Look Read Listen

Sanctuary for the winged wounded

2011-07-28T05:18:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: A different version of this story appeared in the Berkshire Eagle July 17, 2011. For pictures, directions, and more information on Berkshire Bird Paradise click here. For more information on the work of Barbara Chepaitis click here.

Mitch, a steppe eagle from Afghanistan, has become quite a celebrity over the course of the past year, but remains humble, sharing his living quarters with a golden eagle named Thor and Buddy, a red-tailed hawk.

"I think he considers Thor like a father figure," said Pete Dubacher as we watched the birds.

Dubacher runs Berkshire Bird Paradise in Grafton, N.Y., where Mitch will be living out the rest of his life, thousands of miles from where he was shot by an Afghani soldier and rescued by a U.S. Navy SEAL team.

Dubacher’s role in Mitch’s rescue began with an unexpected call.

"Last June I got a call from Afghanistan," Dubacher said. "I thought it was a prank."

It wasn’t.

A special operations unit had taken the bird in after it was shot in the left wing at a rifle range. The team, while working in a combat zone, spent four months caring for the eagle they named "Mitch" after the snake in the movie "Road Trip."

"It shows compassion," Dubacher, a Vietnam veteran, said of the soldiers’ actions. "It’s a testament to our country."

The soldiers had heard about Dubacher’s work and asked him to take the eagle.

"Of all the places in the country, they called me," said Dubacher. "I’m a nobody. I’m in the middle of nowhere."

In truth, Dubacher has made a name for himself nationally for his dedication to the thousands of birds he’s rescued
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over the years.

He’s been caring for birds since 1972, a hobby that quickly spiraled into a life’s work.

"People would call me and ask me to take these birds," he said. "I can’t say no. If I don’t take care of them who will?"

By 1975 he had converted his parents’ 20-acre farm into a bird sanctuary.

He admits it’s not an easy life. He does most of the work himself, which helps keep costs down, but is hard on him and his family.

"You make a lot of sacrifices. I have no social life. You put everything into it, but I’m loving what I do," he said.

After the phone call from Afghanistan, Dubacher called his friend, the writer Barbara Chepaitis, to help in trying to coordinate getting Mitch to America.

"She doesn’t take no for an answer," he said.

Chepaitis spent the next 137 days tirelessly taking on numerous government agencies.

"I delved into it with gusto," she said. "It felt impossible to get one good thing done. I devoted myself to proving that wrong."

Her fight went all the way to the White House, she said, and by September Mitch was allowed into the country. After a month in quarantine he was at his new home in upstate New York.

The experience taught the writer that "change is possible if you are persistent," something she also finds in Dubacher.

"His perseverance is what inspires us all," she said.

Dubacher, she said, works on the edge between "all possibility and all risk," a place she was drawn to as a writer.

She ended up writing a book about Dubacher and his work, "Feathers of Hope," and is now working on a book about Mitch -— "Saving Eagle Mitch: One Good Deed in a Wicked World."

And as for Mitch he has adjusted well to his new life, according to Dubacher, and is once again healthy, although unable to fly.

Mitch is just one of more than a thousand birds as well as tortoises, squirrels, deer, and orchids at Berkshire Bird Paradise and Dubacher seems inspired by them all.

He also raises bald eagles he releases into the wild, helping to repopulate the species in the region.

Saturday, he was doing a "soft release," with a 13-week old bald eagle, beginning the process of teaching it to live on its own.

"I’m so proud right now," he said watching the eagle soar across the sky. "I’ve got goose bumps."

Turning away from the scene he seemed reflective.

"I'm blessed to be able to pull this off," he said. "When you do things for the right reasons, put your body and soul into it, there's a power out there that will take care of you."

Hazel Rowley on the Roosevelts

2011-05-28T05:43:00.000-07:00

Editor's note: Hazel Rowley, a biographer whose most recent work dealt with the complicated relationship of first couple Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, died suddenly March 1 after a series of strokes related to an undiagnosed infection. I had interviewed her only weeks before for this piece, a version of which ran in the Register-Star Feb. 10. I found the 59-year-old Australian-reared writer funny, brilliant and giving. She told me she was planning on writing about the era just after FDR's death when a pall of conservatism hung over America. I only wish she could have finished.

In Hazel Rowley’s newest book she explores one couple’s “extraordinary marriage.” That couple happens to be made up of two singular Americans — Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt — who helped define an era and hold a country together during the dark days of the Depression and World War II.

According to the author, she hit upon the idea of writing "Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: An Extraordinary Marriage," while visiting the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park.

She said that while on the tour people kept asking questions about the Roosevelts’ marriage. Many were interested in the couple, it seemed, as was Rowley, so much so that she spent three years writing the book.
And in her opinion, it was an extraordinary 40-year marriage and one that moved from a conventional Victorian relationship — the distant cousins were married in 1905 — to one that encompassed an openness that included romantic friendships with others, but remained rooted in abiding love and respect.

Theirs was a “community marriage,” said Rowley, filled with close-knit family, including FDR’s overbearing mother, and friends.

When Franklin contracted polio at 39 the circle grew, since he needed help almost 24-hours a day. The disease created a situation where the couple were living at close quarters with a number of aides and others who were fiercely loyal to them and in return received the same.

“They were an unconventional couple ... after Franklin got polio in 1921 their marriage opened up,” Rowley said.

Distance would seem to have been one factor in the nature of their relationship.

“There was five years — between 1923 and 1928 — where he was away from home more than at home,” said Rowley.

For example, FDR was away from home during the period between 1925 and 1928 for 116 weeks while trying to recover from his disease. His wife was with him for four of those weeks, while his social secretary, Missy LeHand, with whom he ended up having a long romance with, was with him for 110.

“He had to find himself again as a man,” said the author. “(Eleanor) understood that.”

Eleanor’s role also changed after FDR contracted polio. She pushed him to continue his political career and took on much of the burden of making his political life possible.

“It was her passion,” said Rowley. “It was the glue that held their marriage together.”

FDR apparently understood this.

“He knew what he owed to Eleanor,” she told me.

While Eleanor denied the fact that she wanted to be First Lady, saying as much in her autobiography “This is My Life,” Rowley doesn’t buy it.

“She said it in her autobiography, but that doesn’t mean we need to believe it,” the author said.

Rowley said it was written while the couple was in the White House, at a time when the Republicans were looking for fodder against the administration and already calling Eleanor a “petticoat president.”

Rowley doesn’t believe the Roosevelts could have lived the life they did in today’s world.

She said it was a different time, with the press respecting their privacy and the president’s public image, going so far as to never film FDR being lifted in and out of his car.

After FDR’s death in 1945, Eleanor continued to be a progressive voice in a newly conservative America, said Rowley.

This period, beginning just after the Roosevelt era, when a “fog of conservatism” fell across America, in Rowley’s words, will be the subject of her next book.

The author, who resides in New York City, has written a number of other biographies including one about the relationship of Simone De Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.

The crime commission comes to Hudson

2011-02-05T05:56:00.000-08:00

Mention Hudson’s Diamond Street to people of a certain age in the area and you may be likely to hear a story about a neighborhood known for its flaunting of the law, a place where gambling and prostitution thrived.

The funniest story this reporter heard related to Diamond Street, by then renamed Columbia, involved a man I met in Kinderhook. It was the late 1940s and he and his new bride, on their way south to honeymoon, stopped in Hudson for the night. Not knowing their way around, the newlyweds ended up on Columbia Street looking for a hotel. The man left his bride in the car and went to find out the price of a room at what appeared to be a small hotel. He soon realized his mistake when he was greeted by the denizens of the establishment. Needless to say the couple didn’t stay.

Our friend in Kinderhook may not have been aware of Hudson’s reputation, but he was apparently in the minority.

“The little town with the big red-light district,” as Hudson was known for many years, had a reputation that stretched along the east coast and through history, beginning almost from the founding of the city in 1785.

Everyone from early sailors who plied the Hudson to Albany politicians who came down from the capitol on Fridays, allegedly after knocking off early from governmental duties, spent money and time with the painted ladies of Hudson. While there they could also take a roll of the dice, plunk down cash for a chance to win at the numbers, or place a bet for horse races anywhere in the country they happened to be running.

