One More Thing about Failure

Although it does not happen so much any more, I used to get asked to jury art shows. This is sometimes sort of nice - you get to see the pieces before they are installed and often have plenty of time to yourself in the gallery, before it is open to the public.

The horrible thing is having to eliminate pieces from the show. I find this unbelievably painful. Everyone who has sent a piece of work to a show secretly believes that the piece they submitted is a seminal, important work - a piece that will engage the public in some way and confirm their hopes that they have some talent. Often, they pay a fee to submit work to a show. Rejecting those pieces is an awful duty - so awful that every time I have had to do it, I have sworn I would never do it again. But I always do do it again, and feel awful each time.

Part of the guilt is this: these people have at least finished something. I feel like I never finish anything and I sometimes admire anyone who does finish a project, regardless of its quality.

I also worry that the rejection will erroneously convince the artist that he or she has no talent. What a tragedy that would be; I have every confidence that I am capable of missing a masterpiece that was simply ahead of its time. With that in mind, I wrote the following introduction to my juror's remarks for a show I judged in Fredericksburg last winter. If I am ever asked to be a juror for anything again, I will recycle this, because it is my signature line on what it means to be eliminated from a show:

"Fragments"

Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts

7 March 2008

Juror’s Statement

Looking at art is a joy. I believe this is a sentiment that everyone in this room shares. To get to look at art and be asked to share what you think about it is a profound honor. Thank you very much for that privilege.

It is also a responsibility. Eliminating works from an exhibition is the most odious part of jurying an exhibition. If you or someone you know is an artist whose work was not selected for this show, I would like to say this: Congratulations.

You have joined the ranks of Gustave Courbet, Honore Daumier, Edouard Manet, James McNeil Whistler, and almost the entire art history canon, many of whose greatest members were also the most rejected. Some of those rejections were the result of taking a creative risk that did not work. Some were the result of not taking a risk when one should have. And a great many were risk-fueled flashes of brilliance that pushed an art form to a realm of expression that society would spend years catching up with.

What those artists had in common, and what artists today need even more than artists in the past did, is a belief in their own vision -- a passion for their art that is too strong to be silenced by an outsider’s assessment. So more than anything else, I hope that every artist who has created a work that was rejected (this is really just another way of saying “every artist”) went immediately, and defiantly, back into the studio. Your soul – and a weary world desperately in need of art, ideas, and expression – is waiting.

Fail Better Soon

Long-Distance Love-Interest (LDLI) posted something about JK Rowling's supurb commencement address at Harvard on HIS blog, so I will do the same.

While LDLI was struck by her thoughts on imagination, as was I, what stayed with me even more were her excellent observations on failure. She said:

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

This is so true and, to me, incredibly touching. In my vivid fantasy life, my Tony Award speech for "JDate: The Musical!" begins this way:

"Two thirds of the way through the worst year of my life - when my marriage had ended, and my museum career went down the toilet, and briefly I went broke - I looked up and said, 'That's it! I am going to write a musical!'"

Happiness fills up a lot of time. Failure frees up a lot of time. Because it is usually experienced as personal losses, failure is an absolute windfall, time-wise. No more husband? No more hours spent going to his work things or trying in vain to be attractive enough to save your marriage. No more money? Okay, no more recreational shopping, gym membership, or cable television - three losses that yielded roughly (in my case) an extra 18 hours a week to spend creating something. No longer relevant at work? No problem - toil steadfastly and invisibly in the office, and find that you no longer have to take work home, nor are you tired when you leave your job and come home to work at your avocation. Fail enough and - voila! - hours of unprogrammed time on your hands, plus the desire to reinvent yourself and your life. Something could happen.

I look back at that dark period as one of the most significant, pregnant periods of my life. I am so grateful for it. At the beginning of my downward spiral, I came up with the storyline for my play. And while I was nursing a monster hangover, I began to hear the notes that in a few weeks would become the melodies for the play's songs. As Garrison Keillor once said, "If I had not been so unhappy then, I would not be this happy now."

It's sort of a crazy story, isn't it? The kind that can only happen in the theater. Or life.

Movie Review: Vexed in the City

The honeymoon is over, and the wedding hasn't even happened yet.

I waited for the Sex and the City movie with very few expectations. Let's face it - the show jumped the shark years ago when Carrie hooked up with Aiden, Miranda had a baby, Samantha had cancer, and Charlotte converted. Still, most of us (meaning world-weary-but-still-hopeful women over 40) saw the release of the movie the way we see a first date: novel, exciting, possibly fun, and not very likely to go anywhere.

The movie begins with establishing scenes that bring us up to date on the characters. Samantha has gone Hollywood but yearns for New York. Miranda combines two misogynist anachronisms, power-suit career gal AND domineering housefrau, and is as bitchy and emasculating as ever. Charlotte's back-story provided the greatest opportunities for laughs: WASP-goddess-turned-observant-Jew (sound familiar?) nesting with her darling husband (does he have a brother in Virginia?) and adopted daughter. Unfortunately, all of those opportunities were missed.

Unlike the writers, Carrie did not miss her opportunities. Mr. Big has, after some prompting, popped the question. We never really understand his appeal. Is it his enormous . . . bank account? Something else? One thing is for sure - it isn't his charisma. Actor Chris Noth is a graduate of Yale's revered drama department, yet I have never heard anyone say, "Baby" less believeably.

As I try to summarize why they don't get married, and then why they do, and how Samantha's and Miranda's storylines serve as doppelgangers to this complication in Carrie's, it dawns on me. This movie is the Oakland of romantic comedies. There is no "there" there. It's a television episode stretched into 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Except that a 23-minute television episode has to be crafted economically. This script just wanders around, setting up one unfunny joke after another. I really missed the signature device from the original television show: Carrie's essays that introduce and resolve episode themes. Adding those essay-sequences as transitions might have connected the events in the story. It certainly would have given the female audience what we wanted: the feeling of being there, in the conversation with the girlfriends.

For a movie that purports to be urban and sophisticated, it was strikingly racist at times. Jennifer Hudson, the only Academy Award winner in the cast, is brought in as Carrie's assistant. This is an upgrade from the domestic worker roles of the past, but not by much. Hudson's chemistry with Sarah Jessica Parker is considerable; had I written this script, I would have punched up that part of the story a lot.

Miranda decides, on the recommendation of someone from her office, to look for an apartment in Chinatown. As she walks the streets of lower Manhattan, she cries, "Look! A white man with a baby! Follow him!" I thought I heard wrong, but I didn't.

And then there is the de rigeur don't-drink-the-water joke when the gang goes to Mexico. Do people still laugh at those jokes? Or even get them? What year is this? 1965? And unfortunately, in order to punch up the alleged humor in that bit, there is actually a scene where (can I even say it?) Charlotte poops in her pants. What the hell am I watching? Shreck 2?

As I watched Sex and the City the Movie, I keep asking myself, "Where were the gay men?" Sure, they brought Carrie's gay friend Stanford Blatch in, but not as an insider, as he was on the show. And I can guarantee that, with poop-in-the-pants jokes, there were no gay writers on this script. The television show Sex and the City always felt more like a gay man's world than television-chick-lit. Fashion, clubs, upper-brackets real estate, social heirarchies, self-assured promiscuity, the art world and other urban tribes - those are the traditional (and, in my opinion, marvelous) purviews of gay men. Unlike the show, this movie is almost devoid of the finer things in life (it will come as a surprise to the writers that this is not synonymous with "expensive"). Sex and the City the Movie is all label and no style.

And for a movie with the word "sex" in the title, no one seems to be getting laid very much, either.

