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Contents

JUNE 2015

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

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icon The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, opinion and mad genius

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE ... | 22

Filling the hunger since 1992

The sun will always find Brian Wilson, melancholy pop’s innovative, eternal beach boy.

1-800-354-8776 • 215-862-9558

FEATURES

www.icondv.com President/Publisher Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com

THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE KIMMEL | 25

Assistant Raina Filipiak to the Publisher filipiakr@comcast.net

Jose Garces’ Volver and SEI Innovation Studios make the Kimmel Center campus complete in June.

Mark Dion, The Incomplete Naturalist (detail), 2015. ©The Barnes Foundation. Photo: Rick Echelmeyer.

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SINGIN’ AND SLINGIN’ THE BLUES | 30 Among the stars that will perform at Allentown’s Blues, Brews and Barbecue, is the rawest and realest of blues artists—ferocious six-string-slinger, Joe Louis Walker.

5 | CITY BEAT 5 | VALLEY BEAT 40 | JIM DELPINO

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41 | SALLY FRIEDMAN

ART 6 | Bucks Guild Arts Fest ‘15

Designer House Art Santa Bannon/Fine Art Gallery 7 | Nothing to Lose 8 | The Order of Things at Barnes 10 | Jacob Lawrence at MOMA

FILM 12 | CINEMATTERS

Love & Mercy “Lambert & Stamp”

18

14 | KERESMAN ON FILM

Lambert & Stamp 16 | BAD MOVIE

Mordecai 18 | REEL NEWS

Timbuktu Leviathan Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter Run All Night “Timbuktu”

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20 | FILM ROUNDUP

MUSIC 32 | SINGER / SONGWRITER

Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris Tom Chapin Domino Kirke Tom Russell The Grahams 33 | KERESMAN ON DISC

Nellie McKay Jackie DeShannon Mac McCaughan Soft Machine Edward Burlingame Hill/Austin Symphony Orchestra 34 | JAZZ LIBRARY

June Christy 35 | NICK’S PICKS

Harold Mabern Aaron Diehl Eugenie Jones John Raymond

DINING 36 | Beast & Ale 39 | Caffe Galleria

ETCETERA 42 | L. A. TIMES CROSSWORD 43 | AGENDA

Mad Max: Fury Road The Nightmare Slow West Tomorrowland

Executive Editor Trina McKenna

26 | VALLEY THEATER

ENTERTAINMENT

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CITY BEAT Thom Nickels / thomnickels1@aol.com VALLEY BEAT Geoff Gehman / geoffgehman@verizon.net FINE ARTS Edward Higgins Burton Wasserman MUSIC Nick Bewsey / nickbewsey@gmail.com Mark Keresman / shemp@hotmail.com Bob Perkins / bjazz5@aol.com Tom Wilk / tomwilk@rocketmail.com FOOD Robert Gordon / rgordon33@verizon.net

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS A. D. Amorosi / divaland@aol.com Robert Beck / robert@robertbeck.net Jack Byer / jackbyer@verizon.net Peter Croatto / petecroatto@yahoo.com James P. Delpino / JDelpino@aol.com Sally Friedman / pinegander@aol.com Geoff Gehman / geoffgehman@verizon.net George O.Miller / gomiller@travelsdujour.com R. Kurt Osenlund / rkurtosenlund@gmail.com Keith Uhlich / KeithUhlich@gmail.com

ICON is published twelve times per year. 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. Subscriptions are available for $40 (shipping & handling).

26 | CITY THEATER

28 | THE LIST

Designer Lauren Fiori Assistant Designer Kaitlyn Reed-Baker

PO Box 120 • New Hope, PA 18938 (800) 354-8776 Fax (215) 862-9845

THEATER

Eugenie Jones.

EDITORIAL

DESIGN

COLUMNS

Jacob Lawrence, “Another cause was lynching. It was found that where there had been a lynching, the people who were reluctant to leave at first left immediately after this. There were lynchings.”

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Copyright 2015 Prime Time Publishing Co., Inc.

ON THE COVER: Brian Wilson, page 22.

City Beat

THOM NICKELS

Valley Beat

GEOFF GEHMAN

ThomNickels1@aol.com

Political correctness stunted honest opinions after Philadelphia Theatre Company’s press opening of brownsville song (b-side for tray) by Kimber Lee. People seemed afraid to say they didn’t like this tale of a teenage black boy from the ghetto who works at Starbucks and is killed in the streets. The play tries hard to be original, but in the end its predictability (The New York Times lamented the play’s “well-worn paths”) and erratic timeline juxtapositions made us think of the word juvenile. More reality TV and Hallmark After School Special than classic theater, we realize that genius companies like PTC must fail from time to time.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s annual 2015 Founders Award gala at the Union League brought us face to face with art critic Edie Newhall who told us about her ancestor, Charles Godfey Leland, Philly’s own Aleister Crowley who wrote books on witches, wrote for The Evening Bulletin and was a friend of Oscar Wilde’s. Novelist Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Invention of Wings (an Oprah Book Club selection) was this year’s award winner, while HSP board member Alice Lea Tasman walked away with the Heritage Award. Gerry Lenfest, fresh from his Attila the Hun Inquirer debacle in which he overturned the newspaper’s endorsement of Jim Kenny for Tony Williams, showed no remorse when he took to the podium. [Sources at the Inquirer deny that Lenfest overruled the editorial board’s endorsement of Kenny.]

Fran Lebowitz once said that she never reads the works of 22-year-old writers. The idea is to go up the age scale, not down, she said, though she’s mum on the work of young, emerging visual artists. While soaking up art auction items at the recent Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA) gala, we ran into Switzerland-born Nadia Kunz, a board member of the Da Vinci Art Alliance Gallery, who showed us her bright-as-Easter handmade baby clothes. We hate baby clothes (on general principal), but the 20-something couple we caught eyeing Kunz’s cute-as-pie fabrications seemed to be having second thoughts about a commitment to childlessness. We chatted with Madrid-born artist Maria R. Schneider, and later ran into Deb Miller who spiced up Theatre Exile’s superb Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Plays and Players when she donated wine for patrons at the post-production reception. While Plays and Players may love their cash cow bar, they graciously accepted Miller’s wine (rather than pull a Gerry Lenfest by insisting on their own).

=

On the scene of the Amtrak tragedy, Mayor Nutter said, “That may have been stones or rocks ... [but had] nothing to do with this particular incident [phillymag.com].” As reporters continued to grill him, he softened his tone, but it was too late. He spoke before knowing the facts: two other trains that night were hit by stones or rocks—a northbound Amtrak Acela train and a Septa R7 Trenton-bound train.

The R7 window shattering was so severe passengers had to be transferred to a bus.

Acela train passengers recall hearing a huge crash when that train was hit. Septa’s Chestnut Hill Local has a rich projectile history: Two shattered windows a month has been this line’s average for years. The projectile problem has been dismissed for decades as the shenanigans of “rogue kids,” but it’s time to up the ante and increase the penalties for this senseless act.

At The Print Center’s Book Launch for poets Thomas Devaney and Joanna Fuhrman, we met Philly’s famous woman poet, Eleanor Wilner, and then chatted with poet Jim Cory before catching up with artist Diane Burko. From there we went to the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Day where one of this year’s award winners was His Excellency Abdulaziz Al-Zamil, chairman of the Zamil Group Holding Company and a leader in Saudia Arabia’s chemical industry. The exoticism continued when we met a blonde American girl who now lives in Dubai and who said she has plenty of freedom there, including wearing her bikini to the beach. Our evening ended at the Nationalities Service Center’s Global Tastes 2015 award gala at the Reading Terminal, which honors those who support the NSC, an organization that has been helping immigrants and refugees since 1921. This year, NSC honored Hernán Guaracao, Founder & CEO of AL DÍA News Media Inc., with the 2015 Nationalities Service Award for his work within the publishing community to reach Spanish-speaking immigrants. The 2015 Margaret Harris Award was presented to Ballard Spahr LLP for their extensive pro bono legal support to NSC. ■ Thom Nickels is the author of Philadelphia Architecture, Tropic of Libra, Out in History and Spore, and the recipient of the 2005 Philadelphia AIA Lewis Mumford Architecture Journalism Award.

geoffgehman@verizon.net.

Nicole Henry’s show was running late, an occupational hazard for a brand-new venue (the Renaissance hotel in Allentown) and a brand-new presenter (the Allentown JazzFest). The singer made the dead air buzz by becoming an invisible emcee, chatting up the crowd behind a partition, a cheery Wizard of Jazz. It was the start of a gig so harmonious, so healthy, it somehow felt like yoga.

The Bucks County native radiated good vibes. She injected sultriness into “The Nearness of You,” a gospel fever into “That’s All.” She combined crystalline tone with crisp enunciation, lathing phrasing with lassoing emotions, soul intensity with operatic clarity. Every song was owned, lived and mapped like an adventure.

The evening’s epic was “A Little Time Alone,” a Broadway aria. Henry built the carefully modulated words (“You’ve set my sails, but I feel like a drowning soul”) into a slowly blazing, exploding affirmation of resignation and hope. It sounded like a show stopper from “Dreamgirls,” a musical that would fit Henry as tightly as her slinky white skirt with the black scrawl and the sexy slit.

Henry showered praise on her big band, a smoking, spot-on ensemble with the power, she said, of a Mack truck. She dedicated numbers to her stepmother, one of the most positive people she knows, and her father, her first mentor. “Your only obligation is to die,” said Al Henry, a former pro basketball player who sat two rows from his daughter. “The rest is up to you.”

Jeff Daniels always seems comfortable in his skin, even when the skin belongs to such chalk-and-cheese characters as a recklessly smart newscaster and a dumber-thandumb dog groomer. The musical actor was certainly in his wheelhouse at the Mauch Chunk Opera House, where he hosted a sort of “Prairie Home Companion” revue with his son Ben’s band.

Like “Prairie Home” impresario Garrison Keillor, Daniels loves singing, writing clever run-on rhymes and hamming. He protested pollution in “Go, Henry David, Go,” a rockabilly rave fueled by Thoreau and Chuck Berry. In “Mr. Happy and the World of Sad” he saluted his pal, retiring talk-show king David Letterman, as an agent of latenight lust. The narrator and his gal love making love to Dave’s Top 10 lists; they call it “getting our Letterman on.”

Daniels relished telling stories about songs inspired by quotes from a motorcycle preacher (“It’s a wicked world, Jeff ”) and Jack Lemmon (“In Hollywood normal doesn’t work. Ya gotta be a little strange”). Yarning allowed him to be pleasantly wicked, a wolf in golden-shepherd fur.

I had my first serving of bratwurst and countertenor during the Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s 108th Bach Festival. I dined on this unlikely pairing during the debut of a recreation of a coffeehouse Bach ran in 18th-century Leipzig, where university students premiered works by Johann Sebastian and his peers.

The menu featured baroque folk. Violinist David Turk, a Lehigh University student, coaxed conversational fireworks in the fugue from Bach’s G Minor sonata. Greg Funfgeld, the choir’s conductor and artistic director, played harpsichord by a floor lamp as countertenor Daniel Taylor, a festival favorite, sang an 11th-century troubadour ditty about a man jealous of a bird jealous of the narrator’s closeness to his lover. His voice flew between soprano and alto, ethereal and surreal, bird and lute.

The entire evening was sorbet for the senses. The bratwurst and other Germanic items—Munich lager, trout with spätzle—went down extremely well in the Hotel Bethlehem’s Terrace Room, a perfectly palatable aviary with two-story Palladian windows.

= The Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts in Bethlehem is presenting a celebration of steampunk, the 21st-century celebration of Victorian advances and excesses in fashion, industry, medicine and leisure.

Guest curator Daniella Romano offers a neat, juicy summary of a movement devoted to steaming up past, present and futures. A souvenir ashtray for Hindenburg passengers shares a room with Ed Kidera’s model of a warship resembling a blowfish dirigible.

A pile of Victorian pocket watches under glass shares a corner with Heather Hutsell’s parachute dress with pocket watches on suspenders. David Sokosh merges eras in antiqued photographs of everything from a Mazda light bulb to his bicep, clamped. ■ Geoff Gehman is the author of the memoir The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons (SUNY Press).

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Exhibitions

“Candy Apples,” oil, 50 x 60.

On Marketing Art

By Pearl Mintzer Designer House Art www.designerhouseart.com

Cynthia Prediger #3

Bucks Guild Arts Fest ‘15 Delaware Valley University, Doylestown, PA 700 E. Butler Avenue June 20-21 Presented by the Bucks County Guild of Craftsmen, the indoor fine crafts and art show will feature 36 artists showcasing glass, paper, wood, clay, jewelry, fiber and more.

Merle Slyhoff, potter and show co-chair with Cynthia Prediger, jeweler, noted “We’re very excited about our new venue which allowed us to add artists and expand the artistic offerings. Our guests should expect to see many new artists and fine crafts joining their favorites from past shows.”

The show will be held on the University campus in the air-conditioned Moumgis Auditorium, Student Center, located to the left of the Butler Avenue campus entrance, 700 E. Butler Avenue. Show hours: Saturday, June 20 10-6, Sunday, June 21 11-5. Admission $4.00. Follow www.facebook.com/BCGCraftsmen for additional information.

Merle Slyhoff #1

Many years ago years ago I studied painting with Ad Reinhardt. His “Black on Black” hangs in the MOMA. I asked him how to become a famous artist.

He said “write about it.” I believe what he really meant is marketing. If marketing can place an allblack canvas in the MOMA, it can sell anything. Reinhardt’s one-color canvases are worth millions.

While I have had 40 years of marketing experience in the cosmetics industry in NYC, it was difficult to market myself as a painter. I realized that other artists had the same problem. In order to become a famous and great artist, it’s more about how and if your work sells. I used my marketing experience to devise ways to help artists sell their work. One of the meaningful things I did was to organize and run fundraiser art shows. When you put artists together with a nonprofit that has supportive donors, the donors will buy art. It’s a win-win for the organization and the artists. My husband Chuck and I have run art shows for Friends of the Delaware Canal (FODC), Bucks County Designer House, Byers Bucks Fever, and Philadanco. During our last FODC show we did an online gallery of everything that each artist entered. Since the entries were online, artists were invited to enter as many as ten pieces. Every artist that was accepted to the show had all their work in the online gallery. FODC e-blasted their large membership. We sold thousands of dollars of art online before the show—even some pieces that were not in the show. From that experience we decided it would be a good idea to start an online hosting site to help artists market themselves and sell their work. The website, www.designerhouseart.com, was hatched from that experience. It provides a very easy and inexpensive way for artists to have their own galleries on the site. We are actively marketing the site to interior designers and anyone who wants to buy and sell art. Customers can buy directly from the site. The site is very easy and user-friendly. Unlike some other sites, it only sells original art. No mouse pads, mugs or cheap prints. An original piece of fine art is often less expensive than a sofa, adds drama to a room and increases in value.

Painting by Helen Mirkil.

SOARING: Eye Sees, Hand Moves, Spirit Sings Helen Mirkil: Paintings, Drawings Brian H. Peterson: Photographs, New Media Santa Bannon/Fine Art (at ArtsQuest Banana Factory) 25 W. 3rd Street, Suite 93, Bethlehem (610) 997-5453 www.SantaFineArt.com June 5 – August 2, 2015 Reception: Friday June 5, 5:30-9:30PM The Artists Speak: New Poetry & Prose, 7:30 “Get Art” Collecting Seminar: July 11, contact gallery for details “It’s easy to get lost if an aesthetic goes no further than technique or composition. Art would peel away the husk from the seed. It is an embodiment of essences….Invention and play work together. When it is finally time to invent, I am soaring. A photograph seems to come to us on the wings of angels. It harks of magic.” –Ray K. Metzker Photographer Ray Metzker (1931-2014) used the word “soaring” to describe the mysterious sense of liberation at the heart of the creative process—those peak moments when works of art seem to appear under the artist’s hand of their own accord, effortlessly.

In this exhibition Helen Mirkil and Brian H. Peterson share work that has the elusive quality of controlled spontaneity and freedom that Metzker likened to effortless flight.

Photograph by Brian H. Peterson

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A Thousand Words

STORY AND PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK

Nothing to Lose DOREEN AND I WERE going to England in 2006 and made plans to meet an old friend of hers for lunch in Cambridge. The friend’s husband, who was involved in Formula 1 auto racing, would be joining us. I have been a big fan of F1 since I went to my first Grand Prix in 1967 and was excited to meet him. I did a search ahead of time for background on his career details and found that in addition to being a designer and technical director for major teams he also owned an interesting collection of classic cars: an Aston Martin DB 2/4; Ferrari 246 Dino and 456 GT; E Type and XK 120 Jags; Lotus 18; and a Lotus 11. It was an impressive lot. I was already versed in the technical and historical aspects of the sport but I made sure I knew his personal cars, too.

