January 2016

2 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V. C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

W W W. FA C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W. I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 3

6

december

ICON

The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, opinion and mad genius

Filling the hunger since 1992 Despite force and violence by police and firemen, protestors hold onto each other and withstand the full fury of the water. Bob Adelman, Kelly Ingram Park, Birmingham, Alabama, 1963

8

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS

TOM STOPPARD | 18 A lover of language and word-play, Tom Stoppard recently held the U.S. premiere of The Hard Problem—his first new play since 2006’s Rock ‘n’ Roll—in Philadelphia.

1-800-354-8776 • 215-862-9558

www.icondv.com PUBLISHER

Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com LEHIGH VALLEY/BUCKS ADVERTISING

ALEXANDER SKARSGÅRD | 20 With an acclaimed indie under his belt and a major role in one of this year’s biggest popcorn flicks, Alexander Skarsgård has only begun to reveal the truth in his blood.

Raina Filipiak filipiakr@comcast.net

ADVERTISING 800-354-8776

COLUMNS 5 | THE BEAT Valley City

ART Kaffe Fassett, Bright Squares (2014). Photo: Dave Tolson.

6 | This Light of Ours at Allentown Art Museum 7 | A THOUSAND WORDS

22

8 | Kaffe Fassett Quilts at Michener Art Museum 10 | ART SHORTS Magic Gardens Williams Center Gallery Locks Gallery

THEATER Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl.

12 | CITY THEATER 12 | VALLEY THEATER

ENTERTAINMENT

28

14 | THE LIST

FILM 16 | KERESMAN ON FILM Youth 22 | CINEMATTERS The Danish Girl

Son of Saul.

35

24 | BAD MOVIE Spectre

MUSIC 32 | KERESMAN ON DISC Giya Kancheli New Orford String Quartet Marion Williams Jeremy Spencer The Dictators Françoise Hardy Alison Brown 33 | NICK’S PICKS Kamasi Washington Maria Schneider Orchestra Ben Williams José James Nick Finzer Joe Locke Revive Records Presents Jamison Ross Tom Harrell Orrin Evans 34 | SINGER / SONGWRITER Chris Isaak Roy Orbison Bob Margolin The Ben Vaughn Quintet Dulcie Taylor and Friends 35 | JAZZ LIBRARY Carmen McRae

FOOD 36

| Nectar

ETCETERA 38 | L. A. TIMES CROSSWORD 39 | AGENDA

28 | FILM ROUNDUP Star Wars: The Force Awakens The Revenant Son of Saul The Hateful Eight

PRODUCTION Designer / Richard DeCosta Assistant Designer / Kaitlyn Reed-Baker CITY BEAT Thom Nickels / thomnickels1@aol.com VALLEY BEAT Geoff Gehman / geoffgehman@verizon.net FINE ARTS Edward Higgins Burton Wasserman MUSIC Nick Bewsey / nickbewsey@gmail.com Mark Keresman / shemp@hotmail.com Bob Perkins / bjazz5@aol.com Tom Wilk / tomwilk@rocketmail.com FOOD Robert Gordon / rgordon33@verizon.net CONTRIBUTING WRITERS A. D. Amorosi / divaland@aol.com Robert Beck / robert@robertbeck.net Jack Byer / jackbyer@verizon.net Peter Croatto / petecroatto@yahoo.com James P. Delpino / JDelpino@aol.com Sally Friedman / pinegander@aol.com Geoff Gehman / geoffgehman@verizon.net George Miller / gomiller@travelsdujour.com R. Kurt Osenlund / rkurtosenlund@gmail.com Keith Uhlich / KeithUhlich@gmail.com

PO Box 120 • New Hope 18938 (800) 354-8776 Fax (215) 862-9845

30 | REEL NEWS The Walk Chi-Raq Sicario Irrational Man

Carmen McRae.

EDITORIAL Executive Editor / Trina McKenna

ICON is published twelve times per year. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. ICON welcomes letters to the editor, editorial ideas and submissions, but assumes no responsibility for the return of unsolicited material. ICON is not responsible for claims made by advertisers. Subscriptions are available for $40 (shipping & handling).

ON THE COVER: Alexander Skarsgård.

Photo: Randall Mesdon. Page 20.

4 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V. C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

Copyright 2016 Prime Time Publishing Co., Inc.

the beat VALLEY

CITY

BY GEOFF GEHMAN

BY THOM NICKELS

Steve Brosky is an authentic Valley institution, a true-blue, minor-key character. For five decades the Allentown native has been performing his salty, peppery songs and stories in various configurations at various venues in various townships. Listeners can count on his cigarette-drag delivery, gravel-rubbed sandpaper voice, deadpan wit and rock-reliable honesty.

In November Brosky’s life premiered as a musical. Living Here in Allentown played two nights at McCoole’s Arts & Events Place in Quakertown, funded by a Kickstarter campaign run by the Lehigh Valley Blues Network. Brosky was the singing, guitar-picking, strolling emcee, backed by four musicians and surrounded by six actors. four of whom imitated him at various ages and stages.

Co-written and directed by George B. Miller, a longtime Brosky ally, the show was exuberant, pleasantly shaggy and surprisingly touching. The 11-member ensemble toured Allentown’s 6th Ward, where Brosky grew up among breweries and a meatprocessing plant; his funny, scary Army service in Vietnam; his scary, unfunny rehab; his rebirth as a street troubadour; his saving marriage to a German teacher from Germany; his various incarnations as a beret-wearing beatnik blues man and a fedora-wearing jazz man armed with the motto “Fashion is temporary, but style’s forever.”

Brosky’s tunes functioned as a funky bridge. There was a scuffling blues about a busy bridge, a rolling pop tune about a waitress at a taco joint, a jaunty ode to a popular defunct club, a pioneering dose of Pennsylvania Dutch reggae. Each character got a delightfully fair shot; the nuns at Our Lady of Domination shared stage time with Brosky sharing weed with Cat Stevens. Brosky interacted beautifully with the Brosky actors, who had a gas impersonating him. The band tuned expertly into Brosky’s wavelengths. A video doubled nicely as a tribute and a roast.

Brosky’s great gratitude reminded me of comment from the show’s drummer.

“Steve’s sincerity is so strong,” Wayne “Paco” Maura once said, “even a blind man can see it.”

A Philadelphia Inquirer article chronicling the demise of art galleries in the city got us thinking. (1) Philadelphia is not New York; (2) Most of the population here is lowbrow; (3) Much of what passes for modern art stretches credibility. Are galleries closing because, as some have suggested, people are finally discovering that much of modern art is a fraud? At one opening recently we attempted to discern the “there there” of the work of a stiletto wearing New York-based artist in town to promote her abstracts. In some Center City galleries this is what the art world has become—bored wealthy Sunday lounger types taking up the brush as their hedge fund husbands foot the bill for a dilettante lifestyle. What do these “artists” produce? Intricate floral shower curtain designs, pink line graphics hinting at Victoria’s Secret underwear, or splashy decorative pieces reminiscent of the “art” that real estate agents love to hang on rehabbed condo walls. The price tag for these gems is the cost of a week’s trip to Paris, $8,000 and up. Oh yes, the New York artist’s pieces did not sell. She left the opening early—and in a huff.

The Creator broke the mold twice when He/She/It forged Karel Mikolas, master sculptor of bronze, glass, wood, clay and words. For 30-plus years I’ve been enjoying the Czech native’s uniquely crafty imagination, crazy-quilt perspective and canny uncanniness. I’ve especially enjoyed his company at his estate in the civilized wilderness of rural Slatington, where he lives with his wife Anna, a fellow Czech, in a 200-year-old barn he’s been shaping into a home/studio/lab/maze.

Mikolas was his usual wry, sly self during a talk at Bethlehem House Gallery. which is displaying his sculptures of lithe, naked, classical/modern women. He offered “a brief narrative of my meager life” in back of his six-foot-high bronze of a slim siren without arms and with a ripe-pear derriere. His fondness for females, he explained, began in Prague, where nude women gave him candy while waiting for his seamstress mother to finish their dresses. “I thought all women must be very nice,” he said. “They are probably God’s best creation—any age, any shape.”

It was in Prague that Mikolas finished a punishing six-year program in monumental classical sculpture. It left him believing that sculpting is “a brutal sport,” a collision between football and rugby, “minus the compassion.”

Mikolas found compassion in America, where he settled in 1968 after the Soviet Union took over Czechoslovakia. The following year he began a five-year job as a model maker for Louis Kahn, the famous, famously quirky architect. Kahn gave Mikolas books and sketchbooks, his first exhibit and confidence. He also drove Mikolas and clients crazy with 12th-hour tinkering that killed commissions.

Mikolas is 72, a year younger than Kahn was when he died in Penn Station. Like Kahn, he’s a pure, rare philosopher. He calls himself “an absolutely brilliant trained monkey.” Email intolerant, he prefers “to look at clouds or naked women or something else you can truly appreciate.” And why does he prefer to make limbless women? A friend theorizes that Karel was probably sick the day of the lesson in sculpting arms. ■ Geoff Gehman is the author of the memoir The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons (SUNY Press). geoffgehman@verizon.net.

Magadalena Elias’ Everything is Illuminated exhibit at the 3rd Street Gallery (45 N. 2nd Street) got us thinking of the famous Gobelin tapestries that used to hang outside government buildings in France in the 1600s. The tapestries were hung from hooks as banner art when a dignitary was in town, and sometimes they were used to warm the walls of a room. Elias began weaving tapestries after the death of her good friend Karen Lenz, but tapestry-making has been in her genes since childhood, inspired mostly by her grandfather. “In my mind’s eye I could visualize him sitting in his favorite chair, working on something he called ‘gobelin.’ As he worked, his peacefulness radiated outward and I wanted to share in that peacefulness, so I began work on my first piece, ‘The Inversion of Don Quixote.’” Unlike that hedge fund artist in stilettos, Elias sold three pieces in an hour, but not at $8,000 each.

A taste for Sherlock Holmes mysteries is like a taste for liver and onions—you either have it or you don’t. Add slapstick to the mix (The Three Stooges and all those pies thrown at high society dinners) and you have a comic book. The rocket-paced methamphetamine rush of Ken Ludwig’s Baskervulle, A Sherlock Holmes Mystery at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, had us wishing we were watching Eugene O’Neill, Tom Stoppard or Tennessee Williams. A million costume changes, men with twirling mustaches, flowers that fall from the sky and land stem first, or sound effects that recall Grofe’s The Grand Canyon Suite, cannot replace a substantive narrative. While proslapstick fans and assorted kiddies in the audience loved the Ludwig carnival, there was no standing ovation. The real Holmes mystery that night, however, was the dangerously downsized post-show reception that had us worried about the financial health of one of our favorite theaters.

Michael Nutter’s cat fight with Donald Trump originated with his wish to ban Trump from Philadelphia. But banning people (and books) because of the ideas they represent only produces underdog heroes. (Philadelphia’s Friends Central School, a venerable Quaker institution, has already banned Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn because of inappropriate language.) Some say the ex-mayor had to go out with a bang, and Trump was an all-too-easy target. We wonder how a Trump ban would operate.

Would it include spending millions to set up barriers along the Parkway? How about armed guards, Jerusalem-style, along Broad Street? Modern cities are not medieval fortresses with walls, so if Trump wanted to break Nutter’s ban he’d have to disguise himself as a Sanctuary City illegal immigrant. Then he’d be welcomed with open arms.

Andy Kahan’s author lecture series at the Free Library has brought celebrity writers to the city with Oprah Winfrey-style pizzazz. But locally based authors who want to jump on Kahan’s Central Library bandwagon with their new books have to swear off all other lecture circuit venues for the duration of their publicity tours. Central’s demand for promotion monogamy—one book = one venue—is an ingenuous way to help keep “local” authors permanently local and under the radar. ■ Thom Nickels is the author of Philadelphia Architecture, Tropic of Libra, Out in History, Spore, and recipient of the 2005 Philadelphia AIA Lewis Mumford Architecture Journalism Award. thomnickels1@aol.com

W W W. FA C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W. I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 5

M

Art

BY EDWARD HIGGINS

this light of ours

MOST OF THE ICONIC photographs of the Civil Rights movement in this country in the 1960s were created by professional photojournalists, but not all. Now comes This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement, an exhibition opening January 17 at the Allentown Art Museum and running through May 15. This traveling show was created by the Center for Documentary Expression and Art and shows the movement from the inside.

The exhibition depicts well-known leaders like Stokely Carmichael, but also introduces lesser knowns such as Andrew Young, John Lewis, Hosea Williams, Diane Nash, and Viola Liuzzo. There is one striking portrait of Fannie Lou Hamer, hands on hips, registering disgust while fighting for recognition.

She was the plain-spoken Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party leader.

Curated by photographer Matt Herron, the exhibition focuses on a relatively specific effort: The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) push for voting rights in Alabama and Mississippi in the mid-1960s. This grassroots effort focused on local people and communities, thus there are images of play and relaxation at all levels of the movement—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. playing pool; Carmichael taking a nap; children swinging from tree limbs.

The exhibition is divided into four sections: Black Life, Organizing for Freedom, State and Local Terror, and Meredith March Against Fear and Black Power. The images are grouped around these four major themes and are supported by text, photo captions, and a selection of movement artifacts that together convey SNCC’s organizational development, impact on the national consciousness, and usage of images to present critical messages. The core of the exhibition is a selection of 156 black-and-white images from the nine photographers. George Ballis, one of the featured photographers, said, “My goal was to celebrate the power of these people and amplify it with my camera.”

George “Elfie” Ballis (1925-2010) began as a labor reporter in Chicago and photographed migrants via work as an editor for a California union newspaper.

Bob Fletcher was photographer and administrator for a tutorial program of the National Student Association in Detroit and later at the Harlem Education Project in New York. From 1964 to 1968, he was based in Mississippi as a photographer for SNCC, and also taught in a Mississippi Freedom School.

