If I AM NOT FOR MYSELF....

Bush/Cheney Risk Israel's Survival

By Ray McGovern
February 12, 2007

Editor’s Note: The Bush administration presents itself as Israel's staunchest

friend, but some of its reckless policies are worsening Israel's security

situation. In this guest essay, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern asks whether

Israel might begin asking the age-old question, "with friends like these, who

needs enemies?"

President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are unwittingly playing

Dr. Jack Kevorkian in helping the state of Israel commit suicide.
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For this is the inevitable consequence of the planned air and missile attack on

Iran. The pockmarked, littered landscape in Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan and

the endless applicant queues at al-Qaeda and other terrorist recruiting stations

testify eloquently to the unintended consequences of myopic policymakers in

Washington and Tel Aviv.

Mesmerized. Sadly, this is the best word to describe those of us awake to the

inexorable march of folly to war with Iran and the growing danger to Israel’s

security, especially over the medium and long term.

An American and/or Israeli attack on Iran will let slip the dogs of war. Those

dogs never went to obedience school. They will not be denied their chance to

bite, and Israel’s arsenal of nuclear weapons will be powerless to muzzle them.

In my view, not since 1948 has the very existence of Israel hung so much in the

balance. Can Bush/Cheney and the Israeli leaders not see it?

Pity that no one seems to have read our first President’s warning on the noxious

effects of entangling alliances. The supreme irony is that in their fervor to

help, as well as use, Israel, Bush and Cheney seem blissfully unaware that they

are leading it down a garden path and off a cliff.

Provoke and Pre-empt

Whether it is putting the kibosh on direct talks with Iran or between Israel and

Syria, the influence and motives of the Vice President are more transparent than

those of Bush.

Sure, Cheney told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer recently that the administration’s Iraq

policy would be “an enormous success story,” but do not believe those who

dismiss Cheney as “delusional.” He and his “neo-conservative” friends are crazy

like a fox. They have been pushing for confrontation with Iran for many years,

and saw the invasion of Iraq in that context.

Alluding to recent U.S. military moves, author Robert Dreyfuss rightly describes

the neo-cons as “crossing their fingers in the hope that Iran will respond

provocatively, making what is now a low-grade cold war inexorably heat up.”

But what about the President? How to explain his fixation with fixing Iran’s

wagon? Cheney’s influence over Bush has been shown to be considerable ever since

the one-man search committee for the 2000 vice presidential candidate picked

Cheney.

The Vice President can play Bush like a violin. But what strings is he using

here? Where is the resonance?

Experience has shown the President to be an impressionable sort with a roulette

penchant for putting great premium on initial impressions and latching onto

people believed to be kindred souls—be it Russian President Vladimir Putin

(trust at first sight), hale-fellow-well-met CIA director George Tenet, or

oozing-testosterone-from-every-pore former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Of particular concern was his relationship with Sharon. Retired Gen. Brent

Scowcroft, a master of discretion with the media, saw fit to tell London’s

Financial Times two and a half years ago that Sharon had Bush “mesmerized” and

“wrapped around his little finger.”

As chair of the prestigious President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

under George W. Bush and national security adviser to his father, Scowcroft was

uniquely positioned to know—and to draw comparisons. He was summarily fired

after making the comments about Sharon and is now persona non grata at the White

House.

Compassion Deficit Disorder

George W. Bush first met Sharon in 1998, when the Texas governor was taken on a

tour of the Middle East by Matthew Brooks, then executive director of the

Republican Jewish Coalition. Sharon was foreign minister and took Bush on a

helicopter tour over the Israeli occupied territories.

An Aug. 3, 2006 McClatchy wire story by Ron Hutcheson quotes Matthew Brooks: “If

there’s a starting point for George W. Bush’s attachment to Israel, it’s the day

in late 1998, when he stood on a hilltop where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the

Mount, and, with eyes brimming with tears, read aloud from his favorite hymn,

‘Amazing Grace.’ He was very emotional. It was a tear-filled experience. He

brought Israel back home with him in his heart. I think he came away profoundly

moved.”

Bush made gratuitous but revealing reference to that trip at the first meeting

of his National Security Council on Jan. 30, 2001. After announcing he would

abandon the decades-long role of honest broker between Israelis and Palestinians

and would tilt pronouncedly toward Israel, Bush said he would let Sharon resolve

the dispute however he saw fit.

At that point he brought up his trip to Israel with the Republican Jewish

Coalition and the flight over Palestinian camps, but there was no sense of

concern for the lot of the Palestinians. In A Pretext for War James Bamford

quotes Bush: “Looked real bad down there,” he said with a frown. Then he said it

was time to end America’s efforts in the region. “I don’t see much we can do

over there at this point,” he said.

So much for the Sermon on the Mount. The version I read puts a premium on

actively working for justice. There is no suggestion that tears suffice.

Then-Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill, who was at the NSC meeting,

reported that Colin Powell, the newly minted but nominal secretary of state, was

taken completely by surprise at this nonchalant jettisoning of longstanding

policy. Powell demurred, warning that this would unleash Sharon and “the

consequences could be dire, especially for the Palestinians.”

But according to O’Neill, Bush just shrugged, saying, “Sometimes a show of

strength by one side can really clarify things.” O’Neill says that Powell seemed

“startled.” It is a safe bet that the Vice President was in no way startled.

A similar account reflecting Bush’s compassion deficit disorder leaps from the

pages of Ron Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine. Crown Prince Abdullah, Saudi

Arabia’s de facto leader was in high dudgeon in April 2002 when he arrived in

Crawford to take issue with Bush’s decision to tilt toward Israel and jettison

the long-standing American role of honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict.

With Bush’s freshly bestowed “man-of-peace” epithet for Sharon still ringing in

Abdullah’s ear, he began by insisting that before a word was spoken the

President and his aides watch a 15-minute video the prince had brought of mayhem

on the West Bank, of American-made tanks, bloodied and dead children, screaming

mothers.

Then, still wordless, they all filed into another room where the Saudis

proceeded to make specific demands, but Bush appeared distracted and was non-

responsive. After a few minutes, the President turned to Abdullah and said,

“Let’s go for a drive. Just you and me. I’ll show you the ranch.”

