Gordon Parks

Gordon Alexander Buchannan Parks, Sr. Was Born on November 30, 1912.

During The 1970’s Parks Signed With Paramount Pictures, As The First African American To Work For A Major Motion Picture Studio. He Directed The Films, “Shaft” And “Shaft’s Big Sore,” Two Movies Which Proved The Box Office Power Of Movies Targeted At Black Audiences. “Shaft” Grossed $12 Million In Its First Year.

His Film, “The Learning Tree,”Was Registered By The National Film Registry Of The Library Of Congress, On September 19, 1989.

Released In 1969, And Adapted From The Book By The Same Title, “The Learning Tree” Is An Autobiographical Offering By Parks. It Tells The Coming Of Age Story Of Newt Winger, A Young Black Boy Growing Up In Racist, Pre-Civil Rights Movement, Kansas, During The 1920’s.

Before Working In Motion Pictures, Parks Gained Notoriety As One Of The World’s Most Prolific Photo Journalists. His Photo Essays In “Life” Magazine Presented Some Of The Most Defining Images In American Culture.

Gordon Parks Also Had Success As A Musician, Poet And Composer. In Addition, He Left His Mark As A Social Activist. He Died March 7, 2006.

“In Order For Black History To Live, We Must Continue To Breathe Life Into It.” — Hubert Gaddy, Jr.

Hugh Gaddy

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Een oude Life Magazine lezen, is geschiedenis lezen. Net als zijn Franse evenknie Paris Match zijn foto’s cruciaal voor het blad. Google zet het hele fotoarchief van Life nu online. Twee miljoen foto’s, sommige meer dan 200 jaar oud, zijn online te raadplegen. En er komen er nog acht miljoen bij.

In a few short weeks it will be the 40th anniversary of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The film is a) one of the best, if not the best, James Bond movies; b) the “first major hiccup” in the Bond series (as TCM weekend host Ben Mankiewicz put it in introducing Diamonds Are Forever when that film was shown on TCM in May; c) the rare Bond film with an unhappy ending.

It’s such an important film to the Bond series, we figured it was worth the same treatment we gave to Goldfinger’s 45th anniversary. The best place to start is with the obvious: it was the first film in the official 007 film series not to star Sean Connery.

The reasons for that have been much written about, including Connery’s tiring of the role *and* feeling unappreciated and underpaid (particularly in comparison to the paychecks Dean Martin was getting for the Matt Helm film series). You can’t have a Bond movie without a Bond, so somebody had to be chosen.

Life magazine gave its readers a view of the five finalists in a collage of photographs taken by Loomis Dean.

The late Peter Hunt, the film’s director, described in the documentary Inside On Her Majesty’s Secret Service there were numerous potential Bonds tested. The Life photos gave a hint of that, including actor John Richardson performing a love scene. Also shown was a shot of actor Anthony Rogers’s screen test. Others under consideration were Hans De Vries, Robert Cambell and an Australian model named George Lazenby.

Life also showed actors auditioning for other roles including Agneta Eckemyr doing a screen test, apparently for the role of Tracy, 007’s doomed bride. In that photo Hunt can be seen in the lower right.

In the end, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman went with George Lazenby, the least experienced of the five 007 finalists. The move would have a major effect on the film.

I am always fascinated by what other people read. Owning an online used bookstore offers me a glimpse into the out-of-bookstores and out-of-print books people are buying. Here are a few recent choices:

Simplified Fly Fishing, J.R. Slaymaker, Harper & Row, 1969
Spaghetti for Breakfast, Sesyle Joslin, Harcourt Brace, 1965 (children’s)
Six Thinking Hats, Edward de Bono, Little Brown, 1985 (children’s)
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath, Harper & Row, 1971

Need a gift for a member of the Greatest Generation? I spotted these in our collection for under-$25:

Christmas With Ed Sullivan, McGraw-Hill, 1959, hardcover with dustjacket. Christmas memories by Ed Sullivan and his many famous friends. Clark Gable remembers spending Christmas 1952 in Uganda with Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and John Ford while filming Mogambo. Carolos P. Romulo writes about Christmas 1941 in Manila under attack. Ed shares a story about Richard Cardinal Spellman and his 1954 Christmas visits to American troops in Korea. Short stories by Pearl Buck, Truman Capote, Damon Runyan and others are included. Very good condition, chips and tears on edges of dust jacket, some yellowing, price marks in pencil on front fly page, pencil signature and date on pages 153 and 191.

