#time to criticize public perception of the 1920s!

[infinitysisters]

If you were to attend the 1939 World’s Fair, you would be greeted with two structures named Trylon and Perisphere. The former was a tall, spire-like structure equipped with what was then the world’s longest escalator. The latter was a humongous sphere. These two modernist structures were the Fair’s mascots.

By stepping into the Peripshere, a new world would be unveiled to you. Inside, a diorama of a future utopian city was constructed called “Democracity.” It was designed to be inhabited by a million and a half people, covering 11,000 square miles.

Trylon and Perisphere, along with Democracity inside, were the symbolic heart of the Fair. But the branding behind it all was intentional for more reasons than one would initially assume. The idea was created by the Fair’s publicity director, Edward Bernays. Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s cousin, known as the man chiefly responsible for bringing his psychoanalytic theories to the United States during the 1920s.

While Sigmund himself fell into despondency in Europe after World War I, Bernays became widely successful in the United States. Using ideas of the unconscious, he quickly gained a reputation as someone who could conjure up mass public opinion for products and issues like no one else. While his later critics likened it to “manipulation,” Bernays himself called it “public relations,” a term he coined.

Yet, reading his work, one finds a deeply cynical man. Bernays rationalized his activities by arguing that the management of mass desire was preferable to the alternative—that is, “letting the unconscious run wild” with its repressed urges. If these dark forces were actually unleashed, he believed, they could undo society itself. Consumerism was hence viewed as a bulwark against the primitive mind of the crowd, and managing its desires was rationalized as necessary in saving society against itself. As he stated openly in his work Propaganda (1928), “the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.” He was therefore one of the first theorists of what can be called "managed democracy."

Whether he really believed in his own rationalization or not, Bernays did become incredibly wealthy from his services. By the late 1920s, he was “living in a suite of rooms in one of New York’s most expensive hotels, where he gave frequent parties.” According to an employee of Bernays, the events were a “who’s who” of the business elite, the arts, media leaders, and the mayor himself. In due time, his clients also included those within politics and the state. He became a "sort of magician" of public opinion, even though he openly viewed this same public with open contempt. Given his reputation, it was unsurprising that Bernays was tapped for the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

Given that the American public was just coming out of the Great Depression, it was known that the reputation of “big business” in the United States was at historic lows. By framing the World’s Fair through the prism of desire, Bernays sought to rehabilitate this perception by giving Americans an open door—one that they themselves did not even know they wanted. Bernays’s daughter confirms this aspiration of his in an interview with Adam Curtis for his documentary A Century of the Self (2002).

Anna Bernays: To my father, the World’s Fair was an opportunity… Capitalism in a democracy, democracy and capitalism in marriage. It was consumerist, but at the same time you inferred in a funny way that democracy and capitalism went together.

Adam Curtis [continues]: The vision it portrayed was of a new democracy in which businesses responded to people’s innermost desires in a way politicians could never do. But it was a form of democracy that viewed people not as active citizens… but as passive consumers… [which] Bernays believed was the key to control in a mass democracy.

As Curtis makes clear, this thinking reached its symbolic high point at the 1939 World’s Fair. A democratic vision was then constructed by its very own skeptic, someone who viewed democracy as nothing other than a form of social management. Historian of public relations, Stewart Ewen, summarized this view in an interview with Adam Curtis:

“It’s not that the people are in charge, but that the people’s desires are in charge. The people exercise no decision-making power within this environment. So democracy is reduced from something which assumes an active citizenry to the idea of the public as passive consumers driven primarily by instinctual or unconscious desires, and if you can trigger those needs and desires, you can get what you want from them.”

At the end of the century, the consequences of this vision would be criticized by writer Christopher Lasch. Published after his death in 1994, Lasch wondered whether American democracy was now merely living off the “borrowed capital of moral and religious traditions antedating the rise of liberalism." Lasch was a critic of the kind of managed democracy that began to emerge around Bernays's time. By the 1990s, the consequences had become self-evident: when Lasch was writing, civic participation had sunk to its lowest point since World War II.

Perhaps this long trajectory—triumphantly advertised as a "new horizon" at the 1939 World’s Fair—helps explain why the state’s competency and ability to execute basic functions has deteriorated so badly in our own time. Needless to say, Bernays's model of managed democracy was not exactly resilient and built to last.

Decades later during the 1970s, optimism would dry up amid scandal as institutional trust collapsed, exposing the hollowness of this consumer model of democracy outright for the first time. The fact that the United States has still not recovered from that “crisis of confidence” is not accidental: the ultimate outcome of a Bernaysian model of managed democracy is not renewal amid crisis, but rather an entrenchment of its old managerial ways, because it has so little of an active public to draw upon.

#1939 40 world's fair #worlds fair #1939 worlds fair #1939 #democracy #capitalism #edward bernays #christopher lasch #progress #futurama #public relations #managed democracy #the beginning of the end #america #substack #sigmund freud #propaganda #propagandists

[mertkagansakli]

Blog Post-8 | Women's Representation in EA FC 24 and the Gaming Landscape

The gaming industry is no stranger to change, and EA FC 24 highlights the great advancements being made in the depiction of women in digital worlds. In this blog article, we examine EA FC 24's inclusiveness initiatives, drawing on scholarly publications by Keire (2016) and Shaw (2009) to examine the portrayal of women in the game.

Strides for Empowerment and Inclusivity: EA FC 24 breaks established molds by effortlessly integrating female players from various leagues, offering Icons and Heroes, and highlighting female football stars. The game's dedication to inclusion meshes with the wider industry objective of providing a gaming environment that is representative of its audience's diversity (EA FC 24). Keire's historical observations give background, highlighting a period in which women were objectified and reduced to simple sex organs. The favorable developments in EA FC 24 represent a welcome change from previous patterns.

Current Issues and Challenges: While EA FC 24 promotes diversity, it also highlights recurring issues in the gaming community. Sexism and aggressive conduct toward female players are still widespread. Keire's historical perspective reminds us that altering perceptions toward women in gaming is a constant fight. The fact that such difficulties endure emphasizes the need of a communal commitment to encouraging change.

Navigating Representational Stereotypes: Shaw's work (2009) promotes the concept that thinking outside clichés is difficult, particularly when creating characters for media. When analyzing how women are depicted in EA FC 24, this notion becomes critical. Despite admirable attempts, it is critical to determine if the game unintentionally reinforces stereotypes or actively challenges old gender standards. Shaw's study advises against the inclination to rely on assumptions, highlighting the importance of developers carefully navigating this possible mistake.

Optimism and the Road Ahead: Lisa Manley's optimism parallels the rising normalizing of women's involvement in previously male-focused games, a story that EA FC 24 mirrors. The game acts as a change agent, actively including female representation and helping to the gaming industry's transition. However, as noted in EA FC 24, the prevalence of sexist remarks throughout the gaming community necessitates ongoing efforts. Manley's viewpoint encourages the gaming community to continue raising awareness and inclusion in order to make these beneficial developments the norm.

Finally, EA FC 24 is a symbol of progress, promoting inclusion and altering the game world. While the game deviates from past conventions, the presence of obstacles reminds us that the path toward a more inclusive gaming environment continues. Developers, platforms, and gamers must work together to create an environment in which women are not just represented but also treated with the dignity they deserve. EA FC 24 is more than simply a game; it's a catalyst for change, reminding us that we have the potential to transform the gaming environment.

References: 

Keire, M.A.R.A.L. (2016) 'Swearing Allegiance: Street Language, US War Propaganda, and the Declining Status of Women in Northeastern Nightlife, 1900-1920', Journal of the History of Sexuality, 25(2), pp. 246–266.

Shaw, A. (2009) 'Putting the Gay in Games', Games and Culture, 4(3), pp. 228-253.

Readings: 

#ea sports fc24 #digital media

[essay110us]

Analysis of Halo effect by Rosenzweig

Essay学霸团队今天给大家带来一篇MBA代写范文——光环效应一般与第一印象有关。例如，当我们看到有魅力的人时，我们会情不自禁地认为他们还有其他优秀的品质，比如温柔和才华。这也解释了为什么第一印象很重要。一旦我们对某人有了一个好的总体印象，对此人的看法就会趋于积极。这种情况通常是无意识的。人们不会故意忽略别人的不好，也不会故意过度美化别人。同时，这种效应不仅适用于人，也适用于产品、品牌或公司。第一位提出光环效应的心理学家是爱德华·桑代克。他在1920年发表了一篇文章，在心理评级方面经常出错（Froud，Haslam，Johal& Williams，2010）。本文是基于对罗森茨威格光晕效应的分析。该理论在管理实践中的主要论点，以及对分散所有权公司同时实现财务目标和社会目标的情况的分析。

Introduction

Halo effect is generally related to the first impression. For example, when we see attractive people, we can’t help but think that they have other excellent qualities, such as gentleness and talent. It also explains why first impressions matter. Once we have a good overall impression of someone, the perception of that person will tend to be positive. This situation is usually unconscious. People don’t intentionally ignore the bad things of others, or deliberately over beautify others. At the same time, this effect applies not only to people, but also to products, brands, or companies. The first psychologist to propose halo effect is Edward Thorndike. He published an article in 1920 with a constant error in psychological ratings (Froud, Haslam, Johal & Williams, 2010). This article is based on the analysis of Halo effect of Rosenzweig. The key arguments in the management practices for this theory and the analysis of the situation in which companies with distributed ownership achieve both financial goals and social goals at the same time.

Main Body

Key arguments in these chapters and halo effect means in management practices

Simply put, the halo effect is that when the company’s performance is excellent or the stock price rises. People will praise the company for being good at listening to customers’ opinions, having a good corporate culture, high quality of employees, smart leadership, strategic focus, etc., so as to explain the success of the company. But when the company’s performance fell, people criticized it in the opposite direction, as if the company lost all its advantages overnight. It sounds like every day when the stock market closes, market people always like to find reasons to explain why it goes up and why it goes down (Park & Dubinsky, 2011). Even if there is really no reason, they will find anyone to explain it. But is that really the case? Are those so-called causes bound to lead to subsequent results? The author has tracked the performance of the enterprises praised in the book pursuit of excellence, foundation industry evergreen and from good to excellent after the publication of the book, and found that the overall rate of return of the companies regarded as great by people is not as good as the index in the next evaluation period, and some of the enterprise performance evaluation indexes have also declined (Pitsakis & Souitaris, 2014). The author thinks that the reasons for the success of an enterprise are not only the factors of the enterprise itself, but also the factors such as enterprise culture, organizational structure, staff quality, leaders’ opinions, etc. It may play a role in the success of an enterprise, but it is hard to say whether they are decisive. Customers no longer like the company’s products, competitors progress faster, the emergence of new technology these factors will also have a profound impact on corporate performance. When the company makes strategic choices, it is full of risks (Martin, 2015). It is the strategy with the highest probability of winning among all kinds of probabilities. The strategy with the highest probability of winning is not a certain successful strategy, but also a failure. The world is full of uncertainty. After all, there are many things beyond the probability that people expect, but it can’t be said that this person can’t. After all, business activities are not carried out in the laboratory, and can be repeatedly assumed and tested (Sundar & Kardes, 2015).

This book is also very meaningful for securities investment. The evaluation of the management is consistent with the securities analysis. It’s very difficult to choose a good management (Chantal & Schiano, 2013). Most of the time, investors only judge by reputation, but under reputation, some people are not worthy of the name. It is believed that the criteria for judging management should be the operating performance over a period of time. At the same time, he pointed out that market analysts often believe that stock prices reflect not only the great value brought by excellent management, but also the value of ‘excellent management’ considered separately. This will be considered twice, making the stock price overvalued. When we think that various banks have excellent managers, we should not give them a premium, because their value has been reflected in outstanding performance indicators and in the stock price.

