As Major Garrett perceptively noted, the manner in which the President carried out the equal pay push reflected former advisor David Plouffe’s ingenious strategy of “stray voltage”:
“The theory goes like this: Controversy sparks attention, attention provokes conversation, and conversation embeds previously unknown or marginalized ideas in the public consciousness. This happens, Plouffe theorizes, even when—and sometimes especially when—the White House appears defensive, besieged, or off-guard.”
While this post itself is perhaps reflective of the effectiveness of Plouffe’s strategy, nevertheless we thought it worth pointing out a video uncovered by George Mason University Professor Don Boudreaux over atCafe Hayek. The video, which comes from a series of lectures delivered by Milton Friedman from 1977-1978, which were intended to serve as content for the “Free to Choose” video series (which preceded hisbest-selling book of the same name), deals with the substance of “equal pay” for “equal work” legislation.
Here is the clip:
Below are a couple of Friedman’s most compelling arguments:
“Over and over we have to look at the actual consequences of policies, not the names of them. The immediate occasion that we’re talking about now…”equal pay for equal work,” is a claim for people supposedly for the feminist cause. Now I believe that’s an anti-feminist slogan. It will hurt the feminists. It will not help them. Why? I believe that every individual man, woman, or child should have an opportunity to get a job if he wants to and can do it. But now, if there are some people who are prejudiced — if Mr. Jones is a male chauvinist — and he would prefer to have a man rather than a woman; or a Mr. Smith is a believer in feminine rights, and would prefer to have a woman rather than a man, it doesn’t matter. But take the male chauvinist pig: If you have a law that he must pay the woman and the man the same, and if he can find some way around having to hire the woman, he gets away free. He doesn’t have to pay for his prejudice. On the other hand, suppose he has the prejudice, but we let people compete. Then the woman at least has the weapon of offering to work for less. And he has to pay for his prejudice. The free market, by enabling people to compete openly, is the most effective device that has ever been invented for making people pay for their prejudices, and thus for making it costly for them to exercise it. And what you do when you impose the equal pay for equal work law, is that you make the expression of prejudice costless. And as a result you harm the people you intend to help.”
“I do not believe that it is desirable that we move in the direction of having a government bureaucrat decide whether A may hire B or not, whoever A and B are…and in consequence I think programs of this kind are both reducing our freedom and reducing equality. And they will…disadvantage…the very groups [which the policymakers and their supporters] intended to help.”
Also of note, Friedman recommends W.H. Hutt’s “The Economics of the Colour Bar,” a book we have discussed before, in which Hutt argues that apartheid in South Africa began with a trade union push for “equal pay” for “equal work” legislation.
If you would like to see the first three episodes on inflation in Milton Friedman’s film series “Free to Choose” then go to a previous post I did. Ep. 9 – How to Cure Inflation [4/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980) Uploaded by investbligurucom on Jun 16, 2010 While many people have a fairly […]
Charlie Rose interview of Milton Friedman My favorite economist: Milton Friedman : A Great Champion of Liberty by V. Sundaram Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three US Presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – died last Thursday (16 November, 2006 ) in San Francisco […]
At the Bankable Insight blog, Charles Seeburger features these ten great quotations below from Milton Friedman, along with some of his commentary following each quote here.
Equality and Freedom. A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.
Intentions vs. Results. One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
Weeds. Now here’s somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he’s caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That’s the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons.
Government Programs. Nothing is as permanent as a temporary government program.
Freedom and the Free Market. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
Social Responsibility of Business. There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.
Property Rights. I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual’s natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that they’re responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of.
Drug Legalization. I’m in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
Internet. I think that the Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government.
Greed. Well first of all, tell me: Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system.
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]
This is the 14th post in this series on the amazing artists, poets and professors associated with Black Mountain College (the college that was featured in the recent film THE LONGEST RIDE.
Release Date: April 10, 2015 Rating: PG-13 for some sexuality, partial nudity, and some war and sports action Genre: Drama, Romance Run Time: 139 minutes Director: George Tillman Jr. Cast: Scott Eastwood, Britt Robertson, Alan Alda, Jack Huston, Oona Chaplin
It’s Spring, and when a young movie-goer’s fancy turns to love, best-selling author Nicholas Sparks is ready to take her there. Based on the Sparks novel of the same name, The Longest Ride is a sweetheart of a movie that may not break new ground but is almost certain to please.
Sophia (Britt Robertson, Dan in Real Life and the upcoming Tomorrowland) is an art lover on the cusp of a brilliant career at a Manhattan gallery, just as soon as she finishes her last semester of college. Luke (Scott Eastwood, son of Clint) is a professional bull rider, a cowboy who has already had a spectacular rise and fall and is desperately trying to make a comeback. The two have little in common and almost no time to be together. Clearly, they’re meant for each other.
They do make an adorable couple. Sophia is cute and intense with a sweet, lively face that crinkles into any number of interested expressions. Luke is charming and a little old-fashioned with plenty of the smoldering appeal that made Eastwood’s movie star dad a favorite for an earlier generation of female fans. Their budding romance is delightfully awkward, but it’s all for naught as these two are clearly going their separate ways (or are they?). As if the glorious North Carolina scenery, romantic candlelight, etc. were not enough, their first date takes an intense turn when they happen upon a car accident and rescue the elderly driver and his box of mementos. Ira (Alan Alda, Tower Heist) is banged up but not so much that he loses his gift of good-natured, crotchety banter. When Sophia befriends Ira and gradually comes to know his story—mostly through the letters in his box—one tale becomes two as the relationship between young Ira and his beloved Ruth (Oona Chaplin) is woven into that of the modern couple.
While Sophia and Luke’s romance is sweet and all, when they were onscreen I found myself waiting for the next chapters of Ira and Ruth’s far more interesting love story. Set against the backdrop of WWII, and covering a span of many years, there’s a depth to the older couple’s love that is (naturally) missing in the newly-connected modern-day couple. The two couples have so many parallels it strains belief a bit, but this is a starry-eyed fantasy, after all. Sometimes reality is overrated.
In addition to all the sweetness, there are enough funny moments to justify both the ‘rom’ and ‘com’ labels. Both male and female viewers in my audience burst into laughter on several occasions, several confessed to a tear or two, and a good time was had by all… except maybe Rango, the bull who is Luke’s nemesis. All that bull riding—and there is a fair amount—is shown from a variety of interesting angles, including the rider’s. The film features a number of real-life cowboys from the PBR (Professional Bull Riders) circuit, adding a nice touch of gritty reality.
The soundtrack is more than just background music; it provides commentary on the action. Like the dulcet tones of the Pistol Annies singing “I feel a sin comin’ on; please Jesus don’t hold me back” or Ryan Adams crooning about “Desire.” As those titles suggest, Sophia and Luke’s is a modern relationship, which means they don’t bother with anything so quaint as waiting for marriage; they consummate their love in several scenes that are steamy in more ways than one. To director George Tillman Jr.’s credit, those scenes are, at least, artfully filmed and have a dreamy romantic feel. This is a true love story, not just a relationship movie.
The Longest Ride is the is the tenth Sparks book to be made into a movie, and at almost 2 hours, 20 minutes is the longest of them, but the time passes quickly. While the big “surprise” ending may not be much of a surprise to those familiar with the inspirational stories that populate Facebook (it’s a variation on a tale that made the rounds a year or so ago), it’s satisfying nonetheless. All ends as it should, making this an enjoyable girls’-night-out movie that, thanks to all the bull riding action, guys may actually enjoy, too.
Drugs/Alcohol: Drinking at bars, wine with dinner, occasional drunkenness.
Language/Profanity: A couple of muttered “Shhhhhht” one d-word and one exclamation of “Jesus.”
Sex/Nudity: Sophia’s friend pulls down Sophia’s t-shirt to expose more cleavage for her date with Luke and tells her “You’re the only girl I know who wouldn’t have a fling with a cowboy.” Teasing comment about not wearing underwear (more funny than sultry). Several kisses, some artistically-filmed sex scenes that show relatively discreet side and back nudity. We see a good amount of Luke’s muscular backside and hands caressing. Some slow stripping scenes and semi-skinny dipping (swimming in underwear).
Violent/Frightening/Intense: Bull riding is an intense, competitive, dangerous sport and we see it from a variety of angles. Some war scenes show troops under fire. Men are injured in a variety of ways. A victim is pulled from a wrecked car.
Publication date: April 10, 2015
The Longest Ride Official Trailer #1 (2015) – Britt Robertson Movie HD
My first post in this serieswas on the composer John Cage and mysecond postwas on Susan Weil and Robert Rauschenberg who were good friend of Cage. The third post in this series was on Jorge Fick. Earlier we noted that Fick was a student at Black Mountain College and an artist that lived in New York and he lent a suit to the famous poet Dylan Thomas and Thomas died in that suit.
The fourth post in this seriesis on the artist Xanti Schawinsky and he had a great influence on John Cage who later taught at Black Mountain College. Schawinsky taught at Black Mountain College from 1936-1938 and Cage right after World War II. In the fifth post I discuss David Weinrib and his wife Karen Karnes who were good friends with John Cage and they all lived in the same community. In the 6th post I focus on Vera B. William and she attended Black Mountain College where she met her first husband Paul and they later co-founded the Gate Hill Cooperative Community and Vera served as a teacher for the community from 1953-70. John Cage and several others from Black Mountain College also lived in the Community with them during the 1950’s. In the 7th post I look at the life and work of M.C.Richards who also was part of the Gate Hill Cooperative Community and Black Mountain College.
In the 8th post I look at book the life of Anni Albers who is perhaps the best known textile artist of the 20th century and at Paul Klee who was one of her teachers at Bauhaus. In the 9th postthe experience of Bill Treichler in the years of 1947-1949 is examined at Black Mountain College. In 1988, Martha and Bill started The Crooked Lake Review, a local history journal and Bill passed away in 2008 at age 84.
In the 10th post I look at the art of Irwin Kremen who studied at Black Mountain College in 1946-47 and there Kremen spent his time focused on writing and the literature classes given by the poet M. C. Richards. In the 11th post I discuss the fact that JosefAlbers led the procession of dozens of Bauhaus faculty and students to Black Mountain.
In the 12th post I feature Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) who was featured in the film THE LONGEST RIDE and the film showed Kandinsky teaching at BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE which was not true according to my research. Evidently he was invited but he had to decline because of his busy schedule but many of his associates at BRAUHAUS did teach there. In the 13th post I look at the writings of the communist Charles Perrow.
Willem de Kooning was such a major figure in the art world and because of that I have dedicated the 14th, 15thand16th posts in this series on him. Paul McCartney got interested in art through his friendship with Willem because Linda’s father had him as a client. Willem was a part of New York School of Abstract expressionism or Action painting, others included Jackson Pollock, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Adolph Gottlieb, Anne Ryan, Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston, Clyfford Still, and Richard Pousette-Dart.
By Rachel Galvin | HUMANITIES, July/August 2001 | Volume 22, Number 4
+ Click on image to enlarge.
Steps of Black Mountain College, Black Mountain, NC, 1939.
—Library of Congress
A small college in the mountains of North Carolina brought together some of the most innovative artists and thinkers of its time—Robert Motherwell and Buckminster Fuller and John Cage. Plagued by debts, the school sold off its land, cattle, and pianos until it eventually closed its doors in 1957.
The poet Charles Olson called Black Mountain a “little hotbox of education,” saying, “The place is overrun with talent for me to use, and learn by.” A crucible for artistic talent, Black Mountain College was founded in 1933 and for twenty-four years was a magnet for artists in a variety of media: John Cage, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Willem de Kooning, Robert Duncan, Buckminster Fuller, Franz Kline, Jacob Lawrence, Charles Olson, Robert Motherwell, Robert Rauschenberg, and Ben Shahn, among others.
Black Mountain was a progressive liberal arts college founded on the idea of complete academic freedom. But with the traditional parameters of the classroom nearly eradicated, was Black Mountain still an institution of higher learning?
“Most work in 1955-1956 was done in tutorial fashion, one member of the community asking another’s opinion on a painting, a piece of writing, a text, an idea,” Martin Duberman writes in his book, Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community. “And that might be exactly why so many who were in the community during 1955-1956 insist today that it was a learning environment—an occasional loony bin, a rest camp, a pressure cooker, a refuge, and a welfare agency—but nonetheless a learning environment.”
“Black Mountain is a legendary school in terms of art circles and in North Carolina,” says Dick Lankford, archivist at the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. Lankford is directing the department’s effort to preserve Black Mountain College materials. With an NEH grant, sixteen collections of audiotaped interviews, brittle records, and deteriorating photographs are being conserved, archived, and cata-loged in a searchable reference system that will be accessible on the Web. The Department hopes to digitize the materi-als and eventually make them available on the Internet.
Project archivist Barbara Cain says scholars and students are coming from all over the world to consult the collections. “We have a scholar working on neo-Dadaism coming from France, and a German scholar interested in the carry-over from Germany to the United States, particularly in the teaching of art.” Other projects include a book on the teaching methods of Josef Albers, who taught color and design at Black Mountain; a study of the Bauhaus movement in America; and a college course on poet Robert Creeley and other Black Mountain writers.
“There was a period of time when people looked down at Black Mountain as a failure because it closed its doors, but history provides a certain perspective,” Lankford says. “Black Mountain has been a pivotal institution since its founding in 1933 right up until its demise in 1957. Its educational philosophy was way ahead of its time.”
The college was founded by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and other former faculty members from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. The group envisioned a college that would be run democratically, owned and administered by the faculty and students themselves. No courses would be required, no grades given, and students would be free to direct their course of studies as they pleased. Everyone—students and faculty—would participate in the work program, preparing meals, maintaining the campus, and working on the school farm. And in contrast to the majority of colleges and universities of the time, Black Mountain would be a place where knowledge was put into action and the arts given equal importance with the rest of the curriculum.
“Now we take for granted that every college has an art department,” says Mary Emma Harris, art historian and project consultant. “Then, you could study art history, but not really get a degree in art—and when a degree did exist, it was given through the home economics department.”
Black Mountain’s founders looked to John Dewey, author of Democracy and Education, who wrote that to develop one’s creative abilities was “an inalienable right.” In Harper’s Magazine in May, 1937, Rice explained his theory that the arts ought to be an educational activity rather than simply a subject of study: “What you do with what you know is the important thing. To know is not enough.”
In its first year, the college offered courses in physics, mathematics, chemistry, music, English, psychology, economics, and Romance languages, as well as art classes. To lend credibility to the institution, the founders assembled a distinguished roster of advisers that included John Dewey, Walter Gropius, Carl Jung, Max Lerner, Franz Kline, and Albert Einstein. Despite the hesitation of many parents to send their children to an unaccredited college that would not offer a degree, the college managed to attract a sufficient number of students dissatisfied with traditional education, and in 1933 its doors opened.
“Black Mountain was a community, first and last—a company of people,” says Robert Creeley, poet and former faculty member. Creeley believes artist John Chamberlain put it most aptly: “At Black Mountain one found, as he said, people who were more interested in what they didn’t know than in what they did. It was an extraordinary sense of conduct and thinking, despite its small numbers. It had only faculty and students as its determinants—no overseers, no administration other than those so participating. That was its absolute virtue—the interactive condition of its faculty and students. No one was or could get ‘outside.’”
Students came from all over the U.S. to attend Black Mountain, but the majority con-sisted of northeasterners—many from New York City, according to Jonathan Williams, former Black Mountain student and publisher of Jargon Books. Potential students were most often reached by word of mouth. “M. C. Richards, who was there in the forties mostly as a writer—she became a potter as well—would go out in the spring and try to recruit people,” says Williams. “There wasn’t any money to do much of anything. They would put out the occasional bulletin or advertising brochure once a year, some very attractively designed by the graphic arts people there.”
At its inception, the college had only three rules. The first was formulated by Rice: “The constant admonition of a college should not be ‘Be intellectual’ or ‘Be muscular!’ (in both cases the dividing line is the neck) but ‘Be intelligent!’” The second was that firearms must be deposited with the administration; and the third rule was that women students must not hitchhike in the South. There was also a tacit agreement that a “Do Not Disturb” sign ought to be respected.
