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Jazz Samba (1962) from saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd was a culture-changing seminal moment, one that opened our ears and eyes to the sensuous tenor and nuanced contours of Brazilian culture—its sights, sounds, sexuality, and music. Florida-born guitarist Nate Najar takes the mood, melody and melancholy of the original Getz/Byrd collaboration and makes it his own with the newly-released Jazz Samba Pra Sempre.
ART EXHIBITIONS
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Sculpture 2022 20th Juried Exhibition New Hope Arts The 71st Tinicum Arts Festival Erwinna, PA
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Joseph Barrett: Work from his Lahaska Studio Silverman Gallery
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ON THE COVER:
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Guitarist Nate Najar. Photo: Jamie Scarlett Inman. Page 16 4
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BOOKS (Continued)
A THOUSAND WORDS Haircut THE ART OF POETRY
Aurora by David Koepp
THE LIST Valley City
The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I by Lindsey Fitzharris
PORTFOLIO
HIS STORY The Death-Defying Red Jacket
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
FILM ROUNDUP Flux Gourmet The Northman Top Gun: Maverick Firestarter
The Angel of Rome by Jess Walter House + Flower: Reviving Forgotten Homes and Gardens by Cynthia Zamaria
FILM CLASSICS Army of Shadows Dead Man Grey Gardens The Straight Story BOOKS
Freeze Fresh: The Ultimate Guide to Preserving 55 Fruits and Vegetables for Maximum Flavor and Versatility by Crystal Schmidt
Home with Rue: Style for Everyone by Kelli Lamb 30 |
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HARPER’S Findings Index
PUZZLE Washington Post Crossword
ICON The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, nightlife and mad genius.
Since 1992 215-862-9558 icondv.com PUBLISHER & EDITOR Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com ADVERTISING Raina Filipiak filipiakr@comcast.net PRODUCTION Gabriel Juarez
Joanne Smythe CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
A.D. Amorosi Ricardo Barros Robert Beck Jack Byer Pete Croatto Geoff Gehman Susan Van Dongen Grigsby Mark Keresman David Stoller Keith Uhlich
PO Box 120 New Hope 18938 215-862-9558
IReproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. ICON welcomes letters to the editor, editorial ideas and submissions, but assumes no responsibility for the return of unsolicited material. ICON is not responsible for claims made by advertisers. ©2022 Primetime Publishing Co., Inc.
a thousand words
STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK
HAIRCUT I HAVEN’T HAD REAL hair for a long time. In its place grows a mousy gray cuff that wraps around the middle part of my head, fading down into my neck and rising to that distinct circular hairline made popular by Friar Tuck. Not enough to style, but enough to cost as much as a real haircut. In need of a trim, I stopped in a recently opened barber near my studio in New York. The recent renovation was sparsely appointed. Most Manhattan barber shops are tight, but this one was spacious, (downright empty toward the back) as if the new owner cautiously went for the 2-seat economy starter set—tools and hair product included. It had a pop-up look. Like you might find it in Morningside Heights next Wednesday. C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 2 6
Robert Beck’s focus is on our here and now. A leading voice in the art community, his paintings have been featured in more than seventy juried and thirty solo gallery shows, and three solo museum exhibitions. His writing in ICON has been a reader favorite for seventeen years. ICON |
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exhibitions Michael Palladino, Wing Study 4
Sculpture 2022 20th Juried Exhibition New Hope Arts, 2 Stockton Ave., New Hope 215-862-9606 Newhopearts.org Fri.-Sun. 12–5 June 18–July 17 New Hope Arts’ Juried Sculpture Exhibition is a three-dimensional wonderland and a showcase of regional talent. Now in its 20th year, with a hiatus in 2021, the range of wallart and free-standing work in a wide variety of media is engaging, and entertaining. Selected from over 400 entries, the featured works include seasoned exhibitors as well as new artists to the legacy show, which has remained a banner exhibition for New Hope Arts through the years. Awards presentation and opening evening June 18 by reservation.
Stream Side, 26” x 28”; o/c, in Barrett-designed frame
The 71st Tinicum Arts Festival Tinicum Park, River Rd (Rt. 32), Erwinna, PA TinicumArtsFestival.org July 9, 10–6 & July 10, 11–5 The Tinicum Arts Festival is the premier showcase for the best in art, crafts, music, and literature that Bucks County has to offer. More than 300 artists and artisans will display their artwork, while you enjoy music, food and fun. One or two days of affordable family fun for the price of a single admission. The festival is hosted each year by the Tinicum Civic Association. Proceeds benefit the historic Stover Mill, home of the Stover Mill Gallery, and donations to over 40 local non-profit organizations. Adults $7, Children 6-12 $1, under 6 free. TinicumArtsFestival.org
J. Edward DIamond, Female Torso 6
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Joseph Barrett: Work from his Lahaska Studio Silverman Gallery 4920 York Rd., Route 202, Holicong, PA 215-794-430 Silvermangallery.com Wed.-Sat. 11–6, Sun. 11–4 and by appt. June 4–July 17 Opening Receptions 6/4, 5–8 and 6/5, 1–4 Barrett is one of the cornerstones of the gallery since 2011, his work popular both locally and nationally. Working from his studio for over 40 years, he continues the tradition of New Hope Impressionism. A Philadelphia collector states, “I’ve been a fan and collector of Joe Barrett’s paintings for over ten years. I find Joe’s exuberant use of color and incorporation of native Pennsylvania themes both captivating and endearing. But more importantly, Joe’s artwork creates a singular imaginative world—simultaneously familiar and strange, naive and sophisticated, simple and complex—which can’t be found elsewhere. Like all good art, Joe’s work scratches an itch of its own creation.”
Estate of Joseph Stanley, 30” x 34”; oil on canvas
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the art of poetry
DAVID STOLLER
The Portrait He asks to paint her, Youngest among the three girls — Besotted she is, With an artist whom she knows Is promised to her sister. She dresses to hide Her longing, the first and last Innocence, those eyes … Gazing from a boy’s portrait From which she will never leave. She loves the painter For whom she sat years ago, Posing for him yet. Forever fixed in still life, She dreams, of them, to the end.
This is a portrait of Elizabeth Freedley Price (1891-1988) at age 15, by the noted Pennsylvania impressionist, Rae Sloan Bredin (1880-1933). He was Elizabeth's brother-in-law, by his marriage to her sister-in-law Alice Price, and her later marriage to Alice’s brother Reuban. Rumor has it (or had it) that the young Elizabeth was infatuated with the older (by 11 years) painter … and that he, perhaps as a tease, encouraged her incipient affections—until “the family” shut them down. Intending all respect to these protagonists long gone, I wrote this three-tanka poem. What we do know is that this portrait was hanging above her bed, in her nursing home, when she died at age 97. David Stoller has had a career spanning law, private equity, and entrepreneurial leadership. He was a partner and co-head of Milbank Tweed and led various companies in law, insurance, live entertainment, and the visual arts. David is an active art collector and founder of River Arts Press, which published a collection of his poetry, Finding My Feet. 8
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portfolio
PHOTOGRAPH AND ESSAY BY RICARDO BARROS
Barry Snyder Artists with a distinctive personal vision are the most celebrated. We recognize their work upon sight. And because of that, much is made of these artists’ uniqueness. Finding one’s personal vision is a Holy Grail, and the path to its discovery is not without hazard. The first lies in confusing “different” with “personal.” Distinctiveness is not a primary goal. We value great artworks because they are personal to their creators, not because they are unlike any other. Uniqueness is a byproduct of being personal, and brilliant artists mine deep enough to find their diamonds. Another pitfall is the imprimatur. Modigliani famously painted people with oval faces; Richard Avedon photographed his subjects against a white background. These visual signatures worked for them, but they are not what made their portraiture great. For me, Modigliani’s potency flows from empathy, and Avedon’s from a delicate balance between strength and vulnerability. Neither is a conceit. The work is great because these artists understood what they sincerely felt. My vision in portraiture lies not in how a composition is formed nor how a photograph is rendered, and I do not want to constrain my subjects’ identities. My vision lies in how I approach the portrait experience. I like to approach portraiture with an empty mind. Not an open mind, an empty mind. I want to see in the present tense. I want to know who the person I am photographing is at the moment I am photographing them. It is scary to open myself up to my subjects as I hope they open themselves up to me. But deep inside, beneath the layers, is where our most interesting selves reside.
