AYN RAND, BARBARA STANWYCK, AND WALLY WOOD

What do Ayn Rand (above), Barbara Stanwyck and Wally Wood have in common? They all lived 20 minutes or less from my house! Of course that was the era before the land was sub-divided into housing developments. Come to think of it, Jimmy Cagney lived around here too, in Porter Ranch, but I don't know exactly where. In LA no part of the city is more than a stone's throw from some kind of historical film landmark.

Yesterday Milt Grey and I decided to get in a car and look up the sites where the homes of these people used to be. I wish I'd thought to bring along extra batteries for the camera. I only managed to get a few pictures but you might still be interested to see what we came up with.



Barbara Stanwyck (above) and Ayn Rand were next-door neighbors in what is now called Northridge. That's right, Northridge, where the Earthquake was.



Here's (above) a picture of Ayn Rand's house, address: 10000 Tampa Blvd., taken in the 1940s when half the valley was still covered with orange groves. It was originally designed by Neutra for film director Erik Von Sternberg.


Today the house is gone and in it's place is a public junior high, Noble Middle School. I had to get this picture off the net because my camera froze.



10000 Tampa is a few blocks up from the local mall, The Northridge Fashion Center. It's funny to think of people at the mall's book store perusing Rand books that were written only a few blocks away.


After Northridge we headed in the opposite direction to Wally Wood's (portrait above) last apartment at 15150 Parthenia in Van Nuys.



We discovered a somewhat run-down neighborhood but I imagine it was OK when Wally was there. My camera started working again so I got this picture of the side of the building where Wood had a street-level entrance. That's his apartment behind the grey car.


To get to Wood's apartment (above) you turn right after opening the brown gate.


And that's his place, number 71. I met the occupant and she was delighted to learn that a famous artist lived here. I didn't have the heart to tell her that Wood shot himself there. It was three days before the body was found.

According to Milt, Wood came to LA to find work in animation because it was getting harder and harder to make a living doing comics in New York. He was desperate for money because he had kidney problems which required expensive dialysis treatments. He tried to sell projects to Hanna Barbera and others but nobody was buying. I think his final work was comics for a local porn publisher, a real come-down for someone of Wood's stature.

I'm tempted to say that a gloom hung over the apartment, but really it was just the opposite. In bright mid-day it was positively cheery. Thank God life carries on.

HITLER DRAWS DISNEY

A dealer in Norway claims to have found authentic watercolors of Disney characters drawn by Hitler, the "A.H." in the lower left of the Doc drawing. Since Hitler is known to have had his own copy of "Snow White," and since the pictures were found hidden inside a previously authenticated Hitler painting, some people are thinking they might be real.

Boy, there's no accounting for taste. Arafat was partial to Hanna Barbera, and Sadahm collected Boris-type fantasy art. Horowitz and Maria Callas liked Archie comics, and Einstein is said to have watched "Beany & Cecil." Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that Hitler liked Disney.


All this talk about Hitler made me curious to see his pictures again so I googled them, and here are a few of the better ones. This picture of the city street (above) is my favorite. I wonder if this is a copy of something someone else did. It's more imaginative and passionate than Hitler's average work.


Most of Hitler's pictures seem to lack passion. Take this one (above) of the dog. It's admirable but oddly aloof, and distanced from its subject. Hitler seems to be drawing an ideal dog rather than the one that was in front of him.


Hitler experimented with impressionism in this picture (above), but he didn't seem to get it. Impressionism isn't just unconventional color, it's a way of perceiving the world as being organized by light. Of course Picasso did a lot of faux impressionist pieces and he seldom got it right either, at least not in his early work.


If Hitler was foolish enough to show this (above) to the art school he was trying to get into then I can see why they rejected him. It's pure kitsch. Something about it even suggests mental disturbance. It's hard to imagine that the same artist did the nice city street near the top.

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN: THE LOST FOOTAGE

TRANSLATION: "BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN"


The Potemkin (above) steams into the harbor.


The sailors (above) watch as a political demonstration on land is thwarted by the Czar's soldiers.


It doesn't look good (above) for the demonstrators.


SAILOR: "Comrades! Wait a minute! There's a baby carriage on the edge of the steps!"


SAILOR: "Merciful Heavens! The soldiers are coming and there's a baby on the edge of the steps!"



SAILOR: "Wait a minute! What am I worried about? Nobody would push a baby down the steps!"



CAPITALIST (on the steps): "Hey, there's a baby! Push it down the steps!"



Baby "Waaaaaaa!!!!!"


SAILOR: (Gasp!)




DEMONSTRATOR: (cry of anguish)



SAILOR: "Man, that was harsh!"


SAILOR: "Well, at least we have this cool lighting. How do you like it? It's all done with a flashlight! "

SKETCHING OUTDOORS

"Hi folks! Art Teacher Uncle Eddie here!"


"Today we're going to talk about sketching outdoors."



"Well, not really outdoors...I mean, the real outdoors is dirty and full of bugs and rain. I mean the civilized outdoors that you find inside malls."



"OK, let's see. What examples do we have here?"


"Yikes! This (above) is just what I was talking about! Never, ever, ever do sketches like this! Why? because nobody wants to see realistic depictions of boredom or drowsiness! Half of being a good sketcher is knowing what to sketch. Not every subject is equally worthy of your attention."


"What is worth drawing? Well, cute girls for one thing! Here's some by Katie Rice!"


But that's (above) not the only thing. Character types are worth drawing...anybody that suggests a story...anybody that's fun to think about, even if they're evil or silly.



"But a word of warning! Never draw people who are pulpy! Fat and skinny are OK, even ugly is OK, but not pulpy and shapeless. Most people who will see your drawings worry about their weight and reminding them of it depresses them."



"Resist the temptation to draw what you see. Empty tables (above) are boring. The perspective problem is an interesting one, but as a story-telling cartoonist your time is too valuable to spend on this.

If you must draw this scene, move the foreground person to a table in the distance and ask her to look forlorn, as if she's oppressed by all the emptiness around her. Imagine that she's waiting for a date who will never come."



"Was that helpful?"


"There's more but I reckon that'll do for a start. See ya next time!"

GIFTS FROM E.O.COSTELLO AND KEVIN!

Wow! Talk about eccentric walks...E.O. Costello found a great one (above) on YouTube: It's by Al "Rubberlegs" Norman from "Paramount on Parade."





Here's (above) some great eccentric dancing from Jackie Gleason...I mean, "Reggie Van Gleason III." Many thanks to Kevin for finding this!






Just to round out the program, I'll throw in some boogie woogie (above) from Meade Lux Lewis.

ART OF THE FUNNY WALK

Don't you just love a good walk? Walk acts were a whole genre in vaudeville. They were considered a type of "eccentric dancing." Cagney was good walker, so was Buddy Ebson, but I'll bet the best walkers were names nobody would recognize anymore. Here's a great one that Mike turned me on to (above): Dean Martin's uncle Leonard. Sheer bliss to watch!





Another great walk (above) by a guy named Wall. Holy Cow! It makes you want to burn your Preston Blair (well, sort of....)!

SORRY!

Sorry about the Shakespeare rant! I admit that I'm way too sensitive about this subject, and I sincerely apologize. Most Theory Corner people are artists or people who are interested in art. Of course they save their most intense passion for other artists, or for people in fields related to art, like film or music. That's perfectly natural and I was a jerk for making people feel guilty about it.

I still like this play, especially this version of it, but if I ever talk about it again I hope it's in the role of a friend sharing, rather than whatever I was here.

I'll be gone for a couple of days to take care of business but I'll be back before most people know I was away!