“Toast”
5ft x 5ft
Oil on canvas

Earlier last month on April 9, I had the unique opportunity to sit on a panel discussing gentrification in Washington, D.C. and how it has affected the D.C. Hip-Hop scene. The panel, at first consisted of an all-black cast of some of the Districts' more successful promoters, venue owners, tastemakers and thought leaders. When one of the panelists had to drop out, a white guy was added. Not just any white guy though, this Brother has been involved and has been instrumental -- nurturing and progressing the D.C. Hip-Hop scene for many years -- and has earned the respect from his peers for doing such.

Now, in full disclosure I have worked with this "white guy" on numerous occasions. We have thrown "Power Moves" parties together at the now closed Ras Hall in Uptown NW. I have consulted him on my "Black Rock Star Super Hero" and GODISHEUS clothing lines. I have rocked shows in the retail shop "Art Under Pressure" where he has been a manager. I am featured in a couple cameos on his album. I guess you could say, I am a fan of (let me stop calling him "white guy") Cory L. Stowers a.k.a. Rock Creek Lee.

Rock Creek Lee hit me up in March all excited about his next move: spinning all D.C. music sets at Kramerbooks & Afterwords. We're about hearing Chuck Brown, Fugazi, Michelle N'Degechello, William DeVaugh (Diamonds in the Back), Courtney Dowe, Uptown XO, Team Demolition, Akoko, NEG and a host of other well-known local stars with significant music contributions to the world of music -- operating right here out of the Nation's Capital.

Needless to say, I am very excited about what Cory is and has been doing, so I sat down to ask him a few questions:

Q. You have been involved with many visual arts endeavors in Washington, DC over the past 15-years, my Brother. I know you have worked with various nonprofit organizations, Murals DC, curating gallery events, promoting local artists, and heavily involved in the creation of the "Art Under Pressure" (A.U.P) brand. Now you are switching direction, and taking up DJing as a new creative
outlet? Let us know why...

A. My connections to the arts communities in Washington run deep; including various music scenes, of which I have been a fan and supporter of for as long as I can remember. As far as DJing is concerned, I am fortunate to have always been connected to those who I feel epitomize the craft here in DC metro area: from DJ's like SMK, Oso-Fresh, Alize, Celo and other well-known DC Hip-Hop greats, to DJ's Underdog, Selecta, Mane Squeeze and those who spin more contemporary music sets.

My shift from visual arts to the music came at the urging friends to complete an archiving project I have been working on for some time. The project involves taking all the local music I have
collected over the years to create what I feel is one of the largest standing digital libraries of music produced by artists from Washington, DC and the surrounding areas. While in the process I was contacted by Peter Conner from Kramerbooks and Afterwords Café who presented me with the opportunity to update the Cafe's musical offerings for this year 2014. Even though I don't consider myself a DJ on the caliber of those I mentioned earlier, I feel this is a great opportunity to present my archived material, while bringing attention to the artists that I feel passionate about.

Q. Why focus strictly on local music?

A. I have always been a promoter of locally based musicians. In a city/region that has hundreds of venues on any given night with DJs supplying music entertainment, I find it difficult to accept there aren't more DJs focusing their attention on our homegrown artists. Sure, you may hear one or two records in a set from a locally based artist, but on a whole the club scene focuses on national or international artists - which is ok, but I push back the philosophy that you can't rock an entire set or party with music strictly from DC... and I intend to prove it is possible to do so.

Q. I know you also record music as well, and not too long ago released an album called "Songs In A Sallow Man's Key" (SIASMK). I have heard your project has been described as "a fresh perspective... from an artist that gets it" by Maureen "Ma Dukes" Yancey (J Dilla's mom). How has the public response been to your new record?

A. Overall the response has been super positive. With J Dilla's mom saying things like that about my music, it gives me inspiration to create more. I have always tried to make music that I felt was important and relevant. The more people hear the record the more they like it, so it's a real boost.

Q. Okay, so what are your future moves?

A. In addition to my upcoming DJ residency at Afterwords Cafe, I am in the process of relocating Art Under Pressure's retail store to U Street as well as working with Guerilla Arts to bring my graffiti curriculum into DC Schools. I have a couple of recording projects on the horizon as well. One of which is a cool concept album I am mapping out with AB the Pro, and a follow up record to SIASMK.

Of course my primary focus is raising my son Bayani who is five years old now, and building a strong foundation for his future.

Cory Stowers aka Rock Creek Lee is spinning his all DC Music set this Saturday May 10th at Kramerbooks' & Afterwords located at 1517 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036. 10pm-2am. No Cover.

You can follow Mr. Stowers in on Twitter/Instagram: @rockcreeklee

It's been a while.

As I read through my last articles, I can see how much my photographic preferences have changed. I am different. My world is different. How I view life is different. My photography has changed.





I am soon off to visit Thailand for the first time in my life.

My photographic thoughts are more and more drawn towards the documentary style. If not yet visible in my recent work, it's growing inside me and hopefully it will just burst out like a flower when the time is right.



99.9 percent of my work has been in black and white so far. These last days I have wondered why. Is it to shave off the unnecessary information in my work, or is it a way for me to distance myself from the images or maybe it´s just done by routine? I don't have the answer at the moment. But today, I feel very drawn towards working in color. My trip to Thailand may be the trigger that I need. A very colorful world compared to my own. I have ideas for a project or two which I am very excited about. We'll see what happens -- ot knowing is a part of the journey.



Stay tuned for more photography and stories coming from the Land of Smiles..

HERE LIES LOVE *** 1/2 out of ****
6TH ANNUAL AUGUST WILSON MONOLOGUE COMPETITION
SEA MARKS ** out of ****
SELECTED SHORTS: NEIL GAIMAN *** out of ****
A TIME TRAVELER'S TRIP TO NIAGARA * 1/2 out of ****


HERE LIES LOVE *** 1/2 out of ****
PUBLIC THEATER

Have you ever arrived late to a party that's already at full blast? Sometimes you feel overwhelmed and out of sorts; you never quite sync to the goings-on and feel like a bystander. Other times, you dive right in and are immediately having fun without the bother of small talk and building up to that happy energy.

Well, the party has already started for Here Lies Love. Don't worry, though -- you'll have fun as soon as you show up. It's received loads of great reviews, awards from various and sundry and has settled into a long and unprecedented commercial run right at the Public Theater. The cast album has just been released. And if this production were eligible for the Tonys, I've no doubt it would win Best Musical.

Conceived by David Byrne, it's a musical about the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos in the Philippines. (Maybe the sequel will cover her rise again, since Marcos is currently serving as an elected official in that country's Congress, having won re-election by a landslide for her seat.) I'd heard about the high concept staging, which involves a deejay and hints of the discos Imelda frequented in her jet-setting days and the karaoke she loved. (Karaoke was born in the Philippines, by the way.)

So I was prepared for fun and silliness and some dependably good songs. What I wasn't prepared for was the genuine depth of the show. It charts an emotional journey for Imelda, which isn't easy since she's such an unreflective person who by her own admission turns away whenever she sees something ugly, like garbage in the streets. She must have turned away a lot in her life. Here Lies Love shows her springboard to fame via beauty pageants, falling in love, turning aside from Aquino (Conrad Ricamora) and his political passion, marrying Marcos (Jose Llana) and becoming her country's first lady and an international celebrity even as she ignores her past, her husband's infidelities, her growing dependence on prescription drugs and the brutal nature of their hold on power for decades.



It's cleverly staged, with most of the audience standing on the floor, with a series of connected platforms moved by stagehands this way and that as ushers direct us to move to the left or the right. At both ends of the space are two stages. Sometimes you're focused on one end, sometimes people are duetting with each other from across the room. Other times the movable stages serve as a catwalk and politicians are leaning down into the crowd, shaking hands and asking for your vote. Video monitors line the walls, with cameras used at certain points to catch the media frenzy as this or that person reaches out to the people of the Philippines and makes their case. All the while, a deejay in a booth high above us plays the tracks that the actors sing along to or urges everyone to dance.

It's buoyant, smart and always to a purpose. The disco setting and hints of karaoke are modest background, not a concept that over-powers the story. When we see Imelda (Ruthie Ann Miles) talking about her childhood and relating the story of her rise from poverty, it's told with simple hand-made props you might find in a school play, reflecting her hard-scrabble youth. When those video cameras flash footage of actors on screen, they're in the public role of figures seeking elected office or waging war on the government's dictatorial methods by risking life and limb to speak out on the news. When David Byrne uses a quote from Imelda to create the song "Star and Slave," director Alex Timbers has the actress come down and walk through the crowd so she can be "one of the people." (And of course, the center of attention.) When Imelda's hair stiffens into an ugly, matriarchal bun, you know the happy times are over.

It's the best work Timbers has done and a triumph for all involved. It's also logistically impressive, with so many costume changes and moving parts -- I'd love to watch backstage but doubt there's a free inch of space to stand in. The scenic design by David Korins makes a virtue of the setting. When Imelda is getting married, a friend from her childhood watches from afar. The actress simply holds a section of fence on rollers in front of her, moving it around to always keep the fence between her and Imelda. It's simple and wonderfully effective. The costume design by Clint Ramos is colorful and spot-on. The lighting (Justin Townsend), sound design (M.L. Dogg & Cody Spencer) and projection design (Peter Nigrini) all work beautifully together. The choreography by Annie-B Parson pulls from traditional Filipino dance to disco and all stops in between with great results.

Too often, high concept shows become more about the concept than the story. Not here. Is it a catalog of the very real evils of the Marcos regime? No, but you'd have to be foolish to think this show turns away from ugliness the way Imelda does. Tellingly, there is no song about shoes -- they're not here to deliver easy jokes or a surface appraisal of Imelda. Timbers keeps the focus on the characters that Byrne (along with music by Byrne & Fatboy Slim with Jose Llana and additional music by Tom Gandey & J Pardo) has brought to life.

The cast is exceptional from top to bottom and certainly constitutes one of the sexiest group of actors you'll find in New York right now. Ricamora is sexily passionate as Aquino, Llana compellingly handsome as Marcos and Miles sings beautifully and brings Imelda in all her self-deluding glory vividly to the stage. The original casting by Jordan Thaler & Heidi Griffiths (with additional casting by Tara Rubin Casting) is stellar. We should be seeing these talents flourish in other parts. But not right away. They need to keep Here Lies Love running for a long, long time. If The Donkey Show and other immersive events can run Off Broadway for years, this smart and sexy and wildly entertaining work of theater should certainly be able to do the same.

