William Horberg

Inventing Halloween

Thanks to spookshows.com for their wonderful collection of vintage halloween memorabilia and photographs, including these patent applications for various Jack O'Lantern toy designs.

Fun to see that back in 1902 ingenious minds were already at work tinkering and inventing, and the commercialization and commodification of our culture and our holidays that would come to define our 20th Century was starting.

The candle design of Mr. A.B. Herd may have given way to a battery-operated version by R.R. Authier in the 1960's but the incandescent spirit of what started as the Celtic festival of Samhain and later became All Hallow's Eve, really can't be patented.

Happy Halloween to all.

Enjoy!

william

Night Moves

Today's post is to belatedly add my voice to the chorus of those remembering and honoring Arthur Penn as an important and great film director and a great man.

I can't match Dave Kehr's beautiful obituary in the New York TImes for its scholarly detail or poetic expression in recalling the life and achievement of the man whose "Bonnie and Clyde" was one of the seminal films for a whole generation.

But I can add a personal reminiscence, as Penn's son Matthew was a freshman classmate of mine at Wesleyan University in 1976 (he was a wonderful, if loud, drummer-in-training then; I see that he is also a film director now and has some good work listed on his imdb page!).

Wesleyan in the seventies was a wonderful place to discover the work of "auteur" directors like Penn through screenings of films well-known like "Little Big Man" and less-known ones like "Mickey One", and knowing the director's son probably gave those films an extra-cool factor for us.

It may have been our inspiration a few years later when we were running the Sandburg Theatre on Chicago's Near North Side to decide to have an Arthur Penn Film Festival, and to be bold enough to invite the director to attend and participate in an on stage interview at the theatre with local film critic Roger Ebert. The fact that we didn't actually have a stage at the Sandburg should have been an impediment if we'd actually given it any thought, but some hastily improvised risers and a few folding chairs were all that we ultimately needed to bring our honored guests to the gathered crowd of cineastes.

If memory serves me "Alice's Restaurant", "The Miracle Worker", "Little Big Man", "MIssouri Breaks" and "The Chase" were all served up in 35mm prints that weekend, along with my personal favorite of Penn's films, the more obscure "Night Moves" starring Gene Hackman as private-eye Harry Moseby and a very young Melanie Griffith as the object of his detective's search.

Along with the chance to hear this fascinating articulate filmmaker talk about his work, the highlight of the evening for us was taking him out to dinner afterwards with Ebert at the old Como Inn Restaurant, a classic Chicago Italian watering hole over on Milwaukee Avenue near Grand.

Bonnie and Clyde themselves might have been comfortable with some of the Chicago mobsters who called that place home over the many decades it served its patrons admirably.

It was a fitting setting for our small dinner party with this witty and urbane New York theatre and television director who told us that when he was called out to Hollywood to make his first picture, the Paul Newman western "The Left Handed Gun", after the 1st AD yelled "action" for the first set up on the first day of the shoot, he didn't know that he was the one who was supposed to call "cut" on the set, and after Newman crossed frame a whole wagon-train worth of horses and livestock paraded endlessly past the camera as the film kept rolling and rolling and everyone in the crew stood looking at him questioningly.

Life finally called "cut" on Arthur Penn a few weeks ago, but his work will be seen and remain vital forever.

william

Tina Fey Wrote This Book For Me

Usually when someone says the exact opposite of what they mean, we presume they are a politician.

But it is wonderful to see Diego's mind grappling with grammar and starting to speak in more complete sentences, even if the meaning sometimes takes a little decoding.

"You're going to miss me" is true, but it often means "I'm going to miss you" too. Or when Diego told the babysitter the other night "You really like me, sir", everyone understood that he was saying "I really like you, Miss".

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so Natalie should be flattered that Diego has suddenly and spontaneously followed her into the realm of writing and drawing and self-publishing books.

Grabbing some paper and pencil the other day he disappeared into the kitchen and came back a few minutes later with a book!

His latest creation is "The Little Leaf by Tina Fey".