Matt Herron is the exhibition’s curator and a contributing photographer. Herron organized the Southern Documentary Project in 1964, which was comprised of seven photographers who sought to document social change during that time. Currently, he manages Take Stock, a photography library specializing in civil rights and farm worker photography.

Dave Prince was the only full-time college student employed as a photographer in the summerlong Southern Documentary Project. “I made several strong films for PBS,” he said, “and then got enticed back to Ohio University, where I was hired as one of their professors and taught film for 30 years.”

Herbert Randall is of Shinnecock and African-American ancestry. He was a freelance photographer until 1964 when he went south during Freedom Summer to document SNCC activities in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in fulfillment of a Whitney Fellowship. He is currently active in the Kamoinge Workshop, a forum for African-American photographers based in New York City, which he helped found.

Maria Varela is an exhibit consultant and a contributing photographer. She was a SNCC staff member from 1963-1967. In 1990, Varela was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for collaboration with Mexican American and Native American artisans and livestock growers in the Southwest who preserved pastoral cultures through sustainable economic development strategies.

Tamio Wakayama spent his early childhood in an internment camp in British Columbia. In 1963, he became a SNCC staff member, and later, a SNCC photographer. Upon his return to Toronto in 1966, he assembled Dream of Riches: The Japanese Canadians 1877-1977, an exhibit presenting the photographic reconstruction of the memory of the Nikkei community, which toured Canada and Japan.

Bob Adelman initially photographed the efforts of the Congress of Racial Equality to desegregate restaurants and bus terminals between New York and Washington, DC. Adelman’s movement photos caught the attention of magazine editors and brought him national and international assignments and, later, acclaim.

Bob Fitch is an ordained minister who ventured south in 1965 at age 24 to join Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as a staff photographer. His pictures appeared initially in the northern African-American press, which could not afford to send staff into the South. ■

Left top: Though too young to vote, Bobby Simmons proclaims his convictions on his forehead. After he walked all the way to Montgomery, Bobby said: “You be rejoicing once you accomplish your goal and get there.” Matt Herron, Selma-Montgomery, Alabama, 1965 Left bottom:Rev. Martin Luther King leads children who are integrating a Grenada, Mississippi, school. Behind him are Andrew Young, carrying a child, and Hosea Williams. Behind Young is folksinger Joan Baez, whose contributions financed the Grenada campaign.

6 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V. C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

ART STORY AND PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK

A THOUSAND WORDS

Y

OUR CHEATIN’ HARD DRIVE

MY COMPUTER LIES TO me. I know—my friends tell me that’s just how electronic devices are. They say it doesn’t matter if it’s a laptop, workbook or a smart phone, they’re all the same. Built different than us. Love ‘em or leave ‘em. But I can’t believe all relationships are like mine.

Fred’s PC is always telling him one thing and doing another. He says it’s got a mind of its own. Eric complains that his Air doesn’t respond to him. Doesn’t matter what he does, what he says, or how hard he pleads. My friends just shake their heads, laugh, and order another beer. I laugh with them, but it’s ripping me apart inside.

There was a time my computer would start up in an instant and eagerly open my applications. All it took was my touch. Not any more. Now it makes me turn things off and on, unplug and re-plug, wander dark corridors of mysterious instructions and sinister inquiries. Do I want to allow another site access? Will I let my computer be reconfigured? I hate it, but what choice do I have?

When I look for upgrades I get diverted to pages with flashing advertisements for things I’ve already purchased. The manatee slippers. The George Foreman soup warmer. Is that the best it can do, throw my pathetic life in my face, taunting: Is this what your days are made of, chump? It knows me too well.

I see other people getting directions, hailing cars, writing reviews, with a commitment to their hardware so strong and compelling that they disregard all civil courtesy. That’s what I wanted for myself, and I really tried. In the beginning we spent all our time together from the moment we woke. We had a routine: coffee, the news, Facebook. Then we would work together, never more than a few feet apart. In the evening we would take in a movie. It was everything I hoped for.

After a few years it all started going wrong. At first I thought the occasional freeze and erratic screen were flukes, and I assumed it was something I did. Then one day while I was watching kittens riding skateboards it suddenly shut down and none of my efforts to reboot it would work. My world was shattered. Racked by fear I sought help, and stood by it through agonizing days of diagnostics and repairs. Then it was like old times for a while, gobbling up bandwidth with abandon. But I sensed a change in preferences…a searching.

I started receiving emails asking if I was the person in charge of IT solutions, and did I need help with optimizaRobert Beck’s work can be seen at www.robertbeck.net.

tion. I thought it was rubbish. Then there were the nights when it couldn’t sleep, which became every night. I began to wonder how much of what was going on was really scheduled maintenance.

We’ve had “The Conversation” but it’s always Steve Jobs’ fault. Has to work late. Doing it for me. All lies. And that “Help” icon? What a piece of crap that is.

How many times have I stared at the ceiling in the dark listening to a supposed “update?” I’m not fooled. I hear the fan surge and the drive load. I see the flicker of blue light from down the hall. The next morning my desktop is all mussed, icons scattered across the screen. My phone settings are changed.

If I wasn’t so…so…attached. There, I said it—I’m attached to it. A captive. A desperate, pitiful wreck, sobbing in the next room while it downloads programs from any server it can find, making contact with exotic sites again and again like there is no tomorrow.

It won’t last. There will come that day when its architecture gets left unsupported and I will become useful again. I’ll start seeing ads to increase performance and make everything new, just like it used to be. I’ll receive solicitations that assure a wonderful future, with the two of us side-by-side gazing into the sunset—but by then it will be too late. I’ll be gone. There is a nose-ringed beauty at the Mac Store who shows me resolution my computer doesn’t even know exists.

I hope my little hard-driven, under-pixelated Macbook Pro has enjoyed its nighttime games because tomorrow has arrived. Lighter, slimmer, retinal display, and oh yes, flash storage. Time to log off, dear. Save the pop-ups and dropdowns for your next user. I’m restarting. ■ W W W. FA C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W. I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 7

Art

BY BURTON WASSERMAN

Kaffe Fassett (b. 1937) in front of Autumn Crosses at the Quilt Museum and Gallery in York, England, May 2015. Photograph by Tony Bartholomew, Courtesy of the Quilter’s Guild Collection.

KaffeFassett ARTWORKS, HANDCRAFTED IN THE medium of textile fiber have a long history, going back in time to the medieval period, in the days when the Bayeaux Tapestry documented the defeat of Britain by William the Conquerer in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings.

Now, so many years later, striking selections in fiber are being exhibited in a show titled Blanket Statements at the Michener Art Museum. The installation includes independent modern selections by the American born, internationally recognized Kaffe Fassett. They are accompanied by historically relevant examples from the permanent collection of the Quilt Museum and Gallery of the city of York, United Kingdom. The show is scheduled to remain on public view, until February 21.

The Michener is especially pleased to be one of only two museums in the United States to have been selected to make this exhibition available for visitors.

Originally from San Francisco, Fassett studied painting in Massachusetts before settling in England in 1964. Above all, he has an exceptional gift for color, making notes of different hues vibrate with an extraordinary measure of electrified vitality. In addition, he has accumulated an exceptional reputation as an art educator of notable distinction. In view of his inspired efforts to make a brilliant career for both himself and others, it is only right that his accomplishments be described here with considerable respect and enthusiasm.

Initially immersed in the practice of knitting, Fassett moved on to quilting. His special contribution to the field consists of an especially keen eye for color composites with a decidedly original, contemporary flavor.

To further illuminate the area of quilt-making, the Michener is also offering two “tent” pieces by the noted Philadelphia artist, Virgil Marti. The overall installation was overseen by the Michener’s well-known Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest Chief Curator, Dr. Kirsten Jensen.

Modern fiber art takes its context from the fields of textile design and construction, which have been explored all over the earth for millennia. The raw material for all this activity in the language of vision has been drawn from such botannical and animal sources as cotton seed pods, linen from flax stems and wool from sheep hair as well as silk from silkworm cocoons. Today, with the arrival of modern technology, such synthetic materials as nylon and acrylic plastics have also made their presence abundantly evident.

A book titled Heritage Quilts is available in the Museum Shop. It includes handsome photographs and detailed descriptions of the quilts on display in the show. ■ Michener Art Museum, 138 South Pine Street, Doylestown, PA 215-340-9800 michenerartmuseum.org

8 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V. C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

W W W. FA C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W. I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 9

Kaffe Fassett (b. 1937), Log Cabin Sampler, 2014, 63 x 75 in. (160 x 190.5 cm). Designed by Kaffe Fassett; constructed by Judy Baldwin; quilted by Judy Irish. On loan from The Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles/ Kaffe Fassett Studio. Photograph by Dave Tolson.Kaffe Fassett (b. 1937), Log Cabin Sampler, 2014, 63 x 75 in. (160 x 190.5 cm). Designed by Kaffe Fassett; constructed by Judy Baldwin; quilted by Judy Irish. On loan from The Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles/ Kaffe Fassett Studio. Photograph by Dave Tolson.

Art Shorts CURATED BY ED HIGGINS

Isaiah Zagar at Magic Gardens Making mosaics from the broken shards of found objects has been the passion of Isaiah Zagar for more than 40 years and now the Magic Gardens, 1020 South St., Philadelphia, will host a show of his work in the space he decorated. The show continues through Feb. 16.

Zagar was born in 1939 and was awarded a BA from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Shortly thereafter he and

since the early 1980s, and now they will be seen at the Williams Center Gallery of Lafayette College, Easton, PA. from January 18 to February 28.

According to the gallery, Skudera’s “work incorporates her understanding of traditional textile processes with her painting background and love for antique black and white photographs; her collaged works combine pattern weave structures with photo-transferred images using both on- and off-loom weaving methods. With paint, washes and glazes, thread and collected objects, as well as non-traditional printing processes, she creates complex images that focus on portraits or the human figure in various environments. The juxtaposition of time past—the photographs—with the present, references the passage of time.”

sional surface and through a variety of materials, such as charcoal, latex paint, oil stick, metallic powder, graphite, and ink. By her own admission, Tanner’s ideas evolve through chance as she becomes absorbed in their invention. It is a principle that underscores and unifies her

Joan Tanner, endofred #3, 2015. Oil stick, metallic powder, ball point, chalk on Bristol. 22 x 30 inches.

his wife joined the Peace Corps and spent three years in Peru where he was inspired by the folk art of the area. In 1968 they moved to Philadelphia where they opened an art gallery on South Street. There Zagar began his mosaics as a way to provide an environment for the art they would sell.

The mosaics took off and eventually he began to create mosaics on two empty lots near his home. When the owner of the property demanded a huge sum to sell the lots and threatened to tear it down, the community rallied, got the money together and founded Magic Gardens.

His art documents the people, ideas, and objects of the city’s daily life with vivid splashes of color and brilliance. Zagar’s work is included in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and has been featured in solo exhibitions throughout the area. Zagar has received grants for his artistic excellence from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pew Charitable Trusts for his work in Interdisciplinary Arts.

Gail Skudera at Williams Center Gail Skudera’s painted, woven, drawn, photo-transfer, and collaged works have been exhibited frequently

Skudera was born in Hackensack, NJ. She studied at Montclair State University, then Northern Illinois University, where she earned her BFA and MFA. She lived and worked in Chicago from 1981-94, northern New York and central Pennsylvania from 1994-2010. She lives and works in Maine.

“There is something beautiful about the movement of tones between black and white in an old photograph that can evoke in the viewer an inexpressive sensation.”

Skudera received a Visual Artist Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment For The Arts in 1990-91.

Her work is in collections of the International Collage Center, NY and PA; Illinois State Museum; Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA; and the Art Museum of the State University of New York, Potsdam.

Joan Tanner at Locks Gallery Locks Gallery, 600 Washington Square, Philadelphia, will be displaying the work of Joan Tanner, a southern California artist, whose ongoing series of drawings “donottellmewhereibelong” are the featured art. The show runs through Jan. 30.

Locks Gallery: “She uses drawing as a testing ground for ideas that will be realized elsewhere in her work, while in her early paintings it was often van integral element of their composition. Mostly, though, drawing has remained an autonomous practice for the artist to freely explore the potential of space and form on a two-dimen-

10 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

Joan Tanner, donottellmewhereibelong #19, 2014.. Pencil, colored pencil, oil stick and pastel. 26 x 38 inches.

work, even as the drawings reveal the fissures and breaks that exist in any unifying theory.”

Born in 1935 in Indianapolis, Tanner has lived in Southern California since the mid-1960s. She received a BA degree from the University of Wisconsin and began her career as a painter. She has been consistently exhibiting her paintings, drawings, photographs, sculpture and site-specific installations since 1968 and has held major exhibitions at Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. Tanner’s work is held in public collections such as The Getty Center, Harvard University, Stanford University, and Santa Barbara Museum of Art. ■

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 11

THEATER VALLEY

CITY

Can home be the place where you spent your first three years a half century ago a third of the globe away? Mary Wright tries to answer that key question in her solo play Mae Swe, an exploration of her recently reclaimed childhood in Burma. She’ll christen the work January 14-17 at Touchstone Theatre, where she helped create a piece about the Asian-American odyssey.

Wright was born in 1962 in Rangoon, the child of missionary teachers. She left Burma four years later when foreigners were expelled by the country’s military government. Being yanked from her “entire world” at such an early age left her with a mysterious sense of loss, an “otherness” that she tried to shrink as a wife, a mother, an oral storyteller and a performing playwright.

Wright felt less isolated when she read a 2000 newspaper story about Valley charities welcoming refugees who fled the civil wars in Burma, now officially known as Myanmar. In 2003 she took a pilgrimage to Thailand, where her sister lives. Without a visa she couldn’t spend significant time in Burma. Nevertheless, sense memories from her Asian childhood bubbled up.

