Midas

You know the myth of the king who was granted a wish and chose to have everything he touched turn to gold.  It started out well but when he grabbed an apple and it turned to gold he had a problem.  Eventually he fed on himself.  That is the jist of Chrystia Freeland's article in the New York Times.  The article isn't about Kings but about the rich Venetians of the fourteenth century.  Venice had organized a joint stock company called the Colleganza.  The Colleganza would finance the merchant voyages and everyone would participate in the wealth that acrrued.  In 1315 at the height of Venetian wealth the aristocracy formed Libro d'Oro, book of gold.  It was the registry of who was deemed to be an aristocrat.  New members were not allowed.  The populace called it La Serrata or The Closure.  The closure ended the Colleganza.
We have an American Serrata.  You see it in the schools their kids go to; where they all live and where they all go together to vacation.  In 1950 the tax for the richest was 90%.  Of the richest 400 in the US six  paid nothing, 27 paid less than 10% and not one of them paid the 35% that I paid.  93% of the recovery money of 2008 went to the top 1%.  The top .01% got 35% of the money.  Are you better off than your parents were in 1950?

Sandra's after Sandy

I have been busy trying to get my blog into shape as a book so today photo's of my weekend.

Getting rid of the downed trees

Many still standing

Just to the right of the gazebo was the platform for the steps to the beach.  All gone.

Still beautiful

The post office

Her cat Coco

"stocks and whipping post", Oh My

What I'm reading

The Threepenny Review's "Two perspectives on Thomas Nagel's, 'Mind and Cosmos'".  They have two reviewers of Mr. Nagel's new book of philosophy.  It, the philosophy, relates to teleology.  There can be two answers to the question: why is it raining?  One answer is 'because water vapor condensed in the atmosphere', which is called Aristotle's efficient cause.  Second answer is ' because grass needs water to survive, which is Aristotle's final cause and also the teleological answer.  In teleological thinking the goal is the cause.  If I knew what it was all about I would go into greater depth.  What struck me were these: "Nagel believes that certain deeds would be wrong whether humans thought so or not, and this structure of morality must have existed independently before conscious minds started musing over it"  Nagel is an atheist.   Also, from Louis Jones, one of the reviewers, "sweet reason comes naturally and so does justice."
In the review they mention the Klien Bottle.  When I was in the Army, during advanced infantry training for radio teletype I met a lot of interesting guys.  One of them was an aspiring mathematetian.  He told me about the Klien bottle.  "Imagine a coke bottle; take the neck and turn it around and pass it through the body of the bottle;  have that come out through a hole in the bottom."  That is the Klien Bottle.  What is remarkable about it is that there is no inside or outside.  It is a boundary free object.  He descibed it as the fourth dimension.  From Louis B. Jones: " Like a Klien bottle, the floating, self decreeing universe's head is thrust up it's posterior, an image to mimic the satiric caricature of all of us deep thinkers, us philosophes, who make so much of mind."  
The Salmagundi Club is having it's annual auction and my neighbor Carole Teller has two paintings.  One of which has won an award.

After the Snow

The prize winner: 'The View'

      I also liked.

'Sweet Treats

'Beauty of Morning'

'Magnolias'

Scream

Surge, fire, hurricane and scream were New York City for me last week.  Scream is on display at MOMA and MOMA was where I went everyday to get warm and use a bathroom.  Monday, October 31,  the lights went out.  When I lose power I also lose water and an elevator.  When you live on the 18th floor that's not good.  I had some supplies so I was okay.  However, my flashlight batteries didn't last.  They may have been in the flashlight for a decade or more.  So, I decided on Wednesday to do the stairs.  It wasn't bad.  I can do 5 flights before my head bursts and then I would just sit and catch my breath and do a few more flights.  The power came back on Friday about 5:30 PM.  Things are back to normal, for me.  I lost a couple of pounds because I was climbing 18 flights of stairs and I wasn't noshing in front of the TV.  So there is some good in the worst of times.  I hope the rest of those who have suffered through this storm and are still suffering can find some relief and some good.

