ICON Magazine

Zev Feldman

Josh Ritter

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

Since 1992 215-862-9558 icondv.com

PUBLISHER & EDITOR

Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com

ADVERTISING

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

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.

Zev Feldman. Photo: Zak Shelby-Szyszko, Washington Post Page 18.

KITCHEN REPORT

I CAN HEAR THEcollective ugh from my vegan, vegetarian, and animal cruelty activist friends, and I apologize for not giving you a heads-up that this image was coming.

The story of this painting goes back to before it found its way to the easel. The short of it is that I was in McCaffery’s and ran into David. He asked if my wife was away and I was doing Home Alone Bob shopping (I

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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

Fashion as Experiment: The ’60s Allentown Art Museum

31 N 5th St., Allentown, PA

610-432-4333 allentownartmuseum.org

Thurs. –Sun. 11 –4

Third Thurs. 11 –8

May 6 –September 24

The exhibit delves into fashion movements and trends during the decade that linked the personal and political in a powerful new way. Youth fashions such as paper dresses emphasized novelty and low price, defying ideals like quality and elegance that shaped the wardrobes of older generations. Similar styles in men’s and women’s clothing blurred gender boundaries, while miniskirts, hot pants, and dresses with cut-outs evoked the 1960s sexual revolution. Countercultural looks from the late 1960s and early 1970s were worn in protest of materialism, racism, imperialism, and the fashion establishment. This is a look back at a tumultuous time in American history but also, well, a blast.

Admission is FREE for all, and free parking in the Museum lot at 5th and Linden Sts.

Trisha Vergis: Solo Exhibition

Silverman Gallery

4920 York Rd., Route 202, Holicong, PA 215-794-4300 Silvermangallery.com

May 6 –June 11

Artist Receptions 5/6, 5–8 and 5/7, 1–4 Wed–Sat. 11–6, Sun. 11–4 and appointment

Silverman Gallery of Bucks County Impressionist Art is proud to feature a collection of recent oil paintings from this Bucks County native. Vergis’s art is grounded in the natural surroundings, small towns and farming communities of the Delaware Valley. Her carefully planned and beautifully executed paintings of flowers, fruit and other objects will be included in the exhibition.

In an earlier interview, Vergis explained, “I’m right there in the thick of things. If my painting is of a winter day, you know I was out there painting it. Working from life breathes life into a painting. You may not get a ‘perfect’ painting, but you will get one that sings with life, one that captures the mood, space and time of the moment.”

Senior Honors

Art & Art History Thesis Exhibition

Lafayette College, Grossman Gallery

243 No. Third Street, Easton, PA galleries.lafayette.edu

May 2–20

Artist reception: May 3, 5:30

The graduating seniors in Art and Art History present their culminating projects in this exhibition. From a series of paintings to art history research using virtual reality, these senior theses projects are a testament to those young artists and scholars’ curiosity, research skills, and artistic talents.

Featuring: Caitlyn Carr, Andrea CollazoSalazar, Renee Mercereau, April Miller, Isabel Sorrells, Baoyi Zhu.

Cara Cara Orange Wedges, 6 x 8, oil on canvas board

Two Orchids, 18 x 18,oil on canvas

Renee Mercereau, Untitled,, 2022, oil on canvas, 24x34

Isabel Sorrells, Judge, judge!, 2022, oil on canvas, 24x36

Spatial Contusions: My Life on Paper

Swan Boat Gallery

69 Bridge St., Lambertville, NJ 332-400-6651 swanboatgallery.com

Through May 15

What are Spatial Contusions? Florence says it’s like life, as we are bounced around with so much good and not-so-good in the news.

Like life, her works on paper are created in the same manner—paint strokes of whimsy, drips of color paint, rolled and smeared. The finished work becomes an abstract surprise, like life.

Her abstract paintings are meant to draw you in, creating a unique experience and revealing your own sense of emotions.

In mid-May, the gallery continues her Works on Paper, The Devil Made Me Do It

We are more than a gallery; Swan Boat Gallery is a cultural experience. One of Lambertville New Jersey’s newest galleries will feature international artists, poetry readings, art lessons, and art socials.

Visit www.swanboatgallery.com for hours and news, future shows, and special events.

Bethlehem Town Hall Rotunda Gallery

10 E. Church St., Bethlehem, PA

May 19–June 27

Opening Reception May 21, 2:00–4:00 Mon.–Fri. 8:00am–4:00pm

Inspired by nature, literature and music, Gano’s visual representation uses symbolism to understand the human condition which we all may or may not experience in our lives. Her primary focus in this exhibition are insects combined with other visual elements.

Baum School 38th Annual Art Auction

Online Art Auction

The Baum School of Art

510 W. Linden St., Allentown, PA givergy.us/baumartauction38

May 13, 6:30pm & May 20, 10:00pm Premiere Party, 5/13, 6:00–9:00, ticketed

The auction will feature over 400 works of art from artists of the Pennsylvania Impressionist period of Walter Baum, to almost 60 contemporary local artists. New this year is the opportunity to kick off the bidding at our Premiere Party with hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and music. $100 per ticket, 5/13, 6–9:00.

To view the artwork up for bid visit: givergy.us/baumartauction38.

Visit and sign up as a bidder. When you place your bid, you can choose to receive real-time emails and/or text notifications of your bids.

By

William Langson Lathrop, Cows at the Ford, watercolor

Robert Miller, Aerospatial 29, mixed media.

Lynn N. Gano: Bugs, Butterflies, and Transformations

When Leaves Fall, aquatint etching, watercolor, and pastel, 18x36

Her Leap (of faith), aquatint etching, 24x18

By Florence Kindel

Florence Kindel

The two poems offered here—same subject, same title, different form—were not written about the iconic Fare de Haut-Fond Prince lighthouse shown here, but rather represent my reflections about lighthouses generally, and specifically about those who were its keepers—a special breed long since replaced as lighthouses became automated, as was this one in 1987.

the art of poetry

DAVID STOLLER

eThe first poem is a tanka, the oldest form of Japanese poetry, featuring an unrhymed five-line poem using 5-75-7-7 syllables per line, respectively. The short form (the haiku is its younger cousin), with its asymmetric spare structure, challenges the poet to capture an emotion, impression, or idea in contemplation of the subject.

I Kept A Good Light

I kept a good light

Saving grace for the distressed The dawn’s foghorn blast Rumbles through my loneliness O watchman, what of the night

The second poem, a rondeau, is, by contrast, a highly structured fifteen-line poem featuring a specific meter and rhyme scheme in three stanzas of 5-4-6 lines, respectively, in which the opening line of the first stanza serves as the last-line refrain of each of the following stanzas. The rhyme schemes for the three stanzas are: abbaaab(refrain) - aabba(refrain).

