Moments

I've been thinking about Christine Ebersole at the Cafe Carlyle and trying to come up with a definition of what I called 'a moment'.  What makes a show or performance special.  I did some research looking at Aristotle's poetics and what others have said about Aristotle's term catharsis.  Catharsis strictly translated means purging.  My main source F. L. Lucas makes reference to the fact that the Poetics was written in response to Plato's remark that poetry, including theater, music etc., encourages people to be hysterical and uncontrolled.  For Aristotle it is the opposite, poetry purges the soul of its excessive passions.
The best definition for "the moment" comes from Bob Marley when he said: "One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."  It can come from many places.
Sunday it was at a matinee of The KEEN Company Production of Tina Howe's, "Painting Churches".

It was momentous.  I could have walked on air, painlessly.  Kathleen Chalfant, star of the original production of "Wit", John Cunningham, who was in the original production of "Company" and Kate Turnbull who is new to me, are the players.  I could not find a recorded production of the play through an internet search, so it is just there, for now, at The Clurman Theater on Theater Row.  If I didn't have so much on my plate I'd go back.

Cafe Carlyle

Went to the Cafe Carlyle to hear Cristine Ebersole on Thursday.  She was a regular on SNL for one season; has been on TV soap operas, in movies, and has won Best Actress Tonys for '42nd Street' and 'Grey Gardens'.  I recently saw her at Birdland and fell in love.  Since Thursday the romance has cooled.  One drink at the bar with the show = $93, but no special moment in the performance.  I expect a moment in a live performance and she's had moments that have grabbed me and lifted me up.
However, the audience enjoyed the show and a woman sitting next to me remarked that I probably didn't like the  book.  There was this theme involving her three children, particularly her adopted teenage daughter.  Maybe that was my issue.  It reminded me of the time Rosemary Clooney,one of my favorites, sang at Westbury Music Fair shortly after 9/11.  She was fine, but before she sang 'Come in From The Rain' she prefaced it by saying that she always sang the song  for her grand-children.  Well I loved that song when I thought she was singing it to me but when your audience is your children and grand-children I'm less there.

Don Giovanni

Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera House had one of the best special effects: the demise of  Don Giovanni in a burst of flame.  We felt the heat in the balcony.  The Met always puts on a great show.

 The libretto is by Lorenzo Da Ponte, 1749 - 1838, based on a play , El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra, The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, written by Tirso de Molina, author and priest.  My favorite bits: the tenor's "Dalla sua pace" sung by Matthew Polenzani, and Marina Rebeka's " Mi tradi quell'alma ingrata".   Matthew is on you tube in a very annoying modern dress version, but not Marina.  There is of course the great Kiri Te Kanawa doing the aria.  Both are worth a listen.
The big news at the Met this season is Jay Hunter Morris, from Texas, who stepped in at the last minute to play Siegfried in Wagner's Ring Cycle.  He is young, handsome and all the critics say a great Siegfried, which is the toughest role for a tenor.  He is also on You Tube.

