ICON Magazine

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contents

CONVERSATION 16 Sophie Ellis-Bextor Saltburn’s visceral finale is an epiphany of freedom and celebration, but it’s Ellis-Bextor’s hedonistic dance track with its wicked lyrics that richly ices an already headily dense and decadently sweet cake.

ART EXHIBITIONS

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Unstill Life Annelies van Dommelen Retrospective Exhibitio New Hope Arts Center New Hope, PA

Winter Show 2024 Bethlehem House Gallery Bethlehem, PA

Devyn L. Briggs: Origin Story Painting and Ceramics Bethlehem Town Hall Rotunda Gallery

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A THOUSAND WORDS

The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, nightlife and mad genius.

Since 1992 215-862-9558 icondv.com

Contrast and Value

8 | THE ART OF POETRY Rosa Seeks Her Reflection

10 | PORTFOLIO

Access and Standing

12 | THE LIST Valley City

14 | FILM ROUNDUP Perfect Days American Fiction The Taste of Things The Zone of Interest

ON THE COVER:

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18 | ESSAY

Why Christopher Nolan Matters

20 | FILM CLASSICS

PUBLISHER & EDITOR Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com ADVERTISING Raina Filipiak filipiakr@comcast.net PRODUCTION

Joanne Smythe

Margaret M. O’Connor CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

A.D. Amorosi Ricardo Barros Robert Beck Geoff Gehman Fredricka Maister David Stoller Keith Uhlich

Plan 9 from Outer Space The Long Goodbye Double Indemnity Fanny and Alexander

30 | HARPER’S Findings Index

31 | PUZZLE

Washington Post Crossword

Sophie Ellis-Bextor, page 16. Photo: Maksim Toome 4

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PO Box 120 New Hope 18938 215-862-9558

Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. ICON welcomes letters to the editor, editorial ideas and submissions, but assumes no responsibility for the return of unsolicited material. ICON is not responsible for claims made by advertisers. ©2024 Primetime Publishing Co., Inc.


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a thousand words

STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK

CONTRAST and VALUE I HAVE A FRIEND, Bruce, who went to Wales and decided to stay there. We keep in touch via social media platforms, plus he is a prolific hand-writer of snail letters. Bruce is a fellow essayist and very wellread, and we share a common understanding and worldview. He is also generous, and now and then, he sends me a book. The last gift from him was an extraordinary publication about New York tugboats. This gorgeous book, with black and white photos and an engaging narrative by someone who worked on tugs for a couple of decades, covers NY tugs and their operation from their inception in the early 1800s C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 2 9

Robert Beck is a painter, writer, lecturer and ex-radio host. His paintings have been featured in more than seventy juried and thirty solo gallery shows, and three solo museum exhibitions. His column has appeared monthly in ICON Magazine since 2005. www.robertbeck.net ICON |

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exhibitions

Specimens. Acrylic over colllograph and sculpted pane

Ward Van Haute, Highs and Buffa-lows. Mixed media, reclaimed bike parts, steel flashing, and wood, 19.5” H x 19” W x15” D, $700.

Unstill Life Annelies van Dommelen Retrospective Exhibition New Hope Arts Center 2 Stockton Ave., New Hope, PA 215-862-9606 newhopearts.org February 17–March 10, 2024 Reception February 17, 6:00–9:00

Winter Show 2024

A retrospective tracing the career of Annelies van Dommelen whose body of work includes acrylics, oils, watercolors, printmaking, paper making, and assemblage, and 3-dimension sculptural dioramas. Her work, both abstract and figurative, are inspired by the world around her.

The 2024 Winter Show features artists Melissa Bryant, Devin Feely, Tomi J Petrella, Lynnette Shelley, Ward Van Haute.

Bethlehem House Gallery 459 Main Street, Bethlehem, PA 610-419-6262 BethlehemHouseGallery.com Wed.–Thurs. 11–7; Fri.–Sat. 12–9; Sun. 12–7 Through March 16, 2024

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Painting and Ceramics Bethlehem Town Hall Rotunda Gallery 10 E. Church St., Bethlehem, PA. bfac-lv.org Hours: Mon.–Fri., 8:00–4:00 January 8–February 15, 2024 Artist reception 1/21, 2:00–4:00 Origin Story captures the aesthetic structures and harmonies that filter through the artifacts of Deyvn’s Colombian, Jamaican, and African American heritage. Briggs is an artist and educator working in painting and ceramics. She grew up in Bethlehem and studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, earning a BFA in Ceramics and an MPS in the Business of Art and Design.

Tomi J Petrella, Headspace. Acrylic on canvas, 36” x 24,” $1750

Companion. Oil over stone lithograph, 2017.

Devyn L. Briggs: Origin Story

Lynette Shelley, Dreaming Ducks. Ink, acrylic on wood panel, 18” x 24,” $1295


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the art of poetry

DAVID STOLLER

Rosa Seeks Her Reflection She sought her face, reflected fair, Couldn’t find it, and didn’t care, Until she noticed, sitting there, A frog had fixed her in his stare ... Professing to be unaware, She smoothes a wayward strand of hair.

Woman, 1979.

A prominent Mexican artist of his generation, sculptor Felipe Castañeda is celebrated for his masterful carvings in onyx, marble, and bronze. Castañeda studied at Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts, graduating in 1963, and worked as an assistant to Francisco Zúñiga, who was in turn influenced by Auguste Rodin. Castañeda often returns to themes around women and the female body; pregnancy and maternal motifs, as well as nude figures, are his most common subjects. Castañeda frequently references pre-Columbian artifacts, prevalent in the state of Michoacán, where he was born. Meanwhile, his fascination with sensual beauty and the perfect proportions of his figures aligns his aesthetic with classical Greco-Roman sculpture. —Artsy.net Castañeda’s sculpture, Woman, c.1979, (we call her Rosa), is leaning over the edge of our garden pool, “seeking her reflection.” One day after a fresh snowfall I found Rosa staring across the pond at a stone frog peeking through the snow’s crust, and my poem, Rosa Seeks Her Reflection, was born. They’ve continued to enjoy each other’s company throughout the seasons. n

David Stoller has had a career spanning law, private equity, and entrepreneurial leadership. He was a partner at Milbank Tweed and led various companies in law, insurance, live entertainment, and the visual arts. David is an active art collector and founder of River Arts Press, which published a collection of his poetry, Finding My Feet.

