The largest of the commemorative retrospectives, Andy Warhol:15 Minutes Eternal, curated by the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, will tour Asia over the next three years, with such classic pieces as Jackie (1964) and Marilyn (1967), while Andy Warhol: Fame and Misfortune, an eclectic collection of multimedia spanning the 1950s–1980s, is on view through May 20 at San Antonio’s McNay Art Museum. Warhol, who once quipped, “You know it’s art when the check clears,” is responsible for some of the most expensive works on record, including Eight Elvises, which sold for $100 million in 2008.

Missing Whitney: Thought the attention was measured and appropriate. Jennifer Hudson — who received her first Grammy from her idol at the awards a few years ago –  delivered a next-best rendition (which is high praise) of “I Will Always Love You,” in an emotional moment.

Adele Ascendant: Back from throat surgery, relaxed, in command, and looking gorgeous, she swept the Grammys – and charmed with her down-to-earthiness.

No Reprieve: Chris Brown was all over the place and won for best R&B album, but men who hit women shouldn’t be so easily forgiven.

Taylor Off-Key: Is it just me, or is Swift always out of tune when she sings live? Even she seemed surprised at the applause at the end of “Mean.”

Full Throttle: Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters, performing outside the Staples Center, were one of the most electric displays of the night (they later garnered Best Rock Performance).

Walk it Back: From her entrance on the red carpet as Red Riding Hood, with the “Pope” in tow, to her Exorcist-derived production number at the end of the event, Nicki Minaj was just shock for shock’s sake.

The Bucket Boys: Nice, though slightly sad, to see the Beach Boys reunited on their 50^th anniversary. The intro by Maroon 5 reminded just how tough those beautiful harmonies they executed so seamlessly back in the ‘60s are to achieve. Paul McCartney, also a bit depressing to watch —  in crooner mode with white tux and a sappy Valentine song to boot. (But he came back at the close in more familiar McCartney style, with a lively version of “Golden Slumbers.”) A tribute to Glen Campbell and a performance by Tony Bennett rounded out the old-timers.

My highlight of the evening: a commercial, believe it or not, for Chipotle Mexican Grill, with Willie Nelson covering Coldplay’s “The Scientist” in the background. Worth seeing more than once.

Picasso's "Vase of Flowers" (1908) ...

Fast-forward to 2012 and the opening next week at the Tate of Picasso and Modern British Art – and things come full circle. An overview of Picasso’s profound influence after his initial introduction to English audiences in 1910, the exhibit will feature over 150 pieces, including 60 Picassos, spotlighting an Anglo-Spanish alliance that spanned decades.

At first derided by the establishment  — “Apart from a few heroic collectors, very few people were ready to take Picasso on,” says Tate curator Chris Stephens – Picasso’s impact on the avant-garde artists of the time and to come was wide and deep. Henry Moore, Duncan Grant, Francis Bacon, and David Hockney (who’s said to have seen the 1960 Tate show eight times) were just a few among them.

... Duncan Grant's "The Tub" (1913)

One need look no further than Grant and Bacon to witness Picasso’s sway on two seminal British artists. Grant’s The Tub (1913) evokes Picasso’s Vase of Flowers (1908) in color, shape, and shades of primitivism; likewise, Bacon’s Crucifixion (1933) followed one of Picasso’s Bathers by a handful of years, and clearly derives from the Andalusian master’s Cubist-tinged creation of 1929.

Picasso the provocateur was the subject of many heated discussions about the merits of his art that took place in Britain in the 1940s. “Señor Picasso’s painting cannot be intelligently discussed in the terms used of the civilized masters,” wrote the novelist Evelyn Waugh in 1945. “He can only be treated as crooners are treated by their devotees.” (Picasso’s joint exhibition with Henri Matisse at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1945 was similarly met with rancor.)

But time — or in this case, the art world’s first-ever “blockbuster” — healed all. An association that encompassed both disdain and acclaim, Picasso and Modern British Art (which runs February 15–July 15), is another chapter in the towering artistic journey of the most celebrated painter of the 20th Century.

Inside an igloo that served as a base for dissenters at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which wrapped up on January 29 in Davos, Switzerland.

(Photo: Johannes Simon / Getty Images)

Filed under: Photography Tagged: Davos, Events, News, Photos, WEF ]]> http://ldl100.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/occupy-ice/feed/ 0 lmdl09 Occupy Davos WEF http://ldl100.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/hardly-carly/ http://ldl100.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/hardly-carly/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:32:54 +0000 Lidia de Leon http://ldl100.wordpress.com/?p=11200 Continue reading →]]> The buzz on More Room in a Broken Heart, Stephen Davis’ unauthorized biography of pop-music staple of the ’70s and ’80s, Carly Simon, was pretty bleak, but as a longtime fan of Simon and first husband James Taylor, I felt compelled to take a look at this first attempt to explore her life in book-length form.

From "Coming Around Again" (1987)

Alas, I should have heeded before jumping. More Room (subtitled The True Adventures of Carly Simon) is one of the lazier nonfiction efforts I’ve encountered in a while, with Davis brazenly structuring the book around previously published material, without notes or bibliography, nor acknowledgments or attributions, beyond just a “thanks to the great journalists who covered the Carly Simon story in the past.” You can add pedestrian writing and factual errors to the mix, and the only original content comes via the author’s analysis of the Simon song library – album by album – and this is none too incisive, either.

With ex-husband, pop/rock icon James Taylor

A shame actually, because I was looking forward to a more deserving examination of Simon’s life and work, for myself and many others who remember the glory years of the artist responsible for such defining standards of the singer/songwriter era as “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard it Should Be,” “Anticipation,” and of course, “You’re So Vain.” In her personal life, Simon shared a stormy, creative, and utterly fascinating relationship with the iconic troubadour James Taylor (their marriage lasted 11 years), and her childhood background as the daughter of publishing magnate Richard Simon (of Simon & Schuster) provides even more color to an already riveting life story. (It’s not every kid who has memories of Rodgers and Hammerstein coming over to the house to play the piano.)

Davis (whose previous music bios have included Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and Jim Morrison) is pretty much adoring of his subject (which makes you wonder why Simon is, according to press reports, displeased with the book). He gives her a shout-out in Latin at the end (Et bonum quo antiquius eo melius – “and the older a good thing is, the better”) and cites her “almost therapeutic ability to conjure empathy and compassion via the popular ballad.” But no amount of devotion can hide the vacuum at the core of this essentially soulless tome.

These are the good old days: Simon today

Those with a real interest in the topic would do better to stick with Sheila Weller’s Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon – And the Journey of a Generation, a well-written and researched detailing of the exceptional triad of ’70s female songwriters (parts of which – surprise! – were lifted for this book). And those looking for more insight on the Simon-Taylor relationship might want to hear her interview with Howard Stern from 2008 (available on YouTube), conducted with son Ben Taylor in tow, and far more revealing than anything found here.

