Category Archives: Photographers

King Cole

Book reviews, Photographers

Words and music.

When I first moved to Manhattan in 1980, things looked pretty dire on the financial front. While I waited to close on my ‘luxury high rise’ co-op apartment (an L-shaped alcove studio with but 450 square feet of space which the realtor somehow managed to advertise as having 6 rooms) my temporary landlord made off with my deposit. Some $1,000 poorer and every penny deposited on the luxury high rise, I was down to my uppers. Dinner was at the McDonald’s I could see from the 14th floor window on 8th Avenue and the Citicorp branch next door was advertising 18% pass book savings rates, courtesy of the Idiot Carter.

But the stroll from 56th and 8th to Broadway and 57th was but two minutes and you could find me there every night at what had become my local free library. After the splendid repast at Mikey Dee’s, I would traipse round to Coliseum Books and enjoy a chapter of something favorite, no hassles involved. You see, I could afford nothing in the store.

The all time favorite was this:


The master.

Fans of Gershwin may carp, but the reality is that George had to retain his brother Ira to write the lyrics. Cole Porter needed no such help. He wrote the words. And the music. And what words and music they were.

The large tome, available used though Amazon, is replete with period photographs, this one being one of the best:


Fred and Ginger.

And who could not thrill to the magic of Cole’s gorgeous word mastery?


You’re the top!
You’re the Coliseum
You’re the top!
You’re the Louvre Museum
You’re a melody from a symphony by Strauss
You’re a Bendel bonnet
A Shakespeare’s sonnet
You’re Mickey Mouse
You’re the Nile
You’re the Tower of Pisa
You’re the smile on the Mona Lisa
I’m a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
But if, baby, I’m the bottom, you’re the top

The Henri Bendel store, repository of high fashion and kept women, was just across 57th between 5th and 6th Avenues. Sadly, both stores are gone but Cole Porter’s words and music will live forever.

Don’t make my mistake of waiting 40 years to buy this special book.

A year of isolation – 2020

Bio

These pieces generally run annually in time for Hanukkah and Christmas.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859.

From March on it has been a year of isolation.


We are all essentially alone.

To point out the year’s villains is a simple task.

  • A murderous, psychopathic Pig in the Oval Office, who will have killed 500,000 Americans when all is said and done.
  • The 74mm Americans who just voted for Pig.
  • The US legislature which has ensured millions of Americans have not enough to eat.

But it is far more positive, more hopeful, to name the many heroes who are helping ensure that we will soon be returning to sunlit uplands:

  • The frontline doctors and nurses who risked everything daily in the service of their fellow man.
  • Two Turkish Muslims without whose pioneering work there would be no vaccine. These are the people our Administration has demonized and excluded.
  • The 80 million Americans who saw the light of day and returned Pig to his natural habitat, the ordure he so richly deserves.
  • Jeff Bezos and his superb workforce. Without his wonderful Amazon and Whole Foods home grocery deliveries I would almost certainly be dead.
  • But, most of all, my gorgeous son, who took the courageous decision to take a gap year before starting as a freshman at college. His optimism, joy of life, increasing debating and argument skills and pleasurable company have been a gift impossible to ever replicate. Thank you, Winston.


My son.

Images: Leica M3, 50mm Summicron, Kodachrome, 1978. iPhone 12 Pro Max, 2020.

Elliot Erwitt revisited

Photographers, Photographs

The master comedian of the camera.

One of the best measures of a man is whether he likes dogs. If he does not, fughedaboutit. It hardly comes as a surprise that the cretinous psychopath just booted from the Oval Office was the first US President in over a century not to have a dog. Heck, even Nixon had a dog, though I very much doubt any sane, rational human being would want to meet that dog’s owner.

So it’s a pleasure to read that that master comedian of the camera and all around dog lover, Elliot Erwitt, is still at it aged 92.



Elliot Erwitt’s Cairn terrier. Click the image for the article.

And if you must be choosy, it’s Scottish dogs which must feature high on any list. As a former Scottish Terrier owner, I know of what I speak, so it’s hardly surprising that Erwitt’s favorite was his Cairn terrier, a breed which hails from north of Hadrian’s Wall, like so many good things in life. Blood pudding, kilts, Scotch whisky, Harris Tweed, the bagpipes – all Scottish. And don’t forget James Watt and James Clerk Maxwell.



My Border terrier, Bertie. Click the image for a slide show of my dog snaps.

Rachel Louise Brown

Photographers

Spooky and original.



At Mar a Lago, 2015. Click the image.

The tacky horror of Pig’s residence (Mar a Loco) is displayed in all its awfulness in this creepy image by Rachel Louise Brown.

Click the picture for her web site where you will find many disconcerting images which will make you think.

Louche Annie

Hall of Shame, Photographers

A cheat is a cheat is a cheat.

So Annie Leibovitz claims ignorance of HC-B’s insistence that she not photograph him, trying to sneak a few snaps while she thought he was not looking:




Yeah right.

Now every serious photograpger on the planet – and Leibovitz was nothing if she was not serious – knew of HC-B’s paranoid dislike of being photographed. But, ever in search of the mighty dollar, she chose to swallow her integrity and have at it.

You can read the whole disgusting story here.