ICON Magazine

The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, nightlife and mad genius.

Since 1992 215-862-9558 icondv.com

PUBLISHER & EDITOR

Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com

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Raina Filipiak filipiakr@comcast.net

PRODUCTION

Paul Rosen

Joanne Smythe

Margaret M. O’Connor

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

A.D. Amorosi

Ricardo Barros

Robert Beck

Pete Croatto

Geoff Gehman

Susan Van Dongen Grigsby

Fredricka Maister

David Stoller

Keith Uhlich PO Box 120 New Hope 18938 215-862-9558

IReproduction 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. ©2022 Primetime Publishing Co., Inc.

Femi J Johnson, Hot Shot, 24×24, acrylic Showing at Bethlehem House Gallery

TOUCHDOWN

TO GET TO SLIPPERY Rock, I took the turnpike extension, then Interstate 80 across the top of Pennsylvania. Bloomsburg, Bellefonte, Loch Haven, then names I had never heard of, almost to the Ohio Border. It’s beautiful country, but it’s sparse. Exit at Barkeyville, if that gives you any idea.

I went to paint a football game at Slippery Rock University, which is about 50 miles north of Pittsburgh. The town of Slippery Rock has a touch more than 3000 residents. When school starts, that number quadruples.

I had been asked to do a painting as a retirement gift for the university's president. Several subjects were discussed, and we arrived at a live painting of a night football game from the sidelines. He loves his football.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

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

STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK

exhibitions

Gateway to Himalayan Art

Lehigh University Art Galleries

420 E Packer Ave., Bethlehem, PA

610-758-3615 luag.org

Through May 26, 2023

Tues. 11–7, Wed–Fri. 11-5, Sat. 1–5

Gateway to Himalayan Art introduces viewers to the main forms, concepts, meanings, and traditions of Himalayan art represented in the collection of the Rubin Museum of Art, New York. Gateway invites you to explore exemplary objects from the Rubin's collection, organized and presented in thematic sections: Symbols and Meanings, Materials and Technologies, and Living Practices and Wellbeing. The exhibition is curated by Elena Pakhoutova.

2023 Spring Show

Bethlehem House Gallery

459 Main St., Bethlehem, PA

610-419-6262 BethlehemHouseGallery.com

March 31–May 27

Opening reception March 31, 6–9

The 2023 Spring Show features artists

Nina Boodhansingh, Roey Ebert, Ana Hamilton, Femi J Johnson, Justin Long, Suzanne Werfelman. Director and curator, Ward Van Haute, integrates scenography, grounding each gallery room into a unique interior space to highlight the use of fine art in the modern home.

Mid-Century to Manga: The Modern Japanese Print in America

James A. Michener Art Museum

138 S. Pine St., Doylestown, PA 215-340-9800 MichenerArtMuseum.org

March 4–July 30

Celebrating the historical and local interest in Japanese and Japanese American printmaking and illustration, the exhibition traces the story of the modern s saku-hanga (“creative prints”) movement and other creative collectibles across the past century— from Japan to the United States and beyond.

Highlighting a prominent story, the central feature of the exhibition is the display of three original copies of James Michener’s 1962 book The Modern Japanese Print: An Appreciation. This large folio (approx. twofeet tall and three-feet wide when opened) contains signed original woodblock prints by modern Japanese printmakers Hiratsuka Un'Ichi, Maekawa Sempan, Mori Yoshitoshi, Watanabe Sadao, Kinoshita Tomio, Shima Tamami, Azechi Umetaro, Iwami Reika, Yoshida Masaji, and Maki Haku.

The exhibition will feature 75 prints on paper, over two dozen of which have never been on display at the Michener Art Museum before (such as Kiyoshi Sait ’s Winter in Aizu series).

Femi J Johnson, Hot Shot, 24×24, acrylic

Ana Hamilton, Windy Day, 16x20, acrylic on canvas

Sekino, Jun'ichiro (1914-1988), Prayer, 1959 (Showa Era). Lithograph on paper, 17 58 x 10 78 inches. Courtesy of the Collection of James A. Michener.

the art of poetry

Let Me Find My Peace

Let me find my peace in the morning light

When the rising sun slips past the night

How often I’ve painted this old town

Brush in hand, I’m on safe ground

And I know it will be all right.

Then I lose the line, and my chest feels tight

And a sorrow fills me, too heavy to fight

Let me find my peace.

The light is coming, almost here, but not quite

To chase these shadows from my sight

A distant freight whistles, how I love that sound

It lifts me, for a moment, however slight

Let me find my peace.

Babette Martino (1956-2011) was a highly-regarded and award-winning Pennsylvania artist. She was born in Philadelphia in 1956, to a celebrated family of 14 artists, including her mother, Eva Marinelli Martino, and her father, Giovanni Martino. She painted every day, town scenes from life, portraying small factory towns and mill towns, like Manyunk, frequently the subject of her and her family’s paintings. A feature of much of her work as is the case in the subject painting here, The Depot at Two Tracks, is morning light, portrayed in the horizon and progressively changing to midday in the foreground. She called it “extended light” in which time was sustained, continued, perpetual. Sadly, her own light went out, before its time, in 2011, at age 56.

I wrote the poem in the form of a rondeau, a fixed type poem of French lyric poetry, featuring 13 lines divided into three stanzas, with five, three and five lines, respectively, in which the first words of the first stanza are repeated as the last line in each of the last two stanzas. Oh, and there’s an internal rhyme scheme as well, but I’ll leave it there if you’re even still with me. I chose this lyric form for what I view as a memorial poem for this wonderful artist who died too young. n

David Stoller has had a career spanning law, private equity, and entrepreneurial leadership. He was a partner and co-head of Milbank Tweed and led various companies in law, insurance, live entertainment, and the visual arts. David is an active art collector and founder of River Arts Press, which published a collection of his poetry, Finding My Feet.

Babette Martino

Isaac Witkin

I almost always take lots of bad pictures when I need one, good image. Then I throw the bad ones out. What may be surprising is that my best shot is incredibly similar to so many bad ones. I move the camera slightly to the left, photograph a moment later … one might struggle to identify precisely how the successful photograph differs from the rejects. The difference between them is subtle. But I think subtlety is, in fact, the difference between good and great artwork. It is easy to convey drama. Nuance is far more elusive.

PHOTOGRAPH AND ESSAY BY RICARDO BARROS

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.”

ART AROUND TOWN

Adriano Farinella Studio 45 N. Sitgreaves St, Easton, PA 610-739-1247 adrianofarinella.com

Alteronce Gumby: Dark Matter Through 4/9

Allentown Art Museum 31 N. Fifth St., Allentown, PA 610-432-4333 allentownartmuseum.org

A Mano Galleries

42 N. Union St., Lambertville, NJ 609-397-0063 amanogalleries.com

Arete Gallery 122 S. Main St., New Hope, PA 484-353-9859 aretegallery.com

Arthur Ross Gallery 220 S 34th St, Phila. 215-898-2083 arthurrossgallery.org

Artists of Yardley 949 Mirror Lake Rd, Yardley, PA 215-493-1205 aoyarts.org.

