Monthly Archives: October 2021

October 31

‘Horrors of Malformed Men’ – a Trick or a Treat?

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Following Orson Welles’ psycho-social experiment, we have one more proposition for this year’s Halloween for you. Horrors of Malformed Men is a rare gem of Japanese cinematography. Released on the 31st of October 1969, the movie was banned in Japan shortly after its premiere. A mixture of pink film and horror, in Japan commonly known […]

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October 30

Orson Welles: Media and Mass Hysteria

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On the 30th of October 1938, the U.S. radio network CBS broadcast an audio drama from the Mercury Theatre on the Air series adapted from English sci-fi writer H. G. Wells’ 1898 novel The War of the Worlds. This special Halloween edition was directed and narrated by a 23-year old Orson Welles, future Hollywood filmmaker. […]

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October 29

Goebbels, Reich and Art

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On the 29th of October 1897,  Joseph Goebbels was born in Rheydt, Germany. He was one of the closest associates of Adolf Hitler and a zealously devoted propagandist of National Socialism in Nazi Germany. Between 1933 and 1945 he held the position of Reich Minister of Propaganda and contributed significantly to the initial success of […]

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October 28

Controversy in Allegory: Masson and Courbet

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On the 28th of October 1987, the French Surrealist artist André Masson died at the respectable age of 91 in Paris. Important exponent of automatism in the visual arts, Masson worked in a manner equivalent to the literary ‘stream of consciousness’, allowing his hand free rein from conscious thought and premeditated composition. He was said […]

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October 27

Kazuo Ohno’s Dance Philosophy

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On the 27th of October 1906, the Japanese Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno was born in Hakodate, Japan. A hundred years later (only four years before his death!), unable to walk or stand any more, Ohno continued to ‘dance’ with his hands, thus summarising the essence of Butoh as the dance from ‘within’. He started dancing before […]

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October 26

The “Coogan Act”: Hollywood’s First Child Star

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On the 26th of October 1914, Jackie Coogan was born in Los Angeles, CA. From infancy, his actor father enrolled him into roles in vaudeville and film. He was discovered by Charlie Chaplin at the Orpheum Theatre, L.A., where Jackie charmed him with his shimmy dancing and miming talent. Chaplin soon cast him in various […]

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October 25

Existential Pain of Alfonsina Storni

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On the 25th of October 1938, Alfonsina Storni, one of the most prominent Latin-American poets of the modernist period, drowned herself at La Perla beach in Mar del Plata, Argentina. She was born in 1892 of Italian-Swiss parents, Alfonso and Paulina, in Sala Caprisca in Switzerland. When she was four years old her parents decided […]

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October 24

Houdini’s Ultimate Disappearing Act

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On the 24th of October 1926, the legendary U.S. magician Harry Houdini (Hungarian-Jewish born Erik Weisz, 1874 – 1926) performed his last show at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan. A week later he laid dead in a local hospital. The reasons for his passing away have been subject to numerous urban myths, yet the […]

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October 23

Christian Dior – Architect or Fashion Designer?

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On the 23rd of October 1957, Christian Dior died in Montecatini, Italy. His death was as sudden as his entry into the world of haute couture ten years earlier. At the beginning of 1947, Dior’s first collection changed the entire fashion world. After years of war asceticism, scarcity and rationing this collection brought hope for […]

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October 22

Sartre Vs. Nobel. The Arguments Behind the Refusal

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 On the 22nd of October 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and refused it. The ceremony held by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm was not attended by the writer. In a public announcement, printed in Le Figaro on the 23rd of October 1964, Sartre expressed his regret at the scandal […]

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