The rich red on temples made her understand the origin of her passion for rich reds—on clothes, on pillows, on walls. An old Mary Wright man praying with strangely familiar sounds connected her to a kind nanny who taught her one of a group of languages known as Karen.

Mae Swe, which is Burmese for “my friend,” is a realistic fable. Wright plays everyone from her young self to a water buffalo, her mother to the Emperor of Heaven.

Other characters are based on interviews with 20 of the estimated 170 Burmese refugees who have settled in the Valley over the last eight years. Wright was aided by students in a Lehigh University class in public history. The course was a resource for her 2013 Touchstone play Journey: Dream of the Red Pavilion, which featured four women acting their Asian-American experiences.

According to Wright, both plays ask the same questions: “What are the things we take and leave behind? What are the things so deeply embedded in us that, even if we don’t intellectually know them, we still know them? How do you create home away from home?”

The Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley will present Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, a dynamic debate between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a very opinionated maid the night before he was murdered at a Memphis motel. An awardwinning examination of race, politics, morality and mortality, the play will be staged January 28, January 31 and February 4. It’s part of “Voices of Conscience,” a 2015-16 Valley series of events concerning racial understanding. The Museum is also hosting This Light of Ours [reviewed by Ed Higgins in this issue], a January 17-May 15 exhibit of photographs by civil-rights activists.

On December 14 the Williams Center for the Arts at Lafayette College was slammed by a hurricane of enchanting, enthralling acting. The power was provided by Paterson Joseph in Sancho: An Act of Remembrance, his solo play about Charles Ignatius Sancho (c. 1714-1780), a prominent actor, fabled letter writer and the first known person of African origin to vote in a British election.

Joseph, a 51-year-old London native, opened as Sancho posing for a painting by Thomas Gainsborough, the renowned portraitist. Over the next 100-plus minutes he chronicled Sancho’s birth on a slave ship; his popularity as a young Sancho Panza; his valuable stints as a butler and a grocer; his fame sending abolitionist letters to novelist Laurence Sterne, who in Tristram Shandy writes about slavery’s oppression.

Joseph was a rhapsodic aristocrat with rolling eyes, robust elocution and a musketeer’s flair for sweeping, startling gestures. He relished savory language and irony, offered bull’s-eye imitations of constipated English guardians and a liberated Jamaican wife, handled a bust of Sterne with the reverence Hamlet has for Yorick’s skull. After revealing that Sancho died on December 14, he blew a kiss at the portrait that launched his odyssey. ■

In a year like 2015 in which critics point to Drake, Adele and Kendrick Lamar as having their best year ever, I would like to make the case for Miley Cyrus, who, along with nu-psychedelia’s The Flaming Lips executed the season’s best album and tour: Miley Cyrus & the Dead Petz. Named for the teen-TV-star-turned-country-queen-turned-salacious-electro-pop-princess’ recently-passed animal friends, the digital-only album was a wonky breath of fresh air from a woman who only recently discovered the Billboard charts as a dance music maker with 2013’s Bangerz and big ballads such as “Wrecking Ball.” Mutated, airy psychedelic pop with hints of death disco and skronky electronica

produced by the Lips’ Wayne Coyne & Co. gave Cyrus’ oddball lyrical notions of breakups (“BB Talk”), empowerment (“Doooo It”) and womanhood (“Karen Don’t Be Sad”) breadth and dynamics. It even gave her a classic space rock feel on “The Floyd Song (Sunrise)” that, in concert at the Electric Factory in December, was in full, freeing, creepy, cartoon swing.

Part of that freedom happened because Cyrus found herself in Philadelphia while her then-boyfriend Liam Hemsworth (the nagging dude subject of “BB Talk”) filmed the truly-terrible Paranoia throughout 2012. It was here that she cut her long locks, dyed them to white blonde and hung out with hip hop producers at Sigma Sound Studios, working on new material. Maybe it was the water or just time for a change, but Cyrus’ creaky croon and child-like personality blossomed into weird womanhood, a maturity that stumbled into its fullest, freakiest display at the Factory. Wearing male-genitalia, baby clothing, gold wigs, butter tab costumes, disco-ball helmets or next-to-nothing, Cyrus seemed a part of the Flaming Lips, cooing and coughing out “Pablow the Blowfish,” dancing around the New Wave-y of “Lighter,” and nailing the plaintive piano line of “Karen, Don’t Be Sad” before the band’s eerie swirl. This was slippery, stark and silly music with drama and daring—not the usual sounds of a Top Pop star such as Taylor Swift whom you could never imagine dressing like a tab of butter. The only thing better than Cyrus’ 2015 is imagining what she—and hopefully in tandem with the Lips who also brought her into their With a Little Help from My Fwends track-for-track tribute to The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club—will do in 2016.

The Three Maries - A Philadelphia Phable (Prince Theatre, until January10) Roxborough-born, Sondheim-like composer, lyricist and liberetist Michael Ogborn has conceived of his first work since 1982's Fishwives to touch upon his home town with The Three Marie's and its mash-up of themes from Pygmalion and Cinderella. Only, now Ogborn uses the hard, South Philly accents of a 2 Street Mummers club house and the circumstance of visiting royalty in the Roaring Twenties to show off his silliest musical side - which is saying something when you consider that last year, he presented the whimsically goofy Field Hockey Hot. As with Hit, Rachel Brennan is one of Ogborn's singing shining stars amongst a Murderers' Row of Philly's best theatrical talents. ■

—Geoff Gehman 12 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

—A. D. Amorosi

-

,

i W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 13

The List JANUARY CURATED BY A. D. AMOROSI 2 Jackson Browne One would have thought that The Pretender was Running on Empty by now, but Doctor My Eyes, he still looks good and sounds plaintive. (Borgata)

making MOR rock together and he’s off, roaming the land on a solo excursion? (Borgata)

21 Larry Campbell & Theresa Williams For most of their married lives, country cuddlers Larry Campbell and Theresa Williams have backed

16 Criss Angel If you missed the last Motley Crue shows and still

2 Duane Eubanks The award-winning trumpeting and flugelhorning younger brother of Kevin and Robin Eubanks stops home for a blast. (Chris’ Jazz Café)

22 Ralph Stanley and Nathan Stanley Like grandfather, like grandson; Ralph and young Nathan lead and follow bluegrass’ long grand lineage. (Sellersville Theatre) 23 M-PACT: On-stage Cabaret Imagine the smooth soul of Stevie Wonder, the percussive power of Stomp and the brass bite of the Harry Connick Jr. Big Band…all created by this respected cutting edge a cappella ensemble.

(Zoellner Arts Center)

2 Gov’t Mule If guitarist Warren Haynes’ Mule isn’t the loudest, blowsiest blues jam band on the planet, I’ll eat a peach. (Tower)

23 Chris Hardwick The Nerdist creator and now host-with-the-most

4 Lili Anel This Philadelphia soul-jazz-folkie is one of our

hanker for creepy hair metal making things disappear, this Mind Freak show is for you. Boo. (State Theatre) 16 Lettuce The Boston funk band starring guitarists Eric Krastreasures; a romantic, an activist, a dreamer. (World Café Live at the Queen)

up Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan and Levon Helm.

Now it’s their time to take the wheel. (Ardmore Music Hall)

8 Willie Nile It’s both Elvis Presley and David Bowie’s birthday.

What are you doing at groaning folkie Willie Nile’s gig? (World Café Live)

22 Jennifer Nettles/Brandy Clark The prettiest part of the Sugarland hit country band has been branching out for some time, even appearing with The Roots at its Wawa Welcome America July 4th show. Now ready for her close up, Nettles’ voice is a stunner. (Tower)

10 Dancing W/ the Stars America’s only celebrity dancing game show comes to a stage near you. All the boys are handsome, all the girls are beautiful, everyone has bigger-thanusual calves. (Sands Bethlehem) 14 Joe Bonamassa Bonamassa is hailed worldwide as one of the greatest guitar players of his generation, and is an ever-

Photo: Mark Seliger

22 Joanna Pascale & Curtis Institute’s 20/21 One of modern music’s free-est vocalists joins the no and Adam “Shmeeans” Smirnoff has slowly turned into a spacey jam ensemble in its ten-year existence. (TLA)

for Comedy Central’s @Midnight and AMC’s Talking Dead, shows off, comedic-ally, where all things nerdy stem. (Borgata) 23 Rattattat Electronic funk’s young favorites cut and paste their way through your little avant-garde heart.

(Electric Factory) 23/24 Macklemore & Ryan Lewis The toast of Grammy-winning good guy, pleasant Caucasoid activist rap and the other guy play uniquely small shows in Upper Darby in hot anticipation of new music. (Tower) 29 The Smithereens One of power punk’s favorite sons—or at least the best thing to come out of Carteret, NJ—make a hearty noise. (World Café Live)

18 Marcia Ball This hootenanny honey never fails to rage and engage. (World Café Live)

29/30 Joey DeFrancesco & His Trio The son of Papa John DeFrancesco didn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to jamming blue jazz organ sounds. Add to that, that this city is organtrio central—you’re grooving. (Chris Jazz Café) 31 MUSE with X Ambassadors If Queen got together with Queens of the Stone Age and had a loud crying queenie baby, it would be Muse. (Wells Fargo) 31 TAO: Seventeen Samurai Seventeen Japanese Taiko drummers? Where do they fit? How can they stretch their legs for all that athletic choreography? And isn’t this noisy? You see. (Zoellner Arts Center)

evolving singer-songwriter who has released 17 solo albums in the last 15 years. (State Theatre) 15 The Knocks Ben “B-Roc” Ruttner and James “JPatt” Patterson, in the guise of electro-duo The Knocks, have another middle name: freaky-a-deaky. (Fillmore) 15-17 Sidewalk Angels feat. Rob Thomas Is big voiced Rob Thomas’ Matchbox no longer

19/20 G-Eazy G-Eazy’s new album When It’s Dark Out shows that a white indie rapper can still have fun and not sound like a Beastie Boy. (Fillmore)

kids of Curtis Institute’s newest jazz unit for merriness and mayhem. (WCL)

14 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

31 Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra Winter Vivaldi. Intimate chamber music performed

by Sinfonia principal instrumentalists: Vivaldi, Rameau, Marcello, Corelli, J.S. Bach. (Wesley Church, Bethlehem)

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 15

FILM KERESMAN ON FILM REVIEW BY MARK KERESMAN

Y

Youth

YOUTH AND BEAUTY ARE prized, aging is not. Here’s a European film about aging as seen through the eyes of two creative and somewhat troubled souls.

Youth is set at a luxurious hotel somewhere near the base of the Swiss Alps. This is the kind of hotel where the rooms are bigger than some apartments. Michael Caine is Fred Ballinger, a cranky retired classical composer and conductor. He’s on vacation with his daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz) and his old filmmaker pal Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel). Mick is preparing to shoot his “testament,” a movie he hopes will be a capstone to his career. The script isn’t completed yet, so he has a cadre of dweeby screenwriters along to write the movie. Adding another layer is Lena, married to Mick’s jerk son. The Queen Mother of England wants Fred to come out of retirement for a command performance—Fred politely tells the Queen’s emissary to take a hike. Obviously, these are the problems of the incredibly affluent, not retired pharmacists, truck drivers, actuaries, and/or construction workers. Among the cast of supporting players is Jimmy Tree, played by Paul Dano, an American actor preparing for a role in a European film. He seems proud of himself for reading and whines that he is best known for playing a robot in a science fiction movie…boo-frigging-hoo.

As you may have guessed, there’s a lot of talk about living, growing old, missed opportunities, regrets, and unfinished business. A lot of talk revolves around stereotypes about aging. Mick asks Fred, “Did you take a piss today?” The reply, “Yeah, about four drops.” Tee hee. They missed a great opportunity by not replying, “Why, is there one missing?” In some ways, this movie is a bit, well, male-centric—there’s a you-naughtyold-fellows moment when Miss Universe Madalina Ghenea (playing herself) walks into the hot tub totally naked with the two old codgers. Jane Fonda makes a cameo as an actress that Mick “made” into a star many years back—she plays a clichéd mean-spirited Hollywood diva that makes Joan Crawford (or Jennifer Lopez, for younger readers)

look like that imp Zooey Deschanel. Fonda passionately overacts to such a degree that I thought she was William Shatner in drag. The female characters are either silent (they might be doing something but they’re silent), figures of beauty, or cyphers. Weisz’s daughter says she has two jobs, daughter and her father’s assistant.

Youth, written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, is visually and sonically beautiful, just as a European art film should be. But while it’s swell to see old pros Caine and Keitel banter back and forth—you can really believe these lads are old pals—Sorrentino stumbles badly by piling on The Quirky Factor. Almost every guest at this hotel registers as a character in an indie film, not a real person. At one point we see Jimmy walking around the hotel looking like a dead ringer for Adolf Hitler. Yup, nowhere else in the world but Central Europe would an actor walk around in public (for no apparent reason except to shock, I guess) as the most infamous Austrian in human history.

Mick’s posse of screenwriters is contemporary filmdom’s stereotype of uber-nerd writers that look as if they still live in their mom’s basement—and Mick’s “testament” film sounds like something you’d see on the Lifetime Network. Much of the dialogue sounds as if the characters were addressing posterity instead of each other, trying so hard to be profound that they end up sounding silly. Mick tells Fred, “You say that emotions are overrated. But that's bullshit. Emotions are all we've got.” Fred muses to his delightfully daffy doctor (one that assures him that he’ll never have problems with his prostate), “Here I am, old, and I can’t recall how I got here.” Wow, deep.

Youth is exquisitely made and features some fine acting, but much of the dialogue sounds just like that—dialogue in a Euro-art film. I never got the feeling these characters were real people. ■

16 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 17

exclusive INTERVIEW

BY A.D. AMOROSI

TOM STOPPARD A lover of language and word-play, the Czech-born British playwright recently held the United States premiere of The Hard Problem,

A

his first new play since 2006’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, in Philadelphia.

