'Middle East Now': Changing the World, One Film at a Time

April 8, 2014, 8:08 am

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Golshifteh Farahani in Hiner Saleem's My Sweet Pepper Land


A recent blog on The Washington Post referred to John Kerry's efforts in trying to bring about a diplomatic discourse between Israel and Palestine as the Secretary of State's "Middle East peace fantasies." Perhaps, but you can't blame a man for wanting peace and Kerry has done what he can, as a politician.

Personally, I feel that the elusive "peace" -- along with inseparable companions, justice and equality -- in the region will come out of what one filmmaker calls "artistic resistance." That filmmaker is Hany Abu-Assad, and his recent Oscar-nominated, first official entry from Palestine Omar has done more to instruct and illuminate, and perhaps change minds, that any peace talk or political effort. Kerry's or otherwise.

Because art changes the world, one enlightened person at a time.

This week in Florence, Italy, that abstract ideal gets grounded when films from both Palestinian filmmakers and Israeli ones stand side by side, along with great shorts from Qatar, features from Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Morocco, Egypt (to name a few), Lebanese rock music, photographic exhibitions and some culinary tastes from the MENA region, merging into a fantastic blend of artistic resistance. It's all part of the Middle East Now festival, a six-day journey through the "cinema, art, culture of the contemporary Middle East and North Africa" as their tagline reads. Organized by the folks at Map of Creation, a not-for-profit cultural association based in Florence, Middle East Now is like a dream come true for anyone who believes in watching "cinema with a conscience."

Apart from the festival taking place in my beloved birth town of Firenze, already reason enough for me to celebrate, the event will feature Abu-Assad's first retrospective of his work in Italy, with classics like the Golden Globe-winner Paradise Now, his very personal Nazareth 2000, the one film by the filmmaker I've yet to watch his first feature The 14th Cheeks, the controversial Ford Transit and, of course, personal favorite Omar. Plus a chance to interact with Abu-Assad, who always manages to amaze and inspire.

Omar will be the opening night selection at Cinema Odeon in the historical center of Florence, preceded by the touching short film The Deep by Haider Rashid. Rashid's feature It's About to Rain enjoyed a long theatrical run in Italy and the filmmaker has a wonderful talent for inspiring social movements through his art. It's no coincidence that The Deep won the Best Arab Short Muhr Award at the last edition of the Dubai International Film Festival in December. To round off the great kick off event, the Lebanese band-slash-world-movement Mashrou' Leila will perform, for the first time in Italy. A tease-up to their longer event, which will take place on April 11th at the Auditorium FLOG, also in Florence. If you've never heard of Mashrou' Leila, search for "#occupyarabpop" to find out more. You'll thank me for it.

The closing night selection will be My Sweet Pepper Land by Kurdish filmmaker Hiner Saleem, (which enjoyed some financing from SANAD, the funding arm of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival) also introduced by another short gem of a film, Abu Rami by Sabah Haider, a film very close to my heart. Apart from its interesting story and themes, Abu Rami crowdfunded on Aflamnah, the first crowdfunding site in the Arab world, and Haider herself is one talented, exceptional woman and filmmaker. Her previous project Beirut, My Heart has traveled the world and conquered fans, for both its auteur and the city where she lives and loves.

In between, there will be shorts, part of this year's "Focus: Window on Qatar" (co-curated by the Doha Film Institute), with a personal favorite being the haunting, fairy-tale-slash-horror-film Eye & Mermaid (which premiered at DIFF) by Saudi filmmaker Shahad Ameen; the charming Rock the Casbah by Moroccan filmmaker Laila Marrakchi (featuring the legendary Omar Sharif in a cameo); the nearly silent but incredibly strong Rags & Tatters, by Egyptian filmmaker Ahmad Abdalla, another personal favorite; Talal Derki's Return to Homs which won the Documentary World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year; short masterpiece Condom Lead by Palestinian filmmakers Tarzan and Arab; Ghazi Albuliwi's funny yet poignant Peace After Marriage: Only in NY, which I managed to enjoy at last year's ADFF; and Israeli filmmaker Tom Shoval's Youth, a story of twins in Tel Aviv which seems to be everywhere and beloved by all.

Of course, there are events and exhibits like the "Urban Series" curated by the magazine Brownbook which will feature a series of video-portraits of personalities, artists and style icons from the Middle East. Various food tastings, a series of Oxfam-curated videos about the Syrian refugee crisis, the reportage-exhibition "Persia Mon Amour" on the biggest Iranian community in Italy (which happens to be in, you guessed it, Florence) and screenings of restored classics (courtesy of a partnership with the World Cinema Foundation, chaired by Martin Scorsese and Bologna Cinematheque) such as the top Arab film of all times, according to the DIFF-published Cinema of Passion project, The Mummy by Chadi Abdel Salam.

Knowing that I've obviously left out many gems and future classics, and surely forgotten to include a lot of priceless information, I look forward to witnessing history in the making in Florence, at this year's 5th Middle East Now.

For the complete program of films and events, check out the Middle East Now website.

Image courtesy of Middle East Now, used with permission

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Music I (Mostly) Hold Dear: John Adams

April 8, 2014, 8:23 am

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John Adams is one of the most frequently performed of American composers and justly so.

Shaker Loops continues to hold its allure. In its well-handled diatonic materials, bravura approach to rhythm, units cycling through overlapping rhythmic loops, and its stretching of time and romantic accelerandi which have the force of a railroad engine, this is music that is both visceral and intellectual. It is also not completely simple nor purely elemental. He adds a new technique clearly picked up in the electroacoustic music studio, a quasi-filtering process applied to registral filling in or deletion, that separates this minimalist work from those of his then mentors, Reich, Glass, and Riley. The work is not without blemish. Its slow movement, that suggests the undulating and desultory nature of water, grows tedious. The materials are somewhat unformed and anodyne, but it is saved by its classical structure -- the climax comes right at the Golden Mean providing architectural clarity. The fourth and final movement has similar issues.

The trickster element in John's personality comes through best in his Chamber Symphony, which sounds like Ives on uppers. It is witty, rambunctious, and beguiling. Like Shake Loops it succeeds less well in its slow movement as writing a true melody is an issue. John's Book of Alleged Dances is equally witty and humorous.

I find the settings of Whitman in The Wound-dresser to be among his very best vocal writing as his laconic baritone lines are deeply poignant and have just the right American gait. The orchestral accompaniment is never obtrusive but is also never dull, a very fine and tricky path to walk.

I agree with Richard Taruskin's assessment that works like The Death Klinghoffer and El Nino are superficial in comparison, and morally and religiously problematic. Other earlier works like Nixon in China and Harmonium now leave me weary as their machine-gun like rhythms feel like Shoenberg's Pierrot drilling into the pate of my skull.

Among his more recent work is the three movement Dr. Atomic Symphony, a reduction from the opera by the eponymous name. The first movement, In the Laboratory, is portentous but finally melodramatic. The second, Panic, is a wide and deep canvas of music that is fraught, taught, and overly wrought. It is visually graphic and has certain qualities that refer to Shaker Loops in its virtuoso string writing. Its ability to sustain angst is impressive but finally a bit dull. A long horn solo is panoramic but is devoid of musical heft. There is much wind and string filler that occupies, but doesn't extend, dramatic time. The third movement, Trinity, is too sectional and straightforward in its motoric quality which finally just sounds forced. A trumpet tune lacks profile and the return to simplistic minimalist chugging at the end is crass and unworthy.

A setting of the John Donne poem, "Batter my heart, three-person'd God," sung by J. Robert Oppenheimer in the opera Doctor Atomic, is considered by many to be a highpoint of the opera. I can't agree, as its churning orchestral interludes sound just adolescently petulant and the faux Purcellian vocal line doesn't turn into true melody as it so desperately seeks to do. Ned Rorem suggests that a composer should never repeat text unless the poet does so. While I am not so doctrinaire, in this case, the repetition of text puts the work over the top and into the realm of melodrama.

Adams has done much better than this opera and its orchestral CliffsNotes version, and I am sure will do so in the future. In this regard, I look forward to hearing his new saxophone concerto an Outlier written for the remarkable Timothy McAllister, as Adams remains one of our great hopes.

The In-Between Places of Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow's Visual Art Practice

April 8, 2014, 8:54 am

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What do you do if you assiduously followed the guidelines and applied to be a presenter at a visual arts conference, only to be told that, although the committee approved your proposal, they failed to formally inform you of a substantial registration fee? Well, if you are performance artist Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, you crash the show! Lyn-Kee-Chow showed up last October at the 2nd International Rex Nettleford Arts Conference, held at The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica armed with "butterdollars" that she surreptitiously scattered on the grass and inconspicuous areas of the school grounds. Before long students at the school were on Instagram discussing the artistic intervention. For Lyn-Kee-Chow, crashing the conference was an adventurous thing to do. "I got quite a high from doing this action," she admitted to me. "I enjoyed breaking the rules."

Butterdollars. What are those, you ask? Butterdollars are 240 origami butterflies that Lyn-Kee-Chow made out of money: there is a U.S. $1 bill on one side of the butterfly and on the other side, a photocopy of the Jamaican $100 bill. Given that both bills are green, the artist reasoned that they would easily blend into the grass and greenery around the conference area. The artist chose those precise denominations of money because "this $100 Jamaican to $1 United States exchange is the approximate value of the current foreign exchange rate between both nations. The piece is titled "Butterdollarflies: 100 to 1" and is meant to comment on the political (monetary) reasons for my not performing at the conference. But there are other meanings to the work, as well. The butterdollars are meant to represent the hybrid state of the Jamaican economy, as well as the current state of environmental sustainability that is in flux due to commercial development and the natural landscape of the island that is declining."

One cannot see Jodie's work, in fact, and not think of the endangered Jamaican Giant Swallowtail butterfly and several other endangered species on the island. And one is forced to think, too, of recent developments on the island, which would see part of the Portland Bight Protected Area, two small plots of land called Goat Islands -- both protected areas under the Natural Resources Conservation Authority Act, the Fishing Industry Act and the Wildlife Protection Act -- become the first Chinese-owned transshipment port and logistics hub in the region. "My family talked a lot about this development when I was in Jamaica for the conference," the Queens-based artist said. "They were particularly concerned about how polluted everything would become. It is all so sad."

In fact, the theme of protecting what is endangered has long been invoked in Ms. Lyn-Kee-Chow's work. In her "Knots Landing" series, the artist uses images of birds in peril, such as the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, the Scrub Jay and the Red Knot -- migratory shorebirds on the brink of dying out due to global climate change and industrial fishing of their food source -- to make a comment about human consumption habits. Says the artist: "These works consist of paper cutouts of birds whose images are carefully selected and scaled to their actual size. The cutouts are then laminated and strung with fish line and arranged in formations, such as a flock of birds in space, symbolic of their natural placement in the sky. Their one-sidedness and repetition is on the one hand a positive reminder of their presence, while the blank side is a representation of their absence in our natural world. I am hoping that by addressing these issues in this body of work I can raise awareness of their predicament."

