Catch-up and Updates

Gee, whatever happened to December? Below the fold is my Holiday/Christmas letter to the family.

Somehow I missed posting my recap of Round House Theatre's Pride and Prejudice. It was great fun, despite the Washington Post's predictably negative review. It was set in a whimsical toy box whose trim cabinets reveal changes of scenery that, except for the decor in the interiors, weren't all that different. The ladies also wore strikingly similar gowns (my friend thought they looked too much like nightgowns), making some of the characters hard to distinguish. (Not all sisters are that interchangeable.)

What I really enjoyed was the swift pacing through the domestic and romantic joyrides and the genuine catch of tears brought on by self-awareness when Elizabeth realizes her prejudice against Darcy was unfounded.

I also took another visit to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, with my same Pride and Prejudice friend. It was fun to finally show off some of my favorite venues (RHT and NMWA) with someone else besides my dear readers here!

I got a second chance to snap some of my favorite pieces in the collection:

Four Seated Figures, 2002, by Magdalena Abakanowicz (Polish, b. 1930)

Carrie Pease Graham, 1895, by Elisabet Ney (German, 1833-1907), with Mary Cassatt's Portrait of Katherine Cassatt, 1905, in the background)

Photographs by Louise Dahl-Wolfe (American, 1895-1989)

But in the exhibit of Asian-inspired art, where I fell in love with a new artist, no photography was allowed. Fortunately, there was a book! But unfortunately, I didn't do a very good job of scanning the picture. Anyway, I share with you the lovely work of Lilian May Miller, and her Monet haystacks-inspired Fujiyama:

Moonlight and Sunrise (respectively) at Fujiyama, Japan (both 1928), lovingly photographed from the book Between Two Worlds: The Life and Art of Lilian May Miller by Kendall H. Brown (exhibition catalog published by Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, 1998). Note, I bought the book at the NMWA gift shop. It's not available via Amazon, but I found it at Alibris.

Part of the joy of the outing back to NMWA, which happened the day after Thanksgiving, was continuing my chase of the ginkgo. I had been seeing ginkgo leaves throughout Bethesda this fall, but as far as I could find, there were no ginkgo trees in my neighborhood. I knew there were ginkgoes downtown, and sure enough, there they were around Metro Center, their bright yellow fans aglow in the autumn noon.

And finally, just because I like it, the Art Deco (former) bus station on New York Avenue:

All photos by C. G. Wagner. Fair use principles apply: please give credit!

FOLD (below which, my annual holiday letter to the family)

DECEMBER 2011

GREETINGS from the beginning of a cold and damp holiday season! I hope you are warm, snug, and filled with good cheer.

This year found me wandering very little beyond my own neighborhood, and the 10-block walk between apartment and office was my principal means of exercise. Work kept me pretty busy in my new role as editor of THE FUTURIST. In January, I got to meet with the former Haitian ambassador, who brought a small contingent of supporters to our office on the anniversary of the devastating earthquake. They had come to the World Future Society seeking support for rebuilding their nation, which was at that time nervously awaiting a presidential-election runoff. It was humbling to be asked for such support and it helped us to be able to articulate our own mission as an organization.

Another interesting byproduct of my new position was that I was invited to be interviewed for the Grinnell alumni magazine--again, an opportunity to clarify what futurists do and why. (And why I, who am so risk-averse and change-resistant, am somehow the voice of futurism! Hee!)

And if this wasn’t enough “greatness” thrust upon me, I was also asked to take over the leadership of my Shakespeare Readers group! In an effort to increase membership, I’ve reached out to other Shakespeare fans on a MeetUp group and created an official Shakespeare Readers blog: shakespearereaders.blogspot.com.

The only traveling I did this year was—as usual—either work or Clay related. The annual WFS conference was in Vancouver in July, and fortunately I was able to get out and see the neighborhood around our hotel a little bit. It’s a beautiful city, which I hadn’t seen since the World’s Fair in 1986.

The Clay Aiken trip of the year was out to Texas in March, where I got to visit with friends Chris, Debbie, Sheila, Jill, Mary, and Gary, along with an assortment of other ladies I’ve met at other concerts over the years. Much fun!

And yes, I finally did get to meet the man himself, fleetingly, at the meet-and-greet event in Towson, Maryland! With more than 40 fans there, herded along brusquely to get our pictures snapped with Clay, the event was more aptly described as a meet-and-moo. But Clay was in beautiful voice that night and turned the technical mishaps (lighting miscues and strange audio set-up) into high comedy.

Speaking of meet-and-greets, I got to see my favorite jazz singer, Nnenna Freelon, twice this year (well, the first time was New Year’s Eve last year), and also American Ballet Theater featured dancer Daniil Simkin, who had a slightly smaller crowd competing for his attention than Clay did.

I’ve continued to enjoy the productions at Round House and Ford’s theaters and the Strathmore Music Center. A very special outing to Ford’s in April was the rollicking musical Liberty Smith, which was all the more fun for sharing the experience with my brother Mike and sister-in-law Wanda and my cousin Bob and his wife Mary. During their visit we also got to do some “typical tourist” stuff, enjoying the cherry blossoms, museums, memorials, and monuments. And, of course, the D.C. parking challenge.

I spent Thanksgiving with good friends Suzanne and David Waters, who have treated me to so many Sunday dinners that I decided to splurge and take them to one of my favorite “family” restaurants, Ruth’s Chris. Yummo!

My New Year’s resolution is to finally get my apartment into visitor-friendly condition. So ya’ll come on down! (But hey, please call first!)

[End of letter]

I haven't monetized this blog yet, and I receive no royalties, commissions, or kickbacks from anything I mention here. But since I am particularly proud of the photography calendar I made for 2012, I'll include a link to it on Snapfish. You need to have an account at Snapfish to view, but you'll be able to customize and order it if you like:

2012 Calendar: Photography by C. G. Wagner

Maybe next year I'll figure out how to monetize. Till then, enjoy!

Autumn in Bethesda

Just a few pix. Click to enlarge.

Credit all: C. G. Wagner

After a storm:

Setting sun on autumn leaves:

Morning illumination:

and the new public art installation at Union Hardware:

ReEntering Unreality

Back from Round House's production last night of ReEntry by Emily Ackerman and KJ Sanchez, a powerful piece on the trauma of returning "home" from war. And "home" is a tricky term; to a Marine, "home" is the Corps, whereas family and the complacency of people bitching about who's on Dancing with the Stars is the surreal unreality.

The staging of interwoven monologues is not my favorite dramaturgical choice (see also The Carpetbagger's Children, for instance). The characters--a mom, a sister, their two sons/brothers, a C.O., and others portrayed by the five actors--were built from interviews, so the reality was embedded. But the lack of interaction between the characters is a step away from the reality (or simulation of reality) in witnessing human relationships in real time. Add the actory voices, and it seems too unreal.

