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ESSAY 5|
contents 10 |
Vanderbilt by Anderson Cooper
A THOUSAND WORDS Saffron’s Spot
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Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan
EXHIBITIONS Art-in-the-Park West Park Civic Association Allentown
Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever by Robin Wigglesworth
Expression Through Tradition Stirner Modern Gallery Easton
Feels Like Home: Relaxed Interiors for a Meaningful Life by Lauren Liess
92nd Juried Art Show Phillips’ Mill New Hope 8|
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Jon Batiste A virtuoso pianist, bandleader, composer, record producer, educator, community activist and actor, Jon Batiste is incredibly talented and deeply spiritual. He has recorded three Grammy-nominated albums and recently released We Are, an album destined to become a seminal masterpiece of Black pop American music. Along with his band, Stay Human, he is featured nightly on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and most recently won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for Pixar’s animated film Soul. Jon Batiste has a lot on his mind and speaks candidly and exclusively to ICON this month. ON THE COVER:
Robert Beck, Sheep’s Clothing, 24 x 30, oil.on panel. 4
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Enemy at the Gates by Vince Flynn
NEW MUSIC GarciaLive Volume 16: November 15th, 1991 Madison Square Garden Jerry Garcia Band
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart The Judge's List: A Novel by John Grisham
A Time for Love: The Oscar Peterson Quartet Live in Helsinki, 1987
Piglet: The Unexpected Story of a Deaf, Blind, Pink Puppy and His Family by Melissa Shapiro DVM
Delta Kream The Black Keys Hope Amid Tears - Beethoven: Cello Sonatas Yo-Yo Ma & Emanuel Ax
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The Complete Live At The Lighthouse Lee Morgan
Freedom over Everything Vince Mendoza Release Me 2 Barbra Streisand
Since 1992 215-862-9558 icondv.com facebook.com/icondv PUBLISHER Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com
EDITORIAL Editor / trina@icondv.com
ADVERTISING Raina Filipiak filipiakr@comcast.net
PRODUCTION Dominic Reposa
FILM ROUNDUP Annette Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.01 Thrice Upon a Time The Green Knight Val
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS A. D. Amorosi Robert Beck Jack Byer
CLASSIC FILMS Boy Meets Girl Citizen Kane Ivan’s Childhood The Story of a Three-Day Pass
Peter Croatto
ETCETERA
Susan Van Dongen
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Harper’s Findings Harper’s Index
Keith Uhlich
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Washington Post
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En attendant Marcin Wasilewski Trio Layla Revisited (Live At LOCKN') Tedeschi Trucks Band
The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, nightlife and mad genius.
Adam Cramer
Love For Sale Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga
Cello Unlimited Kian Soltani
ICON NEW BOOKS
Sunday Crossword Puzzle
Since 1992, the arts have been integral to our mission—and to our lives in large and small measures. We too often don’t realize their importance. The arts, the economy, and ICON, as well as well as mom and pop businesses and Fortune 500 companies, are subject to the vicissitudes of life and fortune. We’re all together now in this time of historic insecurity. ICON has supported the arts since 1992, through good times and bad. We think of ourselves as their partners, their cheerleaders. We haven’t skipped an issue in nearly 30 years, so if you can’t find ICON one month, if we skip an issue here and there, be assured we’re just resting until the arts—and all of us—are healthy and confident again.
Geoff Gehman Mark Keresman George Miller
PO Box 120 New Hope 18938 215-862-9558 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. ©2021 Primetime Publishing Co., Inc.
a thousand words
STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK
Saffron’s Spot
MANY PEOPLE ARE FAMILIAR with my painting Sheep’s Clothing, the sheep in a robe and hood I did in 2003. In my mind, the 2000s were when I was up on the wave, engaged in a series of paintings, and averaging two exhibitions a year. I held classes, performances, exhibitions, and dinners in the studio on Bridge Street, and I traveled to far-away places to paint. A body of my work had already been featured in a museum show. Sheep’s Clothing was inspired by a lovely ewe named Saffron, whom I met at the Middletown Grange Fair. She was in a barn that was full of sheep and goats that had been washed, groomed, and powdered for the day’s judging events. They were fitted with robes and hoods to keep them clean. It’s something that happens thousands of times at 4-H, Grange, and county fairs across the country every year. The painting was shown in many high-profile exhibitions such as Phillips Mill and Woodmere, won awards, and was invited to hang in an exhibition of American Artists in London. It went. So did I.
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exhibitions
Anthony Smith Jr, Maxatawny Stitizer No. 3, 8” x 12”, acrylic. George Anthonisen, Aspiration, Phillips’ Mill’s 2021 Honored Artist. Bronze, 35 x 30 x 29. Edition of nine.
Art-in-the-Park West Park Civic Association 1526 Linden St., West Park, Allentown, PA Westpark-ca.org September 18, 10–5 The 46th version of this favorite one-day outdoor show promises to be gangbusters. Demo artists include Femi Johnson, Matthew Blum, Anthony Smith, Inkhound Press, Tom’s Wood, Ward Van Haute, and Liz Hamilton Quay. VIP artist-in-residence and poster/logo designer, the winner of a National Scholastic Art Award and Linny Award, the talented artist and teacher, Jessica Bastidas. There are two new prizes for first-time exhibitors, part of some $4,000 in cash prizes. Prize judges are Prof. Curlee Raven Holton, Executive Director, David C. Driskell Center/University of Maryland College Park and Dr. William B. Crow, Director of the Lehigh University Art Galleries. This will be the only major art show in the Lehigh Valley this year due to covid cancellations. For information, see westpark-ca.org.
Jacqueline Meyerson, Curve Ball, pastel, 14”h x 14”w 6
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Martin Frank, Factory Worker
Expression Through Tradition Stirner Modern Gallery 230 Ferry St. Suite 1, Easton, PA Hours Wed.-Sunday 12-5 September 3-26 An exhibition of photographs by The Monalog Collective. MonalogTM, a new word derived from “monochrome” and “analog” because we don’t make color prints or incorporate anything digital in what we do. The exhibition is comprised of 42 photographs—everything from landscapes to portraits, nudes to still lifes. On Sept. 17 at 7:00, Chris Karfakis will talk about his collection of daguerreotypes that are displayed in the exhibition. On our closing day, Sept. 26, we are on the schedule with 20/20 Photo Festival for a walk through between 1:002:00. There is an incredible mix of style and method among these 13 analog photographers: Beverly Conway, Ed Eckstein, Mel Evans, Jim Fitzgerald, Martin Frank, David Hass, Chris Karfakis, Jim Kipfer, Paul Margolis, Michael Marks, Claudia Rippee, Gary Samson and Drew Wagner.
