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SINCE 1992, the arts have been integral to our mission—and to our lives in large and small measures. We too often don’t realize their importance. The arts can influence cultures. The arts can change politics. The arts can give comfort in dark times. The arts can change lives. The arts, the economy, and ICON, as well as well as mom and pop businesses and Fortune 500 companies, are subject to the vicissitudes of life and fortune. We’re all together now in this time of historic insecurity. ICON has supported the arts since 1992, through good times and bad. We think of ourselves as their partners, their cheerleaders. We haven’t skipped an issue in nearly 30 years, so if you can’t find ICON one month, if we skip an issue here and there, be assured we’re just resting until the arts—and all of us—are healthy and confident again.
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A FIRE IN HIS BELLY
ESSAYS 5|
contents
A THOUSAND WORDS
by Bob Beck Jazz tumpeter Terence Blanchard’s opera, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” is the first opera by a black composer that will premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in its 137-year-old history. Blanchard, a four-time Grammy Award-winner, and music composer for most of Spike Lee’s films, tells us what it means to him and why he wrote it.
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Little House of Terroirs
A curated list of local and happy to see you.
Robert Beck
Telephone
Jack Byer
Squeeze Me
Peter Croatto
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The Lying Life of Adults
Hoax
Susan Van Dongen
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She Dies Tomorrow
ETCETERA
Gallery On Fourth
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HARPER’S FINDINGS
Heart of the Home
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HARPER’S INDEX
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Keith Uhlich
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
91st Phillip’s Mill Juried Show
silvermangallerybuckscountypa.com.
Mark Keresman George Miller
Tesla
by Glenn Harrington. Represented by Silverman Gallery, 4920 York Road (Route 202), Holicong, PA. 215-794-4300.
Geoff Gehman
The Evening and the Morning
Da 5 Bloods
The Snow Goose Gallery
ON THE COVER:
Abby Pacheco
A. D. Amorosi
Mercer Museum
The Heart Reader,
INTERNS
Fallout
FILM ROUNDUP
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Rita Kaplan
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
New Hope Arts Allentown Art Museum
PRODUCTION Richard DeCosta
Disloyal
Silverman Gallery
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PRESIDENT Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com
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EXHIBITIONS Bethlehem House Gallery
215-862-9558 icondv.com facebook.com/icondv
NEW BOOKS
by Susan Welsh
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Since 1992
Raina Filipiak / Advertising filipiakr@comcast.net
favorites that are open Holding On
The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, nightlife and mad genius.
EDITORIAL Editor / trina@icondv.com
WELCOME BACK! 7|
ICON
Subscription: $40 (12 issues) PO Box 120 • New Hope 18938 215-862-9558 ICON is published twelve times per year. Reproduction 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. ©2020 Prime Time Publishing Co., Inc.
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TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, a shaman told me I was a vessel. She said I would be recognized for doing good work, but I would never own it. I didn’t know what that meant. I liked how it sounded, though. It’s always been clear that you don’t get to take it with you, and at that point in my career the suggestion that I might be able to feed myself by painting was encouraging. I didn’t know that in ways my art would own me. The shaman’s forecast came at a time when I was discovering what the artist in me does, and how much an extension of my life it is. I examine the world around me and describe truths I come across. Not in grand or meticulous academic terms, but more like a conversation in a bar that begins with: “Have you noticed . . .?” That’s how I generally work; I notice, then I dig in. But this year is coming at us from all sides, and it’s hard to focus. Ecological disaster. Social decomposition. Economic disparity. Political bankruptcy. And this invisible, deadly menace called covid. It’s been a tough year, and many people have suffered greatly. It clearly is one of the defining periods of my lifetime. I had to paint it, but I was having trouble getting to what the it was. My paintings aren’t what I see. They are what I feel when I encounter something, and what I learn when I examine what I feel. I decided that I’d paint the pandemic to represent this chaotic time. The subject disturbs me. The virus turned hos-
a thousand words
Holding On
pitals into dangerous and fearful places. If you are taken there, your loved ones can’t come with you. You are vulnerable and isolated. If you die, it’s among strangers. The healthcare workers are brave and dedicated, and they do their jobs at huge risk. It’s brutal for everyone. I was really rattled by the photos of the temporary morgues. The racks of body bags. The overcrowded holding rooms in funeral homes with remains packed side-by-side and sometimes on each other. The human forms were clearly distinguishable in the wrappings yet showed no indication of gender, color, what country they were born in, or what god they had worshipped. I have to name these things to get past them. Art gives me control, which is good, but I don’t have the option to not paint them just because it bothers me. I have to give it my best try. That’s the part about being a vessel. I’m required to hold what I’m given. What imagery would honestly relate those feelings wasn’t clear, so I started doing quick sketches from web photos to coax things to the surface. I began with elements from hospitals overwhelmed with covid patients. The doctors, nurses and patients, gestures and clothing, equipment and environments. The drawings of workers taking the bodies to the trailers for storage were the most difficult. I would go back to them regularly during the course of this painting to keep the horror simmer-
STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK
ing inside me. I didn’t want things to get light, or pretty. Death is a small yet material part of the painting. It had to be there. I also didn’t want to lose touch with how perilous it is for anyone caring for people who have the virus. I also drew people on bar stools raising their glasses, and young men and women in beach attire, playing and laughing. My earliest sketches of the entire hospital scene had those people mixed in with the patients and healthcare workers. I even had a guy in the back waving a big American flag. Once I was comfortable with my subject and could feel where the core of it was, I began to bone it down. I eliminated those outside issues: the bar and the beach. They were born of anger. The less distraction you have tugging at you, the faster and further you go. It was weeks from when I first picked up my pencil until I knew the final form of my painting and put out my colors. The first three-quarters of creating an image like this is searching-out what I’m trying to say. The rest is deciding how to present it. That can go to the last brushstroke. The painting isn’t an effort to duplicate a place or time, it’s where I landed at the end, complete with souvenirs and bruises from the journey. I’ve never hated doing a painting before this one. I’m glad that I saw it to the end, and even more so that it doesn’t own me anymore. n
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exhibitions
Jeff Schaller, Metro, 36 x 36, encaustic
2020 Summer Show Bethlehem House Gallery 459 Main St., Bethlehem, PA 610-419-6262 BethlehemHouseGallery.com Wed.-Thurs., 11-7; Fri.-Sat. 12-9; Sun. 12-5 Through October 10 Bethlehem House Gallery has returned from the pandemic closures with a new and dynamic Summer Show. Each room is brightly painted and richly adorned with the vibrant and varied works of featured artists: Doug Boehm, Devyn Briggs, Adam Capone, Kim Hokan, Al Johnson, Jeff Schaller, and Ward Van Haute. Bethlehem House Gallery presents art exhibited in fully designed home interior settings. Bring a little light and life into your home.