Bush was so obviously unprepared to discuss substance with his Saudi guests that

some of the President’s aides checked into what had happened. The briefing

packet for the President had been diverted to Cheney’s office. Bush never got

it, so he was totally unaware of what the Saudis hoped to accomplish in making

the hajj to Crawford.

(There is little doubt that this has been a common experience over the past six

years and that there are, in effect, two “deciders” in the White House, one of

them controlling the paper flow.)

Not that Bush was starved for background briefings. Indeed, he showed a

preference to get them from Prime Minister Sharon who, with his senior military

aide, Gen. Yoav Galant, briefed the President both in Crawford (in 2005) and the

Oval Office (in 2003) on Iran’s “nuclear weapons program.”

Sorry if I find that odd. That used to be our job at CIA. I’ll bet Sharon and

Galant packed a bigger punch.

There is, no doubt, more at play here regarding Bush’s attitude and behavior

regarding Israel and Palestine. One need not be a psychologist to see ample

evidence of oedipal tendencies. It is no secret that the President has been

privately critical of what he perceives to be his father’s mistakes.

Suskind notes, for example, that Bush defended his tilt toward Israel by telling

an old foreign policy hand, “I’m not going to be supportive of my father and all

his Arab buddies!”

And it seems certain that Ariel Sharon gave the young Bush an earful about the

efforts of James Baker, his father’s secretary of state, to do the unthinkable;

i.e., crank Arab grievances into deals he tried to broker between Israel and the

Palestinians. It seems clear that this is one reason the Baker-Hamilton report

was dead on arrival.

Dangerous Friends

George W. Bush may have the best of intentions in his zeal to defend Israel, but

he and Cheney have the most myopic of policies.

Israeli leaders risk much if they take reassurance from the President’s

rhetoric, particularly vis-à-vis Iran. I am constantly amazed to find, as I

speak around the country, that the vast majority of educated Americans believe

we have a defense treaty with Israel. We don’t, but one can readily see how it

is they are misled. Listen to the President exactly two years ago:

“Clearly, if I was the leader of Israel and I’d listened to some of the

statements by the Iranian ayatollahs that regarded the security of my country,

I’d be concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon as well. And, in that Israel

is our ally—and in that we’ve made a very strong commitment to support Israel—we

will support Israel if her security is threatened.”

We do no favors for Israeli leaders in giving them the impression they have

carte blanche in their neighborhood—and especially vis-à-vis Iran, and that we

will bail them out, no matter what.

Have they learned nothing from the recent past? Far from enhancing Israel’s

security, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Washington’s encouragement of Israel’s

feckless attack on Lebanon last summer resulted in more breeding ground for

terrorist activity against Israel.

This will seem child’s play compared to what would be in store, should the U.S.

and/or Israel bomb Iran.

Bottom line: there is a growing threat to Israel from suicide bombers. The most

dangerous two work in the White House.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical

Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and

is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

(VIPS). His e-mail is rrmcgovern@aol.com. (The original version of this article

appeared on TomPaine.com.)

the cabnet of dr. caligari

SEE IMMEDIATE PREVIOUS POST - HENRY_ALLEN

THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES

Alraune, 1928

Alrane was Brigette Helm’s first film after her astounding debut in Metropolis. Her character and the film’s expressionist style are rendered perfectly by Hans Neuman for this 2-sheet poster design.

Year: 1928

Production: Ama Film

Director: Henrik Galeen

Starring: Brigitte Helm, Paul Wegener, Ivan Petrovich

Screenwriter: Henrik Galeen

Based on Alraune (1911) by Hanns Heinz Ewers

125 minutes; B/W

---

A professor of genetics (Wegener) conducts a cold-blooded experiment into the Nature-versus-nurture controversy. Using the semen of a hanged man to fertilize a whore, he creates life - a girl baby called Alraune - by artificial insemination in the laboratory. After this scientificional beginning, Alraune becomes like Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley, a fantastic Gothic melodrama of retribution for a crime against Nature; nevertheless, in its distrust of the scientist, Alraune is wholly central to the development of sf. Alraune (Helm), who is named after and compared throughout with the mythic mandrake root that grows where a hanged man's seed falls, appears to have no soul, and when, as a young woman, she learns of her dark origins, she revenges herself against her "father", the professor - although at the end there is hope she will be heartless no longer. Usually spoken of as a great classic of the German silent cinema, Alraune is actually more of an early exploitation movie, stylish but prurient, with more than a whiff of incest in the theme. Helm's eroticism, which we are to deplore, was in fact the reason for the film's commercial success. However, Galeen considerably softened the portrait of Alraune rendered in Ewer's sensationalist novel: whereas in the book she is a monster of depravity, causing illness and suicide wherever she goes, in the film she merely causes mayhem and a little pain. This is generally agreed to be the best of the five film versions of the 1911 book, the others being from 1918 (twice - Germany and Hungary - the latter being directed by Mihaly Kertesz, who became Michael Curtiz, the director of Casablanca [1942]), 1930 (Germany, again starring Helm) and 1952 (Germany, starring Hildegard Knef and Erich von Stroheim).

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

SURREAL HORROR

Good horror genre is the stuff of nightmares are made of. No film has ever reproduced the subjective feeling of nightmares - but some, notably the classics of German expressionism, sometimes comes pretty damn close! Henry_Allen

German Expressionist Cinema 1919 - 1933

Introduction:

In this essay I intend to discuss the German expressionism cinema movement from 1919- 1933. First I look at the meaning of expressionism in general and in terms of film. Then I show the expressionist cinema in a historian context and how it could become the only national cinema comparable to America's at this time. I have a closer look at The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the film that "first brought expressionism to the German cinema." Finally I examine why the expressionist movement "died out around 1924" but influenced later films such as Metropolis, M and Kameradschaft.

First of all I would like to look at the meaning of "expressionism". Expressionism has it roots in "painting (starting about 1910) and had been quickly taken up in theatre, then in literature, and in architecture." "Flashback, A Brief History Of Film" quotes that "expressionism emphasized a given artist's emotional, intensely personal reactions; it was thus in contrast to the traditional view that an artist should strive faithfully to reproduce the natural appearance of the object or person being painted, sculpted, or written about." All different definitions of "Expressionism" acquaint it as a theory of art that expresses feelings in an abstract way.

