devodotcom

Saturday, October 30, 2010

FANNY, BE TENDER WITH MY LOVE

The Bee Gees

Fanny (be tender with my love)

GLEB DERUJINSKY

HARPER'S BAZAAR APRIL 1961

Thursday, October 21, 2010

ONCE A GREAT BEAUTY

CAROL LYNLEY

PHOTOGRAPHY LILLIAN BASSMAN

HARPER'S BAZAAR AUGUST 1957

T.I. Freak Though (open new tab)

Saturday, October 16, 2010

THE MAGICAL PHOTOGRAPHY OF DIANE ARBUS - THE FULL CIRCLE

WILLIAM MACK

DIANE ARBUS

THE FULL CIRCLE WHO IS IT THAT CAN TELL ME WHO I AM? - SHAKESPEARE

William Mack is known as the Sage of the Wilderness, the (Abominale) Snowman, Santa Claus, El- Dorado, Rasputin, Daniel Boone, Garabadi. Mr. Mack lives on Third Avenue in a room which measures about 7 by 8 feet, with nine umbrellas, a cowbell, twenty rings, 5 hammers, 38 cigar butts in a bowl, 11 bracelets, 4 watches, 3 earrings, 6 necklaces, 35 empty bottles, a Hopalong Cassidy gun and holster, a wagon, 46 rolled-up pieces of string, 19 brushes for hair, shoes, Paint or floor, 5 segments of broken mirror, a pink doll carriage with a sort of underslung hammock devised out of more string, a jar full of plastic umbrella tips, 5 canes, some Blue Seal pomade, 6 saws, 7 pairs of scissors, a jar of Maraschino Cocktail Cherries, a medicine dropper, a squashed coffeepot, 2 pinup pictures of Sophia Loren and 1 each of Brigitte Bardot and Julie Newmar, 9 belts, a pair of brown child’s shoes hanging by the laces, a bogus detective badge, 8 augers, a foxtail, a copy of the Koran and a Holy Bible, a 1959 Horoscope, a ladder, a Guide To Sexual Harmony In Marriage, ( Mr. Mack has never married), 9 pliers, 10 screwdrivers, An English-Arabic Dictionary, a pair of white nurse’s shoes, 7 paint scrapers and some Breath O’ Pine All Purpose Cleanser. (“Three months living here and I’m still straightening up”). When people ask him why he collects so many things his favourite answer is to say it’s good for his rheumatism and when people ask him where he was born he likes to say In the kitchen: He could tell because he heard the water running. He is 72 years old, German, an ex-merchant seaman living on his pension.

Once I accompanied him on his daily ritual round which begins at 5:30 A.M., walking down Third Avenue in the freezing dawn picking empty bottles out of garbage cans, loading them into his baby carriage, stopping off a select bars, which are very like private clubs, for parts of breakfast and the early morning special extra free drink; then south and east to the Bottle Collectors. Mr. Mack says he doesn’t do it for the money, and indeed it is precious little money; the day I was there, his 51 bottles yielded a total of 35 cents.

Picking up bottles is what he calls his diversion and he is humorously indulgent when people give him money, which they must seldom dare to do, because he is such an awesome, noble, possessed and legendary figure. I think he is most awfully strong. Often he carries a great sack on his shoulders. He appears to be the bearer of an undecipherable message. Nevertheless he is very fond of polite, aristocratic conversation and he sometimes goes to Union Square for a good etymological argument. He is a Muslim convert and a student of language and philosophy. He has had experiences on the lower astral plane. He says that the average person not only eats too much but breathes too much. And he says that life isn’t suppose to make sense: “If you take it literal, if you try to figure it out, it is a mass of confusion, a pack of lies signifying nothing….The mutable cannot perceive the immutable.” And the last time I saw him he said to me: “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken but you are bound to weaken one day.”

Diane Arbus

The Full Circle
Harper's Bazaar November 1961
Photography & Text: Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus

1923-1971

Once a Great Beauty

FROM THE ARCHIVE

devodotcom posts on Diane Arbus

3/22/12 The Simplicity of Thought

3/21/12 Have A Great Day!

