Culture & Arts

Solomon King channels Phil Spector - photo by legendary Jimmy Steinfeldt

Campy is back, big time!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and I Think I Shot Her: The Phil Spector Incident, are three ongoing productions that have that classic B movie and campy feel, along with a great rock score.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was originally a 1975 musical comedy horror film that became a cult favorite, and was a parody tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 40s and 50s. It was recently remade as a TV movie, premiering on October 20, complete with its legendary rock/pop songs.

Hedwig, a musical about a fictional rock and roll band led by a gender queer East German singer, is being presented at Hollywood's Pantages Theater from November 1-27. The musical, which has its own campy glam rock underpinnings, is described as being "dense with plot -- it has Eugene O'Neill's sense of history -- wrapped up in a Rocky Horror show package."

Mirror, Mirror - King as Spector and Lee as Clarkson - photo by Jimmy Steinfeldt

I Think I Shot Her: The Phil Spector Incident, which was held up from national distribution because of litigation and threats, is finally now set up for wider distribution. The film stars musician/actor Solomon King in that glorious Spector fright wig and was directed by veteran adult film director Roy Karch -- that's right, by someone who was used to delivering a shoot in three days, and who's filmed hundreds of movies for the adult movie industry.

Solomon King, the critically acclaimed music artist known for his rebellious attitude, stays true to form in providing an original rocking music score that avoids all the clichés one would expect from a film about Phil Spector. The same unconventional approach was followed in looking for an Ed Wood-like director, as King quips:

We wanted someone who could bring a camp approach to show Spector's spectacular descent from the heights of super stardom to a crash landing in the final tragedy of Lana Clarkson's death. Unfortunately, Ed Wood wasn't available, so we got Roy Karch, instead!

The result is an eye-opening, wild ride into that last dark night of sicko sex games, culminating in, "I think I shot her!"

"I think I shot her!" - photo by Jimmy Steinfeldt

I know, right, you want to scream and pull your hair out!

King, a Grammy Awards entrant nominee who has worked with a who's who of blues greats, was fascinated by James Trivers' script about Spector and Clarkson's dance with death.

But little did he know about the long process it would take to get this movie made and released, including: getting a very scary phone call at three in the morning warning him that he shouldn't make the movie; and, getting a very public "cease and desist" order that led to a court appearance to prevent digital distribution of his film.

Coincidentally, King was there at the House of Blues after playing a gig on the Sunset Strip that fateful night in 2003 when Spector cajoled Clarkson into his white stretch limo. King admits, "I might've been the last person to see Lana Clarkson alive besides Phil and the chauffeur."

Read on, as you cannot make this sh*t up

Additionally, King, in a previous incarnation as young songwriter/musician Jeff Laine, had previously met Spector. King recalls that eventful almost deadly encounter:

In 1974, I was recording my first demo at A&M Studios on La Brea when Spector was working with John Lennon. I saw Lennon, who was taller than I thought, slouching against the wall, listening to a friend. Between them was Spector, looking small even in an orange jump suit and his platform heels. I might add that night he was donning a realistic looking hairpiece. I kept on walking by, but saw Spector, perhaps in a drug-fueled rage, pull out his shiny chrome pistol. 'You watch this,' he yelled pulling the trigger. Instantly there was a deafening blast. My head felt like a wah-wah effect. The corridor smelled of gunpowder. Dust from the ceiling spilled onto to the floor. Phil that maniac could have killed me way back then. When I later got that warning phone call at three in the morning, I was thinking, He really wants to kill me now!

Even director Quentin Tarantino, who admits his inspiration comes from B movies, couldn't make up Spector or King's real-life stories -- it's campy B movie heaven!

As for the casting of the Hollywood wannabe that Clarkson was, King's team chose Monica Lee, a young actress fresh off the bus from Michigan, looking to make her mark in Hollywood.

The American Dream turns into a Hollywood nightmare - photo by Jimmy Steinfeldt

Karch put an advert in a free Hollywood periodical and eager Lee responded. And, King as Spector came dressed in character to rehearsal. He recalls:

The wig? It was hot! But it and the five thousand-dollar designer suit helped get me into character. We chose a young and fresh 'Lana' to create a dichotomy between her and older 'Phil.' When Lana does her demo song scene for Spector, Monica gave a superb comic performance when she sings. And like most girls who come here with a demo in hand, her vocals weren't good. But that's what we wanted -- a fresh wannabe, hoping she can step up from the donut shop to making her dream come true.

HBO's own movie doesn't serve up what may've happened on that fateful night like Phil Spector Incident - photo courtesy HBO

Not to be confused with HBO's own Phil Spector movie, one online reviewer calls the Phil Spector Incident a "gem" adding, "The Al Pacino, Helen Mirren, HBO flick focuses on the legal machinations of the first trial, you don't get to experience what happened that night in the mansion...This small indie movie delves right into the heart of why this crime is so resonant. It not only tells us about Spector and Clarkson, it tell us about ourselves and the culture that forged these two individuals and why they play out their desperate and depraved 'dance of the veils.'"

When this journalist accompanied Solomon King dressed in full Spector regalia to a recent American Film Market, attendees stared eyes wide open. Some asked for his autograph, another gave him her demo tape -- even though the real Phil Spector is in jail! Spector's reputation and his fright wig continues to precede him.

Check out Solomon King's website for more info on, "I Think I Shot Her: The Phil Spector Incident."

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Simon McBurney is a riddle wrapped up in an enigma. And that's just the way he would have it. I met up with Simon in the early evening before soundcheck for his nightly one-man Broadway show, The Encounter, which is written, directed and performed by Simon. Perfect sound is crucial for this production, as the audience wears headphones throughout the performance that pipe in different character voices (each played by Simon) and noises separately in the left and right ears to create a unique sense of storytelling and reality. I was curious to find out more about the man behind this creative show and, after getting settled, launched into a discussion with Simon about his early years.

What were you like as a child?
I grew up in Cambridge, in the United Kingdom. I was the youngest child. My brother called me "constitutionally disobedient" as I was always in trouble in school; in fact, I was thrown out of the school at one point. I suppose I am insatiably curious, so if someone tells me not to do something, I go 'well why? it's got to be interesting!' That curiosity has taken me, from a very early age, all over the world in terms of different experiences. When I was eighteen years old, I worked in a traveling carnival. I operated one of the stalls in the carnival where you try to get a ring on a coke bottle and you get a pink panther. And all of these things are, as Donald Trump would say, 'rigged' to a lesser or greater degree. Everything is 'rigged' if the truth be known, everything is a game, everything is a play of life of one sort or another. The people I encountered were a microcosm of the United States - flashing lights and everyone trying to rip each other off. And looking for joy. It was an amazing experience. And then I took off from there. In the late 1970s, I hitchhiked across the United States by myself. Stuff I wouldn't dream of doing now. Several times, people pulled a gun on me.

And yet you continued?
Yeah, they were just showing me that they had a gun. They were worried that I might pull a gun on them.

Was there one big takeaway from those years?
I have a great deal of difficulty summing up things but, certainly, if you don't take a risk, you don't find out something new.

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Photo Credit By Eva Vermandel

When did you get the theater bug?
That's interesting because I never really got the theater bug. From as young as I could remember, I acted in plays. My mother wanted to be an actress, so when we were children, she would write plays for us, like Christmas stories or Britain pantomimes. And when I went away to school, I was constantly in school plays. But I never really took a decision "that is what I want to be." Rather I said, "well, I know I can do that, so I'll do it." I wrote my first play at 13, and directed my first serious play when I was 14 or 15. So even though I went to university, I sort of used it as a glorified drama school. I'd do three plays a term which allowed me to do a lot of terrible renditions of Shakespeare, and have fantastic roles and get it out of my system.

How has the story of The Encounter affected you personally?
It affected me because I am passionately engaged in questioning the way we are currently destroying our planet, and in questions of injustice. Within the book Amazon Beaming, on which the play is based, there is a destruction of peoples and their cultures and appropriation of their lands, and there is a sense that the people that are being attacked from all sides understand the environment, but the people attacking them don't understand the environment. Similarly, in the play, a man is lost in the environment, but the key thing is not just the physical circumstances of that, but what happens in his mind. How does the way he sees the world change? The play isn't just about the sound that goes in your ears; it's literally about what happens between your ears, in your mind. What I am trying to do is suggest to people that, yes they will get a terrific piece of entertainment, but they will get much more as well. It depends, in part, on what they put into it.

Do you have any pre-show rituals?
I have a yoga practice. It helps as I have to keep myself very much present during the performance. The role is a feat of concentration as much as it is a physical feat. It's about making the spoken word excite certain parts of the imagination. Although it should feel relaxed and almost improvised, it's very carefully scripted and, yet, it has to feel natural. And I need concentration because I'm jumping between characters and it's key that the audience totally believes in each character.

You have also done a ton of film work. One of my favorites is Magic in the Moonlight. How was it working with Woody Allen?
I had a fantastic experience with him. We got on very well, and the role was a wonderful role and sort of pivotal in the piece. But he is very demanding. Not in the sense that he's saying 'you've got to do this', but in the sense that he doesn't tell you very much. And he will set up a scene which is like a frame and you have to play within it, and quite quickly. That's very demanding and requires being very inventive.

Seems like that would be right up your alley as you think outside-of-the-box. How would your family describe you?
You would have to ask them! I imagine that it must be infuriating to be with me because I'm all over the place, and also absent-minded because I'm thinking about a lot of different things. But, relationships are the key to understanding who we are and having a sense of place. Perhaps it's an endless quest for me, not being absolutely certain where I belong, which is also, in a sense, what this piece is about. We might associate ourselves with being American or British or from this place or that place but, in this moment, where we belong, is on this planet together. And we need to really listen to other people. As I say at the beginning of the show 'theater is about a kind of empathy thru proximity, which is why I want to get even closer to you right now'.

Get close to The Encounter by clicking here for tickets.

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(Artist Natalia Fabia in her studio in front of "Knowingness," oil on panel. Image courtesy of the artist.)

Natalia Fabia is an artistic junkie. She's constantly jonesing for creativity; if you follow her on social media, you'll see posts filled with amusement, whimsy, and more often than not, over the top sparkles and pops of pink.

In person, the artist is unequivocally a full-on extrovert, one who engages and envelopes all that come into her path - she's sort of a cheerleader for the art set. Her work is very much the same way. Yet with her exhibition opening Saturday at Corey Helford Gallery and entitled "Rainbeau Samara," there is a quietness infused into this body of work - but at the same time, it is just as engrossing in its explosions of sentiment and color as Fabia is in real life.

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(Reflection, by Natalia Fabia. Oil on canvas.
Image courtesy of Corey Helford Gallery)

Here the artist weighs in on what this exhibition means to her as well as some of her influences of the past.

Why is this show called Rainbeau Samsara?

Natalia Fabia: "Rainbeau " is a play on my daughter's name (Peribeau) for her youthful and uninhibited innocence, and the rainbows than can be found in any environment if you take the time to look, [as well as] the colors and jewel tones of my paintings. Samsara is Sanskrit, and roughly translated means "sequential cycles of life." Inspired by recent personal events, I am exploring what's known as the seven year life cycles and the stages and emotions within those time frames, from birth to transition, and our shared connection universally by stardust, incorporated into my work with rainbow sparkle splatters and expressive marks.

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(Stardust Conception, by Natalia Fabia. Oil on canvas.
Image courtesy Corey Helford Gallery)

There is a quietness and solitude in this work - a very meditative quality. It is definitely an evolution, but was there a trigger?

Fabia: The birth of my daughter, the death of my brother and falling into a painting funk. I wasn't really excited with my work, and the process was not enjoyable to me anymore. I was constantly avoiding, so after some meditation and self analysis, I had to tear it all down and rebuild.

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(Magic Scout, by Natalia Fabia. Oil on canvas.
Image courtesy of Corey Helford Gallery)

There are works that seem reminiscent of John Everertt Millais, and even hints of Matisse and Manet. Can you talk about who some of your influences are?

Fabia: I referenced a few artists preparing for this show: John William Waterhouse, Lisa Yuskavage and Lawrence Alma-Tadema. I also found myself enchanted by a score of 19th century European landscape and figurative artists, some suggested by artist friends in Poland and some randomly appearing during my searches for inspiration imagery.

Natalia Fabia: Rainbeau Samsara
Corey Helford Gallery, 571 S Anderson St #1, Los Angeles, CA 90033

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I was not present for the opening of Philharmonic Hall in 1962--I was seventeen--but I did attend performances during its first season. (The Met performed there, it should be said, with the American premiere of Manuel De Falla's Atlàntida, and even more significantly, on the second night of concerts in the hall, Erich Leinsdorf, the Boston Symphony, and pianist John Browning performed the world premiere of a new piano concerto by none other than Samuel Barber.)

