PUBLISHER & EDITOR
Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com
Lehigh Valley Advertising
Raina Filipiak filipiakr@comcast.net
PRODUCTION
Priscilla DeSoto
WRITERS
A.D. Amorosi
Ricardo Barros
Robert Beck
Geoff Gehman
Fredricka Maister
Val Sivilli
David Stoller
Keith Uhlich
Reproduction
I DON’T REQUIRE much when it comes to a haircut. Oh sure, there was a day when I sported an impressive mop of hair, but that was way long ago. Now, I have thin gray fur around the sides and back and not much of anything on top. I used it up when I was young. Nobody told me.
Cutting my hair comes with a challenge. If the edge where the fringe meets the scalp (I think of it as the coastline) isn’t handled just right, in a week I begin to look like a vegetable brush. There’s not much barbering to do, but they don’t give a discount for it being easy, so I expect the same amount of attention as the guys with the swoops and sculpts. Not that I lose sleep over my
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Robert Beck is a painter, writer, lecturer and ex-radio host. His paintings have been featured in more than seventy juried and thirty solo gallery shows, and three solo museum exhibitions. His column has appeared monthly in ICON Magazine since 2005. www.robertbeck.net
Divine Forms & Earthly Delights: Reimaging Asian Art
Reading Public Museum
500 Museum Rd., Reading, PA 610-371-5850 readingpublicmuseum.org
February 22-August 10 Open Daily 11–5
Following an absence of many years, The Reading Public Museum will install a new exhibition of Asian Art, titled Divine Forms & Earthly Delights: Reimagining Asian Art, in its World Cultures Gallery this February.
Collecting Asian art has been part of the Museum’s practice from its earliest days. With a focus on a group of exceptional works of art from Asia drawn from the permanent collection, the newly installed gallery will feature close to one hundred works including paintings, sculptures, ritual objects, ceramics, manuscripts, carvings, metalwork, and decorative arts. This gallery will present examples of the wide range of themes, materials, and historical periods from China, Japan, Thailand, and Tibet. RPM’s collection of Asian Art spans more than 2,500 years.
6 ICON | FEBRUARY 2025 | ICONDV.COM
Jeanine Pennell Gallery Piquel
35 N. Main St., New Hope, PA 215-862-3523 gallerypiquel.com
February 1-28 Bonetownstudio.com
Jeanine Pennell is a storyteller and her medium is clay. Pennell works with kiln-fired paperclay, a blend of ceramic clay and paper fibers. During firing, the paper burns away, but while it’s in the clay, it makes the material more forgiving. Each work of art is hand sculpted, each face is hand painted in layered underglazes to create a worn and weathered feeling, a reminder of the impermanence of things.
Artists and Teachers
Bethlehem Town Hall Rotunda Gallery 10 E. Church Street, Bethlehem, PA bfac-lv.org Mon.–Fri. 8–4 Closed Weekends and Holidays February 23–April 1
Reception: Feb. 23, 2 - 4:00, Artist Talk, 3:00
Shillea focuses on identity: gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, and aesthetics. He employs a classical approach using his 100-year-old large format camera, printing on paper hand-coated with platinum and gold. Artwork courtesy Santa Bannon Fine Art Gallery and Vintage Works/Contemporary Works, Chalfont. Zucco’s artwork incorporates symbols, allegory, and myth. His interest in history prompts him to think in layers of meaning and alternative symbolic meanings. Using the recognizable imagery of a modern deck of playing cards as his inspiration for this show, he takes the ordinary and makes it iconic.
Sponsored by the Bethlehem Fine Arts Commission (www.bfac-lv.org) and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
STRIDE!
Along the edge, she walks the line Too young, she’s told, it’s not your time And furthermore, you’re just a girl— Gender matters in this man’s world
But she’s their match, blind to the snub, Elbows her way into the club … STRIDE!
Her style is wrong, the critics say You’d better learn the way to play, But she’s propelled, damn convention
She’s her self-made own invention, She has vision, plenty of grit, She will struggle but never quit … STRIDE!
The hardest test, the one inside, The voice that says “okay, you tried”— That’s the moment you’ll decide To cross the threshold that divides Those kindred selves raised separately— The Who I am and Who I’ll be … STRIDE!
JUDY BROWN WAS a nationally-known sculptor of figurative works in steel and bronze. Using scrap metal, shaped steel, and junkyard objects, she produced works that ranged from totemic Egyptian figures to prancing horses to liturgical objects for churches and synagogues. She is represented in public and private collections around the world, including MOMA, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Kendall Sculpture Gardens at Pepsico in Purchase, NY (a spectacular venue for outdoor sculpture, including Brown’s monumental installation, “Caryatids”). She studied sculpture at Sarah Lawrence College with Theodore Roszak, a pioneer of direct metal welding. After graduation, she opened her own studio in NYC, and never looked back, working right up to her death in 1992. I have my own privileged history with Judy. Her studio was two blocks from my apartment in the late ‘70s, and, after meeting one morning in a little west village coffeeshop, La Bonbonniere, we became friends. I would get urgent calls from her to meet at The Quad movie theater for the latest film. The last one I recall seeing with her was The Misfits. Other than occasional diversions of theater, film, and dance, she was always working. I would drop over sometimes, and find all one-hundred pounds of her, on top of a tall scaffold, welding torch in hand. The subject bronze sculpture here, Stride, inspired my poem. It is striking both for its message —it was selected by the National Organization for Women for its inaugural national campaign poster—as well as the physicality of the work, so powerfully evident in the sculpture. If there is a world to come, I can imagine Judy scrounging around junkyards, looking for her precious source material. n
WHAT IS THE value of an artwork? Bold headlines inform us that certain artists sell their paintings for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet, many galleries offer a wide selection of comparably inspired and inspiring pieces for a modest few hundred. The contrast couldn’t be more stark. To the uninitiated, this discrepancy is highly misleading. Price is a false metric of value. Yet the marketplace is the setting within which artists price their pieces. All artists eventually confront the question of worth. So, how does one price one’s artwork?
The question has many slippery answers. An objective value is impossible to determine because all currencies are embedded within the framework of the currency’s spenders. An American would have difficulty buying eggs holding a wallet filled only with Japanese yen. And what is the value of those eggs? To the supermarket, a few dollars. But you would find those eggs much more valuable if your children were hungry. And so it is with art. The realms of commerce and fulfillment are similarly immiscible. We cannot translate value from one realm to another. A personally meaningful painting can bring its owner joy and yet be near-worthless on the open market, while a costly painting may be worthless to someone who does not appreciate it. The currencies are different. Yet many people conflate the two. Self-interested gallerists encourage us to believe that great artworks
are expensive. They suggest that an artwork’s price is a measure of its value.
