FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
‘The Life Cycle of the Pin Mould’: Time-lapse film of fungi from 1943

image
 
The order Mucorales consists of 13 families, 56 genera, and 300 species. Mucoralean fungi, or pin mold, is typically fast-growing, and generally found on food, with the most ubiquitous example being bread mold (Rhizopus stolonifer), or the equally common genus mucor, found in rotten vegetables or soil. In The Life Cycle of the Pin Mould we can see the development of fungi through the use of time-lapse photography, watching spores grow on an apple, cheese and porridge.

Made in 1943, The Life Cycle of the Pin Mould was originally intended for educational purposes, and is now one of 125 films currently being re-released by the British Council on Vimeo. Already available are films on London during wartime, hospitals, growing vegetables, the life cycle of a rabbit, the gardens of England and how to make a bicycle, amongst many others. Check here for details.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
05.11.2012
07:27 pm
|
Night Life in Chicago from 1947

image
 
One of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Travel Talks, with “Voice of the Globe” James A Fitzpatrick, who takes the viewer on a trip along Chicago’s Loop, from 1947.

‘Night descends on Chicago, the heart of the city, or the Loop as it is generally known, is brilliantly aglow with the glimmering lights that lure us to its many attractions.’

These include the Bismarck, where we will see Don Julian and Marjorie do “their fantastic cape dance”; and Chez Paree, “where internationally famous artists have entertained the public for a quarter of a century or more”; to the Ambassador Hotel’s “renowned Pump Room, where food and drink are served with all the formalities of a Royal banquet”; and on to the Edgewater Beach Hotel, which served such famous guests as Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead, and Nat King Cole, and U.S. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The men look old, their hair sleek, their suits formal. The women younger, framed by jackets and skirts in blues and reds, smile, smoke, wear hats. Everyone looks as if they are on show, pretending to have fun. It’s a different landscape, far away, and slightly out of focus, the images seem hand-painted, water-colored.

Hard to imagine this is the same year that began with the murder of Elizabeth Short (aka the Black Dahlia) in Leimert Park, Los Angeles; while Jack Kerouac traveled across country, an experience that formed the basis for On the Road, and worked on The Town and The City; and in Conroe, Texas, Joan Vollmer gave birth to her son named after the father, William S Burroughs; Marilyn Monroe made her film debut as a telephone operator; and back in LA, Kenneth Anger shot his dream-film Fireworks over a weekend, while his parents were away. And all of this happening, bubbling out-of-frame, of these streets fireflied with lights, and Julian and Marjorie cape-danced; gold lame draped girls kicked heels; and a cowboy turned rope tricks on a hay scattered dance floor.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
01.08.2012
08:18 pm
|
Salvador Dali: Surrealist Party from 1941
12.31.2011
06:00 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Salvador Dali hosts a Surrealist party as a fund raiser for displaced European artists, at the Bali Room, Hotel Del Monte, California, in 1941. However you celebrate the arrival of the New Year, have a fabulous time, and a wonderful 2012.
 

 
With thanks to Duggie Fields
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
12.31.2011
06:00 pm
|