Linda Darnell@100

Today October 16 2023 is 100th birth anniversary of Linda Darnell (1923-1965)

What Happened to the Iceberg That Sank Titanic?

 Richard Davenport-Hines: 

“…Down to the Sargasso Sea the Labrador Current carried the iceberg that Henry Stengel likened to the Rock of Gibraltar. Its glassy pinnacles pointing at the sun were dissolved by warm rays. Some icebergs develop waterfalls or ponds as they melt. While they rend and fracture, they emit loud noises, like shots from a rifle, as if hurling protests at the sun. Remnants of dead creatures and plants lie fixed in the ice, and as the iceberg dissolves, the stench of decay becomes rank over the ocean. In the Sargasso Sea, at the Labrador Current’s confluence with the Gulf Stream, ridges of Greenland stone and detritus lie on the ocean floor, where they have sunk from melting icebergs. On the surface, at the confluence, sea mists make it an eerie stretch of midocean.

The water is suddenly warmer in the Sargasso, and the iceberg that had sunk the Titanic and was already razed by the sun melted faster. Its pinnacles had receded, the uppermost exposed shape of ice turned sloshy and dripped down into the ocean, the subaquatic bulk, with its deadly protuberances, invisibly dissolved into seawater. The berg dwindled until it was not big enough to sink a canoe. Soon it was a shard of ice giving no sign of its murderous history. The ice turned to water, became formless, then void, deepening the blue Sargasso Sea.” 

(‘Voyagers of the Titanic: Passengers, Sailors, Shipbuilders, Aristocrats, and the Worlds They Came From’, 2012)

 

Now Let's Talk About You: Maruyama Ōkyo and Robert J. Day

 

 Artist: Maruyama Ōkyo, 1781

 Artist: Robert J. Day, December 22 1962

Much More Than Lip Service!...Risking Lives To Get That Perfect Smile...

 

  artist: Arthur Getz, The New Yorker, March 1952

Helen E. Hokinson As Ceramic Potter

For me, Her Highness Helen E. Hokinson has been one of the greatest cartoonists ever....

often I see her seemingly obscure cartoon of almost 100 years ago and laugh incessantly....

here is another beautiful side of Ms. HEH....

 

 This playful ceramic was crafted by Helen Hokinson. Her cartoons humorously portrayed matronly suburban women facing the problems of modern life from a female point of view—a feminist stance which though humorous, often had serious undertones. Her ceramics were essentially three-dimensional extensions of these cartoons. 

This sculpture shows a rather stout woman paddling a small canoe that is aptly named “Butterball.” Neither her dress nor hat, much less her ample figure, stop her from partaking in this physical exercise. Originally this sculpture had as its companion an equally stout woman carrying a sign asking for the return of beer—a rather comic response to the deprivations of Prohibition.

Salad Eating For Nothing

Laura Collins:

“It’s a tragedy that we’ve developed this moralistic, restrictive and unhappy relationship with eating, I think it is making kids nutty, it’s sucking the life out of our relationship with food.”

Chris  Petit:
“If capitalism continues uninterrupted, then the cure of self-restraint will become another commercial facet of consumerism, like weight-watching or dieting or healthy eating - just another giant business in its own right. “

John Gray:

"Forget about immortalizing yourself.  Don’t waste money.  Don’t waste time.  Don’t waste thought or anxiety on having yourself frozen or your brain frozen.  

Don’t curtail all your everyday enjoyments for the sake of a rigorous diet which is what (Ray) Kurzweil among others has written.  He has in fact written a diet book with this very goal in mind and if you follow this rather radical diet you’ll live long enough to become immortal because you’ll live long enough for the Singularity in which believes, this explosion of knowledge and technology will occur.  Forget about all that." 
 

Artist: Lila Ash, The New Yorker, December 2019

Charles Barsotti@90

#CharlesBarsotti90

Dev Anand@100...कोणी अमरपट्टा घेऊन आले असेल तर ते देव आनंद!

#DevAnand100

Roger Ebert: 

“Hollywood dialogue was once witty, intelligent, ironic, poetic, musical. Today it is flat. It sometimes seems as if the movies are more mediocre than ever, more craven and cowardly, more skillfully manufactured to pander to the lowest tastes instead of educating them.”

 मला वाटले होते, जगात कोणी अमरपट्टा घेऊन आले असेल तर ते देव आनंद असतील. पण ते एखाद्या सामान्य माणसाप्रमाणे वयाच्या 'केवळ' ८८व्या वर्षी वारले. 

पण २०व्या शतकातील हिंदी सिनेमा आणि त्याच्या संबंधित अनेक लोकांप्रमाणे ते माझ्या जीवनाचा भाग आजही आहेत. 

स्वातंत्र्यापूर्वी पूर्वीच्या पिंढ्यांनी पाहिलेली बहुतेक स्वप्ने ('जागते रहो' मध्ये दाखवल्याप्रमाणे) चकणाचुर झाली  पण त्याजागी हिंदी सिनेमाने अनेक नवीन स्वप्ने दिली. भारतातील गरिबी आणि इतर अनेक प्रश्नांवर तोडगा काय असेल तर सिनेमा (विशेषतः हिंदी) आणि त्यातील संगीत.

ते देणाऱ्यांमध्ये देव आनंद एक प्रमुख होते. 

त्यांच्या दोन तीन गोष्टी मला उठून दिसत आल्या- त्यांचे आईवरचे प्रेम , त्यांचे उच्च शिक्षण, त्यांचे आणीबाणीच्या सुमारास काही काळच  टिकलेले राजकारण आणि १९७१ सालापर्यंत त्यांच्या सिनेमातील विविधता. 

१९७८ नंतर मी त्यांचा एकही नवा सिनेमा पहिला नाही पण माझा त्यांच्यातील इंटरेस्ट १९७१ सालच्या त्यांच्या सिनेमांनंतर संपला होता.  १९७०च्या विजय आनंदच्या आणि त्यांच्या जॉनी मेरा नामची जादू अजून माझ्यावर आहे, माझ्या मुलाला सुद्धा तो सिनेमा प्रचंड आवडतो.

 

गीता बाली आणि रशीद खान यांच्या समवेत , १९५१ च्या सुमारास

 

कलाकार : आर के लक्ष्मण

एकच प्याला...Will That Be All, Sir?

  Artist: Peter Arno

...But Already It Was Impossible to Say Which Was Which...George Orwell, Charles Addams, Animal Farm

 George Orwell, Animal Farm, 1945:

"..."Gentlemen," concluded Napoleon, "I will give you the same toast as before, but in a different form. Fill your glasses to the brim. Gentlemen, here is my toast: To the prosperity of The Manor Farm! "

There was the same hearty cheering as before, and the mugs were emptied to the dregs. But as the animals outside gazed at the scene, it seemed to them that some strange thing was happening. What was it that had altered in the faces of the pigs? Clover's old dim eyes flitted from one face to another. Some of them had five chins, some had four, some had three. But what was it that seemed to be melting and changing? Then, the applause having come to an end, the company took up their cards and continued the game that had been interrupted, and the animals crept silently away.

But they had not gone twenty yards when they stopped short. An uproar of voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously.

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

 

Artist: Charles, Addams, The New Yorker