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AUGUST
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Exclusive Interview Sebastian Maniscalco | 20
Cindy Roesinger, Felicity. Touchstone Art Gallery.
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ART
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MORE FILM 24 |
EXHIBITIONS I Touchstone Art Gallery
DOCUMENTARY Newspaperman
Filling the hunger since 1992
The Wild Radish Gallery
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28 |
Summer Show Ahlum Gallery 8 |
EXHIBITIONS II
MUSIC 30 |
Summer Show
Silverman Gallery Bucks County Impressionist Art
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THEATER
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PHOTOJOURNALIST
14 |
NIGHTLIFE
FILM
34 |
FILM ROUNDUP Ideal Home Madeline’s Madeline Mission: Impossible - Fallout A Very English Scandal
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REEL NEWS The Rider Zama On Chesil Beach Isle of Dogs
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JAZZ LIBRARY Al Grey
16 | Support the Girls 18 |
JAZZ/ ROCK/CLASSICAL/ALT Woody Shaw Dexter Gordon Marcy Rosen/Lydia Artymiw Rocket 3 The Essex Green Elina Duni
ArtsQuest’s Banana Factory 10 |
SINGER / SONGWRITER Tom Russell Willie Nile Yvette Landry & The Jukes The Lucky Losers with Cathy Lemons and Phil Berkowitz Nick Lowe
Bucks Summer Show
Musikfest 35th Anniversary Photography Exhibition
FOODIE FILE Summer Winds’ A.C. & Spice Finch
Bethlehem House Contemporary Art Gallery
Trance dance is the way to communicate with the ancestors. San People of the Kalahari Desert.
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PRESIDENT
Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com
EDITORIAL Editor / Trina McKenna Raina Filipiak / Advertising filipiakr@comcast.net
Summer Exhibition
Rigo Peralta, Metamorphosis de un Rostro, detail, Bethlehem House Contemporary Art Gallery.
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FOREIGN Let the Sunshine In
Cindy Roesinger Solo Exhibit 26 |
ON THE COVER: Sebastian Maniscalco. Photo: Peggy Sirota.
The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, opinion and mad genius 215-862-9558
5 | Pulling Together
Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd in Ideal Home.
ICON
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| POP So You Want to be a Star?
ETCETERA 36 | Harper’s Findings 36 | Harper’s Index 38 | L. A. Times Crossword 39 | Agenda
PRODUCTION
Richard DeCosta Susan O’Neill Rita Kaplan
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
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
ICON is published twelve times per year. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. ICON welcomes letters to the editor, editorial ideas and submissions, but assumes no responsibility for the return of unsolicited material. ICON is not responsible for claims made by advertisers. Subscriptions are available for $40 (shipping & handling). ©2018 Prime Time Publishing Co., Inc.
ART ESSAY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK
PULLING TOGETHER STEVE AND SUE STAND next to the fishing shack splicing sections of net with cotton cord, chatting lightly, glancing at the water as their hands move in practiced rhythm. Next to them a group of men and women, some pulling long boots up their legs, are watching as the skiff is brought around from its mooring. The sun is low, and they squint under their hat brims into the river’s bright shimmer. In spite of the water being high from the rain, they have decided to make a haul this evening. The shad are only there so long. The watermen form lines facing each other and unfold the long net from the rack, snaking it down to the boat at the shore, and re-folding it onto the stern so it doesn’t snag. Three husky guys grab the bow line and lug the boat upriver along the bank, fighting the uncertain footing on the narrow path, while Sue keeps it away from the shallows by steering with an oar. Steve’s great-grandfather took up seine fishing in 1888 on the strip of land called Lewis Island that hugs the Delaware at Lambertville, and the family hasn’t missed a year since. The Native Americans fished on that spot long before then. The crew will set 200 yards of net this evening in a large curtain surrounding what they hope is a good quantity of spawning shad, then draw the ends together and drag it up on land. That method of fishing is purse seining. Across the river people are living 21st-century lives; dining under umbrellas, going to shops, and walking along bright New Hope streets looking down at their hands. Very few notice the group on the island, or the skiff being rowed out into the river in the declining light, unfurling the seine from the back. The seiners work with the same
sounds, tools and purpose of a hundred years gone, handling spars and forgings nearly as old. It happens with a romantic slowness that masks the expertise involved. Reading the river is essential. The spring current is moving quickly, and you have to lead the net so it hangs properly. The fish behave differently depending on temperature, time of day, and weather conditions; and where they tend to gather depends on the river height. The current and eddies have their own plans, and just getting the boat back to the island before the Delaware turns everything inside out requires keen anticipation and strong backs on the oars. Meanwhile, a solitary, heroic individual the landsman—has fixed the line from the beginning of the net to a leather harness on his torso and has begun the walk to the bottom of the
island to close the loop. It takes a lot of muscle to drag up to 350 yards of net along with its catch out of the river—four or more people hauling the top lines on each end of the seine, and two guys sitting between them pulling the bottom lines to maintain the bag so the fish don’t spill out underneath. As they haul the last of the of the net close to land the water inside begins to churn, then splash with large fish—shad if they’re lucky, a few carp and catfish if it’s not their day. Forty or fifty shad is a good catch, and they occasionally get as many as a hundred, anywhere from two to six pounds and around a foot-and-a-half long. The fish are carried into the shack in large buckets to record the count, weight, and the river conditions. People come to the island to buy them—some from an hour away—and there are orders to be filled.
The rest are put back in the water to continue their journey upriver. You don’t manipulate nature, at least not for long. You go into a partnership and abide by her rules for better or worse. You have to learn the lessons and haul the lines to get the river to give up her fish, and when she does, you’ve earned it. You get more than dinner; you touch something inside. You become part of an order, part of the earth. The current has swung the net around the point, and the watermen are straining to get it up on land. A young woman who came to the island purely by chance hands her phone to a friend and takes a place in line to help haul the wet seine, hand over bare hand, watching the fish appear from the water, paying no mind to her suede shoes with heels. n
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EXHIBITIONS I
Cadence, #11.
Jewelry by Margaret Young, Kristin Ford, and Ayala Bar.
Summer Exhibition The Wild Radish Gallery 19-21 Main St., Clinton, NJ Wed.-Sat. 10am-6pm, Fri. 10am-9pm 908-212-1642 Through August 31
Pear-Shaped Sisters.
Exquisite original pieces of art created from the skilled hands of over 40 artists and craftspeople. You’ll find sculptures, paintings, lamps, jewelry, glass creations, greeting cards, furniture, textile designs and more. Lauren Schrumpf from Charlotte, NC states, “This is a wonderful gallery with a wide variety of art for any taste. You are guaranteed to fall in love with something at the Wild Radish.”
Cindy Roesinger Solo Exhibit Touchstone Art Gallery 11 East Afton Avenue, Yardley PA Touchstoneartgallery.com August 5-September 2 Reception August 11, 5-7 This will be Cindy’s 10th solo exhibition, and will showcase paintings from over a span of five years. Working in oils, the paintings depict a variety of landscapes and still life’s, all with a local flavor while emphasizing a more organic aesthetic. Working alla prima, there is an energy and vibration created in her current work that emphasizes essential movement, form and color, while eliminating extraneous detail, leaving the viewer with the origin of the image and the moment that inspired its creation. Her professional career began as a photo editor in 1984. In 2005 she transitioned into oil painting and continues to work as a full time painter. Her work has been collected, published and featured in numerous books, magazines, galleries, private collections, and a major motion picture. She currently resides and works in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. 6
Scott Taylor, Spring Eternal, 46 x 36, acrylic on canvas.
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Andi Grunberg, A Time to Burn, detail, mixed media.
Summer Show Ahlum Gallery 106 North 4th Street, Easton, PA 610-923-7107 Ahlumgallery.com Through September 8 Fri. & Sat., 12-5 & every fourth Friday, 5-9 The summer show features artwork by Andi Grunberg, a sculptor and mixed media artist in the Lehigh Valley. Her work focuses on the expression of the divine feminine. Using a variety of mediums, Andi is committed to unearthing and expressing the goddess within, through the language of art. Her studio, Expressions Studio, is located in Allentown. Ahlum Gallery, is an award-winning art gallery in Easton, owned and operated by Denise Sandy, assisted by Terry Wolfson-Tighe. In addition to our featured artist, the fabric art of Terry Wolfson-Tighe and paintings by Denise Sandy are on permanent exhibition.
Terry Wolfson-Tighe, Our Easton Free Bridge, fabric collage, 22” x 28”
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EXHIBITIONS II
Glenn Koehler, March Forth.
Joseph Barrett, Festival, Peddler’s Village, 24x24
Bucks Summer Show
Elizabeth Johnson, Sassafrass Street, 20x16, oil on canvas
Summer Show Bethlehem House Contemporary Art Gallery 459 Main Street, Bethlehem, PA 610-419-6262 Bethlehemhousegallery.com Wed.-Thurs. 11-7, Fri.-Sat. 12-9, Sun. 12-5 Through October 6 The Summer Show features works by Ross Brodar, Douglas Ihlenfeld, Elizabeth Johnson, Michael Lebson, Rigo Peralta, and Ian Summers. Bethlehem House Contemporary Art Gallery specializes in showcasing original pieces of art from regional artists and modern furniture artists. Quarterly shows demonstrate the use of contemporary artwork in modern interior design by exhibiting works in a fully furnished environment. This summer, Bethlehem House Gallery celebrates its fourth anniversary and continues to be voted the “Best Place to Buy Art” by the Lehigh Valley Community.
Ross Brodar, Avanti, acrylic on wood, 41x58 8
Silverman Gallery Bucks County Impressionist Art 4920 York Rd., Rte. 202 Buckingham Green Shopping Center, Holing, PA 215-794-4300 Silvermangallerybuckscountypa.com Wed.-Sun. 11am-6pm, and by appointment Through August 31 Look no further for art depicting the Delaware Valley, Bucks County and the surrounding river towns. The Silverman Gallery is proud to represent a diverse group of contemporary regional artists working primarily in the style of the New Hope School of impressionists, featuring the work of Joseph Barrett, Glenn Harrington, Jennifer Hansen Rolli, Jim Rodgers, Jean Childs Buzgo, Jonathan Mandell, Anita Shrager, David Stier, Evan Harrington, and Desmond McRory. “This area is steeped in a rich heritage of the arts passed down by generations of exceptionally talented people. The ten artists’ work on our walls is thoughtfully presented to appeal to today’s art lovers and buyers,” says Rhonda Garland, Silverman Gallery owner. “It would give Herman Silverman, our founder, immense pleasure were he here to witness how his ideas have taken shape.”
Jennifer Hansen Rolli, Frenchtown Haze, 6x9
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Musikfest 35th Anniversary Photography Exhibition ArtsQuest’s Banana Factory Hallway to the Arts 25 W. Third St., Bethlehem, PA 610-332-1300 Bananafactory.org Through September 2 Each year more than a million people experience the magic of Musikfest. Over the past three decades, the event has grown, evolving into one of the largest and most diverse free music festivals in the nation. With over 500-plus shows on 16 stages over the 10-day period, there is certainly something for everyone. The Musikfest 35th Anniversary Photography Exhibition celebrates the festival and everyone who attends. Photographs capture the fun, and essence of the festival. Taking a closer look at the visitors, performers, volunteers and vendors help to celebrate this ongoing, unique musical tradition and the faces that make it possible. Accepted works were entered for a chance to win prizes, and awards that have been announced via the Banana Factory and Musikfest Instagram and Facebook pages.
