Pete's Pantheon: Antonio Gaudi and the Undulating Apartment Building

Like a mad dog or an Englishman, you are wandering the sun-blasted streets of the Mediterranean City of Barcelona. You are slightly lost, quite sleep deprived, and looking for something. As you round a corner, suddenly you know you've found it. A large apartment building swims into view from several blocks away. It bulges and flows with rhythmic grace, pinioned in place by the handsome but boring buildings that surround it. It is "The Pedrera" an apartment designed by the great Spanish Architect Antonio Gaudi.

It would be more accurate to call him a Catalan Architect, He lived and worked almost entirely in the area of Barcelona from his birth in 1852 to his death in 1926. His distinctive architectural style was an homage to his region, Catalonia, that overlaps the Mediterranean coasts of Spain and France. His buildings celebrate regional fauna and flora, incorporating them into the decoration and shapes of the buildings themselves. Although he was a part of the Modernista movement his work is distinctive. He often built without detailed blueprints and modeled stress and force in his buildings through complex mockups using weighted strings. What he could have done with present techniques and materials we can only wonder.

His unfinished masterpiece is The Sagrada Familia Cathedral. It was begun in 1883, Gaudi devoted himself exclusively to it in 1915, and it remains unfinished to this day. The building as it exists now still sums up his devotion to Catalonia, Catholicism and Architecture. Shot through with the natural history of the area from the tree trunk columns inside to the turtles and snails decorating the outside, Gaudi was building a house for God.  Shortly before his death, his absorption with the project led him to move on site. On his way to confession months after moving, he was run down by a tram, mistaken for an indigent, and finally recognized too late for any intervention.

He is now seen the World over as a unique genius. His work draws visitors from around the planet to see buildings that seem to have grown from up out of the soil to beckon their inhabitants. A house for God, and houses for men.   (Thanks to Wikipedia, Robert Hughes)

Pete's Pantheon: Hedy LaMarr, Dangerous mind

Where to begin with the sad and wonderful life of Hedy Lamarr? She was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1913, the daughter of assimilated Jews in Freud's Vienna. Lamarr grew up to be one of the most beautiful women of her time and probably all time. How does a woman cope with all the pressures that such status imposes? She had a hobby. Sewing? Drinking? No. She was an inventor.

She became a star in European movies as a teenager, shocking the world with nude scenes in the movie "Ecstasy". Married at 19 to an arms manufacturer (Fritz Mandl, also of Jewish descent) who isolated her in their mansion and kept tabs on her by having her accompany him to meetings with technical staff and unsavory business partners. It was during these meetings that she made her first acquaintance with military technology. Her husband entertained lavishly and stupidly. Guests at his opulent soirees included Benito Mussolini and a certain Adolph Hitler. Important customers, no doubt, but problematic for obvious reasons.

Hedy escaped to America, either by dressing as her maid, or drugging and eluding her maid. Whom should she meet on the boat going over but movie mogul Louis B. Mayer? Hollywood, next stop.

She pursued her hobby of inventing while making movies Like "Algiers" and "The White Cargo".  It was during this time that she came up with her breakthrough. In collaboration with her neighbor, George Antheil, an avant garde composer and writer of film scores, Lamarr received a patent for an early form of radio frequency-hopping .

The two arranged a demonstration for the Navy pitching the invention as an unjammable way of guiding torpedoes.  The Navy laughed at the pair, mocking the idea that their creation, which used player-piano technology would be able to withstand battle.  They suggested she could be more useful to the War effort by selling War Bonds. She took that on, selling seven million dollars worth at one event according to Wikipedia.

Hollywood has no use for aging actresses. That sad fact and botched plastic surgery sent her career into decline. Hedy exiled herself to isolation in Florida, where she died in 2000. Her frequency-hopping idea is the basis today for wireless networking like Bluetooth and Wi-fi.

Pete's Pantheon: Bertrand Russell, an extended correction

It has come to the attention of the editors at Frozen Grin, that the earlier post about Bertrand Russell was riddled with fancy, whimsey, and outright fabrications. A new and corrected version of the item appears below. The editors not only regret the errors, but also the fact that they weren't true, two slightly different things.