Born on the island of Jamaica, the artist is careful to bring a critical mind to her art projects. She is also mindful of the need to combine "performance with social practice," and guards against sentimentality in her work. Says the artist: "As an immigrant, I experience memory as a dangerous nostalgia. But, living away from Jamaica, it is easy to see a co-modified imagery of Caribbean primitivism. In my work I hope to disrupt this idea by advancing nature as not simply consumed but consuming." Consequently, in her performances, the natural landscape is often invoked as a stage to address such issues as "the accumulation of goods, luxurious lifestyles, socio-economic changes, and cultural development."

Take her "Crop Killa" performance, for example. In this work, Lyn-Kee-Chow informs of how Jamaica moved from being a self-sufficient agriculture-producing country to one that imports basic agricultural goods that can easily be grown on the island. "In this performance the main character starts out as a wholesome farm girl carrying bananas on her head. But hidden underneath the bananas in her basket are several guns. In time, the character moves from being a wholesome farm girl to a rambunctious, almost violent persona." This performance is of course a stand-in for what has happened to Jamaican society since the late 1960s and early 1970s. It bewails the current levels of violence in the country.

But as critical as Lyn-Kee-Chow is of Jamaica, she cannot help but be moved by the island's sheer physical beauty. "It seems as if," she said to me, "in one way or another I am always returning to my roots in Jamaica. The island just has a raw natural beauty that I am always returning to." We see this most clearly in her "Mildendranthema Grandeflorum" piece, which is based on the artist's experience of her grandmother's garden. "My grandmother is a prize-winning horticulturalist and a florist. She is, in fact, my grandmother, in love with her garden. She spends hours and hours tending to her garden, and there are all these birds around! I decided to create a fairy tale around my grandmother's love of her garden. In this piece I created a gigantic flower, which is really a hybrid of the sunflower, the rose, and of course the hibiscus, which is everywhere all over the island. This 12-foot-tall hybrid grows only every 1,000 years. I wanted to identify this work as being a Jamaican flower, so I put the words 'pon de river' in my performance so people could locate where this flower was from." After creating this work Ms. Lyn-Kee-Chow then went in search of Jamaicans, in Canada and the United States, where they tend to congregate, and in these places she went in search of the gardens that they created. "In effect, I had the main character in this piece go on a journey to visit fellow Jamaicans in all these various places."

Migrating shore birds, hybrid flowers, transience and ephemerality, the in-between places that are not fixed -- indeed, mobile -- are at the center of the work of this interdisciplinary artist. More than anything else, the artist insists she wants her work to "engage the viewer to question societal and cultural norms, and most importantly, the state of our natural world." And so your work does, Ms. Lyn-Kee-Chow. And so it does.

Until next time.

Neither Saint Nor Sinner

April 8, 2014, 9:08 am

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There are those who sacrifice their desires for others, those who don't and those who do some sort of a turnaround where they take a vacation from self-sacrifice or from self-indulgence. Nancy Buirski's documentary Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq documents the sacrifice George Balanchine made when he found out Tanny, the great ballet dancer, who was also his wife, had been stricken with polio. The film shows how he was determined to do everything in his power to return her not only to health, but greatness and it also documents the point at which he plainly gave up in the face of the impossibility of the task. You see people whose whole lives are subsumed to the care of ailing parents and spouses, who, in some cases, aren't even grateful for the attention they've received. Those who are the recipients of such self-sacrifice cannot be rightfully blamed as there is obviously some kind of reward, what analysts call Fehlleistung, or faulty achievement in the self-denial of their benefactors. Self-abnegation can be a goal in itself and in this regard the convalescent is only an enabler. Conversely, the prospect of sickly person being abandoned by their pleasure loving partner can create feelings of righteous indignation. Having acted so unethically and immorally, how can these hedonists look at themselves in the mirror? But what is the subliminal drive, the faulty achievement that comprises the guiltless pursuit of pleasure? Serial adulterers literally run from one lover to the next with little regard for the destruction they may or may not be leaving in their wake. Among the myriad of causes, is it the fear of abandonment that fundamentally drives the pathology?




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

We Don't Need Any More Superheroes

April 8, 2014, 9:19 am

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Breaking the April box office record with a $96 million opening weekend, Captain America: The Winter Soldier shows that the American public is hungry for tales of heroic resistance against an overly intrusive and pre-emptive national security state. Indeed, the present historical moment offers us a chance to alter the relationship between our democracy and our intelligence services. Recently we have had revelations of data mining of the Internet and our handheld devices on a massive scale, NSA spying on allies such as Germany, the use of torture in interrogations, and even CIA investigation of its own Congressional oversight committee. These excesses of post-9/11 national security are now coming to light and therefore an historic opportunity exists to ensure they do not take place in the future.

These events are at the center of The Winter Soldier, which artfully combines the superhero and spy genres to create a film that pleasing to both Tea Party Patriots and card-carrying ACLU members. Captain America's demolition of SHIELD, the film's Washington-based "global intelligence community," is easy to cheer for as a victory of individual liberty over the security state. However, my research on superhero comics and films from 1940 to the present indicates that tales like The Winter Soldier only perpetuate our reliance on superpowered individuals and bureaucracies to protect us. And indeed, when Captain America's ally (Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson) testifies before the U.S. government, she is threatened with prison for her Julian Assange-style uploading of national secrets onto the Internet. Her chilling reply -- that she is untouchable because superheroes protect us in a hostile world -- should give us pause. It is exactly the response given by intelligence chiefs to public criticism of their extra-legal practices. Superhero films tell us, repeatedly, that the only way to secure our families is by investing extra-legal authority with the ability to do whatever it takes. The friendly face of Captain America slowly morphs into the faces of the CIA torturers in Iraq.

Superhero films have been box office gold for a long time, and superhero comics have been around since before World War 2. It is no coincidence that this is the period in which the United States has exerted its own "superpower" in the world. The Winter Soldier purports to be a populist tale of the little guy against the military-intelligence complex, but like all superhero stories it is really a story of the powerful maintaining the world as it is. This is a problem if "the world as it is" is one in which the intelligence community is disconnected from the democracy it purports to serve.

Intelligence agencies have a unique way of turning their historic failures into increased funding and new levels of secrecy (see: 9/11) in a way other government agencies can only dream about; there is no reason to believe change will occur without sustained public pressure. We seem to think we can't get by without the security they purport to provide. Nor can we rely on "heroes" like Edward Snowden to bring democratic accountability; he too easily fits the mold of the extra-legal vigilante, undermining faith in the rule of law (as his critics note), even as the crimes he revealed undermine faith in the justice of law (as his supporters note). Rather, we have to seize the moment, and start to tell new stories -- ones in which security and liberty are not at odds, but rather work together to produce a more democratically-accountable intelligence community.

Jason Dittmer is the author of Captain America and the Nationalist Superhero: Metaphors, Narratives, and Geopolitics.

5 Questions for Poets: Part 2

April 8, 2014, 9:37 am

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Last week, some of America's top poets answered five questions from a pool of questions offered by readers of poetry for National Poetry Month. In this second part of the series, our poets tackle five more of their questions.

1. What qualities or subject matter do you feel is missing in contemporary poetry?

Alfred Corn (author of Unions, forthcoming in 2014):
We've got energy and colloquial ease, we've got emotion and aggression, we've got dreaminess and jokes, but we don't have much thinking. Paul Valéry said a poem should be a "banquet for the intellect." That's hard to find in contemporary poetry. I'm far from the first to note that our culture mistrusts thinking and favors sheer raw energy and emotion, the latter often sentimental.

Richard Siken (author of War of the Foxes, forthcoming in 2015):
Great question. And its opposite: What does it mean when a topic or an angle of approach is being refused by so many at the same time? I'm always ready to be overwhelmed or undone, but if there's an absence, there's a reason. At best, what's missing doesn't resonate with the moment. At worst, we have a generation self-censoring huge swaths of the possible.

Adam Fitzgerald (author of The Late Parade):
Nothing.

Nick Courtright (author of Let There Be Light):
I don't feel necessarily that anything's "missing" -- poetry today remains large, and contains multitudes -- but I do wish for my own sake that I could find more poetry overtly in the "wisdom" tradition. Psalms, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Tao Te Ching are all poetry, so where are those being written today? It takes a certain brazenness to aim for ULTIMATE TRUTHS in your poetry, but I like that sort of confidence, even when it is wayward and/or insane.

Gabrielle Calvocoressi (author of Apocalyptic Swing):
I'd like a few more ghosts. In terms of quality, may I switch the conversation to texture or scale and say I would like a vaster page, the quality of a building sized book so I could really see poems just open and open and risk getting lost and finding themselves in a new space. Really, I'd like that.

2. What is your writing and editing process like? How long does it generally take you to finish a poem?


Heather McHugh (founder and director of Caregifted.org):
It's "like" a collaboration with a diabolically OCD sensibility who whispers to you day and night, telling you that ambien means WALK AROUND, rather than I AM GOOD.

Writing is the triumph of insight in retrospect, vision in revision.

The entire, protracted artistic process is one in which I attempt to be decreasingly dissatisfied.

Gabrielle Calvocoressi:
Well, it begins on a walk or in a daydream usually. I see the movie of it and then I start to try and get it down. I tend to think it's gone great in the first draft and then I wake up sweating and realize it's not gone well at all. And then I sit down with the poem and we really get to work together.

Adam Fitzgerald:
I write very quickly (minutes). I edit very slowly (months). Finish? Sometimes a year.

Naomi Shihab Nye (author of Tender Spot):
Write and edit every day. It's the best way, kids! Sometimes you work for years and don't finish a poem. Sometimes you finish one in five minutos.

Matthew Zapruder (author of Sun Bear):
I generate poems in all kinds of ways. Sometimes through writing exercises that I have devised or gotten from other writers, sometimes by just scribbling in a notebook, trying to find an interesting phrase or word. In order to really write a poem (or anything else) I need to shut everything off -- phone, Internet, etc. -- and get into a space of concentration. I just start moving things around and trying to find the true poem buried in the language.


3. What Poets Do You Read?

Henri Cole (author of Touch):
John Ashbery, Frank Bidart, Lucie Brock-Broido, Anne Carson, Marilyn Chin, Louise Gluck, Jorie Graham, Seamus Heaney, John Koethe, Carl Phillips, D. A. Powell, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Spencer Reece, Charles Simic, Wislawa Szymborska, Natasha Trethewey, Tomas Transtromer, Rosanna Warren, Derek Walcott, Charles Wright, Franz Wright, Adam Zagajewski.

Naomi Shihab Nye:
William Stafford, W.S. Merwin, Robert Bly, Walt Whitman, Toi Derricotte, Paulette Jiles, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, Rumi, Darwish, Jane Hirshfield, Edward Hirsch, Ron Padgett, Sharon Olds, Galway Kinnell, Rolf Jacobsen, Robin Robertson, Tomas Transtromer...

Gabrielle Calvocoressi:
Kevin Young, Lynn Xu, Rebecca Solnit (yes), Allen Ginsberg, Joshua Edwards, Matthea Harvey, Elizabeth Bishop, Jennifer Chang, Jamaal May, Matthew Olzmann, Aase Berg, Vievee Francis, Ronald Johnson, Alan Shapiro, Spencer Reece, The Heart Sutra, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, James Merrill, Matthew Zapruder, Genine Lentine.