Claudia Rippee, Maple Study.
92nd Juried Art Show at Phillips’ Mill 2619 River Road, New Hope, PA 18938 215-862-0582 phillipsmill.org September 25–October 31 1:00–5:00 daily Autumn in Bucks County means brilliant foliage along country roads and the Delaware River. To art lovers, it means the much-anticipated Juried Art Show at Phillips’ Mill just north of New Hope. The prestigious show celebrates its 92nd year at the Phillips’ Mill Community Association’s beloved, historic 18th century mill where, in 1929, artists including William Lathrop, Edward Redfield, Fern Coppedge, George Sotter, Daniel Garber and John Folinsbee exhibited their work while simultaneously giving birth to the New Hope School of Pennsylvania Impressionism. Last year the show went online for the first time. This year’s show will be both live and online. Devoted to the area’s vibrant arts tradition, the Phillips’ Mill Art Show features the work of artists from within a 25-mile radius, juried by a different group of esteemed jurors each year. Always different, it never disappoints.
Francisco Silva, Winter Shadows, Phillips’ Mill’s signature image for this year’s show.
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new music GarciaLive Volume 16: November 15th, 1991 Madison Square Garden [3 CD] Jerry Garcia Band Round Records Though just two months removed from the Grateful Dead’s sold-out 9-night residency at the Garden, the crowd’s eruption as the houselights dimmed revealed the immense excitement for Garcia’s return. The buoyant set-opening “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” signaled the feeling was indeed mutual. Love remained a central theme throughout the evening with stunning versions of Smokey Robinson’s “The Way You Do The Things You Do,” Van Morrison’s “He Ain’t Give You None” and “Bright Side of the Road,” and Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate,” among others. This performance of The Manhattan’s “Shining Star” is so poignant it became the centerpiece for the 2001 compilation of the same name. A Time for Love: The Oscar Peterson Quartet Live in Helsinki, 1987 Mack Avenue Records The final gig of a long international tour that began with four concerts in Brazil, this date was the 14th of a European tour that took the quartet all over Europe and Scandinavia. Anyone with any knowledge of jazz knows that the magic of consistent performing only makes the synergy and empathy of an ensemble— both substances this quartet has in mind-blowing quantity—better and better. That always dwarfs the fatigue factor, and sometimes results in magic on a different plane. That’s clearly what happened during this spectacular concert. Delta Kream The Black Keys Nonesuch The Black Keys release their tenth studio album, DeltaKream, via Nonesuch Records. The record celebrates the band’s roots, featuring eleven Mississippi hill country blues standards that they have loved since they were teenagers, before they were a band, including songs by R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, among others. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney recorded Delta Kream at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville; they were joined by musicians Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton, long-time members of the bands of 8
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blues legends including R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. The album takes its name from William Eggleston’s iconic Mississippi photograph that is on its cover. Hope Amid Tears - Beethoven: Cello Sonatas Yo-Yo Ma & Emanuel Ax Sony Classical Hope Amid Tears presents Beethoven’s five sonatas for cello and piano in the order in which they were composed, tracing an important arc in Beethoven’s development and approach as a composer. Joining them are Beethoven’s three sets of variations for cello and piano. “In this period of world-wide unease, grief, and suffering, it is perhaps fitting that we are also celebrating the 250th birthday of the composer who represents what is best in our humanity,” says Ax. Ma and Ax have made music together for more than 40 years, recording dozens of albums, earning five Grammy Awards, and performing on stages all over the world. Their friendship is not only rooted in a deep love of music, but also a shared sense of humor and keen perspectives on life’s joys and challenges. Hope Amid Tears is their second recording of the complete Beethoven cello sonatas, after a 1987 effort that earned the duo their second Grammy. Love For Sale Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga Interscope Celebrating ten years since they first recorded together, Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga return for another collaboration featuring the best of the Cole Porter Songbook. This album captures the creative and personal relationship of these two world-famous artists. Tony, who turned 95 on August 3, has spent over seven decades dedicated to performing the Great American Songbook. Both artists are accompanied by the Brian Newman Quintet with arrangements by Marion Evans & Jorge Callandrelli. The Complete Live At The Lighthouse Lee Morgan Blue Note This expansive collection presents for the very first time all 12 sets of music the legendary trumpeter’s quintet with saxophonist Bennie Maupin, pianist Harold Mabern, bassist Jymie Merritt, and drummer Mickey Roker recorded during their historic engagement at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California from July
10-12, 1970. Originally released 50 years ago in 1971 as a 2-LP set, and later expanded to a 3-CD set in 1996, this definitive edition of Morgan’s only live album produced by Zev Feldman and David Weiss encompasses 33 performances, including more than four hours of previously unreleased music that lets the listener relive the experience of being in the club for every exhilarating moment. Cello Unlimited Kian Soltani Deutsche Grammophon Kian Soltani has always been a big fan of movies, now he takes this passion one step further and creates an unprecedented album with his own arrangements of great blockbuster hits. Cello Unlimited is a collection of the most iconic movie soundtracks from the last 20 years, played on Kian’s cello and his cello only. Including music by Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore, John Powell, Schnittke and more, all tracks are specially arranged for the cello and every voice is played by Kian himself. En attendant Marcin Wasilewski Trio ECM “There’s a galaxy of piano trios in today’s jazz universe,” the BBC Music Magazine has noted, “but few shine as bright as Marcin Wasilewski’s.” On its seventh ECM album the multifaceted Polish group illuminates a characteristically wide span of music. On En attendant, collectively created pieces are juxtaposed with Wasilewski’s malleable “Glimmer of Hope,” Carla Bley’s timeless “Vashkar,” The Doors’ hypnotic “Riders On The Storm,” and a selection from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Fluidity is the hallmark, allied to the deep listening made possible by more than a quarter-century of collaborative music-making by pianist Wasilewski, bassist Kurkiewicz and drummer Miskiewicz. En attendant was recorded in the South of France in August 2019, and produced by Manfred Eicher.