As for a bona fide biography of Carly, we’ll have to wait for (recalling one of her biggest hits)… somebody who does it better.

[First published as Book Review: More Room in a Broken Heart:
The True Adventures of Carly Simon by Stephen Davis, on Blogcritics.org.]

Likewise, it wasn’t until last month that the Kennedy Center finally made Streep an honoree at its year-end gala, despite previously bestowing it on others less obviously deserving (Steve Martin and Dolly Parton, to name but two).

And in another example of “overlooking the Streep,” one remembers that despite a record 16 nominations, 2012 will mark 30 years since Streep’s last Best-Actress Oscar (for Sophie’s Choice) and that, incredibly, Hilary Swank (and Jodie Foster and Sally Field, for that matter) actually hold more Best-Actress statuettes (two) than their far more luminous colleague.

And while I’m on a roll, let’s not forget just a few of the films for which Streep did not win the Oscar (regretful trivia): Silkwood, Out of Africa, The Bridges of Madison County, and more recently, Doubt and The Devil Wears Prada.

Nothing like taking greatness for granted.

So it takes Streep’s astonishing rendition of the first female British prime minister to give her her re-due. Much like watching a virtuoso violinist working a Stradivarius, Streep’s artistry is a bravura of technical brilliance, nuance, and yes, feeling (some critics, like the noted Pauline Kael, often complained of the actress’ style as being somewhat aloof, a characterization that unfairly dogged Streep for years.) After her performance as Margaret Thatcher, you realize again that there’s really nothing Streep can’t do; you come away amazed and grateful at the opportunity to experience a consummate maestra at a peak of her powers.

One hopes for future portrayals not necessarily based on historical or cultural figures, but, for me, seeing her in Iron Lady sort of demands that Streep eventually play the 16th-Century English monarch, Elizabeth I, in middle age. (Never mind she runs the risk of being parodied as the “Rich Little” of American acting, as a sibling irreverently put it.)

Still, I’d settle for Streep reading the Yellow Pages compared to the some of the stuff that passes for acting these days. And how rewarding to see our own “Dame Meryl” once more receiving the bows she so richly deserves.

Frankenthaler's "Mountains and Sea" (1952)

Helen Frankenthaler, whose soak-stained technique later developed into what was called the “Color Field” movement, passed away at age 83 in late December — and this month marks the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Jackson Pollock, he of the much-imitated “drip-style,” and of whom Frankenthaler was a disciple.

You can guess I’m taken by the work of these two innovators, whose “painting from above” approach may seem quaint now, but which qualified as a quantum leap in art at the mid-20th century.

Frankenthaler’s method of dropping paint (diluted with turpentine) directly unto unprimed canvas, literally allowing the colors to “soak” unto the surface, seems simple enough, but the results were anything but. Her first major work, Mountains and Sea, is reminiscent of a watercolor, though actually created in oil. Her colleague, Morris Louis, once described Frankenthaler as “a bridge between Pollock and what was possible.” As critics assemble a final assessment of her legacy, one is left with her own words: “There are no rules. Let the picture lead you where it must go.”

Pollock's "Number 1, 1950" (Lavender Mist)

If Frankenthaler embodied the lyrical aspects of Abstract Expressionism, Pollock exemplified its explosive side. “Jack the Dripper,” as he was dubbed by Time magazine, defied painterly convention in the extreme, with works that remain spellbindingly labyrinthical, as complex as any I can think of.

A fascinating article published last year in Physics Today talks about how Pollock employed elements of fluid dynamics in his pieces, long before analysis by physicists — though a hint could be taken from the artist himself when he declared, “I can control the flow of paint; there is no accident.” (Art and science combine once more.)

The 2012 Pollock centennial will be commemorated with retrospectives around the country and abroad (Japan will feature Pollock in a major exhibition for the first time). And no doubt that Frankenthaler’s passing will generate renewed interest in her work.

Apropos attention for two titans at the heart and soul of modern American art.

Painting from on high: Frankenthaler, above, and Pollock, below, in the '50s.

In one of several similarly themed images taken in the early 2000s, New York City-based photographer Bill Jacobson captures some of the moodiness and uncertainty that often accompanies the start of a new year.

In this slim and admittedly self-indulgent collection, the novelist/actress (Princess Leia in a long-ago and far-away Star Wars incarnation), reprises her riff on an often surreal life as child of Hollywood stars, ‘50s sweethearts Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher, in an anecdotal memoir that could have been titled “Before I Forget.” (For the majority of those too young to remember, her parents’ marriage ended when her father ran off with screen siren Elizabeth Taylor, quite the scandal in those days.)

The name of the book is a play on her recent experiences with electroshock therapy, a treatment that has proven successful in her ongoing struggle with bipolar disorder (a subject covered in her novel, The Best Awful).  It comprises the opening chapter, where Fisher goes on the record about the amnesiacal after-effects of ECT, as it’s called, which results in loss of short-term memory. (She admits to “blanks” at various stages throughout the volume.)

In typical Fisher fashion, she finds humor in the madness: ”One could argue that by having regular ECT treatments, I’m paying two – that’s right, two – electric bills. One for the house and one for my head.” But on a more serious note, she adds that it “punched the dark lights” out of her depression.

“Wishful Shrinking” is about her battle with the weight issues that led to a high-profile rescue by the “S.S. Jenny Craig.” (“Being the poster girl for enormousness is not anything any kid grows up aspiring to.”) To her credit, she admits to the commercialism of her gig as a JC spokesperson, with the apologia that, “I mean, there’s a lot of other things I could do for money. I could sell autographed ECT machines or rhinestoned mood stabilizers or even Star Wars scented laxatives.”

The best piece is tagged “The Senator,” about a decades-old dinner engagement that Fisher shared with her date (and later lover), Connecticut lawmaker Chris Dodd, and that icon of American politics, Ted Kennedy. Colorful and well-written (she alludes to Kennedy’s “alert and aristocratic eyes”), she describes a memorable evening that turned into a bit of a showdown, triggered by the senator’s more than subtly salacious and unexpectedly inappropriate questions after having a bit too much to drink.

With "Pa-Pa" Eddie, circa 1990s

If a lot of the previous Wishful Drinking was about Fisher’s mother, the chipper kewpie-doll actress Debbie Reynolds, who’s mostly absent here, Shockaholic is at the end a wistful tribute to father Eddie, who passed away in the fall of 2010. “Puff Daddy,” as she nicknamed him (Fisher had an affinity for marijuana, and a photo of him lighting up is classic), reentered his daughter’s life late in the game, and she paints a picaresque portrait of the man she never got to know as a child, but with whom she developed a close relationship in his declining years:

“Near the end, he was doing all he could to get to know me, everything from hugging me tighter than any man had hugged me in my life to calling me fifteen times a week. I mean, if when I was young, I had gotten even one of those calls a month, I would have been over the moon.”