Everything seemed to be running smoothly with Hudson’s vice trade until that warm summer night when a long line of trucks and sedans slowly pulled onto Columbia Street.

Fifty state troopers quickly smashed in the doors of six “disorderly houses” as the newspaper delicately put it, located on Columbia Street between North Third and Fourth Streets. Twenty three women were rounded up, as were two Hudson Police Officers who were in one of the houses of assignation at the time. Four of the women were charged with operating the houses; the others, prostitutes all, were charged with vagrancy.

A pinochle game was raided as well that night, with other gambling house raids following.

While the raid stirred the city and county up and generated some headlines regionally, it also turned the head of a man who had of late lost a run to the White House.

A year and a half after the raid, in December 1951, then-Gov. Thomas Dewey issued an executive order that sent his State Crime Commission, created by Dewey in April 1950, to Hudson to look into “the relationship between organized crime and units of government.”

The committee reported its findings to the governor and legislature.

Hudson was only the third place the commission had been to, the others being Staten Island, where waterfront corruption was looked into, and St. Lawrence County.

The public hearings, according to Judge Joseph Proskauer, who headed up the commission, were being done for the sake of “the public peace, public safety and public justice.”

The commission came to Hudson and set up camp at the county courthouse for three days, from Dec. 17 to 19, subpoenaed 200 county residents and ripped the lid off a corrupt system that included collusion between government officials, gamblers, and houses of prostitution. Several wire services were also brought to task for providing tickers so that illegal horse room operators could get up to date information on horse races around the country.

Interestingly, the only connection the commission found between organized crime and Hudson’s inner-workings was between a gambler named Raymond Van Buren, who ran an illegal horse room and had a tenuous connection to Frank Erickson, New York City’s “King of the Bookies.” Van Buren allegedly gave a good bit of money to the Hudson Democratic Committee in order to keep his business open.

What it did find included a city police force and city officials who seemed to look the other way when it came to prostitution and gambling and both Republican and Democratic committees that shook down vice peddlers and used some of the money to buy votes.

John Gibbons, the former Democratic County Committee chair from 1931 to 1951, admitted that he would meet with other committeemen at the Register-Star building, then known as the Evening Register, to dole out funds to be used “as they saw fit.”

When asked if the money was used to buy votes, he answered in the affirmative, adding “anybody likes a dollar bill.”

When confronted with paperwork that showed the party disbursed more money than they had taken in, he had no answer.

The Republicans, according to testimony given at the hearings, apparently ran things the same way.

Former district attorney and city judge Thomas Kennedy told the commission that he made “contributions” to the county Republicans and that the amount paid was directly “calculated on length of term and salary.”

John Fardy, the former head of the Hudson City Democrats and police commissioner, told the commission that there was an arrangement with the Republican Party to divide up city government positions, giving the example of the Republicans agreeing not to run anyone against the Democrats’ city judge candidate and in exchange the Democrats allowed the Republicans to run the mayoral candidate unopposed.

Vera Faith, who operated a house of prostitution at 340 Columbia Street, was brought before the commission. She said she usually had between one and three girls working for her at any one time. An advertisement in a Poughkeepsie social event program that read “Vera’s, Come on up boys. Sporting Merchandise” was trotted out for the hearing.

Carol Desmond, the operator of a house at 325 Columbia Street, also appeared. She was a little less forthcoming than Faith, saying that the three girls that worked for her—Donna, Patricia and Billy—“sold things.”

When a stack of cards with the girls’ names and heart-shaped punch holes was proffered, Desmond answered simply that they “were used in my business.”

In the eight month period, in 1949-1950, she operated her business, Desmond made $24,000, almost $220,000 in today’s dollars. She didn’t pay taxes on any of it.

The citizenry, when brought to bear for Hudson’s rampant vice, pretty much had the same attitude as Samuel Berman.

“They might profit by it, but I don’t think they condone it,” he said of the city’s business community.

Berman owned the house at 325 Columbia Street, which he rented to Desmond and eventually sold to her.

He told the committee that he suspected what the house was being used for, but didn’t know for sure.

When Kennedy was asked why he didn’t clean up the city while D.A., he answered that he had tried to get outside help for an undercover investigation, but was told that he would have to go through regular channels, that is, Hudson’s mayor and the governor’s office.

“I might just as well put it in the paper,” he said.

The district attorney who did finally help clean up the city was John McLaren. He went directly to the governor’s counsel, who put him in touch with the NYS Police superintendent, leading to the Hudson raid.

He told the commission that he had had trouble getting the Hudson Police to cooperate. They balked in regard to getting warrants, he said.

But even McLaren had balked at untangling the strings that led from vice to government.

He told the commission he would be “glad to prosecute gamblers and hoodlums, but...to bring some political figures in here, as you’ve done...it’s tough.”

After the dust cleared from the commission’s presence, a dozen Hudson officers are brought up on different charges, with nine being reinstated with back pay. Benjamin Goldstein, a crap game operator, does a year in jail and the houses of prostitution, its denizens and Hudson’s colorful past fade into history.

Hudson's WPA art project

2011-01-19T09:01:00.002-08:00

It was 1938, in the midst of the Great Depression, and Hudson’s post office, located at Union Street and South Fourth Street, was expanding. It was also getting a new wall full of sculptures depicting the evolution of transportation.
Built between 1909 and 1911, the post office saw an expansion project that was first authorized in 1931 under an amendment to the federal “Public Buildings Act of 1926” that helped fund the construction of more than 100 federal buildings across the United States, including Federal Triangle in Washington D.C.
The project was reauthorized in 1934 and construction finally began in 1938 after the purchase of adjoining land.
The Hudson Daily Star of Feb. 2, 1938 makes mention of the deal struck between Catherine Tracy and the federal government for the purchase of her property for $12,500. The house was torn down in order to make room for the expansion to the east side of the post office building.
Catherine Tracy, née Cadman, was the widow of Dr. Aurelius Tracy, who had died a few years prior to the sale. He was a graduate of Cornell University and the Homeopathic Medical College in New York City. He had a practice in Hudson from 1887 until his death.
Among the 1938 additions to the post office was an art project funded by the Works Progress Administration, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. While the WPA provided the grant, the sculptures that grace the inside of the post office were actually created under the auspices of the Treasury Department Art Program. Created in 1935 through a $530,000 grant from the WPA, the project’s mission was to employ out of work artists to decorate federal buildings that had no money in their construction budget for art. The total project costs were $771,521, close to $12,000,000 in today’s dollars.
Headed by Olin Dows, himself a painter, TRAP was the smallest and most competitive of the New Deal programs, becoming known among artists as “the Ritz,” making reference to the famed New York hotel.
The program was allowed to hire 450 artists, but 75 percent were required to come from relief rolls. The requirement was initially overlooked in order to maintain the quality of the work, in the administrators’ opinions, and only 356 artists were hired during its existence.
While Dows was TRAP’s head, the program was supervised by the Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture, which had been established the year before, also under the auspices of the WPA. The Section, as it was known was administered by Edward Bruce, who was also an artist, but had made his name as a lawyer, newspaper owner and banker. Both Bruce and Dows were born in the Hudson Valley, Bruce in Dover Plains and Dows in Irvington-On-Hudson, in Westchester County.
It was Bruce who felt relying strictly on out of work artists would reduce the caliber of the work being made for the federal buildings and it wasn’t until several artists’ unions protested that the number of artists in the program went from around 250 to a little more than 350.
The program, which lasted until the end of 1938, helped create 85 murals, 39 sculptures and 10, 215 easel works.
Among the lucky artists to be employed by TRAP were, according to Jacob Baal-Teshuva in his 2003 book “Rothko,” a laundry list of now famous American artists, including Mark Rothko, Willem De Kooning and Jackson Pollock, among others.
Another artist who was hired by TRAP, was the Russian-born sculptor Vincent Glinsky who, with the assistance of Leo Schulemowitz, created the Hudson Post Office piece.
The wall of sculpture, located on the north end of the building, depicts a Native American and Henry Hudson, among other figures. The piece also includes a number of smaller panels that illustrate various modes of transportation, from sailing ships to an airplane.
The sculptures were created using the cast stone process, a technique dating back to at least the 1100s, in which crushed stone or cement is poured into molds and, as the name suggests, cast. It resembles sculpted stone and is often more durable.
Glinsky was born in 1895, emigrated from Russia as a young man and attended school in Syracuse before moving to New York City where he studies at a number of institutions, including Columbia University, City College and the Beaux Arts Institute of Design. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935 and went abroad to Italy and France. When he came back to the United States it was the height of the Depression, but was able to get a job as a TRAP artist.
Known for his directly carved stone sculptures, mostly of the female nude, he also worked in wood, terra cotta, watercolor and lithography. After completing his piece in Hudson he began teaching at his alma mater , the Beaux Arts Institute of Design, and would become a sought after instructor, working at both Brooklyn College and in Columbia University's Adult Education Division during the summers. His work was shown at a number of prestigious galleries and museums, including the Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art, all in New York. He died in 1975.
Glinsky’s work, although sometimes straying into abstraction, was of an older tradition. His assistant on the Hudson project, Schulemowitz, who was 16 years Glinsky’s junior and once remarked that “art Is the highest form Of play,” was of a more experimental vein, working in a non-objective style for much of his career. Even so, while working for TRAP and later for the WPA, he worked in a figurative style. After completing the post office commission in Hudson, Schulemowitz was given his own projects, including a piece, “Indian and Trader,”—created in 1942—that hangs in another post office, this one in Miamisburg, Ohio.