Suzanne Drake, Into the Light.
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THEATER VALLEY
CITY
How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. Pee-Wee Herman playing Peter Pan. That’s the best description of Frankie Grande’s gloriously gleeful performance as J. Pierpont Finch, who rises from window washer to widget titan with nutty bravado, ridiculous chutzpah and insane luck. Grande commanded the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre production by tiptoeing, tap dancing, cartwheeling, grinning devilishly, singing crisply, and oozing Jelloslippery charm. He was ably matched by Meredith Kate Doyle’s wonderfully daffy, kinetically smart turn as Rosemary, Finch’s squeezing squeeze, and Kelly Shannon’s deliciously chewy, ripe turn as Smitty, Rosemary’s smart-ass gal pal. Director Charles Richter combined spot-on casting, crackerjack pacing and a blissful fondness for ’60s corporate comedy. He was ably matched by Karen Dearborn’s snappy, svelte choreography; John Raley’s dynamically geometric, pastel-colored sets, and Heather Kaczorowski’s strikingly trim, subtly florid costumes. Dreamgirls. Three singers and their musical men climb and claw the ladder of success and loss in this splashy, spectacular musical shaped by the sagas of the Supremes and the Shirelles. Northampton Community College, 3835 Green Pond Rd., Bethlehem, Aug. 1-5 Richard III. Allentown Shakespeare in the Park celebrates its 10th season of free outdoor performances with a hunchbacked king who woos, lies and orders murder after murder to keep his crown, only to end up without ally, horse or life. Daddona Park, Union and St. Elmo streets, Aug. 11-13 Ragtime. Fireworks in a bottle. That’s the best description of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s ravishing, ravaging version of a musical based on E.L. Doctorow’s fabulous novel swirling around a privileged suburban family radically changed by historic and fictional figures in early 20th-century America. Nkrumah Gatling was magnetically noble and piercingly angry as pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr., who becomes a gangster after racist firemen ruin his new car. Destinee Rea was volcanically wounded and heartbreakingly hopeful as Sarah, Coalhouse’s girlfriend and the privileged family’s maid. Their duets had an operatic beauty worthy of Porgy and Bess. As Mother, who basically adopts Sarah’s abandoned infant, Brandi Burkhardt sang with a gleaming purity worthy of Barbra Streisand. Samuel Druhora filtered Tevye’s gusto and grace into Tateh, who rises from immigrant silhouette artist to silent-film director and Mother’s mate. Director Dennis Razze’s exceptional touches included a delicate class dance between Mother and Tateh; a poignantly painful prelude to Coalhouse’s tragic surrender, and silhouetted figures who danced behind-a back-lit scrim like magic-lantern puppets. Twelfth Night. A flying merry-go-round. That’s the best description of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s uncanny, canny staging of a fabled game of romantic, comic hide-and-seek. Director Matt Pfeiffer strengthened strong and weak characters, stringing a marvelous tightrope between order and chaos. Victoria Janeki played Viola/Cesario with the military merriment of a soldier/clown on leave. Her duel with Andrew Aguecheek was a delightfully larkish dance. Akeem Davis filled in Duke Orsino’s sketchiness by making him an itchy boxer. Eleanor Hadley filled in Olivia’s sketchiness by making her a goofy refugee from a Downton Abbey goof. Eric Hissom elevated Feste by turning the wise fool into a traveling musician with a magical sense of mortality. He stole melancholy from Malvolio, enabling Greg Wood to play the gulled killjoy with uncommon common sense, which made Malvolio’s hilariously awful love exercises even funnier. We all split a gut watching Wood spend 30 seconds breaking a smile into a nervous breakdown. n — GEOFF GEHMAN 10
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THE 2018 ANNUAL FRINGE FESTIVAL (September 6-23)—dedicated to all that is daring about live experimental performance—is coming up quicker than you think, with shows in limited runs that will sell out quickly. For prices, dates and times hit up fringearts.com. Simpatico Theatre Projectx: 4Solo These four solo performance mini-series examining “the spectrum of maleness in America,” and “the repercussions and revelations of our hyper-gendered society” is both part of the Fringe, as well as part of Simpatico’s repertory season. Idaho Shuffle written and performed by Jeremy Gable, directed by Brey Ann Barrett. There’s tap dancing and truth telling from playwright/performer Gable who’ll discuss how man’s work defines us. The Best of Me written and performed by J. Hernandez and directed by Amanda Schoonover. The true, strange story of greasepaint-slathered, suicide mission-obsessed YouTube hero (and would-be Bjork assassinator) Ricardo Lopez. Thomas is Titanic written and performed by Thomas Choinacky. Yes, he alone is doing the entirety of Titanic—playing all of its parts, including the killer iceberg. Why do you ask? LUVR written and performed by Armando Batista, directed by Ozzie Jones. Love is a headache. Texting is a hassle. Just act. September 19-30. 302 So. Hicks Street. simpaticotheatre.org The Accountant by Trey Lyford Memory, despair and grief never had such an exploratory level of audience participation as will this rapier-fast and witty production. Expect to see origami, pratfalls, slapstick and what is promised as “kinetic set elements to create a piece that celebrates the beauty shuddering in the depth of the details and the poetic humor embedded at the enter of loss.” September 6-9. Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American Street. Do You Want A Cookie? Bearded Ladies’ John Jarboe already discussed this wild time with your truly, and described it as an even more sexualized (than the Bearded’s usual) cross-between his usual cabaret history lesson and a lasciviously seductive take on The Great British Bake Off. Each night during the run, there’s a Late Night solo soiree with the likes of Mary Tuomanen, Dito van Reigersberg, Messapotamia LeFae, Jess Conda, and Cherdonna Shinatra. September 5-16. 448 No. 10th Street. Stifters Dinge Heiner Goebbels, the ECM label German composer, director and professor has created chamber music and stage and installative works that often test the limits of audience patience and push the boundaries of language and politics in music. With this production, the question is offered: what happens when the props and staging take over and the performer is suddenly obsolete? With Goebbels’ other FringeFest event, Songs of Wars I Have Seen—with text from Gertrude Stein, and performed by members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Tempesta di Mare—the composer places himself at the adventurous forefront of what Philadelphia’s premiere avant-garde stage festival is all about. September 6-9. The Navy Yard, Building 611, 1120 Flagship Drive. Feastival at FringeArts HQ Stephen Starr, Audrey Claire Tachman, Michael Solomonov, Fringe boss Nick Stuccio and a handful of Philly’s most artful imaginative chefs collaborate with each other (literally, as chefs pair off for new dishes and ideas) for the love of funding all things Fringe. September 27. n — A.D. AMOROSI
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Early breakfast. Bushmen baby nursing her mother’s breast milk.
Play time. Members a game with a fruit called “monkey orange” in a remote village of the Kalahari desert.
THE PHOTOJOURNALIST
Rest. Old mama lying on the sandy floor of her village.
SAN PEOPLE OF THE KALAHARI DESERT Photographer: Jorge Fernandez Garces This is a set of photographs representing some traditional aspects of the life of the San people of the Kalahari desert between Namibia and Botswana; also called Bushmen. The San are a very ancestral society, facing multiple challenges and trying to cope with modern times and the new regulations that the goverments of the countries where they live impose on them. Forcing them to abandon their nomadic ways and to embrace a more sedentary life. It’s very important that the old San teach those desert survival techniques to their young—a tradition that has been held for thousands of years would otherwise be lost. 12
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ABOUT JORGE FERNANDEZ GARCES I was born and raised in the small Spanish town of Monzon. After finishing high school I moved to Madrid to get a technical engineering degree. In the late 1990s I started to study film photography for a few years and after that I jumped to digital, which I learned for myself. This particular series of photographs with captions are part of my work as a documentary travel photographer. The essential aim of my photography is to show the traditions of the different peoples living on this planet, following the philosophy of the famous collection “The family of man” assembled by Eduard Steichen for MOMA, which showed the big cultural differences, yet coming to the conclusion that all humans are part of the same essential “oneness.”
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NIGHTLIFE
AUGUST
CURATED BY A.D. AMOROSI
2 TROMBONE SHORTY’S VOODOO
hit makers, up-state’s Live—with original singer Ed Kowalczyk in tow—is the true main attraction. BB&T Pavilion. pavilioncamden.com
THREAUXDOWN TOUR
The youngest of New Orleans’ brass men, Trombone Shorty, brings along his Orleans Avenue ensemble and fellow Mardi Gras revelers Galactic, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, New Breed Brass Band and the cherished duo of Cyril Neville & Walter “Wolfman” Washington to PA’s beaded halls. Steelstacks. steelstacks.org
17/18 RENT ASUNDER, A STORY OF TÁHIRIH FROM THE KINGFISHER THEATRE COMPANY
3 KEITH URBAN W/ KELSEA BALLERINI
The country bluesy guitarist and husband to fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman shakes his ass and plays songs from his new album, Graffiti U. BB&T Pavilion. pavilioncamden.com 3 STYX + JOAN JETT
I’m not quite sure how the ornate prog-pop and epic power ballads
Spa, theborgata.com and Steelstacks, steelstacks.org 6 DIERKS BENTLEY
Arizona singer-songwriter Dierks Bentley brings the grit of the desert bloom to country and western classics such as those from his album, The Mountain. Steelstacks, steelstacks.org 7 KESHA
Kesha’s latest album Rainbow follows in a long line of hits for the electro-
Director Bill George, founder of Touchstone Theatre, and Alaska native actor-performance Nava Bastami, collaborate on a one woman show about a modern-day woman who finds hope and inspiration in the ideal of Táhirih, the poet-martyr of the 19th century, whom upon her death in 1852 by strangling said, “You may kill me as soon as you wish, but you can never stop the emancipation of women.” Touchstone Theatre. touchstone.org
24 ESPERS
The finicky kings of modern psychedelic folk held sway over a genre that was the preeminent form of the early 2000’s, one merging American and English-Anglo and Brazilian sounds in a universal swirl of predominantly acoustic music with vibrational lyrics and a hippie-ish feel. They were mentioned in the same breath as fellow nu-psych-folk folk as Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart, Coco Rosie, Grizzly Bear. They also had amazing ties to Anglo’s folk’s old guard such as Vashti Bunyan and Incredible String Band. Then suddenly Espers disappeared, supposedly due to the pressures that befell them. So, why return now? Show up and ask them. Union Transfer, utphilly.com 24 LUANN DE LESSEPS:
17/18 CHER
COUNTESS AND FRIENDS
Between Broadway’s upcoming The Cher Show and Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again, there is no shortage of the gypsy, the tramp or the thief. So
The highest minded of Real Housewives of New York City does her haughty cabaret act down the shore. Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa. theborgata.com 24 JEFF LYNNE’S ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA
such as “The Grand Illusion,” plays with the blunt hard rocking Joan Jett & the Blackhearts and songs such as “I Hate Myself For Loving You,” fit as one show But why not? Steelstacks. steelstacks.org 3 JOHNNY POPCORN
why not another date on her eternal retirement tour? Borgata Hotel Spa & Casino. theborgata.com
Germantown’s funkiest producer and mouthiest rapper-singer pops up, and pops corn. Underground Arts. undergroundarts.com 4 DAUGHTRY
He may have lost American Idol, but Daughtry won himself an audience of fans of hard, grungy melodic rock and bald dudes. Steelstacks, steelstacks.org 4/5 JIM GAFFIGAN
America’s cleanest stand-up comedian is so squeaky, he did a gig for the Pope. The Borgata Hotel Casino & 14
21 KYLE KINANE
rock hop songstress. Only this record has more of her edgy country and punk influences to speak to her new found freedom. Steelstacks, steelstacks.org 11 COUNTING CROWS W/ SPECIAL GUEST LIVE
The broccoli-sprouting hair of Crows’ singer Adam Durwitz may be the headliner, but it is the return of 90s
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Comic Kinane may get his kicks with Season 2 of Netflix’s The Standups and that online network’s Love created by Judd Apatow. Yet it is as the voice and face of Comedy Central specials such as Kyle Kinane: Loose in Chicago, I Liked His Old Stuff Better and Whiskey Icarus—where he makes his bones. Steelstacks. steelstacks.org
Lynne’s spent some time away from the famed stringed ELO—producing the likes of Tom Petty’s Wildflower and the Travelling Willburys—to say nothing of a solo album, or two. But, Lynne IS the Electric Light Orchestra, the bow if its violins, and the arch of its Beatles-ish melodies. Wells Fargo Center. wellsfargocenter.com 25/26 STEVIE WONDER
Take him signed, sealed, delivered or any way you can; Stevie Wonder is still a master of modern soul, and this show promises to spin like a jukebox of his finest moments. Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa. theborgata.com 30 OZZY OSBOURNE
After retiring his dark heavy metal avatars in Black Sabbath last year, the Blizzard of Ozz claims that his solo career will come to its sunset close after this tour. Stay tuned. PPL Center, Allentown PA. ozzy.com n
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FILM
W
Shayna McHayle, Haley Lu Richardson, AJ Michalka and John Elvis.