“The fact that there were no academic departments—there weren’t enough people for that—meant that the learning was interdisciplinary,” says Harris.
“Everybody was sharing ideas from their field. It wasn’t compartmentalized or departmentalized.” Composer John Cage believed the most important learning at Black Mountain took place at mealtime, because faculty and students sat together in the dining hall.
“The relationships between faculty and students were much less formal,” says Harris. “In the end it was a communal learning situation.”
The founders of the college had no illusions about creating a utopia, however, and focused on building an educational community with an emphasis on the arts. “Black Mountain College combined elements of the progressive schools, farm schools, religious sects, and summer camps,” Harris writes in her book, The Arts at Black Mountain College. “There was a strong sense of pioneering in the American tradition of building a ‘log cabin college’ out of nothing and of providing a good education without tremendous laboratories, expensive buildings, and stadiums.”
The college reaffirmed democratic government, individual freedom, and responsibility in a period of economic instability and rising totalitarianism, says Harris. In the same year the college was founded, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the Bauhaus movement was closed down by the Nazis, and the persecution of Jews, artists, and intellectuals was beginning in Europe. The Depression held the United States in its grip, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt had just been elected president.
The addition of European artists to the Black Mountain faculty had a tremendous impact on the atmosphere of the college and the aesthetic taught there. Only a few months after the college opened, Josef and Anni Albers arrived from Germany, fleeing the rise of Nazism. Josef Albers, the first of the Bauhaus teachers to come to the United States, was an advocate of abstract art. “Abstracting is the essential function of the Human Spirit,” he wrote in 1936. He later said he wanted the same right as the composer to create abstract forms that “have life within themselves as music has.” Albers’s philosophy had a palpable impact on artists of all disciplines who studied with him at Black Mountain.
When the United States entered World War II, most young men were drafted or left to join the war effort. The student body remaining at Black Mountain consisted of women, men past the draft age, and European refugees. In 1941 Black Mountain College moved onto its own property at Lake Eden, where students and faculty constructed a number of buildings, expanded their farming activities, and set up a mica mine to prepare the mineral for sale as war material.
After the war, Black Mountain managed to get approved for GI bill benefits even though it was not an accredited college. “If that had not happened, the college would have closed after the war,” says Harris. “Instead, enrollment skyrocketed to more than ninety students.”
A number of as yet unrecognized artists came to Black Mountain in the late 1940s, either as visiting summer faculty or as students, furthering the college’s reigning spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration. Jacob Lawrence taught a course on “creative painting” in 1946, giving him the occasion to meet Josef Albers, who encouraged his newfound interest in abstraction. In the summer of 1948, John Cage gave the first performance ofSonatas and Interludes while Merce Cunningham danced. Both had received some atten-tion, though Cunningham had not yet left the Martha Graham Company to begin his own dance company. Willem de Kooning—who could not manage to sell any work from his first one-person exhibition in New York—came to teach art. Buckminster Fuller, an engineer and architect considered a “delightful nut,” had not yet developed his geo-desic dome, which he would do while at Black Mountain.
By the 1950s, Rice and the Albers had left Black Mountain, and in contrast to the period in which the college had been founded, America was experiencing an era of prosperity and conservatism. The college’s association with liberal causes brought it under suspicion of harboring communist sympathies. “The times then were quite hostile,” says Robert Creeley.
“The FBI had a person come check out Black Mountain College on a regular basis, ‘Frank,’ who was amiable enough, as it happens, and even gave us advice as to how we might have secured government grants.”
In 1951, poet and unorthodox scholar Charles Olson became rector of the college. Under Olson’s guidance, the college metamorphosed into a primarily arts-driven institution and the farmwork aspect of the program was all but terminated. In a letter to Creeley, Olson wrote that the college would focus on “painting, music, dance, writing, architecture, pots, cloth, wood, theatre, printing, sculpture & photography. . . . No academics.”
Olson’s personality and views on writing and art dominated the college during its remaining years. In his 1950 essay “Projective Verse,” published in Poetry New York, Olson had advocated open forms, describing the poem as a “field” and stressing that a line ought to be measured in terms of a person’s breath. These ideas distinguished him from the predominant movement in literature, New Criticism, and its proponents such as Allan Tate, Lionel Trilling, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Robert Lowell, and Elizabeth Bishop.
“Meeting Charles Olson was rather like meeting Ralph Waldo Emerson, I suspect. He was very much in that tradition of New England sages,” says Jonathan Williams. “He was enormous —about 6’9” and 275 pounds—he was a towering sort of person and also as a personality. Like Emerson, he was almost oracular in his writing and would just come bursting out with extraordinary remarks—practically three a minute.”
“My relation to Black Mountain had far more to do with Olson than with any fact of the institution,” says Creeley. “It was he who arranged, in effect, for the publication of the journal, Black Mountain Review, and also set up my being invited there to teach in the spring of 1954.”
Black Mountain floundered financially during Olson’s tenure. The faculty often went without pay, and the college periodically sold off its land, cattle, and pianos to raise funds.
“By the time I got to Black Mountain, its faculty and student body were very small indeed,” says Creeley. “The classes I taught were about six to eight people, period—the entire student body ranged from thirty to twenty as I recall. At that point the structure and operation of the college was all but derelict.”
While its administration was disintegrating, Black Mountain entered a period of flourishing productivity and artistic collaboration that continued to attract talented artists. Ben Shahn, Robert Motherwell, John Cage, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Fielding Dawson, Joel Oppenheimer, and John Chamberlain taught at the college. In the summer of 1951, students witnessed Shahn debating the relative merits of figurative and abstract art with Motherwell; Shahn painted designs for Nick Cernovich’s dance; and writers who would become known as the “Black Mountain poets” collaborated with artists in magazines such as Black Mountain Review, Cid Corman’s Origin, and Jonathan Williams’s Jargon.
“I began Jargon only a few weeks before going to Black Mountain,” says Williams. “The first thing I did there was Jargon number two, which was a poem by Joel Oppenheimer dedicated to Kathryn Litz—a dancer who was at Black Mountain that summer—and I asked Bob Rauschenberg for a work to put in with the poem.” That summer, Litz had danced in a stage production called The Glyph, with a set designed by Ben Shahn and text by Olson.
Williams went on to publish Olson’s Maximus poems, as well as collections by Creeley, Kenneth Patchen, Robert Duncan, Louis Zukofsky, Michael McClure, Paul Metcalf, Mina Loy, and Lorine Niedecker. Jargon continues to publish new and innovative work and to encourage collaboration between writers and visual artists. “Jargon is very much as it was. I use a lot of photography in the design of the books,” says Williams. “I like the idea of two people working together in a book.”
“The support Jonathan Williams’s Jargon Press gave me was very, very helpful,” says Creeley. “Cid Corman is also an old friend indeed and Origin’s publication of my work as a feature in its second issue again let me take my writing seriously and found me a company I have never lost and forever value. That’s what magazines really are for, as Olson writes, ‘we who live our lives quite properly in print’—or words to that effect.”
Creeley’s endeavor to combine words and imagery, which preceded his association with Black Mountain, continues today. A current traveling exhibition entitled “In Company” showcases Creeley’s affiliation with visual artists, several of whom he worked with while at Black Mountain.
Black Mountain in the mid-fifties was a locus of artistic vitality. Robert Duncan wrote in the 1956 Black Mountain Review that “in American poetry the striding syllables show an aesthetic based on energies.” He also recognized the “bravura brushstroke” in abstract expressionist painting: “the power and movement of the arm itself . . . the involvement of the painter in the act.”
Donald Allen calls Olson, Creeley, Duncan, Williams, and their peers “our avant-garde, the true continuers of the modern movement in American poetry,” in his preface to the 1960 New American Poetry. “These poets have already created their own tradi-tion, their own press, and their public.”
The vision of experimental education delineated by Black Mountain’s founders in the early 1930s was dramatically revised by the time lack of funds caused the school to close its doors in 1957, yet the college continued to draw individuals interested in intellectual and artistic freedom and to nurture ground-breaking artists. One former student said that at any place on the campus, day or night, “there were always people arguing and talking. . . . All kinds of people with completely different, associated interests and fields.”
“Black Mountain being so small and freewheeling, Olson’s class began after supper,” Jonathan Williams recalls. “It would go on until about 10:30 and then everybody would get in cars and race down to the local beer joint, Ma Peak’s Tavern, until that closed around twelve, and then people would bring cases of beer back to the college. I don’t know what those poor mountain folks thought of all those wild intellectuals and exotic folks from New York. A lot of interesting talk got talked down there— there were big booths, so you could get seven or eight people in one of those booths and jabber away. That’s what Dahlberg said, ‘Literature is the way we ripen ourselves by conversation.’”
“There was one occasion when Olson’s class ran for two days—it got so interesting at dawn of the first day that people said listen, we’re really getting somewhere, let’s just keep going. It went on all that day and all the next night.”
Abstract art: Sir Paul started painting when he was 40
The first UK exhibition of Sir Paul McCartney’s art work has opened in Bristol.The 58-year-old singer has been painting since he was 40, but he has only exhibited his work once before, in Germany last year.Featuring a selection of the 500 canvasses he has painted, the exhibition, at the Arnolfini Gallery, coincides with the publication of a book on his art.Speaking on the eve of the exhibition’s opening, Sir Paul said he had always wanted to be an artist, and felt he had missed out on formal training in his teenage years.”I always liked drawing as a kid and I liked the idea of painting but I felt there was some sort of reason why I shouldn’t, because I hadn’t been trained, because I hadn’t been to art college, because I was just a working class person,” he said.Abstract art
Sir Paul recounted how a conversation with US artist Willem de Kooning prompted him to pick up palette and brushes.
Willem de Kooning, abstract artist who inspired Sir Paul, died in 1997
While looking at one of the late painter’s works Sir Paul asked de Kooning: “At the risk of appearing gauche, what is it, Bill?”De Kooning, an abstract expressionist, replied: “I dunno, looks like a couch, huh?”
“I thought his painting looked like a purple mountain and he thought it looked like a couch, but the fact that he said that it didn’t matter what it was just freed me,” Sir Paul said.
Spat with Lennon
The exhibition coincides with the recent re-publication of an interview fellow Beatle John Lennon gave to Rolling Stone magazine in 1970.
Lennon attacks Sir Paul in the interview, but the musician pointed out that it came when the band members were going through their worst crisis.
John Lennon: Interview ‘hurt a lot at the time’ according to Sir Paul
“It hurt a lot at the time but we got back together as friends and he is on record as saying a lot of that slagging off he gave me was really just him crying for help,” Sir Paul said.“He could have been boozed out of his head, as he was during that period, he could have been crazed on this, that or the other substance.
“But we did get very friendly, and he did tell me that a lot of those things he said he didn’t mean.
“I was very lucky in as much as before he got killed we were able to tell each other we loved each other,” he added.
de Kooning with painting, 1946. Photograph by Harry Bowden, 10x9in. Archives of American Art.
1904 April 24, Willem de Kooning is born in Port of Rotterdam, Holland, to Leendert de Kooning (b. February 10, 1876) and Cornelia Nobel de Kooning (b. March 3, 1877). He has one older sister, Marie (b. 1899). (His mother later gives birth to three more daughters, none of whom live past one year.)
1909 Parents divorce; court awards custody of five-year-old Willem to his father. His mother, however, kidnaps Willem and is later awarded full custody.
1916 Completes grammar school.
1916-1920 Begins training in commercial art under Jan and Jaap Giding, proprietors of a large commercial art firm, with whom he resides. Enrolls in the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten en Technische Wetenschappen in Brussels, Belgium, attending night classes until 1924, when he graduates with certifications in both carpentry and art.
1920 Leaves the Giddings to begin training with Bernard Romein, noted art director of a large department store in Rotterdam.
1924-1926 Travels to Antwerp and enrolls in the Van Schelling School of Design, commuting to Brussels to study simultaneously at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, supporting himself with commercial work.
The Kiss, 1925. Graphite on paper, 48.3×33.5cm. Allan Stone Gallery, New York City.
1926 Immigrates to United States as a stow-away on the SS Shelly, arriving in Newport News, Virginia on July 30. Takes ship to Boston, Massachusetts, then travels by train to Rhode Island. Settles in Hoboken, New Jersey, and finds lodging at the Dutch Seaman’s Home. Becomes acquainted with other artists and moves to New York City. Works as commercial artist and as a sign-painter, window dresser, and carpenter.
1927 Moves to Manhattan and begins working for Eastman Brothers, a design firm. Meets Misha Reznikoff, who is later instrumental in securing his 1948 summer teaching job at Black Mountain College.
1928 Spends the summer at the artists’ colony in Woodstock, New York.
1929 Becomes associated with modern artists John Graham and Stuart Davis. Buys Capehart hi-fi sound system, spending nearly six months’ salary. Frequents George’s in the Village and the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem with David Margoli and other artists.
1930 Meets David Smith and Arshile Gorky. Moves into studio apartment with Gorky. Works as a window dresser for A.S. Beck, a chain of shoe stores in New York. Meets Virginia “Nini” Diaz, with whom he goes to Woodstock, New York. in late May. Moves to 348 W. 55th Street with Diaz in the autumn; Diaz’s mother moves in. Diaz has first of three abortions, the last in 1935, which leaves her unable to conceive.
1932 Moves to Greenwich Village with Diaz.
1934 Joins Artist’s Union, which leads to attending John Reed Club (a pro- Communist group) meetings, despite his anti-Commuist leanings. Meets Julie Browner in May and begins relationship; Diaz moves out. Returns to Woodstock and rents home with Browner for the summer. Invites Diaz to join them, which she does, resulting in a ménage à trois. Invites Marie Marchowski and her friend to join them; they also move in. Returns to New York City, live at 40 Union Square, a home owned by friend and architect Mac Vogel. Browning returns from Woodstock; she and de Kooning move to 145 West 21st Street, then to 145 West 23rd Street.
1935 Meets Rudy Burckhardt and Edwin Denby, who become first collectors of de Kooning’s work. Begins full-time employment with the mural division of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project, one of which is the Williamsburg Federal Housing Project in Brooklyn. Makes pivotal decision to devote his life to art, inspired by WPA director Burgoyne Diller. Leaves A.S. Beck to pursue art full time. Meets art critic, Harold Rosenberg. His mother comes to visit.
1936 Moves with Browner to commercially-zoned 156 West 22nd Street. Meets artist Mark Rothko. Unfinished work for the Williamsburg mural is included in group exhibition New Horizons in American Art at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, September 14-October 12; this is his first public recognition in America. Declines participation in the American Abstract Artists group.
1937System and Dialectics of Art, by John Graham, is published, naming de Kooning one of eight painters he considered “outstanding.” Arshile Gorky paints Portrait of Master Bill, a painting of de Kooning. Resigns from the WPA in August when “American citizens only” policy is announced, effective post-July. Begins work on a mural, Medicine, for the World’s Fair on the Hall of Pharmacy building; work on this continues until early 1939.
1938 Browner moves in with Diaz. Meets Elaine Marie Fried, a fellow artist and teacher. Paints a series of male figures, including Two Men Standing, A Man, and Seated Figure. Begins abstractions Pink Landscape and Elegy.
1939 Becomes influenced by the Surrealist style of Gorky and Picasso and the Gestural style of Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline. Suffers financially; tutors local art students. Becomes engaged to Fried. Visits Balcomb Greene in Fishkill. With other artists, petitions the Museum of Modern Art to show the work of Earl Kerkam after his death.
The Glazier, 1940. Oil on canvas, 54×44 in. Metropolitan Museum. Figure.
1940 Alcoholism and poverty are both significant. Becomes identified with the Abstract Expressionist movement. Drawings appear in Harper’s Bazaar. On May 14, his birthplace, Rotterdam, is hit by Germans. Harper’s Bazaar commissions four hairstyle sketches, with Elaine as model, for $75 each.
1941 Attends Miro exhibition. Is influenced by Matta, with whom he and Gorky become friends.
1942 Work is featured in the January 20-February 6 John Graham exhibition at McMillan, Inc. Drawing of a sailor with pipe is used in advertisement for Model Tobacco in Life Magazine.