As I mentioned, the cast album has just come out. You can buy it from David Byrne's entertaining website. It does indeed have gorgeous packaging that digital can't offer. And why not buy it from Byrne since more money will go to the artist rather than some third party retailer? He's got a great essay about the future of music and artists in an all-digital, all-streaming world. Check it out.


6TH ANNUAL AUGUST WILSON MONOLOGUE COMPETITION
AUGUST WILSON THEATRE

For years, one of the highlights of the spring is the August Wilson Monologue Competition. It began in Atlanta, Georgia: high school students prepared a monologue from one of the plays of August Wilson. The best came to New York City for a great weekend immersed in the world of the theater. Winners received a scholarship towards college. Well, it's spread in just six years to numerous cities around the country and a few days ago, the finals were held again - appropriately enough, at the August Wilson theater.

You can go to YouTube and find countless videos of teenagers all over the country working on and perfecting their monologues for this event. It's fun and inspiring and quite moving to see Wilson's words spreading like wildfire. Here's one video about young actors in Portland preparing and sharing their thoughts on Wilson and his work.



Director Kenny Leon was the host and he kept the proceedings focused strictly on the positive: this wasn't a competition so much as a celebration of Wilson's remarkable body of work and the talent of these young actors. He made jokes, did push-ups during a brief pause, high-fived the actors after their turn in the spotlight and charmed and relaxed them all. (Though to be honest, the teens who had already delivered their monologues joined his energy a lot more readily than the ones still nervously waiting their turn> :)

The judges were an impressive crowd (including among others director David Cromer and the great Stephen McKinley Henderson). Boston, Chicago and Atlanta produced the three winners but the entire night was certainly a positive event for all. As a surprise, Denzel Washington (starring in Leon's acclaimed revival of A Raisin In The Sun to standing room only audiences) popped in, essentially freaking the kids out in a good way as he offered some preaching about their dreams and what's important in life. He said it's not about making a lot of money and buying your mom a house -- "But buy your mom a house!" he insisted amusingly -- and as a final comment, generously donated $1,000 for every teen who participated and made it to New York City, a 20+ strong group of kids.

Best of all, the audience got to hear choice selections from Wilson's work, which only makes you eager to see and read them all over again.


SEA MARKS ** out of ****
IRISH REPERTORY THEATRE

This very modest play by the late Gardner McKay is a two-hander about two awkward people who fall in love in the late 1960s. One is Colin (Patrick Fitzgerald), a lonely fisherman in his forties who plies his trade from the island of Cliffhorn Heads. The other is Timothea (Xanthe Elbrick), a woman making her way in the publishing business in Liverpool.

Colin met Timothea at a local wedding, where he promptly put his hand in a punch bowl while trying to be suave. Some while later, he bravely writes her a letter, mentioning their brief chat, suggesting she must surely remember him and asking her to write him back if it's not too much trouble.

At first, what follows looks to be an epistolary play, with one actor speaking aloud the letter they wrote and the other picking up as they begin to read it. No, she doesn't remember him but is intrigued enough to write back. He writes back again and in classic 84 Charing Cross Road fashion, their formal greetings and goodbyes become more informal and then downright romantic. Not least of all, Timothea is charmed by Colin's way with words as he describes his life battling the sea and the people of his village.



You might think you can chart the rest, but this ultimately confusing play has fooled you. She comes back for a visit and he makes the first trip of his life and visits her in Liverpool where -- scandalously -- he stays in her home. (The Beatles are big and free love is in the air.) Colin is a virgin and frankly the spinsterish Timothea seems like one too. But in many unlikely twists that are hard to swallow, after seeming to imply she's as new to this as he, Timothea is describing her first time with a lad in a barn. Does she like Colin because he's rustic?

In the blink of an eye, Timothea morphs into a career gal of sorts. Naturally, without telling him she's had his letters reframed as poetry and published in a book. A local reading looms, but she makes it sound like the make or break proposition of a lifetime. It's hard to imagine Colin spending even a day outside the comfort zone of his tiny village but here he is in Liverpool. That's lovely but her sudden expectation that he would drop his entire way of life, sit in her apartment, stare at the walls and write is just bizarre. Is she an idiot?

Even more bizarrely, suddenly he's wondering why she didn't mention her husband works at the same building where Timothea works. Wait, she's been married? They're divorced but he's a con artist and just out of jail? This doozy is mentioned once or twice and then dropped, even though the ex shows up at the apartment and Colin offers to teach him how to fish. Soon, we're longing the for the show to return to its simpler, epistolary nature.

Elbrick can't make sense of such a nonsensical, changeable character. Fitzgerald is better with his more consistent role, though he overplays the dramatics in his big, final monologue at that reading. Less is more. As is often the case with the Irish Rep, their small, awkward space inspires good scenic design (here by Charlie Corcoran) and other solid tech efforts, especially the lighting by Michael Gottlieb and the effective sound design by M. Florian Staab that doesn't overplay squawking gulls or the sounds of the big city. Ciarán O'Reilly directs ably enough but what is really needed is a major rewrite.


SELECTED SHORTS: NEIL GAIMAN *** out of ****
SYMPHONY SPACE

It's been a while since I've made it to Symphony Space -- too long, really. It's a warm theater that serves as a center of music and movies and the arts in general. Selected Shorts is a long-running program that is performed here and airs from WNYC and weekly at 130 stations around the country via Public Radio International. Seeing it live, for a change, was a special treat.

Neil Gaiman was the attraction and he and the folks at Selected Shorts chose some pieces of his and works he loves to celebrate. The audience was packed for Gaiman is a rock star when it comes to public events centering on his work in many media. As is usual, the evening is a varied sort with Gaiman and other actors taking their turns. John Cameron Mitchell (on two works, including the amusing "Adventure Story") and Kirsten Vangsness were very strong. But the night was stolen by Denis O'Hare who delivered Gaiman's "The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury" with wonderful verve and emotion.

Gaiman paid tribute to two favorites of his by having Rita Wolf perform "The Company Of Wolves" by Angela Carter while he read "Evening Primrose" by the all-but-forgotten John Collier. Carter's tale was a little tricky for performing live and Collier's fanciful work about people secretly living in a department store was perhaps too long. But Gaiman's engaging presence (quiet and magnetic as he spoke to the audience bathed in darkness) kept the night a happy one, ending with his sweet story "July Tale."

Future shows include a tribute to Dorothy Parker on May 21 (including Hope Davis) and Tales After Darkon June 11 (including Josh Radnor of How I Met Your Mother). And of course Selected Shorts airs every week on the radio.

I didn't spot any video from the event, but here's Gaiman reading Green Eggs and Ham.




A TIME TRAVELER'S TRIP TO NIAGARA * 1/2 out of ****
HUDSON GUILD

It happens all the time: two movies with the same concept, like an adult being switched into a child's body and the child taking over the adult's body. Two books about an obscure historical event that the authors labored over privately for years. And here we have two plays based on and inspired by the works of legendary figures from the American theater's past. Both plays use that work as a springboard for all sorts of meta-theatrical tricks. Unfortunately, the comparisons will not be kind since An Octoroon has opened to raves and solidified Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins as a major talent while A Time-Traveler's Trip To Niagara will pass without much comment at all.

Niagara is based very loosely on a play by William Dunlap, certainly a key person in the development of American theater. It served as the basis for a collaborative work by a group of writers. I'm not sure such a piece-meal effort would ever be a good idea, but surely it would be wise to choose a story that was episodic in nature. This play has a complex jumping back and forth from the present to the past, with each time-stream sometimes (or to be accurate randomly) crossing each other's path. It would depend on a very consistent authorial voice, not the playwriting by committee used here.

In the early 1800s, a sister and her whiny brother are taking a trip to Niagara, where she will meet her true love but feel incapable of acting on it since he is black and she is white and the world would be against them. In the present, a distant relative is tracing that woman's journey with her whiny brother in tow. No points for wondering if she might find romance and fulfill the dreams of that woman long ago. The actors all had their moments of stumbling over dialogue, covering nicely. And the costumes of Emily Blumenauer were the most inventive at making the most of modest resources.

But somehow I left feeling a little moved. Not by the show, but by the efforts of the actors. They all presumably have other, paying jobs and yet here they were, devoting their time and energy to a play in a tiny space most people have never heard of much less been to, still dreaming of a life in the theater. The audience was depressingly sparse and four people sitting together left at the intermission, nearly cutting the crowd in half. And they were all solid, as good as the material would allow, really. Andrew Kelz had the very unfortunate role of Krissalynn in the present (almost none of the play happening in the present was of interest). But he did well in his other parts. Christine Farrell has a distinctive Kathleen Chalfant-like voice and was good in multiple roles, especially the playwright. Max Arnaud moped about appropriately as the brother. But the two romantic leads had genuine chemistry. When John-Andrew Morrison was allowed to repeat some lines of Shakespeare, the night improved tremendously. And Crystal Arnette had stage presence and charm, especially in their scenes together. That's no small feat in a ramshackle work done in the least forgiving circumstances. A life in the theater is rarely easy. But brief moments hinting at what might be -- with a better part in a better show -- are surely what keep them going.




Bonus clip: Here's Neil Gaiman talking about the three books that changed his life.




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
The Heir Apparent *** 1/2
The Realistic Joneses ***
Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill ***
The Library **
South Pacific ** 1/2
Violet ***
Bullets Over Broadway **
Of Mice And Men **
The World Is Round ***
Your Mother's Copy Of The Kama Sutra **
Hedwig and the Angry Inch ***
The Cripple Of Inishmaan ***
The Great Immensity * 1/2
Casa Valentina ** 1/2
Act One **
Inventing Mary Martin **
Cabaret ***
An Octoroon *** 1/2
Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging ***
Here Lies Love *** 1/2
6th Annual August Wilson Monologue Competition
Sea Marks * 1/2
A Time-Traveler's Trip To Niagara * 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.

Bach's Suites for Solo Cello represent the beginning and end of my relationship with music. They were among the first pieces I played as a child and the rest of my life will be spent working toward their mastery. Generations of cellists have considered mastery of the Suites a pinnacle of artistic achievement and a rite of passage. A life spent in pursuit of such a singular goal is like a pilgrimage; it is endless and requires extreme effort, daily commitment and absolute resolve.