When we met he was cordial but largely uninterested in me. I was introduced as an artist (which carries no weight—you might just as well say I’m a gardener) and as a racing fan, which only served to put me on the other side of the fence. But there was no rush. The wives were having a girlfriends’ conversation and at some point he would be willing to talk to anybody—even me.

After 20 minutes or so he started to shift around in his seat, so I asked him what car he drove for his own enjoyment. He pulled out a business card and slid it across the table. It unfolded to show six photos of closein details from cars in his collection—part of a tail lamp

or mirror, the trim line where the roof meets the fender, that sort of thing. He said, “These are all mine.” It was a moment served up on Royal Doulton.

I recognized the iconic, thin chrome shaft and round knob of a Ferrari shift lever in one of the pictures. Red dashboard. Had to be the Dino. “You have a 246,” I murmured, eyebrow raised as if critiquing a three-star menu.

Using the model number rather than the name lifted me from obscurity. He looked me in the eye for the first time. I let that moment hang in the air while considering the other photos and nodding slightly. “Can you identify the rest?” he said, leaning forward, fingering the tablecloth.

I recognized some of the details but more importantly I remembered the cars’ colors. The tail lamp on the sloping white rear end was the 120. The trim detail on maroon was the E-type. The next two, the DB2/4 and the 456, silver and blue, were fish in a barrel. I was rolling.

The final picture was the Lotus badge on a steering wheel. It could have been from either of the two so I spread a net. “Not sure . . . a Lotus from the late ‘50s or ‘60s,” I said. “Maybe an 11?” Pow. Out of the park.

He was clearly surprised and really, I don’t think anyone could have done it just from the pictures. I didn’t want him to dwell on that too much, so I asked him about his job engineering the racing team. He re-

grouped, putting some technical language in his explanation to cement his pedigree, but I was right with him.

Our wives noticed we were having an animated conversation and they were listening. He was describing his role in both this and previous teams, which was a remarkable one. He was part of the sport’s history. It was time to make my pitch. I told him about my documentary painting and asked if he was able—in his important position—to swing having me travel with the team to paint a race in Europe. The women thought it was an excellent idea. Thusly encouraged, and somewhat trapped, he said yes.

He could do that, and he did. I ended up painting later that year at Silverstone during the British Grand Prix. The team I was with included one of the two drivers challenging for a Championship, which put me at the edge of an international spotlight surrounded by people from the highest level of the sport—an experience of a lifetime.

My preparations rarely come into play with such dazzling results. As often as not they don’t figure much at all. There are no guarantees that an opportunity will surface, but if you’re not ready it won’t matter. ■ Robert Beck maintains a gallery in Lambertville, NJ. robert@robertbeck.net.

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Judy Pfaff, Scene I: The Garden. Enter Mrs. Barnes (detail), 2015. Commissioned by the Barnes Foundation for Mark Dion, Judy Pfaff, Fred Wilson: The Order of Things exhibition. Image ©The Barnes Foundation. Photo: Rick Echelmeyer.

Art

EDWARD HIGGINS

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The Order of Things

OF THE MANY CURIOSITIES of the Barnes Foundation art collection is the hanging arrangement that Barnes demanded and which, more or less, has been followed at its new location on Benjamin Franklin Parkway. No one seems to have a definitive answer for the wherefores and whatfores of the system, and so in the spirit of “it takes a thief to catch a thief,” the current stewards of the collection commissioned three contemporary artists, Mark Dion, Judy Pfaff and Fred Wilson, to “respond” to the peculiar Dr. Albert Barnes and his magnificent French paintings. The result is three large-scale installations which comprise the exhibit that is Mark Dion, Judy Pfaff, Fred Wilson: The Order of Things.

Barnes called his arrangements “ensembles,” and they typically included Pennsylvania Dutch ironwork, African statutes, paintings of various sizes, and a table or chest that appealed to the good doctor. These and the several acres of Renoir’s fleshy ladies provide an out-of-body experience.

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In the North the Negro had better educational facilities, 1940-41. Casein tempera on hardboard, 12 x 18. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mrs David M. Levy,Peter Nesbett, Michelle Dubois, Jacob Lawrence paintings, drawings, and murals (19351999), Seattle, WA. University of Washington Press, 2000, cat P41-01, pt 58, p. 55

Art

Jacob Lawrence

BURTON WASSERMAN

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AT THIS TIME, AND until September 7, 2015, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is offering an exceptionally notable exhibition titled One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series and Other Visions of the Great Movement North.

In 1941, Lawrence, at the age of 23, completed a series of 60 tempera paintings on paperboard with captions illuminating the relocation of great numbers of black Americans from the segregated rural South to the big cities of the urban North in search of homes, jobs and dignity. This drift northward had begun during the period of WWI. The following year, the entire group of 60 works was exhibited at the prominent Downtown Gallery in mid-Manhattan. Half of the show was acquired by MoMA for its permanent collection, while the Phillips Collection of Washington, D.C. purchased the other half. The current exhibition at MoMA pays homage to these events from the past and includes all of

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Dr. Wasserman is a professor emeritus of Art at Rowan U. and a serious artist of long standing.

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Cinematters

T

HAT LOVE & MERCY, the film biography of Brian Wilson [interview on page 22], the tortured genius behind the Beach Boys’ signature sophisticated mellow, is so forgettable borders on incomprehensible. Here’s a movie featuring a fascinating subject and an excellent cast—and it’s anesthetized and disjointed.

Achieving that surfboard-floating-in-a-kiddie-pool stasis requires hard work. Director Bill Pohlad and his screenwriters do that by covering some 20 years of Wilson’s life, continually flashing back between the young creative spirit (Paul Dano) and the overly medicated, middle-aged shell (John Cusack). We’re inspired to learn more, not because Pohlad’s portrayal is so absorbing, but so we can fill in the gaps.

When we meet the younger Wilson, then riding the Beach Boys’ wave of pop success, he is just starting to unravel. After suffering a panic attack on a plane, he stays home to unleash the music that’s rattling around in his head. Wilson starts putting together 1966’s Pet Sounds.

The album becomes an undisputed pop masterpiece and the tipping point in his lengthy mental downfall.

In the mid-1980s, Wilson is a heavily medicated mess, a fragile soul who expresses his thoughts in a jagged, hesitant whisper. His days of living in bed are over, but it’s hard to say if there is any improvement. When buying a car, he asks the salesperson (Elizabeth Banks) if they can

PETE CROATTO

Love & Mercy just sit in it so he can escape from his hovering bodyguards. When Wilson and Melinda Ledbetter complete their deal, he hands back her business card. Lonely, scared, frightened are scribbled on the back.

Wilson starts dating Ledbetter, a former model who has suffered her own, barely addressed difficulties. It’s also unclear why Ledbetter—played with Banks’ typical smart cookie aplomb—would engage in a relationship with such a fractured man, one who has assigned his domineering psychiatrist-chaperone, Dr. Eugene Landy (an underutilized Paul Giamatti), to make every decision.

Yet she sticks around and attempts to rescue Wilson from his medicated prison, even when the romance becomes impossible to maintain.

This kind of incompleteness permeates both parts of Love & Mercy. It’s a product of Pohlad and screenwriters Oren Moverman (the director-writer of The Messenger and Rampart) and Michael Alan Lerner’s endless scope. In covering two momentous parts of Wilson’s life—honestly, you could make a great movie about curdled ‘60s innocence and the making of Pet Sounds—they ignore the details or only mention them. It would have been nice to see how Landy got his tentacles around Wilson or how Wilson’s first wife, Marylin, endured her husband’s LSD trips and inner turmoil. That’s not all.

In one scene, Wilson tells Ledbetter that his abusive father scared him into making great records. That revela-

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tion begs for a subplot, but we only get a couple of scenes, including a terrific one where Brian tries out “God Only Knows” in front of the pipe-smoking, robe-wearing despot (Bill Camp). “It’s a suicide note,” says Dad, coldly dismissing the future classic. Too frequently Love & Mercy proceeds like a book report, with Pohlad (a veteran producer directing his first film since 1990) so concerned about portraying Wilson’s tumultuous life that he ignores the details. It’s a movie adapted from the summary on a book jacket.

What keeps Love & Mercy from being a total loss is Dano’s excellent performance. While Cusack plays Wilson as Lloyd Dobler on antipsychotics, Dano—his chubby cherub’s face framed by a sweeping mop of hair—goes all in. You recoil as the young man’s brightness darkens into a permanent midnight. That transition is where you wish Pohlad had dropped anchor and done his deep dive. Instead, Love & Mercy consists of two incomplete halfmovies permanently adrift. Even if they connected, I’m not sure it would have done much good. [PG-13] ■ An ICON contributor since 2006, Pete Croatto has been writing about movies for 15 years. His work—which includes everything from personal essays to sports features to celebrity interviews—has appeared in The New York Times, Grantland, The Christian Science Monitor, Publishers Weekly, and Broadway.com. Twitter, @PeteCroatto.

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Keresman on Film

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ANYONE WHO REALLY KNOWS popular music history will tell you that the right management can make all the difference. Would The Beatles have been as huge if not for manager Brian Epstein? Conversely, The Pretty Things—a great British blues-based band, contemporaneous with The Rolling Stones and Yardbirds, had an opportunity to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s. The PT’s manager had other ideas—so the band toured New Zealand and missed out on an opportunity to crack the American marketplace.

Once upon a time in England in the early ‘60s there were two lads, Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp (brother of actor Terrence). They were aspiring filmmakers at a time when the arts in Europe were going through a crucial period of change—directors were doing cutting-edge films, and American rock ‘n’ roll and R&B had inspired UK youth to have a culture of their own. L & S were looking for “something” to focus on and they found it in a band then known as The High Numbers, later to be known as The Who. The lads were special—a good-looking singer, a wild man, an average-looking bloke, and a guy with a very prominent nose who played a volatile, somewhat theatrical synthesis of American rock and R&B with a distinctively British bent (though not as British as The Kinks or Small

MARK KERESMAN

Lambert & Stamp Faces, but that’s another story). L & S figured to take this combo under their wing and eventually make a film out of the phenomenon that was this band—rechristened The Who—and the Brit culture that was intertwined with it.

Lambert & Stamp shows just how much luck and, frankly, bullshit is involved in promoting a band: The lads arranged very attractive, fashionable young people to attend early Who gigs at clubs, thereby creating a buzz, and they’d tell other bandmembers about all the money they had—and a lot of it was imaginary, borrowed from successful brother Terrence and/or floated credit. (Another L & S example: Jimi Hendrix was starting to make a splash in Britain—the duo offered to sign him to a record label that existed, well, in their minds.) But L & S were important to The Who in other ways: by nurturing the talent of guitarist and future star, Pete Townsend (though Roger Daltrey was the singer and front man, Townsend was the main songwriter and creative force); and by honing their sound in the studio. In interviews, the surviving members of The Who say that Lambert and Stamp were the fifth and sixth members of the band.

For Who fans, Lambert & Stamp is well worth seeing—lots of great old B & W and color footage of the band in concert and interviews with Daltry and Townsend. Like

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many documentaries, there are “talking head”-type interviews, and there’s some history of the UK, about how a restless rock ‘n’ roll generation grew in the aftermath of World War II. What prevents this good doc from being a great one is too much repetition about L & S’s cinematic ambitions, and how gosh-darn-wonderful they, by their own admission, are. The editing and tone leaves a bit to be desired—for example, we’re shown often how Lambert was crucial to the band’s development, but Stamp is shown to be affable and fast-talking and not much else. It’s unclear why The Who and Lambert and Stamp came to a parting of the ways and, worse still, we’re not shown or told of Lambert’s passing in 1981, nor what happened to The Who’s label, Track Records. (Track is erroneously identified as “the first indie label”—wtf?) The film is a rambling 118 minutes, but could have been a trim 90 minutes.

The Who are one of history’s iconic rock bands, but with information left out and portions that truly drag, Lambert & Stamp ends up doing a disservice to them. This is James D. Cooper’s directorial debut and, alas, seems like it. ■ Mark Keresman also writes for SF Weekly, East Bay Express, Pittsburgh City Paper, Paste, Jazz Review, downBeat, and the Manhattan Resident.

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Bad Movie

T

HE BURNING QUESTION IN American cinema is: What’s up with Johnny Depp? One of America’s most liked movie stars has been in such crap of late that he’s practically the high-rent version of Nic “If the check clears I’m in” Cage. The mediocre Depp films The Rum Diary, Dark Shadows, The Lone Ranger, and Transcendence (recommended for its flaws as well as its strong points) have not exactly set box office records.

Now comes Mortdecai, perhaps Depp’s own The Love Guru, a movie with a good cast and a hunk-of-excrement script that may put a crimp in Depp’s Hollywood clout, i.e., Mike Myers’ Love Guru turkey put the virtual kibosh on his career.

One look at the cast—Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany, Jeff Goldblum, and Olivia Munn…add Adam West, Adam Sandler, and Sarah Silverman—and this would still be what it is: a piece of crap that makes the Three Stooges shorts with Joe Besser and Rob Schneider’s movies look like the Marx Brothers’ comedy gold.

Depp plays the titular character, a would-be debonair bon vivant who’s a clueless doofus that couldn’t find his own ass in the dark with both hands. This type of clown is a somewhat beloved icon in the movies: Austin Powers, Maxwell Smart, Mister Bean, Inspector Clouseau, and yes, The Three Stooges, are our awkward, nitwitted, but

MARK KERESMAN

Mordecai ultimately well-meaning heroes that blunder in and out of danger, saving the day after they’ve made a complete mess of things.

But slapstick alone won’t carry the day—timing and genuine wit are essential ingredients. I like silly gross-out humor as much as the next reprobate, but not even the Stooges (even the variant with Iggy Pop) would resort to vomiting on a windshield in the hope of striking comedy gold. Repeating jokes ad nauseum is also not the way to prime the Tee-Hee-ometer—while the phrase “show me your balls” is sure to elicit a chortle or two, repeating that line at least three times is not the way to go…and I get it. Lord Charlie Mortdecai has a funny mustache. He speaks in an outrageously over-the-top hokey Brit accent which after a bit becomes more annoying than funny… besides, haven’t we seen enough lampooning of the (tired) stereotype of Brit Dandies and Upper-Crusties in Austin Powers, The Beverly Hillbillies, the seventh season of Tales From the Crypt (filmed in the UK and one episode starred a young Daniel Craig), and assorted PBS shows? Further, Mordecai is the kind of clueless dolt who, when he’s handed a key-card at a hotel, thinks it’s a credit card. Tut, tut, ho, ho, hum.

But wait, there’s more—Paul Bettany plays the character that bears the brunt of the Lead Goof ’s incompetence. You know, Lead Goof does something stupid and

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instead of Lead Goof getting his lumps, it’s his hapless sidekick that gets it in the hiney, who in this case is named Jock Strapp. (Let that sink in a minute.) Wife Johanna/Gywnie kisses Mort and the Funny ‘Stache triggers her gag reflex. Plot? I think it was lifted from some old TV show or movie: Lost/stolen painting has the key to the location of gold stolen by the Nazis during World War II…or maybe it was Curly’s gold, what’s the difference.

One of the things that made—and makes—Get Smart still funny after all these years is there is a bit of gravity inserted into the silliness. Maxwell Smart, despite his intellectual shortcomings and the overall zaniness, has to outwit people that are trying to kill him and/or take control of the world. We want to root for him because there’s something at stake (not to mention that he’s likable), just as there’s bits of old-school horror and danger to the Abbott and Costello Meet...[insert horror icon here] movies. Here, Depp and company impart none of that—it’s just a gaggle of annoying and charm-free characters doing mostly unfunny shtick.

If you want clueless-hero comedy that’s actually funny (especially for younger readers), watch The Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers, and the French imports OSS 117: Lost in Rio and OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, starring Jean Dujardin (The Artist, The Wolf of Wall Street) as a French counterpart to Austin Powers. ■

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Reel News

GEORGE OXFORD MILLER / REVIEWS OF RECENTLY RELEASED DVDS

Leviathan

★=SKIP IT; ★★=MEDIOCRE; ★★★=GOOD; ★★★★=EXCELLENT; ★★★★★=CLASSIC

Timbuktu (2014) ★★★★★ Cast: Ibrahim Ahmed, Toulou Kiki, Layla Walet Mohamed Genre: Drama Rated PG-13 for horrific violence.

Running time 95 minutes.

Awards: Oscar nominee 2014 for Best Foreign Language Film.

In Arabic, French, and Bambara with English subtitles.

Timbuktu, in Mali, West Africa, was once as mysterious and fabled as ShangriLa. It thrived for centuries as a great cultural and religious center of learning.

Today, it’s a drought-stricken, impoverished town of 55,000. In 2012, Islamic rebels conquered and ruled the city with terror for a year. French forces drove them out, but not before they brutalized the people with unspeakable atrocities in the name of God. This visually stunning epic follows the travails of a cattle herder accused of murder by an Islamic hardliner more interested in his daughter than Sharia law. Immersing the viewer in the daily life and suffering of one family creates a human drama more powerful than any political commentary could ever be.

Leviathan (2014) ★★★★ Cast: Aleksey Serebryakov, Vladimir Vdovichenkov Genre: Drama Running time 141 minutes.

Rated R for violence, sex, profanity Awards: Best Screenplay 2014 Cannes Film Festival; Oscar nominee 2014 for Best Foreign Language Film.

In Russian with English subtitles.

Even compared to Islamic radicals, Russia with its history of brutal tyrants, police state oppression, and systemic corruption on all levels of society is in a league of its own. Kolya (Serebryakov), a mechanic who lives on prime real estate on a scenic harbor, discovers how vulnerable he is to the whims of those higher up the power hierarchy. When the mayor covets his home, Koyla appeals to a commission of judges and is curtly dismissed.

He calls in his buddy Dmitri (Vdovichenkov), a Moscow attorney, and the power struggle gets nasty. How dare the lower class question the authority and power of state officials, and not expect dire repercussions? Before we get too incensed, the screenplay was inspired by a similar zoning case in Colorado.

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Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (2015) ★★★★

Cast: Rinko Kikuchi, David Zellner Genre: Drama Unrated with adult themes.

Running time 104 minutes Sundance Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival selections.

In Japanese and English with subtitles.

This romp in the snow, based on an urban legend about a Japanese woman found frozen in Minnesota, takes up where the movie Fargo left off.

When a Tokyo office woman with a loose grip on reality finds an old VHS tape of the Coen brothers’ movie, she becomes obsessed with finding the money that Steve Buscemi’s character buried in the snow. After all, the movie’s opening credits declare “This is a true story.” Assured that she can find the treasure and reinvent her desperate life, she books a ticket to Fargo, of course in the dead of winter.

The barren snowscape scenes, deadpan humor, and cultural misunderstandings immortalized in Fargo are just as effective in this compelling character study of disillusioned hope.

Run All Night ★★★ Cast: Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, Joel Kinnaman Genre: Thriller Running time 114 minutes.

Rated R for violence, language, drug use.

Liam Neeson has perfected an actionthriller formula that, like Dirty Hairy, makes his day over and over again. Clint Eastwood finally moved on to greater things, but Neeson, the best in the “threatened family” genre, sticks with his box office winner. His latest drama follows washed up, alcoholic hit man Jimmy Conlon (Neeson) who has greater allegiance to his family than the mob. When his boss, Shawn Maguire (Harris), puts a contract on Jimmy’s straight-arrow son Mike (Kinnaman), the game is on. Jimmy, who’s murdered dozens with no regrets, retaliates by killing Shawn’s son and two dirty cops. Now every thug and cop in Manhattan has a kill order for Jimmy and Mike. Guess what? The two run all night.

The body count escalates with chase scenes, fights, and shootouts, but it’s far from a father-son bonding experience.

Don’t expect any redemption when the new day finally breaks. ■

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Film Roundup

KEITH UHLICH

Slow West

★=SKIP IT; ★★=MEDIOCRE; ★★★=GOOD; ★★★★=EXCELLENT; ★★★★★=CLASSIC

Mad Max: Fury Road (Dir. George Miller). Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult. Thirty years later… Australian director George Miller returns to the action series that made him and an actor named Mel Gibson world famous. Armed with a bigger budget, a new star and boundless imagination, he’s concocted a relentless chase picture in which taciturn loner Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) assists badass one-armed truck driver Imperator Furiosa (a fierce Charlize Theron), who’s shepherding a bevy of beautiful maidens away from tyrannical warlord Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). The characters are broadly drawn in the best comic book fashion; Nicholas Hoult’s rabid “War Boy” Nux is a standout. But the real attraction here is the vehicular mayhem, done mostly sans CGI and featuring sights—like one breakneck setpiece involving villainous men attached to flexible poles—that will make your jaw drop. [R] ★★★★ The Nightmare (Dir: Rodney Ascher).

Documentary. In his prior nonfiction feature, Room 237 (2012), director Rodney

Ascher gave voice to a group of people for whom Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) was a more than sacred text. His frequently terrifying followup chronicles the experiences of eight people who suffer from sleep paralysis, a condition that results in literally waking nightmares. The interviewees describe horrible hallucinations of shadow men, toothy monsters, and aliens made of television static, and Ascher illustrates their visions via intentionally cheesy reenactments that get under the skin for seeming so unreal.

Don’t turn to the film for any deep psychological insight. This is a purely experiential work derived from vivid first-person accounts, and it’s guaranteed to haunt both your dream life and your waking life.

[N/R] ★★★★ Slow West (Dir. John Maclean). Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Caren Pistorius, Ben Mendelsohn.

Teenage Scotsman Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) comes to the 19th-century American West in search of his lost love Rose (Caren Pistorius). Early in his journey, he crosses paths with bounty hunter

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Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender), who is also searching for the young woman because there’s a lucrative price on her head. Feature debuting writer-director John Maclean and his ace cinematographer Robbie Ryan compose many a pretty picture (the wilds of New Zealand stand in for the U.S. frontier), and Fassbender cuts a striking figure in his cowboy duds.

But a violent finale in which a rival bounty hunter played by Ben Mendelsohn unleashes bloody hell fails to attain the Sam Peckinpah-esque poetic grandeur it appears to be straining for. Would that there was a bit more meat on this slender, 83minute oater’s bones. [R] ★★★ Tomorrowland (Dir: Brad Bird). Starring: George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie. Brad Bird has entertained millions with his animated work for Pixar (The Incredibles and Ratatouille) and a live-action Tom Cruise franchiser, Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol. (His best work, though, remains 1999’s lesserknown boy-and-his-robot adventure The Iron Giant.) Tomorrowland is his worst effort, largely due to a script co-written by

Hollywood holy terror Damon Lindelof (of Lost and Leftovers fame) that never rises above half-baked. George Clooney plays a crotchety former boy genius who teams up with a rebellious teen (Britt Robertson) and an ageless android (Raffey Cassidy) to save the titular alternate reality (based on the Walt Disney theme world) from a cynical despot (Hugh Laurie). The best parts of the film—like a bull-in-a-china-shop showdown in a lovingly detailed comic book store and a spectacular setpiece set atop the Eiffel Tower—recall prime Joe Dante. Unfortunately, much of the rest of the movie feels like defanged Mouse House corporate product, and the bits of Bird that do come to the fore tend to emphasize the discomfitingly Ayn Randian perspective— Tomorrowland is posited as an exclusionary retreat where the most imaginative souls brainstorm ways to fix society’s ills—that simmered under the surface of his previous work. [PG] ★★1/2 ■ Keith Uhlich is a critic and writer based in New York. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle.

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Interview

A. D. AMOROSI

Wouldn’t it be Nice...

O

The sun will always find Brian Wilson, melancholy pop’s innovative, eternal beach boy. abandoned (then) SMiLE project of 1967; the latter an album that Wilson would pull together, record anew and win Grammys for in the 21st Century.

Left behind (mostly) by the brothers—and screwed over by his father, who sold Brian’s compositional catalog for pocket change—as each thought that the Beach Boys’ master’s best days were behind him (and they were, commercially, for that moment), he languished in an erratic behavioral haze of sandbox isolation, hardcore drug addiction and mental illness throughout the ‘70s. By the mid-70s, he met Dr. Eugene Landy, an unorthodox practitioner of over-personalized, intrusive therapy who became Wilson’s dangerous shadow, on-and-off, until 1990. The unscrupulous Landy may have helped Wilson lose weight and get off most psychotropic drugs, but he took control of Wilson’s thoughts and occupation with his so-called co-authorization of songs and autobiographical works

I’ve interviewed you several times and it is always a privilege. You mentioned before how stuff such as SMilE were “teenage symphonies to God.” Do you feel as if the music you’ve written in the last five to ten years celebrates God as well; that the music you make as an adult speaks to the same impulses that you had in your youth?

Yes. I’m simply trying to carry on the traditions— all my traditions—from the likes of Pet Sounds and SMilE and up through my new album.

...[H]e met Dr. Eugene Landy, an unorthodox practitioner of intrusive therapy who became Wilson’s dangerous shadow...Only the mediation of his family and his new love, Melinda, could save Brian Wilson, and by the mid-90s, he became the fully-functioning, if not occasionally distracted solo artist and married man that we know him as today.

Does it bother you that something you created is done with?

No, not at all.

ON MAY’S SUNNIEST, MOST humid day, Brian Wilson, 72, is sitting in a room at Philly’s Hotel Palomar, waiting to attend the Non-Comm adult-alternative radio convention and record a session with host David Dye at World Café Live during its Free-at-Noon Friday free-for-all. Coughing, but enthusiastic to be out-andabout in Philadelphia (“I like the building you guys have in the center with the clock, the William Penn thing”), Wilson has much to regale the adoring crowds with at Non-Comm. Not only does he have an album of new songs to present in No Pier Pressure and a tour to hype (which brings him to the Mann Center on June 29). Wilson is also the subject of Love & Mercy [reviewed here on page 12], a dramatic biopic long in the works starring both Paul Dano and John Cusack as younger and older versions of the one-time Beach Boy (former, at least at present) with Elizabeth Banks and Paul Giamatti as the light and the darkest aspects in

Wilson’s once-tortured personal life. “It was hard to watch at times, but worth it,” he says bluntly.

Much has been made of that life and those times.

A Hawthorne, California-born kid (with ear problems who couldn’t surf) wrote and produced ‘60s surf pop along with the most endearing of modern barbershop harmony-filled melodies. That he formed the Beach Boys in 1961 with his two younger brothers, cousin Mike Love, and school chum Al Jardine—with dad Murray Wilson as their manager—made their saga strange and incestuous. Preternaturally shy and awkward, Brian Wilson withdrew from live performance to concentrate on composing and producing where the studio became an extension of his soul, another brother to admire. Like Phil Spector, though, the studio allowed Wilson to experiment—truly test the psychedelic boundaries of tone, texture, instrumentation and arrangement, to say nothing of his own personal level of drug experimentation. This lead him into the unbound baroque and decidedly un-chipper lyricism of 1966’s Pet Sounds and the legendarily abstract and If A.D. Amorosi can’t be found writing features for ICON, the Philadelphia Inquirer or doing Icepacks, Icecubes and other stories for Philadelphia’s City Paper, he’s probably hitting restaurants like Stephen Starr’s or running his greyhound.

with the Beach Boy. Only the eventual mediation of Wilson’s family (brother Carl) and his new love, Melinda, could—and did—save Brian Wilson, and by the mid-90s, he became the fully-functioning, if not occasionally distanced and distracted solo artist and married man that we know him as today.

Love & Mercy concentrates on Wilson’s distant past, for the better and the worst, with Paul Dano boldly marching into the ravages of Wilson’s fragile mind in 1965—the eccentric beginnings of his troubles—while a wounded, tender John Cusack takes on the Wilson of the ‘80s, tenuously finding the footing of reality with his innocence (and most of his genius) intact. As it courses between the two Wilsons and their alternate realities, Love & Mercy resembles a darkly Impressionist take on director Todd Haynes’ No Way Home and its multiple actor look at Bob Dylan.

On the musical side, No Pier Pressure finds Wilson sailing and surfing into the future—not with the Mike Love end of the Beach Boys who dismissed their partnership after their recent, mega-successful 50th anniversary reunion tour and album (2012’s That’s Why God Made the Radio), but rather with Zooey Daschenel, Katie Musgraves and Nate Ruess of fun [the band] as well as renegade Beach Boys Al Jardine, David Marks and Blondie Chapin beside him.

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Is it fair to say you’re done with the Beach Boys after that last tour, and with the way that Mike Love dismissed everyone, aren’t you glad to be rid of them?

Yeah, that’s true, we’re done with the Beach Boys for now. I mean we might make another album at some point, who knows, but for now we’re over.

Do you feel as if That’s Why God Made the Radio—the last new music you wrote for the Beach Boys—was bittersweet, a goodbye-so-long so to speak?

I don’t see that as any kind of farewell note.

It’s cool that you’re still working with Al Jardine, David Marks and Blondie Chapin. Are they, like you, the OTHER Beach Boys, the renegades of the bunch?

We are. Luckily, they all sound as good singing as they did 50 years ago That’s quite a compliment. What do you think of your own voice now?

I think that it has mellowed out a little bit. I don’t think that I’m as good a singer as I used to be, but I can still express what I want to say. It’s a different brand of emotion.

Talking about the Boys, in the film Love & Mercy, Mike Love comes across as a controlling jerk. Did the director Bill Pohlad portray him accurately? Did actor Jake Abel?

I don’t think he’s a jerk. I do believe that he was portrayed very well in that movie.

He was always on your back, though, to tend to the commercial rather than the artistic.

>

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The Beach Boys, 1966. Photo: © Ian Showell-Keystone-Getty Images

The Beach Boys 50th Anniversary. Photo: Robert Matheu.

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<

10 / JACOB LAWRENCE

People who had not yet come North received letters from their relatives telling them of the better conditions that existed in the North. Letters from relatives in the North told of the better life there. 1940-41.

Casein tempera on hardboard, 12 x 18. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

the original selections as well as examples of literature, graphic work, and music by other figures who have dealt with themes similar to those of Lawrence. The exhibition also marked the first connection between a black American artist of modern times with a highly regarded commercial gallery in New York City.

Born in Atlantic City, NJ in 1917, Lawrence and his family moved to Pennsylvania, shortly thereafter. They moved again and settled in New York’s Harlem where he was introduced to making art in an after-school children’s center. As a teenager, he frequently visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he was especially taken with artworks from the time of the early Italian renaissance.

In 1937, he won a scholarship to the American Artist’s School in New York. Upon graduation, he received funding from the WPA Federal Art Project and completed artworks on the theme Migration of the Negro. These pictures, initially exhibited by the Downtown Gallery, established Lawrence’s early reputation as a serious artist.

The forms that breathe with life in most of the series are rather reminiscent of work by such early 20th century German expressionists as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Ruttluff. As such, they are vigorous, highly subjective responses, painted in flat areas of assorted color, including black, red, blue, brown, mustard yellow and pale

green. Together, they depict life embodied in highly subjective images involved with the psychological and social drama of life. Lawrence referred to his unique idiom as Dynamic Cubism, though it was actually an interpretation of the shapes and colors he observed in Harlem that provided the basis for his language of expressive vision.

In panel 58 of the Migration Series, Lawrence presents three girls writing numbers on a chalkboard. Rendered with clean precision, the repeating pattern of the figures speaks with balanced order and passionate conviction.

Among the collateral artworks in the show, there is a lively cover design for Josh White’s record album of songs titled Southern Exposure, a collection of Jim Crow blues pieces. There are also album covers of music by Duke Ellington and Billie Holliday.

The overall exhibition includes examples of exceptional graphic art by Romare Bearden, Dorothy Lange, Helen Leavitt, Gordon Parks, and Ben Shahn, and books by Langston Hughes and Richard Wright.

By and large, these various selections are arranged as a group of visuals set up in rows, as items in a story-board for an animated film or a TV broadcast. For exhibition purposes, it works quite well in the Museum setting.

With the outbreak of World War II, Lawrence was drafted into the Coast Guard arm of the United States

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Navy. After service at several shore stations, he was directed to be a combat artist, fulfilling assignments at sea, documenting events focused on warfare experienced around the world. He produced 48 paintings during this spell.

Sadly, all of them have been lost.

Following the war, Lawrence was employed in various colleges as a teacher. He also fulfilled several commissions, related to raising money for the Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP and the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture in Harlem In 1971, Lawrence accepted a tenured position as a professor at the University of Washington. He continued to teach and paint in a modestly spare style devoted to the African-American experience until his death at the age of 82, in his home in Seattle in June of 2000.

Works by Lawrence are in the collections of such distinguished institutions as the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn and the Whitney in New York City, Renolda House in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and the Green Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. His highly respected place in the history of American art will surely remain for a long time to come. ■ Museum of Modern Art, 11 W 53rd St, NYC (212) 708-9400 moma.org

Feature

A. D. AMOROSI

THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE KIMMEL Beet Meringue, Volver, Philadelphia. Photo: © Reese Amorosi

Jose Garces’ Volver and SEI Innovation Studios make the Kimmel Center campus complete in June Chef Jose Garces, Volver. Photo: © Reese Amorosi 2015

SEI Innovation Studio Joe's Pub performer Martha Graham Cracker (Left) with Democratic mayoral candidate Jim Kenney and Brittany Lynn at Franky Bradley's. Photo: Mike Whiter

Salinas Ecuadorian Style Ceviche, Tomato Gelee, Popped Sorghum, Flowering Cilantro at Volver. Photo: © Reese Amorosi 2015

WITH THE KIMMEL CENTER unveiling the highlights of its 2015-2016 season—April 8-23’s Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA) in particular—one must not overlook that art megalopolis’ spaces beyond Verizon Hall and the Perelman Theater; both with significant contributions to its schedule in June. While restaurateur-chef Jose Garces’ Volver lets loose with its new menu and pricing scheme, the Kimmel’s SEI Innovation Studio hooks up with NYC’s renowned Joe’s Pub at The Public for a musical theater residency June 21 to July 2 under the tutelage of Shanta Thake from Joe’s Pub, and the Kimmel’s Artistvic Director, Jay Wahl.

Wahl very much sees the Kimmel’s Spruce Street glass façade (where SEI and Volver offer entrance points) as unique in the expansion of the Center’s mission.

Regarding June’s Joe’s Pub residency, the incubator/collaboration with SEI finds musically-adept locals such as Jamie Leonhart, Dito Van Reigersberg (in his famed Martha Graham Cracker mode), the team of Daniel Alexander Jones + Bobby Halvorson, and Ethan Lipton’s band focusing on text, voice, music and body, “and how these elements are woven together into theatrical storytelling,” notes Wahl. “We can form lasting relationships with artists and national organizations and create exciting projects that challenge our audiences.” Wahl points out that 2014’s Theater Residency, led by Obie award-winning playwright Dael Orlandersmith, guided eight national playwrights through creating new works in SEI, one of which—Deb Margolin’s 8 Stops—just showcased at Manhattan’s Cherry Lane Theater.

At the end of the weeks’ long process (that audiences will watch work-shopped), each Joe’s Pub/SEI collaborating artist will perform their fully conceived pieces on stage.

There are additional challenges found at Kimmel with Jose Garces’ intimate Volver (what he calls the most personal restaurant of his minion) and its accompanying Bar Volver as the Iron Chef ’s new menu come into play. A 12course Chef ’s Tasting Menu from the Ecuadorian-American Garces is a decadent delight. These are molecular gastronomical wonders all; its opulent snack tray (including Siberian sturgeon caviar and beet merengue), a tasty, toothy Salinas (Ecuadorian ceviche, tomato gelee, popped sorghum, flowering cilantro), the meaty carabinero (a megajumbo prawn from Spain rarely seen locally), and a lush, colorful dessert such as Rhubarb (buckwheat, buttermilk, spring herbs).

“The theme of Volver’s spring menu was really about seasonality and continuing what we created from the start: marrying the best ingredients, techniques and inspiration to forge a one-of-a-kind culinary experience,” says Garces.

(Volver also serves an 8-course version, while Bar Volver offers a la carte). Knowing Garces thinks of Volver as his home-away-from-home base, it seems odd that he’s highlighting a Japanese-inspired Chawanmushi (Teriyaki-glazed shortrib, shiitake, pickled pearl onions, puffed nori, sea cress) apart from his Latin continuum usual. “Ah, but I love to travel and often draw from [these trips] as part of our creative process,” he says of a recent trek to Urasawa in Los Angeles, where a delicious chawanmushi (egg custard dish) was part of the ultimate sushi experience there.

Wahl says that between SEI Innovation’s endeavors (which includes several daring free jazz jams) and Garces’ Volver/Bar Volver, that “we’re now putting the spotlight on culinary art, new jazz and theater works, tied to the synergy of the Kimmel and Philadelphia’s artistic landscape.” ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J U N E 2 0 1 5 ■ I C O N ■ 25

City Theater

A. D. AMOROSI

June 4-6: Mash Up Bodies (FringeArts) Devised theater couldn’t have two better friends than Philadelphia-based music maker, sequencer/DJ and anonymous bodies movement actress/choreographer Kate Watson-Wallace. Together with a troupe of actors and dancers they turn the FringeArts building into a fashion runway, a party warehouse and a stunning burlesque.

June 6-8: Redemption of a Weak Man (Merriam Theater) The Awesome Dawson Productions crew (Philadelphia’s Robert and Dr. Deserie Dawson) have crafted a serious musical tale of religious and political intrigue set in the Asia Minor region of North Africa, 200 years after the death of Christ, and involving power struggles between warring brothers.

June 7-14: Charlie Parker’s Yardbird (Perelman Theatre) Not strictly “theater” in its narrowest sense, Opera Philadelphia’s flashy world premiere take on the troubled life of the saxophonist and Be Bop innovator is staged with grandeur, is highlighted by a teetering dramatic libretto by Bridgette A. Wimberly, and features the angels and demons of the jazz man’s tortured soul as portrayed by opera tenor Lawrence Brownlee with soprano Angela Brown as his mother and Will Liverman as Parker’s pal Dizzy Gillespie. That’s theater.

Until June 14: Disney’s The Lion King (Academy of Music) Never saw it. Only know the faux African music. It seems nice for the family.

Until June 28: Stephen Sondheim’s Passion (Arden) After giving Sondheim its inaugural Master Storyteller Award with composer Jason Robert Brown in the house on June 1, the Arden—America’s finest teller of Sondheim tales—tackles a mordant musical tale set in 19th-century Italy with a story about a young soldier and his un-lovely, unattractive girlfriend. Like Sweeney Todd and Road Show, Passion is one of few Sondheim shows totally conceived by its author, despite its reliance on the influence of the Ettore Scola’s film Passione d’Amore.

June 11-13: Hello! Sadness! (SEI Innovation Studio) Though she’d performed in traditionalist tales such as Three Sisters, Macbeth and Richard III, Mary Tuomanen is a Philadelphia avant-garde theatrical treasure as a conceptualist (directing, writing) and as an actor. There are the works of magically dark and existentialist theater that she has created with her significant other, Aaron Cromie: FringeFest events such as last year’s The Body Lautrec and 2015’s Dog. Then, there are her scripts such as Marcus Garvey and Emma Goldman Have Hot, Hot Sex which held an April reading at Theatre Exile’s Studio X. Hello Sadness! is something in-between. Made in collaboration with Cromie and Rebecca Wright, Tuomanen has penned a one-woman comedy concerning feminism touched by madness and featuring psychic appearances from everyone from the Black Panthers to Jean Seberg. Stay tuned.

June 6-28: Murder for Two (Suzanne Roberts Theatre) How one solves a crime while committing another is entirely the business of the Philadelphia Theatre Company and musical book composer Joe Kinosian (with lyrics by Kellen Blair). Directed by Scott Schwartz, it’s a classic whodunit with a dozen musical twists, a Harold Pinter/Anthony Shaffer Sleuth-like vibe (the two-man-thing, pitting evil against slightly less evil) and an even broader appeal in greater, tuna-like casting where one actor plays all the suspects while hammering away at the piano.

Until July 14: Memphis (Walnut Street Theatre) Memphis Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan and book maker/lyricist Joe DiPietro have fashioned a genuinely feel good, educational tale of original but authentic sounding 1950s Tennessee soul music and rock ‘n’ roll about the origins of the record business, interracial relations and radical inequality. ■

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Valley Theater

GEOFF GEHMAN

Truman Capote has been one of my favorite writers for 50 of my 57 years. I admire his singing, zinging sentences. I love his lush, lacerating observations about people and places. I envy his ability to turn the haunted past into the haunting present.

I felt the same pangs during Civic Theatre of Allentown’s fine-tuned, fine production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Richard Greenberg’s 2013 adaptation of Capote’s 1958 novella. Kendal Conrad was appealingly breezy, feisty and earthy as Holly Golightly, the Texas teen who becomes a society geisha in ‘40s New York City. She exuded the careful, careless airs of an excommunicated debutante whether she sang a folk song on a fire escape or insisted that “limelight” can “wreck” a girl’s complexion.

Will Morris captured the amused awe and attached detachment of Fred, the budding writer who becomes Holly’s friend and archivist. When he slipped into narrator mode, assuming Capote’s squeaky voice and lip-smacking delivery, he became a spiritual brother of Tom Wingfield, the soul detective of The Glass Menagerie.

Director William Sanders coordinated natural blocking, seamless time transitions and a graceful dance between comedy and melancholy. His touch was especially deft during an evening scene at the Brooklyn Bridge when Holly delicately douses Fred’s ardor. A string of lights became a strand of pearls, and a play became a cracked snow globe.

For four years Star of the Day Event Productions has been presenting theatrical summer camps, cabarets and benefits for everyone from breast-cancer survivors to gas-explosion victims. In May the small company with the big heart offered its first play, Gypsy, at McCoole’s Arts & Events Place in Quakertown. While the set was bare bones, the production was plenty meaty.

Andrea Cartagena hit all the major and minor notes of Rose, the upstaging stage mother who will do pretty much anything to make stars out of her daughters and herself.

Armed with a bullhorn voice and the manner of a mad matador, she personified the “pioneer woman without a frontier.” She provided gritty desperation in surprising spots, even “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” At times she reminded me of Maureen Stapleton, the late, great character actor and earth mother.

As Louise, Nina Elias blossomed beautifully from a pouty, unsure second-banana sister into the magnetic, mom-defying stripper known as Gypsy Rose Lee. Armed with barometer eyes and a weathervane body, she was remarkably alert whether she was acting or reacting.

Director/choreographer Kirsten Almeida lavished as much attention on Baby June’s dancing newsboys as the burlesque queens who tell Louise she needs a gimmick. Star of the Day’s founding president earned big laughs as one of the queens, a bumping, grinding, jellyrolling Wonder Woman in high heels and a Roman soldier’s helmet.

Lafayette College’s Frankenstein 2029 was a real monster mash-up. Nearly 70 students, teachers, administrators, graduates and friends staged a multi-media, multi-venue happening about the thrilling dangers of fooling around with fate.

Spectators in surgical masks wandered through an art studio recast as a messy laboratory for Victor Frankenstein’s experiments in brain devices for controlling blood pressure and blood sugar. They communed with protestors and Frankenstein novelist Mary Shelley, who read from her diary in an apartment decorated as a hippie pad.

Women in 19th-century costumes recited William Blake’s poetry in a dark, laserbeamed hallway. Victor battled his Creature on a sidewalk, then fled to a courtyard to tell his shocking story on a makeshift ship with sails tied to beams. The vessel was circled by dancer-operated, illuminated “icebergs” that resembled sculptural lanterns.

I can’t leave this column without mentioning Touchstone Theatre’s Journey from the East, a free-wheeling outdoor fantasy inspired by a fabled 16th-century Chinese novel starring a monk seeking scriptures for the Buddha. Characters included a Chinese diplomat and a U.S. president, residents of a dying Wild West town and a merry band of demon-fighting gods. This inventive, invigorating caravan took place on Bethlehem’s Greenway, where China-raised New Yorkers practice tai chi during breaks from playing the slots at a nearby casino. ■

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The List : JUNE 4 – Merle Haggard (Keswick) As titled by his 1969 album, this Okie from Muskogee rebel country legend shows no signs of slowing down in this his 78th year. Like pal Willie Nelson (with whom Haggard just recorded a new duets album, Django and Jimmie) the music just gets better with age.

5 – Chris Hardwick (Trocadero) When Christ Hardwick created Nerdist, he didn’t just create a website; he created a lifestyle, a home for smart, silly quirk-obsessives like him. From there, he built a stand-up comedy thing, an obsessive's hosting thing (He's the guy behind AMC's Talking Dead show following The Walking Dead), and the internetdriven game show, @Midnight.

section of Californian pop from the 50s to the present with a flair for the subtly dramatic.

6 – Beanie Sigel: The Return (TLA) Philly rapper Sigel ONLY returns – and I mean this nicely – if he doesn't get shot first as he did earlier this year when he was supposed to return. The sound and sights of Beans doing a May gig with his old collaborator/mentor Jay Z showed that Sigel's ready to roar.

6 – Lana Del Rey (Borgata) An acquired taste for some, Del Rey is light-voiced, fair-haired diva who understands the inter-

moments to be found, but much of the new album is soft, neopsychedelic soul with big harmonies. Hmm. 10 – Fall Out Boy & Wiz Khalifa + Hoodie Allen (Susquehanna Center) The brash men tour of the sum-

7 – Charlie Wilson, KEM & Joe (Mann) Uncle Charlie Wilson is the once (Gap Band) and future overlord of R&B touched by hip hop according to, at the very least, longtime rap collaborators such as Snoop Dogg.

9 – BC Camplight (UnionTransfer) The New Jersey-born, one-time Philly resident singer/songwriter/pianist got sad, moved to Manchester in the UK, got happier, and uses his sunny indie pop and his depressed dark lyrics for good on his new album How to Die in the North.

10 – Paul Weller (Union Transfer) One-time Jam man and Style Council proprietor Paul Weller had become something of a blues player on his last several albums, a sound that has changed radically on his newest release Saturn's Patterns. There are still plenty of Black Keys-like

16 – Weird Al Yankovic (Sands Bethlehem) One-time ICON cover boy Weird Al rarely tours, so this first of his area shows (he'll be at the Mann in July) is a treat for those who love their favorite pop and rap tunes skewered with goofy humor.

17 – Robert Plant (Mann) Why he can’t do his usual hillbilly trip hop shtick AND tour with Led Zeppelin is beyond me.

mer finds the soul-power-punk FOB with Amber Rose's weedsmoking one-time husband and Philly's own Eminem.

in 2015, the B-52s are stronger than ever, frugging and swinging like wild swinging Southern banshees.

6 – Calexico (Union Transfer) Pulled from the roots of Giant Sand, this multi-instrumentalist duo practically birthed the whole slow, country-ish brand of dusty, noisily ambient Tex-Mex rock on their backs. Their new album Edge of the Sun shows that they’ve still got the knack.

A curated look at the month’s arts, entertainment, food and pop cultural events

7 – B-52s (Keswick) Though Kate Pierson released her first-ever solo album earlier

5 – Wire (Union Transfer) It would seem odd that this band would call their new album

Wire after having been around since 1976 and that, yes, it's the first time they've done so. Yet, nothing is odd for Wire, especially considering that every album from the quintessential British art-punk band with an outlook of Dada-ist lyrics and minimalist musicality offers the chance for re-invention.

A. D. AMOROSI

13 – The Hooters / G. Love & Special Sauce / Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes (Borgata Park) The only casino-hotel in Atlantic City that seems to be doing OK does even better when it opens its expanded amphitheater with a host of Philly and Jersey based sensations from several generations of pop.

14 – Best Coast (UT) Like Lana Del Rey only sweeter, without the murder and drugs, and a duet partner to contend with.

16 – Bette Midler (WFC) Always bawdy and entertaining,

20 – Pattern in Movement farewell (Johnny Brenda's) Philly's most innovation electropop units are amicably breaking up and hosting their own demise. Brings tears to your eyes, it does.

21 – Shonen Knife (Black Box in Underground Arts) Japanese power pop with a razor's edge.

25 – The Godfather (Mann) The Mann's Orchestra spends a quiet summer's night with the music from Francis Ford Coppola's Italian mob opus: an offer no one could refuse.

25 – The Adolescents & The Weirdos (Union Transfer) No saying how well preserved these 70s punk initiators are – at least it will be fun to see.

27 – Kid Rock with Foreigner (Magic Mountain) Big rock's country cousin and

20 – Morrissey (AcofM) Elegant literary pop's most caustic friend is finally healthy

the cold as ice guys who want to know what love is hang out together.

enough (he's been on and off sick for well over 18 months) to hit Philly. His last Academy of Music show was one of the spookiest silliest sexiest shows that I'd seen in a while. Expect nothing less from Moz this time out.

27 – John Fogerty (Mann) The one-time leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival plays the hits; please, not the newer stuff.

