February 2017

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INTERVIEWS THE GAME BEGINS | 20 Ramin Djawadi—the composer behind the music of Iron Man, Westworld and other epic, iconic scores—brings the music of Westeros to the live Game of Thrones Concert Experience

REMEMBERING MOSE ALLISON | 22 The story of one young man’s unforgettable encounter with an idol AM DeBrincat, Scoop, 2016, mixed media. Photo: George Hughes. Martin Art Gallery.

ART

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Apron Talk

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EXHIBITIONS I

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Urban Allusions at Martin Art Gallery & Galleria Space Bruce Springsteen: A Photographic Journey at Morven Museum & Garden Robert Engman’s Legacy The Gutman Center in New Hope, 1974-1994 at New Hope Arts, New Hope, PA

Small Abstract, 2016, from Untitled Abstracts, 2014. N. Sarangoulis. Watercolor on YUPO synthetic paper. © N. Sarangoulis. Delaware Art Museum.

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MUSIC 29 30

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Fluidity at Delaware Art Museum Seachange: Contemporary Highlights at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

James Baldwin.

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SINGER / SONGWRITER Randy Newman Sting The Sadies Eight O’Five Jive Mike Zito JAZZ, ROCK, CLASSICAL, ALT Barry Harris John McNeil/Hush Point Mark Eitzel James McMurty, et al Cynthia Hilts Arild Andersen

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JAZZ LIBRARY Melba Liston

The List Agenda

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ABOUT LIFE

FOODIE FILE

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HARPER’S FINDINGS & INDEX

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L. A. TIMES CROSSWORD

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(The New) Romantics

EXHIBITIONS II From Homer to Hopper: Experiment and Ingenuity in American Art at Brandywine River Museum of Art

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REEL NEWS Manchester by the Sea Moonlight The Edge of Seventeen Doctor Strange

Theater

Letting Go

The Marrieds

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The Founder I Am Not Your Negro

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FILM ROUNDUP

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Willie Dixon, Big Joe William and Memphis Slim / Moe Asch's Recording Studio in the hotel at 46th St. in NYC (1961) by David Gar

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Apron Talk

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OREEN WAS ON A trip and I was fending for myself. She would never leave me without plenty of beef stew and chili in the freezer, and nobody makes better beef stew and chili than Doreen, but I enjoy cooking and often take advantage of being alone to play at the stove.

There is a pretty good fish market not too far away so I drove over and ended up buying a fillet of gray sole and a half-pound of gulf shrimp. I got a small container of cream but nobody needs to know that but us, okay? Actually, I’ve been good lately. I’ve lost a considerable amount of weight by reducing portions, cutting way back on carbs, and eliminating sweets. In the process my migraines have all but gone away. A little cream isn’t going to kill me. I decided to poach the sole and make a bisque-like sauce using the shrimp. I’d never made bisque.

Before heading off into uncharted culinary territory I usually go online to see the basic similarities in recipes. A lot of fancy website bisques have boutique ingredients I don’t generally keep, but the key was to cook the shrimp shells and use them to make the broth. I can do that.

I chopped a celery stalk, half an onion, most of a carrot, and put them in a pot along with all the shrimp shells, and sautéed them in butter and oil. We usually have those vegetables in the fridge because Doreen is always making soups and stews. I make stock from supermarket-roasted chickens, which is a whole different thing from the boxed stock you get in the supermarket. Our chicken soup can cure the plague.

I added a bay leaf, some thyme, cayenne pepper, and some black pepper and kept the sauté stirred. When it was softened I dusted it with a spoonful of flour (gluten free) and mixed in some tomato paste from the freezer.

(There is always a lot left over from a can of tomato paste so I scoop out tablespoons on a piece of wax paper, lay that in the freezer until solid, then drop the lumps in a baggie. Small frozen portions are helpful when cooking for one. I put some of my homemade stock in an ice cube tray and bag the cubes so I have small amounts handy.)

By now the ingredients had cooked into a dry, unappetizing wad, barely resembling food. This is always a thrilling moment for me—to see if I’ve managed this step properly or reduced the ingredients to carbon. I added a

couple of cups of water, stirred it well while scraping the bottom, and let it simmer for a half hour. Then I put it through a strainer and back on simmer. It tasted wonderfully bisquey. Yay. In a separate, lidded frypan I put enough water, thyme, and a couple of blops of white wine to cover about 2/3 of the sole fillet (I measure with the fish in but then take it out.) I brought the liquid to a boil, slipped the sole back in it, put the lid on and turned off the heat.

The fish would be done in ten minutes. Don’t lift the lid to peek.

When the fillet was almost finished I added a little more than a quarter pound of shrimp cut into bite size pieces to the bisque (The rest will go with leftover sauce and eggs for breakfast.) I let the shrimp simmer for about two minutes, added some cream and waited for it to come back to temperature.

The fillet was done so I slid it onto a warm plate. I put a handful of spinach in the fish poaching liquid and brought it to a boil. After a minute or so I drained the spinach, put it on the plate under the fillet. I scooped the shrimp out of the broth and put it on the top, ladled on the bisque, and took it to the table.

I know, what about the measurements? How much flour? How much cream? How much hot pepper before your nostrils ignite? Some. Bob in the kitchen is like Bob at the easel. If I know what I’m doing it’s not exciting.

When I wing it I have to watch, taste, and learn, building on what I know. If it blows up I’ll be eating corn flakes for dinner. Doing it on the fly teaches me, mistake by mistake, each technique and ingredient’s contribution to the end product. That’s where delicious discoveries are made. It was definitely delicious but I already know what I might try differently next time. n

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EXHIBITIONS I

Bruce Springsteen: A Photographic Journey Morven Museum & Garden 55 Stockton Street, Princeton, NJ (609) 924-8144 morven.org Wednesday through Sunday, 10–4 Through May 21 From his humble beginnings rehearsing in New Jersey garages to selling out arenas around the world, Springsteen’s career has spanned decades and generations, and has even crossed music genres. Morven Museum & Garden presents this exhibition featuring 42 photos of the rock legend by photographers Danny Clinch, Ed Gallucci, Eric Meola, Barry Schneider, Pamela Springsteen, and Frank Stefanko, and five accompanying video interviews with the photographers speaking about their work and relationships with Springsteen. Experience this unique collection which captures his charisma and iconic appeal.

Other Springsteen-related events are also planned.

Collisions 33, 2015, collage, acrylics, oils on wood and plastic, 30 x 30 inches.

Urban Allusions Martin Art Gallery & Galleria Space Baker Center for the Arts Muhlenberg College Campus 2400 West Chew St., Allentown, PA (484) 664-3467 Martin Art Gallery, Tues.–Sat. 12–8 The Galleria spaces, 9–9pm daily Reception, 2/8, 5-6:30, Baker Center for the Arts February 8-March 11 (artist talk April 19, 5:00) MAG presents Urban Allusions by GhanaianAmerican artist George Afedzi Hughes, featuring large format painting and sculptural works in the Martin art gallery. Hughes' work uses the history of colonialism as a basis to highlight parallels between that violent history and contemporary global conflicts.

Yield, 2015, (detail), acrylics, oils on canvas, 228 x 72 inches.

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All photos of Springsteen on this page are by Ed Gallucci.

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Robert Engman’s Legacy The Gutman Center in New Hope, 1974-1994 New Hope Arts, 2 Stockton Ave., New Hope, PA Newhopearts.org Fri-Sun, Noon-5 and by appointment February 11-March 5 Gallery Reception, 2/18, 5-8 An exhibition of work by Robert Engman and six of his students: Yvonne Love, John Mathews, Edward Murphy, John C. Rodgers, Jr., Mark Pettegrow and Steve Sears.

For a 20-year period, the University of Pennsylvania Fine Arts Department offered a unique graduate program at the Edna and Monroe C. Gutman Center on a 210-acre farm outside of New Hope. Celebrate the history of our region and the enduring creative influence of mentor Robert Engman and his students.

Arabesque, bronze, 74”h x 14”w x 14”d w/steel base

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EXHIBITIONS II

Arthur Dove, Red Sun, 1935, oil on canvas. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. Dorothea Tanner, Midi et Demi (Half Past Noon), 1956, oil on canvas.

Joseph E. Temple Fund.

From Homer to Hopper: Experiment and Ingenuity in American Art Brandywine River Museum of Art 1 Hoffman’s Mill Road, Chadds Ford, PA (610) 388-2700 brandywine.org February 25 – May 21 The exhibition, assembled by the Phillips Collection, features fifty-four superb paintings by Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Thomas Eakins, Marsden Hartley, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe, Horace Pippin, Maurice Prendergast, John Sloan, and many others who revolutionized picture-making in the United States. The exhibition traces the course of modern art in the works of these artists—from the bold, investigative realism of Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins at the end of the nineteenth century, to the reductive views and psychological insights of Edward Hopper and Morris Graves at mid-twentieth century.

Morris Graves, August Still Life, 1952, oil on canvas mounted on hardboard. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

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(Un)Mending, (detail) 2008-2016. Libbie Soffer. Altered men’s shirts, steel wire, binding wire; dimensions vary. Courtesy of the artist.

Fluidity Delaware Art Museum 2301 Kentmere Parkway, Wilmington, DE (302) 571-9590 delart.org Through- February 12 Fluidity presents the work of Carla Lombardi, N. Sarangoulis, Libbie Soffer, and Valetta, whose paths have intertwined over the past several years in various collaborations and artistic projects. Through sculptural ceramics, found-object installations, watercolor, and pastel, these artists center their work on the intersection of universal hopes and fears—especially ones unique to women— with personal introspection about their own lives.

Cast of Whistle Characters, 2010. Carla Lombardi. Mid-range stoneware, terra sigillata, oxides, glaze 19 x 14 x 10 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

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Seachange: Contemporary Highlights Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 118-128 North Broad Street Philadelphia, PA (215) 972-7600 pafa.org Through April 9 Between 1935 and 1979, American artists developed dynamic approaches to abstract art. This installation uses work from PAFA’s permanent collection to illustrate how the American art world witnessed great transformations that resulted in more expressive options than ever before for artists in the mid-20th century.

Artists drew from a wide range of sources in order to reject realism and attempt a new vocabulary of form and content. Seachange: Contemporary Highlights brings together a broad range of abstract art from the 1930s through about 1990.

Seachange: Contemporary Highlights includes 57 paintings, sculpture, and works on paper from artists including Julius T. Bloch, George Tooker, Lee Krasner, Stuart Davis, Thomas Chimes, Dorothea Tanning, Loren MacIver, Mark Rothko, Miyoko Ito, Raymond Saunders, Robert Keyser, Warren Rohrer, Sonia Sekula, Clarence Morgan, Grace Hartigan, and many others.

Conrad Marca-Relli, Hurdle, 1959, oil and canvas on canvas.

John Lambert Fund.

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theater VALLEY

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9 to 5: The Musical. A month of Lehigh Valley premieres opens with this adaptation of the hit 1980 movie comedy about three women who kidnap and interrogate their sexist, obnoxious boss. Doralee, Judy and Violet twist themselves into and out of revenge fantasies and compromising positions, eventually improving office manners and their own fortunes. Music and lyrics are courtesy of Dolly Parton, who became a screen star as Doralee. (Civic Theatre of Allentown, February 10-26)

Laughter on the 23rd Floor. The Walnut’s main stage will present Neil Simon’s funniest play, a spoof about writing for television during the McCarthy era in 1953. The Frank Ferrante-directed comedy focuses on a group of screenwriters who live in fear of being axed by the cantankerous, emotionally unstable Max Prince (Frank Ferrante) whose tantrums threaten the careers of any writer who challenges his authority. Explosive pandemonium occurs when the network devises a plan to make the show more appealing to advertisers.

The writing team must now work overtime to make the show funnier and keep Prince happy. But can they do that and please advertisers at the same time? Writing to please advertisers is an old newspaper trick that only occasionally works to a publication’s benefit.

