ICON Magazine

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ESSAY 5|

contents

A THOUSAND WORDS One Two Three: A Novel

by Laurie Frankel

Visitation

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Vegetable Simple: A Cookbook

by Eric Ripert

EXHIBITIONS 6|

The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War

by Malcolm Gladwell

Roots: Sources for America Art and Design Allentown Art Museum

Steven Rogers

Jean Childs Buzgo: Vibrance

Alice Neel: People Come First

by Kelly Baum & Randall Griffey

Silverman Gallery of Bucks County Impressionist Art

The times they are achangin’—just not fast enough, or fair enough for the Black community. With his new book, retired Harvard Business School professor Steven Rogers aims to set the historical record straight.

An Ugly Truth

by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang

Weaving Re-Imagined Invitational Exhibition New Hope Arts

The Glass Show Bethlehem House Gallery

FILM ROUNDUP 14 |

Sleep Tight! Bedcovers and Hangings from Around the World Allentown Art Museum

The Art of the Miniature XXIX

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The Snow Goose Gallery 10 |

BOOKS The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever by John McWhorter Backroads Buildings: In Search of the Vernacular

by Steve Gross & Susan Daley

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

Since 1992 215-862-9558 icondv.com facebook.com/icondv PRESIDENT Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com EDITORIAL Editor / trina@icondv.com

Nobody Godzilla vs. Kong The Empty Man Mortal Kombat

Raina Filipiak / Advertising filipiakr@comcast.net

CLASSIC FILMS

Dominic Reposa

Wife! Be Like a Rose!

Cleo from 5 to 7 Charulata Being There

PRODUCTION Adam Cramer CONTRIBUTING WRITERS A. D. Amorosi Robert Beck

ETCETERA

Jack Byer

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Guide to the Arts

Peter Croatto

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Harper’s Findings Harper’s Index

Geoff Gehman

Washington Post Sunday Crossword Puzzle

George Miller

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Mark Keresman Susan Van Dongen Keith Uhlich

ON THE COVER:

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, 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.

Peter Sellers, Being There, 1979 4

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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. ©2021 Primetime Publishing Co., Inc.

a thousand words

STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK

Visitation

I RECEIVED AN EMAIL from Lise telling me her father died. I wanted to go sit on a tree stump in the woods somewhere and process everything that meant to me, but I was in New York, and my only choice was Central Park. That’s not the raw, natural setting I was looking for. Not a lot of solitude on a warm spring day. No stumps.

I met Lisa’s parents through my mother’s church when we moved to Pennsylvania from New Jersey. I was about 14 years old, and George and Erna ran a youth group, regularly hosting a handful of kids at their home. They had two children of their own, and a few years later, a third. I continued to visit them long after the group ceased to meet. It wasn’t a religious thing. It was a needing people like Erna and George in my life thing.

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exhibitions

George Nakashima (American, 1905–1990), Bench with Back, ca. 1958, walnut, hickory. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of the Philadelphia Commercial Museum (Philadelphia Civic Center Museum), Philadelphia, PA, 2004 (2004-111-2

Roots: Sources for American Art and Design Allentown Art Museum 31 N 5th St., Allentown, PA 610-432-4333 Allentownartmuseum.org May 16-September 12 Friday, Saturday, Sunday 11-4 This exhibition draws from AAM’s permanent collection and also includes loaned works from the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of a partnership established through the Art Bridges + Terra Foundation Initiative. Highlighted are works by Plains and Northwest Coast Native Americans; the quilt artists of Gee’s Bend, Alabama; and the Shakers, a religious sect that made furniture expressing their values of simplicity and order, alongside art and design inspired by these traditions. Through these case studies Roots raises questions about inspiration, appropriation, and identity.

Jon Brooks (American, b. 1944), Pair of “Styx” Ladder-back Chairs, 1985, maple, color pencil, lacquer. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Faith Robbins, 2008 (2008-137-1, 2) © Jon Brooks 6

Lambertville Evening, 16x20, mixed media on canvas

Jean Childs Buzgo: Vibrance Silverman Gallery of Bucks County Impressionist Art 4920 York Rd., Rte. 202, Holicong, PA 215-794-4300 Silvermangallery.com May 15-June 19 Meet the artist, May 15, 5-8 & May 23, 1-4 Wed.-Sat. 11-6 and Sun. 11-4 In-Gallery and Online Exhibition Continuing its 10th anniversary exhibition schedule, the Silverman Gallery of Bucks County Impressionist Art is proud to present Jean Childs Buzgo: Vibrance. Jean’s expanded color palette, expressive brushwork and use of mixed media has added a new depth and Vibrance to her work. “Her incredible work ethic and determination have persevered through these challenging times. The result is quite extraordinary, says Silverman owner, Rhonda Garland.

Ranunculus, 16x20, oc

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Farewell to Summer.

Weaving Re-Imagined Invitational Exhibition New Hope Arts, 2 Stockton Ave., New Hope 215-862-9606 Newhopearts.org May 22-July 18 Friday-Sunday, Noon-5PM New Hope Arts showcases the variety of traditional weaving techniques and their reinvention among contemporary artists.This exhibition features 13 regional and national artists whose work allows viewers to explore the process of creation in the weaving medium.

Curator Rita Romanova Gekht’s selections include tapestries and three-dimensional pieces.

Gallery attendance is restricted to ten visitors at one time.Reservations by phone and email are recommended for gallery visits.

Exclamatory

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exhibitions

Linda Rossin (NJ), Butterfly Kisses, acrylic, 2.5”x4.5”

The Art of the Miniature XXIX The Glass Show Bethlehem House Gallery 459 Main St., Bethlehem, PA 610-419-6262 BethlehemHouseGallery.com Through June 12 Closing reception June 12, 6-9PM: Masks Required Gallery Hours Wed.-Thurs. 11am-7pm, Fri.Sat. 12pm-9pm, Sun. 12pm-5pm The Glass Show features glass art in various disciplines, including glass blowing, glass fusing, lampworking, glass printmaking, reverse glass painting, mosaic and stained glass.

The artists included are Khalil Allaik, Mathew Carmen Calleri, Dennis Gardner, Keith Garubba, Dan Getz, Roy Gruver, Kim Hogan, Danny Polk, Lee Riley, Rhonda Snowaert, Brian Toseland, Ward Van Haute and Jeff Waterhouse.

