ICON Magazine

Trumpet Giant

Terell Stafford

What can Stafford do for an encore after his Temple orchestra’s recent Lincoln Center NYC jazz debut?

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

Fredricka Maister

David Stoller

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

IReproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. ICON welcomes letters to the editor, editorial ideas and submissions, but assumes no responsibility for the return of unsolicited material. ICON is not responsible for claims made by advertisers. ©2022 Primetime Publishing Co., Inc.

Innocent Composure, by Jennifer Hansen Rolli, 11.5 x 8.5 inches, oil on board. Silverman Gallery of Bucks County Impressionist Art..

STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK

ROSIE

I DON’T KNOW WHICHof us suffered the heat more, me or the pig. The pig is pregnant, so she gets hardship points for that. I’m old and had to stay outside in the broiling sun, looking inside the hut (the ceiling wasn’t high enough for me to stand in there), which brings us to even on the misery scale, at least in my book.

While I’m griping, I will mention that I was facing into the sun as I painted, which was shining on the entrance to that shed. I have to keep my panel and pallet in shadow, or it will skew my perception, and the

CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

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

exhibitions

2023 Legacy Exhibition, Diane Levell:

Women in Photography

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

August 12–September 10

Reception, August 12, 4–6, Talk, August. 20 Gallery hours: Fri., Sat., Sun. noon–5

This invitational exhibition showcases the exquisite work of Bucks County native and master photographer Diane Levell. Recognized as a master of technique, Levell has worked and exhibited nationally and internationally for over 40 years. Accompanying the series of over 30 works by Levell, four other women photographers whose work reflect unique images and process extend the theme.

Art on the Farm

AOY Art Center, 949 Mirror Ld, Yardley aoyarts.org

Sunday September 24, 10 –4

Discover a picturesque fusion of art and nature at Art on the Farm, an exquisite outdoor art market. This event showcasing 40 talented artisans gives visitors the opportunity to buy directly from the creators. Captivating paintings and intricate sculptures await in the serene farm setting.

There will be live music performances throughout the day and food trucks offering a range of treats. We welcome visitors of all ages, but ask that you leave your furry friends at home.

Art on the Farm is an unforgettable experience where art, nature and community converge. For more info: aoyarts.org.

Lucy Gans, Reading Between the Lines

Lehigh University Art Galleries

420 E Packer Ave., Bethlehem 610-758-3615 luag.org

August 29 - December 9, 2023

Tues., Thurs. 11-7, Wed., Fri., 11-5, Sat. 1-5

Lucy Gans’ art is figurative, narrative and deftly utilizes portraits to explore social issues ranging from small photogravures and monotypes to carved figures, and includes installations with cast objects, prints, drawings, and recorded text. Her work gives voice to family narratives and stories of relationships that can include abuse, social violence, and abandonment. Her 2007 exhibition In Our Own Words dealt with intimate partner violence and was composed of over 400 ceramic heads, audio tracks of interviews with survivors, and accompanying texts. The exhibition received a Social Impact Award from the Bethlehem Fine Arts Commission.

Lucy Gans joined the Lehigh University Faculty in 1981 and is currently Professor of Art and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and was the first holder of the Louis and Jane P. Weinstock '36 Chair in Art and Architecture in the Department of Art, Architecture and Design.

Brandywine Series # 9, Infrared b&w film, hand colored and hand printed.

Brandywine Series # 8, Infrared b&w film, hand colored and hand printed.

Susan Gottshall, Stained Glass.

Family Narrative: Robin and Catherine, 2017. Photograuvure with Chine-collé and transfer lithography

Be Here to Love Me at the End of the World, 2022. Photopolymer gravure.

Aida Birritteri, Second Chances, gouache.

James Bongartz, Spring Canal, acrylic

Looking Through The Barn

Looking through the barn

Dawn to break, Muted colors

A veiled landscape, Blood moon red Against the sky, The silence pierced By a heron’s cry, Would that I knew — What was at stake

She promised she’d come And I, for our sake, Counted the minutes

To stay awake; But she never came, No goodbye — Looking through the barn

I returned one day Fifty years late, Peered inside, The same heartache, Would I see her yet Before I die, Or ever wonder … With whom, and why?

I stayed there a while, Still willing to wait — Looking through the barn

the art of poetry

Through The Barn was painted by Lee Gatch, an important Lambertville-based artist in 1939. Over the next two decades, he built a national reputation as one of America’s most respected painters, exhibiting in 1950 and 1956 at the Venice Biennales, given a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 1956, and awarded first prize at the Corcoran Biennial in 1961. His art is part of the permanent collections of many of America’s leading museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Detroit Institute of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.

Inspired by the work of the French modernists he met when he traveled to Paris, Gatch developed his own unique style, a mix that included representational art, cubism and total abstraction. Through the Barn incorporates elements of all three styles—the empty barn, skeletal frame (with no back wall, apparently), planes of color along the top, strange cubist-style shrubs in the foreground, and the orange moon (or sun?) viewable “through” the barn. It seems desolate to me, suggesting loss of some sort, and, from a poet’s point of view, what’s better than lost love, which I’ve imagined in my poem Looking Through The Barn . I wrote the poem in the style of a rondeau—with a very specific structure, meter and rhyme scheme that I find very melodic, and well-suited to elegies, lamentations, and, as here, flights of melancholy. 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

DAVID STOLLER

Lee Gatch, 1935. Lee Gatch papers, 1925-1979. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

SILAS RIENER

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAS CROSSEDa tipping point. AI is ubiquitous. We've previously glimpsed AI's implications for photography, but now the slippery slope just became steeper.

Photoshop was invented to be a digital darkroom. We bought the software under two unspoken assumptions: (1) our starting point was to be a photograph, and (2) a photographer was to be at the helm. With Photoshop, a photographer might represent an apple as being redder than it was, but there was an apple, and it was in front of the camera. Moreover, we could calibrate our belief in what we saw to correspond with our trust in the photographer. But all that has changed.