When he told her in his last months that he “wished he had her life,” the daughter replied, “You did, Daddy. That’s why you’re in bed.”

Another great Fisher line, one amongst many in this short but lively compilation that displays much of her characteristically biting wit.

[First published as Book Review: Shockaholic by Carrie Fisher,
on Blogcritics.org.]

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, in Bentonville, AK

Created with a $800-million-dollar donation spearheaded by Alice Walton, daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, Crystal Bridges is situated in a lovely locale surrounded by streams and woods in Bentonville, Arkansas. It’s unique not only in that its unassuming location belies the magnitude and scope of its collection, but the fact that its name is refreshingly devoid of its benefactor, in contrast to the long history of the rich bequeathing millions in exchange for immortality. (Among the more notable: the Whitney, Guggenheim, and Morgan museums in New York City, the Gardner in Boston, the Hirshhorn in Washington, D.C.– and the list goes on.)

In Miami, a controversy has erupted about the renaming of the Miami Art Museum (slated to open in 2013) after prominent real-estate developer Jorge M. Perez, who has made a $35 million pledge to the institution, including $15 million in artwork. The truth is much of Miami’s arts persona has become a story of sold-to-the-highest-bidder musical chairs; its first performing arts center, the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 2006, is now, just a scant few years later, called the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, thanks to a $30 million gift by a former business executive turned arts philanthropist. Likewise, the half-a-century-old Miami Science Museum will be retitled the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science when its new building debuts in 2014, following a $30-million-plus investment (oops, endowment) by a pharmaceutical entrepreneur and his wife.

The (former) New York State Theater

Further up the east coast, I was especially appalled when the venerable New York State Theater at Lincoln Center was renamed the David H. Koch Theater (after the oil heir and New York’s second richest man), in 2008. What’s next? The Donald J. Trump Metropolitan Opera House?

In many ways, it all highlights the serious deficiencies in funding for the arts that these
quid pro quos can take place at the expense of a community’s cultural identity and continuity. The financial contributions by these well-heeled donors are both vital and necessary, but they shouldn’t have to come at such a shortsighted and self-serving price.

So, for now, back to Arkansas, and a brief break from Wal-Mart bashing: hats off to Alice and the Walton clan for classily bypassing the ego-driven name recognition, and bringing a world-class museum to small-town America. (And in another nice touch, visitors don’t have to pay for admission.)

Bioluminescence, as it’s known, results in various forms of marine life emitting light, often glowing in colorful, beautiful patterns, as a means of adapting to the harsh circumstances of survival without benefit of the sun.

A real-life ctenophore (comb jelly), in full glory

Artist Shih Chieh Huang, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, was clearly captivated by the concept of bioluminescence, and his inspiration is displayed in The Bright Beneath, left, an exhibition currently on view at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Working closely with museum scientists, and with access to a collection of millions of specimens for research, Huang created a mix of lights, computer parts, plastic tubes, and other assorted items, that are an artistic interpretation of what it might be like to encounter these complex ocean creatures, suspended amidst the dimmed lights of the gallery space.

Of course, the really spectacular light show takes place in a world far removed from that of museums (brief clip here). But projects like Huang’s remind again of the creative bond shared by the spheres of art and science. (The Bright Beneath is at the Museum of Natural History through January 8.)

Director, producer, and screenwriter of such films as When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and Julie & Julia, Ephron has also long been known for her wit as an essayist, her pieces routinely appearing in publications like the New Yorker, New York Times, Vogue, and, in recent years, The Huffington Post. (Some may also remember an early Ephron novel, Heartburn, based on her marriage to philandering Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame; it was later made into a movie with Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.)

I Remember Nothing follows her successful and similarly packaged compilation of previously published essays about middle-aged angst, I Feel Bad About My Neck (2006), which is probably the better of the two anthologies. Thematically scattered, the subjects in Nothing range from Ephron’s beginnings in journalism to observations regarding momentous issues such as “No, I Do Not Want Another Bottle of Pellegrino,” and “My Life as a Meat Loaf,” about a recipe’s short-lived incarnation at a tony New York restaurant.

But the mini first and last chapters, (“I Remember Nothing” and “The O Word”), that are the whole point of this collection, are enjoyable and on the mark. In the former, the 70-year-old, doesn’t-look-it Ephron shrewdly notes that the “Senior Moment” has become the “Google Moment.” So true. You forget something, you immediately finger the iPhone or Blackberry or whatever, and (snap!), there’s your answer. Cuts the time for berating yourself for forgetting.

“The O Word” (O is for “old”) is a contemplative summing-up (“My memory, which I can still make jokes about, will be so dim that I will have to pretend I know what’s going on”). In between, the best (though out of place) piece is “Pentimento,” about her friendship with the playwright Lillian Hellman; Ephron paints a vivid picture of the woman with one of the more memorable countenances in American literature.

The book ends with “What I Won’t Miss”/”What I Will Miss,” a series of one-liners (e.e. cummings-style) that are a bit of a throw-away, but nevertheless an appropriately breezy conclusion to a light and amusingly astute read.

[First published as Book Review: I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron,
on Blogcritics.org.]

In a twist on one of those masterpiece-found-in-the-attic tales, a Chicago real-estate agent named John Maloof came across a box of negatives at an auction in 2007. Hoping they were historic photos of his Portage Park neighborhood, he paid $400 and stored the 30,000 negatives away for later review. When he took a look, what he saw, though not what he expected, was captivating – prompting him to hunt down what turned out to be another 70,000 pictures. When he posted some of the images on Flikr, his instinct regarding the greatness of the pieces was confirmed; hundreds of e-mails followed.

The creator of those photos, Vivian Maier, had died shortly before Maloof could contact her after his big find. (It wasn’t until 2009 that he discovered her name, scribbled on an envelope buried in one of the batches of film.) It turned out she had been a nanny for several affluent families in the Chicago area throughout the ’50s to the early ’90s, toting her Rolleiflex on assorted trips and outings, quietly capturing just some of the images now featured in the book Vivian Maier: Street Photographer  — released this month and compiled by Maloof after the incredible acclaim that followed their widespread dissemination on the Internet, along with subsequent exhibitions in Norway, Denmark, and England.

In approaching Maier’s work, one is struck by the naturalistic similarities to the craft of the Depression-era photographer, Walker Evans: the second-in-time spontaneity, the cut-to-the-heart facial expressions, the prosaicness of the everyday street scene taken to a sublime level. Maier photographed people from all walks of life, young and old, black and white, rich and downtrodden. Like all great street photographers, she understood that moments matter. And the expansiveness of what would now be called her portfolio shows that her curiosity about what lay behind those moments never wavered.

