Author: ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon

https://www.instagram.com/wolvesofgray This blog is a refugee and a survivor of the Great Tumblr Inquisition of December 17th, 2018. I am gay artist, who received training at the Rhode Island School of Design, and now, a retired high-end fine art framer living in Maryland, USA. My interests and studies in life run a wide gamut from art to history and from the scientific to the esoteric. I have been building this blog of images and texts for the last eight years. My wish is that my posts pique the interest of viewers and encourage them to experience more.

Calendar: December 26

A Year: Day to Day Men: 26th of December

Double Stars

The day of December 26th was a great day for film buffs. the date marked the premiers of two major films in the genres of comedy and horror.

On December 26, 1940, the romantic comedy film, “The Philadelphia Story” directed by George Cukor, based on the Broadway play of the same name, premiered in New York City. The film starred Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart; it also featured Ruth Hussey in her Academy Award-nominated role of photographer Elizabeth Imbrie.

The film is considered one of the best examples of a comedy of remarriage, a genre popular in the 1930s and 1940s, in which a couple divorce, flirt with outsiders and then remarry—a useful story-telling ploy at a time when the depiction of extramarital affairs was blocked by the Production Code.

The film was Hepburn’s first big hit following several flops, which had led to her being included on a 1938 list that Manhattan movie theater owner Harry Brandt compiled of actors considered to be “box office poison”. She acquired the film rights to the play, which she had also starred in, with the help of Howard Hughes, in order to control it as a vehicle for her screen comeback. After MGM purchased the film rights they were skeptical about Hepburn’s box office appeal, so Louis B Mayer took an unusual precaution by casting two A-list male stars (Grant and Stewart) to support Hepburn. Nominated for six Academy Awards, the film won two; James Stewart for Best Actor and Donald Ogden Stewart for Best Adapted Screenplay.

On December 26, 1973, “The Exorcist” was released theatrically in the United States by Warner Brothers. The film was initially booked in only twenty-six theaters across the U.S., although it soon became a major commercial success. The film earned ten Academy Award nominations, winning Best Sound Mixing and Best Adapted Screenplay. It became one of the highest-grossing films in history, grossing over $441 million worldwide in the aftermath of various re-releases, and was the first horror film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The film was adapted by William Peter Blatty from his 1971 novel of the same name and starred  Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow and Jason Miller. The book, inspired by the 1949 exoticism of Roland Doe, deals with the demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl and her mother’s attempts to win back her child through an exorcism conducted by two priests. The film experienced a troubled production; even in the beginning, several prestigious film directors including Stanley Kubrick and Arthur Penn turned it down. Incidents, such as the toddler son of one of the main actors being hit by a motorbike and hospitalized, attracted claims that the set was cursed. The complex special effects used as well as the nature of the film locations also presented severe challenges.

Calendar: December 25

Year: Day to Day Men: December 25

Christmas Morning’s Present

The 25th of December in 1921 marks the last major Potlatch led by the Kwakwaka’wakw Chief Daniel Cranmer in British Columbia, Canada.

A potlatch is a gift-giving ceremonial feast by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific northwest coast of Canada and the United States. Among such cultures as the Heiltsuk, Haida, Tlingit, Kwakwaka’wakw and Coast Salish, it is traditionally their primary governmental institution, legislative body and economic system. The potlatch demonstrated a leader’s wealth and position through the giving away or destruction of wealth or valuable items.

The Potlatch focused on the reaffirmation of family, clan and international ties as well as the human connection to the spiritual world. It was also strict system of resource management, a time when coastal peoples negotiated and affirmed rights to and use of specific resources and territories. The recitation of oral histories and the honoring of the supernatural forces were an integral part of the ceremony; music, dances, singing, storytelling and speeches were also involved. 

The Kwakwaka’wakw are one of the indigenous peoples residing on the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their traditional territory encompassed northern Vancouver Island, the nearby smaller islands including the Discovery Islands, and the adjacent British Columbia mainland. The Kwakwaka’wakw are organized politically into thirteen First Nation bands, a basic unit of government with a council chaired by either an elected or hereditary chief.

