Vitro Nasu

Dance pair moved from Europian – Russian dominance to North America in 2010.

This is from old clip. Flamenco was part of original dance number which Virtue & Moir won.
Elvis on pair dance – he connected emotionally with the American pair…

No scoring controversy: Canada deserved gold

At Canadian Notional 2010 (the same number they skated to gold at the Olympics. Tessa had a white dress)
Their fun gala performance Hockey playe rmeets ballerina

Davis & White Indian number for Original dance (youtube) (USA championship)

Davis & White Free skate 2010. US Championship on youtube (They were much more spectacular and powerful at the Olympics).

Pair Skating Pang and Tong skated flawlessly won Silver but they were the real winners that night they moved the audience to huge standing ovation. (Wait for the commercial – a video from NBC here)

Grieving Rochette skates to Bronz, the world united with her in tears.

Watch Johnny Weir Olympic freeskate here. direct link.
Johnny Weir placed 6th even though he received the standing ovation and skated more beautifully than anyone in the competition. (NBC coverage of freeksate with commercial here)

New scoring system

“The individuality has been lost for figure skating. Very few people can make it work. … It’s turned everyone into robots doing the same jumps and the same spins.”
I know what you’re saying: Well, that’s just Johnny being Johnny. But Stojko was an “athletic” skater compared with Weir’s “artistic” style, yet he has the same complaint.
“Before, you could really put the personality into your routine,” Stojko says. “Now, so much of your time is spent getting up the points that it ties the hands of the skaters. There are too many requirements.

Look what they can deliver, so refreshing. We need to rescue talented figure skaters from these judges.

Happiness is warm gun Yu na bond girl

The former world champion Buttle on twitter (His 2008 World skating here)

Unfortunately, Jeremy Abott who is now US champion melted at the Olympics.. He did not have enough experience in the international competition.
Here in this clip performed flawlessly.

Today is the birthday of Luis Buñuel 22 February 1900 and Giulietta Masina February 22, 1921

Found this The life and times of Don Luis Buñuel (1/7 parts) just now.

Here is Jeanne Moreau talking about her collaboration with Luis Buñuel.

Moreau as a chambermaid from the Diary of Chambermaid by Luis Buñuel.
This chambermaid from Buniel was a cool observer.

The trailer for Tristana here)

or part1 of English subtitles and see the whole film on youtube.

Giulietta Masina

An embarrassment of riches – Andrew Pothecary’s new blog post.

an art magazine feature about the show had the coverline “Do you know Settai Komura?” I’d guess that for most people, like me, his work is something of a revelation.

The exhibition shows that his talent was exceptional – his rough sketches still showed quality, his finished pieces were often superby realised.

Settai Komuro

Osen

Shiseido images and a charming illustration here.

Oshidori

鴛鴦歌合戦/ Singing Lovebirds 1939 directed by Masahiro Makino. There’s a lovely taste in a musical comedy of the Jidaigeki. It seems like every actor was enjoying singing and playing in the film. I also enjoyed it.

Thank you Miyuki Kobayashi for this clip.

The Russian Princess in a sailor suit. Who is she?

She was born on 17 February 1877

Her birthday celebration in the last Olympics year 2006
Costumes, Ice and Sand, the Princess and the figure skaters

Paul Bowles has translated some of her work into English. The Oblivion Seekers (City Lights Publishing, 1975) consists of 13 different short pieces translated by Bowles for publication in 1972.)

Check other nameless children
Click the photos to see who they are.

Yoga dog by Fung Ching Kelling

This year the Winter Olympics, Chinese New Year – the year of Tiger and the Valentine’s Day all converge together on Feb 14.

Let’s pause for a history of Valentine’s day from vitro-nasu archive.

Did not use this potato heart for Valentine’s day

Potato Heart

2009 Valentine’s Day Klaus Nomi flash animation (Valentine’s Day on youtube)

2006 Valentine’s Day dedicated to Bill Evans My Foolish Heart (Youtube link usually disappears but not this link to a great master)

2007 Valentine’s Day
Kaitlyn and Spike in Hall mark moment googlized.

sketch of a Bison Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

H. Gaudier
Carving the head of Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound by Wyndam Lewis -1939

Pound supported the impoverished Gaudier-Brzeska in a practical way, too, not only by purchasing carvings but also by presenting him with a block of marble for a specially commissioned portrait.
There was also a vein of impish humour in Gaudier-Brzeska’s work. Even the Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound could be seen, especially from the rear, as a circumcised phallus..(via)

Not to confuse with the trash metal Savage Messiah, Savage Messiah is Ken Russell’s most loving bio opic on Henri Gaudier Brezeska..

Young Helen Mirren appeared in an extreme NSFW see the trailer.
However Audrey Tutin played Sophie Brezeska, the neurotic Polish poetess and not Helen Mirren.

Ken Russell Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

Gaudier-Brzeska’s short life was a very interesting one. In 1910 he moved to London, England, and it was there that he met the person who would be arguably the biggest influence on the man and his work: Sophie Brzeska
Sophie was a Polish woman who was almost twice the age of Henri, but the age difference did nothing to stop a very special bond developing between the two. Although for much of the time their relationship appeared to be almost entirely platonic, there can be little doubt that the two were soul mates. Their relationship was very awkward, however, and at times almost appeared to be sado-masochistic, with Henri mentally torturing Sophie and playing on her insecurities. The two were well suited to this sort of setup, and the age difference seemed to define their general behaviour almost by default; Henri’s youthful exuberance offset against Sophie’s world-weary outlook on life.

