ICON Magazine

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Painting, Mosaic,

Art Across the River New Hope Arts Center

Jim Rodgers: Perspectives from the Road Silverman Gallery

Glass

Referentem Mundum by Gabriel Rico Williams Center Gallery at Lafayette College

Fernando Trueba

Trueba’s cinematic work includes Grammy Award wins and nominations for his documentary about Latin music giants Calle 54, Bebo De Cuba and Juntos Para Siempre. Starting in March, audiences across the U.S. will learn what festival crowds have known since 2023: that They Shot the Piano Player is as magical, musically, as it is, socio-politically—and vice-versa.

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

Since 1992

215-862-9558 icondv.com

Raina Filipiak filipiakr@comcast.net

Joanne Smythe

Margaret M. O’Connor

Ricardo Barros

Robert Beck

Geoff Gehman

Fredricka Maister

David Stoller

Keith

Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975), Self-Portrait with Rita, 1922 oil on canvas, 49 1/2 X 40 in. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jack H. Moone

THE STURGEON SHOP

THERE ARE SEVERAL STORESwhere you can get smoked fish on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, but it’s safe to say there is only one Murray’s Sturgeon Shop; a small, old-school place on Broadway between 89th & 90th.

Murrays is different from the other big-name stores famous for their smoked fish. Zabars—everybody knows Zabars—is an institution. It’s like a supermarket, with a second floor full of kitchen and dining ware. The downstairs is a Jewish Deli gone exponential. Not only do they have everything, they have lots of everything. When they

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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

exhibitions

International Women

Oil Painting, Mosaic, Stained Glass

Nazareth Center for the Arts

30 E. Belvidere Street, Nazareth, PA 484-554-5867 nazaretharts.org

Hours: Fri.-Sun., 12–3

Through March 31

Artist Reception March 8, 6–8

Monika Stefany bares the souls of her subjects, depicting a diverse group of women informed by her world travels. Judy Holland, a mosaic artist who finds inspiration in faces. Holland’s mosaics play with vintage china patterns and textures, using broken items to create portraits. Marie Jeanne Habba, a stained glass artist with roots in Guinea Conakry, West Africa, explores spirituality, sacred femininity, and West African culture in her depictions of the female figure.

Art Across the River New Hope Arts Center

2 Stockton Ave., New Hope, PA newhopearts.org artsbridgeonline.com

March 21–31 | Fri., Sat., Sun. 12–5

Opening & awards, 3/21, 4:30–7:00

A Spring Salon by members of Artsbridge and New Hope Arts features paintings, drawings, photography, sculpture and other media.

Six awards will be announced at the opening reception at 6:00. A People’s Choice Award will be announced at the close of show. Awards are sponsored by The First National Bank of Newtown, Jerry’s Artarama of Lawrenceville, and others. Juror is artist and curator Clifford Eberly, exhibitions associate at the Hicks Art Center Gallery at Bucks County Community College.

Jim Rodgers: Perspectives from the Road Silverman Gallery

Buckingham Green, 4920 York Rd. Route 202, Holicong, PA 215-794-430 silvermangallery.com

March 16–April 14

Open W-Sat. 11–6; Sun., 11–4 and by appt Reception 3/16, 5–8 & 3/17, 1–4

The Silverman Gallery of Bucks County Impressionist Art presents recent paintings from this popular artist. “Painting Bucks County allows me to express the true Impressionistic painter inside of me.” Jim fondly remembers his early sojourns into Bucks County. His wife and daughter would spend the day in New Hope with Jim painting in plein air. As he revisits his favorite places he says,“Over 30 years of painting Bucks County and it never gets old.”

Marie Jeanne Habba, Ti Bi Li La (The Cook in Mandingo), Stained Glass.

Monika Stefany, Indian Girl, oil on canvas.

Shawn Campbell, Positive Thoughts, 16” h x 10” w x 6” d, speckled stoneware clay with underglaze and oxides and underglaze transfers

Bob Barish, The Quaker Farmstead, Princeton, NJ, 18" x 24”, oil on board

Afternoon Light, St. Patrick's Day, 16 x 20, oil on board

Grand Central, 20 x 16, oil on board

Referentem Mundum by Gabriel Rico

Williams Center Gallery at Lafayette College 317 Hamilton Street, Easton, PA 18042

Wed.–Sun. 12–5

March 6–May 3

Artist Talk, 3/7, 4:30, Reception at 5:30

This exhibition examines how artist Gabriel Rico considers his surroundings through found objects, topology, and environmental politics. Referentem Mundum (Latin for calculating the world) describes Rico’s practice of world-making through assemblages that are structured with mathematical logic and cladded with ethical considerations for history, culture, and ecology.

El problema de la encuadernación, mixed media.

Rather than the obvious object (Verification), 2021. Sculpture unique hand-cut brass, hand-painted ceramic, metal, neon & branches. 550 x 140 x 16 cm

Courtesy of Perrotin and the artist. Photographer Guillaume Ziccarelli. IV from the series, The poller and exactor of fees, 2020. Brass, neon, stone, plastic, sticker, mixed media. 92.1×132.1×6.4 cm | 36 1/4×52×2 1/2 inches.

the art of poetry

All American

The river beckons:

‘Look how I’ve swelled

With the morning rains,

See the bleached sycamores

On the far shore,

Listen to the chorus

Of the wild geese gathered”.

My feet sink into the bank, On this square of soil, Mine the most recent Of generations who stood here, This river in their blood, Marveling at the same bounty.

The early Americans,

Whose ancestry we proudly claim, And whose tools, jugs, quilts and chairs We still use and treasure, Recorded their deeded ownership of this land, Its meets and bounds, so precisely; No less their careful directives dispossessing Its prior inhabitants, the Lenape,

Now scattered in the American west, Known to us by odd roadway and place names, Who flourished once along this river.

I feel their presence, especially

When the sun rises and the waters dance, And swirl, and sing … The deepest pleasure life could afford, And its greatest sorrow.