A FACE-TO-FACE with Tom Stoppard, one of the English language’s greatest living playwrights, is certainly one filled with wit and wonder. So when the last thing Stoppard says to me before leaving the Wilma Theatre—the Philadelphia company with whom he’s been affiliated since 1994—is “Please do not let them serve me a cheesesteak,” I feel as if we’ve bonded. “I promise I won’t, sir,” said your humble writer, acting as if I was doing some knightly duty. Beyond that bond, however, Stoppard was in Philadelphia to chat up The Hard Problem, his newest work which had its American premiere at the Wilma this month. The Hard Problem is the “hard problem of consciousness”—what and where is it? How do physical

nice to have such a relationship with a theater here.

They were both directing my work. They did my work originally at the smaller space that they had in the city [a Sansom Street spot that eventually became the Adrienne]. Then they brought it here [Broad Street] which is lovely because it’s an intimate auditorium, yet has this large, wide stage playing area. It was quickly apparent that Blanka especially was bold and inventive—a risk taker, which she still is. She didn’t do safe stuff or take the easy way. I felt as if it was a truly admirable set up here. I was delighted when they came back for more. So, I came back for more, too.

people don’t get on, so I guess coming to the Wilma—then and now—is as nice as other places who have welcomed me. This is not foreign ground.

I’ve been here two days and it feels as I haven’t been away at all. Funny, though, I’ve walked many miles around Philadelphia, but always the same two blocks.

You like it here.

I do. It’s an old city, one that doesn’t look as if it’s based on Blade Runner.

You look for commonalities in theaters. What challenges then exist, or do you consider—when working with a company or theater?

“THE ORTHODOX VIEW IN THE WORDS OF SCIENTISTS IS PRETTY MUCH THAT THE IDEA OF GOODNESS—MORALITY, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG—THESE ARE TERMS THAT SIMPLY ARE EXPRESSIONS OF OUR EVOLUTIONARY, BIOLOGICAL CHOICES. THAT THERE’S NO DIVINE INTERVENTION, NO GOD IN THIS CONCEPT AT ALL. SCIENCE THEN IS SOMEWHAT AT ODDS WITH THE GENERAL POPULATION. A LOT OF THE THINGS DONE NOW ARE BEING DONE IN THE NAME OF A GOD RATHER THAN THAT OF A MARX, LENIN OR MAO. WHERE ARE WE NOW, THEN?”

processes in the brain give rise to the subjective experience of the conscious mind and how it experiences the world? How are we to explain the multitude of impossibilities that is human existence? Is matter separate from consciousness? What actually makes us human? These are the questions that Hilary, a young psychology student who refuses to believe that consciousness is merely a biological process, demands to be answered.

David Chalmers, a scientist and philosopher who specializes in the nature and mysteries of consciousness which he calls “the hard problem,” inspired the title.

You’ve been affiliated with Philly’s Wilma since 1994—Czech background aside, for the moment, what do you recall about the first connection with the theater? Why you were so amenable to them and the Zizkas [Blanka and Jiri Zizka, founding artistic directors], to you? How did the relationship begin and flourish?

That background gave us our first access, our entry point if you will. They were smitten with my work and we all got on well, really. That was nice. We began a special relationship, which it is still. It was

You mentioned Blanka and what she’s meant to you. What about Jiri and your dealings with him?

I was looking at his photo right before you entered [points to Blanka’s pegboard behind the desk in her office]. I liked him very much. He was a very Czech guy. I don’t honestly know what that should mean—“very Chech”—but he was that. In my time, I have met Jiri before, men just like him in Prague, before meeting him specifically. Intense. I liked his reserve. He wasn’t all over you.

Funny way of putting that.

I was never embedded in any sense. As the play’s author, I’m here, but for a bit. I’m a visitor from another place. I think the real answer to your question, A.D., is that theaters and its people have more in common with each other than there are differences.

I was going to ask that very question next.

Once you’ve spent time in the company of a director and its actors, things start feeling familiar whether you’re in Philadelphia, London or New York.

There’s a sense of common endeavor. Humans respond best to that—a group, a team. Most people in this circumstance are congenial. It’s honestly rare that

18 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

The questions one asks are common. The answers, though, can be quite different. Blanka—her rehearsals are not run-of-the-mill, believe me. They push the boundaries. They are emotional, exploring real and imagined language, body language, through highly physical means, through sounds. I’m a spectator, an observer. This is new to me. Blanka is interested in approaching her work in a European way.

It’s fascinating to see an American group of actors bonding to her, who’d follow her anywhere. Like how at the end of the first week, we were still keeping the text at a distance and working with our bodies, our breathing.

Being a spectator, in your estimation, would be well-and-good if not for the fact that you eschew the cerebral and distanced voyeurism for something far more ingratiating and emotional and far less passive. Look at the current play that deals with consciousness: how are you spectating yet gleaning emotion from its topic?

I’m an active spectator. You have to pick your moments. OK, I would say that the actors’ standpoint is to seek out the narrative, and that the writer can be helpful by talking, revealing, the emotional subtext.

Photo: © Matt Humphrey 2015

You’re hoping to enable the actor to engage the emotions, not just their utterance.

There are, however theories about all this from those better educated to it all. Me? I show up, I behave well. The actors like to talk to an author, I know that from over the years. It’s not as if a dead author’s ghost propped up in the corner; if it’s possible to talk to an author, they seem to appreciate it. The other thing is, that talking to the actors is good fun, part of a usually interesting rehearsal process that I like to be part of whenever possible. Actors are brave.

Abstraction certainly finds its home in The Hard Problem.

Well, the mystery of consciousness has never really been studied. At least not for very long, barely two, three decades, which isn’t at all considerable. Here’s a through line for you actually: a play I wrote in 1972 had as its central figure a moral philosopher—a comedy called Jump Rope—who was asked ‘what exactly was good about good?’ That’s the same question hovering around this new play, so it doesn’t appear as if I’ve made much progress.

I suddenly thought of Mel Brooks’ line in The Producers where they talk about killing the actors. Leo says ‘Actors aren’t animals’ and Max responds ‘Have you ever eaten with one?’ You mentioned not having a single theory when you write. I’m curious then—without theory, what is the through line in your work, say from Enter a Free Man and The Hard Problem?

That’s a long line. A through line is nothing I ever had in my mind. In other words, I never felt as if I had one objective, a map I was working my way through and toward some specific finality. I’m grateful to have any idea for any play—their differences are greater than their similarities—then again, maybe there is a line, just dotted. I’ve always ascribed to more abstract concepts rather than responding to an event in my life or meeting an interested character—say ‘A.D., wow’—and constructing something around that.

I would add that the concept of altruism reaches back to that first play of yours, just as much as it does in your version of Mr. Chalmers’ concept of consciousness.

There’s something to what you say. Hilary certainly comes from within me—I certainly don’t want to believe that all selfless, generous actions have Darwinian self-interest within them; that all that we do is devised for or is for our own self-cause. Even as I say it, it seems wrong, implausible. The orthodox view in the words of scientists is pretty much that the idea of goodness—morality, the difference between right and wrong— these are terms that simply are expressions of our evolutionary, biological choices. That there’s no Divine Intervention, no God in this concept at all. Science then is somewhat at odds with the general population. A lot of the things done now are being done in the name of a god rather than that of a Marx, Lenin or Mao. Where are we now, then? ■

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 19

exclusive INTERVIEW

E

BY R. KURT OSENLUND

From Undead to Undaunted

With an acclaimed indie under his belt and a major role in one of this year’s biggest popcorn flicks, Alexander Skarsgård has only begun to reveal the truth in his blood.

EVERY ACTOR WHO BECOMES known for one specific character has a hurdle to jump: Can he or she convincingly shed that famed persona in other projects?

Can the actor muster the chops to distract viewers from the cultural phenomenon he or she’s embodied so fully? For Alexander Skarsgård, he might want to worry more about his genetically-gifted aura, which seems to literally light up even the brightest room, and is itself a distraction. This is no dinner-toast nicety: Skarsgård, who for seven seasons won hearts and drank plasma as True Blood vamp Eric, is one celeb who truly seems to

I definitely remember the first time I felt something different…I was watching Tootsie, and Jessica Lange was in it. This was way before I was sexually active, but I just remember watching her and wanting to keep watching her, and every time she wasn’t on screen, I wanted her to come back. I felt really... weird. And I’ll never forget that—that feeling of, “Oooh...look at that girl.” emit light, his golden hair and Swedish features creating a kind of romance-novel ambiance.

It takes a bit of adjusting to encounter all this in person, but on screen, Skarsgård has indeed managed to leave Eric behind, while also dimming his natural sheen enough to embody new characters. While he’s ably nestled himself into films like Melancholia and The East, the movie that got him attention in 2015 was The Diary of a Teenage Girl, a coming-of-age tale in which Skarsgård’s character sleeps with Minnie, a lost and lustful 15year-old played by the acclaimed Bel Powley.

Nuanced and carefully observed by director Marielle Heller, Diary lets us see Skarsgård tackle (and humanize) the antihero head on, but it’s just a warm up for what he’ll be serving in 2016. Alongside Margot Robbie, who’s set to play the role of Jane, Skarsgård has landed the musclebound lead in The Legend of Tarzan. Uncannily at ease, the son of an acting legend (Stellan Skarsgård) sat down to chat about teen drama, red carpet drag, and the hardest thing he had to give up to play everyone’s favorite ape man.

When you were about 15, Minnie’s age in The Diary of a Teenage Girl, what were some of the hardest or scariest things about young adulthood, sexual awakening, and basic teenage angst?

I wouldn’t say it was a scary time; it was just physically and emotionally overwhelming, and awkward, and

weird. I definitely remember the first time I felt something different, as in being attracted to someone. I was very young and I was watching Tootsie, and Jessica Lange was in it. This was way before I was sexually active, but I just remember watching her and wanting to keep watching her, and every time she wasn’t on screen, I wanted her to come back. I felt really...weird.

And I’ll never forget that—that feeling of, “Oooh...look at that girl.”

As she comes of age, Minnie lacks a sufficient number of role models, leaving her to fend for herself. Who were some of your role models? Your father?

I mean, yeah. It’s just such a boring answer, though: “My dad was my role model.” But he is fuckin’ awesome, and he always was. When I was a child actor, around 13, I did a movie that got quite a bit of attention in Sweden. And it made me uncomfortable—again, being at that age where I’m kind of going from a child to a man. It’s a weird time for anyone, and it’s even weirder in the spotlight. It made me paranoid and I wanted to quit, and since I was suddenly getting a lot of offers, I imagine a lot of parents would say, “Keep going!

Keep working!” But dad’s advice was, “If you don’t feel comfortable, don’t do it. If there’s anything else you want out there, do that.” He was a stage actor back then, and he’d be gone 16 hours a day and perform at night. It’s tough. So his only advice was, “Only do this if there’s no other option out there for you.” For eight years, I explored those “other options,” but I was shit at everything so I had to come back to acting. [Laughs] Diary of a Teenage Girl takes place in San Francisco in the 1970s. What’s something you love about that place, or that time, or both?

I mean, it’s almost too much fun. If you’re going to do a movie that’s set in 1976, I mean, what better city in the world to shoot in than San Francisco? It takes place in the wake of the “Summer of Love,” and at that time, it was the place to be. And obviously we had so much fun with the outfits and creating the looks of these characters. What I noticed was that I had to stop having too much fun with it, because then it feel like a costume party and it doesn’t feel real. We wanted people to feel like they were watching people in that time—not a bunch of modern actors playing dress-up.

Well, speaking of playing dress-up, you made headlines earlier this year during one of the film’s premieres, when you showed on the red carpet in full

20 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

drag. How did that come together, how did you feel?

Well, Brian, our first assistant director on the movie, has a stage name of Cousin Wonderlette, and he’s a legendary drag queen in San Francisco. And Lady Bear, another famous drag queen in the city, was the casting director for all of our extras. They’re friends with the filmmakers, who wanted them to host a screening at the Castro Theater, and as they were planning it, they were having so much fun talking about their outfits. I just didn’t want to be excluded from all the fun! So Brian asked what I wanted to look like, and I said, “Farrah Fawcett!” I don’t know if we succeeded, but I hope so.

How did you feel when you were actually wearing the drag? I read that the wig stayed on all night.

It was incredibly fun and uncomfortable. I was really, really sick. I flew in from London that day, and was under the weather, so it wasn’t comfortable wearing those stiletto shoes, and the wig, and the nails. I felt like Edward Scissorhands when trying to grab my drink. But it was definitely worth it.

I’m going to jump back to your childhood and ask about your birthplace of Sweden. I’m Swedish, too, but I’ve never been to the country. What’s something I definitely shouldn’t miss when I go?

Well, I’m from south Stockholm, which is south of the city—south of the island, and south of the old town.

So I can’t objectively say anything beyond that neighborhood. But I loved it. For me, growing up in that neighborhood was the place to be. So I’d just walk around south Stockholm. There are cool little coffee shops, and thrift stores, and restaurants. The vibe is really nice. And there’s one outdoor club—whose name translates to “Under the Bridge”—that’s pretty amazing. It’s like a hybrid of a kindergarten playground and a club, with ping pong tables, some crazy DJ, and a very eclectic mix of people.

You’re going to be starring as the lead in the new Tarzan movie. When preparing for the role, what was the hardest thing you had to give up or change about your regular routine?

Oh god, I had to change pretty much everything. I had to eat smaller portions, which was new for me, but honestly, cutting out beer was the hardest. I had to cut out beer for eight months, which is a long time. That was rough. ■ R. Kurt Osenlund is the managing editor of OUT magazine.