Menus and Memories: An Interview with Ruth Reichl

2010-10-18T06:58:00.000-07:00

The sense of taste and our memory are, say scientists, inexorably linked, so perhaps it’s natural that one of the country’s preeminent food writers has made a career out of penning memoirs. Ruth Reichl, author and the former editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine and New York Times restaurant critic, will be in Hudson Oct. 9 for a day that incorporates both food and memory.

Since her background is in art history it seems Reichl became a food writer almost by chance.

“I fell into it,” she said, “like most people fall into things.”

She said after graduate school at Michigan State University she moved back to New York City.

“I thought I would just waltz into MOMA and they’d need a new curator,” she laughed. “To my horror they didn’t.”

She was living on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and having large dinner parties for friends. At the time, she said, the neighborhood was still an ethnic enclave with Little Italy still vibrant and Chinatown close by. She began “cooking all these foods and collecting recipes.”

A friend suggested she write a cookbook and the 21-year-old took her friend’s advice.

“In those days you could do that. No one asked me what my credentials were,” she said. “Everyone thought I was a food writer and it went from there.”

Two years after her cookbook “Mmmmm: A Feastiary,” was published in 1972, Reichl was living in California and was the co-owner and cook of the collective restaurant The Swallow. She was part of what would become known as the “culinary revolution,” centered around Berkeley, which focused on using fresh, seasonal and local ingredients in cooking. From this small epicurean epicenter began a mass movement that changed the way many Americans eat.

Reichl said she has happily watched “the great evolution of American food culture and how it has become part of the popular culture. I’m thrilled, but not surprised. My whole career I’ve been waiting for Americans to wake up to food.”

Food has seemingly always played an important part in Reichl’s life as evinced by three of her four memoirs in which food looms large, the overarching theme that ties her life together.

Writing about the people in her life Reichl’s descriptions can often seem unflattering, but, according to the author, she always writes the truth.

“If you’re writing a memoir what’s the point if you’re not going to tell the truth,” she said. “If not, you might as well write fiction.”

Reichl admitted that she probably couldn’t have written her first memoir, “Tender at the Bone: Growing up at the Table,” had her parents still been alive.

Her latest memoir is “For You Mom, Finally,” which explores her mother’s life and how that generation of women were mostly relegated to being housewives.

In a way, she said, it was an atonement for how she presented her mother in the first memoir.

While her earlier descriptions are all true, she said, so are those in the latest book. “It’s just the other side of the coin,” she said. “She was a very difficult and exceedingly generous woman.”

The change in her perception of her mother came about gradually as she read through a box of old letters and diaries her mother had been writing for a better part of her life.

“I didn’t know,” she said of this other side of her mother. “It was a side she kept to her self.”

The impetus for the book began with a speech Reichl had written for what would have been her mother’s 100th birthday.

“I knew from my speech that ... I had empathy for my mother and her whole generation of women,” she said. “I did not expect to find self-awareness. It was a real surprise.”

Reichl said that through writing the book she discovered just how much her mother had sacrificed for her daughter.

“It was a really difficult experience,” she said. “I cried practically every day while writing that book.”

Writing the book, she said, finally allowed her to “grow up fully” and see her parents not just as her parents, but as people. “You let go of them,” she said.

According to Reichl, another big surprise for her was how some of her readers reacted to the book.

She said she discovered that there was a generation of young women in America who seemingly don’t want to have the kind of life her mother’s generation yearned for, that is, a meaningful existence outside of the home in a job that they loved.

In the book’s afterward, Reichl recalls a young woman in her late teens in the audience on one of her book tour stops who told her that she didn’t want to “be Superwoman” and hadn’t yet decided between career and family, apparently believing doing both wasn’t an option.

“I couldn’t believe that this still existed in this country,” said Reichl.

The book went through a name change when it came out in paperback. It was originally titled “Not Becoming My Mother.”

The title was chosen by her editor, but Reichl felt it sounded harsh. When the paperback version was released it had the title that the author had originally pushed for.

Reichl’s next memoir will be exploring her time at Gourmet Magazine, where she was editor-in-chief for a decade before the publication was shuttered in October 2009.

She recently signed a book deal with Random House for the memoir, along with a new cookbook and her first novel, “Delicious.”

When she spoke to the Register-Star, she had just returned from a month-long stint at the MacArthur Colony in New Hampshire where she was working on her novel.

“It’s about halfway done,” she said.

She has also accepted a position at Random House as an editor-at-large where she will be working on her books and looking for new titles, among other duties.

When asked if there were more memoirs on the horizon, Reichl answered that with the next one she’ll be caught up, so “it depends on how long I live.”

The Death of Sanford Gifford

2010-10-15T06:40:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: This story by Andrew Amelinckx originally appeared in the Oct. 9, 2010 weekend edition of the register-Star Newspaper. It has been altered from its original form.

The sun shone through the trees in the Hudson Cemetery and a light breeze carried the smells of summer, on this, the last day of August. Several of the men who bore the remains of their friend were more inclined towards wielding brushes than bodies and represented, along with a number of those in the large crowd, some of the best known painters of America’s first great art movement, the Hudson River School. They were there to bury one of their own, Sanford Robinson Gifford.

Many had come by train from New York City where Gifford had spent a good part of his later life and where he had died two days earlier, on Aug. 29, 1880, of malarial fever. While he possibly contracted the disease during a trip to Minnesota, in mid-19th century America malaria was prevalent across the country, including in New York City.

Writing to his mother while he lay in bed, burning with fever, he told her “he was happy, ready to die and had the consciousness of having done his duty as he understood it” and going on to say that his “faith in immortality was strong and settled.”

Among his friends who bore his body to the grave that summer day was Jervis McEntee, a fellow painter who had traveled with Gifford in Europe in 1868 during a trip that would eventually result in the creation of a painting that Gifford considered his crowning achievement—“The Ruins of the Parthenon.” The painting of the famous Greek temple in Athens brilliantly displays Gifford’s ability to paint light and atmosphere, in a style that would come to be called “Luminism.” The artist himself said the work wasn’t a painting of a building, but of a day.

Like most of his fellow Hudson River School artists Gifford created his larger works based on sketches made out in the field, and also like those fellow artists, he traveled extensively both in America and abroad.

Gifford made several trips with Worthington Whittredge, another well-known artist of the Hudson River School, traveling in Europe in the mid-1850s and the western US in 1870. That sad summer day in 1880 Whittredge would be another of Gifford’s pallbearers.

Gifford had met many of the men he would call friends and artistic peers at the Tenth Street Studio Building, located at 51 West 10th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan. Built in 1857 it would become the center of the American art world for the next half-century. Among his contemporaries who had a studio there was Frederic Church, one of the best known of the Hudson River School Artists whose stately mansion, Olana, still stands today in Greenport, NY. Church had also been on the European excursion that Gifford had taken with McEntee and McEntee’s wife in the late 1860s.

