Smokin' Room

Bountiful Baldessari

You've only until January 9 to catch John Baldessari: Pure Beauty at the Metropolitan Museum.  His work, boldly visual and often laugh-out-loud funny, is all over the mediums.  Some of us consider such precociousness a bonus.  Go.

 

 

Don't Ask, Don't Tell 1993-2010

R.I.P., you dirty bastard...

Blake Edwards Film Director 1922-2010

Edwards on the set of The Days of Wine and Roses in 1962.  RIP

Let nothing you dismay

I knew the dark days were here when I snapped at a woman over wrapping paper yesterday.  I was minding my own business at Jack’s when she appeared, musing out over whether to buy this gift paper or that.  Slowly it dawned that her loud utterances were an attempt to suck me into her indecision (“oh, this one is pretty, but…I don’t know…”), a misguided meet cute if ever there was one.  After a few moments of this, I wheeled around and said, “What is the big deal?  Either you want 6ft or 1ft for 1.99—it’s that simple.”  Startled, she hastily grabbed a fat cheap roll of paper and left. 

Miss Holiday Cheer had met her Grinch, er, match of the season.  And I regretted it.  This is why I go out of my way to avoid buying such things at peak hours, lest I confront others whose IQs suddenly drop when surrounded by the shiny offal meant to celebrate the aggressively poor Baby Jesus.  Why I start looking for gifts as early as the end of summer, and limit my exposure to things like holiday parties and stores that play treacle-rimmed renditions of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.”  At the best of times my patience with meandering crowds is nil, but in a store that shouts, “Spend Money!  Be Happy!  It’s Christmas!” as people stagger like zombies, well, let’s just say I discover how quickly my heart shifts from chocolate melt to cinderblock. 

I confess the times are out of joint.  I’m enduring a layoff, the first time I’ve been without a job since I was 14, and the financial challenges of unemployment (the tiny payout is the price one pays for living in the world’s greatest city).  My feckless sinuses have tortured me since October; the flu shot I got on the first of December has induced the genuine article, which means my nose runs like a faucet as I endure the kind of coughing spells that give me headaches.   But these triggers are simply variations on an old background: these holidays have been a trial since I was a kid.  Face it, Christmas is a child’s holiday, and the joy of it hinges on expectations of gifts under the tree—as the sixth of ten children I always found that aspect, compared to that of my friends (who of course came from smaller families) wanting to say the least.  

As an adult I experienced a paralyzing loneliness my first few years in New York.  I couldn’t afford to return to my hometown; my then-spouse was an only child whose folks flew him back, leaving me to wander NYC streets devoid of their usual spark.  Years later, that same man slowly died over a series of Christmases and New Years as I and his friends looked on; years after that, I could barely look at a lighted tree or do an office party without being plunged into a deep depression. 

That quotient of sadness lingers, albeit in a muted form.  I find that I can bury the emotion for the sake of my dear friends (one bonus is that suddenly everyone has more time) and a boyfriend who doesn’t share my history.  I’m happy to make it all about him, and in this I’m consoled by a pleasure I’d indulge no matter the holiday: I get to give him gifts of things he wants and things I think he should have (read: I get to make him over.  Sly, huh?).  We even get a tree, which fills our place with a nice smell—and when the thing turns brown, my boyfriend lets me pitch it off our 5^th floor fire escape while he stands below to make sure no one gets impaled.   The tree makes a nice crash on the sidewalk below.

For the rest, well, I’ve learned to limit my exposure.  No Christmas music.  No holiday TV specials.  I do the bare minimum of holiday parties.  And I take a lot of daytime walks to forestall the gloom of those early nightfalls.  Mostly I try to manage my attitude, hold on the awareness that for others it’s an excuse to be deliriously happy.   If I keep my mouth shut, maybe some year I’ll finally get swept up in the bonhomie and some of that tinseled cheer will rub off.  Just don’t get any on my sweater, okay?

 

Stop the Bullying. No Place for Politics in Art.

Not to mention religion.  From the New York Times Arts Beat Blog, a  response to the Smithsonian's recent excision of the late David Wojnarowicz's (pictured above) work from their current exhibition, after harassment from the head of the Catholic League and a few bullying Republican Congressmen.  Bravo to Wachs and his board--we cannot allow politics to dictate what people can, and can't see. And shame on the Smithsonian for such cowardice.

DECEMBER 13, 2010, 3:18 PM

Warhol Foundation Threatens to End Financing of Smithsonian Exhibitions

By KATE TAYLOR

The Andy Warhol Foundation is threatening to stop its financing of Smithsonian Institution exhibitions if the institution does not restore a work of art that was removed from an exhibition after it drew attacks by the head of the Catholic League and some Republican members of Congress. The Warhol Foundation gave $100,000 to the Smithsonian for the exhibition, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” at the National Portrait Gallery, from which the work was removed.

In a letter sent on Monday to the head of the Smithsonian, G. Wayne Clough, Joel Wachs, the president of the Warhol Foundation, said that the foundation’s board voted unanimously on Friday to demand that the Smithsonian restore the work, an excerpt of a video by the artist David Wojnarowicz, to the exhibition or the foundation would reject any future grant requests.

“I regret that you have put us in this position, but there is no other course we can take,” Mr. Wachs wrote in the letter, which the foundation also sent to news organizations. “For the arts to flourish the arts must be free, and the decision to censor this important work is in stark opposition to our mission to defend freedom of expression wherever and whenever it is under attack.”

A spokeswoman for the Smithsonian, Linda St. Thomas, said that she did not know if Mr. Clough had seen the letter yet, but “as far as I know we are not putting the video back and we are not changing anything else in the exhibition.”