Photograph by Randall Mesdon

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 21

FILM CINEMATTERS REVIEW BY PETE CROATTO

I

T IS APPROPRIATE THAT Eddie Redmayne follows up his Oscar-winning performance in The Theory of Everything with The Danish Girl, another sweeping biopic featuring a heart-rending challenge that is scrubbed of nuance and emotional truth so that only a colorless pile of feel-good mush remains.

This time it’s worse. If The Danish Girl were made with care, it could serve as an inspiration—and an awakening to those who roll their eyes at Caitlin Jenner. The Theory of Everything was an insult to smart date movies and to Jane Hawking, whose story of sacrifice and emotional turmoil was diluted so audiences could leave smiling. The Danish Girl, I think, insults an entire group.

Director Tom Hooper’s (the Les Misérables musical, The King’s Speech) latest exercise in classy gawking tells the true story of Lili Elbe (Redmayne), one of the first people to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Before the operation, Lili lives as Einar Wegener, a Danish landscape painter married to another artist (Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina). At first glance, Einar and Gerda have a pleasant, bohemian marriage and a spacious joint studio. But there are signs of trouble, aside from the inability to conceive. Gerda ends a cocktail party anecdote about how she and Einar’s courtship with a teensy bit of foreshad-

The Danish Girl owing. “It was like kissing myself,” she gushes.

Einar’s inner turmoil unfurls when—with Gerda’s blessing—he dresses up in Gerda’s clothes to spice up a boring party. Soon, he’s sneaking around with a curious suitor (Ben Whishaw) and regularly dressing as a woman.

This is all too much for any marriage, especially in the 1920s, which is where Hooper’s values are stuck. From the start, he frames Einar’s yearning to be female in a contemptuous leer—fondling dresses, gasping when he puts on silk stockings to pose for Gerda’s painting.

Identifying Einar’s woe as coming from a gag gone wrong best illustrates Hooper’s troubling inability to think deeper. He compensates by employing the grinding, gee-whiz camerawork he so adored in the laborious Les Misérables, where a medium shot is a sin. Hooper can capture the Zalman King-like fascination from a piece of fabric, but can’t portray his characters’ emotions beyond leering solemnity in soft lighting. The Danish Girl demands an emotional commitment to complement the imagery. The actors here are shackled. Without context, Redmayne’s performance is little more than a trembling dandy caricature. Vikander, faring slightly better, turns into a mourner at a stranger’s funeral.

Their characters feel secondary to Oscar-baiting me-

22 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

chanics, even when the movie ventures into compelling territory. As Einar continues his journey to Lili, she becomes Gerda’s artistic inspiration. Her career blossoms in Paris while her marriage wilts. You can’t capture that conflict in breathless aesthetics—or with a waffling script that never builds beyond what new avenue of glossy woe to pursue. Screenwriter Lucinda Coxon shoves both characters through the narrative, hoping the oh-my! storyline will define them or the performances will elevate the material. It’s hard to tell. The utilitarian dialogue helps no one. A piece of advice: “It’s my only hope” should only be used by a character awaiting Superman’s arrival.

The postscript informs us that Lili Elbe’s personal writing inspired the transgender community. It’s hard to tell based on what we have just watched. The Danish Girl blows by the obstacles in Lili’s path and obliterates our empathy. It portrays judgmental voyeurism as enlightenment, whether it’s Einar mimicking the movements at a Paris peep show or tucking his penis between his legs to better look like his ideal self. Hooper is only interested in portraying the shallowest and most salacious aspects of a human experience before pulling away—ensuring that audiences will stay away. [R] ■

-

-

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 23

bad movie REVIEW BY MARK KERESMAN

Spectre ONE OF THE MOST popular franchises in movie history is James Bond. Bond...James Bond. He is one suave s.o.b., an agent on Her Majesty’s Secret Service, or rather MI-6, the UK counterpart of the Central Intelligence Agency. He is an iconic super-spy who’s been saving the world—or at the very least Great Britain—ever since 1962’s Dr. No. Bond is urbane, intelligent, wry, and when he needs to be, a ruthless killer.

Bond has been played by several actors, most famously by Sean Connery and most recently by Daniel Craig. The real world has been catching up to Bond in recent years—he used to be the Ultimate Macho Fantasy Figure, bedding every pretty lady within sight, a Superman without cape. He was so iconic that he eventually became a cartoon—see some of the Roger Moore-era Bond films. But in recent years he’s been made more “real,” more vulnerable, more human. His villains have become more modern, too—the Russians and Chinese are no longer the enemy, but rather megalomaniacal magnates, shadowy international cartels, and terrorists.

But perhaps the pendulum has gone too far—Spec-

tre, the latest and perhaps the last Bond film to star Craig, is a nearly joyless experience. As Bond, Craig seems both somewhat full of himself and bored with the role. In Casino Royale, Craig/Bond was a tough, detached guy, and he was disheveled and breathing heavy after a lethally sloppy battle with a spy in a men’s room.

This Bond is just going through the motions—he doesn’t even have any chemistry with “Bond Girls” Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux. Absurd as some of the Bond films could get, there was always some fun—a pun here, a sarcastic remark there—not here. In fact, the tone of Spectre is best described as dreary…and again, another woefully overlong movie (30 minutes shy of three hours).

There really isn’t much of a plot—an international organization of meanies known as Spectre wants to be able to hack into a global information/surveillance network. For reasons hard to follow, Bond and His Girl walk into the den of the main bad guy Ernst Stavro Blofeld, played by Christoph Waltz (Big Eyes, Inglorious Basterds). Blofeld has plenty of opportunities to kill Bond but

24 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

opts for some needlessly convoluted baloney that gives Bond a chance to escape (naturally, and too easily). As in From Russia With Love and Live and Let Die, this movie has another cliché fight scene on a train. Waltz is excellent at playing villains, but here he’s more like a parody of The Evil Mastermind in movies such as this… and he didn’t even have much screen time. (Heck, Donald Trump is scarier than this Blofeld—incidentally, there was a short-lived villain in the Daredevil comic books in the ‘80s called Trump, before The Donald reared his comb-overed head to the world.)

But are there good escapist action scenes? No. Those scenes are predictable and unmemorable—in fact, there is nothing here that hasn’t been done better in other Bond films. Even for escapist action films, there’s some really dumb stuff here: Bond takes down a helicopter with a handgun from an absurdly long distance; Bond is being tortured and whaddya know, there’s an explosion and clamps holding him burst open. I never thought I’d say this about a James Bond movie: I was bored. ■

s

e

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 25

E

A BAWDY and UNRULY CITY

ighteenth-century Philadelphia was a bawdy and unruly place, and when it came to life’s pleasures, the city was anything but restrictive.

After the Revolutionary War, Philadelphia experienced a scandalous sexual golden age, replete with casual sex in alleys, brothels, taverns and anywhere else that seemed convenient. Many referred to Philadelphia then as “Sin City.”

The mid-eighteenth century also saw the proliferation of erotic almanacs, pamphlets and books. For the first time, the lower classes had access to these materials and literary Philadelphia was born.

Since Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia has been a haven and an inspiration for writers. Local essayist Agnes Repplier once shared a glass of whiskey with Walt Whitman, who frequently strolled Market Street. Gothic writers like Edgar Allan Poe and George Lippard plumbed the city’s dark streets for material. In the 20th century, Northern Liberties native John McIntyre found a backdrop for his gritty noir in the working-class neighborhoods, while novelist Pearl S. Buck discovered a creative sanctuary in Center City.

A Philadelphia author, poet and journalist, Thom Nickels has written eleven books and his poetry has been published in various collections. He is the City Beat editor at ICON magazine and contributes regularly to the Huffington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia City Paper, Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphias Spirit newspapers. He was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and received the Philadelphia AIA Lewis Mumford Award for Architectural Journalism in 2005.

Literary Philadelphia is available at Amazon, Arcadia Publishing, and Barnes and Noble.

26 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 27

FILM FILM ROUNDUP CURRENT FILMS REVIEWED BY KEITH UHLICH

The Revenant

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Dir. J.J. Abrams). Starring: Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega. Back we go to the galaxy far, far away. The first Star Wars film not overseen in any way by creator George Lucas is a competently made bit of fan service that lacks a certain idiosyncratic pulse that even Lord George managed at his very worst. J.J. Abrams acquits himself well enough in the director’s chair, keeping things moving and making sure the performances—by everyone from old salts like Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher (Han Solo and Leia Organa) to newcomers like Daisy Ridley and John Boyega—have a consistency lacking in any of the prior Star Wars features. Ridley is the Luke Skywalker-esque innocent, a desert planet scavenger who teams up with Boyega’s exStormtrooper Finn (as well as Han and his sidekick Chewbacca) to return an adorable droid named BB-8 to the rebellion, all the while avoiding the dark forces of the socalled First Order, led by the dictatorial Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Totally unpretentious and enjoyable, if kind of thin in the way it acts as setup for what is sure to be a solar system’s worth of sequels, The Force Awakens is one of the best films-by-committee ever made—which isn’t entirely an endorsement. [PG-13] ★★★

The Revenant (Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu). Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter, Domhnall Gleeson, Lukas Haas, Paul Anderson, Grace Dove. The backstage farce Birdman (2014) suggested typically dour director Alejandro González Iñárritu had a bit of playful mischief in him. But with his 19th-century survivalist Western, he’s fully retreated to his miserablist safe zone. Leonardo DiCaprio, sporting a mountain man goatee, stars as frontiersman Hugh Glass, who is left for dead by his trapper compadres after he’s mauled by a bear. (An impressively mounted sequence, admittedly, though its show-offiness is, like much of the 156-minute film, self-consciously boastful.) From there, Leo grunts his way back to civilization, dealing with marauding Indians, evil Frenchmen, pitiless Nature and a spectacularly awful Tom Hardy as the mumblingly macho colleague who he holds responsible for his plight. Some striking photography by the great Emmanuel Lubezki (who knows his way around complicated long takes and sweeping vistas) only calls further attention to the film’s essential emptiness—more sideshow than tour de force. [R] ★★

Son of Saul (Dir. László Nemes). Starring: Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnár, Urs Rechn.

The plaudits were legion at the Cannes Film Festival premiere of László Nemes’s harrowing, if ultimately monotonous Holocaust drama, which follows a member of the Sonderkommando (Jews forced to work cleanup and other appalling tasks in the Nazi death camps) named Saul (Géza Röhrig). He spends the movie navigating Auschwitz, searching for a rabbi to help him bury a boy who he believes is his son.

(Is Saul’s assumption true? A delusion? The film never specifies, though the ambiguity feels forced, calculated.) Brilliantly shot in a claustrophobically square aspect ratio that emphasizes its protagonist’s blinkered, shellshocked perspective, the movie makes its points early and then repeats them for another hour and change. Proponents see Nemes’ first-person aesthetic as a tough, unsentimentalized approach to a subject that by its nature defies easy categorization, especially cinematically. To me it plays like the work of a carnival barker ushering viewers into an overbearingly savage haunted house—Holocaust: The Ride.

Though effective in the moment, the film leaves you depleted and completely unenlightened about one of the most horrific events in human history. [R] ★★1/2

28 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

The Hateful Eight (Dir. Quentin Tarantino). Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh. The movieobsessed mindset that served writer-director Quentin Tarantino so well in energizing works like Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and Death Proof stagnates in his three-hour post-Civil War Western about a treacherous group of strangers holed up in an isolated cabin. They’re a motley crew with names like Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) and Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and they’ve each got deceitful motivations that, once come to light, result in ample bloodshed. It’s clear that Tarantino’s intentions are to make microcosmic commentary on the racist and sexist underpinnings of the American republic. Yet the movie (shot—ineffectually, sad to say—on expansive 70mm celluloid) instead plays like a filmmaker indulging his worst impulses. A woman is beaten beyond recognition, there are copious use of the N-word, homophobia is treated as a punchline—none of it to truly transgressive effect. It’s depressing to see the talented QT wallow in such shallow nihilism. [R] ★1/2 ■

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 29

FILM REEL NEWS RECENTLY RELEASED DVDS REVIEWED BY GEORGE OXFORD MILLER

The Walk

The Walk (2015) ★★★★ Genre: Adventure drama Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley Rated PG This caper movie is both an eulogy to the Twin Towers and a celebration of human exhibitionism and folly. In 1974, when the Towers were still under construction, the French daredevil Philippe Petit walked a 140-foot-long tightwire between the skyscrapers. He didn’t just make the walk, he spent 45 minutes doing death-defying stunts suspended 1,350-feet above the pavement. To provide the context that brings the razzle-dazzle stunt man to his climatic performance, the movie begins with the deep backstory. The first half follows Petit from childhood through circuses, street busking, and café romance to his scheme to make history. Then the caper begins in earnest and the tension builds toward his first step from the building into the sky. With stunning CGI, the scenes transport us back to the New York of the 1970s and to the precarious middle of the tightwire. Though James Marsh’s documentary Man on Wire won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2008, this latest white-knuckle dramatization stands on its own for both storytelling and memorializing beautiful memories of the Twin Towers.

Chi-Raq (2015) ★★★ Cast: Nick Cannon, Teyonah Parris, Samuel L. Jackson, Wesley Snipes, John Cusack Directed by Spike Lee. Genre: Drama, satire Rated R What do you get when you combine Chicago and Iraq? You get Chi-Raq, the windy city where since 9/11 more Americans have been killed by guns than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Spike Lee’s social satire is a modern remake of Lysistrata, a 411 B.C. Greek comedy, but it plays as razor sharp today as ever. When Chi-Raq (Cannon), a gang banger rapper, gets in the middle of a turf war, his girlfriend Lysistrata (Parris) decides it’s time for a shift in power. She organizes the South Side women for a sex strike to force the gangs to peace up. Naturally all sorts of hilarious hell breaks loose. Deadly serious with the reality of his message, Lee takes on black-on-black violence, bigotry, political corruption, the nation’s pervasive gun culture, and the even more pervasive drug culture. With rap lyrics, rhyming dialogue, and a 2,400-year-old plot line, Chi-Raq may not change cultural values but it will shake up some complacent viewpoints.