Photoshop is now capable of independently generating an image. Users can now type keywords, prompting the software to generate pixels depicting objects, settings, and events. With this tool, users can produce a persuasive “photograph” of George Washington crossing the Delaware River in a canoe wearing boxer shorts. Photographic skills (such as camerawork, lighting, composition, or just being there) are not required.

This tool opens the door to many creative endeavors. I look forward to exploring them myself. But it also undermines one role played by extraordinary photographs. Previously, when photographers shared their visions, viewers could reasonably expect that, had we been at the photographers' sides, we might have seen their subjects that way, too. The extraordinary photographs inspired awe. That may no longer be.

Consider this photograph of Silas Riener. It is real. He actually did that. This dance photograph required a repeated effort so demanding he could barely walk the following day. The photograph is powerful because it is real. More importantly, his physical achievement broadens our expectations of what is humanly possible. Artificial intelligence may dazzle our imaginations, but let it not rob us of our aspirations. Especially in an age of virtual reality, we must continue to seek and support work celebrating life in its natural glory. n

PHOTOGRAPH AND ESSAY BY RICARDO BARROS

Ricardo Barros’ works are in the permanent collections of eleven museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is the author of Facing Sculpture: A Portfolio of Portraits, Sculpture and Related Ideas

the list

Devon Allman and Donavon Frankenreiter are running a musical marathon. The 50-year-old guitarists plan to play 50 shows in 50 states in fewer than 50 days, a record they hope will be endorsed by Guinness World Bookers. Their crazy quest begins with an Aug. 5 doubleheader:

August is my favorite time of the year because I can celebrate my birthday, my wedding anniversary and salute fellow Leos from Tom Brady to Dua Lippa, all with one long afternoon of day-drinking and righteous revelry. Not advisable for the less protean Leos in the crowd, but it’s easier just to get it all out of the way at once. Roar.

So, August.

Let’s start with what else is great about Philly in August beyond just celebrating me. Like the BlackStar Film Festival along the Avenue of the Arts, August 2 through August 6. One of the things that

an afternoon gig at the Rams Head in Annapolis, Md. and a nightcap at Musikfest, which for 40 summers has turned Bethlehem into a giant free-range radio. The Americaplatz performance by Frankenreiter, a professional surfer, and Allman, son of the late vocalist/keyboardist/Brother Gregg, is one of 500-odd free concerts by everyone from a steel-worker polka band to an American-standard handbell choir to specialists in Earth Wind & Fire & Radiohead. Ticketed acts include country musician Walker Hayes, the pop/rock group Train and El Gran Combo, a 14-piece, 61-year-old ensemble from Puerto Rico that can make the most phobic dancer twist and shout. (Aug. 3-13; 610-332-1300; musikfest.org)

Let’s face it, today’s car design sucks. Buicks mimic BMWs. Mustangs are steroidal bores. Virtually every body resembles a jogging sneaker assembled on the same line. An antidote to this dispiriting disease is Das Awkscht Fescht, the annual three-day candy store of venerable, venerated vintage vehicles. You don’t have to be a gear head or an aesthete to

CONTINUED ON PAGE 28

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

Philadelphia has done right for well over a decade it the BlackStar Film Festival and its dedication to uplifting the work of Black, Brown and Indigenous artists working outside of the confines of cinematic genre. Credit curator, exec director and founder Maori Karmael Holmes for making it all happen, again, and this year for centering its screening and social events in, on and around the Kimmel Cultural Campus.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

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.

Maori Karmael Holmes. Photo by Daniel Jackson

Devon Allman.

film roundup

Asteroid City (Dir. Wes Anderson). Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks. Overstuffed even by Wes Anderson’s customary standards, the dapperly dressed writer-director’s latest is another nesting-doll feature about familial and societal discord performed in feather-ruffling deadpan. An animated roadrunner clues us in to at least one of the superficial influences, and indeed, the remote desert town of Asteroid City—where a sprawling, starry cast gathers to act out a widescreen movie that’s actually a play that’s in reality (maybe) a television documentary about the play’s making—has the aura of a Chuck Jones fantasyland populated entirely by depressives. Anderson commits to the impassive more than usual here as he attempts a broad statement on an America-of-the-mind, a country pondering several existential crises, particularly the big query: “Are we alone in the universe?” The answers the film hints at would be more powerful if any of the characters popped like the expectedly stellar set

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.

design, built from the ground up in the Spanish countryside outside Madrid. But for maybe the first time ever, not one of Anderson’s people rate higher than a puppet. [PG-13] HH

Passages (Dir. Ira Sachs). Starring: Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, Adèle Exarchopoulos. Writer-director Ira Sachs brings a commandingly personal stamp to all his projects (see his 2005 feature Forty Shades of Blue if you haven’t already), and this brisk, unnerving love triangle is among the best work he’s done. Bisexual filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski) is a charming manipulator married for fifteen years to wispy printmaker Martin (Ben Whishaw), but is now infatuated with actress Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), who he feels strangely drawn to. Sachs and his cowriter Mauricio Zacharias portray the ebb and flow of the characters’ unique situation—from casual fling to even-tempered divorce to tempestuous throupledom to… much, much worse— with a casually elliptical approach. Each jump forward in time elides any and all expected narrative beats. This is mostly a drama of implication in which revelations come not directly from in front, but unex-

CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

Scarlett Johansson in Asteroid City

Philadelphia Trumpet Giant TERELL STAFFORD

EVER SINCE STATELY PHILADELPHIAtrumpeter Terell Stafford made his bones as part of ensembles led by Bobby Watson, Shirley Scott, and McCoy Tyner, the classical-turned-jazz brass man has maintained his presence as one of the boldest, noblest players. To go with the majestic music that he makes and leads in differently-sized settings, Stafford’s an educator, the man behind Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance program and out-of-town orchestral performances for the school’s Symphony Orchestra, Studio Orchestra, and Choir. So, what can Stafford do for an encore after his Temple orchestra’s recent Lincoln Center NYC jazz debut, his contribution to the Temple Jazz Sextet, its new album, and its tribute to Philly icons John Coltrane and Jimmy Heath? Release his most personal album, Between Two Worlds. Stafford’s Between Two Worlds tackles the warm ideal of family at his label and family in his home.

