Jethro Tull
The Kinks
"To attempt the destruction of our passions is
Here are three photos taken on a recent trip to Las Vegas, starting with a view of the Statue of Liberty in front of the New York New York Casino. One one doesn't often think of the Statue looming over palm trees.
This shot was actually taken out at Red Rocks, a little ways outside the city. But I think it turned out pretty good, with some nice contrast in black and white.
It's hard to avoid the neon in Vegas. This sign advertises one of the smaller motels on Las Vegas Boulevard just north of the Strip. I like how the black and white emphasizes the glow of the lights.
Today we feature several examples of The Gumps from 1937. This was a classic family strip created by artist Sidney Smith that was, according to comics historian Maurice Horn, the most popular strip of the 1920s.
Unfortunately, Smith died in an automobile accident in 1935, and these examples are the work of his successor Gus Edson (who kept the strip going for another 25 years). Some might say Edson wasn't a match for Smith, but these are fun in a kind of sit-com-ish way.
They kind of remind me a bit of Blondie and Dagwood, though Andy Gump wasn't quite such a dim bulb (at least not all the time like Dagwood), and Min was hardly as glamorous as Blondie. Son Chester rounded out the regular cast, and was a pretty typical kid (though in earlier sequences, he was almost a rival to Milton Caniff's Terry for the adventures he got caught up in). This is a good example of a cultural phenomenon (there were movies, novels, toys, etc. at the strip's peak) that's somehow been mostly forgotten today-- it makes one wonder what will last from among today's many pop culture fads. 
"And he gave it for his opinion, 'that whoever 
Do you know how they say you shouldn't go grocery shopping on an empty stomach? Well, today I broke that rule and ended up filling my cart, followed by a trip to Subway for a sandwich (as I couldn't wait to get home and make my own). Normally, I just get a sub, but as they were putting together my order, I noticed they had some soup on the menu too, so I had to have some of that as well. Now, I've had their soup before, and it's just what you would expect from a fast food place-- nothing special, but if it's good and hot you figure you've come out ahead. I was very surprised to find today's soup to be much more than that-- very tasty and a nice complement to my chicken sandwich. It was a Cheese with Ham and Bacon concoction, and often that means something heavy and salty (given my hunger, that didn't cross my mind ahead of time). But this was actually pretty light and creamy, with just enough tiny chunks of meat to give it some texture. Maybe I got there just as it was peaking, as opposed to having sat in the kettle for a couple of days. I imagine if I ordered it again, I wouldn't be so lucky, but for today at least it was a pleasant surprise, so kudos to the chef.
"Diligence is the mother of good fortune, 
I think I've got a good one this week. You'll all recognize Nik and Ben, but whose nose is that sneaking into the upper left hand side of the frame? Here's a little hint: this is from the summer of '06 when we all got together at Dan & Theresa's house for the Fourth of July. In other words-- there are a lot of candidates!
Today I heard, for the first time this year, those truly wonderful words: "pitchers and catchers report in three weeks." Boy, did that make me feel good!
Here's a shot of Natalie that looks a little sinister. Actually, we were just burning candles to keep the bugs away, but that's not so interesting.
Admittedly, this was originally a botched picture of Emma. But by pushing up the levels as far as I could, it came out looking kind of interesting to me. You certainly can't miss those blue eyes, eh?
"Cultivate Virtue in yourself,
I'm not sure I'd want to live in Toonerville (I've never seen that they have a good bookstore, for example, or a taco place), but I sure do enjoy visiting. I hope you do too.
"Why do people talk of the horrors of old age? It's 
Didier Drogba, Chelsea
"An onion can make people cry but
The Library of Congress has a great on-line exhibit called "In His Own Words: Photographs and Commentary by William Gottlieb." Gottlieb was famous for capturing the jazz milieu in New York City in the mid-twentieth century (that's the jazz mecca of 52nd St. above). Some of these are real stunners-- something about the visual style of jazz really lends itself to especially black and white images, though Gottlieb also worked in color (check out the fragmented portrait of Stan Kenton with Buddy Childers). I like looking at pictures like these in part because they make me want to take better pictures myself. Check'em out.
"Knowledge must be gained by ourselves. 
I've been going back over pictures I took last Spring in Germany, and seeing if I can punch them up one way or another . All of these are cropped, adjusted for lighting, and converted to black and white. Above is a street scene near the old Checkpoint Charlie.
This is the umbrella roof at Potsdamerplatz, a rather hip night spot in what was at one time a stately old residential neighborhood before being bombed out during World War II.
Last is a scene on, if I recall correctly, the Unter den Linden looking up the river towards the Berliner Dom (Cathedral).