Merrily We Roll Along

Went to City Center to see the Encores presentation of Stephen Sondheim's 'Merrily We Roll Along'.  In his book 'Look, I Made a Hat' Sondheim has written "I was in a morass of despair after the joyful public slaughter of 'Merrily we roll along'."  The show ran for about 60 performances and was bashed by the critics as not making any sense.   One of the problems was the fact that the play runs backwoods from 1976 to 1955.  The book has now been cleaned of any confusion, and it is very witty.  One of my favorite 'bits' is a conversation between a young woman and an older woman.
Young Woman: "I work for Look Magazine'.
Older Woman: "Well, that's good."
Young Woman: "I hate it."
Older Woman: "Well, that's why they call it work."
It has some of his finest 'tunes': Not a Day Goes By, Old Friends, Our Time, Opening doors, Good thing Going.
The Encores production was beautifully done.  I expected to see a couple of people sitting in front of microphones reading from a script accompanied by a piano.  After all I paid $26 for my seat.  It was a nine piece orchestra, a cast of 26, 3 excellent leads: Colin Donnell, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Celia Keenan-Bolger, well staged and choreographed with videos to carry the story .  The production was as close to a Broadway production as imaginable.  I loved it.  It closed yesterday after a 2 week run.  Maybe it will show up on Broadway, as did their great production of Patti LuPone's 'Gypsy".
Merrily?, I roll along.  What I'm reading in the news.
The Villager:
Rape suspect arrested.  He dragged his victim down the subway tunnel of the 'J' train where he beat her and raped her.  He has 27 prior arrests.
In the Times:
Dozens of Tubas stolen from LA Schools.  The Tuba is used in a very popular Mexican music style known as "banda".  A band with a Tuba can make up to $3000 a night.
In the Sunday magazine section:
"The way Greeks live now" by Russell Shorto:
A woman tells him: 'I was sitting at an outdoor cafe, and a clean, well-dressed man of about 60 passed by and politely asked if he could have the biscuit that came with my coffee.'
'The standard short answer to how Greece got into this financial mess is that it borrowed too much and spent unwisely.  Beneath this, people like to look for a cultural root.  Most popular, outside Greece, is the north-south explanation, which holds that northern Europeans are efficient and hard-working, and Southerners, while they may have better food and better sex lives, relax too much to run an efficient economy.  But numbers don't bear this out: in 2008 the average German worked 1,426 hours and the average Greek worked 2,116 hours.  The Greek explanation is that Greece is a remnant of the Ottoman Empire,  top-down rule and bribery.  The Greeks believe their bureaucracy is a menace.  'Fakelaki', cash stuffed envelopes, are needed to secure the multiple signatures in order to get anything done in Greece.
There is more pain in Greece than I care to write about and everyone seems to agree it will get worse.
One last fact.  When the government announced a severe reduction in salaries, a woman was asked how she would manage on less money.  She laughed, like many Greeks, she hadn't received a paycheck in  months.
From Lucretius:
            On the nature of things.
'For sundered from its junctures, the supply
of matter would travel aimless through the void;
or better, it never would have joined to make
one thing; so scattered, it could form no junctures.
For surely not by planning did prime bodies
find rank and place, nor by intelligence,
nor did they regulate movement by sworn pact;
no, changing by myriads myriad ways, they sped
through the ALL forever, pounded, pushed, propelled,
till, trying all kinds of movements and arrangements,
they came at last into such patterned shapes
as have created and formed this Sum of Things.'

Sounds like The Chaos Theory of 52 B.C.E.

Valentine's Day

The lines were long at all the flower markets.
Which reminded me of the Myrtle Ave. subway station on the 'L' train in Brooklyn.  They had a brand name candy store, box of chocolates kind of company, like a Whitman Sampler.  I can't remember the name of the company; maybe it was Whitman.  I seem to remember it started with a 'B'.  Bachman's ?  Anyway, it was always open and never had a lot of people buying chocolates, until Valentine's Day when the lines were very long.
I wonder who it was that created the saint of romance.  Not anybody in today's church.  We're having another non-issue dominate politics.  The new health plan includes family planning; so the right wing and the Catholic Church oppose it.  They say it forces them to act against their beliefs.  Yet it has been the law in California for years, and they've complied.  Just more nonsense.
I went to the theater on Valentine's Day with Sandra and Nancy to see a piece by a member of Frank's theater group.  We left after the first act.

Then stopped off for an after theater drink at Joe Allen's on restaurant row.  That's where Nancy gave me a  beautiful Valentine's Day card.  It's a photo she took of a market in Morocco.  She's a great photographer,which is why her work is in the Smithsonian.  This photograph doesn't do the card justice and NO, she gave cards to everyone. 

  

Time

I always expected, when I retired, that I would have the time to do all the things I wanted to do.  I always wanted to write.  A number of things had piqued my interest.  The first was the outdoor art in NYC.

 Of course, that is where I would have to start, and then move uptown.

To Sylvette, and then end at Union Square Park.

With commentary about the statues, the artist, who paid for them and why.
Another book was going to be, and maybe will still be, 'The Hand Book', a book all about hands.  I studied and worked in hand therapy for a number of years.
There is the saying that the eyes are the window to the soul.  I believe the hands are a window to the life.