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new books
Vanderbilt by Anderson Cooper (Harper; $30) When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal.Now, the Commodore’s great-great-greatgrandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the ancestors who built the family’s empire, basked in the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other.
Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan (Mariner Books; $31.50) Say “Dorie Greenspan” and think baking. The renowned author of thirteen cookbooks and winner of five James Beard and two IACP awards offers a collection that celebrates the sweet, the savory, and the simple. Every recipe is signature Dorie: easy—beginners can ace every technique in this book—and accessible, made with everyday ingredients. You’ll find ingenious twists like Berry Biscuits. Footlong cheese sticks made with cream puff dough. Apple pie with browned butter spiced like warm mulled cider. A s’mores ice cream cake with chocolate sauce, salty peanuts, and toasted marshmallows. It’s a book of simple yet sophisticated baking. The recipes are unexpected. And there are “Sweethearts” throughout, mini collections of Dorie’s all-time favorites. Don’t miss the meringue Little Marvels or the Double-Decker Caramel Cake. Like all of Dorie’s recipes, they lend themselves to being remade, refashioned, and riffed on. 10
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Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever by Robin Wigglesworth (Portfolio; $30) From the Financial Times’s global finance correspondent, the incredible true story of the iconoclastic geeks who defied conventional wisdom and endured Wall Street’s scorn to launch the index fund revolution, democratizing investing and saving hundreds of billions of dollars in fees that would have otherwise lined fat cats’ pockets. Fifty years ago, the Manhattan Project of money management was quietly assembled in the financial industry’s backwaters, unified by the heretical idea that even many of the world’s finest investors couldn’t beat the market in the long run. The motley crew of nerds—including economist wunderkind Gene Fama, humiliated industry executive Jack Bogle, bull-headed and computer-obsessive John McQuown, and avuncular former WWII submariner Nate Most—succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Passive investing now accounts for more than $20 trillion, equal to the entire gross domestic product of the US, and is today a force reshaping markets, finance and even capitalism itself in myriad subtle but pivotal ways. Feels Like Home: Relaxed Interiors for a Meaningful Life by Lauren Liess (Abrams; $45) A house is a feeling. That is the conceit behind designer Lauren Liess’s third book, which explores the emotional connection between the way we decorate our homes and our daily lives. She advises readers to think beyond just the objects in their homes and explore how design informs an intentional, happy, and authentic life. The book includes practical design information, with never-beforeseen case studies on a variety of homes including a beach cottage, a farmhouse, a home in the woods, a Spanish colonial, and other more traditional homes. Each case study explores a hardworking design aspect (such as proportion, scale, and color), while also focusing on the emotional aspect of the home. The chapters are inspired by the following themes: comfort, calm, excitement, belonging, carefree, love, and contentment.
Enemy at the Gates by Vince Flynn (Atria; $28.99) Mitch Rapp has worked for a number of presidents over his career, but Anthony Cook is unlike any he’s encountered before. Cunning and autocratic, he feels no loyalty to America’s institutions and is distrustful of the influence Rapp and CIA director Irene Kennedy have in Washington. When Kennedy discovers evidence of a mole scouring the Agency’s database for sensitive information on Nicholas Ward, the world’s first trillionaire, she convinces Rapp to take a job protecting him. In doing so, he finds himself walking an impossible tightrope: Keep the man alive, but also use him as bait to uncover a traitor who has seemingly unlimited access to government secrets. As the attacks on Ward become increasingly dire, Rapp and Kennedy are dragged into a world where the lines between governments, multinational corporations, and the hyperwealthy fade. An environment in which liberty, nationality, and loyalty are meaningless. Only the pursuit of power remains. Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty (Henry Holt and Co.; $22.99) The Delaney family love one another dearly―it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other . . .If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father? This is the dilemma facing Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke, the four grown Delaney siblings. One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on parents Stan and Joy Delaney’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that was all she wanted. When Joy goes missing, and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent, two are not so sure― but as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their biggest match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light.
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KEITH UHLICH
Annette
film roundup
Annette (Dir. Leos Carax). Starring: Adam Driver, Marion Cotillard, Simon Helberg. Everunpredictable French filmmaker Leos Carax (Holy Motors) and eccentric pop band Sparks, comprised of brother duo Ron and Russell Mael, team up for this sprawling, tone-shifting masterpiece of a rock opera. A love affair between a crude, confrontational stand-up comedian (Adam Driver) and a beloved opera singer (Marion Cotillard) begets high emotion, brutal tragedy, and a “miracle” of a daughter, Annette, who is treated less as a person than as a prized possession with a short, exploitable shelf-life. The film is a parable in song—the lyrics often tending toward mantra-like repetitiveness—about the harm we do to ourselves and others. It leans conceptually hard into con12
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cerns of the moment (see the #MeToo-esque musical interlude), and in the process lays the groundwork for its heartbreaking final scene between parent and child, certainly one of the most devastatingly personal things Carax has ever shot. [R] HHHHH Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.01 Thrice Upon a Time (Dirs. Hideaki Anno, Mahiro Maeda, Katsuichi Nakayama, Kazuya Tsurumaki). Starring: Megumi Ogata, Megumi Hayashibara, Yûko Miyamura. The four-movie “rebuild” of influential anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion concludes in this two-and-half-hour animated blockbuster that is quite entertaining, yet still has a “too much and not enough” feel. It was always going to be difficult to follow the series’
prior finale, 1997’s The End of Evangelion. That supreme work of art visualized the death and rebirth of mankind in nerve-shreddingly visceral fashion, reflecting the manic-depressive headspace in which the show’s creator Hideaki Anno, a Hayao Miyazaki protégé, was then ensconced. Thrice Upon a Time, by contrast, is the product of a mellower, more hopeful man who is also working with less constraints emotionally and economically. Though Anno wrote the screenplay, the army of technicians and co-directors he has at his disposal unfortu-
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Photo: Christian Cody
A
interview
AFTER SEVERAL YEARS OF watching mainstream audiences fall in love with contemporary jazz composer and pianist Jon Batiste on a nightly basis as bandleader of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, that talk show host’s congenial foil has brought that same crowd—and more—to his wide-ranging brands of genre-jumbling music and ardent activism. Along with releasing unedited, hardcore jazz with Anatomy of Angels: Live at the Village Vanguard, in 2019, the flighty R&B-ish single We Are in support of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and the multi-genre-jumbling full-length album We Are in 2021, the pianist, melodica player, organist and singer known for his eclectic crossover compositions juxtaposing pop, gospel and the R&B of his Louisiana youth with an adventurously spritely and subtly avant-garde brand of sonorous jazz, has also been gifted roses (Oscars, Golden Globes) for his score for Soul. A beloved animated Pixar studio film, co-written with ambient, industrial soundtrack composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, both of Nine Inch Nails, the flip and flighty score to Soul is both a definitive landing place for Batiste’s art as well as a fresh jumpingoff point for re-discovery—for himself and new audiences. And like We Are, there is social relevance at every one of Soul’s twists and tones. Though this interview was long in the making (e.g., right before his Academy Award ceremony victory), ICON caught up with Batiste the day after his
A.D. AMOROSI
JON BATISTE All that he is and then some, jazz piano kingpin, talk show bandleader, and activist, Jon Batiste has a lot to say
first night back to “The Late Show” in Manhattan, in a live studio setting, with a live audience before him.