Through March 5, 2017

Jakopa’s Punch Bowl. Touchstone Theatre previews its latest street processional, a concoction of rock concert, puppet extravaganza and circus. The full production will debut in July during Cirque It, a festival produced with Lehigh University’s Zoellner Arts Center and ArtsQuest. Expect the inventive gymnastics, physical and spiritual, of Touchstone’s free-wheeling outdoor interpretations of Don Quixote and Journey to the West, a 16th-century Chinese novel about a scripture-seeking monk and a regiment of merry demon warriors. (February 18, Ice House, Bethlehem) Clybourne Park. In the first half of Bruce Norris’ play the Youngers, the young black couple in Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun, struggle to fit into their new, mostly white neighborhood in 1959 Chicago. In the second half a white husband and wife struggle to fit into the same, mostly white neighborhood in 2009 as they attempt to buy and raze the Youngers’ old house. Clybourne Park won a 2011 Pulitzer Prize and a 2012 Tony for its panoramic, profound exploration of codes—racial, municipal and military. (February 24, Lehigh University) Listen to Me. Gertrude Stein was a legendary, one-and-only avant-garde poet, salon guerilla and collector of revolutionary paintings and revolutionary painters. Her 1936 play is a cubist soliloquy, a verbal spider’s web entangling the would-be lovers Lillian and Sweet William, who can’t meet or even bond, partly because they inhabit three bodies. Spectators are asked to solve a mystery they may not even understand. (February 22-26, Muhlenberg College) Boeing-Boeing. This 1960 farce by French native Marc Camoletti orbits around a French architect/playboy who fools around with three fiancees, all from different countries and all airline hostesses. Speedier planes screw up the schedules of the ladies, who screw up their fiance’s grand game by convening in his Paris apartment at the same time. The 2008-09 Broadway production won a Tony Award for revival; the leading-actor Tony went to Mark Rylance, a celebrated Shakespearean who played the architect’s scheming school buddy. The 1965 film version featured Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis as American journalist pals who become romantic rivals. (February 23-26., Moravian College) Once On This Island. The Little Mermaid swims with Romeo and Juliet in this musical fable set in the class-divided, deity-divided French Antilles. A dark-skinned, poor girl saves a rich, lighter-skinned boy, loses her love affair and life in a bet between the gods, and is resurrected as a boundary-breaking, healing tree. Nominated for nine Tonys, the play was written by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, who received two Tonys for musicalizing E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime. (February 23-26, Cedar Crest College) I Hate Hamlet. Paul Rudnick wrote this comedy about a popular television actor who debates his Shakespearean christening as Hamlet in Central Park with the ghost of John Barrymore, a legendary Hamlet who happens to reside in the TV star’s Manhattan apartment. Rudnick dreamed up the clever plot while living on the top floor of a Greenwich Village brownstone, once Barrymore’s lair. (February 24-26 and March 2-4, Lafayette College) n — geoff gehmAn 10

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Love’s Labor Lost (Quintessence Theatre Group) is Shakespeare’s farce about the King of Navarret and his three pals, Berowine, Longaville and Dumaine who vow to spend three years in celibate scholarly pursuit like Athonite monks. Can the swearing off of sensual pleasure and the company of women work to make their minds sharper, or will an asexual dedication to the task at hand be crushed under the weight of innate human hunger? Shakespeare regarded this particular play as frivolous, fun entertainment, despite the work’s verbal allusions to 16th century Catholic-Protestant issues. Literature is one word that never crossed the Bard’s mind. He would want you to think of think of Love’s Labor Lost as the medieval equivalent to a 2017 TV sitcom. March 15-April 21. The Sedgwick Theater.

Marx in Soho. “Violence is the midwife of a new society,” Karl Marx once pined, “I will annihilate you!” Poor Marx hated fruits and veggies, drank too much, and rarely took baths. Critics labeled him an egotist and a lying intriguer. InterAct Theater resurrected the Marx legacy for two nights in January, with Bob Weick playing the gruff advocate of orgies who co-authored The Communist Manifesto. Weick has starred in this role for 12 years in over 200 productions. Written by Howard Zinn (A People’s History of the United States), the play depicts Marx in the afterlife as he tries to clear his name and reputation.

Having Our Say. The Philadelphia Theater Company will hit full stride with Emily Mann’s adaptation of centenarian sisters Sadie (Perri Gaffney) and Dr. Bessie Delany (Cherene Snow), the daughters of a former slave who tell the story of their lives in the south and in Harlem. Vincent Canby in a New York Times review in 1995 called the work “Not a conventional, well-made play…but it has the effect of rich theater.” Canby also called the sisters “privileged and their story atypical but significant.” When the Delany sisters attended the world premiere in New York, they were dressed to the nines and arrived in a limo provided by Bill Cosby. Directed by Mary B. Robinson, Having Our Say runs till February 19.

Constellations. The Wilma strikes pay dirt with Nick Payne’s cosmic love story that takes us into a world of infinite possibilities. Directed by Tea Alagic, Wilma HotHouse Company members Sarah Gliko and Jered McLenigan, married in real life, are Marianne and Roland onstage. Conventional narrative is suspended as we see the couple meet many times over as they repeat and repeat lines of dialogue. With each repetition there’s a new twist in the story: they marry, they don’t marry; Marianne gets cancer and needs Chemo then the tables turn and Roland is the ailing one. It’s all theoretical, of course, much like the choices we make or don’t make in life. The repetitions at first might annoy but they soon bloom into a wonderful Gertrude Stein-like word cacophony. This graceful, tight production at 70 minutes is over all too soon. Until February 5, 2017. n — thom nickels

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cUrAted by A.d. Amorosi

the list

FEBRUARY 6 AFI/NOTHING A night of gloom and doom and good hair from two of the best punk-metal artistes around. (Union Transfer)

9 TALIB KWELI Now that Mos Def (or his name changed Yasiin Bey) is getting out of the hip hop

10 TAJ EXPRESS: THE BOLLYWOOD MUSICAL REVUE Everyone talks about the Bollywood film genre as India’s greatest export, but knowing that that cinema’s finest asset is its gorgeously choreographed musical numbers and their costuming and this sounds like a delicious adventure. (Zoellner Arts Center)

10 MARCO BENEVENTO’S WOLF! Featuring Scott Metzger of Joe Russo's Almost Dead. A session with the jam senate’s finest statesman, multi-instrumentalist Benevento has moved from nerdy muso to grand eloquent showman. (Ardmore Music Hall)

(Sellersville Theatre)

21–26 THE BODYGUARD

18 NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF UKRAINE: DVORÁK-FROM THE NEW WORLD

The Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston 90s flick turned into a dramatic musical with house music sensation Deborah Cox fea-

The strange, sad, alluring music of Eastern Europe’s grandest symphony orchestra and its mope-iest composer Dvo ák tackle major themes and minor chords majestically with Artistic Director & Chief Conductor Theodore Kuchar steering the mood-swinging ship. (Zoellner Arts Center)

19 MACEO PARKER’S 50 YEARS OF FUNK The name says it all: James Brown’s most famous saxophonist (to say nothingof his time

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tures a handful of Houston’s biggest hits and the famed run through the rain that made the movie noble and sexy – sit away from the stage. (Academy of Music)

business, Kweli is the last man standing in the old school socially conscious lit-wit rap stakes. (TLA)

This is not a Rick Roll, but rather the real thing: a first tour in decades from the UK’s big voiced soul-pop crooner and a one-time, would-be successor to George Michael’s throne. (Electric Factory)

9 HAMILTON LEITHAUSER/LUCY DACUS

11 THE DUSTBOWL REVIVAL

AM radio-poppy weirdest singing member of The Walkmen and the toast of Rich-

Nobody ever talks about the laughs to be found within John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. The winged, string-ed things of Dustbowl Revival do. (Steelstacks)

within George Clinton’s ParliamentFunkadelic ranks) takes listeners on a tour of all things deeply and dirtily soulful. (Ardmore Music Hall)

12/13 RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS

19 ALAN CUMMING SINGS SAPPY SONGS Britain’s diamond chinned gem and

With Trombone Shorty & Orleans Ave. The

25 NIK GREELEY & THE OPERATORS

mond, VA-based forlorn singing/songwriting promise to make a cold evening warm with a double dose of haunted artistry. (Johnny Brenda’s) occasional Broadway player has a schmaltzy presence, a mellifluous voice and a knack for curating the corny-coolest Tin Pan Alley song list. (Kimmel Center)

9 THE MOODY BLUES’ JUSTIN HAYWARD One of the lushest many voices of the Brit 60s without all that fussy orchestration AND NO FLUTES. You have been warned. (SteelStacks)

kings of punk-funk Californication and New Orleans’ savviest, suave-est jazz-bo team up for what promises to be more of a block party than a concert. (Wells Fargo Center)

10 MEEK MILL & FRIENDS Philadelphia’s rapper du jour has less friends now that he broke up with fiancé Nicki Minaj, so let’s see who joins up with Meek and his label boss Rick Ross. (Wells Fargo Center)

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16 REVEREND BILLY C. WIRTZ & THE NIGHTHAWKS The beardo king of horny gospel folk and his crew promise a good holy time with some haughty naughtiness on the side.

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19 ALL-STAR KLEZMER SHOW Led by Hankus Netsky of PBS fame with Hot Club of Philly. OK, this sounds vague, but bear with them, find it wherever it lands: for all the talk of bringing back the Jewish/Eastern European musical form, Netsky never left it. The boys and girls of Philly's Django-esque Hot Club are no slouches when it comes to jivey, homey jazz. (TBA)

A recent visit with Philadelphia singer/carnival barker Greeley and his horn-driven ensemble as an opener for the James Brown Party Band found the vocalist as rousing an opener as was the headliner. Good show.

(Steelstacks)

25 PANIC! AT THE DISCO With MisterWives and Saint Motel. Emo never died, it just became springy glammy

agit-prop-pop, and Panic! At the Disco is still the springiest of its musical manufacturers. (Wells Fargo Center)

26 THE GAME OF THRONES LIVE CONCERT EXPERIENCE Obviously the winter that Jon Snow kept warning us of has come or else my hands wouldn’t shiver. That aside, this isn’t an ice skating fest or a riverdance party (though each of those would make this campy fun) but rather a grand orchestral leap through the firey hoops of Game of Thrones music just in time for HBO to ramp up ads for the next season. (Wells Fargo Center) n

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FOODIE FILE FRI SAT SUN, PHILADELPHIA, PA

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A.d. Amorosi

HE MARRIEDS

One new couple and one longtime couple look at restaurant life with Fri Sat Sun and DeAnna’s

Fri Sat Sun photos ©Reese Amorosi

DEANNA’S RESTAURANT, LAMBERTVILLE, NJ

WHEN WORD WENT THROUGH Philadelphia’s restaurant rumor mill that the legendarily romantic tank bar Fri Sat Sun was changing ownership for the first time since the 1970s culinary renaissance, the most positive aspect of such shifts was that two newlyweds to entrepreneurship and to each other—Chad and Hanna Williams, both mainstays of the Garces Restaurant Group—were on board. These two are not the first marrieds to hold the keys to local restaurants: certainly the couples behind the Vedge/V Street empire, the Bud & Marilyns (Barbuzzo) team and Brigantessa/Le Virtue know the ins-and-outs of the biz, beautiful and messy. “It’s a lifestyle not for the squeamish,” says Lisa Nichols, the front-of-house manager (and made in-house baker) that, with her longtime partner/Chef DeAnna Paterra own DeAnna’s in Lambertville, NJ. “You have to love every part of it, from the biz on down, beyond loving each other.”

With that, I wanted to peek into the lives of one longtime couple (Paterra and Nichols’ two decade-long love affair), one newbie (the Williams celebrate the fifth month of their marriage this Valentine’s) and now they navigate the waters of each of their restaurants and the neighborhoods of which they are central.

So central is the Williams’s salon to Rittenhouse Square, that when looking for bright new designs (a huge part of the once-dark Fri Sat Sun) for the sake of renovation, Hanna Williams went with a column-filled Maxfield Parrish-like theme for the Zuber wallpaper murals stretched over wood planks that line their second floor. “It reminded us of Kelly Drive, of Rittenhouse Square,” she said of its blend of the sun splashed and the sophisticated.

“Owning a restaurant is not something we planned,” says Hanna, a one-time Garces front-of-house manager who got engaged to Chef Chad on Valentine’s Day, 2014. “One day Chad came home and mentioned that he was told the FSS space was for sale, and I suggested we go look at it.” By October, 2016, the pair had purchased the tall, two-floor property and gutted it for their vision of an opulent marble 14-seat bar downstairs and booths, banquettes and intimate corner tables upstairs. “We loved the location and the nostalgia and history tied to it, but we wanted to make it our own,” says Hanna. “We completely renovated the space and regulars of the former FSS are pleasantly surprised when they walk in.”

As each has been around and within the busy Philly culinary scene, they understand the level of commitment that finds them with little time to be “just husband and wife, instead of chef and manager.” They don’t feel saddled, however, only blessed.

“We’re happy and grateful we get to do what we love.” And what they love is a New American menu drawn from a broad spectrum of cultures that find Fri Sat Sun serving handsome New York Strips with Smoked Potato Puree, as well as a twist on Italian pasta dishes like Chad’s Lobster Bucatini.”When I’m inspired by a dish and want to serve it our way, I look for what has made it last—become a staple within a cuisine all these years—and then put our spin on it,” he said. “These dishes, such as octopus and the chicken liver mousse, are technically sound, prepared classically, but then touched by

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The Founder

SOMEONE EVEN MORE CYNICAL than I said: “Success has a hundred fathers but failure is an orphan.” [Let that sink it a bit.] Ray Kroc is usually thought of as the guy that invented McDonald’s, likely the most famous American food chain in the world—but that’s only part of the story. The Founder gives us the low-down on the fellow that was responsible for making McDonald’s the success story it is. (Regardless of what one thinks of their food, one has to admit its success.)

In the early 1950s salesman Ray Kroc is driving around the Midwest selling milkshake-making machines and not having lots of luck. He gets an order for eight machines from one eatery—this piques his interest, so much so that he goes out of his way to visit the restaurant. This little hamburger joint McDonald’s is doing tremendously well, serving food orders in under a minute as opposed to placing an order and waiting 30 minutes.

The McDonald brothers, Dick and Mac, devised a system in which many burgers are prepared en masse and created a menu limited to burgers, fries, and soda. Blam-O, long lines but virtually no wait-time. No plates either— you ate the burger out of the wrapper. Commonplace today, but in the ‘50s this was avant-garde. Kroc is very impressed by this, and approaches the brothers with the

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notion to expand statewide, and ultimately nationally. The combination of the McDonald brothers’ basic (but decent) food and Kroc’s ambition-fueled hustle make the eatery known as McDonald’s a major American success story…and everyone lives happily ever after, right?

Wrong. We not only see what Kroc accomplishes but how he accomplishes it—initially he seems a likable fellow trying to make a living. But when he gets a taste of success he naturally wants more now—and after a while it becomes obvious that Kroc is willing to do whatever he feels he needs to do to succeed, regardless of who might get hurt. Then the McDonald brothers and Kroc’s supportive and long-suffering wife Ethel (Laura Dern), find themselves on the wrong end of Kroc’s ambition rainbow.