Sixty Years: LIFE Magazine-60th Anniversary Celebration 1936-1996, Time Life Books, 1996, hardcover with dustjacket. A timecapsule of photos with brief text. As new condition with a few creases on the dust jacket.
 
Latest Herman, Jim Unger, Andrews, McMeel & Parker,
1981, paperback. A collection of popular cartoons featuring the slouchy characters and offbeat humor of Jim Unger. The Herman cartoons were syndicated from 1975 through 1992. As new condition, small printed “Grandpa Greenwood” in ink on flyleaf.

View these and other books

Abraham Zapruder, [Frames 238, 312, 313, 314 and other stills from 8mm home movie of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Jr.], November 22, 1963

The morning after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, LIFE purchased Abraham Zapruder’s home movie of the event and the rights to publish it. LIFE published thirty-one black-and-white stills  in the November 29, 1963 issue, which focused on the President’s assassination in Dallas the previous week.

From “Split-Second Sequence as the Bullets Struck”:

On these and the following two pages is a remarkable and exclusive  series of pictures which show, for the first time and in tragic detail, the fate which befell our President. The caravan had just passed through the downtown area of Dallas and made a sharp left turn at the corner of Elm and Houston Streets, where it headed down an incline into an underpass. First came the police motorcycle escort (above) and then the big Lincoln bearing the Kennedys and Texas Governor John Connally and his wife. The crowds were thin at this point, but the President and Mrs. Kennedy were smiling and waving as their car passes the brick building where the assassin lurked, and disappeared momentarily behind a highway sign.

Then came the awful moment. In these pictures, which run consecutively from left to right, it begins as the car comes out from behind the sign (fifth picture). The President’s wave turns into a clutching movement toward his throat (seventh picture). Governor Connally, who glances around to see what has happened, is himself struck by a bullet (ninth picture) and slumps over (tenth picture). As the President’s car approaches a lamppost Mrs. Kennedy suddenly becomes aware of what has happened and reaches over to help (larger pictures below) while Governor Connally slumps to the floor. The President collapses on his wife’s shoulder and in the last two small pictures the First Lady cradles him in her arms.

The following spread, titled “Jackie Crawled for Help”:

“Oh, no!, Oh, no!,” Mrs. Kennedy cries (top row of pictures) as she sees the blood flowing from the President’s head. But the convoy keeps going, past the onlookers and photographers who stand frozen or fall to the ground as they hear the shots.

As the President lies dying, Jackie scrambles out of her seat and crawls onto the truck of the car in a pathetic search for help. As she crouches on hands and knees, the President’s head presses against her, staining her skirt and stockings with blood. A Secret Service man [Agent Clinton Hill] leaps on the bumper to protect the First Lady and get her back into the car.

Great pictures.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Taboo’s reppin hard at the VS show rocking the Green Purple Reflex TABOOXJUMP Zetos during their performance.

Red carpets.

This is an ad from Humble Oil that appeared in a 1962 issue of Life. It boasts that Humble Oil supplies enough energy that it can melt 7 million tons of glacier a day.

To get a larger view, click here.

One of the things that we inherited with the house (along with water damaged ceilings, no stove, and enough squirrels to feed a small nation) was a fairly sizable collection of magazines.  We got Look, National Geographic, McCalls, and a ton of Life.  I’d really been enjoying the snapshots of what it was like to be alive in the late 50s and 60s they provided.  However, I’m a bit of an anti-packrat, and it was time for them to go.  So, we headed to the second greatest bookstore in the world- the Half Price Books mothership- to trade them in.  What do you think three full copy paper boxes of vintage magazines is worth?  $6.  I’m not complaining, mind you.  My brother manages a Half Price Books, I understand the business model, and I certainly couldn’t be bothered to eBay them all off.  So, here, for posterity, are a few shots of the highlights of the now departed collection.