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portfolio

PHOTOGRAPH AND ESSAY BY RICARDO BARROS

ACCESS and STANDING There are many portals to engagement in photography, but two factors largely determine one’s chance of success. They are Access and Standing. “Access” is the opportunity to share time and space with one’s subject. If we can’t get near the person or pass through the gate, we can’t photograph what’s inside the inner sanctum. “Standing” is our qualification to interact with our subject. We will remain an outsider unless we speak their language or have some shared connection. Without Standing, our photographs will likely be those of a tourist, not those of an artist. Graffiti writers are notoriously secretive about themselves, even as they strive to make their work known to the public. Unwritten rules govern their society—from the locations they allow themselves to paint to their status in a population of peers. It took years for a particular group of graffiti writers to accept my presence. It took even longer for them to invite me on a nocturnal outing. First, I had to earn their trust. Then I needed to learn their language, cultural history, and social protocol. Access was my first hurdle in learning the writers’ secrets. Standing was my second. My price for my admission was that I suspend judgment. I needed to appreciate them for who they were and on their terms. Only then could I make meaningful photographs. n

Ricardo Barros’ works are in the permanent collections of eleven museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is the author of Facing Sculpture: A Portfolio of Portraits, Sculpture and Related Ideas. 10

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the list VALLEY

CITY A.D. AMOROSI

GEOFF GEHMAN

The Harlem Globetrotters make basketball a gymnastic circus of tight roping, spinning, juggling, catapulting, pogo-sticking, and running figure eights and fives around the Washington Generals, their endlessly patient saps. The current squad features the Trotters’ first Polish native, global freestyling champ Dazzle Kidon, and Reading native Torch George, one of three women. The dribbling wizard holds the Guinness female world record with 32 tumbles with a basketball under a leg in a minute. (Feb. 16, PPL Center, 701 Hamilton St., Allentown; 484-273-4490; pplcenter.com) Ballet is easy to adore and abhor. Gloriously graceful, it’s also painfully prissy. The men in Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo dance all over these bipolar poles, performing standards (Sleeping Beauty) and satires (Yes, Virginia, Another Piano Ballet) seriously and deliriously dressed as princesses and swans. Launched 50 years ago as an underground cabaret act in Manhattan, the Trocks have entertained 43 countries, teamed with Muppet babies, and starred in CONTINUED

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Everything as February is, consider Consumed by Valentine’s this, really) where sweethearts never a world (and how hard is linger longingly as one, and everyone is allergic to chocolate and champagne. That’s a right mess, innit? Since there is an entire month to behold with nothing to do with love and pre-cooked dining options, here’s my alternative to the usual February feast. Know what I will recommend for handsomely spicy fine dining in a romantic atmosphere every day BUT Valentine’s Day? The return of executive chef and owner David Suro’s Tequilas Restaurant on Locust Street in Center City Philadelphia. The four-story brownstone that houses Tequilas is a treat behold everything Suro cooks is divine, and he’s been making his brand of white tequila for decades now. If you exist without a speck of romance and sentimentality in your heart, author, rocker, and film star Lydia Lunch is for you. Dating back to the Downtown NYC days of No Wave post-punk noise and transgressive film, Lunch has forever been their hero. Still making muscular, manic music, Lunch will perform with her new trio on February 8 at the Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art—PhilaMOCA—in the Eraserhood.

Mark Seliger for The New York Times.

Writing songs is all about “getting out of your own way, so you can see the moving pictures in your head.” Joan Osborne told me her tactic way back in 1995, when the world discovered her tales of a bus-riding God and a web-weaving, seeing Ray Charles. Since then she’s applied a cinematic sensibility and a shimmering, simmering, soul-full voice to projects with Mavis Staples, Motown’s original session men, and Bob Dylan’s catalog. Dylan’s poetic, political absurdism streaks her new record Trouble and Strife, a 360-degree view of corruption, assimilation, and faithful fun. Her 10th studio CD is flavored by Southern boogie and “meat-and-potatoes” rock and siphons the spirit of the Chi-Lites, her teen daughter and AM wavelengths way, way back in the ’70s. (March 3, Musikfest Café, 100 Founders Way, Bethlehem; 610-332-1300; steelstacks.org)

And just for giggles, if you do want to get out in the cold, and celebrate Valentine’s Day with someone who… I don’t know, likes golf? Franklin Square near the old Roundhouse in Historic Philly with Philly Mini Golf with Love at Franklin Square on February 14. That’s just weird enough to be cool. CONTINUED

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KEITH UHLICH

Perfect Days

film roundup

Perfect Days (Dir. Wim Wenders). Starring: Koji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano. As a director of fiction features, Wim Wenders has long been in the wilderness, far from the heights of Kings of the Road or Paris, Texas. His latest doesn’t break the losing streak, though it has an easygoing gentility about it that seduces at first. Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) is a Tokyo-based toilet cleaner with a pre-set daily routine that we watch unfold, unhurriedly, for much of the film’s first third. He cleans, drives, and listens to ‘60s-era Western rock music on cassette tapes. He’s a patient, sorta-analog guy winding his way through an increasingly hasty world. Where he is in life hasn’t come without sacrifice, and as figures from his past re-emerge, a portrait of a deeply unhappy man, one prone to smiling through his tears, comes to the fore. Perfect Days is a tragedy played as a gentle comedy, done in the style of Wenders’ favorite Yasujiro Ozu. And it’s not for a moment convincing, every would-be-devastating emotional beat coming Keith Uhlich is a NY-based writer published at Slant Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Time Out New York, and ICON. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. His personal website is (All (Parentheses)), accessible at keithuhlich.substack.com. 14

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off increasingly contrived. Wenders is faking greatness here, which is very unfortunate considering all the times he has been at a master’s level. [PG] HH American Fiction (Dir. Cord Jefferson). Starring: Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae. Writer-director Cord Jefferson’s very ofthe-moment debut feature takes on a lot. Jeffrey Wright plays college professor and elitist author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, whose books are nicher than niche and whose blood is boiling at the stereotypical hollows that black artists are expected to contort themselves to fit. Inspired, in a negative way, by the example of the bestselling writer Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), whose novel is penned in a hilarious ghetto patois far from her own experience, Monk, under a pseudonym, tosses off a (gang)banger of a melodramatic tragedy about violence-prone African American hoodlums…and it becomes an unexpected success! Jefferson parodies everything from well-meaning white liberals to an entertainment industry that consistently prefers cliches to hard truths. The film is often funny, but mostly middle-of-the-road for C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 2 7


