Vitro Nasu

One more clip..

(via)

The story goes that Frederico Garcia Lorca (the pilot here) erroneously believed that the film by Dali and Bunuel Un Chien Andalou (an Andalucian Dog) referred to him, coming from Granada, having recently fallen out with his surrealist friends. This to my mind seems doubly pained paranoia if you have seen the film. And who needed Dali as a friend anyway? (Walt Disney actually).

Lorca born on 5 June 1898

Jonathan Mayhew Apocryphal Lorca: Translation, Parody, Kitsch

One reader of my blog pointed out to me the word APOCRYPHAL is a perfect anagram of HAPPY LORCA. I took this as a sign that my examination of the apocryphal Lorcas of American poetry and poetics was ultimately a felicitous one.

Lorca’s manuscript discovered

“I offer myself to be devoured by Spanish peasants,” writes the poet Federico García Lorca in a newly-discovered manuscript of a poem from his portrait of the United States during the Great Depression, Poeta en Nueva York (Poet in New York).

Godzilla weeps via

Akira Ifukube Godzilla composer on the left, his brother Isao (right)

Akira Ifukube was born on 31 May 1914

Akira’s Homepage

Check his film scores on youtube
Godzilla under the sea

Rainy Night Duel

Here are some beautiful compositions by Ifukube

伊福部昭 『サハリン島先住民の三つの揺籃歌』

伊福部昭：二十五絃箏曲 『胡哦』 聖なる泉

Symphonic Ode : Gotama the Buddha (Thanks to Andrew Pothecary)

May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003 Lou Harrison was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg.

Lou Harrison

“He had a wide network of friends, a legendary thirst for knowledge and a just-as-legendary generous nature. “When Lou found a book that he liked, he would buy at least three copies,” said George Zelenz, an architect who lives nearby. “One for himself, one in case the first got lost and one for a friend he thought might like it.”

Previous post (Lou Harrison – Harrison House Retreat )

Part II Weird Nightmare
Part III <> Part V <> Part VI <> Part VII <> Part VIII

Charles Mingus April 22, 1922

Paul Chambers April 22, 1935

Yesterdays Paul Chambers

<> <>

I heart Bill Traylor (Funny Eye Blogspot)

Bill Traylor Village Voice

Some people are simply compelled to create art, caring nothing for art history, critical theory, or career strategies. Bill Traylor was born a slave in 1854; after a lifetime as a cotton laborer, destitute and living on a Montgomery, Alabama, sidewalk, he began drawing. He was 83, and sold his work for nickels.

More images from Hammer Gallery

Bill Traylor April 1, 1854 –

Traylor was a self-taught artist born into slavery on a plantation near Benton, in Lowndes County, Alabama

Alberta Hunter April 1, 1895

Roberta sings Fine and Mellow (youtube)
My man don’t love me
Treats me oh so mean
My man he don’t love me
Treats me awfully
He’s the, lowest man
That I’ve ever see

(direct link to opening number The Stranger by Leonard Cohen and the Trailer (two songs)

“I thought it was a fine movie. That night I was in the studio and received a call from Hollywood. It was from Bob Altman saying he would like to use my music in a film. Quite honestly, I said, ‘I don’t know your work, could you tell me some of the films you’ve done?’ He said Mash, and I said that’s fine, I understand that’s quite popular, but I’m really not familiar with it. Then he said there was a film I’ve probably never seen called ‘Brewster McCloud.’ I told him I just came out of the movie and thought it was an extraordinary film, use any music of mine.” From Robert Altman: Oral Biography)

Sisters of Mercy <> <> <> The ending Winter Lady

Bob and Leonard Cohen

On James Dean’s 80th birthday, this film probably deserves its own little mention. The James Dean Story, a 79 minute documentary chronicling the life and times of Jimmy Dean, came out two years after the young actor’s death. Most notably, the film was directed by Robert Altman, a young director who would eventually make MASH, Nashville, The Player, Gosford Park, etc. (Watch the James Dean Story by Robert Altman )

Robert Altman – February 20 1927

(Previous Post : Robert Altman)

Schönberg by Ward Schumaker

August Strindberg was born on Jan 22 1849.

Ingmar Bergman and August Strindberg (previous post)

Francis Poulenc – Improvisation 15 Hommage à Edith Piaf

Poulenec by Ward Schumaker

Francis Poulenec – 7 January 1899

Critic Claude Rostand, in a July 1950 Paris-Presse article, described Poulenc as “half monk, half delinquent” (“le moine et le voyou”), a tag that was to be attached to his name for the rest of his career

He is largely self-taught and eccentric.