The writers forgot something that millions of women like me - single and living alone in a city - have known for a long time. The man that our survival depends on is not the uber-breadwinner like Carrie's Mr. Big, nor is it the uxorious help-meet like Miranda's Steve, or even the soul-mate like Charlotte's Harry. It is the gay friend, and the world he created in every city, who makes life bearable, stylish, and fun. Five years ago, Carrie lived in the gay man's world and had girlfriends who acted as their surrogates. Now she and her girls are on the fast-track to Wisteria Lane.

But at least there is some good news on the health front: no one is going to need a cigarette after this "Sex and the City."

I Married My Blow-Dryer!

It was a sublimely beautiful late spring day and there I was: dressed in a white lace and light beige silk dress, embroidered with pearls, and standing at the Bima in one of the oldest and most beautiful synagogues in the country. I held a Torah scroll for the first time in my life and was surprised that it was no heavier than it was. The rabbi intoned the traditional statements, and after each, I affirmed "I do" and "I will,” just as we had rehearsed. My closest friends served as witnesses. Later we all celebrated at a small and tasteful reception.

“Mazel tov”? Well, thank you. But I should explain that I didn’t get married. I became Jewish. Believe me, I understand the confusion. In fact, I have experienced it myself.

Six months of attendance at Congregation Beth Ahabah, followed by close to a year of conversion and Hebrew language classes, and then my Tevilah. The Tevilah, or conversion ceremony, is preceded by a ritual immersion called the Mikvah. Mine was at Congregation Beth El, approximately ten minutes away from my place of worship, Congregation Beth Ahabah.

If only the rabbi, or I, had worked a little harder at eliminating my unbelievable vanity over the course of this past year, this would not have been a problem. But as it was, I knew that I was not now, nor had I ever been, a “wash-and-wear” girl and in order to make it on time to my own Tevilah, at Congregation Beth Ahabah, I was going to have to put my usually-meandering toilette into overdrive. This meant Herculean feat of trying to shower, dry my hair, get dressed, and put on lipstick in fifteen minutes. And that’s when it happened. In the process of rapidly drying my hair in the ladies room at Beth El, my blow-dryer's cord got caught around the pedestal of a glass bowl on the vanity table. The bowl fell to the floor and smashed to bits.

Sound familiar? Think about every “Jewish wedding” sequence you have ever seen in a movie that depicts a traditional Jewish wedding: broken glass, applause, Klezmer music. There was no applause or Klezmer music at my Tevilah, but there was plenty of broken glass in the ladies’ bathroom. I have been thinking about the traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, under the Chuppah. At its conclusion, the bride and groom drink wine from the same glass. The glass is then placed under a cloth and the groom steps on it. This is said to symbolize many things - the broken state of the world and Jews' obligation to repair it, for example, or the sorrow of the Jewish people about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

So, with all of these wedding images lining up at my Tevilah (my own justice-of-the-peace wedding, long ago, was not half as bridal), I am now looking back and wondering. Did I just marry my blow-dryer? That's who broke the "glass", after all; it happened in a synagogue, too. And would that necessarily be such a bad thing? A blow-dryer has many excellent spousal qualities. It is helpful and versatile; like a perfect husband, it is handy with little household and car repairs (unfreezing a frozen door lock, for example, or heating up the glue on a piece of tape so you can pull it from the wall without ruining your paint or wallpaper). It travels well, with no audible complaints about having to go to your parent’s house again. It has intensity settings that range from “barely there” to “full blast.” It is always warm – and sometimes it’s hot. It is able to look at you at your very worst; instead of running away screaming, it blows into your ear and transforms you - well, if not into a raving beauty, at least into someone with straight hair. You could do worse.

Steady, dependable, predictable, and always ready for action. Never threatened by the occasional fling with air-drying for the curly look. Unintimidated by my brand new flat-iron, the youthful “bad boy” of the beauty appliance shelf.

Yes, I am happy to report that my blow-dryer and I have settled into a very happy life together, and now we are thinking long-term. I all I have to do now is see where it would like to retire, and what its 401K looks like.

Wave and Particle: Liza Lou's Garden, and the Light of Day

There is a remarkable young sculptor from California named Liza Lou. She creates installation sculptures in the form of everyday places constructed entirely from beads. The subject is usually commonplace, often a kitchen or a garden, but every three-dimensional piece is made of tiny, shimmering glass beads strung together. Once, I saw a garden created by Liza Lou. The part of the sculpture that most captured my imagination was also the most ordinary. I was drawn not to the dazzling bead-flowers, or the bead-constructed park bench. What I could not look away from was the grass. Each individual blade was made glass beads in various shades of green, strung on wires and moving exactly the way that grass moves in the breeze.

The Liza Lou sculpture made me think about the tiny amount I know about molecular physics. When I was a teenager, atoms were old-hat and quarks were the rage. Today, quarks are “so 1970’s,” and matter has been subdivided much further, down to components whose names read like an excerpt from Finnegan’s Wake or “Jabberwocky”: fermions, bosons, neutrinos. Every time scientists identify smaller components of physical existence, they subdivide again and slip through humanity’s fingers. More and more, it begins to look as if matter – everything that is deemed “real” by empiricists and materialists – is nothing more than ever-smaller particles, vibrating in a way that creates an illusion of solidity. The properties of light hint at this, as well; light is both wave and particle. Interestingly, light is an almost universal metaphor for God, as well.

I thought about that garden the only time was ever been with a person at the moment of death. It was at my aunt’s bedside at St. Mary’s Hospital in October of 2004. I lived with her when I was little and we were close all of my life. In 2004, she was 81 years old and knew that she was finally going to succumb to the combination of ailments that had gradually consumed the life of a formerly fiery and inexhaustible woman. As she was trying to speak in the last minutes, I could see that the effort was exhausting. I held her hand, which was as fragile as a dried flower. I told her not to say words, but instead to speak with her heart. She died in silence. At that moment, I was covered in goose bumps. My immediate, almost instinctual, thought was, “Well, somewhere in the world, a baby was just conceived. Aunt Day’s soul will come back again in that body to finish its work on earth.”

It’s a nice thought, I suppose, but I am not sure it's accurate. I have since begun to think of death as a release of the spirit as pure energy. No longer confined by the restraints of the body, the energy that once animated it goes . . . I don’t know where. Perhaps it goes into a new body. Maybe it moves to another realm. Maybe it stays in this realm and forms part of a spiritual vortex of powerful spiritual energy – the kind of thing that people describe sensing in Sedona, Arizona, or in holy sites like Angkor Wat, Chartres, or the Wailing Wall.

The moment of death seems to me the moment when the particles that form the matter of the body begin to slow down and stop vibrating. The energy within that had given motion and life to those specks is released, almost as if invisible spaces between the particles of our bodies are formed once they are stilled. Although it is no longer needed to animate our bodies, that energy is not destroyed; that would violate all of the laws of motion that we know. Instead it expands and moves, somewhere in the distance -- and that is closer than we think.

Watch Your Step! Life Lessons Learned from Swing Dancing in Richmond

In the six months since I last posted anything to this blog, I have been attempting to learn to swing dance. After two sublime adventures at the even more sublime Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park in Maryland, I decided to try the swing dance lesson at The Dance Space on West Broad Street, near the legendary Mekong restaurant. What follows, Gentle Reader, is the History of that event, titled:

Watch Your Step!
Being the Unexpurgated History of Two Sidetracked Swing Dancers and How They Navigated Their Remarkable Adventures on West Broad Street

Chapter the First
In which our Heroine discovers a somewhat unhappy mix-up

As part of my campaign to learn how to swing dance, I finally talked my friend Ginny, who is glamorous and savvy and whom I think of as The Rich Man's Fran Drescher, into going with me to The Dance Space. We had dinner at Mekong, and then went upstairs to the 7:30 Lindy Hop lesson. When we walked in, Ginny's Drescher-esque voice intoned, "I never knew Lindy was so slow." And I looked at the floor and said, "It isn't. This is a Tango lesson." I asked the people at the door what was going on, and they said, "Oh,we decided to mix it up tonight." I wasn't happy, but Ginny and I stayed for the lesson and for the dance afterward, which was a mix of swing and ballroom.

Chapter the Second
In which we learn of a previous misunderstanding that gave rise to the current one

The expert ballroom and swing dancers who run The Dance Space (which is modest to down-at-the-heels, but kind of nice, too, in a high-school-dance sort of way) have forgotten that a beginner can absorb maybe - at most - 5 new moves per event. If you have to learn two new dances to participate, you are overloaded after the first hour. Slack-jawed but determined, Ginny and I pressed on, in spite of one more challenge.

Chapter the Third
In which our Heroine stumbles upon the perfect place for boys who have trouble meeting girls

A swing/ballroom dance is exactly like a middle school sock hop -- if everyone at the sock hop has a 401K and/or an AARP membership. There are far more girls than boys, and most of the girls are standing around not dancing. At this event, the AARP contingent was fairly strong, and thank heaven. The old men were the only ones who (1) knew to ask other girls to dance and (2) knew how to dance in the first place). During the lesson, Ginny and I took turns being the boy. This has possibly made me a WORSE dancer. Henceforth, I can now be counted on to forget if I start on my left or my right because I can't remember if I am a boy or a girl this time. (Note to self: Remind long-distance love interest to pack his shin-guards when we go to the Spanish Ballroom next month.)

Chapter the Fourth
In which our Heroine reflects upon her less-than-joyful adolescence only to say "The hell with it" and take matters into her own hands

The "Couples Preferred" structure of the lesson set the tone for the dance, so - in another triumphant return to middle school - Ginny and I and roughly a dozen other girls sat around on folding chairs while NOBODY asked us to dance. I finally addressed the group of girls at large, "Well, ladies, I think the situation here is 'Dance with a girl, or don't dance.'" The less-confident ones began chattering and chanting, "I can't lead! I can't lead!" But Ginny and I and a couple of other risk-takers danced with each other, alternating taking the lead, with a minimum of injuries.

Chapter the Fifth
In which a surprise dance partner appears; happily, his upper arm does not

Exactly one week earlier, I had gone to a party where a most charming young artist told a tale so gruesome that I literally grew weak in the knees, dizzy, and nauseated. I went home shortly afterward. It was a perversely violent account of his being burned with a cattle brand while pledging a fraternity. Well, in a picaresque plot-twist and return-of-a-colorful-minor-character worthy of Candide or Tom Jones or Moll Flanders, I looked across the floor of The Dance Space, and there he was: the cattle-branded fellow from the party one week ago. At any rate, it turns out that he and his wife are absolutely great dancers. I danced with him several times, scrupulously avoiding any moves that might carry the risk of accidentally making his shirt sleeve fly up to reveal the cattle brand on his left arm. That was helpful.

Chapter the Last
In which the History is at last concluded

After the dance, Ginny and I went to the Jefferson Hotel for a drink. We resolved to go to the Dance Space again, and to drag our own partners this time. She is bringing her neighbor, Steve. I am bringing my dear old friend Chris. I have known Chris for 24 years and have been trying to find him a girlfriend for at LEAST that long. This way, we can all participate more, and who knows? Ginny and Chris might end up dancing with each other.

Life Lessons:

1. Lonely guys will do well at The Dance Space, but lonely girls will only feel more so

2. The bad news: life changes very little after middle school. The good news: you do.

3. It is better to be ACTIVELY embarrassed stepping on your girlfriend's foot on the dance floor than to be PASSIVELY embarrassed as you sit around on a metal chair hoping for a chance to step on a boy's foot.

4. You might conclude that you know the character of a person just because he told you about being branded, but you would be wrong.

5. You would be wrong to draw similar conclusions about The Dance Space, which is actually charming in its own way, and serves a vital function.

6. Screw the feminist propaganda about Ginger Rogers having it tough because she was going backward in high heels. In dancing, it is more challenging to lead. Period.

7. Step up, big guy! Be a man! Go to The Dance Space and ask someone to dance already!

Keeper of the Light: JMW Turner at the National Gallery

Keeper of the Light
JMW Turner at the National Gallery
30 December 2007

James Wright's 1963 poem "A Blessing" ends with these lines:

If I stepped out of my body
I would break into blossom.

This image also describes the dynamics of JMW Turner's paintings and their effect on the viewer. His canvases contain so much emotion and complexity that their piercing light looks like a grand, majestic soul breaking into flower.

The Turner retrospective at the National Gallery achieves the impossible: it shows those of us who have always loved Turner that we hardly knew him. His large and small oils, watercolor and graphite sketches, and spontaneous oil studies, perfectly showcase a talent that, like the light in Turner's paintings, is unable to contain itself.

Like most visitors to this exhibition, I was prepared to be transfixed by his large-scale landscapes and seascapes, and I was. Having seen Turner largely through slides projected onto screens in art history lecture rooms, though, I was struck by the irony that projected light of a slide actually robs Turner's paintings of their light-dappled brilliance.

What I was not prepared for was the impact of his smaller works and works in other media. In this thoughtfully arranged, salon-style installation, small sketches sit alongside large works and allow us to see the full range of his genius. In his graphites and watercolors, many of them no larger than a sheet of notebook paper, we learn that in addition to being one of the greatest masters of the oil medium, Turner was also a peerless draftsman.

Coming as it did at the turn of the nineteenth century, his gestural, spontaneous use of oil paint was at least 65 years ahead of its time. But in the careful studies that preceeded the large works, we learn that precise structure and geometry buttress their endlessly seductive luminosity. This level of artistry is particularly notable in his watercolors, a largely disreputable medium in early 19th century Europe, considered by many to be less-than-serious, more the purview of well-bred young ladies than of England's greatest living artist.

The exhibition also features some of Turner's less familiar cathedral interiors. In these smaller works, church frescoes and mosaics impart a liquid energy that is similar to the famous skies in his landscapes. Like the searing rays that penetrate the clouds, the religious scenes in his church interiors are a jeweled, spiritual realm that elevates the worshipper and restores him to an ancient past.

What keeps Turner's paintings from becoming too beautiful? I think it is the edge of violence that lurks in most of them. His illustrations of disastrous contemporary events - the fire that destroyed Parliament, for example, or a doomed ship of female prisoners (and their young children) allowed to perish by a captain who feared being fined should any escape - are rendered in unbearably glorious colors and sensual brushstrokes. Even in his calmer subjects, Turner's roiling, black ocean waves; sharply jagged cliffs; and steep roads that fail to hold all anchor beauty in the dramatic wholeness of life. Ever-present reminders of blood, danger, and death sharpen our delight in beauty's pleasures. Turner's compatriate, Alfred Lord Tennyson termed nature, "red in tooth and claw," but we are shocked at how seductive that red can be. The inherent beauty found in pain and violence is examined in Nietzche's "The Birth of Tragedy". Turner's paintings approach the edge of pleasure/pain that Nietzche explored, but leave the viewer's imagination to cross it - alone and in its own way.

Turner's own position is articulated in a painting of a shipwreck that claimed the life of a close friend. Here, Turner places a solitary waterbird in the foreground. This black-silhouetted bird sadly skims the surface of now-peaceful waters that rest like a sleepy lion that has just consumed its prey and is ready for a long nap. The bird may be a pun on Turner's name; "M" = "Mallord," which alludes to "mallard". It is certainly an expression of Turner's place: the vigilant witness who, having just seen beauty and violence almost impossible to record, enters a realm between earth, sky, and water. Having someplace else to go, he moves quietly along. We watch until he disappears into the light.

