Ginger’s dress is in the Smithsonian. It was very heavily beaded so it would swirl as she danced and I have read that it hit Fred several times.
While Fred was wonderfully lithe and amazingly graceful, nobody would argue he was a particularly handsome fellow. But the young Ginger – what astonishing beauty! Those expressive features and the stunning, slender figure. Wow. I do not go out on a limb in saying the likes of this couple’s marvelous dancing will not be seen again.
But the young Ginger – what astonishing beauty!
She seems normal range; she’s overly dolled-up.
Tops in the era IMO were Katherine Hepburn and Jeanette MacDonald when the camera got them at the right angle. I don’t think Hollywood was striving to put intensely beautiful women on the screen in 1935 (or they had a different understanding of what that was than we might today). Easy on the eyes does quite nicely in most any circumstance.
I have read that it hit Fred several times.
——–
Fred got nailed right in the face early in the routine. Obviously, it didn’t keep him from completing it, but they did a couple of more takes to see if they could get one in the can without Fred being hit. They did, but you can see him very visibly flinch when the sleeve whizzes by his face. So they shrugged and went with the take where he gets hit. It goes by so fast that you don’t notice it unless you’re looking, and it was the best take overall.
Since it is an open thread:
Something from Victor Davis Hanson on the Orange Man Bad and 2022:
Some will gladly acknowledge the concerns voiced by VDH are valid (Bauxite). Pearls will be clutched, I’m sure.
I keep thinking every time you post one of these FA/GR clips I keep thinking how it reflects on the current culture. How many Millennials, GenZ, GenX ers even know who they are, let alone appreciate their art? Without a knowledge of the best of past generations there’s no grounding in a common society. Just another indication of how we are falling apart.
Tucker touched on the election auditing in GA last night.
The analysis turned up at least 36 batches of mail-in ballots, containing 4,255 votes, that were added redundantly to the audit results, according to Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VoterGA). Nearly 3,400 were for Democrat Joe Biden.
The team examining the ballots also found seven audit tally sheets (pdf) they believe were falsified to contain fabricated vote totals. In one example, the group said, a batch containing 59 ballot images for Biden and 42 for former President Donald Trump was reported as 100 for Biden and zero for Trump.
The analysis revealed that 923 (60 percent) of the 1,539 mail-in ballot batch files contained votes that were incorrectly reported in the county’s official 2020 election result, compared to the audit totals, VoterGA said.
“We believe that there is massive audit errors,” Garland Favorito, founder of the group, told a press conference in Georgia on July 13.
—
Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who is challenging Raffensperger in the Republican secretary of state primary, in a video called on him to resign.
“In Fulton County, there is now undeniable proof of voter irregularity if not outright voter fraud,” he said, pointing to the evidence presented by VoterGA.
Raffensperger has claimed that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, which saw Biden beat Trump in Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes, out of over 4.9 million cast.
Fred and Ginger were sophisticated examples of heterosexuality, and the the music was written by a homosexual (I think it’s Porter). And It makes me feel good when I watch.
The sin of nearly all left-wingers from 1933 onward is that they have wanted to be anti-Fascist without being anti-totalitarian.
As a bank shot off a discussion with Zaphod, I’ve been reading Orwell again. I’ve got the big thick “Everyman’s Edition” volume of Orwell’s essays. He wrote a ton of them. When I’m in the mood to level-up my reading, I pull it off the shelf, pick a title that looks interesting and dig in.
I’m never disappointed. Though his material is necessarily dated, humanity, sadly, hasn’t moved much beyond the issues Orwell describes. Then there’s his clarity at all levels.
You can find a good selection of Orwell’s more famous essays online:
physicsguy,
I used to appreciate some of my father’s Benny Goodman songs, though I don’t believe I ever played them on my own initiative.
I have no idea what the statistics are, but I’m always surprised when I hear or see some millennial engaging in some element of 60’s through 80’s culture. A couple weeks ago a millennial guy was bicycling up the hill in my neighborhood while playing some moderately loud rock and roll. I instantly recognized it as a great 70’s classic, though now I can’t recall the song.
I wonder if the modern artistic scene is so bereft of real artistry (& the emotion that goes with it?) that the young’uns are actively seeking out something better. Might be fanciful thinking on my part.
TommyJay:
I couldn’t give you any statistics either, but when I read the comments to Rick Beato or Oldies youtubes, I often encounter comments to the effect, “This song was made before I was born and I love it — much more than today’s music.”
Except for some long-arc television shows just about all art, music and writing today is at low ebb. It’s hard for me not to connect that to a larger cultural decline.
“She seems normal range”
I bet AD is a real looker!
Talking about Hollywood beauties of the 30’s, I vote for Hedy Lemarr.
om,
Check out Victor Hanson.com. It has all his columns and podcasts. I particularly like the podcasts with Jack Fowler.
OMT: Can you all imagine Ginger and other beauties of her time sitting in nursiing homes with wrinkled tats and nose pierces? Someone should tell the younguns that they will need Nancy Pelosi levels of Botox when the get older.
Love the Orwell website huxley. I read “Can Socialists Be Happy?”
If I were in charge, Orwell’s “Notes on Nationalism” and “Politics and the English Language” would be required reading in junior high, high school, college, grad school, and periodically thereafter. When renewing your driver’s license, for example.
Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was an American composer and lyricist, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history. His music forms a great part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, “Marie from Sunny Italy”, in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights, and had his first major international hit, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, in 1911. He also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. For much of his career Berlin could not read sheet music, and was such a limited piano player that he could only play in the key of F-sharp using his custom piano equipped with a transposing lever.