I chose this structure for its lyricism and emotional aspect; I thought of these poems as an elegy, a lament for the departed.

I Kept A Good Light

I kept a good light many years past, Polished clear the lantern glass, Fractals sparkling, spinning round, Warning those who might run aground — How I prayed they would safely pass.

I loved the early foghorn blast, Piercing the shroud of a sea so vast, Of a thousand souls, that primordial sound — I kept a good light.

My great privilege to be so cast, A lighthouse keeper to the last, I took an oath, forever bound, I’ll keep my watch from higher ground, And thrill once more to the distant mast — I kept a good light.

The extraordinary image shiwn here is a photograph of a lighthouse in Quebec called The Fare de Haut-Fond Prince (in English, the Prince Shoal Light), taken by the British artist Mat Chivers (matchivers.com), in connection with his acclaimed one-man show, entitled Migrations, first shown at the Musee d’Art de Joliet (MAJ) in Quebec, which included a structural installation, a film, and an ongoing series of drawings. The film, entitled Le Reve, frames at its center this extraordinary lighthouse, built on a reef seven kilometers off the coast of Tadoussac, Quebec. 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

JOAN DANZIGER

What I love most about photographing sculptors is being welcomed into a world of imagination. Of course, this can as easily happen with any artist when we converse with a painting, poem, or performance. Through the artwork we feel the magic artists feel, fear what they fear, and laugh at absurdities we were previously blind to. But if we limit our interaction to voyeurism, we miss half the fun. Art is an invitation to play. Joy blossoms when we surrender to art's charm.

A Portfolio of Portraits,

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:

Sculpture and Related Ideas

I photographed sculptor Joan Danziger in her Washington D.C. backyard, just beyond her Weber grill.

the list

Shankweiler’s, America’s oldest operating movie drive-in, encapsulates that old-fashioned childhood wonder of entertaining liberation under the stars. Opened in 1934, a mere ten months after the opening of America’s first drive-in, it’s newly open all year long. Winter weekends are a concession of its new owner, Mobile Cinema Company, which sets up screens all over the great outdoors. Principals Lauren

Outside of being the month where Philadelphia gets to vote in its Mayoral primaries (and I don’t envy any local that decision, the lesser of its evils), May is this weird transitional time in Philadelphia that isn’t June and summer as yet. And isn’t it sad that Philly has no spring?

May is good for its dedication to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jewish American Heritage, Flores de Mayo, and the Kaamatan harvest festival. May is also National Pet Month, National Smile Month in the UK, and Bicycle, Golf, and Burger Month. No way you can’t find something to love in May despite its tiny transitional nature.

McChesney and Matthew McClanahan met at the Mahoning drive-in in Lehighton, which McClanahan helped save from extinction via prohibitively expensive digital turnover by significantly boosting viewership with vintage 35mm prints of classic/cult double and triple bills. McClanahan grew up on familiar family films at Shankweiler’s, which last month paired Super Mario Brothers with the Woody Harrelsonled Champions, a funny heart-warmer about outcast basketballers. The off-screen menu features chili dogs, funnel cake and mango water ice. Visual cotton candy is provided by a sweet neon sign, with “Shankweiler’s” tucked inside a beaconing, beckoning arrow. And what other drive-in is fronted by a funeral parlor? Talk about a trueblue, one-two punch of roadside Americana. (4540 Shankweiler Rd, corner of Route 309, Orefield; 610-481-0800; shankweilers.com)

The Lehigh Valley IronPigs epitomize mediocrity, having lost six games more than they’ve won over 14 seasons as a minor-league partner of the Philadelphia Phillies. Their home, however, has always been

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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

So, it’s the top of May, and its warm weather always signals a time to dine and drink outdoors in the breeze—preferably a spicy cuisine and cocktail list to require cool, nighttime winds on the walk home. Welcome, then, to Bolo, Chef Yun Josué Fuentes Morales’ new Latin American dining room and rum bar at Rittenhouse Square’s 2025 Sansom Street. Fuentes was the Executive Chef at Stephen Starr’s beloved Alma de Cuba with mentor Chef Douglas Rodriguez, and Bolo offers both a traditional and modern twist on its ceviches, piscolabis, pinchos, cuchifritos, platillos, postres, a Latin focused coffee program AND rum-based classics like piña colada and mojitos to its signature concoctions like French Twist and the Coco Bolo. I’ll be Bolo-ed this spring, for sure.

The Girard Avenue Street Festival, the South Street Festival, the Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival, Chestnut Hill Home and Garden Festi-

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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.

Chef Yun Josué Fuentes Morales. Photo: Chocolate Covered Memories.

film roundup

Beau Is Afraid (Dir. Ari Aster). Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Parker Posey, Nathan Lane. Pity poor Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix), anxiety-ridden city dweller with a guilt complex exacerbated by a long-domineering mother (no spoiling who plays this initially heard but not seen character in her final form—it’s too delicious). An apparent tragedy sends Beau on an alternately ridiculous and horrific odyssey that feels like a Greek myth as penned by Portnoy’s Complaint-era Philip Roth, the literally bloody humiliations compounding with escalating surrealness. This is a quantum leap for writer-director Ari Aster after the indulgently artsy scaremongering of Hereditary and Midsommar — no less extravagant, perhaps, but much more confidently attuned to its central character’s entrancingly repellent psychology. Phoenix meets every

challenge the filmmaker sets up and then some, in the process unearthing and exploring the ways in which the fears of our formative years can dog us into middle age and beyond, all the way up to our ignominious last breath. [R] HHHH

John Wick: Chapter 4 (Dir. Chad Stahelski). Starring: Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Ian McShane. John Wick (Reeves), immaculately besuited hitman out for vengeful justice, is back for his latest go-round with the quirky denizens of the assassin underworld. Newcomer Bill Skarsgård channels both Draco Malfoy and Pepé Le Pew as the primary antagonist, the fey and entitled leader of the secret society The High Table, which oversees contract killers worldwide and whose arcane rules may allow for our antihero to regain his honor, such as it is. Wick series standbys Laurence Fishburne, the late Lance Reddick, and Ian McShane lend able support, treating the globe-hopping silliness of the premise as if it

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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.

Beau Is Afraid.

Photo Credit: Takashi Seida

film classics

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, William Wyler, United States)

Filmed and released not long after the end of World War II, William Wyler’s much-praised and award-feted drama follows the homecoming of three US veterans played by Fredric March, Dana Andrews, and nonactor Harold Russell, who lost both hands during his own military service. As each of the trio works to readjust to civilian life, their struggles are counterpointed against the microcosmic backdrop of an America coming to grips with a still-immediate collective trauma. At nearly three hours, it feels as if we’re living alongside these characters, bearing witness to how outside forces have shaped them for better and for ill. This is all sensitively and intuitively captured through Wyler’s direction, the varying styles of the performers (Russell’s non-Hollywoodized screen presence garnered him both an honorary and a competitive Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), and the exquisite deep-focus photography of Gregg Toland, which helps to emphasize both the strong ties and the fraying bonds of the community at large. (Streaming on Amazon.)