The German Expressionist cinema from 1919 to 1933 was a new movie style that revealed a few widely regarded films. As adapted for film Pam Cook describes expressionism in her Cinema Book as an "extreme stylisation of mise en scene... " and "The stylistic features of German Expressionism are fairly specific and include chiaroscuro lighting , surrealistic settings and, frequently, a remarkable fluidity of mobile framing." Flashback adds that German Expressionism "concentrated on a heavy use of light and dark contrasts, exaggeration, tilted angles, a dream like atmosphere" and "German films of this area are united by their uncanny evocation of stimmung ..."

As Pam Cook points out World War One contributed the development of German film productions. After the closure of the borders the German film producer had to provide the domestic film market with their own products. According to Kracauer, the number of film productions rose from 28 in 1913 to 245 in 1919. Unfortunately the films quality wasn't as good as the quantity. At this time German films were either commercial ones or copies of foreign films.

At the end of 1917 the German military (Oberste Heeresleitung) and the government founded the Universum Film AG (Ufa) in order to influence German cinema audience with propaganda films. "Almost at once Ufa became the major production company in Germany" and took over a lot of other important film production companies and their directors, cameramen, actors, architects etc. In order to attract the domestic market the film producer had to increase the quality of the films.



"The end of the Fist World War [in 1918], the collapse of the November uprising and massive inflation all contributed to an export boom in the German film industry that began in 1919." "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is generally regarded as the film which first brought Expressionism to the German cinema." "It is also one of the most typical examples." However it is "the story of a madman's fantasies filmed with starkly artificial sets made up cardboard backdrops or painted cubist shadows, which effectively suggested the disorientation of the storyteller's mind." "We see the world as the hero does. The world of the film is literally a projection of the hero's vision."

As Siegfried Kracauer describes in "From Hitler To Caligari" Caligari's authors Carl Meyer and Hans Janowitz original story had been essential changed by Director Wiene. While Meyer's and Janowitz' story exposed the madness inherent in authority, Wiene's Caligari glorified authority and convicted its antagonist of madness. Wiene wanted his Caligari to be a commercial film that answers to mass desires. With "his instinctive submission to the necessities of the screen" he put the originally story into a framing story that introduces the hero Francis as a madman.

Caligari was designed by three expressionist artists. One of them, Hermann Warm, claimed: "The film image must become graphic art." I thought that the whole film could have been performed on stage. Watching Caligari I felled being reminiscent of costly scened dramatisations. Kracauer mentioned that in accordance with Warms' belief, "the canvases and draperies of Caligari abounded in complexes of jagged, sharp pointed forms strongly reminiscent of gothic patterns. Except for a few slips or concessions-some backgrounds opposed the pictorial convention in too direct a manner, while others all but preserved them- the settings amounted to a perfect transformation of material objects into emotional ornaments."

From my point of view it is very interesting that Caligari was completely shot in the studio. It seems as if the camera did not take the plunge to go on the streets. Krakauer pointed out that their withdrawal into the studio was part of the general German retreat into a shell. I personally think that as well as a shell the studio offered much more possibilities for the film producers to express abstract thoughts. In the early 20th century some big art forms such as the painting moved towards bigger abstraction, "less topic but more art" as James Monaco quotes. The art of film making wanted to be as pretentious as e.g. the painting. Monaco adds that "the expressionist film maker had big manipulative power to create a popular art form in the studio." The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was a big success in the United States, France and other countries after its release in the early 1920 "while the Germans were to close to Caligari to appraise its symptomatic value." "The French coined the term "Caligarisme" and applied it to a postwar world seemingly all upside down; which at any rate, proves that they sensed the film's bearing on the structure of society." After its release in the United States in April 1921 it gained "world fame." Because of its success, other films in the expressionist style soon appeared. But Jerzy Toeblitz points out that the following German expressionist films never have been as self-contained and harmonic in their expressionistic style as Caligari.

One of the last Decla-Bioscob films to be made before Ufa took over was Der muede Tod (Destiny). "Death personified by a morose, black-clad, ashen faced man, enters a tavern where flowers wilt and a cat arches his back." The successful three hours film Dr. Mabuse der Spieler is about a gambler who makes a fortune on the stock exchange and as Pam Cook points out "it can be related to the economic conditions of contemporary Germany..." In 1922 another short lived Studio, Prana Film, supplied Ufa with Nosferatu. Murnau's conception of Dracula "as a rat in human form" was successful on the box office with its "gothic subject matter and visual style." while Warning Shadows (Schatten) "exemplifies all the stylistic features of German Expressionism" but "only found a response among film aesthetes."

While the German economy recovered and the US. Dawes Plan helped to stabilise the country in 1924 the German film industry suffered a great deal. In times of inflation films were cheap and therefor easy to sell on foreign markets. Now as the mark was stabilised, expressionist film budgets were rising and "foreign films came in more frequently, offering a degree of competition unknown in Germany for nearly a decade." "The export boom in the film industry collapsed almost as swiftly as it had started..." Therefor the two part project Die Niebelungen, a historical epic shot in 31 weeks(!) and The last Laugh by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau were a "commercial failure" although The last Laugh " received laudatory press notices." "Murnau was the first to make camera movement a style sufficient into itself."

As Pam Cook quotes "Expressionism as a national movement died out around 1924, though Expressionist tendencies can be found in later German films..." Metropolis (1926) "made effective use of miniatures and other special effects." This vision of the world of the future was the most expensive German film up to that date "production costs exceeded 5 million marks." Its Director Fritz Lang "had employed some 800 actors, 30000 extras and taken 310 days and 60 nights of filming." "Metropolis greatness is in its design, its geometric use of shapes as well as of masses of people." "The film works as a critcism of the manipulative capitalist system which both oppresses the people and transforms them into a monstrous destructive power."

As Georges Sadoul has pointed out, an expressionist tendency lingered on in many of the German films even into such 1930s films as Lang's M (1930)" M and Kameradschaft were some early sound films had international success. By 1933, when M was finally released in America it's half-Jewish director Fritz Lang as well as it's world famous stars Peter Lorre and Marlene Dietrich, Robert Wiene, Billy Wilder etc. emigrated to the United States before Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933...


