Vitro Nasu

Toyoko Tamasaki wiki

Author Toyoko Yamasaki, known for best-selling novels getting to the heart of social problems, such as corruption and injustice, died on Sept. 29. She was 88.
Yamasaki won fame in 1965 with “Shiroi Kyoto” (The white tower), which shed light on the dark side of the medical world and the problem of malpractice.
Other representative novels include “Karei-naru Ichizoku” (The grand family) on corruption among politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats; “Fumo Chitai” (Wasteland) about the life of a former military officer who returned from Siberia; and “Daichi no Ko” (Son of the earth) about the life of a man left behind in China at the end of World War II.

Asahi obit

Japan times obit

Toyoko Yamasaki“Huffpo/Japan

“Futatsu no Sokoku” (Two Homelands) tells the story of the lives of three California-born sons of Japanese immigrants during the years surrounding World War II.

List of her novels at Amazon.

Ken Watanabe as the chairman of an airline workers labor union during aftermath of the tragic 1985 crash of JAL Flight 123. Due to the way the story portrays people who are still in positions of power today, the airline industry has long been unhelpful in bringing this story to the big screen.

The Sun that does not set promo (+ trailer )

R.I.P Kofi Awoonor (Letter from Nairobi: “I Will Say It Before Death Comes” Posted by Teju Cole – NewYorker)

On Saturday, September 21st, the Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor was shot dead at Nairobi’s Westgate mall by terrorists. He was one of dozens of innocent victims of the massacre, for which the Somali group Shabaab claimed responsibility. I was about a mile away during the attack, giving a reading at the National Museum. During the reading, as word of the attack filtered in, people answered their phones and checked their messages, but, onstage and oblivious, I continued taking questions from the audience, including one about “the precariousness of life in Africa.”

Telegraph Obit

Book blogger Kinna Reads congratulated Professor Awoonor for his command of language, saying “He spoke Fanti as fluently as Ewe”. Professor Awoonor’s early poetry was heavily influenced by the dirge-singing traditions of his native Ewe tribe.

Robert Bresson homepage

Four Nights of a Dreamer is based on the story White Nights written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Two other Bresson films based on Dostoevsky were Pickpocket and La Femme Douce. Mouchette and The Diary of Country Priest were based on George Bernanos.
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Transcendental and Alone

Bresson

Au Hazard Balthazar By Donald Richie

Roebert Creeley on Lancelot

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Mr. Laydu fasted to achieve the thinness required for the role.Mr. Laydu, unlike many of the untrained actors whom Bresson used, continued acting after appearing in “Diary of a Country Priest.”
Nicole Ladmiral who was great in the Diaray of a Country Priest, died at 28 by throwing herself deliberately beneath a subway train in the Paris Metro. (1958)

More image from The Diary of Country Priest…

Maria Casares was in Bresson’s early film.

Robert Bresson’s Les Dames de Bois de Boulongne – It is a modern adaptation of a section of Diderot‘s Jacques le fataliste (1796).

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Bresson with Tarkovsky and Orson Welles at Cannes Festival.

Bresson with the heavey weights of cinema Bitter sweet life…

Scroll down to see Bresson with Visconti and Orson Welles

Two photos by Christian Wolther from his visit to USA. The photo below is from THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY in L.A.

Click to see large
See more photos here

Sept 23: Birthday of John Coltrane

My Favorite Things 1961 (youtube)

John Coltrane the spiritual (youtube)

Coltrane Stan Gets. Oscar Peterson

Levinas and Blanchot
Sept 22 – birthday of Maurice Blanchot.

Levinas on Blanchot (youtube)

Derrida on Blanchot (youtube)

Emmanuel Levinas (previous post)

Who gives the order – Larry Hagman plays a Russian Interpreter .. assisting the President played by Henry Fonda..

See Fail Safe full film (youtube)

Larry Hagman was born on September 21, 1931

Hagman was an American film and television actor best known for playing ruthless oil baron J. R. Ewing in the 1980s prime time television soap opera Dallas, and befuddled astronaut Major Anthony “Tony” Nelson in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.

Hagman had supporting roles in numerous films, including Fail-Safe, Nixon, and Primary Colors.

“LSD was such a profound experience in my life that it changed my pattern of life and my way of thinking and I could not exclude it.”[31] Hagman was introduced to marijuana by Jack Nicholson, as a safer alternative to Hagman’s heavy drinking. “I liked it because it was fun, it made me feel good, and I never had a hangover.

Sidney Lumet and Marlon Brando

Both Fail-Safe and The Group were directed by Sidney Lumet. (Previous post here).

