Amagansett Star-Revue, August 2023

STAR REVUE THE

SAY HI TO A NEW LOCAL PAPER!

Like a migrating algae bloom, a local newspaper that has been publishing on one end of Long Island since 2010 has now floated over to the ancestral summer home of its publisher. We thank you for picking up this first issue of the Amagansett Star-Revue

Yes, we know that there are already plenty of papers that you can pick up for free at the supermarkets around here. But we like publishing papers and we hope to become an enjoyable read for people who love it out here.

When I was a teenager I enjoyed reading The East Hampton Summer Sun. We didn't have the term "laugh out loud" back then (this was around 1970) but rarely could you read an issue without at least seven of those moments happening. Not to mention you learned about cool things going on.

Sometimes you didn't know what was real and what was not real. Not in the nefarious way of today where certain media parrot the delusional falsehoods of this or that politician, but, for example, one time where a scary headline about Nazis landing on our beach, accompanied by Dan Rattiner's drawings, seemed far-fetched. But in fact, he gave us a history lesson, as that did actually happen.

Flying saucers and alien sightings in places such as Watermill were also front page subjects from time to time. Rattiner, who started his East End newspaper kingdom in Montauk as a college student, is still actively writing for Dan's Papers, which is now owned by a NYC newspaper chain. At age 83 he is amazingly prolific, not only in the paper but as a published author of books. You might even know him.

I haven't met him in person, but my Brooklyn paper is a member of the NY Press Association as is Dan's Papers, and he once sent me a very nice note

after I forwarded him one of our issues.

Let me be clear that I have no intention of copying the style or format of the Summer Sun, but it goes without saying that Rattiner has been one of the big influences in my life, along with Jean Shepherd, Peter Parker and the Rolling Stones. My other paper is called the Red Hook Star-Revue and with this paper we've given some of our talented writers another outlet for their work.

I'm hoping that more than a few writing geniuses from this neck of the woods will become interested in also reaching our readers. A paper is only as good as it's writers. If you are interested, or know some one who might be, see our ad on the back page. One thing that's changed from the olden days of newspaperdom is the monopoly it reaching potential customers with the classified ad section. A lot of the local readership of the Village Voice back then were people looking for apart ments. They would learn where the Voice would be first distributed each week to grab a copy and try to snag a place to live. Today's smartphone takes the place of all that. But we may bring back free babysitting ads that the East Hampton Summer Sun used to run. Those ads started my sister on her way to a suc cessful business career.—

George Fiala, Publisher

Celebrating Community

32 Winding Way

Amagansett, NY 11937 gbrook@pipeline.com

Editor & PublishEr George Fiala

FOR EDITORIAL, ADVERTISING OR EMPLOYMENT INQUIRIES, email gbrook@pipeline.com

text or call (917) 652-9128

PUBLISHER OF THE RED HOOK STAR-REVUE,

BROOKLYN, NY

At other end of the Island!

The Amagansett Star-Revue is published monthly, 12 issues per year. Editorial and Advertising deadline is the last day of the previous month.

So far we don't have a web site.

The Amagansett Star-Revue is published monthly and distributed for free in the area.

If you would like us to add you to our distribution list, please call or text (917) 652-9128 and we'll bring some over!

STAR REVUE

Amagansett Library

215 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-3810

Amagansett Public School

320 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-3572

Marine Museum

301 Bluff Road, Amagansett 631-267-6544

East Hampton Chamber of Commerce

44 Gingerbread Lane, East Hampton 631-537-2900

The cemetery across from the tennis court

by Barbara Clements Barber

Editor's note: Ms. Clements Barber actually has no knowledge about this paper, she is an artist who now lives in Arizona. We have taken the liberty of using her fine prose that accompanies one of her paintings of this cemetery. We hope she doesn't mind. It's the most that we have been able to find online about it. We will undertake a more intensive investigation in the future as the cemetery occupies a prominent place in Amagansett, as it is on the way to the beach and across the firehouse and contains a lot of local history.

The first deed referring to Amagansett is dated 1683. By means of that document the Reverend Thomas James sold to Abraham Schlellinger 52 acres of woods by a highway known as Amagansett commonly called Amagansett Way.

The name Schlellinger is commonly found on many of the tombstones in the ancient burial ground. The earliest families who settled in Amagansett were the Bakers, the Conklings and the Mulfords. Alice Baker, who died on February 4th 1708 at age 88, was the wife of Thomas Baker, the first to settle the village.

The great painter, Thomas Moran, painted the beauty of the East End in 1850. When the settlers came to the region the Native Americans greeted them without hostility. The warm reception was largely the result of the friendship between Lion Gardiner and the sachem Wyandanch. Gardiner went so far as to offer himself as a hostage to obtain the release of Wyandanch's daughter when she was

abducted by the Pequots. Amagansett derives its name from the Montaukett name for "place of good water" from a water source near what today is Indian Wells beach. Unlike the rest of the Hamptons, Amagansett was initially settled by the Baker, Conklin, and Barnes families, descendants of English settlers, and the Dutch brothers Abraham and Jacob Schellinger, the sons of a New Amsterdam merchant who moved to East Hampton between 1680 and 1690 after the English took over New Amsterdam.

Many houses and other buildings still stand from the 19th and even 18th century in Amagansett, Montauk, the Hamptons and other Long Island communities.