“Alexander’s Ragtime Band” sparked an international dance craze in places as far away as Berlin’s native Russia, which also “flung itself into the ragtime beat with an abandon bordering on mania”. Over the years he was known for writing music and lyrics in the American vernacular: uncomplicated, simple and direct, with his stated aim being to “reach the heart of the average American,” whom he saw as the “real soul of the country”…
He wrote hundreds of songs, many becoming major hits, which made him famous before he turned thirty. During his 60-year career he wrote an estimated 1,500 songs, including the scores for 20 original Broadway shows and 15 original Hollywood films, with his songs nominated eight times for Academy Awards. Many songs became popular themes and anthems, including “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, “Easter Parade”, “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, “Cheek to Cheek”, “White Christmas”, “Happy Holiday”, “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)”, and “There’s No Business Like Show Business”. His Broadway musical and 1943 film This is the Army,[8] with Ronald Reagan, had Kate Smith singing Berlin’s “God Bless America” which was first performed in 1938.
Berlin lived to be 101, was married for over 60 years, and had four children.
Cole Porter was certainly a great songwriter, too, but not as prolific. Porter was gay but married to a woman, partly for cover but partly because they really liked (perhaps even loved?) each other and were good companions. Porter’s early career wasn’t all that successful, but then he changed his tune:
By 1926, Cole Porter had already written several Broadway scores, “none of which had, well, scored,” poet and critic David Lehman points out. But one enchanted evening that year, while dining in Venice with Noel Coward, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Porter confided that he had finally figured out the secret to writing hits. “I’ll write Jewish tunes,” he said.
“Rodgers laughed at the time,” Lehman writes in his new book, A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs (Schocken/Nextbook), “but looking back he realized that Porter was serious and had been right.” The minor-key melodies of such famed Porter tunes as “Night and Day,” “Love for Sale” and “I Love Paris” are “unmistakably eastern Mediterranean,” Rodgers wrote in Musical Stages, his autobiography.
Interesting fact about both Berlin and Porter is that they wrote music AND lyrics. Interesting fact about Astaire and Rogers is that both were Republicans.
Berlin’s great contemporaries were of a single mind when it came to him and his songs. George Gershwin (1898-1937) called Berlin “the greatest American song composer, America’s Franz Schubert.” Cole Porter (1891-1964) took things a step further, calling Berlin “the greatest songwriter of all time.” Jerome Kern (1885-1945) was once asked to “place” Berlin within the larger panorama of American music. His response: “Irving Berlin has no ‘place’ in American music – Irving Berlin IS American music.”
Rogers used to keep fit by swimming in the large pool at “The Garden of Allah” off Sunset Blvd. and then would played tennis with director John Farrow (Mia’s father) at his apartment La Ronda(sp) (now called Mi Casa) a half block away.
Speaking of great Hollywood women, years ago I had never read or seen Camille by Dumas so I rented a DVD via Netflix. It had the silent film version starring Alla Nazimova and Valentino on one side and the Greta Garbo talkie version on the flip side. It’s the only Garbo I’ve seen but it’s a good one.
“Cole Porter was certainly a great songwriter, too, but not as prolific [as Berlin]”
That means Berlin was pretty damn prolific because Porter wrote quite a few memorable tunes. I’ve got an app “Itunes” that lists around 2000 songs commonly recorded by jazz musicians with the chord changes. If you sort on composer you get
Richard Rodgers – 41
Cole Porter – 33
Duke Ellington – 32
George Gershwin – 32
Irving Berlin – 27
This of course is not complete or definitive and does not necessarily contradict your statement about Berlin being so prolific. His songs may have been less likely to be covered by jazz musicians eg the list does not include what are probably his three most famous compositions, “God Bless America”, “White Christmas” and “Easter Parade”.
There’s also a fairly large list of film scores he did including Follow the Fleet.
expat:
Thanks, will do.
FOAF:
In one of the links I provided it said that Berlin wrote about 1500 songs. I read that Porter wrote about 800.
I was going to say that it’s a good thing that Berlin died before he could see Mel Brooks butcher his song “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in “Young Frankenstein.” But no, Berlin died in 1989 and the film came out in 1974.
In 1982, singer Taco released a synth-pop cover version of “Puttin’ On the Ritz” as a single from his album After Eight …
The single was a global hit, reaching No. 1 on Cash Box as well as No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making Irving Berlin, then 95, the oldest ever living songwriter to have one of his compositions enter the top ten.
“I read that Porter wrote about 800.”
What a slacker! Just teasing, I know you’re not trying to be dismissive of Porter. And I think I heard that previously too, that Berlin had written well over a thousand songs.
Hope springs eternal! That’s my reaction to this memory holed update about the Durham report or investigation or…rumor.
How come people on our side can never leak helpful information? Are there too few of us working for the federal government? Was Lucianne Goldberg and Monica’s Blue Dress too…mmm, 20th century ago?
Anyway, Sara Carter interviews Rep. Devin Nunes who will surprise everybody by saying “It’s not dead yet!” Meaning, Justice via the a certain DoJ investigation of Obamunists.
“Sara A. Carter
Nunes: John Durham report is coming, some people will go to prison
Jul 15, 2021
“Ranking member of the powerful House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes told me on The Sara Carter Show podcast that he still expects Justice Department Special Counsel John Durham to release a damaging report on the FBI’s debunked investigation into former President Donald Trump and Russia. He also expects it will lead to prison sentences for some former senior Obama officials.