In particular, the author points out that the "halo effect illusion" in popular management theory is still very enlightening. Halo effect refers to a commonly observed psychological phenomenon. When someone is recognized by us in one aspect, we tend to have a higher evaluation of other aspects of that person. If a person is handsome, we tend to think that others are also smarter if he is the Nobel Prize winner in physics, we will pay more attention to his political views (Chantal & Schiano, 2013). It’s like a flash ring that lights up other places that don’t shine. The halo effect that the author refers to in this book is mainly a common phenomenon in management theory of explaining the behavior characteristics of an enterprise by its performance results. The author spent a lot of time tracking the media’s comments on Cisco and how they changed with the change of corporate performance. When these companies’ performance rises, their management is visionary / strong in integrating new companies / outstanding in corporate culture / customer-oriented / most respected companies. Once the performance declines, the management becomes arrogant / aimless acquisition / lack of communication in corporate culture / slow response to customer demand. In fact, during this period, the management of the company itself may not have changed much. What is "clear vision" / "good communication ability" / "good judgment ability"? What is "concentration" rather than "stubbornness"? Is it "innovation" rather than "deviation from the core"? Is it "aggressive" rather than "blind expansion"? The answer usually depends on the result. When an enterprise is in good condition, both internal and external people may think it is the former (Leuven & Hendrikse, 2015). When an enterprise is in bad condition, people will think it is the latter. In fact, what an enterprise does is the same. The result of an enterprise is influenced by random factors that cannot be controlled by the management. Thus, the management theory based on the judgment which cannot be observed objectively can be ignored completely.

Public companies with distributed ownership to achieve both financial goals and social goals at the same time  

The distributed ownership of the public companies can be identified as the scattered powers that each of the different shareholders old in managing the companies. The financial goals of the companies can be gaining profits for the corporate while the social goals for the companies can be achieving the public benefits such as achieving the goal of corporate social responsibilities (Martin, 2015).

Just as Phil Rosenzweig talked about the "halo effect" when he talked about the business illusion, it’s great that good companies should not use such modifiers or use fewer of them. And because we know nothing about excellence or excellence in other companies, we don’t know whether these factors are the driving force of success, or just the rhetoric of describing a successful company (Sundar & Kardes, 2015). As Rosenzweig points out, choosing a few companies is because they have been doing well for so many years, and then tell us something that has nothing to do with going to success by tracing its roots. If they conclude that the company logo is blue or the CEO is Virgo, it’s hard to be persuasive. It can be said that nothing can cover up the essence of success more than success stories. Ryan Gosling’s success stories let us choose to ignore those actors who are struggling with food and clothing or failure. Ryan Hagrid’s success stories cover the unpopular or unremarkable content produced by thousands of YouTube producers (Apaolaza & Hartmann, 2017). Chance the rapper’s success stories let us forget a large number of performers who are diligent and lonely in their creation. The stories and gains of these people bring hope, comfort and inspiration to those who are struggling. But it also deals with the difficulties of success. "Halo effect" not only has a positive impact on the marketing of enterprises, but also has a negative impact on the marketing of enterprises due to its own limitations, which is reflected in the error of human judgment. "Halo effect" focuses on the single cognition of things, which leads to the deviation of people’s evaluation and cannot guarantee the objective, true and effective evaluation. The negative effect of "halo effect" is reflected in the marketing, which is reflected in the misjudgment of the enterprise on the moral quality of employees (Leuven & Hendrikse, 2015). It also impacts the misjudgment of the enterprise’s partners and cooperation ability, which will seriously affect the development benefit and benefit acquisition of the enterprise, and aggravate the brain drain of the enterprise.

In the fierce socialist market competition environment, enterprises want to create a popular brand needs to pour a lot of effort, but once there is a bad news, it will immediately destroy the brand image established by the long-term development of enterprises. If there are problems in the thought, image and morality of the star endorsements employed in the development of enterprises, it will bring serious negative impact on the product publicity, marketing and marketing of enterprises, and even bring a heavy blow to the development of enterprises (Andrew, 2016). For example, Hewlett Packard, once the world’s leading high-tech provider, was reported by the media in 2011 that some of HP’s laptop batteries continued to burn high, causing fire. After the news was confirmed, it severely damaged the trust and support of HP, and even affected the market sales of other HP products. Product is the key to the sustainable development of enterprises, and the value of product has a very important impact on the development of enterprises. When consumers contact with a product, the first thing they pay attention to is the outer packaging of the product. The outer packaging of the product directly affects consumers’ love for the product. Therefore, it is necessary to apply "halo effect" to optimize the outer packaging of products, improve the artistry, novelty and uniqueness of the outer packaging of products, so as to generate support for product marketing through the outer packaging of products (Froud, Haslam, Johal & Williams, 2010). The outer packaging of products should not only bring people a good visual enjoyment, but also reflect a certain cultural atmosphere through the outer packaging of products. For example, taking the packaging of moon cakes for example, the packaging should not only be simple and generous, but also reflect a strong festival culture atmosphere on the packaging of moon cakes to meet people’s psychological needs. In addition, in order to improve the share of products in the development of the socialist economic market, we need to build a brand of products (Sundar & Kardes, 2015). With the help of "halo effect" to hire famous brand designers to design products. For example, "Hai Di Lao", which is now developing in China’s interlocking operation, has been recognized by more and more consumers with its brand image of considerate service and enthusiastic service (Apaolaza & Hartmann, 2017). To some extent, "halo effect" brought by the brand design of "Hai Di Lao" has made a profound impact on people and strengthened people’s recognition and love of this brand of hot pot. It can be concluded that enterprises need to build brand culture with the help of "halo effect" in product marketing, so as to better promote the business development of enterprises.

"Halo effect" plays a very important role in the promotion and marketing of enterprises, among which "celebrity effect" is an important embodiment of "halo effect" in the development of enterprise promotion and marketing. For example, after Mo Yan, a Chinese writer, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2012, his literary works have been sold well, and a wave of tourism fever has been set off in his hometown. The main reason for this series of phenomena is Mo Yan’s "celebrity effect". Therefore, in the process of development, enterprises can use this "celebrity effect" of "halo effect" to promote marketing development. By employing famous people with good image to represent the products of the enterprise, the enterprise will transfer people’s love for famous people to their love for products, so as to attract more consumers to pay attention to the products of the enterprise and promote the marketing development of the enterprise. Marketing is a kind of operation and sale activity under the development of socialist market economy. With the continuous development of social economy, marketing has gradually penetrated into all aspects of people’s life and production. In marketing, "halo effect" plays an important role. The effective application of "halo effect" can further improve the marketing effect of enterprises, realize the maximization of the development benefits of enterprises, and improve the market competitiveness of enterprises. Therefore, it is necessary for relevant personnel to strengthen the dialectical understanding of "Halo effect", combine the actual marketing development of enterprises, effectively combine "halo effect" and marketing development, and enhance the influence of enterprise products through effective marketing means, so as to promote the sustainable development of enterprises.

Reputation not only attracts the stakeholders, but also attracts the stakeholders corresponding to the reputation level of the enterprise. In other words, the higher the reputation, the higher the quality of the stakeholders around the enterprise. Experience shows that enterprises with better reputation are more likely to have diligent and honest employees, loyal and demanding consumers, trustworthy suppliers and a large number of long-term and stable investors (Apaolaza & Hartmann, 2017). Why can this virtuous cycle be created? First of all, enterprises’ investment in reputation also requires return. Reputation, as a signal to show its own products or services, has certain cost input requirements. The higher the quality of a product or service, the higher the reputation investment required. Therefore, enterprises’ greater investment in reputation will be reflected through relatively high requirements of work efficiency, higher prices of products and services, more stringent supplier supply requirements and cooperation flexibility. The investment banking system in the United States also proves this (Andrew, 2016). When the investment bank leads other bank partners to subscribe for the company’s listing or issue new shares, their advertisements in the industry magazines are arranged according to the strict hierarchy. The higher the reputation, the higher the rank. This reputation of the network position can improve the market competitiveness of companies, and reflected in their charge spread. On the other hand, the reputation magnetic field of an enterprise attracts its stakeholders through ideas. Employees are willing to join the enterprise and work diligently only when they recognize the requirements of the enterprise’s honest management and high-quality products or services consumers are willing to accept the enterprise only when they recognize the market positioning of the enterprise and feel that the enterprise’s products and services can demonstrate their own consumption concept and economic status investors are willing only when they recognize the enterprise’s honest management and the idea of opening up the industrial market Invest to run the business (Martin, 2015). The disproportional stakeholders are probably not interested, they either have no ability or cannot be recognized by the enterprise, so they cannot establish business relations with enterprises with good reputation. The above two mechanisms make the reputation magnetic field of enterprises show a sequential structure. Enterprises with higher reputation attract stakeholders with higher quality, who are united because of their common ideas and docking demands.

"Halo effect" is also known as "generalization effect" or "halo effect". Its basic meaning is that a person’s emotions generated by perceiving a certain characteristic of someone, make the later information about someone have the same emotional color. In other words, under the influence of personal emotions and emotions, the unknown quality can be directly inferred from the initial impression. In essence, halo effect is a cognitive subject’s overall evaluation based on limited information, which is a kind of general knowledge (Park & Dubinsky, 2011). It is the subjective impression formed in interpersonal perception. People’s cognition of others is first based on the initial impression, and then infers other characteristics of the cognitive object from this impression. The concept was first proposed by the famous American psychologist Thorndike in the 1920s. Specifically, once a person’s certain quality or a certain property of an object gives a very good impression, then under the influence of this impression, people will give a better evaluation of other qualities of the person or other properties of the object. This kind of intense perception is like the halo of the moon, which diffuses and diffuses around, so people call this psychological effect halo effect. That is to say, people’s cognition and judgment of human beings are often based on the local part and spread to get the overall impression, that is to say, they are always based on the established impression. If a person is marked as good, he will be shrouded in a positive aura and given all good qualities if a person is marked as bad, he will be shrouded in a negative aura and considered to have all kinds of bad qualities. In this way, the social benefits and the financial benefits can be controlled and balanced with the adoption of the key influencers.

Conclusion

To conclude, Halo effect can be summarized as the cognitive activity of expanding the perceptual object into a whole through obtaining the outstanding impression of a certain behavior characteristic in the process of perception. Halo effect is a biased tendency towards other people’s posts. In essence, it is a method of thinking of "point for face", seeing only one point, not the rest. The Enlightenment of halo effect: first of all, it is necessary to prevent people and things from substituting points for aspects and generalizing, resulting in the adverse effect of "beauty in the eyes of the beholder" or "hatred of monks and cassocks", so as to avoid this kind of concealment and dispersion of halo effect. Secondly, we should pay attention to prevent imposing our own opinions on others and avoid the "projection tendency" of treating others with ourselves. To inspire others to understand their own intentions, "lead without hair", imperceptibly in the perception of others.

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[grad505dsp1taarikaorange]

week five lecture recap

the avant garde ( Started in the 19th Century and ended in the 1920s and 1930s)

The Avant-Garde movement was a reaction to and rejection of established artistic values. Avant-garde designers were typically young (in their early twenties) and sought to communicate ideas through art. These concepts were frequently employed to affect or influence the public perception. Surrounded at the time by Industrialisation, Technology, Science, and the First World War, avant-garde artists questioned many of society's values.

Italy's Futurism (1909- 1940)

Artists who welcomed innovation, technology, and mobility were known as futurists.

- Modernity, Innovation, and Speed

The art made during this trend was generally inspired by cubist art and emphasised speed, movement, and force. As a result, art pieces were created that reflected the rapid rate of industrialisation.

Dadaism is a subculture of Dadaism (1914 - 1918)

Dadaism is a significant and influential art movement that continues to be relevant in today's culture. Dadaism was an anti-art movement that opposed the pro-war society, as well as cultural and political criticism. The artists that participated in this movement were noted for their bravery in defying customary beliefs of the time.

[goddivalondon]

WHY DOES BLUSH EVEN EXIST?

Blush, the pinkish powder that millions of women love to apply to the apples of their cheeks, seems to elicit a great deal of inquiries and concerns from the general public.

Google it and you will find headlines such as "Guys are drawn to girls who wear blush" and "Why you MUST STOP using powder blush NOW!"

It's a product that, despite its pervasiveness and the fact that so many women use it without a second thought, is riddled with unanswered questions - most importantly, why is it even a thing?