Matthew Zapruder:
Bishop, Baudelaire, Darwish, Rilke, Celan, Schuyler, Tu Fu, Plath, Berryman, Sappho, Williams, Spicer, Wieners, Guest, Brenda Hillman, Victoria Chang, Dana Ward, Alice Notley, and W.S. Merwin.

Robert Pinsky (author of Selected Poems):
The alphabetical index to Singing School begins with: Aphra Behn, Elizabeth Bishop, William Blake, Louise Bogan, Sterling Brown, Thomas Campion, Lewis Carroll, Gregory Corso, William Cowper, Jorge de Lima, Emily Dickinson, Alan Dugan... It ends with: Wallace Stevens, May Swenson, Jonathan Swift, Edward Thomas, Chidiock Tichborne, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, John Wilmot and William Butler Yeats.

Nick Courtright:
Let's limit this to poets whose excellent books are largely not found in Barnes and Noble: Trey Moody, Kyle McCord, Hannah Stephenson, Joshua Edwards, Nick Twemlow, Karyna McGlynn, Michael Earl Craig, Mary Biddinger, Joshua Young, Peter Davis, Megan Kaminski, Dorothea Lasky, Nick Lantz, Allison Benis White, Steven Schroeder, Becky Hazelton, Adam Clay, Noah Falck, Roger Reeves, Lesley Jenike, Emily Kendal Frey, Matt Hart, Kristina Marie Darling, Noah Eli Gordon, Kathleen Rooney.

4. What is an up-and-coming poet?

Adam Fitzgerald:
John Ashbery's newest poems.


Cyrus Cassells (author of Crossed-Out Swastika):
Traci Brimhall. Our Lady of the Ruins is ambitious and visionary.

Matthea Harvey (author of Modern Life):
Jynne Martin -- her book, We Mammals in Hospitable Times, is coming out next year with Carnegie Mellon.

Paul Legault (author of the Emily Dickinson Reader):
CAConrad's poetic practice infiltrates his entire being -- with this Whitmanian-Ginsbergian anarchist-American-ness. Conrad has a contagious creativity, embodied by his "(Soma)tic exercises," which are like recipes for how to write a poem. You're invited to participate -- by burning sage to honor a dead writer, by listening to Elvis in a closet, by eating that piece of storm-soaked bread you held out in the rain -- and then write. You are the up and coming poet!

5. Who is the best living poet?

Henri Cole:
In English, Derek Walcott

Alfred Corn:
Derek Walcott. I mean the writing.

Naomi Shihab Nye:
W.S. Merwin, without a doubt.


Laura Kasischke (author of Space in Chains):
A poet whose every poem gives me a chill, and whose poems sustain for me multitudinous readings/chills, is Laura Jensen. "They are bad boats, and they hate their anchors." I get a lump in my throat every time I try to say that last line of the poem "Bad Boats" out loud.

Gabrielle Calvocoressi:
I feel like CA Conrad lives a life I love to see and hear about. It has a resonance and depth and just richness to it that feels like the best version of being oneself as a means of inspiring and aiding others (people, animals, planets, plants and stars).

Can a Play Change the Planet?

April 8, 2014, 10:41 am

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Writer/director Steve Cosson and composer Michael Friedman. (Photo by Tammy Shell)

Ever heard of Colorado Island? No, there's not a floating mass mid-body of water in the middle of the country near Boulder, but Panama boasts a small island, Barro Colorado Island, populated almost entirely by scientists and dedicated to research. Not exactly a vacation destination, but writer/director Steve Cosson visited the isle as a teenager assisting on a project, and when he started exploring his latest play, the place became the jumping off point for the story.

"The way that I tend to work as a writer is to start a process by going out into the world somehow and to develop ideas by having conversations with people and encountering points of view that are new to me. And for this one, I wanted to go some place different. I wanted to get out of the city and get out of the country in a big way," says Cosson, who is the artistic director of The Civilians. The New York-based theater troupe is dedicated to what it calls "investigative theater" and explores the intersection between art and society. "I thought if I go in there and go into the heart of life and also then have all these captive scientists to talk to that something would happen."

Thus began the journey to The Great Immensity, which will premiere at the Public Theater in New York on April 11 and is scheduled to run through May 1. According to the press release, the show "is a continent-hopping thriller following a woman, Phyllis, as she pursues someone close to her who disappeared from a tropical island while on an assignment for a nature show. Through her search, Phyllis uncovers a mysterious plot surrounding the upcoming international climate summit in Auckland. As the days count down to the Auckland Summit, Phyllis must decipher the plan and possibly stop it in time."

"What would need to be done in order to get everyone in the world to live in the actual reality of our planet?" Cosson says of the question the play asks its audience. "Many of us, in all our own different ways, are in a bit of protective bubble. What would need to happen to get out of that bubble? And the next question is, now you're out the bubble what do you do?"

On his lunch break from a busy rehearsal schedule, Cosson took the time to chat about how he came up with the idea, his artistic process and how he hopes the show can change the world.

Where did you get the idea for The Great Immensity?
Initially, the genesis came from the idea of actually writing a show about a time. Melanie Joseph, who runs the Foundry Theater, and I had a number of conversations about time, and I did a bunch of reading and got interested in the fact that for the first time in the history of the planet, profound geologic scale changes are happening to the earth in our lifetime. Changes are taking place and continue to take place in terms of extinction rate, land, deforestation, and particularly the climate. We are changing this really complicated global system, and usually changes like that occur over a much longer scale of time; they would be imperceptible in the span of one human lifetime, but we are living in a time in which they are happening within the scale of a human lifetime. We have developed the technology and industrialization and really complicated modern industrial systems that can effectively change the climate of the planet, but we have not necessarily dissolved the psychological ability to appreciate what we are doing technologically. As the societies of the world develop the political means to address what we are capable of doing through our technology, efforts are being made -- but it is a game of catch up -- and the world is racing to figure out how we can change, how we need to change, and what needs to be done.

You went to this island, Barro Colorado Island, to talk to these scientists for research. What intrigued you about their work?
I was interested in scientists who work on environmental issues. In a sense, they live in a different reality than we do because in many cases. They are aware, day to day, of what's happening to the planet. And I wanted to know how they lived in that reality and essentially, knowing all that they know, does it make them live their lives differently? Do they have hopes for the future? If they do have hopes for the future, what gives them that hope? Each conversation started from, tell me what you do, and ended with, how do you get out of bed in the morning? How do you live?

You and composer Michael Friedman have also collaborated frequently, most recently on Mr. Burns, a post-electric play at Playwrights Horizons. Michael has written songs for The Great Immensity as well. How do the songs factor into the story?
It's a play with a lot of songs. Michael Friedman was involved from the very beginning. We went to Panama together, and we went to Churchill in Canada together. The music is a great opportunity to take some of the ideas of the play and bring them to life. The songs pop out of the story. It's not the kind of musical where one of the characters gets very emotional and breaks into song. It's more about an idea that is at play and then popped out into a thing of its own.

It sounds a little bit Brechtian in that way.
It's a lot a bit Brechtian. The songs remind you that you're watching a play. The most important thing to say about the music is music accesses our emotions in a very direct way, and one of the things we're trying to do with this show is to take all that which is sometimes hard to assimilate or hard to really pin down and feel because it is big and complex and scary. Through the songs and the music, you can zero on the emotional life of whatever it is that's being dealt with.

What research did you do for this play?
I did a number of interviews. We interviewed scientists in Panama and in Churchill. Part of what was crazy, but ultimately really kind of wonderful and fun about this project, is we're following our instincts. I didn't have a play about Panama and Canada when we started, but I did the research first and figured out what play this research was connected to. Certain idiosyncratic things that happened along the way or accidents or coincidences ended up working their way into the play. And there are certainly people in the characters in the play who take inspiration from real people that we met. At the same time, a lot of the interviews contributed ideas and helped me to think about the show and then those ideas made their way into the story. And the third person that we traveled with was a filmmaker named David Ford, and a lot of what we saw in Panama and Churchill shows up in projections [onstage].

What are you hoping that people take away from seeing this show?
I'm hoping for the audience to feel a sense of these environmental questions and to also be self-aware of the emotions they have about these issues. So often, the experience is you watch a movie and the movie is trying really hard to scare you into caring and convince you this is real big problem and you have to deal with it. And usually, at the end of that movie, it usually wraps it up with you can change it all if you just work really hard and you think, 'Oh god, that will never work,' and then you're scared and depressed. And I feel like I want to give the audience a different experience. I want to make something that can seem abstract, like climate change, and make it live a little bit more in the world where this is happening. And I also want them to have a sense of empowerment and participation. To understand for everyone -- whatever your life or your talents or your abilities are -- to live in the reality of this world that we do live in, we need to behave differently, is to make different choices. I would hope that audience members would in a sense digest that and think, "What part of life can I live differently in my corner of world?"

Hot 97's Shani Kulture and WBLS' Barbara De Laleu Present 'The Kulture Movement'

April 8, 2014, 11:23 am

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Hot 97 recently partnered up with VH1 to exploit their talents and invite listeners behind the scenes to New York's most influential Hip Hop radio station but I'd like to single out a particular cast member and his efforts to facilitate programs benefitting young New Yorkers. Shani Kulture, a true man of substance, has taken his talents to the streets on a whole new level. Merging his position at the station with his innate passion as a father, Shani felt a need to utilize his voice to express his concerns with today's youth. Creating "The Kulture Movement" as an initiative to help influence young adults was the original idea but instead with the help of influential friend, Barbara De Laleu, he set his plan in motion as a social issue that needs be addressed by the masses. This dual is set to move the culture forward and positively impact our entire community.




As I walked into the legendary radio station, familiar voices filled the air and the little girl in me couldn't contain my excitement. Dodging the camera crews and the chaos of the show, we found ourselves in a make shift office between the morning show booth and a hall of windows. There I listened as the two game changers passionately spoke of the obvious violence crisis in our country. Sharing headlines of young African Americans who found security in loaded weapons and young teens hashing differences with violence intensified our anxiety about what the future holds for our own off springs. Shani figured the least he could do was try and leave a mark on his own community by launching "The Kulture Movement".

What Is "The Kulture Movement?"

The Kulture Movement is a balanced approach to bring awareness to culture and societal issues to the youth in the local Brooklyn communities particularly the middle and high school systems. As an outreach program, we will focuses on both the mental, social and physical needs of today's young leaders. We plan to encourage and recognize the need for our future leaders to communicate and commit to the movement of their culture through constant dialogue. Our dialogue will be implemented through collaborations with other organizations, local celebs, community activities, one-on-one forums, and interactive/technological engagement. Our services are open to all regardless of religion, race, sex, education or ability.

Inspiring a new generation of leaders and educating them to value their lives is the first step. "I've noticed that if we are going to make a change, it has to start with our children." Shani proceeded to explain his concept and how the historical Treyvon Martin march affected his perception of the media. "If we don't stop the hate crimes, black on black violence or the inner city feuding, how can we expect anyone to take us serious and equally respect us?"

