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ICON
AUGUST
The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, opinion and mad genius
INTERVIEW On the live stage, Cooper kills, outrunning his far younger bandmates with the manic energy of a meth head— whether he’s getting guillotined, doing his snake kissing routine, or running through a slew of singles that would make Taylor Swift jealous.
Ilene Rubin, After the Harvest, oil. Artists of Yardley.
FILM
ART 5
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Deconstruction
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EXHIBITIONS I 18th Annual Art in the Garden at Paxson Hill Farm
Tom Chesar, North Union. (Detail). New Hope Arts
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New Hope Arts & Crafts Festival New Hope-Solebury High School
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EXHIBITIONS II
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Summer Art Salon New Hope Arts & Artsbridge Emerging Artists: Young Philadelphia Artists The Philadelphia Sketch Club
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FOODIE FILE 10
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DOCUMENTARY
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Valley Theater
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City Theater
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The List
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Agenda
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SINGER / SONGWRITER Lisa Said Neil Young Arthur Alexander Delta Wires Lesley Kernochan
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JAZZ, ROCK, CLASSICAL, ALT Trio Mediaeval & Arve Henriksen Don Ellis Andy T Band / Alabama Mike Slim Forsythe Stephen Sciulli Alison Krauss
ABOUT LIFE
Columbus Dunkirk
POP
JAZZ LIBRARY Kenny Dorham
FILM 16 |
FOREIGN
28 |
ENTERTAINMENT
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filipiakr@comcast.net
The Genius of Jay-Z, the Passing of Alan Vega
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1-800-354-8776 • 215-862-9558
Good Time Lucky The Trip to Spain War for the Planet of the Apes
The Mystery Conman
Summer with Gallery Artists The Silverman Gallery of Bucks County Impressionist Art
ON THE COVER: Honoré Sharrer, Afternoon on the Beach, 1990. Oil on canvas. 30 x 32 in. Collection of Adam Zagorin and the late Perez Zagorin, on loan to Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts. Photo: Smith College of Art Museum. On exhibit at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts through Sept. 3, 2017.
FILM ROUNDUP
The Lovers Colossal Obit Sleight
Bring. It. On. 2nd Annual Fine Art Sale AOY Art Center
Dunkirk
Filling the hunger since 1992
ALICE COOPER | 18
6
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When it’s Time to Say Goodbye
33 | 34 |
Harper’s Findings & Index L. A. Times Crossword
Raina Filipiak / Advertising PRODUCTION
Richard DeCosta Susan O’Neill
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
A. D. Amorosi / divaland@aol.com
Robert Beck / robert@robertbeck.net Jack Byer / jackbyer@verizon.net
Peter Croatto / petecroatto@yahoo.com James P. Delpino / JDelpino@aol.com
Geoff Gehman / geoffgehman@verizon.net Mark Keresman / shemp@hotmail.com
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 Tom Wilk / tomwilk@rocketmail.com
PO Box 120 • New Hope 18938 (800) 354-8776 Fax (215) 862-9845
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essAy And pAinting by robert beck
art
DE•CON•STRUC•TION WHAT APPEARED TO BE a randomly arranged group of ten black propellers, each a foot and a half long, rotated on their wall mountings, much like a bunch of propeller beanies hung on pegs. Closer inspection found the twirling shafts to be rain sticks, all making that shower sound. I was at the ArtYard, a multi-building facility that presents contemporary exhibitions and performances in Frenchtown, New Jersey, to see the intriguing Through The Unfrequented Sky, by Cecelia Paredes. The work was refreshingly thought-provoking but at one point I had that gallery experience of wondering if something I saw was part of the art or not. The rain sticks all turned at a slow, windmill pace in the dim room. The installation was a departure from the rest of the exhibition’s well lit, static pieces, and it might have been mistaken for part of the building’s air handling system if not for the upper left unit being illuminated by a brilliant, cool pink spotlight. I noticed it was moving strangely. When it reached a horizontal point in the rotation the stick flopped down as if a major part of its attachment to the mechanism was broken. It hung like a cuckoo thrust from its clock for just a second or two then was jerked back into motion by the mechanism. It happened every time it went around. There was no way to tell for sure whether it was supposed do that; it’s art, after all. If it had been one of the other nine units all going about their business out of the spotlight you would know it was busted (perhaps) but this was the one illuminated by the artist and intended to be considered differently. I asked a couple of women in the room if they thought the piece was supposed to be doing that or it was self-destructing. They weren’t sure. This added an element of anticipation to the work, as if even more art would happen any time now. Since an artist sitting in a chair for 700 hours (Marina Abramovic, The Artist Is Present, MoMA, 2010) is considered performance art (or maybe it’s non-performance art; I constantly get my genres confused) then waiting for the stricken rain stick to escape the bonds of its clockwork motor and clatter across the floor to the muted applause of its remaining stick-sisters could be as well. It might have been the artist’s commentary on the isolation inherent in divergence from conformity, but I
suspected I was looking at a structural failure. I wasn’t sure what to do. People who appeared connected to the gallery spirited through the room seemingly indifferent to the stick flailing on the wall. Surely they would know if the art wasn’t behaving as it should. I was afraid that if I told someone that the art was deconstructing, when in fact that was the point and I just didn’t get it, I could end up being disapprovingly consigned to Philistine Hell by a stylish person wearing unusual glasses. Part of me was saying this was not my problem, but I know that a lot of time, effort and expense goes into producing work and exhibitions. We are fortunate to have these diverse imaginings to pull us away from our flatscreen lives and they deserve respect. I’ve seen many people walk past my own paintings with only the briefest of glances. If it didn’t reach them it’s not their fault, but that doesn’t mean the work isn’t valid. I went
out to the lobby and told the woman at the desk I thought the art was malfunctioning. She was quite pleasant as we walked back to look at the piece. At first it appeared to be moving just fine and she began to tell me about the exhibit. Then the stick suddenly went into spasm before being forced to comply with another orbit. The woman stood a little straighter, said “I’d better find somebody,” excused herself, and disappeared through a doorway at the end of the room. The exhibition gave me a lot to think about. I wandered outside where a warm and fragrant spring breeze had kicked up. The tall trees moved with a lovely grace, swaying and shimmering, casting shadow pools that floated across the parking lot. Blooms of sunlight caressed me this way and that without touch or sound as I walked to my car, making me glad that I had parked at the far end. n
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EXHIBITIONS I
Sean Tucker, stoneware bowls with waterfall accent glaze.
18th Annual Art in the Garden at Paxson Hill Farm 3265 Comfort Road New Hope, PA (215) 297-1010 Paxsonhillfarm.com September 2-3, 10:00–4:30 Seventy-five local artists and fine craftspeople will present their work in Paxson Hill’s extensive and varied gardens. Among the numerous media presented are painting, printmaking, photography, ceramics, fiber and book arts, jewelry, woodturning, and more. This year’s featured artist is Sean Tucker, a Lambertville potter who is inspired by the ceramic traditions of Asia and who works with both stoneware and raku. Sean also teaches ceramic techniques and is a familiar presence in many local arts festivals; he has been an exhibitor at Art in the Garden since 2005. Bruce Gangawer, owner/operator of the nursery at Paxson Hill Farm, is both the sponsor of the event and the designer of the various themed gardens. These include shade and sun areas, water features, a hobbit house, and a boxwood maze which ends in a gazebo affording a sweeping view of the surrounding countryside. There is no charge for admission or parking.
Ilene Rubin, After the Harvest, oil.
Bring. It. On. 2nd Annual Fine Art Sale AOY Art Center, 949 Mirror Lake Road, Yardley, PA August 12 & 13, 12 – 5PM each day artistsofyardley.org Artists of Yardley member artists will be on site, waiting to greet you, talk about their style of art, their medium, their process and offer a 50% sale price on their artwork. Each artist will present at least five two-dimensional works for sale. Buy and take them with you, no need to wait. Enjoy the beauty of our pastoral farm setting where the AOY Art Center resides in the historic Janney House on Patterson Farm.
Jeanne Chesterton, Teapot and Terracotta, oil.
Sean Tucker, 14” raku lidded urn with turquoise glaze
Anna Kitces, Dorchester on the Maurice River, 2017 pastel.
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New Hope Arts & Crafts Festival New Hope-Solebury High School 182 West Bridge St., New Hope, PA Newhopeartsandcrafts.com September 23, 10 – 6; September 24, 10 – 5 Join us as we celebrate New Hope’s 24th Annual Outdoor Juried Arts and Crafts Festival. Located in the historic river town of New Hope, PA, known for its arts community, this event is expected to attract 10,000 visitors. This is an outdoor, rain or shine event with $1 admission, ample parking, food, and music. New Hope’s business district is just a short walk away, but we also provide a complimentary shuttle. This show is a quality, juried event and our artists will be recognized with ribbons and cash prizes from prestigious judges for fine art, crafts, mixed media, fiber, jewelry, and photography.
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EXHIBITIONS II
Jeanne Chesterton, Glimmering Glass.
Steve Basel, Zap Mountain, 16 x 16, oil, spray paint, on linen
Anita Shrager, Flatiron Mountains, CO
Emerging Artists: Young Philadelphia Artists The Philadelphia Sketch Club, 235 S. Camac St., Phila. 215-545-9298 sketchclub.org Wed, Fri, Sat & Sun 1 – 5 pm August 25 – September 16 Reception Sunday, September 10, 2017, 2 – 4 pm
Summer with Gallery Artists The Silverman Gallery of Bucks County Impressionist Art Buckingham Green Shopping Center 4920 York Rd., Buckingham, PA 215-794-4300 Silvermangallery.com Through September 4 Glenn Harrington is an award-winning painter known for his critically acclaimed portraits and figurative work. Jean Childs Buzgo’s paintings are joyfully and thoughtfully rendered, with subject matter that is always a treat for the eye. Jim Rodgers paints lush American and European landscapes to intimate genre paintings as well as elegant and sophisticated still life and floral renderings. Anita Shrager’s paintings are a softer, blended version of Impressionism, oils thinly applied in transparent layers, building up to a depth of color and shape. Desmond McRory is an awardwinning tonalist artist who paints with soft and blended brushwork or vibrant swatches done with a palette knife. Jennifer Hansen Rolli is known for her sweeping landscapes and elegant, painterly style. David Stier’s world is comprised of shadows and light, subdued colors with a certain earthiness to it, something almost primal. Joseph Barrett is an icon whose work is among the most soughtafter of today’s local living artists. Jonathan Mandell uses glass shards, tile, semiprecious stones, minerals, mirror, and marbles to create wall-mounted panels.
Jim Rodgers, Red-Winged Blackbird in Spring.
Robert Porter, Peonies.
Summer Art Salon New Hope Arts, 2 Stockton Avenue, New Hope NewHopeArts.org ArtsbridgeOnline.com Opening Reception: August 5, 4-7 Gallery Hours: August 6 – 27; Fri.-Sun 1-5 New Hope Arts and Artsbridge, art organizations with historic roots in the region, have joined forces for their First Collaborative Members’ Exhibition featuring works on paper, mixed media, photography and sculpture. The exhibition aims “to raise the bar for regional art shows by uniting two organizations with missions of advancing the arts and supporting artists,” noted Carol Cruickshanks, director of New Hope Arts. Award-winning artist, Illia Barger, selected the prize-winning works.
Tom Chesar, North Union. (Detail)
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The Philadelphia Sketch Club has had many noted members, including Thomas Eakins, N. C. Wyeth, Thomas Anshutz, Joseph Pennell, Howard Chandler Christy, Thomas Moran and a host of others. Thomas Eakins taught life workshops at the Sketch Club in 1874 and ’75 and used that experience to gain a position at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 1875, at the age of 30, he painted his most memorable work, The Gross Clinic. Hoping to find young artists who show the potential that Eakins displayed at that age, participants in this juried exhibition are limited to 30 years old, and must be from or have studied in Philadelphia or its surrounding areas.
