The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on this day fifty years ago. It made poll taxes illegal on the both the state and federal levels. I think it is really interesting given that the voter ID laws are exactly the same thing: a way to make voting something that must be earned instead of a right so as to disenfranchise the poor. But I feel sure that if it ever got to the Supreme Court (UPDATE: see Rick Fine’s excellent comment and links below), somehow the five conservative justices would see it in a whole different light. But you will have to forgive me. I’m sick and grumpy.

On this day in 1832, the great painter Edouard Manet was born. Although considered an impressionist, he was more the proto-impressionist. He is probably the most important artist in the move from Realism to Impressionism. I really admire his work, and I would include more details and an image if I were feeling better. Maybe I’ll update it tomorrow.

Other birthdays: big handwriting John Hancock (1737); French writer Stendhal (1783); physicist Ernst Abbe (1840); the great mathematician David Hilbert (1862); physicist Paul Langevin (1872); comedian Ernie Kovacs (1919); actor Chita Rivera (81); actor Sonny Chiba (75); actor Rutger Hauer (70); and TV’s MacGyver, Richard Dean Anderson.

The day, however, belongs to the great filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein who was born on this day in 1898. After having Griffith yesterday, I hate to give Eisenstein so little attention. He is best known for Battleship Potemkin, although he made a number of other important films. I am a great admirer of October: Ten Days That Shook the World. But my admiration isn’t with regard to it as a propaganda film. To be honest, I’ve always thought that aspect of Eisenstein’s work was over-intellectual, and I don’t think anyone really understood without having it explained. But it is an immensely powerful film, even today.

Here is one of the most famous movie scenes eve, the Odessa Steps from Battleship Potemkin. It is both amazingly suspenseful and it makes its point as clearly as one could in film:

Happy birthday Sergei Eisenstein!

Eight years ago, Evo Morales became the first indigenous president of Bolivia. He seems to have done a pretty decent job. He, of course, is largely dismissed as a socialist here in the United States. But then, so is the conservative created, free-market healthcare system we now call Obamacare. Morales, like pretty much all reasonable people, believes in a mixed-economy. You know what a mixed-economy is, don’t you? It’s the economy that the United States has always had! Wake up conservatives! Evo! Evo! Evo!

On this day in 1552 or 1554 (It was a very long labor!) Walter Raleigh was born. What, exactly was he anyway? I guess you could say that, very much like today, Raleigh was famous for being famous. It is interesting that he was put to death for political reasons. But I am mostly interested in him because of his relationship to Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe had written the poem, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” It is a very sweet poem that I’ve set to music. The poem was very popular, but the older Raleigh apparently thought it was childish and so wrote a response poem, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd.” It’s a good poem, but it is very clear why were remember Marlowe today as a great poet of that period and we remember Raleigh for throwing his coat over a mud puddle for Queen Elizabeth—a story I feel is almost certainly apocryphal.

It’s a good day for Elizabethans! Francis Bacon was born on this day in 1561. (Short labor.) He is known today as the man who helped Christopher Marlowe who actually wrote all those plays people ignorantly attribute to “The Immortal Bard of Stratford on Avon.” Woody Allen explains all this in his short story, “But Soft… Real Soft.” Read the whole thing; it is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. If you want to know about Bacon, click his name above. Basically, he was a brilliant philosopher and scientist who was not beheaded, even though he only lived as long as Raleigh. Here’s Allen with some history about Bacon that I’ll bet you didn’t know:

The great Sam Cooke was born 1931. I don’t think I really need to say anything about his work. He was a great songwriter and an unforgettable singer. His death is still a mystery. I tend to think that it was as simple as some people tried to rob him, it got out of hand and they killed him. We will never know, but his murder not only deprived him of his life, it deprived the rest of us of unknown amounts of great music. Here is the only video I could easily find of Cooke actually performing live. It is a really good version of Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” which Cooke later wrote the great response song, “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

Other birthdays: the great French philosopher Pierre Gassendi (1592); the great fetes galantes painter Nicolas Lancret (1690); the great Romantic poet Lord Byron (1788); Swedish playwright August Strindberg (1849); Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin (1869); blues guitarist Blind Willie Johnson (1897); the great Russian physicist Lev Landau (1908); four great actors: Piper Laurie (82), Bill Bixby (1934), Seymour Cassel (79), and the best of the bunch, John Hurt (74); crime novelist Joseph Wambaugh (77); singer and songwriter Steve Perry (65); the great filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (61); actor Linda Blair (55); and actor Diane Lane (49).