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conversation

A.D. AMOROSI

SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR The Murderess who (Salt)burns the Dance floor

FEW WOULD ARGUE THAT director-screenwriter Emerald Fennell’s Oscar-nominated Saltburn is enigmatically bizarre: a blackly comic film about an obsessed and jealous Oxford University student who kills every member of his classmate's aristocratic family, one by one, until he can take ownership of their palatial estate. Once Oscar— magically played by Barry Keoghan—has his savage victory, the spoils come in his dancing naked throughout the expanse of the grand house in one, extended uncut tracking shot to the full-blown disco reverie of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor.” And while Saltburn’s visceral finale is an epiphany of freedom and celebration, it is Ellis-Bextor’s hedonistic dance track with its wicked lyrics that richly ices an already headily dense and decadently sweet cake. “It was the only song that seemed fitting to tie the end of the film together,” Fennell told Variety in November of last year. Now, Ellis-Bextor is getting her own just desserts as her viral hit—a UK smash when it dropped as part of her debut solo album, 2001’s Read My Lips—continues its rise to global chart success with the February release of the “Murder on the Dancefloor” EP with a limited-edition blood red vinyl package to follow “It’s amazing to see and hear how much life that song continues to have,” said Ellis-Bextor over Zoom during an interview last week. It is cinema—and not music—that has always been in, dare I say, Ellis-Bextor’s blood as her parents, stepparents, and grandfather were all in the film and television business. “The good thing about that is I was surrounded by creative people with not-so-typical jobs,” said Ellis-Bextor. “The advantage was, growing up, that I never had to explain any particular career path or job… I love cinema and think visually when I write music, so I can picture a landscape and see a particular scene. And if you had asked the 15-year-old me what I wanted to do I would’ve said acting. My mother described acting to me and said there were certain moments on stage where I would feel powerful, But I never felt that—until I sang on stage with a band at age 16. That’s when I got the feeling that she was talking about. C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 2 2

Sophie Ellis-Bextor performs on The Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival in England on June 25, 2023. Photo by Harry Durrant for Getty Images. ICON |

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essay WHY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN MATTERS

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CINEASTES HAVE FOREVER HAD ongoing gripes about why their favorites didn’t win the biggest awards (all while saying that awards don’t matter) and strong words to bolster each of their debates. How shameful is it that Martin Scorsese’s epic to toxic masculinity, Raging Bull, lost its Oscar for Best Film of 1980 to the very ordinary Ordinary People? Or Quentin Tarantino’s epic to toxic masculinity, Pulp Fiction, losing out to the very ordinary Forrest Gump? How amazingly shameful is it that Peter O’Toole never won an Oscar for his acting save for a career overview near his death? Or that Glenn Close has always played bridesmaid to the bride of the academy for a career filled with dynamic performances? No film creative of the 21st century, however, has elicited more sympathy and confusion as to his non-wins at the Oscars than Christopher Nolan. Even more so than Scorsese’s misses on films such as Goodfellas and Taxi Driver, Nolan’s blank shelf of awards leaves a weird void when it comes to the Oscars. How could the director and screenwriter who turned the usual cartoon drama of Batman and Joker into a metaphysical billion-dollar-plus opera of sorrow and identity politics with The Dark Knight, or subconscious longing and existential ennui into a game of Jenga with Inception not be rewarded for his protean efforts? What other auteur could turn non-linear thinking and complex, math-inspired imagery into a linear art form? What other filmmaker than Nolan can, in critic Joseph Bevan’s humble opinion, make films that “allow arthouse regulars to enjoy superhero flicks and multiplex crowds to engage with labyrinthine plot conceits?” This brings us to Oppenheimer—no, not Barbenheimer—and the intellectual, emotional thrill ride that was the development of the atom bomb, the theoretical physicist at its center, and the dilemma of what it means to deliver mass death. Aesthetics aside (for the moment), it is no shock that the financial victory of Oppenheimer (nearly one billion dollars worldwide, the highestgrossing biopic of all time, the highest-grossing World War II-related film, surpassing his own Dunkirk) came upon its release. By 2023 and the season of Oppenheimer viewers had grown tired of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Comics world (maybe not so much the latter, but there’s always room to mess up). Playing comic book film lovers with the MCU’s child-like plots that went nowhere at a nearly weekly (counting television and streaming series) viewing pace

would b thusiast With cording sponse t Oppenh as ellipt “I th heimer

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cal,” No that I've As fa Oppenh biopic a taVision conjurin up, Gho cluding small an Even Ma heimer’s deeply p Add cal, yet filmmak Crea tion, wi its mora penheim ly, again artist to deservin and stun burn los


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would bore even the most dedicated superhero enthusiast and space baller. With his cooly calculating manner (at least according to how Cillian Murphy played him) in response to the long-term consequences of his actions, Oppenheimer is a cryptically enigmatic superhero, as elliptical and he is forceful. “I think of any character I've dealt with, Oppenheimer is, by far, the most ambiguous and paradoxi-

Directing Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception.

cal,” Nolan told Total Film in 2023. “Which, given that I've made three Batman films, is saying a lot.” As far as the director’s aesthetic vision throughout Oppenheimer, Nolan has given us a math-fueled biopic about the atomic age in the form of dusty VistaVision, all while keeping it somehow intimate— conjuring the spirits of 1940s Los Alamos in a madeup, Ghost Ranch setting. Each of his characters, including one-time Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. plays small and close to the vest; nothing broad or bold. Even Matt Damon’s military man in charge of Oppenheimer’s comings and goings is tautly told and in deeply personal miniature. Add to this Nolan’s debut attempt at writing a lyrical, yet stoic screenplay in the first person, and the filmmaker’s masterpiece is complete. Creating a bite-sized human hero without the action, without the issue of protection, and with all of its moral and technological dilemmas has made Oppenheimer the film to turn the tide, finally and fatally, against superhero cinematic glut, and Nolan the artist to do it. And while it pains me to see another deserving Scorsese film (Killers of the Flower Moon) and stunning visual feasts such as Maestro and Saltburn lose, this Oscar is for Christopher Nolan. n ICON |