Amish (Lancaster County), Crib Quilt, Diamond in a Square, ca. 1890–1920, wool plain weave, pieced and quilted. Allentown Art Museum: Purchase, The Reverend and Mrs. Van S. Merle Smith, Jr. Endowment Fund, 2004. (2004.18)

Sleep Tight! Bedcovers and Hangings from Around the World Allentown Art Museum 31 N 5th St., Allentown, PA 610-432-4333 Allentownartmuseum.org May 16-September 12 Friday, Saturday, Sunday 11-4 This exhibition brings together textile masterpieces such as embroidered suzanis from Central Asia, hand-painted Japanese futon covers, and Pennsylvania-German quilts, some of which have never been shown at the Museum before. Through this global selection of works, Sleep Tight! explores how community, trade, and migration all play a role in shaping traditions.

Fulani (Niafunké region, Mali), Arkilla Kerka (Marriage‑bed Hanging) (detail), ca. 1950, wool and cotton weft faced plain weave, tapestry weave, twill weave, with supplementary weft.

Allentown Art Museum: Purchase, The Reverend and Mrs. Van S. Merle Smith, Jr. Endowment Fund, 2003. (2003.6.1) 8

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The Snow Goose Gallery 470 Main Street, Bethlehem, PA 610-974-9099 thesnowgoosegallery.com We are very proud to present our 29th invitational miniature show, once again featuring fine art miniatures by some of the world’s top artists. Even though the format for our opening will be different this year, we hope you’ll join us.

Please note that we are following CDC guidelines. View the show online now at thesnowgoosegallery.com. For more information, please call, visit our our website, or email us at info@thesnowgoosegallery.com.

It’s been a long, trying year. We can all use some beauty.

Judy Schrader (PA), A Cat’s Life, oil, 4.625”x3.125”

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on, rld

new books

The Premonition: A Pandemic Story

by Michael Lewis W. W. Norton & Company, $25 “I would read an 800-page history of the stapler if he wrote it.”

–John Williams, New York Times Book Review For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying.

But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about.

Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics.

Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios.

Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A thirteen-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control. A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society. A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu…everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work.

Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever

by John McWhorter Avery; $24 One of the preeminent linguists of our time examines the realms of language that are considered shocking and taboo in order to understand what imbues curse words with such power— and why we love them so much.

Profanity has always been a deliciously vibrant part of our lexicon, an integral part of being human. In fact, our ability to curse comes from a different part of the brain than other parts of speech--the urgency with which we say “f&*k!” is instead related to the instinct that tells us to flee from danger.

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Language evolves with time, and so does what we consider profane or unspeakable.

Nine Nasty Words is a rollicking examination of profanity, explored from every angle: historical, sociological, political, linguistic. In a particularly coarse moment, when the public discourse is shaped in part by once-shocking words, nothing could be timelier.

Backroads Buildings: In Search of the Vernacular

by Steve Gross and Susan Daley Schiffer, $36 From New England to the Deep South, photographers Susan Daley and Steve Gross have captured more than 100 forgotten buildings along America’s old auto routes.

Isolated in full-color and black-andwhite portraits, the roadside cafés, feed stores, grange halls, juke joints, and general stores are a poignant reminder of the ingenuity of local building practices and working-class culture during the years between the Civil War and the Great Depression. With their humble beauty and distinctive character, these once-useful structures infuse the American landscape with a strong sense of place. This collection of buildings preserves a sampling of our country’s architecture heritage and encourages travelers to slow down and notice the details.

Vegetable Simple: A Cookbook

by Eric Ripert Random House, $35 Eric Ripert is the chef and co-owner of the acclaimed restaurant Le Bernardin, and the winner of countless Michelin stars, well known for his exquisite, clean, seafood-centered cuisine.

In Vegetable Simple, Ripert turns his singular culinary imagination to vegetables: their beauty, their earthiness, their nourishing qualities, and the ways they can be prepared. From Sweet Pea Soup to Fava Bean and Mint Salad, warming Mushroom Bolognese to Roasted Carrots, Eric Ripert articulates a vision for vegetables that are prepared simply, without complex steps or ingredients, allowing their color and flavor to remain uncompromised. Complete with gorgeous photos by

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renowned photographer Nigel Parry, this is a necessary guide for the way we eat today.

One Two Three: A Novel

by Laurie Frankel Henry Holt & Co., $26.99 Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne, but the Mitchell triplets are especially beloved. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone knows, and no one doubts it just because she can’t speak. Monday is the town’s purveyor of books now that the library’s closed―tell her the book you think you want, and she’ll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her sock drawer. Mab’s job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne.

For a few weeks 17 years ago, Bourne was national news when its water turned green.

The girls have come of age watching their mother’s endless fight for justice. But just when it seems life might go on the same forever, the first moving truck anyone’s seen in years pulls up and unloads new residents and old secrets. Soon, the Mitchell sisters are taking on a system stacked against them and uncovering mysteries buried longer than they’ve been alive.

As she did in This Is How It Always Is, Laurie Frankel has written a laugh-out-loudon-one-page-grab-a-tissue-the-next novel, as only she can, about how expanding our notions of normal makes the world a better place for everyone.

The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War

by Malcolm Gladwell Little, Brown, $27 In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.

Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,” asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the

enemy and make war far less lethal?

In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?”

Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. Alice Neel: People Come First

by Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey Metropolitan Museum of Art, $50 “For me, people come first,” Alice Neel (1900–1984) declared in 1950. “I have tried to assert the dignity and eternal importance of the human being.” This ambitious publication surveys Neel’s nearly 70-year career through the lens of her radical humanism. Remarkable portraits of victims of the Great Depression, fellow residents of Spanish Harlem, leaders of political organizations, queer artists, visibly pregnant women, and members of New York’s global diaspora reveal that Neel viewed humanism as both a political and philosophical ideal. In addition to these paintings of famous and unknown sitters, the more than 100 works highlighted include Neel’s emotionally charged cityscapes and still lifes as well as the artist’s erotic pastels and watercolors. Essays tackle Neel’s portrayal of LGBTQ subjects; her unique aesthetic language, which merged abstraction and figuration; and her commitment to progressive politics, civil rights, feminism, and racial diversity.