Church, called “an intimate friend of the deceased” by the Hudson Republican Newspaper, was in attendance at Gifford’s funeral as well.

The day began with a 3 p.m. service held at the Gifford Family home at 337 Diamond St. in Hudson. Gifford’s father,Elihu, was a wealthy industrialist who in 1823, the year of Gifford’s birth, bought into an iron foundry in Hudson, which he renamed Starbuck, Gifford and Company. He would go on to organize the Farmers’ Bank and serve as its first president as well as founding the Hudson and Berkshire Railroad. His wife was the first director of the Hudson Orphan Asylum and a professor of religion. According to McEntee, Gifford’s mother had hoped that he would have also followed that pursuit. But it seemed Gifford was destined to become an artist.

Born in Saratoga County,NY., Gifford grew up in Hudson, NY., in the proverbial shadow of Thomas Cole, the man regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School who lived in Catskill.

After attending the Hudson Academy Gifford spent two years at Brown University before moving to Manhattan to study art in 1845. His career followed a straight path to the National Academy, the center of American art at the time, where he first showed work in 1847. His life was devoted to art and he continued to paint even as he served in the Civil War. Gifford was a corporal in the Union Army’s 7th Regiment of the New York Militia from 1861 to 1863.

He was a tall, thin, dark-haired man whose character was, as defined by a friend after the artist’s death, “serene and placid, resting on resources within himself,” but whose placid exterior harbored a “depth…that flowed within, whose floods, and swirls, and eddies often caught him from the light and carried him into cavernous depths of shade."

Perhaps McEntee was thinking only of his friend’s exterior when he wrote, “the face of the dead reflected the whole life and bade all look upon Gifford’s serene and hopeful and contented face.”

The funeral service was officiated by the Rev. W.H. Bellows, a well-known Unitarian minister from New York City, who commented afterwards “it was fitting that the painter of the summer should go to his rest on this last beautiful day of the summer.”

The other pallbearers who helped lay Gifford in the ground included artists R.W. Hubbard and John F. Weir. The final man carrying Gifford’s casket was Richard Butler, who was one of Gifford’s major collectors and through whom Gifford’s work can still be seen thanks to the donation of his paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which held an exhibition that autumn featuring 160 of the artist’s 700 known works.

The Saddest Music Ever Written

2010-09-29T05:16:00.000-07:00

Editor's note: This piece by Andrew Amelinckx originally appeared in the Register-Star's on-line edition Sept. 20 in a slightly different version.

The soldier runs toward the helicopter, which is fast leaving the ground. His comrades look on in desperation at the seemingly hundreds of enemy troops on the man’s heels. The music swells as he falls to the ground, hit by a number of bullets, only to get up again, the action in slow motion.

The music that gives this scene from the 1986 film “Platoon,” written and directed by Oliver Stone, its power and gravitas is “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber.

This piece, written in 1936 as part of Barber’s “String Quartet , Op. 11” was the topic of a lecture at the Hudson Opera House given by Thomas Larson.

Larson is the author of “The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’,” recently published by Pegasus Books.

The book encompasses history, culture and the personal as it relates to “Adagio for Strings,” and seems to have haunted the author and journalist far longer than the 10 months it took him to write it.

“Each book is an odyssey,” he said.

Between the ages of 10 and 32 Larson considered himself a musician and composer and earned a degree in musical composition, but at age 32 he abruptly shifted gears, leaving music behind for writing.

He said he has never fully understood why he stopped making music, but believes it was at least partially motivated by a “messy divorce.”

He eventually returned to music in a different way, through language, but struggled with how to convey the idea of music through the written word.

“Why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?” he quoted the famed conductor Leonard Bernstein as saying.

“I struggled with it for years,” Larson said. But eventually he was able to make it work in “Adagio for Strings” through the inclusion of various writing styles — a hybrid narrative, he calls it — from personal memoir to biography and musical analysis. He also included three fictionalized episodes involving his father, mother and grandmother hearing the Barber piece.

“All the facts are true,” he said, “but I also imagined their inner lives ... This was the way I was able to write about music.”

Larson’s relationship with the Barber work stretches back to the 1970s when he heard the piece on a record of orchestral music by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Thomas Schippers.

He said an image of Barber on the back of the album reminded him of his father, a World War II veteran, who had died two years earlier. Barber, he said, seemed to have the same sense of sadness his father had.

He listened to the piece a lot that summer, he said, not sure whether it was from grief or another one of the emotions he was feeling at a time when his life was in flux.

Whether it was grief or not that drew the young Larson to “Adagio for Strings,” the work would, over the course of several decades, take on that role for many Americans, beginning with the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945.

“That weekend Barber’s ‘Adagio’ played on the radio,” said Larson. “It got into (Americans’) bones...After 1945 the appropriation began in earnest.”

The piece was later heard at memorials and funerals for such notables as Albert Einstein, John F. Kennedy and Grace Kelly.

From there it found its way into a number of films, including 1980’s “The Elephant Man,” “El Norte” from 1986 and another film from that year, “Platoon.”

“It sums up the moral quagmire of Vietnam better than anything I know,” said Larson of the aforementioned scene in the film.

“Adagio” has also been heard in parody form on such television shows as “Seinfeld,” “The Simpsons” and “South Park.”

DJ Tiësto, a Dutch musician, created an electronic version of “Adagio” that was heard by a reported four billion people, due in part to its being played at the 2004 Olympic games in Greece.

Barber, according to Larson, probably wouldn’t be too happy with the results since he was apparently disgruntled by the piece’s popularity in his own lifetime.

“He refused to have it played at his funeral,” said Larson.

Barber, born in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1910 already knew at age 10 he was going to create music, writing a letter to his mother that year in which he tells her he will never be an athlete, but would be a composer.

Larson drew the conclusion from the letter that there was also an unstated, but inferred reference to Barber’s homosexuality.

Barber created the piece when he was 26 during a summer in Italy with his longtime partner Gian Carlo Menotti, also a composer, who Barber met when they were both studying at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute.

Menotti recalled that the couple “were so happy” that summer, leading one man at Sunday’s event to wonder aloud if “Adagio” wasn’t a love song that had somehow become appropriated as a piece associated with mourning.

“Adagio,” taken from the middle section of Barber’s “String Quartet” was reworked by the composer for the famed conductor Arturo Toscanini as a piece for string orchestra, which was first performed in 1938.

For Larson, one of the greatest performances of “Adagio” was at the Royal Albert Hall by the BBC Symphony, conducted by the American Leonard Slatkin four days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The piece, which is nine minutes long, said Larson, was stretched out to more than 10 minutes.

Slatkin said it was the most emotional night he had ever spent in a concert hall.

“It commands attention like few works do,” said Larson.

Little Stories: Sedat Pakay on Walker Evans

2010-05-29T05:22:00.000-07:00

It was the late 1960s. Walker Evans, a photographer who helped document the Great Depression three decades earlier through his haunting images of the rural poor, was teaching at Yale University in Connecticut.

A young Turkish photographer, who aspired towards filmmaking, convinced Evans to
become the subject of a short film.

“Walker was very modest, very shy,” said Sedat Pakay, the photographer and filmmaker who now lives in Claverack. “I talked him into it.”

At age 21 Pakay had come to Yale to study photography under Evans.

“I was with him for two years,” he said.

During that time Yale didn’t have a separate photography department.

“It was under graphic design,” said Pakay.

Most of the students were graphic artists concerned with magazine work, said Pakay, while he, like Evans, was “obsessed with photography.”

The two men hit it off and it was during this time that Pakay broached the subject of making a film about his mentor.

The first version of the film, completed in 1969, was 20 minutes long and shot on a 16 millimeter camera owned by Yale.

Pakay was living in New York City by then and would edit the film whenever he could find the time.

After the film’s completion there was little interest, he said, due to Evan’s being considered “a has been” at the time, as well as the fact that documentary filmmaking wasn’t popular.

“Documentaries weren’t on anyone’s radar,” he said. “I think I made about 600 bucks from it.”

According to Pakay, it was a time when a number of new feature filmmakers, including Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, were coming to the forefront.

Evans, who was born in St. Louis, Mo. in 1903, took up photography in 1928 and would eventually become part of the Farm Security Administration’s photographic unit.

