Old Devil Moon / Popular Song in the Early 1950s When Randy’s First Opened Sung by Don Francks and Petula Clark ____________________________ Not surprisingly, for anyone who grew up in LA, one of the greatest icons of the city is a gigantic donut that is 32 feet in diameter that sits atop Randy’s Donuts, a bakery […]
From Strategy Safari to Hollywood Safari John Fraim Waltz for Debby / Bobby Shew _________________________ One of the most important books I’ve ever read is Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour Through the Wilds of Strategic Management. It was written by leading management thinker Henry Mintzberg and his colleagues Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel. I read it in 1998 when it was […]
Mode for Trane ___________________________________ A little over a week ago, I posted a blog “In the Countryside of New Albany, Ohio” reported on the idea of a new type of diorama that might represent, symbolically, the conflict seen here in Central Ohio where farmland meets giant Amazon, Google and FaceBook warehouses. Now, a few miles […]
To launch the high quality TV channel TNT in Belgium we placed a big red push button on an average Flemish square of an average Flemish town. A sign with the text “Push to add drama” invited people to use the button. And then we waited…
Two Symbols : Study Notes for a Symbolic Diorama John Fraim 10/19/23 Rick Sowash / “Lullaby for Kara” from Sanctuary at 3 am (My friend Rick is an Ohio composer) _______________________________ The old and new symbols of America are represented in Central Ohio. The old symbol is the Ohio countryside of farms. The new symbol […]
The First Dealership / Pasadena Alice Coltrane / Translinear Light _______________________________ The Diorama Muse Putting her to Bed for Awhile Or not? John Fraim I’ve just completed organizing and documenting chronologically the nine months of great creativity I went through from January to September 2018. I call it the return of the model making muse […]
Encounters With Her (From 1/17/18 to 9/12/18) John Fraim The dioramas in the above film were created during this period of time. And then they stopped so that this time could be defined as a period of time. Giving way to a new period of time in one’s life. For artists, it is usually a […]
Alice Coltrane / From the Album Translinear Light (2004) _____________________________________ Yesterday, we had the funeral for my father-in-law Walter M. Sharp. I was honored to write the obituary for this incredible man. One of the many passions in Walt’s life was growing Orchids and there were a number of orchids at the visitation. God often […]
Artie Shaw / Star Dust (1940) _________________________________________ My father-in-law – Walter Sharp – passed away on February 8, 2023 at the age of 93. There is a service for him on February 17th. Walter was born in 1929 just a few weeks after the great stock market crash. He was an amazing person. Among other […]
Glenn Miller & His Orchestra / “In the Mood” / 1939 ____________________________ John Fraim Writing in the 2/23/23 issue of The New York Review of Books, Christopher Benfey (Mellon Professor of English Emeritus at Mount Holyoke) observes about the artist Edward Hopper, words that have come to dominate, and increasingly suffocate, our experience of Hopper’s paintings are “alienation, loneliness, voyeurism and the […]