1943 George Keller promises a one-man show at his Bignou Gallery; de Kooning fails to send sufficient work to exhibit. A group show included Pink Landscape and Elegy; both were bought by Helena Rubenstein for $1,050. Moved to 156 West 22nd Street. In summer, meets Franz Kline at Conrad Marca Relli’s 148 West 4th Street studio. Marries Elaine Fried on December 9. Shortly thereafter, he discovers her in bed with ex-lover, Robert Jonas.
1944Abstract and Surrealist Art in the United States features de Kooning’s work at the Cincinnati Art Museum, February 8 – March 12. After closing, the exhibition moves to the Mortimer Brandt Gallery. Sidney Janis publishes the book, Abstract and Surrealist Art in America.
1945Painting The Netherlands wins competition sponsored by the Container Corporation of America in January. The Wave is shown in the Autumn Salon at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century exhibition in the fall. Elaine sails to Provincetown with physicist Bill Hardy; de Kooning disapproves. Paints Pink Angels.
1946 Inspired by Pollock and Kline, begins first black-and-white abstracts. Charles Egan opens gallery at 63 East 57th Street. Marie Marchowsky commissions backdrop for a dance performance at New York Times Hall; de Kooning and Resnick collaborate on the project. Rents a studio with Jack Tworkov. Contacts father by letter in November requesting to see him. His father encourages him to seek more stable employment.
Valentine, 1947. Oil and enamel. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Abstract.
1947 Creates the black-and-white painting, Orestes, entitled by Tiger’s Eye magazine.
1948 Charles Egan Gallery arranges first one-man show on April 12, consisting of black-and-white enamels includingPainting, Village, Square & Dark Pond; reviews are favorable. Museum of Modern Art purchases Painting for $700; it is the only sale of the exhibition. Teaches summer session at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Returns with student Pat Passlof.. Arshile Gorky hangs himself July 21. Elaine has affairs with Charles Egan, a brief fling with Harold Rosenburg, and then an affair withThomas Hess; the latter relationship lasts until the early 1950s. Willem has numerous trysts and involvements.Mailbox is shown at the Whitney’s annual show of American art the fall. Life magazine names de Kooning one of the five “young extremists.”
1949 Meets Mary Abbott; begins affair which extends intermittently until the mid-1950s. Is introduced to projector by Franz Kline; begins series of large canvas abstractions. Gives first public statement at The Subjects of the Artist School. Drinking increases. Rents cottage with Elaine in Provincetown. PaintsSailcloth and Two Women on a Wharf. Sidney Janis Gallery features portrait of de Kooning with Elaine in exhibition.Intrasubjectives exhibition at Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, September 4 – October 3, includes de Kooning. Opens restaurant, The Club, with other artists.
1950 Begins Woman I; at nearly seven feet in height, it is his largest, completes in 1952. Participates with Alfred Barr in the Venice Biennale exhibition of younger American Painters in the U.S. Pavilion, June 8-October 15. Young Painters in the U.S. and France exhibits Woman (1949-1950) at the Sidney Janis Gallery. Joins symposium which writes letter of protest to New York Herald Tribune regarding the national jury of selection for the Metropolitan Museum of Art; group pickets the Museum and refuses to submit work. New York Herald Tribune calls the group “The Irascible Eighteen.” Protest is covered in numerous national magazines. Teaches at Yale School of Art until 1952. Helps title Franz Kline’s first one-man show.
1951Excavation is exhibited in Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America at the Museum of Modern Art, January 23 – March 25. Speaks at symposium organized by the Museum of Modern Art. Holds one-man show at Egan Gallery in April, with limited sales and no proceeds after expenses. Participates inNinth Street Exhibition. Receives financial support from Sidney Janis, contingent upon agreement to call his studio the Janis Gallery. Excavation wins $4,000 first prize in the 60th Annual American Exhibition: Paint and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. One of 20 artists exhibited in the American Vanguard Art for Paris exhibition at Sidney Janis Gallery, December 26 – January 5, 1952.
1952 Abandons Woman I, but revisits at the urging of art historian Meyer Sharpiro in June; completes in mid-June, but begins reworking in December. Starts several new “Woman” works. Elaine accompanies him to the Hamptons. Moves to 88 East 10th Street; spends much time with Harold Rosenberg. Meets art student Joan Ward, who becomes pregnant; the pregnancy is aborted.
Woman I, 1950. Oil on canvas, 192.7×147.3. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
1953 Officially changes studio name to Janis Gallery. Exhibits small retrospective at the Workshop Center for the Arts in Washington and School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. First show at Sidney Janis Gallery opens in March. Drinking increases, as does continual reworking of paintings.
1954 Participates in Venice Biennale with Excavation; becomes famous as leading Abstract Expressionism artist. Has affair with Marisol Escobar. Rents house in Bridgehampton in the summer with Elaine, Ward, Ludwig Sander, and Franz Kline. Sells pictures to Martha Jackson and uses money for fare for his mother to visit. Begins painting abstract landscapes, using bright “circus colors.”
1955 Joan Ward becomes pregnant.
1956 Ward gives birth to Johanna Lisbeth (Lisa) de Kooning on January 29. Has second one-man show at Sidney Janis Gallery, April 3; the show is a sell-out. Jackson Pollock and Edith Metzger die in car crash August 11. Elaine returns from Europe and joins de Kooning, Ward and Lisa at Martha’s Vineyard.
1957 Has affair with Pollock’s widow, Ruth Kligman. Later has affair with actress Shirley Stoler; allegedly offers her painting, which she refuses. Creates abstract landscapes, continues “Woman” art from 1957- 1961.
Two figures in landscape. Oil. National Galleyr of Australia. Painting.
1958 Takes Ruth Kligman to Cuba in February; they drift apart but reunite and spend early summer at Martha’s Vineyard together. Meets attorney Lee Eastman. Travels to Europe to meet Kligman. Hires Bernard Reis as accountant in May.
1959 Moves studio to 831 Broadway. Monograph on de Kooning by Thomas B. Hess is published by Braziller in New York. Sidney Janis Gallery opens exhibition of new large abstractions on May 4; all pieces sell. Woman series and some urban landscapes are shown at The New American Painting as shown in 8 European Countries 1958-1959 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, May 28 – September 8. Buys 4.2 acres in the Springs of Long Island on June 23. Stays with Kligman in Rome from July 28 until January 1960, where he begins working with black enamel mixed with pumice, also produces several collages. Ward moves to San Francisco with Lisa. Work is featured in Sixteen Americans exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, December 16 – February 17, 1960.
1960 Michael Sonnabend and Robert Snyder make film documentary which features Sketchbook No. 1: Three Americans. Returns from Italy and hires young California artist Dane Dixon as assistant. Grove Press publishes De Kooning, by Harriet Janis and Rudi Blesh. Spends summer in Southhampton. Visits Joan Ward and Lisa in San Francisco; visits galleries and does lithographs in Berkelely. Convinces Ward to return to New York. Drinking escalates.
Waves, 1960. Lithograph, 109x73cm, Yale University Gallery. Print.
1961 Buys more land in the Springs. Has affair with Marina Ospina.
1962 Becomes American citizen. March exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery fails. Meets Mera McAlister in March; affair lasts until winter. Sidney Janis allows Allan Stone to handle some small works; Newman- De Kooning, an exhibition of two founding fathers opens at the Allan Stone Gallery at 48 East 86th Street, October 23. The New Realists group show runs October 31 – December 1 at the Sidney Janis Gallery. Elaine paints portrait of President Kennedy for the Harry S. Truman Library.
1963 Moves back to the Springs in March, resides with Ward and Lisa. Later moves to East Hampton, Long Island. PaintsClam Diggers. Begins affair with neighbor Susan Brockman in the summer; moves in with Brockman and her friend, Clare Hooten. Later moves with Brockman to cottage on Barnes Landing, then to house owned by Bernice D’Vorazon. Later stays with John and Rae Ferren, then rents home near studio on Woodbine Drive. Splits from Brockman, but reunites in winter. Is hospitalized for alcoholism, but drinks again after release. Produces only one painting, Two Standing Women.
1964 Plans 1968 retrospective with Eduard de Wilde from the Stedelijk Museum in Holland. Ward and Lisa move to 3rd Avenue apartment. Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom in September. Becomes friends with art collector Joseph Hirshhorn. Harold Rosenberg writes profile for Vogue magazine.
1965 The Institute of Contemporary Art features de Kooning inThe Decisive Years, 1943 to 1953, exhibiting January 13 – February 19. Ends relationship with Sidney Janis, resulting in multiple lawsuits. Rents cottage with Brockman in the spring; relationship ends shortly thereafter. Accepts retrospective at Smith College, April 8 – May 2. Gives paintings to Ward and Lisa; draws up will, leaving most of his money to Lisa. Personal assistant John McMahon becomes part-time employee; Michael Wright is hired. Intermittent hospitalizations for alcoholism. Has affair with Molly Barnes. Police Gazette sells for $37,000, October 13.
1966 Enters Southampton Hospital for alcoholism in January. Attends Lisa’s birthday party in New York. Becomes involved with anti-war protests, grows hair. Draws Women Singing I,Women Singing II, and Screaming Girls.
1967 Walker and Company publishes 24 charcoal drawings produced in 1966. Joins prestigious New York gallery M. Knoedler and Company to start contemporary art department. Eastman negotiates $100,000 annual guarantee for first refusal of work. Provides 22 additional paintings on August 4, including several of the Women on the Sign series. Ward and Lisa return to the Springs. First exhibition at M. Knoedler and Company opens November 10; works include Woman Sag Harbour, Woman Accobanac, Woman Springs, and Woman, Montaulk. Despite negative reviews, some sell. Enters Southampton Hospital for alcoholism in December.
1968 Michael Wright resigns. Visits Europe, returns to Holland for major retrospective at Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, accompanied by Ward, Lisa, and Leo Cohan. (Exhibition begins there September 18, travels to London on December 8, then New York, March 5 – April 26, 1969.) Sees sister, Marie, and step-brother, Koos Lassoy; they visit their mother September 19, who dies October 8. Has car crash on Thanksgiving after drinking, he and Ward survive.
1969 Retrospect of 147 paintings, pastels, collages and drawings is held at the Museum of Modern Art, March 5 – April 26, to mixed reviews. Begins renovations of home with Ward in spring. Takes Brockman to Italy in summer; upon return, stays with her and visits Ward and Lisa. Begins sculpting in bronze. Hires David Christian to make enlarged experimental version of previous small work, Seated Woman.
1970 Visits Japan. Works on lithography; produces Love to Wakako and Mr. and Mrs. Krishner. Has affair with Emilie (Mimi) Kilgore in August; proclaims true love.
Minnie Mouse, 1971. Lithograph, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Print.
Landscape at Stanton Street, 1971. Lithograph, 75.8x56cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Print.
1971 Sculpts Clam Digger. Moves back into studio in August. Exhibits Seven by de Kooning at the Museum of Modern Art in December.
1972 Takes Mimi to attend the Venice Bienne in June. Has final exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery (part of legal settlement) in October. Lisa moves to New York, residing with de Kooning before taking apartment at 3rd Avenue and 10th Street.
1973 Enters Southampton Hospital with liver and pancreas damage in February. Undergoes rehabilitation in October and November.
1974 Traveling exhibition is organized by Fourcade, Droll. Inc., which runs until early 1977. Woman V sells for $850,000 in September, a record price for a living American artist. Dane Dixon becomes full-time assistant after McMahon leaves.
1975 Exhibits in Japan and Paris. Proposes to Kilgore, who declines. Completes 24 works in six months. Exhibits at Fourcade, Droll, Inc. in October.
Two Trees, 1975. Oil on canvas. Thought Factory. Painting.
1976 Hirshhorn Museum and the U.S. Information Agency organize major traveling exhibition to tour eleven cities in Europe. Xavier Fourcade becomes exclusive art dealer of de Kooning; mounts show of 12 new works, to favorable reviews.
1977 Attends Alcoholics Anonymous with Elaine.
1978Willem de Kooning in East Hampton exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, February 10 – April 23, is successful. American Art at Mid-Century: The Subjects of the Artist exhibit features de Kooning at the opening of the new East Building of the National Gallery in Washington in May. Goes on binge in June after several friends, including Harold Rosenberg and Thomas Hess, die.
1979 Stops painting. Drinking continues.
1980 Works becomes graphic. From 1980 to 1987, Tom Ferrarra is assistant.
1981 Lisa begins building house on studio grounds. Revises will to include Elaine as equal beneficiary with Lisa. Begins painting again in spring.
1982 February issue of Art News features Willem de Kooning: I Am Only Halfway Through, by Avis Berman; cover photograph of de Kooning ` and Paul McCartney taken by Linda Eastman, wife of McCartney and daughter of Lee Eastman. Dustin Hoffman films documentary, De Kooning on de Kooning forStrokes of Genius series in March. Attends premier. Also attends White House dinner to honor Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in April. New work is exhibited as New Paintings: 1981- 1982 at the Fourcade, Droll Gallery, March 17 – May 1.
1983 Finishes 54 paintings with the help of staff assistants. Is encouraged by Fourcade and Eastman to authorize enlarged photographs of sculptures. Untitled #2 is cast in a sterling silver, limited edition by Gemini Foundry in California. Allan Stone buys Two Women for $1.2 million in May. Willem de Kooning: Drawing, Paintings, Sculpture opens at the Whitney Museum of Art on December 15.
1984 Finishes 51 paintings. Receives commission to paint triptych for St. Peter’s Church in New York City; paintsHallelujah, which fails to receive hoped-for price of $900,000 and is taken down at the insistence of the congregation.
1985 Paints 63 pieces. Early signs of Alzheimer’s disease are apparent. Works with help from Elaine and assistants onUntitled XIII and Untitled XX. Last show at the Fourcade, Droll Gallery, Exhibition of de Kooning’s recent work from 1984-1985is held in October.
1986 Completes 43 works. Exhibition of Willem de Kooning’s work from 1983-1986 exhibits at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery in London.
1987 Does 26 paintings via projection of old sketches onto canvases by assistants. Pink Lady sells for $3.63 million. Xavier Fourcade dies of AIDS; de Kooning is not told. Elaine is diagnosed with lung cancer.
1988 Paints 27 paintings. Elaine authorizes a series of prints; encourages the changing of the will to make Lisa sole beneficiary. Attempt is blocked by Eastman, who remains executor. Elaine undergoes radiation treatments at Sloan-Kettering.
1989 Elaine dies at age 70; de Kooning is never told. Lisa and Eastman file petition declaring de Kooning incompetent. Eastman also attempts to become sole conservator, charging Lisa with mismanagement; court rules they remain co-conservators. Enters Southampton Hospital in May for a hernia operation, then in July for prostate surgery.
Untitled XXII, 1983. Oil on canvas, 70x80in. Saint Louis Museum of Art. Painting.
1990 Stops painting. Mini-retrospective, Willem de Kooning: An Exhibition of Paintings is held at the Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, September – October. De Kooning / Dubuffet: The Woman is shown at the Pace Gallery from December until January, 1991.
1993Willem de Kooning from the Hirshhorn Museum Collection opens at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on October 21. Jennifer McLaughlin resigns; she is his final assistant.
1994 The Naitonal Gallery of Art in Washington exhibitsWillem de Kooning: Paintings, May – September 5.
1996 The Academie Van Beeldende Kunsten en Technishche Wetenschappen, where de Kooning studied in Amsterdam, officially changes its name to the Willem de Kooning Academy.
1997 Dies March 19, 1997 in the Springs. Funeral is attended by some 300 friends and associates, including Ruth Kligman, Susan Brockman, Molly Barnes, and Emilie Kilgore. Lisa is guest speaker.