I have decided to combine my musical pilgrimage with a physical one. Beginning in May, I will walk nearly 600 miles on the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route beginning in France and crossing Spain to the Atlantic Ocean. I will carry my cello, performing and recording Bach's Suites in ancient churches along the way.

Walking with me, a team of brilliant, award-winning filmmakers and a three-time Grammy Award winning music producer will produce a visually stunning documentary and a beautiful recording of the suites. We will endeavor to create 'sonic maps' of each church I perform in so that we can recreate the sound of those churches in live performances and film screenings following the journey.

Music is a language that speaks to everyone. I will be sharing Bach's music with people across Spain, and hope they will welcome me into their communities and be moved to share their stories with me. Many Spanish communities are suffering; in 2014 unemployment reached a record 57.7 percent for youth aged 18-25, now referred to as "the lost generation." My team and I are eager to meet these young Spaniards and hope they will be inspired to share their experiences struggling with these personal and cultural challenges. I have been invited to mentor young cellists in schools along the Camino and I look forward to exchanging ideas with them.

For more information, go to www.walktofisterra.com

Museums are an odd business they make a star by hanging a painting on a wall or installing a sculpture in a gallery. We often accept a work is worthy simply because it is exhibited within a coveted institution. It is, after all, the museum's acceptance of an artist's work that make it valuable. Their endorsement will quickly catapult the creator into the orbit of the world's most elite collectors and onto further fame.

Over 50 million tourists visit NYC annually. Most find their way into at least one exhibition. Whether it's Wyeth, Van Gogh or Mondrian, in NYC, every moment of the day, someone is studying art -- transfixed on its message, subject, style or execution. Most art is presented to us. It's rare we get to discover a treasure before it has been mined.

Step outside NY's most monumental and marvelous Museum of Modern Art onto 53rd street, and across the street just a few feet east of the hotdog and a Halal Guys, on the south side of 53rd -- right near the MOMA store -- you'll find NY's most talented treasure, working -- unbeknownst to him -- toward hard-earned artistic stardom.

Mark Nilsson has been painting portraits for nearly three years outside the MoMA. He sets up a card table, stands waiting with the posture of a confident man driven to work until a savvy subject pays an amount that constitutes a steal to sit for their portrait. He mixes his paints, preps the paper, and within minutes is staring into your soul. His style isn't street; it's more frenetic and free, purposeful and lasting. His work is jarring, his colors narrative, and his intuitive insight into his sitter's very being is that of a master.

Sitting for Mark you quickly sense the cooperative effort between subject and artist. His gaze, the speed of his strokes beg you to bare your truth as eyes connect -- creating not just a portrait but a beautiful painting. After roughly 45 minutes Mark declares his work done, and you stand up to see yourself as never before. The scars of your soul, the winds of time -- ultimately, your beauty -- are all there. He encapsulates your life. Mark Nilsson has a talent like none other.

The New York Times called Mark "the starving artist at MoMA's doors." I get that. But with any luck and some creative curators and canny collectors, Mark will someday be in the MoMA, looking down on 53rd and remembering when his treasures were a steal of a deal.

Success is the best maestro to perception. I can't say it much simpler other than affluence and influence are two attributes that can undoubtedly change public opinion. How is it that the man once running the streets of Compton with a crew named N.W.A is now on the verge of becoming the first hip hop billionaire for something outside of rap. Even the group's acronym was vulgar. Dr. Dre, the man now garnering a $3.2 billion offer from one of the largest tech giants around, use to rap lyrics like, "I straight put my 44 Desert Eagle to his motherfucking dome."

Dre has built a brand in Beats that may become one of Apple's largest acquisitions to date. But in the '90s, he was just another gangster that was a threat to America's culture right? Amazing how the perception changes once your success is advantageous to the decision makers and evident among the masses.

Or let's take Sean Combs, better known as Diddy, who will be giving the 2014 Commencement speech at Howard University. Diddy's resume consists of a multitude of accomplishments, enough to drown out that one blemish -- he dropped out from Howard University in 1990. Not to say it wasn't the right decision; in this case, the end definitely justifies the means. But I can almost guarantee that the university didn't have high hopes for Combs after he de-enrolled from their institution. Now 24 years later, they are asking that very same person to come and inform their graduating class on his life philosophies and route of success. A commencement speech or address is generally defined as the speaker's opportunity to share their experience, values, and advice; although in this case, their particular education wasn't his best course of action.

Let's take a look at the royal family of urban culture, Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Jay-Z has just been listed by The Guardian among "The Most Powerful People In The Art World." Just last year, the emcee inked a $20 million deal between Samsung and Roc Nation along with a $5 million solo distribution contract where his album released early to Samsung Galaxy phone owners. Jay-Z literally managed for Magna Carta Holy Grail to go Platinum on pre-sales. This world renowned entrepreneur is the same street king from Marcy Projects of Brooklyn, NY who hustled just to stay afloat.

Don't get me wrong, the points I am raising do show a timeline of personal progression but we also have to take into account their perception at these times as well. All three of these moguls were once classified as delinquents if they weren't already being judged as gangsters. Yes, their environments may have been predisposed to an unsustainable lifestyle but the public didn't offer any sympathy upon that matter. In return they suggested our culture would be better off without them having such an influence. Their social impact is now keeping paychecks in some of the monopoly companies that essentially keep the NASDAQ phones ringing. When you look at these three now do you see the end or the means?

Many decorators have a list of dream clients. Some are lucky enough to work with those people, while some ... just keep dreaming. Painter, Designer, Curator and Bon Vivant Deborah Buck didn't sit around and wait for her dream clients. Instead she invented them, decorated for them and sold all of their home furnishings at a profit.

From 2001-2012, Buck was proprietress of Buck House, a much-celebrated Madison Avenue antiques and design gallery where the windows routinely created a sensation. Each window had not only a theme, but also a personality---and those personalities were all strong, independent, trailblazing women. From starlets to bull fighters to ad executives, each woman came from a different time and place, and Buck envisioned each one. Those windows and the fictional femmes who inspired them are the subject of the new glossy page-turner "The Windows of Buck House: Fabulous Fictional Females."



Like Buck, the book defies categorization. The photos offer up an eccentric mix of beautiful objects that tell the stories of women who dared to be different and fearlessly forge identities in a man's world. Of course such real-life women have been celebrated in many ways, but Buck chose to zero in on archetypes of women that might not have had their stories told.

Buck's identity as a painter resonates loud and clear in this book. It celebrates each window that began a blank canvas in the artist's imagination. Instead of paint, Buck used antiques, fabrics and props (including live canaries in one window) to create the artful windows of her gallery.


Artful Décor Meets Inspirational Quotations

As I paged through "The Windows of Buck House," I was entertained not only by the photos, but also by the biographies of the fictional women who inhabited each space. In addition, each chapter is further detailed by an inspirational quote from a real life person. Each bio has not only tidbits about the subject, but also hints at where each was at that exact moment of time. According to Buck, she wanted the windows to seem like each character had just "stepped out," so the space was exactly as she'd left it.

For example, a chapter that grabbed my attention was the story of "Berty Cardinal," an ornithologist who had just flown the coop, as it were. According to the story, it was 1952 in Vitoria, Brazil and Berty could no longer stay in her stifling marriage, so she left a note for him in an empty birdcage that read "Farewell, Bill. I really must fly."

The quote corresponding to Berty's story was from Henrik Ibsen: "A forest bird never wants a cage." This, of course was the window with the live canaries and lots of vintage cages. Get the idea?






Another favorite of mine was "Lulu Aquamarine," a Hollywood movie star in 1959. Apparently Lulu is tiring of keeping up the façade of her studio-fabricated romance to her frequent co-star Rod. She shares her disillusions with Tinsel Town purely "off the record" in her biography.

It was Marilyn Monroe's quote that corresponded to Lulu's story: "Hollywood is a place where they'll pay a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul."

The was a recreation of Lulu's dressing room, complete with scripts, awards, a movie poster Buck created for Lulu and Rod's new film "Blue Sunset," and a bag of fan mail from the studio. Her dressing table is lined with photos of her celebrity pals in silver frames, and her window looks out onto the Hollywood Hills.








A Window Into Buck's House

After reviewing the book, I decided that I had to meet the woman behind it. When I called to arrange an interview I was invited to meet Buck at her home on the Upper East Side. I figured a woman who created characters based on art and antiques must have a pretty interesting home. As it turns out, I was right on the money with that one.

When I arrived Buck cheerfully greeted me, we walked into her kitchen where my eyes immediately darted to a black and gold table lamp on the counter. Let me just say here and now that I love a table lamp in the kitchen. I have one in mine and it's usually the only light I leave on, since I'm not generally a fan of overhead lighting. This particular lamp was pretty stunning. It was gold and black and beautifully designed. Buck told me it was Austrian and that she was currently loving such Viennese treasures from the 1920s and 30s. I told her I'd just returned from Vienna and I shared her passion.

Let's just say that moment defined our entire visit. People who love and collect beautiful things like to talk with their fellow enthusiasts. As I diverted my attention from the lamp, Buck offered to give me a tour of her home. Every room, every corner was filled with beautiful furniture and objects. I counted at least nine sofas. The artwork was wild and wonderful and much, as it turns out, was Buck's own work.



I went bananas for a vintage Belgian tapestry in the living room that you really have to see to believe. The detail and vibrant colors are sensational and it held its own in a room that was alive with outstanding pieces.





Our biggest moment of synchronicity came when I walked into Buck's study and made a beeline for an occasional table in the corner. I gleefully asked: "Did you get this from George at The Garage Flea Market in Chelsea?" Sure enough she did. It seems Buck and I have crossover antiques contacts. A wonderful piece by Baker, the round table was from the company's "Burma" collection and was probably from the early 1960s. I'd literally had my hand on it two weeks earlier at the flea market, but would up passing due to lack of space.


Walt Disney Beginnings and Fairy Tale Endings

As I walked from room to room, it dawned on me that Buck was basically a microcosm of all of her fabulous females, and that I could see each one curling up in a corner for a cup of tea. Curious and inviting, Bucks home was a true reflection of the artist.
As we made our way back to the kitchen, Buck invited me to take a seat at the vintage oak table.

Buck began to share her journey with me, which included lively anecdotes and fond remembrances. Buck talked about her first job out of college working for Walt Disney. While there she created dioramas. She took the Disney characters and placed them in imagined settings and told stories with images.