The FSA was a New Deal agency and under the leadership of Roy Stryker, the photographic unit worked to underscore the need for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s programs as well as document a decade’s worth of national troubles.

According to Pakay, Evans and Stryker had a very tumultuous relationship.

“Stryker didn’t like him and he didn’t like Stryker,” he said.

Evans was living in New York City doing magazine work at the time and considered it a chance to travel and make photographs, according to Pakay.

“It was a major opportunity for Walker,” he said.

Pakay, who loves Evan’s FSA work, believes that the years between 1935 and 1937, when Evan’s was with the agency, were some of his best.

“A lot of artists have shining moments,” he said. “These were Walker’s years.”

By 1938 Stryker and Evans had reached an impasse.

“Stryker would give him an assignment and Walker would ignore him,” Pakay said. “He was doing whatever he wanted to do.”

Pakay said Evans did the same thing when he and James Agee were sent on assignment by Fortune Magazine to do a story in 1936.

“(The magazine) wanted something glorifying American capitalism,” said Pakay, “and (Evans and Agee) chose three families of share croppers.”

The magazine never published the article.

“No one cared,” he said.

The piece was eventually published in 1941 as the book “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” and told in words and images the story of three white tenant families from Hale County, Ala.

Pakay said 1,000 copies were printed and a little more than half, about 600, sold.

“There was little fanfare upon its publication,” he said. “Now they’re almost impossible to find.”

The time in which it was published played a large part in its failure to sell, said Pakay. It was on the eve of World War II when America was still reeling from the Great Depression.

Stryker eventually fired Evans from the agency, but according to Pakay, Evans had said on numerous occasions that he caused himself to be fired.

The year Evans was fired was the same in which he was honored with a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the first dedicated to photography.

Evans later worked for a number of magazines and eventually became an editor at Fortune Magazine.

“He left Fortune (in 1965) and went to Yale to teach,” said Pakay.

This was where the two men met. Pakay had gotten a full scholarship to Yale and eventually received his Masters in Fine Arts there in 1968.

As a teacher Evans never gave assignments but would discuss the subject matter of the work. “The clothing, environment and background,” said Pakay.

Both men were interested in subjects that “were very American,” he said.

Pakay’s teacher was much more interested in the subject than the technical aspects of his art.

“Walker didn’t care at all about darkroom techniques,” he said. “Not at all. Zip.”

Evans, he said, was capable in the dark room, but chose instead to have his work done by professional labs.

During this time Pakay was moving towards filmmaking.

“I was already trying to put little stories into one frame of film,” he said, adding that filmmaking allowed him to incorporate “sound and motion” into his work.

Pakay would go on to make two other documentaries. One was a 2006 film on Josef and Anni Albers titled “Josef and Anni Albers: Art is Everywhere.” The Albers were German born American artists, he, a painter and influential educator, she, a textile artist and printmaker.

Another was a short film from 1973 on the famed African-American writer James Baldwin titled “James Baldwin: From Another Place.”

Pakay had met Baldwin in Istanbul, Turkey in 1964 and became the writer’s unofficial photographer.

“I jumped into it with the vigor and ambition of an 18-year-old,” he said of his photography during that period.

Of the Evan’s film, "Walker Evans: America," it would be nearly 30 years before it would reach its final state.

It wasn’t until Pakay and his wife Kathy bought a weekend house in Claverack,NY., two hours north of new York City, in 1984—to which they moved full-time three years later— that the idea for a longer film came to fruition.

Pakay said he approached WMHT, the local PBS affiliate in Albany,NY., about doing something longer.

“I had the goods,” he said of his earlier documentary.

Evans had died in 1975, but Pakay was able to expand the film through interviews with a number of Evans’ friends and colleagues, including John Szarkowski, the former curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, who was living in East Chatham at the time.

A National Endowment for the Arts grant, as well as funding from the Park Foundation, helped get the new version of the film completed in 1999.

The film was eventually picked up by PBS and shown across the country around the same time that MOMA held a major retrospective of Evans’ work.

Pakay said that in the last decade he has returned to photography and has even, tentatively, embraced the digital age.

In 2008 he began working with Emily Upham of Germantown for a book on aging and loss.

He said he bought a digital camera for the project, “a play camera” he called it, but also brought his 35 millimeter film camera along.

The book contains 17 portraits of women authors and artists who have dealt with loss and aging, including Gail Godwin, Erica Jong, Vivian Gornick, Tina Howe and Sharon Olds. The book contains narratives by the artists and interviews by Upham and is due out from Simon and Schuster this spring.

Pakay said that he enjoys the “instant gratification” of digital cameras, but feels that digital prints still don’t match up to traditional silver gelatin prints.

According to him, if Evans was still alive he would most likely be using a digital camera.

When the SX 70 Polaroid camera came out Evans immediately began using one, he said.

“He spent years with it,” said Pakay.

Addendum

I interviewed Pakay at his home in Claverack one February morning. As I exited my truck I was greeted by two large poodles who came bounding towards me full tilt. On the porch stood Pakay, a smallish man with glasses and a smile that peaked out from the corners of his mouth.

We drank mint tea at his kitchen table and talked and every so often he would get up to let the dogs in or out. "They're obsessed with squirrels," he explained. They would see a squirrel through the kitchen window, go crazy, be let outside to chase said squirrel and then return inside to repeat the entire process.

Besides discussing Evans, we touched upon Pakay's series of photographs that he did of such renowned photographers as Andre Kertesz and Edward Steichen as part of his graduate thesis.

He also photographed Mark Rothko, the reticent Abstract Expressionist for the project.Pakay said it took months for Rothko to finally agree to sit for him. The young photographer met the older and famously reserved painter at Rothko's Manhattan studio, a converted 19th century horse barn.

The resulting image shows Rothko, his mouth slightly open, standing between two of his smaller works that hung in the hallway of his studio.

Pakay was then invited into Rothko's work space where the artist was in the midst of creating the large scale paintings that would eventually hang in the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.

Rothko, who was known to consume large quantities of whiskey, offered Pakay his first taste of bourbon.

"I had never tasted it before," he said. "I still love it, even though I'm not supposed to drink it anymore."

The World She Made: Heller on Rand

2010-05-09T06:50:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: My interview with Anne Heller originally appeared in the Register-Star Newspaper April 30, 2010.

“She was a complex, contradictory character,” said Anne Heller of the writer-philosopher Ayn Rand.

Heller spent five and a half years working on her 2009 biography of Rand titled “Ayn Rand and the World She Made,” published by Doubleday.

Rand, born Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum, in Russia in 1905 wrote a number of works, including the two best selling novels, “The Fountainhead” (1943) and 1957’s “Atlas Shrugged.”

She was also a philosopher whose ideas, which came to be known as Objectivism, continue to be influential today as a wellspring for Libertarianism and other ideologies.

Heller, a magazine editor and journalist, first began reading Rand after Suze Orman — the financial advisor and best-selling author — sent her a passage from “Atlas Shrugged” about money, as a way of illustrating the point of Orman’s essay that Heller was editing.

“I’m not even sure if she is a fan of Rand,” Heller said of Orman. But the passage was enough to pique Heller’s interest.

“The passage surprised me by defending limitless wealth in a way that was logical, original, complex, and, though somewhat overbearing, beautifully written,” stated Heller in her book’s preface.

Soon she was reading more of Rand’s work.

Heller made the leap to writing Rand’s biography after she began “looking around at the work out there” on Rand.

She said that most of the books were either written by Rand devotees or by authors who “dismissed her out of hand.”

“There was nothing objective out there,” she said.

Heller’s biography is based on original research done in Russia, along with interviews with Rand’s friends and former acolytes.

She said that while writing the book she was surprised to discover how determined Rand had been throughout her life.

“Nothing was a coincidence in her life,” she said. “She knew what she wanted.”

In Heller’s book she describes a well known scene in which the famed Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille meets Rand for the first time. It has been said that the meeting, which helped launch Rand’s career as a Hollywood screen writer, was just sheer luck. But Heller, based on her research, believes the meeting was more than a coincidence.

“Of the people I talked to nobody believed that happened (by chance),” she said.

Another aspect of Rand’s personality that Heller was surprised, and saddened by, was how Rand’s ideas became more rigid as she grew older.