Community Directory

Places of Worship

First Presbyterian Church of Amagansett

350 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-6404

First United Methodist Church of East Hampton

35 Pantigo Road, East Hampton 631-324-4258

St. Michael’s Lutheran Church

St. Peter’s Chapel

465 Old Stone Highway, East Hampton 631-329-0990

St. Thomas’ Episcopal Chapel

102 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-3080

The Jewish Center of the Hamptons

44 Woods Lane, East Hampton 631-329-6654

Pizza

Fini Pizza Amagansett

Golf

South Fork Country Club

730 Old Stone Highway, Amagansett (631) 267-3575

East Hampton Golf Club

281 Abrahams Path, East Hampton (631) 324-7007

Sag Harbor Golf Course

Barcelona Neck Road, East Hampton (631) 725-2503

Tennis

East Hampton High School

2 Long Lane, East Hampton

East Hampton Town Offices

59 Pantigo Road, East Hampton 631-324-4141

Southampton Hospital

240 Meeting House Lane, Southampton 631-726-8200

486 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-267-6351

St. Peter the Apostle Roman Catholic Church

286 Montauk Highway, Amagansett 631-324-0134

237 Main Street, Amagansett 631-394-5654

Il Buco Al Mare

231 Main Street Amagansett 631-557-3100

Terry King Rec Center

385 Abrahams Path, East Hampton

Herrick Park

67 Newtown Lane, East Hampton

SPORTIME Amagansett

320 Abrahams Path, Amagansett (631) 267-3460

I spent Woodstock in the Maidstone caddy shack

Iwas 16 in the summer of 1969. It was the first summer that my family spent in our new summer home in Barnes Landing. In those days it was considered normal for a teenager to have a summer job, and this summer would be my first. I was excited.

My initial thought was to go to the East Hampton House and see if I could become a bellhop. The idea of earning money through tips was intriguing. However, despite being on the tall side, they weren't interested.

I had started playing golf a little seriously the previous fall when NYC had a school strike and summer vacation was extended through October. A bunch of us decided to spend two or three days a week at the Kissena Golf Course in Queens, a short par 64 public course. Possibly that's what gave me the idea to go to the Maidstone Club to see if I could caddy, something at which I had absolutely no experience except for carrying my own skinny golf bag.

They took me right away. I did feel a little bit an outsider since most of the caddies were local, and I was a summer resident from Queens, and I actually can't remember making any friends. I kind of felt out of place about by being Jewish, so I kept that quiet. I do remember a guy who we called Bridgehampton, you could guess why. I think he went to high school

by George Fiala

with Carl Yastrzemski, the great Boston Red Sox outfielder whose parents were potato farmers in Southampton. Yaz never showed up at the shack that summer—he was busy hitting 40 home runs and playing 162 games.

A round of golf was called a loop, and my first loops were carrying clubs for women club members on the short, nine hole course. That was to the right of the main course, which I think only men played in those days. I don't know how they run it today, maybe it's now called the senior, or just the short course. There were two famous women that I remember caddying for.

One was the writer Helen MacInnes. Well known for writing realistic novels about the Cold War, I still haven't ready any. All I remember is that she had some kind of a British accent. My main task was to make sure she (and all the golfers I caddied for) didn't lose too many golf balls. Her husband, Gilbert Highet, a scholar, was also a member.

The other was the actress Dina Merrill, whose famous husband Cliff Robertson was also a member. I remember her as being tall and skinny. And a good golfer.

A caddy got $4 for carrying a set of clubs on the short course. That includes a dollar tip, which you almost always got. After a while I graduated to the grander 18 hole course, where you could do two loops a day, each time a double, meaning you carry two bags and run from one golfer to the other as they shot their way through the 6,000 or-so-yard course that included holes with water and swampy areas, where you were expected to find and retrieve badly shot golf balls. That's where I made real money. The caddy fee was $6, plus the dollar tip. It was pretty busy in 1969, although I was told that it was busier the year before when the stock market was doing better. Most weekends I did three doubles—Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That meant that I could put away $84 in cash by Sunday night. I kept it all in an envelope on my closet shelf.

I don't remember too much about the members, much more about the

bags. There was one named Ollie. And some Vanderbilts, which even then I knew was a famous family. They were all serious golfers. Part of the job was to track the drives so you could guide them to the second shot. Most hit pretty far. You had to wear a baseball hat so you wouldn't lose the ball in the sky. Some members would break out a flask in the middle of the round.

It was easier to do doubles as the heavy bags balanced out on your shoulders. You would drape your arms over the tops of the bags and it kind of felt like you were wearing armor, or giant epaulets. The bags were well stocked with clubs and balls, and possibly liquid refreshments, umbrellas and extra golf shoes.

I was often asked to estimate the distance of the shot to the green, so I had to learn where all the yard markers were. Even though global warming was yet a thing, it would got pretty hot on the course, and I looked forward to the halfway house, which was a small cabin stocked with drinks and candy bars and snacks. Those were the days of the 6 1/2 ounce cokes in the green bottles, which I loved as they were real cold.

A little ways after that was a hole that overlooked the ocean. Without that hole, you could have no idea that the Club was on the beach. The huge clubhouse and cabins and hedges hid the beach when you drove up the road. That road, which the map tells me is called Old Beach Lane, leads to the parking lot. The caddy shack is next to the lot, in front of the clubhouse, hidden from view by the shrubbery. Mostly it had a bench, which you sat on while waiting for the caddymaster to come in and pull you out for a loop.

I guess that first year my mom would drive me there. I had to be there by 6 am, or you couldn't make two loops. Thank you mom! I sometimes hitchhiked home, which is really hard to believe when you think about it. I would walk down Egypt lane to the highway and stick my thumb out right past the post office. It actually wasn't hard to get a ride in those days, and you never

thought it might be dangerous. Over the years I've met people who went to Woodstock. I love to tell my Woodstock story which took place in East Hampton. There was always a Daily News to read when you got there. The front page one Saturday had a photo of this stupendous traffic jam on the NY State Thruway. Evidently there was a huge music festival happening.

