February 2nd: R. I. P. Philip Seymour Hoffman. The last movie I saw him in was A Late Quartet. He and the other wonderful actors created the impression that they were highly skilled musicians who had been playing together for years. Hoffman was buried from St Ignatious Loyola, another man who had his own terrors. Although there were many mourners present, not one carried the coffin. Instead, it was carried, I guess, by minimum wage employees of Frank Campbell.
New York City Blog Jan. 26 – Feb. 1
stand in a long line. Secretly, I was relieved that we decided to forgo the pleasure and instead ate a delicious Chinese meal with not a vegetable in sight.
New York City Blog Jan. 20 – 25
On Martin Luther King Day I went to MOMA. I’ve haunted that place since childhood and have always felt rejuvenated by its buzz. The video, Dante Ferretti: Design and Construction for the Cinema, follows the long, illustrious career of Dante Ferretti, the Italian production designer of sets and costumes. You’ve seen his work unless you just arrived from Mars. He’s worked with Pasolini, Fellini, Scorsese, Coppola and garnered slews of awards. He’s claustrophobic. He thinks it’s because of U. S. bombs hitting his house when he was about three. His mother searched among the rubble for days until she found him. In the garden/sculpture court stand two of Ferretti’s Archimboldo figures. They’re named after Giuseppe Arcimboldo, the 16th century Italian painter who painted weird portraits that consisted of fruits, vegetables, flowers.
Do you get installations? Me neither. As long as I don’t have to fund them or explain them, I can enjoy the experience for about ten minutes. Isaac Julien’s Ten Thousand Waves weaves traditional Chinese myths with a contemporary tragedy. It’s shown on nine double sided screens suspended from the ceiling of MOMA’s Marron Atrium. The spectators and yours truly sprawled on cushions and couches on the floor below. It would make a great pajama party.
New York City Blog Jan.13 – Jan.19
Since I write crime procedurals, I’m always interested in new crime fiction. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson are kicking up their heels playing Louisiana detectives in HBO’s True Detective. McConaughey plays the big cliche´– the loner who speaks the harsh truth, no family i.e. dead child, lives for his work and never, never smiles. Harrelson plays the old Southern boy who keeps a smiley face lid on everything. You know what? It works. These two actors are character actors and they are great together. Also, the script is witty. It helps that it’s set in Louisiana, reinforcing our northern suspicion that deeply southern states have lower standards of morality than we do. (Forget about bridge gate. HE didn’t know anything about it.)
“Seize the hilltops!” These words, encouraging settlers’ land grabs, were yelled by the late Ariel Sharon after the signing of the Oslo accords. As I listened to Joe Biden making one of his high school speeches larding praise on Arik, King of Israel, I wondered about the lack of coverage of the Palestinians’ reaction to the death of the Monster. Was he partially responsible for the massacre of civilians at Qibya in 1953, then at Sabra and Shatila in 1982? We’ll never know from American media.
I accompanied a gardener friend to the Arsenal in Central Park. It’s a brick building that predates the park and was built between 1847 and 1851. Originally, the Arsenal was an arms and ammunition storehouse for the New York State Militia. We attended a discussion about Russell Page’s The Education of a Gardener. Fascinating to enter a world about which I know nothing and to listen to people who dedicate their lives to preserving the Earth’s earth and the complexities that involves.
New York City Blog Jan. 5 – Jan. 12
New York City Blog Jan. 5 – Jan. 12
New York City Blog Dec. 29 – Jan. 4
Welcome to a snowy day in NYC.
Two complicated men this week:
New York City Blog Dec. 22- 28
New York City Blog Dec. 15 – Dec. 21
New York City Blog Dec. 15 – Dec. 21 :
At BAM on Dec. 19 to see “The Nutcracker” music by Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky and choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky. Sarah Lane and Joseph Gorak were wonderful, BUT the set of the party in the mansion looks as if the owners were in bankruptcy and the lighting was too dim. What happened, Jennifer Tipton? Before the performance we had dinner at Junior’s. Such fun. It’s the Brooklyn of the 1940 -1960 era. Photos of movie stars of a certain age decorate the walls. My chicken pot pie could have fed a family of four …. buffalo. My friend’s intention of ordering a salad morphed into a Reuben sandwich. Who can blame him?
New York City Blog: December 8 – December 14
It’s a giddy time of year, isn’t it? Christmas and its contenders crowd the calendar with parties, concerts, sing alongs and … traffic. I had reserved a car from 777 to take me from Manhattan to Brooklyn and it was canceled twenty minutes before I was due to leave. The reason given? No cars. “No problem,” said the 777 rep as she hung up. What a way to run a business.
“All that Glitters” is one of the lovely Christmas events. It’s held at Judson Memorial Church. Stanford White’s building is decked out in Victorian lights that suit its late nineteenth century architecture. The West Village Chorale, led by Michael Conley and Elena Belli, outdid themselves. They shifted effortlessly (after a mere one million hours of rehearsal) from traditional carols to fourteenth century Irish music, to Benjamin Britten’s lovely Ceremony of Carols and then on to Hollywood numbers such as “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. Director Conley excused himself for not including Hanukkah music by pointing out that most
contemporary Christmas carols were written by New York Jews i.e. “The Christmas Song” and “White Christmas”.