"YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS ARE AS DAZZLING AS YOUR SUBJECTS"

Monday, January 31, 2011

ALEKSANDR KORZHAKOV b. January 31, 1950

ALEKSANDR KORZHAKOV
b. January 31, 1950


RUSSIAN PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN
AND HIS KOMANDA
EMERGE FROM A MEETING
IN THE KREMLIN
WITH U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH,
JULY 31, 1991.

KORSHAKOV HAS HIS BACK.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

MORE MAGIC WATERS IN THE DESERT: LIMA, PERU

MAGIC WATERS
IN THE DESERT



LIMA, PERU


-- while we wait for events to play out in that other desert country with the magic waters of the Nile --


Saturday, January 29, 2011

WISH I WERE ... PARAGLIDING

WISH I WERE ...

OUT GLIDING


PARAGLIDING OVER LIMA, PERU

As for the News of the Day: To get a real feeling for how long HOSNI MUBARAK has been president of Egypt, have a look at this posting.

Friday, January 28, 2011

JEANNE SHAHEEN b. January 28, 1947

JEANNE SHAHEEN
b. January 28, 1947


JEANNE SHAHEEN
RALLIES THE FAITHFUL
IN UNITY, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Senator Shaheen (D-NH) claims bragging rights as the first woman to have been elected a state governor and a U.S. Senator. Though she has been in the Senate for barely two years, someone -- the Great Mentioner? (tip of the hat to Russell Baker) -- has already decided to toss her name into the 2016 presidential sweepstakes pile.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

JOHN UPDIKE d. January 27, 2009

JOHN UPDIKE
March 18, 1932-January 27, 2009


JOHN UPDIKE AT HOME
IPSWICH, MASSACHUSETTS
JANUARY 11, 1972

CONTEMPLATING HIS OWN MORTALITY?
ALREADY?

In this interview-cum-photography session, it was startling to hear Updike declare that he was now too old to learn a foreign language. Of course, he did not look the slightest bit decrepit (not counting his broken foot). Did he want contradiction? Reassurance? Or should one assume that he was simply stating a fact, with all the sad implications for one's own future?

Updike was, it turned out, the proverbial thirty-nine years old at the time.

Now comes a story from Nicholas Delbanco, a former student of Updike's. Updike was, Delbanco says, "always disparaging his own energy, his own enthusiasm, his own ability." He does note that "I never knew how far his tongue was in his cheek, but he was declaring himself finished in his late 20s, which was when I first met him."

In his seventies, Updike began a series of yearly birthday poems against the day, and indeed, he did die relatively young, at seventy-six. The birthday poems and others, including ones capturing his observations while hospitalized, were collected in ENDPOINT.

One of the most poignant is "Hospital," in which Updike cries out against the loneliness:

My wife of thirty years is on the phone. 
I get a busy signal, and I know 
she's in her grief and needs to organize 
consulting friends. But me, I need her voice; 
her body is the only locus where 
my desolation bumps against its end.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

TAKING NO PRISONERS ABOUT TAKING PRISONERS: MEDVEDEV AT DAVOS


TAKING
NO PRISONERS
ABOUT
TAKING PRISONERS


RUSSIAN PRESIDENT
DMITRY MEDVEDEV
AT AN EARLIER SUMMIT

Dmitry Medvedev gave the keynote address at the Davos World Economic Forum today. In an interview with Bloomberg Television pegged to the gathering, the Russian president, who was otherwise trying to promote investment in his country, had this to say: "Investors, Russian or foreign, should observe the law, otherwise they can get a jail term as happened with [Mikhail] Khodorkovsky and [Bernard-Ponzi-scheme-] Madoff."

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

EDUARD SHEVARDNAZE b. January 25, 1928

b. January 25, 1928


MEETS WITH JAMES A. BAKER, III,
in Irkutsk (Russia), USSR, August 2, 1990

Former Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze and U.S. Secretary of State Baker and this meeting are back in the news again, as the twentieth anniversary of the (first) Gulf War is being commemorated. As a symposium on the war was being held at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, the Houston Chronicle wrote that the war "provided definitive evidence that the Cold War had ended, paving the way for an international coalition to join forces against a common foe." The paper continued, "That was illustrated when Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze issued a joint condemnation of the Iraqi invasion."

It happened that Baker and Shevardnadze were holding a foreign-ministerial level "summit," on August 2, 1990, in Irkutsk, when the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was discovered, and this circumstance provided some of the backstory for the "joint condemnation." A bit of this history can be read here, in an excerpt from Chapter Three of RUSSIA REDUX.

Eduard Shevardnadze has had a rather full and at times tumultuous career: KGB, Soviet Georgian leader, Soviet Foreign Minister, and (the second) post-Soviet Georgian leader.