Keaton’s performance is a marvel to behold—he plays Kroc with many shades of gray, his character still retaining that salesperson’s charisma even when he becomes ruthless. Without sugarcoating Kroc’s more pugnacious qualities Keaton makes him somewhat sympathetic—not exactly likable, mind you, but interesting.

(Think Ray Liotta as Henry Hill.) The energy and devotion that Keaton injects into building a business (from the bottom-up, in many cases literally) of which he can

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be proud and find profitable is riveting without being ostentatious. The down-to-earth brothers (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch) who simply want to run a thriving business with pride, react to Kroc (alternately) with enthusiasm, exasperation, and disgust. McDonald’s was their baby and Kroc worked to take it from them. Dern has little to do but play the stereotypical Long-Suffering Wife—this writer wonders if the real Mrs. Kroc took her hubby’s marital exit strategy as stoically. This was after all the woman that stuck by him through thick and thin and now hubby’s ready to ride the Pontiac of Prosperity into the sunset without her. John Lee Hancock’s direction is undistinguished except for one important thing: He keeps the film moving along at a good pace—running time is almost two hours, but it sure didn’t feel like it.

The film explains shady-yet-legal business dealings in a very user-friendly manner; I liked The Big Short, but I’d be lying if I said it was easy for this lad to follow…but then, finance was never my strong suit.

Whether you’re a fan of McDonald’s or not, you likely will not think about the concept the same way after seeing The Founder. This would make an ideal double bill with another movie that delineates the darker sides of capitalism, Lord of War. n

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Club swinging Alabama state troopers in Selma, March 7, 1965. Congressman John Lewis, center, raises his hand to ward off a state trooper’s blow during the encounter. Photo: Leon Daniel UPI

I Am Not Your Negro

CANNOT RECALL SEEING a movie as chillingly resonant as I Am Not Your Negro. Raoul Peck’s documentary starts by chronicling James Baldwin’s 1979 attempt to write a memoir about three civil rights leaders that he personally knew—Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King— and becomes a very different, very necessary state of the union address.

Baldwin’s feelings and observations on these men bloom into a visual essay on being black in America during the 1950s and 1960s, when Baldwin achieved prominence. The late author’s words, as narrated by an effectively subdued Samuel L. Jackson, voice the frustration of finding your way in a world where you are not welcome. We feel our anger rising, and not just because of past wrongs, which are chronicled via offensive ads featuring subservient, crudely drawn African-Americans and news footage of protests.

We now have a president who is only interested in satiating his massive ego, who cannot tolerate disagreement. Everyone is an enemy: the LGBTQ community, minorities, immigrants, women. If you don’t fit the very narrow definition of Donald Trump’s America—white and rich or easily swayed by empty rhetoric—you qualify as a threat. You have committed the crime of being aware.

I Am Not Your Negro is equal doses enlightening and enraging because, like Baldwin, so many of us are now rallying to simply be treated with compassion. White people such as I are getting a small taste of what minorities have experienced daily for hundreds of years. Our children will look back in 50 years and marvel at the ignorance. You mean a president wanted to build a wall to keep out Mexicans? And, ignoring scores of scientific data, he believed global warming was a hoax unleased by the Chinese? There is no comfort for anybody. Even the people who voted for Trump—who thought he represented

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some seismic patriotic rebuke to liberal-inspired political correctness—are slowly realizing they voted for a con man. This is not a stable plan. As Baldwin notes, people denied participation in a system, will wreck it.

Much of what Baldwin wrote and said stands now, including this: A contingent of people (i.e., whites) abide the status quo, because it is to their benefit. That is what Trump represents, but it’s the stuff of which delusions are made. Veering toward an America of white picket fences and hard-working factory workers (until automation is deemed more cost-effective) is a recipe to repeat the McCarthy hearings and separate drinking fountains and gays marrying out of safety.

“The American way of life,” says Jackson, reading Baldwin’s words, “has not made us better or happier.”

Baldwin was a voice of reason at a time when logic was poison. His options to communicate were limited: articles and books, public appearances. But thanks to the Internet, everyone can speak up at any time. Millions are angry, but does it matter? After all, Baldwin wrote, there’s only so much reality people can take, which explains why millions abandoned empathy and common sense in electing a nacho cheese-hued megalomaniac.

That I Am Not Your Negro exists is part of the awakening, though it may not provide solace at this precarious moment. Baldwin wrote through—and expressed—his pain. The nation survived, eventually electing a black president. That was once unthinkable.

Ironically, the heft behind I Am Not Your Negro lies in its steadfast commitment to telling uncomfortable truths. We are uneasy and optimistic, buoyed and ashamed. The movie tells a story of America—one many don’t care to know, one that is still unfolding.

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Ramin Djawadi—the composer behind the music of Iron Man, Westworld and other epic, iconic scores—brings the music of Westeros and more to the live Game of Thrones Concert Experience

NYONE WHO THINKS OF a film or television series’ score as background music hasn’t been paying attention to the fleshy tactile and texturally vibrant music of com poser/multi-instrumentalist Ramin Djawadi. Long part of equally animated film composer Hans Zimmer’s production film score company, the IranianGerman composer broke out on his own with the soaring hip hop-inspired sound of Blade: Trinity (2004) and the tautly nervous tone of the Fox television series Prison Break (2005-2009), a show whose remix he is a part of this season at Fox. It is, however, the loud, guitar-strewn score for Marvel’s Iron Man (2008) and the forlorn, yet rousing, fantasy vibe for HBO and 2011’s first season of Game of Thrones (and every season following) where Djawadi made his bones. The eerily sprawling score for HBO’s sci-fi cowboy series Westworld is merely dramatic icing on a grandly theatrical cake.

Even if we land at Game of Thrones at the end of this, do you feel as if your work and its themes have grown in terms of dynamics—early works such as Saving Jessica Lynch and Beat the Drum?

Growing as an artist and composer, you gravitate to things you like—with all sorts of stops in between—then find your style, your signatures. Personally, I feel that really broke open for me when I did Prison Break. There I had a chance to evolve my sound and style over many characters, story arcs and, most importantly, several seasons. I could doubly mature the same themes I started with in season one over time.

Grow and develop them as a writer would characters.

Exactly. I definitely think that Prison Break helped define me—refine what I do as a composer in this business. Over the years I have grown into the sound that I have— the ways that I write. All of my previous projects, though, brought me to this point, albeit in many different ways.

IT WAS NEVER EASY, THOUGH, TO FIND THE RIGHT SOUNDS FOR SOMETHING FANTASTICAL AS THIS. WE WANTED IT TO HAVE ITS OWN IDENTITY BEYOND ALL OTHER MEDIEVAL FANTASY FILM AND TELEVISION. WE WORKED VERY HARD TO MAKE THIS UNIQUE, TO GIVE IT ALL OF IT ITS OWN PERSONALITIES, A DEFINED SOUND. THE BEAUTY OF ALL THAT WAS THAT BECAUSE IT WAS FANTASY I COULD DO ANYTHING Now, Djawadi, a full orchestra and choir along with miles of state-of-the-art interactive video, lighting and staging bring The Game of Thrones® Live Concert Experience to life at Philly’s Wells Fargo Center on February 26 and Madison Square Garden on March 7 (all tickets available at Tickemaster.com) with a promise to take fans on an immersive musical journey through the realm “...from King’s Landing to Winterfell, along the northern stretches of the Kingsroad to The Wall and across the Narrow Sea to Braavos, Meereen and beyond.” Here, Ramin Djawadi speaks to all that Westeros and more.

I know that you have long been used to doing scores and being in the background, but you do have one actor credit—as a party musician on It’s Complicated.

How was being in front of the camera?

That’s so funny you bring that up. It was totally meant as a joke because I had worked on [director] Nancy Myers’ Something’s Got to Give with Hans (Zimmer). When she started It’s Complicated, we just happened to be in touch, and she mentioned that she needed a party band for a scene. So she just came out and asked me if we wanted to be in the movie. I just thought that was great. It was a little scene but it was fun being on the actual set as opposed to behind the scenes.

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Without turing this into an either-or thing, do you then prefer serial television with its seasons, multiple arcs than, say, film? Or does film force you to condense and compact and THAT is the challenge?

Hmm….you bring up a good point. I don’t think it is a matter of prefer. What is nicer in television is the chance to explore, to ruminate, to expand because you have these on-going developments over a greater length of time with the same characters and story lines—and new ones—that don’t have to be summarized within a two-hour frame.

You love that stretching.

Looking at Game of Thrones, for example, we have six seasons so far and so many hours in which to develop the sounds and tones of each set of scenes, story arcs and characters. There is a lot to play with—all that closely follows with music. You get a chance to say new things, go back to old themes. I always feel as if I have so much to say when doing this music, and television series offer me that opportunity. Especially when you have a next season to see and hear where that can take me, or that I wanted to go but didn’t get a chance. It is really nice to have playroom to expand.

You were talking signature which naturally brings me to HBO, Game of Thrones and Westworld’s opening themes where YES—the differences are great, BUT the similarities, too, are strikingly present. Is that you or is that the show-runners, directors and network coming to you with that suggestion?

No one at HBO has ever specifically said that they liked one specific thing and wanted to repeat it. HBO liked what I did at Game of Thrones and told me to be myself, do what I thought was right for Westworld. The show-runner, Jonathan Nolan, had a vision, an ear, for what he wanted for Westworld, but the idea of me having some-

thing recognizable to you and other listeners is mine. And that’s great for me.

Of course—it’s like a big, much loved band having a hit sound in which to craft variations.

It is exactly that—the recognition factor of hearing U2 or Radiohead, knowing and loving their sound, even when they’re making new albums and newer sounds.

No matter what, you still know it is them. If you’re a fan you want to hear that through point.

That is the basis of the whole fan-artist relationship.

So then with Westworld and Game of Thrones we make use of the similarities. The beauty of it all is that they’re still quite different sonically, Instrumentally, and in terms of their production but, sure, there is that through line, too.

You mentioned Radiohead, and within the continuous score to Westlworld you used their songs along with that of the Rolling Stones, The Cure, Soundgarden and more as musical quotes. What made you want to use songs like “Paint It Black” as punctuation?

They were Nolan’s ideas. I have to give him full credit. He just heard those songs as key moments within the plot and the show’s design. Especially since we had that player

piano as a real thing in the show, we just thought that using those musical quotes would be fun, to make my score merge with those songs via the piano. Even then, though, we put a different spin on them, made them contemporary, especially since it is a theme park where nothing is real. Where are we? When are we? He thought that the songs would throw you off. He thought of the songs, I did the piano arrangement. That is the sign of a great collaboration—a show runner gives a suggestion and I turn it into a musical moment. That’s cool.

Thinking of Game of Thrones then, the beginning and you speaking with George R. R. Martin, what do you recall? And how has all that evolved to the point we are now with the live event?

Before I did one note for them, we had long conversations about what the sound should be, what instruments, how much did I need to hew to the tones of the era, the thematic of characters and location. We were all very specific about what we wanted to have for that first season and how we could expand for each season after that.

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REMEMBERING

Mose Allison A young man’s unforgettable journey with a legend

MOSE ALLISON DIED RECENTLY at 89. That’s not a To people who only saw his photos on record aling was a kind of country bebop—not blues, but a secsurprising age, considering he was in his early 40s when I bums, he looked like Faulkner. Slender, handsome (not ond cousin to blues. A unique blend of jazz, which is somet him as a teenager. But somehow you never think of quite as handsome as Faulkner) with a trimmed musphisticated, with backcountry Mississippi, which is not. your heroes getting old (even though you do). If you tache that has gone with the way of 1950s cars and The He was a jazz singer, not a blues singer, but his jazz haven’t heard Mose’s music, let me try to describe it— Dave Garroway Show. His lyrics were about love and singing was bluesy because I’d tell you his sound was bluesy and tinged with loss (mostly loss) told with irony instead of self pity. His Mose’s most popular songs were “Baby, Please Don’t red-dirt backwoods Mississippi where he was born, and lyrics had humor, which is rare (trust me on that; try to Go” and “Parchman Farm.” Like my best friends in the you would think he was black.

Village in the early ‘60s, I knew the words to He wasn’t. Born in Tippo, Mose, (not almost every song he had recorded. You Moses) was college educated and culturalcan imagine what a thrill it was to be “WELL, I GUESS I’LL BE TRAVELING BY GREYHOUND,” HE SAID, CLEARly sophisticated. His music suggests a rustwalking down Bleecker Street, just by LY NOT HAPPY ABOUT THE TRANSPORT PLAN. BUT WITH A LAIDed, broken-down Ford in a scraggly backchance, with someone Mose knew and BACK, IRONIC ACCEPTANCE...HE TOSSED IT OFF AS CASUAL yard, with a rooster crowing nearby and liked. The three of us stopped and I was fallow fields within view. That backwoods in heaven just being in his presence. My NEWS, BUT THERE WAS NOTHING CASUAL ABOUT IT TO ME...THIS essence of Mose’s image was real and culfriend asked brightly, “Mose, what have WAS A MAN WITH HIS PICTURE ON TEN RECORD ALBUMS, A MAN tivated. you been up to?” In his laconic, throwOFTEN WRITTEN UP IN DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE, A MAN WHOSE Like Faulkner, an icon often invoked away delivery, Mose answered, “Aw, I just in writing about his music, Mose Allison finished doing a new album called I Don’t SONGS ROSE HIGH ON THE CHARTS, AND HE WAS TRAVELING TO was the deep south, but the deep intellecWorry About a Thing. He really said that.

