Vitro NasuIconoclastic Incubator
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(Nina with James Baldwin)
A Raised Voice
How Nina Simone turned the movement into music.
See a painting Homage to Nina Simone here.
It took her one hour to write Mississipi Goddam
Dr. Nina Simone- –Alabama Got Me So Upset (previous post)
Wild is the Wind..his tribute to Nina Simone.. (How David Bowie helped Nina out of a slump)..
Nuovomondo
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“The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it…”
“You listen to her not when you are raw, but when you are thoughtful.” From “Bitter and Beautiful, the professional honesty of Nina Simone.
Nina Simone was born on February 21, 1933 in the small town of Tyron, North Carolina.
“She listened to Bach (“Bach and I hit it off marvelously”), read James Baldwin, saw French movies. Born Eunice Waymon, she took her stage name from Simone Signoret” from here.
Nina as High Priestess, has everything you need to know about her site.
Nina was placed with a tutor called Mrs Massinovitch who introduced her to the music of Bach. ‘Once I understood Bach’s music,’ Nina recalls, ‘I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music.’
Nina Simone is often classified as a jazz singer, but this is what she had to say in 1997 (in an interview with Brantley Bardin):
“To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt and that’s not what I play. I play black classical music. That’s why I don’t like the term “jazz,” and Duke Ellington didn’t like it either — it’s a term that’s simply used to identify black people.” (Women’s history about.com)
Youtube animation film of “My Baby Just Cares For Me”
John Malkovitch opened his film “Dancer Upstairs” with Nina Simone in the background and ends the film with her song, Who knows where the time goes.
“Just in Time” sung by Nina graced “Before Sunset” (Richard Linklater).
Once I understood Bach’s music,’ Nina recalls, ‘I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music.’
Three and 21 seconds into playing brilliant piano, Nina introduces the lyrics by Cole Porter “You’d be so nice to come home”. (Everytime I listen it sends the chills up my spine).
Nina Simone February 21, 1933
Edna St.V.Millay February 22, 1892
Baby Edna 
This red-haired, green-eyed beauty was born in 1892 in Maine to a financially-strained single mother and a household of talented, artistic sisters.
A tribute to Edna St.Vincent Millay a free spirited poet gets a nice bio/photos from a blogger.
Lovely Edna 
Dozens of men and women fell in love with her. Vincent slept with them all, but kept her heart at arm’s length.
Funny version of “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed’ on youtube.
Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.
-Edna St.Vincent Millay
Nuovomondo
Jason Brown 
(and Nathan Chen)
Jason Brown 
(and Nathan Chen)
Jason Brown skates to Nina Simone here
Nathan Chen Skates to La Boheme Charles Aznavour at Olympic short program for men.
(“I Am Not Your Negro” Written by James Baldwin, Directed by Raoul Peck)
New Yorker –
Capturing James Baldwin’s Legacy Onscreen
With “I Am Not Your Negro,” Raoul Peck seems to be stepping in to make the movie that Baldwin couldn’t.
Baldwin was drawn to Ingmar Bergman’s films, because they were the work of a feeling thinker who mined his past—especially his troubled relationship with his authoritarian pastor father. In a 1960 Esquire profile of Bergman, Baldwin describes how, after an interview with the filmmaker, he got into his car and imagined a movie he might make about his own past. But Baldwin had neither Bergman’s studio support nor his skin color.
Nina Simone and James Baldwin (Wild is the Wind)
James Baldwin Born August 2, 1924
Baldwin and Marlon (Dangerous Minds – civil rights 1963)
Go Tell It on the Mountain, which Baldwin had worked on for years under various titles, was finally finished during a trip to Switzerland. When New York publisher Alfred Knopf expressed interest in publishing the work, Baldwin returned to America on a ticket bought with a loan from Marlon Brando. His novel was published a year later in 1953 and received rave reviews. (via)
Bowie at Berlin Wall – 1987
The Next Day – Marion Cortillard played a sexworker for priests – read more here.