When he came in and surprised us with this handmade gem, he very sincerely let us know that "Tina Fey wrote this book for me. She's always writing children's books when I was a little girl."

The Little Leaf by Tina Fey

Hmm. I love dinner.

Where is Mindpen.

Hmm. Outside.

I hear you.

The End

I was curious who Mindpen was, and Diego clarified that Mindpen is The Little Leaf's pet dog.

Diego doesn't watch "30 Rock" but he has discovered the power of Google and has taught himself to read and write, and he is the master of searching for trailers of new kid's movies on the computer.

Tina Fey's role as the voice of Roxanne Ritchi in the new Dreamworks movie "Megamind" seems to be Diego's latest creative muse and inspiration.

Placing himself squarely in the Dadaist tradition of Tristan Tzara or the literary practitioner's of the "cut-up" technique like William Burroughs, Diego's imaginative exploration of the malleability of language feels like part of an overall creative explosion he is experiencing, as he moves from the more typical autistic expression of "scripting" (or memorizing and repeating text verbatim, from a movie or tv show for instance) to a more richly expressive and personal creative dialogue with the world.

We see it in kindergarten, in his art class, and in general.

Go, Diego, Go!

(And thanks, Tina Fey, for being so inspiring to my son!)

william

 

Walking

Oh the things we take for granted. Something as simple as walking. Putting one foot in front of the other. What could be less in the forefront of our consciousness most of our waking days?

This is one of the last images of me walking around on two feet. It was our last weekend in Malaysia, and the miles long stretch of the deserted government city of Putrajaya was the place for this moody shot. If it was meant to be ominous, I wasn't paying attention. Like I wasn't paying attention to those two feet propelling me down the cobblestone street.

I've been pogo-ing around on crutches for the last few months, and paying an awful lot of attention to my recovering foot, but yesterday I got the all-clear from the Doc to start putting some weight on my leg and taking the first baby steps towards walking again.

Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone?

How MANY things in our lives could we say the same thing about?  

We don't get to choose the events that make us stand up and pay attention to the little things, or to stop and smell the roses; we just get to choose whether we heed the call.

Enjoy!

william

 

Monsters and Heroes

Here is another Fanzine of yore dedicated to the masters of 20th Century pulp and fantastic literature - issue #6 of Larry Ivie's Monsters and Heroes.

One of the earliest and most enduring science fiction, fantasy and adventure authors was the former pencil-sharpener wholesaler Edgar Rice Burroughs who realized in 1911 that he could "write stories as rotten as those he read in the pulp magazines" of that time, and by 1912 had written the first Tarzan novel. Ivie dedicates much of the magazine to an appreciation of another of Burrough's famous creations - the Mars series, featuring John Carter of Mars.

After decades of failed development and false starts, a big screen live-action version of John Carter of Mars is finally getting made and coming in 2012 to a theatre near you. Directed by Andrew Stanton the genius behind Wall-E and Toy Story 3 and with a screenplay by Michael Chabon ("The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay"), I have high hopes for this one! 

Ivies used his power as publisher to include some of his own artwork in this issue including this black and white page, and this full color illustration he drew for the back cover.

Pretty nice!

Apologies to you and to Larry for the poor condition of the black and white image - there was a tear right down the middle of the page of my only copy, and I sure didn't think I'd find another edition of this obscure 1960's fanzine any time soon.

Enjoy!

william

 

Fanzines

Before the world wide web, before ComicCon became the center of the universe of American popular culture, before Aint-It-Cool-News and the rise of the geek fanboy, before toys became movies and movies became toys, there was a smaller world of fans and collectors who started to take comic books and comic book artists and the early 20th century writers of pulp and fantastic literature seriously, and their chosen medium for sharing their passion was known as the Fanzine.

One of the first was known as SpaFon and I came across issue #4 from 1968 the other day and thought it worth sharing with you here.

