July 2016

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july

ICON

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INTERVIEW

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SLAVE TO LOVE | 20 1938 Buick Convertible.

ART

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5 | A THOUSAND WORDS 6 | Lloyd Ney 7 | Turner & Melville 8 | ART SHORTS Elizabeth McCue at Sidetracks Gallery Joann Doneen at Twenty-Two Gallery Basketry at Hunterdon Art Museum

Lloyd Raymond Ney (1893-1965), Mechanic Street, New Hope, ca. 1934, oil/canvas. James A. Michener Art Museum. Gift of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Bryan Ferry (2014). Photo: Isaac Ferry.

Bryan Ferry sings for only the lonely

10 | EXHIBITIONS Dark Humor: African American Art Mercy: Martha Posner American Summer

MUSIC 28 | KERESMAN ON DISC Paul Butterfield Blues Band Dave King Trucking Company Stick Men R. Nathaniel Dett Beth Orton 30 | SINGER / SONGWRITER Paul Simon Bonnie Bishop The Mike Eldred Trio Bianca De Leon Spain 31 | POP MUSIC Beyoncé and Dolly Parton

12 | CITY THEATER 12 | VALLEY THEATER

25 | ICEPACK

FILM Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London 1775–1851 London), Whalers, ca. 1845

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15 | CINEMATTERS Hunt for the Wilderpeople

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27 | JAZZ LIBRARY Sonny Stitt

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Assistant Designer Kaitlyn Reed-Baker

Robert Beck / robert@robertbeck.net

34 | Alma de Cuba Grows Up

Nick Bewsey / nickbewsey@gmail.com Jack Byer / jackbyer@verizon.net

HARPER’S

Peter Croatto / petecroatto@yahoo.com

36 | Findings 36 | Index

James P. Delpino / JDelpino@aol.com Sally Friedman / pinegander@aol.com Edward Higgins

ETCETERA

Geoff Gehman / geoffgehman@verizon.net

38 | L. A. TIMES CROSSWORD

Mark Keresman / shemp@hotmail.com

39 | AGENDA

George Miller / gomiller@travelsdujour.com Thom Nickels / thomnickels1@aol.com R. Kurt Osenlund / rkurtosenlund@gmail.com Bob Perkins / bjazz5@aol.com Keith Uhlich / KeithUhlich@gmail.com Burton Wasserman

24 | FILM ROUNDUP The BFG The Neon Demon Our Kind of Traitor Our Little Sister

MUSIC

PRODUCTION Designer Richard DeCosta

32 | Guest Chef: Lee Chizmar

16 | KERESMAN ON FILM Genius

26 | REEL NEWS King Georges Rams Joy Eye in the Sky

Raina Filipiak / Advertising filipiakr@comcast.net

A. D. Amorosi / divaland@aol.com

22 | BAD MOVIE Jane Got a Gun

Hunt for the Wilderpeople, starring Sam Neill and Julian Dennison.

EDITORIAL Executive Editor / Trina McKenna

FOOD

ENTERTAINMENT 14 | THE LIST

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ON THE COVER: Absolutely Hilarious, 1997.

Peter Williams (b. 1952). Oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches. University Museums purchase made possible through the generous support of Donald Puglisi, Coleman Townsend, Cynthia Primo Martin, Teresa Mason and Margaret Andersen.

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ART A THOUSAND WORDS STORY AND PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK

Subway YOU’VE BEEN THERE, OR maybe your own kind of there. I was standing on the platform at the 66th Street station, bathed in a pungent New York cocktail of exhaust and decomposition, studying the light that filters down from the Broadway sidewalk grating onto the girders and rails, wishing I was in some other place. A place without track announcements, roaring blurs of windows, strangers clinging to chrome pipes, rocking against each other. A place where I could watch the sun rise and set, and focus my eyes on a point more than two blocks away. A place with no gray, save for the nightly fog off the ocean that makes sure things don’t begin to move too fast. Like Maine, perchance. If a lobster boat pulled up right then and there I would hand my suitcase to the captain, release the lines, and take a heading northeast.

The first part of that description, the part about me studying how the light in the subway actually looks, is no surprise to anyone who knows me. It’s what I do. But the part where I wanted to be somewhere else wasn’t forward in my mind when I was standing there. If you had walked up to me and asked, “Hey Bob, whatcha doing?” I would have said, “figuring out how to paint this.” But if you asked me, what was going on in my head I might have given you a longer answer.

All of us operate on multiple levels depending on the situation at hand. You aren’t necessarily the same person at work as you are at home, or with friends, or engaged in a competition, or playing with your kid or your dog. The fact that sometimes it’s hard to shift gears is indication enough that we have distinct gears.

It wasn’t until I was in the studio coming to grips with what elements should make up the core of the subway painting that the idea of the boat elbowed its way into my thoughts. I was pondering whether a train should be entering or leaving the station—one of those many small considerations in building a painting that aren’t small at all. If the train was leaving there wouldn’t be people on the platform, and the image had to have

Robert Beck’s work can be seen at www.robertbeck.net.

people. If it was arriving it would be coming in from the right to be accurate, but a subway’s front looks the same as its back and in the Western way of reading a painting it would seem like it’s leaving. Once I solved that conundrum I would have to figure out how to suggest that the train was in motion. Having no train at all would eliminate both problems, but it would also diminish the narrative.

In painting, the decision process is the art. My way of translating thoughts into a two-dimensional image begins with a couple of small doodles so I can determine shape and scale, but most of the investigation takes place on the painting surface. It’s oil paint; I can move things around, wipe them out, try this or that. Art is happening until the artist makes the last choice or gamble that affects content.

Here’s where we get to something that’s different about artists. As our work matures, the walls that separate the different people in our heads erode, and we experience a lot of cross talk. That’s when the work becomes our own.

That cross talk is the grail—to be able to tap into everything that’s running. Keeping channels open encourages spontaneous association. You can’t force the bright idea, but you can remove things that block the sightlines. That’s not always easy—some of those barriers are useful to hide behind.

While I was chasing answers to my subway questions the part of my subconscious that was counting the days until I left for Maine was merrily making preparations on the other side of a very porous wall. What size panels should I take? What will I have to pack for the weather? Remember boots for when I go out on the lobster boat. Wait…I heard that. A lobster boat! There it was.

The unexpected idea is exciting, but it’s just a part of the quest. Thinking it is not enough; I then have to figure out how to describe it by applying a suspension of pigment in vegetable oil onto a flat surface, using a clump of hair attached to a stick. Technique is a whole different track. n

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Art

BY BURTON WASSERMAN

L L OY D

U

NEY

Lloyd Raymond Ney (1893-1965), Untitled Series, New London, Ohio, ca. 1954, oil on canvas, James A. Michener Art Museum.

Gift of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

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UNLIKE MOST ARTISTS ASSOCIATED with New Hope, PA, who followed an Impressionist-inspired style, Lloyd Ney was, from early on, a confirmed modernist. He was born back in 1893 in Friedensburg, PA to parents with little cultural awareness.

Nevertheless, they did recognize his artistic gifts and sent him for study to the school that is now known as the University of the Arts. In due course, he transferred to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Eventually, his talent was recognized there and he was awarded a Cresson Scholarship which allowed him to travel in Europe .

While in France, he discovered the pioneering developments of Picasso and other important creative figures in the visual arts.. At that time, he also came to realize how severely limited and anti-creative his formal studies at art schools in America had been. By and by, he returned to Pennsylvania and settled in New Hope. While he traveled widely, he always thought of New Hope as home.

In addition to having friends in town and in Philadelphia, he developed an especially close rapport with the famous German expatriate painter, Baroness Hilla von Rebay. She was an artist in her own right as well as the director of the Guggenheim Museum of Non-Objective Painting in New York City. Rebay is credited with urging her patron, Solomon Guggenheim, to acquire many non-representational artworks of Wassily Kandinsky and other artists, including Ney, for the Museum’s permanent collection. The Baroness was also responsible for commissioning Frank Lloyd Wright to design the present form of the Museum with its well-known spiral structure. Without doubt, the following quotation by Ney sums up his outlook on non-pictorial art form: The non-objective painter is searching for that inner order of truth, beauty and reality, not the surface aspect.

On settling in New Hope, Ney became a major fixture among the progressively oriented artists of the region. His house and studio on Mechanic St. came to be called the “Latin Quarter.” Ney became famous in the local area for being rejected regularly from the annual Phillips Mill juried exhibitions which favored the well-known New Hope impressionist mannered style.

At the present time, samples of his creative work, both representational and completely abstract, are on display in a handsome solo show at the Michener Museum of Art. It is titled Local Color and is scheduled to remain open to the public between June 4 and September 11, 2016. The show also includes detailed plans for a never-realized museum that was to be dedicated to Ney’s own accomplishments.

In 1939, through the auspices of the federal Treasury Department Section of the Fine Arts, during the Franklin Delano Roosevelt presidential administration, Ney was awarded a mural commission for the New London, Ohio, post office. The mural was surrounded by controversy because Ney treated it in a very advanced semi-abstract style.

Ney is also credited with discovering the well-known primitive artist, Joseph Pickett, a Quaker preacher and New Hope shopkeeper. Many of Pickettt’s pictures deal with scenes from the New Hope vicinity and religious subject matter described in the Bible. It is interesting to note that he found favor with Pickett’s approach to form even though his own style was very different from Pickett’s idiom. n Michener Art Museum, 138 S Pine St, Doylestown, PA michenerartmuseum.org

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Art

BY ED HIGGINS

Turner Melville and

IT WOULD SEEM A stretch to put the author of Moby-Dick, Herman Melville, and English painter J.M.W. Turner in the same sentence. However, a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of whaling pictures suggests a deep artistic connection between Turner, one of England’s greatest landscape painters and Melville, one of America’s greatest writers.

Turner’s Whaling Pictures is comprised of all four of his paintings depicting the mid-19th century industry. In addition to the paintings—three from the Tate, one from the Met—the exhibition includes related drawings, books, watercolors, prints and quotes designed to steer the mind toward a possible aesthetic connection between Turner and Melville.

That Turner was eccentric is an understatement. Born in London in 1775, Joseph Mallord William Turner was an English Romantic landscape painter. He was considered a controversial figure in his day because he took marine painting to a point of near abstraction in his use of color, brushstroke, and intensely evocative emotion. These were the days of English dominance of the seas; its fleet, heroes, and exploits were the national pride, a part of the English identity. Turner, as many an Englishman, was drawn to the sea and traveled extensively overseas. His landscapes of Holland and its accommodation to the ocean, and of Venice with its acceptance of the ocean, provided Turner enough of a reputation to be admitted to the Royal Academy and acceptance by the mainstream art establishment.

A devoted fisherman, Turner spent much of his time by the Thames River and

Whalers (Boiling Blubber) Entangled in Flaw Ice, Endeavouring to Extricate Themselves by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851). Exhibited 1846. Oil on canvas, 899 x 1200 mm. Courtesy of Tate Britain (Accession no. NO0547. Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856.)

along England’s western coast, with fishing pole and art supplies at hand. Part of the pre-Turner tradition of marine painting had been to paint with such accuracy that viewers could identify individual ships. In some Turner works, however, the ship might be partially or mostly obscured by fire, smoke or weather.

The four paintings show moments of action in the whaling process that Turner wanted to capture.

Herman Melville was born in 1819 and went to sea when he was 20. For a while he intended to make a living as a writer, and years of sailing gave him hearty grist for his early novels, but he never had the success that his friend and idol Nathanial Hawthorne enjoyed. He published Moby-Dick in 1851, some years after he had visited England.

Turner and Melville shared stylistic and aesthetic affinities. Professor Robert K. Wallace of Northern Kentucky University, author of Melville & Turner; Spheres of Love and Fright, believes that Melville saw Turner paintings while in London and those paintings influenced his writing of Moby-Dick. The romance and emotion of Turner’s paintings match the qualities in Melville’s words. Wallace’s evidence is a description in Moby-Dick of a seascape painting that could be describing a typical Turner painting. In a review of Wallace’s Melville and Turner, Stephen Gottlieb notes, “Wallace’s thesis is that Turner supplied Melville with a powerful aesthetic of the indistinct.”

It’s clear that both artists achieved something scholars talk about as “sublime.” It is when the reality of subject transcends itself to produce a glorious result without doing damage to the naturalness of the image. If the exhibition turns some toward reading Melville or looking more closely at Turner, then all the better. n Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue, NYC. Through August 2. metmuseum.org

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Art Shorts CURATED BY ED HIGGINS

Elizabeth McCue at Sidetracks Gallery “Breathtaking” features bronzes which, according to the gallery are inspired by “the breath of organic nature (which) becomes the fluid then the stable bronze.” Two wall installations, “In the Wind” and “Butterflies” are featured, along with pedestal bronzes “Arms of the Night,” “Ball of Leaves,” “Cell of Myself ” and “Shelter,” and two large charcoal drawings, “The Rivers Course,” and “The Mountains Shall Rise.”

Doneen has appeared in group exhibitions in Florence (Exhibition of Abstract Work by Four American Women) and Venice (International Invitational), Italy.

Doneen creates textural immediacy through the use of oils, acrylics, encaustic, marble dust, and sand. Her technique is best characterized as the spontaneous manipulation and discovery of surface and materials on the traditional supports of canvas and wood. The paintings are inspired by the power, vividness and poignancy of nature.

The resulting “landscapes” reflect a clarity that transcends the boundary between outer and inner environment.

and vessel-based forms.”

This exhibition looks to the present and future by emphasizing work created within the past few years, some of it specifically for this venue. It includes an installation by

Emily Dvorin, “Big Fat Hairy Deal”

Pat Hickman, who has been prominent in the contemporary basketry movement, along with unique sculptural works by artist/designer Doug Johnston, whose line of coiled cotton rope vessels is available online and at shops worldwide.

Included in over 30 corporate and private collections nationally, McCue has completed 28 site-specific public art projects and corporate and private commissions, most recently in 2015 for the South Lobby of the Park Town Place Museum District Residences in Philadelphia and for the Sustainability Award of the Hotel Association of New York City presented to seven winning hotels last November. Installations can currently be viewed at the Sculpture Showcase in Old Lyme, CT; Tyler Sculpture Festival, Richboro, PA; Artists in Dialogue with Nature, Ridgely, MD; and Americana Twist, Governor’s Island, New York City. She currently serves as a Trustee of the Trenton Museum Society. Sidetracks Gallery, 20 Stockton Ave, New Hope, through July 31.

