Japanese. Clark told Roth (The Book of 101 Books) that the first edition was incomplete and he prefers this one. See Roth pp. 244-5 and Bertolotti Page 260.

I wish I could show more here but the venue won't allow it. Clark called this an autobiography although he used people who were about 10 years younger than he, growing up under the same circumstances he did in the Southwest U.S. It's a story of sex, drug abuse and aimless living, with the final part of the book shot among young male hustlers on 42nd Street in New York City, back when it was a center of prostitution. Clark had to finance first publication himself because the original publisher wanted deletions he wouldn't make.






SKATERS



The “Skaters” series assembles color portraits of teenage skateboarders that Clark took in New York City during the 1990s. Some of these portraits were taken in Clark’s studio, but most were made in Washington Square Park, where he met Harmony Korine, who would later write the screenplay for Kids, and the skaters who would become members of the cast of Kids. The freedom of skateboarders appealed to Clark; these were kids who could navigate the city on their own, without parents. This tension between youthful independence and parental neglect is a theme throughout Clark's later work. The series also represents a return to a more documentary style, and has a clear link to Clark’s film work.



FILMS
Video screening Schedule at ICP
35mm films at the Pioneer Theater
The distinctive style, controversial subject matter, and critical success of Clark's small body of feature films easily establish him as one of the leading independent directors today. After three decades of still photography, Clark's move to filmmaking seemed natural; he had set his sights on movies since the early Tulsa days. His first feature film, Kids (1995), was a day-in-the-life tale of a young HIV-positive lothario and his skateboarding teen cohorts. Its documentary-like look and its nonjudgmental point of view, particularly on teen sex and drug use, created a national controversy when first released. The follow-up to Kids, Another Day in Paradise (1998), was Clark’s version of a crime-spree road movie, in which two experienced criminals and junkies take a young couple under their wing. It evolves into the young man’s coming-of-age story as his makeshift family disintegrates under the weight of the violence and drug addiction around him. His subsequent films, especially Bully (2001) and the unreleased Ken Park, offered an increasingly bleak and explicit view of the alienation, boredom, and hostility of white, middle-class youth culture in the context of rudderless parenting. Clark has said that these films are intended to spark a dialogue about what is really going on with America’s youth. So, while these films revive the images of teen sex and violence, Clark really sees them as about a loss of innocence.


http://museum.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/larry_clark/films.html





Clark's films often deal with seemingly lurid material but are told in a straightforward manner. Directors such as Gus Van Sant and Martin Scorsese have stated that they were influenced by Clark's early photography, according to Peter Biskind's book Down and Dirty Pictures. In both his photographic and cinematic works, Clark pursues a set of related themes: the destructiveness of disfunctional family relationships, masculinity and the roots of violence, religious intolerance and bigotry, the links between mass imagery and social behaviors, and the construction of identity and sexuality in adolescence.



Film critics who do not find social or artistic value in Clark's work have labeled his films obscene, exploitative, and borderline child pornography because of their frequent and explicit depictions of teenagers using drugs and having sex. In Kids, his most widely known film, boys portrayed as being as young as 12 are shown to be casually drinking alcohol and using other drugs. The film received an NC-17 rating, and was later released without a rating when Disney bought Miramax. Ken Park is a more sexually and violently graphic film than Kids, including a scene of auto-erotic asphyxiation and ejaculation by an apparently underage male (although the actors are all 18 and older). As of 2008, it has not been widely released nor distributed in the United States.



In Australia, Ken Park was banned for its graphic sexual content, and a protest screening held in response was immediately shut down by the police. Australian film critic Margaret Pomeranz, co-host of At the Movies, was almost arrested for screening the film at a hall. The film was not released in the United States, but Clark says that it was because of the producer's failure to get releases for the music used.



Clark has won the top prizes at both the Cognac Festival du Film Policier (for Another Day in Paradise), the Stockolm Film Festival (for Bully) and the Rome Film Festival (for (Marfa Girl). He has also competed for the Golden Palm (Kids) and  Golden Lion (Bully).






