ICON Magazine

Members’ Show

Tyler Park Center for the Arts

Jean Childs Buzgo: 10th Anniversary Show Silverman Gallery

Bethlehem Palette Club

Juried Exhibition

Bethlehem Town Hall Rotunda Gallery

8 | liya Lerner Exhibition

Swan Boat Gallery

59th Annual Downtown Bethlehem Fine Art and Craft Show

Bethlehem Fine Arts Commission

The Baum School of Art 39th Annual Auction

The Baum School of Art

CONVERSATION

HERB ALPERT

Along with opening AM radio and pop charts to the (then) still esoteric, elegant sounds of Mexico, Spain, and Brazil with a jazz kick, Alpert gave mainstream instrumental music—an increasing rarity by the early 60s—a spiciness it never had until that point; all, to his estimation, based purely on instinct and vibe.

JOHN JARBOE

Jarboe believes that she has stripped herself of the hard shell that long contained her (“drag is definitely an armor we wear, and I’m wearing less drag in Rose”) and embracing vulnerability and the feminine divine. “I’m also angry at what happens to the trans community in America,” said Jarboe. “I’m into being dangerous.”

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

Joanne Smythe Mariana Giorgino

WRITERS

A.D. Amorosi

Ricardo Barros

Robert Beck

Geoff Gehman

Fredricka Maister

David Stoller

Keith Uhlich

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

Camille Bombois (1883–1970), Before Entering the Ring, 193035. Oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 28 3/4”

a thousand words

LUNA

I WATCHED NEIL ARMSTRONGwalk on the moon. At the time, I had a lot of company—some 600 million other people. It was a defining moment, a huge accomplishment shared by everyone in some measure.

Fifty-five years later, many of those people are gone, and those born since see it in historical retrospect, not quite horse and buggy but pre-digital, which is hard to fathom outside of its cultural context.

My father worked for a company that built electrical system components for the Gemini and Apollo missions. They called it power sources, but their work centered around batteries, which you can imagine played a big role a quarter-million miles and eight days from

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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

STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK

exhibitions

Members’ Show

Tyler Park Center for the Arts

10 Stable Mill Trail, Richboro PA 267-218-0290 TylerParkArts.org

Opening June 7, 2024, 7–10

Hours: Saturdays, June 8–June 29, 10– 2 Members free admission/$10 non-member

Community members and artists join together in an annual exhibition and sale of the creative works of TPCA Members. The show presents both professional and emerging artists, highlighting the mission of fostering a community of support for artists of all levels. Classical guitarist Gareth Kear sets the mood, appetizers and wine facilitate exhibiting artists and community members enjoyment of the inspiring atmosphere of the Tyler Barn located on the Richboro side of Tyler State Park. The large-scale outdoor sculpture garden and the beauty of the surrounding area just outside the exhibit space creates a symbiosis of art and nature.

Jean Childs Buzgo: 10th Anniversary Show

Silverman Gallery

4920 York Rd, Holicong, PA 215-794-4300 silvermangallery.com

May 4–June 9

Opening Reception 5/4, 5–8 and 5/5, 1–4 Wed.–Sat., 11–6, Sun. 11–4 and by appt.

Since 2014, Jean’s unique decisions on color and subject matter have captured the attention of fine art collectors throughout the region and beyond. “I’m observing and interpreting my subjects with a new approach. My paintings may take a lot of different twists and turns before they are finished. I like to leave hints of previous layers underneath, a little mystery for people to connect with.” Browse Jean’s entire new collection on the gallery’s website: www.silvermangallerybuckscountypa.com

Bethlehem Town Hall Rotunda Gallery 10 East Church Street, Bethlehem PA

May 20–June 30; Mon.-Fri. 8AM-4PM

Closing Reception & Awards, June 30, 1-3

Bethlehem Palette Club celebrates the outstanding talent and creativity of members from throughout the Lehigh Valley region with this juried exhibition showcasing a variety of media, subjects and styles.

The show juried by Matt DeProspero, award-winning plein air oil painter and teacher. DeProspero has exhibited widely as a member of Oil Painters of America and the Philadelphia Sketch Club.

We are grateful to the Bethlehem Fine Arts Commission for supporting the Club and our members for their willingness to share their work with the public.

Edge of Day, 24x24in., mixed media on canvas.

Summer Flowers, 12x12 in., mixed media on canvas.

Bernard Hohlfeld, Legacy, 7in. dia. x 4.5in.

Bethlehem Palette Club Juried Exhibition

Bernie Tyler Sunflowers, watercolor

Rene Egan, Beach Conversation, oil on canvas, 24x30”

Deb Walkowiak, Bending with a Bite, 6x8,” oil.

exhibitions

Swan Boat Gallery

69 Bridge St., Lambertville, NJ

609-566-4022 swanboatgallery.com

May 15–June 24

Tues.–Saturday 11–5 and by appointment

IIya is a Realist/Impressionist artist with a twist, an art teacher without any twists. Born in Moscow, now living in Bucks County, he has an MFA in Studio Art from PAFA, among other awards and recognition.

Lerner: “I do not have a signature style. Each painting requires a unique approach. Whether I work from observation or imagination, I stretch the boundaries of possibility and just try to give the painting all I can.”

About Swan Boat Gallery: We are more than a contemporary art gallery; we are a cultural experience including our monthly Poetry Readings and Poet’s Open Mic. Come experience the Swan Boat Gallery.

59th Annual Downtown Bethlehem

Fine Art and Craft Show

Bethlehem Fine Arts Commission

Main Street, Historic Downtown Bethlehem bfac-lv.org

May 11, 10–5 & May 12, 11–5

Judging will be on Saturday afternoon. Awards will be Best of Show, 2nd Prize, 3rd Prize and Best Display, awarding over $1,300 in prizes. The reception is Saturday evening where awards will be presented. Families are invited to take part in the Childrens’ Art Activities. Visit the 2024 Artist in Residence, Luke Voytas, a wood artisan and enjoy the musicians along the Show route. This Show is sponsored and organized by the all-volunteer Bethlehem Fine Arts Commission.

39th Annual Auction

The Baum School of Art

510 Linden St., Allentown, PA 610-433-0032 givergy.us/baumartauction39 Online bidding 5/11, 6:30 PM–5/18, 10 PM Premiere Party at School, 5/11, 6–9:00 PM

This year’s Auction features over 400 artworks by artists of the Pennsylvania Impressionist period of Walter Baum, to over 80 contemporary artists. Kick off the bidding with us at our Premiere party with hors d’ oeuvres, drinks and music. $50/ ticket.

Auction items available to view in-person at the Premiere Party and during the School’s open hours. To view the artwork up for bid visit givergy.us/baumartauction39. It’s easy to 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.

Ilya Lerner Exhibition

Michael Cho, lamp

Donna Gratkowski, Glamour, pastel

Walter Emerson Baum, Manayunk, oil

Dana Van Horn, Pig, watercolor

the art of poetry

August Heat

The august heat, Washed yellow

Through the grimed windows, Spills onto the weathered Club room floor.

It’s cool inside, Shaded by the veil Of semi-darkness

In the fading afternoon. This is how she likes it, Left alone

To her simple tasks … The patrons know little Of her, only that she sets up And closes, and Returns a smile.

They don’t know

That she once sought Knowledge in gulps, And chased her authentic self

Like a dog’s tail. Nor do they know (If they cared)

That she has found Her truth

In the silence, In her simple routines (Ordered, perhaps, From generations past), To which she attends Until the sky Turns quiet and dark.

