Transmissions - Video Postcards from the Atomic Age

Vintage Toronto Photos - 1960s and 1970s

Winnipeg Airport Mural Finds New Home

Great news!!!!

Winnipeg Airport mural finds new home inside Ottawa aviation museum.

Eero Saarinen Building (Historic TWA Landmark) Grand Re-Opening October 2011

Happy Birthday, James Rosenquist

We wish James Rosenquist (born November 29, 1933) a happy 78th birthday!

A Retrospective.

Lunar Orbit Rendezvous

American Streamlined Design

North by Northwest: Hitchcock's House on Mount Rushmore

North by Northwest is one of my favourite Hitchcock movies, not least of which is because of the leading role played by architecture in the movie's production design. From the blog Hooked on Houses, here's a terrific overview:

Link.


And here's a trailer, just for fun.....

GEORGE NAKASHIMA BY STYLE CURATOR NATALIE KATES

Brutalism

Calder: Sculptor of the Air

Lost Modernist is Found Anew

THEY emerge from archival boxes, their brilliance barely dimmed by time. Vivid reds butt up against acidic yellows and crisp, abstract lines give way to elaborate pastoral scenes. Precious remnants now, the textiles of Michael O'Connell are the physical legacy of a quixotic tale that unfolded in a patch of bayside Melbourne almost 90 years ago.

Liberated from their protective casings, these glorious folds of silk, linen and rayon have been gathered together from archives and attics in Australia and England, awaiting this moment when the man dubbed ''the lost modernist'' can be found anew.

O'Connell was a British soldier who fought on the Western Front in World War I before he arrived in Australia in 1920. During his 17 years here, he became a pioneering textile artist and champion of the burgeoning modernist movement.

Living - literally and metaphorically - on Melbourne's margins amid the gums and tea trees of Beaumaris, he established a rough camp made of little more than a tent and some scraps of furniture, and spent his days painting and growing flowers to sell. When a health inspector condemned the camp as a hazard in 1923, O'Connell was faced with what would be a life-changing decision: return to England with little to show for his time abroad or stay and build a home.

During the next two years, his innovation driven by a lack of money, O'Connell crafted a striking house and studio from handmade concrete blocks, dispensing with the architectural flourishes and traditional building materials of the time. The building of ''Barbizon'' was a defining period in which his skills as a craftsman and designer emerged.

Professor of architectural history and director of RMIT Design Archives Harriet Edquist says the Barbizon project was central to O'Connell's creative development.

''He got the feel of using his hands, of craft,'' she says. ''Before that he was mucking around. He was a watercolourist but he wasn't going to make his mark there.''

Edquist began researching O'Connell's ''wild and woolly'' life three years ago and next week releases her book on his work, The Lost Modernist. A related exhibition opens at Bendigo Art Gallery today. Co-curated by Edquist and the gallery's senior curator of collections and research, Tansy Curtin, the exhibition includes the length of linen that set Edquist ''off on this road'' in search of the O'Connell story.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/lost-modernist-is-found-anew-20111125-1ny4i.html#ixzz1f3lA4uN5

Old Winnipeg Airport Terminal a Modernist Gem

It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase "as pretty as an airport" appear -- Douglas Adams

- Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, might have felt differently about airports had he seen the new Richardson International Airport terminal that on Sunday welcomed its first visitors.

The new airport stands as an impressive welcome mat for our city, a symbol of modernity and progress. Its dramatic curving glass walls anchor the building to the prairie horizon and celebrate in a single sweeping view the light and landscape that define our province. It has space, colour and light in proportions that stimulate the visitor and inspire a feeling of pride.

That last sentence, although an appropriate description of the new building, was actually written in the Winnipeg Tribune in 1964 for the opening of the terminal it is replacing. The completion of the new airport has focused public attention on the fate of its familiar old neighbour, celebrated as one of the finest pieces of Modernist architecture in Canada.

The debate over the demolition of the old terminal highlights a broader question: Why should cities attempt to preserve elements of their built history?

Advocates of historic preservation are often criticized for being motivated by nostalgia while standing in the way of progress and growth. This can sometimes be the case, but successful cities are often able to capitalize on their architectural heritage as a way of attracting growth while enriching the character and livability of their urban environment.

Cities are like storybooks. The most compelling ones are those that weave together layers of complex narrative. We travel to places like Montreal and New York and are inspired by the rich texture of their streetscapes. The buildings narrate the stories of those cities, making them more interesting to visit, more comfortable to live in and more attractive to invest in.

The most interesting cities are those that maintain a rich mixture of buildings that represent different periods in history, knit together in an urban tapestry. It isn't loudly celebrated, but Winnipeg is lucky enough to be one of these cities. Our distinct collection of buildings uniquely illustrates the lineage of modern Canadian design throughout the last century.

Winnipeg's diverse assemblage of building styles has even piqued the interest of John Martins-Manteiga, director of the Toronto museum Dominion Modern, billed as "Canada's foremost archive of 20th-century Canadian architecture and design."
Dominion Modern is an institution that promotes and celebrates design through high-quality publications and sensational, almost theatrical exhibitions that inspire public dialogue and education.

Martins-Manteiga describes Winnipeg as a "tremendous city" with a "jaw-dropping inventory of 19th- and 20th-century architecture." He sees great potential to capitalize on this asset and celebrate the city's diverse architectural heritage on a national stage.

To read more of this content at The Winnipeg Free Press, click here.

