Dylan Thomas Poem to Become Syncronized Mobile Headphone Choir

June 16, 2014, 7:56 am

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Dylan Thomas' poetry will soon be translated into a new medium--music.

Celebrating the centenary of the poet's birth, Thomas' first published poem "And Death Shall Have No Dominion," will become a live participatory singing event for a synchronized headphone choir on June 21, conceived by Welsh composer Peter Wyer.

Using an app that contains the accompaniment and synchronizes their mobile devices, participants set-off along 45-minute walking routes through lower Manhattan, singing the words of the renowned poet across the landscape of his final days.

The performers begin their walk individually, singing just one part. Little by little, as routes converge, the song is revealed in its fullness until eventually, everyone assembles together for a grand choral finale accompanied by the Asphalt Orchestra, at the gazebo in Rockefeller Park.

John Schaefer, New Sounds, WNYC describes the event as "a really beautiful work and when you get to Rockefeller park, your reward is that you get to sing alongside this great "Bang On A Can" stationary marching band [Asphalt Orchestra]" Welsh actor John Hywel (Broadway, West End) will be on site to read the poem.

Participants are invited to reflect on Thomas' words that famously declare triumph over death in the context of their own personal journey. Anyone can take part -- it is unnecessary to read music or to have sung in a choir previously. Additionally the event is still signing up singers, (especially tenors and basses). Non-signing participants are encouraged to capture the event on video, especially the moments before signing begins, as singers walk and then converge and upload the footage to the event's website or social media page.


Composer Peter Wyer

And Death Shall Have No Dominion is an arrangement of a Dylan Thomas poem set to music for the world's first synchronized headphone choir. Imagine I am a participant (which I actually am signed up to be). How does this work? What can I expect when I arrive on the 21st? Do I have to be a singer or can anyone sing?

PW: We begin by being spread out all across lower Manhattan. You can choose to walk one of the four pre-set guided routes with our professional singers (Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass) or choose to walk your own individual route. Once you have decided your starting point you'll need to be there at latest by 10:45 a.m. Starting points and further info. is pasted below for the pre-set routes.

At exactly 11:00 a.m. the app that has been developed for the project (and which you have downloaded along with the music) will automatically begin playing a backing track (there will also be a 'Plan B' for systems that aren't compatible). This is your cue to begin your walking route across Manhattan to the assembly point at Rockefeller Park.

As you walk, you will be singing in tune and in time with a larger chorus. My hope is that as you walk, little by little as the routes converge, the chorus grows until we are finally one big assembled chorus down in Rockefeller Park, where we finally take off our headphones and sing together.

For me there is a metaphor within the piece: we begin singing individually and perhaps the words -- on such a profound subject -- have specific meaning for us, my hope is that the piece gives an opportunity for both a personal introspective experience and a shared one -- in my ideal version, when people arrive there has been an element of contemplation that deepens the experience of singing together, that gives a sense of our deep connectedness that I feel gets so easily overlooked.

I do want to stress that this is a piece for everyone -- it's not about being a great singer (I wish I was, but I'm certainly not) it's about bringing your own voice and being a part of the song -- it's about the ritual of singing together.

What was your first introduction to Dylan Thomas and what inspired this particular piece of work based on this particular poem?

PW: I think for me, like many it was "Under Milk Wood" and "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" -- funnily enough I first encountered "And Death Shall Have No Dominion" through the romantic comedy Truly, Madly, Deeply where it was part-quoted, I looked it up: as soon as I read it I promised myself I'd set I it to music -- and, 23 years later, when I learnt of the centenary of Dylan Thomas's birth, I did. I always felt like I was saving the poem for a special occasion.

I set it to music at the Blue Mountain Centre on a residency in 2013 -- but it came too easily -- I sat down and sang and played it almost immediately after I arrived, so I left it on the piano for four weeks and kept glancing at it and playing it and thinking "this can't be it... surely." It slowly dawned on me that actually this was "it"; it didn't need laboring (rather typical of the way these things go, the actual music probably took 5-10 minutes to write, the remaining months of work have been all the necessary paraphernalia around it).

This event is a marriage of music, poetry, technology and some would say, site-specific theater. How do you identify this event and is it reflective of other works you may have staged?


PW: For me this is a new way of performing choral music, that's what really excites me -- through the ages the rituals of singing together have often been theatrical and used the technologies of the day, but in the 21st century extraordinary things are possible and I like the idea of using technology to bring singers together in a way that is still richly 'human' - I am struck by the irony of being better connected than any people in the history of the planet and yet in many ways more isolated and fragmented. So I'm drawn to works that invite a wide and diverse audience towards what I see as our innate connectedness.

Other works that perhaps illustrate this approach are the large scale 'Simultaneity' from 2004, which made simultaneous recordings from all around the world and played them back across multiple speakers (for example one recording featured 40 people in 23 countries recording anything marking the hour - clocks, train announcements, church bells). It was described as a 'God's ear perspective of the world'


I also developed a system, the Omnio 360, that has been used many times called 'Time Structured Mapping' - it's a very simple mapping system that synchronizes 'events' over a time period - so, for example, in 2009 I used the system to create 'Insomnia Poems' based on the poetry of Steve Dalachinsky for BBC's Jazz on 3 show - we had a very diverse team of musicians: a laptop player, a French 'chanteuse', the poet himself, guitar, piano, contrabass clarinet... each player had disparate skills, but what I loved about it was that the end result felt like a composite of both (my) composition and what each individual brought, the system allowed ways for each 'voice' to combine in a meaningful way and, for me, it really didn't sound like any genre (the system has been used with full orchestras, dance-theatre-music works and educational projects alongside many concert works)


How do you, as a conceptual artist begin to dream of concept?


PW: Ha! Am I a conceptual artist? Someone needs to tell me! I am mostly described as a composer and that is how I've earned my living for the last 14 years but I find I am often drawn to music to facilitate the idea - one feature years ago read: 'Pete M. Wyer, Composer with Time and Space' I loved that, it had me reaching for a mail-order Star Trek uniform.....

To answer the actual question, for me it usually begins very intuitively, I don't sit down trying to figure it all out, often the most interesting ideas come from a walk: I don't have any 'process' but I do get fired up by ideas and that enthusiasm usually sustains me through the agonizing process of turning an idea into reality. I also try to indulge ideas, I'm quite reckless about it - I've written screenplays, stage plays, novels, books of poetry - I have a company that makes 16 (independent) speaker immersive sound systems and I regularly scribble any number of ideas out that have nothing to do with art - it's not that I dream of being a great novelist or whatever, it's just that I feel I should honor the ideas, sort of welcome them in and give them a home.... and just occasionally, the dots join up and something becomes a piece.


Tell me about your music background? How did you begin making music?


PW: In my early teens my brother brought home a songbook of The Eagles and I learnt chords from the pictures - I didn't know the tunes so I made up my own (no doubt they were hilariously bad). I formed a band at school and the other guitarist studied classical guitar - everyone kept saying his playing was great, so I taught myself to read music and learnt the pieces he was playing (I wasn't trying to compete, it just seemed that was a good way to learn). Then, some time later, I left my chemistry degree to go off on a rock and roll tour.... and never came back.


Favorite significant locations that the audience will be walking through?


PW: Well the singers are free to choose their own routes, of course, and there are many significant places for Dylan Thomas in New York.

If you are choosing this self-guided option, a good place to start when planning is to look at the wonderful "Dylan Thomas Walking Tour of Greenwich Village, New York" written by Peter Thabit Jones and Aeronwy Thomas (the poet's grand-daughter).

Our soprano route starts very near the literary haunt, the White Horse Tavern that was a favorite of Thomas'. This route also passes the Church of St Luke's in the Field, on Hudson St, where Dylan Thomas' memorial was held after he died. Our mezzo (Alto) route also starts on the south side of Washington Square Park, famously associated with Thomas.

Of course, aside from Dylan Thomas himself - to sing the words of this poem may have different meanings for different people and it's impossible to ignore the fact that we are holding the event so close to the site of 9/11.


Any video or music tracks you can share with us as a preview?


PW: This one actually has singers in the streets and perhaps gives the best glimpse of what the piece might be like:




________________________________________
AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION

Date & location:
Saturday, June 21st 2014 at 11 am at various points (see below for The Routes)
The event culminates at the gazebo, Rockefeller Park (Battery Park City) at 11:45am for the grand choral finale with accompaniment by the Bang On A Can: Asphalt Orchestra

To register, download the music & synch your phone:
This is a FREE event but registration is recommended.
Please register here.
• Sign-up for further information regarding the walking routes and synchronizing your smartphone
• Listen and download the music to your smartphone

For those who wish to you can also download the sheet music:
http://makemusicny.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/MMNY2014_And-Death-Shall-Have-No-Dominion_SheetMusic.pdf




Conceived & composed by Pete M Wyer
Based on the poem by Dylan Thomas

Recorded at the London Recording Studios (formerly Sarm East Studios)
Recording Engineer: Murillo Sguillaro
Music Consultant: Peter Wilkinson

Recording Artists:
Soprano: Gweneth Jeffers
Alto: Hyacinth Nicholls
Tenor: Ed Hughes
Bass: Adam Green

Live Performance Artists New York:
Soprano: Eleanor Taylor
Alto: Kathryn Krasovec
Tenor: Glenn Seven Allen
Bass: David Schmidt

Live accompaniment: Asphalt Orchestra

Sponsorship & Outreach: Kathleen Wyer Lane
Graphic Design: John Lewis
Smartphone App Design: David Reeder

Creative Producer: Maedhbh Mc Cullagh


And Death Shall Have No Dominion is co-presented by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Make Music New York and Poets House, in association with American Opera Projects as part of the River To River Festival 2014.

The project has been made possible thanks to the generous support of the British Council and was developed during a residency at the Blue Mountain Center. Additional support and thanks to Andy Horwitz, Owen Sheers, Ralph Samuelson, Visit Wales and the Welsh Government.


Follow the event on Twitter:
@petewyer #ADSHND @R2RFestival @makemusicny #r2rfestival #mmny2014
/ends

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'Ida': A Film Review by Dr. Lloyd Sederer

June 16, 2014, 8:24 am

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Ida
A film review by Dr. Lloyd Sederer



This is a film about two paths to liberation. Both paths are exquisitely portrayed in Ida, a black-and-white film from Poland that runs a mere 80 minutes, yet depicts not just the lifetime of its protagonists but the course of history dating back almost 70 years. The film is set in Communist Poland in 1962.

We are introduced in the opening frames to a novice nun, Ida (Agata Trzebuchowska), as she paints a statute of Jesus, feeds the chickens, and then with two other novices carries the lifesize figure through a frozen, snowy field to restore him to his place of guardianship over the convent. The director (Pawel Pawlikowski) then cuts to the community of nuns praying in Gregorian Chant.

Mother Superior then calls Ida, a week away from saying her vows, to her office to tell her she must visit her only living relative, her aunt, before she takes her vows. Ida does not want to go, having lived her life in a convent since orphaned as an infant, but go she must, since obedience is one of the cardinal virtues of a woman of faith.

The scenes of the convent life are like still photographs, austere yet like illuminations. They could be taken by a Hasselblad camera in the hands of an artist. Their stillness sets us up for the action that she, and we, will experience when Ida arrives in the city to meet her aunt.

Wanda (Agata Kulesza), Ida's mother's sister, opens the door to her apartment but is hardly welcoming. She smokes and drinks. She has few words and even less warmth for her only living relative. A man is dressing in the aftermath of a sexual liaison with Wanda and it is not clear whether she is a prostitute. But she is not. In fact, she is a distinguished judge and part of the Communist Party elite.

Ida sits at her aunt's spare kitchen table and is told, mercilessly, that she is Ida Lebenstein, a Jew. So begins a type of road movie where the two women, seemingly a study in contrasts, set out to find the graves of Ida's parents, and Wanda's sister. What we discover later is that they were not the only family victims of the Jewish genocide in Poland before the end came to Hitler and the Nazis.

