Hemingway

"Man is not made for defeat.  A man can be destroyed but not defeated."
--The Old Man and the Sea

In 1954, Ernest Hemingway took his fourth wife Mary Welsh to Africa.  He chartered a sightseeing plane to show her the Belgian Congo and the glorious Murchison Falls.  While flying low over the trees, the plane struck a utility pole and crash landed in heavy brush.  Hemingway suffered a concussion.  His wife broke two ribs.

That night they camped in the bush waiting for a response to their distress call.  A passing plane saw the crash and reported no survivors.  Word spread around the world that Hemingway was dead.  The next day, Hemingway and his wife were found and picked up by a bush pilot.  Amazingly, the second plane caught fire and exploded during takeoff.  Hemingway slammed his upper body and head against the exit door to escape.  He suffered serious burns and a concussion severe enough to cause leaking cerebral fluid.

The injured travelers were taken by road to an Entebbe hospital.  Hemingway joked with journalists and spent weeks recuperating and reading his erroneous obituaries.  Restless and bored, he left the hospital and took Mary and his son Patrick on a fishing trip to Kenya.  A bushfire broke out and Hemingway fell into the fire to help extinguish the flames.  He suffered burns on his legs, torso, lips and arms.  He was ultimately diagnosed with two crushed vertebra, a ruptured liver and spleen and a broken skull.

Hemingway was no stranger to accidents and illness.  In 1918 he enlisted as a World War I ambulance driver on the Italian front.  While bringing chocolate and cigarettes to the front line he was struck by mortar fire.  Despite serious shrapnel wounds to both legs, he carried an Italian soldier to safety earning him the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery.  He underwent an operation and spent six months recuperating.

In 1927 while honeymooning in France with his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer, Hemingway contracted Anthrax.  A few months later in Paris, he pulled a skylight down on his head thinking he was pulling on a toilet chain.  This left him with a permanent scar on his forehead.  In the early 1930's, Hemingway took writer John Dos Passos elk hunting in Montana.  After dropping off Dos Passos at the train station, Hemingway crashed his car and broke his arm.  The surgeon bound the bone with kangaroo tendon.  Hemingway was hospitalized for two months and it took more than a year for the nerves in his writing hand to heal.

In 1933, Hemingway and Pauline went on safari to East Africa.  The trip would inspire Hemingway's short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro and his story collection Green Hills of Africa.  The trip also gave Hemingway a bout of amoebic dysentery causing a prolapsed intestine.  He was evacuated by plane to a Nairobi hospital.

In 1944 while in London to write about World War II, Hemingway was involved in another car accident.  He suffered a concussion and a head wound requiring 50 stitches.  He traveled to Normandy with a head bandage to witness the D-Day landing from an ocean borne craft.  He also found himself under fire at the Battle of the Bulge.  The stress caused him to be hospitalized with pneumonia.

In 1945 he returned to Key West, Florida.  Guilty about his failed marriage to third wife Martha Gellhorn, he began drinking heavily.  One night after too many daiquiris, he had another car accident.  He smashed his knee and suffered the third of many concussions.

Hemingway fell into a deep depression as his literary friends began to die.  He'd lost W.B. Yeats in 1939, Scott Fitzgerald in 1940 and Sherwood Anderson and James Joyce in 1941.  Gertrude Stein died in 1946 and his long-time Scribner's editor Max Perkins died in 1947.  Hemingway began to suffer headaches, weight problems and tinnitus.  He was subsequently diagnosed with diabetes.

From late 1955 to early 1956, Hemingway was bedridden.  His doctors urged him to stop drinking to heal his damaged liver.  He disregarded the advice.  He became ill and was treated for high-blood pressure and arteriosclerosis.

By 1959, Hemingway was having trouble organizing his thoughts.  Always the master of brevity and concise prose, he lost control of his writing.  He was commissioned by Life Magazine to write a 10,000 word article on bullfighting.  He submitted a 40,000 word opus.  He asked writer A.E. Hotchner to help him trim and organize the piece.  Hotchner found Hemingway to be "unusually hesitant, disorganized and confused."  His eyesight was failing him, he'd become anxious about money and he was paranoid that the FBI was monitoring his movements. (J. Edgar Hoover had in fact opened a file on him during WWII.)  He drank more heavily to combat the pain from his lifelong injuries.