India's Modernist Marvel

Is Chandigarh unique? There can't be too many cities in the world that have been designed from scratch to resemble a living organism, complete with head, heart, limbs and circulatory system. Le Corbusier, the Swiss-born modernist architect who was hired to design Chandigarh in 1950, is often described as a visionary, yet the north Indian city is also a tribute to his eccentricity.

To read more of this content at iol travel, click here.

The Other Father of Cubism

The Acquavella Galleries’ splendid Georges Braque exhibition is a 42-gun salute to this pioneering French Modernist. The first large Braque survey to be staged in New York in more than 20 years, it musters a vigorous if compressed account of more than five decades of art making, with 42 paintings and collages, almost all top-notch. More than half have been borrowed from American and European museums; the rest come from private collections and in several cases have not been on public display in quite some time.

To read more of this content at The New York Times, click here.

Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens

Scotland's creepiest building in £10m restoration scheme

St Peter's Seminary, a masterpiece of radical architecture, has lain derelict for 30 years and fallen prey to vandals.

An appeal has been launched to save a derelict building hidden in an overgrown wood in Scotland that is described as one of the greatest modernist buildings in Europe.

With its long, clean lines covered by graffiti and its concrete greyed with rainwater, St Peter's Seminary has lain in a state of ruin since it was abandoned by the Catholic church in 1980. The vast, crumbling building is accessible only by foot and, despite a number of restoration proposals over recent decades, it has been left to decay and to the vandals. It has been dubbed "Scotland's shame" and "Scotland's creepiest building", yet a plan to turn the ruin into a hotel in 2007 was dropped because of the cost of restoration.

To read more of this content at The Observer, click here.

A virtual 360-degree tour can be found here.

Landmark Elevator Coming Down

"Once hailed by a master of architecture, the slow demolition of the Ogden Federal Elevator has begun.

Built in 1915, the stark, hulking edifice was once featured in famed architect Le Corbusier's Vers Une Architecture next to the Parthenon; a symbol in concrete of the noble, functional prairie. Now it sits in a traffic black spot, sandwiched by a sewage treatment plant and the producers of asphalt shingles.

Located in the southeast of the city and within sight of Deerfoot Trail, the building is nearing its end. About a fifth of the structure has been razed.

Lamenting the loss of the historical monument, which was once a city landmark, the Calgary Heritage Authority has taken pains to photograph its inner silos.

"Ideally, we hate to see it torn down, but without any practical adaptive use for the building, it's hard for us to advocate for it to be saved," said Scott Jolliffe, the authority's chairman."


To read more of this content at the Calgary Herald, click here.

Mid-Century Modern Furniture Ads – L’Œil Magazine.

Read article here.

The Genius of Eames

"The details are not the details, they make the design."

- Charles Eames


Designers and architects Charles and Ray Eames (Ray was his second wife, and partner) revolutionized furniture design with their pioneering work in molded plywood. While both had tallied significant improvements priot to this, their debut of the Eames lounge chair in 1956 was the real beginning of their massive influence on the public consciousness. They put industrial techniques to work for home furnishing, and so put the "modern" in the Midcentury.

Eames Lounge Chair Debut on NBC in 1956



The Definitive Eames Lounge Chair



Of course, the Eames' were not just influential furniture designers, but ground-breaking architects in their own right. Perhaps the most striking example of the revolutionary nature of their architectural thinking remains The Eames House, located at 203 North Chautauqua Boulevard in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. Constructed in 1949, Charles and Ray built it to serve as their home and studio.



They even moved beyond traditional design and into purer forms of fine art, as can be seen in the following video, which showcases some of their lesser known pursuits, such as photography.



Finally, even film was within their grasp, with fourteen films being created between 1950 and 1972, with perhaps the most famous being the celebrated film, The Powers of Ten.

Video: The Powers of Ten

A Selection of Modern Art Documentary Videos

Paul Gauguin: Paris, 1889 - an exhibition



Piet Mondrian: A Journey Through Modern Art



20th Century Modern Art Video Lecture



Cultural Theory: The Social Function of Art in Modernity



Picasso, "Portrait of an Artist" by Philip Scott Johnson



Introduction to Pop Art

Photo-Essay Modernist Buildings in Winnipeg

Clockwise from top:

Chateau 100, one of Winnipeg's most revered residential highrises.

Worker's Compensation Board (WCB) headquarters on Broadway Ave.

Centennial Auditorium, with its adjacent planetarium, is a excellent example of dozens of modernist structures that were erected in and around Canada's 100th birthday in an orgy of nationalism and stimulus funding.

Winnipeg City Hall

The Public Safety Building, a textbook example of the Brutalist sub-genre of modernist architecture

Modernism's Ironic Legacy

All architecture is modern at least once. But for the modernists, that wasn’t enough; their revolution was meant to last forever.

However, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the birth of the great modernist pioneer in 1886, German-American architect Ludwig (Less is More) Mies van der Rohe, it’s clear the movement he helped create has become yet another style, an architectural bag of tricks that can be picked off the shelf to be used — or not — as desired.

Indeed, the irony of modernism’s legacy may be that it is best remembered not for its functionalist claims, but rather as one of a number of styles, an aesthetic, a look, that inform contemporary design.

And so the style that began as a renunciation of style has ended up a style.

To read more of this content at The Toronto Star, click here.