In order to address this question, we researched the past to determine how blush dresses became such an integral component of everyone's beauty regimen.

A Historical Lecture

Ancient Egyptians were among the first to use natural elements to produce a type of makeup, as was the case with many of our important beauty rituals.

In ancient Egypt, crushed red ochre (a natural pigment) was combined with fat to create a crimson tint that was applied to the lips and cheeks to contrast with the dark kohl around the eyes. And by "people" we mean both men and women.

In contrast to their pale complexion, the Romans and Greeks applied vermilion and crushed mulberries to their cheeks, which became a type of status symbol. As was the case with many cosmetics of the time, it was also lethal. The chalk or lead face powder they used to whiten their faces was actually poisonous, therefore this routine was ineffective.

With this new development, the Middle Ages saw a decline in the use of cosmetics, since exceptionally pale skin became a sign of affluence. According to Into the Gloss, people at this time took being pale so seriously that they often bled themselves with leeches to eliminate redness off their skin. To get the palest complexion possible, the upper classes would stay indoors or apply egg whites. In addition to being associated with prostitutes, thickly rouged cheeks were another reason why this was so crucial.

The reason for blush's longevity in the beauty market, despite fads and poisonings, is that it represented youth, like a child frolicking through a park with rosy cheeks.

Makeup remained controversial following the conclusion of the French Revolution in 1799. In the midst of such turbulence and conflict, particularly among France's affluent, cosmetics was deemed too costly. In addition, Queen Victoria, who ruled the United Kingdom from 1837 to 1901, said that wearing excessive makeup, such as red lipstick, was disrespectful, connecting it once again with prostitutes.

Consequently, lighter and more natural-looking makeup became more popular, with ladies biting their lips to make them pinker and utilising crushed beets as blush. Again, the objective was to achieve a youthful, feminine radiance.

Then, around the turn of the century, something occurred that forever altered makeup and people's perceptions of it. Makeup became industrialised when businesses like Guerlain and L'Oreal saw the appeal makeup had for so many women and began producingștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștii In addition, this meant that cosmetics were safer than ever before, as corporations turned to natural chemicals rather than poisonous ones.

Thus, the conditions were favourable for blush to return to the mainstream, which it did. Flappers of the 1920s wore blush. Pinups, Marilyn Monroe, and housewives all wore blush in the 1950s.

It is likewise through a critical phase at the moment. Not only are women like Rihanna (of course) having more fun with it; during the 2017 Met Gala, she applied it to half of her face.

Glossier, a beauty brand focused on young women, launched a liquid blush called "cloud paint" in March, which is today the subject of widespread adoration.

Is This the Beginning of a New Blush Dress Revolution?

So, here's to blush dresses, not just for surviving a terrible and extensive history and emerging as one of the most effective beauty products of our day, but also for adapting to trends and the ladies who enjoy using it.

#blush dresses #party dresses #evening dresses #wedding dresses #cocktail dresses #bardot dresses

[marzipanandminutiae]

Also like

Flappers didn’t just wake up and decide to dress like that at random to Fight The System

Their style was rebellious against traditional feminine ideals in a lot of ways, but early 1920s fashion WAS an organic evolution of 1910s fashion

The seeds were planted way earlier than everyone thinks

People tend to forget that in their haste to establish the ways in which flapper style was different from what came before

#1920s #historical fashion #vintage fashion #flappers #I’m forever here for busting the myth that the 1920s were a Perfect Liberated Feminist Utopia #mostly because it throws pre-20s women under the bus and is overly simplistic #my room is too stuffy to sleep but it’s going to storm so I had to close the windows #and I’m very stressed so sleep isn’t coming easy #time to criticize public perception of the 1920s!

[carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory]

Real Dinosaurs Versus Reel Dinosaurs: Film’s Fictionalization of the Prehistoric World

by Shelby Wyzykowski

What better way can you spend a quiet evening at home than by having a good old-fashioned movie night? You dim the lights, cozily snuggle up on your sofa with a bowl of hot, buttery popcorn, and pick out a movie that you’ve always wanted to see: the 1948 classic Unknown Island. Mindlessly munching away on your snacks, your eyes are glued to the screen as the story unfolds. You reach a key scene in the movie: a towering, T. rex-sized Ceratosaurus and an equally enormous Megatherium ground sloth are locked in mortal combat. And you think to yourself, “I’m pretty sure something like this never actually happened.” And you know what? Your prehistorically inclined instincts are correct.

From the time that the first dinosaur fossils were identified in the early 1800s, society has been fascinated by these “terrible lizards.” When, where, and how did they live? And why did they (except for their modern descendants, birds) die out so suddenly? We’ve always been hungry to find out more about the mysteries behind the dinosaurs’ existence. The public’s hunger for answers was first satisfied by newspapers, books, and scientific journals. But then a whole new, sensational medium was invented: motion pictures. And with its creation came a new, exciting way to explore the primeval world of these ancient creatures. But cinema is art, not science. And from the very beginning, scientific inaccuracies abounded. You might be surprised to learn that these filmic faux pas not only exist in movies from the early days of cinema. They pervade essentially every dinosaur movie that has ever been made.

One Million Years B.C.

Another film that can easily be identified as more fiction than fact is 1966’s One Million Years B.C. It tells the story of conflicts between members of two tribes of cave people as well as their dangerous dealings with a host of hostile dinosaurs (such as Allosaurus, Triceratops, and Ceratosaurus). However, neither modern-looking humans nor dinosaurs (again, except birds) existed one million years ago. In the case of dinosaurs, the movie was about 65 million years too late. Non-avian dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago during a mass extinction known as the K/Pg (which stands for “Cretaceous/Paleogene”) event. An asteroid measuring around six miles in diameter and traveling at an estimated speed of ten miles per second slammed into the Earth at what is now the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The effects of this giant impact were so devastating that over 75% of the world’s species became extinct. But the dinosaurs’ misfortunes were a lucky break for Cretaceous Period mammals. They were able to gain a stronger foothold and flourish in the challenging and inhospitable post-impact environment.

Cut to approximately 65 million, 700 thousand years later, when modern-looking humans finally arrived on the chronological scene. Until recently, the oldest known fossils of our species, Homo sapiens, dated back to just 195,000 years ago (which is, in geological terms, akin to the blink of an eye). And for many years, these fossils have been widely accepted to be the oldest members of our species. But this theory was challenged in June of 2017 when paleoanthropologists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology reported that they had discovered what they thought may be the oldest known remains of Homo sapiens on a desert hillside at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco. The 315,000-year-old fossils included skull bones that, when pieced together, indicated that these humans had faces that looked very much like ours, but their brains did differ. Being long and low, their brains did not have the distinctively round shape of those of present-day humans. This noticeable difference in brain shape has led some scientists to wonder: perhaps these people were just close relatives of Homo sapiens. On the other hand, maybe they could be near the root of the Homo sapien lineage, a sort of protomodern Homo sapien as opposed to the modern Homo sapien. One thing is for certain, the discovery at Jebel Irhoud reminds us that the story of human evolution is long and complex with many questions that are yet to be answered.

The Land Before Time

Another movie that misplaces its characters in the prehistoric timeline is 1988’s The Land Before Time. The stars of this animated motion picture are Littlefoot the Apatosaurus, Cera the Triceratops, Ducky the Saurolophus, Petrie the Pteranodon, and Spike the Stegosaurus. As their world is ravaged by constant earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the hungry and scared young dinosaurs make a perilous journey to the lush and green Great Valley where they’ll reunite with their families and never want for food again. In their on-screen imagined story, these five make a great team. But, assuming that the movie is set at the very end of the Cretaceous (intense volcanic activity was a characteristic of this time), the quintet’s trip would have actually been just a solo trek. Ducky and Petrie’s species had become extinct several million years earlier, and Littlefoot and Spike would have lived way back in the Jurassic Period (201– 145 million years ago). Cera alone would have had to experience several harrowing encounters with the movie’s other latest Cretaceous creature, the ferocious and relentless Sharptooth, a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Speaking of Sharptooth, The Land Before Time’s animators made a scientifically accurate choice when they decided to draw him with a two-fingered hand, as opposed to the three fingers traditionally embraced by other movie makers. For 1933’s King Kong, the creators mistakenly modeled their T. rex after a scientifically outdated 1906 museum painting. Many other directors knowingly dismissed the science-backed evidence and used three digits because they thought this type of hand was more aesthetically pleasing. By the 1920s, paleontologists had already hypothesized that these predators were two-fingered because an earlier relative of Tyrannosaurus, Gorgosaurus, was known to have had only two functional digits. Scientists had to make an educated guess because the first T. rex (and many subsequent specimens) to be found had no hands preserved. It wasn’t until 1988 that it was officially confirmed that T. rex was two-fingered when the first specimen with an intact hand was discovered. Then, in 1997, Peck’s Rex, the first T. rex specimen with hands preserving a third metacarpal (hand bone), was unearthed. Paleontologists agree that, in life, the third metacarpal of Peck’s Rex would not have been part of a distinct, externally visible third finger, but instead would have been embedded in the flesh of the rest of the hand. But still, was this third hand segment vestigial, no longer serving any apparent purpose? Or could it have possibly been used as a buttressing structure, helping the two fully formed fingers to withstand forces and stresses on the hand? Peck’s Rex’s bones do display evidence that strongly supports arm use. You can ponder this paleo-puzzle yourself when you visit Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition, where you can see a life-sized cast of Peck’s Rex facing off with the holotype (= name-bearing) T. rex, which was the first specimen of the species to be recognized (by definition, the world’s first fossil of the world’s most famous dinosaur!).

T. rex in Dinosaurs in Their Time. Image credit: Joshua Franzos, Treehouse Media

Jurassic Park

One motion picture that did take artistic liberties with T. rex for the sake of suspense was 1993’s Jurassic Park. In one memorable, hair-raising scene, several of the movie’s stars are saved from becoming this dinosaur’s savory snack by standing completely still. According to the film’s paleontological protagonist, Dr. Alan Grant, the theropod can’t see humans if they don’t move. Does this theory have any credence, or was it just a clever plot device that made for a great movie moment? In 2006, the results of ongoing research at the University of Oregon were published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, providing a surprising answer. The study involved using perimetry (an ophthalmic technique used for measuring and assessing visual fields) and a scale model T. rex head to determine the creature’s binocular range (the area that could be viewed at the same time by both eyes). Generally speaking, the wider an animal’s binocular range, the better its depth perception and overall vision. It was determined that the binocular range of T. rex was 55 degrees, which is greater than that of a modern-day hawk! This theropod may have even had visual clarity up to 13 times greater than a person. That’s extremely impressive, considering an eagle only has up to 3.6 times the clarity of a human! Another study that examined the senses of T. rex determined that the dinosaur had unusually large olfactory bulbs (the areas of the brain dedicated to scent) that would have given it the ability to smell as well as a present-day vulture! So, in Jurassic Park, even if the eyes of T. rex had been blurred by the raindrops in this dark and stormy scene, its nose would have still homed-in on Dr. Grant and the others, providing the predator with some tasty midnight treats.

Now, it may seem that this blog post might be a bit critical of dinosaur movies. But, truly, I appreciate them just as much as the next filmophile. They do a magnificent job of providing all of us with some pretty thrilling, edge-of-your-seat entertainment. But, somewhere along the way, their purpose has serendipitously become twofold. They have also inspired some of us to pursue paleontology as a lifelong career. So, in a way, dinosaur movies have been of immense benefit to both the cinematic and scientific worlds. And for that great service, they all deserve a huge round of applause.

Shelby Wyzykowski is a Gallery Experience Presenter in CMNH’s Life Long Learning Department. Museum staff, volunteers, and interns are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

#Carnegie Museum of Natural History #Dinosaurs #Dinosaur Movies #Jurassic Park #Jurassic #Land Before Time #Paleontology

[flapperdame16]

The Queen by Matthew Dennison Book Review!

