Tag Archives: Miles Davis

New York Mysteries Jan. 14 – Jan. 20

 

On Tuesday we celebrated Ruth Katz’s 100th birthday at the McBurney Y.  Ruth was born on December 31, 2017. Woodrow Wilson was president. All ages, shapes and sizes gathered to honor this example to us all. Ruth takes the stairs, does weight exercises, aqua classes and her mind is functioning at full tilt. The party overflowed with affection and laughter.

Ruth Katz

 

Boo-hoo, the Sunshine Theatre on Houston is closing. Recently, at the Sunshine, a friend and I saw In Between, a movie about three Palestinian women. Directed by Maysaloun Hamoud, it follows the adventures of well educated, professional women who share an apartment. Sana Jammelieh is a lesbian, Shaden Kanboura is a devout Moslem and Mouna Haha is a gorgeous, firebrand lawyer. The director handles the Israeli occupation very well. It’s a cloud over their lives. There are incidences of prejudice but the movie is about these people, especially their love lives. It reminds me of Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead, a biography of Miles Davis. The Blacks deal with prejudice and intolerance but the movie is about the development of the black characters. It’s refreshing and humbling to see suppressed people getting on with their lives in spite of occupation.

Kindness is alive and well in Brooklyn: A friend of mine dropped his iPhone in the street, searched for it without success, called the number from his landline. A man had found the phone and lived nearby. When my friend collected his iPhone he not only thanked the man profusely but also offered him some money for his kindness. The lovely man wouldn’t accept a dime. That’s class.

Graphic Lessons: Recent thirty-five-year-old widow Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a stabbed and dying man in the school kitchen, deals with the only witness to the stabbing – a troubled nine-year-old, develops a crush on a NYPD detective and her dog dies.

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: Something’s eating at NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek: a failed marriage? surviving a car bomb? his girlfriend marrying his corrupt boss? screwing up an important case? It doesn’t matter because he’s relentless.

The Cake Masters
Flower Masters
Where were you in 1917?

New York City Blog – April 17 – April 23

I went to a lovely performance of NYCB George Balanchine’s Jewels. Leave it to Balanchine to be inspired by Van Clef and Arpels and choreograph a three act ballet with each distinct act having the music of a different composer. The music for Emeralds is by Gabriel Faure. Rubies’s music is by Igor Stravinsky and Diamonds’ music is by Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky.What a glorious smorgasbord!
In two weeks I’ve seen two biopics about two brilliant, egotistical musicians who must have been hell to live with. Last week I saw Miles Ahead, the biopic about Miles Davis. This week I saw a companion piece, Born to Be Blue, the biopic of Chet Baker. Don Cheadle as Miles Davis and Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker were utterly convincing as obsessive musicians. I guess that’s what they call acting. Remember the equally convincing Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line? One tiny quibble: no one can sing My Funny Valentine, the song with a tender melody and mean lyrics, like Chet Baker not even Ethan Hawke. Wouldn’t it have been fun to have been at The All About Eve wrap party? Hanging with George Sanders and Bette Davis etc. while Chet Baker and Jerry Mulligan played.

As if you didn’t know, William Shakespeare’s birthday is tomorrow. Four hundred years since his death.

New York City Blog: May 25 – May 31

It was a busy week in  NYC. On Sunday I walked through the annual Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit.It extends from Mercer Street to Fifth Avenue and from North to South the boundaries are East 13th Street and Washington Square South and features crafts, fine art, sculpture, and photography.

 On Memorial Day the Miles Davis’s family celebrated the patriarch’s 88th birthday by unveiling “Miles Davis Way”  with an NYC Block Party at 312 W 77 Street, between Riverside Drive & West End, Davis’s New York neighborhood. Lots of people arrived complete with babies and dogs.
Musicians on Miles Davis's Block
Musicians on Miles Davis’s Block
AT NYCB my ballet fanatic friend and I saw Concerto Barocco, an enchanting classic that debuted in 1961, Other Dances with the divine Tiler Peck. We then sat through Neverwhere, more aptly, Never wear because of the ghastly costumes in the current production or better yet, Never again. It’s a deadly ballet choreographed by Benjamin Millepied. The evening ended on a joyous note: Who Cares?  The Danish principal, Ask la Cour, built like a string bean, danced with the energy of a dynamo.
Fancy Car in Madison Ave.Window
Fancy Car in Madison Avenue Window
My tech advisor and I went to BEA  (Book Expo America), held annually at the Javits Center. By comparison, Times Square is deserted and graveyard quiet. You get the picture. The first order of the day was to find the ladies room down a flight of non-working escalators.  Afterwards, we refreshed ourselves with weak, expensive coffee from a stand that must rake in millions. BUT there is gold in them there pipe vaulted halls. Smiling sweetly at the prison guards who man the entrances we managed to gain entrance to the booths. Lugging and offering copies of my mystery in English and Spanish,
THE LEMROW MYSTERY AND MISTERIO EN EL LEMROW, was much more productive than going to the opening address to indie publishers. We concentrated on Marketing to Libraries and came away with invaluable tips, then on to Book Marketing Strategies and Social Media. After a vile lunch of refrigerated ham and cheese buns we returned to the booths. A long, satisfying, frustrating NYC day.