28 – Barenaked Ladies/Violent Femmes (Mann) Violent Femmes were yelpy, catty,

21 – Paul McCartney (Wells Fargo) Maybe you'll be amazed too.

the 20th Century Sophie Tucker never ceases to amaze.

16 – Andrew Dice Clay (Troc) Dice has the Entourage movie, the Scorsese series on HBO and a new book to tout – what's left to complain about or curse out the crowd over?

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ditzy minimalist punk pop before anyone was in the late 70s. Welcome back, and opening for the goofy Barenaked Ladies, yet. ■

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Music

A. D. AMOROSI

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Singin’ and Slingin’ the Blues, Brews & Barbecue with Joe Louis Walker

WHEN THE ALLENTOWN CHAMBER of Commerce hosts its 8th Annual Blues Brews & Barbecue music and food festival on June 13 along Hamilton Street, the event will be no mere crunch-and-munch showcase. A visit to the website and your pulse begins to quicken—“...live music by the hottest regional, local and national Blues bands, micro and domestic brews and delicious BBQ from all around the US.” “As each year gets bigger in terms of its audience, we wanted to heighten the experience,” says Allentown Initiatives’ Senior VP, Miriam Huertas. The barbecue and craft beer elements are more adventurous, they’ve expanded the number of live stages to three, and its blues are deeper and harder this time around. “We were Alligator-Records-serious,” says Huertas about the American record label that signifies the rawest and realest of blues artists—namely ferocious six-string-slinger, singer and composer Joe Louis Walker.

“Your area has always been a blues town,” says Walker, mere days after his long acknowledged mentor and one-time collaborator Michael Bloomfield was ushered

into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Speaking of the award as a long overdue accolade for a pioneering blues-based rocker, Walker speaks of his old friend as a master of the trade, “someone worth emulating.”

If any single artist’s sound is worthy of echo or imitation, it’s Walker’s; a man who is as easily adept and fluidly fierce on acoustic guitar as he is electric; an emotional player and vocalist who continues to re-invent the blues with each record, be it 1985’s Cold Is the Night, 2015’s Hornet’s Nest and others in-between his recording career’s start and his present such as The Gift, Hellfire, The Preacher & The President and Between a Rock and the Blues. “I like to think to think of myself as a chameleon,” he says. “But when I picked up the guitar as a kid, I picked it up to be a guitar player, not a BLUES guitar player.”

Walker is such an open spirit—a man capable of riffs as free as those of Ornette Coleman or Grateful Dead, as soulful as Marvin Gaye—that he’s not totally comfortable being called just a bluesman.

“To be quite honest, I come out of church—me and

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my cousins—where we had to play everything from Junior Walker and the All-Stars to the blues. The hippies came to my neighborhood, so I got a little of that (he grew up in San Francisco). It was the whole combination of things there. Then I got off the treadmill in 1975,” he says of a period where he freed himself from the forces of drug and drink. “There are a lot of negative forces out there. I watched it happen to so many good ones. I played gospel music exclusively for a time and that became part of my diet. I love jazz, soul and R&B and play jazz, soul and R&B. Then there’s rock. I do it all.” Listen to the roadhouse blues, the deep funk and the raging rock sounds of “Hornet’s Nest,” and you immediately catch his drift. “I put on John Lennon records in the morning and Muddy Waters records at night,” he laughs.

“That’s who I am, and my music is.” Walker will appear 8:30-10 p.m.

Other entertainers slated to appear are Supra Ayers Killcoyne Shelly Quartet, singer/guitarist Clarence Spady, the Craig Thatcher Trio, Steve Brosky, Jimmy Meyer, and The BC Combo. ■

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Singer / Songwriter

TOM WILK ★=SKIP IT; ★★=MEDIOCRE; ★★★=GOOD; ★★★★=EXCELLENT; ★★★★★=CLASSIC

Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris ★★★★

The Traveling Kind Nonesuch Records Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris waited more than 30 years before putting out Old Yellow Moon, their first album as a duo, in 2013. Their follow-up effort, The Traveling Kind, arrives just two years later and illustrates how the singer/songwriters bring out the best in each other.

The acoustic, folk-flavored title track is a showcase for their peerless harmonies.

Crowell’s “No Memories Left Behind” is recut with a bluesy tinge and is well-suited to be a duet as the singers trade verses about the power of the past. Crowell and Harris kick it up a notch gears for the uptempo “Bring It on Home to Memphis.” It features a riveting narration by Harris, displaying another facet of her vocal skills.

The restrained instrumentation of “Higher Ground” allows her aching vocals to come to the forefront of the plaintive ballad.

Their version of Lucinda Williams’ “I Just Wanted to See You So Bad” has less of the wild abandon of the original but is still effective. Two tracks find the duo stretching themselves artistically. “The Weight of the World” is an effective venture into jazz/blues territory with the use of Wes Montgomery-style guitar and electric piano. “La Danse de la Joie” features the singers exploring Cajun music on a song they co-wrote featuring lyrics in French and English. 11 songs, 40 minutes.

Tom Chapin ★★★1/2 70 Sundance Music “Folks like me don’t retire, we just rebound,” Tom Chapin observes on “Guitar Child,” one of his fine new songs on 70.

tomwilk@rocketmail.com

The longtime singer/songwriter is marking three score years and ten in 2015 and has no intention of putting down his instrument or silencing his voice. Chapin is looking back and looking ahead from the vantage point of his milestone year. “Wreckage” is a reflection on the past with the warning: “We’ll never find a way to replay yesterday.” The arrival of his first grandchild prompts a celebration of the future with “Myra Jean.”

Environmental issues are a cause close to Chapin’s heart and he addresses them on “The Riverkeeper” and “Down There.”

The former pays tribute to efforts to keep the Hudson River clean, while the latter is a cautionary tale about exploiting the Earth and its natural resources. “Smart without Art” is Chapin’s pitch to keep arts funding for schools.

Chapin’s music is built around folk

melodies with an occasional foray into the blues. “Put a Light in Your Window” features the harmonica work of Guy Davis.

Chapin wraps up the album with “Quite Early One Morning,” honoring the legacy of Pete Seeger, another singer who never retired and stayed active into his 90s. 14 songs, 47 minutes.

Domino Kirke ★★★ Independent Channel Dominokirkemusic.com Music is the family business for Domino Kirke, the daughter of drummer Simon Kirke. While her father is best known for the blues-based rock he produced as a member of Free and Bad Company, his daughter goes in a different direction on Independent Channel.

The four-song EP is built around synthesizers and electronic beats with nary an electric guitar. The percussion-fueled “Son,” a reflection on her time as a mother, opens with a Beach Boys-styled keyboard but quickly shifts to a swirling sound that recalls a child’s changing moods.

Kirke and collaborator Luke Temple create an inviting soundscape on the title

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track that’s a perfect fit for her dream-like vocals. “Birth Right” employs a jittery beat and was inspired by her work as a doula and birthing coach.

“Ordinary World” wraps up the EP with a song that starts as a reflective ballad

but then accelerates to create a rhythmic whirlpool. Independent Channel effectively serves as a Whitman’s sampler of Kirke’s musical styles. 4 songs, 15 minutes.

Tom Russell ★★★★ The Rose of Roscrae Frontera Records The Rose of Roscrae is Tom Russell’s master work in a musical career that stretches back to the 1970s. Subtitled “A Ballad of the West,” the two-CD set is a concept album 20 years in the making that incorporates cowboy ballads, traditional music, rock, gospel, spoken-word selections, and even a touch of classical. The music has a cinematic feel, thanks to use of more than 30 guest singers and musicians.

It’s a sprawling tale told with verve and imagination with the action taking place in Ireland, the Western United States, and Hawaii in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Russell has created a memorable protagonist in Johnny Dutton, an Irish teenager who leaves his native land and is forced to leave behind Rose Malloy, his true love and title character of the album. The first CD is sung from the man’s point of view; the second is from the woman’s perspective.

Russell mixes in his own memorable songs (“Johnny Behind the Deuce,” “Resurrection Mountain”) and the title track alongside traditional songs (“Home on the Range,” “Just a Closer Walk With Thee”) and songs written by others (Guy Clark’s “Desperados Waiting for a Train” and David Massengill’s “On The Road to Fairfax County). The use of guest vocalists gives the songs a distinctive flavor. Highlights include Maura O’Connell’s “The Water is Wide” and “I Talk to God,” Gretchen Pe-

ters’ “Where The Wolves No Longer Roam” and Dan Penn on “Desperados Waiting on a Train.”

Russell’s ultimate goal is to bring The Rose of Roscrae to the Broadway stage and expand the scope of the Western musical that began with Oklahoma! and Annie Get Your Gun. With this album, he has created a blueprint for an adventuresome director to follow. 52 songs, 149 minutes.

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The Grahams ★★★1/2 Glory Bound/Rattle the Hocks 12 South Records “Wish I never majored in caffeine and solitude/Wish I’d never let them see my nasty attitude,” Alyssa Graham declares on “Glory Bound,” a song about confronting the past and not being bound by it. It’s a good example of the sharply crafted songs she and her husband, Doug, bring to this two-CD project, a first-rate studio album and collection of live recordings.

Photo: David Johnson.

On Glory Bound, there is a diversity of styles in their music, ranging from the bluesy edge of “Gambling Girl,” to the propulsive bluegrass of “Kansas City” and the country-flavored rhythms of “The Spinner.” It’s all tied together by the vocal prowess of Alyssa and the multi-instrumental skills of Doug.

Rattle the Hocks was designed to explore that relationship between the railroad and American roots music. Made up of a documentary and companion CD produced by Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi All Stars, the project offers a lively snapshot of the Grahams in concert, spotlighting the studio songs in a different context. The live version of “Kansas City” features horns and a fast-paced arrangement that recalls a locomotive picking up steam. Steve Goodman’s classic train song “City of New Orleans” is creatively retooled with a banjo and Dixieland horn arrangement to reflect the Big Easy’s musical heritage. 24 songs, 94 minutes. ■

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Keresman on Disc

MARK KERESMAN ★=SKIP IT; ★★=MEDIOCRE; ★★★=GOOD; ★★★★=EXCELLENT; ★★★★★=CLASSIC

Nellie McKay ★★★★★ My Weekly Reader 429 Records Nellie McKay is one of those hard-topin-down artists—she’s sung on Broadway in Threepenny Opera, been a standup comedian, recorded some diverse albums ranging from a Doris Day tribute album to the reggae-flavored Home Sweet Mobile Home, and acted in the movie PS I Love You. Her latest pays homage to a var-

ied clutch of 1960s songs, from mid-‘60s bubblegum “Mrs. Brown You Got A Lovely Daughter” to Frank Zappa’s caustic “Hungry Freaks Daddy.” McKay does fairly faithful treatments but puts a nifty personal spin on them—her take on “Red Rubber Ball” evokes Bob Dylan’s “I Want You”; Moby Grape’s “Murder in My Heart For the Judge” gets a sultry, slightly funky reading; and Zappa’s bit of vitriol gets a psychedelic treatment (and FZ hated psychedelia). One of most appealing aspects of Weekly Reader is the warm, comforting tone of the production—interestingly enough it was co-produced by Geoff Emerick, who engineered some of The Beatles’ best later albums. McKay is both worldly chanteuse and provocative imp, with a winsome voice and a sly sense of humor. I’d date her. (13 tracks, 48 min.)

429records.com Edward Burlingame Hill/Austin Symphony Orchestra ★★★★1/2 Edward Burlingame Hill Bridge Fame can certainly be a fickle bitchgoddess—take composer Edward Burlingame Hill (1872-1960): Hill taught at Harvard and among his students were Leonard Bernstein, Virgil Thomson, and

shemp@hotmail.com

Elliott Carter, all hefty cats in the American classical music world. During his lifetime Hill’s music was conducted by the best in the biz—Ormandy, Reiner, and Stokowski—yet today he’s a footnote, perhaps because his European brethren (Schoenberg, Webern, etc.) were shaking things up big time in the first half of the 20th century. This CD is previously unrecorded works spanning 1926-1940, and it’s a gem for those that enjoy 20th century classical sounds that aren’t [ahem] avant-garde. Hill’s music is full-bodied, harmonious, somewhat similar to George Gershwin’s orchestral works, and while both Gershwin and Hill were influenced by jazz, Hill was a bit more subtle about it.

While the orchestral “language” is based in the Euro-model, Hill’s sound is 100% American—the melodies, the rhythms, the grandeur, the subtle humor, it’s all US of A, sometimes evoking the soundtrack music from pre-1964 Hollywood films. If you like Gershwin, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, you’ve got to hear this. (six tracks, 61 min.) bridgerecords.com Jackie DeShannon ★★★★★ All The Love: The Lost Atlantic Recordings Real Gone Music When it comes to discussions of “women in rock history,” Jackie DeShannon is not mentioned often, if at all. DeShannon wrote the classic “When You

circa 1973, but Atlantic Records, her label at the time, decided to shelve it. This is an excellent album, but would it have flown in the early ‘70s? Perhaps not—Love is both a mixture and synthesis of country, gospel, pop, folk, and Ray Charles-like rhythm & blues, and the ‘70s music playlists and tastes got a bit specialized, if you catch my drift. Today, with the awareness and acceptance of Americana, this music could find an audience. DeShannon’s voice has a slightly husky/dusky honey-and-lemon voice and the music oozes classy, emotive Southern soul with a heaping helping of BBQ-rich Hammond organ. Bonus tracks: Four unreleased songs done in collaboration with Van Morrison, and they’re loaded with Van the Man’s Irish soul-swing circa Tupelo Honey/St. Dominic’s Preview. “Old” or new, this platter is the best album this cranky ol’ writer’s heard this year. (18 tracks, 56 min.) realgonemusic.com Mac McCaughan ★★★★ Non-Believers Merge Some folks got so much music in ‘em, even two bands can’t convey it all. Mac McCaughan has been front-person for indie rock mini-legends Superchunk since 1989 and has the somewhat more melodic folk/pop Portastatic as his squeeze on the side. Non-Believers is his first proper

Photo: Matt Condon

Walk in the Room,” a Trans-Atlantic hit for the Searchers; she opened for The Beatles on their first USA tour; her biggest hit was “Put A Little Love in Your Heart” (tune in any oldies station); and her songs have been hits for others, most famously “Bette Davis Eyes.” And she dated Elvis Presley and Jimmy Page. All the Love collects songs meant for album release

“solo” disc, especially as he plays nearly everything. This sounds very 1980s with buoyant, insidiously catchy melodies on keyboards (with some trebly-twanging guitar) and candied vocals singing bittersweet lyrics about youthful angst transitioning into, simply, adult angst. While this album evokes Orchestral Manoeuvres

in the Dark and Ultravox, it sidesteps the overly cute/cheesy character that stuff in retrospect exudes. In other words, Mac remembers to rock, bless him. Pick hit: “Barely There.” (10 tracks, 41 min.) mergerecords.com Soft Machine ★★★1/2 Switzerland 1974 Cuneiform The UK’s Soft Machine began as mid1960s psychedelic rockers before morphing into an innovative fusion combo circa 1970, combining jazz (post bop and avantgarde) with facets of rock and minimalism (think Terry Riley). The previously unreleased recordings of Switzerland 1974 (a CD & DVD set) present the Softs in a transitional phase—keyboardist Mike Ratledge

remained the sole original member; guitarist (and fusion icon-to-be) Alan Holdsworth joined, and they had an almost completely new batch of compositions. The opener, “Hazard Profile,” highlights the strengths of this edition of the Softs: Ratledge’s eerie, almost horn-like organ; Holdsworth’s wiry, somewhat John McLaughlin-like wailing; John Marshall’s propulsive drums; Roy Babbington’s sinuous, sinewy bass; and Karl Jenkins’ lyrical piano and soprano sax. Ratledge’s “The Man Who Waved at Trains” features very attractive unison playing from Jenkins and Holdsworth, then Jenkins’ soprano solo features some Coltrane-like ecstatic forays in the middle range of his horn while the bass and drums roil beneath. There’s also a bit of crackling collective improvisation with the brief “Lefty.” Unlike many of their American fusion cousins, Soft Machine had no funk/R&B influences and concentrated on ensemble work—and there’s that quirky English humor. Anyone extremely into fusion’s most fertile flowering (1968-1975) needs to hear Soft Machine.