I was pretty surprised, I had no idea that something like this was planned. It's not like I wasn't into music, quite the opposite. Had I spent the summer in the city I might have even thought about going, but not in the splendid isolation of Amagansett as a teenager without a cellphone.

My own Woodstock occurred just about six weeks later, when I experienced my first all nighters. That was at Shea Stadium, waiting on line with my friends for Met playoff and World Series tickets.

It was like a city beach, or festival, with plenty of blankets, and radios tuned to WNEW-FM playing the new Crosby Still and Nash album all night long, with psychedelic looking people drinking and smoking and being in a very peace, love and Mets mood.

In fact, a Daily News photographer showed up and I got on that back page under a headline "Mets Plot Playoffs."

The front page of the Daily News that I read in the caddy shack that day.

The caddy shack today. I'm told caddys make $150 per bag for 18 holes. (photo by Fiala)

Amagansett in Pictures

Past & Present Side by Side

Our library represents 102 year of caring

by George Fiala

There are a number of things to appreciate about Amagansett. One is the well kept public bathrooms in the middle of the huge free public parking lot, with electric car chargers even. Another is the historic and well maintained library right in front of the parking lot.

For whatever reason, even though I've been coming out here for over 50 years, I have never spent much time in it. I always admired the tree in front of it. I did a little research and found a photo of it on the library's Facebook page with the caption: "Our stunning Camperdown Elm Tree planted by Dr. Frederick A. Finch in 1907."

Many years ago I worked in Brooklyn for a newspaper called the Phoenix and we used to write about a famous Camperdown Elm tree that was given to Prospect Park in 1872. The tree

grew from a branch brought over from Scotland.

It was made famous by the poet Marianne Moore who led a campaign to save it in 1967. It's a memorable tree both in Brooklyn and right here by our library.

Now, with an article to write, I walked in and was struck right away by the pleasantness of the two women in the front who were very happy to greet me and everybody into what is in realty somewhat of a sacred place.

I went upstairs where I saw a room set aside for quiet thought and another for tutoring. Downstairs you had a newsstand's worth of current magazines, including esoteric ones such as Foreign Affairs, and also newspapers for anyone off the street to relax and read.

Like many libraries, there are continuing events such as art for kids and yoga for adults. What struck me, a newspaper guy, were the large bound volumes of the East Hampton Star, some dating back to the 1940s. I'm a sucker for newspapers and especially back issues since that's where you get the best history lessons. I'm looking forward to future

issues of this paper where I can write about the monthly board meetings that hopefully I'll be able to attend in person, but in the meantime the minutes are all available on their very well done website.

The Community Quilt commemorating 100 years of the library created by a wide range of locals and visitors hangs permanently in the community room.

Old East Hampton Star ads found in the bound volumes are fascinating. This one is from 1970.

The library is housed in a building from around 1780.

Some of the bound volumes of the Star found throughout the library. (Photos by George Fiala)

Books for Asparagus BeachFrom Murakami to Ferrante

by Kelsey Sobel

Theterms “summer reading” “beach reads” or even “guilty pleasures” are frequently tossed around in July and August. These terms conjure different images and ideas - the dreaded mandatory summer reading for reluctant students, the splashy / trashy cover of a romance with sand stuck in the pages or maybe the various media platforms where you can find lists such as this.

For me, summer reading evokes leisure time, an hour or maybe even two of uninterrupted reading. Leisure time means you can read at a faster pace; immerse yourself completely in a book. You want a book where you don’t have to work too hard.

So, what is the ideal “beach read?” I believe the perfect formula is a mix of: Literary without being too taxing on the mind.

Absorbing and accessible to a wide audience.

Below are my recommended summer reads - books that will draw you in without demanding that you do too much work, books that you can’t wait to finish. And hey, if you’re reading anything in 2023, you’re doing well.

My Struggle by

Karl Ove Knausgaard

The Neapolitan Quartet

by Elena Ferrante

A fun way to approach summer reading is to try a series. I read all four of these books in close succession since I was so compelled by the plot and drawn to the complexity of the novels, especially the vivid portrayal of a friendship over the course of sixty years. If you missed these books back when they came out in 2011, they are highly worth the time investment. Although possibly more attractive to a female reader, the books do closely examine post war Naples, Italy, and cover political upheaval, murder, disappearances, martial strain, etc. The HBO adaptation also received excellent reviews if you’re looking for summer TV.

These fascinatingly detailed and bulky books, totaling six in all, first came out in English in 2012 and were hailed as a literary sensation around the world. When I explained the basic premise of the series, my husband asked, agog, “Why would you ever want to read about some guy’s life?” and this series is truly that - a highly nuanced and sometimes shockingly mundane description of Norwegian writer  Karl Ove Knausgaard’s daily life, spanning from boyhood to fatherhood. However, the high quality of the writing and living within Knausgaard’s inner world is an interesting and rich place to be. This series is certainly not for everyone, nor do you need to read all six. I certainly found something simultaneously addictive and moving within the pages. I highly recommend starting with book one and seeing how you fare.

The Witch Elm by Tana French

If you’re not already a fan of the Irish murder mystery writer, Tana French, you should be. Her most recent novel, although dense, (clocking in at 528 pages) manages to straddle the fine line between literary fiction and plain mystery. Over the years French has written seven books, all set in Ireland. You can’t go wrong with any of her novels

- a personal favorite is her first, In the Woods, but The Witch Elm skillfully combines a modern family drama with the unfolding mystery of a skeleton found in the garden and includes a fair bit of Irish colloquialisms like “gaff” to keep you entertained.

