"…seductive underbelly."

December 27, 2011
Naked Hollywood
Leave a comment

2011’s top coffee-table books
Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles

Photojournalist Arthur Fellig, known as Weegee, began his career in the 1930s taking black-and-white photos of crime scenes in New York with a bizarre film noir–esque flair. When he moved to Los Angeles in 1947, he began his second act, photographing celebrities and the fandemonium they sparked. With his eye for the unusual, he caught stars at unguarded moments, from unflattering angles, later distorting photos for a carnivalesque look at celebrity. Featuring about 200 photos currently on view at L.A.’s Museum of Contemprary Art, the book reprints Weegee’s 1953 Naked Hollywood and further explores Weegee’s career in Southern California with never-before-seen shots of Hollywood’s lurid, seductive underbelly.

From elle.com

70 years ago today… "Ticking of the clock brought on police investigation."

December 22, 2011
bomb, Pennsylvania Station, suitcase
Leave a comment
Police Solve Mystery
Of Ticking Suitcase
But Virtually Ruin Contents
By Soaking It in Oil
An attendant at the Pennsylvania Station parcel-checking room wasn’t taking any chances when he picked up a suitcase and heard a ticking noise inside it. He called police.
Bomb squad detectives took the suitcase to a nearby parking lot, soaked it in oil and opened it. They found an alarm clock, the hands indicating 5:28; three pairs of women’s shoes, a raincoat, a meat chopper, two flatirons, two brushes and woman’s undies.
The suitcase was returned to the checkroom, the contents a bit the worse for the oil.
(PM Daily, Monday, December 22, 1941)

Nakedly Naked… and "recognizably prurient"

December 16, 2011
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

NY Times Lens Blog post about Weegee’s Naked Hollywood Exhibition:

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/weegees-other-naked-city/

Brief excerpt:

Weegee’s Other Naked City
By David Dunlap
December 16, 2011

…Weegee may thus have some relevant [and prurient] lessons to offer artists, photographers and [prurient] museum-goers today.”
They are:
• Look all around, notice everything [pruriently]. “Often, this can be achieved by actually walking all around the subject, whatever it is, looking at it from every possible [prurient] perspective,” Weegee said.
• Think serially [pruriently]. “Think about a particular subject, theme or action, or even a piece of architecture that you might be [pruriently] interested in,” Weegee suggested. “Whenever you see another example, [pruriently] shoot it.”
• Photography is a [prurient] distortion. “I had to have a lens out of this [prurient] world to do full justice to the strange sights and [prurient] people which is Hollywood,” Weegee wrote.

Continuing the [prurient] tradition of advice, tips and tricks from Weegee and filling our little [prurient] electronic filing cabinet with [prurient] blog posts about a [prurient] blog post about a [prurient] blog post…