| A copy of "Forty Years: Memoirs From the Pages of a Newspaper," by Charlotta A. Bass, has been listed on EBay. This is a self-published autobiography of the woman who headed the California Eagle, a newspaper that served the African American community in Los Angeles. Bidding starts at $199.95. That's pretty steep; I'm thankful I have a photocopy of the manuscript. |
Works of Art
The paint has dried on several dozen such canvases with eerie effects, and Kester's friends keep urging him to exhibit these underpaintings Kester adamantly refuses. He has a reason. TWELVE YEARS AGO, prodded by fun-loving Jim Moran and Ben Hecht, Kester, a representationist in style, perpetrated one such meaningless daub and Georg Antheil, As a result, Kester was in the doghouse with serious artists, of which he is one, for a long time.
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Afterward, she came upon a boy scrutinizing the map and asked what he was looking for. "I'm hunting for Many Many Others," he said. ::
BEGINNING TO PALL, PAL Give me a journalist, –RICHARD ARMOUR ::
A WRITER WITH a "If it goes any lower, doc," he said feverishly, "sell!"
As she did, another lady driver darted into the space. The bloke said that wasn't nice. She glared icily at him. It The last he saw of her she was virtually apoplectic at the check stand. Made him very happy. ::
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| Paul Coates today begins a series of columns based on a trip to the Dominican Republic, where he obtained exclusive interviews with ousted dictators Juan Peron and Fulgencio Batista. By Paul Coates, Mirror News Columnist
He made that confident prediction to me today from his comfortable exile in a villa close to this Caribbean city. "I Peron stated that millions of his followers –the outlawed Peronistas — are systematically strangling the country's economy so that the present government will fall. "They've Claims 7 Million Backers
The Peronistas, And the towering, robust The reasons he gave me: Banks are in a perilous condition. Strikes continually paralyze all industry. There are 200 ships docked at Buenos Aires waiting for idle, pro-Peron union workers to handle cargoes. In Argentine Dollar
"In chaos such as there is there now, anything can happen. But time is on my side. Time will have the last word." We Critical Situation
They He also agreed to For The latest visitor by necessity is Fulgencio Batista of Cuba. Although he denied that he was running his outlaw party from Ciudad Trujillo, Peron admitted to me that he is kept informed of current developments in plans to revive his dictatorship.
"These are the men I will bring back. They are what Argentina lacks. And I have them," he said. The Old Racket
Thousands "I have word that people in Argentina will work eight "If I were called back to Argentina tomorrow in six months I could have the country where it was in 1955." |
| Nov. 21, 1940: "Arise, My Love." Look! It's Rube Wolf! "You'll like it, I promise," — Philip K. Scheuer |
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An image that resonates with the famous 1971 ad of Iron Eyes Cody. |
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Don Page called radio in 1969 Los Angeles "worse than He attacked the various formats and the competition–talk, rock and Ten years earlier, in a column on April 5, 1959, Page had other, I was too young to notice the outer-space newscasts and the volume I'm certainly too old for most radio demographics but I'd listen just for that chance to hear something different. –Keith Thursby |
Every week I visit former Times reporter Eric Malnic in the hospital, where he's recovering from cancer surgery. There's a large blowup of an old postcard of the Figueroa Tunnels on the wall across from the elevators, so I always pass it on the way to his room. I thought this would be a nice little get well card for Eric. Please keep him in your thoughts. |
| An entire Batchelder fireplace has been listed on EBay. The fireplace is located in Fullerton, Calif. Bidding starts at $20,000. |
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[Note: I didn't really know Art Seidenbaum except to nod when I passed him in the hallway. I wish now that I had gotten acquainted — lrh]. Play the Pastime With Country and CatfishApril 7, 1985 By Art Seidenbaum, Art Seidenbaum is The Times Opinion Editor
The game of yesterday begins again this week, with the men in funny flannel knickers and billed caps who more often chew than puff. Baseball is beloved for being childhood, for suggesting open skies and open spaces, for remaining simple while the outside world — even other outside sports — become ever more complicated and predicated on team efforts, systems solutions, electronic relays. The human relays from shortstop to second base to first — the classic double play — are probably the most group-intensive activities of a most singular game. The modern world depends upon message centers. The baseball catcher relies on one or two fingers stuck out near his groin. Corporate life demands the appearance of constant motion. The baseball outfielder is expected to stand and wait. Basketball and football require actions memorized and mutually executed, not unlike the precision of a corps de ballet. The baseball batter is all by himself; most of his teammates, not so incidentally, are sitting down. Consider the static nature of a game involving 18 players on both sides, as many as 15 of them doing nothing at most given moments.
