Great Recipe for Fourth of July: Art and BBQ

July 1, 2014, 5:00 pm

I was surprised to get so many comments from you, my dear and smart listeners, in response to last week's program, where I mentioned the embarrassing misfortune of not being allowed to board the plane for a trip to Europe because my passport would expire in a month and a half. I learned that the current rule is that passports should be valid for at least three months --and some countries even require it to be valid for six months.

Vanda wrote: "Terrorism is making our traveling complicated... I... have a colleague who was turned down for a flight to China because her passport did not have a 6 month longevity."

Michelle wrote: "I found this out when they would not let me board the plane in London to Saudi... I had to rush to the American embassy in London with just minutes to spare and overnight in London... Total drama!!"

Bette commented: "[I] was surprised to hear about your passport debacle. Total bummer, but I guess we all continue to live and learn."

So with all of the above said and done, I hope you will enjoy whatever travelling you are planning for the upcoming months of summer. But if you happen to stay here in LA for this 4th of July weekend, here's a cultural recipe to spice up your smoky BBQ plans.

I don't remember having so many major exhibitions going on at once, especially in the summer. Let's start with the international traveling exhibition devoted to one of the best-known LA artists, Mike Kelley (1954 - 2012). After Amsterdam and Paris, it arrived here to the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA to tell the overwhelming story of the troubled artist and of his art as a diary of his tortured soul.

Another high-on-drama exhibition you might want to check out is "The Scandalous Art of James Ensor" at the Getty Museum. The exhibition concentrates on the first two decades of Ensor's career, starting with the "polite" paintings shaped by his traditional, academic training, and, wow, all of a sudden the "polite" rules are discarded in favor of bold, caricature-like depictions of the human form. The star of the show is his monumental painting, Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889 (1888), with its huge crowd of grotesque figures --among them, a small figure of Christ, resembling Ensor himself.

But enough with all the drama. If you want to give yourself a chance to meditate in front of the seemingly simple, but actually endlessly complex geometric dance of colors, go to the Santa Monica Museum of Art to see the exhibition, "The Form of Color," by New York based artist Robert Swain.

And while you're at Bergamot Station, stop by Shoshana Wayne Gallery to see the exhibition of internationally recognized Israeli-born artist Michal Rovner. Her show-stopping videos present nighttime scenes with hundreds of tiny human figures slowly marching through what feels like pages and landscapes of the New or Old Testament. Or perhaps the pages of some other ancient text, like the Rosetta Stone?

The Getty Villa is hosting the exhibition, "Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections," which presents magnificent, extremely rare examples of Byzantine art from the 4th to 15th century --most of them shown in the United States for the first time. Just imagine seeing an exhibition with not one, but several Mona Lisas. That's how I feel about this exhibition.

Are you ready for a little bit of shock and scandal? Go to Jack Rutberg Gallery to see the double exhibition of painter Jerome Witkin and photographer Joel-Peter Witkin, estranged identical twins whose lives are perfect fodder for a Hollywood movie. The brothers' artistic sensibilities are worlds apart. Jerome's large-scale, figurative paintings tell complex stories rooted in the real world, while Joel-Peter's photographs are macabre, mind-boggling fantasies that butcher reality into hauntingly mesmerizing compositions.

And trust me, you need to see more than once the dramatic, sprawling exhibition at LACMA, From Van Gogh to Kandinsky, expanding the story of Expressionism as not only an artistic movement characterized by works of German artists, but also influenced by cultural interaction with French and Russian artists and intellectuals. Even now, more than a century later, these great paintings by Van Gogh and Matisse, Kandinsky and Jawlensky, Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff, still have the power to surprise, to energize, and to challenge our eye.

So, my friends, let's celebrate the 4th of July in style by filling our bellies with good food and our souls with good art.

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

___________

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

↧

Marcia

July 2, 2014, 7:47 am

≫ Next: Life Narratives: Doris's Apartment

≪ Previous: Great Recipe for Fourth of July: Art and BBQ

↧

Life Narratives: Doris's Apartment

July 2, 2014, 9:03 am

≫ Next: GHOST the Musical

≪ Previous: Marcia

Over the weekend, I was helping a friend sort through decades -- actually almost half a century -- belongings of a woman named Doris. I never met Doris. But I learned a lot about her life and personality by spending hours in her $130 a month rent controlled fourth floor walk-up.

Doris had been moved into a home over the winter when her health no longer permitted her to live alone unassisted. I am hoping to meet her someday soon -- on one of her better days -- because from the photographs, her collection of pop art from NYC in the day, unusual artifacts from around the world and fantastic collection of clothing/furs from the 1940's, 50's and 60's -- she seems like she has led quite a fabulous life. However, what spoke to me most of her belongings were the notes she made throughout newspaper and magazine clippings where she would comment and sometimes "talk back" to the author. She had even added her name neatly in small penmanship to a list of mentioned houseguests [Jean Cocteau, Cecil Beaton, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Somerset Maugham, Saul Steinberg, Alberto Giacometti and Jean Arp] at Peggy Guggenheim's Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on Venice's Grand Canal. Could she have been there?

I was sorting through a number of old brown expanding accordian folders stuffed with paper --clipped articles mostly on artists, but occasionally a number of political topics received her sharp commentary. She was obviously a very liberal and individualistic woman in her time and expressed herself in the margins with pointed questions and a conversational style. My friend would provide pieces of the narrative of Doris's life when I admired a particular object, pointed to a pile with a questioning forehead or handed her a letter or journal.

Her life could easily be made into a book, and then perhaps a movie. Let's just leave it at that, for privacy's sake! It seemed she had the famous acquaintances, an international cast of characters as friends, the flamboyant personality, a colorful past, and the costumes and props all around me were setting the scene.

Seeing Doris's black ink handwriting all over her small apartment in unexpected places, such as on the wall, made me smile whether she was observing the weather, commenting on how she was feeling, noting lunch dates or complaining "1970 Was the Worst year of my life." She documented and chronicled everything. And the reason I smiled was not because I thought her peculiar or eccentric, but rather because I have the same habit. I wrote on whatever and wherever I needed to. I have trunks and trunks of books I have written in since I was a child.

I have always known the practice of writing down my thoughts, feelings, observances, experiences to help me process and sort through my frequently overstimulated mind and overwhelmed heart.

When I was a young girl my mother smartly encouraged me to write down what I was experiencing one afternoon when I was scared during a bad thunderstorm. Thus the daily practice began capturing the mundane and otherwise. Somewhere I have my scrapbook of newspaper clippings and noted confusion of emotions when we were evacuating the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979. When my mother died unexpectedly when I was 14 -- writing became my shelter as well as an escape as I documented the absurdity and adult dysfunction of the new life I was thrust into.

My obsessive note taking and extended "mind-spills" as I called them fill many trunks in my storage spaces in Brooklyn and Pennsylvania. I have often thought about the physical and emotional heaviness of lugging all these memories and experiences around, not to mention the thousands of dollars in monthly storage fees x decades= $$,$$$...

It was not until I started volunteering at StoryCorps and got involved with other oral history projects that I started to research an assortment of words and terminology seeming to capture and explain what Doris and I were doing. Life narratives, self-authoring and a rearranging of similar type words expressed the attempt to find meaning, purpose or resolution in one's life by writing about one's experience. It could be done informally in bursts and purges or purposefully in a therapeutic situation. I was even finding college programs offering this as a discipline. I have much more to research and explore about this complex topic, but I get it. Even without getting it.

Doris did too. As we feverishly write down fleeting feelings and capture glimpses and observations the accumulated collection of words describe our interior landscapes as we press forward in the noisy confusing external world. We might not be making sense of our experience in the moment, but the act of finding the right words and committing them to paper, helps us to process and document time that moves by too quickly. Often looking back on old writings, I have found similar repeating cycles in my life every couple of decades. External situations will be different, but my internal experience still feels the same. Sometimes just reading of my existence with a bit of distance allows me to find the humor or perspective needed.

Whether an audience or readership is needed to validate the written recollections can be argued. The simple act of glancing through decades of one woman's perception offered me a glimpse into a life well-lived and gave her a voice and self-authorship encouraging me to keep at my written word for myself for perspective -- if nothing else.

↧

GHOST the Musical

July 2, 2014, 9:24 am

≫ Next: Theater: Cool Cole, Lively Joyce and Lots of Talented Teens

≪ Previous: Life Narratives: Doris's Apartment

I have the good fortune to be friends with Bruce Joel Rubin, the writer of the movie GHOST as well as the author of the book and lyrics of the stage musical adaptation of his own film now some 24 years later.

A success in England for almost two years, GHOST the Musical received glowing reviews from the English press. The national tour has been traveling for almost a year after the Broadway run in 2013 and is currently in Los Angeles after which it will shortly come to an end.

GHOSTwas an iconic film and won two academy awards when it came out, one for best original screenplay. It also created a new sub-genre of the supernatural film, the "psycho-spiritual" thriller, one that incorporated the point of view of a dead hero who was still very attached to his life and loves on Earth. There are also a few other films in this unique genre; one is Jacob's Ladder (also written by Bruce) and another is Brainstorm (also written by Bruce). Perhaps you may begin to sense a pattern here.

The magic of GHOST, both the film and musical production, is the chilling sensation you get watching the hero fight for the woman he loves from beyond the grave. It keeps you on the edge of your seat. The musical is true to the plot of the original film and tells the story of a young couple, deeply in love, rended apart by the hero's death. He continues to fight for her as he negotiates the pitfalls of the after life. She struggles to believe he's real.

On stage the hero, Sam (Steven Grant Douglas) has the charm and stage presence one needs to suspend a love story across the ethereal divide as he's forced to accept the fact that his time on Earth is over. Mollie (Katie Postotnik) will break your heart with several songs dealing with her love and loss as Sam watches on. Oda Mae Brown (Carla R. Stewart) brings down the house time and again with welcome comic relief as the fraudulent spiritual advisor who can actually hear Sam. The villain, Carl (Robby Haltiwanger) plays a good foil, handsome but increasingly reptilian as he reveals his darker nature as the play progresses.

The musical is thrilling. The music and lyrics, composed by Dave Stewart (half of the Eurythmics of old) whose musical career spans three decades, and Glen Ballard, one of music's most accomplished producer-songwriters, is emotional and dynamic.

Whether or not there's ironclad scientific proof that the spirit remains after the body fails, everyone certainly has a story of a brush with the spirit world. Some would say where there's smoke, there's fire. We all hold onto our lives with a two fisted iron-handed grip. If you think you're lackadaisical about it try holding your breath for 60 seconds. So it would make sense that we wouldn't pass from this world without some second thoughts.

"We're a society looking for the answer in the next minute, and it won't be there," said Bruce discussing his philosophy on life. "This moment is the only one you've got and it's the only one you'll ever have. And either you've got it working or you don't." He points out that often we're dwelling on the past or worrying about the future and not being in the present with our loved ones or anything else. Sam, the hero in GHOST, learns this the hard way by losing his chance to ever experience the moment again.

"It was a huge learning curve working with someone like Bruce," said Dave Stewart. "He was like a learned professor. He could keep the through line of the story to make sure the audience was transported emotionally while we could worry about the moments on stage with each song."

The musical is a delight and for a new generation who may have missed that opportunity to see the film, the story is as gripping and mind-opening now as it was then. It's the celebration of life from the point of view of a man who has lost it. GHOST the Musical asks us to "believe," not just in supernatural connections, but to believe in every moment.

The notion that life is a daily gift is not a greeting card platitude, it's real wisdom. Ask anyone who's been told their time here is limited. The show reminds us to celebrate every day and not to be afraid to love one another. For in the end that feeling is all you're going to take with you.