Ricardo Barros’ works are in the permanent collections of eleven museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is the author of “Facing Sculpture: A Portfolio of Portraits, Sculpture and Related Ideas.” 10
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the list VALLEY
CITY — GEOFF GEHMAN
— A.D. AMOROSI
Lehigh University is celebrating 50 years of women students with Hear Me Roar, an exhibit showcasing 10 female photographers. Subjects range from the Underground Railroad to Manhattan’s High Line park to Charlie Chaplin playing a revived therapeutic clown in Limelight. The most magnetic series is Joyce Tennyson’s Wise Women, portraits that are mysterious, tribal and absolutely radiant. Actor Jessica Tandy and civil-rights leader Coretta Scott King share wall space with mastectomy recipient Krista Gottlieb, whose scarred chest doubles as a map of strength and grace. (Four locations, with Wise Women at the Rauch Business Center, Taylor Street and Packer Avenue, Bethlehem; 610-7583615; luag.org)
SITTING IN THE SWELTER of May and writing about the hotter-thanhell season to come in June is like waiting for your death row sentence to play out in its finality, yet you have Covid and a migraine right now. June means more outdoor festivals at a time when sweaty people should stay home. June means frozen dessert headaches to go with an all-together too lethargic baseball season, and many feet-blistering sandy shore runs. And while I wouldn’t give up June for all the blueberries in every pie on the planet, I can’t help but wish that I didn’t have that migraine.
Jacobsburg State Park is a civilized wilderness, a 1,168-acre wonderland with zigzagging forested trails, an environmental educational cen-
On June 4 and 5 in Fairmount Park, The Roots Picnic at the bucolic expanse of the Mann Center off-on Parkside Avenue in far West Philly takes place in the grass. The large-scale stage in the Mann’s pavilion finds its decade+ long hosts and founders in The Roots—including Oscar-winner Questlove and Off-Broadway actor Black Thought—holding funky court and playing behind the likes of headliners Mary J. Blige, Summer Walker, and Philly’s own fresh Grammy-winner, vocalist-composer Jazmine Sullivan. The Mann’s Skyline stage and the rest of the green lawn open wide for additional acts such as wild Philly rapper Tierra Whack, local legendary spinner DJ Jazzy Jeff (ask HIM about punchy Will Smith, his Fresh Prince from around the corner Questlove. Photo: Daniel-Dorsa on Parkside), Germantown’s avant-garde blues vocalist Bilal, jazz musicians such as keyboardist Robert Glasper, saxophonist Kamasi Washington and much more. We probably don’t say this enough, but having The Roots Picnic born here and staying here—is
ter and an 18th-century historic district anchored by a gun factory and a long-rifle museum. I avoid its often congested hub and head instead to the quieter, kinder Homestead Trail, a three-mile-plus oasis of woods, fields, wildflower meadows and the area’s widest, grassiest paths. After about a mile the trail explodes into a verdant meadow with a verdant view of one of the Valley’s many valleys. Homey and steadfast, HomeCONTINUED
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Here’s your June RIGHT HERE.
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Geoff Gehman is a former arts writer for The Morning Call in Allentown and the author of five books, including Planet Mom: Keeping an Aging Parent from Aging, The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the LongLost Hamptons, and Fast Women and Slow Horses: The (mis)Adventures of a Bar, Betting and Barbecue Man (with William Mayberry). He lives in Bethlehem. geoffgehman@verizon.net 12
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A.D. Amorosi is a Los Angeles Press Club National Art and Entertainment Journalism award-winning journalist and national public radio host and producer (WPPM.org’s Theater in the Round) married to a garden-to-table cooking instructor + award-winning gardener, Reese, and father to dogdaughter Tia.
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his story
GEOFF GEHMAN
A
The death-defying red jacket
WOMAN WEARS A red dress to the funeral of a man
she wants to say “fuck you” to. My mother is wearing a red jacket to her cremation contract signing session to tell Death to fuck off. I’m wearing red laces on black shoes as a sign of solidarity against Satan. We’re finalizing her corporeal demise so we can rest in peace. She wants me to not worry about her funeral arrangements when she’s dead. I want her to not worry about her funeral arrangements when she’s alive. We like the poetic logic of “dust to dust, ashes to ashes.” We just don’t like a body perfectly functional and valuable for a good 80-plus years pretty much disappearing in a matter of minutes. Absurdity demands absurdity, so we decide to turn her cremation contract signing session into a comedy act. We know we’ll have the full cooperation of John, co-owner of the funeral home and my father’s cremation agent. We know because he shared our breezy repartee two years ago during Mom’s pre-cremation contract signing session, when she was only moderately angry that the cardboard box for her final exit cost $75. We Gehmans do death well. When I was 11 I dedicated a Little League game to my mother’s mother the day she died from emphysema in a London hospice. I drove in the winning run by getting hit in the helmet with the bases loaded in the bottom of the final inning. I discovered our victory a minute after my beaning, when I woke up. We gladly travel long distances to memorialize loved ones. My sister Meg drove Mom three hours twice to say goodbye to two of Mom’s oldest friends, both of whom were coming down their final stretch. The three of us flew to England to bid farewell to Mom’s brother, her last blood relation. We spoke kindly of Pete Cleversley in a 13thcentury church in a rural hamlet, across the street from his house, where I spent many pleasant hours trying to explain to my English uncle why American politicians are so batty. My favorite family sendoff took only 34 miles round trip. Mom came with me to check on my father’s condition after he died in a county home in Nazareth, Pa., the borough of his mother’s death. My parents battled bitterly after their bitter divorce and his remarriage a year later. They came to their common senses after his divorce 12 years later and spent the last 15 years of his life as fairly caring exes. Mom wanted to see Dad dead because she wanted to console me. She also wanted to console herself by honoring the only man she really, truly loved. Mom was happy to learn that Dad passed during a nap, after a favorite snack of milk and chocolate-chip cookies. She was unhappy when she saw his mouth open. “I don’t care if it’s rigor mortis,” she said, royally pissed. “It shouldn’t look like he’s catching flies.” 14
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That night we kissed Dad for the last time in another funeral home co-owned by John, who was recommended to me by a co-worker six hours earlier. Sitting in the waiting room, while Meg visited Dad in the parlor, I asked John about an outdoor bronze plaque dedicated to his son, a passionate basketballer who passed at 16. He explained that his boy died when a car he was driving crashed into a telephone pole the day he received his driver’s license. John spoke calmly, knowing we were the ones who needed comforting, not him. He made no attempt to hide the pain that never goes away; a slight quiver in his voice gave him away. As he gracefully discussed his grief I temporarily forgot mine. The fourth wall cracked and he became a parent who happened to be a funeral director. My admiration for John grew as he supervised the funerals of my friend Chuck’s parents, who were my parents in Allentown. I was impressed by his composure. Like most funeral directors, he’s always neatly suited, groomed and mannered. I was more impressed by his passion. Unlike most funeral directors, he enjoys telling outsiders about the ups, downs and all arounds of his business. He breaks the mold of the traditional funeral director—stuffy and stuffed---by spiking stories with a dry wit. Tall, trim and laconic, he reminds me of Ben Stein, the former presidential speech writer whose sly delivery and academic air made him a popular pundit, commercial pitchman and character actor. Playing a clueless teacher in the film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” he intones the name of a missing student with the chiming monotony of the chap who calls for Black Plague corpses (“Bring out your dead!”) in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” We begin Mom’s cremation contract signing session by discussing her obituary in The Morning Call, where I covered arts and sports for 25 years. Staffers wrote obits most of my time at the paper. I wrote a dozen farewells, commemorating everyone from the widow of the author of the novel “Lassie Come-Home” to a sculptor who made death masks of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti soon after the anarchists were executed for robbery murders. Obits were one of my most rewarding, draining assignments. I worked overtime to create magnetic, mistake-free final public wills and testaments. I even wrote my father’s obituary, mainly because I couldn’t trust it to anyone else. I ended the obit by noting that Dad was the founding president of the Curmudgeon Society. He wasn’t, but he could have been, since he loved to referee arguments he ignited and stoked. I proudly announced my tiny white lie to my features editor, an ally who promptly banned me from writing obits for other loved ones: Staff-written obits in The Call died during my last three years at the C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E