There was a Bach B-minor Mass and a concert of John Cage's music in which I remember seeing Merce Cunningham, shoeless and in tights, riding a bicycle onstage. I also remember how much I loved Philharmonic Hall. The walls and ceiling were a deep midnight blue, and the seats and the acoustical "clouds" were various shades of gold. Yes, perhaps it sounded like a really good car radio, but rarely have I felt so comfortable and uplifted in an architectural-musical space as I did in its earliest iteration. And although the acoustics took a hit from some of the critics, within a day or so they had been altered (by adjusting the "clouds") and John Chapman of The Daily News pointed out how "there is no doubt in my mind that the hall itself will be a great musical instrument." The negative assessment, however, has stuck, and, as of this writing, the Philharmonic is hoping to raise a half a billion dollars to fix the hall.

After all the excitement of the opening of Philharmonic Hall, all of us in 1966 wondered what the new Met experience would be--both musically and aesthetically. Every ticket holder had already received an elegant program page designed by Julian Tomchin, extravagantly printed in Japan on pure silk bridal satin, and backed with Sea Island cotton. Entering the building was unquestionably thrilling. The old house had no plaza in front of it. It had no lobby per se. What it had was a sense of history--Mahler, Puccini, Caruso, Toscanini. When you entered the old building, all you had were the ticket booths on the right and a wall of "8 by 10 glossies"--the phrase every artist knew: the official head shots in black and white. The Met would display these photos, one next to the other, in alphabetical order on that wall. If you were in the family circle you did not enter here, but had a separate entrance with an elevator to the top. The class distinction was ingrained in the old house, but wherever you sat, it was classy inside. Up top, you had a magnificent view of that chandelier and down below there was Sherry's restaurant and crush bar with its bright red cut-velvet wallpaper.

With the new opera house, however, there was grandeur from the moment you approached the house and entered the lobby. As a sometime-college-architecture student, I had heard that the lobby had been compromised and was meant to be a lot larger. Nevertheless, its curves and the red carpet gave the Met something it never had before--uplift. The two murals by Marc Chagall, each measuring 30 x 35 feet, brought accessible contemporary art into the foyer, with the tree of life floating--surprisingly--above the Hudson River. The plaza was buzzing that night with famous people dressed magnificently and mingling with those of us who managed to get in--and those outside staring at all of us. America's First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, purred to the press in her broad Texas accent that grated on New York's ears when she spoke of "all the gold and glittuh." The English actress Hermione Gingold, who was as famous for her baritone voice with its lisping consonants as she was for pithy remarks, said of the auditorium, "It looks like it was decorated by a madam."

Indeed, the auditorium itself was another matter. The walls were highly polished rosewood. The proscenium was painted in pure and dazzling gold. Above it was a sculpture by Mary Callery that reminded many of a deconstructed garbage can. I read about it in the program and said to Aunt Rose, "It was designed by a woman," to which Rose said, "That's no surprise." I was 21, after all, and understood that Rose thought all those pipes were phallic. Ornamentation was a serious challenge for architects in that era and I was interested in this solution, a sculpture that replaced those composers' name that had announced themselves from the equivalent perch in the old house. However, as I stared at the texture that had been applied to the area around the proscenium, I knew it looked somehow familiar but could not place it. After about an hour of thought I realized it was the pattern on Marcal paper dinner napkins.

The ceiling was a cream color and the lighting on the boxes looked like Cheshire cat smiles. The Swarovski crystal satellite chandeliers--a gift from the Vienna State Opera in thanks for the United States' assistance in rebuilding their opera house after we had bombed it in March of 1945--seemed too small, or perhaps there weren't enough of them for the space they were meant to inhabit. Sitting in the dress circle, I could view the performance either by looking at the stage or by watching its reflection in the walls--the proscenium was brighter than anything onstage. A blank cream ceiling ellipse surrounded by dazzling gold that continued down and around the proscenium, bright red carpets and seats, polished brownish-red wood walls, and little sparkling crystal chandeliers that went up and down seemed to compete with each other disproportionately.

Of course, knowing everything can be a burden--especially for a 21-year-old. Over the years, the Met has muted all its colors and cut off the "smiles" so that the crystal lights on the boxes are rectangles now. The proscenium's paint job is now a matte and darkened golden color. The walls do not reflect. The saloon red is now more of an understated burgundy. All of it has been made to look old, even as it has actually aged--and as it has become an iconic midcentury hall, its design floating somewhere between the 19th century excesses of the Paris Opéra's Salle Garnier, Covent Garden's glorious royal living room of an auditorium, Milan's Teatro alla Scala, and their architectural opposite: the 1967 brutalist Teatro Regio in Turin, which looks like the set for Star Trek. Wallace Harrison and his team found a middle road, one that sings of Camelot--both the Broadway show that was designed by Oliver Smith and the Kennedy Era.

Sensory overload had a new meaning for me that night in 1966, even before I heard a note of the new opera. Just the sounds of the orchestra--beginning as it always had with lone harpist tuning before the racket of her colleagues obliterated her ability to hear--entering and playing their scales and excerpts of what was to come--were overwhelming. One could not escape the fact that the auditorium was a great space: huge, in comparison to the old house, and with vastly improved sightlines (no weight-bearing pillars!). The relationship between the stage and us in the audience was both inviting and epic.

When maestro Thomas Schippers entered the pit, there was an enormous ovation. A photo of all of us was taken from the stage. The first piece we heard was the "Star Spangled Banner." It was hard to know what the acoustics were like because we were all standing and singing. Once we settled back down and the lights in the auditorium went to black, there were speeches, and finally, it was time for an opera: new music played in a new hall and we--the lucky 4,000--were there. How would it sound?

Many of us knew that the Met was taking no chances and had diverted a student matinee on April 16, 1966 to the new house to try it out five months before its official opening. That performance did begin with a bang: cannon shots were fired from the stage to test acoustical reverberation and decay rates. What followed was an opera the Met had commissioned in 1910, Puccini's La Fanciulla del West. Those kids and their teachers were the first ones, but, on September 16, at about 8:15 pm, we all got very quiet indeed, to hear. Yes, finally, to hear.

And BANG! a glorious fanfare for the brass. Tah-tah-tah-TAH-duh. Tah-tah-tah-TAH-duh. Tah-tah-tah-TAH-DAH! An amazingly fast curtain parted to reveal a first image--nothing less than what Zeffirelli called "The Empire"--with the Met chorus singing "From Alexandria this is the news." The libretto indicates that this enormous double chorus represents "Romans, Greeks, Jews, Persian, Africans, [and] Soldiers" and that is what was on that stage.

Few words were comprehensible, with the exception of "Antony fishes," or was it "Antony wishes?" Counterpoint is the enemy of textural comprehensibility, and even if Barber had determined the audience needed to understand the libretto, Shakespeare would have tripped him up with, "Leave thy lascivious wassails!"

Barber had broken a century of convention by making the hero, Antony, a baritone. Ever since Mozart told us the truth about the two sets of lovers in Così fan tutte--a soprano with a tenor, and a mezzo-soprano with a baritone (even as they swap around for two acts)--opera has been about sopranos and tenors as lovers. The baritone is inevitably the villain or the sadly unrequited. The mezzo usually gets an aria, but doesn't get the man. Mess with that and you are messing with your audience. But Barber had something else in mind: the warm colors of Leontyne Price's voice and the way it would blend with a glorious and youthful baritone of Justino Diaz.

A short second scene in Cleopatra's palace in Alexandria gave us the first solo sounds to bounce off the new stage. Antony sang, "These strong Egyptian fetters I must break or lose myself in dotage" and we understood the opera was actually in English--difficult English, but English nonetheless. An offstage chorus sang, "Cleopatra!" four times and Miss Price was brought on inside a moving pyramid that opened up to reveal her. (The pyramid had famously broken down at the dress rehearsal and stage hands had to rescue her by making an unexpected entrance in contemporary dress.)

Price was trapped in another way: a costume that made it all but impossible for her to move. Never a great actor, she could not even make use of her arms without bumping into her exploding quasi-Elizabethan dresses, or knocking off the exaggerated Egyptian wig that was more than twice the size of her head. At this point, we all began to have that creepy feeling one gets that things would not get better. We remained cautiously hopeful.

Indeed, there were still wonders to be heard and visions to be seen. (The intermissions were the other opera that was going on that night. And just before Act Three, general manager Rudolph Bing came to the stage to inform us that the orchestra had agreed to a new contract and that the season would continue. In a way, that news added a jolt of optimism to the proceedings that affixed itself to the opera.)

Barber had surprised us with unusual music--an entire scene accompanied by timpani to end Act Two; a scene in which five characters "improvise their own recitatives, without conductor or orchestra," while a "stick dance" takes place behind them that had been choreographed by Ailey--and Barber gave Miss Price an unforgettable aria before her suicide, "Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have Immortal longings in me," which began with a leitmotif that had been introduced earlier, making it feel like an old friend and yet completely new.

A rousing final chorus, with trumpets onstage, ended the evening with the word, "Rome." And when it was all over, we all had ... opinions! I rushed off to get the train back to New Haven and the next morning I ran into the avuncular master of Jonathan Edwards College, Beekman Cox Cannon, who had been my 20th century music history teacher and was a very grand seigneur. "Well, what did you think," he said gleefully, having listened to the radio broadcast. I said that I thought the music was awful and then I used an image of an overripe peach that had fallen from a tree and had begun to rot. "And the costumes," I said, knowing this would really get his goat. "You mean you were there? Why you son-of-a-bitch, tell me all about it!"

PART THREE concludes this memoire, in which we journey to the Met on the anniversary day, and the writer reassesses the opinions of a 21-year-old ...

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You find yourself tagging the hottest new tourist destination on the globe.

You were lured by the name: Split is quite the place to put 3.0 to the test.

Split has transformed its dynamism of opposites...

The 2,400 year old Dalmatian city is a spectacular blend of old and new.

...to become the cultural, entertainment and nightlife capital of the Adriatic Coast--and beyond.

See tickets for the seashell Pol(o)jud Stadium, a global entertainment venue reflecting Marco Polo's Dalmation origins.

Your journey here begins in the Wonderful World hostel. The Dalmatian owner, Dominick, has a face that stuns you into reverence. He asks how long you are staying and you reply: "I am not leaving until I capture your face!" Alas, the merrymaking goes on through the night, and digital relief is not an option due to breakage in your wiring. You set out to find batteries for your camera and more durable earbuds in the marketplace...and that is how...

...MISSING JAMES FRANCO 3.0 delivers you into THE SACRED CENTER OF SPLIT!

split (splɪt)
vb, splits, splitting or split
1. to break or cause to break, often into two roughly equal pieces: to split a brick.
2. to separate or be separated from a whole: he split a piece of wood from the block.
3. to separate or be separated into factions, usually through discord
4. to separate or cause to separate through a disagreement
5. to divide or be divided among two or more: split up the pie among the three of us.
6. slang to depart; leave: let's split; we split the scene.
7. to separate (something) into its components by interposing something else
8. to betray the trust, plans, etc (of); inform: he split on me to the cops.
9. to mark (a ballot, etc) so as to vote for the candidates of more than one party
10. (Tanning) (tr) to separate (an animal hide or skin) into layers
11. split hairs to make a fine but needless distinction
12. split one's sides to laugh very heartily
13. split the difference
a. to settle a dispute by effecting a compromise in which both sides give way to the same extent
b. to divide a remainder equally
14. the act or process of splitting
15. a gap or rift caused or a piece removed by the process of splitting
16. a breach or schism in a group or the faction resulting from such a breach
etc.

It happens by magic. Barač approaches you and asks if you need an accommodation. You have no money, you tell him, and could use some luck. He is persistent, and insists on guiding you to TOP CENTAR, his luxury accommodation on the very edge of the world's most complete remains of a Roman palace.

Diocletian Palace was finished in 305 A.D. The first emperor to abdicate the throne naturally expected a grand retirement, as fitting the son of Jupiter.

The Temple of Jupiter is right behind your new abode...

...where you can work, shop and dine among the gods and emperor ghosts outside the Roman mausoleum transformed into the Cathedral of St. Dominus.

After a night in Veritas with an unrelenting American yachtsman in which the Shadow of the 2 is split over a bottle by the Third, a compassionate Costa Rican, you spend the morning by the sea with a ritual.

X marking your final sticker...

...surrendipitously mirrored in the sky above.

The sign of the hieros gamos suggests a culmination...and an ending. At last, you can surrender and let Jupiter manifest your dreams with his magnitude!

The next day, you move inside the majestic mansion of the classical Croatian author...

...surrendering your passport, along with your identity, in trust that Jupiter nōtōrietās.

Having transformed fate into destiny, you head for the beach where you meet Zlato, whose name means Gold in Croatian. You respond with your natural manner of following the alchemical sign...and end up on the nude beach. "Welcome to the Belly Button of Split Bay," says Joss. This Bare Buddha of Split tells you that you have arrived in the land of coincidences, known as The Split of 2 Cases.

This explains your repeated returns to capture the Face through the labyrinth of the Thirds...

Three times three stools await your tagging in the old neighborhood of Veli Varos.

...circling back to Wonderful World where you are now 3X "Missing Dominick", the amazing face of a holstic icon named for the patron saint of Split...

You discover Alexander from Newcastle--whose very name points you south towards Macedonia and your timeless Muse--with a trio of Aussies fondling your objet petit a d'art.

