STILL GOING STRONG AT 71!

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Tommy Tune born 28 February 1939

Tommy Tune is an award-winning American actor, dancer, singer, director, producer, and choreographer. Born Thomas James Tune in Wichita Falls, Texas, he attended Lamar High School in Houston. In 1965, he made his Broadway debut as a performer in the musical Baker Street. His first Broadway directing and choreography credits were for the original production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in 1978. Off-Broadway, Tune has directed The Club and Cloud Nine. Tune's film credits include Hello, Dolly! and The Boy Friend. Tune is the only individual to win Tony Awards in the same categories (Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Musical) in consecutive years (1990 and 1991), and the first to win in four different categories. In 1997, Tune published Footnotes, a memoir. Despite the disjointed nature of the autobiography, Tune offers an insightful look into his then thirty-year career. It is here that he writes intimately about what drives him as a performer, choreographer and director. His obsession and desire to find everlasting love is prominent in the memoir, offering many personal stories about being openly gay and being hurt by other lovers. Ultimately though, it is his passion for theatre, dance, and people that carry him through a fruitful career full of many successful projects.

Two years later, he made his Las Vegas debut as the star of EFXat the MGM Grand Hotel. In 2003, Tune was presented with the US's highest honour for artistic achievement, the National Medal of Arts. The Tommy Tune Awards are awarded for outstanding work in high school theatre in Houston. At 6'6½", Tune is unusually tall for a dancer. When not performing, he runs an art gallery in Tribeca that features his own work.

FEATHER PUZZLE Click to play and record your time in the comments

WHERE'S THE MOTOR?

ANOTHER TWO FEET OF SNOW!

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A MUSICAL INTERLUDE

This is from his latest album" Crazy Love"

HAUNTING EYES FROM 70 YEARS AGO

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Between Weedpatch and Lamont, Kern County, California. Children Living in Camp... Rent $2.75 Plus Electricity.

This photograph and the accompanying description are by Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), one of the most important American photographers of the 20th century. After apprenticing in New York City, Lange moved to San Francisco and in 1919 established her own studio. During the 1920s and early 1930s, she worked as a portrait photographer. In 1932, wanting to see a world different from the society families she had been photographing, she began shooting San Francisco's labor unrest and urban unemployed. In 1935, she accepted a position as a staff photographer with the Federal Resettlement Administration, later renamed the Farm Security Administration. Her new job took her to the South, where she documented small towns, the lives of tenant farmers, and experimental agricultural communities. Returning to the West, Lange focused on the lives of migrant workers. In 1940, she was hired by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics to produce photographs for a series of community studies in California and Arizona.

Photographer: Dorothea Lange, (1895-1965) Date Created : April 12, 1940

TIME OUT FOR THE BASICS

MUSEUM PIECE

Teleavia P111 Designed by Bertroni
France
1958
Not only incredibly designed externally, this futuristic wonder was equipped with High Definition imaging - in the late fifties! Designed by Flaminio Bertroni, of Citroen DS fame, ours is a very fine example, worthy of any modern design museum! It is also equipped with voltage switching, which ranges from 110 volts to 240 volts, allowing it to be used all over the world. Its rarity today certainly attests to how far ahead of its time it was, and I'm sure few were really ever delivered.
Price
$7,500
Condition*
Fine Original Condition
Measurements
height: 4 ft. 8 in.
depth: 25.5 in.
width/length: 22.5 in.
Specifications
Number of items: 1
Materials/Techniques: Painted Metals, Plastics, and Wood
Creator: Teleavia of France
Photography
provided by Off The Wall Antiques
Location
Off The Wall Antiques
7325 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
USA

Phone: 323-930-1185

E-Mail: weirdstuff@earthlink.net

Ref. : U1002168120897

PARKING SIMPLIFIED

SUV SIZED FISH

This artist's reconstruction of the 70-million-year old giant suspension-feeding bony fish Bonnerichthys as it cruises through the seaway covering what is today Kansas. Researchers had believed that these prehistoric bony fish only existed for a short period of time, but newly examined fossils reveal that this group actually persisted for more than 100 million years during the Mesozoic. By reinterpreting old findings and analyzing new fossils, researchers found that the massive suspension feeders, which engulfed water with an open mouth and sieved food while water escaped through gill slits, lived from 170 to 65 million years ago. During that time, they pioneered the unique (and highly effective) filter-feeding strategies that can still be seen in the largest marine vertebrates living today.