Flash forward to many career twists and turns, and she winds up at the helm of Buck House doing the same thing with her windows. It seems a familiar note in many stories I hear about interesting people---they often wind up at a mature place in their careers tapping into to something they did that was similar early on in their careers.

Time passed quickly as Buck shared her process around creating and re-creating the 6'x 6' window at Buck House. It seems each one began mostly with one piece of furniture, then a brainstorm session with her team over a bottle of wine---and voila---a fabulous fictional female was born. Just like when she was at Disney (except for the wine part, I suppose).




A Showroom Launch Party

It seemed fitting that the launch party for Buck's new book took place at a decorator showroom (Madeline Weinrib), filled with fabric and furniture and beautiful objects. Amidst the objects were some great non-fiction characters with whom I chatted and compared notes about antiques, design and, of course, Buck's book.

Just after I finished admiring one guest's fantastic Bakelite cameo broach, I was introduced to Ken Carbone, who wrote the foreword to Buck's book. It seems he wears as many professional hats (artist, musician, author, teacher) as Buck does. In the foreword he playfully introduces the reader to windows and ends with the question "where does Ms. Buck find all this stuff?"

It seems I have the answer to that question: George's booth at The Garage Flea Market in Chelsea. I wonder how many fabulous fictional females got their start there?


Bob Richter, Deborah Buck, Ken Carbone


Photography by Jaka Vinšek / Courtesy of Deborah Buck

Launch Party Photo by Patrick McMullan

For More About Deborah Buck: http://deborahbuck.com/

When people think about artistic achievement, many focus on an individual's triumph in winning an award, a trophy, or some honor to recognize his talent, effort, and skill. The truth, however, is that the road leading up to that person's moment of glory was paved with the input and contributions of many others. If you don't believe me, try listening to a series of acceptance speeches from the Tony, Emmy, Golden Globe, or Academy Awards ceremonies.





In her 1996 book, It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us, Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to show how, for better or worse, many people outside the nuclear family can influence a child's growth and behavior. While most folks are quick to recognize the kind of teamwork that leads to victory in sports or politics, few grasp the collaborative effort required to bring many forms of art to fruition.

From the intimate communication required between a recitalist and accompanist to the full-throttle grandeur of Brunnhilde's immolation scene at the end of Der Ring des Nibelungen (when a soprano's voice must carry over the sound of a large, Wagnerian orchestra); from the sensitive ensemble work of a string quartet to the full impact of an orchestra, soloists, and chorus performing the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a great deal of rehearsal, discipline, informed choices, and collegiality is required to deliver an ideal musical experience.

Two new productions focus on the teamwork that goes into bringing a piece of art to life. While their stories take place on different continents, in different eras, and within vastly different cultures, each work manages to shine a light on the need for cooperation and attention to detail.

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Theatre Rhinoceros is recently presented the Bay Area premiere of Alan Bennett's play, The Habit of Art (2009). In the following video clip, Bennett describes some of the inspiration for his play, how he arrived at the play's peculiar dramatic structure, and explains how the character of Stuart (the young rent boy) embodies some of his early (albeit nonsexual) emotions as an undergraduate at Oxford.





Some may say that Bennett's drama employs the old play-within-a-play gimmick, but he takes matters much further than that. Several actors pretend to be a talking chair, bed, and mirror. At one point, an actor in rehearsal has a hissy fit after being referred to as "a device."

With Tamar Cohn doing double duty as Kay (the stage manager) and a talking chair -- and Kathryn Wood appearing as George (an assistant stage manager) -- the supporting cast includes the following actors:

• Seth Siegel appears as Charlie, a young actor portraying a rather clueless boy soprano working with Benjamin Britten.


• Michael DeMartini appears as Neil, who portrays a frustrated playwright struggling to cope with a group of actors in rehearsals (who are doing a stunning job of trashing his play) while he is commuting between Leeds and several other cities.


• Craig Souza appears as Donald, the actor who portrays Humphrey Carpenter (the author who would eventually write biographies of both W. H. Auden and Benjamin Britten). In a curious turn as an actor trying to puff up his role, Souza appears in drag while attempting to play a sousaphone.


• Justin Lucas appears as Tim, the actor who portrays a young hustler hired by Auden for some casual sex.

Justin Lucas in The Habit of Art (Photo by: Kent Taylor)


The two meatiest roles are reserved for the men portraying the actors attempting to play two of Britain's greatest 20th century creative artists. Each grew up during a time when homosexuality was barely mentionable in public -- when their attraction to younger men showed up in their art in ways that might have surprised them.

• John Fisher appears as Henry, the actor portraying Benjamin Britten, whose most powerful operas -- Peter Grimes (1945), Billy Budd (1951), and Death in Venice (1973) -- had strong undercurrents of repressed homosexual lust.


• Donald Currie appears as Fitz, a popular voice-over artist who is attempting to sink his teeth into the role of Auden. As Fitz, he is nervous and crotchety about receiving changes in text and stage directions; as Auden he is an aging poet in the early stages of dementia who is prone to perseveration

I found the structure of Bennett's play to be a refreshing challenge for the audience, which allows them to contrast each actor's inner thoughts with the thoughts and emotions of characters they portray. While Justin Lucas gets a rare chance to ruminate on whether the clients of the rent boy he is portraying might be famous (or someone he could tell his grandchildren about), his approach to giving his clients what they want often delivers unexpected comic moments as he attempts to deal with an eccentric old man whose impending dementia and obsession with time could frustrate the most accommodating hustler.




W. H. Auden (Donald Currie) and Stuart (Justin Lucas) talk
about cock in The Habit of Art (Photo by: Kent Taylor)


Without doubt, the evening belongs to Donald Currie, who gives a glowing performance as Fitz/Auden (even when it requires him to don an ape-like mask that can suggest the aging poet's heavily wrinkled face).

In recent years, I've found myself having increased difficulty when forced to listen to music while someone is speaking (I can no longer process both forms of communication simultaneously). Thus, in a key moment when Auden was reciting his lengthy poem entitled The Sea and the Mirror (1942), the music from one of the sea interludes Britten composed for Peter Grimes was competing for my attention. Because I love that music so much, I don't think I heard a word of Auden's poem. Listen to the following performance of all four sea interludes and I'm sure you'll understand why.





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I'm a sucker for the kind of movie that has no explosions, no car chases, and no CGI scripting. Instead, this kind of film tells a story about real people with an emotional acuity that quietly disarms the viewer and seduces him into following a slow-moving story to its end.

Yuya Ishii's delightful new film, The Great Passage (which was screened at CAAMFest 2014) is a joy from start to finish. Bottom line? I can't recommend it strongly enough.

Ishii's protagonist, Mitsuya Majime (Ryuhei Matsuda), is a painfully shy introvert with limited social skills who loves to read. As the film begins, he is failing spectacularly as a sales executive for a Tokyo-based publishing house.

Majime lives at the Sou-Un-Sou Rooming House, where his closest friends are the elderly landlady, (Misako Watanabe), her fat cat named Tora-san, and the piles of books that fill his room. With his post-graduate degree in linguistics, Majime soon attracts the attention of Masashi Nishioka (Joe Odagiri), whose editor, Kouhei Araki (Kaoru Kobayashi), is eager to retire so that he can spend more time at home caring for his ailing wife.

It's 1995 and, with the Internet growing in importance as a research tool, the publishing firm's dictionary department could easily become irrelevant in the growing presence of online databases. The only way to save the dictionary department is to come up with a revolutionary new project.

The editorial team eventually decides to create a new dictionary ("The Great Passage") which will take several years and long hours of teamwork to complete. Majime's new boss, chief editor Tomohiro Matsumoto (Go Kato), describes the project as a modern "living dictionary" which will (as opposed to standard dictionaries) include new terminology, Japanese slang, and the spoken vernacular.




Kaguya Hayashi (Aoi Miyazaki) and the shy dictionary editor
Mitsuya Majime (Ryuhei Matsuda) fall in love in The Great Passage


Working with a script by Kensaku Watanabe (which was adapted from Shiwon Miura's novel), Ishii's film also follows the budding romance between the shy Majime and his landlady's granddaughter, Kaguya Hayashi (Aoi Miyazaki), who is determined to be taken seriously as a chef in a profession dominated by Japanese men.

After 15 years of work (with a few deadline-related setbacks), "The Great Passage" is ready for publication. By this time, Matsumoto has taken ill and been confined to his home. He and his wife, Chie (Kaoru Yachigusa), are occasionally visited by Majime and Kaguya. On one of their last visits, Matsumoto asks the mature Majime to write a contemporary definition for the word "love" to be included in the new dictionary.




Kaguya Hayashi (Aoi Miyazaki) and the shy dictionary editor
Mitsuya Majime (Ryuhei Matsuda) fall in love in The Great Passage


The Great Passage is one of those gentle gems that takes viewers into a world where words are far more powerful than guns or money and a person's eccentricities are what make him most appealing (from both a personal and professional perspective). Here's the trailer:






To read more of George Heymont go to My Cultural Landscape

San Francisco may boast more Cuban ballet stars per square mile than any other dance capital outside Havana, but then tiny San Francisco boasts more than its fair share of a lot of cool things. So, on May 14, when the San Francisco Dance Film Festival airs the West Coast première of Secundaria (High School) -- a candid look at the lives of students at the world-famous National Ballet School in Havana -- expect Cuban dancers to be out in full force.

Filmmaker Mary Jane Doherty knew nothing about ballet until her interest was piqued, back in 2006, by a short news item about the defection of 14 Cuban dancers. On an impulse, she went down to Havana, with no introductions, and ended up making 21 trips over three years to document the lives of three gifted teenagers at the legendary institution that for several generations has cultivated some of the world's most exciting ballet dancers, known for their prowess in spinning, their miraculous balances and, above all, their attack, their passion on stage.

Doherty's camera meanders, capturing in subtle detail the rigor of daily drills, the thrill of competition and the terror and heartbreak that accompany a high-risk, life-altering decision -- all against an evocative soundtrack of classical and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Stray moments convey, with few words, the everyday struggles, the triumphs and frustrations, the fierce pride shared by teachers and students, the anxiety that besets parents.