You may have heard the song Life Magazine playing in the background of a Radio Shack commercial. Are they still around, Radio Shack that is? Well it seems they are jumping on the Itune’s wagon and using indie alternative/electronic bands to jump start their company all over again. But is it working?

Who cares, I love the song Life Magazine, off the album Love Comes Close. It’s one of those songs, that when I hear it I have to stop everything I am doing, sway my head back and forth and shuffle my feet around. Yes, that is what I call dancing! If you haven’t heard the song yet, then you must. Cold Cave will be out in Los Angeles in the coming month…if I am lucky I just might go see the show!

Cold Cave is an electronic side project by Wesley Eisold who was a part of some bands like Some Girls, American Nightmare/Give up the Ghost, and XO Skeletons.

{Minimum House via Citroendork}

More available from this Life gallery.

via todayandtommorow.net

I remember the huge moon

UFO selective in turning off the power?

Who Turned out the Lights? On this date in 1965, the lights went out in the Northeast. Biggest power outage in US history. It’s cause was found to be from a relay station at Niagara Falls, the Sir Adam Beck Station Number 2 in Ontario, Canada. Here is  number of sources regarding the history of the 1965 blackout that was particularly difficult since it began during rush hour in New York. I remember my father being stuck in the RCA building in New York and the lights being out at home. The moon was huge and we sent my sister out to investigate what that large object was…we weren’t so sure it was a moon.   The whole episode could be traced back to the 1950’s when post-war America expanded rapidly and power requirements soared for public and commercial use as well as for private homes as new electric devices became available and affordable. 

NY Hospitals Had to deal with no power

Power companies developed a “grid” which was a system in which power stations in one utlity’s area was connected with power stations in another utility’s area via high voltage power lines.  The idea was to be able to control the balance between power generation and service demand over a large area.   When the relay station near Niagara Falls failed and disconnect a transmission line, it was a relatively minor failure on its own.  But, since it was part of the interconnected grid, the result was an escalating sequence of line overloads.  The line overloads raced down the main trunklines and that in turn separated main power sources with major sources of major demand.  Around New York City, power plants automatically shut down to prevent an overload of their turbines.  It took just 15 minutes for the entire Canadian-United States Interconnection area to go down.  The lights went out at 5:27 pm on November 9, 1965 and power was restored to all of New York City by 6:58 am on November 10. It took six days to pinpoint the cause….or was that just a cover story?

Has Anyone Seen a UFO?

Maybe it was a UFO because, according to some conspiracy theorists, the big power outage in 1965 was caused by a UFO. Here is the UFO angle and it’s relation to the Johnson White House.   Never mind that it happened again in 2003 and never mind that it is acknowledged that our electric grid is antiquated and susceptable to catastrophic, large scale failure. No…it was an UFO.  Here is a summary of the whole caper.  Look at these UFO reports from the late summer and fall of 1965 and analyze these UFO reports from Nov 9, 1965 yourself!  Truth or Fiction?  Apparently one demonstrated part of fiction from the Great Northeast Blackout was that the birthrate in the region skyrocketed 9 months later.  This story was spread by a  series of three stories in the New York Times in August 1966.  But, that storyline was debunked by J. Richard Udry in a study the demographer from the University of North Carolina published in 1970.  That’s no fun though…when myth collides with fact, go with the myth!

Weather Bottom Line:  Perhaps it is what is left of Ida cutting off the moisture, but our front coming through does not appear to be interested in bringing much rain.  The NAM has nothing and the GFS throws out .01″.  So, look for cloudy skies on Tuesday and then cooler and mostly sunny conditions for the rest of the week.

En mayo de 1947, Evelyn McHale, de 23 años, se tiro al vacío desde el mirador situado en la planta 86 del Empire State Building (Nueva York, EEUU) tras ser dejada por su novio. Fue a caer sobre el techo de una limusina que en aquel momento estaba vacía. Evelyn dejó una nota de suicidio en la que escribió: “Él está mucho mejor sin mí… Yo no sería una buena esposa para nadie”. La mano izquierda de la chica, ya sin vida, parece acariciar su collar. Un estudiante de fotografía llamado Robert C. Wiles oyó el impacto, salió a la calle y tomó la instantánea que vemos. Fue publicada el 12 de mayo de 1947 en la portada de la revista norteamericana Life.

