TheModernMay2012V1N8

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May 2012 • Vol. 1, No. 8

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your life in retro

Mama, Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away The End of Film

Steve Ward’s Tough Love Susan Blakely Girl On Film Don Draper’s Car Radio Ben Lyons • Fotomat • Legend of Zelda

Lucy Woodward’s Jazzy New Direction

c ntents T h e M o d e r n — Yo u r l i f e i n r e t r o In this issue:

Cover Story The End of Film

Mama, Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away Too late: digital killed the film star.

The Great Forgotten: Photography Songs Say “cheese:” musical candids of the pre-digital era that will make you “smile.”

Retro Merch: The Kodak Disc Camera Just shoot me: a clunker camera ruins Kodak’s pretty picture

Here and Now

Steve Ward:

The host of the hit VH1 series Tough Love shows us that it’s cruel to be kind.

Ben Lyons:

the busy entertainment journalist applies old-fashioned family rules to excel in the digital age.

Reconnecting

Susan Blakely:

the successful model and actress discusses some of her more memorable roles and amazing life.

Girlie Action

Lucy Woodward: our rockin’ gal jazzes up her act.

On the cover: Naoumie | Q

By Design The Butterfly Chair Winging it in the Fifties and Sixties Model Bartenders Recommend Pull up a stool and let these stunning servers mix it up.

Radio Ga Ga Don Draper’s Car Radio is a Turn On The year: 1966. Draper’s road opens up, and so do his musical choices.

On Off-Broadway Pipe Dream: this revival is not exactly smokin’.

On Broadway The Evita revival: does it work?

Postcards from the Edge Collecting vintage postcards — including one from F. Scott Fitzgerald!

Girls Were Girls & Men Were Men Nick Nolte: Bad mug shot aside, this mug did pretty well for himself.

Ode To Joysticks The Legend of Zelda This visually stunning game proves the potential of the art form.

Dig This DVD ABC After School Specials These sensitive one-hour dramas left an imprint on the brains of a generation.

Internalize This

Turning Japanese

Adventures in Modern Sound

Parting Shot: Jimmy and Kristy MacNichol dance. We repeat.

Jimmy and Kristy MacNichol dance. In 1978!

letter from the editor

Now All I’ve Got is a Photograph America has its own legacy of ancient pyramids. The abandoned Fotomat drive-through kiosks are looking for a few good entrepreneurs.

At its peak in 1980, there were over 4,000 of them. They thrived as a one-stop shop for camera film development and supplies. These huts sported pyramid-shaped roofs and were usually erected in suburban mall parking lots. They required a minimum amount of land and space (great for franchisees) and accommodated that swinging automobile owner on the go. Its employees — mostly chicks — were called Fotomates (guys were labeled Fotomacs). Their uniforms were royal blue pantsuits (polo shirts for the fellas). Without the usual fear of rejection, many a lonely customer found a trapped, Fotomat-bound mate or mac a great way to have conversation with someone with lots of time on their hands (no cell phones, no texting, no iPads then).

Fotomat’s selling point: one-day film development. Drop off your cartridge, and pick up your pictures the next day. What killed it: one-hour film development, which was offered by chains like Rite Aid and CVS. Desperate to stay alive, Fotomat tried video rentals (at $12 per title), but by 1982, local video stores, with lower prices, beat the pantsuits off of Fotomat. Of course, the bell-bottom also tolled for thee.

By the millennium, thanks to digital photography, Fotomat was no more.

Its architecture, however, lingers on. Kiosks have proven successful in struggling shopping malls, so a smart cookie with a great idea can take an abandoned Fotomat structure and sort-of run with it (hey now there’s an idea: how about a cookie kiosk?). Or a locksmith?

How about an advice guru (“The Doctor Is In.”)?

A resurrection of abandoned Fotomat kiosks would only prove what this magazine always says: everything old is new again, and reinvention is as pretty as a picture.

Ron Sklar Editor

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Yo u r l i f e i n r e t r o .

Editor • Ron Sklar | Art Director • Jennifer Barlow | Copy Editor • Patty Wall Contributing Writers: Silvan Carlson-Goodman • Desiree Dymond Eve Golden • Jay S. Jacobs • Mark Mussari • Jack Rotoli • Tim Kraft • Art Wilson Photography: Harley Hall

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i n f o @ t h e m o d e r n . u s

You read about it in The Modern.

Now own it…feel it!

Ya feel me?

Kodachrome – Paul Simon

Girls on Film – Duran Duran

Turning Japanese – The Vapors

Mp3 download CHEAP!

Mp3 download CHEAP!

Mp3 download CHEAP!

After School Specials 1974-1976 North Dallas Forty -Nick Nolte DVD CHEAP!

DVD CHEAP!

The Legend of Zelda -Nintendo Videogame CHEAP!

here and now: steve ward

Steve Ward’s

Tough Love The host of the VH1 hit explains how it’s cruel to be kind.

“I don’t think we’ve learned anything from success,” claims VH1’s Tough Love host Steve Ward. “We’ve learned everything from failure. So if you have the courage to accept the fact that maybe you’re the problem, and if you were to do things differently, you might invite different results. I think that’s the best place to possibly begin.”

So it begins. Again. Tough words from this tough guy who breaks down the girls and makes them cry. But it’s all in the name of Tough Love, the smash hit series that gets to the root — and it’s a bad, withered, decayed root — of why love and endless dating doesn’t work for some women. The goal: weed out the bad habits, the bad attitudes and the bad karma. Plant a new field and sow a new crop. And rejoice in the new harvest, before millions of viewers. Amen.

“It’s really cathartic,” Ward says of his show’s unblinking method of examination. “It’s about breaking these women down. Getting them to admit their responsibility, their part of the share of the blame. And then to forgive them for it and give them the opportunity to redeem themselves by practicing virtues and techniques and skills that let them become the woman a guy would want to be in a relationship with.”

It must be working. The show is in its fourth season and Ward, a former model and mortgage broker who started a matchmaking business with him mom, JoAnn, has become the go-to relationship advice guy. No psychobabble. No bullshit. It’s actually simple.

“Love is a connection,” Ward says. “Love is a bond between two things. I have a love of snowboarding. I have a love of art and music. And I have a love of people, romantic and platonic. It’s a real, pure connection. And you don’t really feel any threat that will come to you as a result of this thing, whatever it may be.”

This understanding of love gets tested in a new way, in the show’s exotic and unusual New Orleans locale.

“It’s a departure from what we’re used to,” Ward says of

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this season’s backdrop. “New Orleans lets us really showcase how different dating is from Miami or LA. New Orleans is so unique. It’s unlike anything else in the country.”

As well, the tough love gets tougher as increasingly sophisticated technology becomes more pervasive (and intrusive) in our lives.

He says, “There is more noise than ever before. There is more distortion of that connection due to the use of information technology and the fact that it’s evolving so vastly. It’s actually forcing sociological change that really supersedes our biological instincts. Technology itself is beginning to personify all of our strengths and all of our weaknesses.”

“

We’ve learned everything from failure.

So if you have the courage to accept the fact that maybe you’re the problem, and if you were to do things differently, you might invite

With the removal of the former stigma of internet dating, a new culture, with rules both sensical and nonsensical, have sprung up and added to the mass confusion.

“We are getting more and more opportunity to meet people than ever before, simply because they are photogenic,” Ward says of digital dating. “Twenty years ago, when you didn’t have the worldwide web or mobile apps, you had to go out and rely on chance and just meet people in public and word of mouth. It was a lot more labor intensive to attract the attention of possible suitors. So now our instincts have to change accordingly. We have to adapt in our technique and our skills and what we know, and use them to our advantage when it comes to forming relationships.”

But how? How? By watching Tough Love, of course. And taking notes.

different results.

I think that’s the best place to

”

possibly begin.

Steve Ward

Find out more about Steve and Tough Love here: www.vh1.com/shows/tough_love/season_4/series.jhtml Find out more about Steve’s matchmaking service, Master Matchmakers, here: http://mastermatchmakers.com www.themodern.us

May 2012 | The Modern

here and now: ben lyons

Ben Lyons The busy entertainment journalist applies old-fashioned family rules to excel in the digital age.

By Ronald Sklar

Roars Ben Lyons gives Jennifer Lawrence of The Hunger Games as a prime example of how he aims to be the best in the biz.

“When a movie like that comes out,” he says, “Jennifer Lawrence will do 500-1000 interviews, if you add them up over a month.

But for someone like me, it’s like, how do I stand out? How do I get them to give me a genuine answer?”

Fair questions for this entertainment journalist, who is currently on-camera for Extra and working for Russell Simmons’ hot website, The Global Grind. It’s in his blood: his grandfather was the legendary Leonard Lyons, whose man-about-town New York Post column, “The Lyons Den,” ran for 40 years and 12,000 columns. His father is the respected film and theater critic Jeffery Lyons.

“I learned from my dad the value of research,” he says. “It’s by doing your homework and being professional and honest, to ask that one question that [celebs like Jennifer Lawrence] are not going to hear anywhere else.

They’ll stop for a second and they won’t give you the stock answer. It’s just being comfortable and honest in the moment. A good way to do that is by doing your homework. I really pride myself on that, to be the most prepared and the most well-researched person at the interview.”

He was born and raised in New York, and was a fanatic for sports and hip-hop. And, of course, movies.

“I grew up in a house where movies were respected and revered,” he says. “I would want to watch the latest Adam Sandler movie, but

Dad would say, ‘that’s fine, but let’s watch a Hitchcock movie too.’ So I grew up as a normal kid watching what normal kids do, but at the same time falling in love with Hitchcock and Coppola. I was watching a lot of stuff that probably a lot of kids wouldn’t look out for.”

He calls LA his home base now, where he has taken up the very un-New-York-like golf.

And yet, he’s learned quickly that these days, the job is on the road. He just returned from the London set of the new Ron Howard movie, Rush. He’s also produced a short film called Alekezam, about jazz icon Hugh Masekela and his son, which is being featured at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Yet, although times and technology change, Lyons stays true to the beat and the high standards of his famous grandfather.

“I try to conduct myself by the same moral code,” he says. “It’s very difficult to do in 2012.

[My grandfather] won the trust and confidence of a lot of people. He didn’t out people.

He didn’t report who was drunk or on drugs.