Born April of 1885 in Knight Inlet, Chief Daniel Cranmer carried the Nimpkish (‘Namgis) hereditary name Pal’nakwala Wakas. He was at the center of one of the most significant Nimpkish cultural events of the early 20th century. Cranmer held a notable potlatch on Village Island (ʼMimkwa̱mlis) from December 21st to the 25th in 1921. It is significant as it was one of the largest public First Nations’ potlatches in defiance of the Indian Act legislation, Section 149, that prohibited an ill-defined collection of aboriginal ceremonies under the general description of potlatch.

Indian Agent W.M. Halliday presided over the trial held at the Albert Bay Day School, which for the duration of the trial also served as the jail. In April of 1922, the arrests and trial resulted in fifty-eight verdicts of which there were nine dismissals and 49 convictions. Twenty-six of those convicted were brought by boat to Vancouver and then to the Oakalla Prison in Bumaby; twenty-two of the convicted were sentenced to two months imprisonment and four received six months imprisonment. 

Twenty-three of those convicted received suspended sentences after agreeing to turn over their ceremonial regalia to Indian Agent Halliday and promising to abandon potlatches. The confiscated ceremonial regalia came to be commonly known as the “Potlatch Collection”. These artifacts were dispersed to public cultural institutions in the United States, England, and Canada as well as private collectors. Efforts to repatriate the collection began in the late 1950s

The government of Canada had criminalized potlatches from 1885 to 1951. However, potlatches persisted underground despite the risk of governmental reprisals which included mandatory jail sentences of a least two months. Since the ceremony was decriminalized in 1951, the potlatch has made a resurgence in some communities. In many of the Indigenous nations, the potlatch is still the basis of Indigenous governance; most notable is the Haida Nation whose democracy is firmly rooted in potlatch law. 

Note: The word “potlatch” is derived from the Chinook Wawa, a language which originated as a pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest. A mixture of the Chinook, French, English and other language systems, Chinook Wawa spread during the nineteenth-century through British Columbia, Alaska, Northern California, Idaho and Montana. Potlatch, meaning to give away or a gift, originated from the Nuu-chah-nulth word ‘paɬaˑč’, meaning to make a ceremonial gift in a potlatch.

A history of the Potlatch Collection can be found at the U’mista Cultural Center site located at: https://www.umista.ca/pages/collection-history

Calendar: December 24

A Year: Day to Day Men: 24th of December

Namor the Sub-Mariner: Homo Mermanus

On December 24, 1851, a fire burns 35,000 volumes at the United States Library of Congress.

As Americans celebrated Christmas Eve, 1851, a fire ripped through the US Library of Congress in Washington, DC, destroying 35,000 volumes. A faulty chimney flue set off the blaze, which took two-thirds of the collection, including most of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library that had been sold to the institution in 1815.

Initially established in 1800 when President John Adams approved legislation that appropriated $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress” — the first books, ordered from London, arrived in 1801. They were stored in the U.S. Capitol. Twelve years later, the British army invaded the city of Washington and burned the Capitol, including the 3,000-volume Library of Congress. Jefferson responded to that loss by selling his personal library of 6,487 volumes — the largest and finest in the country — to Congress to “recommence” the library.

After the fire of 1851, architect of the Capitol Thomas U. Walter presented a plan to repair and enlarge the Library room using fireproof materials throughout. The elegantly restored Library room was opened on August 23, 1853. Called by the press the “largest iron room in the world,” it was encircled by galleries and filled the west central front of the Capitol. A month before the opening, Pres. Franklin Pierce inspected the new Library in the company of British scientist Sir Charles Lyell, who pronounced it “the most beautiful room in the world.”

The current collection consists of more than 164 million total items: more than 38 million books and other printed materials, 3.6 million recordings, 14 million photographs, 5.5 million maps, 8.1 million pieces of sheet music and 70 million manuscripts. It also has 5,711 incunabula (early printed books before 1501) and 122,810,430 items in the nonclassified (special) collections. Although the Library is open to the public, only high-ranking government officials and Library employees may check out books and materials (except through interlibrary loan, which is available to the public.