FILMOGRAPHY
GALLERY














teenluste4 0001.jpg




teenluste2 0001.jpg



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Halle Berry

January 9, 2013, 9:29 pm
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Halle Berry

Halle Berry
(1966)


Halle Berry is an award-winning actress, fashion model, beauty queen, and businesswoman. She won a Best Actress Oscar for ‘Monster's Ball’ and a Golden Raspberry Worst Actress award for her role in ‘Catwoman’. Berry is one of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars and earns $10 million per movie. She has been married three times and gave birth to her first child in 2008.

Berry was born in Ohio, USA in 1966. Her mother was a nurse and her father was a hospital attendant. She had dreams of being a top model. She won many beauty contests in the 1980s, including Miss Teen All-American. In 1986, she became the first black American Miss World entrant. She told the judges she hoped to become an entertainer.

In 1989, Berry appeared in 13 episodes of an ABC TV series. Her big break came two years later in the Spike Lee movie ‘Jungle Fever’. Halle went on to regularly star in box-office hits, including the James Bond movie ‘Die Another Day’. In 2001, she became the first African-American woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in ‘Monster’s Ball’.

Berry has combined her acting successes with her original career in fashion. She served for many years as the face of Revlon cosmetics and the fashion house Versace. In 2008, she signed a multi-million-dollar deal with the perfume company Coty Inc, who will market her debut fragrance. Berry also has plans to be a movie producer.

http://famouspeoplelessons.com/h/halle_berry.html


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Halle Berry

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Halle Berry

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Toni Frissell

January 15, 2013, 4:24 am
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File:Toni Frissell.jpg
Toni Frissell, c. 1935

DRAGON
Toni Frissell / Photos


Toni Antoinette Frissell
(1907 - 1988)



Toni Frissell (March 10, 1907 - April 17, 1988) was an  American photographer, known for her fashion phography, World War II photographs, portraits of of famous Americans and Europeans, children, and women from all walks of life.


Pre-war career

Antoinette Frissell was born in 1907 in New York City, New York, but took photos under the name Toni Frissell, even after her marriage to Manhattan socialite McNeil Bacon. She worked with many famous photographers of the day, as an apprentice to Cecil Beaton, and with advice from Edward Steichen. Her initial job, as a fashion photographer for Vogue in 1931, was due to Condé Montrose Nast personally. She later took photographs for Harper's Bazaar. Her fashion photos, even of evening gowns and such, were often notable for their outdoor settings, emphasizing active women.

World War II

In 1941, Frissell volunteered her photographic services to the American Red Cross. Later she worked for the Eighth Army Air Force and became the official photographer of the Women's Army Corps. On their behalf, she took thousands of images of nurses, front-line soldiers, WACs, African-American airmen, and orphaned children. She traveled to the European front twice. Her moving photographs of military women and African  American fighter pilots in the elite 332d Fighter Group (the "Tuskegee Airmen") were used to encourage public support for women and African Americans in the military.

After the war

In the 1950s, she took informal portraits of the famous and powerful in the United States and Europe, including Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, and John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy, and worked for Sports Illustrated and  Life magazines. Continuing her interest in active women and sports, she was the first woman on the staff of Sports Illustrated in 1953, and continued to be one of very few female sport photographers for several decades.

In later work she concentrated on photographing women from all walks of life, often as a commentary on the human condition.

Personal life

Daughter of Lewis Fox Frissell and Antoinette Wood Montgomery, Granddaughter of Algernon Sydney Frissell; founder and president of the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York, Great-Granddaughter of Mary Whitney Phelps and Governor of Missouri; John S. Phelps. Descendant (GG Granddaughter) of Elisha Phelps: US Representative from Connecticut (1819–21, 1825–29). Descendant (GGG Granddaughter) of Maj. Gen. Noah Phelps: Revolutionary War hero. Sister of Phelps Montgomery Frissell and Filmmaker Lewis Varick Frissell who was killed in Newfoundland during the filming of “The Viking” in 1931.

