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contents
ICON The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, nightlife and mad genius.
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Singer, pianist, and
Sings Like an Angel, Plays Like the Devil
Since 1992
Grammy-winner, Eliane Elias plays with the accuracy of an accountant, the punch of a pugilist, and the dexterity of a watchmaker.
215-862-9558 icondv.com
PUBLISHER Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com EDITORIAL Editor / trina@icondv.com
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Who, Geoff Gehman and pal wondered, is this singing jester who wears James Dean’s coat? Why does he steal a king’s thorny crown? What’s he doing in a cast on the sideline of a football field invaded by a falling fallout shelter? A half century later, it still kills me— softly, loudly, every which way.
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Blue Heron of Happiness
14 Bye Bye Miss American Pie
A THOUSAND WORDS
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EXHIBITIONS The 45th Annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show Pennsylvania Convention Center
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Robert Beck: Recent Works Morpeth Contemporary New Talent – Emerging Artist Invitational New Hope Arts 8|
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2nd Annual Makers Alley Artisan and Craft Exhibition Makers Alley Gallery
Bernstein: Candide Marin Alsop, LSO Northeast Corridor: Steely Dan Live! Steely Dan
Common & Uncommon Miracles Stirner Modern Gallery
My Bluegrass Heart Béla Fleck
Thinking Through Drawing Lehigh University Art Galleries We Are Here Camden FireWorks 12 |
Eliane Elias. Photo: Eliane Elias 4
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BOOKS The Taking of Jemima Boone The Forever Dog Nameless Ones Smithsonian Micro Life Harlem Shuffle Cloud Cuckoo Land The Last King of America
MUSIC ‘=’ Ed Sheeran
Tattoo You The Rolling Stones
Observations: Two Views The Snow Goose Gallery 10 |
CLASSIC FILMS Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters Pierrot le Fou Scenes from a Marriage Unforgiven
Springtime In New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16 1980-85 Bob Dylan
Trisha Vergis: Deeply Rooted Silverman Gallery
ON THE COVER:
FILMS The Card Counter Cry Macho The Eyes of Tammy Faye Titane
Voice Of Nature Renée Fleming/Yannick Nezét-Ségui 26 |
WHERE TO FIND ICON IN Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, New Hope & Lambertville
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FIND ICON IN PHILADELPHIA
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HARPER’S Findings Index
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PUZZLE Washington Post Crossword
ADVERTISING Raina Filipiak filipiakr@comcast.net
PRODUCTION Dominic Reposa Adam Cramer CONTRIBUTING WRITERS A. D. Amorosi Robert Beck Jack Byer Peter Croatto Geoff Gehman Mark Keresman George Miller Susan Van Dongen 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. ©2021 Primetime Publishing Co., Inc.
a thousand words
STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK
BLUE HERON OF HAPPINESS I DON’T THINK THERE could be a better way to start one of the biggest days of my life. I was surrounded by family, which was nice, and the diet warden had approved a temporary suspension of the bacon ban, so breakfast was immensely satisfying. But the showstopper was the heron. I was walking through the living room and saw my soon-tobe-son-in-law Dan gesturing vigorously for me to come out on the porch with him. Dan was in the middle of an early business call to London. He gave me the shhh signal with one hand and pointed over the house using the other as he pressed his phone to his ear with his shoulder. There on the peak of the roof stood a blue heron. We don’t get herons here in the woods. At least one patrols the ponds along the creek down in the hollow, but the web of branches on the hill doesn’t allow for large wings, especially when the trees are dense with leaves this time of year and sightlines disappear. In the understory that deer have cleared, the owls and red-tails that fly regular sorties from the surrounding oaks and birches drop out of the branches and fly beneath the canopy. There are lots of tree trunks and plenty of obstacles, and the heron is nowhere near as aerobatic or light on its wings as a hawk. It’s a big bird built for open spaces: easily four or five feet long with a wingspan of six. The heron stood at the top of the bedroom roof, with his neck extended and beak pointing up to the sky, like a spire. He (she, it) could be the one I pass at the pond when I take Jack
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exhibitions
Robert Beck, Doug’s Boat, oil on panel, 18 x 24 inches
The 45th Annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show Pennsylvania Convention Center, Hall F 12th & Arch Streets, Philadelphia, PA 215-684-7930 pmacraftshow.org November 5–7, in person and online Preview event November 4 Exhibit of 195 juried 2021 artists in an exciting and interactive manner. People will be able to shop for works on-site and online. Philadelphia is highly regarded for museum-quality contemporary craft and design. Each November, 195 fine craft artists showcase their best work: ceramics, furniture, jewelry, fiber, wood, metal, and more. There is also a category showcasing emerging artists. Now in its 45th year, The Craft Show, presented by The Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, has raised over 13.5 million dollars. Funds go to supporting museum initiatives, education, acquisitions, equipment, and exhibitions. Follow @pmacraftshow and search #pmacraftshow to help locate artists and their work.
Robert Beck: Recent Works Morpeth Contemporary 43 West Broad Street, Hopewell, NJ 609-333-9393 morpethcontemporary.com October 8-31 Robert Beck has been a part of the Bucks County art community for three decades and now he returns to Morpeth Contemporary with an exhibition of recent work. The exhibition includes studio images and work from life that have been the foundation of Beck’s celebrated reputation. “You know right away they’re Robert’s paintings,” says gallery owner Ruth Morpeth. “They always connect with people and each exhibition reveals an expansion of depth and eloquence.” This year Beck’s paintings have also been featured at the Woodmere Museum in Philadelphia, the Trenton City Museum, and now on view through Jan. 2 at the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA. The exhibit runs from October 8–31. Wed–Sat 11–6, Sun 11–5, and by appointment. Preview appointments are available by calling the gallery at 609-333-9393.
Robert Beck, Empire, oil on panel, 24 x 32 inches 6
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Ivia Yavelow, “Foal,” Mixed Media on Paper, 7” x 10”
New Talent – Emerging Artist Invitational New Hope Arts, 2 Stockton Ave., New Hope 215-862-9606 newhopearts.org Through November 7 Fri., Sat., Sun, Noon–5 New Talent, an invitational exhibition, features up-and-coming regional artists. This exciting collection represents artists at various stages of their lives who all share the goal of pursuing a career in the arts. Featuring a selection of works by eleven artists, we are reminded that “emerging” talent is not just the domain of the ingénue. New Talent includes art-educated, self-taught and midcareer newcomers who worked in an entirely different field. A few have previously exhibited or begun promoting their work. The exhibition can also be viewed online.
Phillip McConnell, “St. JHN,” Glitch Art Canvas.
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exhibitions
“Entering New Hope,” 16 x 20 inches, Oil/Canvas
Rebecca Kelly, Mixed Media
2nd Annual Makers Alley Artisan and Craft Exhibition Makers Alley Gallery 11 Kingwood Ave., Frenchtown, NJ Makersalley.org October 15–November 7 Fri.–Mon. 11–5 The juried exhibition received over 240 entries by over 60 local artists qualifying in the Emerging and Experienced categories. Final selections will be chosen by jurors gallerist John Schmidtberger, artist Ray King and curator Natalie Kates. Makers Alley is a member-based artisan and craft collective that supports makers creating across all disciplines and skill sets in the Delaware River Valley. They offer workshops, studio visits, exhibitions opportunities, and other events. Makers Alley has partnered with other arts & culture organizations this ARTOber offering exhibitions and events during the entire month of October.
Trisha Vergis: Deeply Rooted Silverman Gallery 4920 York Rd., Holicong, PA, In Buckingham Green 215-794-4300 Silvermangallery.com Through October 24 Meet the Artist, October 3, Noon–4 Trisha Vergis’ paintings resonate with the people, places and history of Bucks and Hunterdon counties. Destined to become an artist, she honed her skills as a sign carver, oil painter, gallery owner and teacher. You may find her by the Delaware or a friend’s farm working en plein air. In her studio, objects are selected, arranged and lit. A worn farm chair, a slice of peach, flowers from a friend’s garden are rendered in her signature palette and mastery of light and shadow.
Bradley Hendershot, “Winter at the Chad House,” watercolor.
Observations: Two Views Katharine Krieg and Bradley Hendershot The Snow Goose Gallery 470 Main St., Bethlehem, PA 610- 974-9099 thesnowgoosegallery.com November–December 19 Gallery hours: Tues.–Sat., 10–5, Sun. 11–4 Two artists, two mediums, two views of their surroundings. Katharine Krieg and Bradley Hendershot invite you to share their works, both local and distant, of Pennsylvania and Maine. Meet the artists at our opening reception: Sunday, November 7, from 1–5. lowing CDC guidelines. The entire exhibition will be on thesnowgoosegallery.com
Bradley Hendershot, “A Break in the Weather,” watercolor.
