An Old Friend Makes Good

This week:  a visit to Islamabad; some visits from old friends.

We haven't visited the Sitemeter lately, which is kind of like a bird feeder inside your computer, attracting visitors from all over the world.  Or more like the log of a bird feeder, capturing little footprints from afar.   Which would make the blog itself the actual bird feeder.  With Tweets!

This week - last week, by the now - we had a new visitor from Islamabad, Pakistan who was searching for "gingham print for wedding dress."  That led the searcher to this page that has a glimpse of Brigitte Bardot's pink gingham wedding dress.  This spring, men, in particular,  are be-ginghamed and how very nice they all look.

Sometimes I take the co-ordinates of whatever it is that shows up on Sitemeter, plug it into Google Maps and ask it to find the nearest Starbucks.  From the address in Islamabad you get this:

Driving directions to a Gloria Jean's Coffee Beans!

The Islamabad Branch of Gloria Jean's

On the map, near Gloria Jean's you see the Margalla Hills National Park, which kind of looks like Southern California on a smoggy day, except with monkeys.

Co-incidently, today we have Berkeley's best festival: Himalaya Days in the park down the street.  Part Berkeley yoga/spiritual/far-away-uncomfortable-travel culture and part chance for every Indian restaurant around to sell stuff, and part county fair for people who come from the Himalayan region - dancing, food, music.  I will be looking for the Hugging Guru's Institute - best curry plate and most mango-y lassi.

This is the next page of . . .

A far cry from the Himalayas.

People Are Talking About. . . "Claude Chabrol, the young French triple-play movie man, his own writer, director, producer, whose career has been based on a minimum of money and a maximum of message; his point, corruption everywhere.  The Cousins, his second movie, peculiarly flamboyant, glossily decadent, is about to open in New York, shows off the cleverness of Chabrol who used his friends and his village for his first movie, but changed the village for Paris in the second. . . "

William Klein photo - would like to see rest of this shoot

Hey, we know him!  We met him in the last issue, a friend of  journalist Derek Prouse, who co-wrote The Champagne Murders with Chabrol in 1966.  And then we actually saw The Cousins for the Let's Go to the Movies of 1959.  Well, maybe we didn't.  Very hard to keep up that page - what a mess.  Sorry.

Another old friend in the news this week - covered on Twitter - where you'll find all the breaking news.  

Barnett Newman, of song and paint -   remember him?

Detail of exhaustively blogged Irving Penn photo of AbExs

His big blue painting sold for $43 million bucks, apparently to Miuccia Prada.

I have been thoroughly, accidentally educated on the Abstract Expressionists.  Whether I've wanted to be or not.  Taking a brief moment to note what I believe to be the difference between information and education:   First, I meet Mr. Newmann in the pages of an old Vogue.  I find out a few facts about him that I no longer remember.  I see his work at the AbExNYMOMA rerun.  None of that art sinks in.  I forget about him.  Then there's a small headline in the paper and I feel all of these connections taking root in my brain.  Physically.  But I do not understand why someone would pay $43 million dollars for it.  I think it is more the case that $43 million dollars does not mean the same to Miuccia Prada as it does for most people; not that this painting is 43 million times better than what I have on my own walls.

People Are Talking About . . . "Marching bands playing the Peter Gunn music. . . "

That's fantastic!  We already know that Henry Mancini's Music From Peter Gunn was the Number One album from 1959, although not on Vogue's list.   Charming to imagine bands immediately rushing onto fields all over America.  As they still do.  Everywhere there is a band.

Here's one from Brazil, I think.

So, let's go to the movies!

* Hmmm.  I did see this - but what is sticking after a year?  Not much.   City mouse hipster v. country mouse grind.

*  Gorgeous music; beautiful black and white film; great little apartment in Paris.

* Good triple feature with 400 Blows and Pickpocket -- all from 1959.

Next: more, yet more PATA; and then some more and then some more.   This week we're Tweeting Benny Carter and Music From Peter Gunn.  Daily.