Her pictures are not titled and can just be described by their subjects – faces, places, and instants that only an outstanding eye could grasp: the simple sidewalk scene of a group of women shot from the waist down, with a pair of rotund legs unexpectedly revealed by a sudden burst of wind; a quizzical glance by a bystander at a man inexplicably attired in a hat, jacket, and boxer shorts; an aging, wealthy doyenne in mink, her haughty look implying impatience with the camera.

There’s irony in the fact that Maier’s newfound reputation owes itself to the networking of the digital age. Described as a highly private woman, she never made a point of sharing her secret passion with anyone, and were it not for Maloof’s accidental discovery, and her photography subsequently going viral, the treasure trove would sadly have remained undetected – and unlauded. As it is, the Maier archives are a unique contribution to the annals of American photography.

[First published as Book Review: Vivian Maier: Street Photographer,
Edited by John Maloof, on Blogcritics.org.]

Edgar Degas -- Ballerina, Seen from the Back

There’s the old saying, attributed to General Douglas MacArthur, that “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” In the world of ballet, you can substitute “dancers” for “soldiers” and “pirouette” for “fade” and it’s just as true.

Last night’s Career Transition For Dancers annual gala, held in New York City, with a scheduled appearance by the former Russian étoile Natalia Makarova, brought home that very point. Having witnessed her at the summit of her career, in what many call a “Golden Era” of ballet in the late ’70s and early ’80s, I realized I hadn’t thought about Makarova in years. And then I recalled some of her colleagues then also at the peak of their fame, like the American ballerinas Cynthia Gregory and the once-wunderkind Gelsey Kirkland, and wondered…what happened to them?

Of performing artists, ballet dancers have the most limited time in the spotlight. Unlike opera singers, for example, who are allowed to grow older (and heavier) but whose voices continue to thrive, dancers face the toughest of careers, longevity compromised by the reality of finite physical endurance. Compounding the irony is the fact that artistic maturity finally catches up when the legs don’t have as much left to give.

Margot Fonteyn

A poignant reminder of the fickleness of this most beautiful yet treacherous of avocations is the sad end of the legendary Margot Fonteyn, who died (in dire financial straits) at a hospital in Panama in 1991. Laid to rest in a pauper’s grave, it was a tragically unfit closing act for the great — some consider greatest — ballerina of the 20th Century; one would think she could have been accorded a less ignominious goodbye as a Dame of the British Empire. (Sic transit toe shoes, so to speak.) Her equally illustrious partner, Rudolf Nureyev, fared better, stylishly buried at a Russian cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois near Paris, in a tomb draped in a mosaic of oriental carpet.

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova, 1974

There are some exceptions to the fade-away rule: Mikhail Baryshnikov, of course, who went on to other endeavors after ballet superstardom, via work with modern-dance troupes and the eventual creation of the Baryshnikov Arts Center, as well as appearances in movies and on television. In Miami, New York City Ballet alumnus Edward Villella forged a world-class ballet company which magnificently carries on the traditions of his mentor, choreographer George Balanchine.

But exceptions they are. Fortunately, an organization like Career Transition, founded in 1985, recognizes the special needs of those less famous, and helps to assist in that difficult grand jeté to a post-performance life.

(Photo: Ferenc Redei / Reuters)

It may seem heresy to say in light of this adoring examination of Harrison’s life, but I never thought he was a particularly inventive songwriter. Lyrics like “My sweet lord, hm, my lord, hm, my lord” and “Give me love, give me love, give me peace on earth”  bordered on the banal. When compared with the talents of McCartney, and especially Lennon, you kinda see why not too many Harrison songs made the final cut on those Beatle albums.

As a person, however, Harrison was far deeper. The documentary reminds that it was he, then only in his twenties, who offered to share a remarkable spiritual journey with his fellow Beatles, in an effort to find something beyond the unprecedented fame and attention that he found so meaningless and empty. And it wasn’t some flaky endeavor. Despite derision about his association with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Harrison’s immersion in the roots of the Hindu/Indian cultural and musical experience (slavish in his devotion to the art of Ravi Shankar), was real and life-altering.

Material world: Harrison’s palatial Friar Park

One of the more interesting segments dwells on Harrison’s 1970 acquisition of Friar Park, the 120-room Neo-Gothic mansion at Henley-on-Thames. Built in 1875 by English eccentric Sir Frank Crisp, Friar Park was to become the center of Harrison’s universe, where he reveled in recording (his studio rivaled the one at Abbey Road), as well as gardening, his refuge from the storm. He was fond of a quote that Crisp had etched on a wall in one of the outer halls of the estate:

Scan not a friend with microscopic glass;
You know his faults, then let his foibles pass.

And by all accounts, a wonderful friend Harrison was. Even to legendary fellow rocker Eric Clapton, who eventually absconded with his then-wife Pattie Boyd. When asked about the betrayal, Harrison answered, ”I’d rather she be with him than some dope.” Ringo Starr’s emotional memory of his last visit with Harrison also recalls his kindness and innate sense of generosity.

By the time Harrison died in 2001, his career had gone on to encompass film production (including Monty Python’s Life of Brian); in his personal life, son Dhani was born in 1978. (Dhani’s resemblance to his father is almost otherworldly, a fitting legacy.)  Wife Olivia sums up the moment of Harrison’s passing by saying that her husband’s spirit “just lit the room.”

Here comes the sun, indeed.

La Gioconda

(Photo: Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters)

It’s an ambitious — and somewhat risky — undertaking to try to capture the center of our solar system with bare eyes, but one photographer, Elijah Gowin, did just that in his supernal series Into the Sun. Comprised of several images shot straight at the brightest of stars, the pictures are a collection both dreamy and impressionistic, sort of like Monet via a camera: lens flare and distortion contribute to the artistic — as only nature can be — end result. One critic wrote that Gowin’s work “confronts the impenetrability of the world and the challenge of representing it.” Flirting with blindness, he finds new ways of seeing the light. (The exhibition, online here, is at New York City’s Robert Mann Gallery through October 22.)

Tables turned from 2010, defending champion Nadal nevertheless played at his absolute best (and got nowhere). It crystallized Djokovic for me as something of a sui generis tennis creation, perhaps unlike anything seen previously in the sport: a double whammy of power and shotmaking finesse, along with a seemingly endless wingspan between one leg and the other that conjures Batman spreading his cape, allowing him to get to balls outside conventional human reach. He displays awe-struck bafflement after executing particularly spectacular shots, seemingly as surprised at his legerdemain as the spectators themselves. The 24-year-old’s remarkable results in 2011 are now being called the most impressive calendar-year record in the annals of tennis. (“The greatest year in the history of our sport,” according to John McEnroe.)