HIS OWN GIG ON A BUS! THAT WAS AN OPPORTUNITY BEGGING tual south of Carson McCullers, Eudora Then and now, I considered that the FOR ME. “I’M GOING TO WASHINGTON THIS WEEKEND,’’ I SAID. Welty and Flannery O’Connor. coolest single line ever spoken in real life.

I’m writing about Mose because I met It turned out that Mose was booked “I’LL GIVE YOU A RIDE IF YOU WANT.” him when he was close to the peak of his for a weekend gig at the major jazz club in fame as a crossover jazz pianist-singer, and he Washington, D.C. I think it was the Bohemian was as much of a musical idol as I had at that time. I think of an important song that makes you laugh). Mose Caverns. I was spellbound. This was Mose Allison, talking lived in Greenwich Village, and my best friends and I had several. One was “Your mind is on vacation, and about going to a major club where he was the attraction! idolized him. His singing was laconic, ironic, almost indif- your mouth is workin’ overtime.” He wrote that to deal My friend asked how he was traveling and Mose did it ferent in the way he tossed the lyrics out. He sang casual- with people who (inevitably) were loud, rude and unfunagain. In one of his songs he sang “I don’t intend to ly, as if it weren’t really important, although it was. Like ny during his live performances. cause a fuss, I’ll take my leave by Greyhound bus.”

James Taylor, who followed him, Mose Allison sang with“I Don’t Worry About a Thing (‘Cause I Know Noth“Well, I guess I’ll be traveling by Greyhound.” out vibrato. That was new. in’s Gonna Be All Right).” That’s the title song of an He said it to us, clearly not happy about the transMose’s intonation was flawless and his pitch was album that perfectly evokes his atitude. Ironic. Not unport plan (who would be?), but with a laid-back, ironic perfect, but there was an element of seeming casualness caring, but not optimistic, either. Life can hurt, but it’s acceptance of that particular stroke of fate. He tossed it in his singing that evoked a man who might just as soon better to chuckle about it than cry, and put your money off as casual news, but there was nothing casual about it be summoning one of his coon dogs as singing in the on a winning horse next time (good luck with that) or a to me. I was amazed. This was a man with his picture on spotlight of a jazz club. He brought backcountry Missisgirl who is not bound to break your heart (even better ten record albums, a man often written up in Downbeat sippi on stage to the city without dramatizing it. It was in luck with that.)

Magazine, a man whose songs rose high on the charts, his lyrics, his delivery, his whole attitude.

His voice was soft-edged and mellow. His piano playand he was traveling to his own gig on a bus!

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That was an opportunity begging for me.

“I’m going to Washington this weekend,’’ I said. “I’ll give you a ride if you want.” Mose’s eyes brightened at that and he accepted the offer immediately. I ignored the sidelong glance my girlfriend gave me and wrote down Mose’s number in Long Island City to arrange the time of the meeting at the Sixth Avenue subway stop near the corner of Bleecker.

As soon as Mose left us, my friend asked the obvious: “Where are you going to get a car?” It was a good question. I didn’t have a car. Nobody had a car in New York. But I had a good friend in Queens named Marty who came to the Village to play guitar at night in his own Volvo. A black one. It was in good shape, partly because he never loaned it or let anyone else drive it. I called Marty and told him I needed his car for the weekend. He laughed. “Sure. Do you want it tuned and waxed? A paint touch-up?” He knew I was joking until he realized I wasn’t.

He realized that when I told him I had to drive Mose Allison to Washington that weekend. A year or two later, the name Bob Dylan might have carried that power, but right then, Mose Allison was it. Marty didn’t want to loan me his car, but he couldn’t not loan it. Mose Allison was Mose Allison.

On Friday afternoon, my best friend Eddie, who loved Mose’s music as much as I did, was at the Sixth Avenue meeting point, right in front of the subway entrance, at the time Mose and I had agreed on. We weren’t more than half an hour early. Half an hour passed with no sign of Mose, and then another half hour.

Maybe he was playing a joke on two gullible kids. “We’ll wait until Tuesday,” Eddie said. “If he’s not here by then, we’ll split.” That was hipster talk for “leave.”

After about an hour and a half wait, we saw Mose emerge from the subway, cool as anybody could be. We were as thrilled as teenage girls might have been seeing Elvis, but we had to act cool.

This was Mose Allison, and we were driving him to Washington.

At that time, Italian ices were sold at many small sidewalk-window shops on the street. There was one across from us on the other side of Sixth Avenue. “I could go for an ice,” Mose said. “You got eyes?” That was hipster talk meaning, would you like some? Sure, we had eyes.

Mose bought ices for the three of us, and I started the trip to the Holland Tunnel. It was going to be hours. I wished people could see us—friends from the bars and

the coffee shops—see that we were driving—we were actually doing it—driving Mose Allison in a car. Marty had probably told people. They’d know when we returned.

But I don’t know if I’ve ever been so proud to be driving someone. I don’t think so.

The most important thing to me was to avoid saying something dumb. I loved the two songs that brought people to hear Mose at his gigs: “Parchman Farm” and “Baby Please Don’t Go.” But before I made the mistake of saying so, I asked Mose how he thought the gig would go. For me, the whole thing was beyond imagination. A nightclub full of people who had paid to come and hear Mose play and sing.

“Aw it’ll be the usual drag,” Mose said. “A lotta college kids wantin’ to hear ‘Parchman Farm’ and ‘Baby, Please

Don’t Go.’ Man, I get tired of those songs.”

Neither Eddie nor I were in college then but we both loved those songs. We had just learned, by luck, that Mose considered fans of those songs “square.” I felt almost giddy with the luck of not having exposed my own squareness. I thought of the rather complex, and not terribly accessible jazz piano solos that Mose played on many of his songs. The piano playing was too cerebral for me. Dense and harmonically opaque, while his songs were like looking into a stream and seeing right to the bottom, through the ripples, past the occasional minnow,

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film roundup

Staying Vertical

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (Dir. André Øvredal). Starring: Emile Hirsch, Brian Cox, Olwen Kelly. All you need to make a movie is two guys and a corpse. There’s a little more than that to this effective shocker from director André Øvredal (Trollhunter). But it’s primarily a tense one-set movie in which father-son morticians Tommy (Brian Cox) and Austin (Emile Hirsch) investigate the death of an anonymous woman (Olwen Kelly), each scalpel-cut bringing them closer to a terrifying, likely supernatural truth.

The answer to Jane Doe’s demise is the most unsatisfying thing about the film— pretty scare-flick by rote. Øvredal does better with suggestive atmosphere, allowing the shadows of Tommy and Austin’s morgue to mask threats actual and imagined (like a faceless corpse trudging through the gloom). In Cox and Hirsch, he has two professionals who don’t condescend to the material, but play it with full emotional commitment.

And Kelly makes for a splendid antagonist—a monster who can kill without ever moving a muscle. [R] HHH1/2

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Son of Joseph (Dir. Eugène Green). Starring: Victor Ezenfis, Natacha Régnier, Fabrizio Rongione, Mathieu Amalric. No one makes movies quite like Eugène Green, the New York-born, Paris-based expat with an inimitable style that blends the literary and the baroque. His latest is a modernday nativity story about a discontented teenager (Victor Ezenfis), born of a virginal mother (Natacha Régnier) and searching for a father figure. (Mathieu Amalric and Fabrizio Rongione play the polar opposite parent apparents.) Characters constantly break the fourth wall, declaiming to camera. The visual and verbal allusions tend unapologetically toward the highbrow— Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac (1603), is a primary reference point. Like much of the writer-director’s work, the film is funny, passionate and thought-provoking—sure to be like nothing you’ve ever experienced. [N/R] HHHH1/2 Staying Vertical (Dir. Alain Guiraudie).

Starring: Damien Bonnard, India Hair, Raphaël Thiéry. Did I say no one makes movies quite like Eugène Green? Well, no one makes movies quite like Alain

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Guiraudie either. The French writer-director’s follow up to the explicitly queerthemed thriller Stranger by the Lake begins with a seemingly straightforward setup as creatively blocked filmmaker Léo (Damien Bonnard) travels to the countryside for inspiraton. There he quickly (very quickly) meets, makes extremely graphic love to, and has a child with sheepherder Marie (India Hair). And then…um: There’s a doctor in a forest who attaches leafy tendrils to Léo’s body as if they were EKG wires. There’s a beautiful, rebellious young boy that Léo may feel an attraction to.

There’s a lonely, racist bitter old man who spends the day blaring ‘70s rock while perhaps longing for some transcendental sex.

Oh, and wolves. Lots and lots of wolves. Is Léo a stand-in for his creator, forever searching for a story, however incoherent, and letting the film we’re watching follow suit? Or is that reading too easy? Why ask too many questions when a work of art confounds and compels as beautifully as this one. [PG-13] HHHH1/2 20th Century Women (Dir. Mike Mills).

Starring: Annette Bening, Elle Fanning,

Greta Gerwig, Lucas Jade Zumann. An ensemble to die for headlines Mike Mills’s very moving feature, which like his previous film Beginners (2010) is rooted in autobiography. The Mills stand-in here is Southern California teenager Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), coming of age in 1979 in a house mostly populated by women—his depressive mother Dorothea (Annette Bening), his best friend and crush Julie (Elle Fanning), and punkish twenty-something boarder Abbie (Greta Gerwig). As in Beginners, Mills blends the beautifully acted dramatic scenes with playful historical asides (of things that have happened and will happen artistically, politically and personally) that make him come off like a twee American cousin to France’s Chris Marker. What makes the brew work is the specificity with which Mills approaches his characters and the events they go through.

Each of the ladies offers varying perspectives on life to the impressionable protagonist, though no one ever comes off as a mere mouthpiece. Everyone is flesh and blood here, quite palpably so. By the end, you’ll feel you’ve lived a rewarding lifetime with them. [R] HHHH1/2 n

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Howl (2017) THERE ARE SOME RECURRING “standards” in the world of horror: The vampire; the mad scientist that wants to play God; the ghost; and the werewolf. (If you thought this was about the Allen Ginsberg poem, sorry.) Howl is a UK import that tries for an entertaining contemporary variant on the latter.

A late-night commuter train departs rainstorm-y London. Train guard (conductor/ticket-taker here) Joe (Ed Speleers, Downton Abbey) is forced to add a shift on the train. He checks the tickets of a varied group of passengers, an imperious businesswoman (Shauna MacDonald), a snotty young lady (Rosie Day), a full-of-himself businessman (Elliot Cowan), and a few others, while Ellen (Holly Weston) is the equivalent of a flight attendant serving snacks and the like. Just another boring night of nondescript and obnoxious passengers until the train hits a deer in a dense forested area and forced to a stop. When the train engineer/driver goes to investigate, he is set upon by an unseen beast for whom he becomes a midnight snack. With no driver and the train stuck in an area with no cell reception, the passengers stuck on the train become irritable—then irritability becomes panic as the beast attacks the passengers. Like most disaster and horror films with an ensemble cast, the name of the game is survival, but it soon becomes clear that while some passengers show pluck and bravery, some of them become almost as big a danger to each other as the hungry monsters outside. (Yes, there is more than one beast.)

The werewolves are not given a backstory, they are simply there—we don’t even get to see them transform from human to beast. As with the original Night of the Living Dead, there’s a wee twist on a particular horror/suspense film trope: An unlikeable character offers a course of action which the others reject—then we later find that the bastard was right. The characters are thankfully not a microcosm of UK society or society in general—some of them are decent enough (flawed heroes, even), some are creeps. There is gore but it’s used sparingly, giving it more impact. Howl uses monochromatic cinematography to establish mood and a fear-laden atmosphere. The acting is decent by known-in-the UK actors. While clearly no cinematic classic, Howl offers enough variation on the formula to be worth seeing for horror fans (especially fans of Brit horror). [UK: rating 18/USA: none] n 26

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Ballads Blues & Bluegrass: A Film by Alan Lomax ALAN LOMAX (1915-2005) IS AN important figure in American music. Lomax was an ethnomusicologist, archivist, scholar, and promoter of assorted varieties of American traditional music. In the late 1950s and early ‘60s Lomax organized concerts in New York City, one of the main centers of the folk music revival, out of which talents such as Jean Ritchie and Bob Dylan emerged. Lomax was a filmmaker, too, and he documented parties in his Greenwich Village apartment where folk and blues performers Clarence Ashley, Memphis Slim, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott would play in an informal context. Ballads Blues & Bluegrass is a short film of one such party; it’s a virtual time machine back to an exciting time when music that might otherwise have stayed in the mountains of the Southern U.S. and the South Side of Chicago were it not for the NYC folk scene. Peter La Farge is a somewhat legendary figure in the U.S. folk scene—not many have heard him outside of it but his song “Ballad of Ira Hayes” became well known via a version by Johnny Cash (Dylan also recorded it). Ballads is in black-and-white and by today’s standards crudely filmed, but for fans of traditional music (including blues) it’s a treasure trove. Lomax had no piano in his flat, so on the rollicking duet between Memphis Slim and blues icon Willie Dixon, Slim plays boogiewoogie on a small organ; La Farge performs the heartbreaking “Ira Hayes,” Ramblin’ Jack Elliott sings a Woody Guthrie song (and astute ears can discern how much of Dylan’s pre-electric style came directly from Elliott), and banjoist Roscoe Holcomb is an amazing exponent and definition of the high, lonesome sound of mountain music.