Willem de Kooning’s Asheville takes its name from the North Carolina town near Black Mountain College where de Kooning taught in the summer of 1948. A small but extremely complex work, it gathers together numerous, often oblique allusions, including references to the college and sections that recall de Kooning’s early training in crafts such as marbling, woodgraining, and lettering.De Kooning’s works often blur the distinctions between drawings, studies, and paintings. Rather than the traditional academic progression from study to finished painting, de Kooning creates a constant flow and exchange of ideas and forms across different media. Four other versions ofAsheville show shapes similar to those found in The Phillips Collection’s painting, suggesting that de Kooning consciously refined the seemingly random forms of the Phillips painting through his manipulations of form in the related works.Asheville is an important example of de Kooning’s intricate experiments in “collage painting” of the late 1940s in which he used collage procedures, combining different materials such as torn paper and drawings to create illusions that might be used as a source for visual ideas. These techniques assisted the artist in working out a final composition that was free from any actual collaged elements. In the completed work, de Kooning created jumps and visual ruptures between passages that mimic collage. Additional deceptions in Asheville include the illusion of a tack holding a cut-out form at the upper left and a depiction of paper peeling from the surface to the left of what appears to be a mouth at the picture’s center.De Kooning enhanced these effects by scraping down and building up the surface of the painting numerous times. This layering blends spontaneity and measured thought, giving Asheville a look of immediacy and chance, though de Kooning actually constructed the painting thoughtfully over a number of months. In addition, he interspersed sinuous black lines throughout the work with a liner’s brush, a tool with unusually long brush hairs traditionally used by sign painters. These gestures of black tracery resemble the spontaneous, unconscious marks of Surrealism’s psychic automatism, but upon closer inspection they reveal de Kooning’s technical mastery of the brush and reflect his fascination with precise line.Content in Asheville is suggested through momentary glimpses of reality. The skyline noted near the upper-center edge of the painting suggests the Blue Ridge Mountains looming over the grounds of Black Mountain College. Beneath this passage is an area of blue that may refer to Lake Eden, which was adjacent to the school. Additional fragments include eyes, hands, and a mouth, as well as a window of green, an effective foil for the interplay between indoor and outdoor space in the picture.Central to de Kooning’s art is the ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings through appropriations and transformations of reality. At the time de Kooning painted Asheville, the abstract expressionists struggled to come to terms with a multiplicity of ideas: the emotional legacy of World War II, the heritage of modernism, and the array of influences available to them in New York. De Kooning responded to this flux of ideas and experiences with an extraordinary degree of self-conscious control. His depictions of collage in Asheville are characteristic of a measured approach that allowed him to respect older traditions of figuration, illusion and craft, while simultaneously engaging more radical modern idioms.
The Beatles at Apple Studios, Savile Row, London on Thursday 30 January 1969
This is not thefirst time I have written about Timothy Leary but I wanted to point out his connection with the Beatles in this post. What did Timothy Leary have to do with one of the songs on ABBEY ROAD ALBUM and what was Leary’s interaction with Francis Schaeffer? Read about it later in this post.
The following photographs are previously unseen images of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their “Bed In” for peace at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel in June 1969. Here, Tommy Smothers, an unknown friend, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Rosemary Leary and Timothy Leary.
Give Peace a Chance – John Lennon – Yoko Ono
___________
John Lennon and Yoko Ono (in bed), Tommy Smothers (with guitar), and. Timothy Leary (foreground) at the 1969 Montreal Bed-in protesting the war.
The best-known slogan coined by Sixties counterculture celebrity Timothy Leary is the one he created to promote the use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs: “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”In 1969, Leary came up with another slogan that was eventually made famous, though not by him.
Three years earlier, actor Ronald Reagan had been elected Governor of California.
Leary figured that if a Hollywood celebrity could run for Governor and get elected, maybe the times were right for a Hippie celebrity to take a shot at it. Besides, he loved publicity.
So, he threw his mushroom cap into the ring and announced that he planned to run against Reagan in the 1970 gubernatorial election.
Leary came up with the tongue-in-cheek campaign slogan, “Come together, join the party.”
Lennon agreed. And, during the Montreal Bed-In days, in addition to writing and recording“Give Peace a Chance,”Lennon wrote an initial version of the song “Come Together.”
The melody was basically like the Beatles song we know today, but the original chorus was different.
It went: “Come together, right now. / Don’t come tomorrow. / Don’t come alone.”
Lennon made a demo tape of the campaign song for Leary. Leary gave copies to local underground radio stations in California and the song got some airplay.Shortly thereafter, Leary’s campaign got derailed due to his mounting legal troubles from a past marijuana bust, forcing him to, er, drop out of the Governor’s race. (Lucky for Ronnie.)
So, Lennon took the song to his bandmates, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, when the Beatles were recording songs for the upcoming Abbey Road album.
Together, they reworked it a bit and changed the lyrics to those all Beatles fans are familiar with:
“Here come old flattop, he come groovin’ up slowly He got ju-ju eyeballs, he one holy roller
He got hair down to his knees
Got to be a joker, he just do what he please
He wear no shoeshine, he got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger, he shoot Coca-Cola
He say, I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free Come together, right now, over me.”
The first line of the song (Lennon’s homage to a similar line from Chuck Berry’s 1956 rock hit, “You Can’t Catch Me”) and the chorus — “Come together, right now, over me” — became famous pop culture quotations.
“Come Together” was released as a single in the US on October 6, 1970 and reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart on November 29, 1969 — which is how, by a trippy route, Tim Leary’s gubernatorial campaign slogan became the subject of posts for those dates on ThisDayinQuotes.com.
Michael Horowitz, Tim’s longtime archivist and contributing editor to this website, has brought us this transcript from a tape recording of a conversation between Timothy and Rosemary Leary and John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which he found buried in his personal archives.
From Michael: “Back in 1984, Tim gave me this as a present to celebrate the completion ofhis bibliography. I’d completely forgotten I had it. In an archival lapse, I had put it in an unmarked envelope in a box of miscellaneous papers.”
Below is a scan of the cover page for the manuscript of an anthology Tim was considering putting together for publication around 1978 with the title, “Heroes of the Sixties: Meetings with Remarkable WoMen.”
A draft of “Part II: The Agents” from the table of contents is below. This transcript was intended to be added to a previously published piece, “Thank God for the Beatles” (The Beatles Book, 1968), “an essay about the Beatles as evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with mysterious power to create a new human species” (Leary Bibliography, B18). The article and transcript was to be Chapter 16 under a new title, “The Beatles As Unconscious Evolutionary Agents (with Conversation with John-Yoko).” The anthology, a collection of previously published magazine articles and book excerpts, with a few new chapters, was never published.
Michael continues: “After researching the publications in which it most likely would have appeared (the underground press and Rolling Stone) in the late spring and summer of 1969, and in the bibliography and the archives housed at the New York Public Library, I determined that the transcript of this ‘conversation’ has probably never been published.”
Another piece of evidence is a handwritten note on the permissions list when the project was in a very early stage: “Hitherto Unpublished.”
Michael’s guess is that Tim was given a copy of the tape at the time it was made, or later, and had it transcribed by one of his assistants, whose penciled editorial notes appear on the first two pages, and on the contents and permissions sheets. Michael remembers Tim invited him to assist on the project, “ but he (Tim) was too involved in the Future History Series, where some of these chapters ended up in one form or another, and abandoned ‘Heroes of the Sixties: Meetings with Remarkable WoMen.’”
Montreal Bed-In and what was going on in the lives of the four of them when they held the conversation in John and Yoko’s Suite of Rooms 1738-1744 in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel
The conversation took place in the middle of John and Yoko’s week-long Bed-In, on May 29th, 1969. That makes Lisa 6 months old at the time, and it’s a year before Michael met Tim face-to-face for the first time, visiting him in prison, and became his archivist. Chronologically, it was two weeks after the People’s Park Uprising in Berkeley and less than three months before the Woodstock Music Festival. The Vietnam War was raging. The Black Panther Party was being attacked by the FBI. Less than a month later, the Weather Underground formed, calling for armed revolution to stop the war. Hippies were being busted for pot and acid. The Chicago 8 were under indictment for inciting a riot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Aug. 1968.
Michael points out: “The enormous personal and political pressures on the four of them are evident here. Despite (or perhaps because of) their global fame, both couples had a difficult time getting through Canadian customs. Both had been busted for marijuana possession the previous year – John and Yoko in London, and Tim and Rosemary in Laguna Beach. A few months after the Bed-In, John would leave the Beatles and move with Yoko to the U.S., where they were closely monitored by the FBI and threatened with deportation. Ten months later, Tim would be in prison; Rosemary would be putting on benefits to raise money for his appeal.”
The Bed-In – An Archetypal “Occupation”
Michael: “The ‘60s was a decade of occupations. Perhaps the strangest and most original was the Bed-In that took place in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, in 1969, 43 years ago, this Spring. John Lennon and Yoko Ono occupied a bed for seven days and nights in a “Bed-In For Peace” as a symbolic protest to end the war in Vietnam, which culminated in the writing and recording of the antiwar anthem, ‘Give Peace a Chance.’
“Prior to the Bed-In, in the early sixties, leading up to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, there were Sit-Ins in the South, occupying “white only” lunch counters; Be-Ins, beginning with the one in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park (1967), and Teach-Ins on college campuses. The Yippies led occupations at the NY Stock Exchange (1967) and the grounds of the Pentagon (1967), and later, Smoke-Ins in Washington DC and elsewhere. A half million antiwar protestors occupied the mall in front of the Washington Monument, six months after the Bed-In. The 1990s witnessed Digital Be-Ins, and wars in the Middle East brought Die-Ins. These were some of the precursors of the Occupy Movement that began in Zuccotti Park last September.”
Thanks to the fame of the couple and the novel concept of their activism, the event got media coverage well beyond the small number of participants involved.
The film Bed Peace was made available for free on YouTube in August 2011 by Yoko Ono, as part of her website “Imagine Peace.” Tim and Rosemary’s participation is also documented in another video on YouTube (also courtesy of Yoko’s Imagine Peace website), where they are seen singing on the recording of “Give Peace A Chance.”
John Lennon wrote another song that week, the earliest version of “Come Together,” for Leary’s campaign for Governor of California against Ronald Reagan. It was the prospect of Tim debating Reagan on television that, as much as anything, led to his imprisonment for a miniscule amount of marijuana. With the campaign aborted, John decided to rework the song for the Beatles’ Abbey Road.
This conversation, published here for the first time, is a time capsule from an era that has powerful and poignant correspondences to our own.
Conversation between John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Rosemary Leary and Timothy Leary, Hotel Queen Elizabeth, Montreal, Canada, May 29, 1969
TIMOTHY: Living in a teepee is great. It’s pretty basic. It’s the first artificial habitat, after all.
ROSEMARY: It’s the sexiest building ever invented.
TIMOTHY: It’s like being in a sailboat, because you have to know exactly where the wind is. You raise the fluttering banners, and just look up through the smoke-flap and you can see how the wind blows. If you don’t have the flaps the right way, the wind will blow the smoke down. We always have to be aware of the wind.
JOHN: Yeah, Yoko had this plan for us two. To blindfold ourselves for two weeks, y’know, and just work it out. We might do that when we get to the new house and find out about it.
ROSEMARY: Yes, it’d be a fantastic way to learn about it.
TIMOTHY: Also, of course, we live with rattlesnakes. That’s groovy because it requires absolute consciousness. You just can’t go thumping through the brush, thinking of what you’re going to do tomorrow. You have to realize that you’re intruding on their territory. We don’t want to hurt you. We don’t want to stumble in and step on you. So your consciousness has got to be focused. And of course it’s always helpful to have dogs. We learn a great deal from animals.
JOHN: How long have you been there, in the teepee? I mean, before you sussed the wind and everything, and you know, got your senses back?
ROSEMARY: We had to put the teepee up three times before it was right. It’s like you can touch it, and it resounds like a drone, and then it’s perfect, the canvas. It’s a wind instrument that plays like a drone.
TIMOTHY: You would really love the teepee, because it’s a work of art which involves all the senses. You start with white canvas. Then you get the pine. Each man has to strip the bark so you get the wood smooth, smooth. You have to line the poles carefully. There are fifteen of these poles, and if you do it wrong you end up with too big a hole. It’s sculpture. Then once you’ve got it built, it’s a light show, because the moon shines through the smoke hole and you can see the stars.
ROSEMARY: If you placed it properly to the east, the sun rises right over the opening, so at one point during the day the sun is full blast down into the teepee.
YOKO: Is it very wide?
ROSEMARY: It’s a little narrower than the width of this hotel room.
TIMOTHY: And at night you have a fire. All right. We’re sitting around, with the fire here in the center. That means your shadow is thrown on the screen behind you, big, and I’m gesticulating like this and you catch my shadow. And the silhouettes flicker. The fire’s dancing. So, if you are outside, you can tell a mile away what’s going on. Then you get the wind coming. It creaks a little. The door, by the way, is shaped like the yoni and you have to bend your head down as you come in, in honor of it.
ROSEMARY: The only thing that comes through the yoni is the sun and the stars and the moon; actually only people go through the lower exit and entrance.
TIMOTHY: It’s a sexy place.
YOKO: All those nasty magazines in London, they all call me Yoni.
JOHN: Yeah. Yoni Ono.
YOKO: John Lingam and Yoni Ono.
TIMOTHY: We sent a message to you, through Miles, that said that next time you come to the United States, if you wanted to get away for a few days, there’s a place…
JOHN: We never got the message from Miles. [Footnote: Barry Miles, UK countercultural activist, helped launched Indica Bookshop and International Times.] We miss a lot. Yeah, we’ve got it now. And if we come…
TIMOTHY: It would have to be done in a way that no one would know you’re there. Once you just get into the valley, it’s another world. Of course, we’ve been doing nothing but studying consciousness for the last seven or eight years, and at Millbrook, we had this large estate. You probably heard about it–this big 64-room house. It became like a mecca for scientists and barefoot pilgrims.
“We’ve been doing nothing but studying consciousness for the last seven or eight years.”–Tim
YOKO: I’ve heard of Millbrook. I mean, it’s famous.
TIMOTHY: Yes, and police informers and television people. But then we saw how geography was important. The land north of the house was uninhabited. As you got there, you got farther away from the people, and the games, and the television, and the police. What we’ve been trying to do is create heaven on earth, right? And we did have it going, for a while–in the forest groves where there were just holy people. Just people going around silently eating brown rice or caviar, and when you went there, you would never think of talking terrestrial. You never would say, “Well, the sheriff’s at the gate.”
JOHN:We were going to have no talking either, for a week.
TIMOTHY: Well, this was a place where you only would go if you just wanted to. It was set up somewhat like, you know, the Tolkien thing, with trees and shrines. There was another place where we lived, which we called Level Two, which was in a teepee, and people would come up there, and we would play, and laugh. And then you get down to the big house, and that was where you could feel the social pressures starting. And once you left the gate, then you were back in the primitive 20th century. As soon as you walked out the gate, if you didn’t have your identification, then they’d bust you. So it was all neuro–geography. The place you went to determined your level of consciousness. As you went from one zone to another, you knew you were just coming down or going up.
JOHN: That’s great.
TIMOTHY: Now we’ve got that going again out in the desert.
ROSEMARY: We’re living with a more intelligent group of people this time.
YOKO: What did you do with the place, Millbrook? Is it still going?
TIMOTHY: We were supposed to go there this week. Matter of fact, we may go there tomorrow night. It’s still there. But it’s the old story. In the past, societies fought over territory. They thought, “We’ll hold this space, or we’ll force you out.” It’s an old mammalian tradition. As you pointed out about Reagan, what we’re doing in the United States is transcending this notion of the good-guy cowboy. That’s Governor Reagan: he’s gonna shoot down hippies, shoot down blacks and college students. So we gave up Millbrook, because there’s no point in fighting over the land, and making it a thing of territorial pride. If they want it so much that they’re going to keep an armed guard there all the time, they can have it. We’ll be back. [Footnote: Reagan ordered the California National Guard to shoot at protesting students during the People’s Park uprising in Berkeley two weeks earlier; it was G. Gordon Liddy, later one of the Watergate burglars, who drove Tim and his extended family from Millbrook.]
JOHN: Yeah, that’s where we’re shouting at the kids at Berkeley: “forget the park, move on.” They’re all saying. “Where?” Y’know, I’m saying, “Canada. Anywhere.” There’s plenty of space.
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Ronald Reagan elected Governor of California below:
Guardsmen Surroundings, Vietnam War, People’S Parks, 1969, National Guardsmen, Surroundings Vietnam, Vietnam Protest, People Parks, Berkeley
TIMOTHY: There is.
