Vitro Nasu

Václav Havel in front of his favorite painting, Master Theodoric’s portrait of St. Matthew, at Prague’s National Gallery in 1992. Pavel Štecha

December 29, 1989: Havel became the President of Czech Republic

Vaclav Havel – Leaving (previous post)

Lou REED AND Havel

William Gaddis painted 1987 by Julian Schnabel
Born on December 29, 1922

Paris Review –William Gaddis

Portraits of Ohara, Gaddis Millet (more links on Gaddis)

Lucky Strike
Ray Johnson

Happy New Year!

Ichiro Kojima (onlinebrowsing) – see more photos.

Kojima (b. 1924, Aomori, Japan) served the war effort in China during World War II and returned to his homeland, Aomori, in 1946. Having passed through several jobs, he began to help out in the family business, a photographic equipment shop.
Tsugaru, the series in this exhibition, was shot during Kojima’s first four years as a photographer; it may be said that it was during this time he worked on Tsugaru where Kojima developed his characteristic printing technique.

Photo via

Under the guidance of an experienced beggar, the younger blind man would learn the basics of shamisen and begging. These men, called bousama (sarcastically meaning “honorable monk,”), were definitely at the bottom of the social ladder. They traveled through farming and fishing areas, where they would be able to play for food in order to survive.
Tsugaru History

Tsugaru-Aomori Japan (see map)

R.I.P Yusef Lateef

Dr. Yusef Abdul Lateef, 93, of Shutesbury, passed away Monday, Dec. 23, 2013, in the late morning. He passed peacefully at home with loved ones.
Dr. Lateef was a Five College Professor of Music and Music Education from 1987 to 2002 and was well known for his support and mentorship of up and coming artists. Dr. Lateef was a 2010 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Award. This Grammy Award-winning composer and musician’s career began in the 1940’s and has continued with touring and performing worldwide until the summer of 2013.

Love theme from Spartacus

Click to see larage.
Xmas Tree in a Living Room, Levittown, L. I., 1963
.Copyright © The Estate of Diane Arbus

Revealed and Rediscovered – Diane Arbus

PIERRE ALECHINSKY

Hors Saison I. 177 x 88 cm S. 187 x 95 cm Etching and aquatint in colours printed on Japan, 1988

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Black Snowman by David Shrigley

On Top of the Raspberry – I am not here …. by Reiner strasser

(Click to see large)
1) Cleaning for Christmas, Weihnachtsputz, 2011
2) Christmas Dance (Greetings to Slinkachu), 12-2011..
Reiner strasser

Kenneth Rexroth..(born on Dec 22) Married Blues (he loved Jazz… great stuff)

Chet Baker born on 23 December –
Chrystal Bells

Previous post “Let’s get lost'” documentary ..

Robert Bly :News of Universe (about his life)

Happy Holidays!

Beverly Pepper (homepage)

Beverly Pepper (born December 20, 1922) is an American sculptor known for her monumental works,
site specific and land art. She remains independent from any particular art movement.

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Infinite Potential– David BohmandHolographic Universe

Photo via

The Krishnamurti–Bohm Dialogues took place over a span of almost 25 years. Although they had met and talked before, the first one to be recorded was in August of 1965, after an annual Krishnamurti gathering in Saanen, Switzerland.

David Bohm speaks about Wholeness and Fragmentation
(Conference from 1979 with Robert Rauschenberg, David Bohm, The Dalai Lama, Stanislov Menshikov.)

David Bohm net

David Bohm (20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992

Update: news of his death was unconfirmed.. He is still alive.. may you live forever.

I’ve got to B natural and have faith what comes through me..I’ve got to B major in positivity and B minor in negativity..I must not B flat and allow the light of my enthusiasm to fade.” ~excerpt from a poem by Horace Silver

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Funky and humorous (Many good links to his compositions)

R.I.P Peter O’Toole
Peter with Philippe Noiret and Siân Phillips.

Murphy’s War

Philippe Noiret and Peter O’Toole were wonderful in Murphy’s War directed by Peter Yates.

Some trivia –
Albert Finney was picked to play Lawrence of Arabia.. Finney tired and quit. He did not want to spend the time in the desert.
Peter wrote a book, not much about acting.. he wrote about his wartime experience.. Loitering with intent

Amazingly, this second volume of Peter O’Toole’s memoirs (the first was Loitering with Intent: The Child, published in March 1995) covers only three years of the actor’s life; even more amazingly, it’s a wonderful read. If he hadn’t been such a prodigiously gifted actor, O’Toole could have made it as a writer. His prose is discursive, freewheeling, multilayered, and fairly bursting with exuberant vitality. Loitering with Intent: The Apprentice covers O’Toole’s years in the early 1950s at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he studied his craft, hobnobbed with fellow students (including Albert Finney, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship), and made rakish, footloose excursions around London. It’s hard to say whether he had more fun in the living of it or the retelling, but both are a pleasure for the reader to behold.