An Ugly Truth

by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang Harper, $29.99 For the past four years, Facebook has been under constant fire, roiled by cascading controversies and crises. It turns out that while the tech giant was connecting the world, they were also mishandling users’ data, spreading fake news, and amplifying dangerous, polarizing hate speech. Leadership decisions at the company enabled, and then attempted to deflect attention from, massive privacy breaches and Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Time after time, Facebook’s engineers were instructed to create tools that encouraged people to spend as much time on the platform as possible, even as those same tools boosted inflammatory rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and partisan filter bubbles.

Each misstep set off a fresh cycle of earnest apologies and glib assurances: We’ll do better. Yet these lapses were not accidental, and the apologies ultimately devoid of accountability. The issues surrounding privacy and speech aren’t bugs; they are features, baked into the company’s DNA— and its algorithms. And while consumers and lawmakers have focused their outrage on privacy breaches and misinformation, Facebook has been consolidating power, devouring competition, posting record profits, and shoring up its dominance via aggressive lobbying efforts. n ICON | MAY/JUNE 2021 | ICONDV.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/ICONDV

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disruptors

A.D. AMOROSI

The times they are a-changin’—just not fast enough, or fair enough for the Black community.

With his new book, retired Harvard Business School professor Steven Rogers aims to set the historical record straight

W

HEN HEEDED CALLS FOR social justice are at the highest, retired Harvard Business School professor, podcaster, and author Steven Rogers is at his most disruptive, and yet, fair- minded.

Rogers is preparing to rock the boat with the May 25 publication of A Letter to My White Friends & Colleagues: What You Can Do Right Now to Help the Black Community.

Rogers’ book is a deep dive into the history of how the United States government, the Federal Reserve, and the entire banking system have made it next to impossible for Black entrepreneurs, Black businessmen big and little, Black-owned banks, and the everyday citizen to get ahead. A Letter to My White Friends & Colleagues is meant to show whites who truly wish to balance the economic scales, immediate ways in which to pay into the system to make things right/fair for Black Americans; ways that include the long-discussed call for governmentbacked reparations to Black descendants of slaves from 1619 to 1865.

Beyond its readability, the best thing about Rogers’ A Letter to My White Friends & Colleagues: What You Can Do Right Now to Help the Black Community is how much sense he makes.

My conversation with Rogers occurred on the morning after the George Floyd murder trial ended with Derek Chauvin’s conviction.

Let’s get this out in the open right now. Neither you nor I planned this conversation mere hours after Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd. It’s an interesting day.

You are absolutely correct.

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What is your take on everything that happened in that courtroom yesterday?

Yesterday, I was concerned, as were most Black people, about what would happen. As a Black American, I can tell you that we have a history of being denied justice and seeing repre-

“I DIDN’T BELIEVE THAT THERE WAS ANY HEALING DONE JUST BY CHAUVIN BEING PUT ON TRIAL. THE HEALING TRULY BEGINS WHEN BLACK PEOPLE GET WHAT THEY’RE ENTITLED TO. WHAT WE’RE ENTITLED TO IS NOT ONLY JUSTICE IN THE COURTS BUT ECONOMIC JUSTICE.”

hensible decisions made by the courts. When the jury gave their verdict, there was relief on my part. But, A.D., the first thing that came to mind was the Emmett Till trial. I thought about how Black Americans have finally been given a chance to experience what we’ve been told is our inalienable right—justice for all. The Emmett Till story is similar to George Floyd’s in that a Black 14-year-old was lynched. That trial was the first media trial of the Civil Rights Movement. Till was accused of saying something like, “Hey, baby,” to a 21-year-old white woman. In response, her husband and his halfbrother went to Till’s home, got him out of bed, beat him to death, shot him, hung him, and threw him in the river. There was a witness: Till’s uncle, Moses Wright. When he was asked during the trial if he recognized the men who

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took Till from his home, Moses stood—a Black man in the South—pointed to the two men and said, “There he.” The Floyd trial was similar: a horrific crime against a Black man, viewed by witnesses.

That was historic.

This was very similar to what we had with the George Floyd case in that we had a “There he” moment: the cell phone cameras showed us who perpetrated this crime. Unlike in Mississippi in 1955, justice prevailed this time. It did not prevail in 1955 and put Black people through post-traumatic stress disorder following that decision. Last night, however, Black people were relieved. I don’t know if it was joy, but there was a relief. We desperately needed this to happen, and directly related to that time in 1955 when we saw something eerily similar. Fact is, those two men eventually confessed to killing Emmett Till without fear of conviction. This has been a scar on America, as well as a pain that Black America has had to carry. This time, a white murderer got what he deserved in his crime against a Black man. That’s rare for America.

And what should the next steps be for all sides of the equation?

We needed this decision to be made so that the country could begin to heal. I didn’t believe that there was any healing done just by Chauvin being put on trial. The healing truly begins when Black people get what they’re entitled to.

What we’re entitled to is not only justice in the courts but economic justice. I encourage whites to share their wealth with Blacks by doing business with Black-owned businesses, supporting historic Black colleges and universities, putting their money in Black-owned banks, and supporting legislation for reparations. All that needs to happen next—white America doing something tangible to help the Black communi-

ty which has been hurt over centuries by the government, for the strict purpose of enhancing whites while impoverishing Blacks. Every white person should now ask and act on “How can I make this country better as it relates to Black Americans.”

I went to school on the Main Line. Radnor High School, down the street from Villanova.

But I’m not a rich suburban kid. My mother was a single parent on welfare.

I went through a program, “A Better Chance,” that identified minority children with strong academic potential and then sent them to private schools to better themselves.

we need more Black-owned businesses to get closer to that ratio. That will help make it possible for the Black community to be vibrant because the largest private employers of Black people in the U.S. are Black-owned businesses.

More and larger ones would employ more Black people. We need more of those, and we need

I live in Philadelphia. We’ve had a string of Black murders, and the Black Lives Matter Movement is gaining real traction here.

As someone who works for several local newspapers and ICON, I notice how we’re writing more stories about supporting Black businesses such as restaurants.

That’s great. But as these stories are coming out, Photo: Suzanne Kreiter/Boston Globe I’m finding from Black and white friends that they never even realized them to grow. To your point, we need a public that half of these places even existed. Is there a service announcement. We need the U.S. govway, first, to promote the existence of all these ernment to say ‘Support Black-owned businessgreat Black owned businesses so that we can es,’ a statement similar to those we make for support them? health reasons.

