Summer is here - Happy 4th of July

Looking for a great read? Take The Chaperone with you on your summer getaway. The Louise Brooks Society recommends it!

"The Chaperone is the enthralling story of two women . . . and how their unlikely relationship changed their lives. . . . In this layered and inventive story, Moriarty raises profound questions about family, sexuality, history, and whether it is luck or will—or a sturdy combination of the two—that makes for a wonderful life."— O, The Oprah Magazine

“When silent film star Louise Brooks was a sexually provocative and headstrong 15-year-old from Kansas, she traveled with a chaperone to new York City to attend dance school.  In this fascinating historical novel, her minder, Cora, struggles to keep her charge within the bounds of propriety but finds herself questioning the confines of her own life. Thorough Cora the world of early 20th-century America comes alive, and her personal triumphs become cause for celebration.”— People

"Captivating and wise . . . In The Chaperone, Moriarty gives us a historically detailed and nuanced portrayal of the social upheaval that spilled into every corner of American life by 1922. . . . [An] inventive and lovely Jazz Age story."— Washington Post

Booksigning for The Louise Brooks edition of The Diary of a Lost Girl

Louise Brooks in Prix de Beaute

Thomas Gladysz, editor of the Louise Brooks edition of The Diary of a Lost Girl, will be signing copies of his book on July 18 at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. The signing takes place following the screening of the 1930 Louise Brooks film, Prix de Beaute, which is being presented by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.

About the book, Leonard Maltin said: "Gladysz provides an authoritative series of essays that tell us about the author, the notoriety of her work (which was first published in 1905), and its translation to the screen. Production stills, advertisements, and other ephemera illustrate these introductory chapters. In today’s parlance this would be called a 'movie tie-in edition,' but that seems a rather glib way to describe yet another privately published work that reveals an enormous amount of research — and passion."

Also signing is the celebrated comix artist Kim Deitch, whose new book is The Amazing, Enlightening And Absolutely True Adventures of Katherine Whaley. It includes a silent film storyline. Little known is the fact that Deitch's father, the Academy Award winning animator Gene Deitch, once met Louise Brooks. Kim himself almost did! Also signing his DVDs, including Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu, is the Emmy nominated documentary filmmaker Hugh Neely. It's a "Louise Brooks event" not to be missed.

Louise Brooks film screens in Los Angeles on August 7

The Silent Treatment and the Cinefamily Theater will screen the classic 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl, on August 7 in Los Angeles, California. More information here. Showtime is 7:30 - tickets are $12.00.

"There’s a reason the name Louise Brooks elicits sighs every time it’s mentioned at the Cinefamily: her ferocious charisma and otherworldly beauty cemented her status as an icon well before she retired from the silver screen, at the age of 32. From her comic role opposite W.C. Fields to multiple turns as troubled, willful heroines in the films of legendary German Expressionist auteur G.W. Pabst, Brooks shines as an actress capable of endless nuance and versatility — as she understood the impact both her inner and outer beauty could bring to the screen. Here, in her second and final collaboration with Pabst, Brooks gives a delicately restrained performance as the naive daughter of a prosperous pharmacist who stuns her clan by becoming pregnant. After being put through the repressive reform school ringer, she escapes to a brothel where she becomes liberated and lives for the moment with radiant physical abandon. Pabst’s escalating nightmares are heightened by Brooks’ sensitive portrayal of a truly lost girl whose hard-earned redemption is as beautiful a vision as the star herself. Dir. G.W. Pabst, 1929, 35mm, 116 min. - See more at: http://www.cinefamily.org/films/the-silent-treatment/#the-silent-treatment-louise-brooks-in-diary-of-a-lost-girl"

Inside the Cinefamily Theater in Los Angeles, CA. Notice the portrait on the wall!

See the movie? Read the book. Check out the "Louise Brooks edition" of Margarete Bohme's controversial bestseller, The Diary of a Lost Girl - available through Indiebound and Amazon.

Nitrate Dreams by Colette Saint Yves

Nitrate Dreams from Colette Saint Yves on Vimeo.

Colette Saint Yves (born Hortense Lagrange in 1987) is a French photographer, video artist, and collage artist. Saint Yves is a descendent of the mathematician and astronomer, Joseph-Louis Lagrange. She has said in an interview that she chose her pseudonym in tribute to the French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, because she read Sido when she was a teenager and was impressed by the book.

Saint Yves is known for taking her inspiration from early cinema and especially from actors and actresses such as Louise Brooks, Theda Bara, Lillian Gish, Musidora, Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. Her work is inspired by the artist Joseph Cornell.