BY PETE CROATTO
RITER-DIRECTOR ANDREW BUJALSKI has displayed remarkable nuance in detailing the substance behind the glamour stretch of strip mall America. First, it was with gym culture in the wry and sweet Results (2015). He does one better in Support the Girls, a masterful and empathetic character study about a day at a nowhere-Texas sports bar uncreatively called Double Whammies. Den mother Lisa (Regina Hall), the burger-andbreasts brew pub’s general manager, is crying before she leaves her car. The day keeps unraveling. There’s a new slate of girls to interview, an impromptu charity car wash to organize, and favors to call in. Not to mention the police are removing a burglar from the vent over the safe. Lisa handles everything with a professional brusqueness bordering on inspirational. Her job is constant triage. She supervises women in their early twenties, a segment of the population prone to inviting turmoil into their lives and then renting out the spare bedroom. But Lisa needs this place—at the end of her day, drained and limp, she will check on a couple of customers. There are rules; there are people who will listen to her and appreciate her wisdom. Even if the job bleeds into her personal life, which it does, she’s the rock. Even if she can’t cajole her withdrawn pseudohusband (Lawrence Varnado) to see an apartment, Lisa is valued. But when her boss, Cubby (James Le 16
Support the Girls Gros, playing another loser to perfection,) arrives in a shabby pick-up truck with an equally shabby motor boat attached, the tone of the day changes. This stop is a major inconvenience for him, which is bad news for her. Life in the service industry can change with the swipe of a timecard. You feel that you’re better and brighter than the people in charge, that you can thrive through sheer personality. You cannot. Someone exists who believes they know better. For Lisa, Double Whammies lets her exercise control. But the end will arrive because you’ve had enough or the boss had a bad day, or you forgot you were governed by an HR manual. It always does. The car wash money is (secretly) for an employee to protect herself from a perpetually angry boyfriend, or that’s what Lisa tells herself. Cubby says the money is going in the bank. And why didn’t Lisa tell him about the attempted burglary? She has a reason. But Cubby won’t understand, because he only owns the place. Her heart and soul is there. To emphasize this point, Lisa puts a heart sticker in the backroom. That it gets removed should surprise nobody. Bujalski dampens any redemptive vibe in the movie’s opening credits. Bouncy country music loses to the cacophony of rush-hour traffic before we get fed shot after shot of overpasses and highways. And forget about sexiness, which Double Whammies pushes.
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The only nudity is an extreme close-up of a nipple, one that no one is happy to see. Lisa can’t win. Forget reasoning with Cubby, who tracks the driver that cut him off to his house. But we admire Lisa because she keeps trying. Hall’s terrific performance gives us a little bit of everything— pluckiness, grit, humor, grace—as she steps and stumbles between the gears, basking in the sun of the loading area for a blissful reprieve. And as Lisa’s two lieutenants, Maci and Danyelle, Haley Lu Richardson and Shayna McHayle, respectively, shine. It’s remarkable that Richardson, after playing a young girl in sedated tumult in Columbus, nails a “hang in there, baby” poster sprung to life, a young woman who can’t see the wall. Newcomer McHayle has an intoxicating delivery that merges sarcasm, happiness, and indifference. I’ve never heard anything like it— except when I worked in retail. Early in the movie, Lisa tells the applicants that guests come to Double Whammies—with its Hooters-meets-Dukes of Hazard-clad employees—for company. Who’s there for Lisa? The ending of Support the Girls appears triumphant. Stick around through the end credits. Listen to the music. We’re not sure if Lisa, Danyelle, and Maci are yelling at the world or into a void. The beautiful part is that these women have each other. That counts for something, even when shit remains after the shift ends. [R] n
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FILM ROUNDUP
Hugh Grant in A Very English Scandal.
REVIEWED BY KEITH UHLICH
Ideal Home (Dir. Andrew Fleming). Starring: Paul Rudd, Steve Coogan, Jack Gore. Cattiness and corniness prove delightful bedfellows in this brisk, touching comedy from writer-director Andrew Fleming (Dick). Paul Rudd and Steve Coogan star as a bickering New Mexico couple—one a filmmaker, the other a celebrity chef—whose relationship gets a much-needed jolt after Coogan’s troubled grandson (Jack Gore) shows up at their sprawling desert estate. Fleming and his performers go broad at first, teetering just on the edge, especially in Coogan’s case, of mincing caricature. He and Rudd soon brew a credible chemistry between them. And the parodic material (kudos to the profane punchline involving Dances with Wolves) is soon counterbalanced by the truly poignant, as the boy’s presence exposes some very tough and believable fault lines in the men’s relationship. Coogan’s character gets the film’s most devastating observation: “Everything is temporary,” he says to his young charge with a wisdom that surprises with its world-weary acuteness. This is a farce with a blessed lot on its mind. [N/R] HHHH 18
Madeline’s Madeline (Dir. Josephine Decker). Starring: Helena Howard, Miranda July, Molly Parker. In the latest feature from writer-director Josephine Decker (Thou Wast Mild and Lovely), a NYC acting class becomes the battleground on which a talented teenager, Madeline (spectacular newcomer Helena Howard), and her pseudo-liberal instructor, Evangeline (Molly Parker), engage in some performative one-upsmanship. Evangeline wants to do a play, concocted entirely through improvisation, about mental illness. She draws on her star pupil’s anguished life, notably the bi-racial Madeline’s tempestuous relationship with her overbearing Caucasian mother, Regina (Miranda July). But as implied by that possessive in the film’s title, Madeline won’t give up her story for another person’s art so easily. Decker, cinematographer Ashley Connor, and what were surely some severely stressedout sound designers put us into Madeline’s head with its psychedelic colors and thrumming aural ambience, though there’s little beyond the immediate experience that lingers. [N/R]
HHH
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Mission: Impossible - Fallout (Dir. Christopher McQuarrie). Starring: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Cavill. The Mission: Impossible series goes full Christopher Nolan in the big, bombastic and often very boring ‘fallout.’ Tom Cruise returns as secret agent Ethan Hunt, out to stop a shadowy terrorist organization from detonating nuclear warheads. Unlike the previous installment, Rogue Nation—also written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie—Fallout is much more of a pieeyed star vehicle for Cruise that shoves the ensemble to the side. This proves especially egregious in the case of Rebecca Ferguson, returning as leggy MI6 spy Ilsa Faust, though minus the charisma and star presence she brought to Rogue Nation. Like the rest of the supporting cast, she has to ultimately applaud Hunt’s/Cruise’s every death-defying notion; any objection is seen as blasphemy. Minus genuine human tension, the action scenes, well-staged though they are, become tedious and tiring. The lack of a pulse extends to Henry Cavill, playing a beefy CIA officer who is more listless machine than imposing superman. [PG-13] HH
A Very English Scandal (Dir. Stephen Frears). Starring: Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw, Alex Jennings. Technically a BBC-Amazon co-produced miniseries, this bitchy, three-episode black farce from director Stephen Frears (Victoria & Abdul) and writer Russell T Davies (Doctor Who) gives more pointed pleasure than almost anything currently in theaters. Hugh Grant revels in the callous hypocrisy of his character, Jeremy Thorpe, a real-life British politician who had numerous secret homosexual affairs throughout his career. He meets his match in Norman Scott (Ben Whishaw), a bisexual stable boy who bedevils him after their brief fling, first privately and then very, very (or veddy, veddy, as Thorpe might say) publicly. Both Grant and Whishaw are superb, playing most of Davies’ script for comedy so that the dramatic beats, such as Thorpe’s final monologue in which he chillingly rejects the possibility of queer love, hit with full force. This is Frears in a mode he excels at, and a companion piece, in particular, to his brilliant gay burlesque Prick Up Your Ears (1987). [N/R] HHHH1/2 n
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INTERVIEW
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BY A.D. AMOROSI
Sebastian Maniscalco Does the hunger show?
WITH A BEST-SELLING BOOK (Stay Hungry), a just-filmed role in 2019’s most notorious flick (Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman for Netflix), and his currently running, first ever arena-scale tour, Sebastian Maniscalco has landed. Hard. By no means, however, is Maniscalco an overnight sensation. Since leaving his Chicago suburb home for entertainment biz digs in Los Angeles, the comedian moved through stand-up circles, while waiting tables on the side. He opened for Bill Burr and Andrew Dice Clay, both of whom have since become friends. When he finally began doing film work—The House with Will Ferrell and The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature with Will Arnett—he joked with me that “By the looks of it, directors only hire me if there is a Will in it.” The next reason he gave was more logical: “Directors expect me to bring the energy I bring to the stage,
You talk about this in your act, and in Stay Hungry—that your first “stage” was the dinner table where you shared funny stories over a meal. Were you learning how to manipulate a story to succeed— get a better reaction? I remember coming home after school and recapping the day, whether it was what happened or in class. All of us shared our experiences. My father was a hairdresser and he would tell us stories from the beauty salon. My mother was a secretary, and she told us about what she had encountered at the elementary school where she worked. Growing up in the late ’70s and early ’80s it was common to sit outside and talk at night before going to bed. We’d finish dinner and go outside, pull up a couple of lawn chairs, and sit on our driveway. We’d talk late into the evening, commenting on who walked by—human behavior, you know.