As far as I can tell from the masthead, SpaFon was the brainchild of a dedicated group of enthusiastic Chicagoans named Rich Hauser, James Broecker, Pete Krup, and Helmut Mueller. Back in that summer of '68 you could even send in 75¢ and order back issues from Hauser at 4519 N. Richmond, Chicago, Il 60625. I wonder if there are still some rotting cardboard boxes of old issues of SpaFon gathering dust in that North Side basement?

 

Their dedication page is a wonderful concatenation of some of the pop-culture touchstones of the day for a hipster of that era, including artists Berni Wrightson and Maxfield Parrish, singers Spike Jonze, Tiny Tim and Donovan, golfer Babe Zaharias and immortally inept New York Met "Marvelous" Marv Throneberry.

Wrightson was a contributor to SpaFon and the subject of adoring fan essays. Here is a wonderful Wrightson drawing featured in issue #4.

As the most touching sign of the times, there is even a cartoon illustration in the back of the magazine dedicated to contributing editor Helmut, who was going off to the war in Vietnam.

I wonder if he ever made it back to participate in issue #5?

So what did Spa Fon mean? 

"Spa Fon" and "Squa Tront" originated as alien expressions of surprise (similar to "Good lord!") used by extra-terrestrials in EC Comics' sci-fi stories. Squa Tront was also the name of another fanzine of the era.

Now you know why you read this blog - where else are you going to get useful insider knowledge like that??!!

Enjoy!

william

I Lost It At The Movies

From the grumpy old man file:

Remember bass player Felix Pappalardi of the rock group "Mountain"? He was one of the first sixties rockers that I remember going deaf from the ultra-high volume of their concerts.

I was reminded of Pappalardi's disability the other day when I tried to take Natalie to the movies - a showing of "Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of G'Hool" at the Pacific Theatres at the Grove.

I've felt for a number of years that the volume at which movies are projected in theatres has been slowly creeping up, but I put it down to my age and general sensitivity. But after the endless advertisements and the lights finally dimmed for the endless trailers, the decibel level from the speakers behind the screen almost knocked me out of my wheelchair, and Natalie stuck her fingers in her ears until I looked over and saw that she had broken out in tears.

I yelled for the projectionist to turn it down, but of course he or she could not hear me over the din. I finally wheeled outside to the lobby and complained, only to be told by the usher that another patron had asked to turn it up!?!

Natalie had really been looking forward to the movie but she told me that she wanted to leave and we went and got our money back.

Is there any national or local standard governing the volume at which movies can be projected? Has anyone checked the decibel level lately at their local multiplex? There must be some limit to what the normal human ear drum can tolerate. Has anyone else shared this experience?

I know I sound like a generationally-challenged curmudgeon for those of you grooving on the transformational sound design of Transformers, but I can't help feeling that the extreme volume at which movies are being projected today is also some desperate attempt to compensate for the lack of volume to their content.

If C.S. Lewis is correct, and "pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world", then in spite of all other evidence to the contrary, God is alive and well at your local multiplex these days.

 

william

The World According to Hergé

Few things were as exciting to me growing up as when my Dad first came back from a trip overseas and brought me a couple of those early large hardbound eurpoean "Casterman" editions of the adventures of Tintin, the boy reporter. 

Secret of the Unicorn. The Crab With The Golden Claws.

It was the mid-'60's and I was beginning my career as an avid reader of comic books and fantastic literature, chewing through the work of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Edgar Rice Burroughs. But these huge four color 64 page stories, featuring a dazzling cast of now world-famous characters like Captain Haddock and Red Rackham and the Thompson Twins, were eye-opening and mind-bending introductions to Hergé's international world. I was an arm-chair adventurer and I could't get enough.

Unfortunately, they were also an exercise in that extremely rare childhood commodity - patience - as the other books in the series were not then readily available in the States, or at least not at any place my family was aware of.

Now Tintin is omnipresent, and getting the big studio feature film treatment from the likes of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. It is always dangerous when your childhood fantasies are made literal by someone else's artistic interpretation, and I must admit to a high degree of trepidation about by beloved Tintin (who will always be "tin" "tin" to me as in the Tin Woodsman in the Wizard of Oz, and not "tan" "tan" as the rest of the world correctly pronounces his name, like some Coppertone Sunscreen commercial) being "rebooted" for the sensibilities of the current cinema.

