She kept the
door open for
me - kind, I
thought, but why
did she have
to stick her
fingers on the
glass panel when
there’s a frame
because she never
had to clean
it, I thought
unless you have
to clean something
you will not
truly appreciate it
whatever it is
When we see men of worth,
we should think of equalling them;
when we see men of contrary character,
we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.
So synonymous was McCurry’s name with colour film that Eastman Kodak chose him as the recipient of the last roll of Kodachrome they produced. He used some of it on the streets of New York and the rest photographing vanishing icons – African nomads, the monumental architecture of Grand Central Station, even a portrait of Robert De Niro. “That was a poignant roll of film for me.”
When I ask if he has a personal favourite among his own photographs, he describes one that has “a magical combination of synchronicity, skill and instinct”: “It has to be the picture of the Indian women huddled against a tree. I was riding across the desert in Rajasthan in a taxi during a dust storm and my initial instinct was to close the window and ride it out. But I didn’t. Instead, I kept poking my head out the window, looking for a subject. Then, like a mirage, there they were. It doesn’t matter if you are in the desert or downtown New York,” he says, finally, “you have to roll with the flow and stay alert to the world around you.”
Three songwriters attended the first screening of the film, held at MGM Studios in Culver City, California, for an audience of 200 sophisticated industry bigwigs. “Men were standing on their seats and screaming and women were yelling,” Carol recalls. “Bill, Aynnie and I slouched in our seats. Bill looked over at both of us and said, ‘I think it’s a hit.’ We never knew.”
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!
In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.
Let us do our work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.
Through all this tragedy we see a lot of positive things. I’m a Brit - you cut one arm off and I’ll grow another.
The Mano Fico (fig hand, properly, ‘mano fica’) is an ancient obscene gesture, and is also one of the better known protective gestures against the eye. The thumb and fist gesture is an ancient representation of sexual union. The name is from the Italian word for the female vulva, fica,meaning fig (and also the origin of a well-known English obscenity).
The fig was associated by the Romans with female fertility and eroticism; the fruit was sacred to Bacchus. The gesture is used against the evil eye in the belief that an obscenity serves as a distraction to evil, even that demons are so repelled by the notion of sex and reproduction that they flee at the sign,