
“I am just a nice, clean-cut Mongolian boy.”
In fact, Yul Brenner (b. Yuliy Borisovich Briner, 1920 – 1985) was born in the city of Vladivostok in the Far Eastern Republic, a puppet state controlled by Soviet Russia before being merged into the wider USSR two years later. He enjoyed telling tall tales and exaggerating his background and early life for the press, claiming that he was born “Taidje Khan” of part-Mongol parentage, on the Russian island of Sakhalin. In reality of Swiss-German, Russian, and partial Buryat ancestry. Wikipedia



Jewish street vendors, Warsaw, Poland
1938
International Center of Photography
© Mara Vishniac Kohn

Landline Magenta
2016
Oil on aluminum
85 x 75” (215.9 x 190.5 cm)


‘Surf at Salvo’ (Oil on canvas), 1995

“I don’t think I’m the Queen Bee… I am the Queen Bee.”

Artist: Maria “Mucha” Ihnatowicz

Screenplay by Charles Bennett
Based (very loosely) on the novel “The Secret Agent” by Joseph Conrad

b. 1887, Kiev; d. 1964, New York
“Carrousel Pierrot”, 1913
Painted plaster
24 x 19 1/8 x 13 3/8 inches (61 x 48.6 x 34 cm)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Hayley Mills attempting to eat spaghetti, 1960s



Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin
Date from 1887 until 1888
Oil on canvas: Height: 21.8 ″; Width: 18.3 ″
Agostina Segatori was the owner of Café du Tambourin, a gathering spot for Parisian artists where Van Gogh got hammered on Absinthe.

—Ben Hecht

Whale, 1978
Oil on canvas, 36 x 46 in. The Phyllis and Jamie Wyeth Collection


Across the Buffalo River from Silo City, 2018


“Leda and the Swan” 1995-1997
Oil on canvas with custom Maple frame
Height: 13.5 inches, Width: 11.3 inches.


The Oracle, 2018
Sculpture, Cast aluminum and paint
47.36 x 60.16 x 13.78 in. (120.3 x 152.8 x 35 cm.)



Jewish school children, Mukacevo
c. 1935-38
Courtesy International Center of Photography
On display at Jewish Museum London
© Mara Vishniac Kohn

Mrs. Chase and Child (I’m Going to See Grandma), 1899)
oil on canvas

Girl in Fairground Caravan
1926-1932
Gelatin silver print
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – August Sander Archiv; VG Bild-Kunst, 2018; Courtesy: The Museum of Modern Art, New York

““Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.”
TV news, Facebook, and Twitter make it much worse.
I have found over the years, if the newspapers truly have plaything profound or true to say, it usually starts on A23, if it is there at all.
Nice looking watches Robert.
Towards the end of the war the Nazis must have been cranking out cyanide capsules by the bushel. Wonder what Dr Lisso had to hide?
The only ones I feel sorry for are the small children – like Goebbels children forced to die. But then I wonder what life would have been for them post war.
That Bugatti is beautiful!
I was reading a book about Gloria Grahame today and it had a section about”Soundies,”which were 3 minute film clips played in machines with a frosted glass screen. First I ever heard of them. They were popular 1943 to 45. I was 7 in 1945 and too young for the places these were used. She got her start in Soundies with bit parts. They sound like music videos of a later age.
Didn’t Linda Christian pose nude for a statue sometime ? I’m trying to remember the story,
Well done, Robert. I love the Ben Hecht quote. He was an interesting individual. Do you have any comment on his career?
I was not familiar with Tyrone Power’s wife, Annabella, so I researched her… apparently she had an affair (with Roald Dahl) while Tyrone was doing his military service. Dahl told his wife that he learned a lot about sex from the actress… Probably not what she wanted to hear! She and Tyrone divorced in 1948. He was her third husband and she never remarried even though Power tried to reconcile their relationship later.
I will confess, I don’t understand “Leda and the Swan”….