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conversation
A.D. AMOROSI
aking a moment in time last forever
Guitarist Nate Najar reinterprets bossa nova, the wildly romantic, sensuous Brazilian music made popular by Stan Getz’s Jazz Samba
MUSIC HAS MORE THAN its share of seminal moments which shift popular culture beyond sharps, rests, clefs and flats. David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Max Roach’s We Insist, The Who’s Tommy, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, Beyoncé’s video for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” the dobro-filled
with albums such as The Soft Swing, The Cool Sounds (both 1957) and Cool Velvet (1960), Getz set his sights on the somnolent shiver of the warm bossa nova, and brought guitarist Byrd—already experienced in the ways of Brazilian music and its nylon-strung manners with 1959’s
IN NAJAR’S ESTIMATION,
Stan Getz was a smooth saxophonist AT THE DAWN OF THE NOISY AVANT-GARDE IN 1962, who wasn’t afraid to play pretty. “JEFF RUPERT, OUR SAXOPHONIST,” NAJAR SAYS, “ALWAYS SAYS TO never fear playing pretty. Like Getz. THAT MEANS playing lyrically and beautifully.” intro to Beck’s “Loser,” the crack of Run DMC meeting Aerosmith on the “Walk This Way” remix, an ethereal Madonna’s soaring Ray of Light, Kendrick Lamar’s jarring jazzy To Pimp a Butterfly: these are just a few moments where you could feel the world rising to meet a new musical expression. Jazz Samba from saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd is one of those culture-changing seminal moments, one that opened our ears and eyes to the sensuous tenor and nuanced contours of Brazilian culture—its sights, sounds, sexuality, and music. Far away from the psychedelic crank of Tropicália (which came closer to 1967-68), it was the sand-shifting rhythms and soft sway of Brazilian/Bahian bossa nova when appropriated by American outsiders. Yes, “The Girl from Ipanema,” and the Getz/Gilberto pairing of 1964 might be better known. But after toying with tonic, cottony, intelligent soulful tones 16
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Bamba-Samba Bossa Nova—along for the ride. In all actuality, it was Byrd, who bought bossa nova records in Brazil, toted them home to the U.S., and introduced his fellow jazzmen such as Getz to the soft, foreign style—the perfect touch for bossa nova’s delicate, airy texture. As his PR states, “Byrd was one of the first American musicians to master bossa nova’s difficult, bubbling syncopations… with solos light and lilting. Plus, Byrd’s gently off-kilter harmonies seem to stimulate Getz’s melodic inventiveness.” Irresistible to most, essential to all, Florida-born guitarist Nate Najar takes the mood, melody and melancholy of the original 1962 Getz/Byrd collaboration to his own extreme with the newly-released Jazz Samba Pra Sempre. Reinventing the 60year-old jazz classic’s seven multi-colored hues and shady songs, Najar uses more than a few neat tricks that’ve been up his sleeve—playing Byrd’s own axe (“a gor-
geous-sounding 1974 Ramirez 1A nylon string classical guitar”) having his bassist Herman Burney jam on Getz/Byrd collaborator Keter Betts’s original bass and connecting to the rhythm of Byrd’s trio drummer Chuck Redd. Along with Najar’s musical scrip-flipping, tenor saxophonist Jeff Rupert, Fender Rhodes electric pianist Patrick Bettison and vocalist Daniela Soledade (Najar’s wife) join the guitarist on a most unique, soul-and-loin-stirring adventure. Beyond the bare bones of technique and tone, Najar and his team—like Getz and Byrd from the start—feel their way through the romanticism of bossa nova, along with the gray undertow of despair and sadness in the sunny, sandy sound. There’s a lot of devotion at work within Jazz Samba Pra Sempre—to craft, originality, to the mood of Getz and Byrd’s nylon string guitar sound—to unpack from its start. “As long as I’ve been in this profession, I’ve longed to do what Charlie did,” says Najar during a long car ride to his next gig. “I wanted to take what he did and explore it further, to take his approach, his relationship to jazz and pop and combine it. Charlie was onto something. What can I do with it that’s hip?” The complete and orchestral elements of the guitar, to say nothing of its “poetry”—organic, warm and earthly—offered a connection between what the young Najar could do through the late, great Byrd’s C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E
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KEITH UHLICH
The Northman. Photograph by Aidan Monaghan / Courtesy Focus Features
film roundup
Flux Gourmet (Dir. Peter Strickland). Starring: Asa Butterfield, Gwendoline Christie, Ariane Labed, Fatma Mohamed. In his latest cinematic odd duck, eccentric British surrealist Peter Strickland (In Fabric) sets his acerbic sights on artistic patronage. Three avant-garde performers (Asa Butterfield, Ariane Labed, and Fatma Mohamed) who specialize in the aural possibilities of food are awarded a residency at a culinary institute run by a most peculiar benefactress (Gwendoline Christie). They create, they fight, they perform for a select audience so appreciative that they’re frequently invited backstage for aftershow orgies. And that’s before the backstabbing (figurative) and cannibalism (lit-
eral) begins. There’s also a hack journalist in constant gastric distress and an on-site physician given to condescendingly quoting Greek literature. There’s no mistaking Strickland’s pointedly entertaining touch, with its unabashed embrace and provocative reworking of Eurotrash cinematic cliches. But for the first time it feels like he’s shooting fish in a barrel as opposed to perversely reaching for the stars. [N/R] HHH The Northman (Dir. Robert Eggers). Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Ethan Hawke. To witches and lighthouses Robert Eggers can now add vengeance-seeking
Keith Uhlich is a NY-based writer published at Slant Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Time Out New York, among others. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. His personal website is (All (Parentheses)), accessible at keithuhlich.substack.com. 18
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Vikings. For his third feature, the cowriter-director was granted a plus-size budget and a buffed-up Alexander Skarsgård as Norse warrior Amleth, who as a young boy witnesses the murder of his father King Aurvandil (Ethan Hawke) by his treacherous uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang). Amleth escapes the blade himself, and his bloodlust never wanes, nor does his love for his mother Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman) who he believes is being held against her will by Fjölnir. Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke conjure a captivating fantasy hellscape soaked in rain, populated by both manly men and otherworldly beasts (the zombie skeleton swordfight is a particular highlight). Skarsgård amusingly tears through scenes like Conan the BarC O N T I N U E D O N PA G E
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KEITH UHLICH
Dead Man
film classics
Army of Shadows (1969) Jean-Pierre Melville, France/Italy Writer-director Jean-Pierre Melville, known primarily for chic gangster films like Bob le Flambeur and Le Samouraï, applies his signature icy gaze to this shattering tale of resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied France circa WWII. From its provocative opening shot—a restaging of SS forces marching triumphantly along the Champs-Élysées—the film generates a placidly paranoiac atmosphere that seeps into your subconscious. The imposing Lino Ventura plays the head of one of the resistance networks, his every day defined by skulking and scheming in the ostensible name of righteousness. One of his contacts is played by French icon Simone Signoret, who proves to be the story’s tragic heart. Murder is a frequent occurrence, and morality is malleable. Such is life during wartime. It’s to Melville’s credit that he avoids lionization of any character, even those who most of us might deem to be on the right side of history. (Streaming on MUBI.) 20
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Dead Man (1995) Jim Jarmusch, United States/Germany/Japan Jim Jarmusch’s greatest film is as unconventional as they come, ostensibly a Western, though one shot through with ribald humor, profound melancholy, and that indefinable something that only this quintessentially downtown New York filmmaker can conjure. Johnny Depp plays meek accountant William Blake (named, of course, after the prophetic poet), who unwittingly kills a man and goes on the (leisurely) run with a sardonic Native American called Nobody (Gary Farmer). Death is always near, not only in the form of two enduringly at-odds bounty hunters (Lance Henriksen and Michael Wincott), but from the bullet lodged in Blake’s chest, which is slowly killing him. Every element of the film contributes to its inimitably feverish quality, from Robby Müller’s exquisite black-and-white cinematography to a grittily electric guitar score entirely improvised in-studio by Neil Young. (Streaming on Criterion Channel.)
