Strange southern ways...

Word of the day : intercalate : to insert (as a day) in a calendar; to insert between or among existing levels or layers

Charles Sheeler Church Street El, 1920

So Tuesday I posted a work by and information on Charles Demuth.  It's only fitting, I guess, that I give mention to the other major American practitioner of Precisionism, also named Charles, also Pennsylvania-born.

Sheeler (1883-1965), inspired by Cubism and Fauvism, came home to America from Europe in the early 20th century and began work in photography.  He specialized, focused on architecture, particularly the architecture of the industrial landscape - his works were stylistically realistic but attuned to, guided by an underlying abstraction in their functional patterns.  From 1910 to 1926, Sheeler concerned himself with the rural Pennsylvania town of Doylestown (where he rented a home); his work during this time was important because the elements of his works done during his time in Doylestown  - doors, ladders, windows - are the same elements he'd focus on during his works of the city.  In 1919, he moved to New York and befriended some of the Dadaists.  It was during this period that he created the above painting, a a sweeping, bird's-eye view of Broadway and Wall Street and the elevated Church Street el.  The artist simplified planes and forms, eliminated textures and details, allowing for a geometric interplay of shapes and colors.  

Other career highlights: In 1927, Sheeler was commissioned to photograph the Ford Motor Plant in Dearborn, Michigan.
In the late 1930s, the artist was hired by Fortune magazine to do a series of portraits (paintings) of six power-generating machines, as a tribute and testament to the modern industrial age.

Rolling Power, 1939

It was photography that was the impetus for Sheeler's drawings; there is little thematic difference between his photographs and paintings.  Sheeler often ignored the human element.                                  
Anywho, let's switch subjects.  A new feature: Every Thursday or Friday, I'll mention the movies that are opening up nationwide - or any major, hyped independent or limited-release films opening on the coasts and occasional dribbling out to middle America.

1/27 releases:
- The Grey   Okay, this is a must-see.  Liam Neeson as an oil roughneck whose plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness, pitting the survivors against a pack of CGI-created wolves.  Good early reviews, which commend a strong human element and great photography. 

- One For the Money  Not screened for critics, which is often a bad sign.  Katherine Heigl is Janet Evanovich's bounty hunter heroine Stephanie Plum, a character the best-selling Evanovich has featured in, to date, eighteen Plum mysteries.  An interesting (read: odd) supporting cast: Debbie Reynolds, John Leguizamo, Sherri Shepherd, among others.   

- Man on a Ledge, a poorly-reviewed action drama with Sam Worthington, Ed Harris, and Elizabeth Banks.  A few comments: "cheap-looking," "preposterous," "too busy."

And finally, today: If I thought I had heard it all, I hadn't.  If Julia and I couldn't wrap our head around the fact that our real estate agent and landlord/previous homeowner insisted that southerners had no use for window screens ("people don't open windows around here"), then imagine our belief-defying incredulity when we hear our neighbor, a cross between Medusa and the Blair Witch, respond to a complaint I raised to her about her dog pooping all over our backyard (and her not cleaning it up) with a "And that bothers you and Julia because...?"

Statesboro!!!