George A. Romero: I think it’s video games, man. Zombies are always moving fast in video games. It makes sense if you think about it. Those games are all about hand-eye coordination and how quickly can you get them before they get you. So the zombies have to keep coming at you, crawling over the walls and across the ceiling.
Zombies are perfect for a first-person shooter game, because they exist to be damaged…Filmmakers saw what was happening in video games and started thinking, “Well, we’ve got to keep pace and make our zombies fast too.”
I still don’t agree with it. If zombies are dead, how can they move fast? My guys don’t run. They never have and they never will. They’re just lumbering oafs that are easy to dispose of unless you make a mistake. Those are the rules, and I’ll stick with what I’ve got. via: Vanity Fair, 2010. RIP George Romero, 1940 – 2017
Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe
1500
Alte Pinakothek, Munich
Forty-Eighth Street Window Washers, NYC, 1958
Kerchief Glove (Dior), Paris
1950, printed 1984
Gelatin silver print
Image: 15 3/8 x 15 5/16 in. (39.1 x 38.9 cm.)
Promised Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation
© Condé Nast
Theatre Accident, New York
1947, printed 1984
Dye transfer print
Image: 19 1/2 x 15 1/4 in. (49.6 x 38.8 cm.)
Promised Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation
© Condé Nast
Horse barns, Calgary Stampede, July 2017
I work overtime with my fantasies and always have. Fellini said that when we got past 60, there’d be less trouble, more peace. Women are beautiful, but they complicate life. At night, you don’t sleep, you talk, you argue, you make love at 5 in the morning, then drag yourself off to the studio – a madhouse! But now, there’s still no peace, it’s even worse.
Sunday morning, at the beach at Ostia, I see these pretty girls in bathing suits and I go crazy. With my fantasies, it’ll never end, even at 100! Women see more clearly – too clearly sometimes, especially for an actor who does everything to make real something which, in reality, does not exist. In the theater, you turn a lie, a fiction, into a truth, an illusion into a reality. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been attracted to actresses. They understand this.”
—Marcello Mastroianni (NY Times interview, Sept. 1987)
Self-portrait
1628
Rijksmuseum
Girl in White Dress, Cape May, 1971
Woman with Roses (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn in Lafaurie Dress), Paris
1950, printed 1968
Platinum-palladium print
Image: 22 x 15 11/16 in. (55.9 x 39.9 cm
Promised Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation
© Condé Nast (Fr.)
After-Dinner Games, New York
1947, printed 1985
Dye transfer print
Image: 22 3/16 x 18 1/16 in. (56.4 x 45.8 cm)
Promised Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation
© Condé Nast
Edward Hopper (American, Nyack, New York 1882–1967 New York)
1953
Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 28 x 40 in. (71.1 x 101.6 cm)
—Cary Grant
Self-portrait
1887
Rijksmuseum
Screenplay by Frances Marion, Herman J. Mankiewicz
Additional dialogue by Donald Ogden Stewart
Based on the play Dinner at Eight by
George S. Kaufman, Edna Ferber
Raining on Two
1957
Wind Directions, 1970
Acrylics in colour, pochoir (stencil painted) on Arches Imperial Rough paper
30 1/2 × 22 in
77.5 × 55.9 cm
Edition of 50
The “Theatre Accident” print looks like a Gerald Murphy painting.
A friend of mine, when we were surgical residents in Los Angeles, had a green Morgan he drove. It was older than that one as it was about 1968 and I don’t think he bought it new.
But Marie Dressler’s reaction to Jean Harlow saying “I was reading a book the other day,” before she goes into the explanation of the book makes the scene.
I just read this elsewhere about five minutes ago in case you haven’t seen it:
Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon
— Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield
[In response to a taunt by Daniel O’Connell]
There are a couple of ways you could take her comment — that Jean Harlow, being a woman of social standing, would never need worry about work… or that Jean Harlow’s profession (the world’s oldest?) could never be replaced by a machine. You need some more context here!
I took it as Margot Asquith meant it in her brilliant response when Jean Harlow referred to her as “Mar-got,” the final syllable to rhyme with hot. Asquith said:
“No, no, Jean. The ‘t’ is silent, as in Harlow.”
Most of the uncontrollable world problems today come directly from H. G. Wells and Things To Come — think The New World Order. The Criterion Collection published a brilliant Blu-Ray edition, not so much for the picture, which does not hold for the full 97 minutes but the brilliant commentary by David Kalat. A semester’s work. Now I know the reference in today’s post was simply stunning art work but pretty pictures are more than that. They have meaning.
Robert — I agree with Bill. You need the ’68 Morgan in dark green (although I think a tan leather top/interior would be preferable to white).
Bill — no scaffolding. I believe they hooked a safety belt into both sides of the window frame and then stood on the ledge.
I don’t remember seeing that Hopper painting before, but I like it too.
The Anna Christie poster is a perfect example of the 1930’s Art Deco movement we’ve been discussing. As a student of fonts, I love that design — awesome!
Ingrid Bergman always looked fresh and clean to me. That may sound weird, but I always imagined she smelled fresh and clean (and I don’t know the psychological meaning in that — maybe Karen would enlighten us).
Perhaps the most fascinating painting you’ve ever had, Robert. Van Gogh’s self portrait… is so incredible. Everything seems to radiate out from the eyes. Incredibly complex.
And Lielle looks so happy!
Have a wonderful Sabbath everyone!
A man standing next to a Bugatti Royale looks about 3/4th scale! Such beautiful cars, and I read they were a colossal business failure ($50,000 in 1933).
I share Ingrid’s philosophy although no woman as asked me for my opinion on the matter 😉
Those window washers – 2 thoughts – they certainly weren’t posing – the photographer simply saw a great opportunity.
And where is the scaffolding? Looks like they are just standing on the window ledges!
I want to see a Morgan in your driveway one of these days Robert. Life is too short.
Prophet Joe is correct about the clips. Growing up in an apartment in Brooklyn, I remember when I was a child and the window washers would suddenly, miraculously appear at the windows. I was fascinated/terrified. They did have clips that held them securely. I think the clips were attached to the windows. But I’m not sure.
I want to see a Morgan in my driveway too:-)
When they built those old buildings (and the ones today) they either put in slots or some type of attachment place along the windows up and down. Lower buildings because of the glass design may not have these, that’s when you see what’s called swinging scaffolding from a roof area. Many of those buildings that used swing scaffolding have the units stored on an almost permanent basis on the roof.
The window washer’s clips were attached to the window frame or the concrete casing. I always marveled at the guts it took to be held by two straps forty or fifty stories above the street, however, I took solace in the fact that it would only hurt with the sudden stop!