Dog Day Afternoon (1975, Sidney Lumet, United States)

It could have been off-puttingly lurid, but instead there’s something achingly humane, and oh-so-New-Yawk, about Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, a classic crime film adapted by Academy Award winner Frank Pierson from a Life magazine article titled “The Boys in the Bank.” Said boys in the movie version are Sonny (Al Pacino), Sal (John Cazale), and Stevie (Gary Springer), an out-of-their-depth trio aiming to rip off a Brooklyn financial institution so they can pay for the sex reassignment surgery of Sonny’s partner Leon (Chris Sarandon). Things go awry almost instantly, resulting in a tense hostage situation that plays at times like improvised street theater. (Even if you haven’t seen the film in full, you surely know the moment when Pacino riles up a crowd gathered outside the bank with cries of “Attica!”) Pacino and Cazale give career-best performances, the former a prancing force of nature, the latter an unnervingly soft-spoken half-wit. And Lumet or-

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Dana Andrews and Virginia Mayo in The Best Years of Our Lives

Photo

The JAZZ Detective

Zev feldman tracks down the lost gold of america’s greatest music

THERE IS NO GREATERmatch between a label’s name and its owner’s title than having Zev Feldman as the man behind Jazz Detective. And like a great house dick, Feldman always finds his man (and woman) and their thought-lost music.

Founded by curator and archival producer Feldman in 2022, Jazz Detective started with two works from the very recently late and always great pianist and composer Ahmad Jamal in Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse 1963-1964 and Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse 1965-1966, before going on to 2023’s Record Store Day releases such as trumpeter Chet Baker’s Blue Room: The 1979 VARA Studio Sessions in Holland , Philly organist Shirley Scott’s Queen Talk: Live at The Left Bank and hard Bop saxophonist Sonny Stitt’s Boppin’ in Baltimore. But Feldman, the producer, also has a hand in curating and knob-twiddling new vinyl from pianist Bill Evans’ 2023 RSD release Treasures: Solo, Trio & Orchestra in Denmark 1965-1969, as well as being the copresident of Resonance Records in Los Angeles, the label behind this spring’s Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Studio Sessions from the late saxophone colossus and flutist Eric Dolphy, and additional archival releases from Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, and the aforementioned Evans.

“Doing this is not for the faint of heart,” Feldman told Variety last year about the diligence, drive, and patience required to take on lost musical projects that could, on occasion, take up to a decade each to bring to fruition, what with tapes discovered, deals made and rights-holders paid—all for higrade audiophile releases on heavilygrammed vinyl that are extravagantly packaged and with slim profit margins. “But there’s been so much goodwill and generosity (toward Jazz Detective), and we’re having fun. I mean, we smile at the end of the day. I

leap out of bed in the morning with the promise of the new day.”

One year later, days before the passing of Ahmad Jamal in April, Feldman began telling the story of how and why he began his mission in jazz detection.

“These projects start from passion and research,” said Feldman from his Los Angeles office space, his car. “I spend my days creating projects, finding tapes, vetting material— and, most importantly—always listening. Sometimes these things come to you, but more often than not, you have to dig and go after what you want. And in finding what you are looking for, you usually find things that you had no idea you needed that are equally, if not more, valuable.”

As a producer and curator of Chet Baker’s 1970s material, the hunt through the trumpeter and vocalist’s Blue Room commenced over one year ago after conversations with Feldman’s jazz colleague Frank Joachumson (CQ), the head honcho of the Netherlands Jazz Archive in Amsterdam. “We’d already put together Sonny Rollins in Holland and Bill Evans’ Behind the Dikes: The 1969 Netherlands Recordings last year when we began talking about Chet Baker.”

Feldman begins discussing Baker with reverence, Chet being a great and handsome smooth Bop trumpeter and soft-as-silk vocalist whose life and talents took a tragic turn with addiction. Down, but not out, however. Baker’s rough-edged, raw silken renaissance began in the 1970s and lasted through the documentation of his life, director Bruce Weber’s Let’s Get Lost, until Baker’s death in Amsterdam in 1988. “Chet Baker is a very important artist whose legacy matters,” said Feldman of a legacy scattered to the four winds, considering his latter-day gigs throughout Europe. “In doing some searches in the Netherlands, I found these two live ses-

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“Doing this is not for the faint of heart,”

FELDMAN TOLD VARIETY LAST YEAR ABOUT THE DILIGENCE, DRIVE, AND PATIENCE REQUIRED TO take on lost musical projects that coulD, ON OCCASION, TAKE UP TO A DECADE EACH TO BRING TO FRUITION.

JOSH RITTER

and the place where gravity flattens out

EARNEST, ERUDITE, DREAMY, AND minutely detailed when it comes to filling his shortsong stories and long-form novels with the sort of not-so-grounded, lonely inquisitive characters and twinkling, true-to-life moments that would make John Dos Passos’ The 42nd Parallel seem spare, Josh Ritter is a writer who puts the work in. Rolls it around, then deconstructs and remasters it all into something elegant and alarmingly neo-real.

Ritter has done this through two winning novels, Bright’s Passage and The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All, as well as ten starry albums before this spring’s Spectral Lines—and a tour that will bring him to Glenside’s Keswick Theatre on May 18 with his Royal City Band. Talking from Oslo, Norway, Ritter didn’t make it all seem easy—honestly, he made writing sound the intricate, passionate, confounding work and wonder that it all truly is.

A.D. Amorosi: Before I touch Spectral Lines, it is crucial to note that you have a weird, 21-year-old+ history with the Philadelphia area, what with having recorded your second album, The Golden Age of Radio here. How did you get here, to begin with, and what impression did Philly leave on your second album?

Josh Ritter: I have amazing memories of that moment. We were in North Philly at SoundGun on N. American Street, with this really cool guy, Bill Moriarty. He was a young kid getting started, somebody we’d heard about along the way—super friendly, my age, and had a studio. He was willing to work late nights when it wasn’t that expensive. Bill really went out on a limb for us. And I remember us recording there on a Sunday and someone setting fire to a car on the street outside the studio.

A.D. Amorosi: Yeah, you were in Philly.

Josh Ritter: All of the black smoke from the flames was coming into the studio. I was in the middle of a take on “Harrisburg,” and

Bill kept motioning for me to keep singing through the smoke. That was a truly fundamental moment in my recording history. I realized then my true essence is coming through this microphone, just as is the essence of this place, this moment, and the situation. And I was just going to let it all come through, and maybe people will pick up on that whole picture.