A flavor of this and another photograph can be found here.

Monday, January 24, 2011

A BAD DAY AT DOMODEDOVO. A BIT OF AN ANTIDOTE.

THE DARK SIDE
OF FLYING


THE GOOD DARK SIDE OF FLYING
THE PLEASURES OF HUMAN LIGHTS
FROM THE AIR --
HERE, FLYING OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO


THE BAD DARK SIDE OF FLYING
TODAY
DOMODEDOVO AIRPORT, MOSCOW

Sunday, January 23, 2011

PEKING LAME DUCK?

PEKING LAME DUCK?

GENERAL SECRETARY
(AND PRESIDENT)
HU JINTAO
USHERS
EX-GENERAL SECRETARY
(AND EX-PRESIDENT)
JIANG ZEMIN
OFF THE STAGE OF THE
17TH CONGRESS OF
THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY
BEIJING, 2007

Barely days after Hu Jintao's State Visit to the White House, the New York Times has this headline: "China Begins Preparing for Successor to Hu." The man slotted to succeed Hu is Vice-President Xi Jinping, unveiled as the intended Number-One-to-be at the 17th Congress, just as Hu Jintao had been introduced as the coming leader at the 14th Congress back in 1992.


Saturday, January 22, 2011

PREPPING FOR A BEAUTY CONTEST. IN PROVINCETOWN.

PREPPING FOR 
BEAUTY CONTEST



On the Cape 
(Cape Cod, Massachusetts) 

IN THE SEVENTIES 

Twelfth in a Series 

Friday, January 21, 2011

PLACIDO DOMINGO: THREE SCORE & TEN


PLACIDO DOMINGO 
b. January 21, 1941 


THE TENOR 
IN MID-CAREER 
WASHINGTON, D.C. 

PLACIDO DOMINGO IS CELEBRATING HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY TODAY SINGING, BACK IN MADRID, THE CITY OF HIS BIRTH. THE LA TIMES GIVES HIM AN AFFECTIONATE TWEAK BY QUOTING HIM AS HAVING ONCE SAID, "I don't want to be 70 and still singing opera. I don't think I will still be singing on Jan. 21, 2011, which is my 70th birthday." BRAVO!  

Thursday, January 20, 2011

"T" STOP WOMEN

"T" STOP WOMEN


WAITING FOR
THE SUBWAY
GREATER BOSTON
IN THE SEVENTIES

Eleventh in a Series

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

COMRADE HU COMES TO WASHINGTON. PRESIDENT HU GETS A STATE VISIT.

PRESIDENT
HU JINTAO
IS TO BE FETED
AT
THE WHITE HOUSE
January 19, 2011
COMRADE HU JINTAO
IS INTRODUCED AS THE
YOUNGEST AND MOST JUNIOR
MEMBER OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE
OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY
October 1992

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

PIZARRO FOUNDS LIMA, PERU, January 18, 1535

LIMA, PERU 
IS FOUNDED 
January 18, 1535 

FRANCISCO PIZARRO 

The evidence of his skeleton is displayed 
in Lima Cathedral (see above), 
to prove that it is Pizarro 
whose crypt is in the cathedral. 

The 476th anniversary of the founding 
is being celebrated today, but 
the founder is not without controversy. 

The city constructed, 
the bones deconstructed (and reconstructed). 
The head was severed from the body. 
Literally. 

More LIMA here 
and here 
and here 
and here 

More Peru Scenes 

Monday, January 17, 2011

Sunday, January 16, 2011

"BEFORE THE PARADE PASSES ME BY"

"BEFORE THE
PARADE
PASSES ME BY"


BOSTON PARADE OF THE SEVENTIES,
WITH MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR
MICHAEL DUKAKIS & CO.,
AND MPA PROTESTER

Ninth in a Series

Saturday, January 15, 2011

THE SPECTATORS ARE THE SPECTACLE

THE SPECTATORS
ARE
THE SPECTACLE


BOSTON TRIPLE-DECKER
PARADE WATCHERS
IN THE SEVENTIES

"WELCOME TED KENNEDY"
"WELCOME HENNIGAN"


Eighth in a Series

Friday, January 14, 2011

ANDY ROONEY TURNS NINETY-TWO

ANDY ROONEY
b. January 14, 1919


CBS "60 MINUTES"

PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE 1988
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

NINETY-TWO TODAY
&
STILL AT IT

November 5, 2011: We lost Andy Rooney today; the long CBS summing-up is here.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

BLACK AND WHITE IN CAMBRIDGE

BLACK AND WHITE
IN CAMBRIDGE


BOYS OF
THE SEVENTIES

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

Seventh in a Series