Paul sings Nessun Dorma

a cell-phone salesman stops the show with his aria

Capa's lost negatives

Finding a long lost Mexican Suitcase in itself is exciting enough. Even when you don't have any idea what a Mexican Suitcase is. The name alone is already exciting enough. Even if it were filled with old socks it would probably still be exciting.

But this Mexican Suitcase is not filled with socks. It's filled with lost work by perhaps the most famous war photographer of all time.

And then, as if that weren't thrilling enough, the lost negatives may put to rest one of the biggest controversies in the history of photography -- whether Capa's famous photo above, taken during the Spanish Civil War, was staged or not. Known as “The Falling Soldier,” it shows a Spanish Republican militiaman on a hillside near Córdoba in 1936 at what appears to be the very instant a bullet strikes him.

The negatives are currently being analyzed at The International Center of Photography, an institution founded by Robert's brother. If they find a negative in the original sequence showing all the images taken before and after the shot, it could end the debate

"The Mexican Suitcase"

THIS JUST IN: Robert Capa's lost negatives have been found! The International Center of Photography here in NYC have "The Mexican Suitcase" (excuse me but are we in a spy movie?). They are painstakingly unpacking it (70 year old negatives are somewhat frail I imagine) and only just now beginning to discover what they actually have.

Can you imagine how exciting that must be? To be peering over this suitcase? Not only that. But the hope is that this will settle once and for all a question that has long dogged Capa's work. But more on that next blog...

Capa died believing the negatives were lost forever and the story of their journey to NYC and the ICP is like out of The Bourne Identity or something. You can read about it in a fascinating article about in The New York Times. (You even get to do a virtual hover over the actual suitcase and zoom in and out and move up and down and scroll left and right. How completely cool is that?)

Here's an excerpt from the article:

"To the small group of photography experts aware of its existence, it was known simply as “the Mexican suitcase.” And in the pantheon of lost modern cultural treasures, it was surrounded by the same mythical aura as Hemingway’s early manuscripts, which vanished from a train station in 1922.

The suitcase — actually three flimsy cardboard valises — contained thousands of negatives of pictures that Robert Capa, one of the pioneers of modern war photography, took during the Spanish Civil War before he fled Europe for America in 1939, leaving behind the contents of his Paris darkroom."

Photo: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

The Spirit of the Marathon

Great trailer of the film that premiered Thursday and that's a glimpse into why some people love to do such strange crazy things as run 26.2 miles!

Al and Monkey attempt a military operation

click here to watch this short clip that illustrates the crucialness of tea in all circumstances, all walks of life, at any given moment of the day.

John Hendrix Billboard!

the ultra cool children's book writer/illustrator, New Yorker cartoonist and New York Times Editorial illustrator and pal, John, has reached the Zenith.

yes, he's now illlustrating buildings.
(above, 7th and 34th St, near Penn Station)

check out his supreme blog here

what happens next?

"As I sit at my computer... I think of myself as sitting around the campfire after a day on the trail, telling stories that I hope will have the members of the audience, or the readers, leaning forward just a bit, wanting to know what happens next."
Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002)

What a great reminder to writers. It's about the Story. Period.

Perhaps it's really the only question to ask as you write: what happens next? It's maybe even more crucial when you're writing for children since the moment they're bored, they'll stop reading. There's no wiggle room. You have to keep their attention.

What happens next? What if you don't know and you're the one telling the story?

A wise editor once told me, "put your characters in a room and listen to them." The job of storyteller, then, is to just turn up at the computer every day (or campfire) and wait to see what your characters do. And then follow them.

So in that sense, the writer is also one who listens to the story. And is the scribe who writes it down so others can hear it, too.

In the end, it's really not about being an "Author", I don't think. It's about being someone who tells a good story. The writer should always be the servant of the story. Not the other way round.

The act of writing, then, can be a generosity, not an ego trip.

Al and Sock Monkey Dark and Stormy Night

Continuing our Al and Monkey series here's some background. Johnny Vegas and his knitted sidekick Monkey were catapulted to fame thanks to the commercials they did to launch ITV Digital in the UK. (I'll post one of those later.) Now they're doing PG Tips ads. (You saw them interviewed in an earlier post.)

PG Tips first introduced teabags in 1930. Its advertising was traditionally featuring real chimpanzees engaging in human activities. Today, it's a stuffed sock that's being the refined human. click here to watch one of Al and Monkey's fabulous adverts. I think it's living proof that the Brits really are the best at adverts (and silliness).