Rand had a wonderful mind that changed decade by decade, said Heller.

She believes this was due, in part, to the cult-like atmosphere that surrounded Rand in her later years.

Beginning in the 1950s, Rand, while living in New York City, was surrounded by a small group of acolytes, whom Heller called “gatekeepers” who kept those who disagreed with Rand away from her.

“She let it happen,” said Heller. “She was charmed by flattery like the rest of us.”

Rand’s philosophy which places the individual good above that of the collective continues to be felt close to 30 years after her death in 1982.

“You can draw a line from Objectivism straight through to Libertarianism,” said Heller.

She said the Tea Party movement has also latched on to Rand.

“People use her a lot,” she said. “I don’t know if what they are doing has much to do with her ... she was pro-abortion and anti-religion, ferociously so.”

Alan Greenspan, the economist who served as the country’s chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, was also influenced by Rand.

“He was a steadfast friend to her until the end of her life,” said Heller.

According to Heller, Greenspan said that Rand put the moral basis in capitalism for him — the idea that capitalism is the only economic system that respects the individual and is determined by the individuals right to produce.

“A couple of years ago,” said Heller, Greenspan repudiated the theory that it was in a business person’s best interest to be honest, a long held Randian belief.

“It’s shocking to me that he lived at the pinnacle of world economics and didn’t realize that people would cheat if they had the chance,” she said.

Rand’s fiction also continues to do well, with close to a million books being sold in 2009. But for Rand there was no line between her philosophy and her novels.

“Rand used her novels as a way of illustrating her ideas,” said Heller. “She always thought that people are much more influenced by stories than by lectures.”

Interview With a Vampire (Hunter)

2010-03-21T06:02:00.000-07:00

Editor's note: My interview with Seth Grahame-Smith originally appeared in the Register-Star Newspaper March 14, 2010.

A new novel set in Rhinebeck reimagines America’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, “the Great Emancipator,” as a vampire hunter and the Civil War as a battleground for the undead.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by New York Times best-selling author Seth Grahame-Smith, follows the life of Lincoln from his early days in Kentucky, where he first takes up his ax to slay vampires, to his death at the hands of John Wilkes Booth, and yes, Booth is not of this world.

The novel opens in Rhinebeck, NY, and tells of how a mysterious man named Henry leaves the narrator, who happens to have the same name as the author, a package containing the secret diaries of the 16th president, revealing for the first time Lincoln’s lifelong quest to rid the world of vampires.

The narrator is an author who has quit writing and is running a five-and-dime in the town when his life is changed by Henry’s revelations.

Grahame-Smith, 34, said he chose to set the book in Rhinebeck and in a five-and-dime based on an actual store—Stickle’s—for a number of reasons.

His wife and in-laws are from there, he said.

“All of our relatives live in the Hudson Valley,” he said, “All within five miles of downtown Rhinebeck. They’ve owned Stickle’s for generations.”

Grahame-Smith was staying in Rhinebeck at the time he began working on the novel.

“I knew it inside and out,” he said of the setting.

The author is originally from Connecticut, but has lived in California for the pat 12 years.

The novel took about six months to write.

He spent the first two months intensely researching Lincoln’s life and times.

“You can’t become a Lincoln scholar in two months,” he admitted, adding that he was able to gain “a solid grasp of his life. I wanted to make it as accurate as possible.”

Grahame-Smith then outlined Lincoln’s life and was able to insert the vampire narrative within it.

“I had a really detailed outline,” he said.

The book subtly combines the real and the fictional and often reads like a true Lincoln biography, right down to footnotes, some actual, some not, and altered historical photographs that accompany the text.

“I wanted to give it the look and feel of a real biography,” he said. “I had the help of some really talented Photoshop people.”

He said he worked hard to get period details correct to add to the illusion, from nailing down the correct street names in 1820s New Orleans to a realistic depiction of frontier life.

“It was fun to write,” he said.

Grahame-Smith began work on “Lincoln” before his first book, the million selling “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” came out this past year.

His first book combines Jane Austen’s classic 1813 novel “Pride and Prejudice” with contemporary horror fiction.

He said it was part of the wave of mash-ups that are becoming popular.

“I don’t know if I’ll do another mash-up,” he said. “I don’t want to be the last guy to jump off the sinking ship.”

He said his next novel would most likely be straight horror. He did hedge his bets while speaking with me, admitting that if he gets an idea for a mash-up that he can’t get out of his head, he would write it.

Grahame-Smith is currently working on a number of other projects, including a new show for MTV: “The Hard Times of R. J. Berger,” which he described as a more mature version of “The Wonder Years,” a television show from the late 1980s.

“It’s coming out in June,” he said. “I’m working to get that ready for air.”

He’s also writing the screenplay for “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” which is set to be produced by Tim Burton.

Burton, best known as a director, has had a string of hit films, beginning with 1985’s Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, right up to “Alice in Wonderland,” currently in theaters.

The film will be co-produced by Timur Bekmambetov, director of 2008’s “Wanted.”

Burton and Bekmambetov recently co-produced the film “9.”

Grahame-Smith came up with the idea for the book after spending time in a number of bookstores.

He said they always seemed to be filled with both Lincoln biographies and vampire literature.

“They were the two things people couldn’t get enough of,” he said. “That’s how it began.”

Church’s Brushes and Bacon’s Socks

2010-02-18T05:41:00.000-08:00

In a light-filled studio at Olana, the stately Persian inspired mansion of Frederic Church, there is a display of the artist’s brushes in a room that includes his collection of exotica from his travels. Church is probably the best known of the 19th century American artists who helped create the Hudson River School, the country’s first internationally recognized art movement. Church and his compatriots sullied forth across the continent—from the polar north to South America—in a time when travel was often measured in months, to bring back images of a wilderness that hadn’t been seen by many city dwelling Easterners. Church especially loved travel, roaming extensively through Europe and the Middle East. So by dint of this, Church’s brushes had been farther than most Americans of the time. Now, they had ended their careers as exhibits—like the other collected artifacts—an artist’s ephemera neatly laid on the shelf. And, yes, these pieces of wood and animal hair are merely tools by which Church’s brain and hand were able to convey the power of a multi-hued and seemingly exploding sunrise over the Catskill Mountains or the pristine and quiet whiteness of an iceberg, but at the point at which they touched paint on canvas they became, briefly, an extension of the artist.

In a grander, and by the same token creepier, gesture the final studio of the towering 20th century figurative artist Francis Bacon was reconstructed in an Irish art gallery, a mausoleum of artists tools. Among the thousands of items transferred were various pieces of clothing, including old wool socks, that the artist used to apply paint to his canvases. Bacon spent his entire career experimenting with various tools in his work. Looking closely at his paintings you can see the vastly different effects he was able to achieve through his use of unusual application methods.

While Church was refining with his tools in pursuit of a believable object infused with the spiritual, Bacon was both harking back to an earlier time before the invention of the modern brush and pushing the envelope in regard to tool use as a way of applying pigment onto canvas for its abstract effects within the framework of a recognizable subject matter.

As a painter I’ve explored both traditional means of applying paint and less usual forms—in graduate school I eventually forewent paintbrushes all together, favoring applying oils straight from the tube or with my fingers—but have of late gone back to the brush and continue to refine my knowledge of each of their strengths and weaknesses. The dizzying array of brush types with names such as filbert, bright, flat, round, angle and mop, more descriptive than sexy, not to mention the different hairs or fibers, from sable to synthetic, were daunting to figure out. I earned my undergraduate degree at a time when theory trumped practice, so it was up to me to navigate the labyrinth of artistic technology. I learned by trial and error, exploring brush shape more than material, since it often came down to what I could afford. Sable was out of reach for a long time, so I made do with synthetic and less expensive animal hair brushes for so long that when I finally could afford the top of the line, I found it to be too soft and supple for my needs.

I’ve come across this conundrum before. Once while bartending a holiday party with an open bar a wizened and bent old man came up and ordered a well brand of scotch. I pointed out that we had a nice variety of single malts and since it was free he might like one of those. “Son, when you’ve been drinking cheap scotch as long as I have, the good stuff just doesn’t taste right,” he told me with a crooked smile.

