The February 3 Frick Sunday concert was given by Calefax, a woodwinds ensemble from the Netherlands. The five musicians played the oboe, the clarinet, the saxophone, the bass clarinet and the bassoon. As if this weren’t enough, they switched to other instruments throughout the evening. It was marvelous fun. The reed quintet enjoyed itself and so did the audience. The pieces ranged from César Franck to George Gershwin.
Calefax at the Frick
CALEFAX
I saw Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War. What’s all the fuss about? I liked the black and white photography and the period quality of post World War ll. The story of two people madly in love didn’t work for me because the woman was a retread of troubled, talented singers. Remember Judy Garland? The man in love meant it. He returned from Paris (de rigueur fifties jazz) and landed in a Polish prison under Soviet rule so he could be close to the love of his life.
Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and san eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder.
Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on adying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old 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.
Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed ?His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook?
Last Wednesday The Mystery Writers of America New York Chapter had its first 2019 meeting. It was lively. No one has ever accused mystery writers of being shy. MWA was founded in 1945. It presents a bust of Edgar Allen Poe to mystery or crime writers every year. Throughout the year there are readings by members at various venues, mentoring programs and scholarship programs. The Communication Committee announced that the club’s newsletter, The Noose, was having its name changed. The associations with the word noose concern some members and so we are changing it to….who knows? A friend suggested Arsenic and Old Lace.
Edgar Allen Poe
I watched Eight and a Half, Federico Fellini’s 1963 fantasy with Nino Rota’s haunting music. It’s glamorous and mysterious as we wander through the past and present with a film director played by Marcello Mastroianni.Eight and a half refers to the eight and a half movies Fellini had directed before Eight and a Half. The black and white images by cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo are stunning. There are parades of course, a Fellini hallmark. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Time has weight it down with immense respectability. Even the Vatican considers it one of the best films made before 1995.
Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder.
Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on adying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old 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.
Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed ?His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook?
The Favorite movie is not my favorite.I know it’s garnered lots of praise: Olivia Colman as Queen Anne is up for an Oscar for gaining a thousand pounds and having an on screen orgasm, courtesy of Rachel Weisz (Lady Sarah). Emma Stone (Abigail, the favorite) rolls her eyes to indicate she’s going to betray Lady Sarah by replacing her in Queen Anne’s bed. Daring, eh? Throw in lots of profanity, 2019 jargon, lovely food and furniture and you’ve got a script. When are we Americans going to get over our fascination with the past and present English royal family ?
So far, Maria by Callas has been the best movie I’ve seen in a long time.
When our government goes back to work…..
Did you know that…
Children of Congress members do not have to pay back their college student loans.
Staffers of Congress family members are also exempt from having to pay back student loans.
Members of Congress can retire at full pay after only one term.
Members of Congress are exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment.
Don’t just sit there. Run for Congress.
Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder.
Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on adying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old 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.
Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner being stabbed ?His hated boss, Captain Dick Holbrook, being a trustee of the Windsor School?Losing his girlfriend to Holbrook?
On Dec. 15, The Frick concert series featured Ensemble Correspondances, 10 singers and instrumentalists who specialize in the music created during the reign of Louis XIV.Just the music for a France beset with financial problems. I don’t think this elegant group will be the poster children for the yellow jackets. In addition to a program, we were each given pages of translations of the various pieces. I’ve never been interested in following the librettos. Around me, the audience was studiously following the text of Constantin’s La Ballet Royal de la Nuit or of the Venetian Francesco Cavalli’s Ercole Amante. Instead, I enjoy the sounds and like to study the different musicians: the extremely elegant director and harpsichordist, the extremely stern viola da gamba player, the extremely handsome countertenor. You get the message. As these musicians perform seventeenth century music and as they tour Japan, China and the U. S. A. are they wondering about their futures?
