William Horberg

Nelson Algren Remembered

Nice article by David L. Ulin in the Los Angeles Times last Sunday acknowledging the faded legacy of one of my favorite writers of the 20th Century, the poet of the dispossessed of Chicago's mean streets, Nelson Algren.

Among the many interesting quotes in the article from Algren fans like Don Delillo and Barry Gifford who were in Chicago for a one-night-only performance of a show at Steppenwolf Theatre based on the book length interview with Algren by writer H.E.F Donohue published in the early 1960's as "Conversations With Nelson Algren", the one that stood out most to me was from the master writer himself:

"What is literature?" Jean Paul Sartre once asked in a small volume bearing that title.

"I submit that literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by conscience in touch with humanity." Algren replied.

Conscience in touch with humanity. Boy do we need more of that today!

william

There Is Always Somebody More Hard Core Than You Are

One great thing about the internet is how communities are formed around almost ANY special area of interest or information or passion or knowledge. 

Whether it is the Art of Papercutting, which my wife Elsa has turned into a movement over at her blog The Heart of Papercuts, or Vinyl Record Albums with Cartoon Drawings On The Cover, which my friend Peter Hannan turned me on to, it is amazing how deep and specialized the collection of human creative effort is on the 'net.

Like I thought I was pretty down with the Film Noir genre until I came across the folks at Noir City Sentinel. Check out some of the articles in their first annual issue:

Great illustration!

And I was just coming to grips with the Femme Fatale: Jane Greer in "Out of the Past"; Peggy Cummings in "Gun Crazy". 

But now I've got to go Beyond!

Some controversial choices here by Mr. Beetner. 

"Detour" overrated??? "The People Against O'Hara" comes out on top of "The Naked City"? 

Hmmm. 

But good for him for shouting out some titles that I definitely need to catch up on, like "The Breaking Point" (1950) with John Garfield, or "Too Late for Tears" with the sulty Lizbeth Scott (whatever DID happen to that "E"?)!

They even had an article on the noir comic books of EC genius Johnny Craig!!

No matter what vineyard you toil in, in your public life or your private dreams, there is always someone more hard core than you are, and the editors, writers and subscribers to Noir City Sentinel are certainly the inner circle of Film Noir cognoscenti!

william

Chicago Noir

The advertisement in the LA Weekly was just too appealing. I clipped it out and kept it in my wallet all week. And Sunday night, when the kids were tucked in bed and the dishes were cleaned and put away, and I'd closed the cover on the last screenplay of my weekend read, I kissed Elsa, threw on a light jacket, and cruised over to the American Cinematheque at the classic Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. just in time to catch the second half of the double bill in their Film Noir Series.

The attraction: a rare 35mm screening of the never-on-dvd Fred Sears feature "Chicago Syndicate"!

Filmed on location in Chicago in the mid-fifties, and starring Dennis O'Keefe (so memorable in Anthony Mann's T-Men and Raw Deal) and Abbe Lane (a nightclub singer who was married to Xavier Cugat) and Alison Owen (Nancy Archer in The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman), the film is primarily fascinating today as a document of the city as it was back then, from Michigan Avenue and Lake Shore Drive to the elevated and the underground, from the Field Museum to the ending, a shootout on Maxwell Street, it was really a gas to see Chicago get the noir treatment in gritty black and white.

Xavier Cugat himself even gets into the act playing Cuban bandleader Benny Chico, and the great character actor Paul Stewart runs the Chicago syndicate, having grown up on Maxwell Street and learned at the feet of Al Capone and Big Jim Colosimo, as his character says at one point in the story.

I'd love to have a copy of this. It would be fun to go frame by frame and identify all of the various buildings and streets of the City of Big Shoulders. Thanks to the American Cinematheque and their great Noir series for pulling it out of the mothballs for one evening.

william

Walkin'

"I don't know - what you've ever done - with don't care who - but Walkin' is - my favorite thing - for cats and chicks to do..."       - Jon Hendricks (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)

The 2009 Walk Now For Autism was a rousing success, and Elsa, Miro, Natalie, Diego and I thank EVERYONE who supported Team Diego and walked with us in spirit on Saturday. Diego's friends contributed a staggering $14,740 towards the over $1 million dollars raised for Autism research, making us ONE OF THE TOP SEVEN FUNDRAISING TEAMS at the march! Way to go, Diego!

Even Barack Obama was there (well at least his cardboard effigy) but as one speaker pointed out, the new administration has already acted to target funds for children with special needs in the budget.