Farewell to the Space Age

written and curated by Clifton Bertram

Fifty years ago today, Yuri Gagarin blasted off from a launching pad in Baikonur, becoming the first man to experience the dawning of the Space Age. As an avatar of the 'modern', perhaps few cultural touchstones are as emblematic as the concept of the Space Age. Its inauguration was the culmination of generations of aspiration - technical and social - in which it was felt that technology held the key to man's future.

Today, as we huddle around the digital campfires of our cable TV sets, we realize that the Great Hope of the twentieth century, that science and machinery could solve all our problems, was a false one. That same glass teat delivers daily the fallout from that insincere false god, and in the case of the news from Fukushim Prefecture, we are talking about literal fallout.

Still, fifty years ago, there was a brief, shining moment when it seemed that there was nothing that man could not achieve, as a golden era was inaugurated, reaching its pinnacle with Neil Armstrong's historic footsteps on the surface of the moon.

Tomorrow, we will return to our worrisome concerns: measuring the clickety click of radioactive fallout; fretting about the increasing threat to our foodstocks posed by GMOs; the omnipresence of economic woes. But for today, let's take another brief shining moment to remember the Space Age: its precursors, its beginning and its apex.

And let's raise a glass of Stoli in the memory of Yuri Gagarin, 1934-1968.

The century opened with the publication of H.G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon. Although sci-fi pioneer Jules Verne had published From the Earth to the Moon in 1865, Wells' creation was the first lunar novel in the still-infant genre of science fiction, which was just building steam at the beginning of the 20th century. It has also been referred to as the first alien dystopia. It's also true that it serves as a sterling early example of science fiction's ability to make acerbic observations about contemporary society, while retaining a sufficiently academic distance to avoid alienating readers. The "Selenites" encountered by Mr Bedford and Dr Cavor have been characterized as "decadent and self-destructive" -an appelation, it has been observed, that can be applied to today's society.

Its publication was followed almost immediately by the release of the silent film by Georges Méliès silent film A Trip to the Moon, loosely based on both the Wells and Verne books.



Wells' novel spawned a total of four film adaptations, including one from 1964, whose trailer is included in this reel:



Very steampunk!

Even Adolf Hitler had high hopes for technology, and particularly rocket technology. It is widely believed that Hitler funded Dr. Wernher Von Braun's V1 and V2 rocket programs because he believed it could be the key 'super-weapon' that could end the war. Fortunately, he was proven wrong, at least in part because of 24-hour bombing raids made possible by the U.S. joining Britain in offensive bombing campaigns. Had U.S. entry into the war been delayed for another year or two - long enough for Germany to perfect its rocketry, however, history may have been very different.



In the closing days of the war, the U.S. and the Soviets scooped up both technology and technicians as part of Operation Paperclip, exporting the most advanced rocketry principles back to their homelands. In this clip, it's explained how a capture V2 was used by the United States to take the first photograph from space, in the earliest days of what was to become known as 'The Space Race'.



The advent of astonishing new technology brought about as a result of wartime crash programs brought a new consciousness to the world at large, and nowhere was this conciousness felt than in the United States, and most especially, Hollywood. A new breed of films dominated the drive-in screen in the dizzying years following the war, with flying saucers, rockets, aliens and monsters rampaging across the country, leaving crushed popcorn boxes and smashed wasen drink containers strewn in their wake.

Arguably one of the best of the genre was the incredible Forbidden Planet. Launched in 1956, just as "man prepares to take his first steps in space" (from the movie's trailer), the movie still holds up today, with music and effects that don't seem as dated as they should.



Only five years later, human achievement would stretch from the silver screen to Baikonur, as Gagarin ascended to the heavens on a pillar of flame, to bring the dreams of legions of schoolboys to life, and to set the stage for the beginning of the Space Age.





After Gagarin's flight, the Space Age racked up triumph after triumph for manned flight, from the historic Apollo Moon Landing:



....to Salyut...



....to Skylab...



...to the inspiring detente-ish Apollo-Soyuz...



...to Mir...



....to the International Space Station....



Today, haunted by the spectre of clouds of nuclear radiation in transit across the Pacific Ocean, we may be sadder and wiser about the promise of technology. Nevertheless, when we see the evolution of manned spaceflight, from a duel between international nuclear antagonists to cooperation by an international federation of science led by the former foes, we can perhaps find some reason for optimism about the legacy of the Space Age.

Thus, it is most fitting that - in a tribute of which he would no doubt be very proud - on April 5, a space ship named after Yuri Gagarin blasted off from Baikonour, carrying three men to the International Space Station.

Saluyt, Yuri!

The V.I.P.s: Remembering Burton and Taylor

In the wake of the sad passing of Elizabeth Taylor today, it was with the ring of finality that Hollywood took yet another step away from the Golden Age of pictures that so epitomized the middle of the twentieth century.

Taylor was one of the last century's most durable stars, with a scintillating career that spanned an arc from the early 1940s through to the new millenium. As much noted for her tumultuous personal life as her notable dramatic roles in films like Butterfield 8, for which she won the Oscar, it may be her serial relationships with former husband Richard Burton that serve as the linchpin -- the hinge -- in a life and career which is certain to be unique in our history.

Given this blog's preoccupation with 20th century modern motifs, it may not come as a surprise to readers that our personal favourite high point in that career is the fascinating film The V.I.P.s. It was the first movie Taylor and Burton made together and also starred French superstar Louis Jourdan, along with a remarkable supporting cast that included Orson Welles, Rod Taylor, Maggie Smith and - in a scene-stealing character role as the Duchess of Brighton - Margaret Rutherford.