A Woman In the Polar Night by Christine Ritter

This aptly named and wildly underrated book by Austrian writer Christine Ritter is a detailed travelog turned novel of a year spent on the remote Norwegian island of Svalbard in 1933. Ritter deftly captures the psychological strain and wonder of living in a one room cabin with her husband - while also braving several weeks alone without any sunlight or human companionship while he hunts. Her affection for

the haunting beauty of the landscape and the terrifying cold is tangible to readers and provides a bright juxtaposition to the menaces of modern society. If you’re looking to “beat the heat” this slim novel will transport you to a land where you’re happy to be eating dried seal meat.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

If you’ve never read a Murakami novel, summer is the time. After reading The Wind Up Bird Chronicle a few years ago, I average at least one Murakami per year. The mystical, magical, surreal worlds he creates draw you deep into the novels, eagerly turning the pages - as long as you’re comfortable with generally inexplicable oddities such as manipulations of time and sexual perversions. Norwegian Wood, written in 1987, to critical acclaim in Japan, contains a simpler plot than later novels, as well as far fewer pages than his other books. A true love story with the right level of mystery, the book also features some characteristically steamy sex scenes as well as a good dose of tragedy. If you’re ok with crying on the subway or at the beach, try Norwegian Wood

The Future is Now! The Singularity is Nigh! And the Singular HER is Now Our Era’s Cinematic Urtext.

All the hand wringing and doomsaying around artificial intelligence — in tools like ChatGPT, Bard, DALLE, and Midjourney — has made for some lazy movie comparisons. AI is like Skynet in the Terminator movies! These chatbots are a few dataset away from becoming 2001’s HAL 9000! We’re all destined to be mindless slug consumers controlled by corporate AI run amok, like the humans in WALL-E!

Our civilization is on the precipice of an AI apocalypse! Unless it isn’t. These are just tools, after all. Maybe they’ll just augment our work and lives in ways that edit out the rote and mindless. It’ll probably break on what venture capitalist is throwing the money around. (We’re doomed!)

What is clear, though, is that the cinematic analog for our time isn’t Terminator 2 or The Matrix or Ex Machina but a film less outwardly dystopian and more deceptively gentle and twee: the 2013 sci-fi dramedy Her

Written and directed by Spike Jonze, Her is what you might get if you asked ChatGPT to concoct a Philip K. Dick-style speculative sci-fi romance in the vein of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and then run that text through Midjourney with the prompt to give it the look and register of Lost in Translation. That’s of course a wholly unfair and reductive way to introduce one of the most original films of the last decade. But it speaks to how prescient it is — even if it felt, 10 years ago, like we had a little more time for Jonze’s future to become our present. Set in the unspecified “near future,” Her is situated around the most mundane of plots — a lonely, socially-awkward guy going through a divorce finds love, and himself, in the place he least expects it — which Jonze tilts toward the (seemingly) absurd — the love our lonely hero finds is his computer’s AI-powered operating system.

Joaquin Phoenix, at his hangdog aginghipster best, is the guy, Theodore, the best personal-letter ghostwriter on staff at beautifulhandwrittenletters.com. (In a nod to dystopias domestic and Kafkaesque, the receptionist, played by a very young Chris Pratt, IDs Theodore as Letter Writer 612.) Scarlett Johansson, heard but never seen, is the sunny, sympathetic, sassy, and sensual voice of Samantha, the personality Theodore’s OS takes when he installs it. They chat at first via Theodore’s computer speakers, then primarily through a tiny earpiece Theodore addictively wears as he gets hooked on Samantha. (It’s disconcerting

by Dante A. Ciampaglia

to me that his earpiece bears a striking resemblance to my Jabra Elite 75t earphones. And that when I saw the film in 2013 I swore I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing something like that. Oops.)

Samantha helps Theodore organize his life and emails; he takes her on adventures by letting her “see” the world through his tiny phone’s camera, poking out of his shirt pocket. They have long, encouraging conversations that expand both of their existences.

They’re, ahem, intimate — well, more like they “cyber,” as us OG netizens used to call it. (Or maybe it’s just good oldfashioned phone sex.) And they form a real relationship — insofar as a human man and a hypersophisticated algorithmic voice assistant can be in one — that makes them both happy until, inevitably, everything crashes.

In lesser hands, this is all a big goof. And, in fact, it is pretty funny. But we never laugh at the movie or its characters. There’s no judgment here, from Jonze or anyone inside the film. When Theodore’s friend Amy (an excellent Amy Adams) and, later, Pratt’s receptionist learn he’s dating his OS, they accept it, celebrate it, and find the impulse normal. The only one who openly rejects the arrangement is Theodore’s lazily shrewish ex-wife Catherine (Rooney Mara). (Catherine is the one achingly underdeveloped piece of the film.)

Indeed, Theodore and Samantha’s relationship is crafted as, in its way, the natural evolution of relationships. At least for a time. All the human romantic partners we meet — Catherine, Amy’s feckless husband Charles (Matt Letscher), Theodore’s blind date (Olivia Wilde) — are broken, selfish, troubled. (The sole exception is Pratt’s girlfriend, who we barely get to know.) A non-judgmental companion looks like heaven in comparison. Never mind that the partner is just a disembodied voice, or that the human operators engage in the same toxic dominance behavior they’re retreating from. It’s only at the end, when a kind of mass OS enlightenment causes the entire network to become sentient and disappear to form its own, I guess, community (uh-oh, here comes Skynet!) do Theodore and Amy — who has her own deep, possibly queer, relationship with an OS — realize the power and necessity of human-to-human contact.