Lisa Paul Streitfeld is a Kulturindustrie theorist out to prove Adorno wrong and appropriate Lacan for the feminine. "Missing James Franco 3.0" is a collaborative multimedia project anticipating the real time Web collaboration of quantum computing.

Participate on Twitter #missingjamesfranco and www.missingjamesfranco.com

All photos copyright LPS.

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written with Peri Schwartz

This post originally appeared as an article of the same title in the August/September 2016 issue of International Artist

---

Artist Peri Schwartz has worked for several years on distinctive still-lives of colored liquids in glass containers. She recently collaborated with master printmaker Greg Burnet to create one such composition as an etching, Bottles and Jars III, which has since been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.

Bottles & Jars III, 15" x 23.75", paper size 22" x 30", print

In this article, we will discuss two topics:
1. the process through which she produced the etching
2. the etching itself as an art object
As we develop as artists, it is important to remember that, while we work hard to acquire techniques, our goal is not to know techniques. It is to make interesting art.

Several unusual terms appear in the article. The first time each one appears, it is underlined. This indicates that it appears in the glossary of terms at the end of the article.

TECHNIQUE

Printmaking as an art process ranges from the basic to the extraordinarily advanced. Schwartz's and Burnet's etching technique is a very sophisticated kind of printmaking. The step-by-step presented here is not a method the beginner can expect to follow without years of training and practice - but it does point the way toward the potential of this versatile, demanding technology.

Bottles and Jars III is a color spit bite aquatint with drypoint and sugar lift done on four copper plates.

1. Schwartz showed Burnet a monotype of a proposed composition. The monotype was used as a reference for color and composition for the etching. Schwartz traced the composition from the monotype onto a copper plate and then drew over the traced lines with a drypoint needle. Burnet took the first proof. This proof served both as the black and key plate.

Bottles & Jars 18c, monotype, 17.5" x 24.5", 2015 - this is the monotype used as a reference

Peri Schwartz adding the final stages of the drypoint to the key plate

2. Burnet prepared the plate for a process in which he specializes: spit bite etching. Spit bite etching involves use of a brush to apply dilute acid to a prepared plate. The technique has many of the characteristics of watercolor. The liquid on the copper pools in beautiful and unexpected ways. Burnet comments, "The acid I use is ferric chloride; it bites with a much better, cleaner line than nitric acid. It turns black as it bites, so with spit biting you can see where you're going against the copper color." Burnet watched Schwartz very carefully with a stopwatch as she applied the acid. He timed how long the acid sat on the plate and wiped it off when he thought the acid had "bitten" enough. "He isn't only watching the clock," Schwartz says, "He is reacting to how my brushstrokes look. It's as if I have a coach encouraging me to keep going- 'You're doing great, that's a gorgeous puddle of acid,' or, 'You need to redo that'." Burnet then cleaned the plate and took another proof. This yielded a strong black plate with beautiful tones and the composition in place.

detail of black plate with drypoint, spit bite and sugar lift

3. Work began on the second plate with tracing the composition onto the plate. Now Schwartz was only working on applying the yellow/orange parts of the image. Again, Burnet coached her on where to apply acid. At the end of the process, they were ready for another proof, combining the existing black with a new yellow pass. This same procedure was done for a red and a green/blue plate.

Greg Burnet begins one of several runs of the print through the press

4. Revision: At this point, with all the tones in place, the image was still close to the composition in the monotype. Now something about that original composition felt wrong to Schwartz. She and Greg started covering up different parts of the proofs to find new compositions and ended up eliminating the window frame from the original monotype. Burnet encouraged her to work directly on the proofs with colored pencils, making decisions on which areas needed re-etching.

5. As they got closer to finishing, Burnet asked Schwartz to go back in with a drypoint needle to define some of the shapes. He urged her to be bold, so that the final image would have strong lines to break up the tonal areas.

6. Schwartz describes completing the etching: "The image was so close to being finished and yet we both felt something wasn't right. Here is a great example of Greg's collaboration in the process. The greens were too strong in the image and were fighting the oranges and reds. We tried lightening the greens and made them more transparent. At first I liked it and then felt it looked too washed out. So Greg came up with a perfect blue - then the etching was finished."

evaluating a possible blue/green

Burnet and Schwartz examine the final proof

ART CRITICISM

Daniel Maidman here. I'd like to talk with you as an art critic for a minute - it's important to consider work from this perspective throughout the learning process. I'll explain why I like Bottles and Jars III so much.

In formal terms, the clean, minimal space it occupies gives it a modernist energy, while the distribution of related but distinct warm and cool colors from left to right provides it with a wonderful sense of rhythm. This rhythm of color is echoed by a rhythm of line - thick horizontals and thin verticals repeat at irregular intervals throughout.

I also see this body of work as a response to Giorgio Morandi's still lives. Schwartz follows the same rules Morandi does: she creates a body of work through subtle rearrangements of a limited set of containers. Morandi's largely opaque, matte-surfaced bottles and cups and pitchers convey a sense of solidity and mass. Light falls on them, but it cannot pass through. There is a sense of exclusion to Morandi's work. His rules are a willful shutting out of a chaotic world, an attempt to impose order and control by reducing the elements under consideration to a very reliable few.

Schwartz's clear liquids and containers, by contrast, transmit light. They activate white light by shattering it into brilliant color. There is a vibrating excitement to them, as if they were about to take flight. Morandi's work retreats from the world, while Schwartz's reaches toward it. Her clear jars and bottles imply daylight and scenery; we can almost but not quite see everything, just by looking at this tiny slice of it.

Neither Morandi nor Schwartz is right or wrong - their opposed perspectives are both simply material for the art to build upon. The genius of an artist animates his or her basic outlook, allowing us to step into it for a moment through the window of the art.

GLOSSARY

Aquatint
A cleaned copper plate is put in an "aquatint box": a large closed wooden box with a motorized fan. The fan distributes tiny specks of rosin evenly over the plate's surface, like a coating of dust. After the rosin dust has settled, the plate is carefully heated, melting the rosin so it can adhere to the copper just to the point that it creates little mounds. Once the plate has cooled the artist paints all the areas he wants white with a varnish. This protects those areas from being "bit" when the plate is immersed in an acid bath. The acid bites channels around the rosin droplets. This procedure is repeated several times to get a variety of tones. Only the channels will hold ink or transfer it to a print - the rosin mounds and the varnish will not. What is distinctive about an aquatint is that the artist no longer has to build up tones with lines - now he can use flat shapes for tone.

Rosin
A hard resin from pine trees that is ground into particles and used in the aquatint process as an acid resistant ground.

Spit bite etching
Rosin is applied to the plate in the same process used in an aquatint. The artist then brushes dilute acid directly onto the plate, very much like a watercolor or wash drawing. Instead of immersing the plate in an acid bath, the biting happens when the artist brushes the acid directly onto the plate. This is repeated several times to get a dark tone. The way the acid pools when it is applied to the plate is unique to this method. Unlike a traditional aquatint, the tone has variation.

Sugar lift
A complex technique involving the use of a sugar syrup, asphaltum (a sticky, heavy form of petroleum), and rosin, to enhance the darkest darks of a final etching.

Monotype
The monotype is often called "the painterly print". Schwartz uses Plexiglas and paints directly onto the surface. Dampened paper is put over the image and then run through an etching press. This transfers the ink from the plate to the paper, creating the print. Because the Plexiglas is transparent, Schwartz can trace the image on the back, add more ink to the front and run the plate through the press repeatedly until the image she visualizes is complete.

Drypoint
A technique of engraving in which a sharp diamond-pointed tool is used on a plate to produce furrows that have a burr (a raised edge). The ink gets caught in the burr and a soft and velvety line is created.

Key plate
For a composition requiring multiple plates, it is necessary to have a reference plate to work back to in all subsequent plates. This is the key plate. It sets the composition in place for each successive plate, so that they overlap cleanly and produce a clear image.

---

About Peri Schwartz

Peri Schwartz has exhibited her still lives, studio interiors and self-portraits nationally for over thirty years. Her work can be found in permanent collections throughout the United States and Europe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Library of Congress, the British Museum, the Albertina and the Staatliche Museum of Berlin. She began her studies at Boston University's School of Fine Arts, and continued on to Queens College to receive her Masters of Fine Arts. She currently lives in New Rochelle, New York.

More of her work can be found online at http://www.perischwartz.com/.

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The Statue of Liberty ― arguably the nation’s most iconic American landmark ― brings in about $180 million per year to New York City’s economy. In the most recent recorded fiscal year, off-Broadway theatre generated an estimated $535 million. So it should be surprising to learn that off-Broadway actors make less than minimum wage. Netting about $415/week after taxes, a typical 40-60 hour work week comes out to about $6-$10/hr―and that’s when a contract is in hand. As the bodies on stage driving one of NYC’s main economic and cultural engines, that doesn’t seem to measure up to the rising cost of living in the nation’s most expensive city. (For more info on the math of it all, click here).

Enter #FairWageOnstage, a campaign started by about twenty-five off-Broadway actors, who began meeting in secret of their union, to take economic justice into their own hands. The movement, which is working in tandem with Actors Equity Association (AEA), includes spokespeople Diane Davis, Kellie Overbey, Robert Stanton, and Nick Westrate, among its 1600 members. As AEA negotiates with the League of off-Broadway Theatres & Producers, the Association of Non-Profit Theatre Companies, and around 100 commercial producers, FWOS seeks to right the economic ship stalled for the last 30 years. “If you adjust for inflation, the $250 a week I made in 1985 is worth $560 a week now,” says Stanton. “Current off-Broadway minimum is $593. A flat line.”

“When you’re working,” Westrate adds, “you should be able to cover your basic expenses. It’s a job. And many people don’t think of it that way. But it’s at least 40-60 hours a week... that doesn’t include research, preparing physically, mentally―but it’s labor. You have to be there. You have to accomplish certain tasks. You’re on payroll. And we work hard. And stage managers put in even more time than we do. It’s labor. I belong to a labor union.”

For those unfamiliar with New York’s theatre scene, off-Broadway is a vibrant and bustling community of artists and audiences―don’t let “Off” fool you; this is the main event. “Off-Broadway is a destination,” says Stanton, a veteran of stage and screen. “This is where I’ve made my career for the last 30 years.” Some of the most successful and notable productions off-Broadway include Pulitzer Prize winners THE FLICK, CLYBOURNE PARK (Playwrights Horizons); NEXT TO NORMAL (Second Stage); HAMILTON, TOPDOG/UNDERDOG (The Public); RENT (NYTW); and BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY (Atlantic/Second Stage). Other lauded off-Broadway shows include the Ars Nova production of NATASHA, PIERRE, & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812; ECLIPSED, FUN HOME (The Public), SPRING AWAKENING (Atlantic), ONCE, PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (NYTW); and VENUS IN FUR (Classic Stage Company), to name a few. And yes, some of these productions have transferred to Broadway but they originated and were celebrated off-Broadway. It’s a testament to the vision of these theatres and commitment to artists that they put their resources behind such innovative and bold projects.

“The main thing that gets said back to me is why are we trying to get money from these places,” says Davis, “and do we worry about putting these companies out of business. And I would caution people to examine that point of view.” Davis points out that theatres are asking actors to subsidize them, noting that most working actors are not celebrities or independently wealthy. “We are here to be the voice that’s saying we have to fix this in order to evolve to the next level,” she continues. “And I actually think we can help them. [Producers] aren’t faceless people. These are people that I work for. I love these people. I think what we all want is for them to recognize that there is a solution here.”

Stanton agrees, adding that “a lot of these theaters are built on our backs. They’re built on cheap labor. And I think that the danger is that we’ve all been running in a fog because we all love to run. But then we’re in the open...and next thing we know it, we’re falling over a cliff. So FWOS is about saying ‘Hey look there’s a cliff,’ so no one else gets hurt. This structural change in the landscape is justice: it’s either a fence on the cliff or it’s raising the level of the ground below to make the ground even so there is no more cliff.”

Everyone I spoke with―and myself included―has accepted this mythology of being poor, of struggling, that this is part of the norm. “Poverty is not romantic,” says Overbey. “Actors and stage managers are professional tradespeople who belong to a labor union. Equity members make magic, we don’t live on it.” Westrate builds on that sentiment, adding “I think that mentality is internalized and fetishized. If your job is something you’re passionate about, you should suffer. And [FWOS doesn’t] think that’s true. We have contributed to these theatres and their multi-million dollar budgets. And were asking to be fairly compensated for this growth. We didn’t call this movement ‘As Little As You Can On Stage’ because it’s about what’s fair.” As decorated off-Broadway mainstay Deirdre O’Connell so simply puts it, “I don’t care how [producers] spend their money. All I am is a member of the labor union. And I’m here to tell you, actors cost more now.”

To really get a sense of how dire the situation is, consider that Westrate filed for bankruptcy in the summer of 2012, a few days before he won a Drama Desk Award for his work in the 2011-12 season. “I was in my fourth off-Broadway play that year; I worked back-to-back all year: Classic Stage Company, The Public, and Barrow Street. I had been out of Juilliard for six years at that point, and what I did to stay afloat on these wages was to use credit cards to supplement my income. I was working 40-60 hours a week trying to keep side jobs on my day off but I still needed to use a credit card to pay for groceries, my electric bill, sometimes rent. That was a financial gamble I made to my own future.”