Films don't come much more "modern" than this. Released in 1963, starring Burton and Taylor, and featuring a tailored wardrobe that could clothe all of Madison Avenue, never mind the cast of Mad Men. But best of all is the plot conceit, summarized thusly by IMDb:

Awaiting at London Airport for a flight to New York, Frances Andros, seen off by her tycoon husband, Paul Andros, plans to leave her spouse for the arms of an aging international playboy, Marc Champselle. Les Mangrum, a self-made Australian businessman traveling with his loyal secretary, Miss Mead, must be in New York the following day to arrange the loan that will help him repel a hostile takeover of his tractor company. Max Buba, a film mogul traveling with starlet Gloria Gritti, must get out of England immediately or face ruinous British income tax. The Duchess of Brighton has taken a job as a hostess at an American holiday resort, thinking she will be able to keep her family estate on her new income. Fog descends and blurs the future for them all, forced now to wait in the airport hotel for morning and fair weather.

Jet setting tycoons! International playboys! Orson Welles! The VIP lounge in an airport serving as a metaphorical location for the ennui of a generation impatiently waiting for the fog of uncertainty to lift before it strides bravely into the coming Youth Revolution!



Sweet, sweet modernism, all around....

RIP, Elizabeth and Richard. The 21st century doesn't deserve you, and the 20th century wasn't big enough to contain you.

The Legacy of Bauhaus

BAUHAUS was not only an architectural style; it was also a social solution to the problems of the 1920s and 1930s whose concepts remain relevant today.

“The future of architecture lies in the application of Bauhaus ideas to today’s problems – including affordable housing, which remains the main architectural issue of the 21st century. The focus of Bauhaus architecture has always been on finding solutions to the fundamental problems of humans in their respective times,” said Michael Siebenbrodt, director of the Bauhaus Museum in Weimar, Germany, in conversation with the American photographer Gordon Watkinson.

Enchanted by the concept of Bauhaus, Watkinson photographed 12 iconic buildings typical of the Bauhaus style and 12 contemporary buildings inspired by or reflecting the ideas of Bauhaus. The photos are on show until March 27 at the Design Factory in Bratislava as part of the exhibition Bauhaus Twenty-21: An Ongoing Legacy. The images not only convey the architectural history of Bauhaus, but go much deeper, uncovering its enduring philosophies and the importance of its legacy for contemporary architects.

To read more of this content, click here.

Will Mad Men get groovy?

When you think about it, the fashion revolution of the late '60s has had amazing staying power. Take the miniskirt. Though we're seeing longer hemlines for spring, the mini also held its own when designers as varied as Calvin Klein, Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana presented their spring 2011 collections on runways last fall.

Ditto that office staple, the women's pantsuit. Front and center for this spring season, it was Stella McCartney's first look out on the catwalk and the second at Thakoon. Trouser suits were also aggressively rebooted at Haider Ackermann, coolly provocative at Oliver Theyskens' Theory and all silky-slouchy at Bottega Veneta.

On the men's side, the Milan fall season shows in January kicked off with Burberry's kaleidoscope of orange, yellow and chartreuse, a palette straight out of the period. For power brokers, all it takes is a lush wide necktie — a staple of posh lines like Tom Ford and Polo/Ralph Lauren Purple Label — to signal that alpha combination of authority and luxury.

And for both sexes, though silhouettes swing wide some seasons and skinny down the next, the boot-cut jean (rooted in, yes, the bell bottom of the late '60s and early '70s) will never be out of style. In fact, the bell bottom itself is expected to be a popular wardrobe choice this spring.

So maybe it's worth speculating a bit about the '60s-era television show — "Mad Men" — that's been a major influence on much recent fashion. At the end of last season, the series closed the door on the first half of the decade, ending in late 1965.

To read more of this content, click here.

Le Corbusier's Indian masterpiece Chandigarh is stripped for parts

It is a last-ditch effort to save a city built as a monument to modernity and hope but now threatened by neglect and the fierce demands of the global art market. Chandigarh, 180 miles north of Delhi, was built by Le Corbusier 60 years ago.

Since then, many of its finest buildings, recognised as modernist masterpieces, have been neglected. Recently, international art dealers have made substantial sums selling hundreds of chairs, tables, carvings and prints designed by Le Corbusier and his assistants but obtained at knockdown prices from officials often unaware of their value.

Now a group of local architects, art historians and officials are hoping to mobilise international help to prevent further damage to Le Corbusier's unique Indian legacy. A report commissioned by the government in Chandigarh has recommended a campaign targeting the UN heritage agency, Unesco, as well as foreign governments, especially in Europe where many of the items have been auctioned. Informal approaches to embassies in Delhi have failed, the unpublished report, seen by the Guardian, says.

To read more of this content at The Guardian, click here.

Palm Springs Modernist Week

Fifteen years ago, when the design cognoscenti descended on Palm Springs, cleared away the tumbleweeds and started to renovate the 1950s houses beneath them, they created a mini modernist revival. The culmination of their efforts is Palm Springs Modernism Week, (17-27 Feb), a small but growing festival of exhibitions, tours, lectures, films and parties. For ten days, a discerning, in-the-know crowd flocks to the desert town to sneak a peek at iconic and rarely-seen homes, courtesy of benevolent owners, sip cocktails at exclusive soirees and snap up mid-century finds in quirky shops and galleries - all to a backdrop of Rat Pack tunes, sunshine and retro vibes.