WHAT I WANTED WAS TO BE AS NATURAL WITH MY AUDIENCE AS I AM TALKING TO MY FAMILY. TO GET THERE YOU MUST GO THROUGH … ALMOST A TRANSFORMATION OF LOSING YOUR INHIBITIONS. YOU DON’T WANT TO LOOK STUPID.
That would be unheard of today. It seemed as if it was more of a tighter knit family than you might see today, where nobody talks, no one is engaging, and the kids look down at their phones or iPads. That wasn’t my family growing up. We talked … engaged. And that’s where it started for me. That’s how I learned, naturally, the feel for a story’s beginning, middle, and end.
to the screen—whether it’s big facial expressions or physical humor.” Those hallmarks—the twitch of his feet, nervous twerk in his hind quarters, wide eyes, big wobbly mouth—and comedy more family-oriented than politicized, have won over audiences in droves; droves who’ll fill Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center on September 13 and Wilkes Barre’s F.M. Kirby Center on September 14.
You moved to L.A. after you left home, to work within the biz. Did you have a specific set of goals? I’m not a guy with a vision board who writes down what he’d do and how he’d do it. I didn’t grow up that way. Goals weren’t a thing in my house. I had a love for comedy and the stage, and my goal was to make a living doing stand-up comedy. I didn’t have a time limit to do that because that was what I going to do—comedy. If I would have [had goals to] give it 15 years or something, I don’t know what I would have done, I just knew that I was in it for the long haul.
I know you love to talk about family. As a fellow Italian, that means you had to have gotten your first name from a prominent family member. I’m named after my grandfather on my father’s side. My first cousin is also Sebastian Maniscalco. Then he named his kid after my grandfather, so he’s Sebastian Maniscalco. There are three of us living, one of us who has passed, named after our grandfather. 20
How has the dynamic between you and your father changed since you have made it big? That’s funny. The nice thing about my family is that they’re the same as when I was growing up 30 years ago. They make fun of me, I make fun of them. My father, early on, was really critical of what I was doing in my shows. He would come to my gigs and say, “c’mon
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you gotta write more material.” It was annoying to hear—having a parent be on your ass telling you that you had to work harder and be funnier. But it drove me to meet my potential, be funnier— so it was a “Catch 22.” Now, I like to share my successes with my family. I’m gathering everyone and we’re going to Italy in a couple of weeks. We all kind of made it, you know? When we last spoke you were just dipping a toe in movies, and writing the book. How did you know that you could bring your stage act—which is very physical, attitude-y—to a different skill set? That came over time. I wasn’t so animated or so physical when I started—not so honed as it is now. That’s very trial and error. What I wanted was to be as natural with my audience as I am talking to my family. To get there you must go through …almost a transformation of losing your inhibitions. You don’t want to look stupid. It doesn’t feel right or comfortable in your skin—it takes many, many times of being onstage and letting go, to develop your stage presence—which is not so far from who you are as a person. That’s the naturalism you’re talking about. And, for me, that took a while. You figure I’ve been doing it for 20 years, and it was only after 15 years that I felt comfortable. And that shifted your material, as well? I saw that when I started talking about more personal things—my friends and family—I had more of an effect. When I first started out, it was all observational humor: I went to Subway today… what about that thing… broad topics. It was only when I started bringing up the status of my relationships with my family that I noticed how a lot of listeners gravitated toward those shared experiences, and started coming out in droves to my shows. I remember a couple who would come to my shows. The next year that same couple brought another couple. By the fourth time around, I’m guessing they brought the whole neighborhood. Maybe they figured that I was a guy speaking their language. That was great, but that happened over time. It was not an overnight thing. n
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REEL NEWS DVDS REVIEWED BY GEORGE OXFORD MILLER
Isle of Dogs
The Rider HHHHH Cast: Brady Jandreau, Lilly Jandreau, Tim Jandreau Drama/R Written and directed by Chloe Zhao Sometimes the outer injury only hints of the psychological wounds that can never heal. So it is when a rodeo bronco throws Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau plays himself) and kicks him in the head. His fracture gradually heals, but seizures and the doctor’s admonishment to never ride a horse again portend a dismal life for a cowboy. Telling him to never breathe again would be easier. Brady lives in a trailer surrounded by endless prairie on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota (he’s a member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe) with his sister, Lilly (Lilly Jandreau), and their father, Wayne (Tim Jandreau)—the family plays versions of their real selves and situation. Lilly has Asperger’s syndrome and Wayne struggles with drinking, gambling, and unemployment. But when trouble comes, Brady knows his dad, as well as his rodeo buddies (also played by his actual friends), will be there for him. Instead of self-pity, Brady celebrates his love for the rodeo lifestyle and his bond with horses, and fights for some kind of self-validation for his future, which certainly isn’t the supermarket job he 22
takes. His life brightens when he gets a new horse, Apollo, but this fullygrounded, real-life drama never stoops to a contrived Hollywood resolution. Zama HHHH Cast: Daniel Giménez Cacho Drama/NR In Spanish with English subtitles. Don Diego de Zama (Giménez Cacho), a colonial magistrate in 18thcentury Paraguay, is a man with an allconsuming mission: to get the hell out of his backwater post. A transfer to Argentina, where his wife and family live, requires permission from the King of Spain. For his request to be honored, his career achievements must be stellar. But as a natural-born dead-end kid, his every effort ends, often comically, in failure and humiliation. To keep from angering the authorities who control his fate, he accepts every insult, rejection, and disrespectful slight—as do the natives ruthlessly controlled by the Crown. So ironically he’s doomed as much by the dehumanizing, exploiting attitudes of Colonialism as by his own bumbling incompetence. The metaphor of a fish fighting to not be beached by the all-powerful crashing surf perfectly describes Diego’s efforts in the face of Colonialism’s pervasive culture of domination. The movie’s engrossing, and at times
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perversely funny, critique of colonial injustice, and its attention to period detail create a you-are-there feeling, instead of requiring a more emotionally distant suspension of belief. On Chesil Beach HHH Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Emily Watson Genre: Drama, romance/R Set in prudish 1962 England, this romance explores the perils of forbidden sex—that is, two virgins on honeymoon night who have no common language, or even private language, to express their passionate desires. Edward (Howle) and Florence (Ronan) meet at Oxford University and it’s head over heels at first sight. Both are from proper families, but of different social casts, and both inculcated to always do the right thing. Sex is a taboo topic, and admitting sexual feelings is as forbidden as a dreaded man tear. The couple easily maneuvers through courtship where intimacy is kept at arm’s length, literally, but tumble into an abyss at coitus. Besides intensive British emotional avoidance training, they enter the bedroom lugging more pent-up baggage than can be unpacked in one therapy romp in bed. As flashback after flashback reveal, early familial experiences encumber them with a Pandora’s Box of hang-ups and heartbreaks. Courting is romance personified—ex-
citing, stimulating, something new every day. But marriage proves to be a lifelong therapy session. Isle of Dogs HHHH Voices: Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Scarlett Johansson Genre: Animation, adventure/PG-13 Writer/director: Wes Anderson. Somehow, writer/director Wes Anderson turns a heart-warming “boy loves dog” story into a political commentary, morality play, conspiracy, and coming-of-age marathon. It begins when the cat-loving mayor of Megasaki in futuristic Japan exiles all dogs to die in a garbage-island concentration camp. To show he’s impartial, he deports his family dog Spots, which breaks the heart of his 12-year-old ward Atari. Determined to find his beloved companion, Atari flies a small plane to the island and rallies the lead pack of dogs to find Spots. With every frame a work of art, and every dog behavior depicted “spot on,” the fable rollicks along with the determined boy and his unlikely posse of asocial strays, faithful house pets, pampered show dogs, sentimental lap dogs, and even robotic killer dogs. Even though the title iterates into “I love dogs,” the greater theme centers on how the virtues of humanity must battle the evil powers of inhumanity. n
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FOREIGN REVIEWED BY MARK KERESMAN
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LET THE SUNSHINE IN is about one woman’s search for love in all the wrong places. Oscar-winner Juliette Binoche plays Isabelle, a seemingly successful painter who’s divorced and has a daughter. The qualification “seemingly” is because we see too little of her as an artist, aside from one brief scene of her doing a vaguely Jackson Pollock-like painting. In point of fact, we see very little of Isabelle as a morethan-one-dimensional person. Her character as shown is defined by her search for love—and while this movie was written and directed by women, Claire Denis and Christine Angot, it feels retrograde in that 1950s sense where the only thing that makes a woman happy is True Love. Binoche is a beautiful woman with presence— she’s one of those actresses who can brighten a scene simply by being on screen. But Denis uses her to distract us from the impression that Isabelle is 24
Let the Sunshine In something of a doormat. Most attempts at her lovesearch are with males who are narcissistic. One of her suitors is a married banker and tells Isabelle that while she is “charming,” his wife is “extraordinary.” Isabelle, instead of saying something like, “Well, don’t let me keep you from going home, and here’s carfare, jerk,” she practically takes it as a compliment. Isabelle seems to go for men who are (mostly) unavailable, in one sense or another. There’s one chap that she runs into at the market occasionally, and he seems a decent sort, single, and interested (albeit a bit dweeb-y), but Isabelle naturally rebuffs him at every turn. Let the Sunshine In is a very good-looking movie, and in some ways the archetypal French film: attractive adults sitting in cafés and nice restaurants talking…and talking and talking some more. No, this writer does not require slam-bang action and visual
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effects, but this is tiresome because most of the conversation is rather superficial, some on the level of “Oh, let’s/But we can’t/Why can’t we?” The cinematography is vibrant and engaging. Isabelle’s parade of lovers is presented somewhat haphazardly without much context for them and we don’t know what she sees in them. Isabelle is visually radiant but she’s weirdly passive in her search of Elusive Love—someone content to be a capital-V victim and put all her eggs in the basket of romance. In the film’s concluding scene, Gerard Depardieu plays a full-of-baloney psychic/life coach as he dispenses platitudes to Isabelle, his mark. Let the Sunshine In is a film that might have been good had it came out in 1959—the year of the release of Pillow Talk, starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Now, with its dated and regressive view of Loveequals-Happiness, it’s borderline offensive. n
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DOCUMENTARY REVIEWED BY MARK KERESMAN
Newspaperman THERE HAVE BEEN CELEBRITY authors—writers whose printed words and visages are well-known: Truman Capote, Christopher Hitchens, and Gore Vidal, to name three. Rarer are celebrity editors—but that’s exactly what Ben Bradlee was. Bradlee was managing editor of the Washington Post at one of the most crucial times in American history: The early 1970s Watergate affair that brought down President Nixon and the publication of the Pentagon Papers, leaked to the press by Daniel Ellsberg. Newspaperman is in some ways like a Hollywood biography and that’s not a condemnation—Bradlee had the kind of charmed life out of which comes Shining Success. He was born into the kind of family that sends its children to Harvard; he was a goodlooking fellow; and he was close personal friends with President John F. Kennedy, the “let’s go sailing on Sunday kind of pal.” He took the Washington Post, 26
which years ago was viewed by some as second-rate, to newspaper stardom. This documentary shows that Bradlee had a nose for news and plenty of slightly roguish charm. He was passionate and zealous in his pursuit of excellence—a recurring statement to his staff of reporters was “Where’s the fuckin’ story?” It’s chronological, with lots of relevant and often poignant narration, and the film provides historical context all the way. Among those interviewed are Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Jim Lehrer, John Dean, Norman Lear, Robert Redford, and Tom Brokaw. There’s plenty of home movie-type footage of Bradlee relaxing and grooving with JFK, living the good life. The film also shows that there’s almost always been an adversarial relationship between Capitol Hill and the media—footage recounts how Nixon viewed the press—especially the Washington Post— as the enemy, though not quite at the level of our cur-
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rent POTUS. But all was not wine and roses—under his watch, the Washington Post faced major scandal when it published a Pulitzer Prize-winning story that turned out to be utter baloney/jive/false. Bradlee was a bit of a heartbreaker—he traded in loving wives for younger, sexier models. He couldn’t be objective writing about JFK, really. The film touches on this but lightly—the guy had journalistic integrity but integrity of the romantic variety. When asked if he’d any regrets, Bradlee responded laughing, “I don’t know; I don’t regret very much.” His ex-wives’ views on that comment might’ve been, well, telling. As a film, Newspaperman presents the life of the title character in a compelling manner; it shows why you should care that he was who he was (he passed in 2014) and shows how he got to be who he was. Five stars? Not exactly, but I’d watch it again. n
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FOODIE FILE BY A.D. AMOROSI
Spice Finch’s Dry-Rubbed Chicken, muhumara, potato, zucchini. Photo: Credit Eric Ashleigh.