Ward Van Haute, Blue Mud Dauber, 11 x 12, oils on reverse of fused glass panel 6
Desmond McRory, Great White Egret, 24 x 18, OB
Reach (Oud), Paula Mandel
Jim Rodgers: New Work Silverman Gallery, 4920 York Rd., Holicong, PA In Buckingham Green, Route 202 (No. of 413) 215-794-4300 Silvermangallery.com Through September 27 Meet the artist Sept. 12, 1-5; Sun., Sept. 20, 12-4 The public is invited to visit the Silverman Gallery during the months ahead and enjoy a wonderful line-up of new work. Make an appointment for a private viewing, browse collections on our website, or call ahead to stop in. We’re wearing masks, limiting visitors to small groups and social distancing. Check for upcoming Meet The Artist dates & open houses on our website. Upcoming exhibits: Glenn Harrington in October and Desmond McRory in November.
The Canal Station, Glenn Harrington, 18x24, OLB
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Music To My Eyes New Hope Arts 2 Stockton Ave., New Hope, PA 215-862-9606 Newhopearts.org September 19-October 31 Wed. 2-5pm, Sat. & Sun. Noon-5pm New Hope Arts celebrates visual and performing arts in a new exhibition, Music to My Eyes, a collection of music-inspired visual and performing arts, on display in the gallery and online. The exhibition, which was planned last year, is more compelling now since access to the performing arts has been limited by the pandemic crisis. Music To My Eyes features more than 40 music-inspired images created by visual artists from the region, including Philadelphia and New York. It is accompanied by a series of virtual performances by performing artists, and a few outdoor performances during the fall months. Viewing opportunities, timed admission, and private viewing options are available in the gallery. Protocols for viewing the exhibition include social distancing and wearing masks. Ten visitors at a time are admitted to the gallery and reservations are suggested. Gallery hours, free to the public, begin September 19. There is no opening reception in keeping with small gathering mandates.
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Welcome Back ALLENTOWN ART MUSEUM Virtual ArtVentures New activities posted every Free Fun Sunday 31 North Fifth St., Allentown, PA 610-432-4333 • Allentownartmuseum.org Fri & Sat, 11-6; Sun, 11-4 Call to reserve 2-hour tickets. Must wear face covering. BASIL BANDWAGON Online and Doorstep Delivery available in more zip codes, Visit our Farm to Market Cafe 38 Old Hwy 22, Clinton, NJ • 908-735-3822 276 US-202, Flemington, NJ • 908-788-5737 239 N. Union St., Lambertville • 609-460-4500 Basilbandwagon.com • Open every day 8-8
MERCER MUSEUM 200 Years of Bucks County Art Through December 31 • Open 7 days: 10-6. Reserved timed slots recommended; 10-11 hour for seniors 65+ and immunocompromised guests. General admission 11-1, 2-4, 4-6. Closed every day from 1-2PM for cleaning. 84 South Pine St., Doylestown, PA 215-345-0210 • Mercermuseum.org
BETHLEHEM HOUSE GALLERY 2020 Summer Show now on view until October 10. Gallery open. 459 Main St., Bethlehem, PA 610-419-6262. Wed.-Thurs. 11-7, Fri. & Sat. 12-9, Sun. 12-5. Bethlehemhousegallery.com
HEART OF THE HOME Visit in person by appointment, or shop online to see our extensive collection of American handmade crafts including jewelry, pottery, accessories, home décor, bath, garden and children’s items, cards and more. 28 S. Main St., New Hope, PA 215-896-1690 • Heartofthehome.com HEARTSTRINGS Shop local, easy and safe. Curbside, in-store and by appointment. Unique items, women’s and infant’s clothing, home accessories, jewelry. 10 Main St., Clinton, NJ • 908-735-4020
SILVERMAN GALLERY Bucks County Impressionist Art New work by Jim Rodgers on display. Sept. 2-27; Hours: Wed.-Sun. 11-6. Meet the artist, Sept. 12, 1-5; Sept. 20, 12-4 Silverman Gallery represents Bucks County’s most impressive artists. Additional hours, shipping, delivery and in-home consultation are available by appointment. 4920 York Rd., Holicong, PA 215-794-4300 • Silvermangallery.com THE SNOW GOOSE GALLERY Original works and limited edition prints by some of the world’s finest artists. The gallery also specializes in creative custom framing. Tues.-Sat. 10-5; Sun. 11-4. Appointments available. 470 Main St., Bethlehem, PA 610-974-9099 • Thesnowgoosegallery.com
CAROL C. DOREY REAL ESTATE, INC. Specialists in high-value property, serving Bucks County and the Lehigh Valley areas. Visit our website to take a virtual tour of some of the spectacular homes we have listed. Schedule an in-person showing, and request more information directly on our website. 3136 Main St., PO Box 500, Springtown, PA 610-346-8800 doreyrealestate.com • Mon.-Fri. 9-5, Sat. 9-4 ACT 1 PERFORMING ARTS, DESALES UNIVERSITY No matter the device, as long as you have internet access you will be able to watch our student performances this fall: Chainz/Broken; As You Like It; Emerging Choreographers; A Christmas Carol. Order tickets online or by phone. Labuda Center for the Performing Arts 2755 Station Ave., Center Valley, PA 610-282-3192 • Desales.edu/act1
The expanded website will include beautiful artwork, as well as stories of art and its creators and the community it builds. Phillipsmill.org/Juried-art-show Artshow@phillipsmill.org
TOUCHSTONE THEATRE 2020-21 season announced with in-person, online, and by mail, events. Coming up first, a series of outdoor, socially-distanced performances every weekend in September. Join us in celebrating Festival Unbound Sept. 4-Oct. 16. 321 East 4th St., Bethlehem, PA 610-867-1689 • Touchstone.org
NEW HOPE ARTS CENTER Music to My Eyes September 19-October 31 New Hope Arts supports the arts with virtual programming and reopened in-gallery exhibitions. Appointment recommended for 30-min. viewing time. Sat. & Sun. 12-5, Wed. 12-3 2 Stockton Ave., New Hope, PA 215-862-9606 • Newhopearts.org PEDDLER’S VILLAGE Shop, dine, stroll and relax, safely. Open air and open every day. Visit the website to see the many events happening in September and October. Routes 202 & 263, Lahaska, Bucks County, PA 215-794-4000 • Peddlersvillage.com PHILLIPS’ MILL 91st Juried Online Only Show from Sept. 26Nov. 1. All art is for sale online only.