'Man With Yellow Pants' , paper, oil, and pencil on polished stainless steel by Michaelangelo Pistoletto.

'At Rest in the Garden', water and two sparrows on stained steel chairs by James Dolan.

Freedom of the City

Saw Brian Friel's play: 'The Freedom of the City'.  It is a fictional telling of the shooting by British soldiers of 3 unarmed marchers for civil rights in Northern Ireland.  There are a number of pieces to the play.  First, there is a judge conducting a fact finding investigation into the shootings.  He exonerates the military.  Second, a media reporter who announces, falsely, that 40 armed men have taken control of the mayor's office.  Third, a priest at a memorial service who blames the deaths on subversives in the march. Fourth, a balladeer who claims the three dead as folk heroes.  Fifth, a lecturer who discourses on the culture of poverty.  They each intertwine with the main portion of the play: Who are the three dead?
The play opens with their bodies prone on the stage.  They were marching for civil rights when tear gas blinded them.  As they look for shelter they wander into the Mayor's private chamber.  They find some wine and whiskey and tell their stories to each other.  Michael [James Russell] is a young man who has lost his job but plans to go to school for computer training.  He is sure that their innocence will protect them.  Skinner [Joseph Sikora] describes himself as a freeman of the city.  He was orphaned at ten and shuttled from different relatives and institutions.  He's homeless, without work, and a fierce believer in everyone's right to live in dignity.  Lily is married.  Her husband lost his job and she works to support the family.  They live in two rooms without running water.  They have 11 children.  One of whom has down syndrome.  The military arrives in force and ask the three to come out with their hands up.  They do and are shot.  The play ends as it began: three bodies on the stage.
The play mirrors the events of 1/30/'72, which is known as 'Bloody Sunday'.  During a civil rights march in Londonderry 26 protesters and bystanders were shot, five in the back.  2 people were run down and killed by military vehicles.  The Irish Catholics were protesting because discrimination from the Protestant majority was increasing.  Voting rights and public services like housing were being denied.  The first investigation, known as the Widgery Tribunal cleared the military of any responsibility.  The second investigation, the Saville Inquiry, which began in 1990 ended in 2010,  faulted the military.  David Cameron, British Prime Minister, apologized.  After 1/30/ '72 the rolls and finances of the IRA were enormously increased, which burgeoned the "troubles" until they officially ended with the Belfast Agreement of 1998.
Did I mention I liked the play?  The NY Times called it a trenchant revival.
NY Times: "Those three lead performances - Ms. Seymour's the most quietly wrenching- put a haunting human face on the Troubles of Northern Ireland.    

Frankenstorm

This is around First Ave and Fifth Street.  The block has a nice group of old trees and I think there might be, unfortunately, some loss.  I took these at 8AM.  It is now 9:45 and they say winds are 53MPH.
In 1960 Hurricane Donna was similar in size but it's power was a category 3.  This storm, Sandy, is a category 1.  Donna's storm surge was 11 feet in New York which put Ave. B under a foot of water.  364 deaths were caused by Donna and the damage was $900 million.  The name Donna has been removed from the list of possible storm names.    

Happy Birthday Barbara Cook

Born October 25,1927 Barbara Cook celebrated her birthday last Saturday and I was there.  I was so busy cheering I forgot to take my camera out until she was walking off the stage.  She walked off with Carnegie Hall that night.  85 years old and she sounds as silvery sweet as always.  My favorites were an a Capella version of 'House of the Rising Sun', 'If I love Again' by Jack Murray and Ben Oakland and her first Hoagy Carmichael song 'The nearness of you' with her wonderful accompanist Ted Rosenthal.  She talked about not having sung certain composers because she didn't think their music matched what she does.  The one surprise was Cole Porter.  She then added country music as not a rich source;  although she was intrigued by some of their titles: 'I'm so miserable now it's as though you were here', 'If only my nose ran money, but it's not'.  Her encore was an unamplified 'Imagine'.  One of her guests was the mezzo-soprano Susan Graham who did an a Cappella version of 'Til There Was You'.  I was so impressed I bought 2 of her CDs.  The orchestra seats were expensive and worth every penny. 