Catalog Essay: "Get on the Bus"

Exhibition Catalog Essay:
GET ON THE BUS
Gordon Stettinius’s “Naked Pilgrim”
1708 Gallery
April 2007

To look at the photographs in Gordon Stettinius's exhibition "Naked Pilgrim," is to feel as if you have wandered on the back lot of a movie studio. Too-large or too-small replicas of familiar objects slump, recontextualized and wearily out of place. Beside them are vaguely recognizable figures whose often-beautiful expressions suggest bygone days. What he creates for us with these photographs is another kind of film, a haunting and sometimes humorous road trip documentary that leads us to the invisible intersection between agelessness and exhaustion, beauty and grotesqueness, performance and ritual.

Often, it is ritualism and mythology that make “Naked Pilgrim” so arresting. "Wig Store," for example, shows a plywood cutout of a passé, bouffant hairstyle hovering over the door of a non-descript retail building. Its architecture unconsciously recalls Federico Zuccari’s famous late 16th century Roman palazzo portal, a door that resembles the groaning jaws of a grotesque face. If Zuccari's Dante-esque entryway implies visceral transformation and wild Mannerist embellishment, "Wig Store" suggests its opposite. Instead of being consumed by an insatiable satyr, we await our impending arrival in a stark shopping den -- and our entry into the quasi-drugged, hypnogic state in which it is best savored. We metaphorically prepare to enter the empty thoughts of a cartoon woman, whose face has been replaced by a monitor-like glass door. We feel our minds and eyes begin to shut down; meanwhile, the sound of the Muzak grows more distinct.

The color-drenched "Snake Girl" is similarly allusive. The smiling female face atop a snake body reminds us of other snake-women, most notably the one in Masolino's "Temptation of Adam and Eve.” Both share a sort of collage aesthetic, a "spare parts" construction that does not bother to finish seams or blend edges. Stettinius’s photograph also cannily plays with notions of realism inherent in the photographic medium. At first, "Snake Girl" looks as if it might have been created in Photoshop. We conclude that it was not and chuckle at its unsophisticated, state fair setting, which evokes more than anything else a miniature golf course. But just as we compliment our discernment of what is authentic and what is not, we are stopped short. We remember that what we are looking at is not reality either, but a photograph, an expert illusion of the real.

Stettinius possesses the sensitivity to light and form that characterizes the most gifted of photographers. Foamhenge, the now-defunct Natural Bridge, Virginia attraction where tourists could view industrial-foam replicas of Stonehenge, is a quirky and appealing subject in and of itself. In photographing it against a cinematically moody, cloud-washed sky and sparsely sweeping grasses, however, Stettinius adds notes of beauty, sadness, and complexity. In so doing, he takes something that could be all-too-easily interpreted simply as American roadside kitsch and reimagines it as a series of multi-layered, nesting, archetypal landscapes. With similar artistry, "Roma," photographed in the courtyard of a Roman museum, uses an assertive shaft of light to emphasize the mix of textures on a variety of fragmented stone forms, old and new. The colossal, disembodied hand in the center dominates the composition as it appears both to bask in - and be created by - a light that, like the hand itself, seems at once holy and artificial.

Down-at-the-heels roadside attractions are a captivating subject, and one that is very easy to do badly. Their unstylish innocence is too often met with smirking belittlement or superficial discussion. Gordon Stettinius, by contrast, approaches his subjects with compassion and a sharp eye for formal aesthetics. The close proximity and upward-angle of "Reindeer" allows us to see stock holiday figures in a new way, and we are surprised to discover classical equestrian overtones in their erect posture and stoic faces. The poetic juxtaposition of a natural hedge and the stenciled purple palm that adorns an exterior wall of a dingy motel in "Purple Palms" is presented as if the painted frond has sprung surrealistically from the live bushes. The effect is enchanted and visually stirring, as if we have happened upon a gargantuan orchid or Night-blooming Cereus.

In the end, these images offer the search for the sublime in the vernacular as a sort of contemporary pilgrimage, one that requires us to strip ourselves of jaded sophistication and cynicism. Thus, it is a naked pilgrimage, and one of the few we have left. It seems therefore fitting that one of the iconic pictures in "Naked Pilgrim" is "Holy Land USA." In this silvery black-and-white photograph, a broken-looking white bus proclaims its destination in black letters, even as a handmade sign in the windshield reads, "Do not enter." But Gordon Stettinius’s evocative, disquieting, and brutally sincere vistas insistently whisper, "Get on the bus." We do, and our pilgrimage begins. When it ends, we are back where we started, only different: naked, watchful, and reverent.

Rebecca E. Jones
February 2007

It May Not Be a Soprano, but this Tony Hits the High Notes

The 2007 Tony Awards

For that scant handful of us who watched the Tony Awards instead of Tony Soprano last Sunday, there was much to celebrate.

Could Broadway be recovering from its all-time low in 2006 with "Jersey Boys," a show without ONE original song, taking top prize? Perhaps. This year, by contrast, two edgy and experimental musicals, plus one return to Broadway's Golden Age, took the big honors.

The big winner, "Spring Awakening" is a rock musical, an inferior genre that people keep trying to legitimize. Come on - everyone loves the Who, but please! Who in their right mind puts "Pinball Wizard" in the same category as melodies by Richard Rogers or Stephen Sondheim? Still, "Spring Awakening" is dark, psychological and complex with a tough, 1890's Germany setting and wildly innovative choreography. It is a far cry from the jukebox schlock and musicalizations of mediocre movies that have dominated the Great White Way for the last few years. A spring awakening for Broadway? Let's hope.

"Grey Gardens" was my favorite. It received several big awards, including best actress in a musical for Christina Ebersole (perfect casting for Rachael in you-know-what). When I heard months ago that the haunting 1971 documentary about Jackie O's shrieking, reclusive cousins languishing in squalor in a formerly grand East Hampton mansion was the basis of a new musical, I was elated. "Mamma Mia," it's not. Christine Ebersole's Tony number was quirky, hilarious, disturbing, and - unlike anything I have heard from "Spring Awakening" - musically memorable.

"Curtains," by Kandor and Ebb (who gave us "Cabaret," "Chicago," and"All that Jazz"), represented a return to the classic, mid-century book musical (at last) and received very favorable notice, including best actor in a musical for David Hyde Pierce (Niles from Frazier).

"Legally Blonde, The Musical" and "Mary Poppins" were mostly ignored. I understand that there were excellent individual break-out performances in both shows, and I am genuinely sorry for the troopers who were overlooked last Sunday. I take their lack of awards as an overdue rejection of a tired musical theatre sub-genre, not an indictment of the performances.

The return of standards to the Tony's marks a turning point, I believe, and one that may be butressed by John Travolta's coming star-turn this summer in the movie version of "Hairspray, The Musical." So - this means good times ahead for my shows. But far more importantly, good times may be ahead for a unique American artform that has suffered greatly for the last few years -- AND for the legions of ultra-talented people who make less money than they could and work harder than have to in order to keep it alive. Bravissimi! Encore!!

As to the Tony's telecast itself, when will they ever learn? The broadcast needs a charismatic, dynamic host with Broadway cred. The rotating hosts of the last two years did not give a single voice or coherent style to the proceedings. Hugh Jackman, while handsome and talented, cannot sustain the ceremony in terms of humor and verve. Nathan Lane, Jason Alexander, and Christine Baransky would be better choices. Each has a respectable level of Broadway experience AND enough cross-over (read "television") appeal to reel in a larger audience.

And how could CBS have been in the business this long without realizing that the West Coast awards shows bring in numbers by broadcasting fashion moments on the red-carpet? Unlike other major awards shows, the Tony's are presented in one of the fashion capitals of the universe. Please bring Isaac Mizrahi in to schmooze with the arrivals and ask them, "Who are you wearing?" Isaac has done costumes for a number of shows and has a big enough personality to make this a real event. The de rigeur post-broadcast debriefing of fashions would make the show pay off again by showing people what they missed while they were watching that other, lesser Tony. More to the point, the post-mortem would prompt viewers to watch next year - and maybe even go to a show.