It is a pilgrimage they go on, since its ultimate purpose (unbeknownst to them at first) is to transform each of their lives, to liberate each of them to find peace. They are quite the odd couple but their affection for each other and their deep filial attachment makes them a perfect pair. They return to the countryside and small village of their former lives and we join them in their search for the relics of their family, and the path for their respective futures. Pawlikowski takes us on this deeply painful journey in a remarkably beautiful and redolent way.

This film has won many awards, and for reasons you will understand if you view it. It may be set in the 60s, in bleak Polish cities, towns and countryside, but it is timeless and universal in its story of people who by no acts of their own are thrown into the suffering and injustice that blackened Europe in the mid-20th century and continues in so many places today. It is a film that portrays how we must enter the past and its agonies in order to emerge more fully alive today, or at least more at peace with what has become our fate.

Ida, played by a novice actor, in fact, has the innocence, strength and courage to enter into what a lifetime in the convent has spared her. She is able to stand up to her powerful, tortured aunt and the horrors of their past to emerge from the chrysalis that has sheltered and limited her. Wanda is a portrait of a woman whose despair builds with excruciating agony yet who is resolute in becoming family to Ida and in confronting her past in a manner that explains what path she must take to freedom.

This is a film destined to become a modern classic. It reaches deep into what makes us human, and inhuman, and has the authority to leave us feeling that there is grace to be found if we can bear it.

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Dr. Sederer's new book for families who have a member with a mental illness is The Family Guide to Mental Health Care (Foreword by Glenn Close).

Dr. Sederer is a psychiatrist and public health physician. The views expressed here are entirely his own. He takes no support from any pharmaceutical or device company.

www.askdrlloyd.comhttp://www.askdrlloyd.com

Words & Weddings: 5 Passages for Book Lovers

June 16, 2014, 8:49 am

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"Reader, I married him."
--Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

June is one of the most popular months for marriage, and there is nothing we love better than a wedding between two bookworms. (Okay, correcting other people's grammar is a close second.) Here are five poems and passages that are perfect reading material for a literature-themed wedding.

The Old Testament, Song of Songs
The Song of Songs, also called the Song of Solomon, is an oddity in the Old Testament. Although scholars have interpreted it as a metaphor for God's love, it can also be read as a more earthly love poem.

My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
This classic children's book, first published in 1922, is the kind of happy-sad that makes so many people cry at weddings. This passage might be an especially good choice for a couple marrying later in life.

You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

Christina Rossetti, "I Loved You First"
Victorian poet Rossetti was the youngest child in a family of writers, scholars, and artists, including the great pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Like her brother's art, Rossetti's poetry is lush and romantic--ideal for the couple who spends their time cooing "No, I love you more."

I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be

Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker
For the unconventional couple who plans to write their own vows (and possibly get married while skydiving), this passage from Tom Robbins' 1980 novel is the perfect choice:

Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words 'make' and 'stay' become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.

Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
We mentioned this in our list of love poems for Valentine's Day, but it's worth revisiting. One of Shakespeare's most popular sonnets, #116, there's a reason this one is a classic.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.

What literary masterpiece would you read at your wedding?

What City Is Your Music Soul Mate?

June 16, 2014, 9:28 am

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According to Stevie Wonder, "Music is a world within itself/ With a language we all understand." Its history spans decades, its genres are prolific and it's constantly progressing: Classical music's melodious symphonies eventually paved the way for the guitar-laden tunes of rock 'n' roll and the catchy pop songs of today. As tunes have evolved, some cities have garnered more of a reputation than others for preserving music's narrative. The rich history that pulses through these destinations is evident in the memorabilia-filled museums and epic festivals each city is known for, like Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and Jamaica's Reggae Sumfest. So if you want to make your next vacation all about music, you're in luck: U.S. News highlighted six cities that celebrate their greatest musical achievements in a range of ways.

In Pictures: What City is Your Music Soul Mate?

Amsterdam

If you love... Electronic Dance Music

Calling card: Mysteryland

Electronic Dance Music (more commonly known as EDM) has risen in popularity over the years thanks to its upbeat tempo, danceability and the variety of concerts and festivals that celebrate the genre. Mainstream artists like Rihanna and Pharrell have incorporated electronic elements into their own songs, further contributing to the growth of EDM. Some of the world's biggest DJs, such as Tiësto, Hardwell and Afrojack, hail from the Netherlands -- meaning the country's capital should be on every EDM fan's bucket list. Amsterdam hosts an entire season of EDM festivals, including the massive Mysteryland in late August, as well as a few fall events. Mysteryland's daylong festival, held about 15 miles east of the city center in an open field in Haarlemmermeer, features several stages with performances from big-name DJs like Hardwell, Steve Aoki and Kaskade, along with up-and-coming local artists. Plus, when you get back to the city you can explore Amsterdam's lively club scene at spots like Studio 80 or Escape.

Cleveland

If you love... Rock 'n' roll

Calling card: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum



Courtesy Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

If you want to "rock 'n' roll all night, and party every day," take a trip to Cleveland. The "Rock and Roll Capital of the World" is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, where you can learn everything there is to know about the evolution of this genre and its top musicians. The museum (designed to resemble a guitar shooting up to the sky) boasts unique permanent and rotating exhibits. Its latest exhibit, Common Ground: The Music Festival Experience, explores how festivals have become community builders, economic assets to the music industry and opportunities for many artists to get their starts. Also at the museum you'll see a vast collection of artifacts, including John Lennon's 1964 J-160E acoustic guitar, Elvis Presley's custom motorcycle, Janis Joplin's psychedelic Porsche and Michael Jackson's bedazzled glove. The on-site Rock Hall plays host to concerts year-round, but its free summer concert series (which features local talent performing in the museum plaza) is a big hit with tourists and Clevelanders alike.

See: 6 Tricks to Saving Money at Summer Concerts

Los Angeles

If you love... Pop Music

Calling card: Hollywood Bowl

Los Angeles is so closely associated with Hollywood, people may forget about its strong music industry presence. L.A. boasts massive venues, such as the Hollywood Bowl, the STAPLES Center and the Rose Bowl, which host hundreds of pop concerts each year. Meanwhile, smaller sites like The Wiltern, Greek Theatre and House of Blues grant music lovers a more intimate experience. Headliners like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, One Direction and Boyce Avenue will perform at venues around town this summer. Festival-wise, you can enjoy sun and songs outdoors at the Budweiser Made in America Festival -- John Mayer, Rita Ora and Imagine Dragons, among other acts, are set to perform in Grand Park August 30 and 31. Los Angeles is also home to the GRAMMY Museum, where you can learn more about your favorite Grammy Award-winning artists, and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where you can see musicians' names (including the Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears) written among the stars. Scores of recording studios are situated throughout the city, and because L.A. is such a desirable place to see and be seen, chances are you may even bump into some famous musicians on the street.

Montego Bay, Jamaica

If you love... Reggae

Calling card: Reggae Sumfest



Courtesy Reggae Sumfest

As the birthplace of reggae music, Jamaica has introduced the world to artists ranging from Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff to Sean Paul and Tessanne Chin. Though you'll hear the distinct reggae beats at plenty of Jamaica's top hotels -- whether it's seeping out of speakers or part of the nightly entertainment -- reggae enthusiasts flock to Montego Bay every summer for Reggae Sumfest. The event -- this year from July 13 to 19 -- is Jamaica's largest concert festival. The 2014 lineup includes Chin ("The Voice" Season 5 winner), Beenie Man, Wiz Khalifa and Jason Derulo, along with local artists. If you're a Bob Marley fan, visit the Bob Marley Centre and Mausoleum, located about 60 miles southeast of Montego Bay in the village of Nine Mile. Many hotels and tour companies offer guided excursions to the site, where you can tour the music legend's birth home, view his musical instruments, read notes from admirers and get a sense of the community in which he grew up.

See: Best Nightlife Scenes in the USA

Vienna

If you love... Classical Music

Calling card: House of Music

Mozart. Schubert. Strauss. Beethoven. These are just a few of the famous classical composers who lived or worked in Vienna. Grab a map or sign up for a guided walking tour and discover the homes where these musicians created masterful symphonies, sonatas and concertos. For a more comprehensive overview of Vienna's musical greats and the classical music scene, plan a visit to the House of Music (Haus der Musik). Four floors of exhibits display everything from the personal items and wardrobes of Mozart and Beethoven to the history of the Vienna Philharmonic. Think you've got what it takes to command the best? The interactive Virtual Conductor allows you to try -- you'll lead the musicians (projected on a video screen) with a baton and they'll follow your cue. But if you mess up, beware: They won't hold back the ridicule. Vienna is also home to the Central Cemetery (Zentralfriedhof), where you can see the ornate headstones and statues that mark the final resting place of many well-admired composers, including Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert. Finally, when you're ready to immerse yourself in some live classical music, cap off your visit with tickets to a Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna Boys Choir or Mozart Orchestra concert.

Nashville

If you love... Country Music

Calling card: Grand Ole Opry



Cliff / Flickr

It's got its own TV show, it's got the Grand Ole Opry, it's got up-and-coming crooners and songstresses -- it's Nashville, y'all. "Music City" has long been known for producing talented country music acts and the greats are honored in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, a must-see for any fan. Current exhibits highlight the lives of artists like Reba McEntire and Miranda Lambert, while the permanent artifact collection showcases more than 800 stage costumes, 600 musical instruments and hundreds of other props and possessions of country stars of the past and present. Nashville hosts scores of concerts each year, including the four-day CMA Music Festival every June. If you can't make it for a specific concert, you can head to Tootsie's Orchid Lounge or Legends Corner where live country music abounds.

See: What City is Your Music Soul Mate?

by Erin K. Shields

The Real Mona Lisa Turns 535

June 16, 2014, 10:14 am

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No street bears her name. No plaques mark where she lived. Although her mysterious smile has enchanted millions, Lisa Gherardini, born on June 15, 1479, is almost invisible in her hometown. After centuries of neglect, Florence is celebrating the 535th birthday of its most famous daughter with a festival this month. But who was the real woman everyone recognizes yet no one knows?

Mona (Madame) Lisa Gherardini descended from an ancient clan of Tuscan knights who lorded over a wide swath of Chianti before taking up residence (and arms) within the walls of Florence. The family -- among the wealthiest and most bellicose feudal warlords -- referred to their fierce temperament as Gherardiname or "Gherardini-ness."

By the time of Lisa's birth, the Gherardini glory had faded. Her first home was a converted wool shop on a squalid street in a working class neighborhood. Lisa's family eventually moved to rented rooms off Via Ghibellina, where her grandparents lived just steps away from Ser Piero da Vinci, father of the renowned artist.

At age fifteen, Lisa was married to a widowed silk merchant almost twice her age. Ambitious and avaricious, Francesco del Giocondo (1465-1538) blustered through Florence, pouncing on profits wherever he could find them. Only one person softened his choleric temper: the woman who became stepmother to his young son and went on to give birth to six children.

Mona Lisa's life spanned the most tumultuous chapters in the history of Florence, decades of war, rebellion, invasion, siege -- and of the greatest artistic outpouring the world has ever seen. Amid a galaxy of artistic stars, none outshone Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), who began Lisa's portrait around 1503.

Why did the universal genius of the Renaissance turn down more prestigious commissions and choose a 24-year-old Fiorentina as his model? After delving deep into Lisa's history, I am convinced that the master of "sapere vedere" (knowing how to see) glimpsed something special in her, perhaps her indomitable Gherardini spirit shining bright. Leonardo kept Lisa's portrait with him for the rest of his life, infusing it with all that he had learned about painting -- and about being human.

After a court summoned Leonardo to Milan in 1506 to complete a long-disputed commission, Lisa's family was caught in a whirl of personal crises and political upheavals. Her sixth child, a boy named Giocondo, survived for only a month. Her younger sister, forced into a nunnery for lack of a dowry, was accused of committing "obscenities" with local youths during a late-night rendezvous. Her daughter Camilla, who entered a convent at age twelve, died at nineteen.