“WHEN I WROTE BOTH OF MY NOVELS, I BELIEVE I WAS HEARING A VOICE. WHAT WAS THE ANGEL SAYING TO MY MAIN CHARACTER, A LACONIC, INWARD, PERPETUALLY CONFUSED PERSON WHOSE THOUGHTS WERE LESS IMPORTANT THAN HIS ANGEL’S? IN THE SECOND NOVEL, I HAD THIS IMAGE OF AN OLD MAN IN A BAR JUST TALKING —UNTIL, AFTER A TIME, I REALIZED THAT HE WAS TALKING TO ME.“

A.D. Amorosi: In the same way that you were open to experiencing the moment as a performer, is that true of your songwritin, toog? You seem to be a workmanlike pragmatic writer who uses what he’s got when he has it—someone less than precious about his writing.

Josh Ritter: Songwriting is a little bit like remote viewing. You sit there. You close your eyes, relax, and dilate this muscle in the middle of your head—an iris that is opening and closing. You open it up, and ideas come through. The process is mystical and beautiful. But I also realized that just because it comes to me doesn’t mean it will translate to anybody else. That’s where the actual songwriting comes in. Because unless I’m saying

things clearly, I’m wasting my moment. So, the images have to be clear, the song's structure has to be solid, and I have to let the water flow into the container that holds it all, the writing. Where it comes from, though is a beautiful mystery. And I can’t share that unadulterated mystery. I have to massage it, get it into shape.

A.D. Amorosi: Eyeballs. Water. Mystery. Massage. Got it. Now, would you say that THAT is true of your more long-form writing, your novels?

Josh Ritter: It has shorter bursts, definitely. I’m not going to say that it is the hardest thing ever, but writing, or being in a writing space, takes a lot of energy.

A.D. Amorosi: It’s not for the faint of heart.

Josh Ritter: Your brain works so hard, whether in a shorter thing such as a song or stretching it out for the trance-like aspects of writing a novel. That’s much more difficult. You have to be patient, learn the pitfalls. You learn about stepping away, figuring out that someone wasn’t saying this or doing that

A.D. Amorosi: Simplifying the themes of your novels for the sake of a question, what do you believe that writing about a man with an angel (Bright’s Passage) and writing about the adventures of a lumberjack (Great Glorious) portrays of your trajectory as a writer? Is there a throughline?

Josh Ritter: Yeah. When I wrote both of my novels, I believe I was hearing a voice. What was the angel saying to my main character, a laconic, inward, perpetually confused person whose thoughts were less important than his angel’s? In the second novel, I had this image of an old man in a bar just talking —until, after a time, I realized that he was talking to me. I learned to write down the things he was saying to me and how he said

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Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band.

Photo: Laura Wilson.

Josh Ritter.

Photo: Laura Wilson.

chestrates it all into an energizing city symphony both humorous and devastating. (Streaming on HBOMax.)

Body Heat (1981, Lawrence Kasdan, United States)

Kathleen Turner shot to stardom as Matty Walker, the South Florida femme fatale who makes not-so-bright lawyer Ned Racine (William Hurt) the fall guy in the murder of her wealthy husband (Richard Crenna). Writer-director Lawrence Kasdan uses the film noirs of old (Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity is an evident influence) as his template, all while upping the sexual explicitness in keeping with the more permissive nature of moviemaking in the 1970s through the

was). He was flying solo that evening too, and we compared the contents of our baskets, which weren’t all that different. We spent a few minutes on guy talk, and then we discussed meat—the Piedmont ribeyes in the butcher case in particular, of which David is a fan. I brought one home. It’s still unclear to me if Piedmont is a farm, a breed, or a location. Regardless, it merits its own tray in the case and a price to be proud of.

Anyone familiar with my work is not surprised that I painted the steak. It’s part of our era, culture, and artistic tradition. But mea culpa; it’s also part of my diet. I ate it, and David was right. Delicious.

there is a challenge to painting meat. It’s one thing to create an image that people can tell is a steak and another to capture the anticipated aroma, sizzle, and flavor—or look in the other direction and reflect on where it comes from. There is a color that is specific to raw meat. Not just any red, but hemoglobin red. And it changes with the cut, the breed, the age. With a ribeye, that color is slightly darker in the cap. The fat is translucent off-white, and its dense texture lends a cleaner, smoother cut. It is usually stained red from the meat portion. This steak has nice marbling and something else I look for: a consistent thickness, which will assist in even cooking.

As I say to the point of tedium, I’m painting my encounters, which are highly personal moments between everything that has come before, and what will happen after. The experiences are mine, but they are similar to those of other people. The parts we have in common form a language.

I don’t paint something without really looking at it. In the process, I often learn more than I could include in the image, but that’s not what I’m after. The idea is to find that common language.

early1980s. Given the locale, the sweat is prevalent whether people are in or out of the sheets, though it’s the lustful pas de deux between Matty and Ned (complete with a rather forthright groin grab) that really turn up the, ahem, heat. Turner clearly relishes the role of black widow, and she’s perfectly matched with Hurt who makes his character’s hot-blooded naïveté both riotously comic and affectingly tragic. (Streaming on Criterion Channel.)

Ghost in the Shell (1995, Mamoru Oshii, Japan/United Kingdom)

A key crossover anime feature, director Mamoru Oshii and screenwriter Kazunori Itō’s adaptation of the popular cyberpunk manga by Masamune Shirow manages a sublime mix of the effortlessly cool and the headily philosophical. Motoko Kusanagi, nickname “The Major,” is a team leader for a secret police force known as Section 9. She and her compatriots watch over a brave new world in which most human bodies are augmented, if not fully replaced by, mechanical parts. The “ghost” of the title refers to the spirit/consciousness inhabiting this enhanced “shell” of flesh. The Major herself is questioning her own humanity, an internal struggle that comes to an external head when Section 9 goes up against a mysterious villain known as The Puppet Master. All the expected anime touches are here — the lithe female bodies, the chic bursts of violence — but Oshii and his collaborators turn such base pleasures (as the iconic opening scene illustrates) literally on their head. You’ll feel as energized intellectually as you do sensorially. And afterward you should immediately check out Oshii’s equally spectacular and even more challenging sequel Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2. (Streaming on MUBI.) n

Using my own past experiences, desires, and fears as a reference, or perhaps being unable to avoid them, I eliminate elements that detract from how I understand the subject and enhance those that are at the core of its identity, making it more like itself than it is. Much like storytelling, where the journey amplifies the message.

That brings us to the background. Things naturally come with a background, and that context makes a huge difference. With a background, much more of their identity is revealed. I kept the steak on its supermarket butcher paper. I could have depicted it on a plate or a carving board with a knife (I’ve got a great cleaver), but styling would move it away from the basic truth I was chasing, which includes its origin. The meat hasn’t been washed. There are red smears on the paper. It’s just as it was when I unwrapped it.