The Garden and Forest Book Club meets at the Arsenal about once a month nine times of the year. I joined it because I know nothing about gardens and forests. It’s been quite an education. Those gardeners and landscape pros aren’t afraid of hefty volumes. We’ve just finished discussing Victoria Johnson’s American Eden. Ms. Johnson’s main figure is David Hosack (1769-1835). Dr. Hosack was a physician and a botanist. His goal, finally achieved, was to build the first botanical garden in the Republic, the Elgin Botanic Garden. It was later abandoned and became the site of Rockefeller Center. Hosack was the friend of Burr and Hamilton and was Hamilton’s doctor at the infamous duel. Later, Burr fled the Republic with money given him by Hosack.
Elgin Painting at Ny Botanical Garden
Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder.
Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on adying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old 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.
Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at theprestigious 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?
Last Wednesday I went to my first Mystery Writers of America holiday party, aptly called Revels. MWA took over Distilled on West Broadway and it was fun. The late Lawrence Block was honored. There was an open bar and delicious food was offered by a pleasant wait staff. Can you juggle a drink, a purse, a napkin and a skewer with a smile on your face? If so, teach me. Before the party, I had the forever fifteen anxiety that no one would know me or talk to me.What is it about mystery writers? Is it because we have a purpose, writing mysteries, that makes it easy to talk to one another. A common question is what’s your genre? In crime fiction the answer could be police procedural, cozy, thriller, Victorian, hard-boiled, private eye, medical, military.
The Edgars have been presented every year. Named after Edgar Allan Poe, they honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theater.
MWA was founded in 1945. It’s catchy slogan, courtesy of Clayton Rawson, is “Crime doesn’t pay – enough.”
Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder.
Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on adying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old 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.
Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at theprestigious 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?
I’ve written two fan letters in my life. The second one was to Tom Volk, the director of Maria by Callas. Believe me, after you see this movie you too will write Mr. Volk a fan letter. He’s captured perfectly the feelings of the times and culture when Diva Callas reigned. Bel Canto was her singing arena: Donizetti, Bellini (Norma, anyone?) She also sang in the operas of Puccini, Bizet, Rossini, Verdi. Her voice makes me cry. I can hear it in an upscale shop, on the radio, anywhere. The reaction is always the same.
A friend and I went to the Paris Theatre on Fifth Avenue and 58th Street to see Maria by Callas. It couldn’t have been a more appropriate venue. It’s an immaculate movie house that reeks of a bygone NYC fifties flavor. I don’t think anyone under fifty is admitted. Before the mercifully short coming attractions and the featured movie begins, you are treated to the crooning of Dean Martin (Volare) or Edith Piaf (Non, je ne regrette rien).
For years I have known a great artist. His name is Frank Galuszka. He works and lives on the west coast. We met in Rome. He had just completed a Fulbright in Romania. I bought his big nude painting for five hundred bucks, a lot of money at the time, and had to badger him for years to sign it. He did, finally, with a magic marker. Yesterday I received two catalogs of his recent work: VOTIVE: The Art of Frank Galuszka. He continues to paint like a master.
Frank Galuszka’s Nude
Here are two other of Frank’s paintings.
Advice by Frank Galuszka
Rose Room by Frank Galuszka
Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder.
Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on adying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old 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.
Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at theprestigious 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?
Remember I Love Lucy ? I lived it the night of the Friday blizzard. I guess Mayor DeBlasio and Governor Cuomo were so busy giving Long Island City to Jeff Bezos that they didn’t have time to prepare NYC or NY state for the blizzard.