Supernova or short-term shooting star remains to be seen, but for the moment, the sensational Serbian is something to watch. (And an unexpectedly good dancer, too.)

It wouldn’t be the first case. Sherman joins a line of noted predecessors whose talents traversed the crass landscape of merchandising. One was Norman Rockwell, who had a long history of creating art for advertising, spanning from 1914 to 1976. A must-see and creatively outrageous example from the 1960s is the Salvador Dali commercial for Alka-Seltzer (video left), a strangely disturbing concoction that ends with the Surrealist genius’s voice-over: “Alka-Seltzer is a work of art. Truly one of a kind. Like…Dali!” In the ’80s, Absolut Vodka featured a memorable series consisting of bottles painted by such cutting-edgers of the art realm as Andy Warhol, Edward Ruscha, and Keith Haring, below.

A surprise for me was learning that even that goddess of artistic purity, Georgia O’Keeffe, had a brief foray in pedestrian commercialism. In the ‘40s, she spent some time in Hawaii as part of a commission for Dole’s “Hawaiian Pineapple” brand; O’Keeffe being O’Keeffe, she produced a papaya instead. (A problem, as papayas were the purview of Dole’s prime competition.) It all worked out in the end (ad — with her pineapple bud — below left).

Profane or not, maybe a larger by-product of these creative/commercial combinations is wider awareness for consumers oblivious to the world of art.
Which is always a good thing.

The Mac Classic

Macintosh was a savior after a traumatic initiation into the world of computers, via a journalism internship at The Miami Herald when I was in college. Back then, the only operating system was known as DOS — complicated and scary, it left such a sour taste that I was sure if I ever saw a black screen with green characters again I would scream. But in my magazine years, along came the Mac, then the state of the art in desktop publishing. And it was transformative. Took to it like a (mouse) to water. So intuitively simple and unintimidating — I was able to forget all the previous trepidation that could well have left me technologically challenged forever.

The rest of the Apple story is of course history, but I must admit to unfaithfulness along the way. This Machead succumbed to the practicality of the times, unloyally transitioning to the imitator Windows, even bypassing an Apple iPod for a Microsoft Zune. (Ok, so the Pod didn’t have FM, what can I say.)

But as with any great love, one always returns. The iPad will eventually sit alongside its granddaddy in that crowded closet. And the Jobs legacy endures.

Watching Gloria: In Her Own Words, a documentary about Gloria Steinem now airing on HBO, made me think of how this icon of the feminist movement impacted women’s lives in ways deeper than I realized in my formative professional years. (A time in the ‘80s when, as a magazine editor, my frustration at the lack of financial parity with a male art director – because he was married and had a family and I didn’t – was typical.) Polarizing aspects aside, I don’t think it’s exaggeration to say that most working women owe some little debt to Steinem, who took such a simple concept, economic fairness for half of the population, to the streets, and to the publishing world with the groundbreaking magazine Ms., in an in-their-face fashion that could not be ignored by the powers that were. She didn’t do it alone, that’s for sure, but (here we go again) as one of the more “attractive” faces of the movement, she got the lion’s share of the attention. (The sad and sexist ridicule by such antediluvians of the network news establishment as Harry Reasoner and Howard K. Smith has to be reseen to be believed.)

Listening to her now is a reminder that feminism is really only a part of the larger word “humanism” when it comes to addressing the continuing inequality that exists in so many sectors of society. And we’ve come a long way (maybe) — in no short measure thanks to pioneers like Ms.Steinem.

(Photo: The Telegraph / UK)

Planking, above; owling, below; and batting, bottom

A craze du jour for the Facebook and Twitter crowd, featured in a prominent article in The Miami Herald, describes how the planking phenomenon — positioning yourself as rigidly as a wooden board face down in all kinds of places, the more unusual the better — has hit the streets of South Florida. (The point is to upload pictures of your exploits for sharing with other “plankers” across the Internet.)

Intrigued by this idea of social networking gone physical in public spaces, I found that planking (which caught fire over the last couple of years) may already be passé, with other offshoots like owling (crouching in the form of the night creature), teapotting  (posing with one hand on hip, other in the air, like a spout), and batting (hanging upside down like a bat and folding the arms in a v-shape on the waist) coming up the rear. And let’s not forget cone-ing (funny video here) — buying an ice-cream cone in a drive-thru and grabbing it by the wrong end, eliciting a predictably startled response from the provider. (Punked, with a taste of vanilla.)

It brings to mind how every decade seems to create its own set of faddish adventures, be it goldfish swallowing, flagpole sitting, or the hula-hooping of the last century. (Actually, 1920s flagpole sitting is remarkably similar to 2011′s owling.) In the case of planking, one psychologist says that young men use it to establish their place in the male hierarchy, and to impress and attract the opposite sex; but just as many women do it too, which makes me guess that these rituals provide some sort of communal outlet for distraction from the difficulties of trying times, a form of societal escapism that reinvents itself in a never-ending cycle.

As for this year’s choices, I think I’ll stick to planking – in bed.

Filed under: Current Events, Popular Culture Tagged: Culture, Fads, Planking, Society, Trends ]]> http://ldl100.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/silly-season/feed/ 0 lmdl09 an-underwater-plank Owling batting2 http://ldl100.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/the-new-conversation/ http://ldl100.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/the-new-conversation/#comments Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:39:04 +0000 Lidia de Leon http://ldl100.wordpress.com/?p=7287 Continue reading →]]> A neat exhibition that’s opened at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) explores the underlying dialogue that goes on with so much of what  permeates our everyday lives, focusing on designs that expand the communication possibilities between people and technology.

With interaction taking the place of the old maxims of form and function as a means of relevancy in the 21st-Century’s digital culture, Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects, illustrates how contemporary designers enhance society with integrated combinations of purpose and meaning.

The nearly 200 projects also include more idiosyncratic works like “Kageo” (top left), Japanese for “little shadow,” which creates mysterious and mischievous little creatures from the reflections of common objects, via a webcam and hidden projector. “Pretty maps, Beijing, Manhattan and Tokyo” (middle), sort of an artsy version of Google Earth, is an interactive map that renders multidimensional views of different locales, with cities morphed into colorful abstractions. “El Sajjadah” (left) is a rug embedded with a compass module that points the prayerful in the direction of Mecca; the carpet pattern glows brighter as it gets closer to its exact position.

Explaining some of the challenges that lie ahead for this new generation of communication designers, Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at MoMA told the New York Times: “There is still an imbalance between the aesthetic value of some projects and their functional value, and designers need to make much more effort to explain what they are doing. This field is moving so fast, but we are still dealing with the old clichés and still adding new ones.”