That link to place in time is something about the encounter I try to maintain, or at least not lose, as I build a painting. I might take a walk-around to determine what views best describe the heart of the subject, but I don’t want it to become a new story as much as a continued story, learning more in the doing, built on what I bring with me.

It was that way with the steak. Scrolling back, my conversation with David brought it to my attention. But before that, there are all those pieces of my past life, including cows observed in fields and barns, butcher shops visited, and meals cooked, that give meaning and context to the ribeye on my counter, wrapped up all nice and marketlike.

You don’t see the “before” part, but you get to employ your recollection when responding to the painting. This image is more than the salivations of a carnivorous artist. It’s a contemplation of the cow. n

was the highest of low art. This helps distract from Reeves’ odd awkwardness in the role. Shorn of his preternaturally goofball endearments, he gloomily galumphs his way through a number of well-filmed actions scenes, which in their excess (see the Paris-set tumbling stairway climax) tend to the flesh-abusingly repetitive. The once and forever Ted

du), trying to make ends meet in a European country ruled by impersonal bureaucracies, both official and unofficial. Tori has his resettlement papers. Lokita, who is pretending to be Tori’s older sister, does not. That’s the driving force behind the duo’s turn to petty crime, first as drug mules, and then, in Lokita’s case, as an effective slave in a marijuana hothouse. Both characters’ spirits and bodies are exploited and abused. The arc of the story is bleak without ever being especially discomforting, though as always with the Dardennes, the craft is acrossthe-board impeccable. Yet the transcendent moments of their best work feel at a distance here — perhaps by design, but sadly to the detriment of the overall project. [N/R] HHH1/2

Personality Crisis: One Night Only (Dirs. Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi). Documentary. A man of many faces? Or just one visage that life has etched more magnificently than most? Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s divine portrait of New York Dolls frontman David Jo-

“Theodore” Logan is additionally shown up by co-lead Donnie Yen as Caine, a blind assassin whose allegiances shift as elegantly as his mesmerizing martial artistry. Too often you wish the movie was only about him. [R] HH1/2

Tori and Lokita (Dirs. Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne). Starring: Pablo Schils, Joely Mbundu, Alban Ukaj. The very talented Belgian brother act behind such spiritual-realist classics as The Son and Two Days, One Night return with one of their grimmest sits, a tale of two African immigrants, Tori (Pablo Schils) and Lokita (Joely Mbun-

hansen interweaves footage from all eras of the gravel-voiced singer’s career, most of it from a gorgeously photographed (by the great Ellen Kuras) set at Cafe Carlyle in Manhattan in January 2020, right before the COVID-19 shutdown. The impending pandemic is mentioned only twice — once by Johansen in a months-later interview, the second via an end credits title card. But it informs the documentary’s overall thesis that there’s a strange cohesion to Johansen’s chameleonic metamorphoses from band’s band punk legend (a teenage Morrissey was even president of the NY Dolls fan club) to one-hit-wonder pop star (in the form of “Hot Hot Hot” crooner Buster Poindexter) to nichey Rock-’n’Roll elder statesman. Epochal shifts in the culture only fortify Johansen’s unique artistic abilities. No micro or macro societal changes can upend this master craftsman from pursuing his calling, and, as the film so sublimely attests, we’re all the better for it. [N/R] HHHH n

Keanu Reeve in John Wick: Chapter 4

Tori and Lokita

David Johansen

VALLEY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

a winner. An oasis in a gritty commercial/industrial maze, Coca-Cola Park offers a ton of fun: picnic patios; a tiki-bar terrace; a grassy hillock for lounging; a giant soda bottle that spurts fireworks after home-team home runs. Creative promotions run rampant; this month’s added attractions include Mother’s Day fireworks and Kentucky Derby Day mint juleps. The menu is a brimming banquet of brisket bowls, pepperoni pizza pretzels, cheese curds and pig products galore (i.e., bacon cannoli). Visitors enjoy $9 general admission, $5 parking, free admission for leashed dogs on Tuesdays, and rehab assignments from major-league heroes like Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper, who last year created a sensation by mashing two homers against the Gwinnett Stripers, an Atlanta Braves affiliate. No wonder the IronPigs have led the entire minor leagues in attendance, averaging 9,000-odd bodies in a stadium with 8,278 seats and a merchandise store with a foul ball caught and signed by musician John Mayer. (1050 IronPigs Way, off Union Boulevard, Allentown; 610-841-PIGS; ironpigsbaseball.com)

Loretta O’Sullivan has played cello in Royal Albert Hall, accompanied silent movies, and launched an ensemble that commissions

Orchestra and the resident artist of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s 115th festival. She’ll solo in concertos by Vivaldi and C.P.E. Bach, Johann Sebastian’s son. Other festive highlights include the local premiere of a newly discovered J.S. cantata and the streaming of the Mass in B Minor, the cornerstone of America’s oldest Bach choir. (May 12-13 and May 19-20, various venues in Bethlehem; 610-866-4382; bach.org)

ArtsQuest is an entertainment octopus with tentacles curled around a Christmas tent and an ice-skating rink, an avant-garde pavilion and an indoor café with a two-story window overlooking Bethlehem Steel’s mighty blast furnaces. Long bound to Bethlehem, the nonprofit has added an Allentown park as a satellite, a wide-open preserve harkening back to Musikfest’s beginnings as a big pastoral picnic. The inaugural bill on May 12 showcases Face 2 Face, with Mike Santoro and Ronnie Smith recreating the Billy Joel-Elton John tours by playing everything from Scenes from an Italian Restaurant to Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding. May 13 is devoted to the Ultimate Doors, with a Jim Morrison look- and sound-alike toasting “L.A. Woman,” and Splintered Sunlight, which has been resurrecting Grateful Dead numbers for a quarter century. Bring blankets and chairs, on which you can eat such food truck fare as pizza, tacos and designer ice cream. Your leashed dogs can eat and howl along. (Grange Park, 360 Grange Rd., Allentown; 610-3321300; artsquest.org)

John Ahlin is a master comic actor who can stop the show with a nod or a wink, a pelvic thrust or a triple take. Burly of body and beard, voice and manner, he’s more than a match for Sir John Falstaff, Shakespeare’s perennially soused, merrily bombastic, profoundly melancholy sidekick to Prince Hal/King Henry. Ahlin reunites with his theatrical alter ego in Henry IV, Part II, which opens the 32nd season of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, which he’s served nobly as a kind of resident clown/king. He’ll join his colleagues in a bare-bones production they’ll choreograph, outfit and prop up. Other festive highlights include a Billie Holiday cabaret musical and The Tempest , Shakespeare’s magical farewell, directed by retiring PSF co-founder Dennis Razze, a musical specialist and an all-around swell fellow.

