Some of my favorite movies, “Some Like It Hot”, “West Side Story”, “Raging Bull” are included with the 30 movies in this celebratory “United Artists 30-Disc Deluxe Gift Set”.
Some of the movies in this eclectic assortment are:
“The Apartment”, “Midnight Cowboy”, “Marty” , ”Twelve Angry Men”, “The Magnificent Seven”, “Judgment at Nuremberg” and “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”.
FYI – There is also a “UA 90th Anniversary Prestige Collection” with 90 films!
We sometimes forgot what its like to listen to live music or at least music recorded live, without the slick mixing machines. I remember when Barry White had his first concert in New York and I asked someone who attended, how was the concert? “He sounded like the record” was his reply. Not the answer I wanted to hear. I enjoy musicians looking to go beyond what they have in the studio.
So I’ve been listening to Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars and I wish I could play an instrument and join in. They are energizing and I feel like dancing.
The group is on tour and will be in Phoenix May 8th and 9th at the brand new The Musical Instrument Museum. Look to be there.
The Post Office may be contemplating cutting out Saturday mail, but they still deliver when it comes to developing a new stamp series. At the beginning of March, paintings from 10 Abstract Expressionists were issued as a group on a $4.40 First Class sheet – great opportunity to purchase art at an excellent price:)
“These bold artists used art to express complicated ideas and primitive emotions in simplified, abstract form,” said Linda Kingsley, USPS senior vice president, Strategy and Transition. “Although these stamps can’t compare in size to their real-life canvases, they bring the passion and spirit of abstract expressionism to an envelope near you. The Postal Service is proud to pay tribute to the legacy and unique perspectives of these revolutionary artists.”
The artists: Hans Hoffmann, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Joan Mitchell.
BTW: The name of the artist appears on the back of each stamp along with the name of the painting and date it was completed.
(Images: “Convergence”, 1952 Jackson Pollock, 2010 Abstract Expressionist stamp sheet)
The title of this post is not misplaced. It is an acknowledgment of Robert Culp, who passed away recently. “Those were the days” when seeing a African American Actor on TV triggered a call to all your neighbors to make sure they were watching the same program you were.
“I Spy”, which Robert Culp starred in was I believe the first “buddy cop” duet with a black actor (Bill Cosby) and set the ground work for Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte or more recently Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis in their films. I almost forgot Miami Vice, which was must see TV in its day. The leading characters’ names on I Spy, Kelly Robinson (Culp) and Alexander Scott (Cosby), should also be acknowledged as they addressed the sensitivity of that time and contributed to the acceptance of this team “homeland protectors”. Alexander was smart! you might want to say articulate 😕
The smartest man in the room at the time had to be Sheldon Leonard, who got this TV show aired.
Happy Birthday March 25, 2010 – you are a treasure!
“Rare & Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul”
This fabulous CD (October, 2007), covers the years 1966 to 1974. It has some unreleased songs, some outtakes and of course some of those familiar classics that did make it onto the radio such as, “Rock Steady”, “You’re All I Need To Get By”,“I Never Loved a Man, the Way That I Loved You”,(her first single on Atlantic in 1967) are collected here in this double package.
Aretha (another single name star like “Cher”, “Denzel”) has won twenty Grammy Awards,has had 20 number 1 singles and has gotten tons of other awards in her 5 decades of entertaining her legions of loyal R&B & Gospel fans.
She sings with joy, passion, and heart. Aretha sang a stirring rendition of “My Country Tis Of Thee” at the presidential inaugural in a fabulous hat. She was great!
The 100th birthday of American painter Morris Graves, (1910-2001) is celebrated with the exhibit “The Visionary Art of Morris Graves“ at the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco CA until May 15th.
“…Largely a self-taught artist closely associated with the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. His paintings, often small works on paper, were among the earliest to synthesize Eastern aesthetics and philosophy with the American Transcendental tradition. In his own words, Graves was working “to evolve a changing language of symbols, a language with which to remark upon the qualities of our mysterious capacities which direct us toward ultimate reality.”
Spring 2010 will be heavy with Pablo Picasso special presentations:
“Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris “ –
Philadelphia Museum of Art – until April 25, 2010:
“Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973) was at his most ferociously inventive between 1905 and 1945. Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris surveys his work during these crucial decades, when he transformed the history of art through his innate virtuosity and protean creativity.”
“Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art“ –
The Met beginning April 27 – August 1, 2010:
“This landmark exhibition is the first to focus exclusively on works by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) in the Museum’s collection. It features 150 works, including the Museum’s complete holdings of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and ceramics by Picasso—never before seen in their entirety—as well as a selection of the artist’s prints. The Museum’s collection reflects the full breadth of the artist’s multi–sided genius as it asserted itself over the course of his long and influential career.”
One of the great things about living in the Bay Area are the flowers in bloom (if you don’t suffer from allergies) contrasted by both Mount Tam and the San Francisco Bay. During the winter and pre-spring it rains a bit but once the rain stops a fun thing to do is to walk the SF Marina people watching and hanging out at the Fort Mason Center, home to the SFMOMA Artists Gallery and much more.
From March 18 -April 23, (Opening reception: Thursday, March 18, 5:30 -7:30 p.m.) the works of Lisa Curet, Keira Kotler and Indira Martina Morre
“Rhythm and Hues: Cloth and Culture of Mali, West Africa” is an exhibit on view until May at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco. Mali is not only the country of ‘Timbuktu”, it is also a treasure trove of fabric artisans.
The program “highlights the enduring significance of textiles as a major form of aesthetic in Mali. Featuring works beyond the mudcloth tradition, this exhibition seeks to showcase contemporary styles and techniques which have yet to be shown in the US.
With superb examples of dress, and accompanying photographs, Rhythm and Hues: Cloth and Culture of Mali will document hand-dyed as well as factory-printed cloth. Social issues such as empowerment of women, the status of dress, women’s identity, and current trends in fabric design will be explored. “
Paris is everybody’s favorite city, or at least this what we say when asked. In Paris my favorite Museum is the Centre Pompidou because once when I was stranded in Paris with out a room waiting for flight to NY the next morning the Museum was my host for the day. Now there is another reason for me to hang out at the Pompidou and that is the Lucian Freud exhibit which openned yesterday and will be on view until July 19th, 2010. I may have already seen many of the paintings in this show at the Tate but time constraints did not allow me to spend the day 😆 , plus I am sure there will be works that I never got to see. It would all be worth while.
Lucian Freud’s painting are large, powerful and as a painter myself I’m struck by the energy it takes for these painting to be produced. Freud takes no shortcuts and no glib presentation of his subjects. I would love to see the works again “can travel but no ticket”. I wonder if I can stay at the Pompidou again?
