film classics
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994, Alan Rudolph, United States/Canada)
Cowriter-director Alan Rudolph adeptly avoids the biopic curse with this invigorating drama about caustic wit Dorothy Parker (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and the literati circle, known as the Algonquin Round Table, with whom she traded barbs and bons mots. Instead of the thenthis-happened narrative progression of most biographical features, Rudolph conjures the ineffable atmosphere of the times in which Parker existed and lets his sprawling cast (Campbell Scott and Matthew Broderick appear in major roles, while smaller parts are filled out by everyone from Stanley Tucci to a then-unknown Jon Favreau) live in the moment. It often feels like we’ve been transported back to this vibrant period and granted a literal seat next to Parker, Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, George S. Kaufman, et al. At the center of it all is Leigh, doing another of her perfectly prickly inhabitations of a character whose repellent qualities are as fascinating as her alluring ones.
(Streaming on Criterion Channel.)
Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa, Japan)
In the 16th century, an aging ronin, Kambei (Takashi Shimura), is tasked with protecting the residents of a small village beset by bandits. He gathers a ragtag group of samurai for the job, among them Toshirô Mifune’s rabble-rousing Kikuchiyo (who may not be the warrior he claims to be), and sets to work fortifying the settlement. Over several brilliantly staged attack scenes, swords and personalities clash, and a gripping communal bond, humorous at some points, heartbreaking at others, comes to the fore. Akira Kurosawa’s close-to-four-hour epic provided the template for many films to follow, among them the Western-themed The Magnificent Seven (1960), and just about any movie you can think of where an expert team is gathered to overcome impossible odds. The original, unsurprisingly, is still among the best. (Streaming on Max.)
16 ICON | JUNE / JULY 2023 | ICONDV.COM KEITH UHLICH
Stephen Baldwin and Jennifer Jason Leigh
in
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
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Photo
WHEN THIS CEN-
TURY’S MOSTprosaic songwriting singer, Rufus Wainwright, plays his 2023 series of dates in the area— June 23’s Kimmel Cul- tural Campus in Philadelphia, June 25’s Count Basie Center in Red Bank, NJ, June 29’s Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, NJ— his newest tour will benefit from yet another of pop’s old- est traditions. For while previous Wainwright albums, such as his eponymous debut (currently celebrating its 25th anniversary with an expanded, digital re-release), Poses, and Want One and Two, benefitted from the inspirations of Tin Pan Alley, showtune and chamber pop, Rufus’ newest work, Folkocracy, reaches into his family’s birthright of socially astute and lyrically incisive folk music.
Wainwright spoke from Los Angeles about mothers, fathers, and the folkocracy within.
A.D. Amorosi: Thinking about the dedication to the pop composition of Unfollow the Rules (2020) and now, in its way, Folkocracy of the last three years, you seem to have moved away from art forms, such as opera and theater, idioms that were more peripheral to your work. Perhaps more so to concentrate on songcraft and, let’s say, your ‘pop’ career since the pandemic. True or false?
Rufus Wainwright: There are projects I’m working on, some of which are in the theater, that—since Broadway, which always takes many, many years to produce—is taking time to get through, my schedule is slightly deceiving. That said, I’ve been writing tons of songs because of that wait, and with that time, there’s a gush of more personal material that’s arisen and different avenues, and this, at least, gives the impression that I am creative.
A.D. Amorosi: Beyond having the time, do you know why this moment in your life is ripe for introspection, for more personal songs?
Rufus Wainwright: For one thing, I appreciate the time I have for myself and my family to write songs. My husband and I split custody of a 12-year-old (Viva) with her mother (Lorca Cohen). So, when Jörn (Weisbrodt) and I aren’t busy trying to be decent dads, we’re either exhausted or thrilled to have time to work on what we love. When you have a kid in your life, you do compartmentalize and take advantage of that “me” time. And the world now has offered us so many dramatic turns in the last several years.
A.D. Amorosi: Turns that work toward the basis of what makes Folkocracy something of a separate entity in your catalog. Mentioning “family,” let’s discuss the tradition you were born into, the McCarrigles, that put the ‘“folk” in Folkocracy. Because tradition is a thing for sons and daughters to rail against too.
