Remembering W. S. Merwin on his birthday 🎂
📷 Chris Felver, Berkeley, 1985
"It is as though the voice filters up to the reader like echoes from a very deep well, and yet it strikes his ear with a raw energy".
- Laurence Lieberman
W. S. Merwin by Douglas Kent Hall
"Merwin’s verse often gives the impression of language scavenged from the elements, its power reckoned only as its meanings assemble, phrase by phrase, against the white of the page."
- @dchiasso
W. S. Merwin by Bernard Gotfryd, 1960s
"He conveys in the sweet simplicity of grounded language a sense of the self where it belongs, floating between heaven, earth and underground."
- Peter Davison
W. S. Merwin by Tom Sewell, 2009
"Poetry is a way of looking at the world for the first time."
W. S. Merwin by Don Tormey
"The kind of writing that matters most to me is something you don’t learn about. It’s constantly coming out of what I don’t know rather than what I do know. I find it as I go.... You’re always beginning again." @ParisReview theparisreview.org/interviews/269…
W.S. Merwin by Larry Cameron
In W.S. Merwin's @ParisReview Art of Poetry interview he talks about receiving a postcard from Ezra Pound: "Read seeds not twigs E.P."
W. S. Merwin by A. Young
"When we walked through Greenwich Village, William greeted every dog we met, once lifting a terrier and looking into its eyes as though searching for its ancestors."
- Grace Schulman
Her wonderful remembrance of her friend: theparisreview.org/blog/2019/03/2…
W. S. Merwin in his study at his home in Maui
📷 Tom Sewell
The Guardian obituary of Merwin quotes the New Yorker poetry editor Howard Moss, who said “nobody has a right to be that good-looking”.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Happy birthday to Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk 🎂
📷 Ara Güler
"His books are multi-layered, allegorical, sometimes fanciful, Proustian in their attention to detail and Borgesian in their dazzling complexity."
- Sarah Lyall
Orhan Pamuk by Sophie Bassouls, 1990
"Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow."
It's so great that other photographers have continued Philippe Halsman's #jump! tradition. Here's Orhan Pamuk by Alex Majoli.
This was taken at Cannes in 2007, when Pamuk was a member of the Festival Jury.
Celebrate the Richard Avedon Centennial 🎂💯
📷 Irving Penn, Vogue, August 23, 1993
"He was small, dark & electric with his own sort of vitality. Crackling. Sparks seem to fly out of him. He flashes his fingers like tiny rapid moths."
- Ginette Spanier
On Richard Avedon's Centennial, my favourite portraits
Carson McCullers & Tennessee Williams, April 25, 1950 #Avedon100
On Richard Avedon's Centennial, my favourite portraits
Buster Keaton, 1952 #Avedon100
I'm listening to Concerto Italiano play Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, in their 2005 recording under Rinaldo Alessandrini.
I've always loved the cover photo; it's by Julia Fullerton-Batten. I'll start a thread of some of my favourites of her photos here. 🧵
Julia Fullerton-Batten
The Lady of Shalott, 2018
... which is, of course, a reinterpretation of John Waterhouse's 1888 painting of Lord Tennyson's poem.
Happy birthday Sofia Coppola 🎂
📷 Kate Barry
"Coppola is a true auteur — a filmmaker with a distinct worldview and sensibility and a personal set of quasi-autobiographical interests."
- J. Hoberman
Sofia with her dad on the set of Godfather 2
📷 Steve Schapiro, 1974
The Coppola family by Ted Streshinsky, 1974
Eleanor & Francis Ford Coppola with their kids Sofia, Roman & Gian-Carlo
Celebrate the Red Garland Centennial 🎂💯
📷 Bill Spilka, c. 1957
"Garland's style was understated and harmonically sophisticated; he would delineate a melody, then shade it with distinctively voiced block chords and hints of counterpoint."
- Jon Pareles #RedGarland100
Esmond Edwards' great album cover for Red Garland's "Red in Bluesville", from 1959. Edwards took the photo, & designed the album as well.
Remembering Bea Arthur on her birthday 🎂
📷 Martin Mills, 1972
"Those of us working with her knew we were working with a golden comedic touch." - Norman Lear
Beatrice Arthur with Bill Callaway & Carl Ballantine in Bruce Jay Friedman & Richard Adler's musical A Mother's Kisses
📷 Jack Mitchell, 1968
Angela Lansbury & Beatrice Arthur in Mame
📷 Friedman-Abeles, 1966
Arthur won the Best Featured Actress in a Musical Tony for her performance. She was Beatrice on the stage & Bea on TV.