Terrill Warrenburg, Memory vs Nostalgia,charcoal on paper
r
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FOODIE FILE
Power, Politics and Food General Manager Paul A. Sandler with Giant Lobster at The Palm, Phila PA. Photo ©A.D. Amorosi
Cristina Martinez and Benjamin Miller of South Philly Barbacoa.
Above, Palm Restaurant dishes.
Above, South Philly Barbacoa dishes.
It’s rare that a restaurant can stand for something other than the art of great food, especially if it’s deeply spiritual.
THE NEW EL COMPADRE in South Philly’s Italian Market (1149 So. 9th Street) goes beyond the region’s authentic Mexican barbacoa. Fighting the good fight for immigration rights is chef/co-owner Cristina Martinez and husband/co-owner Benjamin Miller’s game. Responding to the sudden death of her young son, Isaias Berriozabal-Martinez, with whom she helped open El Compadre in October 2016 (an acclaimed tortas eatery in its own right), Martinez and Miller closed their heralded South Philly Barbacoa at 11th & Morris to pick up where Berriozabal-Martinez left off, and in his memory. Before Cristina Martinez arrived in South Philly as an undocumented worker (then, now), she strode the length and breadth of a Mexican desert in 2009 to get here and make money for her kids. Barbacoa was an art form she knew and knew well, as her father and his father before him butchered, then slow-steamed beef, mutton, or lamb over an open fire pit covered with maguey leaves or coals. From there, her husband formed the Popular Alliance for Undocumented Workers’ Rights organization and its #Right2Work initiative; not only for his wife, but for all of the hard-working immigrants in the area who are devoid of rights. “Our very existence as a restaurant with an undocumented owner is resistance,” says Miller. “For us, there’s no going backward now.”
P
Mary Cullom and Chef Hamdy Khalil of Arpeggio.
Above, Arpeggio dishes.
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olitics aren’t always about the passion of the fight. Sometimes it involves the opulent glory of power, the celebration of infrastructure, control and justice. The recent re-opening of The Palm at Soth Broad Street’s Bellevue Hotel—closed for over 15 months for a renovation that included moving its storied bar from the front to the back of the restaurant for the sake of new energy—is where Philly politicos, legal eagles, the celebrated and the wannabes get their chance to see, be seen, and dine elegantly on large, luscious lobsters, thick rich porterhouses, creamy spinach dishes, fried onions and old school bleu cheese-stuffed martinis. Freshly re-opened in July, The Palm’s lunch is still the power meal in Center City Philly. But so far it’s the dinner time that’s been packed to the brim with mostly over-40s. They talk deals and eat meals of dry-aged Prime New York Strip, and a nicely focused Italian menu highlighted by a Bone-In Colorado Veal Rib Chop Malfata with baby arugula, shaved fennel, red onion and mozzarella di bufala salad. Plus, The Palm still has the best Key Lime Pie with graham cracker crust, blueberry compote and whipped cream. And honestly, that’s the only power that I care about; the might and right of a great rare steak, a cold, crisp martini and a pie.
A.D. AMOROSI
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hen is a major move nothing like a major move at all? When it’s Mary Gigliotti Cullom and Chef Hamdy Khalil—the pair behind the 21-year-old Italian/Mediterranean, wood-burning Arpeggio BYOB in Springhouse, PA—doing the moving. They’re relocating from one corner of Bethlehem and Sumneytown Pikes to, basically, another. This is not the first time that Cullom and Khalil have executed such expansion, as in 2002 they bought an adjacent property to the first Arpeggio and doubled its size and reach. The brand new, recently opened, re-located Arpeggio, designed by the Philadelphia firm DAS Architects, expands what Cullom and Khalil first had in mind: lighter tones with additional space seating, a long, covered deck, over 100 wine lockers (remember, it’s BYOB) and a rustic, smooth stone two-sided fireplace, which divides Arpeggio’s two dining rooms. Then there’s the food, the reason you’re driving up the Bethlehem Pike. Other than the expansion of Arpeggio BYOB’s vegetarian options and gluten-free/dairy-free fare, much of the Mediterranean flavors and wood fire texture and smoke remains the same, including their famed wood oven pizza. Yes, the Margarita pizza is the most popular, and understandably so, but my bet is on the restaurant’s namesake pizza with Roasted eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes, red peppers, tomato sauce and mozzarella. Along with an incredibly wide list of Greek specialty appetizers such as baba ganoush and tabbouleh, there’s a twist on calamari with Thai sweet and sour sauce, scallions, bean sprouts and black sesame seeds. As for Arpeggio’s entrées, there’s so much to say about so many deceptively simple pleasures: the Nutty Shrimp (or Chicken) with toasted almonds, grilled veggies and brown rice is just lovely, a meal you’ll want to repeat the moment after you’ve eaten it. Then there’s Chef Khalil’s Mediterranean entrée specialties such as the fresh, rustic Sea Bass Lemoni (lightly marinated Australian sea bass, fresh lemon, garlic and a touch of extra virgin oil, baked and served with sautéed spinach) and the heart-healthy Chicken Mykonos (a marinated grilled chicken breast accompanied by a medley of spinach, onions, garlic, tomatoes, asparagus, capers, kalamata olives and artichoke hearts, topped with crumbled feta and brown rice), both served with Zatr’ spice. Other non-Mediterranean, equally hearty delights include a Shrimp & Crab Curry pasta dish with broccoli and sundried tomatoes, and a Grilled Pineapple Burger (and no, I don’t dig pineapple on anything but more pineapple) with bacon and good old American cheese. Arpeggio BYOB might have changed corners, colors and size, but not their lust for great tasting, healthy, zesty cuisine. 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 a U G U S T 2 0 1 7 n i c o n n 11
theater VALLEY
CITY
Sister Act. Deloris Van Cartier, a feisty nightclub singer, reforms a convent and herself while hiding from her gangster boyfriend. This cheerful, cheeky musical adaptation of the 1992 hit film features such infectious tunes as “Do the Sacred Mass” and “Spread the Love Around,” performed for the Pope. (Aug. 4-30, Pennsylvania Playhouse)
Saturday Night Fever. When this musical drama hit the big screen in 1977 audiences were mesmerized by John Travolta’s dance moves. The Bee Gees soundtrack went on to become the best-selling soundtrack of all time. This Walnut Street Theater production starring Jacob Tischler as Tony Manero, a Brooklyn teen in a dead end job with a talent for disco dancing, has packed the house since May. The dancing is as good as anything you might see at BalletX. Tischler, like Travolta, glides across the stage like an undulating rubber man on crack, spinning out moves with Annette (Nicole Colon) while simultaneously holding her romantic overtures at bay. Enter sultry Stephanie Mangano (Alexandra Matteo), hard to get and even harder to please, but with Tony’s persistence (and wiggles), who can resist? Annette’s whinny clamor for Tony’s attention is the blueprint for the death of one of Tony’s friends on the Brooklyn Bridge even if the tragedy is blithely danced away. Richard Stafford is responsible for the engaging and beautiful choreography. It’s no wonder that SNF was designated “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress.
Richard III. Shakespeare’s devious, villainous hunchback crawls and claws toward the English crown through brutal murders, lavish lies and byzantine trails of poisonous breadcrumbs. An ugly character gets a beautiful setting in Allentown Shakespeare in the Park’s 10th annual production at Daddona Lake and Terrace, which has a grass stage framed by a grove and a stream and tiered lawns for spectators. Admission is free and musicians perform an hour before the 8 p.m. start. (Aug. 11-13) The Hound of the Baskervilles. One of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s annual treats is a riotously inventive inversion of a classic, a feast for a small cast with many roles. This year’s treat was a zinging three-ring circus based on the third Sherlock Holmes novel, which unfolds at an English estate whose former owner may have been murdered by a supernatural beast. Carl Wallnau, the festival’s resident aristocratic Brit, played the bumbling Watson with crispy cluelessness and mirthful exasperation. Jacob Dresch enlivened Sir Henry, the easily flummoxed Baskerville heir, with elastic expressions and spastic gyrations. Greg Wood’s deft, dexterous Holmes dovetailed with his solemn, solid festival turns as Hamlet, Richard III and Phileas Fogg. He let his hair down, and up, as a goofy servant with a Rasputin beard, a nutty Latin maid and a crutch-wielding, scenerychewing naturalist/pirate. Director Jim Helsinger, himself an excellent comic actor, made sure everyone was snappy and stabbing. Particularly pleasurable was a madcap first-half recap, a wild sprint to satisfy and defy a spectator critical of Wood’s speed (“He probably takes two hours to watch 60 Minutes.”) Disaster! Northampton Community College continued its first summer season with this musical satire of ’70s disaster films, scored by a jukebox of ’70s singles and set on a casino ship slammed by earthquake, tidal wave, safety violations, sleazy characters and cheesy plots. Lisa Jolley romped as a singing nun struggling with a gambling addiction. She lurched, lassoed and blasted through “Never Can Say Goodbye” and “Torn Between Two Lovers,” recast as odes to a slot machine. Maigan Kennedy’s lounge singer was a pleasantly ditzy diva and sassy spitfire. She rollicked with Patrick Davis’ floridly soap-operatic disaster expert, prone to copying John Travolta’s disco pose in Saturday Night Fever. Director Bill Mutimer kept everything shipshape, blending Busby Berkeley excess with Mel Brooks mayhem. My Fair Lady. Henry Higgins’ tears capped a delightfully realistic, surprisingly intimate, unusually balanced staging from the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre festival, the Valley’s oldest, deepest musical house. Jarrod Yuskauskas’ Higgins was devilishly dynamic, exceptionally bullish, and campishly flustered. At times he became a refugee from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He was matched and raised by Meredith Kate Doyle’s Eliza Doolittle, who combined hilarious yowling, fencing gestures, radiant smiles and lyrical singing. At times she became a refugee from The King and I. Director Charles Richter added welcome splashes of Gilbert & Sullivan’s merry mischief. He let Zach Love make Colonel Pickering a jolly imp, let Doyle win a comic ping-pong match during Eliza’s high-society debut, and let Yuskauskas weep at the end of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” and choke up after asking Eliza to fetch his slippers, a marvelously touching touch. n — geoff gehMAn 12 n I C O N n A U G U S T 2 0 1 7 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