I acquired this painting, All American, nearly forty years ago. The artist, Pauline Campanelli (1943-2001), was an American painter known principally for her still lifes of ordinary objects, captured in meticulous detail, often arranged (as is the case here) in compositions inspired by Piet Mondrian, who was a great influence on her work. Her art is collected all over the country, particularly as prints—remarkably, she has sold more paintings than any American painter except Andrew Wyeth.

This painting has lived in my subconscious since I acquired it.

DAVID STOLLER

The objects she used all came from her 18th-century colonial stone home, all creating an aura of an earlier time. But what has resonated most deeply for me was that which is missing from All America—the Lenape, the original inhabitants of Bucks County, who were here for thousands of years before the arrival of European settlers in the 17th Century. They were the original caretakers of this land they called Lenapehoking, and flourished along the Delaware for generations before they were uprooted and resettled out west. Campanelli’s striking work, more than anything else, reminds me of their absence. 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

THE FLAME OF RECOGNITION

What do we see when we make a photograph? I don’t think our mind’s eye visualizes the finished work exactly. Edward Weston wrote: “My eyes are no more than scouts … the camera’s eye may entirely change my original idea ...” In other words, it may not be what we see. It may be the “flame of recognition” that motivates us to bring out our cameras. Camera in hand, we search for the clarity that gives voice to our inspiration. Composition—what we include in the frame, whether we move left or right—”is the strongest way of seeing.” We photograph when we sense a reward—even if we don’t initially see “the thing itself.” Our completed photograph is the outcome of this search.

We cannot escape our history. A past event, even if unknown to us, sways our perspective. A wave traveling through time may be a ripple when it laps our feet, but that ripple has the strength to prescribe opportunities and influence choices. A century ago, Edward Weston struggled to articulate the relationship between art and photography. What he saw and photographed was new to everyone then. But now, that novelty is gone. The photographs Weston (and a legion of others) made are, at a minimum, subliminally known to us. Consequently, we now risk making photographs because the subject looks like a photograph. The flame has been diverted.

If we know exactly what a photograph will look like before making it, we’ve probably seen it before. Our work may be just another instance of someone else’s observation. My goal as an artist is to move the conversation forward. We must not only know and respect our histories, but also see our subjects with present-day eyes. 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

the list

VALLEY

CITY

GEOFF GEHMAN

Tony Danza is an entertainment middleweight, a fitting fighting role for a former boxer. He corners spectators with a jabbing grin, a hooking swagger, the pummeling pizazz of an engaging bull. His Italian chutzpah served him well on Taxi and suits him better in Standards and Stories, his club-as-ring show. He remembers his bobbysoxer

mother adoring Frank Sinatra; croons Our Love Is Here to Stay, which he crooned during Sinatra’s 80th-birthday celebration; turns Love Potion No. 9 into a ukulele ditty. And his feet are fleet enough to inspire a Tennessee band to call itself the Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza. (April 5, Musikfest Café, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem; 610-3321300; steelstacks.org)

A major attraction of The Phantom of the Opera is a grand chandelier crashing thunderously. On March 8 the State Theatre’s grand chandelier will become an operatic prop for a concert starring four tenors who had long stretches as the half-masked (anti-)hero of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s boffo blockbuster. Expect a “Music of the Night” performed

A.D. AMOROSI

Can we give March a great name or better theme beyond the month before April’s Showers or the death of Julius Caesar? Maybe something more for Women’s History Month celebrations or in wild celebration of opening day festivities’ for the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park? Please?

Alexey Brodovitch: Astonish Me at the Barnes Foundation pays tribute to the legendary art director of Harper’s Bazaar (from 1934 to 1959) and how the Russian design genius shaped the magazine’s mod aesthetic and inspired the sculptural vibe of photographers from Avedon to Mapplethorpe. At the Barnes Foundation through May. Yay.

The month starts big and runs far with the annual tradition of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and its 2024 iteration of the Philadelphia Flower Show “United by Flowers.” Set at the Pennsylvania Convention Center until March 10, I can’t think what isn’t actually unified by flora and fauna, but any excuse for a party for plant life works for me, especially

Tony Danza.

film roundup

May December (Dir. Todd Haynes). Starring: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton. The Mary Kay Letourneau-Vili Fualaau tabloid love affair gets the Todd Haynes treatment, helped along by a stellar cast (Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman and Charles Melton), and an Academy Award-nominated script by Samy Burch. Portman plays Elizabeth, an actress who comes to stay with the Letourneau and Fualaau figures (here renamed Gracie and Joe) to study them and get inspiration for her role in an upcoming movie about their lives. Mutual discomfort is at a simmer from the start and moral boundaries are crossed with little effort and frequently black comic affront. (The Persona-esque back-and-forth between Elizabeth and Gracie is especially potent in the throat-stuck guffaws it inspires.) Haynes and his performers dole out all the mortification masterfully. As the film goes on, our sympathies shift and our thoughts on who these people become ever muddier. This is a great movie about the messiness of human behavior, about how love can be as injurious as it is healing, about the many terrible things that, as Elizabeth says after an especially egregious act, “adults do.” [R] HHHHH

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.

The Greatest Night in Pop (Dir. Bao Nguyen). Documentary. Even those who weren’t there surely know “We Are the World” (composed as a charity single in the 1980s for hunger relief in Africa) via pop-cultural osmosis. For its first third, Bao Nguyen’s documentary treats the

KEITH UHLICH

creation of the song — penned by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson, with production assistance from Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones —

Charles Melton and Julianne Moore in May December

Frenando Trueba. Photo by Daniel Alea.

conversation

DIRECTOR FERNANDO TRUEBA

Animation, the bossa nova and fascism in They Shot the Piano Player

BEFORE THEY SHOT THEPiano Play-

er—directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s new, animated look at Brazilian jazz musician Francisco Tenório Júnior and his closest associates in the worlds of bossa nova and Tropicalia—few knew who the pianist was, let alone that he was kidnapped amidst the fascist regimes of Argentina in the 1970s, and more than likely murdered at its behest.