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Grey Gardens (1975) Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles and David Maysles, United States This creepiest and campiest of documentaries, co-helmed by direct-cinema pioneers Albert and David Maysles, follows former high-society socialite Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Little Edie as they while away the days in their decaying East Hampton mansion. These cousins of Jacqueline Onassis are basically living out an obliviously satirical version of the Kennedy family Camelot lifestyle, gleefully playing to the camera even as their surroundings and mental states visibly rot. Grey Gardens is a classic of can’t-avert-your-eyes cinema with its own ethical queasiness, given that the Maysles often encourage the Beale women to act their worst. (The resident raccoons in the attic also respond in destructive kind.) Yet there is something undeniably outsiderish about the C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E
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books Freeze Fresh: The Ultimate Guide to Preserving 55 Fruits and Vegetables for Maximum Flavor and Versatility by Crystal Schmidt Storey Publishing, $19.99 Capturing the peak flavor of freshly harvested produce and preserving it for yearround eating is easier than ever. Crystal Schmidt shares her time-tested preparation techniques that ensure color, texture, and flavor are retained in the freezer. From familiar favorites like apples, corn, potatoes, and peas to surprises like lettuce, avocado, and citrus fruit, Schmidt details the best ways to prepare each food for the freezer, including pre-cooking, slicing, blanching, and more. She offers more than 100 recipes that freeze well, such as Blueberry Maple Pancake Sauce, Pickled Sliced Beets, Mango Chutney, and Honey Butter Carrot Mash—as well as delicious ways to cook the frozen food after thawing, including Creamy Parmesan Confetti Corn, Tart Cherry Oatmeal Bars, Broccoli Cheese Soup, and Blueberry-Matcha Latte Smoothie. Home cooks and gardeners alike will love discovering how easy and economical it can be to fill your freezer with produce customized Aurora by David Koepp Harper, $27.99 Soon to be a major motion picture from Netflix and Academy Award-winning Director Kathryn Bigelow. From the author of Cold Storage comes a riveting, eerily plausible thriller, told with the menace and flair of Under the Dome or Project Hail Mary, in which a worldwide cataclysm plays out in the lives of one complicated Midwestern family. In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semicriminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son. Then the lights go out—not just in Aurora but across the globe. Suddenly, all problems are local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighbor22
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hood. Aubrey’s estranged brother, Thom, a fantastically wealthy, neurotically over-prepared Silicon Valley CEO, plans to ride out the crisis in a gilded desert bunker he built for maximum comfort and security. But the complicated history between the siblings is far from over, and what feels like the end of the world is just the beginning of several long-overdue reckonings—which not everyone will survive. The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I by Lindsey Fitzharris Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30 The First World War claimed millions of lives and left millions more wounded and disfigured. In the midst of this brutality, however, there were also those who strove to alleviate suffering. The Facemaker tells the extraordinary story of such an individual: the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, who dedicated himself to reconstructing the burned and broken faces of the injured soldiers under his care. Gillies, became interested in the nascent field of plastic surgery after encountering the human wreckage on the front. Returning to Britain, he established one of the world’s first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction. At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded but also their spirits. The Facemaker places Gillies’s ingenious surgical innovations alongside the dramatic stories of soldiers whose lives were wrecked and repaired. The result is a vivid account of how medicine can be an art, and of what courage and imagination can accomplish in the presence of relentless horror. Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh Penguin Press, $27 Moshfegh’s deliriously quirky medieval tale (after Death in Her Hands) revolves around a disabled shepherd boy’s test of faith. Marek, 13, is abused by his father and raised by Ina, a midwife and witch who once nursed
him as an infant. Still, Marek possesses a childlike faith in God. He’ll need it. All is not well in the fiefdom of Lapvona: a plague ravages the people, a drought sours the earth, starvation spreads, and high atop a hill overlooking the village sits greedy Lord Villiam, a man who “believe[s] that his appetite [is] nothing but a physical symptom of his greatness” and consequently hoards all the food. Down below, Ina trades villagers psychedelic mushrooms for bread and eggs, and the mushrooms give people alternately visions of heaven and hell, either a respite from or an enhancement of the daily nightmare wrought on them by Villiam. Moshfegh’s picture of medieval cruelty includes unsparing accounts of torture, rape, cannibalism, and witchcraft, and as Marek grapples with the pervasive brutality and whether remaining pure of heart is worth the trouble—or is even possible—the narrative tosses readers through a series of dizzying reversals. Throughout, Moshfegh brings her trademark fascination with the grotesque to depictions of the pandemic, inequality, and governmental corruption, making them feel both uncanny and all too familiar. It’s a triumph. The Angel of Rome by Jess Walter Harper, $27.99 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins and The Cold Millions comes a stunning collection about those moments when everything changes—for the better, for the worse, for the outrageous—as a diverse cast of characters bounces from Italy to Idaho, questioning their roles in life and finding inspiration in the unlikeliest places. We all live like we’re famous now, curating our social media presences, performing our identities, withholding those parts of ourselves we don’t want others to see. In this riveting collection of stories from acclaimed author Jess Walter, a teenage girl tries to live up to the image of her beautiful, missing mother. An C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E
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stead rewards running, biking, dog walking, problem solving and imagining. I envision a lonely evergreen as a decorated Christmas tree and an isolated bird house as an avian traffic-control tower. (610-746-2801; bushkilltownship.com) I dig anyone who digs my dog. Bozena and Pavel Dankowski belong to my humane society for dropping slices of kielbasa into the ravenous mouth of Jake, my seven-year-old shelter Schnoodle and canine entertainer/ambassador. Mother and son serve eight to 10 kinds of kielbasa at B&P Polish Deli, which the natives of Tomza, Poland opened last year in a former antiques store with two picturesque picture windows. Bozena, a former chef in my native Westchester County, makes delicious sauerkraut pierogies, sauerkraut stew and sorrel soup, the latter a robust lemony, eggy broth. Among her special sandwiches are the Cygan, which has smoked cheese, Ukrainian ham and gypsy bacon, and the Zapiekanka, a combination of cream cheese, mushrooms, scallions, mozzarella and ketchup. The two-aisle store is a mini-supermarket of brightly packaged condiments, sauces, juices and sweets, including some bodaciously good chocolate made by Wedel, a Warsaw staple since 1851. Pavel, an ex-mechanic, and his mom zoom me back to the childhood dining-room picnic table of my surrogate mom, Rosie Raffel, who made me feel like an honorary Polish American as I gobbled my first kielbasa. (99 W. Broad St. by Main Street, Bethlehem, 610-419-2040) Tony Todd endowed Candyman, the urban-legend boogeyman in the same-named horror movies, with a sexy menace worthy of Iago or Coriolanus. So it makes sense that he’s starring in the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival version of August Wilson’s Fences (July 27-Aug. 7) as Troy Maxson, retired baseball player, garbage collector and volcanic patriarch. The perennially dependable, inspiring summer feast, which