George Perle, Composer and Theorist, Dies at 93

George Perle, a Pulitzer Prize winning composer, author,  and theorist has died. He was 93 years old. I was alerted to his death by an article in today's New York Times. This from the New York Times piece: 

For many years Mr. Perle was most widely known as a theorist and author. He published his first articles on 12-tone music in 1941 and became the most eloquent spokesman for the style. His 1962 book, “Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern,” became a classic text that was published in many translations. He set forth his own method in “Twelve-Tone Tonality” in 1977.

But his most revolutionary writing was on Berg. Considered an authority on the composer by the early ’60s, Mr. Perle was granted access to Berg’s unpublished manuscript for the opera “Lulu” in 1963. When he ascertained that the third act, long thought to be an unfinished sketch, was actually about three-fifths complete and cast an entirely new light on the opera, he protested publicly that Berg’s publisher was repressing an important part of the work. His efforts led to the completion of the third act and the presentation of the complete opera in 1979.

As many of you know, Berg based his Lulu opera on Frank Wedekind's Lulu plays. Pabst's version of Lulu, Pandora's Box - a film staring Louise Brooks, came in between.

I was most familiar with Perle's work as an author and musical scholar. Perle wrote The Operas of Alban Berg (1980 and 1985), a two-volume study widely regarded as the definitive analysis of Berg's operas. I have a copy of the second volume, which is devoted to Lulu.
 

Joan Crawford

Yesterday, I received the new Joan Crawford book. It's by Peter Cowie, the internationally renown film writer familiar to fans of Louise Brooks for his 2006 pictorial, Louise Brooks; Lulu Forever. Like that earlier title, Joan Crawford: The Enduring Star is published by the good folks at Rizzoli and is a beautifully printed coffee table book. This new book features a foreword by Mick Lasalle, author of Complicated Women and film critic at the San Francisco Chronicle. There is also an "afterword" by George Cukor, the late director. Cukor died in 1983, his text consists of the eulogy he delivered in 1977 at the memorial service for Crawford, who had died that year.



I haven't had time to sit down and read the whole books (which I intend to do), though I have read bits and pieces and have "read" all the pictures. 

What's caught my eye, so far, are the reference to Louise Brooks. Cowie starts the book this way: "The inspiration for this book stemmed from my research for Louise Brooks: Lulu Forever(Rizzoli, 2006). Joan Crawford was often linked with Louise in references to the Jazz Age, the flapper era, the frenzy of the Charleston, and even weekends at Hearst castle. Yet while Louise treated Hollywood with ill-disguised scorn, Joan Crawford embraced it, and would not rest until she had become its star of stars."

To me, that is an interesting, and surprising, comparison. Are their any Louise Brooks / Joan Crawford fans out there? What do you think? Be sure and check out this lavish new book.

The United States of Tara

Louise Brooks is referenced on "The United States of Tara,"  according to a syndicated article about the new television series which airs at 10 pm on Sundays on Showtime.

It's interesting to note that "Tara" was created by Diablo Cody, who wrote the 2007 comedy "Juno." Both "Tara" and "Juno" feature young characters who are wise beyond their years and show off a startling knowledge of pop culture of decades past. Juno was a punk aficionado. Tara's son Marshall offers university-level lectures on the silent films of Louise Brooks and plays Thelonious Monk to drown out T's tantrums.

Has anyone seen this series, and if so, what was said about Brooks?

Another Weimar book of interest

Though I haven't seen a copy, one book I am anxious to look at is Women in Weimar Fashion: Discourses and Displays in German Culture, 1918-1933, by Mila Ganeva, an assistant professor of German at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. This expensive new book (it retails for $75.00) was published by Camden House last summer.




Has anyone seen a copy of this new title? I would like to hear from you. I'm wondering if there is anything about Louise Brooks contained within. Here is the publisher's description.