In fact, in a small way, knowing that Tenório was an innovative pianist who accompanied the likes of Gal Costa, Egberto Gismonti, Milton Nascimento, and Edison Machado on the near-revolutionary E Samba Novo (1963) who made but one album as a leader, Embalo (1964) before his disappearance in 1976, is secondary to the notion of obsession that drives this film’s narrative.

Bwill learn what festival crowds have known since 2023: that They Shot the Piano Player is as magical, musically, as it is, socio-politically—and vice-versa. Beyond its tribute to bossa nova, and Tenório, of course, They Shot the Piano Player speaks (finally, as I’m not its greatest fan), about the innovative prowess of animated filmmaking.

Pushing his fascination with all things music in cinematic fashion is, according to Trueba, part of his nose for great ideas. “When I find a good story, I do something—a screenplay, a film,” said the director from his home in Madrid. “My milieu as a filmmaker is artists, writers, painters, and musicians. And,

first thought. The more questions he asked, and the additional album sessions that he discovered of Tenório’s only led Trueba further down into the rabbit hole. “Finally, I found that he had one leader album, that it was not readily available—and yet I found only one copy on eBay in Japan—and I kept asking questions until I found out that he had mysteriously disappeared in Argentina.”

What else could you say of someone (Trueba, a Best Foreign Film Oscar-winning director for 1992’s Belle Époque) whose thirst for knowledge after hearing Embalo drove him to interview all the players and lovers who knew the pianist (including Tropicalia’s godfather Caetano Veloso), then write a film with a central fictional character (voiced by Jeff Goldblum) asking all of the same questions? What else could you say of someone who crafts the animation of They Shot the Piano Player with as many rich and varied emotional lines and hues as its soundtrack?

Only someone whose cinematic oeuvre includes documentaries on progressive Latin music giants Calle 54, the samba-riffic animated film Chico & Rita (also created with artist-director Mariscal), and a handful of Grammy Award wins and nominations for his production work with Calle 54, Bebo De Cuba and Juntos Para Siempre. Starting in March, audiences across the United States

“WHO WAS THIS PIANIST with the strange name who I liked immediately,” was Trueba’s first thought. THE MORE QUESTIONS HE ASKED, and the additional album sessions that he discovered of Tenório’s only led Trueba FURTHER DOWN INTO THE RABBIT HOLE.

I am a big music fan, so music has happened often for me, and not just in the films you mentioned. I can see life and warmth through these artists, through this music.”

Acting much like Goldblum’s fictional journalist in They Shot the Piano Player, Trueba was making a movie in Brazil and bought a handful of albums near the set. While the albums featured musicians that he long knew and loved, one unknown stood out for the director for his innovative, lyrical lines. “Who was this pianist with the strange name who I liked immediately,” was Trueba’s

Then he kept asking more questions, only this time the questions grew deeper and more specific toward Trueba’s long list of Brazilian musician friends, several of whom knew Tenório well. “Caetono not only thought that Tenório was an incredible pianist, the two were scheduled to start on a recording project when he came back from that final trek to Argentina,” said the director.

From 2005 to 2007, Trueba filmed over 140 interviews in Brazil, Argentina, and the United States. Anyone who had a Tenório story, big or small, got their chance to speak. Yet, rather than turn these interviews about Tenório into a documentary of little else but talking heads (or a biopic, or even a book, as he once considered) Trueba decided that animation would allow this biographical document to breathe more freely and imaginatively. “When you see a biopic, it doesn’t matter how good it is. Take Bird, the dramatic film about Charlie Parker. You watch it and think how good an actor Forrest Whitaker is, performing as Charlie Parker. For one second though, I don’t believe that he is Charlie Parker. Now, with animation, you hear Charlie Parker playing, and you can more readily accept that. When I did that with Tenório, I could see him as alive. Rather than do him as CONTINUED ON PAGE 29

LAUGHING AT PRESIDENTS

I HATE TO TAKE the Jon Stewart-like middle ground when it comes to pointing fingers and assigning blame when it comes to the 2024 Presidential election. But it is genuinely impossible not to panic about having to lean to one side solely when it comes to not liking our choices among candidates Joe Biden, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Donald Trump. There’s not even a Hobson's choice you could lob at the situation. If there has ever been a reason or time for equal opportunity disgust (and I know that ex-President Trump has the heaviest load to bear when it comes to despising an elected official), this slice of the 21st century will be hard to live up to—or live down, depending on how the election flushes out.

And though President Biden’s doddering elder gentleman schtick is wearing as thin as Kennedy’s growing list of quirky conspiracy models, the two of them together still offer slim opportunities for joking when it comes to the misadventures of ex-President Trump.

Not counting his very real crimes and misdemeanors (crimes that, of this counting, will cost the one-time president and real estate mogul $454 million for his civil fraud judgment to say nothing of the $88.3 million he owes columnist E. Jean Carroll for defaming her), Trump’s electoral choices in word and deed, in 2024 alone, are hilarious, when they aren’t truly dangerous.

DONALD TRUMP'S $400 GOLDEN SNEAKERS

During February’s SneakerCon in Philadelphia, and elsewhere along the 2024 campaign trail, Trump has presented his MAGA brood with the gold “Never Surrender High-Tops” emblazoned with the oversized ‘T’ logo. Though their initial run sold out fairly quickly, it didn’t take long for comedians such as Philly’s own Shane Gillis to lampoon their very existence and point out their secret charms. “They give me the power to say I’m good at basketball, then double down on that until people start to believe it,” Gillis teased during a Saturday Night Live appearance, side-glancing toward Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 election being stolen from him. If Trump making his sneak-

ers doesn’t bring him closer to Kanye West (both have seemed enamored of the other in the past),

DONALD TRUMP’S TRUMP LIKENING HIS SITUATION TO THE PLIGHT OF BLACK AMERICANS

Any of his psychic, narcissistic connections to Kanye West aside, Trump spent much of February hinting blatantly that he could genuinely relate to the generations of racism that Black Americans have made to face when pitted against the U.S. legal system. You know, since he’s had four criminal indictments being brought against him, and counting. That he said all this during rallies in South Carolina a state where bigotry, hate, and racism first set up tent, proves how deluded and un-empathetic Trump can be, if he wasn’t being… you know… persecuted for the color of his skin.