Leaving the theater we were able to take a little extra love that night, given to us by the cast who gave us such a celebration of life and love on the stage.

Directed by Matthew Warchus, GHOST the Musical is playing at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles through July 13th, Costa Mesa from July 29th - August 10th and Las Vegas August 12th - August 17th.

↧

Theater: Cool Cole, Lively Joyce and Lots of Talented Teens

July 2, 2014, 11:28 am

≫ Next: How Aerial Photography Changes A Photographer's Perspective

≪ Previous: GHOST the Musical

THE AMBASSADOR REVUE ** 1/2 out of ****
TOWN HALL

DUBLINERS: A QUARTER *** out of ****
THE GREENE SPACE AT WYNC/WQXR

THE NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL THEATER AWARDS *** 1/2 out of ****
MINSKOFF THEATRE

When you think about all the special events, the one-night-only or extremely limited run showcases and concerts that take place, it's amazing how smoothly most of them run. And while the three events I'm talking about already happened, you can experience them or the people involved for a long time to come.

Cole Porter's The Ambassador Revue was a one-night only event at Town Hall, one of my favorite spaces in the city. It marked the North American premiere of the revue Porter created to smash success in Paris back in 1928. It was overshadowed by his Broadway breakthrough later that year (with a show called Paris, appropriately enough) and the revue and most of its songs faded from memory. Rightly so, since songs like "In A Moorish Garden" and "Hans" and the like are not among Porter's absolute best. But they were fun to hear for an evening, presented with elan by a game cast including Anita Gillette and Jason Graae, who was most in tune with the era and delivered the most successful renditions throughout the evening. Wisely, the show also included brief tributes to Gershwin and Porter that allowed them to perform some genuine classics as well. The dancing led by choreographer Randy Skinner was a real crowd-pleaser. And any evening spent with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks Orchestra is an evening well spent.

Unfortunately, the evening was plagued by poor audio, especially by the singers (the orchestra itself was well-miked). This made many of the songs literally difficult to hear, especially the twisty lyrics Porter is famed for. Since the evening was a revue, it will remain a mystery to me why the director Ken Bloom didn't just stop the show and have it fixed. No one would have minded in the least. Indeed, the entire affair was a casual to a charming degree, with the singers sitting on stage at tables drinking and chatting while others performed. A large plant was almost knocked over, Burton fiddled with the body mike that kept getting loose on Graae, Gillette wandered forward to sing then suddenly whirled around and headed back to her seat, stage whispering, "This isn't my song!" And it was all perfectly enjoyable. But poor sound? Not so much. It turned what might have been a real charmer of an evening into a mildly frustrating one.

But never fear! Vince Giordano is always in residence at the Iguana, so anyone coming to the city should be sure to check them out. Here's a glimpse of the band in performance.

Dubliners: A Quartet wasn't so much a theatrical experience as a recording session the audience present at the Greene Space was invited to attend. We watched a troupe of excellent actors perform four short stories by James Joyce in their entirety, with audio effects and musical performances turning them from simple recordings into audio plays. They tackled "Araby," "Eveline," and "Clay," broke for dinner and winded up with "The Dead." Obviously, all four come from Joyce's Dubliners, one of the greatest if not the greatest short story collections ever written. Here's a brief video talking about the project.

Now playwright Arthur Yorinks (who also directed with Jim Simpson) makes clear in notes to the evening that he believes these four audio plays should be experienced as one full play. Indeed, the works in Dubliners are interconnected in ways large and small that resonate powerfully. But including a half hour dinner break the evening ran some four hours. Plus, as my guest suggested, musical performances that begin and end each story feel like gilding the lily (as opposed to the songs that arise naturally during the tale). Joyce is so musical already that you don't need music. (As perhaps the attempt to create the Broadway musical James Joyce's The Dead proved.)

The good news is you can decide for yourself. This month, they will be making a podcast and streaming video on demand available of the entire evening. If you're like me, you might choose to listen to one story at a time. That will make the music that bookends each tale feel more like the frame around the tale rather than integral to it and not get in the way of the story. Or you can do as Yorinks suggests and tackle them all at once. You can't go wrong, especially not with a cast that includes among others Sean McNall of Pearl Theater Company, the great Dana Ivey (who managed the good trick of singing a song for humor but without betraying her character), Peter Gerety, Sean Gormley and the always spot-on John Keating, who never fails to find truth and humor in every part no matter how small. Ultimately, Dubliners: A Quartet is sure to prove a worthy addition to the original works that have sprung from the Greene Space and WNYC/WQXR. You can check their website to find out when it becomes available and about future productions they're making happen.

Finally, I attended the National High School Musical Theater Awards aka The Jimmy out of a sense of duty. Let's support arts in the schools and who knows, maybe spot some future talent. I was a little surprised they were charging admission (though of course it went towards the worthy work of NHSMTA). I would have thought you'd have to beg people in New York City to attend. Plenty of family and friends and some industry folk were present, including industry pros serving as judges including Scott Ellis, Kent Gash, Rachel Hoffman, Arielle Tepper Madover, Tara Rubin, and Nick Scandalios. Maybe a little part of me worried about how long it might drag on.

So the last thing I expected was a smooth, well directed and well performed evening of entertainment where the singing and performance was of genuinely strong quality. It's a real tribute to director Van Kaplan, choreographer Kiesha Lalama and music director and arranger Michael Moricz how strong this event proved. The teens showed up just a few days early and in that time they all mastered opening and closing numbers and medleys in which chunks of them performed selections from their own songs while doing backup singing and dancing for the others in their group.

A lot of care was placed into how the songs segued from one to another (often to amusing or contrasting effect) and how to showcase for example two Jean Valjeans and three Shreks, when multiple actors had won awards for the same characters. Each performer also worked on their solo number, even though only six of them got to perform that in the second half of the evening.

Previous winner Ryan McCartan (of Heathers The Musical) was a genial, Bill Murray-ish host, proof of the success winners have had. (And not just winners: a finalist from last year was plucked out of obscurity to play the lead in the West End revival of Miss Saigon.) I've seen many shows on Broadway and Off where I wondered why certain people who simply don't have the pipes were cast. It always seems unforgivable to me with so many actors clamoring for work and this group of teens was further proof. A few were vocally weak but most were quite strong.

And the spirit of teamwork was palpable: the members of each medley's chorus were given little bits to do segueing in and out of their performance that was always in service of the group. You never felt anyone was trying to hog the spotlight or take away from anyone else. The judges watched rehearsals of the medley (and solo performances, I assume) so they had a lot more info to pull from when picking finalists. My guest was especially impressed by Emma Magbanua, even though she did a number from Miss Saigon (a show neither of us likes in the least). I was certain Jillian Cailloutte, even though she did a number from A Little Princess (a musical I've never heard of). Neither made the cut but only one of the six that did raised an eyebrow for us. And the two winners were worthy, including Jai' Len Josey and especially Jonah Rawitz, who impressed with his versatility. I'll be saving this Playbill because I'm certain these two and many others showcased have a future in the theater and I want to say I saw them first. And kudos to the behind the scenes talent that crafted such a strong evening out of their youthful energy and enthusiasm. Here are videos of Josey and Rawitz in performance (not from this event but before) and one of Rawitz's original songs posted on YouTube.

THEATER OF 2014

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical ***
Rodney King ***
Hard Times ** 1/2
Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead **
I Could Say More *
The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner **
Machinal ***
Outside Mullingar ***
A Man's A Man * 1/2
The Tribute Artist ** 1/2
Transport **
Prince Igor at the Met **
The Bridges Of Madison County ** 1/2
Kung Fu (at Signature) **
Stage Kiss ***
Satchmo At The Waldorf ***
Antony and Cleopatra at the Public **
All The Way ** 1/2
The Open House (Will Eno at Signature) ** 1/2
Wozzeck (at Met w Deborah Voigt and Thomas Hampson and Simon O'Neill)
Hand To God ***
Tales From Red Vienna **
Appropriate (at Signature) *
Rocky * 1/2
Aladdin ***
Mothers And Sons **
Les Miserables *** 1/2
Breathing Time * 1/2
Cirque Du Soleil's Amaluna * 1/2
Heathers The Musical * 1/2
Red Velvet, at St. Ann's Warehouse ***
Broadway By The Year 1940-1964 *** 1/2
A Second Chance **
Guys And Dolls *** 1/2
If/Then * 1/2
The Threepenny Opera * 1/2
A Raisin In The Sun *** 1/2
The Heir Apparent *** 1/2
The Realistic Joneses ***
Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill ***
The Library **
South Pacific ** 1/2
Violet ***
Bullets Over Broadway **
Of Mice And Men **
The World Is Round ***
Your Mother's Copy Of The Kama Sutra **
Hedwig and the Angry Inch ***
The Cripple Of Inishmaan ***
The Great Immensity * 1/2
Casa Valentina ** 1/2
Act One **
Inventing Mary Martin **
Cabaret ***
An Octoroon *** 1/2
Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging ***
Here Lies Love *** 1/2
6th Annual August Wilson Monologue Competition
Sea Marks * 1/2
A Time-Traveler's Trip To Niagara * 1/2
Selected Shorts: Neil Gaiman ***
Too Much Sun * 1/2
Broadway By The Year 1965-1989 ***
In The Park **
The Essential Straight & Narrow ** 1/2
Much Ado About Nothing ***
When We Were Young And Unafraid
Savion Glover's Om **
Broadway By The Year 1990-2014 ***
The Lion ***
Holler If Ya Hear Me * 1/2
The Ambassador Revue ** 1/2
Dubliners: A Quartet ***
The National High School Musical Theater Awards *** 1/2

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

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

↧

How Aerial Photography Changes A Photographer's Perspective

July 2, 2014, 12:50 pm

≫ Next: A Cautionary (Print Studio) Tale for Artists

≪ Previous: Theater: Cool Cole, Lively Joyce and Lots of Talented Teens

Nothing has changed my perspective of photography the way flying in a little Cessna plane over one of the most historical towns in our nation did.

Planes Lined up at the Charlottesville Regional Airport.
Photo Credit: Heather Hummel Photography

Last week the Women Can Fly program, which launched in Virginia in 2013, was giving free 20 minute flights to girls (eight and older) and women on a first-come-first-serve basis. Charlottesville was the fourth and last regional airport on their list for 2014. As such, I had the incredible experience of being able to capture aerial photos while flying over Charlottesville, Virginia.

In order to fly, we were required to participate in a pre-flight briefing where we learned that the rudder is meant to steer planes on the ground rather than in the air (a notable fact that I retained, which lead to winning a Cessna water bottle during the pop quiz at the end). We also learned that women represent only a mere 6 percent of pilots.

Ready for Takeoff.
Photo Credit: Heather Hummel Photography

Once pre-flight briefing was completed, it was our turn to hop in the plane. Moments later, I joined the pilot, Frank, his unofficial co-pilot, Kathleen (who had taken flying lessons already), and my friend, Carrie, in Frank's Cessna. Our flight path took us south of the Charlottesville Airport, where we flew over Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, The University of Virginia Grounds and Lawn, and back up alongside the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.

The View During Takeoff.
Photo Credit: Heather Hummel Photography

With all the photographs I've captured from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and just about everywhere in between during my eight cross-country drives, I had seen and photographed a lot of land and sea. But, as Amelia Earhart stated, "You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky."

The CHO Airport.
Photo Credit: Heather Hummel Photography

I was ready for a change in venue, and the chance to fly at an altitude of approximately 2,000 feet was just the experience I had been craving, such as these images of Monticello.

Thomas Jefferson's Monticello:
Photo Credit: Heather Hummel Photography

Thomas Jefferson's Monticello:
Photo Credit: Heather Hummel Photography

Due to its history and beauty, Charlottesville often ranks in Top 10 lists of places to live. To have the chance see its historical splendor from 2,000 feet above was remarkable.