“Nunes is one of the few members of the Republican Party that still believe justice will be served. He laid out his reasons on The Sara Carter Show and said he hasn’t given up faith in Durham’s investigation despite the enormous speculation that the Durham investigation will fail to deliver justice.” https://saraacarter.com/nunes-john-durham-report-is-coming-some-people-will-go-to-prison/
Sorry, off topic, but still music-related:
The Foo Fighters are doing a Bee Gees cover album calling themselves the Dee Gees (Dave Grohl) and titled “Hail Satin.” Dee Gees
Surprisingly good! Though nothing on the crazy awesome harmonies of the original.
TJ
Hope springs eternal
Box springs nocturnal – us
Hot springs infernal – where Obama-ites deserve to go
Astaire and Rogers, arguably, American art’s apogee.
Art + Deco,
“But the young Ginger – what astonishing beauty!”
“She seems normal range; she’s overly dolled-up.”
Thank you for the reminder; Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
TommyJay, Hubert:
Always a pleasure to meet other Orwell aficionados!
There’s an amusing scene from a “Jeeves & Wooster” episode in which Bertie is at the piano trying to puzzle out how to scan the words and the beat of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” from the sheet music. Only with Jeeves’ expert hints does Bertie succeed.
It is tricky. Looking up the song in wiki:
_____________________________________
According to Alec Wilder, in his study of American popular song, for him, the rhythmic pattern in “Puttin’ On the Ritz” is “the most complex and provocative I have ever come upon.”
Geoffrey Britain:
Art Deco has often opined on fashion and beauty on this blog, particularly on makeover threads. He has some very rigid and rather idiosyncratic ideas. I seem to recall that he detests makeup, for example. Thus the beauteous Ginger is too “dolled up.”
For those with waayy too much time. Puttin’ on the Ritz videos.
The original “Taco” (disco?) hit performed in Germany (1983). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OUnedMCCW0
It seems a little too tepid, though there are number of unusual bits to it.
Art Deco was particularly emphatic about a red-haired make over, a “ginger” IIRC. I don’t know if Ginger Rogers was a ginger.
neo:
Well I checked the weird woke web and learned that Ginger Rogers’ natural hair color was auburn, but she dyed it blonde for almost all her screen career. So that’s the root of Art’s ire, ginger animus?
Art’s ire, ginger animus?
No, I quite like red hair.
He has some very rigid and rather idiosyncratic ideas. I seem to recall that he detests makeup, for example
No, I just don’t care for it. Wash your face, hide some blemishes with Clearasil, put medicated cream on others per your doctor’s instruction, and get rid of little hairs on your chin; otherwise leave your skin alone. Hair should be clean, cut, brushed, and comb – not colored, teased, curled, or treated as sculpture. Bands, ribbons, and barettes can hold it in place if that’s what you prefer; hairspray is wretched.
Rogers was a professional, so she had to sit for stage makeup (to compensate for the effect of the lighting). She also had to groom herself and be groomed in accordance with the studio’s marketing program. I’m objecting to the marketing, though, looking at pix of her from her retirement, I don’t think she personally had the best taste.
Orwell was wrong about so much, but one cannot help respecting him for his honesty and internal-consistency.
Was written off by all the Respectable People after he returned from Spain and spilled the beans on the wholesale slaughter of the POUM by their supposed Communist allies.
Anthony Powell wrote *the* great Roman a Clef of C20 British social history: “A Dance to the Music of Time”. He caricatures Orwell very neatly whilst playing around with a few background details. Not a homo like T E Lawrence, but had that post-boarding school perverted fixation on self-inflicted grime, degradation, discomfort, and general squalor. The Malaise Anglaise is not just all about wanting to be flogged and sodomised, apparently.
I like his essays from Burma about shooting an elephant and hanging some criminal… He has the whole fashionable hatred of colonialism thing down pat, but isn’t afraid to be honest and admit that he finds the Burmese pretty awful people in and of themselves — a fact universally acknowledged by any Thai you would happen to meet at any time for the last 500 years.
J D Vance — We’re going to be seeing and hearing more of him whether we like him or not. I think he’s likely a grifting sellout, but I’ve been wrong before.
“It is tempting to judge a man by his enemies, especially if his enemies are the sorts of people who should be the enemy of the decent. Logic seems to dictate that if the worst people are opposed to someone or some idea, then there must be some merit to that person or idea. The worst people operate exclusively from self-interest. What is good for the worst is probably not good for the rest, so therefore what is bad for the worst must be good for the rest, if only that it diminishes the worst.
The great lesson of the George W. Bush years is that the worst people can hate someone who deserves to be hated. Every far-left crank in America was howling in agony about the Bush administration. Their complaints were every bit as insane as the people making them, so decent people just assumed Bush was a good guy. It turns out that sometimes the enemy of your enemy is just another enemy. Bush, of course, was a disaster, the worst President in American history.
That is something to keep in mind now that J. D. Vance has decided to run for office in his former home state of Ohio. Vance was always something of a curiosity, having gone from humble beginnings to the managerial elite, but seeming to maintain a connection with his roots in the lower class. His book Hillbilly Elegy was a hit among the chattering classes, always looking for some authenticity. It was also popular with normal people who found it and Vance to be genuine and thoughtful.”
Z Man reserves judgement on Vance’s motivations but points out that at present he’s useful for moving along the cause of Flyover White Awakening, so bully for him.
I’m on a Machiavellian pragmatism bent at the moment, so I guess so. For now.
I have not watched this debate, but it came up as a suggestion just as I was closing out some news on YouTube.