The Humans. The Walnut’s 2017–18 season will include Stephen Karam’s Tony Award winning play about family tensions over the Thanksgiving holiday. Originally an off Broadway production, The Humans went on to win six Tonys. Bernard Havard, Walnut’s president and producing artistic director, announced that the theater is the first to acquire the rights to produce this play. BalletX, Summer Series. In the first dance piece, choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Castrati presents elongated human forms reminiscent of the alien beings in Whitely Strieber’s Communion. The dancers portray the last seven living castrati in the 16th-18th centuries. Ochoa has the dancers move in such a way that we can actually feel the castrati’s pain of being locked in a genderless world despite their beautiful voices. Castrati was easily the best segment of the production. In the second set, Matthew Neenan’s Let Mortal Tongues Awake, explores the relationship of individuals to authority through militarized movements of “The Citizen” as dancer. The Kraftwork- style soundtrack evolves into patriotic songs as the dancers, in ironic opposition to the lyrics, appear with tape over their mouths, a not-so-subtle reference to imprisoned or silenced citizens in a fascist state. The subliminal reference to Trump’s America is obvious, although this reviewer saw it more as the face of fascism in the academic world where the silencing of Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter has become common. BalletX is now off to the Breckenridge Music Festival in Breckenridge, Colorado and then the International Dance Festival in Vail. Tommy and Me. The world premier of sportswriter Ray Didinger’s autobiographical account of his push to have his football player boyhood hero, Tommy McDonald, inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Certain to be the chief draw of Fringe Arts 2017. The play was read to a sold-out audience at Plays and Players in 2015. Didinger, the author of 11 books, excavated the myth of “the dumb football player” on NPR’s Fresh Air in 2014. PlayPenn, new play development 2017. Here’s where true theater lovers gather. Free and open to the public, the scripts of six new plays were read in July: Terence Anthony’s The House of the Negro Insane; Brent Askari’s Hard Cell; Christine Evans’ Galilee; C.A. Johnson’s Thirst; Carter W. Lewis’ With and Jonathan Norton’s Penny Candy. The Conference included an online workshop with playwright Jacqueline Goldfinger and a class called Writing the Issue-Based Play (IBP). Artistic Director Paul Meshejian wrote: “PlayPenn was founded because of what I considered a paucity of new play production in Philadelphia. The impulse was a local one. Since our founding, and by no means only because of PlayPenn, Philadelphia has experienced an explosion in the production of new work. That PlayPenn has supported work that has gone on to have a more prolific national presence is a welcome added benefit.” n — thoM nickels
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the list
3 NATASHA LEGGERO/MOSHE KASHER What happens when two recently married comedians with Comedy Central
AUGUST and some smoking, jazzy rockabilly licks, but, seriously his fingers are so fleet, and his soulfulness such a stand-out, I’m fairly certain that he could do anything. Oddly enough, this isn’t the only speedy, sixstring slinger to hit Ardmore (see below) this month.(Ardmore Music Hall)
and accuracy—only his brand of buoyant playing is focused on surf sounds and Pacific jazzy cool. (Ardmore Music Hall) 17 SHEILA E/LARRY GRAHAM This showcase represents several sides of Prince, the multi-talented multi-instrumentalist that each of the night’s players
10 ERYKAH BADU Still one of modern R&B’s most expressive and experimental artists, without an
self-deprecation regarding her own levels of anxiety and depression, she’s got a semi-autobiographical series on Netflix, “Lady Dynamite,” that regularly touch upon subjects such as suicide, psychosis and psychiatric conditions. (Steelstacks)
pedigrees get together? They get their honeymoon paid for, and written off as a tax exemption. (Trocadero) 4 MELVINS If you don’t know the wild and wooly Buzz Melvin and whatever mix of men
19 HANK WILLIAMS JR./ LYNARD SKYNARD Sons of the rocking South unite, and album to tour behind, there’s no telling what Lady Badu might do. Fantastic. (Dell East Music Center)
that play alongside him, know this: Kurt Cobain claimed the Melvins as his favorite, and most influential band. Do this. (Union Transfer) 5 FREEWAY & FRIENDS / JUST BLAZE if Philadelphia needs a real representative in the old school hip hop stakes, it’s Freeway, who not only has become more ruminative and spiritual in his years on top (and it’s his birthday show, this), he’s got his own successfully selling, moisturizing beard crème line, to boot. (Ardmore Music Hall) 9 JUNIOR BROWN/TRANSISTOR RODEO This slide guitarist might be best known for his ten gallon hat, his country music origins
cUrAted by A.d. AMorosi
11 THE DISTRICTS Few Philadelphia acts make it into the international music news cycle. Yet The Districts have—with its shambolic brand of indie pop—and they’re releasing a new
worked with. Shelia E was everything from Prince’s drummer, paramour and assayer of some of his finest songs and productions. Bassist/singer Graham, an inspiration (his days with Sly & the Family Stone) to rhythmic collaborator. (Dell East Music Center) 18 FAITH HILL + TIM MCGRAW Country music marrieds with ties to the Philadelphia area (Tim’s legendary pop, the surely this will turn out to be a Red State Trump Fest. (Camden’s BB&T Pavilion)
record on the Fat Possum label, Popular Manipulations, just to prove they’re not a one-hit-wonder. (Union Transfer) 11, 12 JON LOVITZ Since departing “Saturday Night Live,” Lovitz not only defined himself with one of the funniest animated series a writer could love—“The Critic”—but a politically incorrect stand-up career that’s surprisingly cutting. (Helium Comedy Club) 15 DICK DALE/CREEM CIRCUS Like Junior Brown, guitarist Dick Dale has made himself into a legend for his speed
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19 ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO & JOE ELY The toast of Mexicali-Americana new wave and dusty Texan country punk as one unit is so precious and grungy and rare, I’ll be there with spurs on. And I never wear them anymore. (Ardmore Music Hall) late Tug McGraw, is still the soul of the Phillies) don’t perform their Soul2Soul duets enough these days, so any evening with the pair is a treat. Favorite moment: Hill doing ABBA’s “The Winner Takes it All,” hands down. (Wells Fargo Center) 18 MARIA BAMFORD Maria Bamford is a strange bird. Yes, she’s got a stand-up show filled with soft baby voiced girls and hard jawed business women. But along with those characters displaying signs of deep dysfunction and
24 LIL YACHTY Hip hop’s most positive rapper and force for good returns to Philly. (Electric Factory) 26 SHEER MAG If any Philadelphia garage band is benefiting from the hype, it’s Sheer Mag. The toast of Rolling Stone magazine, the South Philly punk band who share a house is on the cusp of releasing Need to Feel Your Love—a powerhouse of a debut. (Union Transfer) n
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PETE CROATTO
film
b
ECAUSE I NO LONGER live an easy commute from critics’ screenings, most of the movies I review arrive via online screeners. Am I losing something watching a movie on a 12-inch screen? Yes. But I make up for it with silence. Going to any theater is stressful for the movie watcher as parishioner. The smartphone has made every quiet moment, every pause, a chance for stimuli. The movies now resemble air travel: we go in expecting to be at least mildly aggravated. Great movies reward silence. Columbus is an elegiac contemplation on letting go that shows the power of movies beyond another distraction to juggle. It’s a moving human experience made visual. Modernist architecture defines Columbus, Indiana, which hosts lectures from scholars. The latest falls unexpectedly ill, forcing the speaker’s estranged son (John Cho) to fly in from Seoul. Jin has nothing to say to the man, little compassion to offer. It’s a cruel turn of fate that he must stay in a town of architectural marvels and in his father’s old room. One adrift soul deserves another. Casey (Haley Lu Richardson, Split) works at the town library and is putting off college indefinitely: her mom needs her. Jin’s refusal to engage with his father, even sitting in the hospital, is his way of settling the past. He wasn’t there for me, why should I be there for him? The two meet randomly,
Columbus talking behind a fence, before they meet each other at the end. Of course, they hit it off. Both have something the other wants: for her, freedom. For him, unalloyed enthusiasm. The relationship is more than temporary, bigger than symbolic. The days run together; a friendship develops and deepens. In his feature debut, director-writer Kogonada employs a deft restraint, using the town’s quaint charm as a fence. The repetitive shots of alleys and city streets and hallways show how the characters look at life in one way. Those who have mobility, who can take a leap, rarely do. We grow up in a city or town locked into a life, Jin says, that we don’t know what’s there. Neither does this pair. There’s such an emphasis on lines or rigid etiquette— shelves in the library, the artistic boxiness of the town’s buildings, the presence of tours—that when Casey and Jin are surrounded by trees, we’re relieved. Finally, we get a different point of view. The architecture dwarfs the characters, especially Casey. We know she’s brimming with potential—Jin sees it when she describes her love for a bank; a high-school classmate urges her to go to college; an older co-worker (Rory Culkin) treats her like an intellectual equal—but this charming town is literally reducing her. When we meet Casey, she’s engulfed by the very buildings she loves. It sounds like she’s reciting facts about them. Really, it’s penance and justification: she’s surrounded by beauty and significance, so she can stay here. It’s the
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same with her aspiration of being a tour guide. It’s enough. It isn’t. Architecture transports her, but Columbus is a prison of her own design. Casey keeps saying that she needs to help her recovering addict mom (Michelle Forbes). The house is immaculate, tastefully decorated even on a slim budget. When she returns home from a late night, Mom doesn’t reek of bad decisions. When Casey waves to the kids playing outside her house, one of them sticks their tongue out at her before scampering. Jin keeps passing on the chance for closure—the real, contemplative kind. He fingers his father’s hat and coat, living among the ruins of his abbreviated trip. Jin can only deal with the idea of him. Cho actually sustains the film. He allows Richardson, a revelation, to explore her character’s stifling indifference. Jin never gives anything away, never suggests that he has feelings beyond this extended moment. Cho’s ability to be silent is captivating, like a perfect pause in a recited poem. Something is happening to Jin but we never really know. When you get older, you tamp your emotions to survive. Columbus reminded me of a Sunday afternoon. The glimmer of the weekend has faded, the unknown of the week closes in. We have the potential to do something or we can lurch through assigned ennui once more. Kogonada has taken a moment and turned it into something quietly epic. All that’s required to make that happen: silence—from him and from us. [NR] n
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alice cooper 18 n I C O N n A U G U S T 2 0 1 7 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
B
A. D. AMOROSI
INTErview
BEFORE GLAM-METAL ICON Alice Cooper hits BB&T Pavilion in Camden on August 24, know this: at age 69, he’s in much better shape doing way more than you’re doing. Since releasing the sequel to 1975’s Welcome to My Nightmare in 2011 (the aptly titled Welcome 2 My Nightmare), Cooper and his band tour relentlessly, including a recent stint opening for Mötley Crüe, whose antics, theatrics, menace, and hair were surely inspired by Alice himself. On the live stage, Cooper kills, outrunning his far younger bandmates with the manic energy of a meth head— whether he’s getting guillotined, doing his snake kissing routine, or running through a slew of singles that would make Taylor Swift jealous. Additionally, there’s been the Hollywood Vampires, his new outfit named after his old wrecking crew of drinking pals from the ’70s—a group which at times included everyone from Keith Moon to John Lennon to Monkee Mickey Dolenz—only now co-starring Aerosmith’s Joe Perry and actor/guitarist Johnny Depp.
“SOME OF MY GUYS ARE IN THEIR 40S. I REMEMBER SAYING LET’S DO MY ‘GUTTER CATS VS THE JETS.’ LET’S MAKE IT HAVE THAT GANG LOOK. SO THEY ALL SHOWED UP LOOKING LIKE 1920S CHICAGO GANGSTERS. NONE OF THEM HAD EVER SEEN ‘WEST SIDE STORY,’ SO I SAT THEM DOWN AND WE WATCHED. FUNNIER STILL, MY 28-YEAR-OLD GUITARIST HURRICANE NITA STRAUSS; WE’RE SETTING UP A SHOW AND I SAID, LET’S DO ‘PINBALL WIZARD,’ AND SHE SAID, ‘OK… WHAT’S THAT?’ I SAID, ‘YOU KNOW, FROM TOMMY.’ ‘WHAT’S TOMMY?”