Even though acceptance into the highly selective school gives students a shot at fame and the prospect of financial security for their families, economic circumstances are far more daunting than at comparable state academies in Russia and France. We watch in dismay as a national tour is cancelled simply because a working bus cannot be found in the entire city of Havana to transport the students. Students wash their tights in cracked buckets of water. One of them wins 500 euros in an international competition, about three times her mother's annual salary, but the school commandeers the prize money to buy much-needed DVD players. The shadow of authoritarian politics extends over all, yet Doherty makes little comment, simply revealing what everyday life looks like for these chosen few.

In one priceless moment, we learn how a teacher accused her hard-working students of slacking off, and suggested that if they don't have what it takes, they should just go and study economics.

Of the three young dancers whom Doherty followed in this film, one is now dancing in the United States: Mayara Pineiro, 15 when Doherty started filming, is now 23 and a dancer with Milwaukee Ballet. Ballet to the People reached her during the bustle of preparations for next week's world première of Mirror Mirror, a dark, modern riff on the tale of Snow White by Michael Pink. Pineiro, cast as a White Silk Dove and also as an evil Spirit, sounded thrilled: "Rehearsal for this ballet has been amazing. The choreography is so challenging. It's a completely new and different story from the traditional fairy tale -- it's like an abstract painting, unfolding with gorgeous scenery and costumes."



As Pineiro steps on to the stage in Milwaukee, audiences at the San Francisco screening of Secundaria on Wednesday night will get to travel back in time and see her at 15, 16 and 17, being molded by her teachers in Havana. And Cuban dancers who have blazed the trail before Pineiro -- including San Francisco Ballet's Lorena Feijóo, Taras Domitro and Joan Boada and Ballet San Jose's new Artistic Director and former American Ballet Theatre star, José Manuel Carreño -- will join Mary Jane Doherty for a post-screening conversation about their own experiences as young dancers training in Cuba, and about their individual journeys to stardom far from home.

This screening of Secundaria and a post-screening reception at the Elite Café (with hot Cuban jazz music provided by SF JAZZ) will raise funds for the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, slated to take place in November. The festival will not only air some of the world's best dance films, but will also commission three brand new Co-Laboratory films, and host an evening of dialogue between two dance legends, filmmaker Frederick Wiseman and LINES Ballet founder Alonzo King.

Catch the West Coast première of Secundaria on Wednesday, May 14th at 7 p.m. at the Clay Theatre, 2261 Fillmore Street, San Francisco.

"All games have morals and the game of Snakes and Ladders captures as no other activity can hope to do the eternal truth that for every ladder you climb a snake is waiting just around the corner and for every snake a ladder will compensate" ― Salman Rushdie

Undeniably, this has been the strongest year yet for Arab cinema. Hany Abu-Assad's Omar went to the Oscars, as did Jehane Noujaim's The Square in the feature documentary section and Sara Ishaq's Karama Has No Walls as a short doc. Representing Palestine, Egypt and Yemen, respectively. Even Saudi Arabia has come to the game, with its first feature by a woman filmmaker, Haifaa Al Mansour's Wadjda, which broke all kinds of records and barriers.

Yet, as Rushdie so powerfully states in his quote above, for every great achievement, there is always a step back. A snake lurking in the grass. And this is no different for my beloved MENA. At no other time has the region been so chaotic and positive at once.

And at no time has its cinematic industry ever been so laden with possibilities.

As Cannes fast approaches, I look forward to watching some incredible films and catching up on world cinema. But alas, this year's 67th edition of the festival offers little in terms of Arab cinema. The Aftermath of The Inauguration of The Public Toilet At Kilometer 375 is the groundbreaking first student film from Egypt to be included in the Cinefondation, and Challat of Tunis screens in the ACID program. There is a documentary about Syria titled Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait screening out of competition, Snow in Paradise from the UK which deals with a man finding peace through Islam and a few little tidbits here and there. But, to quote Dickens, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

A few months ago, for Abu Dhabi magazine Shawati', I caught up with Gianluca Chakra, the talent and mind behind Front Row Filmed Entertainment, one of the leading distributors in the Middle East. Front Row distributes everything from Hollywood fare like Rush, to indie greats like The Double, this year's Oscar winner for best foreign language film The Great Beauty and Nadine Labaki's Where Do We Go Now? Not to mention, Chakra is always one of the few voices I turn to when I need to understand the problems and discover the gems. As usual, he shed light on the great steps forward, and some steps back, taken in Arab cinema today.

What has been the most successful Arab film you've distributed to date?

Gianluca Chakra: In reality the Arab films are mainly from Egypt as the rest of Arab countries have little or no production at all. The last successful Egyptian films we distributed were the latest Ahmad Hilmy films X-Large and Ala Gossety (Over My Dead Body). The last successful non-Egyptian film was Nadine Labaki's Where Do We Go Now? which truly broke records in Lebanon; it was third on the "All Time Top 20" only after Titanic and Avatar.

What are the numbers, for example box office of a major Hollywood film today, as opposed to a year ago, and two. And with Arab cinema?

Chakra: Every year we see an increment of around 10 percent, due to more and more multiplexes opening up. Regarding Arab cinema though, these have dropped... and drastically. Once again, 98 percent of Arab films released in the Gulf region are Egyptian. Due to the Egyptian turmoil, productions have slowed down. We usually have a big Arabic film to be launched during the Eid season. This past year, there were none. The whole Middle East depends on Egyptian films. The ones produced outside of Egypt do not travel outside of their country of origin and if they do, they either have a really small theatrical release or, in the case of the majority of Lebanese films, end up straight to VOD/DVD.

Your company is based in Dubai, so lets talk a bit about cinema in the Emirates. What are the main differences in how the UAE watches films, including Hollywood and Bollywood, from say, five years ago?

Chakra: Not much has changed in taste. Bollywood films as well as Egyptian film still bank on the few and usual stars. And when it comes to Hollywood, the films that usually work are the usual blockbusters and horrors as well as cast driven comedies. It is rare that we get surprise hits in this part of the world.

What would be your own dream projects for the Emirates?

Chakra: Maybe a big TV series talking about the family feuds before Dubai or the UAE was formed. That would be a truly eye opening event for everyone in the region. Or maybe movies that would portray a bit of the history of the UAE that rarely anyone knows. After all, 80 to 85 percent of the population in the UAE are expatriates.

What are some of the challenges for Arab cinema, and maybe in particular for Emirati cinema?

Chakra: Good writing has never been a "forte" in Arab cinema. A prime example is Egyptian Cinema. It is rare that we see an outstanding film out of Egypt. Youssef Chahine was probably one of the most sophisticated and brilliant writers and filmmakers who came out of Egypt. Now that he has passed, Egypt is left with their usual slapstick comedies that depend mainly on the usual 3 or 4 big names and no matter how bad the film is, people will still flock into theatres to watch these. Mind you that Youssef Chahine films performed poorly throughout the Middle East, including Egypt. The UAE has to battle with the lack of good writing and the lack of known talent both actors and filmmakers. But a main factor is the business model adapted which is, to say the least, demented. There's no TV Involvement, nor proper distribution set up. Everything is totally improvised depending solely on theatrical revenues when in fact, there are many more mediums where these few films can generate viewership, and therefore revenue.

How can that be overcome?

Chakra: I believe that the UAE should start looking into low budget filmmaking, based on good material and maybe find more unity within the Gulf and co-produce. Not just with neighboring countries but find strategic co-production set ups with Egypt (in order to create talent) as well as television which is a medium that is hungry for original content as well as creating new stars.

The film culture is created by education though, not only the filmmakers but also the audience. How is the audience educated? I believe the media should play a big factor. All the main TV stations are based in the UAE but unfortunately these never follow what local artists and filmmakers are up to and do nothing to encourage the Seventh Art. A clear indication is how the media would cover only blockbusters, mainly because stars would bring in audience and/or readers, and never cover smaller international gems, like for example Beasts of The Southern Wild, The Imposter and Searching For Sugarman just to name a few. If these films aren't covered, how on earth would they even remotely be interested in covering a little local gem executed by unknown filmmakers and unknown stars?

I haven't seen one single TV station -- with the exception of DMTV -- that encourage and discuss films after airing these on TV. This is part of film appreciation which could lead to educating audiences of all ages. The bigger TV stations or publications never ever follow emerging talent or even care. Instead they will only talk about the glitz and glamour that surrounds the film industry rather than the films. Just look at the programs that air on TV that talk about films. These are miniature versions of "E!" and that's all.

The commissions that have been created in the UAE to attract cinema to the region, like the Dubai Film and TV Commission and the Abu Dhabi Film Commission, what are their strengths and weaknesses in your opinion?

Chakra: The commissions so far are slowly moving in the right direction by offering programs and incentives to aspiring filmmakers. Producing a film in the UAE though is not cost effective. Many filmmakers outsource their productions in Egypt and Lebanon as the cost is way cheaper. Just look at the TV stations where they produce most of their original programming or adapted formats. Why are most Ramadan series produced either in Egypt or Syria?

One of the great steps the Dubai Film Commission took was definitely working with Paramount on Mission Impossible 4 because eventually it resulted in being a better ad for Dubai and the UAE than any CNN advertisement. This was a great move. These same film commissions though don't necessarily attract film productions to be shot in the UAE. Not at all. It all depends on the material given. They are surely positive in creating a buzz aound the UAE and encourage even local filmmakers in presenting projects and therefore compete with other international aspiring filmmakers.

Competition is always a plus in wanting to learn more and eventually aspire to be the best. Big production houses and major studios are always looking for money and so far are focusing on emerging markets such as the Middle East, India and obviously China.

Image courtesy of Gianluca Chakra, used with permission

Irma La Douce, starring Elizabeth Seal and Keith Michell, opened on Broadway in 1960, and when the Tonys awards for the season were handed around in 1961, Seal won over Julie Andrews for Camelot, Carol Channing for Show Girl and Nancy Walker for Do Re Mi.

Since she'd arrived, she'd been what back in that day was known as the toast of the town. So she must have been something to see and hear. I can't say definitively, since I never saw her or that production. I did watch her recently in a YouTube clip posted by theatreaficionado singing, with Michell, the tuner's biggest hit, "Our Language of Love."

She certainly had an appealing quality about her, but I suspect there was much more than is apparent in the YouTube clip that radiated from her on the Alvin and Plymouth stages, where the acclaimed piece played it 524 performances over the next year and a half.