Rufus Wainwright: I had mixed feelings. I knew that the folk idiom had given us some of the greatest songs ever written—the very compact lyrics, the power of its stories. With that, the folk world was incredibly heterosexual, rigid, artistically, and, surprisingly, not filled with the most
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AMOROSI
Unfollowing the rules (again) with Folkocracy
Rufus Wainwright
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Portrait of Wainwright by Oliver Mark, Berlin 2010
The Jewelry of Henri David & Halloween
SWhere too much is never enough
SOMETHING LOST IN THEtranslation
of iconic Philadelphian Henri David and his claim to fame as this city’s arbiter of all things celebratory when it comes to his decadent, dressy, annual Halloween Ball (so dedicated is David to Hallows Eve that during the pandemic, he rented a horse and carriage and gave out candy and “save the date” notes) is that his rise in prominence and costumed display comes courtesy of his role as Philly’s equally decorous, preeminent jewelry designer.
From his sign-free perch on Pine Street—his Halloween rowhome, studio, and sales palace—David not only holds court with locals in-the-know, wise out-oftowners who collect his singular work, and regularly-buying celebrities such as Elton John and Stevie Nicks. The visually-arresting tower of uniquely cut gems, metals, antiquities, and more is where David makes the magic and has for decades.
First and foremost, beyond any party, ball, gala, or promenade in which he will parade, Henri Davis is an artist, a jewelry designer, and a maker who lives inside his work and knows all of its histories, mysteries, and inner workings. And, for all of the wilds and wonders of his art and craft— how it almost seems as if David summons up each piece from a wish—there is a long, great backstory to how he got to the table.
At Theatre Exile’s May tribute to David as a leader in Philadelphia arts, he began telling the story of how, at age 12, he was a costume boy for a local theater company when he was asked to procure rhinestones for the show’s costumer. “I learned from them, but when they needed things done, I figured out how to get things done,” said David. “It was never my intention to be be-
hind the scenes and working. I wanted to be on stage, acting.”
Once part of the backstage milieu (“it was all sparkly and enjoyable”), David was introduced to a jeweler, with whom he began to train without actually having asked for the skill set. “He told me that now I was going to be a jeweler, and that was that.”
From there, David began designing, making, and selling baby bracelets (“all the rage back then”) for his classmates and young friends in the synagogue. “It didn’t involve any fire or soldering and was easy to do.” Continuing his research, the teen Davis discovered New York City’s famed Bead District, where he found fancier beads still. “It wasn’t serious jewelry yet, but rather décor,” said David of his early days of designing and selling. “But costume jewelry got my feet wet and allowed me to meet some of the people that took me into my next phase.”
The next phase involved David stumbling into the Philadelphia shop and home studio of Wesley Emmons, the famed modernist master jewelry designer whose school gave rise to the next wave of local jewelry-making icons such as Henri and his classmates Douglas Randall
“I had no money for his school, but I would just wander into his shop and bug him until he allowed me to sit quietly next to his bench, with my hands in my lap, and watch him work.” After six months of such study, Emmons allowed David to tinker, get his hands dirty and hang with his student community.
“Wesley needed money as he had a house, wife, and kids to pay for. He had his school and reputation with galleries and
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The unassuming doorstep at 1329 Pime Street doesn’t hint at the treasures inside.
Henri David. Photo: A.D. Amorosi..
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Some Like It Hot (1959, Billy Wilder, United States)
Billy Wilder’s classic dark comedy, set during the Prohibition era is close to flawless. After witnessing a Chicago mob hit, musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) go undercover in female drag so they can hide out among a traveling group of female musicians. They soon befriend, and mutually lust after, the band’s lead vocalist Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe), though the duo’s newly awakened feminine wiles complicate matters considerably. Wilder and co-screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond’s verbal dexterity is breathtaking
I spent time learning about President Clayton Spencer. We had some Zoom chats, where I enjoyed her search for the positive and humor in things. There was a refreshing independence to her thinking. Before her time at Bates, she spent 15 years in top-level policy positions for Harvard.
While at Bates, Spencer maintained a focus on reinvigorating the sciences, including shepherding a new state-of-the-art building. She led the college through a decade of growth and innovation, not to mention a global pandemic, doing everything you do to prepare the students for a rapidly changing world. All good stuff, but none of it gave me a painting that would touch her. I also read up on the College and even drove around it on Google Earth. Still, no smiles. Then a friend mentioned the parties.