Summer Winds’ A.C. & Spice Finch
Michael Symon’s Angeline.
Olón.
Gordon Ramsay’s Pub & Grill. 28
NOW THAT ATLANTIC CITY is back to a level of excitement and real success that it may never before have witnessed, we can admit that one of the things that kept the shore brewing (and making money, and us coming back again and again) even when the casinos ran dry, was its restaurants. That meant (and still does mean) brand-name chefs such as Michael Symon, whose Angeline—an Italian joint named for his grandmother—is part of the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa (Bobby Flay’s Steak is also Borgata-bound). And Gordon Ramsay, whose eponymous Steak house recently opened at Harrah's Resort, a follow-up to his Pub & Grill at Caesars. That success also includes the Philadelphia chefs and restaurateurs that drove Atlantic City’s culinary scene through good times and bad: Larry Cohen, Barry Gutin and Guillermo Pernot’s Cuba Libre has been AC’s Latin diningdomain at the Tropicana for a decade-plus. Stephen Starr’s Continental AC and Buddakan, both at Caesars’ Pier Shops since 2007, are part of the firmament. Michael Schulson of Harp & Crown, Double Knot and the soon-to-open Giuseppe & Sons, not only started his restaurant domain with Izakaya at Borgata, he opened that casino-spa 15 years ago as one of its first restaurants. Then there is Jose Garces, whose newly redone Amada tapas joint and Distrito food truck are back where they belong—Ocean Resorts Casino, the one-time home to Revel that he helped open in 2012 and closed when the hotel-casino went bankrupt in 2014. When Revel’s Rome burned, Garces’ restaurants fiddled successfully, making money when the casino floor was empty. Garces so believed in Atlantic City that he even opened three spots at the Tropicana in 2017: the family recipe-driven, Ecuadorian coastal Olón and the playfully Japanese Okatshe, with the double-sided Bar Olón between them. As far as the two newly opened hotel/slot parlors go, Hard Rock Casino’s new restaurant scene means the likes of grandfathered (from Trump Taj Mahal, its former address holder) restaurants such as Il Mulino and Robert’s Steakhouse, along with freshly-minted hot spots such as the wood-fired Council Oak Fish, Youyu Noodle Bar, the Chinese cuisine-centric Song, and the Rock’s contemporary Japanese-focused Kuro. For Ocean Resorts Casino, that includes the Italian seafood-topped Dolce Mare, American Cut steakhouse, the brunch destination Harper’s, and the casual Zhen Bang Noodle & Sushi nook. Just for the sake of argument, however, don’t miss out on outside-of-casino favorites such as The White House sandwich shop, Carmine’s Italian Restaurant, the supper clubby Kelsey’s, the always romantic Knife & Fork Inn, the sturdy, AC outpost of The Palm, and—of course, my personal fave—Angelo’s.
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“SPICE FINCH IS NAMED after the bird that eats all the spices” says Jennifer Carroll. She’s not just spouting off in some weird ornithological rant. Jen Carroll—the noted Philadelphia chef, best known for working with famed chef Eric Ripert’s 10 Arts at the Ritz-Carlton, between 2008 and 2011, and competing on the beloved, Bravo network’s Season 6 Top Chef: Las Vegas and its Season 8 All Stars showcase—is rhapsodizing about her debut solo restaurant Spice Finch, a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern bistro in the Warwick Hotel (220 S. 17th St.), that she just opened with her fellow chef/fiancé, Billy Riddle. While Riddle spent time with Middle Eastern influences at Kapnos Taverna, Carroll was focusing her skills and tastes with more French leaning fare, what with her time at the legendary Le Bernardin as well as her time working with Marcus (Samuelsson at his Red Rooster, to say nothing of playing with Ripert’s moody French traditionalism.
Billy Riddle and Jennifer Carroll. Photo: Thomas VanVeen.
Mix all those torrid taste sensations together—as well as the couple’s desire to eat, work, cook cleaner, and healthier—and you have Spice Finch’s vegetable focus and its meaty, but nuanced main dishes. Not to be forgotten, however, is the Spice Finch bar program led by beverage director Michael Haggerty (Wm Mulherin’s Sons, The Olde Bar, a.bar, Four Seasons Hotel); a hand-crafted cocktail program rooted in the classics. There is the Paper Plane (bourbon, nonino amaro, aperol and lemon), and the Corpse Reviver #2 (gin, cointreau, cocchi americano, lemon and underberg). Then there is a series of “redemption cocktails,” such as the Redemption #2, which is a light and refreshing blend of malibu, campari, grapefruit and lime; the Redemption #3 with midori, japanese whiskey, green chartreuse, ginger, wasabi and egg white; and the Redemption #4 served with jägermeister, mezcal, agave and rosewater. When I am not filling up on dates and lamb, I will be drunk on redemption at Spice Finch. n
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SINGER | SONGWRITER REVIEWED BY TOM WILK
Tom Russell HHHH Old Songs Yet to Sing Frontera Records Old Songs Yet to Sing is an entertaining journey through the past for Tom Russell, who teams up again with guitarist Andrew Hardin for new acoustic interpretations of 20 songs written between 1974 and 2004. Russell’s songs have been recorded by such artists as Johnny Cash, Nanci Griffith, and Joe Ely, but the CD shows nobody sings Russell like Russell. “Gallo Del Ciello,” Spanish for Rooster from Heaven, and “The Sky Above, The Mud Below” have the feel of Western movies as Russell transports listeners to another world. The former is a story of cockfighting and family redemption that ends tragically, while the latter is a tale of horse rustling, frontier justice, and revenge. Hardin’s flamenco-styled playing elevates “Angel of Lyon” to the level of masterpiece as he describes a romantic triangle involving a man, woman, and God. Hardin’s understated playing provides an empathetic feel for the drifter in “Blue Wing” and the JapaneseAmericans detained in World War II in “Manzanar.” Old Songs Yet to Sing, whose title is taken from a line in “Blue Wing,” shows that you can go home again—at least on record. (20 songs, 78 minutes)
The spirited rocker “Seeds of a Revolution” opens the album with a reminder of the country’s legacy of immigration. “The tender kiss that freedom brings belongs to everyone,” Nile sings. The fiery “Earth Blues” delivers an environmental warning on the consequences of climate change. Nile and his band lower the volume for the folk/rock vibe of “Gettin’ Ugly Out There,” which takes aim at the relentless overload of cable television news. Nile finds reason for optimism on the heartfelt title track, which takes its name from the 1943 film by Marcel Carne. Nile mixes it up, ranging from the Springsteen romanticism of “Have I Ever Told You” to “I Defy,” which has the feel of a collaboration between ‘50s rocker Eddie Cochran and ‘70s-era Clash. “Lookin’ for Someone” features his optimistic side, while the gospel-influenced “All God’s Children” concludes the album on an uplifting note. (12 songs, 43 minutes) Yvette Landry & The Jukes HHH Louisiana Lovin’ Soko Music On Louisiana Lovin’, Yvette Landry & The Jukes pay tribute to the music of her home state. With assistance from guitarist/vocalist Roddie Romero, the
Willie Nile HHH Children of Paradise River House Records Children of Paradise, the 12th studio album from Willie Nile, could serve as a musical state of the world and his state of mind. The songs, all written or co-written by Nile, have a timely feel for the issues confronting the nation.