Sicario (2015) ★★★★ Cast: Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro Genre: Crime thriller Rated R for extreme violence, grisly images, and language Running time 121 minutes This emotionally eviscerating movie illustrates that the war on drugs, like any war, recognizes neither right nor wrong, good nor evil; only survival counts, and at any cost. FBI agent Kate (Blunt) joins a covert team that is charged to create enough chaos in the Mexican drug empire to flush out the kingpin. Her partners, Alejandro (del Toro) and Matt (Brolin), play by no rules, except pass the ammunition and live to fight another day.

Like professional tour guides through a hell-house of horrors, the ensemble cast pulls us through dope-smuggling tunnels and emotional doors that once opened can never be closed. The darkness enveloping the team intensifies with every chase, shootout, ambush, murder, and betrayal. Kate tries to understand the end game, but as with the drug war itself, no resolution is possible, and the greatest casualty is her wellbeing. Make no mistake, this forceful drama is intensely riveting, but it amy be the least feel-good movie of the year.

30 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

Irrational Man (2015) ★★★ Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey Genre: Drama, comedy, mystery Written and directed by Woody Allen.

Rated R for language and sexual content At age 80, Woody Allen’s at it again with his signature angst and convoluted psychological dramas. This time professor Abe Lucas (Phoenix) makes a splash as a philosophy professor at a small Rhode Island college. Once a dedicated activist on fire to save the world, he’s now a disillusioned cynic adrift in a selfloathing stupor of alcoholism, self-pity, and regret. Which in Woody Allen’s codependent world is a big-time sex magnet.

Jill (Stone) a gifted young student is sure she can cure the bad boy’s malaise, while Rita (Posey) an unhappy wife is certain a little bed time will turn the page for both of them. But despondent Lucas just can’t get it up for life, emotionally or literally.

Then he overhears a woman in a diner complaining about an unscrupulous judge and discovers a cause that empowers him with his youthful zest. Yes, the world would be a better place with one less crooked judge, but can Lucas survive the unintended consequences of his rash solution? ■

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 31

MUSIC AN ECLECTIC ASSORTMENT REVIEWED BY MARK KERESMAN

Giya Kancheli ★★★★ Chiaroscuro ECM New Orford String Quartet ★★★★1/2 Brahms String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2 Bridge Georgian composer (from the Georgia that was part of the Soviet Union) Giya Kancheli (b. 1935) is modern classical music composer that is most approachable to

New Orford String Quartet

those familiar with the mainstream (for lack of a better term) tradition. Those enjoying Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, and Shostakovich as well as Pärt, Glass, and Ruggles will find themselves moved by these Kancheli works for violin(s) and orchestra. The title piece is loaded with palpable sadness yet isn’t depressing—the lovely, elegiac violin of Gidon Kremer distills every bit of sorrow imaginable into a haunting sigh, the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra delicately storming behind him. “Twilight (For two violins and orchestra)” is for Kremer and violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and it recalls a bit of the exotica of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Sheherazade” and the eerie, elemental use of silence in the compositions of Morton Feldman. “Twilight” gradually builds in intensity in the manner of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, and each violinist in his/her own manner sears their impassioned lines into your soul…yes, it cuts that deep. (2 tracks, 47 min.) ecmrecords.com Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was actually a bit “controversial” in his time as his music wasn’t “modern” enough compared to contemporary cheer-bucket/antiSemite Richard Wagner. Brahms was simply venerating and keeping the torch(es) of Beethoven and Haydn burning bright. While his symphonies can come off a little stuffy, his String Quartets brim over with old-school devices as fugues and minuets and swirling Germanic drama. While these foursomes for strings don’t rock, they have much of the lean, going-around-and-around energy and forward motion of rock & roll. These New Orford lads perform with a dandy concentration of brio and warm precision.

Want to get your feet wet with/for the “classic” classical music—or just like Brahms—this’ll do you fine. (6 tracks, 70 min.) bridgerecords.com

Marion Williams ★★★★★ Packin’ Up: The Best of Marion Williams Shanachie George Carlin once said the only good thing that came out of religion was the music. Regardless of how one feels about that statement or religion, one thing is certain: Marion Williams (1927-1994) was one of the finest gospel singers America has produced. She had a powerful, throaty voice with a broad range, able to reach the highest registers without losing pureness and could also make that voice swoop to growling low notes as an ardent country preacher might. Gospel has directly and indirectly shaped American music—Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin were impacted mightily by gospel, and both Little Richard and Nina Simone were influenced by Williams. If you are impressed with the power of Aretha in her prime, or just admire soulful vocalizing, you must hear Ms. Williams. This collection spans 1957-1993 and features 13 previously unreleased songs. (26 tracks, 72 min.) shanachie.com Jeremy Spencer ★★★1/2 Jeremy Spencer (Expanded Edition) The Dictators ★★★★ Go Girl Crazy (40th Anniversary Expanded Edition) Real Gone Music Sometimes the “right” records come out at the wrong-est times—here are two such. Jeremy Spencer was an original member of Fleetwood Mac, long before that witchy woman joined the Mac that birthed Rumours, one of the most popular platters of the 1970s.

The original F. Mac was a blues-rock combo and that edition plays on Spencer’s solo debut from 1970, unreleased in the USA until now. Jeremy Spencer coolly treads the line between paying homage to and affectionately parodying ‘50s rock & roll. Mixing originals with cool obscurities, he nods to Buddy Holly (“Linda”), Charlie Rich (“You Made A Hit”), and blues by Brits (“Mean Blues,” sounding like The Black Keys). Great fun. (13 tracks, 38 min.)

The Dictators were the court jesters of ‘70s rock but the joke went over the marketplace’s collective head.

Originally released in 1975, Go Girl Crazy was both an anachronism and a turnpike sign to the future—in a time when rock was Oh So Serious (and before The Ramones), these NY lads embraced the era(s) wherein rock was cool to be, well, dumb (as long as it was dumb fun).

Long before This is Spinal Tap, The Dictators were parodying the Big Dumb Loud Rock sound. GGC is full of songs referencing girls, cars, hamburgers, surfing, television, and professional wrestling. Guitarists Ross the Boss and Top Ten sound as if they learned to play while listening to Blue Oyster Cult with one ear and The Beach Boys with the other; singers Andy Shernoff and Handsome Dick Manitoba make up for lack of “good” vocal quality with plenty of sarcasm and chutzpah. (Envision: A band full of Jewish guys have a song entitled “Master Race Rock.”) Feeling blue? Put on the ‘tators’ version of Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe” and see the clouds scatter. Oh yeah, plenty of previously unreleased songs too. (18 tracks, 67 min.)

32 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

Françoise Hardy Françoise Hardy ★★★★ Le Premier Bonheur du Jour ★★★★1/2 Light in the Attic In the 1960s there were variants of pop music that weren’t exactly rock & roll (or even close), but singers such as Petula Clark, The Four Seasons, Dionne Warwick, Dusty Springfield, Roy Orbison, and Bobby Darin made some great records that could be played on the radio alongside rock and R&B songs and they’d fit in fine. By 1962, young French singer François Hardy was wellversed in the classy pop of her homeland—Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet—then she discovered a radio station that played the American pop of Paul Anka, the Everly Brothers, and Elvis Presley—and that did it. Combining her musical first love with her new one and with a smooth, supple, slightly smoky, even-toned voice (and some songs of her own), she recorded singles and albums that made her a star in France and caught the ears of The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and even Bob Dylan (who namechecked her on his Another Side of… album). Hardy’s early ‘60s albums were not available on CD until now.

Her first two albums are brilliant examples of ‘60s orchestrated pop, and you need not be a Francophile to groove to these platters—heck, there’s even a strong Ray Charles influence on her second (Le Premier…) album.

If you love early ‘60s pop (especially by the aforementioned) or simply pop music with class and heart, hear Hardy’s Gallic cool coo posthaste. (12 tracks, 29 min.)

(12 tracks, 26 min.) lightintheattic.net Alison Brown ★★★1/2 Song of the Banjo Compass Say “banjo” to most music fans and they’ll likely think of the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies or bluegrass, but banjo mistress/ambassador Alison Brown is out to change that (literally) with this platter. Like that “Ruby Tuesday,” it’s not so easy to hang a name on this—instrumental pop music? Jazz/bluegrass fusion (a la David Grisman), new acoustic music, new age? Call it what you will, but it sure is a nice mellow listen. Brown plays melodically, in a somewhat guitar-like fashion in a subdued, lissome context with rock and R&B undertones throughout. Brown and company cover some well-known hits—Cindi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” Orleans’ “Dance With Me”—in a faithful but limber manner. There are a few vocal spots—Men At Work’s Colin Hay does a soulful take on Dionne Warwick’s “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and blues singer Keb’ Mo’ does a chilled-out, nearly acoustic version of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On,” maintaining the original’s restless outrage while sounding as if he’s performing on a back porch (albeit with a great jazz piano solo). There are nods to bossa nova and classical music (a bit of Bach here, maybe a touch of Chopin) too. At times Song of the Banjo skirts innocuousness, but if you need a break from, heck, almost anything loud, glib, and synthetic, this is so relaxing (with impeccable musicianship) it’s almost a guilty pleasure. (13 tracks, 57 min.) compassrecords.com ■

y

w

v

v w

MUSIC NICK’S PICKS: BEST OF 2015 REVIEWS OF STRAIGHT AHEAD & MODERN JAZZ BY NICK BEWSEY

1. Kamasi Washington, The Epic (Brainfeeder) My choice for best jazz record of the year is also the most significant release of 2015. Kamasi Washington’s madly entertaining The Epic is a 3-disc multilayered triumph that features a 10-piece band with two drummers, two bass players, a

choir and orchestra. It’s audacious, over the top and sizzling with in-the-pocket grooves, anchored by the leader’s intoxicating saxophone solos. It’s mostly accessible, but it also doesn’t hesitate to roar like late-era spiritualized Coltrane or Pharoah Sanders. The 45 songs are packaged and presented with Sun Ra-style fervor, yet it’s pulse and rhythms are rooted in the present. Better still was the accompanying national tour that landed at the Blue Note for a few nights last fall. It was the loudest, most thrilling jazz concert I’ve experienced in a long while, and the sold-out room was full of younger music fans who saw Washington and his band as superstars. Proof of Washington’s greatness is resoundingly evident on The Epic.

2. Maria Schneider Orchestra, The Thompson Fields (artistShare) The most beautiful jazz compositions for orchestra come from the pen and passion of Maria Schneider. Her recordings are astonishing in their capacity to connect emotionally with the listener. The vivid music on The Thompson Fields was written during Schneider’s extended sojourn to a family farm in Minnesota where she grew up, and she navigates her 18piece ensemble with authority and sensitivity. Replete with deft, improvised solos, the natural beauty of the midwest landscape is captured and plays out—the hallmarks of nature are by turns lyrical, melodic and turbulent—and the effect is grandly cinematic, on the cutting edge

where jazz meets classical. A spectacular and deservedly Grammy-nominated achievement.

3. Ben Williams, Coming of Age (Concord Jazz) The originals on Coming of Age wed fresh jazz to pop and R&B, and it’s a rush of pleasure from beginning to end. Bassist Ben Williams, Julliard-trained and winner of the 2009 Monk Institute competition, makes sure that the record will satisfy on multiple spins—it’s the keyed-up guitar solos, funky electric piano, sonorous sax and wicked beats that give Coming of Age its more-than-jazz appeal. On acoustic or electric bass, Williams keeps the flow modern and grounded, fueled by virtuosity and vision along with his shrewd sense of crossover appeal.

4. José James, Yesterday I Had The Blues: The Music Of Billie Holiday (Blue Note) My choice for vocal album of the year is the best of this year’s tribute albums to Blllie Holiday on the 100th anniversary of her birth. On nine tracks, mostly ballads, James simplifies classic standards, closely

collaborating with pianist Jason Moran, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Eric Harland. His fluid baritone has a honeyed quality and he lets songs like “Good Morning Heartache” breathe and take gentle flight. His voice patient and shimmering, James digs into the blues (“Fine and Mellow”) and croons “Lover Man” as a sensual soul singer. He smolders and seduces, capturing the essence of Ms. Holiday’s charm and vulnerability.

5. Nick Finzer, The Chase (Origin) The Chase is a sturdy and beautifully arranged program of melodic originals by Finzer who hits all the right notes on his sophomore recording. It’s as warmly compelling as it is masterfully swinging, with-

out a false step or throwaway tune in the bunch. His first-rate band of up-and-comers, anchored by pianist Glenn Zeleski, bassist Dave Baron and drummer Jimmy MacBride, are particularly adept at under-

scoring the small band harmonics on upbeat songs. Together they give this sonically impressive date of a loose, open-collar feel—the blended grooves and interlocking rhythms give The Chase a jolt of traditional hipness and modern cool.

6. Joe Locke, Love Is A Pendulum (Motema) Jazz vibraphone has come a long way since the glory days of Lionel Hampton.

Locke is an individualist who bridges the divide between past and present. His best recording to date, Love has strong romantic melodies that give the album an unsinkable musicality. He’s got a swoon-worthy band with juggernaut precision by drummer (and co-producer) Terreon Gully. This is Locke’s masterwork—it heaves and flows with a modern beat that’s consistently appealing.

7. Revive Records Presents: Supreme Sonancy, Vol 1 (Revive/Blue Note) A visionary producer and tastemaker, Revive Music CEO Meghan Stabile is the most important person currently on the New York jazz scene who’s not actually a musician. For her first record, Supreme Sonancy Vol. 1, she pairs cutting edge artists connected to the hip hop scene (Raydar Ellis) with progressive jazz musicians. The record smartly zeroes in on the fluidity of jazz to hip hop and rap, such as cleverly reworking Wayne Shorter’s “Pinocchio” by folding in deep bass and staccato beats as if to say this isn’t your pop’s Blue Note music.