(image: Head of Zeus Publishing)

Anyone who knows even a little inkling about me will know how much of a supporter I am of The Queen and the British Royal family. Since my childhood, I've been fascinated with Queen Elizabeth, even telling my Mom as young as age three (in the late 90s) I wanted to, "visit a place with a Queen".

At that age I didn't know the Queen by name, but the image I had inside my head was definitely of Elizabeth. A woman with short white hair wearing a crown was what the image of a, "Queen" , was to me. Fast forward to late 2010, just before William and Kate's engagement, and I became a full blown Royal watcher. Since I have been 14, I collect magazines, make an effort to watch video appearances, see documentaries, and follow many Monarchy devoted blogs and social media accounts to keep up with what is happening within "the fold". I watch The Crown every season on its release date (or close to its release date), and know all the latest buzz, but bizarrely, I never have sat down to read a full life biography of Queen Elizabeth. I have magazines, and coffee table books about her, but never chose out a biography. It's so difficult to choose a good one in a sea full of books, and for that, I am so thrilled I got the opportunity to read distinguished royal author Matthew Dennison's (he has written three other royal biographies) newest book simply and elegantly titled: The Queen. What makes Dennison's book stand out against the rest is firstly it's one of the first books to be published about the Queen after the death of Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh. It looks at their relationship throughout its entirety, giving a fresh examination on the longest royal marriage in history. It was comforting to be reassured how strong the bond between Philip and Elizabeth was. Sure they had their rough patches in their relationship, and nasty rumors along the way, (particularly in the late 50s), but I'd venture to say any marriage, and relationship that was established for 73 years does. It's not so much the bumps in the road they had, it was how they were able to navigate and work through them that counts. It's important to remember Philip and Elizabeth fought for their love, at the time of their marriage with anti-German sentiment, and they endured right up to Philip's death. Its inspiring, especially in the time we live in now. Secondly, I will mention this book does not deviate on tangents about others, its focus is always centered on Elizabeth. Throughout  her long reign, many players both personally and professionally have crossed paths with HM; prime ministers, daughters-in-law, members of staff, and a whole bunch of others. Rather than devoting entire paragraphs to other players such as Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Princess Diana, HM The Queen Mother, or Private Secretary Martin Charteris, Dennsion gives us info about them on a need to know basis in relation to their relation to Queen Elizabeth. This keeps the writing focused with a strong flow in regards to the star subject. At the same time, it allows you to have basis of facts of certain players you may not know much about. During my own reading, to have a background context of the Prime Ministers was certainly a highlight for me, as I personally don't know much about the British Parliament and the people in it! Moreover, I want to point out how fascinating it was to read an in depth analysis of HM's childhood and young adult life before becoming Queen, as it's really the "least" documented part of her life. As with Queen Victoria many people only see Elizabeth as, "The old lady Queen", and it's sad many  forget at one point she was a vibrant young women who reveled in being a 1950s military wife, and someone who grew up in a close knit household in a family unit of consisting of "we four" (herself, her parents, and sister, Margaret).

When she was born in 1926, Elizabeth was not in immediate line for the throne as her father Bertie (later George VI) was the second son of George V. David (later the abdicated, Edward VIII) was the oldest son and therefore, first in line. Elizabeth's childhood until the 1936 abdication (and the following Second World War) was spent as minor royalty, that only serious royal watchers in the 1920s/1930s would read about. Yet at the same time, she was the only "princess" at the time of her birth, and she was the only titled royal grandchild. Elizabeth had cousins who were daughter of her aunt, Princess Mary, Countess of Harewood, but those two sons were not HRHs. I learned just how fascinated people were with HM in her childhood, and it really drew parallels to how today people are fascinated with Princess Charlotte. From sparking name trends, to clothing trends, to making popular toys come en vogue, princess inspiration has always been in the public interest! Finally, I'd like to bring the to attention the fair criticism this book brings to Elizabeth's reign: it's no secret that no one is perfect. Elizabeth has had her fair share of political clashes, family problems and even scandals within her long reign. Its balanced in saying the longer one lives, the more events- both good and bad- you witness. The book is pretty nuanced when bringing up touchy topics such as the Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend's romance, HM's parenting skills/ relationships with her children, the Aberfan disaster of 1966, and Princess Diana' death to name a few.

As in within the book, it's all about points of view and the facts. I'm delighted to say the book doesn't take sides when viewing these topics, rather gives enough info for the reader to form their own opinion. I must say, however, I particularly didn't care for the slightly snide remarks given towards Princess Diana- always calling her every move "revenge" towards the family. That rubbed me the wrong way, but as I said, it's all about perception.

Overall, this book was a really informative read that is not just a rehash of the same ol', same ol' you would read in any random biography of Queen Elizabeth. With the last chapter clocking in at page 506, it may seem like a long dung out read, but it goes by quickly once you start digging in. (Personally I spotted one error on page 403, it's William Arthur Philip Louis, not William Philip Arthur!)

What I personally took away from the read was The Queen is an enduring woman. She's witnessed hardships of war, family crisis, premature deaths, scandals, and even the covid-19 pandemic, yet she's always been there for her people, her family and her country. She's been able to navigate changing times and as The Crown actress Claire Foy has said in her 2017 Golden Globes acceptance speech, Elizabeth has been at "the center of the world" since 1953 when she ascended to the throne. I don't think I myself could do better if I were in her shoes, and all that's left to do now, I believe,  is to appreciate her hard work and dedication. God save the Queen!

Above: My Copy of The Queen with (some of!) my other Royal books! :)

I'd like thank Hailey and the whole team at Kaye Publicity for sending me a copy of the book to read and review. The Queen by Matthew Dennison will be available to own on September 1, 2021 in the USA and is available worldwide online and in participating stores. Links are as follows, and check out my YouTube Review video HERE)

AMAZON USA (Hardcover)

Barnes and Noble

AMAZON UK (Hardcover)

The Queen Goodreads' page

Matthew Dennison Author page

The Queen (Head of Zeus Publishing page)

#queen elizabeth ii #book review #matthew dennison #british royal family #prince philip #prime minister #world leaders #biography #royal book review

[d-criss-news]

There’s a scene early on in Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix period drama “Hollywood,” in which an aspiring director, played by Darren Criss, meets with Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong, played by Michelle Krusiec, to try to convince her to be in his movie. Midway through their conversation he casually mentions that he’s half-Filipino, which seems to catch her off guard. She stops, takes off her glasses to see him better, and then says, “You’re Asian?”

What follows is a conversation not only about what it means to be an Asian-American person in Hollywood, but the further consequences that come with looking like one.

Krusiec as Wong — a 1920s and ’30s Hollywood star whose studio career all but came to an end after she was passed over for the Oscar-winning adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s “The Good Earth” in favor of a white actress in yellowface — gives Criss’ character, the fictional Raymond Ainsley, a schooling in something he, as a white-passing man, either can’t understand or refuses to believe.

“Over-sexed, opium addled courtesans, dangerously exotic far-Eastern temptresses. That’s what they wanted to see from someone who looks like me,” she says, letting him know in no uncertain terms that a movie from a half-Asian director that stars a Chinese actress will never get made.

“You’re dealing with two experiences that present different reactions. Not only internally, but externally,” Criss said in an interview with TheWrap. “Who are you to the world? How do they see you? How do you see yourself? What happens if you happen to look more like one half than the other, which one are you?”

Criss himself is half-Filipino and has in the past found himself in the unenviable position of contending with these questions as a public figure. “It’s a moving target that I’ve always kind of had to– well, I won’t say always had to. I think being in the public eye has made me think about it more than I ever have,” he said.

He first felt the full weight of that conversation a few years ago when some clumsy comments he made about his racial identity in a 2018 Vulture interview raised eyebrows online. Asked whether or not he identifies as Asian American, Criss suggested that doing so as a white-passing actor would be “unfair,” similar to “reaching for the minority card on a college application.” At the time, Criss was being lauded by critics for his performance as the half-Filipino serial killer Andrew Cunanan in Murphy’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” and just months away from making a historic runthrough awards season.

The outcry from the Filipino-American community, and the Asian-American community more broadly, was swift.

“In my mind, I was just me. My mom’s Filipino and my dad’s a white guy and that’s just kind of how it is,” Criss told TheWrap. (Indeed, in the same 2018 interview, he admitted that he had never even considered the question before he was asked.)

“You could argue, well maybe that’s because you’re white-passing and nobody ever questioned anything,” he continued. “And then I feel bad and I go, Oh god, did I somehow turn my back on my Filipino-ness? Like, at what point am I supposed to raise my hand higher for that? I don’t know the answer.”

As Krusiec put it, “It’s not an easy conversation to have,” but it’s one Asian American communities have always had to grapple with, and will continue to grapple with as their visibility in media grows. With a rising number of Asian-American stories finally getting recognition on screen, the question is no longer if Asian Americans get to be represented, but which segments of a large and diverse population get those opportunities, and why.

“As a full-blooded Taiwanese person, there came a point in my career where I realized I was not going to be as valuable as somebody who was passing as half-Asian or half-white, because they kind of look and feel less Asian,” she said. “And that’s kind of a hard thing to accept.”

The interplay between identity and perception is complex for any person, but for people of color there’s the added layer of having to exist within the context of a society defined by whiteness. “The trend you find is that when someone looks half, they’re seen as more desirable, they’re more attractive. And that’s the conversation you have with yourself, even though it feels like this really uncomfortable, icky conversation,” she said.

“It’s this thing you pick up on when you’re fully Taiwanese or fully Chinese. I look at my friends who are half, and I see them as having this great advantage over me. And at the same time, you don’t want to be thinking about these things but it just seems to be the reality.”

The flip side of that is the experience of someone like Criss’ character, who is met with obvious surprise and skepticism every time he tells someone he’s half-Filipino but seems most hurt by it when it comes from another Asian American. Or someone like Criss himself, who grew up feeling “incredibly supported and loved” as part of the Filipino community in California’s Bay Area, only to be confronted later in life by the possibility that his success may have been predicated on society’s willingness to set him apart from that community.

“Just to clarify,” Criss tweeted shortly after the Vulture interview began making the rounds. “[One] of my favorite things about myself is that I’m half Filipino. PERIOD. I happen to not look like it, but THAT fact is not what I like. I like the fact that most people don’t know it’s an ace up my sleeve, an ace I’m very proud of, regardless of what I look like.”

Criss says he hadn’t had asked Murphy to incorporate the thread on Asian-American identity into “Hollywood” prior to doing the show and was “very interested” to see it show up in the script. “Ryan wanted to make it more true to who I was, as he did with a lot of the actors,” he said. “So I said, just know that when you’re dealing with Asian identity, it’s a big one. And I think if we’re going to make it simple enough for people to understand, we have to root it in the fact that Raymond is scared of being other-ed. That’s really what it boils down to for everyone.”

“What Ryan did with Darren’s character, is he talked about a really complex situation and subject matter in a very concise way, just by putting these two people together,” Krusiec said. “One doesn’t believe that the other is interested in helping her. And the other is really, really trying to say, ‘No, I don’t look like I connect, but I do.’ And that’s a conversation that people within my community do have.”

“It’s not an easy conversation to have and he’s able to frame that in a way that I don’t think has been done before,” she said.

“Hollywood” finds no easy resolution between its two characters on this point by the end of their conversation (the scene is not their final interaction but to say any more would include spoilers), but Criss himself, at least, seems to have found a path forward.

“People want different things from different people in the media in terms of representation,” he said. “And the only thing I can do is be true to myself and be happy and proud of who I am — which I am —  and do my best to inspire other people to feel good about who they are.”

“Hollywood” launches Friday on Netflix.

#darren criss #thewrap #hollywood #press #may 2020 #hollywood spoilers #just in case

[existtoforget]

FAME AND THE FAMOUS

Pain without reason was something Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) learned quickly. Born in Germany but raised in Los Angeles, his unfiltered view on life stemmed from the hardships he endured as a child, establishing his crude view of the world at an early age. Writing was Bukowski’s attempt to control his environment and a space to work through painful emotions. In “An Almost Made Up Poem,” Bukowski’s vulnerability authentically captures the stages of relationships and warns others to be wary of concerning the public with private life scenarios. The stream of consciousness narrative represents the thoughts and memories rushing frantically through his head after learning about the death of someone he loved, and his raw but straightforward writing style challenges readers to question aspects of their own lives condemned in his writing.