The day, however, belongs to the most important filmmaker ever, D W Griffith, who was born on this day in 1875. Oh, how I hate talking about him. How I wish he had never made The Birth of a Nation, so that I don’t always have to talk about racism. So forget it. He seems to have been a decent man with some real confusion on matters racial and historical.

But in terms of art, Nation was revolutionary. In many ways, his next major film Intolerance was equally so. It is interesting to watch the early films—including Griffith’s—as they slowly evolve until Nation, which is shockingly modern. Quite suddenly, Griffith offers the world the full pallet of cinematic syntax. And then in Intolerance breaks altogether new ground in terms of its editing.

To start with, Intolerance takes place during four points in time spread out over thousands of years. But this is all intercut—the story is not told linearly. Then on top of that—on the microscale—we see parallel editing exactly as we see it today. Here is a very short (26 second) example. We see three different locations: the jail cell, the scaffolding, and the line cutters behind the wall on the scaffolding. Griffith cuts between them to provide the sense that they are all happening at the same time. They still teach this stuff to kids in film school, 98 years later!

Happy birthday D W Griffith!

I had gotten rather spoiled the last few days with some pretty good birthdays to choose from. In fact, the great abundance of them made me give short shrift to people I normally would have spent more time on. But that’s why I’m the best at exactly what I do.

In 1820, Joseph Wolf was born. He was a great illustrator who specialized in natural history. In fact, by the middle of his life, he was the preferred illustrator of such luminaries Alfred Russel Wallace and Henry Walter Bates. His work is great and it makes me long for the days before photography, because of it idealized the animals. In field guides, I think that can be helpful. Regardless, check out his work.

Henri Duparc was born in 1848. He was a French composer of the late Romantic period. But we really ought to have a better name for that period, because it doesn’t sound romantic to me at all. It sounds transitional. I think you can see this in the following performance of L’Invitation au voyage, which is one of his earliest works:

Karl Wallenda was born in 1905. He was the founder of The Flying Wallendas. What I find fascinating about him is his death. At the age of 73, he was doing a wire walk across two ten story towers in Puerto Rico. But because of a screw-up in the set-up of the wire he fell to his death. I am fascinated what people think as they fall to their deaths. And I cannot read about hire wire acts without squirming, so I will move on.

Other birthdays: Revolutionary War hero and furniture maker brand name Ethan Allen (1738); Confederate general, who was only 39 when he died, Stonewall Jackson (1824); number theorist Ivan Mikheevich Pervushin (1827); co-founder and first executive director of the ACLU, Roger Nash Baldwin (1884); fashion designer Christian Dior (1905); actor Telly Savalas (1922); great actor Paul Scofield (1922); actor Steve Reeves (1926); singer-songwriter Richie Havens (1941); singer-songwriter Mac Davis (72); singer-songwriter Billy Ocean (64); sculptor Jeff Koons (59); actor Robby Benson (58); actor Geena Davis (58); and rapper Jam Master Jay (1965).

The day, however, belongs to the comedian Benny Hill who was born on this day in 1924. I know: he is probably not your favorite comedian. But there is no doubt that he was a genius. If you get past all the young models in bikinis, what you find is very well structured—and at times hilarious—comedy. The best example of this is, “Ye Old Wishing Well.” This is an example of perfect comedy writing:

Happy birthday Benny Hill!

On this day in 1732, Richard Henry Lee was born. I only know him because he has a big number in 1776. He is, apparently, the guy who got the Continental Congress to debate independence. But being a rich man from Virginia, we can only assume he was a big slave holder. Does that make him a bad man or should we put him in the context of his time and place? I don’t know. I can kind of see accepting slavery in a general sense. But slavery not based upon the vicissitudes of life and rather on race? At a time when it still must have been in living memory that it only existed at all for purely economic reasons and all the “racial superiority” nonsense was just made up to justify (Like always!) the unfair wealth of the ruling class? So I’m not inclined to forgive, but Wikipedia doesn’t even mention slavery.