Holdsworth fans also take note. (13 tracks, 62 min.) cuneiformroecords.com ■

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June Christy with Red Rodney, Club Troubadour NYC 1947

Jazz Library

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June Christy

I’M NOT SURE WHAT year I became a June Christy fan, but it must have been during her later years with the Stan Kenton band. I liked the Kenton band’s innovative approach to jazz. I first saw the band perform at Philly’s Academy of Music in the early 1950s. Christy was a member of the band at the time, but I don’t remember seeing her that night. At that time, perhaps almost everyone went to see and hear Kenton’s trumpet virtuoso Maynard Ferguson—whose high notes on the instrument threatened to bring rain.

I had heard Christy before that night, but I suppose whatever she was singing didn’t register with me at the time. I really began to pay more attention with her 1953 recording of “My Heart Belongs to Only You.” About a year later came her bittersweet offering, a very hip recording of “Something Cool.” The song’s lyrics were super cool, and super hip, and the uninitiated wanted to know to whom the laid-back, smoky, come-hither voice belonged. Christy had been recording under her own name while still with Kenton, but her success as a single inspired her to go completely on her own.

So, with “Something Cool” Christy was introduced to a much wider audience, and a stellar career in jazz and standard-pop interpretation was launched.

Before she became the sultry-voiced June Christy, she was Shirley Luster, from Springfield, Illinois, born November 20, 1925. The family moved to nearby Decatur several years later and Christy, who always wanted to sing but had no formal training,

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BOB PERKINS

began to live out her ambition by singing with local bands. And with the ambivalent blessings of her family she later changed both her name and location, and as Sharon Leslie began singing with society bands in Chicago, which was about 150 miles from home. While still in her late teens, Christy landed her first big job with the progressive Boyd Raeburn band which was playing an engagement at Chicago’s Band Box Theater.

Soon after joining she contracted scarlet fever and had to leave the band. The band completed its engagement and left town without her. She was heartbroken and about to quit the business and return home, but hung in there.

How she became a member of the Kenton band is up for grabs—stories differ. But she somehow learned that Kenton’s girl singer, Anita O’Day, was leaving the band, and that Kenton was looking for a replacement. The reasonable assumption is that she applied for the job and was hired. Fortunately, the same year, 1945, she and the band recorded the tune “Tampico,” and it became a million seller.

She and the band proved to be a good match, and a second hit—another novelty tune, “Shoo Fly Pie and Apple, Pan Dowdy,” followed. Christy and the band’s multi-instrumentalist, Bob Cooper, married in 1946, and remained thus for more than 40 years.

The Kenton band was under contract to Capitol Records for many years, and upon leaving Kenton Christy also signed with the label, joining the likes of Peggy Lee, Dakota Staton, Nancy Wilson, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and other recording artists who were, or were to become under contract with Capitol.

Very often, as a recording artist’s name and fame grow, record companies change the name of the artist to one they feel is more commercially acceptable. Disc jockeys may also toy with a favored artist’s name and sometimes come up with a catchy nickname. In Christy’s case, a Chicago DJ came up with the handle “The Misty Miss Christy.” Christy liked it and so did Capitol, and in 1956 an LP bearing the sobrirquet came to be. The complimentary name and most all other flattering titles ascribed to Christy may have fit, because she arrived in a “cool era” of modern music: The music of the Kenton band was on the loud side, different, and strangely…cool.

Anita O’Day, whom Christy followed into the band, shared with her a similar offbeat but successful approach to vocalizing.

Christy had a voice that was eggshell thin. Sometimes her timber and vibrato was so weak, one might think she would not make it through a song. But it was this vocal vulnerability, combined with the unique way she interpreted the words of a song, that made her the singer that she was—and the eggshell never broke. She could work magic with a song and, although she never learned to read music, could navigate the most challenging arrangements.

There was a similarity of voice and vocal style, but Christy was unlike her outgoing Kenton predecessor, Anita O’day, in that she seldom if ever changed her hairstyle—she was known for her bangs across the forehead hairdo. And although blond and petite, she did not dress or do anything out of the ordinary to attract attention. Friendly and usually upbeat, but not overly so, there may have even been a mystique surrounding the Misty Miss Christy.

She enjoyed great success from the mid-1950s through the ‘60s. She retired from the music business and only worked when her failing health would allow. She passed away in 1990 at 64. She and husband Bob Cooper had one child, a girl named Shay.

Christy and he collaborated on many of her recordings, as he, too, was a fine talent.

Oddly enough, the song most associated with Christy, “Something Cool,” did no go over with her. She once said of it, “...[it’s] the only thing I’ve recorded that I’m unhappy with.”

If you’d like to hear the lady at her best—which was almost always—try Off Beat.

On the disc, there is the Jerome Kern-Dorothy Fields gem, “Remind Me.” Christy sings it like she may have written it. The Song is also on a compilation of her songs, titled, The Best of June Christy. Both CDs bear the Capitol label. ■

Bob Perkins is a writer and host of an all-jazz radio program that airs on WRTI-FM 90.1, MonThurs. 6 to 9pm & Sun., 9am–1pm.

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Nick’’s Picks

NICK BEWSEY

★=SKIP IT; ★★=MEDIOCRE; ★★★=GOOD; ★★★★=EXCELLENT; ★★★★★=CLASSIC

Harold Mabern ★★★★1/2 Afro Blue Smoke Sessions Pianist Harold Mabern is a two-fisted swinger, a legendary presence on the many great Blue Note dates of the ‘60s who continues to add a distinctive groove to his many solo projects. If you haven’t heard him, he’s partial to playing blocks of chords hard and quick, as if he needs to get somewhere fast. His melodic ideas

Man from Hyde Park,” Mabern’s original about Herbie Hancock, and a welcome Norah Jones dips into jazz again on a bravura arrangement of “Fools Rush In” that bops along at a danceable tempo with a “Poinciana” beat. The album notably reunites him with long time collaborator, saxophonist Eric Alexander. Afro Blue, however, is something special in his discography in that it spotlights Mabern’s natural affinity with singers, his lyrical accompaniment on the keys and four tight, horn-laced instrumentals that define modern bebop. (14 tracks; 67 minutes) Aaron Diehl ★★★★★ Space Time Continuum Mack Avenue If you dig piano jazz that swings and purrs, Aaron Diehl liberally dishes out both on his second recording, Space Time Continuum. It’s also one of the best albums you’ll hear this year. The opener, Walter Davis’ “Uranus,” is a sleek, fingersnapping trio number, highlighting

seem to dance from his fingertips. It’s his signature technique combined with a sound that’s shot through with honey-dripping soul, as sweet and graceful as can be.

Lucky for us, there’s no shortage of good, recent recordings by Mabern, but Afro Blue is a unique achievement that pairs the leader and his world-class band with five of the hottest jazz singers on the scene.

Smartly produced by the resourceful team at Smoke Sessions, the recording arm of the venerable Smoke Jazz & Supper Club on New York’s Upper West Side, the irresistible cast includes Jane Monheit, Kurt Elling and the lovely Alexis Cole.

There’s plenty of Mabern’s driving, bluesy style on tap, but also two undeniable classic vocals: Gregory Porter makes the sharpest impression on a dazzling “The Nick Bewsey has been writing about jazz for ICON since 2004 and is a member of The Jazz Journalists Assoc. He also paticipates in DownBeat’s Annual International Critics Poll. www.countingbeats.com Email: nickbewsey@gmail.com

Diehl’s smooth, elegant soloing, with bassist David Wong and drummer Quincy Davis providing added panache. Disciplined by tradition, he’s a master stylist, frequently evoking Duke Ellington and John Lewis while planting his own definitive flag. At 29, Diehl is one of the more memorable composers on the scene and his original tunes are certainly confident, incorporating beguiling melodies and absorbing rhythms that get under your skin.

Diehl’s first record conjured sonic touchstones from the ‘50s and ‘60s, specifically elements of the MJQ. Space

Time brings together horn masters (Benny Golson, Joe Temperley) and younger lions (trumpeter Bruce Harris and tenor sax player Stephen Riley) to usher Diehl’s bold vision into the future.

It’s a record that’s hard to stop listening to with tracks that compete for your attention (“Santa Maria” sports a clever jazz/classical mash-up, and each of the five horn numbers are supreme), but save some extra love for singer Charenee Wade and Diehl’s trio on the title tune—her delectable voice, his sharp licks and those creamy horns should help escort this album onto many of the year’s “best of ” lists. (8 tracks; 55 minutes) Eugenie Jones ★★★★ Come Out Swingin’ Openmic Seattle-based jazz singer Eugenie Jones is an empowered storyteller who bares her soul with no-apology lyrics and a decisive singing style. Her memorable debut, the hip, swinging and soulful Black Lace, Blue Tears was one to put on

when you had friends over—she’s a singer who instantly stands out for her authenticity. On her sophomore release, Come Out Swingin’ she gets the band back together and steps up her game.

Made up of terrific talent from the Northwest that’s effectively led by pianist Bill Anschell, Jones writes clever songs (“Swing Me,” “I’m Alright” and the tasty “Sweet Summer Love”) with arrangements that give the record a lively, clublike feel. Jones has a pleasing instrument, particularly on her own stylish tunes. She dips into standards like “All Of Me” and “Begin The Beguine” with a revelatory confidence. Her voice is smooth and assured, and on the Nina Simone-tinged “A Way About You” she sings with a pizzazz and makes her swinging rhythm section sparkle. A superior effort, Come Out Swingin’ deserves to open doors wider for this sensational performer. (13 tracks; 53 minutes)

John Raymond ★★★★ Foreign Territory Fresh Sound New Talent A fast-rising modernist, trumpeter John Raymond assembles a solid team of musicians for his sophomore release Foreign Territory. Anchored by the resolute Billy Hart on the drums, bassist Joe Martin (Kurt Rosenwinkel) and the gifted pianist Dan Tepfer (Lee Konitz), Raymond delivers a masterful set of multi-textured songs; they swing obliquely and pull you in with disarming ease. He calls his sound and approach “a modern reimagining of classic/straightahead jazz,” and his ideas tip a hat to Horace Silver (“Rest/Peace”), Irving Berlin (a ruminative “Deeper”) and Lee Konitz (“Adventurous-Lee”). Raymond has a smoothly polished tone—he’s a convincing instrumentalist with a Freddie Hubbard edge combined with the lyricism of Art Farmer. As a composer, his tunes

resonate with poetic flourishes and pleasing off-center melodies. The music’s interlocking rhythms are enhanced by the quartet’s improvisational skills, and the abiding trust that Raymond has with his band is evident from the first tune (it’s also the title track, the first ever composition that Raymond wrote on his trumpet).

Yet, it’s the collective sound that gives the music on Foreign Territory its substance, conjoined with Raymond’s authorial confidence that gives his decisive music a seasoned glow. Produced by John McNeil. (9 tracks; 44 minutes) ■

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Dining

ROBERT GORDON

r.gordon33@verizon.net

BEAST & ALE IT’S UNDERSTANDABLE THAT BEAST & Ale boasts about its Beast Burger. It’s a neighborhood favorite: brioche bun, two quarter-pounders, Dijonnaise, cheese, red onion, lettuce, and pickle. The heart of the composition, I’m told, is inspired by America’s WWII Wimpy-era burger-fixation. But casting the Beast Burger as the representative dish is misleading. To some, it might put Beast & Ale in the domain of the pub-crawl set, since the younger demographic is so ubiquitous in Manayunk. To be sure, Manayunk has its serious, well-respected dining emporiums. James Beard chefs like Moon Krapugthong at Yanako and Chabaa Thai, along with the unsinkable Bruce Cooper at Jake’s, keep serious dining in Manayunk rewarding. But in recent years, the dining scene has been pumping up on 20-something appeal. In a neighborhood that’s full of bars and pubs, Beast & Ale shouldn’t be dismissed as yet another nosh-spot with undistinguished fare.

Beast & Ale is the fourth Tim Spinner and Brian Sirhal collaboration following Taqueria Feliz, Cantina Feliz, and Calaqua Feliz. Given this quality and popularity, I wouldn’t expect Beast & Ale to be just another ho-hum Manayunk watering hole slinging out middling noshes for the elbow-benders. It’s not. Unlike the other Spinner-Sirhal eateries, the menu is not Mexican-centric. However, the ignite-the-taste-buds flair that sparks the Spinner style flickers in the Appetizers. I love the piquancy of pickled cherry tomatoes, skin removed to absorb the flavor to the max. Chicken Liver Mousse is a bit bland by itself— but with pickled red onions on crisped, garlicky bread, the ensemble is delectable.

Whipped cauliflower topped with three colorful, tangy tapenades, is the menu’s best: Olive tapenade joins two deep green parsley dollops, punchy and unctuous in an appetizing commotion of colors and tastes. A generous tumble of tempura green beans become addictive after the first bite. Parmesan cheese caps a mammoth meatball in a silky smooth swirl of onion gravy. House-cut fries sparked with pork belly and kicking housemade BBQ sauce lift the familiar a few notches. Beef Tartare with chives and vinaigrette is finely executed.

There are some tempting belly-bustin’ sandwiches that woo on over-the-top appeal rather than finesse. Most, like the Baby Beast, the Incredible Beast, the Sloppy Beast, and the Hot Roast Beast, riff off the Beast Burger. The Bacon Belly Beast adds BBQ Pork Belly to the basic Beast Burger, and is perhaps the most reliable resort for the ravenous. The Tempura Fish sandwich brings tilapia, tartar sauce, lettuce, tomato, and red onion together—notching down the bravado of the Beast Burger bunch.

There are four satisfying entrées: Steak Poupard (a French pejorative for chubby) is a tender, juicy delicious sirloin slathered with caramelized onion, potato hash, fried egg, and zingy house hot sauce, a delicious deal for $19.95. General Janine’s Chicken marinated in buttermilk is a crunchily clad fowl that’s tossed in a soy-chili glaze and accompanied by Chinese broccoli and pickled carrots.

Alfresco season is propitious for a visit. The front of the restaurant can be opened to the street. The upstairs deck recently copped a spot in Eater Philly’s top 10 places to eat outside. Inside, Beast & Ale’s minimalist blue walls, tan floor, and black bar with black iron casts a slightly industrial, casual feel.

Beast & Ale’s fare increases the reach and diversity of Manayunk dining. It’s an eatery fit for man and beast. ■ Beast and Ale, 4161 Main St, Philadelphia (215) 437-3936 www.beastandale.com 36 ■ I C O N ■ J U N E 2 0 1 5 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V

S WA N

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HOTEL Modern Cuisine h Classic Comfort Corner of Swan & Main Lambertville, NJ 609-397-3552

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8 / THE ORDER OF THINGS

Martha Lucy, the Foundation’s consulting curator puts it this way: “Dr. Barnes arranged his collection in a very unconventional way; he ignored chronology and history and hung things together that normally would never share a wall—a Cezanne with an El Greco, for example. What Dr. Barnes did was replace the traditional system with one of his own. Each of his assemblages is perfectly symmetrical, perfectly ordered, and set in place in perpetuity.” Barnes was an unusual person, to say the least. He made his fortune on quack medicines, recruited his Central High classmate, William Glackens, to serve as a collecting agent, and maintained a lengthy correspondence with Horace Bond, Julian Bond’s father.

He also raged against the art establishment and seemed to relish his famous clashes with the authorities and the Philadelphia Art Museum. While he ran the art gallery and watched it become the home of the famous, his wife ran the surrounding grounds and turned them into a jewel of a garden.

Mark Dion, a New York artist, has created his own ensemble with the tools of a naturalist, not only tying in with the famous garden but also with Barnes’ fancy.

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Dion, who studied in New York and his native New England, is widely exhibited and has won numerous awards.

The arrangement and background coloring of his installation is dead-on-Barnes and, rather than a response to the way art is exhibited, it appears to be a homage to the doctor.

Judy Pfaff was born in England and is represented by an installation that has overtones of the Cezanne garden, and speaks directly to the Laura Barnes garden. Pfaff was graduated from Washington University in St Louis with a BFA and from Yale University with an MFA. She also has exhibited widely and has work in major museums around the world. Her installation contains elements of rigid and flowing sweeps of bright color. Clearly, the rigidity of the lines reference the same element in the ensembles, while the garden qualities imply the importance of disorder in the Barnes selection process.

Fred Wilson, also from New York, has created installations around the world, and was the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship or “Genius Award” in 1999. His work is the most political in that he has recreated a series of rooms in which objects are displayed in what

might be called, “Barnes Gone Wild.” Wilson has also dipped into the Barnes personal record collection and added sound to the installation. He is very much talking about the essence of a collector and what it might mean for the art, be it conservation or isolation.

The show also includes the recreation of a small gallery from the Barnes that had been removed in order to be put in an elevator. The art in this small room was also arranged by Barnes, but none of it has been seen for over 20 years. The objects have undergone conservation and as a fresh example of the Barnes method, complement the three installations.