My Mother's hands at age 95.
 
But where is the time: 
Two weeks ago I went to my family doctor for my yearly checkup.  I now have M.D. appointments through April, to examine my heart, eyes, skin and other, to remain unnamed, places.
I get The New Yorker delivered and try to read some of it each week.  This week's issue has an article by Jonathan Franzen on Edith Wharton, in celebration of what would have been her 150th Birthday.
I get Film Forum, the quarterly from Lincoln Center.
I dropped The Economist, too conservative, although wonderful comprehensive reporting.  
I get the weekend NY Times delivered.
Sunday had a great article on Quanitta Underwood, a U.S. Olympic Boxing hopeful.
This summer's Olympics will for the first time feature women's boxing and Miss Underwood is the U.S.'s best hope for a medal.  The article, by Barry Bearak, begins: "Two sisters shared a bed, and each night, with their hearts hammering, they would listen for the turn of the knob and the push of the door.  Quanitta was 10 her sister Hazzauna, 12.  The walls of their house were thin and the girls could hear every move their father made.  Hear him sit up, hear him get out of bed, hear him walk their way."  You can read the whole article at nytimes.com.  It's titled 'The Living Nightmare' and it is about her battle with incest, and her survival.
I also have my books to read.  I'm working my way, slowly, through 'The Renaissance Portrait'.  Yeah, I know it has pictures but it's still 420 pages and a typically large 'Art Book'.  I'm also, slowly working my way through 'On The Nature Of Things' by Lucretius.  OK, I know it's only 175 pages but c'mon it's poetry and philosophy.  I blame the NY Times Book Review.  Someone wrote a review of a new translation and in the essay they mentioned all the many artists and scientists who list it as an important part of their education.  I had a great teacher in the classics but we never did Lucretius.  Although, we did read Catullus.  The school probably thought we had already read Henry Miller and Lady Chatterley's Lover so what harm could Catullus do, but lets not give them a poem whose first book is a condemnation of Religion.
Then there is one of my favorite things: Music.

The Metropolitan Room on West 22

I went there Sunday Night.  The room is small, similar in some ways to the Blue Note.  The show was Fred Barton's 'Presents', a once a month show.  He is an arranger, songwriter and performer and once a month he brings his 9 piece orchestra and some great talent to perform.  The best were Kevin Early whose Broadway credits are 'Thoroughly Modern Millie' and 'Les Miserables', Karen Murphy, broadway credits: 'A little night music', '9 to 5',  and NYC Opera's 'Most Happy Fella' and Anita Gillette, Broadway credits: 'Gypsy', 'Guys and Dolls', 'Cabaret', and 'Brighton Beach Memoirs', but she is probably best known as a frequent quest on TV game shows like 'What's My Line'.  I'm going back next month.  $20 and 2 drink minimum, and that's right there's no maximum.

 

Dogs

Sign in front of a building on 14th Street.  Why? because there are too many dogs in NYC.  This is probably a very controversial subject.  People feel that their pet is a part of the family.  Many families in NYC are comprise of one person and a dog becomes their partner in all things.  They take them to the bookstore, supermarket, deli, and luncheonette.  Many businesses in my neighborhood leave bowls of water and 'treats' inside the store for their customers' pets.  Dogs are outlawed in any establishment that serves food, but many people ignore that.

 Many areas in the city that were once for the sole use of vegetation, benches, and playgrounds now give some of that space to 'doggie parks'.  In my neighborhood there are 3 parks, Stuyvesant Park, Tompkins Square Park, and Washington Square Park.  Each one now has a doggie park.  For the record, one of the best relationships I had growing up was with my dog Duke.  I know why people love their dogs.
However, there are 7 billion people in the world.  In the U.S. we spend over $50 billion on our pets.  There are 1.4 million dogs in NYC.  We have a pooper scooper law in NYC but it is not strictly enforced.  Let's say 99% of dog owners pick up after their dogs.  That means 14,000 dog poops are left on our streets at least once a day.  All of the dogs, 1.4 million, are peeing on our trees and plants and streets.  Urine kills the trees and the plants.  Yes, the dog urine and poop is eventually washed away when it rains but it goes untreated into our waterways.
What can be done?  I think people here in NYC are woefully uneducated about their pet.  A dog needs a yard, some space.  Our city needs its plants and trees and waterways to be pristine. Maybe we need sandy doggie walks on the street where a pet can do his business and it can be removed.