There absolutely had to be a great deal more, for nothing else would explain why Irma La Douce, revived at City Center's Encores! series for the first time since then, could have captivated audiences, critics and Tony voters. Even though Fred Gwynne, George S. Irving, Clive Revill and the young Elliott Gould were in the cast, they couldn't have added enough to compensate for the feeble enterprise that apparently is all there is of Irma La Douce.

Irma (Jennifer Bowles) is a kind-hearted prostitute working in Paris's famously racy Pigalle area, and, more specifically, in a nefarious environ known as Le Milieu. She regularly patronizes -- to entice the patrons -- the Bar-des-Inquiets where Bob-Le-Hotu (Malcolm Gets), is not only the proprietor but also the narrator of what goes on with Irma (pronounced for these purposes, Ear-ma).

A milk-drinking customer calling himself Nestor (Rob McClure) turns up one day, falls for Irma, and vice versa. Trouble ensues when Nestor develops fits of jealousy, which prompt Irma to consult a bearded friend, Oscar, who is actually Nestor in disguise. This predicament leads to a sequence where Irma is hustling between Nestor and Oscar, and audience members are beginning to lose patience and/or nod off.

Little else needs to be filled in about the plot, other than mention of twists like Nestor's having to do away with Oscar, his being tried for murder, convicted and sent to Devil's Island for hard labor, his escaping with friends imprisoned along with him and rowing(!) all the way back to France, Paris, Pigalle and Bob-Le-Hotu's busy establishment -- and to the now pregnant (by him) Irma.

What Irma La Douce really is is rampant idiocy, for which there may be no excuse but for which there may be a wacky rationale having to do with national tastes. As is undoubtedly clear, the property was initially French and written by Alexander Breffort with music by Marguerite Monnot (about whom more later).

Evidently, it was such a Gallic click that Englishmen Julian More, David Heneker and Monty Norman adapted it for the British stage, where it was such a success that David Merrick decided to import it but not to assign scribes on these shores to tweak it. Maybe he tried, and no one succumbed. Maybe, he just figured -- rightly -- that leading lady Seal was all it needed here.

Now it's revealed that French humor brought here by way of English humor doesn't travel easily. So it's at Encores!, where Seal isn't on hand, and the perfectly adequate, though ultimately lackluster (with the exception of the always reliable Gets) troupe assembled are unable to make anything of it. That's even under the direction of the usually clever John Doyle and the always cheerful conductor Rob Berman. McClure is valiantly giving his all to no avail, and Bowles and veterans like Stephen DeRosa are trying, but no soap.

That's not quite right. Choreographer Chase Brock musters something saucy in a second act dance that Bowles does with four of the cast members as bearded penguins. (Don't ask.) Worth noting is that the original dance music is credited to John Kander. For all we know, he may have been listening to Monnot's melodies while hanging around rehearsals, thought he could at least do as well and built himself into the composer for whom Fred Ebb and the rest of us are now grateful.

As for Monnot: Edith Piaf lovers know that some of her best-known songs -- in the '40s and '50s they were internationally known -- are Monnot's and include "The Poor People of Paris," "Milord" and "If You Love Me, Really Love Me."

Evidently, she wrote the Irma la Douce score after falling out with Piaf. Several of the numbers, all sounding as if to be played on accordion (as they are here by William Schimmel) -- are up to Monnot's standards. Among them are "Our Language of Love" and the haunting "Irma-La-Douce." There aren't enough of them, however, to serve as show redeemers.

Throughout Irma la Douce, Irma repeats the term "dis donc," for which there's no strict translation. (Audience members who don't know French will have no idea what she's uttering.) Literally meaning "say then," dis donc is used by the French to indicate that that's the way things are -- often in a conversation-stopping way.

So where does this Irma La Douce stand? Dis donc!

I've promised myself to write each and every day of the Festival de Cannes, at least a short wrap-up of the day, if not a more in-depth kind of "review" of a movie I like. Even if I don't really do reviews, I only write about what I love. Life is too short to spend hours tearing someone else's work to bits, and honestly, who am I to do so? I'm an audience member first, a lover of art and cinema with a conscience second, and a critic last. Way at the bottom of the ladder.

So, if you're looking for reviews, there are brilliant men and women out there who do it all beautifully. Like Manohla Dargis who gives me goosebumps when I read her wonderful writing. But if you're looking for highlights, fun tidbits and a slightly different way of looking at the grandest film festival in the world, you're in the right place.

Looking at the program for Cannes, one can easily get overwhelmed. Perhaps another great plus of not being a critic is being able to schedule dinner meetings with filmmakers, attending the countless cocktail parties in the afternoons, catching up with all my cinematic friends who will converge on the Croisette for those 12-odd days and visiting Cannes. I did that last year and what looked on paper like an incredibly stressful event turned out to be magically fun. Because nobody does it quite like Cannes.

Last week, I wrote a list for Cinemy, the Dubai International Film Festival blog, indicating what I'm looking forward to most in Cannes. Since then, a couple of new films have come on my radar, as well as great news from distributors and parties that celebrate some inspired filmmaking. Oh, and this is where I'll be doing most of my writing from. Go ahead, try to say I haven't got the greatest job in the world...



Now that you've had a moment to take in the idillic location, I'll disclose it. It's The American Pavilion in Cannes, which offers amazing hospitality from the likes of American Express and The Peninsula Hotels to stressed-out writers like me. It also features the best WiFi -- I'm guessing thanks to Sennheiser and Lenovo -- some cool refreshments from Coca Cola, Tcho Chocolate and Weaver's Coffee & Tea and boast the hippest crowd this year, thanks to sponsorships by Weinstein Co., Indiegogo, the Hollywood Reporter, Queerty and SAGIndie. And many, many more. Come to think of it, I doubt I'll get any work done.

The Abu Dhabi Film Festival also celebrates at the UAE Pavilion, the fifth year of their SANAD fund. SANAD provides filmmakers from the Arab world support both in the development of project and in post-production. Cinema from MENA being a cause and effort near and dear to my heart, this anniversary is one I'll gladly celebrate along with the great powers behind ADFF, which include favorite interview and festival director Ali Al Jabri. And don't even get me started on the DIFF lunch, which is the event to attend each year in Cannes!

Dolphin Films' CEO Bill O'Dowd will also be in Cannes and I look forward to sitting down with him to find out more about the upcoming Max Steel film, starring Andy Garcia, Ben Winchell and Ana Villafañe. The project, based on the Mattel superhero franchise, boast a script by Marvel Studios veteran Christopher Yost and is directed by Stewart Hendler. While I'm typically not a big action hero fan, this one stars a favorite actor, Garcia, and having grown up on Mattel toys, I think I'll be in those first lines to watch the film when it's released in 2015.

Also new on my must-watch list of films in Cannes is Gett, the Trial of Viviane Amsalem, a courtroom drama screening in The Directors' Fortnight, about an Israeli woman's five year fight to obtain her divorce in front of the Rabbinical Court. Directed by Ronit Elkabetz and Shlomi Elkabetz, the film was edited by Joelle Alexis, one of my favorite editors responsible for the wonderfully fluidity of films like Tom Shoval's Youth and In the Dark Room. Plus, the story makes it sound a bit like the Israeli answer to A Separation, and how wonderfully irreverent that all could be!

Check out "Ten Reasons I'm Looking Forward to Cannes this Year" on the DIFF blog and don't forget, if you're coming to the French Riviera, pack your appetite for film, but also food, fun and fashion.

Top image courtesy of the Festival de Cannes, The American Pavilion photo courtesy of AmPav, all used with permission

When I left the Royal Opera House in 2000, I made a series of speeches about my time in London and what I hoped would happen in the arts world after my departure. I spoke extensively about two areas: the need to have an honest and open dialogue about the way the arts would be funded in Great Britain in the face of shrinking government funding, and about the need for more collegiality among arts leaders as we all, collectively, had to deal with a series of major challenges.

Now, 14 years later, as I prepare to leave the Kennedy Center, I feel impelled to communicate with my colleagues once again. So much has changed over these past 14 years and yet so much has remained the same.

We are still struggling to find new arts funding paradigms. I speak with so many board members of arts institutions who believe there must be an alternative for private fundraising (there isn't) and who remain convinced that it is simply the lack of talent amongst arts managers that results in boards having to give and get so much more than in the past.

And as it becomes increasingly difficult to balance the budget while making excellent art, the discourse among arts managers, board members, government officials and the press has gotten angrier, nastier and far more personal. It simply does not help solve our problems.

But today I am far more concerned about another critical issue: our donor base is aging and we are not replacing out traditional donors with new ones at a rapid-enough pace.

We have become increasingly reliant on contributions over the past decade; earned income growth is simply not keeping pace with inflation. The recent statistics issued by the Metropolitan Opera about its ticket sales problems are simply the most visible evidence of this phenomenon. Most arts institutions are finding that they cannot grow on earned income alone.

But if our donor base is aging then who will fund us in the decade or two ahead? In the past, we successfully engaged and cultivated a new group of early middle-aged people as their parents began to die.

But my non-scientific research suggests that the children of our best donors are not as interested in the arts as their parents were. This is not surprising since many of them did not have as rigorous an arts education. But the implications are clear and scary: we may not have enough funders in the future to support the diverse and rich arts ecology we have created over the past 60 years.

A serious effort must be made to engage people in their 20s and 30s today, to make the case for the importance of our arts institutions, to make it fun and rewarding to participate as a donor.

We must balance our need for cash today with our need to invest in building the donors of the future. The future of the arts lies in the balance.