Absolutely. To your point right there, what we know as Americans is that no community Only this is for the health of the nation. can be healthy and vibrant without the exisYes. But I also don’t want to exaggerate that tence and strong foundation of private enterfact because Black-owned businesses alone prise. If you look at America and see its 300 milcan’t do it. The government has done so much lion people, there are about 30 million busito hurt the Black community that to put all of nesses. So there’s a 10-to-1 ratio between busithe weight on the shoulders of Black-owned nesses and people. What we know is that within business is unfair. Without capital and growth, the Black community that ratio is about 15-toBlack-owned business stays small.

1. What we know is that 94% of Black-owned You come from the Italian community, businesses are small with single owners. First, right? You know from your own experiences the

importance of small businesses in the Italian community. We know that that is also common in Chinatown. Chinatown—no matter where in America we’re talking about—represents Chinese- and Asian-owned businesses.

It’s a large portion of your new book. Can you distill the history of how, specifically, the government wronged the Black community?

That’s a great question. In the book, I detail it as three things: slavery, Black Codes, and redlining. More succinctly, the federal government has denied Black-owned banks the same financial support and guarantees that they provide to white-owned banks with their FHA Loan Program. The reality is Black-owned businesses have great relationships with Black-owned banks.

Still, the Federal government denied Blackowned banks the same capital and guarantees that they gave whiteowned banks that allowed them to leverage their capital. The government choked the source of capital for Black-owned businesses. In the Italian community, the Bank of Italy was so crucial to Italian business that—despite discrimination against Italians and Irish—the federal government looked at them as white. The federal government said they weren’t giving money to Black banks or any banks doing anything for Black business or individuals. That was redlining. In 1930, the Bank of Italy changed its name to the Bank of America.

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KEITH UHLICH

Bob Odenkirk in Nobody

film roundup

Nobody (Dir. Ilya Naishuller). Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Aleksey Serebryakov, Connie Nielsen. Bob Odenkirk gets a John Wick to call his own with Nobody, which was written by Wick scribe Derek Kolstad and directed by Ilya Naishuller, of the manically puerile first-person action flick Hardcore Henry. A similar aura of asinine shamelessness pervades here.

Odenkirk’s Hutch Mansell is a suburban family man going through the motions at a dead-end job. But what few people know is that Hutch is a retired assassin suppressing his murderous instincts for a chance at what most of us rubes would call a normal life. The habitual state of man, the film argues, is bloodthirsty and barbarous, something Hutch re-discovers when he crosses paths with a band of hooligans on a city bus. One “I’m gonna fuck you up!” and some brilliantly choreographed fisticuffs later, and Hutch has inadvertently run afoul of a Russian 14

mobster (Aleksey Serebryakov) with vengeance on the brain. From there, Nobody becomes unrepentantly flip and vile, to the point that Odenkirk’s game attempts to ground Hutch’s macho wants and needs in some recognizably human reality are nullified. [R] HH Godzilla vs. Kong (Dir. Adam Wingard). Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall. A giant lizard fighting an oversize simian? Seems, entertainment-wise, like a sure thing. Yet, the fourth feature in the ongoing MonsterVerse series illustrates otherwise. The G-Guy does indeed fight the K-Guy—for about ten minutes total across the barely two-hour runtime. That wouldn’t be a problem if the rest of the film had something approaching a distinct vision, like Gareth Edwards’s astonishing sense of human-to-monster scale in 2014’s Godzilla, or a performer, like Ken Watanabe in

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2017’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, who might lend resonant gravitas to scenes without beast-on-beast brawling. Yet everything human in Godzilla vs. Kong (Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, and Rebecca Hall are among the anthropoid cast) is unfortunately perfunctory and disconnected from the tedious spectacle conjured by director Adam Wingard and his army of tech-head collaborators. There is some pleasure to be had in several of the vistas, such as a topsy-turvy Center of the Earth and a Hong Kong that’s basically a glowing-neon target for our towering protagonists’ destructive instincts.

Overall, though, this is an empty-headed and hearted extravaganza. [PG-13] H The Empty Man (Dir. David Prior). Starring: James Badge Dale, Marin Ireland, Sasha Frolova. Between inclement weather, attempted studio interference, and a ravaging global pandem-

ic, writer-director David Prior’s feature debut had a torturous road to release. Fortunately, this blood-curdling horror movie is now turning into a deserved cult hit. Prior’s confidence and talent is evident from the 1990sset extended prologue in which a quartet of backpackers in Bhutan run afoul of a malevolent entity. The film then jumps ahead to present-day Missouri, where former cop James Lasombra (James Badge Dale) is asked

The Empty Man.

to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl (Sasha Frolova). We’ve seen many of the elements of this story before (a ghostly urban legend; a lawman with a tortured past; a strings-pulling organization that may be involved in the occult), but not quite in the way Prior presents them. There’s something intentionally hollow about the situations in which Lasombra finds himself as if they’re scales before his eyes that need to be clawed at for a deeper, darker truth to emerge. Like the best scare films, The Empty Man is very much of its moment, but not self-consciously so. [R]

HHHH1/2

Mortal Kombat (Dir. Simon McQuoid). Starring: Lewis Tan, Joe Taslim, Hiroyuki Sanada. It certainly took Hollywood long enough to do a hard-R adaptation of the hysterically gore-drenched video game series. The kills, though, are backloaded in first-time feature director Simon McQuoid’s Mortal Kombat, which, though far from a flawless victory, still has plenty of degenerate delights. Initially, the film is in extended training montage mode, detailing how low-level MMA fighter Cole Young (Lewis Tan) and a ragtag crew that includes Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Kano (Josh Lawson), and Jax (Mehcad Brooks) come under the tutelage of the celestial Lord Raiden (Tadonobu Asano) as prep for an otherworldly martialarts tournament. There’s a lot of lame-’n’-profane quipping between squad.

But that eventually gives way to some entertainingly grisly skirmishes, such as the one involving the four-armed behemoth Goro and another a flying hat, courtesy the haughty Shang Tsung (Chin Han), that becomes an entrails-demolishing buzzsaw. Even those outside the arcade faith will be moved to cheers when the great Hiroyuki Sanada, as the fires-of-hellforged fighter Scorpion, tells his arch-nemesis Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) to “get over here” [R] HH1/2 ICON | MAY/JUNE 2021 | ICONDV.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/ICONDV

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classic films

Cleo from 5 to 7

KEITH UHLICH

Wife! Be Like a Rose!