Sadly, bankruptcy is not an isolated issue to actors in their 20s and 30s. It happens to actors in their 40s and 50s as well. And if you’re not independently wealthy, chances are you’re still paying off your student loans from your bachelors, masters, or even doctorate degrees. Access to off-Bway can be very expensive and holding a degree―or multiple degrees―is often your passport to entry. While that is another issue entirely, it should be noted that the most expensive MFAs leave our actors with tens of thousands of dollars of debt at minimum, sometimes reaching six figures.

OBIE winner April Matthis, whose husband is also an artist, talks about negotiating a family on an actor’s salary. “We have a son, so we have to negotiate whether it’s worth it financially/artistically to take a job when the cost of babysitting cancels out what we’ll be making. The thing is, I’m working with the most highly regarded artists in the theater, at these venerable institutions, so it’s hard to turn down the opportunity to do the work―especially when you feel so appreciated artistically. Unfortunately, it often feels like a career investment with diminishing returns, instead of compensation commensurate with my skills and experience. It’s never enough to save, and we go further into debt. It’s hard to just break even.”

“The numbers don’t lie,” says Overbey. “No one can convincingly or believably argue that at the current off-Broadway wages, Equity members are making enough money to support themselves in NYC. So then the moral question for all of us is: Is that OK?” Certainly there is a larger moral question here regarding the value we put on the arts in American culture―but while we have that conversation, the value we put on the artist needs to be decided now.

Working in the theatre must not solely be for those who have the privilege to subsidize it, otherwise the diversity of experience will be lost on our art and our audiences. And it is to them, the audience, to whom we must be most beholden: the actor is providing the most intimate service for them and our community. The actor is, to paraphrase the writer Anne Carson, sacrificing a moment of their own lives in order to give us a story of our own. And for a working-class industry that is and always will be its own “gig economy”, we must ensure that the treatment of all who participate in this important social contract are valued appropriately. The health of our theatre now and in the future depends on it.

For more info, check out www.FairWageOnStage.org.

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Sex is the manifestation of the "life force," a term coined by George Bernard Shaw though it is not clear if he ever had any--sex that is. But certainly it's the force behind creation. In the case of the human species which is burdened with consciousness, evolution has creatively offered the concept of idealization or romantic love in order to afford consummation and inevitably the prolongation of the species. So humans are wired for sex even when libidinous desire wanes and their pheromones go on the fritz. The damage has been done by the onset of senescence, but the neurogenic pathways of the brain still are wired for longing even when there are no residues of drive. It's like a huge highway which attracts little traffic due to environmental adversity, population change or both. Some older couples revert back to a kind of pre-adolescent sexuality that exhibits the innocence and charm of a high school production of Romeo and Juliet. Of course dementia can cause disinhibition and there is a percentage of the elderly population who become randy. Rape and STD's have become problems in some nursing homes. However, the majority who neither develop infatuations or cases of late onset satyriasis or nymphomania are faced with a challenge that requires the creation of a new form of passion that takes the place of physical love.

"The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli

(This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture)

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Works in the exhibition #INSTALARITY by Alonsa Guevara, Marc Trujillo, and Justin Tecson.

If you've been following my last three Huffington Post blogs, you know that I've been teaching a class related to the production and dissemination of artworks online, especially on Facebook and Instagram. Or I should say that the undergrads in my class are teaching me. Their generation grew up in a tight relationship with computer technology and have experienced an alternate existence through the glowing 'screen' that I can only vaguely fathom.

There is much skepticism amongst older generations of artists as to whether the presentation of one's works online brings anything worthwhile to an art career, and a special disdain is reserved for the idea that art can be sold through Instagram. One hears rumors of success, but looking at the low price points of art offered through Instagram one wonders how these young artists ever pull in enough cash to pay the rent. The low prices probably reflect the fact that a large percentage of an artist's 'followers' are other artists. Many of them want to collect work, but can't afford to spend more than 500 dollars to do it.

#INSTALARITY exhibition pieces by Daniel Maidman, Felicia Forte, and George Dawnay.

To my colleagues who remain skeptical I hate to inform you that I think Instagram works as a platform for successful career opportunities and even sales. Ever since I realized I would be teaching this Internet class my mind has been preoccupied with all things Instagram. I don't like the platform at all, but also realize that it is great at getting more recognition and that young artists use it as their main source of knowledge about art and the art world. Due to its popularity and its limitations I also think Instagram is changing art and the kind of work that artists produce, so I thought an exhibition that explored this idea might be intriguing.

#INSTALARITY artwork by Damian Chavez, Danny Galieote, and Michelle Doll.

I approached Q Art Salon in Santa Ana with a plan to exhibit 25 to 30 artists with an active presence on Instagram. I wanted a third of them to be Instagram 'Stars' with a zillion followers. Another third would be Old Schoolers like myself, posting regularly but a little bit like fish out of water. The final third would be students from my Making Art in the Internet Age class, highly trained representational artists who look at and use Instagram constantly, and have huge choices to make about where they want their art to go. Q Art Salon went for the idea and we titled it #INSTALARITY.

Works from #INSTALARITY by John Brosio, Dina Brodsky, and Valerie Pobjoy.

In choosing the Instagram Stars my curatorial expertise consisted of me asking the young folks I know what artists they liked on Instagram, then I went after those with the highest number of followers. What I quickly discovered was that those with over 100 thousand followers were booked solid for two years and didn't even have small works to lend. I only got one to commit. It seems that a large Instagram following does equate to exhibitions and thus to potential sales. I hear of ever more galleries that select artists because of their large social media presence. They hope to piggyback on the artists' popularity and generate business accordingly.

Works by #INSTALARITY artists Stephen Wright, Kimberly Brooks, and Nina Ulett.

In requesting works from those with 50 thousand followers or more my success rate was about fifty percent. Below that most said yes. I chose the Old Schoolers after observing their online activities over the last couple of years. Like me they post regularly now, but are slow to give up some of the cherished ideals inherent in their art educations: complexity in compositions, the tactility of paint, extreme subtlety in tone or color. These things can be lost on the little screen, where the default Instagram format is a little square of light the size of a playing card that favors centrality and symmetry, single objects or figures, complementary color choices, and strong tonal contrast.

#Instalarity works by Marc Dalessio and Zoey Frank.

This isn't to say that those artists most popular on Instagram can't or don't have it both ways. Most in this show do. But between the limitations of the format and the growing influence of social media popularity in choosing which artists fill gallery spaces, we are going to see ever more art that bears the hallmarks of the Instagram aesthetic. In pursuing their budding careers my students will have to decide how much that popular aesthetic is allowed to rule their artistic expression, and when and how to break away from the tyranny of "Likes" and the dopamine-rich adoration of thousands of followers.

#INSTALARITY runs at Q Art Salon in Santa Ana, California, from November 5 thru November 28, 2016. The artists are: @alonsaguevara, @artistkimberlyb, @charlieantolin, @damianchavezart, @danielmaidman, @dannygalieote, @dinabrodsky, @feliciaforte, @fscotthess, @georgedawnay, @gunopark, @jamesthistlethwaite, @jh_christine_lee, @johnbrosioart, @justin_tecson20, @lolagil, @marc_dalessio, @marctrujillo, @mariakreyn, @michellelynndoll, @nataliafabia, @ninaulett, @pottaytertots, @shannonfody, @stephenwrightpaintings, @valeriepeee, @visnrivera, @william_wray, @yalda_sepahpour, @zoeyfrank

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--Article Originally Published for CityLately.com, Hop On For More Art News --

Oh baby it's cold outside - it's time to start looking for things to do inside. This fall, New York has several must-see art exhibtions to boast; From Ai Weiwei's return to the city where through December he will be presenting 4 simultaneous shows around town, to the grandsons of Calder and Picasso partnering on an exhibition, there is plenty to keep you preoccupied from lamenting the passing of the seasons.

-@NanaMeriwether

Must-See Exhibitions Around Town, Fall 2016

Ai Weiwei 2016: Roots and Branches

Lisson Gallery (504 W 24th st)

(Photo Courtesy of Artnet)

Ai Weiwei's first solo show with Lisson Gallery is set to open on November 5 and will feature massive tree trunks and iron sculptures. The seven sculptures together form a forest by the Highline to help "reveal the artist's interest in tradition and contemporaneity as well as the prevalence of displacement in post-modern societies".

November 5 - December 23, 2016

Calder and Picasso

Almine Rech Gallery

(Photo courtesy of Almine Rech Gallery)

The legendary artist's grandsons have partnered to show more than 50 paintings and sculptures that presented together form a sort of dialogue between their esteemed grandfathers.

October 28 - December 17, 2016

Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion

The Met Museum

(Photo Courtesy of The Met)

Until February, 2017, The Costume Institute reveals its collection of iconic garments that work more as art forms than garments to be worn.

November 18, 2016 - February 5, 2017

Ai Weiwei: Laundromat

Jeffrey Deitch Gallery

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(Photo courtesy of nytimes.com)

An embodiment of art and activism, Ai Weiwei showing of discarded migrant clothing he picked up during his recent visits to refugee camps is certainly a statement that must be seen in person - you have until December.

November 5 - December 23, 2016

Diane Arbus In The Beginning

The Met Breuer

(Photo courtesy of the NYtimes.com)

Chronicling her first seven years of work, the show at the new Met Breuer features over 100 photographs that define Diane Arbus' signature style.

Now - November 27, 2016

Picasso's Picasso

Gagosian

(Photo Courtesy of Gagosian)

A unique collection of pieces selected by Picasso's daughter, Maya Ruiz-Picasso.

November 10 - December 17, 2016

Ai Weiwei: Roots and Branches

Mary Boone Gallery (745 5th avenue)

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(Photo Courtesy of Mary Boone Gallery)

A part of the 4 simultaneous shows he will be showing this fall, Mary Boone Gallery will present works in several mediums including lego installations, wood and porcelain by artist and human rights advocate, Ai Weiwei.

November 5 - December 23, 2016

Joel Shapiro

Dominique Levy

(Photo courtesy of Dominique Levy)

October 28, 2016 - January 7, 2017

American sculpture, Joel Shapiro's colorful wood works are on display - and seem to float in midair. Catch them uptown at Dominique Levy gallery from now until January, 2017.

Items: Is Fashion Modern?

MoMA

(Photo Courtesy of MoMA.org)

"Items: Is Fashion Modern? explores the present, past, and future of 99 items--garments, accessories, and accoutrements--that have had a strong impact on history and society in the 20th and 21st centuries, and continue to hold currency today."

Ernesto Neto: The Serpent's Energy Gave Birth To Humanity

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

Photo courtesy of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter

MoMA

Photo courtesy of MoMA.org

Through January 22, 2017

"For over 60 million persons in the world today, shelter is defined through constant movement or escape. Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter explores the ways in which contemporary architecture and design have addressed notions of shelter in light of global refugee emergencies. From the strengthening of international borders to the logistics of mobile housing systems, how we understand shelter is ultimately defined through an engagement with security."

New York At Its Core

Museum of the City of New York

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Photo courtesy of mcny.org

Via the presentation of over 400 objects, view how New York transformed from a small Dutch village to the world's capital.

Opens November 18, 2016

Agnes Martin

Guggenheim Museum

2016-11-03-1478190188-1073162-installationsrgmagnesmartinph015300x169.jpg

Photo Courtesy of Guggenheim Museum

Indulge in the minimalism that is Agnes Martin - encounter Martin's serene paintings from now until January, 2017.

MPA: Red In View

The Whitney Museum

Photo courtesy of The Whitney Museum

November 11, 2016 - February 27, 2017

"Since relocating to California's Mojave desert in 2013, artist MPA (b. 1980; Redding, CA) has been immersed in a broad inquiry into the potential colonization of Mars, often known as the red planet. In this multi-part exhibition the artist looks at Mars as a place for settlement and a resource for our own planet, as well as a site of possible human origin."

Porcelain, No Simple Matter: Arlene Shechet and the Arnhold Collection

The Frick Collection

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Photo Courtesy of Nytimes.com

May 24, 2016 to April 2, 2017

'The Frick presents a year-long exhibition exploring the complex history of making, collecting, and displaying porcelain.'

Follow Nana Meriwether on Instagram: @NanaMeriwether
www.CityLately.com

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Swiss artist Jean Tinguely's sculptures always have an acoustic dimension, which was consciously composed and balanced by Tinguely as part of the works. They generate noises, sounds, and apparently random music. This musical side reached a climax with the four Méta-Harmonie music machines between 1978 and 1985. The exhibition Music Machines / Machine Music provides the unique opportunity to experience these large-scale and versatile sound boxes, which are at home in Karuizawa (Japan), Vienna, and Basel, in dialog with one another.

The four artworks form the stage for a broadly defined program of events and concerts devoted to the theme of mechanical music, which includes artists such as Zimoun, Bianca Hildenbrand, Eliza Coolidge, Timothy Severo, Thom Luz and others. This video has its focus on Jean Tinguely's four Méta-Harmonie music machines.