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film classics

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957, Edward D. Wood Jr., United States) To many, Ed Wood’s science-fiction crapsterpiece is the pinnacle of non-classic cinema— which, of course, makes it an exemplar of a sort. Extraterrestrials invade beautiful downtown Burbank with the apparent purpose of stopping humanity from destroying itself and the universe. But somehow there’s a wrestler zombie (Tor Johnson) and a buxom maybe-bloodsucker (Vampira) involved, as well as an old man played by Bela Lugosi, or at least his head-and-ahalf taller stand-in given that the former Dracula died before the majority of the film was shot (the replacement actor ineffectually disguises himself by covering the bottom half of his face with a flowing cape). Hilarity doesn’t ensue so much as infuse every frame. Ineptness was never quite as artistic as this, which lends some paradoxical heft to one alien character’s 20

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KEITH UHLICH

Shakespeare-level summing-up of mankind: “You see?!? You see?!? Your stupid minds! … Stupid!… STUPID!” The dimwit that came up with this inimitable concoction is, perversely, some kind of genius. (Streaming on Mubi.) The Long Goodbye (1973, Robert Altman, United States) In contrast to the pinprick precision of Double Indemnity, Robert Altman’s 1970s neo-noir is woozy, hazy, deceptively aimless. Elliott Gould is the perfect incarnation of this version of Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled detective Philip Marlowe, whose initial appearance isn’t as a dogged investigator but a slovenly grocery shopper on a midnight cat food run. His life is soon upended by his friend Terry

Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye.

Lennox (Jim Boulton), who asks him for help and a ride to Tijuana. On his return to the states, Marlowe is arrested and told that Terry is the prime suspect in his wife’s murder and he may have just aided and abetted. From there the mysteries only deepen, even as Altman undercuts the expected tones and rhythms of the private investigator drama. Murder, money, missing husbands—they don’t provide solve-it suspense so much as a what’s-happening confusion apropos of the era in which the movie was made. One truism remains, the film’s poster tagline, “Nothing says goodbye like a bullet…,” which as the quite memorable finale demonstrates, proves enduring and eternal, whatever the year may be. (Streaming on Criterion.) C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E

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S O P H I E E L L I S - B E X T O R / C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 1 7

Music was my thing.” At the tail end of the 1990s, that thing of hers wasn’t so much dance music or disco house, but rather post-punk and alt-rock during the greatest phase of Brit Pop and giants such as Blur, Oasis, Suede, and Pulp. “I was a proper indie girl, absolutely obsessed,” she said. “My first band at age 18, Theaudience had Top 40 hits ("I Know Enough (I Don't Get Enough),” “A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed") and were signed to Mercury. But the album didn’t do well and we were dropped by the time I turned 20, high and dry.” When she recorded her first solo album, 2001’s Read My Lips, it was “done out of rebellion” toward the indie-rock thing. “Dance music was a breath of fresh air for me, flipping the script a little bit,” she said. “And I had no idea how much I would wind up loving dance music and disco. You didn’t have to have any rules. I could write songs with Alex James from Blur and Bernard Butler from Suede. You could go where your heart wanted.” Her heart wanted a “Murder on the Dancefloor,” a dedicated, deliberate musical act to feel the religious joy of disco and house at its purest and most euphoric. “I used to not like dance music, and said as much often to the chagrin of my press people when I had my first band,” said Ellis-Bextor. “Once I started doing dance, though, my eyes were opened. I began listening to Larry Levan DJing at the Paradise Garage and Cher’s “Take Me Home.” Disco allowed you to tell a story. The music is seductive. It wants to whip you up. I couldn’t get enough of that feeling once I started.” “Murder on the Dancefloor,” co-written by Gregg Alexander, was steered by Ellis-Bextor’s glee for the ardor of hedonism. “I like pop songs that aren’t desperate, but rather, cheeky,” she said with a laugh. “As a singer, that’s a fun character to have. “Murder” was playful, a flirtation on a packed dance floor, quite happy to see where the night could take you.” Ellis-Bextor’s version of Cher's "Take Me Home" and "Murder on the Dancefloor" both were hits, the latter staying atop the UK pop charts for twenty-three weeks in 2002. But rather than stick to hit disco, the singer moved about the pop continuum, from genre to genre, from the folky Wanderlust (2014) to the Latin-inspired Familia (2016) and the introspective pop of Hana (2023). “Through the navigation of my solo career, I’ve been selfish,” she said. “I want to have a nice time, work with incredible people, am constantly curious, and can put all of myself into because I feel safe doing so… I quite like the bonkers nature of all that.” “Bonkers” could very well describe what filmmaker Fennell had planned for her mesmerizing finale of Saltburn and its full-frontal naked romp through a family’s palatial home. “Like any time we get a question about using one of our songs, we get a note from our publisher looking for approval,” said Ellis-Bextor. “There’s never any emotion, just a synopsis as to how they intend to use a song. I forgot to tell anyone—my husband or my manager—about it. I just thought it sounded fun. I had seen Fennell’s Promising Young Women, so I knew she was good. They were clear that the director wanted to use the entire song while someone was dancing through a house with no clothes on. Wow, that sounds fun, Sure.” When Ellis-Bextor brought her extended family to the UK premiere of Saltburn, she loved seeing the free, spirited, balls-out dance, even if she had to put her face and wonder if her mum and kids were OK with the full-frontal dance “Eventually I had tea with Emerald, and was so impressed by her smarts, charm, and vision,” said the vocalist. “Lucky me, this was a fortunate thing to be part of.” As provocative an ending as Salburn’s Ellis-Bextor recalled how her 22