Doneen’s intimate marks express cracked earth crust, a serene and distant crest of hill, or the wandering black sketch lines of river and wind. The artist makes use of frontal and aerial perspectives; translucency and mirrored imagery reveal the focus of horizon line that steadies, and then gives way to spatial ambiguities. Twenty-Two Gallery, 236 S. 22nd St., Philadelphia, through July 31.

Joann Doneen at Twenty-Two Gallery

Basketry: Processes & Concepts at The Hunterdon Art Museum

The show Illusory Display according to the gallery, features paintings which explore place and our “inner knowing of experience.” As the paintings for this exhibition progressed, I found the ‘floating image’ and the attention to ‘edge’ or ‘where things meet’ to be a recurring and potent theme,” said Doneen.

Joann Doneen is an abstract artist from Washington who moved to Philadelphia to continue her formal education at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Her artistic sensibility gradually evolved to non-representational imagery. During her four years at PAFA she was awarded many prizes, among them the coveted Morris Blackburn Landscape Prize and the prestigious Thouron Prize.

Interconnections: The Language of Basketry, includes everything from stapled paper to fabricated metal. Some employ found objects, others utilize clay, linen, or wire.

Works range from a large interactive floor sculpture to a small intricate construction of metal and paper, but all are united by an inventive approach to an ancient craft.

“These artists employ basketry processes and concepts in dynamic and imaginative ways, challenging the common view of basketry as a utilitarian folk craft,” said Carol Eckert, curator of the show. “Experimenting with techniques and materials—sometimes referencing ancient methods—they create works ranging from large-scale, site-specific works to wall pieces, sculptural constructions

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Sui Park, Wiggling II

Artists featured in the show are: John McQueen, Phyllis Kudder Sullivan, Sui Park, Dona Anderson, Jerry Bleem, Charissa Brock, Ann B. Coddington, Emily Dvorin, Lindsay Ketterer Gates, Donna Hapac, Mieko Kawase, Jay Kelly, Heechan Kim, Nancy Koenigsberg, Tracy Krumm, Gyongy Laky, Jo Stealey, Gina Telcocci and Ann Weber, and Nathalie Miebach. Hunterdon Art Museum, 7 Lower Center St., Clinton, NJ, through September 4. n

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EXHIBITIONS

Sacrifice of the Watermelon Virgin or Shirt Off Her Back, 1987.

Barkley L. Hendricks (born 1945). Color offset lithograph, 21 5/8 × 30 inches. Lent by University Museums, University of Delaware, Paul R. Jones Collection, A Gift of the Brandywine Workshop, Philadelphia, PA. Image © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy of the Artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

Dark Humor: African American Art Delaware Art Museum 2301 Kentmere Pkwy, Wilmington, DE 302-571-9590 delart.org July 16–September 25 The term “dark humor” was coined in 1935 to describe a subgenre of comedy in which pleasure arises from topics generally considered taboo. In recent years, a number of artists of African descent have deployed dark humor to question history, matters of identity, viewer expectations, and the currency of cultural and racial stereotypes. The exhibition features 19 paintings, prints, and objects produced between 1970 and 2008 by 18 artists, including Camille Billops, David Hammons, Barkley Hendricks, and Peter Williams, a Professor of Art at the University of Delaware. The exhibition presents work by artists who employ subversive humor to question the currency of cultural and racial stereotypes.

Mercy: Martha Posner Lafayette College Art Galleries, Grossman Gallery Williams Visual Arts Building 243 No. 3rd St., Easton, PA 610-330-5361/5831 Galleries.Lafayette.Edu Through July 30, 2016 Reception June 24, 6-8 Martha Posner asks: “What makes an object greater than its materials? Why is the mask of a shaman or the surface of a Greek icon more than feathers, wood and paint? When is the moment of transformation?” She answers her question by apportioning transformation between a handful of sculptures: the installation is a chain of empathetic moments linking materials, nature and audience; it does not build to a single, explosive moment of dramatic realization. Thus a deer's skull with eerily intact fur, a tree that resembles a hooded magician, and burls of wood that recall delicate female anatomy steep slowly in the imagination, recreating natural mystery.

Artist talk July 12 at 7:30 p.m. in Media Room 2, located in 248 North 3rd Street—across the street.

The Sista Descending the Staircase, 2003. Lori Crawford. Color digital painting, 19 × 13 inches. University Museums, University of Delaware, Paul R. Jones Collection. Image © Lori Crawford.

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Jennifer Hansen Rolli, Summer Wash Day (detail), oil on canvas

American Summer Silverman Gallery of Bucks County Impressionist Art 4920 York Road, Holicong, PA in Buckingham Green 215-794-4300 silvermangallery.com Through August 2016 Flags, parades, beach days, boating and family vacations are just a few of the images captured in this exhibition. Into its sixth year, the gallery has broadened its fine selection of local art. Owner Rhonda Garland took over the gallery in January, after working with the gallery’s founder, Herman Silverman since 2012. “This exhibition celebrates the season and the amazing group of artists that we represent.” The exhibit features new and seasonal work by Joseph Barrett, Jennifer Hansen Rolli, David Stier, Jean Childs Buzgo, Desmond McRory, Anita Shrager, Christopher Willett and the newest addition to the gallery, Jim Rodgers.

Joseph Barrett, Sunrise, Edison, 24 x 22, oil on canvas

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THEATER VALLEY

CITY

In the Heights. Last month Hamilton won a near-record 11 Tony awards, earning creator/star Lin-Manuel Miranda even more hurrahs for transforming Alexander Hamilton and his Founding Fathers Crew into hip-hop heroes. This month the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre company will stage his first Tony-winning musical, In the Heights, an extremely catchy, captivating tale of friendship, mentorship, romance, rivalry and dreams canceled and compromised. Key components include a bodega, a salon, a taxi service, a lottery and a city-wide blackout in Washington Heights, Miranda’s hometown hood. (July 13-31)

The Secret Garden. (by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon; directed by Matt Pfeiffer) packed them in at the Arden, proof of the popularity of fantasy escapism. But does this musical really work? The story of ten-year-old Mary Lennox (Bailey Ryon), a cantankerous girl who is sent to live with her wealthy Uncle Archibald (Jeffrey Coon) after cholera claims her parents, Rose (Sarah Gliko) and Albert (James Stabp), is the perfect Disney recipe: a haunted mansion; a secret garden; and a spoiled prince-type, the shut-in son of Uncle Archibald, little Colin (Hudson Orfe), who thinks he’s growing a hunchback.

Mary’s life in the mansion is monitored by the strict house mistress, Mrs. Medlock, played to the dour hilt by Sally Mercer. Life changes for Mary when she discovers the key to the garden and Colin’s “off limits” bedchamber, where Archibald has him locked up because he errily resembles his deceased wife. While Ryon is believable as the contrarian Mary, her saucy attitude is so coquettish and unchildlike even her technical polish—every line delivered with robotic perfection—comes across as creepy. The story ends on a happy note when Mary manages to bring Colin back to health, proving that when misery meets misery, good things sometimes happen.

The Taming of the Shrew/Blithe Spirit. Shakespeare’s brutally shrewish comedy pits Petruchio against Katherina in an epic war of wits and wills. The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival production, which runs July 13-Aug. 7, stars Ian Merrill Peakes, who played the nasty Iago in the festival’s “Othello,” and Eleanor Handley, who played the bitchy Maggie in the Festival’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The actors battle each other again in Noel Coward’s wickedly witty Blithe Spirit (July 21-Aug. 7), with Peakes as an occult-researching novelist and Handley as his dead first wife, who torments him and his second spouse after being resurrected by a séance gone delightfully wrong. Fun footnote: Coward played the novelist in a United Kingdom tour during World War II. Love’s Labour’s Lost. Four Spanish courtiers disavow their vow to give up women for three years after meeting four beguiling French courtesans. Shakespeare punches up the sexual comedy with cross dressing, letter intercepting and vile-verse competing.

The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s July 27-Aug. 7 bare-bones boot-camp staging features such festival favorites as Anthony Lawton and Christopher Patrick Mullen directing and designing for themselves. Fun footnote: The Festival’s 2003 production unfolded at Oxford University in 1913, the year before World War I ended the hijinks Big. Inspired by Tom Hanks’ hit movie, this charming musical follows the hilarious, painful, revealing odyssey of a 12-year-old boy in a 30-year-old body. Music writer David Shire and lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. also collaborated on Closer Than Ever and Baby.

(July 29-Aug. 14, Pennsylvania Playhouse) City of Angels. I saw the original 1989 Broadway production of this very original musical while preparing a profile of Easton native David Zippel, who ended up winning Tonys for lyrics and score. I had a happy reunion during the Pennsylvania Playhouse’s zesty, zippy. interpretation. Ian Gilkeson and his father, Rody, were centered and snappy as a struggling screenwriter and his literary creation, a struggling detective.

They made the rafters ring in the duet “You’re Nothing Without Me.” Elizabeth Marsh-Gilkeson, Rody’s wife, was wonderfully wacky and deeply touching as two secretaries. Her torch blazed in the wrong-man blues “You Can Always Count on Me.” Chip Rohrbach was funny-bone crushingly funny as an egomaniacal movie mogul, a sort of Godzilla in a suit.

West Side Story. Four indelible memories from a dress rehearsal of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s rendition of the classic musical update of Romeo and Juliet: (1) Thanks to a microphone malfunction, actors were heard a few seconds after they spoke, a funny phenomenon often found in English translations of Japanese horror films; (2) Unfamiliar with the fight choreography, the understudy for an injured Bernardo fought the rumble by himself, seemingly auditioning for a Kabuki martial-arts movie; (3) the “Gee, Officer Krupke” number was terrifically nimble, brash and fresh; (4) Karli Dinardo made Anita a whirling-dervish spitfire, proving that a Puerto RicanAmerican can be played convincingly by an Australian. n —Geoff Gehman 12 n I C O N n j u l y 2 0 1 6 n W W W . I C O N D V . C O M n W W W . f a C e b O O k . C O M / I C O N D V

Hillary and Clinton. Lucas Hnath’s marvelous play at the Suzanne Roberts Theater closed out PTC’s 2015-16 season. While this satiric look at gender and power within the Clinton marriage is supposed to take place in an alternate universe, most everything that happens onstage would seem real to Clinton watchers. The washed-out ex-prez (John Procaccino) is presented as a tired, bored-to-death retiree who offers to help his wife (Alice M. Gatling) win the 2008 New Hampshire primary. Tension builds as the intricacies of their marriage surface. Hillary refuses Bill’s help campaigning but she’s conflicted, deferring to her mega-mouth, Bill-hating campaign manager Mark, adequately played by Todd Cerveris. Gatling as Hillary is completely believable: she shows the right amount of stubbornness and independence while segueing into more vulnerable emotions, such as when she collapses on the hotel room bed after hearing that she won New Hampshire because Bill secretly campaigned for her. Procassino’s Clinton captures the spirit of a man who has climbed life’s highest peak, but who is now aimlessly wandering around the mountain’s base. The play is a potpourri of Hillary’s witticisms and Bill’s philosophies, the best being the latter’s admonition that Hillary needs to appear less cold and show the public just how warm and fuzzy she is on the inside.

Straight White Men. What was playwright Young Jean Lee thinking when she wrote Straight White Men (Interact Theatre Company)? The play’s title seems to indicate she was thinking about race but only in a labeling sense, since the four men, Ed (Dan Kern) and his three sons, Jake (Tim Dugan), Drew (Kevin Meehan), and Matt (Steven Rishard), who celebrate Christmas together, are all white. The play’s “straight” label is also a misnomer, because for race or sexuality to be framed this way there should be thematic follow up. The family banter that Lee creates might as well have been lifted from Animal House. All these immature sons do is slap each other around and dive into the furniture while laughing at their own jokes. The highpoint occurs when Matt bursts into tears, causing Drew to ask, “Is Matt gay?” Of course he’s not gay—he’s just a depressed white straight guy, nothing that more diving into furniture and a dose of psychotropic drugs won’t cure. Inappropriate audience laughter throughout the performance got me thinking that it wasn’t Matt who needed psychotherapy, but the audience.

Sister Act. at The Walnut Street Theatre might seem like a tired has-been, but not this Riverside Theatre production, directed by Bernard Havard. Here’s Broadway at its finest, an intense, over-the-top, razzle-dazzle cacophony of song and dance that’s much funnier and better than the Whoopi Goldberg original. Havard gives it a Philadelphia setting, so we hear names like Cardinal Krol and the Philadelphia Police Department. Dan’yelle Williamson as Deloris Van Cartier, the racy girl who goes undercover at Holy Angels Convent, has the talent of Diana Ross, and the numerous singing and dancing nuns are as polished as The Rockettes at Rockefeller Center. n

—Thom Nickels

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The List JULY CURATED BY A. D. AMOROSI

6 SWANS Michael Gira's ongoing avant-rock ensemble, Swans, has had so many permutations since the tail end of the 70s, it’s easy to lose count. Gira—Swans leader, composer and sole remaining member—even ceased the

Swans name completely in 1997, only to revive it ten years later. It's not impossible to guess why or how he’d need a break from Swans. Their wall-of-sound intensity, whether aggressively noise-driven or delicately quiet—is majestic and gut-wrenching.

For its newest release, The Glowing Man, Gira & Co. will execute its usual year-plus tour, then will dissolve like burning celluloid.