A fair warning up front to those with whom I have exchanged on the so-called oral Torah – and the Irish laws as well, on a jurisprudence principle they both seem to share, but on an issue different from this particular one of origins – that this is a debate including a messianic Jew, who based on past comments, some of you would rule out of court immediately as incompetent in doctrine to participate or be heard with regard to such a matter..
But, brand new and for those few who might be interested.
I got through the first volume of “Dance to the Music of Time,” but the repeated, strained jokes about “Widmerpool’s coat” did me in. Not my world. Not my monkeys. I couldn’t read half the social signals of the Eton set.
However, I knew people who swore by the series, so I held the door open that someday, somehow I’d get through it.
Happily, Britain’s Channel 4 did a bang-up job filming a 4-DVD version, which was much more get-throughable.
I didn’t realize that character who fought in the Spanish Civil War was based on Orwell.
I detect a certain tendency in these parts to cling most grimly to the bark of Rationality — especially where mass movements and mass psychosis are concerned. No prizes for my guessing why this is understandably so.
Still, the World as it Is rather than as we might wish it to be is the world we have to live in and survive in.
Not going to excerpt from the post I’ve linked, but suggest that readers of this blog might find some benefit by adding this writer to their blog roll — he posts maybe once or twice per fortnight and is always very considered in his writings. Even better, he’s a Class Traitor. Made his money in M&A and then bailed to become a farmer.
Saw the comments about Puttin’ on the Ritz and managed to dredge up a memory of a CD from the CD Era.
Took out the best of a generation of the English upper classes worth keeping.
In re to the American military at a later date, about half of those who served were under the age of 28 at the end of the war. Britain suffered 895,000 war dead. Posit half were born after 1890, or 448,000 deaths. I may be mistaken, but I believe the mean number of live births in Britain during the period running from 1891-2000 was around 780,000 or 390,000 males or 3.5 million males from point-to-point. If 450,000 males from these cohorts were killed during the war, that would amount to 13% of the male population of that vintage. Posit 8.5 million born during the years running from 1872 to 1891; 450,000 males account for just over 5% of the total from those cohorts. I bet a lot of British aristocrats survivied the war.
@Art+Deco:
All I can say is that it’s a very good thing that you have not devoted your considerable table-munging talents to the field of Holocaust Denial.
Suggest you give Powell’s “Dance” another try. The 1997 TV adaptation was OK but not as good as the books. The novels aren’t long–about 230-250 pages apiece–and they move along quickly once you get into the groove. It’s like a soap opera. You can also read them separately. My favorites are “The Kindly Ones” (the late 1930s and Munich), “The Military Philosophers” (based on Powell’s service as a liaison officer in WWII), and “Temporary Kings” (the subsidized postwar cultural scene–see Philip Larkin’s poem “Naturally the Foundation Will Bear Your Expenses”).
You might also try Powell’s early short novel “Venusberg” (1932). Set in one of the Baltic countries (almost certainly Estonia) during the interwar period, it foreshadows the style and themes of “Dance”.
Zaphod,
Love the crowd study material at worthyhouse. Feedback loops, yes.
I had not heard of the Abilene paradox, but had almost that exact experience in grad school. A medium sized group of students were going out to dinner.
We had all quickly reached a sensible consensus of destination before piling into a large vehicle. None of the distances were large nor any choices bad. But half way to the destination, a lady had a change of heart and some slender reed of an excuse as to why we had to turn around and go somewhere entirely different. Needless to say, everyone else was overly polite.
_____
That’s a nice jazzy version of Puttin’ on the Ritz. It sticks with the Berlin sequence. The Taco version changes things around considerably. Probably because he wishes to accentuate the oddity of his version, Taco begins with the syncopated 5/4 timed passages, rather than the straight forward opening measures in Berlin’s version.
Re: Dance to the Music of Time…
Hubert:
Still, a twelve-volume series is twelve volumes. I may be satisfied with the video series.
I once read a nice interview with the author, Anthony Powell. He was an unassuming sort. He freely admitted the books were loosely based upon his life and the people he knew because he lacked the ability to create fiction from whole cloth.
When I was younger, I believed writers and artists decided with the premeditation of a murderer what they wanted to create, then cold-bloodedly set about doing so. I was constantly wondering, “But why did you choose to create *that*?”
Much later, and with the experience of attempting to create for myself, I understood the voyage. You may set out with a destination, but what happens thereafter depends on your circumstances, chance, and the shape of your gifts.
Journalists used to ask Stephen King why he would bother writing horror. His response: “What makes you think I have a choice?”
I think it’s like that.
IIRC, Astaire once said that his favorite dance partner was Cyd Charisse. I’ve never understood the attraction of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It is probably because they made the most movies together so it was in people’s minds.
Yes, Astaire was a fantastic and innovative dancer. But everything about him always struck me as gay–his voice, his mannerisms, his looks–he had “gay face.” I could never visualize any woman–especially an attractive woman–having any interest in him. As they say, “only in the movies.”
@brio:
Could have been worse. Could have been a Soy Face with the Glory Hole Selfie Grin. But then he wasn’t a Modern Progressive Male.
Brio:
No, it’s not because Ginger danced with him the most. I’ve seen many of Astaire’s films where he dances with other partners, and to me Rogers is head and shoulders above all the others. She has an easy style that is relaxed and charming, and she is always acting out the role as she dances.