I’m the same way. Your personal life is your personal life. I care about your work. I know a lot of these people socially, and I don’t share secrets. The climate for celebrity journalism and the expectations have changed dramatically.”

At the same time, he works hard to keep it real, as in not Hollywood phony.

He says, “If I go into every interview saying, ‘your movie is great,’ then my word is bullshit and nobody respects that kind of person. Actors know often when a movie isn’t good, and if I’m honest then people respect that more so than hearing what they want to hear.”

Follow Ben at http://benlyons.tumblr.com and on http://globalgrind.com.

Find out about his film here: http://www.tribecafilm.com/filmguide/alekesam-film41195.html#.T4rXIumXRqw The Modern | May 2012

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The Modern | May 2012

Copyright Pam Barkentin Blackburn 2009

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reconnecting: susan blakely

Susan Blakely Girl on Film Über-successful model and actress Susan Blakely shares with us some memorable roles — the most important role being her amazing life.

Modeling I arrived in New York when the “All American Look” was at the height of its popuIarity. Cheryl Tiegs had been on the cover of Glamour magazine for almost two years straight. I went to Ford on my first day and they sent me right over to a Clairol commercial, which I got. So they signed me.

I was never drop-dead gorgeous. In some of those old pictures, with the lighting and everything, of course I looked great. My mother was not vain at all, so I didn’t grow up with that sort of value attached to my looks. I’m grateful for that.

Early childhood I was rather studious as a kid. I actually loved learning and I was always reading.

My later interest in acting probably started from the joy I got losing myself in the characters I read about. My dad was a career U.S. Army officer so we moved frequently from town to town, base to base. It prevented me from making long-term friendships and made me very shy. We didn’t have a TV and rarely saw a movie.

High School I went to four different schools after junior high. One in Korea, one in Hawaii and one in Pennsyvania. You often hear models talk about how they were unpopular in high school. Like everyone, I had trouble believing them but in my case it was really true. Kids already had their cliques and most boys wouldn’t ask me out.

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Transition to acting I started studying acting right away, but back in those days there were only a few models who did, like Lauren Hutton, Jennifer O’Neil and Ali McGraw. I loved doing commericals and had a lot of them airing at the time. An agent at The William Mor-

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reconnecting: susan blakely ris Agency had seen me in a highly popular series of Canada Dry commercials. It was such fun. I played “Baby-Face.” I had lines like, “It’s the ginger ale with the jolt! — It’s got real Bang Bang Flavor!” I wouldn’t sign with them because I wanted to just study for at least a couple more years. I remember that he got furious and said to me, “Do you know who we are?” I was literally that green about the business. But eventually I signed with them. Thank God. Saved from myself.

later I learned that she was a close friend of Harv Bennett, who was the [RMPM] producer. She had seen me in Report to the Commissioner and told him that he had to see it. He did and that’s how he came to request me. Still my favorite acting story.

She was actually a composite of four characters from the book by Irwin Shaw and she aged from 17 to 40. It was the best role any actress could wish for.

Once again, I really lucked out.

The Lords of Flatbush I recently ran into one of my favorite directors, Quentin Tarentino who was a huge fan of Lords. It

The Towering Inferno I was so lucky. Not just to be able to work with but to get to know them. To have lunch at the Apple Pan with Bill Holden and share popcorn and beer with Paul Newman.

Believe it or not, having not grown up seeing movies, I knew Fred Astaire was a famous dancer but to me he was just this really sweet guy. We would hang out and talk and he was amazingly humble. Sometimes after a take, he would even come over to me and ask what I thought of his performance. He probably wasn’t used to people being that comfortable around him.

Then, one weekend there was Fred Astaire retrospective on TV Of course, I was stunned. He was incredible to watch. Moving across the screen with more grace than I had ever seen in nature. His acting was so effortless. I returned to the set so star-struck that I suddenly could barely talk to him. True to form though, after hearing why I had turned so shy, he put me at ease again. It was like dancing.

“

My mother was not vain at all, so I didn’t grow up with that sort of value attached to my looks. I’m

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grateful for that.

Susan Blakely

was so bizarre to hear him quoting all of my dialogue from Lords of Flatbush, a film that I had made in 1973. We almost got into a tiff because although I think the film was great, I wish my work was better, that I had more experience. He was adamant that I was wrong and angry at me for putting down my performance. What a weird predicament. I didn’t want to disagree with a master and I certainly wasn’t fishing for compliments but I was as tenacious as he was and neither of us could let it go. Fortunately, since he also remembered every detail about my work in my next film, Report to the Commissioner, which I liked too, our “tiff ” ended peacefully.

Rich Man, Poor Man I never really had any idea how I got the role until years later when I ran into Carol Burnett, one of my idols, shortly after [Rich Man, Poor Man] started airing. She said to me, “Oh, you ruined my Monday nights!” I couldn’t believe that Carol Burnett was staying home to watch a show that I was in! Years The Modern | May 2012

The Bunker (playing Eva Braun opposite Anthony Hopkins, Emmy-Winning role as Hitler) I don’t think I realized, when I took this role, what it was going to entail. Of course, I was elated to work opposite Anthony Hopkins. Working opposite Hitler was a different story. As I started to research my role, it affected me more than I ever thought was possible.

I was literally sobbing sometimes reading about the history. But since I believe a lot of the Germans had to have been sheltered from the brutal truth of the Holocaust, and I could see that Eva could have been easily naïve and I could play it as if she didn’t know.

Like many Germans she obviously thought that Hitler was a great man, their savior. So basically she was elated to marry what she thought was the most important man in the world and even impressed by the honor to get to die with him.

How to take a good picture Think of someone you love dearly (like your dog or kitty). www.themodern.us

pretty picture

Polaroid’s Last

Flash

By Ronald Sklar

What a sad thing that the model Polariod has gone the way of the dinosaur, replaced by digital cameras.

Polaroids of models have been around as long as modeling agencies themselves. They were used to show clients what models look like, stripped down in all respects, without all the glitz and the glamour, without the super, soothing help of makeup artists and stylists.

This was the model in purest form, in the bleak, real light of day. This was the clay before the mold.

A “new face” would be presented by Polaroid first. A model just getting off the bus would be seen by clients by way of Polaroid, before even their first photography test, before even their first visit to the client’s office.

The most miraculous models would book jobs right off their Polariods! This was rare, but it happened, and it was uncanny.

A model Polaroid was the real deal. The client would see the model at his or her very basic best, usually with as much skin as possible. Blemishes and all.

Photoshop was not a factor.

Of course, every smart modeling agent would do everything to market the model as effectively as possible, including taking dozens of Polaroids until the shot was right.

The act of taking a Polaroid picture of a model was akin to a sexual act: the Polaroids would be spread out on a table or on the floor, the images developing in an opposite fade, slowly building to a climax of ectasy. The anticipation of how the shot would turn out was the stuff of legend, to see for real if the model’s raw sensuality would transfer to film.

A home-run Polaroid was money. It was a clear indication that the model had a future. There is nothing like a model in a slam-bang Polaroid.

Polaroid film was not cheap. Agencies would usually charge the model for the film they used on them. Sometimes not.

Polaroids often served a sentimental purpose. There was a nostalgia about seeing a model in his or her first photographs, before the cynicism set in and the rollercoaster ride began.

It was almost as if you were looking at baby pictures.

The logic of technological progress makes sense, of course, as Polaroid gives way to digital. With digital’s ability to tweak and correct, and to light and to edit, we have all become superstar photographers. It’s a wonder that it took this long to become a reality.

Still, digital can’t replace that fresh pack of Polaroid film, that blank canvas on which a model was made.

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Greens of summers

Mama, Don’t Take My Too late: Digital Killed the Film Star.

On June 22, 2009, Kodak announced that it would cease production of its Kodachrome film line, citing declining demand. The last Kodak-certified film lab to process Kodachrome was Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas. On July 14, 2010, it was announced that Dwayne’s developed the very last roll of Kodachrome film, for photographer Steve McCurry, who was on assignment for National Geographic magazine.

Since introduced by Kodak in 1935, this complex process became the go-to technique for print media, professional photographers and even cinematography. In 1973, it became the title subject of a hit Paul Simon song, and its name was leant to Kodachrome Basin State Park in Utah.

Before the digital age squelched it, Fujichrome and even Kodak’s own Ektachrome eroded Kodachrome’s market share. But it was the ease and technical wonder of digital photography, mostly after the year 2000, that made Kodachrome as nostalgic as the billions of photos it had produced.

Introduction by Ronald Sklar Camera descr iptions by Jack R o to l i Photography by Harley Hall www.harleyhallphotography.com

All the world’s a sunny day

Nice, bright colors

Kodachrome Away

Argoflex Seventy-Five Manufactured by Argus, the Argoflex Seventy-Five was in production from 1949-1958. This camera had its viewfinder on top. Dad held the camera outfit at his waist, and looked down at his kids, his wife, his now-classic car, or indiscreetly at that babe in the background.

Model: Gina | Ford www.themodern.us

May 2012 | The Modern

Brownie Starmite The Kodak Brownie Starmite, with built-in flash, produced 3.5-inch square prints.The Starmite satisfied shutterbugs through most of the Sixties. I got mine at a flea market in the Nineties, still holding its flashbulb — no film though.

Model: Francesca | Fusion

The Modern | May 2012

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Brownie Fun Saver The Kodak Brownie Fun Saver 8mm movie camera hit the market in the mid 1960s. My dad had a set-up of four spotlights as he filmed our antics.

Later, we’d watch reels of film of me and my sister shielding our eyes.

Model: Dennis | Q

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May 2012 | The Modern

Brownie Hawkeye You can still get film for the Brownie Hawkeye(!), Kodak’s molded Bakelite model (1949-1960). I may have to give it a run. I still have a roll somewhere — from about 1976 — that I never got developed. Fotomat mailed it back to me with a note, “Are you serious?”

Model: Anders | Bella The Modern | May 2012

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Duaflex IV After getting their pictures taken, Kodak’s DuaFlex IV had kids chasing the flash’s ‘blue dot’ from the late 40’s into 1960; and when that bulb popped out, it was smokin’ hot!

Model: Anouschka | Q

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May 2012 | The Modern

Brownie The Brownie’s Flash was sold separately and added a whopping buckand-a-half to the camera’s original $5.50 retail price. Back in ’49, that was a chunk of change, but today you could find a good used one at a flea market for about $7!

