William Horberg

Wonderful Lines

From the same book from Cuba - Las Maravillas del Mundo - comes these simple line drawings of the Coliseum and the Taj Mahal. 

No way to know who the illustrator was. Nothing too sophisticated about them, but I enjoyed the drawing book style, and printed them out so that Natalie and Diego could color them in.

I remember many a late night and crack of dawn driving past the Coliseum on my way to or from CInecitta Studios on the outskirts of Rome when we were shooting "The Talented Mr. Ripley". And a crazy great party that our costume designer Ann Roth threw for the crew and a few thousand of her local fans and friends that was shut down a few times by the carabinieri, or local police, in her flat a few blocks away from the Colisuem.

 

I've never been to the Taj but would love to get there someday!
 

Enjoy!

william
 

Las Maravillas del Mundo

In my continuing search for all things Wonderful, I came across this very old Golden Book of Stamps from Cuba called The Wonders of the World. 

Familiar icons like the Coliseum, the Pyramids of Giza and the Taj Mahal are joined by more Latino-centic wonders like Lake Titicaca and the Panama Canal.

The owner very meticulously collected all of these stamps and placed them in the album. 

Hard to find something like this with all the pieces intact today.

I enjoy these collections of things that we consider wonderful wherever they come from - with all the crap that the world is experiencing right now, it is nice to remember how much beauty nature and man are capable of creating.

Enjoy!

william

 

Social Darwinism

It's funny when you stumble up something extinct. Like species and attitudes, some survive and some don't. 

I had never heard of Park East Magazine before I found this copy from October 1951. But this cousin of The New Yorker clearly had many of the same qualities as that more successful, venerable and extant publication.

An in-depth article about the exiled family of the former King Alexander of Yugoslavia even included this nice side bar of photographs and statistical information about some other deposed or dethroned blue-bloods, down to their last millions, like Michael of Romania or Umberto of Italy.

 

This one panel gag cartoon by Larry Frick was certainly as punchy as anything The New Yorker carried, but you almost feel like the editors there must have passed this over before it found its way into the pages of Park East.

The New Yorker may have had the venerable Wolcott Gibbs as drama critic, but here was Gilbert Seldes holding forth on The Lively Arts. 

Funny to read his essay here about the End of Hollywood circa 1951 as the real money pours into Tv Pilots - "one picture running about 25 minutes with ample room for introductions and commercials"  - instead of features. In an industry defined by constant change, I guess it is no surprise that "The End Is Near" is one of its most persistent titles.

 
 

I don't know exactly when Park East stopped publishing, but their end must have also been near by the time Seldes wrote his article.

The competition for survival in their particular niche, that special intellectual cocktail for "the carriage set" that included essays, fiction, cartoons, music, dance and theatre reviews geared towards the inhabitants of the island of Manhattan, left them unfit, like some 20th Century Dodo bird.

william

James Gammon

The wonderful character actor James Gammon passed away this week. 

We were graced with his performance as "Esco Swanger" in "Cold Mountain", which he inhabited like an old glove. He had such a great look and voice, and an easy kind of naturalism; he looked like he was born and grew old right on our location.

We filmed the scenes at the Swanger Farm at a high elevation of about 8 or 9,000 feet in the early Fall of 2002 in what could charitably be called the ski-resort town of Poiana Brasov about 3 1/2 hours north of Bucharest in the mountains of Transylvania in Romania.

It wasn't the easiest place to live and work. In fact, one of the primary virtues of being there as far as the movie was concerned was the total lack of modernity - it truly felt like the cast and crew were living in the 19th century most of the time we were on location up there.

As the on-screen husband of Sally Swanger in the movie, played by Kathy Baker, he has one of my favorite lines, and he delivered in with exactly the right love and weariness: 

			ESCO

 -- more than I can do to keep this 
 place half-managed. I'm ready-to 
 stop, I tell you. I just want to sit 
 on my porch with Sal, watch my boys 
 in the field, holler good job! every 
 hour or so.

What a universal sentiment - the joy of watching your children grown up, the chance to grow old with the contentment of being a proud parent, having a place you can call home, and loved ones to enjoy it with.

I hope James is kicked back on that porch right now, and he can hear us holler - "Good job!"

william

What's A Mook?

Remember that classic scene in "Mean Streets"?