Movie Time

The awards are happening.  The academy awards are at the end of the month and I haven't seen many of the nominees.  I've usually seen most of them by January.  Two of the movies up for awards I saw through Netflix.  The first one I want to mention is 'Drive'.  The academy award nominee for best supporting actor is Albert Brooks.  The star of the movie is Ryan Gosling.  I believe he was the latest recipient of the title 'world's sexiest man' from People Magazine.  I've seen 2 of his movies, Drive and 'Lars and the real Girl'.  In both his total dialogue would fit on one page.  Lars was OK.  Some wit, a quirky character and a loving view of small town American life.  In 'Drive' the main character, Gosling, shoots one guy with a shotgun, stabs another with a curtain rod, another with a knife, and after kissing his neighbor's wife he stomps a man to death while they are all riding in an elevator.  The movie ends with him sitting in a car alone with the soundtrack playing a song whose lyrics are, and I'm paraphrasing, 'he's a hero, a real human being'.
The only thing I liked in the movie is the fact that Albert Brooks, one of the bad guys, is a Hollywood producer and a cutthroat.  Literally, he cuts peoples throats. 
Moving on.
Last night I saw 'The Iron Lady' with Meryl Streep.  Meryl is up for best actress and she's good as usual.  The movie less so.  They do a lot of flashbacks to Margaret Thatcher's life while in the present she is undergoing dementia, hallucinating her dead husband, who is played by the great Jim Broadbent.  There is too much of the dementia and too little of the Thatcher years.  But they did show some of the effects of her policies.  For me Thatcher is from the same school as Newt Gingrich.  They're preachers and the sermon is that the other side is evil and bad for the country.  Even though the other side are the duly elected representatives of the people.  But then of course Thatcher and Gingrich know what's best for us all: 'Be quiet and do as you're told'.  The film actually has her saying: 'I won't compromise.  I won't be conciliatory.'  Not a great policy in a democracy.
But then, thanks to netflix, I got to see 'A better Life' and it's wonderful.  The leading man Demian Bichir is up for an Oscar, and well-deserved.  The director is Chris Weitz who did 'About a Boy' which I loved and produced 'A single Man',  and he's from NYC.  The movie tells the story of an illegal immigrant from Mexico trying as a single parent to keep his teenage son out of trouble and away from the gangs in LA.  Best scene: when he confronts the man who stole his dream when he stole his truck.  I presume it would be considered an American film.  But it's not nominated for best picture.

N.Y. Giants are The Champs

They won the super bowl on Sunday and today, after a ticker-tape parade, NY is giving them the keys to the city.  I got downtown at 8:30AM; the ceremony is at 1PM and it was already crowded.  So I left.  Do not like crowds and the press is reporting an estimated 1 million people.
But it was very tempting to stay, because the Giants have played some incredible football.  Manning [MVP] has been connecting with his receivers in some spectacular plays.  Sunday's catch by Mario Manningham in the fourth quarter was one of the most spectacular catches ever.

Americans love their team sports: football, basketball, hockey and baseball.  Some folks pay thousands of dollars to attend the games.  Last Sunday, an hotel room at the Budget Inn, $898.99;  next weekend it's back to $55 a night.  Monday before the game 3,000 seats were available from $2,100 to $516,484, the $16,484 is probably shipping and handling fees.  Parking $499, next weekend, $60. Airfare from NY to Indianapolis between $1,379 to $1,837.  Next weekend $400.