DONALD TRUMP AND THE MATTER OF PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY

In seeking to dismiss any of the indictments charging Donald Trump with having mishandled classified materials and obstructed government efforts to retrieve those same documents, the former president always sought out a brand of conquering king-like immunity, that if he did it while acting as a sitting president it’s all OK. Especially when it comes to designating records as personal under the Presidential Records Act and bringing that same official paperwork and secret documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago for matters of national security. Confusing the presidency with a dictatorship is something Trump seems to have a problem with—something he’ll surely take up with (or over the head of) Congress when he gets elected soon.

A TALKING TRUMP IS A TROUBLESOME TRUMP

Yes, that’s pretty much the case all of the time, as he buries himself deeper with every case from E. Jean to his real estate matters in Manhattan—every time he opens his mouth, he sinks himself.

And to this—all this—you must laugh to keep from crying. n

film classics

La Belle Noiseuse (1991, Jacques Rivette, France/Switzerland)

Watching paint dry was never as riveting as it is in Jacques Rivette’s drama about an artist, Frenhofer (Michel Piccoli), inspired to come out of retirement after he meets his seemingly perfect muse, the vacationing Marianne (Emmanuelle Béart). We never see the purported masterpiece that results from the pair’s interactions, which Rivette traces over the course of nearly four hours. Instead we’re privy to charged glances and pregnant silences, as well as to the often real-time scratch of pencil on paper, as a figure emerges from the poetic ether. The process of creation is the crux of the spectacle, and you may be surprised how much tension Rivette wrings out of the film’s deceptively placid surface, not to mention from its gorgeously sun-dappled southof-France locales. The canvas becomes the focal point for the characters’ battle of wills, and by the end it feels, despite the lack of literal causalities, as if we’ve survived a war. (Streaming on MUBI.)

Robinson Crusoe (1953, Luis Buñuel, Mexico/United States)

The great Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel had a rare commercial hit with this adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s survivalist novel. Oscar-nominated Dan O’Herlihy (who modern audiences may recognize as the elderly CEO from the RoboCop series) plays the shipwrecked Crusoe, who spends nearly three decades on an island in the Atlantic in the company of animals, cannibals and a native prisoner/eventual friend named Friday (Jaime Fernández). Those more familiar with Buñuel’s phantasmagorical films like L’Age d’Or and The Exterminating Angel may think this effort a bit too grounded, a bit too down-to-earth. Yet there’s something in the feverish ambience that permeates every one of the movie’s 89 minutes that make it as much a classic of its director’s oeuvre as any of his official masterpieces. (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)

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KEITH UHLICH

Emmanuelle Be art in La Belle Noiseuse ( 1991)

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with a guest heroine as well as such non-Phantom ear worms as “Danny Boy” and “The Impossible Dream.” The best-known former

Phantom is Franc D’Ambrosio, who appeared as the wounded organist a titanic 2,300-plus times and who made The Godfather III stink a little less as Michael Corleone’s robust opera-singing son. (453 Northampton St., Easton; 800-999-7828; statetheatre.org)

Mauro is a circus clown who imagines his funeral as a surreal circus. Cirque du Soleil Corteo transforms his dream into an acrobatic jamboree of bungee jumping, trampolining and chandeliering for six clowns, a whistling ringmaster and an angel. Launched in 2005 in Montreal, the company has visited 20 countries, long ago graduating from

big top to arena. (March 28-31, PPL Center, 701 Hamilton St., Allentown; 484-273-4490; pplcenter.com)

The YouTube screen sizzles as the members of Las Cafeteras cavort through “Oaxaca Love Song No. 2,” a rave perfect for beach party or go-go joint. Named after a café hangout in their East Los Angeles neighborhood, the sextet embellishes everything from cumbia to punk with Mexican folk melodies, traditionally percussive shoes and the buzzing rattle of an animal jawbone. Their conscience soars in songs support-

ing migrant workers and the survivors of over 500 women killed over 18 years in Juarez, Mexico. (March 8, Baker Hall, Zoellner Arts Center,

Lehigh University, 420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem; 610-758-2787; zoellnerartscenter.org)

The Laramie Project is a circle-the-wagons experience, a theatrical deep dive into a Wyoming community wrestling with the horrific torture and murder of a gay college student named Matthew Shepard. Eight actors play 60-plus characters in a script stitched from news reports, researchers’ journal entries and witness interviews. (March 711, Kopacek Hall, Northampton Community College, 3835 Green Pond Rd., Bethlehem; 484-484-3412; northamptontheatreprograms.edu)

Paul Simon’s Graceland project introduced the world to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who graced “Homeless” with exquisite moonlit sorrow and added sparkling jiving joy to “Diamonds on the Soles of Her

The Four Phantoms

Las Cafeteras

The Laramie Project

Shoes.” The South African men roam their own Graceland, conjuring animals, elements and spirits with magnetically mercurial vocals and movements. I like to think of them as a snaking, shaking, stomping

centipede on roller skates. (March 10, Baker Hall, Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University, 420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem; 610-758-2787; zoellnerartscenter.org)

Lisa Hilton is a composing pianist who channels the vibes of creators as diverse as blues pioneer Robert Johnson and pointillist painting pioneer Georges Seurat. Coincidental Moment, the latest of her 27 CDs, is a deft, dazzling collection of originals (“Uncommon Poetry”) and

covers (the Evans/Davis classic “Blue in Green”). She and her trio will invigorate Miller Symphony Hall’s popular “Jazz Upstairs” series on March 15, a night after sparking Carnegie Hall. (23 N. 6th St., Allentown; 610-432-6715; millersymphonyhall.org)

John McEuen did the world a world of good by coordinating Will the Circle Be Unbroken?, the 1971 double-LP summit between his Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and a holy host of country musicians. Now 78 and leading the Circle Band, he remains a marvelously fluid fiddler, picker and plucker; a congenial storyteller/host, and an Americana godfather.