To read more of this content at Wallpaper Magazine, click here.

The Komodo Lounge presents The Origins of Exotica

In 1945, America was ascendant, and her sons returned from exotic ports of call around the world. Overnight, the culture turned from a pre-war, parochial and insular stance to one which came had come of age, saw the world, and conquered. Still, most of the GI's who had invaded Africa, or stormed the honeycombed hills of Guadalcanal had no desire for the exotic. They simply wanted to return to Montana farms, small towns in Tennessee and lumber mills in Oregon.

For a few, though, the excitement of foreign sounds and tastes never left their memories, and they shared what they had discovered - with high school chums, younger siblings and hunting pals. The lure of the wider, wonderful world lurked underground, growing like a virus in the very bosom of the triumphant Eisenhower Fifties.

By the early 50s, the virus had grown, nurtured in late-night clubs in places like New York, Chicago and L.A. and by 1952, it had ripened enough to become nationally visible. In that year, Les Baxter released Ritual of the Savage, and everything changed.



'Ritual' featured 13 tracks, with names like 'Jungle River Boat' and 'Stone God' and the immensely influential 'Quiet Village'. Baxter was a composer and arranger with a special affinity for the saxophone, and early in his career worked as a composer and arranger for Mel Torme's Mel-Tones. As the official Baxter website notes:

The Mel-Tones recorded with Artie Shaw, the first notable American musician to show an interest in the sort of Dark Continent program music that would later grow up to be exotica. Shaw's records like "Dr Livingstone, I Presume", "The Chant", and "Serenade To A Savage" show him striving towards something Les would later perfect.

Aside from what he learned from Artie Shaw', Les experienced early exposure to exotic influences when he worked in '47 with Broadway composer Harry Revel. Revel requested that Baxter arrange songs written for the theremin, and conduct their performance by virtuoso Hollywood thereminist Dr Samuel Hoffman, who had already performed on the soundtracks for movies such as Hitchock's surrealistic 'Spellbound'.



The creation that resulted from the Baxter/Revel/Hoffman collaboration was the album 'Music Out of the Moon', which featured this track, "Mist o' the Moon":





"Music Out of the Moon" featured a number of characteristics which were to become common to many Exotica albums, including an overarching concept around which the songs are arranged, and the use of unusual instrumentation. It was also the first record cover featuring a full-colour photograph, and Exotica collectors who see the cover photography and typography will recognize it immediately as belonging to the genre.

The next milestone in Exotica's evolution took place when Les was assigned by Capitol to work with Yma Sumac. The fascinating Peruvian vocalist - ostensibly a princess descended from the last Emperor of the Inca - was then named Imma Sumack, but when she and her incredible five-octave vocal range was discovered by a Capitol talent scout in a small club in New York, she was immediately signed and her name changed to Yma Sumac.

In addition to her jaw-dropping range, Sumac brought with her another critical piece of the Exotica puzzle. Barred from singing publicly as a young child, she was driven to performing in the Incan highlands, lonely concerts to the only audience she could find. As her official biography puts it:

Around the age of 9 she could often be seen high atop a mountain in the High Andes singing ancient Peruvian folkloric songs, to a group of rocks, which she pretended was her audience. Entranced by the beautiful birds that sang nearby, she began to imitate them, by incorporating their high pitched sounds into her"repertoire.

Baxter's experience with the theremin and other exotic instruments and arrangements, the notion of the concept album and Sumac's jaw-droppingly unique voice combined in the release of 1950's 'Voice of the Xtabay'.



According to Incan legend, the Xtabay is "the most elusive of all women":

You seek her in your flight of desire and think of her as beautiful as the morning sun touching the highest mountain peak. Her voice calls to you in every whisper of the wind. The lure of her unknown love becomes ever stronger, and a virgin who might have consumed your nights with tender caresses now seems less than the dry leaves of winter. For you follow the call of the Xtabay...though you walk alone through all your days.

The record had a similarly hypnotic effect on both critics and the buying public, and the release shot to No. 1. At the time, critic Glenn Dillard Gunn raved "there is no voice like it in the world of music today...Her voice has a greater range than any female voice of concert or opera. It soars into the acoustic stratosphere, or it plumbs the sub-contralto depth of pitch with equal ease. Such voices happen only once in a generation." Another critic said "her voice is that of birds and of the earthquake."

The truth of that assessment is revealed in this recording from that first album, a track called 'Tumpa', or 'earthquake'.



Another critic said that of Sumac "she has a panther and a nightingale in her throat." And, it's true that while her unusual upper registry has been occasionally achieved by various performers, none have been able to simultaneously achieve her guttural basso profundo, never mind the shocking versimilitude of her birdcalls and monkey chattering.

In an interview with Goblin Magazine, Sumac offered a further explanation of the animal noises - especially birds - that became such a signature of Exotica.

Goblin Magazine: Did you actually imitate the bird songs you heard in your village?

Yma Sumac: The birds were my inspiration since I was a little child. Each bird sings completely different. When I was six or seven years old I had a tremendous impression in my heart that the way they were singing was an inspiration for me. Some day, I said, when I grow up I'm going to imitate the songs. I never forgot the sound when I became a singer and a recorder.

GM: Did you learn to do your trills from the birds? They have beautiful trills and you do also.

