Vitro Nasu

A young Zaha Hadid stands in front of the Trevi fountain in Rome. Image from her family archives.

Observer Obit

In her own words.

on march 31, 2016, world renowned architect zaha hadid passed away at the age of 65. born in baghdad in 1950, she studied mathematics before enrolling at london’s architectural association in 1972. by 1979 she had established zaha hadid architects, and quickly rose to global prominence. working with office partner patrik schumacher, the studio utilized a host of innovative technologies that often resulted in unexpected and dynamic architectural forms.

Guardian Obit

Zaha was an outsider and upfront about the unfair treatment she experienced as a woman, a foreigner and a designer of expensive, weird-looking buildings – a triple whammy. She did not fit the stereotypical white male profession of registered architects. Jealousy and prejudice failed to bar her way, but it took its toll.

Reaction from Social Media

NYtimes obit

Nobel Literature Laureate Imre Kertesz Dies at 86
Kertesz was only 14 when he was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland in 1944. He survived that camp and later was transferred to the Buchenwald camp from where he was liberated in 1945.

“As a child you have a certain trust in life. But when something like Auschwitz happens, everything falls apart,” he once said.

Yet Kertesz also made a startling confession that he experienced “my most radical moments of happiness” while at Auschwitz.

Imre Kertész (via)

“For writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history”

<> <> <>

A film based on his novel Fatelessness was made in Hungary in 2005 for which he wrote the script.[3] Although sharing the same title, the movie is more autobiographical than the book. The film was released at various dates throughout the world in 2005 and 2006.

“The film had to try very hard to avoid Holocaust clichés,” Mr. Kertész said. “It could be emotional, but never sentimental.” (NYtimes)

Fatelessness
<> <>

“I am a medium for the spirit of Auschwitz. Auschwitz speaks through me. Everything else seems stupid to me, compared to that.”
Nobel Prize

Children and Adolescents in Buchenwald Concentration Camp

The Last Word: Interview with Irme

Q: You’re the first Hungarian to win a Nobel literature prize. How is it to be getting a hero’s welcome?
A: It’s very strange for me because I’m certainly no hero. I’ve always looked on my writing as a very private matter. For decades I had no audience and lived on the fringes of society.
Q: You’ve said that it’s easier to write literature in a dictatorship than in a democracy.
A: That was too sweeping a statement, but there’s a truth to it. Because I didn’t write what the communist government wanted to see, I was cut off and alone with my work. I never thought my book would ever be published, and so I had the freedom to write as radically as I wanted, to go as deep inside as I wanted. In a democracy you have to find a market niche, make sure a novel is “interesting” and “spectacular.” That may be the toughest censorship of all.

Everyday photo via

Michael Winterbottom has made an almost unbearably moving film that follows the lives of a prisoner’s family through the years

Trstram

<>
Russell Brand and Michael Winterbottom
photo via

Bio (Happy birthday – Michael Winterbottom)

Sparrow transformed to a dove sitting on top of Saguaro. (Photo by Fung Lin Hall).

This one bird to Sanders transformed the politics, World Peace Political revolution and Sparrow.

Coming to play with me orphan Sparrow…..Issa ‘s haiku translated by Robert Hass.. the orphan Sparrow came to play with our compassionate candidate Bernie Sanders.. what a treat for the world and we all pray for world peace.
John Stewart called him “Bird”.

Chapter I – the War Candidate – a nostalgia trip to Bosnia

<> <> <> Hillary’s lunch
Hillary was in Bosnia.. (Digital collage by Fung Lin Hall)

Gifs for Gaffe

Chapter II -the Peace Candidate

Peacock from Prague photo by Fung-Lin Hall 1996
Valdstejnska zahrada – Mala Strana – Prague

Vaclav Havel Peacock from Prague is saying hello to Birdy Sanders. We had Velvet Revolution.. I welcome Birdy Revolution for world peace.

Havel

Martin Buber. I and thou.

“The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.”
― Martin Buber

“An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.”
― Martin Buber

See more Birds photos by Fung Lin Hall (Facebook)

Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates at White Cube

Theaster Gates’ practice includes sculpture, installation, performance and urban interventions that aim to bridge the gap between art and life. Gates works as an artist, curator, urbanist and facilitator and his projects attempt to instigate the creation of cultural communities by acting as catalysts for social engagement that leads to political and spatial change.

Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada

via

The Unknown Purifoy

Noah Purifoy

See photos of Brad Dourif

Happy birthday Brad Dourif! (March 18)
Wise Blood, (J.Huston/Flannery O’Connor), One flew over the cukoo’s nest, Mississipi Burning, London Kills Me (Hanif Kureishi) . Tommy Lee Jones was supposed to play Hazel Motes. I just found this interview..

Many laughs of Brad Dourif (youtube)

In 1981, Vincent Canby listed Dourif as one of twelve actors to watch, calling Dourif “one of the most intense, most interesting young film actors of his generation”
(via wiki)

London Kills Me (Tumblr) (Written and directed by Hanif Kureishi)

Erik Bruhn and Nureyev Photo by Diane Arbus

Two supreme dancers directed by Ken Russell.

Nureyev’s birthday .. March 17, 1938 Nureyev was to die of AIDS – see more photos at Aids Memorial

[on Marlon Brando] An angel as a man, a monster as an actor. – Bernardo Bertolucci

Update:RIP Bernardo Bertolucci

Why Bertolucci’s The Conformist deserves a place in cinema history(the Guardian)

The Italian director’s 1970 expressionist masterpiece offered a blueprint for a new kind of Hollywood film, which is why Coppola, Spielberg, Scorsese and co owe him a huge debt

Julian on Bernardo

Julian Schnabel’spainting dedicated to Bernardo Bertolucci and his surfer friend here.

via Bruce Weber
(Malkovich moved to Europe after working with Bertolucci in Sheltering Aky).