In 1960, hearing that Fidel Castro wanted to nationalize property owned by Americans, Hemingway and his wife Mary left their beloved Finca Vigia ranch in Cuba and moved to Ketchum, Idaho.  Hemingway became seriously ill and retreated into silence and despair.  He checked into the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Doctors diagnosed him with a psychiatric illness and treated him with 15 rounds of electroshock therapy.  In early 1961 he was "released in ruins."

Hemingway had always been plagued by suicidal thoughts.  His father Clarence had committed suicide with a gunshot to the head in 1928.  Hemingway commented at the time, "I'll probably go the same way."  Like his father, Hemingway had been diagnosed with the genetic disease hemochromatosis. This caused the inability of the body to metabolize iron resulting in mental and physical deterioration.  Hemingway's sister Ursula and brother Leicester also committed suicide.  Years later, Hemingway's granddaughter Margaux would take her own life.

In the morning hours of June 2, Hemingway awoke early, careful not to wake Mary.  He donned his favorite dressing gown that he called his "emperor's robe" and entered the basement where he kept his guns.  He removed his favorite gun, a double-barrel 12-gauge Boss & Co. shotgun.  He inserted two shells into the gun, walked into the upstairs foyer, put the barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger.  The story reported to the press was that Hemingway "accidentally shot himself while cleaning his gun."  Months later, Mary admitted the death was suicide.

Hemingway had been a swashbuckling, hard-drinking adventurer.  He was a hunter, a pugilist, a war hero and a writer who defined his time and mastered his craft.  In 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.  He opted not to travel to Stockholm.  Instead he sent a speech to be read which defined the writer's existence.  "Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.  Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing.  He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness but often his work deteriorates.  For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."  (5" x 6", black ink print)

Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali gained fame as an avante-garde, surrealist Spanish painter.  But few realize he had a lifelong relationship with movies including working with some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

Dali was a surrealist concerned with depicting imagery found in dreams instead of waking life.  He introduced the world to his fascination with melting clocks in his painting "The Persistence of Memory." Though the image suggests Einstein's theory of relativity, Dali claimed the clocks were inspired by the sight of "Camembert cheese melting in the sun."

When Dali was 17, he attended an art academy in Madrid.  He befriended the surrealist artist Luis Bunuel and the poet Federico Garcia Lorca.  In 1929, Dali & Bunuel made the film Un Chien Andalou ("The Andalusian Dog").  This was Dali's first film.  He wrote the screenplay while Bunuel directed.

Un Chien Andalou incorporates images seen in Dali's paintings: a disembodied hand, ant infestation, a decomposing donkey and eyeballs morphing into clouds. The film utilizes fades and dissolves between shots as an effort to undermine traditional editing techniques of the time.  Un Chien Andalou placed Dali in the heart of the surrealist movement and established film as a vehicle for the movement's goals.

In 1930, Dali & Bunuel collaborated on their second film L'Age D'Or.  The film's prologue shows a scorpion killing a rat.  The film focuses on two lovers who are kept apart by the hypocritical value system of bourgeois society and the Catholic church.  The film reflects the growing unease of Europe sparked by the rise of the political right.  When the film screened in Paris, an anti-Jewish group rioted and destroyed paintings exhibiting with the film.  After a ten-day run, the movie was banned in France for forty years.

In 1935, Dali's next film idea was called The Surrealist Mysteries of New York. Dali imagined scenes of violence at famous Manhattan locations like Fifth Avenue, Radio City Music Hall and the Natural History Museum.  He claimed to be inspired by the gangster films Little Caesar and Public Enemy.  Dali sketched out illustrations for the film which appeared in the magazine The American Weekly.  The movie was never made.

Dali was a huge fan of the Marx Brothers.  He wrote that Animal Crackers was "the summit of the evolution of comic cinema."  To Dali, the Marx Brothers "concrete irrationality" and "comic mayhem" was in perfect sync with the tenets of surrealism and Dada.  Dali particularly praised Harpo for his "persuasive and triumphant madness."