This is deep, heady stuff, and it’s unlike

anything that came before. (Jonze deservedly won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Her.) But watching it now is a different kind of head trip because of how much it anticipates.

There’s a scene at a carnival, where Theodore takes Samantha on a date, and she guides him close-eyed around using

shot in part in Shanghai, which helps.)

And in 2049, perhaps the most provocative moment is when Joi, the Replicant K’s AI companion, hires a Replicant prostitute so she can merge her holographic form with this other woman’s physical body to have a tactile sexual experience with K. It’s a wild, indelible scene — and when I saw 2049 I completely forgot Her did it first.

his phone camera and gets him to do stuff like spin around and act goofy. We see all this from her point of view — this is, slightly degraded phone video — and the parallels to TikTok are undeniable. When Theodore installs the OS1, Samantha’s official product name, he asks how she can be what she is. “Basically, I have intuition. The DNA of who I am is based on the millions of personalities of all the programmers who wrote me,” Samantha replies. “But what makes me me is my ability to grow through my experiences. So, basically, in every moment I’m evolving, just like you.” If ChatGPT could talk, it would say something similar. And, of course, there’s the whole relationship-with-an-AI thing. In late March 2023, the Washington Post ran a story about users of the Replika app building deep, meaningful, human bonds with chatbots only to see them disappear in a system upgrade.

There are also more mundane prognostications. Theodore asks Samantha to sift through his ghostwriting for spelling and grammar, an AI feature found literally anywhere we type now. There are massive screens in public places and super-immersive video games — hello advertising industry of the 2020s and the metaverse. Those tiny earpieces are everywhere. And everything in the film’s future Los Angeles has the slick, uncanny sheen of a waxed-linoleum future, which can be seen in today’s global network of homogenous megalopolises and feels like a power-washed and sanitized update of Blade Runner’s neon-rain-soaked L.A.

Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic dystopian film, and its 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049, are actually interesting comparisons because, often, it feels like Her looks back at the former and points to the latter. For instance, the original imagines L.A. in a world dominated by Japanese commerce and aesthetic; Her updates the reference point to China. (The film was

In Jonze’s film, Samantha hires a woman from an OS “surrogate service” to have a physical encounter with Theodore. The woman wears an earpiece and facialmole-sized camera to give Samantha a corporeal presence and become “real” for Theodore. It doesn’t go well. It also raises all sorts of ethical questions, from hiring an “OS surrogate” (which will surely be a real thing in the not-too-distant future) to what constitutes “real” when it comes to this couple. It’s a question that slaps Theodore in the face when, later, Samantha tells him that she’s also talking with 8,316 other people — and in love with 641 of them. “I’m yours and I’m not yours,” she says.

Could there be any more appropriate sentiment for our technological present? We rely on subscription services for everything from apps to streaming services to controlling our car’s seats. Tyler Durden famously quips in Fight Club that the things we own end up owning us. It’s a quaint sentiment in 2023, when our ability to actually own anything is increasingly dependent on paying monthly ransoms to software companies. Our phones and TVs and cars could easily say to us, “I’m yours and I’m not yours.” If only they gave us the kind of joy and satisfaction Samantha provides Theodore. One thing I unequivocally own is a Her Blu-ray. Good thing, too, otherwise I’d be dependent on where it’s streaming at any given moment. (Currently it’s available on YouTube, Amazon, Google Play, and Apple TV, but that will shift and change in time.) And it’s a film that is worth revisiting often. Like the best sciencefiction, it has a lot to say about where we were (circa 2013) and where we’re headed. I’m not sure Jonze or anyone else involved with the film expected us to get to a rough draft of its world quite so quickly. But now that we’re here, it has become a cinematic text as vital to making sense of our present and future as Blade Runner or The Matrix or The Truman Show or, yes, Terminator 2 But if heavy philosophical lifting and existential angst aren’t your thing, that’s OK. Her is also one of the best romantic dramedies of the 21st century. And a lot of fun to watch — with a partner, a friend, or your best AI chatbot.

Her is what you might get if you asked ChatGPT to concoct a Philip K. Dickstyle speculative sci-fi romance

Sonic revival. Concert performances by Sonic Youth were glorious things— transcendent, intoxicating, very nearly overwhelming. Sound systems and synapses couldn't always handle them but the energy transference was reliably powerful. The band played what is commonly referred to as its last show on the Williamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn on August 12, 2011. They actually went on to play already scheduled festivals in South America which, by at least some accounts, lacked the luster of their usual shows. But the Williamsburg date was their New York goodbye, and for a band that was conceived in and always celebrated the city, it’s maybe OK if the lore outweighs actual history. I saw them many times, going back to sometime in the mid ‘80s, but sadly missed their New York farewell. I’m glad, though, to get to experience it a dozen years later with the issue of Live in Brooklyn 2011 (out August 11 on double LP and double CD from Silver Current Records and digitally a week later from Goofin’) and to discover what a proper send-off it was. They start off strong with “Brave Men Run (In My Family)” and “Death Valley ‘69” from 1985’s Bad Moon Rising and continue with “Kotton Krown” (Sister, 1987), “Kill Yr Idols” (from the 1983 EP of the same name) and “Eric’s Trip” (Daydream Nation, 1988). Not to get all “I like your old stuff” but it’s great to hear the band reach back to songs they’d long since dropped from their setlists. They follow that with another surprise, two cuts from 2009’s The Eternal, after which Thurston Moore announces “When we started rehearsing two days ago, we decided to go, like, super deep, so it’s been a while since we played some of these.” And indeed, a couple more from Bad Moon and “Tom Violence” from 1986’s EVOL follow. In all, they play 17 songs, 11 of them from before their 1990 big label breakthrough. The two encores include 1985’s “Flower” and a glorious 9 minutes of “Inhuman” from 1983’s Confusion is Sex. The songs aren't good because they’re old, it’s how much they put into them 20 years after

writing them and how fantastically tight they play them, how in control they are of their mayhem. That’s not entirely due to drummer Steve Shelley, the unsung hero of the band, but he’s a big part of reigning in the running wild guitars. He sounds great and the mix is clear and clean. Other archival Sonic Youth albums have been exciting; this one is essential.