YS: On the song Chuncho (Voice Of the Xtabay) I do a triple trill. Sometimes it doesn't come. The human throat is a mystery. When I was doing that the engineer I was recording with was so surprised -- he said 'what is that?' She has a double jointed throat.' On the stage it happened again in Poland. It was a big concert, I started singing and by the end, whoop, it come and ring. It was a surprise for me. It happened once again when I was singing with my ex-husband -- during the high note the strings for his guitar broke! It happened in Russia, Germany, Israel and many countries over the world and here too. The voice is so powerful when I was in Spain I broke a glass of apple juice that was on the piano. I was screaming 'cause I was scared the glass would get in my eyes. It was funny.

The stage was set for the meteoric rise of Exotica on the American consciousness, soon to be aided by such seminal figures as Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman.

Stay tuned for a future Midcentury Modernist blog entry exploring the continuing development of Exotica, when The Komodo Lounge presents: Exotiki! Sensual Sounds from the South Seas and Other Ports of Call

Ice, Baby

Ice, Baby - written, edited and curated by Clifton Bertram

Shaken or stirred? The oft-posed question, surprisingly, is just the beginning. If you really want to mix the perfect cocktail - to prove you are cosmopolitan by demonstrating your skill at mixing up a Cosmopolitan, you need to pay close attention to one of the forgotten ingredients of the mixologist's art: ice. To understand the benefits and uses of ice in cocktails, we first turn to Oh Gosh!, a terrific blog by twentysomething Londoner Jay Hepburn.

Tips for Beginners: Ice by Jay Hepburn

Perhaps the most overlooked of all cocktail ingredients, ice plays several important roles in a cocktail. The first and most obvious is as an agent to cool the drink down whilst mixing. Coldness inhibits taste receptors in the tongue, which makes the drink more palatable and taste less, well, alcoholic. Try drinking neat vodka and ice-cold vodka and you’ll see what I mean. The ice also adds an amount of water to the drink, which further helps take the bite out of the alcohol, as well as bringing out the flavours.

The first cocktails I made were Cosmopolitans, which I concocted using a three-part cobbler shaker and about four small cubes of ice. At the time I only had one ice tray in the freezer, so I didn’t want to waste too many cubes on each drink. When I had finished shaking these cocktails, only very small bits of ice were left at the bottom of the tin. I didn’t see a problem with this… the ice had done it’s job right?

Wrong.

To read more of this content at Oh Gosh!, click here.



So, clearly, the composition, shape and size of your cubes is as important as any other ingredient in mixing the perfect refreshment. But reaching that alcoholic ideal is more difficult than might first appear, as Wired Magazine's Christopher Null recently found out.

Baby, it's Cold Inside: One Man's Search for the Perfect Ice Cuby by Christopher Null

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say it will end in ice. I hope it’s the latter. Finding a good ice cube to chill your cocktail is hell enough as it is.

Being serious about drinking means being serious about ice. And at a good bar, this is rarely a problem, as top bartenders have an easy shortcut: Kold-Draft icemakers. Kold-Draft’s perfect 1¼-inch cubes are legendary in the mixology scene, but the equipment isn’t remotely approachable for the home user: The company’s smallest unit ($2,500 street) produces 321 pounds of ice a day and weighs 174 pounds — and that’s without a bin to collect all the ice.

And so the real ice nuts have turned to hacking. My friend and fellow drinks-writer Camper English is so obsessed with ice that he freezes it at home in cooler-sized blocks in an attempt to create cubes of the perfect clarity for the sophisticate. It took him dozens of experiments, but he finally hit on the right formula, and Wired published it.

I don’t have the patience, time or physical space to generate ice by the cubic foot, so Wired.com asked me to find out how to get the very best cubes at home without resorting to getting rid of my frozen corn and IKEA meatballs.

To read more of this content at Wired Magazine, click here.

As Christopher Null points out, there are companies that are wisely focusing on providing a solution to the egregious ice gap in the provision of fine cocktail ingredients. Michel Dozois is just one of these.

The Iceman Cometh: The Rise of a Gourmet Ice Entrepreneur

Michel Dozois is pinning the success of his two-year old company on the dubious thrills of watching ice melt.

When courting new clients, Dozois, the owner of Los Angeles's Névé Luxury Ice Company, sits them down for a simple experiment. He fills two Old Fashioned glasses with ice—the first with conventional cubes, the second with his company's "ice rock," a single large cube, which takes up about 50 percent of the glass—and tops them with a dram of good whisky (his spirit of choice is Laphroig). Dozois then asks the potential clients to sit back and wait, allowing nature to take its course.

About every seven minutes, he asks the client to take a sip—first of the conventional drink where the ice is rapidly melting, then of the drink made with the sturdy opaque brick of Névé ice. The second shows minimal dilution; it's essentially whisky served neat, but much, much colder.

To read more of this content at The Atlantic, click here.

If you are having difficulty finding the perfect ice to put in your drink, you can at least surround yourself with cool at an Ice Bar, one of the latest trends in cocktail consumption. Ice bars are popping up all in major cities all over the world, from traditionally ice-friendly locations like Quebec City, Toronto and Chicago and even in more tropical climes such as Florida. One of these latter is the Minus 5 Ice Bar in Las Vegas.

Minus 5 Ice Bar - A Cool Las Vegas Experience

On our quest to find the Top 5 Las Vegas Cocktail Bars, we went to a number of different bars and clubs in Las Vegas in search of the perfect cocktail. In doing so, we found a bar that we felt was better visited for the experience of the bar than the cocktails it serves.