A-Space Gallery 37 W Bridge St, New Hope, PA 215-300-4475 newhopearts.org

Artsbridge 33 Risler St., Rt. 29, Stockton, NJ artsbridgeonline.com

Gallery Group Show 3/9-4/2

Artists’ Gallery 18 Bridge St., Lambertville, NJ 609-397-4588 lambertvillearts.com

Paul Bowen: Drift Through 5/21

ArtYard 13 Front St, Frenchtown, NJ 908-996-5018 artyard.org

Bahdeebahdu 1522 N. American St, Phila. 215-627-5002 bahdeebahdu.com

We are Empowered: Women Veteran Art & Ritual Storytelling Through 3/19

Banana Factory Arts Center 25 W. Third St., Bethlehem, PA 610-332-1300 bananafactory.org

The Barnes Foundation 2025 Ben Franklin Parkway, Phila. 215-278-7000 barnesfoundation.org

Baum School of Art 510 Linden St., Allentown, PA 610-433-0032 baumschool.org

Bethlehem Fine Arts Commission

Bethlehem Town Hall 10 E. Church St., Bethlehem bfac-lv.org

The Winter Show Through 3/11

Bethlehem House Gallery

459 Main Street, Bethlehem, PA (610) 419-6262 bethlehemhousegallery.com

Bridgette Mayer Gallery 709 Walnut St, 3rd Fl, Phila. 215413-8893 bridgettemayergallery.com

Cerulean Arts Gallery & Studio 1355 Ridge Ave, Phila. 267-514-8647 ceruleanarts.com

Corridor Contemporary 1315 Frankford Ave, Phila. 267-519-2339 corridor-contemporary.com

Crane Arts- Icebox Project Space 1400 N American St, Phila. i215-232-3203 ceboxprojectspace.com

Cross Pollination Gallery

3 N. Union St., Lambertville, NJ 609-213-6734 crosspollinationgallery.com

DeBogat Fine Art Gallery

5 Lambert Lane, Lambertville, NJ 609-397-5855 DeBogat.com

Dupree Gallery 10 N. Union St., Lambertville, NJ 640-203-8356 jamesdupreeart.com

Fleisher/Ollman Gallery

915 Spring Garden St, Phila. 215545-7562 fleisherollman.com

Freejade Art Gallery

52 N 2nd St, Phila. 612-888-5233 freejade.com

Gallery 51 51 N 2nd St, Phila. 215-413-3191 gallery51.net

Gallery Piquel 24 Bridge St., Lambertville, NJ 609-483-2156 gallerypiquel.com

Gross McCleaf Gallery

127 S 16th St, Phila. 215-665-8138 grossmccleaf.com

Haas Gallery 71 Bridge St., Lambertville, NJ 609-273-5783 haasgallery.com

Heart of the Home

30 E Bridge St, New Hope, PA 33 Race St, Frenchtown, NJ heartofthehome.com

Highlands Art Gallery 41 N. Union St., Lambertville, NJ 908-766-2720 highlandsartgallery.com

Jim’s of Lambertville

6 Bridge St., Lambertville, NJ 609-397-7700 jimsoflambertville.com

Kelly Sullivan Fine Art 28 N. Union St., Lambertville, NJ 732-233-5614 kellysullivanfineart.com

LAA Art Collective 15 West Ferry St, New Hope, PA 215-255-5950 laurenanrigaddis.com

Lachman Gallery Peddler’s Village, Lahaska, PA 215-794-5500 allachman.com

Emil Lucaas 01/23–04/15 Lafayette Art Galleries 243 N. 3rd St, Easton, PA galleries.lafayette.edu

Lauren Kindle Studio 108 South 3rd St, Easton, PA 267-247-6364 laurenkindle.com

Gateway to Himalayan Art Through 5/26

Lehigh University Art Galleries 420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem, PA 610-758-3615 luag@lehigh.edu

Lisa Naples Clay Studio 34 Bridge St, Frenchtown, NJ 215-340-0964 lisanaples.com

Locks Gallery 600 S Washington Sq, Phila. 215-629-1000 locksgallery.com

Martin Art Gallery

2400 W. Chew St, Allentown, PA 484-664-3467 muhlenberg.edu/gallery

Merge Gallery 26 Race St, Frenchtown, NJ 908-628-3150 merge.gallery

Michelle Farro 4 S Union, Lambertville, NJ michellefarro.com

Alan Goldstein: Elemental 4/15-9/24 Michener Art Museum

138 S. Pine St., Doylestown, PA 215-340-9800 michenerartmuseum.org

Morton Contemporary 115 S 13th St, Phila. 215-735-2800 mortoncontemporarygallery.com

Muse Gallery

52 N 2nd St, Phila. 215-627-5310 musegalleryphiladelphia.com

Myles Cavanaugh By appointment or chance Quarry House, Prasville Mills

25 Risler St, Stockton, NJ 609.273.2983 mylescavanaugh.com

New Hope Arts 2 Stockton Ave, New Hope, PA 215-862-9606 newhopearts.org

Paradigm Gallery & Studio 746 S 4th St, Phila. 267-266-0073 paradigmarts.org

Jonathan Latiano

Through April 2

Payne Gallery Moravian University 610-861-1491 moravian.edu/art/payne-gallery

The Pennsylvania Academy of The Fine Arts

118-128 N Broad St, Phila. 215-972-7600 pafa.org

Pentimenti Gallery 145 N 2nd St, Phila. 215-625-9990 pentimenti.com

Philadelphia Art Alliance 251 S 18th St, Phila. uarts.edu/centers/artalliance

Philadelphia Museum of Art 26th St & Ben Franklin Parkway philamuseum.org

Photographic Exhibition

4/1-4/23

Phillips Mill 2619 River Rd, New Hope, PA 215-862-0582 phillipsmill.org

Spring Fine Arts & Crafts show April 1 & 2, 2023 Prallsville Mills

33 Risler St, Stockton, NJ 609-397-3586 prallsvillemills.org

Spring Salon Exhibition Prallsville Mills

3/16-3/20 33 Risler St, Stockton, NJ 609-397-3586 prallsvillemills.org

Red Tulip Gallery 19 W Bridge St, New Hope, PA 267-454-0496 redtulipcrafts.com

Rigo Peralta Art Studio 1601 W Chew St, Allentown, PA 484-632-7848 rigoperalta.com

Robert Beck Solebury, PA By appointment only 215-982-0074 robertbeck.net

Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery University of the Arts 320 S Broad St, Phila.