That’s all well and good. Yet, despite having interviewed Stafford a dozen times since Time to Let Go, there are still a million things that I don’t know about him. So, as he jumps in his car for an early gig rehearsal in New York City, A.D. Amorosi pries into Stafford’s inner life.

A.D. Amorosi: With all that you’ve done as part of the Philadelphia jazz and educational scene, I never realized that you weren’t born here—you were born in Florida and lived in Chicago before Philly. How did you make your way here?

Terell Stafford: That’s hilarious. Blame the railroad. My dad worked for Amtrak, and we moved from Florida to Chicago, from Chicago to Maryland, then Maryland to Pennsylvania. When we got here, I got my Masters degree at Rutgers. That’s when I met all of my Philly friends and family.

A.D. Amorosi: Did you take quickly to those Philly friends? Was Philadelphia a welcoming place?

Terell Stafford: It was welcoming mainly because of Tim Warfield. Knowing him and playing with such a locally beloved saxophonist, I wanted to learn jazz while getting my master’s and playing classical trumpet. Tim and I would hang out, and he taught me everything I know. One night, he called and told me that the great Bootsie Barnes could not make his regular gig with Shirley Scott and asked if I would come along with him as he was hanging. I went with them, and after the first set, Shirley called me onstage to play. That was the beginning of it all. I started to do gigs with Ms. Scott, and then I joined her when

she led the band for You Bet Your Life with Mr. Cosby.

A.D. Amorosi: That was your way in.

Terell Stafford: Definitely. From there, I met everyone, all the Philadelphians, and everyone welcomed me. It was great.

A.D. Amorosi: You mention the great Philly mistress of the Hammond organ Ms. Scott. What was she like?

Terell Stafford: We called her ‘Aunt Shirley’ because she wanted to ensure everyone was happy and cared for. But the one thing I remember most about her was her honesty. That came through in all of her playing, certainly, but when I was living in the Downingtown area, we were neighbors. We would drive in together three days a week to tape You Bet Your Life in Philadelphia. It was incredible; we’d drive, we’d talk, we’d laugh. Then one day, she asked if she could ‘tell me something.’ Right there, she told me that it would be great if I could work on my articulation. “What could I be doing better?” She reminded me that I came from the classical world and that my articulation was good but unidentifiable. Nothing about me came through in my articulation.

A.D. Amorosi: That’s cold.

Terell Stafford: Wow, right? But I asked her what particularly I could work on, and she told me to go to the chromatic study in the Arbans book. She played trumpet before she played the organ, so she knew those studies. She told me to hit the books, work on that and write as many articulation variations as possible. So, I did. Then she told me to use those articulations in the lines I play; that would give me an identity, my sound. People would get to know me through my physical sound and my articulation. She told me to listen to Lee Morgan and how expressive he was with his articulation. Clifford Brown, too, though he had a different kid-of articulation. I got homework assignments from Shirley Scott.

A.D. Amorosi: So, after all that is said and done, what would you say is your signature, chromatically, emotionally—the thing that sets you apart? I believe your classical studies give you a warm stateliness you don’t hear in jazz. Something regal.

Terell Stafford: What’s interesting about that question is that when I started to play trumpet at age 13, my mom was also a trumpet player. She didn’t teach me, but she told me that while being around so

CONTINUED ON PAGE 27

My mom was also a trumpet player. She didn’t teach me, but she told me that while being around so many trumpeters with great sounds who could play fast and high, I had to do one thing; play with emotion.

film classics

Come and See (1985, Elem Klimov, Soviet Union)

Not for the faint of heart, Russian director Elem Klimov’s final feature recreates the Nazi invasion of Belarus, circa 1943, as seen through the initially cherubic and soon permanently scarred eyes of a Soviet teen, Florya (Aleksei Kravchenko), who is conscripted to fight alongside partisan forces. He witnesses all manner of horrors, which are visualized by Klimov and his collaborators on the razor’s edge between the realistic and the surreal. Initially the film has the blunt feel of one of Sam Fuller’s war pictures with their ceaseless narrative momentum. Then things grind to a halt with a lengthy, carnivalesque setpiece in which the SS brutalize a village and over the course of which Florya seems to age before our eyes into a shell of his formerly innocent young self. The images get as much under our skin as they do his, and brilliantly set the stage for a provocative, point-blank finale in which Florya meets (a version of) der Führer and finds a sobering clarity amid all the relentless madness. (Criterion)

House (1977, Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, Japan)

You’ve surely seen the tie-in T-shirts—the distorted demon-face of a pos-

sessed cat smiling against a garishly orange backdrop—since Japanese director Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s first feature has long been a cult item overseas. Yet the film’s underground rep still can’t prepare you for just how visually and tonally bizarre this horror comedy about six schoolgirls who visit a haunted country house turns out to be. Ôbayashi throws everything at and on the screen: a flying decapitated head, a dancing scienceroom skeleton, even a carnivorous piano that chows down on any who dare to play it. Moment by moment the film reinvents itself, terrifying you most with all the unhinged imagination on display. It’s a classic midnight movie staple, as well as a terrific gateway into Obayashi’s singular oeuvre, which traverses genres, moods and themes with similar abandon. (Streaming on Max.)

Purple Rain (1984, Albert Magnoli, United States)

The inimitable Prince Rogers Nelson transposed his flamboyant per-

CONTINUED ON PAGE 29

KEITH UHLICH

Aleksey Kravchenko in Come and See.

BY FREDRICKA MAISTER

I FELT LIKE A HOARDER.

Was my bedbug scourge an intervention in disguise?

I ONCE HEARD IMELDAMarcos’ shoe collection had 3,000 pairs, and Sarah Jessica Parker had a walk-in closet dedicated exclusively to her extensive shoe wardrobe. On a much lesser scale, I, too, had been no slouch in amassing my own footwear stash.

