"Dad, What Did You Do in the War?" "I Slept, Son, I Slept."

Speaking of my dad, and WWII, that's him below, full page in Life magazine, February 22, 1943, bless his tired soul. 

And the newspaper clipping verifying it:

All the Young Turks

Because of different camera angles, you probably don't see that much resemblance between the cocky young turk from the last post to the cocky young turk, below, that was me—at the basic same age and rank as my dad was. But we really looked alike, though he was much more fearless than me, though I don't think he ever rappelled out of a helicopter hovering at a hundred feet. Though he faced enemy fire many a time and I never did . . . phew.

Time Capsule

Time to put up with a little more of the autobiographical slant of this image blog. Well, you don't HAVE to put up with it, but here goes.

Going through your deceased parents' possessions can be an amazing trip through time, a way-back machine of sorts, without Mr. Peabody and Sherman. My parents weren't packrats, per se (okay, maybe my mother was to a certain degree), and so much stuff has been lost over the years, due to flooding and some mysterious 'leave-home-quickly-at-midnight' scenarios I had to go through as a kid. 

But I'm still going through a fair amount of stuff that my mom left behind as she made her final mysterious journey (she passed at noon, on the dot, the day that I told her, while she was in a coma, that I had to leave at noon that day and wouldn't be back till much later that night), so that I was with her at her last breath. But I digress.

My parents divorced long ago, yet my mom still had a number of things of my dad's that I'm now slogging through. I don't want to miss anything that would shed light on his early years, so piece by piece I sort out old receipts and work detritus from interesting photos and memorabilia. 

One photograph that slipped out from some newspaper clippings is one I hadn't seen before. It was a tiny little thing, probably a contact print from a small negative. I squinted to see any detail, and not having much success, I scanned it at 1200dpi and was delighted to look in on my dad in early WWII uniform with the WWI style helmet. He's the cocky young smiling chap to the right, in the image below, looking aMAZingly like I did at his age (he was 18 in this shot in the South Pacific—He lied about his age when he joined the army at 16 years old). So he's a corporal here, and looks fearless as he begins his deployment in the Pacific theater. It's like my scanner was a time machine window, looking back in time. It's fun to look forward to more photographs of that sort, still to come.

So, in the same box was this souvenir coconut, coming up on 70 years of age, and seeming quite pristine for its travels. As a kid, my family left homes in the dead of night, and yet this moonlit gal must have gone with us every time. My mom had said that she lost good silver and packets of letters on those  great escapes, and yet this coconut made it all the way to the future. Do you think there's a market for this kind of momento  on EBay or such? I don't want to keep it, but I'm sure not tossing it into a landfill.

And then there was this copperish tin can, below, that was sealed tight with a lid that wouldn't budge. Something made some clatter when I shook it, but it wouldn't open up. It looks like an old K-ration can, but what amazing thing could be inside? My wife was thinking maybe it had some ammo or explosive gimcrack from the theater of war, and I pictured maybe currency from one of the number of islands that my dad waded ashore to help liberate. Whatever it could be, I thought, wow, this is truly a time capsule, and my curiosity made me try harder to pry open, which I finally did.

HA! There were SOAPS knocking around in there, still smelling fragrant and fresh, and a set of nail clippers (!?). World War II vintage souvenirs. I was slightly disappointed, hoping it would be something that could help put my daughter through the next two years of college, but still delighted in getting to know my young parents a little bit more as I delve into these boxes. 

Fendi

It's c-c-c-cold where we are. Hope yer stayin' warm where u r.

Karl Lagerfeld — for Fendi

Fearless

I love this pic of Carole Lombard. 

She looks fearless, despite her ultimate destiny.

G-G-Garbo

Greta Garbo

Erasing the Line

George Lucas — best hair beHIND the camera!

Forbes — 1996

State of Mind

I'd like to explain the source of my state of mind in the last post. This is an image blog, but as it states in the header, it's also autobiographical in nature. I'm finding that an image isn't always equivalent to the proverbial thousand words. I believe that images and words work best together.

Unknown photographer and year

This image has been haunting my image morgue for years.

I've been spending a fair amount of time this summer with our daughter. I missed her deeply when she was at university last year, even though she was only an hour away by car. We each learned to keep our distance to allow growth and maturity (and she probably got something good out of it too).

It's wonderful, full of wonder, having her home—to talk with, to have fun with, to give me more than a hint of the adult she'll be when I'm long gone. We've watched a lot of DVDs together, crossing all genres of film-making. Even when a film goes awry in quality, we try to glean some of the positive values that by rights should be inherent if the army of talent involved in the making has utilized time, skill and money to bring it to our living room. Amazingly, I actually enjoyed Frank Miller's 'Sin City', something I never would have predicted.

Anyway, watching so many films, I have vicariously witnessed many acts of heroism, many despicable deeds of violence. I have flown among the clouds and the stars. I have seen transformations of many sorts — love into hate and vice versa, humans into animals, ignorance into understanding, sacrifice into survival, failure into success. Much of the experience has been inspirational and motivating.

And then I read the news.

Horrible events of crashes and collapses, fires and floods, snuffing out innocent lives. Spouses that murder each other, parents and children that murder each other. Young innocents that suddenly become Hitlers, intent on murdering other young innocents. Natural and man-failure disasters that kill hundreds or thousands with no mercy. Planes that fall from the sky. Drug cartels that wantonly slice and slaughter and deposit the results in town squares.

