From John Doheny's facebook album

Burning Ground publicity photo, 1973. The band was originally called JB and the Unusuals (after future Doug and the Slugs guitarist John Burton, on the right) but when we signed with the Bruce Allen agency he decided we needed a "chick singer." (Jamie Clarke, foreground). She renamed the band "Burning Ground"

Late 1970s. I'm picking up art around town from graphic design studios in my new Mini and preparing materials for printing presses.

Leonard George and his son Gabriel. Fred Douglas photograph. Durations, Intermedia Press 1975

My Dad at breakfast
Fred Douglas photograph. Durations, Intermedia Press 1975

My Mom, Xmas season, 1972. Fred Douglas photograph. Durations, Intermedia Press 1975

My sister Jo getting ready for her wedding. Fred Douglas photograph. Durations, Intermedia Press 1975

Dan-Dan at the Alcazar, 1963. Fred Douglas photograph. Durations, Intermedia Press 1975

P.N.E — 1972.
Fred Douglas photograph. Durations, Intermedia Press 1975

Linda and Gabriel, Burrard Indian Reservation.

Fred Douglas photograph. Durations, Intermedia Press 1975

Sundown at White Rock, 1973. Fred Douglas photograph. Durations, Intermedia Press 1975

Judy Copithorne, poet, in her place. Fred Douglas photograph. Durations, Intermedia Press 1975

Durations — Photographs by Fred Douglas

Intermedia Press, 1975

FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT 
OF DIANE ARBUS
United States 2006

DIR Steven Shainberg
SCR Erin Cressida Wilson, Patrica Bosworth
CAST Nicole Kidman, Robert Downey Jr.

Director Shainberg is novelist and Arbus friend Lawrence Shainberg's nephew.

75th Anniversary of Picasso's Guernica

MADRID.- An illustration showing the 1937 painting Guernica by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso as a robot scans it to get new information for its conservation at Museo Reina Sofia in downtown Madrid, central Spain, 24 January 2012. On the ocassion of Guernicas 75th anniversary Telefonica Foundation sponsors a project entitled Travel to the Center of Guernica to get more information about the conservation of the art work. 

EPA/F ALVARADO. ArtDaily.org

From Museo Reina Sofia on the 2011 30th Anniversary of Gurernica's long awaited arrival in Spain. "The long exile of the painting, which was in the custody of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from 1939 until its move to Spain, symbolised the open wound caused by the Spanish Civil War, since Picasso insisted that it would come to Spain only when democratic liberties had been restored."

Museo Reina Sofía is temporarily exhibiting the large-format painting Femme assise dans un fauteuil (Dora) by Pablo Picasso (1938), on special loan from the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen/Basel.

The painting is being shown in connection with other works by Picasso in the Museum's collection, such as the emblematic “weeping women” related to Guernica and also Femme assise dans un fauteuil gris (1939). The loan represents a unique oportunity to see these two works together, something of special interest since both paintings, of great violence and dramatism, use the body of the protagonist to convey the events of 1938 and 1939. These years, with war raging in Spain, were a troubled period in Picasso's production, and during this time his chromatic range was reduced to gray tones. The protagonist of these canvases, Dora Maar - Picasso's lover during the period in which he painted Guernica - contributed decisively to the awakening of his political consciousness. During the years that their relationship lasted, Maar modelled many times for the artist and was the subject of some of his most characteristic portraits.

Best Stuff I encountered in 2011 no matter when it was actually released awards

The votes are in and tallied. Here's my picks for Best Stuff I Encountered in 2011 No Matter When it Was Actually Released. The envelopes please....

Book non-fiction

Mordecai
Charles Foran
"...it illuminates the life of a great and complex Canadian and a great and complex love." — Albert Schultz, artistic director of Soulpepper Theatre Company.

And a footnote. Charles Foran is the Globe & Mail's go-to guy for anything about my favourite Irish writer, the somewhat obscure Flan O'Brien. I had long intended to scan and send him an artefact stored deep in the cardboard box that is my archive: the playbill (back) from a show at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1975, The Brother, based on O'Brien's writing. And the guy emails me back a very nice note. Thanks for the praise for Mordecai and "especially" for the copy of the playbill.  I now get to call him "Charlie".