(1935, Mikio Naruse, Japan)

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962, Agnès Varda, France)

Charulata (1964, Satyajit Ray, India)

The work of the Japanese director Mikio Naruse tends toward a kind of sublime pessimism. Life isn’t just disappointing (per Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story), but difficult, and worth struggling through because survival is preferable to oblivion. It’s a perversely elating negative point of view, and there’s no better place to begin with the prolific Naruse’s art than his classic 1935 drama (the first Japanese talkie to secure a U.S. commercial release) about a bubbly young woman, Kimiko (Sachiko Chiba), who attempts to reunite her estranged parents, Etsuko (Tomoko Ito) and Shunsaku (Sadao Maruyama).

Things do not go as planned, and the failed reconciliation casts light on the tensions in the relationship between mother and daughter. As often in Naruse, the real problem is closer than expected, and its resolution down-to-earth complicated as opposed to fairy-tale ideal. (Streaming on rarefilmm)

The film that put French writer-director Agnès Varda on the map chronicles two hours (though the running time is a half-hour shorter) in the life of a French pop singer, Cleo (Corrine Marchand), who is awaiting the results of a cancer test. It begins with a tarot card reading, which lends the proceedings an overwhelmingly mystical quality—suggesting that Cleo’s life, and her eventual death, are very much out of her hands.

But the journey is really about Cleo countermanding such nebulous fears by attuning to each individual moment in time. This is a movie about womanhood, cinema (Varda’s compadres Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina pop up in a film within the film) and politics (the effects of the Algerian War feature prominently in the story). Yet like any classic work of art, it also offers us, through its specificity of plot and purpose, a design for living. (Streaming on HBOMax)

Most of the chatter around India’s Satyajit Ray focuses on the three coming-of-age films— Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and The World of Apu—that comprise the writer-director’s superb “Apu Trilogy.” His 1964 marital drama, Charulata, is a classic in its own right. Based on a novella

by Rabindranath Tagore, the story, which takes place during the late-19th century Bengali Renaissance, concerns a Calcutta housewife, Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee), trapped in a dull marriage to Bhupati (Sailen Mukherjee), an upperclass intellectual. When Bhupati’s cousin, Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee), comes to visit, he tries to help Charulata become more cultured. A friendship blossoms between the pair that nears intimacy but is never consummated. Yet the subli-

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GUIDE TO THE ARTS 18

ART CALL TO ARTISTS 46th Annual Art-in-the-Park, application deadline August 15.The West Park Civic Association’s Art-in-the-Park returns to Allentown’s West Park on September 18. Free exhibition space offered to high school and college students. Applicants will be vetted by Ward Van Haute, and Diane LaBelle.

Application information westpark-ca.org ALLENTOWN ART MUSEUM May 16-Sept. 12 Roots: Sources for American Art and Design.

Works by Plains & Northwest Coast Native Americans; artists of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, known for their abstract quilts, and the Shakers.

31 N. Fifth St., Allentown. 610-432-4333.

Allentownartmuseum.org ALLENTOWN ART MUSEUM May 16-Sept. 12 Sleep Tight! Bedcovers and Hangings from Around the World. Outstanding bedcovers and bed curtains from the Museum’s collection.31 N. Fifth St., Allentown.

610-432-4333. Allentownartmuseum.org ARTSBRIDGE Through June 30 2021 Members’ Online Exhibition.

ArtsbridgeOnline.com BETHLEHEM HOUSE GALLERY Through June 12 The Glass Show. This exhibit features glass art in various disciplines. 459 Main St., Bethlehem. 610-419-6262.

BethlehemHouseGallery.com NEW HOPE ARTS May 22-July 18 Weaving Re-Imagined Invitational Exhibition. Weaving, its applications and reinvention among contemporary artists. Reservations recommended. 2 Stockton Ave., New Hope.

215-862-9606. Newhopearts.org SILVERMAN GALLERY May 15-June 19 Jean Childs Buzgo: Vibrance. Artist Receptions May 15, 5-8 and May 23, 1-4. In Buckingham Green, Rte. 202, just north of PA 413, 4920 York Rd., Holicong, PA. 215-794-4300. Silvermangallery.com THE SNOW GOOSE GALLERY Through June 13 The Art of the Miniature XXlX, the 29th invitational exhibition of fine art miniatures from around the world. Visit the show online at thesnowgoosegallery.com. 470 Main St., Bethlehem, PA. 610-974-9099.

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MUSIC BACH CHOIR OF BETHLEHEM Virtual 113th Bethlehem Bach Festival, May 14 & 15. 610-866-4382. Bach.org ZOELLNER ARTS CENTER Virtual events available for 30 daysfrom premiere date: Casey Abrams, premieres Friday, April 30. Joan Osborne, Songs of Bob Dylan premieres Friday, May 2 Zoellnerartscenter.org

n THEATER TOUCHSTONE THEATRE Spring Festival of New Works Young Playwrights’ Festival, May 22, 7:30 for student playwrights and 8:30 for livestream.

Touchstone.org.

TOUCHSTONE THEATRE Spring Festival of New Works-Fresh Voices, June 4-5, 8pm. Solo and ensemble-based works in progress, created by 2020-2021 apprentice/MFA students. Touchstone.org.

ACT 1 PERFORMING ARTS May 15 & 16. Online.

Songs for a New World, music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. DeSales University.

Desales.edu/act1

CAMP TOUCHSTONE THEATRE In-person summer camps. Teen Ensemble, July 5-16 and Camp Touchstone, July 19-30. Bethlehem, PA. More information Touchstone.org.

n EVENTS PEDDLER’S VILLAGE Strawberry Month. Enjoy Strawberry food and drink specials and weekend entertainment. Through May 31. Murder Mystery outdoor events, weekends. Through June 30.

Comedy Under the Stars. June 25 Routes 202 & 263, Lahaska, Bucks County, PA. 215-794-4000. PeddlersVillage.com

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You write, interestingly, that there is a $153,000 wealth gap between Black and white people on an average. That’s a real eye-opener.

How did you get to that number, and how do we start chipping away at it?