Lisa's truculent husband twice faced charges of usury, was briefly jailed as a Medici sympathizer but ultimately rose to high political posts after the once-mighty dynasty reclaimed power. Before dying at age 73, Francesco arranged for his "noble-spirited" wife to live with their son Piero.

Instead, Lisa took up residence in Sant'Orsola, the convent where her youngest daughter Marietta had taken vows. Defying her husband's instructions, Lisa chose, upon her death at age 63 in 1542, to rest for eternity among nuns rather than in the family crypt. Forensic sleuths are attempting to identify her remains among several skeletons recently excavated from the convent ruins.

The French King Francis I, Leonardo's final patron, enshrined Lisa's portrait in the lavish royal bathing suite at Fontainebleau Palace. Louis XIV moved "her" to Versailles. Napoleon, besotted by "Madame Lisa," kept her in his bedroom at the Tuilleries. After two centuries of display at the Louvre, the Mona Lisa continues to inspire poems, plays, songs and endless copies and caricatures. Why?

Leonardo's masterpiece did more than revolutionize art with breakthroughs in perspective, proportion and optics. Through his distinctive sfumature (subtle shadings created by feather-light brush strokes), Leonardo breathed life into his portrait of Lisa Gherardini. In her eyes and especially in her smile, we see and sense the soul of a real woman. And the more we learn about her -- as a proud Florentine, daughter, wife, mother and muse -- the more fascinating she becomes.

Writing a Novel as a College-Aged Human: A Guide

June 16, 2014, 10:30 am

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For those of us who aren't Stephen King or Donna Tartt, which should be everyone--unless you are reading this, Stephen or Donna, in which case, hello! --writing a novel is a strange, complicated, and occasionally ridiculous undertaking. Writing time has to be balanced with other obligations. There is no certainty that there will be some kind of payoff in the end. And, when you are between the ages of 18 and 22, there is the added complication of Not Sounding Like a Douchebag when you tell people you are writing a novel.

Many people in this world are writers or aspiring writers. I obviously can't speak for all their experiences, but here is a rough guide, based on what I have learned along the way in Writing A Novel As A College-Aged Human.


1. Don't tell family and friends you are writing a novel. Disappear alone for long stretches of time without explaining yourself. They will make comments that suggest they are worried about your sanity. Give them vague smiles in response to their comments.

2. Surf your favorite authors' websites for their "writing tips" sections. Most have them. Some have useful tips; some only have suggestions like, "Read a lot! Follow your dreams!"

Regardless, you may learn something--even if what you learn is that your favorite writer gives rather unhelpful advice. Spend hours surfing the Internet for these things instead of actually writing.

3. When you are far enough in the process, now comes the part where you begin telling people. Either that, or invent an elaborate excuse for your disappearances-- because as you get into it, you will disappear more frequently.

Beware, once you tell people, they will then ask the dreaded Question of Doom:

"Oh, what's it about?"

This is equivalent to asking a recent graduate, "So, what are you planning to do now?" Or asking your single 30-something cousin, "so, is there anyone special in your life?"

Responding is tricky. Usually, the question arises in polite small-talk settings. And so, even if you want to respond by storming away, unfortunately that is frowned upon in most human interactions.

You have to answer with something. But you don't want it to be too vague, like, "It's about a guy in a place and stuff happens to him."

On the other hand, if you're too specific, what if someone steals your idea? Or laughs at you because it sounds stupid when it's boiled down to one sentence?

"It's about a guy named Jeffrey who lives on the beach and becomes entangled in a plot to train dolphins as assassins."

There are a few ways to address this. The first is that if you're worried about getting laughter or blank looks, you can then follow up with, "Just read it, it's better than it sounds, I promise!"

Or a more aggressive deflection, like, "Hey look, there's cousin Perry, why don't you go ask him about the state of his love life?"

Another approach is to simply go on faith that friends, family and polite small-talkers will not laugh at you or steal your idea, and they will trust you to write a better dolphin assassin story than they would.

But if all else fails, the safest response is, "I'll tell you when it's finished."


4. Now that you've written a decent portion of it and have an idea of where it's going, try the immortal tip: Write drunk and edit sober. If Hemingway said it, it must be good advice, right?

Realize that all this results in is overconfidence while writing (this is so good! I'm such a genius!) and subsequent crushing of your hopes and dreams while editing (this line I'd thought sounded poetic makes no sense! This is the worst thing anyone has ever written! I should win awards for how bad I managed to make this!)


5. Finish it in a marathon of overcaffeination. Once it's done, step away from it for at least a week or two. Then, re-read it and either have a moment of, "Hey, this isn't so bad" or a moment of, "This needs so much more work that I want to drown it in a pool of my tears."

Either way, now you have a novel, or a draft of one. Congratulations! You made it this far and only scared away a handful of potential friends or admirers!

Print it out. It looks different on paper than it does on your screen, and it's easier to pick up mistakes you'd overlooked. If you feel bad wasting trees...well... double-side it and make the font small.

Finally, after all of this, friends, family, and polite small-talkers will then start to ask that other question: "Are you going to publish it?"

Distract them by saying "Oh, look, there's cousin Perry! Why don't you go ask about the state of his love life?"

I'm Not Letting Student Debt Get in the Way of Designing My Own Line

June 16, 2014, 10:56 am

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I was barely four years old, living in Buenos Aires, when I first asked my mom for a needle and thread. I came across an old doll without any clothes and was determined to give her a full wardrobe. My mom knew that if she didn't provide the necessary tools, I would get my hands on them one way or another.

Both my parents worked hard to maintain our little family. Despite our limited resources, I lived an intense childhood where toys were scarce but imagination ran wild.

I made clothes for my dolls and sketched them in different outfits when I couldn't get my hands on any fabric. Unknowingly at the time, I was beginning my life in design.

Then Argentina's economy collapsed. We moved to New Jersey, where I spent my teenage years, living a new life, going to a new school and not speaking the language. My future in the U.S. was uncertain, and there was no going home.

If it wasn't for the ethic my parents instilled in me, I would've been lost.

Based on merit and my portfolio, I was offered a partial scholarship from Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. I worked full-time and took out student loans to cover tuition. But even though I borrowed conservatively and only for tuition, I still walked away owing nearly $100,000.

That debt drove my life after college. I was in way over my head, worked as a stylist and a wardrobe designer to pay down the loans and put the idea of starting a business on hold.

But I really wanted to design my own line. It's what I've wanted to do since I was four years old and why I took out the student loans in the first place.

I knew the only way I could justify the startup costs -- buying materials and tools to make leather bags by hand -- was to sell everything made-to-order, one bag at a time.

Two weeks later, I got my first official boutique order, and DEBIL began.

It's been about a year since I launched, and the response has been extremely positive. I sell at a few high-end boutiques in New York, Philadelphia, and on my online shop.

But as demand increases, so does the struggle. Because of my student debt, I haven't been able to secure a business loan or a line of credit to turn a legitimate product into a full-scale production.

When an order comes in, I buy materials with whatever cash I have, then find time after my day job to make every bag by hand. The bigger the order, the less chance I have of filling it. And after the cash is spent and the order is filled, I still have to wait up to three months for the buyer to pay the invoice.

Earlier in the year, a team headed by Davis Guggenheim heard my story and asked if I would take part in his latest documentary, Spent: Looking for Change. For Davis and his team, the balance of having a dream, starting a business and being held back by debt served a broader story of 70 million people who are struggling inside and out of America's broken financial system. The full film is here -- and the short version of my story is here.

Thanks to this documentary and all the encouragement I received, I was inspired to launch my first KickStarter campaign and finally give DEBIL a chance to grow into what I know it could be.

The funds raised through this campaign will help maintain the integrity of my work, secure the highest quality materials, and keep the manufacturing here in the United States.

A lot has changed since that day I grabbed my first needle and thread, but my heart remains true to my passion. And if this campaign is successful I may finally be a step closer to fulfilling the dream of a lifetime.

Bill to Limit Nuisance Lawsuits Against Art Authenticators

June 16, 2014, 11:01 am

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Over the 15 years that the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board was in operation, it was sued "10 or so times, maybe more," by disgruntled owners of paintings that they hoped had been created by the Pop artist, according to Joel Wachs, the president of the Andy Warhol Foundation. In each instance, the authentication board decided that submitted artworks were not genuine Warhols. "We won every single one of those lawsuits, but the process was extraordinarily expensive, costing us at least $10 million defending ourselves," he said. "Eventually, we decided that we wanted our money to go to artists and not to lawyers," which led the foundation to disband the authentication board in 2012.

Following decisions by the Keith Haring Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the estates of Pablo Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat to disband their authentication boards, a bill has been introduced into the New York State legislature to make lawsuits against art authenticators more difficult to win and to punish "nuisance" lawsuits.

The legislation, introduced by Republican State Senator Betty Little and Democratic Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, would amend the state's Arts and Cultural Affairs Law by raising the standard of proof brought by a claimant that an art authenticator had acted negligently or fraudulently in rendering an opinion and by requiring the claimant to pay the authenticator's legal fees if the claimant does not prevail in court. The Senate version of the bill (S.6794) was reported out of the board on April 30 and is pending consideration by the full Senate, while Assemblywoman Rosenthal's bill (A.09016) is still under review by the Tourism, Parks, Arts and Sports Development Committee.

"The fear of liability and the threat of costly litigation is deterring specialists from providing opinions that are essential in determining authenticity, value and historical significance of artwork," said Senator Little, who chairs the Senate Cultural Affairs, Tourism, Parks and Recreation Committee. She added that the bill would "protect authenticators from frivolous legal action while still holding them accountable for wrongful actions. It strikes a balance that's clearly needed."

Many individual art authenticators and authentication boards have been challenged in their decisions, since these opinions concerning what is or isn't genuine are taken as the final word by reputable art dealers and auctioneers. A refusal by an authenticator to attribute a work of art to a particular artist may mean the loss of millions of dollars. "Claimants who hope they have a $50 million painting often have the resources to litigate, and the process of defending yourself can be extraordinarily expensive," said Nicholas O'Donnell, a partner in the firm of Sullivan & Worcester who handles art law cases. "The authenticator may get paid $5,000 or $10,000, and that person risks a lawsuit that could cost them $500,000 and go on for years."

The legislation would require anyone bringing a lawsuit against an authenticator to present "clear and convincing" evidence that the art expert acted in bad faith when rendering an opinion. That is a higher standard of proof than "preponderance of evidence," which is often used in civil courts, but not at the same level as "beyond a reasonable doubt," as is required in many criminal cases. Mr. O'Donnell said that under the current law a claimant could bring as a witness another expert to make the case that an artwork identified by the defendant as not authentic is genuine, and it would be up to the courts to determine which expert is more believable. Under the bill proposed by Senator Little and Assemblywoman Rosenthal, on the other hand, the claimant would need to show that "my expert is clearly right and there is no realistic possibility that the other expert is anything but wrong." Along with the requirement that an unsuccessful claimant pay the authenticator's legal costs, the bill "tells people not to bring a case unless they're absolutely sure they're right."

Charles C. Bergman, the chairman and chief executive officer at the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, noted that there had been "two or three lawsuits, which cost a substantial amount to defend; the total might have been several hundred thousand dollars," although he claimed that "experts were not reluctant to make their expertise available."

The ever-increasing prices for works by major artists has increased the quantity of lawsuits against authenticators -- lawsuits accusing them of professional negligence (not adhering to an appropriate standard of conduct), disparagement (of the quality or attribution of a specific work of art) and even antitrust (manipulation of the art market). The Calder Foundation, for instance, was sued in 2007 for declining to render an opinion on the authenticity of a stage set that sculptor Alexander Calder had designed back in the 1930s, while the Andy Warhol Foundation was sued in 2007 for "restraint of trade" for refusing to accept as genuine a work brought to its authentication board by a collector. Both of these lawsuits were dismissed by New York courts, and almost every claim against art authenticators has resulted in a victory by these art experts.