The University of Virginia Grounds and Lawn:
Photo Credit: Heather Hummel Photography

This landscape photographer will never look at land the same way, and for that, I'm grateful.

↧

A Cautionary (Print Studio) Tale for Artists

July 2, 2014, 1:04 pm

≫ Next: A Sonic Story: Putting Together the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Show

≪ Previous: How Aerial Photography Changes A Photographer's Perspective

Lawsuits can be messy affairs, and the one filed in 2013 by financial investor Edward Houillion against a print studio (Seikilos FX Studios) in Dallas, Texas, is a mess that has sucked in a number of artists. Houillion, as head of a limited liability company, agreed to invest in the print studio and then claimed that the owners of the studio misrepresented their financial situation and business plan in order to attract an investment, then mismanaged assets, diverting funds from the business to their own personal use and not providing a proper accounting to Houillion. Claims, counterclaims, you're a liar, no you are -- let them fight it out.

As part of the wrangling, Houillion seized control of the print studio space and its assets, which included original artworks (paintings) that eight or nine artists had brought in to create print editions -- Houillion also seized completed print editions -- using the studio's patented digital imaging technology. "The image-capture technology creates a really unique look," said artist Victoria Moore of New Smyrna, Florida, "better than any other studio I've ever worked with has produced."

Twenty-eight of Moore's paintings are among the seized artworks, stored somewhere while this lawsuit drags on. "They have my best work and the digital files for it, so I haven't been able to make reproductions," she said. "I missed the holiday season, because of this lawsuit."

It is not difficult to feel her pain, but there is a cautionary tale in this for all artists, and not just painters, who turn over their work to someone else. If Seikilos FX Studios were a commercial art gallery in Dallas instead of a print studio, the artwork belonging to Moore and the other artists could be picked up by them without much hassle; the artist or lawyer representing the artist would file a proof of claim, such as a consignment agreement, to the court-appointed trustee in order that artwork be returned to the artist rather than liquidated as part of the dealer's assets to pay creditors. That is because in Texas, as well as in 31 other states and the District of Columbia (http://www.vlaa.org/?view=Artist-Gallery-Consignment-Statutes), artist-dealer consignment statutes exist that identify all artwork and proceeds from sales of art consigned to a gallery as trust property and not part of a gallery's assets. "[A] work of art delivered to an art dealer for exhibition or sale and the proceeds from the dealer's sale of the work of art are not subject to a claim, lien, or security interest of a creditor of the dealer," according to the Texas law.

In the other 32 states, artists may file a form under the Uniform Commercial Code with the state attorney general's office (the cost is approximately $125) that gives them prior right to repossess consigned pieces should the gallery go bankrupt. An artist (or the artist's lawyer) filing a UCC-1 form or a claim with a bankruptcy court would do so in the state in which the corporation was formed, rather than were the gallery is located. Reports on more than 80 million businesses are available through Dun & Bradstreet, many of which were formed as corporations in the state of Delaware, where corporate taxes are relatively low and the ability to sue individual corporate shareholders for misdeeds is somewhat more difficult than in other states. As businesses, galleries are more likely to be liquidated than file for reorganization under the bankruptcy laws.

The problem Moore faces stems from the fact that Seikilos FX Studios is not an art dealer, which is defined in the Texas law as "a person in the business of selling works of art." One of the lawyers representing Houillion, Matthew Bourque of the Dallas-based The Johnson Firm, stated that all artwork was seized, "because we need to determine the ownership of it. It isn't clear to us who owns the art."

This isn't just an issue in Texas. The Illinois Consignment of Art Act defines a dealer "as a person engaged in the business of selling works of fine art." That law also does not apply to persons who are exclusively engaged in the sale of goods at public auction, nor would it apply to someone who may sell works of art but as a side business, such as a restaurant or café owner. The New York statute includes auctioneers among dealers as "art merchants," but restaurant and café owners would not be among them, regardless of how often they exhibit and sell artworks. Print studios, sculpture foundries, conservation labs, framers, the sellers of art supplies, jewelry and furniture shops -- anywhere that artists might leave their work that isn't a place where the sale of artwork is the principal business -- could have all their assets seized by creditors in the event of a lawsuit or bankruptcy, and the artwork could be tied up in court for months or longer.

In the event of a lawsuit or bankruptcy of some business that is not a full-time art gallery, an artist's consigned work would be seized and become part of a bankruptcy proceeding. There, the outlook is not favorable to the artist. First in line for repayment are "secured" claims, such as bank loans or mortgages, followed by "priority" claims (taxes owed to the government, for instance), and finally "unsecured, nonpriority" claims, including debts to credit card companies, suppliers and, in the case of print studios, foundries, restaurants or any place that may have artwork, artists. John Winter, a bankruptcy attorney in Philadelphia, estimated the return for unsecured creditors to be seven or eight cents on the dollar, "20 cents if you're very lucky."

Worrying whether or not a print studio, foundry, conservator or restaurant may go bankrupt need not prey on an artist's mind, according to Chicago arts lawyer Scott Hodes. "Artists simply should file a UCC-1 form, which tells the courts that the artwork belongs to the artist and isn't the property of whomever is in bankruptcy court."

↧

A Sonic Story: Putting Together the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Show

July 2, 2014, 1:29 pm

≫ Next: 10 Things I've Learned in a Year of Celebrating the Female Body

≪ Previous: A Cautionary (Print Studio) Tale for Artists

Friday night, my voice will be part of the chorus as the 38th Annual Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks erupt over New York City's East River and Brooklyn Bridge. The 25-minute show, which celebrates the 200th Anniversary of "The Star Spangled Banner," is dazzling and moving, but it doesn't just explode into the warm summer air. Many parts come together to create this spectacular evening.

As snow fell and temperatures hovered above zero, I joined about 20 singers -- volunteer members of Judith Clurman's NYC-based chorus, Essential Voices USA, as well as a few professionals -- to rehearse arrangements of "God Bless America," "The Star Spangled Banner," "America the Beautiful," and "You're a Grand Old Flag." On January 23rd, we gathered at a midtown studio to record the tracks. After each take, Clurman joined Macy's creative director William Schermerhorn and producer Randy Hansen in the booth to evaluate the sound. Sometimes we had to sing certain sections again -- sometimes the whole piece again. Eventually we finished each arrangement and completed our contribution.

That recording session was at the halfway point in a year-long process. Plans for this year's show began shortly after last Fourth of July when Schermerhorn, who has worked on the fireworks for 32 years, started gathering ideas and talking to Clurman about the possibility of working together. He had heard Essential Voices USA perform at Carnegie Hall and thought they would fit well with the material and the other artists involved.

Doug Katsaros, Judith Clurman, William Schermerhorn, and DIVA Jazz Orchestra's Sherrie Maricle at the recording session.

The all-female DIVA Jazz Orchestra, the Charlie Daniels Band, Billy Porter, and Idina Menzel, who sings the Star Spangled Banner, joined the chorus. "All these artists really know how to make the words come to life in whatever song they're doing," Schermerhorn said in a recent phone interview. "They have a way of digging deep into the lyric and really making it resonate."

The adoration was mutual. "I love getting in the studio with Bill Schermerhorn and Judy Clurman," Menzel said in an email. "We have a great love and respect for each other."

The next task was choosing the arrangers for the iconic pieces, which can be like a matching game. "Different arrangers can do different things well," Clurman said in a recent phone interview. "You need to figure out who is the best to work on each piece." Schermerhorn brought in Doug Katsaros, a jingle writer who has been working on projects for Macy's for about 10 years. Clurman contributed Nathan Kelly and found Ryan Nowlin after she heard his arrangements for Obama's second inauguration.

For the arrangers, one of the biggest challenges of writing music for the Fourth of July Fireworks is actually writing music for fireworks. Although the music is written first, sometimes the arrangers need to make adjustments. "I'll put orchestral hits in unexpected places," Katsaros said. "For example, the word 'Dawn' [as in 'by the dawn's early light'] might have an explosive smash. There are spaces for the voices to be heard and then little pauses in the song where the fireworks are heard."

Doug Katsaros and William Schermerhorn

The arrangers must also consider that the music will be heard outside as opposed to in a concert hall, and with a small number of singers the chorus had to adjust as well. "I could not have my chorus sing American standards, such as 'Grand Old Flag,' as if they were singing the Mozart Requiem," Clurman said. "I had to get the right sound that would sound right out of doors and for television and radio broadcast."

"Grand Old Flag" will open the show and set the standard with a fanfare that will not only reach across the river but captivate the audience. "The listeners need to hear the familiar, smile the second they hear the music, and feel as if they are part of the chorus," Clurman said.

The instrumental tracks were recorded first, followed by the vocals. Even with weeks of rehearsals, it all comes down to what's recorded in the studio, and there is not much time. "No matter what happens, you need get the job done," Clurman said of the recording experience. "You cannot waste a second. I had to edit some choral parts during the session. Everyone on the team, chorus and production, had the skills to work efficiently and quickly."

With the music set, the final layer was added: the fireworks design. "It's sort of like ballet in that the music comes first and then the fireworks are the dancers that dance to it," Shermerhorn said. Schermerhorn stressed that the music accompanying the fireworks is not a playlist but a score, with songs reprised with different arrangements and instrumentation. "My Home," with lyrics by Schermerhorn and music by Katsaros, for example, will be first performed as a country rock anthem and then return in a simpler, choral a cappella version.

Judith Clurman

As the music moves from the bombast of patriotic anthems to the introspective "America the Beautiful," a sonic story is unfolding. "A quiet, beautiful moment is as important as a loud one, especially during the fireworks show," Clurman said. "It reminds us to be thankful and think about what freedom means."

On the night of the fireworks, Schermerhorn will be in a truck along the East River. The music has been mixed, the fireworks designed, and the camera angles for the NBC broadcast solidified. Thousands of people have gathered to watch from rooftops and in front of televisions. A year of preparation, and it's finally time. "My favorite moment is when I get to say that we have the clearance from the coast guard and the fire department that we can fire," Schermerhorn said. "When we go 3-2-1 and you watch those shells go up from the barges and the Brooklyn Bridge, it's going to be an exciting moment."

Photos courtesy of DAN DUTCHER PUBLIC RELATIONS

↧

10 Things I've Learned in a Year of Celebrating the Female Body

July 2, 2014, 2:00 pm

≫ Next: Full-Frontal Comedy in Aspen

≪ Previous: A Sonic Story: Putting Together the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Show

This week, I'm celebrating my 35th birthday -- but more importantly, to me at least, I'm also celebrating the one-year anniversary of the completion of the Kickstarter campaign for my book. That campaign brought an unexpected euphoria of blessed attention and a slightly frantic body positive stardom.

Because I took some images of myself nude and 50 pounds heavier than I had ever been in my life, breastfeeding my 5-week-old perfect baby boy, as an attempt to redefine what beautiful means to me -- and because I then proceeded to photograph over 100 women who reached out to me wishing to redefine our concept of what is gorgeous, celebrating the skin that we are in -- I became the body love expert for a spell. A particularly memorable moment was the BBC calling me up for my thoughts on Kate Middleton's post-birth body.

jade beall

I most definitely adored this attention, but I wasn't fully prepared for it. However, I did my best receiving the incredible blessing of some amazing global press, along with love and hate emails from strangers all over the planet, while raising my toddler and yes, photographing, completing and publishing my first-ever book.