The Oscar win for “Soul” still fresh in your memory, what do you recall most about getting that unique score together with its other composers? The spiritual, existential quest was but one part of the story. An homage to the tradition of jazz, along with being something that really blended with the styles of the music of Trent and Atticus—bringing the genre into the present, even into the future was also on our minds, especially when you consider that what we did with Soul is something that had not been done before, that blend. So the authenticity of dealing with the themes of the movie—the themes of existentialism, the themes of jazz—as well as playing with the animation was a big deal. Pixar has always led the charge across the world, out of all the studios in the world that do animation, so that was a big deal. Bigger still, though, was that they were portraying Blackness. There were many central characters in the narrative that were Black. The matriarchs, the musicians, the mentors in the film are all Black or all women of color. Soul was very kind in its portrayal of women and Black people; when you think about the history of cinema, that hasn’t always been a given. All of these things were done with a great deal of authenticity. That was my biggest takeaway from the Soul experience. That’s the real victory. Before
even winning any awards, seeing the film's first cut, seeing how they put everything together with such care and authenticity. I want to discuss everything about “We Are,” from its tone to its levels of activism. But, thinking about the latter, I have to ask about your relationship with Wynton Marsalis. Not so long ago, he and I spoke, and he couldn’t stop talking about how much of an inspiration you are to him, not only musically but because of your activist ardor. In fact, on Marsalis’ “The Democracy! Suite,” he has a song dedicated to you, “Out Amongst the People (for J Bat).” Tell me a bit about the reciprocal relationship between you and Marsalis. Wynton is one of those people who comes along every two or three generations. There are not many people I consider his peer when you think about jazz, and you think about our music. He’s someone who has spoken about the music at the same level in which he has played the music through his horn. To be able to articulate the depth and the nuance of the music as he does….that has been a joy and an education to be around. Talking about mentors, not only are Mavis Staples, Zadie Smith, and Quin-
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classic films
KEITH UHLICH
Citizen Kane
Boy Meets Girl (1984, Leos Carax, France) Can you make a classic movie your first time out? Leos Carax, the infamous French filmmaker whose most recent effort, Annette, is now in theaters, did just that with his debut, Boy Meets Girl. A captivating black-and-white romance between two tortured souls, the movie initially follows aspiring filmmaker Alex (Denis Levant, Carax’s frequent collaborator) and model-intraining Mireille (Mireille Perrier) on separate tracks. Both are reeling from relationships gone bad, until they fatefully cross paths at a chi-chi house party (a hypnotically prolonged sequence) and embark on an operatic path to tragedy. Carax was 23 when he helmed the project, which took home an award from Cannes, and earned some tut-tuts for what was perceived as juvenile brooding. Yet there’s an em16
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pathy here for the weary, the aimless, and the heartache-prone that feels ageless and wise beyond its years. (Streaming on Amazon.) Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles, USA) Boy wonder Orson Welles was also in his twenties when he cowrote, produced, directed and starred in the grandaddy of all first-film classics. Publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane (Welles) dies in the opening scene, and everything that follows is an interrogation (primarily via flashback) of what he meant by his dying word, “Rosebud.” It’s a sled. C’mon, people. Everyone knows it’s a sled. But the symbol isn’t the point—it’s that of a life recalled, by a varying cast of colorful characters, in all its contradictions and calamities, so that we’re no closer to solving the mystery of Kane at the end as we are
at the beginning. In a movie filled to bursting with astonishing sounds and images (Gregg Toland’s cinematography is a masterclass all on its own), there’s perhaps none greater than the one of Kane reflected through mirrors into infinite versions of himself. (Streaming on HBOMax.) Ivan’s Childhood (1962, Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet Union) Early in his life, the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky visited a medium, who summoned the spirit of author Boris Pasternak to commune with the aspiring filmmaker. “You will make 7 films,” said Pasternak. “Only 7?” asked Tarkovsky. “But they’ll all be
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Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart (Random House; $23.49) Eight friends, one country house, four romances, and six months in isolation—a novel about love, friendship, family, and betrayal, a book that reads like a great Russian novel, or Chekhov on the Hudson, by a novelist The New York Times calls “one of his generation’s most original writers.” Call it the COVID-era Decameron. In March 2020, eight friends decamp to a country house for six months to spend quarantine together. After the last year, you can just imagine how badly that must have gone—even if they had an abundance of outdoor space. But Shteyngart has demonstrated time and again a natural talent for bringing wit to even the bleakest situations. The Judge's List: A Novel by John Grisham (Doubleday, $29.99) In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change. Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a num-
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10 NEW BOOKS