Even the chin-mikes to allow the actors to be heard by the audience without straining their voices was a check on reality to me. And because there's the phenomenon known in science--that the act of observing alters the experiment--I didn't get a sense of what the real reality would be for these characters after they stopped talking to the interviewers recording their stories.

Still, there was a lot to this very strong production. I could relate to the idea of children going to war when the C.O. talked about what he tells parents who are sending their children into this real danger just after they've graduated from high school. I thought of myself at 18 dealing with something like the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. I wouldn't have had a clue what that reality would do to me.

[SPOILER ALERT]

And despite the lack of interaction between the characters, there was real poignance to the stories they told about each other. The sister, of course, I could relate to. She speaks at the end of how her brother told her to stay put in her apartment if "shit comes down" again like 9/11, and he would beat a path of destruction to her door to evac her. Any sister of any brother would want to hear just that, and probably has heard it more than she even can remember.

Cast:
Liz (sister)/Suzanne: Jessi Blue Gormezano
John (older son/brother)/Pete: Brandon Jones
Mom/Maria: Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris
C.O.: Larry Mitchell
Charlie (younger son/brother)/Tommy: Ben Rosenblatt

Directed by KJ Sanchez.
Plays at the Round House Theatre, Bethesda, Maryland, through October 30.

Musical of Our Discontent

credit: Deen Van Meer, Kennedy Center

Back from Les Miz 2.0, the 25th anniversary full-scale re-thinking of the 1985 amazingness. I wasn't really sure I wanted to see this, since the 1985 KenCen pre-Broadway run was so indelible, but they promised this one would be good, and it certainly erased the memory of the tacky road-show version that carried on at the National a few years ago.

It is critical that I be induced to weep during the First Act Finale ("One Day More"), and the fact is, with this show, I began weeping when the priest brings Jean Valjean into his home--"have a seat, have some wine"--the first act of human kindness extended to the villainous bread thief Valjean after 19 years of captivity. This is even before the priest pays it forward by not turning him in to Javert for stealing the silver. Why didn't I bring tissues? Anyway, the cathartic requirement of theater was amply met.

I'm a little dim on French history, but I believe this takes place after the big Revolution. People are still jobless and desperate, discontented with the wealthy.

Which is pretty much where we are today. It's hard not to notice the similarities between Marius and his compatriots and the Occupiers of Wall Streets around the world just now. What they also have in common, in my mind, is the lack of a clear goal and strategy for achieving it. So far in the twenty-first-century version, at least the disobedience and protests have been largely civil.

Back to the show.... The other similarity I was struck by was to West Side Story (aka Romeo and Juliet), even so far as the staging of the lovers' first rendezvous o'er garden walls and under balconies. And of course the grand Act One Finale that weaves the threads of character and melodic themes into one magical tapestry of urgency, to get through the line at the restroom and back in your seat to see how it all turns out in Act Two.

Dissimilarities to the original production in 1985: Well, you don't have Colm Wilkinson, Frances Ruffelle, or Patti LuPone. The 2011 Valjean, J. Mark McVey, is an indomitable presence, but his delivery was more theatrical than Wilkinson's; that is, the lines were acted as much as sung. I'm trying to say this without judgment; different is just different. Wilkinson's voice had as much power as tenderness and created a purer characterization of Valjean.

The biggest dissimilarity among the actors was in Eponine, portrayed in the original by the heartbreakingly waifish Ruffelle and in the 2011 version by Chasten Harmon, far too sultry and womanly to be a waif (the character references Anybodys from West Side Story). She's more of a Spamalot Lady of the Lake, wondering what ever happened to her part.

The bottom line: I and my fellow standing-ovation-givers give the production an A. But I didn't get the cast recording. I have the cast recording.

A side note: the bio in the program for Cameron MacIntosh, the show's producer, made me smile. It reads, in its entirety:

Cameron MacIntosh (Producer) produces musicals.

Pattern Recognition

It took a while, but I finally came up with a theme for this blog. (See subtitle, above!)

Of course, it is ironic that I place myself in the role of "Audience" and yet blog publicly, as though anticipating an audience myself....

love, hosaa
somewhere around the second-to-last row of the balcony

Social Injustice, The Musical!

The other day when I told my friends I was going to Ford's Theatre to see a musical about a Jewish man wrongly accused of assaulting a young girl, one among my fellow dinner companions laughed out loud.

"IIII didn't raaaape you,
Sweeeeet-hearrrrrt!"

(This, mind you, was on Rosh Hashanah. Oy.)

Musicals are supposed to be madcap romps, I guess, like anything with Mary Martin or Ethel Merman in it.

Or, you know, West Side Story or Cabaret. Both dealt with prejudice, as does Parade by Alfred Uhry (book), Jason Robert Brown (composer), and Harold Prince (co-conceiver) and directed by Stephen Rayne.

The fact-based story involves Atlanta pencil-factory supervisor Leo Frank (played by Euan Morton), a transplanted Brooklyn Jew, who becomes a scapegoat when 13-year-old factory worker Mary Phagan (Lauren Williams) is found murdered in the factory's basement.

In the course of the trial and its aftermath, Leo comes to understand and appreciate his Southern (and Jewish) wife Lucille (Jenny Fellner), steelier than any of the other Atlanta magnolias and equal to the challenge of forcing the governor (Stephen F. Schmidt) to reopen the case.

On a Sunday afternoon, the theater crowd is typically touristy, but in my little area there seemed to be a large number of theater afficianados and not just Lincoln buffs. I overheard a word or two before the show and during intermission referring to the Broadway version; others remarked on the accuracy of the events (I didn't quite catch what one person said Uhry supposedly admitted to changing, factually, for the drama).

I, on the other hand, went in pretty ignorant. That's why I couldn't tell my friends why they shouldn't laugh at my going to a musical about an assault case.

Anyway, just as the actors began the performance by casually wandering up the aisles from the back of the house and strolling into position on stage, at least one couple in the audience got up and not-so-casually fled just a few minutes before the end. What they were anticipating, I knew not, exactly. (The young theater-buff sitting next to me had been weeping for the last few scenes.)

The powerful image of an onstage lynching has to be one of the most chilling pieces of stagecraft I've ever seen. It is not one I will soon forget.

love, hosaa
chilled

ETA (Oct. 3): The ending that I described above isn't the end ending, which I missed because of my sight-line on the left side of the orchestra. At the end, Lucille wanders among her fellow Atlantans, not joining in their rousing chorus about how much they love being Southerners and all that. Her attitude is silent judgment.

But when she stands upstage center, I couldn't see her face at all. Did she join in the chorus or remain in silent judgment? Spoilers welcome, please!

Two Singers: Nnenna Freelon and Elliott Yamin

Two singers I catch around town as often as I can just happened to be in the neighborhood (or close enough) in the last couple of weeks: Jazz artist Nnenna Freelon and American Idol alum (season five) Elliott Yamin. They don't have terribly much in common, except I like them both for their unique voices. You don't mistake them for anyone else.

