Author Topic: The first day of 2009, and it's the last 6 days before 'Little Christmas'--  (Read 19555 times)

Offline Berit

  • Brokeback Got Me Good
  • *****
  • Posts: 843
T've always wanted to see New York in the fall but now I also want to see New York at Christmastime......Well, I want to see New York before I die and by God, I will do that...... >:( :o 8) :) :) :)

Thank you so much for these betiful pictures! :-*

Berit
Ennis.....always Ennis.....

Offline Monika

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 6,587
  • We are all the same. Women, men, gay, straight
T've always wanted to see New York in the fall but now I also want to see New York at Christmastime......Well, I want to see New York before I die and by God, I will do that...... >:( :o 8) :) :) :)

I´m sure you will, Berit!


Love these pictures too, JG!

Offline Penthesilea

  • Town Administration
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 14,745
Thanks for more pics, John :).
Loved the contrast between the Rockefeller tree and the beggarly one :laugh:.


And I saw my sculpture, Prometheus! :D
Oviously, it's not mine - but I view it as "mine". Although the tree and the ice skating rink are well-known to me, I hadn't heard of the statue in the forty years of my life, until Chuckie sent me a postcard with it. A few weeks later, I saw it/read about it again on BetterMost. We talked about it on Chuckie's blog.

I added Prometheus to my "must see" places of NYC (whenever I will get to see it).

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011

Thanks for more pics, John :).
Loved the contrast between the Rockefeller tree and the beggarly one :laugh:.


And I saw my sculpture, Prometheus! :D
Oviously, it's not mine - but I view it as "mine". Although the tree and the ice skating rink are well-known to me, I hadn't heard of the statue in the forty years of my life, until Chuckie sent me a postcard with it. A few weeks later, I saw it/read about it again on BetterMost. We talked about it on Chuckie's blog.

I added Prometheus to my "must see" places of NYC (whenever I will get to see it).


 :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Chrissie, I hope you see it soon!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manship

Paul Manship
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Paul Howard Manship (December 24, 1885 – January 28, 1966) was a prominent American sculptor of the 20th century.

(....)

When he returned to America from his European sojourn, Manship found that his style was attractive to both modernists and conservatives. His simplification of line and detail appealed to those who wished to move beyond the Beaux-Arts classical realism prevalent in the day. Also, his view of and use of a more traditional "beauty" as well as an avoidance of the more radical and abstract trends in art made his works attractive to more conservative art collectors. Manship's work is often considered to be a major precursor to Art Deco.






http://www.artsjournal.com/man/archives20061001.shtml

Influenced by the Widener family (whose Old Masters, European decorative arts, and so on fill the National Gallery), John D. Rockefeller, Jr. hired John Singer Sargent to paint his father's portrait. The two men got along better than anyone expected, and when Sargent suggested that Rockefeller sit for a bust by a sculptor named Paul Manship, Rockefeller assented.

Manship had a pedigree that Rockefeller was likely to appreciate. He had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Art Students League and he learned to infuse his work with classical references after he won the coveted Prix de Rome. In between-the-wars America, Manship's mixture of allegory, neo-classicism and softened modern lines was mighty popular: It tied America's new wealth and broadened ambition, as demonstrated on an international scale by America's involvement in World War I, with past empires. The two busts Manship made of Rockefeller were a great hit and a relationship between sculptor and patrons was forged.

A decade later, in the middle of the Great Depression, Junior would build Rockefeller Center. The project was, from beginning to end, a great challenge. Junior started the project just before the stock market crashed in 1929, and no one expected it to succeed. After all, who needed millions of new square feet of office space at a time of economic catastrophe?

But, obviously, Junior pushed forward. He even stuffed Rockefeller Center with art, including work by Isamu Noguchi, Margaret Bourke-White, and Lee Lawrie. The most famous work at Rock Center was created by an artist with whom Junior had a prior relationship: Paul Manship.