The ballad-like verses are exhausted and drawn out, expressing his tiredness, and the long sentences structure the poem in place of clearly defined stanzas. The changes in agency throughout the poem - from “I” to “you” and occasionally “we” - alter the meaning and tone of each fragment of his thoughts, creating an emotional curve that is divisible by the sentences. Proper nouns, “I,” and “ANGELS AND GOD” are the only words capitalized in the poem, a reference to her writing and his perception of his worldly position. Bukowski reminisces on her “insane” poems that were “all in upper-case” with a respectable tone, and the capitalization of “ANGELS AND GOD” is a reference to her work. Going so far as to claim that she was “one of the best female poets,” paired with the adjectives used to describe her, Bukowski makes his admiration for the young writer apparent. However, it is curious that “you,” “we,” “if,” and “so” are lowercase despite being the first words of sentences.

Bukowski takes readers through his memories of the relationship’s emotional stages and the feelings they evoke after her suicide. The poetic arrangement of his memories, sparked by grief, starts with their last correspondence: their unique love story’s final moment. It isn’t until the end of the poem that we realize the first sentence depicts what is going through his head when learning of her suicide. “That last letter” was the last chapter of their private life together, but Bukowski goes on to illustrate the phases before and his perceptions after. As he begins delving into his memories of her writing and their interactions, he, at first, focuses on shortcomings: specifically, her inability to eliminate wealth and fame’s control over her life. This superior attitude and perspective are confirmed when he writes that “of course,” the “beautiful young girl” eventually realizes there is a necessity to finding security beyond superficial things. He denotes his view on her lack of regard for his life experiences as being foolish, exemplifying a common stage in the process of grief: blame. Part of which is placed on “fame” and the “famous,” her failure to listen, and his inability to convince her. His repetition and negative framing of the two words mirror his views on public life interfering with private, placing further blame for her death on society’s tendency to put a price on love and criticize aspects of other people’s lives.

“An Almost Made Up Poem” is a unique arrangement of life because, at the time, it was uncommon for people who had never met to be in love, the letter-writing indicating this is not a recent love story. This type of unconventional relationship is more relatable today than it was when Bukowski wrote the poem. Technological advancements foster relationships with few to no constraints imposed by geography, and as a result, it has become increasingly common for a couple to have never physically met. Because of this, pleasure can be obtained by a vast demographic, specifically the youth, and their ability to relate to relationships that don’t fit within the typical constraints set by society. Bukowski thinks it may have been “best like this” so that neither would have had the opportunity to be “unfair” to one another, but he is unsure. His cynical view on relationships is that “all lovers betray,” and in this instance, death may have been the inevitable form of heartbreak, considering he never rolled a cigarette while listening to her pee.

Beginning with the end enables a full circle and clear connection to be drawn to the stages of emotions about his memories and her suicide. “Your letters got sadder” indicates a significant shift in the tone of the poem, the emotions provoked by his memories, and her mental state. Throughout the poem, he expresses both his mixed feelings and hers: relaying her realizations about fame and his indecisiveness on who is to blame. Apparent hatred of fame remains consistent, as does his love, yet he criticizes her ethics and questions the possibility of a different outcome had she heeded his warnings. Their relationship and life were arranged in his imagination and writing before her death because they never met. However, their perspective on and arrangement in life were divided throughout their relationship because of her inability to separate public and private life. The framing of the famous is where he sees a divide between them. In Bukowski’s mind, this is why their love story and life together were arranged solely on paper - it may have failed if it left to anything but the imagination and their poetry.

The woman’s description at the fountain in France and the immediate repetition paints a pleasant picture of Bukowski’s imagination in the readers’ mind. He retracts his initial statement that she is tiny, and an abrupt “no” prompts readers to stop and adjust their perception with him. It also serves to correct the poem’s first claim, “I see,” reinforcing the narrative’s structure in the mental realm. This first scene is aesthetically pleasing to visualize and draws readers into his stream of consciousness. He sacrifices his vulnerability to teach and relate to the reader; this transparency permits his love to be declared before he explicitly claims to have loved her. The author’s descriptive adjectives for her - small, beautiful, young, mad, magic - promote dramatic, angelic perceptions of her appearance and attitude. Pleasure and reassurance are conjured from the imagery, along with his argument that true love can exist outside societal constraints. For some, his dark and hopeless view of love are relatable, while others experience soothing contentment from the author’s depiction of something beautiful. He argues that despite the romantic aspects of love, the idealistic, corrupt components will reign supreme, and someone will always get betrayed in the end. At the risk of seeming selfish, he implies her suicide betrayed him. While dark, it is a relatable emotion that exemplifies the emptiness stage many go through after losing a loved one.

Bukowski’s intention behind the long sentences was for the poem to feel like his stream of thoughts after learning of his love’s death: dramatic and anxiety-ridden. The symbolic and literal presence of God throughout the first half of the poem disappears with a rare change in agency (to “we” - one of the few times he references them together) and his statement “we know God is dead, they’ told us.” He says that her writing persuades him to doubt God’s death, illustrated by references to a higher realm/power present only in the first half. Magnificent “upper case” writing was the only thing that made him feel like God could be present in the world, but it seems their perceptions were incongruous. The “fame” and the “famous,” and their entrapment between“ANGELS AND GOD” shows an inability to break free from greed and their difference in opinion of objects worthy of worship. She associated higher power with her famous lovers and even shifted the subject of her writing to encapsulate them. Bukowski attributes part of the blame for her death on this failure to find security outside of superficiality.

The anger and confusion felt after her suicide, expressed honestly and bluntly, serves to warn youth of love’s dangers. Bukowski’s letter to his unrequited, and now dead, love elicits a response from his audience with antagonistic word choices and his willingness to open himself to criticism from others. He is mad she didn’t listen to him but also blames himself for failing to stop her. The poem is arranged by “if”s and “so”s because that is life at its simplest, and his way of understanding the sequence of events that unfolded while simultaneously questioning if their lives could have, or should have, gone differently—prompting readers to question their relationship with “fame” and the “famous” and warning of the intoxicating powers that claimed her life. “She’ mad but she’ magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” was Bukowski’s way of saying the young writer was unapologetic of her strange perspectives and true to her heart, but only in her writing. Her authenticity and brilliance were a brave expression of the magical madness within each of us, her passion allowing for truths to be shared and adding an unmistakable presence to the world. Perception is not always reality, and Charles Bukowski’s struggle with this and raw view on life is exemplified in his arrangement of imagination and life in “An Almost Made Up Poem.” The conclusion that “it was best like this” reflects Bukowski’s relationship with death, reinforcing that this experience with love, and all others, warrant a cynical analysis.

AN ALMOST MADE UP POEM - CHARLES BUKOWSKI (1920-1994)

I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny

blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny

they are small, and the fountain is in France

where you wrote me that last letter and

I answered and never heard from you again.

you used to write insane poems about

ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you

knew famous artists and most of them

were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right,

go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous

because we’ never met. we got close once in

New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never

touched.

so you went with the famous and wrote

about the famous, and, of course, what you found out

is that the famous are worried about

their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed

with them, who gives them that, and then awakens

in the morning to write upper case poems about

ANGELS AND GOD.

we know God is dead, they’ told

us, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybe

it was the upper case.

you were one of the best female poets and I told the publishers,

editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’

magic. there’ no lie in her fire.”

I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only

writes to, keeps little photographs of.

I would have loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a

cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,

but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder.

your lovers betrayed you.

kid, I wrote back, all lovers betray.

it didn’ help.

you said you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and

the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying

bench every night and wept for the lovers who had

hurt and forgotten you.

I wrote back but never heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide 3 or 4 months after it happened.

if I had met you I would probably have been unfair to you or you to me. it was best like this.

#poetry #poem #poetry analysis #charles bukowski #an almost made up poem #excerpt from a book i'll never write #writblr #writers of tumblr #writing #scholarly #scholarly analysis #poem analysis #pain #love #love story #love poem #death #essential bukowski

[stillellensibley]

Looking at the history of emptiness in modern art I am often reminded of Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. Zeno imagined a race, in which Achilles would generously grant the tortoise a head start of say 100 metres, and each would move at a steady, unchanging speed. His conclusion was that Achilles would never be able to catch up with the tortoise, because every time he came close, the tortoise would have had time to move a little further, so that the distance between them would endlessly decrease to a few yards, a few metres, one metre, 0.1 metre, 0.01 metre, etc. In the same way, every time the audience of modern and contemporary art is led to believe that the avant-garde reduction of the artwork to a minimal, barely perceptible form can go no further, along comes another artist who creates another even more minimal, even less perceptible, artwork.

Thus, it seemed that the history of modern art had reached its zero point when Marcel Duchamp presented a glass pharmacy phial filled with Paris air to an American collector in 1919, or when Kazimir Malevich painted his White on White composition in 1918, and two years later filled a room with, as one person noted, empty canvases ‘devoid of colour, form and texture’ on the occasion of his first solo exhibition in Moscow. Yet in a 1968 article, critics Lucy Lippard and John Chandler could only observe that ‘the artist… has continued to make something of “nought” 50 years after Malevich’s White on White seemed to have defined nought for once and for all. We still do not know how much less ‘nothing’ can be.’ Thirty-five years later, Gabriel Orozco’s sole contribution to the Aperto exhibition at the 1993 Venice Biennale consisted of an empty shoe box, eight years before Martin Creed notoriously won the Turner Prize partly for his installation Work No. 227: The lights going on and off at regular intervals. Nearly ten noughty years down the line, and shortly after a museum survey entitled Voids: a Retrospective presented visitors with nine perfectly empty rooms, we are still none the wiser about ‘how much less “nothing” can be’.

Year after year, decade after decade, however, one thing doesn’t seem to change: if we haven’t walked through, on, or past the artwork without noticing it, our reactions to this kind of barely perceptible, almost nothing, practice will predictably range from puzzlement and laughter to anger and indignation. Even before Malevich’s 1920 exhibition, a French cartoonist had imagined in 1912 that the empty canvas would be the next avant-garde prank visited on its baffled public. In the caption, the artist presenting his blank canvas explains in a pun on the then-current Futurist movement: ‘It’s the most futurist picture of all – so far it is only signed, and I’ll never paint it.’ As the emptiness and reduction of blank canvases, of white or black monochromes and of Duchampian readymades were extended to silent concerts and empty galleries in the second half of the twentieth century, the question remained: are all these forms of emptiness so many variations on the same provocative joke?

The first documented entirely empty exhibition, Yves Klein’s The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State Into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility – better known as The Void – at the Galerie Iris Clert in Paris in 1958, certainly had all the trappings of an elaborate PR stunt. Not only did Klein empty the exhibition space and paint the remaining walls and cases white, he also posted two Republican Guards in full uniform at the entrance of the gallery, served blue cocktails especially ordered from the famous brasserie La Coupole and had even planned to light up the obelisk on the Place de la Concorde with his brand of International Klein Blue. While the last event was cancelled at the last minute, an estimated 3,000 visitors did show up on the night of the opening, filling the streets around the gallery as they waited to enter the exhibition space through blue curtains, one small group at a time. The crowd was finally dispersed by the police called in by disgruntled visitors who had felt swindled after paying their entrance fee to be shown an empty gallery. In some ways, the succès à scandale of The Void has obscured Klein’s very idiosyncratic brand of showmanship and mysticism. His interest in the immaterial was genuine, inspired by his exploration of monochrome painting and his belief, influenced by Rosicrucianism, that humans must strive to liberate themselves from flesh and matter.