This rhetoric misleads many artists. Aspiring to achieve success, they over-price their artworks and fail to sell any. Or, typically with low self-esteem, they price their work very low, maybe sell some, and find little comfort in the revenue they generate.
If you’re a young artist with the exclusive intent of selling your paintings, then paint what the market demands and price according to what the market will bear. Yours is a business endeavor. Your goal is to be profitable. If your goals are purely artistic, I recommend separating art sales from living expenses until your work has matured. Support yourself in some other way. For every artist I know, if they were to divide the sale price of an artwork by the hours required to make it, including failures and false starts, their hourly wage would be peanuts.
Fortunately, a spectrum of grey exists between the choices of black or white. As artists’ visions mature and their portfolios strengthen, their efforts become increasingly profitable. Rarely does an artist accomplish this early on. And consider your contribution to the aesthetic conversation. That has value, too. As for legacy, the artworks most likely to survive are those placed in other people’s hands. Think of that, too, when pricing your artwork. n
Ricardo Barros’ works are in the permanent collections of eleven museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is the author of Facing Sculpture: A Portfolio of Portraits, Sculpture and Related Ideas
LAMBERTVILLE, NJ, ONCE a sleepy town on the Delaware River, encompassing 1.1 square miles, with a population of around 4,200, is a city— the only city in all of Hunterdon County. As you probably already know, Lambertville is no longer a sleepy town. This city has changed big time,
especially in all things beautiful, abounding in music, the arts, theater, sculpture, gourmet restaurants, welcoming coffeehouses, woodworkers, weavers, bakers, gourmet cooks, dancers, jewelers, antique dealers, actors, writers, clothing designers…a crush of amazing talent.
The sound of music is everywhere you go in town. The Birdhouse Center for the Arts, founded in 2012, by Bronwyn Bird and her husband, Justin Nawn is dedicated to building connections and community through music/arts. The musical events are varied, from Celtic to Bluegrass, to acoustic rock and everything in between. Each week The Birdhouse offers a wide variety of entertainment and personal involvement. Don’t miss Valentine’s Day for the 11th Annual Lovebirds concert, a gathering of local musical couples and their kids, who love to sing. 7 N Main St, Lambertville, NJ birdhousecenter.org
If you visit Lambertville, you can’t miss the art everywhere you go, especially since we have at least a dozen art galleries. Among them, Sojourner. When you saunter into the shop, you are entering a world apart. It’s a rarity, filled from top to bottom with remarkable objets d’arts. Founded by Elsie Coss and her daughter, Amy, Sojourner is celebrating 42 years of unparalleled artistic delights, ranging from a large selection of beads from around the world, to hand-carved wood sculptures from Africa, Indonesia, and Mexico, clothing from a fair-trade workshop in Jaipur, India, and hand-made jewelry featuring local jewelers Nora Lewis and Jane Wesby. From the very beginning, Amy and
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We’re looking for a self-starting part time salesperson to sell print advertising in ICON.
As an independent contractor, this will be like running your own company.
The smarter you work, the more you sell, the more you earn.
Choice of territories available.
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Some sales experience
Good social skills
Like to help people solve problems
Good listener
Call 215-862-9558 or email resume to trina@icondv.com subject line SALES
FIVE FUN FACTS about Elvis Costello, master of many musical ceremonies. (1) He was the only musical guest to guest host Late Night with David Letterman. (2) Chet Baker, the singing trumpeter, recorded his Baker-inspired song Almost Blue. (3) He composed a ballet based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (4) In his nearly 700-page memoir he relishes writing with
Paul McCartney, a fellow Liverpuddlian who doesn’t eat meat. (5) Howard Coward, one of his many alter egos, stars in The Coward Brothers, an album and Audible comedy series with T Bone Burnett, the producing guitarist. (With Steve Nieve, longtime keyboardist/bandmate, Feb. 19, State Theatre, 453 Northampton St., Easton; 800-999-7828; statetheatre.org)
Miwa Matreyek uses light, darkness and projected animations to transform herself into a profound shadow puppet. A regular at tech conferences and science museums, the performance artist explores climate shifts in Infinitely Yours. In “This World Made Itself” she orbits the evolution of the Earth. (Feb. 19, Williams Center for the Arts, Lafayette College, 317 Hamilton St., Easton; 610-330-5009; williamscenter/lafayette.edu)
Magic circles around a young woman who awakens from a coma, discovers she can’t remember her gift, and expands her talents with the help of inspiring women. The solo play is written and performed by Kiyaana Cox Jones, an ordained minister and creativity coach who teaches in a master’s degree program coordinated by Moravian University and Touchstone Theatre. (Feb. 20-23, Touchstone, 321 E. 4th St., Bethlehem; 610-867-1689; touchstone.org)
Easton abounds with unique businesses in unique buildings. ThreeBirds Coffee House, for example, serves coffee roasted in Lancaster, tea farmed in Sri Lanka and goods baked in Easton in an elegant, ornate 19th-century
Geoff Gehman is a former arts writer for The Morning Call and the author of five books: Planet Mom: Keeping an Aging Parent from Aging, The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons, and Fast Women and Slow Horses: The (mis)Adventures of a Bar, Betting and Barbecue Man with William Mayberry geoffgehman@verizon.net
mansion that housed a department-store magnate’s family and a piano salon. Pick hits include espresso with tonic, currant scones flavored with Earl Grey tea, and Welsh cheddar bread covered in olive/ricotta tapenade. Run by the married couple Joseph Langdon and Jennifer Murray, ThreeBirds placed second in last year’s USA Today list of independent coffee purveyors. Ah, but what other coffee emporium has two pet parrots? (226 Bushkill St.; 484-544-0737; threebirdscoffee.com)
Thomas Friedman’s writings about global movers and shakers are essential reading for global shakers and movers.
The longtime New York Times columnist and author moderates and shapes debates about everything from Middle Eastern wars to life accelerated by technology. Lehigh University’s 2025 Kenner Lecturer follows the likes of Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State, and Liz Cheney, the rogue Republican and ex-senator from Wyoming, where ThreeBirds’ owners met at an artists gathering. (Feb. 25, Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University, 420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem; 610-758-2787; zoellner.cas.lehigh.edu)
CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
WHEN ENSEMBLE ARTS Philly and the Academy of Music welcome Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for its 2025 February 28 through March 2 run, the vaunted troupe will do more than pay tribute to its Philadelphiaborn leader-choreographer Judith Jamison who passed away suddenly last year. This year’s entire tour is dedicated to the memory of Jamison, and opens in Philly this month before traveling the world.
Ailey’s company, formed in 1958 in New York City with a devotion to all Black artforms and a dedication to erudition, emotion and theatricality, has forever been about breaking new ground with every new choreographed repertory piece and every freshlyanointed dancer.