(And you know that's why I like Clay Aiken, too, but while he is working on his surprise for my birthday next month--which I am guessing is going to be his plan to collaborate with David Foster on adapting my screenplay into a Broadway musical--I have to spend this time pursuing my other interesting interests. Pardon my daydream...)

Both Nnenna and Elliott played to less than packed houses at the Strathmore and the Birchmere, respectively. This is unfortunate, but it didn't affect their performances.

Nnenna goes into her own world in her dreamy interpretations, bringing the audience along into the experience. "Skylark" gave me chills, performed with simple bass accompaniment.

One difference between a Nnenna/Strathmore experience and an Elliott/Birchmere one is my level of inhibition in clack-gathering. It's just taboo in a concert hall like Strathmore, and an artist of Nnenna's elegance, well, it would just seem like a violation to try to video her performance. At the Birch, with a guy like Elliott joshing with his E-Train riders in the audience, the pictures and videos are almost expected.

So to give you Nnenna's "Skylark," I borrow from someone else's lack of inhibition. This is from a year ago:

And "God Bless the Child," which made me feel as though I never heard or understood it before:

Now, Elliott, on the other hand, I had no problems mustering courage to video, so these are mine. My only problem was the tall fellow directly in my line of sight. (Situation normal.)

Here he is previewing some new songs, and delivering a heartfelt version of an earlier hit.









Love, hosaa
hearing (really great) voices

Fahrenheit 21C

Back from Round House Theater's production of Ray Bradbury's futuristic classic, Fahrenheit 451, with special multimedia effects that really do make that future feel now.

The credit for that stunning stagecraft, as well as the directing (Sharon Ott) and two of the principal actors--David Bonham ("Montag") and Aurora Heimbach ("Clarisse")--goes to the Savannah College of Art and Design.

The story is well known enough: Firemen burn books because books contain ideas, which just confuse and upset people. In a culture that fears dissent, ideas are weapons of mass destruction. (H. G. Wells also foresaw a book- and thought-free future in The Time Machine.)

What makes this production so contemporary is not just the cool multimedia elements, but also its reflection of our relationship to multimedia itself. Look around at how many people are connected to their devices, hooked on media walls that aren't just on the walls anymore--they never leave our hands. And yes, in many ways, this does detract from our ability to focus, reflect, think, and question.

But for me the real foresight of Bradbury comes through in Montag and Clarisse's escape to the woods and in the preservation of books through oral storytelling.

Futurist William Crossman has long been forecasting the rise of voice-based computing and the lessening need for text. See VIVO [Voice In/Voice Out]: The Coming Age of Talking Computers.

Frankly, as much as I love Moby Dick, I can't imagine memorizing it. Nor do I necessarily buy into the idea of rote memorization as valuable for critical thinking. But Bradbury's point about conveying cultural knowledge through the medium of storytelling is valid, and Crossman's point about advanced societies relying less on text to do the conveying is becoming increasingly validated.

Bradbury's prescription for his hero, escaping to nature and away from the oppressively conforming and soul numbing city, is the same prescription we hear today from Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle. Louv writes about his prescription for children hooked on technologies and suffering from nature-deficit order in the next issue of THE FUTURIST.

The Voice of a Master Twit

For my fellow Edward Duke fans, I've been trying to locate digital versions of the audiobooks he recorded for Buckingham Classics, which no longer seems to exist.

Best we can do commercially is the audiocassette compilation All About Jeeves, which repackaged Edward's two original Buckingham cassettes.

The stories are:

"Jeeves Takes Charge" and "Bertie Changes His Mind," which were Acts I and II, respectively, of Edward's stage production, plus "The Chump Cyril" and "Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg," originally packaged as "Jeeves Comes to America."

(Incidentally, Act III of the Jeeves Takes Charge stage production--"Wooster in Wonderland"--was Edward's invention, pulling together all of the best characters and plot devices of the Wodehouse universe--including aunts, country fairs, newts, fiances, and the world's worst tap dance, performed by Bertie while singing "Look for the Silver Lining.")

Sadly, I had ordered my copy of "Jeeves Comes to America" right about the same time dear Edward died, in 1994. It was recorded in 1993, and I fear he was likely quite ill at the time. I tried only once to listen to this recording and just couldn't get through it. My heart couldn't bear it. It's about time I tried again, now, isn't it!

There is one more piece of Edward Duke audio in my collection (also on tape. It was a sad decade, the technologically transitional 1990s). It is the interview that he conducted with WETA TV and radio personality Robert Aubry Davis, for his show Desert Island Discs. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Davis in Edward's dressing room--and the audacity to ask for a copy of the interview.

I'll see what I can do about converting some of these tapes into digital audio, and will try to share as much as I can within the limits of fair use. I miss Edward's laugh, his wit, his mastery of the art of the twit.

Love, hosaa

looking for the silver lining (and tap dancing, very badly indeed)

Errant Heirs, Apparently

Back from last night's invited dress rehearsal for The Heir Apparent at Shakespeare Theatre's lovely Lansburgh venue on 7th Street.

The early 18th-century French farce by Jean-Francois Regnard (1655-1709) retained period costuming, while the text (all verse) had a complete 21st-century American makeover. Incongruous at first, but delivered with such energy and daffy deftness that it kept the audience roaring for just over two hours.

The brains of the operation (which was to extract a will from miserly Uncle Geronte that favored the Bertie Woosterish nephew Eraste) was the quick-thinking (and self-serving) valet Crispin, played with winking naughtiness by Carson Elrod.

The set design by Alexander Dodge was a character in itself. I hope it isn't too much of a spoiler to say that the big ugly clock--as noisy and elaborate in its machinery as it was fascinating in its ornate face design (Deco? Nouveau? Rococo-koo-koo?)--had personality that demanded its own plot point.

The play officially opens September 12 and runs through October 23. See it.

Credits as follows:

The Heir Apparent
Adapted by David Ives from the comedy by Jean-Francois Regnard
Directed by Michael Kahn

Crispin: Carson Elrod
Geronte: Floyd King
Eraste: Andrew Veenstra
Lisette: Kelly Hutchinson
Isabelle: Meg Chambers Steedle
Madame Argante: Nancy Robinette
Scruple: Clark Middleton

Set Designer: Alexander Dodge
Costume Designer: Murell Horton
Lighting Designer: Philip Rosenberg
Sound Designer: Christopher Blaine
Composer: Adam Wernick


Meet the cast event at Shakespeare Theatre: (left to right)
Playwright David Ives with the cast: Andrew Veenstra, Nancy Robinette, Carson Elrod, Meg Chambers Steedle, Floyd King, Kelly Hutchinson and Clark Middleton.

credit: Shakespeare Theatre

New Blog: Shakespeare Readers

I've started a new blog for the Shakespeare Readers group (formerly the Washington Shakespeare Reading Group), which meets one Sunday a month at American University Library.