I write these words from a rustic cabin in the very secluded mountains of northern New Mexico at about 10,000 feet, with a very slow satellite Internet connection and my toddler playing at my feet with two toy airplanes he likes to call helicopters. This is my first "time off," besides a few Sundays here and there, since this radical ride began. I have had some time to reflect about what I've learned in the past year, and I wanted to share it with you, the gorgeous folks who have made my dreams come true.

1. Feeling beautiful about one's precious self can dramatically improve one's successes in life.
This I know from experience. Now that I no longer waste hours and hours a day hating myself and my reflection in the mirror, I have so much more time to do really awesome things like empower women through a simple, gorgeous photograph. I still have days of wishing I fit into my old jeans, and I wonder where my jaw line has disappeared to, but those thoughts no longer paralyze me and I still feel worthy of calling myself beautiful, which makes me walk with more self-confidence and love.

2. When we share vulnerability, it inspires a whole lot of healing for people and helps heal our own wounds of not feeling beautiful enough, smart enough, lovable enough or successful enough.
When I shared a photo of myself with dark circles under my eyes and rolls and cellulite and (gasp!) called it beautiful, I was sharing a vulnerability that thousands of other women, unbeknownst to me, were yearning to see. They were yearning to feel that empowering human desire known as a sense of belonging. The images that dominate our lives are almost ALL photoshopped to make a rendition of what the beautiful model looks like. We have been trained to think that people in magazines don't have pores and wrinkles and cellulite. They do, and it's beautiful.

3. Anyone who wishes to feel and be called beautiful damn well deserves to feel and be called BEAUTIFUL!
Obvious to me and most of you, I am sure, but you all would not believe some of the emails I receive and the articles people send me going on and on about how not everyone is beautiful just like "not everyone can climb Mount Everest." Sure, there are some cruel people on this planet whom I hope I never meet and whom I probably would not jump to call beautiful. But all, yes ALL of the people I have ever met and whom I photograph are and will always be BEAUTIFUL if they wish to be. We are all nothing but irreplaceably beautiful and precious.

4. Photographing diverse body types of gorgeous people does not equal promoting obesity.
I have learned this year that yet another way people discriminate and shame fat people is to call them unhealthy. The way I see it, there is nothing more unhealthy than unkindness. Tell others that they are worthy and precious. Don't tell them they shouldn't celebrate the beautiful skin that they are in today.

5. Photographing women nude in the name of celebrating and helping women feel empowered in the skin we are in does not equal objectifying women.
This feedback that my project and my book are yet another way to "objectify women" has really hurt me in the deepest parts of my soul, because objectifying women is something I am not and never will be friends with. However, this response has pushed me to do some deep reflection on the work that I do and how I offer it to the world. Do I think bare and nude images of women are often used in the name of selling something, and do I think this is objectifying? Oh heck yes I do! I mean, how many scantily dressed or nude men do we see in the name of selling a car? (If you are watching the World Cup like I am, you probably have noticed the commercials in question). I am NOT DOWN for objectifying women, nor do I think all women should share nude images of themselves in my book or elsewhere to celebrate our beautiful vulnerabilities. I honor my sisters wearing their sacred burkas just like I honor my own self getting nude to show you that I am like you: perfectly human and in no need of photoshopping out my God-given cellulite!

6. ALL bodies -- yes, ALL bodies -- are gorgeous and worthy of being photographed and loved, whether they be covered or nude.
It's just the plain ol' truth.

7. Being positive with my words has helped me feel beautiful for the first time since I was 10 years old.
I no longer say/use negative words out loud. Sure, I still battle with an internal "you are not worthy" dialogue that I then practice shining love on. I do not, however, use negative words about myself aloud. Not in front of my toddler, not in front of my mother or sister or friends. When someone says, "Jade, you look so beautiful today," I say thank you and smile and force my old habit of wanting to reply "Oh no, I look like crap today" away, letting the compliment nourish my soul. I also use my words of kindness to deliver honest compliments and words of support to people I randomly meet and with my friends and family. The less we put ourselves down, the less our children will do it. Plain and simple. PLEASE, if nothing else, take away this simple practice from my post: Be free from saying you look ugly/too fat/too thin/too unstylish/old/worthless in front of your precious children. Practice loving yourself in your entirety so that our little ones can learn to love themselves!

8. I no longer believe that "I will be happy when... I am thinner/bigger breasted/less pimply/un-wrinkly/wealthier."
A dear friend my age just told me an hour ago she has terminal cancer. I want to in-joy my precious self today, not in some pre-determined thinner/fatter/more apple-booty future. I no longer own a scale to compare myself to yesterday's or tomorrow's weight. I am not saying you shouldn't own one, I am saying we must be free from anything that takes away our confidence. For me, one of those things was owning a scale.

9. Being kind and feeling beautiful about myself directly enables me to be kind and see all my sisters as irreplaceably beautiful.
We have been taught since we were ridiculously little that we are in competition with one another. This consumes precious time and energy with terrible feelings of jealousy, envy and being just flat out un-kind. When we "hate" another woman because we think she is more beautiful/successful than we are, we are directly hurting our precious being when we could be more abundantly impeccable with our words for empowerment, love and BEAUTY making.

10. A body positive and self love movement is for everyone -- and we need lots of cooks in this revolutionary kitchen.
One thousand and ninety two people backed my book project on Kickstarter, and that single campaign has completely changed my work and my path so that I can dedicate my time to empowering my "sisters." Because of my simple project, women and men from all over the world have been inspired to produce more "unphotoshopped' images of women to start the healing of loving ourselves in our entirety. Other radical sisters like my amazing Australian inspiration Taryn, founder of Body Image Movement, and my divine dear friend and inspiration Jes, a.k.a. The Militant Baker, are rallying their communities in the name of self love and interconnected kindness -- and hundreds if not thousands of more women from all over the world are dedicating their lives to feeling beautiful and wanting to inspire YOU to feel beautiful inside and out. The world needs us to be leaders of beauty and kindness. Let's show the world what beautiful truly means.

Like Us On Facebook |

Contact HuffPost Parents

↧

Full-Frontal Comedy in Aspen

July 2, 2014, 2:24 pm

≫ Next: ROW Premieres Tchaikovsky Rarity

≪ Previous: 10 Things I've Learned in a Year of Celebrating the Female Body

The Full Monty -- the marquee Theatre Aspen production for summer 2014, now through August 9 -- careens from laugh-out-loud funny to screaming hilarity with a cast that sings up a high-desert storm.

The Full Monty is of course based on the classic movie of the same name set in working-class England and built around the big reveal at the end, when the unemployed blue-collar boys in the chorus famously show off the family jewels. By the time that moment arrived on opening night here at the Hurst Theatre, an immensely talented cast had the audience by the cojones -- there's no other way to put it -- and I had buried my early misgivings about a comedy so broad it nearly forgot to be funny in the opening scenes.

With screaming bimbos and a clichéd Chippendale male striptease, the show starts so far over the top I feared it might never find its way back to earth. Then Malcolm, played by Ben Liebert, appears mid-suicide in a red car pumping carbon monoxide into the caboose. Irony -- heretofore as scarce as jobs in Buffalo, where the play is set--shows up like a loaded Camelback at high altitude, and from there The Full Monty goes full-throttle.

Directed by Mark Martino, the director of Les Miserables, last summer's smash in Aspen, this production comes with a cast that creeps up on you until you start to fall hard (pardon the expression) for a bunch of down-and-out, out-of-work guys in Buffalo. As in Les Miz, the singing is impeccable and often transcendent -- a trait that has become a calling card at Theatre Aspen, with a big assist from David Dyer, who is becoming an Aspen musical treasure.

In the lead as Jerry Lukowski, Tally Sessions brings a beautiful mix of levity leavened by longing, and his unexpected high register was truly a high point opening night. Dane Agostinis does the heavy emotional lifting in the show, and he's more than good enough to give shame a good name as he provides some of the funniest and poignant moments in the show. James Ludwig, who plays the former boss and new dance director of the male strippers, manages to be a hilarious foil and a gifted physical comedian.

Since we are literally talking balls-to-the-wall comedy here, we can't forget Spencer Plachy running into walls by chanelling Donald O'Connor -- and then, convincingly, falling in love with another man -- or Randy Donaldson as the cast member with both a bad hip and the badness of James Brown.

But we would be remiss if we did not single out two standout women in the cast: Michele Ragusa and Mary Stout. They both steal every scene we're lucky enough to see them in, always in a way that is equally randy and smart without ever seeming self-conscious. Ragusa gets to show real emotional depth necessary to make the play real, and Stout's performance as the piano player who has seen it all -- albeit 50 years ago -- creates a laugh track that pulses throughout the whole show. Mary Stout is a comic genius who makes every bit seem effortless: she is so good she gives world-weariness a facelift.

Watching this play was different for me because I could not stop watching the unfiltered glee of most of the women in the audience. This is a show about men for women -- and women in Aspen of all ages loved it. At the end of the day, at the end of the night, there's nothing funnier than a naked man shaking his thang in desperate times.

↧

ROW Premieres Tchaikovsky Rarity

July 2, 2014, 2:54 pm

≫ Next: 'Big Bad' Israeli Film

≪ Previous: Full-Frontal Comedy in Aspen

Pianist and repertoire specialist Ghenady Meirson has been the go to-master for two decades in Philadelphia for authentic Russian operatic repertoire. His Russian Romances concerts at the Academy of Vocal Arts, where he is on the faculty, has an avid following. In recent years he has also established Russian Opera Workshop for professional and aspiring opera singers that culminates in performances at the AVA.

ROW has proved so successful this year's there were hundreds of applicants who sent in audition tapes from all over the US and around the globe, including participants from Mexico, Croatia and even one from St. Petersburg, Russia.

Ghenady Mierson (right) with singers (photo courtesy of ROW)

In addition to the chance to work with Meirson, and his team of faculty experts, the workshops are specifically designed for young opera singers launching their professional careers. ROW is an immersive experience for the singers with instruction on all aspects of the Russian repertoire, including language, vocal technique and acting, that culminates in performances at the end of the workshops.

Meirson chooses one famous Russian classic and one opera rarity. The performance underlines the musical purity of voice accompanied by just piano, with each concert over three nights rotating singers in the lead roles. .

Last month, ROW's first production was Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans (aka Joan of Arc), in its Philadelphia premiere. Before he sat down at the piano for what will be over two hours of continuous playing with only one break, Meirson described the work's murky history to a packed first night audience.

Tchaikovsky wrote the role of Joan as a soprano and the conductor of the first production wanted the composer to rewrite it for a mezzo-soprano and he refused, though the score was changed by copyists, and Tchaikovsky had to subsequently correct them. Mierson, of course, plays the original Tchaikovsky version for soprano.

In the first performance, Gillian Watson (soprano, Irvine CA) acted the role of Joan with minimal gestures and fiery eyes, vocally she struggled only in the stratospheric timbres, but her luminous mid-range that fits the role. Anthony Schneider (Auckland, New Zealand) at her father has an ocean deep bass that, as he portends doom and damnation because of Joan's fall from grace.

This Tchaikovsky piece has huge chunks of romanticism, that is easily vamped, some sections could have been used on the soundtrack of The Perils of Pauline. So the narrative literalness, is atypical to the composer. But it is so interesting vis-à-vis his other operas. And beside the melodramatic aspects, there are some Mozartian and even baroque shadings. Tchaikovsky also wrote the libretto to and, again most of the scoring under the sung dialogue flows.

Some of the non-Russian singers had better feel for the language than others, but barely noticeable to this untrained ear. After Joan saves the town of Orleans she falls in love with Lionel and is torn between her devotion to her imbued mission and love with a flesh and blood man. Jeffrey Williams (baritone, Nashville TN) with clarion vocal richness makes this improbable character believable.