This DVD includes a short featurette in which one of the participants fills in some background. (Another participant was a very young Maria Muldaur.) [not rated] culturalequity.com n

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reel news

Doctor Strange

Manchester by the Sea (2016) HHHHH Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Lucas Hedges Drama / Rated R Awards: Golden Globes Best Actor Movie: Drama; nominee Best Picture, Best Actress, Director, Screenplay.

After a family tragedy devastates Lee Chandler (Affleck), he spirals into a black hole that numbs all feelings. He flees his hometown and bumps through life as an apartment maintenance man. Yet his withdrawn lifestyle provides no shelter when his brother unexpectedly dies. Suddenly he’s thrust back into his family with all its complex relationships. Then he learns that his brother’s will appointed him custodian of his troubled teen son Patrick (Hedges). Lee can no longer escape the demands of family and life.

He must confront the nightmare of his past and the responsibilities of the future. Affleck dives deep into the soul of Lee as he struggles to cope with the pain life can, and invariably does, bring; then after intense resistance, he finally surrenders to his only path of redemption.

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Moonlight (2017) HHHHH Cast: Alex Hibbert, Naomie Harris Drama / Rated R Awards: Golden Globes Best Movie: Drama; nominee Best Supporting Actress, Actor, Director, Screenplay.

This hero’s journey, told through three life periods, begins with the dysfunctional childhood of Chiron (Hibbert) in a Miami ghetto. The young boy’s crack-head mother (Harris) abuses and demeans him. He’s befriended by Juan, who becomes a role model as a successful man. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Juan is his mother’s crack dealer. The second phase follows Chiron through high school where, good news, he finally makes a best friend and comes to grips with his homosexuality. But he’s once again beaten down, this time physically by his friend and a group of bullies. Period three catches up with Chiron as a young adult seeking self-validation and redemption. At each stage in life, Chiron faces tortuous struggles and searing emotional wounds with no chance to escape his doomed circumstances. Yet, he never loses his humanity and his drive to discover a purpose in life.

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The Edge of Seventeen (2016) HHHH Cast: Woody Harrrelson, Kara Sedgwick Comedy, drama / Rated R Awards: Golden Globes nominee Best Actress: Comedy-Musical.

It’s bad enough that Nadine, an angstridden, rudderless teen, feels demoralized because her mother (Sedgwick) blatantly favors her jock brother. Now her bestfriend-forever and long-time emotional anchor sidesteps her and starts dating the high school star. Off the rails she goes, plunging into forbidden waters with booze, boys, self-loathing, and overall lifeloathing. The only stability in her dysfunctional world is her unflappable history teacher (Harrelson) whose acerbic wit keeps her from drowning in her own cynicism. This story is more than a coming-ofage saga—it’s a finely nuanced portrait of an emotionally confused, hormonal teen trying to find her way and herself. From one thought to the next, she veers from passionate to caustic, incandescent to darkly moody, intuitive to clueless, all with an authenticity that engenders empathy instead of scorn. If Nadine can just survive past the edge of seventeen, life awaits.

Doctor Strange (2016) HHHH Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton Genre: Adventure, action, fantasy Rated PG-13 When the renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) injures his hands in an accident and can no longer operate, he retreats to Nepal to seek alternative healing. There he meets the Ancient One (Swinton) who introduces him instead to an alternative universe where our concept of physical reality is meaningless.

Of course, grudges and revenge are universal. Rogue disciple Kaecilius, master of supernatural magic and the arch villain of the separate reality, is intent on destroying humanity. Only the reluctant hero, Dr. Strange, has the temperament and newly acquired powers to save not just the world, but the universe as we know it. Of course the draw here goes far beyond the classic good vs. evil, God vs. Devil morality play. The special effects of cities folding up on themselves, morphing dimensions, and Strange’s magic cloak reinforce the plot and the doctor’s transformation from an egocentric narcissist to the superhero savior destined to serve and save humanity. n

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MUSIC POP

(The New)

Romantics

THE WILD HISTORY OF the love song as a musical ideal and an erstwhile expression of the self(less) goes back to 800 B.C. with a religious hymn dedicated to a hearty, heartfelt devotion to the gods. Since then, the sense of goodly desire, the sweat of sex and the righteousness of romance that is the love song, though technologically advanced, is still a holy, rolling paean to something greater than one’s self. In this stillyoung-year —and in celebration of the most manufactured of holidays, Valentine’s Day—here are the love song moments of 2017.

The Flaming Lips with Miley Cyrus: “We A Family” from the newly-released Oczy Mlody Forever imbued with a feel for the surreal and the dread of doom-dream-psychedelia, The Flaming Lips grew a set of electro pop hip hop balls when they hooked up with Miley Cyrus—first for their Pink Floyd and Beatles tributes, then for Cyrus’ Dead Petz rock-out project. Now, their teaming has produced something hammered and amorous with a genuine feel of longing and distance between protagonists. “I just can’t imagine/Life without you could ever happen…It’s been a long hot summer/I miss you, it’s a bummer…You’re somewhere south of Wichita/I’m up here somewhere under the moon.”

David Bowie: “No Plan” from the newly-released No Plan EP Recorded during the sessions for the late David Bowie’s final album, ★(Blackstar), “No Plan” wound up as part of the remaining tracks to be part of original stage cast album for his mordant Lazarus musical. Apart from that theatrical moment, the slow art-jazzy “No Plan” (issued January 8 on ISO/Columbia, the date of Bowie’s 70th birthday), the mournful song now has an eerily romantic patina as he croons “All the things that are my life/My moods/My beliefs/My desires/Me alone/Nothing to regret/This is no place, but here I am.”

Migos featuring Lil Uzi Vert: “Bad and Boujee” from the newly-released Culture Racy electronic hip hop icon Migos (recently famous from the shout-out he got from Donald Glover during the latter’s Golden Globes win) joins forces with Philly’s favorite new-ish rapper for an X-rated tale of loving women on the upper echelon of the (supposed) class wars.

Ed Sheeran: “Shape of You” from the upcoming ÷ (pronounced “Divide”) Sheeran is always good for a cocksure boyish look at the rules of attraction and this new buoyant, acousto-electric romp dedicated to getting away from the lads and cozying up to old Van Morrison songs doubles down on that sense of l’amour. Only this time, the redheaded Sheeran also wants to be a devil between the sheets. “I’m in love with the shape of you/We push and pull like a magnet do/Though my heart is falling too/I’m in love with your body/And last night you were in my room/And now my bed sheets smell like you.”

Big Sean featuring Chance The Rapper & Jeremih: “Living Single” from the newly-released I Decided Sean is mostly known for his streetwise soliloquies, but with the help of bedroom rapper Jeremih and the friendliest hip hop newbie we know (Chance), Sean finds frustration when alone and satisfaction when joined at the hip. “You know it ain’t right if she ain’t by my side/With this crazy, crazy world/Thank God I’m with my girl.” n

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music SINGER / SONGWRITER Randy Newman HHHH The Randy Newman Songbook Nonesuch The Randy Newman Songbook offers another side of the Grammy-winning singer/songwriter and two-time Oscar-winning film composer. The three-CD box set collects 50 solo recordings originally released between 2003 and 2016 plus five previously unreleased bonus tracks. Without a full band or orchestra, Newman presents his songs with just his piano for accompaniment and it’s often a case of less is more. The stark desolation of “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” comes directly through, while the nostalgic “Dayton, Ohio – 1903” has the feel of hearing a performance in a parlor at the turn of the 20th century.

Newman’s versatility is highlighted in this career retrospective, ranging from the urban bleakness of “Baltimore” to the unflinching portraits of American racism in “Sail Away,” a tale of the slave trade, and “Rednecks,” which doesn’t spare Northerners. He displays a lighter touch on “Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear” and offers his views on religion from the Almighty’s perspective with “God’s Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind).” In his film work, Newman found a new and younger audience, thanks to “You Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story and “I Love to See You Smile” from Parenthood.

Among the bonus tracks, he pays tribute to his uncles’ work as film composers with “Family Album: Homage to Alfred, Emil and Lionel Newman.” On “Feels Like Home,” he’s crafted a first-rate romantic ballad. (55 songs, 143 minutes) Sting HHH1/2 57th & 9th A&M Records After forays into classical music (Synchronicities) and Broadway musicals (The Last Ship), Sting gets back to basics with 57th & 9th, a straightforward collection of songs that plays to his strengths. Named for the New York City intersection that he crossed on his way to the recording studio, the album shows the depth of his

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songwriting in examining matters of the heart and the state of the world.

“Inshallalah,” Arabic for “If God Wills,” was inspired by the ongoing plight of

refugees. In the voice of a mother, Sting movingly sings: “Sea of worries, sea of fears/In our country, only tears/In our future, there’s no past/If it be your will, it shall come to pass.” On “The Empty Chair,” Sting explores the personal impact of the death of James Foley, the U.S. journalist kidnapped and beheaded by ISIS. Death and mortality are the topics of “50,000,” a song of reflection inspired by the death of David Bowie. At 65, Sting observes on the nature of stardom and aging.

“Still believing that old lie, that one that your face betrays/Rock stars don’t ever die, they only fade away.” “One Fine Day” serves as a plea for action on climate change, while the up-tempo “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” would have sounded at home on a Police album. 57th & 9th is a reminder of Sting’s gifts as a rock/pop composer and singer. (10 songs, 37 minutes) The Sadies HHH1/2 Northern Passages Yep Roc On Northern Passages, their 10th studio album, the Sadies serve up an eclectic mix, part of an artistic journey that began with the group’s formation in 1994.

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“Riverview Fog” opens the album with shimmering guitars to create an ethereal, hypnotic sound. That gives way to the thrashing guitars and pounding drums of “Another Season Again” that suggest a sudden shift in the sonic landscape. The incessant rhythms of “There Are No Words” invites comparisons to early Velvet Underground but the band shifts into a countrystyled coda.

Philadelphian Kurt Vile guests on the country/folk hybrid “It’s Easy (Like Walking)” with a repetitive chorus that seems

to suggest one foot following the other.

“The Elements Song” presents a memorable mix of folk and psychedelia sounds, while the acoustic and electric guitars of Dallas and Travis Good create a sense of urgency on “Through Strange Eyes.” “God Bless The Infidels” finds the Sadies back on country music turf with its infusion of pedal steel guitar and banjo. Northern Passages is a reminder that the Sadies are in it for the long haul (11 songs, 35 minutes) Eight O’Five Jive HHH1/2 Swing Set Self-released The members of Eight O’Five Jive know the importance of the right ingredients, be it making a tasty cocktail or writing a good song. The Nashville-based quintet combines swing tunes and jump blues with clever, original compositions on Swing Set, their second CD, for a memorable collection of music.

“Make Mine a Double,” a song inspired by a bar glass with cocktail recipes, serves as a swinging celebration of alcohol. “Two shots of gin/Explains the shape I’m in,” lead singer Lee Shropshire declares. It’s one of several songs about alcohol the band features on the CD. Shropshire shows her versatility by shifting to a jazzy croon on “One More Glass of Wine.” “I Won’t Wear Flats (To Your Funeral)” uses humor to take the kiss-off song to another level and name checks actress Veronica Lake. “My Mumblin’ Baby” features the rhythm-and-blues side of the group.

The band is a democratic unit, with all five members sharing writing credit on nine of the songs. Guitarist Andy Scheinman provides a bluesy edge on “Ragged,” while bassist Bill Bois and drummer Duane Spencer supply a rhythmic boost on “Get Away.” Saxophonist Patrick Mosser adds coloring and flavor throughout. (11 songs, 36 minutes) Mike Zito HHH Makes Blues Not War Ruf Records With Make Blues Not War, guitarist and singer Mike Zito reaffirms his commitment to the genre while adding some personal touches to the music and paying tribute to his influences.

“Highway Mama” starts off the album with a rough-edge with Walter Trout guesting on guitar. “Wasted Time” features some Stevie Ray Vaughan-styled guitar as Zito pays tribute to the legendary Texas bluesman. “Bad News is Coming,” a soulful rendition of a ballad co-written by Luther Allison, finds Zito stretching himself musically.

“Chip Off The Block” features two generations of the Zito family as the elder Zito is joined by his son Zack on guitar. “Road Hog” captures the ambivalent feeling of the touring life of a musician and having to leave a family behind to make a living.