“I’m older, but I’m I better shape than those guys,” says Cooper with a laugh, in regard to outpacing the younger Depp and Perry. “Remember, I never quit touring. It’s been like 45-years non-stop. I know how to do this, pace myself. And I really am in better shape since I don’t smoke and haven’t had a drink in 35 years.” Talking about the old crew of Vampires, and Cooper says that it was nice being a Vampire back in the day—“that was the only time we didn’t talk about music.” He began thinking about the old group again while filming Dark Shadows in London with Depp in 2011. While there, Cooper and his band played the infamous 100 Club. “We took requests—‘Back in the
USSR,’ sure. ‘Brown Sugar.’ Do it. Then Johnny joined us, and he’s a good tasty little guitar player.” Cooper’s wheels began to turn. Now with the Vampires on hiatus until 2018, Cooper is mining his garage rock/proto punk/metal’s best with producer Bob Ezrin (of Pink Floyd’s Wall and Lou Reed’s Berlin fame) and endearingly contagious songs for his newest album, Paranormal, part of which was written and recorded with high school pals Michael Bruce, Neal Smith and Dennis Dunaway with whom Cooper made classics such as Killer, School’s Out and the epic Billion Dollar Babies. “I write from a perspective where the titles come first—I hear something catchy like “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” that commercial—that then becomes “I’ve Fallen in Love and I Can’t Get up,” says Cooper in regard to his lyrical skill sets. “I write from the punch line backward.” Studying how his prime inspiration, Chuck Berry, wrote songs, Cooper learned to tell an entire story in three minutes. Only Alice’s stories usually seem to have a twist ending. Think of “I’m Eighteen.” He can’t go to war or vote. He’s sexually confused. He complains through the whole song, only to finish with “I’m Eighteen… and I like it.” He embraces being confused and frustrated. That’s the trick of that song. Paranormal: the record doesn’t touch upon spirit visions or even too many concepts—Alice’s usual. There’s no real theme at all. “Nope. Just great songs. Besides, my whole career has been ‘paranormal.’ Not like anyone else’s. A step into another dimension. Every album of mine has its own flavor. And it’s so normal for Bob Ezrin, me and whoever’s writing with us to have a theme, the ‘paranormal’ thing about this one’s goal was to just write 20 great songs with the best 13 getting on the record. Now every character I write here—after I listened back—wound up with some mental defect, so it ended having a theme without us planning for one.” Considering that horror, rock ‘n’ roll and West Side Story were reference points for records such as Killer and Billion Dollar Babies, I wondered if the young cats and new bandmate songwriter that Cooper uses regularly get where he’s coming from. “Some of my guys are in their 40s. I remember saying let’s do my ‘Gutter Cats vs the Jets.’ Let’s make it have that gang look. So they all showed up looking like 1920s Chicago gangsters. None of them had ever seen West Side Story, so I sat them down and we watched. Funnier still, my 28-year-old guitarist Hurricane Nita Strauss; we’re setting up a show and I said, let’s do ‘Pinball Wizard,’ and she said, ‘OK… what’s that?’ I said, ‘you know, from Tommy.’ ‘What’s
Tommy?’ Now, when she heard it, she got it, but she had no reference point. This is hardly true of his old Phoenix high school pals Bruce, Smith and Dunaway with whom Cooper wrote and recorded new songs on Paranormal such as “Genuine American Girl” and “You and All of Your Friends.” To this Alice reminds us how as a group they loved the Beatles and those chord changes. “But we were all art students, so doing creepy surrealistic things was second nature. Dennis Dunaway was an abstract artist—still is—and he had his own twists. I remember Frank Zappa [who released Cooper’s first albums] heard us and said ‘I don’t get it.’ I was bowled over by confusing Frank Zappa. The earliest songs were written way before ‘the real Alice Cooper.’… The reunion songs? The original band? We didn’t leave each other with bad blood. There were no lawsuits. Nothing awful happened. We were just creatively exhausted after doing seven albums in a row and their tours without stopping. We just got tired. We stayed great friends though; we golf all the time. Neal, Dennis and Mike were actually working on new songs and I said ‘bring them around.’ All three were so great, that when we listened back to the 20 that we had in the can, those three floated to the top. ‘Fireball’ is a killer. They didn’t just get to write them though, they had to play them in the studio.” While there is no word if the original Billion Dollar Babies will play in Camden, they’re doing select dates with Cooper, like a mini-set within the new band’s set. “I’m putting them to work. It feels great. I used to run track with these guys when we were kids. They’re just fun to be around, as well as the music being as smart and creative as we ever were.” Thinking of their collective glam past, Cooper says, “I think we were more about the art than social justice—the art of chaos. I don't know how truly sexual it was at all, but rather just more of a way to make parents look at us sideways.” When it came to theatrical props in rock, Cooper wrote the book: guillotines, electric chairs, gibbets, lady’s underthings. “What would be wrong with me wearing my girlfriend’s slip?—but only if it was all torn up and had blood on it,” he cackled. “People would have to ask, ‘What just happened? There must be a story behind that.’ We wanted people to talk about us beyond the music. Hey, three of the members of the band were art majors. The difference between us and other bands heavy on costumes and drama then was that we could deliver musically,” he says. “Show-wise, albumwise, we were it, beyond glam and shock. We had to work seven hours a day on the music, but we got there. The theatrics came easy.” n
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MArk keresMAn
film
Dunkirk WORLD WAR II WAS SUCH a massive historical event that the stories emerging from it is virtually inexhaustible. So many movies have been based on battles and “incidents” during that period (circa 1939 to 1945), including The Longest Day, Valkyrie, and the bio, Patton. Dunkirk, a coastal town in France, was where approximately 400,000 soldiers from the UK, Canada, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands had been driven by the advancing, then surrounding, army of Nazi Germany. Essentially stranded and with rations running out, these troops awaited what military types these days would term an “extraction”— back then it was called evacuation. This is the setup.
Great Britain, expecting an invasion by Germany, held their warships in reserve. To effect the evacuation, the Royal Navy called upon privately owned boats—fishing boats, pleasure boats, and lifeboats, helmed by sailors and volunteers, who set sail for Dunkirk. The German Air Force were intent on stopping the evacuation by dropping small bombs upon and shooting at the boats. Christopher Nolan (wrote and directed Dunkirk. Here, actors and dialogue take a back seat to the stories, seen mostly through the eyes of those who experienced it. Nolan films some of the most harrowing battle scenes since Saving Private Ryan. While not graphic as that film, Nolan’s are intensely claustrophobic—you can practically feel the bullets whiz by your head, and when men are trapped in water, you can feel their desperation. The sound effects are marvelous—when planes zoom in for an attack, they’re heralded by a whine that sounds like the shriek of a bird of prey. Some of the dialogue is a little hard to make out in spots but it matters little—this time, the story is not about words or even characters. Nolan presents a wide range of human behavior—he does not romanticize the bravery and nobility of the British soldiers (it’s primarily their story). Some soldiers behave heroically, others less so—some are motivated by nothing except self-preservation. Cillian Murphy is hauntingly superb as a Royal Air Force pilot with combat fatigue—you empathize with him while you stifle the urge to give him a General Patton slap. The Germans are an invisible enemy. There aren’t many memorable characters—this film is more like a slice-of-life, jumping around from story to story, and showing where the stories occasionally intersect or overlap. Kenneth Branagh plays a Royal Navy Commander who exudes the classic Stoic Military Gentleman authority, yet there’s a moment where he possesses a fleeting look of abject helplessness; he realizes he’s unable to provide relief or rescue the men. He must play the waiting game like the rest of them. Dunkirk is not a perfect movie—the way Nolan jumps around is a little distracting and there are too many lingering closeups of characters’ faces and the inside of a plane’s cockpit; that time could have been better spent getting to know the people more. While Dunkirk is a powerful movie, it’s also emotionally distant. That said, highly recommended. n 20 n I C O N n A U G U S T 2 0 1 7 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
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keith Uhlich
film roundup
Good Time (Dirs. Ben Safdie and Joshua Safdie). Starring: Robert Pattinson, Ben Safdie, Jennifer Jason Leigh. That title is ironic. Though perhaps NYC petty thief Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) really is having a “good time” upending his and others’ lives with his half-improvised criminal activity. The latest film from the brothers Ben and Joshua Safdie (Heaven Knows What) is a bleak, black-comic beauty that follows Connie through the fallout of a bank robbery gone bad. The stolen money gets damaged by a dye pack. Connie’s mentally challenged brother Nick (Ben Safdie) gets arrested. His on-edge girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) wants to go on that vacation they were planning rather than put up bail money. And that’s just the setup of a journey that turns increasingly, often hilariously hellish once Connie tries to spring Nick from the clink. Pattinson fully commits to the scuzzball aspects of his character; his Twilight days are far behind him. And the Big Apple is given a luxuriantly grubby aura via the widescreen cinematography of Sean Price Williams and the pulsating electronic score of Oneohtrix Point Never. [N/R] HHHH Lucky (Dir. John Carroll Lynch). Starring: Harry Dean Stanton, David Lynch, Ron Livingston. Bless the great Harry Dean Stanton who, at 90, gets an adoring autumnal vehicle all his own. It’s a wispy thing, all told, nowhere on the level of Wim Wenders’ epochal Paris, Texas (1984) in which Stanton also got a rare starring role. Nonetheless, this ode to ninety-something atheist Lucky (Stanton), wiling away his declining years in a small American town, hits plenty of emotional sweet spots. It’s filled to bursting with great character actors like Beth Grant and Barry Shabaka Henley, and directed by one, too—the towering, talented John Carroll Lynch. It has a delightfully loose, leisurely rhythm, confidently shuffling between deadpan comedy (one plot point revolves around a turtle lost by special guest star David Lynch) and resonant heartbreak (Stanton’s Alien costar Tom Skerritt has a devastating WWII monologue). At the center of it all is the frail, yet forceful Stanton, a lifetime of experience emanating from his hangdog expression and raspy smoker’s voice. He’s a treasure who spins this slender story into gold. [N/R] HHH1/2 The Trip to Spain (Dir. Michael Winterbottom). Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon. Third time for British comics Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, playing thinly
veiled versions of themselves, to do another gallivanting restaurant tour. This time they head to Spain to ingest the fine cuisine and imitate everyone from Mick Jagger to Ian McKellan, from Roger Moore to John Hurt. They also, of course, pick at each other’s weak spots, sticking fingers in the wounds left by middle age and life’s varying disappointments. The gorgeous scenery tends to pass them by; self-absorption is the name of the satirical game. It’s surely no accident that they’re dressed up as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza for a photo shoot, forever do they tilt at their own narcissistic windmills. It’s enough for director Michael Winterbottom to just place a camera on the comics and allow their freewheeling imaginations to do the rest. What’s striking, though, is how this Trip builds to a rather provocative close that casts the two men’s egotism in the harshest of lights (let’s just say it revolves around a weird, tonally bizarre melding of Casablanca and ISIS). You laugh, you choke. [N/R] HHHH War for the Planet of the Apes (Dir. Matt Reeves). Starring: Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn. Well, it’s better than the other two. Say what you will about the 1960s/70s Planet of the Apes series—there was a fervor to those five films that truly reflected an era of combative social unrest. The three movies that make up this big-budget re-
boot series (2011’s Rise and 2014’s Dawn preceded War) are mainly highlight reels for astonishing effects work and a vehicle for Andy Serkis, returning once again as revolutionary simian leader Caesar, here up against a psychotic military man (Woody Harrelson) who rages, rages against the dying of the light that is mankind. Motion-capture technology has advanced to a point where the mix of live-action and CG is relatively seamless, and Serkis unsurprisingly lends soul-searing emotion to his digitally augmented lead character. It would have been nice, though, if co-writer/director Matt Reeves took less of a deadeningly dour approach to the proceedings. Apes riding horses through beautifully filmed landscapes should really be more soul-stirring. [PG-13] HHH n
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reel news The Lovers (2017) HHHH Cast: Debra Winger, Tracy Letts, Melora Walters, Aidan Gillen Genre: Drama, comedy; Rated R Truism: Old love can’t compete with new love, especially in a stale, roommatelike marriage mired in routine and mutual disgust. So Michael (Letts) and Mary (Winger) fill the void of boring days and loveless nights with the fresh scent of desire, romance, and unrighteous excitement. But when lust confronts commit-
ment, the cliché rules, “I’ll ask for a divorce, but the time isn’t right.” Unexpectedly, the newly-awakened feelings begin to backwash into their marriage and the long-dormant volcano begins to rumble. Instead of the traditional tryst, the couple two-times their lovers, which might just make sneaking around twice as exciting. The four lovers rage against each other and their precarious relationships, yet the storyline doesn’t back away from the absurdity and comic irony that the adulterers have mutually created. The deeply expressed feelings portrayed by the seasoned actors sets up an unlikely reversal of fate, like betting your last dollar on the casino jackpot. Obit (2017) HHHH Cast: Bruce Weber, William McDonald Genre: Documentary; NR The premise of this oddly entertaining documentary is that a newspaper’s obit section, often stereotyped as a garbage-bin assignment, is all about life, not death. It’s about honoring and preserving for the record a life lived full with a detailed biographical essay of their accomplishments. Director Vanessa Gould follows obit writers at The New York Times as they prepare advance obits for aged or ill celebrities and world opinion makers, and scramble to write a comprehensive and compelling account for the unexpected deaths. The key interest here is how the obit team, pressured under deadline, researches and summarizes the groundbreaking achievements of littleknown figures who, though behind the scenes, shape society and move the world. Obit takes us through the editorial meetings, the deep research, phone calls
