My Satanic child

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

3-Year Old Daughter got her hands on a pair of scissors and decided that now would be as good a time as any to start on the road that will lead her to a spot on Project Runway.

The first step in dress design is, of course, cutting cloth. And since they look like bolts of unspooled fabric, why not start on our priceless dining room curtains? Just look at those lines! They’re perfect. Here’s the left curtain:

And for the sake of uniformity, she also tailored the right.

Mrs. Wife put her on the phone:

Me: Did you cut our curtains?

3-YOD: Yes, Daddy! Wait ’til you see it!

I wasn’t quite sure how to take that.

Is the Kandinsky retrospective any good?

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

How am I going to explain how great this exhibit is without sounding like a pretentious jerk? Art exhibit reviews almost always leave me cold. They’re awful things to read. Art is subjective and open to personal interpretation. Reading some “expert” from the Times spew his opinion strikes me as a waste of time.

Having said that, I have to be honest and report that the media is right about the Kandinsky show at the Guggenheim. It’s a blockbuster and it knocked me flat on my ass. Way better than the lame-ass Monet water lilies exhibit currently at MoMA. I walked in knowing just a little bit about Kandinsky and walked out a big fan. His work is far more eclectic than I thought it was.

I took two artists with me; Artiste Florenza and Sister #2. Both attended prestigious art institutions. Do you know what I did? I laid back a few steps and listened to the two of them discuss the work. It was an education. I came across this beauty and thought it was an interesting composition.

Then I heard Sister #2 remark, “That’s a nice profile.” I was standing right in front of the damn thing and never saw it! Always bring someone smarter than you.

Part of the exhibit is a healthy selection of works on paper that are just as strong as the works on canvas. It’s like two exhibits in one. I had no idea just how great this guy was.

It’s not a question of if I’ll return for another visit but, rather, how many times I can get there before it closes. If you’re in town between now and January 10th, you should make a point to go. It’s fantastic.

* * *

Take a look at these two Eurotrash visitors I found outside the museum. He’s wearing one of those expensive European pinstripe business suits (click to view). A few moments prior to this shot they were sucking face and slobbering over each other. Then, Pink Tie’s phone rang and he stopped to take a call. I’m no expert at reading body language, but I’d say she feels a bit put out by the coitus interruptus.

Here’s a link to view over two dozen works on exhibit.

By the sea, by the beautiful sea: A photo essay

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

Sister #2 came to town for a five-day visit. I like when my family visits. There’s no stress! I get along with all my siblings extraordinarily well, but I suspect the fact I’ve lived 500 miles away from them for the better part of the past 25 years might have something to do with it. I’m certain they’d be less tolerant of my foibles if I lived just down the street.

If you don’t mind my saying so, Mrs. Wife and I are most excellent hosts. And that’s no idol brag. Ask around. Tomorrow, I’ll hit her over the head with the Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggenheim, but over the weekend it was all-Jersey, all the time.

Moments after her arrival we whisked her away to the Bruce Springsteen concert at Giants Stadium. This was the last concert at Giants Stadium before the wrecking ball transforms it into a parking lot, so the show had some historical heft to it. As I mentioned in previous posts, Mrs. Wife is related to the Springsteen clan, so we were gifted some great seats and briefly chatted with family members before the show in an access-restricted area.

I’m not the biggest Bruce fan in the world but you’ve got to admire the guy’s work ethic. He just turned 60 and still pumps out a highly-entertaining three-hour show. He played, appropriate enough, a cover of The Rolling Stones’ Last Time. Also, bizarrely, a cover of You Sexy Thing by Hot Chocolate. Hearing Bruce sing My Hometown and Jersey Girl (a Tom Waits song!) in New Jersey almost makes moving here seem like less of an ordeal.

Photo: Todd Heisler/The New York Times

We took Sister the Second to Seaside Heights. It’s a bucolic Jersey Shore beach town that has all the necessary accouterments, namely, a boardwalk, an amusement park and pork roll and cheese sandwiches. The Daughters have been going to places like this for so long that I don’t think they realize how special they are.

This carousel is from 1918 and still has its original Wurlitzer organ. 3-Year Old Daughter doesn’t care a whit about any of that historical significance stuff.

I, once again, was forced to teach 7-Year Old a valuable bumper car road rage lesson.

Both Daughters are deadly accurate with a skee-ball. It’s talent they inherited from their mother, who I seriously don’t remember ever beating. It’s her game. Well…one of them.

For family lurkers, here is daughter and Mrs. Wife, strolling on a sun-drenched, sea breeze swept boardwalk.

I vish to be alone

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

New York is a fine place in which to be alone. To walk into a little café with an armload of newspapers and sit at the counter and read them over a bowl of chili and grilled cheese and a white mug of coffee and a waitress who says, “What else would you like, love?”—this is heaven.

Garrison Keillor

As previously stated, I didn’t marry until much later in life than most. People began to wonder why I seemed to be, by all external appearances, normal, but still unmarried. As though that were a societal barometer for normalcy! Rumors were rampant. People wondered if I was gay, (Nope. Would say so if I was. In my world, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.) or hated women (Hardly! I love women! Having daughters was my secret preference.) or afraid to commit (Hummm. Maybe a bit of that.).

When I first arrived in New York all those years ago, I was inflicted with a crippling loneliness that lasted for several months. I, quite literally, didn’t know a single person here and going from the suburbs of Cleveland to Manhattan was a rough transition. At that time, New York City was a broken, dark, scary place. It wasn’t the buffed city on the hill it is today.

But then, quite suddenly, I snapped out of it. I embraced the city and its (apologies to Warren Zevon) splendid isolation. From that day forward, I was never lonely again, even during those long stretches when I wasn’t seeing someone or had few friends to call. Like Mr. Keillor, I could always belly-up to a café and eavesdrop on conversations or walk my city streets until I felt better. I found that to be a tremendous solace during my dark hours.

I believe there are people who get married as a cure for their loneliness. I’ve hung on my cross for lots of things, but loneliness was never one of them. I’ve been lucky that way. How can you be lonely or homesick when you’re heart is in the right place and you’re surrounded by 8.3 million people?

Photo by Alfred Stieglitz

Cover your eyes! Oh, the humanity!

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

I’m just a traditional guy with traditional tastes. I don’t mind a bit of experimentation now and then but when you do THIS to Shakespeare, I have to take exception. I saw the now mercifully closed Peter Sellers production of Othello with Philip Seymour Hoffman.

In it:

The actors spoke Shakespearean dialog into cell phones. Sometimes, while standing right next to one another. You know how I feel about cell phones.

Iago wore street clothes. He had a green shirt because he was, you know, jealous.

It was FOUR HOURS LONG with only one :15 minute intermission, which is completely unnecessary for that play.

A lot of action took place on a bed made of TVs. And some folding chairs.

Montano, a soldier of Cyprus, was played by a woman. In the barroom brawl scene, Othello’s Lieutenant, Cassio, doesn’t beat her up. That would be adhering to the original text. Instead, he graphically rapes Montano on the TV bed.

Philip Seymour Hoffman had a few scenes of utter brilliance but the rest of the cast was just burned out and didn’t connect with the characters at all. Maybe I’m just superficially swayed by celebrity. Probably.A friend described Othello as an oaf who allows himself to be easily fooled by a henchman. It’s his least favorite Shakespeare play. It’s a pretty accurate assessment so that kind of ruined it as well.I have tickets to see Jude Law in Hamlet. He’d better not fuck it up or I’m through with The Bard. I can’t take another evening like that. It’ll kill me.