Category Archives: Art

Desensitizing Children to Violence: NYC Edition

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The dictionary defines desensitization as:

“…the diminished emotional responsiveness to a negative or aversive stimulus after repeated exposure to it. To make indifferent, unaware…in feeling.”

Look at this horrific ad that’s currently running on New York City buses:

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Every child walking down the avenue—from ‘tweens to infants in strollers—sees this. The Metropolitan Transit Authority reviews the ads posted on buses and subways for appropriateness. Some years ago, they rejected an ad that referred to Israel’s enemies as “savages.” Just this past January, they rejected an ad for an urban art exhibit that featured a subway car covered with graffiti. No need to revisit that, I agree.

But this is acceptable? Have you ever seen anything so vividly grim in a public space? And, OF COURSE, the victim is a woman. The victims in torture porn film ads are always women.

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I’m so sick of these graphic depictions of violence against women. I don’t want my 8-year old daughter to see this! This stuff is impressionable. You can’t un-see it. If you repeatedly expose little kids to this kind of appalling imagery, they’re going to grow up void of empathy. I get angry at the morons who take their toddlers to The Dark Knight for the same reason.

Am I making too much of this? You can tell me. Do I need to chill?

My Bride and I walked through Chinatown last weekend. It’s one of my favorite neighborhoods. I like it because I can walked down crowded Mott Street and see over everybody’s head. Here are some pics of the open-air produce markets and a paper-folding artisan selling his wares on the sidewalk.

china7Octopuses. Or is it octopi?

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A basket ‘o blue claws.

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Dragon fruit. Whatever that is.

china5Croc/Gator. Do you like the goose in the foreground? I did that on purpose. Or do you think it’s clutter. Tell me the truth!

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Fox and penguins.

china2Four blind mice. And a cat.

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Parading peacock.

Here’s a price list. Very reasonable considering the artistry and labor involved.

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The weather was perfect so we walked from Chinatown to Little Italy and got a sidewalk table at a café on Mulberry Street. We had pastry and cappuccinos (hers iced, mine hot) and watched the big parade of humanity. Best show in town. Then we walked east on Houston Street to our old apartment on Clinton and Avenue B.

I don’t think my wife had seen Clinton Street since decamping for New Jersey 12 years ago. So much has changed but some things are still the same. We walked past my old Dominican barber. He looked up, his face brightened with recognition, he put his scissors down (he had a customer in the chair!) and came outside to greet us.

We hugged and he insisted that we come inside for a visit. He opened a bottle of red wine and everyone in the shop drank a toast to old friends. I apologized to his customer for the interruption and he said, “He can’t help himself. He’s a social animal.” We talked about the junkies and gypsies who once prowled Clinton Street. That guy was one tough muther. If someone tried to sell heroin in front of his barbershop, he’d chase them away with a straight razor. “Take it down the street!,” he’d yell. He could have been shot. But he’s a survivor. I remember.

The Thane of Cawdor Sleeps No More

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He sleeps no more because his decapitated head was stuffed into a burlap sack and tossed into the middle of the stage.

I used to write about plays all the time but those posts laid there unread and unloved, so I stopped. Theater can make for a dull evening out and an even duller blog post. Just look at the plummeting ratings for the Tony awards every year. But I was telling a Texan about a highly unusual production of Macbeth I saw and he requested a post. So here it be.

Kenneth Branagh shipped his high-octane production of Macbeth across the pond from its sold-out run in Manchester. It’s not your typical trod across the boards. Rather, it’s a piece of performance art wrapped in violence and Shakespearean dialogue. Playing the role of the Castle Cawdor is the drill hall of the Park Avenue Armory, a castle-like structure on Park Avenue and 68th Street that was build in 1861 to answer President Lincoln’s Civil War call to arms.

macbeth6It’s an all-encompassing environmental performance that starts when you walk in the door. A 6:15 arrival is requested for a 7:00 curtain. Upon entering the armory, before you’re admitted to the drill hall performance space, the audience is given a wrist band and assigned to one of 12 Scottish clans.

macbeth9Once you have your wristband, you’re handed a program and a host directs you to your clan’s meeting room where you drink wine and wait to be called to the drill hall. They’ve gone to the trouble of printing 12 different program covers, each bearing the name and tartan print of the clans. The verso of the cover contains a brief history of your clan.

macbeth8The guts of the programs are the same. There’s a map of Scotland ca.1040 showing the location of the clans. I was a Macduff, which is brilliant because Macduff—my kinsman—is the guy who slices Macbeth’s head off. It’s a rough trade for the pleasure of doing that because Macbeth has Macduff’s wife and children murdered.

