When Audience is Theatre
When Audience is Theatre
Impressions of Coney Island by e.e. cummings.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/08/30/the-aristocracy-of-freakdom-e-e-cummings-on-coney-island/
Impressions of Coney Island by e.e. cummings.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/08/30/the-aristocracy-of-freakdom-e-e-cummings-on-coney-island/
I can't wait to read this carefully- I only glanced at it so far. IT looks amazing and I LOVE that image.
ReplyDeleteBut I wanted to tell you that I grew up with an amazingly powerful, very beautiful oversized 24" x 29" black and white photo of the beach at Coney Island in 1935 that my mother's uncle, Lusha Nelson, took (link to catalog of his work). He died 3 years later at the age of 38. He was quite famous, worked for Condé Nast, Vanity Fair and among other subjects like acrobats and circus performers, cityscapes, took portraits of famous movie stars and other famous people.
The photo hung over the fireplace in our house in a room my called the "Library" where my father's grand piano and his desk were. Remind me to describe that room to you sometime.
Growing up, I thought it was a photograph of Africa because it was figures that were silhouetted by the sun and it was dark enough where it was hung that I couldn't see the obvious detail proving how wrong that was. Silly, little girl fantasy of something exotic.
My parents grew up in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn. So it's part of the mythology of our family. Lusha was my mom's mentor of sorts, influenced and inspired her to stay in touch with her love of making visual art as well as dance. We inherited the photo and it's in our living room.
issuu.com - Lusha Nelson Photographs