If some artists since Klein have embraced such spiritual readings of the void, a more general preoccupation with the invisible seems to account for many empty exhibitions in the past 50 years or so. Maria Eichhorn, a German artist whose early work includes white texts written on white walls, speaks for many artists when she explains: “There is such a fixation in our Western culture on the visible, which explains why we think that… a room is empty… because there is nothing visible. But I’ve never thought that an empty room is empty.” In the late 1960s Robert Barry had already pointed to the imperceptible forces that literally surround us by introducing radio waves as well as magnetic currents into the gallery space. American artist Maria Nordman has tried to focus viewers’ attention on the light falling through an empty gallery’s windows at different moments of the day and of the year. More prosaically, other artists have invited visitors simply to contemplate the architecture of the gallery. Arriving in 1993 at the Museum Haus Esters in Krefeld, originally a house designed by Mies van der Rohe, British artist Bethan Huws felt she could not add anything to the beauty of the modernist building. Instead, she distributed a poem to visitors and let them admire the gallery for itself.

In the 1970s American artist Michael Asher pioneered strategies through which to reveal the architectural structure of the gallery. At the Clare Copley Gallery in 1975, for example, he simply removed the wall separating the empty exhibition space from the art dealer’s office. By opening up this space, the artist was not only inviting visitors to consider its architectural features: he also reminded them of the Business transactions taking place behind the walls of commercial galleries. After Asher, other artists have explored the invisible networks of art business and institutional presentations that frame the art we view. Maria Eichhorn used the budget allocated to her show at the Kunsthalle Bern to tackle the institution’s debts and fund much-needed refurbishments of the building (Money at the Kunsthalle Bern 2001), while in their 2005 Supershow – More than a Show, the collective Superflex used theirs to give each visitor two Swiss Francs instead of asking them to pay an entrance fee to see empty spaces adorned only by texts stating the physical properties of each room (surface, wall colour, maximum number of visitors, etc). Museum surveillance is alluded to in Roman Ondák’s 2006 More Silent than Ever, which warns visitors that hidden listening devices are installed in the room.

Presented with invisible elements such as Ondák’s listening devices or Barry’s magnetic fields, we are left wondering whether to believe the artists’ claims since, after all, there is no adequate way to confirm them. We come to realise that our relation to the work is predicated on knowledge, presuppositions and some form of trust in the authority of artists and art institutions. British artist Ceal Floyer traces her interest in minimal displays back to her experience as a gallery invigilator while she was an art student. ‘I watched a lot of art being seen. And a lot of art being not seen,’ she remembers. ‘That was a training in itself. I discovered that presumption is a medium in its own right.’ As with Creed’s The lights going on and off , Floyer’s plastic buckets and black rubbish bags casually sitting in the gallery certainly reveal to us our prejudices and expectations as to what art is or should be. Gabriel Orozco says he actively seeks to disappoint his viewers. Is my irritation at being presented with an empty shoe box or lights going and off ultimately good for me?

The veiled hostility directed by the artist at the viewer situates such attitudes in the context of more radical declarations against art and its institutions. When presenting her empty exhibition at the Lorence-Monk Gallery in New York in 1990, American artist Laurie Parsons went so far as to refuse to include her name on the invitation to the opening and to remove all reference to the show from her CV. Four years later, she ceased to produce works altogether, thus following a line of artists before her who deliberately decided, as part of their practice, to give up, or take a break from, the profession. From this perspective, the empty gallery is less an artwork than a gesture – of provocation, dissent and critique. As Brian O’Doherty has shown in his well-known study of the modern “white cube” gallery, such a gesture ‘depends for its effect on the context of ideas it changes and joins’. For the gesture to succeed, its timing, place and audience have to be just right. Sometimes it can be understood only retrospectively, as it becomes historicised.

It would be unfair, however, to reduce all explorations of emptiness, nothingness and the invisible to the rhetoric of the gesture. To return to Orozco’s Empty Shoe Box: when it was first shown in 1993, it certainly poked fun at the Venice Biennale’s frenzy of publicity and consumption, but it also served as a memorable image of the container or vessel that is a leitmotif in the artist’s work. ‘I am interested in the idea of making myself – as an artist and an individual – above all a receptacle,’ stated Orozco. Playing with contrasts between empty and full, his work as a whole exemplifies a sensitivity to reciprocal spatial relations. In a notebook, he compares discarded pieces of chewing gum on a pavement with the stones placed on a board in the Asian strategy game of Go. Like Empty Shoe Box, the Go stones and the spat-out blobs of gum occupy and cut out space, demarcating a territory according to very specific patterns of chance and intention.

Many artists have similarly been interested in the space between objects. Both the Belgian Joëlle Tuerlinckx and the Brazilian Fernanda Gomes often present arrangements of small, discrete everyday objects scattered around otherwise vacant gallery spaces. Tuerlinckx describes the exhibition space as ‘a kind of parcel, a packet of air’ that she is invited to open and explore through her work; Gomes says she never comes to the gallery with a pre-defined plan. In these installations, the empty gallery becomes a blank page to be inscribed (as in Tuerlinckx’s spatial drawings), or the pregnant void that surrounds objects in paintings such as Giorgio Morandi’s (in Gomes’s three-dimensional still-lifes).

Painting is also a surprising reference for the performances staged by Marie Cool/Fabio Balducci, during which Cool stands in an empty room as she enacts a series of repetitive, extremely precise gestures using flimsy everyday materials such as paper, tape, or thread. The French- Italian duo has claimed that the image of a figure hovering in an undefined yet meaningful space was inspired by early Renaissance religious painting such as Simone Martini’s Annunciations. The empty gallery as a stage for action has also been effectively used by Martin Creed, when he asked runners to sprint down the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain, one by one at regular intervals, in 2008, or by British-German artist Tino Sehgal, who in 2010 choreographed two continuous scenarios, involving three actors, in the spiral rotunda at the New York Guggenheim Museum.

Placed in vast expanses of void, both bodies and objects appear more vulnerable. On the one hand, such installations provide an alternative to the spectacular displays encouraged by increasingly large-scale museum and gallery spaces. By celebrating the commonplace, the barely noticed, as well as frailty and precariousness, artists thus seem to be actively resisting the pressure to create ever-bigger, glossier, more awe-inspiring works. On the other hand, however, such minimal mises en scène can create new forms of spectacle – as when Maurizio Cattelan places his miniature self-portrait, a resin figurine hanging from a clothing rack, in a corner of the empty gallery in order to emphasise his apparent failure to take on the revolutionary role of 1970s artists such as Joseph Beuys (to make the point, the Cattelan mini-me is clad in Beuys’s signature felt suit).

While such formal devices are often little more than simple gimmicks, works that effectively stage their own weakness and vulnerability can raise questions about the institutional and social conditions that guarantee their existence as art. In Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, a naked emperor is persuaded by his tailors that his fine clothes are visible only to intelligent people; his subjects, afraid like him to admit that they cannot see them, applaud his outfit until a small child in the crowd finally blurts out the truth – ‘But he’s got nothing on!’ Though above all a cautionary tale against the deceptive powers of flattery, vanity and sycophantism, the story also provides an image of the willing suspension of disbelief required by most forms of art. After all, the artist’s deception, like the cheating tailors’, could never work without our participation. In his 2002 work Lament of the Images, Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar mobilises this kind of community of believers by presenting us with two dark, apparently empty rooms. In the first, we come across three small backlit text panels relating real stories about invisible or impossible images, such as the fact that the United States Defence Department purchased the rights to all available satellite images of Afghanistan during the 2001 air strikes so that the global media could not publish them. The second room houses a single, brightly lit, empty screen. Blinded by its light, we are reminded of our own blind spots – our complicity in the invisibility of certain images and in the existence of many an emperor’s new clothes.

[dweemeister]

Shoes (1916)

During the 1890s and 1900s, the earliest American movie studios were dispersed across major cities east of the Mississippi River. But by the early 1910s, the stable weather, tax-friendly environment, and natural beauty of Southern California brought these studios westward. The Golden Age of Hollywood was born in the Golden State. Women directors, producers, and writers were essential to Hollywood’s creation. One of the early pioneers from Hollywood’s rough-and-tumble beginnings was Lois Weber – at her career’s peak, she was as famous, innovative, and as crucial to the development of cinematic vocabulary as D.W. Griffith (1915’s The Birth of a Nation, 1916’s Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages). Yet in the writing of American cinematic history, Weber has been largely sidelined, if not outright omitted.

Many of Lois Weber’s films are lost, like those of her countless silent era contemporaries across the world. What remains of Weber’s filmography for modern public consumption is a body of work filled with artistic assuredness. Shoes, released by an infant studio named Universal, is a fascinating film – unafraid to depict issues that would have been tossed out by Hollywood censors twenty years later. It serves as an ideal gateway to Weber’s work, a demonstration of her political and artistic auteurism.

Eva Meyer (Mary MacLaren, a Weber regular) is a young woman who serves as her family’s principal breadwinner. Her mother (Mattie Witting) tends to their dilapidated apartment and Eva’s two younger sisters while making a few cents as a laundress. Eva’s father (Harry Griffith) lies in bed and reads books all day – this is a rare instance of a movie where you want a character to read less. The hours Eva works at the five-and-dime store are draining. She drifts, numbly, between home and work – there is no time for leisure, at least for anyone who isn’t Eva’s father. One day, she has torn through the soles of her shoes – she wants to purchase a replacement, but she cannot afford a new pair. As she walks to and from work every day, a pair of boots propped up at a different store’s display window beckon. Eva looks longingly at these boots, as well as those adorning the feet of the women she encounters on her lonesome commute.

The cinematic techniques that Weber employs might seem well-worn today, but in 1916 her vision was groundbreaking. There are a few instances of superimposed images appearing in the left-hand corner of the screen to show the audience what a character is daydreaming about. That may be more prominent in modern animated film, the effect provides plot development more expeditiously than a silent film intertitle. A superimposed dream probably would not be as effective in a contemporary live-action film – unless it was a comedy – but it works here. Shoes’ several dissolves also emphasize Eva’s longing for her new shoes, as she imagines how vivified her life could be with those new pair of boots on display in the window. Along with cinematographers Stephen S. Norton (1916’s Where Are My Children?; 1923’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame), King D. Gray (1915’s The College Orphan; second cameraman on 1934’s The Black Cat), and Allen G. Siegler (1915 serial The Broken Coin; 1916’s The Dumb Girl of Portici), Weber also utilizes dissolves to close in on Eva’s regretful disposition – this opposed to a zoom or a dolly shot (neither would be largely adopted among filmmakers for some time). The gradual dissolve is completed in respect to the modest pace of Shoes, and deepens the gravitational pull of Eva’s desolation. Dissolves in 1910s films were rarities; to see them used as artistically as this signifies a director and cinematographers tinkering with techniques well ahead of their time.

Numerous early silent filmmakers of the mid-1910s constructed glaringly cheap sets that can easily take modern viewers out of a film. In these films, a room might appear poorly painted and appear to have paper-thin doors and walls; exteriors may consist of materials haphazardly assembled on a movie studio lot. Not here. Weber uses Los Angeles for her exteriors rather than a soundstage; Eva could easily be imagined as an Angeleno rather than the resident of some artificial town. Eva passes through a teeming, bird-flocked Pershing Square on her way to and from work every day. Pershing Square is a lonely place for her, and the passing couples wearing fashionable shoes underline her psychological distance from all that surrounds her. A nearby Woolworth’s at 719 South Broadway Avenue stood in as the windowed storefront that Eva stops by during her commute, further imbuing Shoes with emotional interest.

During Shoes’ fifty-two minutes, Weber invites the viewer to adopt Eva’s viewpoint. A lesser director might stray from this focus in favor of her parents or a random lout like the character of “Cabaret” Charlie (William V. Mong), but Weber stays the course and the film – in no small part thanks to sixteen-year-old Mary MacLaren’s sufficient performance as the protagonist – is emotionally rewarded for that concentration in its final scenes. Eva’s gloom and constant embarrassment regarding her penury suffuses every scene, magnified by Weber’s silent film-era arsenal of techniques, grasp of narrative structure*, and location shooting. Amid the United States’ Progressive Era, Weber’s socially conscious films resonated with an American public gaining greater awareness of industrialization’s and unregulated capitalism’s ill effects. Shoes, based on a story closely adapted from Jane Addams’ A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, is a byproduct of the debates that Progressive Era activists engaged in. Weber’s film depicts an implied lack of employee protections/benefits and the presence of a nefarious sexual economy – unaddressed legacies of the social upheaval caused by industrialization.