Spencer attended a morning exercise class where she developed friendships that moved outside of the gym. Over the years, after commencement or a particularly challenging stretch at the college, the women would get together, typically in Clayton’s backyard, for a drink and a relaxing evening. They called them margarita parties. That’s a thought that comes with a built-in smile. I asked if she could assemble the friends for one last get-together. I had my painting.
Well, sort of. There still was the decision of where to put the group. The first choice was the backyard in the dappled light under the blooming cherry tree—scene of notable gatherings past. If it rained, then on the back porch. If it was really awful, inside.
Bates is in Maine, a state that takes pride in being meteorologically impulsive. The weather went from wonderful to not-sowonderful in the days leading up to the painting, and I wasn’t sure what I would have to deal with. It wasn’t just a matter of the women being able to stick it out while I worked; I needed protection from gusts that might blow my entire kit to oblivion. It’s happened before. There was also the porch, open on two sides, offering a slight windbreak but not much. It was closer quarters, which would make the perspective tough.
(“Why would a guy wanna marry a guy?” “Security!”), as of course is Monroe’s inimitable vocal and physical mannerisms. (What other movie star ever strummed a ukulele like this?!?) Curtis also gets to parody Cary Grant in several rib-tickling seduction scenes with Monroe, while Lemmon hilariously tangoes the night away with smitten millionaire Joe E. Brown, who delivers a closing line (“Nobody’s perfect!”) for the ages. (Streaming on Max.)
The Triplets of Belleville (2003, Sylvain Chomet, France/Belgium/Canada/United Kingdom/Latvia/United States)
A near dialogue-free wonder, Sylvain Chomet’s animated adventure follows the diminutive Madame Souza as she heads from the country to the big city in pursuit of the mobsters who kidnapped her biker son from the Tour de France. For what reason? Something more surreal and stranger than you could possibly imagine. But then, Chomet’s film delights in upending anything approaching a normal perspective. The metropolis Souza finds herself in is a nonsensical marvel, as are the people (each drawn with sublime exaggeration) that she encounters. Chief among her new acquaintances is a trio of elderly former singers, the towering, titular triplets, whose musically syncopated interactions with each other prove handy in many of the topsy-turvy crises that result. Chomet takes a good deal of inspiration from Jacques Tati (Chomet would later pay full homage to the French comic genius in his followup feature, The Illusionist), though the view-askew universe he creates here is uniquely and rivetingly his own. (Streaming on MUBI.) n
Or I could bring them all inside. A gathering in the house would work, but as we neared the scheduled date, I learned the furniture would already be moved out. Clayton sent me photos of the porch and backyard, but I wouldn’t know what I was doing until I was there and could see the lay of the land. I arrived hours before the friends, so I had time to sort it out.
Three decades of having these experiences go right and wrong were weighing in. The backyard was beautiful but way too cold and windy, so I stood in the open doorway facing out at the gusting cold winds, painting each person as they took a turn at a chair on the back porch. My easel and paints were sitting on the cabinet next to me. I would select one of the women, arrange them in a chair, tell them which direction to look, go back in, and paint them. It only took about ten minutes each. The rest of the painting was already in place. The others got to watch while I worked and have their party in comfort. They were all enthusiastically cooperative. Maybe it was the margaritas.
The painting took three hours, all of which I spent in the open doorway, standing sideways to face my kit. When I was finished, my right hand—the one that usually holds the rag and brushes, wouldn't function. It had been in the direct wind blast and took a while to get back up to operational temperature.
Everyone was pleased. It was more than a representation of past eventsit was an event with its own meaning. President Spencer had her gift—a memory of a place and time to celebrate. We would get prints of the painting for the friends. It was something that, in the future, would get a lot of fond memories flowing. And smiles. n
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FILM CLASSICS / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16
Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot
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That she never shows us Clément’s wife puts us squarely in Sandra’s emotional corner, though this never once minimizes the damage caused by a heedless tryst that slowly becomes something much, much more. Somehow Hansen-Løve makes us feel the pain of all the people involved, even those who never appear onscreen, though it does seem here, unlike in several of her great works like Things to Come and
the trademark bone-breaking and bloodletting. Taking place almost entirely in a condemned apartment building during a dark and stormy night, the film follows the terrors that result after a fractured family and their neighbors discover the demon-raising “Book of the Dead.”