"The law favors authenticators who render an opinion in good faith," said Judith Bresler, a New York lawyer who helped draft Senator Little's and Assemblywoman Rosenthal's legislation. "The problem is you may win in court but in the process spend thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend your opinion rather than practice your profession. So many of these lawsuits are meritless, but they have had the result of making authenticators reluctant to offer their expertise, and who can blame them? The legislation reincentivizes art authenticators to practice their profession."

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The Playboy Jazz Festival Live at The Hollywood Bowl

June 16, 2014, 12:38 pm

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Where can you find Al Jarreau, Arturo Sandoval, Dianne Reeves and Huggy Bear (Antonio Vargas), on the same stage? The opening night of the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood bowl. I attended The festival's 36th opening night last Saturday night, surrounded by a sold out crowd of 17,000 other fans, many wearing light-up bunny ears, as we watched George Lopez introduce some of the stellar acts as Playboy and the Hollywood Bowl continue their tradition of bringing the best in jazz under one sky.

Jazz, that uniquely American musical form, is still cherished by the traditionalists who know that jazz can only truly be experienced live. The music is a form of the moment, the chemistry created by the artist's life experience up to that incendiary performance on stage when all the possibilities of inspiration explode into one defining creation in real time. And when they start their music in front of you there is nothing else that matters. It lifts you away.

These moments happened all through the night as the crowd bopped and shimmied to the eight hours of continuous music. The festival's sold out status speaks to their nod to the evolution of the form as well. They want to honor jazz, but want to fill the seats and keep the festival fresh. So there was something for everyone from the purists to the fusion lovers, from the old school academics to the young blood with open minds.

Jamie Cullum, a British rocker and jazz pianist brought his blend of pop music and jazz, while Antonio Vargas ('Huggy Bear' from the Starsky and Hutch TV show) was tireless as the front man for The New Jump Blues, a bright high energy jazz calypso group with stellar vocals. Allen Stone a 25-year-old self-proclaimed 'Hippy" brought a soaring R&B style.

Kenny Baron, who's already won multiple lifetime achievement awards, is one of the great jazz pianists and has been at the forefront of the art for decades. He brought his trio with special guest Ravi Coltrane, who stands in his father's considerate shadow and lives up to the family name.

Butler, Bernstein and the Hot 9 started where New Orleans left off, reveling in the famous Bourbon Street sound and then took us through blistering inspirations that crossed the blues styles of the 20th century.

Tia Fuller's exhilarating saxophone playing in her Fuller Quartet puts you back in the best jazz clubs of the 60s with their fabulous ensemble work. Then in true festival style she stayed on stage to join four-time Grammy winner Dianne Reeves and joined her group as they took the stage.

Dianne Reeves could break your heart with her rendition of 'I Don't Want to Wait in Vain," then have you fall out of your chair laughing as she scatted a song scape, that starred a lyrical improv that began: "this song has no words, for a very good reason, I used to live in LA..." and began spinning a diary-like entry in verse about seeing Selma Cruz at an L.A. night club one night, thought her dancing was amazing, but couldn't understand a word she said. Then she said she sounded like 'this'; and then continued to scat all to the brilliant accompaniment of her band.

Arturo Sandoval's virtuoso trumpet and big band compositions have won him 10 Grammy awards. His big band presence brought the evening to an energy high and had a true Hollywood nod with Andy Garcia on bongos in his percussion section. Monica Mancini joined him for two songs and made a nice father's day tribute to her father Henry Mancini.

When Arturo brought out Grammy winner Patti Austin for a few songs it was old school stage taking time as she sang "I'll Build a Subway to Paradise" and hit the back seats without even trying. He closed with his original 'Having Fun' a furious delight of horns, sax and keyboard all taking turns outdoing each other.

The evening ended with a tribute to George Duke, a revered name in jazz who passed away last summer. Duke was a collaborator with many famous names over many decades in addition to his own well-recognized body of work. His 'alumni' band and friends, including Al Jarreau gave impassioned and loving praise. Stanley Clarke, his frequent collaborator, dazzled on both electric bass and stand up bass as well.

Perhaps Jamie Cullum's song "These Are The Days," a song about appreciating the moment, is at the heart of what this festival is about. That's the feeling I wanted to take home with me as I walked back to my car in the cool night air under the stars. Because in the end life is a real-time art form just like jazz. And to do it right we have to stay in the moment just like that jazz musician starting a solo.

Photo Credit: Craig Mathew/Mathew Imaging

Casey Kasem and the Death of American Mass Culture

June 16, 2014, 1:11 pm

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This weekend I had to do some boring Saturday chores -- hardware store, oil change, that sort of thing -- so I made sure I left the house right at noon, as I often do. That's because that's when the weekly re-broadcast of the original Casey Kasem American Top 40 starts on satellite radio. This had nothing to with reports that the iconic radio broadcaster was laying near death in a Washington state hospital; rather, this has been my routine since I started listening to satellite radio and learned a decade ago that they re-play his old shows. This week was a particular treasure as the show was from this week of June in 1972 -- arguably the best era of the roughly 18 years that Kasem broadcast American Top 40.

Driving around, I listened to classics ("Old Man," by Neil Young, or "Betcha By Golly Wow," by Philadelphia's own Stylistics,) to great songs that have been practically forgotten ("Immigration Man," by David Crosby and Graham Nash), and to minor hits worth another listen ("Automatically Sunshine," the last quasi-hit for the Diana Ross-less Supremes). I also stayed with one "song" that was completely unlistenable ("Troglodyte," by the Jimmy Castor Bunch...what were you thinking, America?) and even stuck it out for Wayne Newton (!!!) and "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast."

The last couple of songs would have prompted automatic button pushing -- had they been on any contemporary "oldies" station. But because it was Casey Kasem, I felt compelled to listen to every second of it -- the good, the forgotten, and the ugly. Why? Some of it, I guess, is that that quest to hold onto the echoes of one's youth, bouncing off a distant satellite somewhere over America in outer space.

But there was also just something about Casey, who died Sunday at the age of 82 after a long illness. His show arrived right at the moment when it seemed like America was coming apart, culturally, spiritually, and politically -- and promised us, in a tone that was relentlessly upbeat yet somehow never smarmy, that we actually could be one nation under a groove, that for three or four hours we could share a common bond on stations from Key West to Anchorage, that there was one American narrative and it somehow included both the Supremes and Wayne Newton.

Like so many American evangelists, Detroit-native Kasem was the child of immigrants, from Lebanese parents. He served in the U.S. Army in Korea, became a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio and then rode the roller coaster of local AM Top 40 radio when he came home in the 1950s and 1960s. It was the golden age of rock 'n roll, but radio was still a local affair -- obscure novelty songs might break out from a station in Pittsburgh or Tampa and become a No. 1 national hit, while some artists who were big, say, in Seattle might be unknown here in Philadelphia.

American Top 40 with Casey Kasem as its host was born on the Fourth of July, literally -- July 4, 1970. It was amazing timing, to say the least -- less than two months after the bloodshed at Kent State (the No. 30 song, played by Kasem that week, was "Ohio" by Crosby Still Nash & Young), six months after Altamont, and with the Beatles breaking up and their final No. 1 recording, "The Long and Winding Road," also on the chart at No. 8 that week.

The center was not holding.

But Kasem was the right man for that strange time. He took the chaos that was American pop music and turned it into something that no one had ever thought it could be: A story, that had heroes with remarkable backstories that he could now reveal to the audience, that had winners moving up and losers moving down every week, counting down to an operatic denouement at the No.1 position every week. Rock, pop, soul and country became a kind of Greek-style mythology in his accessible, baritone re-telling.

As the show's popularity grew, one of its most popular features became the "Long Distance Dedication" from a person in one city to someone somewhere else (often, but not always, a separated or lost lover). It was also a grand metaphor for the 1970s -- a shattered nation desperate to reconnect, and here was this nice man Casey Kasem using the technology of the late 20th Century to bring people back together. Something else happened in that first year that American Top 40 was on the air -- Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison all died from drug overdoses, an event that resonated in Kasem's famous sign-off -- "Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars." It would have sounded trite coming from anyone else, but from Casey, it worked. I'm sure there's a few folks in Huntsville or Duluth or some of the hundreds of towns that aired American Top 40 that are alive today because they took his advice.

But there was a huge irony in the amazing success of American Top 40 -- while it celebrated the notion of a national mass culture, it was still powerless to prevent that mass culture from shattering into a million pieces. It was an evolutionary midpoint, as Casey and the show's syndicator Westwood One used better technology and the advanced capitalism of modern marketing to take what could only be done locally -- a guy playing records and beaming a signal from a large tower -- and make it into a weekly national event. But soon, the economics of syndication clobbered local radio -- when I worked in Alabama in the early 1980s and drove around the state, most rural stations played these canned lobotomized formats taped somewhere else, an empty echo across the red clay soil of the Deep South..

But as FM stations proliferated and then finally the Internet with Spotify and Pandora and (yes) satellite radio, and of course iTunes provided a home for every musical niche (and non-musical) niche imaginable, and no one could any longer see the purpose of a shared "Top 40 radio." Why would anyone on the planet listen to Wayne Newton if he didn't have to? In 2014, there's a good chance that die-hard fans of Kendrick Lamar, the Parquet Courts or Lucero have never even heard the other two. Something is gained in the libertarianism of 21st Century pop culture, perhaps, but something has been lost, a sense of community and shared feelings and emotions that many of us feel difficult to even express in words.

So when American Top 40 ended its run in 1988 (Kasem continued variations of "Countdown"-style shows for another two decades, even on TV!), it wasn't really with a sense of "mission accomplished." It was more like he'd been putting his fingers of the leaky dikes of U.S. mass culture for almost 20 years, but there was nothing more he could do to hold off the flood.

There are -- and there will be -- other cheerful voices coming out of the speaker, other "personalities" on the radio or the Internet or inevitably on some future device that only exists today in the mind of some freshman at MIT, who will know how to tell a good story and hold our interest, at least for a couple of minutes. But there won't be that one voice that will bring so many different people together for three hours, in such as unique time as the heyday of Casey Kasem. This is why so many people are mourning his loss today. There will never be another one like him.

The (Tortured) Soul of Wit

June 16, 2014, 2:01 pm

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Try to imagine Grumpy Cat as a professor of German literature at an Ivy League university, haunted by deep misgivings about his role in academia. Now imagine that he has opposable thumbs, an iPhone and a love of wry German aphorisms, and you might end up with something pretty close in spirit to Eric Jarosinski's Twitter feed, @NeinQuarterly. Nein's avatar is a stylized rendering of lovable Frankfurt School misanthrope Theodor W. Adorno, who is depicted sporting a monocle that he didn't wear in real life, but plausibly could have. From behind these impassive staring eyes and disapproving expression streams a series of witty tweets inspired by the self-serious stereotypes of German literature and academic life, the sometimes hilarious length and labyrinthine complexity of German vocabulary and grammar, and a generally bemused take on the vagaries of life on the internet. The phenomenon of @NeinQuarterly has been profiled in The New Yorker and on Slate, and as of this writing he has over 76,000 followers. One of his widely-retweeted classics: "At Starbucks, I order under the name Godot. Then leave." My personal favorite: "Nothing is sacred. Don't fuck with it."



Jarosinski is big in Germany, to borrow an honorific usually reserved for David Hasselhoff, in part because his brand of word play and insight into German language and culture are an artfully-constructed bridge to English-speaking world that has long been missing. Although English has a number of evocative German loan words like kitsch and wanderlust, Americans seldom study German in high school or college, and as a result, our feeling for German as a language is largely superficial and often freighted with negative clichés derived from wartime cinema where German characters bark orders and insults. And if it's not that, it's "Sprockets." With a cultural portrait so coarsely drawn and lacking in subtlety, it is little wonder that Americans tend to lack a nuanced appreciation of German language and humor.