Through it all I’ve come to recognize that the act of applying paint onto a surface, through whatever means, is more important than the method of delivering pigment, whether a handcrafted sable-hair brush used by Church, Bacon’s old wool sock or a stick used by an Australian Aborigine a thousand years ago. The artist’s choice of a tool is merely a part of the creative process, the same as choosing a paint color or what the image on the canvas will be. But even so, walking into a space where a great artist worked or being surrounded by the tools he or she used is, in a high school fan club way, still an exciting venture.

Interior spaces: The body and the building in the works of Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois

2009-11-14T08:35:00.000-08:00

In the work of two towering figures in 20th century art, Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois, issues of the body and manmade spaces come to the fore, but in startling different ways and with two very different results.

With Bourgeois’s work we find a metaphorical use of architecture involving the female form and allusions to the womb. In opposition to this, Bacon’s use of interior spaces tends to both provide a stage for and to add a sense of menace to the dramas unfolding on the canvas.

Bourgeois has been working with these dual themes since her earliest days as shown in her drawings of the early-1940s, titled “Femme Masions,” or literally "woman house."

From here one can see the major arc of her career as at least partially being dedicated to the exploration of how to bring the figurative and architectural together. Her large sculptures—“Cell (Eyes and Mirrors)” and “Cell (Hands and Mirror)”—of the late-1990s are the apotheosis of this, bringing a physical structure—the room or cage—together with lifelike sculptures of hands or more abstracted eyes within. While not as wholly integrated as her drawings, they none-the-less deal with the same issues of architectural space and the body. In these later works, the structure physically houses the body. The closest Bourgeois comes to the same level of integration as in her drawings is in “Spider” from 1997. While not physically a human form it is metaphorically. The artist has said that the spider is an ode to her mother. By integrating the metaphorical mother within the architectural structure Bourgeois creates a kind of supra-maternal space.

In a majority of the works of Francis Bacon, interior architectural space plays a vital role. Beginning in the mid-1940s, most notably in his “Three Studies for a Crucifixion,” from 1944, a barely delineated interior space appears, defined by a few lines slashed across a color field.

The lines are enough to bring a sense of claustrophobia to the paintings while helping draw the viewer’s eye back to the figures, reinforcing their centrality. Even in many of his paintings that are meant to convey exterior spaces, most notably 1953’s “Study of a Baboon,” includes an enclosure. In "Baboon," a fence cuts the space in half, shortening the background to the point of collapse against the picture plane and again amping up a sense of confinement.

Bacon continued to use interior spaces in this way for most of his career, sometimes altering the vertical into ring like structures, but always maintaining a sense of menace.

Within these two artists use of space we see the extreme ends of the spectrum, with Bourgeois, a comforting womb-like space to house her interior life and memories while Bacon pulls from the opposite direction—creating menace and ambiguity through interior and even exterior spaces.

You Don't Find Books, Books Find You: An Interview with Joe Drape

2009-09-27T06:15:00.000-07:00

As a kid I would sometimes watch ABCs the “Wild World of Sports,” and I especially loved the opening credits when Jim McCay would intone those words “the thrill of victory…and the agony of defeat…the human drama of athletic competition,” while ski jumper Vinko Bogataj’s awful 1970 crash would flash across the screen. But honestly the opening credits were about as dramatic as the ensuing shows often got for me.

Author and New York Times sports reporter Joe Drape actually captures the highs and lows, the drama and melodrama, the beauty and the horror of the sports subjects he writes about.

A Kansas City native, he worked his way up the journalism ladder from the news desk at the Dallas Morning News and later the Atlanta Journal Constitution to the New York Times.

He made the switch to sports in 1993 when, he said, AJC wanted someone with a news background, but an affinity for sports, to be the lead Olympic reporter. He started writing for the New York Times in 1996, and moved to New York City in 1998.

His latest book “Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen,” is currently on the New York Times bestseller list.

The following is a brief interview with Drape.

While writing your newest book “Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen,” you lived in the small Kansas town in which your subject, a high school football team looking for its fifth state championship in a row, is located. Was living in Smith Center part of your plan from the start?

The opportunity to live in Smith Center was key to the book as well as personal growth. I wanted to understand the community, and the best way to do that was become part of it. When you embed yourself somewhere, you can take your time and earn people's trust. You listen rather than ask questions. Selfishly perhaps I also wanted to take some time with my wife and 3-year-old son. I'm a Midwesterner, and I wanted them to see how I grew up.

Was there a hard transition for you and your family going back to NYC after spending time in a small prairie town?

For my son, Jack, none whatsoever. We should all have the resilience of a 4-year-old. For Mary and I, we had to reaccelerate our gears, and get used to the hustle and bustle. We also returned at a time when the economy was stumbling along so we landed in a different New York than we left.

What was it about this high school football team that interested you enough to write a book?

It really was the town and people that made me understand this was a book length story. When Coach Barta told me that none of what he and Smith Center did was about football, instead it was about raising kids, I believed him. I've had famous coaches tell me things like that and I knew it was just a line. I could tell that these folks practiced love, patience and hard work - call them old time values. I wanted to see how it became the foundation for their success in football and life. I also liked the fact they were in the middle of a 54 game winning streak and needed 13 more to set a state record.

What draws you to a subject generally?

There has to be a kernel of intrigue there that makes me so curious I have to know more. I want to learn something, and if I can learn something I can pass that on to the reader. Or at least I hope I can.

In your books you seem to be able to take the potentially limiting beginning point of a sport (horse racing, football, basketball) and open it up to a whole range of deep and universal ideas and emotions. Do you look for stories that have that potential or do you unearth the universalities while writing about a given subject?

I look for stories first that are going to entertain me, that I want to know more about. I discover what all means, or the macro thought, or emotion as I report and write it. I go in with a pretty cursory point of view and let my heart build from there. In Our Boys, it was "here's this out of the way place where people are happy and kind, and they play very good football. Why?"

You’ve had a lifelong interest in horse racing. What is it about this sport that continues to fascinate you?

The actual handicapping and betting of races is a mental exercise not unlike chess or crossword puzzles or even investing. I get lost in it. I turn off my internal dialogue and just be the racing form. The professional side is really simple: There are great stories in the sport and people want to share them. It's the last democratic sport in America. You can't buy a championship. Everyone is bonded by the love of a horse. Red Smith. Joe Palmer. They weren't wrong to spend all their time at the racetrack. I'm one of those people who believes that a bad day at the racetrack is better than a good day anywhere else.

What was the most surprising thing you discovered about Jimmy Winkfield (in a life that seemed full of surprises) while writing "Black Maestro"?

How passive and persevering he was. Jimmy was not a big personality or particularly decisive guy. He rolled with the punches and never gave up. He didn't have choice - over a remarkable life he had Jim Crow laws, the Bolsheviks, the depression, Hitler and civil Rights bearing down on him. He had what Hemingway called "grace under pressure."

Being both a sports writer for the New York Times as well as an author, do you prefer one type of writing over the other?

They complement each other in the sense that you work different muscles. Sports writing is immediate gratification. It could be done in an hour or a couple of weeks or months. But you are limited by space. It helps you identify a story and tell it quickly. Books, however, allow you to shade in the complexities of a story. They let you take your time, and set up a narrative. You get to use more tricks.

What are you working on now?

I've got a screenplay working its way to production, and I'm messing with another one. It's just another form of storytelling, and it's interesting. I'm doing my work at the NYT. As far as a next book, I'm just keeping my antennae clear.

You don't find books. Books find you.

True Collaboration: An Interview with Tim Watkins and Carol May

2009-09-07T06:39:00.000-07:00

Editors Note—Unless otherwise noted the major voice of the piece is Tim's, with additions by Carol.

Artists Tim Watkins and Carol May are a married couple who collaborate on public arts projects, including one of their latest, an exhibition and activity area for youngsters at the revamped Brooklyn Children’s Museum.

Watkins, who was born in London, England and grew up in Alberta, Canada, is primarily a sculptor while May, a New Yorker who has an MFA from Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, is a painter.
The couple was kind enough to answer some questions for Look, Read, Listen.

How long have you been together and how long have you been working together?

