Living Art

One of the unusual people Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec focused on as subject of his paintings was the Frenchwoman,  Louise Weber,  who was a can-can dancer and star of the Moulin Rouge in 1890's. The clip below, captured on film in 1943, gives the casual viewer a sense of the exertion and abandon required to execute the steps of this high-spirited dance style:

The next silent video shows what the dancers looked like in Weber's time:

Toulouse-Lautrec had been hired to create posters for the Moulin Rouge, and management liked his work so much they put his paintings up for display in the cabaret and reserved a regular spot for him.

Small Giant

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,  the Post-Impressionist artist who is probably best known for his sympathetic renderings of unusual people in their everyday activities, was born today in 1864,  in the commune of Albi in Southern France. Though he stood only about 5 feet tall, Toulouse-Lautrec was not afflicted with Dwarfism--he suffered from breaks in both of his thighs as a teen and neither of these fractures healed properly, leaving his legs stunted while the upper part of his body grew normally.  Toulouse-Lautrec was a giant among artists, however, and was quite prolific, creating 737  works on canvas and another  5,000 or so drawings.

Toulouse-Lautrec died at the age of 36.

Another Unexpected Turn

Just two days after President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the man held in custody as the gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald,  was gunned down himself while being transferred to another jail on this date by Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner, braggart, and supposed mob man.

Why Ruby killed Oswald has been a topic of fierce debate over the years among both conspiracy and lone assassin theorists.

Lost Expedition

In 1990,  16 brave women--from  Russia, Japan, and America--set out to explore Antarctica and seek out the south pole as part of a ground-breaking All-Woman Antarctic Expedition, but make a wrong turn while in Drake's Passage and end up some distance from their intended destination.

As far as I know the expedition was actually a success, but I could find little documentation on the trip.

Not Such a Good Idea

Dave had time to spare today, and it was a lovely morning, so he decided to walk into work for a change and set aside the perils of driving.

A Brief Moment with Deanna

Deanna Durbin, a talented young actress and singer who enjoyed her heyday in film during the 1930s and 40s,  was brought into the conversation this week while the characters of  The Wizard of Oz were being examined, as she had been one of the prospective Dorothys passed over in favor of Judy Garland.  We'll look at Durbin's career in more detail next week, as she was a fine actress, but in the interim,  here she is performing the song,  Ave Maria,  accompanied by the obviously worried young lads from The Vienna Boys Choir:

The scene above is from Mad About Music, from 1938.

Dark Day

John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald on this date in 1963 while Kennedy riding in a motorcade through Dallas. Rather than dwell on that specific event, we'll instead pay a brief homage to the late President's memory:

A Look from Outside

The Extrasolar Planet Observation and Deep Impact Extended Investigation spacecraft, called EPOXI, took these shots of the Moon as it slipped momentarily from the shadows to whistle past the Earth in a regular circuit:

EPOXI was launched in 2005 to study comets and extrasolar planets.

Errors in Engineering

Salt and oil rested in large deposits under the bed of a  10-foot-deep freshwater lake in Louisiana, named Lake Peigneur,  and both resources were being extracted without incident until yesterday in the year 1980, when an oil rig run by the Wilson Brothers Company, for Texaco, began to drill in the wrong location and  poked a hole into the shaft of a salt mine underneath the lake,  causing the water to drain away into the mine,  and creating a large sinkhole that swallowed the oil rig and a number of other structures. The lake did not completely empty, as backfill from the Delcambre Canal replenished the lost water, but Lake Peigneur's content has changed from fresh to brackish saltwater.

Three dogs died in the accident. Gaia was just happy it wasn't of the same magnitude as a Hadron Collider miscalculation...

Happy and Bouncy Songs for Kids

...okay...peculiar kids...but Saturday Television wouldn't be complete without songs like this:

Kid-Safe Oz

We've looked at Oz all week from the adult perspective, so this morning we're going finish up our examination of the Emerald City and its suburbs with a final retelling of the tale, coming this time from a much younger point of view:

Saturday Cartoons

Before Ghostbusters came upon the scene,  Felix the Cat was the one you'd call when it came to dealing with troublesome spirits. In this 1923 Pat Sullivan animation, Felix comes to the aid of an old farmer and nearly meets defeat, but after a desperate struggle, finally gets the upper hand.

This is titled Felix the Ghost Breaker:

Lost in the Mist

Anita Louise, a deliciously lovely blonde bombshell, seems to get little notice nowadays, even though  she had quite a long movie and television career.  I will attempt to remedy that over the weekend, but for now, a brief collection of stills, accompanied by the music of Glenn Miller, will clear the mists of time for a moment so that we might get a glimpse of the actress:

Closing Time in Oz

Judy Garland, the singer and actress who portrayed Dorothy  in The Wizard of Oz, was sixteen when she landed the role, and had already been under contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios for three years, though with middling success, as MGM wasn't quite sure what to do with her until they learned of her singing ability.

Before the Oz film went into production, producer Mervyn LeRoy wanted Garland for the role of Dorothy, but a few other young actresses were also considered: Deanna Durbin, Bonita Granville, and Shirley Temple were all said to be candidates, and Temple even auditioned for the role.

Garland won out, however, and her memorable performance in the film will live on forever in the hearts of the millions of people who have seen her on celluloid.

And this song from the film, Over the Rainbow, has become Garland's own:

The Quiet One

If you have read the Oz books, you already know that the animals who lived in the enchanted Oz all had the ability to speak in human tongues, including any animal who had immigrated into the land--even if they could not do so previously.  Dorothy's brave little dog, Toto, appeared to be an exception, as he remained speechless in many of the Oz books (although much later on, Toto revealed that he simply did not have anything to say).

Toto was portrayed by a female Cairn Terrier named  Terry  in the 1939 Wizard of Oz picture, making 125 dollars per week during filming, a little over twice what the munchkins made.  This clip is one of the little dog's better remembered scenes from the film: