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CONVERSATION
EXHIBITIONS
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Art on the Avenue Penn Ave., West Reading
Winslow paints real-life crime dramas like Picasso wielding oils. Whether there is a blue period (The Force, or the author’s Cartel trilogy, commencing with The Power of the Dog) or his angular, cubist moment (Savages, Satori) to consider, Winslow’s incisiveness and research-heavy attention to detail make him potent and irresistible.
Artists of Yardley 10th Annual Juried Show AOY Art Center, Yardley
Fiber, Fabric, Fashion New Hope Arts Center
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Dar James Artwork A Mano Galleries
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The 2022 Spring Show Bethlehem House Gallery The 37th Annual Art Auction The Baum School of Art
DON WINSLOW Bestselling author (City on Fire), and progressive activist,
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ON THE COVER:
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A THOUSAND WORDS Approach
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This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns
THE ART OF POETRY PORTFOLIO THE LIST Valley City
Putin’s People by Catherine Belton Wayne Thiebaud: Updated Edition
FILM ROUNDUP
Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents
Apollo 10-1/2: A Space Age
Start Without Me (I’ll Be There in a Minute) by Gary Janetti
Childhood Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Omega Factor: A Novel by Steve Berry
il buco Photograph by Ricardo Barros from The Ash Medallion portfolio. “The idea for this portfolio was seeded when I came across a wooden disk, a slice of a tree some 15 inches in diameter and not quite 3 inches thick. It was an arborist’s specimen of an ash tree. I now call it the Ash Medallion. What captured my interest were the concentric rings on the medallion’s face. Their irregular pattern resembled a fingerprint. I see in these rings a reflection of my own flesh and blood. Life’s forces imprint upon each of us a traceable pattern. We come to know ourselves by this trace. These tree rings, this fingerprint, become inseparable from who we are.” —Ricardo Barros 4
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Razzmatazz: A Novel by Christopher Moore
Tokyo Vice 18 |
CLASSIC FILMS The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
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Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) Point Break (1991) Shirin (2008)
BOOKS
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WHERE TO FIND ICON HARPER’S Findings Index
PUZZLE Washington Post Crossword
ICON The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, nightlife and mad genius.
Since 1992 215-862-9558 icondv.com PUBLISHER & EDITOR Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com ADVERTISING Raina Filipiak filipiakr@comcast.net PRODUCTION Gabriel Juarez
Joanne Smythe CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
A.D. Amorosi Ricardo Barros Robert Beck Jack Byer Pete Croatto Geoff Gehman Susan Van Dongen Grigsby Mark Keresman David Stoller Keith Uhlich
PO Box 120 New Hope 18938 215-862-9558
IReproduction 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. ©2022 Primetime Publishing Co., Inc.
a thousand words
STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK
APPROACH THE BEST PART OF air travel is when the attendant tells me to put my seat back and tray upright. I spend most of every flight waiting for it to be over. Not that I’m planeophobic. My father worked for Atlantic Aviation at Teterboro Airport when I was just a tyke, and I spent the occasional Saturday as a flight-line rat. Dad was a pilot and electronics expert, and he liked to grab keys and take planes up for a “systems check.” His darling child would go with him because dad had little choice. First stop would always be the grass strip at Spring Valley, New York, where said darling would stagger out the door, fall to his knees, and throw up. After twenty minutes lying on my back in the cool grass, I was good to go again, and we continued our excursion. Sixty years later, I’m over the yips, so that’s not an issue. It’s the general inhospitality of commercial flight that annoys me. Crammed in a tube, the lines, the noise, the smells—I don’t have to tell you. And who likes commercial airports? But I love what is happening out the window when I fly. So much to see. My return flight from Munich, cradled in the capable hands of Lufthansa, C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 2 6
Robert Beck’s focus is on our here and now. A leading voice in the art community, his paintings have been featured in more than seventy juried and thirty solo gallery shows, and three solo museum exhibitions. His writing in ICON has been a reader favorite for seventeen years. ICON |
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exhibitions
Nancy Brockmon, The View From My Deck, acrylic
Artists of Yardley 10th Annual Juried Show Photograph by Blair Seitz
Art on the Avenue Penn Ave., West Reading, PA June 18, 11 – 7 (Rain or shine) FREE For information, go to Visitwestreading.org Berks County’s premier art and music festival, will showcase the work of more than 200 local and regional artists, crafters, vendors, businesses, and musicians. Artists will capture the beauty of West Reading and Berks County on canvas. The work will be unveiled Sat. at 605 Penn Ave. Safe Berks (formerly Berks Women in Crisis) will hold its “Walk for No More” against domestic abuse, and Reading City Church, SE Corner of 7th And Penn Ave., will sponsor a free “Kid’s Zone.” Art on the Avenue is hosted by the West Reading Community Revitalization Foundation (WRCRF), a non-profit organization, and sponsored by Customers Bank.
Photograph by Blair Seitz 6
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AOY Art Center, 949 Mirror Lake Rd, Yardley Hours: Friday, Saturday, Sunday 12–5 Through May 15, 2022 Selected work of 104 artists from the greater PA, NJ, and NY area. There are 129 works of art put of 350 pieces submitted for consideration. Juror Amanda Burdan, senior curator of the Brandywine River Museum of Art, said, “Community-based arts organizations are critical to the health of the arts. The large number of submissions to this exhibition, and the great variety of media, is proof of the vibrant visual art scene in Yardley and the surrounding area.” AOY awarded prizes of $1,000, $500 and $250. Jerry’s Artarama of Lawrenceville provided prizes for Honorable Mention categories.
Jill LeClair, Snooze, mixed media collage
Morgan Grabaz, Yellow Gown
Fiber, Fabric, Fashion New Hope Arts Center, 2 Stockton Ave, New Hope 215-862-9606 newhopearts.org Fri, Sat, and Sun, 12–5 May 14–June 5 Fiber Fabric Fashion is an invitational exhibition of contemporary textile art, fiber installations, and fashion & jewelry design. Showcasing unique and repurposed techniques, New Hope Arts’ popular exhibition returns with original expressions in fiber art and wearables. Activities: 5/14 & 15, 12–5 : Two-day fiber art installation by artist Lisa Sanders. May 21, 1–4: Live fashion photo shoot coordinated by curator Sandy Morrison. May 22, 1–4: Demonstration by sculptor/ fiber artist Katie Truk. May 28, 2–3: Gallery talk by contemporary quilter Michael Ross.
Michael Ross, Mutations 6 quilt
exhibitions
Amid Most Lovely Places. Abraham Darlington, Jai Alai, mixed media on Canvas, 20” x 20”
Dar James Artwork A Mano Galleries, 42 N Union Street (Old Five & Dime Building) Lambertville, NJ 609-397-0063 amanogalleries.com
Dar James: “The natural world is what inspires me most— leaves, flowers, rocks and the things of the Earth— but the things I paint are things of my imagination. The signature dot work I finish with is very methodical and meditative for me, but I also mean it to be illuminating and magical — we all need a little magic in our lives. People tell me that my trees are soothing to look at and that makes me feel really good because making art was something that came to me when not all things were clear, and it continues to be the place where I feel both grounded and enchanted. Art has super powers like that.”
The 2022 Spring Show Bethlehem House Gallery 459 Main Street, Bethlehem, PA 610-419-6262 BethlehemHouseGallery.com April 29–June 11 Closing Reception 6/11, 6–9 Wed.-Thurs. 11–7, Fri.-Sat. 12–9, Sun. 12–5 Featured artists: Abraham Darlington, Andy DiPietro, Michelle Neifert, Lauren E. Peters, Carol & Bob Postupak, Kristen Woodward.
Kristen Woodward, Honey Suckle Pig, encaustic on wood, 30” x 30”
Amid Most Lovely Places.
At This Moment.
Lauren E. Peters, Coquette, oil on canvas, 20” x 16”
Nancy Bossert, Path Always Beautiful, mixed media, 12” x 9”
The 37th Annual Art Auction The Baum School of Art 510 W. Linden St., Allentown, PA 610-433-0032 Baumschool.org Online Bidding & Viewing May 15–May 21 In-person preview night May 12, 6–8 Givergy.us/baumartauction37 In person: Rodale Galleries & Fowler Comm. Rm. Featured are over 460 works from artists of the Pennsylvania Impressionist period of Walter Baum, to almost 60 contemporary local artists. The auction allows for online bidding. The school will have the auction items available to view in-person and virtually. To view artwork for bid online: givergy.us/baumartauction37 Register, browse, and bid online. Visit and sign up as a bidder today. Once you place your bid, you can choose to receive real-time email and/or text notifications of your bids. In-person Preview Night, 5/12, 6–8.
John E. Berninger, Jordan Creek, Allentown, oil, 16” x 20” ICON |
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the art of poetry
DAVID STOLLER
Here are two beautiful paintings by Wolf Kahn and Henry Snell, and the poems they inspired. The poems are written in the form of a tanka (31-syllables, 5-lines), the predominant form of poetry in Japan for the past 1200 years (established 200 years earlier, if you’re wondering, than the 17-syllable, three-line haiku). The tanka is a favorite form of mine—when I look at a painting, its marvelously simple but exacting form provides a way for me to interpret what I see—or don’t see: the hidden narrative, the private moment, a surprising pause, a timeless impression or feeling.
End of the Wharf, by Henry Bayley Snell.
End of the Wharf
Sundrenched Barn, by Wolf Kahn.
Sundrenched Barn The sundrenched barn broods Above the prow of the hill. It is vanishing Stripped of all incidentals Swept up in color and light. wolf KaHn was one of thousands of Jewish refugee children shepherded from Nazi Germany to England as part of a rescue effort known as “kinder transport.” He settled in America, and after studying with Hans Hoffman (for whom he also worked as his studio assistant), became renowned for his resplendent abstracted landscapes that captured the intoxicating colors of forests, sky, rolling hills and … barns. He said that his art, collected by all the nation’s major museums, “is about intuition, imagination, and fantasy.”
Farewells made, he shrugs Against a chill he now feels. What was it she said? A paper scrap—a note, perhaps— Drifts past, turns, and vanishes. Henry bayley Snell (1858-1943) was among the most important of the Pennsylvania impressionists, excelling as a painter and teacher (counting Fern Coppedge among his most illustrious students). He is collected in major museums around the country, and was appointed the assistant director of fine arts under the U.S. Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900, leading an American contingent which included Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent and Thomas Eakins. He lived with his wife Florence Francis until his death in the Solebury National Bank Building at the corner of Bridge and Main Streets in New Hope.
Fourth in a series of art lectures on Zoom: Helen Frankenthaler, Thursday, May 26, 6:30 p.m. Register at bit.ly/3vm5ICe Recordings of previous presentations in the series at kehilathanahar.org/bagel-u David Stoller has had a career spanning law, private equity, and entrepreneurial leadership. He was a partner and co-head of Milbank Tweed’s global project finance practice and lead various companies in law, insurance, live entertainment and the visual arts. David has been an active art collector over the years, and is the founder of River Arts Press, which published Artists of the River Towns and a collection of his poetry, Finding My Feet. 8
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portfolio
PHOTOGRAPH BY RICARDO BARROS
THIS IS MY PORTRAIT of Joseph Acquah, a sculptor, that consists of three photographs. I photographed the (human) sculptor facing right. I photographed the sculptor’s self-portrait in bronze facing left. And both of these I placed into a third, silhouetted photograph of the sculptor’s bronze self-portrait. For me, this photograph is about introspection, and about the impossibility of truly comprehending certain things. One can either see the two faces, or the silhouetted artwork, but not both at the same time. This challenge to our understanding is but one of the many contradictions artists grow to live comfortably with.
Ricardo Barros is a professional photographer working in the Philadelphia region. Ricardo is the author of Facing Sculpture: A Portfolio of Portraits, Sculpture and Related Ideas. His photographs are in the permanent collections of eleven museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He was awarded a Fellowship in Photography by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts in 1984 and 2021. 10
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the list VALLEY
CITY — GEOFF GEHMAN
— A.D. AMOROSI
Rickie Lee Jones was 15 minutes into her Musikfest Café set when she ditched the set list. Without warning she plucked “Company” off a dusty shelf, then sang her Sondheimian stardust number sideways to the audience. The unusual position suited her beatnik cabaret attitude as well as the room’s wide-open, open-tuned vibe, which inspired her to screw with her script. Located on the third floor of the SteelStacks entertainment center, the café is a long rectangle with orange-painted steel beams and a stage fronting a two-story window backing Bethlehem Steel’s giant blast furnaces. Changing colors at night, the cat’s-cradle titans turn an elegantly industrial space into a musical aquarium. This splashy setting jazzes up night-and-day acts ranging from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to Doors guitarist Robbie Krieger to Puddles, the operatic clown. I like the balcony for the panoramic view and the proximity to a catwalk that leads performers to dressing rooms. Rickie Lee was walking the dimly lit metal-grate bridge when I flashed her a peace sign and a bow. Her smile lit me up. (101 Founders Way, Bethlehem; 610-297-7100; steelstacks.org. Upcoming acts: Nick Lowe with Los Straitjackets, June 17; Pat Metheny Side-Eye, Sept. 6)
If you made it to this stage of ICON, this month, you've made it through another period of pandemic-era mask mandates, re-tried, fried, and over quickly. Like beans. Or eggs. I know that sounds yucky. Try having Covid. That's yucky.
Time trips in Nisky Hill Cemetery, a patchwork park high above the Lehigh River valley. Gnarly, noble sycamores line lanes crisscrossing crypts, low-walled family graveyards, a brick-walled community garden, a sea-shelled tribute to poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) and a marble spiral nicknamed “The Pink Dildo.” I gravitate to the southernmost section, and not just because of the thrilling vista of canal, river, ruined steel plant, arts complex, university, mountain and cemetery. Here you pass the life masks of living artist James Paul Kocsis and his late wife Carol; memorials to Civil War veterans and infants who died the day they were born, and a circular plaza honoring Eugene Grace, who as Bethlehem Steel’s president spearheaded the corporation’s rise to bridge, skyscraper and war colossus. His grand tomb is an easy walk from the simple stone of Bill Mayberry, a Steel sales executive and the No. 1 golfing partner of Grace, who was guaranteed nothing but green lights by cops to make his tee times on time. (254 E. Church St., Bethlehem) Lemongrass and lemon-yellow walls flavor 1001 Thai, a very cheery eatery in a corner brick Victorian, Bay windows brighten a bright CONTINUED
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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 LongLost 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 12
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Besides, May is a really good month to not be sick in—maybe the best time for weather neither too hot nor cold, a month tuned into fertility, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the first of the year’s meteor showers, and of course, for you communists, socialists, anarchists, labor activists, and leftists a very good time for work and rights. You know what May is also good for—or lousy if you’re not in a mood to have your streets blocked off? Runs. Marathons. Starting with the first Sunday in May’s Blue Cross Broad Street Run through Logan to The Navy Yard. These things are pretty great for the charities they’re often for, but running—and people who are all about running— not for me. People who focus their exercise existence on running are often the same people who are running from something or perceive themselves in that manner. Ugh. Ugh. And. Ugh. Did you know that The Who, the band that never stops retiring, is coming back to Philadelphia on May 20 at the Wells Fargo Center? Again? Sure, there’s a joke in their song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” when it comes to teasing its fans about actually The Who in (much) earlier years. getting and staying off the road. And sure, they lie about this all the time. But. Just think how sad you’ll be on the day they actually mean it. So go.
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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 dogdaughter Tia.
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KEITH UHLICH
Everything Everywhere All at Once
film roundup
Apollo 10-1/2: A Space Age Childhood (Dir. Richard Linklater). Starring: Milo Coy, Jack Black, Lee Eddy. Writer-director Richard Linklater gets personal with his latest project, a deceptively gentle drama (animated in a similar style to the filmmaker’s previous features Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly) about a young boy, Stanley (Milo Coy), growing up in Houston, Texas around the time of the 1969 moon landing. Fantasy and reality intertwine, as does fiction and autobiography: Stanley’s utopic coming-of-age (days of 31flavor ice cream and Dark Shadows; nights of barbecues, record playing and tender family squabbles; political unrest relegated to the
evening news and a wacky relative or two) is clearly inspired by Linklater’s own upbringing. Every scene is suffused with the specificity of lived experience, even the make-believe B-plot in which Stanley imagines himself as the single-handed savior of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission. What’s particularly impressive is how the film eschews rose-colored nostalgia. Instead, Linklater compassionately portrays a child’s slow awakening to the fact that the world is filled with as many horrors as wonders, and that one needn’t cancel out the other. [PG-13] HHHH Everything Everywhere All at Once (Dirs.
Keith Uhlich is a NY-based writer published at Slant Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Time Out New York, among others. 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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Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert). Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan. Better title: Too Much and Not Enough. Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s (credited as The Daniels) intimate action epic doesn’t lack for invention or star power. Its most inspired stroke may be the casting of martial-arts superstar Michelle Yeoh, Temple of Doom and Goonies icon Ke Huy Quan, and inimitable character actor James Hong as an immigrant family facing troubles micro and macro. Yeoh’s Evelyn runs a laundromat that is close to bankruptcy (Jamie Lee Curtis memorably plays an unforgiving tax collector), and her relationships with her husband (Quan) and daughter (Stephanie Hsu) are close to breaking points. What a perfect time to discover C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E
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Author Don Winslow on Matunuck Beach, South Kingston, Rhode Island. Photograph- Rick Friedman/The Observer
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conversation
A.D. AMOROSI
CRIME, THE CITY, AND DON WINSLOW
AUTHOR AND PROGRESSIVE ACTIVIST
Don Winslow paints real-life crime dramas like Picasso wielding oils. Whether there is a blue period (The Force, or the author’s Cartel trilogy, commencing with The Power of the Dog) or his angular, cubist moment (Savages, Satori) to consider, Winslow’s incisiveness and research-heavy attention to detail make him potent and irresistible. Since 1991’s A Cool Breeze on the Underground, his first novel, what Winslow has never done is look homeward and back: to his youth growing up in New England among the tight crews of Irish and Italian crime families. That is until now, with his new novel, City on Fire. This is the first book in yet
Knowing these people in your youth, gang or mob members, were they part of your everyday existence? Rhode Island is the smallest state, and being there was a very parochial existence. That makes for real and genuine intimacy, which is one thing that makes its crime world unique. If you’re writing a mob novel about New York, it's a larger terrain where not everyone knows each other. Everybody knows each other in Rhode Island. So protagonists such as Danny Ryan aren’t always people I directly knew—some are—but they were certainly people I saw around, who made up the landscape. They were talked about. You knew of them in the bars, restaurants, and beaches. I’m intimately familiar with these guys.
EARLY ON, I HIT UPON THE GREEK CLASSICS WHERE I WAS IMMEDIATELY STRUCK BY HOW ITS THEMES AND STORIES REMINDED ME OF REAL-LIFE EVENTS IN THE CRIMINAL WORLD THAT I HAD GROWN UP AROUND … THE GOAL WAS TO MERGE THE POETRY OF THE GREEK CLASSICS AND THE POETRY OF THE CRIME GENRE I KNOW SO WELL. another Winslow trilogy, in which the author uses Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey and crackling dialogue such as “Let the dead bury the dead” as jumpingoff points for his true-tale life amongst the ruins. City on Fire takes you back to your roots in New England, something you’ve shied from in the past. Why look back now? Thomas Wolfe famously said how you can’t go back again, and I think I believed that for a long time. I left Rhode Island when I was 17. Now I’m in my 60s. I think that I just needed the time and the distance—the physical and emotional space—to go back to the places of my youth. That’s always something of a confrontation—going back, confronting who you were, who your family was, what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. I think that it took me this long to fall back in love with the space again.
