#casey lorne
The Ghost Town of Gilman by Brian Cattelle, from the Bare USA series, “a study of natural beauty in contrast with man-made decay.”
I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scraps and rust and all the men and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.)
- Carl Sandburg
Gilman, in Colorado, was a zinc and lead mining community served by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The Environmental Protection Agency ordered the abandonment of the town site in 1984. Toxic pollutants had poisoned the groundwater.
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Nudes by Ukrainian-Russian Painter Leonid Krivitsky (1932-2015).
Krivitsky devoted more time to teaching technique than creating his own works, many of which were not publicly displayed during his lifetime. The Russian Museum sponsored the first major exhibition of his art earlier this year at St. Michael’s Castle in St. Petersburg.
His last project was a triptych commemorating the Holocaust which took him 10 years to complete.
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Isabel Duncan to her lover, Mercedes De Acosta, 1927…
Beneath a forehead
Broad & Bright
Shine Eyes
Clear wells
of light–
A Slender Body
Soft-Hard-White
To be the Source
Of my delight–
Two sprouting breasts
round & Sweet
Invite my hungry
mouth to Eat
from whence two
nipples–firm &
pink persuade my
thirsty soul to drink
& lower still
a Secret place
where I’d fain
hide my burning face
Arch Angel
from Another Sphere
God Sent to
light my pathway
here
I kneel in Adoration
dear
My kisses like a swarm of Bees
Would find Their way
between thy knees
& suck the honey
of thy lips
Embracing thy
Two slender hips
De Acosta was an average writer whose poems were seldom read and whose plays were seldom performed–but she did one thing better than any of the successful artists she called friends: “I can get any woman from any man.”
Alice B. Toklas observed, “Say what you want you will about Mercedes, she’s had the most important women of the twentieth century.”
These were not love ‘em and leave ‘em relationships; her affairs blazed with passion. Isadora Duncan came after stage actress Eva La Gallienne who, while touring, wrote three to four love letters to De Acosta everyday. Marlene Dietrich sent bouquets of roses and carnations at nearly the same rate when she fell for DeAcosta early in the 1930s. The accompanying cards always concluded: “I kiss your beautiful hands and your heart.”
In Greta Garbo, however, she met her match, and De Acosta never regained her reputation as the outrageous lesbian vamp. The pair did well at first, vacationing together, sunbathing in the nude, but Garbo would not play the supporting part in a relationship. She sometimes treated De Acosta as a servant, sending her to buy groceries, having her scout real estate properties. After a dozen years of occasional romance, Garbo declared her famous “I vant to be alone” and permanently ended the relationship. This was something De Acosta would not accept: “You belong to me,” she wrote. “Some things just belong to other things.”
Garbo belonged to no one. De Acosta pined for the rest of her life and died in poverty after her 75th birthday.
She had sent word, on her deathbed, asking Garbo to come say goodbye. The request was ignored.
(Additional sources: Robert Schanke and The Rosenbach Museum, Philadelphia.)
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The biggest boner a muse can inspire is always the femur.
Today’s Halloween-themed picture is brought to you by German-Moravian photographer Franz Fiedler (1885-1956).
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Naked Portrait and a Green Chair by Lucian Freud, 1999.
Grandson of Sigmund, Lucian Freud (who lived most of his life as a recluse in London) also had a preoccupation with human sexuality–but they approached the subject in different ways.
Whereas the first Freud focused on theory, his descendant preferred empirical research.
One left a legacy of concepts such as penis envy, castration anxiety and the Oedipal complex.
The other left at least 14 children.
That’s a conservative estimate, by the way. Some people have speculated that the number is closer to 40.
His models remember Lucian as a charming but demanding painter who sometimes relied on seduction to attain his artistic vision. The art that resulted tended to be stark (or grotesque, some critics said) with no concessions to romance, but he found beauty in bodies in the absence of glamour.
Two of his daughters posed for their absent father in order to get to know him. Now what would Sigmund have thought about that?
Even before he died in 2011, Lucian’s work was selling for as much as $33 million at auction. Whether he had 14 heirs or 40, presumably his estate was generous enough for all.
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On the bank of a stream he saw four beautiful maidens sitting on the ice braiding their long hair. He knew that they were the nymphs or fairies of the stream, and he watched them from behind a tree. He had long desired to win a stream fairy for his bride, but up to that time he had found it an impossible task…
FromThe Partridge and His Drum, a story of the Mohawk people, recounted in Canadian Wonder Tales by Cyrus MacMillan (“somewhere in France with our McGill Batteries”),1918.
Partridge married one of the fairies but she was killed and eaten by an evil sorcerer. Though he successfully sought revenge, Partridge remained addled with grief, barely able to finish his task of building a fleet of boats for the birds who lived along the shores of the Great Lakes.
Finally came the day when all were to be launched, and Glooskap and all his people gathered to see the fleet go by. It was a very wonderful sight on a great inland sea. The eagle had a large canoe which he paddled with the ends of his wings; all the birds of the sea and the river had very wonderful boats—the crane and the duck, the snipe and the curlew, the plover and the gull, the wild goose and the loon and the kingfisher. And the boats were all of different colours, each colour the same as that of the bird for whom the boat was made. All the birds were supplied with boats. Even the humming-bird had a tiny canoe of many wonderful colours, and he had a little paddle not larger than a small pin.