"Love, Love, Love, and Fields of Red-Poppy Kisses"

In the eighties, I was wild about Paloma Picasso perfume and wore it all the time. My best friend Sam loved it, too, and told me that he wanted a bottle for the 24th birthday that he would not live to see.

Years later, I drove to Arlington on the May 13 that would have been his 31st his birthday. It was a Saturday. I had not thought of the fact that, because it was a Jewish cemetery, it would be closed. I convinced a groundskeeper to let me in. He drove me in on some sort of tractor, chatting blandly all the while to someone on a walkie-talkie. I sat under the tree and talked to Sam. Before I left, I poured a huge bottle of Paloma next to the grave. I watched it pool into the enormous tree roots before disappearing into the muddy ground.

Surrealistically, I received a letter from Sam about six months later, thanks to the Italian postal system in the mid-80's. The letter had been written in Venice. What has always stayed with me was the ending:

"I don't know what my destiny is or where I will go next. I miss you and your happiness so much and I hope to see you soon. Right now, I feel like Uncle Wiggly, Gentleman Rabbit, lost in the beautiful woods where he lives. Love, love, love, and fields of red poppy kisses. Sam"

Ever since, that image has been my picture of the afterlife: gentle people wandering aimlessly in a beautiful wood, missing the people who aren't there.

And I suppose the red poppy kisses are the opium of memory: standing beside you in the silence or quietly circling the heart -dreamlike, alive and well, traveling freely from this realm to the next.

Washington Exhibition Round-Up, Spring 2006

Cezanne at NGA: stupendous range of works from the middle period, so you see his anticipation of Expressionism and even Cubism. You have to admire Cezanne. It is hard to love him. Also, so many works are on loan, so the framing is terribly uneven: some are beautifully framed; others are taken straight from Mumsy's wall and feature Michael's Craft Store pink and green mats with goopy filigree molding.

Hokusai at the Freer: the animals have tons of personality, while his human figures are flat and seem to predict the generic Japanamation/manga look; also, their installation was very self-consciously glitzy - a little too "Bloomingdale's circa 1979" for my taste

Dada at the NGA East Wing: a tough and unpleasant show, but an important movement that - I now see - set the tone for so many late twentieth century art world shenanigans: the chic nihilism; the "indy-art-world" sensibility, refusal to self-define, artist as stager-of-events rather than maker-of-objects.

And the Winner Is. . .

Grant Wood at the Renwick! Prior to this show, almost everything I knew about Grant Wood and American Gothic I learned from The Rocky Horror Picture Show [read "didn't know much"]. This show is gorgeous and shows a master regionalist/realist with a sly sense of humor who, although he lived in the country and taught middle school (!), inhabited a big world and absorbed influences of the School of Paris, Milton Avery, the American Muralist Movement, and even American decorative arts. It is really a must-see for anyone in D.C.

In Defense of Cities: A Grumpy Letter to the Editor of the Newspaper

Editor, Times-Dispatch:



As a longtime city resident, I would like to respond to David Perel's letter that attempts to explain the absence of suburban visitors to downtown Richmond. Perel outlines the city's flaws, chief among which are its lack of attractions comparable to the new shopping centers in Stony Point and Short Pump.



The letter suggests that if Richmond were a first-tier city, downtown would be home to national, upscale retailers such as those that have transformed the shopping landscapes of Chesterfield and Henrico. I agree.



In the 1970s shopping malls exploded in large part to simulate an urban shopping experience in suburbs. The trend has now ironically reversed itself; the suburban shopping mall slowly consumes city shopping districts.



Manhattan's SoHo and Washington's Georgetown exemplify the trend toward the suburbanization of urban spaces. Thirty years ago, both neighborhoods were home to many one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants. Today, walking down Wisconsin Avenue or Spring Street is like walking through a roofless shopping mall. The Georgetown and SoHo Eddie Bauer, Banana Republic, and Starbucks may be situated inside warehouses and brownstones, but the interior effect is the same: a blandly neutral aesthetic experience that is unchanged from city to city. Should this trend go on unchecked, in time, a patron will be sitting in a Panera Bakery and have the surreal experience of not knowing for a moment whether he is in Chicago, San Francisco, or New York, so homogenized will those formerly distinct cities have become.



As residents of a smaller city, Richmonders routinely enjoy attractions that are unique to the city and which, indeed, define its character: brunch at Millie's or Cafe 821, coffee at Cafe Gutenberg, antiquing at the Farmer's Market, browsing for old books and ephemera at the Richmond Book Company, seeing exhibitions at 1708 or Art6; the list goes on, and each Richmonder has a slightly different roster of favorites.

I hope Perel and his neighbors will visit some of the gems in downtown Richmond that stubbornly remain "terra incognita" to so many in the counties.



Rebecca E. Jones

My Letter to Dress Shops (No Reply)

The newspaper in my city has an annual luncheon for the cranky letter-writers identified as "Correspondent of the Day" on the editorial page. The luncheon is a low-key, casual affair: barbeque chicken and cole slaw at the newspaper plant, plus a speech from the editorial page editor.

I was once named a Correspondent of the Day and thought of a way to make it pay off. I decided to "offer" the high-end dress shops in town the chance to "dress" me for the awards ceremony. After all, Nicole Kidman doesn't write a check for her frock when she goes to the Oscar's.

It was an idea ahead of its time. No one ponied up, but here is the letter I sent out that went unanswered by the unimaginative managers of several Richmond dress shops. My ex-husband told me that I had done one very good thing: given the poor, beleagered shopgirls a much-needed laugh. At my expense, it is needless to add. Is there any other kind in my life?

My Letter (No Reply)

Manager

Coplon's

6235 River Road

Richmond, Virginia 23229


14 February 2005


Dear Madam:


The exquisite dresses on view on the red carpets of awards events have become the stuff of legend. Who can forget Nicole Kidmans iconic lotion-pink Chanel Couture dress at the 2001 Academy Awards or Sharon Stones lavender silk shantung Vera Wang sarong, paired rakishly with her husband's Brooks Brothers shirt in 1997?


Awards ceremonies present a splendid opportunity for savvy dressmakers to promote their wares. On Saturday, February 26, I will attend the Richmond Times-Dispatch awards luncheon honoring 2004s Correspondents of the Day. As I am currently reviewing samples from area dress shops, I am writing to offer you the chance to promote one of Coplons elegant designs at the awards event.


The Correspondents luncheon features an open-mike question and answer session with Ross McKenzie, editor of the Times-Dispatchs editorial page and concludes with the much-anticipated announcement of the Correspondent of the Year. It always receives coverage in the local print and broadcast media. Should you be selected to dress me for this event, I will be certain to mention you as I preface my question during the open-mike forum. I will most certainly include you in my thank-you remarks should I be named Correspondent of the Year.


My October 31 letter to the newspaper was on the topic of unique and appealing locally owned stores and restaurants in Richmond, of which Coplons is certainly a celebrated example. I am enclosing a copy of my editorial letter as well as a copy of my invitation to the luncheon.


I am 42 years old, 5 7, blonde, and wear a size 6 - 8. I look good in everything except the inferior clothes that I can afford on my meager state-supported art museum salary; thus, I am writing to you. I urge you not miss this unique opportunity to capitalize on a most fashionable win-win proposition.


I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours very truly,



Rebecca E. Jones

Beauty, Out of the Ordinary: Photography Review

The immediacy and visual richness of Angela Orrell's photographs give them the power to serve as portals to other places. Often those places hover in that poetic space between past and present. Training her lens on communities whose ways of life were once commonplace, Orrell's images beguile the viewer's sense of time. Silvery images of a venerable local diner, a final tobacco auction, a family-owned barbershop, or fishermen returning with the days catch feel archaic and distinctly American. In their details we discover a bygone era and are surprised to learn that they are, in fact, contemporary documentations of a vanishing present.