FRINGE FESTIVAL The Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Sept. 10-Oct. 4, is a city-wide celebration of innovation and creativity in contemporary performance. This year’s festival will be mostly virtual, featuring over 120 works across genres and platforms. For more info and schedule, Fringearts.com GALLERY ON FOURTH Connecting Artists & Collectors. The work of national, regional, and local artists in a fresh, diverse program of solo and group exhibitions. Strict adherence to all safety measures to ensure the health of our visitors. Remote sales transactions, curbside pick-up, free delivery within the Lehigh Valley, installation of purchased artworks for a nominal fee (within the Lehigh Valley). 401 Northampton St., Easton, PA 610-905-4627 • GalleryOnFourth.org Wed. & Thurs. 12 - 7PM; Fri. & Sat. 12 - 9PM; Sun. 12 - 5PM; and by appointment.
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exhibitions
Polly Apfelbaum (American, b. 1955), Baroque Time Machine 4, 2014, woodblock print. © Polly Apfelbaum/Durham Press, 2014
Evolution of the Spiritual: Europe to America Color & Complexity: 30 Years at Durham Press Allentown Art Museum 31 N 5th St., Allentown, PA 610-432-4333 allentownartmuseum.org Closing September 6 Evolution of the Spiritual: Europe to America compares images of the Madonna over time; a series of American art exhibits created through a multi-year, multi-institutional partnership formed by the Phila. Museum of Art as part of the Art Bridges + Terra Foundation Initiative. Color & Complexity: 30 Years at Durham Press celebrates 30 years of innovative printmaking at the Bucks County workshop & publisher internationally recognized as one of the top fine-art presses in America.
Richard William Haynes, AWS, MAA, Half Full, opaque W/C October, Daniel Garber
The Snow Goose Gallery 200 Years of Bucks County Art Mercer Museum, 84 S. Pine St., Doylestown, PA 215-345-0210 Mercermuseum.org Open every day, 10-6 (Closed daily 1-2 for cleaning) Through December 31, 2020 The Mercer Museum, operated by the Bucks County Historical Society, announces the opening of its new major exhibit 200 Years of Bucks County Art. Since its founding in 1880, the Bucks County Historical Society has collected works of art: fine and folk paintings, portraits and landscapes, genre and decorative works. Never before displayed together, this collection is the centerpiece of the Mercer Museum’s new exhibit. This exhibit highlights local portraiture and landscape painting by noted American artists, as well as companion pieces such as historical artifacts, documents and images.
470 Main Street, Bethlehem, PA 610-974-9099 thesnowgoosegallery.com Tues.-Sat. 10-5, Sun. 11-4 The Snow Goose Gallery features a variety of work by artists including Richard William Haynes, Linda Rossin, Judy Lalingo, Sue Wall, Alexander Volkov, Chuck Zovko, Ray Hendershot, Brad Hendershot, Katharine Krieg, Irina Kouznetsova, Marion Winter, and gallery owner Mary Serfass. The gallery also offers distinctive, museumquality picture framing by the area’s only Certified Picture Framer, and has the largest selection of custom frame samples in the area.
Linda Rossin, Pink Persuasion, acrylic on ceramic
Stephen Antonakos (1926-2013), The Room Chapel, painted walls, neon, 3 neon panels. © Stephen Antonakos Studio LLC 8
Edward Hicks, The Peaceable Kingdom.
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exhibitions
The Abbott’s Chair, oil on canvas, 34 x 30
91st Phillips’ Mill Juried Art Show Honoring Artist Louis Russomanno Online-Only Show Phillipsmill.org/Juried-Art-Show September 26-November 1 Each year the Phillips Mill Community Association honors an artist who has been a participant in the show over many years. Louis Russomanno amply fulfills this description. Russomanno knew he wanted to be an artist when he left the U.S. Navy in December 1969.. Nine months after discharge, he entered the Phillips’ Mill Art Show, a year later won his first Patron’s Award. A master of he has an ability to portray texture and folds of fabric, reminiscent of the Dutch Masters. His works are in the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton City Museum, and private collections throughout the United States and Canada.
Contemplation 10
Memory Fragment, 36 x 36
Al Kratzer: The Art in Artificial Gallery On Fourth 401 Northampton St., Easton, PA 610-905-4627 GalleryOnFourth.org September 12 – November 8 Timed-Entry Opening Reception Sept. 12 Wed-Th 12-7; Fri-Sat 12-9; Sun 12-5 Al Kratzer’s groundbreaking solo exhibition features works of art created using the latest advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). It explodes with color and vitality—a visual manifestation of how man and machine can collaborate to expand creativity. Kratzer employs multiple AI programs that allow him to apply color pallets, textures, brushstrokes and other elements to the computer-generated image. This process encourages experimentation and unlimited visual mash-ups. The resulting images break subjects down to their essence with core forms hovering between the familiar and ambiguous, figurative and abstract. This is an exciting opportunity to introduce our audience to an artform that is gaining global momentum.