Alyssa Sutherland is terrific as the acrobatic chief ghoul, as is Lily Sullivan as the flawed parent-to-be who fights to keep her soul and several others from eternal damnation. What’s missing is any shred of the humor Raimi and his bug-eyed leading man Bruce Campbell brought to most of the other Evil Dead entries. The strained seriousness of the proceedings is as goopy as the copious Karo Syrup that drenches much of the cast from head to toe. [R] HHH
Master Gardener (Dir. Paul Schrader). Starring: Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver, Quintessa Swindell. Leave it to controversy-courting writer-director Paul Schrader to make a movie out of a very of-themoment hypothetical: What if a Proud Boy fell in love with a Black girl? The very Schraderianly monikered Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton) is
Goodbye First Love, that she invests a little too much in understatement. A small price to pay, overall, for such a precisely observed story with as empathetic an eye as this. [R] HHH1/2
Evil Dead Rise (Dir. Lee Cronin). Starring: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies. A bracingly nasty piece of work, this latest entry in the enduring Evil Dead horror series once again relegates
original creator Sam Raimi to an executive producer role. Replacing him in the writer-director chair is Lee Cronin, who transposes a mother-love melodrama in the vein of Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook atop all
chief horticulturist at a sprawling estate owned by wealthy dowager Norma (Sigourney Weaver). He also happens to be an ex-white supremacist trying to live a better, quieter life. Then Norma’s adoptive African American niece Maya (Quintessa Swindell) comes to visit and both she and Narvel fall in love, upending the already strange status quo. As often with Schrader, the ridiculousness of the premise is treated with a hushed holiness borrowed from one of the filmmaker’s favorite cinematic touchstones, Robert Bresson. Of course Narvel is a diarist in the vein of the great French director’s country priest, and of course his and Maya’s redemption is achieved by walking an aesthetically and philosophically austere path, one occasionally enlivened by literally colorful bursts of love and lust, and building toward a transcendent moment that will be as sublime for some as it will be silly for others. The Schrader formula is, however, deeply affecting for those who can access its queer wavelength. [R] HHHH n
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/ CONTINUED
ROUNDUP
FROM PAGE 14
Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver,
Léa Seydoux and Melvil Poupaud in One Fine Morning
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a poll for June selections. All in all, Becky’s is pure Americana: entertaining, engaging, endearing. (4548 Lehigh Drive/Route 248, Walnutport; 610-767-2249; beckysdi.com)
It’s an unjust world when the Cars are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Blue Oyster Cult isn’t. BOC deserves enshrinement for a half century of reliably raucous, transcendental tunes tasteful to bikers and sci-fi fans, Metallica and J.K. Rowling. On June 23 the Long Islanders will summon indelible characters—Romeo & Juliet, Godzilla, Death—by opening the sixth summer season at the Univest Performance Center, an increasingly ambitious amphitheater in a pleasant park. In previous years the venue hosted the Guess Who and Pat Benatar, a bona fide hall of famer. This year’s six-act lineup includes country singer Clay Walker (August 11) and the Hooters (August 25), the popular pop rockers whose song All You Zombies bookends BOC’s “( Don’t Fear ) The Reaper ,” whose catchy cowbell inspired a viral Saturday Night Live skit. (301 W. Mill St., Quakertown; 267-372-7275; concerts@quakertown.org)
For six decades Northampton Community College has been ground zero for elastic plays on tight budgets. The inventive theater department has mixed Shakespeare and Sondheim, The Glass Menagerie and an allfemale Waiting for Godot. The college’s summer musical program has been consistently innovative, with crisp, compelling productions of Jesus Christ Superstar and Ragtime This season begins with The Prom (June 718), where four Broadway stars spark their stalled careers by helping same-sex high schoolers defeat heterosexual killjoys. The
always rousing South Pacific (June 27-July 9), based on short stories by Doylestown native James Michener, will be even more rousing with a July 4 barbecue. The wild card is All Shook Up (July 19-30), which entwines Twelfth Night, The Music Man and Elvis Presley classics sung by a crooning, guitarslinging, pelvis-twisting stranger. (Lipkin Theatre, Kopecek Hall, 3835 Green Pond Rd., Bethlehem; 484-484-3412; ncctheatreprograms.org)
A spotted turtle piggybacked on a spotted turtle. A bobcat napped on a three-branch platform. African penguins jetted like underwater birds. These animal acts took place at the Lehigh Valley Zoo, which is eminently habitable for all species. The game preserve is unusually picturesque, set in a hilltop valley in a civilized wilderness, beautifully landscaped with old trees. younger shrubs and waterways. Residents live in nicely natural homes: rainbow lorikeets flit around a screened, slatted porch; endangered Mexican gray wolves prowl around a waterfall. Humane amenities abound: a native-plant garden with a composting display; well-shaded benches; a treehouse-like platform for feeding giraffes; succinct, snappy placards. Who knew, for example, that a tree frog’s tongue can lift a refrigerator? (5150 Game Preserve Rd.; Schnecksville; 610-799-4171; lvzoo.org; June 24 acoustic concert with beer, wine and tacos).
Fashion as Experiment: The ’60s makes everything pop: eyes, brain cells, memories. The magnetic exhibit at the Allentown Art Museum, a textile treasure chest, pulsates with Pop Art prints, flower-power patterns, psychedelic colors, severely sleek geometric cuts and materials—vinyl, cellophane—more suitable for wallpapering than wearing. My 65-year-old senses zoomed back to an Aquarian age of explosive self-expression, when Mondrian color boxes and Warholian soup cans turned non-models into models. A trim, hip Nehru jacket reminded me of an unfulfilled wish to drive across America in a VW camper, looking like the child of an Indian ambassador and a Beatle. (Through Sept. 24; 31 N. 5th St.; 610-432-4333; allentownartmuseum.org) n
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the poppier staging of the unlikely pair, Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks, on June 16. As both nights have more appeal to post-boomers than they will Gen X, Y, and Z, perhaps renting rooms at the nearby Live! Hotel and Casino will become a sell-out option. Not too long after those album rock icons, Beyonce will bring her funky, chic Renaissance tour to America for the first night’s event, in Philadelphia, at the Lincoln Financial Field on July 12. Expect the wealth of disco ballmirrored cowboy hats to be at an all time low that week—then on sale the week after.
Something dank and below ground level happens on July 15 at the Eraserhood area’s Underground Arts live salon as the Philadelphia Pancakes & Booze Art Show takes over the basement boite. Doughy flapjacks and alcohol sounds wonderful as a meal option for art, and I have no idea of its design, but I will additionally request bacon.
Speaking of ham, I haven’t witnessed comedian and actor Kevin James do anything since his King of Queens show ended its long run on network television, and even then, I don’t recall much of his blue collar humor. But my father LOVED everything that he did—Paul Blart, the weird male marriage comedy he filmed with Adam Sandler—so I say we all fill up the Kimmel Cultural Campus’s Academy of Music on Friday June 16 for James’ standup comic “Irregardless Tour” stop. Do it for Alfonso Amorosi—he’ll be smiling down and laughing.
If you’re looking for humor slightly more caustic that Kevin James, I suggest heading to Glenside’s Keswick Theater for its rock out, go round with the Mael Brothers, Ron and Russell, Sparks. They’re one year past their career-defining documentary directed by auteur Edgar Wright, and the brothers have a new album out in time for the Keswick date— their 26th studio album, The Girl Is Crying
In Her Latte
You say you want to eat outdoors, but it has to be near a moving vehicle? The Philadelphia Food Truck Festival with many large load motor vehicles and a wide array of cuisines takes place on Saturday, July 29 and Sunday, July 30 in the parking lot of the IKEA at 2206 South Christopher Columbus Blvd. If you don’t want the trucks’ food, you can duck into IKEA for its signature weird meatballs and loganberry everything. n
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Answer to “Things Are Going Swimmingly”
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joyous folk. Don’t get me wrong: they like to drink and party, but it’s a rough life being dedicated to that life and the message within the music without ever selling out. It was a double-edged sword: I loved it, and I hated it.
A.D. Amorosi: Considering folk’s heterosexual edge and your dismissal of the scene, do you ever wonder if you missed any of its LGBTQ element, maybe something only more recently revealed?
Rufus Wainwright: Look, I was pretty astute [laughs]. I paid attention to what may or may not have been LGBTQ. It was pretty slim pickings. Along with that, there was always this tremendous lesbian tradition in the folk world that was far more advanced and established, so I was perhaps a little jealous of that. So, I went rushing toward opera and theater songs. Folk was too masculine for me, even when I saw my mother (Kate McGarrigle) as masculine when it came to playing an instrument or putting a song across. Her control of a room was something of a battlefield. But that is also what made her and her work with her sister great, when I look back. Her music—it was warfare.
A.D. Amorosi: I’ve witnessed your mom in performance more than a few times, and I have to say I may have missed the striking portrait that you paint. Do you mind if I ask: what was masculine about her performance?
Rufus Wainwright: How can I say this… she was very brutal in terms of her ethos and her disposition when performing music. Even if it were a beautiful song that she and her sister were singing—very feminine, and you know, very romantic with lush harmonies and so forth—my mother was quick to let you know if something was wrong, if you were out of tune, if there was a mistake. Even if you were doing something slightly superfluous, it was shut down. She shut it down. Pretty intensely.
A.D. Amorosi: Because folk was, to her, that calling, that mission you mentioned.
Rufus Wainwright: And look, hers was an amazing musical education. That made me think long and hard about the musical choices that I made and would make. And I rose to the occasion and took on the challenge of my mother. I had to fight for my mother’s attention, and I won her over. But her attention was not automatic.
A.D. Amorosi: So, when do you finally become more comfortable with folk tradition and that which you had gleaned from your mother— or got past—even to want to address the folk idiom as you do on Folkocracy? To make Folkocracy what it is—its stories, its politics?
Rufus Wainwright: In many ways, and like many projects in my
life—the operas such as Prima Donna, the Shakespeare sonnets, the Judy Garland records, the Kurt Weill songs—they come on their own. They summon me to, you know, bring them to life. What happened was my last studio album, Unfollow the Rules, was nominated for a Grammy, and it had been several years since I’d been nominated for one, so I really had not partaken in the whole Grammy award process. This time, with Unfollow the Rules, I chose to engage and do all the work and the pre-work. And as I watched the awards ceremony, I was struck by how many categories there were for the folk category, be it ‘roots,’ ‘traditional,’ or ‘Americana.’
A.D. Amorosi: The Grammys chose not to air them during the live network feed.
Rufus Wainwright: There were all these little categories related to folk that I had not known about, and a little light went off in my head: folk is my inheritance—part of me. I should be in this as well. So I will admit [laughs] that there was this slight Grammy strategy.
A.D. Amorosi: You got Grammy fever.
Rufus Wainwright: After that, a Grammy thing was brewing inside of me when it came to planning my next album at the outset. But then, once I said the idea out loud.
A.D. Amorosi: Because folk is, by its nature, one of the most organic, natural musical forms. And your most natural organic form.
Rufus Wainwright: Folk was, in my opinion, my husband’s opinion and even that of the record label, the best idea to go with. The ghost arrives once you speak the words, and here we are at Folkocracy n
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Pals Paul Rudd and Rufus joking around.
Musical artist and songwriter Rufus Wainwright performs two enchanting original songs: a gorgeous love song written for his husband and performed on acoustic guitar and a haunting performance on piano. TED 2020.
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HENRI DAVID / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20
museums, but he also needed to eat and earn a living. He understood metal deeply and woundup getting things to repair—rare things, vintage jewelry, genuinely precious and pricey things— and teaching us how.to.deal with them so that he could do his usual designing work.
“We were brats at first and called ourselves artists, not repair people,” laughed David. “But he sat us down, rapped our knuckles, and told us that we needed to learn to repair things so that he could get paid. We bitched and moaned, but we honestly blessed him because we touched things that we could never have seen or learned in school—true craftsmanship from hundreds of years in brass and copper besides the usual gold, silver, and platinum.”
it’s learning how to repair intricately-made vintage jewelry and, eventually, manning the front of Emmons 16th Street store, salon, and studio (“Wesley one day told me how much he didn’t like people, and that I was going to run his store and talk to customers. So, I designed his new shop and ran that for nine years”) where Henri David developed his style as a jewelry designer/maker and convivial, beloved community-driven entrepreneur.
David’s signature aesthetic in jewelry doesn’t come down to looks, per se, but craft. “Other than chain, machine-made in Italy, everything has to be handmade, or I’m not interested,” he said. “Even if a thing is homemade or crafted by amateurs, that’s what charms me. I want to see—and give—something where you can see the handwork, the time, and the patience it took to make. I want to be able to see and to show how something was made.”
Never a fan of buying jewelry online or new-school designers who don’t know how to precisely make jewelry (“too often slapped together just to look good… that’s trouble”), David believes 99% of his signature comes down to his up-closeand-personal take on any item. That he sits with you, sees you, and studies the part of the body where his jewelry will reside. What does the wearer do with their hands all day?
“It’s based partly on who I am and who you are, but I’m also not from that school that believes the stone has magic powers. I look at skin color and your frame, and—as long as you behave while wearing it—not be someone who goes rock climbing with your diamond ring on. Only then will it last forever. And if it does get hurt because it was made properly, it can be repaired; It needs to look good because I need to look good—that is my reputation every time someone leaves Halloween.”
Along with craft, there is the cut and color of each stone he buys—it can be a gorgeous stone, poorly cut, but rare in its tone that catches David’s eye—and the opportunity to “play” with his customer.
“I love being able to have a customer who just wants to play, wants to sit down with my collection of oddly shaped stones, charms, or pearls, and we just maybe find something that could be the tail of a dragon or something that reminds them of their dog or their iguana…. In my brain somewhere, nothing has to be what it is, but rather what it could be.” n
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Master of ceremonies Henri David leading the Annual Easter Parade near Head House Square in South Philadelphia.
Inside Henri David’s jewelry shop on Pine Street, where you’ll find there’s no such thing as too much is too much.
Where there’s no such thing as too much is too much
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harper’s FINDINGS
Five-year-olds will believe a trustworthy robot over an unreliable human, even if the robot is shaped like a truck. White-tufted marmosets, like corvids, are not fooled when a magician performs the French drop illusion, since, unlike yellow-breasted capuchins, they lack opposable thumbs, which precipitate thumbrelated assumptions. Bumblebees learn from one another how to solve puzzle boxes. Researchers recommended further study of the reproductive plasticity of female Gambian pouched rats, among whom dominant individuals may pheromonally signal to submissive ones that they should close up their genitals. Stoats remain interested in the bedding of estrous females whether or not it is mating season. Dutch trains are being disrupted by tunneling badgers, and windy outdoor conditions were worsening bacterial contamination on chicken farms in the American West.
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An autopsy of a house cat revealed amphetamine, methamphetamine, and three types of benzodiazepine. A serval found in a tree in Cincinnati tested positive for cocaine. Colombia planned to send India sixty and Mexico ten of the descendants of Pablo Escobar’s hippos. Skeleton G, who went down in 1628 with the Vasa, was found to have been a woman. An elite Mongol woman buried with a birch-bark hat and silk robes depicting a golden dragon was found to have drunk yak milk. Archaeologists proposed that syncretized Ishtar–Aphrodite figurines carved from alabaster and wearing crescent crowns helped women both to understand their sexuality and to prefigure their journeys into the afterlife. Whipworms are present in 83.3 percent of Joseonera mummy feces.
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Scientists calculated that earth was likely cooling between 6500 bc and 1800 ad; that one third of the estimated 2,400 to 3,200 cubic kilometers of displaced seafloor sediment previously blamed on the Storegga Event was caused by the Nyegga Landslide; that the majority of CO2 emissions from the Solfatara crater, which vary between 4,000 and 5,000 tons daily, are due to magma; and that Pakistan’s Chenab, Jhelum, Kabul, and upper Indus River basins will reach 25 percent of their annual streamflow between eleven and thirtyseven days earlier in the year by 2099. Leaves are staying on the trees of northwestern Ohio a month longer than they did a century ago. The destabilization of forests is reducing their usefulness as a carbon sink. Removed atmospheric CO2 can be stored as bicarbonate of soda. Compulsory carbon rationing on the model of British wartime rations may be fairer than individual cap-andtrade schemes. Smoke from the 2020 Australian wildfires widened the hole in the ozone layer by 10 percent. The number of stars visible in the sky will fall by 60 percent in the next eighteen years. Pine ghost canker has spread to southern California. UC Davis students who experience lawn-mowing sheep report less stress. Researchers developed a blood test for anxiety, which was found to underlie the joy of missing out. n
INDEX
Portion of Democrats who consider China an enemy of the United States: 1/3 Of Republicans who do: 3/5
Americans who believe China poses a greater threat to national security than Russia: 24% Who believe that China and Russia pose equally great threats: 43
Number the U.S. Army fell short of its active-duty recruitment goals last year: 15,000
Factor by which the rate of China’s GDP growth exceeded that of the United States between 2020 and 2022: 1.6
Percentage of U.S. adults who say there is too little government spending on education: 65 On health care: 63 On infrastructure: 62
Who say there is too much government spending overall: 60
Factor by which the number of U.S. adults caring for an aging friend or family member has increased since 1989: 6
Min. monthly amount federal funding for food per household will decrease this year: $95
Amount the CEO of Domino’s personally spent on pizza last year: $7,322
% of the average U.S. household’s total at-home food spending this represents: 139
Chances an American has worried about his/her financial security in the past week: 3 in 5
Percentage increase since 2020 in the amount of work employees are doing outside of the nine-to-five workday: 28
Portion of U.S. hiring managers who report leaving job postings up for more than two months: 2/5
Portion of online job postings that are for positions that have already been filled: 2/5
Percentage by which the cost of homeownership has increased since 2020: 71
% increase since 2000 in the cost of household fuel/utilities in the average U.S. city: 137
Percentage increase last year in U.S. shortages of antibiotics: 42
Minimum number of people in the United States currently on waiting lists for organ transplants: 104,000
Number of organs that have been discarded since 2013: 59,255
Chance an American has not filled a medication prescription because of its cost: 1 in 3
Minimum number of states that have passed laws since the start of the pandemic limiting public health powers: 25
Percentage increase since 2008 in the value of assets held by financial institutions without banking licenses: 141
Portion of U.S. adults who own at least one AR-15: 1/20
Factor by which more children are shot in domestic violence incidents than in school shootings: 3
Portion of U.S. five-year-olds who do not live to the age of forty: 1/25
Percentage by which remote-working women are more likely than other working women to plan to have children: 22
By which they are more likely to plan to marry in the next year: 40
Portion of fathers who took on more childcare obligations during pandemic lockdowns: 1/3
Portion of those who continued to do so after lockdowns ended: 1/5
Year in which U.S. fourth graders are projected to catch up to pre-pandemic math performance levels: 2036
In which U.S. eighth graders are projected to catch up to pre-pandemic math performance levels: 2050
Percentage decrease since 2012 in the number of times per week that high school seniors go out with friends: 25
Portion of college students who report having used TikTok for help studying: 1/2
Portion of those students who report learning more on TikTok than they do in class: 1/2
Average number of minutes per day users spend on TikTok: 93
Average age at which brain transmission speed plateaus: 35
SOURCES: 1–4 YouGov (NYC); 5 U.S. Department of Defense; 6 International Monetary Fund (Washington); 7–10 AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research (Chicago); 11 AARP (Washington); 12 U.S. Department of Agriculture; 13 Domino’s Pizza (Ann Arbor, Mich.); 14 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; 15 YouGov; 16 Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.); 17,18 Clarify Capital (NYC); 19 National Multifamily Housing Council (Washington); 20 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; 21 United States Pharmacopeia (Rockville, Md.); 22 Health Resources and ServicesAdministration (Rockville, Md.); 23 Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute (Minneapolis); 24 YouGov; 25 Center for Public Health Law Research, Temple University (Philadelphia); 26 Financial Stability Board (Basel, Switzerland); 27 Ipsos (NYC); 28 Gun Violence Archive (Washington); 29 Human Mortality Database (Berkeley, Calif.); 30,31 Economic Innovation Group (Washington); 32,33 Richard Petts, Ball State University (Muncie, Ind.); 34,35 McKinsey & Company (NYC); 36 Jean Twenge, San Diego State University; 37,38 Intelligent (Seattle); 39 Sensor Tower (San Francisco); 40 Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.).
34 ICON | JUNE / JULY 2023 | ICONDV.COM