opens June 7, will get a rare shot of celebrity power from Todd, an active TV actor (Star Trek, 24) whose heady stage credits include Wilson’s King Hedley II and Othello. The festival lineup features A Chorus Line (June 22–July 10), the musical that still breaks boundaries, and Every Brilliant Thing (June 7-19), in which PSF veteran Suzanne O’Donnell solos from childhood to senior adulthood, battling depression with a healthy diet of everything from ice cream to kung fu films. A sparkling sparkplug, O’Donnell has played everyone from Juliet to Viola for a company where she met her acting, directing husband Jim Helsinger, another PSF luminary. (DeSales University, 2755 Station Ave., Center Valley; 610-282-WILL; pashakespeare.org. Note: linger in the lobby with Lee Butz’s vibrant, vital production photographs, a 30-year festival bonus) Everything stands out about Jumbars, including the missing apostrophe “s.” The beehive breakfast-and-lunch bistro occupies a brick building connected to the brick courtyard of a cosmetic-rehab center in a neighborhood that’s quirky and off the beaten track. Behind the halfwindow white curtains is an old-fashioned, comfy café with an eclectic, sublimely electric menu. Chef Paul Hoffert, co-owner with wife Mary, prepares excellent dishes with locally sourced, in-house ingredients: a vegetarian chili omelet; creamed chipped beef with mushrooms and spinach; curried yam soup; a salad with roasted duck breast and pear slices; a turkey sandwich with apple chutney on toasted cinnamon raisin bread. His baked goods are equally inviting. Topping my list are the coconut custard and rhubarb/strawberry/apple pies and the scones with pineapple coconut and rosemary garlic asiago. All in all the Hofferts honor eatery namesake Anna Jumbar, Mary’s great-great grandmother, an immigrant who fed Lansford coal miners in a dilapidated box car that initially functioned as her home. (1342 Chelsea Ave. #1 by Greenwich Street, Bethlehem; 610-866-1660; jumbars.com) n 24
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Philly’s proudest musical moment. Yeah, the Art Museum’s Made in America is cute, but its curator, Jay-Z, is from the boroughs of NY. The Picnic is all us. It’ll be hot outside, but the R-Picnic is worth the swelter. Besides, if you want something cold, distant, and sweatless, you can attend Kraftwerk in 3-D at The Met on June 18. The kings of chilly electronic German engineering are touring on the heels of their gorgeous, gear-shifting Remixes box, and nothing could be colder (save for the legendary witch’s tit, which I have to be honest, I’ve long had my doubts about as to its actual temperatures and how all that was gauged in the first place). I’ll be hateful here and remind my audience at ICON that in all the years (95–2022) that the twice-a-year Rittenhouse Square Fine Art Show has taken place (this iteration being June 3-5), I can’t ever recall anything fine, let alone artful. Lots of paintings of trees, though. I know this is overgeneralizing, and surely someone will be angry, but have you ever purchased a painting or sculpture in Rittenhouse’s park that you currently still have on display? Don’t make me come over and check. The Linc, everyone’s not-so-favorite place for outdoor stadium concerts, kicks off its heated season with the two Whitest acts they could think of: Coldplay on June 8, and Kenny Chesney on June 18. Nah. For my money (and I never pay to see these shows, so consider the source), if I’m going for an outdoor stadium vibe for my concerts, I’m going to Citizens Bank Park. One, they have ex-baller Greg Luzinski grilled sausages. Dag. That’s enough of a reason to be there, even if you have to see the Phillies in order to dine. Plus, starting June 25 with the Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison & Joan Jett, and The Blackhearts bill and continuing with July 10’s Dead and Company, July 15’s farewell tour stop from Elton John (until next tour), and the red hot September 3 bill featuring Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Strokes & Thundercat, CPB has the more glorious shows in which to bask. And sausages. Lastly, there’s the FDR Park in South Philly’s newest, regular friend: the June 11-19, the 2022 PHS Philadelphia Flower Show. Yanked from downtown’s Pennsylvania Convention Center in 2021 for the sake of the Solution to THEMELESS NO. 19 pandemic’s distance—and money, the PGS PFS is a huge cash cow for tourists and local floral and fauna fans—the United States’ longest-running horticultural event returns to stadium row’s great outdoors for the second time in its 193-year history for its “In Full Bloom” themed production featuring the planet’s premier floral and landscape designers. And sausages. n
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There were two guys in the shop, each wearing black pants, white shirt, and thin dark tie. One was the cutter. The boss. He was happy to see me and moved around on the balls of his feet, leaning-in when he talked, ready to leap. The other watched. I don’t know if that guy was a helper, an intern, or a relative, but he stood motionless waiting for orders. I was the only customer, so I took off my jacket and sat directly in the chair. Cutter put the apron around me and asked what I wanted. This is always a hard question to answer because I used to have gobs of hair, and facing today’s reality is a rude landing. There’s not much choice. Cutting my hair isn’t complicated, but it comes with an issue. The part at the top where it…uh…meets the scalp, needs to be handled right or it turns into a vegetable brush within days. Usually, the way I describe what I want is to point toward that spot and say, “Fix this.” Cutter persisted. “It looks like you have a number two. Would you like a number one?” I thought about that for a moment. Number two sounds very close to the nothing end of any scale, and number one would be half that. I ad-
justed myself in the seat, with creeping apprehension. I explained that I didn’t want much taken off, but that spikey thing happening up at the top needed to be addressed. Cutter nodded his head. We had arrived at that “barbershop agreement” where both parties cross their fingers and hope for the best. I watched him in the mirror as he wrapped the collar on the apron. When his head bobbed to the side, I saw the other guy standing behind him watching me. Cutter was taking the clippers off the hook when his phone buzzed in his back pocket. He pulled it out, looked at the name, barked something to the watcher, shoved the clipper in his hand, might have made an apology to me, and disappeared—on the balls of his feet—into the shadows at the far end of the shop. I’m not the type to jump up and call time whenever I’m not sure what’s going on, but this would have been a good moment for that. I looked at the mirror just as Watcher stepped forward, put the clipper against the back of my neck, and ran a stripe from bottom to top. A thin felt carpet flipped off the end of the
clipper and tumbled to the floor just beyond my knee. I gasped. If that was a number one, you can shave with a zero. He was already into his second pass. Clearly, there had been a communication failure. Cutter returned and snatched the clipper from Watcher. My vision was blocked, but the growl in Cutter’s voice and cringe on Watcher’s face reinforced my hunch that things had not gone as I expected. There was not much to do except hope that I didn’t end up with a terrible haircut. Yelling wouldn’t help. I reserved judgement and blood pressure until we were finished. Cutter continued the haircut in silence. With each swipe of the clipper, I told myself that the city is full of people who don’t know me and won’t wonder where all my hair went. I glanced at the mirror when I got up, but unless there was a tuft in the back he missed, there was nothing to examine. My hair was very short. Mr. Clean short. It will grow back—including that pesky scrub brush part—and then I’ll take it somewhere else. Somewhere with a name on the window. n
Through engaging photography and a welcoming narrative, this book inspires us to celebrate living environments as expressions of our personal style while also embracing a home’s unique soul. With a passion for characterfilled spaces, carefree floral displays, and an appreciation for vintage and artisanal objects, Cynthia’s approach is timely, yet timeless. Readers are invited to see the potential in their own homes through the reimagined interiors and exteriors of the many Toronto-area residences she and her husband, Graham, have restored over the years.