In 1936, Dali met Harpo in Paris.  They became immediate friends and Dali began working on a Marx Brothers film project called Giraffes On Horseback Salad.  The story revolved around a Spanish aristocrat exiled in America who falls in love with a mysterious surrealist woman.  The woman befriends the Marx Brothers and brings them into her world of fantasy and dreams.  Dali's storyboards were filled with surrealist imagery: melting watches, cyclists and a lobster telephone.  Dali wanted Harpo to have the starring role.  Groucho objected and the film was never made. In parting, Dali gave Harpo a harp strung with barbed wire.  Harpo played along and sent Dali a photo of himself playing harp with bandaged fingers.

In 1940, Twentieth Century-Fox hired Dali to design a three-minute nightmare sequence for the Fritz Lang film Moontide.  Dali's job was to visually describe lead actor Jean Gabin's hallucinatory descent into an alcoholic nightmare.  Dali's drawings included a behemoth sewing machine and a brothel slaughterhouse. Just before production, Pearl Harbor was attacked and Fox abandoned the project as too pessimistic.  A tamer version of the film was made in 1942 without Dali and Lang.

In 1944, Alfred Hitchcock was making plans for his movie Spellbound.  Ingrid Bergman plays a therapist who treats Gregory Peck, an amnesia patient accused of murder struggling to recover his memory.  Freudian psychoanalysis was in vogue at the time and Hitchcock approached Salvador Dali to design a key dream sequence in the film.  (Surrealism embraced psychoanalysis.)  Hitchcock felt Dali's crisp artistic precision represented a better experience of a dream state then the typical blurred imagery conventions of the time.  "I was after the vividness of dreams," Hitchcock said.  "Dali's work is solid and sharp with long perspectives and black shadows."

Dali was hired by Vanguard Films for $4,000 to "create, draw and paint all sketches and/or designs required in connection with the 'Dream Sequence' in Spellbound."  Dali produced over 20 minutes of footage which was ultimately cut down to three-minutes.  The resulting sequence contains familiar Dali imagery: floating eyes, scissors, playing cards, a faceless man, table legs resembling women's legs, a man falling off a building and shadowy wings.

Several signature Dali ideas did not make it into the final film.  Dali proposed to attach images of eyes on the backs of cockroaches.  He wanted 15 grand pianos suspended over a ballroom filled with dancers.  He also wanted to include a scene of ants crawling over Ingrid Bergman. Hitchcock had to explain to Dali that you can't have live bugs crawling on the world's most famous film actress.

In 1946, Dali attempted a collaboration with Walt Disney.  The idea was for an animated short feature followup to Fantasia.  Dali recognized the surrealist imagery that filled Disney's movies: dancing skeletons, skull islands, clock-swallowing crocodiles.  Disney was interested in avante-garde, experimental animation and Dali was the perfect partner.

Production with Disney began in 1945.  Dali created a large number of sketches and designs.  17 seconds of animation was completed but the film was put aside in 1946 when Disney ran into financial problems.  Remarkably, Roy Disney (Walt's nephew) unearthed the dormant project in 1999 and brought it back to life.  Using Dali's original storyboards, the film called Destino was finally completed in 2003. True to Dali's artistic life, images included melting clocks, marching ants and floating eyeballs. (6" x 7", black ink print)

On The Right Track

Recently I was asked to come up with a T-Shirt Woodcut Design for a North Hollywood Literary Festival.  The email from the festival sponsors requested something that "depicts the journey  of the creative writer in these modern times when so few people read."

My initial brainstorming elicited depressing ideas like a writer committing Hari-kiri with a fountain pen, the Greek character Sisyphus rolling a massive tome in a cart up a hill, a man drowning from the weight of typewriter tied to his leg.  I rejected these early concepts as too dismal and cliched.  Plus, who the hell uses a typewriter or fountain pen these days anyway.

I finally found inspiration after traveling to Downtown Los Angeles with a friend.  We took a walk beside the Los Angeles River across from Dodger Stadium and I noticed a homeless man writing in a journal.  He wore a tattered suit and his shoes were scuffed and torn.  He had an umbrella thought it was the heart of summer.  He evoked the spirit of Kerouac and Woody Guthrie and Henry Miller.  In an instant I knew the Woodcut Image I wanted to carve.