Enjoy while you can. (Union Transfer)

8 CAM’RON One of hip hop’s most inventive rappers and producers and his posse don’t tour as heavily as they once did, so this showcase is essential. (TLA)

14 RAKIM Once a part of Eric B & Rakim, this prose poet (Paid in Full) created the modern flow of rap and tore it away from the static feel of its old-school origins. (Union Transfer)

8 WORLD/FRIENDSHIP INFERNO Jack Terricloth’s Brooklyn bossa, punk, soul, klezmer jazz band is always a hoot and a theatrical good time. (Trocadero)

14 DEMI LOVATO & NICK JONAS Two famed kid stars have grown up handsomely, made sexy adult pop albums, started their own label and joined forces for a

9 JOHN CARPENTER Famed film director and screenwriter John Carpenter has found himself with a second successful career. Sure, he wrote scores for creepy horror films such as Halloween (1978), Escape from New York (1981) The Fog (1980), The Thing (1982), Christine (1983)—but since his first studio album Lost Themes in 2015, he has released Lost Themes Remixed, Lost Themes II and is gearing up for Lost Themes III—all as spooky and as complex as his work in the cinema. (Keswick) 10 BOB DYLAN WITH MAVIS STAPLES Currently on a Frank Sinatra kick with Old Blue Eyes cover albums Shadows in the Night and this year’s Fallen Angels, there is no end to Dylan’s weird experimentation— though these particular albums are more investigative, even in an old fashioned sense,

8 NOTHING / MARY LATTIMORE & JEFF ZEIGLER Two of Philadelphia's most awesome performers of elegiac emotive music drop their newest albums on major labels this month.

Coming from a background in hardcore, Dominic Palermo takes his rusty nail nuances into something sharp and ferocious

tour where they’ll sing separately, equally, and as one. Sounds fun. (BB&T Pavilion) 14 GUNS N’ ROSES The cautious reunion of longtime haters Axl Rose and Slash is a money grab. Good thing it’s a rocking one that sounds fairly fresh.

(Lincoln Financial Field) 14/15 GET THE LED OUT This is not an impersonator act, but rather a group of musicians who were fans first, striving to do justice to one of the greatest bands in rock history. (Keswick Theatre) 16 TYE TRIBBETT Now 40, Camden NJ’s Tye Tribbett has been a hot commodity on the gospel music scene for 20 years as an energetic singer, song-

10 BABYFACE If you were to closely examine the annals of modern pop music history, few creative forces have impacted the contemporary pop/urban genres as much as Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds. Keswick Theatre

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19 K. MICHELLE One of the mistresses of the Love & Hip Hop franchise as well as her own VH1 television show, Michelle is a catty but no nonsense producer, writer and singer of powerfully poppy R&B&Hip Hop song. (Fillmore) 19 GWEN STEFANI WITH EVE Maybe Stefani is best known now for being a judge on The Voice, dating her co-judge

than odd. Still, any Dylan show—even weird—is a worthwhile one, especially with the inclusion of opening act Mavis Staples.

Yes, she has sung some of Dylan’s older sacred songs, and yes, he once asked the soul siren and family singer to marry him. Let’s hope they pair up for something on this night. (Borgata) for Nothing’s metal machine new record Tired of Tomorrow (Relapse). Philadelphia harpist Lattimore and producer/multi-instrumentalist Zeigler lent their distant, quietly psychedelic music to Philippe Garrel’s Le Révélateur, a silent film made eerier by the duo’s searing score. Weird show. Go. (Union Transfer)

has announced a new string of U.S tour dates in support of his new studio album, This Path Tonight, which was released worldwide on April 15. (Keswick Theatre)

writer, keyboardist, choir director and founder of the G.A. (short for Greater Anointing). Watch him in a live setting and you’ll see why he’s a sensation. (Fillmore) 16 GRAHAM NASH Legendary singer-songwriter Graham Nash

Blake Shelton and leaving her cheating husband and her lame, longtime band. Never forget, though, that mod pop’s cutesiest voice has some inventive riffs in her solo catalog (mostly penned by Pharrell Williams) and that some of her coolest tracks were executed with Philly’s own Eve who’ll open the show and step on stage with Gwen for some choice funky duets. (BB&T Pavilion) 21 DURAN DURAN/CHIC Britain’s sleek man-boyish rock-disco act once claimed to be a blend of the Sex Pistols and Chic. What better way to celebrate that than having Nile Rodgers’ (who calls Duran his “other band”) charmed ensemble along for the ride. (BB&T Pavilion) 22 – 24 XPONENTIAL: RYAN ADAMS, KURT VILE, GARY CLARK JR. CASE/LANG/VEIRS The WXPN festival is quickly becoming the best multi-band musical grouping in the area. Topping last year’s display of St. Vincent and My Morning Jacket is Philly’s answer to Sonic Youth in Kurt Vile, new blues guitar god Gary Clarlk Jr. and one of the live debuts of the new super trio of Neko Case, k.d. lang and Laura Veirs. (BB&T Pavilion) 23 JEFF BECK AND BUDDY GUY Oh baby, you don’t hear old school, six string gun slingers like this anymore—doing their metallic blues magic. (Borgata) n

FILM CINEMATTERS REVIEW BY PETE CROATTO

H

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE is massively entertaining without carrying an agenda. All that writer-director Taika Waititi wants is for us to care about his characters—a young boy and his reluctant guardian—as they travel through the woods of New Zealand away from clueless authorities but toward each other. His enthusiasm for this world is infectious and all-inclusive. By reaching out to kids and adults on their own terms, Waititi has created a movie everyone will adore.

Lifelong orphan Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) has run out of foster families. His last chance resides in the countryside at a ramshackle home. The policeman and child welfare officer don’t mind. And neither does Bella (Rima Te Wiata), the rumpled, boisterous soul who is overjoyed to meet the dour Ricky. Her husband, Hector (Sam Neill), does not share her enthusiasm.

“You can call him ‘Uncle,’’ Bella says to Ricky.

“No, he can’t,” Hector, wearing a giant, dead boar as a backpack, mumbles.

Ricky, a city kid who dresses like Ali G’s road manager, struggles. He’s in the middle of nowhere sleeping in a pink room with a creaky décor that’s best described as grandma’s vagina. He runs away, passing out after climbing a steep hill. Bella is by the kid’s side the next morning offering breakfast. Eat something, she says, then you can take off. She takes an interest, teaching Ricky how to shoot a gun. On his 13th birthday she serenades him with an original song on a tiny keyboard. It’s earnest and embarrassing and totally full of love. Hector retreats further into his embarrassment.

Then, the family unit unexpectedly splinters, forcing Ricky back into the foster care system; juvenile jail is likely. So he fakes his own death (poorly) before trekking deep into the bush. Hector finds Ricky, but an argument followed by an injury forces them to camp out for weeks. When child welfare sees a burned-down shed and nobody in sight, a mis-

understanding turns into a manhunt. New Zealand is transfixed.

Waititi, working from Barry Crump’s book Wild Pork and Watercress, smartly twists the story into heartwarming fare. The folks chasing Ricky and Hector through this verdant splendidness are goofballs with hard edges. Consider the child welfare officer (Rachel House) whose ego gradually inflates to Thanksgiving parade balloon proportions or the bravado-filled hunters who chicken out as soon as Hector tests them. Guns are used as tools. When there is a shoot-out, it ends with Hector getting capped in the ass.

This is part of a storybook; even the dark side is sunny. Ricky’s outlaw past comes from a Roald Dahl book: kicking, indulging in graffiti, loitering. And look at him, with that big circular face—he’s like a cookie just out of the oven. There’s no gangster sway in this haiku writer, who still possesses the soft, chipper voice of a kid who still believes in possibilities.

Dennison is wonderful. Think of Russell from Up but with a quicker wit and three-dimensional. Neill’s performance, however, is remarkable because he steps back instead of stepping up. Hector is all little gestures and quick moments—a terse thank-you, a withering stare, a quick pat of affection. We understand why Hector and Randy need each other. Neill’s steely, lean approach forces you to pay attention while allowing Dennison’s ebullient talent to shine. The veteran actor’s work here is as full and lustrous as his Kris Kristofferson-like beard.

Hector and Randy’s months-long journey drives the movie: the old man realizes that he’s loved; the boy finally gets the family he craves. Hunt for the Wilderpeople frolics in its wide-open wilderness, but Waititi (who will helm the new Thor installment) knows that the adventure means more with someone you love. [PG-13] n

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FILM KERESMAN ON FILM REVIEW BY MARK KERESMAN

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Genius

HEN WE SEE A film, read a novel, listen to an album, we often credit the author or the star (the biggest name on the package) entirely. But there is that entity known as the editor, the one with a (hopefully) objective eye that can correct mistakes, remove unnecessary repetition, provide clarity, and focus verbosity into succinctness. Genius is about an editor of books, a real-life one who had relationships with some of the greatest legendary writers of the early 20th century.

The film takes place in the late 1920s, when America was in the grip of The Great Depression. Max Perkins (Colin Firth) is a book editor at Scribner’s, a major publishing house in New York City, whose job is to go over manuscripts and make them publishable. For those unfamiliar, asking a writer to subtract or alter his words from a creation can be daunting. “Daunting” is one word for Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law), a high-energy, passionate novelist-to-be. Wolfe’s novel was rejected by many NYC publishers, but the never-say-die Wolfe gets his work onto Perkins’ desk. Perkins sees the germ of greatness therein, but like some writers, Wolfe is a bit in love with everything he puts on the page. Perkins offers to work with Wolfe on getting his sprawling novel—which ultimately becomes Look Homeward, Angel—into shape. A major problem is that both fellows are workaholics and that puts strain on relationships with the women in their lives, Louise Perkins (Laura Linney) and Wolfe’s lover Aline (Nicole Kidman).

The acting here is superb; all the leads truly inhabit their characters. The chemistry is palpable between Firth and Law. Perkins is the level-headed family man with a true appreciation of literary creativity; Wolfe is zealous about nearly everything, volatile, impetuous, a man full of ideas and eager to share them with the world (perhaps the Jack 16 n I C O N n j u l y 2 0 1 6 n W W W . I C O N D V . C O M n W W W . f a C e b O O k . C O M / I C O N D V

Kerouac of his day). We get to see the tempestuous and often inspiring creative process between the two in detail—one lets words flow from him like water from a fountain, the other maintains, get to the damn point. Their mates go from being patient, enthusiastic, and supportive, to frustrated and resentful, and, without melodramatics, we see this happen. Linney and especially Kidman express more with a facial expression that many Hollywood actresses do in an entire movie.

There is a lot of period detail here, but some of the movie is a little claustrophobic, albeit in a good way—lots of the action takes place in Perkins’ office and home. There are scenes where the somewhat staid Perkins gets swept up in Wolfe’s enthusiasm, but unlike some movies, the obvious doesn’t happen, i.e., Wolfe leading Perkins down a ruinous path. Perkins knows when to stand his ground and when to step back. Wolfe is likeable with infectious energy but he’s also self-centered, a bit cruel, and somewhat oblivious to how his actions and behavior affect those around him. Each actor plays his character with refreshing shades of gray (though depending on your taste, Law might be seen by some as going a bit Shatner).

The direction by Michael Grandage (a UK actor and theatrical director; this is his first film as director) is an interesting balance of aching detail (close-ups of the printed page) and briskness—no scene goes on for too long.

The ending is rather abrupt: Perkins worked with legendary writers F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce) and Ernest Hemmingway (Dominic West), each of whom make brief appearances here, but the film ends with the impression that his career ceased after Wolfe’s passing. Despite its minor flaws, Genius provides fascinating insight into the world of literature. n

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FEATURE GEOFF GEHMAN

the

real Bulgari jewels

NICOLA BULGARI SEES TWO stars in the 1942 film Now, Voyager, one of the all-timegreat diva dramas. One is Bette Davis, who plays a wallflower who blossoms thanks to the kindness of a psychiatrist, a married man and the married man’s wallflower daughter. The other is a 1940 Buick Super Estate Wagon, the wood-paneled vehicle of a pivotal camping trip for the two ladies. Onscreen for all of 80 seconds, if you count the odometer close-ups, the “woody” radiates sporty grace whether it’s speeding or standing still.

Bette’s Buick lives with more than 100 antique American automobiles at a complex in Allentown owned by Bulgari, the Italian billionaire vice chairman of the namesake luxury jewelry company founded by his grandfather, a Greek silversmith. Located at a former drive-in movie theater on Union Boulevard, the 20-acre-plus gated compound is managed by Bulgari’s full-time restorer/curator, Allentown native Keith Flickinger, whose shop is surrounded by warehouses for Bulgari’s vintage vehicles. It was Flickinger who returned Bette’s Buick to cinematic glory by refurbishing its maroon paint, red leather upholstery and mahogany-andash chrome made, karmically enough, in Reading.

This month Flickinger and Bulgari will Bulgari grabbed him by the arm and insisted host the first major event at the headquarhe sit in one of the autos. After Devlin insist- ters of Allentown Classic Motor Car Inc. On July 27-30 they’ll welcome the 50thed he wasn’t planning on writing a story, anniversary meet of the Buick Club of Bulgari became more insistent. “No no no,” America, of which Bulgari is an original he said, “get in the car, get in the car!” member. Scores of Buicks of all stripes, some arriving in a caravan from Seattle, will cruise around a half-mile of road that ribbons around a park, the drive-in screen and a 24,000-square-foot lodge, a merger of Pennsylvania barn and Italian chateau. Regular citizens can join the jamboree on July 30 by making a donation to the nearby America on Wheels transportation museum, the site of a 2009 exhibit of Bulgari’s automotive jewels, including Bette’s Buick.

Bulgari collects more than classic cars; he collects classic car characters. “One of the reasons Nicola built that facility in Allentown is to share it with the public,” says his former publicist, Martyn Schorr, a veteran automotive writer, editor and public-relations specialist. “He likes to share his knowledge with other knowledgeable people: collectors, historians, preservationists, designers, racers, enthusiasts. His hobby is just as much, if not more, about people as cars.”

The hobby began in the 1940s, Bulgari’s first decade of life. As a youngster in Rome he fell under the spell of American cars—Cadillac, Packard, LaSalle—with fanciful features: jeweled headlights, grand grilles, roller-coaster fenders. What made these mobile sculptures more impressive was their impressive drivers: diplomats, American soldiers, Vatican chauffeurs. As he grew older, he came to appreciate that American models, particularly Buicks, were more affordable, dependable and nimble than European brands.

Bulgari’s fondness for American cars intensified during his first visit to the U.S. in 1950, the year after the opening of the Allentown drive-in property he would buy. Nine years later he purchased his first automobile, a 1937 Buick two-door sedan, a robustly sleek, subtly sexy family vehicle.

“Nicola’s ideal has been the average American dream car,” says Schorr, who as a Buick spokesman in the late ’80s told Bulgari he couldn’t buy an Indy racing engine for a sedan.

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Keith Flickinger of Allentown is the curator and chief restorer of a vast collection of classic cars belonging to Nicola Bulgari, the Italian jewelry magnate. Photo: Rich Schultz/NY Times

1940 hodinkee Buick Super Estate Wagon “Woody” that Bette Davis drove in Now, Voyager. Photo: ©Hodinkee

“Other collectors chase movie-star cars like Mercedes and Duesenbergs. To him, a Duesenberg means nothing; a Hudson is more important. He believes that famous cars of great value belong in museums and that his cars belong on the road. He doesn’t believe that art should be kept in vaults; he likes to drive his art.”

Flickinger believes that Bulgari has a jeweler’s eyes and ears. “Most collectors go for price and status,” the restoration expert told Architectural Digest. “But Mr. Bulgari is interested in what makes the car significant—the streamlining and styling and details, yes, but also the way it starts, shifts, brakes, handles, steers and even sounds.”

A child of a Mack Truck factory worker, Flickinger opened Precision Motor Cars in 1988, three years after the official death of the drive-in lot he would manage. He met Bulgari in 1995 through an Allentown car collector who thought Flickinger could repair a 1942 Buick woody wagon damaged at Bulgari’s New York estate. Flickinger did such a good job, Bulgari made him an employee, shrinking Flickinger’s clientele from 501 to 1.

Today, Flickinger is Bulgari’s wing man. He travels the world in search of orphaned cars that, in Bulgari’s words, “need a father.” In Portsmouth, England he found the only Nash convertible with six cylinders. In a Scranton storefront, buried under garbage, he uncovered a 1942 Oldsmobile 98 B-44 Sedanette, one of two known models.

Nicola Bulgari

The pre-war assembly-line automobile has a ration sticker on the windshield and a grille badge saluting the bombers that Olds helped build.

Like Bulgari, Flickinger has a jeweler’s surgical senses.

He built a new rear end for a 1937 Export Packard Twelve convertible whose rear deck and rumble seat had been removed for a second life as a starter’s car at a harness-racing track in Tuscany. Using parts from three wrecks, he recreated a 1939 Nash Ambassador 8 Sedan, Bulgari’s dream car for 65 years.

Flickinger is in charge of spreading Bulgari’s highhorsepower, full-service mission. He selects the winner of the Nicola Bulgari Spirit of Buick Award given at the Buick Club of America’s annual meet. He manages acquisitions and constructions for the Allentown complex. He fixes

The vast collection of classic cars, housed in Allentown, Pa., belongs to Nicola Bulgari, the Italian jewelry magnate.

cars sent from Bulgari’s warehouse in Rome, a former Volkswagen dealership. In Rome he once drove Jimmie Johnson, the NASCAR star, in a 1938 Cadillac Sixteen Town Car that once transported Pope Pius XIII. “Keith and Nicola are inseparable when it comes to acquiring, restoring and sharing cars,” says Schorr, who managed the modification of a dozen of Bulgari’s contemporary Buicks. “Keith is Nicola’s right-hand man, 24/7 and 365. He’s kind of the son Nicola never had.”

Flickinger goes into overdrive while preparing the Allentown complex for Bulgari’s half-dozen visits a year. He makes sure that all the cars are drivable, whether it’s a 1950 Chrysler Town and Country woody wagon with a leather dashboard or a 1934 LaSalle coupe with a slightly chopped, hot-rod-like body. He sets up Bulgari’s studio apartment, which has a glass wall overlooking a roomful of his favorite cars. It’s here that Bulgari entertains guests with food prepared by his Italian chef and vintage movies starring his favorite film vehicles.

One of those guests is Mario Andretti, the hall of fame race-car driver. Andretti returns the favor by hosting Bulgari at his Nazareth garage, where Bulgari playfully endorses American cars. “He puts his arms around my Corvette,” says Andretti, “and spits at my Lamborghini—‘ptooo!’”

One of Flickinger’s main jobs is arranging road trips for Bulgari and his buddies. One such “driving explosion” was witnessed in 2000 by Ron Devlin, then a reporter for The Morning Call. One Saturday morning he was driving to gas up his van when he noticed 25 classic cars lined up by garages near his Allentown home. Being a journalist and a car enthusiast, he just had to discover why an entire block was blocked with vintage vehicles. He was directed to Bulgari, who was unknown to him as a collector and a jewelry magnate. After Devlin said he was a reporter, Bulgari grabbed him by the arm and insisted he sit in one of the autos. After Devlin insisted he wasn’t planning on writing a story, Bulgari became more insistent. “No no no,” he said, “get in the car, get in the car!”

Devlin graduated from stranger to dignitary when Bulgari installed him in a 1950 Hudson, the second car in the procession behind a 1937 LaSalle driven by Bulgari.

Devlin was so floored by his good luck, he left the keys in his van, leading his wife to kid him that he was kidnapped by Bulgari.

The Bulgari parade ended up at a car museum in rural Andreas, Pa., owned by the late John E. Morgan, a garment mogul who made a fortune from insulated clothes. The facility, which is now closed, was rented for the day by Bul-

gari, who provided a meal made by an Italian chef from Lehighton. He also led a spirited tour of more than 40 splendid vehicles ranging from a 1962 Corvette to an exceedingly rare 1929 Graham-Paige LeBaron Body Dual Cowl Phaeton. He spoke of his passion for saving autos made by Graham-Paige, DeSoto and other long-dead companies. Cars, he declared, are valuable cultural vehicles; the story of automobiles is an important part of the history of humanity.

Devlin returned to Allentown in a different Bulgari, a 1941 Cadillac driven by a leather-gloved surgeon. He began his Morning Call story with the ride in the Caddy, which climbed Blue Mountain in high gear “with no trouble at all.”

Sixteen years later, Devlin remains turbo-charged by the Bulgari parade. “It’s something I’ll never forget. Here I am, talking to one of the premier collectors in the country, and it felt just like two guys talking cars. How do you measure that?” The only drawback is that the experience made him feel even worse that he sold his 1965 Mustang GT to pay for college. “I should have kept the car,” he says of the orange-and-black-striped muscle machine. “It’s worth more than my pension.”

Devlin now writes for The Reading Eagle and lives in his native Schuylkill County. He lost track of Bulgari’s automotive empire in Allentown long ago. He hopes that one day he’ll be driving on Union Boulevard and eavesdrop on one of Bulgari’s favorite old black-and-white films playing on the drive-in screen. It could be The Big Shot, a Humphrey Bogart thriller with a wild chase between cops and gangsters in Buicks. It could be It’s a Wonderful Life, which includes a 1929 GMC taxi owned by Bulgari. Or it could be George Washington Slept Here, a comedy that revolves around the restoration of an allegedly historic farmhouse in Bucks County. It’s yet another cinematic vehicle for a 1940 Buick Super Estate Wagon, also known as Bette’s Buick. n The Buick Club of America’s 50th-anniversary meet will take place July 27-30 at the Allentown Classic Motor Car complex, Fenwick and Graham streets. The event will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on July 30.

Admission: $5, adults; $2, seniors and children.

610-432-4200 americaonwheels.org.

Geoff Gehman writes about a classic-car museum in his memoir The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons (SUNY Press)

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interview A. D. AMOROSI

S Slave TO Love Bryan Ferry sings for only the lonely

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ince 1971, British crooner, composer and musician Bryan Ferry has been responsible and recognizable for a singular aesthetic where elegantly eerie avant-pop met smooth, romantic sophistication with dollops of danceable soul. Whether it’s through his much-heralded, long-departed, still-cherished art rock ensemble, Roxy Music, or from a solo career that ran alongside Roxy’s recordings (and long after, though Roxy has toured as late as 2011), Ferry has maintained his position as the sinister Casanova of cool atmospheric breezes and crepuscular shadow play.

If modern pop ever had a lounge lizard as its face and voice, the rakishly handsome, baritone crooning Ferry is it. In 2014, he released a his last new studio album, Avonmore. This smooth marvel of hauntingly sly cover sounds (Sondheim, Robert Palmer) and hypnotic, sensual originals featured collaborations with Norwegian DJ Todd Terje, Johnny Marr of The Smiths, and producer/guitarist Nile Rodgers of Chic. (Chic, oddly enough, will play at Camden NJ’s BB&T Pavilion with Ferry acolytes Duran Duran the same night Ferry is in Philadelphia.)

In 2015, he expanded Avonmore with a re-release featuring additional tracks and remixes. In 2016, he released a special limited-edition 7” singles box set covering the period of 1973 to 1976, The Island Singles, stylishly contained in a black and silver hard case, and the recently released two-CD Bryan Ferry Live 2015 package—the fact of which shouldn’t stop you from witnessing his wonder on July 21 at the Kimmel Center. Special thanks go to Magnet Magazine boss Eric Miller for allowing me access to his files.

How do you think your American audience views you after all this time compared to the Brits?

Oh, God … a guy in a suit who sings. It’s always the style thing. But all my heroes were sharply dressed—the bebop guys. The concerts I saw as a lad were Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie; The Modern Jazz Quartet was always incredibly elegant.

You’ve put yourself in the hands of an exceedingly young-ish set of players on this tour as well as your last.

How did that happen?

My band and its membership is always evolving, sometimes more quickly than others. It’s refreshing having a band not so familiar with every nuance of what you do.

Let’s go back to the record before Avonmore—The Jazz Age, an instrumental. That was shocking for a voice as singularly distinctive as your own. What was your thinking going into to an album of your most beloved songs done without vocals?

I forever wanted to do an album like that, but simply couldn’t decide on how to do it. So much of the music that I listen to at home is instrumental music. The jazz thing just hit me, a free and easy, almost New Orleans sound—more Louis Armstrong, if you will—balanced against arrangements more sophisticated and Duke Ellington-like in tone.

Were those arrangements—Armstrong, Ellington, Chris Barber, Ken Collier. Charlie Parker, Miles Davis—a part of your childhood?

Oh, yes, very much so. When I was ten, there was an explosion of jazz in England. I got exposed to trad jazz, Dixieland, modern jazz, skiffle bands, which were then followed up by rock n’ roll. That was a very formidable period. I saw Bill Haley and the Comets when they first played Europe—a big deal. That was the first blast of true youth culture in the UK. It was all extraordinarily exciting.

Were you tempted to go the big band route again on Avonmore?

Not really. I write on piano, and tend to work with different players at different times rather than an every-onein-one-room process of The Jazz Age. What I do then is more of a collage, you see. I think that, in and of itself, is a big inspiration on what I do. A lot of unusual things come from those connections, strange combinations of sounds.

I think having a galaxy of different players—Ronnie Spector to Johnny Marr—makes it so.

As a songwriter and producer who has worked with

several of Avonmore’s players before, do you hear guys such as Johnny Marr, Nile Rodgers and Marcus Miller in your head when penning new songs like “Soldier Of Fortune” or “Loop De Li”?

That’s a good question. Sometimes I must; or at least I could guess what they would do given the chance. I do know the way they play. Then again, they do so much better than I could ever imagine.

You’ve been producing your records and Roxy’s with Rhett Davies forever. Do you look for ways to challenge yourselves?

To a degree yes, but there’s also always going to be a sense of continuity to everything that we do together.

That’s why The Jazz Age was so refreshing. it was my own personal holiday from myself.

You have impeccable taste in covers. I could guess about “Send in the Clowns,” but Robert Palmer’s “Johnny and Mary” is curious. He was very much a contemporary. Did you guys know each other?

The Sondheim is a very good song, first off. I like its Broadway musical feel, and I don’t get to that as much as I’d like. Despite doing Cole Porter, I thought I could do something different—witness the backward guitars. As for Palmer, I didn’t know him terribly well, but we did spend time together in Nassau in, like, 1989. I was doing Bête Noire and he was working with Bernard Edwards, who I heard nothing but raves about from his Chic partner, Nile.

They were together working on the Power Station album.

Robert had a very clear vision of purpose. As for this song, doing it originally as I did with Todd Terje gave it a very young, even more danceable feel than it had in its past. I think Robert would have loved to have seen that audiences embrace him in that way.

It’s funny you say that, because it’s similar to when Roxy wowed disco crowds with “Love is the Drug.” All of a sudden, this established art rock band had a disco hit.

What was that crossover like?

Any new audience is great. We did Coachella—now that was foreign ground, a real challenge, not as intimate as the Beacon or the Tower. I think we went over. Plus my band is young enough to feel truly at home in that environment.

I hear you’re not a computer guy. Are you cool with new studio technology?

I can’t bear it, but it can be very useful. I do, however, still use an old cassette player on my piano to tape what it is that I’m doing.

Your son Otis [a fox-hunting, live-off-the-land lobbyist] is a political activist. Your son Isaac [a model] is a bon vivant. Dare I ask which one takes after you?

I have other boys, too. Isaac works with me in the studio, despite keeping those late hours. Otis lives far away in the deep countryside. I’m proud of his convictions and the ways in which he lives most of his life. I applaud it; he’s very passionate about what he does.

Such a great countryman he is. People who live in the cities all the time don’t really ever get it. Though I must say he is great at converting people, explaining the lifestyle.

You once called yourself an “orchid born on a coal tip,” as your father was a coal miner, and before that a farmer in northern England. Do you think that your voice had to age to embrace an album’s worth of Dylan’s gritty material as you did with Dylanesque?

Maybe. Then again, it might just be that I’m more confident now than I was in 1973 when I did the first solo record. I suppose, though, with any job or profession, you get a bit better at it with age or get more experience. I think my life itself had to become more of a story to tell—even if you do wind up singing other people’s songs. You have to bring something of a life to those tracks. So you might be able to hit higher notes when you’re younger, but when you’re older, you can hit fewer and lower notes with more conviction.

What do you do to get your hands dirty?

[Long pause] That’s a good question. I do try to avoid that level of work whenever possible, though I’m not averse to doing the washing up when it’s required.

As far as getting the spade out and digging out the garden … well, I simply don’t have the time to do it. But I would be up for a bit of supervising.

The last time we spoke you were heading into a Roxy reunion, and mentioned the possibility of recording an album together only if the material was experimental in nature. That didn’t happen then, and we’re not getting any younger. Is there any opportunity for a Roxy reunion?

I can’t imagine a tour, as I have a band that can play anything. You never know though. I think the fact that we did so many great things together is remarkable, but it’s not natural for people to stick together, to work together, for so long. The camaraderie and shared history is something to consider; but, then again, I’ve made more albums with Nile and Marcus than I did with the guys from Roxy. Still, I never close any doors. ■

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bad movie REVIEW BY MARK KERESMAN

Jane Got a Gun THE WESTERN HAS LONG been a staple of movies and TV, literature and comic books. The tales of how Americans carved new lives for themselves in a time and place when there were fluid borders, no roads, no niceties, and often no law and order have been mined for drama (High Noon, The Searchers); comedy (Support Your Local Sheriff), the supernatural (the excellent made-for-cable Purgatory), and even musicals (Calamity Jane). On TV, two of the most long-lived drama series (with occasional comedic overtones) were Gunsmoke and Bonanza, while Maverick presented a somewhat wry, light-hearted view of the genre. But in recent years, not so much, and Jane Got a Gun is unlikely to catalyze any change on that score.

Jane Got a Gun stars and is co-produced by Natalie Portman, one of the most popular and versatile American actresses of the past decade. The story: Jane (with child) and Dan are happily married homesteaders out West. Dan decides he must go to fight in the War Between the States, leaving wife and child-to-be to fend for themselves. Dan doesn’t write home (he was in a prison camp, but still) and so Jane figures he must be dead. In a major miscalculation, Jane and young daughter decide to go elsewhere in a caravan led by John Bishop (an almost unrecognizable Ewan McGregor). Even though Bishop and his entourage fairly exude evil, Jane goes. Bishop—both an outlaw and entrepreneur (insert your own joke here)—and his posse rape Jane and force her to work as a prostitute, her daughter presumed dead. One of Bishop’s guys, Ham (Noah Emmerich), is sweet on Jane and rebels, killing some of Bishop’s henchmen and rescuing her from Bishop’s brothel. Jane and Ham get together and have a child. Eventually, Bishop catches up with Ham and puts some bullets in him—he makes it home where Jane nurses him and gets ready for Bishop’s attack. Who does she go to for help? Why, 22 n I C O N n j u l y 2 0 1 6 n W W W . I C O N D V . C O M n W W W . f a C e b O O k . C O M / I C O N D V

good old (but now embittered) Dan, who just happens to live a short distance away.

Convenient, huh? Initially, Dan balks but as decent guys do in the movies, he softens and joins Jane in her upcoming battle with Bishop.

Aside from the plot contrivances, Jane is s-l-o-w-l-y paced. Slowly as in icicles forming in the winter and a line in the post office two days before Christmas. There are lots of panoramic views of the Western plains and mountains and facial close-ups, and long pauses in between lines of dialogue. While the scenery is pretty and even majestic, it’s shown so much it gets to be numbing. I’d rather see something resembling character development and shades of gray therein. McGregor’s Bishop is out of the Snidely Whiplash/Dick Dastardly school of villainy—this writer half expected him to start twiddling his mustache. Dan is bitter, Ham is stoic, and that’s about all.

Despite the title, Jane is more of a plucky victim that doesn’t really shoot a lot until (slight spoiler) near the end—Dan does most of the shooting, in fact. (“Jane’s Got a Gun But Dan Shoots” is a bit unwieldy for a title, but what are ya gonna do?). There are many flashbacks, so many in fact it’s a little difficult to follow what’s going on. There is the climactic shoot-out, of course, but as too many directors and/or editors do these days, the action scenes are cut/photographed so fast and abruptly that it’s hard to see exactly what is happening.

Jane Got a Gun is something of a neither-fish-nor-fowl beast; the poster and trailer make it seem that Portman’s character is a proto-feminist action heroine kicking Western ass but this is not the case. It’s unlikely to appeal to younger audiences unfamiliar with the Western genre, and for fans of the Western, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done much better literally hundreds of times before. n

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FILM

The Neon Demon

CURRENT FILMS REVIEWED BY KEITH UHLICH

The BFG (Dir. Steven Spielberg). Starring: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Jemaine Clement. Steven Spielberg reunites with his E.T. screenwriter (the late Melissa Mathison) and his Bridge of Spies costar Mark Rylance for this magical, moving adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic 1982 children’s story. Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) is a British orphan whisked away one evening by Rylance’s BFG (“Big Friendly Giant”) on a wondrous and frightening adventure.

There are, of course, plenty of meticulously constructed setpieces, most of them involving the BFG’s child-eating fellow giants (their leader, Fleshlumpeater, is played with a mix of malevolence and nitwittedness by Jemaine Clement). But Sophie and the BFG’s friendship is the heart of the film; it’s nice to see Spielberg balance his showman’s instincts with the deep-rooted emotions of the piece. Barnhill is adorable as they come. Rylance, however, is the standout, lending real humanity to his motion-captured role and speaking Dahl’s oftnonsensical giant dialect with an effortlessly Shakespearian grandeur. [PG] HHHH1/2

The Neon Demon (Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn). Starring: Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Keanu Reeves. The vapidity of the Los Angeles modeling scene is a perfect complement to Nicolas Winding Refn’s vapid aesthetic. Whether the provocateur Danish writer-director is saying anything of value with this gruesome, mesmeric tale of a beautiful small-town girl (Elle Fanning) literally devoured by the fashion industry is beside the point. Better to approach this as a Vogue issue, guest-edited by the Lord of Darkness, complete with a cannibalistic, corpse-fucking makeup artist (the incredible Jena Malone) and a motel owner (Keanu Reeves) who pimps out underage girls in-between spouting self-consciously sleazy lines like “some real Lolita shit.” There’s also some stunningly saturated cinematography (heavy on the sickly pinks) by Natasha Braier and an electronic score by Cliff Martinez that acts as this infernally enjoyable movie’s demonic pulse. [R] HHHH1/2

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Our Kind of Traitor (Dir. Susanna White).

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Naomie Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, Damian Lewis. Sad to report that the latest espionage thriller adapted from a John le Carré novel is a far cry from 2011’s great Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Ewan McGregor and Naomie Harris play a couple on the outs whose marriage is revitalized when they cross paths in Marrakech with a Russian money launderer (Stellan Skarsgård) who wants to defect to the West. Soon enough they’re conscripted by the UK secret service to help make that defection happen. Both the principal actors seem at sea, restricted by their pro forma character arcs, while Skarsgård stomps through scenes with enjoyable bluster.

Damian Lewis fares best as McGregor and Harris’s handler, a quintessential le Carré bureaucrat in the perpetually irritable George Smiley vein. Speaking of irritations: For some reason, cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle shoots the film with an offputtingly smeary color palette that manages to further flatten the already paperthin proceedings. [R] HH

Our Little Sister (Dir. Hirokazu Koreeda).

Starring: Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho, Suzu Hirose. Japan’s Hirokazu Koreeda excels at domestic melodramas, and his adaptation of Yoshida Akimi’s popular graphic novel Umimachi Diary is no exception. Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa and the mono-monikered Kaho play three sisters living in the seaside town of Kamakura. After their estranged father dies, they meet their teenage half-sibling (Suzu Hirose), whom they invite to live with them. From the first frame the actresses believably suggest a family unit—no easy feat and a testament to Koreeda’s subtle directorial talents. The film itself proceeds with a languorous ease and a minimum of dramatic incident that is always pleasing and gently compelling. (Though as usual in a Koreeda production, the twinkly score tips things toward the sentimental a bit too often.) But Our Little Sister earns all the feelings it occasionally strains for. By the end, Koreeda—as is his wont—manages to unearth the earth-shaking significance of seemingly uneventful lives. [PG] HHHH n

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ICEPACK A.D. AMOROSI ON THE NEWS, NIGHTLIFE AND BITCHINESS BEATS

Urban Outfitters Headquarters, Vetri Community Partnership, and the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation together raised over $800,000 for its annual Great Chefs Event, surpassing each and every one of its previous year’s foodie events. Though it was great seeing Robert Irvine and Alex Guarnaschelli, nearly all of the 1,200 attending diners and dashers went absolutely gaga just to have Bobby Flay—in person!—hand them burgers from his several Flay Burgers locations throughout the Delaware Valley. I have been to every Great Chefs Event and never Bobby Flay.

Michael Symon witnessed such superstar line adulation in the past. Actually, he does look much more handsome in person than he does on television, so there’s that. Still, the most popular dishes of the night included Katsuya Fukushima’s cotton candy eel maki roll and Michael Symon’s smoked lamb ribs.

When the Jay Z, Budweiser, Live Nation Made in America music festival was announced at June’s end with Rihanna as part of the two-day whirlwind, a collective sigh of relief had to go up throughout its executive class. The Eminem and Rihanna Monster Summer Tour of 2014 has been a target in the sights of all running the Made in America show, and now someone higher up has made the right offer for Ri Ri in order for her to join up with the fest’s fifth iteration, Saturday, September 4 and Sunday, September 5. Also set for that weekend is Coldplay, Lil Wayne, Chance the Rapper, A$AP Ferg, 2 Chainz and more.

The Graduate Hospital area is going bagel bonkers this summer. While Aaron Wagner of Chestnut Street Philly Bagels (1705 Chestnut), South Street Bagels (613 S. Third St.), and The Bagel Spot (Cherry Hill, NJ) just signed a lease for the former Beauty Shop Cafe at 2001 Fitzwater Street, look for several expatriates of World Café Live Philadelphia’s kitchens to open (supposedly) a hand-forged, hot bagel sandwich spot at the long-closed Ron’s Ribs at 16th and South.

East Oak Lane native, Hamilton Tony award-winner Leslie Odom Jr. just scored his first iTunes #1 album for his eponymous debut jazz album on SCurve Records and made his Philly holiday debut as part of WaWa’s July 4 Welcome America spectacular.

In my quickie interview with Odom several weeks before he’s set to leave Hamilton in mid-July, he said, “Successes like these don’t come along every Leslie Odom Jr. day and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all of it.” Thinking of a song from his album, “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” he said, “My life is different than what it was a year ago. You never know when the good is going to happen so you have to savor it.” n W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V n W W W . I C O N D V . C O M n J U L Y 2 0 1 6 n I C O N n 25

FILM REEL NEWS DVDS REVIEWED BY GEORGE OXFORD MILLER

King Georges (2016) HHHH Cast: Georges Perrier, Nicholas Elmi Genre: Documentary; Unrated Written and directed by Erika Frankel.

In 1970, chef Georges Perrier opened Le Bec-Fin and changed the fine dining scene in Philadelphia forever. With oldworld elegance, aristocratic service, and an ultra-pricey menu, the classic French restaurant became the benchmark for gourmet excellence. Uncompromising perfection came at a price though with the raging chef running his kitchen like a fiefdom. Jump forty years to the present where elaborate chandeliers, muted surroundings, and stuffy waiters aren’t, well, fun anymore. When the aging king of the kitchen sees the clock of obsolescence about to strike midnight, documentary filmmaker Erika Frankel seizes the era-ending moment. She films the last four years of the grand eatery’s run on Walnut. Think all the crazy reality chef shows, cook-offs, and challengers and you get the behindthe-scenes picture of the frenetic kitchen, harried cooks, and egocentric hands-on chef that produced plated perfection for decades. Chef Perrier served Philly more

than exquisite meals, he gave the city his demanding standard of excellence, his overpowering personality, and a dining experience patrons remember for a lifetime.

rugged, minimalist landscape of Iceland perfectly reflects both the bleak inner spirit of the recalcitrant brothers and the immense tragedy facing them.

Rams (2016) HHHH Cast: Sigurður Sigurjónsson Genre: Drama; Rated R Running time 93 minutes.

Awards: Cannes, Un Certain Regard prize.

In Icelandic, with English subtitles.

In this retelling of bad blood between brothers, two feuding Icelandic siblings, Gummi and Kiddi, live alone on neighboring sheep farms, yet in forty years, their only communication has been by notes sent by a collie. Like Iceland’s volcanoes and geysers, a fiery turmoil of animosity and rivalry rages in their souls. Both live alone and spend their lives totally devoted to their sheep. Then scrapie, an incurable infectious disease, sweeps through the valley like a Biblical plague and the government mandates that every single sheep must be killed. Seeing the meaning and reason for their existence ripped away devastates them, and creates consequences neither could ever have imagined. The

Joy (2015) HHH Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro Genre: Drama; Rated PG-13 Like an underdog sports movie, or superhero epic, this feel-good story has a predictable ending, neatly meets all our expectations, and brings a smile, a hurray, and good-on-ya, girl. From childhood, Joy (Lawrence) has big dreams, big ideas, and a family determined to drown her in a sea of servitude to their selfish needs. With that established, the story rolls ahead with Joy finally standing up for herself and fighting one obstacle after another until her newest idea goes viral on a home-shopping network. No surprises or plot twists, just inspiring acting, a story flow that rivets your interest, and a determined working woman who combines the powers of Super Girl, Hulk, and Iron Man.

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Eye in the Sky (2016) HHHH Cast: Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul

Genre: Drama; Rated R Death by committee takes on a literal meaning in the era of drone warfare. Col. Katherine Powell (Mirren), commander of a military task force in England, tracks a targeted terrorist to a house in Nairobi. A U.S. drone pilot (Paul) maneuvers the remote killer from thousands of miles away in Nevada. But before attacking, the colonel must get permission from political higher-ups in both governments. Tension escalates minute by minute as the tactical situation changes. Civilians move through the kill zone and surveillance reveals the terrorists are donning suicide vests to detonate in crowded markets. Should the military launch a Hellfire missile and kill a few civilians or let the terrorists kill dozens in the city markets? When the battlefield is a neighborhood, no win-win solution is possible. Mirren perfectly portrays the commander who internalizes agonizing decisions at great price, while Paul visibly wrestles with the moral ambiguity of his actions. The heart of the film is not just the ethical dilemmas of killing civilians, but also the soul-devestating effects of playing god with people’s lives a continent away. n

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MUSIC JAZZ LIBRARY

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BY BOB PERKINS

SONNY

STITT

SOME FOLKS CHOOSE THEIR parents well—and if they are products of outstanding parents, the offspring may follow in their footsteps and duplicate their success.

A fellow named Edward “Sonny” Stitt, was blessed with relatives steeped in music; he followed their lead and became a legendary jazz musician. Stitt’s father was a singer, composer and college professor, and his mother and brother were pianists. He was seemingly set up to be a musician.

But Stitt must have inherited his talent from his family members through osmosis, and did so early-on. For whatever reason, he was given up for adoption soon after being born to the Boatner family in Boston, and adopted and raised by the Stitt family in Saginaw, Michigan. The Boatner talent, however, was in the genes, as Stitt began piano lessons at age seven. He later took to the clarinet, and finally made the alto saxophone his favorite.

He needed little encouragement to practice and become the caliber of musician he became. He was known among his peers for a strong work ethic, a man who worked tirelessly at his craft and was a strong jazz advocate. Over his career, he recorded scores of albums under his own name, to say nothing of those in which he served as sideman.

Stitt adopted the name “Sonny,” and while in school turned professional and played in a local swing band. A few years later at age 19, he landed a job with Tiny Bradshaw’s band. During the band’s engagement in Kansas City, Stitt met his saxophone idol, Charlie Parker, who invited him to sit in on a jam session to which Parker was headed. After hearing Stitt play for a while, Parker turned to him and said, “You sound like me.”

As Parker became world famous, almost every jazz alto saxophonist was branded by critics and writers with the Parker sound-alike stamp. Stitt suffered under the association for some years, but still managing to carve out a magnificent career playing both alto and tenor saxophone. His frequent use of the larger horn did much to make the critics finally observe that he was master of both horns, was mostly Sonny Stitt and very little Charlie Parker. But Stitt revered Parker, and had been quoted more than once saying, “There was never anyone like Charlie Parker, and would never be another like him.” Much like Parker, Stitt could run in a flurry of notes, stop on a dime if he chose,

Sonny Stitt performing in New York, 1953. Photo by Herman Leonard

and then massage the heart with a tender ballad. His uptempo work was not just fast, it was meaningful, and his ballads beautiful.

Over the years, Stitt made music with a great number of jazz greats, and when he became a jazz titan, some of the jazz greats with whom he’d performed, must have been heard to say, they had shared the stage with Sonny Stitt.

During the last several decades of his career, Stitt traveled pretty much without a rhythm section, preferring to pick up sidemen in the various cities he played. Jazz critic Dan Morganstern dubbed him the “Lone Wolf,” because he toured alone, and for his dedication to jazz.

Many Philadelphians who were around in the middle

of the last century and into jazz, surely must recall Stitt and Gene Ammons bringing “Battles of the Saxes” to the old Showboat at Broad and Lombard Streets. These were knock down, drag out sessions with both men pulling out all the stops, in friendly and entertaining sax duels as cheering patrons egged them on.

Both Stitt and Ammons suffered addiction to heroin.

Stitt also began to drink heavily, but he successfully kicked both habits after suffering seizures. He remained clean after “coming back from the dead,” as he once put it.

Edward “Sonny” Stitt was born February 2, 1924 in Boston Massachusetts, and passed away July 22, 1982 at age 57 in Washington, D.C. He was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame in 1989. n

Bob Perkins is a writer and host of an all-jazz radio program that airs on WRTI-FM 90.1 Mon-Thurs 6–9; Sun 9–1.

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Music KERESMAN ON DISC REVIEWED BY MARK KERESMAN

Paul Butterfield Blues Band HHHHH Got A Mind to Give Up Living: Live 1968 Real Gone Music [Pick favorite celebratory holiday] has come early this year—the Real Gone label has unearthed a live recording by one of America’s seminal bands in any genre, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. While PBBB was overshadowed a bit by their blues-inspired Brit brethren The Rolling Stones and Cream, this combo was one of the USA’s finest entries in the blues-rock boom of the 1960s. PBBB’s sophomore platter East-West is a bona fide classic (the title track bears the seeds that would flourish with bands as far-flung as The Allman Bros. and Television) and a slightly modified version of this combo backed Bob Dylan on his earliest electric flights. Why all the hubbub? This edition of the Band included guitar ace Mike Bloomfield, America’s answer to Eric Clapton (even EC gave Bloomfield props); this band was a product of a very special time in musical history wherein strands from blues, rock, jazz, R&B, and more were woven into exciting tapestries (and it was POPULAR), the fierce, hungry, wiry energy these lads brought to the table, and Butterfield’s harmonica wailing was unto a cross between a saxophone section and a street-shredding power tool.

While PB wasn’t the greatest singer in history, his vocals convey plenty of dark-night urban soul. Fans of great live jams (be it of the Allmans, Dead, Phish, what-ever), pay attention to “Work Song.” The recording quality is a little raw but mostly excellent. I try not to overuse this term, but it fits: Essential. (13 tracks, 63 min.)

Dave King Trucking Company HHHH1/2 Surrounded By the Night Sunnyside Some listeners are put off by some jazz, maintaining there’s not enough melody to latch onto. Ah, then those some-listeners need to hear the latest set

by Bad Plus drummer Dave King. Many of these original tunes are based upon or inspired by catchy-type rock or folk-rock songs—no particular songs, mind you, but they have that same captivating quality one might hear on albums by Dylan, NRBQ,

and pre-Aja Steely Dan. There’s also the influence of jazz tunesmith Thelonious Monk, who long ago put the “Q” in quirky.

There’s plenty of haunting minor-key melodies as well as Monk-like angularity.

Guitarist Erik Fratzke buzzes, sizzles, kerRANGs, and strums his way into your heart

whilst King’s drum kit thunders merrily.

“Glamour Shot” bops along like a mutant crossbreed of Burt Bacharach, Neil Diamond, and Duke Ellington, the twin reeds of Chris Speed and Brandon Wozniak rollicking along warm and woody with sly shades of the blues. Surrounded… is urbane as Fagen/Becker (or Gore Vidal for older readers) and fetching as the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty with some occasional almost punk-like thorniness. The only thing amiss with this platter is it’s too short. (7 tracks, 43 min.) sunnysiderecords.com Stick Men HHHHH Midori: Live in Tokyo MoonJune King Crimson is one of the most durable and influential bands of that zone hep cats refer to as prog (short for “progressive rock”). Stick Men are a spin-off of Crimson as it includes two current mem-

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bers, Tony Levin (Chapman stick) and Pat Mastelotto (drums, electronic drums) and former member (from the early 1970s) Davis Cross (violin, keys), plus guitarist Markus Reuter. The acorn didn’t fall far from the tree, as they cover some vintage KC (“Breathless,” “Starless”) and stylistically there are similarities—steely, shimmering guitar; thundering drums, a cheerfully uneasy commingling of late 19th/early 20th century classical elegance and metallic snarl, jazz influences, and a penchant for collective improvisation. But think you not this is Crimson Lite—Stick Men are less thunderous and more improv-oriented than KC and predominantly instrumental.

There are some nifty modal playing (think Turkish/North African-like) from Cross and while Reuter has clearly taken some guitaristic tips from KC leader Robert Fripp, their styles are not that similar. Midori (recorded live in ’15) is a fascinating and captivating balance of ethereal soundscapes and potent percussive grooves. Recommended to fans of Crimson and the spacy-er, more experimental wing of the prog zone and those that like dreamy music with some sincere oomph therein.

(19 tracks, 138 min.) moonjune.com R. Nathaniel Dett HHHH The Ordering of Moses Bridge While born in Canada, R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) spent most of his life in the USA and was the first African American

to complete the five-year course of study at the prestigious Oberlin College. In 1937, Dett composed the oratorio (large-scale composition for orchestra, choir, and vocal soloists) The Ordering of Moses, in which he used African American folk and gospel as the foundation for his composition in the style of 19th century Romantic-era composers such as Franck, Tchaikovsky, and Dvorak. Not often performed, it is a dense, dramatically stirring, grand-sounding (without seeming pompous) and soulful work, even when (I must confess my cultural bias) soloists sing in an operatic style. Call it a hybrid or the love-child of cross-culturalism, but Ordering… as performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is an example of an early 20th century composer getting on the historical scoreboard of uniquely American classical composition. (15 tracks, 49 min.) bridgerecords.com Beth Orton HHH1/2 Kidsticks AntiBeth Orton is a British singer/songwriter whose style might be best described as folktronica—she combines a folk-like acoustic approach (Victoria Williams, Joni Mitchell, pre-James Taylor Carly Simon) with the sleek pulsations of modern electronica (the rhythmic yet song-oriented variety—think William Orbit, with whom she has worked; also Lamb, Portishead). Like Joni M, Orton has slight jazz influences in her vocal phrasing. Kidsticks leans more to the electropop side of the equation and it might seem overly reminiscent of the synth-pop of the ‘80s (most of which hasn’t aged that well but I digress)—until one listens closely for detail. The lovely, shimmering melancholy of “Falling” is a low-key rainyday gem, and “Wave” juxtaposes undulating rhythm with a vocal line that seems both pretty and yet slightly against the grain, soothing and unsettling simultaneously. While this writer misses her acoustic side, Orton’s airy, winsome voice and evocative song-craft commands attention, enough to edge this into the “win” column. (10 tracks, 38 min.) anti.com n

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Music SINGER/SONGWRITER REVIEWED BY TOM WILK

Bonnie Bishop HHH1/2 Ain’t Who I Was Thirty Tigers Sometimes a musician has to take a step back in order to progress artistically.

That was the case for Bonnie Bishop who

took a sabbatical from the music business to focus on writing and storytelling after more than a decade on the road. With the help of Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb, Bishop has emerged from her hiatus with Ain’t Who I Was, a strong album of catharsis that showcases her powerful vocals. “Have a little mercy on me, baby,” she sings on the funky “Mercy.” It’s a request that’s part plea and part prayer.

The emotionally direct and intimate “Be With You” recalls the confessional songs of Bonnie Raitt, who has recorded two of Bishop’s tunes. The gospel-styled keyboards of “Poor Man’s Melody” help turn the song into a personal testimony as she declares: “I’ve got nowhere left to hide/The world has stripped me of my pride.” The title track is a declaration of moving on that recalls the late ‘60s work of Dusty Springfield as Bishop relates a tale of rebirth and renewal. Cobb’s disciplined approach keeps the focus on Bishop’s vocals and allows her to enjoy a musical triumph. (10 songs, 41 minutes) Paul Simon HHHH Stranger to Stranger (Deluxe Edition) Concord Records Paul Simon remains a tireless explorer of sounds, ranging from his first loves of doo-wop and ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll to the music of South Africa (Graceland) and Brazil (The Rhythm of the Saints). Stranger to

Stranger (Deluxe Edition) continues in that vein with forays into flamenco, electronic music and rap-like rhythms that show his adventurous spirit continues unabated at age 74.

“The Werewolf ” blends electronic drums, horns and instrumentation from India for an infectious social commentary on the haves and have nots with the title character serving as a symbol for the day of judgment. “Wristband,” featuring the nimble bass work of Carlos Henriquez, shows Simon’s ability to turn what seems to be a lighthearted song into sharply drawn observation on privilege and class division. The heartfelt title track finds

Simon affirming his faith in romance. “Still believing that love endures/All the carnage and the useless detours,” he observes. The theme of mortality runs through “The Riverbank” and “Insomniac’s Lullaby.” The former was inspired by Simon’s visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and the 2012 school massacre in Newtown, Conn. The latter, a song of nocturnal restlessness, ends with the double-edged line “We’ll eventually all fall asleep.”

Simon employs a lyrical and musical continuity to the album. The character of the Street Angel appears in the song of the same name as a visionary and as a schizophrenic on “In a Parade.” The bonus tracks include a stark, acoustic rendition of “Horace and Pete,” the theme song for the Louis C.K. series, plus live versions of “Duncan” and “Wristband” from A Prairie Home Companion that show his strengths as a performer. (16 songs, 53 minutes) The Mike Eldred Trio HHH1/2 Baptist Town

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Great Western Recording Co. Baptist Town, a small neighborhood outside Greenwood, Miss., where bluesman Robert Johnson was murdered in 1938, serves as a catalyst for the album of the same name by The Mike Eldred Trio.

Guitarist/singer-songwriter Eldred, bassist John Bazz and drummer Jerry Angel traveled to the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis to create a blues-based album with a modern sound that acknowledges the genre’s Southern roots.

“Hundred Dollar Bill” starts off the CD with a deep rhythm-and-blues groove anchored by Bazz’s muscular bass lines.

“Somebody Been Runnin’” serves as a tribute to Johnson with an appealing blend of voices and handclaps rooted in the tradition of Southern gospel music.

Eldred and band expand the sound with the help of guest artists. David Hidalgo of Los Lobos contributes accordion and backing vocals to add a Tex-Mex feel to “Bess,” a song inspired by Bessie Smith.

John Mayer’s lap steel and electric guitar provide a contrast to the haunting “Roadside Shrine.” Robert Cray adds crisp lead guitar to the title track, an ominous commentary on the South and race relations.

The most surprising selection is a bluesy overhaul of “Can’t Buy Me Love” that reinvents the Beatles classic and stretches it past the six-minute mark. It’s an interpretation that will leave no listener feeling neutral. “You’re Always There,” with its choir and organ, ends the album on an optimistic note and a feeling of spiritual uplift. (13 songs, 58 minutes) The Mike Eldred Trio and George Thorogood and the Destroyers will perform on Aug. 2 at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, Pa. Bianca De Leon HHH Love, Guns & Money Self-released A native of Texas, Bianca De Leon draws on the rich musical heritage of the state with Love, Guns & Money, her fourth solo album. Her decision to record live in the studio with minimal overdubs gives the album a spontaneous feeling.

