West-German postcard by ISV, no. B 13. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Publicity still for Designing Woman (Vincente Minnelli, 1957).

 

American actor Gregory Peck (1916-2003) was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck received five nominations for Academy Award for Best Actor and won once – for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). He almost always played courageous, nobly heroic good guys who saw injustice and fought it. Among his best known films are Spellbound (1945), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Roman Holiday (1953), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Cape Fear (1962).

 

Eldred Gregory Peck was born in 1916 in La Jolla, California (now in San Diego). His parents were Bernice Mary (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist, and druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the cinema every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. Peck's father encouraged him to take up medicine. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play 'The Morning Star' (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (John M. Stahl, 1944), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged, and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles." He appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 1946), he was again nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in Westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (William A. Wellman, 1948), and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II. In 1947, Peck, along with Dorothy McGuire, David O'Selznick, and Mel Ferrer, founded the La Jolla Playhouse, located in his hometown, and produced many of the classics there. Due to film commitments, he could not return to Broadway but whet his appetite for live theatre on occasion at the Playhouse, keeping it firmly established with a strong, reputable name over the years.

 

With a string of hits to his credit, Gregory Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (Raoul Walsh, 1951) with Virginia Mayo, and Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956) with Richard Basehart. He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953). While filming The Bravados (Henry King, 1958), he decided to become a cowboy in real life, so he purchased a vast working ranch near Santa Barbara, California - already stocked with 600 head of prize cattle. In the early 1960s, he gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) opposite David Niven and Anthony Quinn. The film was one of the biggest box-office hits of that year. Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). He also appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962) opposite Robert Mitchum, and Captain Newman, M.D. (David Miller, 1963) with Tony Curtis, which dealt with the way people live. The financial failure of Cape Fear (1962) ended his company, Melville Productions. After making Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Sophia Loren, Peck withdrew from acting for three years in order to concentrate on various humanitarian causes, including the American Cancer Society. In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Gordon Davidson, 1972) and The Dove (Charles Jarrott, 1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Ambassador Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) with Lee Remick. After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (Joseph Sargent, 1977) and the infamous Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978) with Laurence Olivier and James Mason. In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1982) in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and The Scarlet and the Black (Jerry London, 1983) with Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud. In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (Norman Jewison, 1991), starring Danny DeVito. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights, and civil rights. In 2003, Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute, only two weeks before his death. Atticus beat out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third. Gregory Peck died in 2003 in Los Angeles, California. He was 87. Peck was married twice. From 1942 till 1955, he was married to Greta Kukkonen. They had three children: Jonathan Peck (1944-1975), Stephen Peck (1946), and Carey Paul Peck (1949). His second wife was Veronique Passani, whom he met at the set of Roman Holliday. They married in 1955 and had two children: Tony Peck (1956) and Cecilia Peck (1958). The couple remained together till his death.

 

Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Pentax Espio 80 35-80mm Ilford Delta 400 LegacyPro EcoPro 1+1 06/23/2024

Josh Homme and Mikey Shuman

 

Queens Of The Stone Age @ Southampton Guildhall

 

p.s. if you are gonna post my copyrighted images elsewhere on the internet at least have the decency to credit me with them or link them back to here, or i'll probably stop posting them or at least start putting big watermarks on them.

Walking on my shoes. Depeche Mode.

I would tell you about the things they put me through

The pain I've been subjected to

But the Lord himself would blush

The countless feasts laid at my feet

Forbidden fruits for me to eat

But I think your pulse would start to rush

Now I'm not looking for absolution

Forgiveness for the things I do

But before you come to any conclusions

Try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

You'll stumble in my footsteps

Keep the same appointments I kept

If you try walking in my shoes

If you try walking in my shoes

Morality would frown upon

Decency look down upon

The scapegoat fate's made of me

But I promise now, my judge and jurors

My intentions couldn't have been purer

My case is easy to see

I'm not looking for a clearer conscience

Peace of mind after what I've been through

And before we talk of any repentance

Try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

You'll stumble in my footsteps

Keep the same appointments I kept

If you try walking in my shoes

If you try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

Now I'm not looking for absolution

Forgiveness for the things I do

But before you come to any conclusions

Try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

You'll stumble in my footsteps

Keep the same appointments I kept

If you try walking in my shoes

You'll stumble in my footsteps

Keep the same appointments I kept

If you try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

If you try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrC_yuzO-Ss

 

Zapatilla en un poblado himba. Kaokoland. Namibia. Press L

Vintage card. Photo: Monogram. Peggy Ann Garner and Johnny Sheffield in Bomba: The Jungle Boy (Ford Beebe, 1949).

 

Johnny Sheffield (1931-2010) was one of Hollywood's most famous child stars. He was unforgettable as Tarzan's adopted son Boy in eight Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmuller. Between 1949 and 1955, he starred in twelve Bomba films for Monogram Pictures.

 

Johnny Sheffield was born John Matthew Sheffield Cassan in 1931 in Pasadena, California, USA. His father was the actor Reginald Sheffield who began as a child star and later turned to character acting. In 1938, Sheffield became a child star after he was cast in the juvenile lead of a West Coast production of the highly successful Broadway play 'On Borrowed Time', which starred Dudley Digges and featured Victor Moore as Gramps. The seven-year-old Sheffield played the role of Pud, a long role for a child. He later went to New York as a replacement and performed the role on Broadway. That year he also played Napoleon's son in the short MGM film The Man on the Rock (Edward L. Cahn, 1938). When Maureen O'Sullivan wanted out of her Jane role in the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series, it was decided that she and Tarzan would adopt a son (they had to adopt, according to the Legion of Decency, because they weren't married) before she died. Weissmuller personally selected Sheffield from 300 boys for the part of Boy. The role was inspired by Bobby Nelson's portrayal in Tarzan the Mighty (Jack Nelson, Ray Taylor, 1928). Athletic by nature, little Johnny was taught to swim by swimming Olympian Weissmuller. Johnny Sheffield's feature debut in Tarzan Finds a Son! (Richard Thorpe, 1939) was such a success that MGM signed him to six more films as Tarzan's Boy. Sheffield played Boy in three Tarzan films at MGM, and in another five after Johnny Weissmuller, and production of the film series moved to RKO. Brenda Joyce played Jane in the last three Tarzan films in which Sheffield appeared.

 

In between the Tarzan films, Johnny Sheffield played supporting parts in other films. Sheffield appeared in the musical Babes in Arms (Busby Berkeley, 1939) with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, classmates of his at the studio school. Johnny and his brother Billy Sheffield were both in Knute Rockne All American (Lloyd Bacon, 1940), playing football player and coach Knute Rockne at different ages. By the time of Tarzan and the Mermaids (Robert Florey, 1948), Johnny Sheffield was too big for the part of Boy. The film merely said he was away at school. When Monogram Studios learned Sheffield had been dropped, they picked him up for s series of B-films based on Roy Rockwood's adventure novel 'Bomba'. The first was Bomba: The Jungle Boy (Ford Beebe, 1949). Between 1949 and 1955, Sheffield made twelve Bomba films for "Poverty Row" studio Monogram Pictures. Sheffield retired from films at age 24 after starring in his twelfth Bomba film Lord of the Jungle (Ford Beebe, 1955). He then made a pilot for a television series, Bantu the Zebra Boy, which was created, produced, and directed by his father, Reginald Sheffield. Although the production values were high compared to other TV jungle shows of the day, a sponsor was not found and the show was not taken up as a weekly series. In his later years, Sheffield sold bootlegged copies of the pilot to collectors on videotape. After leaving show business, Sheffield completed a business degree at UCLA. Turning his attention to other fields, he involved himself variously in farming, real estate and construction. For a time, he was a representative for the Santa Monica Seafood Company importing lobsters from Baja California in Mexico. In 1959 he married his wife Patricia and they would have three children, Stewart, Regina and Patrick Sheffield. In 2010, Johnny suffered a fatal heart attack at his home in Chula Vista, California, four hours after he fell off a ladder while pruning a palm tree. Sheffield was 79. His brother Billy Sheffield died two months later.

 

Sources: Ed Stephan (IMDb), Find A Grave, Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

West German postcard by Netter's Starverlag, Bad Münder / Bakede. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

 

American actor Gregory Peck (1916-2003) was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck received five nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won once – for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). He almost always played courageous, nobly heroic good guys who saw injustice and fought it. Among his best known films are Spellbound (1945), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Roman Holiday (1953), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Cape Fear (1962).

 

Eldred Gregory Peck was born in 1916 in La Jolla, California (now in San Diego). His parents were Bernice Mary (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist, and druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the cinema every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. Peck's father encouraged him to take up medicine. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play 'The Morning Star' (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (John M. Stahl, 1944), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles." He appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 1946), he was again nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in Westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (William A. Wellman, 1948), and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II. In 1947, Peck, along with Dorothy McGuire, David O'Selznick, and Mel Ferrer, founded the La Jolla Playhouse, located in his hometown, and produced many of the classics there. Due to film commitments, he could not return to Broadway but whet his appetite for live theatre on occasion at the Playhouse, keeping it firmly established with a strong, reputable name over the years.

 

With a string of hits to his credit, Gregory Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (Raoul Walsh, 1951) with Virginia Mayo, and Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956) with Richard Basehart. He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953). While filming The Bravados (Henry King, 1958), he decided to become a cowboy in real life, so he purchased a vast working ranch near Santa Barbara, California - already stocked with 600 head of prize cattle. In the early 1960s, he gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) opposite David Niven and Anthony Quinn. The film was one of the biggest box-office hits of that year. Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). He also appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962) opposite Robert Mitchum, and Captain Newman, M.D. (David Miller, 1963) with Tony Curtis, which dealt with the way people live. The financial failure of Cape Fear (1962) ended his company, Melville Productions. After making Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Sophia Loren, Peck withdrew from acting for three years in order to concentrate on various humanitarian causes, including the American Cancer Society. In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Gordon Davidson, 1972) and The Dove (Charles Jarrott, 1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Ambassador Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) with Lee Remick. After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (Joseph Sargent, 1977) and the infamous Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978) with Laurence Olivier and James Mason. In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1982) in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and The Scarlet and the Black (Jerry London, 1983) with Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud. In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (Norman Jewison, 1991), starring Danny DeVito. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights, and civil rights. In 2003, Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute, only two weeks before his death. Atticus beat out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third. Gregory Peck died in 2003 in Los Angeles, California. He was 87. Peck was married twice. From 1942 till 1955, he was married to Greta Kukkonen. They had three children: Jonathan Peck (1944-1975), Stephen Peck (1946), and Carey Paul Peck (1949). His second wife was Veronique Passani, whom he met at the set of Roman Holliday. They married in 1955 and had two children: Tony Peck (1956) and Cecilia Peck (1958). The couple remained together till his death.

 

Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

A bat in purple-ish skies.

 

And down here on earth, the POETRY INVASION continues unabated.

 

WITHOUT TRUST

 

Without trust, might as well just

Forget it. Without trust, suspicion

And doubt will multiply to feed on

Your well-being until what could

Have been a good thing is over

Before it’s even begun. Without

Trust, it’s just mutual using, fine

Until you have to take responsibilty

For it. Without trust, togetherness

Is just an illustion, beautiful at first,

About as permanent as a raindrop.

We’re like freezers now, forever

Cold and closed. To understand

Why, look at our story from the

Very beginning, look at all that’s

Gone down, and ask yoursellf

How such a complete absence

Of trust could ever come to be.

 

SINK

 

Way too deep in the dirty, shitty,

Polluted waters of bad emotions,

And trying not to sink. Swim on,

Keep going – as sure as the waters

Are not supposed to be this way,

There must be something cleaner

Up ahead. Don’t drown because

Another was carelessness with

Their ocean. Swim on, these

Waters are just part of a much

Bigger sea that cleanses itself in

Time and will dissolve all this filth.

 

BIG EGGY

 

Eggs came flying from the hens

Like bullets. Hens on a steady

Amphetamine diet in the egg

Factory, meeting the demands

Of America’s breakfast each

And every morning. Till one

Day the hens used the eggs

As their weapons, rebelled,

Shot their way out of slavery.

Hens like Spartacus, a band

Of feathered refugees, on a

Quest to find freedom in the

Land of the free. I thought of

This after a really good omlett.

Maybe there realy are drugs in

The eggs. Or else this freedom

Thing is just contagious.

 

AN HONOR THING

 

I can get conflicted about returning

Somewhere I’ve previously been

Declared unwelcome. If you treat

Me like someone you’d rather not

Have around, until I hear differently

That’s how I’ll always see you. It’s

An honor thing. That might sound

Completely outdated in this day and

Age, but I’m talking about honor

Given, not just honor received. If

You’ve asked me for distance, then

The respectful response is to give

You that distance. If you’ve ever felt

Differently, you’ve never so much as

Lifted a finger to show it, so what is

The respectful, honorable thing for

Me to assume? Sorry if I’m sounding

Redundant, but sometimes you look

Upset at me for ignoring you.

 

NAKED

 

When a fully clothed man feels

Naked, that’s his problem. When

A naked man feels fully clothed,

That’s our problem. As much as

I try to undress a subject with

Words, without resorting to

Coarseness of speech, we keep

A veil over the unadorned truth

For the sake of public decency.

 

THE DOGS WHO ARE OUR FRIENDS

 

I don’t mean to feed the rats. I

Don’t want to feed the rats. But

Then there are the dogs who

Are our friends. The ones who

Belong to no one, no security,

No guarantee of the next meal.

Grateful for the scraps –different

Value system. You feed them and

They’ll guard you. Unlike people –

You feed them and they’ll rob you.

I am not my brother’s keeper and

I know even less about keeping a

Dog. They just stay close because

They want to, I guess.

 

SPINACH BELIEVER

 

Speechless – don’t even feel like

Talking. But it’s these moments

When speech eludes me that I’m

Probably closest to the truth, when

My particular state of affairs, state

Of being, state the union makes

Like Popeye, proclaiming, I am

What I am, and there you have it.

You can see clearly now, the rain

Is gone. Ok, Mr. Spinach Believer,

Kindly explain what’s up with this

Not being able to sleep? With this

Nagging feeling something isn’t

Exactly right? That I’m not quite

Where I’m supposed to be? Is

This a never-ending lesson in

Patience? The Buddha, I’m told,

Sat under a tree for years until

He’d transcended attachment

And found enlightenment. I don’t

Have the patience to follow his

Example. I think enlightenment

Hides behind these big questions

And little mysteries that never

Fail to leave me speechless.

 

SPIRITS IN MANU’A

 

People here so casually mention

Spirits in Manu’a, I have no doubt

They believe in them. I think it’s

Great there are spirits in Manu’a –

Spirits need a higher visual profile,

For sure, because people will only

Pay lip service to what they can’t

See. It’s high time the spirits kick

Some ass on the legion of stupid

Humans who would dare to mess

With them. I know most people

Here firmly believe Manu’a spirits

Exist. This fills me with fear, not

Because I think the spirits would

Harm me, but because so many

Here know that spirits are real

And still act the way they do.

 

PRECIOUS THING

 

Maybe someday when it doesn’t

Really matter, you’ll tell me what

Was going on in your head and I’ll

Tell you what was going on in mine

And we’ll both feel like idiots. We

Both felt the precious thing, and

Proceeded to create conditions

For it that the other couldn’t even

Cognate, never mind live up to.

Having no way to tell which way

Was up, it became more a matter

Of who was trashing it the worst.

I guess that’s the true nature of

The precious thing – it doesn’t

Really teach you that much about

Someone else, just about yourself.

 

YUM, COMFORTABLE SLUG

 

Fear reinforces conformity,

But, I’d wager to say, does

Not engender excellence.

For conformity stifles the

Aspirtion to rise above the

Anonymous mediocrity, to

Risk getting noticed out of

Line. Therefore, be a rebel

Or be a slug. Imagine if you

Breathe your last and the

Best thing you can say

About your life is, “It was

Comfortable”. Yep, very

Comfortable in a shell, in a

Mental cell, under the spell

Of mindless conformity.

Content to be just another

Comfortable slug, quietly

Waiting in line to provide

Some bird with breakfast.

 

SUMMER

 

We’re both living organisms

And nature made us a layaway

Plan. This is totally organic,

The most popular mechanics,

Encyclopedia Britannica

Defines it as life carrying on.

These cells weren’t meant for

Confinement, and the high

Court of nature recently ruled

In their favor. Time to think

Of future generations and

Whether they’ll remember us.

We leave behind poems and

A long story for others to tell

As summer approaches.

 

FULL MOON

 

I was born under the sign ruled by

The Moon. Its fullness has the

Strongest pull on the tides. We’re

Mostly liquid, but not enough for

The Moon to make us levitate.

How strange that would be – the

Bigger you are, the closer you’d

Get to the Moon. Even if we don’t

Float into the sky, the waters inside

Us feel the pull of the Moon. Our

Thoughts, feelings, emotions and

Perceptions all grow more intense.

It’s a time when joys can run high,

Sorrows deep. The stillness of the

Moon throws into contrast all the

Turbulence we carry. Things seem

Slightly distorted, but no, it’s just

The agonies and ecstasies of daily

Existence amplified by the Moon.

In a heightened state, transfixed

By the glow, I sometimes wonder

If floating into the sky might not be

Such a bad idea after all.

 

CRISES

 

Emotional crisis, health crisis, plumbing

Crisis – can you blame me if I think life

Has something personal against me?

Am I using too much air? Would the

Food I eat be better allocated to the

Starving in Africa? Do my words add

Irreparable damage to the general

Peace, harmony and understanding

Among mankind? Is even thinking I’m

That significant just another ego trip?

So many questions… Meanwhile, the

Crises need tending to. One by one

I’ll put a band aid on each and carry

On just like any other day.

 

ETIQUETTE

 

Look, sorry if you think this is

Strange, but on the planet I

Come from , this would be

Considered good manners.

This would be considered a

Gesture of affection and

Sincere respect. It would

Express appreciation for

All the things so special

About you, for the way you

Make things better just by

Being you. On the planet I

Come from expressions

Such as these are not

Considered in poor taste,

And are given and received

With grace. On the planet I

Come from it’s considered

Important to express such

Things if you feel them. But

On this planet everything

Is the opposite.