At around 4 pm in Friday I caught a crosstown bus to 2nd Avenue and 57th Street. There, I waited for 100 hours with about 100 people in the rising storm at the bus stop. Finally, one came. We clambered on. I got a seat! The bus moved slowly. Who cared? It was going south. You couldn’t see out the windows because of the mixture of snow, sleet and rain. At 47th Street the bus came to a stop and the driver announced that the bus was not safe to drive in these conditions. We had to get out. The bus driver stood in the middle of 2nd Avenue, arms outstretched to make sure we got from his bus, across the avenue to the ice ladened sidewalk.The cars were playing ring-around-the-rosie. They didn’t obey the traffic lights. No wonder the bus driver made his tough call BUT now what? I figured I had to walk from 47th Street to 14th Street.I got moving slowly. There were mothers wheeling children. I saw a father holding on to three young children. People were crowded into bus stops. I didn’t join them because I figured the busses weren’t running. Who knew what was going on? When I got to 30th Street I saw a man getting out of a taxi. I speeded up and begged the driver to take me home. “Sorry. My meter’s not working,” he said. I assured him I didn’t care and told him I’d pay him $40. He took me home. When I got into my apartment, the toilet was overflowing. Water outside. Water inside. After cleaning up and after a g&t or two, I went to bed.The blizzard roared outside. The wind’s force swept through my bedroom window and slammed shut my bedroom door. It was 2:15 am. I got up and pulled on the bedroom door’s knob. The door wouldn’t open. A plastic exercise band which lives on the knob had caught in the door, sealing it shut. I looked around my bedroom, now a cage, now a cell. All right. I’m exaggerating but it had been a tough day. At least I wasn’t locked in the closet. I emailed a wonderful neighbor who has my keys explaining my predicament and asking her to rescue me in the morning. Of course, she couldn’t, I realized. I had put on the front door’s chain. There’s nothing like fear and a need to go to the bathroom to motivate you. I tore at that exercise band. The door opened, finally.
A busy week. I was at the Frick Collection last Sunday for The Quartetto di Cremona. The musicians played their violins, viola and cello on the “Paganini Quartet” set of instruments by Stradivarious. On Wednesday a friend and I went to Curator Xavier F. Salomon’s talk about Luigi Valadier: Splendor in Eighteenth-Century Rome. Valadier, the son of French parents who emigrated to Rome, lived and died in that city, committing suicide because of debts. I suggest you go to the Frick website and watch on Youtube, Luigi Valadier: Splendor in Eighteenth Century Rome. It’s breathtaking. After that, you have to go to the Frick to savor this extraordinary exhibit.
On Wednesday, my birthday present to a friend was going to the Cloisters and lunch at New Leaf. The weather behaved, brisk and sunny. We wandered from quiet gallery to quiet gallery, garden to garden. A lovely experience and only a subway ride from Manhattan chaos.
Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, 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
An Angel The CloistersThe Unicorn Tapestry, The CloistersA Cloister The Cloister
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.
Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at theprestigious 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?
Yesterday I went to a book launching at the Mysterious Bookshop. Nancy A. Hughes, a fellow Mystery Writers of America writer was introducing her fourth book, Vanished. Because of the torrential rain, there was a small crowd. Nancy was her usual charming, upbeat self. She read from a section of Vanished, Book Three in the Trust series. Kingsley, the mother of the kidnapped baby, has had a tumultuous life in the previous Trust mysteries. In this one I hope
Bedouin Camp
she escapes with her life. The cover leads you into the story. Nancy said that each of her covers includes a clue.
Brief recap: Martin Randall Tours sponsored Palestine, Past & Present, October 15-23. Our leader was Curator Felicity Cobbing who’s excavated throughout the Middle East and who has written extensively about the history and archaeology of the Levant. As I’ve mentioned, we stayed in Bethlehem, Jericho and Jerusalem, exploring the three cities and their environs.
We were in Jericho for two days. On arrival we took the cable car to a 13th-century Greek-Orthodox monastery. Afterwards we had lunch at a Bedouin camp. We sat on soft cushions in a large tent while the men in the camp laid the table and brought in food. We had glimpses of very small children and several pregnant women but were not introduced to them.The lunch was tasty and ample. There were different kinds of chicken, falafel, hummus, pickled vegetables and pomegranates. Nearby was the Bedouins herd of goats. These Bedouin have been informed by the Israeli government that their camp will be shut down.
The next morning, dressed chastely, we went to Qumran caves where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered, then on to a Muslim site of pilgrimage, Nebi Musa. The coach took us to a baptismal site on the Jordan River. I’ve attended Baptist baptisms in Ivoryton, Ct. They were remarkably similar.