Conclusion

The Geman expressionist cinema from 1919 to 1933 released some very successful films that were able to compete with the American cinema. In 1919 after Word War One "Germany entered a period of unrest and confusion, a period of hysteric despair and unbridled vice full of the excesses of an inflation-ridden country" as director Fritz Lang captured the psychological mood. "The terror of social pressure could be found again in the soul of one's own as the suffering from an irrational evil." German movies began to thrive on "the constant, ever-present yearning for the fantastic, the mysterious, the macabre, for the strangling terror of the dark." The German film industry boomed until 1924 when the Dawes plan brought stabilisation to the German industry "and the German soul". Though the expressionist movement died out in 1924 there had been a big influence on later films such as Metropolis (1926), M (1931) and Kameradschaft (1931) and on a trend in film style.

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German Expressionist Cinema - From Caligari to Metropolis
By A. Wolf


After theWorld War I and until the arising of the Nazism at the beginning of the 1930s, Germany was the birthplace of a new movie style based in the stylistic features of the expressionist movement such as the use of the chiaroscuro, oneiric atmospheres and exaggerated angles and compositions. The exact birth date of this movement must be placed at the end of 1917, when the Universum Film AG (UFA) was founded by the German government and military.

There are a lot of in-depth studies about this movement on books, magazines and even in the WWW, but this little essay is only my original and personal reflection about the films I had the opportunity to watch –and love.

Caligari! CALIGARI!!

Directed in 1919 by Robert Wiene, The cabinet of Dr. Caligari is the most paradigmatical film of the early German expressionism.

Brief synopsis: an ambulant fair visits a small German town. Main attraction at that fair is Dr. Caligari's stand, where a somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt) is advertised. One of the visitors asks the somnambulist an extremely brainy question: “How long will I live?” The freak answers: “You will die tomorrow…” Interestingly, the man –instead of laughing- seems very worried about the somnambulist's prediction. Even more interestingly, he dies the day after…

The art direction was managed by Walter Reimann and Walter Roehrig, fellow members of the “Der Sturm group”, a Berlin expressionist art group, featuring world famous artists such as Bruno Taut and Herwarth Walden. They created an original, fantastic makeup that fills the film with a delirium-like imagery, and emphasizes the protagonist's own psycho-destruction.

Caligari's brutal domination over the half-somnambulist/ half-zombie Cesare is easily interpretable as a metaphor of the fascist and authoritarian governments that arose in Europe in the first half of the XX century, as Siegfried Kracauer explains in his famous book From Caligari to Hitler.

Murnau's Nosferatu

Don't ask me how, but some years ago I was lucky enough to obtain a copy of Friedrich Murnau's earliest surviving film, Schloß Vogeloed (The Haunted Castle, 1921). I was not really thrilled by it, but the beauty of the makeup, the strange and disturbing ending and the stunning use of the chiaroscuro were enough to make me to introduce in Murnau's light/dark universe, which will reach its zenith in the movie I'll review now.

One year after filming Schloß Vogeloed, Murnau was ready to film his undisclosed masterwork: Nosferatu, eine symphonie des grauens is based on Bram Stoker's novel Dracula , but a lawsuit with the writer's widow forced Murnau to change some aspects of the movie, such as the title or the name of the protagonist (Count Orlok) Nevertheless, it was not enough, and, due to the lawsuit, almost all copies of the film were destroyed. The Deutsche Film Production was able to save one of them, and the movie was finally premiered in the USA in 1929.

Max Schreck's incredible performance as sinister Count Orlok(extremely slim, pale, rat-like teeth, crow-like nose, like a Transylvanian version of The Simpson's Mr. Burns), the charm and painterly of its landscapes, and the lyrical beauty of the texts place the film at the pinnacle of the horror genre. Nosferatu is the most cryptical and necrophilic, but also oneiric and romantic film based on the Transylvanian vampire, a true masterwork that neither Tod Browning, Terence Fisher or Francis Ford Coppola have never surpassed.

Metropolis

Along with Stanley Kubrick's 2001, a space odyssey (1968) and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), Fritz Lang's Metropolis is considered the height of the then called sci-fi cinema. The influence in both posterior films is evident: Blade Runner 's opening sequences of the dark, futurist, neo-industrial L.A. seems to pay tribute to Metropolis astonishing cityscapes (see picture left), while in Kubrick's masterpiece the tribute is even in the title: Metropolis story line occurs in year 2000, and Kubrick place his film one year after as a tribute.

But while Blade Runner and 2001 predictions had been quite erroneous (I haven't seen any replicant out there, and Saturn is still a bit difficult to reach) Metropolis fatalist vision of the working class is a cruel metaphor still valid in our times. Almost 40 years later, and with no direct relationship with this film, Julio Cortázar wrote a sentence that resumes by itself Metropolis tragic message: “…mankind will begin to be worthy of his name the day in that the exploitation of the human being by the human being stop”

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Surreal Cinema Fando y Lis - A. Jodorowsky - 1967

We will be covering Surreal Cinema Art here with some frequency....Henry_Allen

Article Below by Steve Puchalski at Shock Cinema

Just when I thought I'd run out of Alexandro Jodorowsky films to fawn over

(psychedelic mindbenders EL TOPO and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, as well as debacles like

TUSK and THE RAINBOW THIEF), I locate a copy of his earliest feature. (Actually,

the guy's first film is lost, according to all sources. Based on "The Severed

Heads" by Thomas Mann, it was a fable done in mime, and even Jodorowsky doesn't

have a copy.) This definitely shows what was to come from this unorthodox,

inconsistent genius. Based on Fernando Arrabal's play (which Jodorowsky had

previously directed on stage), the flick was castrated by its distributors,

Cannon Films, after causing a fracas at the Acapulco Film Festival for being too

"corrupting"...Working with no budget to speak of, and filmed on weekends, the

production reeks with Bunuel influenced surrealism and pretensions. Sergio

Klainer and Diana Mariscal star as the title characters, a young couple in

search of the enchanted city of Tar, where ecstasy can (supposedly) be found.