There was, as usual, lots of awesome creativity on display, as families made homemade signs and wore color-coordinated t-shirts.

Team Diego was admittedly a bit more rag-tag in style, but Miro, Elsa, Phil Bray, Billy Wimsatt, Natalie and Diego were not to be outdone in comfort!

Yes, I know it was called a WALK, and walking may be okay for some people, but Prince Diego discovered that it was more fun to be pushed around in style in his chariot (I mean stroller), and having a tasty lollipop to enjoy didn't hurt either.

Mom and sister shared a relaxing moment in the Grand Club tent before we headed out for our circuit around the Rose Bowl.

Probably a bit early in the morning for teenage big brother Miro, but we appreciated that he made the effort to join us, and Diego was sooo happy that he was there with us.

As one of the top fundraisers, we were invited up on stage before the Walk. You can see that new Fuji Instax 200 camera I wrote about in an earlier post, hanging around my neck, and it was put to good use bringing you the widescreen instant photographs here on the blog. Except for this one below of course, which comes courtesy of Phil 'the still" Bray! Phil isn't family, but he's LIKE family, and we so appreciate that he made the walk with us. Thanks, dude.

The view from on stage was inspiring. What a sea of humanity. Last year was a sweltering day in Pasadena, but this Saturday was glorious, sunny and cool enough that the throngs of walkers crowding the Rose Bowl parking lot were in great spirits.

After the walk, Diego checked out some of the activities offered by various vendors who had set up tents at the event. A small petting zoo with goats and bunny rabbits was tough to pull away from. And Richard Jenkins percussion group in "The Visitor" had nothing on the Drum Circle being held by the therapists from Holding Hands, and Diego dove in with glee, showing off his Cuban heritage with some 3/4 and 5/7 rhythms!! 

We are so grateful for all of the support you've shown Diego and for stepping up for this important cause. In this time of financial crisis, budgets everywhere that fund and support education and programs for children with special needs are being slashed. Now more than ever we need to raise our voice on behalf of those who need our help the most.

If you haven't already done so, you can still make a donation at:

http://www.walknowforautism.org/losangeles/diego

Thank you!

william

One Sheet by Natalie

I was explaining to young Natalie the other day how far the center of gravity has shifted in contemporary Hollywood, with the new masters of the universe being not the producers nor the filmmakers, but the heads of marketing and creative advertising.

She's such a quick study, it didn't take much for her to come back to me with her first effort at a One Sheet.

Not bad!

:)

william

Walk Now For Autism

Tomorrow is our second annual walk to raise money and awareness about Autism, a developmental disorder which is affecting 1 in every 150 children born in America today.

The event is sponsored by Autism Speaks, a national organization that is leading the fight for funding, research, legislation, and support for the millions of families whose children have been diagnosed as being on what is known as the Autistic Spectrum.

If you are unfamiliar with the nature of Autism, this simple cartoon illustration is a shorthand way of describing some of the behavior that can be typical of children (or adults) with autism.

The Walk takes place at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Last year there were over 15,000 people there and it was a very moving experience to be amongst so many people struggling with similar experiences, sharing stories and ideas and celebrating the uniqueness of these special kids.

It is hard for us to believe that a year has gone by since our last walk, but what a year it has been for young Diego. He is a completely different boy today thanks to the intensive intervention we have been engaged in, with the help of our great team of therapists and doctors and teachers and friends and family, especially his big brother Miro and big sister Natalie, who are of course his best teachers and role models.

Thank you to all of the many people who have donated money to the Walk. If you are interested in joining them and supporting us, you can still make a tax deductible donation to Autism Speaks on the Diego's Friends website at

http://www.walknowforautism.org/losangeles/diego

It's a great cause, and you will be walking with us in spirit.

Go, Diego, go!!

william

The First Graphic Novel

I picked up a copy of "It Rhymes With Lust" the other day, not only to find out "what" exactly rhymes with "lust" (of course I assumed it was "bust", but it turned out to be the femme fatale lead characters name of "Rust"), but also because it was billed as "the first graphic novel".

Closer examination of the history of comic books and illustrated art might find competition to the claim (I am a huge fan of the woodcut novels of artist Lynn Ward, for instance), but the publisher makes the point that this book was the first to tell a full book length story with panels and dialogue balloons in a recognizable comic art style.

And what made that style recognizable was one of the more interesting surprises to me. As demonstrated by this captivating cover, the artist had a real flair for drawing women, and not just typical Good Girl Art, but women with real personality and distinct style - individuals.

