The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

Regency Academy Cinemas, Pasadena, Calif.

Kathryne von Marks shoot

South Laguna, Calif.

R.B. Kitaj R.I.P.

Easily my favorite contemporary painter, I only read today that he died October 21 in Los Angeles.

Tiny Fine Art

A selection of my reduction linocuts are now represented for sales through Tiny Fine Art.com.

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007)

Regency South Coast Village, Santa Ana, Calif.

Directed by Julian Temple, who directed the Sex Pistols documentary “The Filth and the Fury,” this is the only documentary that matters about the leader of the only band that mattered—Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros.

Cleverly interspersed throughout are clips from various film adaptations of George Orwell (“Animal Farm,” “1984”), audio from Joe Strummer’s own BBC radio show, and footage of a band called The Clash.

The film doesn’t play by certain tired rules of the genre, such as identifying who’s speaking, but it does provide previously unseen footage, obscure biographical information, and a redemptive narrative arc.

Truly inspiring.

Burmese Days II

Reports are that the Buddhist monasteries are being raided, monks beaten and arrested, and that internet traffic has been silenced in the military state of Myanmar/Burma.

Social harmony is preserved at the cost of freedom and civil liberties.

Burmese Days

Burma, the world is watching, or should be; photography bears witness and sites such as flickr and you tube do more to support democracy than most governments:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi
http://www.dassk.com/index.php

As of this writing, nine have been killed by the government, eleven wounded.

"What is valuable can not be obtained without effort."
-- Aung San Suu Kyi

Robert Lundahl at BC Space

Laguna Beach, Calif.

"On the Road to Little America," photography

Bebel Gilberto + Forro in the Dark

The Avalon, Hollywood

Unveiling of the Great Picture

Art Center South Campus; Pasadena, Calif.

Zap Mama, Brazilian Girls + Macy Gray

Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood, Calif.

Vik Muniz

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego—La Jolla

Friday night at Image Control

Valentine shoot

Santa Ana, Calif.

From Baton Rouge, her mother is friends with Andrei Codrescu, whom she called both "pretentious" and her favorite New Orleans writer.

Alexei Jawlensky at the Norton Simon

This afternoon I took a long meandering drive into the hellhole of Los Angeles, my way blocked at every turn, and instead of buying film at Freestyle I found refuge at the Norton Simon.

There was a show of paintings by Alexei Jawlensky downstairs. Initially I was unimpressed, but smaller early works like "The Hunchback" (1917) and "Helene" (1916) managed to go beyond rehashed Matisse; and the abstracted faces of the twenties, with their playful line and light, airy colors, made the show.



The faces of the thirties were darker, for darker times.

Minox B prints

Two rolls of Minox prints arrived today from Blue Moon in Portland, one color and one in sepia-toned black-and-white (printed on color paper). Once again, the results are lovely.

Every shot doesn’t work; for example, it was too dark in Kroll’s house to get much that was usable, but I knew that would most likely be the case. The picture of Renee at the kitchen sink, while underexposed, is at least a nice memento. The pictures of Carly in the bathroom are blurry but perhaps hold some interest. I don’t know if my focus was off or if she was just too much in motion.

Merv Griffin, R.I.P

Creator of Jeopardy.

The Invisible Man Returns (1940)

A very young and invisible Vincent Price starred in "The Invisible Man Returns" last night on KDOC. It was fun and I don't think motion pictures have improved all that much in years since it was made.

Lee Hazlewood R.I.P

"Sooner or later we all make the little flowers grow. . . ."

WSJ and Michelangelo Antonioni R.I.P

There are two deaths to report this afternoon: the purchase of the Wall Street Journal by Rupert Murdoch and the passing of Michelangelo Antonioni in Rome.

Ingmar Bergman and Tom Snyder R.I.P.

Bergman is playing chess with Death; Tom Snyder has signed off for the final time.

Orange County Fair -- Honorable Mention

"Urban Landscape" took honorable mention in the professional printmaking category, and (from what I understand) Noriho Uriu swept the rest of the awards. One of my relief prints from a previous year is reportedly also on display.