 

I.O.U.

 

There’s a difference of opinion

Over what my civic duty is. My

Controversial purse strings are

Being called to account. The

Public sticks its nose into my

Business records as if I owe

Them, as if the check is in the

Mail. They’re just jealous of

Success, real or perceived,

And think a high profile gives

Them an excuse for low blows.

 

NANNIES

 

Sometimes crimes don’t seem

Like crimes at all at the time,

More like a smart move – too

Bad the other dimwits missed

It – a chance to take advantage

While the tides have turned in

Your favor. So there you sit

Trying to explain what you did

To all the people you hurt, and

Your only defense is no one

Stopped you, as if all the laws

Of the courts and the heart are

Nothing more than nannies,

Derelict in their duty to keep

You from burining inquisitive

Fingers on the hot stove.

 

FILE

 

Judas on the computer, forwarding

The Pharisees useful tidbits they

Reward with pieces of silver and

Crumbs of approval. We keep a

File on you. Everything you’ve

Done, all you’ve ever shared with

Anyone, is documented, can be

Used as proof. When good times

Turn bad, good time friends turn

Witness. Think Heaven has issued

You a free pass? It doesn’t apply

Till you expire. Till then, you’re

Liable for an outstanding balance

Here on earth, and we’ll collect

By any means necessary. That’s

Why our meticulous file records

Everyone you ever sold out to get

Where you are. Just call it looking

After Number One, like Judas did.

 

FOREST

 

Subtleties of understanding are

One thing, but lacking an idea

In common, you can’t see the

Forest for the trees. The same

Thing looks different from a

Few feet away. The sublime

Just sounds crude unless you

Describe it with the right kind

Of English. It’s simple enough

We’re in a forest, but all the

Subtleties filter the light so

Differently, making the path

Appear a dead end. I left an

Offering of crumbs to mark

Some kind of trail, but now

My knapsack’s out and every

Direction looks no different

From the other. Have to find

My way through this forest

Of understanding on intuition

And faith, which is another

Way of saying I’m lost.

 

TOOLS IN HAND

 

Tools in hand, I threaten to carve

In stone a yes or no. Instead, it’s

Something ridiculous engraved

On this unsuspecting rock. I’d

Hate to immortalize anything

Really important on this eternal

Surface. Importance is so often

Nothing more than a response

To a moment. Subject the ages

To it? That would be like waking

Up one morning with a tattoo

You’re not so sure you even

Like anymore. So tools in hand,

Hoping to look important, what

Shall I carve in stone? Try sound

Profound – We need to laugh

At the ridiculous, or else it’s too

Easy to become frightened by it.

 

TIP THE SCALES

 

Weigh my flawed actions,

Speech and understanding

To see if they tip the scales

Of blind justice, knowing

Justice is never really blind,

Just suspending plain sight

To avoid judging solely by

How things appear. Blind

Judges use a third eye, feel

Vibes, an otherworldy sense

Of knowing , a logic of the

Subconscious. Still , among

Humans no objectivity is

Pure. At best, there is only

Balance or its absence, and

So the symbol of the scale

To weigh the right or wrong,

Inconsequence or severity

Of our every flawed action,

Speech and understanding.

 

PAIN

 

Pain wants to have a conversation,

Making its presence known. Pain

Has the uncanny knack of leading

You to believe it’s moved on, but

Just when you’re basking in the

Sun, a moving shadow distracts

You from your warm imaginings

And you just know. Pain wants to

Powwow, update its files, inquire

Discretely, do a routine service

Check while you’re still under

Warranty. Our relationship is

Purely professional, pain and me.

I don’t exactly relate, just grow

Accustomed to how it comes

And goes. I asked why, how long,

It looked at me thoughtfully and

Replied, sorry, that’s classified.

Not knowing just comes with the

Pain, and vice versa.

 

STAR AND DIRECTOR

 

Very few actors can handle being

Both star and director. This leads

To the shocking revelation that

The star isn’t really what’s best

About a movie, only what’s most

Visible. If it’s only the star that

Matters, then how come some

Of them turn out one lousy film

After another? Star, director,

And some mysterious X factor

All combine to make a movie

Memorable. We might both be

Stars in our own way, or even

Directors when someone needs

To take that role. Neither of us

Might require star billing, but I

know we’d both resist taking

Direction from each other. This

Has something to do with self-

Perception, artistic vision and

Who controls either or both.

How dare you presume you can

Direct me??? We two could only

Combine talents were we to cede

Direction to a source that’s bigger

Than the both of us.

 

LETTERS TO A LOVE

 

It meant something to try and

Make contact and keep in touch.

I wonder how many great love

Poems are really letters to a love

That never was. Whether you’re

A poet, a house painter, or a

Parking lot attendant, you’ve got

To have hope, do something

With what you know inside, try

To make contact and keep in

Touch, just so someone knows

They’re not the only one who

Feels the same things you do.

 

CONVENTION

 

Snub convention or take advantage

Of it, that is the question. I brought

With me the conventions of a

Different location, which renders

Me unconventional in this context

But a leopard can’t change stripes.

Boundaries, social responsibilities

And persona space all have their

Place, but I have two legs, I could

Walk through all that. You’ll notice

I won’t, because that would be

Ignoring the boundaries you set by

Implication. Your actions demarcate

Where the boundaries should be,

Until you indicate differently. That’s

The system, the convention, the

Way things are done among those

For whom doing things right means

More than simply victory or defeat.

True, I have two legs, I could walk

Through all that, but only if I knew

You wanted me to.

 

ONENESS AND LUST

 

Oneness, I wish I could bring you

A worthier gift than lust, than an

Admission of my weakness, than

A diagnosis of my disease. Little

Wonder you fail to find these

Attributes attractive. Or is it my

Own shame at the mortal truths

That reduce us to something so

Un-godlike we fear we displease

God who made us this way? You

Can read my intention at a glance,

And I don’t like feeling exposed

Any more than I like feeling alone.

 

IGLOO

 

In our polar bear skins, we blend in

With endless white, color of purity.

Since the cold comes so naturally

To you, I’m going to build an igloo

Where we can rendezvous. I don’t

Cherish the thought of killing seals

And walruses, but if we don’t eat

Them, something else will. Please

Let me draw the line at porpoises.

I’d even eat a porpoise for you, but

Only if we have to, and even then

With some regret. Alas, unfortunate

Porpoise, friend of man, it was you

Or me, buddy. That’s life in an igloo -

Not a McDonalds in sight but plenty

Of penguins.

 

ROPE

 

Judas, rope is not the answer.

Do you think running away

From what you’ve done will

Inspire compassion? Some

Would say it was all written

Before it happened, that you

Simply acted out your part as

Scripted. What is this, a last

Minute bid for sympathy?

To judge yourself unworthy

Of finding your soul again is

Not your judgment to make.

Who are you or I to shut the

Door to redemption for even

The worst, even ourselves?

It might seem futile atoning

For a crime impossible to

Forgive, but it would have

Mattered if you had at least

Tried. Judas, you’re not a

Bird, you don’t belong in the

Tree until you get your wings.

 

MENTALS

 

The mentals at the shopping center

Scare me by making me realize I’d

Like to slap them, report them to

Public Health, call the cops on them,

Complain to center management

(Or customer relations if they even

Bother).They make me realize I’m

Not such a nice guy after all, not so

Tolerant after all, not so forgiving

After all (but you already knew that).

You know you’re really nice, really

Tolerant and really forgiving when

In your heart you can pardon even

The mentals who ruin breakfast for

You with their thespian pleas for

Your extra change, not only those

More level-minded who really know

Better but steadfastly believe they

Can easily atone by simply making

The appropriately pious noises.

 

(inspired by the song “Royals”.)

 

TIDES

 

Our tides go in and out. So

Full at first, always ending

So empty. Nothing but a

Barren reef left sometimes,

But when the tide’s in, it has

A life of its own. Notoriously

Fickle, tides go where they

Will, but curiously, sooner

Or later they always seem to

Lead right back where they

Started. You can almost set

A clock by it. Ever feel like

The tides are trying to tell

Us something?

 

TWO HUNDRED GRAND

 

Hillary will give you a speech for

Two hundred grand. Once a price

Is known, it just makes you wonder

How far someone would go. Say the

Boy/Man Love Coalition had two

Hundred grand in the bank from

Bake sales - d’ya suppose she’d take

The gig? Or if a Saudi billionaire

Offered five if she’d read the local

Phone book for fifteen minutes,

Just as some kind of statement,

Would Hillary take it? For eight,

Would she pop out of a cake singing

“Emotions” to oilmen in Texas?

For nine, and an end to famine in

Africa, would Hillary strip down to

A flesh-colored one-piece live on

The web? And of course what they

All want to know – how many

Millions would it take for her to

Promise not to seek the Presidency?

Don’t take up a collection too soon,

Pal. What’s the matter? Afraid of a gal

Who knows her own worth and how

To budget her time?

 

CURVES

 

And so our story curves again.

I’m not afraid to comment, but

Taken out of context it might

Cause discomfort, which was

Never my intention in the first

Place. I was just hoping you’d

See the curve of my thoughts

And reconsider. Ideas come to

Me like freeway headlights, all

At once. I can only see them

Clearly for a second before they

Disappear. Sometimes one of

These passing thoughts makes

It all the way to the page. What’s

Inside me filters what’s around

Me and out comes these words.

Just so you’ll know if you have

Thoughts anything like mine.

 

HOOTENANNY MAN

 

Hootenanny man learned to use

Language to talk of things beyond

The barnyard. What makes the

World turn or the bar room fall

Silent. What makes schoolboys

Wish they could be president, or

Presidents wish they could spend

Summer at the fishing creek again.

Love growing from the ruins of war,

Our moment face to face with the

Eternal. Ever since we’ve had a

Language we’ve had poets using it

For more than the evening news,

Playing at being serious, seducing

With breathless invocations of the

Sanctified, reducing ageless wisdom

To blithe childishness, elevating a

Moment to eternal importance.

It’s not all contradictions, sings the

Hootenanny man, it’s as natural as

Having two eyes, two ears, two

Hands and two feet instead of one.

 

(Inspired by Bob Dylan)

 

LONG, LONG WAIT

 

Long, long wait for something

That never quite arrives. At the

End of the line, at least you can

Say you did your part. You try

And stay on a path with some

Kind of heart, hoping that if

You try to do right thing you’ll

Find the guidance you need

Whenever you come to a fork

In the road. When things go

Wrong, you try and take the

Knocks with grace, think about

What happened and why, and

How you can do better next

Time. Along the way, you’re

Going to lose a lot of Illusions,

But gain an insight or two that

Might help you make sense of

The long, long wait.

 

OVERBOARD

 

Overboard in matters of the heart,

Enthusiasms, passions, likes and

Dislikes, heartaches, suspicions,

Questions and more. Things seem

To resonate a bit deeper with me.

I have something to lose - you

Better take me seriously or take

A hike. But for the few I can trust,

I go overboard in my friendship

And wouldn’t think twice about

Giving whatever I can. I project

Balanced calm for appearances’

Sake, but shake the tree and I’m

Overboard before I can remember

My life vest.

 

PROFILE

 

How do you profile me in your

Mind? I’ve noticed how people

Do that – create you in their

Thoughts as whatever kind of

Character is convenient for the

Narrative they’re trying to sell.

Then one day you hear a person

Described who you don’t even

Recognize, and you realize its

Supposed to be you. Perhaps

You heard or saw something

That fit previously established

Prototypes, then constructed

A profile accordingly, but it’s

What you didn’t see or hear to

Factor in to your floor plan that

Brings me sadness.

 

HOPE AND DOUBT

 

Hope and doubt are battling it

Out. Emotionally speaking,

Self-protection can get violent.

Ideally, hope and doubt would

Just reach a balance, but mine

Want to get in each other’s

Faces and wreak havoc. Hope

Accuses doubt of having no

Faith in love. Doubt says hope

Is just an unrealistic fool. They

Both look bruised after clashing

Repeatedly. At the end of the

Day, for worse or better, I find

Myself favoring hope, only

Because doubt seems like a

Dead end. But I understand

Doubt’s resentment – just

Trying to look out for me and

Not being listened to.

 

DETECTIVE

 

Some people are scarier to think

About than to actually be around

Because they’re not like bank

Statements, easily reconciled

And confidently filed. Leave me

Alone with my thoughts for too

Long and my detective tendencies

Start me analyzing the profile,

Putting evidence together like a

Jigsaw puzzle. The emerging

Image isn’t always pretty which

Makes me question whether

Some pieces might be missing or

That’s it in all its contradictory

Glory. Bizarre as it may sound,

I really want you to be right, but

Can’t relax my guard untill my

Investigation of all the ways you

Could be wrong clears your name.

 

BUDDHISM 2014

 

The sins of this life, we pay for

In the next life, like karma is a

Credit card with a set limit to

How much forgiveness we can

Reasonably expect. Clear your

Balance of bad deeds in this

Lifetime and eventually you

Accumulate the bonus points

To transcend the karmic wheel

And buy into a timeshare in

Nirvana. But pass your limit

Too quickly and you’ll find

Your account overdrawn of

Grace, leaving you to a fate

Of paying back your debts to

Humanity while still human

(At least in appearance). All

This reveals why some can

Enjoy a spree of shockingly

Bad behavior and just smile

Like Mona Lisa, while others

Need only think a single bad

Thought and they’re promptly

Squashed like a bug under a

Bicycle. Splat: transcendence.

 

SILENCER

 

The national anthem asks, oh say,

Can you see? But some people

See more than they can say.

Like when I know I’ve been sold

Out – saying it aloud would only

Compound a painful absence of

Grace, so silence provides me my

Only solace. Wounds don’t need

Words or even sound to send a

Message, but if you see these

Soundless words, they’ll tell you

That what cuts even deeper than

Feeling sold out by you is the way

You can’t say you’re sorry. If you

Can’t say it, I can’t assume it.

 

ACCESS DENIED

 

Access denied because the

Password is some kind of

Family secret. What a fall

From lofty rank, like a big

Shot discovering he’s firing

Blanks. All thanks to the

Collective will of the herd,

Eager to hoof it for greener

Pastures and better friends,

While I fend for myself

Against coyotes. The herd

Heard rumors I know how

To download corrupt DNA

Into the deep end of your

Gene pool, making them

Panic for the sanctity of your

Bovine bloodline. Actually,

I was thinking one small

Small step at a time. What

Nerve of the herd not to

Investigate, just terminate

My access with no warning

Or farewell. If I’m outcast

So ingraciously, then may

It be coyotes instead who

Crack your sacred access

Code and bite you and your

Over-protective herd on

Your collective ass.

 

OVER-REACTION

 

Drop an atomic bomb on the mouse.

Oops, you took out the whole house –

Collateral damage. No, it’s not an

Over-reaction. We are the last bastion

Against the mice. It’s them or our

Civilization, like the Alamo defending

Us against Taco Bell.

 

IN MY OWN WEENIE WAY

 

It’s not exactly a new idea, some

Joker typing away trying to capture

A voice in his heard. They used to

Do it with pens. When the Marquis

De Sade got thrown in a French

Prison for writing blasphemy,

Pornography and politically

Insulting poetry and prose, they

Took away his pen just to be

Cruel but he continued to write

On the walls of his cell in his own

Blood and feces. This man had

Something to say. So do I, though

I’m just a weenie compared to the

Marquis. I don’t write to you in

Blood, but in my own weenie way,

Believe me, I’m bleeding.

 

SCRUTINY

 

Like a frog in biology class, I can

Feel scrutiny bearing down. You

Want to understand my mechanics

Like Japan always striving for a

Better radio. I better copyright

My consciousness, bottle up my

Lightning and sell in on special at

Rip Off Mart. You can buy Beatle

Wigs, Springsteen lunchboxes,

Rolling Stone dildos and Grateful

Dead bongs. Would you like to

Own my itch, or just brag you’ve

Got accurate data, made a factual

Analysis? Anal, yeah sis? I am of

No commercial or academic use.

I don’t even see why you like me

Unless your screws are tinny too.

 

MILESTONE

 

They left me to figure things

Out on my own, so I guess it’s

No surprise I soon deduced

What works for me. No one

Insisted I pursue a certain

Direction, so my process of

Self-becoming never involved

Pleasing anyone else. Left to

My own devices, of course I

Quickly intuited my vices of

Choice, but hopefully with a

Virtue or two as well here and

There. This self-reflection bit

Feels perilously close to self-

Promotion, but it’s another

Milestone so I’m supposed to

Tally up where I am and how

I got here. Ok, so where am I

And how did I get here? The

Answer is, I don’t really know,

Which I suppose is what I get

For watching the scenery

More than the signs.

 

UNCONVENTIONAL COUNSELING

(NOT TO MENTION UNSOLICITED)

 

When I say they live in the past,

I don’t mean it as an insult to

Their good intentions, but they

Were young in the ‘60s and ‘70s

And you’re young now. In their

Own way, they’re just trying to

Protect you, but some protection

If they force on you a partner

Who’ll beat you, cheat on you

And divorce you. Then what are

They going to do? Say it was your

Fault? Partner selection is a very

Personal thing, not just another

Community undertaking. You

Used to marry whole families

Together – that was all fine and

Good – but nowadays even

Families can’t guarantee if a

Particular pairing will soar like

High flying birds or crash like

A train off the tracks, and

Doesn’t staying together just

For the children’s sake sound

Like a benign form of torture?

Marry for serious love or don’t

Do it, I say, but everyone has to

Decide for themselves.

 

Photography and ‘simple things closer’ are my refuge and sanity from where I live and the people in my apartment building.

 

Sadly most of those people living here are cops – cops too blind to figure out they are being manipulated by a cute, bouncy, immature, spoiled woman illegally in the building. She has a long history of using people, especially men.

 

Before the cops moved in she had me fooled. I was cleaning mold in her apartment, cleaning sand and mold out of window tracks, baking banana bread, helping her with nursing homework assignments, even interceded in her behalf when she hit a neighbor's car with her car.

 

I protected her against the building owners since I didn't have the complete story of her being here. But when I stopped baking, stopped bringing up her boxes - and DARED to suggest she come by and check for her boxes once in a while, she came up with a list of things I supposedly said about cops and fed it to them. (She is the same person who lied to Medicaid for years to get free medical care though there is PLENTY of money in her family.) Her parents pay her rent, and her Father paid her nursing school costs.