I never imagined I owned so many shoes until I discovered bedbugs in my New York City apartment one summer.

My bedbug saga began at my job at a major Manhattan art museum when I suddenly became aware of itchy, unsightly reddish welts running down my arms and ankles.

“Look at all these bites!” I said to my colleagues, who gasped and cringed as I grabbed a Band-Aid to cover the bloody bite I had unconsciously scratched.

I assumed my welts were allergic reactions to mosquito bites. “No,” said a nurse friend when I showed them to her a few days later. “We had a bedbug breakout at the hospital. Those are dead ringers for bedbug bites. Check it out on the Internet.”

It took me a day to muster the courage to go online. Once I saw the photos of bedbug bites and read the first-person accounts of human bedbug suffering, I knew I was in deep trouble. As new welts appeared on my body that itched non-stop, I slept in jeans and long sleeves in 90-degree heat to ward off the bedbugs’ parasitic feeding frenzy.

Even with the air conditioner turned on full blast, I found myself profusely sweating, unable to sleep. With my anxiety and insomnia levels soaring, I don’t know how I functioned at work in the following days.

Feeling ostracized by my colleagues at work made me feel worse. Everyone stayed away from me, never offering support, even though I was clearly rattled by the bedbug situation at home. I later learned they were warned by museum management not to engage with me. Management worried I would sue them as the source of my infestation or report it to the media, which would have shut down the museum at the peak of tourist season. Worried about the stigma surrounding bed-

bugs, I stopped socializing with friends. Would you want to be near me or come to my infested apartment if you knew I had bedbugs?

Most upsetting was the fact I never saw my blood-sucking roommates. Their invisibility made me feel helpless, vulnerable, and at their mercy. Where were they hiding? The bedbug-sniffing beagle that visited my apartment three times detected their presence, not only in the mattress and electrical sockets but in shoes I had left on the bedroom and living room floors. Who would have guessed that bedbugs shared my affinity for shoes?

To rid myself of the home intruders, the exterminator instructed me to throw out my mattress and empty my closets and drawers. Every article had to be steamed or put through the dryer at the hottest setting and then sealed in a plastic bag for two weeks.

More than 60 shoeboxes, potential bedbug hideouts, had to be tossed. My steamed shoes alone took up five oversized garbage bags that sat in heaps in my living room.

Two months after the initial infestation, I was finally deemed “bedbug-free.” My long-awaited return to a normal life without the creepy crawlers invading my body and space motivated me to embark on a fresh, clean start. I had the closets and bedroom painted. And I vowed to purge my home of clutter. Unnecessary papers, books languishing on shelves, and decades’ worth of clothes and shoes that no longer fit, were “too vintage,” or just took up space for no reason… all had to go! “Simplify! Purge! Let Go!” became my mantra.

My purge campaign took off to a stunning start. With the help of my sister, a natural-born purger, I sorted through the bags of clothing piled high in my living room. In one weekend, we lugged 11 bags of clothing to my neighborhood Goodwill Thrift Store.

I felt like a hoarder saved by an intervention. Was my bedbug scourge an intervention in disguise?

CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

A former New Yorker, Fredricka R. Maister is now a Philadelphia-based essayist/memoirist. Her personal essays and op-eds have appeared in a variety of print and online publications, including the Baltimore Sun, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Big Apple Parent, New York Jewish Week, Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, The Times of Israel, The Forward, OZY, The Manifest-Station, Broad Street Review, and ICON. maisterf@gmail.com

ROSIE / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 BEDBUGS / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20

painting will not look right in regular light. There was no shade to be had, so the only solution was to turn the easel toward the light. That way, the sun shines on the back of the panel, which casts its shadow on the pallet. Good for the painting. Hard on the painter.

I sat on the step and looked over my shoulder to see the pig inside; then I would turn back toward the easel, pick up paint, and add the brushstroke. A hat with a serviceable bill is a part of my standard kit, painting indoors and out, and I needed it here. I swiveled back and forth, observing inside and painting outside for nearly five hours, adjusting the angle of the easel as the sun moved across the sky. While exhausting, the constant change of direction did provide me with an even rotisserie tan.

The pig doesn’t have a name; she is identified by a series of markings on her ear. It’s a farm thing. I called her Rosie. She looks like a Rosie. Actually, she looks like a sofa. Rosie is a big pig, and she wasn’t comfortable with the soon-to-be babies and the heat. She was stretched out on the wood floor, motionless, with not much more than a glance for me as I worked a dozen feet away. I knew I was taking a risk when I began—how long can you expect a pig to lie in one spot? About 20 minutes into the painting, she dragged herself up on her feet, grunted and spit, lurched sideways, and slumped against the other wall, facing the opposite direction.

It’s important to have a Plan B. I had brought two panels—one sienna-toned and one light gray—so I swapped them out and started over. If she decided to move to a third place, there was no Plan C. It’s not like I would pack up and paint someplace else if the first two fell through. It was Rosie or nothing.

If only the purging of my shoes had been as easy and painless! I left that task for the end, knowing my attachment to shoes would be a daunting obstacle. Sure enough, unlike my clothes, the bags of shoes remained heaped in my living room for months.

Parting with decades-old shoes that no longer accommodated my feet, a full size bigger with a matching set of bunions was a no-brainer. Shoes that were “a little tight” and had not been worn in years were

The gestation period for pigs is a predictable 114 days, or as farmer Matt explained, three months, three weeks, and three days. I’ll wait while you check the math. Of course, if you don’t know when the sow had her big night, delivery day is a guessing game. When Matt thinks she is a week or two away, he will move her to a labor room, which is more appropriate for giving birth (what we in the pig-know refer to as farrowing), and a safer environment for the piglets. She could have a litter of seven to fourteen, and it’s best to have them in a space designed to keep them out of trouble. (Update: she had nine)

After another 20 minutes, Rosie got up again, hacked and snorted, turned around, swayed a bit, and dropped against the first wall, taking the original pose. I couldn’t have asked for a better repositioning and said thank you. She gave me a wink and slid back into her hot summer stupor. I put the first panel back on the easel and resumed working on that one. Those seemed to be Rosie’s two favorite spots, and we went back and forth several times. Two poses, two panels. I ended up with two paintings, which is great, but it took twice as long, with me under the 87° blue sky sunshine. In a pig pen. That really ground me down. Rosie didn’t care.