“Crazy Legs” relies too much on blues clichés lyrically, but it’s just a temporary detour. “Route 90” ends the album with a rocker that recalls classic Jerry Lee Leiws, thanks to the inspired piano work of Kevin McKendree. (12 songs, 53 minutes) n

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music JAZZ / ROCK / CLASSICAL / ALT Barry Harris HHH1/2 Live in Tokyo Elemental Jazz pianist, bandleader, composer, and educator Barry Harris (b. 1929) is a bebop standard bearers—his music shows little influence of fusion, the avant-garde, etc. He’s done rather well for himself, playing with darn

degree both are two sides of the same coin: Mart Eitzel— former main-man of proto-Americana combo American Music Club—is suave, urban, seemingly cynical, and sometimes harrowing, while Adam Carroll is down-home, earthy, small-town, and cautiously hopeful despite the odds. Eitzel can transport you to a barroom or bedroom in Paris or pre-gentrification NYC, surrounded by characters in a Charles Bukowski or Raymond Carver poem or story (“I spent the last 10 years/trying to waste half an hour”). Frame(s) of reference, vocally and otherwise: Leonard Cohen, Lee Hazlewood, and Nick Drake. The gloom is leavened by the quasi-orchestral richness of the arrangements and his wry, dark humor (song title of the month: “In My Role as Professional Singer and Ham,” alluding to the new meanness in the USA) and smooth, soothing croon. (11 tracks, 50 min.) mergerecords.com East Texan bard Adam Carroll, on the other hand, takes you to a warm night on a porch with a squeaky screen door and a trailer park in sight or a rowdy bar in Galveston with guys in muddy boots you knew in high school that are now unemployed. Stylistically, Carroll’s

Photo: Mosaic Images

near everyone (Miles, Dexter Gordon, Benny Golson) and leading some swell recordings, such as the formerly lost Live in Tokyo. Recorded in 1976 with bassist Sam Jones and drummer Leroy Williams (and long out of print), Harris channels the inspirations of Bud Powell (lightning-fast, mercurial improvisations) and Thelonious Monk (heavy, almost percussive touch, economy of notes) and swings like nobody’s business. Like Powell and Charlie Parker (whom he played with as well), Harris is a melodic player, giving listeners something to grab on to before hitting the stratosphere. No surprises here (unless you consider the inclusion of approximately 30 minutes of previously unissued music), but if it’s the (be)bop that just won’t stop your crave, this is still it. (12 tracks, 72 min.) elemental-music.com Mark Eitzel HHHH1/2 Hey Mr. Ferryman Merge James McMurtry, et al HHHHH Highway Prayer: A Tribute to Adam Carroll Eight 30 Here are two very American singer/songwriters who draw/paint their pictures with unusually vivid detail—to a 32

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Adam Carroll.

songs are folk with overtones of rock & roll and Texas country, slightly recalling those of Townes Van Zandt (though not as gloomy), Guy Clark (RIP ’16), and Steve Earle. This tribute collection features a variety roots-y performers including James McMurtry (son of Larry), Hayes Carll, Verlon Thompson, Terri Hendrix, and many more (including Carroll himself). Carroll’s songs feel like sitting across a table from a literate but down-to-earth friend at a bar or picnic table at dusk. (16 tracks, 64 min.) eight30records.com

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Cynthia Hilts HHHHH Lyric Fury Blonde Coyote Listening to lots of music can lead to being jaded— but every so often a platter comes along and virtually commands attention. Jazz pianist/composer/occasional vocalist Cynthia Hilts’ latest is one such, a set of inspired, engaging compositions (think Gil Evans, Horace Silver, Carla Bley), invigorating ensemble playing, and sharp-asa-tack soloing. An eight-member combo, Lyric Fury—the band’s moniker as well as the album’s—sounds bigger, a sumptuous mixture of trumpet, trombone, two saxes, cello, bass and drums with the leader’s 88s. What Fury has is what some jazz albums lack—that is, the type of amiable fury one would hear on almost any Charles Mingus album. Without being haphazard, there is a certain brash, blues-charged raggedness about this music—and there is a direct line to Mingus in the presence of great trumpeter Jack Walrath, who played with him in the ‘70s.

Like Mingus and Walrath, Hilts—whose piano sound evokes the punchy funkiness of Bobby Timmons and Gene Harris and the lyricism of Vince Guaraldi—makes jazz that’s immediate, that grabs you by your lapels (whether or not you’re wearing them) yet there’s no anger, no rage. Rooted in hard bop and soul jazz (with gospel and New Orleans overtones), Fury bristles with the joie de vivre present in classic recordings by Mingus, Cannonball Adderley, Cal Tjader, and fellow traveler Carla Bley. Don’t let this one get by you. (10 tracks, 75 min.) cynthiahilts.com/lyric-fury John McNeil/Hush Point HHHH III Sunnyside Trumpeter John McNeil has impeccable credentials, doing time with Horace Silver, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, and Gerry Mulligan. In fact, Mulligan-—and his iconic piano-less quartet with Chet Baker—casts an inspirational shadow over the proceedings. McNeil’s Hush Point combo dispenses with piano, just McNeil, Jeremy Udden’s saxes, bass, and drums, weaving a spell of wry, deceptively-chill, cerebral-without-being-dry cool. Without seeming a knock-off, McNeil has the warm, unflappable cool of Baker with the influence of Kenny Dorham (bittersweet melodicism, gently billowing tone) and Booker Little (the crackle). Udden’s alto and C-melody saxes have lithe, blues-hinted, ever-so-slightly agitated approaches, and the rhythm team is s ubdued yet on-themoney when it comes to understated swing. The pianofree foursome of Ornette Coleman seems a spur too— note the rough-hewn oblique blues-cry of “Azmari Bar.” Far from an imitation/intimation of the classic West Coast

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sound of the ‘50s (Brubeck, Desmond, Russ Freeman), McNeil & company take it as a point of departure to territories brainy, heartfelt, and tres moderne, oddly familiar and brand-new simultaneously. (9 tracks, 40 min.} sunnysiderecords.com Arild Andersen HHHH The Rose Window Intuition While not exactly a household name even in the jazziest of homes, Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen has carved a substantial niche in the European scene. Andersen has played and/or recorded with Jan Garbarek, Bill Frisell, Sonny Rollins, and Phil Woods, among others along with many albums as leader. He favors the upright acoustic bass but sometimes enhances same with electronic devices—note the entrancing, flute- and whalelike sounds he coaxes on the title track without seeming at all gimmicky. In these live recordings from 2016, Andersen & his trio—Helge Lien, piano and Gard Nilssen, drums— traipse quite a trail, from the lovely, crystalline Bill Evans-like lyricism of “This Day” to the punchy, drumdriven hard bop of “Outhouse,” tune-wise suggesting Chick Corea and Bud Powell. The pieces here range from five to 12 minutes in length, so while everyone gets to shine there’s no excess. This Window opens to both dreamy, somewhat surreal introspection and potent swing—in short, fun for the whole (jazz) family. (7 tracks, 59 min.) challeng.nl n

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< about life

JAmes p. delpino, mss, mlsp, lcsW, bcd

Letting Go

LIFE DEMANDS THAT WE face challenges of many kinds. These challenges can be wrought with confusion about how to move forward in the face of adversity. It’s often unclear when it’s time to hold on to the old and familiar—or time to let go and embrace something new. We tend to prefer routine because the familiar is somehow comforting—the reassurance of knowing what to expect helps us anticipate and prepare for the future. Sometimes, though, what is familiar can become toxic. Staying with a toxic job or relationship can be detrimental to your mental and physical health. This is when you can examine yourself to determine whether to stay in the groove—which may become ever more damaging—or to find new ways to improve the situation.

Awareness is the first step to moving through these challenges, and this is where self-examination begins. The solution often lies within, and frequently involves learning new coping mechanisms.

We sometimes get in our own way and make a difficult set of circumstances worse. The first place to look is in the mirror. Learning to let go of perceptions fueled by anger, sadness and jealousy, may be of great help in detoxifying a job or relationship.

Perceptions often become distorted over time and worsen the problems. If you’re not be able to leave a toxic situation, learning to process the stressors better may be the only solution.

Perceptions become your personal story, and repeating your personal story over and over cements it deeply into your being. You can change your story by first becoming aware of it, and then retelling it in a new way. Your story can paint you as a victim, which feeds a deep sense of hopelessness and helplessness. When you feel unempowered and without hope, your brain can’t see new possibilities or solutions. Learning to let go of the old interpretations frees your mind to new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. It’s hard to program your brain to accept a new way of interpreting things, and at first it will feel forced; your brain will attempt to resurrect the old view. This is to be expected and is often discouraging, but over time success will come. Don’t give up. (Neuroscientists have discovered a property of the brain known as nueroplasticity that refers to the brain’s ability to learn new skills and perceptions.)

Sometimes, try as you might, circumstances are beyond your control, and all the inner change you can muster will not alleviate what is toxic. Since you can only control what you think, feel, do, and say, the solution may be to part ways with an untenable situation. You can’t control the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of others. When there is little or no chance of changing a situation, you may have to stop holding onto it. Letting go of someone or something you love may be a very painful experience. Leaving even an abusive relationship can be fraught with sorrow and indecision. The realization that things will not improve is one sign that the level of toxicity will only increase over time. When you’ve made internal changes and exhausted all attempts to influence a set of circumstances, it becomes clear that holding on is worse than letting go. When the pain becomes overwhelming people generally tend to end unmanageable things. Pain is a reminder that something is wrong, and while many of us can endure great pain over long stretches of time, there comes a breaking point. This is the time when it helps to seek support of those around us and perhaps even professional help to figure out how to proceed. Having a good support system is a major key at this juncture, and finding a good professional to guide you through the stormy waters is always wise. n Jim Delpino is a psychotherapist in private practice for over 36 years. jdelpino@aol.com Phone: (215) 364-0139.

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23 MOSE ALLISON

and sense the pull of the current.

I think I told him I really dug his piano solo on “Baby Please Don’t Go.” It was a lie. Mose nodded appreciation, and I made up another lie about his piano playing. I may have said something derogatory about the squareness of the crew-necked college kids who would be there paying a cover charge and a two-drink minimum to hear him sing “Parchman Farm” and “Oh, Baby Please Don’t Go.’ And then go back to their dorms and make their friends jealous by saying “I heard Mose Allison!”

The drive didn’t seem to take a long time, though it wasn’t short.

Fortunately for us (me in particular) Mose talked about musicians he had worked with, musicians he liked and musicians he didn’t like. He told us jokes about musicians—jokes only an insider like Mose could tell. Could life have gotten better for us then? No. We would have every scrap, every phrase Mose uttered, to tell our friends back in the Village.

And for years after that. Like now.

At the Bohemian Caverns, Mose got us a table close enough to the stage, but not too close. We enjoyed the show. Need I say more? We enjoyed all the crew-necked college students and their dates noticing us, two young guys from the Village trying very hard to look cool, obviously privileged by being with Mose. We actually were a help to Mose, as our presence deterred the autograph seekers that made his life a trial on the road.

Mose was particular about whom he liked. Well educated and well read, he maintained a polite, friendly demeanor. I saw quickly how repetitive and dumb the questions from the college fans seemed, and how boring they were for Mose to answer. If I hadn’t driven him down there, I would have asked the same dumb things they did. But I could share his raised eyebrows with a sideways glance, to register a particularly dumb question I might have asked.

When the show was over (Ed and I knew the words to every song he sang by heart), Mose joined us at the table. Time to settle the bill— the check and the tip for the waitress. That’s when he said the second coolest thing I had ever heard anyone say. Mose picked up the check.

With a nod to the waitress, he said, “I’ll take care of the check and you take care of the chick.” It could have been a line from one of his songs.

One I would quote innumerable times.

I saw Mose again twice, once just a few years after the trip to Washington, then quite a few years after that. I won’t tell you about those times because I’ve already told the best story. Except that I’ll tell you that, maybe 15 year later, I went to hear him in Hermosa Beach in California, prepared to be not remembered. You learn, if you go to hear famous people, that over the course of one year they may have brief, handshake- and autograph-driven encounters with hundreds of people. Every one of those fans will remember and treasure that encounter for life.

And if they go to hear that performer years later, they will mention the previous visit, expecting it to be a shared memory. I’ve been backstage with performer friends and watched this happen countless times.

It’s always a bit painful, even for me.

I didn’t expect Mose to remember me, but I wanted to say hello. He was talking to a couple of fans and I didn’t want to interrupt, as fans often do. But I didn’t have to. Mose saw me and immediately stopped the conversation, looked at me and smiled. Years, decades, disappeared in a moment.

“Dave Barry,’’ Mose said, putting out his hand for a shake. “You drove me to Washington!”

I had. I wouldn’t have thought he’d remember.

Rest in peace, Mose. You gave us a lot of pleasure. It will go on. n

bob perkins

jazz library

S

MELBA LISTON

TANDING AT THE EDGE of a cliff, entering a spooky old mansion in the dead of night and encountering Casper the Unfriendly Ghost, are all scary scenarios. Ranking right up there with such frightening stuff, has been-—and to some degree still is—being a woman in jazz.

This situation was not the norm for lady singers, who over the years have done quite well in jazz. But female instrumentalists in general—and composers and arrangers in particular—have not fared very well.

I’ve long heard and read that some of the top male jazz artists praised the name of trombonist/arranger, Melba Liston. But even with all the praise heaped upon her by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, and Randy Weston, to name just a few, Liston lived a constant life of frustration as she tried to gain recognition as a primary jazz arranger for large ensembles.

Well, let’s start The Melba Liston Story from the time her mother gifted her with her first musical instrument, a trombone. And even though she was only seven and self-taught, she learned to play the instrument, and at age eight was good enough to play solo on a local radio station.

The Liston family lived in Kansas City, Missouri, and when Melba was ten the family moved to Los Angeles, California, where Melba began taking lessons from several instructors and joined a couple of youth bands. She became obsessed with writing and arranging music. During an interview years later she revealed: “I moved my piano into my bedroom and set up a workshop in there, and I would stay there, and come out to eat, then go right back in.”

In her late teens she became a member of Gerald Wilson’s band, and began writing arrangements for him. He often complimented her, telling her she was a fine arranger. Liston later joined Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, in which John Coltrane and John Lewis were members. Next there was a stint with Count Basie, and a southern tour with Billie Holiday, along with a big band headed by Wilson, with Liston serving as assistant director. She recalled the tour as being a disaster: “We were stranded longer than we worked.” Evidently Billie’s singing style didn’t go over well down south.