Model: Faina Reinhardt The Modern | May 2012

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Polaroid Polaroid’s cameras have frozen moments in time since 1948, both during the shot and after. We all stood and stared in amazement as we watched the instant prints develop before our eyes.

Model: Spencer | Fusion

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May 2012 | The Modern

Instamatic 44 Easy to load with single-shutter speed, the Kodak Instamatic 44 (’69–’73) conveniently placed its viewfinder way off to the side, directly under your left hand. I used one of these on a trip to California and have rolls and rolls of my left pinky.

Model: Thomas | Q The Modern | May 2012

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Anscoflex II The Anscoflex II hit the scene in ’54, and was probably on-hand at my parents’ wedding. I got mine at a farmers’ market in Berk’s County, PA. After an hour-long history lesson from the photographer’s widow, both about the camera and Berk’s County, PA, I walked away with my find for about a buck.

Model: Brendan | Q www.themodern.us

May 2012 | The Modern

Music and photography have had a long, prosperous union — and not just because the cute Beatle found his soulmate in film heiress Linda Eastman. So now, as digital photography wipes away those girls on film, let’s take a look back at some of the great songs revolving around film and photography.

The Modern | May 2012

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the great forgotten

“Kodachrome” – Paul Simon

The theory in my elementary school was that this song became such a huge hit because Paul Simon used the word “crap” in the lyrics back in the days when it was absolutely verboten to curse in songs.

(Paul, that was so gangsta!) However, that is not giving this song its total due. “Kodachrome” is a smart and catchy pop song that is somehow able to insert the somewhat clunky product name seamlessly into its lyrics. Not only does Simon name check the Kodachrome film, but he also gives a shout out to Nikon cameras. www.youtube.com/embed/SExsuRIGAlg

“Girls on Film” and “Skin Trade” – Duran Duran

“Girls on Film” opens with the sound of a whirring camera shutter and ended up soundtracking thousands of fashion shoots or catwalks. Simply enough, the song celebrates the elemental rush of photographing a gorgeous woman, but it also makes some surprisingly harsh judgments on the dehumanizing and exploitative side of fashion photography.

The song is also historic because of the groundbreaking video, which showed topless models oil wrestling on a large pole. This got the song banned from MTV, but a legend was born. The Durannies returned to the modeling well with their scathing 1987 single “Skin Trade,” a song just as good as “Girls on Film,” but sadly much less well-remembered. www.youtube.com/embed/gudEttJlw3s www.youtube.com/embed/oNU61nS0TTY

“Picture” – Kid Rock featuring Sheryl Crow

Occasionally, when Kid Rock isn’t pounding malt liquor and rock-rapping about cowboys and sex, he will record a reflective song. And, strangely enough, those mellow ballads tend to be the Kid’s biggest hits.

“Picture” was written and recorded with singer Sheryl Crow, a melancholic countrified look at a couple who have grown apart and now live far away from each other. Every once in a while they look at pictures of

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each other and wonder “what if?” The song became Kid Rock’s biggest hit, but when Crow’s record label refused to allow the song to be released as a single, Rock had to re-record it with country songstress Alison Moorer. Despite the fact that this was the official single version, most radio stations still played Crow’s original album duet. www.youtube.com/embed/rKFx0MMqb48

“Photograph” – Ringo Starr

Remember back when it looked like Ringo might have the biggest post-Beatles solo career? Most people don’t, but the Starr rocketed out of the box, with a solid one-two-three punch of “It Don’t Come Easy,” “Back Off Boogaloo” and this song — his first chart topper. “Photograph,” which was co-written with former bandmate George Harrison, is a sweet and catchy look at pictures as a symbol of love gone wrong. The heartbroken lament “All I’ve got is your photograph and I realize you’re not coming back anymore” has never sounded so propulsive. “Photograph” is one of the happiest-sounding sad songs ever. www.youtube.com/embed/t6CMSuT98-E

“Pictures of You” – The Cure

Eighties alt-rock’s most beloved manic-depressive may have captured his most rapturously melancholic mood with this seven-minute stunner. In the song, a guy sits moping, looking at old pictures of an old lover. According to Cure frontman Robert Smith, the song was actually inspired by a house fire that he had experienced. When going through the damage, he found an old wallet with some photos of his wife that he had nearly forgotten. One of those photos was used as the cover of the single.

(The same photo, digitally altered, was used on the cover of their later “Charlotte Sometimes” single.)

The song was more recently used in a long-running ad for HP digital photography and during the closing scene of the Channing Tatum/Rachel McAdams romance The Vow. www.youtube.com/embed/X8UR2TFUp8w

May 2012 | The Modern

the great forgotten “Centerfold” and “Freeze Frame” – The J. Geils Band

With their breakout smash 1981 album Freeze Frame, The J. Geils Band’s first two singles from the record (and the long-running rock-funk band’s only two top ten hits in their career) were both about photography, though in different ways. “Centerfold” told the oddly touching story of a guy who, by chance, runs across pictures of his old high school crush — naked in the pages of a girlie magazine.

“Freeze Frame” starts with a camera whir (a year before Duran Duran did it on “Girls on Film”) and is a more generic photography song. Last year, “Freeze Frame” was dusted off for use in an Energizer Ultimate Lithium battery ad. www.youtube.com/embed/BqDjMZKf-wg www.youtube.com/embed/wHo43B6nu60

“Take Another Picture” – Quarterflash

With thirty years of hindsight, Quarterflash is mostly remembered as a one-hit wonder for “Harden My Heart” — if they are remembered at all. However, over a short period of a few years, the band actually had four or five pretty big hits. This 1983 single was the title track to their second album and the last of that streak. It has something to do with going through old family albums. www.youtube.com/embed/V15AwxpkASQ

“Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)” – A Flock of Seagulls

Yet another final hit by yet another early Eighties band who has been unfairly branded a one-hit wonder. Today A Flock of Seagulls is remembered entirely for comically bad hairdos and “I Ran (So Far Away),” but back in the day, they hit the pop charts four times. This mournful 1983 ballad was their final top 40 hit — and it was their best song.

It also takes the “photography songs” subject and adds a surrealist level, because it is not a tune about a photograph so much as it is about not having a photograph and wanting one. www.youtube.com/embed/2WaAmmkoDR4

“Pictures of Lily” – The Who

This 1967 single probably had one of the more surreal storylines for picture songs. A young man is having trouble sleeping, so his dad gives him a photograph of a woman named Lily. She comforts him and helps him to sleep. Eventually the guy develops a huge crush on Lily and asks his dad for an The Modern | May 2012

introduction, at which point his father tells him that Lily died back in 1929. Songwriter Pete Townshend said in Rikki Rooksby’s book Lyrics that the song was based on a picture a girlfriend had of an old vaudeville star. In the interview he said she was named Lily Baylis, but he was probably referring to Lillie Langtry, a famous vaudeville dancer who did die in 1929. Lillian Bayliss was actually a vaudeville theater manager who died in the late Thirties. In another interview, Townshend supposedly said that the song was about the importance of masturbation to a young man. Though that is never explicitly stated, it is not all that hard to read between the lines on the subject. www.youtube.com/embed/7BmkBroiw1s

“Turning Japanese” – The Vapors

This popular early new wave song is famous not only for its wonderfully pre-politically-correct title but for being one of the first songs to reach the top 40 that dealt with jerking-off to a fashion magazine.

According to the band members, the term “turning Japanese” referred to the face one makes as they reach orgasm. www.youtube.com/embed/gEmJ-VWPDM4

“Photograph” – Def Leppard and “Photograph” – Nickelback

No, these two “Photograph”’s are not the same song. And, no, neither is a cover of the previously referenced Ringo Starr tune by the same name. So why are they listed together? Because even though they are different songs, they are pretty interchangeable. Both are nostalgic meathead hard-rock anthems in which the singer obsessively looks at pictures and longs for the subjects of the shots — whether it is a woman (Def Leppard) or their own past (Nickelback). www.youtube.com/embed/VZ5bS3_BCDs www.youtube.com/embed/BB0DU4DoPP4

“Take a Picture” – Filter

The industrial rock group saw in the new millennium with this song — an uncharacteristically melodic and sort of dreamy rock ballad. Of course, that doesn’t take into consideration this song’s inspiration. Apparently lead singer Richard Patrick got drunk on a flight, started getting undressed and got into a fight with the flight attendants. Therefore, this song is more in the Pee Wee Herman mode: “Take a picture, it lasts longer!” www.youtube.com/embed/h8MAHQhKe7Q www.themodern.us

by design

Mark Mussari

The Butterfly Chair Winging It in the Fifties and Sixties

By Mark Mussari If you had a suburban backyard during the 1950s and 1960s, chances are you had a Butterfly Chair. For boomers, the Butterfly — also known as a Sling Chair — was as ubiquitous as hula-hoops, tabletop hibachis, and Howdy Doody. The Butterfly consisted of a bent welded-metal frame with canvas (or sometimes a leather) seat stretched over it.

The seat looked like a minimalist slipcover, and the experience of sitting in one felt more like falling into a hammock than a standard chair. In design, the Butterfly was a relative of the boomerang-shaped Noguchi table or those mid-twentieth-century linoleum patterns featuring biomorphic kidneybean shapes. In the 1950s, if you were looking for right angles or hard edges, you’d need a time machine.

Although it seems as American as hot dogs on the grill, the Butterfly is actually a Latin import from Buenos Aires, created in 1938 by the Spaniard Antonio Bonet and two Argentines, Juan Kurchan and Jorge FerrariHardoy. Therefore, it originally became known as the B.K.F. chair.

Most people don’t know the name of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. — but he worked as a design curator for the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1950s and had an astounding eye for fine modern design.

Kaufmann was instrumental, for example, in bringing Scandinavian design to America after he became friends with the Dane Finn Juhl and fell in love with his furniture. Kaufmann brought the first two Butterfly or B.F.K. chairs to the United States for Fallingwater, his home in Pennsylvania that just happened to be designed by another friend, Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 1950, Kaufmann produced a little booklet called www.themodern.us

What Is Modern Design? for MoMA. It included a picture of the Butterfly Chair as an example of modernist seating design (along with such stalwarts of modernism as Eero Saarinen’s Womb Chair and Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Chair).