ROSEMARY: Yes, if you fly over this country in an airplane you’ll just be amazed at the amount of space there is.
JOHN: Pioneers. Pioneers are very important today, because people won’t go where somebody hasn’t already gone. Yeah! That’s what we’re saying: what did your forefathers do? How did they make it?
YOKO: And it’s a healthy thing to do, isn’t it?
TIMOTHY: What do the kids say when they talk to you? [Footnote: All day John and Yoko have been talking to every radio station they can reach, and to anyone calling in to one of these radio stations wanting to talk to them.]
JOHN: About peace, or about anything in general? On the phone? Well, if they’re not saying, “Welcome to Canada,” they’re saying, “What can we do?” y’know?
ROSEMARY: That’s good.
JOHN: They’re saying, what can we actually do, and then I say, we say, “well we can’t tell you what to do?” y’know, we can only sort of say, “there’s other things to do.”
TIMOTHY: You’re in charge. You don’t have to ask.
JOHN: Yeah, think about it. But they’re getting it, y’know, I mean they must be. Our voices must be going out solid about every quarter of an hour. And if it isn’t singing, it’s talking, and we’re just repeating the same bit, y’know, and there’s very little “Me eyes are brown and Paul’s…y’know? I mean I do that for the ones that need it. Most of it’s just, “let’s get it together,” and it must be going out now like a mantra. We’re trying to set up a mantra, a peace mantra, and get it in their heads. It’s gonna work.
TIMOTHY: It’s Pierre Trudeau that got us in Canada. Because, about a year and a half, two years ago, there was a big university thing in Toronto [Footnote: Perception ’67, a conference/ cultural event featuring, in addition to the two named by Leary, Humphry Osmond, Richard Alpert, Ralph Metzner, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Ed Sanders, and Ali Akbar Khan], and they invited people to speak about drugs. Paul Krassner came, McLuhan was there, and I was supposed to come up to give a talk, but the government wouldn’t let me in. So I sent a tape, and they confiscated it.
Then I went to the International Bridge in Detroit and handed it across, and the Americans busted me ’cause I wasn’t supposed to leave the country. That was two years ago, before Trudeau was premier. This time they checked with higher-ups. They kept us waiting about an hour. They were very polite. They were getting instructions from– wherever they get their instructions.
(Carl Solomon, Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs at the Gotham Book Mart, New York City, 1977)
JOHN: They kept us about two hours, searched through everything. Yeah, well, we wanted to get to Trudeau, we’re really headed for Nixon.
“We wanted to get to Trudeau, we’re really headed for Nixon.” — John
TIMOTHY: I am too.
JOHN: We’re just telling them that we want to give them two acorns—a piece of sculpture that we entered in an exhibition. So we wanted to get that to Nixon and tell him all we want you to do is make a positive move, y’know. And then they’d either have to accept it or deny it publicly, and then we’d ask, “Why, why, don’t you give us that time schedule?”
TIMOTHY: How are things in Europe?
JOHN: They’re okay there, you know, it’s relaxed and everybody’s…they’re all smoking their cigars and drinking coffee, y’know, and you go to Paris and Amsterdam, and they’re all just rolling along.
YOKO: And they don’t dislike you for smoking.
JOHN: No, it’s not the same. They get down about it, but there’s none of that…
YOKO: Not hatred.
ROSEMARY: I’m always surprised when I read of any of you being busted in England, because…
JOHN: Oh, it’s again a bit paranoid in England now. It’s getting a bit heavy. ‘Cause there’s a lot of Americans coming in, y’know, sort of refugees, and it’s not even that so much. There’s just more people around, and they’re busting the pop stars. Like they got Mick Jagger and Marianne yesterday. [Footnote: Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull were busted for possession of marijuana at their London home on May 28, 1969.]There’s one guy doing it all, one little Sergeant Pilgrim.
“They’re busting the pop stars. Like they got Mick Jagger and Marianne yesterday.” — John
ROSEMARY: Pilgrim?
JOHN: Yes, I think he’s on a pilgrimage, collecting scalps.
ROSEMARY: Your Pilgrim and our Purcell. [Footnote: Neil Purcell of the Laguna Beach police dept. followed the Learys around for months before pulling them over and busting Tim for two marijuana roaches in the backseat ashtray of their car, on Dec. 26, 1968, which are the very charges that sent him to prison in March 1970.]
JOHN: And he’s going around nailing us all; and they’re beginning to hound the underground papers now. They never gave ’em any bother before. So it’s getting a bit like that. But it’s nowhere near stateside size yet, and by the time it gets like that in England, the States will have cooled off.
TIMOTHY: It’s not a yin/yang thing. The energy in the United States is accelerating, and you can go on the negative trip and point to all the bad things happening. But the reason these power trips are happening is because the freedom thing is so strong. I give lectures at colleges, and even down south, and up in Minnesota, in religious, very backwater places where you expected…. The kids are just waiting for any voice of honesty and humor.
ROSEMARY: It’s changed. It really has. Even a year ago…
JOHN: Yeah, when we were down there, in the States, it was terrifying.[Footnote: Lennon is referring to the last Beatles U.S. tour, in August 1966.] That’s when they were getting me for saying we’re bigger than Christ. Somebody was letting off balloons, and we all looked around to see which of us had got shot.
TIMOTHY: But the kids there are the same as they are anywhere. Because this thing we’re involved in, it does transcend all the old dichotomies of left/right or conservative.
JOHN: They’re even playing the “Christ you know it ain’t easy” record.[Footnote: “The Ballad of John and Yoko”] down south on some stations. I didn’t think it’d get past the line, y’know, didn’t think they’d play it there at all. I asked them, Jacksonville, Florida or what, “Hi! Y’playing the record?” “Yeah, we’re playing it. Why did you say that?” “Well,” I said. “Uh. Heh…” [Laughter]
The Beatles The Ballad of John and Yoko (2009 Digital Remaster) HD
TIMOTHY: John, about the use of the mass media . . . the kids must be taught how to use the media. People used to say to me–I would give a rap and someone would get up and say, “Well, what’s this about a religion? Did the Buddha use drugs? Did the Buddha go on television? I’d say, “Ahh—he would’ve. He would’ve….”
“John, about the use of the mass media… The kids must be taught to use the media.”– Tim
JOHN: I was on a TV show with David Frost and Yehudi Menuhin, some cultural violinist y’know, they were really attacking me. They had a whole audience and everything. It was after we got back from Amsterdam…and Yehudi Menuhin came out, he’s always doing these Hindu numbers. All that pious bit, and his school for violinists, and all that. And Yehudi Menuhi said, “Well, don’t you think it’s necessary to kill some people some times?” That’s what he said on TV, that’s the first thing he’s ever said. And I said, “Did Christ say that? Are you a Christian?” “Yeah,” I said, and did “Christ say anything about killing people?” And he said, “Did Christ say anything about television? Or guitars?”
“Did the Buddha use drugs? Did the Buddha go on television? I’d say, ‘Ahh—he would’ve. He would’ve…’”– Tim
TIMOTHY: Marijuana…
JOHN: Yeah. I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t believe that.
TIMOTHY: The trick is, though, not to be pulled off into the bullring thing. You’ve got to keep right on the essence, and if you do that…
JOHN: Yeah, I got a bit lost actually, but I got such a fright. I didn’t expect such…so much from ’em. It was just a sort of David Frost show with a couple of people on, and we’d just got there, and the hatred was amazing. I was really frightened. But Yoko was cool, so when one of us loses it, the other can cover.
The year 1968 was a momentous year for me—revolution was in the air. I was a freshman architectural student in Boston. Having been raised with generally conservative morality in a liberal Congregational church there was nothing to prevent me from being radicalized. I soon joined the Boston Resistance and felt sure that I was part of a movement as important as the American Revolution. I was there in the Boston Public Garden when radical Abby Hoffman referred to the John Hancock building as that “hypodermic needle in the sky.” It was the Boston Tea Party all over again. This was actually the name of a live-rock night spot—a worship place for the revolutionaries—where the hymnody of Cream and the Velvet Underground stoked us for battle.
Raised to believe that Christian ethics were attainable without the supernatural religion of the Bible, I soon affirmed the moral and spiritual relativism that came with the American countercultural amalgam of eastern religiosity and American idealism. All religions were heading for the same glorious summit. The autonomous spirit of modernity was taking on a new form in reaction to the impersonal mass cultural tendencies of the technological society. Postmodernity was emerging. The Beatles, the Grateful Dead, and the Incredible String Band were a way out of the mono-dimensional culture of the late Enlightenment in its Eisenhower military-industrial form. We were on the cutting edge of history—an avant-garde altering civilization for the better. We believed in nothing less than changing the world—but nothing more, ultimately, than ourselves.
Ironically, the same generational conceit that we exuded is present in the title of the article in the March 2008 issue of Christianity Today, “Not Your Father’s L’Abri.”[1]Your father’s L’Abri may not be outmoded like his Oldsmobile. I lived at your father’s L’Abri for six months, so I thought a first-hand reflection to be in order.
Enter Francis Schaeffer: Cultural Apologist and Evangelist
Living in a communal setting for a summer in Oregon chastened my naïve understanding of humanity’s ability to better itself. I returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts in the fall of 1970, literally singing the blues, feeling abandoned by my own ideals. I settled into the cynical Jack Kerouac’s macabre New England temper. This is where Unitarianism and Transcendentalism lead. My forays into the I-Ching and other versions of eastern mysticism left me with a yawning emptiness of soul.
My personal bankruptcy lead me to open my Bible—the one religious book I had neglected—late one night in the winter of 1971. My blues proved themselves to be a revelation of my own sin. That was the real problem with the world—my rebellion against my Maker, and my sadness that happiness thus eluded me. My existential despair was my alienation from God. There in my basement room gospel light shown brightly on my dark soul and I realized that the Christ of Scripture was the true and only Savior from sin and death. This was truth like no other I had ever encountered—yes, as Schaeffer would say “true truth,” unlike the murky mysticism I had lost my way in. This gospel was true and all else I had believed was not. This was the living and true God—one to whom I could speak, and who spoke to me in his Word, the Bible.
I returned home to New Hampshire on weekends to attend my mother’s Baptist church. She had become a Christian just before I left for college. Still wrestling with the questions of my generation, I found little understanding of my concerns in the church, until one day a perceptive member gave me a book titled The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century by Francis Schaeffer. Here was a Christian who understood my world and spoke my language. I rapidly devoured everything Schaeffer had written up to that point, as well as Edith Schaeffer’s The L’Abri Story. These equipped me to speak with the others in my cooperative living situation about my newfound faith—a Kierkegaardian existentialist, a Vietnam vet who considered himself a warlock, a high-strung cellist, an argumentative law student, a sensitive poet, and two feminist lesbians. The exclusive claims of the gospel were offensive to most, but several became Christians, recognizing the wonder, beauty, and liberating power of Jesus Christ. By August 1971 I was at L’Abri. For someone with no theological or philosophical training this was truly a high-altitude experience…
Apart from the breathtaking beauty of the setting, at an elevation of three thousand feet in the Swiss Alps, overlooking the Dent du Midi and the Mont Blanc Massif, three refreshing realities were present, which in many ways stood in stark contrast to my experience in the fundamentalist churches I had briefly known in America and my communal experience as a hippie. First, L’Abri was a genuine community where true Christian faith was practiced—where people worked, studied, and discussed together. Second, earnest engagement of the mind was fostered, but never in a merely academic way. There was no one like Schaeffer in our day. He filled a niche. Third, along with intellectual nurture, the Schaeffers encouraged a true appreciation for, and involvement in, creativity and the arts. Edith’s Hidden Art helped rescue my mother from the culturally suffocating influence of her fundamentalist church. It was easy to think of L’Abri as a kind of Mecca. But as my English friend Tony Morton later reminded me, “You don’t have to go to L’Abri to enter the kingdom of God.” L’Abri wasn’t for everyone, nor was it without its faults, although it was not easy for me to see this at the time…
I had occasion to meet the painter Francis Bacon in a pub in Soho on my trip home from Switzerland. Bacon’sHead IV appeared on the cover of Hans Rookmaaker’s (close friend and colleague of Schaeffer’s) Modern Art and the Death of Culture (1970). Reinterpreting Velasquez’s portrait of the pope, Bacon distorts the once dignified head and face, which is depicted being sucked upward through the top of a translucent box in which the man is sitting—his humanity is disintegrating. The futility, horror, and despair portrayed in the painting were verified in my conversation with Bacon. Hopelessness was written all over Bacon’s melancholy face. My explanation of the gospel elicited only scorn. But Schaeffer had prepared me for this encounter.
(Francis Bacon)
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Francis Bacon’s Head VI, 1949 below:
Schaeffer had a private meeting with Timothy Leary in the fall of 1971. Leary, for those who don’t remember, was a Harvard professor of psychology who dropped out, advocating the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs, and became a counterculture guru. He was in Switzerland evading drug charges. Nichols and I were privy to his visit with Schaeffer because we lived in Schaeffer’s chalet (October 2, 1971 according to my journal entry). At dinner, Leary was very self-absorbed and not a little blown out from all of the LSD he had taken. He proved to be very obnoxious company. But Schaeffer had been compassionate enough to spend an afternoon in conversation with him about the gospel, telling no one of his encounter with this famous man.
Gregory E. Reynolds is the editor of Ordained Servant, and serves as the pastor of Amoskeag Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Manchester, New Hampshire. Ordained Servant, October 2008.
The Beatles were looking for lasting satisfaction in their lives and their journey took them down many of the same paths that other young people of the 1960’s were taking. No wonder in the video THE AGE OF NON-REASON Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.”
How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason)
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At their website we read, “L’Abri is a French word for ‘shelter’. L’Abri was founded by Francis and Edith Schaeffer in Switzerland in 1955 when they opened their home to people as a spiritual and intellectual ‘shelter’, a place where people culd be hepled both to know and to live in the truth of biblical Christianity. From that time on other communities based on the same ideas have grown up in Europe, America and Asia. Today there are seven residential branches including Korean L’Abri and two resource centers. The atmosphere is relaxed and personal, and we are a study centre in that our days are a healthy mixture of work, study and discussion.”
A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 1
Uploaded on Nov 20, 2007
This is part one of a series of videos I made during one day at Swiss L’Abri in Huemoz, Switzerland. If you want to know more about L’Abri you can go to http://www.labri.org or my blog at iamchrismartin.blogspot.com
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A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 2
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A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 3
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A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 4
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#02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer
10 Worldview and Truth
Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100
Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR
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A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 5
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A Day at Swiss L’Abri – pt 6
Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary and John C. Lilly in 1991.
Timoty Leary – Return Engagement – Part 1
“William Burroughs and Timothy Leary, Lawrence, Kansas, Friday, March 13, 1987,
Timoty Leary – Return Engagement – Part 2
Timoty Leary – Return Engagement – Part 3
Published on Apr 19, 2013
Return Engagement is a 1983 documentary film directed by Alan Rudolph about the tour debate between Timothy Leary and G. Gordon Liddy.
My absolute favorite albums are Rubber Soul and Revolver. On both records you can hear references to other music — R&B, Dylan, psychedelia — but it’s not done in a way that is obvious or dates the records. When you picked up Revolver, you knew it was something different. Heck, they are wearing sunglasses indoors in the picture on the back of the cover and not even looking at the camera . . . and the music was so strange and yet so vivid. If I had to pick a favorite song from those albums, it would be “And Your Bird Can Sing” . . . no, “Girl” . . . no, “For No One” . . . and so on, and so on. . . .
Their breakup album, Let It Be, contains songs both gorgeous and jagged. I suppose ambition and human frailty creeps into every group, but they delivered some incredible performances. I remember going to Leicester Square and seeing the film of Let It Be in 1970. I left with a melancholy feeling.