Check out the new blog and the 2011-2012 reading schedule here.

"In Bard We Trust!"

Better to Be Lucky Than Smart

My brother always says it's better to be lucky than smart. So my neighborhood dodged Irene's bullet last night. My building never lost power or water, which is good for me because the bathtub-full-of-water trick didn't work. I should have checked the plug, which apparently was designed only to stop the water from draining long enough to let someone take a bath. The tub was bone dry this morning.

Anyway, I took my copy of Barron's to the Tastee Diner this morning. (I had a pocket full of quarters in case the Washington Post's delivery person made it to my building; no surprises, she/he didn't.)

Barron's isn't something I normally read on my own, but I got a gift subscription from a friend with points of some kind. Anyway, I normally can't decipher my way past the front editorial, but this week's Streetwise piece by Jacqueline Doherty, "Prospering in a Weak Economy," contained some interesting perspective.

Citing analyst Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research and the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, Doherty notes that unemployment is only 4% for Americans with college degrees and 14% for those with only high-school diplomas. Moffett concludes that 40% of Americans have no discretionary income.

What does this mean to Barron's readers? I.e., well-educated people with money to invest? There is growth in companies that provide services to below-poverty consumers.

"One area that's growing: those servicing cellphone subscribers below the poverty line who receive government subsidies," writes Doherty. "Moffett recommends MetroPCS Communications (PCS), which saw its shares tumble from north of 18 to a recent 10.67."

I interpret this as advising rich people how to further exploit the poor. Well, the poor don't have a lot of leverage, but they can learn the same lessons (even if they don't read Barron's.)

Not that anybody should take advice from me, especially when it comes to choosing between satellite TV service and "a third meal." But maybe there could be a way to turn the tables on the exploiters: save for shares in Disney instead of saving for a Disney vacation, or give up Happy Meals for a year to open an education Roth IRA with McDonald's shares (reinvesting the dividends, of course). In other words, invest in what you'd normally buy. The rich guys are.

(Disclosure: I own Ford's shares; and I've been a Ford-vehicle owner since 1982. Okay, so it's only three vehicles in 30 years, and it's only 200 shares. In me, Ford's may not have a frequent buyer, but it has long-term customer loyalty.)

I've known for awhile that my capital was worth more than my labor, even in a down economy (and a down market). The jobs that are gone are not coming back; employers have outsourced or automated them.

Back in the early 1980s, one of THE FUTURIST's authors wrote that we should all own robots not so they'll do our work for us, but so we can live off the income they generate when we sell or license them to do other people's work. Applying that same principle generally, I figured the only way to beat the rising costs of gasoline and health-insurance premiums was to own stock in energy and health companies (and since I'm not smart enough to pick those companies, I let the mutual-funds managers do that work).

This might be my most blindly ignorant blog ever. I am entirely too uninformed, lazy, and risk averse to write on this subject. I have no mortgage or college tuition to worry about, as most people do. Anyway, it just rankled me to see how already-rich people are being advised how to profit from the already-exploited.

Last piece of ignorant advice for anyone who can't start saving or investing. The trick my mom gave me before I had enough to even open an IRA was to pretend to save. She subtracted $20 from her checking account (every week? every month?) and recorded the amount in the back of her checkbook. The money was still in her account, but if she didn't see it she didn't spend it. Eventually she saved enough for whatever she needed it for.

I did the same and managed to get enough for an IRA. My arbitrary goal was to match my rent in monthly savings. I did it for about two years, and it got me enough to actually begin investing for real.

Not all the water is in the same bathtub. Thanks to inheriting my Dad's credit union account, some of my water is in a different, less-leaky tub than the stock market. So hopefully I'll never run completely dry--or get completely soaked.

Love, hosaa
A little smart, a little lucky.

Good morning, Apocalypse!

There's the old joke among survivalists in the woods: You don't need to outrun the bear. You just need to outrun your buddy.

I'm a little too late to outrun the hurricane heading our way in about 12 hours or so. I know I can get as far as Kalamazoo in a day with clear roads, but people who had the same idea would already be on the roads by now.

I've read the sites telling you what you should have on hand, what should be in your emergency kit. How to survive with no modern conveniences or public services for at least five days. My biggest problem will probably be water, not because I can't fill up some bottles and jugs in advance, but because I don't have bottles or jugs.

You see, I've been de-cluttering lately, and among the first things to get cleaned out were the two very dusty "go" bags of emergency provisions that I prepared in 2001. That wasn't because of 9/11 but because of the anthrax scare here that immediately followed. I thought I was preparing myself to flee through the woods.

Anyway, the batteries and protein bars all expired in 2002. The blue jeans don't fit anymore. The toiletries, well, truth be known, I no longer require all those packs of feminine hygiene products. (Yay, me!)

The containers of water wouldn't have been fresh even if they hadn't cracked open and leaked. I'm not sure what I did with the Brita bottle. I never read the instructions anyway.

The transistor radio doesn't work. It wasn't just because the 9v batteries I tried to use were dead, but there was a wire loose.

I was trying to remember why I needed a radio anyway. Am I going to sit up all night with news announcers telling me I'm in a hurricane and I should take all necessary precautions? I live in an apartment building that is usually pretty security-conscious, so if they need to evacuate us, they'll notify us in the form of a very loud alarm bell. So I plan to sleep in my clothes, and maybe in my closet (away from my one big north-facing window). I think I'll be fine.

Since I was up early this morning and still wanted to scout around for at least a can opener (hee! The non-electric can opener disappeared several years ago when a neighbor wanted to borrow it; I said to keep it, I have an electric one). The Giant was open, of course, when I got there at 7:30 a.m. I got some fruit that wouldn't need refrigeration. I already have peanut butter.

I really don't plan to cook a Thanksgiving meal on votive candles, but I got an extra candle anyway for the light. All that they sold were those smelly ones, so I got a green one, fir-tree scented, which will no doubt send me out into the streets in search of fresh air as soon as the aroma clouds my thinking in this tiny apartment.

My neighbors are out jogging as usual, the earnest middle-aged ladies and their former-Marine drill sergeant coaches. Dogs are being walked. The hardware store was the only sign of panic, and the good men and women of Strosniders took it all in stride. Plenty of D cells, which I picked up for my old boom box. I couldn't find any new transistor radios to replace my broken one, so I snatched one of the Red Cross emergency crank-ups. Has lights and sirens, too, oh boy! I didn't know it was over a hundred bucks till I got to the cash register. Sigh.

It's sultry out, and the wind is picking up. The restaurants have not secured their outdoor tables and chairs, I suppose because they're expecting business as usual before the storm. It's Saturday. It's business.

I give the disaster-preparation award on our street to the Apple Store, boarded up but open for business.