Toni Frissell died of Alzheimer's disease on April 17, 1988, in a Long Island nursing home. Her husband, Francis M. Bacon 3rd, of Bacon, Stevenson & Company, predeceased her. She is survived by a daughter, Sidney Bacon Stafford; a son, Varick Bacon; grandchildren Montgomery Bacon Brookfield, Susan Brent Loyer, and Alexandra Bacon; and great-grandchildren Montgomery Bacon Brookfield, Jr., Samuel Huntington Brookfield, Holly Brent Brookfield, Gregory Vanderbilt Brookfield, Cadence Frissell Brookfield, Laura Loyer, Varick Loyer, and Margot Loyer.

Boy and Girl on beach
Photo by Toni Frissell

Vogue, Octuber 1939
Photo by Toni Frissell

Two women drinking coke, 1940
Photo by Toni Frissell


History
  1. 1907
    Antoinette (Toni) Frissell born in New York City to Lewis Fox Frissell, medical director of St. Luke’s Hospital, and Antoinette Wood Frissell. Little Toni has two older brothers, Varick and Montgomery. She will be raised in Manhattan, attend Chapin School, and summer in Newport. Her grandparents were railroad people who settled in Oregon.
  2. 1923
    Montgomery Frissell dies in a mountain-climbing accident at the age of seventeen.
  3. 1925
    After graduating from the Farmington School in Connecticut—aka, Miss Porter’s—spends evenings in nightclubs and speakeasies (Jack and Charlie’s 21 Club, Texas Guinan’s, Jimmy Durante’s Dover Club, and a gangster-run place called the Hotsy Totsy). She will spend much of the decade traveling around Europe, having fun and falling in love.
  4. 1927
    Inspired by her older cousin, Rosamond Pinchot (star of The Miracle), appears as a tree in a Max Reinhardt stage production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and then in Danton’s Death.Her height would prevent her from an acting career, and so she starts taking photographs, inspired by her older brother, Varick, an explorer and documentary freelancer.
  5. 1931
    Takes a job selling dresses at Stern’s department store. After her suggested ad copy for a silver-fox collar, “Men Don’t Like Cold Women,” appears in the Sunday papers, Toni’s mother shows it to Vogue’s editor in chief, Edna Woolman Chase, who hires her on the spot as a caption writer. In March, brother Varick disappears at sea when his expedition’s ship sinks. Frissell’s engagement to Count Serge Orloff-Davidoff is broken off by his mother, who insists they are not suited for one another. Carmen Snow, fashion editor, fires Frissell for her poor spelling and suggests she take up photography. That summer in Newport, Frissell photographs friends and socialites. Her first image is published in Town & Country. Vogue gives her a contract and she apprentices briefly with Cecil Beaton and sits at the knee of Edward Steichen. In a staff memorandum, Carmel Snow compliments Frissell’s use of nonprofessional models.
  6. 1932
    Set up on a blind date with Francis McNeil Bacon III, a Harvard graduate and stockbroker. The two marry in September.
  7. 1933
    Son Varick Bacon born.
  8. 1934
    Asks Vogue’s art director, Mehemed Fehmy Agha, for a raise from $2,400 to $3,600 a year. He strongly objects but is overruled by publisher Condé Nast, who is a fan of her outdoor fashion shoots.
  9. 1935
    Purchases Sherrewogue, a large house in Head of Harbor, on the North Fork of Long Island, New York, that dates from 1689 and was renovated by Stanford White. Daughter Sidney Bacon born; she will eventually become a photographer in her own right.
  10. 1938
    With Edward Steichen retired, Cecil Beaton fired, and George Hoyningen-Huene out of the picture, Frisell’s work gains prominence. She does three Vogue covers (including one of a woman surfing in Hawaii).
  11. 1941
    Over her husband’s objections, spends ten weeks in England and Scotland as a volunteer photographer for the Red Cross. Several of the resulting 2,000 frames are used in promotional posters. Takes an assignment as a freelance war correspondent and photographer, covering the Eighth Air Force and traveling through Italy and France. “The worst part of war,” she later says, “is what happens to the survivors—the widows without home or family; the ragged kids left to wander as orphans.”
  12. 1944
    Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses, featuring her photographs of her two children, published.
  13. 1945
    Photographs African-American pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group in Ramitelli, Italy. The images appear in Life magazine (and will prove significant in a positive public attitude shift in regard to blacks serving in the military). Around this time, leavesVogue for Harper’s Bazaar.
  14. 1946
    The Happy Island, a book written with her friend Sally Lee Woodall and featuring photographs of her children taken on a trip to Bermuda, published.
  15. 1948
    Toni Frissell’s Mother Goose is her next literary effort.
  16. 1953
    Photographs the reception following Jacqueline Bouvier’s marriage to Senator John F. Kennedy in Newport, R.I. on assignment for Harper’s Bazaar. Carmel Snow, now editor in chief of Bazaar, tells Frissell she has no use for the negatives and will not pay for her work or expenses; Frissell leaves the publication. Vogue persuades her to come back, promising she will no longer have to do fashion shots, which have become a bore. Among the first photographs Vogue prints by the prodigal daughter are those showing the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.
  17. 1954
    Becomes the first female photographer for Sports Illustrated,where she focuses on the pastimes of the affluent: yachting, fox-hunting, polo, steeplechase, golf, skiing.
  18. 1961
    The exhibit “A Number of Things,” at the I.B.M. Gallery in New York, features 170 of Frissell’s photographs, from candids and shots of her children to war photography and her official portrait of Winston Churchill.
  19. 1971
    After experiencing the beginning phases of Alzheimer’s disease, closes her Manhattan office and donates her life’s work of 300,000 images to the Library of Congress. She will continue to contribute images to Vogue until 1972.
  20. 1975
    The King Ranch, 1939–1944: A Photographic Essay is published.
  21. 1982
    Frissell’s husband dies.
  22. 1988
    Toni Frissell dies in the St. James Nursing Home. She is survived by daughter Sidney Bacon Stafford of Bellport, Long Island, and son Varick Bacon of Manhattan, as well as three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
  23. 1994
    Shortly before her death, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a longtime admirer, edits Toni Frissell: Photographs 1933–1967for Doubleday.