Her pictures grow out of deep and carefully tended relationships with the communities that she photographs and are often presented in conjunction with oral histories, objects, and video footage that she collects. In this way, her images form part of a complex portrait that preserves and pays tribute to old ways of life and the people who allow them to live on. Although the subjects of her photographs are often plain and careworn, their beauty is revealed at every turn: the dance of light across a chrome surface in a diner, the mix of textures on aging faces and hands, the furrows left behind in busy fields all demand our notice and our awe.

In a world that assaults us daily with literally thousands of retouched, enhanced, and cleaned up images, we are reminded of the uniqueness of the natural and the honest. Invited to look at old ways of life with fresh eyes, we are reminded of the words of an even older poem:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

- John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn 1819

This Summer Doesn't Suck: A Review of "Sucking in the Summer"

April may be the cruelest month, but summer is the most ambivalent season. If you are not convinced, listen to Sucking in the Summer, Radio Free Nowhere's June 2006 CD. Beginning with its double-entendre title (is summer a time when things suck, or is it a fleeting moment to take in?), its opening samples of Bush Administration cronies whistling robustly in the dark as a regime implodes, and Jon Stewart's camp strains of "Everything's Coming Up Rose's" (itself a harrowing declaration whose triumphant words signal delusion and tragedy), Sucking in the Summer eloquently captures the essence of a season that sweetly, painfully conjures memory and desire.



For the reviewer whose musical tastes begin with Monteverdi's Orfeo Furioso (1607) and end with Your Hit Parade (1950 – 1959), the biggest surprise on Sucking in the Summer is its gentle nostalgia. Here, however, the wistfulness has a decidedly jagged edge. The musical quality of tunes like "Throw It All Away," "Song for the Sunshine," "Wonderful Place," and "Mardy Bum" - garage-band guitars; major-key melodies; bright ensemble vocals; bubblegum rhythms; retro instruments like the 16+2 organ (think "96 Tears" by ? and the Mysterians) – transport the listener to an innocent era. That is, until the lyrics' descriptions of (respectively) "bullshit and baggage," the monotony of consumer landscapes, shaky hallucinations, or the banal discouragement of one's little, everyday failings. The entrancing rhythms make the body want to move, but the mind won't allow it, preferring instead to concentrate, to take in the messages, to – in a manner of speaking - suck in Sucking in the Summer.



This tension is developed throughout the CD. The cheerfulness of "Let's Get Out of this Country" is as bright and upbeat as "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" but its jingle sells an apocalyptic message. Like some Reefer Madness pusher, the "Girlshapedlovedrug" awakens and fuels the desire to be intoxicated – or to intoxicate - again and again, regardless of the price. This sensitively-combined collection creates emotional ambiguity and tension in other ways, as well. Songs that are less inherently multifaceted are assembled in ways that create interesting nuances. The proximity of, for example, the hiply seductive bossa nova of Zuco's "Treasure" to the hypnotic rap-litanies of "Hand-Me-Downs" and "You Didn't Know That Though" leavens the latter and sharpens the former. All of these contradictions are the musical correspondent of the sunburn that follows an idyllic day of sunshine, or the vague sense of loss inevitably evoked by a summer memory.



In describing a CD that does so many things right it seems mean-spirited to identify the one thing it does wrong. If the music were less haunting and complex, the inserts might suffer less in the comparison. Next to the lyricism of the songs, however, too many of the inserts come off as brash and graceless –the ungainly, ugly-duckling little sister to the music's cool and goddess-like beauty queen. The introductory samplings are effective because they draw the listener in and set a tone. Toward the middle, they become intrusive and literal – the over-confident, lackluster class-clown who interrupts the more brilliant student's thoughtful remark. Radio Free Nowhere should trust the listener to draw conclusions and make connections the without being prompted by the cast of The Office or Stephen Colbert or Sarah Silverman, who is particularly overused.



But let's get back to the music, for music is the message here. The track that I found myself returning to again and again was number 11, Saint Etienne's "Teenage Winter." The poetry of its lyrics, many of them spoken-word observations delivered in a seductive, working-class London accent, is democratic and inclusive. Its rendering of shop windows, mistaken addresses, and other traces of a neighborhood that has changed since one's youth is reminiscent of the prose of Virginia Woolf or Marcel Proust in its stream-of-consciousness sensual details that transport the listener to multiple time periods at once. A better analogy is the turn-of-the-century photographs of Eugene Atget, whose silvery images of abandoned Paris vitrines captured two worlds in one image: moldering shop window vignettes of yesteryear, and contemporary street scenes coldly reflected in the glass that simultaneously reveals them and prevents entry.



"Teenage Winter's" two-word title encompasses the full range of this beautiful collection and the season it inaugurates. Summer is the season of youth. But after youth, it becomes a poignant kind of winter, awakening the sleeping personae of past summers just long enough for you to see how far they have receded since the last time you glanced backward. Waving hopefully even as they grow smaller and more distant, they are as tender as a summer romance, as melancholy as the early fall, and as inscrutable and ever-present as long shadows on a cool September morning.

Four Decades of Recurring Dreams

Age Four or Five: Walking in a park in Alabama where there were lots of white marble statues. Each time I touched a statue, it would become violet in color and its eyes would open and become animated, looking in my direction.

Second and Third Grade: Sitting in my elementary school classroom alone because everyone else is at recess. I am wearing a slip and typing on an old typewriter. Someone comes in to tell me I have to go to the playground to get married and I hide in the coat closet.

High School / Early College: Standing on the beach watching a film like the old ones you remember from school in the 1970's (noisy projector, sprocket holes on the sides of the film). The film is footage of hundreds of businessmen in suits, sadly standing in line. I look away from the film and toward the beach and the men in suits are taking turns walking out into the water and floating out to sea on their briefcases. When they are out far enough, they jump off the briefcase and turn into enormous dolphins.

Just After College: I am a waitress. I walk into the restaurant and everyone I have ever met in my entire life is seated there: girls from summer camp, kids from the schoolbus, dead aunts and uncles. At a table way in the back, next to the door to the kitchen, is Jesus, sitting alone. He is dressed in leather and chains with biker logos and wears an earring.

My Thirties - Present: Hurriedly setting the table for dinner and feeling frazzled because I am running late again. In walks my dead friend Sam, who gives me a hard time because I am late for everything, including finishing our last conversation. Sam has gotten balder and fatter since his death - as if he has aged in the Afterlife. He sits at the table and I wake up.

Short Story: The World of Tomorrow

At first I couldn't tell how old Corry was. He had that disease where you start aging uncontrollably. I don't recall the name of it. You could tell by his clothes and the way he talked that he was a teenager. I met him in the seventies, when I was living in California.

Oh, yes: the "Streets of San Francisco." Every neighborhood's name seemed to paint a picture of itself: Chinatown . . . Sunset District . . . Cow Hollow . . . The Embarcadero. I lived in the Mission District. I loved that name – "Mission District" – it seemed sort of holy. I lived in an old row house converted into apartments, right next door to a greenhouse. The Mission District was quiet back then. A little like Petersburg, where I grew up.

Hard to tell if Corry was normal or not. He was real naïve and childlike. You'd tell him something and he listened, but usually he didn't say anything. He would just smile– smiled like he was seeing paradise. It was odd to see that smile, especially from a boy who could barely read and had a body that looked and moved like it was 80 years old. Corry smiled like he was looking through you, right down to your bones.

There aren't too many smiles like that in the world. Closest thing I can recall was Little Ma's face after she went blind. Little Ma always wanted me to go to church, but it didn't suit me. I told her so, too. She let it drop, but she would get me to read the Bible to her. And she would smile that smile -- and always look you right in the eye, even though she couldn't see a thing. Totally blind, but she never missed; always looked you in the eye. She looked at you like she was looking at God. That got me through Vietnam. Little Ma's smile made me stop being afraid of dying.