As for the bear of the storm, well, I doubt I'd be able to outrun it, pudgy couch potato that I am. When Mom and I went to Alaska and were advised to make a lot of noise if we encountered a bear, I joked that I could go into the Gershwin songbook. Without water, I may have to sing for a sip.

There's a somebody I'm longing to see,
I hope that he turns out to be
Someone who'll watch over me....

Love, hosaa,
anticipating apocalypse

Artificial Reality

The 10-block walk from home to office leaves my head open to many random ideas and reflections, which I sometimes think (probably erroneously) would make good blog posts. One reason that I don't bore people with too many of these trivial thoughts is that I don't remember them.

Anyway, I did think briefly about the two paintings in the lobby of my apartment building. In their last round of redecoration, our building's owners made the lobby look like a bank, with plush settees and marble (maybe)-topped little tables underneath big oil (maybe) paintings of the sort you find advertised on late night TV, with starving artists' work at wholesale prices to meet your decorating needs.

The painting on the left is a still life of flowers, and it hangs above a faux (probably)-marble table with a bouquet of artificial flowers. The painting on the right is a similar still life, with flowers but featuring two large urns or vases; it hangs over a table with two large urns or vases.

So I left my lobby observing fake art of real flowers accompanied by fake flowers, along with fake art of real vases accompanied by real vases of questionable value (though reflecting a banker's taste for high-class stuff).

I think I would have felt more comfortable with this arrangement if the real fake vases were parked under the fake real flowers painting and the real fake flowers were parked under the fake real vases painting.

But then I would have had nothing to confuse myself with for the (real) 10-block walk to work.

love, hosaa
really real

eta, I would have taken pictures, but I forgot. ;-)

Rocked Ages

Back from Rock of Ages at the National Theatre, and what turns out to have been the second to last show of the current U.S. tour, starring Constantine Maroulis.

Footnote: Constantine from Season Four of American Idol was one I'd predicted would win and, that very week, was eliminated at number six. That was the year Carrie Underwood conquered the world.

I'm not going to try to review a show that is so outside of my genre, especially one that is closing in a few hours anyway, but as is my custom, I like to give my singular perspective as a member of the audience. (Hello from the balcony!)

Rock of Ages is loud, energetic, and entertaining. The fact that I came home with a headache I blame more on Metro, whose hot weekend delays left me without the opportunity to grab a burger before the show. But the rest of the audience was appropriately responsive, even if it was a Sunday matinee. (Edward Duke told me they were always the worst houses.)

Right off, one thing about the plot (and yes, it was cartoonish and breaking the fourth wall-ish like Spamalot) bugged the hell out of me, but through no fault of the show itself. It just so happens that I saw this show about reveling in the rocker lifestyle on the same weekend that singer Amy Winehouse was found dead at the age of 27. The addictions and seedy dissipation were comical in the show, but as a matter of fact it's just not something I can laugh at.

The music is of my generation, my age, though it's not my music. Set in the Reagan era, ROA seemed more like the 1960s nostalgia version of Rock, with scruffy hippy stylings for most of the rockers. Glitter made its way into the rock aesthetic, as did boy-band sell-out. In the eighties, what did I listen to? After a year of grad school and NPR, I mainly switched to all jazz and classical. I knew who Madonna and Michael Jackson were, but that was about it.

What surprised me about this show was that even I recognized a few of the tunes: I thought using "covers" was taboo for Broadway musicals, even if they are about rock of a certain vintage. The one that of course stuck out the most for me was "I Want to Know What Love Is," which was a duet on Clay Aiken's 2006 album, A Thousand Different Ways.

So we're left with a Broadway show about rock, and how is rock used in this context? When rock was born, it was used as a medium of protest. In the ROA plot, protest is used to save the rock lifestyle on seedy Sunset Boulevard from a fate worse than stripper clubs: strip mall development.

Well, whatever dude. I didn't buy it. This isn't John Lennon's protest or Dylan's.

Still, the good natured plot brought happy endings to the ridiculous but lovable characters. What the protests really were protecting were the right to keep dreaming your dreams: "Don't Stop Believing." I just wish that message were enough. Unfortunately, as attested by Amy Winehouse's death (and name any other horrific tragedy of our time, manmade and otherwise) we need something worth believing in, too.

love, hosaa
rocking out in her own contrarian way

The Plot(s) at Ford's

Back from a very interesting mini-symposium at Ford's Theatre, "Lincoln Assassination Conspiracies." Tonight's event was apparently part of a series sponsored by the Spy Museum.

The three speakers were:

Michael W. Kauffman, author of American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies.

H. Donald Winkler, author of Lincoln and Booth: More Light on the Conspiracy.

Frank J. Williams, retired chief justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and author of several books on Lincoln, including an anthology of essays, Judging Lincoln.

Since I am not well versed in this subject--Civil War espionage generally and the life of John Wilkes Booth specifically--all of it was new and interesting. I thought Winkler in particular made a compelling case for the role of the Confederate government in setting the mechanisms in motion that led to April 14, 1865, assassination of Lincoln.

He also said that the revelations leading to some of his conclusions are of relatively recent origins, emerging from groundbreaking scholarship in the 1980s. The point was that we will always keep learning new things, though we may never attain all the answers to our questions. (Why did Booth only have a single-shot pistol and a dagger that night? How did he know Lincoln would be virtually unguarded? And why was Lincoln virtually unguarded?)

What was interesting to me was that the theater was about 85% full (at least the orchestra section) for a weeknight lecture. The knowledgeable and appreciative audience of history buffs flashed pictures all evening, and at the end several stood to ask questions. And they sometimes even left the guest experts stumped for an answer.

I don't know, it's a bit comforting I guess. The present is confusing. The future is confusing. The past is still confusing, too. Our ongoing need for answers drives the quest for questions. Asking is therefore more important than answering.

Love, hosaa
wondering

Leadership, Legacies, and Shakespeare

The books on leadership will tell you that the best time to think about your legacy is at the beginning of your tenure at the top. Another good time is right before you squander it with misbehavior, but that's not my subject today.

I was recently asked to take the reins of a small, venerable little organization, whose dedicated membership had dwindled to a handful of enthusiasts: The Shakespeare Readers.

Begun in the 1980s by a pastor as an activity for his intellectually hungry congregation, the group met twice a month in the church basement to read one entire Shakespeare play aloud. As this very informal group evolved and changed leadership in the 1990s, the "rules" and "privileges" of membership clarified.

When the pastor handed the leadership over to the next volunteers, the group named itself "The Washington Shakespeare Reading Group" (WSRG), a schedule of readings was circulated, a formula was created for assigning parts to give equal numbers of lines to all who chose to attend, and ads were placed in the local newspapers to boost membership. (That's about when I joined the group. I made the T-shirts.)




