Friday, March 8, 2013

EQUINE EMANCIPATION





And here’s another small equine thing.  Elliott Erwitt, the great photographer, that's him above, American, though a Russian born in Paris, found himself aged 16, living in a house on Fountain Avenue, in Los Angeles.  He took over the lease after his father left town, and took in boarders at $6 a week.  This would be sometime in the 1940s.

One of the guys who lived there was Eugene Ostroff, who eventually became the curator of photography at the Smithsonian Institution.  He said in an interview, "Those were times when we were down to one meal a day. We knew somebody who owned a pet shop and he sold horsemeat. When we were able to get enough money together we'd buy some horse fillets, get a few bottles of wine and have a banquet."


I do hope that there’s currently some emancipated 16 year old out there, living independently, with the lease on a house, and with access to horsemeat and wine, but you know, somehow I doubt it.

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