Ed Buffman, “Viaje,” Wood 8
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“Berries Bee Balm and Daisies,” 16 x 12 inches, Oil/Canvas
Katharine Krieg, “Autumn Quietude,” oil.
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exhibitions
Danielle Cartier, “We Can See the Sky from Here,” acrylic paint and mixed media on canvas, 5’ x 6’
Larry Fink.
We Are Here Camden FireWorks 1813 S Broadway, Camden, NJ 856-338-0400 Camdenfireworks.org Now through Oct 31 Hours Fri, 6–9 and Sat/Sun, 1–6
Common and Uncommon Miracles Stirner Modern Gallery 230 Ferry St. Suite 1, Easton, PA Hours Wed.–Sunday 12–5 Oct. 1–Nov. 26 PRESS RELEASE
What does that mean? What happens when you press release? What do you release? What was contained? In these two bodies of work the photographer Larry Fink and the composer musician Patrick McGee are intending to upset your sense of balance and create unusual expressions. Fink looks at common elements hoping to create poetic visual mysteries. McGee takes musical scores and introduces expressionistic marks, lines, and bombastic doodles. Oddly enough, this music can be played; that is if you are playful. These two artists, one ancient and the other young invite your eye to the gallery walls. In the words of Turk LeClair, a notorious beat poet,“If you want nothing you will receive everything.” Come along, it’s a long ride into the imagination. Enjoy
Patrick McGee. 10
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Leslie Fletcher; “Blue Curve and Straight Blue Lines,” 2008; Graphite, powdered pastel, watercolor wash on 300lb cold press wc paper; exchange with artist; LUG 2014 1001
Thinking Through Drawing: Works on Paper, Drawings, and Sketchbooks from the Collection and Community Lehigh University Art Galleries 420 E Packer Ave., Bethlehem PA 610-758-3615 luag.org Through December 4, 2021 In 2018, scientists working in a cave outside Capetown, South Africa discovered red crayon markings on a stone believed to be the earliest known drawing, about 73,000 years old. Fast forward to the 1980s and we find prolific Pop artist Keith Haring embellishing blank surfaces in the New York City subway with what would amount to over 5,000 chalk drawings. Ancient and modern, this impulse to draw seems to be hard-wired into all Homo sapiens; author D.B. Dowd calls it a personal capacity for visual thinking. The practice of drawing invites the brain to engage concepts and objects in new ways, a process that unfolds dynamically across all spheres of human activity. Join us as we think through the many forms and functions of drawing, exploring the museum collection and the community. Exhibition and programs supported by The Breen Foundation
Injustice is happening in a world in environmental decline due to climate change. When and where dumping and pollution occur are not by chance. These acts devalue people’s lives and livelihood. We Are Here is an exploratory discourse about what it means to be in a place where environmental injustice happens. The show features work from established and emerging artists: Robin Brownfield, Danielle Cartier, Dy’lea Muhammad, Loan Nguyen, Terina Nicole, and Priscilla Rios. Also included are pieces from workshops led by artists Brujo de la Mancha and Dolores Poacelli. BLM, food deserts, and the co-existence of all sentient beings—inform this collective, many-voiced expression of who we are and where we are.
Robin Brownfield, Leo, mosaic, 2’ x 2’
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books The Taking of Jemima Boone
by Matthew Pearl Harper, $27.99 Just weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 13-year-old Jemima Boone and her friends disappear near the Kentucky settlement of Boonesboro, the echoes of their faraway screams lingering on the air. A Cherokee-Shawnee raiding party led by Hanging Maw has taken the girls as the latest salvo in the blood feud between American Indians and the colonial settlers who have decimated native lands and resources. With Daniel Boone in pursuit, Hanging Maw devises a plan that could ultimately bring greater peace both to the tribes and the colonists. Matthew Pearl unearths a forgotten and dramatic series of events from early in the Revolutionary War that opens a window into America’s transition from colony to nation, with the heavy moral costs incurred amid shocking new alliances and betrayals. The Forever Dog: Surprising New Science to Help Your Canine Companion Live Younger, Healthier, and Longer by Rodney Habib and Dr. Karen Shaw Becker Harper Wave; $27.99 Like their human counterparts, dogs have been getting sicker and dying prematurely over the past few decades. Why? Scientists are beginning to understand that the chronic diseases afflicting humans— cancer, obesity, diabetes, organ degeneration, and autoimmune disorders—also beset canines. As a result, our beloved companions are vexed with preventable health problems throughout much of their lives and suffer shorter life spans. Because our pets can’t make health and lifestyle decisions for themselves, it’s up to pet parents to make smart, science-backed choices for lasting vitality and health. The Forever Dog gives us the practical, proven tools to protect our loyal four-legged companions. Nameless Ones by John Connolly Emily Bestler Books/Atria Books, $28 In Amsterdam, four bodies, violently butchered, are discovered in a canal house, 12
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the remains of friends and confidantes of the assassin known only as Louis. The men responsible for the murders are Serbian war criminals. They believe they can escape retribution by retreating to their homeland. They are wrong. For Louis has come to Europe to hunt them down: five killers to be found and punished before they can vanish into thin air. There is just one problem. The sixth. Smithsonian Micro Life: Miracles of the Miniature World Revealed by DK DK, $50 With spectacular macro photography and microscope images, this book reveals a hidden, living world full of intricate structures beyond the naked eye. Included are the tiniest insects and spiders; but looking deeper, you will discover truly microscopic creatures—even bacteria and viruses. Earth is home to more microbes, and more different types of microbes, than any other living organism. Bacteria on Earth outweigh humans by 1,100 to 1; and without them, all world ecosystems would collapse. This book reveals this vital, unseen realm, but it includes large life-forms too, in extreme close-up, so that you can wonder at the beauty of a pollen grain, a butterfly egg, the spore of a fungus, and the nerve cell of a human. Harlem Shuffle Colson Whitehead Doubleday, $28.95 “Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...” To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it.
Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel by Anthony Doerr Scribner, $30 The heroes of Cloud Cuckoo Land are trying to figure out the world around them: Anna and Omeir, on opposite sides of the formidable city walls during the 1453 siege of Constantinople; teenage idealist Seymour in an attack on a public library in present day Idaho; and Konstance, on an interstellar ship bound for an exoplanet, decades from now. They’re all dreamers and outsiders who find resourcefulness and hope in the midst of peril. An ancient text provides solace and mystery to these unforgettable characters. Doerr has created a tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness— with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us and those who will be here after we’re gone. The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III by Andrew Roberts Viking, $40 The last king of America, George III, has been ridiculed as a complete disaster who frittered away the colonies and went mad in his old age. The truth is much more nuanced and fascinating—and will completely change the way readers and historians view his reign and legacy. In The Last King of America, Roberts paints a deft and nuanced portrait of the much-maligned monarch and outlines his accomplishments, which have been almost universally forgotten. Two hundred and forty-five years after the end of George III’s American rule, it is time for Americans to look back on their last king with greater understanding: to see him as he was and to come to terms with the last time they were ruled by a monarch. n
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story
bye bye Miss American Pie
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GEOFF GEHMAN
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REGG DE WAAL AND I shuffled around his basketball court, shooting jumpers while jumping through the hoops of American Pie, Don McLean’s magical musical mystery tour. Who, we wondered, is this singing jester who wears James Dean’s coat? Why does he steal a king’s thorny crown? What’s he doing in a cast on the sideline of a football field invaded by a falling fallout shelter? Our guessing game was played around the globe in the fall of 1971, when American Pie became a sensational single and a more sensational puzzle. The game bonded me to Gregg, whose friendship eased me into my first and only year of middle school in East Hampton, a village on Long Island’s South Fork. As the seasons changed, as I changed from outsider to insider, I changed American Pie into my South Fork story. A half century later, it still kills me—softly, loudly, every which way. There was no way American Pie wouldn’t become my anthem. I grew up in the Bronx suburb of New Rochelle, McLean’s hometown. As a youngster he delivered The Standard Star, the same newspaper that led me to become a newspaper writer. On Feb. 4, 1959, when I was ten months old, the paperboy read The Star’s front-page article about the plane-crash death of Buddy Holly, his idol. Holly’s zesty tunes—“Peggy Sue,” “That’ll Be the Day,” “Rave On”—had helped him hurdle major
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interview
A.D. AMOROSI
SINGS LIKE AN ANGEL, PLAYS LIKE THE DEVIL Eliane Elias—the Brazilian Grammy-Award winner, arranger, singer, and pianist—is renowned for the sumptuous, sparkling eloquence she brings to jazz SAO PAULO, BRAZIL-BORN classicist Eliane Elias has always been an inventive pianist who sings and an emotive vocalist who plays piano with the accuracy of an accountant, the punch of a pugilist, the dexterity of a watchmaker, and the improvisational esprit of an abstract expressionist painter. There is soul, solitude, smarts, wildness, and passion in everything classified as jazz and samba that Elias has executed since her recording career began in 1984 with over 20 albums to her name. During this rich three-decade-plus (so far) career, Elias—a lyrical cross between the innovative Carla Bley and the serene Diana Krall—has collaborated with above-the-title names such as Gilberto Gil, Stanley Clarke, Eddie Gomez, Randy Brecker, Lenny White, and pianist Herbie Hancock with whom she recorded 1995’s Solo & Duets—her last allpiano album. With 2021’s new Mirror Mirror, Elias breaks her fast and releases an all-piano album made and curated with keyboard legends Chucho Valdes and, in his last recorded performances, the late Chick Corea. After wounding her foot and forging forward with her first live performances (several days after recovering from a throaty flu, no less) in 22 months, Elias spoke with ICON about her Brazilian origin story, finding fashion, the best of her piano work, and the friendships that knotted together every note of Mirror Mirror. Coming back after 22 months, physically and emotionally, how did that feel? I’ll tell you about ‘emotionally.’ I had a moment. I told the beautiful audience—true fans who came to New York from all over—how much I missed them. And I did. There was such a bond among us. Physically, I felt as if I was time traveling. As if nothing had ever happened bad. Musically, the band and I were so
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happy to be there, playing, not playing. There was such incredible energy in the air, and I know the audience felt it as much as we did. I choked up at least three times during the performance, especially since I walked on stage with crutches. I told them that after nearly two years, this was not how I expected to return. I was in a lot of pain. But the adrenaline came, and I forgot all about it. Weird question: most of your album covers feature you, luminously and sharply dressed, staring directly into the camera. Very focused. Why? What does that say about the complete packaging of your records? How does the look of your albums’ covers define the music, or perhaps, complete the picture? Every time I’m photographed for an album cover, I have a certain sense of… respect. If you came to my home, you would find that I am a bit of a perfectionist (laughs). Everything is very neat. Clean. Organized. That goes into how I present myself. My music…. You want to get into people’s hearts, their lives, and homes. I want to bring them beauty, love, and emotion. So, of course, I will always present myself in the best light that I can. My eyes are looking at them, the audience, when they hold my albums. It is a very face-forward vision. That’s very observant. You’re sensitive to notice that. You’ve explored so many aspects and tones of Brazilian music—Bossa Nova Story, Sings Jobim. However, being from Sao Paolo, you were in the heart of Tropicalia country and the political poetics of Caetano Veloso and Tom Ze coming up. I know you worked with Vinicius de Mores and Gilberto Gil. Did that movement affect you?
I did come across that, and it did affect me. Now, they were mostly down in Baia, but I was certainly in Brazil as that was happening. They were alive with political thought, talking against the military. For this, they were exiled; this was when you could not speak of such things freely. This excited me, and I was influenced musically by what they had to say and how they said it. They opened minds when it came to issues of equality. After I moved to New York, I worked with Gil—he invited me to be the musical director for some of his presentations in the U.S. at Avery Fisher Hall, and he recorded with me. I produced Gil and Caetano performing together for the Special Olympics. That was an interesting project. This is one of those nearly impossible-toanswer questions because you have had so many signature-worthy plateaus: what do you believe was the most crucial musical turning point in your career? Where you felt as if everything that you were was conveyed exactly how you wanted it to be? You are correct that it is a tough question because I don’t have one single moment… it’s complicated. [laughs] It’s because I have been so blessed. Look at it this way: I was born in Brazil and was classically trained very early on. Jazz was in my ears from when I was a baby more than you can imagine, just as Brazilian music was exploding. I moved to the United States and got even more exposed to different music. Mine is a spectrum that was so wide. I can point to Mirror Mirror, now, as it showcases the piano and improvisation, a language I developed to the point that, when I sat down with Chick and with Chucho, we barely spoke a word about the music. We just played. That’s one side. We can talk about, as a pianist, playing straight-ahead jazz—say, a tribute to Bill Evans or playing Brazilian and using those signatures and rhythms. Am I singing?
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Elias with Chick Corea
Eliane Elias with world-renowned jazz harmonica musician Toots Thielemans.
With husband Marc Johnson, who plays bass in her band
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KEITH UHLICH
The Card Counter
film roundup
The Card Counter (Dir. Paul Schrader). Starring: Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan. No one riffs on Robert Bresson quite like writer-director Paul Schrader. His latest homage to the French cinema maestro (Pickpocket and Diary of a Country Priest are once again the lodestars) is about a mystery man, William Tell (Oscar Isaac), eking out a living on the poker circuit with the sponsorship of a woman, La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), for whom he has eyes. His awful past catches up with him when he meets a young man, Cirk (Tye Sheridan), out to get revenge on one of Tell’s former superiors (Willem Dafoe). The visuals are hypnotically still and sterile, 18