I returned to the farm when the weather was a little kinder and stopped to see my girl. She made her way over to the fence and gave me a smile and a big burp. She was obviously in better spirits than the last time, though I’m sure she does that for everybody. n

more problematic. For weeks I kept trying them on, limping from room to room, to convince myself they really were “too tight” to ever wear again.

And then there were my high heels, which I long ago traded in for what I dubbed “old lady shoes,” i.e., flats or low heels purchased for comfort at the expense of beauty. Bidding farewell to my high heels, which always made me feel tall, thin, elegant, sophisticated, and yes, young, felt impossible.

For more months than I care to admit, the shoes stayed stuck in garbage bags, I stayed stuck in inaction, and my “Simplify! Purge! Let Go!” mantra stayed stuck on mute.

What then finally extricated me from the stalemate with my shoes? Quite simply, the constant eyesore of the garbage bags crowding my living room, an in-my-face reminder of my bedbug trauma. Even a glance could flash me back to my welt-covered itchy extremities, the sleepless nights, the bedbug-sniffing beagle visits, the endless loads of laundry, and social isolation. Letting go of my shoes and any residual “bedbug PTSD” had to trump holding on to the past infested with those bloodthirsty critters. With that realization, I packed up the shoes and carted them off to a thrift shop.

Even now, I fill with pride and accomplishment whenever I peer into my closet and scan my shoe collection—half of its former self— neatly stacked in transparent plastic, bedbug-free boxes. n

CITY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

There’s Willie Nelson’s annual Outlaw Music Festival at Hersheypark Stadium (August 4) and The Mann Center (August 5).

with a closed off commercial corridor and be part of the Go Mt. Airy Supper Sessions for well over two full blocks of Germantown Avenue. Those trolleys come pretty fast and hard down the 7100 and 7200 blocks of the Avenue—that’s trust.

Did you know that the Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band shows at Citizen Bank Park August 16 and 18, are not sold out? Isn’t that unusual for his old stomping grounds, or is it that another Tri-State Area native—Taylor Swift—took all of the air and the money out of the area

Willie Nelson is going to live forever, that’s a fact. But why tempt fate? Go, and witness the sound of angels having flown too close to the ground with the 90-year-old country legend, The Avett Brothers, Particle Kid and more.

After a July filled with Barbenheimers and Improbable Mission: Impossibles and the last call for Indiana Jones, coming up to August 2 and mere Seth Rogen in the blandimated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem seems small. Maybe a weekend for Netflix? Make sure you own your own code—they’re cracking down.

On Wednesday, August 9, friends and neighbors of Mt. Airy can set up their own chairs, set behind communal tables, and

Answer to To Make a Long Story Even Longer

with her own three-and-a-half-hour show that passed through Philly this spring? Is The Boss going to have to advertise four hour shows just to keep up? And dancing? And diving into that digital pool trick that Swiftie does?

Comedy is pretty serious business, and I’m not sure it’s for everybody. See I love TIP “T.I” Harris as a rapper and as an actor. From VH-1’s T.I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle through to his trap muzik hits, I’m always down for T.I. But, can he additionally be great as a stand-up comedian. Author Nora Ephron used to say that no one can have style and a sense of humor at the same time. And T.I. has plenty of style—uh oh. See for yourself at Helium Philadelphia August 17 through 19.

It’s painful to think of, losing Super Bowl LVII to the champion Kansas City Chiefs. But let’s just jump into the fire, hop back on the saddle and and romp through the 2023 Philadelphia Eagles preseason schedule with games on August 17 against the Cleveland Browns and August 24 vs. the Indianapolis Colts. Surely, a few wins will prime the Eagles for September’s full season. And if not…. n

Austin American Statesman.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band c. 1970s.

T.T. Photo by Jason Merritt

pectedly from the side, like an unseen shiv to the gut. Rogowski, Whishaw and Exarchopoulos are all exceptional, particularly in the powerful climactic scenes when Martin and Agathe assert themselves so as to exorcize the devil in their midst. [N/R] HHHH1/2

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Dir. James Mangold). Starring: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen. The guiding hand of Steven Spielberg is sorely missed in this fifth go-round for globe-hopping archaeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford). After an extended, 1940s-set prologue with our hero creepily de-aged, the James Mangold-helmed feature settles in 1969, where a soon-to-retire Indy connects with his goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) to seek out the Antikythera, a two-piece dial created by the Greek mathematician Archimedes that may have the power to pinpoint fissures in time. That’s the big quest; the more intimate one concerns Indy’s increasing sense of himself as a figure alone and unloved. Surprisingly, Ford (an actor whose disinterest can be more than palpable at times) seems extremely engaged while the rest of the cast—particularly Mads Mikkelsen’s ex-Nazi doctor Jürgen Voller, who would like to use this, ahem, Dial of Destiny, for his own nefarious purposes—are going through the pop-blockbuster motions. Most disappointingly, none of the action setpieces come within a hair’s breadth of the series at its best. [PG-13] HH

The Flash (Dir. Andy Muschietti). Starring: Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Michael Shannon. The DC Cinematic Universe launched with 2013’s Man of Steel, butlimps to an ignominious close with this hideous standalone feature about speed freak Barry Allen (an uber-irritating Ezra Miller), aka The Flash. Reduced to being janitor of the Justice League (a godawful opening setpiece sees him saving a gaggle of digitally augmented infants and a tongue-lolling canine from certain nosediving death), Barry has plenty of time in-between rescue mis-

sions to wonder what might have happened if his mom, Nora (Maribel Verdú), hadn’t been murdered all those years ago. By chance, Barry

discovers he can run fast enough to access alternate timelines and bring Nora back to life. But there are consequences, some of them comic (pop-blockbuster Back to the Future recast without Michael J. Fox), others more serious (the genocidal return of Man of Steel villain General Zod). Sad to say that not even a plum role for Michael Keaton, reprising his role as the Caped Crusader from the two Tim Burton Batman films, gives this big-budget doggerel any spark. [PG-13] H n

Boyd Holbrook

in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Ezra Miller in The Flash. Photo: Clay Enos//Warner Bros.