SFA Gallery 10 Bridge St, Frenchtown, NJ 908-268-1700 sfagallery.com

Seraphin Gallery 1108 Pine St, Phila. 215-923-7000 seraphingallery.com

Urban Landscape Photography Through 4/8

Sigal Museum 342 Northampton St., Easton, PA 610-253-1222 sigalmuseum.org/exhibits

Trish Vergis

3/6-6/10, 2023 Silverman Gallery 4920 York Rd, Holicong, PA 794-4300 silvermangallery.com

The Art of the Miniature XXXI 5/7-6/10

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

Capturing Color, Light, and Texture with Pastels April weekends only The Stover Mill Gallery 852 River Rd, Pipersville, PA 610-294-9420

Works by Florence Kindel Swan Boat Gallery 69 Bridge St, Lambertville, NJ swanboatgallery.com

Topeo Gallery 35 North Main St., New Hope, PA 215-862-2750 topeo.com

Tyler Contemporary 2001 N 13th St, Phila. 215-777-9000 tyler@temple.edu

Union Gallery 4 N. Union St., Lambertville, NJ 609-397-2046 uniongallerynj.com

University of Contemporary Art 118 S 36th St, Phila. 215-898-7108 icaphila.org

Vox Populi 319 N 11th St, Phila. 215-238-1236 voxpopuligallery.com

Wexler Gallery 201 N 3rd St, Phila. 215-923-7030 wexlergallery.com

Shawn Beeks: Drawing 3/23-6/30

Williams Center for the Arts Lafayette College 317 Hamilton Street, Easton, PA 610-330-5009 williamscenter.lafayette.edu/gallery

Zoellner Arts Center 420 E Packer Ave, Bethlehem, PA 610-758-2787 zoellner.cas.lehigh.edu

the list

VALLEY

GEHMAN

The Allentown Art Museum is exhibiting black-and-white photographs by Larry Fink and Judith Joy Ross, masters of gray emotions. Ross, a longtime Bethlehemite, specializes in tight, misty, settled portraits of people staring softly at her camera. Congress members; Vietnam memorial visitors, bathing-suited kids holding popsicles—they’re all detached yet attached messengers of innocence, power and memory.

Fink, a longtime Martins Creeker, specializes in spacious, bold, slightly unsettled portraits of people ignoring his camera. Malcolm X listeners,

Coretta Scott King at an anti-poverty march, a Harlem kid resting his head on a shotgun barrel—they’re all detached yet attached messengers of revolution, restitution and recovery.

(Timestamp” through April 16, 31 N. 5th St.; 610-432-4333; allentownartmuseum.org)

Hockey is a sportier spectator sport at the PPL Center, the popular home of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, farm team of the very popular Philadelphia Flyers. The 8,500-seat-plus arena is surprisingly intimate, which shrinks the rink, which pumps up the action. Slap shots ring louder. Bodies crash harder. Fast breaks zoom faster. This brutal ballet registers best from chairs on the concourse; imagine middleclass luxury boxes without walls, waiters and absurd prices. The atmosphere sizzles even when the hockey sucks. Timeouts feature salutes to soldiers, goofy contests, ice-smoothing machines masquerading as advertiser mascots. An infectious buzz is generated by families with an undying devotion to the crappy Flyers, who last won the Stanley Cup in 1975. These eternally optimistic fans swarm merchandise booths; concession stands selling decent foods (gourmet

CONTINUED ON PAGE 28

Geoff Gehman is a former arts writer for The Morning Call in Allentown and the author of five books, including Planet Mom: Keeping an Aging Parent from Aging, The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the LongLost Hamptons, and Fast Women and Slow Horses: The (mis)Adventures of a Bar, Betting and Barbecue Man (with William Mayberry) He lives in Bethlehem. geoffgehman@verizon.net

CITY

Usually I make ‘spring really hangs me up the most’ jokes and do some “Ides of March” bit here, but you know what? We’ve had Covid for over 2 years, and anything that gets and keeps us out of the house is worthwhile.

Disney100: The Exhibition is in full swing at the Franklin Institute through August 27, 2023. No, it is not one long ad for The Mandalorian. But there is more Obi Wan than Mickey Mouse to be found at the Franklin, and for this, I’m sad.

It is very telling that Philly Fashion Week—this city’s annual fashion-forward celebration of local designers, design competitions and runway shows at locations throughout town—is only four-days long: March 2-5, 2023. Can we at least bust a fifth day?

The biggest show in March is something of a warm up for his stadium shows to follow: Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band at the Wells Fargo Center on March 16. If we’re being honest, you are uncomfortable with the fact that Springsteen is crying poor regarding overcharging longtime fans and newfound ones the outrageous ticket prices he has on this tour. Thankfully not putting the blame on anyone but his own greed, Springsteen has stated that he and his band age out at mostly over-70 years old and that the towering sliding scale ticket prices ($5,000 in some cases) are comparable to other acts of the Boss’ stature. And that may be true. But that’s sadder still. Music, in that regard, is simply a province of the wealthy. Look, I am a capitalist with a capital C, and in no way expect Springsteen to charge discount prices. But c’mon. C’MON?! Also, the E-Street Band is stretched beyond its improvisational breadth with more background vocalists than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Springsteen en masse are playing songs from that terrible, overly slick 2022 R&B cover album of his. And honestly, I find Springsteen’s new haircut annoying. Oh, but I’ll be there. Rest assured I wouldn’t miss a show from the Boss if my life depended upon it. I will however gripe about it.

Yes, I am annoyed by the presence of PEEPS® as a dietary staple at Easter time but am not stupid or cruel enough to deny their attractiveness as a design aesthetic. So PEEPS® in the Village at Peddler’s

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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 dogdaughter Tia.

Larry Fink, 12th Street, New York, NY, September 1966, gelatin silver print

charming disaster

Wit, Whimsy, Melody & Mayhem

VER THE COURSE OFfour merrily macabre albums between 2015 and 2022 — from Love, Crime & Other Trouble to Our Lady of Radium — Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris, the Brooklyn-based cabaret-goth-folk duo known as Charming Disaster have created a theatrical aesthetic of whimsical murder ballads, twisted mythology, and strange religiosity.

Think Madame Blavatsky meets Edward Gorey meets Aesop meets John Bartram meets Nick Cave, and you’re partway to understanding Charming Disaster’s caustically funny and certainly darkly humorous brand of folksy folklore — the intersection of death and daring, mayhem and mirth, chimes and crimes and magic realism. Add in deep, Kohl eye-lined beauty and a black carney’s wardrobe, and the picture of Charming Disaster is complete.

However, starting with the Madame Curie-themed, Our Lady of Radium, greater love and respect for the escapades that make science and healing tick at the top of the 20th century crept into the Charming Disaster soundscape and lyrical brand of storytelling. Such a transition makes for an instinctive leap into its fifth album: the marriage of earthy organicism, metaphysical realms, and evergreening theater that is Super Natural History’s “cabinet of curiosities.”

One thing that intrigued this writer about what Charming Disaster does is its well-thought level of drama within each track; its theatricality is wound through every vocal melody and chorus like a spider’s web.

“I don’t that we set out to do certain things, per se, but Charming Disaster is based on the whole of our influences,” said Morris. “What we make is about how we are in the world.”

Storytelling, dark and light (but mostly dark) is of utmost importance to Charming Disaster, which is how the traditionalism of cabaret comes into play for the duo. “I cut my teeth as a performer in the circus world,” said Bisker. The circus, vaudeville, and the variety show inform me as far as my stage personae goes. Add to that our dark sense of humor — mortality always comes up in our work — and the fact that we play acoustic instruments, and that is who we are.”

Morris quickly adds that because there are only two members of Charming Disaster and theirs is a deeply bonded friendship that has lasted well over a decade, each over-emphasizes who they are as people on stage. “We try to make sure that we are giving you a show, whether hamming it up onstage or heightening reality when it comes to live performance.”

Morris and Bisker are elusive in how they came together, save to say that shared songwriting skills united them. “That’s not anything Jeff or I had ever done before, collaborate as writers,” she said. “Songwriting is such as personal process. But writing together as Charming Disaster has kept us together for so long that we have this kind of alchemy where together we are more than just the sum of our parts.”