"In the Weimar Republic, fashion was not only manipulated by the various mass media -- film, magazines, advertising, photography, and popular literature -- but also emerged as a powerful medium for women's self-expression. Female writers and journalists, including Helen Grund, Irmgard Keun, Vicki Baum, Elsa Maria Bug, and numerous others engaged in a challenging, self-reflective commentary on current styles. By regularly publishing on these topics in the illustrated press and popular literature, they transformed traditional genres and carved out significant public space for themselves. This book re-evaluates paradigmatic concepts of German modernism such as the flaneur, the Feuilleton, and Neue Sachlichkeit in the light of primary material unearthed in archival research: fashion vignettes, essays, short stories, travelogues, novels, films, documentaries, newsreels, and photographs. Unlike other studies of Weimar culture that have ignored the crucial role of fashion, the book proposes a new genealogy of women's modernity by focusing on the discourse and practice of Weimar fashion, in which the women were transformed from objects of male voyeurism into subjects with complex, ambivalent, and constantly shifting experiences of metropolitan modernity."

Onion Radio News

The Onion, America's leading satirical newspaper, has an on-line faux radio station called Onion Radio News. I read the paper on occasion (and usually either chuckle or laugh out-loud), but haven't checked out the radio station. Until recently, that is, when I became aware of the station founder's tongue-in-cheek connection to Louise Brooks.

A visit to the Onion radio news home page reveals that 

The Onion Radio News has been the most highly regarded broadcast news source in the world since visionary Onion publisher T.Herman Zweibel made the bold move in 1922 to shut down the popular Onion Telegraph News and focus on the then embryonic medium of radio. From day one Zweibel intended to employ this new technology for the public good, and for the first two years he devoted much of his airtime to denouncing silent film actress Louise Brooks.

Overnight, Zweibel's vitriolic attacks gained sufficient listenership to attract wealthy sponsors like Campbell's Liquid Beef and Spotto potato detergent. The financial success of the Onion Radio News led Zweibel to hire professional "pronouncers," as they were called then, who were charged with the important task of reading items from the printed version of The Onion to fill time between Zweibel's marathon anti-flapper rants.

I hadn't been aware!

Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide

There is a new book out called Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era, by Noah Isenberg. This 368 page book is published by Columbia University Press. Besides its rather striking cover.



What caught my attention is the lengthy chapter by Margaret McCarthy entitled "Surface Sheen and Charged Bodies: Louise Brooks as Lulu in Pandora's Box (1929)." I haven't had time to sit down and really read this dense essay, but I hope to as I expect to have a lot of time on my hands sometime soon. Have any readers of this blog had a chance to look at this book?

Bob blogs

Within the last week, there have been a number of newspaper articles and on-line blogs about the bob. Apparently, as some are claiming, the hairstyle worn by Louise Brooks and numerous others in the early decades of the 20th century is celebrating its 100th anniversary. According to "What's the Story with . . . the Bob," an article in today's British Herald newspaper, the cut wascreated in 1909 by Polish-born French hair stylist  Antoine de Paris. I hadn't known that. Fashion historian Christy Pascoe once told me that the American dancer Irene Castle deserves the credit - as she helped popularize short hair for women during the teens. During the 1920's, the popular screen star Colleen Moore (see link) sported a bob. It was part of her look, and it looked great on her.

Louise Brooks, of course, wore her hair short most all of her life. From the time she was a little girl, as images of the actress show, Brooks sported a bob - or Buster Brown type cut. It was not an uncommon cut for little girls. Years later, the famous stylist Sydney Guilaroff claimed to have given Brooks her signature look. "He gave her that trademark hairstyle (which became known as a shingle) at the grand cost of $1.50, which, he states in his autobiography ' was quite expensive for those days.' " That according to a 1996 article by Robert Osborne in the Hollywood Reporter.

I mention all of this because of the numerous recent articles and blogs about the bob - which also mention Louise Brooks. In "The Bob is 100 years Old," LOOK (from England) proclaimed "One of the first celebs to make the bob truly her own was actress Louise Brooks, who sported the style in '20s. Since then, the style has evolved through the ages - the latest reinvention of which has to be Victoria Beckham's Pob!"  A google news search on "Louise Brooks" will turn up additional results. Articles mentioning the bob and the actress recently ran in the Courier Mailfrom Australia and the Telegraph in England. Brooks is mentioned and prominently pictured in both pieces. Also, there is an excellent article in the Independent. And again, Brooks is prominent. 

And thus is history written.

There are many who claim the bob as a Louise Brooks invention. She didn't create the cut, and really can't be credited with helping popularize it. Certainly, in her day, she was identified with the bob - in all of its stylistic varieties. I have come across numerous instances of articles from the 1920's remarking on the appearance of the actress, especially her trademark hairstyle. And today - ever since the late 1980's - that look has come to be identified almost exclusively with the actress.