Who better then to discuss the past, present and future of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and its upcoming repertory display of pieces such as Grace, Sacred Songs, Many Angels, Finding Free, Revelations,and Cry (the latter performed as an excerpt to celebrate Jamison) than Ronni Favors. Not only did she dance with several Ailey companies in the mad, bad, 1970s; she maintained her presence there with Jamison until this very day as all of the Ailey companies’ Rehearsal
Director—overseeing all dance events, local to NYC and touring.
A.D. Amorosi: In your past as a dancer with Alvin Ailey, you worked within the Ailey II and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater companies. What are the differences between the two?
Ronni Favors: I did. The Ailey II company is smaller, by design, and fortunately under the direction, then, of Ailey’s continuing Artistic Director Emerita Sylvia Waters. Having the smaller company allows all of the dancers to really have complete attention, to have hands-on training, to preparation for professional dance life—this was all very generously given to us. You could grow into the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, or dance with other companies. You were fully prepared to dance as professionals, life-to-life. None of us were ever un-seen.
A.D. Amorosi: Un-seen. Great point, very relevant to the present. What do you see as Emerita Sylvia Waters’ vision for the Ailey companies, then and now?
Ronni Favors: It was amazing. To me, she was—and still is the person that I want to be when I grow up. She was glamorous, erudite, fashionable, forward-looking, fluent in French, and an amazing dancer. She allowed me to see what navigating life as an artist looked like, and not just a dancer; how I—all of us could create and maintain an artistic sensibility, and for the people. That was Alvin Ailey’s motto: that dance came through us, from the people, and that it should be delivered back to the people. We always had a larger mission than just dance, representationally and socially from being a primarily Black company always breaking new ground.
A.D. Amorosi: If you’re talking about erudition and forward-focus, I dare say that Judith Jamison fits that bill and that having her
no longer with us must still be a blow. How does the company, and you feel with her loss?
Ronni Favors: It is a blow, and a shock, to lose her, this Philadelphia native. Especially since it was so unexpected she didn’t have a prolonger illness. All of us continue to reflect on how fortunate we were to have encountered such a force of nature as Judith, a generational talent, and to have revolved in her orbit. I even had the privilege of dancing in the Ailey company during her last years as a performer. That was amazing. Watching her from the wings or sharing the stage with Judith was one thing. When I became Rehearsal Director in 1997, I was the one that she was giving her notes to, and would have to relay corrections to the dancers, the stage crew, the costumers. Judith’s eye was restless, allencompassing and impeccable. To get her insight, imagine what her patterns were like, what her thinking processes were, what was important to her as an artist and presenting excellence on the stage; that was a real training ground for me. When she passed away last year, after the initial shock and sadness, it became galvanizing for all of us at Alvin Ailey. We couldn’t just rely on Ms. Jamison—just weeks before she died, something came up that made me want to call her as I needed to know her take on something new within Revelations. Now I no longer have that resource. That makes us take even more seriously our responsibilities, our roles, in continuing this Ailey legacy. Ms. Jamison said it so beautifully when she spoke of Mr. Ailey’s death. There wasn’t time or need to ponder. He laid it all out. The same thing with Ms. Jamison. She laid it all out.
It’s very clear what the direction of the company was and would be: preserving, promoting and performing Mr. Ailey’s legacy with its bedrock of excellence in dance, personal
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NOBODY TRULY EVER counts what happens in any January throughout history when returning from the overlong, extended Christmas-Hannukah-New-Years-celebration season. Sure, 2025’s first month gave us a new president like-him-or-not, a Los Angeles that burned sadly and savagely for weeks, and an entire country experiencing yet another ice age. But, hey, the Grammys and the Golden Globes came off without a hitch, huh?
Here's what’s good in the official first month of 2025, February, without anything dedicated to Valentine’s Day, just because.
Arena concert season starts at the Wells Fargo Center on February 10 with this show from Kelsea Ballerini with Ashe and MaRynn Taylor. Now, I’m not even positive that I know just what brand of pop that Ballerini is responsible for, but, I will say, with Comcast & Co tearing down the Wells Fargo, get in all the large scale concerts that you can on Pattison Avenue.
I can’t say that I like a lot of sons-of live music experiences. Starting with Gary Lewis (Jerry’s kid) and the Dino, Desi & Billy crew of the 1960s, it was rarely a good thing, and always ran counter to all that was hip. The 2000s though, with Ringo’s son Zak Starkey playing drums for the Who, Jason Bonham doing his pounding skins thing for hire, Willie Nelson’s many sons and their backing of Neil Young, and Sean Lennon and Dhani Harrison living up to the most psychedelic impulses of their respective Beatle dads—yeah, things are getting better. Now, there is the Sons of Cream featuring Kofi Baker, Malcolm Bruce and Rob Johnson doing the music of their fathers in rock’s first supergroup, Cream (well, at least Kofu and Malcolm will) on February 11 at City Winery Philadelphia. If Kofi and Malcolm can play at least HALF as intensely as their pops, this show will be worthwhile.
When Philly-based drummer and producer Charlie Hall isn’t busy playing dream psychedelia with The War on Drugs and making Christmas charity albums with the Kelce Bros and Stevie Nicks, he’s all about the history and mystery of Miles Davis— particularly the jazz trumpet god’s funky electric period of the late 60s and 1970s. So, Hall’s Get Up With It project’s two nights—February 21 and 22—at South Broad Street’s home to the avant-garde and the outof-bounds, Solar Myth, is a big deal, especially considering that night two is dedicated to Miles’ ruckus-making Big Fun. Then again, maybe that’s just a description of what Charlie Hall & Co. will bring to Broad Street.
I know everyone was scared, sad and pissed off when interior designer Bobby Berk got pushed off of Netflix’s Queer Eye for a new fresh face, Jeremiah Brent. I am still annoyed as Berk seemed the most get-it-done of its membership. But, new Q-Eye member Jeremiah Brent is pretty great (even if he can’t stop crying, empathetically, on screen) and makes a nice,
calm foil for the rest of the crew. So enjoy February 19’s An Evening with Karamo Brown, Tan France, Antoni Porowski, Jonathan Van Ness, and Jeremiah Brent from Netflix's Queer Eye at Ensemble Arts’ Miller Theater, and try to be open minded. Save your griping for the Q&A portion of the night.