(March 22, Godfrey Daniels, 7 E. 4th St., Bethlehem, 610-867-2390; godfreydaniels.org)

Joseph Bologne was an exceptionally talented, extremely celebrated polymath in 18th-century Europe who happened to be a free man of color. He wrote symphonies and comic operas, conducted orchestras, taught music to Marie Antoinette, and served as a Republican colonel

during the French Revolution. His expert fencing made John Adams gush that he could pop anyone’s buttons. On March 24 one of Bologne’s three piano/violin sonatas will be performed by violinist Michael Jorgensen, who teaches at Lehigh University, and pianist Steven Beck, a regular with the New York Philharmonic. Prepare for a rare treat by watching Chevalier, a 2022 biopic of the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. (Baker Hall, Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University, 420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem; 610-758-2787; zoellnerartscenter.org) 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

Lisa Hilton.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Michael Jorgensen

John McEuen

CITY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

when you consider that this year’s PHS Entrance Garden—always a premiere source of amazement and wonder at the show—touches on an “innovative use of water as an artistic medium, with its largest-ever self-made glass-like centerpiece” showcasing freestanding and floating floral sculptures.

Nicki Minaj is one of female hip hop’s most combative characters. Meghan Thee Stallion. Cardi B., Remy Ma, Miley Cyrus, Mariah Carey,

even Taylor Swift has fallen under the (figurative) fists of Nicki. Still, she’s got the chops and shots to keep her victorious in the ring and on March 29, she brings her battle rhymes and Black Barbie kitsch to the Pink Friday 2 World Tour stages of the Wells Fargo Center with special guest, 90s R&B goddess Monica.

READ GOOD STUFF

When I was coming up in New York City during the 1980s, no one was a greater beacon of light and a wearer of oversized heels than RuPaul. Whether as a broadly expressive singer, a house music goddess, or a breathtaking drag Venus, RuPaul was a “supermodel” beyond reproach. No one should be surprised by the massive, universal success and appeal of the televised RuPaul’s Drag Race. Only be shocked that it didn’t happen sooner. And now, RuPaul has written a great, stagey memoir, The House of Hidden Meanings whose chapters Ru will read from at Ensemble Arts Presents’ Perelman Theater on March 6. You better work to get those tickets.

If you think that Sting performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra March 8 and 9 at Verizon Hall seems pretentious, stand in line. Mostly everything that Sting has done outside of The Police has been a bit rarefied and precious. Yet with Sting, you really wouldn’t have it any other way if he wasn’t doing albums dedicated to lute songs and musical theater productions touching on his industrialized youth.

St. Patrick’s Day always gets the benefit (?) of multiple days of drinking and laughs. March 16’s night at Helium Comedy Club Philadelphia is an all-Irish affair with guys named Mick (Thomas, from Wex-

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Answer to CYBERCAFE

Nicki Minaj

Ru Paul

Sting

FILM

like a heist film. How do you compose a hit single in barely a month and wrangle most of the top-tier talent of the time? It ain’t easy and even though we know the tune exists, we still feel the tremendous pressure that Richie and his collaborators were under as the one-

night-only recording session approaches. Once we’re in that abundantly mic-ed up room, however, the movie settles into retrospective victory lap mode. Sure, there are some evident stresses in the archival footage, from exhaustion and hunger to the interpersonal dramas that would inevitably arise with such artists as disparate as Waylon Jennings, Cyndi Lauper, Huey Lewis, Bob Dylan, etc in each other’s orbit. But the overall mood is nostalgic, a glib longing for those “better days” when the American celebrity class’ strange mix of philanthropy and egotism could be better controlled and more convincingly sold. [PG13] HH1/2

Here (Dir. Bas Devos). Starring: Stefan Gota, Liyo Gong, Teodor Corban. A not-quite love story leisurely unfolds in Belgian writer-director

Bas Devos’s drama. Stefan (Stefan Gota) is a Romanian construction worker about to embark on a perhaps permanent vacation. Shuxiu (Liyo Gong) is a Belgian-Chinese doctoral student who specializes in the study of moss. The minutiae of each of their lives takes up most of the film: He divests himself of excess food in his fridge, cooking up pots of soup for family and friends to whom he seems, at least in the undercurrents of his conversation, to be saying farewell forever. She spends her days both in field and in front of a computer screen, pondering a verdant sub-universe that most people would pass by without a second glance. They cross paths in the Chinese restaurant run by Shuxiu’s relative, and then later by chance, an encounter that occasions a walk through the woods in which everything but romance is discussed. This is all very “lovely” in that way of many a film festival entry, but threadbare (despite some expert sound design that poetically and unsettlingly melds the hubbub of the city with the alien resonance of nearby green spaces) as far as its larger aims. [N/R] HHH

True Detective: Night Country (Dir. Issa López). Starring: Jodie Foster, Kali Reis, Fiona Shaw. The first season of HBO’s (now MAX’s) mystery series minus any input from Seasons 1-3 showrunner Nic Pizzolatto is a decidedly, and too-often self-consciously, female affair. In the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska, chief of police Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and her disgraced former partner Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) are forced to work together again after a gaggle of dead scientists are

CITY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 26

ford, Ireland) and Sean (Finnerty from Longford, Ireland) with a twodrink minimum—and don’t make it green beer.

