Face of the Day: Myrna Loy

Apparently, in the 1930s, addressing a bunch of studio heads in Hollywood, she asked:

'Why does every black person have to be a servant? How about a black person walking up the steps of a courthouse carrying a briefcase?'

Quoted by Philip French in The Guardian.

Song of the day

My friend the Playwright sent this right over to help me deal with deadline fever. It's quite hard to stay in the Monday doldrums when a handsome man is singing that Broadway is 'not just for gays any more'. Watch out for the lovely sailors. There's something about a sailor suit.

Blog post of the day

There is a startling new post up on the excellent site, Sociological Images. It is clever and funny and angry and shocking and a little bit sad. It's long, but it's so brilliant it's worth reading to the end. You can find it here.

There isn't really a picture to go with it, but it mentions Morgan Freeman, so that gives me a perfect excuse to put up a snapshot of his smiling face.

Monday Dog

I am very, very Monday morning-ish. Even though it is now Monday afternoon. I have work to do and annoying emails to reply to and letters to write and the sky is the colour of old washing and the wind is blowing at seventy miles an hour and I am grumpy and cross and want to go and hide in a hole. I imagine that there are other people suffering the same Monday crash. So I give you dog beauty, which is the least I can do on a dark day. Because look, look:

Lovely boys

I adore these charming singing boys. I don't want to sound patronising, but there is something amazingly charming about a pop fellow who is brave enough to wear a woolly jumper whilst singing at Glastonbury. Anyway, I love this song:

Funny story of the day

Found this via a Facebook page called I love to Laugh. Apologies for the rather imperfect reproduction:

Surprise of the Day

This morning, the Prime Minister hymned the praise of British inventors:

'We are brilliant inventors in this country...We invented the jet engine, DNA, the World Wide Web.'

The naughty Twitterati are having an awful lot of fun with the idea that DNA was a British invention.
'Makes me so proud,' wrote one. Of course one knows what the PM meant: the discovery of the double helix by Watson and Crick, using data produced by the overlooked woman of DNA, Rosalind Franklin:

Still, in the spirit of whimsy, now every time DNA is mentioned, I shall hear the strains of Land of Hope and Glory fire up in my head. Because it was invented by Ordinary Decent Britons. Hurrah.

Discovery of the Day

Sometimes I almost panic about all the things I do not know. One of the delightful things about the internet is that it contains almost all the knowledge in the world. It is like the great library at Alexandria. One of its most potent joys is that it allows you to stumble upon things that you would never otherwise find. It obeys the Donald Rumsfeld maxim: there the the things we do not know we do not know. (I remember scoffing at this mightily at the time. Now I think it is a profound universal truth. Just because I do not agree with his politics does not mean I cannot admit that the man sometimes said something that was true.)

This morning, I was looking up something on Lartigue, one of my three favourite photographers in the world. In the process of the search, I found a beautiful set of black and white photographs I had never seen before. They were taken by a woman called Lillian Bassman. She has a great talent, and a fascinating life. I was struck by the fact that she was married to her husband for seventy-seven years. 'He never bored me,' she said. I love that. She was born in 1917, and is still living in New York City.

There is an excellent New York Times article about her here.

Can't believe I have not done this already

No blog of mine is complete without obligatory dog photographs. (Those of you who kindly read the Backwards in High Heels blog will know this to your cost.) It is obviously a subjective love thing. But it is also an objective beauty thing, as you may see here:

Jolly Gentleman of the Day

I'm not entirely sure about this lady's hair. (That horned look is always a little doubtful, in my book.) But I do like the bouncing fellow.

From Marie Claire, Australia; found via the always lovely Dustjacket Attic.

Photograph of the Day

The wonderful hunting cheetahs, by Peter Beard, taken in 1960. Those swinging sixties cheetahs really were wild.

If you have a spare thirty grand, you can go down to Christie's on November 2nd and bid for it. 

Thirty grand. The world of photography knows no new austerity.

Favourite blog post of the day

The marvellous How to be a Retronaut never lets me down. He recently posted a haunting series of photographs of the abandoned city of Pripyat, in Russia. There is a terrible, mournful beauty to them.

You can see them here.

Video of the Day

REM are splitting up. Sometimes I forget how damn good they were. This is to remind me.

Lee Miller by George Hoyningen Huene

In a small sputter of internet coincidence, I was reminded of this photograph today. It has been one of my favourites ever since I first saw it, when I was twenty-seven, and I had never even heard of George Hoyningen-Huene. I think I barely knew of Lee Miller. Once I did know all about her, the photograph took on a profound sadness, because that sheer, sleek girl in the picture saw things no human eye should ever have to see. In 1945, she was the one of the first photographers to go into Dachau.

Quote of the Day

 

'Certainly, the art of writing is the most miraculous of all things man has devised.'

Thomas Carlyle.

 

He also said: 'Teach a parrot the terms 'supply and demand' and you've got an economist', which is very naughty, and sounds as if it could have been said yesterday.

 

 

New blog of the day

In the mysterious way of the internets, I stumbled upon an absolutely beautiful blog by Laura Trevey. (I was looking up something for work, I promise.)

I have always wanted to learn how to take photographs like this one, with all that lightness and brightness, the sharp focus in the foreground, the delicate blurring in the background. It is a perfect Friday picture:

You can find more delightful images from her, here.

Discovery of the day

The wonderful photographs of Vivian Maier, an unheralded amateur street photographer, whose archive of over 100,000 images of American city life were discovered in 2007 by John Maloof.

He has gathered them together in a delightful blog, here.

Two of my favourites:

Hills

View across the Dee Valley, looking south.

Taken last night, at about six o'clock.

On the other side of those blue remembered hills is Perthshire.

 

 

For your listening pleasure

If you have access to the BBC iPlayer, have a listen to the excellent Book of the Week, a history of Francis Walsingham. It is cleverly and sharply written,a tremendous story of politics, religion and espionage, and is wonderfully read by Hugh Bonneville.

You can find it here:
BBC iPlayer - Book of the Week: The Queen's Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Elizabeth I: Episode 1
 

 
 

Hats

The lovely French Sampler has added vastly to the gaiety of the nation by putting up an excellent blog post of ladies in mad hats doing strange things.

Or mad ladies in hats doing strange things.

Or ladies in hats madly doing strange things.

This one is my favourite:

 

You can see them all here.

The first thing I saw this morning

 

Well, not quite the very first thing, obviously. But when I went downstairs, I found a blue, still day.

Looking out of my front door, to the south, I saw this:

 

 

         

My favourite Titian

This is just called Portrait of a Young Man. I think it looks like it was painted yesterday.

It is the first thing I go to see when I go to the National Gallery.

Saturday 21st August, 2.48pm.

I am planting roses in the sun.

Thursday 19th August, 6.06pm

There are rumours of six weeks of rain.

Tuesday 17th August, 12.14pm

My back hurts.

Sunday 15th August, 6.56pm

Not at all certain how I missed two more days; but I did get to see the magnificent Glen Clova, so all is not lost.

Thursday 12th August, 11.37pm

Today has been a day of sunshine, old friends, dogs in the burn, laughter, and one quite unexpected compliment.

Wednesday 11th August, 7.48pm

I am trying very hard not to turn into a weather bore; I fear I am failing.

Tuesday 10th August, 9.19pm

Today I thought mildly about horticulture, American politics, public debt, the sheer loveliness of Timothy West, Islamaphobia, and the best way to cook a chicken breast.

Monday 9th August, 1.29pm

I have lost ten days because I had to go to a funeral and I left my computer behind; in some obscure way, the missing days make me wonder if this entire project has been rendered meaningless.