1/25/12 The Vertical Journey

12/31/11 Happy New Year

11/24/11 The Young Heiresses

8/14/11 Bill Blass Designs For Little Ones

7/12/11 The Full Circle:Prince Robert de Rohan Courtenay

5/17/11 As You Desire Me

4/25/11 The Full Circle: Max Maxwell Landar

2/14/11 The Couple

1/30/11 She's As Mae West As Ever: Mae West

10/16/10 The Full Circle: William Mack

9/25/10 Mrs. T. Charlton Henry

9/05/10 Fashion Independents On Marriage

8/20/10 The Real Miss Cora Pratt

8/20/10 Miss Cora Pratt

7/29/10 The Full Circle: Jack Dracula

7/27/10 Thank Heaven For Little Girls

7/26/10 Petal Pink For Little Parties

5/24/10 Tokyo Rose

Friday, October 8, 2010

MARK LINKOUS - MAY YOUR SHADE BE SWEET

SPARKLEHORSE

may you're shade be sweet

MARK LINKOUS

RIP

GLEB DERUJINSKY

HARPER'S BAZAAR DECEMBER 1953

GLEB DERUJINSKY

HARPER'S BAZAAR DECEMBER 1953

SHINTO PRIESTS IN THE COURT OF THE MEIJI TEMPLE

WERNER BISCHOF

HARPER'S BAZAAR DECEMBER 1953

MARK LINKOUS

1962-2010

RIP

May Your Shade Be Sweet

Once a Great Beauty

Saturday, October 2, 2010

THE FEAR YOU WON'T FALL

Joshua Radin

the fear you won't fall

FRANCES PELLEGRINI

HARPER'S BAZAAR AUGUST 1954

HEARTBREAK WARFARE

John Mayer

heartbreak warfare

ART KANE

VOGUE AUGUST 15, 1964

Saturday, September 25, 2010

THE MAGICAL PHOTOGRAPHY OF DIANE ARBUS

THIS IS A MAN'S WORLD

MRS. T. CHARLTON HENRY IN BALENCIAGA

Mrs. T. Charlton Henry in her Chestnut Hill home,Philadelphia.

Currently residing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

"When this portrait of a society lady was published in Harper's Bazaar, the feature writer's text for the image noted: "Mrs. T. Charlton Henry … weighs a fragile, feminine ninety pounds, but moves through life like a Trojan." Although Mrs. Henry—with her jeweled dress and formidable helmet of hair—may have been an atypical Arbus subject, the photographer employed her trademark classical style to capture the power and poignancy of this wealthy upper class woman in the elegant confines of her milieu."

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

MRS. T. CHARLTON HENRY IN HER LIBRARY WEARING BALENCIAGA

Mrs. T Charlton Henry in her Library in Balenciaga

"Mrs. Henry knows more about George and Martha Washington than most of us do about our best friends.

At one of her famous little lunches, she may serve crab soup with sherry, from Martha Washington's own recipe."

MARTHA WASHINGTON'S CRAB SOUP

1 1/2 Pounds jumbo crabmeat

2 hard-boiled eggs

1 quart milk

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp flour

1/2 tsp mushroom sauce

1/2 tsp A.1. Sauce

A suggestion of nutmeg

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup Bristol Cream Sherry

Salt and Pepper

Mash hard-boiled eggs with fork, add to butter, flour and a little pepper. Bring milk to a boil and pour it gradually on to the well-mixed paste of eggs, etc. Put over a low fire, add the crabmeat and allow to simmer for 5 minutes. Add the cream and bring to a low boiling point. Add salt, sauces and sherry and heat through but do not boil after the sherry has been added.

"The heart of the former Julia Rush Biddle of the famous Philadelphia Biddles is torn between Main Line and France. She passed much of her childhood in Brittany was schooled in Philadelphia and was married in 1910 in Chestnut Hill, where she still lives, to a lawyer-yachtsman who became a World War I hero.

A lover of fine clothes and a devoted walker, she is trim and doll-like and has been named to the Best-Dressed Hall of Fame. She is fascinated by all that goes on, from, scuba diving to the moon race."

"Grande Dames Who Grace America"
Life Magazine
January 26, 1968

On the third floor of her house, there are three rooms full of clothes racks, in which each ensemble hangs in its own wrapper, together with gloves, shoes and handbag, This enviable passion for organization structures her life - and inspires her friends.

She retires for the day, but not too early, in an audaciously feminine robe of pink satin, dripping with lace. Mrs. Henry - who isn't - loves to feel helpless. She was brought up to believe "It's a man's world" And she confesses larkily, without apology, "I love it that way."

Mrs. T. Charlton Henry

Harper's Bazaar July 1965

Photography and Text: Diane Arbus

Mrs. T. Charlton Henry

1886-1978

Once a Great Beauty