A Louise Brooks haircut

This webpage on the stereolab-videos.com site has a nifty three minute real media video on how to achive a perfect bob or "Louise Brooks haircut." Not sure how this website relates to Stereolab (the band), but there does seem to be some overlap.

From the blogsphere

Some blogs from around the world that discuss or reference Louise Brooks. You may need to scroll down to find the mention:

From Iran: http://sam12345.persianblog.com/

From Brazil: http://raih.blog.uol.com.br/  

From England: http://ungwe.org/blog/2003/10/07/10:50/

From France: http://www.lapanse.com/pages/archive_blog/2003_10_19_archive_blog.html

From Mexico: http://blogia.com/tere/index.php?tema=7

Again from Brazil: http://www.meguimaraes.com/subrosa/arquivo/000558.html

Little things excite me

Little things excite me. (I know its a quirk - I know I am a geek - but I can't help it.) Today, at the library, I looked at two publications I hadn't seen before. A roll of microfilm of the now defunct Pittsburgh Leader arrived, from which I gathered some material on the October, 1922 Denishawn performance in that Pennsylvania city. However, by the time Brooks and Denishawn returned to Pittsburgh in December of 1923, this newspaper had folded. These newly uncovered articles and advertisements will mark the only appearance of the Pittsburgh Leader in the bibliographies of the LBS.

I also looked at some rolls of the London Free Press, from London, Ontario. I hadn't looked at any issues of this paper before, let alone any newspapers from a smaller Canadian city. From the rolls that arrived, I was able to gather some material on the two November, 1922 and four April, 1924 Denishawn performances.

The London Free Press interlibrary loan came from the National Library of Canada, which is located in Ottawa. I am very, very grateful they loan material across the border. Thanx to the National Library, I have been able to survey the various papers from Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Winnipeg. My survey - which is a hunt for Denishawn material as well as film reviews - is on-going. Sometime this year or next, I hope to borrow other newspapers from smaller Canadian towns which Denishawn visited, such as Hamilton, Peterbarough, Galt, and Kingston. Anyone live near Ottawa ?

Google Print

I have been hearing about Google Print for some time. Last month, it was announced that Google would be teaming up to scan and put online the contents of a few major American libraries. That's millions of books - all, in theory, searchable by keyword. One article on this story read:

"As part of the years-long project, Google will scan the entire holdings of Stanford University, which has nearly 8 million books. The company will do the same at the University of Michigan, which has 7 million books. Harvard University and the New York Public Library have also agreed to participate, though only as part of a test project. They will make only a fraction of their expansive holdings available before deciding whether to expand the program. Oxford University, in England, has also signed on with Google's digitization project, offering only books published before 1900."

I am drooling in anticipation. The impact this development might have on research should be considerable. I would think that new Louise Brooks material might even turn up - such as references to the actress in old histories of film, memoirs,  biographies, academic treatises, etc.... Keyword searching sure beats browsing the stacks.

Mark Tansey painting

On December 12th of last year, the New York Times ran a half-page spread on the highly regarded contemporary painter Mark Tansey and a recent work of his entitled "West Face." (Click here to read the article and see an image of the painting.) According to the article, "West Face appears to be a suavely rendered picture of a band of hikers trudging up a snowy mountainside. But look closely, and you'll find a landscape treacherous with puzzles, paradoxes, hidden images and allusions." Among the hidden images, reportedly, are portraits of various philosophers and Louise Brooks. I see the portraits (including the one that is supposedly of Brooks), but I don't recognize the actress. What do you think?

Louise Brooks on "Jeopardy!"

Apparently, Louise Brooks was mentioned yesterday on the popular game show Jeopardy! (I believe this is at least the second time within ten years that the actress has been a clue.)

I received an email from netochka, who forwarded a LiveJournal post by aksarah, who had noticed the mention. Her post read, in part . . . "Then, in the catagory of 'Yesterday's Hotties', they showed 8x10s of old actresses and asked who they were. Then, they showed this pic of a woman with black hair and the clue was something about how popular her hairdo was." None of the contestants, however, recognized Louise Brooks.

Did anyone else see this episode of the game show? Does anyone have a tape of it?

This day in history

I have been thinking about putting a "This day in history" feature on the LBS homepage. But have not been able to find a script, or piece of PHP/SQL/HTML code, with which to do so. In theory, there will be 365 variables - such as "Louise Brooks was born on this day in 1906" or "Pandora's Box opened in New York City on this day in 1929" - which will reveal themselves on the appropriate day. Does anyone have any suggestions, know of any links, or have any readymade programming which I could implement?