By Kati Heng for Where



So you didn't get tickets to Lollapalooza. It wasn't even a "you snooze, you lose," situation -- those passes sold out in minutes, not hours. Thankfully, Chicago has so much more to offer in the way of live music festivals. Here are five of our favorite music-driven neighborhood fests that won't turn you away at the gate:

Do Division Street Fest



No doubt about it, the Wicker Park/Bucktown area is the place to be for great music festivals. First up: Division Street's 8th annual Do Division. With two stages, one curated by the edgy Empty Bottle concert hall, the other by Subterranean, the home stage for many of Chicago's rising stars, it's no surprise this fest draws in big names of rock. This year's lineup is looking fierce with dark headliners Bass Drum of Death and Screaming Females. Tip: Head to Empty Bottle after gates close for the night. Bands are known to put on free surprise shows after their festival performances. May 30 to June 1. Division Street between Damen and Leavitt avenues, 312.850.9390, www.do-divisionstreetfest.com

Belmont-Sheffield Music Festival

Though the Boystown neighborhood is no stranger to a raging festival (this the home of Chicago's Pride Parade and Festival), the Belmont-Sheffield Music Fest breaks the mold by making this neighborhood block party all about the music. Thirty years strong, the fest's lineup for 2014 features some of the city's favorite tribute bands, including Kashmir (Led Zeppelin tribute), Trippin Billies (Dave Matthews tribute) and Sixteen Candles ('80s classics--think Molly Ringwald and John Hughes films). Tip: Up for an after party? Head to Sheffield's Beer Garden, one of the city's best patio spots. June 7 and 8. Sheffield Avenue between Belmont Ave. and Roscoe St., 773.868.3010, www.chicagoevents.com

Green Music Fest

Wicker Park's eco-friendly festival brings out the earth lovers in all of us. Featuring environmentally friendly vendor booths and more recycling bins than trash cans throughout the streets, this is one fest that aims to reduce its carbon footprint. Headliners for this year are indie-rockers Guided by Voices and The Features, plus folk-rock psychedelics The Soil & The Sun. Tip: If you're bringing water from home, make sure you're using a reusable container. Plastic bottles won't be allowed at the fest. June 21 and 22. Damen Avenue between North Ave. and Schiller St., www.greenmusicfestchicago.com

Square Roots Festival

Put on by the neighborhood's musical collective, the Old Town School of Folk Music, Lincoln Square's summer block party is already promising more than 60 live acts during its three-day run. Spread over two stages, expect an eclectic mix of World music, soul standouts, jazz standards, folksy strummers, drum circles and more. Surrounding it all are dance parties, open jam sessions, kid-friendly activities and food from some of the neighborhood's best-loved restaurants. Tip: Don't miss the drinks. This festival is a standout when it comes to serving a cold craft beer, often supplied straight from the Midwest. July 11 to 13. Lincoln Avenue between Montrose and Wilson avenues, 773.728.6000, www.squareroots.org

Wicker Park Fest



Once more, Wicker Park proves the place to be for live outdoor music. Wicker Park Fest in particular is known as a worthy competitor and "artist's budget" alternative to big leaguers Lollapalooza and Pitchfork Music Festival. This year's lineup is yet to be announced as of press time, but with last year's roster including Cults, Ted Leo and Roky Erickson, our expectations are high. Tip: Take a shopping break from the shows at Reckless Records, where you'll find rare LPs and newly pressed vinyls to take home with you. July 28 and 29. Milwaukee Avenue between North Ave. and Paulina St., 773.384.2672, www.wickerparkbucktown.com/fest

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• NYC's Hotel Hotel Bars



• 12 Great Pubs in Orlando

Photo credits: Courtesy Green Music Festival, Courtesy Do Division Street Fest, Courtesy Wicker Park Fest

I drag my overly worked body out of the bed at 7:40 p.m. to try to make a music showcase, which is a mere 10-minute walk from my home. I'm going to see one of our gifted interns, Benjiman Poston, perform.

I find it more difficult to leave the house this day simply because for the past several months the only beds I have laid on were in hotel rooms, while I was on several business trips. I have been traveling both in and out of the country for the sake of my clients, clients that I am passionately dedicated to simply because they are great human beings.

These talented artists and visionaries have a clear vision on what sort of legacy they want to build and the message they want to convey to the generations to come.

Ron Carter is where it all began for me. His name is synonymous with Jazz and Classical music. But what many may not know about Carter is that he is also respected and appreciated by the modern musicians of today, by the likes of Erykah Badu, Q-Tip, A Tribe Called Quest, MC Solaar and Renee Neufville, formerly of Zhane.

This leads me to a whole other conversation about how mutual respect led to a meeting, which led to a foundation being formed. Wow. The discussions on education, music, art and the release of Ron Carter's biography, Finding the Right Notes, brought on the creation of his Finding the Right Notes Foundation. On May 5 from 6:00 to 9 p.m., three giants gathered together in the luxurious Carlyle Hotel in New York City. This happened the same night as the MET Gala, on the eve of the most important night in fashion, where the best and brightest in the industry get invited to sit in the same room with Vogue icon Anna Wintour.

We were blessed to have received the space that was filled with paparazzi and fans waiting to get pictures of celebrity guests who were staying there.

So the night was beyond spectacular. The energy in the room was absolutely majestic.

As the tall, slender, dark chocolate-figured woman arrived, I couldn't help but notice how Renee was laced with a bright yellow dress that cascaded the silhouette of her body, tapering at the waste then flowing to her knees. From there you saw nothing but long, beautiful legs ending with a five-inch heel to accentuate her gazelle-like legs even further. The dress was perfectly made by Ted Baker of London. The color was brilliant. The hairstyle was that of a young Diana Ross -- a perfectly massive, jet black, Afro. Makeup immaculately done.

That is the perfect way I could describe Renee Neuvfille that night as she moderated the evening that would introduce the legendary musical figure some 30 years plus her senior.

I recalled earlier that morning, telling her she would be moderating the conversation and how her soft voice turned into panic. It seemed like it took forever to assure her that she was perfect for doing this. But we all know that fear is fear.

As I had predicted, she rose to the occasion like a First Lady. A room full of reporters embraced this beautiful creature as she commanded the room with a gentle touch. All eyes were on her and all ears perked in her direction.

As if that wasn't enough, Ron Carter asked her to join him and Russell Malone in the balled "In a Sentimental Mood." Bravissimo! The room roared with clapping and praise.

So who is Renee Neufville? Now she is an official ambassador for Carter's Finding The Right Notes Foundation along with Art legend Danny Simmons. But even before this, she was still very much fabulous, grounded and gifted.

You don't have to take my word for it. Listen as she tells her story. All I know is I love my job and the wonderful clients I get to work with.

Quick: North Africa and the Middle East -- what comes to mind? Is it the Arab Spring? Civil war? Islamists? Does rock and roll factor into your equation at all?

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet a rock and roll band visiting from Algeria called Dar K' Side, or "House of Poems" (HoP). The group -- comprised of Amine Saoura ( lead vocal), Hichem Benamara ( Guitar ), Imad Meghraoui, ( Guitar bass ), Amine Benamara ( Drummer) -- had won a music competition in Algeria. Through a U.S. State Department cultural exchange program, the group are on their first visit to the United States.

After getting the lead singer his first NY slice of pizza (he approved), we toured the famous Rough Trade record shop and music club. Headlining that day were a rock group from Oregon called Mimicking Birds. Myself and the Algerian rockers watched as they sound-checked. The bass drum pounded and echoed throughout the room. The guitars roared through the hall's massive speakers. Sound technicians pushed various buttons on what looked like a super computer. None of that was impressive though. What captured my attention were the smiles on each of the Algerian musicians. These smiles were louder than the music. These guys were inspired.



I soon realized that my concept of Algeria and its people is locked into a static narrative of colonialism, civil war and a monolithic perspective of a region. In recent years, you and I have probably heard more of Algeria's neighbors -- Libya and Mali -- than of the actual country and its people. What of Algeria today? After the intimate sound check at Rough Trade, we hit up Bushwick park overlooking Manhattan and engaged in a bit of rock and roll diplomacy.

Me: Did your community and family always support your rock and roll ambitions?

HoP: Our families always supported us. Our first show was all our families, side by side. In Algeria there is no problem with rock and roll. Our rock and roll is clean.

Me: What are your songs about?

HoP: Personal lives, our society and sometimes about politics and love. Everything is abut love!

Me: What social issues does your music touch on?

HoP: We wrote songs about education. For example, when you walk down the street, you say hi and the other person says hi back. After a long civl war, people forget to do this. We wrote about the power of saying salam (arabic greeting for hello) to each other.

Me: Does your music touch on Algeria's history and social challenges?

HoP: What history? We have Europeans and Ottomans and that's it. We are a young country. We have not many things to say about history. It's too soon. It's better to think about the future, not the past. Young people care about where we are going. The thing that a rock band should do in Algeria is to say how you see things. Life is not TV. America is not TV. We want to touch people and talk about reality and look forward. Stop watching TV, free your mind. Maybe if young people do this, one day they we will say, Alhamdulil'allah, we are ok in Algeria.

Me: What is the process of organizing a concert in Algeria?

HoP: Our concerts are mostly in theaters (for plays). We do not have places like Rough Trade. We hope to have the same place like Rough Trade in Algeria.

Me: Is it difficult to get equipment?

HoP: We must get our own equipment. Local governments only support Rai (folk) music, so we do not have any support. We are our own engineers, our own managers, our own everything. It is very hard but we have to do it this way.

Me: The bass player explains that in order to get equipment they buy a ticket to France; buy the equipment there; and then fly back to Algeria. The band must travel between countries to put on a show in their own back yard.

HoP: It is very difficult to be a band in Algeria, because we sacrifice al our money and time for it. Alhamdulil'allah, we are in Brooklyn. Finally we have something with our music. Sometime I speak with myself that we are going to stop. People don't listen to rock in Algeria. From childhood all you hear is Rai Rai Rai Rai, until we are dead! There is a chance, inshallah (God willing), to make our music the right way and to give it to people.

Me: It's never easy to be the first person to do something different. You guys are in a unique and important position. You have to keep going for all those aspiring musicians watching you. What do Algerian musicians need to help them pursue their creative ambitions?

HoP: What they need is training of the mind. We should be able to play our own rock and roll. My music is my rock and roll. I say never take folk music and rock and try to meet them. I am Arab and I love rock and roll but I do not want rock and roll to be 'Arab' music. I love rock and roll but I play my own music. It's mine.

Me: What are looking to get out of your first trip to America?

HoP: We are looking to learn how bands organize shows, what equipment they use, how they practice... what we want from America is help organizing festivals of rock in Algeria with U.S. bands, Algerian bands, Moroccan bands. They (American bands and engineers) can come with their equipment and show us the right way to put on professional rock shows. This is how America can help.

Me: How is the Arab Spring affecting Algeria as a whole?

HoP: We don't care. We had a civil war in the 1990s and we don't want Arab Spring to take us back. We don't mind the Arab Spiring. We have more things to do than just politics. We don't like to be in the same situation as Syria or Libya or Egypt.

* For more info on cultural exchange programs, visit: http://www.eca.state.gov/ivlp

Check out Tom Falco's cartoons and comic blog daily at Tomversation.com or at the iPhone app Comic Chameleon.