Minus 5º Ice Bar is located in both the Monte Carlo and in the Mandalay Bay (the Monte Carlo is slightly bigger, newer and less crowded). The cover charge for the bar (which starts at $25) includes entry into the bar, a parka, boots, and gloves to keep you warm, and your first cocktail. During off hours there are typically people standing outside the entry passing out cards for an additional free shot, which is worth snagging if you plan to go inside.

To read more of this content at Drink Spirits, click here.

Still, chilling yourself is much less efficient than chilling your beverage, and the always-efficient Japanese may have come up with the perfect way to do just that.

Want to Keep Your Drink From Getting Watered Down? It Takes Balls by Clifton Bertram

People are sometimes surprised to find that the Japanese like their whisky. But ever since In 1923 when Shinjiro Torii, the founder of Suntory and the father of Japanese whisky, built the country's first malt whisky distillery, the Japanese have increasingly appreciated the glories of the amber liquid. But, they don't like watered down whisky any more than you do, which is why they put their artisan's sensibilities to crafting the solution: the Ice Ball.



Of course, this could seem a bit too much like a bloodbath waiting to happen, especially if, like me, you are an amateur bartending who enjoys sampling one cocktail for every two that you make. Fortunately, there's a less-lethal solution, and one that carries the intact Japanese pedigree. As a public service, then, Midcentury Modernist introduces the Ice Ball Mold.



Just in case you can't afford high-priced imported bar gadgetry, we scoured the internet to come up alternatives, and found this at Answer.com: How Do You Make a Japanese Ice Ball. This useful article gives two or three methods, each easier than the previous.

Lastly, and because there's no end to our benificence at Midcentury Modernist, we leave you with the most affordable ice-shaping technology available, all centred around the venerable ice cube tray. There's a dizzying galaxy of choices available, from cubes ironically shaped like the Titanic, to cubes shaped like fish that you can fill with fruit juice that allow you to create your own aquarium in a highball glass. Check out the options at Hub Pages, Annie Spandex, or Odee.com. For truly nationalistic Canucks, there's even a tray that freezes ice in the shape of curling stones.

Cheers!

Norwegian Wood, and other substances

Scandinavian Design, as understood in the modern design marketplace and the secondary literature, is a major constituent of Western modernism in terms of style, influence, and popularity. Even through the recession, demand for vintage, high end craft production from Denmark, Sweden, and Finland remained strong. Left out of the mix, or at least neglected, has been design and decorative art from Norway.

I’m not sure why this is so--I think Norway’s population is smaller than her neighbors--but it is not from lack of a suitable attitude or effort in Norway. Listen to this introduction, from the booklet “Norwegian Arts and Crafts [and] Industrial Design,” published around 1960, which gives us a window into this subject:

To read more of this content at Interior Design, click here.

How the Digital World is Changing Our Homes

Our increasingly wireless, digital and networked world is changing the look, feel and function of our homes.

Just as the advent of television created the rec room in the heady '60s, helping to bring the family together for frozen meals and the Ed Sullivan Show, modern technology is now leading us to demand openconcept living spaces and instant connections to the world -- anywhere, anytime.

It's down with walls and up with wireless devices and touch screens.

The television -- the centrepiece of rooms for the last half-century -- may be on its way out. Hand-crafted and mixed-media designs are on their way in to decorate our openconcept, multi-use rooms.

So say some of the thinkers and designers gathering for Canada's largest contemporary design fair. The Interior Design Show (IDS), set to run in Toronto from Jan. 27 to 30 will feature 300 exhibitors and their cutting-edge design, as well as top designers and thinkers.

To read more of this content at the Ottawa Citizen, click here.

The Komodo Lounge presents UnderCover! A Selection of Spy, Secret Agent and Private Detective Tunes

In the mid-sixties, secret agents lurked under every bed, behind every curtain and down every darkened street. Sparked in large part by the ballistic success of Ian Fleming's 1950s James Bond movies and the movie franchise derived from them starting with 1962's Dr No.. As an emblematic cold war icon, the suave international spy infiltrated the popular imagination, in rock'n'roll music as firmly as it did the movies, especially as the lines between the two art forms became increasingly blurred.

The following dossier of open source intelligence is brought to you as a special presentation of The Komodo Lounge, but be quick. This blog posting will self-destruct in 30 seconds.

Agent Speciale by Bruno Nicolai (1966)

Bruno Nicolai was an Italian composer very active in the 1960s. A friend of Ennio Morricone's, Nicolai worked on literally dozens of soundtracks, including as the music director for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. One of the scores he composed was this secret agent track for the Eurotrash spy flick Upperseven: The Man to Kill. The vocals in this version of the tune are provided by Sabina Montes.



Secret Service by Syd Dale

If Nicolai had a UK counterpart, it was almost certainly Syd Dale, founder of Amphonic Music and a composer of funk-based scores that ensured he would become renowned as a pioneer of 'library music', also known as "stock music" or "production music", a genre in which the sainted Les Baxter is another titanic figure.



Action Girl '66 by Teddy Randazzo (1966)

In hopes of capitalizing on the success of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., a spin-off starring Stephanie Powers was launched in September 1966. Experiencing low ratings, 'The Girl From Uncle' was cancelled the next year after only 29 episodes, but not before inspiring songwriter and producer Teddy Randazzo to create this swingin' arrangement of the show's theme song.