Partridge built his boat last. Heartbroken, he made it directionless, a saucer that turned endlessly in circles and caused the other birds to laugh.
Having lost both his wife and his reputation, Partridge fled deep into the forest, forever hiding from the creatures of the water. He kept only one remnant of his old life: the drumming noise of the hammer he wielded when he built his beautiful boats.
(The illustration is by George Sheringham.)
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“Analog” photographer Brittany Markert posing with model Shelbie Dimond, New Orleans, June 2nd, 2017.
I believe that grading artists on their work is unkind, pedantic and pointless–but since Markert graduated with a degree in mathematics, this qualifies as one of the rare instances where giving a number is ideal: she gets x^2-(x-2)+26=118 solve for x (where x is positive) out of 10.
The math skills show in the precision of Markert’s photographs, but she’s also able to find the whimsical and sensual aspects of erotic presentation. A portfolio of self-portraits (which she plans to include in a book) may be seen here, where Markert writes:
These images are the beginning of a sentence, to spark my creativity and remind myself that at the end of the day all I need is right in front of me–myself and my camera; anything is possible.
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The invention and near perfection of the screwball comedy.
Clark Gable worked for MGM. Claudette Colbert was under contract to Paramount. They were forced to do the film for upstart Columbia as punishment for being difficult to handle.
This scene changed the garment industry. Men traditionally wore undershirts, but Gable’s striptease ended that practice.
Best Actor. Best Actress. Best Director. Best Adaptation. Best Picture.
Warner Brothers got in on the fun by developing a new cartoon character, Bugs Bunny, based on Gable’s performance.
If some foolish person ever tries to remake Frank Capra’s film, one change I’d allow is Colbert’s character being less of a damsel in distress. What if Ellie called the bluff instead of fluttering away when the pants started to droop? The screwball formula is showing how romantic love gradually breaks down the walls between two people who don’t know they’re meant to be together. Something gets missed when only the woman is bricked off sexually (while both characters struggle with their emotional barriers.) Seeing Gable flustered because Colbert just stands there while he strips, unconcerned about the protocols of modesty, would elevate the complexity of the story.
Give the woman the ovaries to chip away at Gable’s cockiness. Make him run to the other side of the room.
It Happened One Night ends with the sound of a phallus trumpet blowing and a clip of a blanket falling to the floor. It’s a fun and sexy conclusion–and you probably won’t have noticed that the movie’s over and Colbert and Gable haven’t so much as kissed.
ModelSerenity Hart is based in Toronto, so perhaps the train tracks are as well. She is a body acceptance advocate who lives by the motto, “Embrace your Nakedness.”
(I couldn’t find a credit for the photographer.)
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After 21 seasons of the PBS version of the Antiques Roadshow, I’m flabbergasted that this item has yet to make an appearance–but I’ll keep watching until it does.
A business in Mission, Kansas, sold the Erotica phone, which is not really surprising–the town became the heartland of American pornography during the mid-1980s. The sudden surge of adult-oriented businesses helped fund Senator Bob Dole’s invention of Viagra.
The European artist is not named in the advertisement, but it appears to be the work of Belgian sculptor Alain Smithee.
The high price–$69.95 in 1984 (not including shipping and handling)–reflects the quality of the item’s craftsmanship. The optional nipples were available for an extra $20, self-installation required.
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First World War postcard art by Douglas Tempest, who added a little bit of sexiness to the sexist worry that women would not return to their homes after filling jobs left by men serving in the trenches. The homophobic theme also recalls conservative anxieties about the suffragette movement.
A century later, Tempest’s work has been appropriated by feminist and queer activists to celebrate the changes feared by the artist: women pursuing careers and becoming more bold in expressing their romantic and sexual orientations.
War often brings a relaxation of moral standards, something Tempest took advantage of in this play on the meaning of censorship. The implied nudity would have been shocking in mainstream popular art prior to the weakening of Victorian prudishness.
The “surprise” of not being censored may not refer as much to the content of the post card as the freedom illustrators such as Tempest were gaining to tiptoe toward slightly salacious imagery.
Nazi propaganda leaflets attempted to revive fears about infidelity during the next war, but the new threat was American soldiers, not lonely lesbians.
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DanabyErica Mueller for the Embody Project, 2017.
At the ripe young age of 85, I’ve never been happier with all phases of my life… I am so grateful to be me and for the wonderful opportunities I have to enjoy life. Being happy is what all the other girls missed.
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I was going to edge for a while but I can’t wait, too excited: this is my 200th post.
Of course, I scoured Tumblr and Flickr for the most orange thing I could find. As of Tuesday, I had selected a weinerwinner.
When I started my blog, I wrote a long manifesto which included a promise that I’d try always to credit the creator and link to the original source.
I downloaded this from Flickr (the photographer had waived copyright) but I didn’t note the location, thinking I’d just go through my browser history when the time came.
You can guess by now: I can’t figure out exactly where this picture came from and it won’t show up in reverse image searches.
So to someone, somewhere, thank you for showing off your orange pubes in the bathtub. I regret not being able to direct any traffic your way. Please accept my sincere apologies.
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Paintings by Vitaly Gavrilovich Tikhov (1876-1939), a Russo-Ukrainian artist who took a joyful approach to the academic subject of women bathing. His wife’s pale and lovely bottom is featured in the first and fourth images.
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