Manfred Mann
The Rolling Stones
"There are two insults which no human 
Peter Travers in Rolling Stone named The Tourist as the worst movie of 2010. I wouldn't go that far, but it may very well be the stupidest. Heck, I guessed the surprise ending when I saw the preview several months ago. It's almost like two separate movies, one starring Angelina Jolie, which is incredibly dull and clunky (I have to admit, as good looking as she is, she rarely impresses me as an actress); and another starring Johnny Depp which has a bit more flare, but is pretty dumb in its own right. To be honest, the only reasons I went to see it are that I had two hours to kill waiting for a plane, and it was mostly set in Venice which I've been to a couple of times and didn't mind re-visiting on the big screen. As it turned out, the location photography and integration of the city into the plot made it bearable, as I got a kick out of recognizing spots where I'd been (and not just the famous ones). For that reason alone, I can imagine watching snatches of this movie when it inevitably pops up on TBS several times a month, at least until a commercial break has me reaching for the remote.
It's not exactly in the same "classic" category as the comics I usually feature here, but Joe Martin's Mr. Boffo almost always makes me laugh. Here are a few examples, in case you aren't familiar with that particular strip.
"Thus, cases of injustice, and oppression, and tyranny, and the most extravagant bigotry, are in constant occurrence among us every day. It is the custom to trumpet forth much wonder and astonishment at the chief actors therein setting at defiance so completely the opinion of the world; but there is no greater fallacy; it is precisely because they do consult the opinion of their own little world that such things take place at all, and strike the great world dumb with amazement."
So, I was watching an episode of That 70s Show a couple nights ago (it seems to be on all the time around here) and saw something that kind of bugged me. The character Hyde was sitting in Foreman's basement, engaged with other characters in what passes for witty repartee on that program while reading an issue of Mad magazine. I'm pretty sure it was the issue pictured above, which originally came out in the summer of 1977 when the show is set. It was not a pertinent part of the scene, but it caught my attention because the very visible back cover of the magazine sported a cigarette ad. This struck me as exceedingly odd, since Mad was largely aimed at young people (though I'm sure many adults read it too), and I could not imagine it took ads from the tobacco industry. I mean, it was essentially a comic book, so it was much more likely that the back cover would have an ad for something like Hostess Cupcakes, or maybe plastic army men, or something along those lines. But then, something else occurred to me: Mad in those days was totally ad-free! The inside back cover was always the Al Jaffee fold-in feature, and the outside generally sported a cartoon by Don Martin. So what was going on here? Did the prop-master have a hard time finding a vintage Mad, and so photocopy and paste a fake cover onto another periodical? Or, was this something more nefarious? As I'm sure you all know, cigarette ads were banned from television back in the early seventies, while That 70s Show was produced in the 2000s. Was this a subliminal attempt to get around the tobacco broadcast ban? I don't know the answer, but I'm going to keep my eyes open to see if this part of a pattern of sneaking illegal ads onto the air. It looks like I'm going to have to watch a bunch more episodes to get to the bottom of this!
"The world is a looking-glass, and gives back 
Here's another fuzzy picture, with two questions-- one easy, one hard. the easy one first: who is this baby? And the harder question: who is holding the baby (cropped out)? Put your guesses in the comments section.
Back in the early eighties I took a job in downtown Manhattan for a couple of years, in large part because I had a romantic idea of what it would be like to live in New York City from books and movies and wanted to experience it firsthand. I'd actually never been there prior to taking the job, so I had no pre-conceived notions aside from those shaped by my imagination. While I was there, my favorite place to hang out was Greenwich Village-- Washington Square Park, NYU, the pizza place on the corner of Sixth Ave. and 8th St., the branch library in what used to be an old market building, the book and record stores, etc. etc. I didn't go out to the clubs that much, but remember some great shows at the Lone Star in particular. After reading Suze Rotolo's memoir of living there in the sixties though, I kind of feel like I arrived too late to really experience the Village at its peak. I was initially drawn to her story by the Bob Dylan connection (she was his girlfriend, seen on the cover of his second, classic lp The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan). But in fact the real appeal of her book is in the rich picture she paints of life in what might've been the bohemian capital of the world for a few years at the dawn of the sixties. Artists and musicians of every stripe, political activists, and various oddballs and outcasts all gathered in that neighborhood, and it seems that Rotolo encountered most of them. Her own story of passing from adolescence to adulthood in that milieu is interesting in its own right, but its her re-creation of the creative environment where everyone seemed to strive for new ways to express a shared commitment to a better world. In the end, their accomplishments in that regard were modest and not without disappointments, but Rotolo rightly sees value in the effort and that comes across pretty strongly in her story. Dylan's role in all that was considerable, and Rotolo's take adds to versions of his story from other sources (including his autobiography) without lapsing into a celebrity tell-all kind of deal. That too is to her credit. All in all, this book was a very pleasant surprise to me, providing me the opportunity to vicariously experience a time and place that has long intrigued me.
I know this is really fuzzy, but I like it anyway. That's Joseph and Maria hamming it up for the camera.