Artek-Pascoe produced the Butterfly Chair from 1941–48, after which Knoll Associates took over production. Knoll estimates that some 5 million examples of the chair were sold in the 1950s alone. But no one has ever been able to stop the hoards of knock-offs that have flooded the market since the chair’s introduction.

A 1952 House and Garden advertisement for the chair offers two styles: one in a thicker steel frame, and it also offers a choice in canvas — in such colors as terra cotta, sunny yellow and forest green — or “rich, top-grain saddle leather.” The price? $6.95 for the standard model and $27.95 for leather.

In its simplicity of form and mildly industrial look, the Butterfly symbolizes the Populuxe period of American history. A design completely lacking any pretension, it is the most democratic of products — accessible, affordable and humble in appearance. As Kaufmann wrote in What Is Modern Design: “Modern design is intended to implement the lives of free individuals.”

And maybe that’s the enduring charm of the Butterfly. It speaks of backyard barbecues, children playing in the grass, and drinks on the patio — a humble design that has outlived fads and styles with simple grace.

Mark Mussari is a writer and translator who writes frequently about art and design.

May 2012 | The Modern

model bartenders recommend

Pull up a stool and let these

Ashley Kate Current city: New York City Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky Favorite old song: Only one?!

“Come Fly With Me” — Frank Sinatra, “You Made Me Love You” — Judy Garland Favorite old TV show: HR Puffinstuff and The Lawrence Welk Show Favorite old movie: Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde Favorite retro drink: Being a good ole girl from Kentucky, how can I recommend anything other than the classic Mint Julep?

Muddle 4 mint leaves, water and 1 teaspoon of sugar with 2 1/2 ounces of bourbon whiskey, serve in a Collins glass. I like topping mine off with grapes. Put on your big hat and you are ready for the Kentucky Derby!

The Modern | May 2012

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stunning servers mix it up.

Kevin T. Current city: New York City Hometown: Kennett Square, PA Favorite old song: “Yesterday” — The Beatles Favorite old TV show: The Twilight Zone Favorite old movie: The Birds — guess I love scary.

Favorite retro drink: Bachelor’s Bait Cocktail — 1.5 oz. dry gin, 1 egg white, 1 dash orange bitters, and 1 teaspoon grenadine. Shake well with cracked ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

For your next event, be sure to contact Model Bartenders. They’ve been setting the standard for promotional and event staffing throughout the USA since the great party year of 1989.

www.modelbartenders.com www.themodern.us

May 2012 | The Modern

radio ga ga

Don Draper’s Car Radio is a Turn On The year: 1966. Draper’s road opens up, and so do his musical choices.

By Ronald Sklar Mad Men’s Don Draper is the patron saint of this magazine, and as this season continues to evolve the mad man, his surrounding culture and its music also morph into an exciting new creature.

could turn forty in 1966 and still have a friend in radio: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Herb Alpert and Sergio Mendez are all there to make you feel not so old and alone and out of touch. In fact, Sinatra hits #1 with the very mature “Strangers in the Night” and follows with the not-for-kids “That’s Life.” Yet even in 1966, a chart-

The current story is set in 1966, a pivotal year. If pop music is a pinball, this would be the year that it starts to stray from its usual straight line, and in the process it gets banged up and shot far, often scoring big.

This is also the year that Draper turns forty. Turning forty in 1966 is nothing like turning forty today. You

topper for an artist over forty is a rare and beautiful thing, even though old timers are hanging out all over the place (just usually not in the Top Ten).

Meanwhile, youth culture (namely baby boomers, now teenagers and twentysomethings) continue to dominate charts and sales, even though adults

The Modern | May 2012

www.themodern.us

like Draper don’t pay much attention. That is, unless they are working on the Clearasil account. That music, like Tommy Roe’s “Sweet Pea” and The Chiffons’ “Sweet Talkin’ Guy” is still considered kid’s stuff — throwaway. Little did they know.

America is two years into The British Invasion, and what was once new and fresh is now running out of petrol. The Fab Four, on the other hand, begin to get deeper into the trippy. “Norwegian Wood” introduces the sitar to white people, while “Eleanor Rigby” showcases lyrics that have nothing to do with the typical “I love you, baby” pop lyric. All this and yet Sgt. Pepper is still a year away. The Rolling Stones continue their descent into darkness with stunning pop classics like “Under My Thumb” and “Paint It Black.” The times are at last catching up with them.

The AM radio band is where life — and shit — happens, with crackling static reception and motormouthed DJs who battle the British Invasion with their “All-American” formats (enter The Monkees and Neil Diamond). However, should an agitated Draper switch to the vast wasteland of FM (basically just classical music and dead air), he would also find the smooth new WNEW, which is the country’s first FM rock station. More of this format would follow, often called “underground radio,” and manned by laid-back DJs who are not selling you soda and boss hits. They play albums. Rock albums. Sometimes whole sides of albums if the spirit moves them and the pot kicks in quite rightly. This would incite the rise of album-oriented rock and the eventual demise of AM Top 40 radio. Of course, Draper, at 40, would continue turning that dial.

Serious artistes? They come in thoughtful think

tanks in ’66: Simon and Garfunkel (“Homeward Bound,” “I Am a Rock,” and, of course, “The Sounds of Silence”), Bob Dylan (“Rainy Day Women,”), Stevie Wonder doing Bob Dylan (“Blowin’ in the Wind”) and even The Beach Boys (“Good Vibrations”) lent weight to an otherwise lightweight pop chart. Newer performers were hippies and hippie-wanna-be’s (you decide): Donovan (“Mellow Yellow”) and The Mamas and the Papas (“California Dreamin”).

If Draper was driving to Harlem for an offbeat night out and an escape from Madison Avenue, he could prime himself with James Brown and Marvin Gaye. Motown artists like The Supremes kept it just black enough while appealing to white housewives.

Easier said than done. The wigs and the matching outfits on soul artists would be wildly abandoned within a year or so.

For Draper, though, all that should really matter during his car ride is Burt. Burt Bacharach pens songs for a host of vocalists this year, but Dionne Warwick wears the Bacharach brand most proudly.

Her every hit weaves itself into the story of a sophisticated adult dealing with changing times: “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself,” “Trains and Boats and Planes” and “Message to Michael” are Sixties self-reflection at its very best.

The biggest-selling song of the year is “Ballad of the Green Berets” by Sgt. Barry Sadler, a pro-military song if there ever was one and awkwardly standing at attention atop the changing charts for months. Don will hear this and reluctantly think of his real, former self and his transformation during war. Drive on, Richard Whitman.

internalize this

The Polaroid Swinger (Almost) instant photos — all you need is an SAT score of 1100 or higher to work it.

Star-to-be Ali McGraw is introducing care-free young people to the Polaroid Swinger. So easy to use — only five thousand simple steps. And don’t get any of that chemical on your flawless skin. All this for only $19.95 (cheap!). Obsess on this — as we do — today! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7k2uwJmwxo

www.themodern.us

May 2012 | The Modern

on off-broadway

Pipe Down The revival of the musical Pipe Dream is not exactly smokin’.

By Eve Golden I’m sure it seemed like a good idea when Rodgers and Hammerstein called up John Steinbeck and said, “Why not quick knock together a Cannery Row sequel and we’ll make it into a musical? It’ll be another South Pacific!” Unfortunately, the result — the 1954 novel Sweet Thursday and the 1955 show Pipe Dream — was another Me and Juliet. Encores! has just revived Pipe Dream, and “dispiriting” is the first word that comes to mind (well, the second word, but I’m a lady and will not use the first word).

Sweet Thursday found Steinbeck in full-on Damon Runyon mode, and frankly, I can only take so much of Damon Runyon. It’s the story of Doc, a marine biologist, and Suzy, a hooker, who find love in Cannery Row, the rundown oceanside community of Steinbeck’s more popular 1945 book. Cannery Row is populated — overrun, really — with golden-hearted hookers and wisdom-spouting hobos, all talking like Miss Adelaide and Nicely-Nicely Johnson. They conspire to get Doc and Suzy together, because they are just that adorable.

You would think a Rodgers and Hammerstein score would overcome cardboard characters and a silly plot, but there is no “Oklahoma!” or “Some Enchanted Evening” or “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” here. The best song is Suzy’s lament, “Everybody’s Got a Home But Me.” The rest of the songs are pleasant but forgettable, paint-bynumbers Rodgers and Hammerstein: “The Man I Used to Be,” “Sweet Thursday,” “All At Once You Love Her” (which, OK, I did actually hear an audience member humming as she left the theater).

The hobos get an “aren’t we adorable?” number (“A Lopsided Bus”) and the hookers get an “aren’t we adorable?” number (“The Happiest House on the The Modern | May 2012

Block”) and there is even a costume party where everyone dresses up like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves — for a few minutes everything got so adorable that I lost consciousness.

As for the cast, they are all game, bless their hearts, but they cannot spin this straw into gold. Doc and Suzy are played by Will Chase (currently being misused in NBC’s entertaining car wreck Smash) and Laura Osnes (seen most recently in the Broadway flop Bonnie and Clyde).

They are both pretty people with pretty voices, but Doc and Suzy are such unbelievable cardboard characters that their hopes and dreams and possible romance make no impression on us at all.

The only person who does not go down with the ship is Tom Wopat, who has become something of a musical theater god since his Dukes of Hazzard days. His Mac — one of the local bums — is funny and wry and real, no small accomplishment in this show. Even the great Leslie Uggams — as Fauna, the house madam — never really gets a handle on her role (though, to be fair, the role has no handle). When Uggams sings — “Katie, bar the door!”

I would pay good money just to hear her belt out the whole score. But when she is not singing, she just stomps around yelling at everyone.

And so it goes for 15 scenes: Doc and Suzy circle around singing at each other; Fauna stomps and yells and bosses people around; hobos and hookers do their best to keep our spirits up (and again I must commend the always-excellent Encores! chorus members). It all gets wrapped up with a sudden deus ex machina that is so out-of-left-field and ridiculous that it kind of works, like the pie fight at the end of Blazing Saddles.