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original music video for “Murder on the Dancefloor” found the singer being “really nasty,” she said. “I’m in a dance competition and I’m killing off everyone else on the floor so that I could win. There are some parallels, then, between Oliver’s character in Saltburn, and my video. Which is great. Emerald said that my song had this camp, mischievous feel, and I agree.” Now charting again and the centerpiece of a February-released EP, Ellis-Bextor stated that the hi universe of “Murder on the Dancefloor” circa 2024 is serendipitous as she was planning for her next album to be dance pop after the ruminative drama and subtle emotions of Hana. “I wanted to have fun this year, and write some glorious new disco music, so I’m right on schedule.” That said, though Oliver’s dance is bold—if you turn the sound down, it isn’t as special without Ellis-Bextor’s haughty, evil grandeur. “It’s a song I know so well and then ‘OOH’ there it is. It was hard to be objective about it when I saw it. I just loved how liberating it all looked and sounded on the screen. It’s just so wild to see this naked dancing in all of its abandon, and the ownership of it all. I love how extreme it all is. I did not see it coming. I can’t believe it has been whipped out as it has.” n

Sophie Ellis Bextor and Richard Jones are seen backstage at the Glastonbury Festival in 2016 (Yui Mok PA)


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their very own American Masters special. Their repertoire includes a tribute to Isadora Duncan; their outreach includes a new choreography institute. (Feb. 29, Baker Hall, Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University, 420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem; 610-758-2787; zoellnerartscenter.org) Pianist Simon Mulligan is a master and commander of jazz and classical languages, a rarity that’s earned him raves from composing keyboardist Herbie Hancock and violinist/conductor Yehudi Menuhin, Mulligan’s collaborator/mentor. Armed with power, finesse, and a vivid imagination, he’s partnered with Joshua Bell and Van Morrison, joined orchestras in

Scotland and Malaysia, and serenaded America’s president and England’s queen. On Feb. 16 he’ll return to a favorite Valley venue with drummer Adam Nussbaum, a clinician and cymbal designer who gigged with Gil Evans and Joe Sample, and bassist Gene Perla, a Lehigh University teacher and sound-system designer who gigged with Miles Davis and Nina Simone. (Miller Symphony Hall, 23 N. 6th St., Allentown; 610-432-6715; millersymphonyhall.org) In Motion, Muhlenberg College’s dance extravaganza, could be called Modern Multitudes. The Feb. 8-10 concert contains seven original works choreographed by faculty members and guests who use hip-hop, punk, and indigenous gestures to express grief, love, and communal justice. Anchoring the program is traces left within by Tommie-Waheed Evans, a Guggenheim fellow who runs his own Philadelphia company, waheedworks. The Los Angeles native claims his new piece provides “a path to liberation.” (Empie Theatre, Baker Center for the Arts, 2400 Chew St., Allentown; 484-664-3333; muhlenberg.edu/seeashow) Touchstone Theatre has devoted 42 years to viewing humans through adventurous prisms. The experimental ensemble filtered the fall of the local Bethlehem Steel plant through a Greek myth and Asian immigration through an ancient Chinese fable. The company’s new musical, HeadEye, revolves around the intergalactic quests of a rogue crew headed by a Tralfamadorian space ace. (Feb. 29-March 3, March 7-10, 321 E. 4th St., Bethlehem; 610-867-1689; touchstone.org)

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A shipwrecked heroine. Cross-dressed, criss-crossed lovers. Rapier-sharp clowning. Ditties mourning and celebrating love’s slavery and life’s bad weather. We’re writing, of course, of Twelfth Night, one of Shakespeare’s most deft, delicious comedies. Act 1 Productions at DeSales University will stage the vaudevillian merry-goround in the same theater where in 1993 it opened the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s second season. (Feb 21-26, Feb. 28-March 3, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, 2755 Station Ave., Center Valley; 610-282-3192; desales.edu) A documentary filmmaker turns a veteran bunch of readers inside out and upside down in The Book Club Play, a sneaky comedy detailing the twisty dynamics of collective literary devotion. Author Karen Zacarias founded a young playwright theater in Washington, D.C., and wrote a play about a White House family endowed by the White House Historical Association. (Feb. 29-March 3, Weiss Theater, Buck Hall, Lafayette College, 219 N. 3rd St., Easton; 610-330-5009; williamscenter.lafayette.edu) Harmony singers live to hit notes that make the entire body ring. The three Tuvan throat singers in Alash each match low and high notes at the same time, creating a mesmerizing buzzing that transforms rooms into hummingbird hives. (Feb. 16, Williams Center for the Arts, Lafayette College, 317 Hamilton St., Easton; 610-3305009; williamscenter.lafayette.edu) n

Geoff Gehman is a former arts writer for The Morning Call in Allentown and the author of five books, including Planet Mom: Keeping an Aging Parent from Aging, The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons, and Fast Women and Slow Horses: The (mis)Adventures of a Bar, Betting and Barbecue Man (with William Mayberry). He lives in Bethlehem. geoffgehman@verizon.net


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around the copious suggestive planner, they plot hubby’s murder and a massive payout via a so-called double indemnity clause. There’s shadowplay of multiple kinds here, visually in the lushly inky cinematography of John Seitz, and motivationally in the twists and turns of character concocted by Wilder and co-scenarist Raymond Chandler, adapting a novel by James M. Cain. The world is dog-eat-dog throughout until it suddenly, in the double-crossing climax, isn’t. Love asserts itself too late, and regret arrives only after it’s impossible to change course. Perhaps, Double Indemnity boldly suggests, the monstrous among us can only recall their humanity when death is imminent…and then, only for a moment. (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)

Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity (1944)

Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder, United States) “There’s a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff,” says Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), the ultimate femme fatale. Director and co-writer Billy Wilder, by contrast, revels in the controlled chaos of what is perhaps the pre-eminent film noir. Insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), dying of a gunshot wound in the opening scene, dictates his confession via flashback: On a routine visit to the Dietrichson household, the lady doth protest about her married life and, in-andAnswer to ARCTIC CIRCLE

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READ GOOD STUFF READ GOOD STUFF READ GOOD STUFF READ GOOD STUFF

The Boy and the Heron

Fanny and Alexander (1982, Ingmar Bergman, Sweden/France/West Germany) One of the crowning achievements of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s career, this semiautobiographical feature takes an alternately magical and harrowing look at the lives of brother and sister Alexander and Fanny Ekdahl (Bertil Guve and Pernilla Allwin). Opening with an astonishingly sustained Christmas celebration sequence, the happy children soon have their lives upended when their father Oscar (Allan Edwall) dies of a stroke and their mother Emilie (Ewa Fröling) marries a disciplinarian bishop, Edvard Vergérus (Jan Malmsjö). The tension between piety and humanity, long a Bergman