I don’t remember anything about comedian Jo Koy’s monologue to the 2024 Golden Globes. Nor have I ever watched a Jo Koy stand-up

comedy special and been wowed. So what the fuck is he doing headlining the hockey arena sized Wells Fargo Center on March 22? Do you know anyone who likes him that much let alone 21,000 seated Philly fans? (That said, I don’t think comedian Nate Bargaze is any funnier than Koy. Yet, I hear from his khaki-vibing fans all the time, and get how he could fill the Wells Fargo on March 7).

Rapper and South Philly native Beanie Sigel has forever been this city’s most cunning and astute representative of the streets, our most

iconic hip hop soldier dedicated to old school braggadocio and every inch of its round-the-way poetry. Why shouldn’t Sigel get his shot at the big house, the classically designed The Met Philadelphia space and a Broad Street Bully showcase on March 8. n

Wanda (1970, Barbara Loden, United States)

The only feature directed by Barbara Loden (wife of and an actress in several films by Elia Kazan) is a uniquely American tale about a rural Pennsylvanian housewife, Wanda Goronski (Loden), whose life tends to the aimless. Her crises, even at their most intense, are ephemeral. Plenty of dramatic incidents occur: Divorce, job loss, a fateful crossing of paths with a criminal, Norman Dennis (Michael Higgins), with whom she goes on the run. Yet life doesn’t happen to Wanda so much as it passes her by time and again. Inbetween bouts of catatonic purposelessness, she moves forward with feral instinct, trying to survive not out of any desire or need but because there’s little else for her to do. Loden claimed the character was semiautobiographical, a way to channel the hollowness she felt in her own life and which she suspected was more universal than many people would like to admit. The ambition of this singular movie is to give voice to the unacknowledged spiritual barrenness at the heart of the land of the free. (Streaming on Max.)

Yojimbo (1961, Akira Kurosawa, Japan)

Among Japanese writer-director Akira Kurosawa’s most popular films is this classic samurai epic starring his frequent muse Toshiro Mifune

as a rōnin who wanders into a small town at the mercy of two warring factions. At first dismissed as a nuisance and later courted by criminals on both sides of the fight, the samurai proves himself to be more of a free-floating angel of death, liberating the locale by stoking the vengeful fires all around him. The sword duels and copious double-crosses are spectacular, and Mifune’s performance has a force-of-nature quintessence that is impossible to resist. This lone wolf saga proved so successful that it led to a sequel, Sanjuro, and an unofficial remake by Sergio Leone, A Fistful of Dollars—the first in that equally great artist’s Spaghetti Western trilogy starring Clint Eastwood. (Streaming on Criterion.) n

Beanie Sigel

Nate Bargaze

a documentary where he would become nothing more than a victim of violence, now he was an artist alive and flourishing.”

To their credit and the wide-ranging storyline of They Shot the Piano Player, Trueba, and Mariscal presented Tenório as a husband and a father, to say nothing of a man with flaws, unfaithful as he was

to his wife at the end of his life. “To realize that this guy was in turmoil in his head; he loved his wife so much, and this young painter Marlena too. This was a big problem that he knew he had to resolve. But he was completely ignorant of his fate. History often destroys the lives of people. There are thousands of stories such as this.”

Again to the credit of both directors, the wealth of stories, accompanying emotions, and memories—to say nothing of the manner in which each instrumental break was portrayed—each comes with its unique style of animation. “That was always built into our design,” said Trueba. “For the contemporary parts, we adopted a more realistic ap-

proach. For the flashbacks and each point of view, we developed different palettes of color and different lines of animation.”

While some of the black-and-white passages dotted through the course of They Shot the Piano Player come from various wild inspirations such as the films of Jacques Tournier (the original Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie) and the directors’ use of light and shadow, other shots were developed along the lines of simple color shifts (e.g. deep blues) to signify mood and menace.

“So much of They Shot the Piano Player was based on intuition,” said Trueba proudly, as if he was summoning the improvisational skills of the film’s subject, Tenório. “Intuition was our guide.” 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.

are busy, it’s like the circus has come to town, and you risk death by shopping cart.

Barney Greengrass isn’t quite the operation that Zabars is, but it’s still a destination with lots of products, table service, and tight quarters. It would be difficult to paint in either of these places, with the tide of people washing through.

Murray’s is a particularly clean and orderly store that is easy to make your own. It’s a classic sturgeon shop from 1946, and nowhere near the size of the other two. This being New York, the sidewalk is torn up in front, and half the block is fronted with scaffolding, so it helps to know the place is there. When I pitch doing these paintings, it’s with high spirits and limited expectations. To my delight, the owner, Ira, was gracious and easygoing. Ira mentioned that the store wasn’t much different from how it was when it opened. He pointed out a clock and an air-conditioning vent but then had to look around for something else that had changed in 75 years.

The shop is narrow. There is probably a real estate name for stores that are twelve feet wide. It makes the sign on the front look enormous. There’s no table service, outside or in, even without construction. It’s not a supermarket. The store has just enough space for customers, which meant I didn’t have the luxury of picking my vantage point. The only place I wouldn't be in the way was in the back, tucked between a cold case and a coffee grinder.

It's the owner, Ira, who makes Murray’s exceptional. He will tell you he doesn’t take himself seriously, but he takes the business and his customers very seriously. Even though he spends a lot of time in the back, he knows exactly what is going on everywhere in the store. When it started to fill, guys appeared right away, including Ira, to help take care of customers; but most of the time, he was taking orders for delivery, local and across the country. I heard him making sure the shipment to Hawaii was packaged properly for the trip.

A lot of the clientele are regulars, and their back-and-forth with the staff included first names. Some customers were quick in and out (small soup and some chopped liver), and others held to more of a ritual (I’ll have half of the Nova, and my husband would like to taste the sturgeon). Tastes are offered, anyway. It’s a great place to sample and create traditions.

There is plenty of tradition there. Noodle pudding, whitefish salad, Waldorf salad, creamed spinach (of course), a great looking chopped chicken liver, delicious tuna salad (I had some on rye. Yum), filet of Maties herring, filet of schmaltz herring, and filet of pickled herring in cream sauce, to mention just some of it. I spent time in a remote Maine fishing village, which opened me up to preserved fish, so I think I’m ready for the herring. Stay tuned.

