Calendar: June 18

A Year: Day to Day Men: 18th of June

Not Clark Kent

June 18, 1969 was the release date of Sam Peckinpah’s western “The Wild Bunch”.

In 1967, Warner Brothers-Seven Arts producers Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman were interested in having Sam Peckinpah rewrite and direct an adventure film. At the time, William Goldman’s screenplay “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” had recently been purchased by 20th Century Fox. It was quickly decided that “The Wild Bunch”, which had several similarities to Goldman’s work, would be produced in order to beat “Butch Cassidy” to the theaters.

Peckinpah’s epic work was inspired by his hunger to return to film work, the violence seen in 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde”, America’s growing frustration with the Vietnam War, and what he perceived to be the utter lack of reality seen in Westerns up to that time. He set out to make a film which portrayed not only the vicious violence of the period, but as well the crude men attempting to survive the era. Multiple scenes involving slow motion action sequences inspired by Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”, characters leaving a village as if in a funeral procession, and the use of inexperienced locals as extras, would become fully realized in “The Wild Bunch” film.

The film was shot in the anamorphic format, a technique of shooting a widescreen picture on a standard 35 mm film. This arose from the desire to maximize the overall image detail while retaining the use of standard cameras and projectors. Telephoto lenses were used by cinematographer Lucien Ballard to compress foreground and background images in perspective. The editing of the film is notable in that shots from multiple angles were spliced together in rapid succession, often at different speeds, placing greater emphasis on the chaotic nature of the action and the gunfights.

Peckinpah would film the major shootouts with six cameras, operating at various film rates, from 24 frames per second stepping up to 120 frames per second. When the scenes were eventually cut together, the action would shift from slow to fast to slower still, giving time an elastic quality never before seen in motion pictures up to that time. By the time filming wrapped, Peckinpah had shot 333,000 feet of film with 1,288 camera setups. Editor Lou Lombardo and Peckinpah remained in Mexico for six months editing the picture.

The violence that was much criticized in 1969 remains controversial. Peckinpah noted it was allegoric of the American war in Vietnam, the violence of which was nightly televised to American homes at supper time. He tried showing the gun violence commonplace to the historic western frontier period, rebelling against sanitized, bloodless television Westerns and films glamorizing gunfights and murder: “The point of the film is to take this façade of movie violence and open it up, get people involved in it so that they are starting to go in the Hollywood television predictable reaction syndrome, and then twist it so that it’s not fun anymore, just a wave of sickness in the gut … it’s ugly, brutalizing, and bloody awful; it’s not fun and games and cowboys and Indians.”

George Tooker

George Tooker, “The Waiting Room”, 1959, Egg Tempera on Wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum

George Tooker grew frustrated with the bureaucracy while trying to obtain building permits for a house he bought in New York. He painted several images that show “faceless” government workers and run-down people getting nowhere. The clinical interior of “The Waiting Room” evokes the conformity of the 1950s and emphasizes the pale, drawn expressions on the figures.

The people stand in numbered boxes, evoking ideas of standardization that force people into predefined categories. The man on the left appears to be in charge of the “sorting,” creating a sinister view of government scrutiny.

“The Waiting Room is a kind of purgatory—people just waiting—waiting to wait. It is not living. It is a matter of waiting—not being one’s self. Not enjoying life, not being happy, waiting, always waiting for something that might be better—which never comes. Why can’t they just enjoy the moment?”                 -George Tooker

Josiah Bancroft: “Formed in the Ether of Emotions and Dreams”

Photographers Unknown, A Collection of Images Formed in the Ether

“But what was excruciating at first turned cathartic the more he talked. In telling his story, he discovered that he had developed definite ideas about his own motives and decisions. These ideas seemed to have formed in the ether of emotions and dreams, that wooly fog that lay outside the footlights of the conscious mind. They were not large revelations, but were rather like the little epiphanies one suffers and enjoys over a morning cup of tea.” 

—Josiah Bancroft, Arm of the Sphinx

Sven Fennema

Sven Fennema, “Corridorio di Tristezza”, from his “Rise and Fall” Series

Sven Fennema was born in 1981 in Xanten, Germany. He currently lives and works ooutside of Dusseldorf. He started his journey into photography in 2007 and started his own company, Living Pictures, in 2009. The focus of his photography is “Lost Places” – deserted places and buildings, stripped of their functions. Whether if it’s a hidden fairytale castle, rust-eaten industrial sites or former mental hospitals. Fennema tells their stories, good as well as bad ones. He captures the ailing motifs in a touching world, somewhere in between the past and today in vibrant and living pictures.

His company site is https://www.sven-fennema.de.  His photographs and books are available from this site.