CITY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

val, the Kensington Derby & Arts Festival, Spring Fest 2023 in Roxborough, and the 2023 Ardmore Outdoor Beer Fest—all of these things happen in May. Holster up. Only May 18’s 5th Annual Festival of the Peony at Styer’s Peonies sounds like you won’t need a gun for your safety. How about mace, though. Think about it.

Philly Tech Week is upon us, May 5 through 13, mostly centered at Rivers Casino on Delaware Avenue, which tells me that maybe I will lose my shirt at the tech of slot machines. There is, however, the Freshwave Teen Tech + Music Festival at the University City Science Center, lots of coding and gaming sessions, and, of course, everything virtual and AI ChatGPT oriented. Fun.

Obscure yet selling in the gazillions in their time, a chic producer Trevor Horn double feature hits The Met Philadelphia on May 11 with both Horn’s one-time band, The Buggles (the duo behind the first ever video to air on MTV, Video Killed the Radio Star) and Seal, the sleekly-arranged electronic R&B singer behind Crazy and Kiss from a Rose fame. I’ll be there.

Deconstructing the classics of theater and literature plays a crucial role in maintaining their canons and modernizing their voices in league with contemporary times. With that, the Philadelphia Artists’ Collective with adapters-actors Jessica Bedford, Kathryn MacMillan, Charlotte Northeast, and Meghan Winch (and director MacMillian) present a world premiere fresh adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre at the Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N American Street in Philadelphia from May 11 to 28, 2023. Featuring Charlotte Northeast as Jane, along with what seems like a Handmaid’s Tale-like chorus of Janes (watch for that), this new take on Jane Eyre offers greater opportunities for independence without losing its romanticism.

contemporary works. This month she’s double timing as a principal in the Bach Festival

(Henry IV, Part II, May 31-June 11, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, DeSales University, 2755 Station Ave., Center Valley; 610-282-WILL; pashakespeare.org) n

All human life outside of Philly’s sports venue row in South Philly will stop as Taylor Swift takes over the city—an outgrowth of her Pennsylvania roots—between May 12 and May 14. Three nights at the Lincoln Financial Stadium for the Swifties. God bless those kids and their moms. n

Loretta O'sullivan

Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn.

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sions that Chet Baker made in 1979 for KRO Radio in Holland. Thanks to Frank, we had a pathway to procure these sessions and get them out. And that was great because the sound of these tapes— of Chet’s trumpet and voice—moved me.”

And moving Feldman, emotionally and artistically, is how sessions such as Baker’s open-ended bluesy runs at standards such as Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke’s “Oh, You Crazy Moon” or a rubbery, upbeat instrumental take on Irving Berlin’s “The Best Thing for You,” or Baker compositions such as “Blue Gilles” come to move the audiences flocking to Jazz Detective’s releases.

“Some record labels operate with a profit-driven motivation. But it’s always, first and foremost, about what excites me. And it starts in the looking for things,” said Feldman of the thrill of the chase.

The same thing was true of working with the very-much-alive Ahmad Jamal on the Live at the Penthouse tapes from 1963–1964 and 1965–1966 (Feldman and I just happened to speak mere days before the pianist’s passing). Vibrant and proactive, having an artist to bounce ideas off of was a valuable opportunity for Feldman.

“Certainly, there is such a magnificent benefit to having the person who made the music working directly with you,” said Feldman of Jamal. “More often than not, I find myself making key executive decisions on behalf of the artist—Chet Baker, Shirley Scott, Bill Evans. In the case of the Penthouse tapes, Mr. Jamal was in the front seat the entire way. He reviewed the music with me and commented on the audio and how we might adjust things. But, also working with me on every aspect of Emerald Night’s assembly, signing off on its artwork—we drove this car together. And that was a wonderful opportunity. Ahmad Jamal has always inspired me as an artist, which started with hearing him as part of my parents’ record collection. My mom had all of Jamal’s albums. I love this man.” With that, Feldman let’s slip with a “stay tuned,” as another volume of Penthouse tapes, 1967-1968, is due out shortly. “Thank you, Ahmad Jamal, for playing such an active role.”

As happy as Feldman is discussing Baker and Jamal, credit must be paid for his work on several re-editions and newly released rarities from the vaults of the enigmatic rhythm and harmony innovator that was pianist and composer Bill Evans.

“Finding Bill Evans’ lost work throughout the last 13 years has taken me through such an amazing journey with his family,” said Feldman of albums such as 2020’s Live at Ronnie Scott’s and 2021’s Behind the Dikes: The 1969 Netherlands Recordings. “That has meant a lot of trust in me on the part of Bill’s family. I love the 3-LP Treasures too. We did hard research on everything Evans, me, and my team. And what was even greater was that these tapes, Evans’ tapes, had never been leaked or heard in a previous incarnation as they came from the archives of Uli Mattson—a producer for Danish radio. He produced and curated many of these Evans sessions, and I worked with Evan Evans, Bill Evans’ son and an artist in his own right. They’re a treasure.”

“These are different offerings of these records—Chet is in glorious form in the studio, as is Bill. The energy and the power of the universe are with me. Along with being inquisitive and finding stuff, it comes to us with luck and love. And when we find these things, we’re not in a mad rush to put them out. We take our time. There’s a lot of review and scrutiny. Sadly, some record labels, I’ll tell you, don’t play by the rules, are motivated solely by profit, and just put things out. We read the tea leaves. We want to put out that which is important. I want to have special stuff—keep up our batting average. And this new Chet stuff and Bill stuff are diamonds. Chet didn’t read music, just played by ear with this rich tone—so many of his sessions are timeless. These 1979 sessions, most of them were done in just one take. Masterful. Chet is iconic for a reason.”

It’s important to note, too, that Feldman, in connection with Elemental, the label behind Evans’ 2023 Treasures, also holds the note on the Deep Digs Music Group, an archival record company that will work toward non-jazz releases. To that end, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention 2022’s Revelations: The Complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings from the late, great saxophonist and composer Albert Ayler—his last recordings made shortly before his suicide. “Working on this project—this was a labor of love. I sometimes carry tapes on my back for years, but in this case, even more so. We went to labels who didn’t want it, but I was not giving up—this was an important chance to reconstruct his last concerts in full in the Cote d’Azure. Projects such as these are not for the faint of heart, and after seven years of carrying the tapes around, they came out. We read the tea leaves. That is the key.”