Morris adds that after a decade+ of doing Charming Disaster as such, there is no going back to “single, solitary songwriting” or for large-scale bands beyond a

CONTINUED ON PAGE 29

Photo credit Adrian Buckmaster.

A.D. AMOROSI

THE HEADHUNTERS

FIFTY YEARS SINCE THEIRstart as part of Herbie Hancock’s goal for a frenetic fusion jazz ensemble, and forty-eight years since its groove-heavy debut album Survival of the Fittest, The Headhunters isn’t just going strong in 2023. Cofounders and composers Bill Summers and Mike Clark — respectively, the Headhunters’ percussionist and drummer — are thriving, driving hard through new original music, freeform solo improvisation (or “miracle” in Summers’ words), and bold, fresh albums ripe with Orleans parish funk (courtesy the inspiration of Louisiana-based alto saxophonist and

member about those shows is that they turned into one big gig. [laughs] They all blend together. And being on the road, then, with Herbie, we did shows every

M.C: It’s interesting you say that because I never know what we’re going to do before we do it because Bill and I don’t discuss our improvs. He changes it up every tune, every night. The whole band does. To make any arrangement come alive, all bets have to be off. I’m not an expert, for instance, on Latin music save for some clave [a characteristic pattern of beats] stuff that Bill has shown me or I’ve picked up on from other players. But having played with Bill so much and for so long, I just read the rhythm in my body. Music, in that regard, hits me just like it did when I was a little kid: with immediacy. So, I roll with it, and the rest of the band rolls with me. And if I feel as if I’m bumping into Bill, I move out of the way. [laughs] We’re playing it all fast and loose. I’m playing with Bill like Elvin (Jones) played with Coltrane — it’s a conversation underneath the guise of soloing.

composer Donald Harrison) such as the newly-released Speakers in the House on the Ropeadope label.

Currently touring behind Speakers in the House and for its 50th anniversary, Summers, Clark, and Harrison phoned en masse to discuss their longtime friendship and the message in the music of the Headhunters.

A.D: I know you just played Philly’s Brooklyn Bowl, but I want to take you back even farther to your first Headhunters gig in the area: 1973, the Bijou Café. Any recollection of the gig?

B.S.: The Seventies? What I do re-

day let alone the after parties. I do, however, remember the Bijou. It’s not around anymore. Now the shows we did at Brooklyn Bowl — this whole tour — the playing has been exceptional. We are so good now; like a well-oiled basketball team. Everybody knows their position, and everyone is giving their all. I am amazed every night.

A.D: That’s funny to hear you say that, only because if there was ever a team of excellent inventive musicians acting as one unit, it has forever been The Headhunters because you and Mike have been doing this, as one, since its start.

A.D: How does all of this lead to coming up with the music of Speakers of the House?

B.S: What’s important about what we do as the Headhunters is thinking outside of the box. We have a whole way of thinking that is surely not the norm. Also, I have been playing for so long with Michael that it is a spiritual journey now. When we play together, we can time travel to spirit travel. Man, as a whole, probably won’t ever time travel with a machine — it will come from within, as it will use the soul, or the essence of a person, to steer that ship. Mike can play one lick, and I’ll repeat it or converse from there. And he with me. We’ll look at each other and laugh about the process be-

Fifty years of worldly jazz and frank funk

“If Jesus came with his band, he wouldn’t want us to play before him.”

Mike Clark

cause we acknowledge what the other is doing. You have to be really connected to a person to have what we have — and that comes with a lot of talking, hanging, and fighting, except now, we’re too old and don’t have time to fight (laughs).

M.C: We’ve traveled the globe many times and talked about UFOs, dinosaurs, boxing, and baseball. We share similar tastes and information. We both came from an era and love of great soul music and know a lot of the same stuff. But right now, that knowledge is real coming together, and the Headhunters are on the precipice of breaking through in a new way. But, we need to do that night-bynight, gig-by-gig. In the old days, when we toured night for a year at a time, you really had a way to develop your chops, that language. Now we gig for two weeks at a time, go home, do our projects, and get together again for another two weeks of gigs. Luckily, the Headhunters can pick up where we left off.

B.S: I think that the Headhunters are at their very best level right now. If Jesus came

with his band, he wouldn’t want us to play before him.

M.C: We have Big Chief Donald Harrison with us, a saxophonist who had deeply researched Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and everything modal in between. And, as the Big Chief, he has that New Orleans flavor in his DNA. He’s a visionary — Herbie Hancock was a visionary.

A.D: And Headhunters has had some choice saxophonists — Azar Lawrence, Bennie Maupin, Rob Dixon. Skerik. What do you two look for in a reeds man?

M.C: Without overusing the word, the guy’s got to have some real soul. We need a guy who can bring the funk, improvise in a jazz sense, and has roots in many different trees. We need a guy who can cover whatever we’re going for, naturally, whenever we go for it, and Donald can over the whole damn thing.

B.S: And let me tell you something about the concept of solos. With a person like Don-

ald, he’s playing one note at a time. To me, the word solo greatly diminishes what is really going on. What’s really happening, considering that Donald is turning his horn upside down, inside out, is a miracle. Don’t call it a solo. Call it a miracle. They’re whipping out things from their memory banks as if they were computers, man. The guys in the Headhunters are making miracles happen every night.

D.C: I’ve been lucky to come up with and play with the people who are my heroes before I even started playing. From “Chameleon” to “Watermelon Man,” I was the biggest fan of Herbie’s songs and albums, never thinking that I would ever be connected to that in some way. They were at the furthest edges of the universe, and I was in some little town near New Orleans. Yet, by some stroke of luck, I met these gentlemen, they asked me to play with them, and every night, I am grateful. They change how we look at

CONTINUED ON PAGE 29

Bill Summers

Copenhagen Cowboy (Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn). Starring: Angela Bundalovic, Andreas Lykke Jørgensen, Li Ii Zhang. For his second streaming series, this time with Netflix, Danish prankster Nicolas Winding Refn helms and cowrites (with Sara Isabella Jønsson Vedde, Johanne Algren and Mona Masri) a superhero origin story as only he could dream it up. Leisurely paced and neon-drenched, the six episodes follow Miu (Angela Bundalovic), a mysterious woman who is alternately good luck charm, bad omen, and avenging angel. She appears to have a criminal past, but it might be better to say that her ancestry and aims adapt to whatever situation she’s in. She begins semiimprisoned by an Eastern European brothel owner, then swept up in a kidnapping drama involving a pugilist crime lord, and finally locked in a supernatural battle with an ageless nemesis played by Refn’s own daughter Lola Corfixen. As with most of the filmmaker’s productions,

it’s best to groove on the narcotizing mood more than seek narrative coherence. But there is plenty of pleasure to be had in all the gleefully obscure mindfuckery. [N/R] HHHH