Shoes itself does not contain any explicit political diatribes, but Weber’s sympathies could not be clearer. Before her film career, Weber – born to a devout Pennsylvanian Christian family – lived in poverty herself and engaged in missionary work to help improve the lives of young women. By her own admission, Weber based certain incidents in her films on the experiences she saw, vicariously, through those women she worked for in her youth. For Shoes, the segments in between home and work existed outside the text of Addams’ novel, and were informed by the poor women the Weber interacted with. Without those scenes, Shoes’ pathos is less powerful. Universal, believing in Weber’s approach to Shoes, launched an advertising campaign trumpeting the film’s social realism – an expression of confidence in a gifted and thoughtful director who made some of the most interesting films of the silent era. Weber’s early life experiences made that craftwork possible.

Let me dispel any myths I may have previously perpetuated via other reviews on this blog: women directors were not novelties at the dawn of Hollywood. By the end of the 1910s, Universal Studios in particular boasted a talented corps of women directors and writers – in 1916, Weber became Universal’s highest-paid director (such a distinction is almost impossible to fathom even in 2020). Hollywood’s early studios had numerous women who worked behind the cameras in critical creative positions. In the 1920s, Wall Street titans took notice of the burgeoning film industry flourishing in Southern California. The incoming consolidation of Hollywood’s movie studios resulted in a marked decrease of women involved in filmmaking. These New York-based financiers, all men, held dim views of women in business and motion pictures where feminism fuels the work. The fact that seventy-five percent of all silent films are now lost forever, in addition to uninformed perceptions about silent films themselves, has further complicated studies of women filmmakers during Hollywood’s earliest years. The history of American filmmaking written since then has been sexist and racist by omission. In the years to come, let us hope that this history can be more inclusive – not for the sake of inclusivity, but to accurately reflect the reality that female filmmakers were pivotal to the development of American cinema in the silent era.

Shoes is an ideal starting point for those wishing to learn more about the early women directors in Hollywood. A product of the era’s politics and Lois Weber’s dedication to gendered and economic justice, it is a measured, intriguing film serving as a lasting testament to its director’s acuity.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

*As film technology became more affordable and as it advanced in America, the average Hollywood film became longer in the mid-1910s. In this environment, directors experimented – and frequently failed – with how to extend their narratives from rather simple short films. At fifty-two minutes, Shoes was much longer than the typical film released in 1916 (within a decade that would no longer be the case).

#Shoes #Lois Weber #Mary MacLaren #William V. Mong #silent film #TCM #Harry Griffith #Mattie Witting #Jessie Arnold #Lina Basquette #Stephen S. Norton #King Gray #Allen G. Siegler #My Movie Odyssey

[principleofplenitude]

A 2003 study from economists Angela Dills and Jeffrey Miron, a libertarian critical of prohibiting alcohol and other drugs, found that national Prohibition reduced liver cirrhosis deaths — a commonly used proxy for all drinking at the time — by 10 to 20 percent. [...] Prohibition did lead to more violence in some places, particularly big cities where a black market and organized crime took off. But as Prohibition reduced drinking, it also reduced alcohol-induced violence, like domestic abuse. So the increase in organized crime may have been offset by a drop in more common, and less publicly visible, types of violence driven by alcohol. So what were Prohibition’s overall effects on crime? Emily Owens, an economist at the University of California Irvine, analyzed the effects of national Prohibition and state-level prohibitions in studies published in 2011 and 2014. She found, contrary to popular perceptions about Prohibition and crime, that prohibitions were associated with lower murder rates — as much as 29 percent lower in some cases. Where crime did increase, it wasn’t always prohibition but other factors, like the swift urbanization that was occurring in the era, that were mostly to blame. Once you control for other factors, she told me, fluctuations in homicide during the 1920s “appear to be more closely connected to these [non-prohibition] changes.” “The public perception that creating this illegal market for alcohol opened up an opportunity for organized crime to earn a lot of revenue, that’s something that’s not disproven. That could still definitely be true,” Owens said. “However, it doesn’t outweigh the less sexy, less movie-friendly story about alcohol and violence, which is that it affects family members, it affects kids, it affects violence that happens inside someone’s home.”

“Prohibition worked better than you think“ from Vox

#reading list #vox #german lopez #prohibition #emily owens #economics #alcohol #taxation #crime

[lowbrowanthro]

Maud Wood Park: Forgotten Feminist, Proto-Anthropologist, Bad Bitch

In the summer of 2018, I spent three weeks in the Library of Congress researching twentieth-century women political leaders (think suffragettes, early legislators, etc).

Mostly I skimmed workshop pamphlets and stared, unblinking, at indecipherable handwritten correspondence. But one woman in particular had me rapt.

[Extremely Stefon voice] Maud Wood Park’s story has everything - suffragette drama, a trip around the world, and a secret (second! Post divorce! That scandalous queen!) marriage that *definitely* disappointed her dad.

(Photo from: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collection/papers-maud-wood-park-in-womans-rights-collection)

Born in 1871 in Boston, Maud Wood Park was a no-nonsense activist ahead of her time. I call her “forgotten” even though she’s well-known to scholars of women’s suffrage (NERRRDS), because she’s largely left out of public school lessons featuring big names like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Yet her work as a lobbyist with the National American Woman Suffrage Association and as the first president of the League of Women Voters made her a centrally important figure in the struggle for American women’s suffrage.

(Maud pictured 4th from the right. Photo from: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collection/papers-maud-wood-park-in-womans-rights-collection)

Even more interesting than her activism (lol sorry, women’s rights) was her personal life.

Maud did her own damn thing - she chose not to have children, eschewed religion, traveled around the world without a male escort, and never stopped fighting for women’s rights. She married her first husband after meeting him in college (she went to Radcliffe, A.K.A. ~Lady Harvard~ because She Smart And She Fancy), and then divorced his ass when she was 35. Two years later, she ~secretly~ married Robert “Bob” Hunter Freeman.

(Above: Bob and his bowler hat. Photos from the LoC collections)

Bob was ~an actor~ and theatrical agent (yes Maud, I feel you, who among us has not pined for a sensitive artistic type). They both traveled so often for work that they were never able to officially, publicly settle down and cohabitate. Instead, their marriage remained secret to all but a few close friends, and they met clandestinely in hotel rooms during Maud’s lecture circuits. They also shared a robust (there are SO MANY LETTERS, you guys) correspondence. Many of their letters focus on their interpersonal drama and semi-tempestuous but deeply-loving relationship, and you bet I read all that shit. 

They had serious differences and disagreed constantly. Bob gave Maud shit about her temperament and lack of religion, and she gave him shit about his lack of logic.

In the 1915 letter to Bob below, Maud openly and unrepentantly admits to being a stone-cold bitch (my heroine..!), describing herself as “a cold, hard, self-contained, self-centred, ambitious and extremely critical woman.”

(Maud’s a Slytherin. Obvs.)

Maud knows herself. Maud accepts herself. Maud does not care about your feelings.

Bob, on the other hand, was a total Hufflepuff. In the funny 1915 letter below, Maud writes to him about how much her “man-hating” spinster friends love him, seeing him as more of a womanly kindred spirit than a man. Their high praise even inspires her to (grudgingly, poorly... Maud is all of us) embroider Bob’s initials onto some handkerchiefs, even though she “hadn’t done anything of that sort for over 20 years.”

Ah, ~True Love~ :’)

(Above: Maud and Bob, basically)

Maud was an independent thinker, and her lack of religious belief troubled Bob at first. She explained her outlook on life to him in a 1908 letter: 

“I feel a sort of responsibility to myself and to others, irrespective of God’s existence or non existence. I think it is the effect of my keen perception of the rights of all other living creatures, black, white or brown, animal as well as human. It explains my passionate democracy and my sense of outrage at the injustices that women have to bear. It does not rest on love of God or recognition of Him; not even on love of men, but rather on the craving of my whole nature for justice. It’s the best thing in me, my only effective weapon against my egoism.”

Clearly, humanist ideals fueled her activism at a time when many involved in social reform movements held beliefs rooted in Christianity.

(Above: the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, for example! Photo from: https://sites.google.com/site/orangewomenstemperanceunion/background-on-women-s-christian-temperance-union)

Maud was also kind of an amateur anthropologist - she traveled around the world to study the conditions of women in various cultures. 

Funded by a wealthy sponsor who supported her work for women’s rights, she struck out on a two year journey in 1909 to investigate women’s lives in far-flung locales including Singapore, China, India, Australia and New Zealand, New Guinea, Bhutan, and elsewhere.

(Above, postcard of Chefoo, China, circa 1908, from: https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/street-in-chefoo-china-postcard-c1908/16726374)

Her views reflect the times and an understanding of universal womanhood that’s been deconstructed by postcolonial feminist scholars, but she recognized the importance of cultural differences.

Before women could even vote in the U.S., Maud was going around stressing the need to understand the various ways women lived around the world.

Rather than just exoticizing foreign tropical locales, she described their complexities. Maud talked about the widespread poverty in Chinese villages in the wake of nineteenth-century British imperialism and described India as “huge and enormously complicated” in a February 9th, 1920 letter written on a train from Darjeeling to Calcutta, for example.

She exhibited an anthropological curiosity (even if she lacked a little tact), writing this detailed description to Bob on June 18th, 1909:

“This afternoon I did get off by myself in a rickshaw in a town I never heard of and poked around for an hour in unimaginably dirty and crowded streets. The Yang-tse-Kiang is a beautiful broad river, but almost deserted on the banks except for occasional cities of large towns where the foreign “Concession” is nearly opposite the landing. If we can we get away from the Concession in these places and into the Chinese town, usually enclosed by a wall. There indeed everything is different: muddy, smelly, narrow streets, swarms of men, some children and fewer women, (those who are well-to-do stay in the “Inner Apartment”) endless little dingy restaurants half on the street where the cooking is all in plain sight, ramshackle one-story houses leaning against each other in order to stay up at all. Most foreigners are disgusted and flee as soon as possible, but I enjoy it all and want to go poking up every lane and into every courtyard.” 

Maud also recognized the pervasiveness of Western culture way before scholars started theorizing about “globalization.” In 1909, she wrote:

“Fate seems always to pull at my skirts and drag me back to the surroundings of the inescapable West. It’s marvelous how pervasive that is out here in the Orient – the trace of the West. –I begin to believe that there isn’t a village in Asia where you can’t buy bottled waters and find at least one Englishman. I may have to go to central Africa to get the unadulterated East; and even there I suppose I’d find T. Roosevelt or his remains.”

I choose to believe that she would have made a good intersectional feminist activist and anthropologist had she been born a few decades later.

Maud stressed that women deserved freedom above all in both her personal and professional life. She lobbied for women’s rights tirelessly both to legislators and to Bob, who started out skeptical but was eventually won over. 

In the 1915 letter below, Bob wishes Maud success and writes that he’s come around in favor of women’s suffrage once and for all, finally convinced “of something which perhaps should always have been obvious, but wasn’t.”

(That’s f***ing right Bob, get it together)

Maud Wood Park - world traveler, legislative expert, and even playwright - was a fierce feminist. She seemed to foreshadow the third-wavers of the future. In a 1912 letter (one of her many extended arguments with Bob), she considered the future of the women’s movement and women’s ultimate place in society:

“I resent so bitterly the arrogance of men who attempt to say that what men want is the measure of what women should be – or the added insult of attempting to interpret Nature or the Creator for women. Certainly if there is any record of what nature intended it is to be found in the powers that she has given women. If a woman has a beautiful voice it seems likely that nature meant her to sing, etc., etc.

The moral of all this is – don’t spend any more time or words or ink in trying to show what women were meant to do. Spend your energy in giving women themselves a chance to show what they were meant to be.”

Amen.