Enchanted Forest, 36 x 18
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Alex Sepkus Heart of the Home 28 S. Main St., New Hope, PA 215-862-1880 Heartofthehome.com Heart of the Home presents the work of renowned goldsmith Alex Sepkus, including his one-of-a-kind combinations of exquisite 18 karat gold and platinum with unique gemstones. Alex draws from diverse influences—global art and textiles, literary inspirations, and plant and animal wonders of the natural world. His work is much sought after by lovers of fine art and connoisseurs of exceptional fine jewelry alike. Heart of the Home has proudly represented his work for more than a decade, and is pleased to represent his work during our 26th year in business both in our store and online. Call the shop or send an email to info@heartofthehome.com to schedule a private showing of a special expanded collection.
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interview JACK BYER
Y
You now consider yourself a Buddhist. You chant every day and meditate? Chanting sets the vibration for the rest of the day, and I chant at night as well. I was chanting this morning. Amazing the ideas that come to me in the midst of chanting. You’ve also said, “Music is out there in the universe looking for a way to be presented, and sometimes it finds you. You have to be willing to put aside your ego and accept it and let yourself be used.” What did you mean? Sometimes we have to get out of our own way. The ego kills creativity, so you have to take your ego out of the equation. You then see things that you wouldn’t otherwise. When I play, I try to keep my mind open to what may occur. If you allow it, the music takes you on its own journey.
terence
You’ve said, “Music has to be more than a booty call.” Your need to use music to change people’s hearts and heal souls. That comes I assume, from growing up in the church. From the very first moment of my working with music, it was all about uplifting spirits. That was what I would hear every Sunday. The church has been the bedrock of my existence. When I call home from the tour, my grandma gets on the phone and tells me, “Keep God with you. I’m always praying for you.” In hard times, the first thing we call upon is our Creator. Spirit is forever. That’s the reality I believe in.
That’s what Art Blakey, one of your mentors, meant by “from the creator to the artist, directly to the audience in split-second timing.” Absolutely. Split-second timing. You never wanted to be an activist. But now, you say, you no longer have a choice. I just wanted to play music and tour the world. But circumstances have put me and my quintet, E Collective, in a position where we have to say something with our music. I initially put my group together to inspire young kids to 12
blanchard
a fire in his belly
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play instruments, but while we were on our first tour, the Black Lives Matter movement grew even more urgent with the death of Eric Garner, whose dying gasps “I Can’t Breathe” were ignored by a police officer who kept him in a banned chokehold. And all for selling single cigarettes from a pack without tax stamps So many procedures were violated in this case and so many others that also ended in tragedy. The remedy is to hold authorities accountable. It’s just that simple. Speaking of accountability, did you favor impeachment of Donald Trump? This guy was a con man who sold us a bill of goods. Too many bought into it. Trump is breaking one law after another and selling us out to our enemies. You’ve addressed racism and gun violence in your album “Live,” which you recorded in three cities that had experienced conflicts between the police and African Americans; “Breathless,” was inspired by Eric Garner’s death; and “Choices” speaks to personal responsibility. You often talk about these issues during your concerts. I’m not the first. I realized the power music holds to talk about what is righteous and to heal listening to Sonny Rollins’ “Freedom Suite,” Coltrane’s “Alabama,” Mingus’ “Original Fables of Faubus,” Nina Simone’s “Old Jim Crow” and “Mississippi Goddam,” and Miles Davis’ “A Tribute to Jack Johnson.” And Jimi Hendrix? For sure, a big influence. I was born in 1962, so the ‘70s were my time. Those groups back then were filled with joy and hope. Jimi’s electric guitar riff on the National Anthem at Woodstock was such a courageous and inspired protest against the Vietnam War. It was a call to arms. It inspired my music for BlacKkKlansman. I used it under images of the deadly riot in
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Terence Blanchard and Spike Lee.
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new books Disloyal: A Memoir The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump by Michael Cohen Skyhorse, 432 pages Once Donald Trump’s fiercest surrogate, closest confidant, and staunchest defender, Michael Cohen knows where the skeletons are buried. As Trump’s lawyer and “fixer,” Cohen not only witnessed firsthand but was also an active participant in the inner workings of Trump’s business empire, political campaign, and presidential administration. This is a story that you have not read in newspapers, or on social media, or watched on television. These are accounts that only someone who worked for Trump around the clock for over a decade—not a few months or even a couple of years—could know. Cohen describes Trump’s racist rants against President Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Black and Hispanic people in general, as well as the cruelty, humiliation, and abuse he leveled at family and staff. Whether he’s exposing the fact that Trump engaged in tax fraud by inflating his wealth or electronic fraud by rigging an online survey, or outing Trump’s Neanderthal views towards women or his hush-money payments to clandestine lovers, Cohen pulls no punches. Trump emerges as a man without a soul—a man who courts evangelicals and then trashes them, panders to the common man, but then rips off small business owners, a con man who will do or say absolutely anything to win, regardless of the cost to his family, his associates, or his country. Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World by Lesley M.M. Blume Simon & Schustern, 288 pages New York Times bestselling author Lesley M.M. Blume reveals how one courageous American reporter uncovered one of the deadliest cover-ups of the 20th century—the true effects of the atom bomb—potentially saving millions of lives. 14