OK. I know I wasn’t going to mention the whole of the Valentine’s Day holiday. It can be loving, but laborious, and often silly. That said, the best thing happening in town that V-Day comes from a locally grown talent steeped in the history of our city’s near-sacred soul song—Gamble, Huff Bell and their Sound of Philadelphia brand—manifested as modernday R&B with Pink Sweat$ on the 14th. Performing something of a homecoming show at Ensemble Arts’ Miller Theater, this Philly-born singer-songwriter takes his sparsely-arranged R&B ballads, pixie-like melodies and intricate, bedroom lyrics into the offshoots of Jupiter with his space-out sound. All that, and yet, his music is as earthen as newly-moved grass and as Heaven-bound as a gospel spiritual. All you need is a good bourbon, a great loving date, and you’re off. Or on. n
A.D. Amorosi is a Los Angeles Press Club National Art and Entertainment Journalism award-winning journalist and national public radio host and producer (WPPM.org’s Theater in the Round) married to a garden-to-table cooking instructor + award-winning gardener, Reese, and father to dog-daughter Tia.
BY ROBERT BECK
ALEXANDER BAKER KEPT returning to the same paragraph. There was something clunky about it, and the words didn’t work together. He stared at the screen, elbows on the desk, chewing his thumbnail. This had to be finished by nine o’clock to give Peggy time to look it over. It’d been dogging him for three hours already, since before sunrise.
He sat up, rolled his head on his shoulders, then leaned into the screen again. Reaching for his third cup of coffee, he saw the bird out his library window. A large, hunch-shouldered turkey buzzard sat in the old cherry. He leaned to the side and saw more birds gathered next to it.
Alexander shook his head, pushed his chair away, and stood up. He hesitated, bent back to the desk, highlighted a word, typed a new one in its place, and read through it twice. Exhaling heavily, he turned quickly and walked to the window. Five buzzards perched randomly on branches like clumsy Sumi brushstrokes marring the elegant winter morning.
Returning to his desk, he opened the top right drawer and took out a revolver, pausing to reread the paragraph. Still no good. Walking back to the window, he laid the gun on the sill, undid the latch, and swung the large frames wide open. The burst of cold air was invigorating. The buzzards sat unfazed and defiant.
Alexander checked the cylinder on the pistol and held it straight out in front with one hand, sighting along the barrel on the big buzzard in the center. “Bastards,” he said and pulled the trigger.
The loud bang echoed through the room, across the field, and into the woods. The birds scattered in all directions, except the one that blew back off the limb and plummeted to the lawn out of a cloud of swirling and looping feathers.
Alexander closed the window, set the gun on the corner of his desk, sat and looked at his screen while reaching for the phone. His hand stopped with his middle finger lightly touching the intercom button. It was the second sentence. It should be two parts, with the second half moved to the end of the paragraph. And it should read “weeping,” not “crying.”
He pushed the button and started typing. A man’s voice replied, “Yes, Mr. Baker, I’ll get it right now.” n
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16
Movers and shakers, renowned and unknown, appear in Change Makers! , a multi-genre, multi-venue exhibit arranged by students for Lehigh University’s art galleries. Coal miners share a show with jazz titan Duke Ellington. Civil-rights advocates level the playing field with actress Jean Seberg, who started a style revolution with a short, new-wave haircut. Kutztown native Keith Haring contributes a typically frenzied print. Photographer/filmmaker Lou Stoumen, who grew up in Hellertown, is represented by his photo of his two Academy Awards. (Through May 23, six Lehigh galleries plus the South Bethlehem Greenway; 610-758-3615; luag.org)
In 1896 a Cambridge college broke Britain’s highest-education gender blockade by admitting women as students. Jessica Swale’s play Blue Stockings traces the quest of four female undergraduates to earn degrees while proving they can compete at solving problems and riding bicycles. Named after a sexist slap, the work debuted in 2013 at Shakespeare’s Globe, a recreation of the Elizabethan theater where men played women. (Feb. 27-March 2, Baker Center for the Arts, Muhlenberg College, 2400 Chew St., Allentown; 484-664-3333; muhlenberg.edu/seeashow)
Two giant photographic portraits of Frida Kahlo watch over La Maya, a restaurant with the disarming charms of Kahlo’s magically realistic paintings. The menu is loaded with colorful, canny twists on Mexican dishes. Nachos spiced by cilantro and avocado salsa. Guacamole sharpened by blue cheese. A
tequila-soaked skirt steak, a scallop tostada, a chicken-thigh waffle. Lively flavors are enlightened by a rustic-cantina décor with tropical colors, barn beams and a 30-foot-long banquette covered in orange velvet. Owners Charles Moyer and Rogelio Romero, alumni of Tapas, the small-plate hot spot in Bethlehem, salute a patron saint with a Kahlo cocktail with egg white and homemade strawberry puree. (650 Main St., Hellertown; 610-628-2134; lamayarestaurant.com)
Civic Theatre of Allentown specializes in first-rate productions of top-tier musicals. The company will try to live up to the legacy with the Valley’s second Jesus Christ Superstar in a year. A racially, ethnically diverse cast performs a rousing, arousing chronicle of a messy battle between charity, brutality and snake-oil PR. Conflict flows through “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” a perfectly gorgeous, perfect capsule of tortured, torturing love. (Feb. 21-23, 26, 28-March 2, 6-9, 514 N. 19th St., Allentown; 610-433-8943; civictheatre.com) n
We’re looking for a self-starting part time salesperson to sell print advertising in ICON.
As an independent contractor, this will be like running your own company. The smarter you work, the more you sell, the more you earn.
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Like to help people solve problems Good listener
Call 215-862-9558 or email resume to trina@icondv.com subject line SALES
The End (Dir. Joshua Oppenheimer). Starring: Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, George MacKay. The world has ended (so it seems)…except for one obscenely wealthy family who have hidden themselves away in an underground bunker, whiling away the days until the bell tolls. Then a stranger (Moses Ingram) shows up on their subterranean doorstep, upending their carefully curated post-apocalypse. Did I mention it’s a musical and that the mostly non-warbler cast—Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon and George MacKay as, respectively, Mother, Father, and Manchild Son—
Keith Uhlich is a NY-based writer published at Slant Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Time Out New York, and ICON. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. His personal website is (All (Parentheses)), accessible at keithuhlich.substack.com.