Infinity Pool (Dir. Brandon Cronenberg). Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth, Cleopatra Coleman. A pall of anxiety hangs over writer-director Brandon Cronenberg’s latest, though less due to the shadow of his famous father, David, than to the sense that he’s telling a tale he thinks he should rather than one he truly desires. To a degree that tracks with the plight of his protagonist, James (Alexander Skarsgård), a creatively blocked writer vacationing with his wife on a fictional resort island and searching desperately for inspiration. He finds it in the form of Gabi (Mia Goth), a deceptively ditzy temptress who inadvertently causes James to commit a criminal act. And then…well, let’s just say things get “doubly” weird, as well as gratuitously violent and sexual. There are good ideas buried in the resulting morass, one being the thin line separating lizard-brain fantasy from real-life brutality, but

CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

Angela Bundalovic in Copenhagen Cowboy

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.

film classics

History Is Made at Night (1937, Frank Borzage, United States)

Of all the Golden Age of Hollywood filmmakers, director Frank Borzage often lays claim to the most romantic. The amour is certainly off the charts in this genre-hopping effort, which stars Jean Arthur as a woman out to divorce her rich husband and Charles Boyer as a waiter/budding restaurateur who sweeps her off her feet. There’s intrigue courtesy Arthur’s jealous spouse (played with surprising nuance by Colin Clive), slapstick comedy in the form of the Boyer character’s effusive Eye-talian best friend (Leo Carrillo), and swooning moments of ardor just about every time Arthur and Boyer lock eyes. It all culminates in an incredible sinking ship setpiece (one that in several of its particulars recalls the doomed Titanic) where all the heedless romanticism comes to a wondrously complex and transcendent head.

(Streaming on Criterion Channel.)

Saturday Night Fever (1977, John Badham, United States)

How deep is your love for the John Travolta strut, which is on spinetingling display in the opening scene of this classic doomy drama with dance numbers. When people talk about Saturday Night Fever they’re usually referencing the point-to-the-heavens/crouch-to-theground/hip-flipping disco poses struck by Travolta’s blue-collar Brooklynite Tony Manero. What’s often forgotten is that he cavorts each Saturday night to escape his goin’ nowhere existence. Somebody help

him! The thrilling hoofer scenes are an oasis of ecstasy within a movie that follows the gritty template of many a ‘70s American flick in which life is tough and ambivalence and ambiguity rule the day. (A Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge death scene still shocks with its sudden brutality.) Saturday Night Fever nonetheless gestures toward hope by the end, which makes it, like Sylvester Stallone’s equally crowd-pleasing Rocky of the previous year, a picture on the precipice of a motion-picture sea change, one where triumphant happy endings, however unearned, became a Hollywood default. (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)

Canal Zone (1977, Frederick Wiseman, United States)

One of the major works by documentarian Frederick Wiseman focuses on the very American residents of the Canal Zone, which was situated in the very not-American republic of Panama from the years 19031979. Imagine a U.S. township transplanted wholesale into the middle of a foreign land, an entire other country and culture mere minutes away at the city limits, and you’ll get an idea of the experience. For three captivating hours, Wiseman immerses us in this nationalist fauxutopia, with its supermarkets and restaurants and fashion shows and military pageantry. Only occasionally does the tumultuous outside world seep in, and it is often easily ignored — though the Zone was, at

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History Is Made at Night

CITY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

Usually I make ‘spring really hangs me up the most’ jokes and do some “Ides of March” bit here, but you know what? We’ve had Covid for over 2 years, and anything that gets and keeps us out of the house is worthwhile.

Disney100: The Exhibition is in full swing at the Franklin Institute through August 27, 2023. No, it is not one long ad for The Mandalorian. But there is more Obi Wan than Mickey Mouse to be found at the Franklin, and for this, I’m sad.

It is very telling that Philly Fashion Week—this city’s annual fashionforward celebration of local designers, design competitions and runway shows at locations throughout town—is only four-days long: March 2-5, 2023. Can we at least bust a fifth day?

The biggest show in March is something of a warm up for his stadium shows to follow: Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band at the Wells Fargo Center on March 16. If we’re being honest, you are uncomfortable with the fact that Springsteen is crying poor regarding overcharging longtime fans and newfound ones the outrageous ticket prices he has on this tour. Thankfully not putting the blame on anyone but his own greed, Springsteen has stated that he and his band age out at mostly over-70 years old and that the towering sliding scale ticket prices ($5,000 in some cases) are comparable to other acts of the Boss’ stature. And that may be true. But that’s sadder still. Music, in that regard, is simply a province of the wealthy. Look, I am a capitalist with a capital C, and in no way expect Springsteen to charge discount prices. But c’mon. C’MON?! Also, the EStreet Band is stretched beyond its improvisational breadth with more background vocalists than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Springsteen en masse are playing songs from that terrible, overly slick 2022 R&B cover album of his. And honestly, I find Springsteen’s new haircut annoying. Oh, but I’ll be there. Rest assured I wouldn’t miss a show from the Boss if my life depended upon it. I will however gripe about it.

Yes, I am annoyed by the presence of PEEPS® as a dietary staple at Easter time but am not stupid or cruel enough to deny their attractiveness as a design aesthetic. So PEEPS® in the Village at Peddler’s Village (March 13 through April 23) features “dozens of cute creations” of sugary and colorful confection is an annual competition that “sees the Pennsylvania-made marshmallow-y sweet treats used in adorable dioramas, intricate sculptures and 2-D wall art.” Yay, Peddler's Village, 100 Peddlers Village, Lahaska.

You know what’s good in March? Hope. That all of us can strive and be better, that we can set goals based on the things and the people that we love and achieve them every time we strive together as one. Sound lofty? Maybe. But hope is the centerpiece of Tony-winning playwright Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s. Currently running at Old City’s Arden Theatre until March 12, the warmly humorous tale tackles the story of once-incarcerated group of kitchen workers at a Pennsylvania truck stop diner who are given an opportunity at personal and profession redemption through the shared quest: to create a perfect sandwich. Clyde’s director Malika Oyetimein and actors Tiffany Barrett, Walter DeShields and J Hernandez make hope palpable, even when it is debatable Plus, Clyde’s is a food-intensive theater piece that took its cast through the paces of learning hardcore knife skills and spicing. How often do you get hope, spice, and knife work in one play? n

TOUCHDOWN / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

The students were included in this project. They got a tour of the president’s art collection, which includes my work, and I gave them a presentation about the role and process of art. I visited some studios where I talked to the artists and got to preview a show that was just about to open in the student gallery. Some came to watch me paint at the game too.

When researching the university, I noticed that it has a studentrun planetarium. I went there the night before the game. Planetariums have evolved since the days of the mantis-like device in the middle of the room. The images are digitally projected from the dome's rim and interlaced seamlessly on the curved ceiling. This was a round, two-story room, 36 feet in diameter, with rows of inclined seating facing the entry and a complicated DJ-like control table at the back. Two guys sat at the table. There was nobody else in the place. The lights were turned way down. Galaxies shot over my head.

I was the only one there, so I spent twenty minutes asking all my cosmology questions. Then the guys custom-tailored the visual presentation to match our conversation.

Before they began, one of my hosts, a physics major, ran through the prerequisite trashcan announcement, pointing out its location should I get pukey and letting me know it was my job to clean it up if I missed. That bit of housekeeping out of the way; we had a great evening. I signed the guest book as I left, the first visitor in over a week. They thanked me for coming.