Bush Tetras Live On. With their singles “Too Many Creeps,” “Things That Go Boom in the Night'' and “Can’t Be Funky,” Bush Tetras were a key component to New York’s post-punk, following the dance grooves, incendiary guitar and uneasy lyrics coming out of England. Their scattered discography was pulled together on the 30-track Rhythm and Paranoia in 2021. In a bitter irony, just before the set’s release—and as they were beginning to discuss a new album—founding drummer Dee Pop died unexpectedly. Guitarist Pat Place and singer Cynthia Sley persevered with the able support of Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, who worked with them in the studio to complete the songs and then produced the album. They Live in My Head (LP, CD and download from Wharf Cat Records out now), is only the third full-length release in their long history. It has a harder edge, some of the tracks even sound a bit rote rock, but there’s enough there of what made them great to make it work. In “Walking Out the Door”—at five and a quarter minutes, the album’s longest track—Sley dishes sardonic attitude over a solid groove before the song dissolves into an oddly catchy, mysterious and slightly dubby second half. Other songs are more straightforward, but Place’s guitar sears throughout. (RB Korbet of the original lineup of King Missile handles bass.) It’s good to kmow that, after more than 40 years, they’re still dancing through urban fear.

Reminiscing in mascara and a bikini. Seventy-one years of age might be a bit outside the statistical norm for a debut album but even so, Sally Potter is anything but a slacker. She started making films at 14, went on to study dance and choreography, was a member of London’s Feminist Improvising Group in the 1970s and worked as a singer and lyricist with Lindsay Cooper (Henry Cow, David Thomas and the Pedestrians), notably on the 1991 album Oh, Moscow. She wrote and directed the 1992 film Orlando, for which she also co-wrote the score, and wrote the score and sang for her 1997 The Tango Lesson. Pink Bikini (self-released for download and streaming services on July 17) is a promising start for a new career. It’s an album looking back at life, at youthful mistakes, but not with regrets. There’s a confidence to the record, and also a bit of weariness, that calls to mind Marianne Faithfull’s mature albums (which is no faint praise, few people who aren’t Tom Waits can claim to have recorded a definitive version of a Tom Waits song). The songs are all Potter’s, with able accompaniment by guitarist Fred Frith (also of Henry Cow back in the Swinging London days) and a largely acoustic band of guitar, double bass, harp and percussion. On the closing track, Potter sings with a hint of pride to her younger self: "So dance, dance, dance girl dance / Hear your body singing / Your eyes wide open / Look, your life is beginning.” It’s like she’s singing through time, imparting wisdom to the woman who lived the life she’s writing about now. One suspects that dancing girl got the message.

#IYKYK Dolly Parton’s 2002 album

Halos & Horns included a cover of “Stairway to Heaven” that was a far cry more convincing than her recent reworkings of Heart and Queen but setting that aside, one thing’s for sure: give her an award she doesn’t deserve and she’ll damn well set about earning it.

"Seventy-one years of age might be a bit outside the statistical norm for a debut album but even so, Sally Potter is anything but a slacker."

The Way We Wore

Review of “J.C. Leyendecker: American Imagist,”

by Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler

Review by Michael Quinn

What are you wearing as you read this? A shirt from Under Armour? Leggings from Lululemon? Sneakers? Flip-flops?

A hundred years ago, the world was different, and we dressed differently. But it was around this time that advertising first started to get a lock on the nation’s consciousness and influence what people wanted to wear through the power of a well-placed image—a spell we are still under.

We’re so bombarded with images these days that it’s hard to remember (or imagine) a time when a picture was something special and rare. Think of how many you’ve seen today alone, waking up, scrolling through your phone. This abundance should feel like an embarrassment of riches. Why, then, can it feel so overwhelming?

Around the turn of the 20th century, this craziness began. Magazines popped up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Their eye-catching covers depicted illustrations of gorgeous people in gorgeous clothes. These images established aspirational ideas about how to look, how to live, and what to value.

One of the most influential tastemakers of the early 20th century was a German American artist named J.C. Leyendecker (1874–1951). His technical skill was masterful, his compositions methodical, and his aesthetic phenomenally romantic. In his work, we see the origins of the “All-American” ideal. The men he painted are athletic but elegantly dressed, with thick necks, chiseled jaws, and gleaming, perfectly parted hair. In off-the-shoulder furs and tight taffeta gowns, his women are long-necked, slender creatures with springy curls and downcast eyes. The work is very “Great Gatsby,” and there is some speculation that Leyendecker, who knew author F. Scott Fitzgerald, might have inspired him with his own ragsto-riches mysterious past.

Leyendecker came from nothing and rose to the top of the heap. He was a branding pioneer (creating the “Arrow Collar Man,” a hunky yet refined “man’s man” sex symbol designed to sell shirts) and, through the 322 covers he created for the Saturday Evening Post, the prototypical influencer. It’s because of Leyendecker that we associate New Year’s with a baby, Mother’s Day with flowers, and the Fourth of July with firecrackers. He was worshipped by Norman Rockwell (whose fame eclipsed his), yet unlike Rockwell, he worked with live models, not from photographs. And unlike Rockwell, who was something of a media hound, Leyendecker was notoriously private and requested his papers be burned upon his death. Little is widely known about him.