Why did you chose the model of The Iliad and The Odyssey to tell this tale, the classical schematic that frames these characters? About 25 years ago, I realized how narrow my educational path was. My focus was on African studies, which is wide and still a passion. So I started to read the great books list. Early on, I hit upon the Greek classics where I was immediately struck by how its themes and stories reminded me of real-life events in the criminal world that I had grown up around. I wondered if I could take those stories and place them in a contemporary crime setting so that they could stand alone from the myth, and you could enjoy them apart from any connection to the classics. The goal was to merge the poetry of the Greek classics and the poetry of the crime genre I know so well. Having spoken to you in the past and read all of your work, I think I know something about how you operate. How
did revolving around The Iliad change how you went about writing City on Fire? How was the character capture and action different than, say, Savages or the Cartel books? Something like the Cartel trilogy is based on reality, documentary-like in that everything that unfolded had already happened. Here, I had to go back to classics that captured timeless human themes— love, lust, compassion, power, revenge, subjugation—and become familiar with those ideals in a classical sense. But, there’s also this old saying, ‘if you meet the buddha on the road, kill him.’ Here, that means that I couldn’t go into the writing of all this without Aneas, Cassandra or Helen. They had to very much be my Danny, Patrick, Pam and Cassie. I would absorb those themes in the poetry but then make a deliberate effort to set that all aside and write this very modern novel. If we’re touching on Anaes, your Danny Ryan is an outsider. Who is Pam of Rhode Island, if not your Helen of Troy, the ultimate siren? I chose to focus on Anaes and Danny Ryan because they were what you’d call ultimate outsiders. That’s what I wanted and needed to tell City of Fire. It might have been easier to tell this story from one of the main character’s perspectives, yes? But I wanted someone apart from the fray, with that outsider’s slant. I wanted someone who had one foot in and one foot out and, therefore, could comment on the action while in the middle of it all. I found Danny compelling enough to carry him through two additional novels after this: he’s lost everything, and all that he goes through is so poignant. You want to follow him. He's so compelling. In terms of Pam, she is a siren, undoubtedly, but she is also the scapegoat. Go back to the Greek tragedies: everybody blames Helen for starting the war, and yet whether it is the war within The Iliad or the New England mob wars that I grew up in, the issue is always money, power, and territory. Anything else is a pretext. n ICON |
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Delphine Seyrig in a scene from Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
classic films
Female-helmed and/or starring flicks
The Heartbreak Kid (1972, Elaine May, United States) Our classics this month are a quartet of female-helmed and or starring flicks. First up is a great dissection of male ego and impotence by director Elaine May, adapting a script by Neil Simon. Charles Grodin plays a newlywed on honeymoon with his low-class wife, played by a spectacularly unlovable Jeannie Berlin. Assailed by second thoughts about his marriage, he falls for Cybill Shepherd’s upwardly mobile blonde goddess and attempts to ingratiate himself to her and to her disapproving father (Eddie Albert). May’s inimitable way with comedy, finding the bruising punch in every punchline, is fully evident. She masterfully balances the comedy and horror of this situation, delineating each character’s motives without reducing them to stereotype. Her pessimist’s view of human nature goes hand in hand with a love 18
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of people in all their idiosyncrasies and idiocies. (Streaming on rarefilmm.) Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975, Chantal Akerman, Belgium/France) For the nearly three-and-a-half hour runtime of Chantal Akerman’s chilling masterpiece, we are in the company of housewife Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) as she cooks, cleans, mothers her son, and turns tricks to make ends meet. She adheres to a routine that, over the course of several days, begins to break down. No other movie milks quite the same level of discomfort out of overcooked food or a dropped utensil. The psychological disruptions are subtle yet epochal, driving Dielman to a desperate and dehumanizing climactic act. This isn’t a movie you watch so much as you feel in your bones. It attunes you to the ways in which, so
often, life is guided and shaped by minutiae. How the smallest divergence from the expected, from the normal, can send you reeling into the abyss. (Streaming on Criterion Channel.) Point Break (1991, Kathryn Bigelow, United States/Japan) In the more-than-adept hands of Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), this gloriously pulpy thriller about an FBI agent (Keanu Reeves) infiltrating a gang of bank-robbing surfers takes on a state-of-the-times profundity. Not for nothing do the thieves don masks of ex-presidents (Nixon, Carter, Reagan) whenever they hit a financial institution, grabbing some quick cash so they can concentrate on riding waves and attaining pot-addled enlightenment. The gang’s ringC O N T I N U E D O N PA G E
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books This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns Simon & Schuster, $29.99 This is the authoritative account of an 18month crisis in American democracy that will be seared into the country’s political memory for decades to come. With stunning, in-the-room detail, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns show how both our political parties confronted a series of national traumas, including the coronavirus pandemic, the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and the political brinksmanship of President Biden. From Donald Trump’s assault on the 2020 election and his ongoing campaign of vengeance against his fellow Republicans, to the behind-the-scenes story of Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris, and his bitter struggles to unite the Democratic Party, this book exposes the degree to which the two-party system has been strained to the point of disintegration. More than at any time in recent history, our long-established traditions and institutions are under siege as political leaders struggle to hold together a changing country. The authors break news on most every page, drawing on hundreds of interviews and never-before-seen documents and recordings from the highest levels of government. Putin’s People by Catherine Belton Picador Paper, $20 Interference in American elections. The sponsorship of extremist politics in Europe. War in Ukraine. In recent years, Vladimir Putin has waged a concerted campaign to expand its influence and undermine Western institutions. But how and why did all this come about, and who has orchestrated it? In Putin’s People, the investigative journalist and former Moscow correspondent Catherine Belton reveals the untold story of how Vladimir Putin and the small group of KGB men surrounding him rose to power and looted their country. Delving deep into the workings of Putin’s Kremlin, Belton accesses key inside players to reveal how Putin replaced the freewheeling tycoons of the Yeltsin 22
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era with a new generation of loyal oligarchs, who in turn subverted Russia’s economy and legal system and extended the Kremlin’s reach into the United States and Europe. The result is a chilling and revelatory exposé of the KGB’s revanche―a story that begins in the Soviet collapse, when networks of operatives were able to siphon billions of dollars out of state enterprises and move their spoils into the West. Putin and his allies subsequently completed the agenda, reasserting Russian power while taking control of the economy for themselves, suppressing independent voices, and launching covert operations abroad. Ranging from Moscow and London to Switzerland and Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach― and assembling a colorful cast of characters to match―Putin’s People is the definitive account of how hopes for the new Russia went astray, with stark consequences for its inhabitants and, increasingly, the world. Wayne Thiebaud: Updated Edition by Kenneth Baker, Nicholas Fox Weber Rizzoli Electa, $60 [In remembrance of revered American artist Wayne Thiebaud who passed away in 2021 at the age of 101, the definitive monograph of his work is now available in a reformatted, accessibly priced edition, including his last paintings.] Spanning the length of his career from the 1950s to the present, Thiebaud made the book an act of autobiography in a sense. At age 100, he looked back over his life and work, rich with breakthroughs in painting and masterful individuality. This comprehensive monograph of more than 200 illustrations can literally be considered eye candy. “While Thiebaud is best known for his heavily pigmented still lifes of cakes, pies, and candies, [this] book shows