album is a vibrant reminder of Louisiana’s rich musical history. Vocally, Landry brings a yearning Patsy Clinelike feel to “I Need Somebody Bad.” The Jukes, highlighted by Eric Adcock’s piano, lock into an easygoing groove on “Homesick Blues,” written by Louisiana native Bobby Charles. “Grow Too Old,” co-written by Charles and Fats Domino, is an acknowledgment of the piano legend’s influence. The up-tempo “Daddy Daddy” has echoes of Jerry Lee Lewis in the piano work and Landry’s sultry performance. Romero takes the lead vocal on a soulful rendition of Ivory Joe Hunter’s “I Almost Lost My Mind.” Landry and Romero team up for a playful duet on Charles’ “Take It Easy Greasy,” which recalls 30
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“See You Later, Alligator,” the 1956 hit song written by Charles that was recorded by Bill Haley and the Comets. (11 songs, 33 minutes) The Lucky Losers with Cathy Lemons and Phil Berkowitz HHH Blind Spot Dirty Cat Records Cathy Lemons and Phil Berkowitz are a winning combination for the Lucky Losers on Blind Spot, the band’s third studio album. The group’s principal vocalists and primary songwriters adeptly handle a variety of songs on their journey through the genres of American Music. Lemons is a spokeswoman for standing tall in spite of any obstacles on “Take the Long Road.” “Don’t give up/You’ve got to believe,” she sings in a voice that’s a cross between Bonnie Raitt and Tina Turner. Berkowitz warns of the loss of human dignity on the Latin/soul-flavored “Alligator Farm.” Both singers seem to relish the rapid word play of “Make a Right Turn,” which can trace its lineage to Chuck Berry’s “Too Much Monkey Business” and Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Berkowitz and the Lucky Losers deliver an effective ’70s soul pastiche on “Bulldogs and Angels (Bring It on Out).” “Don’t Take Too Much” employs a funky rhythm that is rooted in the sound of Sly and the Family Stone. Berkowitz and Lemons show their jazzier side on “You Left It Back,” which finds both vocalists exchanging good-natured insults. (11 songs, 52 minutes) Nick Lowe HHH1/2 Tokyo Bay Yep Roc After focusing on Christmas-related music in recent years, Nick Lowe returns with Tokyo Bay, his first non-holiday recording since the release of The Old Magic in 2011. The EP is a welcome return for the former member of Brinsley Schwarz and Rockpile who is now in the fifth decade of his solo career. The title track, a Lowe original and rockabilly-flavored tale of international wanderlust, spotlights his ability to craft a memorable pop song with backing from Los Straitjackets. The track comes across like a long-lost partnership of Gene Vincent and Johnny Burnette’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio. “Crying Inside,” the other Lowe original, echoes “Tears of a Clown” with its narrator celebrating on the outside but actually feeling the opposite. It’s a tune that easily could have fit into his Rockpile repertoire. A stripped-down version of “Heartbreaker,” written by the Bee Gees and made into a Top 10 single by Dionne Warwick in 1982, transforms the song into a lovelorn country ballad. Lowe’s version of the emotionally buoyant “Travellin’ Light,” a No. 1 single in 1959 in the United Kingdom for Cliff Richard, is tailormade for Lowe’s happy-go-lucky approach. Tokyo Bay will have Lowe’s fans awaiting a full-length album. (4 songs, 12 minutes) n
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JAZZ, ROCK, CLASSICAL, ALT REVIEWED BY MARK KERESMAN
Woody Shaw HHHH Tokyo 1981 Dexter Gordon HHHHH Tokyo 1975 Resonance Music truly is a gift that keeps on giving—years after their respective passings, jazz giants Woody Shaw and Dexter Gordon aren’t done with us yet. These two platters present previously unreleased live material, and for the most part, at or near their peaks. Woody Shaw (1944-1989) was one of the modern trumpet voices in jazz, and while he didn’t achieve the renown of, say, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard, he came awfully close. Not many trumpeters achieved the admiration of Miles, but Shaw did— Wynton Marsalis and Dave Douglas, too, point to Shaw as a major inspiration. He could be as electrifying as Hubbard, albeit even more lyrical and complex (the guy was blessed with perfect pitch)—unlike Miles, Shaw stayed with acoustic instruments. Like a true artist, Shaw made the “difficult” seem direct and immediate. This set captures Shaw with his regular working band, which included a couple of gents that went on to be jazz stars, too: Mulgrew Miller, piano, and Steve Turre, trombone. Shaw’s combo had a unique sound, dispensing with the usually omnipresent sax. This is straight-up, churning, hard-
Dexter Gordon.
swinging hard bop in the vein of Art Blakey, Benny Golson, and Joe Henderson—with whom Shaw played, one and all. “Song of Songs” is an enchanting modal piece (think Miles’ “So What”), mid-tempo yet fiery, Turre doing a wry imitation of a tuba while Miller’s keys illuminate like a sunrise. A bonus is one track recorded in Paris in ’85, “Sweet Love of Mine,” 32
a groove number that foregoes funk for undulation with a whisper of plaintiveness. (Edited a wee bit, this could even get radio play.) This set’s recording quality is a little uneven, but comes through loud and clear. (6 tracks, 74 min.) As dandy as Shaw’s platter is, Gordon’s 1975 is even better. For the initiated, Gordon was one of the very first gents in the 1940s to play that weird new music known as bebop, and he was an influence on tenor titans Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. Gordon had a big, shiny, virile tone, slightly breathy with real heft. This, too, catches Dexter with a working band— including bop diehard Kenny Drew on piano, and acoustic bass virtuoso (pliant, rippling) Nils-Henning Orsted Pedersen—about a year before his triumphant return to the USA after living many years in Europe, where racism was less and playing opportunities more. The program is old faves like “Misty” (tender, sentimental) and “Fried Bananas” (surging, robust, swingin’ like there’s no tomorrow) and everyone is at the top of their game. Sound quality is mostly boss (though sometimes the bass is louder than the keys). 1981 is for Shaw and hard bop fans what 1975 is for fans of Gordon and acoustic swingin’ jazz in general. (6 tracks, 64 min.) elemental-music.com Marcy Rosen/Lydia Artymiw HHHHH Mendelssohn: Complete Works for Cello and Piano Bridge Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, known to friends and fans as Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), a composer from the Romantic era of classical music, was a cat with an interesting career arc. He was a child prodigy, performed for Queen Victoria, wrote tons of works, and helped popularize— as a conductor—J.S. Bach in Germany…only to be slammed big-time by composer Richard Wagner (when he wasn’t writing 56-hour-long operas he authored a pamphlet, “Judaism in Music,” in which Wagner stated Felix was harmful to German culture because he was, and likely remains, Jewish) and the Nazis (who banned his music). But hey, Felix M has the last laugh—his discs outsell that of most Nazis. But seriously folks, Mendolssohn’s music is great to listen to—he’s got that dramatic German thing going on (as did Mozart) and these works for cello and piano are very melodious, have a wide streak of melancholy that doesn’t get overwhelming, and riseand-fall rhythmic (also in a manner similar to that of Mozart). Marcy Rosen’s cello sounds tenor sax-big, warm, woody, a definition of poetry) and Lydia Artymiw is a one-woman chamber group, impelling her up those heights. Fans of the mainstream classical repertoire (in his day Mendolssohn was, btw, considered rather conservative) and novices (and cello fans!) are urged to seek this forthwith. (10 tracks, 70 min.) bridgerecords.com
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Rocket 3 HHHH What’s the Frequency? Self-released The Essex Green HHHH Hardly Electronic Merge The older this writer gets the less this writer is pleasantly surprised by/with much rock music. Sometimes it feels like everything’s been done to death…or has it? Rocket 3 is from Portland, Oregon and they are like a glass of aural lemonade—they realize that less is indeed more. Whereas many bands are likely to clobber the listener—and we need clob-
Rocket 3.
berin’ times, to be sure—with their sound (or shtick), Rocket 3 sound as if they are…holding back. Not tentative or uncertain—they just leave space(s) in their songs. Ramune Nagisetty’s voice is demure but not little-girl-ish, with no overt emoting, singing as if confiding in the listener. The trio’s approach is low-volume but not exactly soft—Rocket 3 evoke such stripped-down outfits as the Cure (their first two albums, before they got all goth-y), The Marine Girls (and their spin-off Everything But the Girl, at their beginning), Young Marble Giants, and Wire (OK, MUCH softer than Wire). Complete with winsome, low-key melodies, Rocket 3 play with a rare restraint that it invites further listening (as opposed to the one-trick pony aspects of too many bands). (9 tracks, 32 min.) Brooklyn’s The Essex Green are to a degree kindred spirits to Rocket 3, albeit the former use more instruments and have co-ed harmonies. Essex Green go for a chamber pop sound—simply put, a low-budget (not a negative, mind you) version of the classy, baroque-ish orchestrations of Jimmy Webb (remember, he wrote “MacArthur Park”), Brian Wilson, and Burt Bacharach. The “bah-bah-bah” harmonies evoke the Mamas & the Papas and Sergio Mendes & Brazil ’66, while “Modern Rain” sounds like an out-
s . o n s -
take from The Beatles’ Abbey Road. Elsewhere Essex Green’s voices recall The Cowsills , especially on “Catatonic” with its Who-like power-pop chorus as a bonus. Perfect for wistful, gloomy-day listening. (14 tracks, 55 min.) mergerecords.com Elina Duni HHH1/2 Partir ECM Loss is a universal feeling (well, for many of us,
anyway) and there are myriad ways to express/explore it. Albanian-Swiss singer Elina Duni sings of loss from the Yiddish, Swiss, Albanian, Kosovan, Armenian, Macedonian, and Egyptian traditions (plus one original) in a voice eerie and earthy and perfect. Duni has a vibrato-less vocal instrument that evokes a lone woman on a hill in the middle of nowhere, letting the air and the spirits hear of her loss. For a more conventional description, Duni’s voice somewhat resembles UK folk thrushes June
Tabor (lots) and Sandy Denny (a little); Diamanda Galas (without fury), American jazz singer Patty Waters, and Norwegian jazz singer Karin Krog. Duni accompanies (sparingly) herself on guitar, piano, and percussion. In its own way Partir (French for “to start”) is as simple and harrowing as Nick Drake’s Pink Moon or the haunted blues of Blind Willie Johnson. This is a sublime distillation of sadness as much as Lou Reed’s Berlin and Frank Sinatra’s No One Cares. (12 tracks, 48 min.) ecmrecords.com n
r . ) e g s e t e t e o 9
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JAZZ LIBRARY BY BOB PERKINS
AL GREY THE GREAT JAZZ ORCHESTRAS of Stan Kenton, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie wouldn’t have been as great, had they not harbored talented instrumentalists. Following a membership in one of those bands, a musician could get a chair in just about any other band, or on the strength of past association, form their own small or large band, and attract talent to fill it. So it was with “Fab”…uh, trombonist Al Grey, who, over his half-century career, made music in a good number of great bands, ultimately leading up to his fronting his own small groups. The handle of Fab was pinned on him by Count Basie when he was a band member. The Count thought he was the greatest trombonist around, and the handle was an abbreviation for “fabulous.” One of the things that made trombonist Al Grey fabulous was his use of the plunger mute. When he’d stuff the business end of a plumber’s primary drain cleaners into the bell of his horn, he could produce more than just a waa-waa effect, he could almost coax sounds similar to the human voice. Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan have said they used their voices to imitate horns—Grey said he used their technique in reverse. With Grey, this was not just an ear-catching gimmick—it was an art. Although steeped in the swing era of jazz, he was versatile and shared stages with more modern players, and more than held his own. Grey was born June 6, 1925, in Aldie, Virginia. His father and mother were musicians. The family moved to Pottstown, Pennsylvania where his dad taught him to play a saxophone loaned by the school Grey attended. Through continued savings, the family was finally able to buy their son a trombone. Grey continued his trombone studies through high school, and upon graduation joined the navy where he was able to polish his trombone skills in various navy bands. Just days after completing military service in 1946, he was playing in Benny Carter’s band, filling a void left by the departed J.J. Johnson. When the Carter band broke up, Grey took a chair in the Jimmy Lunceford Band, replacing his trombone idol, Trummy Young. Next, there was a memorable stint with Lionel Hampton’s band, which had a showmanship flavor. He spent five years with Hampton and was finally fired by Hampton’s wife Gladys (who ran the band) for walking off the bandstand one night when the band played overtime. Grey didn’t want to be late for a date with a certain young lady. Al Grey also played in Dizzy Gillespie’s Band in the middle 1950s, but bookings were sometimes few, which affected the frequency of pay days, so he left. But in 1957 fate smiled on Grey and Count Basie, when the band was missing a trombonist for a week’s gig at Philadelphia’s famed Pep’s Show Bar. Grey was available and filled the vacancy. Several days later, the band was playing a command performance in England, and Grey exhibited his plunger skills to the delight of Basie and England’s royals. Grey soon became a prominent soloist with the band, and thus Fab became his permanent nickname with Basie and beyond. Following his big band years, Grey went on to become a regular at international jazz festivals, either as a soloist or fronting his own small groups. He began to teach, presided at workshops, and authored a manual on his plunger-mute technique. Grey didn’t record a great many albums under his own name; much of his recording output was as a co-leader of small bands, and as a sideman with large ensembles. But because of his excellence as a musician, congenial attitude and keen sense of humor wherever he played, he was welcomed when he came, and greatly missed when he left. Al Grey died at age 74 on March 24, 2000 of complications from diabetes. n Bob Perkins is a writer and host of an all-jazz radio program that airs on WRTI-FM 90.1 Mon. through Thurs. night, from 6–9 and Sunday, 9–1. 34
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ON A HOT AND humid Saturday night at June’s end, Years & Years—the UK’s most noticeably sociopolitical, LGBTQ synth pop trio—not only debuted material for its second album, Palo Santo, in Philly. The ensemble, led by actor-turned-singer/lyricist Olly Murs, popped the top on the Project: Aloft Star at Aloft Philadelphia Downtown. For the uninitiated, the P:AS contest/competition finds several of the UMG label’s most notable breakthrough and emerging artists (e.g. New Orleans’ funky Tank & The Bangas on August 9 in their hometown, the alterna-pop BANN RS in Denver on October 17) hosting free performances in the hotels’ W XYZ bars so to encourage unsigned fellow artists to enter into the Project: Aloft Star contest. If you believe you have what it takes to be the next big thing, go to liveatalofthotels.com and enter. “This is a pretty great opportunity for new bands to tour and get noticed,” said Murs, delighted at the idea of having money and sponsorship (“and a nice hotel room”) enabling Years & Years to debut its first new material in three years since, since 2015’s Communion. “As touring is the most notable way for us to expose our material, every little bit and financial leg up, helps.” Playing soulful new Palo Santo tracks such as “Sanctify,” “Hallelujah,” and “Preacher” in the intimate confines of Aloft Philadelphia Downtown’s lowlit W XYZ space (they should have more shows—the lighting and acoustics were great), Years & Years— and Murs in particular—sounded rich, dynamic and
Christina Aguilera.