The home of rugged individualism, paradoxically loves its team sports.  Track and field will never attract that kind of money.  Golf, tennis, auto racing have a lot of fans, but your average American is much more likely to know who won the Super Bowl then who won the U.S. Open.
Then there is the violence.  Students in Amherst, Massachusetts rioted after the game and 19 were arrested.  Violence in Egypt continues after riots at a soccer game that killed at least 73 people.  It is a universal response when your team wins or loses: riot.  There is that much emotion in spectator sports.

Meanwhile in NYC we have this going on in Union Square:

 Riding with George Washington

He's protesting the lack of freedom in China, and he looks like one of the college kids from NYU, or Cooper Union.   He's going to sit there all week, if necessary, until something is done.
As Jack Paar would say 'I kid you not', he's giving us one week!!
I guess he figures that now the football season is over we can devote more time to world freedom.

The Japanese Internment

Koho Yamamoto is a Japanese-American artist and above is one of her works on display at The Interchurch Center's gallery which is curated by my friend Frank.  The exhibit is called From Topaz to Soho: The Spirited Art of Koho Yamamoto.  The art begins in 1944 when she was 22 and living in a detention center in Topaz, Utah.  Many are done in the Sumi-e style which is what she taught for 37 years at her school  in Soho. 

Koho Yamamoto's work is part of the show: "The Japanese American Internment Project ... if they came for me today".  The show will be on tour for two years.

On February 19, 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt interned in camps 120,000 Japanese-Americans of whom 80,000 were native born.  The government also coerced Latin American countries to deport their Japanese citizens.  2,300 were sent to America and imprisoned here.  Homes and businesses were lost. 
In 1980 President Jimmy Carter's commission on the internment found that the relocation was not done out of military necessity but out of racism, war hysteria, and the failure of political leadership.
In August 1988 President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act which paid the survivors $20,000 each.

Chinese New Year

Lots of Dragons

 The year of the dragon is 4709-4710 on our calendar.  Those born this year may have the characteristics of the dragon: innovative, brave, and passionate.  I say may because the Chinese zodiac includes the characteristics by year: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig, plus the five elements: metal, water, wood, fire and earth, plus yin [odd years] and yang [even years].  The system of 12 years was based by early Chinese astronomers on the orbit of Jupiter. 

1.26.44

Went out to a movie at one of my favorite movie houses: The Paris.  It is across the street from the Plaza Hotel and a block from the entrance to central Park.  The Paris was the first post-war movie house constructed in Manhattan.  It opened on 9/13/48 with Marlene Dietrich and the French Ambassador cutting the ribbon.  Ah! to be there then, with a camera.  The Paris usually hosts French films and has had many premieres.

 Elegantly designed in the Art Moderne style, a late type of Art Deco, my favorite style.

The Artist is up for a number of awards and deserves recognition for its boldness, black and white and silent.  I haven't seen a lot of the nominees, so The Artist may be the best of the group.  It has a number of things that I liked,  movie references, e.g. the breakfast scene from Citizen Kane and a dance from Rodgers and Astaire, the performances by the two stars and their dog.  I loved the dog.  However, I found the movie a bit long and it took awhile for me to settle into it.  There is nothing particularly noteworthy in the story or the technique.  As for best movies made in 2011 that I've seen I prefer A Separation.
And the best movie I've seen, recently, is "Millions", a Danny Boyle film from 2004.  Danny Boyle has also made Shallow Grave[terrific] Slumdog Millionaire[lots of awards] 127 Hours[next on my list] and Trainspotting[funny and tragic ... one drug addict says about another "we call him Mother Superior because of the length of his habit], and two of the Inspector Morse shows.  'Millions' stars Lewis McGibbon, James Nesbith, Daisy Donovan and the incredible Alex Etel.  The very young Alex Etel plays one of the most interesting and endearing characters I've ever seen.  It was written by Frank Cottrell Boyce.  Netflix, thank you.