Poulenc, like Haydn and Schubert, is one of the few great composers not only content with, but modestly amazed at being human. The music doesn’t strive for the extraordinary, not even the religious music. What’s in us is extraordinary enough. There’s a sincere simplicity of effect.

A veteran of two wars – (Breasts to Ballons)

It was also the time when he wrote one of his most delightful pieces, a musical interpretation of the children’s story Babar the Little Elephant, scored for narrator and piano (later orchestrated) as well as a surrealist fantasy with the improbable title of Les Mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tiresias), based on the eponymous play by Guillaume Apollinaire. Thérèse has become tired of her life as a submissive woman and morphs into the male Tirésias when her breasts turn into balloons and float away. It’s quite a story!

Kazuo Ohno October 27, 1906 – June 1, 2010

In Memoriam: a toast to some of those who left us in 2010.
Kazuo Ohno, Dennis Hopper, Claude Chabrol, Howard Zinn, Louise Bourgeois
David Markson, Sigma Polke, Henryk Gorecki, Jill Johnston, Arakawa Shusaku,
Arthur Penn, Jose Saramago, Benoit Mandelbrot, Nathan Oliveira, Takamine Hideko
and Denis Dutton

Howard Zinn

Dennis Hopper in great photo here.
Dennis Hopper reciting poem at Johnny Cash show

Arakawa changed his mind

Louise Bourgeois (I thought she was going to live forever)

David Markson (June 4, 2010)

Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. An assemblage.
Self-evident enough to scarcely need Writer’s say-so.

Arthur Penn a Director Attuned to His Country

Simar Polke the great artist (June 11) <> Bric-a- Bra-C

Jose Saramago

Claude Chabrol

Allan Sillitoe(Loneliness of long distance runner) and Dan Asher (next post)

Jill Johnston (Sept 18, 2010 -
Thespian lemonist, dance cricket, and irrepressible funster)

Benoit Mandelbrot (Fractal)

Henryk Gorecki

Nathan Oliveira

Denis Dutton (Universal Connoisseur)

Takamine Hideko
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs 1960

Here is Taylor Mead who celebrated his birthday on New Year’s Eve.
Let’s have Champagne(Coffee and Cigarette)

Kepler Opera (youtube in German)
A review from last year (NYtimes)

Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, he was the first strong supporter of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus and the discoverer of the three laws of planetary motion.
Kepler Nasa homepage

The chart drawn by Kepler.
(Recently discovered horoscope calculated by Kepler for an Austrian nobleman named Hans Hannibal Hütter von Hütterhofen, who was born in 1586.)

Arthur Koestler and Kepler (previous post – one year ago)

Koestler and Kepler; the perfect fusion.

Elsewhere:
David Foster Wallace and Wittgenstein.

Philosophical Sweep
To understand the fiction of David Foster Wallace, it helps to have a little Wittgenstein.
By James Ryerson

David Foster Wallace (previous post)

An interview of DFW (Boston Phoenix)

The Structuralist
A biography explores Claude Lévi-Strauss’ fascination with what makes cultures tick

In Claude Lévi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory (Penguin Press, $29.95), Patrick Wilcken has written the biography not just of a man, but of an intoxicating intellectual moment.

Claude Lévi-Strauss (previous post)

R.I.P Henryk Gorecki (December 6, 1933 – November 12, 2010)
Obit from Independent

Henryk Gorecki: Modernist composer who enjoyed crossover success with the million-selling ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’

Guardian UK obit here.

H. M. Górecki – Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra, Op. 40 (1981) (via Jeffrey Harris)

Painting by Ward Schumaker
Note: Helena Blazusiak was a Catholic who died in a Nazi death camp.)

In a book on the Nazi occupation, he discovered words found scratched on a wall in the Gestapo prison at Zakopane: “No, mother do not weep…”, signed by “Helena Wanda Blazusiak, aged 18, detained since 25.IX.44.” To this he added a text from the 15th-century, “Holy Cross Lament”. “So I had these three songs, very sad, hence the title ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’.”

(via)

Kronos Quartet’s David Harrington Remembers Henryk Górecki

NYtimes Obit
Gorecki in Basquiat (youtube)

George Crumb Twin Suns
(image via)

Happy birthday George Crumb October 24, 1929

George Crumb