Baptismal Site Regulations
We then went to Nablus, the small community of the Samaritans. The ancient Samaritan synagogue is still in use. A young woman and a young man explained their religion and its ties to Judaism. They also explained that there were about 800 Samaritans, fewer women than men. Ukraine women are brought into their community like war brides to marry the young men. The young man took us to the Teper Nacle, a ceiling design of
Jordan River Baptism
different fruits.
Demonstrating the building of the Teper NacleThe Samaritan Teper Nacle
We went to Jerusalem and stayed at the American Colony Hotel for two nights. It’s a charming hotel at 1 Louis Vincent Street, built over 100 years ago by a group of Swedes and Americans.
Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder.
Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on adying 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.
Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at theprestigious 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?
I finally got to the Neue Galerie when it was open. It’s one of those museums with detailed and unique hours of operation.The exhibit many tourists and I were interested in was Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. In addition to being great artists, they both have an agonizing history. They both died in 1918. Klimt made it to his fifties. Schiele, at twenty-eight, died in the flu epidemic. Some twenty years later, Klimt’s work was admired and swiped by the Nazis. Schiele’s work was condemned because he drew the human figure in great detail.
Gustav Klimt, Neue Galerie, Adele Bloch-Bauer
Who knew the Whitney was closed on Tuesday?We arrived about 2 p.m. wondering where everybody was. They weren’t at the Whitney. We had a peculiar lunch in theirground floor restaurant, Untitled. It’s open even if the museum is closed because now every public domain sells food. After a very slim and sleek wait person extolled the Arctic Char Poke and Japanese Pancake we ordered the two dishes. They were tasty if tapas tiny. Their pedigrees were more substantial than the food. It struck us as hilarious. All we had wanted was an open museum and lunch. Instead, we had a near religious experience. We escaped to the nearby High Line, almost deserted because of the inclement weather.
Rated Black: An American Requiem was presented at Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop. Kareen M. Lucas, the writer and performer, was accompanied by a terrific four person choir. Lucas went through the travails of being an American black. Rated Black is part three of a trilogy that examines the life of a black Brooklyn poet. It was rousing and funny. The music was great.
The September 27th Villager has an article on Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done, MOMA’s exhibit about the vibrant dances of the 60s created in Judson Memorial Church’s workshops.It runs through Feb. 3, 2019 and features live performances by the following companies: Deborah Hay, David Gordon, Lucinda Childs,
Gustav Klimt, Neue Galerie, The Dancer
Gustav Klimt, Neue Galerie Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer
Steve Paxton, and Trisha Brown.
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation is a great organization with an unwieldy name. It’s holding a St Denis Hotel demonstration to save the structure today, Saturday,9/29/18 at noon. As much as I hate demonstrations, I’ll be at 11th and Broadway in front of the 1853 hotel. Scary, the way glassy office towers are dominating our landscape.
Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder.
Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on adying 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.
Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at theprestigious 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?
A lovely Sunday: Film Forum twofers: Purple Noon and Strangers on a Train. Alain Delon was gorgeous in the 1960s French version of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley mystery. The Hitchcock was like a much loved story being told to children, this time the children were 50+ and packed the Film Forum. I assume that most of the audience had seen the movie a million times. There were giggles and guffaws when Robert Walker was his most awful Bruno self. Afterwards, a bar on Second Avenue and Thirteenth street to celebrate an Australian friend’s birthday, followed by supper of pork pie, tomatoes.
On one of those ghastly NYC days with humidity 1000 %, a friend and I dove into a movie house with a.c. like a refrigerator and saw Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. It was serious and entertaining. The KKK was presented in its ridiculous outfits. I appreciated the scorn Lee heaped on them and the way their racial slurs were ridiculed.
A shout out for Via Quadronno on East 73rd Street. Ever other Monday I have an early lunch of their beautifully cooked asparagus and divine olive oil.
Early lunch at Via Quadronno
A friend and I took a short walk in Riverside Park. He very patiently explained to me the mysteries of Instagram. Here’s an effort.
Riverside Park
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 adying 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.
Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at theprestigious 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?