“All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?”

macbeth10All of these pre-show festivities effectively pulled me into the performance before I ever laid eyes on the stage. One by one the clans are called. You march up to the thick wooden doors of the drill hall. A cloaked druid asks, “What clan is this?” Everyone shouts, “MACDUFF!” He tolls a bell and the doors slowly swig open to reveal a Scottish heath. Another cloaked druid carrying a torch leads you into the dark hall. A mist hangs in the air. It’s cool and clammy. You walk into the cavernous hall across a stone path. Dirt, rocks, puddles and mud are on either side of you.

macbeth12The audience enters their seats by walking around giant stone columns. There are risers on either side of the stage looking down on the performance space.

macbeth2The lights dim and the play begins with a crack of thunder. A battle between the MacDonald and Cawdor clans is underway. The stage area is a dirt pit. Rain pours down on the combatants. Carefully choreographed sword battles rage all around. Sparks fly from metal blades as they impact. By the end of the battle, the actors are soaked and covered with mud and blood.

macbeth1The MacDonald clan is defeated and my favorite characters appear. The Weird Sisters float up between the stone columns. They poison Macbeth’s mind with predictions and lies. They make appearances throughout the play cackling hysterically when things are going horribly wrong for Macbeth. I love them. I want to date them. I remember them as the hot girls in my high school art class.

macbeth11I’ve always thought that Macbeth was unkind towards women. Lady Macbeth is the source off all the murder and treachery. When it comes time to murder the King, Macbeth hesitates. But Lady Macbeth is right there to shame him into action by questioning his manhood. Later in the play, she goes mad and hallucinates that her hands are dripping with blood that won’t wash off.

“Out, damned spot! out, I say!—
Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this
little hand. O, O, O!”

macbeth3The Weird Sisters are pure evil. Macduff’s wife is in one scene. In it, she and her children are brutally slaughtered. There are no strong female characters. You’ll have to see a production of Twelfth Night for that, I’m afraid.

macbeth4The vastness of the hall made it a spectacle, but it also caused an occasional problem. Some of the dialogue was swallowed up. The acoustics weren’t great and Shakespeare is tough on my ear in the first place. The plotting to overthrow Macbeth between Macduff and Malcome, the slain King’s son, was lost in the echos.

Guess who’s coming do dinner? Banquo’s ghost! The murdered Thane of Lochaber’s ghost takes a seat at the dinner table and is visible only to a guilt-maddened Macbeth. Hilarity ensues.

macbeth5This was one of my favorite theatrical experiences ever. And I’ve seen plenty. Branagh is a friggin’ genius. In addition to turning out a credible and broken Macbeth, he directed this shizzle. I rarely see a play twice but if I were wealthy I’d go again. I’ll have to be satisfied with having seen it once. Word got out and people are lining up at 8:00 a.m. for evening cancellations. It’s snowballed into an event.

I took 12-Year Old Daughter to see The Cripple of Inishmaan starring Daniel Radcliffe. She’s obsessed with the Potter books and movies and has a 12-year old crush on Radcliffe. He’s no pop icon joke. He was excellent. Instead of just cruising through his career, that dude repeatedly gets up on a stage and lays it all out there. This is his third trip to Broadway and he has NEVER missed a performance. What a work ethic that kid’s got! Huzzah.

She thinks I was taking her to see her favorite celebrity but what I was actually doing was exposing her to my favorite contemporary Irish playwright, Martin McDonagh. She was able to procure Radcliffe’s autograph. Without exaggerating, I think this was the happiest moment of her young life. Better than all 12 Christmases rolled into one.

playbillThe moment Radcliffe walked on stage, about :10 minutes in, she looked over at me and I’ll never forget the euphoric, that’s really him, look of pure joy on her face. It made me so happy. My dad never did shit with me. That poor, deceased soul never knew what he missed out on.