Her photography has been featured in the magazines Petits Points and We Are Selecters, as well as on the blogs. Her video piece entitled "Nitrate Dreams," a tribute to Louise Brooks, was featured on Eva Truffaut's blog, "Archives & Mythologie des Lucille."

Nouvelle Vague - Our lips are sealed

Nouvelle Vague is a French cover band led by musicians Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux. Their name means "new wave" in French. Their name refers/alludes to their "Frenchness" and "artiness" (the '60s new wave of cult French cinema), the source of their songs (all covers of punk rock, post-punk, and New Wave songs), and their use of '60s bossa nova-style arrangements.

Members, former members and contributors include French artists who are now well known as solo performers, each considered as part of what is called the "Renouveau de la chanson Française" (the "Renewal of French chanson"). Those artists are Camille, Phoebe Killdeer, Mélanie Pain, Marina Céleste and Gerald Toto. Mareva Galanter joined the roster of vocalists in 2010.

Here is their cover of "Our lips are sealed," featuring Terry Hall & Marina Celeste. The video is composed of clips from the 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl.

Nouvelle Vague ft Terry Hall & Marina Celeste - Our lips are sealed from Zack Jack on Vimeo.

"Louise" sung by Maurice Chevalier

"Louise" was a show-stopping number from the 1929 film, The Innocents of Paris, Paramount's first musical. Here, it is sung by Maurice Chevalier, with the Leonard Joy Orchestra. Though now associated with the actress, the song in fact has nothing to do with Louise Brooks. Nevertheless, we like it.

"Louise"
(Words by Leo Robin, music by Richard A. Whiting)

Wonderful! Oh, it's wonderful
To be in love with you.
Beautiful! You're so beautiful,
You haunt me all day through.

Every little breeze seems to whisper "Louise."
Birds in the trees seem to twitter "Louise."
Each little rose
Tells me it knows I love you, love you.

Every little beat that I feel in my heart,
Seems to repeat, What I felt from the start,
Each little sigh
Tells me that I adore you, Louise.

Just to see and hear you
Brings joy I never knew.
But to be so near you,
Thrills me through and through.

Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss,
It had to be But the wonder is this:
Can it be true,
Someone like you Could love me, Louise?

Every little breeze seems to whisper "Louise."
Birds in the trees seem to twitter "Louise."
Each little rose
Tells me it knows I love you, love you.

Every little beat that I feel in my heart,
Seems to repeat, What I felt from the start,
Each little sigh
Tells me that I adore you, Louise.

Just to see and hear you
Brings joy I never knew.
But to be so near you,
Thrills me through and through.

Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss,
It had to be But the wonder is this:
Can it be true,
Someone like you Could love me, Louise?

Louise Brooks Society :: shop for books and movies and more

Dante and Louise Brooks

Poet and Muse: Dante and Louise Brooks

William S. Burroughs and Louise Brooks

William S. Burroughs and Louise Brooks. The experimental novelist and the silent film star. He authored Naked Lunch and Junky and other works of "Beat" fiction. She played Lulu in the classic German expressionist film Pandora's Box. Brooks and Burroughs. Burroughs and Brooks. They are two cultural figures one doesn't think of together.

That's why I was surprised when I came across an item about Brooks in Burroughs' archive. Ohio State University has a large collection of Burroughs' books, manuscripts, and miscellaneous items. This collection of papers, books, serials, and other materials was given to OSU in 1998 by the estate of the writer. It includes magazine and newspaper articles Burroughs himself, in all likelihood, cut out and saved. Their holdings are documented online here.

And there in Box 15, Folder Number #153-171, between F. Scott Fitzgerald stories in Redbook magazine from the 1930s, and newspaper clippings from 1979 documenting a building fire in Lawrence, Kansas is item number 159:

"Kenneth Tynan, The Girl in the Black Helmet, 1979 PC of an article in The New Yorker, June 11, 1979, about the movie actress Louise Brooks, whose career was in the 1920's and 1930's."

I assume PC means photocopy.

Why did Burrough's keep a photocopy of Tynan's essay? Was he intending to write about the actress? Was it his interest in things from Kansas? (He lived in Lawrence. Brooks grew up Wichita.) Was he interested in Brooks as a cultural figure? Might they have crossed paths in New York City in the 1950s? Or did he perhaps know Tynan, the English theater critic and essayist. Tynan was a social creature, and seemed to know just about everyone. It's hard to say.

James Grauerholz, if you read this and might know why this particular article is in Burrough's archive, please drop a line or post a comment. (We met years ago when you and Ira Silverman were touring to promote the Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader. I put on an event with you both in San Francisco.)