Comedian George Burns was born in 1896. I would just lump him in with the other birthdays if I thought he had been funnier. There is no doubt that he was a great straight man to Gracie. But Groucho Marx he wasn’t. But oh did he try!

Colin Clive was born in 1900. He is the actor best know for the line, “It’s alive!” which he repeated over and over again as Dr. Frankenstein in Frankenstein. And then in Bride of Frankenstein he doesn’t get any good lines. What I think is most interesting about Clive is that he is known for being a falling down drunk. According to Wikipedia, often “he had to be held upright for over-the-shoulder shots.” But the man died at the age of 37 of tuberculosis. Isn’t it possible that like Charlie Parker, his drug use was due to the fact that he was not being properly treated for medical issues? Now I don’t say this an apology for the way these men lived their lives; people have the right to live their lives any damn way they choose. But I’ve noticed that Wikipedia has a tendency to contain death sections that go something like this, “He was an alcoholic throughout his live. He died when an airplane crashed into his house.” What does alcoholism have to do with tuberculosis?! Anyway, I love him those Frankenstein movies!

Farhad Mehrad was born in 1944. He was a hugely successful Iranian singer-songwriter. And mostly, I just wanted you to hear this:

David Lynch is 68 today. When I was younger, I loved his work. Now I look back on it and I’m not so sure. He is interesting, but most of the stuff is unwatchable. For example, when it was on television, I loved Twin Peaks. I went back recently and watched it and I was amazed at how much I hated it. I think that all art is indulgent to some degree. But I’m afraid Lynch takes it to another level. However… He always seems to be trying to do something and that’s more than you can say for most filmmakers who have reached the level he has. Here is a scene from Living in Oblivion that has always reminded me of Lynch, but Tom DiCillo insists that it was not an attack on Lynch, who he admires. Regardless, it is funny as hell:

Other birthdays: “Bones” from Star Trek, DeForest Kelley (1920); musician Slim Whitman (1923); actor Patricia Neal (1926); comedian Arte Johnson (85); comedian Bill Maher (58); and MindVox co-founder (and someone I actually know), Patrick K Kroupa is 45.

The day, however, belongs to Federico Fellini who was born on this day in 1920. My perception is that among film fans, Fellini has fallen out of favor. Or at least he has compared to, say, Ingmar Bergman. But I remember as a teenager going to see a double feature of And the Ship Sails On and Amarcord. And it was a revelation. I had never seen anything like that in my life! But then, as I tend to do, I went back and looked at his films in the 1950s like I Vitelloni, and I was very disappointed. It took me a long time to see those films in their historical context. He was, from the beginning, an innovative filmmaker. I will say this, however, I’m not a big fan of 8½. To a large extent, I blame that on Stardust Memories and All That Jazz and other films that have so ripped it off. But if directors as great as Allen and Fosse and Truffaut have been inspired to steal from it in such blatant ways, I don’t think you really need to say any more about Fellini. I really want you to see this magical (Short!) clip from And the Ship Sails On. But I can’t embed it. Do click over. And check this scene from I Vitelloni (From 1953!) that is, in its way, no less magical:

Happy birthday Federico Fellini!

On this day in 1813, Joseph Glidden was born. Now he may or may not have invented barbed wire. But he got the patent on it in 1874 and so he became an incredibly wealthy man. Given that he probably wasn’t the actual inventor and how the idea was clearly on the minds of a number of people, it shows that our patent system has long been screwed up. But what I don’t think most people understand is how important barbed wire was to turning the western United States into a cattle ranching empire. The places where cattle were being bread did not have a lot of wood. So they really did need a way of enclose the cattle that didn’t cost a fortune in imported wood. Barbed wire really was a hugely important technological innovation, regardless of who invented it.