his broader range, from vibrant landscapes depicting highways and farmland to portraits of solitary figures. . . The texts examine Thiebaud’s influences as well as his impact on the art world and the individual viewers of his work.” —Architectural Digest Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents by Stephanie L. Herdrich and Sylvia Yount Metro. Museum of Art, $50 Long celebrated as the quintessential New England regionalist, Winslow Homer (1836– 1910) in fact brushed a much wider canvas, traveling throughout the Atlantic world and frequently engaging in his art with issues of race, imperialism, and the environment. This publication focuses, for the first time, on the watercolors and oil paintings Homer made during visits to Bermuda, Cuba, coastal Florida, and the Bahamas. Among these, The Gulf Stream (1899), often considered the most consequential painting of his career, reveals Homer’s lifelong fascination with struggle and conflict. Recognizing the artist’s keen ability to distill complex issues, Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents upends popular conceptions and convincingly argues that Homer’s work resonates with the challenges of the present day. 140 illustrations. Start Without Me (I’ll Be There in a Minute) by Gary Janetti Henry Holt and Co., $27.99 From New York Times bestselling author, Family Guy writer, and HBO star comes this collection of hilarious, true life stories about the small moments that add up to a big life. Gary Janetti is bothered. By a lot of things. In his book, Gary returns with his acid tongue firmly in cheek to the moments and times that defined him. We follow him through the summers he spends in his twenties, pursuing both the perfect tan and the perfect man to no avail and much regret. At his Catholic high school,
he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a nun who shares Gary’s love of soap operas, which becomes a salvation to them both. This laugh-out-loud collection of true-life stories from the man “behind his generation’s greatest comedy” (The New York Times) is for anyone who has felt the joy in holding a decade-long grudge. Whether you are a new convert to Janetti or one of the million who follow him on social media for a daily laugh, Start Without Me will have you howling at Gary’s frustrations and nodding along in agreement at the outrages of life’s small slights. The Omega Factor: A Novel by Steve Berry Grand Central Publishing, $29.00 The Ghent Altarpiece is the most violated work of art in the world. Thirteen times it has been vandalized, dismantled, or stolen. Why? What secrets does it hold? Enter Nicholas Lee, who works for the United Nations’ Cultural Liaison and Investigative Office (CLIO). Nick’s job is to protect the world’s cultural artifacts—anything from lesserknown objects to national treasures. Nick unwittingly stumbles on the trail of a legendary panel from the Ghent Altarpiece, stolen in 1934. Soon Nick is plunged into a bitter conflict that has been simmering for 2000 years. On one side is the Maidens of SaintMichael, a secret order of nuns and the guardians of a great truth. Pitted against them is the Vatican. Because of Nick the maidens have finally been exposed, their secret placed in jeopardy—a vulnerability that the Vatican exploits with an ambitious cardinal and a corrupt archbishop. From the tranquil canals of Ghent, to an ancient abbey high in the French Pyrenees, Nick Lee must confront a modern-day religious crusade intent on eliminating a shocking truth from humanity’s past. Razzmatazz: A Novel by Christopher Moore William Morrow, $28.99 San Francisco, 1947. Bartender “Two Toes” Tiffin and Cookie’s Coffee Irregulars—a ragtag bunch of working mugs—are trying to open a driving school; shanghai an abusive Swedish stevedore; get Mable, the local madam, and her girls to a Christmas party at the State Hospital without alerting the overzealous head of the vice squad; all while Sammy’s girlfriend and her gal pals are using their wartime skills on a secret project that might be attracting some government Men in Black. And, oh yeah, someone is murdering the city’s drag kings and club owner Jimmy Vasco is sure she’s next on the list. Meanwhile, Eddie “Moo Shoes” Shu has been summoned by his uncle to save his opium den from Squid Kid Tang, a vicious gangster who is determined to retrieve a priceless relic: an ancient statue of the powerful Rain Dragon that Ho stole from one of the fighting tongs forty years earlier. And if Eddie blows it, he just might call down the wrath of that powerful magical creature on all of Fog City.. n ICON |
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VA L L E Y / C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 1 2
C I T Y / C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 1 2
C L A S S I C S / C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 1 8
menu of avocado spring rolls, papaya salad, stir fry with six green vegetables, roasted duck with Thai basil and pumpkin curry. My most recent meal included tangy curry puffs; hearty fried rice with jumbo shrimp, and deep-fried cheesecake wrapped in wonton, slightly melted to melt in the mouth. (1001 Northampton St., Easton; 610-252-1001; 1001thai.com)
Despite being a Jersey Boy with more friends and past associates in Philly than is good for him, Frankie Valli never ever plays in the city. Whah? That’s why it is for your
leader, Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), is the kind of charismatic anarchist guru who could make the most nationalistic citizen want to stick it
Union & Finch absorbs its residential neighborhood like its salmon dish absorbs its bed of pureed butternut squash. The lively bistro is completely comfortable in a brick apartment building among row homes and Spanish-style doubles. The menu is cosmopolitan and continental: pork loin wrapped in prosciutto; crab Po’ Boy; bangers & mash; falafel cake benedict, a brunch specialty. Two long, gleaming dining rooms and a large canopied patio are a soulful alternative to the soul-less hi-rises that have made Center City an unamusing amusement park. (1528 Union St., Allentown; 610-432-1522; unionandfinch.com) Greg Funfgeld has spent nearly 40 years molding the Bach Choir of Bethlehem into a powerful provider of recordings, educational programs, commissions, partnerships with non-musicians and non-Bach works, and his-
toric concerts at historic halls (Carnegie, Royal Albert). The conducting artistic director wraps up his illustrious run during the choir’s 114th Bach Festival which returns in person after two years of virtual and void. His swan song is celebrated with a rare one-two punch of Bach’s mighty Mass in B Minor and St. Matthew Passion. Guitarist Eliot Fisk, a fest favorite, solos in Luigi Boccherini’s Concerto in E Major, which he first heard played by Andres Segovia, his future mentor. Extra added bonuses: a dinner served between St. Matthew Passion halves; a lecture by George Stauffer, author of Why Bach Matters, and a public chorale sing with Funfgeld and a brass choir, held outdoors in good weather. (May 13-14 and 20-21; 610-866-4382; bach.org; the B Minor Mass will be streamed May 21) n 24
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Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. Photo: Kevin Winter
own good that you go see him at The Met Philly on May 5. Long before there were boy bands, there were vocal man bands: adults whose harmonies soared with every chord and yearning lyrical passage. That’s Valli and his Four Seasons. Philadelphia is still trying hard to make itself into a tech sector beyond its high strides in inventive medical breakthroughs. Do we do this through the grade school discoveries of bicarbonate and exploding volcanoes that is Philly Tech Week (May 6-14) and its look at local innovation, networking events, and gaming sessions? Why ask me. I'm no scientist.
Keanu Reeve and Patrick Swayze in Point Break.