“I Sang Patsy Cline” is a successful hy-

brid of country and Spanish-flavored music on a song inspired by her time in Panama when Manuel Noriega was deposed. De Leon makes references to the country legend’s songs (“Walkin’ After Midnight” and “I Fall to Pieces”) among the lyrics. De Leon mixes Mexican and flamenco music on “Buscando Por Ti” (Searching for You), which she sings tenderly in Spanish. On the up-tempo “Guns and Money,” she delivers a morality tale of a modern-day gunman whose religious symbols cannot save him. “Stale Wine and Roses,” a waltzing lament for failed love, and “Silence Speaks Louder Than Words” show her ability to describe the pain of a failed romance that would be right at home on a jukebox in a Texas honky tonk. (11 songs, 48 minutes) Spain HHH Carolina Diamond Soul Recordings Music is the family business for Josh Haden, the son of renowned jazz bass bassist Charlie Haden. The elder Haden got his start as a child singing country and folk songs on his family’s radio show. His son explores those genres on Carolina with a spare, restrained sound.

“Tennessee” opens the album with a tale of a 19th-century homesteader that follows his family’s ups and downs over succeeding generations and recalls the late ‘60s albums of The Band in its scope and ambition. The acoustic, intimate “Apologies” has an old-time feel as Haden and his sister, Petra, harmonize over a fragile melody. Kenny Lyon’s electric guitar provides a jolt of musical energy on “Lorelei,” a song of emotional confrontation that would be at home on a Neil Young and Crazy Horse album. “One Last Look,” a bittersweet song of parting inspired by a 1968 mining accident, spotlights the mournful violin of Petra Haden.

Lyon’s guitar provides a bluesy, expressive edge on “For You.” With “Station 2,” the album concludes with a tale of childhood that recalls transitory friendships and a yearning for lost love and shows Haden’s ability to craft a memorable story. (10 songs, 40 minutes) n

POP Music A. D. AMOROSI

Where My Ladies At? DURING JUNE’S EVER-INCREASING HUMIDITY, two smart women of different ages, ways and means along the pop continuum showed Philly live audiences just how feminine wiles should be displayed, how sexuality is perceived and pursued and how true power is put forth and maintained throughout the life span of a career.

Beyonce and Dolly Parton may not seem to come from the same culture —the former a Houston, TX wannabe wonder-kid-turned-R&B superstar, the latter a Tennessee ridge country child who made her way through Nashville’s hierarchies to become a brand name. However, all that they stand for in the pop biz is based on the power that each has accrued. Neither had to shake their ass in any way if they didn’t want to, and neither played ring-around-the-casting couch.

When Beyonce wants to release a new album, as she did with Lemonade, she calls HBO and immediately works it out for a prime time showcase. When Parton wants to sell a song, as its publisher she positons it for top dollar. It’s become a legend that Dolly Parton once refused Elvis Presley the rights to record one of her most famous songs, “I Will Always Love You,” because Presley and Col. Tom Parker required writers to sign over half of the publishing rights for any song Elvis recorded. Except Parton’s.

Beyonce parted the skies on Sunday, June 5, and rid Philadelphia of its raging thunderstorms. The sultry singer and dancing whirlwind didn’t just amaze Lincoln Financial Field’s capacity crowd with angry, emotive songs from her controversially combative new album, Lemonade. Beyonce’s Philly Formation Tour stop (again at the Linc, September 29) was awash in mind-boggling production frippery—all based around a 70foot-tall, high-definition video tower and a much-utilized catwalk extending from the stage to well past mid-field. While the tower displayed a blend of digital close-ups and ghostly replicas of the star, that same mega-monitor opened to reveal dangling aerialists on winches whirling nimbly in space. Beyonce’s catwalk display ran like a fashion show nearly to the end, while the company splash-splashed its way through a wading pool during her “Freedom”-”Survivor” medley. Gorgeous. For all the pyro-tech, a self-determined Beyonce said it best when she stated, “This is a song about the most important relationship in your life… and that’s your relationship with yourself,” before heading into songs such as the fierce “Formation” and “Me, Myself & I” and a tale of self-reliance stronger than any romance. “Ain’t no need to cry,” she sang. “I’m going to be my own best friend.”

Parton, at the Mann Center on June 15, may have sung songs such as the naughty “Outside Your Door” where all she wants to do is wait for you to ball her, or the singularly romantic “I Will Always Love You.” As the high singing country twang-bar queen sang the ballad “Jolene,” she made happy hay playing fiddle, banjo, saxophone, dulcimer, piano, and electric guitar (the latter, on a crisply rocking “Baby, I’m Burning”). Plus, Parton’s the woman who first announced that she was the one doing all the work on “9 To 5,” the ultimate pro-lady-labor track. Bruce Springsteen was never so working class. n W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V n W W W . I C O N D V . C O M n J U L Y 2 0 1 6 n I C O N n 31

GUEST CHEF MISTER LEE’S NOODLES Easton Public Market 325 Northampton St., Easton, PA 610-829-2799 misterleesnoodles.com Chef Lee Chizmar and Erin Shea, the duo who brought true “farm-to-table” cuisine to the Lehigh Valley with their award-winning restaurant, Bolete, have opened Mister Lee’s Noodles in the Easton Public Market. The Asian-inspired noodle bar is the first of its kind in the area.

MARINATED TOFU from the Wakame Salad at Mister Lee’s 1 pack extra firm tofu (Place tofu in colander. Weight the tofu down overnight to remove excess liquid, then dice in small cubes) MARINADE 1 cup mushroom stock 1 cup rice wine vinegar 1 cup soy sauce 1 tsp sesame oil Marinate the tofu overnight in the liquid and then strain. (This can be used as we do in a seaweed style but is also delicious on any cold, Asian inspired salad.)

Chizmar, a 2015 James Beard-nominee developed the menu which features farmfresh ramen dishes with local produce and meats sourced seasonally. As with Chizmar and Shea’s menu at Bolete, diners can expect some whimsical twists.

Cold Ramen options on the menu include Wakeme (ramen, soy-marinated tofu, shiitake mushroom, sesame soy vinaigrette); Korean Beef BBQ (kimchee, chilled noodles, cucumber, chilies, hard boiled egg); and Mister Lee’s Hot and Spicy Ramen (ground pork, bok choy, scallions, soy, miso, sriracha, garlic oil).

Hot Ramen options on the menu are Mister Lee’s Dirty Noodles—housemade noodles, mushroom dashi broth, chashu (marinated pork), poached egg, soy mushrooms, and local greens; Veggie Ramen—carrot miso broth, fried tofu, shiitake, fried leeks, pickled vegetables, tamago (rolled omelette), black garlic, and sesame; Dutch Ramen— beef-mustard dashi, pastrami, sauerkraut, braised kale, caramelized onions, hard-boiled egg and pickled shallots; and Sticky Ramen—beet dashi, sticky bbq pork belly, braised collard greens, hush puppy, and smoked salt. n

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ASPARAGUS DASHI BROTH 3 sets of fresh fish bones (can be purchased frozen or from your local fish monger if you ask in advance for them to save) 2 onions, julienned 1 fennel bulb, julienned 1 leek, julienned 3 stalks of celery 2 heads of garlic cut in half 1 tsp mustard seed 1 tsp dill seed 1 tsp coriander 1 bay leaf 2 sprigs of thyme 2 cups asparagus ends 1 cup white button mushrooms Put all ingredients in a large stock pot and fill with water until the ingredients are just covered. Simmer on medium 15 minutes.

Remove from the heat and cool quickly by placing in an ice bath.

Add 3 tblsp white soy 2 tsp lemon juice 1/8 inch piece of kombu 1 cup of packed bonito flakes Let this sit off the heat for 30 minutes and then strain.

You have dashi!

S WA N

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

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foodie feature

BY A. D. AMOROSI

Alma de Cuba Grows Up

Chef Douglas Rodriguez

Empanada de Verde with spinach, manchego, artichoke escabeche. Alma de Cuba, Phila PA. Photo ©Reese Amorosi 2016

Peekytoe Crab Salad with bacalaitos, horseradish, lemon. Alma de Cuba, Phila PA. Photo ©Reese Amorosi 2016

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I MET WITH STEPHEN STARR in last month to talk about his new Manhattan restaurant, Le Coucou in SoHo, and his ten years in New York City. Another of his restaurants, Alma de Cuba, turned 15 in June; its birthday was celebrated with a Quinceanera and a new summer menu based on its Chef Douglas Rodriguez’s recent trips to Cuba.

“Alma de Cuba? I’m so proud of Douglas Rodriguez, a New Yorker himself,” says Starr about The Godfather of Nuevo Latino Cuisine who opened Yuca in Coral Gables and Patria in New York City. “Those restaurants, like Patria, are the places that inspired me as a young guy before I was in that business. I thought Patria was the best place ever. Being in a place and a business like this is like when I met Soupy Sales and ran a comedy club after having watched him on television in my youth—it was like being a little kid all over again.”

Going to Alma de Cuba with its familiar favorites—the Royal Palm almond-stuffed Dates wrapped in bacon withbleu cheese, the crispy Lechon Asado roasted pork, congri rice and sour orange mojo, and the zesty smoked marlin tacos with Malanga—reminded Starr of his start in the restaurant business; how chefs he had long loved and now collaborate with were recreating themselves. Much like he did when he went from being a live rock and comedy entrepre“We went to a city named Baracoa on the neur to owning restaurants.

East Coast of Cuba and found our inspiration,” At its start, Alma de Cuba says Rodriquez. “There was no rhyme or reason was but one of several new or focus to our trip—we just liked what we ate, Cuban joints. “There was Cuba Libre as well, so that and made what we liked.” when any magazine wrote about the new Cuban cuisine in Philly at that time all of our names came up,” says Rodriguez with a laugh. “Either way, 15 years is quite an accomplishment. We evolve, keep things fresh and young.” The half-dozen or so new anniversary additions to the Alma menu are important to Rodriguez and his Executive Chef Yun Fuentes, because they demonstrate the hallmarks of Alma: tradition and innovation. Based upon nine culinary trips to Cuba, their most recent run yielded new menu items such as Peekytoe Crab Salad (with bacalaítos hung over the salad in tribute to how the cod fritters are fried in oil, dripdried then cooled over a calderone or skillet to allow excess oil to run off), Pincho Skewers of kobe beef (with rootsy black trumpet mushroom escabeche and plantain sancocho), Mar y Montaña Skewers (with bay scallops, pork belly and pineapple) and Empanada de Verde (spinach, manchego and artichoke escabeche).

The half-dozen or so new anniversary additions to the Alma menu are important to Rodriguez and Executive Chef Yun Fuentes, because they’re traditional, yet innovative, hallmarks of the restaurant. Nine culinary trips to Cuba yielded new menu items such as Peekytoe Crab Salad, Pincho Skewers of kobe beef, Mar y Montaña Skewers and Empanada de Verde.

“We went to a city named Baracoa on the East Coast of Cuba and found our inspiration,” says Rodriquez. “There was no rhyme or reason or focus to our trip—we just liked what we ate, and made what we liked.” Looking at an item such as the large black squid ink empanada filled with lobster (or whatever fresh seafood of the day they can find) and aoli of roasted garlic and shallots, it is difficult to imagine that these items sometimes stem from necessity considering their opulence to American taste buds. In Cuba, they cook what they fish for.

Yun Fuentes talks about how often that inspiration, even traditional, doesn’t necessarily have to come from the motherland. “As modernists, we can do anything—pull from Japan, the Caribbean—for what we do. All of these items are from my heart and my soul,” he says. “We are still honoring flavors, heritages and traditions without putting them on a pedestal. We like to have fun with it.”

Before he takes his Alma de Cuba 15th anniversary photo with his crew old and new, Rodriguez adds, “My next job is to reach another milestone—another 15 years at least.” n

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HARPER’S findings

index

study of 4,494 Swedish twins found gay men to be better at theater. Young adults approve of mama’s boys, but think they should act less feminine. Male–male same-sex genital interactions are more common among primate species with large testes. Malaysian doctors described paraffinoma in a man who received a course of oil injections to the penis; a fourteen-year-old boy who presented with symptoms initially thought to indicate diabetes was found to have poisoned himself by using an entire tube of Bengay to masturbate; and the authors of “A Warty Lesion on the Penis” declared no conflicts of interest.

The masked birch caterpillar uses anal drumming to recruit collaborators in the construction of silken shelters. Among elderly male Americans who frequent female sex workers, advanced age is associated with more regular patronage, while lack of a spouse is associated with seeking the “girlfriend experience.” Humans are aroused when robots enjoin them to touch the robots’ “intimate areas.” Researchers interviewed a group of predominantly poor, African-American, H.I.V.-positive, heterosexual-identified, cisgender LosAngeles men who occasionally have sex with non-operative trans women about the construction of femininity, approaches to “negotiating” the partner’s penis, and the dissonance of having sex with a female partner who has male genitals. “When I’m with them,” said one subject, “I don’t even want to see their penis, because then it totally would mess up my thing.” Sharkskin increases drag.

Crime-scene analysis of lipstick smears can be made cheaper. Forensic scientists investigated how much female DNA is transferred to men’s penises and underwear following nonintimate social contact with women. Smartphone assistants respond inadequately to reports of rape.

Ants captured by ant lions are less likely to call for help the more likely they are to die.

