Archives for October 17, 2005

Here are two pieces of e-mail I received apropos of my article in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal about spending the night in two Frank Lloyd Wright houses:

– “For the past sixteen years, my wife and I (together with our five children) have resided in a 1901 Wright-designed house in Oak Park, Illinois. During this time, we have come to know quite a few Wright homeowners and many other fans of his. While we have known some to ‘suffer in silence’ (and some not so silently) when sitting through a long dinner on reproductions of his famous straight-backed chairs, I have never heard any of the homeowners express anything but praise and joy concerning the pleasure of living in their homes and the magic interplay of space and light that Wright managed to create in them. Many consider our home to be one of the early

Here are two pieces of e-mail I received apropos of my article in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal about spending the night in two Frank Lloyd Wright houses:

– “For the past sixteen years, my wife and I (together with our five children) have resided in a 1901 Wright-designed house in Oak Park, Illinois. During this time, we have come to know quite a few Wright homeowners and many other fans of his. While we have known some to ‘suffer in silence’ (and some not so silently) when sitting through a long dinner on reproductions of his famous straight-backed chairs, I have never heard any of the homeowners express anything but praise and joy concerning the pleasure of living in their homes and the magic interplay of space and light that Wright managed to create in them. Many consider our home to be one of the early

August 2003:

I told a friend of mine at lunch the other day that I thought the day would come when the producers of smart movies aimed at older viewers (i.e., anyone over 21) would bypass theatrical release altogether and market such films in more or less the same way novels are sold in bookstores. If that happens, I’ll be sorry to spend less time in theaters. The enveloping experience of watching a good film in a big, dark room–and in the company of a rapt audience–is unique and irreplaceable. Alas, it’s already been replaced, at least for most of us who love classic films. How many of the great movies of the past have you seen in a theater? Not many, I suspect, especially if you’re under 40 and don’t live in a film-friendly city like New York or Chicago…

(If it’s new to you, read the whole thing here.)

August 2003:

I told a friend of mine at lunch the other day that I thought the day would come when the producers of smart movies aimed at older viewers (i.e., anyone over 21) would bypass theatrical release altogether and market such films in more or less the same way novels are sold in bookstores. If that happens, I’ll be sorry to spend less time in theaters. The enveloping experience of watching a good film in a big, dark room–and in the company of a rapt audience–is unique and irreplaceable. Alas, it’s already been replaced, at least for most of us who love classic films. How many of the great movies of the past have you seen in a theater? Not many, I suspect, especially if you’re under 40 and don’t live in a film-friendly city like New York or Chicago…

(If it’s new to you, read the whole thing here.)

– Clark Terry’s weekly salary in 1951 as a trumpeter in Count Basie’s orchestra: $125

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $959.38

(Source: Dempsey Travis, An Autobiography of Black Jazz)

– Clark Terry’s weekly salary in 1951 as a trumpeter in Count Basie’s orchestra: $125

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $959.38

(Source: Dempsey Travis, An Autobiography of Black Jazz)

“Already in 1958, Nell Blaine was worrying in a journal entry about the rise of ‘the idea of novelty above all’ as well as ‘the love of cruelty and art brut of the Post-Atom 2nd string Dadaists.’ All this, she wrote, ‘has stuck in the craw of many serious artists who may go their own way quietly.’ At least until the end of the 1950s, though, Duchamp’s and [Ad] Reinhardt’s dark, contrarian views were held in check by a gloriously optimistic sense, the sense that [Hans] Hofmann epitomized, that art was organically, dialectically related to the hurly-burly of life–and that art could transcend life. ‘Those with a capacity for life, joie de vivre,’ Blaine observed, ‘will go on in the face of annihilation.'”

Jed Perl, New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century

“Already in 1958, Nell Blaine was worrying in a journal entry about the rise of ‘the idea of novelty above all’ as well as ‘the love of cruelty and art brut of the Post-Atom 2nd string Dadaists.’ All this, she wrote, ‘has stuck in the craw of many serious artists who may go their own way quietly.’ At least until the end of the 1950s, though, Duchamp’s and [Ad] Reinhardt’s dark, contrarian views were held in check by a gloriously optimistic sense, the sense that [Hans] Hofmann epitomized, that art was organically, dialectically related to the hurly-burly of life–and that art could transcend life. ‘Those with a capacity for life, joie de vivre,’ Blaine observed, ‘will go on in the face of annihilation.'”

Jed Perl, New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century