Jeffrey Halili (tenor, Toronto, Canada) is a former resident artist at AVA and is often a ringer for comic roles, here gets to showcase his dramatic skill and nuance as King Charles VII, who embraces, then condemns Joan as the mob is turning against her. Colin Alexander (baritone, Birmingham AL) has memorably solos as both the Archbishop and the soldier, singing both with equal vocal command.

Mierson assembled a 20-member chorus from local chorales to participate including from local choirs and they also deliver the unique choral dynamic in Maid. This year's workshop concludes late July with their staging of Eugene Onegin with a whole new roster of singers.

↧

'Big Bad' Israeli Film

July 2, 2014, 2:54 pm

≫ Next: Jean-Luc Godard's Goodbye to Language: A Cynical Adieu in 3D

≪ Previous: ROW Premieres Tchaikovsky Rarity

Eitan Reuven paced nervously toward the rear of the theater. His film Another World was about to screen for members of the Israeli Film Academy. The bulb for the projector had burned out and the crowd was getting restless. At least we were inside, enjoying dim lighting and air conditioning. Outside, it was well over 100F, just another sweltering, humid Tel Aviv summer's day.

Eitan and I were set to have an interview after the screening but so far things were not going well. This is not a film about zombies, I had been advised ahead of time, don't use that word. This is a film about a virus. It's different.

There is an air of excitement in the Israeli film community these days because, in part, there has been a ripple among American fans of horror film: "Did you hear? Quentin Tarantino called the film Big Bad Wolves the best film of 2013! And it's Israeli!"

Israelis have a love/hate relationship with that qualifier. They love that their films are beginning to be seen by a wider audience (outside of the hermetic exclusivity of foreign film festivals and art house fare) but there is discomfort with the expectations that come with their provenance.

What do you think when you think of an Israeli? Entebbe? Munich? Moshe Dayan and his eye patch? Pictures of IDF soldiers in riot gear? Or maybe you think of black-clad, ultra-orthodox men throwing rocks or some terribly beautiful, young Israeli vacationers in Thailand or South America, both cocksure and a bit intolerable because of it?

No matter what image or impression you have of Israelis, I guarantee that you think of that Israeli relative to the Holocaust, a war, or to what we call in Israel "ha matsav" -- the situation.

You know, the situation with the Palestinians. The situation you see on the news, pictured with molotov cocktails, tanks and a hail of rocks. That situation. It is everywhere and nowhere at once. It is everything, it is nothing, life goes on. It is the situation that Israelis find themselves in but it does not define them. Except that it does.

Consider the most populist, far-reaching art form of the modern era -- film.

Israeli film is certainly not new in Israel. But it is gaining an audience outside of Israel increasingly and with this attention comes certain expectations. That Israeli filmmakers must first and foremost be Israeli and then secondarily, filmmakers. Not just Israeli filmmakers but filmmakers obligated to make films about the decades old conflict in Israel.

I met recently with William Blesch, writer and director of the upcoming Requiem for the Night, along with producer Naneen Bader. As the two discussed the film with me, I found myself interjecting -- yes -- but what does this story have to do with Israel other than being shot and produced here? Naneen and William exchanged a glance. They are used to this question. I mean, I went on, are you at least tapping into Jewish mythology or the history of Israel or -- like, are the vampires in the script supposed to represent anything? In particular? That is about Israel?

You can take the girl out of Hollywood but you can't take Hollywood out of the girl. I was looking for a hook, a selling point that might interest American distributors. No, the story is not about ha matsav, or about Jewish identity, or about Israel's increasingly tremulous position in world politics. It's a vampire story. About vampires. Is that not enough? Does the film have to be more weighty, more meaningful, more Israeli than that in order to be considered an Israeli film?

Certainly in Israel and Europe, Israeli films have made a lasting impression, with writer/director/filmmakers like Savi Gavison (Nina's Tragedies), Michael Mayer's Out in the Dark, Eran Kolirin's The Band's Visit, the astonishing Ajami (Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani), Joseph Cedar's Beaufort and Eran Ricklis' The Syrian Bride, to name only a few.

Across the pond in the US, Israel is on the map in a whole new way. Two major US productions are shooting in Israel right now, Tim Kring's Dig and Gideon Raff's Tyrant. Combined with the successes of exports like Homeland and In Treatment, Israel making a splash.

The Ministry of Culture, together with the Israel Film Fund among others, extends tax benefits to foreigners shooting in Israel but maintains a bit of a split personality when it comes to Israeli productions. Israeli films should be art, not commerce, goes the outdated, out-of-step thinking. Yet Israeli films that do well overseas -- or at least are recognized overseas, can benefit Israel, a country with perhaps the biggest PR problem in the world.

One of the single most influential arbiters of whether or not Americans pay attention to a film is the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences. The Academy has certainly recognized achievement in Israeli film, but generally when those films rather directly tackle the conflict. Waltz With Bashir, Five Broken Cameras, The Gatekeepers -- all Israeli documentary films that got the attention of the Academy if not actual theatergoers. (Five Broken Cameras was packaged as a French film in the end, and earned a grand total of less than $7,000 in the US.)

American film aficionados (and Academy members) seem predisposed to view Israeli film in a specific light -- that of the conflict. That makes sense. It's sensational, tragic and ongoing. But this leaves American audiences with a skewed view.

The conflict is Israel is ultimately not just a land dispute, it is a battle for identity and a defining narrative. What is film, if not narrative, and what makes narrative whole if not a variety of views and experiences?

For now, it is possible that genre films will be the opening through which Israeli filmmakers can gain access to larger audiences, particularly in the US.

The gripping, über violent and completely provocative Big Bad Wolves seemed to get over the dam. It was Cannes that put the film on the international map. And a certain fan named Quentin Tarantino.

In another genre film -- zany comedy -- Zero Motivation (Talya Lavie) opens in Israel soon and may just make it across the pond too.

American-Israel filmmaker Marc Grey of Kozak Films is the producer of Hugo Award-winning short Paul and more recently, the provocative and moving short documentary Three Houses. Grey's first film, the award-winning East River (2008), featured the debut of Academy Award-winning actor Lupita Nyong'o. His latest project, Jooks, takes a classic American genre film -- the teen adventure comedy -- and sets it in Israel, where the story explores and exploits the culture gap between the US and Israel. A project about perceptions and realities, Jooks for Grey uses the vast history of the land and the multicultural diversity of its inhabitants to be at once familiar and exotic. Grey and filmmakers like him are on the vanguard of New Israeli Film.

Eitan's film, Another World, flickered onto the screen. It's an indie film made for a humble $1 million US. Reuven made the most of his funds and created a tightly wound, philosophical, post-apocalyptic film about not zombies -- about a virus -- but more important than that, a film about who is to blame for the deadly and terrifying situation. The film stars Susanne Gschwendter, who also stars as Queen Ralia in ABC's upcoming The Quest.

Screenwriter Michael Birinbaum chose not to name the characters, but rather for each to be an archetype. The film is most powerful and unique in its third act, when revelations about personal responsibility and the definition of heroes are placed front and center. It's not another zombie film, and it's not about a virus, either. It's about how utterly confusing it is to be human.

↧

Jean-Luc Godard's Goodbye to Language: A Cynical Adieu in 3D

July 2, 2014, 3:01 pm

≫ Next: Ocean Photography Has Given this Man the Adventures of a Lifetime

≪ Previous: 'Big Bad' Israeli Film

Eighty-three-year-old Jean-Luc Godard's visually innovative film Goodbye to Language won the Jury Prize this year at Cannes, an honor it shared with Xavier Dolan's Mommy. A 3D experience, the veteran director's latest offering has two parts. The first is a series of random conversations at a pier (during which a buoy seems to float out toward the spectator) where strangers broach the topics of totalitarianism, male-female relations and Nazism, identifying them as key issues in the 20th century. Throughout these conversations are numerous close-ups of hands texting on cellphones, introducing the major theme of this movie: the limits of communication and the failure of language.

In the second half of the film, the story consists of a staccato conversation between a married woman and her lover, who are, most of the time, naked and posing philosophical questions that either cannot be understood (a sudden noise will block off a sentence) or cannot be answered. After much philosophical effort, the naked man defecates on a toilet and concludes, "All thought is crap." In between these snippets of conversations, a dog -- Godard's own -- runs about, sniffing at the earth and observing. Only the dog "truly sees," the man notes; only he experiences the world as is. Unlike the linguistically gifted human, the dog has no verbal consciousness; he is naked but never "nude." In contrast, the human beings in this film struggle with "producing concepts" and "metaphors."

Nonetheless, the film betrays an old-fashioned nostalgia for great concepts: Second-hand books by Dostoyevsky and Levinas appear on a vendor's table on the pier in the opening scenes of the movie, while young men text and Internet-search on their smartphones, oblivious, over the book-laden table. The ending credits are a list of classic authors, some of whom are referenced in the film. And like a man nostalgic for a life he glimpsed but fears he did not live, the film repeats classic images of seasons: an autumn scene in the woods, with burnt red leaves; a spring scene of children running across the field; repetitive shots of the pier in the summer, with turbulent water that churns and goes nowhere. The nostalgia eads nowhere.

"I say no to your happiness," says one of the lovers at one point. "I am sick of it." Godard's "adieu" is cynical. Language, he concludes, in this silver season of his life, is a failure. "Soon everyone will need an interpreter to understand the words from their own mouth." The dog is the only character in the film who is truly alive, rolling in the dirt.

The last sound in the film, of a baby screaming offscreen -- a symbol of life going on nonetheless -- is agonized.

↧

Ocean Photography Has Given this Man the Adventures of a Lifetime

July 2, 2014, 3:02 pm

≫ Next: Noisy Neighbors

≪ Previous: Jean-Luc Godard's Goodbye to Language: A Cynical Adieu in 3D

By Amanda Curry

Imagine getting drafted by your favorite sports team. Or being cast in a role alongside your favorite actor. While it sounds awesome, the chances are pretty slim.

But for professional surf photographer, Zak Noyle, it was a dream come true.

Noyle, like many others in Oahu, Hawai'i, grew up collecting the yearly posters that promoted the "Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau," the most prestigious surf competition hosted on the island. But Noyle couldn't have guessed that a few years later, his own photograph would be featured on the same poster he had covering his walls.

"I've always had the posters from The Eddie, and everyone always has [it], you go into people's house and that's the poster people put up on their wall, so to have my image used and on the shirts and on the banners, was insane," he said.

And for Noyle, this was only the beginning.

Even though he was raised by a commercial photographer, Noyle wasn't originally attracted to the activity. It wasn't until he fell in love with the beauty of the ocean, that his desire to capture it became a lifelong passion.

"What I really like to capture with my photography is [something that] someone like my mom, or someone that won't ever go in the ocean like I do, is [now] able to see. It's like an insider's view of the waves and the water and the surfing. It's something that makes a viewer want to be there; feel like they are there," Noyle said.

Photo: Zak Noyle | A Frame

That is what makes him unique, and staying true to that philosophy has helped make him one of the most successful surf photographers in the world. Another unique aspect of Noyle's photos is their ability to do more than just entertain, but also tell a story.

Such as the images he risked his life to capture while on a trip to Indonesia. Images which gave him a new title beyond photographer: Activist.

Photo: Zak Noyle | A Frame

"[While shooting] all of a sudden there's these waves of trash coming through...the place that we were at was kind of like a bay, it was getting pulled right into there with that swell and the incoming tide. And it just got to a point where it was just so overwhelming."

The photos of the trash-filled waves garnered tons of publicity, and were a huge part of bringing attention to Indonesia's horrific trash problem.

This instance is just one example of the risks Noyle takes for an art he is truly passionate about.

"I think it's so much fun to get caught or be out there in the waves, that's where I want to be. I'd rather be there than on land shooting," Noyle said.