Some of it weird, all of it mind-provoking, Talk to Me runs through November 7  at MoMA.

Photo of Frida Kahlo's "Frieda and Diego Rivera" (1931) -- with Goggles results

Now, thanks to Goggles, the search engine’s announcement of a partnership with the J. Paul Getty Museum in California will make the days of self-guided audio tours at museums seem quaint. The Getty is the first to provide Google with images (about 300 paintings are included) and prepared content designed to complement any visit to its Los Angeles venue.

A photo of a painting will provide such features as commentary by artists and curators, and even characters in the artwork itself, as in an animated conversation with a human-like pig in a 14th-Century rendering of the Adoration of the Magi. Amazingly, the algorithm developed by Google is sensitive enough to detect subtle differences, for example, between Claude Monet’s multiple depictions of Rouen Cathedral, other versions of which hang at museums like the National Gallery of Art and the Musée d’Orsay, in addition to the Getty. (It should be noted that the Goggles venture is separate from the ambitious Google Art Project begun earlier this year, which currently provides virtual tours of several major repositories around the world.)

Needless to say, the instant and tailored information provided by the simple snap of a picture will provide rich enhancement to the on-site experience at museums such as the Getty (right), with others sure to follow.

Just remember to turn off the flash.

Though Found is essentially a vehicle to promote its TV counterpart, you can still sense an underlying honesty at the heart of O’Neal’s attempt to find harmony with the man she calls “Ryan” …and rarely, “Dad.” Oscar-winning child actress, ex-wife of John McEnroe, mother of three, and a lifelong struggler with addiction, O’Neal went over some of the same material in her previous A Paper Life (2004), but the hook here is her determination to make amends after a 20-year distancing from her father, precipitated by his relationship with the late Farrah Fawcett.

Happier times: "Paper Moon" (1973)

“Golden Boy” star of such films as Love Story, What’s Up Doc? and Barry Lyndon in his ‘70s heyday, Tatum recounts that daddy Ryan considered her the apple of his eye until the pivotal time of his involvement with twin “Golden Girl” Fawcett, a relationship that began in 1979, setting off the estrangement that divided them for decades.

”I had been his favorite, his girl, his constant companion,” O’Neal writes. “Then I wasn’t anymore.” (Ryan, for his part, claims Tatum forced him to choose between her and Farrah.)

It was in 2007, when Fawcett was seriously ill, that Tatum was able to make peace with the love of her father’s life, in a quiet and heartfelt visit at her bedside in Los Angeles. In a tragicomic twist, this was followed by Tatum’s encounter with O’Neal Sr. at Fawcett’s funeral two years later, where he laid a pick-up line on his daughter, whom he didn’t recognize, as she greeted him outside the church – a story he denies.

The idea to present their lives as a docudrama fit into O’Neal’s larger desire to explore the dysfunctional dimensions of the father/daughter relationship, seeking answers to issues that have plagued her since childhood. But in reality, excuse the pun, it really should have been a family affair. As much the conflicted daughter that Tatum was, brother Griffin (involved in an infamous shooting-related fracas with his father in 2007) and half-brother Redmond (O’Neal’s son with Fawcett) aren’t chump change in the troubled-child department, either.

Tatum’s problems are only the tip of the iceberg where the O’Neal’s are concerned, witnessed by the following paraphrase of a scary exchange between Oprah Winfrey and Redmond O’Neal at a launch party for the reality show early this year:

She [Oprah] asked him where he went to school.
“Prison,” Redmond said.
She asked him where he’d grown up.
“Betty Ford,” he said.
Oprah asked, “Did you find God in prison?”
Redmond said, “No, I found Satan in prison.”

Found may have been more aptly titled “Foundering” —  based on the post-publication interviews that I saw with a truculent O’Neal père —  but Tatum remains eternally hopeful that her father will one day confront the truths necessary for the completion of the healing process (“He has a chance for peace, and, although I’m not going to hold my breath waiting, I’d still do anything to help him find it”).

Looks like there’s a ways to go in what remains of her “Journey Home.”

[First published as Book Review: Found: A Daughter’s Journey Home
by Tatum O'Neal, on Blogcritics.org.]

(Photo: Eloy Alonso/Reuters)

The title is a bit of a misnomer, as High Strung encompasses much more than the Borg-McEnroe rivalry (it’s bookended by two now almost-mythical matches between the champions: the 1980 Wimbledon and 1981 U.S. Open finals). It chronicles the time when tennis bridged its genteel and stodgy pre-Open past to the wild, freewheeling, and fan-riveting years of the ‘70s and ‘80s, with names like Jimmy Connors, Ilie Nastase, and Vitas Gerulaitis, in addition to Borg and McEnroe, as headliners.

Tignor, a former executive editor at Tennis magazine, displays a deep knowledge of the nuances of the game, as well as a knack for colorful description — Borg: the “Angelic Assassin,” with “a headband for a halo”; McEnroe: “The Dark Prince of Queens,” with “the insouciance of the born improviser” — that makes High Strung a tennis lover’s delight. His overview of the key elements that shook the foundations of the sport forever, as well as the athletes who contributed to the seismic changes, provides a detailed picture of an institution in a radical state of flux.

Technical aspects so critical to the evolution of the sport are also examined, as the author notes how the arrival of the Czech “techno-man” Ivan Lendl was a precursor to the power game that would bring McEnroe’s days as the feathery maestro with a wooden racquet to an end. (Tignor notes that by the time McEnroe transitioned to the next-generation midsize racquet, it was too late for him to master the demolishing forehand later employed by players such as Andre Agassi. McEnroe was the last to win the U.S. Open using wood, in 1981.)

But no doubt it’s the “fire and ice” contrast of Borg and McEnroe that’s the fascinating crux of the book. (A documentary on the two, also called “Fire & Ice,” currently airs on HBO.) The methodical and enigmatic Swede, whose “mind never seemed to get in the way of his muscle memory,” is a storybook foil for the brash “superbrat” McEnroe, who always wore his heart (and mouth) on his sleeve, and whose tantrums (and unequaled poeticism of strokes) became the stuff of legend.

Both brought out the best in the other, as in the classic 1980 Wimbledon final, a match (won by Borg) that in the words of McEnroe’s father, “no one lost.” For McEnroe, Borg was an “early idol and protector, his rival on tennis’s Olympus,” Tignor writes, and there was no one else whom he “respected as much,” or “could motivate him” in the same way.

The author artfully recreates the drama of Borg’s final appearance in a Grand Slam, at the ’81 U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, New York, with a you-are-there feeling that conjures the moment 30 years ago when McEnroe opened the match:

“At 4:10 p.m., with the orange sun shining above his right shoulder, McEnroe lifted his right arm high and held it there with elegant nonchalance. The ball reached the peak of its toss. As it did, he snapped the left side of his body upward and sent a skidding ace past Borg’s forehand side. The audience close to the court clapped politely but tepidly. Someone high in the stands bellowed, ‘That’s it, Johnny!’”

