28 Saturday Mar 2020
Mark Blum was born in Newark and raised in Maplewood, New Jersey. As a teenager, trips to Broadway shows taught him to love the theatre, though he never considered acting as a career. “I was raised in one of those basic middle-class Jewish families in the suburbs,” he told the New York Times, “and that just wasn’t something somebody thought about.” Continue reading
15 Sunday Dec 2019
Posted in Books, Lana Del Rey, Madonna, Music, Non-Fiction
≈ Comments Off on 2019: A Year In Music
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A Year in Music, All Mirrors, Andrew Ridgeley, Angel Olsen, Billie Holiday, Debbie Harry, Downhill Lullaby, George Michael, Lana Del Rey, Madame X, Madonna, Marina and the Diamonds, Mirwais Ahmadzai, Norman Fucking Rockwell, Odetta, Prince, Remind Me Tomorrow, Seventeen, Sharon Van Etten, Sky Ferreira, The Shangri-Las, To Be Human, Tricky, Wham!
This year brought defiant statements from masters old and new: the iconoclastic Madame X, reuniting Madonna with ‘disco god’ Mirwais; and the epochal Norman Fucking Rockwell from Lana Del Rey. Continue reading
16 Monday Sep 2019
Posted in Art and Photography, Jeanne Eagels
≈ Comments Off on ‘The Best Way to Forget, Until You Find Something You Want to Remember’
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'The Best Way to Forget Until You Find Something You Want to Remember', Amy Winehouse, Bette Davis, Christine Keeler, Cob Gallery, If You Don't Want My Peaches (You Better Stop Shaking the Tree), Jean Harlow, Jeanne Eagels, Kim Novak, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Nina Mae Fowler, Rita Hayworth, The Letter
Nina Mae Fowler is a British artist who trained at the University of Brighton, and lives in Norfolk. Her latest solo exhibition, If You Don’t Want My Peaches (You’d Better Stop Shaking the Tree), on display at London’s Cob Gallery until September 28, borrows its title from an Irving Berlin song, and draws heavily on the iconography of Hollywood’s golden age. I was delighted to find Jeanne Eagels among the subjects, as she is often neglected. This portrait shows Jeanne in her penultimate movie (and only surviving talkie), The Letter (1929.) Continue reading
14 Friday Jun 2019
Posted in Books, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Music, Updates
≈ Comments Off on ‘Madame X’ is a Birthday Girl
In my 35+ years of fandom, this is the first time a Madonna album has dropped on my birthday – and it’s a masterpiece! As well as the delectable Madame X, I also got a copy of Marilyn Monroe In Spain, a wonderful book by the artist, author and museum owner, Frederic Cabanas … “Saludos a todos mis amigos!”
13 Thursday Jun 2019
Posted in Film, Magazines, Television, Updates, Writing
≈ Comments Off on Soledad 2: Twin Peaks, Joe D’Amato and More
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1989, Colette, David Lynch, Emily Jane Bryant, Heather Drain, Jeremy Richey, Joe D'Amato, John David Levy, Johnny Handsome, Les Bohem, Like A Prayer, Madonna, Marcelline Block, Michael A. Gonzales, Mickey Rourke, Peggy Lipton, Poetry, Robert Monell, Rory DeMaio, Soledad, Twin Peaks
The Italian actress Cinzia Monreale lies in her coffin on the cover of SOLEDAD Arts Journal‘s second volume, available now on Amazon for just $6 in the US, or £4.73 in the UK. It’s a still from Buio Omega (Beyond the Darkness), a 1979 horror flick, accompanied by a splendidly bizarre quote: “Darkness is not dark … time is not time … boys become dogs … girls become frogs …” Continue reading
24 Monday Dec 2018
Tags
A League Of Their Own, Baseball, Madonna, Penny Marshall, Rosie O'Donnell, This Used To Be My Playground