For about a dozen years, that's how things were done. Membership grew, peaked, and began dwindling. Life happens, as does death. Leadership passed to the next volunteer, but the legacy of the incumbent could not be conveyed. For whatever reason, the church could no longer provide the free, comfortable basement classroom as a space for the Shakespeare fans, most of whom now were not also members of the congregation. There was no longer a relationship to build on.

The new leader also wanted to introduce changes to the formula: Rather than being assigned parts in each scene, readers would take lines in turn as the play moved around the table. She was then advised by the incumbent, who wanted to protect her own legacy, to come up with another name for the group.

"Shakespeare Readers" was born, and the process of finding free, comfortable space and a universally agreeable monthly day and time for the readings became a challenge. Montgomery County libraries wanted money for their spaces, but D.C. libraries welcomed the group for free on Sundays until municipal funding ran dry. Then the American University library offered space, and the Readers could read again.




I tell this tale because this spring, as the youngest still-somewhat-actively participating Reader, I was handed an envelope of contact information (i.e., mailing addresses and telephone numbers) for all individuals who had attended the Shakespeare readings since the days of the pastor and his basement congregations. The resigning leader wanted to spend more time with her grandchildren.

It is a coincidence that this "greatness" was thrust upon me at about the same time I became the editor of THE FUTURIST. So I needed to apply some of the lessons of leadership I'd already begun absorbing.

The leader's legacy matters to the members as much as to the individual who is stepping aside. What matters most to this group are the relationships it established with each other and with hosting organizations, such as the churches and libraries. And one of the most important relationships was with our local royalty, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, which grew from a personal connection established early on by the WSRG leader and allowed our group to attend invited dress rehearsals. This would be our most significant (but unadvertised) membership benefit.

Another lesson is to embrace new ways of doing things, even if they're a bit outside of one's comfort zone. Advertising in local newspapers or library bulletin boards just wasn't going to cut it. I found MeetUp and quite a few local Shakespeare fans who were as eager for intellectual stimulation and the opportunity to use their voices as the pastor's congregation was a quarter-century ago. I was told by several of these "Shakespeare Explorers" that they would have joined our group many years ago if they knew we existed, but we couldn't be found on the Internet. So that will have to change.

While I was congratulating myself on finding a new source of members (and new opportunities for Shakespeare-related activities), the WSRG leader gave me a call to express concern for our group's integrity. I knew she meant her legacy. Did what she had built up and leave behind matter to anyone but herself? Of course it did. I reassured her that I was not leaving our Readers behind, and that I was not preparing a merger with this new group.

With the support of two previous Reader leaders, and the influx of new ideas and energy from the Explorers, I think I have a pretty good head-start on a legacy. Shakespeare inspires us both to use our voices and to listen to each other. Leaders need to do both--often at the same time.

Wishing Us Love

Back from I Wish You Love at the Kennedy Center, which plays for just one more night. I find I dislike Saturday night crowds, but I enjoyed participating in the rousing and well-deserved standing ovation for the small but gifted ensemble portraying Nat King Cole, two of his bandsmen--his "people"--and the characters behind the scenes of Cole's late 1950s television series.



Dennis W. Spears portrayed Cole, and if there were a dictionary entry for the term "shit-eating grin," you would find an image of Spears as Nat "King" Cole preparing his face and demeanor for the viewers out there in TV-land. An array of studio monitors orbiting the set depicted the show in a remembered black-and-white reality distinctly different from the live, full-bodied presence on the stage. In the breaks during the show, the monitors silently offered the program sponsors' black-and-white (rather, all-white) view of the American consumer.

For the honor of being rich in white America, Cole had to be the package of an acceptable black man, and this meant jumping through a series of fiery hoops, including playing a tour date in Alabama in 1957. He and his people were attacked not just by the KKK but also by the police. Upon returning to the studio and encountering the demand of the sponsors to segregate his own band, Cole finally refused. On his last aired program (in this fictional account, which I can only speculate is based on truth), Cole displays a sign he picked up from his travel South: "We Serve Coloreds ... Take Out Only."

Battles fought decades ago are still being fought, not just by one group of people robbed of its dignity, but also by others. The day after the anniversary of Edward Duke's birthday, he is much on my mind. He died in 1994 when it was almost impossible for an openly gay actor to get work as a leading man.

Before he came out of the closet, Rupert Everett got a lot of the roles that Edward would have been up for, I think. (The role that made him famous was the one most stereotypically gay, as Julia Roberts's confidante in My Best Friend's Wedding.)

Most of the bullying and hatred aimed at people like Clay Aiken may be because he wasn't open and (in my opinion) didn't conform to the stereotypes that straight America wanted. If you're queer, you should act queer, like those gays on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Entertain us with your swishy nonchalance, and don't confuse us by acting--you know--normal.

I always hated that show, and now I sort of understand why. Not for any "shit-eating-grin" behaviors depicted by the individuals participating in it, but for the attitude of my friends who loved the show so much. Why would they love those gays and not Clay? And why would my family love seeing Edward do his "Jeeves" tales but not want to hear one word about his "unhealthy lifestyle"?

I want everyone to be happy. I want the world to be beautiful. I want to wish it love, too.

love, hosaa
wishing for love

Another Year, Missed

To Edward Duke, who would have been a distinguished 58.

I'm always remembering some small tidbit or other. Edward inspired me to write a story, then a play, with characters based on him (or at least my idea of him).

Once when I met him in his dressing room, I mentioned that I'd written another screenplay, but that it wasn't inspired by him.

He looked at me, at first registering hurt. And then he smiled that Edward Duke smile of his and said:

"It's good you've outgrown that!"

Love, hosaa
looking for the silver lining

Sing Casual

Back from Strathmore for the first of a two-night gig by Mandy Patinkin, with pianist and occasional duet partner Paul Ford, on the "Dress Casual" tour.

When I saw that Harry Chapin was among the songwriters that Mandy intended to cover in this tour, I was a bit disappointed because "Cat's in the Cradle" was on the setlist the last time I saw Mandy (New Year's Eve at the Kennedy Center a number of years ago). But even though the material was familiar, the execution was remarkable (and in the case of the Chapin piece, quite touching, for reasons that I won't spoil).

The 1-hour, 45-minute set was full of lyrically complex and dramatically challenging songs from the best of Broadway, ranging from Les Miz ("Bring Him Home" opened the show) to Secret Garden, and of course Sunday in the Park with George. Mandy's tone was richer than ever, and his range is nothing short of astonishing.

Flaws? As I mentioned, there were some very challenging lyrics, like the "Trouble in River City" and "He Doesn't Know the Territory" numbers from Music Man. He lost his place several times, but handled it as part of the show. At one point he called out to the audience, "what's the line?" and sure enough a chorus of half a dozen guys in the back provided the correct lyric. The power of the voice more than made up for the lyric issues.

The two Music Man numbers got a couple of fun twists - "do certain words start creeping into his vocabulary--words like 'Twitter'?" and the crooked salesman who sold boys' bands was not Harold Hill but Bernie Madoff!