to the Man. And this is part and parcel with Bigelow’s own larger project of transforming trashy genre pieces (see also Near Dark and Blue Steel) into something profoundly visionary and provocative. All this and skydiving, too! (Streaming on HBOMax.) Shirin (2008, Abbas Kiarostami, Iran) The tragic romance of Khosrow and Shirin, written by the 12th-century Persian
Speaking of science, here is a petri dish that I normally avoid, but you might like: the May 6 start of Penn's Landing's public hammocks for the waterfront’s Spruce Street Harbor Park and its Blue Cross RiverRink Summerfest. That’s a human frappe if ever there was. What is cute in that very same watery neighborhood is the May 3 grand opening of Liberty Point, Philadelphia's largest restaurant on the waterfront, to say nothing of Four Corner Management’s other summertime space Morgan's Pier. There’s a load of you who still don’t understand how Phillly’s Kensington and Fishtown areas got to be so gentrified from what many of us over-30s recall from our youth and from the rumor of our elders. Maybe it’s time to shake off the shackles of doubt and let the mud fly again on Trenton Avenue as Philadelphia’s largest, unique spring festival is back on May 14 in Fishtown and East Kensington: the Philadelphia Federal Credit Union Kensington Derby and Arts Festival. Yup, this means all of your neighbors’ handmade goods and self-designed, human-powered vehicles driving along a three-mile urban obstacle course while craft beer sponsors lube you up with home brew before, during, and after the big race. This is so Philadelphian, it hurts. n
poet Nizami Ganjavi, is told entirely through the faces of female spectators in Abbas Kiarostami’s minimalist classic. One hundred and fourteen actresses, including French superstar Juliette Binoche, are photographed looking at an offscreen film adaptation of the poem. We only hear the soundtrack, and we only see each of the women in extraordinary close-ups as they react to the unseen movie. Laughter, tears, and many more inscrutable emotions flicker across their faces, creating a sublime contrast between the object watched and the people watching it. As with many Kiarostami features, the film is a hall of mirrors that feels as if it expands your consciousness with each passing second. (Streaming on MUBI.) n
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A P P R O A C H / C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 5
brought me over the Adirondacks and down the Hudson Valley, quarter to seven on an early July evening. The landscape was golden from the late-day sun. A scattering of lakes flashed brilliant silver-blue reflections of the cloudless sky. It looked hot down there. The attendant came past, checking belts. LH412 was minutes from landing at Newark, just outside the final approach fix, and we were about to be handed off to Newark Tower from Newark Approach Control. I was in an aisle seat, looking across Doreen, so I couldn’t see directly beneath us, but the view toward the horizon was clear for miles with a puff cloud here and there. I noticed more roads, parking lots, and developments than there were minutes ago and fewer trees. Everything was larger. The sounds of the engines and the wind were softening; the ground was moving faster, five miles from the airport at 3000 ft, airspeed 170 knots, descending at 1000 feet per minute, on course to intercept the glideslope. New York City would come into view shortly, lit by a low
sun. That would be spectacular. Cleared to land, we slowed to 140 knots and descended at 700 fpm. The pilot could see the airport. The wing lifted as he banked the aircraft and secured the Instrument Landing System signal from the antenna array at the far end of the runway. When the wing came back down, it revealed the whole of Manhattan, set against a receding, hazy Long Island. I heard the landing gear extend and felt the drag and vibration. We were over the wetlands and estuaries east of Lyndhurst. Footprints of the early-century industrialization tracked through the tall grasses: abandoned roads, decommissioned bridges, and ancient rights of way—all pointing toward the golden city. People driving on the turnpike and 78 marveled at how unhurried our Airbus 350900 looked as it floated in the air. Too slow to stay up there, it seemed. Inside, the view had changed dramatically, with a low industrial landscape whizzing past, details becoming a blur. Oddly, this is the part of the trip that
feels like you're going the fastest. The pilot made slight adjustments that everybody noticed. We swayed across the interstate traffic, and 22-Left appeared underneath. The nose dipped just a touch, and we met the runway with a whump. The pilot applied reverse thrust to slow us down, pressing us forward in our seats, and we were home—sort of. There were still Customs to deal with. The foreground of my triptych includes the section of New Jersey that I (and 50,000 people daily) drive toward the Weehawken Crest— “The Embroidery Capital of the World”— to get to the Lincoln Tunnel. That stretch of highway where people were watching me as I watched them. This view also takes me on another journey, one of time as well as distance. To the left, somewhere is a graveyard in Union City where my Great-Grandfather rests. He may not have ever seen an airplane. He certainly never flew in one. The whole idea would likely be incomprehensible to him. I barely understand it myself.n
F I L M R O U N D U P / C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 1 4
there are multiple Evelyns through multiple alternate universes and that she is the least successful one — which may an advantage. Pastiche is the order of the day: There are goofy homages to Wong Kar-wai and a certain Pixar rat, as well as an overall uber-earnestness that’s pure Sundance Film Festival. The film is undeniably affecting at times, though it’s extremely undisciplined in ways that weaken the pleasures. [R] HH1/2 Il buco (Dir. Michelangelo Frammartino). Starring: Antonio Lanza, Nicola Lanza. From the first stunning image of animals peering into a cavernous gorge, it’s clear that Michelangelo Frammartino’s latest will be something special. The Italian writer-director, whose previous feature was 2010’s Le Quattro Volte, specializes in a kind of poetic nonfictional cinema. Il buco is a recreation of a 1961 mapping expedition through a cave in a remote area of northern Italy. Frammartino utilizes actual members of a speleological group, as well as those of a local shepherding family whose lives are contrasted with the explorers, to relate this captivating and often claustrophobia-inducing adventure. Cinematographer Renato Berta deserves a good deal of praise, somehow squeezing his cam26
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era into the smallest of crevasses and capturing textures in the dark that stir both the imagination and the fight-or-flight response. The visuals and sounds are awe-inspiring and humbling, though the overall outlook of the movie is provocatively ambivalent. Are the spelunkers avatars of progress or regression? No easy answer to that one. [N/R] HHHH1/2 Tokyo Vice (Dir. Michael Mann). Starring: Ansel Elgort, Ken Watanabe, Rachel Keller. One of the greatest directors currently working, Michael Mann (of Heat and Miami Vice fame) hasn’t been behind the camera since 2015’s underrated hacker thriller Blackhat. On HBOMax, you can catch his latest effort, a work-for-hire gig on the pilot episode of the American-abroad yakuza thriller Tokyo Vice. The plot is beside-the-point simplistic: Expat Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) climbs the ranks as a gaijin reporter at a Tokyo daily while world-weary cop Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe) attempts to bring some justice to the criminal shenanigans upending the city. This inaugural installment is a mixed bag because Mann’s distinctive visual style and his swooning romanticism takes up only about three-quarters of the hour-long run time, after which the storytelling becomes deflat-