Recent exhibitions at the Barnes have demonstrated the various aspects of the collection that are available for further curatorial investigations, and this one provides more insight for the benefit of the visitor. Whatever one’s point of view on the relocation of the Barnes from Lower Merion to Philadelphia, there is no question that the benefits to the visitor have been expanded. ■

Did you enjoy how Elizabeth Banks played your wife’s inner strength, especially considering that she had to go up against a controlling Landy?

I do. Elizabeth Banks was very factual and well cast.

She even looks a little like my wife.

You haven’t had the sound of women on your music—like, ever—yet here you have girls like Katie Musgraves and Zooey Deschanel. What does that mean to your music?

I think the women’s voices here reminded me of love.

They signaled love.

Through August 3, 2015. The Barnes Foundation, 2025 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy, Philadelphia. (215) 278-7200 barnesfoundation.org

22 / BRIAN WILSON

He was an anchor. He wrote a lot of the words to songs like “Good Vibrations.” And he’s a good man.

Why are you writing a new autobiography now?

One guy crapped out on me, so I’m doing it with somebody else. It has to be done.

No matter what, will you be able to be more honest about your ties with Dr. Landy?

I will.

What do you think of the scenes with you and him?

They were rough to watch. They all brought back some pretty bad memories. Having to watch those scenes where he’s yelling at me was hard to relive.

For sure, those and the scene where your father sells off the Sea of Tunes catalog because he thinks you’ve peaked. How do you prefer to remember those times?

I don’t. I don’t like to remember them at all.

This film was supposed to happen in 1988 with William Hurt as you and Richard Dreyfuss as Landy.

What happened?

Nothing happened is what happened; I never had a hand in that movie. Then this director, Bill Pohlad—he’s very good—he knew exactly how and who he wanted to cast, and have them portray the real people the best that they could.

Bill Pohlad—what did you like about his vision? Did you give him all the details of your day-to-day, total access into your life?

When he told me—and showed me—about the scene that he wanted to do with me and Melinda, when I bought a car from her...I thought that was the best part of the movie.

That was sweet. Was the director accurate in portraying the early relationship between you and your wife?

Oh, yes, very much so.

Both did a beautiful job. Dano really seemed to delve into your artistic ability. Did you spend time with these guys?

Yes, actually we spent several weekends together, each just going through the good and the bad stuff that I went through, and what it was like to produce records. They listened hard and it worked very well.

We were talking about your wife and it’s my understanding that she is now a large part of your musical work on your new album, No Pier Pressure.

Yes. My wife had certain collaborators in mind for me and duets, so she called them up. She also helped out on the production.

Before No Pier Pressure, you started an album with Jeff Beck and producer Don Was. What happened to that?

We left it behind. It was OK. The songs weren’t up to my standard so I did something else.

It’s been a while since you had an album like No Pier Pressure, with all of your own songs on it.

Yeah, but I enjoyed doing the Gershwin stuff and the Disney album too. They’re two of my favorites.

Do you write songs quicker or slower now? I know you used to be able to rattle them off.

No, it takes me a while now. I’m a little slower now, probably because I’m older and not quite as active as I’d like to be, or used to be.

Which of the guests on No Pier Pressure stand out?

Nate Ruess stands out. He’s got a great voice. And he’s a good guy.

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It’s very Phil Spector to have them there. Is he still an influence on your work?

On the production end, yes, but not in the writing.

Do you still feel at home in the studio?

It’s where I live. It’s a preoccupation. It’s why I live near where I work so that I can duck into the studio whenever I want and create.

I spoke with Glen Campbell before he took ill and he told me that he nearly took your place in the Beach Boys, but tried to avoid it because he thought so highly of you.

Mike Love called him to replace me when I wanted to stay home, not tour, and work in the studio. That’s true, but then Bruce Johnston did a nice job.

Van Dyke Parks told me that he thought his 1995 album Orange Crate Art with you singing was the best you ever sounded.

I agree. He taught me all the background parts where he did all the arrangements. That is one great album You’re doing a summer tour soon and you’re doing Non-Comm. Do you still like playing live? You seem to do so much more now than you ever did.

Yeah, I do like to play for enthusiastic crowds. It’s a necessary, wonderful experience for me.

You went out and re-did SMILE and Pet Sounds. is there another older album that you’d like to re-think or take on the road?

No. I wouldn’t want to change a thing. ■

Dining

ROBERT GORDON

r.gordon33@verizon.net

CAFFE GALLERIA AS AN INVETERATE OBSERVER of the regional dining scene, I’m delighted that Caffe Galeria is folding so neatly into the fabric of the Lambertville dining scene. Sprig & Vine and Hearth, both vegan/vegetarian eateries, are integral players on the New Hope restaurant landscape. Their presence made making Lambertville’s lack of a reliable vegetarian eatery glaring. So, given the zooming national ascendancy of vegetarian and vegan dining, in order to remain relevant, Lambertville needed a more determinate vegetarian presence. Caffe Galleria fills that bill.

The Caffe, which serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, isn’t exclusively vegetarian or vegan. Such a classification would ignore over half the menu, which includes some well-conceived and well-executed meat dishes. As an example, Galleria Cordon Bleu—breasts of chicken topped with ham and Gruyère, finished with Pinot Noir garlic mushroom cream sauce, and sided with a potato and vegetable ensemble—is delicious. At $18, it’s a bargain by any reckoning.

Ditto for Chicken and Scallop Tangine, which partners plump chicken breast with fresh scallops sautéed in a rich tarragon cream sauce and served with pasta of the day.

The Cedar Plank Fish du Jour is my favorite.

Cooked Mediterraneanstyle to the guest’s liking in the brick oven, the fish preparation always reaches the table at its succulent peak, awash in its own natural juices. I also enjoy the Caffe’s Blackened Ahi Tuna, sushigrade served luscious and ruby red.

All in all, about a dozen-and-a-half meat or fish dishes populate the dinner menu. But the same regular menu also offers numerous vegetarian choices that seldom see the light on neighborhood menus, other than as an ambitious, one-day-only trial balloon. Pan-Roasted Seitan with plum tomatoes, peas, cannellini beans, avocado, and soy mozzarella over brown rice is a harmonized blitz of flavor. The same kind of compositional spark glows in Tofu Eggplant Zorba, a bright medley of eggplant, garbanzo beans and tofu sautéed with olive oil, garlic, shallots and plum tomatoes.

Galleria’s Aphrodite can be prepared with either chicken or tofu, topped with red and green onion, tomatoes, mushrooms, and artichokes. The entire battery is sautéed in garlic-herb Sauvignon Blanc sauce and sprinkled with feta cheese.

There are a number of vegetarian pasta choices. Of particular note is Eggplant Rolatini: layers of fresh, grilled eggplant, baby spinach and ricotta cheese are rolled out in alternating helixes, then topped with Galleria marinara and served over your choice of pasta, another noteworthy bargain at $17.

Pastas are popular and moderately priced. Linguini, Rigatoni, Penne, and Cavatappi are available daily as are several sauces: Putanesca, Lemon Caper, Alfredo, Spicy Pink, Vodka, Lemon Oil & Garlic, Marinara, Fra Diablo, and Beurre Blanc. There’s also a Chef ’s Ravioli that changes daily.

The plethora of menu choices underscores the eatery’s bistro essence, yet the interior exudes an elegant, stately air. It’s laid out with comfortable, ample distance between each table. Wood floors and deep red walls hung with paintings from the local art community and highlighted with white trim imbue a confident, cheery, refined air.

Owner Beth Caruso has mentored an energetic, enthusiastic staff. Servers are helpful and well-schooled in the menu. Nice weather opens up lovely alfresco possibilities, and each Friday through September, you can enjoy live music from 7:00 to 9:00 on the front lawn. ■ Caffe Calleria, 23 No. Union St, Lambertville, NJ (609) 397-2400 W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J U N E 2 0 1 5 ■ I C O N ■ 39

About Life

JAMES P. DELPINO, MSS,MLSP,LCSW,BCD

Sex 101 IN AN AGE WHEN sex is a more open topic of discussion and expression than almost anytime in human history, people report unfulfilling sex more often than most would suspect. There are more images, freedoms, partners and information about sex available than ever— yet couples still struggle to find harmony in the bedroom. These reports suggest that despite more openness and information on the subject, there’s still something important missing.

What neuroscience and anecdotal evidence have taught us is that the largest sex organ in the human body is the brain. How we think about sex has a lot to do with our experience of it: how we think of something highly influences how we feel about it. The centers of thought and feeling are located in the brain and, much like a computer, the brain is able to be programmed to think and feel in all sorts of ways. This helps us to understand why people experience the pleasure of sex in so many different ways. This may also help us to understand why people who feel attracted to each other may have very different expectations about how sex should be. Even those who deeply love each other can struggle, because they have different images in their minds about what is sexy, sexual and sensuous.

It’s possible to have sex without intimacy. It’s also possible to have intimacy without sex. People who experience sex with intimacy generally report the highest levels of satisfaction with their partners. Intimacy is a deep and connected bond where there is very little defensiveness present. Things flow in a very open and moving way when defenses don’t truncate the experience. What happens in the bedroom is deeply affected by what happens outside of the bedroom. Partners who have poor or inadequate emotional connections often find their unhappiness with each other shows up in the bedroom.

A very common saboteur of of good sexual relations is what is known as “sexualizing intimacy needs.” What this means is that non-sexual needs are not met and are then displaced into the bedroom. Someone who may be seeking love and approval may use sex as a means to gain that love or approval. This is called pseudo-intimacy and may explain why so many people complain of feeling empty after sex. While pseudo-intimacy may look and feel like true intimacy at first blush, it is but a pale imitation. It may whet the appetite but it doesn’t feed the deeper hunger. Anger is often displaced into the sexual arena, and that can result in rough or violent sex, and even rape. Culturally, we might say that making love is different from fooling around, screwing, casual

sex, friends with benefits or anonymous sex. For those situations, sex may serve as a release of frustration or a temporary escape, but they’re more like an acting-out of unmet intimacy needs rather than a fulfilling connective experience.

Sex has the power to unleash many different unconscious forces and unresolved issues: Issues of acceptance and rejection are often magnified when sex comes into the picture; friendships can be damaged or lost when people cross the boundary from the platonic to the sexual. Performance anxiety, fear of loss and body issues surface frequently in the sexual arena. For some people, having sex when they don’t want to can generate deep anger and resentment. Statistics indicate that one in four girls have been molested by the age of sixteen. These experiences may surface during sexual experiences and lead to avoidance, refusal, physical pain, outbursts of anger and tearful episodes. However, in the case of truly “making love,” tears often flow from the emotional power and fulfillment of the experience.

An intimate bond allows for the kind of communication where partners can freely discuss their preferences, expectations and wishes. Educating each other about these thoughts and feelings often leads to a better set of experiences between the partners. One basic axiom is if you can't talk about it first, you shouldn't do it. Talking about experiences afterward also helps clarify and tweak things so that over time the experiences are better and better. Being less defensive also helps the communication to flow. For those who are shy or struggle with communication, there’s plenty of information available to share or read with a partner. The words of a writer may explain a person's feelings, thoughts, hopes and expectations better than they can say them.

The urge to merge with another person through sex is a vital and healthy need to express. Humans are all wired to connect with other humans. Sexual feelings are a natural byproduct of intimacy. Not all sexual feelings need to be acted on, though, because the feelings may lead to unintended consequences. A good test for this is to see if the feelings are real and not the byproduct of pseudo-intimacy and that they persist over time. If these two conditions are present, then positive and open communication is a further way to test if proceeding forward is a good idea. Also, if alcohol or drugs or impaired functioning are part of the equation, it’s generally not a good thing to proceed. Two elements necessary for good experiences is that whatever happens is mutual and—don’t forget—fun. ■

Left: Couple kissing sculpture from temple of Khajuraho, India, ca. 11th century AD

Jim Delpino is a psychotherapist in private practice for over 33 years. jdelpino@aol.com Phone: (215) 364-0139.

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Sally Friedman

My Mother’s Things I ALWAYS REMEMBER THE first time I walked into my mother’s apartment after she had died. That day, eight years ago, I turned and bolted. The smell of Mom’s perfume, the sight of her eyeglasses, her magazines, her comb—and her absence—were just too much.

I couldn’t go back for days.

But no matter how much I wanted to avoid it, there was the inevitable sad work of clearing out the place where my mother had lived for 37 years. And nobody can prepare you for going through the personal effects of someone you have loved and lost. If grief is an ambush, this sorting out is its handmaiden.

The first challenge was where to start. I knew it wouldn’t be the kitchen, where everything had some association with a woman who cooked the best brisket in the universe. No, the kitchen was too hard. The bedroom felt too private and personal. So I headed for what I thought was neutral turf: a hall closet where mom had kept the miscellaneous stuff every household has: the vacuum, light bulbs, trash bags, paper towels.

But behind some of that, I found a shoe box filled to the brim with every card we’d ever sent her, ordinary cards I’d picked out in a moment without even deliberating over the message. Why hadn’t I sent her nicer ones?

No matter where I went after that closet, there was something destined to stop me in my tracks and make me sob. The yellowing, neatly clipped newspaper announcement from 1960 of my marriage to the son-in-law she came to love as a son. A letter I’d sent her during my sophomore year of college complaining about a killer course in James Joyce. And a spelling paper from second grade with one of those archetypal gold stars stuck to the corner. There would be other emotional ambushes in the inanimate objects.

Something scribbled in Mom’s handwriting. A photograph of her as a very young woman in the back of a dresser drawer. A tiny change purse.

At last, I tackled the most daunting spaces. As I’d predicted, the kitchen was the toughest. I couldn’t throw out my mother’s aprons. Not the organdy one she used to wear when she had people over, and fluttered around, delighting in playing hostess. Not the flowered one with the missing tie. Her ancient flour sifter, probably a collectible by now, went to Jill, mom’s oldest granddaughter. The tray she loved was handed over to Amy, her middle granddaughter. And Nancy, the youngest, chose her grandmother’s favorite glass bowl. I carried off the roasting pan in which she made our Thanksgiving turkey.

It took a day to go through my mother’s jewelry, little of it of any value, all of it priceless to those of us who remembered her in this or that necklace or pin or bracelet. And the clothes. Oh my, the clothes that still carried her scent, or a strand of blonde hair clinging to a collar. One day, I piled all the skirts and blazers and blouses on the bed, then plopped down on top of them and cried. They seemed so small, and so forlorn.

In the end, my sister and I packed up whatever we could bear to part with and were ready to donate to charity. I scooped up the wonderful hot pink dress that my mother had worn to the last family party just weeks before her death.

I also pulled my mother’s blue flannel bathrobe out of the Goodwill pile at the last minute. “As old as the hills,” my mother used to say, “but it’s warm.”

I saved a little red pot she had loved, all of her paintings, some of her furniture. I never thought I could ever do that.

Now I’m so enormously grateful that I did. The rest of my mother’s life was carted off by a dealer or given to charity. And the apartment yawned empty. Every cabinet, every closet, every surface, bare.

On that last day, I wandered through the emptiness, touching the walls that had enclosed my mother’s life. I deliberately opened the pale yellow curtains left hanging on her windows so that the light would still come in. And I couldn’t stop sobbing. Soon, someone else moved into Apartment 2513. The endless real estate details wrapped around death had been settled. And all these years later, I still wonder how long the wonderful smell of my mother’s perfume—and her essence—lingered. ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ J U N E 2 0 1 5 ■ I C O N ■ 41

The Los Angeles Times SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE

MS.

By Jason Mueller Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 5 8 12 16 18 20 21 22 24 25 26 27 28 31 33 35 36 37 40 42 45 46 48 49 52 56 57 60 61 66 70 71 72 73 74 75 77 80 82 83 84 90 92 93 94 95

Straw __ Immunization letters Duped in a good way? __ Zero They have Red Velvet and Watermelon varieties Many a surfer Norse trickster Chennai’s continent “Silkwood” star Zira and Cornelius, in a 1968 film Auction units ATM necessity Women’s World Golf Rankings sponsor “Frankenstein” author Polish-German border river Hunters’ outfits, briefly Seaman Different Counselor Troi portrayer on “Star Trek: T.N.G.” Conditional words Pin surface Costa del __ Film franchise with a mammoth named Manny Place Nonlethal weapon Tennis star with five Grand Slam titles Chemical ending Oregon __ Flashing light Host of a spin-off of “The Apprentice” Flashiest Arab VIP Point to pick __ mater “To Kill a Mockingbird” sibling West Point inits.