Friday nights at Image Control

I stopped in Friday morning to pick up work at Image Control, Orange County's last black-and-white photo lab and my former place of employment, at which time Ron invited me to the Friday night get-together after work.

Next Saturday night: Reflective Image Studios next door holds a reception for their inaugural show, featuring work by Katzenberger, Debora Nelson, et al.

Santa Ana Art Walk

Opening of Branin's studio and Carole Gelker at Amorviejo.

Carlotta Champagne shoot

Hollywood, California

La Vie en rose [La Môme] (2007)

At Lido Theater, Newport Beach

Laguna Beach Festival of Arts

Tonight was the invitation-only preview for the 75th annual Laguna Beach Festival of Arts. No comment on the Pageant of the Masters, a related event in which actors dress up as paintings for some reason; this was the art festival portion of the proceedings, and it was well attended . . . with food, wine and cleavage flowing freely.

Each year the exhibitors at the festival include a large number of printmakers, including Donna Westerman, Dirk Hagner, Noriho Uriu, Julita Jones, and Vinita Voogd. Dirk's woodcuts are always amazing, usually writers but this year a series of very interesting nudes printed from multipe blocks.

While waiting in line I had the thought of shooting a series of black-and-white portraits of printmakers, the way Renee King has been doing with photographers.

Perimeter no. 12

Excerpted page from Perimeter 12. Letterpress and relief print, 2006/2007.
click for larger view

Conversations with Eric Kroll

After shooting with Renee Wednesday night and into Thursday morning, I drove her up to Eric Kroll's place in Silverlake, from which she would leave for New York City.

Eric Kroll is not to everyone's tastes, but I was glad to meet him and thrilled just to be inside his home: on one wall, the huge Helmut Newton portrait of Andy Warhol; elsewhere, work by Larry Clark, Bunny Yeager, Eric Stanton, John Willie; a nude of the late model Gia.

We had a lot to talk about, since we've been shooting a lot of the same models, and from the moment we met he was insisting I show him my work. Of one piece, he said, "I think I've shot this girl." (True enough: she had worked with him the same day she shot with me.)

Looking at the image with his editor's eye he decided that, "this is good, I think." He liked my work but worried that the technique was getting in the way of the message. I'm supposed to send him more images at Taschen Books.

Renee was mostly silent as we sat on the porch and talked, but when he went into the other room to fetch a handful of vintage Bizarre magazines she said that she was seeing him in a different light. I wish I had a better idea what she meant.

Around 1:30 in the morning, when she announced that she was going to take a shower, she may have been a little scared when he said he would take one too . . . at least until he clarified that he'd wait until she was done.

Renee King shoot

Long Beach, California

Alexandra shoot

Sylmar, California

Nancy Chiu in Newport Beach

Nancy Chiu had a piece in a show that opened tonight at Cordell Surfboards on 31st Street in Newport Beach, along with some CSULB grad students and others. It was quite crowded actually, and the space got a bit steamy and tropical; but it was cool outdoors.

Zwartboek (2006)

At Bay Theater, Seal Beach

Paul Verhoeven's thoughtful tone poem on the Dutch Resistance of World War II. Not as funny as "Hogan's Heroes," but actress Carice van Houten has a really nice . . . smile. Contains nudity, but probably not enough.

Orange Coast Review reception

May 3 from 5-7 p.m. at Orange Coast College.

Les Anges exterminateurs (2006)

At Regency Academy Cinemas in Pasadena.

The Best and the Brightest

Now comes news that David Halberstam has been killed in a fiery car crash in Menlo Park. Horrible.

Alas, poor Boris

Boris Yeltsin has died, first president of the Russian Federation. He didn't amount to much in recent years, but in 1991 he seemed like a big man. That was a year before I was in Russia, when he was standing on top of Soviet tanks giving speeches in front of the Russian White House.

A year later, in 1993, the tanks were his and he was shelling that same White House, and the parliamentarians therein who had tried to impeach him. Another year passed and it was the start of the First Chechen War.

