out of the blue: Jim Hall of Baltimore

February 10, 2020 9:22 AM

“The inspiration for the film was Jim. He’s such a passionate, friendly, open-minded, and courageous man – a role model of sorts,” Bregel said in an interview with vimeo.com, which recently There’s a lot to know about Jim Hall, a retired Baltimore planner of 40 years: He planted trees all over the city. He has a great collection of city maps. And in 1967, Hall began an art project that would take 40 years to complete – transforming his body via tattoos and surgery – into a work of art. But those things alone aren’t why Jonathan Bregel and Steve Hoover (aka friendzone) chose to make this admirably restrained short piece about Hall titled “out of the blue.”
posted by Harry Caul (6 comments total)

City Paper profiled him, but the piece by Charles Cohen is irretrievable online, as are others lost when the Baltimore Sun Media Group acquired the alt-weekly. (“They ruined it when they went to the new server,” says Joe Giordano, former City Paper photo editor.)

https://web.archive.org/web/20090122184838/http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=17390

Dog bless archive.org.
posted by zamboni at 9:35 AM on February 10, 2020 [7 favorites]

I’m guessing that at some point he was in the Air Force?
posted by drivingmenuts at 10:04 AM on February 10, 2020

Air Force?

Not so sure, it basically just has him listed as a feature for an event they're recapping.

I tell you though, there was a guy kinda like this in my planning office when I started. He had a draftsman desk instead of a cubicle, he got there early like me and he worked well into his 80s and walked home a couple blocks until his conditions forced him to leave.

There's a country mile of BS that goes along with municipal government, but it is also beautiful and democratic as most things these days. I understand why people love to do it.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 10:11 AM on February 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

I’m guessing that at some point he was in the Air Force?

Nope. His bio’s in the City Paper article.
posted by zamboni at 10:13 AM on February 10, 2020

"I'm 78 years old, and I have the body of a 40-year-old".

Er, never seen a 40-year-old man with a body like that of a 78-year-old, which is what he looks like, albeit, a very blue one.

However, this dude rules.
posted by erattacorrige at 5:21 PM on February 10, 2020

I remember reading about him in previous FPP. I loved the film, thank you for posting. His discussion of how he has to have a bunch of complicated systems to try and remember things now, and that those systems are failing, was really moving.

And like he asks, how many people have five balls?
posted by Dip Flash at 6:38 PM on February 10, 2020 [2 favorites]