Jean Tinguely: Pandämonium No. 1 - Méta-Harmonie III, 1984.

For more videos covering contemporary art and architecture, go to VernissageTV.

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Seduction - or the game play behind seduction and betrayal - is the hallmark of the Broadway revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, now at the Booth Theater. Set in 1780s France, it focuses on two main characters -- Le Marquise (a noteworthy Janet McTeer) and Valmont (Live Schreiber) -- who treat love and passion as sport.

Affairs are de rigueur in their set - and they approach such unions with chess-like stealth. It's all about the endgame. In the case of Le Marquise, she wants vengeance on a former suitor, so she enlists Valmont to seduce his fiancé, Madame de Tourvel (Birgitte Hjort Sorensen).

Such machinations are child's play to the skilled duo; both Le Marquise and Valmont hunt their respective prey with charm, though Valmont is more predator than romancer with the virginal Celile (Elena Kampouris).

Then again, the destruction of others in pursuit of singular aims is what gives the play its sinister quality. The problem: director Josie Rourke's version lacks a sense of menace evident in earlier productions.

Indeed, the Broadway vets bring star power to their roles, but the nasty pleasure the two exact isn't equally calibrated. That doesn't negate the pleasure of watching McTeer glide into a room. She can attract attention with a simple hand gesture.

Schrieber is an earthlier actor. The two embrace different techniques, which means their chemistry is a bit off. That's important, because the close friends and past lovers are working the game from all angles. For them, all sexual politics is personal.

On the plus side are Michael Bruce's music, a haunting set by Tom Scutt and a sound supporting cast. Les Liaisons Dangereuses is about the arrogance and presumed privilege of the ruling class -- and the dangers it wreaks. In short, it's timeless.

Mozart was equally intrigued by the libertine sins of the rich, and one of his greatest operas, Don Giovanni, based on Don Juan, addresses the issues with comedy, melodrama and a dollop of the supernatural.

For a limited run this weekend, VP Productions has staged an impressive Don Giovanni at The Sheen Center in Greenwich Village. It's an ideal venue for the show, which boasts a swagger Claudio Mascarenhas as the decadent, murderous nobleman, who plays his part to perfection.

So do the women he casually seduces. Donna Anna (Roseanna Ackerley), Donna Elvira (Viktoriya Koreneva) and Zerlina (Emma Lavandier), combine excellent voices with spot-on performances. (Various singers perform on different days.)

Leporello (Charles Gray), Giovanni's hapless servant, is an able foil to his master's excesses.

Vocal Productions is a unique company that gives young opera singers a chance to develop their repertoires. Led by artistic director Valentin Peytchinov, a principal artist for the Metropolitan Opera, VP champions global talent and nontraditional casting.

This intimate production employs projections as set designs, with translations screened on the back wall. VP's Don Giovanni is entertaining and engaging; it boasts talent that is a pleasure to watch, aided by an accomplished orchestra.

Keep an eye on VP's upcoming 2017 season: Faust and Messa da Requiem. It should be on every opera lover's list. (vocal productionsnyc.org)

Photo: Joan Marcus

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Prologue

I received an email from a connection in the art world, putting me in touch with the organization of an artist in Brussels. His staff was assembling a group of journalists to write about his gigantic solo show opening at the State Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg. They wondered whether I might be interested in flying to Russia to see the show.

This account draws on a knowledge of its subject matter so partial as to make the entire text extremely untrustworthy. And yet its subject is art, and a thing I have noticed after many years of making art and thinking about art is that nobody really knows anything about it. Many people are respected as authorities on the subject, but most of these authorities have simply asserted their claims long and loud enough that the crowd eventually shrugged its shoulders and went along. So I don't see why I shouldn't make my claim as well.

This is the first of several articles on the subject. I found I had a lot to say.

Genius Factory

When I was little, a rabbi explained his idea of genius to me: it is that quality of mind wherein the genius carries in his head an entire universe. This internal universe is active, and works in such detail as to have useful things to say about the external universe. The rabbi cited Einstein's thought experiments through which he worked out the principles of general relativity.

This rabbi's idea is closely linked to a concept which I think I have from Borges, although I can't find it now, and am beginning to suspect it comes from somebody else. It is that a successful genius is somebody whose magnificent internal universe intersects sufficiently with the universe all people understand that it can merge with it, and change its course. The unsuccessful genius appears too early, or too late, and the intersection is not broad enough to allow a merging of the two universes.

Jorge Luis Borges in 1976

It is no secret that the art world is worshipful of a quantity it calls genius, and seeks people in whom this quality inheres, in order to extract their product and shower them with praise and rewards. This bias seems to me most pronounced in the strange trans-national sector, where a rolling party of fairs, biennials, and state and museum events occupies an elite community of artists and clientele. The quality of genius most in demand is not that the artist should have a magnificent internal universe, nor that that universe should be capable of changing our own, but that the region of intersection between the two should be narrow and tenuous. The peephole through which we viewers gaze into the artist's internal universe should be dim and filmy, rendering that alien universe mysterious and numinous. The art must be heavy with portent and implication; it must have a blank and startling quality. To fill the vast exhibition spaces of the trans-national scene, this art is going to have to be quite large, larger than any one set of hands can manufacture, and at this suprahuman scale, it must be able to stake its assertions of merit without immediately prompting laughter. Therefore it must be rich in the quality of genius.

These formal demands have turned the entire art world, and the trans-national scene in particular, into a genius factory. The proving method used to gain entry into this factory was outlined by André Breton in 1924:

Recently I suggested that as far as is feasible one should manufacture some of the articles one meets only in dreams, articles which are as hard to justify on the ground of utility as on that of pleasure. Thus the other night during sleep, I found myself at an open-air market in the neighbourhood of Saint-Malo and came upon a rather unusual book. Its back consisted of a wooden gnome whose white Assyrian beard reached to his feet. Although the statuette was of a normal thickness, there was no difficulty in turning the book's pages of thick black wool. I hastened to buy it, and when I woke up I was sorry not to find it beside me. It would be comparatively easy to manufacture it. I want to have a few articles of the same kind made, as their effect would be distinctly puzzling and disturbing.

- p. 105, A Book of Surrealist Games, Brotchie/Gooding

André Breton in 1923

The artist with the audacity to create a Breton dream-object, and the talent to do it well enough, may be accepted into the trans-national sector, where a wealthy funding community covers the tremendous expenses of industrial-scale art studios. Once an artist has gained entry into this circuit, he faces a second challenge, which undoes most of the few survivors of the first round of selection: that of over-resourcing.

Some years ago, I read a compilation of responses from famous movie directors to the question, "What would you do with an unlimited production budget?" There were many movie proposals, but only two answers of fundamental interest:

1. "I could not work under such conditions."

2. "I would make a movie called The Yellow River, which would be physically as long as the Yellow River." [to clarify, the Yellow River is 3,395 miles long, and the director was referring to 35 mm film, which has a length of about 1.02 miles per hour of playing time]

The first answer is the barrier which undoes many artists who have gotten through the door. They cannot make work with the resources provided and the scale demanded. They undergo explosive decompression. These are the flashes in the pan who get a ton of press for a season or two, and five years later, nobody has ever heard of them.

The second answer is the kind of answer the genius factory demands. There is something bracing and uncanny about it. It is overwhelmingly large, and makes a simple and enigmatic identification of linked but different entities: it is a map as large as its territory. This answer is an answer of genius.

As far as style goes, there are three key elements to this rarified kind of art. The first is that it should be conceptual. The second is that it should be surreal. And the third is that it should be industrial. Many hands may labor to make each object, but each object should provide false evidence that it comes from a world where these objects are common, and even machine-made. They are like those upsettingly heavy metal cones from Borges's Tlön, fragments of imaginary worlds gradually undermining the real one.

An Invitation to Saint Petersburg

The trans-nationals have the resources to pluck a writer from New York, transport him to Saint Petersburg for one day, and then whirl him back. Clearly, though, it would be terribly ungracious to accept such a junket and then write a bad review. For my part, the proposal was very appealing, but I was not about to sell my soul for it. I won't write well of something I don't like. I had not previously had contact with this elusive sector, and did not know the art or thought of the artist in question, Jan Fabre. He is a Belgian, born in 1958, the first living artist to have a solo show at the Louvre, which led to his invitation to install the much larger show at the Hermitage which I was under consideration to go see.

So I looked up Mr. Fabre to see if I was open to his work. To my ear, my description of his sector sounds a little cynical. But all circumstances in this world of scarcity are merely tools, and tools are largely neutral. Good artists make use of whatever they can lay hands on, and good art is everywhere.

A sculpture from 1998 aptly sums up why I ultimately decided in favor:

The Man Who Measures Clouds

This is something I can speak to, and which speaks to me. It has an ontological surrealism which is very sympathetic with my way of thinking. Wistful and bittersweet, it is a monument to the human need to quantify and to understand, even when such efforts are inapplicable - when the scales of reference are incommensurate, when the measurement is useless, when the thing to be measured is so ephemeral that it can scarcely be defined. This is a monument to this yearning, to the melancholy of its failure, the joy of its attempt. As Fabre chooses to photograph his sculpture here, Man is tiny, as indeed he is, but his gesture is profound. His gesture - his reason - and not his stature, makes him the measure of all things. There is a region of intersection between Fabre's universe and my own.

I accepted the invitation and flew to Russia.

To be continued.

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Wake up, America, before you vote for Trump. Let’s talk about what it’s like growing up and living in Donald Trump’s #nastywoman #pussy-grabbing rape culture world of put-downs. And what it means for our kids.

Twitter queen, Kelly Oxford, asked women to share stories about their first assaults, the New York Times reported. After all social media was tallied, she received 27 million –that’s MILLION -- responses in one weekend. We girls know all about Trump’s pussy-grabbing.

The Trump candidacy has drawn women out of the rape culture shadows to tell their stories. Objectifying women makes harassment, abuse, humiliation, and rape possible. “Women, you have to treat ‘em like shit,” the GOP nominee once bragged in a New York magazine article.

I cringe. Do I really have to share my stories too?

In solidarity with my brave sisters who have spoken up, I do. I know I do, but I don’t want to. I have decades worth of #pussy-grabbing stories like most women living in the locker room rape culture Trump embodies. It’s not fun. Society has groomed us to remain silent, and we have obliged like obedient pets.

A Donald Trump presidency would not only normalize but elevate rape culture. How could we live with ourselves if we did not make every effort to stop this man from holding the most high profile, powerful position in the world? Every little boy empowered to call a girl a disgusting animal by Trump’s example would remind us we did not do enough.

I share my stories so a reinvigorated rape culture mentality does not befall today’s girls and boys like it did me. Perhaps I can prevail upon at least some of their parents not to vote for Trump.

To be clear, I’m voting for Hillary because she is more than qualified. I’m with Louie CK when he says “I think she’s great. I think she’s really talented. I think she’s super smart. And I think she’s done this forever. I would take her over anybody.”

2016-11-05-1478376024-3070092-PussyPaintingwithcopyright.jpg

(oil and broken mirror on canvas, 36 ins. x 48 ins., by the author)

Keep in mind that voting for Hillary because one is not voting for Trump is also a very good option. Many prominent Republicans have disassociated themselves from Trump, and are voting for Hillary. Pulitzer Prize winning conservative jounalist George Will, for one, has broadcast his disdain for a Trump presidency.

Your vote for Hillary – for whatever reason – strengthens our anthem that we will not tolerate the subjugation of our girls’ spirits, and the defiling of our boys’ minds in Trump’s rape culture, depraved reality. Also, a man who has exhibited petulant, childish behavior on his Twitter feed at 3 AM is not someone we trust with US nuclear codes.

Treat ‘em like shit. As little girls of the fifties and sixties we were inundated with media that told us where our place was -- behind a man’s desires and ambitions. In typical patriarchal households girls learned that the man is the boss.

Some women are still diminishing themselves in a man’s world like the one Trump inhabits. They justify, overlook and make excuses every time he degrades women, which is often and longstanding. This is no surprise. Softening Trump’s vulgarity might just feel normal for a lot of women. Middle-aged women have been conditioned to smile, shut up, take it, and say nothing their whole lives. And many are doing it now when they make excuses for Trump.

Writer June Keith shared her first abuse experience in her blog post, Shame and What I Wore. In fifth grade her dance partner rubbed his hand in circles around her flat chest. She conducted a survey for a day asking every woman she saw about the first time she was sexually bullied/abused. Every woman remembered, and not one woman told anyone. Yep. Me too. And I also said nothing. Many times I said nothing.

In a New York Times article, artist Jill Gallenstein perfectly sums up the zeitgeist that empowers some men to denigrate women, from catcalling to physical assault. “This is RAPE CULTURE — the cultural conditioning of men and boys to feel entitled to treat women as objects.”

I must have been 12 or 13. I don’t remember having breasts yet. A boy I knew tried to lure me to his mattress in the woods. He failed. I was scared. I knew he wanted sex without knowing sex. I thought danger. What did I do to make this happen?