Pointing out the lack of self-worth today's generation of minorities suffer from is the first step to making a significant difference. "We need to acknowledge the way we speak and treat one another. It's crucial to teach every race how to conduct themselves and demand respect from your peers... at any age."

Fervently trying to get her point across, Barbara made sure to mention how the media should make this message a priority. "We have the capabilities to change mindsets by positively feeding that message through our work. Radio stations, music lyrics and television all consume a large part of a person's day to day, why not make them complimentary to our lifestyle rather than forging our ever growing population to hate one another. Conducting yourself as a role model is the best way to influence our nation." Ms. De Laleu continues to emphasize the need for change.



Shani and Barbara have begun an intense promotion focusing in Brooklyn schools hoping to influence tomorrow's leaders, activist and moguls. By taking their message directly to students, interacting with real time issues affecting these children and manipulating their time to connect directly with cultural and social issues they face daily, they hope to reduce the crime rate.

"We develop relationships with these students and their families," the WBLS employee continues, "I mentor young women who might not have anyone to confide in. I sometimes see those battling issues that I once related to; I see a piece of me in these girls."

Barbara, who is also known as the "Beautiful Stranger," keeps her schedule consistently packed encouraging women empowerment, education and overall wellness. Her driving force is to offer guidance in a comfortable atmosphere, she sits on numerous panels discussing a range of topics and all those who seek her guidance relate to her passion to help the next generation succeed. "Students we've met openly discuss topics they are too scared to share at home or unfortunately, have no one to talk to about. Shani and I want to create a safe place where cultural issues are expressed and simultaneously banished."

Kulture works on the Hot 97 Morning show and with the hype circling the airways, he wants to help infuse more positivity and less negative behavior amongst Brooklyn natives. I agree that lyrical content that promotes inner city violence and/or belittling alternative lifestyles does not help promote self-respect and that is a focus of The Kulture Movement.

"Regardless what the social issue is -- Gay, Lesbian, racial, stereotypes or bulling -- The Kulture Movement wants to connect and help revise our outlook and collaborate as a whole."

Addressing controversial topics is exactly what the dynamic dual intentionally focuses on tying in celebrities, teachers, politicians and those in the protective services to help reinforce their message.

Recently launching the "No Disrespect Campaign" was just one of many ways they joined forces with the Brooklyn community and surfaced as a movement.

"No Disrespect, but in order to get respect, you have to give respect. "-Shani Kulture

The No Disrespect Campaign is about bringing a conscious mentality to young adults so they can value life more than materialistic items. Far too often we find our youth attempting to gain respect through fear and violence not truly understanding the domino effect of those actions. Through visuals, music, and a range of influential tactics we touch the youth in order to shift the mind state of generations to come. We push an agenda for zero tolerance of murder in our community. "If you kill, you're not keeping it real".

Moving forward they want to see a conscious mental shift in society and a trend leading to confident young adults defending each other's interest rather than immediately resorting to a hate crime.

"I want to create a foundation for boys on the court to help promote how uncool bulling is and have people of all backgrounds connecting respectfully. They don't have to like the same music or hang out with the same crew, simply express mutual respect." Kulture said. Equally promoting workshops, clinics and personal visits, the radio stars are making themselves available to start a movement in your hometown too. "I don't think this is just a Brooklyn thing, or New York thing...we know that people all over are victims to ignorant, meaningless banter," De Laleu said.

The Kulture Movement welcomes those interested in their service. "We have already got the ball rolling. We've worked with Eric Adams, Borough President of Brooklyn, Ken Thomson, District Attorney of Kings County and the students of P.S.26 in Bed-Stuy." Directly targeting 6-12th graders, they have assembled a fool proof way to grab the teenagers attention and interact with them about social issues they are familiar with. Live DJ's spin today's music, trending personalities and local politicians volunteer their time offering free assemblies for enrolled students.

I encourage you to openly discuss these controversial topics in your home allowing your children to digest the harsh reality and make a conscious decision to be the change we need to evolve our united nation. As more children grow up barely surviving walking home from school, we collectively agree that they deserve a chance to not "just make it" but transform into the future leaders who helped change it. Consistently pointing fingers to the colored man does not automatically make him guilty or charging a hate crime assuming the verdict are not ways of fixing a problem. Shani Kulture and Barbara De Laleu are both credible in their fields but I'd like to admire their efforts off the air and their enormous strides to help recharge a helpless demographic to exceed the social label and own their culture.

Visit www.thekulturemovement.com
Instagram: @Kulture_Movement
Twitter: KultureMovement

Follow Shani Kulture
Instagram: @ShaniKulture
Twitter: @ShaniKulture

Follow Barbara De Laleu
Instagram: @Butifulstrngr212
Twitter: @Butifulstrngr
Website: www.msdelaleu.com

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Most Things Don't Happen, But Sometimes They Do

April 8, 2014, 11:34 am

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"Most things don't happen. But sometime they do." -- Attributed to Harvey Lichtenstein by radio producer Steve Rathe.


Harvey Lichtenstein and Pina Bausch, 1985 for the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch production "Arien" during BAM Next Wave Festival. Photo by Johan Elbers

In the 1990s I worked for Harvey Lichtenstein, the innovative arts administrator and longstanding Executive Director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It was my first job after "making the transition" from performer to arts administrator. Harvey was my first boss, and became my mentor and guru. In the 2000s I was on my own, but continued to watch Harvey closely, and had the pleasure of working with him on a few projects when he was leading the BAM Local Development Corporation and setting the ball in motion for the transformation of Fort Greene into a cultural hub. I was so lucky to have the time with Harvey, to get to watch him make decisions: little ones, big ones and irreversible ones. These years and experiences shaped me; and now, as an arts presenter, my decisions are guided by my time with Harvey. On his 85th birthday (April 9), it seemed appropriate to reflect on my continued respect for and fascination (some would say obsession) with Harvey.

I often try to tease out what it is about Harvey that made it possible for him to change BAM, Brooklyn, and by extension, the world. It is of great interest to me as I strive to reinvent the performance program at the Met Museum, and it is a constant source of inspiration. I feel like if I could unlock the secret to his genius, I could have a shot at presenting significant work. There are many answers, but I have so far narrowed it down to five characteristics, not all of which I possess, unfortunately, but all of which Harvey possesses in abundance:


Courtesy of the BAM Hamm Archives

1. Energy: I believe that it's Harvey's energy that is the root of his drive to innovate, to try new things, to propel forward. I remember the first time I visited him after a health setback he said to me: "LEE-more, do you know what the most important thing is?" (This was my climb-the-Himalayas-to-receive-truth-from-the-spiritual-leader moment.) I held my breath, and he whispered: "ENERGY." And it's his energy that makes him magnetic, potent, unstoppable. His energy is like a flame, the genesis of his creativity, and possibly, it's what people refer to as his "vision." It's what drove him to unleash French Baroque Opera on New York City-after establishing a reputation for "cutting edge" new work. After a decade of Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Twyla Tharp, Merce Cunningham: What?! Lully and Charpentier.

2. Curiosity: There are two kinds of people in the world, those who crave what they already know, and those who live for what they don't know yet. Harvey thrives on what he doesn't yet know. A new book; a new playwright; a young choreographer...he never stops discovering. Recently, sitting through several hours of an unfortunate Alexander Borodin situation, I asked why he wanted to go to this, and he said, "I've never heard it before." After producing some of the most significant operas of the 20th century, he seeks an opera he's not seen yet.

3. Fearlessness: This, of course, is something people talk about a lot. But what is it that allows Harvey to be so fearless? Maybe he had nothing to lose; maybe it's a form of callousness. But I believe the opposite of fear is not courage, it's trust. I am therefore convinced that Harvey's fearlessness comes from his willingness to trust: first and foremost the artists, also, his staff, and the audience.

4. Strength: Harvey's strength (physical, intellectual, and emotional) is legendary. But I believe that strength sometimes comes at the expense of flexibility. Where we're strong, we lose flexibility, and I think that might be the case with Harvey. He has enormous strength, but not a lot of "give," which when you're creating something from nothing, strength is probably more important.


Courtesy of the BAM Hamm Archives

5. Love: A cliché, of course, but I have never seen such fierce expression of love as I've seen in Harvey's eyes. The way he looks at the artists he has championed. When he holds a choreographer's hand. When he shares a hug with a composer whose career was intertwined with BAM's. His love is like a bulldozer, or maybe, more poetically, like the Indian deity Ganesha: it's a love that removes obstacles. Makes the impossible possible.

Today, on Harvey's 85th birthday, I am grateful for everything I learned from Harvey, and for everything he made possible. Happy Birthday, dear Harvey!

Please share your birthday greetings and thoughts in the comment section below.

Five Suggestions to Improve Arts Policy in DC's FY15

April 8, 2014, 11:56 am

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With the democratic primary completed, it's time to assess mayor Gray on the arts.

Shortly before mayor Fenty took office, in 2006, the longtime executive director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) stepped down. Eventually, mayor Fenty appointed a marketing professional named Gloria Nauden to lead the city's arts agency. With no prior professional experience in government service or arts granting, agency director Nauden was forced to balance an expansive vision for marketing the DC arts with a shrinking budget. The DCCAH budget was cut almost seventy percent from FY09 to FY12, from over $14 million down to under $4 million. During that period, the agency funded some very interesting pop-up art programs, and video programming, including a dozen episodes of "Art202", some produced by local high school students. But at the same time, Nauden reduced or eliminated a number of important, long-standing, granting programs, and increased the size of her own staff. Of course, many questioned whether Nauden's priorities were in line with the interests of the local arts community.

When mayor Gray took office he replaced Nauden with an experienced government arts administrator -- Lionell Thomas. Still, in successive years mayor Gray's budget proposals failed to increase arts support from mayor Fenty's levels. (Each of the past three years the city council, led by ward two councilmember Jack Evans, has increased DC's arts budget from mayor Gray's proposals.) And, granting programs, overdue for sensible overhaul, have remained largely untouched since mayor Fenty's term ended.

With funding for DC's arts agency at least briefly stabilized in the proposed FY15, here are five suggestions to improve arts policy in the coming year.

1. A breakout of granting programs should be included in the public version of the DC budget. Currently, all granting funds are broken into just two larger categories, obscuring any meaningful understanding of the arts budget prior to its implementation. Granting program transparency would be quick and easy, and have far-reaching impacts. As advocates it's impossible to see - now - where the city plans to spend FY15 arts monies. Including grant program details would allow policy-makers, artists and arts organizations to see the mayor's arts policy priorities.

2. The city should consider separating funding for the arts and the humanities. Within the twelve granting programs available from the DCCAH this past year there were granting programs focused toward visual artists, and public art, but none focused toward the humanities. The solution isn't to create such a granting program, but to separate humanities support from arts support.

Currently, already, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities serves as DC's state arts agency, and receives our annual National Endowment for the Arts state block grant, while the Humanities Council of DC serves as DC's state humanities agency, and receives DC's state block grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Humanities Council offers grants for the Humanities, while the Commission on the Art and Humanities is apparently focused on the Arts. The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities continues to run a small annual writing competition, and administer DC's poet laureate program. Those responsibilities should be transferred to the Humanities Council so that real focus can be given to the arts, and the humanities, through these two existing, separate, granting bodies. There are similarities among dance, theater, visual arts, music and the humanities, but the under-funded Humanities Council is already serving DC's humanities community. Let the arts commission focus on arts support.

