June 1, 1857 saw the publication of the most important volume of French poetry up till then: Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal…
Baudelaire addresses the reader of the volume with this famous bit of mockery:
Image: Baudelaire’s own annotated 1st ed. copy of Les Fleurs…
![June 1, 1967 saw the UK release of the most complex pop/rock album to date - The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The intricate cover collage has been interpreted in multifarious ways ever since, famously fuelling rumours that Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by a look-a-like…
I see the cover as an homage to a host of cultural heroes and a farewell to the simplistic pop-band the Beatles had been, but could no longer sustain the illusion of…
The Collage:
The celebrities and items featured on the front cover are (by row, left to right):
Top row:
Sri Yukteswar Giri (hindu guru)
Aleister Crowley (occultist)
Mae West (actress)
Lenny Bruce (comedian)
Karlheinz Stockhausen (composer)
W. C. Fields (comedian/actor)
Carl Gustav Jung (psychologist)
Edgar Allan Poe (writer)
Fred Astaire (actor/dancer)
Richard Merkin (artist)
The Vargas Girl (by artist Alberto Vargas)
Huntz Hall (actor)
Simon Rodia (designer and builder of the Watts Towers)
Bob Dylan (singer/songwriter)
Second row:
Aubrey Beardsley (illustrator)
Sir Robert Peel (19th century British Prime Minister)
Aldous Huxley (writer)
Dylan Thomas (poet)
Terry Southern (writer)
Dion (singer)
Tony Curtis (actor)
Wallace Berman (artist)
Tommy Handley (comedian)
Marilyn Monroe (actress)
William S. Burroughs (writer)
Sri Mahavatar Babaji (Hindu guru)
Stan Laurel (actor/comedian)
Richard Lindner (artist)
Oliver Hardy (actor/comedian)
Karl Marx (political philosopher)
H. G. Wells (writer)
Sri Paramahansa Yogananda (Hindu guru)
Sigmund Freud (psychiatrist) - barely visible below Bob Dylan
Anonymous (hairdresser’s wax dummy)
Third row:
Stuart Sutcliffe (artist/former Beatle)
Anonymous (hairdresser’s wax dummy)
Max Miller (comedian)
A “Petty Girl” (by artist George Petty)
Marlon Brando (actor)
Tom Mix (actor)
Oscar Wilde (writer)
Tyrone Power (actor)
Larry Bell (artist)
Dr. David Livingstone (missionary/explorer)
Johnny Weissmuller (Olympic swimmer/actor)
Stephen Crane (writer) - barely visible between Issy Bonn’s head and raised arm
Issy Bonn (comedian)
George Bernard Shaw (playwright)
H. C. Westermann (sculptor)
Albert Stubbins (soccer player)
Sri Lahiri Mahasaya (guru)
Lewis Carroll (writer)
T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”)
Front row:
Wax model of Sonny Liston (boxer)
A “Petty Girl” (by George Petty)
Wax model of George Harrison
Wax model of John Lennon
Shirley Temple (child actress) - barely visible, first of three appearances on the cover
Wax model of Ringo Starr
Wax model of Paul McCartney
Albert Einstein (physicist) - largely obscured
John Lennon holding a French horn
Ringo Starr holding a trumpet
Paul McCartney holding a cor anglais
George Harrison holding a flute
Bobby Breen (singer)
Marlene Dietrich (actress/singer)
An American legionnaire[1]
Diana Dors (actress)
Shirley Temple (child actress) - second appearance on the cover
Other objects within the group include:
Cloth grandmother-figure by Jann Haworth
Cloth doll by Haworth of Shirley Temple wearing a sweater that reads “Welcome The Rolling Stones”
A ceramic Mexican candlestick known as a Tree of Life from Metepec
A television set
A stone figure of a girl
Another stone figure
A statue brought over from John Lennon’s house
A trophy
A doll of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi
A drum skin, designed by fairground artist Joe Ephgrave
A hookah (water pipe)
A velvet snake
A Fukusuke, Japanese china figure
A stone figure of Snow White
A garden gnome
A tuba (Wiki)](http://17.media.tumblr.com/aHyNHMV3lo6j1t93WvgcLDQUo1_500.jpg)
June 1, 1967 saw the UK release of the most complex pop/rock album to date - The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The intricate cover collage has been interpreted in multifarious ways ever since, famously fuelling rumours that Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by a look-a-like…
I see the cover as an homage to a host of cultural heroes and a farewell to the simplistic pop-band the Beatles had been, but could no longer sustain the illusion of…
The Collage:
The celebrities and items featured on the front cover are (by row, left to right):
Top row:
Second row:
Third row:
Front row:
Other objects within the group include:
Mikhail Glinka (June 1, 1804 – 1857), was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition inside his own country, and is often regarded as the father of Russian classical music. (Wiki)
Painting of Glinka by Ilya Repin, 1887
Today is the birthday of Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926 - 1962), perhaps the greatest glamour girl the world has ever known - but also a gentle, if troubled soul.