The artist's name was Matt Baker, and his bibliography is full of some of the most commercial, all-white Teen Romance comic books that came to define 1950's youth culture. 

And yet Matt Baker was a black man, who was born in North Carolina in 1921, grew up in Pittsburgh, and moved to New York to study art at Cooper Union before joining the Jerry Iger studio, one of the early shops that supplied art from mostly anonymous artists to the comics publishing houses.

In racist 1940's America this anonymity turned out to serve Baker well. He was one of the few African-American artists in that trade, and he worked constantly as his reputation as the finest artist to draw women spread from his early work on "Sheena of the Jungle" to "Phantom Lady", "Tiger Girl", "Sky Girl" and other strips.

I'd love to read a real biography of this mostly forgotten man, as the few sketches I have found about him make him out to be a real player, a Harlem dandy of fine dress and, of course, a ladykiller.

Sadly, he died of a heart attack in his sleep in 1959 at the age of 38.

But his work lives on, and it was cool that they reprinted this seminal early example of the graphic novel and we can learn about Matt Baker's role in shaping one our most enduring and ever popular forms of storytelling.

william

Can't Stop Smiling

Hugh Hefner, Mike Royko, William Friedkin, Roger Ebert, Studs Terkel, they are all there, within the pages of Stop Smiling's great Chicago Issue. 

This bench is sooo deep there are even reviews of the re-release of two classic Chicago publications, "Big Bill of Chicago" and "Lords of the Levee: The Story of Bathhouse John and Hinky Dink" by Lloyd Wendt and my friend Rick Kogan's father Herman Kogan.

One of my favorite articles was on the Birth of Chicago Comedy by Jeff Griggs, who wrote a book about one of the funniest and least known (except within the comedy world where he is a revered figure) comedians, Second City's in-house master of improvisation, Del Close. 

Griggs gives us brief biographical sketches of Mort Sahl, Shelly Berman, Nichols and May, and even Dick Gregory, who was influenced by his predecessors Nipsey Russell, Godfrey Cambridge and Redd Foxx, and became the first black comedian to perform at the then prestigious Playboy Club in Chicago.

And what tour of Chicago cultural icons would be complete without at least a mention of the great Curtis Mayfield, who came from a musical family on the West Side, started The Impressions when he was 13 years old, famously wrote the songs for the blaxploitation classic "Superfly" and even had his own record label, Curtom. 

He was paralyzed from the neck down in a tragic accident in 1990, but before his untimely death in 1999, he recorded a final album, one breath at a time, called New World Order. 

So in honor of Curtis and all of the artists who came from the streets of Chicago and made it into the pages of Stop Smiling magazine, take your own deep breath, and keep on smiling!

:)

william

Keep Smiling

Here is an iconic photograph of the Ramsey Lewis Trio on Michigan Avenue in Chicago in the 1960's from the great magazine STOP SMILING. I love this shot and the energy and optimism is conveys.

STOP SMILING has a theme for each issue. The first one I cracked open was the Jazz issue, with my all-time hero flute player and multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy on the cover and interviews inside with the likes of vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson (pictured below) and photos from the great William Claxton and others. 

If that wasn't enough to keep the drool flowing, then there was a deep dish Chicago issue covering politics and sports and local cultural icons old and new, with old school characters like the radio host Dick Buckley (pictured above with Joe Williams and Count Basie) or comedian Mort Sahl or published Hugh Hefner inside.

If that's not a reason to smile, what is?

william

Start Smiling

I left Chicago in 1986, and even though I have been back many many times since then, in some way the city still remains in my mind the way it was then, and the myriad changes since then, of gentrification and development, shifting demographics, disappearing landmarks and cultural artifacts, are all details that have mostly escaped my attention as the beat goes on and on.

   

Therefore, one of the things that never made it on to my radar out here on the West Coast was the publication of one of the best magazines I have ever stumbled across, the Chicago-based STOP SMILING.

My sister brought me out two back-issue copies for my birthday this year, and if someone had sat down to design a collection of words and images that, story by story and topic by topic and shot by shot, hit the very center of the sweet spot of my eclectic range of interests, STOP SMILING would be it.

It is described as a magazine for "high-minded lowlifes", and I don't know if this fits me or not, but you can check out their website here. I almost feel like I should just link my blog to their content, since almost all of my own subjects of passion are covered so beautifully within their pages. Or maybe they will just make me an honorary member?

In any event, I will feature some of my favorite STOP SMILING excerpts here, and urge you to check them out on your own, as I have just begun to scratch the surface of their backlist issues.

Thanks, sis!

william