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ber of aliases. Jeri Crosby’s father was murdered 20 years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims. Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law. He is a judge, in Florida—under Lacy’s jurisdiction. He has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. How can Lacy pursue him, without becoming the next name on his list? Piglet: The Unexpected Story of a Deaf, Blind, Pink Puppy and His Family by Melissa Shapiro DVM (Atria; $26) When veterinarian Melissa Shapiro gets a call about a tiny deaf blind puppy rescued from a hoarding situation in need of fostering, she doesn’t hesitate to say, “yes.” Little does she know how that decision will transform her, her family, and legions of admirers destined to embrace the saga of the indomitable pink pup. One of the most anxious dogs Melissa had ever encountered, the traumatized Piglet weighed under two pounds upon his welcome into the Shapiro household—which included Melissa’s husband Warren and their three college-aged kids, plus six other rescued dogs. After weeks of reassurance, and lots of love, Piglet connected, gained confidence, and his extraordinary spirit emerged. Melissa soon forged a powerful bond with Piglet, allowing the two to communicate without sound or visual cues. When the day arrived to say good-bye to the now dashing, six-pound pink boy dog with the larger than life spirit, Melissa faced a heartwrenching decision. Could she hand him over to someone willing to give Piglet the full-time attention he required or could she adapt her schedule and her household to make a permanent place for him? Of course, the answer was simple: love would find a way. Curious, engaged, and incredibly eager to learn, Piglet quickly became part of the family. What started out as a few simple Facebook posts of Piglet and his pack rapidly evolved into a global celebration of Piglet’s infectiously positive mindset. Piglet illustrates this story of one special little puppy with a purpose to teach the power of empathy, love, and kindness. n
8 NEW MUSIC
Layla Revisited (Live At LOCKN') [2 CD] Tedeschi Trucks Band Fantasy Layla Revisited (Live at LOCKN') captures Tedeschi Trucks Band at their incendiary best, together with Phish's renowned guitarist/vocalist Trey Anastasio. Recorded August 24, 2019, the performance of the legendary album in its entirety was kept secret until the moment the band took stage. It’s clear that their surprise performance that night—which included close TTB collaborator Doyle Bramhall II on guitar— meant something special to the fans who experience it. Freedom over Everything Vince Mendoza Modern Recordings Grammy-winner Vince Mendoza is known for various activities: he’s been a regular guest with the Metropole Orchestra for many years (and won a Grammy for his collaboration with Elvis Costello), arranged the strings for the current Melody Gardot album, did the arrangements of the first two Björk albums and has worked with many other superstars for decades. His latest work is inspired by current events in the USA and features extraordinary guests: Roots rapper Black Thought, Julia Bullock, Joshua Redman and Antonio Sanchez. Release Me 2 Barbra Streisand Sony Legacy The only artist to ever achieve #1 albums in SIX consecutive decades, Barbra Streisand’s Release Me 2 is yet another gem in her unparalleled career. The follow-up to her acclaimed 2012 album, Release Me, this new collection contains previously unreleased tracks from Barbra’s vault, including duets with Willie Nelson and Kermit the Frog. With songs by Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Barry Gibb, Paul Williams, Randy Newman, Michel Legrand and Alan & Marilyn Bergman, Harold Arlen, and Carole King, Barbra describes Release Me 2 as, “A lovely walk down memory lane…a chance to revisit, and in some cases, add a finishing instrumental touch to songs that still resonate for me in meaningful ways. n
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15 JON BATISTE
cy Jones on your new album, so too are members of your family—your father, Michael on “Cry,” and grandfather David Gauthier. Working with my dad was amazing, as he is one of the very best bass players in the world. The weight of him playing is equitable to the gravitas of this song. The tradition of Black farm families and their music—you don’t hear that much anymore. I wanted to reclaim that, reclaim my family’s lineage, and put that into what I do musically now. Each and every one of these people had, at one time or another, a role in teaching me something important, something that pushed me to develop into exactly who I am today. This is about paying something back, but it is so much more. There are years and years of my life in these songs.
ing Evidence. I had never heard Monk before. The theme, the melody, sounded like what I had been working on in the practice room at school. I had been hearing it in my head forever as I was trying to approach this sound and really develop it. After I got home and checked out Evidence, I realized that the song I had in my head, that I thought I’d created, was something he had already developed a version of 50 years earlier.
Thelonious Monk is a hero of yours. What do you recall about hearing him the first time? I felt a kindred spirit in Monk when I first heard him at 18 years old when I moved to New York and was at Julliard. I found myself listening to him for an entire year straight, after being at this jam session—one that still happens uptown, on the Upper West Side at 96th Street—at Cleopatra’s Needle, where someone started play-
Coming back to ‘live,’ and The Late Show” band: how do you interact with that ensemble of musicians, as opposed to your trio that you interact with on your albums and your concerts The trio is less about rehearsing. Not that we don’t rehearse; we do. But we don’t have to rehearse. It’s more about communicating and putting together these structures. All of the songs on this new album, the forms got set up as different structures that we go in between. We cue each other as to when we’re going into the next section. There are structures that we play with that are malleable. With the Late Show band, we rehearse in a way that is more like an orchestra. I have some of the greatest orchestra players who can play any type of music, and multiple instruments. There, it is just about me developing a repertoire where I’m writing out parts or the whole arrangement. It’s a different approach, but there we do create space for spontaneous communication that’s more akin to the avantgarde stuff I do with the trio. The structure of The Late Show doesn’t always allow for that, but it is there—more so than on any other show. n
Doing the “Hump Day Dance” with Stephen Colbert.
Jon Batiste during a taping of an episode of Austin City Limits at ACL Live on July 18, 2021 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images)
You called “We Are,” in its totality, “a culmination of my life to this point” before its release. Does that still stand? It does. I want We Are to impact people who listen to this music. Lineage plays a role in this as I want new artists, dancers, and musicians to get something from following my quest.
