Spitball Army

Card is untitled on its front.

Printed on back of post card:

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C. 20566.

Publishing information:

Photo: Hans Trebor Assoc. / Printing: Museum Press, Inc.

Card is untitled on the front.

Printed on back of postcard:

VINCENT VAN GOGH 1853-1890
zonnebloemen
sunflowers
tournesois
sonnenblumen
aries 1888

van Gogh museum  amsterdam 1973

Publishing information:

edition and colour-correction rijksmuseum vincent van gogh amsterdam
©b.v. ‘t lanthuvs

Card is titled: “Forest Giants of California.”

Printed on back of postcard:

THESE MAMMOTH REDWOODS in Jedediah Smith State Park near Crescent City, California are part of the world’s most heavily timbered acres.

Color photo: Robert Freeman.

Publishing information:

The Continental Card
©1977 Freeman – Von Normann, Box 321, Miranda, CA 95553
Mike Roberts, Berkeley 94710
B6348

from the Wikipedia page for the film:

Diamonds of the Night (Czech: Démanty noci) is a Czech 1964 film about two boys on the run from a train taking them to a concentration camp. It was director Jan Nemec’s first full-length feature film.

Diamonds of the Night begins with two young men fleeing from a train taking them to a concentration camp. The film employs little dialog and the boys escape through rugged and unfamiliar terrain is interpolated with dreams, memories, hallucinations, fantasies, and flashbacks. They encounter a woman on a farm and one boy struggles with thoughts of murder and rape before silently taking a loaf of bread from the woman’s kitchen and leaving. Eventually, the boys are caught by members of a local shooting party. The men prepare to execute the boys, but simply laugh as they walk away instead of executing them. The ending is ambiguous: The men either actually spared the boys, or they could be walking into the afterlife.

Director: Jan Nemec
Producers: Jan Procházka, Erich Svabík
Written by Arnost Lustig, Jan Nemec
Music: Vlastimil Hála, Jan Rychlík
Cinematographer: Jaromír Šofr
Editor: Oldrich Bosák
Release date: 25 September 1964
Running time: 63 minutes
Country: Czechoslovakia
Language: Czech

Cast:
Ladislav Jánsky as the First Boy
Antonín Kumbera as the Second Boy
Irma Bischofova as the Woman

I came across an old post (written four-plus years ago, so only old in a relative sense) in which I had constructed a musical playlist to mirror a trip through the South. I couldn’t even recall writing it. Perhaps that’s why I used the word ‘old.’

It followed an imagined road trip out of the Carolinas into Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and then westward through Louisiana. Everyone has their own idea about where the borders of their true South lie. My South extends along a horizon from Louisiana eastward to South Carolina, stepping north into Tennessee and the corner of Arkansas. Florida, however, is not part of My South; it exists in its own cultural universe – a friendly neighbor, but not part of the “collective” (maybe for its own good).

That original playlist – called “Do The South” – has here received a few 2014 revisions, but remains largely as it was. There are songs by Southerners and by non-Southerners; songs describing specific places and events; songs that communicate a mood evoked by the region; songs about Southern people, food, attitudes, music (of course), history and stereotypes. There is no reference to Forrest Gump…well, maybe one (can you find it?). And all the songs follow a route you could take behind the wheel of your trusty rusty Ford pick-em-up truck.

I’ve separated the playlist into three parts. Consider the breaks between sections as overnight stops at a vintage Southern motel. Enjoy yourself and have a safe trip!

[Read more →]

Card is untitled on its front.

Printed on back of postcard:

Palace of Living Art
at
MOVIELAND WAX MUSEUM
Buena Park, California

AMERICAN GOTHIC – Painted by Grant Wood, American, 1892-1942. Reproduced here is a typical midwest farm couple. Note that the man stands in front of the barn, the woman in front of the kitchen, each in his own domain, with the man standing slightly ahead of, and dominating the woman, perhaps indicative of their personal relationship! Grant Wood’s sister posed for the painting. She recently visited The Palace of Living Art and posed beside her likeness in the set.

B1678

Publishing information:

Mike Roberts, Berkeley 94710 / The Continental Card.

A very young Burt Lancaster gets cocky and mixed-up with some real tough guys in beautiful black & white post-War Los Angeles. And all because of some dame.

[Click through on any of the images above to get a full-blown screen shot.]

A rare visit today to the Birmingham Barnes & Noble (by virtue of being near my doctor’s office) was cut short due to the introduction of St. Paul and the Broken Bones on their sound system. I couldn’t get out of there quickly enough. I swear, that belly-flopper of a lead vocalist wants to be Sharon Jones so very badly, but only succeeds in sounding as if a boa constrictor is tightening its grip around his throat, while stealing the spotlight away from the very talented musicians in the band. This was all preceded by a toupeed wise-acre approaching the woman working in the music department while the new-ish Leon Russell CD was playing. “Who is that singing?” he asked her. She had no idea, and said so. “Sounds like Charlie Rangel!” he spouted, followed by a “Ha ha ha!” at his own joke. “Ha ha ha, Charlie Rangel, ha ha ha!” He was getting louder. “Ha! Mr. President, this is Charlie Rangel calling! I’m in a New York state of mind!” he quipped, mimicking the New York congressman’s well-known rasp while quoting the song playing overhead. “You know who Charlie Rangel is, don’t you? Ha ha ha,” he asked her. “Er, no, but would you like me to find out who IS singing this song?” “No, no, ha ha, I wouldn’t buy it anyway,” he said, and turned and walked away. A textbook example of the worst kind of retail shopper: eat up the staff’s time and energy and don’t buy a damn thing – or worse, go home and buy it on the internet. At that moment, the St. Paul singer began screeching. I grabbed my Roz Chast book and dashed to the checkout for a quick getaway. Then, in the truck, and perhaps ironically, there were Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings singing that “People Don’t Get What They Deserve,” as I headed out of the lot and northward on Highway 280.

Card is titled: “East Front, Mount Vernon.”

Printed on back of postcard:

EAST FRONT: Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon is owned and maintained by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union, founded 1853 for the preservation of the home and tomb of Washington.

Photo courtesy of Mount Vernon Ladies Association.

102

Publishing information:

Published for Mount Vernon Inn, Mount Vernon, Virginia. Mike Roberts, Berkeley 94710.

Would’ve enjoyed it more if I wasn’t busy noting plot holes. Where’d they get all the bugs? And steak?!…was there a cattle car?