frequently sing about their thoughts and feelings? Credit director Joshua Oppenheimer (of the documentaries The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence) for going eyebrow-raisingly big. And his risks more often than not pay off. Some of it is pure commitment to the bit, to the cast and crew’s combined willingness to risk risibility and bad taste. But there’s also the strangely serene temperament of this oddball object; it’s as if we’re viewing the drama and its melodic discourses through the eyes of a Zen Master unfazed by the larger world slowly disintegrating. This isn’t an easy watch, nor does it “work” in the ways we’re so often conditioned to expect of movies. But it is singular in ways that bode well for its longevity. Let’s check back in a decade or so…if mankind still exists. [N/R] HHH1/2
Wolf Man (Dir. Leigh Whannell). Starring: Julia Garner, Christopher
Abbott, Matilda Firth. Director Leigh Whannell returns to the Universal Monster Movie stable after his uneven but accomplished The Invisible Man (2020), this time taking on the tale of the hirsute lupine who only comes out on full-mooned nights. It is sadly very much a movie of this moment in which the larger themes (of trauma, of sins of the father) weigh down the genre thrills and chills. Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner play unhappily marrieds Blake and Charlotte, who head to the Oregon woods with their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) to close out Blake’s recently deceased dad’s isolated property. But there’s a hairy, toothy, howly beastie in the woods, and it isn’t long before Blake is infected, and the already tenuous family dynamic gets apocalyptically shifted. Dourness is the order of the day, right down to the steely gray visual template that cloaks every actor in squint-inducing shadow. I like my wolf men and their victims much less morose than this sullen brood. [PG] HH
A Real Pain (Dir. Jesse Eisenberg). Starring: Kieran Culkin, Jesse Eisenberg, Jennifer Grey. Cousins Benji (Kieran Culkin) and David (Jesse Eisenberg), one a single motormouth, the other an anxiety-prone husband and father, take a trip to Poland to explore their family history, one checkered by the lingering effects of WWII-era Nazi persecution. Eisenberg also writes and directs, and the low-hum self-deprecation that characterizes many of his performances is fully in evidence, strangely pleasant even at its gloomiest. He’s well-matched by Culkin, who is basically doing a more down-to-earth gloss on his psychotically spoiled nepo baby from Succession. Benji utilizes a tidal torrent of jests and insults to mask his own suffering, though he’s quite capable of expressing genuine emotion when the moment calls for it, as occurs here the closer the two men get to the realworld places that traumatically afflicted the generations before them. Both characters are gentle creatures at heart, longing for a mutual connection that will never come to fruition. This is a modest movie about major sentiments. [R] HHH1/2
Juror #2 (Dir. Clint Eastwood). Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons. For what could prove to be his swan song (though
plenty of people have been “last-movieing” him for decades), nonagenarian Clint Eastwood helms a pleasingly idle thriller about a happy Southern family man, Justin (Nicholas Hoult), who through a twist of fate finds himself a jury member for a trial in which he himself unwittingly committed the crime. That was in his recently renounced alcoholic days: He thought he hit a deer, but it now seems his car collided with a woman (Francesca Eastwood) whose hotheaded boyfriend (Gabriel Basso) is set to take the life-in-prison fall for her death. Only Justin knows the truth of the matter, but to tell it would open him up to criminal liability and likely ruin his life. Quite the ethical dilemma, and Eastwood treats it as he does much of his
late work—in a blithely tossed-off manner that for many in the cinephile community reads as profound, but to these eyes seems a more mixed bag. This is certainly one of his stronger recent efforts, in large part because of Hoult, who conveys a complicated moral sickness that puts you in his corner at certain moments and repels you at others. The actor makes it worth pushing through the story’s many schematic elements (a prosecuting attorney named Faith? Really?) as does the film’s charmingly valedictory quality, something that Eastwood admittedly has been milking since Unforgiven (1992). [PG-13] HHH n
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988, David Zucker, United States)
The laughs are nearly non-stop in one of the classic comedies from the team of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker. Meet Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen), stoic copper prone to all manner of visual and verbal idiocy. The plot is a wispy one in which snaky businessman Vincent Ludwig (Ricardo Montalban) plans to assassinate visiting dignitary Queen Elizabeth II, though Frank would rather spend his time romancing Ludwig’s assistant Jane (Priscilla Presley) via such unwitting come-ons as “Nice beaver!” Her reply: “Thanks! I just had it stuffed!” as she hands him a taxidermized aquatic rodent. Hilarious. As is the aside about safe sex with body-sized condoms. As is the sequence in which Frank disguises himself as an operatic tenor at a baseball game and sings the National Anthem. As is every moment in which co-star O.J. Simpson is tortured like a ragdoll given all his future transgressions. Who are we kidding—there’s barely a moment that doesn’t induce a giggle. Liam Neeson has some big shoes to fill in the currently in-production reboot. (Streaming on Paramount Plus.)
The Naked Kiss (1964, Samuel Fuller, United States)
There is perhaps no better opening in cinema than the scene that commences Samuel Fuller’s madcap noir. Sex worker Kelly (Constance Towers) beats a john with her high heel, he rips off her wig
(leaving her stunningly bald), and after taking the money owed her, she primps herself in the mirror to the lushly romantic strains of a full orchestra. Talk about tonal whiplash! And the rest of the film follows suit as Kelly tries to make a less salacious life for herself in a small suburban town. But trouble seems to follow her everywhere, something Fuller illustrates and explores via the inimitable tabloid style (every scene feeling like a screaming headline) that he honed during his time as a daily newspaperman. It’s a world in which ills are rampant and emotions are larger than life; check the stunning close-up here after Kelly discovers that the socialite who’s courted her has some monstrous pre-dilections. Fuller loves unsettled characters, those cultural mendicants who long for a societal stability that will likely never come. And he uniquely understands, in this movie especially, how the “civilized” conspire to keep such people aimless, lest their own moral and ethical decrepitude be reflected back at them. (Streaming on Criterion Channel.)
The Limey (1999, Steven Soderbergh, United States)
Among filmmaker Steven Soderbergh’s very best movies is this loose riff on John Boorman’s Point Blank (1967). It stars Terence Stamp as vengeful Cockney criminal Wilson who comes to Los Angeles to find the wealthy sociopath, Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda), who he thinks killed his daughter. The truth of the matter is much more complicated and
curiosly a few shots later). The unreliableness of our own points-of-view is the film’s great theme, as is the ways in which we build monuments to our suffering because it perversely gives us ground to stand on. There are genre thrills galore in this barely 90-minute movie (see the early sequence, shot from a single, chillingly fixed distant angle, in which Wilson takes out an entire warehouse of lowlifes) though they’re all in service to the bleak and bittersweet proposition that the stories we tell ourselves often act as our own prisons. (Streaming on MUBI.)