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Strutting his stuff the night he won an Oscar for best original score for the animated film Soul at the April 25 ceremony in Los Angeles. Photo by Chris Pizzello-Pool/Getty Images
Performing on the steps of the Brooklyn Library at a Juneteenth event. Credit: Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
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5 SAFFRON’S SPOT
But that’s not the story for me. I became friends with the sheep’s owners, Julie and Anthony. He was a shop teacher and a jewelry-maker, as well as the kind of solid guy you need to be to run a sheep farm. Julie had a day job, but otherwise, her life centered around the remarkable wool the animals produced. Fiber artists would reserve the coats of Julie’s prized sheep immediately after the last growth was sheared. She also kept angora rabbits, and during an afternoon visit, I watched Julie spin yarn directly from the animal as it rested contented on her lap. I painted one of their rams named Zeus—whose gruff exterior belied a very sweet disposition. He grew prize-winning wool as well, and like most of the sheep was fitted with a canvas bag that was worn until it was time for the next shearing. The coat grew inside, protected from the elements, and when the wrap was removed, his wool looked and felt like whipped cream. I painted a lamb that was minutes old after watching it born in the middle of the night of March 3rd in one of their sheds. I remember that date because it was 3 am on 3/3/03—Julie’s Birthday. And about 3 degrees, too. There were other paintings as well; a sheep being sheared and a mother with her two lambs: one white one black. The farm is gone. Julie was lost (in any real sense) to Alzheimer’s, and Anthony deals with it still. That part is heartbreaking. But there were many good times. A lot of art was made because of Anthony and Julie, through his Industrial Arts classes, and his jewelry, and the wool Julie sent out into the world to become gorgeous works of fiber art. And you can include my paintings, which reflected not just my thoughts as an artist, but my reaction to that wonderful part of the world I experienced—the life, nature, and beauty they shared with me. When Doreen and I built our house in 2009, we retired Sheep’s Clothing and hung it on a prominent wall, where it could be seen from everywhere in the living section of the house. That was a long time ago. When we found out it was going to the Michener Museum for six months, we had to decide what to put in its place. The replacement painting had to be large enough and strong enough to fill some hefty, impassioned shoes. We have a bunch of great paintings by other artists that would fit the space, among them a wonderful George Thomson townscape, a fabulous Jen Warpole trapeze image, and a stunning Ann Cooper Dobbins floral. They all could hold the wall with ease. But we knew that every time we looked at them, we would remember Saffron—Julie, and Anthony too—and that wouldn’t be fair. We love all the paintings we have, but love wasn’t the point. Then Doreen had a great idea. I should do a painting of Sheep’s Clothing hanging on its wall before it leaves and put that new image in its place. It was brilliant, making use of how I address my personal world—a more than suitable temporary replacement for my pretty girl dressed in white. n 24
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12 FILM ROUNDUP
nately minimizes his personal stamp. There’s still plenty of captivatingly morose struggle to be had in the tale of teenage giant robot pilot Shinji Ikari (Megumi Ogata), whose fate is intertwined with that of every being on Planet Earth. Yet the gorgeous imagery (particularly the vertiginous battle for Paris that opens the film) is often at odds with the religious and philosophical musings, the supercharged spectacle sadly detracting from the heady substance. [N/R]
HHH
The Green Knight (Dir. David Lowery). Starring: Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton. A Ghost Story and Pete’s Dragon writer-director David Lowery retells an Arthurian legend in this rather dour and dull fantasy, one that improves slightly in retrospect because of its compelling final twenty minutes. Dev Patel plays aspiring knight of the round table Gawain (Dev Patel), who, in an early scene before the assembled court of King Arthur (Sean Harris), cavalierly duels with the Green Knight (Ralph Ineson, under layers of makeup that make him resemble one of the Lord of the Rings’s sentient tree spirits, the Ents). Despite being dealt what looks like a death blow, the Green Knight survives and instructs Gawain to meet him in his kingdom one year hence so that he may return the decapitative favor. Thus begins a quest that involves everything from an irritating scavenger (Barry Keoghan) to a bisexual lord (Joel Edgerton), as well as a dual role (a poor androgynous innocent and a sexually tempting aristocrat) for the exceedingly bland Alicia Vikander. But it’s only when the film turns into a Last Temptation of Christ riff during its extended climax that Lowery appears engaged by the material in a manner other than cursory. [R] HH1/2 Val (Dirs. Ting Poo and Leo Scott). Documentary. The Iceman (as in Top Gun’s Iceman) cometh in this intimate doc profile of actor Val Kilmer. Much of it is comprised of footage the dedicated, oft-pilloried performer shot himself on the sets of his movies, as well as among his family, be it his Christian Scientist parents, his ex-wife Joanne Whalley, or children Mercedes and Jack (the latter of whom narrates the film). In recent years, Kilmer had a battle with throat cancer that left him with a tracheotomy, as well as an altered voice and appearance. We see as much of him in his current state as we do his days as a pretty boy with a volatile talent that was rarely taken advantage of, and which most people tried to contain. There’s a bit of a “gawk” factor to Val, though it’s of a knowing sort. Kilmer grapples onscreen at times with the fact that he’s selling an ideal past version of himself to make ends meet; you’d expect nothing less from this mercurial performer than self-knowing exploitation. Yet he does it all with good humor and an overall emotional openness that is as disarming as it is deeply moving. [R]
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16 CLASSIC FILMS
good,” came the reply. His first feature is indeed good, great even, and a classic among artists as varied as Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Paul Sartre and Krzysztof Kieślowski. It portrays the hardscrabble life of a 12-year-old boy, Ivan (Nikolai Burlyayev), doing his darndest to survive WWII. He becomes a resistance fighter in the Russian army, adept at reconnaissance missions because of his small stature. But that doesn’t forestall his inevitable doom. As often in Tarkovsky, Ivan’s existence is paralleled with nature in all its beauty and indifference, with trees possessing a particularly poetic charge in the ways they act as both shelter and silent witness. (Streaming on Criterion Channel.) The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1967, Melvin Van Peebles, France/U.S.) Iconoclastic AfricanAmerican multihyphenate Melvin Van Peebles (Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song) made his feature debut with this terrific comedydrama, recently restored and soon available via a comprehensive Criterion Collection box set. He adapted the story from his own novel and shot the resulting feature in France (Van Peebles moved to Europe early in his career after being unable to find film work in America). Harry Baird plays a black American G.I. abroad, who is granted a three-day pass from his duties by his officious and offensive white captain. He wanders Paris and meets a beautiful white woman (Nicole Berger) who he falls in love with…and she, seemingly, with him. Endlessly inventive in ways similar to French New Wave classics (see the dueling fantasy sequences in which the two lovers hysterically imagine how the other person views them), the film is also a prickly satire of racism and miscegenation. It’s clear evidence of Van Peebles’s enduring, inimitable talent to prod both the cerebrum and the funny bone. (Available through Criterion.) n
Answer to this month’s puzzle
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harper’s FINDINGS Photons in plasma were accelerated to 1.3 times the speed of light, concrete buildings can be built to serve as batteries, and the snow covering Greenland was getting darker and older. Terrestrial middle latitudes cooled by around 6 degrees Celsius during the Last Glacial Maximum. Archaeologists concluded that the Aqueduct of Valens had a second channel for maintenance, but were unable to progress with more research after treasure hunters dynamited a crucial span in search of gold. Half of Guadeloupe’s squamates went extinct after 1492, and the population decline among Amazonian people may have begun three centuries before the Great Dying. The prominent erection of the Cerne Abbas Giant may have been chalked on in the seventeenth century. Voyager 1 was transmitting data on the interstellar medium at a speed of about 160 bps, and 128 baby bobtail squid were sent to the International Space Station. Scientists have been underestimating the tree farts of ghost forests.