Just days after the United States decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. But even before the surrender, the US government and military had begun a secret propaganda and information suppression campaign to hide the devastating nature of these experimental weapons. The cover-up intensified as Occupation forces closed the atomic cities to Allied reporters, preventing leaks about the horrific long-term effects of radiation which would kill thousands during the months after the blast. For nearly a year the cover-up worked—until New Yorker journalist John Hersey got into Hiroshima and managed to report the truth to the world. As Hersey and his editors prepared his article for publication, they kept the story secret— even from most of their New Yorker colleagues. When the magazine published “Hiroshima” in August 1946, it became an instant global sensation, and inspired pervasive horror about the hellish new threat that America had unleashed. Since 1945, no nuclear weapons have ever been deployed in war partly because Hersey alerted the world to their true, devastating impact. This knowledge has remained among the greatest deterrents to using them since the end of World War II. Released on the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Fallout is an engrossing detective story, as well as an important piece of hidden history that shows how one heroic scoop saved—and can still save—the world. Telephone: A Novel by Percival Everett Graywolf Press, 254 pages Zach Wells is a perpetually dissatisfied geologist-slash-paleobiologist. Expert in a very narrow area―the geological history of a cave fortyfour meters above the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon―he is a laconic man who plays chess with his daughter, trades puns with his wife while she does yoga, and dodges committee work at the college where he teaches. After a field trip to the desert yields nothing more than a colleague with a tenure problem and a student with an unwelcome crush on him, Wells returns home to find his world crumbling. His daughter has lost her edge at chess, she has
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developed mysterious eye problems, and her memory has lost its grasp. Powerless in the face of his daughter’s slow deterioration, he finds a mysterious note asking for help tucked into the pocket of a jacket he’s ordered off eBay. Desperate for someone to save, he sets off to New Mexico in secret on a quixotic rescue mission. A deeply affecting story about the lengths to which loss and grief will drive us, Telephone is a Percival Everett novel we should have seen coming all along, one that will shake you to the core as it asks questions about the power of narrative to save. Squeeze Me: A Novel by Carl Hiaasen Knopf, 352 pages It’s the height of the Palm Beach charity ball season: for every disease or cause, there’s a reason for the local luminaries to eat (minimally), drink (maximally), and be seen. But when a prominent high-society dowager suddenly vanishes during a swank gala, and is later found dead in a concrete grave, panic and chaos erupt. Kiki Pew was notable not just for her wealth and her jewels—she was an ardent fan of the winter White House resident just down the road, and a founding
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14 NEW BOOKS
new books
member of the POTUSSIES, a group of women dedicated to supporting their president. Never one to miss an opportunity to play to his base, the president immediately declares that Kiki was the victim of rampaging immigrant hordes. This, it turns out, is far from the truth. The truth might just lie in the middle of the highway, where a bizarre discovery brings the First Lady’s motorcade to a grinding halt (followed by some grinding between the First Lady and a love-struck Secret Service agent). Enter Angie Armstrong, wildlife wrangler extraordinaire, who arrives at her own conclusions after she is summoned to the posh island to deal with a mysterious and impolite influx of huge, hungry pythons. Carl Hiaasen can brighten even the darkest of days and Squeeze Me is pure, unadulterated Hiaasen. Irreverent, ingenious, and highly entertaining, it perfectly captures the absurdity of our times. The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante Europa Editions, 324 pages Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, looks more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Is she turning into her Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father clearly despise? Surely there is a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is. Giovanna is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves from one to the other in search of the truth, but neither city seems to offer answers or escape. Named one of 2016’s most influential people by TIME Magazine and frequently touted as a future Nobel Prize-winner, Elena Ferrante has 16
become one of the world’s most read and beloved writers. With this new novel about the transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, Ferrante proves once again that she deserves her many accolades. In The Lying Life of Adults, readers will discover another gripping, highly addictive, and totally unforgettable Neapolitan story. The Evening and the Morning (Kingsbridge series) by Ken Follett Viking, 928 pages From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, a thrilling and addictive new novel--a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth—set in England at the dawn of a new era: the Middle Ages It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined. A young boatbuilder’s life is turned upside down when the only home he’s ever known is raided by Vikings, forcing him and his family to move and start their lives anew in a small hamlet where he does not fit in. A Norman noblewoman marries for love, following her husband across the sea to a new land, but the customs of her husband’s homeland are shockingly different, and as she begins to realize that everyone around her is engaged in a constant, brutal battle for power, it becomes clear that a single misstep could be catastrophic. A monk dreams of transforming his humble abbey into a center of learning that will be admired throughout Europe. And each in turn comes into dangerous conflict with a clever and ruthless bishop who will do anything to increase his wealth and power.
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Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, The Pillars of the Earth. Now, Follett’s masterful new prequel The Evening and the Morning takes us on an epic journey into a historical past rich with ambition and rivalry, death and birth, love and hate, that will end where The Pillars of the Earth begins. Hoax by Brian Stelter Atria/One Signal Publishers, 368 pages While other leaders were marshaling resources to combat the greatest pandemic in modern history, President Donald Trump was watching TV. Trump watches over six hours of Fox News a day, a habit his staff refers to as “executive time.” In January 2020, when Fox News began to downplay COVID-19, the president was quick to agree. In March, as the deadly virus spiraled out of control, Sean Hannity mocked “coronavirus hysteria” as a “new hoax” from the left. Millions of Americans took Hannity and Trump’s words as truth—until some of them started to get sick. At the center of the story lies Sean Hannity, a college dropout who, following the death of Fox News mastermind Roger Ailes, reigns supreme at the network that pays him $30 million a year. Stelter describes the raging tensions inside Fox between the Trump loyalists and the few remaining journalists. He reveals why former chief news anchor Shep Smith resigned in disgust in 2019; why a former anchor said “if I stay here I’ll get cancer;” and how Trump has exploited the leadership vacuum at the top to effectively seize control of the network. Including never before reported details, Hoax exposes the media personalities who, though morally bankrupt, profit outrageously by promoting the president’s propaganda and radicalizing the American right. It is a book for anyone who reads the news and wonders: How did this happen? n
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film roundup
KEITH UHLICH
Da 5 Bloods.