TERELL STAFFORD / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16

many trumpeters with great sounds who could play fast and high, I had to do one thing; play with emotion. She wanted me to find players who evoked joy, sadness, and soulfulness and learn from them. That’s been in my mind since age 13, developing emotion as a player. Consequently, I love the blues. I love ballads. I love complex and complicated things, as I like to make them as easy as possible. That’s probably why I love to teach. That’s why I love to play, period. Bobby Watson told me, “Tomorrow is not promised, so give it all NOW.” So I give it all, always.

A.D. Amorosi: Can you talk about why you wanted to teach?

Terell Stafford: That’s a complex question in that I did NOT want

every time Tim Warfield and I played his theme song, we positioned ourselves to get our faces in the shot. “You know, pays for that? I do. Perhaps you should look into that teaching job.” I told Mr. Cosby right there that was what I would do. That’s how I started teaching.

A.D. Amorosi: Moving from teaching to family and the label you’re with now, Le Coq, how did you get there?

Terell Stafford: Bill Cunliffe, who has been working with Le Coq, pulled me in. I came in only to do some overdubs on a project they loved because a month later, they called me for another separate new session. That was the beginning. The Le Coq people are very fair, generous, and, more importantly, very sweet people who love music. Peo-

to teach. Mainly because I was dyslexic and my mother was a reading specialist. We had an interesting relationship with my dyslexia and her wanting to help me through it. I saw how she came home beaten down daily if a student couldn’t comprehend a concept she was trying to teach. She gave it her all. I thought THAT was just a lot of work, worrying about 30 different kids’ education. But when I finished my master’s, I had a teaching gig waiting for me in Maryland. The job was mine. But I told the superintendent that, at that time, I wasn’t proficient enough in my instrument to teach anyone. Why don’t I get an advanced degree and I would consider teaching? I did that, and when I was working with Shirley Scott on You Bet Your Life, she told me that a position at Cheyney University had opened up - she really wanted me to take it, but I just couldn’t. Mr. Cosby then came to me, told me that he heard what Shirley had asked me, then joked that

ple that sweet, you want to do all that you can for them. They repeatedly asked if I would record an album for them, and—at that time—I wasn’t in a place to make a record. Then during the pandemic, I felt so thankful to be around my family and get in deeper with my daughter and wife, which inspired me to do the new record. Hanging out with them was the basis for Between Two Worlds. The joy and sadness of the pandemic brought it all out of me.

A.D. Amorosi: So, what two worlds do you believe you are in, and how are they expressed through this new album?

Terell Stafford: I am between the world of education and the world of performance with fatherhood, being a husband, and so many places in between. My life is a juggling act. And that’s a good thing, sometimes. n

Terell Stafford and Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance performing at Jazz at Lincoln Center in April with orchestral premieres by Billy Childs and Bill Cunliffe.

VALLEY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

lust after and linger over bucket seats and rumble seats, jazz-age grilles and space-age fins, parlor-style interiors and sculptural exteriors. Full service and 360 degrees for 60 years, the festival features classic-car

roller skating to “Ghostbusters,” changing direction whenever the singer shouts the title. Brightly painted and picket fenced, with a small-scale Ferris wheel and a Mom & Pop snack shop, the park could be mistaken for a movie set. In fact, the vaudevillian façade of Hilarity Hall, billed as

competitions, a toy show, an automotive flea market, a sale of non-automotive antiques, bingo and swimming. This year’s spotlight is on the Corvette, a sleek legend sky high in the muscle-car pantheon with the Camaro, GTO and T-Bird. (Aug. 4-6, Memorial Park, 50 Poplar St., Macungie; 610-967-2317; awkscht.com)

Golf is, in my not very humble opinion, too much: too expensive; too frustrating; too greedy with water, an increasingly precious essential. George Carlin and I agree that converting private courses into public parks is a great form of climate control. An exception to these rules is Lehigh University’s Mulvihill Golf Learning Center, which is affordable, breathable and still scenic. Twelve bucks buys 100 balls to drive into a bucolic bowl of fields, trees and hills. The two greens and three sand traps are nicely tilted and roughed to make putting and chipping tougher and, in the bloody end, more rewarding. This attractive lineup lures a wide range of rookies, team members, aspiring pros, semi-pros and at least one celebrity regular: Sandy Koufax, the Hall of Fame pitcher and cultural hero. At 87 he drives off a tee with the elegant authority he drove off a rubber. (Goodman Campus, Lehigh University, 902 College Drive, Bethlehem; 610-7586740; lehighsports.com; credit and debit cards only).

Bushkill Park proves that old fashioned is always fashionable. The 121-year-old amusement emporium offers simple eternal pleasures. The whirl of a carousel. The distortion of a funhouse mirror. The rumble of

the country’s oldest funhouse, evokes the outside of a mythical castle/saloon. Once a ruin due to floods from a same-name creek, Bushkill is once again a happy beehive for kids of all ages. Its rebirth honors late cofounder Mabel “Mom” Long, whose wish is painted on a ticket booth: “I Hope It Carries On When I’m Gone.” (2100 Bushkill Park Dr., Easton; 610-258-6941; bushkillparkandgrove.com; first annual musical fundraiser Sept. 9).

