Ideas, Ramblings and Compositions

May192013

The Potoo - Either the most unphotogenic or the most ridiculous looking bird in the world.

I am the Potoo. The Potoo is me.

(Source: iwasteyourprecioustime, via goingtomakethishappen)

May172013

(Source: theamericankid, via aubreylynne)

May142013

Fred Astaire was known for his graceful, seemingly effortless dancing, to which he said, “My routines may look easy, but they are nothing you throw away while shaving…It’s always murder to get that easy effect”.
He shuts himself in a rehearsal room eight hours a day. A pianist incessantly hammers out the score. To make sure he doesn’t repeat himself he rungs off reels of his dances from previous pictures. He paces on the floor, broods, chews gum, occasionally breaks into a cascade of taps, studying himself in a facade of mirros. - LIFE, August 25th, 1941.
Alan Jay Lerner recalls Astaire’s endless rehearsing and self-criticism an anecdote that appears in Benny Green’s book. All alone, after everyone else had left the MGM sound stage, Fred straggled out to greet a late-working Lerner with the self-doubting question of why anyone could ever consider him a dancer. To Lerner, “t[he] tormented illogic of his question made any answer insipid”.
”[Astaire] had become known as one of the greatest perfectionists in the theatrical field, spending endless but regulated hours on sound stages working tirelessly on the dance tricks and routines that emerged with such seeming ease on the screen” - Howard Thompson
”What always impressed me about Fred was his tremendous desire for perfection. I got a peek at him, rehearsing at MGM, even after he had mastared a movement, and he seemed to me to keep going over and over and over it again—until it became mechanical”. - Bob Fosse
“His perfection is an absurdity; it’s hard to face”. - Mikhail Baryshnikov

Fred Astaire was known for his graceful, seemingly effortless dancing, to which he said, “My routines may look easy, but they are nothing you throw away while shaving…It’s always murder to get that easy effect”.

He shuts himself in a rehearsal room eight hours a day. A pianist incessantly hammers out the score. To make sure he doesn’t repeat himself he rungs off reels of his dances from previous pictures. He paces on the floor, broods, chews gum, occasionally breaks into a cascade of taps, studying himself in a facade of mirros. - LIFE, August 25th, 1941.

Alan Jay Lerner recalls Astaire’s endless rehearsing and self-criticism an anecdote that appears in Benny Green’s book. All alone, after everyone else had left the MGM sound stage, Fred straggled out to greet a late-working Lerner with the self-doubting question of why anyone could ever consider him a dancer. To Lerner, “t[he] tormented illogic of his question made any answer insipid”.

”[Astaire] had become known as one of the greatest perfectionists in the theatrical field, spending endless but regulated hours on sound stages working tirelessly on the dance tricks and routines that emerged with such seeming ease on the screen” - Howard Thompson

”What always impressed me about Fred was his tremendous desire for perfection. I got a peek at him, rehearsing at MGM, even after he had mastared a movement, and he seemed to me to keep going over and over and over it again—until it became mechanical”. - Bob Fosse

“His perfection is an absurdity; it’s hard to face”. - Mikhail Baryshnikov

(Source: lesliehowards, via ummagumming)

9AM

ragewang:

uncomfortableconfusion:

The cutest kitten gifs ever on tumblr

do not do this to my frail and mortal being

Kittenzzzzzzz

(via michelle-cheshire)

9AM

(Source: susanapplegate, via ummagumming)

May102013

shoopdancer2504:

Happy Birthday Fred Astaire

“Do it big, do it right and do it with style”

(via fuckyeahmusicalfilms)

6PM

bogarted:

“I don’t make love by kissing, I make love by dancing”
- Fred Astaire

(via fuckyeahmusicalfilms)

11AM

haroldlloyds:

Happy Birthday Frederick Austerlitz Fred Astaire
10 May 1899 - 22 June 1987

“When you talk about Fred Astaire, you talk about heaven. What more can I say?” - Johnny Green, Hollywood Speaks! An Oral History, 1974

“He was not just the best ballroom dancer, or tap dancer, he was simply the greatest, most imaginative, dancer of our time.” - Rudolph Nureyev, 1987

Fred Astaire was simply one of the most influential performers in film history. Not only did he revolutionise the way dance was performed and captured on film, he also had a profound influence on music and hollywood in general. In a time when the world needed something joyous, they got Fred Astaire; a talented, charismatic performer whose charming smile was exactly what movie-goers wanted. Notorious for being a perfectionist and crippled with self-consciousness he floated across the screen with effortless grace that continues to amaze today. Though he was never convinced of it, there can be no doubt that he achieved perfection.

And at age seventy-eight, he broke his left wrist while riding his grandson’s skateboard.
You know, you so-and-so, you’ve a little of the hoodlum in you. - James Cagney on Fred Astaire in Top Hat, White Tie and Tails, from Top Hat (1935)

(via ummagumming)

11AM

inessentialhouses:

Happy 114th Birthday, Fred Astaire
(May 10, 1899 - June 22, 1987)

“Fred knew the value of a song and his heart was in it before his feet took over.”
- Irving Berlin

(via ummagumming)

11AM

Whether dressed in top hat, white tie, and tails or in fashionable casual wear with a scarf serving as his belt, Fred Astaire always looked fabulous. Astaire epitomized whatever was cool at the time. According to Benny Green, “[Astaire] had an elegance that aligned itself with what I guess you’d call high society”. In the words of Howard Thompson, Astaire “gave to entertainment annals a champagne radiance that appealed to everybody on all levels, rich or poor”

(Source: lesliehowards, via ummagumming)