Novokuibyshevsk, Samara Oblast, Russia

 

 

Zawtar al-Sharqiya, southern Lebanon

Mohammed Tammous ?-2026

 

 

🚑Today's update from North Gaza - the Palestinian Civil Defense Mohammad Tammous: The situation in North Gaza is a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing, with continuous bombardment and massacres erasing entire neighborhoods and families from existence. mohammed_abu_loay (IG) https://t.co/4kF4AO1Do0

— Translating Falasteen (Palestine) (@translatingpal) October 5, 2025

 

 

 

Did someone just turn 100?

Jean-Antoine Watteau, Harlequin and Columbine, 1718, oil on oak panel, Wallace Collection 

 

Well it's fifty-three years to this day that Anna Magnani died, and I noticed that someone uploaded Jean Renoir's 1952 Cinecittà-produced farce The Golden Coach, the first Italian film in Technicolor, in which she plays Camilla, cast as Columbine in an eighteenth century Italian commedia dell'arte troupe that has arrived in Peru to revive a rural theater.  Intro:

"The 'open Sesame' of all Renoir's work. The two customary poles of his work - art and nature, acting and life - take shape in two facing mirrors, which reflect each other's images back and forth until it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.  The critical question of all the films which precede and follow - that of sincerity - here finds its most elegant answer and in turn a new formulation, as in a dialogue.. It is an exquisite jewel box which had the good fortune to contain the priceless gems known as commedia dell'arte, Vivaldi and Magnani.  If an author can claim to transfer the essence of his message into aesthetic form, it is because this message is so compatible with the art in which he practices.

"All this concerns not only Renoir but the entire cinema, for both of them have the same unique and profound object: spectacle, or if you prefer, appearance." (Eric Rohmer)

"An American critic compared The Golden Coach to those boxes which you open to find another, smaller box inside, which in turn contains another box, and so on.  Renoir tells us: 'This critic pleased me so much by saying that.  He thought it was a flaw and that a film should not be made that way.  Personally I find this box game very interesting.'..

"Renoir himself has given us the message of The Golden Coach; 'The desire for civilization was a force that drove me during the making of The Coach.'..

 "The Golden Coach was a commercial and even critical failure.  Jean Renoir went for two years without shooting..  (François Truffaut)

(tr. W.W. Halsey and William Simon) 

 

 

 

+ 1962's Mamma Roma, Pasolini's follow up to his directorial debut Accattone the previous year, "Mamma Roma now stands as an unequivocal critique of neorealism from both an ideological and formal point of view." (Maurizio Viano)

Hospital, Mays Al-Jabal, southern Lebanon

Patricio Guzmán 1941 - 2026

 

Bani Hayyan, southern Lebanon

Cassandra Wilson 1955 - 2026

  lyrics by Ishmael Reed

 

Tony Gatlif 1948 - 2026

+ Gadjo Dilo (1997)

 

 

Geles Cabrera 1929 - 2026

 

Sin Título, 1971, natural fibers and iron, 37 ⅜ × 17 ¾ × 17 ¾ inches, courtesy Agustina Ferreyra

 

EU

 

ROPE

 

Yayoi Kusama 1929 - 2026

Dedicated to Arthur Rimbaud, 1988, mixed media, 13 x 9 x 6 in., courtesy Michael Rosenfeld

 

I am obligated to do another Sílvia Pérez Cruz post because she spoke up for Cuba last Friday at the Hollywood Bowl at Gustavo Dudamel's last concert as LA Philharmonic director, and then on Sunday performed a free concert by candlelight in the 17th century Iglesia de San Francisco El Nuevo in Havana.  In LA she performed two songs: Pequeño Vals Vienés and the Venezuelan classic Tonada de Luna Llena by Simón Díaz ("Yo vide una garza moro/ Dándole combate a un río").

The Sílvia song I seem to listen to most frequently is her Cucurrucucú paloma, 

 

the Mexican song written in 1954 by Tomás Méndez for Pedro Infante to serenade in the 1955 comedy School for Tramps, then performed by Lola Beltrán in the movie named after the song,

 

and also performed by Caetano Veloso, Lila Downs, Natalia Lafourcade, and many others, imitating the call of the mourning dove.

Sliman Mansour 1947 - 2026

Alleys of Al-Quds, 2009

 

8/24/2026, Water treatment facility, Sheikh Radwan, Gaza City, Saeeed Jaras, Anadolu Agency

8/24/2026, Shati refugee camp, Gaza City, Saeed Jaras

 

 

 

Sole la muerte, 1936

The 90th anniversary of Lorca's murder shall be amongst other things an excuse to upload two covers of Leonard Cohen's adaptation of Pequeño vals vienés..

In Vienna there are four mirrors
in which your mouth and the echoes play.
There is a death for piano
that paints the little boys blue.
There are beggars on the roof.
There are fresh garlands of tears.
Aye, ay, ay,ay!
Take this waltz that dies in my arms. 

 Morente, born in Lorca's home town..

Sílvia of Palafrugell, who's touring now..

A sharp escalation has hit southern Lebanon following a series of intense Israeli airstrikes targeting residential areas in towns including Ansar and Deir al-Zahrani. These attacks have resulted in at least 10 deaths, including three children.

My brief report: pic.twitter.com/Vmrb2G1Lg3

— roqayah chamseddine (@roqchams) August 15, 2026

Betye Saar 1926 - 2026

My Last Buffalo, 1973, mixed media with bone and feathers, 13 3/8 x 11 3/8 inches, courtesy Michael Rosenfeld

 

St. Petersburg