Tosca at The Met

Patricia Racette is in Giacomo Puccini's 'Tosca' which I saw Tuesday night at the Metropolitan Opera House.  She will be performing it 6 times with a quartet of leading men on alternating nights.  The NY Times praises her " richly expressive voice and raw emotion".  She is a fine actress but as the Times says "her voice is not opulent or unique".  This is also the farewell performance of Paul Plishka who plays the sacristan.  Since 1967 he has performed at the Met 1600 times.
The opera is based on a play by Victorien Sardou who wrote 70 plays, all successful and now forgotten.  Tosca was a great hit for Sarah Bernhardt, with 3000 performances in France alone.  The story concerns 4 main characters: Angelotti, an escaped political prisoner who is pursued by Scarpia, the head of the secret police who lusts after Tosca, who is loved by and loves Cavaradossi a painter.  When Cavaradossi helps hide Angelotti, Scarpia arrests him and tortures him until Tosca agrees to sleep with him and tell him where Angelotti is hiding.  She tells; then stabs Scarpia.  Angelotti kills himself rather then be arrested.  Cavaradossi is executed and Tosca jumps off a tower, spectacularly staged, rather then be captured.  The end.

The score is beguiling and the opera is one of the most popular.
Favorite parts:  The Te Deum with a triple chorus, an orchestra with bells, an organ and 2 canons.  The tenor's aria "E lucevan le stelle", "And the stars were shining" in act 3, and the soprano's aria in act 2 "Vissi d'arte" living her life for love and art.
Another favorite of mine: the company, 100 orchestra members and 80 members of the chorus.   
Today's notable birthdays:
Wayne Gretsky, Samuel Adams, Anita Baker, Nicolae Ceausescu, Henry Jaglom, Angela Davis, Jules Feiffer, Ellen De Generes, Douglas McArthur, Akio Morita, co-founder of Sony, James McCord, Watergate burglar, Roger Vadim, Anne Jeffreys, Jimmy Van Heusen, and Me.

The News

It's all bad today.
I went to the opera last night and got home late and into bed at about 2:30.  Then the cats started in at five AM.  So it's food, water, clean litter box and back to sleep.  But noooo!  They won 't let up; not until I'm up and out of bed.  I swear I almost threw Paris out the window.  I had closed the bedroom door but he was banging on it with his head and meowing, constantly.  I was P O'ed but not just for waking me up but also fighting with his brother.  He was so bad; Troy was cowering under the chair and hissing at him.  The first time that's happened.
I need a cat whisperer or cat shrink.  They're both sleeping, now, and in my bed of course.
That's my bad news.  I'm exhausted and tomorrow's my birthday.  I want to be fresh and chipper for my birthday.   Well as much as I can be at 68.
And in the rest of the world it's not much better.  Those republican party debates.  I mean, really disgusting candidates.  Characters from a Walt Disney movie, happy=Rick Perry, dopey=Cain, grouchy=Gingrich, and there's no Snow White.  Gingrich, as they say, is 'surging in the polls' because he berates the media for asking about his marriages.  Simply stated he cheated on his first two wives.  While the first wife had cancer and the second wife had MS.  The third wife had a 6 year affair with him while he was married.  All the time she was playing the role of the good catholic.  So good that now Newt is a catholic and has found God.  Son of a gun, who knew all this time, god was in Calista's sheets!  Don't people remember what Newt did to Clinton for his peccadilloes?  Why would anyone listen to them?

The real craziness is not the hypocrisy.
Mitt Romney wants us to believe that during his life he has had fears of losing his livelihood.  Last year he earned  from investments, he doesn't actually have a job, almost $60,000 a day!
And there's even more craziness in the audience.  They cheered when Cain said the unemployed needed to take a bath and get a job.  They cheered when Newt said  school children should do janitorial jobs in school to learn job skills.  They cheered when Ron Paul said if a person can't afford to buy medications that's their own fault.  Who are these people?  White, affluent, mostly male, christian, presumably.  That also describes me and my friends but we are at the opposite end of those political views.  These people may look angry, but they're really scared.  They hate Obama because he is the face of the new America.  White America is 72% of the total population.  Ten years ago they were 75%.  These people feel threatened.
I can't believe any of these guys will win, because that audience is already the minority.  One last thing about the candidates.  Has anyone else noticed that they all have strange ways of walking.

First snow

Not a whole lot but wet and cold.  I love it when there are big soft flakes, but that's not it today.