3. DC should examine how it makes grants to the arts. Grant panel construction and review hasn't been re-considered since the Williams administration, and the model currently in use by DC is different than the ones in use by neighboring states, and counties. Maybe no changes are necessary, but a hearing in the city council would allow for an airing of ideas, increase understanding of the current model, and encourage discussion of other models.

4. Under former-director Nauden, the agency staff grew in size from thirteen to eighteen full time employees, plus consultants. The Virginia Commission on the Arts has five staff total, administrating seven granting programs. DC currently has eighteen staff administrating twelve granting programs. Taxpayer funds spent on agency staff are monies not distributed to local artists and arts organizations. It's important that money for the arts actually reaches the directors, film-makers, musicians, dancers, actors, playwrights, poets, choreographers, and arts organizations it's intended for.

5. The city has still not addressed the need for increased operating support for larger DC-based organizations. In 2011, National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs (NCACA) grants were reduced, and then eliminated. For twenty years the NCACA granting program was a backbone for major local theaters. While the DCCAH's pre-2011 operating support grants have been adjusted, the agency should fully separate its operating support programs so that deserving large organizations can count on city support year after year. There is no reason for the District not to follow the model of other major municipalities in providing consistent support to significant cultural institutions. Additionally, the recently eliminated Young Artist grant program, which provided opportunities for District residents under age thirty at a total annual cost of a single major operating support grant, should be restored. While these programs serve disparate communities, both are important components serving a diverse, vibrant, arts community.

Arts leaders in the city council, including councilmembers Evans, Graham, Barry, McDuffie, Orange, Bonds, and Grosso, filled some of the mayoral void in arts policy leadership over the last three years. With FY 15 budget hearings in full swing prior to the general election, we are entering an unusual transition period prior to the new mayor's inauguration. It will be interesting to see which of the above suggestions are considered, and which ignored, by the outgoing mayor and council, city council, and the new mayor.

Jackson Pollock's 'Mural': Masterpiece or Macho Outburst?

April 8, 2014, 2:41 pm

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Jackson Pollock (American, 1912-1956); "Mural," 1943; medium: oil and casein on canvas. The University of Iowa Museum of Art, Gift of Peggy Guggenheim, 1959. Reproduced with permission from The University of Iowa.

Rarely do we see singular artworks that, even as they represent an exact moment of transition between art historical movements, are also masterpieces in their own right. Yet that is exactly what can be seen now at the Getty Museum, which, until June 1, is showcasing abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock's pivotal, 8-foot-high and 20-foot-wide "Mural," commissioned in 1943 by the collector and patron Peggy Guggenheim for her New York home.

The Getty's conservators have spent the past two years repairing the work for its owner, The University of Iowa, and before its return home, the Getty is presenting a tightly focused exhibition centered around the work, co-organized by the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI)'s senior scientist Tom Learner and the Getty Museum's senior conservator of paintings Yvonne Szafran. The exhibition features one gallery showcasing the mural, surrounded by the facts of its creation, and a second gallery devoted to the conservation project and all that the conservators uncovered about the work's storied creation.

"Mural" is beautifully composed, and contains its own internal logic and rhythm. Yet, unlike Pollock's famous drip paintings that would follow, in this work the artist is still exploring his fascination with often amoeba-like anthropomorphic forms, all revealing Pollock's signature confidence and personality.

"Mural" is notable in several respects. In 1943, Pollock was little-known, so Guggenheim's commission for such an enormous work inspired the largest painting Pollack had done yet -- so grand that he had to remove a wall in his home studio to paint it. The Getty analysis reveals that it was an important transitional work for the artist, in that he painted it vertically, rather than laying the canvas on the floor, as he would do with later works. He also, for the most part, used premium, high-quality paints and worked with brushes on most of the work, rather than dripping his paint or using other implements.

However, as would later distinguish his work, Pollock also used some house paint, and in some spots, he flung paint to achieve certain effects, a sign of his method that would follow. This painting, therefore, is the critical bridge between Pollock's more traditional work and the action painting that would distinguish him as among the greatest artists of the 20th century.

It is worth pausing here for a second to acknowledge the importance of Pollock's patron. Guggenheim was born in 1898, into a wealthy German-Jewish "Our Crowd" family -- her mother, Florence, was a Seligman, and her father, Benjamin, inherited a copper-mining fortune and died with the sinking of the Titanic, having changed into evening dress with his valet and vowed to "go down as a gentleman," after placing his mistress and her maid in a lifeboat.

At 19, Guggenheim inherited $2.5 million, and in the 1920s she moved to Paris, where she became an art collector and opened a gallery in London. However, as the Nazis were about to enter Paris, she fled to the south of France and eventually to New York, where, in 1941, she opened a combination museum and gallery of contemporary art, called the Art of This Century. Her collection, assembled in Europe, included works by Picasso, Magritte, Man Ray, Dali, Klee and several by Max Ernst, whom she married in 1941 (and divorced in 1946).

When Guggenheim was first introduced to Pollock by one of her assistants, Howard Putzel, Pollock was working as a carpenter. In July 1943, she signed the unknown artist to a year's stipend and commissioned the mural. She did not tell him what to paint, only gave him the freedom to do so.
Pollock's "Mural" was a tremendous success and did much to launch the career of the young painter. Guggenheim, for her part, did not take as well to New York. In 1947, after the end of World War II, she closed her New York gallery and returned to Europe, settling in Venice, where she lived until her death in 1979 and where her palazzo and art collection remain as a museum.

When Guggenheim left New York, the Pollock was too large to transport, so she loaned it to Yale University and eventually donated it to The University of Iowa. Moving a painting of such scale -- from Pollock's studio to Guggenheim's home, from there to be photographed, then to Yale and to Iowa -- inevitably caused some damage, particularly as the work was rolled up each time it was transported. In 1972, in an effort to preserve the paint, the work was varnished and a backing was adhered to the canvas. Although this saved the composition, there was a cost: The varnish dulled the colors, while the backing perpetuated sag that had developed in the canvas.

By 2009, the painting had decayed further, and experts from the Getty were invited to Iowa to assess the damage. Although the Getty's painting collection does not extend beyond the 19th century, the GCI has been conducting a scientific study of modern paint materials for many years and was eager to apply what they have learned to Pollock's "Mural."

Their examination led to some important finds:

The Getty's research debunks some of the long-held myths about the work. In an account in Guggenheim's autobiography, as well as in one by Lee Krasner (Pollock's girlfriend when he painted the work, and later his wife), when Pollock received the commission from Guggenheim in June 1943, she told him she wanted the painting ready for a New Year's Eve party she was having in her Manhattan townhouse, and she told him the painting should take up an entire wall in her entryway.

The story was that Pollock was stymied by the enormity of the commission, but then, on the night before his deadline, in an alcohol-fueled frenzy, he began and completed the work. The Getty's research found this only partially true. The analysis of the paint and its layers revealed that a large part of the painting was painted in one sitting. However, beneath the surface were several layers of oil paints, which dry slowly, proving that the painting was completed not just overnight, but over time.

Accordingly, whereas the work was previously thought to have been painted in December 1943, it is now dated between July 1943 and Jan. 1, 1944. Rather than being the product of a drunken, macho explosion, it's now clear that Pollock made considered choices about the quality of his paints and the multitude of colors (as many as 26 were used in the painting), and he employed a variety of brushstrokes and effects to produce the final result.

"Mural," therefore, is a complex, painterly creation that was totally original and that no one could dismiss as mere decoration. Now that years of accumulated grime and dust has been cleaned off, the varnish removed and the painting restretched on specially designed stretchers -- we can once again see what Peggy Guggenheim's guests first saw: A rough-hewn poetry of motion, as well as a painter's career in evolution at its most critical moment.

Theater: Mild Threepenny; Blazin' Raisin for Denzel

April 8, 2014, 2:56 pm

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THE THREEPENNY OPERA * 1/2 out of ****
A RAISIN IN THE SUN *** 1/2 out of ****

THE THREEPENNY OPERA * 1/2 out of ****
ATLANTIC THEATER COMPANY AT LINDA GROSS THEATER

I love The Threepenny Opera even though I've never seen a good production. I grew up with the Broadway cast album from 1954 featuring Lotte Lenya (I think Rolling Stone, of all places, had it on a list of great albums -- a token nod to musical theater -- and I got hooked.) Kander and Ebb clearly loved Kurt Weill and I've often imagined it as the Cabaret or Chicago of its day, a gloriously sleazy work filled with humor and pathos and cynicism. (Cynicism ages much better than optimism, Rodgers and Hammerstein excepted.)

A great production of it will feel completely of the moment, as if it were composed yesterday, not in 1928. Despite formidable talent on stage, the Atlantic Theater's new staging of this show (the version with English adaptation by Marc Blitzstein) sadly does not. Some shows immediately create a sense of place and time. Others feel like people playing dress up and never let you forget for a moment this isn't real. The great Martha Clarke directed and choreographed and I fear when so much of a show is unfocused and lacking in a guiding spirit that the blame must fall squarely on her shoulders. When the chorus and almost every minor part feels slapdash and unconvincing, something has gone terribly wrong.



This missed opportunity presents a work that feels like a cross between a revue and a fully written musical. Macheath (Michael Park) -- that powerful player in the underworld -- has returned and he's soon wooing and marrying Polly (Laura Osnes), with the minor inconveniences of a pregnant wife (Lilli Cooper) and the love of every prostitute in town including Jenny (Sally Murphy) hardly worth bothering about.

Macheath fears no one (he has the police commissioner in the palm of his hand) but he hasn't counted on Polly's scheming parents (F. Murray Abraham and Mary Beth Peil). They're soon bribing whores and conning the cops into arresting Macheath and before you know it he's got a rope around his neck and scant hope of survival.

The production of a show so cheap and lacking in resources it is called a "threepenny" opera is meant to be tatty. But nothing here from the set design to the costumes to the lighting that (intentionally?) sometimes struggles to spotlight a singer) feels clever or inspired. It would be unfair to list all the work that falls short, since Clarke is clearly the one that failed them, though Abraham and Peil seem especially at sea here.

But certain moments let you glimpse the greatness that can be had. On the plus side, Michael Park (forever Jack Snyder of ATWL but with a growing and impressive body of theater work) has the presence and oily charm for Macheath. If nothing else, we understand the sexual heat that has drawn Polly away from her family. As Polly, Osnes seems indifferent and above her doomed romance. It's not quite clear what's driving her beyond lust or why her parents seem so determined to thwart it. (Is it a question of thieves trusting other thieves least of all?)

But boy can Osnes sing -- her version of "Barbara Song" after their wedding was inspired and moody and fascinating and vivid, everything most of the show was not. Similarly, Murphy shone during "Pirate Jenny," a number which -- along with "Ballad Of Mack The Knife" -- has become a standard. It was the best sort of character-driven performance that shocked you awake with her anger, bitter dreams of revenge and illusory importance.