In the mid- and late 1940s, the big band era was coming to a close, as was the need for those arranging for such aggregations. Liston began working with smaller groups, which she didn’t like to do. She was also tired of being on the road, so she accepted a teaching job in Los Angeles. She held the job for four years, but longed to get back into arranging for big bands.

Life for Liston leveled off in the mid 1950s and ‘60s. There was a State Department tour of the Middle East with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, in which she ran into anti-female comments and attitudes by fellow band members. But she ultimately won the respect of her fellow band members with her professionalism and musical contributions to the band. Next there was a European tour with Quincy Jones, and in the 1970s, LisBob Perkins is a writer and host of an all-jazz radio program that airs on WRTI-FM 90.1 Monday through Thursday night from 6:00 to 9:00pm and Sunday, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

ton was penning arrangements for pianist/bandleader Randy Weston.

Liston went to Jamaica in the ‘70s, and stayed for nearly six years, teaching music there. She returned to the U.S. in the late 1970s, although still frustrated by her inability to more fully make her way in male dominated music—this, despite the fact that she made music with, and arranged for, some of the major names in jazz. So…once again she gave up playing and arranging, until a friend persuaded her to get back in the business.

As a way around her continuing dilemma, Liston formed her own band, but she suffered a stroke in 1985. A series of strokes followed over several years, and death claimed her in 1991. There is no telling how many big band arrangements she wrote for jazz giants, but didn’t get credit for.

Duke Ellington was noted for saying that music was his mistress, and she played second fiddle to no one. Liston had a passion for arranging music for big bands, and she was discontent marching to any other drummer. n

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That was optimistic of you.

Yeah, it was never easy, though, to find the right sounds for something fantastical as this. We wanted it to have its own identity beyond all other medieval fantasy film and television. We worked very hard to make this unique, to give it all of it its own personalities, a defined sound. The beauty of all that was that because it was fantasy I could do anything—use acoustic organic sound, synthesizer sounds; create my own work. If you look at “the battle of the bastards” and listen to it, there is nothing like it sonically even where epic warring scenes are concerned. That was full-on epic with a twist. It has been a beautiful arc as to how everything has grown from the start; such a great journey, one that’s always magnificent in which to return.

Game of Thrones® Live Concert Experience.

Speaking of moving to something epic and magnificent, what is with the live Game of Thrones Concert Experience? From the clips I’ve seen, it looks like a wooly mammoth.

When we started all this in the recording studio, we always thought that it would be fun to do live. From that germ of a thought, we came up with the ideas of making something original and immersive that could go up around it.

Like erecting castle walls.

Yes. For such a unique special show, let’s do an unique special live version where an orchestra plays and footage from the production envelop you—something that occurs before your eyes as if you’re in the middle of it all. Have technology that helps propel the audience north of the wall or into the middle of the desert. We just wanted you to feel like you were in the eye of the storm and we just kept getting more creative with each idea. There were very few no’s when coming up with this project—just how’s. It was an unbelievable task—plus, we had to find and focus upon the best music, because there is so music and so much plot to put together. We wanted something, too, that would encapsulate what we had up to this season, while psyching you up for the next season.

Knowing my share of Game of Thrones fans, they need little provocation. So as you’re part of the stage show as well as the composer, do you feel dwarfed on stage? Do do you have some long, deep, live band background to pull from?

Yes, one hundred percent. I am a band guy. Before I ever thought about being a film composer I was in several bands. I did a lot of live shows and love and miss that connection. For the Game of Thrones live thing, I’m bringing out a smaller band of mine, cello and such, within the great orchestra and will have the soloists moving around on various stages during the show. That will add to the movement on stage—nothing stagnant. But, I don’t want to say too much. I have a few pieces, too, that I want to play live, so that I’m not just conducting.

Is there a character or story arc that you feel most at home with, close to, or like to sink your teeth into?

Aah, that’s a tough one because whenever I pick one, I jump to another one I love. Is it Daenerys Targaryen? Tyrion Lannister? Jorah Mormont? Theon? The beauty of Game of Thrones is that each story and character has their own separate but equally important feeling, emotion and exciting adventure. It’s impossible to pick.

Can you tell me the answer to how season seven ends?

Obviously, I couldn’t do that [even] if I did know, but I don’t. I am as equally in the dark as to how the story plays out and the adventures are connected as you are. And like you, I can’t wait to see what happens next. n 36

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14 the mArrieds

modern influences.” The octopus is served with menudo, and the mousse pairs with crumbled duck skin and date/molasses/duck fat.

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, the Williams won’t have a chance to kick back, but Fri Sat Sun is new, and must stay focused on its sensual vibes and tactile menu. “Our space is candlelit with rich, warm wood tones and textures,” says Hanna of an an energy that is comfortable, unfussy and friendly. “We think those are all the things that make for a great romantic backdrop.”

F

or Lisa Nichols and DeAnna Paterra, much of their story and property is similar to Fri Sat Sun. The property upon which DeAnna’s has blossomed used to be a Civil War-era brick and stucco mammoth that was home to Mason’s Bar for 60 years, a working-class saloon notable for its old bone collection. “Spooky, right?” laughs Lisa who started life in Lambertville as a graphic designer before hooking up personally and professionally with Patterra, an old school Italian heritage chef who had a smaller BYOB in the same area in which she was raised.

“Lambertville is in our bloodstream, in our breath,” says Nichols who surely feels the same way about the longtime pair’s relationship. “Plus, it’s beautiful—the river alone makes you feel as if you’re on vacation.”

Once the pair bought the property 12 years ago that would be the new DeAnna’s—complete with a liquor license and 30 additional seats—Nichols went about designing a sophisticated interior, a vibe that’s plush, comfortable and changes with the seasons—always more old school 21 Club/Manhattan-chic than rustic.

“It’s a look that needed to match the food and our curated, artisanal wine list,” she said. “My aim was cozy to keep the history and the integrity of the building, but sleek and New York City-ish, too; old fashioned with a modern twist.”

The same thing can be said of Paterra’s silken handspun pastas (“she learned from her grandfather”), her fish-heavy menu (“I’m staring at a beautiful salmon right now”) and her willingness to experiment with Old World and New World forms. “We know that a lot of people are carb conscious or gluten-free and might not want traditional pasta—DeAnna can do anything for you,” says Nichols.

“I’m vegetarian so I know this,” she laughs discussing a handmade red cabbage roll filled with lentils, peas and potatoes that literally has her name on it. “That doesn’t mean the dishes aren’t rich,” says Nichols, as she prepares blood orange almond gelato as we speak.

The only thing more striking than the cuisine and the décor is the relationship between the partners, a longtime couple who have worked alongside each other for 12 years (“She’s on the line; I bake, prep, manage the floor and front of house”)—all without a hitch or hiccup. “The only really hard part of doing this is the business itself—making and maintaining menus. There’s no problem or pressure between us working and living together—that’s the lifestyle. You either embrace it wholly or… you don’t and you get out.” And while they’re preparing both the visual and culinary feast that is Valentine’s Day for their devoted audience, Nichols states that they’ll be too busy on the floor of DeAnna’s to do much celebrating. “We’ll wait until we get home and are in our PJs. to relax and have our Valentine’s.” n

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harper’s FINDINGS

INDEX

Researchers concluded that who is president is the largest factor in U.S. income inequality. U.S. health-care costs rise in part because the system does not put a monetary value on human life. Attorneys with less-masculine voices win Supreme Court cases more often. Old American men adhere to a 1950s and ’60s ideal of masculinity that fails to prepare them for senescence. Mortality fell in Spain during the recent economic crisis because the lives of poor people became either less risky or more healthy. Brexit may alter the pattern of nurse migration to the U.K. The “Afghan Girl” was arrested for violating I.D. laws. Among Swedish men born in 1933, 15 percent were found to have become permanently stressed by age fifty. Jung’s anti-Semitism was found to have been mild. Rational and ridiculing arguments were found to be equally effective in countering conspiracy theories. Linguistic analysis revealed that pro-vaccine comments about Mark Zuckerberg’s baby on Facebook were less logical and rational than anti-vaccine statements. Gaëtan Dugas, referred to as H.I.V.’s Patient Zero, was actually Patient “O” but was subsequently misidentified. Fifteen percent of homeless Los Angeles youth are Juggalos. Agent Orange was not understood as a poison among residents of A Luoi until the late 1990s. Humans are good at recognizing partially obscured snakes. Great white sharks were becoming trapped in diving cages.

A new theory of gravity may explain the existence of dark matter.

P% by which the number of international borders with barriers has increased since 2014: 48 Year in which the U.S. Census Bureau may add a category for people from the Middle East and North Africa: 2020 % of immigrants seeking asylum who are successful in an Atlanta court: 2 In a New York City court: 84 # of statues in New York’s Central Park that depict women: 19 % of those statues that depict fictional women: 100 # of Shakespeare’s plays that the Oxford U. Press now co-credits to Christopher Marlowe: 3 # of emoji acquired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art in October: 176 % change since 2000 in the purchasing power of U.S. Social Security checks: –22 Average increase last year in monthly Social Security checks due to cost-of-living adjustments: $4 Portion of new U.S. parents who have taken a lower-paying job because it offered better family benefits: 1/2 % of U.S. teachers who leave the profession each year: 8 Average % pay cut a U.S. worker would take to be able to work from home: 8 Average salary of a Harvard University cafeteria worker, including a raise given after a strike in October: $35,000 Total value of Harvard’s endowment: $35,700,000,000 # of deaths in Japan attributed to overwork in 2015: 189 % of donated organs in New England that came from victims of drug overdoses in 2010: 4 Today: 27 # of years in prison to which an Indonesian woman was sentenced for poisoning a friend’s iced coffee: 20 % by which the café has raised the price of its iced coffee since the murder: 37 % change since 2003 in the number of bank heists in the United States: –46 In complaints of internet fraud: +131 Chance that an American adult is searchable in facial-recognition databases used by U.S. law-enforcement agencies: 1 in 2 % of local U.S. jails that have implemented video visitation: 14 Portion of those jails that have abolished in-person visitation: 3/4 # of African countries that opted to withdraw from the International Criminal Court last year: 3 % of people charged by the International Criminal Court who are African: 97 Length, in years, of the maximum jail sentence under a proposed South African law criminalizing racial slurs: 10 Estimated # of gay and bisexual men whom the United Kingdom plans to posthumously pardon for sexual crimes: 50,000 Portion of the leaders of Scotland’s major political parties who are gay or bisexual: 3/5 Estimated portion of female parliamentarians worldwide who have been subject to physical violence while in office: 1/4 # of members of the Pirate Party elected to the Icelandic parliament in October: 10 # of hours after the first U.S. election polls closed that the Canadian Immigration Services website crashed: 5 Average % change in the stock value of the five largest U.S. defense contractors the week after the election: +8 Estimated # of votes by which Donald Trump won the state of Wisconsin: 27,000 Of registered Wisconsin voters who lacked voter identification: 360,000 # of newly elected senators who are non-white females: 3 Year in which the U.S. population of eligible voters is projected to be majority minority: 2052 # of men elected to the U.S. presidency before 2016 despite losing the popular vote: 4 Portion of those victors who went on to be one-term presidents: ¾

9

The idea of cooperation among chimpanzees was cast into doubt, because such cooperation requires that the dominance of any given group member be artificially constrained. Mob behavior allows hyenas to wrest food from lions. If voice commands conflict with gestural commands, dogs obey the gestures. Authoritarian parents exhibit reduced neural response to seeing their adolescent children win money; adolescents with permissive parents exhibit reduced neural response to seeing their parents lose money. By “losing” both stamped and unstamped letters around Perth and seeing how many were eventually mailed, Australian researchers concluded that both financial costs and low socioeconomic status dampen altruism. The more severe the violation of a social norm, the more reluctant bystanders are to call it out, for fear of retaliation. Time pressure does not change the behavior of subjects playing dictator games. Women playing dictator games are more altruistic if they have been exposed to an odorous compound derived from testosterone. Debate continued as to whether the tears of women dampen the sexual responses of men. Sixteen heterosexual men reported an interest in ejaculating on women’s faces while generally believing that the women themselves would not be interested. It remained unclear whether there are benefits to unrealistic optimism.

9

Quantitative bioscientists described an oscillating tragedy of the commons. Every aspect of life on earth has been affected by climate change. The world’s secondlargest hypersaline lake is now at 20 percent of its 1960 level. Thousands of scrotum frogs were found dead near Lake Titicaca. Tropical bedbugs were reported in Florida for the first time in sixty years. A North Korean zoo chimp continued smoking a pack a day. The odds of a multidecade megadrought occurring in the U.S. Southwest this century are as high as 50 percent, and Mayan civilization may have collapsed because of a failure to change habits of consumption during water shortages. The bulwark of old, stable Arctic sea ice was rapidly disappearing. Greenlandic fossils revealed the recovery of life on earth after 90 percent of all species died at the Permian–Triassic boundary. It became easier to identify the last signals from stars that were consumed by black holes. Water-rich planets orbiting Proxima Centauri are probably habitable.

soUrces: 1 Élisabeth Vallet, Université du Québec à Montréal; 2 U.S. Census Bureau (SuitlanMd.); 3,4 Executive Office for Immigration Review, U.S. Department of Justice (Falls Church, Va.); 5,6 New York City Department of Parks and Recreation; 7 Gary Taylor, Florida State University (Tallahassee); 8 Museum of Modern Art (N.Y.C.); 9 Senior Citizens League (Barboursville, Va.); 10 Social Security Administration (Baltimore); 11 Bright Horizons Family Solutions (Watertown, Mass.); 12 Learning Policy Institute (Palo Alto, Calif.); 13 Amanda Pallais, Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.); 14 Local 26 (Boston); 15 Harvard Management Company (Boston); 16 Scott North, Osaka University (Suita, Japan); 17,18 New England Organ Bank (Waltham, Mass.); 19 Central Jakarta District Court (Indonesia); 20 Olivier (Jakarta); 21,22 Federal Bureau of Investigation; 23 Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology (Washington); 24,25 Prison Policy Initiative (Los Angeles); 26,27 International Criminal Court (The Hague); 28 South Africa Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (Pretoria); 29 U.K. Ministry of Justice (London); 30 Stonewall Scotland (Edinburgh); 31 Inter- Parliamentary Union (Geneva); 32 Pirate Party (Reykjavík, Iceland); 33 Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (Ottawa); 34 NASDAQ (N.Y.C.); 35 Associated Press (Washington); 36 Leland Beatty (Austin, Tex.); 37 Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, N.J.); 38 Brookings Institution (Washington); 39,40 Gil Troy, McGill University (Montreal).