Come this autumn, expect Jazz Detective projects from Ahmad Jamal, Cal Tjader, and the godmother of rock and roll (“she was doing windmills on her guitar before Pete Townshend”) Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

“It’s archival, and it moves me—that’s what all of the music I produce and release must do,” said Zev Feldman. “There is always great music to come.” n

ZEV FELDMAN / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18

Bill Evans / Getty Images

Bill Evans.

Chet Baker. Photo Chris Lewis.

them. Channeling a voice was crucial to be able to continually write them.

A.D. Amorosi: You're are a Flannery O’Connor fan, but I sense some John Cheever in this new album.

Josh Ritter: Yeah, I can see that. Just off the top of my head, any of us who’ve lived long enough can start to sense parts of or stages of our lives slipping away. Sometimes, you swim through every suburban pool in West Chester to get home; other times, you’re lucky if you follow a voice like that, and it gets you to a new self.

just couldn’t be mine. So, I had to make this as broad and universal as possible, which meant that I had to strip a lot of stuff away. And including songs such as “In Fields” and “Black Crown,” which were even more mysterious to me. But I had to trust that they were right because they felt right.

A.D. Amorosi: Are you writing to theme like Spectral Lines before the process starts, or are you hitting upon its themes as you go along, then curating from there?

Josh Ritter: The latter, yeah. This album is like not chipping away at the granite to make a statue; instead, you have to start digging at the quarry. You have this immensity in which to work from. I remember reading that Michelangelo said how he saw the statue inside the marble before it was cut. I really relate to that idea because once you have uncut in front of you, it’s just a huge pile of ideas, hopes, and dreams to pick through and want to put in. It was early before the pandemic. And then you find the theme; then you find the statue underneath. Usually, it starts with a song, a palate from which I’d like to write, and a feeling I’d like to spread across the album. On this one, the song was “Sawgrass,” which I made the first track. That song told me that I was moving in a different direction; I’m going to sit with this. Plus, as I was working on this, it was a time when my mom was losing her battle with ovarian cancer. We had to travel to Idaho for her, me, the kids, and Haley. Lots of travel. A bizarre time. We wound up in my old hometown in Idaho and suddenly back where I grew up. I had a real hard time writing at that moment. Why is writing so unappealing? I was so perplexed by that. My relationship with art was dicey. Without it, I was vulnerable.

A.D. Amorosi: Confusion about work and life is a hard road to hoe. Josh Ritter: I didn't know how I was going to get through all this. This was me now, not a stage. Once that happened, though, as my mom was quickly passing away in my old hometown, I remember looking in a mirror and giving myself a pep talk—I wasn’t worthy of the experience to come; I wasn’t prepared. And from there, just putting my finger on that allowed me to think about writing again, that I would strive to be good. That was wide-open, heart-stopping. And I wanted to turn all that into something universal, something other people could use.

A.D. Amorosi: Michelangelo also had Pope Julius II riding his ass when he stared into stone and pigment. So the spectral line, as a concept, deals in the strongest and weakest spot in an otherwise continuous spectrum whose might or impuissance comes from the absorption of light within its frequency. It’s all atoms and molecules. How does that title fit this new stretch song of yours?

A.D. Amorosi: In terms of a focused set of narratives, the new record feels broader in scope and its universality of themes than your other albums.

Josh Ritter: Well, that makes me feel great because that’s what I was truly going for. There were moments in the writing of Spectral Lines where I had—and still have—all of these long, narrative song stories that are more complete in terms of character. Then I realized that to get the feeling I wanted for this new album, I had to leave those narratives off of the record. That was hard for me, but the words were getting in the way of the stories. There needed to be a musical flow without too many obstructions. I was building a hallway for somebody else to walk down. It

Josh Ritter: The thing that jumped out at me in the last couple of years is that after everything we lost in the pandemic, I was looking for a way to come back with a record with a feeling that was right. I didn’t want to bash down the door or put on my party hat. At the same time, we were discovering exoplanets, reinvesting ourselves in the Hubble telescope, and looking back before the Big Bang or whatever got us here. And all the things that were profoundly eye-opening and soulopening just hit me all at once. Here I am, living this little life in Brooklyn, and I’m wondering about the stars while these true artists—these scientists and astronomers—have the same simple questions as I have. I fell into that vocabulary, the place where gravity flattens things out so that the rings of planets and spectral lines where you can find the composition of atmospheres. And those things are so beautiful to me— that other lonely and confused people could look up, enter a state, and wonder if connections can be made. n

Josh Ritter, 2015. Photo: Laura Wilson.

harper’s FINDINGS

Artificial intelligence researchers estimated that, among categories of domestic labor, grocery shopping is the most automatable and childcare the least. Japanese subjects rated human-in-the-loop AI-generated haiku as superior to those written entirely by AI or by humans, and information scientists argued that AIs need to be taught not to plagiarize. The claustrum is unlikely to be the seat of consciousness. Bluestreak cleaner wrasse fish will attack photos of unfamiliar fish faces but not of themselves; they will also, if shown a photo of a parasite-like mark on their throats, attempt to remove it. Researchers proposed that animal consciousness is neither a binary proposition nor a continuous gradation but an assemblage of qualities: perceptual richness, evaluative richness, evaluative intensity, external synchronic unity, and external diachronic unity; self-synchronic unity, self-diachronic unity, experience of agency, and experience of ownership; reasoning, learning, and abstraction. “It is not necessarily worthwhile to ask whether a mouse has more consciousness than an octopus,” said the lead author of the study. 9

Scientists observed the brain waves of freely moving day octopuses for the first time by implanting sensors and data loggers inside their brains and mantles. A roboticist attempting to model the complex and wideranging movements of octopus arms observed that “the arm rests at the minimum of an energy landscape.” A fellow researcher noted, “Upstream, there are biologists who perform experiments on octopuses. Downstream, there are roboticists who are taking these mathematical ideas and applying them to real soft robots.” Male owners of sex dolls are more likely to see women as unknowable and the world as dangerous. Other studies found that men who treat female sex dolls as partners rather than as toys tend to exhibit greater objectification and hostility toward human women; that male and female torso sex dolls, unlike genital sex dolls, require a degree of symbolic social interaction; and that indications of the proclivity for abusing human children among owners of child-like sex dolls are mixed. Whereas in the late Nineties singing male humpback whales off Queensland’s Peregian Beach were twice as likely as non-singing males to be observed attempting to mate, by 2015 non-singing males had become five times as likely to try to mate as singing males. Australian scientists who played sounds for snakes found that woma pythons tend to move toward pink noise while death adders tend to move away. Researchers modified the genes of bee eggs to create seven transgenic queens who, when instrumentally inseminated, produced worker-caste descendants whose brains fluoresce in proportion to the intensity of their neural activity. Fibroblast growth factor 21 stops drunken mice from stumbling. 9