dvds revieWed by george oxford Miller
to the friends and relatives, and to the deadline article—interspaced with clips from the life and accomplishments of the deceased. As every journalist learns, everyone has a story, but all too often it’s the obit writer who saves the memory from oblivion. Colossal (2017) HHH Cast: Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Austin Stowel Genre: Action, comedy, sci-fi; Rated R. Alcoholics attempt to prevent self-inflicted damage to their family and friends by attending regular support meetings. But no 12-step program exists for the widespread destruction and havoc Gloria’s (Hathaway) high-octane binges cause in a distant Asian city. Gloria displays the classic alcoholic syndrome of manipulation, blaming others, and never giving the turmoil she causes in other’s lives a second thought. When her boyfriend finally kicks her out, she returns to her hometown and soon is toasting memories with her old friend and barkeep Oscar (Sudeikis). In a rare moment of semi-awareness, she concludes that her self-loathing misery, and Oscar’s rage against life, are manifested as a giant monster and robot ravaging Seoul. Then the plot begins to twist like a drunk staggering home after last call. Love it or hate it, this imaginative movie turns clichés upside down, mirrors realism with fantasy, addresses serious issues without taking itself seriously, and keeps you guessing from the first scene. Sleight (2017) HHHH Cast: Jacob Lattimore, Dule Hill Genre: Drama, Sci Fi, Thriller; Rated R As a street magician, Bo (Lattimore) astounds his onlookers, but a pocketful of tip money won’t support him in the style he desperately needs. Since his mother died, he has full responsibility for caring for his sister. The local drug kingpin Angelo (Hill) likes Bo’s hustle and slips him a little side business. Nothing much at first, but… On the classic slippery slope, Bo gets in deeper and deeper until he commits heinous acts he never dreamed possible. The demands and psychological consequences escalate until Bo reaches the breaking point. Can he ever reclaim his morality, dignity, and self-esteem? The deeply layered acting of Lattimore presents his charismatic character with all the instincts of a youth struggling to survive without breaking bad, and Hill equally portrays Angelo as the incarnation of evil. Together they present a hero’s epic struggle, with plot twists and tangles to keep you guessing until the final showdown. n
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DOC
MArk keresMAn
MArk keresMAn
foreign
The Mystery Conman (2017)
The Commune (2016)
DON’T BE PUT OFF by the somewhat bourgeois title—The Mystery Conman blows the lid off a multi-million-dollar racket. Dope, prostitution, governmental corruption? Nope; art forgery. There’s lots of money to be made creating antiquities— sculptures, busts, assorted historical artifacts—and selling them to collectors. Some of them end up in museums for an adoring public to see. Director Sönje Storm presents in a 60 Minutes-like fashion a couple of experts, primarily focusing on German archeologist Stefan Lehmann. He investigates, going through auction house inventories and examining likely items of fakery. One giveaway—and only an archaeologist and/or art history whiz would know this—is the facial features on classical busts of the Roman Caesars. Most classical artists presented their subjects without emotional “commentary”—maybe William Shatner perhaps, but Caesar Augustus did not pose with his eyes rolled to the skies. Scientific tests show that while the outer surface of a bronze statue may be “appropriately” weathered, the metal beneath the surface seems to have originated from, say, 1979. Is this news? Yes, as many wealthy people, fresh from Wall Street, oil, and techboom triumphs, sank and sink fortunes in art, both as a long-term investment and for prestige. Complicating matters is the fact that the head honchos of some auction houses and museums are not exactly in any hurry to debunk these frauds. The title of this doc refers to a somewhat prolific fabricator of “art” nicknamed The Spanish Master, to whom many of these forgeries can be, if you’ll pardon the term, credited. He (or she) has made his own fortune by crafting attractive but fake pieces of art—imagine learning that a figurine you thought was from the second century and paid the equivalent of a few hundred thousand dollars for was made in Madrid in 1982. The Mystery Conman implies that many learned, prestigiously-titled, and rich folks would look like chumps if such revelations were, well, revealed. And so, to some, Lehmann is an annoyance, a whistleblower, a guy who upsets the apple cart, and his trail of tears winds from various centers of European culture to NYC. There’s some science employed herein that puts CSI to shame…in fact, add a couple of good-looking leads and a snazzy soundtrack, this Mystery would make for a dandy cross-continental caper movie. n
THIS DANISH IMPORT PURPORTS to be about life in a commune in Copenhagen in the 1970s. Architect professor Erik (Ulrich Thomsen) inherits his (massive) family home and his bored TV news announcer wife Anna (Trine Dyrholm) gets the notion to fill the additional space with other people, in a communal living situation. She feels having other folks will be a source of stimulation. Erik resists initially but relents and soon the place is filled with friends, including some other couples and Allon (Fares Fares), an applicant who knows no one there. Initially the tightly wound Erik balks as Allon has no steady job, but when Allon begins to cry he relents. At first Commune (Kollektivet) is about how this lot of adult bohemian types adapt to each other, but their living situation becomes basically background noise to the withering marriage of Erik and Anna. Erik begins an affair with Emma (the lovely Helene Reingaard Neumann), one of his students, and someone gets the brilliant idea that Emma should move into the commune. Not because of the polyamorous aspect, but because Erik and Anna’s marriage is already on shaky ground, and Erik has, to put it mildly, anger and communication issues. During one scene, a house argument, he gets so upset that he—faints? Has a heart attack? It’s never explained or explored. In fact, almost none of the other residents’ lives and characters are explored much at all, except for Anna’s and Erik’s teen daughter Freja (Martha Sofie Wallstrøm Hansen, who conveys more angst with facial expressions than many actors can do in a monologue), who’s beginning to explore the mysteries of young love. “Mystery” is right— we see her get involved with a young fellow who seems the epitome of the goodlooking but uncaring jerk—unless your idea of romantic seduction is to monosyllabically tell your date, “Undress.” This is one of those films in which many points are introduced but, aside from the dying marriage, mostly undeveloped or underdeveloped. Aside from the fashions and sensitive acoustic singer-songwriter soundtrack, the ‘70s setting almost seems an afterthought. True, it was in all the papers, but why no mention of what was happening in Denmark at the time? Apart from the mostly fine acting, especially from Dyrholm and Hansen, The Commune seems like a warmed-over Edward Albee or John Cheever story, a mostly lugubrious and tedious watch. n
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A.D. AMOROSI
MUSIC POP
THE GENIUS OF JAY-Z; THE PASSING OF ALAN VEGA WHEN JAY-Z, ONE OF hip hop’s finest lyricists, rapped “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man,” from the “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” (remix), it didn’t seem as if the phrase would come to define him for the next decade of his career. Yet, for the last decade—even since 2003’s The Black Album—Hova (nickname he calls himself since he considers himself “the god of rap”) has
Kelly, Kanye West, Justin Timberlake and his wife, Beyonce—who bested her hangdog husband with angrier, deeply personal albums such as the wronged woman nusoul of Lemonade. Whether true or false, real or imagined, the affairs of the heart and the body committed against their marriage (to say nothing of Bey’s look at issues such as racism, enslavement and Black Lives Matter) made for an aggressive, passionate work (often against Jay) the likes of which Hova hadn’t crafted in some time. That is until 4:44. Here with but one producer/beat maker, No I.D., Jay-Z created a smallish, intimate yet epic answer to Beyoncé’s Lemonade with catharsis, compassion, consumption and condonation as its calling cards. Oh, and contemplation, because never before has the mature, married Jay-Z ruminated out loud—and smartly—about mistakes, money, faithfulness, family, the jewels he nearly lost and the contrition he’s seeking for his (supposedly) past transgressions. With 4:44, Jay-Z stopped trying to be cool, and went instead for enlightenment and self-efficacy, even if it meant placing the blame on himself for the blunders in his marriage, outing his mother or questioning his relevance in a sea of new rappers. Never fear, this old dog has new tricks and is wise beyond his years and those of his younger contemporaries. That said, Jay, his sister-in-law Solange (the same who beat him up in an elevator in defense of her sister) and many of those same contemporaries (21 Savage, Run the Jewels, Sampha, J. Cole, Migos, Pusha T, Vic Mensa, Philly’s PnB Rock and more) will play the latest iteration of Hova’s two-day Philadelphia Festival, Made in America, September 2 and 3, with all tickets and info to be found here: madeinamericafest.com. Pretty much devoid of past Made in America’s alt rock brand names (no Pearl Jam or Nine Inch Nails this year), leaving instead several electro pop super upstarts (Chainsmokers, Little Dragon, Philly’s Marian Hill), this is the most hip hop of Jay-Z’s parties on Benjamin Franklin Parkways, and somehow, its most pure. Being a business, man, at this rate isn’t so bad.
;;; Jay Z.
seemed on cruise control, with concerns knee-deep in entrepreneurial largesse (deals with Live Nation, the creation of Made in America) and brand partnerships with R.
Beyond Bruce Springsteen’s rendition of “Dream, Baby Dream,” not many people beyond the most experimental electronic music makers know Suicide and its hardened lyricist/lead screamer Alan Vega. As aggressively influential as the scorched earth electro that Suicide was (that being vocalist/poet/painter Alan Vega’s duo with Martin Rev), it was Vega who had an ongoing, prolific dialogue with his audience. The posthumous album IT—
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recorded with his wife Liz Lamere, from 2010 until his passing in 2016—was his 11th solo album, and perhaps his finest. Built lyrically and sonically from the lean inspiration of downtown NYC’s mean streets (a given/his usual), Vega built upon the detritus around him without sentiment. Life is no joke, he forcefully croon-cackles on “DTM” (dead to me) while the industrial scrawl, pucker and bounce of neo-industrial noise spins behind him. Add a ghostly chain’s clinking and Vega’s vocal tics (whoa,
Alan Vega, right, with Martin Rev of Suicide in 1980. Photo: Ebet Roberts.
yeaaah ) and you get “Vision” and its fire and brimstone breaks. “Screaming Jesus,” with its polyp-ripping shrieks and shouts of “the red white and blue is destroyed” are also very much at one with the snarling Vega vocal canon. Unlike Suicide albums, and even his own, Vega’s forceful voice is boldly high in the mix, allowing the bubble-inthe-throat growl of “Dukes God Bar” and his shouts of “Hey lousy white racists/stay away” to come through nice and clear. That’s good. Vega rarely got the opportunity to be heard beyond the underground, so clarity—in passing—was essential, and all-the-more piercing for it. n
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bob perkins
jazz library
KENNY DORHAM THE NAME OF JAZZ trumpet player Kenny Dorham first caught my ear when I heard some fans of his, along with a few radio program hosts, lazily pronouncing his last name by calling him Dorum, instead of Dor-ham. Little did I know years later I, too, would be a radio DJ, playing the music of Kenny Dorham—and being very careful to give the trumpeter’s surname the full treatment. Dorham was a fine trumpet player, with a clean sound; he was more than capable of holding his own on uptempo arrangements, and playing beautifully on ballads. He must have been respected by his musical associates because early in his career, and following service in the military, he occupied a trumpet chair in Dizzy Gillespie’s original big band, and later held a chair in Bill Eckstine’s progressive big band. A few years later he replaced Miles Davis in Charlie Parker’s quintet, and still later replaced the legendary trumpeter Clifford Brown in the quintet, which Brown co-led with drummer Max Roach. This replacement came about because of Brown’s untimely and shocking death in an auto accident. Add to his list of accomplishments, the fact that Dorham was one of the original members of the Jazz Messengers, founded in the mid-1950s by Horace Silver and Art Blakey, and headed for many years by Blakey when Silver left to activate his own quintet So Dorham had all the tools necessary to play modern jazz in prime time and alongside primary artists. He’d been groomed in his teens through duty in a number of dance bands, and then graduated professionally to play in the bands of Lionel Hampton and Mercer Ellington. He
eventually began to arrange music, and did so for the bands of Lucky Millender, Benny Carter, Cootie Williams and Gil Fuller. Dorham was born into a musical family, and studied
George Morrow, Hank Mobley, Max Roach and Kenny Dorham.
piano at age seven, later switching to trumpet while attending high school. But his fascination with boxing and his membership in the school’s boxing team often relegated his music studies to second-fiddle status. He may not have been a scholar, but Dorham pos-
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sessed a fine mind, and in 1948 attended the Gotham School of Music under the G.I. Bill. Years later, he continued his music studies at New York University. But while attempting to make a living as a jazz musician, and after sharing stages with some of the greats of the Big Band era, and later with many of the storied names of a more progressive time, he had to supplement his income from time to time via 9-5 gigs. One of his supplementary gigs was writing record reviews for Down Beat magazine. Toward the end of his career, Dorham’s straightahead approach to jazz changed and he became a bit more exploratory as he mixed with younger musicians like saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist Andrew Hill, and drummer Tony Williams. One of Dorham’s earlier albums with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Blue Spring, is a doozy, and would be a fine addition to any jazz library. For whatever reason, Kenny Dorham was a very underrated and unsung jazz musician. Perhaps had he lived longer, time for more recognition might have been on his side. McKinley Howard “Kenny” Dorham was born on August 30, 1924 in Fairfield, Texas. He passed away at age 48, a victim of failing kidneys. Before he departed he left behind as part of his legacy the jazz standard “Blue Bossa.” n Bob Perkins is a writer and host of an all-jazz radio program that airs on WRTI-FM 90.1 Monday through Thursday night from 6:00 to 9:00pm and Sunday, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM.