ingly pro forma. There are still some nonpareil compositions here, particularly the reveal of a corpse framed against a backdrop of multiple commuter trains winding their way across a hillside. [N/R] HHH n
Solution to IT’S THE ONLY WAY
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WHERE TO FIND ICON ALLENTOWN
EASTON
Allentown Art Musuem Baum School of Art Blick Art Civic Theatre Crown Supermarket Da Vinci Center Fegley’s Brew Works Lehigh Valley Chamber Hava Java Jewish Community Center Johnny Bagels Miller Symphony Hall Primo Cafe & Gelato Starbucks Venny’s Pizza Weis Food Market
3rd Street Alliance Buck Hall (performing arts Ctr) Ciao! The Cosmic Cup Easton Public Market Film & Media Studies Bldg. Gallery On Fourth Karl Stirner Arts Building Lafayette Art Gallery @Lehigh U. Lehigh Valley Chamber Playa Bowls Quadrant Book Mart/Café Sette Luna State Theatre The Strand Terra café W Graphics Williams Center for the Arts Williams Visual Arts Building
BETHLEHEM Ahart’s Market Azar Supermarket Banana Factory/ArtsQuest Bethlehem Brew Works Bethlehem Library BOX: Bethlehem House Gallery Cafe the Lodge Compact Disc Center Crown Supermarket Déja Brew Coffeehouse Designer Consigner Donegal Square Godfrey Daniels Hotel Bethlehem Johnny’s Bagels & Deli 1 Johnny’s Bagels & Deli 2 Latin Cruise Lore Salon L.V. Convention Center Mama Nin Rocecheria Menchies Moravian Book Store PBS Channel 39 Redner’s Warehouse Market Saxby’s Shoprite Snow Goose Gallery The Bagel Basket The Café The Cup/Lehigh University The Flying Egg Boutique Diner Valley Farm Market WDIY FM Lehigh Valley Wegman’s Supermarket Weis Market Wise Bean Zoellner Arts Center
CENTER VALLEY DeSales Performing Art Center 28
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LAMBERTVILLE Alba Home A Mano Gallery Anton’s at the Swan A Touch of the Past Antiques Bear Apothecary Blue Raccoon BOX: Lambertville Station BOX: 5 & Dime BOX: Guiseppe’s Ristorante Bucks Espresso Del Vue Dry Cleaners Frame Shop Gio Salon Heritage Lighting Inn of the Hawke Lambertville House Niece Lumber People’s Store Rojo’s Roastery Swan Bar Walker’s Wine & Spirits Welsh’s Liquor
NEW HOPE Alpha Dermatology Citizen’s Bank BOX: CVS & McCaffrey’s First National Bank Giant Supermarket Heart of the Home Jamie Hollander Gourmet New Hope Cleaners New Hope Star Diner Penn Community Bank Wedgwood Bed & Breakfast
FRENCHTOWN Heart of the Home
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PHILADELPHIA 1830 Rittenouse 2101 Cooperative Inc 220 W. Rittenhouse Adademy House Acme Supermarket Adelphia House Anthony's Coffeeshop Arden Theater Aria Condos Arts Tower Condos Belgravia Condos Benjamin Franklin House Bishop's Collar Bluestone Lane BOX BOX (trolley turnabout) BOX (The Met) BOX (Craftworks BOX (Milcrate Cafe) Brauhaus Brewery Co Cafe Ole Center City One Chestnut Lofts City Fitness City Hall Visitors Lobby City Tap House City View Condos 1820 Rittenhouse Condos 1900 Rittenhouse Square Constitution Building Cosmopolitan Condos Dessert Crazy Earth Cup/Sam's Place Ellelauri Boutique Evil Genius Beer Company FOX29 Studio - Greenroom Franklin Tower Free Library of Philadelphia Fresh Grocer Good Dog Bar & Restaurant Good Karma Café Good Karma Café Good Karma Café Green Aisle Grocert Green Eggs Green Eggs Midtown Green Line Café Green Line Café Hawthorne's Café Hinge Cafe
Historic: The Touraine Condos Historic: Waterfront Condos Historic: Waterfront Condos Historic: Trinity Condos Historic: Logan Condos Honey's Sit and Eat Hopkinson House (mailroom) IGA Supermarket Jefferson Hospital Jefferson Hospital (Main ) Jefferson Hospital (East) JJ'S Food Market Joe’s Coffee ShoP Johnny Brendas Kelly Writer's House Kennedy House Kite & Key La Colombe Torrefaction Last Drop Latimer Deli Left Bank Apartments Lucky Goat Coffee House Mad Rex Restauran Marathon Grill Mariposa Food Co-op Masala Kitchen Kati Rolls Memphis Taproom Metropolitan Bakery Milk & Honey Milk and Honey Café Milkboy Milkcrate Café Mixto Bar & Restaurant Mulberry Market Museum Towers National Liberty Museum National Mechanics Nook Bakery & Coffee Bar North Bowl OCF Coffee House Old Nelson Food Market One Franklin Towne Condos Oregon Market Palm Tree Market Philadelphia Java Co Pier 3 Condos Pier 7 Condos Pizza Brain Plough and the Stars Punk Burger Race Street Cafe
Rally Coffee Reading Terminal Reanimator Coffee Rittenhouse Market River Loft Riverview Apartments Rodriguez Free Library Rotten Ralph’s Saladworks Sassafras Market Saxby’s Coffee Rittenouse Shop Rite Shop Rite (Bridge/Harbison) Shop Rite (shelf) Silk City Sporting Club at Bellevue Standard Tap Starbucks Stateside Steap & Grind Suburban Station Supremo Food Market Suya Suya Sweat Sweat Fitness The Bean Cafe The Carlyle Apartments The Collonade The Dorchester (mail room) The Dorchester (lobby) The Foodery The Foodery The Good Spoon The National at Old City The Phoenix The Sterling The View at Old City The Westbury Apartments The Wireworks Tivoli Condos Tuscany Apartments Tuscany Cafe (Rittenhouse) Walnut Towers Warwick Condos Watermark Waterworks World Cafe Live Yakitori Boy Zama
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harper’s FINDINGS Writing appeared more often in Mesoamerican societies that were autocratic and unequal; the Inca of the Chincha Valley responded to the desecration of graves by early European colonists by threading the vertebrae of their ancestors onto reed posts; and for seven millennia, with the exception of the Late Horizon, Andean dietary preferences were driven by climate change. Sinkholes in the Yucatán mark the sacred cacao groves of the Maya, and exploding fruits were found under the basalt flows of the Deccan Traps. The bones of paddlefish and sturgeons who died in the Chicxulub Impact indicated that the asteroid struck in the spring, and a hadrosaur in Blagoveshchensk was presumed to have broken its ulna while eating leaves or mating. Psyche is not pure iron. The merging of two supermassive black holes nine billion light-years away was suggested by a “nearly perfect” sinusoidal light curve. Astronomers measured the microwave background temperature of the universe as far back as 880 million years after the Big Bang using the shadows of a cosmic water cloud, theorized that the kilonova afterglow from the merger of two neutron stars was made possible when their rapid spin momentarily counteracted the gravitational force of their collapse into a black hole, and observed a new kind of hot subdwarf covered in helium ash. Kinky rural Tasmanians report more suicide attempts.
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The mortality of leatherbacks entangled in fishing gear can be lowered by quicker reporting. Los Alamos National Laboratory announced that, per the No Free Lunch Theorem, quantum entanglement can massively scale down the training of quantum neural networks. Time crystals were successfully introduced into their ambient environments. Chinese chemists invented a method for encrypting data in time and temperaturesensitive hydrogels. Semenogelins can be activated to use semen’s innate gel-like property as a sperm-trapping contraceptive. Japanese scientists discovered that carbon from sea-pineapple shells can be combined with blood waste from livestock to create electrocatalysts that perform as well as rare metals. Contagious blood cancer was found to have spread to warty venus clams. Pipistrelle bats in a Shropshire attic were being captured by a noble false widow. The genome of Steller’s sea cow was decoded, and plans were unveiled to create a seagrass nursery for the Indian River Lagoon’s starving manatees. Microplastics are found in the abyssal ocean, cryptic COVID-19 variants are found in New York sewers, and alligators can transmit West Nile virus. Mosquitoes are attracted to the redness of human skin.