Ivanov at CSC

The Classic Stage Company on East 13th Street is one of my favorite Repertory Theaters in New York.  It is small and inexpensive.
As a side note the New York Times reports that the new production of 'Glengarry Glen Ross', starring Al Pacino has sold out it's 4 previews.  The top price is $350 and the average price is $164.47.  I had a third row aisle seat for $60.
They do classic and new works with exceptional casts.  Ivanov, by Anton Chekov starred Ethan Hawke and Joely Richardson [daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and Tony Richardson] and was directed by Austin Pendleton.  The famous quote: 'if you show a gun in the first act it must be used in the second act' is from a letter of Chekov's and concerns this play.  Yeah, it's not a comedy and at 90 minutes with one 10 minute break it could literally be a pain in the ass, but it's not.  Ivanov is too interesting a character.  He is described by most critics as the typical melancholy Russian.  He is, for me the existential man.  His suicide proceeds naturally from his deep, generalized discontent, and that suicide reinforces my negative feelings about existentialism in general.  I am not a student of that philosophy and have only read the novels of existentialists not their theoretical writings.  I may very well be talking through my hat but if life is 'meaningless' and since every life has pain and suffering why not commit suicide.  Back to the play.  What struck me about Ivanov, the man, who is a  'good' man as commented by everyone, is how extremely cruel he can be.  His inertia masks a great rage, and that may be the nature of suicide.
Ivanov was translated by Carol Rocamora and the cast includes Glenn Fitzgerald, Annette Hunt, Stephanie Janssen, Roberta Maxwell, George Morfogen, James Patrick Nelson, Anthony Newfield, Juliet Rylance, Jonathan Marc Sherman, Anne Troup, Louis Zorich. 
This weeks New Yorker cover:

             

Lola

I went back to MOMA for another film. 
'Lola' was written and directed by Jacques Demy, his first movie, and stars Anouk Aimee.  Miss Aimee introduced the film and she [dob 4/27/31] looked, as they say in Hollywood, fabulous.  The NY Times of 10/15/1962 reviewed the film. A. H. Weiler called it "soap opera".  Who the hell is A.H. Weiler.  The New Yorker did not show a review of the film in October, 1962.  [Love their archive].   Interestingly, Brendan Gill, the New Yorker film reviewer at that time reviewed "Long Days Journey Into Night" and hated it.  He criticized the director and all the actors except Jason Robards.  He also didn't like Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo'.  In the current listing of the N.Y. Times Best Movies both 'Long Days Journey into Night' and 'Yojimbo' are listed, 'Lola' is not.
My favorite quote comes from an on line reviewer 'Not Just Movies', Lola "creates a self contained world that gives a softly lit haze to reality as characters constantly aim for each other and miss, sometimes passing within mere inches of each other before carrying on or being redirected."  They gave it an A, and so do I.
It also has Michel La Grand's beautiful: " I will wait for you" throughout.  Yes "I will wait for you" is known for being from "The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg", lyrics by Jacques Demy.  But Lola is part one of a trilogy; "Umbrellas",1964 is two and "Young Girls Of Rochefort",1967 is three.  The same actor/character is in the three films.

I should probably discontinue those side panels 'What I'm Reading' and 'What I'm Watching', because I'm not updating them.
What I've finished reading is "A Long Long Way" by Sebastian Barry.  On the back cover:  "Leaving Dublin to fight for the Allied cause as a member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, he finds himself caught between the war playing out on foreign fields and that festering at home, waiting to erupt with the Easter Rising."  A 17 years of age a Dublin lad experiences World War 1.  "Barry tells the filthy truths of war", Ireland on Sunday.  "Must rank alongside those real-life testimonies of Owen and Sassoon", Sunday Tribune.
After a ten page description of the first mustard gas attack of the war that left me sobbing, Sebastian Barry writes this:
'And winter came in then like a hawk to afright the mice in the fields, like a wolf to test the stamina of his foes.  Like a traveling salesman it brought all its white cloths and laces and spread them everywhere, on murky trench sides, on battered roads on the distant stubbled fields, it laid its stores of lime and frost in little luckless pockets, in turns of earth, it tried to go one better than the spring, giving the girlish trees long coats of glistening white, tenderly and murderously gilding the lily of everything, the autumn's wildflowers bravely putting out a few mad flags of red and yellow.  Thunderously without a whisper it drove the sap back in every green thing such as remained after the long destruction of the warring men."
One fact mentioned in the book that struck me.  Within a couple of weeks of the U.S. entering the war in April, 1917 we lost 300,000 men, dead.