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan) This early work by the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, based on his own manga, heralds the major talent to come. In the aftermath of an apocalyptic war, the princess Nausicaä oversees the fragile peace between her valley home and the nearby jungle where mutant insects swarm. Things come to a head when a crashed cargo ship is found to contain the embryo of a giant descended from the beings that destroyed the planet generations before. All of Miyazaki’s trademarks are here—the gorgeous visuals, the ecological themes, all of it perhaps a little more on the convoluted side than in such laserprecise masterworks as My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997) and Ponyo (2008). Though the baggier qualities still give the movie a deeply personal charge, as if Miyazaki (who would cofound the influential Studio Ghibli in the wake of Nausicaä’s success) is throwing everything he can into the project. This also marks an auspicious early work for Hideaki Anno, creator of the astonishing Evangelion series, who oversaw some of the character design, notably the mind-meltingly amorphous antagonist in the film’s earth-shattering climax. (Streaming on Max.) n
only doled out piecemeal via the film’s fractured aesthetic. More often than not we’re in Wilson’s mind as he thinks back on his life and experiences his present in slightly varying form (a character may say a line in an irritated way in one shot and repeat that same line more gently and T
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18
presentation, being on top of what’s going on in the world so to speak about it verbally, and with our bodies, as a force of nature and encouragement, to create community. When it comes to any division, human beings cause problems, so human beings can solve them. The Ailey company with its continued sense of optimism feels an even greater responsibility to inject those ideas into the conversation.
A.D. Amorosi: What do you recall about preceding your acceptance to The Ailey School? Were you prepared?
Ronni Favors: Well, my mother was a big Ailey fan when I was in high school. While she was all “Alvin, Alvin, Alvin,” I was dead-set, at the time, on becoming a classical ballet dancer. I was laser-focused on that, and didn’t care about modern dance or the Ailey company or anything that didn’t have pointe shoes attached. I witnessed the company several times —nothing that swayed my informed 16year-old mind. Then my father took me to see the Ailey company when Revelations was being performed. That’s when I got it. I dropped my pointe shoes to the floor, and suddenly Ailey is what I wanted to do. So, from Iowa City to New York City is where I went. Doing that in the 1970s was a huge cultural shock. I don’t know what I would have done had I not come up under the dancers at Ailey’s wing—not only to learn to dance, but to learn to be New York. The song, “Living in the City,” by Stevie Wonder: that’s how it was for me, getting to the Ailey studio at 59th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues in this old, reconstructed church. I swear that the building rocked
whenever we were in session. You could feel it if you were walking there from two, three buildings down it was the music, the dancing, and the vibration of all of these exciting people.
A.D. Amorosi: I remember that space. You’re giving me goosebumps just thinking of it.
Ronni Favors: It was such an amazing time to be in New York. The Wiz had just started on Broadway, the classes at the Ailey School were vibrant—that space was a real hub, the place to be for all of the theatricality that was going on in New York. We had live music and musicians for every class and every session. Bodies were flying through mid-air and rolling on every bit of floor. I very quickly became acclimated.
A.D. Amorosi: From 1997 through to the present day, going forward, and becoming rehearsal director, all things Ailey is a huge artistic responsibly. Can you discuss bringing your vision and Ailey’s vision to your dancers?
Ronni Favors: It was always something I was interested in, but never imagined I would be doing. You have to be a fool for dance, one who knows everybody’s part, pieces and every move—interested in how everything works. I think it started with Maggie Black, an amazing ballet teacher with whom I studied, extensively, after I left the Ailey company for a time. Watching her, and seeing her train people, work with dancers’ bodies and impart information in the various ways that people could digest it all, and see results; that process, dedication and patience of hers rubbed off on me. I remember her having to give me the very same direction for four years, and she never stopped pushing me, working with me to learn that direction, fully. Having that sort of commitment to growth, to someone else’s abilities became really interesting to me.
A.D. Amorosi: When you consider your start as a dancer in the Ailey Company of the 1970s, what do you recognize of new dancers incoming into Alvin Ailey’s universe?
Ronni Favors: This holistic approach to movement has become more prevalent with dancers now. And mental health. When I first came in, we didn’t have physical therapists. There wasn’t a dedication to finding out about “the person.” It was more about “the steps” and how can we help you achieve that. The idea of creating spaces for dancers to fail and succeed is more prevalent now. Time is still a luxury that we can’t bargain with the curtain will still come up at eight o’’ clock but I feel that now there’s a sense of agency among the dancers, taking the time to advocate for themselves, to be able to articulate what their needs are, so that we can have more of a collaboration. Now, we are seen as resources, more than we are directors, while still remaining true to Alvin Ailey’s mission. n
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5
hair. I don’t have to look at me.
I wanted to paint a barbershop in New York and was waiting until I settled into somebody who both tamed my brush and recognized me as a regular before I would broach the subject. Barbershops aren’t known for their cultural refinement. What was nice about the previous establishment I went to is it looked like a typical barbershop. A lot of them now are black and white, glass and chrome. They don’t look like they have roots (I should talk). The place I used to get cut looked iconic, so I asked.
When I pitched the idea, I identified myself as a painter and writer and told them how I’d like to paint in the shop and write an essay that will be read by a lot of people, many of whom get haircuts. It would cost them nothing. A win for everybody. Some shopowners say okay, and some are clearly uncomfortable, which was how it was with this person. I brought it up a couple of times when I’d come for a haircut, but they kept putting me off. It’s their place, and not everybody wants what I bring, so I didn’t push. No hard feelings. But no more haircuts, either.
I’d been keeping my eyes open for another place that says neighborhood barber to me, and I liked one a few blocks from my studio, right off Broadway. It’s down a half-flight of steps from the street, and it’s intimate—just big enough for three chairs. When I asked the owner, he said, “Sure, whatever you want.” That took me back a little. I usually expect a question or two.
I looked around the shop, and the only space was in front of the cash register or the bathroom. That wouldn’t work. I told him I’d be back in a couple of days.
When I returned, he was outside on the phone. I liked the view of the shop from the sidewalk. It’s all you get to see of a lot of places in New York. I asked if it was okay if I painted from there. The owner said I could do anything I wanted, put his phone in his pocket, quickly walked down the street to the corner, and was gone.
It was a nice day to be painting outside. I had a few conversations while I worked, but most people passed with urban indifference. I stepped away from my painting every now and then to refocus my eyes and clear my head. When I looked behind me there was a guy in shiny blue warmups on the sidewalk next to the new Cadillac parked at the curb. He was watching me. Stocky. Forties, maybe. Dark hair slicked back. Bouncing slightly as he talked on the phone. I met his eyes. He nodded slightly.
Somewhere in the building next to the barber was a cosmetology school, and occasionally, a few young women would come out on the stoop to check their phones, laugh, and play with their hair. A couple of Latino guys were working on the front of the buildings, hiking the extension ladder across the façade, scrambling up and down. Amazon and UPS and FedEx people trundled their high-packed carts by me, and delivery bikes zipped past, threading the wary traffic. I finished the painting and began to pack up.
The chairs in the shop were empty, one of the barbers put the apron around his shoulders and cut his own hair, standing in front of the mirror. I looked behind me, and the guy and his Cadillac were gone. n
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12
her mother traveled the world, filling Sojourner with amazing, one-ofa kind creations. Amy just returned from Prague, where she brought back beautiful Czech glass beads. She plans to travel to Tucson, AZ soon to attend the country’s largest jewelry festival.