College Hill in Easton has been my refuge for 47 years. My architectural old soul vanishes into a residential wonderland rich enough to be on the National Register of Historic Places. Paxinosa Avenue abounds with grand Victorian stone mansions with turrets and wraparound verandas. Weygadt Drive snakes for three blocks into an almost rural lane, a proper setting for a grander stoneand-slate manor house seemingly imported from the English countryside. Relaxing is required in Nevin Park, a sublimely sloping, shady rectangle anchored by a new three-tier Victorian fountain, a replica of one melted down for World War II scrap iron. Walking the river-running streets, admiring elaborate gardens, staring at odd names (an alley called Thirty Foot) and oddities (a round brick tower/gazebo saved from a demolished estate) is equally soothing and draining. I recharge my batteries at the College Hill Tavern, a satisfying hangout for burgers, beers and towngrown vibes, and Giacomo’s, which makes excellent meatball parmigiana subs, cannoli and broccoli-rabe sausage. The latter eatery is catty corner from Pierce Street’s charmingly narrow entrance. Shrouded by bushes, canopied by a massive copper beech, it could be a magical cave’s mouth. n

1957 T-Bird.

House on Paxinosa Avenue, Easton.

sona from stage to screen with this energizing musical motion picture loosely inspired by his rise to fame in Minneapolis. Realism isn’t the goal; full-bore melodramatic fantasy is, as Prince’s character The Kid feuds with The Time’s Morris Day, fights with his abusive father (the great Clarence Williams III), and enchants aspiring singer, and raspberry beret wearer, Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero). Punctuating all the sentimental educating are several delirious concert scenes featuring Prince’s band The Revolution. It’s hard to pick a favorite, be it banger opener “Let’s Go Crazy” or the climactic performance of the lengthy title track, which feels like an achingly emotional plea from some distant alien planet. This is a movie that has the strange ability to make doves and grown men cry. (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)

Safe (1995, Todd Hayne, United States/United Kingdom)

One of the great movies of the ‘90s, writer-director Todd Haynes’ second feature focuses on Carol (Julianne Moore in one of her best performances), a nondescript suburban housewife who suddenly becomes allergic to her environment. Her breathing becomes labored, nosebleeds are frequent, and no medical professional can adequately diagnose her. Her ordered life falls more and more to pieces until, as a last resort, Carol goes to a remote wellness center run by the charismatic and very cultish Peter Dunning (Peter Friedman). There, strangely, her body deteriorates further, though her spirit finally seems to lift. What does it mean to be healthy in a sick world? Haynes provides no easy answers, instead bearing witness to his protagonist’s odd journey from an unremarkable woman to a person who, even marked by extreme sickness, finally finds her voice. (Streaming on MUBI.) n

John Apicella in Safe

Purple Rain

harper’s FINDINGS INDEX

Australian scientists from the Whales and Climate Research Program asserted that whales cannot, after all, significantly mitigate atmospheric carbon. Orcas were teaching one another how to sink boats, and the population decline of Dungeness crabs may be due partly to ocean acidification worsening their sense of smell. The first instance of virgin birth was recorded in a crocodile. Whitespotted eagle rays and cow-nosed rays loiter at clam leases. Phosphorus deficiency turns Triphyophyllum peltatum plants carnivorous, and the sensation of hunger may slow aging in fruit flies. Snow flies amputate their legs to keep their vital organs from freezing, scalloped hammerhead sharks hold their breath to keep warm on deep excursions, and California two-spot octopuses edit their RNA to acclimate their nervous systems to temperature changes. Neuroscientists speculated that Costello, a traumatized Brazilian reef octopus, was having vivid nightmares. Pigeons may dream of flight.

A letter to the Journal of Investigative Dermatology detailed the genetic loci of Europeans’ eyebrow shapes, a consortium of researchers released a draft of the human pangenome, and an initial survey found high-quality human DNA nearly everywhere they looked. Biodiversity loss can be tracked through the incidental environmental DNA collection already performed by air-quality monitors. Engineers developed a material made of protein nanowires that harvests electricity from humidity in the air. Self-driving cars lack social intelligence and could improve through encounters with simulations of bad drivers. Growing demand for animal-fat jet fuel may cause a corresponding increase in the use of carbonintensive palm oil. Sequestered carbon can be mineralized in dead undersea volcanoes. A plume of water six thousand miles long is escaping the sixth largest moon of Saturn. Gravitational waves may be emitted by the debris fields around dying stars. Astronomers detected a non-thermal emission from a classical nova with a dwarf companion and reported no young binary stars near the Milky Way’s central black hole.

Queer adolescents’ odds of vaping are not affected by their family’s affluence, Colorado researchers failed to detect the recency of marijuana consumption in breathalyzer tests administered in a white van decorated with a tie-dyed tapestry, self-reported ethnoracial discrimination was correlated with increased suspiciousness and a higher risk of psychosis, chemists made progress toward a melaninbased sunscreen, and Florida researchers attempted to identify the genes that predispose horses to being spooked by umbrellas. A methodology for evaluating wild animals’ emotional well-being in a study on free-roaming horses was extended to kangaroos, koalas, and dingoes. Oklahoma police responding to a cry for help found an upset goat. The number of farms worldwide will likely fall by more than half by 2100. Animal hoarding by rural Mississippians damages the health of cats and dogs. Male masturbation without ejaculation among primates may be advantageous in reducing the duration of intercourse (and thus the risk of interruption by a competing male); with ejaculation, the advantage may be in clearing pathogens from the urethra following intercourse. Sexually frustrated mass shooters kill more female victims. The first documented human kiss moved back by a thousand years. Archaeologists discovered the earliest scaled building diagrams, from 8,000 years ago at Jebel az-Zilliyat and from 9,000 years ago at Jibal al-Khasabiyeh, for the construction of desert dragons. Boss Tweed was not responsible for the destruction of Central Park’s dinosaur statues. n

% of Americans who think our country should reduce “political correctness”: 64 Who think our country should foster “social justice”: 70

% increase this year in the number of Americans who identify as conservative on social issues: 15

Portion of independent voters who do not know the Republicans’ or Democrats’ stance on abortion: 1/3