The writer of the great Winnie the Pooh books, A A Milne was born in 1882. I wrote a bit about him last year, Neuroses of Winnie the Pooh. Milne wrote much else besides the Pooh books. He was most successful as a playwright, but there is hardly a form or audience he didn’t write for.

Other birthdays: the great political theorist Montesquieu (1689); the lexicographer Peter Mark Roget (1779); Thomas “Come here, I want you” Watson (1854); comedian Oliver Hardy (1892); horror writer C M Eddy Jr (1896); actor Danny Kaye (1913); Bozo the Clown, Bob Bell (1922); writer and mystic Robert Anton Wilson (1932); singer-songwriter Bobby Goldsboro (73); actor Paul Freeman (71); actor Kevin Costner (59); and chess grandmaster Alexander Khalifman (46).

The day, however, belongs to one of my all time favorite actors Cary Grant who was born on this day in 1904. He is just always fun to watch. I prefer when he is in comedies, because he is very funny. But he’s also very good in dramas like North by Northwest. Of course, above all, he was in His Girl Friday—one of my very favorite films. The whole film is on YouTube in a couple of places, but here is the beginning where he and Rosalind Russell make a great comic duo:

Happy birthday Cary Grant!

My but I am getting a late start on the birthdays today. Sorry about that. I’ve been doing a number of other things. And it’s too bad, because we have a number of interesting birthdays today.

On this day in 1899, the alpha gangster Al Capone was born. There is something about him that always makes me want to like him. There was, of course, nothing likable about him at all as far as I can tell. But then he caught neurosyphilis, causing brain damage that caused him to regress. And then he died of a stroke at 48. But watching even the worst person fall from great power to childish insanity is sad. He should have been gunned down in his prime at the age of 30, right around the time of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Betty White is 92 today. I’m really not a fan. She really has very limited appeal—or at least she did before she got so old. I have nothing against her. She seems to be decent person. She has long been an animal health advocate. To me, she’ll always been one of those celebrities who were on game shows when I was a kid. My problem with her is that people make a big deal out of her when she is and always has been a middling star. I believe in respecting our elders, but our society doesn’t seem to care about any of our non-celebrity elders. So I bristle at the unwarranted praise heaped on her.

The great comedian Andy Kaufman was born in 1949. Kaufman was probably the first entirely postmodern comedian. Much of Albert Brooks’ material was postmodern, but it was still at least half regular comedy—the kind that is still the standard. I thought it was sad during Kaufman’s tragically brief life that most people didn’t get most of his act. That was completely true of the wrestling that I immediately got because I had read my Roland Barthes. But what was most funny about his Elvis impersonation was not the obvious joke of his naive foreigner character who can’t do any impressions suddenly doing a great Elvis impersonation. What is most funny is how he asks for whatever clothes he’s thrown to the audience. In that link, he not only falls out of the Elvis character, he falls out of the foreigner character, in his effort to get his clothes. It plays with the whole idea of reality and fantasy, and it plays rough. His Might Mouse routine is the same kind of thing. He provides perfect lip syncing along with almost missed cues. He’s contrasting the perfection of the performance with the imperfection of the non-performance, which is, of course, part of the performance. I’ve always thought that by the time of his Carnegie Hall performance, he was pandering a bit. But still, when the cowgirl seems to die, he pushes act far longer than any other comedian of that time. I think it is one of the best comedy performances ever:

The singer Paul Young is 58. He has a great voice and I’ve always liked this song (I won’t speak for the video):

Other birthdays: the great actor James Earl Jones (83); the great boxer Muhammad Ali (72); yes, I know, the great actor Jim Carrey (52); writer Sebastian Junger (52); and the great theatrical actor Denis O’Hare (52).

The day, however, belongs to the great Mack Sennett who was born on this day in 1880. Really, he was the man who defined filmed comedy until Max Linder revolutionized it. Sennett’s work really didn’t depend upon characters as later comedies did. Instead there were “types” and often not even them. These are actually a lot harder to make work. As you will see in the following compilation, there is a great deal of creativity. In fact, there really isn’t much difference between this work and what Benny Hill was doing 40 years later. But a couple of these bits actually made me laugh. (Note: Sennett is in a number of them.)

Happy birthday Mack Sennett!