And it rocks at the Kalmia Club, the oldest women’s club in New Jersey. Kalmia has created a welcoming home for musically talented Stephen Croce. In the same way that the Birdhouse creates community involvement, Steve is instrumental in bringing together fellow musicians and singers for the sheer joy of making music and weaving community. From 2002-2017, Steve created, produced, and arranged music for the Spare Parts Vocal Band. He noted, “We sang everywhere people wanted to listen.” In 2021, Steve and his group began singing and playing outdoors because of Covid. It was then that they moved indoors at the Kalmia Club, and Steve formed his new band, Lambertville Jazz. Today the group performs at Mitchell’s Café on Union Street and at the Kalmia Club. On most occasions, Lambertville Jazz rings with the sounds of Anthony Flamio on conga drums, Alan Okun on drums, David Paller on bass, Mike Smalley on guitar, Ron Kline on sax, and Steve either on piano, accordion, harmonica or vocal. For Steve, music is a mission of love. It’s not about money or fame. “I play music because it’s beyond me, beyond what I’m getting. It’s about giving joy, opportunities for communal gatherings and generosity of spirit.” Attendance is free.
Butterfly Composition
Speaking of longevity, a few doors down from Sojourner, is the Artists’ Gallery, established as an artist coop 30 years ago, by local artists including Gordon Haas and Annelies Van Dommelen. With work of noted and award-winning local and regional painters, the Artists’ Gallery is filled with a wide variety of rich, original artwork. Current members include: Joe Kazmierczyk, Alla Podolsky, Jane Adriance, Claudia Fouse Fountaine, Ting Ting Hsu, Larry Mitnick, Laura Rutherford Renner, Michael Schweigart, Beatrice Bork, Bill Jersey, Alan Klawans, Mark Oliver, Ilya Raskin, Carol Sanzalone, and Andrew Werth. n
Witnessing cringeworthy moments improves the observer’s selfperception, elderly Britons perceive themselves as having less control over social-assistive robots if they are poor, and bed-wetting Turkish kindergartners experience shame and anxiety. In Japan, erectile function among young men was determined to be low by the first nationwide survey employing the internationally validated Erection Hardness Score. Italian scientists found that women whose orgasms are simultaneously clitorally and vaginally stimulated report the greatest intensity on the Orgasmometer scale. In Europe, conservatives are outbreeding progressives. Swedes may avoid chocolates that become “contaminated” through association with political parties they dislike, and Swedes with low resting heart rates are significantly less likely to commit suicide. Japanese drinkers who experience “Asian flush” report worse sleep. Researchers reported weaning a forty-six-year-old Tibetan woman with a history of “seeking instant gratification” off Ambien, noted the positive effects of ecstatic epilepsy, observed socially inappropriate non-obscene behavior in a quarter of Polish Tourette’s patients, synthesized fifty-three theoretical models of delusion, analyzed how Western Buddhist environmental activists’ cultivation of equanimity and understanding of impermanence affects their anxiety over climate change, and determined that neither men nor women find trolley problems funny.
m
In 2024, Mount Fuji was snowless until the latest autumn date on record. Pentoxifylline can mitigate the damage caused by subjecting stallions to scrotal heat stress, and aqueous extract of rosemary was found to improve the cryopreservation of Pantja-goat semen, whereas melatonin, which guards against delusion in elderly Chinese patients, does the same for Jamnapari-goat semen. A deeplearning model was trained to use facial expressions to gauge the pain of goats, which is presently measured only during castrations. Doctors in Germany suggested a way to waste less propofol. Skeletons recovered from Henry VIII’s flagship Mary Rose suggest that handedness affects collar-bone chemistry and fracture risk. The ability to stand on one’s non-dominant leg declines sharply with age. m
Albatross struggle to find food in very stormy weather. Cool LED headlights are more disruptive to moth flight than warm ones. The smell of cat fur discourages rodents from eating wheat seeds at Buenos Aires chicken farms. Formerly imprisoned Coloradans reported exposure to wildfire smoke and raw sewage during their incarcerations. Brain scans corroborated the unpleasant psychoacoustic effects of Aztec death whistles. Zero-sum mindsets persist even in scenarios that objectively favor cooperation, dishonest people are likelier to spread infectious diseases, and prosocial women are likelier than prosocial men to have a best friend. Assamese tribesmen were found to identify with elephants through a sense of mutual loss, poverty, and uncertainty. Scientists suggested that human culture is superior to that of other animals because it can integrate limitless sequences of subgoals. The Pet Bereavement Questionnaire was adapted for use in China. n
Percentage by which Democratic campaigns outspent Republican campaigns at Sweetgreen last year: 70
By which Republican campaigns outspent Democratic campaigns at McDonald’s: 2,700
% of Democrats who say that Trump’s reelection was illegitimate: 32
Chance that an American has lied about whom they voted for: 1 in 4
That a Gen Z American has done so: 1 in 2
Rank of November 6, 2024, among the days with the most account deactivations on X since Elon Musk acquired the company: 1
Factor by which the number of abortion pills ordered in the United States on November 6 exceeded the daily average: 17
Estimated amount by which the total net worth of the world’s 10 wealthiest people increased that day: $64,000,000,000
Rank of “password” among the most common digital passwords used by CEOs: 2
Of “123456”: 1
Median net worth of a single American woman with no children: $87,200
Of a single American man with no children: $82,100
% change over the past year in first-time U.S. home buyers who are single women: +26
Portion of New York City public school students who are homeless: 1/8
% by which this portion increased over the past year: 23
% caught smuggling fentanyl into the U.S. since 2019 who are Mexican citizens: 18
Who are American citizens: 81
Minimum number of American children who have been prescribed Ozempic or other GLP-1 medications: 31,000
% by which girls are more likely than boys to receive such a prescription: 50
By which boys are more likely to be prescribed human-growth hormone: 100
Portion of people over seven feet tall who have played in the NBA: 1/10
Portion of Americans who know what the term “neurodivergent” means: 1/3
Portion of these Americans who are neurodivergent themselves: 3/5
% of medical cases that ChatGPT accurately diagnoses on the basis of a list of symptoms: 90
That doctors do, on average: 74
Factor by which the average wait to receive approval for federal disability benefits has increased since 2019: 2
Est. number of Americans who died in 2023 while waiting for such approval: 30,000
Rank of 2024 among the deadliest years on record for humanitarian workers: 1
Hospitals in Gaza that have been direct targets of Israeli missiles since 10/07/23: 31/36
Est. % of Gazans killed by Israeli military who were women or children: 70
Estimated % of plant life in Gaza that has been destroyed: 83
% change since 1973 in the average American’s carbon emissions: −36
Factor by which per capita U.S. carbon emissions exceed the global average: 3
% by which the average American worker’s contribution to the country’s GDP exceeds their income: 170
By which the price of an average luxury bag exceeds its production cost: 900
% change since 2000 in the portion of disposable income that Americans give to charity: −21
Portion of Americans who believed in 2010 that working hard would result in a better life: 1/2
Who believe this now: 1/4
% of Americans who report experiencing the “Sunday scaries”: 45
Average time at which their onset is felt: 3:54 pm
SOURCES: 1,2 Washington Post; 3 YouGov (Washington); 4,5 Harris Poll (Chicago); 6 Similarweb (NYC); 7 Aid Access (Vienna); 8 Bloomberg (NYC); 9,10 NordPass (Vilnius, Lithuania); 11,12 Pew Research Center (Washington); 13 National Association of Realtors (Washington); 14,15 Advocates for Children of New York (NYC); 16,17 Cato Institute (Washington); 18,19 Joyce Lee, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor); 20 Adda Grimberg, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia); 21 Harper’s research; 22,23 YouGov; 24,25 Ethan Goh (Stanford, Calif.); 26,27 Social Security Administration (Woodlawn, Md.); 28 Humanitarian Outcomes (London); 29 Forensic Architecture (London); 30 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Geneva); 31 Forensic Architecture; 32,33 Global Carbon Project (Canberra, Australia); 34 The Economist (London); 35 Harper’s research; 36 Giving USA Foundation (McLean, Va.); 37,38 Langer Research Associates (NYC); 39,40 Talker Research (Brooklyn, N.Y.).