Who do not think either party handles the issue of abortion well: 2/5

% by which foot traffic in U.S. city centers is lower today than it was in 2019: 25

% decrease since October in the number of companies requiring employees to work in person full-time: 14

% by which hybrid workers are more satisfied with their organization’s culture than in-person workers: 8

% of remote workers who claim to be dissatisfied with their daily commute: 25

% by which remote work reduces the likelihood of securities fraud: 15

Portion of U.S. workers who use recreational drugs or alcohol while working remotely: 1/5

Portion of U.S. workers who report having been under the influence during a virtual meeting: 1/5

% increase since 2021 in random workplace drug testing: 18

% of employers who believe their workers have an alcohol use disorder: 26

% increase since the start of the pandemic in U.S. adults with substance use disorders: 23

Portion of speech pathologists who have seen an increase in children with communication difficulties since 2019: 4/5

% of U.S. adults who say they are too tired to make changes to their diet or exercise routine: 35

% of their daily calorie intake that the average American consumes in the form of ultra-processed food: 57

Portion of Americans who are unable to do five consecutive push-ups: 1/3 Who have a sleep deficit: 1/3

Portion of Americans who think the invention of the internet was bad for humanity: 1/10

Who think it was neither good nor bad: 1/5

% decrease this year in worldwide sales of personal computers: 29

Minimum number of pagers still in use in the United States: 808,245

% of American men who say their online lives are more engaging and rewarding than their offline lives: 48

Who have not spent time with someone outside of their home in the past week: 26

Who say that they have it harder than women: 53

% by which men charge more than women for freelance work: 48

Portion of U.S. workers who do not believe that gender equality in the workplace is very important: 3/4

Who do not believe that a racially and ethnically diverse workplace is very important: 7/10

Portion of U.S. adults who approve of colleges taking race and ethnicity into account to increase diversity: 1/3

Who say they have been personally disadvantaged by efforts to increase racial and ethnic diversity: 1/4

% of student loan debt held by adults 35 or older: 63

Chance that a university professor has seen a UFO or knows someone who has: 1 in 5

Portion of English professors who are interested in researching UFOs: 3/10

Of economics professors: 1/4

Number of minutes by which a day is longer on Mars than on Earth: 39 % of baby boomers who believe in hell: 18 Of millennials and zoomers who do: 32

SOURCES: 1,2 Hart Research Associates (Washington)/Public Opinion Strategies (Alexandria, Va.); 3 Gallup (Washington); 4 Navigator Research (Washington); 5 Marist/PBS/NPR Poll (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.); 6 MRI Springboard (Cleveland); 7 Flex Index by Scoop (San Francisco); 8,9 The Conference Board (NYC); 10 Douglas J. Cumming, Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, Fla.); 11,12 Sierra Tucson (Tucson, Ariz.); 13,14 Current Consulting Group (Coral Springs, Fla.); 15 Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; 16 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (Rockville, Md.); 17 World Cancer Research Fund/YouGov (London); 18 Filippa Juul, New York University; 19 Gymless.org (Toronto); 20 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta); 21,22 YouGov (NYC); 23 International Data Corporation (Needham, Mass.); 24 Spok (Alexandria, Va.); 25–27 Equimundo (Washington); 28 ZenBusiness (Austin, Tex.); 29–32 Pew Research Center (Washington); 33 U.S. Department of Education (Washington); 34–36 Marissa E. Yingling, University of Louisville (Ky.); 37 NASA (Mountain View, Calif.); 38,39 David Voas, King’s College London.

TO MAKE A LONG STORY EVEN LONGER

BY EVAN BIRNHOLZ

80 Down: Abbr.

81 MSNBC host Jen

83 Chinua Achebe novel about how slim Oreo cookies just can’t stay intact?

88 “We haven’t seen this before”

“Stop right there!”

94 Diaz of “Bad Teacher” 96 Default web page 97 “Hotel Mumbai” actor Dev

100 Celeste Ng novel about the absence of male deer in people’s lives?

104 Work together (with)

106 “I don’t

17 Elicits chuckles, say

18 Radar measurements

24 Like neon lights

29 Soupy concoctions

31 “¿___ usted inglés?”

33 Cut with an ax

34 Maintains possession of

35 Pitcher Saberhagen

37 “Still unclear” initials

38 Emmy nominee Linden

39 Nautical WWII craft

40 Trojan, to a Greek soldier, in “The Iliad”

41 Lemon and lime, e.g.

46 Old SUV stereo inserts

48 Projectile motion path

50 ___ Hotels & Resorts

51 T andoori-baked bread

52 “Hello. My name is ___ Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” (“The Princess Bride” line)

53 Name in Arthurian legend that becomes a name in Greek myth if you add H to the start

54 Bold and impertinent

56 Rte. measurement

59 Boar’s sound

60 ___ Vincent, late columnist for the Advocate

61 Cheri on SNL in the ’90s

62 Smartasses

63 Had the highest hand, say

64 Subject of a 2021 Burns boxing documentary

65 Grp. for Giants, but not Titans

69 And others: Abbr.

70 Beach party flier?

71 When doubled or tripled, a Cuban dance

72 Traveling on trails

77 “Join us at the table”

79 CIO’s merger partner

80 Post-WWII formation

81 Magic show cry

82 Chain of stores

84 110 Down topping

85 Cartoon corporation

86 ___ time off

87 Pre-noon hrs.

89 Filled in like Scantron exam boxes

90 Odin or Thor, e.g.

91 One driving to a hosp.

92 “The Maze Runner” director Ball

95 Carry-___ (luggage)

97 Largest component of blood

98 Flying fellows

99 “Here you go”

101 Not equally balanced

102 Enjoy again, as a favorite book

103 Seeking help, in a way

105 Moral standard

110 Fiesta fare in a tortilla

111 Rock cover?

112 Fibrous muffin stuff

113 Binary code digit

114 Where this answer is

117 “Some time ___ ...”

118 Sparkly part of a tiara

120 Amazon constrictor

Solution on page 24