 

She has become friends with all the cops living here because she is banking on them protecting her should the building owner attempt to evict her. They party, celebrate, do things together, etc. Little do they know her true personality. And none of them have the maturity or wisdom to question her motivations, or why she would say or do the things she's done.

 

Giving those cops my unlisted phone number, and likely my e-mail, along with a long list of things I'd supposedly said about cops was the final straw for me. (I'm not friends with any of the cops, so why why she would share my phone number any of them makes no sense.) The people she gave it to are live a foot away from me. My wall is their wall. Of course, she almost certainly gave it to others. Then again, whatever one knows, they all know.

 

She'd contacted me about a missing box - I haven't had anything to do with her for well over a year - had told her twice before not to speak to me after she continually broke promises and despite being a nurse wouldn't help me around 9:30 one night when my leg was spurting blood. She told me to call Kaiser - impossible to look up, find, and dial the number on a landline with that amount of blood and while trying to stop the blood flow!

 

There was only one reason to do what she did. Total lack of conscience, ethics, empathy, any human emotions. And the fact that she gets rid of anyone who no longer is useful to her or won't feed her ego. The fact they all fell for her games and manipulating astonishes me. But she is gifted at how she plays people. Only two of us know her and what and how she is. Then again, neither of us are cops. And we are older and wiser than most of the relative newcomer cops. .

 

I used to think much higher of cops until so many moved into the building, particularly as there are cops in my family. But they are in other parts of the country and they have different standards and goals, and a conscience and ethics and common sense.

 

You'd think being cops they’d have the professionalism and common sense to vet information. They don’t. Whatever the illegal tenant feeds them they consume - hook, line, and sinker. Besides, they are linked at the hip by the blue line, cell phones, and texting - and all of them have the the same kind of backgrounds, personalities, ego, and the sole goal of more and more money.

 

They do not follow building rules or common decency. Asked not to slam doors they go out of their way to slam the entry gate and their apartment doors as hard as they can. One in particular, from a family of cops for several generations, goes out of her way to slam her apartment door and make nasty comments every time she passes by when other cops aren't here. She and male friends even messed with my windows.

 

She took out a mail water pipe with her car, drove away without saying a word so the rest of us were without water. Another female cop backed into a fence in the garage, causing it to sway several feet. Again, not a word to anyone.

 

One of them leaves all the garage lights on at least one a week - if I don't notice and shut them off they stay on 24/7 endlessly. And none of them will recycle food. The raccoons are constantly scattering it around, and through they are the reason, not one of them will grab a broom and clean the bones and breads and torn bags up. (Though they all are aware of the ill health of the landlady and her husband, who are in their mid-eighties and early nineties, respectively, and who live elsewhere.)

 

The petulant cop who verbally attacked me and angrily advised I had no friends here and would die alone, etc. has given out keys to people who don't live here (a huge security risk), and refuses to provide the name of long-time male 'room-mates' to the building owner who needs that information because we live in an active earthquake zone. Moreover the landlady, who bent over backward for that tenant, even giving her her brother's parking space, has to pay additional monthly water charges because of the extra water usage.

 

The irony is that the building rules of quietly shutting doors and keeping voices inside, and TV's and music at a lower level were put in place for the cops because of their unusual work schedules and related daytime sleeping schedules!

 

A different female cop, when witnessing damage done to my plants and planters, advised I should get psychological help because the ongoing damage was upsetting me. But physical damage and destruction aren't the same thing as words. Words are easily ignored, one just considers the source. And words are simply a case of ‘sticks and stones.’ Most people realize there is a huge difference between deliberate destructive actions and words.

 

No wonder people are afraid to call the police anymore! They prove more and more that cops in general can’t be believed or trusted. Too many have digressed from being overly-violent and trigger-happy to shooting handicapped people and people inside their own apartments and homes!

 

I know I’ll never look at cops the same way again. Not true for other first responders, like firefighters, who don’t hide behind excuses like they were ‘afraid for their lives.’ Instead they and other first responders save lives and try to help people, both on and off the job. Many are heroes.

 

But there is a world of difference between rescuing and saving people, and deliberately taunting, attacking, and trying to destroy others. Unfortunately the underhandedness, sabotage, and character assignation demonstrated here is how too many cops are these days. Pure evil in some cases. No empathy, no sympathy, no respect for elders or veterans, or older, handicapped veterans. And no ability to let go of things and move on.

  

Keizersgracht 09/05/2020 18h21

The phenomenon "plaskrul" ("pee curl") is something we can still experience and photograph. All 39 existing urinals will disappear over the years.

This double one is located on the Keizersgracht on the corner of the Spiegelstraat and is quite unique.

 

Plaskrul

The pee curl disappears: "Too bad, it belongs in the street scene"

 

The green curl of water, once a symbol of civilization, disappears from the streets. The municipality has an extinction policy. Not everyone agrees. "It is a familiar and quite graceful appearance."

If you want to urinate old Amsterdam again, you shouldn't wait too long. As rancid as it may be, the Amsterdam curl is an attraction: standing puddles - unfortunately only for men - while looking out at the canal and passers-by, through a cast iron grid.

There are gems in between. The one on the Plantage Kerklaan gives a view of Artis, the one on the Herenmarkt overlooks the postcards-Amsterdam of the Brouwersgracht.

At The Grand, on Oudezijds Voorburgwal, there is a curl built of natural stone, a red brick mesh with a statue on the roof, designed in the style of the Amsterdam School at the beginning of the last century. This urinal will survive the major cleaning; it was designated a national monument in 2001.

 

The other curls, still 39, will disappear one by one and will be replaced by modern MVG toilet units: more hygienic and suitable for men, women and disabled people.

The first curls were placed around 1870. De Baar: “From a hygienic point of view. Men used to do it directly in the canal. But the standards of decency changed. A civilized gentleman also found a bit of seclusion pleasant. ”

 

The design of the curl had to provide transparency. That was, according to the city archive of 1880, "for the police, to check that no indecent acts were taking place." Especially from the twenties of the last century, the curls became popular as a meeting place for men.

In recent years, many curls of urine have disappeared due to redesign of the public space or after complaints from local residents about odor nuisance. The municipality has an extinction policy. Also because the curls fall under sanitary sexism.

[ Het Parool, 30/01/2020 ]

Dutch postcard by van Leer's Fotodrukindustrie N.V., Amsterdam, no. 351, no. 6. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer (M.G.M.) June Allyson and Gene Kelly in The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948), based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.

 

The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is a classic Swashbuckler, starring Gene Kelly as D’Artagnan and Lana Turner as Milady De Winter. Other stars in the cast include Van Heflin, June Allyson, Gig Young, Angela Lansbury, and Vincent Price. It is one of the many, adaptations of the famous French book ‘Les trois mousquetaires’ by Alexandre Dumas père, and possibly the liveliest one, full of acrobatics, galloping horses, flapping cloaks, and sword fights with almost operatic intensity. Dumas’s story is followed quite faithfully, but the creative fantasy is in the theatrical way of depicting it.

 

As in the book: the story of The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is set in 1625 in France. The young and inexperienced D'Artagnan (Gene Kelly) leaves his home village in Gascony to become a musketeer in Paris in the service of His Majesty King Louis XIII (Frank Morgan). In his pocket, he has the letter of recommendation from his father (silent film star Robert Warwick), a former musketeer and friend of the current captain of the musketeers, Treville (Reginald Owen). His father has taught him the art of fencing masterfully and gives him the good advice never to let himself be compromised with impunity. He is only too happy to follow this advice. Very soon, before he has even reached Paris, D'Artagnan gets into a confrontation with Rochefort (Ian Keith), Cardinal Richelieu's (Vincent Price) confidant, and his companion, the mysterious Lady de Winter (Lana Turner). At this first opportunity to preserve his honour in battle, he is unceremoniously struck down and robbed by Rochefort's henchmen, and his credentials are also taken from him. Once in Paris, he not only meets his new friends and comrades-in-arms Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Coote), but also his landlord's niece, Constance Bonacieux (June Allyson), and falls in love. Many adventures and entanglements lie ahead and in the path of the brave hero D'Artagnan. Driven by his desire to become the king's musketeer and to prove himself in battle, he falls into the clutches of both the queen (Angela and the cardinal, experiences numerous dangerous situations and sometimes needs his new friends to get away at all. Nevertheless, he sets out to travel to England for the Queen's honour, to retrieve a jewellery box given away by the Queen's secret lover, Lord Buckingham (John Sutton), and to prevent Richelieu from plotting. To assist him, he is accompanied by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as his dull but loyal servant Planchet (Keenan Wynn). Shortly after D'Artagnan's return from England, Constance is kidnapped at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu. D'Artagnan makes a pass at Milady de Winter, discovers a delicate secret, and only just manages to save himself. Constance is freed and taken to safety in England, shortly after which war breaks out, and our four friends are drawn into it. They overhear a conspiratorial meeting between the Cardinal and Lady de Winter in an inn. The latter is to travel to England and kill Buckingham. Planchet also travels to England at D'Artagnan's behest to warn Buckingham. Lady de Winter is convicted and is to be executed. Constance is appointed her guardian. Milady de Winter, after a lengthy psychological duel, manages to take out Constance as well as a guard and Buckingham and then escapes. Athos and D'Artagnan, who wanted to help Constance, arrive too late; after Constance dies in D'Artagnan's arms, they themselves also have only escaped. Back in Paris, the four friends track down Lady de Winter, pronounce the death sentence on her, and have the prisoner executed. During their subsequent escape towards Spain, they are overpowered and arrested. Their fate seems to be sealed, but young D'Artagnan still has one trump card: the Countess's passport, personally sealed and signed by Cardinal Richelieu, with the note that everything the bearer of this letter undertakes will serve the good of the state. The king is not allowed to know the background of this letter - so Richelieu has to give in. Aramis receives permission to take up a clerical office. Porthos is allowed to marry richly, Athos gets his property back and D'Artagnan is to negotiate a peace offer with the enemy England on behalf of France.

 

Among the many American film versions of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers are the 1914 Film Attractions Co. production, directed by Charles V. Henkel, the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks production, directed by Fred Niblo, the 1935 RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. production, directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Walter Abel, Paul Lucas and Margot Grahame, Richard Lester's 1974 Twentieth Century-Fox production starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Raquel Welch; and the 1993 Buena Vista release, directed by Stephen Herek and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, and Rebecca de Mornay. This splashy 1948 MGM adaptation of The Three Musketeers was the third sound version and was also the first version in Technicolor. In 1947, a representative of the National Catholic Legion of Decency, an organisation that monitored the interests of the Church in motion pictures, objected to the characterisation of Cardinal Richelieu in the planned MGM adaptation of Dumas' story. In a letter to MGM producer Pandro S. Berman, the organisation stated its objection to the cardinal being portrayed as a "worldly and unscrupulous man" and urged the studio to remove the character from the film. Berman refused to remove the character from the film but promised he would use great caution in all sensitive matters pertaining to the story and in the film, Richelieu is never referred to as Cardinal Richelieu. Berman also indicated that Constance, the married mistress of D'Artagnan in the novel, would be unmarried in the film version. While early sound versions of Three Musketeers eliminated the deaths of Constance and Milady, this adaptation telescopes the novel's events to allow for these tragedies. According to AFI, screenwriter Robert Ardry was displeased with Sidney's irreverent approach to the Dumas story and objected to the spoof elements that were added to the film. A biography of Kelly noted that Belgian fencing champion Jean Heremans, who appears in the film as the cardinal's guard, taught Kelly how to fence. Kelly's biography also noted that during the filming of a bedroom scene, Kelly flung Turner onto a bed with such force that she fell to the ground and suffered a broken elbow. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “True to form, MGM saw to it that Lana Turner, as Milady, was dressed to the nines and heavily bejeweled for her beheading sequence. Portions of the 1948 Three Musketeers, in black and white, showed up in the silent film-within-a-film in 1952's Singin' in the Rain, which of course also starred Gene Kelly.” The Three Musketeers opened to mostly favourable reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the film's unusual tongue-in-cheek approach. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther noted that "more glittering swordplay, more dazzling costumes, more colors or more of Miss Turner's chest have never been seen in a picture than are shown in this one." And added: “Completely fantastic, however, is Miss Turner as the villainess, the ambitious Lady de Winter who does the boudoir business for the boss. Loaded with blond hair and jewels, with twelve-gallon hats and ostrich plumes, and poured into her satin dresses with a good bit of Turner to spare, she walks through the palaces and salons with the air of a company-mannered Mae West.” In 1948, there was an Oscar nomination for Robert Planck in the category Best Cinematography/Colour. Hans J. Wollstein at AllMovie: “The Three Musketeers remains an outrageously entertaining yarn, the Southern California locales perfectly standing in for 17th Century France and England.” And finally, Yvette Banek at her blog In so many words: “Lana Turner is really quite superb in her evilness. So evil that she is even photographed without make-up. Well, as 'without make-up' as MGM got, at any rate. Even then, she is exquisitely beautiful - especially when praying.”

 

Sources: Bosley Crowther (New York Times), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Yvette Banek (In so many words), AFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Queens Of The Stone Age @ Nokia Theater, Los Angeles

 

p.s. if you are gonna post my copyrighted images elsewhere on the internet at least have the decency to credit me with them or link them back to here, or i'll probably stop posting them or at least start putting big watermarks on them.

 

Belgian postcard by Victoria Biscuits Chocolats, no. 12. Photo: M.G.M. Angela Lansbury, June Allyson and Gene Kelly in The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948), based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.

 

The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is a classic Swashbuckler, starring Gene Kelly as D’Artagnan and Lana Turner as Milady De Winter. Other stars in the cast include Van Heflin, June Allyson, Gig Young, Angela Lansbury, and Vincent Price. It is one of the many, adaptations of the famous French book ‘Les trois mousquetaires’ by Alexandre Dumas père, and possibly the liveliest one, full of acrobatics, galloping horses, flapping cloaks, and sword fights with almost operatic intensity. Dumas’s story is followed quite faithfully, but the creative fantasy is in the theatrical way of depicting it.

 

As in the book: the story of The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is set in 1625 in France. The young and inexperienced D'Artagnan (Gene Kelly) leaves his home village in Gascony to become a musketeer in Paris in the service of His Majesty King Louis XIII (Frank Morgan). In his pocket, he has the letter of recommendation from his father (silent film star Robert Warwick), a former musketeer and friend of the current captain of the musketeers, Treville (Reginald Owen). His father has taught him the art of fencing masterfully and gives him the good advice never to let himself be compromised with impunity. He is only too happy to follow this advice. Very soon, before he has even reached Paris, D'Artagnan gets into a confrontation with Rochefort (Ian Keith), Cardinal Richelieu's (Vincent Price) confidant, and his companion, the mysterious Lady de Winter (Lana Turner). At this first opportunity to preserve his honour in battle, he is unceremoniously struck down and robbed by Rochefort's henchmen, and his credentials are also taken from him. Once in Paris, he not only meets his new friends and comrades-in-arms Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Coote), but also his landlord's niece, Constance Bonacieux (June Allyson), and falls in love. Many adventures and entanglements lie ahead and in the path of the brave hero D'Artagnan. Driven by his desire to become the king's musketeer and to prove himself in battle, he falls into the clutches of both the queen (Angela Lansbury) and the cardinal, experiences numerous dangerous situations and sometimes needs his new friends to get away at all. Nevertheless, he sets out to travel to England for the Queen's honour, to retrieve a jewellery box given away by the Queen's secret lover, Lord Buckingham (John Sutton), and to prevent Richelieu from plotting. To assist him, he is accompanied by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as his dull but loyal servant Planchet (Keenan Wynn). Shortly after D'Artagnan's return from England, Constance is kidnapped at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu. D'Artagnan makes a pass at Milady de Winter, discovers a delicate secret, and only just manages to save himself. Constance is freed and taken to safety in England, shortly after which war breaks out, and our four friends are drawn into it. They overhear a conspiratorial meeting between the Cardinal and Lady de Winter in an inn. The latter is to travel to England and kill Buckingham. Planchet also travels to England at D'Artagnan's behest to warn Buckingham. Lady de Winter is convicted and is to be executed. Constance is appointed her guardian. Milady de Winter, after a lengthy psychological duel, manages to take out Constance as well as a guard and Buckingham and then escapes. Athos and D'Artagnan, who wanted to help Constance, arrive too late; after Constance dies in D'Artagnan's arms, they themselves also have only escaped. Back in Paris, the four friends track down Lady de Winter, pronounce the death sentence on her, and have the prisoner executed. During their subsequent escape towards Spain, they are overpowered and arrested. Their fate seems to be sealed, but young D'Artagnan still has one trump card: the Countess's passport, personally sealed and signed by Cardinal Richelieu, with the note that everything the bearer of this letter undertakes will serve the good of the state. The king is not allowed to know the background of this letter - so Richelieu has to give in. Aramis receives permission to take up a clerical office. Porthos is allowed to marry richly, Athos gets his property back and D'Artagnan is to negotiate a peace offer with the enemy England on behalf of France.