Astaire exemplified the idea of suavity in his times. He was never known for handsomeness or macho-ness and wasn’t trying for it, but he was definitely heterosexual, and attracted attractive women not only “in the movies” but in life. His first wife, Phyllis, was definitely attractive, and then there was his second wife:
Off-screen, Astaire was more casual than his upper-crust characters. He was devoted to his family. Astaire and his first wife, socialite Phyllis Baker Potter, married in 1933 and had two children together, Fred Jr. and Ava. He also helped raise her son from an earlier union. Fred and Phyllis remained a couple until her death in 1954.
Astaire shocked friends and family when he remarried in 1980. His second wife was Robyn Smith, a famous jockey. Despite a more than 40-year age difference, the pair’s mutual interest in horses and racing turned into romance. After his death in 1987, his widow has been a fierce protector of his name and image.
And by the way, if you try to find out who Astaire said was his favorite partner, he gave different answers at different times.
It was Katharine Hepburn who made the famous comment about Astaire and Rogers: “Fred gave Ginger class and Ginger gave Fred sex.” She wasn’t insinuating that they slept together; she was talking about their acting and dance partnership, and I believe she was correct.
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Ginger’s dress is in the Smithsonian. It was very heavily beaded so it would swirl as she danced and I have read that it hit Fred several times.
While Fred was wonderfully lithe and amazingly graceful, nobody would argue he was a particularly handsome fellow. But the young Ginger – what astonishing beauty! Those expressive features and the stunning, slender figure. Wow. I do not go out on a limb in saying the likes of this couple’s marvelous dancing will not be seen again.
But the young Ginger – what astonishing beauty!
She seems normal range; she’s overly dolled-up.
Tops in the era IMO were Katherine Hepburn and Jeanette MacDonald when the camera got them at the right angle. I don’t think Hollywood was striving to put intensely beautiful women on the screen in 1935 (or they had a different understanding of what that was than we might today). Easy on the eyes does quite nicely in most any circumstance.
I have read that it hit Fred several times.
——–
Fred got nailed right in the face early in the routine. Obviously, it didn’t keep him from completing it, but they did a couple of more takes to see if they could get one in the can without Fred being hit. They did, but you can see him very visibly flinch when the sleeve whizzes by his face. So they shrugged and went with the take where he gets hit. It goes by so fast that you don’t notice it unless you’re looking, and it was the best take overall.
Since it is an open thread:
Something from Victor Davis Hanson on the Orange Man Bad and 2022:
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13657&omhide=true
Some will gladly acknowledge the concerns voiced by VDH are valid (Bauxite). Pearls will be clutched, I’m sure.
I keep thinking every time you post one of these FA/GR clips I keep thinking how it reflects on the current culture. How many Millennials, GenZ, GenX ers even know who they are, let alone appreciate their art? Without a knowledge of the best of past generations there’s no grounding in a common society. Just another indication of how we are falling apart.
Tucker touched on the election auditing in GA last night.
Epoch Times
Analysis of Ballot Images in Georgia County Shows ‘Provable Fraud’ in Audit: Election Integrity Group
Fred and Ginger were sophisticated examples of heterosexuality, and the the music was written by a homosexual (I think it’s Porter). And It makes me feel good when I watch.
The sin of nearly all left-wingers from 1933 onward is that they have wanted to be anti-Fascist without being anti-totalitarian.
–George Orwell, “Arthur Koestler”
https://orwell.ru/library/reviews/koestler/english/e_ak
_________________________________________________________
Still true. You can write that sucker in stone.
As a bank shot off a discussion with Zaphod, I’ve been reading Orwell again. I’ve got the big thick “Everyman’s Edition” volume of Orwell’s essays. He wrote a ton of them. When I’m in the mood to level-up my reading, I pull it off the shelf, pick a title that looks interesting and dig in.
I’m never disappointed. Though his material is necessarily dated, humanity, sadly, hasn’t moved much beyond the issues Orwell describes. Then there’s his clarity at all levels.
You can find a good selection of Orwell’s more famous essays online:
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/
physicsguy,
I used to appreciate some of my father’s Benny Goodman songs, though I don’t believe I ever played them on my own initiative.
I have no idea what the statistics are, but I’m always surprised when I hear or see some millennial engaging in some element of 60’s through 80’s culture. A couple weeks ago a millennial guy was bicycling up the hill in my neighborhood while playing some moderately loud rock and roll. I instantly recognized it as a great 70’s classic, though now I can’t recall the song.
I wonder if the modern artistic scene is so bereft of real artistry (& the emotion that goes with it?) that the young’uns are actively seeking out something better. Might be fanciful thinking on my part.
TommyJay:
I couldn’t give you any statistics either, but when I read the comments to Rick Beato or Oldies youtubes, I often encounter comments to the effect, “This song was made before I was born and I love it — much more than today’s music.”
Except for some long-arc television shows just about all art, music and writing today is at low ebb. It’s hard for me not to connect that to a larger cultural decline.
“She seems normal range”
I bet AD is a real looker!
Talking about Hollywood beauties of the 30’s, I vote for Hedy Lemarr.
om,
Check out Victor Hanson.com. It has all his columns and podcasts. I particularly like the podcasts with Jack Fowler.
OMT: Can you all imagine Ginger and other beauties of her time sitting in nursiing homes with wrinkled tats and nose pierces? Someone should tell the younguns that they will need Nancy Pelosi levels of Botox when the get older.
Love the Orwell website huxley. I read “Can Socialists Be Happy?”
If I were in charge, Orwell’s “Notes on Nationalism” and “Politics and the English Language” would be required reading in junior high, high school, college, grad school, and periodically thereafter. When renewing your driver’s license, for example.