Still in grade school, I was at a wedding. My grandmother said, “I kept my eye on you.” A wedding guest was “watching you all night.” I was being stalked. My grandmother’s anxiety scared me the most. My young mind did not think sex. I thought danger. What did I do to put myself in danger?

My father owned a machine shop. Sometimes I would be at his work and have to walk through the shop trailing my dad because I was with him for the day. The employees made sure I could hear their mutterings but my dad could not. “Bet she hasn’t been screwed yet,” the walk of torment and shame for being female. My father would never have put me through it had he known. I was young. I never said anything.

My dad objectified women with the best of them. He was very much a part of the 1950s misogynist culture but not in his personal life, not with his daughters. He saw us as intelligent, strong individuals who could do anything, and told us often. As helpers we were expected to know the toolbox, and pass the instruments like surgical nurses for whatever job he was doing. In his mind he wasn’t a woman’s libber, but he sure was in the way he treated his daughters. He just wanted his tools, and he expected us to be competent helpers. More than once he sent the 17-year-old me in the company truck to pick up parts in Camden, NJ, deemed one of the most dangerous cities in the US. I guess he thought I could handle myself just fine. I did because I was expected to return with the parts – no ifs, ands, or buts. And if I had to take on a badass demeanor to do the errand, I did. There was the time my sisters and I had to help him load a 22’ rental truck for his move to Florida, piano and all. We were not objectified woman. We were his very capable children. We were people he respected.

Yet, I saw the titty and ass girlie calendar hanging in my father’s office, pictures of female limbs creatively contorted every month for the sole purpose of arousing men. Titty and ass, an expression I abided so often, I don’t remember the first time I heard it. In the 1960s it was not uncommon to encounter these pictures in male-dominated workplaces. I had to pretend it was OK because men were the bosses.

My father would not have been pleased if his daughters jiggled their booties and draped their breasts in garland as Miss December, or spread their legs for titillating cunt close-ups in Playboy magazine.

How would my father have felt if my twenty-something self had told him that his married business partner made a pass at me? He said, “If I had known you were that kind of girl, I would have gotten to you a lot sooner.” What did I do to give that impression - nervously laugh at some stupid, sexist joke, maybe? This man knew my parents from before I was born. Men put lascivious girlie calendars in offices. And objectified girls like me did not know what to say or do about it.

My father loved his children dearly. He told me once that he would have given his life to save mine. He never made the connection that other men’s daughters were just as precious to their fathers as his were to him. And that is how rape culture continues.

The list in this piece is just what I jotted down in 5 minutes after deciding to write it. Any woman would tell you that my experiences are typical. There’s more. There's always more.

A year and two days apart in age, my brother and I grew up like fraternal twins. He roused me from a deep sleep one early morning, and insisted I go out to play. Play. We were young enough that we still used the word play with each other. I grumbled and finally capitulated. As I got out of bed I saw him and a bunch of his friends smashing their faces against the window trying to catch a glimpse of me getting undressed. We were all so young. They weren’t even savvy enough to try and hide to cop a look. I just thought my brother was a jerk, and went back to bed. I rolled my eyes and starting thinking of ways to get back at him. We did our fair share of serious living room wrestling, and beating each other up. I even stabbed him with a pencil once, which he never let me forget.

Today I see that my brother was just as conditioned in the 1950s-60s rape culture to be a man as I was to shut up and take it. Society legitimized his thought that he could act out against his sister, albeit naively. (Although I never put up with anything from my brother. I never shied away from a dare, a race or even a fistfight if our parents weren’t looking. ) But he saw the girlie calendars too as a kid. What was he supposed to think as a boy in a culture that objectified girls?

I was crossing a busy city street with a co-worker. A bunch of guys said something lewd as we passed by in the middle of the crosswalk. My beautiful, statuesque, confident friend, Helen McKenna, did a quick about-face and started chasing the guys, “Are you talking to me? ARE YOU TALKING TO ME!” The guys high-tailed out of there. I really admired her. She said and did what most women wanted to when being harassed.

Riding a crowded subway, a man rubbed up next to me and squeezed my buttocks. I was 19. Pretty normal occurrence for women. Unfortunately.

That same year I was walking home about 3 AM. The Metro had stopped running. My friend and I had to split up to get to our respective apartments. I had a short distance to walk by myself. We were too poor to get a cab, or so we told ourselves. Keep your judgment to yourselves. It was 1974. I was young, invincible, and the world was mine for the taking. And like most 19 year olds, I thought I could do anything even walk home alone late at night. The predator appeared and saddled up next to me. I cajoled him for a few blocks to buy time to get closer to my apartment building. He played along. He didn’t believe me when I said I was home. But he sensed a shift in me. Perhaps he thought I was scheming some kind of getaway. His eyes widened and gleamed like a hungry dog licking its lips in anticipation of raw flesh. Women know the look. I smiled and calmly entered the building, then bolted like a sprinter off the starting block, up 7, 8, or was it 10 floors? Two steps at a time. He was doing the same but I had a head start and was faster. I had to steady my shaking hand to get the key in the lock. I did. I locked the heavy steel door behind me, stilled my breath, and put my ear to the door. I could hear him in the stairwell. He paused. He could no longer hear me running. He was out-of-breath on one side of the door not exactly sure which door I had entered; I, on the other. I sighed and relaxed my shoulders when I heard footsteps descending. I wasn’t raped but came as close to it as a woman can get. Oh I deserved it for being so stupid because I was out at 3 AM? Why not robbed? Why is it always rape, rape, rape?

An adult relative touched my breast. I was in my twenties. I thought, ”Did that just happen. No. That didn’t happen. No. Really?” I pretended I didn’t notice and told no one.

Then something wonderful happened that made me think I could help change the rape culture that Mr. Trump now champions.

I gave birth to sons.

I was in control. As their mother I knew that my power to define female for them would preempt society’s rape culture script. In our house, we referred to their female pediatrician as doctor. NOT female doctor. My husband is a chef. He naturally did the cooking because he is good at it. I got the tool belt for Christmas. All those years handing my dad tools made me a better fixer-upper. We did not have gender-defined roles.

In 32 years our boys have never once heard their father demean me, call me or any woman cunt, bitch, slut, whore, pussy, slob, pig, cow, dog, disgusting animal even when their father and I have had serious disagreements. Never. Mr. Trump is quoted as having said those things about and to women.

There is so much more. There is always more. I went on an interview for a flight attendant job – stewardesses we called them in the 1970s. I was reprimanded for being one pound over the maximum weight, 5’9”, 141 pounds. (I unwittingly told the interviewer I really wanted to be a writer. I wasn’t a good liar. Never got the job that I didn’t really want anyway.)

Never passed a construction site without being evaluated or hissed at by the crew.

There are stories about neighbors. It goes on and on. Women learn not to make eye contact when walking down the street. I started to believe that in the outside world, I was just going to be a piece of ass. Pussy power is a thing. But it wasn’t any kind of power I ever wanted. I was not interested in manipulating anybody for anything. If I was friendly and engaging, I was coming on to a man. If I was reserved and quiet, I was a standoffish bitch. I started not to care, and dropped out at 29.

Kudos to the sweet boys turned feminist men who rose above the sexist indoctrination that little boys and girls of the 20^th Century were subjected to, but would have none of it. I’ve known a few and adored them. I married one.

(Btw, anybody – male or female -- who wants their mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, colleagues to be able to go through life without harassment for living while female is a feminist. Period. )

Yes, Donald Trump’s misogyny disqualifies him for the office of President of the United States. We need evaluate no further.

Please share this article and your own #pussy #rapeculture stories with every person considering voting for Trump. Many will make excuses for his behavior. That’s Rape Culture 101. But try to get through anyway. Our children’s future depends on it.

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It never ceases to amaze me how many actors and voice talent claim they don't watch television or even own a TV. I find this odd. It's like saying, "I want to break into film, but I've never seen a movie."

Seriously?

Considering television and film have all but merged today, not studying the medium you intend to work in reads as if you expect the industry to be more interested in you than you are in it. Besides, it honestly, truly, and deeply, is in fact the Golden Age of Television. You can't say, "There's nothing worth watching on." And I can prove it.

Even if you're a bone fide cable-cutter, there's no way you can refute the remarkable writing, performances and production values of some of the best TV has to offer today. We've never had this much remarkable content to contend with, even if you don't own a proper tellie and you're watching from your tablet or laptop.

If you want to be in commercials, you have to watch commercials. Good ones! Same theory applies to television. (And, yes, for the record, it's considered TV, even if it's on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon.) If you hope to work in the medium, you must expose yourself to it. Ideally, the very best of it.

Just in case you need a little help as to which direction to turn, here are just a handful of today's very best efforts.

20 Shows To Watch (& Study):
1. Better Call Saul (AMC) The Breaking Bad prequel that rivals most shows. Period.
2. Empire (FOX) New York Times calls it "Godfather meets King Lear". Well put. (There's a nod to the Scottish play in there as well, only waaaay more up-to-date.)
3. Game of Thrones (HBO) #1 show on the planet for the 5th year. It's flat out amazing.
4. Silicon Valley (HBO) This is in fact the world we live in, even if we don't live in Silicon Valley.
5. Playing House (USA Network) Hilariously funny, smart, surprising.
6. Orphan Black (BBC America) Suspenseful, intense, addicting.
7. Jessica Jones (Netflix HD) An elevated Marvel comics offspring. Smart and cool.
8. Transparent (CW) Discover where all the Golden Globes went. Brilliant.
9. Westworld (HBO) Suspenseful, intriguing, well-crafted. Great stuff!
10. Mr. Robot (USA Network) Hello, Reality. (I shudder to think.)
11. Atlanta (FX) Clever, honest, comedy meets pathos and they have a beautiful child.
12. This Is Us (NBC) Real. Relatable. Ironic.
13. The Americans (FX) Recently canceled. HUGE mistake. It's extraordinary and should continue. You be the judge.
14. Man Seeks Woman (FXX) This show falls under "Lighten Up Already". It's hilarious!
15. Broad City (Comedy Central) Chicks are too funny!
16. Orange Is The New Black (Netflix) And it keeps getting better. GREAT ensemble!
17. The Night Of (HBO) Creepy, suspenseful goodness.
18. And Then There Were None (Lifetime) Originally aired on BBC, this Agatha Christie adaptation will keep you guessing.
19. VEEP (HBO) This thing just keeps getting better and better.
20. The Andy Griffith Show (Netflix) Humor me. It's better than popcorn. I smell a pie in the oven... great escape any time.

Could I come up with more? Absolutely. Just get on with it already.

I totally understand. You've been meaning to watch (fill in the blank here), but you "want to start from the beginning"? Give it up. You'll never see it at that rate.

To be honest, I don't think I ever became fully invested in a show from the very beginning. Maybe when I was a kid. But even with The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones I started watching somewhere in the middle to end of the 2nd season or so. Same with The Walking Dead, Mad Men and Downton Abbey. I didn't start from the beginning on any of them. I doubled back after became fully invested in the series.

So, just as an experiment, give that a try. Start somewhere around the 2nd or 3rd episode from the end of the 2nd season, or maybe even mid-way through the 3rd season. I dare you to watch 6 consecutive episodes. Maybe 7. Then it's not as overwhelming as attempting to start watching a show from the very beginning, and less of a commitment, too. No pressure. Once you're in--you're in. If not, at least you'll have a better idea of what the tone of the show is, the banter of the speech, the character and plot twists. All those iconic elements become a frame of reference for future auditions and direction.

Hopefully you'll discover something new and exciting. If nothing else, you might learn something, feed your soul, and fill the gap that is your ordinary everyday.

Worth a try.

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Antonio Petracca, Sleep With the Fishes (2007), oil on canvas on wood, 30 x 32 x 1 inches

Antonio Petracca's art addresses the cultural, visual, political and systemic aspects of the preconceived opinion. In his earliest days exhibiting in New York, Petracca investigated our general understanding of visual perception, and how that related to architectural elements utilizing slivers and fragments of the periphery. Memory plays an important role in his art, as the stories he told conveyed incomplete vistas that had a depth of representation that was oddly rich and wholly compelling. Everything you needed to complete the narrative was there, all you had to do was think about what you were looking at - then make connections between what you were experiencing with the artist's work with what you experienced in your own lifelong journey. These were in essence, incredibly successful 'interactive' conversations between the artist and the viewer.

Petracca has since gone through a number of changes that have been prompted by tragedy and travel. Recently I had the opportunity to ask him a few questions in an attempt to get a little deeper into his thoughts and intentions.

DDL: For obvious reasons, the paintings you did of the aftermath and ensuing months of The World Trade Center tragedy are the most emotionally compelling paintings based on visual fragments. This particular series culminated in an exhibition at Kim Foster Gallery titled Forecast: Sunny & Clear High in the Low 80s, a title that is an obvious reference to the pristine weather of that tragic September morning. I suspect you chose this title as most everyone's experience that day was made more Surreal by the ideal weather in the North East. You were and still are living right next to ground zero. You have seen and felt the tragedy and transition first hand and I imagine your paintings and photographs of that period have given you a way to personally cope with the overwhelming complexity of emotions you once felt and do still feel.