 

Among the many American film versions of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers are the 1914 Film Attractions Co. production, directed by Charles V. Henkel, the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks production, directed by Fred Niblo, the 1935 RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. production, directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Walter Abel, Paul Lucas and Margot Grahame, Richard Lester's 1974 Twentieth Century-Fox production starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Raquel Welch; and the 1993 Buena Vista release, directed by Stephen Herek and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, and Rebecca de Mornay. This splashy 1948 MGM adaptation of The Three Musketeers was the third sound version and was also the first version in Technicolor. In 1947, a representative of the National Catholic Legion of Decency, an organisation that monitored the interests of the Church in motion pictures, objected to the characterisation of Cardinal Richelieu in the planned MGM adaptation of Dumas' story. In a letter to MGM producer Pandro S. Berman, the organisation stated its objection to the cardinal being portrayed as a "worldly and unscrupulous man" and urged the studio to remove the character from the film. Berman refused to remove the character from the film but promised he would use great caution in all sensitive matters pertaining to the story and in the film, Richelieu is never referred to as Cardinal Richelieu. Berman also indicated that Constance, the married mistress of D'Artagnan in the novel, would be unmarried in the film version. While early sound versions of Three Musketeers eliminated the deaths of Constance and Milady, this adaptation telescopes the novel's events to allow for these tragedies. According to AFI, screenwriter Robert Ardry was displeased with Sidney's irreverent approach to the Dumas story and objected to the spoof elements that were added to the film. A biography of Kelly noted that Belgian fencing champion Jean Heremans, who appears in the film as the cardinal's guard, taught Kelly how to fence. Kelly's biography also noted that during the filming of a bedroom scene, Kelly flung Turner onto a bed with such force that she fell to the ground and suffered a broken elbow. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “True to form, MGM saw to it that Lana Turner, as Milady, was dressed to the nines and heavily bejeweled for her beheading sequence. Portions of the 1948 Three Musketeers, in black and white, showed up in the silent film-within-a-film in 1952's Singin' in the Rain, which of course also starred Gene Kelly.” The Three Musketeers opened to mostly favourable reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the film's unusual tongue-in-cheek approach. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther noted that "more glittering swordplay, more dazzling costumes, more colors or more of Miss Turner's chest have never been seen in a picture than are shown in this one." And added: “Completely fantastic, however, is Miss Turner as the villainess, the ambitious Lady de Winter who does the boudoir business for the boss. Loaded with blond hair and jewels, with twelve-gallon hats and ostrich plumes, and poured into her satin dresses with a good bit of Turner to spare, she walks through the palaces and salons with the air of a company-mannered Mae West.” In 1948, there was an Oscar nomination for Robert Planck in the category Best Cinematography/Colour. Hans J. Wollstein at AllMovie: “The Three Musketeers remains an outrageously entertaining yarn, the Southern California locales perfectly standing in for 17th Century France and England.” And finally, Yvette Banek at her blog In so many words: “Lana Turner is really quite superb in her evilness. So evil that she is even photographed without make-up. Well, as 'without make-up' as MGM got, at any rate. Even then, she is exquisitely beautiful - especially when praying.”

 

Sources: Bosley Crowther (New York Times), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Yvette Banek (In so many words), AFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

An Egregious Mass Murder in the Faroes Islands This Morning.

 

20 to 30 dolphins were viciously slaughtered within the last hour on the beach at Havannasund on Vidoy Island.

The police mobilized quickly to block off a tunnel to the island and to set up a restricted zone to keep people away from the killers as the blood coloured the water a deep red and the screams of dying dolphins echoed across the beach, as laughing and cheering Faroese whalers splattered themselves with hot blood in a perverse orgy of sadistic lust.

The police closed the tunnel to the island to prevent anyone from reaching Havannasund.

The police are aggressively assisting the dolphin killers.

The Brigitte Bardot was unable to reach the location in time. The dolphins had been quickly spotted and driven with stones and bang poles onto the beach where their drooling killers waited with their knives eager to extinguish the lives of these gentle creatures.

The Faroe Islands continue to encourage the barbarity of slaughtering dolphins with the full complicity of the government, the media, the police with new authoritarian special laws and now the Danish government and the Danish Navy.

The Faroese have decided to pull out all stops in their defense of this savage cultural obscenity.

It appears that many people in the Faroes are so traditionally and morally bankrupt that they can only find identify in the bloody ritualized culture of sadistic slaughter, as if to proclaim to the entire world that they, the Faroese require blood sacrifices to illustrate their lack of complete lack of empathy and morality. It is their way of spitting in the face of common human decency by declaring their uniqueness in the only way that has any meaning for them – the deliberate and prideful infliction of suffering and death to innocent, intelligent, self aware, socially complex sentient beings.

With the power and force of the Kingdom of Denmark defending their little backwater vassal entity in the Islands of Sheep, the whalers are intent to cowardly continue killing, believing they have God on their side (“Gott mit us”) and knowing they have the politicians in their pockets.

 

Uruguayan postcard by CF. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

 

American actor Gregory Peck (1916-2003) was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck received five nominations for Academy Award for Best Actor and won once – for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). He almost always played courageous, nobly heroic good guys who saw injustice and fought it. Among his best known films are Spellbound (1945), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Roman Holiday (1953), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Cape Fear (1962).

 

Eldred Gregory Peck was born in 1916 in La Jolla, California (now in San Diego). His parents were Bernice Mary (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist, and druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the cinema every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. Peck's father encouraged him to take up medicine. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play 'The Morning Star' (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (John M. Stahl, 1944), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles." He appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 1946), he was again nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in Westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (William A. Wellman, 1948), and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II. In 1947, Peck, along with Dorothy McGuire, David O'Selznick, and Mel Ferrer, founded the La Jolla Playhouse, located in his hometown, and produced many of the classics there. Due to film commitments, he could not return to Broadway but whet his appetite for live theatre on occasion at the Playhouse, keeping it firmly established with a strong, reputable name over the years.

 

With a string of hits to his credit, Gregory Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (Raoul Walsh, 1951) with Virginia Mayo, and Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956) with Richard Basehart. He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953). While filming The Bravados (Henry King, 1958), he decided to become a cowboy in real life, so he purchased a vast working ranch near Santa Barbara, California - already stocked with 600 head of prize cattle. In the early 1960s, he gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) opposite David Niven and Anthony Quinn. The film was one of the biggest box-office hits of that year. Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). He also appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962) opposite Robert Mitchum, and Captain Newman, M.D. (David Miller, 1963) with Tony Curtis, which dealt with the way people live. The financial failure of Cape Fear (1962) ended his company, Melville Productions. After making Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Sophia Loren, Peck withdrew from acting for three years in order to concentrate on various humanitarian causes, including the American Cancer Society. In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Gordon Davidson, 1972) and The Dove (Charles Jarrott, 1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Ambassador Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) with Lee Remick. After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (Joseph Sargent, 1977) and the infamous Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978) with Laurence Olivier and James Mason. In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1982) in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and The Scarlet and the Black (Jerry London, 1983) with Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud. In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (Norman Jewison, 1991), starring Danny DeVito. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights, and civil rights. In 2003, Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute, only two weeks before his death. Atticus beat out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third. Gregory Peck died in 2003 in Los Angeles, California. He was 87. Peck was married twice. From 1942 till 1955, he was married to Greta Kukkonen. They had three children: Jonathan Peck (1944-1975), Stephen Peck (1946), and Carey Paul Peck (1949). His second wife was Veronique Passani, whom he met at the set of Roman Holliday. They married in 1955 and had two children: Tony Peck (1956) and Cecilia Peck (1958). The couple remained together till his death.

 

Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

These are sad times for the United States as the new administration is dismantling much of what makes the nation decent. They've even outlawed the use of the term "social justice." And they have proclaimed programs arguing for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) to be somehow evil.

 

While it is difficult to see a path back towards decency, the words of Martin Luther King — “The Arc of the Moral Universe is Long, But it Bends Toward Justice.” — can give us some hope and the song, "We shall overcome!" will serve us well.

 

Joan Baez with lyrics for singalong . . .

youtu.be/p4qp8TjHG88?si=GpeM_MagFgxUUzDO

 

We shall overcome,

We shall overcome,

We shall overcome, some day.

 

Oh, deep in my heart,

 

I do believe

We shall overcome, some day.

We'll walk hand in hand,

We'll walk hand in hand,

We'll walk hand in hand, some day.

 

Oh, deep in my heart,

 

We shall live in peace,

We shall live in peace,

We shall live in peace, some day.

 

Oh, deep in my heart,

 

We shall all be free,

We shall all be free,

We shall all be free, some day.

 

Oh, deep in my heart,

 

We are not afraid,

We are not afraid,

We are not afraid,

TODAY

 

Oh, deep in my heart,

We shall overcome,

We shall overcome,

We shall overcome, some day.

 

Oh, deep in my heart,

I do believe

We shall overcome, some day.

yesterday i had some friends over for a little dinner party. i meant to take many fabulous photos of the occasion, but unfortunately, i was waylaid by a raging case of Hostess Nerves. i get *so* anxious when entertaining! keeping drinks filled, records playing, and conversations going ALL while following a new recipe = too much excitement for this little lady. so, in lieu of same-day photos, please accept this wardrobe re-enactment instead.

 

all thrifted (again!):

shiny bodysuit (requires pins for decency)

perfectly-beat 501s (my "best butt" jeans)

floral belt (floral belt love to thriftcandy!)

plaid bobos (thrifted a red plaid pair the same day!)

"guatemala" hippie bag (the 15-year-old me would definitely not be seen with the 28-year-old me)

365:2019 Day 110

 

We are so very lucky to live here! A beautiful Cotswold market town, about 200 yards from the Square where everything happens, but protected from the noise by the thick stone alls of the ancient buildings. The land opposite our house has been derelict for some years, but was never a problem as we live at the back of the house overlooking our lovely garden. There is one window back there that overlooks us, but the people who live there are very discrete. This development has been fought against by everyone, and planning was turned down by the district planners - but, bring in an expensive barrister who has no understanding of the town or the situation, and lo and behold, we have a development. They have no vehicular access to the houses, and the brewery who own the lane, and have not given access, have seen fit to erect this fence. It is a godsend to us, but will they ever be able to sell houses this close to the fence? The front doors look as though they are about 3 feet from the fence - how on earth will they get furniture into them? The flip side of this is that there are some flats behind, to the north, with a shared garden that will now never see sunshine. With the rush to build so many homes, I think common sense and decency have been banished in the pursuit of money...

Tomorrow is election day in the US. It is a Constitutional right, nay, privilege to be able to shape the future of the nation. While your contribution may be a drop in the ocean, it is an important one.

 

In the past two years, the elected officials on one side have put party over policy, religion over science, bigotry over decency, war-mongering over diplomacy, fear over hope, and chaos over peace. That is not, and should not be the norm. The country deserves better.

 

I am not a citizen. I am an immigrant. But I have been fortunate enough to avail many opportunities this country had to offer. I have spent enough time to call this nation home. And yet I worry about the future of the democratic principles that was the basis of this nation-state and seem to be eroding away.

 

I cannot vote yet, but I wish I could. For after all I have seen in my travels through the continent, I still believe in the power of the people.

 

Go Vote.

 

Image is from a country road in Acadia National Park in the midst of fall.

 

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1331. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

 

Johnny Sheffield (1931-2010) was one of Hollywood's most famous child stars. He was unforgettable as Tarzan's adopted son Boy in eight Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmuller. Between 1949 and 1955, he starred in twelve Bomba films for Monogram Pictures.

 

Johnny Sheffield was born John Matthew Sheffield Cassan in 1931 in Pasadena, California, USA. His father was the actor Reginald Sheffield who began as a child star and later turned to character acting. In 1938, Sheffield became a child star after he was cast in the juvenile lead of a West Coast production of the highly successful Broadway play 'On Borrowed Time', which starred Dudley Digges and featured Victor Moore as Gramps. The seven-year-old Sheffield played the role of Pud, a long role for a child. He later went to New York as a replacement and performed the role on Broadway. That year he also played Napoleon's son in the short MGM film The Man on the Rock (Edward L. Cahn, 1938). When Maureen O'Sullivan wanted out of her Jane role in the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series, it was decided that she and Tarzan would adopt a son (they had to adopt, according to the Legion of Decency, because they weren't married) before she died. Weissmuller personally selected Sheffield from 300 boys for the part of Boy. The role was inspired by Bobby Nelson's portrayal in Tarzan the Mighty (Jack Nelson, Ray Taylor, 1928). Athletic by nature, little Johnny was taught to swim by swimming Olympian Weissmuller. Johnny Sheffield's feature debut in Tarzan Finds a Son! (Richard Thorpe, 1939) was such a success that MGM signed him to six more films as Tarzan's Boy. Sheffield played Boy in three Tarzan films at MGM, and in another five after Johnny Weissmuller, and production of the film series moved to RKO. Brenda Joyce played Jane in the last three Tarzan films in which Sheffield appeared.

 

In between the Tarzan films, Johnny Sheffield played supporting parts in other films. Sheffield appeared in the musical Babes in Arms (Busby Berkeley, 1939) with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, classmates of his at the studio school. Johnny and his brother Billy Sheffield were both in Knute Rockne All American (Lloyd Bacon, 1940), playing football player and coach Knute Rockne at different ages. By the time of Tarzan and the Mermaids (Robert Florey, 1948), Johnny Sheffield was too big for the part of Boy. The film merely said he was away at school. When Monogram Studios learned Sheffield had been dropped, they picked him up for s series of B-films based on Roy Rockwood's adventure novel 'Bomba'. The first was Bomba: The Jungle Boy (Ford Beebe, 1949). Between 1949 and 1955, Sheffield made twelve Bomba films for "Poverty Row" studio Monogram Pictures. Sheffield retired from films at age 24 after starring in his twelfth Bomba film Lord of the Jungle (Ford Beebe, 1955). He then made a pilot for a television series, Bantu the Zebra Boy, which was created, produced, and directed by his father, Reginald Sheffield. Although the production values were high compared to other TV jungle shows of the day, a sponsor was not found and the show was not taken up as a weekly series. In his later years, Sheffield sold bootlegged copies of the pilot to collectors on videotape. After leaving show business, Sheffield completed a business degree at UCLA. Turning his attention to other fields, he involved himself variously in farming, real estate and construction. For a time, he was a representative for the Santa Monica Seafood Company importing lobsters from Baja California in Mexico. In 1959 he married his wife Patricia and they would have three children, Stewart, Regina and Patrick Sheffield. In 2010, Johnny suffered a fatal heart attack at his home in Chula Vista, California, four hours after he fell off a ladder while pruning a palm tree. Sheffield was 79. His brother Billy Sheffield died two months later.

 

Sources: Ed Stephan (IMDb), Find A Grave, Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch postcard by Uitgeverij Takken, Utrecht, no. AX 3061. Brigitte Bardot in La lumière d'en face / The Light Across the Street (Georges Lacombe, 1955).

 

Beautiful French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she established herself as an animal rights activist and made vegetarianism sexy.

 

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying a modeling career and found herself in May 1949 on the cover of French magazine Elle. Her incredible beauty readily apparent, Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand/Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953 she attended the Cannes Film Festival where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956 she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. She made her first US production in 1953 in Un acte d'amour/Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.

 

Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme/...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smashing success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. Woman's immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the shooting of Et Dieu créa la femme/And God Created Woman (1956), directed by her husband Roger Vadim, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at that time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.

 

Et Dieu créa la femme/...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped her international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten' and fascination of her in America consisted of magazines photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad, or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theaters like lemmings.BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne/La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957) which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur/Love is my profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "this Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defense attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre is able to shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous-and deadly-side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960 postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.

 

Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957 and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre/Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career. Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée/Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at Films de France: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the highpoint of her career when she agreed to make this film with high profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names, was based on an actual incident and is a resonant image of a celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterward Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.

 

Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men including Sami Frey, her co-star in La Vérité/The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris/Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963). She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres/Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires/Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses/Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.

 

Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973 just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976 she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewelry and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990's she became also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal is a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularizing bikini swimwear, in early films such as Manina/Woman without a Veil (1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photoshoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."

 

Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (Films de France), Films de France, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

As I'm sure we all know the immortal line "I love big butts and I cannot lie" was sang by Sir Mix-A-Lot in his seminal 1992 hit 'Baby got back'. With an appreciation of these lyrics and a deep understanding of his poetic intent I have gone on to create this homage to Mr Lot's paean of decency and good taste. In other words I have been let loose on the internet again and this is a somewhat sordid production that I have compiled after spending too much time watching early 90's hip hop video's. Just one glance into the 'big booty' file on my computer is enough to make grown men weep so be glad I've stopped at just one big blue butt (for now)...

 

And, on a somewhat similar note you should beware my flourescent interpretation of the Wu Tang Clan's 'Gravel Pit'. That is probably one step too far...

 

Available from idiom.bigcartel.com/

 

Cheers

 

id-iom

 

Title: Big Butt Blue

Materials: Paint pen, watercolour, pencil and charcoal

Size: A4

Queens Of The Stone Age, Trocardiere, Nantes, France

 

p.s. if you are gonna post my copyrighted images elsewhere on the internet at least have the decency to credit me with them or link them back to here, or i'll probably stop posting them or at least start putting big watermarks on them.

I was amused today to find this comment on one of my photos....

 

...Please...I mean no disrespect, BUT !!! your face scares me and you have to be the ugliest man I have ever seen so what makes you think you can pull it off as a female when you are unattractive as a man. If you must post a milliuon pics like you have at least have the decency to blur out your face for the consideration of others.Thank you,A REAL GIRL...Victoria

 

Victoria only joined Flickr in the last 9 days, is 'faceless', has nothing in her profile and boasts no photos of her own to display...... I will supply her Flickr name to all those interested....

 

IMG_0627

1 May 10

Yugoslavian postcard by Sedma Sila. Photo: IOM, Beograd (Morava Film, Belgrade).

 

American actor Gregory Peck (1916-2003) was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck received five nominations for Academy Award for Best Actor and won once – for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). He almost always played courageous, nobly heroic good guys who saw injustice and fought it. Among his best known films are Spellbound (1945), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement(1947), Roman Holiday (1953), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Cape Fear (1962).

 

Eldred Gregory Peck was born in 1916 in La Jolla, California (now in San Diego). His parents were Bernice Mary (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the cinema every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. Peck's father encouraged him to take up medicine. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play 'The Morning Star' (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (John M. Stahl, 1944), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles." He appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 1946), he was again nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in Westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (William A. Wellman, 1948) and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II. In 1947, Peck, along with Dorothy McGuire, David O'Selznick and Mel Ferrer, founded the La Jolla Playhouse, located in his hometown, and produced many of the classics there. Due to film commitments, he could not return to Broadway but whet his appetite for live theatre on occasion at the Playhouse, keeping it firmly established with a strong, reputable name over the years.

