—Orson Welles
Baby (Cradle), 1919 – 18
Oil on canvas: 110.9 x 110.4 cm.
Baking Matzos for Pesach
oil on canvas, hand carved frame, 11″ x 14″
Yad Vashem Photo Archives
—Howard Hawks
Sweet Peppers, Toronto, May 2020
circa 1300
Handwritten on parchment; dark brown ink and tempera; square Ashkenazic script. This 14th century Haggadah is fascinating because all the human characters are depicted with, y’know, bird’s heads, more specifically a Griffin. Some think this was a way of getting around the charge of idolatry. Another view is that the illustration was meant to be playful, unthreatening images as a counter to European blood libels which claimed that Jews used Christian blood to bake matzoh.
—Billy Wilder
The Four Sons, 1934, from The Passover Haggadah.
Robbins Family Collection, Palo Alto, California.
Artist/Maker: Ludwig Yehuda Wolpert
American, b. Germany, 1900-1981
Place Made: New York, United States
Date: 1930 Frankfurt, produced 1978
Silver, ebony, and glass
Seder Plate: 4 1/16 × 13 5/16 × 11 7/16 in. (10.3 × 33.8 × 29.1 cm) Cup: 6 3/16 × 2 7/8 in. (15.7 × 7.3 cm)
Gift of Sylvia Zenia Rosen Wiener to the Jewish Museum, N.Y.
The deification of George Floyd, a brutal, violent career criminal should shake us all to the foundation of our lives, but entirely in keeping with our culture of treating hideous degenerates, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Sacco, and Vanzetti, Bonnie and Clyde, in a like manner. None of their families however walked away with $27 million dollars. Add Reverend Al Sharpton to the list of the romanticized and evil. Wherever that fat tub of lard goes, the public seems to follow and at the cost, in some instances, of their lives.
some bracing truths
I wonder why it was so important for Rolex to make a watch that survives the tremendous pressure at 30,000′? When a recreational diver will never go much below 100′? A commercial diver, with special breathing gas and decompression routines – 300′?
The whole endeavor seems kind of silly to me. I had a George Carlin type moment when I went to the MB dealer to get a few parts and noticed some AMG-GTs on the showroom. Here is a car that will go close to 200 mph and I am thinking on our potholed-filled highways? With a speed limit of 70?
I guess the whole exercise, while pointless, is for bragging rights of the owner?
Yes.
Shameless plug: My daughter and her husband got another nice piece in an online art magazine called thisiscolossal,com, Their business is called “Canopic Studio.” She used to be personal assistant to John Baldessari.
When he was still in Germany, Billy Wilder made a silent film called ‘People on Sunday’, together with several other aspiring directors, screenwriters, and producers, almost all of whom later wound up in Hollywood. The reason the film was silent was probably because the group couldn’t afford sound equipment.
Very interesting film, I thought; I reviewed it here:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/48575.html
In 1929 when People on Sunday was produced, silent films, though having lost a share of the box office, were far more sophisticated technically than early sound, this is in terms of synchronization and performance. There are many early sound films from paramount, Warners and MGM that signify this, and actors of theatre had not yet taken over, but they would the following year, with Gable, Tracy, Robert Montgomery, and many more, and I am well aware that there were several during the silent period, especially Colman. Now about BillyWilder and People on Sunday; he was one of a handful, and far less significant than his Hollywood career might indicate. My understanding is that the Siodmak brothers and Edgar Ulmer were front and center in this enterprise.
A final thought about Wilder. I have always seen him as an againster. Against what? All the good things that made him successful and America great. The cynicism of Ace in the Hole is not a one-off. Start with The Major and the Minor, move along to A Foreign Affair, Sunset Boulevard, (L. B. Mayer was horrified. Me too.) The Fortune Cookie, The Apartment, and many more.
Do you think Wilder was right? There are movies that the audience rejected when released, only to realize it was a masterpiece some decades later.
My favorite Wilder story: When offered the chance to direct The Sound of Music, Wilder, a refugee from Hitler, said he wanted nothing to do with dancing Nazis.