Bygone Toon with a pacifier Nod “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” author Hosp. test Early advocate of birth control Pasadena parade posies “Permit Me Voyage” poet Hercules bicycle model Billings-to-Helena dir.

Brown in Calif., e.g.

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Get ready 1995-2001 “SNL” regular Engrave Asian sash Colonial diplomat Silas McGwire rival “Mighty Aphrodite” Oscar winner Discontinued P&G toothpaste Back talk “Crossword Clues ‘M,’ __” Plan for losing Jean Brodie creator Port, for one To be, in Paris Utter Bottled spirits 123-Across category Back talk Moroccan city of one million NCAA part: Abbr.

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Cheerleader’s accessory Frozen food brand Loewe’s lyricist See 79-Down “The Sound of Music” song Hammer used to test reflexes Summer top Santa __ Legal protection __ out a living Menu listings Judgments Italian source of the melody for “It’s Now or Never” Toy with a tail Like pie?

35mm camera type Map site Turntable stat Trojans’ region, familiarly Confused “Strange Magic” gp.

Ascend Agitate Irangate figure Here, to Henri Bold Four-wheeler, for short Leaves in a bag __ D.A. Went faster Like some tests “I Got __”: Jim Croce hit

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Font flourish Diamond need Pale ___ Certain sharer __ Dhabi Acrimony So to speak Slog New Deal org.

2008 bailout beneficiary Cleaning aid Massachusetts quartet Fire sign Sharp tastes Taunt Charlton Heston once led it: Abbr.

Phoenix suburb He bested Adlai With 4-Down, “The Thin Man” co-star Breaks on the road E-__ Earlier Spooner, for one Mgmt.

Opposite of paleoWinner’s prize Has title to Cheese shape Mac alternatives Scholarship founder Fictional symbol of brutality

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Elis Show of scorn Ryan and Bushnell God wed to his sister Place setting item Strains Nibbles Bryn __ College

112 Netman Nastase 113 Moreno with Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards 114 Meditation syllables 116 Flavor enhancer 121 TV dial letters 122 Princess’ bane

Answer to May’s puzzle, L-IMINATED

Agenda CALL FOR ENTRIES ARTSBRIDGE 21st ANNUAL JURIED SHOW The Artsbridge 21st Annual Juried Show will be held at the Prallsville Mills in Stockton, NJ. from July 11 to August 2, 2015. Hours: FridaySunday 1-5PM. Opening Reception: Saturday, July 11, 6-9PM. Works will be accepted in categories of paintings, watercolors, works on paper, photography, sculpture and other. Visit artsbridgeonline.com for details, prospectus and to enter the show. Online entry: May 1 through June 15.

CD/Mail entries due by June 8. For more Information, call 609-7730881 or email artists@artsbridgeonline.com. Prallsville Mill, 33 Risler St, Stockton, NJ 08559.

ART EXHIBITS THRU 6/6 2015 Members’ Art Exhibition.

Philadelphia Sketch Club, 235 Camac St., Phila. 215-545-9296. sketchclub.org THRU 6/14 The Art of the Miniature XXIII. The Twenty-Third Invitational Exhibition of Fine Art Miniatures from Around the World. Opening Reception, 5/3, 1-5PM.The Snow Goose Gallery, 470 Main St., Bethlehem, PA. 610-974-9099.

THRU 6/14 Gross Domestic Product. Asian digital painting by Phillip Hua. EModerne Gallerie, 116 Arch St., Philadelphia. 215-927-2123. e-modernegallerie.com THRU 6/30 “Dots and Drops” by Melissa Mytty. Paperboat and Bird Art Shoppe, 21 Risler Street (Rte 29), Stockton, NJ. 609-397-2121. paperboatandbird.com THRU 6/30 Relationships Through Color: work

by Marion Di Quinzo. Reception 6/6, 6-8:30. Bluestone Fine Art Gallery, 142 No. 2nd St., Philadelphia. 856-979-7588. bluestone-gallery.com THRU 7/5 “Street Stories,” Ed Vatza. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown. 215-340-9800. MichenerArtMuseum.org THRU 7/12 Kate Breakey: Small Deaths. 30 extraordinary images of birds, flowers, and insects that are memorialized in carefully posed portraits.

Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown. 215-3409800. MichenerArtMuseum.org THRU 8/23 William Baziotes, Surrealist Watercolors. Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. 610-432-4333. AllentownArtMuseum.org 6/1-30 4th Invitational Artist Show Exhibition of Works by Arthur Haywood and James Patterson. Reception June 21, 2–4pm. Philadelphia Sketch Club, Stewart Gallery, 235 S. Camac Street, Philadelphia.

215-545-9298. Wed, Fri, Sat & Sun 1–5pm. sketchclub.org Check website for Workshops, Flash Salons, Exhibitions.

6/3-10/11 Woven Welcome. Lend a hand!

Woven Welcome is a communitybased art project that utilizes the woven rug as a statement of the interconnectedness of individuals.

Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. 610-432-4333. For more information AllentownArtMuseum.org 6/5-8/2 Soaring: Eye Sees, Hand Moves, Spirit Sings. Two of the area’s most distinguished artists- Helen Mirkil and Brian H. Peterson.

Santa Bannon/Fine Art, ArtsQuest Banana Factory, 25 W. 3rd. St., Suite 93, Bethlehem. 610-9975453. SantaFineArt.com. Facebook.com/SantaBannonFineArt 6/6-6/7 The Red Tulip Gallery celebrates its first anniversary in New Hope, PA, with artist demonstrations, refreshments, live music. A local artists’ cooperative featuring pottery, jewelry, fiber arts, glass, wood. 19C W. Bridge St., New Hope, PA, 18938. Open 7 days.

267-454-0496. redtulipcrafts.com 6/12-7/26 J. Philip Peterson, “Pure Color”.

Opening reception 6/13, 2pm. The Quiet Life Gallery, 17 So. Main St., Lambertville, NJ. 609-397-0880.

Quietlifegallery.com 6/14-10/11 Above Zero: Photographs from the Polar Regions. On 6/14, photographer Sam Krisch reveals how journeys to Antarctica and elsewhere have impacted his photographic practice. Krisch is known for his digital images and iPhone artwork.

Allentown Art Museum of the

Lehigh Valley, 31 N. Fifth St, Allentown. AllentownArtMuseum.org 6/1-7/11 2015 Art Show to benefit The Philadelphia Urban Creators. Reception 6/21, 2–4pm. Philadelphia Sketch Club, Main Gallery, 235 S. Camac Street, Philadelphia.

215-545-9298. Wed, Fri, Sat & Sun 1–5pm. sketchclub.org Check website for Workshops, Flash Salons, Exhibitions.

ART & FILM FESTIVALS 6/9-6/13 The SouthSide Film Festival is a five-day celebration of independent film that takes place annually on the SouthSide of Bethlehem.

Featuring shorts and features from around the world, the event includes Q&A sessions with filmmakers, opening and closing night parties, and special late-night screenings, as well as a free children’s festival. For more info go to http://ssff.org.

6/20 Stahl’s Pottery Preservation Society 28th Annual Summer Pottery Festival. Sales by 30 contemporary potters, tour pottery site, demonstrations, refreshments, baked goods. 9-4:00. 6826 Corning Rd., Zionsville, PA. 610-965-5019.

Stahlspottery.org 6/20-6/21 Bucks Guild ArtsFest '15. 30 artists in an indoor fine craft show. Sat., 10-6; Sun., 11-5. Artist demos daily. Delaware Valley University, Moumgis Auditorium / Student Center, 700 E. Butler Ave, Chalfont, PA. bucksguild.org/Show DINNER & MUSIC Thursday nights, Community Stage with John Beacher, 8-midnight.

Karla’s, 5 W. Mechanic St., New Hope. 215-862-2612. Karlasnewhope.comnewhope.com Thurs.-Sat., Dinner and a Show at SteelStacks, Bethlehem. 5-10:00, table service and valet parking. For more information, menus and upcoming events visit artsquest.org CONCERTS 6/3 Basic’lly Bach with Stephen Williams. 12:10PM, Cathedral Arts, Cathedral Church of the Nativity, 321 Wyandotte St., Bethlehem. 610-865-0727, ext. 303.

Nativitycathedral.org

6/7 Valley Vivaldi, presented by Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra. Chamber music by Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Gabrielli, and Telemann. Featured solos for trumpet, flute and violin, 7:30PM. Christ Lutheran Church, 1245 W. Hamilton St., Allentown. Tickets-$15-$35 in advance/at door.

610-434-7811. PASinfonia.org 6/13 Blues, Brews & Barbecue, Features International Intrepid Artists: Joe Louis Walker and Edward David Anderson. Also featuring Clarence Spady Band, Craig Thatcher Trio, The BC Combo, Supra Ayers Quartet, Tavern Two, Blues Professors, Steve Brosky & Jimmy Meyer.

Downtown Allentown. Noon10PM. Downtownallentown.com 6/23 Coro Entrevoces from Cuba, 7:30.

Cathedral Arts, Cathedral Church of the Nativity, 321 Wyandotte St., Bethlehem. 610-865-0727, ext.

303. Nativitycathedral.org 6/27 Celtic Spirituality Worship Service, 5PM. Cathedral Arts, Cathedral Church of the Nativity, 321 Wyandotte St., Bethlehem. 610-8650727, ext. 303. nativitycathedral.org 6/28 Valley Vivaldi, presented by Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra. Chamber music by Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Telemann and Albinoni .

Featured solos for violin and recorder, 7:30PM. Christ Lutheran Church, 1245 W. Hamilton St., Allentown. Tickets-$15-$35 in advance/door. 610 434-7811.

PASinfonia.org Musikfest Café 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem, PA 610-332-1300. Artsquest.org 6/4 6/4 6/5 6/6 6/11 6/12 6/12 6/13 6/14 6/18 6/18 6/26 7/5 7/10

Robert Cray Band Jon Cleary & the Monster Gentlemen Ted Vigil's John Denver Tribute Gedeon Luke & People Selwyn Birchwood Sonny Landreth Summer Scouts Jeff Krick David Bromberg Madeline Peyroux Trio Knox Hamilton Robby Krieger of The Doors David Crosby The Machine Pink Floyd Tribute

7/12 7/12

Taylor Dayne CAKE THEATER

6/10-6/28 Avenue Q, the puppet-filled musical, presented by Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre. For audiences who are mature but still fairly silly. Wed-Sat, 8pm, Sun, 2 pm.

2400 Chew St, Allentown. 484664-3333. muhlenberg.edu/smt 6/17-7/25 Grimm Fairytale Adventures, created by Doppelskope and presented

by Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre. Free 45-minute storytelling workshop following show.

Wed- Fri, 10am and 1:00 pm; Sat, 10am. 2400 Chew St, Allentown.

484-664-3333. muhlenberg.edu/smt 7/8-7/26 Hello Dolly! by Jerry Herman, presented by Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre, directed by Charles Richter. Wed-Sat, 8pm, Sun, 2:00pm. 2400 Chew St, Allentown. 484-664-3333. muhlenberg.edu/smt.

EVENTS 6/6 6PM. Poet Ellen Foos and artist Jean Foos describe their creative process and collaborations. Ellen is the founder and publisher of Ragged Sky Press and a recipient of fellowships to the MacDowell Colony and the Vermont Studio Center. Her first collection of poems, Little Knitted Sister, was published in 2006 and The Remaining Ingredients, won honorable mention in the 2015 Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Contest.

Jean Foos is a painter and graphic designer. She is a graduate of Cooper Union, the Tyler School of Art, and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. She is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship and Two-time nominee for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award.

Panoply Books, 48 N. Union St, Lambertville, NJ. 609-397-1145. panoplybooks.com SUMMER CAMP Art Camp & Fashion Academy, The Baum School of Art. 1- and 2week camps for ages 5-17, June 5-August 14. Multi-camp discounts and after camp care available. 610-433-0032.

Baumschool.org

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Carol C. Dorey Real Estate, Inc. Specialists in High-Value Property

Bucks County / Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania 610-346-8800 / www.doreyrealestate.com

DRAMATIC ESTATE

SAUCON VALLEY TREASURE

THREE PEACEFUL ACRES

A 2-story great room, with burled wood entertainment center and floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace, opens to a back patio and a glass sunroom, and pool on 2.3 acres. The gourmet kitchen accommodates the most experienced chef’s talents. A handsome, cherry library with fireplace leads to master suite. Space, grace and natural beauty are the hallmarks of this exceptional Saucon Valley property. This home has all the upgrades one would expect, six bedrooms and a 3-car garage, just minutes from all of the Lehigh Valley’s locations. $995,000

Rarely does a home surprise with both beauty and whimsy. This custom stone home, however, delights one at every turn. An open design, high ceilings and rooms of lovely proportions boast views through walls of windows over your four acres and the beautiful countryside beyond. 4 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, 3 fireplaces, breathtaking kitchen, a fabulous covered back deck, and a 20kw generator are just a few of the extras. $1,045,000

Great curb appeal and tranquil surroundings define this classic home with timeless appeal. Set against the greenery of a gently sloping hillside, Sonny Lane boasts high ceilings, wood floors, and a generously-sized interior with two fireplaces, deep crown and baseboard moldings, and oversized windows. There are four 2nd floor bedrooms, including a master suite with jetted tub, ample closet space and access to a private home office. Outdoors, a newly installed swimming pool, brick patio, and long-distance views add to the serenity and privacy. $575,000

WOODFIELDS

STEVER MILLS

INDIAN WAY

In a desirable Saucon Valley, this classic brick colonial has great curb appeal, a sunny interior, and a convenient commuter location close to St. Luke’s Hospital and Lehigh University. Wood floors, nine foot ceilings and neutral tones accent the main level. The kitchen gleams with granite, wood cabinetry and a center island. Four bedrooms include a master suite with tray ceiling, jetted tub and sitting room. Tall evergreens border the perimeter of the well-kept property with mature landscaping and backyard deck for entertaining. $425,000

A world away from the ordinary, Stever Mills showcases extraordinary and unique architecture, and has long been recognized as one of Saucon Valley’s finest communities.

Meticulously crafted with an old world design that incorporates both dramatic rooflines and traditional styling, Stever Mills is reminiscent of a village in the European countryside. Experience this richly-appointed carriage house in a private location overlooking Black River Creek and Lehigh University’s playing fields, where open acreage and abundant wildlife are the backdrop to the home’s walls of windows. $815,000

Hidden away on scenic Buckwampum Mountain, this chalet style home is sheltered by woodlands, gardens, and lush lawn. The five acre setting boasts an array of flora and fauna throughout the changing seasons. The floor plan is open and bright with 2 fireplaces, wood beamed ceilings, cypress and tile floors, and enchanting views from every room. Three bedrooms, a high end kitchen, and a blue stone terrace and outdoor fireplace for entertaining enhance this soothing retreat 90 minutes from NYC and an hour from Philadelphia. $499,900

BUCKS COUNTY STONE HOME

STUNNING SUNSETS

BRIGHTON COURT

At Stone Pond, exquisite gardens and mature plantings of rhododendron, azaleas, lilacs, flowering trees, ivy and roses cover the 3.6 acres in carefully-tended landscaping. Every room and deck overlooks these views and the sparkling pool, spring house, stone bank barn and spring-fed pond. In a Currier and Ives setting, this lovely Bucks County stone home offers a thoroughly updated interior, gourmet kitchen, 5 bedrooms, 6 1/2 baths, rich pumpkin pine floors, 3 fireplaces and 3 floors of living space. $699,000

This impressive estate home delivers commanding views, outdoor amenities and comfortable living in one of the LV’s most desirable neighborhoods. A two-story living room anchored by a magnificent stone fireplace. Oak flrs and cabinetry are warming themes throughout the property. The 1st fl master suite is lavish with radiant heated floors in the master bath. An office with a coffered ceiling and cherry built-ins is on the way upstairs where 3 additional bedrooms, a theatre room and an office with a balcony complete the second floor. $799,000

Set on 2.28 acres, this wonderful retreat-like home is unparalleled for leisure and recreation. Airy and bright, with a flowing floor plan, oversized windows bring sunlight into sophisticated gathering spaces. The 1st fl master suite has an adjacent sitting room, 2 walk-in closets, jetted tub and double-sided gas fireplace. The LL has been designed with a full bar with sink and refrigeration, fireplace, billiards/game room and a home theatre with multi-level seating. Outdoors, a heated pool, shade trees and brick patio for outdoor festivities. $700,000

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