Johnny Boy: Hey, why don't you lower the jukebox, I can't hear nothin'. 
Joey 'Clams' Scala: Hey, the girls like the music loud. 
Johnny Boy: Girls. You call those skanks girls? 
Joey 'Clams' Scala: [to Charlie] Hey, what's a matter with this kid, huh? 
Johnny Boy: Hey, there ain't nothin' wrong with me my friend, I'm feelin' fine. 
Charlie: Keep your mouth shut. 
Johnny Boy: You tell me that in front of this asshole? 
Joey 'Clams' Scala: Alright, alright, we're not gonna pay. We're not paying. 
Jimmy: But why? Joey, we just said we were gonna have a drink. 
Joey 'Clams' Scala: [Joey interupts] We're not payin', because this guy, this guy's a fuckin' mook. 
Jimmy: But I didn't say nothin'. 
Joey 'Clams' Scala: And we don't pay mooks. 
Jimmy: Mook? I'm a mook? 
Joey 'Clams' Scala: Yeah 
Jimmy: What's a mook? 
Johnny Boy: A mook, what's a mook? 
Tony DeVienazo: I don't know... 
Johnny Boy: What's a mook? 
Jimmy: You can't call me a mook! 
Joey 'Clams' Scala: I can't? 
Jimmy: No... 
Joey 'Clams' Scala: [pause] I'll give you mook! 
[punches Jimmy in the face] 

That is the only context in which I had ever heard the word "mook".

Until now. 

It turns out that in publishing parlance, a "Mook" is printed material that is neither a book, nor a magazine, but the ultimate fusion of the two. Here is an ad for a mook called Super7 for "collectors, aficionados and self-proclaimed toy geeks" from Japan.

 

It turns out to have multiple other meanings as well. According to the online Urban Dictionary, "mook" was:

- Possibly first used in the roleplaying milieu in the game "Feng Shui" by Robin Laws. 
- Possibly derived from "mook jung", the wooden training dummy used in wing chun style martial arts. 
- derivative of the word mooseknuckle
- That guy at your high school who used to be really popular when he was an underclassman, but now he sleeps with popular girls to get attention.

Hey, who you callin' a mook?

william

(De)ception

I saw a mind-altering new movie from Warner Bros. starring Leonardo diCaprio on Friday.

I went to the matinee and the theatre was packed for this sold out show.

It had spectacular eye-popping visuals and explored profound philosophical questions about the nature of the universe.

It posed the question "what is reality?" and what is our place in the cosmic order of things.

It was that rare summer movie experience that made me think and left me in tears as it found an emotional depth you seldom see in the cinemas these days.

The movie: 

Nope, not the Chris Nolan blockbuster. It was HUBBLE 3-D at the Imax. 

Narrated by Leonardo diCaprio. 

The thrilling story of the history of the Hubble Space Telescope and the final repair mission that produced some of the most spectacular images and insight into the nature of the universe ever recorded by man.

Check it out!

Enjoy!

william

P.S. A big thanks to all of my Joke Caption writers for Friday's cartoon. Every one made me chuckle. Nice to know the witty readers who hang around this blog!

He's Got Something To Say

I love this old drawing by a cartoonist who signed his work "Frosty" (anyone know more about him??).

But I didn't think the caption did it justice. In the spirit of those fill-in-the-blank cartoons in the back of The New Yorker each week, I thought I'd let you guys do the work today, and tell me what is on this little guy's mind?

Does that kid look angry or beatific?

What are those two Dads doing with this tyke and his electrified perambulator? Did one of them rig the whole thing up? Or did they come across him abandoned on the sidewalk? And who lives in that smoking chimney house behind them?

Enjoy!

william

 

The Bump

Remember "The Bump"?

Kind of like a hip-check in hockey by way of Don Cornelius and Soul Train! If anything says "1970's on the south side of Chicago" to me, it is this photograph of hip meeting hip on the dance floor, especially with those white bell bottoms in mid-swirl.

These wonderful pictures that capture a long gone era can be found in an unusual book/vinyl record combination called "Light On The South Side", published by The Numero Group. The photographer is Michael Abramson, and the shots were taken in the few short years between 1975-1977, just when I was graduating high school. His genius was to turn the camera away from the legendary blues and R&B musicians whose music was filling up the dance floor and on to the customers who packed clubs like Pepper's and Teresa's and Perv's House.

My 33 rpm stereo turntable is long gone and my vinyl records have been packed in heavy boxes in the garage for the last few decades. So I haven't been able to play what looks like 2 amazing records full of obscure 70's soul inside. But talk about a motivation to get back to the pre-digital, pre-CD sounds! 

