THOUGHT PATTERNS

Dear Miss Monroe...

As a lot of women do, I too have a little fascination with Miss Monroe. And I find these kinds of bits and pieces from her life endlessly interesting.

 

And her face. I find her face ENDLESSLY interesting. She's different in every photo, but always so beautiful. Be it happy or sad, be it innocently playful or sexy.

 

 Miss Monroe, you were truly one and only.

I'm drawn to read the newest biography "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe" by J. Randy Taraborrelli. It's supposed to be "... explosive, revelatory, and surprisingly moving..." Hmmm... written by the author specializing in "gossipy fan bios of supermarket tabloid favorites"... Hmmm.

I'm not sure if this is exactly my kind of read or absolutely not my kind of read. Whichever it is, I'm curious...

xoxoxo

{photos via music2myears}

No Girls Alowed

A 1938 rejection letter from Disney to a woman looking for a job as animator...

 

 

 

"...Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men. For this reason girls are not considered for the training school. The only work open to women consists of tracing the characters on clear celluloid sheets with India ink and filling in the tracings on the reverse side with paint according to the directions..."

 

How awful. Well. at least it was sent on a nice Snow White stationary.

 

xoxoxo

 

{via sim sandwich}

Soothing Blue

What a great photo of Sophia Loren this is...

 

    

 

I wouldn't mind having a tub filled with cool water in the garden to dip into right now. It's so hot in San Francisco today. Again I state that we are not used to the heat! I feel utterly lifeless, exhausted and lethargic. And I have some papercuts to cut. Boo hoo. The cool blue of this picture soothes. And the curves, my, the curves inspire my papercutting. :)

 

Sophia is such a beautiful woman.

 

"She has sung duets with Noel Coward, dined with Queen Elizabeth and shooed President Tito of Yugoslavia out of her kitchen for sticking his finger in her spaghetti sauce...she has beaten Taylor, Burton and another friend, Peter O'Toole at both Scrabble and poker".
- Rex Reed. From Life's "Legends" 

 

{photo and quote via MsBlueSky}

Audition for a Black Cat

Would you take your cat to a Hollywood audition? From my own experience I know that even if I wanted to my Archibald would fight and scratch and run and leave claw marks all over me. No outdoor fun for him. No excitement. Nah.

 

My mother is the proud caretaker of my black cat now. He's a total house cat. Once, feeling sorry for the poor (prrr) bugger, we tried to take him out to explore, socialize, play, but the event ended up leaving scars on Archibald's psyche and all over our bodies. He was utterly petrified.

 

So, when I saw these people putting leashes on their cats and taking them to an audition... that left me in utter awe, shock, bewilderment, amusement & with a belly full of laughter. (And concern for those cats, of course!) I wonder what were the requirements? Hm... black, cat, curious?

 

Isn't this and absolutely absurd sight?

 

          

 

Absurd and hilarious!

 

         

 

Ha! It's Vincent Price! So, it must have been an audition for Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat". V. Price and Edgar Allan Poe - what a great combination. Used to love these movies - Tales of Terror, House of Usher, The Raven... (And the other guy is of course Peter Lorre - after Terry saw this photo he kept doing the funniest P. Lorre impersonation with a foreign accent, while walking like a hunchback: "You keeled my snake. Why did you keel my snake?")

 

        

 

Why couldn't he just walk on the pavement, like everybody else? Well, that's cats for you.

 

         

 

Who brought a baby cat? We said no baby cats!

 

        

 

I don't like to be cradled like I'm a baby!

 

          

 

Hey lady! Nice eyebrows!

 

         

 

Well, of course, cats always get into trouble. Or, is it the old ladies that always get into trouble? Hmm.

 

        

 

Hey mister, don't even think about it. That part is mine!

 

          

 

This whole shot is fantastic - the kid, his boots and vest, the cat, the guy with a cigarette, the woman with the crutches.

 

          

 

I don't think this was intirely necessary for the part, now was it?! Miaow!

 

xoxoxo

 

{photos LIFE archive - Hollywood audition for Black Cat, 1961}

Dressing Rooms

I love the intimacy of performers' dressing rooms. The excitement, the rush, mixed with a strong sense of quiet and calm, preparation and meditation.

 

The creative and charming clutter, makeup and dresses everywhere. The smell of sweat and perfume. The knock on the door: "You have three minutes!". The nervous giggles, the sound of the orchestra warming up. The silence.

 

Did I ever mention how I always wanted to be a performer? A dancer, a singer, an actress, a vaudeville star? :)

 

 

~ Entertainer Josephine Baker reflected in dressing room mirror while having her four-ft. chignon wound up into a three-tiered bun by her French maid before a show at the Strand theater during her US tour. ~

 

 

~ Dancer Gypsy Rose Lee relaxing in her trailer dressing room, with typewriter on her lap to use for writing between acts. ~

 

 

~ French Cancan dancers in various states of deshabille, getting ready in the dressing room of the Moulin Rouge nightclub before their performance. ~

 

 

~ Actress Betty Grable showing off black mesh stocking she is wearing for a scene that will feature her legs, in her dressing room at 20th Century Fox studios. ~

 

~ Debutante-actress Tina L. Meyer putting on false eyelashes in dressing room. (later known as Tina Louise, aka Ginger on TV show Gilligan's Island) ~

 

 

~ Actress Lucille Ball wearing tomato red lounging robe while lying on chaise longue in front of mirror in her dressing room. ~

 

 

~ Actor Charlie Chaplin at dressing room mirror giving himself a wide grin as a clown on set of his film "Limelight." ~

 

 

~ Natalia Ryzhenko, in dressing room of Bolshoi Theater, before performing "Swan Lake". ~

 

xoxoxo

 

{photos LIFE archive}

Laughter, Essential

I never thought I would refer to Woody Allen as cute, but he is undeniably cute in these photos from What's New, Pussycat movie. 