August Heat by Dean

H. Gurnack

August Heat is an oil painting by the widely-collected American painter, Dean H Gurnack (1945-), born in Trenton, New Jersey and now living and working in Asheville, North Carolina. In Gurnack’s words, “ … a good painting, a true work of art, is a celebration of man, of the universe, and of his consciousness of his existence in it … [the artist] has a chance to communicate that mysterious presence, that odd sense of nostalgia, that solid matter in space has for us at certain moments of lucidity.” This statement touches very closely to what I see and feel in this painting, so atmospheric and mysterious. It has captivated me for years, particularly the figure in the foreground, which is the subject of my poem August Heat—male or female? (I chose female), young or old? (I’d say in the middle), bored and marking time, or living with peace of mind? (I’ve chosen the latter). There’s a narrative here for the viewer to fill in. The artist was much taken with this individual, in this place, at this moment—and so are we. 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

DAVID STOLLER

CREATIVE CHALLENGES

CREATIVE CHALLENGES FOR ANartist are akin to daunting peaks for a mountaineer. We ascend an incline of uncertainty, hoping for the reward of a view from the summit. That is sufficient for many of us. Others more critically discern the mountains they climb. These climbers place their accomplishments in a larger context.

There are two types of mountains one might climb. One has a gentle slope and a rounded summit, and the other has a steeper slope and a narrow peak. Scaling either is fulfilling, but we can’t all fit on any particular mountaintop. Many pinnacles are already crowded with artists who precede us. And, in practice, relatively few artists actually summit. The best the rest of us can do is approach the top.

Now consider the distinction between those who

scale the peak and those who try only to discover their summit is already full. On the spiked peak, the highest climbers separate themselves from the bulk who follow. On the rounded mountain, the few at the very top find themselves accompanied by a large crowd at their heels. So, concerning artistic recognition, the round-top mountaineers have no choice but to claim credit as a tribe. The spiked-peak climbers, on the other hand, more easily distinguish themselves as individuals.

If we artists work in traditional media, adhere to established principles, and walk in the footsteps of our heroes, we are climbing the gently sloped mountain. If we dare question the rules, dare to fail, and keep searching until we find a challenge that is truly our own, then we are climbing the spiked-peak mountain. Only then will our reward be a singular accomplishment. 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

PHOTOGRAPH AND ESSAY BY RICARDO BARROS

VALLEY

Queen of Phil Spector’s ’60s pop/rock mini-operas. Can’t-miss harmony singer for Sam Cooke, Luther Vandross, and scads of other song stylists. David Letterman’s Christmas gift for 25 straight years. Godmotherly sage of “20 Feet from Stardom,” the Oscar-winning documentary about background vocalists with foreground talents. Idol of Bette Midler, who inducted her into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A hurricane of soul, a tornado of gospel, a thunderbolt of joy. Yes, indeed, there’s a lot to love about Darlene Love, 82 years old. (May 17, Baker Hall, Zoellner Center for the Arts, Lehigh University, 420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem; 610-7582787; zoellnerartscenter.org)

Another Rock and Roll Hall of Fame octogenarian, George Clinton, is the one and only original chieftain of Parliament-Funkadelic, the most outrageous, most influential gang of sci-fi Afro-futurists. Clinton and his extraterrestrial brothers will make a rare Valley appearance on May 24, tearing the roof off the sucker with “Maggot Brain,” “Cosmic Slop,” and other smart-assed booty shakers. (Wind Creek Event Center, 77 Wind Creek Blvd., Bethlehem; 610-297-7414; windcreekeventcenter.com)

“The Play That Goes Wrong” is a murder mystery where the corpse is the production. Props crash, sets collapse, a grandfather clock becomes a prison, a knocked-out actor returns to battle her understudy and a memory lapse forces the entire cast to repeat pages of ancient dialogue. A long-running hit in London and Manhattan, this dastardly disaster farce opens the 2024 Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, which will also present the musical “The Color Purple,” “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and a “Cymbeline” staged by actors tripling as directors and designers, the way of the world in Shakespeare’s universe. (May 29-June 16, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, DeSales University, 2755 Station Ave., Center Valley; 610-282-WILL; pashakespeare.org)

Steve Martin and Martin Short go together like, well, the Jerk and Jiminy Glick. Or King Tut and Ed Grimley. Or “Saturday Night Live” alums with the same number of letters in their names, one of which is the same. The longtime friends’ new tour, “The Dukes of Funnytown,” is full of familiar tricks and shticks: body contortions, inspired impressions, robust banjo tunes, jokes at each other’s expense, wild and crazy versions of classic songs (last year Short sang Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” like Frank Sinatra), and inside scoops on their many collaborations, including the hit Hulu series “Only Murders in the Building.” (Wind Creek Event Center, 77 Wind Creek Blvd., Bethlehem; 610-297-7414; windcreekeventcenter.com)

The 116th Bethlehem Bach Festival has a bonus: a preview of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s tour of European musical landmarks. Singers and instrumentalists will perform Bach cantatas they’ll repeat in the compos-

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Beyond its notions of spiritual and earthly rebirth, May traditions are pretty lame. The grand Mexican celebration of Cinco de Mayo is always turned upside-down and messy by white people. Mother’s Day is only cool if your mom isn’t dead. Every neighborhood in Philly has sloppy weekend block parties where each vendor up-charges for their signature culinary delights. And Victoria Day is strictly Canadian.

Yay, May.

What used to be known as Wizard World—now the Fan Expo at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, running May 3-5—was always an enjoyable romp through the collectibles of cosplay, comic books, and scifi/horror. Only this year, the Fan Expo features a fairly meh set of celebrities such as Hayden Christensen, Chevy Chase, and Mario Lopez. There are, however, bonus points for photo ops and autograph sessions with Resident Alien’s Alan Tudyk, My Cousin Vinnie’s Marisa Tomei, and Rosario Dawson. Move with caution through this fest.

May 11’s annual Kensington Derby and Arts Festival is one of this city’s great oddities, one where homemade kinetic sculptures and silly selfcreated contraptions get driven through Frankford Avene and York Street in a newly built obstacle course (isn’t Frankford already an obstacle course?) for badge-of-honor prizes—all for the good of the East Kensington Neighbors Association’s grant program for local nonprofits and businesses. Something as strange as it is worthwhile? Sign me up.

Impressionist art goddess Mary Cassatt was raised in Philly yet is rarely celebrated for her time here at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art during her adolescence, let alone her contributions to feminine agency. So bring on Mary Cassatt at Work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art starting May 18 (and running through September 8), which shows and tells the stories of Cassatt’s advanced processes and dynamic materials. Plus, the PMA’s show is the first major showing of Cassatt’s life’s work in over 25 years. To the Parkway we go.

Are you a snobby asshole? Sunday, May 25’s Philadelphia Cup Regatta—along the picturesque and scent-friendly Delaware River Waterfront—is yours, a local waters boating spree hosted by the Liberty Sailing Club where over 100 sailors from clubs from across the region move with speed and boozy aplomb. Dinghie heads.

Speaking of boozy aplomb and krunk scents: Philly Beer Week starts May 31 and runs (literally when you count pub crawls and millennials running to the bathroom) through June 9.

All on the plus side: Come Wednesday, May 22, Hot Girl Summer offi-

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GEOFF GEHMAN

A.D. AMOROSI

After all these years, THIS GUY’S (still!) IN LOVE WITH YOU

TTHIS MAY, HERB ALPERT will host a hot history lesson on his Tijuana Brass, wife-vocalist Lani Hall, and beyond.

I had one critic in LA who CALLED ME ‘MILES DAVIS TRYING TO IMITATE REX HARRISON.’ I used to get that type of shit all the time. I know you mentioned me being cool earlier. DO YOU KNOW WHY THAT IS? BECAUSE I REALLY DON’T GIVE A SHIT. I’m doing it for myself, and I’m passionate about it. IF YOU LIKE IT, WONDERFUL. GLAD TO HAVE YOU ONBOARD. If you don’t like it, wonderful, see you later.

When trumpeter Herb Alpert released his 49th studio album in 2023—Wish Upon a Star, a lyrical study of the Great American Songbook, the music of the Beatles, film themes, and tracks written by longtime collaborators—the famed musician and record label exec again proved that age is nothing but a number. Having just turned 89, starting yet another tour cycle with his wife and longtime vocal partner Lani Hall, it is as if a fresh Herb Alpert is on the move through the charts—like he did in the 1960s with countless pop hits with his Tijuana Brass, in the disco 70s on dance singles such as “Rise,” in the 1980s in connection with his A&M label signee Janet Jackson and beyond. Who knows? By the time Alpert and Hall play the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater on May 18, they might have another hit on their hands with their new bossa nova version of “On the Street Where You Live” or his new album’s first boldly energetic single, Jerry Reed’s “East Bound and Down.”

As he says in the press notes to Wish Upon a Star, there isn’t much time for nostalgia at this point in his life. “It sounds cliché, but I’m just completely excited when I get up in the morning to create something, and I’m grateful for the chance to do it.”

When I spoke to him not so long ago, I did focus, at first, on the indelible image of Alpert—that classic 60s dandy look of slim suits and thick dark hair with one wave dabbing his forehead—and the sound(s) he made and produced during the same era; the undefinably-Latin-tinged, twin trumpet-filled mood music of his Tijuana Brass; producing the cosmopolitan, sandy shore soul of Sergio Mendes’ Brasil ’66 featuring Alpert’s (eventual) wife, vocalist Lani

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.

Hall; the casual cool and rich sonic/ethnic diversity he brought to the independent label business by co-founding (with Jerry Moss) A&M Records.

If Alpert had stopped after his initial hit-making ubiquity— 1962’s epic The Lonely Bull until 1968’s platinum-plated The Beat of the Brass and The Tijuana Brass’ Christmas Album—and rode into the Malibu sunset to the strains of Mariachi guitars, he’d remain crucial to the sophisticated pop-jazz-soul canon of the 1960s; as unique, innovative and even rebellious in his own way as Sam Cooke (for whom Alpert wrote songs), James Brown or the Beatles. Yet, he kept going, with the mid-70s filled with quietly fluttering jazz and Afropop albums (1975’s Coney Island, 1978’s Herb Alpert/Hugh Masekela with the South African trumpeter), neodisco (the ever-present “Rise” of 1979), and an 80s ripe with esoteric Latin fusion (1982’s aptly-titled Fandango, 1983’s Noche de Amor), and Jam & Lewis-tipped electro-funk (1987’s Keep Your Eye on Me). Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Alpert made sure to keep up with music’s multicultural electronic experimentation with everything from the smooth noodling 1997 album Passion Dance to the full-blown remixed deconstruction of 2018’s Music Volume 3: Herb Alpert Reimagines The Tijuana Brass, 2019’s Over the Rainbow, 2021’s Catch the Wind, and now, Wish Upon a Star.

Along with opening AM radio and pop charts to the (then) still esoteric, elegant sounds of Mexico, Spain, and Brazil with a jazz kick, Alpert gave mainstream instrumental music—an increasing rarity by the early 60s—a spiciness it never had until that point; all, to his estimation, based purely on instinct and vibe. “There was nothing planned out about making or releasing that stuff,” he said of a dozen Tijuana Brass hit singles and the six million album-selling (in the U.S. alone) Whipped Cream & Other Delights. He bravely opened doors (and charts) for Mendes, Hall, The Carpenters, Joe Cocker, Brothers Johnson, The Police, Joe Jackson, and more, and Alpert’s Technicolor picture broadens into wide Cinemascope. Plus, Alpert is a constantly working and insistently exhibiting painter and sculptor.

Over the course of nearly four hours, Alpert zig-zagged throughout the entirety of his career, stressing elements of “feeling” and “spontaneity” (“That’s what jazz is at its heart—it’s not about the notes or the technique”), denying any form of cultural appropriation (“I never listened to Mariachi music in my life before the Tijuana Brass”), calling me ‘man’ often—all while strolling through his studio, busying himself with paint brushes and punctuating our

chats with trumpet bloops.

Going back to his youth as a quiet kid in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights, Alpert said, “The trumpet was talking for me because I barely spoke as a kid,” said Alpert. “I was mute, so the trumpet was saying things that I couldn’t say, couldn’t get out of my mouth. The trumpet became a good friend of mine. Little by little, I started making sense of it and realized that I had a pretty darned good pitch and could play any song on the radio—play it right back as soon as I heard it. That was fun to do.”

There, he was born and raised by Jewish immigrant parents (not a Mexican mom and dad, long imagined by fans during his early successes) who, after trying his hand as a classical musician, bought a wire recorder while in high school to experiment with tape sound and reverb (the eventual double recording of his trumpet), did everything from playing trumpet in marching bands and Army ensembles for the sake of precision, and pick-up gigs around LA for weddings and jazz dates, changing as tone as often as he changed his jacket.

“There is a progression,” he said. “It’s a pebble at a time. The beautiful thing about being an artist is that you never get to the end product. It’s always something you’re searching for. I met a lot of great musicians in my day—all like me, all insecure—looking for how to get to that next level. That’s why it’s so seductive to become an artist. You never arrive

at an aha! If you’re good, you never feel that you’re ever done accomplishing. No, you don’t. It’s a never-ending process.”

Alpert pivoted from sound to sound, from penning Jan & Dean’s Top 10 hit, “Baby Talk” (“I didn’t really know what ‘surf pop’—it was all just music to me”), to something more soulful by co-writing “Wonderful World,” with and for Sam Cooke. “Sam was a great guy with a great voice, a sharp look, and a fine mind for business,” said Alpert. “He was definitely an inspiration.”

Along with being influential as an artist, Cooke inspired Alpert and his pal, co-writer Jerry Moss, to create their own label: A&M. Then came another new partner, piano player, and songwriter Sol Lake, the man who wrote “The Lonely Bull.”

“I adapted it, changed it to what I was hearing in my head at the time, moved a few things around, but never took credit in the songwriting,” said Alpert. “Sol had a flair for melody, a great sense of putting things together with interesting melody as its outcome.”

Creating an ensemble out of the epic theatricality of “The Lonely Bull” meant focusing on the sound of the bullfights Alpert used to go to in the spring. “Three years in a row, in Tijuana. Once there, there was

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Herb amd Lani, 2019. Photo by Dewey Nicks

conversation

Photo: Christopher Ash.

JOHN JARBOE & his Rose Garden

WHETHER THROUGH SELF-PENNED, PAST performance pieces such as the musical healing ritual of You Can Never Go Down the Drain or the exploration of art and identity that was ANDY: A POPERA, John Jarboe created theater from a male perspective.

“The journey of my earlier works came from the idea of ‘What does it mean to be a man?’ and ‘How I fit into all that,” said Jarboe. “I didn’t know who I was yet…. I was trying to define what it means to be a man when, in reality, my struggle came from my not being a man. Now, there’s enough heartache in the world that I’m not interested in making art from a perspective of personal trauma or obstacles.”

WTo that end, Jarboe created the somewhat autobiographical, “gender cannibal” original music fantasia, Rose: You Are Who You Eat in 2023, and now, John Jarboe: The Rose Garden, a cinematic, audio-visual installation at Philadelphia’s Fabric Workshop and Museum running from May 11 through September 24, 2024.

With The Rose Garden, Jarboe further tests the complexities of trans identity and belonging based on a revelation to the family’s favorite aunt of the move from “he” and “they” pronouns to “she” and “her” in 2018 at the age of 33.

“That’s when my aunt told me how that made sense as, apparently, I had a twin who she said I ate in the womb at birth. I didn’t know that I had a twin. My having eaten my twin is why I am the way I am. As I say in the show, that was a lot to digest.”

Rose, the performance piece, was the first time that Jarboe fully expressed herself in song beyond writing librettos and now, in collaboration with queer and trans composers. “This is a musical healing ritual that I’ve made for gender cannibals, trans folk, queer-dos, and their

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film roundup

I Saw the TV Glow (Dir. Jane Schoenbrun). Starring: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Fred Durst. Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s follow-up to their microbudget festival hit We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is a movie for anyone who has ever renounced some intrinsic aspect of themselves. Since he first entered high school, introvert Owen (Justice Smith) has been obsessed with a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-like television series called The Pink Opaque. A slightly older fellow outcast, Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), acts as his guide to the fantasy show, as well as his confidante when the fictional world bleeds more and more into the real world. At heart, the film is about those precious cultural objects that help to shape each of us as people and the forces (both external and self-created) that can lead us down violent paths of denial. The story’s specifics stem beautifully and profoundly from the trans and non-binary Schoenbrun’s own identity, but never to the point of insularity. The tragic places I Saw the TV Glow goes to, particularly in its primal scream of a finale, are all too universal. [PG-13] HHHH

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.

Ripley (Dir. Steven Zaillian). Starring: Andrew Scott, Dakota Fanning, Johnny Flynn. The beloved social-climber sociopath created by author Patricia Highsmith slinks his way through this chilling miniseries from writer-director Steven Zallian, who originated the project at Showtime before Netflix snapped it up. It’s the 1960s and petty criminal Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott) is tasked by a wealthy businessman, played by playwright Kenneth Lonergan, with traveling to Italy and bringing home his vagabond son Dickie (Johnny Flynn). Murder and multiple shifts in identity result, though given the extended running time, the focus is less on elegant Hitchockian suspense than it is grueling Fincher-like process. How do you dispose of a dead body and the evidence left behind in the middle of an ocean? How do you pull one over on the dogged inspector (Maurizio Lombardi) on your trail as well as the suspicious girlfriend (Dakota Fanning) who always pops up like a bad penny? Every step of the journey feels intricately mapped out, and every conversational feint and gesture recorded for posterity. Coupled with Robert Elswit’s crisp black-and-white cinematography and Scott’s hollow-eyed opacity as a middle-aged Ripley making a literal last strike for the good life, the series gets under the skin in all the right ways. [N/R] HHHH1/2

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KEITH UHLICH

Scene from

Ripley

film classics

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976, John Carpenter, United States)

A decommissioned police outpost on the wrong side of the tracks provides the backdrop for director John Carpenter’s stellar thriller, the film he made before his 1978 horror breakthrough Halloween Precinct 13 is no less iconic, and a clear template for several of his subsequent movies, such as the claustrophobia-inducing 1982 remake of The Thing. Highway patrolman Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker) and career criminal Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston) are two macho opposites that platonically attract once circumstances force them to put aside their differences and work together to fend off a nighttime gang attack. There’s a lady here, too, Laurie Zimmer’s Leigh, cut from the same above it-all cloth as Lauren Bacall’s tough-talking broad in Howard Hawks’s To Have and Have Not (1944). At this early stage of his career, Carpenter is clearly transposing and transmuting his artistic influences (see another of our classics choices this month for one example). Yet the film’s philosophical bent is entirely his, a belief in the bonds that arise out of the most unspeakably horrific situations as well as the elation that comes from surviving a long, dark night of the soul. (Streaming on Criterion.)

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992, James Foley, United States)

James Foley’s screen adaptation of David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prizewinning play is one of the greatest ever film versions of a stage production. Perhaps we should say fucking greatest given the characters’s propensity for peppering their speech with copious F-bombs. A rundown Chicago real-estate office is the primary setting, where a group of barrel-scraping salesmen do their best to outdo each other pawning off speculative real estate on the easily conned. The cast is uniformly sensational—Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, even, yes Virginia, Kevin Spacey, whose innate oiliness was rarely better utilized. A character created specifically for the film version, played by the equally non-controversial Alec Baldwin, sets the stakes in an early scene: Get your sales numbers up or there’s the motherf’ing door! From there the film becomes a profanely and poetically verbose game of catch-up with backstabbings galore and an ill-fated office robbery that spirals into life-altering tragedy. Every scene is a masterclass of staging and performance (Pacino’s “seduction” of a drunken mark played by Jonathan Pryce is especially unnerving). But it’s Lemmon as the hard-knocked Shelley “The Machine” Levene who proves

CONTINUED ON PAGE 29

KEITH UHLICH

Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross

VALLEY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

er’s home church in Leipzig, where they were christened. A Mozart wind serenade will be reprised in Salzburg, where it debuted. Also on the bill are an unaccompanied Mendelssohn work and two Brandenburg concerti featuring the festival’s resident recorder specialist. The “Goldberg Variations” in an 18th-century space and the massive Mass in B Minor, the choir’s calling card. (May 10-11 and 17-18, various locations in Bethlehem; 610-866-4382; bach.org; Mass in B Minor live stream on May 11)

Pity poor Prince Pippin. Nothing seems to satisfy him—not war or sex or religion or even killing and resurrecting his father. At least he has a few good songs to sing, the love of a farmer’s widow, and the company of a marvelously mercurial acting troupe led by a mad magician emcee. Six decades after premiering, “Pippin” remains a remarkably innovative, provocative musical, with stirring tunes (“Magic to Do,” “I Guess I’ll Miss the Man”) and Bob Fosse’s pretzeling choreography. Plus, it’s the only show where one character—the Leading Player--won a Tony award for leading actor and leading actress in a musical. (May 3-5, 11-14, 18-21, Civic Theatre of Allentown, 527 N. 19th St.; 610-433-8903; civictheatre.com)

Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra had a crystalline chemistry. Switching effortlessly between leader and follower, they simultaneously sold songs and told stories—cleanly, crisply, and compellingly. They had a hell of a swell time together; witness their thrillingly swinging “The Lady Is a Tramp” on Sinatra’s 1967 television special. Their lovely rapport is siphoned lovingly by Tony DeSare and Capathia Jenkins, distinctly dynamic partners with orchestras around the country. On May 11, the native New Yorkers will join the Allentown Symphony Pops with vivid, vital versions of “Fly Me to the Moon,” “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” and other treasured standards. Both DeSare and Jenkins have credits galore. He’s sung and played piano with “A Prairie Home Companion,” released solo albums with his jazzy originals, and hosted a Cole Porter program. She’s been busy on TV (“30 Rock,” “The Sopranos”) and on Broadway (“Caroline, or Change,” Martin Short’s “Fame Becomes Me”). (Miller Symphony Hall, 23 N. 6th St., Allentown; 610-432-6715; millersymphonyhall.org) n

CITY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

cially starts (and it couldn’t have happened soon enough) as rapping superstar Megan Thee Stallion hits Wells Fargo Center with my favorite new hip-hop group based around its self-named rapper, GloRilla, It’s “Girls in the Hood” all the way this May.

Jazz pop’s best friend and coolest voice, Norah Jones, takes over The Met Philadelphia on May 15—the night before South Jersey’s top charting, modern gospel cheerleader, vocalist, and bandleader Tye Tribbett & Friends show hits what once acted as North Broad Street’s biggest place of worship.

Glenside, Pennsylvania is already a very livable burg for families and singles alike, but come May, you will all but move into the Keswick Theatre with live appearances from Upper Darby’s own Wizard/A True Star Todd Rundgren on May 12 (taking a break from touring with Philly area falsetto king Daryl Hall) and the 21st Century’s answer to Cole Porter, Rufus Wainwright on May 22. n

FILM ROUNDUP / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20

Asphalt City (Dir. Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire). Starring: Sean Penn, Tye Sheridan, Mike Tyson. War is hell and so, apparently, are the lives of New York City ambulance drivers, if this Taxi Driver-lite dirge from French provocateur Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire is any indication. Ollie Cross (Tye Sheridan) is the in-over-his-head rookie. Gene Rutkovsky (Sean Penn) is the grizzled cynical veteran. They spend their nights attending to bullet-riddled gangbangers, domestically abused spouses, and infants (barely) born to drug-addicted mothers. The pair’s home lives are just as troubled, punctuated by crushing depression and loneliness as well as an inability to make deep-rooted connections with others. The film is a relentless downward spiral into a bottomless abyss, so much so that its myriad horrors become near comical. That Sauvaire and his cast nonetheless keep the proceedings consistently absorbing is a testament to their commitment to the bit—though it’s likely they believe the ludicrously Boschian visions on display here are close to unvarnished truth. That tension between the genuine and the pseudish admittedly has its pleasures, no better evidenced than by the cocked-eyebrow stunt casting of heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson as Ollie and Gene’s enduringly exasperated boss. [R] HH1/2

Civil War (Dir. Alex Garland). Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny. Not so much horrifically topical as it is grimly goofy, the latest from writer-director Alex Garland (Men) sends a quartet of journalists (Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny and Stephen McKinley Henderson) on an eventful road trip from New York to Washington D.C. in a near-future dystopian United States.

Once they reach the divided nation’s capitol, they hope to chronicle a likely separatist siege on an autocratic commander-in-chief (Nick Offerman). The blood-stained, bullet-riddled spectacles they witness on the way are less visions of societal and moral decay than they are smug sight gags (a shootout that occurs in a Christmas-themed amusement park; a nighttime forest fire that sends poetically glowing embers through the air; enemy combatants executed in slo-mo while De La Soul blares on the soundtrack). What does it all mean?!? exclaims the anxiety-induced commentariat. Not a whole hell of a lot beyond Garland’s juvenile aim to provoke and his pretensions toward remaking Escape from New York as an election year op-ed. That the movie is on some level still a moment-to-moment blast speaks to Garland’s talent as a genre craftsman, though one longs at times for the simpler pleasures he excels at (see, for example, 2012’s spectacular comic book thriller Dredd, which Garland wrote and is purported to have ghost-directed) to prevail over Civil War’s glum state-of-the-disunion fatalism. [R] HH1/2 n

JOHN JARBOE / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18

guardians. Rose is for anyone dealing with self-acceptance and what it means to bring someone different into this world and care for and nourish them.

While Jarboe admits that the metaphorical performance of Rose starts from a place of dark humor and cutting puns regarding the absorption of a twin and vanishing twin syndrome (“a lot of jokes about being hard to swallow, hard to stomach”), this original musical dramedy touches on the poignancy of how her lost twin is “eating me from the inside-out now,” she said. “I feel as if a shell, an armor, is being devoured, and I’m revealing a soft underbelly, a femme human being that was there all along.”

Going forward as an artist and theater creator, Jarboe believes that she has stripped herself of the hard shell that long contained her (“drag is definitely an armor we wear, and I’m wearing less drag in Rose”) and embracing vulnerability and the feminine divine. “I’m also angry at what happens to the trans community in America,” said Jarboe. “I’m into being dangerous.”

Rose: You Are Who You Eat, made in partnership with the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, started at the 2023 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, moved into January 2024 performances with La MaMa in New York, and this summer in Washington, D.C. with the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (June 3–23, 2024) and via a mobile art gallery with Cultural D.C. (May 17–July 14, 2024).

piece,” said Jarboe. “When I was commissioned by Works in Progress at the Guggenheim in 2020, they wanted a film project because it was during the pandemic.”

From there, Jarboe made a music video based on compositions about all things Rose co-written with songwriter Emily Bates and continued with additional films and music. “The Rose show came to fruition due to those films while I was also talking to museums about how all these beautiful gallery films should be in a museum.”

Philadelphia’s Fabric Workshop applied for a Pew Grant on Jarboe’s behalf, and voila, The Rose Garden. “I’m crafty, but not that crafty, and thankfully can exist in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop,” she said. “What they’re building in concert with me are environments to walk through, something that’s very interactive, like an escape room, or maybe an escape womb, of gender and Midwestern denial.”

The Fabric Workshop IS BUILDING....

TO WALK

WENVIRONMENTS

THROUGH,LIKE

an escape room, OR MAYBE an escape womb, of gender AND Midwestern denial.

Then, there is The Fabric Workshop’s upcoming The Rose Garden installation+, which promises to match the energy of her Rose-y stage performance with the format of a museum exhibition with eight rooms featuring video sculptures—a series of short films with original songs— and additional places at the FWM filled with Jarboe’s family memories, stories, and tchotchkes.

“The written material of Rose was originally intended to be a video

Answer to COLOR-COATED

Nearly 90 minutes of new Jarboe film fuel the installations of The Rose Garden, rooms where you not only activate the films at your whim but also pour through drawers and cabinets filled with the performer’s whims and memories. “I wanted people to feel as if they’re on a gender journey and doing the things that I had to do as a child.”

While rooting through Jarboe’s mother’s vanity, looking through mom’s magazines and makeup, you can look at videos made in tandem with directors Christopher Ash and MK Tuonamen throughout the installations’ eight separate spaces, all culminating in a Green Room hang space “designed to support queer folks, allies and advocates” with clothing and stuff donated by AIDS Thrift for a “wardrobe swap,” flowers from Market Blooms, treats from Reading Terminal Market. As the exhibit is up for months and open throughout the day, Jarboe sees The Rose Garden as a “soft landing space for queer folk” to just hang out, read, and listen to music. There will also be poetry readings, sharings, happenings, virtual reality games, live music, and theater at varying intervals throughout the Rose Garden’s exhibition.

“It is all very vulnerable,” said Jarboe when asked to comment on the most challenging ideations of Rose Garden that may be more difficult than the joyousness that is her usual resting face/place/space. “The overall journey is the challenge. Acknowledging the things that feel nourishing to me in my idiosyncratic experience and expression of gender might just be triggering to others. There is a whole Alfred Hitchcock section where I play Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. There is hunting imagery and fish-gutting imagery because they were central to my childhood and have become metaphors for a journey of searching out who I am. That stuff is tender. I have to make sure that my journey ends in a warm, positive place.”