Fando is impotent, Lis is paralyzed, and together they travel across a rocky

landscape (with the bleach blonde Lis wheeled along or carried), equipped with

their only possessions, a drum and an old fashioned phonograph. Basically, it's

a road movie that takes these holy innocents nowhere, as they encounter bizarre

characters, experience childhood flashbacks, play cruel jokes on each other, and

sit on rocks, rambling banalities. They argue, they split up (Fando runs off and

Lis sits there bawling), they get back together, and when Fando gets sick of her

whining, he drags Lis around by the feet. Sure, there are plenty of striking

images along the way (i.e. a musician sits amidst urban rubble, playing a

flaming piano), but the first half of this flick is an incoherent, maddeningly

edited mess that makes even Fellini's most indulgent work look coherent. It's

not until Jodorowsky ups the tripped-out absurdity that the movie begins to hit

you on a gut level. Such as when Fando is whipped by a bikinied torturess and

eyed by some horny transvestites, or encounters vampires drinking snifters of

blood (as an additional note, Jodorowsky said that all on-screen blood was

real). And what other director would keep a straight face while live pigs are

being pulled from Lis' vagina? (Yeah, you read that correctly.) Or when

supporting characters crawl into their own graves to perish, politely thanking

the grave digger as he covers 'em up? But if Jodorowsky wanted the title

characters to be enchanting kids, fouled by society's ills, he failed. Because

though his vision is charmingly morbid and scattered with unintentional laughs,

the leads are dead weight. Along the way, I realized I didn't care about either

of 'em or their heavyhanded quest. It's dense going for Jodorowsky amateurs, yet

a field day for fans of murky, symbolic baloney.

MORE THAN BLACK HAWKS ARE DOWN

CHOPPER APOCALYPSE

Time to leave. Henry_Allen

BBC NEWS
Questions mount over US helicopter losses
By Rob Watson
Defence and security correspondent, BBC News

Yet another US helicopter has now been lost in Iraq.

This time it was a CH-46 Sea Knight transport helicopter, which came down near

Baghdad.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq claims to have brought it down, though the US military has

indicated it may have been mechanical failure.

But whatever the reason, five helicopters have now been lost already this year

with the US admitting at the weekend that the other four had been shot down.

Not surprisingly perhaps two key questions are now being asked.

New techniques?

First, are there any indications that the insurgents in Iraq have decided to

step up attacks on US aircraft?

Second, have they developed new techniques or acquired new equipment to make any

attacks more successful? Both questions are hard to answer definitively.

It is clearly the case that insurgents have wanted to shoot down US helicopters

ever since the invasion in 2003.

Until now the US military has avoided losses by flying low and

fast...but no method is entirely fail-safe

And as the US military does not provide details on the number of attacks on

aircraft it is difficult to know whether or not there has been an upsurge.

Last weekend, a US military spokesman in Iraq Major General William Caldwell

said it was premature to conclude that the threat posed to aircraft by

insurgents had dramatically increased over the last few weeks.

But if it is hard to establish whether there is a new focus on targeting

helicopters, have the insurgents got better at shooting them down?

In the past insurgents have tended to target helicopters using small arms fire,

rocket propelled grenades and shoulder-fired missiles like the Soviet-era SA-7.

Good 'luck'

Certainly some insurgent groups have said they now have new ways to bring down

aircraft, but it is not clear whether it is merely a boast or a reference to new

anti-aircraft missiles.

Military analysts say they have seen no evidence of any new weapons, though they

certainly do not rule the possibility but neither do they rule out the idea that

it may well be just the insurgents good "luck" that accounts for this year's

losses.

Relatively speaking the insurgents have had limited success in bringing

helicopters down given the huge number of flights they have flown.

After 1.5 million hours of flying time, some 55 helicopters have been lost since

May 2003, about half to enemy fire according to figures compiled by the

Brookings Institution.

But the US military is not taking any chances. The US command in Iraq has

already ordered changes in flight operations in the face of the recent losses.

Although they will not specify what those changes are, Major General William

Caldwell said the US was "making adjustments in our tactics and techniques and

procedures as to how we employ our helicopters".

There is no doubt helicopters are vulnerable if they can been seen and if

enemies have the right weapons. Until now the US military has avoided losses by

flying low and fast and by varying the routes and time of travel, but no method

is entirely fail-safe.

What is also not in doubt is the importance of helicopters to US forces in Iraq.

With travel by road long considered the most dangerous option helicopters have

been the mainstay for getting around Iraq quickly and relatively safely.

It is hardly surprising the insurgents would want to make life as difficult for

American forces in the air as it is for them on the ground.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6340159.stm

Published: 2007/02/07 18:30:07 GMT

© BBC MMVII

THE GOLEM IN LEGEND & HISTORY

Golem Page

Kay E. Vandergrift

In order to understand Golem by David Wisniewski it is useful to read some of the research and writings about this very old legend and the issues connected to it. The story has connections to Jewish mysticism while also possessing a long thread in fictional literature. The excerpts provided below help to frame your understanding of this legend and the additional readings serve to fill out any gaps remaining.

ON JEWISH MYSTICISM

Cabala (Hebrew, "received tradition"), generically, Jewish mysticism in all its forms; specifically, the esoteric theosophy that crystallized in 13th-century Spain and Provence, France, around Sefer ha-zohar (The Book of Splendor), referred to as the Zohar, and generated all later mystical movements in Judaism. See Mysticism; Theosophy. The earliest known form of Jewish mysticism dates from the first centuries AD and is a variant on the prevailing Hellenistic astral mysticism, in which the adept, through meditation and the use of magic formulas, journeys ecstatically through and beyond the seven astral spheres. In the Jewish version, the adept seeks an ecstatic version of God's throne, the chariot (merkava) beheld by Ezekiel (see Ezekiel 1).

The Medieval Period

Medieval Spanish Cabala, the most important form of Jewish mysticism, is less concerned with ecstatic experience than with esoteric knowledge about the nature of the divine world and its hidden connections with the world of creation. Medieval Cabala is a theosophical system that draws on Neoplatonism and Gnosticism and is expressed in symbolic language. The system is most fully articulated in the Zohar, written between 1280 and 1286 by the Spanish Cabalist Moses de León, but attributed to the 2nd-century rabbi Simeon bar Yohai. The Zohar depicts the Godhead as a dynamic flow of force composed of numerous aspects. Above and beyond all human contemplation is God as he is in himself, the unknowable, immutable En Sof (Infinite). Other aspects or attributes, knowable through God's relation to the created world, emanate (see Emanation) from En Sof in a configuration of ten sefirot (realms or planes), through which the divine power further radiates to create the cosmos. Zoharic theosophy concentrates on the nature and interaction of the ten sefirot as symbols of the inner life and processes of the Godhead. Because the sefirot are also archetypes for everything in the world of creation, an understanding of their workings can illuminate the inner workings of the cosmos and of history. The Zohar thereby provides a cosmic-symbolic interpretation of Judaism and of the history of Israel in which the Torah and commandments, as well as Israel's life in exile, become symbols for events and processes in the inner life of God. Thus interpreted, the proper observance of the commandments assumes a cosmic significance.