I tried to visit the stadium to get the lay of things, but the first few times I went, the women's lacrosse team was practicing, and I didn’t want to be that strange guy hanging around. I went over early on the morning of the football game, and nobody was there. I grabbed a stray chair, sat where I planned to paint, and let the spirits talk to me for about an hour. No students, no planets, no GPS voice giving me directions. Just sunshine, breeze, and the flags snapping over the press box.

I’d never been to a college game, so as I sat in the sun, I called my friend Alan and asked him what I would experience. He produced football games for NFL Films, and he would know. Alan gave me great information and told me to look for the spectacle.

I had a beautiful fall evening to paint the game. By then, I had talked to the president, the head groundskeeper, his staff, and the coach. We had a plan in case it rained. I was set up on the visitor’s side of the running track, just off the end zone—a spot I picked from photos and films I had received from SRU. That position gave me a good view of the home stands. The visiting band was behind me on the other side of the fence, and they were delighted to watch me paint. The guy with the tuba gave me occasional blasts to keep me sharp.

Come game time; I had my hands full with the changing light. It was day when I started, and would be night at the end of the game. In addition, I knew that if I didn’t see some action at my end of the field, I would have to make it up. Whenever the play came my way, I paid attention to what it looked like from ground level. By the end of the third quarter, I felt I had captured the spectacle’s place, but I still didn’t have the spectacle’s moment, so I opted to invent a touchdown pass. It was a risky move, with fifteen minutes left and just one shot at this, but tuba man had faith, and I wasn’t going to let him down.

It’s nifty when you think about it. When people look at this painting, that touchdown pass will become part of the game for them. Possibly more so than others that really happened. The Grassy Knoll of third-down conversions. n

Cronenberg rarely manages to wrangle the from-the-id craziness of the premise into something truly and potently disturbing. [R] HH

Knock at the Cabin (Dir. M. Night Shyamalan). Starring: Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge. A gay couple (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) vacationing in a remote cabin with their adopted daughter (Kristen Cui) are set upon by a disparate quartet of people, led by the genially imposing Dave Bautista, who are convinced that the world is going to end unless the family willingly submits to a sacrifice. Cowriter-director M. Night Shyamalan does his best to milk this premise, adapted from a novel by Paul Tremblay, for edge-of-the-abyss tension, though the film is rarely scary and its end-times fervor is pretty much hand-me-down (like Tarkovsky, the broodingly spiritualist Russian director, defanged and mainstreamed). Add to this Shyamalan’s penchant for irritatingly unnaturalistic dialogue that the performers, game as many of them are, can’t raise above a certain firstdraft-sounding level. There are still a few adept compositions (Jarin Blaschke and Lowell A. Meyer share cinematography duties) and an intriguing emotional undercurrent, particularly once the apocalyptic scheiße hits the fan, that makes you recall the talent Shyamalan displayed with more consistency long, long ago. [R] HH

Magic Mike’s Last Dance (Dir. Steven Soderbergh). Starring: Channing Tatum, Salma Hayek, Caitlin Gerard. Exotic dancer Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) returns to bare both abs and heart in Steven Soderbergh’s uneven third film in the Magic Mike series. Down and out eco-

The grid for last month’s puzzle, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS GOES TO THE MUSEUM, was wrong. Here is the correct grid. We apologize for the error.

nomically because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mike finds opportunity, and maybe more, in the form of wealthy socialite Maxandra Mendoza (Salma Hayek), who he woos in a stunningly sexy opening dance number. She’s so taken with his physical and bro-philosophical prowess that she flies Mike to London and finances a show (put on in a historically prissy British theater) that will bring his variety of erotic satisfaction to the masses. The heat generated by the initial scenes quickly dissipates as Mike navigates culture shock and an upper-crust social circle resistant to cutting loose. Soderbergh has cited Ernst Lubitsch as a touchstone for the comic shenanigans, though his touch is far from that great filmmaker at his best. It doesn’t help that this feels mostly like a commercial for the Magic Mike stage show spun off from the previous two movies — a brand extension more than a story that cried out to be told. [R] HH n

Solution to CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

VALLEY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

burgers) and decent beers (Samuel Adams), and a Tim Horton’s store with decent doughnuts and much more than decent coffee. (701 Hamilton St., Allentown; 610-224-4625; pplcenter.com)

The movie theaters at SteelStacks have radically improved local film watching the way Wegman’s has radically improved local grocery shopping. The Valley’s only side-by-side art/indie houses serve a banquet of first-run, first-rate pictures. I’ve seen plenty of Oscar winners—Green Book, Spotlight, Parasite—that actually deserve Oscars. I’ve also seen a fair share of concert movies—George Harrison’s memorial gig; Joni Mitchell’s 75th birthday party—charged with an electric onstage energy by a wide screen, a robust sound system and seats much plusher than typical concert-hall chairs. What separates SteelStacks from the pack are showcases for directors, stars, classics, cult classics, racial groups and gender genres. The quirkiest series is Unknown Planet, a menu of daring, rare pictures shown once a month, with titles unknown to subscribers until the screenings. Outside the theaters is a sleek, two-story lobby with a jolting view of Bethlehem Steel’s titanic blast furnaces, bathed at night in Tequila Sunrise spotlights. It’s a colorful spot to wind up or down. (100 Founders Way, Bethlehem; 610-332-1300; steelstacks.org)

Easton Cemetery is a monumental memorial park. Behind the castle-like main entrance, eight blocks from my father’s birth house, is a sprawling, rolling estate with beautiful trees, shrubs and gardens; charismatic tombstones and tombs, and avenues branching to grassy amphitheaters. Opened in 1849, the graveyard was conceived by the perfectly named Traill Green, a botanist and chemistry professor who believed the deceased and their survivors deserve a sanctuary far from the unsanitary crowd. My favorite parts feature sunken, spacious lawns full of intriguing tributes. A northeastern section contains a salute to champion boxer Larry Holmes’ mother Flossie and her rallying cry “I Wanna Go Home to Dance.” The northern-most section includes a gyroscopic abstract sculpture honoring Cecil and Eleanor Lipkin, whose furniture store funded their cultural philanthropy. Elsewhere you’ll find homages to George Taylor, who signed the Declaration of Independence; George Oliver Barclay, who invented the football helmet, and Lucy Minturn Barnet, who died in 1853 after living 518 days. All sorts of gifts—dolls, toys, Halloween pumpkins—accompany a stone infant sleeping on a canopied bed, making Lucy’s final resting place a genuine shrine. (401 N. 7th St.; 610-252-1741; thehistoriceastoncemetery.org)

Stations Café is the only eatery on Bethlehem’s Restaurant Row with a curbside kitchen. Behind the picture window owner/chef Minh Tran prepares food equally healthy, tasty and zesty. The Vietnam native makes rotisserie-chicken sandwiches on vegan flat bread, blackbean burgers, organic pepperoni-and-cheese soft pretzels, Vietnamese hoagies (banh mi) and nine soups per day. I recently enjoyed the chipotle sweet potato soup, smoothly creamy and delicately rootsy, and the chicken pho, a noodle broth packed with savory flavors. Also available are coffees, cocktails, pastries and no-preservative ice creams from Longacre’s, the celebrated dairy in Barto, Berks County. Tucked inside a semi-mall in a former department store, Stations has been a community treasure for 16 years, an eternity for a small restaurant. Regular customers admire Minh for her hard work, cheerfulness and good will. One of her best regulars is my friend Thor, a German/Native American and an A-plus dog whisperer. Our pal Jake the Schnoodle gives him two paws up. (559 Main St., Suite 120, Bethlehem; 610-625-5200; stationscafe.com) n

CITY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

Village (March 13 through April 23) features “dozens of cute creations” of sugary and colorful confection is an annual competition that “sees the Pennsylvania-made marshmallow-y sweet treats used in adorable dioramas, intricate sculptures and 2-D wall art.” Yay, Peddler's Village, 100 Peddlers Village, Lahaska.