And it was. McEnroe went on to win (6-3 in the fourth set), and Borg walked away from the one “major” he couldn’t achieve, without so much as accepting the runner-up trophy, never to play a significant tournament again. (He was only 25, coincidentally the same age as McEnroe when he won his last Slam.)  With him went a remarkable epoch in tennis history – now quite vividly recaptured in the highly entertaining High Strung.

The Big Three: McEnroe, Connors, and Borg

First published as Book Review: High Strung: Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe,
and The Untold Story of Tennis’s Fiercest Rivalry by Stephen Tignor,
on Blogcritics.org.

Also referred to as “Cubonics,” these sayings comprise a zany subset of what is otherwise known as Spanish, and to this day I still discover a new nugget or two along the way.  Following are just a few of these accidentally creative expressions, their nonsensical English transcriptions, and what they actually signify.

Me importa tres pepinos
I care three cucumbers
Meaning: I could care less

Eramos pocos y parió Catana
We were few and Catana gave birth
Meaning: As if things weren’t bad enough

Es un arroz con mango
It is a rice with mango
Meaning: It’s a complicated thing

Me estás tomando el pelo
You are drinking my hair
Meaning: You’re pulling my leg

Es un higado a las tres de la mañana
[He or she] is a liver at three o’clock in the morning
Meaning: He or she is a very unpleasant person

Le zumba el merequetén (also le zumba el merequeténgue; le zumba el mango)
It heaves (or throws) the merequetén (no English equivalent)
Meaning: It blows my mind

(So… time to run out and pick up a couple of things at “el Pūbli” –
otherwise known as Publix.)

Forty years ago, two visionary art collectors foresaw a sanctuary of contemplation and thought, where several canvases commissioned from Rothko would grace – no better word for it – a very special place of nonsectarian meditation in Houston, Texas. Thus was born the Rothko Chapel.

I remember learning about it in college, and if it intrigued me then, I find the idea even more fascinating now. The search for spiritual growth is par for the course these days, but for this unusual and beautiful concept to have been conceived in such a distant past? (Or in the words of chapel director Emilee Whitehurst, “One of the interesting things about being at the chapel now is that it’s almost as if the rest of the world has caught up to where they were 40 years ago.”)

There’s nothing like it in the U.S. (though the closest thing in Europe is the Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, France, often referred to as the Matisse Chapel). Those attuned to Rothko well understand the quasi-religious experience that already accompanies an appreciation of his work: a stillness and sense of infinity that touches the soul in a way that once you “get” you never forget. The chapel’s 14 paintings (three triptychs and five separate panels, most black as night, with slight color hints of plum and burgundy) were described by Rothko as “voices in an opera” (and a dark one at that).

The stark interaction of artwork, architecture and light is construed as a whole, and no single painting is intended to be understood in isolation from the others. The effect, by most accounts, is mesmerizing…and for some, transformative.

Sadly, Rothko did not live to see the unveiling of his eponymous mystical masterpiece, having died by suicide a year before its opening in 1971. But the dream, and that of his art patrons John and Dominique de Menil, lives bigger than ever four decades later in a contemplative oasis that draws over 60,000 visitors a year. Included among the 2011 anniversary events: daily periods of silent reflection.

More than befitting, for as the great artist himself once noted…“Silence is so accurate.”

Midnight in Paris

So the cycle continues. It’s difficult to not love a movie that opens as a visual paean to the beauty of Paris, an appropriate preamble to the chimeric confection that follows. Plot thin but fantasy rich, Midnight in Paris is held together by the Allen alter-ego here played by Owen Wilson, an actor I never thought to like as much I did in this performance – a soft, musingly dazy portrayal that is never less than enchanting. His character, Gil, a Hollywood scriptwriter who yearns to be a novelist, is in the City of Light on a business trip with his prosaic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams), a not-so-soulmate for an aspiring artist with a dream driving his heart.

It all unfolds with bells at the stroke of midnight, as a wandering Gil is picked up in a backstreet alley by revelers in a classic Peugeot that is clearly from another time. And then the real party begins. We’re back in 1920s Paris, with a cast of characters that makes Gil feel like the ultimate stranger in paradise. Scott and Zelda, Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway…and that’s just the beginning.

The literary and artistic giants of the period will populate the late evening hours for Gil, and also provide an opportunity for his novel-in-progress to be critiqued by no less than Gertrude Stein (an excellently cast Kathy Bates.) Gil also hooks up with the lovely Adriana, lover to Modigliani, Picasso, and Braque (“That takes art groupie to a new level,” he tells her), played by a lingeringly luminous Marion Cotillard. Adriana is only further evidence for Gil of what is lacking in his current life, as if he needed even more of a catalyst.

The time-traveling is a lot of fun: one scene has Gil providing a perplexed Luis Buñuel with the setting for the Spanish filmmaker’s future masterpiece, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; another has him sharing surrealistic thoughts with Buñuel, Man Ray, and a whimsical Salvador Dalí (Adrien Brody). And it never for a moment seems silly or affected: the film juxtaposes past and present in an imperceptible flow.

The director’s main point is that whatever the generation or epoch, it’s inevitable to look back, especially at the glorious eras in history that preceded us, with a longing for all that was “golden.” Which is what makes the conclusion of the film, whereby the past (via the music of Cole Porter) brings Gil to his future in the movable feast that is Paris, so satisfying.

It’s also Allen’s way of saying: as long as Paris exists, who needs any other time or place?

[First published as Movie Review: Midnight in Paris on Blogcritics.org.]

Filed under: Photography, Sports Tagged: French Open, Photography, Rafael Nadal, Sports, Tennis ]]> http://ldl100.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/paris-match/feed/ 0 lmdl09 Nadal-of-Spain-Charles-Plat http://ldl100.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/hawking%e2%80%99s-non-heaven/ http://ldl100.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/hawking%e2%80%99s-non-heaven/#comments Tue, 31 May 2011 16:38:50 +0000 Lidia de Leon http://ldl100.wordpress.com/?p=5413 Continue reading →]]> “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers. That is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

With those words, British physicist Stephen Hawking set off yet another round of controversy already preceded by similar pronouncements in his 2010 book, The Grand Design. There, he wrote that “the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” a thought reflected in his comments from a few days ago in The Guardian, reiterating his belief in spontaneous creation and human life as being a matter of “chance.”