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a contrast to the torment roiling the characters’ souls. At heart, this is a story of failed mentorship, not only between Tell and Cirk, but between generations of Americans whose moral compasses, due to the ideological predations of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” have been long out of whack. [R] HHHH1/2 Cry Macho (Dir. Clint Eastwood). Starring: Clint Eastwood, Dwight Yoakam, Eduardo Minett. Not bad for a 91-year-old. Clint Eastwood’s latest could yet again be read as a valedictory statement (he’s been saying goodbye for nearly three decades now). But what
makes this movie, adapted from a novel by N. Richard Nash, so pleasurable is how tossedoff it feels. Clint plays a broken-down rodeo star tasked by his former employer (Dwight Yoakam) with bringing the latter’s bi-racial son (Eduardo Minett) across the Mexican border. Obstacles exist—federales, a criminal working for the boy’s tart of a mother, decrepit vehicles malfunctioning at inopportune times. But this is more of a leisurely journey in which the tough youngster, his
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KEITH UHLICH
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
classic films
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985, Paul Schrader, USA/Japan) For a companion piece to Paul Schrader’s latest, The Card Counter, check out the writerdirector’s inventive 1985 study of Yukio Mishima (played primarily by Ken Ogata), the Japanese writer who challenged norms of masculinity and sexuality even as he slid into increasingly reactionary politics. It’s an unconventional classic in the way it treats Mishima’s life as indivisible from his art. The character’s last day on earth—the film dramatizes the final hours before his very public suicide—is interwoven with stylized recreations of scenes from three of his novels, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko’s House and Runaway Horses. The MVP here is production designer Eiko Ishioka, whose sets are miracles of surrealist abstraction. And Schrader’s life-long obsession with Japanese cinema pays off dividends in his 20
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compellingly chilly tonal approach, as well as in the casting, most notably a cameo from frequent Yasujiro Ozu lead Chishû Ryû as a wizened monk. (Streaming on The Criterion Channel.) Pierrot le Fou (1965, Jean-Luc Godard, France/Italy) The recent death of bruiser French movie star Jean-Paul Belmondo occasioned many, well, breathless tributes to his starring role in Jean-Luc Godard’s foundations-shaking first feature Breathless. But you should also check out this collaboration, which is no less of a classic, and maybe even more moment-tomoment inventive. There’s a guy (Belmondo), a girl (Anna Karina) and plenty of guns in this tale of love on the run. Also an early-on appearance, during a deliriously disorienting party scene, from American filmmaker Sam Fuller, who lays out his unassailable thesis of
cinema. (“Film is like a battleground. There’s love, hate, action, violence, death… in one word: emotion.”) Belmondo’s Pierrot and Karina’s Marianne Renoir (because of course) live that heedless philosophy to the fullest. The emotions, the ideas, and the colors (the latter courtesy ace cinematographer Raoul Coutard) are explosive, as is the finale, which is well-nigh unforgettable in its provocations. (Streaming on The Criterion Channel.) Scenes from a Marriage (1974, Ingmar Bergman, Sweden) The Card Counter star Oscar Isaac and The Eyes of Tammy Faye star Jessica Chastain can also be seen in HBO’s five-episode remake of Swedish writer-director Ingmar Bergman’s classic relationship drama, Scenes from a Marriage. Without passing any kind of
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music ‘=’ Ed Sheeran Atlantic ‘=’ - the fourth instalment in Sheeran’s symbol album series”is Ed’s most accomplished work yet; the evolution of an artist who continues to tread new ground. A body of songs that were made over a four-year period following his seminal ‘÷’ (Divide) album era, thematically, ‘=’ finds Ed taking stock of his life and the people in it, as he explores the varying degrees of love (“The Joker And The Queen,” “First Times,” “2step,”) loss (“Visiting Hours’), resilience (“Can’t Stop The Rain”) and fatherhood (“Sandman,” ‘Leave Your Life”), while also processing his reality and career (“Tides”). Sonically, ‘=’ encapsulates Ed’s versatile musical palette, spanning signature, guitar-led tracks and world-class balladry to weightier, euphoric production moments, as first showcased on the album’s lead single “Bad Habits,’ released earlier this summer. Springtime In New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16 1980-1985 Bob Dylan Sony Legacy The latest chapter in Columbia/Legacy’s highly acclaimed Bob Dylan Bootleg Series shines fresh light on the provocative new musical directions Dylan was taking as a songwriter and a recording artist from 1980 through 1985. In the early 1980s, while the music industry was grappling with the arrival of new trends and technology, from MTV to compact discs to digital recording, Bob Dylan was writing and recording new songs for a new decade, creating an essential new chapters in his studio catalog. Bob Dylan Springtime In New York (1980-1985) celebrates the rich creative period surrounding Dylan’s classic albums Shot Of Love, Infidels, and Empire Burlesque with previously unreleased outtakes, alternate takes, rehearsal recordings, live performances and more. 22
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Tattoo You (2021 Remaster) [2 CD] The Rolling Stones Polydor/Interscope Tattoo You is a new deluxe remastered edi-
tion of the chart-topping, multiplatinum album. The 2CD edition of the album includes the newly remastered album alongside Lost & Found, a brand new collection of nine previously unreleased songs from the period of the album’s original release, newly completed and enhanced with additional vocals and guitar by the band. Among these, “Living In The Heart Of Love” is a quintessential Stones rock workout with all of the group on top form, complete with urgent guitar licks and fine piano detail. Other highlights of Lost & Found include a killer version of “Shame, Shame, Shame,” first recorded in 1963 by one of the band’s blues heroes, Jimmy Reed. Bernstein: Candide Marin Alsop, London Symphony Orchestra LSO Live Marin Alsop leads the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a new recording of Bernstein’s riotous satirical operetta, Candide. Made almost three decades after the composer’s own iconic recording with the Orchestra, Alsop’s new version was captured during celebratory concerts marking Bernstein’s centenary year, and features an outstanding array of soloists, including Leonardo Capalbo (Candide), Jane Archibald (Cun gonde), Anne Sofie von Otter (The Old Lady) and Sir Thomas Allen (Dr Pangloss, Narrator). With lyrical contributions from acerbic writers Richard Wilbur, Dorothy Parker and a young Stephen Sondheim, Candide marries raucous humor with the extraordinary genius of Leonard Bernstein. Northeast Corridor: Steely Dan Live! Steely Dan UMe The first live Steely Dan album in more than 25 years, Northeast Corridor: Steely Dan Live!, was recorded across tour dates at New York City’s Beacon Theatre, The Met
Philadelphia, & more, and showcases selections from Steely Dan’s extraordinary catalog of slinky grooves, sleek subversive lyrics, and infectious hits. My Bluegrass Heart Béla Fleck BMG Over the last four decades, Béla Fleck has made a point of boldly going where no banjo player has gone before, a musical journey that has earned him 15 Grammys in nine different fields, including Country, Pop, Jazz, Instrumental, Classical and World Music. But his roots are in bluegrass, and that’s where he returns with his first bluegrass tour in 24 years, My Bluegrass Heart. My Bluegrass Heart is the third chapter of a trilogy that began in 1988. The project features a who’s who of some of the greatest instrumentalists in bluegrass music’s history alongside some of the best of the new generation of players: mandolinists Sam Bush, Sierra Hull, and Chris Thile; fiddlers Michael Cleveland and Stuart Duncan; celebrated multi-instrumentalist é Justin Moses, bassists Edgar Meyer and Mark Schatz, and the amazing Bryan Sutton and Molly Tuttle on guitar. Voice Of Nature: The Anthropocene Renée Fleming & Yannick Nezét-Ségui Decca Renee Fleming explores how music’s relationship with nature can be relevant for the age of humans. Looking back to the Romantic era and looking forward with new commissions from Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw and Kevin Puts. Renee Fleming said, “The music on the album begins in a time almost two centuries ago, when people had a profound connection to the beauty of nature. Now we have reached a moment when we see all too clearly the effects of our own activity, and the fragility of our environment.” n
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14 BYE BYE MISS AMERICAN PIE