"I'd Rather Stalk with a Camera Than a Gun"

Toni Frissell






Toni Frissell, 81, Dies; 

A Noted Photographer


Published: April 20, 1988




Toni Frissell
Photograph by Horst P. Hors
Published in Vogue, June 15, 1941

Toni Frissell, a photographer, died of Alzheimer's disease Sunday in the St. James (L.I.) Nursing Home. She was 81 years old and lived in St. James.



She was born in Manhattan and began working as a fashion photographer for Vogue in 1931. She later photographed for Harper's Bazaar. She enlivened her fashion images by posing models clad in evening gowns out-of-doors, rather than inside studios.



In 1941 she covered World War II as a freelance photographer. Later, she was the official photographer of the Women's Army Corps. In the 1950's, she worked for Sports Illustrated and Life.

Three books were illustrated with her photographs, ''Mother Goose,'' ''A Child's Garden of Verse'' and ''The Happy Island,'' on Bermuda.

Miss Frissell's husband, Francis M. Bacon 3d, died several years ago. She is survived by a daughter, Sidney Bacon Stafford of Bellport, L.I.; a son, Varick Bacon of Manhattan, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Weeki Wachee Springs
Florida, 1947

Books


A Child's Garden of Verses (1944)
Bermuda:The Happy Island (1946)
Mother Goose (1948)
The King Ranch, 1939-1944 (1965)
Tethered, by Amy MacKinnon (August 2008)

Fuentes
Wikipedia
The New York Times
http://www.vogue.com/voguepedia/Toni_Frissell



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