Thugs We Love: Eddie and Lino

Eddie Constantine

Anna Karina and Eddie Constantine in Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville

Eddie Constantine (born Edward Constantinowsky in Los Angeles, California, October 29, 1917 - died Wiesbaden, Germany, February 25, 1993) was an expatriate American actor and singer who spent his career working in Europe. He became a star in France in the 1950s, most notably playing the part of the hard-boiled detective/secret agent Lemmy Caution from Peter Cheyney's novels in a series of French B-pictures, including Cet homme est dangereux (1953), Lemmy pour les dames (1961) and À toi de faire ... mignonne (1963). Constantine's typical part was that of a suave-talking, seductive smooth guy, which he often played for laughs. Constantine, who eventually became a French citizen, enjoyed great popularity in several European countries, including France and Germany, as well as Africa. He also recorded several successful songs.
His most significant film was Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965), in which he reprised (to a more radical end) the role of Lemmy Caution. Constantine's box-office appeal in France waned in the mid-1960s, and he eventually relocated to Germany, where he worked as a character actor, occasionally appearing in french films. Constantine claimed he never took his acting career seriously, as he considered himself to be a singer by trade. He took up the part of Lemmy for a last time in 1991, in Godard's experimental film Allemagne 90 neuf zéro. His last notable film appearance was in Lars Von Trier's Zentropa.

Biographies: Eddie Constantine
	'J'ai eu cinq maris, mais Eddie est le meilleur amant de tous' Constantine's new wife interviewed by Paris-Match Paris-Match September 23 1977
Born Edward Constantinowsky on the 28th October 1917 in California Constantine studied music, performed as a musician in Paris nightclubs before being spotted by Bernard Borderie for his 1953 'policer' La Môme vert-de-gris in which he starred as FBI agent Lemmy Caution. The film launched Constantine's career and he went on to make a series of films playing the same character and revived the character in 1970 for Godard's Alphaville. The actor has performed in numerous television productions, has recorded songs and, in 1975, published his autobiography Cet homme n'est pas dangereux. Biographies: Lino Ventura Lino Ventura, real name Angelo Borrini, was born in Parma, Italy in 1919. He left Italy for France in 1927 and made a name for himself as a wrestler, winning the European championship in 1950. Compelled to abandon the sport because of injury his film career began in 1953 when he secured a part as a gangster in Jacques Becker's Touchez pas au grisbi. Mostly cast as detective or gangster Ventura consolidated his growing reputation throughout the 1950s and 1960s with roles in a string of high profile films and continued to act into the 1980s. He died of a heart attack in Saint Cloud in 1987.

Junto No. 30, July 2006

Junto

No. 30
July 2006

30th Meeting @ Philadelphia



1. Jean-Antoine Houdon at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
2. Running Scared
3. 'Dark Ages America'
4. Gunboat Diplomacy
5. Justine Time: Travelogist Justine Shapiro
6. Blind Love: Kim Quinn as Kim Fortier
7. Puerto Carreño and Paul Theroux

Art Notes

Jean-Antoine and Ben

Philadelphia.
Until July 31, in its European Galleries, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will present 'Pursuit of Genius: Jean-Antoine Houdon and the Sculpted Portraits of Benjamin Franklin,' an exhibition of about 30 Houdon works.

The exhibit focuses on the museum's own marble bust of Benjamin Franklin.

I was introduced to Houdon when, as a child, I spotted the copy of his George Washington statute in Traflagar Square. Later, many years later, I bumped into the original, quite by accident, in the rotunda of the Virginia statehouse in Richmond.

-- Richard Carreño

Summer Reads for Educators + Students

Free John O'Hara Books

For a limited time, through the summer months, @philabooks+booksellers is offering free books by John O'Hara to full-time educators and students. Free books are restricted to titles priced at 99 cents.

Pay postage @ $2.00. Otherwise, books are FREE. One per customer. Order via philabooks@yahoo.com, citing details. Cheques payable to Richard Carreno.