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toM Wilk
music SINGER / SONGWRITER Lisa Said HHH Estranged Tall Short Records With Estranged, her new EP, Lisa Said acknowledges the rock music of the 1960s and 1970s that influenced her art. “Some Dudes” kicks off the CD with some powerful guitar lines from Seth
recorded solo on acoustic guitar, piano, and harmonica in August 1976. While Young would rework the songs for six studio albums released between 1977 and 2010, the earlier performances are a revelation, akin to reading the first drafts of a collection of short stories. “Powderfinger,” initially heard in an electrified, full-band version on Rust Never Sleeps in 1979, gains a sense of doom and
Kauffman that sounds like the Velvet Underground sitting in with the Rolling Stones. Lyrically, the song is a cousin of “Some Girls,” the title track of the Stones’ album from 1978. Said sings the words like a litany, starting with the title phrase and name checks the Stones’ songs “Gimme Shelter” and “Emotional Rescue.” Vocally, Said recalls Chrissie Hynde on the wistful “Regular Guy,” which features a blend of acoustic and electric guitars that echo the style of The Who. “Peel The Moon” is powered by Andrew Toy’s drums and Andrew Cox’s mandolin and recalls Rod Stewart’s solo work of the early 1970s. Said wraps up the recording with a positive vibe on “Up Not, Down” in which she asks of a friend: “Won’t you pull me up/Don’t you push me down.” Estranged is a short but sweet musical appetizer while Said prepares for her next fulllength album. (4 songs, 17 minutes)
sorrow in its stripped-down format as the narrator recounts his fateful end from the grave. “Pocahontas” serves as a straightforward account of the demise of Native Americans but wraps up surrealistically with a scene around the campfire involving Young, Marlon Brand and the Astrodome. “Ride My Llama,” heard in a shorter version than the one released on Rust Never Sleeps, recalls the work of Bob Dylan in its lyrical flights of fancy. “Campaigner,” written after Richard Nixon resigned from office in 1974, shows the human side of the fallen leader. Hitchhiker includes two previously unreleased songs: “Hawaii” and “Give Me Strength.” The latter serves as a bittersweet farewell to Carrie Snodgress, mother of his first son. “Give me strength to move along,” Young sadly signs, “Give me strength to realize she’s gone.” It will stand as one of Young’s most emotionally heartfelt songs. (10 songs, 34 minutes)
Neil Young HHHH Hitchhiker Reprise Neil Young continues the exploration of his extensive archives with the release of Hitchhiker, a collection of songs
Arthur Alexander HHH1/2 Self-titled Omnivore Recordings Arthur Alexander holds the distinction of having his songs recorded by the Beatles (“Anna”), the Rolling Stones (“You Bet-
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ter Move On”) and Bob Dylan (“Sally Sue Brown”). Alexander, who died at 53 in 1993, also was an influential singer and soul music pioneer, as demonstrated on the reissue of his self-titled solo album from 1972. The celebratory “I’m Comin’ Home” opens the CD with a departure from his ballads of heartbreak with a horn-fueled groove that recalls the heyday of Stax Records. The up-tempo “Burning Love,” which later became a hit for Elvis Presley, shows Alexander’s ability to sing rock ‘n’ roll. Alexander was at his best on slower songs that explored the human condition as his voice could bring the sadness to the forefront. “Go On Home Girl, captures the mixed emotions of a romantic triangle, while “Rainbow Road” allows him to paint a portrait of despair that conveys the narrator’s anguish. He was also at home with the country/folk hybrid of “Down the Back Roads”, the confessional gospel of “Thank God He Came” and the tropical-flavored “Call Me in Tahiti.” Highlights of the six bonus tracks include a New Orleans-styled “Lover Please,” a tribute to Clyde McPhatter, and the funky “I Don’t Want Nobody.” (18 songs, 51 minutes) Delta Wires HHH Born in Oakland Mud Slide Records Delta Wires keeps the spirit of the blues alive with their seventh album, Born in Oakland, a nod to the birthplace of the seven-piece band. The group’s musical execution is first-rate, giving each band member a turn in the spotlight. The mid-tempo “Sunny Day” begins the album with an easygoing summer song. “Summer rain washes my cares away,” sings lead vocalist Ernie Pinata. “Fine and Healthy Thing” kicks things up a notch, thanks to a swinging arrangement by the band’s three-man horn section. The energetic “Fun Time” and “I Don’t Care” are geared to get listeners out on the dance floor, while “Vacation” features some fine interplay between the horns and the slinky guitar work of Richard Healy. The ballad “Your Eyes” is a success-
ful venture into jazz/rhythm-and-blues territory. “In The Middle,” the longest track, is the CD’s sole instrumental and provides a showcase for Pinata’s harmonica stylings and the horn work of saxophonist Gerry Jonutz, trombonist David Bowman and trumpeter John Christensen. (10 songs, 41 minutes) Lesley Kernochan HHH A Calm Sun Maple Syrup Music Lesley Kernochan makes a strong impression with A Calm Sun, her first nationwide release. As a singer, she conveys a sense of warmth and reassurance through her well-crafted songs that are a
mix of folk, country, and pop. “Les petits mondes sont partout,” English for the little worlds are everywhere, finds her singing in English and French over lilting rhythms about the wondrous discovery of smaller worlds within bigger ones. “Country in the City” serves as a reminder of the pleasures of American music, from country to zydeco. The fastpaced “Hurricane Eye” shows her ability to craft an unexpected phrase as a lyricist. “I wanna ride the Truth Caboose/No matter what the price” she declares. The sprightly “Love is a Verb” considers the mysteries of attraction with some Dylanesque lyrics: “You’re my teacher true/You’re a mirror, I’m the stew.” Kernochan mixes uplifting themes, from the merits of perseverance and endurance on “Old Fisherman’s Song” to not taking those closest to us for granted on “Loving Family.” Her music shows a faith in the future in a time when cynicism is an easy option. (14 songs, 48 minutes) n
J j
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about life
JAMes p. delpino, Mss, Mlsp, lcsW, bcd
When it’s Time to Say Goodbye EVERY YEAR I DO several deathbed consultations. Sometimes as life leaves a person they have internal conflicts, anger, sadness, regrets and resentments. While these feelings are salient to the living, they’re even more pronounced as time runs out. Knowing this I want to help a patient experience a “good” death. We’d all like to be able to say that in the end someone has died peacefully and did not suffer. If there has been suffering we’re grateful that the suffering has ended. In light of this, turning to medicine for comfort makes the end better for the person, as well as for his or her family. There are several key elements to what I refer to as a “good death.” Because each life story is unique, this list is not fully inclusive of all the variables; however, these elements are somewhat universal in my experience. This is the time for love first and foremost. I advise everyone to put away their personal feelings for a later time. The focus is the dying person. There will be plenty of time in the future to deal with grief, anger, sadness and loss. Tell the dying person you love them. Tell the dying person you forgive them for any and all slights and transgressions. Most important, reassure and restate your love. Tell the dying person you will be fine even if you have doubts about being fine and going on without them. Try to reserve your tears for a place away from the dying person as upset can create unnecessary anxiety. I always encourage the dying person to tell everyone how much they love them and express their gratitude for knowing them. This is a final gift to family and friends. This is a time for healing whatever conflicts remain. I always encourage forgiveness for those who have wronged and hurt the dying person in the course of her or his life. Sometimes it is in person, sometimes it is by email, and sometimes it is by phone. I offer these opJim Delpino is a psychotherapist in private practice for over 36 years. jdelpino@aol.com (215) 364-0139.