Esta no es la primera obra que retrata la dulce belleza de la muerte, ya antes se había hecho, por ejemplo en el siglo XIX John Everett Millais con su OFELIA: 

O el frances Paul Delaroche con su JOVEN MARTIR:

El concepto común y erroneo del arte, que aprendemos a través de un deficiente bagaje de estética moral y de lo “bonito”… nos impide, a veces, encontrar la belleza en sitios, o sucesos trágicos, chocantes o susceptibles para nuestra cultura. Creemos que arte es, solamente, paisajitos, puestas de sol, cosas que reflejen un sentido positivo hacia la vida y que motivan de forma chapucera y, tantas veces, vulgar nuestra existencia en la tierra. Mientras que fuera del papel, del libro, del lienzo la vida se cifra en otros tonos, con otras situaciones, muchas veces bellas en si mismas. La belleza de la destrucción es innegable, imposible pasar por alto la imagen hipnotizante del hongo de la bomba atómica, la intrigante oscura garganta de un huracán, o la belleza inquietante de un cuerpo desnutrido… Es por ello que la foto de C. Wiles, es perfecta, una gran obra de la coincidencia, del oportuno momento a pesar de la tragedia… un angel de sangre… cierto… pero un angel a fin de cuentas.

¿USTED QUÉ OPINA?   

LIFE always realized the sales value of a little sex. Seldom did an issue of Life miss the opportunity to include partially clad women, sometimes under cover of a story on Hollywood or thinly veiled as a fashion piece on the season’s swimwear. Though this practice opened the magazine to criticism from some fronts, its impact on sales was undeniable. However, in September 1966, the photo of Sophia Loren—the photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt’s favorite model—wearing a negligee made the cover. It caused many Life readers to cancel their subscriptions.

During the 1960s, Loren was one of the most popular actresses in the world, in 1964, she received $1 million to act in The Fall of the Roman Empire. Despite the failure of her films to generate sales at the box office, Sophia Loren was a darling of studios, and worn some of the most lavish costumes ever created for the movies. The above photo was taken on the set for 1964 film Matrimonio all’italiana, starring Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.

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Styled by Chloe Arnold
Hair & Make Up by Hayley McGowan
Model Nikki Bonass from Morgan the Agency

Friday night, we went to the Procession of the Ghouls (thanks to Aaron).  It was pretty much the most awesome Haloween thing ever.

First of all, it took place at Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which is on 112st and Amsterdam, so I already felt like I was on another planet.  St. John the Divine is apparently the oldest Gothic church in the US and the 4th largest church in the world (it is HUGE!)

They showed the original 1922, Nosferatu with (epic) live organ accompaniment.

Nosferatu is actually in the public domain, you can watch it on youtube or download it for free from the internet archive.

After the film came the Procession of the Ghouls.

The rest of the wacky photos are here.

Dear La-Z-Boy loungers,

I don’t know about you, but I vastly preferred board games as a child over the more dangerous (and potentially embarrassing) pursuits of the athletics field.  Still I can’t help but think all of those hours spent on the living room rug must have prepared me in some way for adulthood. “Monopoly” taught me about finance; “Sorry” introduced me to the art of passive-aggressive apologies; “Candyland” revealed the dangers of psychotropic drugs; “The Game of Life,” taught me about forming a heterosexual family—not that I’ve followed all of their instructions.

If that leaves you wondering about the history of board games past, try digging through the rich archives of Life magazine, now available (and searchable by keyword) on Google Books. In 1970, the great glossy pointed readers towards some socially conscious board games perfect for readers of the Moynihan Report. In “Black and White,” for instance, every “black” player starts off with $10,000, and every “white” player starts out with a cool million. How’s that for disparity! And in the classroom-friendly “Ghetto,” your kids can learn what it’s like to live as a “typical slum dweller.”

Or why not commemorate the Civil War with a board game specially designed for Life. In “1863,” “everyone gets a chance to fight it over again. “

And last but not least, some diversions from Parker Brothers. Sure, you can still find “Clue,” but what about “Fat Boy’s Game,” perfect for Christmas 1951! Read more about it, and the bestseller on which it was based here, courtesy of the blog “Isn’t Life Terrible?” (From the same Life issue, don’t miss the article, “Doll For Negro Children,” across from a cigarette ad with the tagline “Discriminating People Prefer…”).

