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FROM THE ARCHIVES: REPORT FROM THE BEACH, 30 OCTOBER 1999
There are many spiders in my little bunker by the sea. They are very sensitive and painfully shy, but also very proud of the magical webs they weave, and of their own odd grace. I never kill them — except one that I thought might be a black widow — and I give them a lot of admiration. I believe that they appreciate it. (And I’m convinced that they are deeply humiliated, devastated really, by all the ill-will directed towards them on Halloween. I am especially nice to them at this time of year.)
When I first moved in they would sometimes crawl on the bed, and I would always remove them gently to some other place, and now they know that I don’t like them on the bed, and respect my wishes. They wait in their own little corners but always seem happy to see me. They are lonely creatures, and hopeful that they have set their webs in a good place, and they get rid of really bad insects, like mosquitoes and flies, who are rude and dangerous.
There are some beautiful long-legged spiders, airy and delicate, who live above my shower. Sometimes they forget and drop too far down, so when I take a shower I have to turn the water on slightly to remind them that it’s about to rain. They scurry back up to the ceiling on their invisible threads.
Learning to love spiders has been one of the best things about living here . . .
AN LP COVER FOR TODAY
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DANCE, BOATMAN, DANCE
The king of them all is starting to fall — I lost my love at the boatman’s ball . . .
THE JOLLY FLATBOATMEN
George Caleb Bingham, 1846.
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ORIGINAL UNCROPPED ABBEY ROAD COVER
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JIM BOWIE
Bowie had a reputation as knife fighter, though historians today don’t believe he designed the type of knife that now bears his name. He certainly carried one like it and used it — at least once — to defend himself from an attacker who came very close to killing him.
AN ONLINE GALLERY WORTH VISITING
A Flickr user who calls himself oldcarguy41 has created a wonderful Photo Stream of vintage illustration, advertising and pin-up art, mostly in excellent high-res scans. It’s an impressive and valuable curatorial achievement and a delight to browse through.
I discovered the illustration above, by Bernard D’Andrea, in the collection, which you can visit here.
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WILL YOU COME TO THE BOWER
EDA ZAHL
Eda Zahl was the first woman who ever appeared in a photograph on the cover of The National Geographic Magazine. She was the mother of my best friend Paul Zahl when I was a teenager in Washington, D. C. She was an eccentric, brilliant and opinionated woman.
She was the first adult person, apart from my parents, who ever took me seriously, who took my ambitions seriously. My parents would have taken any of my ambitions seriously, but Eda Zahl took my specific ambitions, to become a filmmaker, seriously. She made me feel that abandoning those ambitions would be disgraceful.
Becoming a filmmaker entailed many years of failure, of poverty, of hopelessness. I was sustained in the journey by my parents’ blind faith, but equally by Eda Zahl’s clear-eyed and demanding faith. She taught me that being true to one’s dreams was not just a private, personal indulgence but a duty.
LORENA
DAVY
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WHERE NO ONE STANDS ALONE
THE RAVEN
MISS MAUDE AGAIN