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Dirs. Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross). Starring: Peter Elwell, Michael Martin, Shay Walker. Las Vegas, 2016—the last night of operations at a dive bar known as the Roaring Twenties. That is the fiction. In reality, however, sibling directors Bill and Turner Ross filmed their compellingly blotto drama at a dive bar in New Orleans that is still operational (their first day of shooting: the day after Election Night 2016, which lends some subtly apocalyptic overtones to the proceedings, though our current commander-inchief is barely mentioned). Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets was then programmed in the documentary competition at Sundance, further blurring the lines between what is fact and what is fabrication. Its handheld aesthetic, complete with occasional glimpses of the two cameras filming the tipsy conversations between a group of diverse barhounds (all of them cast from life, via several pre-production crawls through neighborhood pubs), slots it nicely into a direct cinema tradition. But the film is more about the ecstatic truth of a profoundly plastered night out, as well as those universally earth-shaking feelings that emerge as the sun comes up and the hangover sets in. [N/R] HHH1/2 18
Da 5 Bloods (Dir. Spike Lee). Starring: Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters. It begins with Muhammad Ali’s public renouncement of his Vietnam draft notice and ends with Martin Luther King reciting Langston Hughes’s poem “Let America Be America Again.” In-between these provocative polarities, co-writer/director Spike Lee unleashes a marvelous, maximalist piss-take about, well, you name it. (There’s so much these days.) The template is John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), with the Humphrey Bogart-led band of drifters replaced by a quartet of African-American Vietnam vets—Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.), in addition to Paul’s son David (Jonathan Majors)—who search, in the present day, for the parcel of stolen gold they buried during their tour in country. The plan goes very awry in ways that involve Vietnamese banditos (one of whom recapitulates Treasure’s iconic “stinkin’ badges” exchange), unexploded land mines, PTSD flashbacks featuring Chadwick Boseman as the one squad member who didn’t originally make it out alive, and a MAGA hat that’s hilariously treated as a kind of takes-alickin’-and-keeps-on-tickin’ talisman. It’s one of Lee’s very best, and a career highlight for Lindo,
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whose performance, as a man made dangerously aggrieved and aggressive by his white supremacist nation of birth, is Lear-level. [R]
HHHH1/2
She Dies Tomorrow (Dir. Amy Seimetz). Starring: Kate Lyn Sheil, Jane Adams, Kentucker Audley. Fear of mortality proves contagious in writer-director Amy Seimetz’s cryptic-to-a-fault thriller. Kate Lyn Sheil plays Amy, a stand-in of sorts for the creator (her house is also Seimetz’s house), and a young woman fresh from what seems like a breakup with Greg (Kentucker Audley), who is shown freaking out in a pre-credits sequence. After they part ways, Amy becomes obsessed with death (that title is, as far as this highly myopic character goes, literal). She passes on the fear to her friend Jane (Jane Adams), who then proceeds to infect others and so on and so forth. The uneasy opacity of She Dies Tomorrow clearly stems from a personal place. It is both very intentionally and quite accidentally of this cultural moment. Overall though, it’s not much of a resonant statement about modern-
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voices
This page is for you. We welcome submissions of essays, short stories, an excerpt from your book, and opinion pieces. Professional writers, experts, and amateurs are all invited to contribute. Send an email with the subject line VOICES to trina@icondv.com. Include your name, address, and phone number. If your piece is chosen to be published we’ll let you know and only print your name.
Little House of Terroirs By Susan Welsh
LIKE MANY OLDER ESTABLISHMENTS that are part of a town’s tapestry, pealed to my sense of romance. our family wine shop represented the history and stories of its owners and When it came to the language of wine, the term “terroir” was—still is— customers. Unofficially established before prohibition, it was a speakeasy, euubiquitous. “Terroir” is a French word that loosely translates to “sense of phemistically known as the “candy store,” by insiders. In 1933, when prohiplace” and refers to the characteristic taste and flavor of wine shaped by the bition was lifted, it opened legitclimate, land, and soil where its imately as Welsh’s Wonderful grapes are grown. Wine writer World of Wines and was owned Jancis Robinson also believes and operated by my grandfa“culture, history, tradition, and ther, along with his stepfather idiosyncrasy play a fundamenand brother. In my early twental role.” ties, I was lucky enough to Like wine, our little shop of begin working here part-time. “terroirs” reflected the characThe old mahogany bar teristics of our small town—incounter stood between clerk fluenced by the beauty of the and customer, with rows of river, the antiquity of the archishelves behind it— filled with tecture, and the creative spirits spirits and elixirs; it felt like of bygone eras. Along with our equal parts library and old-time sister town of New Hope, PA, saloon with a bit of curiosity we share a long and impressive shop on the side. Potables heritage of famous artists, poet ranged from the common to the laureates and Pulitzer Prize exotic, a multitude of bottles in winners. varying shapes and sizes. I was Some of these artists reenchanted by the kilted Scotstired to become restaurateurs, man spinning and dancing to like Broadway musical actress the tune of “Annie Laurie” in a Odette Myril who operated musical decanter and the flecks Chez Odette and on the other of real gold suspended in a botside of the bridge, Anne tle of Goldschlager. Waves of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881 Matthews star of the NBC radio sunlight filtered through the storefront blinds, creating a soap opera “Stella Dallas” owned The River’s Edge. kaleidoscope of rainbow colors reflecting off the bottles of Decades later, in the 1970s, Alex Wilson and John fermented and distilled potables that spanned a universe of Gessler were among the pioneers to introduce nouvelle provenance and a spectrum of taste. cuisine to Lambertville. My mouth still waters over the This world of wine and spirits has its own language—armemory of Broadmoor’s breaded, sautéed brie and the cane names and phrases that intrigued me and felt satisfyFrench Chocolate Silk Pie. The boom of BYOB restaurants ing rolling off the tongue. The exotic innuendo of Velvet in town was a natural complement to our wine shop, and Falernum— a holdover from an era of Polynesian fascinathe symbiotic relationship of restaurateur and wine mertion and Tiki cocktails; the chic allure of Italian artichokechant was born. based Cynar; the ruby red Danish liqueur, Cherry Herring, What I loved—and still love—about the world of food and bottle sizes named for Biblical Kings like Jeroboam and Welsh’s Wonderful World of Wines, c.1970 and wine is its ability to unite not only through a common Photo credit: Robert Salgado Methuselah. language but also a common utility—celebration, nourishI loved to describe our wines to customers with words ment, and social communion. Our little town wine shop like jammy and toasty and unctuous, and the prestigious names of French blessed me with an opportunity to learn not only about wine and food but appellations like Corton-Charlemagne and Romanée-Conti greatly apalso about family and hometown pride. n 20
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harper’s FINDINGS
INDEX
Researchers who reviewed data from 95 million U.S. traffic stops found that black drivers are pulled over less frequently at night, when a “veil of darkness” obscures their skin color. People are bad at identifying others’ false memories. The Sans Forgetica typeface does not make text easier to remember. A longitudinal study of adolescent Arizonans found that successful psychopaths develop more pronounced conscientiousness as an impulsecontrol mechanism. Prospect theory was found to be sound, scarcity makes consumers less price-sensitive, and women are likelier than men to be jealous of a partner’s realistic sex robot. Australian psychologists linked social isolation and emotional deprivation among female university students to drunkorexia. Virus particles from the feces of non-obese mice decrease obesity in obese mice. Baloxavir keeps ferrets with influenza from infecting healthy ones. Vampire bats who are strangers will groom one another before sharing blood via regurgitation. Six new coronaviruses were discovered in bats. Falling levels of tourist trash during pandemic lockdowns was found to have caused rat infighting, and macaques were reported to have attacked a lab assistant in Delhi and stolen vials of COVID-19-infected blood, which at least one monkey then tried to eat. In Maine, a loon stabbed a bald eagle through the heart.