Chicago - Tintin in America.

Saudi Arabia - Cigars of the Pharoah

India - Cigars of the Pharoah

Shanghai - The Blue Lotus

Shanghai - The Blue Lotus

Looking at these pictures now gives me a slight deja vu sensation of how a pen and ink and a line at a certain angle and a dash of color could transport one from a Belmont Avenue brownstone to another universe.

Enjoy!

william

Living Blues

Growing up in Chicago it was hard to stumble into a bar or a flea market or a concert in the park without running into some smoking blues music.

Famous for the post World War II migration to the city's South Side of a large number of southern blues musicians who electrified the music and added some northern rhythm, many of those legendary performers like Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon and Junior Wells and Howlin' Wolf and Hound Dog Taylor were still alive and performing at clubs I tried to first sneak into in the 1960's and later frequented in the 1970's.

A personal highlight for me was an up close and personal evening in 1973 spent drinking and listening to harmonica virtuoso Big Walter Horton, a tall, gangly man with a gaunt face, huge hands and a huge sound on the harp that seemed to emanate from the depths of Horn Lake, Mississippi where he was born in 1917. 

The bible of that musical culture was "Living Blues" magazine, which started publication in 1970 and celebrated its fortieth anniversary this year. I found a few old early issues in the file the other day; I loved the advertisement (above) for Sunnyland Slim (whose b-side single "See My Lawyer" was put out by Bea and Baby's Records on South State Street) 

It got me to wondering both where the magazine was today (online of course) and who are some of the pre-WW II era blues musicians that are still "Living" and making "Blues" music today.

Here is a partial list of what I found digging around; I'm sure you know of more:  

Charlie Musselwhite, (1944) Kosciusko, Mississippi

Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson, (1939) Itta Bena, Mississippi

Etta James, (1938) Los Angeles, California

Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, (1936) Helena, Arkansas

Buddy Guy, (1936) Lettsworth, Louisiana

James Cotton, (1935) Tunica Mississippi

Otis Rush, (1935) Philadelphia, Mississippi

Eddie “The Chief” Clearwater, (1935) Macon, Mississippi

Sam Lay, (1935) Birmingham, Alabama

John Mayall, (1933) Macclesfield, England

B.B. King, (1925) Itta Bena, Mississippi

Amazingly, these two nonagenarians - David "Honey Boy" Edwards, (1915) Shaw, Mississippi and William Joseph "Pinetop" Perkins, (1913) Belzoni, Mississippi - gave a concert yesterday at the annual Pintop Perkins Homecoming Jam held at the Hopson's Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

97 and 95 and just put out a new album! Now that's what I call living!

Enjoy!

william

 

 

B Movie

From the archives: I found this almost complete set of stills from the 1959 Miller-Consolidated Production of "The Amazing Transparent Man" starring Marguerite Chapman and Douglas Kennedy and directed by the amazing Edgar G. Ulmer.

If anyone ever asks you for the definition of a "B" movie, you can send them to this post, and let the pictures speak a thousand words.

This film was one of the last two films that Ulmer made in America, and among the last of a prolific career of ultra-low budget productions, including what many consider one of the greatest film noir movies ever made - "Detour".

"The Amazing Transparent Man" with a running time of only 57 minutes, was actually shot together with Ulmer's "Beyond The Time Barrier" - two feature films made on a two weeks total shooting schedule!

Ulmer started out as a set designer in German film before he emigrated to the United States, and even with no money and no time he always managed to make something interesting out of his mise-en-scene - check out the slanting lines of the corrugated tin roof of this "invisible zombie experiment lab" set!

Ulmer was born in 1904 so he was 55 years old when he directed "Transparent Man". His final film, "The Cavern" was made in Italy in 1964, and he passed away here in Woodland Hills, California in 1972.

When it comes to "B" movie imagery, even famous photographer Cindy Sherman must have learned a thing or two from this master!

Enjoy!

william