In the world of surf photography, Zak Noyle is a household name, and his awe-inspiring and impactful photos won't stop appearing on people's walls anytime soon.

↧

Noisy Neighbors

July 2, 2014, 4:25 pm

≫ Next: Ask the Art Professor: How Do You Explain to Potential Clients That Artists Need to Be Paid?

≪ Previous: Ocean Photography Has Given this Man the Adventures of a Lifetime

The messages that films evoke say a great deal about the current state of our society. In recent years summer films have highlighted fantasy and riveting special effects that enable audiences to escape--for two hours or so--the routine humdrum of daily life during the "school free" months. Although summer blockbuster films are sometimes engrossing, I am more often drawn to "little" summer films that underscore our joys and fears. One such film is the recently released, Neighbors, by director Nicholas Stoller. The reviews of Neighbors have been mostly positive. Here are a few of them.

Joe Williams of The St Louis Post Dispatch says:
"It's a party where we want to stay, until we're dragged out kicking and screaming."

Richard Roeper of The Chicago Sun Times says:
"About 40 percent of Neighbors falls flat. About 60 percent made me laugh hard, even when I knew I should have known better."

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone says:

"You expect hardcore hilarity from Neighbors, and you get it. It's the nuance that sneaks up on you."

Nick LaSalle of The San Francisco Chronicle says:

"Neighbors is funny for all 96 of its minutes, not counting the credits, and it contains the single best sight gag of the year so far. (We're talking laugh-out-loud funny and then laugh again later, just thinking about it)."

Given the fact that I liked Stoller's Forgetting Sarah Marshall and that the director is a non-relative who shares my not so common last name, how could I pass up a chance to see his new film?

So I went to see Neighbors. The premise of film plays upon a fundamental fear of middle class social life in America--the concern that the peacefulness of your wonderful home might be transformed by new neighbors who move in next door or across the street. The scenario can play out in many ways. You can buy or rent a house or apartment only to discover that a neighbor is noisy, strange, or worse yet, slovenly and destructive. If you are wonderfully settled in and really like your house, the appearance of a For Rent or a For Sale sign can be stressful. The old neighbors were lovely people. Will the new neighbors be the kind of people who'll destroy your peace and tranquility?

Enter Stoller's Neighbors in which the Radners (Seth Rogin and Rose Byrne) have had a baby and have moved into a quiet bungalow in a college town. All is wonderfully tranquil until the house next door is sold to the college's most party prone fraternity, the brothers of which are hoping to make fraternity history through epic over-the-top celebrations of loud music, binge drinking and inebriated antics. Mac and Kelly Radner are concerned about how the noise might impact the well-being of their newborn infant. But all is not clear cut. Despite their status as young parents, they also don't want to be perceived as "squares" who are compelled to tell the young hellions to "keep it down." They want to believe that they can still party, that they've "still got it." They decide to strike a bargain of peaceful co-existence with Zack Efron, the sexy super frat boy who is destined to set a world record for partying. If the noise becomes too disturbing, the Radners pledge to work things out informally. They promise that they won't to call the cops. Even so, the noise soon forces them to complain to the police about their noisy neighbors. Once the agreement has been betrayed all hell breaks loose--plots and counter-plots, one gag after another to "fix" with the situation.

Throughout the film the viewer is treated a series of disconnected scenes of binge drinking and drugging, dirty dancing and mechanical sex, gross males interacting with clueless females not to forget the machinations of a cynical Dean of Students (Lisa Kudrow). Most of the actors, including the Radner's newborn child, come off more like props than people. In fact, none of the characters in this comedy seem to have any depth, nuance, or redeeming traits. Like the classic feature, Animal House, Neighbors is a film that reinforces the widespread conception that college time is party time, a place in which going to class is an uncool waste of time.

Perhaps the gags in Neighbors are all in good fun. There are some rather funny lines and some amusingly crude jokes. But as a college professor and anthropologist I can't shake the troubling notion that Stoller has crafted a film that is willfully ignorant of how life is lived in college communities. There are, of course, town and gown conflicts, and groups of students do sometimes binge drink and make a great deal of noise. And yes, the "adults" in college towns sometimes call the cops on their noisy neighbors. And yes, college is a rite of passage in the American imaginary, which, for some of us, constitutes the peak of our life experiences-something we'd like to re-visit in our fantasies.

Perhaps the critical acclaim for Neighbors is in appreciation of its crude escapism and its celebration of male fantasy. Watching it we forget about the profound struggle of everyday life in an economically and environmentally compromised society. We forget the difficulties of "growing up," or the challenge of raising a family. We forget that the vast majority of college students come from families of modest means, who, because they work one or two jobs, don't have time to hang out at a legendary party or to plot "pay back" for thh adults who called the cops.

When a film like Neighbors receives widespread critical acclaim, I wonder about our standards of judgment and the quality of our cultural expression. I worry that the film's messages will reinforce misinformed social stereotypes that tend to increase the social and cultural divide in America, a divide that usually increases our fears of "the other."

Despite these considerable shortcomings, could Nicholas Stoller be reminding of us of our fundamental fantasies, deep alienation and profound fear? How many of us, after all, would risk calling the cops on our noisy neighbors?

↧

Ask the Art Professor: How Do You Explain to Potential Clients That Artists Need to Be Paid?

July 2, 2014, 4:48 pm

≫ Next: The Biennale, the Bungalow, and the Birds (VIDEO)

≪ Previous: Noisy Neighbors

Question:

I've been getting into Illustration and Motion Design, and one of the hardest conversations that keeps coming up is about money. Or really, people assuming you'll do something "for your resume." I think there must be some business textbooks out there repeating "You can get artists to work for free, it's great for their portfolio." It's easy to shoot off an angry response, but in real-world situations, you may not want to burn bridges, or the person asking may not really understand just how uncouth what they're saying really is. Do you have any advice about how to tactfully explain to people that we need to be paid for our time, in a way that builds understanding?

Answer:

I get emails all the time from people asking to use images of my artwork for free. Most of the people who ask are independent artists or people from small nonprofit organizations. People have wanted to use my artwork on T-shirts, a band's album cover, book covers, textbooks, and much more.

At the beginning of my career, I figured that these requests were simply another opportunity for me to get exposure for my artwork, and that it would be no skin off my back to grant permission. At the time, I reasoned that any method of getting my artwork seen by other people would be a positive thing.

The problem is that once you grant permission for someone to use your artwork, you basically lose all control over how your artwork will be used. This ranges from people making adjustments to the color and contrast of your artwork, as well as cheapening your artwork by placing it into the context of poor graphic design.

Several years ago I allowed a small record company to use one of my images for an album cover. The image they wanted to use was one of my oil paintings of dark, shadowy figures standing in a very sparse, empty environment that was nearly all white. The record company was very polite and seemed legitimate in their endeavors. They would credit me in the album and also link to my website on their blog. I gave the record company permission, and then later they asked if they could change the color of the background in my oil painting to a dark blue.

Stupidly, I didn't think it through and allowed them to make the change. Eventually the record company sent me the finished CD. Looking at the image on the CD cover, I was mortified. Between the dramatic color change and the large, intrusive text that was splashed across the image, I felt like it wasn't my artwork anymore. A similar situation came up when I once allowed my artwork to be on a book cover. The designer changed the color of one of my ink drawings from dark brown to bright orange and peach.

I can say that over the years not a single one of these "opportunities" has ever provided exposure that has benefited my career. If anything, it's done more harm than good because the presentation of my artwork was so bad or my artwork was changed beyond recognition. In the end, the result of allowing others to use your artwork for free results in no money, zero positive exposure, and the high possibility of your image being manipulated beyond recognition. There are essentially no advantages for artists in these situations; it's entirely a losing proposition.

Today I never allow anyone to use my artwork for free. When I do get these requests, I don't bother explaining to people that artists need to be paid for their work. I write back and politely state that I cannot allow use of my images without compensation, which usually ends the conversation very quickly. No one has ever offered compensation after their initial request. It's a waste of your breath to explain why artists need to be paid for their work. After all, if they're unaware enough to be asking to use your artwork for free in the first place, it's likely that a lecture from you isn't going to change their mind.

"Ask the Art Professor" is an advice column for visual artists. Submit your questions to clara@claralieu.com.

↧

The Biennale, the Bungalow, and the Birds (VIDEO)

July 3, 2014, 3:58 am

≫ Next: Winning Our Independence Required Vision and Muscle -- With a Hearty Helping of Art

≪ Previous: Ask the Art Professor: How Do You Explain to Potential Clients That Artists Need to Be Paid?

The choreographer William Forsythe developed a new acoustic performance for Bungalow Germania, the German Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014. Bungalow Germania merges two buildings of different eras of German history by erecting a copy of the bungalow of the German chancellor (Kanzler Bungalow) inside the German Pavilion. In close collaboration with the Pavilion commissioners Alex Lehnerer and Savvas Ciriacidis, William Forsythe created the work Birds, Bonn 1964, a sound environment that imitates the singing of the birds, which lived in the park of the Chancellor's Residence in Bonn, the former capital of Germany. The work has been performed live by bird-song singers (Chioccolatori) at the opening of the 14th International Architecture Biennale - la Biennale di Venezia 2014.

William Forsythe's Birds, Bonn 1964 is a production for Bungalow Germania in the German Pavilion for the 14th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia and for Performing Architecture, a series of events by the Goethe-Institut.
William Forsythe is recognized as one of the world's foremost choreographers. His work is acknowledged for reorienting the practice of ballet from its identification with classical repertoire to a dynamic 21st century art form. Forsythe's deep interest in the fundamental principles of organization has led him to produce a wide range of projects including Installations, Films, and Web based knowledge creation.

He knows how to imitate birds: Giorgio Rizzo, Chioccolatore.

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

↧

Winning Our Independence Required Vision and Muscle -- With a Hearty Helping of Art

July 3, 2014, 11:38 am

≫ Next: Henry Miller's Men: The Twelve Apostles

≪ Previous: The Biennale, the Bungalow, and the Birds (VIDEO)

This weekend, people across the country will celebrate the founding of our nation with family, food, fireworks, and music, grateful we live in a country that embraces the freedoms articulated in our Declaration of Independence -- the unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. We will honor, through parades and the display of our American Flag, the high price that was paid during the War of Independence by the men and women who risked their lives to found the United States of America -- a price that is still being exacted from millions of service members, veterans, and their families today.

Many people might think the role of the arts in the founding of our country is placed squarely in the "Happiness" realm -- but the link goes much deeper for our Founding Fathers, and even the U.S. military itself.

We know the arts inspire -- George Washington commissioned a performance of Addison's Cato at Valley Forge to inspire his Continental Army. Passages from this play led Patrick Henry to utter, "Give me liberty or give me death" and Nathan Hale to state, "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country" -- two of the most often-repeated American patriotic quotations.

Beyond inspiration, the arts were used as a tactic to train this new army. Military bands in America started as an artillery regiment under the command of Benjamin Franklin. Asked by Gen. Washington to help bring discipline through movement to the Continental Army of 1778, Franklin brought Prussian Officer Baron Friedrich Von Steuben to Valley Forge to teach the art of the drill, which has been core to military preparation ever since.

Long before the telegraph or radio, these musicians provided communication for America's early militia-sending out calls that it was time to assemble and take up arms. Fife and drum units provided sound signals to soldiers to execute orders when smoke from artillery prevented visual cues.

As a nation, we are moved by the music for our national anthem and we stand up for a poem, the "Star Spangled Banner." We salute a visual art creation called Old Glory -- which conveys without words the hopes, dreams, and history of a new nation, and over time has evolved in its design and meaning with new stars and stripes.