obstacles: severe asthma; a sister’s addictions; his father’s sudden death, which he watched and predicted. Eleven years later he began siphoning his sorrow into a song shrouded by “the day the music died.” Holly died when McLean was 13. I was 13 when I first heard American Pie. My family had settled in our house in the South Fork hamlet of Wainscott, renting our New Rochelle home to save money and my parents’ troubled marriage. My mother and I were driving through the Springs, scouting real estate in a cheaper hamlet, when the radio played a song seemingly beamed from another galaxy. Everything about American Pie mesmerized. The snappy rhymes. The happy melody. The exotic settings. The cosmic images. The galloping pace that conjured mustangs and Mustangs. That afternoon our Ford morphed into the narrator’s Chevy in 512 musical seconds. I felt like McLean must have felt when he discovered Holly’s voice. Reborn. Restrung. Retuned. My horsepower passion was revved up by my homeroom mate and basketball buddy, Gregg de Waal, an East Hampton native with a goofy grin, searchlight eyes and the quiet curiosity of a budding bayman. We made American Pie our research project, dissecting countless stories and theories as we decoded the eight-minute-plus, two-sided 45. We uncovered an elegy for a country gutted by wars, race riots, assassinations and generation gaps wider than the Grand Canyon. We disappeared into an amazing maze of pop-culture allusions. The line “Eight miles high and falling fast” referenced “Eight Miles High,” the Byrds’ helter-skelter rocker. “Helter Skelter” was the Beatles’ heavy-metal hymn that Charles Manson mutated into a murderous mission. The “generation lost in space” lost themselves in moon landings and the sci-fi TV show Lost in Space. Gregg and I created a spacy fantasy around the couplet “While Lenin read a book on Marx/A quartet practiced in the park.” We replaced Vladimir and Karl, founding fathers of the Soviet Union, America’s greatest enemy, with John Lennon and Groucho Marx, radical quipsters who appeared on talk shows and in bedroom photographs. We had absolutely no idea that these revolutionary pundits would share a 1995 stamp issued by Abkhazia, a Russian republic. We cast the Beatles in two roles: the parkpracticing quartet and the marching-band sergeants who refuse to yield the football field after the fallout shelter falls. After all, we figured, didn’t the Fab Four masquerade as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? And does24
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n’t their namesake album cover’s choir of cutout celebrities include Karl Marx? Songs make us dance, romance, and retreat into a trance. American Pie made me a character in my own South Fork musical. I felt the narrator’s sock-hop jealousy while watching my eighth-grade crush dance with another guy to the Moments’ “Love on a Two-Way Street.” The bored South Fork natives with whom I drank Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill Wine in a pickup by a Wainscott beach reminded me of McLean’s “good ol’ boys” toasting their imminent deaths with whiskey and rye by a dry levee. I linked the levee to private jetties littering the sand like concrete buoys, eroding dunes they were designed to guard. American Pie crowned a year of momentous firsts: first football heroics; first sexual experience; first betrayal. McLean’s hopeful rhythms consoled me after my father sold our Wainscott home without consulting my mom, who at the time was house sitting for my dad’s brother in California. In August 1972 we returned for good to our New Rochelle house, where we never lived as a whole family. Buddy Holly inspired McLean to play music for a living, to make people “happy for a while.” McLean inspired me to write about music for a living. I mention American Pie before I ask musicians for the first song they couldn’t forget, the one that rearranged their vital organs. I channel the challenges of deconstructing American Pie before they deconstruct their own challenges: rewarding mentors; protecting proteges; hitting brick walls after breaking through. I interviewed Mr. American Pie himself in 1984, two weeks after starting at the paper that employed me for 25 years. McLean spoke from his home near the Hudson River, nearly four miles from the birthplace of “American Pie.” I spoke from my mom’s home in New Rochelle, a special place for a special event. McLean was equally engaging and elusive. Holly’s death devastated him because he considered the musician an unsung master and his “secret” agent/angel of good vibes. “As far as I was concerned,” he said, “I was the only person in the world who understood him, who dug him.” Remembering that piercing pain freed him to write a fable/parable about apocalyptic times in “the world known as America,” a national loss of innocence triggered by the days the music died. The overwhelming popularity of American Pie overwhelmed him; he learned the hard way that unfamiliar success is much harder to handle than familiar failure. McLean declined to identify American Pie characters and meanings, sticking to a long-
time script. All his songs, he insisted, were mostly “flashes of light, pure strokes of brilliance from somewhere, usually not from me.” He laughed when I told him about substituting Groucho & John for Karl & Vladimir. “Hmmm, not bad,” he said. “I’ll give you an A for effort.” McLean and I reunited for a 1999 story on Martin Guitar’s limited-edition, signature American Pie model, inlaid with seven of the song’s mythic names. He praised a beloved, long-lost Martin D-28 as “the rocket ship” that zoomed him to “some good places,” enabling him to buy the New Rochelle house his mother lost after his father died. Royalties from hit tunes—“American Pie,” “Vincent,” “Castles in the Air”—allowed him to afford rare Martins and a totem pole for his kids, a stand-in for a New Rochelle totem pole that was my childhood attraction, too. American Pie looped through my system as I wrote The Kingdom of the Kid, a 2013 memoir about the South Fork in the late ’60s to early ’70s, the last gasp for a middle-class paradise. McLean’s bizarre bedfellows—the Bible and the Book of Love; the Rolling Stones and the Holy Ghost—encouraged me to pair baseball hall of famer Carl Yastrzemski and literary hall of famer Truman Capote, my chalkand-cheese heroes. I opened the last chapter in Wainscott Cemetery, searching for my writing guru’s grave, as a tribute to McLean’s final verse, where the narrator searches for solace in the dead record store where the music thrived. I don’t know why I left out my American Pie pilgrimage. Maybe it was because I lost track of my fellow pilgrim for 43 years. I finally met Gregg de Waal again in his East Hampton Star obituary, published in 2015, the year McLean’s American Pie manuscript was auctioned for $1.2 million. I was happy to know that Gregg loved fishing and dogs. He certainly looked happy in the obit photo, hugging his pup, his lighthouse eyes glowing. Gregg and I shared a mystical moment during a 2016 reunion for the East Hampton High School Class of ’76, which I attended as a special guest of the East Hampton Middle School Class of ’72. We reunited at a table of photos of deceased graduates. I was staring at Gregg’s 17-year-old self when the DJ played—no lie— “American Pie.” In a flash we were teen-age broncin’ bucs, kicking off our shoes and blues in life’s rodeo. n
Geoff Gehman is a journalist and the author of the memoir The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons (SUNY Press).
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When you knoW Where to find iCon: You won’t miss any of our EXCLUSIVE interviews with some of the biggest names in theater, film and music. You’ll know which artist in the area is exhibiting when and where in our chock-full gallery Exhibits section. You’ll find our roundup of new books and music sure comes in handy when you want to hear or read something new. You can read current film reviews, as well as a curated selection of classic film reviews. You’ll use ICON as a resource for where to go and what to see each month.
WHERE TO FIND ICON ALLENTOWN Allentown Art Musuem Baum School of Art Blick Art Crown Supermarket Da Vinci Center Fegley’s Brew Works Lehigh Valley Chamber Hava Java Jewish Community Center Johnny Bagels Miller Symphony Hall Primo Cafe & Gelato Starbucks Venny’s Pizza Weis Food Market
31 No. 5th Street 510 W. Linden Street 3152 Lehigh Street 702 N 4the Street 3145 Hamilton Blvd 812 W. Hamilton Street 840 Hamilton Street 526 No. 19th Street 702 No. 22nd Street 26 No. 6th Street 23 No. 6th Street 7535 Windsor Drive 3300 Lehigh Street 840 Hamilton Street 365 So. Cedar Crest Blvd
EASTON The Strand Gallery On Fourth W Graphics Easton Public Market Terra café Sette Luna Karl Stirner Arts Building Lehigh Valley Chamber Ciao! Playa Bowls Quadrant Book Mart/Café 3rd Street Alliance The Cosmic Cup
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The Strand Gallery On Fourth W Graphics Easton Public Market Terra café Sette Luna Karl Stirner Arts Building Lehigh Valley Chamber Ciao! Playa Bowls Quadrant Book Mart/Café 3rd Street Alliance The Cosmic Cup
ICON | OCTOBER 2021 | ICONDV.COM
BETHLEHEM Ahart’s Market Azar Supermarket Banana Factory Bethlehem Brew Works Bethlehem Library BOX: Bethlehem House Gallery Cafe the Lodge Compact Disc Center Crown Supermarket Déja Brew Coffeehouse Designer Consigner Donegal Square Godfrey Daniels Hotel Bethlehem Johnny’s Bagels & Deli 1 Johnny’s Bagels & Deli 2 Latin Cruise Lore Salon L.V. Convention Center Mama Nin Rocecheria Menchies Moravian Book Store PBS Channel 39 Redner’s Warehouse Market Saxby’s Shoprite Snow Goose Gallery The Bagel Basket The Café The Cup/Lehigh University The Flying Egg Boutique Diner Valley Farm Market WDIY FM Lehigh Valley Wegman’s Supermarket Weis Market Weis Market Wise Bean
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16 ELIANE ELIAS