Offer expires 1 September 2006.
@philabooks+booksellers

Running Scared

Richard, A teacher I use to work with at another school forwarded this e-mail to me. It is exactlty what Mr. XXXX and I were talking to you about today in the copy room. The timing couldn't have been better. Again, if you wanted more info on the story, you could always go to Channel 10's web site (NBC10.com) for more information. See ya around school, Michael Investigators: Philadelphia Elementary Teachers Scared Of Students May 16, 2006 PHILADELPHIA -- Gangs in the hallways, sex in the bathrooms, death threats against teachers -- we're not talking about high school, this is elementary school. Lu Ann Cahn and the NBC 10 Investigators went undercover as a group of teachers put out a cry for help. The Philadelphia teachers asked the NBC 10 Investigators to protect their identities because they feared for their jobs. Even worse, they said, they fear for their lives from their own students. "It's very frightening. It's very frightening," one teacher said. These teachers said you only have to watch the playgrounds to see what they are talking about: "It is like a war zone." "I have kids who are petrified to leave my classroom without me -- petrified. They are bullied, they're hit, things are thrown at them." What goes on outside, the teachers said, is just a small reflection of the violence these teachers insist is going on inside their Philadelphia elementary school classrooms. "To be honest, I'm scared," a teacher said. "I had a student larger than myself threaten to kill me." "We've had guns, fourth grade, third grade, kindergarten children bringing in box cutters and not afraid to us them and not afraid to show that they know how to use them and not afraid to use the language that goes along with it." When the NBC 10 Investigators went undercover, they witnessed one child being punched in the stomach until he cried. They also heard obscene language, saw obscene gestures and saw one child exposing himself. The exasperated teachers were being ignored. "We have gangs of kids that pretty much run the halls, and we don't even stop them any more to say, 'Where do you belong,' because they will say "f" you to you. They will push you down the steps if you're in their way," one teacher told the NBC 10 Investigators. "You're asking the public to believe that when you go to school, you are afraid of elementary school kids? How can they be controlling the school?" Cahn asked "They are and they will tell you that," a teacher told Cahn. "We did notice incidents were increasing with children in earlier grades," said Harvey Rice, the former Philadelphia Safe Schools Advocate. Rice said he has also seen an increase in the seriousness of elementary school incidents. Teachers told the NBC 10 News Investigators that on a regular basis they face incidents like urinating on bathroom walls, children humping each other, sexually exposing themselves and throwing scissors, desks and chairs on a regular basis. The teachers said they can't understand why they're not getting relief from the school district's CEO Paul Vallas. "If Mr. Vallas disguised himself and came into our school, he would not make it through the day," a teacher said. "Vallas has come in and said there's a no-tolerance policy in place. What happened to that?" another teacher asked. Vallas refused to be interviewed for this story. "By not even knowing the schools so that he could do anything effective and real, it would seem grandstanding to him to do a cheap media interview," said the school district's communications director, Cecilia Cummings. Cummings said that the statistics show violence throughout the school system is down 15 percent and that this year alone almost 10,000 elementary school children have been expelled. "We are not allowed to suspend. Their hands are tied. (Administrators say), 'Oh, you have too many suspensions. Stop the suspensions,'" a teacher said. A representative of the school district said that teachers should reveal the schools where there are problems. Teachers insist they've already risked their jobs by doing a television interview. "It's scary enough being here. If something is not done, something bad is going to happen," a teacher told the NBC 10 Investigators.

__

Dark Ages

Dark Ages America
The Final Phase of Empire
By Morris Berman

Norton. 328 pp. $29.95
Reviewed by Gresham Riley
To readers who already believe or suspect that the United States is in deep trouble at home and abroad, Morris Berman's new book will come as no surprise.

To those who continue to think of the U.S. as "a city on a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere," it will most likely be dismissed as another exercise in knee-jerk anti-Americanism. Ironically, such a response will only hasten what Berman sees as inevitable: the end of the American empire and the dawn of a new "Dark Age."
Morris Berman is not another crackpot eschatologist. He is a serious and careful scholar who charts the final phase of a movement that began as 13 colonies, became transformed into a republic, changed again into an empire, and now (like Rome at the time of Constantine's death in A.D. 337) can only look forward to the sun's setting on its period of world domination.
Berman believes that four characteristics of the West after the fall of Rome have reemerged in American society, and he uses these features to build his case for the book's main thesis: the triumph of religion over reason; the atrophy of education and critical thinking; the integration of religion, the state, and the apparatus of torture; and the political and economic marginalization of our culture.