Fanny and Alexander

staple, informs much of the film, with the cloistered cheeriness of the early sections contrasting thornily with the hermitic horrors of the family’s existence under Vergérus. Fanny and Alexander is a story of the loss of innocence and the ability to survive the worst of circumstances as only Bergman can tell it. This was to be his swan song as an artist, and its bittersweetly valedictory feeling remains even though he ultimately worked steadily in the visual and theatrical arts until the early 2000s. (Streaming on Max.) n


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much of the runtime. That is until a last-act narrative upheaval (several of them, actually) hones the satirical arrows Jefferson is shooting

camp. The film was shot with multiple cameras, many of them out of the way and hidden. And Glazer has sincerely likened the eye-of-god results to “Big Brother in the Nazi house.” What it plays more like is a laugh-track-free sitcom created by Hannah Arendt, with copious

to razor-sharp points. A great ending, ultimately, in need of a stronger movie. [R] HHH The Taste of Things (Dir. Anh Hung Tran). Starring: Juliette Binoche, Benoît Magimel, Emmanuel Salinger. Food never looked as good as it does in the intoxicating first section of Anh Hung Tran’s culinary drama-romance. Eugénie and Dodin (Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magamel, formerly a real-life couple) have for years honed their abilities with cuisine, something evident as they prepare a lavish and luscious meal for Dodin’s gourmand friends. You can hear all the sizzles and practically smell the scents of each dish, while also getting an implied sense of how the lead characters have kept their romantic feelings for each other at bay outside the occasional carnal indulgence. The rest of the movie leisurely dissects the breakdown of the pair’s cautious approach to life, along with the challenges and bittersweet lessons that result. Like a terrific meal, the film’s pleasures are upfront (the extended scene in which Dodin cooks for Eugénie alone is achingly amorous) and its complexities doled out with a perfectly seasoned subtlety. Tran’s gentle, observant approach to both the material and his performers additionally helps make this a delicacy worth savoring. [PG-13] HHHH

“sight gags” of the Höss’ idyllic home contrasted with Auschwitz guard towers and smokestacks, in addition to the horrific sounds of screams and industrial machinery that waft through the air. It would be offensive if it wasn’t so dull, and not even a provocative finale in which one of the characters briefly becomes a time traveler can increase the overall, ahem, interest. [PG-13] H1/2 n

The Zone of Interest (Dir. Jonathan Glazer). Starring: Sandra Hüller, Christian Friedel, Freya Kreutzkam. The Holocaust is treated like a museum installation in the latest alienating drama from writer-director Jonathan Glazer. Loosely adapting a novel by Martin Amis, Glazer strangely hews closer to fact than the book. The real-life commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), and his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), are the protagonists, both building a good life for their family while living next door to the infamous concentration ICON |

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Just when people were getting used to calling the coffee klatch of theaters and halls on Broad Street “the Kimmel Cultural Campus,” they went and changed the name to Ensemble Arts Philly. C’maan. OK. So go and see dreamboat (it’s the hair) violinist and conductor Joshua Bell with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall within, or at, or near Ensemble Arts Philly from February 15 through the 17th.

Dream team of performers, who along with the late, great Divine and Edy Massey, made filth fabulous across more than a bakers’ dozen of

Far away from the Ensemble Arts Philly campus is this city’s longrunning and still handsome Forrest Theatre. After its successful recent run with the gender switch version of Stephen Sondheim’s Com-

Peaches C.

his films. Now, with drag host Peaches C., Stole will talk (and who knows what else) her head off in an evening entitled Idol Chatter at Punch Line Philadelphia on February 18. Jason Isbell didn’t invent Americana. Gram Parsons did. And Michael Nesmith. But Isbell is dirty rocking country music’s greatest proponent within the 21st century, so seeing him and his 400 Unit at The

pany comes the Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country at the Forrest Theatre from February 27 to March 10. Here, in Dylan’s Minnesota home, we meet a handful of wayward travelers who can’t help but sing in a nasal, whiny rasp. You’ll love it.

j

If you don’t know Mink Stole by now, you’re cooked. The Baltimorebased actress was (and is, still) part of director-writer John Waters’s

Met Philadelphia on February 23 is essential. And if you miss this, he’s all over Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, so there’s that meager compensation. And on the historic, personal all-inclusive tip, it is both Black History Month and Chinese Lunar New Year throughout February. Rather than insulting anyone with singular choices, I say seek out all the positive vibing days and nights you can in celebration of POC art and information. n A.D. Amorosi is a Los Angeles Press Club National Art and Entertainment Journalism award-winning journalist and national public radio host and producer (WPPM.org’s Theater in the Round) married to a garden-to-table cooking instructor + award-winning gardener, Reese, and father to dog-daughter Tia.

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to the 1990s. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of working boats, and tugboats are high on that list. When I asked Bruce how he knew I was fond of tugboats, he explained, “They are beloved by boys.” It’s true. Surely, some girls, too. Tugboats come out of an age when aesthetics and pride lined up alongside return on investment. Boats, trains, and cars were given a face and a countenance. Many of their design principles were shared with biological evolution, and it’s easy to see the boats as having a cando personality. Tugs had a resolute brow on the wheelhouse, a determined chin-like bow, and they looked very adult, very roll-up-yoursleeves—mighty and intrepid. Modern, like back then. When I was a kid, there were still ocean liners berthed along the Hudson that needed to be muscled in and out against the current and tide. Tugs towed products and supplies in barges up and down the Hudson and the coast. Tugboats and their crews were right out of a WPA poster, an Ashcan painting, or a noir film, guiding the largest of ships against the background of New York skyscrapers. Steam and smoke rose from the buildings and boats. Work was being done. That’s one of the things that make Tugboats of New York by George Matteson (2005) so delightful. In addition to being an easy and interesting read, many of the photographs are museum quality. Looking back from our image-saturated era, these honest photos engage you with their truth and direct voices. You take your time with them. It’s the real stuff. I’ve painted several classic tugs. I like the lines and proportions of the older ones. Some of them are exquisite. Whoever built them cared to make them handsome. I see the function as well. The stout bow for heavy seas and hard work. The long back deck for lines and machinery. The wheelhouse, where the captain can see what is going on in all directions, sometimes piloting his boat from behind the cabin at a second control station while directing his deckhands at securing and hauling the lines. It’s a serious and dangerous business. And it takes a long time to get good at it. The book does an excellent job of showing what life was like on the boats. There were times of leisure and times of intense work. A hauling job might take days, with the crew living on board, sometimes taking shifts, sometimes with all hands on deck. It got scary, too. Looking at the large hawsers coiled on the backs of the boats, I see the backbreaking effort and danger. My experiences on lobster boats, with a pitching deck covered with seawater, looking for a handhold with lines flying past your feet ready to snag an ankle and drag you into a heaving sea, made clear what being employed on a working boat means. You tend to frame things by where you are at the moment. When you are a kid pushing his first toy boat around the floor or in the tub, you can’t imagine the grown-up considerations. Then, idealistic and heroic facets raise their voices. It’s easy to romanticize in retrospect. From this place in life, my thoughts are God bless ‘em. Ponder that at the end of the 19th Century, tugboats were hauling 400 tons of horse manure and 200 dead horses from Manhattan…a day. Tugboats still ply the harbors and coast, working the same channels and dealing with the same tides, but the rest of the world has moved on in its attitudes, definitions, and measures. The classic tug is an icon of an era, like a fedora, a newspaper, or a pocket watch. I look back to the mid-1900s through photos such as those in this book, and it’s clear that we didn’t have anywhere near what we have now, but in some ways, we had enough. There’s a lot to be said for black and white. n ICON |