So You Want to be a Star? akin to first album Justin Timberlake. “We’ve been listening to a lot of N’Sync,” said Murs, right before their performance. It showed; but not in an obvious fashion as the trio’s full-blooded synth-pop tones were more darkly opulent (think Depeche Mode), than anything that glossily passes as such at present. As for the Project: Aloft Stars program, when you consider how the lives and then-bourgeoning careers of American Idol winners (Kelly Clarkson, Fantasia) and even runner-ups (Jennifer Hudson, Daughtry, Adam Lambert) were radically heightened by the leg up provided by its sponsorship, I say, kids, go for it. Go to liveatalofthotels.com and enter.
Y
ou would have had to be under a rock to miss the opening of Atlantic City’s Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. If it wasn’t the din of 2,100 slot machines or thousands of gamblers ramped around its 120 gaming tables and dining at its 20 restaurants, it was the music that poured forth from every crevice of the former Trump property. That included its karaoke bars, Jerry Blavat spinning in front of the Hard Rock Café while Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg played before it inside the casino with his big band, to say nothing of the 6,000 seat Etess Center’s live showcase with American Idol’s country cleaving winner, Carrie Underwood. Vibe Managers curate every element of the music in the Hard Rock from “The Sound of Your Stay’ package at checkout, where you can choose albums and turntables for your room, as well as and acquir-
ing electric guitars and amps during your stay. Every song within the 50 sound zones within Hard Rock— restaurants, pool areas—have been curated to be diverse and enriching. The non-ticketed “vibe stages” for Hard Rock’s 365 live experience—a massive undertaking—will make it so live music is featured in/on smaller stages throughout the property. Then there is the fact that specific sounds surround Hard Rock’s international memorabilia displays with music specific to tchotskes from New Jersey artists such as Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston and totems from the Steel Pier, to items of broader interest such as Prince’s tiny green costume from the Diamonds & Pearls tour, one of Stevie Nicks’ “leather and lace” era gowns, Michael Jackson’s crystal-covered white glove, and Elvis Presley’s gold Rolls Royce. As for that Etess Arena, sure we just missed original Jersey Boys’ Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, but, August and September has a packed lineup: the August 1 union of burly ’90s alterna rockers Bush, The Cult & Stone Temple Pilots; August 11’s Tropicaliente event with Hector Acosta, Olga Tanon and some of the Latin music continuums finest acts; August 18’s showcase with country cousin Blake Shelton; August 23’s co-headlining show with upstate Pennsylvania’s Live and the Counting Crows; August 26’s macho man C&W gigs with Toby Keith and Trace Adkins; and September 28’s night with the too-long-away-from the microphone Christina Aguilera. The point is, everything at Hard Rock is music, 24/7, 365 and 12. n
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harper’s FINDINGS
INDEX
A Norwegian dendrochronologist found that smoke used to hide a Nazi battleship caused pine trees to stop forming rings. Hans Asperger helped the Third Reich kill disabled children. Holocaust survivors were reported to exhibit an aversion to doctors with German surnames. Loneliness has a less pronounced effect on German women than on German men in encouraging the use of internet porn, which generally has become less aggressive in its depictions of women. American women were becoming more promiscuous; men, less. Of college women who identify as heterosexual but engage in same-sex relations, 12 percent are following a script of performative public bisexual hookups. When one member of a straight couple is a psychopath and the other is not, the woman’s experience of the relationship suffers. Male overinvestment in sexual reproductive success predicted extinction among the ostracods. Eighty percent of those displaced by climate change have been women, whose voices have been getting deeper. The least offensive taboo words are those that are derogatory toward men.
Estimated combined square footage of all the self-storage units in the United States: 1,670,000,000 Factor by which this area is larger than the borough of Manhattan: 2.6 Number of states that prevent cities from enacting rent control laws: 37 Amount a US company is charging for an eleven-night stay at a luxury space hotel scheduled to open in 2022: $9,500,000 Number of reservations made during the first month bookings were available: 22 Percentage of first-time US home buyers who are single men: 7 Who are single women: 18 Factor by which a mother who has been laid off is more likely to get a job interview than a stay-at-home mother: 2 Chance that an ad for a Chinese central-government job specifies a preference for men: 1 in 5 That it specifies a preference for women: 1 in 31,733 Percentage of Americans who consider themselves members of the “alt-right”: 3 Who have never heard of the alt-right: 5 Percentage of the Brazilian population that is black or mixed race: 55 Of sperm imported into Brazil that is from white donors: 95 That is from blue-eyed donors: 52 Months for which Denmark will require couples with children to “reflect” before finalizing divorce: 3 Number of countries in which divorce is outlawed: 2 Percentage by which more EU nationals have arrived in than left the United Kingdom since the Brexit vote: 70 Date on which the United Kingdom announced a return to blue-colored passports: 12/22/17 Value of the contract for the passports, which was awarded to a French-Dutch company: $353,000,000 Amount of public money Mexico has spent since 2013 on ads promoting government accomplishments: $2,000,000,000 Portion of money spent by Donald Trump’s reelection committee this year that has gone toward legal fees: 1/5 Percentage of Trump voters who now say they regret their vote: 3 Of Hillary Clinton voters: 3 Factor by which an American between 18 and 29 is more likely to be fearful than hopeful about the future of the country: 2 No. of successive years that health care has been the political issue that Americans care most about: 5 Portion of high-net-worth investors who regard health care as their greatest financial concern: 7/10 Factor by which the largest pension in Oregon is greater than the average Oregon household income: 11 Rank of 2017 among years in which US bankers received their highest average bonuses: 2 Of 2006: 1 Average amount an Australian loses gambling each year: $957 Percentage of Australian state and territory tax revenue that comes from gambling: 7.7 Total amount owed by Pennsylvania’s top 100 evaders of highway tolls: $3,400,000 Number of the ten largest US public transit systems that saw an increase in use last year: 1 Projected percentage increase in energy consumption from cooling appliances by 2050: 90 Percentage chance that a bottle of water contains microplastic particles: 93 Estimated portion of European fish species that a planned series of dams in the Balkans would put at risk of extinction: 1/10 Number of US states that ban the sale of fake urine: 21 Percentage of New York City’s sewage that is shipped out of the city for disposal: 85 Number of weeks a train filled with New York City sewage was stuck outside an Alabama town this year: 11
9 People who resist the temptation to cheat on their romantic partners exhibit sour grapes, guilt makes women but not men underreport their carnivorousness, and hand cleansing—whether actual, imagined, or vicarious—encourages the consumption of virtuous foods and discourages the consumption of vicious foods. Religiousness makes people spend less on groceries and is only partly responsible for conservatives’ lower intelligence. For mental health, fruits and vegetables are better raw than cooked. Most people don’t know what a lowercase g looks like. Positive experiences tend to produce happiness; negative ones, meaning. Wisdom, but not intelligence, makes people happier. Some news about fake news may be fake news.
9 Rising oceanic CO2 levels will increase the number of baby fish led astray by white noise. Thirty-three researchers considered whether octopuses—of which a vast, highly stressed nursery of brooding females was found off Costa Rica—came from space. Nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight radiated tortoises were rescued from a house in Madagascar. A man recently bitten by a shark, a snake, and a bear was found to have lost against odds of 1 in 893 quadrillion. The Oxford Dodo was found to be killed by a gunshot to the back of the head. A mutation affecting breast milk production led to the development of shovel-shaped incisors in Native Americans following the Beringian Standstill. Men in sub-Saharan Africa are discovering they have bleeding disorders when they undergo elective circumcision. African immigrant women in the West, despite nostalgia for the cultures in which they were raised, are skeptical of passing the custom of female genital mutilation on to their daughters. Researchers noted that spirometers still offer a correction accounting for a 10 to 15 percent underperformance by the lungs of black people even though the underperformance may be a myth originating in Thomas Jefferson’s observation of a pulmonary deficiency among slaves. Scientists succeeded in making an electron that is neither bound nor free. 36
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SOURCES: 1 Union Realtime (NYC); 2 US Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.); 3 National Apartment Association (Arlington, Va.); 4,5 Orion Span (Houston); 6,7 National Association of Realtors (Washington); 8 Katherine Weisshaar, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; 9,10 Human Rights Watch (NYC); 11,12 Kaiser Family Foundation (Washington); 13 Brazilian Ministry of Planning, Budget, and Management (Brasília); 14,15 Anvisa (Brasília); 16 Danish Ministry for Children and Social Affairs (Copenhagen); 17 United Nations (Washington); 18 UK Office for National Statistics (Titchfield, England); 19,20 UK Home Office (London); 21 Fundar (Mexico City); 22 Federal Election Commission; 23,24 YouGov (NYC); 25 John Della Volpe, Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.); 26 Gallup (Atlanta); 27 UBS (NYC); 28 Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (Tigard)/US Census Bureau; 29,30 Office of the New York State Comptroller (NYC); 31,32 Queensland Treasury (Brisbane, Australia); 33 Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (Middletown); 34 TransitCenter (NYC); 35 Birmingham Energy Institute (England); 36 Sherri A. Mason, State University of New York at Fredonia; 37 Steven Weiss, University of Graz (Austria); 38 National Conference of State Legislatures (Denver); 39 New York City Department of Environmental Protection; 40 Town of Parrish (Alabama).