It's the beginning of the Chinese New Year and I was planning a trip to Chinatown to watch the festivities, but not in this weather.  The festivities will be going on all week and I think next Saturday is the Dragon parade.  So I'll go then.
It is the year of the dragon which means those born this year will be powerful and lucky with lots of charisma.  I was born in the year of the monkey: a party animal, charming, craving fun and stimulation, sparkling wit, rapier-sharp mind, knowledgeable on a wide range of topics, accident prone, poor morals, unfaithful in relationships, self indulgence leading to problems with food, alcohol and other pleasures.  For balance they should learn to think more about others.  
I'm also an aquarian: sometimes shy and quiet and sometimes boisterous, eccentric and energetic, deep thinker, love helping others, very smart, independent, good at solving problems, imaginative and a strong need to be alone, runs from emotional expression, aloof, temperamental.
In Aztec astrology I'm the flint, Tecpatl: rigorous, brave, morally upright, disdaining whimsy,does not tolerate lying,  warm and generous, spontaneous, filled with adventure and diversity.

Went to the movies with Dottie and saw "A Separation" which I loved.  Dottie didn't care for it and thought it was too long.  An Iranian movie about a Husband and Wife at cross purposes.  During the movie I found myself analyzing what I thought to be the symbolism.
I am more conscious of artists use of symbols: objects and people used to represent something or someone else.  It was very common in paintings for an artist to tell a story or give a message in this way.  For example fruit was used to suggest many things, pomegranate= eternal life, fig=loss of innocence, pear=faithfulness, orange=free will, and the apple=sin & the Garden of Eden.  I've always resisted this type of analyses since the time a college professor  turned Faulkner's wonderful short story 'The Bear' into an anti-communist tract.  Modern use of symbols are not to my knowledge clearly and universally known as they were in Renaissance Europe.  So it might appear subjective.  But it can be increase the appreciation of a film.
In "a Separation" we are looking at life in Iran; a highly censored, closed and sectarian society.  Film makers have been imprisoned.  So the use of symbols in their films is quite likely. 
What fascinated me was trying to understand the symbolic presence of the grandfather; who is the reason for the husband's and wife's estrangement.  They are an affluent family and the wife wants to leave the country for her daughter's sake.  The husband feels obligated to take care of his father who has Alzheimer's.  At first I thought he was a symbol of the Iranian government; no memory of its history, not making sense but compelling adherence.  The grandfather doesn't know who any one is and has stopped talking.  Then I thought he is the symbol of Islam.  There is a lot to consider beyond the mise en scene.  Men fight, women negotiate in this patriarchy.   People go to jail if they don't pay their debts.  A woman telephones a hotline to ask if she can undress a man who has soiled himself.  The answer is 'no' it's a sin.  A young girl, maybe 12, is frightened of asking for her change because all the men are staring at her. 
It's worth seeing in a movie house.  There are a lot of subtitles which would be hard to follow on a TV screen.

Schjeldahl

I was reading Peter Schjeldahl in The New Yorker.  He was critiquing Damien Hirst's  'Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011'.  They're being exhibited all over the world.  Hirst is part of "a cohort [of] Young British Artists.  When not milking death, Y.B.A. art savored sex and squalor, ideally in combination."  They were behind the show at The Brooklyn Museum in 1999 that Mayor Giuliani "made headlines by denouncing Chris Ofile's painting of the Virgin Mary festooned with lumps of elephant dung."  Yeah, Peter doesn't like them.  He says: "The result is art in the way some exotic financial dealings are legal: by a whisker."
So I went to Chelsea to see for myself.  Found one but couldn't shoot it.  It looked like this:

There a dozen of them around the world.

I prefer these by Will Kurtz, at the Mike Weiss Gallery.  It's called 'Extra Fucking Ordinary", unfortunate title, for fine work.  They are life size figural sculptures constructed of collaged torn sheets of newspaper, wood, wire, screws, tape and everyday objects.
He takes photos with his I-Phone then recreates them.