The game of yesterday is linear and played within strict limits. Almost all sports have marked fields of play, but baseball has lines within lines. Pitchers must throw within inches of a peculiar pentagon; batters must stand within boxes. The action is serial rather than simultaneous, discrete and not diffuse. Natural ability is better for batting and pitching than brains or higher education. Listen to the superior players forever speak of "hitting it good." I visited the California Angels' spring training camp at about the turn of the '70s, to write a story on the growing number of college graduates reaching baseball rosters. The upcoming generation of yesterday was supposedly changing. There were six college grads, as I recall, in Palm Springs, out of three dozen athletes. Only one of them survived spring to become memorable, a post-UC Berkeley pitcher named Andy Messersmith who later applied his considerable wit to winning contractual disputes. But even now the new wrinkles of free agency and arbitration are confusions for most competitors whose professionalism is play. And while they have business managers to handle money confusions, their baseball managers are usually most endearing when mangling the language; Sparky Anderson of Detroit probably holds the current records for most grammatical errors in a championship series. The players come of age at 18 or 19, out of high school. While many do attend college for a time these days, they still improve by experience instead of by degrees. They come from small-town places where the roadhouse is the community center and the road signs have been pinged by hunters on the way home, from places where jets do not land and trains used to run. They acquire nicknames from field and stream, such classic identities as Country and Catfish, Bird and Goose, Daffy, Ducky and Moose. The Los Angeles Dodgers' 1985 roster shows two-thirds of the young men having been born in small cities or little hamlets across the United States and Central America. The "dean" of the Dodgers, Bill Russell, entering his 16th season in the National League, comes from Pittsburg, Kansas, population 18,770; Russell began playing organized baseball at age 18 with the one-time Ogden A's of the Pioneer League. Outfielder Terry Whitfield hails from Blythe, California, a rest stop of 6,805 residents between here and Phoenix. Young Mike Ramsey comes from Harlem, Georgia, population 1,485; he attended Gulf Coast Community College before converting to a life on the pitcher's mound and then converting again to a place in the outfield. Young power hitter Mike Marshall was born in Libertyville, Illinois, population 16,520, starred at Buffalo Grove High School, grew into a size 14 shoe and began his professional career at 18 for the old Lethbridge Dodgers of the Pioneer League. The Ogden A's are now in Pocatello and the Lethbridge Dodgers have moved to Great Falls but the heritage, like the hometowns, continues semi-rural. Not one of the 39 players on the Dodgers' roster comes from New York City or Chicago or Philadelphia, although three are from the sprawl of Los Angeles sandlots (Bobby Castillo, Ken Landreaux, Larry White). Baseball players — white, black or Latino — seem to grow among the weeds, the hardy natives from an earlier time, when exercise was for fun or fame, not for health discipline or mating display. Sure, many of the present players talk the good Nautilus talk of lifting weights, like other well-paid performers. Yet baseball players needn't approach the conditioning of wide receivers or even tennis servers. Look at Fernando Valenzuela for every-four-day proof that a fine screwball is not a function of diet or jogging discipline. Remember Babe Ruth and realize he must have eaten much more than Wheaties. Drug scandals are a disguise for the innocence of a nice, quiet national pastime. Piles of statistics mask the simplicity of small boys playing catch with a small ball. The game of yesterday persists, scoreless inning after scoreless inning, April after April, because it keeps childhood alive — in mind, if not body. |
Aug. 21, 1940, a half-page ad for "Rhythm on the River" and no sign of Billy Wilder's name anywhere. |
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If you didn't know, you probably wouldn't guess from this clip that Wilder was involved in this film. Not a trace of Billy Wilder in the review, either. |
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THE WRITING LIFE
Judith Freeman on Raymond ChandlerA letter led to friendship with Dorothy Fisher, once Raymond Chandler's secretary.