Wall Decor for the 1%

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It’s time for my semi-annual Modern and Impressionist art auction review. In the spring and fall I visit Christie’s gallery at Rockefeller Center to view the beautiful/horrible art up for auction. Thank Fog for pre-auction public viewings. These pieces are passing from one private collection to another. Once the auction is over, they’ll be squirreled away above a mantle in Beijing or Moscow or Dubai, never to be seen in public again. So you’ve got to look when you have the chance. Lets get right to it. I’ll start with the stuff I like and finish with the junk. As always, feel free to agree or disagree (if you must).

I dig Modigliani. I never tire of his hollow, empty eyes. If I could have anyone paint my portrait, I’d choose him. Jeune homme roux assis (1919).

modiglianiEst: $8,000,000-12,000,000. Sold for $17,637,000. Not bad.

This was one of the big-ticket paintings. Nymphéas by Monet (1907). One of his rare water lily paintings, it hung in the dining room of a reclusive heiress, unseen, for EIGHTY YEARS.

monet1Est: $25,000,000-35,000,000. Sold for $27,045,000

I dragged Daughter with me. We visited Christie’s before seeing a play starring her heartthrob, Daniel Radcliffe. That was the bait. She wanted to see Harry Potter on stage, I wanted to expose her to Martin McDonagh, my favorite contemporary Irish playwright, and show her some art. It was a fair exchange.

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This is Jim Beam—J.B. Turner Train by Jeff Koons (1986). He’s nutty. In the good way. This is the same guy who made those giant balloon dog sculptures. This is made from stainless steel. It was mounted on a pedestal in the middle of a room with black walls. Bright lights beamed down on it. It was very shiny.

koonsEst: On Request. Oh, really?! Sold for $33,765,000

Portrait de femme (Dora Maar) by Picasso (1942). I tried to explain to Daughter how these are different views of the same woman. A composite. I don’t think she was buying my art-speak bullshit but you’ve got to try. The auction catalog said this was painted in one day. August 5, 1942.

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Est: $25,000,000-35,000,000. Sold for $22,565,000

Tangotee by Ernst Kirchner (1919-21). I like this guy a lot. A good German expressionist painter. Kirchner is a recent discovery. I attended a Kirchner exhibit at the Guggenheim a couple of years ago and have been smitten ever since.

kirchnerEst: $1,000,000-1,500,000. Sold for $2,045,000

I’ve started to pay more attention to sculpture. This startling figure is Main crispee gauche avec figure implorante by Rodin (1907). Seems this woman is in peril. I wonder who the hand is supposed to be?

rodin

Est: $50,000-70,000. Sold for $50,000

Every auction has at least one fetching Rothko painting. Untitled (1952). I’d like this hanging on my wall at home. A lot of this stuff is nice to look at, but I couldn’t live with it. This piece would calm my ass down.

rothkoEst: On request. Egads! Not again!? Sold for $66,245,000

Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards by Francis Bacon (1984). Bacon is hot. [Ha. I did that on purpose.] Last fall, his triptych of Lucian Freud sold for $142,400,000, so now everyone who owns a Bacon thinks it’s a good time to sell. This is one of those pieces I love to look at but couldn’t live with.

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Here’s a detail of the third painting.
bacon2

Est: On Request. It’s an epidemic! Sold for $80,805,000. That’s a lot.

There’s always a healthy representation of Warhol. This is Race Riot (1964). It’s considered one of his more important works because of its serious subject matter. No celebrity glitz or transsexual fun here. Just a group of Birmingham cops setting the dogs lose on a lone black man. Red, white and blue. Same as old glory.

warhol

Est: On Request. All these ‘estimate on request’ pieces are giving me an inferiority complex. I can’t even ask what it costs?! The last thing I need is a new benchmark for my own mediocrity. Sold for $62,885,000.

From the left, Chagall’s La Fenêtre ($3,133,000), Miró’s L’étoile insaisissable ($3,637,000) and Léger’s Grande nature morte ($2,165,000). Daughter in the middle: priceless.

sam2Are you guys ready for some crap? Or, perhaps you feel you’ve already seen some. No matter. Onward. This is the stuff that makes me laugh. Once again, here’s proof positive that wealth is a lousy barometer for good taste. Hang in there for the shocking conclusion.

I’m going to try—like I do at every auction, year after year—to appreciate Jean-Michael Basquiat’s work. I’m going to wipe the slate clean reject all my preconceived notions, take a step back and study this. I’ll give it serious consideration. Untitled (1981).

basquiat2Est: $20,000,000-30,000,000. Sold for $34,885,000. Nope. Didn’t work. It’s still CRAP.