America's challenges have evolved, but the potential of the arts to inspire, educate, and heal are as strong as ever. Through Americans for the Arts' work on the National Initiative for Arts & Health in the Military, we see the arts helping wounded, ill, and injured service members and veterans recover and reconnect to their families and communities.

Recently I was reminded of that power in Nashville, TN, during the "Engaging Military Veterans through the Arts" session at our annual convention, and in a chance encounter with a psychologist I met at a reception at musician Ben Folds' studio. He shared with me the story of a nonprofit organization called SAFE: Soldiers and Families Embraced that works with service members, veterans, and their families near Fort Campbell, near the Kentucky border. The program offers retreats to veterans, matching songwriters with veterans to explore their post-deployment challenges.

Healing from the trauma of war is intensely personal yet not without its impact on the family and community. Recognizing this, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville invited the SAFE combat vets to serve on a task force to help them present difficult images sensitively in their "Goya: The Disasters of War" exhibition.

As they have been since the beginning of our great nation, the arts are ubiquitous in our communities and in our military. The Pentagon is filled with paintings, sculptures, photos, and art that not only commemorate the fallen but help explain military actions and the political environment leading to them. The artists are often military service members themselves, as in paintings by Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman I once saw at the West Point Museum, and by the numerous illustrators and photographers embedded in military units in all our historic conflicts.

The more recent power of the arts to convey an emotion and tell a story is on display now through November, with the Veteran Artist Program's All-Veteran Visual Arts Exhibit at the Pentagon. And, in communities across the country, it is not unlikely that the concert you hear on this Fourth of July weekend may come from one of the more than 100 U.S. Army Active, Reserve, and National Guard ensembles.

I like to think Washington and Franklin would be proud as we celebrate our great country this weekend with music, with art, with community. It's a very American thing to do.

↧

Henry Miller's Men: The Twelve Apostles

July 3, 2014, 2:00 pm

≫ Next: American Families in Crisis

≪ Previous: Winning Our Independence Required Vision and Muscle -- With a Hearty Helping of Art

After Henry Miller married his second wife June Mansfield and, at her urging, gave up his job as the employment manager of Western Union, he vowed never again to hold a job, never again to march in lockstep with the rest of humanity. Writing would be his work, his career, and he would scavenge and scam, beg and borrow (but not steal), to keep himself afloat. And with the exception of a brief employment with the city parks department of New York during the 1920s, a hastily abandoned position teaching English at a lycée in Dijon, France, and a short stint as a proofreader at the Herald Tribune in Paris, Miller stuck to his vow. Though Miller had been writing full time since the mid 1920s, it was not until he began receiving royalties from Europe in the 1940s that he could support himself, barely, from his writing. His financial mainstay during this period of extended poverty was Anäis Nin. But he also had a network of male friends who, over the years, helped him in a variety of ways: by giving him emotional and psychological support through their affirmations of belief in his writing, by picking up tabs at cafés and restaurants, by serving him meals in their homes, by letting him bunk in their apartments and hotel rooms, by providing needed services he could not afford to pay for, by publishing and distributing his writing at their own expense.

Miller's oldest and closest friend was his Brooklyn boyhood chum Emil Schnellock, a painter who became an art instructor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was Schnellock who gave Miller ten dollars at the moment of his departure for France, his only stake as he boarded the ship in New York. It was Schnellock to whom Miller wrote long letters on Paris café stationery describing his life in France. Passages from these letters Miller transferred verbatim into Tropic of Cancer. And it was Schnellock to whom Miller wrote about watercolor painting and the meaning of living one's life as an artist.

Shortly after arriving in Paris, Miller reconnected with Alfred Perlès, an Austrian expatriate whom he had met on a previous trip to Paris in 1928 with June. Perlès was a true bohemian, a novelist himself, eking out a living as a journalist for the Herald Tribune, and mingling with other artists at the Montparnasse cafés. Perlès covered Miller's tabs at the Dôme and the Rotonde, and let Miller sleep in his shabby hotel room while he was at work, giving Miller a place to rest and to write. Perlès later wrote My Friend Henry Miller, a flattering tribute to Miller's talent and character.

Another important literary friend from the Paris years was Lawrence Durrell, the British author of the highly regarded Alexandria Quartet. Durrell was living on Corfu and wrote Miller an admiring letter after reading Tropic of Cancer. Miller replied, and a friendship and correspondence that lasted until Miller's death in 1980 was born. Miller shared with Durrell both his aspirations as a writer as well as intimate details of his personal life and emotional struggles. In 1959, Durrell edited The Henry Miller Reader, an anthology of Miller's writing that did not include any obscene passages from the banned Paris books.

A surprising friendship developed between Miller and Huntington Cairns, the government lawyer who censored Miller's obscene books and prevented their publication and distribution in the United States. Cairns was a literate man who recognized the artistic intentions behind Miller's use of obscene language to create disturbing effects in the reader. But he was also a lawyer serving the Bureau of Customs and he measured Miller's words against the prevailing obscenity standards of the US courts. He kept Miller's books on "the list," but privately he advised Miller how to overcome the ban. He also arranged a show of Miller's watercolors in Washington, and provided Miller with secretarial services, storage space for papers, and free legal advice. Miller and Cairns corresponded for almost thirty years, until the Paris books were finally published and accepted in the United States.

Two other allies from Miller's Paris years should not be forgotten. Michael Fraenkel, another American expatriate, gave Miller shelter at his comfortable Villa Seurat apartment. But more importantly, he pushed Miller into adopting the clownish voice and anarchic attitude that pervades Tropic of Cancer. "Write as you speak, write as you live," urged Fraenkel, and Miller took his advice. Later, Fraenkel published a lengthy correspondence they exchanged about Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Richard Osborn, a young attorney and aspiring writer who worked at the same bank in Paris as Nin's husband Hugo Guiler, introduced Miller to Nin. He also let Miller stay at his elegant apartment on Rue Bartholdi and put "pin money" on Miller's typewriter each morning before leaving for work. Osborn fled France to escape a romantic entanglement with a French woman of ill repute, an episode that Miller treated with Rabelasian humor in Tropic of Cancer. Miller stayed in touch with Osborn after he moved back to Connecticut to live with his mother, and arranged for publication of a poem Osborn wrote.

After he returned to the United States in 1940, Miller lived for a time in a community near the University of California at Los Angeles that was popular with artists and academics. There he was reconnected with Lawrence Powell, the UCLA librarian and book lover whom he had met in Dijon during his abbreviated teaching appointment. Because of his friendship with Powell, Miller gave the bulk of his personal papers to UCLA, then persuaded Anäis Nin to deposit her papers there as a companion collection. Powell also helped Miller by sending him copies of books he needed to research The Books in My Life, his tribute to the writers who had influenced him. Later, Powell introduced Miller to Jay Martin, Miller's first biographer. Miller resisted the book, and scolded Powell for encouraging it.

The facilitator of Miller's arrangement with UCLA was Bern Porter, one of Miller's most dedicated admirers and supporters. He was an advanced physicist who knew Einstein and had been tapped to work with J. Robert Oppenheimer on The Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. Porter opposed the application of scientific knowledge to the machinery of warfare, and sought to put science in the service of art. He approached Miller in Los Angeles with proposals to publish and disseminate Miller's work, including both his watercolors and his pacifist views. He also compiled and edited a book of tributes to Miller titled The Happy Rock that included essays by Durrell, Schnellock, and Fraenkel, among many others. Porter's publishing ventures, though well intentioned, put him into debt. When Miller learned that Porter, citing the costs, had not given courtesy copies of The Happy Rock to its contributors, he broke with him.

Miller attracted young men disenchanted with the direction of American life. One such was Judson Crews, a disaffected Word War Two soldier who in 1943 made a pilgrimage to Miller's Beverly Glen residence in Los Angeles. He had read Miller while an undergraduate at Baylor University in Texas and was drawn to Miller's anarchism and pacifism. After his medical discharge from the army, Crews returned to Texas to resume his studies in literature and sociology. He operated a small press and bookstore through which he disseminated Miller's work. He followed Miller to Big Sur, spent a year there, and wrote a book called The Brave Wild Coast: A Year with Henry Miller.

Through Porter, Miller was introduced to George Leite, a young radical living in Berkeley, California. Leite had been expelled from UC Berkeley for refusing to take a required defense course. Supporting his wife and their small daughter by driving a taxi, Leite had started an avant-garde literary periodical titled Circle to which Miller submitted articles. He also harbored grandiose ideas to publish not only Tropic of Cancer, but also the diaries of Anäis Nin. These plans came to naught, and Leite, after briefly moving his family down to Big Sur to be near Miller, suffered a physical and nervous breakdown from drug use and was admitted to Napa State Hospital. He recovered, to become a high school math teacher.

Another ally who came to Miller's rescue in a time of need was Walker Winslow. Winslow was a recovering alcoholic and writer who had worked at the Menninger Foundation in Kansas and had been contracted by a New York publishing house to write a biography of Menninger. Winslow had met Miller while living briefly in Big Sur as Miller's neighbor at Anderson Creek, a bohemian enclave not far from the sulfur springs that became the hallmark of Esalen. In 1951 Miller's third wife left him to live with another man and acceded to Miller's plea to give him custody of their two young children, ages six and three. Miller was soon overwhelmed with the task of caring for them and asked Winslow, who was looking for a cheap and secluded place to write, to help him. Winslow moved into Miller's small studio on Partington Ridge, but soon the two men realized they were in over their heads. Winslow persuaded Miller to return the children to their mother, allowing Miller to return to his typewriter. Miller gave this episode humorous treatment in Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch.

The most devoted and long-standing of Miller's followers was Emil White. Emil was born in Central Europe, the son of a strict orthodox Jew named Wieselmann. After his family fled to Vienna to escape the horrors of World War One, Emil struck out on his own, first to Switzerland, then to Paris. He immigrated to New York and found work as a messenger at Western Union, under Miller's supervision, but lacked the English skills to hold the job. He eventually moved to Chicago, and during World War Two he began reading Miller's books aloud at meetings of radical political groups. He would pass the hat for Miller and send the collection to him in Big Sur. The two men reconnected while Miller was visiting Chicago, and Miller subsequently invited Emil to join him in Big Sur. Emil came, and took on the role of man Friday. He helped Miller with his extensive correspondence and the daily chores of survival. In return, Miller encouraged Emil to become a painter, which he did, producing works of startling beauty executed in a detailed primitive style. Emil remained in Big Sur for the rest of his life and bequeathed his home on Highway One to become the Henry Miller Memorial Library.

↧

American Families in Crisis

July 4, 2014, 9:57 pm

≫ Next: American Families in Crisis

≪ Previous: Henry Miller's Men: The Twelve Apostles

If one were to draw up a quick list of important American plays that deal with families in crisis, I'm pretty sure the following 10 dramas would rank near the top.

Awake and Sing! (1935) by Clifford Odets.

The Little Foxes (1939) by Lillian Hellman.

The Glass Menagerie (1944) by Tennessee Williams.

Death of a Salesman (1949) by Arthur Miller.

Long Day's Journey Into Night (1956) by Eugene O'Neill.

The Subject Was Roses (1964) by Frank D. Gilroy.

A Delicate Balance (1966) by Edward Albee.

Buried Child (1978) by Sam Shepard.

Fences (1983) by August Wilson.

August: Osage County (2007) by Tracy Letts.

While each of these dramas deals with weighty issues, it's no surprise to hear the audience frequently laughing during the performance. Is it because one man's tragedy is another man's comedy? Or because human beings, in their most fallible moments, are a constant source of wonder and entertainment?