The Beatles – Get Back (OFFICIAL VIDEO)
The Beatles – Get Back — Rooftop Concert HQ
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‘Get Back’
Central Press/Getty Images
Main Writer: McCartney Recorded: January 23, 27, 28 and 30, February 5, 1969 Released: May 5, 1969 12 weeks; No. 1
The plan for the Beatles’ January 1969 sessions was that they would get back to their roots as a live rock & roll band, so when McCartney came up with a song called “Get Back,” it was a perfect fit. It was also the last song the Beatles played at their 10-song, 42-minute final gig on the roof of the Apple Records building on January 30th.
The original lyrics to “Get Back” satirized the anti-immigrant sentiments in England at the time: “Don’t dig no Pakistanis taking all the people’s jobs” went one line. McCartney dropped the parodic race-baiting, leaving the tales of wandering Jo Jo and gender-flipping Loretta Martin. Lennon called “Get Back,” which features his bluesy lead guitar as well as a funky keyboard solo from Billy Preston, “a better version of ‘Lady Madonna’ . . . a potboiler rewrite.” But he also suspected that the song was secretly aimed at Yoko Ono: “You know, ‘Get back to where you once belonged.’ Every time [Paul] sang the line in the studio, he’d look at Yoko.”
Main Writer: McCartney Recorded: May 9, 16 and 19, 1966
Released: August 8, 1966 Not released as a single
McCartney wrote this quiet classic in the second person, as if he were addressing, but not quite comforting, a friend abruptly abandoned by a lover: “You want her, you need her/And yet you don’t believe her/When she says her love is dead.” He was talking to himself: “For No One,” written in March 1966 while he and Jane Asher were on vacation in Switzerland, was about an argument they had. The intimacy of the production and performance — a kind of exhausted acceptance — stand out amid the accelerated experimentation everywhere else on Revolver. McCartney and Starr were the only Beatles present at the session; they cut the backing track — McCartney’s piano and Starr’s minimalist percussion, plus overdubbed clavichord — in a single night. George Martin later suggested a dash of brass, so they called in Alan Civil of the London Philharmonia, who played the song’s brief, moving French-horn interjections. Civil was paid about 50 pounds for his efforts, but got something more valuable: a rare Beatles-album credit on Revolver‘s original back cover.
” I don’t think there is any great heroic act in going in slavishly every day and saying, “I must do this.” So what I find is that I do it when I am inspired. And that’s how I can combine it with music. Some days the inspiration is a musical one and other days it has just got to be painting. ”
— Paul McCartney, from the interview.
Overview
” For more than seventeen years Paul McCartney has been a committed painter, finding in his work on canvas both a respite from the world and another outlet for his drive to create. His painting, like much of his life, has been a very private endeavor.
In April 1999 he exhibited the work for the first time in Siegen, Germany, where it met with critical acclaim, which led to his decision to share the work through the publication of this volume.Full of life and intense color, these paintings reveal McCartney’s tremendous positive spirit as well as a visual sophistication and bold handling influenced by his friendship with Willem de Kooning. He carves, scratches, and sculpts the paint, creating complex and layered works. Faces abound in the paintings, from the many lovely abstract portraits of Linda McCartney to irreverent, affectionate portraits of the Queen of England. Humor plays against more somber imagery — masks and Celtic motifs — while his landscapes radiate a sense of place.Beautifully designed and produced, the portfolio of paintings is accompanied by candid photographs by Linda McCartney other husband in the studio. A collection of texts by contemporary critics and curators place the paintings within context, while a long and insightful interview allows McCartney’s own voice to be heard. Frequent points of crossover between his music and visual explorations will intrigue those interested in the artistic process. Rarely is one able to find an artist working with such confidence and skill in such diverse media. All followers of McCartney’s will be delighted to see these exuberant works unveiled and to experience this unexpected and accomplished expression of his creativity. ”
— from the back jacket.
Yellow Linda With Piano, 1988.
Arizona, 91, with “Red Abstract White Moon”
Paul and Willem de Kooning in 1983 (left) and in 1984 (right). De Kooning was a family friend and Paul and Linda would always visit him when they were on Long Island. It was probably watching de Kooning in action that inspired Paul to do his first canvases.
Boxer Lips, 1990.
Essays & InterviewPaul McCartney’s work is analyzed through a series of essays and through an interview in which Paul comments on each of his 83 paintings that are exhibited in this book.ContentsForeword: Paul McCartney And The Courage To Get Lost
by Brian Clarke
Paul McCartney In Context
by Julian Theuherz
Exposure And Influences In The Paintings Of Paul McCartney
by Barry Miles
From Line To Color – From Gesture To Picture
by Wolfgang Suttner
Interview: “I Don’t Know – It Looks Like A Couch”
Wolfgang Suttner speaks with Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney : Reverses And Other Advances
by Christoph Tannert
Long Island painting, East Hampton, 1990
Brian Clarke Born in 1953, Brian Clarke is a painter and creator of large – scale colored glass works for architectural projects. Time magazine has said about him that he “collaborates with some of the most internationally recognized architects as one of the world’s leading glass artists.” He lives and works in London, New York, and Munich.Barry MilesBorn in 1943, Barry Miles is a freelance writer living in England and France. He is cofounder and editor of the International Times, an underground British magazine. Supported by McCartney, he created the Indica Bookshop and Gallery in London, a center for artistic and avant-garde literature. Later he led Zapple, the experimental literary label from Apple Records. Miles is author of the McCartney biography Many Years from Now and works about Allen Ginsburg and William S. Burroughs.Christoph Tannert Born in 1955 in Leipzig, Christoph Tannert studied art history and archaeology at the Humboldt University in Berlin. An art critic and exhibition curator, he lives in Berlin and writes regularly for the newspaper BerlinerZeitung. Since 1991 he has been project leader for the Bethany artists’ house in Berlin.Wolfgang Suttner Born in 1951, Wolfgang Suttner, head of the cultural department of the county council district of Siegen – Wittgenstein, Germany, studied art, psychology, and German philology and has been organizing exhibitionsand art shows for twenty years. He also founded the Siegen Art Society, is a board member of the Association of German Art Societies, and has been publishing and lecturing for the past twenty years on twentieth-century art and artists. Wolfgang Suttner collaborated with Paul McCartney on cataloging and documenting the latter’s artistic oeuvre and directed the world’s first exhibition of McCartney’s paintings in the Lyz Art Forum, Siegen, Germany.
Long Island brushstroke, East Hampton, 1990Julian TreuherzJulian Treuherz is Keeper of Art Galleries for the National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside, responsible for the Walker Art Gallery, Sudley House, and the Lady Lever Art Gallery. He was previously Keeper of Fine Art at Manchester City Art Gallery. He is the author of numerous books and articles, with a concentration on aspects of nineteenth – century British art.
Paul McCartney’s Paintings
There are 83 paintings pictured in this book. Here follow some excerpts of these paintings with the commentaries made by Paul about each of them in his interview with Wolfgang Suttner.
Father Figure, 1992.
Unspoken words
Wolfgang Suttner: How important was drawing for you before you started painting?Paul McCartney: I used to draw a lot, not necessarily from life but from imagination. And all my days through school I could always draw quite well. I used to do drawings of women for classmates, but we shouldn’t talk about that — I was the guy who could draw gorgeous naked women, you see, so for young boys this was a good attraction, and they used to ask me to draw for them. But I have always enjoyed drawing, often cartoon faces. I like the line, not necessarily the content. I like quick lines, very spontaneous lines. I like the circle, a couple of eyes, a mouth, and just characters in the faces, so I have done that quite a bit.Wolfgang Suttner: Do you now do drawings as a preparing process for your painting?Paul McCartney: No, I don’t normally; most of the story happens on the canvas while I am painting. It has to do with what the paint does, so sometimes I prepare a shape and a rough composition with some lines or with some drawing if I know I want a definite face or something like that, or I put that on with charcoal or a pencil. But then I used to find that the charcoal would pick up in the colors and it would make the yellow muddy, so I started to look for a little process to stop the charcoal moving, and I got interested in turpentine on it, which takes most of the line away. You wipe it away, the turpentine, but it does some interesting things and it stops it blending into the colors, so, yes, I do most of the drawing on the canvas.
” Unspoken Words “Wolfgang Suttner: This is 100 percent composition—it isn’t in every picture.Paul McCartney: As you can see, it is very spontaneous and I didn’t really have any preconceived ideas when I started it, but I started with blue behind it and then I drew some faces on top of that and then just worked on them, just the three faces, and turned it round a lot when I was working. I turned it lots of ways, upside down often.Wolfgang Suttner: You turned the canvas upside down?Paul McCartney: Yes, I turned it on its side and upside down, just to get a look at the composition, to see if it worked. A lot of the drawing, these blue marks, were done from the upside-down position, and then in the end I decided it seemed like a woman. It had a kind of grille across it, stopping it from talking, so it was something to do with forbidden speech. And this guy definitely has a cross, the face on the right: his mouth seemed to pick up the same theme, something forbidden. And then this face on the left has got an S mouth, which is a similar thing, so that became the theme.
Unspoken Words, 1994.
Boxer Lips, 1990.
” Boxer Lips “Wolfgang Suttner: I like this. It has an absolute richness in red colors, bright and earthy colors, and those colors give us
certain meaning.Paul McCartney: What kind of meaning do you think—hot,
sensual, violent?Wolfgang Suttner:Mystic…Paul McCartney: The shape of the head is a bit improbable… and again you have the two sorts of eyes. It wouldn’t have been as interesting to me to just have the one eye, or both eyes closed, or both eyes open. He looks like a boxer possibly after
losing a fight; there is a bit of a battering in that left eye, isn’t there? So he is a sort of hero figure, a warrior figure, like comic-book heroes. I could almost imagine, like Marion Brando. But I like these white streaks behind it, like highlights, like lighting on him.Wolfgang Suttner: Do you remember when you did this picture?Paul McCartney: No. What I will do with all of these things is I will try and guess; I can often figure it out. The smaller canvases tend to be a bit earlier because probably at this time I wouldn’t have a big canvas, just do lots of little ones, but then I felt more comfortable with the bigger canvases.
Wolfgang Suttner: He is really perfect.Paul McCartney: He is really nice. There is something of me in this, I don’t know why, I don’t know how to describe it, but a lot of these ideas you can see the germs of back in my schoolbooks, old schoolbooks I have: little scrawlings, rude ladies, naked girls, things I was awakening to, and the thrill was being able to conjure them up like an illusionist. I like the word primitive because a lot of what I do is primitive. Because when I started out in music, I never took lessons but I learned in a primitive way to make music. I learned the piano, the guitar in a primitive way.
So when I do things like sail a boat, again it reminds me. I imagine myself like the first man who had a boat and put a sail up, and the same wind that blows me is the same one that blew him. I like that ancient connection. It is like your
heritage going right back. And in the same way in painting—the rock painters, cave artists, I love their work.
” Yellow Linda With Piano “Paul McCartney: A couple of people who have looked at my
book singled this one out, a couple of women
who said that is the picture they would like, and I
am not sure why but I like it. This is Linda relax-
ing in my room at home where I have the piano,
and she is sitting on the couch and she was in
yellow. So I made everything yellow. The piano
isn’t really yellow, but I just thought it would be
nice. Her hair was yellow, her blouse was yellow,
so I made them all yellow. So it became a very
yellow picture. It didn’t need brown or any of
their real colors. This is interesting because this
little stool here, this little piece here, was Rene
Magritte’s. That was in a sale of the contents of
his studio, and in this little thing here are his
charcoals and his drawing pens and pencils
exactly as he left them, including his spectacles.
Maybe it was the atmosphere they liked. It’s very
peaceful. I enjoyed making it. It is a very typical
pose of Linda’s: the legs — this foot is slightly
strange, but I like it — this shoe.
Yellow Linda With Piano, 1988.
Unfinished Symphony, 1993.
” Unfinished Symphony “Paul McCartney: This relates to the couple of other pictures
where I use musical things. There is one called C minor and one called Key of F, and it was an idea I had to take something I knew very well in music, a chord, and try and paint the feeling it gave me. So C minor might be a rather lonely-
looking picture because it can be a bit of a sad chord. This came on from those ideas, but this was then to try and paint a whole symphony. The whole thing rather than one chord; a musical explosion; an orchestra playing something.
Abstract rather than specific. So for that I just applied a lot of paint and smudged it around and had a lot of fun with it.Wolfgang Suttner: This picture has so many different greens and different structure. It is like you had a lot of chaotic
things and then you have parts that are calm, like a little concept.Paul McCartney: Well, you know, one of my big inspirations is nature. I love nature and I love what it does. If you go down on the seashore and watch the water, see what it does to the sand, it bubbles up and goes back — what you could call chaos. And yet it’s so beautiful, it leaves beautiful marks on the sand. I kind of trust to that, and that is a large part of painting abstracts —to try and think of myself as nature itself, without a mind, a sophisticated mind that knows how to play a piano or drive a car…
It is very spontaneous, I don’t think there was a lot of thinking about that. But, you know, my composition generally is spontaneous. Some people I talk to will ask, “Do you do sketches beforehand?” And I will say, “No, it is alla prima.” You know, I just love to play around with the paint and let the paint show me the way, and I sense they are not as impressed if they think I did it spontaneously. So I had thought once or twice of making sketches after I had done the painting. Do little sketches, show shapes, rub them out and change them, and say, “Oh yes, these are preparatory sketches.”
List Of Paul McCartney’s Paintings
Pintos in the sky with desert poppy
1991 Acrylic on canvas 152×120.5 cmHome territory
1990 Acrylic on canvas 101.5×86.5 cmMr. Magritte’s ruler
1995 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cmReclining woman
1987 Acrylic on paper 30×25 cmPigtail
1988 Acrylic on paper 30×25 cmRed eye
1988 Acrylic on paper 30×25 cmA handbag?
1988 Acrylic on paper 30×25 cm
Is this Bernard Miles?
1988 Acrylicon paper 61×46 cm
Blue face
1988 Acrylic on paper 61×46 cm
White dream
1990 Oil on canvas 101.5×127 cm
Father figure
1992 Acrylic on canvas 121.5×91.5 cm
Big mountain face
1991 Acrylic on canvas 152.5×120.5 cm
Red abstract white moon
1991 Acrylic on canvas 121.5×90.5 cm
Mountain landscrape
1991 Acrylic on canvas 60.5×50.5 cm
Is this a self-portrait?