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The reseeding of an Indonesian coral reef resulted in increased whooping, croaking, and growling. Herpetologists described the tapir frog after following its beep-beep-beep call through the jungles of the Putumayo Basin at night. “I am obsessed with recording frog calls,” said the team’s lead author. Wild chimpanzees use insects to soothe their wounds and those of other chimpanzees, captive chimpanzees spit at handlers who withhold treats out of malice or indifference but not those who do so unwittingly, and captive capuchins choke under pressure. The brains of the elderly exhibit lesions resulting from a lifetime of wear and tear and may also be cluttered with accumulated knowledge. American presidents are becoming less rhetorically complex. Men prefer meat jerky to vegetarian jerky if their masculinity is threatened. 30
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INDEX Percentage by which Americans are more likely to view the opposing political party as stupid rather than evil: 23 By which more Democrats aged 25 to 54 watch Tucker Carlson Tonight than The Rachel Maddow Show: 15 Percentage by which more Russians than average read BBC News in the week Ukraine was invaded: 245 Date on which Russia restricted access to BBC News: 3/4/2022 Percentage of U.S. adults who think Russia is a Communist or Socialist country: 55 Portion of people who are not confident using numbers in their everyday lives: 2/5 Minimum number of U.S. states that require or plan to require high school courses in financial literacy: 10 Percentage of U.S. educators who plan to retire earlier than they had expected: 55 Estimated percentage of Americans who believed the key tenets of QAnon last year: 16 % of Americans in 1970 thought the moon landing was worth national resources: 39 Who did not: 56 Percentage of Americans who support sending astronauts to Mars: 53 Who do not: 19 Number of U.S. cities beneath which Elon Musk’s Boring Company has proposed constructing subterranean tunnels: 6 Portion of monkeys implanted with Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chips between 2017 and 2020 that have died: 7/10 Portion of U.S. voters who think microchip implants would improve human lives: 1/10 Who think they would lead to unprecedented totalitarian control: 3/4 Portion of Americans who say it is sometimes permissable to use violence against the government: 1/4 Who say it is justified “right now”: 1/10 % of U.S. workers who received raises in the past year that kept pace with inflation: 17 Average value this year, to the tooth fairy, of a lost tooth in the United States: $5.36 Percentage by which this value has increased since the start of the pandemic: 33 Estimated miles of toilet paper used in the United States each year: 2,650,000,000 Estimated number of trees this represents: 31,000,000 Americans who say they are unable to use the bathroom without their cell phone: 1/4 Who have texted a nude photo of themselves while in the bathroom: 1/10 Percentage by which AI-generated faces are regarded as more trustworthy than real ones: 8 Percentage of Hinge users who say they are more likely to go on a second date with someone who is in therapy: 86 Percentage by which men with a dog in their dating-app profiles are more likely to want a long-term relationship: 90 Portion of single Americans who are interested in casual dating: 1/10 Increase, in years, of the average age of marriage for U.S. adults since 1970: 7 Percentage change between 2010 and 2020 in the number of marriages in China: –38 In the number of divorces: +62 Portion of U.S. men who are stalked at some point in their lives: 1/6 Of U.S. women: 1/3 Estimated amount lost by Americans to romance scammers last year: $1,000,000,000 Factor by which this has increased since 2015: 5 Factor by which elderly victims lose more to romance scams than young adult victims: 12 Portion of Americans aged 55 to 64 who have no children: 1/5 Percentage of non-parents aged 18 to 49 who say they’re unlikely to ever have children: 44
SOURCES:
1 Rachel Hartman (Chapel Hill, N.C.); 2 Nielsen (NYC); 3,4 BBC (London); 5 YouGov (NYC); 6 Association of British Insurers (London); 7 Next Gen Personal Finance (Palo Alto, Calif.); 8 National Education Association (Washington); 9 Public Religion Research Institute (Washington); 10,11 Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (Ithaca, N.Y.); 12,13 YouGov; 14 Harper’s research; 15 Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (Washington); 16,17 John Zogby Strategies (Utica, N.Y.); 18,19 The COVID States Project (Boston); 20 Momentive (San Mateo, Calif.); 21,22 Delta Dental (Oak Brook, Ill.); 23–26 QS Supplies (Leicester, England); 27 Sophie Nightingale, Lancaster University (England); 28 Hinge (NYC); 29 Mackenzie J. Zinck (Halifax, Nova Scotia); 30 Match (Dallas); 31 Alan J. Hawkins, Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah); 32 Ye Liu, King’s College London; 33 Ho Kwong Kwan, China Europe International Business School (Shanghai); 34,35 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta); 36,37 Federal Bureau of Investigation; 38 Federal Trade Commission; 39 U.S. Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.); 40 Pew Research Center (Washington).
IT’S THE ONLY WAY by Evan Birnholz
Oh no! A band of thieves has stolen this puzzle’s Across clues. But don’t panic. They left the Down clues, and you can still use them to figure out the Across answers. When the puzzle is completed, you will find instructions for identifying the culprits. Good luck!
1 B in the Greek alphabet
33 Seasoning paired with pepper
2 Gemstone frequently imported
34 “Somebody’s gotta turn down
from Down Under 3 Part of a street designated for cyclists 4 Lowest card in a 5-high
the temperature. I’m really sweaty!” 36 Pet that may lick itself after chasing a laser dot
straight, or the highest card in
37 “Wait, what did you say?”
a royal flush
38 Member of a 6 Down team
5 Pyramid ___ (fraudulent business model) 6 Racing team that competes on a river 7 Overflowing (with)
39 Harmed
60 Friend supporting a cause
98 Feeling of indifference
40 The L of MLB, NFL or NHL
63 Acquires knowledge from
99 Greek letter found in the
41 John, Paul, George or Ringo’s
study
favorite insect? 44 Italian city featuring many
102 Develop on a vine, say 105 “Electric” swimmer, perhaps 106 Indonesia’s continent
fragments in headlines after
71 Bottled, with “up”
107 Grad
the 2000 election
74 Man whose first child was just
108 Dog who traveled with
45 “Hanging” paper ballot
12 Poem praising a hero, say
101 Busy hospital areas: Abbr.
catastrophically) 69 Like somebody who geeks out
canals and bridges
9 Miles ___ hour 11 Lean slightly
middle of “audiotapes”
68 Avoids, as disaster
8 Surrounded by 10 The Devil, by another name
or experience
66 ___ in flames (failed
46 Storage medium for many early
born
Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the
13 Part of a basketball hoop that’s
2000s movies
76 Breaks down in tears
Tin Man and the Cowardly
cut down during the NCAA
48 Sniffing body part
79 Electrical resistance unit
Lion
tournament
49 ___ of limitations
81 “Emma” actor McGregor
109 More bang for your ___
50 Prepared for a marathon or a
82 Waters down
111 “Frozen” princess with a
14 Property that parents often pass down to their heirs 15 Sheep’s grazing area 16 Bragged about a victory
boxing match, say 51 Candidate who lost the election
84 Belonging to us 85 Appliance for baking a
55 Charged particles
86 Captivate
21 Piece of lingerie with cups
56 Mammal digging holes, or a
87 Cool down, as champagne
24 Backyard structure that often holds garden tools 25 Adam’s partner in the Garden of Eden 31 Ready to be drawn, as beer at the bar 32 Turns down, as the lights
beauty spot 57 Single-named Irish singer who sang the lyric “May it be an
lying down!” 115 “Well, ___!” (“It’s so
literally, like a star
upon you”
94 ___ out (disoriented)
Sawyer” author Twain
114 “We’re ___ gonna take this
89 Like a star performance ... or, 90 Period of 100 years
59 Sonic the Hedgehog’s color
backward
88 “Way cool, dude!”
evening star / Shines down 58 “The Adventures of Tom
112 Cheese that’s “made”
Thanksgiving turkey
17 Master of suspense Hitchcock 23 Jogging pace
palindromic name
obvious!”) 116 16-oz. scale units 117 Vehicle transporting many students to school
95 Marked down, like products at a store 96 Place where you live
Solution to this month’s puzzle on page 26 ICON |
M AY 2 0 2 2 | I C O N D V. C O M
31