 

With a string of hits to his credit, Gregory Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (Raoul Walsh, 1951) with Virginia Mayo, and Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956) with Richard Basehart. He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953). While filming The Bravados (Henry King, 1958), he decided to become a cowboy in real life, so he purchased a vast working ranch near Santa Barbara, California - already stocked with 600 head of prize cattle. In the early 1960s, he gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) opposite David Niven and Anthony Quinn. The film was one of the biggest box-office hits of that year. Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). He also appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962) opposite Robert Mitchum, and Captain Newman, M.D. (David Miller, 1963) with Tony Curtis, which dealt with the way people live. The financial failure of Cape Fear (1962) ended his company, Melville Productions. After making Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Sophia Loren, Peck withdrew from acting for three years in order to concentrate on various humanitarian causes, including the American Cancer Society. In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Gordon Davidson, 1972) and The Dove (Charles Jarrott, 1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Ambassador Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) with Lee Remick. After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (Joseph Sargent, 1977) and the infamous Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978) with Laurence Olivier and James Mason. In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1982) in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and The Scarlet and the Black (Jerry London, 1983) with Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud. In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (Norman Jewison, 1991), starring Danny DeVito. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights, and civil rights. In 2003, Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute, only two weeks before his death. Atticus beat out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third. Gregory Peck died in 2003 in Los Angeles, California. He was 87. Peck was married twice. From 1942 till 1955, he was married to Greta Kukkonen. They had three children: Jonathan Peck (1944-1975), Stephen Peck (1946) and Carey Paul Peck (1949). His second wife was Veronique Passani, whom he met at the set of Roman Holliday. They married in 1955 and had two children: Tony Peck (1956) and Cecilia Peck (1958). The couple remained together till his death.

 

Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

When I was young, in the 50’s, there were no gays in Ireland, no child abuse and no prostitutes … you had to travel to England to find that sort of thing [OK, Oscar Wilde was an exception and Molly Malone was really a good catholic girl].

 

Having worked in San Francisco and in Sweden I have never really considered being gay as being an issue so I was not paying much attention to the recent referendum campaign here in the Republic Of Ireland. I had assumed that the vote would be “YES” but I was amazed by the turnout and the massive majority in favour of changing to constitution.

 

A few hours ago I could not make my way home along Capel Street as it was packed with the gay community celebrating their referendum victory.

 

In case you are not aware Ireland became the first country in the world to bring in same-sex marriage by a popular vote. 62% of voters voted Yes in the same-sex marriage referendum, a result that has been described as a social revolution, an expression of decency and a country coming of age. 1.2 million people voted Yes for same sex marriage.

Flickr Group Roulette: Six Word Story

 

Being a single mom means being mom AND dad. My ex-hub says I won't be able to teach them how to be a man. I get that I'm not a man and I don't have man parts, but I know a thing or two about men.

 

In my experience (some first hand/some observed from the outside) I've learned that little boys become grown men but don't necessarily grow-up. I've also learned that a man can be gentle but it doesn't make him a gentlemen. And that some men are decent but when pushed don't practice decency. I've noticed that some men can be controlled but even when you tell them to sit, they are standing up in their heart. And that a man can truly believe he is helping you when he is choosing to be selfish.

 

Granted, I may not understand what it feels like to be a man but I do know what it takes to be a good man. And I can teach my boys what a man could never teach....how to truly honor a woman the way she was meant to be honored.

 

In actuality, God had it right when He set up marriage for one man and one woman to stay with the same partner forever, but we humans jacked that all up with our impatient lusts. The kids always get the short end of that deal.

Before I made the acquaintance of George Anastaplo I saw him walking down the street in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.

 

There was something about him that caught my eye... something about the way that he walked and the way that he smiled... there was something about his spirit... there was something that I wanted to capture.

 

George has what I like to call 'The Magic Mojo.'

 

I wanted to pop him right there on the street but I was late in getting to a very special dinner with some great friends.

 

I had to let the urge go.

 

I regretted my artistic inaction the moment I passed him on the street there.

 

Fortunately the regret would be short lived.

 

In one of those funny little twists of fate that life seems to lay on me... when we got to the dinner George ended up being seated right next to me.

 

He's a fascinating guy.

 

A great storyteller, I really enjoyed the conversation that we shared as we sat there at the table.

 

'While most lawyers go through an entire career without getting the opportunity to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court, George Anastaplo did so without entering the legal profession—and then, he likes to say, he retired.' ~ Maria Kantzavelos, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, April 25, 2011, page 1

 

George completed his undergraduate degree in only one year at the University of Chicago.

 

It took me longer than that to pay my overdue library fines from freshman year.

 

In 1951 he graduated at the top of his law school class.

 

I would have liked to have sat next to him.

 

In 1964 George completed his doctorate at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought.

 

Since then he's written more than 20 books on a multitude of subjects.

 

"A longtime Loyola University Chicago School of Law professor who today teaches courses in constitutional law and jurisprudence, Anastaplo became an eclectic scholar and teacher" ~ Maria Kantzavelos

 

'Fifty years ago Sunday, on April 24, 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision that affirmed the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court to deny Anastaplo admission to the Illinois bar because he refused to answer questions asked by the bar’s character committee about political associations.' ~ Maria Kantzavelos

 

When George graduated from law school and he interviewed for admission into the Illinois Bar Association he had to be questioned in front of the 'character committee' they asked 'do you think a communist should be admitted into the bar of this state?'

 

George's answer?

 

‘Well, why not?’

 

Then they asked George if he was now or was ever a member of the Communist Party.

 

George didn't feel that he should answer that question and because of that conviction they wouldn't give him admission into the Illinois Bar and he couldn't practice law even though the dude graduated at the top of his class. Hmmmmph.

 

'Had he gone along with the process, things could have turned out differently for Anastaplo, who was being considered for a position at one of the big law firms in town.' ~ Maria Kantzavelos

 

But that didn't stop the fiesty twenty five year old.

 

He fought over the next ten years, ultimately laying out his case in front of the United States Supreme Court.

 

He argued there as a lawyer without a license!

 

'In 1954 petitioner, George Anastaplo, an instructor and research assistant at the University of Chicago, having previously passed his Illinois bar examinations, was denied admission to the bar of that State by the Illinois Supreme Court. The denial was based upon his refusal to answer questions of the Committee on Character and Fitness as to whether he was a member of the Communist Party.' ~ 366 U.S. 82 IN RE ANASTAPLO

 

'The ensuing lengthy proceedings before the Committee, at which Anastaplo was the only witness, are perhaps best described as a wide-ranging exchange between the Committee and Anastaplo in which the Committee sought to explore Anastaplo's ability conscientiously to swear support of the Federal and State Constitutions, as required by the Illinois attorneys' oath, and Anastaplo undertook to expound and defend, on historical and ideological premises, his abstract belief in the 'right of revolution,' and to resist, on grounds of asserted constitutional right and scruple, Committee questions which he deemed improper. The Committee already had before it uncontroverted evidence as to Anastaplo's 'good moral character,' in the form of written statements or affidavits furnished by persons of standing acquainted with him, and the record on rehearing contains nothing which could properly be considered as reflecting adversely upon his character or reputation or on the sincerity of the beliefs he espoused before the Committee. Anastaplo persisted, however, in refusing to answer, among other inquiries, the Committee's questions as to his possible membership in the Communist Party or in other allegedly related organizations. ~ 366 U.S. 82 IN RE ANASTAPLO

 

Thereafter the Committee, by a vote of 11 to 6, again declined to certify Anastaplo because of his refusal to answer such questions, the majority stating in its report to the Illinois Supreme Court:

 

'his (Anastaplo's) failure to reply, in our view, obstructs the lawful processes of the Committee, prevents inquiry into subjects which bear intimately upon the issue of character and fitness, such as loyalty to our basic institutions, belief in representative government and bona fides of the attorney's oath and results in his failure to meet the burden of establishing that he possesses the good moral character and fitness to practice law, which are conditions to the granting of a license to practice law.

 

'We draw no inference of disloyalty or subversion from applicant's continued refusal to answer questions concerning Communist or other subversive affiliations. We do, however, hold that there is a strong public interest in our being free to question applicants for admission to the bar on their adherence to our basic institutions and form of government and that such public interest in the character of its attorneys overrides an applicant's private interest in keeping such views to himself. By failing to respond to this higher public interest we hold that the applicant has obstructed the proper functions of the Committee. We cannot certify the applicant as worthy of the trust and confidence of the public when we do not know that he is so worthy and when he has prevented us from finding out.'

 

At the same time the full Committee acknowledged that Anastaplo 'is well regarded by his academic associates, by professors who had taught him in school and by members of the Bar who know him personally'; that it had 'not been supplied with any information by any third party which is derogatory to Anastaplo's character or general reputation. ~ ~ 366 U.S. 82 IN RE ANASTAPLO

 

THE DISSENTING OPINION

 

'United States Supreme Court

 

366 U.S. 82

 

IN RE ANASTAPLO

 

No. 58. Argued: December 14, 1960. --- Decided: April 24, 1961.

 

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS.

 

Mr. Justice BLACK, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice BRENNAN concur, dissenting.

 

The petitioner George Anastaplo has been denied the right to practice law in the State of Illinois for refusing to answer questions about his views and associations. I think this action by the State violated rights guaranteed to him by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The reasons which lead me to this conclusion are largely the same as those expressed in my dissenting opinion in Konigsberg v. State Bar of California, 366 U.S. at page 56, 81 S.Ct. at page 1010. But this case provides such a striking illustration of the destruction that can be inflicted upon individual liberty when this Court fails to enforce the First Amendment to the full extent of its express and unequivocal terms that I think it deserves separate treatment.

 

The controversy began in November 1950, when Anastaplo, a student at the University of Chicago Law School, having two months previously successfully passed the Illinos Bar examination, appeared before the State's Committee on Character and Fitness for the usual interview preliminary to admission to the Bar. The personal history form required by state law had been filled out and filed with the Committee prior to his appearance and showed that Anastaplo was an unusually worthy applicant for admission. His early life had been spent in a small town in southern Illinois where his parents, who had immigrated to this country from Greece before his birth, still resided. After having received his precollege education in the public schools of his home town, he had discontinued his education, at the age of eighteen, and joined the Air Force during the middle of World War II-flying as a navigator in every major theater of the military operations of that war. Upon receiving an honorable discharge in 1947, he had come to Chicago and resumed his education, obtaining his undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago and entering immediately into the study of law at the University of Chicago Law School. His record throughout his life, both as a student and as a citizen, was unblemished.

 

The personal history form thus did not contain so much as one statement of fact about Anastaplo's past life or conduct that could have, in any way, cast doubt upon his fitness for admission to the Bar. It did, however, contain a statement of opinion which, in the minds of some of the members of the Committee at least, did cast such doubt and in that way served to touch off this controversy. This was a statement made by Anastaplo in response to the command of the personal history form: 'State what you consider to be the principles underlying the Constitution of the United States.' Anastaplo's response to that command was as follows:

 

'One principle consists of the doctrine of the separation of powers; thus, among the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary are distributed various functions and powers in a manner designed to provide for a balance of power, thereby intending to prevent totally unrestrained action by any one branch of government. Another basic principle (and the most important) is that such government is constituted so as to secure certain inalienable rights, those rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (and elements of these rights are explicitly set forth in such parts of the Constitution as the Bill of Rights.). And, of course, whenever the particular government in power becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and thereupon to establish a new government. This is how I view the Constitution.'

 

When Anastaplo appeared before a two-man Subcommittee of the Committee on Character and Fitness, one of its members almost immediately engaged him in a discussion relating to the meaning of these italicized words which were substantially taken from that part of the Declaration of Independence set out below. This discussion soon developed into an argument as Anastaplo stood by his statement and insisted that if a government gets bad enough, the people have a 'right of revolution.' It was at this juncture in the proceedings that the other member of the Subcommittee interrupted with the question: 'Are you a member of any organization that is listed on the Attorney General's list, to your knowledge?' And this question was followed up a few moments later with the question: 'Are you a member of the Communist Party?' A colloquy then ensued between Anastaplo and the two members of the Subcommittee as to the legitimacy of the questions being asked, Anastaplo insisting that these questions were not reasonably related to the Committee's functions and that they violated his rights under the Constitution, and the members of the Subcommittee insisting that the questions were entirely legitimate.

 

The Subcommittee then refused to certify Anastaplo for admission to the Bar but, instead, set a further hearing on the matter before the full Committee. That next hearing, as well as all of the hearings that followed, have been little more than repetitions of the first. The rift between Anastaplo and the Committee has grown ever wider with each successive hearing. Anastaplo has stead-fastly refused to answer any questions put by the Committee which inquired into his political associations or religious beliefs. A majority of the members of the Committee, faced with this refusal, has grown more and more insistent that it has the right to force him to answer any question it sees fit to ask. The result has been a series of hearings in which questions have been put to Anastaplo with regard to his 'possible' association with scores of organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Silver Shirts (an allegedly Fascist organization), every organization on the so-called Attorney General's list, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Communist Party. At one point in the proceedings, at least two of the members of the Committee insisted that he tell the Committee whether he believes in a Supreme Being and one of these members stated that, as far as his vote was concerned, a man's 'belief in the Deity * * * has a substantial bearing upon his fitness to practice law.'

 

It is true, as the majority points out, that the Committee did not expressly rest its refusal to certify Anastaplo for admission to the Bar either upon his views on the 'right of revolution,' as that 'right' is defined in the Declaration of Independence, or upon his refusal to disclose his beliefs with regard to the existence of God, [4] or upon his refusals to disclose any of his political associations other than his 'possible' association with the Communist Party. But it certainly cannot be denied that the other questions were asked and, since we should not presume that these members of the Committee did not want answers to their questions, it seems certain that Anastaplo's refusal to answer them must have had some influence upon the final outcome of the hearings. In any case, when the Committee did vote, 11-6, not to certify Anastaplo for admission, not one member who asked any question Anastaplo had refused to answer voted in his favor.

 

The reasons for Anastaplo's position have been stated by him time and again-first, to the Committee and, later, in the briefs and oral arguments he presented in his own behalf, both before this Court and before the Supreme Court of Illinois. From a legal standpoint, his position throughout has been that the First Amendment gave him a right not to disclose his political associations or his religious beliefs to the Committee. But his decision to refuse to disclose these associations and beliefs went much deeper than a bare reliance upon what he considered to be his legal rights. The record shows that his refusal to answer the Committee's question stemmed primarily from his belief that he had a duty, both to society and to the legal profession, not to submit to the demands of the Committee because he believed that the questions had been asked solely for the purpose of harassing him because he had expressed agreement with the assertion of the right of revolution against an evil government set out in the Declaration of Independence. His position was perhaps best stated before the Committee in his closing remarks at the final session:

 

'It is time now to close. Differences between us remain. I leave to others the sometimes necessary but relatively easy task of praising Athens to Athenians. Besides, you should want no higher praise than what I have said about the contribution the bar can make to republican government. The bar deserves no higher praise until it makes that contribution. You should be grateful that I have not made a complete submission to you, even though I have cooperated as fully as good conscience permits. To the extent I have not submitted, to that extent have I contributed to the solution of one of the most pressing problems that you, as men devoted to character and fitness, must face. This is the problem of selecting the standards and methods the bar must employ if it is to help preserve and nourish that idealism, that vital interest in the problem of justice, that so often lies at the heart of the intelligent and sensitive law student's choice of career. This is an idealism which so many things about the bar, and even about bar admission practices, discourage and make unfashionable to defend or retain. The worthiest men live where the rewards of virtue are greatest.

 

'I leave with you men of Illinois the suggestion that you do yourselves and the bar the honor, as well as the service, of anticipating what I trust will be the judgment of our most thoughtful judges. I move therefore that you recommend to the Supreme Court of Illinois that I be admitted to the bar of this State. And I suggest that this recommendation be made retroactive to November 10, 1950 when a young Air Force veteran first was so foolish as to continue to serve his country by daring to defend against a committee on character and fitness the teaching of the Declaration of Independence on the right of revolution.'

 

The reasons for the Committee's position are also clear. Its job, throughout these proceedings, has been to determine whether Anastaplo is possessed of the necessary good moral character to justify his admission to the Bar of Illinois. In that regard, the Committee has been given the benefit of voluminous affidavits from men of standing in their professions and in the community that Anastaplo is possessed of an unusually fine character. Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn, Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at the University of Wisconsin, for example, described Anastaplo as 'intellectually able, a hard, thorough student and moved by high devotion to the principles of freedom and justice.' Professor Malcolm P. Sharp of the University of Chicago Law School stated: 'No question has ever been raised about his honesty or his integrity, and his general conduct, characterized by friendliness, quiet independence, industry and courage, is reflected in his reputation.' Professor Roscoe T. Steffen of the University of Chicago Law School said: 'I know of no one who doubts his honesty and integrity.' Yves R. Simon, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago, said: 'I consider Anastaplo as a young man of the most distinguished and lofty moral character. Everybody respects him and likes him.' Angelo G. Geocaris, a practicing attorney in the City of Chicago, said of Anastaplo: 'His personal code of ethics is unexcelled by any practicing attorney I have met in the state of Illinois.' Robert J. Coughlan, Division Director of a research project at the University of Chicago, said: 'His honesty and integrity are, in my opinion, beyond question. I would highly recommend him without the slightest reservation for any position involving the highest or most sacred trust. The applicant is a rare man among us today: he has an inviolable sense of Honor in the great traditions of Greek culture and thought. If admitted to the American Bar, he could do nothing that would not reflect glory on that institution.'

 

These affidavits and many more like them were presented to the Committee. Most of the statements came from men who knew Anastaplo intimately on the University of Chicago campus where Anastaplo has remained throughout the proceedings here involved, working as a research assistant and as a lecturer in Liberal Arts and studying for an advanced degree in History and Social Sciences. Even at the present time, he is still there preparing his doctoral dissertation which, understandably enough, is tentatively entitled 'The Historical and Philosophical Background of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.'

 

The record also shows that the Committee supplemented the information it had obtained about Anastaplo from these affidavits by conducting informal independent investigations into his character and reputation. It sent agents to Anastaplo's home town in southern Illinois and they questioned the people who knew him there. Similar inquiries were made among those who knew him in Chicago. But these intensive investigations apparently failed to produce so much as one man in Chicago or in the whole State of Illinois who could say or would say, directly, indirectly or even by hearsay, one thing derogatory to the character, loyalty or reputation of George Anastaplo, and not one man could be found who would in any way link him with the Communist Party. This fact is particularly significant in view of the evidence in the record that the Committee had become acquainted with a person who apparently had been a member of a Communist Party cell on the University of Chicago campus and that this person was asked to and did identify for the Committee every member of the Party whom he knew.