Peter O’Toole in
Isabelle Eberhardt biopic.

R.I.P Peter O’Toole (via Gurdian)

(Google Japan honored Ozu on his birthday)

Ozu was born on Dec 12, 1903.. he passed away on his birthday Dec 12 1963.

Ohayo trailer (youtube)

Click to see Sada Keiji

I love you…..

I was born but... (previous Post)

Tokyo Chorus (previous post – Okada Tokihiko) –

Floating Words (previous post)

See Tokyo Twilight here.

(Sada Keiji in Equinox Flower)

Jane and Kate Barry

The shocking news came via FB..
Le Figaro (in French only)

La photographe Kate Barry, fille de l’actrice et chanteuse Jane Birkin, est décédée aujourd’hui vers 18h30 après avoir chuté du 4e étage de son appartement parisien.

An anti-depressant drug was found.

Dailymail obit here. (see many photos here)

See more photographs by Kate Barry here

Wall street article on Kate Barry

Kate and Jane Birkin

Colin Wilson laughing here.

“The mind has exactly the same power as the hands; not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.

Colin Wilson ((26 June 1931 – 5 December 2013)

Telegraphe obit (More detaied bio info here)

(Above photo via)

Colin Wilson was born in Leicester to Arthur, a shoemaker, and his wife, Hattie, who passed on her love of reading. “My mother did not particularly enjoy being married, any more than my father did,” he wrote in a memoir. Wilson went to a local technical school, where he did well at physics and chemistry, and left at 16 to work in a wool factory. He had spells as a laboratory assistant, tax clerk, labourer and hospital porter. Vehemently alienated from all materialistic and collective life, he grew obsessed, he said, with the notion of being a Buddhist tathagata (truth-seeking wanderer).
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Colin Wilson on Peak Experience youtube above. (Reading some of his books gave me many peak experiences… however that was long ago. )

Independent

Inspired by the title and content of Camus’ novel l’Etranger (The Outsider, 1942), he sought to rationalise the psychological dislocation associated with Western creative thinking. Wilson took the outline and sample pages to the publisher Victor Gollancz, who immediately accepted the book. Published on 26 May 1956, The Outsider sold out of its initial print run of 5,000 copies in one day.
Cyril Connolly said it was “one of the most remarkable first books I have read for a long time” while Philip Toynbee called it “a real contribution to our understanding of our deepest predicament”. It shows how artists and writers such as Van Gogh, Kafka and Hemingway are affected by society and how they in turn, as “outsiders”, impact on society.

Michael B’s Colin Wilson

Alan Sondheim saw Colin Wilson speak on Campus in 1960

Alev Croutier

RIP COLIN WILSON! I’m so deeply sad to lose a great friend, a brilliant and most prolific writer, one of the kindest and most brilliant men I know. I was fortunate to publish a few of his books, learn dowsing from him, and walk along the cliffs in Cornwall. He had a stroke last year and lost his ability to talk. It must have killed him. I wonder what he thinks of “Afterlife” now.

Francois Ozon won the scriptwriting award at the European Film Festivals

Francois Ozon

Francois Ozon on “In the House”

I was particularly struck by the teacher-student relationship when I saw the play. We root for both the teacher and the student. Both points of view are presented, by turns. Usually students learn from their teachers, but here, the learning goes both ways. And the back-and-forth between reality and writing lends itself to a playful reflection on storytelling and the imagination. These somewhat theoretical questions are really brought to life in the play. The Germain-Claude relationship represents the essential partnership in any creative endeavor: the editor and the writer, the producer and the director, even the reader and the writer or the audience and the director. When I read the play, I saw a chance to speak indirectly about my work, the cinema, inspiration and its sources, what it is to create, what it is to be an audience.

Kristin Scott Thomas
I found it funny and light, yet not superficial. It poses questions, makes you think about the roles of teachers and students, about art, and about our obsession with reality shows.

Toni Servillo plays a journalist.

Paulo Sorrentino won the best director and Toni Servillo won the best actor at European Film Festival.

I saw both “The Great Beauty” and “In the House” recently. Ozon assembled great cast and delivered a very provactive and an entertaining film.

Paulo Sorrentino has worked with Sean Penn in This Must Be the Place.
Paul Sorrentino’s style is a mixture of Fellini and Peter Greenaway, very extravagant and operatic. The film pays a tribute to La Dolci Vita.

Catherine Deneuve won a lifetime achievement award.
Here she is as Tristana.