pt at large

Ernie Pyle: The Great Chronicler of GIs in WWII

May 29, 2023 MEMORIAL DAY

A perfect day to salute the memory of Ernie Pyle, born in Dana, Ind., Aug. 3, 1900 - Died on the island of Shima in the Philippine Sea,  April 18, 1945

Nominally the best reporter to capture the unglorified daily life of GIs in WW II, 1940-1945.

The term “embedded” had not even been invented when Pyle followed troops in combat, ate what they ate, ducked into foxholes with them when bullets and mortar shells landed. Pyle had the gift of memory so lucid that he wrote his columns when he could get his hands on his typewriter after exchanges with enemy troops and document how soldiers faced danger or looked forward the occasional letter from home.

He asked for no protection or special status and was respected by the men with whom he served. He died on April 18, 1945 when he popped up in a bunker to see the terrain and was killed immediately when struck in the head by a sniper’s bullet.

One of Pyle’s most simply eloquent stories was "The Death of Captain Waskow".

Ernie Pyle wrote of Captain Waskow: "In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Texas". It's a strange word to use, but I've never read a more endearing story about the humanity of men at war.

^{Like a sketch artist, Pyle's ability to capture detail that personifies his subject is fully charged in his story about the death of Henry T. Waskow.}

Below: "Killing Is All That Matters." Pyle's observation describing how soldiers spend their time before being ordered into combat, an experience that will change them forever, December 1, 1941, is stunning in its contrasts.

https://erniepyle.iu.edu/wartime-columns/killing-is-all-that-matters.html

A collection of Pyle's columns about war and the men waging it ..so few words, every word in service to the moment.

https://erniepyle.iu.edu/wartime-columns/index.html

Long form journalism about what Ernie Pyle saw on the Normandy beach on D-Day was published so Americans could read about the carnage and pay respects to the dead by buying war bonds to pay for the war. If read only one link, read this one from the New York Times. Ernie would have loved it. (NOTE you will be able to read as a guest or logon if a subscriber)

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0803.html

New York Times fully dimensional obituary for Ernie Pyle, April 19, 1945

Further reading

The Man Who Told America the Truth About D-Day

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/magazine/d-day-normandy-75th-ernie-pyle.html

Last and not least...Ernie Pyle up close and personal with tender observations about "that girl," his wife: https://erniepyle.iu.edu/wartime-columns/personal-items.html

Within a paragraph or two, the  man has a knack for roping us in to a story whether in a war zone or his home town,

 

 

 

Georgia O'Keeffe: Artist As Model

May 9. 2023

O'Keefe as the subject of photographs, over 300 of them, by her lover/husband Alfred Stieglitz, were black and white tone poems of the landscape of O'Keefe's tall flawless shape and skin. At once elusive, mysterious and frank, his photos are restrained and sensual, as pure as a Rodin sculpture.

Rarely has a decades-long relationship been documented with such artistry.

Georgia O'Keeffe 1887-1986

Georgia O'Keefe at The Brooklyn Museum

Alfred Stieglitz 1864-1946

FLASH...just discovered intriguing story about Georgia's sister, Ida O'Keeffe, talented and as complicated as Georgia. Steiglitz's behavior and provocative remarks as he was making photographs of her in Georgia's presence, opened rifts as complicated as a daytime soap opera.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/art/2019/08/01/georgia-keeffe-forgotten-sister-and-glimpse-what-might-have-been/acXzYCdvQLpGHaBtlCKosM/story.html

FLASH 2...O"Keeffe was an artist, the subject of iconic photographs by her husband Alfred Steiglitz. His iconic photographs introduced her to the world. Georgia took it from there.

Self aware, she did everything with intent. She was a trend setter in fashion.

Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern

MORE

Hiding in Plain Sight: The O'Keeffe We Never Knew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsYMkQLg-Ds

https://www.okeeffemuseum.org

 

Georgia O’Keeffe Watercolors

May 9, 2023

Watercolor is the perfect medium for O’Keefe to render sunlight and naked flesh - casual, posed, or imagined. All O’Keefe needed were willing subjects, her paint box, and a supply of watercolor paper soaked in just the right amount of water to let her colors merge into each other then into the viewer’s imagination.

Georgia O’Keeffe captured the contours of the female form in a halo of of azure, turquoise, or umber colors reminiscent of Native American beadwork which in turn mimicked their sense of kinship with nature’s palette of the southwest landscape.

Washes of pale early morning blue or deeper High Plains midday blue wrap around her nude female subjects. O’Keefe intentionally exaggerates darker fleshy skin tones to center the image in the composition. I can almost smell her subjects skin soaking up the sun.

 

 

 

 

 

Morning Coffee Series: Duke and Trane

Composed while relaxing into my morning cuppa coffee...

Morning coffee series

Alexa play Duke Ellington and John Coltrane …

“Playing music by Duke Ellington and John Coltrane” she says and along comes “My Little Brown Book” by Duke Ellington and John Coltrane.

 

Coltrane’s tenor saxophone floats like a butterfly above Ellington’s spare chord changes that subtly repeat during a brotherly reverie. Grounded, melody pure and simple. Composed by Billy Strayhorn and recorded in 1962 it preceded John Coltrane‘s evolution into bebop and harder edged free flow visceral energy. Spare brush work by Elvin Jones and Aaron Bell’s softly persistent chords add to the misty feel of the contents of that little brown book. This piece should be encapsulated for the ages in amber.

 

Next, my digital disc jockey plays “In a Sentimental Mood“ by the same group.  Coltrane’s solos this time have the energy of a bird flying through the open door of its cage and practicing gentle barrel rolls in the space outside its cage, presaging the free-form style he will adopt in the coming years, never again to be contained by the comfortable cage.

 

Hard edged bebop was in the air. Coltrane felt the updraft. Reveries morphed into cascades of circle of fifths theory, deeply felt emotions, social commentary through the voice of his tenor saxophone, and perhaps a safety valve to express rage at his place as a black man in 1960s America…an inflection point, the obverse of Little Brown Books and Sentimental Moods.