Following her trip to the magical land of Oz, Dorothy Gale learned that there's no place like home. But in some dramas, a threat to a family's real estate (whether or not the actual residence has been a warm and loving home) can provide the catalyst that launches a painful family conflict. In 2010, Bruce Norris brought new meaning to that theory with Clybourne Park, a play set in the home purchased by Chicago's Lena Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking play, A Raisin in the Sun (1959).

In Clybourne Park, audiences first see the home in 1959, as its previous owners are preparing to make way for the Younger family to move in and then, again, in 2009 after the neighborhood has gone through several waves of gentrification. Like most dramas that involve a conflict of interests, you can learn a lot by following the money.

* * * * * * * * * *

The California Shakespeare Theater opened its 40th season with a deeply moving production of A Raisin in the Sun. At the time of its world premiere, Lorraine Hansberry was the first African American (and African American female) playwright to have a play produced on Broadway. In the two years following its opening, Hansberry's drama was translated into 35 languages.

Lorraine Hansberry

Much of the play's tension comes from her experience as an eight-year-old girl, watching what happened when her father, Carl Hansberry (a real estate agent), purchased a home in an all-white neighborhood at a discounted price. In her posthumously published book entitled To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, Hansberry wrote:

"Twenty-five years ago, [my father] spent a small personal fortune, his considerable talents, and many years of his life fighting, in association with NAACP attorneys, Chicago's 'restrictive covenants' in one of this nation's ugliest ghettos. That fight also required our family to occupy disputed property in a hellishly hostile 'white neighborhood' in which literally howling mobs surrounded our house... My memories of this 'correct' way of fighting white supremacy in America include being spat at, cursed, and pummeled in the daily trek to and from school. I also remember my desperate and courageous mother patrolling our household all night with a loaded German Luger (pistol), doggedly guarding her four children while my father fought the respectable part of the battle in the Washington court."

Ruth (Ryan Nicole Peters) feeds her son Travis (Zion Richardson)
his breakfast in A Raisin in the Sun (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

In Hansberry's play, the child is a boy whose father desperately wants to become a role model for his innocent, young son. Despite facing huge obstacles caused by racial segregation, the Younger household is nevertheless bursting with ambition.

Walter Lee (Marcus Henderson) is a hot-headed fool employed as a white man's chauffeur who has dreams of investing in a liquor store. Unfortunately, the deck is stacked against him.

Walter's son, Travis (Zion Richardson), wants to become a bus driver when he grows up.

Walter's sister, Beneatha (Nemuna Ceesay), wants to go to medical school but has trouble resisting the attention of an exchange student named Joseph Asagai (Rotimi Agbabiaka), who paints a very different vision of what her life could be like as a proud black woman in his home country of Nigeria.

Walter's wife, Ruth (Ryan Nicole Peters), wants to escape from the dilapidated, rat-infested tenement in which the Younger family has been living.

Walter's mother, Lena (Margo Hall), wants to make the best possible use of the $10,000 insurance check she is about to receive following her husband's untimely death. Her goal is to provide for the future of her children and maybe even have a little money left over for small garden of her own.

Ruth (Ryan Nicole Peters) and her mother-in-law, Lena (Margo Hall)
in a scene from A Raisin in The Sun (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Written in 1957, A Raisin in the Sun deals with many of the issues faced by families around the world: an unexpected pregnancy, the desire to move to a better location, the hope that one's children can receive a better education than their parents did, the need to retain one's sense of personal dignity, and the fact that a fool and his money are soon parted. What Hansberry's play accomplished, however, was to let mainstream audiences see how the same, familiar drama played out within a contemporary African-American household.

A Raisin in the Sun was nominated for four Tony Awards and won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play of 1959. Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil starred in the stage and film versions of the play.

In 1973, the musical adaptation of Hansberry's play (Raisin) won the Tony Award for Best Musical.

During the decade following the Broadway premiere of A Raisin in the Sun, while America struggled with the growing tensions of the Civil Rights movement -- as well as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- Broadway audiences got quite an education about racism and anti-Semitism:

After September 22, 1964 (when Fiddler on the Roof opened on Broadway), the show's producers and creative team were surprised and deeply gratified to discover that non-Jewish audiences often responded to Tevye's tsuris as if it represented their own ethnic struggles.

In November 1966, when Cabaret premiered on Broadway, audiences were brutally confronted with the rampant anti-Semitism in Germany's Weimar Republic.

In April 1967, Hallelujah, Baby! followed its ambitious and ageless heroine through the first half of the 20th century. The show won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Leading Actress in a Musical for its star (Leslie Uggams), and Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Lillian Hayman).

On November 12, 1967, Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway took Broadway by storm with an all-black cast of Hello, Dolly! (I was lucky enough to be in the St. James Theatre that night). Many theatregoers had never seen so many talented African-American performers on one stage.

In 1968, when Hair moved uptown and settled into the Biltmore Theatre for a long run, Broadway audiences saw black and white actors performing (and disrobing) together.

Sadly, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1963. Her only other play to be produced during her lifetime was The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, which closed after 101 performances on January 24, 1965 (the night Hansberry died at the age of 34). Had she lived, Hansberry would have been astonished to watch America elect an African-American President in 2008 and see the Obamas attend this year's revival of her play (starring Denzel Washington) in New York.

Directed by Patricia McGregor, the California Shakespeare Theater's production of A Raisin in the Sun helps Bay area audiences return to the source and experience Hansberry's drama anew. While racism is still very much a problem in America -- and the clumsy attempt by Karl Lindner (Liam Vincent) to buy off the Younger family in order to prevent them from moving into Clybourne Park is still shocking -- most theatregoers are a lot more enlightened than audiences might have been in 1959.

Ruth (Ryan Nicole Peters) argues with her husband, Walter Lee
(Marcus Henderson) in a scene from A Raisin in the Sun
(Photo by: Kevin Berne)

McGregor has a top-notch ensemble at her fingertips and the results of their work are quite admirable. Marcus Henderson gives a powerhouse performance as Walter Lee while Ryan Nicole Peters (Ruth) and Nemuna Ceesay (Beneatha) bring depth and dignity to their characters. Rotimi Agbabiaka does some beautiful work as Joseph Asagai. York Walker does double duty as Beneatha's date, George Murchison, and Walter Lee's hapless friend, Bobo.

Lena (Margo Hall) and Walter Lee Younger (Marcus Henderson)
in a scene from A Raisin in the Sun (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

While many people think of A Raisin in the Sun as a star vehicle for the man who portrays Walter Lee Younger, the play gets its real dramatic strength from the actress portraying his mother, Lena. As expected, Margo Hall delivered the goods with a performance of deep inner strength, unconditional love for the son she suspects to be a fool, and the iron will to inspire him to stand up for his family and not "sell out to the man." Her portrayal of Lena is one in a long line of memorable performances by one of the Bay area's most gifted actors.

* * * * * * * * * *

Berkeley Repertory Theatre recently presented the West coast premiere of Tony Kushner's intense family drama entitled The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (iHo). Directed by Tony Taccone, it is a mammoth achievement which puts a massively dysfunctional Italian-American family on display, warts and all.

Clocking in at nearly four hours in length (with two intermissions), iHo is the kind of play one could love or hate. But this much is certain: With so much emotional baggage fighting for the spotlight, you'll never be bored.

If I have one reservation, it's that Kushner sets up numerous passages in which rival conversations/arguments take place simultaneously, making it nearly impossible to understand anything being said. After several of these schizophrenic scherzi (which resemble the shape-shifting and frenetic buzzing of swarms of bees), one gets used to the fact that this is a family where everyone talks but no one really listens. Having accepted that baseline of dysfunctionality, one develops a much better understanding of the family dynamic.

When push comes to shove, how can you not love a play whose first act builds to a breathtaking climax with the precision of an operatic Rossini ensemble and whose conclusion could rival that of Frank R. Stockton's 1882 short story, The Lady, or the Tiger?

The protagonist in Kushner's play is Gus Marcantonio (Mark Margolis), a retired dockworker who enjoyed a second career as a union organizer. A life-long Communist, Gus is now in his early 70s and convinced that he is developing Alzheimer's. In order to maximize the estate he can leave to his children, he has decided to sell the family home in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn to an undisclosed buyer.

Gus is also determined to commit suicide and has contacted an old friend, Shelle O'Neill (Robynn Rodriguez), whose husband suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease). Gus knows that Shelle can help him with the details of how to kill himself.

Empty (Dierdre Lovejoy), Shelle (Robynn Rodriguez), and Gus
(Mark Margolis) discuss the properly methodology for committing
suicide in The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and
Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Kushner's play takes place in June of 2007, at the height of the real estate bubble, when cashing out makes sense to Gus. Although he loves his children dearly, they often drive him crazy. In fact, Gus often feels as if their narcissism and emotional neediness are what's killing him.

Pill (Lou Liberatore) thinks he is in love with Eli (Jordan Geiger) in
The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism
with a Key to the Scriptures (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Pill (Lou Liberatore) is a deeply conflicted gay man who, despite being in a long-term relationship with a theologian (Tyrone Mitchell Henderson), has spent $30,000 of his sister's savings on Eli Wolcott (Jordan Geiger), a male hustler whose vulnerability touches him. The sad truth is that Pill enjoys sex much more when he has to pay for it, a fact which does not sit well with his partner at all.

When Pill suggests that he and Paul move Eli out to their home in Minneapolis and welcome him into a thruple arrangement, his devoted partner erupts, delivers a scathing takedown followed by an ultimatum, and gets ready to head back to the Midwest -- with or without Pill (short for Pier Luigi) by his side.

Paul (Tyrone Mitchell Henderson) lays into his lover,
Pill (Lou Liberatore) in a scene from The Intelligent Homosexual's
Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures
(Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Empty (Deirdre Lovejoy) has always been Gus's little girl. He coached her in Communist theory, labor relations, and watched as his daughter evolved into a nurse and then switched career tracks to become a talented labor lawyer. Empty (a nickname for Maria Theresa) used to be married to Adam Butler (Anthony Fusco), who now lives in Gus's basement apartment.

Since coming out as a lesbian, she has gotten into a relationship with Maeve Ludens (Liz Wisan), who is now nine months pregnant and about to go into labor. Curiously, Empty shows little concern for Maeve (also a theologian) and is more intensely focused on pleasing her father.

Maeve (Liz Wisan), Empty (Deirdre Lovejoy), and Adam
(Anthony Fusco) get into an argument in a scene from The
Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism
with a Key to the Scriptures (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Vito (Joseph J. Parks) is Gus's youngest child. Mechanically gifted but dangerously short-tempered, he is married to Sooze (Tina Chillip), an attractive young Asian-American who has mastered the art of communicating her displeasure with a royal stink eye. When, in a burst of anger, Vito shoves a bust of Garibaldi through a wall and discovers an old attaché case, Sooze can't wait to learn what is hidden inside.

Gus (Mark Margolis), Sooze (Tina Chillip), and Vito (Joseph J. Parks)
in The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism
with a Key to the Scriptures (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Watching Gus's emotionally needy children and their spouses from a jaundiced, "seen-it-all" point of view is Gus's sister, Clio (Randy Danson). After a colorful past that included several years as a nun, Clio has finally learned how to let go of things she can't control. Despite her brother's determination to commit suicide, she knows it is time for her to move on.

Working on Christopher Barecca's jigsaw puzzle of a set, Tony Taccone has done quite an impressive job of staging a complex work about politics, passion, prostitution, and priorities in which the most lucid character turns out to be a well-educated hustler (the whore who speaks the truth). Above all, Berkeley Rep's production of The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures offers Bay area audiences a chance to marvel at the craft of a master playwright and how his characters have been brought to life by a gifted ensemble.

To read more of George Heymont go to My Cultural Landscape

↧