The festival sponsors asked that I write a short essay explaining how the image embodied the modern writer.  Here is what I submitted:

The Man is walking the train tracks into the unknown.  He takes his journey slowly, focusing on each step, unsure where the tracks will lead.  His face is turned away from us emphasizing his anonymity. He wears his best suit--his only suit--as he carries his meager belongings on his back.

His umbrella shields him from the unrelenting sun and the birds who attempt to drop turds on his beloved fedora.  The only people who notice him are the wayward souls who live beside the tracks. Some view the Man as a wayward soul as well.  But his journey is not dictated by whim.  This is his destiny.

He walks on the wooden railroad ties.  This protects his shoes from damage and prevents footprints. He understands that good walking leaves no path behind.

He has faith his internal compass will kick in at some point.  As he walks, his legs grow tired and heavy.  Sometimes he becomes angry at his plight.  He persists until he feels wings upon his back lifting him and easing his gait.

He always believed he would recognize his destination when he got there.  Now he's sensing there is no place to get to.  He is already there.  He is the road and the knower of roads. (6" x 7", black ink print) (special thanks to Steven Tash and his awesome reference photos) (http://Flickr.com/photos/tashvibe)

Chick Hearn

It was 2002 and the Lakers had just beaten the New Jersey Nets for their third straight NBA Championship. Being a huge Lakers fan, I took a subway to downtown LA to check out the parade. As I watched the double-decker buses carrying the players down Figueroa Avenue, I noticed Chick Hearn standing at the front of the first bus.  He was leaning against the top rail, his hair dyed purple, his shirt drenched with sweat and champagne.  While Shaq and Kobe waved to the crowd, Chick stared straight ahead.  This was his ninth championship as Lakers announcer and at age 85, he was exhausted.

Less than two months later, Chick suffered a fall at his Encino home that took his life.  The world's greatest basketball announcer was gone and Laker nation fell into mourning.

Francis Dayle "Chick" Hearn was born in 1916 in Aurora, Illinois.  He played basketball at Bradley University and he earned his famous nickname from a prank played on him by teammates.  He was given a box of sneakers and when he removed the lid he found a dead chicken inside.

Chick Hearn became the Lakers play-by-play man in 1961 after the team moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles.  His announcing style featured an enthusiastic, rapid-fire delivery peppered with colorful phrases and an offbeat sense of humor. Chick invented many of the terms that have become common basketball parlance.  These include: Slam Dunk, Air Ball, Finger Roll, Give and Go, No Harm No Foul, Dribble Drive.

Chick also coined a number of phrases that became known as "Chickisms."

"94 x 50 Hunk of Wood"--referred to a basketball court.

"Bunny Hop in the Pea Patch"--when a player was called for traveling.

"The Mustard's off the Hot Dog"--when a player made a mistake while showing off.

"Yo-Yoing Up and Down"--dribbling the ball.

"Got caught with his Hand in the Cookie Jar"--a blatant foul by a player.

"Throws up a Brick"--a terrible shot.

"Heart-Brrreeak!"--a shot that goes in and out of the basket.

"Ticky-Tack"--a foul call when minimal contact is made.

"He couldn't throw a Pea in the Ocean"--when a player's shooting has gone cold.

"Put him in the Popcorn Machine and he's covered with Butter"--When a defensive player leaps in the air from a head fake and the opposing player scores on him.

If a player tried an impossible shot that had no chance of going in, Chick would say:

"He has two chances, slim and none and slim just left the building."

If that same impossible shot actually went in the basket, Chick had an alternative call:

"He throws up a prayer...and it's answered."

Whenever the Lakers had a lead that Chick deemed insurmountable, he would launch into his most famous phrase which guaranteed a Lakers victory.

"The game is in the refrigerator, the door is closed, the lights are out, the butter's getting hard, the eggs are cooling and the Jello is jiggling."