It's all entertainment. Mandy cracked on the group of latecomers down front (the ushers erroneously led them in as Mandy was sliding into his next song. He hit "abort" and started interrogating the latecomers on what took them so long to get here). Other than that, there wasn't much in the way of interaction with the audience, but he reached up into the upper tiers to draw everyone in.

There is nothing casual about that kind of star quality.

love, hosaa

being alive

Building Futures

Elektro, by Westinghouse, courtesy of NBM

Yesterday I got to see Designing Tomorrow: America's World's Fairs of the 1930s exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., conveniently located across from the Judiciary Square Metro stop.

entrance to National Building Museum

sculptures at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, adjacent to Judiciary Square Metro stop

(Photos by C. G. Wagner)

It's another one of those not-Air-and-Space-Museum museums I'd always been meaning to explore, and I heard about this World's Fair exhibition thanks to a flyer from the Art Deco Society of Washington, which was promoting some related lectures and tours.

Unfortunately, ADSW's events were off-site, somewhere in Virginia, but the exhibit was worth an afternoon downtown. Also, unfortunately, the Building Museum had a bunch of other events scheduled that I didn't know about. Anybody attending the Intelligent Cities Forum tomorrow (June 6), I'd love a report. I didn't know about it. I'm not omniscient. (Shocker.)

In addition to the World's Fairs exhibit, the museum also was showing the work of Art Deco muralist Hildreth Meière, but this work was in a separate gallery, on a different floor, rather than considered alongside the aesthetic works of the World's Fairs. Curious. There was also something to do with LEGOs, which cost $5 and didn't seem worth it to me, so I didn't go to that.

I liked the big open atrium of the Building Museum, but didn't know why there were tables set up with numbers, like they were expecting to host the Taste of DC or some big reception. Had I just missed something? Was I hours early for an evening event I didn't know about? Dang that lack of omniscience.

So the "Designing Tomorrow" exhibit was what I focused on. I tried to take my time with the huge collages of pictures and the captions that were too small and placed too low for me to read - if I could even find which caption went with which image. The Web site said they included 200 artifacts from the various World's Fairs that took place across the U.S. during the Great Depression, but they were overwhelmed by the big posters.

The artifact I was most interested in was the big robot, called Elektro: Moto-Man. But what was on display (according to the teensy-weensy caption) was a replica. The plastic model looked imposing but cheap. The grainy video showing Elektro in action was much more interesting. You can find it on YouTube.

I did learn that there was more than one World's Fair in the 1930s. The two I usually only hear about are Chicago's Century of Progress and the great New York World's Fair of 1939/1940, the one with the Trylon and Perisphere. I didn't learn all that much about Elektro and robots and the role of automation. Even the exhibition book only mentions it in a passing reference on page 10.

I wanted to learn more about Art Deco, but the long captions about the designers of the Fairs were impossible to absorb while standing and leaning over the display cases. So I'm glad I got the book, even if it doesn't include the Hildreth Meière stuff. I guess I could have bought her exhibition book too.

I got a good picture of how much influence industry now had on shaping the nation. By the 1930s, I don't know whether they were just trying to stimulate consumption by promising grander futures or just generally distracting the American public from the war in Europe. Probably both.

The future we were building then was one of comfort and convenience. But even the robots were taught to smoke. No wonder futurists get blamed for so much.

More press pictures from NBM for "Designing Tomorrow: America's World's Fairs of the 1930s"

"Ama-Deus"

Edward Gero (Salieri), courtesy of Round House Theatre


Blogger's been down since I got to see the Round House Theatre production of Amadeus on Thursday, so my reflections are no longer fresh.

Long play, short recap: Excellent. (Which is ironic, since the story is about the torment of knowing one's own mediocrity and being the only one to recognize pure genius.)

I practically know the movie version by heart, and as tempted as I was to dig out my Milos Forman video before seeing this production, I refrained in order to let the stage version inform me anew, and it did.

The most mind opening moments, for me, were when Edward Gero as Salieri repeatedly pronounced Mozart's middle name to emphasize the "god" half (deus). I don't know Latin, but I know "amo, amas" etc. are conjugations of "to love." So I got that what Salieri was saying here was that Mozart was God's beloved. I never picked up on that in repeated viewings of the movie, and I never understood why the Peter Shaffer play was called "Amadeus" and not "Wolfgang" or "Wolfie" or even just "Mozart."

Duh.

Upon further reflection of the story line, I found the theme compared very well with two previous RHT productions, The Talented Mr. Ripley and A Picture of Dorian Gray: the tragedies of envy, vanity, and artistic hubris (though I guess Mr. Ripley had no artistic ambitions per se). Salieri's aspiration to become the voice of a god he loved turned toxic and menacing; as with Ripley, his envy turned homicidal.

This does not say much for those who wish to be artists or for the impulse to communicate one's soul to the masses. I think we can still do that without denying the genius of others when we recognize it.

Sometime ago, well before hitting ponderously reflective middle age, I recognized that my artistic talents were close to nonexistent: unpublished novelist, unproduced playwright. I sketch because I enjoy stopping to observe my environment and move my hand in feeble traces of the world's marvelous contours. I put pieces of video together to capture different angles of a moment in a singer's performance.

I sing, but softly, so no one has to hear. I dream, and occasionally turn daydreams into plot developments, amusing myself with the idea that one day they will compile themselves into stories and even books.

I take the same approach in my career, to recognize and support the talents of others on my team and make it my occupation to bring them due recognition (and glory to our organization).

If God or nature or the happenstance of cosmic forces granted others (but not me) the talents I admire, why should I make myself miserable with envy? It serves my own happiness better to be both Salieri, the recognizer of genius, and the Emperor, the ignorant patron.

love, hosaa
moving up from the second to last row of the balcony, cheering madly

The Real Him

This post is both an excuse to show yet another Clay Aiken montage =D and write a little bit about my approach to montage making.



Yeah, I made the embed really small here - just click on the YouTube logo to go to the larger version.

The scene here is a one-time-only performance of "The Real Me" during Clay's Tried & True tour a few months ago. It was at Cincinnati on March 1. There was a lot going on that night, and a lot of the Clay Nation's best videographers were there to capture what I call a "Great Moment in Clay."

But I didn't use all of it for the montage. The "great moment" actually wasn't just what happened on stage, but a medical emergency that happened right in front of Clay mere moments before he was to sing something he hadn't performed more than once since recording it in 2008. Clay knew something was up, murmuring quietly, "The show must go on?" He reported to the audience that he was stalling a little because "a lady in the front row dropped her camera."

On the audio of one of the videos I used for this montage, you could hear the commotion going on, including the walky-talkies of the emergency crew who wanted to take the victim out of the theater to check her out.

For this montage, which I wanted to focus more on Clay's performance and less on the audience interaction, I chose the audio from a videographer, "GDG," who was farther away from the big ER drama. She also included more of the before-and-after footage, so the video doesn't just come to an abrupt stop when Clay stops singing. I liked that.