For the last seven years, Jarosinski was an assistant professor of German at the University of Pennsylvania where he taught classes on topics like Weimar drama, Nietzsche and Marx. None of this would make for light reading in English, let alone German. While hard at work on the book he needed to complete in order to be granted tenure, he faced a case of self-doubt and writer's block so severe he began to question whether academia was really where he belonged. Though he loved teaching (and was recognized for it), the stilted rituals of delivering conference papers and publishing research in almost comically obscure journals seemed to suck all the joy out of the subject he loved and to which he had devoted his life. He is not, as some stories about him have implied, leaving his job in any literal sense to become a professional aphorist -- indeed, he was on his way out before @NeinQuarterly really began to take off, though without a particular trajectory until recently. The timing is simply a happy accident that seems to affirm there is a larger (and more enthusiastic) audience for the words and wit of German studies than the Modern Language Association. Though he feels some angst about the future (appropriately enough), he now has an agent, a publisher and a manifesto in progress, and has been making the rounds on German television and venues like NYU's Deutsches Haus. He also writes a regular column for Die Zeit, one of Germany's most prestigious newspapers.

For most academics with tenure-track jobs, leaving it all behind might seem unthinkable. Having recently made a similar (though somewhat less drastic) choice myself, departing from a full-time curatorial position to start a new freelance venture, I've had my share of those conversations. People sometimes tell me privately that they long to leave the institutions where they work, but can't see their way clear to do so, for financial, cultural or professional reasons. It's certainly true that not everyone is cut out for the freelance life; while I've found that I actually enjoy the hustle and flexibility, the sporadic nature of the work probably wouldn't fly if I had three kids to put through college. For those who do it and for whom it works well, however, it can be a revelation. This is what Jarosinski and I discussed a few weeks ago in Philadelphia (on the eve of my first trip to Germany) over a few beers, and what he's busily crafting as I type. His love of teaching seems to point in the direction of some academic affiliation, but freedom from the tenure track is attractive to him. What he loved most about German from grad school onward was the wit and insight of some of the language's great aphorists like his alter ego on Twitter, Adorno, who coined phrases like "the culture industry" that we bandy about in English today. Or Adorno's 18th century antecedent, polymath Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who was described by admiring contemporaries as a "Universalgenie." The enlightenment ideal of the cultivated gentleman of science and letters couldn't be more different from the reality of a beleaguered academic, navigating Byzantine minefields of feuds and passive aggressive communication (or lack thereof), and above all, a skeptical disdain for pleasure in any form.

Ironically, it was a 21st century platform that put Jarosinski back on the path to reconnecting with the thinkers he most admired in German literature. The creation of @NeinQuarterly may have been the most productive act of procrastination of his whole career: tweeting, and the challenge of fitting a perfectly crafted observation into 140 characters or less, felt akin in tone to the short aphoristic texts by Adorno and Nietszche about which he was attempting to write his book. Adorno's 1951 Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life includes such compact masterworks of snark as: "In psycho-analysis nothing is true except the exaggerations." Just a few lines down the page, he surprises the reader with this sentiment: "Beauty of the American landscape: that even the smallest of its segments is inscribed, as its expression, with the immensity of the whole country." As a German-Jewish exile from World War II, Adorno experienced alienation and loss, but wrote through it with humor and a love for ideas. @NeinQuarterly's voice, which, as the name implies, is that of rarified, non-existent academic journal, is a critical one that's willing to laugh at itself, to take its subject seriously and to enjoy it fully, without contradiction. This position is not meant to denigrate academics, or their work, or the importance of serious study in the interest of mastering a new language and fully appreciating its literature and culture. It's simply a recognition of an affective dissonance between academia and self: it works for some, but it ain't for everybody.

Still, I like to imagine that the collected works of @NeinQuarterly will make their way into a dissertation one day, perhaps written by an earnest graduate student interested in U.S.-German cultural relations as mediated by the internet in the 2010s.

Here's hoping that his or her defense committee gets the joke.

Get Me: Guitarist Joe Beck Leaves a Shining Legacy

June 16, 2014, 2:40 pm

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Coming of age in the '60s, guitarist Joe Beck was a ubiquitous presence embedded in much of the music that I was listening to at the time. Beck started his career in the early '60s at the age of 17 in Manhattan playing with some of the most heralded stars in the jazz world. He always said "I was just in the right place at the right time," but truth be told he was damn good. You had to have been good to have played with the likes of Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, Gil Evans, Maynard Ferguson, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Buddy Rich. Perhaps, most famously, he was the first electric guitarist to play and record with Miles Davis. He remembered the gig with Davis in 1967: "For years I had dreamed of playing with Miles, one of my heroes. But when I had the chance I wasn't prepared yet, and I played very badly on that session." The guitarist escaped the music for three years, operating a dairy farm before returning to become a staple of the studio and session scene in New York.

Beck's imprint was all over Creed Taylor's famous CTI label from the early seventies. He was practically Taylor's house guitarist, his work on sessions by Esther Phillips, Joe Farrell, J.J. Johnson, Paul Desmond, Hubert Laws and Idris Muhammad. He made his own fusion release, self-titled Beck, from 1975 that included keyboardist Don Grolnick and the breakout crossover star, alto saxophonist David Sanborn. Beck was a jazz player who could scream like a rock player but with chops, and he employed ample fuzz tone or wah-wah effects as required. The guitarist was in the studio constantly, playing sessions for others, writing jingles and eventually producing and arranging. In 1975, his studio work could be found on Paul Simon's blockbuster Still Crazy After All These Years. Not all his work was memorable. In 1977 he was enlisted to produce/arrange Frank Sinatra's disastrous plunge into disco on two singles "Night and Day" and "All or Nothing At All".

Despite being an in-demand sessions player, Joe looked back at time as being creatively stifling. In an interview in thelastmiles.com he summed up his experience this way:

"I was totally involved in the studio business in New York, which is basically playing bad music for good money. That's what recording musicians do. Every once in a while they do something of note and that's nice. I was moving from one house to another and my appointment book fell out of a drawer. I picked it up and noticed on one page that I had twenty-one sessions in five days. Now there are not twenty-one good sessions a week on the planet, so you know eighteen of them were absolute horror shows. Studio life is lucrative but musically bare."

By 1989 Beck returned to dairy-farming, an ill-fated investment that depleted most of his savings and by 1992 he returned to music at age 47, a little too old for the studio scene. He picked up his guitar and returned to playing what he called "real" music, touring Europe. In 1993, he was still on call and can be heard on James Brown's "Funky Side of Town" from Brown's Get On The Good Foot album. Sometime in the late nineties, after he and the guitarist John Abercrombie had finished a successful European tour, Joe Beck was diagnosed with lung cancer. Despite a positive attitude and extensive treatment Beck passed on July 22, 2008 in Woodbury, CT at the age of sixty-two.

And so, almost six years after his untimely passing, we get the release of a new trio album recorded live at Anna' Jazz Island in Berkley, California on September 14, 2006. Posthumously released albums are a hit or miss affair. We often give performers, especially one's we are fond of, a pass when we listen to something that we know is their final work, especially if they performed in failing health. On Joe Beck's final release, Get Me, there is no fear of sentimentality creeping into our judgment of this performance. Joe is in fine form and the session, brilliantly recorded by Adrian Wong is an unqualified delight. The performance documents a musician at peace with himself and simply wanting to play the music that he loves, unadorned and in the most personal way. If there is a surprise in this mix it comes from the knowledge that the rhythm section of Peter Barshay on bass and Dave Rokeach on drums play so superbly in-sync with Beck, having been chosen by the owner Anna De Leon and having never before played with the guitarist. At one point in the program Beck calls out his rhythm section as being "stupid good," a laudatory reference to Barshay and Rockeach's intuitive playing.

The set is made up of standards, but Beck proves his affinity for creating tiny masterpieces of invention- delicate introductions that lead us into the familiar melodies. The brilliant interplay is evident from the very beginning on Victor Young's oft played "Stella by Starlight," a creative highlight, which finds Beck weaving marvelous passages through the melody as Barshay provides equally facile responses. The guitarist plays Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia On My Mind" on two versions on the album, the last one cut for radio play. Channeling his bluesier side either easily worth the price of admission. The guitarist employs beautiful single line runs, plays octaves ala Wes and compliments the melodies with delicate chord work using no effects, sometimes taking a ballad from a filigreed solo into a swinging jam.

Beck has an affinity for playing Brazilian music. He starts Bonfa's "Manha de Carnival" with a delicately played intro that quotes Jobim's "Insensatez" before playing the main theme. He has a telepathic communication with drummer Rockeach on this one and the effect is magical. The guitarist shares amusing anecdotes during the performance and they give you the feeling of being there. One story about his friendship with "Tom" Jobim, whom he describes as a man he would love to party with, precedes playing the maestro's song "Corcovado" in a stirring demonstration of octave and chordal work that sways like a palm tree in the Brazilian breeze.

Throughout the recording you are drawn to the guitarist's thoughtful approach to the standards "...my aim on the guitar is to try to get each chord to follow the preceding chord like it was meant to be there, and then sort of hint at what the next chord might be." The program includes a wonderful rendition of "Alone Together" a Bill Evans favorite, "I Can't Get Started," a rousing "You the Night and the Music" and a beautiful take on "Tenderly" that goes from a slow sensitive ballad to a more adventurous exploration of the theme with some of Beck's faster single line runs.

Listening to Joe play on this album is like being led down a newly discovered path in a familiar wood. You re-discover the wonderment and beauty of memorable melodies that he treats with such respect and creativity. Pure artistry by a man with nothing to prove; an adventure that can thrill if you allow your heart and mind to be openly immersed in the experience. If Joe Beck somehow had the desire, the dream to leave one last recorded legacy of what this music really meant to him, then surely the brilliantly recorded Get Me is a wonderfully realized dream. Thanks Joe you are missed.

Here are two very different performances by the inimitable Joe Beck:

8 Tips for Dazzling an Editor With Your Personal Essay

June 16, 2014, 2:56 pm

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Ironically, as a reader, I never used to be a fan of anthologies or personal essay collections. As a teacher, I did love showing students how to write personal essays or short memoir pieces. As an English teacher and a writing instructor, it often felt miraculous to me how a mediocre piece could be transformed in just a few short weeks through revision, how a piece could evolve from bland and cliched to raw, powerful, and beautiful. But I never liked reading short pieces in my leisure time.

It wasn't until I started writing as a blogger and freelance writer that I started to appreciate collections of personal essays as a genre. I love seeing writers that I "know" online take different perspectives and approach topics with unique styles. As a parent, reading about other mothers' experiences from so many different angles has helped me gain insight into myself as a mother.

I've been thinking a lot about personal essays from three different perspectives: as a reader, as a writer, and now as an editor. I've been trying my hand at publishing my own pieces, and I know that it's hard (really hard) to write a great personal essay.

After our call for submissions for My Other Ex: Women's True Stories of Leaving and Losing Friends, to be published in September, I also spent months reading essays with an editor's eye, trying to decide which pieces to accept and which to pass on. And that was just as hard.

And it occurred to me as a beginning editor that we editors are not often transparent about what we are looking for. I'm lucky in the sense that I taught writing and developed writing curricula for well over a decade, and all of the best practices (and unwritten rules) of memoir and essay writing are (somewhat) fresh in my mind. But most of us writers haven't taken an English class in quite a while. And we aren't recent MFA graduates either.

So here's what I think -- as a teacher, writer, editor, and reader -- about the ingredients of a great personal essay, one that is carefully crafted to draw in a reader, make her care about a topic, and keep reading.

1. Use what you know about good fiction and storytelling. You should develop characters, settings, and plot (a sequence of events) into a story. Use sensory details and vivid description to create separate, carefully chosen scenes.

2. Combine the personal and the universal. This is your story, your life, your emotions but your writing should also express and reveal a larger meaning, a theme, a deeper truth, beyond the surface details of plot and character.