The video by Mr. Wojnarowicz, “A Fire in My Belly,” was pulled from the exhibition two weeks ago on Mr. Clough’s orders after the head of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, described it as hateful to Catholics because it includes an image of ants crawling over a crucifix. House Republicans condemned the exhibition as an “outrageous use of taxpayer money.”

In the last three years the Warhol Foundation has given a total of $375,000 for various Smithsonian exhibitions including, in addition to “Hide/Seek,” the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s Yves Klein and Anne Truitt exhibitions, and an exhibition of the art of William T. Wiley at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

“We felt it was really necessary to take this strong step, and we are going to back it,” Mr. Wachs said in a telephone interview. “I’m hopeful that others will follow suit.”

 

Ancient Evenings

When I first moved to New York I knew a girl who fancied herself a kind of Holly Golightly.  Oh, her nights!  Always, she was full of stories about the latest film that mustn’t be missed, or that cool art opening she crashed the previous weekend.  She represented the possibility of inclusion: one day those of us whose faces were pressed against the window of Manhattan would be welcomed like she had been.  One day I’d obtain the polish, the confidence that would grant entry into the special places trumpeted in the society pages.

One such place was Elaine’s.  One of the first stories she told was about a night spent at that stronghold of the literary/celebrity set on the Upper East Side.  It sounded more interesting to me than a night at Studio 54—I imagined Elaine’s as a place where you actually talked to people about substantial things, like books, movies and music.   “Everyone goes there,” she used to say in a way that was part promise, part threat.  Even if the opportunity arose I doubted I'd have the courage to enter such a place; the confluence of talent would be too intimidating, too overwhelming for a lowly actor living on cheap beer and Kraft’s Macaroni and Cheese.  Still, when I found myself in that neighborhood, I made it a destination.  I’d peer into the windows, hoping for a glimpse of magical people, I don’t know, eating soup?  Maybe Norman Mailer would slug someone; Fran Leibowitz might sneer at a too-full-of-himself waiter.  Something… 

I haven’t seen my old friend in almost 20 years; since then her exploits are tempered by revelations that she fabricated many aspects of her fabulous life (not uncommon among Middle-American transplants to the city, I’ve found).  Age, and a finite number of waking hours, has made me value quiet nights at home vs. life lived in thrall to the social whirl.  This morning when I read the obit for Elaine Kaufman, I recalled a time when I was too hayseed to partake of the NYC I adopted in the 1980s, but mesmerized by the myth of place.  I still am: Elaine’s remains to this day part of the legend of a city bedecked with golden haunts, dazzling backrooms of culture and wit where the air is electric, where magical evenings still occur.  I plan to go…one day.  RIP, Elaine Kaufman.

 

Jill Clayburgh 1944-2010

There’s a hole in the world.  Or, to spin it like my yoga teacher, nothing’s broken, it's neither right or wrong: things are just out of…balance.  The GOP is gaining again, ironically invoking their nauseous less-government mantra as they fight like dogs to give the rich a tax pass and legislate morality re: telling me what I can or can’t read, watch, or who I can love (This is the will of the people?  These are not people I want to know).  I’m gaining an hour tonight (hello sleep), an adjustment that’ll rob me of sorely needed daylight hours.  The seasonal changes are running my sinuses rampant, a state of headachy affairs that casts a fog over my sex drive, eyesight and productivity.
To top it off my Demeter doldrums are dialed a pitch above heartbreak as I watch my idols leave the known world.  Double knockout this week, when composer Jerry Bock joined his Fiddler on the Roof partner Joseph Stein in musical comedy heaven.  James MacArthur, a sweetheart of an actor who’ll be forever famous as Danno on the original Hawaii-Five O TV series died in October, as did Tom Bosley (Happy Days, Broadway’s Fiorello) and Leave It to Beaver’s Barbara Billingsley (I can still hear Eddie Haskell’s cloying “Hello, Mrs. Cleaver” in my ear).
This morning I felt a hole in my heart as NY1 announced the death of Jill Clayburgh.  Earlier this week a tip that something was amiss came via the news that daughter Lily Rabe was taking a leave from Broadway’s The Merchant of Venice for a family emergency.   The death of her mother was the last thing I imagined.  Clayburgh had me at hello the first time I saw her onscreen in a 70s made-for-TV drama called Hustling; since then I’ve been smitten with those saucer eyes and that voice, a vinegary alto that made dialogue ping (From An Unmarried Woman: “He was buying a shirt at Bloomingdales and fell in love.” Just Rent It).  It was a steady career that didn’t burn as bright as it should have (it always pissed me off when, mentioning her name, my enthusiasm was met with a blank face.  People are dense), making me think what a broken thing this Hollywood, that couldn’t find more to do with her.  Thank heavens for the New York stage, where she graced three plays in a single season a few years back: The Clean Room, A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, and a revival of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park (as the mother: the whole time I couldn’t help thinking what a great Cory Bratter she would’ve been in her day).  My stomach hurts as I write this—an ache to fill the void.  RIP, to one whose charm offensive never failed to make me smile.  Miss you already.
 

Arthur Penn 1922-2010

 
Goodbye to the great Arthur Penn--cinephiles should honor him by taking a second look at some of his notable works (try your local library).  Some favorites:

The Miracle Worker

Bonnie and Clyde

Little Big Man

Night Moves

The Chase

(above right, with Gene Hackman filming Night Moves)

Harold Gould, Late Bloomer 1923-2010

 
Gould in Woody Allen's Love and Death (1975). RIP

Kevin McCarthy 1914-2010