created this incredible collection to carry their style and advice into book form. Home with Rue is a compendium of inspirational and accessible ideas to help anyone imagine, plan, and create their ultimate living space. Written in the signature Rue voice and full of beautiful images of real homes lived in by real people, it features thoughtfully curated advice, how-to information, and resources. Each chapter focuses on a different space and explores a variety of complementary aesthetics. Woven throughout are expert insights, concise tips and tricks sharing why certain decorating methods work, and quotes from top designers on their creative processes and favorite details or memories of a space. With hundreds of never-before-seen interior design photographs from Rue's extensive collection, Home with Rue is destined to be a timeless classic to help fans, followers, and readers design the rooms and home of their dreams. n
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elderly couple confronts the fiction writer eavesdropping on their conversation. A son must repeatedly come out to his senile father while looking for a place to care for the old man. A famous actor in recovery has a onenight stand with the world’s most surprising film critic. And in the romantic title story, a shy twenty-one-year-old studying Latin in Rome during “the year of my reinvention” finds himself face-to-face with the Italian actress of his adolescent dreams. Funny, poignant, and redemptive, this collection of short fiction offers a dazzling range of voices, backdrops, and situations. With his signature wit and bighearted approach to the darkest parts of humanity, Walter tackles the modern condition with a timeless touch, once again “solidifying his place in the contemporary canon as one of our most gifted builders of fictional worlds” (Esquire). House + Flower: Reviving Forgotten Homes and Gardens by Cynthia Zamaria Bloom Imprint LLC, $28.99 In House + Flower, Cynthia Zamaria immerses the reader in her creative process sharing how she infuses gardens, flowers and other elements of nature into sensitive home design. 26
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Home with Rue: Style for Everyone by Kelli Lamb Ten Speed Press, $35 No matter your location, your style, or your budget, beautiful design should be available to all. As a pioneer in the digital magazine industry, Rue has inspired thousands since establishing their business in 2010. Now Rue’s editorial director, Kelli Lamb, has
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subjects’ to-hell-with-it-all stubbornness that has endeared them to the queer community, and which complicates the seeming exploitation of them onscreen.(Streaming on HBOMax.) The Straight Story (1999, David Lynch, United Kingdom/France/United States) It sounds like a joke: A Walt Disney feature directed by status quoupending surrealist David Lynch. But it happened, alright, and it’s certainly a sight to see. Taken from a true-life story, the film follows elderly midwesterner Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) as he rides his lawnmower hundreds of miles to visit his ailing estranged brother. The journey is slow and long, with pit stops during which Straight dispenses wisdom to a runaway teenager, receives some of his own from a priest, and has a few archetypal Lynchian interludes, the apex of which involves a woman who keeps crashing her car into deer. The movie is so generally unassuming that you don’t quite realize how it’s working on you, until the devastatingly direct final scene unleashes the waterworks like Paul Atreides did the ocean at the end of Lynch’s unfairly maligned adaptation of Dune. (Streaming on Disney+.) n
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barian’s younger brother, though Kidman steals the show with a delicious monologue that reveals she’s not the damsel in distress she initially appears. [R] HHHH Top Gun: Maverick (Dir. Joseph Kosinski). Starring: Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, Val Kilmer. Age be damned; it’s like the ‘80s never ended for Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise), the now pushing-60 fighter pilot from Tony Scott’s thick slice of jingoistic ‘80s cheese Top Gun. In Joseph Kosinski’s decades-later sequel, Maverick is moved back to his old jet-flying haunts to instruct a new group of airmen (and one woman) for what is basically a save-the-world bombing run on a real-life Death Star, the villains behind the nefarious plot as faceless as they were in the previous film. (Are they Afghanis? Russians? Robots? Canadians? Take your pick.) The flying sequences are stellar, the human interactions less so, and this despite a tender scene between Maverick and a disease-stricken Iceman (Val Kilmer), one of the few returning cast members from the original. It’s a Cruise vehicle through and through, meaning everyone and everything here must stroke the ego of Xenu’s favorite son, must bear witness to, and sing the praises of, his life-and-limb-risking glory. Call the result a 60-40 split between wearying and amusing. [PG-13] HH1/2 Firestarter (Dir. Keith Thomas). Starring: Zac Efron, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Michael Greyeyes. There’s something endearingly quaint about this brisk redo of Stephen King’s novel about a tortured telekinetic adolescent, Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), with the power to start literal conflagrations. The film’s disposability is, to a point, part of its charm, as is a stellar score co-composed by horror maestro John Carpenter (one of the original choices to helm the 1984 version of Firestarter, starring Drew Barrymore). The general unpretentiousness, unfortunately, can’t make up for the flat streaming service-friendly visuals, nor the oft-cringey attempts to keep up with the times (a deceased cat is eulogized as possibly having “they” pronouns). The few other highlights, which sadly don’t include a bland Zac Efron as the antiheroine’s psychic dad, are a hammy Kurtwood Smith as a Van Helsing-like physician and Michael Greyeyes as tormented government assassin Rainbird. The fire effects, sadly, are a mishmash of the ineffectively practical and the chintzily digital. [R] HH n ICON |
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paper. We were replaced by relatives and friends who paid to write anything and everything about their dear departed, sometimes sacrificing spelling, grammar and facts. In fact, the paper had recently printed a homegrown obit for a former colleague of mine, an ex-Call photographer and photography director who died after a long, terrible fight with diabetes. John, who is handling Naomi’s funeral, tells us that The Call waived the obit fee because she worked for the paper. My forever frugal mother perks up at the word “free.” Would The Call waive the obit fee, she wonders, for the mother of a former employee? John diligently dials his Call contact and discovers what he suspects. The only one in the room eligible for a free farewell is me: Mom perks up again when John asks her about her obit photo. “Don’t put me in as a teenager, for God’s sake,” she says to him, and me. “I’m in my 90s. Who wants to see me the way I didn’t look for 70 years?” “Would you prefer a photo of Marilyn Monroe?” asks John, joining the game. “Then people will say: ‘Look what she looked like!’” Turning to me, he continues: “Geoff, they’ll have to put in for us a photo of someone like Brad Pitt. Let’s see if they believe what they see.” All this neon-name dropping reminds Mom of a newspaper story about another movie star. Back in the 1960s the daily in New Rochelle asked my father for a photo of himself to illustrate an article on a community teen nightclub he helped launch at our church. My prankster pop sent a picture of Gary Cooper. The portrait was dutifully printed by The Standard Star, embellishing its reputation as The Substandard Star and The Stranded Star. All this talk about newspapers brings out my journalistic instincts. I begin peppering John with questions about his business. How many funerals does your company handle a year? (Around 450) What’s the percentage of cremation and casket ceremonies? (50-50). What’s the average cost of a casket funeral? ($10,000 to $12,000) I’m not surprised that a funeral can cost as much as a nice used car. Mom is not only surprised, she’s shocked. She leans forward in her chair and raps on John’s desk. “Twelve thousand dollars? Sometimes I didn’t make that much a year when I was a secretary! Who needs all that hoopla when you’re in the ground and you can’t enjoy it? I’d rather be in Potter’s Field.” Alas, says John, potter’s fields are usually reserved for people without families, histories and, very often, names. The door to the funeral industry is wide open. Stepping across the threshold, I ask John 28
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how he handles the most personal possessions of the dear departed. It’s on my mind because two months ago I delivered the rings that Chuck’s mother Betty wanted to wear when she was buried to John’s funeral home, just to ease my friend’s mind during a crazy time. John confirms that women’s jewels are sensitive sacraments. One time a widower asked him to remove a ring from his spouse while she was in the casket, just for safekeeping. The widower couldn’t bear to remove it himself; in fact, he left the parlor because he didn’t even want to watch it being removed. John granted the man’s request, then was accused by a stranger of stealing the ring. John accused his accuser of trying to ruin his reputation, which was restored by a minister who knew the funeral director very well indeed.