Frequently references classic movies
Frequently has nude scenes in his films
Long, complex camera movements.
Often references famous painters or art movements.
Nonlinear timeline.

The young Bertolucci took after his father, a Roman poet and film critic, and became a celebrated published poet by the age of 20. He gave up poetry for the cinema after working as an assistant to Pier Paolo Pasolini on the movie Accattone (1961).

He’s a big fan of Breaking Bad (2008).
[on the end of Breaking Bad (2008)] I’m sad about it. I want more.

via

Gordon Parks
Photo by Gordon Parks (Harlem, 1963)

March 15 is International day against police brutality.

Bernie Sanders Arrested In 1963 For Protesting Against Segregation At A Civil Rights Demonstration!

Beat Poet
Robert Hass – previous post

Not quite violent..(previous post) Six Cops and Nothingness.

BLUE Mitchell
March 13, 1930 — May 21, 1979

“I think Blue Mitchell was one of the most melodic players of his generation”

–Jimmy Heath

Blue Mitchell played with Horace Silver for seven years.

Tatsumi Hijikata
Kamaitachi #40 (Hijikata Tatsumi), 1965 by Eikoh Hosoe
Tatsumi Hijikata His wiki shows a photo of Hijikata and Sada Abe (In the Realm of Senses by Nagisa Oshima was loosely based on Sada Abe)

Hijikata undertook his first Ankoku Butoh performance, Kinjiki, in 1959, using a novel by Yukio Mishima as the raw input material for an abrupt, sexually-inflected act of choreographic violence which stunned its audience. At around that time, Hijikata met three figures who would be crucial collaborators for his future work: Yukio Mishima, Eikoh Hosoe, and Donald Richie In 1962,

Yukio Mishima and Hijikata in Barakei – 1961 photographed by Eiko Hosoe.

<> <>
Title: Shinjuku Turmoil
Hijikata posed for Shomei Tomatsu 1970 (master photographer)

Keiya Ouchida, Hosotan, film de 1972. Chorégraphie de Tatsumi Hijikata.
Courtesy Cinémathèque de la danse © Collection Cinémathèque de la danse

Eiko Hosoe photographed Kauzo Ohno
Kazuo Ohno – previous post

(Yumi Shirakawa, Hideko Takamine, Yoko Minamida, Misako Uji and Yumiko Hasegawa visiting Elvis.)

Catherine Deneuve and Linh Dan Pham dancing tango from Indochine.

In Bloom – two young girls growing up in Tbilisi – a debut film by woman director from Georgia when it was ruled under Russia.

Meet Nikki Giovanni – Poet & Scholar.. (She is so cool).

Charulatta – Satyajit Ray

<>

Anne Waldman – Number Song -She Has Multiplied
I’ve multiplied, I’m 2.
He was part of me
he came out of me,
he took a part of me
He took me apart.
I’m 2, he’s my art,
no, he’s separate.
He art one. I’m not
done & I’m still one.
I sing of my son. I’ve
multiplied. My heart’s
in 2, half to him & half
to you,
who are also a part
of him, & you & he
& I make trio of
kind congruity.

N U M B E R
S O N G

Photo by Mario Ambrosius

Kojin Karatani Love and Empathy for the Oppressed Remembering Tsushima Yuko.

It is not well known in Japan that Yūko Tsushima was a strong candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. She wrote a wide variety of works that were entirely worthy of the award, and she was active internationally. If only she had lived a little longer, she would probably have won. Also, I walked with her a number of times in demonstrations against nuclear power in front of the Diet. It is sad to think that I can’t do that any more.

Asahi Shimbun, February 23, 2016

(Translated by Geraldine Harcourt)

Kojin Karatani – and Natsume Soseki (previous post)

Tsushima Yuko (wiki) (30 March 1947 – 18 February 2016), known by her pen name Yūko Tsushima (津島 佑子 Tsushima Yūko), was a Japanese fiction writer, essayist and critic.[1] She was the daughter of famed novelist Osamu Dazai, who committed suicide when she was one year old

Takako Matsui and Tadanobu Asano

Villon’s wife

Wiki on Villon’s Wife

Villon’s Wife is based on the 1947 semi-autographical short work of the same name Villon’s Wife by Dazai Osamu. The title was inspired by 15th century French poet Francois Villon.

Dazai Osamu

Dazai Osamu (1909-1948) was born about halfway between Kawabata Yasunari (1899-1972) and Mishima Yukio (1925-1970) and Abe Kobo (1924-1993), and, in that generation following the Pacific War, when Japan was occupied by Americans, his celebrity came in between, too. Kawabata was an established writer while Mishima and Abe were building their early reputations (Mishima to establish his much younger), and Dazai was, for a time, the most distinguished writer in town–so an important 20th century Japanese novelist–making him Mishima’s early competition. And Mishima saw him as representing all that he most despised in post-war Japanese fiction, hated to be compared to him.

Dazai Osamu(wiki)

A number of his most popular works, such as Shayō and No longer human (Ningen Shikkaku), are considered modern-day classics in Japan. With a semi-autobiographical style and transparency into his personal life, Dazai’s stories have intrigued the minds of many readers. His books also bring about awareness to a number of important topics such as human nature, mental illness, social relationships, and postwar Japan.