 OK, corrected version follows... Starting with the image, this was clearly photoshopped, a more representative photo appears above. Now as to the story itself, The best approach when dealing with a breach of reality this enormous is to go through line by line and correct as we go. Ready? Here goes...

 Most people know of Lord Bertrand Russell, mathematician, social philosopher, Nobel Laureate, and conscientious objector to World War One. But few remember Bertrand Russell, Rock Pioneer. (Few remember this because it is, not to put too fine a point on it, bullshit. While the amazing Russell was in fact a gifted mathematician, a prominent social philosopher, a conscientious objector during the first World War who was imprisoned for his stand, and later a Nobel Laureate in Literature, he does not appear to have been a pioneer rocker) In fact, he led the first electric band composed entirely of Cambridge University academics. The band, Lord Bertie and the Don Patrol, was in fact the first known power trio. With Ludwig "Magister Ludie" Wittgenstein on bass and Karl Popper on the skins, the band had a foundation that few had seen the like of, and fewer could tolerate. Lord Russell sang and played a mean telecaster. It's now in the British Museum. (While all three philosophers mentioned here were at Cambridge, they were never in a band together.) Their visionary first album "Principia Rock and Rolla" actually made it to the British Charts on the strength of their hot single "Epistemology of Love". Unfortunately their second album "Illogically Positive About You" was shelved unfinished after Popper and Wittgenstein quarreled. (Again, no such band, hence no albums, no singles.) Popper accused Wittgenstein of being unable to keep a beat, to which Wittgenstein bitterly retorted "How am I supposed to keep time, when it is really a illusion created by our inability to experience all of reality at once?" At this Popper hit him with a drumstick, leading to the infamous attack on Popper by Wittgenstein using a fire poker from the faculty lounge in the Philosophy department. (It seems fairly well established that Wittgenstein did threaten Popper with a fire poker in the Cambridge faculty quarters, however the dispute seems to have been over some obscure, yet obviously important philosophic argument). Needless to say, bootlegs of the never-released second album have surfaced and been very influential. (No such album ever existed, so don't bug me for my copy so you can burn your own.) Eric Clapton praised Russell's playing for its "Warm singing tone, not at all academic.", and Keith Moon is said to have dropped Popper's name often, saying "If he could make it as a drummer, obviously anyone could." (again the music never existed, so theses quotes are obviously bogus.) The breakup of the band left Russell even more uncertain of the long-term survival of humanity. His journal of the time contains pages filled with angst in which he wonders "If philosophers can't co-exist as a band, what hope is there for the masses?" (No band, no breakup. Russell had plenty of reason to fear for the future of humanity, but this was not among them.) He got his answer shortly after when the Beatles, in an unprovoked act of aggression, invaded America.

Pete's Pantheon: Rockin' Bertie Russell

Most people know of Lord Bertrand Russell, mathematician, social philosopher, Nobel Laureate, and conscientious objector to World War One. But few remember Bertrand Russell, Rock Pioneer. In fact, he led the first electric band composed entirely of Cambridge University academics. The band, Lord Bertie and the Don Patrol, was in fact the first known power trio. With Ludwig "Magister Ludie" Wittgenstein on bass and Karl Popper on the skins, the band had a foundation that few had seen the like of, and fewer could tolerate. Lord Russell sang and played a mean telecaster. (It's now in the British Museum.) Their visionary first album "Principia Rock and Rolla" actually made it to the British Charts on the strength of their hot single "Epistemology of Love". Unfortunately their second album "Illogically Positive About You" was shelved unfinished after Popper and Wittgenstein quarreled. Popper accused Wittgenstein of being unable to keep a beat, to which Wittgenstein bitterly retorted "How am I supposed to keep time, when it is really an illusion created by our inability to experience all of reality at once?" At this Popper hit him with a drumstick, leading to the infamous attack on Popper by Wittgenstein using a fire poker from the faculty lounge in the Philosophy department. Needless to say, bootlegs of the never-released second album have surfaced and been very influential. Eric Clapton praised Russell's playing for its "Warm singing tone, not at all academic." and Keith Moon is said to have dropped Popper's name often, saying "If he could make it as a drummer, obviously anyone could." The breakup of the band left Russell even more uncertain of the long-term survival of humanity. His journal of the time contains pages filled with angst in which he wonders "If philosophers can't co-exist as a band, what hope is there for the masses?" He got his answer shortly after when the Beatles, in an unprovoked act of aggression, invaded America.