Untitled (1964) by Cy Twombly. Signed and dated ‘Cy Twombly 64’ lower center. WHERE?! I don’t see it.Oh…wait…I think I see a ‘4’. It’s crap.

twomblyEst: $5,000,000-7,000,000. Sold for $7,445,000

Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (712) (1990). Oh, how I hate Richter’s work. The very first time I laid eyes one of his paintings I hated it. And I don’t like this one, either. It’s lazy slop without any rhythm or emotion. I don’t understand it. I don’t want to understand it.

richterEst: $22,000,000-28,000,000. Sold for $29,285,000

Here it is, brothers and sisters. The one you’ve been waiting for. The worst of the worst. And that’s saying something. This is The Silent Sink (1984) by Robert Gober. The medium is plaster, wire, wood and semi-gloss enamel paint. It’s a sink. A fucking sink.

sinkEst: $2,000,000-3,000,000. Sold for $4,197,000. I have no witticisms for this. It makes me kind of sad, actually. It seems you can get to a point where you have so much money that you lose touch with reality. Four million. Give me a break. Thank God they didn’t give any of that money to poor people. They’d have just wasted it on stupid stuff, like food or housing.

Sons and Lovers and Me

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I read two fluff books in a row so as penance I decided to read Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence. I’d never read Lawrence before. I was afraid of him. I thought his plots were too complex for me. I thought the language was too dense. Long, Joycean paragraphs without the benefit of a comma or period. But I think it’s important to gnaw on something outside of your comfort zone once in a while. It’s good for the aul’ grey matter.

Boy, was I wrong! This stuff is easily digestible. In fact, this book is closer to being cheap melodrama than it is inaccessible, high-minded literature. He constantly beats you over the head with same emotion, to wit:

p. 70: Paul hated his father so.
p. 170: Then sometimes he hated her.
p. 174: Once, he threw the pencil in her face.
p. 206: They hated each other in silence.
p. 213: …then he hated her—and he easily hated her.
p. 215: This, however, did not prevent his hating her.
p. 215: …she despised him… (Same page! I hit a double.)
p. 225: “I hate you!”
p. 229: And a touch of hate for her crept back into his heart.
p. 234: And immediately he hated Miriam bitterly.
p. 241: She sat crouched beneath…his hatred of her.
p. 244: He hated her bitterly at that moment…

And I’m only halfway through the book! This unrelenting tsunami of hatred is between people who supposedly love one another. In invoking “hate” so frequently—not just the word itself, but its essence, over and over again—he dilutes one of the two most powerful emotions of the human heart. When love comes along, you scarcely take it seriously.

But I’ll tell you one thing; they knew how to relax back in 1913. Paul’s boss, Mr. Pappleworth, arrived in the morning “…chewing a chlorodyne gum…”. According to the endnotes, chlorodyne gum was a narcotic and painkiller made from morphia, chloroform, India hemp and prussic acid. Prussic acid is also known as hydrogen cyanide—an extremely poisonous compound. Party in Mr. Pappleworth’s cube!

D.H. Lawrence isn’t so badass after all. But what do I know? The Modern Library placed Sons and Lovers ninth on their list of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century. Maybe I should try Thomas Pynchon next. He’s always kind of freaked me out, too.

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I have problems with my eyeballs. They constantly throb and ache because I stare at a screen for most of my waking hours. Sometimes, it’s so bad that I get a splitting headache. I’ve heard rumors that there are holistic remedies. I need to look into that. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

In the meantime, I eat aspirin and slather my eyeballs with eye drops. I’m terrible at dispensing the drops. Most of it ends up running down my cheeks. When I’m at work, I have to lock myself in a stall in the men’s room and have a tissue in hand to blot up the excess, least anyone think I’ve been in the bathroom sobbing hysterically.

Yesterday, I was going through this ridiculous procedure at work. I closed and locked the door behind me, sat down, tilted my head back, back, back…gently squeezed the bottle of drops…and I heard a loud snap. The toilet seat broke off its moorings and I slid off and landed flat on my ass. My legs were akimbo sticking out the front of the stall. My back is still sore from where it banged against the porcelain. At least it took my mind off of my sore eyeballs.