Far more often, we are bored, ho-humming as chorus members get it off in faux sexual desire during big numbers, with couples and threesomes and same-sex pairings that ultimately feel timid and dull. Some parts were broadly comic, others felt like sketch comedy and still others strove for realism, with the overriding sense that no one was on the same page. This Threepenny felt short not just of "funds" as the title demands but of imagination, which its rich material deserves.

A RAISIN IN THE SUN *** 1/2 out of ****
ETHEL BARRYMORE THEATRE

The top-notch cast in this revival of A Raisin In The Sun is unassailable. It's a shame the great Diahann Carroll didn't feel up to making this a well-deserved victory lap. But surely she along with everyone else will be cheering along the marvelous LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who has blown me away in Joe Turner's Come And Gone and other shows. Now Jackson is 14 years younger than Carroll but with a dash of grey in her hair, I had no problem picturing this contemporary of star Denzel Washington as his mother. It's the theater! You wouldn't cast her to be his mother in a movie or TV show, but onstage? Why not?

Of course that brings me to Washington. I called him the star, but he's part of an ensemble here, too smart to tilt a show in his direction when it has so many great roles for women. Now he's about 20 years to old to play a 35- or 40-year-old man... on film. On stage? I never thought about it for a second, or at least I wouldn't have if others hadn't brought it up. That's the beauty of theater where a young man can play an old man... or an old woman... or a cat, for that matter. In this realistic setting, of course, the demands are different and Washington meets them with ease. He's a driven, hard-working man hitting his middle years, dreaming of more for himself and his family, aged perhaps a little before his time and determined to take a chance on himself rather than just settling like his father and his father's father. At least, that's how he sees it.

Like all classics, Lorraine Hansberry's Raisin feels utterly relevant for today, with working class people realizing no matter how hard they struggle, they're falling further and further behind. Walter Lee Younger (Washington) is a chauffeur, his wife Ruth (a terrific Sophie Okonedo) is worn out with worry, his sister Beneatha (Anika Noni Rose) is determined to be a doctor and shares a room with their mom Lena (Jackson) while his son Travis (Bryce Clyde Jenkins) sleeps on the couch.

It's so exhausting just getting up in the morning (you have to race the neighbors for a chance to get into the communal bathroom) that it's a lot easier to see where you're not headed to then how far you've come. But help is on the way: thanks to a life insurance policy that kicked in when Walter Lee's father drove himself into an early grave with work (there's a bittersweet reward for you), Lena is about to receive a check for the life-changing sum of $10,000. Walter Lee wants to open a liquor store with two other friends, Ruth can't help being drawn to Lena's suggestion they buy a home of their own and everyone but Walter Lee knows some of that money will definitely be sending Beneatha to medical school.

Here's an interview with Denzel Washington on ABC:



It's a rock solid play, classic in its structure and setting and prescient in so many ways. Hansberry died way too young at the age of 34, but she left behind a substantial body of work, not least of which is this her most popular work. Assimilation, a burgeoning sense of female empowerment, the insidious, self-fulfilling effects of grinding economic hardship and addiction, each new generation's almost desperate need to reject the one before as they forge ahead -- all of it is here in a richly rewarding piece that is first and foremost a gripping story.

Director Kenny Leon doesn't miss a beat here, blessed with a major work and a cast to deliver it. Tricky smaller parts like Beneatha's well-to-do boyfriend George (Jason Dirden) and the hard to pull off student from Nigeria Joseph Asagai (a very good Sean Patrick Thomas) come off perfectly. David Cromer also strikes just the right note of friendly prejudice as Karl Lindner, the white representative of the neighborhood association the Youngers are moving to who wants to welcome them with a check and a request to move right away again. And I'm not one for entrance applause, but it was fun to see the remarkable Stephen McKinley Henderson receive it for his small turn as Bobo, a friend of Walter Lee's with some bad news to impart.

But it's Walter Lee and the three women in his life who garner our attention most of all. Jackson is wonderfully grounded as Lena, amusing as she stumbles to chat with Asagai in a way that won't embarrass her daughter and fiery when reacting to that same daughter's proclamation that God is dead. As that burgeoning atheist (which Hansberry was as well), Rose is wonderful. If I were a theater actress about her same age, I'd truly hate Rose because at this point she must be getting every role even remotely suited to her. In a marvelous Broadway debut, the Oscar nominated Okonedo (the film Hotel Rwanda) is taut and tired, so believably exhausted by fighting with her husband and trying to keep the peace that we're not surprised when she collapses - we're surprised she was able to stay standing for so long.

And Washington long ago proved he was born to the stage. His Walter Lee is proud and determined and a little foolish and a little too proud at times and funny and smart and wholly human. His drunken scene is a standout, not because it's so funny (which it is) but because the fierce desperation he feels is so painfully present at the same time. Only two things are lacking on his resume: more movies about Easy Rawlins and even more theater.

They weren't messing around here. Wynton Marsalis helped select the musical cues played at certain moments of the show. An interview by Studs Terkel is playing when the audience enters the theater. I'm not sure I needed the glimpse of blue sky at the finale, but the set design by Mark Thompson was otherwise flawless. (I loved how Jackson as Lena slipped into blackness at the end of the first act.) The lighting by Brian Macdevitt, costumes by Ann Roth and sound design by Scott Lehrer never called attention to themselves, which is sometimes the best compliment one can pay.

The same can be said of Leon's direction and Hansberry's writing, both of which are confident and true. To think in a few weeks, Leon will be directing a new musical inspired by the poetry of Tupac Shakur, another artist taken to soon. Leon looks set to be having a heck of a year.

Here's Langston Hughes reading the poem that inspired the title of this play.



THEATER OF 2014

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical ***
Rodney King ***
Hard Times ** 1/2
Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead **
I Could Say More *
The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner **
Machinal ***
Outside Mullingar ***
A Man's A Man * 1/2
The Tribute Artist ** 1/2
Transport **
Prince Igor at the Met **
The Bridges Of Madison County ** 1/2
Kung Fu (at Signature) **
Stage Kiss ***
Satchmo At The Waldorf ***
Antony and Cleopatra at the Public **
All The Way ** 1/2
The Open House (Will Eno at Signature) ** 1/2
Wozzeck (at Met w Deborah Voigt and Thomas Hampson and Simon O'Neill)
Hand To God ***
Tales From Red Vienna **
Appropriate (at Signature) *
Rocky * 1/2
Aladdin ***
Mothers And Sons **
Les Miserables *** 1/2
Breathing Time * 1/2
Cirque Du Soleil's Amaluna * 1/2
Heathers The Musical * 1/2
Red Velvet, at St. Ann's Warehouse ***
Broadway By The Year 1940-1964 *** 1/2
A Second Chance **
Guys And Dolls *** 1/2
If/Then * 1/2
The Threepenny Opera * 1/2
A Raisin In The Sun *** 1/2

Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the founder and CEO of the forthcoming websiteBookFilter, a book lover's best friend. It's a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. It's like a fall book preview or holiday gift guide -- but every week in every category. He's also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It's available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.

Note: Michael Giltz is provided with free tickets to shows with the understanding that he will be writing a review. All productions are in New York City unless otherwise indicated.

W. Reveals Himself as "a Decent Amateur" Artist

April 8, 2014, 4:32 pm

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It's highly unusual for a public figure -- especially a high-profile politician -- to reveal something very personal and rather uncommon about himself. And to do it willingly?

Last Saturday, President George W. Bush had the courage of conviction to reveal himself to the public as an amateur painter. The New York Times' front page included photos of several portraits painted by W., who out of nowhere discovered passion for art. In the last two years, W. not only took art lessons, but on some days spent up to three or four hours at his easel.



New York Times' article coincided with the opening of an exhibition at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, "The Art of Leadership: A President's Personal Diplomacy." The reason why this exhibition was so widely commented on in the media -- including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the Guardian -- was because the exhibition presents a few dozen painted portraits of heads of state, whom George W. Bush got to know throughout his time as President.



Roberta Smith, New York Times art critic, refers to our former President as a "decent amateur." She even suggests some resemblance between his portraits and the works of well-known Belgian artist, Luc Tuymans. For myself, I have to admit, I was somewhat taken by the charming clunkiness of these portraits, with their energetic but occasionally messy brushstrokes. None of these portraits present the heads of state in a proper, formal way. Instead, some of the leaders confront us with an unsettling stare, while others are smiling or smirking. All of the above makes me wonder if W. is familiar with the art of another well-regarded artist, Marlene Dumas, whose portraits never flatter the subject.



As an aspiring painter, George W. Bush belongs to an exclusive club of heads of state who took up painting as a pastime. Among them, Winston Churchill, which is a relatively well-known fact. But you will probably be surprised -- the way I was -- to learn that Jimmy Carter, as well as his predecessors, Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses Grant, also took to the brush as amateur painters.

But none of them seemingly had the same passion for art as W. does. As the New York Times article tells us, W. never cared too much for museums. During his visit to St. Petersburg, he was happy to rush through the Hermitage Museum in 30 minutes flat. But now, he's happy to "linger in art exhibits for hours at a time studying brushstrokes and color palettes." And to that, I want to exclaim, "W..., where have you been all these years?!" Can you imagine the cultural impact that W. could have had if he'd discovered and revealed his passion for art while still in The White House?

So let me conclude by offering to take our former President on a personal museum tour should he ever decide to come visit LA and to accept my invitation. Here are a few great artworks that I believe might appeal to W.



At the Getty Museum, he might get a kick out of Rembrandt's self portrait, where the young artist is laughing so freely, so happily --it's simply impossible not to respond in kind.



And then, we can venture to the Norton Simon Museum to stare at Van Gogh's "Portrait of a Peasant," who stares back at us so sternly.



And, if W. were a good sport, I would take him to the MOCA exhibition of Mike Kelley to walk through the narrow corridor with walls covered with large-scale portraits of well-known philosophers, poets, politicians, and artists. So who knows, our museum trip could be "the beginning of a beautiful friendship."


P.S. If you want to learn about Edward's Fine Art of Art Collecting Classes, please visit his website here. You can also read The New York Times article about his classes here.


--

Edward Goldman is an art critic and the host of Art Talk, a program on art and culture for NPR affiliate KCRW 89.9 FM. To listen to the complete show and hear Edward's charming Russian accent, click here.

Waste in Focus: What America Throws Away (PHOTOS)

April 8, 2014, 5:27 pm

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Photographer Peter Menzel captured America's attention with his last photo project, What the World Eats, and his book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets. In that project, Menzel's images powerfully portrayed differences in income, nutrition, and lifestyle.

His latest project, centering on what Americans across the country throw away and recycle, is no less powerful. The images that make up Waste in Focus feature eight American families surrounded by their weekly waste broken down into what is recycled and what goes to the landfill. The images make it impossible to deny how much waste some households generate, or that it is possible to reduce the amount of waste in our homes by making a few simple changes.

Click on any of the following images to enlarge it.

All photos by Peter Menzel

The Realistic Joneses: There Go the Neighbors

April 8, 2014, 8:32 pm

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This play starts so promising, it's a shame that it heads off in such an odd direction after the opening scene.

