LIEDER OF THE PACK
Recent historians of Third Reich film have stressed the importance to Nazi film cultures of what Goebbels termed the orchestra principle’: a principle which Eric Rentschler, for instance, sees embodied in the ‘orchestrated diversions (radio programs, mass rallies, gigantic spectacles, holidays and commemorations)’ that pervaded everyday life under National Socialism… In the case of Zarah Leander, there are compelling historical reasons to argue that it was within that sphere that her voice began to operate as that pervasive, disembodied or phantom acoustic presence that I will later call sublime…
Erica Carter, Dietrich’s Ghosts (2004)
DRUM ROLL PLZ…
Murdofleur’s prize for best carpet at the Frieze art fair 2010 goes to Kate McGarry, who narrowly beat out a strong, mistily lavender/grey effort from Michael Werner.
HAVE YOU EVER?
Tom Keating, the well-known British art forger, claimed that he wrote swear words or ‘ever been had’ in white lead directly on the canvas before painting, specifically so that they could be detected radiographically. It would be interesting to X-ray some of his forged paintings to see if this was the case.
Paul T. Craddock, Scientific Investigation of Copies, Fakes & Forgeries (2009)
FORMATION
MASSING FIRE
Lieutenant Colonel S.L.A. Marshall’s study of soldiers in battle led to the formulation of an “average firer,” a type whose behaviour could be predicted and calculated. His analysis of the fact that soldiers in battle were often incapable of firing their weapons due to a fear of killing that overwhelmed the fear of being killed provided military tacticians with information from which to develop new training procedures, such as the earlier example of ‘massing fire’ As a result of such innovations, the army subsequently found an increase of up to 90 per cent of soldiers shooting back.
Greg Goldberg and Craig Willse, ‘Losses and Returns: The Soldier in Trauma’ (2007)