And in what language? I am playing big band music, which has its own feel, with tunes arranged for 22-piece ensembles. What I am is all of those things. I can tell you, though, that there is one thing that changed my career a lot. You mentioned Sings Jobim. That’s a good one. I was very reluctant when it was time to mix it because I didn’t want to give up the piano’s position. I wanted the voice to be really inside the track. I didn’t want it to be upfront. If I could blend my voice together with the band, I knew it could be special. Things were changing. I was doing more vocals. By the time I got to Dreamer—you know, the record company wanted me to sing more, and I told them, OK, and gave them this. I liked the Jobim/Claus Ogerman orchestra sound. I sang in the English language. And when Dreamer came out, it was a huge success. Which was great, but then—Oh my God—I realized that I would have to go out and incorporate vocals more, mixing them into my sets. That was another turning point. This is all positive stuff. Oh yes. And my good friend Chick Corea who passed away, our dear and legendary pianist - he and I did something together that will stay in my mind forever. I remember being his guest at an event where he told me that he never felt complete. Because he thought a true artist would be able to play and sing. He mentioned to George Benson and me that we were complete artists. Now, I have to tell you, A.D., that after all these things I have done… being able to explore so many different sounds and venues and for so many different audiences makes me feel more connected to music. Period. All the time. Plus, I’m never bored (laughs). So, which project says, “This is me?” None of them. All of them. The core connection is always the piano. I feel as if that is the continuum on which everything is based. My soul. My heart. Both of these pianists are towering figures. What can you tell me of the individual relationships you had between Valdes and Corea, especially considering that each had radically different approaches to life and their instrument? I first met Chucho in Barcelona, playing a
theater he had played at several nights before. I wasn’t yet familiar with his music. But there was something about his playing that truly touched me. The way he played on stage that night—these duets with his father, Bebo, and their interchange—was beautiful. He put his whole heart into it, and you could feel the way that he made the rhythm a part of him. Through the years, we would see each other and always remember that we had promised ourselves that we would one day play togeth-
Graham Dechter, Marc Johnson, Eliane Elias and Mauricio Zottarelli
er. After playing a jazz cruise three years ago with him on the same bill, I had been thinking about doing an all-piano album, and the dream became a reality to ask Chucho to be part of it. The story with Chick is that I first met him when he played in Brazil in 1978, duets with Gary Burton. I so loved that performance. That was life-changing. We met then, hung out the entire night. I played for him; we played together, four hands. We kept in touch. Three years later, I moved to New York, and he was a tremendous help, writing letters to immigration about me and my value to this country. Chick was an
incredible friend and influence—one of the biggest. All that, and what was important, was the idea of playing together again sometime. And we did, on occasion, if we were on the same festival bill, but I wanted to get him with me together in the studio. When we finally made a date to record, all we did before we started was talked on the phone, texted, and we each suggested a few song titles. That was it. I got into the studio a little early, he arrived and gave me a hug, and thank God the engineer was ready because we started playing immediately. Without talking to each other or the engineer. What we played is what is exactly on the record. You can see and hear the affinity between us. The magic. The communication. No Pro Tools. No touching up or retouching. Because even in the rawest of jazz records, there is doctoring. But not here on Mirror Mirror. Exactly. Last night, we played some of the video from the session with Chick. So many of us had tears in our eyes watching it. There we were: two pianos facing each other, just playing. The music was fluent between us. It was very special to me. Very touching. I was mixing this record when he passed away, so immersed in the music—thinking about my last memory of him, so healthy, so full of energy. He was like a kid. I thought Chick was going to live forever. It was so hard for me to get through the mix after hearing that he passed—the news tore into my soul. But I believe he left me with this: a beautiful living memory and his last studio recording. It’s been a while since you’ve done an allpiano recording, and that happened to be with Herbie Hancock in 1995. Why or why now? Was this new album planned, or was it instinctual? The piano is my great love, an extension of my body and my soul. When I was very young, I always played piano duets with my teacher. The timing of making a duets album now came down to timing. I was in New York, Chick was in New York, and Chucho was in New York. Time has a force of its own. It had to happen when it happened. The timing was never right. And then it was. And it was all so beautiful, you know? n ICON | OCTOBER 2021 | ICONDV.COM
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WHERE TO FIND ICON IN PHILADELPHIA 1830 Rittenouse 2101 Cooperative Inc 220 W. Rittenhouse Adademy House Acme Acme Acme Acme Acme Acme Acme Supermarket Adelphia House Anthony's Coffeeshop Arden Theater Aria Condos Arts Tower Condos Belgravia Condos Benjamin Franklin House Bishop's Collar Bluestone Lane BOX BOX (at trolley turnabout) BOX (The Met) BOX (Craftworks BOX (Milcrate Cafe) Brauhaus Brewery Co Cafe Ole Center City One Chestnut Lofts City Fitness City Fitness City Fitness City Fitness City Hall Visitors Lobby City Tap House City Tap House City View Condos 1820 Rittenhouse Condos 1900 Rittenhouse Square Condos Condos Constitution Building Cosmopolitan Condos Dessert Crazy Earth Cup/Sam's Place Ellelauri Boutique Evil Genius Beer Company FOX29 Studio - Greenroom Franklin Tower Free Library of Philadelphia Fresh Grocer Good Dog Bar & Restaurant Good Karma Café Good Karma Café
1830 Rittenhouse Square 118 So. 21st Street 220 W. Rittenhouse Square 1420 Locust Street 180 W. Girard Ave 309 S 5th Street 2101 Cottman Ave 1001 South Street 1400 E. Passyunk Street 1901 Johnston Street 309 S 5th St 1229 Chestnut St 903 S 9th St 40 N 2nd Street 1425 Locust Street 1324 Locust Street 1811 Chesnut Street 834 Chestnut Street 2349 Fairmount Ave 1701 Locust St 34th & Chestnut N.W. Frankford & Delaware Ave Broad & Poplar 541 E. Girard Ave 400 E. Girard Ave 718 South St. 117 Chestnut Street 147 No. 3rd Street 1326 Spruce Street 124 Chesnut Street 1428 Frankford Ave 200 Spring Garden 1148 Wharton St 1819 JFK Blvd Market Street 3925 Walnut St. 3925 Walnut St. 2001 Hamilton Street 1820 Rittenhouse Square 1900 Rittenhouse Square 1520 Hamilton Street 22 Street & Arch 325 Chesnut Street 221 So. 12th Street 1925 Fairmount Ave 405 So. 45th Street 114 So. 19th Street 1727 No. Front Street 4th and Market Streets 200 No. 16th Street 1901 Vine Street 1501 No. Broad Street 224 So. 15th Street 2319 Walnut Street 331 So. 22nd Street
Good Karma Café Green Aisle Grocert Green Eggs Green Eggs Midtown Green Line Café Green Line Café Hawthorne's Café Hinge Cafe Historic: The Touraine Condos Historic: Waterfront Condos Historic: Waterfront Condos Historic: Trinity Condos Historic: Logan Condos Honey's Sit and Eat Hopkinson House (mailroom) IGA Supermarket Jefferson Hospital Jefferson Hospital (Main ) Jefferson Hospital (East) JJ'S Food Market Joe’s Coffee ShoP Johnny Brendas Kelly Writer's House Kite & Key La Colombe Torrefaction Last Drop Latimer Deli Left Bank Apartments Lucky Goat Coffee House Mad Rex Restauran Marathon Grill Mariposa Food Co-op Masala Kitchen Kati Rolls Memphis Taproom Metropolitan Bakery Milk & Honey Milk and Honey Café Milkboy Milkcrate Café Mixto Bar & Restaurant Mulberry Market Museum Towers National Liberty Museum National Mechanics Nook Bakery & Coffee Bar North Bowl OCF Coffee House OCF Coffee House Old Nelson Food Market One Franklin Towne Condos Oregon Market Palm Tree Market Philadelphia Java Co Pier 3 Condos Pier 7 Condos
928 Pine Street 1618 E. Passyunk Ave 1306 Dickinson Street 212 S. 13th Street 28 S. 40th Street 4426 Locust St 738 So. 11th Street 2652 E. Somerset Street 1520 Spruce Street 33 S Letitia Street 106 So. Front Street 2027 Arch Street 1666 Callowhill Street 800 No. 4th Street 604 Washington Square 2497 Aramingo Ave 1100 Walnut Street 111 S 11Tth Street 8th and Market Street 118 E. Girard Ave 1845 Walnut St 1201 Frankford Ave 3805 Locust Walk 1836 Callowhill St. 130 S 19th Street 1300 Pine Street 255 So. 15th Street 3131 Walnut Street 888 No. 26th St 1000 Frankford Ave #1 1818 Market Street 4824 Baltimore Ave 1211 Walnut St 2331 E. Cumberland St 4013 Walnut Street 4435 Bal.timore Ave 518 S. 4th Street 1100 Chestnut Street 400 E. Girard Ave 1141 Pine Street 236 Arch Street 1801 Buttonwood Street 321 Chestnut Street 22 S. 3rd street 15 S. 20th St 909 N. 2nd St 2100 Fairmount Ave 2930 Chestnut St 2000 Chestnut Street 1 Franklin Towne B 320 W. Oregon Ave 717 N. 2nd Street 852 S. 2nd St 3 N. Columbus Blvd 7 N. Columbus Blvd
Pizza Brain Plough and the Stars Punk Burger Race Street Cafe Rally Coffee Reading Terminal Reanimator Coffee Rittenhouse Market River Loft Riverview Apartments Rodriguez Free Library Rotten Ralph’s Saladworks Sassafras Market Sassafras Market Saxby’s Coffee Rittenouse Shop Rite Shop Rite (Bridge/Harbison) Shop Rite (shelf) Silk City Sporting Club at Bellevue Standard Tap Starbucks Stateside Steap & Grind Suburban Station Supremo Food Market Suya Suya Sweat Sweat Fitness The Bean Cafe The Carlyle Apartments The Collonade The Dorchester The Dorchester (lobby) The Foodery The Foodery The Good Spoon The National at Old City The Phoenix The Sterling The View at Old City The Westbury Apartments The Wireworks Tivoli Condos Tuscany Apartments Tuscany Cafe (Rittenhouse) Walnut Towers Warwick Condos Watermark Waterworks World Cafe Live Yakitori Boy Zama