3. Find your voice. More importantly, find your unique voice that is best for each piece, or different moments of the same piece. As Kate Hopper, in the invaluable Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers, explains, voice is:

"the feel, language, tone, and syntax that makes a writer's writing unique. In nonfiction, voice is you, but not necessarily the you sitting in front of the computer typing away. Voice can be molded by a writer to serve the subject about which she is writing."

It might take a while to find the best voice for a piece. Is the right voice ironic, funny, anxious, playful, breathless, or solemn? We all have multiple identities and show different parts of ourselves at different times. Use that versatility in your writing.

4. Alternate focusing in and focusing out. Choose specific and compelling moments, memories, and feelings, and hone in on them, using those particular moments to help to convey theme and purpose. Pretend you are using a video camera to focus in and out, slowing down the action, like a cinematographer, very purposefully to guide the reader toward what's important in the piece.

5. Be specific, not general. This is what I called "The Rule of the Pebble" to my students (thanks to Nancie Atwell, my writing teacher guru). It basically means don't write about a general topic or idea; write about one particular person, place, time, object, or experience. In other words, don't try to write about all pebbles everywhere (or "love" or "friendship" or "football" or "sunsets"). Write about this one particular pebble (or the friend that broke your heart freshman year, or the sunset that you saw last night, or memory, or place), its meaning to you, the concrete details that shape how you think about it.

6. Experiment and play. Try out different literary devices and techniques, such as similes, personification, and metaphors. Or experiment with using different sentence lengths strategically. Use repetition, of words, of lines, of phrases. Play with imagery. Many of these devices should only be used sparingly, but, used effectively, they can add surprises and richness to your writing.

7. Learn the difference between revision and editing. You must do both. It's easy as a writer to focus on spelling errors and sentence structure, rather than making big (painful) changes to our writing. Revision means "to look again." You do things like: make sure that your theme and purpose for writing are clear; try out different leads (ways to begin the piece); rethink your conclusion; change the organization.

In editing, a separate stage, we do things like catch run-on sentences, fix errors in punctuation or spelling, or replace overused words and expressions.

8. Read, read, read, and read some more. What all writers have in common, as far as I know, is that they're constantly reading. They pay attention to their favorite writer's craft and style and try them out in their own writing. They internalize the beauty and the utility of the perfect word, the perfect sentence, and the perfect metaphor.

What are your favorite personal essays? Whose writing do you turn to as models for your own writing?

To learn more about The HerStories Project and its next essay collection about friendship breakups, My Other Ex: Women's True Stories of Leaving and Losing Friends, visit the HerStories website.

An Art Writer's Ultimate Act of Contrarianism

June 16, 2014, 3:01 pm

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At first I carried my son everywhere, to art galleries and openings and museums, strapped to the front of my jacket like a figurehead, as a proud emblem of contrarian philosophy. In the arid world of art galleries and museums, I... I... had gone the opposite way of everyone else. Instead of producing the exquisitely crafted essay, and shaping a career, I had made this... other thing, this amazing replica of myself in flesh and blood. A baby is the ultimate trompe l'oeil. His little penis sometimes actually fountained up in the air like a whale's spout when I was scraping the mustard-colored sh*t off of his butt! What art review, what work of art, could be more complex in form and conception, more fraught with meaning, taut with metaphor, more laced through with irony than the tiny, lumpen, but full-throated object I carried on my chest?

I had trained myself to think of everything I did as a gesture, a wry statement, a summing up, a thrust, a bit of repartee. Even the clothing I wore was a part of an ancient and laden dialogue. Doc Martens had been the perfect antidote to hiking boots, which had been the perfect answer to narrow ties. Later there had been a lot of black clothing and then retro shirts from the '50s and finally pinstriped suits, à la Jeff Koons. Which amounted to the more flamboyant and magnanimous statement, the summing up of everything important? If art was all about the grand gesture, then my son was a slap in the face of the avant-garde. He was a big f*ck-you to the art establishment. Deal with it! Next I was going to buy a minivan and move to Nyack. That would show them.

These were the thoughts that consoled me as I stumped around the slushy streets of SoHo and Chelsea trying to keep up with the art world, as I contemplated my already tenuous position as an art writer.

Yeah, here was this baby, number one son, drooling and carrying on in front of me wherever I went, gumming and slobbering on its Baby Björn carrier. My son was a volcano of piss, sh*t, mucus, and saliva. A lot of artists were working with body fluids that year. Nothing new, of course. Marcel Duchamp had used semen in a work as early as 1946 and the artist Piero Manzoni had grossed everyone out in the early '60s by canning his own sh*t and calling it Merda d'artista. Serrano caused a minor sh*t storm by taking a picture of a crucifix floating in urine. This was human representation stripped down to its most basic level. He was, actually, a real human, but small enough so you could throw him in a shopping bag. He was a maquette, a miniature, a scaled-down model. He had a butt and little shoe-button eyes and a set of tiny miraculously detailed fingers curling in his hands.

Here was a set of instructions turned into a fully realized art object, like a Sol LeWitt installation. At the same time, a baby evoked everything that was cute and commodifiable in our culture. Warhol had stumbled upon the emblematic value of babies years ago. Keith Haring had honed the image of the baby to a fine and culturally radioactive art object. Furthermore our baby was the product of chance operations, of the alchemical swirling together of male and female genotypes, with no possibility of predicting the outcome, à la John Cage.

And moreover, the two of us, working collaboratively, had made him at home. To hell with presentation! A baby is about process, odors, palpability, and living in the moment -- and nothing about the art school culture of presentation, polish and craftsmanship. He's all passion and instinct and groping blindly in the dark. F*ck you! We're not talking about mock naïve, with all of its sly levels of mono and double entendres, and this year's crop of art brut. We were the true naïves, visionaries: a man and a woman, bravely slashing out a new aesthetic terrain all by ourselves.

Excerpted from Peter von Ziegesar's memoir, The Looking-Glass Brother.

Aisle View: Ivy League Daughter Speaks Out

June 17, 2014, 4:23 am

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Nadine Malouf in The Who and the What, photo credit: Erin Baiano

A 32-year-old writer, with no husband but a Harvard M.F.A., struggles to finish her novel about gender politics while her widowed father and younger sister try to marry her off. This sounds like Wendy Wasserstein country, and it is indeed a production from the late scribe's artistic home at Lincoln Center Theater. Only the action takes place in Atlanta, and our hero's name is not Heidi or Janie or Gorgeous but Zarina.

Not from the Pulitzer-winning Wasserstein, no, but from the Pulitzer-winning Ayad Akhtar, whose Disgraced opened at Lincoln Center's Clare Tow Theater in 2012 and has just been booked into the Lyceum in October. Akhtar was born in Staten Island to Pakistani immigrants; the two sisters in The Who and the What, too, are American-born Muslims with a Pakistani father.

Zarina (Nadine Malouf) struggles with her religion, or more specifically with the inequality and mistreatment of women. ("Wives are like farms," she quotes from The Prophets Sayings About Sex, "husbands can farm them anyway they want.") Her masterwork--which she finishes writing during intermission--is a novelistic treatment of one of the Prophet's cornerstones of the religion. Simply put, she suggests that women are punished with restrictive covenants not because of religious pronouncements but due to man's attempts to control their own jealousy and lust.


Bernard White, Tala Ashe and Nadine Malouf in The Who and the What, photo credit: Erin Baiano

This is dangerously blasphemous stuff, causing trouble with father Afzal (Bernard White), sister Mahwish (Tala Ashe) and boyfriend-turned-husband Eli (Greg Keller), the latter a white convert from Detroit. Mr. Akhtar, though -- having instantly established himself, with Disgraced, as a provocative, wise and funny playwright -- knows how to charm us into his story; how to make us care about his characters; and how to ease us into the moral predicament while less artful playwrights might just club us over the head with it.

Director Kimberly Senior -- who made a smashingly good showing with Akhtar's first play--does a similarly fine job here. Malouf gives a strong performance as the obstinate but awkward writer, straddling the line between what is proper and what is right: how to be a good and respectful woman but speak the truth. The best performance comes from Mr. White as the tycoon of a father who has "gone from driving a cab to owning 30% of the taxis in Atlanta" but cannot find the way to control his brilliant but wayward daughter. (Credit the actor, yes, but also the author.) Senior and White are repeating their chores from the world premiere of the play in February at the La Jolla Playhouse, along with set designer Jack Magaw who provides an effective manner of presenting the play's five locales.

The strong religious component of the play puts the traditional audience--which in New York, at least, is predominately non-Muslim--outside the story, looking in. Akhtar's inequality arguments, though, can easily be applied to other, more locally familiar religions. This makes his play significantly more universal than it might at first glance appear. A modern-day American "good daughter" would create just such a stir writing about other mainstream religions.

While The Who and the What does not displace Disgraced from its perch near the top of the most important new American plays of the decade, it suggests that Mr. Akhtar has plenty to say and knows how to say it.

.

The Who and the What, by Ayad Akhtar, opened June 16, 2014 at the Claire Tow Theatre

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Top 20 Twee Icons

June 17, 2014, 5:05 am

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This is, admittedly, a subjective list. It's not based on any science or statistics. If you searched the most popular words used in my new history of Twee culture, Twee: The Gentle Revolution in Music, Books, Television, Fashion and Film [It Books, $16.99], I'm sure it would be "the," "and" or "Daffodil." And yet, after researching and chronicling the polarizing youth movement, here are the twenty icons (in order) that felt the most powerful and enduring.

Wes Anderson
Like Walt Disney before him, Anderson has used film and television (via whimsical advertising work) to build not only a signature style, but a sort of parallel universe; one millions of Twees dreamed of inhabiting as it seemed deeper, sadder and more colorful, somehow than the real world. Before his 1998 breakthrough Rushmore, big Indie film was still in post-Tarantino quip-and-shoot mode and idiosyncratic comedies were obliged to remain micro. When Twee was pejorative (and okay, for most it still is), Anderson ignored critics and pursued this vision with a kind of heroic stubbornness and attention to detail; resulting in a mid-career masterpiece, 2012's Moonrise Kingdom. Like "Brooklyn" or "Belle and Sebastian" (see below), his very name is a Twee signifier.



The Glass Family
A template for Anderson's Tenenbaum family, Franny, Zooey, the doomed Seymour, etc. are, as wielded by key Twee author J.D. Salinger, frozen in a kind of permanent gifted childhood. They were wiz kids turned physically appealing but psychically tortured adults, "freaks," as Zooey acknowledges. It's this neuroses-chic and their undaunted (well, not Seymour) search for any kind of authentic salvation that makes them bearable but oddly enviable. As with all of Salinger's characters, they feel less like lit heroes trapped in short stories and more like flesh and blood friends... friends we'd like to help (but they'd probably reject our support, let's face it).

Zooey Deschanel
She was once merely a charming, indie actress who was drawn to dour projects like Winter Passing, The Good Girls and All the Real Girls. Her turn opposite Will Ferrell in the Christmas classic Elf now seems portentous. Her breakthrough, 2009's inventive 500 Days of Summer, has its bleak moments, but became a smash anyway. It marked a real change in the way Hollywood saw both Deschanel and lead actresses at a time where Katherine Heigl and Deschanel's Good Girl co-star Jennifer Aniston seemed to have a lock on the big romantic comedy. As she aged, Deschanel, to the dismay of some feminists, seemed to become more girlish. Her public image did a kind of spiritual 180 turn. With the saturating promotion of her hit sitcom New Girl, the rise of her once pet band She and Him (with M. Ward), and a series of endorsement deals and media ventures (Hello Giggles), she's steadily became less of a mere individual but rather, like Anderson, a kind of by-word; in this case, for sunny power and positivity and curator-cool. She's now the Oprah of Twee.