I imagine Marilyn at 83, a sassy Mae West-like old biddy, with a lot of bite and humour, telling us stories from the glory days of her times in Hollywood, with Arthur Miller and the intellectual jet set, and the behind the scenes jealousies of the Kennedys - alas, it was never to be…
Shot of Marilyn on the set of the 1955 comedy, The Seven Year Itch
There are many shots of Marilyn reading - contrary to popular belief she was not a dumb blonde…
“The library of Marilyn Monroe contained over 400 books on a variety of subjects, reflecting both her intelligence and her wide-ranging interests. No surprise to those familiar with Monroe, they were the books of a well-read and inquiring mind. Works of Literature, Art, Drama, Biography, Poetry, Politics, History, Theology, Philosophy, and Psychology covered the walls in her library. Among the First Editions was her own copy of The Beat Generation classic On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man and William Styron’s This House on Fire. From Tolstoy to Twain, many other classic works of literature were represented, including her copies of The Great Gatsby, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, James Joyce’s Dubliners, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, and The Fall by Camus. Her library also contained books on gardening, her Bibles, and children’s books, including her own copy of The Little Engine That Could which was possibly marked with her own childish scrawl.” (Source)
Marilyn Monroe with husband Joe DiMaggio (photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt)
Marilyn and Arthur Miller, enjoying a hot dog and a Coke…
Late in life Marilyn was still doing glamour work…
From the famous Bert Stein sessions, the so-called ’last sitting’
One more of the iconic Bert Stein shots of Marilyn, from ‘the last sitting’
Two more sixties icons, of the bad boy variety…
Today is Ron Wood’s 62nd birthday!
Photo: Keith Richards and Ron Wood in Lear Jet, Los Angeles, 1979, © Henry Diltz, 1979We don’t really do supermodels on OF, but when two of them share a birthday and appear in the same group photo, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do…
Happy birthday to Karen Mulder (b. June 1, 1968) and Heidi Klum (b. June 1, 1973)
(Photo: L-R Victoria’s Secret models Stephanie Seymour, Daniela Pestova, Karen Mulder, Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum. July 27, 1998 - Photographer: Marion Curtis)
We do do edgy singer/songwriters here on OF: Alanis Morisette (b. June 1, 1974) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer and occasional actress. She has won twelve Juno Awards and seven Grammy Awards.
Fun fact: It was recently announced on Morissette’s website that she will be starring in a film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel Radio Free Albemuth. Morissette will play Sylvia, an ordinary woman in unexpected remission from lymphoma. She said she was a “big fan” of Dick’s books, which she called “poetic and expansively imaginative”, and said she “feel[s] blessed to portray Sylvia, and to be part of this story being told in film.”
Frederic Clay Bartlett (June 1, 1873 - 1953): Self-Portrait in Mirror, n.d. - oil on canvas (Smithsonian)
Terry Winters (b. June 1, 1949): Novalis, 1983-1989 - color etching, aquatint and spit bite on paper
Printers: Keith Brintzenhofe, Shi Ji-hong, John Lund; Publisher: Universal Limited Art Editions (Smithsonian)
Cynthia Schira (b. June 1, 1934): Reflections, 1982 - woven and bound resist-dyed cotton and dyed rayon (Smithsonian)
“Born in Providence, Cynthia Schira earned a B.FA. degree at the Rhode Island School of Design an an M.F.A. degree at the University of Kansas, where she has been on the faculty since 1976. Schira’s textiles have been inspired by the landscape of the Kansas plains, as well as her training and experience in textile centers in France, China, India, and Japan, and her study of ancient Peruvian textiles.” - Kenneth R. Trapp and Howard Risatti. Skilled Work: American Craft in the Renwick Gallery (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998).
![We do do edgy singer/songwriters here on OF: Alanis Morisette (b. June 1, 1974) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer and occasional actress. She has won twelve Juno Awards and seven Grammy Awards.
Fun fact: It was recently announced on Morissette’s website that she will be starring in a film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel Radio Free Albemuth. Morissette will play Sylvia, an ordinary woman in unexpected remission from lymphoma. She said she was a “big fan” of Dick’s books, which she called “poetic and expansively imaginative”, and said she “feel[s] blessed to portray Sylvia, and to be part of this story being told in film.”](http://2.media.tumblr.com/aHyNHMV3lo78qtipyXgKjnM9o1_500.jpg)