tions so the dying person can have a choice of which mode of communication they feel the most comfortable with. Forgiveness helps to heal the conflict and pain within and it is also the final gift to others. I advise making a list of all the people the dying person would like to see before their passing. Having the chance to say goodbye is an act of great love and compassion for all involved. Make sure not to keep people who would do or say negative things away from the dying person. It is their time to have a peaceful death, and anger and negativity have no place in this process. This is about the feelings of the dying one. It also helps the living to feel no regrets for causing emotional pain in the end times. Even when unconscious, a dying person can hear you speak even though they may be unable to respond. Hearing is the last sense to go, so be careful what you say when in the presence of someone who is dying. No one wants to die alone. Being surrounded with love and support by those nearest and dearest is a comfort beyond words for some approaching death. Dying is a process, so do not fret if you are not present when a person passes. Be sure to thank the dying person for all their kindnesses in words and actions. Be careful not to take it personally if they do not respond or acknowledge your words. Near death the higher cognitive functions are often greatly impaired. Do not take anger to the grave. I always want the dying one to release themselves from anger, disappointments, regrets, and resentments for these serve no goal worthy of holding onto in the last days. Keep the environment happy as best you can. While this is a high challenge, dying with no pain, with happiness and in peace all make for a “good death.” Giving a “good death” is enormously helpful for the ones left behind. It gives solace and reduces complicating factors in the grieving process later on. 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 A U G U S T 2 0 1 7 n I C O N n 31
MArk keresMAn
music JAZZ / ROCK / CLASSICAL / ALT Trio Mediaeval & Arve Henriksen
HHHH1/2
Rimur ECM It doesn’t take a genius or a cynic to notice we’re living in stressful times, which makes a release like Rimur even more re-
markable and necessary (yes, I mean necessary). The makers of music herein are from Norway: Trio Mediaeval, a trio of ladies specializing in (wait for it) tunes from ye olde medieval times, and jazz trumpeter Arve Henriksen, performing chants, hymns, folk songs, and improvisations based on Scandinavian sources. The singing is bare bones, rendering with very little instrumental accompaniment. Henriksen’s trumpet, whose tones resembles that of a flute, soars gently and sighs alongside the crystalline purity of the Trio’s voices. This is music of heartbreaking purity, refined and primal simultaneously. Points of reference would be Gregorian chant, Hildegard von Bingen, Dead Can Dance and former vocalist Lisa Gerrard (and her works for film soundtracks). Whether one considers this ancient folk with jazz undertones, early/pre-classical music, or holy noise from the ether, Rimur has a charmingly soothing effect without being sleepinducing or cloying. (17 tracks, 51 min.) ecmrecords.com Don Ellis HHHH Soaring MPS/Edel Trumpeter Don Ellis (1934-1978) was one of the performers that pumped new blood into the big band concept in the 1960s and ’70s, leading a large combo that was both creative and popular. As a sideperson he played with giants Charlie Min-
gus and Frank Zappa—how many folks can say that? While many jazz musicians of his generation viewed rock, funk, electronics, and/or the avant-garde as aberrations or adversaries, Ellis embraced aspects of each and incorporated them into his big band (along with sounds/concepts from India and Brazil). Originally released in 1973 and long unavailable in the USA, Soaring captures Ellis at one of his ’70s high points. Bold, rollicking, and inventive, Soaring has the sparkling arrangements and swing of Gil Evans and Woody Herman, the sentimental elegance of Henry Mancini (like Hank the Man, Ellis also scored movies), some of the over-the-top blam-o blare of Maynard Ferguson, the humor of Carla Bley, and the twisty, brainy impudence of Zappa’s jazz/orchestral side. Some tender solos, too. Get it before it disappears again. (8 tracks, 43 min.) edel.com Andy T Band featuring Alabama Mike
HHH
Double Strike American Showplace Music The torch is passed: Nick Nixon, featured vocalist in the band of blues guitarist Andy T, due to health issues had to yield the microphone to Alabama Mike (Benjamin), so this set is about evenly divided between the two singers. Alabama Mike leans closer to the intersection of urban blues, gospel and the R&B/soul (think Bobby “Blue” Bland), whereas Nixon leans to the Albert King/Muddy Waters side of things. High points include “Somebody Like You,” which would’ve fit perfectly in Van Morrison’s repertoire 1969-71, and “Mudslide,” a feature for Andy T’s terse, stinging guitar that’ll warm the hearts of those missing King and Stevie Ray Vaughan. (Extra added attraction: Some guest shots from Anson Funderburgh.) There’s nothing here you haven’t heard before, but what’s here is rendered with plenty of élan and soul, with no excesses to be found. The blues tradition is in good hands. (13 tracks, min.) americanshowplacemusic.com Slim Forsythe HHHH1/2 This is Slim Forsythe Stephen Sciulli HHH1/2
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High in the Mountain Get Hip Folk Series Here are some decidedly singular takes on Americana—”Americana” being a short-form/catch-all for traditionally-based permutations of American roots music. Slim Forsythe is a Pittsburgh-based singer/songwriter who takes his approach on country music from icons Hank Williams Sr., Johnny Cash, and Jimmie Rogers—simple (but not simplistic), direct, songs that are short stories. This is Slim Forsythe is his debut for the Get Hip label, and it’s a captivatingly effort, just voice and guitar, a combination of standards (“Ghost Riders in the Sky”), lesser-known old country tunes (Hank W’s “Singing Waterfall”) and originals written in the pre-Nashville and folk-like styles. (In this case, folk as defined by Woody Guthrie, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and pre-electric Bob Dylan.) Vocally, Forsythe, with his high, lonesome sound, evokes Hank Sr. and (slightly) Woody Guthrie yet never comes off as imitative. This, pilgrims, is The Real Deal, sharp and real as a whiskey shot or that first chilly autumn wind. (10 tracks, 35 min.) Another Pittsburgher, Stephen Sciulli writes original songs melding country and folk forms and electronically-driven, slight-
ly goth-ish pop in a one-man band context, layering guitars, banjo, flute and whistle, and keyboards, with synthesized percussion providing languidly pulsating rhythms. This is more dreamy than twangy—call it folktronica. Sciulli’s voice is deep, haunting, and resonating akin to a cross between Waylon Jennings and Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, singing tales of doom (“Watched You Bleed Out”) and, well, unhappiness (“Disintegration is Painless”). Providentially, the gloom is allayed by the beautifully serene instrumental “Willow
Water,” rich with Irish and slightly bluesy overtones. High in the Mountain is the sound of two (or more) worlds colliding. (10 tracks, 49 min.) gethip.com Alison Krauss HHHHH Windy City Capitol The Grammy-winning Alison Krauss is righteously known as a singer and fiddler who has actually gotten popular with her neo-traditionalist style of bluegrass (that is, keeping close to the classic high-lonesome sound but not approaching it in any provincial manner). Windy City finds Krauss stepping away from (though not
abandoning) bluegrass and embracing the classic Nashville country sound (that is, pre-Nash Vegas/young country). Many of the songs have tasteful, mostly understated and judiciously dramatic orchestration in the vein of Glen Campbell’s classic sound—she does a fine, faithful version of his classic definition-of-melancholia “Gentle on My Mind.” Without any trappings of recreate-ive nostalgia, Krauss taps into the styles of pre-crossover success Dolly Parton (to whom she bears a slight vocal resemblance) and Willie Nelson; also, stylistically Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, Tammy Wynette, and Patsy Cline. Krauss imbues the honky tonk “Poison Love” with a TexMex lilt and “You Don’t Know Me” with near-apocalyptic torch song class. There is no rock ‘n’ roll here nor any entreaties to country or pop radio—just thoughtfully layered, arranged music and angelic heartfelt singing. (10 tracks, 34 min.) capitolrecords.co n
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harper’s FINDINGS
INDEX
Racists in the United States support free-speech rights for racist speech, but not for speech critical of their co-workers or the police. The number of Americans admitted to emergency departments with injuries from law enforcement officers has remained stable. An online survey found that U.S. airline passengers are willing to pay an extra $15 and wait an extra fifteen minutes to avoid discriminatory airport screenings. M.I.T. researchers created a set of apps that give you something to do while waiting for other apps to complete tasks. Straight men outside bars in the Midwest are more willing, when drunk, to consider sex with another man. Gay men who are bottoms or versatiles for anal sex are more likely to be left-handed, while tops do not differ from straight men in handedness. Hairy mothers are likelier to have autistic children, women abused as children are likelier to select autistic mates, and Americans with autism live half as long. British bullies and their victims are both far likelier than those uninvolved in bullying to wish for cosmetic surgery. Donald Trump telephoned NASA astronauts in space. “That’s what we like, great American equipment that works,” he said.
Estimated payload, in pounds of military-grade explosives, of fireworks purchased annually in the United States: 5,900,000 Of the MOAB, the U.S. military’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb: 18,000 Amount of Vietnam War–era loan repayments that the United States is demanding from Cambodia: $506,400,000 Estimated number of Cambodian civilians killed by U.S. bombs during the war: 100,000 Amount a U.N.-backed tribunal has spent prosecuting ex–Khmer Rouge members for crimes against humanity: $293,100,000 Number of people who have been convicted: 3 Estimated amount the U.S. government has spent since 2011 in the search for Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony: $800,000,000 Date on which the Ugandan government announced it was giving up the search: 4/19/2017 Minimum number of wildlife rangers killed in the line of duty worldwide since 2009: 595 Portion of UNESCO natural World Heritage Sites in which wildlife criminals operate: 1/2 Maximum amount the Chinese government offers to individuals who uncover foreign spies: $72,000 Number of hours for which a Britney Spears concert forced Israel’s Labor Party to delay its primary elections: 24 Price per night of the presidential suite in the artist Banksy’s hotel overlooking the West Bank separation barrier: $965 Portion of U.S. Border Patrol applicants who fail their polygraph tests: 3/4 Percentage change this year in the number of Hispanics reporting being raped in Houston: –43 Percentage change in absences at elementary schools in Las Cruces, New Mexico, after immigration raids in February: +148 Portion of the Venezuelan population who live in poverty: 4/5 Percentage of Venezuelans who lost weight last year: 73 Average number of pounds they lost: 19 Value of food stamps used at U.S. military commissaries last year: $66,978,704 Chances a child in school on a U.S. military base is eligible for free or reduced-cost meals: 2 in 5 Percentage of Mississippi families applying for welfare in 2016 who were accepted: 1.4 Percentage change since 1986 in the number of working-age adults receiving Social Security for disability: +94 Percentage of worldwide vaccine-preventable mumps cases last year that occurred in the United States: 95 In Canada: 0.3 Percentage of trash at the 2016 Coachella music festival in California that was recycled: 20 At the NorthSide Festival in Denmark: 76 Tons of trash that have been removed from Mount Everest since 2008: 17 Amount a Sherpa earns for every two pounds he or she removes from the mountain: $1 Factor by which the temperature increase in Alaska since 1957 exceeds that in the rest of the United States: 2 Amount of time, in minutes, that national nightly news broadcasts spent covering climate change last year: 39 Number of consecutive years for which Fox News has been the most popular U.S. cable news network: 15 Estimated number of Donald Trump’s twenty most engaged Twitter followers that are bots: 14 Portion of N.F.L. owners who donated to Trump’s inauguration committee: 1/4 Estimated amount of U.S. public funds that have been invested in N.F.L. stadiums since 1996: $6,700,000,000 Percentage by which the portion of N.C.A.A. women’s head coaches who are female has decreased since Title IX passed: 50 Portion of Germans who belong to the national soccer association: 1/10 Average number of hours by which an hour of running increases one’s life span: 7 Minimum number of U.S. colleges with varsity e-sports teams: 26
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Physicists created a liquid with negative mass. Astronomers identified the universe’s “purest” known brown dwarf. The Mbuti Pygmies of Virunga National Park were dealing marijuana. Adolescents who were born into captivity to women held as sex slaves by the Lord’s Resistance Army were found to prefer wartime to peacetime. Geophagy by Congolese women and the frequenting of shooting ranges by Americans cause high levels of lead in the blood of Congolese babies and American adults. Mass fainting episodes at Cambodian garment factories are anticipated by prefigurative dreams, workplace accidents, and possession by ghosts. The madness of George III resulted in an epistolary style with fewer clauses. The brain simultaneously creates shortand long-term versions of the same memory. Humans’ ability to make random choices peaks at age twenty-five. The first evidence of robust numerical reasoning in wild animals was established, in a troop of baboons. An anthropologist examined the ethics of allowing lab monkeys to watch so much TV. The lives of children with eczema are made no better by the wearing of silken garments.
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Describing American goat cheese requires thirty- nine flavor attributes, including waxy, sweaty, and goaty, whereas describing the odor of antique books in the library of St. Paul’s Cathedral requires twenty-one olfactory attributes, including woody, medicinal, and bread. Humans’ judgments of others on the basis of natural body odor do not consistently align with judgments deriving from adulterated, “diplomatic” body odor. Cannibalism is not nutritious, fava beans come from Lower Galilee, and the vineyard workers of Chi-anti may suffer from shrunken thyroids because of exposure to fungicides. A team of biologists and veterinarians successfully treated the fungal infection Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola. “Before this,” said the lead researcher, “nobody had nebulized a snake.” Premature lambs were kept alive and growing in plastic wombs. The brains of naked mole rats can survive without oxygen, by burning fructose. An international team detailed the penile and clitoral anatomy of broad-footed, star-nosed, hairy-tailed, and Japanese shrew moles.
SOURCES: 1 American Pyrotechnics Association (Chestertown, Md.); 2 McAlester Army Ammunition Plant (Okla.); 3 U.S. Department of State; 4 Ben Kiernan, Yale
University (New Haven, Conn.); 5,6 Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (Phnom Penh); 7 Ledio Cakaj (Washington); 8 Uganda People’s Defence Force (Kampala); 9 International Ranger Federation (Cheyenne, Wyo.); 10 World Wildlife Fund (Nairobi, Kenya); 11 People’s Daily (Beijing); 12 Israeli Labor Party (Tel Aviv); 13 Walled Off Hotel (Bethlehem, Palestine); 14 U.S. Customs and Border Protection; 15 Houston Police Department; 16 Las Cruces Public Schools (N.M.); 17–19 Marianella Herrera Cuenca, Universidad Central de Venezuela (Caracas); 20 Food and Nutrition Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (Alexandria, Va.); 21 U.S. Government Accountability Office; 22 Mississippi Department of Human Services (Jackson); 23 Social Security Administration (Baltimore); 24,25 Council on Foreign Relations (N.Y.C.); 26 City of Indio Development Services Department (Calif.); 27 NorthSide (Århus, Denmark); 28,29 Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (Kathmandu, Nepal); 30 Kenai National Wildlife Refuge (Soldotna, Alaska); 31 Media Matters for America (Washington); 32 Nielsen (N.Y.C.); 33 SocialRank (N.Y.C.)/Harper’s research; 34 Harper’s research; 35 ESPN (Minneapolis); 36 Linda Carpenter (West Brookfield, Mass.)/N.C.A.A. (Indianapolis); 37 German Football Association (Frankfurt); 38 Duck-Chul Lee, Iowa State University (Ames); 39 Riot Games (Los Angeles).
