Billy Pappas Realistic Marilyn Portrait

Here is a link to the pencil drawing Billy Pappas did of Marilyn Monroe in "Waiting for Hockney" - I suggest taking a look at the close-ups available to really appreciate the detail.

http://www.billypappas.com/marilyn_monroe_upclose.html

Netflix Treasures 2/6/12

I'm a sucker for a good documentary and if it involves Marilyn Monroe or an underappreciated musician I'm there.  I was lucky enough to find two documentaries on Watch Instant that really caught my attention for just flying into them blindly.

The first one is for anyone who is interested in innovators of music and likes to impress their friends by throwing out random music knowledge.  "Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth" was directed by Philip Di Fiore and contained tons of interviews on this extraordinary musician who started the electronic music movement.  Interviews include George Clinton, David Byrne, Mos Def, and a voyueristic look into Bernie's life as we see it now.

The second one combined not only my love for Marilyn Monroe, but a look into the art world, and followed the dreams of a man trying to breakthrough in a business that is nearly impenetrable.Waiting for Hockney follows a young artist who spends almost 9 years of his life creating one painting based on Richard Avedon's famous photograph of Marilyn, beautiful and world weary, resting on a break from the studio.  Billy Pappas had a technique that by working within a space of a period (.) he would create the most life-like portrait of Marilyn, he wanted it to seem as if she actually sat for him.  The close-ups and detail of the painting (once it's finally revealed) is quite breath-taking.  The film is called Waiting for Hockney because once the paiting was finished, Billy Pappas set out to show one of his heroes, David Hockney the portrait he painstakingly worked on for almost a third of his life.

Love in a Cold Climate

About 15 odd years after her notorious interview with Vanity Fair, we see a very different, yet very similar Courtney still dealing with the aftermath of Cobain's death, her relationship with her daughter, and trying to keep afloat in the business.  This was handled by one of my favorite VF writers, Nancy Jo Sales.  This interview appeared in the October 2011 issue of Vanity Fair.

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/2011/11/courtney-love-201111

Strange Love

Last week the notorious L-O-V-E came out with a mini menior of sorts called, "Courtney Comes Clean," that is only available for digital download at the nicely affordable price of 2.99.  Lately I've been having a resurgence of respect for Love as not only a musician, but an actress, and a feminist as well.  Also I have a soft spot of someone who makes little excuses for her fucked-up-ness.

While waiting to start Courtney Comes Clean, I've been perusing some of her more memorable Vanity Fair articles (in my opinion no magazine does a better profile).

"Strange Love" is an interesting article if only because it coincided with her marriage to Cobain, her pregnancy with Frances, and her rising star.  Also anyone who was around when the article came out remembers the controversey of the author implying that Love was continuing to use heroin while pregnant.  She later tried to attack the reporter at an Oscar party with an actual Oscar.  The full article is below:

http://homepage.mac.com/kia/magick/courtney.html