Calendar: December 23

Year: Day to Day Men: December 23

The Blue Leather Armchair

December 23rd of 1912 marks the release of director Mack Sennett’s comedy short “Hoffmeyer’s Legacy”, notable for being the first Keystone Cops comedy.  There are no known existing copies of this film; it is now considered a lost work. 

Mack Sennett was a Canadian-American producer, director, actor and studio head. Born in Danville, Quebec in 1880, he started his career in films with the Biograph Company of New York City, which during the height of the silent era was the most prominent and respected film studio in the United States. In 1912, Sennett, with backing from the owners of the New York Motion Picture Company, opened Keystone Studios in California. This studio possessed the first fully-enclosed film stage and studio ever constructed.

At Keystone Studios in 1912, Sennett created the slapstick antics of the Keystone Kops. The idea for the Keystone Kops came from Hank Mann, a Russian-American comedian who became one of the first Keystone Kops. Mann played the police chief Tehiezel in the group’s first film, “Hoffmeyer’s Legacy”. The popularity of the Keystone Kops began with the 1913 comedy short “The Bangville Police” which had comedian Ford Sterling in the role of chief. 

Notable members of the Keystone Kops were comedic character actor Edgar Kennedy; Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s; William Frawley known for his later role as Fred Mertz in “I Love Lucy”; and Alfred St. John known for his scruffy character role in both the 1940 “Billy the Kid” and 1941 “Lone Rider” series. The casting of the Keystone police changed from one film to the next; many of the members were per diem actors who remain uncredited. 

Mack Sennett continued producing films with the Keystone Kops through the 1920s but, with the arrival of sound films, the group became less popular. In 1935, Warner Brothers director Ralph Staub staged a revival of the group with his short film “Keystone Hotel” which featured the Kops’ frantic movements. Homages to the group appeared in the 1939 “Hollywood Cavalcade” which had Buster Keaton in a Keystone chase scene, and the 1955 “Abbot and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops” which include stuntmen dressed as the Kops in a lengthy chase scene. The “Abbot and Costello” film had cameo appearances by two of the original Kops, Hank Mann and Heinie Conklin, as well as a cameo by Mack Sennett. The master of comedy, Mel Brooks included a Keystone Kops-styled chase scene in his 1976 comedy “Silent Movie”. 

Calendar: December 22

Year: Day to Day Men: December 22

Filtered Light

On the 22nd of December in 1885, Itō Hirobumi, a samurai, became the first Prime Minister of Japan during the Meiji era. The Meiji era, which extended from October of 1868 to July of 1912, was the first half of the Empire of Japan. It was a period of movement from an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization to a modern, industrialized nation state influenced by Western scientific, technological, political, legal and aesthetic ideas. 

Itō Hirobumi was the son of a modest samurai family in the Chōshū domain of western Japan. He grew up at a time of convulsive political conditions during the decline of the Tokugawa shogunate which had governed Japan since 1603. Itō was sent to England in 1863 by the leaders of Chōshū to study naval science. He played a minor role in the events leading to the 1868 Meiji Restoration, a movement which overthrew the shogunate and reestablished the formal authority of the Emperor. 

Itō’s role in the Meiji Restoration brought him into contact with Kido Takayoshi who became one of the great leaders of early Meiji Japan and an important mentor to Itō. His connections with Kido and Ōkubo Toshimichi, one of the leaders of the Restoration, enabled him to perform government assignments to the United States and the Iwakura Mission to Europe as well as study matters such as taxation, treaty revision, and budgetary systems. 

When Ōkubo was assassinated in 1878, Itō Hirobumi succeeded him as Minister of Home Affairs. This advancement brought him into conflict with the ambitious statesman Ōkuma Shigenobu. Itō forced Ōkuma out of the government in 1881 and persuaded the government to adopt a constitution. The Emperor proclaimed the constitution in 1889 and, in the next year, the National Diet was established. The National Diet is the legislature of Japan consisting of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors, both elected and responsible for nominating the Prime Minister.