1988 Oil on canvas 35.5×28 cm
Andy in the garden
1990 Oil on canvas 60.5×90.5 cm
Sea god
1990 Oil on canvas 76×61 cm
Twin freaks
1990 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
Yellow bow tie
1989 Oil on canvas 56×40.5 cm
Scratch man
1989 Oil on canvas 51×40.5 cm
Shock head
1989 Oil on canvas 46×35.5 cm
Red yellow face
1989 Oil on canvas 56×40.5 cm
Black scratch I
1994 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
Black scratch II
1994 Oil on canvas 151×121 cm
Black scratch III
1994 Oil on canvas 151.5×121 cm
Tara’s plastic skirt
1992 Acrylic on canvas 121.5×186 cm
Unfinished symphony
1993 Oil on canvas 151.5×120.5 cm
Yellow Linda with piano
1988 Oil on canvas 56×41 cm
Large yellow face
1990 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cmChinaman
1990 Oil on canvas 121.5×75.3 cmOak apple twenties man
1988 Acrylic on canvas 35×45 cmPrehistoric antelope
1989 Acrylic on canvas 61×50.5 cmEgypt station
1988 Acrylic on canvas 40.5×51 cmLinda yellow red cross
1991 Oil on canvas 127×101.6 cmStanding Stone story
1994 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cmChief rug
1994 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
Celtic eloquence
1994 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
Ancient connections
1994 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
White Celts
1994 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
Celts
1994 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
Celtic fertility
1994 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
Yellow Celt
1994 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
Black singer
1991 Acrylic on canvas 152.5×120.5 cm
Upturned critic framed
1988 Oil on canvas 61×45.5 cm
Bowie spewing
1990 Oil on canvas 50.5×41 cm
The Queen after her first cigarette
1991 Acrylic on canvas 56×46.5 cm
The Queen getting a joke
1991 Acrylic on canvas 51×40.7 cm
A greener Queen
1991 Acrylic on canvas 56×45.5 cm
Patti Boyd
1989 Acrylic on canvas 91×70.5 cm
Mr. Kipps
1988 Oil on canvas 61×64 cm
Man o’ the sea
1988 Acrylic on canvas 76×61 cm
Elvish me
1989 Oil on canvas 91.5X 91.5 cm
Beach boy
1988 Acrylic on canvas 76×61 cm
Red triangle sand
1992 Acrylic on canvas 101.5×101.5 cm
Beach towels
1990 Acrylic on canvas 101.5×101.5 cm
Shark on Georgica
1993 Acrylic on canvas 91.5×92 cmUnspoken words
1994 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cmDark faces
1991 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cmRobot and star
1995 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cmAbstract coloured twenties man
1989 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cmBlue mask
1989 Acrylicon canvas 61×50.5 cmWhite cross face
1990 Oil on canvas 121.5×61 cmJohn’s room
1990 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
Green jacket with cross on shoulder
1989 Oil on canvas 81.5×81.5 cm
Bald head
1990 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
Insect face
1989 Oil on canvas 61×45.5
Green head
1988 Acrylic on canvas 101.5×76 cm
Green kiss
1988 Acrylic on canvas 61×49.5 cm
Oast kiss
1988 Acrylic on canvas 61×51 cm
The kiss
1988 Acrylic on canvas 61×49.5 cm
Blue kiss
1988 Oil on canvas 61×49.5 cm
Grey head vision
1992 Acrylic on canvas 60.5×60.5 cm
Housepaint clown
1992 Oil on canvas 91.5×71 cm
Blue tooth
1991 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
Three blue faces in red sky
1990 Oil on canvas 91×91 cm
Angry red face
1989 Oil on canvas 56×40.5 cm
Skull face
1989 Oil on canvas 56×40.5 cm
Scared red head
1990 Oil on canvas 76.2×60.9
Half red fog face
1990 Oil on canvas 51×46 cm
Boxer lips
1990 Oil on canvas 40×30 cm
Brains on fire
1994 Oil on canvas 121.5×121.5 cm
C minor
1993 Oil on canvas 122×122 cm
Key of F
1993 Oil on canvas 152×122 cm
Paul and Willem de Kooning in 1983 (left) and in 1984 (right). De Kooning was a family friend and Paul and Linda would always visit him when they were on Long Island. It was probably watching de Kooning in action that inspired Paul to do his first canvases.
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
Greek membership in the euro has been a disaster, and Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras has to figure out Greece’s next step.Milos Bicanski/Getty Images
Milton Friedman might be best known today for his free-market political views. But some of his most important contributions to economics were in monetary policy. He explained the high inflation rates of the 1970s, and he was also an early and influential advocate of the system of floating exchange rates that we have today.
Europe’s common market exemplifies a situation that is unfavorable to a common currency. It is composed of separate nations, whose residents speak different languages, have different customs, and have far greater loyalty and attachment to their own country than to the common market or to the idea of “Europe.” Despite being a free trade area, goods move less freely than in the United States, and so does capital.
The European Commission based in Brussels, indeed, spends a small fraction of the total spent by governments in the member countries. They, not the European Union’s bureaucracies, are the important political entities. Moreover, regulation of industrial and employment practices is more extensive than in the United States, and differs far more from country to country than from American state to American state. As a result, wages and prices in Europe are more rigid, and labor less mobile. In those circumstances, flexible exchange rates provide an extremely useful adjustment mechanism.
What Friedman means here is that if Greece still had the drachma, it could deal with its financial difficulties by devaluing the currency. A cheaper drachma would make Greek goods more attractive to foreigners, boosting exports and creating jobs. And a bit of inflation in Greece would help ease the country’s debt burden — not an ideal outcome, but better than the yearslong depression the country has suffered since the 2008 financial crisis.
It’s much harder for an unemployed man in Greece to move to get a job in Germany than it is for somebody who loses his job in Pennsylvania to find work in Texas. So Greece’s unemployment rate has stayed disastrously high, even as other eurozone nations have enjoyed a robust recovery.
Friedman concluded that the euro experiment would backfire:
The drive for the Euro has been motivated by politics not economics. The aim has been to link Germany and France so closely as to make a future European war impossible, and to set the stage for a federal United States of Europe. I believe that adoption of the Euro would have the opposite effect. It would exacerbate political tensions by converting divergent shocks that could have been readily accommodated by exchange rate changes into divisive political issues. Political unity can pave the way for monetary unity. Monetary unity imposed under unfavorable conditions will prove a barrier to the achievement of political unity.
___________
Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 5-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms. I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 4-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms. I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]
“Silly Love Songs” is a song written by Paul McCartney and performed by Wings. The song appears on the 1976 album Wings at the Speed of Sound. It was also released as a single in 1976, backed with “Cook of the House”. The song, written in response to music critics accusing him of writing only “silly love songs”, also features disco overtones.
“Silly Love Songs” was written as a rebuttal to music critics, as well as former Beatle and friend, John Lennon, accusing Paul McCartney of writing lightweight love songs.[3] Author Tim Riley suggests that in the song, McCartney is inviting “his audience to have a laugh on him,” as Elvis Presley had sometimes done.[4]
But over the years people have said, “Aw, he sings love songs, he writes love songs, he’s so soppy at times.” I thought, Well, I know what they mean, but, people have been doing love songs forever. I like ’em, other people like ’em, and there’s a lot of people I love — I’m lucky enough to have that in my life. So the idea was that “you” may call them silly, but what’s wrong with that?
The song was, in a way, to answer people who just accuse me of being soppy. The nice payoff now is that a lot of the people I meet who are at the age where they’ve just got a couple of kids and have grown up a bit, settling down, they’ll say to me, “I thought you were really soppy for years, but I get it now! I see what you were doing!”
By the way, “Silly Love Songs” also had a good bassline and worked well live.
The US single was released on 1 April 1976[7] and spent five non-consecutive weeks at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.[8][9] “Silly Love Songs” was the number 1 pop song in Billboard’s Year-End Charts of 1976. It was also the group’s second of three number ones on the Easy Listening chart.[10] In 2013, Billboard Magazine determined the song is McCartney’s biggest US chart hit of his post-Beatles career, ranking at No. 36 on the “all-time” charts.[11] The UK single was released on 30 April 1976[7] and reached number 2 on the UK Singles Chart.[12][13] The single was certified Gold by theRecording Industry Association of America for sales of over one million copies.[14]
The song was McCartney’s 27th number one as a songwriter, the all-time record for most number one hits by a songwriter. (see List of Billboard Hot 100 chart achievements and milestones) With this song, McCartney became the first person to have a year-end No. 1 song as a member of two distinct acts. He previously hit No. 1 in the year-end Billboard chart with “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in 1964 and “Hey Jude” in 1968.[15][16] In 2008, the song was listed at No. 31 on Billboard’s Greatest Songs of All Time, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.[3]
“Silly Love Songs” has since appeared on multiple of McCartney’s greatest hits compilations, including Wings Greatest and All the Best!. It also appeared on the “Hits” half of the compilation Wingspan: Hits and History.
“Silly Love Songs” has generally received positive reviews from critics, despite the common criticism of the song lacking substance. AllMusic‘s Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the song, as well as its follow-up single, “Let ‘Em In“, as “so lightweight that their lack of substance seems nearly defiant.”[17] Music critic Robert Christgau called the two tracks “charming if lightweight singles”, while Rolling Stone critic Stephen Holden said “Silly Love Songs” was “a clever retort whose point is well taken.”[18][19] John Bergstrom of PopMatters called the song “an exemplary piece of mid-‘70s pop production and a pure pleasure.”[20]
I’m Waiting for the Man sung by Nico in 1982 (about waiting for drug fix) __________ Nico Icon documentary part 3 Nico Icon documentary part 4 NICO – I’m Waiting For The Man – (1982, Warehouse, Preston, UK) One of the top 10 songs from The Velvet Underground and Nico is the song “I’m Waiting […]
Nico’s sad story of drugs and her interaction with Jim Morrison Nico – These Days The Doors (1991) – Movie Trailer / Best Parts The Doors Movie – Back Door Man/When The Music’s Over/Arrest of Jim Morrison Uploaded on Jul 30, 2009 A clip from “The Doors” movie with “Back Door Man”, “When The Music’s […]
Dennis Jernigan – You Are My All In All Uploaded on Oct 18, 2009 Dennis Jernigan – You Are My All In All __________________________________________ Christian Singer’s Controversial Journey Revealed in New Documentary: ‘I Placed Homosexuality on Jesus’ Shoulders’ Oct. 2, 2014 2:23pm Billy Hallowell Singer-songwriter Dennis Jernigan has been making Christian music for decades, recording […]
Cole Porter’s songs “De-Lovely” and “Let’s misbehave” ‘At Long Last Love’: Let’s Misbehave/De-Lovely Uploaded on Apr 1, 2009 Burt Reynolds and Cybil Shepherd give an extraordinarily charming performance of Cole Porter’s songs in Peter Bogdanovich’s absolutely wonderful tribute to the golden age of film musicals, ‘At Long Last Love’. _____________________ De-Lovely From Wikipedia, […]
________ _______ Cole Porter’s song’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” My Heart Belongs To Daddy Uploaded on Jun 20, 2010 Mary Martin became popular on Broadway and received attention in the national media singing “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”. “Mary stopped the show with “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”. With that one song in the […]
______________ Love For Sale (De-Lovely) Love for Sale (song) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2008) “Love for Sale“ Written by Cole Porter Published 1930 Form […]
Cole Porter’s song “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” _________________ Natalie Cole – Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be […]
Cole Porter’s song “So in Love” __________________ So in love – De-lovely So in Love From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For the song by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, see So in Love (OMD song). For the song by Jill Scott, see So in Love (Jill Scott song). Not to be […]
____________________ Cole Porter’s song “Night and Day” Cole Porter´s Day and Night by Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Night and Day (song) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article […]
Johnny Cash – Big River Uploaded on Jan 16, 2008 Grand Ole Opry, 1962 _______________________________ John Lennon and Bob Dylan Conversation mention Johnny Cash and his song “Big River” _______________________ Big River (Johnny Cash song) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia’s quality standards. No […]
“Band on the Run” is the title song of Paul McCartney and Wings‘ 1973 album Band on the Run. The song was released as a single in 1974, following the success of “Jet“, and became an international chart success. The song topped the charts in the United States, also reaching number 3 in the United Kingdom.[3][4] The single sold over one million copies in 1974 in America.[3] It has since become one of the band’s most famous songs.
A medley of song fragments that vary in style from folk rock to funk, “Band on the Run” is one of McCartney’s longest singles at 5:09. The song was partly inspired by a comment that George Harrisonhad made during a meeting of the Beatles‘ Apple record label. The song-wide theme is one of freedom and escape, and its creation coincided with Harrison, John Lennon and Ringo Starr having parted with manager Allen Klein in March 1973, leading to improved relations between McCartney and his fellow ex-Beatles. The original demos for this and other tracks on Band on the Run were stolen shortly after Wings arrived in Lagos, Nigeria, to begin recording the album. With the band reduced to a trio consisting of McCartney, his wife Linda, and Denny Laine, “Band on the Run” was recorded atEMI‘s Lagos studio and completed at AIR Studios in London.
It was symbolic: “If we ever get out of here … All I need is a pint a day” … [In the Beatles] we’d started off as just kids really, who loved our music and wanted to earn a bob or two so we could get a guitar and get a nice car. It was very simple ambitions at first. But then, you know, as it went on it became business meetings and all of that … So there was a feeling of “if we ever get out of here”, yeah. And I did.
Paul McCartney noted the drug busts musicians of the late 1960s and early 1970s experienced as an inspiration for the “Band on the Run”, also referencing the “desperado” image he attributed to bands like The Byrds and Eagles as an influence.[6] McCartney, who had been having legal trouble involving pot possession, said, “We were being outlawed for pot … And our [Wings’] argument on [‘Band on the Run’] was ‘Don’t put us on the wrong side … We’re not criminals, we don’t want to be. So I just made up a story about people breaking out of prison.'”[6]
In a subsequent interview, McCartney stated that the lyric “If we ever get out of here” was inspired by George Harrison saying these words during one of the Beatles’ many business meetings.[7] McCartney recalled: “He was saying that we were all prisoners in some way [due to the ongoing problems with their company Apple] … I thought it would be a nice way to start an album.”[8][nb 1] McCartney added, referring to his inspiration for “Band on the Run”: “It’s a million things … all put together. Band on the run – escaping, freedom, criminals. You name it, it’s there.”[9]
According to Mojo contributor Tom Doyle, the song’s lyrics, recalled through memory following the robbery of the band’s demo tapes for the Band on the Run album, were altered to reflect on the band’s then-current status, “stuck inside the four walls of the small, cell-like studio, faced with grim uncertainty.”[10]
“Band on the Run” is a three-part medley, with the first section being a slow ballad, the second featuring a funk rock style,[12] and the final a country-esque section.[12] The lyrics of the entire song, however, are related, with all being based around a general theme of freedom and escape.[13][14]
The original demo recording for “Band on the Run”, as well as multiple other tracks from the album, was stolen from the McCartneys by a group of thugs while Paul McCartney and Wings were recording in Lagos, Nigeria.[5] Robbed at knife-point, they relinquished the demos, only recovering the songs through memory.[10] Paul McCartney later remarked, “It was stuff that would be worth a bit on eBay these days, you know? But no, we figured the guys who mugged us wouldn’t even be remotely interested. If they’d have known, they could have just held on to them and made themselves a little fortune. But they didn’t know, and we reckoned they’d probably record over them.”[5]
The song was recorded in two parts, in different sessions. The first two were taped in Lagos while the third section was recorded in October 1973 at AIR Studios in London.[15]
Originally, Paul McCartney planned not to release any singles from Band on the Run, a strategy he compared to that used by The Beatles.[16] However, he was convinced by Capitol Records promotion man Al Coury to release singles from the album, resulting in the single release of “Jet” and “Band on the Run”.[17]
Al [Coury, promotion man for Capitol Records] released ‘Jet,’ which I wasn’t even thinking of releasing as a single, and ‘Band on the Run’ too. He single-handedly turned [Band on the Run] around.[17]
“Band on the Run”, backed with “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five”, was released in America on 8 April 1974 as the follow-up single to Paul McCartney and Wings’ top-ten hit “Jet“. The song was a smash hit for the band, becoming McCartney’s third solo American chart-topping single and Wings’ second.[3] The single was later released in Britain (instead backed with “Zoo Gang“, the theme song to the television show of the same name), reaching number 3 on the British charts.[4] The song was also a top 40 single in multiple European countries, such as the Netherlands (number 7),[18] Belgium (number 21),[19] and Germany (number 22).[20]
The US radio edit was 3:50 in length. The difference was largely caused by the removal of the middle or the second part of the song, as well as the verse that starts with “Well, the undertaker drew a heavy sigh …”[21]
The single was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over one million copies.[22] It was the second of five number-one singles for the band on the Billboard Hot 100.[3] In 1974, Billboard ranked it number 22 on its Top Pop Singles year-end chart.[23]Billboard also listed the song as Paul McCartney’s sixth most successful chart hit of all time, excluding Beatles releases.[24]
An official video, directed by Michael Coulson, was released along with the song. It served mostly as a tribute to The Beatles, featuring montages of still pictures from their career. Present-day McCartney and Wings were not shown. The video ends with a collage of Beatles pictures much like the album cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.[29]
In 2014, a new video for “Band on the Run” was created. The video designed by Ben Ib, an artist who created tour visuals for Paul McCartney (as well as Roger Waters and The Smashing Pumpkins) and the cover for Paul McCartney’s 2013 solo album New.[30] In the video, all of the objects, including the “band on the run” itself, are made up of words.[31]
The song was praised by former bandmate and songwriting partner, John Lennon, who considered it “a great song and a great album”.[32] In 2014, Billboard praised “Band on the Run” for having “three distinct parts that don’t depend on a chorus yet still manage to feel anthemic.”[24]AllMusic critic Stewart Mason called the track “classic McCartney”, lauding the song for “manag[ing] to be experimental in form yet so deliciously melodic that its structural oddities largely go unnoticed.”[12]
On 1 June 2008 McCartney was joined onstage by Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl for a special performance in Liverpool.[45] Grohl played guitar and sang backing vocals on “Band on the Run” and then played drums on Beatlessongs “Back in the U.S.S.R.” and “I Saw Her Standing There“. Grohl later performed the song with Paul’s band in 2010 at the White House, when Paul was given the Gershwin Award.
