The Lovers’ Chronicle 8 April – feelin’s – art by Frederic William Burton – photography by Clarence Hudson White & Alfred Cheney Johnston

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

no, not that song
 ‘Thank you’
had a struggle findin’ a song,
certain there are a slew of songs
about someone too repressed
to feel anything at all, but
lets turn it a little bit;
‘I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love’
’’Oh beautiful, Dylan all day’’
reminds me of how we end each day
‘’Speaking of…’’
yes it is time, to feel our love

© copyright 2023.2024 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved

an internal tug of war, true of most i s’pose, grew up learnin’ by deed and example to keep a tight rein on ´em, and then as a young man when i did let ´em loose it led to nothin’ but trouble, and now back to governin’ them, perhaps too tightly, ok with you seein’ ´em, but no one else gits in; difficult to put into words how hard it was to trust someone enough let the light in, somethin’ i had given up on, but then there you were and now i can feel

© copyright 2022.2024 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved

they were irrelevant
when i was sad,
alone, blah, blah,
whatever

and while creatin’
still defines each day,
it is not all that matters

but wait,
irrelevant
is not right
more like
non-existent

so no one was more
surprised than i
when they bloomed
in time with you

Pale Love, Pale Rider

oh yes,
a favorite topic

my colors come from here
and i make abundant use
of them in my verse

the circular rhythmic movement
of the dance, light and ambiance
act simultaneously on the forms
in the movement where two
form but one unity, rhythmically
balanced, this alone preserves

awake early
havin’ chicory coffee
with beignets
in a sunny chair,
and music, opera,
mingles to enhance
the sanctity created

part of a procession
windin’ across the porch
the day stilled for the passin’
of dreams over the plains
to allow this, dominion
over the shadowed shores

at the risk of redundancy,
they are irrelevant 
one of the benefits
of solitude
they are not needed

learned
when not in solitude 
how to bury ‘em
because they were a burden

will they ever be needed
that is the question 
and can they be revived 

we shall see

© copyright 2018.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

feelin’s, c’mon
they are irrelevant
sad, lonely, blah,
blah, whatever
all that matters,
creatin’ or not
that defines
how i am doin’

Another dance with Madness
In the pale moonlight y’all

A helluva
lot easier
to push people
away, than to
explain it all

No offense, if
you feel my boot
heel on your back
side as I push
you away. It
is what I do

***

Oh hell why not,
Just bury me
On the lone prairie

Today is the birthday of Clarence Hudson White (Newark, Ohio; April 8, 1871 – July 7, 1925 Mexico City); photographer, teacher and a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement. He grew up in small towns in Ohio, where his primary influences were his family and the social life of rural America. After visiting the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, he took up photography. Although he was completely self-taught in the medium, within a few years he was internationally known for his pictorial photographs that captured the spirit and sentimentality of America in the early twentieth century. He became friends with Alfred Stieglitz and helped advance the cause of photography as a true art form. In 1906 White and his family moved to New York City in order to be closer to Stieglitz and his circle and to further promote his own work. While there he became interested in teaching photography and in 1914 he established the Clarence H. White School of Photography, the first educational institution in America to teach photography as art. In 1925 he suffered a heart attack and died while teaching students in Mexico City.

Gallery

“Torso”, 1907, jointly created by White and Stieglitz

Girl with Rose, 1908

“The Watcher”, 1906

Spring – A Triptych 1898

The Kiss, 1905

The Sea (Rose Pastor Stokes, Caritas Island, Connecticut), 1909

Experiment #27 – Jointly created by White and Stieglitz

And today is the birthday of Alfred Cheney Johnston (New York City; April 8, 1885 – April 17, 1971 Connecticut); New York City-based photographer known for his portraits of Ziegfeld Follies showgirls as well as of actors and actresses from the worlds of stage and film.

The only book known to have been published by Johnston during his lifetime devoted to his nudes/glamour photography is the 1937 spiral-bound softcover “Enchanting Beauty”, which contains 94 black-and-white photos (mostly about 7×9 inches, centered on a 9×12-inch page, although a number are cropped circular or in other designs). Unusually (compared to virtually all other examples of his work seen today on the Web or other sources, which were shot in an indoor studio in front of a flat-black or illustrated tapestry background cloth), 37 of these photos were taken outdoors along a stream or in flower-dappled fields, etc. All the shots in the book are “airbrushed” in the pubic area, to keep them legal with respect to the publishing standards of the day.
In 1960, Johnston donated a set of 245 large prints of his work to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. (largely nude and semi-nude Follies showgirls, performers from various Ziegfeld shows including Fanny Brice, Billie Burke, Ruby Keeler, the Dolly Sisters, Ina Claire, Helen Morgan, Marilyn Miller, Grace Moore, Ann Pennington, Belle Baker and Ruth Etting, some well-known actors and actresses of the 1920s/1930s including Mary Pickford, Gloria Swanson, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Pearl White, Barbara La Marr, Orson Welles, Clara Bow, Ethel Barrymore, Claudette Colbert, Corinne Griffith, Clara Kimball Young, Theda Bara, Mabel Normand, Helen Hayes, Norma Shearer, Anita Stewart, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Marie Prevost, Tallulah Bankhead, Mary Miles Minter, Hope Hampton, and a number of product-advertisement photos).