As the Aussies say, “Gooday, mates”. It’s May 15, 2017, and another damn Monday. It’s also National Chocolate Chip Day, promulgated by Big Chocolate. Meh. But I am celebrating International Conscientious Objectors Day, as I was one of them. I abjure violence (though I likely would have fought in a “just war” like WWII), and the last time I hit someone was in about 1964, when a group of guys at my school bus stop called me a “dirty Jew.” I should have just taken the beating without fighting back.
According to Wikipedia, on this day in 1618, “Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected discovery of the third law of planetary motion (he first discovered it on March 8 but soon rejected the idea after some initial calculations were made).” Check the link for all three laws. On May 15, 1776 the Continental Congress was told by its Virginia delegation to draft a resolution of independence from Great Britain, which became the Declaration of Independence adopted on July 4 of that year. On this day in 1858, the Royal Opera House opened in Covent Garden, London. Eleven years later Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York. In 1928, “Plane Crazy“, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, was screened, but wasn’t released for a year (“Steamboat Willie” was the first Mickey cartoon formally released, and had sound); the version of “Plane Crazy” shown below was released with sound. Notice that Mickey had more rat-like features than the short-nosed mouse we came to love later; Steve Gould wrote about this neotenous transformation.
On this day in 1940, the first McDonald’s opened in San Bernardino, California, and on this day in 1941 Joe DiMaggio began his remarkable 56-game hitting streak with the Yankees, a record that still stands. Gould, a baseball maven, called that streak “the most extraordinary thing that ever happened in American sports.” Finally, it was exactly nine years ago that California became the second U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage (Massachusetts preceded it by four years).
Notable folk born on this day include Pierre Curie (1859), Katherine Anne Porter (1890), Mikhail Bulgakov (1891; read The Master and Margarita!), Richard J. Daley (1902), Roger Ailes (1940), Brian Eno (1948), and Jamie-Lynn Sigler (1981). Those who died on this day include Emily Dickinson (1886), Edward Hopper (1967), Jerry Falwell (exactly ten years ago, not buried in a matchbox), and Carlos Fuentes (2012). Have a Hopper (below): “Morning Sun”, painted in 1952, ten years after Hopper’s most famous painting, “Nighthawks“, which lives here in Chicago:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili cuts off poor Cyrus cold:
Cyrus: People think…Hili: It’s not always a good thing.
Cyrus: Ludzie myślą…
Hili: To nie zawsze jest dobre.
And in Wloclawek, Mr. Leon was lazing about yesterday:
Leon: There is nothing like a cardboard Sunday.
Micky goes all Trump on Minnie….but gets his gob smacked for it. Maybe this is what women need to do again? I wonder how many women Trump would be smooching (or grabbing) if he got his eyes rattled every time he tried.
Not that i’m condoning violence. According to mayor Salvor Hardin; “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent”.
Thank you for the Hopper painting. I well remember an exhibition of his work here in London, and having seen Nighthawks in a magazine I had to see more. Wait was a treat. What is it about the mood of his work?
‘Which was a treat.’
@Frank re “the mood of his work”
His fave painter was Rembrant who was a master of light & shadow. Hopper tried the same dark palette & strongly contrasting adjacent tones –
see the images in this link of the effect from other artists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaroscuro
It’s the same style seen in film noir
On his way up he did a lot of illustration & poster work which depend on strong, simple composition
I can imagine his most famous works with poster slogans above & below
I don’t like his later landscapes nearly as much!
Here’s an improved Hopper from FatCatArt which adds a cat as an offering to the great ceiling cat in the… ceiling: http://fatcatart.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Edward-Hopper-Morning-Sun-Cat-w.jpg
Rembrandt
I love Hoppers paintings,Jack Vetriano’s work is similar,I think I read somewhere that Hopper was one of his influencers.
In “Morning Sun,” the shadowing seems inconsistent. It is very dark under the chin, but much less so on the back.
Her back would have reflected ambient light from the walls and ceiling. Under her chin is basically a ledge and the angle of the “morning light” hitting her face creates complete shadow, with no intervening light. At least that’s how I sorted it out, based on your observation.
Tomorrow is the birthday of frequent Brian Eno collaborator, Guitarist Robert Fripp (1946) and Fripp’s wife, Toyah Willcox (1958).
I’ll drink to that! That would be cool sharing a birthday with a spouse. I’ve seen King Crimson a couple times; their live performances are some of the best I’ve witnessed.
I’ve seen them six times. Interestingly enough, their “studio” albums include mixes from their live performances, so their stage sound is closer to their recorded sound than most bands. Tony Levin, the bass/stick player, holds the record for the performer I’ve seen the most. With King Crimson, Peter Gabriel’s band and his own work, I’ve seen him thirteen times.
You make us sound too posh, Jerry. It’s more likely to sound like ‘Gidday’ or ‘G’day’, and these days, mates would probably be replaced by ‘guys’.
Hey, I’m a peacenik. And I could be convinced to take a beat-down for the cause, on somewhere like the Edmund Pettus bridge maybe. But to take it from some asshole calling me “a dirty Jew” (or in my case, I guess, “a dirty mongrel Slovenian-Irish American heathen”)? Fuck that; I’m throwing fists back — as I’m glad to hear you did in ’64.
National Chocolate Chip Day! I could really get into that. Maybe I will.