 

In addition to the information it had obtained from the affidavits and from its independent investigations, the Committee had one more important source of information about Anastaplo's character. It had the opportunity to observe the manner in which he conducted himself during the many hours of hearings before it. That manner, as revealed by the record before us and undenied by any findings of the Committee to the contrary, left absolutely nothing to be desired. Faced with a barrage of sometimes highly provocative and totally irrelevant questions from men openly hostile to his position, Anastaplo invariably responded with all the dignity and restraint attributed to him in the affidavits of his friends. Moreover, it is not amiss to say that he conducted himself in precisely the same manner during the oral argument he presented before this Court.

 

Thus, it is against the background of a mountain of evidence so favorable to Anastaplo that the word 'overwhelming' seems inadequate to describe it that the action of the Committee in refusing to certify Anastaplo as fit for admission to the Bar must be considered. The majority of the Committee rationalized its position on the ground that without answers to some of the questions it had asked, it could not conscientiously perform its duty of determining Anastaplo's character and fitness to be a lawyer. A minority of the Committee described this explanation as 'pure sophistry.' And it is simply impossible to read this record without agreeing with the minority. For, it is difficult to see what possible relevancy answers to the questions could have had in the minds of these members of the Committee after they had received such completely overwhelming proof beyond a reasonable doubt of Anastaplo's good character and staunch patriotism. I can think of no sound reason for further insistence upon these answers other than the very questionable, but very human, feeling that this young man should not be permitted to resist the Committee's demands without being compelled to suffer for it in some way.

 

It is intimated that the Committee's feeling of resentment might be assuaged and that Anastaplo might even be admitted to the Bar if he would only give in to the demands of the Committee and add the requested test oath to the already overwhelming proof he has submitted to establish his good character and patriotism. In this connection, the Court says: 'We find nothing to suggest that he would not be admitted now if he decides to answer, assuming of course that no grounds justifying his exclusion from practice resulted. In short, petitioner holds the key to admission in his own hands.' However well this familiar phrase may fit other cases, it does not fit this one. For the attitude of the Committee, as revealed by the transcript of its hearings, does not support a belief that Anastaplo can gain admission to the Illinois Bar merely by answering the Committee's questions, whatever answers he should give. Indeed, the Committee's own majority report discloses that Anastaplo's belief in the 'right of revolution' was regarded as raising 'a serious question' in the minds of a majority of the Committee with regard to his fitness to practice law and that 'certain' members of that majority (how many, we cannot know) have already stated categorically that they will not vote to admit an applicant who expresses such views. Nor does the opinion of the Illinois Supreme Court indicate that Anastaplo 'holds the key to admission in his own hands.' Quite the contrary, that court's opinion evidences an almost insuperable reluctance to upset the findings of the Committee. Certainly, that opinion contains nothing that even vaguely resembles the sort of implicit promise that would justify the belief asserted by the majority here. And, finally, I see nothing in the majority opinion of this Court, nor in the majority opinions in the companion cases decided today, that would justify a belief that this Court would unlock the door that blocks his admission to the Illinois Bar if Anastaplo produced the 'key' and the state authorities refused to use it.

 

The opinion of the majority already recognizes that there is not one scrap of evidence in the record before us 'which could properly be considered as reflecting adversely upon his (Anastaplo's) character or reputation or on the sincerity of the beliefs he espoused before the Committee,' and that the Committee had not received any "information from any outside source which would cast any doubt on applicant's loyalty or which would tend to connect him in any manner with any subversive group." The majority opinion even concedes that Anastaplo was correct in urging that the questions asked by the Committee impinged upon the freedoms of speech and association guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. But, the opinion then goes on to hold that Anastaplo can nonetheless be excluded from the Bar pursuant to 'the State's interest in having lawyers who are devoted to the law in its broadest sense .' I cannot regard that holding, as applied to a man like Anastaplo, as in any way justified. Consider it, for example, in the context of the following remarks of Anastaplo to the Committee-remarks the sincerity of which the majority does not deny:

 

'I speak of a need to remind the bar of its traditions and to keep alive the spirit of dignified but determined advocacy and opposition. This is not only for the good of the bar, of course, but also because of what the bar means to American republican government. The bar when it exercises self-control is in a peculiar position to mediate between popular passions and informed and principled men, thereby upholding republican government. Unless there is this mediation, intelligent and responsible government is unlikely. The bar, furthermore, is in a peculiar position to apply to our daily lives the constitutional principles which nourish for this country its inner life. Unless there is this nourishment, a just and humane people is impossible. The bar is, in short, in a position to train and lead by precept and example the American people.'

 

These are not the words of a man who lacks devotion to 'the law in its broadest sense.'

 

The majority, apparently considering this fact irrelevant because the State might possibly have an interest in learning more about its Bar applicants, decides that Anastaplo can properly be denied admission to the Bar by purporting to 'balance' the interest of the State of Illinois in 'having lawyers who are devoted to the law in its broadest sense' against the interest of Anastaplo and the public in protecting the freedoms of the First Amendment, concluding, as it usually does when it engages in this process, that 'on balance' the interest of Illinois must prevail. If I had ever doubted that the 'balancing test' comes close to being a doctrine of governmental absolutism-that to 'balance' an interest in individual liberty means almost inevitably to destroy that liberty-those doubts would have been dissipated by this case. For this so-called 'balancing test'-which, as applied to the First Amendment, means that the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, religion and petition can be repressed whenever there is a sufficient governmental interest in doing so-here proves pitifully and pathetically inadequate to cope with an invasion of individual liberty so plainly unjustified that even the majority apparently feels compelled expressly to disclaim 'any view upon the wisdom of the State's action.'

 

I, of course, wholeheartedly agree with the statement of the majority that this Court should not, merely on the ground that such action is unwise, interfere with governmental action that is within the constitutional powers of that government. But I am no less certain that this Court should not permit governmental action that plainly abridges constitutionally protected rights of the People merely because a majority believes that on 'balance' it is better, or 'wiser,' to abridge those rights than to leave them free. The inherent vice of the 'balancing test' is that it purports to do just that. In the context of its reliance upon the 'balancing test,' the Court's disclaimer of 'any view upon the wisdom of the State's action' here thus seems to me to be wholly inconsistent with the only ground upon which it has decided this case.

 

Nor can the majority escape from this inconsistency on the ground that the 'balancing test' deals only with the question of the importance of the existence of governmental power as a general matter without regard to the importance of its exercise in a particular case. For in Barenblatt v. United States the same majority made it clear that the 'balancing test' is to be applied to the facts of each particular case (360 U.S. 109, 79 S.Ct. 1093): 'Where First Amendment rights are asserted to bar governmental interrogation resolution of the issue always involves a balancing by the courts of the competing private and public interests at stake in the particular circumstances shown.' Thus the Court not only 'balances' the respective values of two competing policies as a general matter, but also 'balances' the wisdom of those policies in 'the particular circumstances shown.' Thus, the Court has reserved to itself the power to permit or deny abridgement of First Amendment freedoms according to its own view of whether repression or freedom is the wiser governmental policy under the circumstances of each case.

 

The effect of the Court's 'balancing' here is that any State may now reject an applicant for admission to the Bar if he believes in the Declaration of Independence as strongly as Anastaplo and if he is willing to sacrifice his career and his means of livelihood in defense of the freedoms of the First Amendment. But the men who founded this country and wrote our Bill of Rights were strangers neither to a belief in the 'right of revolution' nor to the urgency of the need to be free from the control of government with regard to political beliefs and associations. Thomas Jefferson was not disclaiming a belief in the 'right of revolution' when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. And Patrick Henry was certainly not disclaiming such a belief when he declared in impassioned words that have come on down through the years: 'Give me liberty or give me death.' This country's freedom was won by men who, whether they believed in it or not, certainly practiced revolution in the Revolutionary War.

 

Since the beginning of history there have been governments that have engaged in practices against the people so bad, so cruel, so unjust and so destructive of the individual dignity of men and women that the 'right of revolution' was all the people had left to free themselves. As simple illustrations, one government almost 2,000 years ago burned Christians upon fiery crosses and another government, during this very century, burned Jews in crematories. I venture the suggestion that there are countless multitudes in this country, and all over the world, who would join Anastaplo's belief in the right of the people to resist by force tyrranical governments like those.

 

In saying what I have, it is to be borne in mind that Anastaplo has not indicated, even remotely, a belief that this country is an oppressive one in which the 'right of revolution' should be exercised. Quite the contrary, the entire course of his life, as disclosed by the record, has been one of devotion and service to his country-first, in his willingness to defend its security at the risk of his own life in time of war and, later, in his willingness to defend its freedoms at the risk of his professional career in time of peace. The one and only time in which he has come into conflict with the Government is when he refused to answer the questions put to him by the Committee about his beliefs and associations. And I think the record clearly shows that conflict resulted, not from any fear on Anastaplo's part to divulge his own political activities, but from a sincere, and in my judgment correct, conviction that the preservation of this country's freedom depends upon adherence to our Bill of Rights. The very most that can fairly be said against Anastaplo's position in this entire matter is that he took too much of the responsibility of preserving that freedom upon himself.

 

This case illustrates to me the serious consequences to the Bar itself of not affording the full protections of the First Amendment to its applicants for admission. For this record shows that Anastaplo has many of the qualities that are needed in the American Bar. It shows, not only that Anastaplo has followed a high moral, ethical and patriotic course in all of the activities of his life, but also that he combines these more common virtues with the uncommon virtue of courage to stand by his principles at any cost. It is such men as these who have most greatly honored the profession of the law-men like Malsherbes, who, at the cost of his own life and the lives of his family, sprang unafraid to the defense of Louis XVI against the fanatical leaders of the Revolutionary government of France -men like Charles Evans Hughes, Sr., later Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, who stood up for the constitutional rights of socialists to be socialists and public officials despite the threats and clamorous protests of self-proclaimed superpatriots -men like Charles Evans Hughes, Jr., and John W. Davis, who, while against everything for which the Communists stood, strongly advised the Congress in 1948 that it would be unconstitutional to pass the law then proposed to outlaw the Communist Party -men like Lord Erskine, James Otis, Clarence Darrow, and the multitude of others who have dared to speak in defense of causes and clients without regard to personal danger to themselves. The legal profession will lose much of its nobility and its glory if it is not constantly replenished with lawyers like these. To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it.

 

But that is the present trend, not only in the legal profession but in almost every walk of life. Too many men are being driven to become government-fearing and time-serving because the Government is being permitted to strike out at those who are fearless enough to think as they please and say what they think. This trend must be halted if we are to keep faith with the Founders of our Nation and pass on to future generations of Americans the great heritage of freedom which they sacrificed so much to leave to us. The choice is clear to me. If we are to pass on that great heritage of freedom, we must return to the original language of the Bill of Rights. We must not be afraid to be free'

  

' if a government gets bad enough, the people have a 'right of revolution.' ~ George Anastaplo

 

That's why I like you George... what you just said right up there... you're a principled man and a patriot... you're a fiesty guy indeed as the following exchange points out...

 

This is from the transcript of the committee questioning George...

 

'Commissioner Mitchell: When you say 'believe in revolution,' you don't limit that revolution to an overthrow of a particular political party or a political government by means of an election process or other political means?

 

'Mr. Anastaplo: I mean actual use of force.

 

'Commissioner Mitchell: You mean to go as far as necessary?

 

'Mr. Anastaplo: As far as Washington did, for instance.

 

'Commissioner Mitchell: So that would it be fair to say that you believe the end result would justify any means that were used?

 

'Mr. Anastaplo: No, the means proportionate to the particular end in sight.

 

'Commissioner Mitchell: Well, is there any difference from your answer and my question?

 

'Mr. Anastaplo: Did you ask-

 

'Commissioner Mitchell: I asked you whether you thought that you believe that if a change, or overthrow of the government were justified, that any means could be used to accomplish that end.

  

'Mr. Anastaplo: Now, let's say in this positive concrete situation-I am not quite sure what it means in abstract.

 

'Commissioner Mitchell: I will ask you in detail. You believe that assuming the government should be overthrown, in your opinion, that you and others of like mind would be justified in raising a company of men with military equipment and proceed to take over the government of the United States, of the State of Illinois?

 

'By shaking your head do you mean yes?

 

'Mr. Anastaplo: If you get to the point where overthrow is necessary, then overthrow is justified. It just means that you overthrow the government by force.

 

'Commissioner Mitchell: And would that also include in your mind justification for putting a spy into the administrative department, one or another of the administrative departments of the United States or the government of the State of Illinois?

 

'Mr. Anastaplo: If you got to the point you think the government should be overthrown, I think that would be a legitimate means.

 

'Commissioner Mitchell: There isn't any difference in your mind in the propriety of using a gun or using a spy?

 

'Mr. Anastaplo: I think spies have been used in quite honorable causes.

 

'Commissioner Mitchell: Your answer is, you do think so?

 

'Mr. Anastaplo: Yes.

  

'Commissioner Baker: Let me ask you a question. Are you aware of the fact that the Department of Justice has a list of what are described as subversive organizations?

 

'Mr. Anastaplo: Yes.

 

'Commissioner Baker: Have you ever seen that list?

 

'Mr. Anastaplo: Yes.

 

'Commissioner Baker: Are you a member of any organization that is listed on the Attorney General's list, to your knowledge? (No answer.) Just to keep you from having to work so hard mentally on it, what organizations-give me all the organizations you are affiliated with or are a member of. (No answer.) That oughtn't to be too hard.

 

'Mr. Anastaplo: Do you believe that is a legitimate question?

 

'Commissioner Baker: Yes, I do. We are inquiring into not only your character, but your fitness, under Rule 58. We don't compel you to answer it. Are you a member of the Communist Party?'

  

George lost the case at the US Supreme Court but it was his principled approach to not answering the question in the first place and his ten year battle to overcome the ramifications of that refusal that earned him the respect of many who respect a person who lives a principle centered life.

 

He never would practice law, but he would become a passionate and inspiring teacher according to many.

 

He's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twelve times.

 

And they sat him down for dinner next to 'Viewminder' a street photographer... who was only nominated for the Peace Prize once... by himself.

 

Crowned 'The Socrates of Chicago' George has written more books than some of the people I know have read...

 

"He has written books and articles analyzing the influence of Greek literature on American politics, on the Thinker as Artist, and the Artist as Thinker, on the O. J. Simpson trial, on lights at Wrigley Field, on McCarthyism, on hate speech, on lawyers, on judges, on the Bible, on ethics, on Abraham Lincoln, on the remodeling of Soldier field, and I have only touched the surface of his eclecticism. ~ 'George Anastaplo' by Abner Mikva

 

George Anastaplo I admire you.

 

You saw something that was wrong and you refused to be a part of it...

 

Even if that meant it would create difficulty in your life and in your pursuit of the career that you studied so long and hard for.

 

You stood true to your convictions.

 

You stood up for what you believe in.

 

You never backed down.

 

You're an inspiring man and a patriot George Anastaplo.

 

They outta give out a prize for that.

 

Faces on the street

Chicago 7.9.11

35mm 1.8 SOOC with a ping of contrast

 

7.20.11

This image is copyright, all rights reserved, and not part of the public domain. Any use, linking to, or posting of this image is prohibited without my consent. If you want to use this image in any fashion, please have the common courtesy and decency to ask.

  

Tom McCall Waterfront Park, Portland, Oregon

  

I was out in the rain with my wet weather gear to capture some nice reflections on the ground. It was dumping rain at times which helped with what I was after. I had my umbrella with me, but being a true Oregonian it was only brought along to protect my camera, and to keep spots of my lens. I love it when it rains has hard as it did because I had the park to myself.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 571. Photo: Monogram. Johnny Sheffield in Bomba: The Jungle Boy (Ford Beebe, 1949).

 

Johnny Sheffield (1931-2010) was one of Hollywood's most famous child stars. He was unforgettable as Tarzan's adopted son Boy in eight Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmuller. Between 1949 and 1955, he starred in twelve Bomba films for Monogram Pictures.

 

Johnny Sheffield was born John Matthew Sheffield Cassan in 1931 in Pasadena, California, USA. His father was the actor Reginald Sheffield who began as a child star and later turned to character acting. In 1938, Sheffield became a child star after he was cast in the juvenile lead of a West Coast production of the highly successful Broadway play 'On Borrowed Time', which starred Dudley Digges and featured Victor Moore as Gramps. The seven-year-old Sheffield played the role of Pud, a long role for a child. He later went to New York as a replacement and performed the role on Broadway. That year he also played Napoleon's son in the short MGM film The Man on the Rock (Edward L. Cahn, 1938). When Maureen O'Sullivan wanted out of her Jane role in the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series, it was decided that she and Tarzan would adopt a son (they had to adopt, according to the Legion of Decency, because they weren't married) before she died. Weissmuller personally selected Sheffield from 300 boys for the part of Boy. The role was inspired by Bobby Nelson's portrayal in Tarzan the Mighty (Jack Nelson, Ray Taylor, 1928). Athletic by nature, little Johnny was taught to swim by swimming Olympian Weissmuller. Johnny Sheffield's feature debut in Tarzan Finds a Son! (Richard Thorpe, 1939) was such a success that MGM signed him to six more films as Tarzan's Boy. Sheffield played Boy in three Tarzan films at MGM, and in another five after Johnny Weissmuller, and production of the film series moved to RKO. Brenda Joyce played Jane in the last three Tarzan films in which Sheffield appeared.