Percentage by which streaming of N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police” increased in the week following George Floyd’s death: 272 Factor by which the Minneapolis police used force more often against black people than white people over the past five years: 7 Percentage of Minneapolis police officers who live in Minneapolis: 7 Percentage of white Americans who had an unfavorable view of the police before police brutality protests began in May: 18 Who did a week later: 31 Portion of Americans who would be comfortable with the military being deployed to their community in response to protests: 2/5 Estimated cost of outfitting a police officer with riot-control gear: $790 Of outfitting a hospital worker with standard personal protective equipment: $11 Number of the ten largest U.S. novel coronavirus clusters linked to correctional facilities: 7 Percentage decrease since 2006 in the incarceration rate of black Americans: 34 Factor by which this rate remains higher than that of white Americans: 5 Percentage of unemployed workers in Massachusetts who receive unemployment benefits: 66 Of unemployed workers in Florida who do: 8 Jobs that require close contact and cannot be done remotely that are done by women: 77% Portion of fathers assisting with remote learning who believe they are doing most of the instruction: 1/2 Of mothers assisting with remote learning who agree: 1/33 Factor by which the number of accounts on Facebook’s messenger app for children under 13 has increased since March: 3.5 Portion of remote-learning children in households making under $25,000 a year who log on once a week or less: 2/5 Of those in households making over $100,000 a year who log on every day: 4/5 Percentage of Americans who view the coronavirus as a major threat to their finances: 41 To their health: 38 Percentage of U.S. adults who say they would refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine: 19 Of Republicans who say so: 28 Percentage of U.S. coronavirus cases that have occurred in counties that Donald Trump won in 2016: 27 Percentage change since last year in the number of Democrats who have a “great deal” of trust in medical scientists: +43 In the number of Republicans who do: −3 Number of Doctors Without Borders medical staff assigned to the U.S. coronavirus response: 21 Estimated number of U.S. lives that could have been saved if social distancing had been implemented a week earlier: 35,287 If social distancing had been implemented two weeks earlier: 58,322 Number of U.S. governors whose favorability ratings related to the pandemic have been higher than Trump’s: 49 Estimated portion of New Yorkers who left the city as the pandemic hit: 1/20 Of New Yorkers living on the Upper East Side who did: 2/5 Percentage of U.S. adults working from home during lockdowns who have napped while on the clock: 59 Who have been late to work: 44 Chance that an American always wears pants when working from home: 1 in 2 Portion of Americans who say an ex reached out to them during lockdown: 1/4 Portion who responded: 4/5 Average number of times per week that an American forgot what day it was this spring: 5 Percentage of respondents to a recent survey who did not know what day it was when they responded: 59
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Rising population density, poor hygiene, and cold, moist weather led to a spike in ear infections in the Levant around 4000 bc, and postwar atmospheric nuclear testing led to increased cloud thickness and rainfall in the Shetland Islands. A period of global coolness 4,200 years ago accelerated the diversification of japonica rice. Ostrich-shell beads indicating the onset of the Initial Upper Paleolithic were found to have reached Shuidonggou by 39000 bc, and strontium isotope levels revealed the social exchange of ostrich-shell beads during the Late Quaternary in the Karoo Supergroup. Interviews with reptile poachers in southwestern Balochistan indicated that the Caspian cobra, the desert monitor, the Iranian mastigure, Maynard’s longnose sand snake, the Persian spider gecko, and the Tartar sand boa were being captured for use by snake charmers. Herpetologists inventoried the scars of snakes found in the Danube Gorge. Half of Algeria’s marine turtle strandings are inexplicable. Hemotoxic snakebite may be treatable with a heavy-metal chelator. The mating calls of male Panama cross-banded tree frogs are synchronized to confuse bats and midges. Arson dogs’ noses remain better than lab equipment at detecting certain accelerants. CBD improves quality of life in arthritic elderly dogs. Finnish scientists identified the genomic region associated with fearfulness in Great Danes.
n The decreasing transpiration of plants, a result of rising carbon dioxide levels, was partly to blame for recent heat waves in northern latitudes. Peatlands, which now store roughly as much carbon as Earth’s forests or its atmosphere, can hold more carbon if exposed to low-intensity fires. Inland waters are emitting previously unaccounted-for levels of carbon dioxide, and freshwater insects are flourishing even as terrestrial insects are dying off. Ocean acidity can now be predicted five years ahead of time. Green snow is spreading across Antarctica. The deepest octopus observed to date was photographed in the Java Trench. Terrestrial bacteria can grow on extraterrestrial nutrients; the black hole nearest Earth was discovered in the constellation Telescopium; and X-ray experiments conducted at the European Synchrotron indicated that moisture is destroying The Scream. A fungal parasite that afflicts the reproductive organs of millipedes was named in honor of Twitter. 22
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SOURCES: 1 Alpha Data (NYC); 2 Open Minneapolis; 3 Star Tribune (Minneapolis); 4,5 Democracy Fund (Washington); 6
YouGov Direct (NYC); 7 Sirchie (Youngsville, N.C.); 8 Society for Healthcare Organization Procurement Professionals (Suffern, N.Y.); 9 New York Times; 10–13 Pew Research Center (Washington); 14 Stefania Albanesi, University of Pittsburgh; 15,16 Morning Consult (NYC); 17 Facebook (Menlo Park, Calif.); 18,19 ParentsTogether (Washington); 20,21 Pew Research Center; 22,23 Morning Consult (Washington); 24 Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center (Baltimore)/MIT Election Data and Science Lab (Cambridge, Mass.); 25,26 Pew Research Center; 27 Doctors Without Borders (NYC); 28,29 Jeffrey Shaman, Columbia University (NYC); 30 SurveyMonkey (San Mateo, Calif.); 31,32 New York Times; 33,34 SWNS Media Group (Brooklyn, N.Y.); 35 YouGov (NYC); 36,37 Kinsey Institute (Bloomington, Ind.); 38,39 OnePoll (London).