Will Eno's script calls on two new neighbors, both named the Joneses, to take advantage of their proximity and get along. But it's their proximity and what ties them together that ultimately drives them apart. Along the way, however, there are a number of existential conversations about the role of communication to alleviate the tension that clearly exists inside of all of the dynamics among the four.

That this recipe doesn't hold up is a disappointment for the audience, who have come out to see a stellar cast of stars. Toni Collette and Tracy Letts are the established pair in this quaint town, while Marisa Tomei and Michael C. Hall make up the younger couple that is renting a house next door. Their talent is supremely evident in the first scene when the four introduce themselves to one another and to the crowd to lay down the groundwork for what will become a weird and wild ride for all.

The problem is that it's hard to follow what's happening or to understand what motivates characters to make drastic decisions that are clearly not in their best interest. Moreover, the dialogue grows cumbersome at times with so many false starts and pauses to step back and consider irrelevant and tangential points about the universe.

Even the less strange characters get on your nerves by the end. It's difficult to see through all of the muck that makes up these people's lives, particularly when trying to have compassion for Bob, played by Letts, who is suffering from a degenerative nerve disease. Your desire to care for what will become of this man is blocked out by the minutia and distractions that fill the space instead.

Perhaps that's Eno's point all along, to demonstrate how hard people find it to get real and open up about themselves with strangers. It's not a bad takeaway from a one-act play; but it also might not be the point after all.

---

Ebonics Made Simple

April 9, 2014, 3:45 am

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White boys often speak Ebonics to sound tough, especially white boys who don't feel very tough and in a kind of racist profiling participate in the notion that black men are more masculine and have bigger dicks. That being said, there are oceans of language that provide an opportunity for this unique form of cultural miscegenation.

Back in the sixties "what's happenin'" was very popular amongst white boys who'd become lit up by the Motown Revue (which they may have been lucky enough to see at the Apollo in the glory days when Frankie Crocker emceed, Reuben Phillips provided the big band sound and Small's Paradise and the Hotel Theresa were the hot Harlem nightspots for slumming whites) while today the children of 60's hipsters listen to Jay-Z and ask "wassup." Their lily white mothers might have packed a lunchbox full of treats that would energize them for the long climb up to Harvard, but when they left the split level for school, white teens would say "I'll catch you later" or "later baby" (to their mother).

Today, when a white boy who wants to recognize the achievements of his friends at the valedictory might give a "shout out," while in the past he might have referred to all his "main men." "Dog" or "son" are tantamount to the old "dude" or "brother" which has now become totally whitebread. "Boss" was good, where today when you refer to an article of clothes or CD as "bad," it means it's good. In the past, "Slap me five," or "give me some skin" were the way whites conversant in Ebonics shook hands and those expressions still hold up today. Ebonics Made Simple would sell like hot cakes in certain upper middle class suburbs and would probably even do better than The Official Preppy Handbook.


Photo: The Staple Singers and Don Cornelius on Soul Train

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

10 Things You Didn't Know About Shakespeare

April 9, 2014, 4:27 am

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The relatively few facts we know about the world's greatest poet and dramatist, William Shakespeare, have made him an enigmatic figure. Some imaginative people have even concluded that he wasn't who he was after all (and why shouldn't he be Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Oxford and Queen Elizabeth I's by-blow all at once? Wake up sheeple.)

But what we do know about the man and his works is intriguing enough. Snap up these unconsidered trifles:

1. Shakespeare wasn't the only Shakespeare in the theatre.
His brother Edmund, sixteen years his junior, became an actor in London too, though without making much of a mark. His death at the age of twenty-seven was followed by a funeral in St Saviour's Church, Southwark, which was an expensive one - indicating a local relative with money. Which brings us to...

2. Shakespeare was a fat cat.
From his career in the theatre, which included acting, play-writing, and being a "sharer" in the profits of his company, Shakespeare amassed a comfortable fortune. By the age of 33 he was able to buy New Place, the second largest house in Stratford-upon-Avon. Later he bought property in London as well as Stratford. In his will he was able to bequeath to his second daughter Judith - not even his main beneficiary - the sum of three hundred pounds. Converting Elizabethan money is notoriously tricky, but £50,000 would about do it today. By contrast, his fellow playwright Thomas Dekker was in and out of debtors' prison his whole life. At his death in 1632 his widow renounced administration of his estate - meaning there was nothing to administer.

3. Shakespeare was a co-writer.
It was common for playwrights of Shakespeare's time to collaborate. Sometimes three or four writers would have a hand in a single play. While Shakespeare seems to have liked working alone, there are passages aplenty in the plays that were written by someone else. He worked with Thomas Middleton on Timon of Athens, and with John Fletcher on Henry VIII. As for some of the most famous parts of Macbeth - the witchy bits - it's likely they were Middleton's work too, bolted on to the play at a later date.

4. You speak Shakespeare.
In spite of his reputation among literature-averse students for flowery language, Shakespeare directly created a great deal of the English we use today. Not only is he recorded as the first user of more words than any other writer, he also made words up: we owe him eyeball, bloodstained, radiance, assassination and lackluster, to name but a few. And his phrases are so embedded in the language, chances are you've used some of them in the last week or so: if for example you've been in a pickle, seen better days, or caught a cold, or been a laughing stock, or had to break the ice, or said good riddance...

5. Shakespeare's sonnets are not autobiographical.
OK, we don't know that for sure. But what we do know is that the writing of sonnet sequences was very fashionable in his day. Spenser, Sidney and many others turned them out. Sonnets were a stylised way of demonstrating your technical skill. You didn't have to be actually panting with unrequited love to write them. The beautiful young man and the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets may have originals, at some remove. More likely is that when Shakespeare wrote sonnets the essential dramatist in him kicked in, creating characters and drama.

6. Shakespeare's daughter was illiterate.
Of William and Anne Shakespeare's three children, two daughters survived: Susannah and Judith. While Susannah seems to have been able to sign her name, Judith could only make her mark. But in this period, literacy was a skill, useful in certain trades and professions, mainly male. Shakespeare was a man of his time, and his time didn't value literacy in women.

7. Shakespeare didn't care about posterity.
At least, as far as his plays went. He took care to supervise the printing of his two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, because these were prestige projects for influential patrons. But it was not until seven years after his death that his theatrical associates put together the First Folio edition of his plays. In his lifetime, Shakespeare doesn't seem to have cared whether his plays survived or not. Partly this may reflect the low esteem in which plays were held as literature. When Ben Jonson printed his plays and called them his Works, people laughed: how could you call mere plays Works?

8. Shakespeare has no descendants.
His only son, Hamnet, died at the age of 11. His daughter Susanna had no children and all his daughter Judith's children died young. None of his three brothers married. The Shakespeare line effectively ran out within twenty-five years of the poet's death.

9. For two hundred years, the theatre made a dog's breakfast of Shakespeare.
Once the theatres reopened after the Commonwealth, they began a great tradition of doing whatever the hell they liked with Shakespeare's plays. They chopped them up and adapted them into musicals and pantomimes. Most notoriously, they got rid of the whole 'tragic' thing in the tragedies by giving them happy endings. (In 1681 Nahum Tate turned King Lear into a feelgood fest complete with a wedding for Cordelia and Edgar.) Reverence for 'The Bard' had to wait until the nineteenth century.

10. Shakespeare has had some heavyweight haters.
Not everyone has concurred in Shakespeare's greatness as a writer. Voltaire thought Hamlet the work of a 'drunken savage': George III confided: 'Was there ever such stuff as great part of Shakespeare? Only one must not say so!' And George Bernard Shaw, in a review of Cymbeline, got quite carried away in his detestation of the poet: 'It would positively be a relief to me to dig him up and throw stones at him.' That was in a newspaper. Imagine if Shakespeare had been on Twitter.

Jude Morgan is the author of The Secret Life of William Shakespeare [St. Martin's, $26.99].

I'm With The Banned

April 9, 2014, 4:27 am

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After months of pleading his case, my fifteen-year-old son, Al, persuaded me to do an AMA on Reddit. First he had to tell me what Reddit is: an online community where users vote on content, making the "good" content rise to the top while burying the bad or boring content by downvoting it to Internet oblivion. Then he had to explain what an AMA is--it stands for "Ask Me Anything." I knew none of this, as I'm not nearly as hip as my son is, nor will I ever be.

Al's justification for why anyone would care what I had to say? Because I write fiction for teens, and because my books, especially a series called The Internet Girls, have a history of being banned. Censorship is a hot topic. We Amer'cuns like our freedom.

So I did the AMA, and over time, nearly ten thousand Reddit readers popped in on the conversation. Again and again, readers expressed amazement that censorship occurs in this day and time. "Wait--it's still legal in America to ban books?" one Redditor queried.

Well, no, but it happens anyway. The conclusion I've come to is if someone, and let's make that someone a grown-up, is asked, "Is it okay to ban books?," he or she will probably say no. But if that same person is asked, "Hey, are you cool with twelve-year-olds, maybe even your own twelve-year-old, reading a novel about drugs, violence, or werewolf sex?," she or he might consider the question in a different light. Censorship, for many, is no longer defined as censorship when the werewolves are prowling in their own backyards.

I don't write about werewolves, but I do write about sex, and plenty of adults don't approve. Here's a small sampling of the sort of e-mails I keep in my "Angry Adults" file:

"I recently read the vulgar hot tub scene in your book ttyl, and I was appalled. I immediately had all of your books pulled from our local library."

"I find it absolutely amazing that you as a mother find it appropriate to inform young innocent minds of such things as thongs, French kissing, erections, and tampons. Can our children remain children no longer???"

And, because I can't not include it, "Just because you were a girl with loose morals early in life doesn't give you the right to influence young girls to follow in your horrible footsteps. My daughter's school will not glorify one of Satan's minions."

I get that. I'm not out to glorify Satan's minions, either. But to paraphrase Katherine Paterson, author of Bridge to Terabithia: A book written to offend no one will most likely fail to make a difference to anyone.

I want my books to make a difference, and though a novel I've written might be some adult's worst nightmare, it might also be some girl's small saving grace at a time when she's feeling teary and alone.

Grown-ups tend to think their problems are bigger and more important than the trials kids experience, but guess what? They're not. We're all traveling through life together--and not only that, but every adult was once a child. Too many adults forget that, I think. Too many adults forget what it feels like to be that awkward middle schooler worrying about which table to sit at during lunch. They forget that dealing with changing bodies, ever-shifting friendships, and maybe-getting-divorced parents is hard. So hard. I write about all that stuff (and more), but I don't write with the goal of corrupting my readers. I write with the hope of handing my readers a mirror in which they can see themselves as well as a window through which they can see the pains and joys of others.

Back to book banning. I downvote it.

I don't want anyone telling me what I can or can't read. I don't want anyone telling anyone what he or she can or can't read. (Of course a child's parents have the right to decide if a certain book is right or wrong for their child, although, sheesh, if you're a parent? I beg you to read a given book yourself before deciding how you feel about it. Books for tweens and teens rock! You will be surprised!)