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At this point, I’ve pretty much lost all respect for Roy Lichtenstein. I was a huge fan of his for many years. But there’s something about this latest example of procurement I recently stumbled across in MoMA that makes me uncomfortable.

This is Bauhaus Stairway by Oskar Schlemmer form 1932. A beauty, don’t you think?

schlemmer_bauhaus stairHanging on an adjacent wall is, you guessed it, Bauhaus Stairway by Roy Lichtenstein from 1988.

lichtenstein

I know Lichtenstein built a career and made untold millions doing this sort of thing. I never minded before but I guess I’m over it. Ben day dots might’ve been an artistic innovation in 1963, but at this point it’s just lazy copying. It leaves me cold. Fail. I still like Warhol, though. There’s no rhyme or reason to this sort of thing. It’s all subjective emotions.

I saw this coming. The seeds of dissatisfaction were sown a couple of years ago.

O, wicked success! O, foul stench of prosperity!

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British actress Lindsay Duncan was recently on a press junket promoting her new movie Le Week-End. In a fluff piece printed in New York Times, she dropped this bomb:

“I would rather give up acting than become world famous.”

Not this again. This sort of thing really rubs me raw. Sit back from your monitor or you’ll get scorched.

The acting community has no greater friend than me. I see +/- 45 plays a year. It’s my thing. I enjoy the theater. But, oh, Mother of God, I wish actors would either check themselves when being interviewed or keep their mouths shut all together. When they prattle on about how “dangerous” their work is or refer to their characters as if they were actual people, I want to rip my hair out. And I especially can’t stand it when entertainers turn their success into a crippling burden.

While promoting box office bomb The Young Victoria, dim bulb Emily Blunt went on one of those “I am a serious artist” rambles you occasionally hear from actors for whom success came too soon and too easily. Can you imagine laying out millions of dollars to produce The Young Victoria,sending your lead actress out to promote the film (first class accommodations) and read that she said this in an interview:

“It’s just never been important to me to make a big splash and I don’t care for it.”

I’d kill her. I’d want my movie to make a big splash. Production budget on The Young Victoria: $35 million. Worldwide gross: $27 million. Well done, Emily. You’re an idiot.

Singer/mope-meister Nora Jones (each album repackages the same boring songs) said this of the meteoric success of her first album:

“On the first record I was everywhere, and it was, like, the worst time in my life.”

Nora, you are, like, an idiot. That album generated an audience that most singers don’t dare dream of, not to mention financial independence for life. Way to turn it into a negative.

While out promoting box office bomb Scott Pilgrim vs The World, actor/human insect Michael Cera (each performance is the same boring character) said:

“I don’t really want to be famous, and I’m kind of scared that might be happening.”

Then DON’T BE AN ACTOR. Looks like you got your wish. Where’ve you been? Production budget: $60 million. Worldwide gross: $47 million. Nice work, stupid.

I’m reading The Richard Burton Diaries. A fantastic book. In August of 1969, at the pinnacle of his career, when he was in great demand and had the power to pick and choose whatever and whomever he wanted to work with, had both critical and popular respect and more money than he ever imagined, he wrote:

“I loath loath loath acting. In studios. In England. I shudder at the thought of going to work with the same horror as a bank-clerk must loathe that stinking tube-journey every morning and the rush-hour madness at night. I loath it, hate it, despise, despise, for Christ’s sake, it.”

Take it from me, Dick, what you were doing was NOTHING AT ALL like the grind of a daily commute. Hilarious that you would think it would be.

Stand aside and watch these nitwits get schooled. While on a press junket for Inglourious Basterds, Brad Pitt said:

“It’s so tough being an actor. Sometimes they bring you coffee and sometimes it’s cold. And sometimes you don’t have a chair to sit on.”

Production budget: $70 million. Worldwide gross: $321 million. That’s how it’s done.

Finally, these words from British renaissance man and genius director Sam Mendes. Rule #25 of his 25 Rules for Directors:

25. Never, ever, ever forget how lucky you are to do something that you love.

~~~~~~~~~~

I’m full of spit and vinegar so I’ll rerun this gem from last year.

I was taking pics of our neighbor’s photogenic white cat, Smudge, when, for NO REASON WHATSOEVER, their other cat, Skippy, walked into the frame and BIT HER IN THE EYE! It was an hilarious unprovoked attack. I couldn’t stop laughing. Cats are the best.

smudge