Kate Millet

Flying with Kate Millet

See Alice Neel’s portrait of Kate Millet here. (Below Frank O’Hara and William Gaddis)

Self-Portrait of William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was born on September 17, 1883, Rutherford, NJ.

5 poems by William Carlos Williams (youtube)

Cummings

E E Cummings and Fibonacci
“He painted all day when the light was good,” said Kostelanetz, “and wrote poetry at night.”
“He actually painted more than he actually wrote,” said Sawyer-Lucanno.

Otto Sander as Cassiel..

Mario A posted a very sad news on Facebook.. Otto Sander passed away.
BBC obit.. here.

See many gif animations here.. Otto Sander Tumblr page.

Das Boot – I`m not in the condition to fuck (youtube)

Nostalgia for the Light

The Atacama Desert in northern Chile — the setting of Patricio Guzmán’s transfixing cinematic essay “Nostalgia for the Light” — is a place where heaven and earth converge. Or some might say heaven and hell.

Click to see large (via)

Patricio Guzmán has insisted that memory be restored. He has spent much of his career as a filmmaker digging deep into historical memory, beginning with the magnificent La batalla de Chile (The Battle of Chile, 1975-79), a street-level view of the coup itself at it unfolded. This remarkable film, in my view the best documentary every made, paid a high price for its existence and is a great expression of human solidarity – one of its valiant cinematographers, Leonardo Henrichsen, was shot and killed as he operated his camera. Jorge Muller Silva, perhaps the most celebrated photographer associated with the film, was taken prisoner by Pinochet and executed. The late Chris Marker, who now seems central to the international left of the postwar period, helped give birth to the film by donating thousands of feet of 35mm film. Guzmán followed this project with Chile, la memoria obstinada (Chile, Obstinate Memory, 1997), Le cas Pinochet (The Pinochet Case, 2001), Salvador Allende (2004) (the last two covered in other CTEQ reviews) and Guzmán’s most beautiful – and vexing – film to date, Nostalgia de la luz (Nostalgia for the Light, 2010). Some have accused Guzmán of monomania, which may be a measure of how low humanity has sunk, if we are indeed so unable to spot a truly heroic artist.

Allende September 11 1973
(See a video excerpt of Ken Loach Chile Sept 11)

Democracy Now.. Chiean Coup 1973 (Amy Goodman)

Pinochet victim widow fights for justice
Missing was directed by Coata Gavras.

Sonny Rollins: What Jazz Is, and What Being a Jazz Musician Means To Me

Happy birthday Sonny Rollins!

Theodore Walter Rollins was born on September 7, 1930 in New York City. He grew up in Harlem not far from the Savoy Ballroom, the Apollo Theatre, and the doorstep of his idol, Coleman Hawkins.

Between 1959 and late `61 withdrew from public performance.
Sonny remembers that he took his leave of absence from the scene because “I was getting very famous at the time and I felt I needed to brush up on various aspects of my craft. I felt I was getting too much, too soon, so I said, wait a minute, I’m going to do it my way. I wasn’t going to let people push me out there, so I could fall down. I wanted to get myself together, on my own. I used to practice on the Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge because I was living on the Lower East Side at the time.”

Listen to You Don’t Know What Love Is

Rollins remember Bud Powell <> <> <> Rollins on Buddhism

Today’s players are still dealing with Sonny Rollins’ contribution to the idiom, plundering his recordings for ideas and insights. He was one of the first to appropriate a West Indian heritage and music into mainstream jazz, which for me is very significant. His political consciousness and daring I also found inspiring – for example, recording The Freedom Suite in 1958 with Max Roach during the civil rights protests. He’s completely at one with his instrument. And few people have been able to make triplets and eighth-notes swing harder. (From the Guardian)

Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker and Horace Silver are three great Virgo jazz musicians. Only Charlie Parker died young.

Previous post:Who by Fire Sonny Rollins and Leonard Cohen

Richard Wright photo by Gordon Parks

Native Son Screen test Richard Wright as Bigger Thomas (youtube)

Documentary of his life (youtube) I & II

Haiku: This Other World (1998)by Richard Wright

I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away.

I give permission
For this slow spring rain to soak
The violet beds.

With a twitching nose
A dog reads a telegram
On a wet tree trunk.

Burning autumn leaves,
I yearn to make the bonfire
Bigger and bigger.

A sleepless spring night:
Yearning for what I never had
And for what never was.

In a drizzling rain,
In a flower shop’s doorway,
A girl sells herself

A slow autumn rain:
The sad eyes of my mother
Fill a lonely night.

Nutville

Filthy McNasty

Sister Sadie

Doodlin (Sarah Vaughan vocal)

The Skunky Funky Blues

Happy birthday Horace Silver
(visit his homepage and check out his autobiography.)

Song for my father – previous post

Silver with gold fingers