From: Richard S. Sarason. "Cabala," Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia. Deluxe Edition. c. 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation, Disc 1.



ON THE GOLEM AS PROTECTOR

In Jewish legend, an image or form that is given life through a magical formula. A golem frequently took the form of a robot, or automaton. In the Hebrew Bible (see Psalms 139:16) and in the Talmud, the term refers to an unformed substance. Its present meaning developed during the Middle Ages, when legends arose of wise men who could instill life in effigies by the use of a charm. The creatures were sometimes believed to offer special protection to Jews. The best-known of the golem stories concerned a Rabbi Löw of 16th-century Prague, who was said to have created a golem that he used as his servant.

From: Entry on "Golem" in Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia Deluxe Edition, c. 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation, Disc 1.



ON THE NATURE OF THE GOLEM

In the development of the later legend of the golem there are three outstanding points: (1) The legend is connected with earlier tales of the resurrection of the dead by putting the name of God in their mouths or on their arm, and by removing the parchment containing the name in reverse and thus causing their death. Such legends were widespread in Italy from the tenth century (in Megillar Ahima'az). (2) It is related to ideas current in non-Jewish circles concerning the creation of an alchemical man (the "homunculus" of Paracelsus). (3) The golem, who is the servant of his creator, developed dangerous natural powers; he grows from day to day, and in order to keep him from overpowering the members of the household he must be restored to his dust by removing or erasing the alef from his forehead. Here, the idea of the golem is joined by the new motive of the unrestrained power of the elements which can bring about destruction and havoc. Legends of this sort appeared first in connection with Elijah, rabbi of Chelm (d. 1583).

From: "Golem" entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica. Volume 7. Jerusalem, Israel: Keter Publishing House, 1971, pp. 754-755.



VARIANT ON THE GOLEM LEGEND

A variant of the Golem legend gives another explanation for the Maharal's [Rabbi Loew] decision to return the clay monster to the dust lie came from.[sic] Although the creature was mighty in strength, supernatural in prescience, and ever alert in following the orders of his Cabalistic creator, so that he saved the Jews of Prague from many a calamity, nonetheless, his creator decided to "unmake" him because he had grown afraid of the creature he had created, for the Golem, waxing drunk with the immense power he was wielding, menaced the entire Jewish community, even trying to bend the Maharal to his will, which had now turned evil and destructive. Thereupon, using the secret gematria of Cabalistic formulas for the second time, the Maharal returned the clay hulk of his creature to its original inanimate condition by withdrawing from its mouth the Shem, the life-creating, ineffable Name of God that he had placed there when first he made him.

From: "The Golem," in The Book of Jewish Knowledge. Nathan Ausubel. On The First Electronic Jewish Bookshelf, Scanrom Publishers, 1994,Cd-Rom.



LITERARY ASPECTS OF THE LEGEND OF THE GOLEM

The Legends concerning the golem, especially in their later forms, served as a favorite literary subject, at first in German literature-of both Jews and non-Jews-in the 19th century, and afterward in modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature. To the domain of belles lettres also belongs the book Nifla'ot Maharal im ha-Golem ("The Miraculous Deeds of Rabbi Loew with the Golem"; 1909), which was published by Judith Rosenberg as an early manuscript but actually was not written until after the blood libels of the 1890s. The connection between the golem and the struggle against ritual murder accusations is entirely a modern literary invention. In this literature questions are discussed which had no place in the popular legends (e.g., the golem's love for a woman), or symbolic interpretations of the meaning of the golem were raised (the unredeemed, unformed man; the Jewish people; the working class aspiring for its liberation).

Interest in the golem legend among writers, artists, and musicians became evident in the early 20th century. The golem was also invariably the benevolent robot of the later Prague tradition and captured the imagination of writers active in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and German. . . . The outstanding work about the golem was the novel entitled Der Golem (1915; Eng. 1928) by the Bavarian writer Gustav Meyrink (1868-1932), who spent many years in Prague. Meyrink's book, notable for its detailed description and nightmare atmosphere, was a terrifying allegory about man's reduction to an automaton by the pressures of modern society.

From: "Golem" entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica. Volume 7. Jerusalem, Israel: Keter Publishing House, 1971, pp. 754-755.

This dissertation examines the ways in which contemporary Jewish American authors rewrite traditional Jewish narratives to both reflect and revise current conceptions of the self and the Jew. Far from denying a connection to Jewish tradition, these authors instead shift the focus, articulating a Jewishness that has less to do with their conception of a specifically revealed will of God than with their desire to integrate inherited stories with those emerging from contemporary Jewish life. I argue that the texts being granted authority have changed, expanded to include narratives of collective memory that stand outside of the sacred canon but nevertheless retain both causal and normative roles in the construction of contemporary Jewish identity.

. . .

[Grauer] contends that by reworking the Jewish legend of the golem to allow for female creation, Cynthia Ozick (in "Puttermesser and Xanthippe") and Marge Piercy (in He, She and It) speak to perceived gender inequities within Judaism while still maintaining that traditional narratives can fruitfully inform contemporary female identity.

From: Grauer, Tresa Lynn. One and the Same Openness: Narrative and Tradition in Contemporary Jewish American Literature. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1995, abstract page.



ON MEDIA AND THE GOLEM LEGEND

This is a poster for Paul Wehener's lighthearted 1917 film, "The Golem and the Dancer"--an authentic myth that worked loose from its religious moorings to serve a variety of symbolic functions.

In an article by John Gross entitled "The Golem--As Medieval Hero, Frankenstein Monster and Proto-Computer," he reviews "Golem! Danger, Deliverance and Art," an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in April 1988 in New York City displaying memorable images of the German filmmaker Paul Wegener along with many others.