The crowdsourced collection of dead hedgehogs by Danes (whose teeth, among the long-dead, revealed recurrent plague reintroduction between 1333 and 1649) showed that male hedgehogs are likelier to die while crossing the road. Mongolian gerbils who receive semicircular canal fenestration in their left inner ears offer a successful animal model for superior semicircular canal dehiscence. A noble false widow ate a pygmy shrew in West Sussex, and the deaths of two kits who were released into Loch Lomond were blamed on an otter. Officials investigated whether the abduction of two tamarin monkeys from the Dallas Zoo who were later found in a suburban closet was connected to the escape of a clouded leopard and the suspicious death of a lappet-faced vulture, or to the kidnapping of twelve squirrel monkeys in Louisiana. Untrained humans can identify the meanings of common chimpanzee and bonobo gestures, and Nagasaki zookeepers concluded that Momo, a twelve-year-old white-handed gibbon, had become pregnant by Ito, a thirty-four-yearold agile gibbon, through a nine-millimeter hole in a steel plate between their cages. n

INDEX

Year in which Japan’s population began to decline: 2011

In which South Korea’s did: 2021

China’s: 2022

Percentage increase in the U.S. maternal mortality rate in the past twenty years: 78

Percentage of U.S. population growth last year attributable to migration: 80

Percentage increase in the past year in the number of Russians entering the United States through Mexico: 430

Min. number of unaccompanied minors who have entered the U.S. through Mexico since 2020: 250,000

Portion of those minors officials have lost contact after releasing them to sponsors: 1/3

Estimated portion of those minors who work full-time jobs: 2/3

Min. % increase in the number of minors working in the U.S. since 2015: 300 Number of U.S. state legislatures that have proposed bills since 2021 loosening restrictions on child labor: 9

Number of weeks the median American head of household had to work to support a middle-class family in 1985: 40

In 2022: 62

% increase over the past 20 years in the number of Americans over 65 working: 132

Portion of U.S. retirees who are considering returning to work: 1/6

Minimum portion of Chinese men over 60 who still work: 7/10

Average % adults over 40 perceive themselves to be younger than they are: 20

Average number of hours per week Gen Z-ers say they spend helping older colleagues locate computer files: 8

Chances that a remote worker has worked more than one job at once in the past year: 4 in 5

That they have been fired from a job after an employer discovered this: 1 in 3

Portion of remote workers who say they’d prefer to be laid off in-person: 1/2

Percentage of Americans who have lied at least once on their résumé: 55

Portion who said they had a college degree when they did not: 1/4

Who took a job after lying and can complete the required daily tasks without issue: 9/10

Percentage increase since 2011 in the number of managers in the U.S. labor force: 32

Factor by which this is more than the overall increase in U.S. workers: 2.5

Percentage increase since 2017 in the rate at which women in senior positions are leaving their companies: 21

Portion of Americans who say they’re worse off financially today than they were last year: 1/2

Percentage increase in total U.S. credit card debt in the past year: 19

Percentage decrease in total U.S. home sales: 18

Minimum number of states proposing laws to restrict foreign ownership of land: 27

Minimum number of professional athletes who have invested in Iowa farmland: 24

Portion of Americans who moved last year who did so for political reasons: 1/10

Who regret having moved: 3/4

Number of U.S. homes owned and occupied by single men: 8,120,000

By single women: 10,760,000

Percentage of American women under thirty who are single: 34 Of American men under thirty who are: 63

Portion of Americans who think society is less moral than it was 250 years ago: 1/3

Than it was ten years ago: 1/2

SOURCES: 1 Statistics Bureau of Japan (Tokyo); 2 Statistics Korea (Daejeon, South Korea); 3 National Bureau of Statistics of China (Beijing); 4 World Health Organization (Geneva); 5 U.S. Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.); 6 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (Washington); 7–9 The New York Times (NYC); 10,11 Economic Policy Institute (Washington); 12,13 American Compass (Washington); 14 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Washington); 15 Paychex (Rochester, N.Y.); 16 Capital Economics (Toronto); 17 David C. Rubin, Duke University (Durham, N.C.); 18 OSlash (San Francisco); 19,20 ResumeBuilder. com (Seattle); 21 SurveyMonkey (San Mateo, Calif.); 22–24 StandOut CV (London); 25,26 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; 27 Lean In (San Francisco); 28 Gallup (Washington); 29 TransUnion (Chicago); 30 National Association of Realtors (Washington); 31 National Agricultural Law Center (Fayetteville, Ark.); 32 Patricof Co (NYC); 33,34 Clever Real Estate (St. Louis); 35,36 LendingTree (Charlotte, N.C.); 37,38 Pew Research Center (Washington); 39,40 YouGov (NYC).

ON A ROLL

BY EVAN BIRNHOLZ

The answer to this metapuzzle is a six-letter word.

2 Shares, as an account

3 Like a secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere

4 NorCal NFL pro

5 Audio/auto installation

6 Lea who was the first Asian actress to win a Tony

7 Potential prune

8 Garner

11 Make the Wright decision?

12 Ballpoint tool, maybe

13 LPGA standard

14 Reef polyp

15 Throat woe

16 Like some hazardous precipitation

17 Provoked with jokes

18 “Marching” instructions

28 Fuel type

29 “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” wrap

33 Sway on the highway, say

34 Akira Kurosawa’s “epic primal myth that pulsates through cinema,” per a headline in the Guardian

35 Corny core

38 How valedictorians excel

40 Unsettles

43 ___ Mahal Palace (hotel in Mumbai)

45 Monastery’s arcade area

47 i will show you one, but I will not

49 Apple desktop beginning in 2006

50 Caught in a trap

52 Mathematician Lovelace

53 Scorer of the “flying goal” to win the 1970 Stanley Cup

55 Destroy, as a document

56 Gardner who plays Bailey Gismert on SNL

57 Take a position, say

59 Output of angsty bands

61 What’s freshened by mouthwash

62 Stock purchase that’s less than the normal amount of shares

63 Segments

64Shout of surrender

65Daddy

75Democratic Socialist Republic of ___ Lanka

76Grater good?

79Bio 101 molecule

81 Unspecified ordinal

86Getting interrupted, e.g., for many

88 Having an inclination for

89 Like former mil. leaders

90 Own (up to)

91 Conclusion of a relay

93 Food service headwear

94 Old video game company whose first four letters match the middle four letters of 115 Across

95 Frozen cover

96Uprising

98 Salt of an acid that has element No. 53

99 Vitals checkers

101 Bygone AT&T rival

102 Endangered primate

104 Leave Boston or Chicago, say?

106 Soprano Lehmann

108 Message taking up memory

110 Update, as a passport

114 Language written in Nastaliq script

116 Parent’s boy

117 “Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for ___ Rights” (2015 book by Ann Bausum)

118 “Lassie” network

Solution on page 33