Ideally for editing a concert video, you want some "blank" space on which to overlay an alternate angle; since GDG herself is a montage-maker, she knew that the way she composed her scenes with Clay would be very useful in the editing process. Yay team!

The next trick is to balance close-ups and long shots, as well as left and right angles. There weren't too many views of the full stage or of full-body Clay, but there was enough three-quarter length Clays to add to the mix and make the overall image more interesting.

Because the videographers were working with different equipment, another trick was to adjust the brightness and contrast a little so that the images from one shot to the next would match better. I wasn't as successful with that as I would have liked.

Another issue for video editing is with the way some videographers add their names onto the images. Yes, everyone deserves credit for their work; I even added a credit on a video that otherwise wasn't tagged. I also include the names of the clack gatherers on the end credit. But if the videographer's tag is big and obnoxious and goes across live image, I can't use it.

The hardest part was synchronizing the various videos that I overlaid on top of the audio track from GDG's original video. The draft preview in my video editing program (Sony Vegas Platinum Studio 9) can be a little misleading. It would have been better to do a series of test renderings of a few seconds' worth of these overlays before outputting the whole finished product. I originally uploaded my first attempt to YouTube before I really sat and judged the quality, so there were some portions that were annoyingly out of synch.

Of course Clay talks so gosh-darn fast, it's really a challenge to get the video and audio matched up just right!!

Anyway, after I worked a bit more on that problem, I loaded the version you see above up to YouTube and took down the earlier one.

As Clay Aiken once said, "Perfection takes time, honey!"

love, hosaa
synching, for love alone

Women in the Arts

It was a good day to get out of Bethesda ...

all photos by C. G. Wagner unless otherwise noted

... so I finally got myself downtown to the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I signed up for membership about a year ago or so, and even donated them some extra money recently. Figured it was about time I saw what they were all about. And I even remembered to bring my membership card! I couldn't find my Philips Collection card, so that decided things.

NMWA is an easy subway ride: exit at Metro Center via 13th Street, and it's just a couple of blocks up to New York Avenue. You'll know you're in the right neighborhood when you see this:

which is the New York Avenue Sculpture Project featuring the whimsical figures by Niki de Saint Phalle.

Since I hadn't done any homework before going, I planned to just take the exhibitions, permanent and otherwise, as they came (or as I came to them). And the first thing was a neat display of the jewelry of Paloma Picasso, with a video featurette wherein she describes her experience choosing stones to work with at Tiffany's. I loved how she talks about the warmth of the gold and the joy of the colors that all come from the earth, explaining that the craftsmanship of working with the stones and metal is what connects us to them and gives them warmth.

As objects meant to be worn, these pieces of jewelry are functional. Viewing these reminded me of the objects over at the Freer Gallery that I visited a few weeks ago (and haven't gotten around to writing about or posting photos - sorry), in that you can trace the history of civilizations through how we feel about the objects in our lives and how they make us feel. What is jewelry for, exactly? Its beauty brings joy, and we borrow its beauty to enhance our own joy.

What I really liked about this museum was its graceful spaciousness (and also the fact that it wasn't jam-packed with tourists. They are still in line at the restrooms at the Air and Space Museum, as far as I know). I also appreciated the great diversity of the collections.

Here are just a few of the highlights of the main collection. I'll get to the photography exhibit in a minute.

Vivienne (1998, mixed media) and detail, by Shonagh Adelman (Canadian, born 1961)

White Column (1959, painted wood) by Louise Nevelson (American, 1899-1988)

Untitled #781 (1994; wax, plastic, cloth, and steel) by Petah Coyne (American, born 1953)

I liked that the galleries were curated/organized around subject matter and not just by medium or style: still lifes, streetscapes, abstracts, landscapes, etc. Stepping into portraiture, I wondered if I would see anything by Alice Neel, whose work I got to see with my mom at an exhibit in Minneapolis a few years ago. What distinctive style! And sure enough, I recognized the artist immediately:

T.B. Harlem (1940, oil on canvas) by Alice Neel (American, 1900-1984)

Any prejudgment about women's art being homey, sweet, and sentimental should be gone. Like Neel's unflinching portait of the impact of poverty, Frida Kahlo (clearly the celebrity of the Museum) paints with political inspiration.

Self-Portrait Dedicated to Leon Trotsky (1937, oil on masonite), and detail, by Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907-1954).

Interestingly, the abstracts had a softer touch from the female hand than I'm used to ...

Bacchus #3 (1978, acrylic and charcoal on canvas) by Elaine de Kooning (American, 1920-1989)

Orion (1973, oil on canvas) and Iris, Tulips, Jonquils, and Crocuses (1969, acrylic on canvas) by Alma Woodsey Thomas (American, 1891-1978)

... so even the Lee Krasner piece that clearly aligns with the Jackson Pollack style is somehow less disturbing.

The Springs (1964, oil on canvas) by Lee Krasner (American, 1908-1984)

Okay, I'll stop posting my poor photos of great art. The highlight of my excursion was the photography exhibit on the second floor, Eye Wonder: Photography from the Bank of America Collection.

It was great to see a range of visual artists besides the ones you'd expect, like Margaret Bourke-White and Dorothea Lange. My big complaint here is that there was no exhibition catalog! The handout available at the entrance to the exhibit doesn't include all of the pieces on display, and is only slightly more useful than the About the Exhibit page linked above. This is such a shame for people like me who just don't have memory for details, like the unfamiliar German and Dutch names in the captions.

And no, I did not take pictures of the pictures; in the other galleries, I photographed the caption information along with the art so I could have a record of what I saw and enjoyed - after the Renwick debacle last year, where the book about the museum was decades out of date, I vowed not to lose the basic information about my experiences. It's the same reason I keep the programs from all the plays I attend.

The best I can do to share the experience is to use the press photos from the museum. So here are just a few of the many wonderful images I got to see today:

Snow Halter, Salina County, Kansas (December 22, 1990, Chromogenic print) by Terry Evans. Credit: Bank of America Collection

Automat, 977 Eighth Avenue (1936, Gelatin Silver Print) by Berenice Abbott. Credit: Bank of America Collection

Magnolia Blossom (1925, Gelatin silver print) by Imogen Cunningham. Credit: Bank of America Collection

Backlit Radishes, Iwate-ken, Japan (1986, Gelatin silver print) by Linda Butler. Credit: Bank of America Collection

Revenge of the Goldfish (1981, Cibachrome print) by Sandy Skoglund. Credit: Bank of America Collection

If I had an exhibit catalog (or if I'd been able to take a picture of the caption information), I could tell you how she got that picture. Sigh.

eta, sorry for the messed-up spacing; Photobucket went wack-o on the last two pix and I had to switch to the blogger uploader - which I've never been able to position correctly. Not my day for technology...