Derek Jarman who started his film career by designing the set of Russell’s “The Devils’ continued to work in “The Savage Messiah”.

Another Savage Messiah had a birthday yesterday (Feb 9)
Added his blog Thomas Bernhard in the sidebar menu.

Congratulations to Jurgen Trautwein!

Javamueum 2010

web guru since 1996, world wide participation in shows and festivals
JavaMuseum participant since 2001

Barnett Newman Enter here

ZIPS_SOUNDS are interactive noise- color- screens.
ZIP_SOUNS is a minimal visual/acoustic game, that allows to create patterns and add or subtract sound-loops, covering a spectrum from possible silence to noise overloads.
depending on the clicking enthusiasm of the visitor ZIP_SOUNDS could become celebrations of barnett newmans zips and colorfield painting in general.

Niesatt is a neologism consisting of two german words nie and satt. meaning never full, never enough, never satisfied. if one reads it backwards and substitutes the double t with a D it reads Dasein, which means being!
Jurgen Trautwein

I like America, America likes me. J.Beuys multi-screen screaming.

Image sentences from 36 – 50 ( jtwinenow blog).

Photos from Tenderloin district (Jurgen’s neighborhood.)
A sawing artist talking about Tenderloin on youtube.

Flying saucers photo by Alan Sondheim

Happy birthday Alan! (Feb 3, 1943)
In 2007 Annie Ballardini celebrated his birthday with a birthday poem written by Alan. This was the missing birthday year here at Vitro Nasu for Alan, now amended with this link to his poem.

Alan and his bizarre but brainy/inventive birthday buddies -2009

Setsubun -(Japanese Bean throwing day) 2008

Three Lives: Alan with Gertrude Stein and Simone Weil (A good interview on Alan here)

Alan and Gertrude 2005

Follow Alan (if i follow you and you follow me, a noose around us both will be -Alan)

I wept because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no tear-ducts.

Let us switch to non-birthday poem…

“the lyric poem

“If Auschwitz hadn’t happened, if September were another,
“I’d say that you were mine, I’d say we’d stay together,
“In any darkness, weather; if Beirut were filled with flowers,
“Jerusalem a town, I’d say we’d live forever, I’d say we’d be together;
“If Afghanistan were peaceful, if America were other,
“I’d say we’re made for one another, I’d say eternity;
“If Rwanda never happened, Sudan were prosperous,
“I’d say we’d love forever, I’d say a god was there, so glorious in us;
“If Israel were milk, and Palestine of honey, and China were so sweet,
“We’d lie together there, I’d say you were the rose,
“All among the fairest; if one voice hadn’t happened,
“Another took its place, I’d say your name forever,
“And we would live forever; if September were another,
“A day of bright fall weather, if Auschwitz hadn’t happened,
“In any darkness, weather, I’d say that we were peaceful,
“I’d say eternity, if animals still roamed free, if there were animals,
“I’d say a god was there, so glorious in us, all among the fairest;
“If one voice hadn’t happened, another took its place.”
© Alan Sondheim

Economies of the imaginary

0 the violent winds and ten directions
1 but there were times i knew the way (read more here)

Review of “Foofwa d’Imobilité/Neopost Ahrrrt”

The accompaniment was by Foofwa’s talented musical collaborator, Alan Sondheim. It was a useful entr’acte, because it eased the transition into a very different second live performance, one that moved from tiring to painful.
On a bare stage, with windows to the outside world visible and the rehearsal mirror reflecting from stage right, Sondheim sat, strumming one of the many exotic stringed instruments that surrounded him, including an electric Egyptian oud, cura cumbus and yayli tanbur, along with a recognizable classical guitar.

Langston
Photo by Gordon Parks

Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967)

Cross
My old man’s a white old man
And my old mother’s black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I’m sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder were I’m going to die,
Being neither white nor black?

On the Weary Blues

In The Big Sea Hughes reported that his “Weary Blues,” which won him his first poetry prize, “included the first blues [he’s] ever heard way back in Lawrence, Kansas, when [he] was a kid.”

Watch the Weary Blues (youtube)

Let American be America again

See photos by Roy DeCarava
DE CARAVA, Roy, and HUGHES, Langston, The Sweet Flypaper of Life, Washington, Howard University Press, 1984.

DeCarava Hallway
Roy de Carava

DeCarava’s photographs languished in a closet until he took them to Langston Hughes. “I thought Hughes would enjoy them because they were so much about people,” DeCarava told In These Times this February. “He was very touched and moved by the pictures and said, ‘Let me try to get them published.’”
Hughes found Simon and Schuster willing to bring out the book, but only on the condition that Hughes write an accompanying text. DeCarava at that point relinquished control of the project, giving Hughes some 500 photographs from which to make a selection. Of the people he had photographed, DeCarava told Hughes nothing.
The Sweet Flypaper of Life is not, then, a collaboration of writer and photographer, but a writer’s response to photographs
(via)

Read Juke Box Love Song

I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you

-Langston Hughes

History

The past has been a mint
Of blood and sorrow.
That must not be
True of tomorrow

More Langston’s political poems here

Roy DeCarava R.I.P (previous post here).

Something unrelated:

Two new art photos by Chagoya were added to my previous post “American Psycho”.