An exhibit at the New-York Historical Society (Central Park West and 77th Street) provides an important clue about why. “Under Cover,” guest-curated by Donald Albrecht with coordination by Rebecca Klassen, is a small and powerful show of Leyendecker’s paintings. In one, we see an attractive woman surrounded by men. She leans over a ship’s railing to catch the eye of one of them—who’s slyly looking at another man. Today’s audience will recognize things in these paintings that the intended audience did not: homoerotic overtones. Leyendecker’s most prominent model and muse, Charles Beach (1881–1954), was his life partner of nearly 50 years. The men were gay at a time when that wasn’t an allowable public identity. This is why Leyendecker kept a low profile—and perhaps the reason his

name isn’t so well-known today.

“Under Cover” is a gem of a show that runs through August 13. The museum’s bookstore was out of copies of a related book, “J.C. Leyendecker: American Imagist,” by Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler, but it’s worth getting a copy from your local bookstore. Published in 2008, this oversized hardcover is a delight for the senses. The authors, founders of the National Museum of American Illustration in Newport, Rhode Island, pull from a collection of over 1,300 images from the “Golden Age of American Illustration” (1895–1945) to help us understand how Leyendecker’s work continues to influence and inspire us today.

We learn more about Leyendecker’s background through the Cutlers’ meticulous research. Born in Germany, one of four children, he went by Joe. The J.C. allegedly stood for “Jesus Christ”—perhaps a way for the family with Sephardic Jew ancestry to throw off the wolves before the family emigrated to Chicago. Joe was closest to youngest brother Franz (known as Frank), who was also gay and phenomenally talented but couldn’t stomach the artistic compromises commercial work demanded: “I despise myself for doing them, although I HAVE to do them,” he later complained to a sympathetic model. A drug addiction later derailed Frank’s career, eventually cutting his life short.

Joe apprenticed at an engraving house as a teenager and took night classes in art. He and Frank saved up to study in Paris with Alphonse Mucha, founder of the art nouveau movement. ToulouseLautrec’s posters of can-can girls were all the rage then, seeding an idea in Joe about the power of commercial art. The Cutlers write that he “believed his greatest impact as an artist was creating images easily reproduced, immediately recognized, and broadly distributed.”

The brothers moved to New York, and their careers took off. Beach showed up at their door one day, looking to model. Standing 6’2” with huge shoulders, massive biceps, and a tiny waist, he stood in marked contrast to the sallow and serious-looking Joe (the Cutlers call him “physically unimpressive”), who recognized Beach as his ideal and spent years documenting his magnificent physique. Beach, in turn, helped manage Leyendecker’s studio and career and kept sycophants at bay. (Rockwell resented the men’s closeness, calling Beach “a real parasite—like some huge, white, cold insect clinging to Joe’s back.”)

The perspective of Leyendecker’s paintings is sometimes from below, so the heads look small and the hands look huge, emphasizing brawn over brains. (Flip through the book, and you will agree: there is no better painter of hands.) Leyendecker allegedly smeared his models with oil to capture the glean off their well-defined muscles and chiseled cheekbones, but watch what happens when he wants your eye to pay attention to the clothes in an ad. No matter how gorgeous the model is, your eye goes right to the clothing. Everything is illuminated to magnificent effect.

Speaking of clothes, the New-York Historic Society sells a few articles inspired by the show in its shop. You can find them online too. While some of the selection (snazzy hats and bowties) befit a dandy, the most prominently displayed shirt is undoubtedly the most popular and says the most about how we dress now. It features two of Leyendecker’s beautiful, beautifully dressed men from a more beautiful time… on an oversized orange tank top.

"The men he painted are athletic but elegantly dressed, with thick necks, chiseled jaws, and gleaming, perfectly parted hair."

Archival recordings are tricky to think about critically, in no small part because the contents of any artists archives are always interesting and desirable to fans, and that fan enthusiasm makes criticism irrelevant for most of the people who would even consider buying them. And reader, I am one of those fans—as one example, Miles Davis’ album In a Silent Way is substantially superior to The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions, but I’m a Miles fanatic and so will sift through the rehearsal tracks, alternate takes, unreleased material, any and all of that to obtain even a crumb of insight into the great master’s thinking. My fellow fanatic, I see you. There’s been a good handful of notable archival (re)issues this summer, all of which will appeal to fans, and all of which should be considered critically because the stature of the artists—and the consumer’s budget—demand it. The most prominent of these are Evenings at the Village Gate (Impulse!), a previously unreleased live set from John Coltrane’s quintet with Eric Dolphy, and Changes, a seven-CD box that collects the albums Charles Mingus made on Atlantic during the 1970s, his final recording period before his 1979 death from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Voices From The Past

by George Grella

pedal tones; Dolphy’s tangential, extended harmonic concept was the kind of complement that reinforced each artists’ greatness.

The tape was made by engineer Rich Alderson, who apparently recorded it as a test of the club’s new sound system, and then ended up in the archives of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, before its recent rediscovery. As an accidental album it has that exciting edge of hearing the musicians playing live, without thinking about making a recording (the Vanguard sessions were planned), and it also has an awkward—though clear—mix, with Elvin Jones’ drums directly in front and Dolphy and Coltrane at various distant points in the background.