"Between 1914 and 1920 Wegener made three movies on the golem theme: first "The Golem," set in 29th century, then "The Golem and the Dancer," a lighthearted fantasy, and finally "The Golem: How He Came into the World," which goes back to the 16th century and the story of Rabbi Loew. Only the last of the three has survived. It can be seen on video at the Jewish Museum, and it makes an extremely pwerful impression. The golem, played by Wegener himself, is a complelling figure, with his stiff movements and squared-off haricut (remininscent, as Emily Bilski [curator of the exhibit] says, of figures in Egyptian art, though it also makes him look rather like a medieval serf.)"

. . .

"There are golems and golems. A third version, very different from eithr Wegener's or Steiner-Prag's can be found in a verse play, "The Golem," published in New York in 1921 by the Yiddish poet H. Leivick. According to Leivick's stage directions, he visualized the golem as a giant with a black curly beard, a dull stare and a fixed smile that was somehow on the verge of tears. (One of the artists who translated this conception into pictorical terms was the celebrated stage designer Boris Aronson; in the late 1920's he devised some striking sets and costumes for a production of the play that unfortunately never materialized.) For Levick, the golem was a false savior, who promised deliverance but deliverd violence: by the sound of it, the play is heavy with Jewish foreboding. And by the mid-1930's there was a sense of looming calamity in Czechoslovak portrayals of the golem, too--in the fine painting by the surrealist Frantisek Hudecek, for instance, which shows men (or androids) being hammered into life in some kind of infernal smithy."

From The New York Times, Sunday December 4, 1988, p.41.



ON RITUAL MURDER OR THE BLOOD LIBEL LEGEND

Among the prime candidates for placement under the rubric of the folklore of evil, I would rank at or very near the top of the list the so-called blood libel legend. Other phrases designating this vicious legend include blood accusations and ritual murder (accusation). These terms are used almost interchangeably but there are several scholars who have sought to distinguish between ritual murder and blood libel, arguing that ritual murder refers to a sacrificial murder in general whereas the blood libel entails specific use of the blood of the victim. In the case of alleged Jewish ritual murder, the blood motivation is nearly always present which presumably accounts for the equally common occurrence of both ritual murder and blood libel as labels.

. . .

The blood libel legend is not only the basis of ongoing festivals, but it has also been memorialized in church decoration. Legends proclaiming the Jewish "ritual murder" of Christian children or the profanation or desecration of holy wafers are celebrated in various European towns in such artistic forms as tapestries or stained glass church windows. For example, there are such windows or pictures or tapestries ornamenting the choir of the Saint Michael-Saint Gudule Cathedral in Brussels, a ceiling fresco in the small Tyrol village of Judenstein, paintings in a church sanctuary in the Vienna suburb of Korneuberg, and a stained glass window in a Paris church chapel.

. . .

It would be one thing if this classic bit of anti-Semitic folklore existed only in ballad or legend form, but the sad truth is that what has been so often described in legend and literature is also alleged to have occurred in life. There have not been tens, but hundreds of actual cases of blood libel tried in various courts in various countries. The map of Western and Eastern Europe and the Near East is profusely dotted with sites where ritual murders were said to have occurred.

. . .

The sad truth about the blood libel legend is not so much that it was created-the need for such a psychological projection on the part of Christians is evident enough-but that it was believed to be true and accepted as such and that the lives of many individual Jews were adversely affected by some bloodthirsty Christians who believed or pretended to believe in the historicity of the blood libel legend.

From: Alan Dundes. "The Ritual Murder or Blood Libel Legend: A Study of Anti-Semitic Victimization through Projective Inversion," in The Blood Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore. Edited by Alan Dundes, pp. 337, 339, 341, 360.



BIBLIOGRAPHY ABOUT AND ADULT VERSIONS OF,
THE GOLEM

Alexander, Tamar. "A Legend of the Blood Libel in Jerusalem: A Study of a Process of Folk-Tale Adaptation," International Folklore Review: Folklore Studies From Overseas. Volume 5 (1987):60-74.

Allison, Alida. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? The Golem as Family Member in Jewish Children's Literature," Lion and the Unicorn. Volume 14, No. 2 (December 1990): 92-97.

Anthony, Piers. Golem in the Gears. New York: Ballantine, 1986.

Basso, Eric. The Golem Triptych: A Dramatic Trilogy. Raleigh, NC: Leaping Dog Press, 2005.

Bilski, Emily D. Golem! Danger, Deliverance, and Art. Foreword by Isaac Bashevis Singer; with essays by Moshe Idel and Elfi Ledig.New York: Jewish Museum, 1988.

Bloch, Hayim, The Golem; Legends of the Ghetto of Prague. Translated from the German by Harry Schneiderman. With prefatory note by Hans Ludwig Held. Blauvelt, NY: Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1972.

Borges, Jorge Luis. The Golem. New York: Grove Press, 1967.

Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. New York: Random House, 2000.

Dundes, Alan, Ed. The Blood Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.

Goldsmith, Arnold L. The Golem Remembered, 1909-1980: Variations of a Jewish Legend. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1981.

Goldsmith, Arnold. "Elie Wiesel, Rabbi Judah Lowe, and the Golem of Prague," Studies in American Jewish Literature. Volume 5 (1986):15-28.

Hamill, Pete. Snow in August: A Novel. Boston, MA: Little Brown, 1997.

Haraway, Donna. "A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the 1980's" in Feminism/Postmodernism. Linda Nicholson, Ed., New York: Routledge, 1990, pp. 190-233.

Idel, Moshe. Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.

Jacoby, Jay. Selected Resources for the Study of the Legends of the Golem and Lilith. [microform} Charlotte NC: J. Jacoby, 1984. [Nineteenth Annual Convention, Association of Jewish Libraries, June 24-27, 1984, Atlanta, Georgia.]

Jacoby, Jay. "The Golem in Jewish Literature," Judaica Librarianship. Volume 1, No. 2 (Spring 1984):100-04.

Krause, Maureen T., Ed. "Rabbi Loew and His Legacy: The Golem in Literature and Film." SERIES: Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts ; v. 7, nos. 2 and 3. Tallahassee, FL: Florida State University, 1996.

Meyrink, Gustav. The Golem. Translated by Mike Mitchell and with an introduction and chronology by Robert Irwin. Sawtry, Cambs: Dedalus ; Riverside, CA : Ariadne, 1995.