Carole Penny Marshall was born in the Bronx in 1943. Her mother Marjorie ran a dance school, and her father directed industrial films. Of Italian descent, he had changed his name from Masciarelli to Marshall. Their youngest daughter was named after Carole Lombard, the much-loved comedic actress and wife of Clark Gable, who had died in a plane crash the year before. Young Carole’s middle name was inspired by her sister Ronny, who was ‘saving her pennies’ to buy a horse: and it was that name, ‘Penny’, which finally stuck. The family lived in a building which also housed the young Neil Simon, Paddy Chayevsky, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. Continue reading
17 Monday Dec 2018
Posted in Amy Winehouse, Books, Film, Lana Del Rey, Madonna, Music, Non-Fiction
≈ Comments Off on 2018: A Year in Music
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A Year in Music, All Nerve, Amy Winehouse, Back to Amy, Back to Black, Beautiful Game, Blake Wood, Bobbie Gentry, Cat Power, Charles Moriarty, Chris Wade, Comeback Kid, David Bowie, Fado, Jack Antonoff, Lana Del Rey, Lissie, Madonna, Madonna in the Eighties, Mariners Apartment Complex, Matthew Rettenmund, Mazzy Star, Mercury Rev, MLVC60, My Wild West, Nico, Nico 1988, Norman Fucking Rockwell, Piano & A Microphone 1983, Portugal, Prince, Quentin Harrison, Record Redux: Madonna, Record Store Day, Sharon Van Etten, The Breeders, The Girl From Chickasaw County, Wanderer, Woman
She may have left the stage decades ago, but 2018 was a vintage year for die-hard fans of the mysterious Bobbie Gentry, with a rare vinyl release on Record Store Day followed in September by a career-spanning CD box-set, The Girl From Chickasaw County. Continue reading
13 Saturday Oct 2018
Posted in Art and Photography, Fashion and Beauty
≈ Comments Off on Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up
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Communism, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, London, Madonna, Mexico, V&A, Victoria and Albert Museum
In her lifetime, Frida Kahlo was little-known outside Mexico. Her reputation abroad could be summarised by this derisive headline from a newspaper article, published during her first trip to the USA in 1933: ‘Wife of the Master Mural Painter Gleefully Dabbles in Works of Art.’ Neither was she commercially successful, though her work was feted by prominent European aesthetes like André Breton. In her home country, however, she was a cultural icon, leading the charge for a modern, independent Mexico.
16 Thursday Aug 2018
Posted in Anniversaries, Fashion and Beauty, Film, Madonna, Music
≈ Comments Off on ‘You May Be My Lucky Star…’
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Beautiful Stranger, Catholicism, Confessions on a Dancefloor, Desperately Seeking Susan, Evita, Ghosttown, Into the Groove, Jump, Like A Prayer, Live Aid, Live to Tell, Living for Love, Lucky Star, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Marvin Gaye, Material Girl, Ray of Light, Secret, Smash Hits, Wembley, Who's That Girl, William Orbit
From the age of eleven, my Saturdays would often include a trip to the record department at Boots to buy a 7-inch single. One of these was ‘Lucky Star’ by Madonna. Along with ‘Holiday’, it was one of her earliest songs played on the radio. Each weekend I stopped to gaze at her gorgeous album cover, but my savings rarely stretched to LPs. When I finally bought it, it had a different cover and my best friend (who wasn’t a fan) borrowed and never returned it. Continue reading
20 Sunday May 2018
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1983, Borderline, Burning Up, I Know It, Lucky Star, Madonna, Physical Attraction, Reggie Lucas, The First Album, Think of Me
Reginald Grant Lucas was born in Queens, New York in 1953, the son of a doctor and a teacher. “Although no one in the family was a musician or singer,” he recalled, “music was an important and natural part of our lives.” He began taking piano lessons aged six, and was given an electric guitar for his eleventh birthday. Enthralled by the “music explosion” coming from Motown and England in the Early 1960s, it was “the beginning of a lifelong romance.” Continue reading