Manship's Prometheus is one of the most famous sculptures in America. It presents Prometheus in the heavens, just after he has acquired fire. He has not yet brought it back to earth. He hovers above the signs of the zodiac, more floating with the gods than falling back to earth. The sculpture is a faithful, selective representation of the Prometheus myth: Prometheus created man out of clay figures that came to life when Athena breathed life into them. Later on, Prometheus nobly stole fire from the hearth of the gods and brought it down to man, only to be punished by Zeus, who sent an eagle peck at his liver for eternity.

Manship's sculpture, installed near the base of Rock Center's tallest building, is an allegorical glorification of Junior and the Rockefeller Center story. Rockefeller created a major urban development at a time of national crisis; He breathed fire into the city. And because of the aggressive way Rockefeller pursued tenants and other business dealings perceived to be monopolistic, he was excoriated by the press and the public. Manship had known the Rockefellers for years -- he knew how mixing the Prometheus myth with the Rockefeller story would appeal to his patrons. The result is a sculpture that stands in for the story of the Rockefellers, their development, and America, all joined by Manship's aesthetic. Seventy years later, it still works.
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline belbbmfan

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,354
  • A love that will never grow old
Gosh, Fabienne--do you think I can get a job doing this?

(I want to be Jimmy Olsen!   :laugh:)

Dank u Merci!

You're doing a great job already John.  :) The New York tourist authority should hire you.  :)

*googles 'Jimmy Olson'*

Sorry, the name Jimmy Olson didn't ring any bells. Mmmm, you have a thing for bow ties?  ;)

'We're supposed to guard the sheep, not eat 'em'

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011

You're doing a great job already John.  :) The New York tourist authority should hire you.  :)

*googles 'Jimmy Olson'*

Sorry, the name Jimmy Olson didn't ring any bells. Mmmm, you have a thing for bow ties?  ;)

Ha!

Jimmy Olsen was the 'cub' photographer at the Daily Planet newspaper (simulacra of New York's Daily News? ), the employee of editor (and nemisis) Perry White, and the colleague of reporters Lois Lane and Clark Kent (Superman). Something of a pest, he ran around New York taking pictures and getting in trouble before Superman repeatedly rescued him (with some fond exasperation).






C'est moi, no? (Or wanna be!)

 ;D
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011

It's the end of Twelfth Night (January 6), so--

Here's a little bit of it.

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
O Mistress Mine (Feste's Song)
Sir Ben Kingsley
                                                        (3:56)
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8kA2zx8isk[/youtube]



Twelfth Night: Or What You Will (1996)
Characters in Order of First Lines and Appearance (Actor)

Feste (Ben Kingsley), singing
Sir Toby Belch (Mel Smith)
Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Richard E. Grant)
Maria (Imelda Staunton)
Olivia (Helena Bonham Carter), waking
Duke Orsino (Toby Stevens)
Viola (Imogen Stubbs), disguised as Cesario


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117991/
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Ellemeno

  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • ********
  • Posts: 15,367
"My" Jimmy Olsen, Jack Larson, from the Superman TV show of my childhood:



My favorite Imelda Staunton role, in Peter's Friends (I love that movie):



My favorite Richard E. Grant role, in The Player (I love that movie too):


Offline Ellemeno

  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • ********
  • Posts: 15,367


And I saw my sculpture, Prometheus! :D




And with my cluelessly luxuriant childhood (cultural-wise), I have always known the statue, but don't remember ever paying attention to the fact that it was of Prometheus.  I'm going to read the Wikipedia posting of it, to see who was hubris-ish enough to see themselves as so Prometheus-like as to warrant a statue.  When I think of that area, I mostly think of the Librairie de France, one of my meccas through the decades.

Offline Ellemeno

  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • ********
  • Posts: 15,367
And John, you would make a marvelous Jimmy Olsen.  But you would make a marvelous great many people.  You could be a whole Algonquin Round Table:-*


The Algonquin Round Table in caricature by Al Hirschfeld.
Seated at the table, clockwise from left: Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Heywood Broun, Marc Connelly, Franklin P. Adams, Edna Ferber, George S. Kaufman, Robert Sherwood.
In back from left to right: frequent Algonquin guests Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield and Frank Case.