Before the Nazis took power in 1933 Jeanne Mammen earned her living as a commercial artist, selling her work to film producers, fashion magazines and satirical journals. Her work portrayed the vibrant life of the big city. She chronicled the nightlife of Weimar Berlin capturing scenes from bohemian dives and proletarian bars to elegant cabarets and exclusive Lesbian clubs. This…
From George Orwell at the Café Royal : The coming of the Hitler regime in 1933 had a chilling effect on all the arts. Many writers and artists left, if they could, fleeing for their lives. Those who remained – and who were not Jewish – had to fit into the enforced Nazi orthodoxy if they wished to be published…
George Orwell had an interesting chance encounter with a blasé conspiracy theorist at the Café Royal in 1940. (See left). The young man is in the grip of a dangerous fallacy. As always with autocracy and totalitarianism, Orwell nails it. The fallacy is to believe that under a dictatorial government you can be free inside. Quite a number of people console themselves…
“Fool and scoundrel guide the State.” That’s true enough. In the early 1930’s when this was written speeding traffic on a Californian freeway was still something new and probably pretty scary to many. Just as the rise of fascism was to those who could see it. Before Disaster by Yvor Winters Evening traffic homeward burns Swift and even on the…