I got there, first, because the federal government has identified, through research, that the average net worth of a white family is $170,000 vs. $17,000 for a Black family. That’s objective, empirical research showing the disparity. That’s a big delta. The solution to this is not just to create more Black businesses and give out more Black jobs. That delta is so damned big because the federal government created and maintained anti-Black policies for over 400 years. You cannot say that if more Black people got education and jobs that it would close that wealth gap— that is not true. Education is not the great equalizer. The net worth of a white person with a high school degree is equal to that of a Black person with a college degree. The reason for that is the transference of wealth intergenerationally. That hasn’t happened for Black people.

Therefore, my recommendation is that the only way that this gap can be closed is through reparations. This gap was created intentionally, manufactured throughout 248 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow, redlining, and Black Codes. This gap did not happen organically. The government wasn’t just being mean to Black people—they purposely impoverished Black people. Unless something like reparations closes the wealth gap, it will always exist. If you stop white wealth creation right now and continue Black wealth creation at the pace that it is now, it would take Blacks almost 250 years to catch up to where white people are today. We can’t get past 248 years where there was no transference of wealth. The only way is through reparations.

The government has to do something to reverse what they did to Black people.

Your points are compelling and solid. Your mission is not to make white people feel bad, just aware. When you say the word ‘reparations’ to many white people, they blanch.

There’s something in the psyche of white people, seemingly, that disdains the idea of doing anything positive for Black people.

There’s something that whites loathe about righting the wrong that was perpetrated. The federal government paid reparations to slave owners, and the reality is that there will always be whites who disdain the idea of reparations because they feel as if they’re losing. ‘If I give to you, I’m losing something.’ What I’m proposing is not something that will burden white Americans. The other mindset is that we Blacks have to let all of this go. Slavery. We can’t let it go because it’s destroyed us financially. The way to erode part of this mindset is 20

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13 STEVEN ROGERS

through education, informing people of what happened. That it wasn’t hard work alone that got them where they are today. If white people realize that they have been the beneficiaries of subsidies from the federal government, literally designed to help white people and explicitly designed to tear down Black people—that must be known. People never see reparations as a positive way to right the wrong. In Germany, most Germans were absolutely against giving reparations to the Jewish people. The response from Germans was even more vociferously anti-reparations than what we see today in America. Despite that, though, it can happen.

Bold action is not based on what’s popular.

Like the German governåment, ours has to do the right thing.

How do you think we can decrease the dependence of Black, white, and brown Americans on welfare? Soon? How do we turn a lifelong crutch into a leg up? Because you know, and I know, the government has made people dependent on social welfare in the same way that the CIA made crack widely available in cities with deep, wide Black populations. They flooded these towns with cheap, addictive drugs to create an algebra of need. All of this is not about blaming victims, but rather the government for flooding major metropolitan urban areas with cheap and addictive drugs to create an algebra of need.

Great analogy. Great question. I believe that the absence of the government giving people checks to Black people—as they did the Japanese after we imprisoned them during World War II—we need to create a New Deal. The Biden administration is doing this with its job creation and the forging of new infrastructure. I support all of these things and the means to put people to work. I think, though, even with that, that the average net worth of working Black people is still significantly lower than the average net worth of working white people. To get people off of welfare, we need a government infrastructure development program to create jobs. The government needs to put money into Black-owned banks and Black-owned businesses that hire Black people. But, again, I want to be careful about burdening Black-owned businesses with solving all of the problems of Black America.

I would say to you that most people on welfare would prefer to work. Therefore, jobs need to be created, and Black entrepreneurs need to be encouraged. How do we help Black people take care of themselves? The only way is by giving people a job. If people are chronically unemployed, they have to learn new ways to keep those jobs. And I can’t necessarily get away from the importance of reparations as being part of the solution. It’s the right thing. n

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16 CLASSIC FILMS

mated romantic feelings are still enough to induce guilt in Amal, and cause tension with Bhupati when he finds out. Ray mostly eschews melodrama for gentle heartbreak. The film rolls along like a deceptively placid river, culminating in a devastating freeze-frame that hits with the stomach-dropping force of a waterfall. (Streaming on Criterion Channel) Being There (1979, Hal Ashby, USA) A tale lived by an idiot, Hal Ashby’s classic satire, loosely adapted from a novel by Jerzy Kosinski, features the incomparable Peter Sellers as Chance, a middle-aged gardener/shut-in raised entirely on television who, purely by happenstance, becomes a political force to be reckoned with. After he’s cast out of the only home he’s ever known, fate puts Chance in the path of Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine), daughter of a powerful financier, Benjamin Rand (Melvyn Douglas), with access to the halls of power. Chance’s homespun, plant-metaphor-prone “wisdom” charms everyone with whom he crosses paths, leading to manipulations, misunderstandings, and one riotous sex scene that are side-splitting in their ridiculousness and chilling in their effects. It’s easier nowadays to picture a moron in power, though what continues to fascinate about Being There is how not one of its characters seems to be fully, consciously malevolent. Chance is in many ways an innocent, though there’s something in the mercurial way Sellers plays him that suggests he has a latent sense of the power he wields. Both Chance and the people who exploit him stumble into authority and supremacy, and they don’t realize how absurd they look getting there.

(Streaming on Amazon) n Answer to this month’s puzzle

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5 VISITATION

My memories with them include not just good moments but important ones. When I first watched the “Teach The World To Sing” Coke commercial at their house and made some ignorant, youthful remark about it, they questioned what I meant, without rebuke. It changed how I saw things. More than addressing equality and morality, it was a lesson in mentorship and parenting. A demonstration of how much can be accomplished with some love, respect, and attention. It was not how my family worked.

That functioned on the Seen And Not Heard operating system, which had a wall to be negotiated between parents and children.

It was the Viet Nam era, and I spent an evening at their house watching the televised Draft Board lottery drawing that would determine what the rest of my life might look like and perhaps how short it would be. It was a sobering, scary time, and I wanted to be in a safe place with people I loved.

When my lottery number put me beyond harm, we broke out the guitars.

So many nights on their couch being part of a family. Yule logs at Christmas, badminton on the 4th of July.