I moved to San Francisco when I got back from Nam and did a little bit of everything - private security, investigating. I mostly got home from work in the morning. Even if I were up all night on a stakeout or a security gig, I was keyed up when I got home. I couldn't sleep, so I sat on my balcony and read the paper to relax before I went to bed. That was about the time that Corry was coming to work in the greenhouse next to my building.

Corry would come around the corner, look up at me and say, "Top of the morning, Mr. Johnson!" Same thing every day - "Top of the morning, Mr. Johnson!" - like a leprechaun or something. I would always say the same thing to him, too: "What do you know good?" His answer never changed: "God is good, Mr. Johnson. God sure is good." I would just wave and go back to my paper.

One day Corry was coming to work as usual but before I heard his, "Top of the morning!" I saw him bend down to pick something up. I assumed it was a quarter or something. I didn't pay it any mind. But he called my name and asked me if I had ever seen anything like that before. I just knew that I was going to have to go down there. I didn't particularly want to but I did. When I got to the sidewalk Corry was holding a silver coin in the palm of his hand. He asked if I had ever seen anything like it.

I had. It was a 1939 World's Fair souvenir coin. My 1939 World's Fair souvenir coin. My parents saw that World's Fair when they were dating; my pop bought the coin as a souvenir. There were two buildings that were sort of trademarks for the fair that year. The Perisphere was a huge, round building built like a perfect sphere. The Trylon was an obelisk, like a sharp Washington Monument. Together they looked like something from the Emerald City. In fact, the sets of The Wizard of Oz were inspired by that Fair; both were in 1939. The buildings were on one side and the Fair's slogan was on the other: "The World of Tomorrow." It's funny today to think of people being so optimistic about the future, but they were back then.

When I was ten my pop gave me that coin. I was playing Little League - pitcher. I made the All-Star team that year. The morning of the big game, I was nervous. My pop came into my room and gave me the coin for good luck. He told me that the Perisphere was my baseball and the Trylon was my focus. "Keep cool and concentrate, son" he said. "If you do that, why, you'll throw that ball through the batter's strike zone, right into . . . The World of Tomorrow." I pitched a good game that day. Even though we lost I carried that coin around with me everywhere for luck. Carried it for years - had it in Vietnam, too. When I saw it in Corry's hand I knew it probably fell out of my pocket the night before.

I didn't have the heart to take it from him. Corry didn't read well, but he handled money and he knew it was different from regular coins. He said the words aloud like a secret message: "The World of Tomorrow". He asked me what it meant. I said I had heard of people finding unusual lucky coins and things. I said they were rare, each one intended for a specific person. Only that person could see the charm made for him. "Just think how many people passed this spot and never saw a thing," I told him. "You were the only one to notice." He asked what the pictures and the words meant. I said eventually he would know.

After all those years of holding onto that coin, I was surprised at how good it felt to let it go. It was like what my pop said all those years ago about pitching the baseball came true that day: I finally sent something into The World of Tomorrow.

After that, Corry started looking over every inch of that sidewalk like a hawk. I left little things for him. Never anything significant like the World's Fair coin, just little things every once in a while that I thought would catch his eye. Gumball machine toys, a key ring, good-fortune money from Chinatown. Corry just picked them up and smiled. Sometimes he would show them to me; most of the time not. It came to him naturally now.

A few weeks later, I saw an old lady walking toward the greenhouse one night. As she got closer, I realized that it was Corry's grandmother. She was looking for him. He didn't come home from work. She asked if I had seen him, and I hadn't – not since that morning. I had to get to work, but I said that I would keep an eye out ask around. I didn't find him. Not until the next morning.

"Top of the morning, Mr. Johnson." There he was walking down the street in the same clothes he had on the day before. It looked like he slept in them – or worse. I told him to wait right there. When I got to him, he smelled like cigarettes and stale beer. I asked where he had been, and he told me that he met some boys from Mobile who were in town for one night. They asked him if he wanted to join them, and he said sure. Probably never been "out with the boys" before in his life. They hit the bars in the Sunset District. He said that he had one beer in each bar. For a boy his size who never drank, that was more than enough.

Corry smiled and rolled up his sleeve to show me the circle and skinny triangle on his arm: the Perisphere and the Trylon. The pictures on his lucky coin. He said he never had to worry about losing his lucky coin anymore because the pictures were painted on his arm forever. I asked him where he got the money for a tattoo, and he said that his buddies chipped in for it. We got to his grandmother's house and I had him tell her what happened and made him show her the tattoo. She cried and then got furious and started trying to swat Corry, and I got between them. She sent Corry to his room and I tried to make her understand why he had done it.

That was the last time I saw Corry walking down the sidewalk in the morning because his grandmother drove him to work every day from then on. But if I were there as he was getting out of her Buick in the morning, it was still the same routine: "Top of the morning, Mr. Johnson" "What do you know good?" "God is good, Mr. Johnson. God sure is good."

That was the summer of 1978. By December, Corry began to miss work. When I did see him, he looked thin and worn. I saw him on the sidewalk one day and when I shook his hand I noticed something on his wrist. I asked him about it and he showed me six or seven purple spots on his arms. He asked me if what they were. I didn't know.

When Corry stopped showing up I went to the greenhouse to ask about him. They said that he was in the hospital. The cashier said they didn't know what was wrong but Corry's organs were slowing down and his lungs were full of fluid. Today it is pretty clear what happened, but back then the word didn't even exist. People didn't think much about sterilizing needles in those days - particularly not in a Sunset District tattoo parlor.

One cold, sunny day in February I saw the owner of the greenhouse wearing a suit and tie and locking the shop at about ten in the morning. I knew what this meant. I went down to the sidewalk to get the details. When I got to the church, the organ was playing "Blessed Assurance." I paid my respects to his grandmother and she told me that the coin was in his pocket. She said Corry told her how he found it a thousand times, and that I told him that the words and pictures had a meaning for him to discover.

I asked her what he said about them. Corry told her that the circle was the world. The long, skinny triangle beside it was God, coming from Heaven like a beam. When she asked him why the beam was next to the world and not touching it, Corry said that the beam of God's love was too strong for people in this world; it would just burn us up. So it stayed there, just beside us, watching and keeping us warm. After this life, he said, we would go to be with God and live inside that beam. That was what the words on the other side meant. That was the World of Tomorrow.

I went up and looked at Corry in his suit. For the first time he looked grown up, not old. I felt a strange sort of excitement knowing that my old coin was in his pocket. It was like he was taking it there for me, letting it finish its trip to the World of Tomorrow. Before I sat down I touched his hand – small as a child's but wrinkled like an old man's. And I told him what he had told me so many times before: "God is good, Corry. God sure is good."

She's Got the Whole World in Her Hand: The Joys of the 1970's L'Egg's Egg

I ordered it from Ebay and I love it. It is a very pleasant size and shape that is easily cradled in the hand. It spins pleasantly and vaguely awkwardly. Because it is a familiar form in an unfamiliar size, it has a surreal, enchanted, and otherworldly aspect.

Of course, the female reader aged thirty-five or older knows that this object is an egg designed to hold panty hose.

Hanes introduced the L'eggs egg in 1970. The decision to package pantyhose in toy-like plastic eggs seems odd today, but in the early 1970's this package held rich metaphorical connotations.

The egg is a potent and ancient symbol. Because of its association with the female reproductive system, the egg signifies fertility and new life. Cosmogonic myths of many cultures describe the world originating in a primal egg. Similarly, some figures of Western mythology such as Castor and Pollux were hatched from eggs.