8. Jamison Ross, Jamison (Concord Jazz) This exuberant debut release opens with Technicolor fireworks on a vivid Muddy Waters cover, “Deep Down in Florida,” that pops and shimmies on evocative soul and blues rhythms. Like singer Gregory Porter, Ross has a big, deep voice that’s operatic in its storytelling style, yet peaks and dips fluidly with an emotionally tangible vibe. He’s a savvy instrumentalist. The album is propelled on Ross’ talent and he saves the best for last—the closer, “Bye, Bye Blues,” is a rousing, church revival-like number that soars on his star-making charisma and natural enthusiasm.

9. Tom Harrell, First Impressions (HighNote) The lyrical trumpeter Tom Harrell has often integrated jazz and strings on his projects to great effect. He establishes a quiet brilliance on First Impressions, an album that folds jazz improvisation into classical tunes by modernist composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. It’s a magnificent record that resonates with superior interplay and diverse arrangements where Harrell’s warm liquid tone reminds one of Art Farmer. There’s some fire, too, on the electrifying title track, which has soaring Miles Davis-like moments. As a whole, this nine-piece chamber ensemble album oscillates between jazz and the European classical tradition while superbly detouring through other musical styles.

10. Orrin Evans, The Evolution of Oneself (Smoke Sessions) Evans is a Philadelphia original. With 25 solo records and essential sideman duties in the trumpeter Sean Jones Quartet and bassist Ben Wolfe’s band, Evans recorded Evolution during the year he turned 40, and the album is a reflection on everything that jazz and family means to the pianist. It’s flavored with gorgeous standards, angular originals, a brilliant Grover Washington, Jr. cover and buzzy, hip-hop interludes made in collaboration with his son. Overall, it’s profoundly expressive and the best introduction to this respected player, producer, bandleader and educator. ■ Nick Bewsey is a member of The Jazz Journalists Assoc. www.countingbeats.com

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 33

MUSIC SINGER / SONGWRITER REVIEWS BY TOM WILK

Chris Isaak ★★★1/2 First Comes The Night Vanguard/Wicked Game Records Chris Isaak has been a recording artist for 30 years, but First Comes The Night marks the first time the California native has recorded in Nashville. Isaak’s trip to Music City has provided a shot of artistic rejuvenation in terms of songwriting and putting together his first album of original material since 2009.

“Please Don’t Call,” co-written with Nashville songwriter Natalie Hemby, is a classic break-up song that is tailor-made for Isaak’s aching vocals. “Down in Flames,” co-written with Gordie Sampson and Caitlyn Smith, reveals an offbeat sense of humor in its depiction of death and the afterlife. “When the good times end and they count my sins, I’m going down in flames,” he sings over a rockabilly beat.

With his impressive vocal range, Isaak has been characterized as the heir to Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. “Perfect Lover” can be heard as a tribute to the latter as Isaak said he wrote the song with Orbison in mind. The flamenco-flavored “Kiss Me Like a Stranger” captures the dramatic feel of a new love. “Don’t Break My Heart” evokes a Tex-Mex spirit with Isaak’s singing recalling Raul Malo of the Mavericks. “Running Down the Road” has echoes of Jerry Lee Lewis as Isaak shifts into a full-tilt rocker and shows his versatility. 12 songs, 41 minutes.

Roy Orbison ★★★1/2 One of the Lonely Ones Roy’s Boys/Universal Music Enterprises Tragedy struck Roy Orbison in 1968 when fire killed two of his sons and destroyed his Tennessee home. Orbison

turned to music for solace and comfort and recorded One of the Lonely Ones, an album that inexplicably remained unreleased for nearly half a century. Heard today, it’s evident that some of the recordings are Orbison’s way of coming to terms with his loss. His version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Carousel turns the Broadway classic into a gospel-like ballad with strings and choir that calls to mind Orbison’s classic “It’s Over.”

The title track serves as a companion piece to Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” as he declares, “I’d rather be dead and done/Than to be what I’ve become/One of the lonely ones.” On the CD’s closing track, Don Gibson’s “I Will Always,” Orbison sings “Nothing can stop my loving you,” which can be heard as a farewell to his sons. While he wrote many of his hits, Orbison kept his ears open to new songwriters. He recorded strong versions of “Leaving Makes the Rain Come Down” and “Sweet Memories” by Mickey Newbury, who was coming into his own as a Nashville songwriter in the late 1960s.

One of the Lonely Ones adds a new chapter to Orbison’s impressive legacy. 12 songs, 33 minutes.

lighter side of life on the road in “Young and Old Blues” in his description of meeting a fan at a music festival in Switzerland.

“I didn’t know you were still alive and look like your own grandpa.”

Margolin varies his sound over the course of the album. The plaintive “Goodnight” features just him and his guitar. A cover of Nappy Brown’s “Bye Bye Baby” features just Margolin and Chuck Cotton on vocals with Tad Walters on harmonica on what could be called bluesy doo-wop.

Margolin pays tribute to the late bluesman and Philadelphia native Sean Costello with a gritty version of “Low Life Blues.” On Tex Rabinowitz’s “Feelin Right Tonight,” Margolin celebrates the prospects of good times. 12 songs, 44 minutes.

The Ben Vaughn Quintet ★★★1/2 Five by Five Many Moods Records While he’s been based in Southern California since the late 1990s after gaining national recognition for providing the soundtrack music for Third Rock from the Sun, Ben Vaughn has never forgotten his

Bob Margolin ★★★1/2 My Road Steady Rollin’ Records/Vizztone “It might seem I carry my guitar, but this guitar carries me,” Bob Margolin writes in the liner notes for My Road, his latest studio album. Music has allowed him to see the world, first as a guitarist

for blues legend Muddy Waters, and later as a successful solo artist.

At 66, Margolin gets autobiographical and reflective on My Road. The hardedged blues of “My Whole Life” finds him summing up a career in music. “The bandstand is my workplace for everything I earned,” he sings. Margolin also sees the

roots in the Garden State. He returned to South Jersey to record Five by Five with a cast of musicians he has worked with for much of his career.

The EP offers a microcosm of Vaughn’s songwriting strengths and ability to mix genres. “Jukebox Jukebox” starts off as a country-styled lament but also features a bluesy sax solo by Carl C.C. Crabtree. It’s a song one could imagine being recorded by the late soul singer Arthur Alexander, whose final studio album was recorded by Vaughn. The vibrant “Road Song,” a celebration of wanderlust, recalls Vaughn’s earlier pop efforts. “I’ve been in one place too long,” he sings against an instrumental backdrop of banjo and accordion. “I Don’t Want to Go Home” goes

34 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

in a different direction with minimal instrumentation and layered background vocals by the quintet. “My Mind Ain’t Right” would have been at home on one of Vaughn’s ‘80s albums with its energetic feel. “Trumpet Vine” wraps up the EP with atmospheric touches that recall his instrumental work of recent years. Five by Five shows that Vaughn refuses to put limits on his music. 5 songs, 17 minutes.

Dulcie Taylor and Friends ★★★ Wind Over Stone Mesa/Bluemoon Recordings Dulcie Taylor opts for a democratic approach on Wind Over Stone, the followup studio album to Only Worn One Time, her 2014 CD. While Taylor had a hand writing ten of the new album’s songs, she shares the spotlight with guitar George Nauful and Tony Recupido who sing lead on three of them.

“Not Here, Not Today” starts of the CD in lively fashion with a celebration of freedom, covering three crucial times in U.S. history. They range from Washington at Valley Forge to Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat to the passengers on Flight 93 who fought back against the plane’s hijackers on 9/11. It’s a song that takes on new urgency in the light of the latest terrorist attacks.

Taylor switches gears from the political to the personal with “Only a Dream,” a yearning romantic ballad. “Heart in a Cage” looks at romance from a different angle with a warning not to up barriers around one’s heart. “Take It Back” finds Taylor exploring how words can hurt and the need to think twice before speaking.

Nauful and Recupido explore relationships on “Amy” and “Reasons Why” respectively, providing a male viewpoint on the record in the same way that Lindsey Buckingham has done with Fleetwood Mac. 14 songs, 50 minutes. ■

MUSIC JAZZ LIBRARY

BY BOB PERKINS

CARMEN MCRAE DESPITE THE FACT THAT she was—and still is—a favorite among the few remaining veteran singers on the planet, Carmen McRae never seemed to get the wide public recognition she deserved. She was appreciated by jazz critics and instrumentalists, and had a large following, but she still never had the large following that would have put her in the same league of popularity as Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

Carmen could be a little testy at times, during interviews and on stage. Some Carmen-watchers thought that she was not a very happy lady. She entered into an early and ill-fated marriage to drummer Lenny Clarke, which may have left some scars. And don’t forget the heartbreaks of the entertainment industry itself—the huge pitfalls and discouragement of that segment of the overall entertainment industry known as jazz.

Her parents were not delighted with her decision to become a singer—especially a jazz singer who would sometimes have to work in unsavory environments. Carmen studied piano at an early age and was pretty good. She also thought she could sing— and wanted to, professionally. Her early professional exposure was with Benny Carter’s band in the mid-1940s. She later worked in the Count Basie and Mercer Ellington’s band. She landed gigs as intermission singer at several jazz clubs in New York City—including Minton’s Playhouse, where modern jazz is said to have been born, via the influences of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and a handful of other emerging jazz greats—including Carmen’s one-time husband, Kenny Clarke.

Long an admirer of Billie Holiday, Carmen picked up on Holiday’s unique vocal phrasings, and used them until she established her own style. The Holiday influence is more evident in her later years, when she left the big band format and began working as a single. Carmen, like Holiday, learned to phrase, to read a song and put it over as well as the best preacher could put over an inspiring sermon.

I first saw Carmen about 1954 at the old Blue Note at 15th and Ridge. She was accompanying herself on piano at the time. Those were the days when one could nurse a beer through a whole set, and thus see and hear a major or rising jazz star for next to no money.

I had a friend who was a bartender at Philly’s premier jazz club, Pep’s Musical Bar. He told me that he got to talk with Carmen on a couple of occasions during one of her engagements at the club. In those days, Pep’s booked performers for a week at a time—and would hold them over for another week if they were drawing well. These engagements also included Saturday and Monday matinees.

My friend said she was always pleasant, and at the end of her engagements she would thank him for often going beyond the call of duty, and serving her and her friends backstage. He added that she also tipped generously.

The last time I saw Carmen she was appearing at Lakey’s here in Philly. It was 1985, and her health was failing—she sang sitting down. Toward the end of her days she had to stop singing because of emphysema. Carmen passed on November 10, 1994 at 74.

In tribute to her longevity, her way with a song, and her recognition by some as one of the great ladies of standard, popular and jazz vocalizing, she, like Ella, Sarah, Billie, and a scant few other female singers is recognized in knowing circles by her first name only, Carmen.”

Perhaps there is no “best” album in that she always seemed to be at the top of her game. When you have the time, you might go online and view the dozens of albums she recorded in her time, and take your pick. ■

D

Bob Perkins is a writer and host of an all-jazz radio program that airs on WRTI-FM 90.1, Mon-Thurs. 6–9 & Sun., 9–1..

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 35

food

BY ROBERT GORDON

NECTAR FOOBOOZ SUMMED UP: “MAIN Line, while battered, abandoned and occasionally forgotten entirely by city restaurateurs, still has Nectar in Berwyn, a restaurant approaching legendary status for its huge menus, seasonal sushi mash-ups, and dedicated chef Patrick Feury—the man who refuses to let Asian fusion die.”

In the main, Main Line dining is disappointingly, somewhat puzzlingly, middling. Just don’t toss Nectar into that mix. With outstanding fare and a swanky, urbane vibe, Nectar would score in Manhattan as well as Berwyn. The 200-seat main dining room affirms that observation. It’s generally filled with “a great looking crowd,” as Zagat aptly describes it.

Nectar was designed by David Rockwell, whose mind-blowing global portfolio includes the design at Bobby Flay’s NYC Gato, the retrofit/ facelift at Quebec’s iconic Chateau Frontenac, and the other-worldly look of Qatar’s renowned Nobu Doha. Nectar’s 19-foot ceilings and glassenclosed balcony frame a dazzling, harmonized array of decorative elements that include burgundy velvet curtains, red silk lamps, and a $250,000 silk-screen Buddha.

Chef Patrick Feury launched his culinary odyssey at the NYC Waldorf-Astoria’s Peacock Alley, where he expanded his culinary chops and added ice-sculpting to his repertoire. He headed for Paris and a stint at Les Olivades before returning to the States as sous-chef under Cambodianborn chef Sottha Khunn at the legendary Le Cirque 2000. The fruits of that experience—combining Asian ingredients with French technique—are manifest at Nectar.

Nectar’s Asian street food is hard to top. Melt-in-the-mouth Steamed Pork Buns feature pillowy alabaster buns that fold over a hefty slab of meat capped with iceberg lettuce braced with mayonnaise harboring sneaky chili-sauce fire.

Mushrooms and deftly seared tofu pair in silky accord in Vegetarian Wild Mushroom Pad Thai that retains all its succulence after roasting. Moo Shu Pork, vibrant with sweet peppers and Serrano chilies brims with leeks and shitake mushrooms. Accompanying cucumber salad and Asian pancakes are excellent complements.

There’s a tempting slate of sushi choices, like fruity Baby Banana Roll, which gathers tempura-fried yellow fin tuna, banana and papaya, and Florida Roll that rocks crab and avocado in a classic mustard sauce.

Nectar is a renowned Asian-fusion emporium, but Feury packs equal finesse and allure into his Western offerings.