e Risk factors for nongenetic colorectal cancer include red meat, low education, too much alcohol, and too little alcohol. In an emergency, mammals can absorb oxygen through the rectum. Bears who rub against more trees have more mates and more cubs. For the first time in three millennia, Tasmanian devils were born on the Australian mainland. The parrot-poaching decisions of Indonesian smugglers are determined by beauty, and the global bird population was estimated to be fifty billion. Despite its taste for car tires and windshield wipers, the flightless kea has evolved to avoid humans. Early-modern Germans’ heritable immunities were strengthened by plague pressure. Tsimane adults, transported out of the jungle and analyzed with CT scanners in the Bolivian city of Trinidad, were found to be more resilient to brain aging, and Italians aged 105 and older were found to be good at repairing their own DNA. An ascidian found in the Gulf of Aqaba can regenerate its bodies when cut into thirds. Only a third of young adults would take a pill that freezes them at their current age forever. Too many English children were pleading guilty.
e The vervet monkey colony next to Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport was confirmed to have originated with a 1948 escape from a chimpanzee farm. Alloparenting among primates co-evolved with complex facial expressions, and participants from a range of language backgrounds can identify the meaning behind novel vocalizations from speakers of other languages, particularly those for snake, hunt, water, tiger, child, eat, and sleep. Researchers warned that large-scale language models have “no there there.” Patients are less likely to take medical advice from an AI if it knows their name. A new trap-jaw ant was given the nonbinary Linnaean name Strumigenys ayersthey by an entomologist and Michael Stipe. The consumption of pink drinks allows runners to go farther and faster. Across cultures, and even at subpathological levels, narcissism is linked to aggression. American men are considerably more likely than women to think they could defeat a goose in unarmed combat. Researchers identified the faculty of decision acuity and were optimistic about a targeted treatment for mild, frequent blows to the head. Aphantasiacs, whose inability to form mental imagery may be acquirable through stem-cell transplants, were found to be less susceptible to both the Ganzflicker pseudo-hallucination and to ghost stories. The point of dreams may be their strangeness. 26
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INDEX % conservatives are more likely to want to travel to the past than to the future: 7 By which a U.S. liberal is more likely to want to travel to the future: 70 % of who say their personality has changed over the course of the pandemic: 86 Who think they have become smarter: 70 Number of new words that Larousse is adding to its French dictionary this year: 170 Number of these words that are related to COVID-19: 50 Est. % by which the COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. exceeds the reported figures: 55 By which the worldwide death toll does: 122 Chance that an American has a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in the CDC: 1 in 2 Number of individuals responsible for 3/4 of the anti-vaccine content on Facebook: 12 % of U.S. employers requiring that their workers get the COVID-19 vaccine: 4 % of countries in which China’s image has improved since the pandemic: 56 % of people who believe the U.S. is a “threat to democracy” in their country: 44 Who believe China is: 38 % by which the frequency of power failures in the U.S. has increased since 2015: 146 Estimated amount of stimulus money that went to fossil-fuel companies under the CARES Act: $8,240,000,000 Projected rank of 2021 among the years with the largest spikes in U.S. carbon emissions: 1 Estimated area, in square miles, of lost natural forest that has been regrown around the world since 2000: 227,414 Of permanent tree-cover loss over that same period: 583,014 % by which the Brazilian Amazon rainforest released more carbon than it trapped between 2010 and 2019: 18 Number of 100 cities most vulnerable to climate change worldwide that are in Asia: 99 Portion of cities worldwide that lack financial resources to adapt to climate change: 1/4 Minimum number of major cities that have appointed chief heat officers to address rising temperatures: 3 % change in the number of divorces in China after it imposed a mandatory thirty-day “cooling-off period”: –72 % of fathers working from home who say that doing so improved their mental health: 71 Of mothers: 41 Est. number of charter schools that have opened up in vacant retail properties: 200 % of new chain stores that are either a Dollar General, Family Dollar, or Dollar Tree: 39 % change last year in the employment rate for new college graduates: –12 % of U.S. gig workers who say that the money they earn is an “essential” or “important” part of their finances: 56 Who have performed work for which they did not receive payment: 29 Min. amount spent by U.S. businesses on corporate swag last year: $18,630,000,000 Estimated number of registered cryptocurrency lobbyists: 264 Estimated amount U.S. consumers reported losing in cryptocurrency scams between October 2020 and March 2021: $80,000,000 In scams that involved people impersonating Elon Musk: $2,000,000 % of people of Asian descent in British Columbia who were the victim of a hate crime in the past year: 43 % of Americans who cannot name a single prominent Asian American: 42 % of top-grossing films released between 2007 and 2019 that featured an Asian or Pacific Islander in a leading role: 3 Portion of those roles filled by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson: 1/3 SOURCES: 1,2 CBS News (NYC); 3,4 Oracle (Austin, Texas); 5,6 Éditions Larousse (Paris); 7,8 Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (Seattle); 9 Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (Boston); 10 Center for Countering Digital Hate (Washington); 11 ManpowerGroup (Milwaukee); 12 International Federation of Journalists (Brussels); 13,14 Latana (Berlin); 15 Brian Stone Jr., Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta); 16 Climate Nexus (NYC); 17 U.S. Energy Information Administration (Washington); 18 Trillion Trees (Cambridge, England); 19 World Resources Institute (Washington); 20 Xiangming Xiao, University of Oklahoma (Norman); 21 Maplecroft (Bath, England); 22 Carbon Disclosure Project (NYC); 23 The Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Washington); 24 Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China (Beijing); 25,26 McKinsey & Company (NYC); 27 National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (Washington); 28 Coresight Research (NYC); 29–31 Pew Research Center (Washington); 32 Advertising Specialty Institute (Trevose, Pa.); 33 ProPublica (Washington); 34,35 Federal Trade Commission (Washington); 36 Insights West (Vancouver, British Columbia); 37 Leading Asian Americans to Unite for Change (Palo Alto, Calif.); 38,39 Annenberg Inclusion Initiative (Los Angeles).