Henry Darger, from "In the Realm of the Unreal."

I had three very timely awakenings at this year's Outsider Art Fair, sponsored by the Museum of American Folk Art, in Chelsea, for five days ending on May 11. They were stunning, shaking me all over, and ultimately beautiful.

The first is that our understanding of Henry Darger, who has become not only the face and star of outsider art, but also a shamanistic ghost-figure of human society, has only begun. I went through a Darger obsession almost a decade ago after seeing In the Realm of the Unreal, the popular documentary about Darger that later played on PBS. I thought I couldn't get enough of him -- I wanted to plunge head first into him, as thousands of people have, then I came up for air. I'd had enough. I couldn't take anymore: the strange, deadpan, foreboding flatness of his world, the "weird" little girls with penises no one could understand, the putative sickness of his mind -- who was this sicko creep with his twisted pursuit of little girls?

I stopped constantly dreaming in Darger.

Then late last year I read Jim Elledge's wonderful biography Henry Darger, Throwaway Boy: The Tragic Life of an Outsider Artist (Overlook Press, 2013) that put everything into place finally. The one word that could not be used about Darger surfaced at last: he was gay. The girls with penises were not girls at all, but tormented boys from the turn of the American twentieth century who, being vulnerable to the abuse of the world around them -- the violent streets, filthy garrets, dark stairs and closets of Chicago's slums; the asylums and orphanages into which boys like 12-year-old Henry were thrown, to be scalded, whipped, choked, and constantly sexually abused, a world of Dickensian depravity -- had to become girls inside. They could not exist within the normal roles of boys. Darger was queer; a piece of that amazing river of consciousness we are finally starting to navigate openly that has been hidden for so long and which finds so many of its wellsprings in childhood itself.

It's quite a river, and we are starting to see other artists there as well: Maurice Sendak for one. Here the wild things are not only in exquisite bondage to sex, but rip it open and go beyond it, finally reaching those innocent shores of transcendent becoming that all human beings yearn for.

As James Brett, director of London's Museum of Everything said to me prior to a panel he was on about Darger, on the tented rooftop at the Outsider Art Fair: "Darger is about the loss of innocence that we can all relate to. That is why we become the way we do about him."

The Darger panel which commemorated this completely unknown artist's explosive entry into the art world 37 years ago, when "The Realms of the Unreal" [taken from the name of Darger's 15,000 page "novel"] opened at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, was moderated by Valerie Rousseau, a curator at the American Folk Art Museum. It included Elledge in from Atlanta; Brett, from London; the art historians Michael Bonesteel, a long time Dargerite, from the Art Institute of Chicago's school, and Jane Kallir, from Gallerie St. Etienne in New York who has published monographs on Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Grandma Moses.

All of the panelists tried to tackle the protean magnificence of Henry, who makes a very slippery subject. Darger can described as the "American Van Gogh," and yet Van Gogh lived in the world of art, went to art school classes and had famous artists as friends, while Darger had none of this. Darger lived at a subsistence level that made Van Gogh's life look luxurious. Both of them were highly evolved literary artists as well as visual ones. Michael Bonesteel argued that Darger's labyrinthine stream of consciousness novel is as much of an accomplishment as his pictures. Can they be compared to Van Gogh's letters? Van Gogh has captured the popular imagination because we see him as the tormented individual who releases us into a lushly colored imaginative world of our own freedom -- a romantic construction where only the insane tell the truth. Van Gogh has often been pictured as the "first modern man" because he saw the insanity within the regulated "normal" world and the truth within insanity.

But Darger's paintings, cinemagraphic within their hugeness, their use of shifting points of view, their contrasts of emotional darkness and light, bring us to a spiritual "tract," that place of profundity where consciousness declares itself. And we can all at some point remember that, or attach ourselves to it. As James Brett said: "We are responding to our own childhood being taken away from us by adults who don't give us a fair chance." Darger understood the heaven of being there unwounded before that happens, and the hell, the storms physical and emotional, afterwards. His Vivian girls are engaged in a battle to preserve their own goodness: the innocence of the inner boy, and of everyone.

So my first awakening at this year's Outside Art Fair was how deep Darger is. I can't leave him. He won't let me.

My second awakening was discovering an incredibly powerful new artist, Larry Lewis (1919-2004), who also sailed on this queer river of consciousness, though his story is a strange flip side of Darger. Lewis spent most of his life completely invisible in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he worked as a "male secretary" at United Oil Products, in an environment of Republican conformity. He married but had no children, studied art and tried to be a painter, with no success. He started making what could be called "collages," but were actually more like manipulated images using every kind of media combination, often put together into what can be called "scrapbooks," but which were more like the 20th century version of illuminated books, or handmade "unique books." He was obsessed with the movie stars from his youth -- Paula Negri, Theda Bar, Lillian Gish, Joan Crawford, but most especially Greta Garbo. Garbo was a queer icon pointing repeatedly to coded gender reversals. Lewis was also struck with the male nude image, which up to the 1970s existed mostly in either a clinicalized or classicized way.

That is, obviously, tactfully, removed from desire.


Larry Lewis, collage in book form.

Any time the male image approached desire, especially within the pop, Hollywood culture that haunted Lewis, it became shamefully forbidden. You were quickly on scorched-earth, Sodom-and-Gomorrah ground. Lewis's meticulously done pieced images, using Edward Muybridge nude male imagery, bring this territory assertively closer to us. Like most outsider artists he asks the question: how do you say what needs to be said -- has to be said -- when most of us are too scared to ask the question?

The third awakening came from discovering Scott Sieher's "Band of Bikers" series of found photographs from Zieher Smith Gallery. The phenomenon of the found work of art or photo is coming into prominence. Sieher's bikers were in a group of gay motorcycle clubs who produced "runs," that is social gatherings, that span pre-Stonewall to the present. "Band of Bikers" documents several runs from 1972. The photos were basically dumped "garbage" found in Scott's basement. His super alerted him to them, after a tenant had died leaving no real directive for dispersing his effects.


from "Band of Bikers"

The photos are either posed, formal things, or very informal; mostly young or youngish men in biker leathers and jeans, or shorts out in a biker tent bivouac somewhere we don't know. The great awakening for me was that I knew some of the men in the pictures -- from my youngest years in NY -- I was 19, had just arrived in the city, and in the chummy queer fashion of the day met the president of the New York Motorcycle Club, an innocuous enough sounding organization, hiding a brotherhood of gay bikers. At that point, in the mid-1960s, queer bikerdom was an extremely outlaw situation, right out of Kenneth Anger midnight-show flicks.

Gays were supposed to wear cashmere, walk poodles, and drink brandy Alexanders. I quickly picked up with a group of leather guys who were the polar opposite of this, although by day some were bankers, doctors, or lawyers. Seeing these shots pushed me down the rabbit hole of time, to a place before dozens of my friends had died of AIDS, where being queer in New York was being part of a secret club whose signals and messages became a part of the culture of the city and that we are still deciphering, but it also underscored for me what Narrative is for art. It is the main thing that pulls us into it and keeps us there. Art does not tell a story; it is a story presented virtually whole. That is what drives us through Darger's battles between the Vivian girls and armies of the evil generals in academic robes, Larry Lewis's graphic books, and found photographs. That is what brings these outsiders directly into us, and keeps them there.

If you missed this year's New York Outsider Art Fair, there will be another rendition of it from October 23-26 in Paris. And who doesn't like a good excuse to go to Paris? For more information: info@outsiderartfair.

Perry Brass's latest book is Carnal Sacraments, A Historical Novel of the Future, Second Edition. He has published 17 books, including The Manly Art of Seduction, is a founding coordinator of the Rainbow Book Fair, the largest lgbt book event in the US, and can be reached through his website http://www.perrybrass.com.

Tabernacle Trapple (2014), 58 x 50 inches, oil on linen

I dropped by Kansas Gallery to see Beggars Blanket, Michael Berryhill's show of recent paintings, and was greeted by a four foot long glass vitrine containing more than a thousand small paintings and drawings.

At the outset, I must apologize for the limitations of language to express what I saw. Some things are truly better in person.

The drawings housed in the vitrine varied -- some read as intense, almost mechanical drawing while others had an off-hand elegance. There were a few tiny oil sketches on raw canvas that had large-scale painting pop.

The most tantalizing item in the pile was an -- at that time -- closed sketchbook that resembled a small bible or devotional book. Examining the edges of the volume, it seemed to contain another couple hundred of these drawings. The viewer is given freedom to extrapolate. The gallery occasionally reshuffles the works in the vitrine and opens the book to reward repeat visitors.

My experience at Kansas was informed by a prior visit to Berryhill's windowless studio in Red Hook on a sweltering summer day. It may have been hot outside, but Berryhill was showing no signs of discomfort as he worked on a small drawing. This effortlessness was on my mind as I looked at all of the work at his show.

There was effortlessness to contemplate and there was also color and lighting.

Berryhill's large matte finish oil paintings look like semi-dry or lean paint has been dragged on by broken-down brushes across the rough linen, leaving thousands of vacant spots of luminous gesso that add up to airy visual static.

Berryhill's color sensibility sets him apart from other painters, but it's hard to capture the vibrating dissonances in a photo. I fooled around taking photos of one of the paintings on Instagram so I could see what happened to the work if you made it black and white. The difference is trippy because despite Berryhill's broad palette of electric colors, he operates in disparate tonal ranges even within zones of tight color values. That's my guess, anyway. See for yourself and let us know what you think.

To complement of Berryhill's palette, Kansas founder Steven Stewart has specially installed fluorescent tube lighting in the gallery to match Berryhill's studio lighting. When you visit the show, ask him or Claire Fields to flick off a light for you so you can experience how your eye moves through the paintings differently without the fluorescent resonance with the paint to guide it.

For visitors to his studio, Berryhill will switch over to incandescent lighting for a more homey, comfortable feeling. He likes people as much as he likes to paint, and this combination is intrinsic to the vibe of his art.

But after he bids his visitors good bye, launching them back into the world beyond his windowless studio, they'll hear him hitting his power switches, once again igniting the angry insect roar of the tube lighting.


Origin of Pieces (2014)


Deztop (2014), 58 x 50 inches, oil on linen


Coven Oven (2014), 37.25 x 33.25 inches, oil on linen

See Beggars Blanket at Kansas Gallery, May 2 -June 14, 2014.

All images courtesy Kansas Gallery and Michael Berryhill.