New York

 

New York, Photo by Robert Frank, 1947

The Movies I Watched in December

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 2024  7/10

 

Black Widow 1954  6/10 

La boulangère de Monceau 1963  7/10

 La carrière de Suzanne 1963  7/10

Cast Away 2ßßß  6/10

La chute de la maison Usher 1928   

Cocksucker Blues 1972 6/10

The Dead Don't Hurt 2023  7/10

Drive a Crooked Road 1954  6/10 

Ecologia del delitto 1971  6/10

The Fall Guy 2024  7/10

 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2016  6/10

The Flintstones 1994  6/10

Heathers 1988  7/10

Hit Man 2023  7/10

 L'hypothèse du tableau volé 1978  7/10

It's a Gift 1934  7/10

 Kisapmata 1981  7/10

The Landlord 1970  6/10

The Miniaturist 2017  6/10

Murder She Said 1961  6/10

Obsession 1949  6/10 

Oramunde 1933  7/10

Polyester 1981  7/10

 A Quiet Place. Day One 2024  7/10

Raised by Wolves, Season 1 2020  7/10

 

Raised by Wolves, Season 2 2022  6/10 

Såsom i en spegel 1961  7/10

Snow White and the Huntsman 2012  6/10

Strangers in Good Company 1990  7/10

Una sull'altra 1969  6/10

Szürkület 1990  8/10

 Taiyô wo nusunda otoko 1979  7/10

The Tragedy of Macbeth 2021  7/10

Don't Blink - Robert Frank (2015)

Portrait of photographer Robert Frank's life and career, covering the making of his book The Americans, his documentaries featuring friends such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, and a film commissioned by The Rolling Stones.

Extensive, fast-paced portrait of the famous photographer and his life an friends has its best moments when presenting him at home and with his friends.

New York

Robert Frank: Pedestrian Crossing Center White Line on 34th Street, NY, 1948

New York

Robert Frank - New York City, 1947

First Lines: Sinclair Lewis - Babbitt

(ph: Robert Frank)

THE TOWERS of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods.

New York

ph: Robert Frank

Robert Frank's Elevator Girl

(found this at npr)

(ph: Ian Padgham)

One of photographer Robert Frank's most famous images aroused a particular interest from his friend, beat writer Jack Kerouac.

In his introduction to Frank's book of photos The Americans, Kerouac writes, "That little ole lonely elevator girl looking up sighing in an elevator full of blurred demons, what's her name & address?"

Now we know.

Today, Sharon Collins lives in San Francisco. About 10 years ago she visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and found herself drawn to a particular photo — the same photo Jack Kerouac wrote about.

"I stood in front of this particular photograph for probably a full five minutes, not knowing why I was staring at it," she says. "And then it really dawned on me that the girl in the picture was me."

The iconic shot shows a young girl, pressing an elevator button, looking up with an unreadable expression.

At the time, her name was Sharon Goldstein, growing up in Miami Beach. At fifteen, she got a summer job as an elevator girl at the Sherry Frontenac Hotel. She says the hotel was always full of tourists, and many of them had cameras. Although she wishes she remembers this particular tourist, she doesn't. But she pieced together what happened by looking at Frank's contact sheet.

"Robert Frank took about four photos of me without a flash in the elevator. I didn't know he was taking them. And then when the elevator emptied of its 'blurred demons,'" she says, "he asked me to turn around and smile at the camera. And I flashed a smile, put my hands on my hips. I hammed it up for about eight or ten frames."

But from the single image that was chosen for The Americans, Kerouac guessed she was lonely. Collins thinks he was pretty close.

"He saw in me something that most people didn't see. I have a big smile and a big laugh, and I'm usually pretty funny. So people see one thing in me. And I suspect Robert Frank and Jack Kerouac saw something that was deeper. That only people who were really close to me can see. It's not necessarily loneliness, it's ... dreaminess."

New Stuff

New stuff

Indeterminacy 95

(ph: Robert Frank)

Muriel Errera’s house is next to the Royal Palace in Brussels.
She said she’d like to give a dinner party and would invite
whoever I wanted her to, plus, of course, her friends. Since I
was staying in the country south of the city, I asked whether
she’d like me to bring along some mushrooms. She said certainly.
I arrived at the party with several baskets. I forget what all
I had found, but one basket was nothing but Lepiota caps fit for
the people next door. I was taken in an elevator four flights
up to a small improvised kitchen. After making certain that
everything I would need for cooking was available I went back
downstairs. I met the guests and had some drinks and then, after
the first few courses, went upstairs again, this time to cook
the mushrooms. It didn’t take long. I got myself and the pans
into the elevator and pushed the button. I no sooner left the
fourth floor than the lights went out and the elevator stopped
running. I lit a match and looked for an emergency button, but
there wasn’t any. Feeling hurried, I began beating on the
elevator door and shouting. After quite some time, I heard some
voices, and after that the voice of my hostess. She said that
word was being sent to the contractor who had installed the
elevator and did I want something to read? I said that it was
quite dark and that I didn’t require any reading matter. The
contractor never arrived, but eventually all of the servants,
including the cook, the chauffeur, and the doorman, went down
to the basement and by their joint efforts sent me inch by inch
back up to the fourth floor. The first thing I did was to reheat
the mushrooms. As we walked downstairs together, Muriel Errera
asked me not to mention the incident to any of the guests. When
I arrived with the frying pans in the candle-lit dining room,
everyone was eating dessert.

- John Cage