The Sound of Music
ACROSS 1 5 10 14 18 19
Radiate, as heat Herb on caprese pizza Some D.C. electees Move quickly Food bank donations Italian setting of the Palazzo Giusti 20 “You’ve got that right!” 21 Clue weapon 22 Imaginative instrumental work composed by a stoner? 24 Queen of Olympus 25 ___ Philharmonic (Pennsylvania orchestra) 26 “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” playwright 27 Cheetah feature 29 Like Kramer in “Kramer vs. Kramer” 31 Like some marsh plants 33 Sacred choral work composed by a detractor? 35 Raleigh sch. 38 “OMG, we’re having a blast!” 39 Store hours contraction 40 “This hot tub feels nice!” 41 ___ Vegas Raiders 43 Military squad 45 “Come in the morning while the _ __ of night, / Which are fair Nature’s tears in darkness shed”: W ilfrid Scawen Blunt 48 Instrumental piece composed by a South Korean car salesman? 54 Occurring a single time 57 Movie review symbols 58 “You win” 59 [Please milk me, human] 60 Tower full of grain 61 “Doing fine” 62 2018 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Steve 63 Freezes 65 Identify, as on social media 66 Multi-movement work composed by a concierge? 69 Theatrical musical work composed by a jockey? 71 Hr. when you may leave 72 “Mean Girls” producer Michaels 73 “The Rapture” actress Rogers 74 Again 75 Site of a certain type of city garden 77 Hawaiian wedding band instrument, for short 78 He has 2020 visions 79 Occupy, as an activist might 81 Overhauled, as an essay
83 Contrapuntal musical piece composed by a fiction author? 86 Snooty sort 87 Vichyssoise ingredient 89 “Can I ___ your phone?” 90 The E of Ransom E. Olds 91 Minor thing to “pick” 93 Is situated atop 96 Woodwind heard in “Take Five” 100 Rhythmic musical piece composed by a dissident? 104 Wilt 105 Claim again, as power 106 Type of dip, or a type of dance with dips 108 ___ comedy (genre featuring awkward, embarrassing situations) 112 Allocate, with “out” 113 Reason for suing 115 Vocal piece composed by a yodeler? 117 Making an ocean voyage 118 Bespectacled pirate in “Peter Pan” 119 Wormhole in sci-fi, e.g. 120 “Misty” singer Fitzgerald 121 Woodpecker’s dwelling 122 Olympics event with an electrified weapon 123 Olympics event with a loaded weapon 124 Apt soda pop for pops? DOWN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 23 28 30 32
Form of self-reflection? Most important “Bus Stop” playwright William PJs top, perhaps Grammy winner Harper Like many black light theater productions Shower cleaner? One bearing antennae Strata Rowdy crowd sound Some university retirees Georges whose book “A Void” notably avoided the letter E Show hostility toward Like sleep free of nightmares, say Passage you know by heart? Characters in Lara Prescott’s novel “The Secrets We Kept” Follows Parker at a restaurant Pest hopping on hounds Diminish the strength of Pass over, vocally Tuna salad seller
34 “Napoleon Dynamite” actress Majorino 35 Informal refusal 36 Low coral islands 37 “Pull the plug on the whole thing!” 38 Close off from others 42 Extremely foolish 44 Ace Hardware offerings 46 Chardonnay and riesling, e.g. 47 Like some radiation 49 Old what’s-his-___ 50 Whimsically amusing 51 Invites, as one’s Tinder match 52 On the ___ (exactly) 53 Burnt firewood residue 55 Difficult 56 Piece of attire once worn at the Colosseum 59 Spots for pleasure craft 63 National coup? 64 Dr. Robotnik’s hedgehog foe in video games 66 Mister, in Münster 67 Platte River people 68 Steve who invented a wristwatch that allowed him and Carl Winslow to travel back in time 69 “In here, quickly!” 70 Org. fighting speciesism 73 Sch. that trains many physicists 76 What’s claimed when calling shotgun 78 Stock characters in “Sons of Anar chy”
80 Saints’ city, briefly 82 Awards for off- and off-off-Broadway show 83 She called Chewbacca a “big walking carpet” 84 ___-wheel drive 85 Veto 88 Sturdy plant associated with the underworld in Celtic mythology 92 Fly with duplicated letters 94 Tricksy types 95 “Hey, check this out!” 97 In the neighborhood 98 “Silent All These Years” singer Amos 99 Presented perspectives 100 Guy doing corp. spin 101 “Wild” star Witherspoon 102 “Black Water” author Joyce Carol ___ 103 Defeat decisively 104 Poet whom Pope Francis called “a prophet of hope, a herald of humanity’s possible redemption and liberation 107 “Whatever you say” 109 Lion voiced by Beyoncé in the 2019 remake of “The Lion King” 110 Adorn ornately 111 Chronological chunks 114 Driving range prop 116 Eye on one’s arm, e.g., briefly Solution to this month’s puzzle on page 24 ICON | SEPTEMBER 2021 | ICONDV.COM
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