Runners up:

Under an Afghan Sky — A Memoir of Captivity

Mellissa Fung

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts — Close Encounters With Addiction
Gabor Maté

Arrival City — The Final Migration and Our Next World
Doug Saunders

All the Devils Are Here — The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis
Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera

Book fiction

Let the Great World Spin
Colum McCann
"One of the most electric, profound novels I have read in years." ― New York Times reviewer Jonathan Mahler. Won the 2009 National Book Award for fiction and the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. One of the story lines follows Philippe Petit's high wire walk between the WTC towers in 1974. Another follows Irish ex-pat brothers 110 stories below in the NYC mean streets. There's a terrific documentary on Petit's "artistic crime of the century", Man on Wire. Read the book first though, if you haven't seen the movie.

Runners up:

The Gathering and The Forgotten Waltz
Anne Enright

A Star Called Henry — Book 1, The Last Roundup Trilogy
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
Bullfighting
Roddy Doyle

The Sisters Brothers
Patrick DeWitt

Half Blood Blues
Esi Edugyan 

Wine
2009 Chateau Pesquié Terrasses  

Robert Parker — Rating: 90 points for under $20. It was the only one in the category and it's, ah... very nice indeed.

"Another of my favorite estates in the up-and-coming Cotes du Ventoux appellation… Composed of 70% Grenache (from 60-year-old vines) and 30% Syrah (from 30-year-old vines), aged in neutral oak, and bottled unfined and unfiltered, this 10,000-case cuvee hits every sweet spot on the palate. Tasting more like a Chateauneuf du Pape than an inexpensive Cotes du Ventoux, this dense ruby/purple-colored wine offers up scents of licorice, black cherries, raspberries, pepper, and meat juices. Medium to full-bodied with a structured, well-delineated mouthfeel, good freshness, a heady finish, and firm, but well-balanced tannins, it should drink nicely for 2-3 years." 
— Robert Parker

Movie

The White Ribbon
Michael Haneke

What a wonderfully twisted gothic wee thing this is. Long black Calvinist overcoats and dresses in rural village suffocating under the cold eye of the Baron land-owner filmed in a dream-like black and white. A dark study of tensions erupting from just below the surface of repression and abuse in Calvinist Northern Germany. Portents of Nazism and later the Baader Meinhof urban guerrillas of the the 1970s and 80s.

Runners up:

Tree of Life
Terrence Malick

The Night of the Iguana
John Huston

Amarcord and I Vitelloni 
Frederico Fellini

Rear Window
Alfred Hitchcock

Volver and All About My Mother
Pedro Almodovar

Music

The Bright Mississippi
Allen Toussaint
... Allen Toussaint’s first solo album in more than a decade... Produced by friend and frequent collaborator Joe Henry, the record includes songs by jazz greats such as Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, Django Reinhardt, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and Billy Strayhorn. Toussaint and Henry created a band of highly regarded musicians for the sessions: clarinetist Don Byron, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, guitarist Marc Ribot, bassist David Piltch, and percussionist Jay Bellerose. Additionally, pianist Brad Mehldau and saxophonist Joshua Redman each join Toussaint for a track.

Runners up:

Jasmine
Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden

Used to be Duke
1954 Johnny Hodges Orchestra

Stan Getz and The Oscar Peterson Trio
1957 With Herb Ellis and Ray Brown

Amarcord Soundtrack
Nino Rota
It's probably been too long since you last saw Amarcord. It's a masterpiece. 

MAN ON WIRE
United States, United Kingdom 2008

DIR James Marsh
SCR Philippe Petit
CAST Philippe Petit, Annie Allix, 

Paul McGill, David Roland Frank

SUMMER HOURS
L'HEURE D'ÉTÉ
France 2008

DIR Olivier Assayas
SCR Olivier Assayas
CAST Juliette Binoche
Charles Berling, Jérémie Renier

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
United States 1943

DIR Sam Wood
PROD Sam Wood
SCR Ernest Hemingway, Dudley Nichols
CAST Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Katina Paxinou

The Mexican Suitcase: Rediscovered Negatives From The Spanish Civil War at Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

Robert Capa, March 1939. Negative. © International Center of Photography / Magnum.

BARCELONA.- The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, in partnership with the International Center of Photography in New York, is presenting for the first time in Spain the photographs taken by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David 'Chim' Seymour during the Spanish Civil War, which had been lost without trace since 1939. These extraordinary images, many of them unpublished, make up what is known as the 'Mexican Suitcase' and are without any doubt the most important group of 20thcentury recovered negatives.