James Zyla:
Music by Irving Berlin, not Cole Porter:
Berlin lived to be 101, was married for over 60 years, and had four children.
Cole Porter was certainly a great songwriter, too, but not as prolific. Porter was gay but married to a woman, partly for cover but partly because they really liked (perhaps even loved?) each other and were good companions. Porter’s early career wasn’t all that successful, but then he changed his tune:
Interesting fact about both Berlin and Porter is that they wrote music AND lyrics. Interesting fact about Astaire and Rogers is that both were Republicans.
More about Berlin and Porter:
Rogers used to keep fit by swimming in the large pool at “The Garden of Allah” off Sunset Blvd. and then would played tennis with director John Farrow (Mia’s father) at his apartment La Ronda(sp) (now called Mi Casa) a half block away.
Speaking of great Hollywood women, years ago I had never read or seen Camille by Dumas so I rented a DVD via Netflix. It had the silent film version starring Alla Nazimova and Valentino on one side and the Greta Garbo talkie version on the flip side. It’s the only Garbo I’ve seen but it’s a good one.
“Cole Porter was certainly a great songwriter, too, but not as prolific [as Berlin]”
That means Berlin was pretty damn prolific because Porter wrote quite a few memorable tunes. I’ve got an app “Itunes” that lists around 2000 songs commonly recorded by jazz musicians with the chord changes. If you sort on composer you get
Richard Rodgers – 41
Cole Porter – 33
Duke Ellington – 32
George Gershwin – 32
Irving Berlin – 27
This of course is not complete or definitive and does not necessarily contradict your statement about Berlin being so prolific. His songs may have been less likely to be covered by jazz musicians eg the list does not include what are probably his three most famous compositions, “God Bless America”, “White Christmas” and “Easter Parade”.
Here is an Irving Berlin song list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_written_by_Irving_Berlin
There’s also a fairly large list of film scores he did including Follow the Fleet.
expat:
Thanks, will do.
FOAF:
In one of the links I provided it said that Berlin wrote about 1500 songs. I read that Porter wrote about 800.
I was going to say that it’s a good thing that Berlin died before he could see Mel Brooks butcher his song “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in “Young Frankenstein.” But no, Berlin died in 1989 and the film came out in 1974.
In 1982, singer Taco released a synth-pop cover version of “Puttin’ On the Ritz” as a single from his album After Eight …
The single was a global hit, reaching No. 1 on Cash Box as well as No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making Irving Berlin, then 95, the oldest ever living songwriter to have one of his compositions enter the top ten.
“I read that Porter wrote about 800.”
What a slacker! Just teasing, I know you’re not trying to be dismissive of Porter. And I think I heard that previously too, that Berlin had written well over a thousand songs.
Hope springs eternal! That’s my reaction to this memory holed update about the Durham report or investigation or…rumor.
How come people on our side can never leak helpful information? Are there too few of us working for the federal government? Was Lucianne Goldberg and Monica’s Blue Dress too…mmm, 20th century ago?
Anyway, Sara Carter interviews Rep. Devin Nunes who will surprise everybody by saying “It’s not dead yet!” Meaning, Justice via the a certain DoJ investigation of Obamunists.
“Sara A. Carter
Nunes: John Durham report is coming, some people will go to prison
Jul 15, 2021
“Ranking member of the powerful House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes told me on The Sara Carter Show podcast that he still expects Justice Department Special Counsel John Durham to release a damaging report on the FBI’s debunked investigation into former President Donald Trump and Russia. He also expects it will lead to prison sentences for some former senior Obama officials.
“Nunes is one of the few members of the Republican Party that still believe justice will be served. He laid out his reasons on The Sara Carter Show and said he hasn’t given up faith in Durham’s investigation despite the enormous speculation that the Durham investigation will fail to deliver justice.”
https://saraacarter.com/nunes-john-durham-report-is-coming-some-people-will-go-to-prison/
Sorry, off topic, but still music-related:
The Foo Fighters are doing a Bee Gees cover album calling themselves the Dee Gees (Dave Grohl) and titled “Hail Satin.”
Dee Gees
Surprisingly good! Though nothing on the crazy awesome harmonies of the original.
TJ
Hope springs eternal
Box springs nocturnal – us
Hot springs infernal – where Obama-ites deserve to go
Astaire and Rogers, arguably, American art’s apogee.
Art + Deco,
“But the young Ginger – what astonishing beauty!”
“She seems normal range; she’s overly dolled-up.”
Thank you for the reminder; Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
TommyJay, Hubert:
Always a pleasure to meet other Orwell aficionados!
There’s an amusing scene from a “Jeeves & Wooster” episode in which Bertie is at the piano trying to puzzle out how to scan the words and the beat of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” from the sheet music. Only with Jeeves’ expert hints does Bertie succeed.
It is tricky. Looking up the song in wiki:
_____________________________________
According to Alec Wilder, in his study of American popular song, for him, the rhythmic pattern in “Puttin’ On the Ritz” is “the most complex and provocative I have ever come upon.”
Geoffrey Britain:
Art Deco has often opined on fashion and beauty on this blog, particularly on makeover threads. He has some very rigid and rather idiosyncratic ideas. I seem to recall that he detests makeup, for example. Thus the beauteous Ginger is too “dolled up.”
For those with waayy too much time. Puttin’ on the Ritz videos.
The original “Taco” (disco?) hit performed in Germany (1983).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OUnedMCCW0
It seems a little too tepid, though there are number of unusual bits to it.