Tori Amos performed a snippet of this song at a number of shows during the Plugged ’98 Tour.[46]
Wings band member Denny Laine covered “Band on the Run” in 2007 on his album Performs the Hits of Wings.[47]
I’m Waiting for the Man sung by Nico in 1982 (about waiting for drug fix) __________ Nico Icon documentary part 3 Nico Icon documentary part 4 NICO – I’m Waiting For The Man – (1982, Warehouse, Preston, UK) One of the top 10 songs from The Velvet Underground and Nico is the song “I’m Waiting […]
Nico’s sad story of drugs and her interaction with Jim Morrison Nico – These Days The Doors (1991) – Movie Trailer / Best Parts The Doors Movie – Back Door Man/When The Music’s Over/Arrest of Jim Morrison Uploaded on Jul 30, 2009 A clip from “The Doors” movie with “Back Door Man”, “When The Music’s […]
Dennis Jernigan – You Are My All In All Uploaded on Oct 18, 2009 Dennis Jernigan – You Are My All In All __________________________________________ Christian Singer’s Controversial Journey Revealed in New Documentary: ‘I Placed Homosexuality on Jesus’ Shoulders’ Oct. 2, 2014 2:23pm Billy Hallowell Singer-songwriter Dennis Jernigan has been making Christian music for decades, recording […]
Cole Porter’s songs “De-Lovely” and “Let’s misbehave” ‘At Long Last Love’: Let’s Misbehave/De-Lovely Uploaded on Apr 1, 2009 Burt Reynolds and Cybil Shepherd give an extraordinarily charming performance of Cole Porter’s songs in Peter Bogdanovich’s absolutely wonderful tribute to the golden age of film musicals, ‘At Long Last Love’. _____________________ De-Lovely From Wikipedia, […]
________ _______ Cole Porter’s song’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” My Heart Belongs To Daddy Uploaded on Jun 20, 2010 Mary Martin became popular on Broadway and received attention in the national media singing “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”. “Mary stopped the show with “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”. With that one song in the […]
______________ Love For Sale (De-Lovely) Love for Sale (song) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2008) “Love for Sale“ Written by Cole Porter Published 1930 Form […]
Cole Porter’s song “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” _________________ Natalie Cole – Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be […]
Cole Porter’s song “So in Love” __________________ So in love – De-lovely So in Love From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For the song by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, see So in Love (OMD song). For the song by Jill Scott, see So in Love (Jill Scott song). Not to be […]
____________________ Cole Porter’s song “Night and Day” Cole Porter´s Day and Night by Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Night and Day (song) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article […]
Johnny Cash – Big River Uploaded on Jan 16, 2008 Grand Ole Opry, 1962 _______________________________ John Lennon and Bob Dylan Conversation mention Johnny Cash and his song “Big River” _______________________ Big River (Johnny Cash song) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia’s quality standards. No […]
At the Bankable Insight blog, Charles Seeburger features these ten great quotations below from Milton Friedman, along with some of his commentary following each quote here.
Equality and Freedom. A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.
Intentions vs. Results. One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
Weeds. Now here’s somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he’s caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That’s the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons.
Government Programs. Nothing is as permanent as a temporary government program.
Freedom and the Free Market. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
Social Responsibility of Business. There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.
Property Rights. I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual’s natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that they’re responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of.
Drug Legalization. I’m in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
Internet. I think that the Internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government.
Greed. Well first of all, tell me: Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system.
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]
Irrational Man, the 45th film from the prolific Woody Allen, starts Joaquin Phoenix as Abe Lucas, a philosophy professor in a small town undergoing an “existential crisis.” You suffer from despair,” Emma Stone (who plays one of his students) tells him – and it appears she’s right. The professor has a drinking problem, suffers from “dizziness and anxiety,” and is tormented by a quest to commit a “meaningful act.”
Early reviews suggest that Irrational Man will go the way of Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point: Lucas’ meaningful act will be the perfect murder. The trailer’s lighthearted tone notwithstanding, a crazed Phoenix wandering through a park portends the kind of downward spiral we saw in Blue Jasmine.
All of this is familiar territory for Woody Allen fans – not only because of the murder plot, but also because of the emphasis on “the question of the meaning of being” that runs throughout his films. There was the neurotic character Mickey (Hannah and Her Sisters) who becomes convinced that he has a brain tumor, only to find out that he has something much worse: meaninglessness. Then there was that scene (one of my personal favorites) in Play It Again Sam, which – with sophisticated New Yorkers, an art museum, romantic attraction, and talk of suicide punctuated with a joke – is as good a minute-long summation of Allen’s movies as you could ever hope to find. In a word, Woody Allen has always been an existentialist.
In fact, Irrational Man takes its title verbatim from a 1958 book by existential philosopher William Barrett. As the Guardian notes, Barrett’s book – which was responsible for introducing existentialism to the English speaking world – “no doubt formed part of Allen’s self-taught intellectual life in the late 50s and early 60s.”
Barrett (following Matthew Arnold) argues that the West is divided into two competing impulses: Hebraism and Hellenism. The first, which we receive from the Jewish religious tradition, is a philosophy of action, moral law, and ontological finitude – in a word, the vital. The second, which we receive from the Greek philosophical tradition, is a philosophy of knowledge, theoretical science, and epistemological certitude – in a word, the rational. The first is earthy: it looks “down” on the concrete and particular, focusing on individual people and what they stake their lives on. The second is ethereal: it looks “up” to the abstract and timeless, focusing on universal ideas and what they demonstrate. The first gives us saints, mystics, and artists; the second gives us philosophers, scientists, and industrialists.
Barrett links the second impulse, Hellenism, with the modern philosophical tradition inaugurated by Descartes in the seventeenth century. With its removal of the spirit from nature, its method of detached observation, and its quest for mathematical certainty and industrial conquest, Cartesianism embedded a new Platonism in the heart of the West, one which severed its last connections to the vital by sloughing off the religious and ethical precepts that structured man’s intellectual life. (Barrett would wrestle with the history of modern philosophy right up until his last book, Death of the Soul.)
On the other hand, Barrett links the first impulse, Hebraism, with existentialism. “The features of Hebraic man,” he writes, “are those which existential philosophy has attempted to exhume and bring to the reflective consciousness of our time.” The philosophical figures that have haunted all of Woody Allen’s works – e.g., Nietzsche in Hannah and Her Sisters and Dostoevsky in Love and Death – are presented as exemplars of the concrete. Though widely divergent in their religious and moral outlooks, the existentialists countered the Enlightenment ideal of reason and science with matters that struck to the core of “the whole man” – matters like alienation, anxiety,freedom,suffering, finitude, and death.
This analysis is striking for three reasons. First, it presents itself as a comprehensive account of the history of ideas. Barrett obliterates the notion that existentialism was a mid-century French fashion or literary movement, and instead situates it at the heart of the West’s struggle to understand itself.
Second, unlike “subtraction” histories that divide the West “laterally” into a bygone age of faith and the present age of unbelief, Barrett’s “vertical” division accounts for the variety of religious beliefs across the philosophical spectrum. It’s true that he sees both Judaism and Christianity (especially the bloodline of Paul, Augustine, and Pascal) as basically existential. “Though strongly colored by Greek and Neo-Platonic influences,” Barrett writes, “Christianity belongs to the Hebraist rather than to the Hellenist side of man’s nature because Christianity bases itself above all on faith and sets the man of faith above the man of reason.” Still, Hellenists and Hebraists each have their figures of faith (Kant v. Kierkegaard) and unbelief (Hume v. Nietzsche), which is still very much the case today.
Third, Barrett doesn’t frame this division as inevitable. From the beginning, he admits that there is an innate disposition in Hebraism toward the rational:
“We have to insist on a noetic content in Hebraism: Biblical man too had his knowledge, though it is not the intellectual knowledge of the Greek. It is not the kind of knowledge that man can heave through reason alone, or perhaps not through reason at all; he has it rather through body and blood, bones and bowels, through trust and anger and confusion and love and fear; through his passionate adhesion in faith to the Being whom he can never intellectually know.”
He also sees an innate disposition in Hellenism toward the vital:
“While existential philosophy is a radical effort to break with this Platonic tradition, yet paradoxically there is an existential aspect to Plato’s thought…we have to see Plato’s rationalism, not as a cool scientific project such as a later century of the European Enlightenment might set for itself, but as a kind of passionately religious doctrine – a theory that promised man salvation from the things he had feared most from the earliest days, from death and time.”
The Hellenistic and Hebraic impulses then forged an “uneasy alliance” in Augustine, later cultivated by the “unbounded rationalism” of medieval thinkers for whom faith was “beyondreason, but never against, or in spite of it.” In short, Christendom gave us peacetime in the great battle of the vital and rational:
“St. Augustine saw faith and reason – the vital and the rational – as coming together in eventual harmony; and in this too he set the pattern of Christian thought for the thousand years of the Middle Ages that were to follow…dogmas were experienced as the vital psychic fluid in which reason itself moved and operated and were thus its secret wellspring and support…The moment of synthesis, when it came in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, produced a civilization perhaps as beautiful as any man has ever forged, but like all mortal beauty a creature of time and insecurity…”
For Barrett, the medieval synthesis was shattered by a battle between intellectualism (the entrenchment of the rational) and voluntarism (a resurgence of the vital), part of a broader disagreement between Thomists and Scotists that helped launch both Protestantism and Rationalism. Protestantism “placed all the weight of its emphasis upon the irrational datum of faith, as against the imposing rational structures of medieval theology”. Rationalism, on the other hand, removed reason from the “psychic fluid” of the vital, leading us to the “bitter end of the century of Enlightenment” where “the limits of human reason had very radically shrunk”.
In the end, Barrett would take the fideism of a Kierkegaard over the rationalism of a Hume any day, and to understand Barrett’s rallying cry is to understand Woody Allen: “We have to establish a working pact between that segment [reason] and the whole of us; but a pact requires compromise, in which both sides concede something, and in this case particularly the rationalism of the Enlightenment will have to recognize that at the very heart of its light there is also a darkness.”
Still, if Barret is right – and I think he is – it goes both ways: a vitalism without reason is as blind as a rationalism without vitality is volatile. The existentialists are right that there’s more to life than rationality; but if pure reason leaves us cold, pure vitality burns us up. Both sides of our being long not just for a compromise but an integration. We long to be both fully vital and fully rational. For that reason I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Catholicism haunts so many of Woody Allen’s films. Following the logic of the Incarnation, Catholic Christianity has always striven to achieve a “both/and” with regard to the rational and suprarational, a kind of hypostatic union of the mind that – so long as we’re committed to defending it – will make us whole again.
Cannes 2015 – IRRATIONAL MAN by Woody ALLEN (Press conference)
___________ Fifty Years Ago, Woody Allen PlottedMidnight in Paris in This Stand-up Routine By Kyle Buchanan Follow @kylebuchanan 341Shares Share254Tweet70Share8EmailPrint When Woody Allen won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar this year for writing Midnight in Paris, he set a record at age 76 as the oldest person to ever triumph in that category. Turns out, […]
_____ _______ Woody Allen Stand Up Comic 1964 1968 09 The Science Fiction Film Woody Allen’s stand-up comedy albums reissued in new box set BY JOSH TERRY ON DECEMBER 16, 2014, 12:10PM 1 COMMENT FACEBOOK TWITTER TUMBLR STUMBLEUPON REDDIT Before Woody Allen became the prolific director responsible for such classics as Manhattan and Annie Hall, he was a […]
Woody Allen Stand Up Comic 1964 1968 15 Brooklyn Separating The Art From the Artist With Woody Allen: The Stand-Up Years By Samantha Allen January 20, 2015 | 11:30am Share Tweet Share In the liner notes for Woody Allen: The Stand-Up Years 1964-1968, longtime director and producer Robert B. Weide (Curb Your Enthusiasm) waxes nostalgic […]
_ The first picture from Woody Allen’s new movie confirms that Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone are its stars. But what do we know about the bigger picture? Not saying much … Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix in Woody Allen’s Irrational Man. Photograph: PR Andrew Pulver @Andrew_Pulver Monday 13 April 2015 08.27 EDTLast modified on Monday […]
I love it when I find someone else who has a love for Woody Allen movies like I do. Evidently Paul Semel is person like that. Below is Paul Semel’s fine review: Woody Allen Stand Up Comic 1964 1968 01 The Vodka Ad JANUARY 12, 2015 Woody Allen The Stand-Up Years 1964-1968 Review Given that he’s […]
Woody Allen Stand Up Comic 1964 1968 05 Mechanical Objects Standing Up and Floating Out Our favorite things this week include Woody Allen’s “The Stand-Up Years,” “Inherent Vice” by Thomas Pynchon not Paul Thomas Anderson, and “Saga” by Brian K. Vaughan. MILK & HONEY Email this page Posted January 14, 2015 Allen’s Stand-Up Roots: On […]
____ Woody Allen’s past movies and the subject of the Meaning of Life examined!!! Out of the Past: Woody Allen, Nostalgia, the Meaning of Life, and Radio Days Kyle Turner Jul 25, 2014 Film, Twilight Time 1 Comment “I firmly believe, and I don’t say this as a criticism, that life is meaningless.” – Woody […]
Woody Allen Should Have Quoted Pascal: “Magic in the Moonlight” January 7, 2015 by Roger E. Olson 9 Comments Woody Allen Should Have Quoted Pascal: “Magic in the Moonlight” I am no Roger Ebert and don’t watch that many movies, but in my opinion, for what it’s worth, Woody Allen’s 2014 film “Magic in […]
______________ If anyone has read my blog for any length of time they know that I am the biggest Woody Allen fan of all time. No one except maybe Bergman has attacked the big questions in life as well as Woody Allen. Furthermore, Francis Schaeffer is my favorite Christian Philosopher and he spent a lot […]
___________ Woody Allen to make first TV series for Amazon Prime ‘I’m not sure where to begin,’ says 79-year-old Oscar-winner about his small screen debut, as streaming TV service seeks to gain march on rivals with exclusive content Comment: in signing Woody Allen, Amazon Prime has delivered a nuclear blast to the competition Woody […]
A few weeks ago I mentioned the temper tantrum of one of Boeing’s executive had about the prospect that the Ex-Im Bank, whose main beneficiary is Boeing itself, may expire this month. Boeing’s head of regulatory strategy actually suggested the company could leave the country if the federal government doesn’t continue to boost its profits. At the time, I noted that this shows how large corporations now think they’re essentially entitled to government handouts and have forgotten how capitalism works. It turns out Boeing isn’t the only firm with this problem — General Electric does, doo. In an interview to the Daily Caller’s Peter Fricke, GE Aviation media-relations manager Rick Kennedy offered this: Kennedy also claimed that GE’s overall growth is heavily reliant on expanding international sales, which now make up nearly 75 percent of its business. Many of those sales, he added, are made in cash-poor countries and other “places where getting an easy credit line is challenging,” forcing GE to rely on Ex-Im for financing that would not otherwise be available. I see. So because GE wants to grow and its potential growth is outside of the country, it deserves a handout from the government. That’s a perfectly fine plan, but why should the risk of GE’s doing business in poor countries fall on taxpayers? Taxpayers are already on the hook for $140 billion in outstanding Ex-Im loans, on top of hundreds of billions in liabilities (trillions, actually) from other government-loan programs. It’s wrong, and it’s not wroth it. Milton Friedman, no surprise, had it right long ago: “Paradoxical as it may seem, the biggest enemy of a free market system are the business community and the businesses that constitute it.”
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. TEMIN: We don’t think the big capital arose before the government did? VON HOFFMAN: Listen, what are we doing here? I mean __ defending big government is like defending death and taxes. […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen worked pretty well for a whole generation. Now anything that works well for a whole generation isn’t entirely bad. From the fact __ from that fact, and the undeniable fact that things […]
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Yellow Linda With Piano
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The Daily Hatch 