The real draw — for me, anyway — was the backstory of Pipe Dream. The original cast featured opwww.themodern.us

era great Helen Traubel as Fauna, which sounds insane unless you have heard the old Jimmy Durante radio shows in which Traubel reveals herself to be a great bawdy comedienne. The male lead was handsome movie and Broadway actor William Johnson, who died of a heart attack in 1957, at only 40. And the Suzy? The great Judy Tyler, one of my idols. A razor-sharp actress and powerhouse singer, she was wasted in Jailhouse Rock, where they would not let her sing, as her Broadway belt would have overwhelmed poor Elvis. If you take nothing else from this review, go find a copy of Bop Girl Goes Calypso, Judy’s only other film, and worship at her throne. Like her Doc, she died in 1957 — in a car accident, along with her husband and their puppy and kitten.

I trust that Will Chase and Laura Osnes will es-

cape the Pipe Dream curse and go on to much bigger and better projects.

Eve Golden, who wrote The Bottom Shelf for Movieline in its 1990s heyday, has written seven books on film and theater history. Her biography of John Gilbert will be published next year.

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girlie action

Lucy Woodw

Hoo

ward

oked on Swing

By Jay S. Jacobs

Photos by Jim Rinaldi

If you haven’t checked in on Lucy Woodward since her 2003 rocking hit single “Dumb Girls,” you’ve been missing a jazzy good time. You see, while Woodward had fun with the pop rock of her debut, her true passions have always been swing, torch and soul. She first showed those colors in her independently released 2008 album Lucy Woodward Is Hot and Bothered. That led to her signing with the legendary jazz label Verve. The first fruits of that new partnership was Hooked, a smoldering set of vintage-sounding jazz with a hip, modern sensibility.

We recently sat down with Woodward to catch up with her career and learn a bit about some of the influences that helped to mold her.

What are some of your first musical memories?

I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t any music going on in the house. My parents are both musicians. We lived in London and Holland until I was five. My dad was always playing the piano and I was sitting on his lap or watching him study or work on a piece of music. They were classical musicians — so really only classical music for years. When my parents split, my mom took my brother and me to America. My mom was an opera singer, but she was also a belly dancer. There was a lot of doing her own scales and singing her arias at the piano, but then she’d blast this Middle Eastern music. Elementary

www.themodern.us

Our rockin’ gal Lucy jazzes up her act.

school and high school, that’s what I remember, a lot of Turkish music, Lebanese music and her practicing.

That was the first time I probably ever heard drumbeats and percussion, because classical music was a very different rhythm.

What was the first record you bought?

It was Like a Virgin by Madonna. That was an album — you know, vinyl. My mother didn’t want me listening to anybody’s music where she was wearing a bra on the front cover, so I remember there was a battle. I really had to fight for it and I had to pay for it myself. But I lived in a world of hand-me-downs, for my first cassette, a cousin gave me Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual. The first pop records I ever had as a birthday present were 45s. My two first 45s ever were “Tell Her About It” [by Billy Joel] and “King of Pain” [by the Police].

What was the first concert you ever attended?

Debbie Gibson at Radio City. (Drolly) It changed my life. Never forgot it.

What music do you put on when you are in a bad mood to cheer you up?

Seventies African funk. I couldn’t even tell you band names, because I have a whole compilation of like a million bands, but definitely crazy disco African funk from the Seventies will change my mood instantly. And Brazilian music, usually Antonio Carlos Jobim will do it for me.

May 2012 | The Modern

girlie action What song can automatically make you cry when you hear it?

Sting’s “Shape of My Heart.”

What records would you say you have listened to more than any other in your life?

Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Talking Book by Stevie Wonder and probably Björk’s Homogenic.

What do you listen to when you are feeling romantic?

D’Angelo’s first record.

What song do you most wish that you had written?

I wish I wrote “The Girl from Ipanema.” “P.Y.T.” from Thriller [James Ingram and Quincy Jones]. Actually, “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” [Michael Jack-

playing with big bands. So, I just basically went back to my roots.

With Hooked do you feel you were able to capture the old-school feel of older jazz albums?

I think I did. We thought about the style of the record a lot when I was making it. It couldn’t be too poppy. It couldn’t be too vintage. I’m not doing a Madeleine Peyroux record and I’m not doing a record full of jazz standards. I need it to have a swing and be sassy and have great arrangements on it. I hope we captured quite a bit of that.

You just toured with Rod Stewart. How did that happen and what was that experience like?

Oh my God, amazing. Conrad Korsch, my ex-

Photos by Jim Rinaldi

son] from Thriller. I wish I wrote “My Funny Valentine” [Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart]. I could go on and on and on.

How cool is it to be part of such a legendary label like Verve?

It’s cool. It’s changed a lot over the years, but I’m very proud of the fact that I can say that I’m on Verve.

Your first album was more rock-oriented than jazz.

When did you decide to go into more of a jazzy direction?

I studied jazz, blues and soul even before I got that first record deal, so it was already in my makeup.

When I got that deal, we all decided this was the direction. I was in that vein of making pop/rock music. It was a no-brainer to go do that. It was my first record deal. I was very excited. I was writing all the songs. I was just learning how to write pop songs. But for years before that, my first gigs ever were singing jazz standards in coffee shops on Bleecker Street and The Modern | May 2012

boyfriend and one of my closest friends, has been Rod’s bass player for maybe nine years. We’re really, really close. He was in LA recording some stuff for Rod. He said, “Hey, Rod needs a backup singer. Can you come to the studio in like an hour?” I was on the way to the dentist. I cancelled my dentist’s appointment and went right there. Rod was so into creating background vocals. He was a joy to work with. We recorded a song. Then that led to the tour.

We had a great time. We were in Australia, Indonesia, Paris, New Zealand. We’re going to go to Vegas next Friday for two weeks. It’s a really fun show. He’s doing all the Faces stuff and a lot of early Rod. No jazz standards. www.youtube.com/embed/emmfkY_-s1A Jay S. Jacobs is the author of the books Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits and Pretty Good Years: A Biography of Tori Amos. He is also senior editor and founder of the pop culture web magazine www.popentertainment.com. www.themodern.us

on broadway

High Flying, But Bored Can This Evita Succeed Without Star Quality?

By Tim Kraft It’s hard to believe it’s been 33 years since Evita, the 1979 Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Weber mega-musical, premiered on the New York stage. While opening to mixed reviews, it was virtually critic-proof due largely in part to the powerhouse performances of Patti Lupone as Eva and Mandy Patinkin as Che – performances that propelled them both to musical theater stardom.

But with any revival, the point isn’t to repeat the past but to put a fresh perspective on the work. From the very beginning it’s obvious that this production, directed at the cavernous Marquis Theater by Michael Grandage, is a far more opulent and cinematic affair than the comparatively spare staging of the original.

The stage is literally set with spectacular costume, set and lighting design. Everything seems to be in place – now if only the cast would find some way to fill the stage with something as momentous for the next two hours.

It’s not for a lack of trying. There are uniformly excellent performances by the supporting cast and ensemble, in particular Michael Cerveris’ creepy spin on the brutal dictator Juan Peron and Max von Essen’s turn as the smarmy tango singer Agustin Magaldi.

However this show belongs to Evita, the mostly beloved but always manipulative first lady of Argentina, and Che, a sort of Argentinean everyman who recounts the story of Eva Peron’s rise from poverty to become the most powerful woman in South American history.

As Che we’re given Ricky Martin, not an altogther terrible choice for the role. After all he sings, he dances and he sells tickets! But he also needs to be the disgusted observer who exposes Evita as the unscrupulous dictator behind the dictator that she truly is — without this there’s no tension, no reason to question her true intentions. Mr. Martin pretty much tries to charm his way through the evening, and he partially succeeds with a beautiful rendition of “High Flying Adored” (not surprisingly the softest of Che’s criticisms during the show). But when Evita and Che finally confront each other face to face late in the second act, there’s virtually no confrontation to be had. Fortunately for the audience, we’d given up caring about either of these characters back in the first act.

Which brings us to Elena Roger as Evita, a perforThe Modern | May 2012

mance sure to go down as one of the biggest disappointments of the season. In fairness she’s partially the victim of the British press, who all but crowned the native Argentinean actress as the twenty-first century embodiment of Evita herself. What happened to that performance between her 2006 London run and today remains the biggest mystery of the evening.

While Miss Roger’s stage presence and incredible dancing skills suffice to hold the show together, she simply doesn’t have the vocal chops needed for the demanding score. It’s a very soft, tentative and guarded performance with a few shining moments, particularly her heartrending “You Must Love Me”, an adult-cotemporary ballad that has found its way into the score from the 1996 film adaptation. But when it comes to the belting, forceof-nature delivery needed to carry off most of the numbers that propel “Evita” forward, what we get is a strained sound more akin to nails scratching a chalkboard - far from what’s needed to depict the hypnotic power of a woman who became idolized by an entire nation by age twenty-six.

Which all makes for a frustrating evening of theater.

Those familiar with the musical can see that without the charismatic allure of (and between) the leads, the show is surprisingly repetitive and tedious. And those unfamiliar will leave wondering what all the fuss was about in the first place.

Tim Kraft is a corporate creative director full time, a freelance writer part time and an avid theatergoer all the time.

Evita opened on April 5 and continues its run at the Marquis Theater in New York. For show times and tickets go to ticketmaster.com www.themodern.us

postcards from the edge

Collecting Vintage Postcards

By Desiree Dymond I remember walking down Lincoln Road in Miami a couple of winters ago. Despite the comfort of the insanely beautiful twilight hour, I was irritated by the tacky, overcrowded scene going on all around me, outside of the stores. I was looking to get away from the ridiculousness, somewhere quiet where I could regain my sanity. I came upon a bookstore that was lacking of people. It was oddly displaced among the cheap clothing stores and aggressive restaurant sales force. It was love at first sight. I walked into heaven — quiet and pristine, with intellectual types perusing the stands. I made my way to the literary classics shelf and began searching for Kerouac and Hemingway. A few

lines out of any of their books always raised my spirits. I mean, yeah, I could have just Googled either of them on my iphone and found a quote, but it doesn’t give you the whole experience of standing there in a peaceful bookstore, book in hand, reading this beautiful prose on an actual piece of paper.

I took a book to the register where I noticed these vintage postcards for sale. For five bucks each — these better be good. Two hours later, and about 50 dollars worth of postcards lined up, I was still standing there reading quaint stories off the backs and daydreaming about how civilized and innocent Miami must have been back before 1930. So started my obsession with The Modern | May 2012

collecting vintage postcards.

Postcards… the antique Tumblr of the past. A picture with a message attached to it. Today we can post unlimited amounts of these at the touch of a button.