 

In between the Tarzan films, Johnny Sheffield played supporting parts in other films. Sheffield appeared in the musical Babes in Arms (Busby Berkeley, 1939) with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, classmates of his at the studio school. Johnny and his brother Billy Sheffield were both in Knute Rockne All American (Lloyd Bacon, 1940), playing football player and coach Knute Rockne at different ages. By the time of Tarzan and the Mermaids (Robert Florey, 1948), Johnny Sheffield was too big for the part of Boy. The film merely said he was away at school. When Monogram Studios learned Sheffield had been dropped, they picked him up for s series of B-films based on Roy Rockwood's adventure novel 'Bomba'. The first was Bomba: The Jungle Boy (Ford Beebe, 1949). Between 1949 and 1955, Sheffield made twelve Bomba films for "Poverty Row" studio Monogram Pictures. Sheffield retired from films at age 24 after starring in his twelfth Bomba film Lord of the Jungle (Ford Beebe, 1955). He then made a pilot for a television series, Bantu the Zebra Boy, which was created, produced, and directed by his father, Reginald Sheffield. Although the production values were high compared to other TV jungle shows of the day, a sponsor was not found and the show was not taken up as a weekly series. In his later years, Sheffield sold bootlegged copies of the pilot to collectors on videotape. After leaving show business, Sheffield completed a business degree at UCLA. Turning his attention to other fields, he involved himself variously in farming, real estate and construction. For a time, he was a representative for the Santa Monica Seafood Company importing lobsters from Baja California in Mexico. In 1959 he married his wife Patricia and they would have three children, Stewart, Regina and Patrick Sheffield. In 2010, Johnny suffered a fatal heart attack at his home in Chula Vista, California, four hours after he fell off a ladder while pruning a palm tree. Sheffield was 79. His brother Billy Sheffield died two months later.

 

Sources: Ed Stephan (IMDb), Find A Grave, Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

I am looking forward to voting POTUS out of office. This past week I filed the necessary papers so that I can vote even though I am overseas.

 

The American President continues to violate basic notions of decency while failing to handle the Corona virus with any kind of skill, compassion or understanding. His stumbling, incompetent response amounts to negligent homicide. Lawbreakers, grifters and incompetents abound.

 

Some regimes need changing

 

Some regimes

Just like diapers

Trash

Or dirty laundry

Need changing

From time to time

Smelling bad

And reeking of corruption

 

They should be impeached

Voted out of office

Sent packing

And banned from Twitter

Fox News

And Fake News of all kinds

 

They should be sent into exile

Like Napoleon

Or stranded on some desert island

Like Robinson Crusoe

Unplugged

And deprived of all pleasures

Like golf and cheeseburgers

Strippers and porn stars

Silenced

Once and for all

Muzzled

Gagged

And muted

Put out of commission

And hushed

Finally

 

Or jailed

 

© Jamie McKenzie, all rights reserved

You will find more of my poems and songs here

and in The Storm in Its Passing and Flights of Fancy.

 

My songs are at

www.youtube.com/user/edtech2008/videos

Anne became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Acts of Union, two of her realms, the kingdoms of England and Scotland, united as a single sovereign state known as Great Britain.

 

Born: 6 February 1665, St James's Palace, St James's

Died: 1 August 1714, Kensington Palace, London

Coronation: 23 April 1702

Spouse: Prince George of Denmark (m. 1683–1708)

House: House of Stuart

Children: Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, Anne Sophia, Mary, George

 

Around 1671, Anne first made the acquaintance of Sarah Jennings, who later became her close friend and one of her most influential advisers. Jennings married John Churchill (the future Duke of Marlborough) in about 1678. His sister, Arabella Churchill, was the Duke of York's mistress, and he was to be Anne's most important general.

 

Anne and George of Denmark were married on 28 July 1683 in the Chapel Royal and Sarah Churchill was appointed one of Anne's ladies of the bedchamber.

 

In what became known as the "Glorious Revolution", William of Orange invaded England on 5 November 1688 in an action that ultimately deposed King James. Forbidden by James to pay Mary a projected visit in the spring of 1687, Anne corresponded with her and was aware of the plans to invade. On the advice of the Churchills, she refused to side with James after William landed and instead wrote to William on 18 November declaring her approval of his action. Churchill abandoned the unpopular king on the 24th. Prince George followed suit that night, and in the evening of the following day James issued orders to place Sarah Churchill under house arrest at St James's Palace. Anne and Sarah fled from Whitehall by a back staircase, putting themselves under the care of Bishop Compton. They spent one night in his house, and subsequently arrived at Nottingham on 1 December. Two weeks later and escorted by a large company, Anne arrived at Oxford, where she met Prince George in triumph.

 

In January 1689, a Convention Parliament assembled in England and declared that James had effectively abdicated when he fled, and that the thrones of England and Ireland were therefore vacant. The Parliament or Estates of Scotland took similar action, and William and Mary were declared monarchs of all three realms. The Bill of Rights 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 settled the succession. Anne and her descendants were to be in the line of succession after William and Mary, and they were to be followed by any descendants of William by a future marriage. On 24 July 1689, Anne gave birth to a son, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, who, though ill, survived infancy. As King William and Queen Mary had no children, it looked as though Anne's son would eventually inherit the Crown.

 

Soon after their accession, William and Mary rewarded John Churchill by granting him the Earldom of Marlborough. Resentment soon grew between the sisters, Mary and Anne, over Anne's wish to become financially independent. From around this time, at Anne's request she and Sarah Churchill, Lady Marlborough, began to call each other the pet names Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman respectively, to facilitate a relationship of greater equality between the two when they were alone. In January 1692, suspecting that Marlborough was secretly conspiring with James's followers, the Jacobites, William and Mary dismissed him from all his offices. In a public show of support for the Marlboroughs, Anne took Sarah to a social event at the palace, and refused her sister's request to dismiss Sarah from her household. Lady Marlborough was subsequently removed from the royal household by the Lord Chamberlain, and Anne angrily left her royal lodgings and took up residence at Syon House, the home of the Duke of Somerset.[69] Anne was stripped of her guard of honour; courtiers were forbidden to visit her, and civic authorities were instructed to ignore her. In April, Anne gave birth to a son who died within minutes. Mary visited her, but instead of offering comfort took the opportunity to berate Anne once again for her friendship with Sarah. The sisters never saw each other again.

 

When Mary died of smallpox in 1694, William continued to reign alone. Anne became his heir apparent and the two reconciled publicly. He restored her previous honours, allowed her to reside in St James's Palace, and gave her Mary's jewels but excluded her from government and refrained from appointing her regent during his absences abroad. Three months later, William restored Marlborough to his offices.

 

Soon after her accession, Anne appointed her husband Lord High Admiral, giving him nominal control of the Royal Navy. Anne gave control of the army to Lord Marlborough, whom she appointed Captain-General. Marlborough also received numerous honours from the Queen; he was created a Knight of the Garter and was elevated to the rank of duke. The Duchess of Marlborough was appointed Groom of the Stole, Mistress of the Robes, and Keeper of the Privy Purse.

 

The Whigs vigorously supported the War of the Spanish Succession and became even more influential after the Duke of Marlborough won a great victory at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704. Many of the High Tories, who opposed British involvement in the land war against France, were removed from office. Godolphin, Marlborough, and Harley, who had replaced Nottingham as Secretary of State for the Northern Department, formed a ruling "triumvirate". They were forced to rely more and more on support from the Whigs, and particularly from the Whig Junto—Lords Somers, Halifax, Orford, Wharton and Sunderland—whom Anne disliked. Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough, incessantly badgered the Queen to appoint more Whigs and reduce the power of the Tories, whom she considered little better than Jacobites, and the Queen became increasingly discontented with her. In 1706, Godolphin and the Marlboroughs forced Anne to accept Lord Sunderland, a Junto Whig and the Marlboroughs' son-in-law, as Harley's colleague as Secretary of State for the Southern Department. Although this strengthened the ministry's position in Parliament, it weakened the ministry's position with the Queen, as Anne became increasingly irritated with Godolphin and with her former favourite, the Duchess of Marlborough, for supporting Sunderland and other Whig candidates for vacant government and church positions. The Queen turned for private advice to Harley, who was uncomfortable with Marlborough and Godolphin's turn towards the Whigs. She also turned to Abigail Hill, a woman of the bedchamber whose influence grew as Anne's relationship with Sarah deteriorated. Abigail was related to both Harley and the Duchess, but was politically closer to Harley, and acted as an intermediary between him and the Queen.

 

The division within the ministry came to a head on 8 February 1708, when Godolphin and the Marlboroughs insisted that the Queen had to either dismiss Harley or do without their services. When the Queen seemed to hesitate, Marlborough and Godolphin refused to attend a cabinet meeting. Harley attempted to lead business without his former colleagues, and several of those present including the Duke of Somerset refused to participate until they returned. Her hand forced, the Queen dismissed Harley.

 

The following month, Anne's Catholic half-brother, James Francis Edward Stuart, attempted to land in Scotland with French assistance in an attempt to establish himself as king. Anne withheld royal assent from the Scottish Militia Bill 1708 in case the militia raised in Scotland was disloyal and sided with the Jacobites. She was the last British sovereign to veto a parliamentary bill, although her action was barely commented upon at the time. The invasion fleet never landed and was chased away by British ships.

 

The Duchess of Marlborough was angered when Abigail moved into rooms at Kensington Palace that Sarah considered her own, though she rarely if ever used them. In July 1708, she came to court with a bawdy poem written by a Whig propagandist. that implied a lesbian relationship between Anne and Abigail. The Duchess wrote to Anne telling her she had damaged her reputation by taking up such a friend. Whilst some modern commentators have concluded Anne was a lesbian, most have rejected this analysis. In the opinion of Anne's biographers, she considered Abigail nothing more than a trusted servant, and was a woman of strong traditional beliefs, who was devoted to her husband.

 

At a thanksgiving service for a victory at the Battle of Oudenarde, Anne did not wear the jewels that Sarah had selected for her. At the door of St Paul's Cathedral, they had an argument that culminated in Sarah offending the Queen by telling her to be quiet. Anne was dismayed. When Sarah forwarded an unrelated letter from her husband to Anne, with a covering note continuing the argument, Anne wrote back pointedly, "After the commands you gave me on the thanksgiving day of not answering you, I should not have troubled you with these lines, but to return the Duke of Marlborough's letter safe into your hands, and for the same reason do not say anything to that, nor to yours which enclosed it."

 

Anne was devastated by her husband's death in October 1708 and the event proved a turning point in her relationship with the Duchess of Marlborough. The Duchess arrived at Kensington Palace shortly before George died, and after his death insisted that Anne leave Kensington for St James's Palace against her wishes. Anne resented the Duchess's intrusive actions, which included removing a portrait of George from the Queen's bedchamber and then refusing to return it. With Whigs now dominant in Parliament, and Anne distraught at the loss of her husband, they forced her to accept the Junto leaders Lords Somers and Wharton into the cabinet. Sarah continued to berate Anne for her friendship with Abigail, and in October 1709, Anne wrote to the Duke of Marlborough asking that his wife "leave off teasing & tormenting me & behave herself with the decency she ought both to her friend and Queen".[162] On Maundy Thursday 6 April 1710, Anne and Sarah saw each other for the last time. According to Sarah, the Queen was taciturn and formal, repeating the same phrases—"Whatever you have to say you may put in writing" and "You said you desired no answer, and I shall give you none"—over and over.

 

As the expensive War of the Spanish Succession grew unpopular, so did the Whig administration. The Duke of Marlborough was for the time being allowed to remain in charge of the army but in January 1711, Anne forced Sarah to resign her court offices, and Abigail took over as Keeper of the Privy Purse. Having lost her most trusted advisers, Anne created 12 new peers, Abigail's husband included and dismissed the Marlboroughs on the same day. The peace treaty was ratified and Britain's military involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession ended.

 

Anne was buried beside her husband and children in the Henry VII chapel on the South Aisle of Westminster Abbey on 24 August. Author David Green noted, "Hers was not, as used to be supposed, petticoat government. She had considerable power; yet time and time again she had to capitulate." Professor Edward Gregg concluded that Anne was often able to impose her will, even though, as a woman in an age of male dominance and preoccupied by her health, her reign was marked by an increase in the influence of ministers and a decrease in the influence of the Crown.[203] She attended more cabinet meetings than any of her predecessors or successors,[204] and presided over an age of artistic, literary, economic and political advancement that was made possible by the stability and prosperity of her reign.

 

Abridged (believe it or not) from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain

   

The Bug Who Wouldn't Shut Up

—a fable of sound, silence, and situational decency—

There once was a water boatman named Clive who believed in the power of passion and percussion.

He didn’t own a lute. He didn’t need a drum.

Clive had a love song in his loins and a beat in his belly.

Every night he floated beneath the reeds, rubbing his tiny, heroic manhood against his abdomen like a deranged violinist, serenading potential partners with the enthusiasm of an aquatic Elvis in heat.

 

Unfortunately, Clive was scooped up mid-ballad by a human naturalist who mistook his mating pool for a swimming pool.

One moment, he was whispering sweet, obscene nothings to the universe. Next, he was swishing around in a Chardonnay glass under a macro lens.

 

The human stared at him. Clive stared back.

Nobody said anything. Clive didn’t sing. The wine glass didn’t echo. The magic was gone.

 

He never rubbed again—not because he lost hope, but because no one wants to perform in a goblet with an audience that doesn’t even buy you dinner first.

 

The human later remarked, “I didn’t hear him scream, but then again, I never rubbed his genitals.”

________________________________________

Moral: Some concerts aren’t meant for land. And some talents need a proper stage, not stemware

 

His symphony came from down below,

A bug who played his piccolo.

 

"« On peut jouer au fascisme de mille façons » écrivait Umberto Eco qui avait connu enfant le régime mussolinien. Dans un discours prononcé à New York en 1995, l'écrivain italien insistait sur le caractère changeant et l'absence de colonnevertébrale du fascisme italien historique: « un totalitarisme fuzzy » (confus) selon ses mots, dont l'idéologie instable formait « un collage de diverses idées politiques et philosophiques, fourmillant de contradictions ». Surtout, l'auteur du Nom de la rose alertait sur la possible résurgence, sous une forme inédite, des forces réactionnaires défaites cinquante ans plus tôt. Pour s'en prémunir, il proposait une liste de critères pour identifier les aspirants fascistes.

 

Racisme décomplexé, suspicion envers le monde intellectuel, obsession du complot, langue appauvrie... Le trumpisme coche treize des quatorze cases de la grille d'analyse proposée à

l'époque par Eco. Un véritable bingo. Certes, on se gardera d'assimiler la « fan base » MAGA à un parti de masse tel que l'Europe en a connu dans l'entre-deux-guerres. Mais la violence de rue de la milice anti-immigrants ICE, qui opère en marge de la légalité et tue désormais des opposants en plein jour, et les ambitions impériales assumées de la Maison-Blanche complètent de manière glaçante le tableau. Trump et ses lieutenants ne se contentent pas de faire quotidiennement étalage de leur mépris pour la science, le droit, les faits, et

même la plus élémentaire décence morale. Leur pratique du pouvoir érode sous nos yeux les institutions de l'une des plus anciennes démocraties du monde. Et offre un inquiétant exemple à suivre aux extrêmes droites européennes. […] "

 

"There are a thousand ways to play at fascism," wrote Umberto Eco, who had experienced Mussolini's regime as a child. In a speech delivered in New York in 1995, the Italian writer emphasized the changing nature and lack of backbone of historical Italian fascism: "a fuzzy totalitarianism," in his words, whose unstable ideology formed "a collage of various political and philosophical ideas, teeming with contradictions." Above all, the author of The Name of the Rose warned of the possible resurgence, in a new form, of the reactionary forces defeated fifty years earlier. To guard against this, he proposed a list of criteria for identifying aspiring fascists.

 

Unapologetic racism, suspicion of intellectuals, obsession with conspiracy theories, impoverished language... Trumpism ticks thirteen of the fourteen boxes on the analysis grid proposed

at the time by Eco. A real bingo. Of course, we should be careful not to equate the MAGA fan base with a mass party such as those that existed in Europe between the two world wars. But the street violence of the anti-immigrant ICE militia, which operates on the fringes of legality and now kills opponents in broad daylight, and the White House's unapologetic imperial ambitions complete the chilling picture. Trump and his lieutenants are not content with daily displays of contempt for science, the law, facts, and even the most basic moral decency. Their exercise of power is eroding the institutions of one of the world's oldest democracies before our very eyes. And it sets a disturbing example for the European far right to follow. […]"

  

Janet Pritchard - Warped Women

Beacon Books B121, 1956

Cover Artist: Robert Stanley

 

"Strange love stripped them of all decency!"

 

"Once over the line they could not stop!"

... and still she is a SLUT, a CUNT, and a WHORE. I'm sure we could come up with additional titles for her and nasty ways to describe her image, but I will keep this short.

ALL comments welcome, .. but please show at least a small amount of decency in the words you use to humiliate Kata. Overly descriptive terms may earn you a rebuke from me which can lead to banishment.

>Damon Winter, USA, Los Angeles Times.

  

Clint Eastwood, at the age of 76 in Burbank, California, on November 30. In 2006 Eastwood received the Légion d'Honneur from France's President Chirac, and the first ever humanitarian award from the Motion Pictures Association of America, which cited his decades of decency and goodness of spirit in moviemaking. He also released two of the most acclaimed films of his career, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.

This image is copyright, all rights reserved, and not part of the public domain. Any use, linking to, or posting of this image is prohibited without my consent. If you want to use this image in any fashion, please have the common courtesy and decency to ask.

 

Trillium Lake, Mount Hood National Forest, Oregon

 

It's that time of year again, folks. Time to run up to the lake to capture some nice summer sunsets. Of course sunrises are pretty dang nice too.

Dopo uno scatto che definire da criminali è poco dal treno la puffetta di NordCargo transita a Milano in direzione della svizzera .

_ _ _ _

After a criminal shoot from the train , I have the possibility to shoot this train with a bit of decency on the way to the swiss.

 

Casalpusterlengo - Chiasso

- Milano Rogoredo -

E.483.107NC

Following on to a rash of disappearing nudes, reported previously on this very stream, there has been a new report of ‘The Venus of Urbino’ being replaced by a supine, decently 'embalmed' (even), MÈRE UBU. Police are currently looking into this incident, and keeping an eye on other ‘stripped’ (denuded) masterpieces.

 

PÈRE UBU denied categorically that this incident had anything to do with the upcoming Coronation of himself and his beloved Consort, in 4 days time. He also protested the non-involvement of the newly formed 'League of Decency' led by his beloved wife, whilst simultaneously scattering the "fake news" sobriquet willy nilly, as if it were cheap confetti.