I never had a big apple hat like this dancer, but I'm sure there are a few photos of me from that era that would look equally funky!

Enjoy!

william

 
 

 

Remarkable Me

It has been a few years since I went inside a movie theatre. In fact, I think the last movie I saw that was not at home on a dvd was when my Dad took Natalie and I to a screening of Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

It is not unusual for kids like me on the autism spectrum to find the experience of watching movies in a theatre overwhelming. The sound and lights and crowd combine for a sensory overload, and we get really disregulated.

The last time Mom and Dad tried to take me to see a movie was when we were in Chicago visiting my Grandmother. I really, really, really wanted to see the movie "Up". In fact, I had been seeing billboards for "Up" everywhere we drove in Los Angeles. I had even seen the trailer for "Up" many times on YouTube. But when we got into the lobby of the theatre for showtime, I freaked out. Yep. I just did not want to go inside that dark auditorium. No way. I laid down on the floor and would not move! So my Dad waited outside in the lobby with me while the rest of the family watched the movie. I didn't mind, I was just happy not to go into that loud terrifying place.

Dad tried a few more times back home, because he knows how much I love movies, but just walking into the lobby of a movie theatre gave me the willies. 

Coraline. Didn't see. Fantastic Mr. Fox. Waited for dvd. Even Toy Story 3. See you when you come out on home video, Buzz.

But Saturday was my birthday. I turned five years old. My Dad got me a mini-chocolate cupcake. I ate it and got the frosting all over the back seat of Dad's car. And I felt great. Unstoppable even. And I can't tell you how many times I have watched ALL of the different trailers and video clips and behind-the-scenes teasers of that Despicable Me movie on YouTube. 

Yes, I taught myself how to open Safari now, and I can type D-e-s-p-i-c-a-b-l-e M-e into the search engine, and when I find the menu of all of the video content, I can watch it and replay it. So cool.

Which is just a lot of words to say that I told my Dad to take me to Despicable Me, and I walked right into that theatre, bought my ticket, got some popcorn, and sat down totally excited. My Dad warned the patrons around us that I might talk through the movie, but they did not seem to mind. 

In fact, I knew more about the movie than most of the other people in the theatre so I kind of narrated all the cool moments that I had memorized from YouTube. I was pretty loud, but that is the kind of enthusiasm that I imagine the people who made Despicable Me would love to see from a kid..

And can I tell those people right now - I LOVE THAT MOVIE. 

I think it was the best movie I've ever seen. I LOVE GRU. I LOVE VECTOR. I even love KYLE! Can you believe it? I can't wait to see that movie again. And when you love something as much as I loved watching Despicable Me, I don't know how it happens, but I wasn't scared, and although I was talking pretty loud and flapping my hands and even jumping up and down sometimes, you know, I felt pretty regulated and focused for those 90 minutes of fun.

Thanks, Minions, for making the movie theatre a safe place for me again!!

love,

Diego

 

Cinema Treasures

In 1979, Albert Berger and I took a lease on the Sandburg Theatre on the Near North side of Chicago, and reopened it as a repertory cinema showing classic films in double-features that changed three times a week. We learned the history of the theatre, which had previously been owned and operated as the Playboy Cinema in the 1970's, and before that as the Surf, and had its origins as a vaudeville theatre going all the way back to the 1920's.

 

The Sandburg was torn down in the early '80's to make way for a Walgreen's drug store which still operates on that site.

Now there is a website that catalogues and provides a forum for information about old movie theatres around the country and around the world and efforts to save them.

 

Cinema Treasures is where I found a list of Havana's old deco movie palaces, and which ones are still open and operating today.

 

Cine 23 y 12, the Riviera, La Rampa,and el Yara are colorful houses of cinema that have survived to the present day.

Cine San Francisco, above, looks like it could be ready for a restoration and refurbishment. Its architectural facade certainly gives hint of its former splendor. 

Maybe it will reopen one day and be a home to a Cinematheque for classic Latin American films - a kind of Sandburg Theatre for the rich heritage of Cuban, Mexican, Brazilian, Argentinian and other home grown cinemas of the South?

A nice, air-conditioned Friday night screening of Tomas Gutierrez Alea's "Memories of Underdevelopment" in a restored 35mm print on the silver screen?

Hmm, who wants to join me?

william