DEFENESTRATION IN SAN FRANCISCO

Perched on the corner of Sixth and Howard Street in San Francisco, a ruined building provides a magical moment for anyone who thinks to look up. Queen Anne tables gallop off the roof, sideshow murals decorate the ground floor, table lamps light the window ledges, and a sofa makes its bid for freedom. Built by world-renown artist Brian Goggin plus a hoard of volunteers thirteen years ago,Defenestration, this famous example of dedicated whimsy, was only meant to last a year.

Housed in the defunct and decaying Hugo Hotel, Defenestration is to undergo some massive renovation to keep pace with the gentrifying neighborhood.

LIFE GOES ON

Bridgette Bardot Then and Now:

Use it while you've got it, sexiness doesn't last forever.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE DAZZLING PANTS

OK, so as a sport, curling may rate up there with shuffleboard, and the exhilaration of watching men sweep may be lost on us, but goddamn if the Norwegian curling team’s incredible, triptastic, kaleidoscopic hipster pants don’t suddenly make it all watchable. Is it simply a daring fashion statement? A gloriously Scandinavian sartorialism that’s all the rage in the streets of Oslo? A sly means of distracting opponents? Some blessings are better left unquestioned.

COLD COLD ART ? OR NOT!

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Detroit, Michigan, circa 1904. "Fountain of ice, Washington Boulevard. "Looks to be about 40 to 45 feet tall, unless the boys are over 5 feet tall at the base of this frozen monument. If they are, this chunk of ice could be 50 feet or more. I have to go now and turn up my thermostat.

UNDERWATER RIVER IN MEXICO

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These amazing pictures were taken by Anatoly Beloshchin in the cave Cenote Angelita, Mexico. Here’s his description: “We are 30 meters deep, fresh water, then 60 meters deep – salty water and under me I see a river, island and fallen leaves… Actually, the river, which you can see, is a layer of hydrogen sulphide.”

TELEVISED MADNESS

SUFFER THE CHILDREN

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. has decided that providing foster care services is not as important as their opposition to same sex marriage. In a couple of weeks, the D.C. marriage bill will become law and the Archdiocese feels that the city’s religious exemptions are too narrow to give them any wiggle room. I guess placing children in the homes of loving gay couples or having to offer benefits to the same-sex partners of employees is so distasteful they decided that the abandonment of needy children is, um, Christ-like? Christian charity, indeed.

FOOL THE EYE

SLOW GAINS TOWARDS FREEDOM

This two part video documents the progress our LGBT community has made in it's struggle for equality. It is a rousing testament to the bravery and fortitude that remain a part of who we are.

Thanks to Jon Gilbert Leavitt for the use of his great song and his great piece of work.

Click on the link below to read testimony that there is still such a long way to go!

Being gay in America today....

PORCUPINE MOUNTAIN FALLS, MICHIGAN

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CORONA OF THE SUN

This is a composite of 31 different images, taken in

the shadow of the solar eclipse that passed over

Asia and parts of the Pacific back in July of 2009

for 6 minutes and 39 seconds. That’s the longest

solar eclipse anyone on Earth will witness this

century; a longer one isn’t coming until 2132.

Mathematician and eclipse photographer Miloslav

Druckmüller didn’t waste a second of it,

positioned with a team of colleagues on

Enewetak Atoll in the South Pacific, which just

happens to be where the first hydrogen bomb was

tested by the United States back in 1952. The photo

shows the solar corona that make up the sun’s

“atmosphere” in glorious detail. Its whorls and

loops extend millions of miles into space, are

nearly 200 times hotter than the visible surface

of the sun, and yet aren’t nearly as bright (by a

factor of something like a million), hence, we

can only see them during eclipses. I love the

delicate beauty of this photo, and how it makes

various features of the corona so plainly visible,

like the difference in activity around its polar

regions, as well as the dim, cratered surface of

the moon.

ENOUGH SAID

CARNIVAL IN RIO

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A member of Beija Flor samba school performs on the front of a float during carnival celebrations at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, early Monday, Feb.15, 2010. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

SHANGHAI ORIENTAL CROWN

Construction is finally complete on the national pavilion for Shanghai’s 2010 World Expo, which is set to start on May 1st of this year. The China Pavilion, also known as the Oriental Crown, represents the spirit of the people of China and showcases a variety of sustainable building practices ranging from passive design to rainwater harvesting. The Oriental Crown is one of the 5 permanent green buildings on the Expo site, and it will be converted into a national history museum upon the conclusion of the expo next October.