Among Jarboe’s video sculptures and mini-movies that fill The Rose Garden, nothing can be warmer than “Dear Mom,” Jarboe’s queer rendition of The Sound of Music’s “Do-Re-Mi” featuring a costume pattern that she helped design that, inevitably, becomes a sing-a-long healing ritual for trans folk. The video was filmed on location during summer 2023 at Philadelphia’s Belmont Plateau.

“This becomes a beautiful, intergenerational expression of love and worthiness,” says Jarboe of all-that-is The Rose Garden. “Worthiness is making sure that we, as queer people, can really know that we are worthy of love, and of the space that we take up—in galleries and museums AND as part of this country.” n

HERB ALPERT / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

always a brass band in the stands. I got a buzz on that, sonically and visually. It wasn’t a Mariachi band, per se. They were playing fanfares. Their different sounds would introduce what was coming up next during the bullfight. That’s why I got excited about translating that afternoon's feeling into a song, ‘The Lonely Bull.’ That started it all; there was no real Tijuana Brass group. They didn’t really exist. I put a group together after I put out Whipped Cream & Other Delights, and it was monster huge—like 14 million albums sold worldwide.”

For Tijuana Brass’ next album, 1963’s South of the Border, Sol Lake’s composition, “Mexican Shuffle,” was again a centerpiece for Alpert, one that opened new doors beyond its salsa-riffic sonic qualities.

“The ‘in’ was selling lots of records, and you get there by being cool,” he said, laughing while poking fun at my previous comments. “But. I never thought of myself as an entertainer. I never thought of myself as a handsome guy, which many people claimed. That wasn’t even in my thinking; I just wanted to do good music. Look, even after we did Lonely Bull, I had the option. I could’ve gone sideways and recorded different variations on that same song—made a dozen hits with a dozen Lonely Bulls. Or I could take that sound I heard in my head and knew was good, and take it as far out as I could. I did the latter. And I got lucky. There is no doubt in my mind that I was at the right place at the right time with a sound that captivated people. Maybe an image too, I don’t know.”

Complimenting his skill for editing and curating—whether it's musicians or songs, seeing what is in front of him, and being able to re-order things to suit his needs—Alpert quickly responds as only a right-brain-oriented guy would.

was like, ‘Holy shit, man, this can’t work.’ So, I wanted to see if Lani would double-track and if it sounded good. And it sounded great, and that was another bit of magic. It happened through the back door, though. There were no big discussions beforehand or overblown decisions to be made. I wasn’t flaunting it—it was just something I heard that didn’t work when they were in the studio—and did work when it was just Lani, who is a marvel. She’s masquerading as an angel on earth.”

And not only was Hall an essential ingredient to his sound, she’s always honest and authentic to the core. “She’s subtle, but she’s a force. You know she was a street chick back in Chicago, so she’s tough too.”

Successes aside, jazz, improvisation, and the emotion behind the most essential, emotional, and riveting instrumental music was a topic that lilted through our conversations like a warm breeze; it is here that Alpert stated his desires and intentions more purely.

CCI don’t think people listen with their ears or their hearts; THEY LISTEN WITH THEIR BODIES. That’s what gets you.

“I just respond to a feeling. I don’t overthink a thing. Like if you’re producing a record, and you have a great bunch of musicians in the studio. I go into the control room and listen to a playback. I’m listening for feel and vibe. All I’m looking at and listening for is how it feels. I can remember getting goosebumps when I heard ‘Rise’ in Studio D at A&M Studios after we recorded it.”

As if I didn’t know chapter-and-verse the legend of Lani Hall, Alpert warmly reminds this author about having discovered Sergio Mendez, his Brasil ’66 and one young female vocalist in particular. “My wife is singing lead on “Mas que Nada,” so the music and the moment means quite a bit to me. What impressed me was how the Brazilians weren’t interested in making Top Ten records. They were concentrating on craft, mood, and vibe—making the music that poured out of them regularly and effortlessly—and that meant classical, jazz, African-influenced stuff, and pop. I fell in love with that culture.”

Lani Hall. Brasil ’66. The serenely sensuous female vocal sound entwined in harmony. Yes, B66’s elegantly soulful signature was producer Alpert doing what he had done for his own trumpet’s tone for her voice: double-tracked it just as Les Paul had done for Mary Ford throughout the 1950s.

“That was a slightly different situation because, well, there was Lani and her absolutely lovely voice, and then there was this other girl that Sergio had, BB Vogel, who was very beautiful, a model, a very nice lady, but she couldn’t sing [laughs]. I don’t want to say she was a prop. She was nice on stage: she moved well and looked great. But, when I heard them singing together, and I was about to record their vocal tracks, I

“I’m basically a jazz musician, very spontaneous, someone who isn’t playing the same thing twice in a row. Even if it’s written down. I’m able to move things around so it's fresh, so it’s of the moment. Many artists who tried to copy my sound back In the day—even if they were going note by note from the page— didn’t have the same feeling my records had. All art has to do with feel, nothing else. Actor, sculptor, painter, musician, it’s about feeling. I don’t think people listen with their ears or their hearts; they listen with their bodies. That’s what gets you. Music? You have to start with the melodies. You need the melodies. If you can get that right, everything else is a feel. All great jazz records— like Miles Davis—had that from the get-go.”

An impressive innovative jazz musician, as damned fine a jazz player as a pop player who doesn’t get that cred, Alpert laughed about how being an AM radio hero and an internationally beloved television and stage star had its downside.

“You know, there’s a curse. When you sell 72 million records, you’re a guy who sold out. I’m proud of what I’ve done and will defend my honor [laughs]. But that’s the downside of selling a lot of records, the double-edged sword. I had one critic in LA who called me ‘Miles Davis trying to imitate Rex Harrison.’ I used to get that type of shit all the time. I know you mentioned me being cool earlier. Do you know why that is? Because I really don’t give a shit. I’m doing it for myself, and I’m passionate about it. If you like it, wonderful. Glad to have you onboard. If you don’t like it, wonderful, see you later. Sometimes, it takes a while for someone to get onto your slipstream. When they do, that’s magic.”

“I just played authentically and expressed myself honestly,” he said of latter-day efforts, the likes of which truly opened his doors of perception up to new tricks for the future based upon vibrations of the heart, the right brain, and the body—the sounds of new albums such as Wish Upon A Star.

“Break away from the note. Find new paths. Always looking for a better, different, more honest way of doing it. You never totally get to the promised land, so you keep searching. At least I do. I’m not a calculating man. I do this all to satisfy my own creativity, my own curiosity. Still, that may sound huffy, but I survive on that. It gets my heart pumping. Every time.” n

to be the doleful, dejected heart of Mamet’s magnificent morality play. He’s the only snake-oiler with a soul, which, of course, spells his doom. (Streaming on Netflix.)

Bay of Angels (1963, Jacques Demy, France/Monaco)

For his second feature, the great French romantic Jacques Demy (1961’s Lola) turns his ardent eye to the gambling halls of the French Riviera. A young bank employee, Jean (Claude Mann), goes on a bettor’s holiday after tasting the addictive tangs of luck and chance. Amid the roulette wheels and blackjack tables he meets Jackie Demaistre

(Jeanne Moreau), a seasoned speculator who warns him romantic love will never supersede her affection for a well- or an ill-placed wager. Over a brisk hour-and-a-half, Jean and Jackie dance around each other in ways those familiar with Demy’s later musical output—most notably The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)—will be unsurprised by. The tones struck here, though, are more dizzyingly psychological. Though their monetary fortunes may rise and fall, Jean and Jackie’s simmering passion for each other endures, though any acknowledgment is constantly deferred. Only at the giddy climax does full feeling burst forth, in wholehearted parallel with composer Michel Legrand’s rapturous score. (Streaming on Max.)