One day their son came home from school and found Erna on the bed, breathing erratically. She was taken to the hospital, where she died of a brain aneurysm. I was in my early twenties, and it was difficult to understand or know where to put my feelings. That period marked a change in orbits. I had moved out of my house and became self-sustaining. George, who had three children to care for, eventually married again to Pauline, who had four kids of her own. They bought a gentleman’s farm north of Doylestown (sheep, horses, chickens), and I stayed there at times to keep things running when they went on trips. But the whole dynamic had

changed. There were no more evenings of patience and wisdom; no more breaking out the guitars.

By the time I was 30, I had moved away, and life was different for everybody. I’m not good at maintaining relationships that don’t have current relevancy, and contact with George was sporadic. We heard from each other every few years. They showed up at an exhibition reception in ‘99. That was the last time I saw him. Twenty-plus years ago. Now he is gone, too.

I sat at my desk looking out at the overcast dawn sky, thinking about the person I considered a surrogate father of sorts, and wondering where I would find a place in the city where I could be alone, be quiet, and have a conversation with him. The sun broke through the clouds just over the buildings on the East Side, reflected off the cabinet doors behind me, casting a golden light toward the end of the room. A person-size section of the couch grew luminescent in the morning dimness. I’ve never seen that before. It gave me the chills.

I framed the first paragraphs of this essay with that glow in the corner of my eye. It eventually faded and was gone, but the experience stayed with me. There was a stillness and peace in the room. Whatever had happened—the way the clouds moved, where the light shone, what was going through my head, that radiance—was another chapter in a story that began a half-century ago. I pulled my kit out of the closet and set up to paint before it all wore away. Maybe it was just an unusual coincidence. Or maybe George stopped by to leave me with something to consider. This painting, for instance. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit. n

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harper’s FINDINGS Scientists hoped that positive climate tipping points might cascade across human societies. Four decades of research on the Izu Islands indicated that the presence of the Japanese four-lined rat snake forces Okada’s five-lined skinks to operate at higher body temperatures. Baby epaulette sharks may not survive as the seas around the Great Barrier Reef continue to warm, and unborn megalodon sharks practiced intrauterine cannibalism. Octopus rubescens was found to be resilient against rising ocean acidity.

The Strait of Messina was determined to be the marine region richest in garbage. The authors of “The Large Obliquity of Saturn Explained by the Fast Migration of Titan” expected Jupiter’s moons to tilt the planet’s axis from six degrees to as much as thirty-seven in the coming five billion years, noting that the planet “adiabatically follows the drift of a secular spin-orbit resonance with the nodal precession mode of Uranus.” Dark matter can be neither ultralight nor superheavy unless it is acted upon by an asyet-unknown force.

g

A collaborative expedition to adits in the sky islands of the Nimba Mountains by zoologists and members of the Société des Mines de Fer de Guinée discovered a new species of bat. A potent antibacterial peptide was identified in the skin of the Australian toadlet, and male platypuses were found to have five pairs of XY chromosomes; emus, meanwhile, were found to possess W and Z sex chromosomes. A fossilized assassin bug discovered in 2006 and split down the middle was reunited with itself, revealing an intact penis. Scientists were surprised to learn that despite the strong correlation between male genital shape and reproductive success among fruit flies, sexual selection for those traits is relatively weak. Fruit flies that are disturbed during deep sleep, which is marked by the rhythmic extension and contraction of their proboscises, are more susceptible to traumatic injuries. Obese Yucatán miniature pigs were found to have as many as thirty-five episodes of sleep apnea per hour. “These are very fat pigs,” explained the lead researcher. Sachatamia orejuela glass frogs, whose calls are often drowned out by waterfalls, wave their hands and feet and bob their heads to attract potential mates. Electric eels in a river-fed Amazonian lake were observed hunting cooperatively and corralling their prey into balls to be shocked.

g The global spark-plug market was expected to grow rapidly over the next five years, specialized voice training was found to improve the expression of joy in the vowel [a:], and researchers urged a reexamination of the Kondo Effect. An international team of experts warned that humans will be unable to control superintelligent AI, and Cornell researchers published an atlas of the winds. A gendered division of labor may have shaped the human perception of space, women may have been primarily responsible for the domestication of dogs, and a life-size Sulawesi warty pig rendered in red ocher on a cave wall in Indonesia was determined to be the oldest known man-made art. Chumash Indians were using highly worked shell beads for currency as early as the first century. As assessed by the Weber fraction, the palpably indistinguishable weight of many European Bronze Age bronze rings, ribs, and axe-heads points to their use as a prehistoric form of standardized money. Retailers dropped a popular brand of coconut milk over allegations of forced monkey labor.

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INDEX Percentage of American adults who are in therapy: 47 Who went to therapy for the first time last year: 17 Who believe that the pandemic has meaningfully damaged their mental health: 62 Number of days a man stayed at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport because he was afraid of flying during the pandemic: 89 Chance that an American spent the past holiday season alone: 1 in 9 Percentage of American men aged 18 to 24 who cite pornography as the most useful source of information on how to have sex: 39 Who cite their sexual partners: 17 Percentage of American women aged 18 to 24 who cite pornography: 14 Who cite their sexual partners: 32 Minimum number of content creators on OnlyFans, a site for sharing explicit videos and photos with paying subscribers: 1,000,000 Minimum number of those creators who have earned more than $1,000,000 through the site: 100 Percentage change in the amount of total U.S. credit card debt last year: −11 Amount in property-tax revenue that New York City is expected to lose in 2022 on account of COVID-19: $2,500,000,000 Percentage increase last year in the sale of British country houses: 11 Minimum number of ducks that have been slaughtered in France this year to stave off avian influenza: 2,000,000 Percentage decrease in the number of flu cases in the United States this season: 99 Percentage of COVID-19 patients who report losing their sense of smell: 45 Who are found to have lost their sense of smell when examined: 80 Estimated portion of bitcoin that has been lost or is otherwise inaccessible: 1/5 Estimated total value of that bitcoin: $164,000,000,000 Percentage of U.S. online shoppers who reported having a package stolen last year: 43 Minimum number of items Amazon removed from sale in 2020 because of price gouging: 39,000,000 Minimum value of federal pandemic relief loans made to businesses that promote vaccine skepticism: $1,137,101 Made to hate groups: $4,248,522 Factor by which U.S. police officers are more likely to use force against left-wing protesters than right-wing protesters: 3.4 Percentage of Black Lives Matter protests during which the police used force against protesters: 5 Of Stop the Steal protests during which the police did so: 1 Number of U.S. troops deployed in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day: 27,750 Number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq on that day: 5,000 Percentage of Americans who identified as Republicans and Democrats, respectively, at the outset of 2020: 47, 45 At the end of 2020: 39, 50 Amount of money raised between Election Day and the end of the year by the Biden campaign: $11,400,000 By the Trump campaign: $115,000,000 Number of U.S. members of Congress who are not affiliated with a religion: 1 Portion of the American population that is not: 1/4 Amount being offered by a U.S. businessman for evidence of “consciousness after permanent bodily death”: $950,000 Percentage of adults who would choose to know about future events if they were favorable: 44 Who would choose to know if they were unfavorable: 12 Who would choose to know in either case: 1