2313 Frankford Ave 123 Chestnut Street 1823 E. Passyunk Ave 208 Race Street 701 S. 7th Street 12th & Filbert Street 1523 E. Susquehanna 1733 Spruce Street 2300 Walnut Street 2101 Chestnut Street 600 W Girard Ave 201 Chestnut Street 1760 Market Street 163 N. 3rd Street 163 N. 3rd St 2000 Walnut Street 3745 Aaramingo Ave 5597 Tulip Street 24th & Oregon 435 Spring Garden St 224 S. Broad Street 901 N. 2nd Street 1201 Market Street 1536 E. Passyunk ave 1619 Frankford Ave 15th & Market Street 4301 Walnut Street 400 Fairmount Ave 2400 Walnut Street 700 E. Passyunk Ave 615 South St 2031 Locust Street 1601 Spring Garden St 224 Rittenhouse Sq 226 W. Rittenhouse Sq 837 N. 2nd St 1000 Pine Street 1400 N. Front St 121 N. 2nd Street 1600 Arch Street 1815 JFK Blvd 401 Race Street 271 S. 15th Street 301 Race Street 1900 Hamilton Street 222 W. Rittenhouse Sq 230 S. Broad 834 Walnut Street 1701 Locust Street 2 Franklin Towne Blvd 640 Waterworks Drive 3025 Walnut Street 211 N. 11th Street 128 S. 19th Street
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5 BLUE HERON OF HAPPINESS
to the farm in the morning. That one always flies to the far end of the water at first sign of my car coming down the driveway. He leans forward, lifts his shoulders, unfolding those long, graceful wings, and gently springs from his toes, as you would into a calm, summer pond from the end of a dock. Slow, rhythmic sweeps carry the heron to another spot, not so close. Nature doesn’t come more beautiful. A blue Heron isn’t blue like a bluebird; it’s more like a selection of grays—a large, longlegged, non-swimming waterbird that blends into the coloration of the wetlands where it lives. Often it stands in the water, motionless, waiting with great patience for a fish to wander past its ankles, then spears it with its long, thin beak. I passed a heron nearly every day while walking Jack along the canal, either just sunning in the same dead tree or standing in the water checking out the menu. Jack was always transfixed as the heron winged its way slowly up the canal or river, neck retracted into an s-curve, legs extended behind. I don’t know why the roof heron decided to visit. He had to fly up the hill and drop through a small opening in the canopy over the house. But there he was, on my special day. This being the 21st century, I searched the all-knowing internet for the latest in ancient heron lore. It will surprise no one with a computer that you can find a meaning to suit any purpose if you just poke around the web long enough. It’s why lore and myths were created in the first place—to provide explanations for unanswerable questions. My worldview holds that there is an order to everything. Randomness and predictability are not opposites; they are part of the machinery, like a motor and a wheel. I would like to understand the order better, but I’m okay with some of it still being in the mystery stage. Maybe my heron was seeking shelter, maybe something caught his eye, or maybe he was some kind of a sign from the Universe. The extended head is part of mating, so perhaps he was being flirty. I’ll never know. Doesn’t matter. The thought of the heron stopping by to wish me well is warm and satisfying, and I’m going with that. It’s easy to see how lore happens. Once he got tired of those tall, featherless, slack-jawed creatures gaping at him from below, the heron took that leap, up and out, with a curving path though the tops of the trees, off to somewhere with more privacy and maybe some fish. Then again, it could have been a workday, and he had another message to deliver. n
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18 FILM ROUNDUP
elderly compadre, and the boy’s cock (that’s a rooster, readers!) learn to live life to the fullest, particularly after they stop over in a south-of-the-border town where Clint’s character gets to tame horses and romance the local widower. This is a gentle elegy unafraid to court ridicule, and there’s something sublime about its transitory nature. [PG-13] HHH1/2 The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Dir. Michael Showalter). Starring: Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Vincent D’Onofrio. This featherweight biopic of former evangelist and gay icon Tammy Faye Bakker seems expressly designed to garner star and producer Jessica Chastain a golden statuette. Her transformation into the heavily made-up, Betty Boopbubbly Tammy Faye is entirely superficial. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think she was doing sketch comedy, which makes a certain kind of sense as director Michael Showalter hails from the oft-hilarious trio known as Stella. This is far from a funny movie, though, as it primarily deals with Tammy Faye’s melodramatic crisis of conscience after the collapse of the corrupt religious empire she built with her preacher husband Jim (Andrew Garfield). It’s another film, like the Margot Robbie-starring I, Tonya, that attempts to rehabilitate an American tabloid staple, though its sentimentality is as shallow and pernicious in its way as any National Enquirer-level gawking. [PG-13] H1/2 Titane (Dir. Julia Ducournau). Starring: Vincent Lindon, Agathe Rousselle, Garance Marillier. A repulsive work of faux-transgression, French director Julia Ducournau’s Cannes prizewinner follows a woman named Alexia (Agathe Rousselle), an exotic dancer with an unhealthy obsession for cars, the result of an accident she was in as a youngster. She’s also a serial killer who goes on the run after a particularly brutal spree. Through some absurd twists of fate, she ends up in the care of a steroidal fireman (Vincent Lindon) who treats her like family. It’s clear from the start that Ducournau isn’t aiming for realism. (Vehicle-on-woman sex scene, anyone?) But the raw emotional undercurrents of the film never truly land, despite Lindon and Rousselle’s fervent efforts to wring something profound out of Ducournau’s patchwork script. And the copious body horror—flesh pierced, bones broken, a metal-machine infant birthed—feel like warmed-over David Cronenberg. [R] H n
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20 CLASSIC FILMS
judgment on the wisdom of redoing something that worked just fine the first time, it’s a perfect moment to go back to the source. Johan (Erland Josephson) and Marianne (Liv Ullmann) are a seemingly content couple whose wedded bliss unravels over the nearly three hours of Bergman’s drama (or six in its no-less-essential television version). Tension that is first of an intellectual sort eventually morphs into blatant verbal vitriol and shocking physical violence. And by the end, out from under the yoke of this unholy matrimony, a kind of peace is brokered between the pair. Bergman was a master at deconstructing bourgeois systems of power, and this is among his peak efforts in that regard. (Streaming on The Criterion Channel.) Unforgiven (1992, Clint Eastwood, USA) With Clint Eastwood crying macho in theaters, why not head back to one of his earliest valedictory statements, released when he was 62. Unforgiven came at a time when the Western was considered an antiquated form, so Eastwood and screenwriter David Webb Peoples reworked the cliches of the genre, as well as Eastwood’s own horse opera iconography, into its own kind of classic, a film at once visually expressive and thematically severe. Eastwood’s retired gunslinger, William Munny, is a figure of aching complexity. Called out to do one last job (involving the elimination of Gene Hackman’s psychotic town sheriff), he finds the world he knew has become much less black and white. Or maybe it was always this way and he was just blind to it? A good number of Eastwood’s movies are about grappling with one’s complicated legacy. This may still be the finest of them. (Streaming on HBOMax.) n Answer to this month’s puzzle
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harper’s FINDINGS Life expectancy in the United States declined between 2018 and 2020 by 3.88 years for Hispanics, 3.25 years for blacks, and 1.36 years for non-Hispanic whites; in peer countries, the average overall decline was 0.22 years. Banded mongoose societies distribute resources equally because parents do not know who their children are. A study of ninety-eight fruit fly societies populated with clones demonstrated that the same clones consistently became the most popular flies. Hunger causes male fruit flies to fight among themselves. A single female worker Cape honey bee who cloned herself in 1990 has hundreds of millions of clone descendants, some of whom became queens. The introduction of an assassin bug among broad-horned flour beetles reversed sexual selection and led to fitter females. Dragon Man (Homo longi), a species with square eye sockets and large teeth, was proposed to be the closest relative of Homo sapiens. Iceberg scours in the Florida Keys were dated to 29,000 bc. The Maori may have reached Antarctica in the seventh century. An analysis of pottery residues from ninth- to twelfth-century Palermo suggested that fish was unpopular in medieval Islamic cuisine. British chickens from the Iron Age through the Saxon period tended to live long lives because they were sacred. An Egyptian vulture was seen in Britain for the first time since 1868. A plague of bunions in Cambridge at the turn of the fourteenth century was blamed on a craze for pointy shoes.
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In Indonesia, where coral growth patterns indicated that a thirty-two-year earthquake had preceded the Sumatra earthquake of 1861, a meteor appeared to have fallen into an active volcano. Evidence grew stronger that the Younger Dryas Impact spurred the formation of sedentary human civilization. A survey of spiders who prey on snakes found that the victims can be up to a meter long and noted that tarantulas eat fer-de-lance and golden silk orb-weaver spiders eat eyelash vipers. Snakes will decline to attack if they are running low on venom. Pharmacologists were optimistic about treating irritable bowel syndrome with tarantula venom. A single dose of laughing gas can alleviate treatmentresistant depression. Childhood trauma makes morphine more pleasurable, SSRIs make crayfish too outgoing, and marijuana makes lobsters slower but does not significantly alter their response to being boiled alive.