HER GRAVE, SHE REMINDS ME, SHOULD BE DECORATED BY HYACINTHS, HER FAVORITE PERENNIAL. IF HYACINTHS AREN’T IN BLOOM, SUNFLOWERS OR MONTAUK DAISIES WILL DO JUST FINE. John’s extraordinarily personal story prompts Mom’s own extraordinarily personal story. After taking care of her dear friend Doris for several years, she took care of Doris’ memorial service and a portion of Doris’ estate. The funeral director asked Mom if she wanted to keep Doris’ rings. It was a normal suggestion that Mom considered abnormal. Wearing a dead friend’s jewelry, she told the funeral director, was just too creepy. We finally get back to business. Mom’s cremains, we agree, will be buried in the cemetery by the Bible Fellowship Church in Zionsville, Pa., a lovely rural graveyard founded in the 19th century by my great-grandfather, a Mennonite minister. John knows the site well; it’s the home of a fair number of his clients, including my father. “It’s very pleasant there,” he says. “Every now and then you hear a train rolling by. The sound is quite lulling.” Mom tells John that she wants to be interred only in good weather. Having her fans shivering around her tombstone, she explains, would be unusually cruel punishment. Her grave, she reminds me, should be decorated by hyacinths, her favorite perennial. If hyacinths aren’t in bloom, sunflowers or Montauk daisies will do just fine. A debate breaks out over inscribing Mom’s
death date. I could hire the tombstone company that etched my parents’ birth dates and quotations. Or, suggests John, I could save money by hiring a friendly stone mason. Or, suggests Mom, I could hire Meg, who’s very handy with all sorts of artistic implements. Or, I suggest, I could leave the death date blank, to save even more money and send a signal. Mom and John like the idea of an invisible sign for an everlasting parent. John sets Mom’s cremation price at $3,445, $250 more than two years ago. The only item that bothers her is a cardboard box that will hold her while she becomes ashes. John assures her the container is an industry requirement. Trying to convince Mom of its value, he adds: “It’s not any old cardboard box. It’s a cardboard box that has to withstand the weight of a human being.” Mom is mad that she has to shell out $95 for a disposable shell. She’s also mad that she could have saved 20 bucks had she signed her cremation contract two years ago. The anger quickly passes, replaced by her typical practical wit. “I was delivered at home by a midwife. It cost sixpence, maybe a shilling. My parents couldn’t afford a crib, so I started out sleeping in an orange crate. Now I’ll be going out in a cardboard box. I guess that’s fair play.” Three days later we tell my bridge moms that we sealed the deal on Mom’s corporeal demise. “So you’re ready to go,” says Jerri, gleefully. “I’m going down the road to Philadelphia, where my body will be donated to a teaching hospital. Might as well do something good with my bad parts.” Cremation, it turns out, was the choice of Jerri’s father and Priscilla’s first husband. “I had no trouble putting Charlie in a suitcase with my clothes,” says Priscilla with a wink. “Then I put him on a plane, even though it was illegal, and we flew down to Florida for his burial. His brother took me out on his boat and we did what Charlie wanted us to do: ‘Dump me in the Gulf Stream.’” “So Charlie was in the Gulf Stream,” says Jerri. She pauses, then adds: “I wonder where he ended up.” Mom mentions her displeasure at paying $95 for a box that will vanish when she vanishes. “I don’t like the idea of cardboard ashes mingling with my ashes,” she says. Turning to me, she adds: “I wish you could save the box. Then you could store all my most prized possessions.” We break into hysterics. Mom screams with delight and throws down her cards. And that’s when I finally notice that she’s wearing her Death-defying red jacket. n
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eyes. And Getz? In Najar’s estimation, Stan Getz was a smooth saxophonist at the dawn of the noisy avant-garde in 1962, who wasn’t afraid to play pretty. “Jeff Rupert, our saxophonist, always says to never fear playing pretty. Like Getz. That means playing lyrically and beautifully. That may be lost in the subtleties, but Jazz Samba is such an important work in the canon of culture worldwide.” Najar’s relationship to the guitar was formed, then fueled, by his relationship to Byrd. “Deeper than any butterfly effect, it’s more like dominoes falling,” he says. “Keeping the effect and feeling of the bossa nova in the current culture’s consciousness is crucial. I’m a steward of this material, until I’m not—and then I hope someone follows in my footsteps.” Najar has been down the shady path of Brazilian music with 2014’s Aquarela Do Brasil, and the challenges of its subtleties. “Whether it’s classical, folk, or jazz from Brazil, it pairs European harmony, melody, and development with an extremely strong usage of specific African rhythm,” he
he says. “Jazz Samba exists. Beyond Charlie’s very intentional arrangements of which there was little discussion between he and Getz… it’s obvious that Byrd paid attention to Joao Gilberto’s records, that he took something that existed but in a new way, a way that he and Getz related to the music. That means taking so much aesthetic detail from the source. So when I approached this project, I did so from the point of view of furthering his aesthetic detail, and doing that also brings love. That’s the first thing. My unique experience of the gigs I’ve played and the life I’ve lived is also in the mix.” With that, Najar has updated the harmonies of “Desafinado” while
Nate Najar with his wife, vocalist Daniela Soledade.
Charlie Byrd, bandleader of the Charlie Byrd Trio, the band that is largely credited with exposing American audiences to bossa nova music, leading to the commercial success of the genre and its influence on pop and jazz. Felix Grant was a radio broadcaster and early fan of bossa nova music, who was instrumental in pushing the sound out over the airwaves in D.C. and beyond. (Courtesy Felix E. Grant Archives at the University of the District of Columbia)
says. “It was all very natural and elegant. Onto this, the use of nylon string guitar and the fingerpicking—I’ve been playing this my whole life, this weaving… this connection.” While it is devotion to Byrd, Brazil and the bossa nova that gets Najar to this point, what pushes the guitarist to make his vision of Jazz Samba thoroughly unique—and not just another cover version—is determination. Najar has truly rethought this new version of what Jazz Samba could be into existence. “Without sounding too meta, I intend to be intentional about things,”
maintaining its accuracy. Then there are moments such as “O Pato” that move in a “wildly different” fashion than they do on the Byrd/Getz 1962 original. “I wanted to include Daniela on the record,” Najar says of his wife, famed vocalist Daniela Soledade. “She’s such an incredibly talented musician with a real strong lineage to the origins of bossa nova, to Jobim, to Black Orpheus.” Since there are no vocals on Byrd and Getz’s original, the songs “O Pato” and “É Luxo Só” find new life and vision on Jazz Samba Pre Sempre. “We did these tunes just how we heard them in the moment. We just explored it. Music is a transportive thing. My goal for the album, for the listening experience, is to fashion an ephemeral bubble… a dreamy aesthetic, to inhabit its own world.” Of the work of Nate Najar, Charlie Byrd’s widow, Becky Byrd, has written that “There is no doubt that there is a piece of Charlie’s soul in Nate’s mind, heart and fingers.” With Jazz Samba Pra Sempre, such soul just soared a little further. n ICON |
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harper’s FINDINGS Protons are 5 percent smaller than previously thought, and fast radio bursts originate in old stars. For the first time, warm gas was detected from a low-mass X-ray binary, and V Hydrae was observed to have expelled six slowly expanding molecular rings as it died. A 328-million-year-old vampyropod was the first specimen discovered to have ten, rather than eight, arms. Giant crocodilians were ritualistically beheaded in China in the second millennium BC, and archaeologists theorized that people were drawn to Monte Albán not by good farmland or despotic coercion but by its relatively egalitarian society. Nine thousand years ago, the skeletons of Çatalhöyük were painted, buried, dug up, and reburied. The Chabu of the southwestern Ethiopian highlands have been declining in population for the past two millennia, as local societies transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture as practiced by the Majang, the Shekkacho, the Bench, and the Sheko. More giant stone funerary jars were discovered in Assam. The ground-level climatic boundary between fynbos and afrotemperate forests derives from differences in root thickness.
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Lions sprayed in the nose with oxytocin will play with favored pumpkin toys while keeping only half their normal distance from other lions. The quiet wakefulness of draughtsboard sharks is distinct from their sleep, a state that had not been identified definitively among rays, sharks, and skates. Dyeing poison frog tadpoles are less likely to cannibalize smaller tadpoles if they are siblings. Belgian researchers warned that dog urine and feces were contributing large amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen to nature reserves. Fecal transplants may forestall Alzheimer’s disease in a mouse model. Geneticists produced Down syndrome in rats, and data from the New Tics Study confirmed that the timing of Tourette’s syndrome outbursts is fractal. Both humans and chimpanzees are better at detecting the gaze directions of humans than those of chimpanzees, presumably because of the brilliant whites of human eyes. The brains of people with dementia demonstrate suppressed responses to different beep tones when played a muted version of David Attenborough’s Planet Earth. Insurance policies have the talisman effect of making adverse events seem less likely to occur.