Cats
Why do cats have so much favor with the twee? Why not puppies? Koalas? Little organ grinder monkeys in human suits? Writer Steven Daly, co-founder of Glaswegian cult heroes Orange Juice traces it back to the logo for his old label, Postcard Records (a drum playing cat). Dr. Seuss envisioned an anarchist stalker of a puss puss, Sylvia Plath sketched them, the young Bob Dylan pouted with one in his lap, and Deschanel infamously tweeted that she wished everyone looked like a kitten. Maybe cat companionship presents a chance to share your world with a real live moving (and pooping) Hello Kitty? Regardless, hands down the most twee beast in the animal kingdom is the Felis catus (with owls running a distant second and narwhals and unicorns gaining ground).



Morrissey
Purchase tickets to see him in concert these days at your own risk (he's notorious for suffering show-killing maladies) but there is still simply no greater defender of the bullied, or more articulate a poet who can connect with the teenage head, chronicle innocence lost and deal out counter blows with drone-strike precision via his lyrics, his interviews and most recently a deft memoir. He also, quite frequently, rocks. One half of England's finest post-60s songwriting team, the Smiths, the band he co-founded with guitarist Johnny Marr (see The Jangle below) are still turning down offers to reunite some quarter century after they abruptly dissolved. If such a concert ever took place (do not hold your breath), it would be attended by people who were not even born when the Queen was first pronounced dead in 1986.

Esther Greenwood
The first person narrator/protagonist of poet Sylvia Plath's essential New York novel The Bell Jar is a sort of counterpart to Salinger's Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye. She is the smartest and saddest person in the room, or so she believes; making her both saint, imaginary friend and cautionary tale to every sensitive, open-hearted, diary-keeping, beautiful social malcontent. Such perceived singularity pushes Greenwood to the edge of a full breakdown before she fights her way back to the light; something Plath, sadly, could not do. She committed suicide in the winter of 1963 at 30.



The Mason Jar
Both practical and beautiful, this thick glass jar with the metal and rubber lid harkens back to the mid 19th century and has become a symbol for hands on preserving and pickling. Showcased in Portlandia's now-legendary "We Can Pickle That" sketch.



Cardigan sweaters
These button-front sweaters began as military gear (they're named after James Thomas Brudenell, the 7th Earl of Cardigan and a British Army officer) and are now a kind of uniform in the Twee wardrobe. In the 80s, Preppies favored the crisp, new Lacostes, but in the early 90s, Kurt Cobain popularized the used, inexpensive, often threadbare variety beloved by Twees and available in any decent thrift store.

Jean Seberg
She began in the mid 50s as a Midwestern ingénue, discovered by director Otto Preminger during a highly publicized casting call to portray Joan of Arc. The film was panned and unsatisfied by Hollywood, she moved to Paris to work with the iconoclastic Jean Luc Godard. The Nouvelle Vague caper Breathless introduced a feisty Twee heroine with a radically short hairstyle that would forever come to symbolize independence and freedom and never really go out of style. Seberg herself was disturbed and believed she was being persecuted for her political beliefs. She was discovered dead in her parked car, having overdosed on pills in August of 1979 at just 40.

If You're Feeling Sinister
Belle and Sebastian's hushed and wry second album and masterpiece was issued in the autumn of 1996, during the height of loud and flamboyant culture boom known as "Cool Britannia." While Oasis and Elastica have burned out and Blur and Pulp become essentially nostalgia acts, the "new cult" that Belle founder Stuart Murdoch invented in his bedroom is as strong as ever.



The suitcase or briefcase turntable
Twees tend to form attachments with their books, movies and records. In some cases, they anthropomorphize them and feel as if they are actual friends. In others, it just feels better to have them around if you must leave the house (like Suzy in Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom). There are many vintage brands available on eBay or you can spring for a new, dust-free Crosley portable model.



The Jangle
The player of the jangle is a Twee icon in itself; usually a scrawny sort with a fringe of bangs and a gigantic Rickenbacker or Gretsch guitar that seems to rest uneasily on his or her ribs. Most trace the sound to the chiming folk rock of The Byrds and Moby Grape. In the 80s bands who were, once punk gave way, finally permitted to admit they liked "hippie" bands who were not the Who invented an entire subgenre based around the chords. Occasional revivals of the pleasing, yet oddly sad sound (see "Pains" of "Being Pure of Heart") still arise. The Jangle is forever.

Chris Eigeman
Although his background is shockingly rustic (he grew up on a ranch) Eigeman has personified the urbane and tortured hero for over a quarter beginning with his turn in Whit Stillman's 1990 classic Metropolitan, the first in a "trilogy" (which also included 1994's Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco, 1998). He's also worked steadily with Noah Baumbach, and appeared on both Gilmore Girls (as Lorelei's harried suitor Jason "Digger" Stiles) and in the pilot episode of Girls.

Charlie Brown
Quick question: who is the greatest Post War existentialist youth icon? Camus? James Dean? How about the beagle-owning, football-whiffing malcontent created by Charles M. Schulz? In the land of Peanuts, adults are muffled or utterly absent, and the children are obsessed (with music, security, money, religion, little red haired girls), sophisticated, and thoroughly unimpressed with the world they are forced to inhabit; chief among them, the can't-win blockhead who spoke to and still speaks to millions of aghast Twees. Good grief!

Dave Eggers
One of the biggest literary successes of the 00s following the release of his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and the expansion of his publishing house McSweeney's, Eggers filtered out much of the old modes of classic writer-ly behavior (boozing, fighting) but held on to the Post War era's way of actually publishing (printing in a local factory and preserving the book as covetable object in an increasingly digital age), activism and independence. Subsequent releases were unpredictable and eclectic. He also wrote an entire novel based on Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Neutral Milk Hotel's second album, was released on Merge Records in the winter of 1998 and is now considered one of the decade's landmark recordings. Sonically, it's wistful folk, anodyne hymns, and punk rock that somehow sounds like the Wall of Sound and a school band practice at once, both complex and primitive. Lyrically it's famous for its woozy allusions to tragic diarist and Twee saint Anne Frank. The nightmarish Old Timey seaside cover and the entire Elephant 6 collective that spawned the band (lead by the enigmatic Jeff Mangum) are icons now as well. They've yet to release another album but Mangum and the revived band tour packed venues where gentle people sing along at the top of their lungs.



Ira Glass
Before Glass, radio show hosts were obliged to sound like Ted Knight. Glass was fidgety and nasal and authentic. As host of the This American Life (which Glass co-founded out of Chicago's W-BEZ in the mid 90s), he and his collaborators brought a college radio sensibility to the news magazine form. As the show expanded towards national syndication, it never seemed further away and millions of Twees united in appreciation and fascination for its themes, personalities, dark humor and searching soul.



Birds
This is not to say that every bird qualifies; the penguin, the condor, the flamingo for example are not so twee (although the 1966 ballad "Pretty Flamingo" by Manfred Mann is twee, again, see The Jangle). I'm talking about the diminutive, colorful and especially rare birds one quietly and patiently spies on, Peterson guide in one hand and binoculars in the other. We mustn't forget, of course, the painted or paper variety of winged friends that "Bryce Shivers" and "Lisa Eversman" adorn and transform various plain items with in another immortal Portlandia sketch: "Put A Bird On It."

The Ukulele
The fizzy, plucky tones of this miniature Hawaiian guitar instantly creates a soothing placidity that perfectly accompanies simple, perfect, child-like melodies. Cliff Edwards, who voiced, as Jiminy Cricket, the most twee song of all time "When You Wish Upon A Star," performed as "Ukulele Ike." Steve Martin plays one during a seaside courting scene in 1980's The Jerk, while duet-ing with Bernadette Peters on the second most twee song of all time ("Tonight, You belong To Me"). Deschanel is, of course, fond of them as was the late George Harrison.



Spectacles
Jack Kerouac might have worn khakis but Buddy Holly, Woody Allen, Elvis Costello, Morrissey, Rivers Cuomo, Enid Coleslaw (the heroine of Daniel Clowes' Ghost World) wore these basic black "nerd specs." They were once a means to an end (corrected vision, covered by the British National Health Service and a no frills purchase in America). They are now a fashion statement that instantly telegraphs: "I have a killer bookshelf," whether the wearer actually owns the collected works of Dahl, Blume, Sendak, Vowell and Safran Foer or not.

Syrian Diaspora: The Za'atari Refugee Camp (PHOTOS)

June 17, 2014, 5:36 am

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The Za'atari refugee camp has become the gateway for the majority of the 600,000 Syrians that have fled their homeland since seemingly innocuous government protests escalated into a bloody civil war.



Syrian boys stand in front of a security wall with the words "Freedom is from God. May he curse the soul of Bashar Al-Assad the mule" in Arabic. Assad's regime has driven over 2 millions Syrians from their country through a brutal military campaign. April 7, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Opened on July 28, 2012 and located on the dusty outskirts of Mafraq, Jordan, Za'atari was designed to house only a fraction of the over 100,000 Syrian refugees that now call it home. In July of 2013, the camps population reached 144,000 people, making it technically the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Jordan and the second largest refugee camp in the world. As Syria spiraled downwards, more and more desperate civilians made their way to Za'atari, increasing the pressure on the UNHCR and other organizations trying to keep the situation under control.

Despite being safe from the Assad regime, life in Za'atari presents a new set of difficulties, associated with trying to provide food, shelter and medical care to such a huge number of desperate people. Many Syrians have chosen to leave the safety of the camp and try to forge a life in other urban areas of Jordan, while others have made the dangerous decision to go back to Syria. For those that remain, the future remains in limbo, a mystery clouded by desert dust and the struggle to get through each day. Healing must wait, as the focus of meeting basic needs for so many remains paramount.



The sprawl of the Za'atari refugee camp. The camp was originally designed to house only a fraction of the over 100,000 Syrians that are currently living there. to house only April 2, 2014.David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Ibrahim Mousa Al Ribai, aged 81 yrs is wheelchair bound and was carried to Jordan by his family from their hometown of Daraa, Syria after it was bombed. He has had two heart attacks recently, one when his home was destroyed in Daraa and a second while living in Za'atari upon learning of his sons death in Syria. April 2, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Men connect electric lines to the Za'atari refugee camp main power grid to divert electricity to shop fronts, tents and caravans. April 4th, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


A Syrian man holds a prized pigeon, one of many he keeps inside the Za'atari refugee camp. April 3, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Three-and-a-half year old Basura Hijazi was just two when a regime bomb hit her families 4th floor Damascus apartment, setting her alight and leaving her with life threatening burns on the upper half of her body. April 3, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Syrian refugees reflected in the window of a shop on the main street through camp. April 3, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


A tent supplied to Syrian refugees by the United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees is lit up from the inside at night. April 3, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Aisha Jurmami, aged 40 yrs inside her family caravan in the Za'atari refugee camp. Aisha suffers from a psychological condition and deteriorated quickly back in Syria after there town of Al Shajara was cut off from supplies by fighting. Her well-being has increased dramatically since arriving in camp and receiving regular treatment. April 2, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Young men shop for second hand clothes at one of the many market stalls inside of the Za'atari refugee camp. A bustling economy has flourished inside the camp with everything from clothing to appliances available for purchase. April 2, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Syrian men stand near a fire in the morning on the outskirts of the Za'atari refugee camp. April 3, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


A Syrian boy with his donkey team. The beasts are used to transport goods inside the Za'atari camp. April 3, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


A Syrian man moves goods with a wheelbarrow while boys play with a wheelchair on the outskirts of Za'atari camp. April 3, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


A man climbs from a water truck to fill an above ground tank with water. of the Za'atari refugee camp. April 3, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Syrian boys play marbles in the morning in the Za'atari refugee camp. April 3, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


A Syrian boy runs past one of the constructed toliet/shower blocks inside of the Za'atari refugee camp. The camp struggles to deal with the infrastructure needed for sewage and waste water with the volume of refugees arriving far exceeding the numbers initially expected. April 3, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


A donkey is fixed with a harnass and cart, used to move goods and building supplies around the camp. April 2, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


A family inspects the damage after a confrontation between Syrian refugees in the camp and the Jordanian Military Police escalated, resulting in one confirmed death from a gunshout, scores of wounded Syrians and police and upwards of 20 burned tents and caravans. April 6, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Blood stains on the ground after a confrontation between Syrian refugees in the camp and the Jordanian Military Police escalated, resulting in one confirmed death from a gunshout, scores of wounded Syrians and police and upwards of 20 burned tents and caravans. The exact cause of the altercation and scope of the damage is unknown as official statements released by the Jordanian authorities and eyewitness accounts greatly vary. April 6, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Camp residents inspect the damage after a confrontation between Syrian refugees in the camp and the Jordanian Military Police escalated, resulting in one confirmed death from a gunshout, scores of wounded Syrians and police and upwards of 20 burned tents and caravans. The exact cause of the altercation and scope of the damage is unknown as official statements released by the Jordanian authorities and eyewitness accounts greatly vary. April 6, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.


