Some Pisces notes (Garth Allen)
Posted: Mon May 08, 2017 6:56 pm
(from American Astrology, February 1963)
Years back, faithful readers of Powwow will remember, we pointed out that Piscian film actors and actresses have a corner on the Oscar market. Neptune-ruled Pisces is the constellation par excellence of the make-up artist, the grimace-and-gesture master, the other-worldly dramatist. Pisces is the zodiacal sector that sired such specialists of the weird and woozy as Hans Christian Anderson, Sir Richard Burton, Algernon Blackwood, Washington Irving, Charles Jackson, Mark Hellinger, and Tennessee Williams. Fair tales, Arabian nights, ghost stories, headless horsemen, lost weekends, green pastures, and glass menageries - these are the sorts of imagery in which the Neptunian imagination loves to revel. The expert in special-effect hokum is apt to be a Piscian, as witness Harry Houdini, Lee Shubert, Hendrik Ibsen, Florenz ZIegfeld, and Robert Helpman. Even as scientists, Piscians are prone to come up with dazzling, logic-defying concepts, as did Einstein, Priestley, LaPlace, Steinmetz, and Millikan. There is a special aura of mystery and dramatic flare to whatever the Piscian imagination touches.
And when it comes to acting itself, whew! Make-up laid on by the pound. Alec Guinness and the late Lon Chaney, both thespians of a thousand faces, are the prize examples, these men being virtually unrecognizable from one production to the next. The reason we reminisce about the mask and disguise motif of Pisces is that at this writing we are just recovering from two hours spent finding out What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? The two old cinematic pros who made the picture, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, are both sidereal Piscians. For sheer Neptune-Pisces symbology, this film most take historic histrionic honors: imprisonment of an invalid, alcoholic delusion, psychic anguish, and the final scene at the ocean's edge. Name a Neptunism and Baby Jane included it somewhere in its footage. Best of all, though, were the fascinating projections of the Piscian celluloid queens themselves, and we made special note of the claim that both ladies tended personally to their own make-up jobs.
Let's not leave this subject without mentioning another interesting pair of actors. What two roles in motion picture history were centered around the unique theme of a character's spiritual and physical battle with a denizen of the ocean? Why, Gregory Peck's Moby Dick and Spencer Tracy's Old Man and the Sea, of course! Both Peck and Tracy, oddly enough, celebrate the very same birthday, which is April 5th. April 5th, both of them? Tropical Aries, sidereal Pisces, take your pick. There's something fishy about the tropical situation.
Years back, faithful readers of Powwow will remember, we pointed out that Piscian film actors and actresses have a corner on the Oscar market. Neptune-ruled Pisces is the constellation par excellence of the make-up artist, the grimace-and-gesture master, the other-worldly dramatist. Pisces is the zodiacal sector that sired such specialists of the weird and woozy as Hans Christian Anderson, Sir Richard Burton, Algernon Blackwood, Washington Irving, Charles Jackson, Mark Hellinger, and Tennessee Williams. Fair tales, Arabian nights, ghost stories, headless horsemen, lost weekends, green pastures, and glass menageries - these are the sorts of imagery in which the Neptunian imagination loves to revel. The expert in special-effect hokum is apt to be a Piscian, as witness Harry Houdini, Lee Shubert, Hendrik Ibsen, Florenz ZIegfeld, and Robert Helpman. Even as scientists, Piscians are prone to come up with dazzling, logic-defying concepts, as did Einstein, Priestley, LaPlace, Steinmetz, and Millikan. There is a special aura of mystery and dramatic flare to whatever the Piscian imagination touches.
And when it comes to acting itself, whew! Make-up laid on by the pound. Alec Guinness and the late Lon Chaney, both thespians of a thousand faces, are the prize examples, these men being virtually unrecognizable from one production to the next. The reason we reminisce about the mask and disguise motif of Pisces is that at this writing we are just recovering from two hours spent finding out What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? The two old cinematic pros who made the picture, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, are both sidereal Piscians. For sheer Neptune-Pisces symbology, this film most take historic histrionic honors: imprisonment of an invalid, alcoholic delusion, psychic anguish, and the final scene at the ocean's edge. Name a Neptunism and Baby Jane included it somewhere in its footage. Best of all, though, were the fascinating projections of the Piscian celluloid queens themselves, and we made special note of the claim that both ladies tended personally to their own make-up jobs.
Let's not leave this subject without mentioning another interesting pair of actors. What two roles in motion picture history were centered around the unique theme of a character's spiritual and physical battle with a denizen of the ocean? Why, Gregory Peck's Moby Dick and Spencer Tracy's Old Man and the Sea, of course! Both Peck and Tracy, oddly enough, celebrate the very same birthday, which is April 5th. April 5th, both of them? Tropical Aries, sidereal Pisces, take your pick. There's something fishy about the tropical situation.