SOURCES: 1–3 OnePoll (NYC); 4 City of Chicago; 5 YouGov (NYC); 6–9 Emily F. Rothman, Boston University; 10,11 OnlyFans (London); 12 Federal Reserve Board (Washington); 13 Citizens Budget Commission (NYC); 14 Knight Frank (London); 15 French Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Paris); 16 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta); 17,18 Daniel Larremore, University of Colorado Boulder; 19,20 Chainalysis (NYC); 21 C+R Research (Chicago); 22 Amazon (Seattle); 23 Center for Countering Digital Hate (London); 24 Harper’s research; 25–27 The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Grafton, Wis.); 28,29 U.S. Department of Defense; 30,31 Gallup (Washington); 32,33 The Center for Responsive Politics (Washington); 34,35 Pew Research Center (Washington); 36 The Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (Las Vegas); 37–39 Gerd Gigerenzer, Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin).

An Apt Seven-Letter Word by EVAN BIRNHOLZ

SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE ACROSS 1 7 11 17 19 20 21 22

23 24 27 28 31

32 34 37 38 43 44 46 47 49 56 57 58 59 61 62 63 65 66 68 73

75 78 80 81 84 85

“Captain Phillips” Oscar nominee Barkhad Abdi, by birth Go over some powder Far cry?

Setting of Anne Enright’s 2015 book “The Green Road” Display of defiance, informally Fighting force More likely to exhibit spiteful behavior Place mentioned in many publications by the Sentencing Project Branch of biology *U.S. president who signed the Marshall Plan (direction) *Music festival swag (test answer) Site of yoga classes Oscar nominee for best costume design for “Indiscretion of an American Wife” (1954) Spotted Consumer protection? “___ bad!” *Like “Argo” or “Fargo” (gearshift option) Creator of the musical “New York Rock” “Whole ___ Rosie” (AC/DC song) Siding protector Shimogamo Shrine site *Pizza chain that once featured animatronic shows (drug) General Mills product Statement after a trip Manner of speaking Boxes providing balances, briefly Be down with a bug Cover of the song “Winter Wonderland”?

Complex space Org. that released the Smoke Sense app Darjeeling pouch Subjects of Facebook alerts Old Testament hunter that inspired one of Elgar’s “Enigma Variations” *Some steak orders (ideal gas law variable) Regarding that matter Split territory?

Best in moving products Litmus test substance “Never gonna happen”

87 Aeschylus’s “lord of strife” 89 “___ you!”

90 Table that may hold a statue of Buddha 92 Former SoCal athlete 95 Gave (out) 96 *Major antioxidant in orange juice (scale) 99 “The Sound of Music” song about musical notes 102 Ruler called “the Great” 103 Animated group that celebrates Rainbow Day and Unhappiness Day 107 Did a caricature of 108 Forest ruminant 110 Dakota, to Elle 112 Far from flush 113 Eliminate remotely?

114 *Time to attack (element) 120 Turn back 121 One could last a few years 122 Immature iris, say 123 Fiery feeling 124 Like gnomes 125 Sydney rock engraving depiction 126 “Animal Farm” structure 127 Black trailer?

128 Spread dandelion seeds, say 129 Obey sigma notation in a math class 130 Match, in a game

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 20 25 26 28

DOWN Tiny taste Pyrolusite, e.g.

Blue “Breaking Bad” stuff Ski resort featuring the Devil’s Castle peak Villain’s venue Tendency to stay at rest Missouri Western State University city, familiarly Parties by palms Pulitzer winner Wharton See 118 Down They’re examined during a rhinoscopy Marine symbol of silence ___ Repulsa (villain in “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers”) School that awards the Queen’s Prize for French Curling asset Might Fungal problem for wood Many a revolutionary “You bet!”

Natural pollution fighter Chris Redd’s show, for short

29 Animated dog voiced by Homer Simpson 30 By this exact deadline 31 Short movie monster?

33 Feint like Wayne Gretzky 34 Child support?

35 Not going too fast, say 36 Bad routine reaction 39 Play station on a virtual game night 40 Gym ___ 41 Lifestyle vlogger Gutowski 42 Piece of formal attire 45 Piece of formal attire 48 Affirmative vote 50 Dealers’ boss 51 Introspective style 52 Shrink back in terror 53 “___ guys” (informal pronoun) 54 Lisa Ling’s employer 55 Incredibly terrible 56 One sleeping in a bookstore, perhaps 60 Dismal 62 Uniform 64 Go green, say 67 Suffering, as from loss 69 “Rhoda” actress Harper 70 H, for a sorority 71 “Change of Habit” role 72 “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn ___” 74 Ruins 76 “___ Holmes” (2020 Netflix

mystery film) 77 Transvaal settlers 78 “Don’t know yet” letters 79 Sparks on a TV set 82 False-sounding solution 83 Inspiration for “Day Tripper,” per McCartney 86 Treat especially well 88 Stuff in some Heinz jars 91 Canyon section 93 Mid-Atlantic colonist?

94 Postgame wrap material 95 Uncommunicative 97 Sweep the floors, say 98 Put forth 99 Stunned states 100 Genre of Marina Apollonio’s works 101 Settle, as a loan 104 Levels 105 Lighter emission 106 Smooth move 109 Poker player’s study 111 Grotto of Redemption’s state 114 “Euphoria” network 115 Jupiter, e.g.

116 Gadot of “Justice League” 117 Construct for Freud 118 With 10 Down, site of the Hindustan Times’s headquarters 119 “___ Dead Redemption 2” (Western-themed video game) Solution to this month’s puzzle on page 20

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