The critical turning point in our history, Berman argues, was the transubstantiation of the American republic into an American global empire. Unlike bread and wine, this change was not a miracle but the result of deliberate choices by policymakers and support from the public. Two in particular, one in the foreign policy arena and the second having to do with monetary policy, loom large in Berman's account.

Regarding foreign policy, common wisdom has it that diplomat George Kennan was the architect of American Cold War strategy, the principal doctrine of which was the political - not military - containment of the Soviet Union as elaborated in his now famous "long telegram" and the "X" article in Foreign Affairs. Of much greater significance, in Berman's view, was a subsequent top-secret National Security Council document known as NSC-68 (1950), written by Paul Nitze and approved by Harry S. Truman. Basically, NSC-68 declared that "a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere" and that, consequently, there was no such thing as "peripheral interests" with respect to American foreign policy. NSC-68 embodied an "Orwellian vision of world domination and permanent war" that guides our decision-making today.

The economic policy choice was the withdrawal by Richard M. Nixon in 1971 from the Bretton Woods Agreement (1944). As described by Berman, Bretton Woods "created a system of more or less fixed exchange rates among world currencies, and placed controls on international capital mobility." The objective was "to create a favorable environment for trade and investment while allowing countries to pursue full employment and social welfare policies." By withdrawing from the agreement, Nixon paved the way for American economic hegemony.

Berman explores these and other "policy roads" taken and not taken in a decidedly nonacademic, informal style that is easily comprehensible to the intelligent lay reader. At the heart of his analysis is the idea that becoming an empire was the beginning of the end, because "the process of trying to maintain an empire would generate the resistance sufficient to undermine it."

Empire not only sets loose forces that eventually undercut it, but also corrodes the values, manners, indeed the very personhood, of its citizens. The emptiness and ignorance of the American public provide further evidence for Berman's conclusion that there is no warding off the Dark Ages. Symbolic of the emptiness at the core of America is the replacement of values derived from the Western heritage and the Enlightenment by an MTV culture: unfettered individualism, consumerism, and hedonism.

As for basic knowledge, there is such a lack of it, Berman writes, "that one has to wonder if we are talking about ignorance or just outright stupidity" - adults who don't know who our enemy was in World War II; who quiz their travel agents about whether it's cheaper to get to Hawaii by train or plane; who can't locate the United States on a map; who can't name the three branches of government; and who lack even an elementary understanding of thesis and proof, evidence and argumentation.

Although Dark Ages America breaks no new ground, Berman assembles with uncommon clarity a vast amount of scholarship, data, and commentary in support of conclusions that most readers will resist. Unfortunately, this timely and important study will most likely be perceived as insufficiently scholarly by the "theory class" and as excessively gloomy by the "leisure class" to be taken seriously by either. Berman obviously anticipated some such reception. But, he explains, "there is value in the truth for its own sake, not just because it may possibly be put to some utilitarian or optimistic purpose."

---

Gresham Riley (griley@philanthropicmgt.com) is the former president of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the president emeritus of Colorado College.

Gunboat Diplomacy

He's at it Again

Vice President Dick Cheney:

'I believe in war rants, not warrants!'

Quick Bits

What's in a name?

Signature to recent New York Times Book Review critique:

'Peter Keepnews is a staff editor at The Times.'