On East 53rd Street:

Clara Bow

Went to the Museum of Modern Art last night for their series on restored films.  It was the first night and the first film was the talkie: "Call Her Savage" with Clara Bow.  It's a wild, funny, touching film and performance.  I don't want to do a plot summary because after the intro to the movie by David Stenn I'm more interested in Clara Bow.  He has written her biography and talked about her career and the importance of this film for her. When she made it in 1932 it was her 52 film in 9 years.  She had left Hollywood years before because of scandals, mostly invented; such as the story that she had group sex with the U.S.C. football team and with her dog a Great Dane.  She includes a scene in the movie of the character she plays wrestling on the floor with a Great Dane.  Clara had a strong temper; she tore up contracts and fought with producers.  Perhaps that's why those stories were given to the press  

Clara Gordon Bow [1905- 1965] was born in Brooklyn in poverty.  She quit school at 13.  Her father was often absent and her mother was diagnosed schizophrenic.  When she was fifteen Clara woke up with a knife at her throat and had to wrestle it out of her mother's hands.  She escaped her life by going to the movies.  In the 1920's 50 million people attended the movies every week, which was half the population.  Clara got some bit parts after winning a magazine contest to be in films.  One of her first pictures was: "Grit", written by F. Scott  Fitzgerald in 1923.  She was an immediate hit.  In 1925 at the height of her career she was in 14 movies.  Within 8 years she made her last film "Hoop-La".
Married to Rex Bell until his death in 1962 [he was a star of Hollywood Westerns] they had 2 sons.  She and her husband left Hollywood and bought a ranch in Nevada.  They kept expanding their property and at one time they owned 600,000 acres, or 25% of Nevada.  In the mid-1940's she was hospitalized and diagnosed with schizophrenia.  She refused help and left the hospital.  Then moved into a cottage in West L.A., refusing to see anyone, family or friends and died of a heart attack at age 60.
Tonight I'm going to see "Lola" introduced by the lead actress Anouk Aimee.   

World weary

That's the title of a Noel Coward song.  It's also appropriate for today's news.

The news is bad

The headline: "Spain recoils as its hungry forage trash bins for a next meal"

Hillary Clinton says:  "One of the issues I have been preaching about around the world is collecting taxes in an equitable manner, especially from the elites in every country ... you know I'm out of American politics but it is a fact that around the world, the elites of every country are making money.  There are rich people everywhere.  And yet they do not contribute to the growth of their own countries.  They don't invest in public schools, public hospitals, in other kinds of development internally."

If class warfare comes I hope they don't burn the buildings, especially the ones on Tenth Street.

Mark Twain's Home.

 

 

Emma Lazarus's Home.

The next WTC being constructed

The day is beautiful

Rainbow in Washington Square Park

And at home: Brotherly Love

MOMA

Boetti's Mappa and Tutti

Every one of these art works are embroidered by hand, needle, thread, little stitches:

This is from his piece 'one to a hundred and back'.  I wanted to show the stitches but needed the zoom and the clarity is diminished when I zoom.

Count the dots.
I like the piece because it reminds me of a piece Frankie did of a stick figure.  It grows and changes just adding one piece at a time.  
There is so  much, but I want to point out that the Tutti piece is made up of many images:

people, glasses, corkscrew, outlines of countries

And the three graces, Euphroseyne, Agalaea, and Thalia [Beauty, Charm and Joy].  They look like they are modeled after Raphael's 'Three Graces'.  It is said to be the first time Raphael painted the female nude front and back.

Abstracts:

Time to renew my membership to MOMA.