Stanley Borack

Illustrations by Stanley Borack

Born in Brooklyn, Stanley Borack served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and studied art at the Art Students League of New York under the G.I. Bill.  He began his career as professional illustrator in 1950 and, up until he retired at the end of the 1970s, he did hundreds of covers for pulp magazines and paperback book publishers.  Among collectors, he is especially known for the racy covers he did for Ted Mark’s Man From O.R.G.Y. series.  After retirement, his spent his remaining years doing painting of the Old West for fine art galleries across the country.

Calendar: June 17

A Year: Day to Day Men: 17th of June

Perched for the Dive

June 17, 1631 marks the passing of Mumtaz Mahal, the Empress consort of the Mughal Empire.

Arjumand Banu was born to a family of Persian nobility in Agra, India. She was the daughter of Abu’l-Hasan Asaf Khan, a wealthy Persian office-holder in the Mughal Empire, and Nur Jahan, the chief wife of Emperor Jahangir. She was married at the age of nineteen in April of 1612 to Prince Khurram, later known by his regnal name Shah Jahan. The marriage, though arranged, was a love-match.

After their wedding celebrations, Shah Jahan gave her the title “Mumtaz Mahal” Begum meaning “the Exalted One of the Palace”. By all accounts, Shah Jahan was so taken with Mumtaz that he showed little interest in exercising his polygamous rights with his two other wives, other than dutifully siring a child with each. The intimacy, deep affection, attention and favor which Shah Jahan had for Mumtaz exceeded what he felt for his other wives.

Mumtaz travelled with Shah Jahan’s entourage throughout his earlier military campaigns and the subsequent rebellion against his father. She was his constant companion and trusted confidant, leading court historians to document the intimate and erotic relationship the couple enjoyed. Shah Jahan consulted Mumtaz in both private matters and the affairs of the state, and she served as his close confidant and trusted adviser.

At Mumtaz’s intercession, Shah Jahan forgave enemies or commuted death sentences. His trust in her was so great that he gave her the highest honor of the land — his imperial seal, the Mehr Uzaz, which validated imperial decrees. Mumtaz  patronized a number of poets, scholars and other talented persons. She also provided pensions and donations to the daughters of poor scholars, theologians, and pious men.

Mumtaz Mahal died from postpartum hemorrhage in city of Burhanpur on June 17, 1631 while giving birth, after a prolonged labor of approximately 30 hours. She had been accompanying her husband while he was fighting a military campaign in the Deccan Plateau. Her body was temporarily buried at Burhanpur in a walled pleasure garden known as Zainabad originally constructed by Shah Jahan’s uncle. The emperor was reported as being inconsolable; he went into secluded mourning for a year.

In December of 1631 her body was transported in a golden casket escorted by her son Shah Shuja back to Agra. After concluding an existing military campaign, Shah Jahan began planning the design and construction of a suitable mausoleum and funerary garden in Agra for his wife. It was a task that would take 22 years to complete. The Taj Mahal is seen as an embodiment of undying love and marital devotion; the beauty of the monument is taken as a representation of Mumtaz Mahal’s beauty. The body of Mumtaz and later that of Shah Jahan were placed in a relatively plain crypt beneath the inner chamber with their faces turned to the right and towards Mecca.

Marshall Fredericks

Marshall Fredericks, “Fountain of Eternal Life (Cleveland War Memorial)”, 1964, Bronze, 10.5 meters, Civic Center, Cleveland, Ohio

Marshall Fredericks, born of Scandinavian descent, settled in Cleveland, Ohio, with his family early in life. He graduated fromthe Cleveland School of art in 1930 and journeyed abroad on a fellowship to study with Swedish sculptor Carl Miller. After World War II, he worked continuously on his numerous commissions for fountains, memorials, free-standing sculptures, reliefs, and portraits in bronze and other materials. Fredericks worked on this monument for a period of nineteen years.

The fountain is composed of a large granite basin in which water will continually move and spray. Centered within is the 10 ½ foot sculptured bronze sphere representing the Universe as man has imagined it. Its design contains symbols of Eternal Life and Spirit derived from ancient myths. Set in the basin rim are polished bronze plaques containing the names of over five thousand men and women who gave their lives for their country. Carved in the basin is the biblical  inscription from Psalm 36:9, “For with Thee is the Fountain of Life; In Thy Light shall we see light.”

Four monolithic Norwegian emerald pearl granite carvings, each 4 by 12 feet and weighing approximately ten tons each, are set at four points and depict the four corners of the earth from which come the major religions. The monumental bronze central figure, cast in Norway, towers 43 feet above the basin. This figure expresses the main theme of the Fountain, namely, the spirit of mankind rising out of the encircling flames of war, pestilence, and the destructive elements of life, reaching and ascending to a new understanding of life.

