Nat Finkelstein, “court photographer” from ‘64 to ‘67 for Andy Warhol‘s Factory has died at his home in Shandaken, New York:
Mr. Finkelstein created spontaneous portraits not only of Factory regulars like Edie Sedgwick and Gerard Malanga but also of the artists and celebrities who drifted in and out of the Warhol orbit. He was on hand when Warhol presented Bob Dylan with one of his Elvis ?
Dismissed at the time as a lightweight Coen Brothers effort, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, for me, grows in significance with each passing year. In its ‘00 depiction of ‘30s America at a literal and metaphoric crossroads, there’s something moving and elegiac about it—even subversive. Where else in American cinema has anything, everything felt so wonderfully possible?
Recording a hit song, taking down the Klan and crooked politicians, having your sins washed away in a nearby river, it’s all a matter of course in O Brother’s vision of America. And while I know that’s probably not an authentic vision for how things were back then, it still feels like an excellent vision for how things should be.
Whether through flooding or baptism, O Brother equates water with the possibility of transformation. So, too, does Kevin Coultas in his notes on Dust-To-Digital‘s new, carefully authentic release, Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music And Photography:
The Christian sacrament of baptism has its ritualistic origins in the Jewish mikvah (or collection) in which one is purified, typically in a ‘collection’ of living water (river, lake, ocean, etc.). New Testament prophet John the Baptist adopted this tradition and used the River Jordan to cleanse sinners so that they might enter a new life of repentance.
Based on the clip below, Take Me To The Water looks like quite a package. Assembled by collector Jim Linderman, it puts together 75 American baptism photos from 1890 - 1950 with a 25-track disc of early 20th-Century music from the likes of The Carter Family, Washington Philips, and The Jubilee Singers.
As Luc Sante writes of the photos in an accompanying essay, “One is reminded of the commonality of the human experience when viewing a collection of this ilk and there is nothing wrong with that.”
Take Me To The Water @ Dust-To-Digital
Kevin Coultas on Take Me To The Water @ Other Music
Your move, Damien Hirst:
No, that’s not a real gorilla hanging from a cross. It’s a large waxwork sculpture that British shock artist Paul Fryer has crucified in an attempt to ‘highlight [the] plight of the Western Lowland Gorillas, and to challenge the Christian notion that animals do not have souls,’ according to one report.
Fryer, who caused a stir earlier this year when he exhibited a statue depicting Christ in an electric chair just in time for Easter, has told reporters that his latest work, titled ‘The Privilege of Dominion,’ isn’t meant to cause offense.
The work is currently on display at an exhibition at the former Holy Trinity Church in Marylebone, London. The show, which features works by 16 artists, is being held to coincide with the Frieze Art Fair.
In an article in the London Evening Standard, the artist said: ‘I do go to church and regard myself as a Christian, though I’m probably a heretic…. I just hope people understand the spirit of it is intended to create discourse and make people think rather than offend anybody.’
In the LA Times: Jesus As An Ape? Artist Crucifies Simian Specimen In London
I like this. The song is “Luv (Sic) Pt. 2” by Japanese hip-hop producer and DJ, Nujabes.
(via BOOOOOOOM!)
Footage of Beckett speaking is incredibly rare, so I was thrilled to stumble across this extended clip from ‘87’s Waiting for Beckett: A Portrait of Samuel Beckett. In it, the playwright discusses the video production of “What Where.” Beckett died two years later.
Previously on Dangerous Minds: Snape Does Beckett
This demented 1992 clip from the German “Peter Alexander Show” features Johnny Cash getting down with Austrian jams while some crazd Austrian stuff happens behind him. White horse behind him says HURRR I’M A HOERS.
Also, check out this file of Mr. Cash singing hits from his back catalog in German.
Back in my Z Channel days, no actor seemed to show up more often—or was more welcomed by me—than England’s late great Oliver Reed. In his 40-year career, Reed made nearly 100 films ranging from The Brood, The Devils, Tommy, Burnt Offerings, to the film that killed him (in a Maltese pub, of course), Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.
I think even as a kid, I was able to identify Reed’s onscreen appeal. It’s the same element missing from so many of today’s career-focused actors: joy. Reed loved performing, loved having an audience. As might be expected from the man who once famously said, “My only regret is that I didn’t drink every pub dry and sleep with every woman on the planet,” Reed loved life, loved living it, and he clearly planned to squeeze from it every possible drop of pleasure, pinball wizards and haunted houses be damned.
Even “King of Cool” Steve McQueen proved no match for the Oliver Reed lifeforce. The story goes that McQueen flew to London to discuss a project. Putting business aside for a bit, the pair went on a marathon pub crawl which resulted in Reed vomiting on McQueen. The project was never consummated.
Fortunately, we have all those many great films to remember Reed by. But now, thanks to YouTube, we can revisit some of his more memorable small-screen performances. Reed was a frequent, frequently drunk, guest on television both here and in the UK.
In a testament to the saccharine and stage-managed nature of our current talk show landscape, witness below as Reed gropes feminist writer Kate Millett on British TV’s After Dark. Thanks to After Dark’s supplying of Reed with a “booze buffet” before and during taping, what starts out as a sober-minded discussion on militarism, masculine stereotypes, and violence to women, soon devolves into something else:
And that’s just the mesmerizing endpoint to an escalating, tour de force Reed workout you can watch in its entirety here: I, II, III. But even on the dog-and-pony circuit this side of the Atlantic, Reed was no more willing to dilute his behavior. His face-off with David Letterman follows below:
Bonus I: Oliver Reed drunk on Aspel and Company
Bonus II: Drinking With Oliver Reed
(Thank you, Chris Campion!)
I was listening to NPR the other day, and heard this story about an ultra-orthodox 99-year-old rabbi living in Israel who had, no shit, an estimated 1,500 living descendants! Not everyone in his family knew each other of course, but the rabbi shrugged off the difficulty of raising that large a horde, “It’s much easier having ten children than having two. Because once you have five or six children, they can help each other and take care of each other.” Well, Rabbi, if you’re reading Dangerous Minds, have I got a gift for you! The same goes for you, Pam Anderson!
HOWTO make a Tardis cake from sisters Barbara Jo and Barbara May. Barbara Jo and Barbara May say, “It’s a TARDIS! It’s bigger on the inside! It’s two feet tall (quarter scale)! And aside from the lights, everything you see is edible.”
Richard Metzger interviews David Tennant and Russell T. Davies for Boing Boing Video.
(via Cakehead Loves Evil)