At this time, Itō was the most important person in the Meiji government. Serious about establishing a constitutional government, he and other officials had spent one and a half years in Europe studying under constitutional scholars. This writing of basic rights and the establishment of the Diet was a very progressive act given Japan’s samurai background and its tense domestic and foreign problems.

Itō Hirobumi remained a prominent figure in the 1890s and achieved two important successes. The first was an agreement with Great Britain that did away with extraterritoriality thus subjecting British nationals in Japan to Japanese law. The second was Japan’s 1895 victory over China in the First Sino-Japanese War, primarily a conflict over influence in Korea. The war demonstrated the failure of China’s Qing dynasty’s attempts to modernize its military and shifted the regional dominance from China to Japan.

In 1905, following the Russo-Japanese War, Itō was sent to Korea to negotiate a treaty that turned Korea into a Japanese protectorate. He returned to Korea as resident general in 1906 and pursued a gradual policy of economic and bureaucratic reform. Itō sought to suppress Korean nationalism and even engineered King Kojong’s abdication; however, he could not prevent the move favored by Japanese leaders to annex Korean. In October of 1909, Itō Hirobumi was assassinated in the city of Harbin, North China, by An Chung-gŭn, a member of the Korean Independence movement.

Itō Hirobumi was the one Japanese leader who advocated a moderate and sympathetic approach to Japan’s Korean policy; his assassination ultimately became a factor to Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910.

Hermann Hesse: “We Who Bore the Mark…”

 

Photographers Unknown, We Who Bore the Mark

“We who bore the mark might well be considered by the rest of the world as strange, even as insane and dangerous. We had awoken, or were awakening, and we were striving for an ever perfect state of wakefulness, whereas the ambition and quest for happiness of the others consisted of linking their opinions, ideals, and duties, their life and happiness, ever more closely with those of the herd. They, too, strove; they, too showed signs of strength and greatness. But as we saw it, whereas we marked men represented Nature’s determination to create something new, individual, and forward-looking, the others lived in the determination to stay the same.”

—Hermann Hesse, Damian, Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

The Dragon Tree

Photographer Unknown, The Dragon Tree (Dracaena draco)

The Dracaena draco, or the Dragon tree, is a subtropical tree in the genus Dracaena, native to the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Madeira, and locally in western Morocco. It has been introduced to the Azores. The tree  is a nmoncot with a branching growth pattern currently placed in the asparagus family. When young it has a single stem. At about ten to fifteen years of age, the stem stops growing and produces a first flower spike with white, lily-like perfumed flowers, followed by coral berries. Soon a crown of terminal buds appears and the plant starts branching. Each branch grows for about ten to fifteen years and re-branches, so a mature plant has an umbrella-like habit. It grows slowly, requiring about ten years to reach 1.2 metres (4 ft) in height but can grow much faster.

Calendar: December 21

A Year: Day to Day Men: 21st of December

The Position Taken

Born in Bologna the twenty-first of December in 1788, Adamo Tadolini was an Italian sculptor. He was a member of a family of sculptors descended from his grandfather Petronio Tadolini, a classical sculptor of works in both marble and terracotta, as well as medals in bronze. This family dynasty of sculptors continued until his great-grandson Enrico Tadolini’s death in 1967. 

Adamo Tadolini attended Balogna’s Accademia di Belle Arti from 1808 until 1813 where he studied under the directorship of sculptor Giacomo De Maria. In 1813, he was awarded a gold medal, the Curlandese Prize from the Accademia, for his terra cotta relief depicting Venus and the Trojan hero Aeneas carrying weapons.  Tadolini was also awarded a four year scholarship to study in Rome. One of the works he created during this scholarship period was a plaster statue of the hero Ajax cursing the gods. 