Bowie with Nicolas Roeg and Duncan Jones here (photo via Duncan Jones)
Interview (Bowie’s in space: Nic Roeg on film)
David Bowie as Warhol in Basquiat (youtube)
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Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Bowie
David Bowie and Nagisa 
See an excerpt from Merry Xmas Mr. Lawrence (Sakamoto receiving kiss -youtube)
Bowie’s responses to Proust Questionnaire – Vanity Fair
Q: Which living person do you most admire?
Bowie: Elvis.
David Bowie shared a birthday with Elvis, Anthony Newley was his early inspiration.
Previous post Bowie with birthday buddies Elvis and Stephen Hawking. (link to a documentary of David Bowie.)
David Bowie as an African 
Wild is the Wind..his tribute to Nina Simone.. (How David Bowie helped Nina out of a slump)..
David with Klaus Nomi
J.Malkovich 
Happy birthday John Malkovich!
Malkovich ate nothing but Jello to lose weight when he was a child. The Dancer Upstairs was the only film he directed.. (Javier Bardem.. with Nina Simone soundtrack).. He was terrific in Dangerous Liasions and in Disgrace (adapted from Coetzee Nobel prize winning author). He worked with Portuguese director Oliveira in 3 films?? He loves to live in Lisbon he said .. Sheltering Sky (Bertoulucci).. took him to Europe.. he learned French & lived there. He played Klimt directed by Raul Ruiz. … he was also in Time Regained. Saw him first in Empire of the Sun..Choosing Mr. Right.. Being John Malkovich.. I also liked him in a film The Great Buck Howard, The Rounders.
See Portrait Remakes – Malkovich Homage to Photographic Masters by Sandro Miller
Finding a woman in his garden, funny story from John Malkovich (youtube)
Disgrace trailer (youtube)
Making Mr. Right (youtube)
Manoel de Oliveira, Catherine Deneuve and John Malkovich
Maritza and Maria
Maritza came to this reader’s attention as a possible doppleganger of Maria Schneider.
The Dancer Upstairs trailer (directed by J. Malkovich) was modeled after Maritza who is currently serving her term in prison.
Being John Cassavates – John C and John M shared a birthday
Peter Falk and Gena on John Cassavates – (Youtube.. wonderful video)
The Future
(photograph by Annie Liebovitz)
Everybody Knows – (Exotica – youtube) Your birthday today.
Take this Waltz (Frederico Garcia Lorca)
Cohen loved this film Up the Yantzee
Bob 
and Leonard Cohen
–Robert Altman and Leonard Cohen – McCabe & Mrs Miller
The real Suzanne was almost homeless. (Nina Simone sings Suzanne)
(direct link)
(Nina Simone has been providing soundtrack for films a lot these days. Malkovich’s “Dancer Upstairs”, “Before Sunset” etc. Here is the list of films)
Photos from Nuovomondo and the trailer here.
Emmanuel Crialese talks about Golden Door (Nuovomondo)
Crialese came from Italy to New York in 1992, intending to stay for a few months and take a quick film course at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, but the short film he made landed him a full scholarship that lasted for several years. He lived on the Lower East Side, in tenements occupied by generations of immigrants.
“Golden Door” was insipred by Crialese’s Lower East Side experiences. Set in the late 1900s, the story follows Salvatore Mancuso and family who leave their hardships in Sicily to seek a better life in America.
My inspiration came when I visited Ellis Island and saw close-ups of people looking into the camera as though it was a strange instrument. These intimate images made me fantasize about their past, their culture. I started researching and never stopped for five years, says Crialese.
Crialese and the actor Vicenzo Amato both live in New York City and have made a film Respiro together previously.
Dr Nina Simone sings for you.
Leopoldo Maler
Argentinean, born 1937
Hommage, 1974
Modified typewriter
“The work before you, entitled Hommage, has a great deal of personal meaning for Maler himself, however. His uncle, a well-known Argentine writer, is believed to have been killed for the inflammatory content of his political essays. The old Underwood Typewriter that now emits flames in the place of words is of the same style that Mahler’s uncle used during his esteemed career.”
From here.
(following a conversation at pas au-dela and in gratitude for the
link restored for scarecrow.
May Hunter S. Thompson have a safe passage.)
a green and a red ball