Piercy, Marge. He, She, and It. New York: Knopf, 1991.

Plank, Robert. "The Golem and the Robot." Literature and Psychology. vol. 15 (1965).

Posner, Marcia W. 'The Golem in Art: An Interview with Beverly Brodsky, Creator of Her Own Golem," Judaica Librarianship. Volume 1, No. 2 (Spring 1984):104-06.

Ripellino, Angelo Maria. Magic Prague. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994.

Rowen, Norma. "The Making of Frankenstein's Monster: Post-Golem, Pre-Robot," in Nicholas Ruddick, Ed. State of the Fantastic: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Fantastic Literature and Film, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992, pp.169-77.

Rubens, A. Alfred. A History of Jewish Costume. New York: Crown, 1973.

Schaffer, Carl. "Leivick's The Golem and the Golem Legend," in Patrick D. Murphy, Ed. Staging the Impossible: The Fantastic Mode in Modern Drama. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992, pp. 137-49.

Scholem, Gershom Gerhard. On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism. [Zur Kabbala und ihrer Symbolik.] Translated by Ralph Manheim ; Forward by Bernard McGinn. New York : Schocken Books, 1996.

Sherwin, Byron L. The Golem Legend: Origins and Implications. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985.

Thieberger, Bedrich. The Great Rabbi Loew of Prague: His Life and Work and the Legend of the Golem. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1955.

Teitelbaum, Richard. Golem. Sound Recording: An Interactive Opera. New York: Tzadik, 1995.

Trachtenberg, Joshua. Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion. New York: Atheneum, 1970.

Wechsberg, Joseph. Prague: The Mystical City. New York: Macmillan, 1971.

Wiener, Norbert. God and Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion. Cambridge, MA: M I T Press, 1988.

Winkler, Gershon. The Golem of Prague: A New Adaptation of the Documented Stories of the Golem of Prague. Introductory Overview by Gershon Winkler. illustrated by Yochanan Jones. New York : Judaica Press, 1980.

Winkler, Gershon, The Sacred Stones: The Return of the Golem: A Mystical Novel. Illus. by Yosef Dershowitz. New York: Judaica Press, 1991.


February 7, 107
Created June 2, 1997 and is continuously revised
SCILS, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

billie holiday's does "Strange Fruit"

As dry and beautiful as the blues get/Billie is gone/But with us yet. Henry_Allen

BIOGRAPHY written by SCOTT YANOW

Billie Holiday remains (four decades after her death) the most famous of all jazz singers. "Lady Day" (as she was named by Lester Young) had a small voice and did not scat but her innovative behind-the-beat phrasing made her quite influential. The emotional intensity that she put into the words she sang (particularly in later years) was very memorable and sometimes almost scary; she often really did live the words she sang.

Her original name and birthplace have been wrong for years but are listed correctly above thanks to Donald Clarke's definitive Billie Holiday biography Wishing on the Moon. Holiday's early years are shrouded in legend and rumours due to her fanciful ghost written autobiography Lady Sings the Blues but it is fair to say that she did not have a stable life. Her father Clarence Holiday (who never did marry her mother) played guitar with Fletcher Henderson and abandoned his family early on while her mother was not a very good role model. Billie essentially grew up alone, feeling unloved and gaining a lifelong inferiority complex that led to her taking great risks with her personal life and becoming self-destructive.

Holiday's life becomes clearer after she was discovered by John Hammond singing in Harlem clubs. He arranged for her to record a couple of titles with Benny Goodman in 1933 and although those were not all that successful, it was the start of her career. Two years later she was teamed with a pickup band led by Teddy Wilson and the combination clicked. During 1935-42 she would make some of the finest recordings of her career, jazz-oriented performances in which she was joined by the who's who of swing. Holiday sought to combine together Louis Armstrong's swing and Bessie Smith's sound; the result was her own fresh approach. In 1937 Lester Young and Buck Clayton began recording with Holiday and the interplay between the three of them was timeless.

Lady Day was with Count Basie's Orchestra during much of 1937 but, because they were signed to different labels, all that exists of the collaboration are three songs from a radio broadcast. She worked with Artie Shaw's Orchestra for a time in 1938 but the same problem existed (only one song was recorded) and she had to deal with racism, not only during a Southern tour but in New York too. She had better luck as a star attraction at Cafe Society in 1939. Holiday made history that year by recording the horribly picturesque "Strange Fruit," a strong anti-racism statement that became a permanent part of her repertoire. Her records of 1940-42 found her sidemen playing a much more supportive role than in the past, rarely sharing solo space with her.

Although the settings were less jazz-oriented than before (with occasional strings and even a background vocal group on a few numbers) Billie Holiday's voice was actually at its strongest during her period with Decca (1944-49). She had already introduced "Fine and Mellow" (1939) and "God Bless the Child" (1941) but it was while with Decca that she first recorded "Lover Man" (her biggest hit), "Don't Explain," "Good Morning Heartache" and her renditions of "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do," "Them There Eyes" and "Crazy He Calls Me." Unfortunately it was just before this period that she became a heroin addict and she spent much of 1947 in jail. Due to the publicity she became a notorious celebrity and her audience greatly increased. Lady Day did get a chance to make one Hollywood movie (New Orleans) in 1946 and, although she was disgusted at the fact that she was stuck playing a maid, she did get to perform with her early idol Louis Armstrong.

Billie Holiday's story from 1950 on is a gradual downhill slide. Although her recordings for Norman Granz (which started in 1952) placed her once again with all-star jazz veterans (including Charlie Shavers, Buddy DeFranco, Harry "Sweets" Edison and Ben Webster), her voice was slipping fast. Her unhappy relationships distracted her, the heroin use and excessive drinking continued and by 1956 she was way past her prime. Holiday had one final burst of glory in late 1957 when she sang "Fine and Mellow" on The Sound of Jazz telecast while joined by Lester Young (who stole the show with an emotional chorus), Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan and Roy Eldridge, but the end was near. Holiday's 1958 album Lady in Satin found the 43-year old singer sounding 73 (barely croaking out the words) and the following year she collapsed; in the sad final chapter of her life she was placed under arrest for heroin possession while on her deathbed!

Fortunately Billie Holiday's recordings have been better treated than she was during her life and virtually all of her studio sides are currently available on CD.

Scott Yanow