Tadolini’s skill at sculpture caught the attention of Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova, who at that time was the most celebrated artist in Europe with patrons from the wealthy as well as royal lineages. Canova was given by the Pope the title Minister Plenipotentiary in 1815 and, in the next year, the title of Marquis of Ischia, along with an annual pension of three thousand crowns. Tadolini was invited by Canova to enter into his studio and worked there until 1822. At that time he set up, with assistance from Canova,  his own studio at Via Del Babuino 150 in Rome. This studio is now the Canova-Tadolini Museum and houses the Tadolini family’s vast range of work. 

Among Adamo Tadolini’s many works are the 1823 marble statue “Ganymede and the Eagle” at Chatsworth House, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire; the 1838 marble “Saint Paul” at St. Peter’s Square in the  Vatican; King Carlo Alberto of Sardinia’s commission of “St. Frances de Sales” for St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican; the 1857 statue of King David which is part of the Column of the Immaculate Conception in Rome’s Piazza Mignanelli; the1858 bust of Cardinal Alessandro Lante Montefeltro della Rovere in the Bologna Cathedral: and the1859 bronze equestrian statue of Simón Bolívar, the original casting of three resides at Lima’s Plaza Bolívar.

Tadolini had two sons, Scipione and Tito, both of whom studied under their father at his studio workshop. Scipione Tadolini worked in a romantic form of the Neo-classical tradition whose works included “Saint Michael Overcoming Satan” now in Boston College. Upon the death of his father on the sixteenth of February in 1863, Scipione took ownership of the studio. 

Calendar: December 20

A Year: Day to Day Men: 20th of December

No Stretch of tlhe Imagination

On December 20, 1812, “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is published.

Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, both poets and novelists, were good friends of the Grimm brothers and wanted to publish folk tales. So they asked the brothers to collect oral tales for publication. The Grimm’s collected many old books and asked friends and acquaintances in Kassel to tell tales and to gather stories from others. Jacob and Wilhelm sought to collect these stories in order to write a history of old German Poesie and to preserve history.

The first volume of the first edition was published in 1812, containing 86 stories; the second volume of 70 stories followed in 1815. For the second edition, two volumes were issued in 1819 and a third in 1822, totaling 170 tales. The third edition appeared in 1837; fourth edition, 1840; fifth edition, 1843; sixth edition, 1850; seventh edition, 1857. Stories were added, and also subtracted, from one edition to the next, until the seventh held 211 tales. All editions were extensively illustrated, first by Philipp Grot Johann and, after his death in 1892, by German illustrator Robert Leinweber.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s collection of folktales contains some of the best-known children’s characters in literary history, from Snow White and Rapunzel to Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood. Yet the brothers originally filled their book, which became known as “Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” with gruesome scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in an R-rated movie. The Grimm brothers never even set out to entertain kids. The first edition of “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” was scholarly in tone, with many footnotes and no illustrations. Only later, as children became their main audience, did they take out some of the more adult content.

Calendar: December 19

Year: Day to Day Men: December 19

The Green Door

On the 19th of December in 1971, Stanley Kubrick’s X-rated film “A Clockwork Orange” premiered in New York City. Based on author Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel of the same name, the film commented on juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, psychiatry and other social issues in a dystopian near-future England. The film received mixed reviews and had notable detractors including film critics Stanley Kauffman, Leslie Halliwell and Roger Ebert. In 1972, “A Clockwork Orange” won the New York Film Critics Award.

“A Clockwork Orange” was released a month later in the United Kingdom on the 13th of January in 1972. The film was passed in an uncut version for the UK cinemas despite British authorities considering the film’s sexual violence to be extreme. After reports of copycat acts of violence linked to the movie, Warner Brothers at the request of Kubrick withdrew the film from British release. As a result, it was difficult to see “A Clockwork Orange” in the United Kingdom for a period of twenty-seven years. After Kubrick’s death in 1999, the film was finally re-released in theaters.

