2. Behind the scenes of Sesame Street. This photo is remarkable for several reasons. It shows a rarely-seen angle of the production, almost intrusively revealing the method by which the characters are brought to life. Second, it's a fantastic portrait of two masters of their craft, Jim Henson and Frank Oz (I tried to find out who the third puppeteer was, but had no luck). And third... those clothes, man. The image screams 1970's. The composition of the photo itself is great--the empty, shadowed space on the right gives a solid sense of the location (large television studio), and the poses of everyone in the photo (Muppets included) are dynamic and so perfectly presented that if they weren't looking down and away from the lens watching their performance in a monitor, you would think the moment had been entirely staged.
3. Caesar Romero as the Joker, in a publicity shot from the 1960's Batman television show. I don't remember where I first came across this, but it has to be one of my all-time favorites. The clever frame gag, the expressions on both subjects' faces, and the blacked-out background making Romero appear as nothing less than a painting on velvet, all combine here to create a playfully indelible image.
4. Nick Cave. As usual, it seems to be bloody impossible to track down the original photographer's name on these things... Google can only go so far. But anyway--a brilliant portrait of one of my favorite artists. Those familiar with his music, especially from the era when this photograph was taken (if I had to wager, I'd say late 80's or very early 90's) would recognize the appropriateness of that sullen, slightly inhuman, hunched-looking shadow on the wall. It's symbolic of the tortured, degenerate persona that came across in his music and in his prose: Cave's book And The Ass Saw The Angel chronicles a malady-stricken young man whose twin brother's life is ended before it begins.
5. And then... there is this one, which I found online randomly several years ago. Just a snapshot someone took. Just a snapshot, except... the woman on the left is musical genius Fiona Apple, who I've been fortunate to see in concert, once, and for whom I would probably become a stuttering, grinning idiot if I ever met her face-to-face. The more significant aspect for me, however, is the gentleman. That is Jonathan Ames, the writer. Back in 2001, during my first go-round of college, I had him for my creative writing professor in Bloomington. At that age I was disgustingly cocky, and did not take full advantage of the class or the great connection I could have made with this professional writer. Apparently, a few years later he formed an intimate friendship with Fiona, to the extent that she later wrote an entire song about him and put it on her last album. So the only real reason this photograph is posted here today is because I can't get over that fact that, as the old game goes, I'm two degrees from Fiona Apple--and maybe if I'd been a wiser youth, I'd have a friend named Jonathan who could have introduced me...
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