The Louise Brooks Society blog in 2009

Believe it or not, but the Louise Brooks Society started blogging back in 2002. The LBS started on LiveJournal, and moved to Blogger in June of 2009. In the last year or so, the LBS has been migrating many of the earlier LiveJournal posts over to this blog. (The ephemeral ones, about now long-passed eBay auctions, etc..., were not moved.) So far, the 2002 and 2003 posts have been relocated. And just recently, most all of the 2009 posts have also found a home here.

Below are some of the highlights from 2009. It was a great year. Check out these posts, as well as all of the earlier entries in the blog archive located in the column on the right.

Did small pox kill The Canary Murder Case?

David Levine, painter and illustrator, has died

Unusual 1954 Louise Brooks image for sale

A Screen Test for Bobbed Hair

Italian censorship of Louise Brooks' films

Louise Brooks look-alike in new Dr. Who comic

A wow Louise Brooks discovery

What Becomes of the "Follies" Girls

A vintage Russian Lulu - at last

A remarkable 1932 reference to Louise Brooks

A Shakespearean Lulu

Alan Moore on " the delectable Louise Brooks"

Lulu in Calcutta, 1966

Philip Jose Farmer Has Died

Lulu in Hollywood - the Russian Edition

No wonder they complained about nudity

Guy Maddin mentions Louise Brooks

Cool pic of the day: Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box

Cool pic of the day: Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box (1929) . . . . what's interesting about this screen capture of a passing moment in a moving picture is its timeless, almost composed quality.

"Louise Brooks," a poem by William Logan

Willian Logan's poem, "Louise Brooks," was first published in the TLS (Times Literary Supplement) on April 8, 2008. Logan is a poet whose most recent book, Madame X (Penguin), was published in 2012. "Louise Brooks" will be in his next book, tentatively titled Rift of Light (probably 2016).  The poem is published here with the permission of the author.


Louise Brooks

Certain memories, uncertain,
and bearing toward gentle impoverishment—

Brooks, I mean, of the bow mouth
and ink-rimmed eye, the raccoon’s

calculating, injured stare,
and a black coiffure like an Achaean helmet.

There were few like her along the Niobrara.
 

"Lulu," a poem by Frank Wedekind

Presented here is Frank Wedekind's poem "Lulu" in its original German, and in rough English translation (by Thomas Gladysz).

Lulu

Ich liebe nicht den Hundetrab
Alltäglichen Verkehres;
Ich liebe das wogende Auf und Ab
Des tosenden Weltenmeeres.
Ich liebe die Liebe, die ernste Kunst,
Urewige Wissenschaft ist,
Die Liebe, die heilige Himmelsgunst,
Die irdische Riesenkraft ist.

Mein ganzes Innre erfülle der Mann
Mit Wucht und mit seelischer Größe.
Aufjauchzend vor Stolz enthüll' ich ihm dann,
Aufjauchzend vor Glück meine Blöße.

=========================================

Lulu

I do not love the dog race
Of everyday intercourse;
I love the heaving up and down
Of the roaring ocean world.
I love love that serious art,
That song of science,
Love, the holy favor of heaven,
The power of giants on earth.

Mankind fulfills my whole soul
With force and with great mind.
I then reveal to men
My nakedness, rejoicing with happiness.

Lulu in "The Grand Inquisitor," a film by Eddie Muller starring Marsha Hunt

Lulu is the name of the charming, bobbed hair character in Eddie Muller's terrific short film, The Grand Inquisitor (IMdB), which was released back in 2008. It can be viewed in its entirety here, or on YouTube. Muller told me at the time he cast Lulu because of the actress' resemblance to Louise Brooks. He is a fan.

"Legendary blacklisted Hollywood actress Marsha Hunt, 90, makes a stunning return to the screen in this haunting short film that writer-director Eddie Muller describes as "a noir fairy tale, based on actual events." A young woman (Leah Dashe) discovers a cache of used books that she believes holds clues to the solution of decades-old crimes. When the authorities dismiss her, she takes matters into her own hands, ringing the doorbell of Hazel Reedy (Hunt), a lonely recluse who may or may not be the widow of America's most notorious serial killer. Their cross-generational confrontation, played out in real time (20 minutes), leads to an unexpected and shocking conclusion. Adapted from Eddie Muller's short story of the same name, published in A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir (Busted Flush Press, 2007)."

Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love - the story of the first Lulu

Take a look into the lives of Frank Wedekind and Tilly Wedekind, two well-known figures in the history of German theater.

"Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love is a 70-minute, one-woman show weaving together original text and songs with extracts from Tilly's autobiography, letters between herself and Frank, snippets and themes from his plays, and a few inventions along the way. Set in a circus ring (as indeed Wedekind's first LULU play - Earth Spirit - begins), with a lute, two puppets, a circus ball and some puffs of magic, Tilly No-Body invites the audience into a world of love, loss, theatre and desire. Walking the tightrope of the absurd and the beautiful, the grotesque and sublime, the comic and the tragic - this is a paean to Frank and Tilly, and a waltz towards Weimar Germany. "

This play, written and performed by University of California, Davis professor Bella Merlin, illustrates how Tilly's mindset changed throughout her life, from her time as her husband's muse to her days as the writer's widow.

Find out more about Bella Merlin and her play, Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love, by visiting her website. Or, check out this piece from 2010, when the play was staged in Davis, California.

Bella Merlin has also contributed a seminal, fascinating, thought-provoking, must read essay, "Tilly Wedekind and Lulu: The Role of Her Life or the Role in Her Life," to the book Auto/Biography and Identity: Women, Theatre and Performance, edited by Maggie B B. Gale and Vivien Gardner (Manchester University Press, 2009).

2014 San Francisco Silent Film Festival

SF SILENT FILM FESTIVAL 2014!    ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE 19TH ANNUAL SFSFF MAY 29-JUNE 1

GLORIOUS MOVIES, ENCHANTING MUSIC, and MORE!   Rudolph Valentino The 19th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival Program is now online at   SILENTFILM.ORG Some highlights: Opening Night Thursday, May 29. A commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Great War with one of the greats of all time, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the film that made Valentino VALENTINO! Accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra who started life as Mont Alto Ragtime and Tango Orchestra 25 years ago! We look forward to their take on Four Horsemen's scintillating tango sequence. The 2014 Silent Film Festival Award goes to the BFI National Film Archive. Archivist Bryony Dixon will accept the award at the Saturday afternoon screening of BFI's brilliant restoration of The Epic of Everest, the official film record of Mallory and Irvine's attempt to scale Everest. Two other treasures from BFI's vaults will grace the screen at Festival 2014: Anthony Asquith's Underground and Maurice Elvey's Sherlock Holmes feature The Sign of Four! Amazing Tales From the Archives returns with more amazements! Bryony Dixon, Dan Streible, Craig Barron and Ben Burtt will take us on a fascinating illustrated tour of early cinema. Preservationist and showman Serge Bromberg will share a selection from his vault of wonders, including the newly discovered version of Keaton's The Blacksmith. More shall be revealed in the program Serge Bromberg's Treasure Trove! Once lost, now found: Ramona, a California story starring Dolores Del Rio was recently restored from materials found in the Czech National Archive. The torrid melodrama Midnight Madness was repatriated from New Zealand and preserved as part of the Save America's Treasures initiative. Our very own restoration project, The Good Bad Man with dashing Douglas Fairbanks will have its world premiere at the festival! We have a cross-dressing Swedish comedy (directed by a woman!), The Girl in Tails; the first Chinese film to win an international award, The Song of the Fishermen; films by cinema heroes Ozu (Dragnet Girl), Dreyer (The Parson's Widow) and Keaton (The Navigator).   Plus! More wonders from the Weimar: Under the Lantern and Harbor Drift; our own Soviet bloc: Cosmic Voyage and The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks. Not to mention, the element that elevates the San Francisco Silent Film Festival into the realm of pure enchantment: live musical accompaniment. We are thrilled to host these dazzling musicians: Frank Bockius, Guenter Buchwald, Stephen Horne, Matti Bye Ensemble, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, and Donald Sosin. TICKETS AND PASSES NOW ON SALE!