Having a romantic moment and an awkward, sweet kiss with Romy Schneider on a library ladder.

 

Have you ever seen What's New, Pussycat? It's very funny throughout (it's written by Woody), but the first 5 minutes of the movie are the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. It makes me laugh hysterically every time.

 

Here is some of the dialogue from the begining of the movie, that is a frequent part of The Tarnoff comedy routine... :)

 

Dr. Fritz (Peter Sellers) is fighting with his wife Anna, a big Wagnerian Blonde...

 

Dr. Fritz Fassbender: I've hated you from the first moment I married you!

 

Anna Fassbender: Fritz is fooling around with a floozie!

 

Dr. Fritz Fassbender: Silence when you're shouting at me!

 

Anna Fassbender: Is she prettier than me?
Dr. Fritz Fassbender: Is she prettier than you? I'M prettier than YOU!

 

Dr. Fritz Fassbender: You are a monster and a monster, in that order.

Anna Fassbender: Lascivious adulterer!
Dr. Fritz Fassbender: Don't you dare call me that again until I have looked it up!

Dr. Fritz Fassbender: [leafing through a dictionary] "Lascivious adulterer... is a man who is a lascivious adulterer." What kind of book is this?

 

 

Fritz and Anna

 

Highly recommened daily as a 5 minute dosage of absolutely essential laughter.  

 

xoxoxo

 

{photos via Sokaris73, PSAS}

Weekend in Fogland

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. We are at the moment determined to stay indoors (as it's so foggy and barely 50 degrees outside, brrrr). If it doesn't warm up, I'm afraid our plans of bird stalking, butterfly startling and flower admiring will have to be placed on hold. 

Instead we'll work for a while, then cozy up and read long into the evening, wrapped in our respective shawls.

 

{on the left is a lovely warm Pashmina Terry brought from Nepal, and the gorgeous Afghan on the right was crocheted by our friend Sharon, from Spooner, Wisconsin. Thank you Sharon, we love it!}

And tonight we will probably watch a movie. Last week I made Terry watch Hitchcock's Suspicion with me. What a mistake. I adore old movies, especially from the 30s and 40s, and most of them usually age well. But this one didn't. It starred Carry Grant as a charming scoundrel (he was quite charming, I admit) and Joan Fontaine as a shy spinster (too much fainting, my dear). It had an unrealistic plot, utterly confusing ending and such over-the-top emotions that made me laugh with embarrassement. Hopefully tonight we will have better luck with our choice.

But, anything can happen, the day is still young and we are open to invitations. We might end up dancing and drinking bubbly tonight, who knows. Both options sound equally marvelous to me....

 

If only the dancing would be in Marilyn's company:).

xoxoxo

{photos Rodney Smith, vintage photographs}

Marilyn and Ella

Marilyn with Ella Fitzgerald listening to jazz at Hollywood's Tiffany Club in 1955.

Ella Fitzgerald had become her favorite singer, and when she found out that a popular club had refused to book Ella because she was black, Marilyn took action.

Quote from Ella: "I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt. It was because of her that I played the Mocambo, a very popular nightclub in the '50s. She personally called the owner of the Mocomabo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. She told him - and it was true, due to Marilyn's superstar status - that the press would go wild. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again. She was an unusual woman - a little ahead of her times. And she didn't know it".

 

I adore Marilyn. Isn't this a great story?

xoxoxo

{photo and text via MsBlueSky}

"The best thing one can do when it's raining...

 

 

... is to let it rain."

 

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ~

 

And curl up in a cozy sofa with a a good book, a pile of magazines as backup, coffee and a fine husband (whose birthday is tomorrow!). 

We are planning to have a nice, quiet night in and are contemplating watching Synecdoche, New York again. The first watching brought a lot of confusion and uncertainty in my case  - do I like it?, do I hate it?, I don't get it! I want to get it! I hear I wasn't the only one. (Husband liked the movie, so this was a unique situation as we usually have exact movie opinions.) The only certainty is that I am still thinking about the movie ten days later. It's time to figure it out. Do I dare? As a fan of Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I say that I have a duty to. So, movie night it is!

 

xoxoxo

 

{wonderful photo via yu+ichiro}

Little Dragon & Shadow Puppetry

I am so smitten by Swedish-American-Japanese singer Yukimi Nagano. I already wrote about her in one of my previous posts {here} - and her collaboration with the band Hird. Yukimi is the singer of Little Dragon, a Swedish electronic band that I simply adore. They have a quirky, unique sound highlighted by Yukimi's radiant, experimental and emotional singing. (You can hear them on my blog playlist, located under my Books that inspire & books I desire list.)

 

Their song Twice is so wonderfully ethereal, sad, thrilling and touching - it is "universally hailed as a masterpiece of free thinking soul," and today I saw the video to the same song. You have to watch it. It is so unbelievably-heartbreakingly-beautifully-unique. (I'm running out of superlatives!)

 

The video is a wonderful example of shadow puppetry, created by the highly talented Swedish director Johannes Nyholm. The video also acted as a pilot for his short film "Dreams from the Woods" (”Drömmar från skogen”) which is selected for this year's Directors' Fortnight in Cannes.  

 

“Dreams from the Woods” Movie Synopsis

One day the Girl leaves her friend the Big Bird, seeking adventures in the world. But she gets lost in the deep forest, lured by the melodies of Death´s beautiful flute. A shadow puppet play about love and sorrow.

 

I'll leave you to watch and listen... this is a masterpiece.

 

xoxoxo