BY EVAN BIRNHOLZ
The late crossword constructor Merl Reagle (born on Jan. 5, 1950) wrote many puzzles titled “If I Wrote the Dictionary,” where he gave new meaning to words with his trademark wit and humor. This puzzle is my tribute to him for his 75th birthday.
1 Snowman’s wrap
6 Sites of unplanned hosp. visits
9 Test site?
14 Emulates a wolf during a full moon
19 “Hear ye, hear ye!” shouter
20 Big boss, briefly
21 Routine behavior
22 “Break the ice,” e.g.
23 (n.) the study of disc jockeys
25 (n.) the heart and soul of skater Lysacek, or actress Rachel Wood, or politician Bayh, etc.
27 “I can’t ___” (“This is all too much”)
28 Activates, as a computer process
30 Hairstyling stuff
31 ___ out the win
32 Forms a marital union
33 Get close to
34 Shares on social media
37 Mosque official
39 Dwight’s opponent in 1952 and 1956
41 Having no musical key
44 (n.) the land of beaver projects
48 (adj.) pertaining to celestial bodies like Pluto after 2006
51 Approx. landing hr.
52 ___-Cola (soft drink)
53 Brought up, as a child
54 One of two in the Dynamic Duo
55 Uber alternatives
57 Cavalry rides
59 “Darn it!”
61 Coltrane’s instrument, briefly
62 NBA or WNBA centers?
65 “What ___ I Made For?” (Billie Eilish song)
66 90 Across, in Latin
68 (n.) one destroying the non-thematic words in a crossword
71 (adj.) unfit to be staged as a dramatic musical production
75 Onetime Ringling Bros. workers
76 Tire pressure initialism
77 Figures formed by rays
78 One of the Washington Capitals’ colors
81 Mardi Gras city, informally
82 Epic poem divisions
85 Hot ___ (space for somebody in trouble)
86 Covered in creeping vines
88 Shanked, as a golf ball
90 Ultrasound viewing
93 St. crosser
94 (n.) a seductive vampire
96 (v.) to build a surface in a kitchen or a store
98 “Eine ___ Nachtmusik”
99 Olfactory enticement
101 So adorable
102 Unified whole that cannot be described by the sum of its parts
105 Creates, as a sword
107 “That’s stunning!”
111 Timeline division
113 Mediator between the id and reality, per Freud
114 Las Vegas NFL team
115 Blaring device
116 (n.) a computerized image of an audition CD
120 Like nine words in this puzzle, or what their first letters spell out
122 “The Fly” actress Davis
123 Antiwar activist’s cause
124 Conn. country
125 Great passion
126 “E Day” auto debut
127 Kefauver who ran with 39 Across in 1956
128 Pre-___ student
129 Needle with jokes
1 Carpenter’s twister
2 Really, really want
3 Helped
4 keeps under control
5 Hairstyle for Billy Preston, for short
6 Subject of trade talks?
7 Sister of Goneril and Cordelia, in “King Lear”
8 Fermented legume in tempeh
9 Roots (for)
10 Johns, briefly 11 ___ Publishing (org. publishing legal texts) 12 Burn slightly
13 Quite expensive
14 Noise that can be lengthened by a “cup”
15 “___ to a Superhero” (Weird Al song)
16 People with glasses who look down on others with glasses?
17 Secure with a key
18 First mate in Neverland
24 Smoothly, in a sonata
26 “The Daily Show” correspondent Dulcé ___
29 Young man
34 Parts of some jeans?
35 Performance that makes someone famous 36 Munchkin-meeting dog 38 Apple Store purchase 40 Imaginary line of revolution 42 Solo at the Met 43 Eurasian or Iberian wildcat 44 “Unleaded,” as coffee 45 “Pong” developer 46 Selena’s “Only Murders in the Building” role
Cereal grass 49 Brought about
TV spot pro
Bring up, as a child
Upset state
Ovine creatures
Realm
Dumps 64 Wrestling with rikishi
Ampere or volt, e.g. 67 Gives in to gravity 69 Edmund Pettus Bridge city in Alabama 70 Model ___ set
“___ that special!” 72 Lamb’s sound 73 Head out 74 Product of a reaction between
an alcohol and a carboxylic acid
76 “Pocket rockets,” in Texas hold ’em
78 Where the Washington Capitals play
79 ___ Knievel (daredevil with a rhyming name)
80 Diversions with rolls
82 “Believe” singer
83 “It has a mind of its ___”
84 Parent watching his young goalie, maybe
87 Detroit River’s outlet
89 Jazzy vocal improv
91 Hairstylist’s favorite dessert?
92 “Slowly ___ surely”
95 Curbside device
96 Tympanic membrane
97 Recent staff addition
100 Metz “me”
103 Slack-jawed
104 Bounds along 106 Avian honkers
108 Pilot automaker
109 The Most Stuf treats
110 Emmy winner Braugher
111 Outer limit
112 Oboist’s thin strip
114 “Sticky” or “dirty” grain
117 “My first point is ...”
118 ___ pal (certain bestie)
119 Head covering
121 Substance that may be polyunsaturated