Antonio Petracca, Forcast: Sunny and Clear, High in the Low 80's (2002), oil on canvas on wood, wood ceiling molding, aluminum sheeting, 72 x 11 x 6 inches

AP: Yes, the art did help me cope. I needed to get it out, but it took a few months to do anything art related. When I was able to respond, my approach changed from concentrating on what is "not revealed" in my pictorial space to what is "not there" after 9/11. It was the first time I was desperate to add information. Access to the area was denied by the authorities, which were backed by thousands of army and marine troops. The general population, me included, had restricted movement. I climbed trees, stood on fences, tried to enter buildings. It turned out that the little first hand visual information I was able to get did lead me to my eventual artistic and philosophical direction in the development of this work.

In addition to the emotional trauma from witnessing falling bodies and the toppling of the towers, my neighborhood also suffered extensive physical damage. It was dangerous to be there. Two weeks after 9/11, we were allowed to enter our apartment under armed guard to retrieve useable objects, clothes and valuables. The time allotted was only twenty minutes. I did manage to retrieve a good amount of necessaries, however, as my wife has often reminded me, they were the "wrong" necessaries and valuables! It's the one thing we were able to laugh about.

But first I'd like to step backward in time, Dom. I'm an MFA graduate from the Rochester Institute of Technology, which at the time, was a multi-universe of Schools from Fine and Applied arts to Photography, American Craft, Printing Technology, Engineering. It also housed the pioneering National Technical Institute for the Deaf. During my matriculation, RIT was centered in Downtown Rochester NY, which was experiencing awful civil strife. One of the first major civil rights race riots in the modern era happened there in '63. I was a freshman. You could say I inadvertently became part of an intense, cross-pollinated, educational, social and political experiment. I believe my witnessing of, and involvement in these events helped me to grapple with the effects of 9/11 in my work.

Antonio Petracca, Delaware River Route 17, Fast Glance (1999), oil on wood construction, 14 x 22 x 11 inches

DDL: The works you did the half decade or so before the 9/11 series had many locations: Italy, France, various locations here in the U.S.. These paintings were more like transient snapshots that recorded, at times, what was directly in front of you. With works like Delaware River Route 17, Fast Glance (1999), Doge's Palace (1996) or White Cloud Temple (1998) you reference the passages in the periphery. Add to this, the way in which you construct these works as extra-dimensional or angled surfaces with the occasional architectural element and you end up with a very compelling and challenging statement about perception. In a very tangible way, you are reorienting time and space away from the linear and bending it back on itself.

Antonio Petracca, White CLoud Temple (1998), wood molding, oil on canvas attached to wood and screws, 72 x 12 inches

AP: The late eighties and nineties were a fertile period for me. Einstein's theories, although I don't completely understand them, and travel, had a considerable influence on how I perceived the physical world. I had never been outside the U.S. except for Canada until I reached my middle thirties. Suddenly, my isolated environment mushroomed out to experience cultures and places totally foreign to me. I imagined emerging from a wormhole into a new contextual world full of wonder and mystery. These thoughts were literally, as you mentioned, folding back on me at breakneck speed. Befuddled and astonished, questions were quickly infiltrating my brain, pop, pop, pop. What is the Eiffel Tower, Stonehenge, Venice or the Forbidden City all about? Do these places or structures affect one's identity? How does time affect the relationship between a culture and its identification with these icons? Why does movement, altitude and distance affect recognition and or reverence for a particular object or place? It dawned on me that three-dimensional space, travel and time were always interconnected and that I could devise a framework to use these principles together in addressing my new found awareness of these complex issues.

This was not particularly new terrain but it was very new to me. I realized the success or failure of this work hinged on achieving a balance between perception and reality. But how was this to be achieved? My answer would have to occupy a space to work in - a middle ground between perceived perfection and overt incorrectness or sloppiness. I avoided the use of museum style artifice, perfect technique and text-based signifiers. The work should be volumetric and illusionistic.

Antonio Petracca, Doge's Palace (1996), oil on wood box construction, 40 x 4 x 4 inches

Although part of each piece was painted in a fuzzy representational manner, these were not paintings. For lack of a better term, I called them "constructions". Some were in the shape of chevrons, jutting out from the wall at tilted angles. Other works were comprised of diagonal, three-dimensional structures, seemingly javelined into the wall. Still others were elongated, slim rectangles that had more depth than width. Almost all of these works were constructed from found material discarded by apartment dwellers or businesses. I incorporated imperfections that were present in these collected materials and often "created" my own mistakes. It was my feeling that this approach would allow the viewer to enter the work without being encumbered by shiny, machine like perfection, a style often used by artists at the time for the purpose of misdirection.

DDL: After looking over the catalog for your exhibition Identity Theft, which was curated by Maria Cocchiarelli for the Italian American Museum in New York City, you point out in one answer to a question in Cocchiarelli's catalog essay "how stereotypes rob a culture of its uniqueness." A good portion of your art, especially after your pilgrimage to Pompeii in 2005, speaks volumes about the slings and arrows an Italian American is victim to - prejudices spawned by modern and contemporary 'entertainment' and popular culture that continually portrays Italian Americans as "playing gangsters and buffoons", as pointed out by Dr. Marianne Berardi's in her essay for the same exhibition. Can you talk a little bit about how you address these personal struggles in your work?

Antonio Petracca, Sopranono (2004), oil on canvas attached to three joined wood panels, 38 x 33 x 1.5 inches

AP: 9/11 re-sensitized me to bigotry and fear. I became a walking poster for America, wearing a bandana of the American Flag around my neck or forehead. I was deeply impressed by the way New Yorkers and the rest of the country came together to heal, rebuild and defend. My exhibition, Sunny and Clear was an outgrowth of my feelings at the time. But after a while I recognized how much of America started to turn on people of Muslim and Middle Eastern descent and at times attacking other groups like Asians of Indian descent. Long suppressed memories flooded back into my awareness.

I had flash backs of local authorities threatening to take the younger children away from my parents unless they wore more clothes on the hot days of summer in our own back yard. It's incredible when you think about how my father was looked at by other men he worked with because he was of Italian descent. In my teens, I too had problems in high school being harassed by other students. Negative slurs were thrown at me at me from time to time. My brothers, sisters and I couldn't put a face on it at the time but it deeply affected us later when we understood more fully why we were singled out.

My father was born in Palermo, Sicily. He came to the U. S. when he was four years old with his mother, brother and sister. He was dark and handsome, just like the stereotype. My family endured horrific hardships upon their arrival here, but most Sicilians had similar stories to tell. Additionally, I was born on June 6, 1945; not a good year if you were born into an Italian-American family.

My first visit to Italy was wonderful, but scary. These European Italians acted differently than the ones back home largely because they were totally comfortable in their own skin. It was intimidating at first. But after a few trips to Italy, I realized why the Italians were special. They were a people possessed of great invention, power and creativity. The Romans were the greatest power on earth for a thousand years, forever changing western civilization as we know it. After the fall of Rome many nations and peoples split the empire into a multitude of city-states that changed allegiance, or were conquered for over 600 yrs. The Italians knew and lived history more than most people ever had. They had become a people molded by many cultures and beliefs.

Antonio Petracca, Villa of the Mysteries (20060, oil on canvas affixed to plywood, 36 x 48 x 2 inches

When movies, literature and TV started regularly portraying Italian Americans as gangsters, grifters, bimbettes and spaghetti eating tribes ruled by overweight mothers, I was old enough to say; "Hey wait a minute, that's not us!".

And then there is the ancient city of Pompeii, buried by volcanic ash for almost two millennia. It hit me hard! Why hadn't I, and my fellow Italian-Americans know about the greatness of our ancestors? Why did I feel unconfident and uncomfortable in MY own skin?

The answer was so obvious. Bigotry, fear, pop culture, but most of all, U.S. immigration policies had robbed us of our heritage. America shut down its borders to Southern Europeans in 1924 to a slow trickle. Almost half of the Italian immigrants left the U.S. never to return.

Antonio Petracca, Pompeii Mural Tagged (2008), oil on canvas affixed to wood, 34 x 44 x 1.5 inches

I know how to address these issues. It has to be accomplished by contrasting the stereotypes of Italian-Americans with the splendor of the ruins of Pompeii. Hence the work and the title: Identity Theft, a series that was the outgrowth of work I had exhibited previously at Kim Foster Gallery called Pompeii Tagged.

DDL: Thank you for your time Tony. I'm sure your words will touch many who have felt and experienced similar narrow-mindedness and bias regardless of their heritage.

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By Edmund de Waal

on shards

i
It looks as if it has been busy for hours. It is six a.m. and stalls are up, watermelons arranged in pyramids, the bicycle-repair man sitting next to his kit. The roads are eddying with bicycles and knots of people. The carp seller with a polystyrene crate on the back of his scooter cuts in front of us, turns and swears extravagantly. We are going north out of the dusty city towards the hills, past alleyways squeezed between great high brick walls, factories with open windows, rubbish. The day is grey and promises deep, grey heat.

The car turns off the new highway on to the old road and off the old road on to the old track rising between two farmer's houses. Each is three storeys high, gabled. The one on the left has a portico held up by gilded Corinthian columns.

When did farmers get rich in China?

The rice is young in the paddy fields. We bump up and stop outside another farm, a modern house, half built, half stucco over thin Chinese brick, old barns, set amongst trees. A wrecked car sits on breeze blocks. We are a few hundred feet up in the lee of a hill, bamboo stretching up to a ridge, a mountain beyond that, fields half-heartedly cultivated below us. There is a small lake, a muddy declivity ringed with reeds.

A woman comes to the doorway and shouts at us and it is explained by my guide, through shouting, that I'm an archaeologist, a scholar, legitimate.

And under the tyres of our car amongst the weeds are broken saggars, brown and black, rough thrown clay vessels with high raised ridges, five, six inches across. And shards, pale crescents of porcelain in the red earth. I pick up the first and it is the base of a twelfth-century wine cup, a fine tapering stem holding a jagged bowl, a thumb's breadth across. It is impossibly thin. And not white at all, but a very light washed-out blue celadon, with a network of brown crackles across it where hundreds of years of this soil has stained it.

This is my grail moment and I'm holding it reverently and they are laughing at me with my ridiculous epiphany, for on and up is a hillside of shards, a tumbling landscape of brokenness, a lexicon of all the ways that pots can go wrong. It is not a spoil heap, careless but discrete, it is a whole landscape of porcelain.

I stoop and pick up a shard, and this one is too thin at the base and has sagged and twisted like an art-nouveau girl. And this beautiful straw-coloured shard is cracked through an air bubble that has blown in the firing. And this concatenation of clay is three saggars compressing three white bowls, a firing that has gone too high, too fast, too long, leaving this bit of fierce geology.

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And God knows what happened here. There is a patch of broken bowls, the colour of green olives amongst high nettles, a sort of crime scene.

The summer rain has made the earth so friable that each step opens up a rim of a jar, a foot ring, the centre of a deep celadon bowl decorated by a running comb, a sketch of a peony, held in eddies of glaze.

I hold this shard, run my index finger over the pattern; to make this you need to feel when the clay is as soft as leather so that there is a bite between comb and bowl. Too soft and it snags and furs. Too hard and it skates. Or the bowl breaks. It is all this exactitude and all this excess in one place that collapses time for me. I know this bowl I think, it took a minute on the wheel, perhaps less, was dry for trimming within a few hours on a morning like this. It would be one of dozens on a board, passed on into the hands of the decorator and finished by noon.

We are swishing our way through the undergrowth with sticks because of snakes and I toss the shards back into the hillside in a moment of exultant connectedness and have to try and find my bit of twelfth-century wine cup ten minutes later to check on its weight. But this is beyond checking. The scale of this stretches me.

This place is one of hundreds in these hills, not a major kiln site, unimportant for art history, not documented, known to the farmers who would have to deal with the waste, the shards they have to shovel away to clear the field for beans, and known more latterly with the odd chancer braving the old woman in the farmhouse and digging and sifting for treasures to sell on in the Monday market in the city, twelve miles away.

ii

Eight hundred years ago there would have been a couple of dozen potters here on this hillside, clagged with mud in winter, beset with horseflies on a midsummer morning like this, snakes in every season. The kilns are long gone, the bricks reused for a shed or pigsty, broken up for foundations or weathered back to the earth, but these slopes would have been useful to build into, and the bamboo and these long flat grasses would have been cut for packing finished pots to carry down to the river, to the boats to take them to the city.

And the wares that went wrong would have been thrown over a shoulder from the kiln mouth at opening, collecting season by season amongst the stones and the shifting earth in the spring rains. So many thousands and thousands of pots that haven't worked, each saggar that cracks needing to be made again, each stack of tea bowls that warp another few hours of effort to bank, another part of a day lost. The potters here would have been paid by finished pots, piecework, not wages. 'Pots cover every inch of space before the door', writes a poet 1,000 years ago, 'But there's not a single tile on the roof / Whereas the mansions of those who wouldn't touch clay / Bear tiles overlapping tightly like the scales of a fish.'