I wonder if we do it with the same care and attention to detail as they did in the past when pictures with messages were few and far between. I’m pretty sure I do. It feels important to be able

to express myself in this manner, even though it’s vague and sometimes incomprehensible. Maybe someone out there will understand what I’m talking about, and reblog or like my post, and give me the feeling of having a kindred spirit somewhere out there in the cyber space world of endless indifference.

I read back through some of my treasured postcards from the Miami bookstore. One man mailed a postcard in 1950 from the hotel Martinique reading only: www.themodern.us

Welcome, Maya!

“All the tea in China, E. W. Nott” Was this some sort of inside joke between him and the recipient? Was it code for some sort of underground dealings? Was it to a woman? The mystery of it made me drunk with the excitement of possibility.

Another postcard from 1912 has a picture of people swimming in the romance of the moonlit ocean and on the back reads: “Sorry you are rich. Good cure. Wear a bathing suit if you are not already doing so.”

The back conversation from the card must have been interesting. I could write an entire story around the possibilities of this retro drama.

One of the most moving postcards I’ve come across was a card I found online that F. Scott Fitzgerald mailed to himself maybe back in the Twenties (the card had no postmark for a date). It read:

Our staff writer, Desiree Dymond, welcomed her daughter, Maya, on April 4, 2012 (the day after Des’ birthday).

We’ve asked Maya for some of her best retro stories, but she’ll get back to us.

Congrats, Des, from the staff and readers of

m dern the

Postcards… the antique Tumblr of the past. A picture with a message attached to it.

“Dear Scott, How are you? Have been meaning to come in and see you. I’ve been living at the Garden of Allah.

Yours, Scott Fitzgerald” What a whimsical and elegant idea to send yourself such a beautiful note. I was so impressed with this I wanted to meet this man and give him a big kiss on the cheek. Before he was just some brilliant writer to me, and now this suddenly turned him into a man, a fragile one at that, making him even more endearing. Could someone possibly fall in love just through the written word, not even knowing what the other person looks like?

And there it is — love and endless happiness found within the little stories told on the back of vintage postcards.

Desiree Dymond is a model, singer/ songwriter and blogger residing in New York City. www.themodern.us

May 2012 | The Modern

m dern the

Check out past issues of The Modern.

Simply click on the covers!

Your life in retro. The past is very now.

girls were girls & men were men

Nick Nolte

By Jay S. Jacobs It’s not everyday that People’s sexiest man alive has an even worse body than you do, and that is just one of the reasons to love Nick Nolte. Over a career that has spanned almost 40 years, Nolte has gone from a muscular pretty boy to weather-beaten old man, but his fire and passion as an actor has never abandoned him — no matter how fucked up his personal life may have gotten.

After all, the guy’s most indelible image in many people’s minds may still be the infamous mug shot. When picked up for DUI, he is pictured looking glassy, with his hair standing up in all sorts of crazy directions. However, you know what? That abandon, that self-destructive streak, that unwillingness or inability to follow the straight and narrow is just what has made the guy such a fascinating actor. And long after many of his contemporaries have become drug casualties, faded away or become national jokes (we’re talking to you, Gary Busey) — Nolte just pushes on, a boat against the current, continuing to bring the best of him to a job and an industry that should be (and in some ways is) passing him by.

In a long career with many standout parts, here are some of his finest performances.

North Dallas Forty – Phillip Elliot Often referred to as the most realistic and scathing football movie ever. Nolte plays an aging tight end that must use drugs as he tries to ignore the quick disintegration of his body for fear of losing his job. The film exposes the seductive drug, sex and party lifestyle of the pros as well as the crippling pain they inflict. Nolte’s aging star receiver knows his time is coming quickly, but he fights it with every fiber of his being until he has finally had too much. www.youtube.com/embed/yDih9Iri-Kc 48 Hrs. and Another 48 Hrs. – Jack Cates The 1982 comic/ action/buddy film 48 Hrs. turned Saturday Night Live comedian Eddie Murphy into a movie star — which was a good thing The Modern | May 2012

for about five or six years and has been a travesty ever since. The buddy cop genre of the Eighties was pretty much spawned from this terrific film. Nolte played Jack Cates, a tough San Francisco cop who has to release a fast-talking convict (Murphy) to help him track down an escaped killer. The film was a smart and brave mix of comedy and extreme violence and Nolte’s weathered cynicism played nicely with Murphy’s gangster beats.

The two were re-teamed in 1990 for Another 48 Hrs., but the sequel was both a critical and box-office dud. www.youtube.com/embed/ZdN6HbD0paY Cape Fear – Sam Bowden

Martin Scorcese’s update of the classic Robert Mitchum thriller shows Nolte in his most morally ambiguous light. Despite being slightly overshadowed by Robert De Niro’s over-the-top work as crazed convict Max Cady, Nolte’s role may have been the harder one. He plays a corner-cutting defense lawyer who must protect his wife and daughter (Jessica Lange and Juliette Lewis) when the convict is released and obsessed with the idea that his lawyer was responsible for his incarceration. Nolte’s stoic attempts at humanity smash up against De Niro’s eccentric threat and it all leads to an explosion of violence. www.youtube.com/embed/tUX5DqFLExk Down & Out in Beverly Hills – Jerry Baskin Nolte did not do too many straight comedies in his career, but this mid-Eighties hit showed that he had it in him to be a terrific comic. Nolte played a bum who tried to drown himself in the pool of a nouveau riche Beverly Hills couple (Richard Dreyfuss and Bette Midler) and it becomes their project to save and redeem him. Eventually, when he is cleaned up, he seems smarter and saner than his hosts. www.youtube.com/embed/M6HVRCWTcLY The Prince of Tides – Tom Wingo Nolte received his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his fine work in Barbra Streisand’s overrated film www.themodern.us

version of Patrick Conroy’s novel. Nolte played a southern football coach who had to travel to New York after his sister (Melinda Dillon) attempted suicide. He ended up meeting (and eventually having an affair) with her psychologist, a smart, funny and oh-soJewish doctor played by his director. Too bad that Streisand’s heavy-handed work as director (and co-star) destroyed what was otherwise a potentially fascinating film. Literally, the voiceover at the end when Nolte was forced to moan out Streisand’s character’s name was laughable. Wasn’t Nolte’s fault, though, he played the part as well as anyone could have. www.youtube.com/embed/5jE2DdTOyiM Rich Man, Poor Man – Tom Jordache Nolte’s breakthrough role was in this Seventies TV miniseries, based on the novel by Irwin Shaw. Nolte broke out with the role of Tom Jordache, the “poor man” half of this expansive family drama. The series was a huge hit and pretty much singlehandedly started the late Seventies miniseries craze, getting Nolte an Emmy nomination to boot. www.youtube.com/embed/BF9QwyYoJ0Y The Good Thief – Bob Montagnet Some of Nolte’s finest work came in this little-seen film — a remake of a French film from the Fifties called Bob le flambeur. In the film, Nolte played a drug-addicted aging thief living in Nice, France, who has to clean up his act for the opportunity of one last huge score — the robbing of a Monte Carlo casino. Taking method acting to an extreme, Nolte supposedly did actually pick up a heroin habit and then went cold turkey, giving the detox scenes a queasy and scary realism. www.youtube.com/embed/LYnwrJX5flk Affliction – Wade Whitehouse Nolte has said that this downbeat drama — based on a Russell Banks novel — was his favorite performance.

He wasn’t alone in that assessment, picking up his second Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Nolte plays a trouwww.themodern.us

bled lawman whose immersion in a dark and sordid case eventually leads to his ruin. www.youtube.com/embed/3habCiSx31o The Deep – David Sanders

After Rich Man, Poor Man, Nolte was tapped for his first starring role in a major motion picture (we’re not counting the b-movie sequel Return to Macon County.) Nolte co-starred with former Men Were Men subject Robert Shaw and Jacqueline Bisset’s wet T-shirt in this film version of novelist Peter Benchley’s follow-up to Jaws. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the story was convoluted and the action was — literally — soggy. Nolte made quite an impression in the role, though. And the wet T-shirt lived up to the hype. www.youtube.com/embed/T_AlapNPPDE New York Stories – Lionel Dobie This anthology film had three of the biggest directors on the planet at the time — Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen — doing short films celebrating New York City. Nolte was the star of the first (and by far the best) of the three, Scorcese’s “Life Lessons,” which was written by novelist Richard Price.

Nolte played a middle-aged painter breaking up with his much younger girlfriend. www.youtube.com/embed/1e0Na26J9Mw Warrior – Paddy Conlon

After years of lessening returns on increasingly small supporting roles, who would have thought that it would be this little mixed martial arts story that would return Nolte back into the spotlight – and get him his first Oscar nomination in well over a decade? Nolte is quietly heartbreaking as a former alcoholic wrestling coach who is trying desperately to reconcile with his two adult fighter sons, but finds they can’t forgive the past. Nolte gives an amazingly strong performance in a surprisingly good little genre film. www.youtube.com/embed/I5kzcwcQA1Q May 2012 | The Modern

ode to joysticks

The Legend of Zelda Goes Deep This visually stunning game proves the potential of the art form.

By Silvan Carlson-Goodman Video games are perceived differently from the other great forms of entertainment. People don’t know the names behind the great games of the past like they do the great creators of other art. Part of this could be blamed on the fact that video games are a collaborative medium that requires input from many people. But films also have huge teams working on them and there is still room for practically everyone to know the likes of Spielberg or Kubrick. But the same can’t be said for games. Ask most people who Ken Levine or Shinji Mikami is and you will get blank stares. It doesn’t matter that they made Bioshock and the Resident Evil series respectively. The most shameful example of this phenomenon is Shigeru Miyamoto.

Let me be completely frank. The man is a genius.

The Modern | May 2012

And I am not using the word in an offhanded way. I am not just applying it to just any person who made some sort of competent piece of work like people are wont to do these days. In case you are wondering, Miyamoto is responsible for creating both Mario and the Legend of Zelda. He has been responsible for many other games as well, but those two are by far his most popular. The reality is that if you have ever played a video game for any period in your life, you have played a game that felt this man’s influence. For instance, the idea that games should have stories? That was pretty much his idea.

Seems obvious now. But it’s not like anyone else was doing it.