From 1961-1965, Chick missed only two Laker games, one due to laryngitis and the second after he missed a plane flight.  In 1965, Chick began a new announcing streak which would reach 3338 consecutive Laker games.  The streak came to an end in 2001 when Chick had cardiac bypass surgery.

Chick was possibly the most beloved of all Lakers personalities.  In the days when the Lakers played at the Forum, fans could walk up to Chick before games and have a conversation.  He was always friendly and smiling and he'd often mention a fan's birthday or offer a get well sentiment live on air.

Chick was also brutally honest.  In 1998, Chick was honored for broadcasting 3000 consecutive games.  The Lakers were losing to Orlando at halftime and after accepting his award, Chick told the crowd, "The Lakers look like dogs.  If they play the third quarter like they played the first half, I'm going to buy them Alpo."  The Lakers went on to win the game by double figures.

In 1991, Chick Hearn was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame.  He had a street named after him in Downtown LA and his name was hung from the rafters inside Staples Center beside Laker greats like Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain and Magic Johnson.  In 2010, a bronze statue of Chick was christened outside Staples Center.  Chick is the only non-player to receive such a statue.

Chick and his wife Marge were married 64 years.  They had two children, a son Gary who died of a drug overdose in 1972 and a daughter Samantha who died from complications of anorexia in 1991.  

When Chick died in 2002, flags at Los Angeles City Hall were flown at half mast. Thousands of fans and numerous Laker greats showed up at Chick's funeral. Cardinal Roger Mahoney told mourners: "I am going to go outside and look up in the sky, because I think for the last time we will see the meteor go by and we will wave so long.  This one's in the refrigerator."  (6" x 8", black ink print)

The Music Supervisor

Gary Calamar is an LA-based Music Supervisor and radio DJ.  He's hosted a Sunday night radio show on KCRW for 15 years and he's responsible for one of the signature moments in Music Supervision history: the Sia song "Breathe Me" that concludes HBO's popular series Six Feet Under.

Gary was born on Friday the 13th in Yonkers, New York.  As a boy, he slept with a transistor radio under his pillow.  He fell in love with film music after his parents took him to see West Side Story and A Hard Days Night.  He also began a love affair with record stores spending hours scouring bins for new and obscure music.

Gary moved to Los Angeles in the 80's.  He began working at iconic record stores like Licorice Pizza and Moby Disc.  He managed the famous Rhino Records in Westwood and he came to appreciate the community of the record store and the social function it provided.  "I worked in Licorice Pizza when John Lennon was killed.  I had the day off but I came in anyway because people needed a place to mourn and I needed to be there...To this day, the first stop I make in any new town is to the weird local record store.  It's how I get my bearings."

In the mid 90's, Gary began volunteering at KCRW opening mail and filing CD's in the station's music library.  He became friendly with music director Chris Douridas.  One day, Douridas mentioned they were looking for a new weekend DJ.  Gary literally dropped to his knees and begged Douridas to give him a shot.  Douridas obliged and Gary's DJ career began.  (His radio show was called "The Open Road" until 2006.)

In 1998, Gary ventured into the world of music supervision.  His first film was Slums of Beverly Hills and his first placed song was "I'd Love to Change the World" by the band Ten Years After.  Gary's next film was Varsity Blues.  The resulting soundtrack earned a Gold Album.  In 2001, filmmaker Alan Ball (American Beauty) chose Gary and partner Thomas Golubic to supervise music on his series Six Feet Under.  The show established a new model for placing indie music in cable television and Calamar & Golubic were nominated for Grammy Awards for Soundtrack Volumes 1 & 2.

Six Feet Under ran for five seasons.  The final episode concluded with a 9-minute scene where Claire says goodbye to her family as she finally leaves home.  As she drives into the desert, a montage ensues and we see how all the characters ultimately die.  The scene is extraordinarily moving and it required a perfect piece of music to heighten the emotion.  As a KCRW DJ, Gary had been playing the song "Breathe Me" by Australian singer Sia for several months.  He presented the song to show runner Alan Ball and a masterful music/image pairing was born.  To this day, it's impossible for Six Feet Under fans to listen to "Breathe Me" without tearing up.

