Buster Keaton, New York City, 1952
“The screen was just a white sheet. They had this flickering machine. That was the first time I saw this angel with a white face and these beautiful eyes. I knew this was something special. It was the first time I saw Keaton. He wore a flat pancake of a hat, and I just couldn’t believe the man’s grace.”
—Mel Brooks, on first seeing a Buster Keaton film when Brooks was a child.
Belshazzar’s Feast
c. 1636
Oil on canvas, 168 x 209 cm
National Gallery, London
Manufactured by Samuel Colt (American, Hartford, Connecticut 1814–1862)
ca. 1853
Steel, brass, gold, wood (walnut)
Dimensions:L. 14 in. (35.6 cm); L. of barrel 7 1/2 in. (19.1 cm); Cal. .44 in. (11.2 mm); case; H. 3 in. (7.6 cm); W. 16 3/16 in. (41.1 cm); D. 8 1/8 in. (20.6 cm); Wt. 3 lb. 9.8 oz. (224 g) Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Williston, VT, January 2017
The Dove, No. 03, Group IX/UW, No. 27
1915
Oil on canvas
Height: 61.22 in., Width: 45.47 in.
“I look in the mirror and say to myself, ‘Can it be that you once played Romeo?’”
—Bela Lugosi, 1951
Seated Girl in Peasant Costume
circa 1650
Oil on panel
Height: 11.02 in., Width: 9.06 in.
Jews Cross the Red Sea
Created, 244-256 CE
Self Portrait, 1956
Seder Plate
Israel 2007, sterling silver bowls, anodized aluminium and silver plated brass box, textile fabric, 46 x 46 cm, height 5 cm.
Number Something Or Other
Acrylic on panel 10″ X 10″
2016
“In the house in Beverly Hills where our four children grew up, living conditions were a few thousand times improved over the old tenement on New York’s East 93rd Street we Marx Brothers called home. But my mother and father would have approved of the way my wife, Susan, and I ran the place in California. Like the East Side tenement, our house was seldom without the sound of music or laughter or questions being asked or stories being told. One of our kids’ favorite stories was about how they came to be adopted.
They used to sit around Susan and me on the bedroom floor in their bunny-type pajamas while we told ‘The Story’, as we came to call it. We played it for suspense, like an old-fashioned cliff-hanger, and how they loved it!
Susan, an only child who never had any roots, & I, a lone wolf who got married 20 years too late, were adopted by the kids as much as they were by us. We decided we would tell them they were adopted as soon as they could understand speech. We’d seen some pretty sad cases where parents kept putting off telling their adopted children the truth; & the kids, told too late, were full of resentment and a feeling of being unwanted. In our case, since we were all an adopted family, we had equal amounts of gratitude and respect mixed in with our love for one another.
We started telling the kids where they had come from in the form of a true-adventure bedtime story when Alex was two, and Jimmy and Minnie were scarcely a year old. By the time they were four and three they couldn’t go to bed without hearing ‘The Story’.”
-excerpted from Harpo Tells a Story, Reader’s Digest, 1962
Screenplay by Charles Lederer
Based on The Front Page
1928 play by Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur
Fiona Campbelll in Dior, 1951
The 6 1/2″ knife has a 3 1/2″ stainless steel drop point blade, brass hilt, micarta handle. Production was limited to 1,500 knives.
Berber Jewish Girl with Harqus (Plant Ink) Facial Decorations, Agdz, Draa’ Valley, High Atlas Mountains, Morocco
c.1930
Portrait of Helena van der Schalcke
circa 1644
oil on panel
Height: 13.39 in., Width: 11.02 in.
Rick you may think this odd but the first thing I saw when looking at those mail boxes was a musical score sheet.
Those 30s cars sure had a timeless elegance to them – and ironically few could afford them.
Liked the Berber Jewish girl – she had a beauty and almost looked like an ancient Egyptian
Thank you, Bill – I’m not sure what drew me to those mailboxes, but there was something about the irregular pattern, I think.
I’m reading a biography of Snowdon right now (part of a project to read as many photographers’ biographies as possible, in an attempt to figure out what I did wrong, I think.) The bio is very deferential – as most royal bios are – but that lovely portrait doesn’t even hint at the volatile relationship he had with Princess Margaret.
I think Margaret had a very sad life after the family would not let her marry Peter Townsend.
And in our time, no problem. The Princess was very cute.
I saw The Crown on Netflix and I have the feeling that Margaret was a bit of a nut case
That too.
“Oh, Walter, you’re wonderful in a loathsome sort of way.”
Well, now I have something to aspire to.
That’s Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, talking to Walter Burns (Cary Grant). It’s my favorite movie. I own it on DVD and play it at least once every couple of months. I know few films that can hold up so well to multiple viewings and still be fresh and funny. My husband and I frequently quote lines from the movie at each other on appropriate occasions.
Thank you, Robert. You never fail to improve my week with Friday Photos.
Have a wonderful Sabbath.
You’re very welcome.