Shigeru Miyamoto was inspired by the rich heritage of Kabuki Theater growing up, and he wanted his games to reflect that. It seems easy now to decry the plots of his games as childish. Really all the original Mario or Zelda stories amounted to was “Evil guy kidnapped pretty girl. Go save her.” But remember that all that existed before that was “You are a gun guy. Shoot the other gun guys.” In this light, the vibrancy and character of Miyamoto’s worlds appear as visionary as it really is.

In much the same way that he was inspired by Kabuki Theater for the story of his games, his childhood spent exploring the forests around his home informed the gameplay of Zelda. This is the start of a trend. Later, Miyamoto will make hugely successful games inspired by his hobbies of raising dogs and gardening (Nintendogs and Pikmin.) It is at this point that his bosses ban him from discussing his hobbies in public for fear of his ideas being revealed and stolen by competitors.

But enough about the man, let’s look at what makes the game so great. You control Link, a young boy on a quest for lost pieces of the triforce (a powerful magical relic) so that you can defeat the evil Ganon and rescue the princess Zelda. As I said, there’s nothing complicated about that. But the real innovation came in the world around you. Like the forests of Miyamoto’s childhood, the world of Zelda is open and free for you to explore. It is so large and has so much to see that Nintendo invented a new technology and Zelda became the first game where you could save your progress and come back to it later. In the game there www.themodern.us

are waterfalls leading to rivers and lakes; there is a giant mountain to the north and an ocean to the east. There are landmarks such as a graveyard full of ghosts defending a sacred sword, or a forest that repeats into infinity unless you know the proper path to take. And all of these areas are full of monsters that require skill and ingenuity to overcome.

Art is always about something. No matter how simple, there is always The scenery something like Beauty, Love, or Truth at the core of the piece, be it a painting, novel, or TV show. But while all those isn’t there to be seen things focus on nouns, video games are about verbs. The Legend of Zelda is and just passed by. Soon enough about exploring. The scenery isn’t there to be seen and just passed by. Soon you realize that there are secrets enough you realize that there are secrets everywhere. Some trees can be burned everywhere. down or some rocks blown away to reveal secret passages and caves. The caves add a whole new layer to the world. Sometimes I should clarify that in no way is this a bad thing. they conceal gambling dens, sometimes shops carrying This game is indeed hard, and it makes no apologies rare and valuable merchandise. There is at least one of about it. You are going to die and die and die while you these hidden surprises on every screen of the game. A search desperately for your next objective. But there is very telling change was made to these breakable walls a constant joy in that. The game, if played in a straight in later games. In late games, if you struck a wall with shot, is extremely short. It’s a relic from an age when your sword, it would make a different noise if it could there was no Internet on which to look up a guide. The be destroyed. In this way you could find the secret pasgame was designed around the idea that you would sages more easily. Nothing about the original game is have to talk to other people to find everything. Everythere to make things easier. thing in this game is preparing you for the absolute joy The final dungeon in the game is hidden. The only found in the moment when your friend shows you the hint in the game you get for where to find it is a beast secret cave full of money that you never knew existed. that states that “Spectacle Rock is an entrance to death.”

It’s a special kind of joy that modern That is literally the extent of your clue. However with games can never recreate. some reasoning you might be able to deduce that this is leading you to a large rock at the highest point of the Silvan Carlson-Goodman grew up mountain to the north. If you follow the hunch and in Brooklyn where he played video games instead of going to school. place a bomb at that rock, then a passageway opens up.

turning japanese

Arnold Goes Japan-Nuts!

Surprising that “boi boi” hasn’t yet become a catchphrase, but leave it to The Modern followers to get the boi rollling.

That’s some scary energy that the Govenator is exuding. And where might we purchase such an energy drink, of which Arnold thinks so highly? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl0HOqjSzqw&feature=player_embedded

www.themodern.us

May 2012 | The Modern

dig this dvd

After School Specials 1974–1976 (BCI Eclipse–2004)

ABC’s After School Specials were often broadcast only once, but that was long enough to become imprinted on the brains of a generation.

By Ronald Sklar In the early 1960s, FCC chairman Newton Minnow called television “a vast wasteland,” accusing the entertainment industry of producing mind-numbing and mediocre offerings, as gray and dull as dishwater.

Even President Kennedy agreed that the medium was not reaching its full potential, and in an effort to impose balance, he passed legislation for the expansion of public television.

We take it for granted today, but this was brave step.

Our competition, the Soviets, were one-upping us in the space race because their kids were studying science and not watching TV. Meanwhile, American children were not so much being educated by the boob tube as they were being passively entertained by it, into a coma-like trance. On a daily — hourly — basis, kids were subjected to the most mundane programming and commercial brainwashing (including Saturdays — especially Saturdays!): one-dimensional cartoons drawn on the cheap, local cowboys and spacemen shamelessly begging young baby boomers to open mom’s pocketbook for money to buy spy glasses and cap pistols, and not-too-subtle advertisements for sugar-heavy cereals with practically no nutritional value.

The “vast wasteland” comment was troublesome for the industry, and it packed a lot of punch. It was the phrase that reverberated throughout the country and stirred debate. The networks suddenly became self-conscious of what they were putting out there. The dollar still ruled, but the message now had to be more subtle — less intrusive.

By the 1970s, of course, the world had changed in all directions. Television was slow to follow, but eventually programming for children became — if not 100% — then at least a partially positive force, and at times a great deal more well-meaning. Landmark specials like Marlo Thomas’ Free to Be You and Me showed what TV could do for a child’s self-esteem. Public television introduced innovative, enlightening fare such as Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and Zoom, with an eye toThe Modern | May 2012

ward educating. On commercial TV, advertising aimed at children, though still despicable, was toned down considerably.

One of the breakthrough projects of this era was the ABC After School Specials. Shown semi-monthly on ABC affiliates that could bear to go even one day without Merv or dopey game shows, this thoughtful series actually struck a chord with a generation; many of these programs remained in their hearts years after they were broadcast, usually only once.

The one-hour stories, often based on popular juvenile novels of the time, were touching, thought-provoking and extremely well-performed. Most importantly, they entertained while teaching lessons in such new-to-TV topics as the meaning of beauty, the importance of family, and the most sensitive of all Seventies concerns: being sensitive.

Some of the most memorable of these specials are now compiled in this no-frills DVD. The focus is on those shows created by Marin Tahse, the most prolific and successful producer of the After School Specials. In all, Tahse created 26 productions, and won 18 Emmys and a Peabody Award, among many other deserving honors.

This first volume features four of his best: The 18th Emergency (originally titled Psst… Hammerman’s After You!) Today, we’re all too familiar with the agony of bullying, but this story puts an odd twist on the age-old “bully versus victim” saga.

Here, the victim is actually the one who hurts the bully’s feelings; the victim is actually the bully, and therefore it’s the smaller guy who has to learn to atone (are you following this?). Don’t touch that dial: it’s not as complicated as it www.themodern.us

sounds, and it goes down easily.

Mouse Fawley (an incredibly appealing Christian Juttner) writes the bully’s name under an exhibit of Neanderthal Man as a joke. The bully, Marv Hammerman (the hulking Jim Sage), does not take well to this type of humor, especially when the snide remark involves himself. Mouse spends the hour avoiding getting his ass kicked, or at least obsessed with the idea that he is about to get his ass kicked.

While cowering in fear in his urban-apartmentbuilding neighborhood, he busies himself learning about self-respect from old-world neighbors, including a gray-wigged lady with an Italian accent straight out of Central Casting, and an elderly man who suffered a stroke.

Mouse’s best buddy (played

by Lance Kerwin, who would go on to play the lead in the terrific but short-lived James at Fifteen) provides him with a list of emergency survival skills, including: if it’s natural to scream, be perfectly quiet.

Willie Ames (Eight Is Enough, Charles In Charge) and Louise Foley (Kristy McNichol’s best friend on Family) each have one line.

The lesson: just because someone is bigger than you are doesn’t mean that they don’t have feelings too. We learn this, and are touched by this, and then we forget it and never apply it to real life ever again.

Summer of the Swans Attention Brady Bunch fans: this is the long-lost special that you’ve heard about for thirty years, featuring the just-barely-Brady-graduated Christopher Knight and Eve Plumb. Be warned, though: you will be disappointed. Their roles are minor (in fact, Plumb has a whole forty-five seconds playing against type as a bubbly blonde; Knight is the sensitive heartthrob who offers such provocative gems as, “who is to say what’s good looking?” and “if you don’t think that’s a beautiful thing, then you don’t know what’s beautiful,” and the clincher, “You’re different, and I think it’s great!”).

The real story revolves around the uber-adolescent Sara (Heather Totten), all awkwardness and attitude, who wishes she could be born beautiful, like her sister www.themodern.us

(a nurse who actually wears a starched, white nurse’s uniform. Remember nurse’s uniforms?). When Sara is not thinking of herself as a “ninny,” she wishes she were a swan (hence the title). After complaining that “I’m nothing but a second-class citizen around here,” and mistaking Chris Knight’s character as a “basic, common-garden-variety fink,” Sara learns about life.

Her oddball little brother, Charlie, gets lost in the woods, and Sara mobilizes into action, subsequently getting some action from Chris Knight.

Veteran TV dependable Priscilla Morrill is on hand as the eccentric aunt, who, when desperately calling the police on the telephone, asks, “Hello, is this the police?” (Why do people on TV do this?

Doesn’t every police precinct answer the phone with the informative greeting, “Police Department?”).

She also gives her telephone number as 555-4456 (it was a simpler time when phone numbers had no area codes and most of us didn’t realize that the 555 exchange was reserved for television characters only).

The lesson: Sara learns that it isn’t how you look that’s important — it’s how you are. Of course, it’s wethe -audience who learn the lesson along with her, and who are deeply touched by the lesson and then proceed to forget the lesson a moment later and never remember it again.

The Skating Rink This may quite possibly be the darkest and most serious of all the After School Specials, and also the most enlightening. Tuck Friday (Stewart Peterson) lives in the rural South with his super-rural family. We know this because they are chicken farmers who can’t afford television. Tuck also lives with his debilitating stutter, which immediately makes us feel protective of him against the ignorant students and townspeople who are not as sensitive and enlightened as we are.

While ostracized at school and considered a second-class citizen by his family, we relate to Tuck because we’re shown in a major way that he is withdrawn and lonely. He never speaks for fear of being teased (except when a dopey teacher forces him to talk in front of the class, which is painful for both us and Tuck.).