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harper’s FINDINGS The average American girl born in 2019 will take prescription drugs for more than half her life, former members of the U.S. Special Forces with various neuropsychiatric problems experienced positive effects after taking ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT at a clinic in Mexico, and depressed patients given either ketamine or a placebo during a routine surgery reported significant improvements. Researchers using the Defeat Scale confirmed that internal migrant workers in Shenzhen felt defeated. Autistic people are less susceptible to the bystander effect, and ADHD trebles the chances of an Israeli adult developing dementia. Excessive fluoride in the well water of rural Ethiopian communities causes cognitive impairment in children. Homozygosity among the Namibian Himba people decreases female fertility. Primatologists conclusively established the occurrence of menopause among adult female chimpanzees of the Ngogo community, and noted that the chimpanzees were post-reproductive for about a fifth of their lives, half the time observed in female hunter-gatherers. The presentation scene on the Ivory Pyxis Lid of Mochlos may not depict the crowning of a short king. Ur was not as resistant to urban sprawl as was previously thought. Declassified Cold War satellite imagery revealed 396 previously undiscovered Roman forts spanning from Aleppo to Mosul on an east–west axis, contradicting the theory of a north–south axis introduced by Father Antoine Poidebard following his biplane survey of the region in the Twenties. Before the colonization of Australia, many aboriginal people buried dingoes with rites indistinguishable from those used for humans. Mummified mice discovered atop desolate, high-altitude Andean volcanoes were found to have traveled there on their own, and were not accidentally transported by the Inca in the course of ritualistic child sacrifice. The Long Valley Caldera is unlikely to erupt again soon but may still cause earthquakes, Siberia’s permafrost crater is growing, and the Ruki may be the blackest large blackwater river on Earth. Engineers developed a cost-efficient smartphone attachment to better analyze the pupils of people with very dark eyes. Hoarders can more easily part with their possessions if they first do so in virtual reality. Shortages of carbohydrates, above other foodstuffs, were deemed most likely to trigger civil unrest in the United Kingdom. Headless compression screws were found not to cause significant tendon damage when inserted into the metacarpals of eight fresh, frozen cadaver hands, different species of planarian flatworm independently evolved the ability to regrow a lost head, and a new worm species was discovered in the intestine of a black-necked swan in Patagonia. Bird flu reached Antarctica. Roosters appear to understand that their reflection is not another rooster. Tau regulation in kingfishers may protect them from diving-related brain injuries. A male streaked shearwater trapped in Typhoon Faxai for eleven hours completed five loops around the eye of the storm. Severe space weather was found to reduce nocturnal bird migration over the Great Plains by 9 to 17 percent. NASA’s new moon suit will be designed by Prada. n 30

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INDEX Chance that an item purchased during the 2022 holiday season was returned: 1 in 5 Portion of American men who say they binge drink on New Year’s Eve: 1/2 % change over the past decade in the number of Americans making New Year’s resolutions to lose weight: −54 % of Americans who have used Ozempic to lose weight: 15 Who say they know someone who has: 47 % of doctors who have used Ozempic to lose weight: 14 % increase since 2000 in the average U.S. family health insurance premium: 272 % increase over the past year in the number of U.S. home foreclosures: 22 Minimum number of Americans who live out of their cars: 50,000 Portion of employees who say their employer has recently asked workers to take on additional responsibilities: 3/5 % decrease over the past year in the number of Americans quitting their jobs: 14 In the number of job postings: 6 % increase over the past year in the number of U.S. students starting accounts on LinkedIn: 73 % by which Gen Z-ers are making more connections on LinkedIn than millennials: 29 Than baby boomers: 144 % increase since 2018 in use of the phrase “generational opportunity” on corporate earnings calls: 3,800 % change in the value of a U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF in the month after Hamas’s attack on Israel: +9 % of Americans five days after the attack who said it was important that we cooperate closely with Israel: 65 That we protect Palestinians: 15 Portion of Americans who think the “moderate” describes their political views well: 1/5 % by which more Democrats than Republicans think this: 39 % of voters who think Joe Biden is too old to effectively serve another 4-year term: 68 Who think Donald Trump is too old to effectively serve another four-year term: 34 % of Republicans who support instituting a maximum age limit for presidential candidates: 57 Of Democrats who do: 60 Portion of Americans who believe that climate scientists are influenced by their personal political views: 3/5 % of Democrats who believe this: 43 Of Republicans: 86 % of Americans who say climate scientists understand the causes of climate change “very well”: 14 % of Ukrainians who expect to join NATO in the next decade: 69 Who expect to join the European Union in the next decade: 73 % decrease over the past year in the number of Ukrainians who approve of U.S. leadership: 20 Portion of Americans who believe they are smarter than the average person: 2/3 % of adults who are at somewhat pessimistic about the country’s education system: 59 About the country’s moral and ethical standards: 63 Minimum estimated number of U.S. children in foster care: 391,000 Average age of a child in foster care: 8 % by which more U.S. households have a dog than a child: 12.5 % of Americans who are hoping to inherit money: 58 Who are hoping to inherit a pet: 59 SOURCES 1 Appriss Retail (Irvine, Calif.); 2 American Addiction Centers (Brentwood, Tenn.); 3