When I was completing the painting, I put Ira in it (from memory—he was busy) because it was fun. When he came past, I asked if he could slice something so I could show it happening through the glass of the cold case. He said one of the other counter guys would do it. I questioned if the guy would be the same-handed as he. Ira said all the slicers in the business are right-handed to make sure the cut is always the same, but I don’t know—Ira has a glint in his eye, and clearly, I’m a greenhorn. What, you can’t turn the fish around?

That’s my favorite part of the painting, where you can see Ira slicing the half of Nova I ordered to take with me (along with a half-sour pickle. Best pickle I’ve ever had). Sure, it wasn’t his hands doing it, but I’m told they are all the same. n

FERNANDO TRUEBA / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

harper’s FINDINGS

Off the Five Finger Islands, a team of cetologists aboard the Glacier Seal conducted an extended conversation with a female humpback named Twain; astrophysicists argued that the development of advanced alien technology requires an atmosphere composed of at least 18 percent oxygen; and aerospace products and parts manufacturing was found to be the industry with the highest rate of male suicide. Onshore wind turbines severely deter German bats from foraging. Microturbines in water pipes could generate 1.4 gigawatts of energy in the United States each year. A physicist from the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions created three superhard carbon nitride compounds, and Cretaceous fossils unearthed in India in the Seventies were found to be the earliest known relatives of frankincense and myrrh. Archaeologists discovered a temple where early Christians worshiped Constantine’s ancestors and found two drilled molars among 3,293 Varnhem Viking teeth. An AI that was fed the employment and health data of six million Danes turned out to be more accurate than existing sociological methods at predicting if a given person was about to die.

Electric eel discharge transforms the DNA of zebrafish larvae. Early-life trauma in mice leads to behavioral consequences that can largely be avoided if the mouse pups are given Valium promptly after being traumatized. Juice-drinking chimps and bonobos recognized photos of old friends, relatives, and associates whom they hadn’t seen in decades. Mice exposed to checkerboard patterns went on to daydream of the motifs, the auras perceived by migraine sufferers are not only visual but include auditory and gustatory hallucinations, and reindeer brain waves revealed that rumination can be a form of sleep. Zoologists proposed splitting two species of sub-Saharan larks into seven, and three subspecies of soft-furred southeast Asian hedgehogs were elevated to the rank of species. Probiotics were found to improve the zootechnical performance of broiler chickens.

A mother is 4.6 percent more likely to give birth in the same month she was born, and adjacent siblings are 12.1 percent more likely to be born in the same month as one another. Menstrual products were found to contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Stress brought on by night shifts was found to worsen the quality of life of Gazan nurses, and women’s tears were found to make Israeli men 40 percent less aggressive. Defendants with “untrustworthy” facial features are more likely to receive jury recommendations for the death penalty. White British men who carry genetic variants associated with bisexuality tend to have more children and take greater risks, and thinking of God inspires American Christians to take morally neutral risks. A study of young adults who receive or perpetrate online abuse found that 30 percent do both. Researchers urged dermatologists to be alert to the possibility that “Ozempic face” may be a novel consequence of weight-loss drugs rather than a natural phenomenon. Researchers identified at least seven hundred researchers who published a new paper every six days in 2022.

INDEX

% of Americans who believe that 2023 was one of the worst years in U.S. history: 41 Portion of Americans who say that U.S. military intervention abroad usually improves a situation: 1/4

% of professors at U.S. universities who report feeling the need to self-censor when talking about the war in Gaza: 76

Of graduate students: 96

% decrease last year in the number of American adults who support banning TikTok: 24

Minimum estimated annual revenue U.S. news publishers miss out on as a result of Facebook’s use of their content: $1,900,000,000

As a result of Google’s use: $10,000,000,000

% by which private equity–owned hospitals have fewer staff members than those under other forms of ownership: 13

% increase in falls in hospitals after they are acquired by private equity firms: 27

% increase since 2002 in medical schools offering dual MD/MBA programs: 131

Minimum projected shortage, by 2034, in the number of primary care physicians in the United States: 17,800

% of Americans who say that nurses provide good care: 82

Who say that nursing homes do: 25

Number of years, on average, by which a hypochondriac will die earlier than a non-hypochondriac: 5

% of Gen Z Americans who suffer from “menu anxiety”: 86

Who ask other people to order for them at restaurants because of this: 34

Who use self-checkout aisles because of social anxiety: 38

% by which Americans making over $100,000 are more likely to steal at self-checkout: 22

% of Americans who say that the nation’s crime rates are getting worse: 77

Who say that crime is an “extremely” or “very” serious problem in their local area: 17

% decrease in murders in the United States in the past year: 12

% decrease in murders in New York City in the past year: 12

In shootings: 25

% of Americans familiar with the Central Park Five case who currently believe the defendants are not guilty: 35

% increase in the number of homeless people in New York State in the past year: 39 In the number of homeless people nationwide: 12

Factor by which this increase exceeds that of any previous year on record: 4

% of Americans who believe that homeless people experience a great deal of discrimination today: 45

% change since 2009 in the portion of white evangelical Americans who say that gay people face discrimination: −34

Who say that white evangelicals face discrimination: +43

% increase since 2018 in the portion of American 15-year-olds who are not proficient in math: 25

% of American women in the workforce who feel they are not good at their jobs: 42

Of women with college degrees who report this: 51

Portion of American men who say they could safely land a plane in an emergency if someone talked them through it: 1/2

Portion of divorced straight American women who say they were the ones who decided to end their marriage: 2/3

% of American men who believe they are their mother’s favorite child: 41

Percentage of American women who believe they are: 22

% of American adults who believe the country will be better by the time today’s children have grown up: 16