Justine Time

Travel Notes:
Justine in Nemrut Dag, Turkey Justine in Burkina Faso Justine riding an ostrich in South Africa		Justine Shapiro was born in South Africa and grew up in Berkeley, California, where she lives today with her young son. She attended Tufts University in Boston where she studied history and theater. She moved to Paris to study theater with Phillippe Gaulier and later went to Hollywood where she appeared in films and television movies including "I'll Do Anything (by James L. Brooks), "Storyville" (20th Century Fox), "Floodtide" (Granada Television), and "SeaQuest DSV" (Amblin Entertainment). During four years in Los Angeles, Justine taught English to immigrants, and their stories inspired her to take the next step in her life. Justine returned to the San Francisco Bay area and became involved in several documentary projects, including Voices from the Storm about Gulf War veterans and IDG Film's Nagasaki Journey. In 1995, Justine began producing an independent documentary film titled Promises, featuring seven Israeli and Palestinian children in Jerusalem. Rather than focusing on hard news, "Promises" offers a human portrait of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The film was nominated for a 2002 Academy Award for best documentary. It won News and Documentary Emmys for best documentary and for outstanding background/analysis. The film also received audience awards at the San Francisco, Vancouver, Sao Paolo and Rotterdam film festivals, as well as juried awards at the Hamptons, Valladolid, Locarno, Munich and Jerusalem film festivals. With Globe Trekker, Justine has nearly conquered her fear of flying as the show has taken her all over the world. Justine loves to travel and has explored much of Europe, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, and the Palestinian territories on her own. She speaks French and Spanish.
Justine Shapiro Quotes Travel philosophy "I think that the way to connect with other "distinct" cultures is to go with an open heart and spend time with the locals. Many travelers spend time within the glass bubble of the resort or the hotel or the organized tour. People are the same the world over and the only way to experience this is to spend time with the people." "You go some place and suddenly behold a landscape you've read about but never seen before. I feel that that's the most exciting experience. Just like I don't want someone to tell me what a movie's about, I want to see it for myself." "I believe that it's only when you read, travel, and talk to people that you can come to realise that the things you've taken for granted all your life aren't necessarily right. People think that when they travel somewhere they're going to go and learn about that place. I think what happen a lot is that people go and learn about themselves." "Just as long as they keep an open mind, put thought into how they choose to spend their money and leave their preconceptions at home, then travel can be a wonderfully enlightening experience, both for the backpacker and the people they run into along the way." Good and bad food "The strangest thing I've ever eaten are live jumiles (beetles) in Mexico." "You'd be amazed what you do when a camera is pointing at you and the fact is that many people do believe in the "enhancing" properties of snake blood so I had to try it. My philosophy is: if it ain't gonna kill me, I might as well try it." Favourite places " India is a place that turns all your notions upside down and wakes you up to the many other ways of perceiving time, life, and spirituality." Sound advice "Mali is a beautiful wonderful country and the Dogon Escarpement is impressive. Make sure you don't go when there are wind storms and bring photos of yourself and family to show to the families there. They love to see where you come from. Postcards from your country also make a great gift." Worst experience "The scariest thing was not on a GT shoot. I was camping in Baja California, high up in the mountains in the middle of no where and in the river beds where the cave paintings are. There was a flash flood at 11PM. That was friggin' scary. The water rose so incredibly fast and there were about eight of us and eight mules backing up against the cave walls hoping the water would stop. It finally did at 5 AM. Not fun!"

Blind Love

Kimberly Quinn, born in 1961 as Kimberly Solomon in Los Angeles, California, formerly Kimberly Fortier, is an American journalist, commentator, and magazine publisher, most recently of The Spectator.

Her affair with Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett led to his December 2004 resignation.

A native of Los Angeles, California, she is one of two daughters of businessman Marvin Solomon and his actress wife Lugene Sanders. She majored in "Victorian Studies" at Vassar College and later studied at Oxford University. She worked at Cosmopolitan magazine and then edited Woman's Day. Subsequently she has written for several publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Erotic Review, and UK newspapers The Daily Telegraph, The Times, Evening Standard, and The Independent. Before taking her position at The Spectator in 1996, she was the Communications and Marketing Director for Condé Nast Publications in the UK.
In 1987 she married American investment banker Michael Fortier; the couple divorced in 2000 following revelations of her affair with publisher Stephen Quinn. The following year she married Quinn, the managing editor of Vogue and GQ magazines. Despite her reported affair with The Mr Blunkett, the couple reconciled in 2004.