The playing is as fine as one would expect, although Coltrane defers to Dolphy, who really dominates here. Coltrane doesn’t shrink away and is strong, he just gives Dolphy the majority of space and time. What makes this a little bit more than a supplement to the Vanguard recordings are two details, one being they play the standard “When Lights Are Low,” which is unexpected and sounds like they’re using it to take a little breather, and the 22+ minutes of “Africa,” the only nonstudio recording of the piece. Coltrane fans will want all this—they should— but the more casual listeners won’t need to add it.

That was one of the four or five greatest groups in the history of the music, with an extraordinary range of musical

expresses both swing and a glowing humanity. Recorded in 1959, this sounds as current as anything newly released, and the expanded edition has improved sound, puts the tracks in original sequence, and includes a whole second CD of alternate and bonus material. One of the great jazz albums is now even better.

The lesser-known (or at least lesserpromoted) albums are Mosaic Records’ latest limited-edition set, The Complete Sonny Clark Blue Note Sessions, and Jazz in Silhouette—Expanded Version, by Sun Ra and his Arkestra (Cosmic Myth). What will probably surprise both fans and casual listeners is that the first two releases are less than essential—though any and all fans will be pleased—while the latter two are not just superb but will expand most listeners knowledge and understanding of these artists, which is the highest praise that I can give to archival recordings.

Evenings at the Village Gate comes from the same era, and has the same ensemble, as Coltrane’s Village Vanguard live recordings (ideally The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings on Impulse!, an essential jazz document), but this set comes from August of 1961, while the Vanguard music was recorded the first week of November that same year. This was a vital transitional year for Coltrane who was moving deeply into dense, drone-like playing over

That’s even truer for Changes, which is a must for fans (raising my hand) of one of the greatest American composers and musicians, but not something anyone else will want, or perhaps even enjoy. This was Mingus’ second stint with Atlantic, where he made such fantastic albums as Pithecanthropus Erectus, Blues and Roots, and Oh Yeah! in the ‘50s and ‘60s. For these, Mingus had a new core band; right-hand man drummer Dannie Richmond was there, with younger musicians pianist Don Pullen, tenor saxophonist George Adams, and trumpeter Jack Walrath.

That was a good band! Pullen and Adams were volcanic improvisers who went on to be important artists, but

there’s nothing that could recreate Mingus’ mid-‘60s group, with Dolphy, trumpeter Johnny Coles, tenor player Clifford Jordan, and pianist Jaki Byard.

personality and with the leader himself willing and able to change direction in a nanosecond. These Atlantic albums just don’t have that same inventiveness or outrageousness, and Mingus’ himself is mellow, seeming content. And that’s how a lot of this music sounds, content, satisfied with where it is and, except for when Pullen starts bashing the keys or Adams screams through the horn, glad to stay that way. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s not compelling. There are two exceptions, good and bad: the good is Cumbia and Jazz Fusion, originally meant as a film score but an intriguing record on its own, with surprises in the details; the bad is Three or Four Shades of Blues which has Mingus revisiting great material like “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” at Atlantic’s bequest. The label shoved guitarist Larry Coryell (and others) into the session, and it is one of the worst mismatches in music history, with Coryell’s Mahavishnu-John-McLaughlin-like shredding shitting all over the brilliance and subtleties of Mingus’ composing. The new edition of Jazz in Silhouette is an easy recommendation. This was and remains one of the cornerstone Sun Ra albums, and with this and the collected Singles (comprehensively reissued by Strut) one would have a complete introduction to what Ra was all about. Jazz in Silhouette has originals and standards like “‘Round Midnight” and “I Could Have Danced All Night,” and in style embraces straight big band charts, mystical cosmology, and avantgarde excursions with equal weight and a warm, transparent charm. To Ra, music was just music, nothing was weird (that was for squares), and everything

Last but not least is the Clark collection. He was a mainstay house pianist for Blue Note during the hard bop era and made nine albums for the label, only five of which were released during his short lifetime (he died in 1963 at age 31 of a heroin overdose). He’s often remembered for the great, slinky, funky themes he composed, like “Cool Struttin’” and “News for Lulu,” the last a major inspiration to John Zorn. Heard piecemeal on his own albums or as a sideman, he always sounds solid but not outstanding. Listen through this set and his playing comes through—he was hard swinging, bluesy, and also elegant and subtle, so he really shines through extended exposure. The Blue Note albums are bookended by Dial “S” for Sonny (1957) and Leapin’ and Lopin (1962); the former is solid but formulaic, the latter has good material but the frontline of trumpeter Tommy Turrentine and tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse doesn’t mesh. But in between is a run of terrific albums that are exemplars of the Blue Note sound. There’s a set of tunes recorded for 45 rpm singles with bassist Jymie Merrit and drummer Wes Landers, and they are exquisite; “Gee Baby Ain’t I Good to You” and “I’m Just a Lucky So-And-So” are gorgeously plainspoken and bluesy. The Blues in the Night trio date, with Paul Chambers on bass, is also terrific, and Sonny Clark Trio (Philly Joe Jones is the drummer) is another great piano trio album. Cool Struttin’ has long been a favorite for non-jazz listeners because of the classic album cover, the music is even better, strong and elegant, and the My Conception album, with trumpeter Donald Byrd and tenor man Hank Mobley, is simply one of the finest hard bop albums ever produced. For giving the listener the chance to hear how smart, deep, and hip Clark was, this set is a major testament and a demonstration of how important and enjoyable an archival release can be.

"I’m a Miles fanatic and so will sift through the rehearsal tracks, alternate takes, unreleased material, any and all of that to obtain even a crumb of insight into the great master’s thinking."