#Maud Wood Park #Feminism #suffrage #women #women's rights #feminist #history #anthropology #research #archives #womens liberation #suffragette #votes for women #romance #star-crossed lovers #herstory #women's history

[the-paintrist]

Giovanni Segantini - Portrait of Vittore Grubicy de Dragon - 1887

Giovanni Segantini (15 January 1858 – 28 September 1899) was an Italian painter known for his large pastoral landscapes of the Alps. He was one of the most famous artists in Europe in the late 19th century, and his paintings were collected by major museums. In later life, he combined a Divisionist painting style with Symbolist images of nature. He was active in Switzerland during the last period of his life.

Vittore Grubicy de Dragon (15 October 1851 – 4 August 1920) was an Italian painter, art critic and art gallery owner who was largely responsible for introducing into Italian painting the optical theories of Divisionism. His writings and paintings influenced a generation of late 19th-century Italian painters. In addition, the Grubicy Gallery became one of the first art enterprises to be run on the concept of exhibiting living artists that were represented as clients of the gallery.

Grubicy grew up in a well-to-do family in Milan. Both of his parents were great art lovers, and from an early age he was introduced to the art circles in Milan and other European cities.

After his father died in 1870, Grubicy became involved with a bohemian group of Milanese artists, poets and writers known as the Scapigliatura, who sought to blur the differences between art and life. He was so taken with this new lifestyle that he convinced his brother Alberto to join him in buying an art gallery, which came to be known as the Galleria Fratelli Grubicy. His brother ran the financial aspects of the gallery while Vittore traveled throughout Europe looking for the newest art trends. Their gallery initially specialized in Scapigliatura artists such as Tranquillo Cremona and Daniele Ranzoni, but within a few years it began to feature newer Italian artists that included Giovanni Segantini, Emilio Longoni and Angelo Morbelli.

Between 1882 and 1885 Grubicy spent most of his time in the Netherlands, where he became friends with artists of the Hague School, especially Anton Mauve. Mauve strongly influenced Grubicy as an artist and in his critical approach to art. When he returned to Italy Grubicy encouraged the artists he represented to emulate the styles of Mauve and Mauve's cousin-in-law, Vincent van Gogh. Painter Emilio Longoni wrote, "Vittore Grubicy has brought Divisionism from abroad. He's having Segantini, Morbelli and me do it ourselves." Grubicy's passion for Divisionism was so strong that he convinced Segantini to rework an already finished painting, Ave Maria by the Lake, in a Divisionist technique.

In 1886 Grubicy became the art critic for the newspaper La Riforma, where for the next four years he used his position to further promote his artistic opinions. In that publication and in Cronaca d'Arte, the most Italian important art review of the time, Grubicy wrote extensively about "the perception of light as the tool best able to translate onto canvas subjective emotions…"

In 1889 Vittore left the gallery business over conflicts with his brother, and he began to devote most of his time to his own painting and to writing about other artists. He continued to act as an independent talent scout, and in 1891 he helped organize the first large exhibition of Italian Divisionist painting at Milan's Brera Tiennale. Conservative art critics wrote scathing reviews of many of the works, but Grubicy wrote very positive reviews in several newspapers. One of the most important paintings shown at that exhibition was Gaetano Previati's Maternity. In writing about this work Grubicy introduced the concept of Symbolism in Italian painting when he hailed the piece as embodying a new aesthetic which he called "mystico-ideist."

Grubicy also influenced his fellow artists through his compositions of multiple paintings arranged as triptychs and polyptychs. In the early 1890s he began planning a polyptych of sixteen panels under the title of Winter in Miazzina. The work took shape as an interchangeable sequence of paintings that reflected his emotional experiences over the long winters at Miazzina on the shore of Lake Maggiore. Each canvas was subjected to continued revisions by Grubicy over many years, depending upon his mood and his interests. Finally, in 1911, the polyptych assumed its final form in an arrangement of only eight paintings that he called Winter in the Mountains. In spite of all his work to create it, he did not exhibit it during his lifetime. It was first shown together at the Rome Biennale in 1921, the year after his death. After that the assemblage did not remain as a polyptych, and the individual paintings were sold to different collectors and museums. Grubicy took a photograph of the polyptych as he intended it to be seen, and based upon that image the work has been reassembled for several exhibitions since his death, most recently at the Kunsthaus Zürich in 2009.

His health deteriorated after 1910, and during the last decade of his life he had to give up painting altogether. He remained an active promoter of new artists during this period, especially Carlo Carrà, Pietro Angelini and Arturo Tosi.

Grubicy died at his home in Milan in 1920.

#Giovanni Segantini #Italy #divisionism #symbolism #portrait #paintrist #Vittore Grubicy #neoimpressionism #history

[charlottecollerson]

World War I and Australian Art: Fighting for art in Australia

World War I had a significant impact on Australian society, being the first international war Australia would engage in on its’ own accord. The way in which this affected society’s function and Australia’s relationship with the world was profound. The art world, so inherently intertwined, held a mirror up to society during this time, reflecting this change. Socially, culturally, and economically, Australia had changed and many of these artists at the time were embracing this change, as well as the new influence of Modernism coming from across the world. However, some artists and art critics were hesitant to accept this change due to the nature of the works and the artists creating them. Within this essay, social, cultural, political, and economic influences within the interwar period will be examined to understand how Australian Modernism was shaped during this time.

Post World War I, women had been brought into the forefront of society, entering the workforce and other roles in greater numbers than ever before. With many male artists fighting overseas, women also documented the war from home, painting the strange world that was Australia during WWI. During the period of early modernism in Australian art, women were largely pioneering the movement (Hoorn 1992). The movement was dismissed as frivolous and lacking in talent due to this fact and many male artists neglected to engage in modernist techniques until the mid 1930s. In the words of art historian, Bernard Smith, ‘women played a greater part in forming contemporary taste in Australia than they have before or since’ (Williams 1995). Grace Cossington’s works examine women’s existence within the domestic sphere from a female perspective (Hoorn 1992) Women were central to Australian Modernism and the lack of appreciation of women as artists and proponents of a central art movement somewhat allowed female Modernists to develop in a way male artists could not (Hoorn 1992). Grace Cossington honed her skills in Post-Impressionism during the early 1900s, painting images of Australian life at the time. She gave scenes life, movement, stillness, and emotion, but neglected depth and instead opted for a flat plane existence for the image. The prince (1920) (Figure 1) shows what would be imagined as an extravagant scene, instead opting for the focus to be on the fact is a perspective, a little person in the crowd looking on, out of focus. Cossington did this in stark contrast to the way Australians had painted these scenes prior to Modernism. Cossington’s paintings, along with many other women’s, identified themselves as Modernist while straying from the masculine narrative Modernism is so often imagined as (Hoorn 1992).

Following WWI, Australia and the world’s economy was thriving. Companies had many new inventions and plenty of public interest to back them. Australians were thrilled about the modernisation of domestic life. The new technology and opportunity changed lives and created a sense of excitement. Artists depicted this in their works, this new economic climate, along with development that came with it (Coppel 1995). Many artists had moved to Sydney from Melbourne, the former hub of artistic expression within Australia, and others moved overseas to experience the works of other Modernist painters in Europe (Speck 2014). The development in Sydney became a focus for a lot of artists and The Sydney Harbour Bridge was one of these developments. Dorrit Black’s painting The Bridge (1930) (Figure 2) drew controversy over its unconventional nature. Her somewhat Cubist approach to perspective was unlike any depiction of Australian landscape or cityscape before it. Having moved to London in the 1920s, she had witnessed new ways of depicting landscape and colour (Speck 2014). Another symbol of the new technology emerging was the linocut. Claude Flight, a pioneer of the linocut print, believed modern art should ‘reflect the energy of the modern age’ (Leaper 2016). Those influenced by him included Margaret Preston who famously produced works of Australian flora in linocut print (Figure 3). She was a proponent of the Modernist idea of art for the ‘everyman’, promoting the accessibility of art. Her linocuts were easily printed and reproduced, making them able to be put in homes and used on textiles. She wrote in Art in Australia, ‘The easiest way to understand modern art is to buy an example and live with it. Custom makes consciousness’ (Preston 1929, quoted by AGNSW). The techniques used and the images depicted showed an economic shift in Australian society, changing the way art progressed in the early 1920s.

Modern art had begun flowing into Australia by the 1920s but the climate it entered was not so welcoming. After the horrors of World War I, anything considered too heavily European-influenced was regularly looked upon in a negative light. Modernism proved to be polarising in its nature and had garnered many critics, along with its fans. The warfare between Modernism and Conservative values went on relentlessly. A renewed sense of nationalism could be felt post World War I and this idea of the ‘stoic, hard-working Australian’ was seen to be under threat from Modernism (Underhill 1991). Those that opposed the movement regularly cited the ‘deviant’ nature the works and artists as their reasoning for opposition (Snell 1987). Norman Lindsay was a key proponent of Modernism in Australia and sought to have his works exhibited by the South Australian Society of Artists in 1924 (Snell 1987). However, three of his eleven submissions were rejected for obscenity and he subsequently withdrew his submission entirely, then hiring the gallery next door (Lindsay & Wingrove 1990). Lindsay’s exhibition was highly successful and was a direct rejection of the reactionary Conservative movement at the time.  In particular, his works including powerful images of female nudity drew controversy (Figure 3). Sydney Ure Smith, an art publisher and promoter at the time, was quoted to have said ‘it’s not so much what he does, it’s the awful ideas he puts into your head’ (Underhill 1991). From that point onwards, the war between Conservatives and Modernism continued, becoming a political pawn. Robert Menzies supported the opening of the Australian Academy of Art in 1937, run by the conservatives of the art world, while, H.V. Evatt, on the other side, supporting the Contemporary Art Society (Snell 1987). This scandalisation of Modernist art had created a split in the art world and, beyond this, fuel for cultural and political fire in Australia. The works, however, would become integral in the history of Australian art, regardless of the reviews it received from critics at the time.

The Modernist movement within Australia continues to be important in Australian history today. The artists and their works tell a story of a young society and its development in the early 20th century. A number of factors impacted the growth and prevalence of Modernist art in Australia at the time. These included the bringing of women to the forefront as artists, consumers and workers, the new technology being rapidly developed at the time, and the scandalisation of art and modernism, garnering the interest of the public. Modernism thrived in a difficult environment during both wars, but within Australia, the inter-war period created a climate in which it would become a focus of both artists and the public, fixing itself firmly within the history of Australian Art.

REFERENCES

Coppel, Stephen. 1995. Linocuts Of The Machine Age. [Aldershot]: Scolar Press.

Hoorn, Jeanette. 1992. "Misogyny And Modernist Painting In Australia: How Male Critics Made Modernism Their Own". Journal Of Australian Studies 16 (32): 7-18. doi:10.1080/14443059209387082.

Leaper, Hana. 2016. "‘Old-Fashioned Modern’: Claude Flight's Lino-Cuts And Public Taste In The Interwar Period". Modernist Cultures 11 (3): 389-408. doi:10.3366/mod.2016.0147.

Lindsay, Norman, and Keith Wingrove. 1990. Norman Lindsay On Art, Life, And Literature. Lucia, Qld., Australia: University of Queensland Press.

Preston, Margaret, Art in Australia, 1929, quoted in Art Gallery New South Wales, “Margaret Preston, art and life,” http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/sub/preston/artist_1920.html

Snell, T and Curtin University of Technology for the Dept. of Visual Arts (1987). Scandalized : public perceptions of the arrival and emergence of modernism in Australian art. [video] Available at: https://echo360.org.au/media/1b8add4f-f17e-4788-ab71-e2b63454fcc1/public [Accessed 8 Mar. 2019].

Speck, Catherine. 2014. "Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Art Gallery Of South Australia, 14 June – 7 September 2014". Australian And New Zealand Journal Of Art 14 (2): 214-216. doi:10.1080/14434318.2014.973009.

Underhill, Nancy D. H. 1991. Making Australian Art 1916-49. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Williams, John F. 1995. The Quarantined Culture: Australian Reactions To Modernism, 1913-1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

#ww1 #australian art #art writing #art research #writing