THE PALOMAR – ARCHITECT SAMUEL B. BIRD – BURNT TO THE GROUND IN 1939
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Such a fabulously *American* building. Great picture too – all those lights.
Sprawling – but in a good way.
Looking at the image again, the Palomar looks like a great land-locked Ocean Liner all lit up for the night (and dreaming of someday setting sail). Yup, these are the kind of things that occur to me while doing other things…it’s my gift, it’s my curse! I runneth off at the mouth and at the fingers…
For an ocean liner it’s a little chunky through the hull 😉
Imagine this first bit in the voice of Elwood P. Dowd, “Weeeellllll, science was never my strong suit now, was it, Harvey?”
Oh, ma’mselle Vickie my mind has always been more, ‘ow you say?, *impressionistic* than practical (tower at the front, turrets at the back like smoke stacks, glowing sign down the side, that’s a liner to me! Wonder if it’s the Island Princess?)I defy the laws of physics daily, or that’s my excuse 😉
V., this is possibly -heck, *probably*! – a drearily obvious thought, but your pieces on california architecture make me ponder how architects (and wardrobe designers such as Edith Head) put things on to paper – or a screen – and then it becomes reality, they *mold* reality (which can be a problem if the architect is Howard Roark!). But then there’s the writer who puts pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and creates a *world*, it’s dependent on the talent of the writer and the imagination of the *reader* but a fine writer (like yourself say I – the crawler! Yet I speak the truth so I ain’t I protest) can create something that perhaps hasn’t existed or *recreate* experiences and people in a way that can be evocative, touching, and real. I’ve often thought how fantastic that is, and in certain cases there’s a real compact or communion between author and reader (it requires them to be on the same wavelength but, also, for the reader to have certain feelings and not to be thick ;)). Then there’s the screenwriter who can see their work take shape before the camera through the work of director, actors, designers, cinematographers, et al, though in “Hollywood” it’s a lucky writer who retains control… (less so in television)
Ah, well, I thought it was interesting! Pretentious Pascal is leaving the building…
R xox
P.S. Have you read Decca The Letters of Jessica Mitford? I think you might like them.
I’d say that a author, at best, provokes the readers imagination. Production Designers and Wardrobe Designers tell a story with material objects, like a castle layered with conspiracy and spies (I’m thinking of the work of John Myhre in “Elizabeth”) — or reveal character through wardrobe (“Devil in a Blue Dress”, Sharen Davis). Screenwriters in Hollywood are the lowest of low – above the line. Their work is changed by everyone, director, actors, producers – who see the script as a blueprint and subject to radical alterations. It is very rare for a screenwriter to have clout, unless they are also the director.
The Mitfords, talk about a fascinating family – I have never read the The Letters of Jessica Mitford (the one who became a journalist?) but I plan on it now. xox, V
Yes, best known for The American Way Of Death the sardonic expose of weird funeral practices that created change (well, up to a point). She was just about the only Mitford who wasn’t enamoured of fascism and right-wingery! (the tale of what happened to her adored sister, Unity, is gut-wrenching)
Here’s a typical quotatation “Bob and I have been subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities on account of being subversives, so could you be an angel and send me a smart hat from your shop to wear at the hearing?”. Insouciance and wit. She lived a rich full life. I do hope you enjoy them.
Who’d be a screenwriter?! You’re obviously right about writers turning director to preserve their work or to have the full power that a novelist has. Wilder, Allen, Coppola, etc.
I may not *entirely* agree with you about the author “at best” provoking the reader’s imagination (as without the author the reader has nothing!) but your words on production/ designers : “tell a story with material objects, like a castle fogged with conspiracies and spies…
(oh, poo, accidentally posted without finishing. Drat) – but your words on production/wardrobe designers “tell(ing) story with material objects like a castle fogged with conspiracies and spies” etc are marvellous and true, dah-link (who let Ivana and Zsa Zsa in here?). I want to babble about lighting, editing, etc but I’ll leave you in peace. Thanks for the stimulating talk.
Have a simply mah-vellous weekend, hugs, R
V
Sumptuously lit landscraper if ever there was one.
Adore, adore, adore.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
The ballroom held four thousand – perhaps the biggest of its kind in 1925.
Goodness.
Truly the Blackpool Winter Gardens of the West.
Gone now one supposes?
Burned to the ground October of 1939… they recently had installed a cooling system. All the big bands played there – it was THE place.