A few other less-well-known individuals still survive and, through an |
A Requiem by Benny Carter is performed at a memorial for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. |
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Former Dodger Lou Johnson returned to Southern California in a trade with the Indians. Sweet Lou, as he was known, was ready for his "new lease." "Cleveland is bad enough," he told The Times' Ross Newhan. "When you're in Cleveland and not playing, well, you die." Johnson hit 40 home runs from 1965 to 1967 after joining the Dodgers as a fill-in for the injured Tommy Davis. Johnson also was an original Angel and played briefly in the team's first game in 1961. "I feel great, I'm ready to play 162 games … plus some. Yes, plus some. That's where the money is." Very little went right for the Angels in 1969 and Johnson's acquisition didn't provide any magic. He hit .203 and drove in only nine runs in 67 games. — Keith Thursby |
Florentine Gardens, 1944 |
Earl Carroll's 1943 An EBay vendor has listed three nightclub souvenir photos from the 1940s. The two at left are from the Florentine Gardens on Hollywood Boulevard, the one above is from Earl Carroll's. I used to collect pictures like this until they got expensive … and I ran out of room. Bidding on each photo starts at $19.99.
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TV Cliches Shocking
She refused to accept this corny explanation and resolved never to bring up any more TV medical cliches. SHE HAS BROKEN her But witnessing something shocking, And if the teleplay boys don't cut it out I.R.N. will go into shock. ::
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CONVERSATIONS Some people like to dice –MARTIN HATFIELD ::
He was driving on Canoga To his surprise, they fell in behind him and when he turned off onto a narrow road snaking off into the hills the trailercade followed him — around hairpin turns and barely squeezing by parked cars. Stu He slunk into the house and after a while ::
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Confidential FileMash Notes and Comments
"I "You can squeeze until you are blue in the face or blister your hands. "There has been a lot of money lost on that trick. "Anyone who didn't know it, would stake a fortune on the fact that he could break it. "There is another trick, Paul, which I would like to explain to you …" (signed) G.E. Chaplin –Wait till I wipe the egg off my hands. ::
"The average social lion has hair on his upper lip. "The backwoods bears have hair on their backs. "The rain water washes the bears' backs, which goes to prove that rain water is the best hair washer. "You never saw a bald-headed Indian when Columbus discovered America. As proof that rain water never did harm to anyone's hair, ask any of the direct descendants of Noah. "Noah kept on preaching to the two-footed animals to watch out for the abundant rain that was to fall. "But they just laughed at Noah and kept right on washing their hair with chlorinated fire hydrant water!" (signed) Leo F. Quinn, P.O. Box 385, L.A. –They could afford to laugh. Noah didn't even know there were fire hydrants. ::
"I have written the world's first 'Organic Food song' in collaboration with Dr. Albert Denis Tessier, "He also teaches music, Latin and Spanish. "The "Has a foot-tapping, hand-clapping chorus ideal for group singing, or for barbershop quartettes. "What (signed) Hazzie Goodell, L.A. –Crazy!
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| Dec. 5, 1939: "Ninotchka" opens tomorrow! And no, not a word about the screenwriters in this anonymous review, which appeared in The Times on Dec. 7, 1939. |
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The Times' art department retouched Neil Clemans' photo of Marlon Brando giving the finger to photographers. Let's see if we can get a copy of the original. |
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The Rams announced plans for a Saturday night game to open the 1959 You have to wonder if Rozelle, the future commissioner, also was –Keith Thursby |
This postcard of the Plunge in Long Beach has been listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $2. |
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