In Ireland, “A Clockwork Orange” was banned on the 10th of April in 1973; Warner Brothers did not appeal the decision. Eventually, the film was passed uncut for cinema in December of 1999 and released in theaters in March of 2000. In Singapore, the film was banned for over thirty years and was finally shown uncut with an R21 rating on the 28th of October as part of the 2011 Perspectives Film Festival. 

Under apartheid, the South African government banned it for thirteen years, finally releasing the film with one cut scene to people over the age of twenty-one. Brazil’s military dictatorship banned the film until 1978; it was released in a version with black dots covering the breasts and genitals of the actors in the nude scenes. In Spain, the film debuted at the 1975 Valladolid International Film Festival after students protested and closed the University of Valladolid for two months. Long queues of students formed at the festival and later commercial theaters and arthouses. 

Author Anthony Burgess had mixed opinions about the film. He loved the acting of Malcolm McDowell and Michael Bates and Kubrick’s use of music. He was concerned though that the novel’s final redemptive chapter was missing, a fact he blamed on the American publisher who had omitted the chapter in all US editions prior to 1986. In fact, Kubrick claimed he had not read that chapter until he finished the screenplay; he felt it was unconvincing and inconsistent with the book. 

“A Clockwork Orange” was nominated for numerous awards including four Academy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, and a Director Guild of America Award, among others. It won two New York Film Critics Circle Awards, and the Online Film & Television Association Award (Hall of Fame-Motion Picture).

Notes: Film collector Mark E. Phillips wrote an extensive article on “A Clockwork Orange” for his “NYC in Film” site. The article offers a concise list, in chronological order, of each filming location in London for Kubrick’s masterpiece. Each location, from the Korova Milk Bar to the final scene at Princess Alexandra Hospital, is illustrated by film stills and current photos. Phillips’ article is located at: https://nycinfilm.com/2023/06/04/clockwork/

Director Pedro González Bermúdez made a 2021 documentary entitled “A Forbidden Orange” which examines Spain’s Franco government’s banning of “A Clockwork Orange” and the efforts of a long-running religious film festival, the Seminci in Valladolid, to premiere the film. Produced in collaboration with actor Malcolm McDowell as narrator, this documentary is worth seeing if you are interested in the history of Kubrick’s film.

Calendar: December 18

Year: Day to Day Men: December 18

Locker Room Moment

On the 18th of December in 1912, amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson claimed he had discovered fossilized remains of a previously unknown early human, the missing link between apes and man. This human ancestor was named Eoanthropus dawsoni, but became known as Piltdown Man from the gravel pit in which the remains were found. 

Although there were doubts about its authenticity from early 1912, the Piltdown Man remains were widely accepted for many years. In November of 1953, Time magazine published evidence gathered by anthropologist Kenneth Oakley, primatologist Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, and biologist Joseph Weiner that proved the Piltdown Man was a forgery composed of three distinct species. This hoax was notable for the attention it generated on the subject of human evolution and the fact that it took forty-one years to its definitive exposure as a forgery.

In February of 1912, Dawson contacted the Keeper of Geology at London’s Natural History Museum, Arthur Smith Woodward, that he had found a section of a human-like skull in Pleistocene gravel beds near Piltdown, East Sussex. Later in the summer, Dawson and Woodward purportedly discovered a jawbone, skull fragments, a set of teeth, and primitive tools at the site. From the outset, the reconstruction of the skull was strongly challenged by researchers.

Waterston, Boule and Miller’s evidence proved the remains of the Piltdown Man was a forgery. The fossils consisted of a human skull of medieval age, a five-hundred year old lower jaw of an orangutan and fossil teeth from a chimpanzee. Someone had simulated age by staining the bones with an iron solution and chromic acid. A microscopic examination of the teeth showed file-marks that had modified the teeth to a shape more suited for human diet. The identity of the forger remains unknown; however the focus on Dawson is supported by evidence regarding other archaeological hoaxes he had perpetrated in the previous two decades.

Notes: The fossil was introduced as evidence by Clarence Darrow in defense of John T. Scopes during the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Darrow died in 1938, fifteen years before the Piltdown Man was exposed as a fraud.