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The Los Angeles Times SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE
SOMETHING’S FISHY ACROSS
1 Einstein equation word 5 Urges to attack, with “on” 9 They may be tied around saddle horns 15 Lhasa __ 19 Start of a plan 20 Workplace regulator: Abbr. 21 Carpet installer’s step one 22 Surgeon general under Reagan 23 First name in game shows 24 “__, SpaghettiOs!”: Campbell’s slogan 25 It may call for an R rating 26 __ the finish 27 “Me, blab to flatfish? No way!” 30 Memo starter 31 Spelling song 32 Hosp. area 33 Relief, spelled out? 36 Mumbai hrs. 39 NYSE valuation measure 42 Oscar __ Renta 43 Simile middle 44 They often affect performance 46 “Take whichever one you want for your fish and chips”? 50 Glasses problem 51 Nonsharing word 52 Antioxidant food preservative 53 Bus sign word 54 Fish playing on keys? 56 French four-time Formula One champ Prost 58 One in a black suit 62 Apprentices 63 Mercury’s Greek counterpart 65 Pool activity 66 Louis XIV, par exemple 67 Fish on stage? 71 Telepathy, e.g. 72 More 74 Furtive graffiti guy 75 Reason for turning on closed captioning 78 Property transfer documents 80 Dark crime films 81 “Stop imitating a pond fish”? 83 Class
By Clive Probert
85 Boater, for one 86 Decree 87 Bequeath 88 Blue fish, maybe? 93 Sights from the Gateway Arch 94 __ center 95 Petits __: garden peas 96 Made more baskets than 98 Food scrap 99 Bar food? 101 Great Smokies st. 103 Arles articles 105 Persia, now 106 Fish duo’s routine when something seems fishy? 113 Arguing 114 __ Baker, subject of “Thirteen Reasons Why” 115 Pull in 116 Stagger 117 Fender problem 118 Honest with 119 Rte. 66 state 120 Pakistani language 121 June 6, 1944 122 Talks back to 123 Monument Valley feature 124 Tree hugger 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 28 29 30 34 35 36 37
DOWN
“La Bohème” soprano Yemen’s Gulf of __ Dried-up Astute They may be anonymous Beatty/Hoffman flop Half a tot’s train? Humorist Mort Go wild Occupied Passion Work hard Like a dress back from the tailor Crafty Alphabetically first dog in the AKC’s Working Group Grand Prix, e.g. Stinker Choose __ penguin Flight maintenance word Singer Morissette King Harald’s father Down Uplifted Florida tribe
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38 Dissertation 40 Could hear __ drop 41 Weymouth of Talking Heads 42 Serve a sentence 45 Windmill part 47 More competent 48 Third time, proverbially 49 Jabbers 51 Fabric from Iraq 55 Toll rd. 56 Ship-to-ship greetings 57 “You __ bother” 59 Last Sunday, this Sunday 60 Credit card introduced by Sears 61 Least meaningful, as compliments 64 Skirt feature 68 Big Island greetings 69 It can come before a sentence 70 Defensive structures 73 Word processing menu 76 Dissipated 77 Lustful look 79 Easy to get into 81 Scuttlebutt 82 Kentucky __, event before the Derby 84 __-Aid 86 Flora partner 88 Work unit 89 Deserved
90 Oval-shaped instrument 91 __ Gorge, near Buffalo 92 Big shots 93 Windfall 97 Arrogance 100 Stylish in dress 101 Gets buff, with “up” 102 Online social arrange ment 104 Rugby formation
107 Burden 108 Reprimand, with “out” 109 Peel 110 Prefix with dynamic 111 Great American Ball Park team 112 Math sign 113 Use a 112-Down 114 Cleveland __, OH
Answer to July’s puzzle, UP THE RIVER
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agenda FINE ART thrU 8/27 the cover sells the book: transformations in commercial book publishing, 1860-1920. this exhibition will investigate the trans-Atlantic concept of the ‘complete book,’ which took place between 1860 and 1920. during this 60year period, the conflation of advances in print technology and the philosophy of the Arts and crafts Movement led to a new aesthetic in book design. delaware Art Museum, 2301 kentmere parkway, Wilmington, de. 302-571-9590 delart.org thrU 9/3 subversion and surrealism in the Art of honoré sharrer. the first critical reassessment of an artist whose mature oeuvre constitutes a rich and often disquieting critique that is equal parts wit, seduction, and bite. pennsylvania Academy of the fine Arts, fisher brooks gallery, samuel M.v. hamilton building, 118-128 no. broad st., phila., pA 215-972-7600 pAfA.org thrU 9/3 Assemblage: A regional collective of Women Artists. Assemblage is a group of 17 women artists from the greater philadelphia area. While the artists exhibit individually throughout the region, they work toward exhibiting collectively once a year. the artists work in various media and include the figure, animals, architecture, nature, and both realistic and abstract forms in their designs. delaware Art Museum, 2301 kentmere parkway, Wilmington, de. 302-571-9590 delart.org thrU 9/17 the original Mad Man: illustrations by Mac conner. Mac conner (born 1913) created advertising campaigns for a variety of products during the decade when the advertising industry was at its height and centered on Madison Avenue. delaware Art Museum, 2301 kentmere parkway, Wilmington, de. 302-571-9590 delart.org
thrU 11/2 designing for the loom: drawings by William geskes. Allentown Art Museum, 31 north 5th st., Allen-
town, pA. 610-432-4333. AllentownArtMuseum.org
plenty of peachy treats, sizzling shopping deals and family fun. peddler’s village, routes 202 & 263, lahaska, pA. 215-794-4000. peddlersvillage.com
thrU 2/4/2018 revolutionizing design: progressive home decorating at the turn of the century. Allentown Art Museum, 31 8/27 philadelphia-based art collector paul north 5th st., Allentown, pA. 610432-4333. AllentownArtMuseum.org kania in discussion with ron rumford and lafayette college proffessor & printmaker Jim toia about the 8/5-8/27 art of collecting. Allentown Art MuArtsbridge and new hope Arts seum, 31 north 5th st., Allentown, summer salon. paintings, watercolpA. 610-432-4333. ors, works on paper, mixed media, photography and sculpture on view AllentownArtMuseum.org at new hope Arts center, corner 9/2 & 9/3 of stockton & bridge sts., new hope, pA. fri.- sun., 1- 5 pm. open- 18th Annual Art in the garden, at paxson hill farm. enjoy the work of ing reception: 8/5, 4-7 pm. over 70 local artists while walking newhopeArts.org, the beautiful grounds that feature a Artsbridgeonline.com variety of public and private gardens, water features and sculpture. 3265 8/12 & 13 comfort rd., new hope, pA. 215fine Art at a fine price the 2nd summer fine Art sale will 297-1010. paxsonhillfarm.com be held 12:00 to 5:00 pM each day. Artists of yardley (Aoy) Art center, 9/8 Whose business is the Arts, bringing 949 Mirror lake road, yardley pA together business leaders, members artistsofyardley.org of the arts community, and foundation and government representatives 8/14 – 11/5 A collaborative language: selections for a conversation on the future of the lehigh valley. 8am-11:30am, defrom the experimental printmaking institute. the pennsylvania Academy sales University, center valley, pA. for more information, lvartscounof the fine Arts celebrates the excil.org/whose-business. perimental printmaking institute (epi) at lafayette college and its 209/23-9/24 year history as one of the nation’s leaders in fine art prints. the exhibi- new hope’s 24th Annual outdoor Juried Arts and crafts festival, 10tion displays prints by such noted 6pm, new hope – solebury high artists as Alison saar, sam gilliam, robin holder, david driskell, Martha school. located in the beautiful, historic river town of new hope, pA. Jackson Jarvis, Willie cole, richard outdoor, rain or shine event. $1 adAnuszkiewicz, barbara bullock, mission, ample parking, complimenMelvin edwards, and William t. Williams, illuminating epi’s unique ef- tary shuttle, festival food, and music. Also visit new hope’s business disfect on the infinite possibilities of trict which is just a few minutes' paper. pAfA, richard c. von hess foundation Works on paper gallery, walk away. Artists will be recognized historic landmark building, 118-128 with ribbons and cash prizes. More north broad st., philadelphia, pA info: newhopeartsandcrafts.com 215-972-7600 pAfA.org
ART FESTIVALS / EVENTS
THEATER
thrU 8/27 "deadly housewives" Murder Mys8/12 & 8/13 tery dinner theater debuts June 3. peach festival & sidewalk sale, 10am-6pm. sidewalk sale starts 8/11. saturdays at 7 p.m. & sundays at 4
p.m. book a sunday brunch & Mystery Matinee package. peddler’s village, lahaska, pA. reservations required, 215-794-4051. peddlersvillage.com 9/19 John cleese live on stage, plus a screening of Monty python and the holy grail. 7pm, state theatre, 453 northampton st., easton, pA. 610252-3132. statetheatre.org
9/24 lyrA, the russian vocal ensemble, 3:00 pM. suggested donation $10 at the door. cathedral Arts, cathedral church of the nativity, 321 Wyandotte st., bethlehem, pA. 610-8650727. nativitycathedral.org MUSIKFEST CAFÉ´ 101 founders Way, bethlehem 610-332-1300 Artsquest.org
8/4-13 Musikfest 8/18 comedian Maria bamford 8/19 billy bauer band: dave CONCERTS Matthews band tribute 8/23 Marshall crenshaw y los thrU 8/20 straitjackets chamber music by vivaldi, J. s. bach, telemann and tartini. featured solos 8/27 old dominion: yuengling summer concert series for recorder, oboe and violin. sunday evenings, 7:30 p.m., pennsylvania sin- 8/31 Wxpn Welcomes the Mavericks fonia orchestra, Wesley church, Matthew Morrison 2540 center st. (route 512), beth- 9/7 lehem, pA. 610-434-7811. pAsinfonia.org EVENTS 8/12 & 8/13 8/18 scott tixier Quartet, 7:30 pM. Miller peddler’s village peach festival and summer sidewalk sale. plenty of symphony hall, 23 north sixth st., peachy treats, sizzling shopping deals Allentown, pA. 610-432-6715. and family fun. shops are open until Millersymphonyhall.org 8 pm on fri. & sat. lahaska, pA. http://www.peddlersvillage.com/festi9/2 vals/peach-festival Allentown symphony orchestra at levitt pavilion, free, levitt pavilion, bethlehem, pA. your favorite broadway tunes come to life. Millersymphonyhall.org
9/9 ny Jazz repertory orchestra: hell’s kitchen funk orchestra. Zoellner Arts center, lehigh University, 420 e. packer Ave., bethlehem, pA. 610758-2787. Zoellnerartscenter.org 9/15 st. paul & the broken bones. free event parking. 8pm, Zoellner Arts center, lehigh University, 420 e. packer Ave., bethlehem, pA. 610758-2787. Zoellnerartscenter.org
9/9 Allentown beerfest. Join us in the 500 & 600 blocks of hamilton street, Allentown, pA, for an afternoon of great beers, great food and fantastic music in our vibrant downtown. 1-5pm, tickets are $34 for unlimited sampling of 70+ beers. downtownallentown.com 9/11-10/29 38th Annual scarecrow competition & display. peddler’s village, routes 202 & 263, lahaska, pA. 215-7944000. peddlersvillage.com
9/16-9/17 the Annual scarecrow festival features scarecrow-making workshops, 9/15 boz scaggs, 2017 tour. 7:30pm, state pumpkin painting, live musical entertheatre, 453 northampton st., east- tainment and children’s activities. 10am-6pm, peddler’s village, routes on, pA. 610-252-3132. 202 & 263, lahaska, pA. 215-794statetheatre.org 4000. peddlersvillage.com
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