You know what’s good in March? Hope. That all of us can strive and be better, that we can set goals based on the things and the people that we love and achieve them every time we strive together as one. Sound lofty? Maybe. But hope is the centerpiece of Tony-winning playwright Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s. Currently running at Old City’s Arden Theatre until March 12, the warmly humorous tale tackles the story of onceincarcerated group of kitchen workers at a Pennsylvania truck stop diner who are given an opportunity at personal and profession redemption through the shared quest: to create a perfect sandwich. Clyde’s director Malika Oyetimein and actors Tiffany Barrett, Walter DeShields and J Hernandez make hope palpable, even when it is debatable Plus, Clyde’s is a food-intensive theater piece that took its cast through the paces of learning hardcore knife skills and spicing. How often do you get hope, spice, and knife work in one play?

From March 4 to March 12, and indoors once more after two warm, pandemic ears in FDR Park, the Philadelphia Flower Show returns to the Pennsylvania Convention Center under the umbrella theme “The Garden Electric.” There is a lot of live music to go with the PFS’ breathtaking LCD lit-up displays by the world’s premier floral and landscape designers. And while I’m happy not to deal with the outdoor elements of wind and rain, I will miss South Philly’s Lakes and the Swedish Museum. Sigh. n

FILM CLASSICS / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22

this point, only a few years away from decommission. Wiseman’s provocative point (subtly yet rigorously expressed, as always) seems to be that, among its many dubious virtues, the land of the free and the home of the brave excels at willful isolation and ignorance. (Streaming on Kanopy.)

To Sleep with Anger (1990, Charles Burnett, United States)

Most know writer-director Charles Burnett, if they know him at all (he’s one of the most egregiously overlooked of great American directors), for his devastating dramatic debut Killer of Sheep (1978). That film is one for the ages, but his 1990 dark dramedy To Sleep with Anger is no less a masterpiece. Danny Glover stars as Harry, a charismatic mystery man who pays a visit to a South Central Los Angeles couple, Gideon (Paul Butler) and Suzie (Mary Alice), who he was friends with many years before. His presence is destabilizing bordering on demonic, upending not only Gideon and Suzie’s lives, but also those of their grown children (Richard Brooks and Carl Lumbly). Whether all the crises that result are for an ultimately greater good is always up for debate. And Burnett gives the film a bewitchingly magical realist vibe that only adds to the story’s evocative quandaries and conundrums regarding familial dysfunction and cultural alienation. (Streaming on MUBI.) n

THE HEADHUNTERS / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19

music, and I pinch myself at the thought.

A.D: You mentioned Herbie, so I’ll go back for one minute to the Headhunters start. What can you recall of what you first wanted this band to be?

B.S: There wasn’t a Headhunters at first, that is, until Mike and I created an identity, developed an identity on the road. Harvey (Mason) wouldn’t go on the road with us. Actually, I didn’t even go on the road at first because I was the bongo player and treated as expendable. During the first tour that Michael was on, I wasn’t even there.

M.C: Correct.

B.S: Herbie’s people didn’t want to pay my airfare or hotel room stays, so I became expendable. That is the raw truth. You just opened Pandora’s Box. In the beginning, the band was fragmented, and didn’t truly begin to come together until Mike got there. We came together, put our eggs in one basket, and dedicated ourselves to caring for each other. And that’s how we brought the funk, and still do. And we influence the entire planet from there.

M.C: He just nailed it. It’s all true.

A.D: Talking about money, Survival of the Fittest yielded one huge hit, “God Make Me Funky,’ that has since become a hip-hop sample staple. Anybody pay you for that?

M.C: Noooooooo. That is the answer. Yes, we would love to get paid. If anyone knows Dr. Dre since his first music featured our song as his sample, perhaps we can get a quote from him. I think that song has been sampled to the tune of 24 million streams.

D.C: You have to find the right people to talk to. The further back the royalty goes, the harder it is to get the full amount.

Bill Summer: We should each own a yacht from those samples. Either way, I’m going to be happy every day. n

CHARMING DISASTER / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16

duosetting.

With that, so much of who Charming Disaster is comes in finding what lies in-between filling in the blanks and connecting the dots — the mysteries within.

“We’re really nimble as a two-person project,” noted Bisker. “We’re versatile and can go many different places on our records. When performing in live settings, we can adapt physically to any size stage.”

Aesthetically, the non-linear Our Lady of Radium and the theoretical Super Natural History touch on realms beyond their usual while marrying its themes to all that is familiar to Charming Disaster. “On the face of it, there is a science to be found in all that is Marie Curie,” said Bisker. “But, in reality, hers is a story of human curiosity.” The early 20th-century spiritual phenomenon of speaking to the dead and of X-ray technology — trying to capture the soul and the body in one swoop — drives the many threads of Our Lady of Radium. “Magic and science are never far apart,” said Bisker.

Morris continued. “Because there were so many threads to Curie’s story involving seances, duels, and other drama, that touched on the occult, that touched upon spiritualism, that was all very attractive to us.”

Super Natural History is an extension of all the research, intuition, and invention Charming Disaster put into Our Lady of Radium. To Morris, Super Natural History is about wonder and awe, “from occult origins to ad admiration of beauty that is the natural world. It is not a theme but part of our usual cabinet of curiosities of things we collect and observe. These are all wonderful things that bring beauty and joy.” n

harper’s FINDINGS INDEX

Makeup makes men more attractive, and Machiavellians have more unprotected sex. A low-ranking male Sapajus libidinosus named Fu was observed masturbating to the sight of other monkeys mating. Straight men become increasingly aroused as women’s low-back curvature approaches the hypothesized optimum of 45.5 degrees. Persistent genital arousal without corresponding psychological arousal appears to be linked to eating disorders. Swear words, across languages, are low in approximant sounds; positive words evolve more slowly than negative ones. People tend to describe their past immoral actions in concrete, mechanistic terms. Nazi propaganda shifted, with the onset of the Holocaust, away from moral disengagement concerning Jews and toward their agency. Countries with weak governance and strong conformism are more prone to belief in witchcraft, but such beliefs cannot be predicted by exposure to past misfortunes. Morning people tend to be conservative, especially in Switzerland, morning people in Russia tend to be progressive.

9

Wild gloomy octopuses who propel debris at one another do so more forcefully when they have turned themselves dark. Middleaged African-American couples in rural Georgia who perceive gratitude in their relationships report lower levels of ineffective arguing and financial stress, and financial stress during pregnancy leads to increased cellular aging in white but not black American children. The global collapse in human sperm counts and sperm concentration has accelerated in recent years, and the lifespans of lab-raised honeybees have dropped by half since the Seventies. Britons who prepay their energy bills consume less fruit and vegetables, underscoring the “heat or eat” dilemma. When preparing frozen stuffed chicken products, poor Americans are more likely than rich ones to use a microwave. Irritable bowel syndrome may arise in those whose bodies cannot deal with gravity. The earliest known sentence-length Canaanite inscription, discovered on an ivory comb containing louse remains, was a prayer for relief from beard lice.