The monument was commissioned in 1945 at the end of World War II. The Cleveland Press promoted the project, raising $250,000 in donations from private citizens and various organizations. The groundbreaking at the site of the Civic Center Mall in Cleveland, Ohio, occurred in 1955. The initial dedication was on Memorial Day of 1964. The monument had two more rededications in 2004 and 2014, at which time additinal names of fallen soldiers were added.

Source: marshallfredericks-blog-blog

Odile Decq

Odile Decq, Fangshan Tangshan National Geopark Museum, Nanjing, China

The Fangshan Tangshan National Geopark, near the city of Nanjing, is a geological and paleo-archaeological museum. This geological museum can be found in the beautiful valley between Tangshan and Fangshan, two volcanic mountains. Not only does the museum reveal a 700-million-year slice of earth’s geological history, but the discovery of ancient hominid remains in a cave here in the 1950s sparked worldwide speculation about the early origins of mankind.

The architect of the project was Odile Decq, the founder of Studio Odile Decq. She is an award-winning French architect, urban planner and academic. She graduated in 1978 from Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Architecture de Paris- La Villette with a diploma in Urban Planning. Okile Decq was awarded the Golden Lion of Architecture during the Venice Biennale in 1996.

Since 1992, Odile Decq has been a professor at the Ecole Soeciale d’Architecture in Paris where she was elected head of the Department of Architecture in 2007. She left in 2012, opeining her own school, the Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture, in Lyon, France. The Institute, cofounded with architect Matteo Cainer, opened in 2014.

Calendar: June 16

A Year: Day to Day Men: 16th of June

Beachwear

June 16, 1924 was the birthdate of Faith Marie Domergue, the American television and film actress.

While just a sophomore at high school, Ann Marie Domergue signed a contract with Warner Brothers and made her first on-screen appearance as a walk-on in the 1941 “Blues in the Night”. After graduating high school in 1942, Domergue pursued her career in acting; but after sustaining injuries in a near fatal automobile accident, she put her plans on hold. While recuperating, she attended a Howard Hughes yacht party.

Howard Hughes, emanored with her, bought her contract from Warner Brothers and signed her to a three picture deal with RKO Pictures. She was cast as the lead in the 1950 thriller “Vendetta”. The film had a four year troubled production period and, after its release in 1950, was dismissed as a trivial, slow paced period piece. After the film release, Domergue separated from Hughes and freelanced as an actor.

Domergue played a femme fatale in the 1950 film noir “Where Danger Lives”, opposite Robert Mitchum and Claude Rains. Signing a contract with Universal Pictures in 1953, she appeared opposite Audie Murphy in the western adventure “The Duel at Silver Creek”. In 1955, she appeared in another western, “Santa Fe Passage” playing Aurelie Saint Clair, an ammunition retailer on a wagon train, opposite John Payne and Rod Cameron.

Domergue then appeared in a series of science fiction films which earned her the reputation as an early “scream queen”, the films’ damsel in distress. The first was the “Cult of the Cobra” released in 1955 where airmen discover a cult of snake worshippers. Faith Domergue played the female lead role of the cult leader who transforms herself into a deadly cobra.

The next role was in the now famous sci-fi movie “It Came from Beneath the Sea” produced by Columbia Pictures. This 1954 film about a giant octopus was a major commercial success, grossing almost two million dollars at the box office and later becoming a cult classic. She played marine biologist Lesley Joyce who helped destroy the creature with an atomic torpedo. The following year, Domergue starred in the first color sci-fi film “This Island Earth”, which received praise for its writing and inventive special effects.

By the late 1960s, Domergue was appearing mainly in low-budget “B” horror movies and European productions. She relocated to Europe permanently in 1968, moving from Rome to Geneva, Switzerland, and Marbella, Spain. Her final film credit was for the 1974 “The House of Seven Corpses”, an independent horror film shot in Salt Lake City. Faith Domergue spent her later years in retirement in Palo Alto, California. She died on April 4, 1999, of unspecified cancer at the age of 74.

Dog Effigy

Dog Effigy Ceramic Pot, Date Unknown, Mexico, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland

Among the Aztecs of highland Mexico, dogs were associated with the deity Xolotl, the god of death. This deity and a dog were believed to lead the soul on its journey to the underworld. The Mexica also associated Xolotl with the planet Venus as the evening star and the twin brother of the deity QuetzalcГіatl, who personified Venus as the morning star. The dog’s special relationship with humans is highlighted by a number of Colima dog effigies wearing humanoid masks.

This curious effigy type has been interpreted as a shamanic transformation image or as a reference to the modern Huichol myth of the origin of the first wife, who was transformed from a dog into a human. However, recent scholarship suggests a new explanation of these sculptures as the depiction of the animal’s tonalli, its inner essence, which is made manifest by being given human form via the mask. The use of the human face to make reference to an object’s or animal’s inner spirit is found in the artworks of many ancient cultures of the Americas, from the Inuit of Alaska and northern Canada to peoples in Argentina and Chile.