A throwback to a throwback: Taco reprising his ’80’s hit in 2009 Russia,
to adoring fans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1AizDwkl0Q
My favorite.
huxley’s favorite. Jeeves and Wooster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LObPaCloY8E
neo:
Art Deco was particularly emphatic about a red-haired make over, a “ginger” IIRC. I don’t know if Ginger Rogers was a ginger.
neo:
Well I checked the weird woke web and learned that Ginger Rogers’ natural hair color was auburn, but she dyed it blonde for almost all her screen career. So that’s the root of Art’s ire, ginger animus?
Art’s ire, ginger animus?
No, I quite like red hair.
He has some very rigid and rather idiosyncratic ideas. I seem to recall that he detests makeup, for example
No, I just don’t care for it. Wash your face, hide some blemishes with Clearasil, put medicated cream on others per your doctor’s instruction, and get rid of little hairs on your chin; otherwise leave your skin alone. Hair should be clean, cut, brushed, and comb – not colored, teased, curled, or treated as sculpture. Bands, ribbons, and barettes can hold it in place if that’s what you prefer; hairspray is wretched.
Rogers was a professional, so she had to sit for stage makeup (to compensate for the effect of the lighting). She also had to groom herself and be groomed in accordance with the studio’s marketing program. I’m objecting to the marketing, though, looking at pix of her from her retirement, I don’t think she personally had the best taste.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MKhBnA0UZjQ/hqdefault.jpg
@Huxley:
Orwell was wrong about so much, but one cannot help respecting him for his honesty and internal-consistency.
Was written off by all the Respectable People after he returned from Spain and spilled the beans on the wholesale slaughter of the POUM by their supposed Communist allies.
Anthony Powell wrote *the* great Roman a Clef of C20 British social history: “A Dance to the Music of Time”. He caricatures Orwell very neatly whilst playing around with a few background details. Not a homo like T E Lawrence, but had that post-boarding school perverted fixation on self-inflicted grime, degradation, discomfort, and general squalor. The Malaise Anglaise is not just all about wanting to be flogged and sodomised, apparently.
I like his essays from Burma about shooting an elephant and hanging some criminal… He has the whole fashionable hatred of colonialism thing down pat, but isn’t afraid to be honest and admit that he finds the Burmese pretty awful people in and of themselves — a fact universally acknowledged by any Thai you would happen to meet at any time for the last 500 years.
J D Vance — We’re going to be seeing and hearing more of him whether we like him or not. I think he’s likely a grifting sellout, but I’ve been wrong before.
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=24385
“It is tempting to judge a man by his enemies, especially if his enemies are the sorts of people who should be the enemy of the decent. Logic seems to dictate that if the worst people are opposed to someone or some idea, then there must be some merit to that person or idea. The worst people operate exclusively from self-interest. What is good for the worst is probably not good for the rest, so therefore what is bad for the worst must be good for the rest, if only that it diminishes the worst.
The great lesson of the George W. Bush years is that the worst people can hate someone who deserves to be hated. Every far-left crank in America was howling in agony about the Bush administration. Their complaints were every bit as insane as the people making them, so decent people just assumed Bush was a good guy. It turns out that sometimes the enemy of your enemy is just another enemy. Bush, of course, was a disaster, the worst President in American history.
That is something to keep in mind now that J. D. Vance has decided to run for office in his former home state of Ohio. Vance was always something of a curiosity, having gone from humble beginnings to the managerial elite, but seeming to maintain a connection with his roots in the lower class. His book Hillbilly Elegy was a hit among the chattering classes, always looking for some authenticity. It was also popular with normal people who found it and Vance to be genuine and thoughtful.”
Z Man reserves judgement on Vance’s motivations but points out that at present he’s useful for moving along the cause of Flyover White Awakening, so bully for him.
I’m on a Machiavellian pragmatism bent at the moment, so I guess so. For now.
I have not watched this debate, but it came up as a suggestion just as I was closing out some news on YouTube.
A fair warning up front to those with whom I have exchanged on the so-called oral Torah – and the Irish laws as well, on a jurisprudence principle they both seem to share, but on an issue different from this particular one of origins – that this is a debate including a messianic Jew, who based on past comments, some of you would rule out of court immediately as incompetent in doctrine to participate or be heard with regard to such a matter..
But, brand new and for those few who might be interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj4POLkTqJY
@DNW:
You Very Bad Man 🙂
Here is your Penance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPx-NaKenAw
Zaphod:
I got through the first volume of “Dance to the Music of Time,” but the repeated, strained jokes about “Widmerpool’s coat” did me in. Not my world. Not my monkeys. I couldn’t read half the social signals of the Eton set.
However, I knew people who swore by the series, so I held the door open that someday, somehow I’d get through it.
Happily, Britain’s Channel 4 did a bang-up job filming a 4-DVD version, which was much more get-throughable.
I didn’t realize that character who fought in the Spanish Civil War was based on Orwell.
Yo, CivNats:
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/surgeon-general-demands-social-networks-crack-down-covid-misinformation
Meet your new Surgeon General. And boy has he got a PROPOSITION for you.
And no, there’s not even one Wet Sari Scene in the whole damn thing.
@Huxley:
WWI was a tragedy. Took out the best of a generation of the English upper classes worth keeping. Powell’s magnum opus is a dissection of the ashes.
I find the English fascinating for all the wrong reasons. In many ways I’m more of a somewhat begrudging Philosemite than an Anglophile.