A longtime devotee of farm-to-table gastronomy, Feury sources local ingredients whenever possible, with herbs plucked from the restaurant’s own garden, like the lemon thyme that partners with Meyer lemon to enliven ceviche sauce in Seared Viking Village Scallops. Hours of slow cooking bestow divine tenderness on Pineland Farms Natural Braised Short Ribs. Masterfully tempering the meat’s richness is a hefty Yukon Gold potato log that nestles against pea top and Shiitake Salad dressed in Thai Chili Hollandaise sauce. It’s one of the finest short-rib dishes in memory.

In any visit to Nectar, it’s practically de rigeur to end with Hot Fresh Mini-Doughnuts: cinnamon-sugared, soft beignets served with spiced chocolate, raspberry vanilla, and coffee caramel dipping sauces. They’ve been a signature dessert since Nectar opened over a decade ago. You might also want to dive into the Valrhona Chocolate Torte with its gold-leafed embossed chocolate shell and perky raspberry coulis.

Both Nectar and talented Chef Patrick Feury have gathered numerous awards over the years, like the 2015 Wine Spectator “Award of Excellence,” Main Line Today’s “Best Chef on the Main Line, TripAdvisor’s “Certificate of Excellence,” Philadelphia Magazine’s “Top 50 Restaurants,” and numerous others. The restaurant entertains a robust special-event schedule that make Main Line, thanks to Nectar, a destination for fine dining. ■ Nectar, 1091 Lancaster Ave, Berwyn, PA 610-725-9000. tastenectar.com 36 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

/

S WA N

-

t

a

HOTEL Modern Cuisine h Classic Comfort Corner of Swan & Main Lambertville, NJ 609-397-3552

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 37

A

The Los Angeles Times SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE

T M s H B 7

ONLINE CHAT

By C.C. Burnikel Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

1 5 8 12 18 19 20 21 22 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 34 37 38 39 42 43 46 48 51 53 55 57 60 62 63 64 66 68 69 71 73 75 77 79 81 83 84 86 88 90 92 94 95 97

Across Fightinʼ with Avid bird watcher?

Tournament passes Dogie collar?

Anderson of “WKRP in Cincinnati” Anise-flavored aperitif Place to have poi Fall color Fictional detective whose first name is Endeavour Reprobate “Wanna __?”

Guitarist Paul Namely Fannie __ Paranormal power “Somewhere in Time” band First-rate Apple Watch assistant Wichita-to-Duluth dir.

Jobs for grad students “Now I see!”

Counterfeit watchdog, for short Staying power 1994 comedy with an oxymoronic title Plan in detail Celestial circles Times for reflection Self-reflective musing Record book Cheese in some bagels PC hookup Interstate giant Magazine extra Sci. concerned with climate change Digital readouts, briefly Uses a straw Hotel with a Gold Passport loyalty program Fruit-eating fictional race Exercise units Decorative plaster Fray, say Golfer Poulter Go by Tapped into Chocolate-filled cookie Best Actress Tony winner in “Wicked” “No bickering!”

Like some rats Unconventional Fifth pillar of Islam

100 101 103 104 106 108 111 114 116 117 120 121 122 124 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 23 24 29 32 33 35 36 40 41 44 45

T S A S M

Pitcher Sparky Throw hard That, to Juanita Bugs with horns Afternoon TV fare “Fifty Shades of Grey” author Motel convenience Casino convenience Form attachment?

Mother __ Cortezʼs gold Dot follower, at times Slightly larger than tall, at Starbucks Knowledge seekers Less stuffy Molokai neighbor Nice concept?

Skinny Nudge “American Dad!” dad Express __ debt of gratitude Down Courtroom vouchers?

Sister of Cordelia Coming up Playful bite Affects adversely __ dye: food-coloring compound Calorie-laden dessert Botch Cold War KGB chairman Andropov Bridge positions Take to court County bordering Santa Fe County Disney mermaid Sought a seat Xanadu locale, now Years and years U. of Maryland player Mermaidʼs home Spreading tree Spanish peak “Whatever” Time to see stars Remiss Stun with a gun Resting easy Make true Circus attraction Car ownerʼs obligation Some Windows systems

T J T S 0

T B G S 1 E G

47 49 50 52 54 56 57 58 59 61 65 67 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 85 87 89 90 91 93 96 98 99 102 105 107

Popular buying club Put to work The king of Spain?

De Beauvoir, to Sartre Wranglers alternative Lipstick characteristic Not up to par With reverence Sharpie output Unconnected __ du Louvre Sensitive thing to touch Lady in a 1955 film Intrusive vine “Dust to Dust” author Hoag Rescuer of Odysseus Bridge measure TD Garden NBA team High in calories Environmental warning 2008 honor for Joe Cocker: Abbr.

Spot check?

Potent ending?

Squat Uninherited wealth Creole-speaking island nation Icon after “Not a member?”

Anonymous one She played Fantine in “Les Misérables” (1998) Boot camp nickname Upscale boarding facility

38 ■ I C O N ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

109 Roman province governed

by Pontius Pilate 110 96-Down governing group 112 Rock of comedy 113 Dot follower, at times 114 Thing to fill or bridge 115 Rush or Cream 118 Water color

119 Downfall 123 Never, to Nietzsche 124 GroupMe exchanges, briefly, and a hint to this puzzleʼs eight longest answers 125 Where I-86 and I-15 meet 126 2015 Etsy milestone, initially

Answer to December’s puzzle, MORNING ADDITION

T T H s l v b P 6 a G

T H M w 3

T P Q P a r t o M D m

T P R S 2 t d

T P R t

Agenda ART EXHIBITS THRU 1/3 Mia Rosenthal: Paper Lens. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Historic Landmark Building, 118 N. Broad St., Philadelphia. 215-9727600. pafa.org THRU 1/3 Steve Tobin, Cocoon Awakenings.

Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. AllentownArtMuseum.org THRU 1/3 John Petach: Tiller, New Paintings.

The Quiet Life Gallery, 17 So. Main St., Lambertville, NJ. 609-3970880. Quietlifegallery.com THRU 1/9 Brick + Mortar Gallery presents Good Co. Annual Holiday Group Show. Opening Reception 11/21,6-9PM. 8 Centre Square, Easton, PA. BrickandMortarGallery.com THRU 1/9 The Holiday Show. Bethlehem House Contemporary Art Gallery specializes in emerging and established regional artists, and provides original art for a range of budgets. Closing Event 1/9, 6-9 PM. 459 Main St., Bethlehem, PA. 610-419-6262. View and purchase art online at BethlehemHouseGallery.com THRU 1/10 Helen Farr Sloan. Delaware Art Museum, 2301 Kentmere Parkway, Wilmington, Delaware.

302-571-9590. delart.org THRU 1/31 Pattern Pieces: Can You Make a Quilt Out of Wood? Pattern Pieces, examines pattern, shape, and color in contemporary art as it relates to quilts and their long history as both utilitarian and artistic objects. James A. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown, PA 215-340-9800 michenermuseum.org THRU 1/31 Poetry in Beauty: The PreRaphaelite Art of Marie Spartali Stillman. Delaware Art Museum, 2301 Kentmere Parkway, Wilmington, Delaware. 302-571-9590. delart.org THRU 2/7 Paul Grand: Beyond the Surface.

Rich color, jarring contrasts, architectural renderings, and the play

of textures, light and shadow on impervious surfaces. Grand’s approach is painterly, referencing the color field painters Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, and spaces are angular, structured, and rhythmic. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown. 215-3409800. michenermuseum.org THRU 2/7 4th Annual Juried Exhibition: Works on Paper. Presenting work from nine alumni, representational in nature and offering a contemporary response to still life, interior space and the figure. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Historic Landmark Building, 118 N. Broad St., Philadelphia. 215-972-7600. pafa.org THRU 2/21 Blanket Statements: New Quilts by Kaffe Fassett and Historical Quilts from the Collection of the Quilt Museum and Gallery, York, UK. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown. 215-3409800. michenermuseum.org THRU 3/13 Linden Frederick: Roadside Tales.

Frederick’s photographs take us through small towns with empty main streets, past trailer parks and abandoned gas stations, or small suburban houses illuminated by the flickering lights of television screens—places that evoke within us a palpable but indescribable sense of longing, gone in an instant, flashing by. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown. 215-340-9800. michenermuseum.org THRU 3/13 Philadelphia in Style: A Century of Fashion from the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection, Drexel University. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown. 215-340-9800. michenermuseum.org THRU 4/3 Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis. Academy of the Fine Arts, Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building, 128 N. Broad St., Philadelphia.

215-972-7600. pafa.org 1/17-5/15 This Light of Ours, Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement. Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. AllentownArtMuseum.org

1/31-4/24 Inside Out: Carol Tippit Woolworth, Catherine Drabkin, Pahl Hluchan, Colleen Randall, Daniel Jackson. Artists explore the concept of “place”—physical, emotional, and spiritual—in their work, using a variety of media, including oil, acrylic, and gouache. Delaware Art Museum, 2301 Kentmere Parkway, Wilmington, Delaware.

302-571-9590. delart.org 3/5-5/29 Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art. Organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, this exhibition presents the rich and varied contributions of Latino artists in the United States since the mid-20th century, when the concept of a collective Latino identity began to emerge.

Delaware Art Museum, 2301 Kentmere Parkway, Wilmington, Delaware. 302-571-9590. delart.org

DANCE 1/31 TAO Seventeen Samurai. Japanese Taiko drummers, electrifying rhythms and dance! 4 PM, Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. ZoellnerArtsCenter.org 2/11-2/13 Master Choreographers. Spectacular works of dance by acclaimed guest artists and faculty. Muhlenberg College Theatre & Dance, 2400 Chew St., Allentown, PA. 484-664-3333.

Muhlenberg.edu/dance 2/24 BodyTraffic. Williams Center for the Arts, Lafayette College, 317 Hamilton St., Easton, PA. 610-3305009. AtTheWilliams.org

THEATER 1/21 The Mountain Top, a play by Katori Hall. Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. AllentownArtMuseum.org 1/21 Saturday Night Fever, You Should Be Dancing! 7:30 PM. State Theatre, 453 Northampton St., Easton, PA. 610-252-3132 or 1-800999-STATE. Statetheatre.org 2/2 Twelfth Night. Williams Center for the Arts, Lafayette College, 317 Hamilton St., Easton, PA. 610-3305009. AtTheWilliams.org

2/24-3/6 Elektra, by Sophokles. Adapted and directed by Wayne S. Turney.

Act 1 Performing Arts DeSales University. Main Stage, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, 2755 Station Ave., Center Valley, PA. 610-282-3192.

Desales.edu/Act1 2/3 & 2/4 42ND Street, the quintessential backstage musical comedy classic.

7:30 PM, State Theatre, 453 Northampton St., Easton, PA. 610252-3132 or 1-800-999-STATE. Statetheatre.org

DINNER & MUSIC Thursday nights, Community Stage with John Beacher, 8-midnight. Karla’s, 5 W. Mechanic St., New Hope. 215-862-2612. Karlasnewhope.

Thurs.-Sat., Dinner and show at SteelStacks, Bethlehem. 5-10, table service and valet parking. artsquest.org

CONCERTS 1/9 British Regiments: Band of the Royal Marines and the Pipes, Drums & Highland Dancers of the Scots Guards. 7:30 PM, State Theatre, 453 Northampton St., Easton, PA. 610-252-3132, 1-800999-STATE. Statetheatre.org 1/10 The Organ Birthday Recital, Toccata-mania with Stephen Williams.

Cathedral Arts, Cathedral Church of the Nativity, 321 Wyandotte St., Bethlehem, PA. 610-865-0727.

Nativitycathedral.org 1/29 Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with pianist Khatia Buniatishvili.

Williams Center for the Arts, Lafayette College, 317 Hamilton St., Easton, PA. 610-330-5009.

AtTheWilliams.org 1/31 Winter Vivaldi Chamber Ensemble, Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra.

3:00 PM, Wesley Church, 2540 Center St., Bethlehem, PA. Baroque music performed by principal instrumentalists and soloists.

610-434-7811. PASinfonia.org.

Tickets online at LVArtsBoxOffice.org.

2/6 Billy Childs, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro. 8 PM,

Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. Free event parking attached to center. ZoellnerArtsCenter.org 2/12 Vox Luminis. Williams Center for the Arts, Lafayette College, 317 Hamilton St., Easton, PA. 610-3305009. AtTheWilliams.org 2/20 The Bill Goodwin Experience.

Williams Center for the Arts, Lafayette College, 317 Hamilton St., Easton, PA. 610-330-5009.

AtTheWilliams.org

MUSIKFEST CAFÉ 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem 610-332-1300. Artsquest.org 1/2 Craig Thatcher Band / The Music of CREAM 1/3 Three Kings Celebration 1/8 Boogie Wonder Band 1/16 Comedian Ben Bailey 1/23 Souper Bowl VII 1/29 The Amish Outlaws 2/4 The Cowsills 2/12-2/14 Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding 2/19-2/20 Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding

READINGS 1/9 Panoply Books Reading Series: Poets Sandra Becker & Elvis Alves.

Alves is the author of the poetry collection, Bitter Melon. Becker is the 2014 Bucks County Poet Laureate. 6PM. Free. 46 N. Union St., Lambertville, NJ. 609-397-1145.

EVENTS 1/17 This Light of Ours, free entry noon-4 PM, and panel discussion with photographers at 1 PM. Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. AllentownArtMuseum.org 1/18 Martin Luther King Jr. Day activities including family art-making workshop, films, and more. Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. AllentownArtMuseum.org 2/6 Host of Colorful Events! Join us for a year full of events including the SnowBlast Winter Arts Festival 10 AM - 4 PM. Events include sculpted ice demonstrations, and ice bar, art show and sale, and much more! Emmaus, PA. EmmausArts.org

W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 ■ I C O N ■ 39