Honey West by Joseph Mullendore (1965)

Anne Francis' private detective Honey West served as an early strong role model for a generation of young girls in the 60s, but that couldn't prevent the cancellation of the series as it faced insurmountable competition from Gomer Pyle USMC, which occupied the same time slot. The pert and period-representative theme for Honey West was composed by Joseph Mullendore, who wrote music for some of the most fondly remembered series of the decade, including Daniel Boone and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964), Lost in Space (1965), Star Trek (1966) and Land of the Giants (1968).




Emma Dancing by Unknown (1967)

The only female action star who possibly eclipsed Honey West in the pop pantheon would be Mrs Emma Peel, the catsuited karate practitioner who backed up John Steed in The Avengers. The following clip was chosen rather than the Avengers, because Mrs Peel's dancing in this vid so perfectly captures her self-assured insouciance, and it's a rather fab piece of period music, too (dig that organ!)



Fathom by John Dankworth

A caper film more than a spy or detective flick, Raquel Welch's Fathom has been included here solely on the strength of its opening credits. Camera movement, vivid and unified colour choices and the incomparable form of Ms Welch combine to produce one of the most arresting and original, yet simple, opening credit sequences of the decade. The theme opens with a hint of atonal free-jazz, but almost immediately blooms into a lush and florid full orchestration worthy of Phil Spector. Arguably, all the excesses of the entire era are cleverly combined in this little gem...



Modesty Blaise by John Dankworth (1966)

Starting life as a British comic strip character, Modesty Blaise was a former criminal mastermind who went straight and worked with the UK Secret Service in her retirement. In 1966, a comedy-thriller motion picture was made featuring the adventures of Ms Blaise, and scored by John Dankworth, earning him a second selection in tonight's playlist.



Mission Impossible Theme by Lalo Schifrin (1966)

It would be remiss in any list of this sort to leave out one of the most, er.... dynamite of them all, the theme that kicked of the adventures of Jim Phelps and his Impossible Mission Force (IMF) teammates. Bombastic, dynamic and undeniably thrilling, the influence of the theme can perhaps best be measured by the calibre of those who've covered and/or updated it: U2, Danny Elfman, Limp Bizkit, et al. And, just because it's just so damn boss, we're including two versions for your listening pleasure. You're welcome.



Mission Impossible Theme by Henry Mancini (1968)

This is from The Big Latin Band of Henry Mancini, an album full of soundtracks, including the main themes from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Touch of Evil and The Magnificent Seven.



Of course, as iconic as the Mission Impossible theme is, when it comes to the spy genre, nothing is more iconic than James Bond. Not only did the Bond movies set the standard for all the pretenders to follow, but the title themes for the movies have become absolute classics in their own right. Besides the iconic main title theme, the most incendiary of these title themes has to be Shirley Bassey's explosive rendering of the Goldfinger main title.



James Bond Theme by Montie Norman (1962)

Lastly, here's that iconic main title theme, performed by the amazing Count Basie and his orchestra. This Montie Norman tune has been used in every 'official' Bond movie since Dr No.



KOMODO LOUNGE BONUS TRACK!

James Bond with Bongos by John Barry (1963)

John Barry has also been credited with writing the title theme, but given that Montie Norman collects the royalties, it's more likely that Barry created the definitive arrangement of the tune, with this hipster version featured in From Russia With Love being the earliest example. Guitar in this performance comes courtesy of the legendary Vic Flick.

Modernist Materialism - A Collection of Recent Retro Products

Fish Condo by Umbra

"Yes, this is a modernist-style house for your fish, designed by Teddy Luong and with the option to add other floors by simply buying an extra one. The inner glass bowl is removable for cleaning, with the outer shell made of durable ABS plastic."

LOL!

To find out more, got to Retro-to-Go.

8mm Vintage Camera App Brings You Awesome Retro Video Effects

"There is an interesting new video photography app called, 8mm Vintage Camera by Nexvio, Inc., that brings your iPhone and iPod Touch back in time to capture the beauty and magic of old school vintage movies.

It accomplishes this by mixing and matching different films and lenses and it does a good job of it. The total number of combinations allow you to get a glimpse into retro filming with 25 old school looks from bygone eras. It even comes complete with retro colors, flickering video, light leaks, dust and scratches (my favorite), and frame jitters. You can add any of these to your video with a flick of your finger."

For more info, go to Cult of Mac.

Polaroid Sticker for Your iPhone

"Do you find yourself slapping all those retro filters on photos that you take with your iPhone 4? Sure, the image sensor technology in the device has come a long way – backlit sensors, larger pixels, better low-light capture, touch focus/light-metering options – but it just doesn’t look as cool as a scratched up Polaroid that has weathered over time, right?

Now you can take things a step further by tacking on some stickers for your device that says, “Hey, my gadget is made of glass, steel and silicon, fits in my pocket and has a processor more powerful than ones found in computers over 20 years ago, but I’ve got this ironic sticker on it that just screams retro.”

More info at into mobile.

Analarm Wristwatch

"Hate the buzzer alarm clock, as I do? Radio station alarm mode not up to the task? Maybe vibration will get you out of bed. Since vibrating beds are expensive and a bit tacky, check out this Analarm wristwatch instead."

For more info, go to Gizmodo.

Toy Robot USB Flash Drive

"This USB flash drive from the Spanish company Deego is too cute for words. It’s clearly not the sort of robot that kills. He’s more the kind you find in a retro toy chest. He’s styled like an old classic toy robot figure."

For more info, go to Slippery Brick.