My three kids have my blessing to read anything they want, and I absolutely encourage them to read banned books. Why? Because I respect them and think they're smart, and because I want them to draw their own conclusions about bullying, loyalty, issues with parents... all of it. I want my kids to be critical thinkers.

Jason Clarke, one of the best and most passionate high school teachers I know, puts it like this: "When parents tell me not to let my students read a given book, what I hear is, 'Don't teach my children to think, because if they think, they will no longer believe the bullshit I've been feeding them for fifteen years.'"

But that's a mentality born from fear. If we fail to encourage kids to think for themselves, we're doing them a terrible injustice.

Psychologist William James claims that absolutism--the idea of Truth with a capital T--allows people to take a moral holiday. If everything is black or white, then no soul-searching is needed when it comes time to take a moral stance.

I don't think everything is black or white, and God knows I search my soul every day, or try to. Books help me do this, because books offer a full spectrum of lowercase truths and untruths, rights and wrongs, acts that are moral and acts that are not.

Books astound me and change me. Books enlarge my life. Not all of them, of course. Some books suck. But there's only one way to find out what a book has to offer: Read it.

Lauren Myracle is the author of many books for teens and young people, including the New York Times bestselling Internet Girls series (ttyl; ttfn; l8r,g8r). Follow Lauren online at www.laurenmyracle.com or @laurenmyracle.

'Swoon: Submerged Motherlands,' A Tree Grows in the Brooklyn Museum

April 9, 2014, 5:53 am

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Six years ago these boats of salvaged materials were floating down the Hudson, teaming with twenty-something sea-worthy souls and bohemian performers in costume aiming for the dock at Deitch Studios. This week they are beached up against the base of a massive seven story soft sculpture tree for the opening of Swoon: Submerged Motherlands at the Brooklyn Museum. In between these events each vessel has travelled down the Mississippi River and also crossed the Adriatic Sea from Slovenia to ceremoniously crash the Venice Biennale.


The view of the top at "Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)



Newly arrived through U.S. Customs on New York shores from Italy, the seaworthy works of art have returned "home" to Brooklyn as Swoon, the Florida native who came to New York as an art school student, has called it for seventeen years. A singular street artist who once wheat-pasted her hand cut portraits anonymously in hidden city doorways, she is also known for her fervently collaborative projects that have carried her to galleries, museums and socially-rooted arts activism in places like Kenya, Haiti, London, Oaxaca, New Orleans, Miami, Braddock (Pennsylvania), Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

No matter where Caledonia Dance Curry goes, there is usually a cadre of handsome and delightful crafters and co-creators in tow; talented friends and valued confidants who help bring her ideas and vision to fruition. While she is clearly at the helm, this dynamic exceeds the typical artist and her studio paradigm; hers is rooted in a regard for collaboration, community, experimentation, and discovery. Oh, and a bit of theater.


Fire extinguishers in the foreground and rear during the multi-layered preparation of the exhibition for "Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Process shot. (photo © Jaime Rojo)



"We are pouring so much into this show and for me I think part of the reason I'm willing to do it is because it is my home. The museum has been awesome and they have given me as much as they can and I have just thrown everything at it because I'm like 'I'm home, this is my place.' For me this show is different from installations I have done in other museums and other places," Swoon explains.

Managing Curator of Exhibitions at the museum, Sharon Matt Atkins, talks about the command of the space and its transformational effect. "Swoon did not hold back in fully utilizing our grand rotunda gallery. She has been working for three and a half weeks at the museum with a large team to get the installation ready. Much of the work involved assembling parts made in the studio, but then bringing it all together with the finishing details onsite," she says.


"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail of the top of the tree. (photo © Jaime Rojo)



"Sharon brought me in here and said, 'What is interesting to you in the building?' and I really love that because the thing about working on the street is that you are always thinking site-specifically. And so that thinking has to translate into your work in all places. For me if I make something in a museum I want it to be very site-specific and this is probably one of the most site-specific pieces I've ever done," explains Swoon.

Under the advice and guidance of an engineer, the artist also modified her design process to allow for foundational considerations like truss sections and lift points. "I showed him an initial model and he showed me an engineered system and then I built another model based on the system that he engineered."


"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)



It is probably unusual for a grand museum to be so amenable to the requests of an artist for a site specific piece that literally inhabits the furthest reaches of a space, and Swoon says she recognizes the leeway she received. "You know, they have been really adventurous in letting us create this. We've been sort of pushing a lot with the creation of this piece."

For Matt Atkins, the opportunity to bring an internationally known street artist and neighbor into the museum has been the result of just over two years of planning. "It's been so wonderful working with Swoon to realize her vision for this project. This is the first time we've really used the full height of the 72-foot dome, so it's quite spectacular. I am thrilled to see her boats back in New York and for them to have this new life. The underlying ideas about climate change in the installation also make this project an appropriate tie in to the Museum's focus on activism with our other exhibitions and collections," she says.


"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)



Guests who walk into the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery on the fifth floor will need to crane their gaze upward to see the full expanse of the tree that reaches to the cupola, now embroidered across the sky's light with her lace patterning. Softly gnarled limbs are clustered with outsized and filigreed leaves that cast shadows on the maritime layers of sprayed blue washes streaming to the floor.

Looking up at the multi-textured and tinted bark that skillfully, if playfully, emulates the trunk of a tree, Swoon talks about the demands of production. "We worked it all out in the studio and then we just spent weeks tearing and shredding and dying the fabric, cutting out paper leaves, and building up these kind of 'roots,' crocheting pieces, putting dyed fabric on them, sewing sleeves for the rings to put dyed fabric on -- it's just been immense! It's one of those things where I've never built something on this scale so I really don't realize how much energy it absorbs when it is that size."


"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" The fabrics used to build the bark of the tree trunk were custom dyed and are shown here at the studio drying. (photo © Jaime Rojo)



To contemplate the rotunda installation and the finer details of the rough rafts Swoon provides an equally festooned gazebo to rest on and nearby linotype images of caretaking and motherhood to see -- including a more recent portrait of the artists' own mother that has also been spotted wheat-pasted in the street.

"So I've been thinking a lot about 'home' and this installation is about home and the loss of home in a lot of ways. When I decided on 'Submerged Motherlands' I was thinking about climate change and thinking about 'Sandy.' Also my own mother passed away while I was in the ideation stage for the installation so I was thinking about the loss of my own mother and that relationship and it all just kind of merged together," she says.


"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail of the bottom part of the tree. (photo © Jaime Rojo)



Brooklyn Street Art: When you speak of your mother passing during the ideation and the title of the show I look at your work and I think of it as a kind of maternal act, of caretaking, of providing shelter. I wonder if there is any relationship between this concept of motherhood and caretaking that feels true to you.

Swoon: I guess the thing that I think of is almost an impulse to build a safe space in the world for myself and my community; some place to be a little bit different from the norm. Then also that same impulse kind of extended outward to projects like working in Haiti after the earthquake and trying to create literal shelter.


"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)



Thinking about site-specificity and its importance in your work, many of your installations on the street are in the unpolished, eroded areas of town. Contrast that with a museum environment like this where everything is clean and crisp -- it occurred to me that you created that same unpolished environment by taking the fire extinguishers and blasting them across the walls.

Oh my god the funnest tool ever!

Have you used fire extinguishers before?

You know what? I never have. Honestly it was just one of those things where I was just like, "How do I get a lot of paint up quickly?" And I just thought about the fire extinguishers. I mean people use those -- it is such an amazing tool. Big props to Craig (Costello), to Krink, who is such a pioneer with that. I never had used it before. I usually take care not to simulate the street environment but maybe that kind of just happened.


"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)



And when it comes to your work and this installation, you don't like to talk about metaphors.

Well, its not that I don't want to talk about them -- it's that I think you can get too literal. I think that part of the strength of the arts is that you try to leave a little openness for the parts of our minds that are a little bit less rational and that don't have this strict linear codex of how you interpret something. Like in the way that the Motherlands theme has so many different kinds of interpretations and layering -- I think it is important to keep that kind of richness.


The artist Swoon at work on the installation. "Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" (photo © Jaime Rojo)




"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)




"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Process shot. (photo © Jaime Rojo)




"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail of one of the boats. (photo © Jaime Rojo)




"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail of one of the boats. (photo © Jaime Rojo)




"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail shot of the interior wall of one of the boats. (photo © Jaime Rojo)




"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" View through one of the boats. (photo © Jaime Rojo)




"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Process shot. (photo © Jaime Rojo)




"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)




"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail of the gazebo ceiling. (photo © Jaime Rojo)




"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Process shot. (photo © Jaime Rojo)




"Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" Detail of the exterior of the gazebo. (photo © Jaime Rojo)




A portrait of the artist at the base of the tree for "Swoon: Submerged Motherlands" (photo © Jaime Rojo)



Swoon: Submerged Motherlands runs April 11-August 24, 2014 at The Brooklyn Museum. For more information visit the museum website HERE.

Join BSA and Swoon on April 24th
In Conversation: Brooklyn Street Art
For more information go HERE.



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European Young Talents at Carnegie Hall

April 9, 2014, 8:37 am

≫ Next: Theatre Review: Don't Miss I Remember Mama by the Transport Group Theatre Company

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Not all news about Russia relates to Crimea nowadays. Carnegie Hall will be home this evening to a group of young European musicians that came to New York, invited to participate in the annual Musical Olympus Festival.

Presented by the Russian Musical Olympus Foundation, the festival consists of a series of performances by Belgian violinist Marc Bouchkov, French Pianist Remi Geniet, Russian bassist Igor Eliseev, Swiss mezzo-soprano Nathalie Mittelbach, and Bulgarian percussionist Vassilena Serfimova, who will perform works by Bottesini, Bruch, Haydn, Rachmaninoff, Brahms, Bizet, Xenakis, and Cheung.

"Music is a universal value, it provides a language that enables the dialogue of people from different nations and cultures. The Musical Olympus Festival supports young musicians from all parts of the world," says Irina Nikitina, President of the Musical Olympus Foundation.

I met Irina, a former pianist who started her career as the Perestroika was changing Russia and the world, at a dinner party in New York a few months ago. I became more curious about her life and her work as she talked about her passion for music and the pleasure she receives in promoting new generations of classical performers. She spoke about her past as a musician in the Post-Soviet Russia, until an injury of her hand in the early 1990's put an end to what was a promising concert pianist.

Backed at the beginning by powerful connections, cultivated during her life as a musician, including Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratic elected mayor of St. Petersburg, and a mentor and teacher of both Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, Irina became an advocate of Russian love for classical music, a tradition that she thought in danger of being forgotten amidst the political turmoil and rapid social changes.

She envisioned an annual festival every June in St. Petersburg in which the best young musicians would participate. For the last 18 seasons, the Musician Olympus Festival has been held all over the world, with over 420 musicians from 40 countries. Tonight's performance will be the eighth at Carnegie Hall. Irina revealed, "for our concert in New York we chose the best artists, the most outstanding and creative. The Festival gives them an opportunity to show their talent to an international, discerning audience". I simply cannot wait to be there.


Image courtesy of the Musical Olympus Foundation