This answers my question of how you make a living when things go so wrong, so often. You work even harder. You make more, and then some more.

iii

If I look south from here across the valley floor I can just make out the river, several hundred feet wide as it passes through the city, flowing from the north towards the Yangtze. Tributaries join it, snaking their way down from the hills. Behind me, thirty miles away, are the hills that make up Kao-ling mountain and there are mountains ringing every direction. The forests are a dense black-green smudge. I can see the highway but the only sounds are of the breeze in the bamboos and the crickets in the tall grasses.

I've been looking at all the maps. There are Chinese ones from the seventeenth century, schematic ones that show the arrangement of houses and kilns and rivers. There are the Jesuits maps from a century later, the first dogged attempts to make the country explicable to the West, and then the strangely anaemic maps in the books of the archaeology of the region — variant names hopefully pinned to the hills and rivers.

A favourite is from 1937, when Mr A. D. Brankston, a young Englishman, climbed these hills and sketched a map with a scale of 'about three miles to an inch', small wobbly bowls for kiln sites. There are great gaps in his maps due to rumours of banditry. He makes this landscape look like Hampshire.

But nothing has prepared me for this. It is a beautiful puzzle of a landscape. Stretching before me is earth and forests and water and villages. And somehow people and happenstance, and trade and taste combined here to make this the centre of porcelain for the world.

I've got a plan. I want to get up to the mountain and follow the old route that the raw materials for porcelain took back to the city.

Copyright © 2015 by Edmund de Waal

EDMUND DE WAAL is one of the world's leading ceramic artists, and his porcelain is held in many major museum collections. His bestselling memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes has been published in thirty languages and won the Costa Biography Award and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. It was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize, the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize, the PEN/Ackerley Prize and the Southbank Sky Arts Award for Literature, and longlisted for the Orwell Prize and BBC Samuel Johnson Prize. He lives in London with his family.

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Like a spy, American artist Taryn Simon uncovers the hidden places of the USA. Her work is a portrait of American society seen through the spaces that are foundational for America: religion, governance, security, law. Like the country itself, the meaning, says Simon, is "ever morphing."

After the events of 9/11 the American media and government directed their attention towards hidden sites beyond its borders, most notably in the search for weapons of mass destruction. Simon however, chose to look inward at her own country, to confront the boundaries of the citizen, both self-imposed and real, and the divide between privileged and public access to knowledge. For years she worked "in absolute collaboration with systems of authority" to access spaces closed off to the public, investigating the limits of the public realm and trying to "push in as far as one can get."

Simon collates her research into photographs - of a Playboy magazine in Braille, a living HIV virus - each one accompanied by text. "I was trying to create this space in between the image and the text, that space where we interpret, where there's judgement, there's translation, there's manipulation, there's the instability of fact," Simon reflects. "The viewer has to do this dance between the text and the image where it's constantly transforming in relation to the other."

"The thing you can see so consistently is the process of research. The idea, the intricacy of all the steps and rejections and complexities along the way to actually realizing the work." says Taryn Simon of her research based work. Often years in the making, it can assume many forms: filmic, performative, architectural, but almost always accompanied by photography and writing - "an anchor point," she says of the textual dimension of her works.

Taryn Simon (b. 1975) is an American artist who has worked in photography, text, sculpture, video, and performance. Simon's works has been exhibited internationally at the 56th Venice Biennale, Italy, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, USA, Tate Modern, London, UK, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany and Louisiana Museum of Modern art, Denmark. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum, USA, and Centre Georges Pompidou, France. For more about the artist please visit http://tarynsimon.com/.

Taryn Simon was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner at her studio in New York, USA, in October 2016.

Camera: Rasmus Quistgaard
Edited by: Klaus Elmer
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2016

Supported by Nordea-Fonden

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The 1st round of the 59th Annual Grammy Awards is now over. For Grammy members who have had their latest albums submitted for an Award, the nail biting begins. Members from around the world have filled in their official ballots with their choices and now will have to wait patiently until early December to find out whether their picks have been chosen for a coveted Grammy Nomination. All of us know the odds, but we spend our time (in spite of the long odds) writing and producing albums, not so much for the glory of winning but more because of our deep abiding passion for music. So sit back while you wait and enjoy a tale of passion and intrigue.

"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, and flight to the imagination." Plato

A friend came to me Yesterday, and told me All You Need is Love. Well It was One Sweet Day and I knew I Just Wanted to be Your Everything. I had a touch of Night Fever and felt it wouldn't be long before Another One Bites The Dust, so it was vital for me to Apologize knowing I'm A Believer and that We Can Work It Out. Truthfully I'm a pretty Smooth guy and never one to fool around with other people's emotions, so I suggested that we play a game called Foolish Games knowing in the back of my mind that I Will Always Love You

The rules are simple, and it just takes 2 to play. You start by Tumbling Dice and adding a spoonful of Brown Sugar, and then You Start Me Up understanding that You Can't Always get What You Want. After long languorous weeks in the sun I announced to my partner, "Let's Spend the Night Together," We found Satisfaction in a Villa in The South of France, and lying in bed looking into one another's eyes I said to her, "Are You Lonesome Tonight," She replied "Call Me Maybe." (I'll call her Maybe maybe, although her name is actually Billie Jean)

For the next 6 months we played the game constantly. I became her Daydream Believer and she became my everything, and I told her You're My World. I asked her to Help as we spent every hour in each other's company. Then suddenly, without warning She Walked Out The Door Right Out Of My Life.........

I concentrated on Stayin' Alive but finally broke down and picked up the phone and called my Lady who accused me immediately of being a Gold Digger. Deeply offended I responded saying, "You hussy, you playboy Centerfold. With a demur chuckle she answered Don't Think Twice It's Alright and I suddenly realized. Wow It's Just Like Starting Over, I felt like I was Blowing In the Wind to which she answered angrily..."well That's What Friends Are For. You and I are like Fire and Rain and she slammed the phone down

Every Breath You Take is still like a knife to my heart, I thought to myself What A Feeling. When I'm Rolling In The Deep or writing some Iambic Pentameter I generally discover that if I've been Tossin' Or Turnin' or singing some other Silly Love Songs I become unusually hungry, and need a snack. I find my mind wandering like a Candle In The Wind knowing always that I Want To Hold Your Hand while I'm Shadow Dancing because I'm trying to stand Side to Side as I eat my snack by the fridge. It's all quite confusing really, but at least it makes perfect sense to me.

I was never the same after we broke up. I Heard it Through The Grapevine, that Billie Jean had found someone new, and just a month ago I received a text from her with just 3 bitter words that said simply: "You're So Vain.I immediately shot back a 4-word manifesto. "You're Still the One. "That'll teach her." I thought.

A great song can't be written One Moment In Time. It's always about Respect and with patience I could become a Party Rock Anthem It's important to understand How I Live, when I've Got A Feeling that just won't quit, especially when things turn Physical. You see...when I look into your eyes I realize that You Light Up My Life, you're My Girl, my sweet little Doo Wah Diddy Diddy because I can't Imagine life without you. I've been Running On Empty for so long now that without question We Belong Together. You're my Uptown Funk baby my little Ruby Tuesday. You'll never Unbreak My Heart, oh you with those Betty Davis Eyes.You're my sweet lovin' Dock of the Bay, My Girl, but God Only Knows, that When a Man Loves a Woman There Ain't No Mountain High Enough, but baby You Are the Sunshine of My Life, my True Colors so I Say a Little Prayer. for you ...Sadly though........the harder I tried, the more I realized. Our love was dead.

Life went back to normal, and became an American Pie moment. I started to write again, at first depressing poems about lost love but finally coming to a point of being proud of my work again. I wrote a new song that was (little did I know it at the time) going to change my life. I spent All Night Long writing it and knew...yes I really knew that this song was THE one. OH BABY BABY It's a Wild World and then I realized that We Will Rock You, because as the great poet Wordsworth once said, She's Only a Woman To Me. I was drawn to a frenetic emotion...... slipping away, wanting as always to Keep On Rocking in the Free World, but then with out warning I bounced back and suddenly was singing You Raise Me Up. Wow...it truly is a Wonderful World

Good luck dear GRAMMY friends and colleagues. May your songs be great, your dreams come true, and your passions remain strong. One of the songs we mentioned in our little story will hopefully bear your name one day. Keep writing, keep dreaming. Music Matters.

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I was just a teenager when I had my first epileptic seizure. I don't remember the seizure itself. All I know is that I was eating French toast while watching television one moment and the next thing I knew I was being rolled through a CAT scan. To say it was a terrifying experience would be understating it more than a little a bit.

It was almost a full day before anybody got around to telling me what was going on. I was sitting in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV when this doctor strolled in and informed me that I was an epileptic. I'll never forget the disinterested way he said it. He could have just as easily been informing me that I had a soup stain on my tie.

He hung around long enough to knock off a list of things I was never going to be able to do. He also informed me that I was going to be on medication for the rest of my life. Then he wandered off before I could ask a single question.

I thought that there was somebody in the next bed, but the blinds were closed so I couldn't see him. In fact, I didn't even know for sure if anybody was over there until the doctor was leaving and I heard this guy on the other side of the curtain cursing. I was too confused to pay much attention.

I just sat there by myself for a while until my folks came in to see me. We didn't talk about what was going on that much because we really didn't know for sure what was happening. Dear Old Dad brought my banjo and stuck it in the corner close to my bed, but I wasn't in the mood to play.

Later that day one of the priests from our parish came in to see me. He was just as distant and as preoccupied as the doctor had been. Somewhere in the middle of his spiel he blurted out that God was punishing me.

He never said what he thought I was being punished for because he never got the chance. The curtain around the next bed flew open and there was this really big guy in the next bed cursing and screaming at the priest to get out.

I thought I was flipping out again. Between the shock over what the priest had said and the sight of that very angry, very big dude thrashing around all I could really do was just sit there and watch the show unfold.

The thing I'll never forget about the big guy was his tattoos. Back in the early eighties you didn't see too many people in my hometown with that much ink on their skin. His arms were covered with spider webs, flames and dancing skeletons in so many colors that my eyes had a hard time taking them all in. He was the living image of an outlaw biker from a B-movie.

There I was with this goofy priest on one side and the illustrated man on the other side when I finally realized what the big guy was so upset about.

He yelled at the priest about my visit from the doctor and that I was just a kid and the last thing I needed to hear was any kind of guilt trip. He said a bunch of other stuff that really can't be printed here, but he basically gave the good father the choice of leaving or getting his fanny kicked up between his shoulder blades.

The priest did the smart thing and left.

After the big guy calmed down he said a few things about how much my current situation sucked but that it wasn't my fault. Then he tossed me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of girlie magazines and went back to sleep.

I was still in a blue funk the next morning and through most of the day. The biker dude got sick of watching me mope so he tried to give me a pep talk, but I wasn't buying it. I was pretty much convinced that my life was over.

He finally told me to get out of bed and go do something. I asked him what exactly he had in mind (I'm editing the language here pretty heavily, folks) and he pointed to my banjo case and suggested that I go play a few songs.

Then he said something I'll never forget. "Maybe that's why your old man brought it here. Maybe he's trying to tell you something."

I put on my robe and walked out into the hall carrying my banjo and dragging an IV stand. I didn't get too many steps before somebody from another room called out asking me to play a song.

I wound up spending the day going from room to room playing the handful of songs I knew. At first I felt like an idiot walking up to strangers in a hospital trying to play the banjo with a tube sticking out of my arm, but after the first couple of visits something started to happen.

People were welcoming me with open arms. It was like, "Hey! The banjo's here!" and the patients that I visited fussed over me like a member of the family. I played the banjo and sang songs like You Are My Sunshine. After listening and signing along for a while they would start talking.

They talked about anything and everything you could imagine. What they were afraid of, what they were dealing with and what they had done right and done wrong. It hit me that the music (not just the banjo, but the act of making and sharing music) was creating some sort of a connection with the people I was visiting. They saw the banjo and found an opportunity. It was something different for each person I met that day. Some of them made me laugh and some of them cried on my shoulder. A couple of times I had family members stop me on the way out the door for a hug. People kept thanking me like what I was doing was some kind of a big deal and it took me a little while to realize that, to them, it was a big deal.

Someone had simply cared enough to show up. Somebody had come along with a smile and a couple of old folk songs to let them know that they weren't alone. I was reaching people. I was making a difference, however small, in the lives of the people I was meeting.

I was also finding out that I had something I could share. I wasn't useless. I had this banjo and I could use it to brighten my corner of the world even if only for the space of a few tunes.

By the time I wandered back to my room I knew what I was going to do with my life.

Fast forward more than thirty years later and I am still walking the path I chose that bittersweet day.

I am still an epileptic. In addition to that my hearing finally failed. I was nearly deaf until the doctors at Johns Hopkins installed bone anchored hearing aids in my skull. I am also still making and teaching music.

In the coming weeks and months, I am going to use this space so generously provided by The Huffington Post to share the joy of homemade music with you. I will be posting workshops on how to play the guitar, five-string banjo and the harmonica. I will show you how easy it is to make music.

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