Wilder’s film Ace in the Hole was a huge flop. It is now recognized as a masterpiece about… the evils of journalism.
But no fun, a treat for the masochist crowd, of which at this point, there are plenty.
I always enjoy all of the photos, especially the closing wishes.
We hear that from a lot of people. Have a happy and kosher Pesach.
A blessed Passover to you and yours, Robert. I’m planning to watch the first one: TCM is hosting “The Ten Commandments” on the big sceen this Sunday, and since there’s a theater near me that’s open and showing it, that’s where I will be. I haven’t seen it in a theater since I was a boy.
Whenever I hear about the York massacre, I’m always reminded of the case of a woman who believed she had lived a past life and had been one of the Jews killed that day; as it turns out, she’d read a novel in her childhood that had Clifford’s Tower as a scene, but had completely forgotten she’d ever read it and when the memory was “coached” by a hypnotist, it was passed off as a real example of reincarnation.
That picture of Maayan Ariel looking through the gate is very striking, especially the contrast between the green of her eyes and the blue of the gate.
I took pics of Maayan at that get when she was just a tiny little girl. The eyes never change.
I like the Bugatti design. Sleek. Sexy. Cool.
Jean Simmons is not an actress with which I am very familiar. I looked at her filmography and I’m sure I’ve seen her in a movie or TV show (she was even on Star Trek NG once), but I honestly can’t remember her.
I always enjoy your posts around Passover — seeing the traditions and artwork. The Clifford’s Tower Massacre reminds me that the German people weren’t the only ones treating the Jews poorly throughout history. I am particularly fascinated by the notion that Christians couldn’t lend money so the Christians relied on the Jews for that function, yet the Jews were then maligned for being “greedy bankers” (a role thrust upon them by Christian dogma!). Wow.
Chag Pesach Samech to you and your family, Robert.
Jean Simmons was a favorite of mine and had a very versatile career, from “Spartacus” to “Elmer Gantry” to “The Big Country.”
Have a safe and happy Passover.
Jean Simmons was a favorite of mine, too. Loved her in The Big Country . Did you ever listen to the icons radio hour? Started by Steven Bogart, it was a wonderful hour of interviewing either classic Hollywood stars, or their friends and/or family.
The Simmons interview was wonderful. She brought her own horse for the filming of The Big Country
A few Jean Simmons titles: Hamlet (1948), Young Bess (1953) opposite her then husband, Stewart Granger (and if you don’t know his work, check him out, a powerful and attractive performer), Home Before Dark (1958) not at lot of fun, but fascinating in its dissection of mental illness. Oh, and a winning performance by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
My favorite Jean Simmons film is as Estelle in “Great Expectations”, directed by David Lean.
There are a lot of great films by her. Jimmy (Stewart Granger), her husband, was very good in “King Solomon’s Mines” (1950) which I saw in theaters as a kid. The music from it stimulated interest in a popular song, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”. A bit dated today.
There are many to choose from. Great Expectations is an all-round wonderful film that I saw, believe it or not, on its initial release.
I fell in love with Jean Simmons when I saw the film. I was about 12 years old at the time.
I also loved her in “Black Narcissus.”
She was a very great actress.
The English were horrible to the Jews, but so were the French, the Spanish, the Russians, the Ukranians, the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Hungarians… The German genocide of the Jews could never have happened without the enthusiastic participation of these peoples. Only the Danish and the Swedish acquitted themselves honorably.
In truth all of Christian Europe was (and still is) steeped in Jew-hatred.
A few years ago, I read Paul Johnson’s “A history of the Jews.” I heard him interviewed by Dennis Prager one time, who asked why he had written it His answer was,”If you want to learn about something,. write a book about it.”
I’m listening to Johnson’s “A History of the Jews” right now. It is excellent.
Robert, my understanding of European anti-Semitism, and by that I really only mean France is from a singular source, my wife, who took the position that Vichy was no accident. As for the British, at worst over the last several hundred years, it was limited to being unwelcome in clubs and neighborhoods, no breaking of bones or mass treasonous behavior; that was limited to a few morons of the upper classes.
Thanks so much. A happy Easter to you.