Ramblings

The internet today is "down" due to a protest about some government legislation to control copyright and 'intellectual ownership'.  The senate passed the bill but some of those who signed it now oppose it.  That alone indicates how crazy government has gotten.  Most of our elected officials are lawyers and they're signing bills, and making laws without first reading them.  I forget how big the Obamacare legislation actually was but it was enormous. 
Back to the internet or rather why I was looking for info.  There was a show on public TV about one of the Hollywood studios.  Some of it was how wonderful this head of studio was and how creative that other head of studio was, etc.  Which put me in mind of what my friend Frank said:  "Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather, was on Charlie Rose and said the bit about the horse's head in the producer's bed was a true story."  Puzo went on further to say:  "I've known a lot of Mafia guys and they could be ruthless but the worst SOB's were in Hollywood."  Not the only person to have said that.

One section of the doc. was called 'The Genius' and was about Stanley Kubrick.  He is probably most famous for "2001', 'How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb', 'Spartacus', 'Barry Lyndon'.  My personal favorite is 'Paths of Glory'.  Ever since I read 'The Guns of August' I have been fascinated by the First World War.  Also, when I was traveling around Mt. Athos in Greece I hooked up with some Brits, one of whom was senior at the British Museum.  When I voiced the impression that made on me, he pooh-poohed the thought..  He said someone like him would never be where he was if his country had not lost an entire generation in the First World War.

But I wasn't searching the internet for info about the War or Paths of Glory.  Two things struck me: Stanley Kubrick and Adolphe Menjou in 1957 making a movie together.  Kubrick is from New York City and politically very liberal.  I wondered if he had gone to England because of blacklisting by McCarthyism.  That's the info I was looking for.  Adolphe is most famous for testifying at the McCarthy hearings and naming names.  Menjou's famous line was: "I'd send all those commies to Texas.  They know how to deal with them."  It appears Kubrick did not leave America because of politics.  he left because he found film financing easier.        

The Renaissance Portrait

Went to the Metropolitan Museum to see their new exhibit.  You are not allowed to take photos of the works on display.  Probably some legal issues with loaned works of art.  It was the same at the Brooklyn Museum.  But I took a photo before they told me I couldn't and another that you're allowed to take.

I almost bought the book for $65, just for one portrait.  It is 'Portrait of a Young Man' by Antonello da Messina.  It had been known for a long time as 'Portrait of an Unknown Sailor' and now as the famous Cefalu' Portrait of a Young Man.  It is supposed to be in the National Gallery in London, but it's not listed at their site.
I may be turning into J. Alfred Prufrock.
"In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."

But there's more
To do
To hear
To see
To put on
To take off.
More then I will ever own.

Subway/meet-up

That is the access shaft for the new 2nd Ave Subway.  The subway will run from 125th Street to the financial district.  Phase One, which will take 45 months, there are 4 phases, involves the "Q" line which will run from 93rd Street to 63rd Street and 2nd Ave.  It will then connect on Lexington Ave. with the "F" line where passengers can continue south through Manhattan and into Brooklyn.  The workmen told me that the shaft is 9 stories deep and there will be 16 ADA accessible stations.
On my way to a birthday party I happened to come upon what was in the 70's called a happening or a Be-in.  I found out later that it is now called a meet-up.  Some one twitters everyone to meet at a particular place at a particular time dressed in a particular way or for a particular reason.  If you happen to be walking around the city and see a bunch of people dressed as Santa or carrying pillows for a pillow fight, it's a meet-up.

 This meet-up was to come to Union Square in your underwear.

House of Worship

 Archbishop Dolan has been elevated to Cardinal Dolan.  So I thought I would visit St. Patrick's Cathedral.  The Cathedral opened in 1879, and was designed by American architect James Renwick Jr., who was considered the most successful architect of his time.  His first commission was Grace Church in NYC which he took on at the age of 25.

 'The Lady Chapel', at the rear of the Cathedral, is the most sacred part of the Church.  This is where the Eucharist is kept.  It was built between 1901 and 1908 and designed by Charles T. Mathews.

The Cathedral has a 'Pieta' sculpted by William Ordway Partridge.  Instead it says that St. Patrick's 'Pieta' is 3 times larger than Michelangelo's.