Syrian boys swim in a water resevoir on the edge of the Za'atari refugee camp. April 6, 2014. David Maurice Smith/Oculi.



This post is the second of two parts by Oculi collective photographer David Maurice Smith documenting Syrian refugees in Jordan. The first part focused on refugees living outside camps in the urban areas near the Syrian border and can be seen here.

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Photography and text by David Maurice Smith (@davidmauricesmith).

Living on the Edge

June 17, 2014, 7:00 am

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Everyone wants to live next to a park.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. and his civic patrons knew this early on. Olmsted also saw it as the landscape architect's duty to carefully orchestrate the relationship between what he termed the "main park" and the "outer park," thus the adoption of generous setbacks, for example, along the edge of New York's Central Park from the contiguous high-rise development.


Aerial view of Central Park. Photograph courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

That recommendation regarding what Olmsted termed The Boundary Treatment of the Park was made in 1860 -- and development pressures on the edges of parks have been increasing ever since. Witold Rybczynski in City Life: Urban Expectation in the New World (1995) calls it "the clash between horizontal ideals and vertical aspirations" -- his poetic characterization of the situation in Chicago ... in 1869.

Proximity to a park is now a key marketing hook -- advertising tag lines like "Live Next to a Park" or "A Park to Call Your Own" tempt potential homeowners to glass sheathed Modernist condos like "Richard Meier's on Prospect Park" -- that park, of course, is the great masterwork of Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

Given the North American urban renaissance, how much development can the highly desirable edge of a park absorb? How much vertical aspiration can our horizontal ideal accommodate?

It's one thing if the vertical on one side is supported by sweeping views on the other, but what happens when the park gets sandwiched? Take New York's High Line, a mile-long, 6.7-acre, uniquely Edenic sliver that ranges between 30 and 88 feet in width. As I've previously written, the High Line's 2013 visitation was 4.8 million people, 50% of them residents, vs. 3.7 million in 2011, (double the 2010 number). It's hard not to resist -- the views along the park's length, down to the streets, around the West Chelsea neighborhood and, in places, across the Hudson River make for a magical experience.


The High Line, August 2011. Photograph courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

The High Line, June 2013. Photograph courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

Part of the genius of the High Line is the complete absence of vehicular traffic -- it's limited solely to pedestrians. That may seem novel, but according to Bernard Rudofsky in Streets for People (1969), the concept is not a new one: "Leonardo da Vinci may claim to having been the first ... man to attack the problems of the twenty-first century street." That great Italian polymath, "foresaw a double system of streets -- street-level arteries for vehicles of every sort, and elevated streets for pedestrians."

Rudofsky didn't think the idea would take hold in the US: "While elevated traffic streets have been with us for quite some time, elevated streets for the exclusive use of pedestrians might seem absurd to Americans and altogether unfair to vehicles." Why? He later adds, "The idea ... is foreign to people who are bred to, and sometimes begotten in, the automobile." That latter jab notwithstanding, we seem to have turned a corner.

The High Line is a place to promenade and fits within the Italian tradition of the passeggiata. However, if you wish to find serenity and avoid the crowds, visit it early in the morning. I did so on a recent Saturday morning, only to be greeted by the sights and sounds of multiple residential construction projects.


The High Line, June 2014. Photograph courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

The High Line, June 2014. Photograph courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation.


The High Line, unlike an avenue or boulevard, the type of civic expressions Olmsted employed, is increasingly more like an offshoot of the pont-maison, which Rudofsky describes as a "bridge turned city street." This is a centuries-old concept in which housing was developed parallel to and even cantilevered off the sides of bridges. For example, of the Old London Bridge over the Thames, Rudofsky writes, "As early as 1201 it was decided to erect houses along both sides of it; a fifteenth-century plan shows one hundred and thirty-eight shops, leaving a roadway only twelve feet wide." And, dozens of wooden houses jutted far out over the river. "By the sixteenth century, [it] was performing the role of a shopping center." Lost in the process was the bridge's chief by-product -- the view.


View of the Hudson River from the High Line with construction site in the foreground, June 2014. Photograph courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

This is not to say there is an absence of planning along the High Line (millions are being made on the sale of "air rights" and that helps regulate the height of immediately adjacent construction) -- and this is not a jeremiad about development nor what some call the "Disney-fication" of New York City. And, while the High Line is an extreme example of a development project that is an economic juggernaut, extremes are not the norms.

Nevertheless, the High Line is important to examine when discussing how we measure success in our public landscapes -- it has been deemed a success, in part because of the contiguous development it has spurred. Curbed New York reported last month, "Some of New York City's most celebrated architects and designers are engaged in a heated competition to see who can build the fanciest, most modern, and most outrageously expensive condos along the High Line, and the result is over a dozen very exciting projects that are either in development or nearing completion from the likes of Thomas Juul-Hansen, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Zaha Hadid, Lord Norman Foster, and others."


New residential construction at West 20th Street & Tenth Avenue, June 2014. Photograph courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation.


So how is change managed? In a 2012 interview, High Line co-founder Robert Hammond described the paradox faced in the park's design: "how do you keep what's magic but at the same time create something new?" In guiding the site's growth and evolution, are its stewards evaluating factors such as: "borrowed scenery" that includes the unrivaled views of the Hudson and surrounding cityscape; newly enhanced bird and insect migratory opportunities; and our own spiritual contact with nature in the city? Is the surrounding contextual setting that contributes to the High Line's spectacular cultural and environmental success about to be diminished? Is it fast approaching a tipping point?

I've written enthusiastically on numerous occasions about the High Line, which, while only five years old, is an excellent example of a public private partnership, is impeccably maintained, and an exemplar of balancing historic preservation and design. Over the long term, as the High Line continues to activate development along its boundaries, I also hope these edge conditions provide site-specific lessons about managing change -- not just through the lens of its historic context, but also its physical context.

Stage Door: Much Ado About Nothing

June 17, 2014, 7:05 am

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Though all indications suggest we're in 16th-century Sicily, from sets to costumes to the charming Italian improvisational banter that opens The Public Theater's Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte, audiences can be forgiven if they think we're in 21st-century America.

Under Jack O'Brien's sure direction, the cast, anchored by the incomparable Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater, give Shakespeare's language a wisecracking rhythm, lending the evening a fresh energy reminiscent of classic screwball comedy.

Love, silliness and occasional notes of tragedy are the order of the day as Leonato (John Glover) welcomes home returning soldiers to his stately palazzo, where his daughter Hero (Ismenia Mendes) and niece Beatrice (Rabe) reside.

As the sexes mingle, love and marriage soon fill the air, though sabotage ensues at the hands of the villainous Don John (Pedro Pascal). Happily, a resolution is assured, and the evening comes to a festive close with the desired joining of Hero and Claudio (Jack Cutmore-Scott).

The driving force of the play, however, is the high-wattage banter between Linklanter's Benedick and Rabe's Beatrice. At first blush, you would think Rabe's dame-like Beatrice would cut the goofy and boyish Linklater to size. But he rises to the challenge, using his charms and more to hold his own.

John Pankow's Dogberry, a fool in constable's clothing, provides a perfectly portioned dose of puffed-up buffoonery; indeed there isn't a false note among the first-rate cast. Glover's Leonato lends an anchoring sense of dignity to the whole affair.

Every inch of John Lee Beatty's well-imagined palazzo and garden set is used to its fullest, while Jeff Croiter's warm lighting gives a sense of a hot Sicilian day. The wandering band of minstrels are worth noting, too, as the device helps bridge scenes and act breaks with seamless effort.

Many have attempted to bring Shakespeare forward to the present-day by banishing all sense of antiquity. Few are able to retain all sense of the original, while illustrating how timeless the story can be. The cast and crew of Much Ado have achieved it.

Photo: Joan Marcus

In Defense of Teaching Poetry

June 17, 2014, 7:39 am

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Who needs poetry? asks William Logan's recent op-ed in the New York Times. It concludes, somewhat elegiacally, that only some of us do. Poetry's day in the sun has come and gone, it argues, and this once-great art must satisfy itself with a dusty life on the bookshelves of bespectacled enthusiasts.

Like ballet or opera, it has become the province of the few.

But I actually think we have an opportunity to shape a world where the opposite is the case. (Bespectacled enthusiasts unite!) Poetry may be poised for a comeback precisely where it's needed most - in our nation's schools.

The future of poetry education is by no means certain. This April The Pioneer Institute, a Massachusetts group opposed to the national education standards known as the Common Core, published a paper attacking them for what they argue is a de-emphasis and misunderstanding of poetry.

I disagree with the notion that poetry is getting crowded out of our classrooms. While the standards are at times unclear about the role poetry should play in each grade, only a misreading of them suggests they completely devalue it. Still, I agree that this is the right time to be thinking about how and when we teach poetry.

The Pioneer Institute rightly points out that given the lack of clarity, schools have the potential to make poor choices about the right place to include poetry in their curricula.

And the right place is everywhere.

Poetry is a means of expression in which structure is as vital as language.* Reading it forces us to look at the power and flexibility of words in ways we might not otherwise.

What does that mean for teachers? Everything is up for grabs when you read a poem -- line and stanza length, use of pauses, meter, rhythm, figurative language, consonance, assonance... the list is long and exhaustive. Ultimately, there are few ways to read a poem besides close reading it, which sounds pretty Common Core-aligned to me.

More importantly, this type of reading is the key to opening the rich world of language for our students.

If children tell you that they do not like poetry, the first question you should ask is whether they have ever been taught how to read it. Most often, the answer is no -- students often think that to read a poem is to race through its lines, skimming it like a newspaper article between subway stops.

But if you don't know how to read a poem, how could you know how to love it?

Think of reading poetry like a trip to the art museum. If you've never taken an art history class, examined any techniques, or seen lots of other art, how will you have the patience to uncover the rich meaning in Copley's A Boy With a Flying Squirrel -- a skill the Lincoln Center Institute calls "noticing deeply"? More likely, you'll walk away from it with either superficial appreciation, or a lack of appreciation at all.

As goes painting, so too poetry. In both cases, if we don't know how to interact with art, an understanding of it becomes fenced off to us.

As an audience, we're fairly predictable. Rightly or not, we tend to devalue what we do not understand. Children who don't know how to digest poetry grow into adults with no taste for it.

I confess I can be a bit sentimental about this topic. The Pioneer Institute's argument that students must be exposed to poetry for its own sake -- for its ability to open up a world of wonder and awe and presence -- resonates with me.

I suspect it does for Logan, too, who muses in his op-ed that a great curriculum would involve students being exposed to poetry all the time.

But while he sees that world as unlikely, and while the Pioneer Institute sees it as spoiled by standards, I sense it is at our fingertips in a way it never has been.

The Common Core has opened the door for the schools I work with to teach more poetry, and richer texts, than we ever have before.

What a gift.

Who needs poetry? Your children, that's who. If we teachers fail to deliver, the fault will lie not in our stars -- or in our standards.

*A friend of mine suggested this definition to me years ago, and it's the simplest and most powerful I've found.