May 2012 | The Modern

dig this dvd There’s more about ice later, but the icing on the cake is when a girl spends some quality time with Tuck, only to admit that she was involved in a bet to get him to talk (which he barely ever does, because of bitches like this). Her mean rejection of him is the last straw, and we want Tuck to find happiness and to find his center and to find a hit man for this chick.

But how? How? His life changes when an abandoned factory gets converted to an ice skating rink. The owner is a former ice-skating champion, Pete (Jerry Dexter), who screwed up his knee and destroyed his promising career. He wants desperately to share his love of not only ice but of skating too with this simple country community (who probably have never seen ice or skating or grown men who have a passion for it).

Understanding what it’s like to be an outsider (probably because of his unnatural love of ice skating), Pete develops a close friendship with Tuck. Tuck comes alive as a result of his new adult after-school pal. Pete teaches him how to skate and Tuck takes to it like a duck to water.

Just when you think this relationship is getting a little strange, Pete introduces his hot-as-hell wife, a Peggy-Fleming-type skating babe who takes to Tuck like — well — a duck to water. They work out an Olympic-style dance routine, and the whole town (including Tuck’s family) is sure surprised on Opening Night when Tuck shakes his booty for the world (or at least the local version of the world). Everyone — including the kinfolk — has new respect for him, and we feel like we have a little something to do with it because we stuck with him when everyone else shunned him. We not only congratulate Tuck — we congratulate ourselves.

Lesson (which will touch you deeply but you will never apply practically): Don’t judge a book by its cover. Still waters run deep (and get iced over). And even though Tuck’s family can’t afford a television or to fix the refrigerator, they can afford to attend Opening Night at the ice skating rink.

Dear Lovey Hart: I Am Desperate This may be the most memorable of the After School Specials, and also the funniest and most literate. It takes place in an upper-middle-class high school (we know this because the main character writes on an electric typewriter rather than a manual one and the feisty The Modern | May 2012

newspaper editor’s name is Skip Custer).

Carrie (Susan Lawrence) becomes a secret lovelorn advice columnist for her high-school paper. Carrie’s column becomes the biggest thing ever to hit the school (we know this because we get an endless montage of students crowding around one issue of the paper). Her guidance-counselor father is opposed to the idea of a teenager dispensing counsel, saying, “The thought of some mixed-up kid giving advice to other mixed-up kids is unsettling if you ask me.” (although nobody asked him.)

His fears are realized when the advice columnist (named “Lovey Hart”) advises Fat Girl to diet. Fat Girl lands (with a thud) in the hospital due to her diabetes, which forbids desperate dieting (“now there’s a weighty problem for you,” Carrie comments). Carrie is freaked out by this stupefying situation. She wants to pull the plug on the column, but it becomes bigger than herself, bigger than the school, and bigger than her life-size poster of Henry Winkler as The Fonz.

The backlash begins, and Carrie learns many lessons, not the least of which is, “I’m just a sophomore.

What do I know about love?”

This special is also notable for featuring Dobie “Drift Away” Gray’s record being played at a teen party, in which he instructs the dancers to “get on down” to Mexico. The kids, decked out in bell bottoms and feathered hair, don’t make it to Mexico, but they sure as hell get on down.

Lesson: Giving advice is dangerous, especially if you’re under age.

Also: there are no easy answers. Get touched by this and internalize it and try to apply it, though you never will.

The most intriguing aspect of these After School Specials is that a good many of the actors in these fine productions were never heard from again. That’s showbiz. However, the novels on which these programs are based are as deserving of being reread as watching this DVD. If you’re old enough to remember these specials, you’ll be amazed at how well they hold up. You’ll journey back to a time in your life when you were desperately seeking direction, not just from Lovey Hart but from all of these characers worth knowing.

This was a time when you looked to television for answers and for fleeting-but-touching life lessons.

Hey, just like now! www.themodern.us

retro tech

Adventures in Modern Sound

By Art Wilson My first guitar was a thick hollow body Guild with one electronic pickup — totally functional, but not spiffy enough for the coming era. With some recently acquired cash, I purchased a Fender Jazzmaster guitar. It was sleek, with a solid body, two pickups, multiple sound controls, and a “whammy bar” for bending notes. It had incredible playing ease (action).

My basic Ampeg amplifier wasn’t going to cut it in louder bands. A trend in larger guitar amps was to “piggy back” the separate power part on top of the speaker cabinet. I acquired a Sunn brand amp with a speaker cabinet. I was now “state of the art.”

Some sound effects are built into guitar amplifiers, but an industry developed of external gadgets, through which a guitar’s patch chord would pass on its way to the amp. They are usually foot switches or pedals, freeing the hands to play. Early on was the fuzz tone, which evolved into the distortion pedal, giving a “crunchier” or sustaining sound during solos or simple accompaniment, and the wah-wah pedal, producing a crying or chopping effect.

I also traded musical and electronic gear for other devices that suited

my fancy. Due to several unfortunate vehicle burglaries, I lost some cherished items. These included my original Guild guitar, and in two separate incidences, the “head” of my Sunn amplifier, and then its speaker cabinet.

While teaching at another music studio and store, I replaced my lost amp by buying what would be considered retro at that time — a vacuum tube amplifier.

The common technology was solid state (transistors) for musical gear, but some purists preferred the warmer sound of tubes. This one was the Sound City brand, manufactured by an esoteric British company. It was a smaller, one-piece unit, but with lots of volume.

My solid-body Fender guitar was fine for rock-androll. Yet for the variety of genres I was playing, I longed for the compromise of a thin hollow body instrument, for a more jazzy tone, if needed. I opted for the classic Gibson ES-335, which has been my treasure to this day.

Some years later, I traded my idle 1966 Fender Jazzmaster to a friend for his spiffy open-reel tape recorder.

I have watched the value of that guitar increase over the years. I am content that, at any time, I can still visit it.

After my three-year experience in full-time music during the early Seventies, I returned to being a moonlighting musician and began a day job as manager of a record store. This was the only free-standing location of a six-store local chain of mall stores. The major product was vinyl records, selling at a reasonable price. What is now considered classic rock was all the rage, backed by a vibrant local and national scene of live concerts.

The mall stores sold a large volume of records and accessories, but my store also handled a line of component stereo equipment and a few small televisions. It served as warehouse storage of albums for the other stores.

I met representatives and learned about the distribution system of the record industry, and would often make deliveries to our nearest mall store.

Great fun for me was that for demonstration purposes, I had access to the electronic products. Several albums were always unsealed and available for playing. I purchased blank open-reel tape and cassettes and recorded mix tapes galore. We even had a large storage of what was becoming the obsolete 45-rpm format, with some interesting oldies.

People were accumulating large libraries of record albums, which needed significant storage space at home.

What was coming was format change, having a side benefit of compacting storage.

Art Wilson is a Philadelphia-based musician, teacher, software specialist and retired chemist.

The Modern | May 2012

www.themodern.us

retro merch

Jay S. Jacobs

The Kodak Disc Camera Just shoot me: a clunker camera ruins Kodak’s pretty picture.

By Jay S. Jacobs For decades, there were three basic choices in cameras for normal folk. For high quality, you would go with 35mm film. This canistered film, available through Kodak and many other companies, took gorgeous

shots — but unless you were a professional photographer and had a dark room, chances are you had no idea how to develop it, other than take it to the local drug store. For the novice, you’d usually use an Instamatic with 126 film. For lower quality, but higher convenience, there was the Polaroid Instant Camera, which could spit out a finished picture immediately. It just didn’t look nearly as good.

In the Seventies and Eighties, it became all about portability. Kodak deemed that 35mm film, and the cameras it was used with, were just too bulky. Their first shot in the smaller camera wars was the Pocket Instamatic, which was released in 1972. Look, Kodak crowed, a camera that you can fit in your pocket! Of course the fact that they had to use a smaller, lowerquality film cartridge that they called 110 film, was no concern. When it comes to business, aesthetics trump quality every time.

A decade later and even the Pocket Instamatic was too bulky. After all, in the late Seventies, people www.themodern.us

wore really tight clothes with small pockets and the Pocket Instamatic caused unsightly bulges. Therefore in 1982, Kodak rolled out the latest savior in a sizeobsessed camera world: the Disc camera.

Technically, they were a little bigger than most consumer cameras, but the Disc camera’s selling point was its thinness. The width of a small paperback book, the camera could easily slip in and out of even the tightest pockets.

Rather than a film cartridge, like most of the other cameras used, the Disc camera film came in a cassette with a wheel of 15 exposures. Just slip the cassette in the back of the camera, point and shoot.

Unfortunately, Kodak, who was used to creating a new camera revolution every decade or so — the Instamatic in the Sixties and the Pocket in the Seventies — quickly found that their new innovation was not quite catching on with the public.

Part of the problem was the picture quality that Kodak was sure would be trumped by convenience.

The film discs offered even smaller negatives than the 110 film. The image on the negative was only 11 mm by 8 mm. Because of this small size, Kodak suggested that labs develop the Disc film with a special six-element lens.

Problem was, most of the labs only had the standard three-element lens and saw little reason to upgrade for a new technology which had not yet taken off yet.

Often the developed pictures looked grainy and had poor definition.

Who knew? Sometimes quality does trump aesthetics.

Kodak Disc film was finally pulled from the market on the final day of the millennium, December 31, 1999; nearly a decade after the camera had disappeared from the stores.

Jay S. Jacobs is the author of the books Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits and Pretty Good Years: A Biography of Tori Amos. He is also senior editor and founder of the pop culture web magazine www.popentertainment.com.

May 2012 | The Modern

parting

sh t

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uExvukG5cEM&feature=player_embedded#!

Kristy and Jimmy McNichol dance! Now that you have finally seen everything, you can die fulfilled.

You may have the opinion that disco blows, but here, Jimmy absolutely blows Kristy off the dance floor. Jimmy has no problem getting down with the sound. We love Kristy, but she certainly needs to turn up the energy a bit. This is, after all, disco. And she is, after all, wearing what she is wearing.

And the song? Not at all derivative of every hit in the Top 10 of 1978. No, not at all.

Dick Clark reassures us that there is more coming up, so don’t go away.

But after this, what more could there be? And where would we possibly go?

Ronald Sklar