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12 TERENCE BLANCHARD
Charlottesville, Virginia, as neo-Nazis and white supremacists protested against plans to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee. How did you feel about the removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans? I was there with my kids when they took down General Beauregard’s statue. Once the statue was removed, a weight lifted off my shoulders that I never knew was there. I drove by that thing every day of my life and just brushed it off. But when it was taken away, it was a beautiful experience. Now when I drive by that spot, I feel a certain lightness You’ve done music for 50 films now, 19 of them for Spike Lee. I did session work on his early films, School Daze and Do The Right Thing. A few years later, he hired me to coach Denzel Washington who had to play the trumpet in Mo’ Better Blues. Spike used a melody of mine as a trumpet solo and then asked me to arrange it for strings. He used both in the film. That started my composing for films. In your films with Spike Lee, you’ve had to revisit the church bombing in Birmingham by the KKK, which killed four little African American girls, the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, Malcolm X’s assassination, and the ordeals Freedom Riders faced in the South. Some pretty rough history. [The film] 4 Little Girls was really tough. There were moments I had to get away from it. Go out to the park. Be with my family. Do something. But Katrina was the hardest. It’s rough to see your hometown totally ravished. And by something preventable if the Army Corp of Engineers had maintained the levees. I could only find my house by following the train tracks that were above sea level. There was just water, the rooftops, and the train tracks. I’ll never forget my mom and I entering our house for the first time, three months after the floodwaters reached all the way to the ceiling. You were a child when Hurricane Betsy struck in 1965 in the lower 9th Ward where you lived. Do you have any memories of that earlier event? I remember being put in a little rowboat with other kids. A little girl was screaming her head off. She was so scared. My mom was in the boat with another woman. And I remember a motorboat created a wake that rocked the little boat. We couldn’t find my dad for a few days, and we lived in somebody’s house, about twenty of us sleeping on the floor. It was an awful experience. Those few moments have never left me. The human toll of those hurricanes is memorialized in your album “A Tale of God’s Will:
A Requiem for Katrina.” I had a problem with that title because I thought of Pat Robertson who said hurricanes and tornadoes could be God’s punishment for sinfulness No, no. People of faith understand what “God’s Will” means. For me, there were lessons to be learned, like the importance of loving and serving others, of giving thanks in all circumstances. We were all in the same boat. It was a reminder we are all God’s children and equal in His eyes.
There was just water, the rooftops, and the train tracks. I’ll never forget my mom and I entering our house for the first time, three months after the floodwaters reached all the way to the ceiling. The Met is producing your opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” for 2021, the first opera by a black composer in its 137-year-old history. Why did you choose Charles Blow’s memoir as a subject? My wife Robin urged me to read the book. It was very powerful. Charles, like myself, was born and raised in Louisiana, but our stories couldn’t be less alike. He was born in a tiny country town, in extreme poverty, fatherless for all practical purposes, and sexually molested as a child by a cousin and uncle. The experience left him with feelings of shame, guilt, and confusion about his sexual identity. Rage, the fire that’s shut up in his bones. Yeah, like Jeremiah, he had a story to tell that had to be told but repressed it out of fear of scorn and rejection. But once told, he was freed of burdens he had long carried. It’s inspiring to realize that he is now a highly respected columnist for The New York Times. Are you an opera lover? No. Or rather I wasn’t. I saw my first opera while I was working on Champion, my first opera commissioned by Opera Theatre of St. Louis. I based it on the story of the boxer Emile Griffiths, who killed an opponent in the ring. He, like Charles in Fire Shut Up in My Bones ultimately found forgiveness and redemption. Are you also calling this an “opera in jazz”? Yes. It’s a fusion of jazz, blues, orchestral music, operatic music coming together to tell
one man’s story. I want to bring all these cultures together to create something uniquely American. I’ve a chance to expand opera to a lot of people unaccustomed to hearing black stories on stage as well as to artists of color who struggle to find professional opportunities in the predominantly white world of classical music. If I’m going to be in the opera world. I’m going to do what I can. Doesn’t seem to be any fire shut up in your bones. No. More like a fire in my belly. An African American gentleman came to me after a performance of Champion and said, “Man if this is opera, I’m hooked!” I realized that opera could speak powerfully to people, like this man, if it had relevance to their lives. And Champion and Fire Shut Up in My Bones resonate for the audience I’d like to reach. They deal with traumatic histories and carry the message that at any moment, we all have the awesome power to simply let go of our past and step beyond it. n
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18 FILM ROUNDUP
age anxieties, coming off instead as a sicknessunto-death-tinged private joke. Imagine Maya Deren’s avant-garde standard bearer Meshes of the Afternoon as performed in Nicolas Winding Refn’s basement. [R] HH1/2 Tesla (Dir. Michael Almereyda). Starring: Ethan Hawke, Eve Hewson, Kyle MacLachlan. Never one for conventionality, writer-director Michael Almereyda tells the true-life story of electrical engineer Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) with a hard-lean toward anachronism and stylized wooziness. It’s not Alex Cox-level anarchy, more gently amusing in an agreeably morose sort of way. Tesla’s real-life acquaintance-maybe-loveinterest Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson), daughter of financier J.P., narrates onscreen from behind a MacBook, occasionally calling up Google searches to bolster her claims. Tesla’s rival, Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan), has an Android smartphone and in one scene fights slapstick dirty with a soft-serve ice cream cone. Hawke never cracks a smile, barely raises his voice, and moves around like a middle-aged man stunted in emo adolescence—he could be a genius introvert or a gone-to-seed fan of The Cure. (Tesla’s actual band of choice, when the out-of-nowhere musical number comes, is Tears for Fears.) The overall heady mood is the thing: It’s as if we’re wandering through the steely coils of Tesla’s brain, primed for the frequent disappointments and occasional transcendence of a life spent innovating. [PG-13] HHH1/2
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