For "Mr. Siebert" (running time: 5:06), click here: InterviewProject.com "Mr. Siebert" is episode 50 in Interview Project, directed by Austin Lynch and Jason S. They interviewed 121 people during a 70-day road trip covering 20,000 miles. Their film notes:
While driving through Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, we came across a young woman who told us about Mr. Siebert and his trolley cars. We found his house and rang the bell. Mr. Siebert answered the door and led us into his basement to show us the Venango Traction Company - his trolley layout in quarter-inch scale. Mr. Siebert is a retired environmental engineer who spent most of his life working with the water department. His wife passed away 14 years ago and he has been living alone ever since. Aside from daily walks, his trolley line is what keeps him busy and he works on it almost every night.
Discussion of this episode. Much like Wash-35 in Philip K. Dick's Now Wait for Last Year, Mr. Siebert has reconstructed his childhood in a physical form.
Wood Chips 13: 1950s
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Three from the 1950s: Cover of the Fordham humor magazine, a drawing on Craftint paper (possibly late 1940s) and a 1959 cover for The Cartoonist. Note the party guests not only include cartoonists and cartoon characters but also a strange hybrid of cartoonists who have morphed into their own characters. Click on "wood chips" label at bottom to see the previous 12 posts in this series.
National Cartoonists Society meeting on cover of The Cartoonist (1959)
Bill Holman (Smokey Stover), Ernie Bushmiller (Nancy) and Gus Edson (The Gumps) at 1950 National Cartoonists Society meeting.
Here's what Gus Edson was doing 11 years earlier (The Gumps, June 25, 1939).
1. Casablanca 2. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 3. Sunset Boulevard 4. Citizen Kane 5. All About Eve 6. Dracula (1931) 7. Animal House 8. Top Gun 9. Titanic 10. Dr. No 11. Animal Crackers 12. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 13. King Kong (1933) 14. Gone With the Wind 15. When Harry Met Sally 16. Goldfinger 17. The Silence of the Lambs 18. Soylent Green 19. Apocalypse Now 20. Forest Gump 21. Dead Poets Society 22. Caddyshack 23. The Godfather 24. Jerry Maguire 25. Wall Street 26. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 27. Marathon Man 28. Field of Dreams 29. The Shining 30. She Done Him Wrong 31. Grand Hotel 32. Dirty Dancing 33. A Streetcar Named Desire 34. Moonstruck 35. The Sixth Sense 36. Airplane! 37. 2001: A Space Odyssey 38. Taxi Driver 39. Cool Hand Luke 40. The Graduate 41. Some Like It Hot 42. On the Waterfront 43. Terminator 2: Judgment Day 44. Sudden Impact 45. Dr. Strangelove 46. Sons of the Desert 47. Apollo 13 48. Jaws 49. The Wizard of Oz 50. Chinatown 51. 42nd Street 52. The Terminator 53. Poltergeist 54. Scarface 55. Funny Girl 56. Rocky 57. Annie Hall 58. Auntie Mame 59. Yankee Doodle Dandy 60. The Jazz Singer 61. Network 62. Knute Rockne, All American 63. The Maltese Falcon 64. The Godfather Part 2 65. Psycho 66. To Have and Have Not 67. Dirty Harry 68. The Naughty Nineties 69. A Few Good Men 70. Planet of the Apes (1968) 71. Mommie Dearest 72. A League of Their Own 73. In the Heat of the Night 74. Now, Voyager 75. Bonnie and Clyde 76. Dog Day Afternoon 77. Beyond the Forest 78. Little Caesar 79. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope 80. Midnight Cowboy 81. E.T. the Extra-terrestrial 82. On Golden Pond 83. It's a Wonderful Life 84. Love Story 85. White Heat 86. Shane 87. Frankenstein (1931) 88. The Pride of the Yankees
1959 Newport Jazz Festival Streaming of the 1959 Newport Jazz Festival begins today with Joe Williams, Count Basie, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross! For previous LH&R posts here, click on "vocalese" in the labels below.
Just as the Basie set had built to an ecstatic peak, Williams introduces special guests Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, who leapt into the limelight just the previous year with their astonishing debut, Sing a Song of Basie on ABC-Paramount (later reissued on Impulse). Comprised of vocalese pioneers Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross, this invigorating trio specialized in setting lyrics (primarily penned by Hendricks) to existing and particularly memorable instrumental jazz solos. Ross was actually one of the first to successfully venture into vocalese with her 1952 hit "Twisted" (based on a famous Wardell Gray tenor sax solo). Her early experiments, along with those of fellow vocalese pioneers King Pleasure and Eddie Jefferson, marked her as a true innovator in vocal jazz. And when Ross joined forces in 1957 with Lambert and Hendricks - each of whom had been making notable strides on their own in the same vocalese direction - a powerhouse act was born. Their appearance at the 1959 Newport Jazz Festival came hot on the heels of their second triumphant release, The Swingers on the Pacific Jazz label (later reissued on EMI/Manhattan).
They enter with the jivey "It's Sand, Man" before tackling Basie's "Let Me See," Horace Silver's "Doodlin'" and the invigorating "Taps Miller." Williams joins them for a rousing rendition of Louis Jordan's "Rusty Dusty Blues," with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross providing backing vocal harmony and simulated horn pads. They deliver a soulful reading of Milt Jackson's "The Spirit-Feel," a tune that was also covered by Ray Charles the previous year at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. And they wrap it up with a swinging "Avenue C," a Basie staple chockfull of clever Hendricks lyrics, before segueing to Basie's closing theme, "One O'Clock Jump," putting the capper on what was easily one of the most invigorating and memorable sets of the 1959 Newport Jazz Festival.
--Excerpt from Wolfgang's Vault notes
Usin' the phone booth, Makin' a few calls, Doodlin' weird things, Usin' the booth walls.
Got me a big date, Waitin' for my chick, Puttin' my face on, So she could look slick,
I enjoy procrastinating 'Cause I'm busy while I'm waiting, Doodlin' away, doodlin away
Sittin' and dinin' Dinner beginnin', Started designin' Usin' the linen
Photo: Charles O'Neal
At age 83, Annie Ross is still performing. Here she is in August 2009 after an outdoor Jammin’ on the Hudson at Harlem's Riverbank State Park with the park’s cultural director, Ruth Thomas (l.), and public relations person, Pat Vitucci (r.). Her current solo act includes "Twisted" and "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime". Also at Riverbank State Park is Milo Mottola and Maria Reidelbach's Totally Kid Carousel, the "first carousel in the world designed by kids."