In 1999 he gave the world Vladimir Putin.

Update to the OC Review website

Update to the Orange Coast Review website; 2007 release party to be held May 3.

Jonathan Fletcher at Orange Coast College

Killer of Sheep (1977)

At the Nuart Theater in West Los Angeles.

literature & art

Davi Loren and I put the 2007 Orange Coast Review literary journal to bed last night; it should be at the printer this morning. We also ordered 1,000 postcards for the reception to be held May 3 at Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, California.

Also yesterday I noticed in the New Yorker that Robert Seydel, whom we used in a previous issue, has a show currently at CUE Art Foundation in Chelsea.

Here's a review.

Nia Jex shoot

John Sexton at Cypress College

Wearing an Ansel Adams beard, brown vest, blue shirt, bolo tie and blue jeans, large-format landscape photographer John Sexton spoke for two hours at Cypress College last night. It was very inspiring, even though I had just received confirmation from Ron Regev that Image Control, Orange County's last and best black-and-white lab, is indeed closing. . . .

Isobel Wren shoot

Westminster, California

'Does Anybody Here Remember Vera Lynn?'

Vera Lynn, singer of "The White Cliffs of Dover" and "We'll Meet Again," celebrated her 90th birthday yesterday in England.

The World War II-era song "We'll Meet Again" was last heard in the closing credits of Dr. Strangelove, and referenced by Roger Waters in Pink Floyd's The Wall.

Liz Ashley shoot

Last Sunday I shot with Liz Ashley at the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo. It was great. <. . .>

A Day in the Life

Scouted locations this morning with Courtenay for her next shoot for Laguna Life and People, read some of the Diane Arbus biography she had on her coffee table, scanned some negatives, and then went to see a show of student work at CSULB at the invitation of Nancy Chiu. One student in the printmaking exhibit was Donna Champagne, who came out of Orange Coast College.

Los Corazónes

Last night was a closing reception at Amorviejo Gallery in Santa Ana. Included in the show were Carole Gelker, Tom and Lisa Dowling and Michael Maas, the latter of whom was once on an episode of Downtown with Huell Howser.

The Mystery of Picasso (1965)

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art this weekend, the 1956 film "La Mystere de Picasso." At first it seemed like it was going to be boring, these black-and-white Picasso scribbles slowly appearing on the movie screen, line by line, piece by piece, until the drawing is finished. Then another drawing. Then another. Then something a little more cubist. Then another.

But eventually they pulled back for a moment and showed the little man behind the curtain; showed how it was all being done. In a darkened studio, old Mr. Picasso drawing on the back of a white surface set up and filmed in such a way that he, the artist, was not visible, only the art.

Then they started to run out of film. The artist said he wanted to try something more precarious. Pulling out the oils, he did a larger format painting which morphed and changed in a series of animated freeze-frames. After a short time, the finished piece and the director's voice, in French: "I'm worried that the audience will think you did this in ten minutes."

"How long did it take?" asks Picasso.

"Five hours!"

"So now they know."

Fake Plastic Trees

George Katzenberger's "Impostors" show opened last night at Cypress College. . . .

Centered, Self-

"Centered on the Center" is a salon-style, unjuried group show put on by the Huntington Beach Art Center every year in January. It's always a mixed bag, but nicely arranged. I have an etching and a linocut in this year's show, which opened tonight.

The Pleasures of Old-Time Television

Tonight's episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, "Anyone for Murder?"

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour airs locally on KDOC-TV, followed by The Twilight Zone. "Anyone for Murder?" starred a couple of Twilight Zone alumni as well as a young Richard Dawson. This was 1964, a year before Hogan's Heroes and well before Family Feud.

A previous episode had Barney Martin, better known to most of us as Morty Seinfeld.

But most exciting for me was "Murder Case" (1964), featuring not only the husband and wife team of John Cassavettes and Gena Rowlands but also John Banner as the Dutch customs man who foils their scheme. This was a year before Banner was to become a bit better known as Sgt. Schultz, who never foiled a thing in Hogan's Heroes.