The job of Music Supervisor involves overseeing all aspects of music placement in a film, tv show, commercial or video game.  A Music Supervisor finds the songs, negotiates the licensing and often helps secure a composer for a project. In the late 60's and early 70's, American directors began prominently featuring rock songs in films.  Notable examples include Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin'" in Midnight Cowboy and Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild" in Easy Rider.  Some directors structured entire movies around a specific band or musician like Mike Nichols' use of Simon & Garfunkel in The Graduate or Hal Ashby's inclusion of Cat Stevens in Harold & Maude.

Song selection plays a crucial role in film and television.  Francis Coppola's use of "The End" by The Doors in Apocalypse Now brings the story to an intense dramatic pique.  Poor song choice can mar an otherwise great film.  (One of my favorite movies is Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid but I always cringe during the "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" bicycle sequence.)  Though some filmmakers have a strong personal sense of music (Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, Sofia Coppola) the majority need the help of a capable Music Supervisor.  This is where Gary steps in.

"We get the scripts early on.  We read the script, take notes then wait to see a rough cut of the show.  We go through the show scene by scene [with the producer and director] and decide what we're going to do musically: whether it's going to be scored or whether it'll be a song.  Everyone will throw in their two cents and then I'll go back to my office and start putting ideas together...trying different songs.  I'll try to narrow it down to three to five songs and I'll work with the music editor to cut them into the scenes.  Then we show them to the producer and director and a final decision is made."

In 2006, Gary founded GO Music with colleague Alyson Vidoli to manage his various music supervision projects.  This led to his work on some of the most acclaimed shows on television: House, Dexter, Entourage, Weeds and True Blood.  GO Music also hosts a very popular concert series, The Mimosa Music Series which showcases great artists on Sunday mornings.

Gary's lifetime love and knowledge of music comes into play everyday.  His job requires a critical ear and a comfort level with all musical genres.  True Blood features Louisiana swamp blues and gothic jams while Dexter opts for Cuban and Latin music.  Gary finds songs from a multitude of sources:  music blogs, demo tapes, iTunes and live shows.  Gary's Sunday night radio gig grants him access to music most people never hear.  It also gives him freedom to experiment with songs.

"The big difference between the radio show and the TV work is that I don't have to work by committee on radio.  I'm the DJ, I can play what I want and suffer or get praised by that.  With TV it's much more of a collaboration and the song that I might think is perfect may get shot down."

Gary is also a writer.  His 2010 book Record Store Days: From Vinyl to Digital and Back Again (written with Phil Gallo) recounts the evolution of record stores from bastion of music culture to their current near-death status.  In 2010 and 2011, Gary was honored as "Music Supervisor of the Year" by his colleagues in the Guild of Music Supervisors. (6" x 7", black ink print)

Zeppelin Days

Zeppelins were the first means of commercial air travel. A Zeppelin was a rigid airship developed by the German Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin in the late 1800's. The vessel had a light alloy skeleton surrounding hydrogen-gas filled balloons known as "gas bags." It was powered by an internal combustion engine and guided by complex navigational "fins." The bottom of the structural frame held a compartment for passengers, crew and storage.

The Zeppelin was first flown commercially in 1910 by the German company Delag. By 1914, Zeppelins flew more than 1,500 flights and carried 34,000 passengers. Early Zeppelins reached 400 feet in length and could travel 50 miles per hour.

At the start of World War I, Germany decided to use Zeppelins for reconnaissance and bombing missions. By 1915, Germany began Zeppelin bombing raids over England. They targeted military sites but errant bombs landed on homes and occupied buildings. Between 1915 and 1916, Zeppelin raids on England killed 474 people and wounded 1,416. The civilian deaths had little military impact but the presence of huge, bomb-dropping dirigibles over the city struck fear in all Londoners.

Zeppelins had one fatal flaw. Because they were filled with hydrogen gas, they were flammable. As the war progressed, London installed new searchlights and high-caliber anti-aircraft guns. They also developed incendiary bullets which could ignite the hydrogen gas. By 1917, the British became proficient at downing Zeppelins. German crewmen caught in burning airships had to choose between being burned alive alive or leaping to their deaths. Germany finally halted the Zeppelin raids in 1918.