Rio Bravo (1959, Howard Hawks, United States)

For a perfect double-feature pair Howard Hawks’s superb Western with one of this month’s other classics, Assault on Precinct 13. The influence on John Carpenter’s taut thriller is more-than-evident in the basic scenario: Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) must enlist the aid of a ragtag crew to fend off a vicious gang intent on liberating the criminal son of powerful local rancher from the county jail. The odds aren’t great given his team is made up of the town drunk known only as Dude (Dean Martin) and a not-so-quick-on-the-draw older deputy nicknamed Stumpy (perfectly embodied by the inimitable Walter Brennan). A hotheaded young gunslinger named Colorado Ryan (Ricky Nelson) plays both sides against the middle for much of the movie, and Angie Dickinson stokes Duke Wayne’s amorous side as card sharp Feathers. Befitting a Hawks production, the movie embraces multiple genres in egalitarian fashion: It might be a comedy one moment, a tragedy the next, even, at times, a musical. As the plot recedes in importance (the story is fascinatingly wrapped up in abrupt fashion), a dynamic sense of community comes to the fore. The fiction proves a pretext for something more grandly life-affirming, a buoyant ethos that resonates far beyond the cinema screen. (Streaming on Prime.) n

LUNA / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

home. For us civilians, batteries were those things you put in a flashlight and not much more. These systems had to survive extreme temperature swings and other severe demands in an age when your car wouldn’t start when the temperature dipped too far below freezing.

One of the first astronauts, Alan Shepard, dryly commented, “Every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder.” He was right, and every one of those 150,000 parts needed to perform as expected. From conversations at our dinner table, I learned that there were a lot of things they didn’t know how to do that had to be discovered or invented as they went. The laboratory where my father worked had explosion-proof doors.

All of it was risky. Two missions later, a malfunction led to an explosion in the capsule that would have doomed the astronauts had it not happened at the time and place it did. The scientists at NASA hacked a fix using the cover on the flight manual, a pair of socks, hoses from the space suits, and of course, duct tape; otherwise, the men were goners. NASA was able to swing them around the moon and bring them home. There was no script, no precedence to rely on. You field that line drive just right, or people die. Three astronauts already had.

Space was just one slice of the time. There was the Vietnam War, which cut close to home everywhere across the country, and the music, which was new, brave, and pervasive. Everything had an edge. Despite the moonshot being a big gamble, it wasn’t contentious. People argued about the need and the cost, but once Apollo 11 was up there, on its way to do something not just never done before but inconceivable to most, the world held its breath, crossed its fingers, and prayed.

Some put the odds of a successful moon landing at 50:50. It was the president's job to help the country, and the world, grieve and move forward if the men didn’t return. He had his speechwriter, Willian Safire, prepare a statement to be read if things went wrong and the men were stranded. Safire created one of the most moving pieces in my memory, discovered in the archives thirty years after Apollo 11 shot into the unknown. It is indicative of the time when all eyes in America and much of the world were in awe of our capabilities, the scale of the undertaking, and the courage of three men sailing the heavens in the confines of the lunar module Eagle.

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations.

In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind. n

harper’s FINDINGS INDEX

Luminescent grains from the Erg Chebbi sand sea dated the origin of the Lala Lallia star dune to 11000 bc. The Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy denied the Anthropocene epoch status by a vote of twelve to four, though a paleontologist and a stratigrapher moved to void the decision on procedural grounds. Scientists determined that the retreat of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier began in the Forties, making it synchronous with the retreat of Pine Island Glacier, and meltwater from the Yukon glaciers Donjek, Dusty, and Kluane, once assumed to contain very little methane, was found to contain very high concentrations of the gas. Scientists predicted that the Atlantic would start contracting within twenty million years, and that the oceans change too slowly to be significantly helped by stratospheric aerosol injection. The planetary freshwater system was destabilized by the middle of the twentieth century. An orca acting alone killed a great white shark and ate its liver. Over the course of a year, Indian elephants in the eastern Himalayan floodplains buried five dead calves upside down in irrigation ditches on tea plantations.

A metal scar on the surface of the white dwarf WD 0816-310 indicated that it has cannibalized other bodies in its orbit. Violence and novel pathogens were presumed to be the mechanisms whereby farmers associated with the Funnel Beaker culture wiped out the Ertebølle culture hunter-gatherers of Scandinavia 5,900 years ago (as well as those whereby the big-boned cattle herders associated with the Single Grave culture, in turn, wiped out Funnel Beaker farmers 4,700 years ago). The incidence of Down syndrome rose in early Iron Age Spain. Machine analysis of contemporaneous documents tracked the 1840s potato blight as it moved through the Northeastern United States prior to its outbreak in Ireland. Seventy coins were extracted from a thirty-six-year-old white Nebraska alligator named Thibodaux. Higher soil levels of copper and selenium result in Greenlandic musk oxen having more calves, and giant Antarctic sea spider parents attach their eggs to rocky sea bottoms rather than carry them until they hatch. In a survey conducted by the BBC, it was shown that all reporting supermarket chains stocked chickens burned by their own feces while alive, and a green power plant in North Yorkshire that provides 5 percent of the United Kingdom’s electricity was accused of burning rare trees.

Scientists following the morning love songs of Skywalker hoolock gibbons found significant numbers of them in areas of Myanmar previously thought to be home exclusively to Eastern hoolock gibbons. Low vocal pitch among men strikes people as more formidable and prestigious in societies with higher homicide rates. Recent Antarctic overwinterers were found to have developed their own accent. The words “easy,” “relax,” and “xaler” slow a sleeper’s heart, whereas the words “produce,” “materials,” and “slairetam” do not. Words and images with positive or negative emotional valences make it more difficult for people with aphasia to find other, unrelated words. Elderly Chinese people are less likely than young Britons to interpret facial emojis according to their canonical meaning. Researchers discovered that, when asked to deliver verdicts on criminal trials, GPT-4 is more likely to recommend a death sentence for defendants who speak African-American English. The north of England is losing its strong r’s.

Portion of Republicans who say that it would be a good idea to let Trump be a dictator for the first day of a second term: 3/4

Portion of Americans who would not vote for a presidential candidate who has been charged with a felony: 2/3

% change since 2020 in the portion of Americans who say they would vote for a Muslim presidential candidate: +8

% change in the portion who say they would vote for a Jewish presidential candidate: −5

% of Americans who say that the United States should spend more money on assistance for poor people: 72

% who say so when this assistance is called “welfare”: 29

Factor by which low-income Americans are more likely than others to identify as vegetarian: 2

% decrease in the number of Americans who identify as vegetarian since 2018: 20

% of Americans who believe they will be harmed personally by climate change: 45

Portion of the global population that lives in places where air quality does not meet World Health Organization standards: 9/10

% of Americans who said in January 2020 that they were very satisfied with their lives: 65 Who say so now: 47

% change in the total net worth of white Americans since 2019: +26

In the total net worth of black Americans: −4

In the total net worth of American adults under 40: +76

% of millennial Americans who believe they have “money dysmorphia,” or unfounded feelings of financial insecurity: 41

% of U.S. teens who have investment accounts: 23

Minimum number of layoffs in the U.S. media sector since January 2023: 26,102

Number of the 100 largest American law firms that say they use generative AI in their work: 41