Fast-forward two or three millennia to the zeitgeist of the early 1970's, the salad days of the women's movement: growing numbers of women entering the workforce, colleges becoming co-ed, protests for abortion rights and against beauty pageants. In 1972 Ms. magazine was founded; in the same year protesters against a Miss America pageant in Texas burned their bras in defiance, giving rise to an epithet – "bra burners" – that would deride the movement and its adherents for years afterward. If the bra were now a restrictive, counterrevolutionary instrument of female oppression, could pantyhose be far behind?

Enter the L'eggs egg. Prior to the early seventies, hosiery was traditionally pressed into shape and packaged in stiff cardboard. The decision to bunch pantyhose into plastic eggs for retail display emphasized the elasticity of new hosiery fibers and was in keeping with new cultural mandates to "hang loose" and refrain from being "up tight." The use of an egg for this purpose, with its symbolism of womanhood and new life, adds an additional layer to the message. The femaleness of the egg itself flatters the female consumer. The L'eggs egg in this context equaled a birth, in this case of a new, liberated woman who is relaxed and carefree. This new woman was literally free from the chore of ironing stockings as her grandmother did. Symbolically, she was free from the stiff and restricted mindset and meager options into which her grandmother had been pressed and folded and which the old packaging of the stockings represented.

But even unfolded hosiery had an image problem. Whether they come in cardboard packages or nifty plastic eggs, stockings are hot in the summer, offer no warmth in the winter, and have to be constantly replaced due to their frustrating lack of durability. The name "L'eggs" shows an understanding of this , cleverly calling attention to the hip and culturally aware packaging and not to the product that the package holds.

The French article "L'" is also a sophisticated use of language, because it associates L'eggs with the cultural sophistication (and sexual liberation) of the French and speaks to a more educated consumer. (The seventies were a decade in love with things French as the popularity in the 1970's of Renault's Le Car, the Au Bon Pain bread shops, and Perrier water equally attest. The French article, mandated by the egg packaging, falls into this broad trend.)

Most of all, the L'eggs egg suggests youth. It fits into the adult female hand in the same way that the classic Easter egg toy fits into a child's. Children's plastic Easter eggs often contain a piece of candy or a toy, so packaging stockings in the plastic eggs subliminally tells the consumer that the product inside is a treat and further refutes women's frustration with uncomfortable and expensive stockings. Those who remember buying this product will recall that the bunched stockings that filled the L'eggs egg tightly filled the package, causing them to burst from the egg when it was opened, almost as if they had taken on a life of their own once they were hatched into being.

A term for "girl" or "woman" in the counterculture of the sixties and seventies was "chick." Although considered a sexist term today, the "chick" of the late sixties was stylish and modern because of her association with trendy youth. Chicks are hatched from eggs, so the wearer of the stockings from the L'eggs egg is, by extension, takes on the cool, "chick" qualities.

The 1980's saw a decline in interest in the women's movement of the sixties and seventies (extensively documented in Susan Faludi's superior 1991 book The Backlash). In the same period, the environmentalist movement gained momentum and focused consumer attention on the implications of non-biodegradable packaging, particularly of consumer goods that had to be replaced frequently. The L'eggs egg was discontinued in 1991 and replaced with cardboard box packaging in response to environmental concerns. I am all for saving the environment; who isn't? But those dreary cardboard boxes will never have the sensual cachet and decadence of breaking open a giant Easter egg every morning as you get dressed for another day at the office.

Theatre Review: Bad Times

The inevitably disastrous new musical by Twyla Tharp, The Times They Are A-Changin' has finally opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Among many other things, I collect Playbills from flop musicals. I can only hope for the sake of the American musical that this one can soon be assigned to that category.

I was completely horrified, as were all of my musical-enthusiast friends, when I first heard about this project. How ironic that Twyla Tharp and Bob Dylan, two innovators who energized their respective art forms, now exemplify so much that is wrong with current trends in musical theatre.

As a composer/lyricist, I know first-hand that writing
American folk-ballad melodies is FAR easier than creating a clean, original, single-line melody of the kind that once typified Broadway. Indeed, Bob Dylan's genius was similar to that of French singer Jacques Brel: taking a standard folksong form and turning it into a medium for brilliantly conceived lyrics. Dylan's genius was words, not music.

Why didn't someone tell Twyla and Bob that intimate coffeehouse tunes will not sustain a big, two-hour live theatre performance? And without the labor of writing songs,
couldn't Twyla at least have produced a book with interesting commentary on Dylan's origins and his contributions to American song? We are given instead a goopy "psychological" interpretation (complete with circus folk) that rings of Fellini - if Fellini were stripped bare of his talent and vision. Most ironically of all, there are few interesting dance numbers even though the show's creator is best know for her work in that medium.

Twyla Tharp seems to have forgotten that brilliant works are most often conceived and created in a fury of inspiration. Lacking that, she has taken the more traveled path: attempting to defrost and reheat a previous success (Movin' Out) and employing a committee of experts to help. The most sobering realization of all is that this is precisely the direction that movies were taking a few years ago. One only need look at the first-run films in any Multiplex to see the sleep-inducing result. They must appeal to everyone, and therefore appeal to no one. I fervently hope that this will not happen to the theatre, as well.

I can't explain Dylan's cooperation with this mediocre project. Was it megalomania? Lack of understanding of the musical medium? Boredom? A need for ready cash? Ongoing injuries from the motorcycle accident? To see a great American poet reduced to such an inferior project is most upsetting of all.

I have a longstanding disdain for jukebox musicals and I await a return of standards and originality in American musical theatre. For some reason, however, this Dylan project has bothered me more than Jersey Boys, Movin' Out, and the rest of the dull line-up of usual suspects. Maybe this is because, unlike Frankie Avalon or Billy Joel, Dylan truly was a transformative figure in music. This dreadful formula that I call "musical theatre by numbers" cheapens even Dylan while it continues to damage the theatre in general.

Slack and Blue: An Appreciation of Bluegrass

I have a question: Are the people in bluegrass the kindest and most talented
musicians out there? And I will answer it: Yes.

I lost my cousin last November after his long and heroic struggle with cancer. In addition to giving the eulogy, which was one of the greatest honors of my life, I was asked to help find music for the post-service reception. My cousin loved bluegrass and I had to locate musicians quickly. I worked a couple of contacts from my network of songwriter friends. I was not prepared for how completely overwhelmed I would be by the humanity exhibited by the members of the bluegrass community. The fact that I was a perfect stranger with a last-minute request made their actions even more remarkable.

In response to my request, usually delivered by a friend of a friend, musicians from all over the country sent me contacts, made contact with other musicians on my behalf, sent me suggested songs, often with commentary and background notes on the various selections. In almost every case, the people who were doing this were people who play music as an avocation, a cherished sideline that has to be juggled in with the endless responsibilities of a day job and daily life.

Through that network of connections, I came across a supurb Richmond ensemble called The Slack Family. The reception took place in the restaurant where we last gathered to celebrate my cousin's birthday and what we believed was his recovery from cancer in June. Without that beautiful, ancient American music to purify and lift the atmosphere, it would have been impossible to walk in there. But as it was, people were invigorated as they entered that hall to greet friends and family members while the music that my cousin loved so much played in the background.

As someone who knows little about this kind of music, I was astonished by how technically demanding the bluegrass form is. Why don't people talk about bluegrass musicians in the same awe-struck terms used to describe, say, classical pianists, or violin virtuosi? Is it some regional prejudice that says mountain music is "simple"? Is it the archaic language of many of the lyrics? The accents? The hats? The legacy of the awful opening minutes in the film deliverance? Who knows.

As I say, I know almost nothing about this kind of music, but I have gone to the symphony all my life and the opera for most of my adult life. The bluegrass musicians whose work I sampled as I worked on those arrangements could easily occupy the same stages as any those musicians in terms of knowledge and craft. And it hardly needs to be said that in terms of kindness and humility, they far exceed many of their peers in other musical styles.