The Treaty of Versailles ending World War I required Germany to surrender their Zeppelins as reparations to the Allies. Many German crews destroyed their vessels instead of handing them over.

Count Von Zeppelin died in 1917. Dr. Hugo Eckener took over the Zeppelin business. Eckener envisioned dirigibles as "vessels of peace." Civilian Zeppelin flights resumed in 1919. In 1924, Eckener flew the first transatlantic Zeppelin flight from Germany to the United States. The trip took 81 hours. In 1929, William Randolph Hearst sponsored a successful Zeppelin flight that circumnavigated the globe.

The Golden Age of Zeppelins was 1928-1937. Zeppelin travel was a combination of an ocean cruise and a luxury hotel. Travelers boarded the ship via a gangplank at a large airport hangar. Upon entering the ship, passengers had to relinquish all matches and cigarette lighters. Smoking was only allowed in a heavily fortified smoking saloon which provided cigarettes and lighters.

Passengers had their own cabins with a bed, a makeup table and a wash basin with hot and cold water. Separate Mens and Ladies bathrooms were found at the end of the hall. The rooms had central heating and ventilation. An Air Steward could be summoned by ringing a bell. Passengers could leave their shoes outside their cabins and they'd be polished by morning.

Zeppelins had a spacious dining room which served three meals a day plus afternoon tea. There was also a reading/writing room, a drawing room, a smoking saloon which doubled as a cocktail bar, a gift shop and an observation platform with large windows (which partially opened) allowing for camera shots of the scenery below.

There were three rules of Zeppelin travel. 1) Do not throw anything overboard as it could damage the hull or airship propellers. 2) Do not carry matches or lighters. 3) Do not leave the passenger quarters unless accompanied by crew. A typical Zeppelin transported 70 passengers and 50 crew. Passengers were allowed to bring 66 lbs. of luggage. Travel time from Germany to the United States took 2 1/2 days. Air travel was smooth and largely without turbulence.

When the Third Reich came to power in 1933, Dr. Eckener refused to cooperate with the Nazis. German Air Minister Herman Goring took over Zeppelin flight operations. The vessels were painted with swastikas on their fins and they flew low over Germany broadcasting music and propaganda speeches.

In 1936, Germany introduced The Hindenburg, the largest Zeppelin ever built. The ship had 15 hydrogen gas bags, an upper deck for passengers and a lower deck for crew. It spanned 803 feet and could fly at 85 mph. The Germans intended to fill the Hindenburg with non-flammable helium gas but due to a helium shortage the vessel was filled with hydrogen. The Hindenburg made 17 trips across the Atlantic in 1936. One of these trips transported boxer Max Schmeling back to Germany after he knocked out Joe Louis at Yankee Stadium. The cost for one-way passage from New York to Germany was $400.

In May 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany for Lakehurst, New Jersey. The flight proceeded routinely and 3 days later it was cleared for final approach to Lakehurst Naval Station. Four minutes after ground handlers grabbed hold of the ship's landing ropes, the Hindenburg burst into flames. In just 37 seconds, the ship became an inferno and crashed to the ground. Of the 97 people on board, 35 were killed. Film cameras captured every moment. The source of the fire was never determined but the disaster effectively ended the age of the Zeppelin. (5" x 6", black ink print)

Woody Allen

From 1977-1986, Woody Allen had a filmmaking run so impressive it's been equaled only by the likes of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges. Allen's films included Annie Hall, Manhattan, Broadway Danny Rose, Zelig, Purple Rose of Cairo and Hannah and Her Sisters. Woody was an antidote to the Spielberg/Lucas blockbuster ethos that was transforming Hollywood from a land of independent auteurs into a money making kitsch machine. Woody effortlessly combined comedy and drama and his movies were inspired gems that paid homage to filmmakers like Bergman, Fellini, Chaplin and Keaton.

As a star in his own films, Woody was the anti-leading man. Neurotic, self-obsessed, needy and cowardly, he perfected the art of awkward encounters (paving the way for Larry David). The original title of Annie Hall was Anhedonia which refers to a psychological condition where the sufferer is incapable of feeling happiness. Yet watching Woody Allen struggle and squirm brought tremendous happiness to the audience. Not just because he was hilarious but because he was like us (assuming you are male, Jewish, neurotic and living in a big city).

