NYMysteries Aug. 19 – Aug. 25

It’s been one of those weeks where I am grateful I don’t own a house: a bookcase’s shelves collapsed, the Verizon landline was once again not working, and the toilet …I’ll leave it to your imagination. 

We Judsonites are decking the halls of MOMA. There’s The Maria Irene Fornes documentary, The Rest I Made Up. This morning I received the MOMA member calendar for Sept. and Oct. On page 6 there’s an article about the Judson Dance Theater plus photos of Trisha Brown and Anna Halprin.  Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done has member previews Sept. 13-15. 

Do you think the Guggenheim is lively, fun, glamorous? I do.  A friend Giacometti at the Guggenheimand I went to the Giacometti exhibit. The museum was teeming on Sunday afternoon. Like the Pantheon, the Guggenheim has an oculus. It’s great fun to watch visitors snapping the oval ceiling before starting to walk up the ramp or hop into a tiny elevator. The exhibit was beautifully displayed. Has an other artist concentrated on skinny sculpted figures like Giacometti? 

I signed up for Joyce DiDonato masterclasses. My friend suggested we go to the first and last masterclass to see the progression of DiDonato’s students. 

Joyce DiDonato

 

 

 

Crime and Punishment is at IMF. It tells the brave and true story of how minorities are treated in the NYPD.

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned a murder case at the  prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed while Kulchek was buying cigarettes? Escaping an attempted car bombing?  His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?  Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook? 

Graphic Lessons: What do a teacher, a nine-year-old and an eighteen year old have in common? Murder. Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old, the only witness to the stabbing and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man..

: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie. 

NYMysteries    Aug. 12 – Aug. 18

Writers Digest Conference 2018 was held at the Hilton. It was well organized and the staff were very helpful. I think there are more writers than readers. Estimating how many people were at the conference, I’d say between 800 and 1000. Pitching was amazing. You had one hour, 90 minutes with each agent to sell your story. Waiting to begin was like waiting for your own execution but once in the enormous, well organized room it went smoothly. Lots of good suggestions: Don’t wait in a long line. Find an agent with a short line and talk to her. Make sure you approach an agent who’s interested in your genre. There were signs over each agent’s desk describing his interest. Writers Digest had provided us before hand with a layout of the room, the names and specialties of the agents and their photos. In addition there were excellent discussions about craft, the business of publishing and lots of opportunities to speak to other people. It was an intense, wonderful experience. Well done, Writers Digest!

 

Don Swanson’s Landscape

The Frick Staff Art Show on Frick’s Staff Day was terrific. Two examples are Don Swanson’s Landscape Marbleized paper

Lorenzo De Los Angeles

and Lorenzo De Los Angeles’s Like the gilt-bronze mounts by Jean Godille …paper, mat board, glue, paint sold tissue, crushed glass and acrylic medium.

 

 

Writers Digest Pitch Line in Back of Me
Writers Digest Pitch Line in front of me

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned a murder case at the  prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed while Kulchek was buying cigarettes? Escaping an attempted car bombing?  His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?  Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook? 

Graphic Lessons: What do a teacher, a nine-year-old and an eighteen year old have in common? Murder. Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old, the only witness to the stabbing and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man..

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Mary Jo Robertiello

http://www.nymysteries.com

NYMysteries Aug. 6 – Aug. 11

It’s been a busy week in hot and humid NYC. 

The annual Frick Staff Education Day was held on Monday.  Emma Capron, the 2016–18 Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow and an authority on Netherlandish art, gave a talk and slide show on The Charterhouse at Bruges: Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christius and Jan Vos. It was a tasty preview of the special exhibition opening on September 18. There were a variety of activities for Staff Education Day: a discussion about the future of the Boucher Room, a demonstration of sun printing and painting faux marble. Shadow profile portraiture was a popular activity in George Washington’s time. This activity ties in with the current Canova’s George Washington exhibit. Participants created their own examples.  There was also bowling. Let us not forget that in the early 20th century no mansion was complete without a bowling alley. The Frick’s is a beauty – all polished wood. The Staff Art Exhibition, Exquisite Corpse, was a knock out.

A friend and I visited the Morgan Library. After a very tasty lunch of cold soup, deviled eggs and delicious pinot grigio, we went to Morgan’s wonderful library on the first floor.

J. P. Morgan’s Library

On Friday I went to the first of three days of the Writers Digest 2018 Conference. Today was  dedicated to query letters. Janet Reid has been educating and terrorizing writers for years. QueryShark.blogspot.com. is where she lays down the law about writing in general and query letters in particular. Her talk was witty, biting and cogent. Paula Munier gave an interesting session on Beginnings: Your first 10 pages. There was lots of talk about pitching i.e. selling your story to an agent in 90 seconds. Tomorrow, I do it. Groan. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned a murder case at the  prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed while Kulchek was buying cigarettes? Escaping an attempted car bombing?  His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?  Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook? 

Graphic Lessons: What do a teacher, a nine-year-old and an eighteen year old have in common? Murder. Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old, the only witness to the stabbing and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man..

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Mary Jo Robertiello

http://www.nymysteries.com

NYMysteries – July 28 – Aug. 4

July 28 – Aug. 4

Back in NYC after three glorious weeks in Portland, Or. I’ve been making my yearly sojourn for a long time. When I first went to Portland, the temperature was a perfect 72 degrees and no humidity. Since then it’s climbed. This time at least seven of the days were 95 degrees. Nothing like experiencing global warming to know it’s not a figment of the imagination. 

 

 

Portland Zoo Concert:
I said it was crowded.
The Portland Zoo Concert

We went to a Saturday night concert at the Oregon Zoo. It was packed. The Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’ Band strummed and sang for about two hours to the delight of the enormous crowd. We were armed with beer, wine, corn dogs and  umbrellas/parasols to ward off the before mentioned global warming. 

Table talk. For years I’ve spotted portable tables with at least six people racing around Portland. It’s the Peddle Club. 

People sit around a table equipped with pedals and peddle their table through Portland while they drink great Portland beer and wine. I’ve been told that it exists in NYC but I’ve never seen it in action.

 

 

 

 

 

The Peddle Club

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned a murder case at the  prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed while Kulchek was buying cigarettes? Escaping an attempted car bombing?  His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?  Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook? 

Graphic Lessons: What do a teacher, a nine-year-old and an eighteen year old have in common? Murder. Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old, the only witness to the stabbing and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man..

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Mary Jo Robertiello

http://www.nymysteries.com