If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in ![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](../wp-content/uploads/2008/04/isle_royale_fog.jpg "Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]")
"Brendan, this is what the world looks like all the time to me. Just a little fog. It’s a fine day for boating on the Great Lakes.” Without missing a stroke he turned to dart a skeptical glance at me. Brendan the Navigator. When we named him I didn’t tell his mother everything the legendary Irish name implied. But I imagined him taking on the role of navigator for me. Growing up with Coastal Survey charts and tales of Great Lakes shipwrecks, he came to know Superior as another home. He never doubted the wisdom of canoeing there with a father who was half blind. 
![Charlotte Casiraghi in a red dress. [Source: Stylophile]](../wp-content/uploads/2008/02/charlotte_casiraghi_red_dress.jpg "Charlotte Casiraghi in a red dress. [Source: Stylophile]")
When I figured out who Charlotte Casiraghi was, I realized that I once sent a poem to her mother. 
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s 
![Eugène Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People. 1830. Louvre, Paris. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]]](../wp-content/uploads/2008/05/delacroix_liberty_1830_2.jpg "Eugène Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People. 1830. Louvre, Paris. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]]")
The memory of Dick Proenneke has been a welcome presence this Christmas. I gave Brendan a copy of One Man’s Wilderness, and on Christmas Eve, Ms. M and I watched the PBS documentary based on the book and Dick’s vintage film footage. I’m fascinated by the solo process he developed for documenting his cabin-building in [...]
Building a Log Cabin in One Man’s Wilderness
2
December 26, 2023 at 1:56pm
by Mark Willis
Isabella Rossellini Dances the Sex Life of Calamari at Café Mouffe
2
October 30, 2023 at 7:19pm
by Mark Willis
If you’re striving for that nerdy, campy “adult” costume for Halloween, look no further than Isabella Rossellini’s simple garb in Green Porno, her series of anatomically correct nature films on the Sundance Channel. You could be a sexy spider or praying mantis. Rossellini discussed the project last month on WBUR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook.
Brigitte Bardot Turns 75
3
September 28, 2023 at 7:17pm
by Mark Willis
Brigitte Bardot was the “locomotive of women’s history”? It sounds like something Roger Vadim concocted to promote a movie. Actually, Simone de Beauvoir said it in a 1959 essay titled Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome. Simone explained, “ She has no idea what her rights or her duties could be. She follows her inclinations. [...]
Imaging Paris Add Your Comment
Mouffe at the Movies: Sue Lyon’s Lolita
0
July 17, 2023 at 3:46pm
by Mark Willis
We finished Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita today — reading it aloud, mind you — and almost immediately asked ourselves the question posed by the trailer for Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 movie adaptation. “How could they make a movie out of Lolita?” My guess is that the film minimizes Humbert Humbert’s monstrous delusional transgressions, instead playing up Lolita’s [...]
Café Mouffe · books Add Your Comment
William Kurelek’s Canadian Art
6
February 15, 2023 at 12:10am
by Mark Willis
Kurelek by William Pettigrew - NFB: (1967, 10 min 7 s) A documentary about the self-taught painter William Kurelek, told through his paintings. There are scenes of village life in the Ukraine and the early days of struggle on a prairie homestead and the growing comfort of family life. In Ontario, Kurelek paints the present [...]
Flaneur's Gallery Add Your Comment
Café Mouffe: Miles Davis & Jeanne Moreau
0
October 24, 2023 at 3:00pm
by Mark Willis
Miles Davis has been long overdue at the Mouffe. Alex suggested Looking for Julien from the soundtrack of Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l’échafaud ), director Louis Malle’s 1958 film debut. Jazz critic Phil Johnson has described Miles’ score as “the loneliest trumpet sound you will ever hear, and the model for sad-core music [...]