Who say they take at least one nap every day: 25

SOURCES: 1,2 YouGov (NYC); 3,4 Shibley Telhami, University of Maryland (College Park); 5 Pew Research Center (Washington); 6,7 Anya Schiffrin, Columbia University (NYC); 8 Joseph D. Bruch, University of Chicago; 9 Sneha Kannan, Harvard Medical School (Boston); 10 Howard P. Forman, Yale University (New Haven, Conn.); 11 Association of American Medical Colleges (Washington); 12,13 Gallup (Washington); 14 David Mataix-Cols, Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm); 15,16 Prezzo (London); 17,18 LendingTree (Charlotte, N.C.); 19,20 Gallup; 21 AH Datalytics (New Orleans); 22,23 NYPD Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Public Information (NYC); 24 YouGov; 25–27 Abt Associates (Rockville, Md.); 28 YouGov; 29,30 The Survey Center on American Life (Washington); 31 OECD (Paris); 32,33 The Survey Center on American Life; 34 YouGov; 35 The Survey Center on American Life; 36–39 YouGov

CYBERCAFE

BY EVAN BIRNHOLZ

ACROSS

1 Chariot race spectators

7 ___ response team

12 Numbers on some cards

16 Public ed. support grp.

19 Eager cry on Christmas morning

20 “In the same boat here,” more formally

21 Duplicitous plan

22 ___ Royal Highness

23 Crispy snacks to eat when examining your laptop’s circuitry?

25 Not to mention

27 Thus far

28 “___ on a Feeling”(hit for B.J. Thomas and Blue Swede)

29 “With friends like ___, who needs enemies?”

31 Immensely

32 Backing from a sponsor

33 Dessert wine you have when setting up an inkjet?

35 Learning experiences

38 Refer (to)

40 ___ Arizona Memorial (Pearl Harbor landmark)

41 Monthly concern for many

42 Digs, so to speak

44 Rescue worker’s headgear

48 Candy you have when typing in a URL?

51 Greek Muse of comedy

54 Shohei ___, gold medal-winning judoka

55 Devoted real effort

56 Vocal recital selection

58 Meat you have when deleting junk from your inbox?

60 Weed-removing tool

61 Attention

63 Bomb cyclones, e.g.

65 “Lord of the Flies” locale

66 Desserts you have when a website tracks your user information?

71 ___ John Such, late bassist for Bon Jovi

74 “You sure about that?”

75 Make soaking wet

76 Tool locked in a boat

79 Noodles you have when repeatedly sharing a block of text on social media?

82 Either director of “The Hudsucker Proxy”

85 Close by

87 Numerical prefix that sounds like 124 Across

88 Like neglected promises

90 Soda you have when navigating a window?

92 Time off due to illness

94 PGA Tour Champions golfer Mark

96 Stories shared across multiple generations

97 Breed of Lady Bertram’s dog in “Mansfield Park”

98University of Connecticut city

100 Neighbors of Omanis

103 Sausages you have when URLs stop working?

107 ___ stage (video game level featuring extra rewards)

108 Highlight ___ (series of clips on ESPN)

109 Cardiac CT scan image

110 Support group member?

112 Developing plant part

115 Crush, as the competition

117 Document listing the food and drink items in this puzzle?

120 Honorific for a gent

121 Kitchen chamber

122 Spiky sources of gel

123 Shameful

124 Take a crack at

125 Has a bonding moment

126 Where one goes after fouling out, in hoops

127 Plot devices in the films “Thief” and “King of Thieves”

DOWN

1 Like a favorable outlook

2 1960s sitcom role that sounds like two consecutive letters

3 React to heat, as snow

4 Black bird

5 Specialized markets

6 Curly of slapstick, e.g.

7 Tie or spice holders

8 17-time opponent of Borg in the 1970s

9 Given money

10 Rascally kid

11 Have no confidence in

12 “A Very Brady Sequel” director Sanford

13 One who RSVPed “yes”

14 “I relish reaching out to the world and its infinite beauty!” writer Lauder

15 Sub space?

16 Works on one’s image, in a way

17 Chorale voice

18 Birds ___ Real (mock conspiracy theory that states birds no longer exist and have been replaced with drones)

24 Things ruining the quiet game

26 End, as a subscription

30 Stayed out of sight

32 Orbit City pet

33 Work at, as a trade

34 Like the setting of “Babe”

35 Sound from banging two cymbals together

36 Resulted in

37 Seven-time Pro Bowl receiver Johnson

38 Not entirely closed

39 Some “slow” primates

43 Org. in “Space Jam”

44 Props for a mad scientist

45 3, for ancient 1 Across

46 Far too picky

47 Weighty book

49 “Not ___ close!”

50 It may be saved on a bus

52 Villain’s opposite

53 Oppo research for a political debate, say

57 Antique storage space

59 Fam member

62 “Sailors’ delight” at night, in a saying

64 10 of 12

66 Like roads needing salt

67 Memorization technique

68 Tide when the moon appears to be half full

69 Charged atoms

70 Electrified sword

71 Emulates Streep

72 Entrepreneur Greiner

73 Classic verses

76 Folktronica musician Beth

77 Console with Trak-Ball controllers

78 Spa wraps

80 Nickname shared by the Baseball Hall

of Famers Carlton Fisk and Iván Rodríguez

81 “Blonde” actress de Armas

83 Significant periods

84 “The universe seems neither benign ___ hostile, merely indifferent”: Carl Sagan

86 Coastal city in France

89 Went by taxi

91 Place to make an escape

93 Ollie’s puppet partner

95 Spousal abbr., maybe

98 Blaring devices

99 Palindromic explosive

101 Tangle up

102 Randall who created the webcomic “xkcd”

103 Coastal city in France

104 Run again, as an episode

105 Apt to be deceived

106 Had deep affection for

107 Show shyness

110 “You’re not fooling anyone”

111 Oil bloc letters

112 Spots for blankets

113 Textbook chapter

114 Faulty explosives

116 Key/note intro?

118 Cry of approval

119 Doc’s diagnostic

Solution on page 26