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The Los Angeles Times SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE

FIRST THINGS FIRST

By Ed Sessa ACROSS 1 Unflappability 7 Responds to an alarm 13 Bliss 20 Counterman?

21 On deck 22 “Raging Bull” fighter 23 Trust builder?

25 Clink 26 Sent messages, before faxes and email 27 Bit of body art 29 Julia of “Legends of the Fall” 30 Meat cut 31 Result of losing two points, perhaps 35 Convey 38 Descendant of the English Bulldog 39 Son of Donald 40 Shares an email with 43 Pigeon hangouts 44 Voice of TV’s Fat Albert 45 Get online shopping help, say 47 Sports org. with three major divisions 48 Student of Socrates 49 Hired car 50 TV exec Arledge 51 Tolkien monster 52 Concern for gardeners 55 Protest gone bad 56 Piggy 57 Gambling game 58 Veers 59 Pound units 61 Urban of country 63 Rooting area 64 Shot with English 65 Reach by schooner, say 67 Canal through Oneida Lake 69 Half of a record 71 Trap that’s spun 74 Gremlins, e.g.

75 Wriggler on a hook 78 __-Wan Kenobi 79 Some price changes 81 Whoop-de-__: lively parties 82 WWII issue 83 Suffix with Jumbo 84 Glacial expanses 86 Night noise 87 Edge along 88 Happy hour sponsor 38

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Kyrgyzstan range Refrigerant trade name Troubles Teacher’s bane, at times Celebrity Like Jack and Jill, ultimately __ lepton: physics particle Fiber source The littlest bit Mozart’s “The Hunt,” for one Verify Colored tee, perhaps Bawled (out) Aflutter Hill group Border maintainers

DOWN 1 Time of one’s life 2 Fruit fly or gnat 3 Loser’s ad word 4 Nebraska city named for a Native American tribe 5 Streakers in showers 6 Withdrawal in 2016 headlines 7 “Should __ acquaintance ... ” 8 FDR program 9 Gothic novelist Radcliffe 10 Understanding 11 Oxford college 12 Classic Fender guitar, briefly 13 Golfing countryman of Player 14 Unit of heat 15 Diminutive two-seater 16 “Pinball Wizard” opera 17 Spherical opening?

18 WWII British firearm 19 Spot to spot Spot 24 See 25-Across 28 WWII alliance 31 Was beaten by 32 U-shaped river bend 33 “Oy __!”

34 Monte of Cooperstown 35 Schoolyard argument 36 Itsy-bitsy 37 Any one of the NFL’s top 25 career scoring leaders 38 Bit of braggadocio 40 They’re spoken in anger 41 Transport for Chingachgook 42 Editors’ marks 44 Quilter’s need 45 Dangle

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Pedal problems Subatomic particle Serving convenience Flutter by like a butterfly Templo Mayor builder Driven to act Tablet buyer, usually “It’s nobody __ business” Poses Pooh creator Ahmedabad address Livorno lady friend Hard one to work with P-like letters Thick-furred primate Like court testimony Virus first identified in Zaire IQ test pioneer Thoughts Extend one’s Self?

Petroleum produced from rock fragments Jazz standard that became an LSU fight song Hyundai compact “No seats” letters Performed a ballroom dance 1984 Heisman Trophy winner Doug The great outdoors Site of an ascent

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Playbill listings 60-Down’s info source Central points In short order, in verse Dunham of “Girls” Ornate arch My way __-do-well

103 105 106 107

Band accessory Neurotic toon pooch Potato source: Abbr.

Paper read on the LIRR, perhaps 108 Cardinal points, briefly?

Answer to January’s puzzle, DINE OUT

agenda CALL FOR ENTRIES

local emerging and established artists, including paintings, prints, digital art, philadelphia sketch club 2017 Art of the photography, and more. opening reflower Juried exhibition. entry deadline: ception 12/4, 3-6 8 church st., lamsunday, february 12, 2017 at 12Am. ex- bertville, nJ. 609-397-2977. riverQueenArtisans.com hibition: 3/10–4/1. reception: 3/12,, 2-4. prizes at 3:00. eligible: submitted pieces can be 2- or 3-dimensional in any medi- thrU 2/12 fluidity. the work of carla lombardi, um and must have a theme of flowers n. sarangoulis, libbie soffer, and valetas its subject. submit up to 10 works. max. accepted orks: 2. max. framed size: ta, whose paths have intertwined over 44” w including frame. All work, inc. 3d, the past several years in various artistic must be wired, ready to hang, and under projects. delaware Art museum, 2301 kentmere pkwy, Wilmington, de 30 lbs. psc gallery cannot accommo302-571-9590 delart.org date large, freestanding sculpture. prospectus: sketchclub.org/wpcontent/uploads/2016/11/2017-Wopprospectus-v2.pdf. entry on-line: sketchclub.org/psc-official-online-submission-site entry fee: psc members: $1 first piece, $10 additional works. non-members: $20 first piece, $10 additional works Aoy Art center 6th Annual Juried show. entry online, deadline: february 28, 2017. exhibition dates: April 1 to 23, 2017. reception: march 31, 6-9pm.

Artists of yardley Art center 949 mirror lake rd, yardley.

Juror: Alice oh. cash prizes: $1000, $500 and $250. sponsor: stark and stark Attorneys At law. see prospectus: artistsofyardley.org

FINE ART thrU 2/5/2017 greetings: holiday cards by Artists. Allentown Art museum of the lehigh valley, 31 north 5th st., Allentown, pA. 610-432-4333.

AllentownArtmuseum.org thrU 2/5 Allentown x 7, photographic explorations. Allentown Art museum of the lehigh valley, 31 north 5th st., Allentown, pA. 610-432-4333. AllentownArtmuseum.org thrU 2/5 A big story. An exhibition at pAfA devoted to work by selected American artists and illustrators. pennsylvania Academy of the fine Arts, samuel m.v. hamilton building, 118-128 north broad st., philadelphia, pA (215) 972-7600 pafa.org

thrU 2/28 romance abounds at the silverman gallery of bucks county impressionist Art. Whether your sweetheart would prefer a quiet snow scene, iconic country landscape or a vivid splash of ever-lasting flowers, this is the place to visit. Wed.-sunday 11 to 5. buckingham green shopping center, route 202 (south of new hope), holicong, pA. 215-794-4300. silvermangallery.com thrU 3/5 melt/carve/forge: embodied sculptures by cassils. pennsylvania Academy of the fine Arts, morris gallery, historic landmark building, 118-128 north broad st., philadelphia, pA (215) 972-7600 pafa.org thrU 3/27 speculative fiction, Am debrincat's mixed media paintings explore the hybrid nature of identity in the digital age. Artist talk, 2/22, 5:00 pm. martin Art gallery, baker center for the Arts, muhlenberg college, 2400 chew street Allentown pA. 484-664-3467. muhlenberg.edu thrU 3/28 Anthony viscardi, shadow landings. Allentown Art museum of the lehigh valley, 31 north 5th st., Allentown, pA. 610-432-4333.

AllentownArtmuseum.org

(215) 972-7600 pafa.org 215-5459298 sketchclub.org

pA. 610-252-3132, 1-800-999-stAte. statetheatre.org

thrU 5/21 bruce springsteen: A photographic Journey. morven museum & garden, 55 stockton st., princeton, nJ. 609924-8144. morven.org

2/22-3/5 the crucible by Arthur miller. Act 1 performing Arts, desales University, labuda center for the performing Arts, 2755 station Ave., center valley, pA. 610-282-3192. desales.edu/act1

thrU 5/26 Already gone, patricia satterlee’s large flashe on linen works explore the balance between abstraction and representation, symmetry and irregularity through a personalized set of enigmatic symbols. Artist talk, 3/1, 5:00 pm. martin Art gallery, baker center for the Arts, muhlenberg college, 2400 chew street Allentown pA. 484-6643467. muhlenberg.edu

3/2-3/12 the complete & Authoritative tour of holy stuff. touchstone theatre, 321 e. fourth st., bethlehem, pA. 610-8671689. touchstone.org

2/12 2/8-3/11 A valentine’s day concert, lauren Urban Allusions by ghanaian-American smith, soprano and ian murphy, bariartist george Afedzi hughes, features tone. 4:00 pm, cathedral Arts, cathelarge format painting & sculptural dral church of the nativity, 321 Wyanworks. Artist talk, 4/19. martin Art dotte st., bethlehem, pA. 610-865gallery, baker center for the Arts, 0727. nativitycathedral.org muhlenberg college, 2400 chew street Allentown pA. 484-664-3467.

2/18 muhlenberg.edu nat’l symphony orchestra of Ukraine,

THEATER / DANCE 2/10 taj express, the bollywood musical revue, 8 pm. Zoellner Arts center, lehigh University, 420 e. packer Ave., bethlehem, pA. free event parking attached to center. 610-758-2787. Zoellnerartscenter.org

3/5 pennsylvania sinfonia orchestra, “An Afternoon with mozart”, sinfonia virtuosi with violin soloist mary ogletree.

4:00 p.m., christ lutheran church, 1245 W. hamilton st., Allentown, pA. An all-mozart concert including symphony no. 41, "Jupiter". tickets, $20-$35 in advance/at door.

610-434-7811. www.pAsinfonia.org

CONCERTS

2/10 the organ Works of J.s. bach, program 10, organist stephen Williams.

2/5-3/10 8:00 pm, cathedral Arts, cathedral Windows to heaven, treasures from church of the nativity, 321 Wyandotte the museum of russian icons. lafayette st., bethlehem, pA. 610-865-0727. nacollege Art galleries, easton, pA. 610- tivitycathedral.org 330-5361. galleries.lafayette.edu

2/11-3/5 mentor, time, place, robert engman’s legacy, the gutman center new hope 1974-1994. new hope Arts center, 2 stockton Ave., new hope, pA. newhopearts.org

Arts center, lehigh University, 420 e. packer Ave., bethlehem, pA. free event parking attached to center. 610-7582787. Zoellnerartscenter.org

dvorák. 8:00pm, Zoellner Arts center, lehigh University, 420 e. packer Ave., bethlehem, pA. free event parking attached to center. 610-758-2787. Zoellnerartscenter.org

2/24 the organ Works of J.s. bach, program 11, organist stephen Williams.

8:00 pm, cathedral Arts, cathedral church of the nativity, 321 Wyandotte st., bethlehem, pA. 610-865-0727. nativitycathedral.org pAsinfonia.org

2/26 the bach choir of bethlehem bach thrU 4/9 festival orchestra family concert, World War i and American Art. the 2/10-2/24 w/mock turtle marionette theater first major exhibition devoted to ex9 to 5, the musical. civic theatre of Al- presents the nightingale. Zoellner Arts ploring the ways in which American lentown, Allentown, pA. 610-432-8943. center, lehigh University, 420 e. packer artists reacted to the first World War. civictheatre.com Ave., bethlehem.610-866-4382, ext. pennsylvania Academy of the fine Arts, 115/110. bach.org fisher brooks gallery, samuel m.v.

2/18 thrU 2/11 the naked magicians, 7:30 pm. state 3/3 cold Weather, Warm Art. river Queen hamilton building, 118-128 north broad st., philadelphia, pA theatre, 453 northampton st., easton, Joey Alexander trio, 7:30pm, Zoellner Artisans gallery features the work of W W W. FA C E B O O k . C O M / I C O N D V

KESWICK THEATRE 291 n keswick Ave glenside, pennsylvania 215-572-7650 keswicktheatre.com 2/8 2/11 2/17 2/18 2/19 2/23 2/24 2/25 3/3 3/4 3/11

gad elmaleh capturing pablo with Javier pena & steve murphy

masters of illusion earth, Wind & fire tribute Al Jarreau gaelic storm npr’s Ask me Another hayes grier & the boys cmt next Women of country, w/ martina mcbride the music box performs selling english by the pound blackthorn

MUSIKFEST CAFÉ´ 101 founders Way, bethlehem 610-332-1300. Artsquest.org 2/3 billy Joel tribute: the strange 2/9 Justin hayward of the moody blues 2/10-11, 14, 17-18 tony n’tina’s Wedding 2/23 todd snider 2/24 strawberry fields: the Ultimate beatles tribute band 2/25 comedian michael ian black 2/26 girl scout cookie crunch 3/3 bastard bearded irishmen 3/7 Wxpn welcomes ladysmith black mambazo

EVENTS 3/11 young at Art, a day of music, dance, art & exploration. for all ages, free for families. 10Am- 2pm, penn state lehigh valley. lvartscouncil.org/youngat-art

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