Portion of human-resources officers who expect AI to replace jobs at their company within the next three years: 7/10

% by which employees who work in person are more likely to be promoted than those who work exclusively remotely: 45

% by which workers who primarily sit at work are at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease than those who do not: 34

% by which lesbian and gay American adults are more likely to smoke than their straight counterparts: 27

By which bisexual American adults are more likely to smoke: 66

% of Americans who say that lesbian and gay “relations” are morally acceptable: 64

% change since 2022 in the portion of Americans who say so: −10

% change since 2022 in those who say that married men and women having affairs is morally acceptable: +33

Portion of LGBT Americans raised Christian who have left the faith: 2/3

Portion of transgender Americans who have been homeless at some point: 3/10

Who are currently unemployed: 1/5

% of transgender Americans who have had gender-affirming surgery who report an increase in life satisfaction: 97

% of Americans who say they typically know the cost of a health-care service or product before receiving it: 17

% by which syphilis cases have increased in the United States since 2018: 80

% by which the rate of premature births has increased in the United States since 2014: 12

% increase since October 2023 in miscarriages reported in Gaza: 300

Estimated % of children in Gaza under the age of five who have an infectious disease: 93

% decrease in the United Nations’ requested annual budget for humanitarian aid in the past year: 11

Portion of U.S. veterans who say they feel awkward or uncomfortable when they are thanked for their service: 1/2

Portion of U.S. veterans under 30 who say so: 7/10

SOURCES: 1 University of Massachusetts Amherst; 2–4 Gallup (Washington); 5,6 NORC at the University of Chicago; 7,8 Gallup; 9 Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (New Haven, Conn.); 10 Monash University (Melbourne, Australia); 11,12 Gallup; 13–15 Federal Reserve Bank of New York; 16 Credit Karma (San Francisco); 17 Fidelity Investments (Boston); 18 Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. (Chicago); 19 The American Lawyer (NYC); 20 Gallup; 21 Live Data Technologies (Santa Barbara, Calif.); 22 Taipei Medical University (Taiwan); 23,24 American Cancer Society (Atlanta); 25–27 Gallup; 28 Williams Institute (Los Angeles); 29,30 National Center for Transgender Equality (Washington); 31 New York University; 32 Gallup; 33,34 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta); 35 CARE International (Geneva); 36 World Food Programme (NYC); 37 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Geneva); 38,39 USAA (San Antonio).

COLOR-COATED BY EVAN BIRNHOLZ

ACROSS

1 Boat-building wood

6 Second word of a U.S. territory

10 Poker hand

14 See 10 Down

19 Walled city of Spain

20 Variety of Dutch cheese

21 Poker hand starter

22 Tex-Mex chip

23 “We’ve Only Just Begun” singer Carpenter

24 Fourth Greek letter + colorful coat = Donkey riding in a vintage Ford?

26 Forestall

27 Spider-Man enemy who gained his powers after being struck by lightning

29 “You’ve ___ this!”

30 Blocks, as progress

32 $1

33 Grocery shopping aid + colorful coat = Hairstyle for some singer?

38 Earth Observing System org.

39 Granola bit

40 “Whew, I was worried for a second ___”

41 Venezuelan snack

43 Calgary Flames’ org.

44 Blarney ___ (ritually kissed landmark)

46 Número following uno

48 Guy found in three consecutive letters of the alphabet

49 Reduces to grain-size pieces

51 Gives a new title to + colorful coat = Tableland honoring tennis legend Williams?

54 Cipher creator +colorful coat = Historic period known for adolescent Atlantic fish?

57 12-inch stick

58 “___ out!” (ump’s cry)

60 “Mayans M.C.” actor Trujillo

61 Membrane at the end of the auditory canal

64 Raven’s gripper

66 Back row target, in bowling

70 In the style of

71 “Pick me! I know!” + colorful coat = Broody royal messenger who delivers news about a Hostess snack?

74 AP Bio class molecule

75 “And here’s that rabbit in my top hat!”

77 Priory of ___ (secret society in a Dan Brown bestseller)

78 Some U-Haul vehicles

79 ___ the knee (submit to another’s authority)

80 Brontë who wrote “Wuthering Heights”

82 Coolidge, familiarly + colorful coat = First letter that’s been enlarged or shrunken?

86 Fix, as a shoelace

87 Pull out of the ground

89 “Chances ___ ...”

90 Rainwater collector

91 Bar food?

93 Overjoyed state

95 Itty-bitty

96 Noisy med. scan

98 Central Illinois city + colorful coat = Desire from the “Smooth Operator” singer to adopt a feline?

101 For each

104 Morays in oceans, e.g.

106 Banks of fashion

107 Wood stove inserts

108 What A stands for in Thomas A. Edison

109 With 112 Across, Irish street ballad that serves as an alternate title for this puzzle

112 See 109 Across

114 Extend, as the loan on a library book

115 Mayberry boy

116 Teeny-tiny arachnid

117 Bawshar citizen

118 Roast host

119 “Keep your eyes ___”

120 Thinking product

121 Takes the L

122 Complete collections

123 1990s PC puzzle game

124 Take care of

125 Mister Rogers DOWN

1 TLC series filmed at Carlo’s Bake Shop

2 Appraise

3 One making a scene?

4 “SmXart” one

5 “End of ___” (online diatribe’s conclusion)

6 Take out

7 Swear words in church?

8 Dishonorable guy

9 Final Greek letter

10 With 14 Across, “Because the Night” singer

11 Gasteyer once on SNL

12“___ dangerous to go alone! Take this.” (quote from “The Legend of Zelda” when Link is given a sword)

13 Live (in)

14 Finger-clicking sound

15 Expert

16 Rink routine

17 Harvesting machine

18Spicy sauce that may be made with jalapeños

25 “omg that’s hilarious!”

28 Stadium cheer

31 Floor-washing tool

34 Judge’s cry in a disruptive courthouse

35 Biz world bigwigs

36 Fill completely

37 “___ words have never been spoken”

40 Academic field goal

42 In the neighborhood

45 One who may geek out

47 Throat-checking request

48 Beer brewer Bernhard

50 Not working right now

52 Former Princetonians, e.g.

53 Reflective narrative

55 First three syllables in the “Hey Jude” refrain

56 Shapes of bedsprings

59 Rock band that fills in the blanks of its song “_vi_ W_man”

61 Picky ___ (one who’s fussy about their food)

62 Remembered mission

63 No-signal status

64 2,000-pound units

65 “Wild Things” actress Campbell

67 Begging, the question?

68 Term for the person at work, as opposed to the “outie” of the outside world, on the show “Severance”

69 Ralph who led a team of “Raiders”

72 Soil-loosening tool

73 Super-awesome

76 Utah skiing area

79 Risks some money

81 Oscar winner Brynner

83 H.S. math class

84 “O mio Fernando,” e.g.

85 “___ we forget ...”

86 Take part in a 5K, say

88 Bar food?

90 Flying V makeup

92 Recreational space on a military base

93Close-fitting hats

94 Dimethyl ___ (smelly compound)

95 Epithet like “Einstein”

96 British track unit

97 Alters, as a skirt

99 Messy, as paint

100 In a decayed state

102Smoothed (out)

103 Subcontinent queens

105 Like the taste of dessert wines, usually

108 Jouster’s metal suit

110 Lambs’ dams

111 Courteous fellow

112 Forget to include

113 Game in which a certain tournament’s champions put on aptly colorful jackets (you can find this tournament in the first letters of this puzzle’s circled colors)