Woody's childhood comic influences were the writers Robert Benchley and S.J. Perelman. He was also attracted to the dramatic work of Chekhov, Balzac, Tolstoy and Eugene O'Neill. Woody's career began in his teens when he submitted jokes to an advertising firm. He spent one "abortive year" in college then dropped out to become a gag-writer for Garry Moore & Sid Caesar. He wrote 50 jokes a day while riding the New York subway. In the early 60's, he performed standup comedy in Greenwich Village releasing three comedy albums. He started making television appearances and writing for shows like Candid Camera and The Ed Sullivan Show.

In 1965, United Artists prepared a starring vehicle for Warren Beatty called What's New, Pussycat? (The film was allegedly named after the way Beatty answered the phone.) Woody Allen was hired to add jokes to the script. He ended up re-writing the entire film as well as landing a co-starring role. Beatty dropped out which began a decades-long feud between him and Woody. Pussycat marked the formal start of Woody Allen's film career. He was 29 years old.

From 1965-1975, Woody Allen made screwball comedies. They included Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Sleeper and Play It Again, Sam. The films were a collection of gags loosely structured around a thin narrative. Woody's goal was to make people laugh. By 1975, he was ready for a change. He was interested in writing real characters with an honest range of human emotions.

In 1977, Allen released his masterpiece Annie Hall. The film is a love story between an anxiety-plagued Jewish writer and a neurotic, waspy singer player by Diane Keaton. Told in non-linear fashion with inspired fantasy sequences, Annie Hall focuses on the unrealized aspects of relationships: irrationality, paranoia, jealousy and difficult sexual encounters.

Two jokes from Annie Hall perfectly sum up Woody's screen persona. One: "I believe life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. The horrible are the terminal cases, blind people, cripples. The miserable are everyone else. So you should be thankful you're miserable. Two: "My brother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken. I would turn him in but we need the eggs." The jokes exemplify Woody's obsession with death and despair and his surreal approach to comedy.

Woody Allen's humor owes as much to Groucho Marx as it does to the Jewish tales of the Fools of Chelm and the stories of the 13th Century Sufi mystic jester Nasruddin Mulla. (In a classic Sufi tale, Nasruddin misplaces his keys inside his house but searches for the keys outside the house. When asked why he replies, "The light is much better here.") Woody's one-liners in Annie Hall are classic. ("I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam. I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.") Despite Woody's nebbishy demeanor, he succeeds as a romantic lead. He uses humor as self-defense against the confusion of the modern world.

Annie Hall won four Academy Awards including "Best Picture" (beating out Star Wars) and "Best Actress" for Diane Keaton. Woody avoided the Oscars opting instead to play clarinet at a New York pub. He has never enjoyed the concept of judging art in a competitive setting as if it were an athletic event.

Diane Keaton was Woody Allen's muse for 8 films. In 1982, Woody began a collaboration with a new muse: Mia Farrow. They made 13 films together including the 1985 classic A Purple Rose of Cairo. Inspired by Buster Keaton's Sherlock, Jr. and Woody's own 1977 short story A Kugelmass Episode (in which a humanities professor magically appears in the novel Madame Bovary), Purple Rose is a charming ode to the healing power of movies. Mia Farrow plays a Depression-era woman who escapes her dreary existence by watching movies at the local cinema. During one of her favorite films, the male lead played by Jeff Daniels literally steps off the screen and into Mia Farrow's life. The story merges the surrealism of Luis Bunuel with the populist leanings of Frank Capra. Even Woody himself, who hates watching his own movies, claims Purple Rose as one of his favorites.

Woody Allen has written and directed 48 films. He continues to make movies at the rate of about one per year. He's been nominated for 41 Oscars and his films have won four. He remains a huge fan of the New York Knicks and he continues his Monday night gig with his jazz band at New York's Carlyle Hotel. Though he is 77 years old, he shows no signs of slowing down. As he once famously said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." (6" x 7", black ink print)