The reference to heaven as a “fairy story” is what’s gotten the most attention, but Hawking’s computer analogy is what most struck me. Far be it to call anything Hawking believes “simplistic,” but to reduce the sum total of a human being to hardware destined for the dumpster feels a bit shallow. Much as I view cemeteries as metaphorically nothing more than used-car repositories where the drivers have long since moved on, that failed PC in Hawking’s example would likewise have been worthless as well had something bigger not pushed the button and turned it on in the first place. (The “soul” being a subject for another time.)

Which brings me to the watchmaker theory and the concept of “intelligent design.” Hawking’s autogenous notion of creation seems antithetical to… well, creation. (Even a paper bag has to come from somewhere.) Visualize God as the ultimate artist, the earth just one canvas among the innumerable in infinity. And perhaps once this particular painting was finished (faith determines whether you believe the artist loved it more than any other), attention proceeded to other endeavors, as is the wont of the creator. It would help in explaining some of the seeming randomness of our existence (witness Joplin, Missouri last week).

Just two cents — with thanks to Hawking for providing the discussion.

Suffice to say that our culture of personality was tailor-made for her, and few are better suited to the times (or did she create the times?) I think the unprecedented faith her supporters have invested in her throughout the years points to an inherent honesty (real or perceived) sensed deep down, and which lies at the root of her influence. Trust invariably follows truthfulness, and it’s something the viewers always felt from Winfrey (and they put their money where their hearts were).

The final show, devoid of the superstar guests and rah-rah surprises and festivities that took place previously at Chicago’s United Center, was Oprah as teacher, her studio audience a classroom of rapt students (and her own childhood schoolteacher). It was mostly about her signature theme of self-empowerment — ultimately her legacy message, and which none could have communicated better. It will be interesting to see what the next conversation will bring.

Now released in paperback, the book is also a refreshing reality-check grounded in fact after the entertaining fictions of the recent past that have figured in the public imagination, most notably The Tudors, the TV series on Showtime, which took the term “historical license” to a new – and outrageous – level.

The background entries lend flavor and perspective to the times, such as “Bestsellers,” which explores the advent of printing and its impact on the scholars of the day. “They Were What They Ate” is a taste of typical Tudorian fare and recipes (“Take a necke of mutton and a brest to make the broth stronge and then scum it cleane”), along with speculation as to why many of the Tudor lineage deteriorated at young ages (with the exception of Elizabeth I, who apparently ate sparingly).

The book is the first in a while to tackle the Tudors in such an ambitious fashion, and the critical analysis is for the most part (with one notable exception) on the mark. The focus on Henry VIII, for example, is as “Monster,” an apt description, and not just due to his reputation as Bluebeard-ish barbarian and decapitator of two wives. Henry’s reign of terror actually began prior to his marriage to doomed second wife Anne Boleyn, and in the chapter “First Blood,” Meyer describes his initial victim, a 27-year-old nun named Elizabeth Barton (the “Nun of Kent”), put to death due to her opposition to the King’s intentions of divorcing his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

The author cites the Barton case as the beginning of Henry’s path of ruthless and unfettered reprisals when met with opposition. It was behavior that eventually consolidated power almost exclusively in the hands of the monarch, cemented by England’s break with Rome and the Catholic Church in 1534.

Ghastly tales of executions, persecutions (and even a near-genocide in the case of a 1543 invasion of Scotland) were par for the course; yet Henry, his distorted ego self-delusional and intact, seemed oblivious to the horror of his actions even until the end. On his deathbed, when asked for his confession, he answered that he was convinced his sins would have been forgiven even had they “been greater than what they were.”

After the reigns of Henry’s only legitimate son (Edward VI, who died at 15) and the turbulent five years of Mary Tudor, Meyer approaches the epoch of Elizabeth I with a revisionist tone bordering on the disdainful. One passage about the “Survivor” (as he does correctly call her), in the twilight of her reign:

“Four decades of painstakingly building and maintaining a theatrically regal persona, of projecting a manufactured image across not only her kingdom but all of Europe in order to compensate for being a female monarch in a world ruled by men, had reduced Elizabeth to the tiresome shabbiness of a trouper whose prime was long past.”

Though “Gloriana” was no Pollyanna, the reality is that Elizabeth’s relative religious tolerance, when contrasted with the Catholic fanaticism of her half-sister Mary (“Bloody Mary,” for a reason) was enlightening in the extreme, and best summarized by her comment that she had no desire to “make windows into men’s souls.”

Still, Meyer maintains that despite her stewardship of England’s “Golden Age,” Elizabeth’s last decade left the kingdom in a dismal shambles and that “her passing was not nearly as lamented as legend would have us believe.”

I suppose time – or rather, yet another generation of Tudor historians – will tell.

First published as Book Review: The Tudors: The Complete Story of
England's Most Notorious Dynasty by G.J. Meyer, on Blogcritics.org.

The searingly personal Blue (1971) is usually cited by critics as her most influential, but it’s really Hejira that’s the summit of Mitchell’s singular synthesis of talents. Musically imaginative, lyrics exploratory and poetic, conceptually seamless, Hejira (from the Arabic word for “flight”) is about exactly that  –  and the inner journeys of the road. (It’s appropriate that the ethereal “Amelia” is named for the aviation pioneer, Amelia Earhart, and is a paean to the artist’s identification with her spirit: “Like me she had a dream to fly…”)

From the opening guitar strains of “Coyote” (not the canine, but an unruly lover), to the closing “Refuge of the Roads,” Hejira shows a mind with few equals in creative musical intelligence, as well as consistent curiosity in extending the boundaries of the pop genre. What strikes me on every listen is that even though Mitchell was relatively young when she wrote it, the album expresses an emotional depth that could take many lifetimes to acquire, as in these lyrics from the sublime title track:

Well I looked at the granite markers
Those tributes to finality – to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken-scratching for my immortality

“Furry Sings the Blues” is musical prose that could almost be a short story. A prismatic portrait of Memphis’ famous Beale Street and aging blues guitarist Furry Lewis, it’s Mitchell in full flower, words and voice creating visual images with vivid eloquence:

Pawn shops glitter like gold tooth caps
In the grey decay
They chew the last few dollars off
Old Beale Street’s carcass

The cheeky “Blue Motel Room” is all jazz and light; “Black Crow,” restless and zig-zaggy, is the darker side of the wayfaring experience. And “Song for Sharon” reiterates Mitchell’s intrinsic independence, as she tells a (married) childhood buddy: “You sing for your friends and your family, I’ll walk green pastures by and by.”

Legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius’s moody style is the undercurrent that drives the sonic wave of Hejira from start to finish, the perfect accompaniment to the songwriter’s vision, and in many ways defining its aural idiosyncrasy.

One can hope that new generations will join in discovering the wonders of this seminal album…and Mitchell, an artist for the ages.

 [First published as Joni Mitchell's Hejira: An Appreciation on its
  35th Anniversary on Blogcritics.org.]