YouGov (NYC); 4–6 Tebra (Newport Beach, Calif.); 7 KFF (San Francisco); 8 ATTOM Data (Irvine, Calif.); 9 Harper’s research; 10 Gallup (Washington); 11,12 Bureau of Labor Statistics; 13–15 LinkedIn (Sunnyvale, Calif.); 16 AlphaSense (NYC); 17 iShares (NYC); 18–21 YouGov; 22–25 Quinnipiac University (Hamden, Conn.); 26–28 The Survey Center on American Life (Washington); 29 Pew Research Center (Washington); 30–32 Gallup; 33 Chris Chabris, Geisinger Health System (Lewisburg, Pa.); 34,35 Pew Research Center; 36,37 Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (Dublin, Ohio); 38 U.S. Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.)/American Veterinary Association (Schaumburg, Ill.); 39,40 OnePoll (Brooklyn, N.Y.).


ARCTIC CIRCLE

BY ELIZABETH C. GORSKI (EDITED BY FRANCIS HEANEY

In this puzzle the entire word snow fits in one box following the appropriate clue ACROSS 1 Holiday entrees 5 Bouquets-to-order co. 8 Do axels and lutzes 13 Alliance 19 Ready for anything 21 Jets quarterback Rodgers 22 Picking up mistletoe for the holiday office party, e.g. 23 Fruit-filled German pastries 24 NBA great Wilt “The ___” Chamberlain 25 Donates 10 percent 26 Musical direction to get gradually louder: Abbr. 27 On track to win 28 Series opener? 29 “The ___ Trilogy” 31 Guest singer on Paul Simon’s “Gone at Last” 33 Posed for a portrait 34 Slap bracelets, flash mobs, etc. 38 Flaky November precipitation, perhaps 40 “Milk” director ___ Van Sant 41 White House press secretary under George W. Bush 43 Bordeaux brainstorm 44 Beelike 45 Dyeing vessel 46 Stuffs the piggy bank 47 Chide for naughtiness 48 Visitor who’s out of this world? 50 Site of one of Hercules’ tasks 51 Words on a gift package label 52 Promotes with enthusiasm 53 Shared-office business that filed for bankruptcy in 2023 54 “The Family Stone” actress Diane 55 California airport, on luggage tags 56 Common pasta suffix 57 Gogo’s pal in “Waiting for Godot” 59 “Star Wars” heroine 60 British scientist and author of “Strangers and Brothers” 63 Restricted areas on a parade route...or an alternate puzzle title 66 Hoodwinked 67 Father-and-daughter boxers 68 Vega’s constellation 69 “Gosh!” 70 Fruitcake morsel 72 Gangster’s gun 74 Ducklings’ dads 76 Some famed frescoes 81 Like Santa Claus 82 “Prometheus” star Elba 83 Upstaged

84 Indigo plants 85 Puget Sound, for one 86 Christmas stocking end 87 “Semper Fidelis” composer 88 High-pitched bark 89 Winter wishes for school kids 90 “The Joy Luck Club” author Amy 91 “Cool” winter figure with wings 92 Method: Abbr. 93 Ann Patchett’s “___ Canto” 94 Equipment for Olympic gold medalist Chloe Kim 96 Brooklyn ___ (NYC nabe) 97 “Armageddon” author Leon 99 Timber wolves 101 Respond to the alarm clock 103 “Scream” feeling 106 “The Yankee Doodle Boy” songwriter 107 Props in portrayals of Poseidon 110 “My parents are gonna ground me, for sure!” 111 ___ Selassie, former Ethiopian ruler 112 Ones who make calls for a living? 113 Muscle cramps, e.g. 114 Teen faves 115 Halifax winter hrs. 116 Throws in

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 20

27 Be contiguous with 28 “Say Hey Kid” Willie 29 Make ___ buck (profit quickly) 30 Maid of honor at Prince William’s wedding 32 “The Candy House” novelist Jennifer 33 Elude the bouncer 35 Rescued cat or dog, e.g. 36 Shoulder muscle DOWN 37 Scenic Arizona resort Some printers 39 Santa’s toy-filled tote Frick collection 41 “___ Shanter” (Burns poem) Capricious 42 Goes too far, with “it” Egg on 45 Like a jet’s trail Newly fallen flakes 46 Item that produces pins Verizon, e.g. and needles Driller’s deg. 47 “___ Will Be Loved” (Maroon 5 Robe accessories single) TV journalist and anchor of the Sunday edition of “NBC Nightly 49 Muted, as sound 50 “The Real Housewives of News” Atlanta” star Leakes Many a solo in Bach’s 51 Downwardly mobile type’s “Christmas Oratorio” clothes? Spilled the beans 53 Like Gandalf’s powers Tolkien creature 58 ___ fever (tropical ailment) Repeated phrase in a yuletide 60 Barrister and human rights favorite advocate Amal Environmental activist 61 Seed-producing flower parts Brockovich 62 The Statue of Liberty and the Custom-made “blanket” Sphinx, perhaps, at a winter provided by a winter resort carnival “So frustrating!” 64 Second but not minute, e.g. French article 65 Snazzy couple? Publishing pros: Abbr. 67 Orderly groupings Proficiency ICON |

71 Discard 73 Tunisian tennis sensation ___ Jabeur 75 Greek god of war 77 Dance-a-___ (fundraising event) 78 Made stronger 79 Start 80 Elite Navy group 83 Actress Chaplin 85 “Beware the ___ of March” 86 New Mexico resort 89 Part-time Florida residents 90 Chophouse orders 91 Winter pileup 94 Yuletide projectile ... or the puzzle theme suggested by the placement of eight special squares 95 Hard-to-find collectibles, casually 98 Meander 99 Washing machine unit 100 Dayton’s state 102 Antitoxins 103 “___ the season ...” 104 Japanese ruler: Abbr. 105 Vitamin stat 106 Greek letter 107 “___-la-la” 108 “The Good Place” actor Danson 109 Sound from a hot wok Solution on page 26 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4 | I C O N D V. C O M

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