Long read, but a good one:
https://theworthyhouse.com/2021/07/15/the-crowd-a-study-of-the-popular-mind-gustave-le-bon/
I detect a certain tendency in these parts to cling most grimly to the bark of Rationality — especially where mass movements and mass psychosis are concerned. No prizes for my guessing why this is understandably so.
Still, the World as it Is rather than as we might wish it to be is the world we have to live in and survive in.
Not going to excerpt from the post I’ve linked, but suggest that readers of this blog might find some benefit by adding this writer to their blog roll — he posts maybe once or twice per fortnight and is always very considered in his writings. Even better, he’s a Class Traitor. Made his money in M&A and then bailed to become a farmer.
Saw the comments about Puttin’ on the Ritz and managed to dredge up a memory of a CD from the CD Era.
Lincoln Mayorga and Margie Gibson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQE-zWH6q9g
No Jeeves input necessary.
There’s that Lincoln again, too 🙂
Took out the best of a generation of the English upper classes worth keeping.
In re to the American military at a later date, about half of those who served were under the age of 28 at the end of the war. Britain suffered 895,000 war dead. Posit half were born after 1890, or 448,000 deaths. I may be mistaken, but I believe the mean number of live births in Britain during the period running from 1891-2000 was around 780,000 or 390,000 males or 3.5 million males from point-to-point. If 450,000 males from these cohorts were killed during the war, that would amount to 13% of the male population of that vintage. Posit 8.5 million born during the years running from 1872 to 1891; 450,000 males account for just over 5% of the total from those cohorts. I bet a lot of British aristocrats survivied the war.
@Art+Deco:
All I can say is that it’s a very good thing that you have not devoted your considerable table-munging talents to the field of Holocaust Denial.
This guy is a bit rude. But he’s right:
https://youtu.be/tNmx2Kj628M
The Abilene Paradox. There’s such a thing as Too Much Politeness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox
Huxley,
Suggest you give Powell’s “Dance” another try. The 1997 TV adaptation was OK but not as good as the books. The novels aren’t long–about 230-250 pages apiece–and they move along quickly once you get into the groove. It’s like a soap opera. You can also read them separately. My favorites are “The Kindly Ones” (the late 1930s and Munich), “The Military Philosophers” (based on Powell’s service as a liaison officer in WWII), and “Temporary Kings” (the subsidized postwar cultural scene–see Philip Larkin’s poem “Naturally the Foundation Will Bear Your Expenses”).
You might also try Powell’s early short novel “Venusberg” (1932). Set in one of the Baltic countries (almost certainly Estonia) during the interwar period, it foreshadows the style and themes of “Dance”.
Zaphod,
Love the crowd study material at worthyhouse. Feedback loops, yes.
I had not heard of the Abilene paradox, but had almost that exact experience in grad school. A medium sized group of students were going out to dinner.
We had all quickly reached a sensible consensus of destination before piling into a large vehicle. None of the distances were large nor any choices bad. But half way to the destination, a lady had a change of heart and some slender reed of an excuse as to why we had to turn around and go somewhere entirely different. Needless to say, everyone else was overly polite.
_____
That’s a nice jazzy version of Puttin’ on the Ritz. It sticks with the Berlin sequence. The Taco version changes things around considerably. Probably because he wishes to accentuate the oddity of his version, Taco begins with the syncopated 5/4 timed passages, rather than the straight forward opening measures in Berlin’s version.
Re: Dance to the Music of Time…
Hubert:
Still, a twelve-volume series is twelve volumes. I may be satisfied with the video series.
I once read a nice interview with the author, Anthony Powell. He was an unassuming sort. He freely admitted the books were loosely based upon his life and the people he knew because he lacked the ability to create fiction from whole cloth.
When I was younger, I believed writers and artists decided with the premeditation of a murderer what they wanted to create, then cold-bloodedly set about doing so. I was constantly wondering, “But why did you choose to create *that*?”
Much later, and with the experience of attempting to create for myself, I understood the voyage. You may set out with a destination, but what happens thereafter depends on your circumstances, chance, and the shape of your gifts.
Journalists used to ask Stephen King why he would bother writing horror. His response: “What makes you think I have a choice?”
I think it’s like that.
IIRC, Astaire once said that his favorite dance partner was Cyd Charisse. I’ve never understood the attraction of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It is probably because they made the most movies together so it was in people’s minds.
Yes, Astaire was a fantastic and innovative dancer. But everything about him always struck me as gay–his voice, his mannerisms, his looks–he had “gay face.” I could never visualize any woman–especially an attractive woman–having any interest in him. As they say, “only in the movies.”
@brio:
Could have been worse. Could have been a Soy Face with the Glory Hole Selfie Grin. But then he wasn’t a Modern Progressive Male.
Brio:
No, it’s not because Ginger danced with him the most. I’ve seen many of Astaire’s films where he dances with other partners, and to me Rogers is head and shoulders above all the others. She has an easy style that is relaxed and charming, and she is always acting out the role as she dances.
Astaire exemplified the idea of suavity in his times. He was never known for handsomeness or macho-ness and wasn’t trying for it, but he was definitely heterosexual, and attracted attractive women not only “in the movies” but in life. His first wife, Phyllis, was definitely attractive, and then there was his second wife:
Here’s a photo of Robyn Smith. He was 81 and she was 35 when they married.
And by the way, if you try to find out who Astaire said was his favorite partner, he gave different answers at different times.
It was Katharine Hepburn who made the famous comment about Astaire and Rogers: “Fred gave Ginger class and Ginger gave Fred sex.” She wasn’t insinuating that they slept together; she was talking about their acting and dance partnership, and I believe she was correct.