9

Young Mars was covered by an ocean a thousand feet deep; Earth may be experiencing a seventh, not a sixth, mass extinction; and rising seas are expected to rapidly erode rocky coastlines in Devon and Yorkshire. The twenty-five-minute annual discrepancy between Earth’s axial tilt and orbital distance results in a 22,000-year cycle that affects the Pacific cold tongue. A Gobichettipalayam man seeking to rid himself of snake dreams presented to a priest, who advised him to flick his tongue at a Russell’s viper, who then bit the man on the tongue, whereupon the man presented to doctors. Russell Crowe stumbled shoeless upon a poisonous bandy-bandy snake, and Chicago’s goose harassment policy is not working. Dutch wolves were to be shot with paintballs to make them afraid of humans again. Veterinarians reported that localized intercostal blocks had proved superior to fentanyl infusion in the laparoscopic oophorectomies of twenty bitches, researchers were testing a fentanyl vaccine, and ketamine fails to mimic psychosis in some mice. Juvenile marmosets are resilient against social isolation if they are given ayahuasca before their families are taken away. n

% of U.S. teens who have advocated for political issues on social media in the past year: 10 Who have used a hashtag related to a political or social issue: 7

% of Americans who believe that political demonstration is “very important”: 13

Percentage by which independents are less likely than other voters to know their representatives’ party affiliation: 24

To know which party controls Congress: 20

Percentage of eligible Americans who vote: 63 Of Hungarians: 71 Of Uruguayans: 95

% by which fewer people watched the midterm election results on TV last year than in 2018: 30

Percentage by which threats against members of Congress increased between 2017 and 2021: 144

Percentage of Americans who say political advertisements have “a great deal” of influence on how they vote: 8

Average number of words a man says on cable news before he is interrupted: 81 Of words a woman says: 73

Portion of Americans who believe the media prioritizes profits over the public interest: 3/4 Who say they would be willing to pay for their news: 1/5

Chances that a U.S. graduate with a journalism degree regrets this choice of major: 9 in 10

Percentage by which Republicans are more likely to feel unfavorably toward the media than the tobacco industry: 20

Percentage by which women are more likely than men to rely on TikTok as a news source: 59

By which men are more likely than women to rely on Reddit as a news source: 231

Portion of Americans who watch shows or movies with subtitles on “most of the time”: 1/2 Of Gen Z-ers who do: 7/10

Percentage by which young adults are more likely to smoke cigarettes than adults aged 65 or older: 50

By which young adults are more likely to smoke only marijuana than to smoke cigarettes: 270

Number of hours per week the average American spent with friends in 2021: 3

Percentage by which this number has decreased since 2013: 58

% change in the past decade in the amount of time the average American spends alone: +23

Percentage of U.S. households that had a single occupant in 1960: 13

In 2022: 29

% increase since 2000 in the number of Americans aged 50 or older who live alone: 66

Percentage of those Americans who are female: 60

% by which black Americans aged 65 or older are more likely than white ones to live alone: 12

Median net wealth of U.S. homeowners aged 65 and older: $343,100

Of U.S. renters aged 65 and older: $5,800

Factor by which married couples aged 25 to 34 have a greater median net worth than their single peers: 9

Portion of divorced U.S. full-time workers who say that ending their marriage improved their job performance: 2/5

% increase since 2019 in the number of U.S. daters looking for a partner who wants to marry: 28

% of U.S. daters who say they fell in love with someone they weren’t initially attracted to: 49

Who say they are willing to date long-distance: 53

Median age to which Americans expect to live: 82

Number of years by which this exceeds the CDC’s estimate: 6

SOURCES: 1–3 Pew Research Center (Washington); 4,5 Brian Schaffner, Tufts University (Medford, Mass.);6–8 Pew Research Center; 9 Nielsen (NYC); 10 United States Capitol Police; 11 YouGov (NYC); 12,13 Ashique KhudaBukhsh, Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, N.Y.); 14,15 Gallup (Washington); 16 ZipRecruiter (Santa Monica, Calif.); 17 YouGov; 18,19 Pew Research Center; 20,21 Preply (Barcelona, Spain); 22,23 Gallup; 24–26 Bryce Ward (Missoula, Mont.); 27,28

United States Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.); 29–31 The New York Times; 32,33 Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (Cambridge, Mass.); 34 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; 35 Connie Wanberg, University of Minnesota (Minneapolis); 36–38 Kinsey Institute, Indiana University (Bloomington); 39,40 YouGov.

Character Development

by EVAN BIRNHOLZ

“ Brenda Starr, Reporter”

99 Reason to repent

100 ___ Kippur

101 Meat space

102 Actor Butterfield with a palindromic name

103 Iowa college whose founder originally called it the School for the Prophets

104 “We’ve got permission to launch”

106 Greek letters that become other Greek letters by adding B or Z or TH at the start

108 Drink mix that was “chosen for the Gemini astronauts,” per a 1960s ad

109 ___ acid

112 Symbol in a Norse myth

114 E in the Greek alphabet

117 Cartoon detective agency featuring this puzzle’s “ developing” characters

120 Company that created the characters who develop at the starts of the starred and doublestarred entries

123 “That took forever!”

124 “A vehicle to carry a message of freedom and peace,” per Bob Marley

125 Request for another hit?

126 Hit badly at the ballpark

29 With 87 Down, martial art with a Yang style 30 Coded program 32 Metallic rock transports 34 “Tár” director Field 36 Text messaging expert?

37 Inverse function in a trigonometry class

39 “By George, old chap!”

41 Construction for a cast 42 Electrical unit filling in the blanks of “electr_c_e_ical” 43 Sonny

82 Like products that don’t require a high level of technical expertise

84 Carnival staple

86 Comedy club VIPs

87 See 29 Down

88 “___ winning?” (question about a sports score)

91 Gather together

93 “Sun Sign Horoscope” astrologer Sydney

95 Avoiding wordplay

96 “There is no way for me to do that”

97 Negative debate side

98 Big beer bash buy

101 Reindeer mentioned in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”

104 Like the ruler Huáscar

105 Defend, as a basketball player ... or, a type of basketball player

107 Church areas

108 Operatic premiere at the Teatro Costanzi in 1900

13 Poker legend Ungar

14 Was skipped, as on “Wheel of Fortune”

15 “The choice is ___”

16 Mount seen from the hotel in season 2 of “The White Lotus”

17 Area photographed by the reformer Jacob Riis

18 Short-term hire, for short 24 ___ of the ball 26 Like the gods from the realm of Tamoanchán

109 Emirate resident

110 Dish out, with “out”

111 “La ___ Bonita” (Madonna hit)

113 Stuffed Pancake Bites brand

115 Dangerous March day for Caesar

116 What colorful text in a blog post signifies

118 Plane’s takeoff hr.

119 Alter ___

121 Versified “before”

122 “Yay, we did it!”

Solution on page 26