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The twenty-eight Tasmanian devils introduced to Maria Island in an effort to save them from facial cancer were found to have killed three thousand pairs of little penguins. The feathers of Australian red-backed fairy wrens have gotten duller to blend in with wildfire-scorched habitats. Monarch butterflies raised in captivity can still figure out how to migrate south. Female seahorses will move on to mate with new males if they become unable to smell their current mates. Marine biologists spent five years training snowflake moray eels to slither up a ramp, demonstrating that the eels’ second set of jaws works equally well on land. Nuclear-blast detectors picked up the signature of a new population of pygmy blue whales and the infrasonic rumblings of 1,001 rocket launches. Worms and Jeff Bezos were to be sent into space. Scientists worried that humans could take advantage of benevolent AI and suggested that an autonomous robot could re-create Earth’s primordial soup. Researchers from fourteen countries agreed that we are all going to die. 30
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INDEX Portion of unruly-passenger incidents on U.S. flights this year that involved face masks: 3/4 Number of new microorganisms that have been discovered on urban mass-transit systems since 2016: 11,676 Of new viruses: 10,928 Est. percentage by which parking demand will decline across the United States by 2050: 40 No. of NYC parking spots converted into outdoor dining areas during the pandemic: 8,550 % of streets closed during the pandemic now reopened/scheduled to reopen to traffic: 85 Number of people admitted to Phoenix’s burn unit last summer after contact with hot asphalt, sidewalks, or sand: 104 Number of those people who died: 7 Min. portion of the world’s mature giant sequoias killed in a single wildfire last year: 1/10 Percentage decline in California’s monarch butterfly population since the 1980s: 99.7 Estimated number of additional humans who will be exposed to disease-carrying mosquitoes by 2080: 950,000,000 No. of serious injuries at Amazon warehouses for every 200,000 hours worked: 5.9 At other U.S. warehouses: 3.1 % of Europeans who prefer to have packages delivered by a drone instead of a human: 35 Who would like to see artificial intelligence replace some of their legislative representatives: 51 Min. number of candidates in Mexico who were murdered before the June elections: 34 % of atheists more likely than religious Americans to oppose the death penalty for murder: 76 % of Americans who thought religion was gaining influence in the U.S. a year ago: 38 Who think so today: 16 % change in the share of Democrats who regard the country’s moral values as “poor”: −29 In the number of Republicans: +65 Percentage of Democrats who have a favorable view of critical race theory: 86 Of Republicans who have an unfavorable view of it: 91 Percentage by which Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say they have a “good idea” of what it is: 34 Factor by which high-income college applicants are more likely than low-income applicants to write essays about mental health: 1.5 About sports: 4 About failure: 4.5 No.of prisoners who requested compassionate release during the pandemic last year: 30,969 Number of these prisoners whose requests were approved: 36 Minimum number who died while their requests were pending: 35 Chance that a European Union resident who received public services last year did so through a personal connection: 1 in 3 Percentage decrease in the number of families reporting depression and anxiety after the last two rounds of stimulus checks: 20 In the number of families reporting food shortages: 42 Percentage increase last year in the sale of vacation homes in the United States: 16 Portion of millennial homeowners who have “some regrets” about purchasing a house: 2/3 Date on which China announced that it would allow couples to have a third child: 5/31/21 Percentage of women surveyed in the central Chinese city of Xi’an who say they would like to have three children: 8 % of American men in relationships who think their partner is more attractive than they are: 37 Of American women in relationships who think so: 14 SOURCES: 1 Federal Aviation Administration; 2,3 Christopher E. Mason, Weill Cornell Medicine
(NYC); 4 Walker Consultants (Indianapolis); 5 Office of the Mayor of New York City; 6 Stephan J. Schmidt, Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.); 7,8 Kevin N. Foster, Arizona Burn Center (Phoenix); 9 National Park Service (Three Rivers, Calif.); 10 The Xerces Society (Portland, Ore.); 11 Sadie J. Ryan, University of Florida (Gainesville); 12,13 Occupational Safety and Health Administration; 14,15 Oscar Jonsson, IE University (Madrid); 16 Integralia (Mexico City); 17 Pew Research Center (Washington); 18–21 Gallup (Washington); 22–24 YouGov (NYC); 25–27 Benjamin Gebre-Medhin, Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, Mass.); 28–30 Federal Bureau of Prisons; 31 Transparency International (Berlin); 32,33 Patrick Cooney, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor); 34 National Association of Realtors (Chicago); 35 Bankrate (NYC); 36 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China (Beijing); 37 Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (Beijing); 38,39 YouGov.
Themeless #17 ACROSS 1 Thief involved in DC plots 9 She sang “Hot Right Now” in 2012 16 Central Institute of Hindi locale 20 Chocolate cookie-flavored ice cream holder 21 Put into force 22 Like bricks 23 “Let me be really clear” 26 Org. with employees whose goals are goals 27 Kalamata stone 28 2014 film based on the New Testament 29 Penny prez 30 Says “coulda, woulda, shoulda,” e.g. 32 Yak nonstop 33 Symbol of happiness 36 Ancient flier 38 Kendrick who earned a Pulitzer for his album “DAMN.” 39 Instruments featured in many Vivaldi concertos 41 Recommendation well before Election Day 46 Khareef Festival nation 47 82 Down’s goals 48 Comparatively kind 49 Waiting for the other ___ to drop 50 Hikes taken at work? 52 Attempts to locate 53 Expression from one who’s incensed 54 Fairway Rock in the Bering Strait, e.g. 55 Rotating rotisserie rods 56 “Easy” songwriter Richie 57 Places where people pick up pumpkins 60 Thick hairstyles 61 Free from corruption 62 Returns from one’s dream trip? 63 ___ for the stars (aim high) 64 Did some road repair 65 Anatomical places for crib notes 66 Exhibit fear 67 Passages in sci-fi books 71 Home to the vast majority of the Hmong 72 “___ little cubby all stuffed with fluff” (lyric in the theme song to Winnie-the-
Pooh films) 73 Regards 74 When a star may shine 75 Mystical valley in the novel “Lost Horizon” 77 Piece of the pie, perhaps 78 One unlikely to ever make a charitable donation 79 Like capitalism in its final form, to modern socialists 81 Abandon a federation 82 Frequent filming location for “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” 85 Car dealer’s offerings 87 Sport-___ (large car, informally) 88 “The Aviator” director 90 Coop clamor 92 Illusionist Geller 95 “All good things come to an end” 98 Piggies, so to speak 99 Of a numerical ranking 100 Zapatistas’ leader Zapata 101 Needs auto-correct, say (unless auto-correct is itself wrong) 102 Work on, as an old painting 103 Breaks of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
DOWN Circulating circle, often Structure seen in M.C. Escher’s “Relativity” Crystal ___ (shade akin to celadon blue) Edged by a point, say Month for World Vegetarian Day Former boxing champ Shane ___-glare screen (monitor that minimizes reflections) Chutzpah Short breaks Core components Rip to shreds “Rats!” in a Platz Redding on the album “The Dock of the Bay” Has an emotional impact West German leader whose name is an anagram of NUDE AREA Up in the air Accelerometer, e.g. Intellectual ___ (careful reasoning that holds up to scrutiny)
19 Neurodevelopmental condition 24 Traps for morays 25 ___ Dame (university near South Bend) 29 Hans Gruber’s portrayer in “Die Hard” 31 Launchers of Sputnik 33 Sty sustenance 34 One celebrated in the spring 35 Words from one who’s on the fence 37 Apparel pair 39 Wet spots in dry areas 40 Wrestler Hart nicknamed “The Hitman” 42 Unfriendly and then some 43 River through Geneva 44 Home improvement chain that turned 100 years old in 2021 45 Emulates some fans 47 Stacks 48 Affirmed statement? 51 Detritus left over from an eruption 52 Race venue of old? 53 Muscle-bone connector 55 Not solid, as idiomatic ground 56 Second word of BLM 57 Parental pair in some families 58 Covered (in) 59 “Culture Warlords” author Lavin 60 Fish related to the grouper 61 1998 NL MVP Sosa 63 Bank note whose 100 denomination shows the Bolshoi Theatre
64 Angling platform 66 Completely certain 67 Stamp who played General Zod in Superman films 68 2019 World Cup star Lavelle 69 Argued before a judge 70 Tender after yoga class, say 72 Get in exchange, as from another team 73 French leader who governed during Les Trente Glorieuses 76 Lab flask material 77 Person who can’t make things up to you? 78 Event called “a jewel in New York City’s social crown” in Town & Country magazine 80 Music genre influenced by Cybotron during the 1980s 81 Bright, like an atrium 82 Take one? 83 Oar handler 84 Like crude humor 86 Went on a black diamond run 88 ___ map (diagram of webpages) 89 Some NFL blockers 91 “That hits really close to home,” online 92 45th Union member 93 Russo who played Natasha in “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle” 94 Nuptial affirmations 96 Zinger characteristic 97 [Typo in the original] Solution to this month’s puzzle on page 29 ICON | FEBRUARY 2021 | ICONDV.COM
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