Mrs Quinn's affair with Blunkett, which reportedly began shortly after her wedding to Mr Quinn, ended acrimoniously in mid 2004. During that period Mrs Quinn gave birth to one son and became pregnant with a second child. David Blunkett contended that he was the father of both children, although Mr Quinn (who had a vasectomy reversal operation following his wedding) and Mrs Quinn both strongly denied this. However, DNA tests later proved that Mr Blunkett is the father of Mrs Quinn's eldest child, William (see David Blunkett paternity case).

Following the end of the affair, moves by Blunkett to gain informal access to the first child were rejected by Mrs Quinn and in early December 2004 Blunkett petitioned the Family Division of the High Court to grant him legal access. Mrs Quinn, heavily pregnant, was admitted to hospital prior to the hearing; her petition that it should be deferred (on the grounds of her ill-health) until her child was born was rejected. The matter remains sub judice.

Controversy around a number of matters arising from the affair, particularly concerns over the handling of Mrs Quinn's nanny's visa, contributed to Mr Blunkett's resignation in mid-December 2004. A number of newspapers alleged that Mrs Quinn had given details of these matters (which also included her use of government-issued rail tickets and his having supposedly told her classified information) to the press, as part of her strategy in opposing Mr Blunkett's legal petition.

Shortly after Blunkett's resignation it was revealed by the News of the World that Mrs Quinn had also had an affair with Simon Hoggart, a political journalist and regular contributor to The Spectator.

On February 2, 2005, Quinn gave birth to a second son, Lorcan. A month later, on March 4, Blunkett announced that DNA tests had revealed that he was not the father of Quinn's second child. Stephen Quinn angrily denounced Blunkett's renewed interference in his family's life the following day. It also emerged that Stephen Quinn was not the child's father either.

Personal Memoir

I knew Kimberly when she was still a 'Fortier.' 'She was Southbridge, Mass.,' I thought. Because of her French-Canadian -- not French -- surname, of course. I had met her at an American Embassy soireé, feting the election of the American president -- Bill Clinton, again. 'Charming, bright, attractive,' according to my notes of this encounter. I remembered, as well, that she was sporting a small male doll figurine on her coat lapel. 'What's that?' I ask. 'Oh, it's my Bill Clinton doll,' she responded in a vague accent. British-ish, I thought. 'When I'm not watching, though, it grabs my tit.'

Jeez, I was having fun. Missed the last Tube back Richmond. Took a cab. Oh, well.

-- Richard Carreño

Puerto Carreño

Paul Theroux and Puerto Carreño, Colombia.



Puerto Carreño

There it was -- on page 288 of the 1966 paper edition [Houghlin Mifflin Company] of My Other Life by Paul Theroux. Puerto Carreño. Whoa! 'Then down the Rio Meta, to Puerto Carreño, in a canoe.' This was part of a dialog between the Theroux character and a travel writer, who was interviewing him/the character. Great insight -- typical of Theroux -- of relationship between interviewer and interviewee. Get it. Read it.

As far as Puerto Carreño, Colombia, is concerned -- as readers of my A Family Album, appearing in a earlier in Junto, might remember - - it is one of three 'Carreño' place sites in the world: Carreño, España; the former Carreño in Cuba (one day I'll know why about the former bit); and Puerto Carreño. It was just odd -- even jarring -- to see it in print.

-- Richard Carreño

Puerto Carreño is the capital city of the department of Vichada in Colombia.
In 1913 the Colombian government created the province of Vichada (comisaria) and a place for its capital was decided at the convergence of rivers Orinoco and Meta. The city was named after Pedro Maria Carreno, a government officer. The "municipio" (similar to county in the US) was created in 1954. On July 5, 1991, Vichada's status was updated to "departamento" under the Colombian Constitution and Puerto Carreño was ratified as its capital.

The DANE (Colombian government's bureau for statistics) projected Puerto Carreño's population to be around 10,034 for 2005 based on the 1993 Census. There are some Indian tribes within Puerto Carreño's administrative zone as well.

Economic activity is based on agricultural and ranching activities, fishing, and mining. There is some international trading activities as Venezuela is just across the Orinoco River.
Alcaldia de Puerto Carreño