Limbaugh, From Bad to Perverse

Pete's Pantheon: Chris Whitley, Sacred and Profane

From the time of his spectral first U.S. release "Living With The Law" Chris Whitley seemed to consort with ghosts. His singing frequently leaped up in the midst of a phrase into an eerie falsetto that recalled the great Delta bluseman Skip James. His chosen instrument was the metal-bodied dobro a nearly extinct artifact of the pre-amplification era of music. The instrument came to life at the caress of his slide and cried and whined in a way it only does for a gifted few. His songs tended toward a private world, artfully suggested more than directly spoken, embodying the old blues tension between the holy and the profane. He was always the next big thing, and numbered Dave Matthews and Bruce Springsteen among his admirers.(On his early acoustic demo of "Countin' on A Miracle" you can hear Bruce channeling Whitley.) When Whitley came in October of 2004 to play in Anchorage, he looked like a man with one foot in the grave, haggard and thin as a whip, but he sang with fervid beauty. In a year he was dead of lung cancer. "At the border town they shook my hand, Was the gateway to some other land. Now the border town is the great divide, is a gateway to some other side."

Pete's Pantheon: Jazz Phoenix Django Reinhardt

Django, his name is a verb, the Romany word for "I awake" He and his foil, the violinist Stephane Grappelli were the first European Swing musicians to be taken seriously by the American Jazz aristocracy. Their band, The Quintette of the Hot Club of France, swung with a jaunty sparkle and phenomenal virtuosity between WWI and WWII. Django spilled melody out in ferocious runs in spite of the fact that he had maimed his hand in a fire which left him with essentially two fingers to fret with. He retaught himself to play and reached a level of mastery that enabled him to survive in occupied Paris despite his Romany heritage and his stardom in a field of music condemned by the Nazis. If you want a parable for the redemptive power of art, look no further. If you want to hear music that is passionate, melodic and elegant they still play Jazz Manouche in Paris, where it has outlasted the Nazis by half a century and counting.

Petes Pantheon: The Rugged Joy of Allen Toussaint

When Allen Toussaint performs, it seems that all of American popular music has floated down the Missisippi to his hometown of New Orleans and fetched up in his piano. Jazz and RnB flow elegantly into the songs of Paul Simon and Steve Goodman. As a singer, songwriter and producer, his creative powers have fueled the recordings of everyone from Irma Thomas to the Rolling Stones. The man wrote "Working in a Coal Mine" and arranged many of the horn parts for the Band's Last Waltz . His graceful piano playing seems effortless, steeped in local tradition, and tinged with a rugged joy. His quiet stage presence will disarm you right before the funk grips you and the indestructible music of New Orleans knocks the rust right off your soul.

Pete's Pantheon: He Writes! He Teaches! He Honks! He Screeches! Mr. Don Byron!

It would be a sorrier, drabber world without the music smarts of clarinettist Don Byron. Who else could expose "Danke Shoen" as a music industry vaccine against authentic world music, a vaccine made of a dead or weakened strain of real music? Who else would transcribe the complex compositions of Micky Katz, assemble a crack team of downtown noisemakers and reproduce the bygone brilliance of that forgotten Klezmer Dybbuk? Who else would find the link between Raymond Scott, John Kirby and Duke Ellington, and illustrate his point using an episode of the Flintstones? And just to tie things up in a neat bow, Who else has the chops to be a repeat winner as best clarinettist in the Downbeat Reader's Poll? He writes! he teaches! He honks! He screeches! Give it up for Don Byron!

Pete's Pantheon: Marc Ribot, "The Boris Karloff of the Guitar"

What do the likes of Elvis Costello, T-bone Burnett and Tom Waits do when they want a guitar player? They take a cue from Solomon Burke, and call on Marc Ribot. Waits calls him "The Boris Karloff of the guitar" for the many identities he can assume with supernatural ease. But he has his own unmistakable voice, a ferocious attack with moments of faux awkwardness that caused him to be misread and underestimated by many. Including me. The first time I heard him was on the Waits classic Raindogs. I was repulsed by his squawks and staggering jabs of melody. But like some of the characters Karloff played he can get a hold on you and never let go.