This was my son's pony, Golden Nugget. We'd brought Goldie home in the back of a pickup truck with a camper cover - he was a wonderful pony. We spent many days out with the horses and Joey was an accomplished rider.

 

A flim club from a local high school had put together this video and it is an amazing work by this group. Joey's Horse Movie: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wpDsT73Iiw

 

"A couple of high school kids came by one day and saw us working with the horses - they asked if they could film a video of Joey and the horses for the Chuck Costello Film Festival at Lawrence High. Joey'd been an avid rider since he was two, and quite the accomplished horseman. He generally rode with no saddle or bridle, and helped break and train the young'uns. The horses were Snooker D - the Appaloosa, Vinnie - the 8 month old Quarter Horse colt, and Mr. Bill - the Anglo Arab. No one was hurt in the making of this film. I apologize for the graininess of it, but this was filmed in the late 70's or so, in BETA, and the transfer to digital lost it's clarity. A very, very special thanks to Frank Adams, The Lawrence Film Nuts and the late crazy brilliant Mr. Maloney from Lawrence High for all their time and patience in making this film and The Video Kitchen in Louisville, KY for the wonderful transfer . And of course, to Joey. : )

 

All three horses courtesy of Camelot Stables in Cranbury, NJ (aka Camelot Auction House), purchased from Mr. Frank Carper in the late 70's. Snooker D, the app, lived to be over 20 years old and rode like the wind even after he went blind. The Anglo-Arab taught many kids in the neighborhood how to ride, including Joey, and the little QH colt, Vinny, went on to sire many, many beautiful champion foals. We purchased over a dozen horses from Frank at Camelot over the years, and all of them were stunning animals - as always. Thank you, Mr. Carper, for years of honesty, trust and joy for our family - it is much appreciated.

 

******

 

Below is a letter from Frank and Monica Carper of Camelot Auction:

 

Dear Ladies and Gents,

 

If someone had told me five years ago that horse rescues and tons of regular folks would step up and help find (and be) homes for horses that weren’t getting sold, or were being sold for slaughter, doubtful would have been my thought. Words after the first six months or so? Shocked, speechless and amazed are a good summation of what we thought would surely be a short-lived endeavor, boy were we wrong.

 

It started innocently enough with some networking and a few pictures from Lisa Post. Then a board on Alex Brown Racing (Friends of Barbaro) that also sent out to other groups about the horses that were landing in the #10 pen. If I remember correctly, November of 2009 was the first time that the pen was cleared. A landmark for sure and a testament to the ladies who checked horses, took notes and pictures in crowded pens so horses got a chance.

 

Sarah Andrew, equine photographer, called and asked if she could come and take pictures. The next few years are history, with beautiful ‘glamor pics’ and a few totally awesome calendars that helped to support the mission of One Horse At A Time with their gelding fund. Because of Sarah’s generosity with her time and talent, countless horses found a new life. When Sarah injured her back (she’s ok now), Ida and Mark Howell graciously stepped in to continue in Sarah’s footsteps.

 

Also along the way several new rescues were started, and some established ones got new energy and focus. To have watched these rescues grow and find their ‘spot’ is simply amazing. The lives they saved, and the public education that was generated is enormous. To have been a part of that… fabulous, and humbling for sure. To say that there was a huge learning curve when it came to working with the rescues would be an understatement, but it was worth it. A complete shift of thought process.

 

To remember the beginning of the Camelot Horse Weekly page on Facebook, wow, just wow. The major excitement when there was 5,000 likes!! Now there are how many, over 83,000 as of this writing!! To know that because of that page and the ladies who started it – what were unwanted horses (and a few kittens and bunnies) have gone on to caring homes in almost every state including Hawaii!! Canada, England and Bermuda too!!

 

To have our “little ginger dog” Rosa become the poster child for the ‘all clear’, and to have had Penny Austin write stories about her and her exploits, warms every corner of our hearts.

 

Frank and I started Camelot Auction on August 1, 1994, and here we are twenty years later saying goodbye with our last sale on December 17, 2014. It would take a novel to write about all the incredible people and horses that we’ve met over the years, and I’m not sure if that would even cover it. The changes in the industry and the world itself, from the first home computer and the infancy of the internet, who thought then that computers would become such an integral part of our lives?

 

After all this rambling on, it’s still hard to say what I came to say, which is farewell. I’m all choked up and stalling about the inevitable. I know that we can’t personally shake each hand, and kiss each cheek, and hug every person we’ve had the great pleasure to encounter, but know that we’d like to for sure! One of the big smiles of every day is looking at the Camelot New Beginnings page on Facebook and seeing the horses happy and cared for. That makes the craziness, tears, joy and angst all worthwhile.

 

Thank you especially to all the CHW Ladies for more than words can say.

 

Thank you to all the rescues, words are inadequate once again.

 

Thank you all for caring, and opening your hearts for these horses, most times from only a picture.

 

Thanks for creating a new path where there was none, and leaving markers for others to follow.

 

Thanks for the love, and the hate, a powerful combination for forging change.

 

Thanks for showing an old horse trader that yup, these horses are wanted.

 

Thanks for being the greatness that the world, and these animals needed.

 

Thanks for your kindness, your determination, and for your decency.

 

Thanks for the memories, we’ll never forget them, or you.

 

~Monica, Frank and everyone at Camelot

   

accademia di danimarca in roma.

architect: kay fisker, 1967.

 

covered entrance with lightwell and sculpture.

 

as a young man, fisker worked for lewerentz who later named him one of his five favourite architects; his housing projects had a great influence on the work of his friend alvar aalto; he taught utzon; headed the copenhagen school of architecture for ages; unknown to most, his university in aarhus was named a model for future nazi architecture by the german architectural press in 1942...and he is unknown outside denmark, maybe for always choosing decency and order above the spectacular.

 

more words, yada, yada, yada.

This is posted near the restroom at the Silver Dollar Saloon a gold rush era watering hole that still serves food and drink. The saloon sits on the near the confluence of the Yuba and Feather Rivers. The hydraulic mining in the 1860’s up stream in Nevada County raised the river bed gravel above street level necessitating a levee behind the two story saloon that towers above the roof line.

After the test of strength, Mr. Irons led me in to other rooms of the facility where a variety of tests for my other abilities were used. In one room there was a treadmill that could go to 100 miles per hour, but I quickly broke that when I got up to speed in a matter of seconds. In another there were selections of machines that they said fired radiation at different frequencies. Most of them had no impact when they fired at me, but there were two that had strange impacts on me.

 

One of the machines fired what was apparently ‘radiation similar to what the sun gives off’ and it seemed to super charge my powers further than I had previously experienced. I ended up seeing the radiation that was emitting from everyone’s bodies and I could hear the sounds of the atoms colliding everywhere. My heat vision also released itself from my eyes uncontrollably for the first time in 15 years. It must have looked similar to how Mon lost control of it at the airport from those that were observing me, and I certainly felt as helpless as Mon said he did when the powers overcame him. Fortunately the effects were only temporary passing after about 10 minutes, though I ended up having to keep my eyes covered in my hands until I managed to regain control.

 

The second machine had a completely different effect. Whilst the first one seemed to supercharge my powers, this second made me feel weak and I ended up collapsing to the floor feeling exhausted more than when I hadn’t managed to get a good nights sleep during my first few days in Metropolis. When I fell to the floor I tried to use my vision to check what had happened to my cells, but I couldn’t. I tried to see if I could hear anything happening to my cells with my hearing. But I couldn’t hear a thing, just the observers asking me if I was all right. I assured them that I was fine and tried to lift myself off the floor by elevating as I’ve started to be able to do. But I couldn’t.

 

In the end the observers had to help me up on to my feet as I felt so weak that I wasn’t sure if I could do it myself, and they gave me a quick blast of the radiation that appeared to super charge me and I quickly felt like my old self again. Is that what it feels like to be human? It feels…. weird. How ironic. I spent most of my life wanting to be human, and I finally get a taste of it, and couldn’t stand it. How could they go on living with that everyday? But then again I suppose they asked the same of me with my powers.

 

Moving swiftly along they next tested my flight speed where I was pitted against a variety of aircraft, ranging from an old British spitfire from World War 2 for some odd reason to a state of the art fighter jet plane that they claimed could break the sound barrier. The idea was that they would compared my flight speed by allowing all the aircraft and myself to get to terminal velocity before racing a straight one mile distance. Originally I was going to best all of them, but I didn’t want to give away my full capabilities, so I ended up letting the fighter jet win the race.

 

The tests complete, Mr. Irons led me back to the room where he had explained all about the HDC and their purpose and why I was here. Before I could enter the room though, for some odd reason, the agent who had met me back at the farm refused to let me through the door in to the room until he had put the handcuffs on me. I’m not sure what good he thought they would do after I had already shown that I could lift a tank with ease, and could surely break these handcuffs with no trouble, but I still let him put them on me. Mr. Irons fought my corner though saying that if I was going to be a threat I surely would of made a move by now, but he claimed that protocol had to be obeyed so I let him put them back on.

 

Back in the room I took my original seat as Mr. Irons followed in behind me after another agent had passed him a clipboard containing the results of my test from what I could see.

 

“Sorry about that son, these guys can be real assholes at times.”

 

“They’re just doing their job Mr. Irons. I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same especially after seeing what I can do.”

 

“Yeah well those handcuffs are pretty useless on you with that super strength you’ve got. You could snap those things just by moving my hands apart couldn’t you?”

 

“Well if it makes them feel comfortable I’ll do my best not to.”

 

Mr. Irons gives a little chuckle, which is always welcome to know that the person who has been assigned to study you has a sense of humor. After his little chuckle he pulls a pair of glasses from his jacket pocket and puts them on his, must be so he can read the results on the clipboard. Before he does so though he looks straight at me.

 

“Where are our manners, we’ve brought you in here and done all these crazy tests on you and haven’t even had the decency to offer you any food or drink. Is there anything we can get you?”

 

“It’s alright Mr. Irons. I can go for longer periods of time without food and drink than humans can.”

 

“Yeah but surely I can get you something after all the flying and running you’ve done? Not to mention the heavy lifting.”

 

“I’m fine Mr. Irons thank you.”

 

He breathes a rather annoyed sigh; he clearly wants to give me something but why? Is this going to be another one of the tests? Does he eat food just as well as us? Not sure why they would be so keen to study that mind.

 

“Well I’m going to get us a nice pot of coffee even if you don’t want it, as I’m not just going to make you sit hear and answer questions without a drink at least.”

 

It seems he’s not going to take no for an answer. That’s possibly why he heads up such a success company like Amertek, refusing to let people say no to a proposition of his. Since it seems inevitable that one way or another he’s going to get me a drink I may as well get one that I like.

 

“If it’s not too much trouble could I get tea instead Mr. Irons?”

 

“Yeah it’s no trouble at all Mr Kent.”

 

He turns to look at the mirror and the men stood behind it.

 

“Can we get a coffee and a tea please gentlemen.”

 

He doesn’t see their response, nor do they give one as they walk away to fetch the drinks but Mr. Irons turns back to look at me as he pushes his glasses back on to his nose.

 

“Right then. Let’s get on with the results.”

 

Belgian postcard by Victoria Biscuits Chocolats, no. 26. Photo: M.G.M. Lana Turner and June Allyson in The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948), based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.

 

The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is a classic Swashbuckler, starring Gene Kelly as D’Artagnan and Lana Turner as Milady De Winter. Other stars in the cast include Van Heflin, June Allyson, Gig Young, Angela Lansbury, and Vincent Price. It is one of the many, adaptations of the famous French book ‘Les trois mousquetaires’ by Alexandre Dumas père, and possibly the liveliest one, full of acrobatics, galloping horses, flapping cloaks, and sword fights with almost operatic intensity. Dumas’s story is followed quite faithfully, but the creative fantasy is in the theatrical way of depicting it.

 

As in the book: the story of The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is set in 1625 in France. The young and inexperienced D'Artagnan (Gene Kelly) leaves his home village in Gascony to become a musketeer in Paris in the service of His Majesty King Louis XIII (Frank Morgan). In his pocket, he has the letter of recommendation from his father (silent film star Robert Warwick), a former musketeer and friend of the current captain of the musketeers, Treville (Reginald Owen). His father has taught him the art of fencing masterfully and gives him the good advice never to let himself be compromised with impunity. He is only too happy to follow this advice. Very soon, before he has even reached Paris, D'Artagnan gets into a confrontation with Rochefort (Ian Keith), Cardinal Richelieu's (Vincent Price) confidant, and his companion, the mysterious Lady de Winter (Lana Turner). At this first opportunity to preserve his honour in battle, he is unceremoniously struck down and robbed by Rochefort's henchmen, and his credentials are also taken from him. Once in Paris, he not only meets his new friends and comrades-in-arms Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Coote), but also his landlord's niece, Constance Bonacieux (June Allyson), and falls in love. Many adventures and entanglements lie ahead and in the path of the brave hero D'Artagnan. Driven by his desire to become the king's musketeer and to prove himself in battle, he falls into the clutches of both the queen (Angela and the cardinal, experiences numerous dangerous situations and sometimes needs his new friends to get away at all. Nevertheless, he sets out to travel to England for the Queen's honour, to retrieve a jewellery box given away by the Queen's secret lover, Lord Buckingham (John Sutton), and to prevent Richelieu from plotting. To assist him, he is accompanied by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as his dull but loyal servant Planchet (Keenan Wynn). Shortly after D'Artagnan's return from England, Constance is kidnapped at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu. D'Artagnan makes a pass at Milady de Winter, discovers a delicate secret, and only just manages to save himself. Constance is freed and taken to safety in England, shortly after which war breaks out, and our four friends are drawn into it. They overhear a conspiratorial meeting between the Cardinal and Lady de Winter in an inn. The latter is to travel to England and kill Buckingham. Planchet also travels to England at D'Artagnan's behest to warn Buckingham. Lady de Winter is convicted and is to be executed. Constance is appointed her guardian. Milady de Winter, after a lengthy psychological duel, manages to take out Constance as well as a guard and Buckingham and then escapes. Athos and D'Artagnan, who wanted to help Constance, arrive too late; after Constance dies in D'Artagnan's arms, they themselves also have only escaped. Back in Paris, the four friends track down Lady de Winter, pronounce the death sentence on her, and have the prisoner executed. During their subsequent escape towards Spain, they are overpowered and arrested. Their fate seems to be sealed, but young D'Artagnan still has one trump card: the Countess's passport, personally sealed and signed by Cardinal Richelieu, with the note that everything the bearer of this letter undertakes will serve the good of the state. The king is not allowed to know the background of this letter - so Richelieu has to give in. Aramis receives permission to take up a clerical office. Porthos is allowed to marry richly, Athos gets his property back and D'Artagnan is to negotiate a peace offer with the enemy England on behalf of France.

 

Among the many American film versions of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers are the 1914 Film Attractions Co. production, directed by Charles V. Henkel, the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks production, directed by Fred Niblo, the 1935 RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. production, directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Walter Abel, Paul Lucas and Margot Grahame, Richard Lester's 1974 Twentieth Century-Fox production starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Raquel Welch; and the 1993 Buena Vista release, directed by Stephen Herek and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, and Rebecca de Mornay. This splashy 1948 MGM adaptation of The Three Musketeers was the third sound version and was also the first version in Technicolor. In 1947, a representative of the National Catholic Legion of Decency, an organisation that monitored the interests of the Church in motion pictures, objected to the characterisation of Cardinal Richelieu in the planned MGM adaptation of Dumas' story. In a letter to MGM producer Pandro S. Berman, the organisation stated its objection to the cardinal being portrayed as a "worldly and unscrupulous man" and urged the studio to remove the character from the film. Berman refused to remove the character from the film but promised he would use great caution in all sensitive matters pertaining to the story and in the film, Richelieu is never referred to as Cardinal Richelieu. Berman also indicated that Constance, the married mistress of D'Artagnan in the novel, would be unmarried in the film version. While early sound versions of Three Musketeers eliminated the deaths of Constance and Milady, this adaptation telescopes the novel's events to allow for these tragedies. According to AFI, screenwriter Robert Ardry was displeased with Sidney's irreverent approach to the Dumas story and objected to the spoof elements that were added to the film. A biography of Kelly noted that Belgian fencing champion Jean Heremans, who appears in the film as the cardinal's guard, taught Kelly how to fence. Kelly's biography also noted that during the filming of a bedroom scene, Kelly flung Turner onto a bed with such force that she fell to the ground and suffered a broken elbow. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “True to form, MGM saw to it that Lana Turner, as Milady, was dressed to the nines and heavily bejeweled for her beheading sequence. Portions of the 1948 Three Musketeers, in black and white, showed up in the silent film-within-a-film in 1952's Singin' in the Rain, which of course also starred Gene Kelly.” The Three Musketeers opened to mostly favourable reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the film's unusual tongue-in-cheek approach. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther noted that "more glittering swordplay, more dazzling costumes, more colors or more of Miss Turner's chest have never been seen in a picture than are shown in this one." And added: “Completely fantastic, however, is Miss Turner as the villainess, the ambitious Lady de Winter who does the boudoir business for the boss. Loaded with blond hair and jewels, with twelve-gallon hats and ostrich plumes, and poured into her satin dresses with a good bit of Turner to spare, she walks through the palaces and salons with the air of a company-mannered Mae West.” In 1948, there was an Oscar nomination for Robert Planck in the category Best Cinematography/Colour. Hans J. Wollstein at AllMovie: “The Three Musketeers remains an outrageously entertaining yarn, the Southern California locales perfectly standing in for 17th Century France and England.” And finally, Yvette Banek at her blog In so many words: “Lana Turner is really quite superb in her evilness. So evil that she is even photographed without make-up. Well, as 'without make-up' as MGM got, at any rate. Even then, she is exquisitely beautiful - especially when praying.”

 

Sources: Bosley Crowther (New York Times), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Yvette Banek (In so many words), AFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German), and IMDb.

 

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MARCH 12: Album cover designed by Andy Warhol for rock group "The Velvet Underground" record "The Velvet Underground & Nico" which was released on March 12, 1967 and recorded in New York City, New York.