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Japanese workers who break for brisk walks perform worse afterward if the weather is hot. A survey of sixty European bird species found that half of all physical and behavioral changes since 1960 are the result of climate change. Eight English counties raised their heat-wave thresholds by one degree Celsius. Thawing Arctic permafrost will expose local populations to more radon, and the iodine of desert dust may decrease ozone pollution but increase greenhouse gas longevity. The global water cycle is amplifying faster than expected. Seventy percent of oceans may be deoxygenated by 2080. Ultrasound transducers can detect when abalones are ready to spawn. Tasmanian devils were determined to be the only known picky scavengers. Researchers concluded that it is more accurate to say “children do not eat what they dislike” than “children eat what they like,” and orthorexia was found to be highly correlated with low self-esteem among Turkish university faculty. n 30
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INDEX Percentage of Americans who think the Supreme Court acts in a “serious and constitutionally sound” manner: 37 Who cannot name a case decided by the Supreme Court: 46 Rank of 2021 among years since Roe v. Wade in which the most abortion laws were passed in state legislatures: 1 Percentage by which white Catholics are more likely than black ones to say opposing abortion is essential to their faith: 23 By which black Catholics are more likely than white ones to say sermons should touch on political issues: 189 By which black Catholics are more likely to say churches should help the needy: 38 Estimated percentage by which the 2020 U.S. Census undercounted the number of black Americans: 3.3 By which it overcounted the number of non-Hispanic white Americans: 1.6 % by which more Americans would defend Canada from invasion than Mexico: 25 Percentage of Americans who strongly consider themselves vigilantes: 20 Whose favorite superhero is Batman: 45 % of adults under 30 who say U.S. should be allowed to fight in the Ukrainian army: 36 Of adults over 65: 64 Percentage increase in the number of doomsday bunkers purchased in Texas since Russia invaded Ukraine: 1,100 Minimum number of U.S. states that have banned the sale of Russian vodka: 12 Maximum percentage of U.S. vodka imports that come from Russia: 1 Percentage increase in U.S. alcohol-related deaths in 2020: 26 Among people aged 25 to 44: 40 % of workers who quit their jobs in 2021 who cited disrespect as reason for quitting: 57 Who cited overwork: 39 Who are now earning more than they were in 2021: 56 % by which hiring a CEO with a business degree decreases wages for employees: 15 Average % change in sales by companies that hire CEOs with business degrees: –1 Percentage of Americans who support equipping manual laborers with AI-controlled robotic exoskeletons: 33 % by which Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in vampires: 33 By which Republicans are more likely than Democrats to believe in demons: 72 % of the U.S. population that owns a gun, according to the average estimate: 54 That actually owns a gun: 32 % of U.S. population that is transgender, according to the average American: 21 That is actually transgender: 0.6 Portion of Republicans who do not know what it means for a person to identify as transgender: 1/3 Percentage by which Americans with college degrees are more likely than those without to get their news from podcasts: 65 Portion of Twitter bios including “storyteller” that belong to journalists: 4/5 Portion of Americans who respond negatively to this descriptor when applied to journalists: 7/10 Average number of streaming services Americans subscribe to: 4.5 Estimated number of times per day Netflix viewers select the option to “skip intro”: 136,000,000 Number of years in saved time this represents each day: 195 Portion of female students asked to sit alone for fifteen minutes who will self-administer an electric shock out of curiosity: 1/4 Of male students: 2/3
SOURCES: 1,2 C-SPAN/Pierrepont (Washington); 3 Guttmacher Institute (NYC); 4–6 Pew Research Center (Washington); 7,8 U.S. Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.); 9 YouGov (NYC); 10 Fan Xuan Chen (Urbana, Ill.); 11 Visit Anaheim (Calif.); 12,13 YouGov; 14 Rising S Company (Murchison, Texas); 15 Harper’s research; 16 Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (Washington); 17,18 National Institute on Alcohol Abuseand Alcoholism (Bethesda, Md.); 19–21 Pew Research Center; 22,23 Alex Xi He, University of Maryland (College Park); 24 Pew Research Center; 25–31 YouGov; 32 Pew Research Center; 33,34 Brian Calfano, University of Cincinnati (Ohio); 35 J.D. Power (Chicago); 36,37 Netflix (Los Gatos, Calif.); 38,39 Timothy Wilson, University of Virginia (Charlottesville).
“THEMELESS NO. 19” by Evan Birnholz ACROSS Shot in the dark Like lye Run time? Augustus ___ (“Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” child who falls into a chocolate river) 19 Pixar film with a repeated syllable 20 Joe Schmo 22 Theme of some crosswords (but not this one) that involves entering multiple letters in a single square 23 Stacked or dunked treat 24 They may spend hours looking at the Sun 26 Predecessor of the iPod 28 Fans of a post-hardcore music genre, informally 29 Like Psalms 119, among all chapters in the Bible 30 ___ apso (bearded dog from Tibet) 31 French word after “en” or “avant” 34 Acted accordingly 35 Michael who played Danny Noonan in “Caddyshack” 37 Like films that don’t require a content advisory 40 Set of compositions 44 Crustaceans that sound like the could be relatives of rock lobsters 48 Go after a tail, as a dog might 49 Exhaust pipe vapor 50 Region of great concern for climate scientists 51 Film with an unoriginal plot 53 Belittle 55 Rest on 57 Emergency 58 Emergency notifications 59 Ginger ___ (spicy cookie) 60 Wide neckwear 62 Hairdo lasting for several months 64 Not just any 65 “Credit where due ...” 71 Director Roth who’s part of Hollywood’s “Splat Pack” 72 “Yuh-HUH!” 73 Doone in an 1869 novel 74 Makes a wrong move 76 Penn pal, perhaps 78 “Spider-Man: No Way Home” actress Tomei 81 Awesome 84 Repulse 85 Unit of sound in linguistics 87 Companion who may snuggle with you while you work 1 5 10 14
from home 88 Saline sign of sadness 89 German city that’s an anagram of 43 Down 91 Some golf clubs 93 First name of rock’s Prince of Darkness 94 “Leviathan” author Hobbes 96 Expand, as a pupil 97 Ski resort or a tree of the same name 99 Refuges, in Latin 101 Musical with a scene at the balcony of the Casa Rosada 105 Situated near waves 108 “Company, ___!” 110 Salts with I- ions 112 Screenwriting? 116 Has beans, say 117 Table-read participant 118 “... and stuff” 119 “That blows my mind” 120 Trash collection? 121 Number of square feet in a square yard 122 Meredith Baxter’s role on “Family Ties” 123 26 Across manufacturer
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27 32 33
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DOWN Disgruntled look Rabbinical school text Amtrak express train Novel format that came before apps like Audible Eric of “Hanna” Wasp, e.g., in Marvel Comics Repair, as attire April collection org. Clad like many a hero Auto not saved, briefly Moves forward in life Disreputable person Folds closed at night Exhibits satisfaction Demand for freedom? Source of reedy sounds Shared between us Quiet form of “Hey!” “Animal Crossing” fan, e.g. 1960s Chrysler compact similar in design to the Plymouth Valiant Become successful At a distance “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger” author Traister Website whose writers resigned
36 38 39 41 42 43 44 45 46
47 52 54 56 61 63 66 67 68 69 70 71 75 77
en masse in 2019 after refusing an order from management to “stick to sports” Danish sneaker brand Pitching standouts Language spoken at Chulalongkorn University Home of the only rainforest in the U.S. national forest system Maid Marian’s portrayer in “Robin Hood” (1991) Detect Rude child’s attitude Singer whose cover of “If I Had a Hammer” was a hit in 1963 “El Laberinto de la Soledad” author who won the 1990 Nobel Prize in literature Bernhard who founded a brewery in Detroit Brand name of the drug methylphenidate Beloved monster Butter squares Squashes LAX approximations Gold medal-winning sprinter Devers Diner cookware item Anatomical bridge sites Series of different moods Restaurant boosters, at times? Greek poetry muse aside (saves) “A Life on Film” author who ICON |
had a major role in “The Maltese Falcon” 79 [Cough, cough] 80 “Class Reunion” writer Jaffe 82 Bone affected by a Monteggia fracture 83 Provoked into reacting 86 Lesser or greater thing, in a moral quandary 90 Blake who sang a duet with Gwen Stefani on “Nobody but You” 92 Former Manhattan restaurant owned by restaurateur Kaufman 95 Qdoba condiment 98 Parts of asterisms 100 Swing ___ 102 Magic Valley locale 103 Grand ___ National Park 104 Analyze, as substances 105 Vowel-rich farewell 106 How music can be burned 107 Re: 108 Chopped, as in a forest 109 One-named singer of the 2019 single “Moral of the Story” 111 “I’m an ___! You know, ‘Grab your torch and pitchforks!’ Doesn’t that bother you?” (“Shrek” quote) 113 Loud med. diagnostic 114 Form of antiperspirant 115 Green wall covering Solution to this month’s puzzle on page 24
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