That’s all for today, dear readers! Until next time.

Yours in indoor entertainment,

Stephen

LIFE magazine, April 1983

Model Justina (with hairdresser Sekiguchi) in designs by Mitsuhiro Matsuda

Finally opening in Toronto this weekend, The September Issue documents Vogue magazine and shines a spotlight on Asian-American designer Thakoon Panichgul.  Born in Thailand, Panichgul is only one of many Asian-Americans putting their mark on the fashion industry — as the Wall Street Journal reports, Jason Wu raised his clout by designing for Michelle Obama, and others like Alexander Wang have been enlisted by major chains to freshen their collections.

Writes Ray A. Smith:

Today’s Asian-American designers don’t wear their “otherness” on their sleeves as did the wave of Japanese designers like Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto, who took the fashion world by storm in the ’80s with avant-garde designs. Many young Asian-American designers’ clothes, such as Jason Wu’s blend of modernity with the intricacy of couture and Phillip Lim’s modern takes on classic looks, are generally aimed at a broad mainstream audience.

In this first installment of Ash Scans, let’s flip through the pages of LIFE magazine’s April 1983 issue for “Big, Bold and Black: The Japanese Fashion Invasion,” which highlights that first wave of captivating Asian designers. Along with some dynamic photos by Gianfranco Gorgoni, check out the dated language: “From the folks who brought you Sony, Hitachi and sushi, the latest Japanese export is high-styled ready-to-wear. Three Tokyo-based designers have launched a major attack on the U.S. market…” Italics, mine (and hopefully yours as well).

Scan link below.

[LIFE, April 1983: "Big, Bold and Black: The Japanese fashion invasion"]

He was the Most Influential Man Who Never Lived.  Though there were many Marlboro Man models over time until 1999 (factoid: but only three of them succumbed to lungs cancer), the original inspiration for the Philip Morris cigarette advertising campaign came through Life magazine photographs by Leonard McCombe from 1949.

Clarence Hailey Long (above) was a 39-year-old, 150-pound foreman at the JA ranch in the Texas panhandle, a place described as “320,000 acres of nothing much.” Once a week, Long would ride into town for a store-bought shave and a milk shake. Maybe he’d take in a movie if a western was playing. He was described as “as silent man, unassuming and shy, to the point of bashfulness [with a] face sunburned to the color of saddle leather [with cowpuncher's] wrinkles radiating from pale blue eyes.” He wore “a ten-gallon Stetson hat, a bandanna around his neck, a bag of Bull Durhamtobacco with its yellow string dangling from his pocket, and blue denim, the fabric of the profession”. He said things like, “If it weren’t for a good horse, a woman would be the sweetest thing in the world.” He rolled his own smokes.

When the cowboy’s face and story appeared in LIFE in 1949, advertising exec Leo Burnett had an inspiration. Philip Morris, which had introduced Marlboro as a woman’s cigarette in 1924, was seeking a new image for the brand. The image managed to transform a feminine campaign, with the slogan “Mild as May”, into one that was masculine in a matter of months. The “Marlboro Cowboy” and “Marlboro Country” campaigns based on Long boosted Marlboro to the top of the worldwide cigarette market and Long to the top of the marriage market: Long’s Marlboro photographs led to marriage proposals from across the nation, all of which he rejected.

By the time the Marlboro Man went national in 1955, sales were at $5 billion, a 3,241% jump over the previous year. Over the next decade, Burnett and Philip Morris experimented with other manly types — ball players, race car drivers and rugged guys with tattoos (often friends of the creative team, sporting fake tattoos); all worked, but the Marlboro Man worked the best. By the time the first article linking lung cancer to smoking appeared in Reader’s Digest in 1957, the Marlboro sales were at $20 billion. Before the Marlboro Man, the brand’s U.S. share stood at less than 1%, but in 1972 (a year after the cigarette ads were banned from American televisions) it became the No. 1 tobacco brand in the world.

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