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The Los Angeles Times SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE
SOUNDS LIKE A SNOOZE By Gary Larson
ACROSS 1 5 9 15 19 20 21 22 23 25 27
Door feature Butcher shop section Minor Bridge “American Gigolo” star Pocket often filled Get there First name at Woodstock Liquor store? Feeding time for the herd? Post-Thanksgiving dinner feeling, for many 28 City near Düsseldorf 29 Bring down 30 Dante’s half-dozen 31 L.A. Clippers’ org. 33 Disqualify (oneself), as a judge 35 One of many on most phones 38 Second Amendment concern 43 Kicks out, in a way 46 Caribbean island chain? 49 Hydroelectric project 51 Capital NNW of Albany 52 Home subcontractor 53 Literary tribute 54 Gets promoted 56 Like neat freaks 57 Ravaged by time 59 Updates, as a reference book 62 Actress Scala 63 __ oil 64 Sound file extension 65 2007 Will Smith sci-fi flick 67 Make change for a five? 71 Itemized deductions form 74 Yellow Sea peninsula: Abbr. 75 Phrase often abbreviated 79 Spat suffix 80 Paul’s letters 82 Trash collectors 83 Good sound at the garage 85 Hodgepodges 86 Flower starter 88 Property owner’s income 89 Insurgency troops 92 Back at sea? 93 Funding for cops? 95 Reclusive 97 Rats 99 Trains over roads 100 Use as support 102 Cartoon collectible 103 Some laptops 38
106 “Master of None” star Ansari 107 Many a Bob Marley fan 110 Toy mentioned in “The Chipmunk Song” 115 “No legumes for me, please”? 117 Slept through the alarm? 119 Phi Delt, e.g. 120 Discomfort 121 Gather 122 Ness’ feds 123 News pg. units 124 Co-star of TV’s “Dr. Kildare” 125 Drops off 126 First name in desserts
DOWN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 24 26 32 34 35 36 37 39 40 41 42 44 45 47 48 50 54
Cold War gp. Nice nine? Ricelike pasta Amazon founder Spell out Cosmetic surg. option Bit of physics React, barely California-based shoe company Bungles it Span. titles Jeweler’s fitting tool Smoothed Agent City south of Tampa Much-admired cooktop? Burn balm Silent signal ’50s political monogram Blow __-relief 4-Down, e.g. Serve in the capacity of He pitched in the majors at age 59 Gomer and Goober of old TV Computer symbol “Awesome!” Year Columbus’ fourth and last voyage began More impertinent Clemens, familiarly __ fork Waste Trite comment Small plateaus Takes back
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104 High deg. Sport for heavyweights 105 Blackens, in a way Gun, as an engine 106 Flight prefix “Norma __” 108 Overwhelming quantities Fabled northern workers 109 Electrify, in a way Transparent, informally 111 Eye layer Alternative scenarios 112 Logical omission Favored 113 Baum princess Former Belgian prime minister Di 114 Jury member Rupo 115 Prominent poultry purveyor 69 Edison contemporary 116 Run smoothly 70 Rejections 118 It’s in our genes 71 Old Toyota 72 Hints 73 Withhold enthusiasm? 76 “Tootsie” Oscar winner Answer to July’s puzzle, WATT’S HAPPENING 77 Silicon Valley giant 78 Staff members: Abbr. 81 1990s-2000s Senate majority leader 82 Axlike tool 84 Box office 86 Megaphone kin 87 Special forces weapon 90 “Mephisto Waltz” composer 91 Idled 93 Other side 94 C equivalents 96 Ochoa who was the topranked female golfer when she retired 98 Dublin-born playwright 101 Scruffs 55 58 59 60 61 64 66 68
AGENDA FINE ART
THRU 8/5 Impermanence: Mystery, Transformation, Light. This exhibition centers on impermanence, an essential tenet of Buddhism. Using drawings as symbols or metaphors for transitory life experiences, the eleven artists tell stories about lost innocence, fading memory, mortality, and the drawing process itself. Delaware Art Museum, 2301 Kentmere Pkway, Wilmington. DelArt.org THRU 8/11 Underpinnings, Allentown’s Cedar Crest College Center for Visual Research and Muhlenberg’s Martin Art Gallery are presenting a two-part exhibition. Both galleries are free and open to the public. For more information, Muhlenberg.edu/gallery. THRU 9/30 Wilmington 1968. This summer, the Museum reflects on the 50 years since the National Guard occupation of Wilmington with a trio of civil rights-themed exhibitions: photographs by Danny Lyon, drawings by Harvey Dinnerstein and Burton Silverman, and a commissioned work by Hank Willis Thomas. Delaware Art Museum, 2301 Kentmere Pkway, Wilmington. DelArt.org THRU 8/31 Evan Harrington. Silverman Gallery of Bucks County Impressionist Art, 4920 York Rd., Holicong, PA (in Buckingham Green, Rte. 202.) 215-794-4300. Silvermangallery.com 8/10 Janet Bruesselbach: Speculative Realism. Closing reception Fri., 8/10, 7-9 pm. Bruesselbach’s portraits depict people who struggle to exist in contemporary America, whether due to race, gender, disability, or any combination thereof. hYpErSpAcE @book&puppet, 466 Northampton St., Easton, PA. ART FESTIVAL
9/29-9/30
New Hope Arts & Crafts Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary. Visit and shop at the outdoor festival showcasing over 160 artists. Rain or shine, free shuttle service. New Hope-Solebury High School, New Hope, PA. Newhopeartsandcrafts.com PERFORMANCE ART
9/16 Cirque Éloize Hotel, Zoellner Arts Center, 420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem, PA. Free event parking attached to center. 610-7582787. Zoellnerartscenter.org THEATER
8/25 Mangled Myths: Dream Puppet Theater–see YOUR dream performed. Comedy for grownups with live music. Audience participation. Submit your dream to admin@bookandpuppet.com. Sat., at 8:00 PM. Admission: roll of one die plus $3. Refreshments. 466 Northampton St., Easton, PA COMEDY
9/7 Steven Wright. 8pm, State Theatre, 453 Northampton St., Easton, PA. 610-252-3132, 1-800999-STATE. Statetheatre.org 9/21 An Evening with Jon Dorenbos, Magic, Football and Comedy. State Theatre, 453 Northampton St., Easton, PA. 610-252-3132 Statetheatre.org DINNER & MUSIC
nal singer Ed Kowalczyk in tow that is the main attraction. BB&T Pavilion, pavilioncamden.com 8/17 Jazz Upstairs presents Tony Tixier Trio. 7:30pm, Miller Symphony Hall, 23 North 6th St., Allentown, PA. 610-432-6715. Millersymphonyhall.org 8/17, 18 Cher. Between Broadway’s upcoming The Cher Show and Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again, there is no shortage of the gypsy, the tramp or the thief. So why not another date on her eternal retirement tour? Borgata Hotel Spa & Casino. theborgata.com 8/17, 18 Rent Asunder, a Story of Táhirih from the Kingfisher Theatre Company. Director Bill George, founder of Touchstone Theatre, and Alaska native actor-performance Nava Bastami, collaborate on a one-woman show about a modern-day woman who finds hope and inspiration in the ideal of Táhirih, the poet-martyr of the 19th century, whom upon her death in 1852 by strangling said, “You may kill me as soon as you wish, but you can never stop the emancipation of women.” Touchstone Theatre, Bethlehem. touchstone.org 8/18 Allentown Band Summer Series presents The Phantom of the Opera 1925 Silent Film & Live Music. Miller Symphony Hall, 23 No. 6th St., Allentown, PA. 610432-6715. Millersymphonyhall.org
CONCERTS
8/19 Valley Vivaldi. Chamber music by Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Corelli, Telemann and Marais, featuring solos for violin,recorder and oboe d'amore. Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra. Wesley Church, 2540 Center St., Bethlehem, PA. pasinfonia.org
8/11 Counting Crows. The broccolisprouting hair of Crows’ singer Adam Durwitz may be the headliner, but it is the return of 90s hit makers, up-state’s Live with origi-
8/19 Helen O'Shea and the Shanakees, Irish Folk/Roots. 7:30 pm. 1867 Sanctuary Arts and Culture Center, 101 Scotch Rd, Ewing, NJ. 609-392-6409. 1867sanctuary.org
Every Thurs.-Sat., Dinner and a Show at SteelStacks, Bethlehem, PA. 5-10:00pm, table service and valet parking. For more information, menus and upcoming events visit SteelStacks.org
8/22 Renda Ferrington, Gloria Galante, and James Dragoni, Jazz Vocals with Harp and Guitar. 8 pm. 1867 Sanctuary Arts and Culture Center, 101 Scotch Road, Ewing, NJ. 609-392-6409. 1867sanctuary.org 8/24 Espers. The finicky kings of modern psychedelic folk. Union Transfer, Philadelphia. utphilly.com 8/25 John Gray and the Jazz Thieves, Originals based on Traditional Jazz. 1867 Sanctuary Arts and Culture Center, 101 Scotch Road, Ewing, NJ. 609-03926409. 1867sanctuary.org 9/14 Jazz Upstairs presents Mike Krisukas & Friends: More Zen Music. Miller Symphony Hall, 23 N. 6th St., Allentown, PA. 610432-6715. Millersymphonyhall.org 9/28-9/30 Leslie Odom Jr., Celebrating the POPS 40th Anniversary. The Philly Pops, 300 South Broad St., Philadelphia, PA. 215-893-1999. Phillypops.org MUSIKFEST CAFÉ 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem, PA 610-332-1300 Artsquest.org AUGUST [3-12 MUSIKFEST] 2 Trombone Shorty’s Voodoo Threauxdown Tour 3 Styx and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts 4 Daughtry 5 Jim Gaffigan 6 Dierks Bentley 7 Kesha 8 Gary Clark Jr. 9 GROUPLOVE 10 Brantley Gilbert 11 All Time Low & Dashboard Confessional 12 Jason Mraz 18 The Menzingers
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Comedian Kyle Kinane
DINO’S BACKSTAGE 287 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside, PA 215-884-2000 Dinosbackstage.com AUGUST 3 Dibbs Preston & The Detonators 4 Bruce Klauber 5 Eddie Bruce’s Backstage Birthday Bash 10, 11 Greg Farnese 17, 18 Michael Richard Kelly SEPTEMBER 7, 29 Dibbs Preston & The Detonators 8 The Backstage Beauties Burlesque 13, 14 Marilyn Mae 15 Michael Richard Kelly 21, 22 Marilyn Mae WORKSHOPS/CLASSES
8/4-8/12 Banana Factory Arts Center offers multiple workshops at Musikfest, including Glass Windchime, Chalk Lettering, Celebration Banner, and more. 25 W. Third St., Bethlehem, PA. For information on exhibitions and special events, Bananafactory.org. EVENTS 9/6-9/23 FringeArts presents 2018 Fringe Festival. Experience the Festival by attending one of the 175+ events in neighborhoods across Philadelphia. World-class, contemporary performing arts, including dance, theater, music, and everything in between. FringeArts.com or 215-413-1318. 8/11, 12 The New Hope-Solebury Community Assoc. presents the The New Hope Automobile Show. Vintage & Classic Road Rally, 10:00 a.m. New Hope, PA. Free parking. Newhopeautoshow.com n
ICON, AUGUST 2018 | ICONDV.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/ICONDV
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