Minimum number of Beijing residents living in underground bomb shelters: 150,000 Percentage increase since 2014 in the annual number of reported labor strikes in China: 65 Minimum number of Turks who have been criminally charged for insulting President Erdogan since Aug. 2014: 1,845 Number of names on Turkey’s terrorist watch list in 2014: 4,800 Today: 37,000 Estimated annual economic cost of tightened border controls to the European Union: $13,000,000,000 Number of cyberattacks directed against the U.S. government last year: 77,183 Estimated amount that U.S. individuals and organizations paid in ransom to hackers in 2015: $24,100,000 Date on which SeaWorld admitted to spying on environmental-activist groups: 2/25/16 Percentage of Republican-primary voters who are “mostly embarrassed” by their party’s campaigns: 60 Of Democratic-primary voters: 13 Number of days after joking about murdering Ted Cruz that Senator Lindsey Graham participated in a Cruz fund-raiser: 26 Percentage increase since 2014 in the number of states with divided governments: 64 Number of states that have imposed stricter voting laws since the 2012 presidential election: 17 Percentage of registered U.S. voters who voted in the 2014 midterm elections: 63 Who say they “definitely” voted: 75 Portion of U.S. college students with federal loans who underestimate their debt load: 1/2 Who do not know they have federal loans at all: 1/7 Factor by which baggage and change fees charged to airline passengers have increased since 2007: 3.7 Number of states in which menstrual products are taxed as nonessential goods: 40 Number of indigent defendants in Louisiana on a waiting list for available public defenders: 3,848 Percentage of unaccompanied minors facing deportation who are not granted an attorney: 42 Amount awarded to each member of a class-action suit alleging that Subway’s Footlong sandwiches were too short: $500 Percentage change since 2010 in the annual number of applicants to U.S. law schools: –38 Portion of licensed attorneys in the United States who have a drinking problem: 1/5 Number of sled dogs injured by a drunk snowmobiler during this year’s Iditarod race: 5 Number killed: 1 Percentage of fatal car–pedestrian collisions in which the driver is found to be drunk: 15 In which the pedestrian is: 34 Percentage by which using traffic circles rather than stop signs at intersections decreases car accidents: 75 Percentage of U.S. intersections that are traffic circles: 0.09 Weight in ounces of a Stanford-engineered team of six micro-robots capable of pulling a 3,900lb car: 3.5 Americans who think that most work currently done by humans will be automated in 50 years: 2/3 Who think their job will still exist in its current form: 4/5 Percentage of young British adults who regard an Internet connection as important to quality of life: 69 Who regard daylight as important: 64 Number of active e-sports viewers worldwide: 131,000,000 Number of the ten Amazon best-selling books in the U.S. last year that were coloring books for adults: 3 Percentage of adults in the U.K. who have forgotten how to calculate percentages: 20

A

A twenty-eight-year-old Indian man who presented disheveled and whispering following the death of his wife in childbirth was cured of his grief by a single dose of ketamine, which carried him to heaven in a flying chariot. Psychosis makes it easier for Brazilians to lucid dream. Obsessive-compulsive Israelis tend to express themselves with language in which agency is omitted. A Bayesian phylogenetic study of ninety-three traditional Austronesian cultures found that social stratification is stabilized, and inherited class systems promoted, by human sacrifice. AfricanAmerican men who died between 1802 and 1970 lived an average of one year longer if they possessed distinctively black forenames. A 1535 Bible in Lambeth Palace Library was found to contain handwritten acknowledgment of a debt whereby Mr. Cutpurse would repay Mr. Cheffyn twenty shillings on pain of imprisonment at Marshalsea. Most of the animals now dying in the sixth mass extinction will leave no fossil trace.

Scientists created transparent wood and lightweight black gold. A pig’s heart was kept beating in a baboon’s abdomen for 945 days. A Seattle turtle was treated for a buoyancy disorder in a hyperbaric chamber. Rising levels of oceanic CO2 are silencing snapping shrimps. The WIV1-CoV virus, present in Chinese horseshoe bats, is ready to infect humans. The head of the Bird Strike Prevention Office at Changshui Airport warned of the proliferation of black wattle. The forehead of the sperm whale is specialized for ramming combat. Britain’s ex–first sea lord disapproved of naming a new royal polar-research vessel Boaty McBoatface. Baltimoreans would pay an average of $7,875 to repair a large central facial defect. There is a universal Not Face. n

Sources: 1 Annette Kim, University of Southern California (Los Angeles); 2 China Labor Bulletin (Hong Kong); 3 Kerem Altiparmak, Ankara University (Turkey); 4,5 Embassy of Turkey (Washington); 6 European Commission (Brussels); 7 The White House (Washington); 8 Federal Bureau of Investigation; 9 SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment (Orlando, Fla.); 10,11 New York Times; 12 Office of Senator Lindsey Graham (Washington)/Harper’s research; 13 National Conference of State Legislatures (Denver); 14 Brennan Center for Justice (N.Y.C.); 15,16 Pew Research Center (Washington); 17,18 Brown Centeron Education Policy (Washington); 19 Bureau of Transportation Statistics (Washington); 20 Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, Brennan Center for Justice; 21 Louisiana Public Defende Board (Baton Rouge); 22 Executive Office for Immigration Review (Washington); 23 Doctor’s Associates (Milford, Conn.); 24 Law School Admissions Council (Newtown, Pa.); 25 American Society of Addiction Medicine (Chevy Chase, Md.); 26,27 Division of Alaska State Troopers (Anchorage); 28,29 Governors Highway Safety Association (Washington); 30,31 American Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (Arlington, Va.)/Damien Saunder, Esri (Redlands, Calif.); 32 David Christensen, Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.); 33,34 Pew Research Center; 35,36 Hillary’s (Nottingham, England); 37 Newzoo (Amsterdam); 38 Amazon.com (Seattle); 39 YouGov (N.Y.C.).

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5

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The Los Angeles Times SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE

VOLUMIZING

By Alex Bajcz Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 5 8 13 19 20 21 22 23 26 27 28 29 31 32 37 40 41 42 43 45 48 50 52 56 58 59 60 61 62 63 65 67 69 74 75 76 77 78 80 82 86 87 88 90 92 94 95 96 98 100

Eliminate, as a vacancy Chin-up muscle, briefly Car window options Capital of Eritrea “I’ve got it!” elicitor Peyton’s brother NSX automaker Cavatappi and such Obstruct one’s buddies during a hockey game?

Strapless accessory Norwegian for “sloping track” Baking site “Heat of the Moment” band Scrape (by) Crimson Tide wrestler?

Movement suffix One more time Brooding rock genre Agree to a friending request Talk Paneer cheese go-with Los Angeles rarity “__ where it hurts!”

Snoop’s job?

Nick time?

Payless box letters Bio lab organism Dublin-to-Blackpool dir.

Home of The Hague: Abbr.

Pres. and veep Elroy Jetson’s best friend It might be a mirage Pumps up Royal with a broadcasting award?

Right-hand pages Tapped Car buyer’s choice Pocket rockets, in poker Quaint contraction JFK speechwriter Sorensen Churro relative Often laceless shoe Bygone autocrat Central garage item?

[What a snoozefest!]

Watson outburst “Go __ Watchman”: Harper Lee novel 90 degrees from norte Gp. including the Rockies Bk. fair organizer Try to convince

103 Beast of burden 104 Benchmark for a movie daredevil?

109 One in a rack 110 Org. led by a Grand Exalted Ruler 111 Three-and-out follower, in football 112 Muss 116 Relaxed 119 Immunology-themed gala?

122 Eccentric sort 123 Compete in an impromptu “contest” 124 White House accounting gp.

125 Sleek 126 Pointers 127 Varieties 128 The G in LGBT 129 Round Table honorifics

DOWN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 24 25 30 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 44

Tells tales Carrie Underwood, for one Helen of Troy’s mother 1992 Best Rock Song Grammy winner Big name in 2008 financial news Lagunitas product Pass by, as time The Miracles’ label Promising “Are you available?” response Baklava morsel Walk all over Impertinent Math course for coll. credit __ Khan, online academy founder The NCAA’s Spartans Tried proving that one could Engaged in organized crime One of Israel’s 12 tribes Vending machine choice Sister of Khloé Witness’ statement Sprees Trans-Siberian Railway city Need ice, maybe Soong __-ling: Madame Chiang Disarmament subj.

Feng __ Gram. gender Absolute rulers

46 47 49 51 53 54 55 57 61 62 64 66 68 69 70 71 72 73 79 81 83 84 85 87 88 89 91 93

Leave speechless “Stop! You’re ruining everything!”

“Hold that thought” Like some breakups “Psycho” shower scene blood, actually Beseeches Entertains with a bedtime story Capital since 2002 Bethesda medical agcy.

“Lady Marmalade” singer Coveted statuettes Fury and Silver of classic TV Eagerly consume London strollers Keep tabs on the enemy Ballpark vendor’s cry Contented sounds Diving duck Watch (for) Vat filler Former L.A. Sparks All-Star __ Leslie Young newts Numbered rds.

Drove, with “off” Modern storage unit Nonhuman film substitute Letters after either Cowboy St. senator’s name In spades

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97 99 101 102 104 105 106 107 108

Gets serious Have grand plans “Great” literary hero Switch end NW Portuguese city Talk oneself up Straws, e.g.

“So that’s __?”

Sources of tears

113 114 115 117 118 120 121

Popular assistant Private retreat Shade trees Nitrogenous 81-Down Be in a bee Gentle attention-getter “The Peruvian Songbird” Sumac

Answer to June’s puzzle, GOING TO SCHOOL

Agenda CALL FOR ENTRIES Philadelphia Sketch Club PHOTOgraphy 2016 Exhibition Entry Deadline: Sun., July 3 at midnight Exhibition Dates: July 22 – August 13 Works Eligible: This is an open, juried show.

The Jurors will select works for exhibition & award prizes for both traditional and digital work.

Submissions: Up to 10 works utilizing any photographic process, traditional or digital, black & white or color. Maximum accepted works, two per photographer. All submitted work must be offered for sale during the exhibition. No transparencies will be accepted.

Maximum framed size 30 x 40. All work must be framed with glass or Plexiglas, wired and ready for hanging. No clip frames.

Prospectus: http://sketchclub.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Photo-prospectus2016.pdf. Entry online: http://www.entrythingy.com/d=sketchclub.org#show=2693 Entry Fee: PSC Members: $1 first piece, $10 additional works. Non-members: $20 first piece, $10 additional works. Reception: Sunday, July 31, 2016 2 - 4 PM. Prizes, 3:00 PM.

FINE ART THRU 7/17 New Hope Arts Exposure 2016, The Photo ReImagined. New Hope Arts Center, 2 Stockton Ave., New Hope, PA. Fri.-Sun., Noon5PM.215-862-9606. newhopearts.org THRU 7/30 Martha Posner, Mercy. Artist’s talk, 7/12, 7:30PM at Media Room 2, 248 North Third St. Grossman Gallery, Lafayette College, Easton, PA. 610-330-5361/5831.

Galleries.Lafayette.Edu THRU 7/30 Unsold artwork from, The Art of the Miniature, still on view. All work shown on website.

The Snow Goose Gallery, 470 Main St., Bethlehem, PA. 610-974-9099.

TheSnowGooseGallery.com THRU 8/6 New Works by members of the Bethlehem Palette Club at Muhlenberg College. Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College, 2400 Chew St., Allentown, PA. Muhlenberg.edu/main/aboutus/gallery THRU 9/3 American Summer. Silverman Gallery, Bucks County Impressionist Art. Buckingham Green, Rte. 202, just north of PA 413. 4920 York Rd., Holicong, PA. 18928. 215-794-4300.

Silvermangallery.com

THRU 10/02 Our Strength is Our People: The Humanist Photographs of Lewis Hine. Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. 610432-4333. AllentownArtMuseum.org THRU 10/02 Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art. Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. 610-432-4333.

AllentownArtMuseum.org THRU 10/23 Charles & Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Couple of an Age. Morven Museum & Garden, 55 Stockton St., Princeton, NJ. Wed.-Sun., 10AM4PM. 609-924-8144. Morven.org 8/4-8/28 Artsbridge Members’ Art Show at the New Hope Arts Center in New Hope, PA. Paintings, watercolors, works on paper, mixed media, photography and sculpture on view Sat. & Sun., 1- 5 pm. Opening reception: 8/4, 7-9 pm. ArtsbridgeOnline.com 8/4-8/28 Artsbridge Summer Arts Festival at the New Hope Arts Center in New Hope, PA. Special art events throughout August include an art exhibition, plein air paint out, demonstrations, a movie night, sculpture tours and more.

Schedule of events at ArtsbridgeOnline.com

CONCERTS. 7/10 Valley Vivaldi presented by Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra. Chamber music by Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Rameau, Grossi, featured solos for trumpet and violin.

7:30 p.m., Christ Lutheran Church, 1245 W. Hamilton St., Allentown, PA. Tickets- $20-$35 in advance/at door. 610434-7811. www.PASinfonia.org 7/31 Valley Vivaldi presented by Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra. Chamber music by Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Telemann, Zelenka featured solos for oboes, flute, trumpet and bassoon. 7:30 p.m., Wesley Church, 2540 Center St., Bethlehem, PA. Tickets- $20-$35 in advance/at door. 610434-7811. www.PASinfonia.org

MUSIKFEST CAFÉ 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem 610-332-1300.

Full schedule: Artsquest.org 7/7 7/14 7/14 7/15 7/15 7/20

THEATER

7/21:

THRU 7/30 Growl. A new Goldilocks Musical from the creators of Grimm. And Gruff. Spectacular, affordable family fun. Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre, 2400 Chew St., Allentown, PA. 484-664-3333.

7/21 7/23 7/24

7/22-7/31 Allentown Public Theatre presents Robin Hood. Come with us to Sherwood Forest for a rollicking tale of heroism & mischief. Fridays, 6pm; Saturdays/Sundays, 2pm. St. Luke's Lutheran Church, 417 N. Liberty St., Allentown. allentownpublictheatre.com

DINNER & MUSIC Thursday nights, Community Stage with John Beacher, 8-midnight. Karla’s, 5 W. Mechanic St., New Hope. 215-862-2612.

Karlasnewhope.com.

Thurs.-Sat., Dinner and show at SteelStacks, Bethlehem. 5-10, table service and valet parking. artsquest.org

7/28

7/29

Splintered Sunlight: The Grateful Dead-Filmore East NYC (2/13/70) Splintered Sunlight: The Grateful Dead-Palo Alto, CO (2/9/73) Ben Folds & yMusic Ballroom Thieves Hoots & Hellmouth Summerland Tour 2016 Sugar Ray, Everclear, Lit, Sponge Splintered Sunlight: The Grateful Dead-Great American Music Hall 8/13/75 Wild Child Colin Hay Taste: A Celebration of Local Farms & Food Splintered Sunlight: The Grateful Dead-Melkweg, Amsterdam (10/16/81) The Romantics

KESWICK THEATRE 291 N Keswick Ave, Glenside, PA 215) 572-7650 keswicktheatre.com 7/9 7/10 7/13 7/14 7/15 7/16 7/23 8/2 8/12 8/25

John Carpenter LIVE Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds Kian ‘n’ JC Get the LED Out Get the LED Out An Evening with Graham Nash Roman V Fousey George Thorogood & The Destroyers-Mike Eldred Trio Todrick Hall Presents: Straight Outta Oz Al Di Meola

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40 n I C O N n j u l y 2 0 1 6 n W W W . I C O N D V . C O M n W W W . f a C e b O O k . C O M / I C O N D V