There are people plotting to destroy, people plotting to steal and scam, people with intent to enter our very homes and violate our persons and property.

Where is our movie heroism then? Where are The Avengers, The A-Team, Clint Eastwood and John Wayne? Where is the fortuitous coincidence that saves the day? Where are the clever writers that solve our problems in strange and subtle ways? Where is the soundtrack that throbs and soars mighty choruses of heaven as we heroically find the strength to get back up, even as we've been beaten into the ground? Where is the empathetic audience to witness our private tragedies and applaud our triumphs, great and small?

I sometimes ponder these sorts of self-defeating questions in the wee hours of the morning when the universe seems dark and uncaring. I rise in the morning full of hope and cheer, thinking maybe THIS is the day 'they' cure cancer. Maybe THIS day radio signals from space will be detected, proving that we are not alone. Perhaps THIS day people will accept that gay marriage is not only acceptable, but celebrated as an expression of love. That THIS day love will triumph over hate.

No, the headline is about Town Council debating what to do about homeless people sleeping in the parks. It's about the latest scandal of privileged rich people trying to be above the law. It's about coaches and priests violating the trust of children and parents.

The rest of the paper is about 'buy this, buy that' 'spend your money on useless crap and squander away time and energy looking at crap you can't afford.'

Okay, I'm really wallowing now, but you get the thread of my thought. And really, most of you have these same thoughts and feelings on various levels at various times.

What's to be done about it?

More next post.

Mermaid Service

An ad for an underwater vacuum.

In the Italian magazine L'Espresso — December, 1980

Reminiscent of Frank Kelly Freas

Green is a rare color for astrophotography, but when the image results from an infrared exposure, all bets are off, with colors sometimes assigned to specific gases or elements or what have you, for scientific clarification.

This fantabulous infrared image shows the M17 Nebula (the brightest area) and heated dust structures associated with the nebula. The fascinating dark streaks are likely ripples of star formation — and are to me, with the rest of the image, very reminiscent of a Frank Kelly Freas illustration, coloration and all. I expect to see one of his trademark spaceships blazing across the foreground and a semi-hidden image of a sci-fi character in the background.

Spitzer Telescope — M17 Nebula — ca 2010

America's Second Most Challenging Sport

Talk about gratuitous use of female charm to promote a product . . .

. . . I . . . feel . . . compelled . . . to . . . learn . . . archery . . .

magazine ad — ca 1970s

Roaming the Eons

This is a favorite photo of our dearly departed Ray Bradbury, sitting in the original time machine from the classic film, around 1960.

I'd like to think that he is somewhere roaming the eons.

photo © 2001 Ray Bradbury

Coincidence?

I was in the hospital the same day that MM was, only I was busy being born. Coincidence? You decide.

May 6, 1952

Atomic

And the utterly iconic Parisienne of the Atomic Age . . .

Jours de France — January 1984 — Brigitte Bardot

Compare

You are to be forgiven if you didn't recognize the chap with the eyepatch in the last post group of caricatures by Mort Drucker.

James Joyce, he of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake novels, cuts a rather dapper image, but is not quite as famous image-wise. However, you can take a gander below to compare the reference photo with Drucker's technique.

James Joyce

Illustration and Photography

At the dawn of the 20th century, and early in his career, Lejaren à Hiller was an accomplished illustrator, and in time his attention turned to photography. He became known as the creator of American photographic illustration, staging complex tableaux, and much like a movie director, he visualized the sets and directed the models while an assistant operated the camera. Not to compare myself to him except in philosophy, Hiller was "more interested in the final result than the means used to achieve it".

Below, he staged Aspasia, a renowned figure in Athenian history. If you're interested at all, google her, there's some good information. And below that, an example of his earlier illustrative style, pretty good in my opinion, with nice design qualities.

Lejaren à Hiller — Aspasia of Athens — 1933

Lejaren a Hiller — Life magazine — October 1914

Pugnacious Mug

I love scrutinizing photos of legendary people, searching for the characteristics that make their faces so iconically unique.

I know Jimmy Cagney didn't always play the lost guy with a bad attitude, but he did own that persona in this or that movie.

So it was interesting to scrutinize his pugnacious mug as an actor and compare it to his pugnacious mug as an infant.

Jimmy Cagney — age: I dunno, what? 25? 30?

Jimmy Cagney — age: 1

Kinetic Energy

There is great strength in an archer and great strength in an image of an archer, poised at the critical point of greatest kinetic energy — the calm before the storm — and then let slip the arrow fly.

Esteban Maroto

Jeffrey Catherine Jones

Ingam

(Enzo Duffloco Magni)

Anthony Beauchamp

Robert Mapplethorpe

Suitable Only For Adults ; > )

Peter Lorre's character acting was always a bit over the top, and yet subtle. How is that possible? However he did it, he was a beloved ensemble player—so much fun to watch.

Here is a favorite publicity still from Mad Love.

Peter Lorre/Frances Drake — Mad Love — 1935

The poster, below, didn't catch Lorre's looks, but E for effort.

Mad Love — poster — 1935

For All You Followers of the Female Form

To help warm up the post-holiday blues for all you followers of the female form, here is a Harper's promotional poster from a few years back, based on one of its covers, featuring the amazing loveliness of Gisele Bündchen.

Personally, I think the colorful typography adds to the graphic impact, making an iconic poster of the early 21st century.

Harper's Bazaar — Gisele Bündchen — 2002