Carol and I have been married almost 30 years. We met at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. I was the Canadian scholarship, she the New York scholarship. It clicked. We both had careers as independent artists. We both had some success showing in New York and elsewhere, but in the mid 90’s, we began to collaborate, and we realized that we had complementary skills and that if we put our heads and skills together we would have more opportunities. Besides it was fun.

What is your process like when working on public pieces? Is there a give and take between the two of you as well as with clients?

Most Public Artwork commissions begin as a competition. Artists answer open national or regional calls (RFQs), by sending images of past work and a resume. The selection committee chooses finalists, who then submit concept models and drawings. Final selection is based on this preliminary work.

We develop these initial concepts together. Each of us has different strength, so we pass the lead design role back and forth, as the art develops.

Do your artistic backgrounds—painting in the case of Carol and sculpture in Tim’s case—make it easier or more difficult to work together?

We have very different strengths and weaknesses, and by working together we can create better work than either of us could achieve alone.
Carol has strong training in both 2 and 3 dimensional design. I have strong technical skills, and I know material and processes. Together, we have a wide skill set.

Also, something amazing happens when true collaboration occurs.

Both of your personal work seems to have a lot to do with the natural world. Is there a relationship between being in the Hudson Valley and this predilection towards reflecting nature in your work or perhaps were you drawn up here because of the fertile landscape?

Our decision to move our shop from Brooklyn to Athens was a happy solution to the real estate problem in New York City. Until 2004, our shop was in Dumbo, Brooklyn, in a large industrial building. We shared the floor with several other artists and art businesses until the landlord decided he could make much more money by renting the whole floor to West Elm as back office space. Our options were to either rent something else (and fix it up and lose that in 5 years), or buy a property that would work for us as a permanent shop. As far as I am concerned we got very lucky.

I have always loved the landscape of the Hudson Valley, particularly our area, which includes Athens. Having grown up on the prairie in western Canada, I more readily identify with the combination of open space with mountains in the background. I am not a live-in-the forest type of person, I like meadows and fields and old architecture.

As far as our work and the relationship to nature, we have both worked with natural forms for years. A lot of my work was developed looking at the relationships of man, nature and technology, and my resulting exploration of ‘man-made’ nature. Carol’s painting explores natural forms and how they relate to human form, in both a physical and psychological way.

How does your public artwork differ from your personal artwork? Is there a parallel between the two? Does one play off the other or are they completely separate?

Tim: Yes the personal work is distinct from the public work, but the two do feed each other. In art school I started working with installation and ‘public’ sites very early on. I have always been interested in the interaction of viewer and art, and was always more of an ‘art for the masses type of person’.

Carol: Yes there is a parallel between the public and personal artwork. They feed each other, not in all projects, but in many of them. I find that ideas that I am exploring in my personal work are often translated into the media and scale of public art and vice versa.

What has been your favorite public work you have done and why?

Tim: Here we have to answer separately, although both of us feel our best one is yet to come. My favorite is ‘Roadway Boogie Woogie’ at Turkey Lake rest stop on the Florida Turnpike outside of Orlando. I like it because it is big, the mechanics work well and have survived 5 hurricanes, and a lot of people see it. For better or for worse, when you mention the propeller like pieces to anyone in Florida, they know what you are talking about.

Carol: My favorite permanent installation is ‘Blossoms’ at Florida Atlantic University in Jupiter. Although they are functional seating, the forms are sensual and sculptural, and the mosaic color is subtle and effective.

What projects—personal and public—are the two of you currently working on?

Last fall we had all of our scheduled work, but one, disappear into the black hole of the recession/depression. I likened it to having everyone’s wallets snap shut like bear traps. We hit the streets with applications for public art opportunities, rented a booth at the American Children’s Museum conference, and not so quietly freaked out.

I am glad to say that we are now currently working on three new public art commissions, one in Florida, one in Maine, and one in Oregon, and there is ‘chatter’ in regards to other projects.

In theory or in the good old days, it would seem that a downturn like this would allow one an excellent opportunity to dive into the studio work. Unfortunately, we now seem to be encumbered with things like health and liability insurance and a mortgage.

Aurum, an installation by Laetitia Hussain

2009-07-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

I've recently begun writing a blog for the Register-Star Newspaper, which will be including a number of reviews of art. Please take a look at my first piece. It's a review of an new installation by Hudson, NY artist Laetitia Hussain at Terenchin Fine Arts in Catskill, NY.

Man and Nature: Aurum, an installation by Laetitia Hussain.

For thousands of years humanity has toiled to mold nature to its own ends, removing that which doesn’t suit its purposes and manipulating that which does. Aurum, a new installation by Hudson artist Laetitia Hussain, at Terenchin Fine Art in Catskill, uses cast-off items, both natural and man-made to talk about the relationship between humanity and nature in its positive and negative aspects.

The gallery, located at 462 Main St., is filled to overflowing with Hussain’s work, mainly sculptures and most covered in gold paint, thus the name of the show “Aurum,” which is Latin for gold. While the work’s gilding helps to integrate the pieces internally and as a whole, they suffer from a loss of the individual color characteristics of the materials used.

The work also suffered from overcrowding. Less is sometimes more and many of the larger pieces lost their impact by being too close to each other in the gallery.

Her wood slice dartboards, while a bit facile, efficiently hammer in the metaphorical aspect of the show. The act of throwing a dart—which the artist encourages—at a beautiful piece of wood, marring the surface, helps force the viewer into an understanding of how humans often affect nature.

Another interesting piece is a tree branch mounted on wood to resemble trophy antlers. It forces the viewer to go beyond thinking only of the animal world and to contemplate humanity’s attitude towards the rest of nature.

The largest piece—and probably the best—incorporates the root system of a tree with various implements associated with farming—pickaxe and pitchfork—affixed to the roots’ ends, while the carved wooden handles of scythes rise out of the top. It plays with this relationship as well but takes it further by the interplay of materials that echo one another. A small reflecting pool below the tree trunk works to expand and reflect the hanging portion of the piece above and gives it a meditative quality that works nicely with the rather wild, dynamic aspect of the tree.

A sculpture of a windmill juxtaposed next to a small wooden piece hanging on the wall, carved to resemble a farmer’s field with crop rows, uses both scale and space to give the viewer a sense of being outside the gallery and while not as intellectually bracing as some of the other pieces is none the less completely engaging.

Hussein includes a large-scale photographic piece in the show featuring a quote by 18th century painter, printmaker and poet William Blake. The words are formed in the large photograph by maple seeds and seems to capture Hussain’s intentions. “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way,” it reads in part. Her new show goes far in visually exploring those words and the thoughts behind them.

Click here to view images from the show.

The Classic Cad: The World of Tony Stamolis

2009-07-16T05:50:00.000-07:00

Photographer Tony Stamolis, whose work has appeared everywhere from the New York Times to London art galleries, has been called a “classic cad” with a “prankster’s eye,” among other sobriquets and was recently included in Taschen’s coffee table tome “The New Erotic Photography.” Look, Read, Listen recently caught up with the 38-year-old California born artist who has made his home in New York City for almost half his life.

How and when did you get started in photography? Have you always been interested in photographing the nude?

I have always taken pictures but it wasn't until I had my first show in 1999 that I saw that my photography communicated to others. That's when I started taking it seriously and looking at it differently. I assisted a friend for a while and went on my own in 2003. The nude thing just sort of happened. I took some of my first serious girlfriend in my grandmother's basement bedroom when I was 18. Of course, my wise old grandmother knew I had had a girl down there and I got a talking to. She probably would have disowned me if she had know about the pictures. Sorry Yia-yia!

Your work has been included in Taschen’s “The New Erotic Photography.” How would you define this genre and your role within it?

Like I said in that book, I hate the term erotic, and typically hate anything associated with the genre. Most things that try to be sexy, are quite the opposite. I take photos of women (and this doesn't always mean sans clothing) because I like to and apparently, I am good at it. I don't want to be dubbed an erotic photographer. That's too limiting. I consider my nude work to be portraits as well.

What separates pornography from erotic art? Is it intention or something more ill-defined?

I think it's the thought behind it, and the perception of the eye of the beholder. Porn has become a form of pop art. It's more accepted and mainstream now and is very influential to so many areas of our daily lives and culture. Maybe penetration is the line people need to differentiate.

Color seems to play a huge part in your work. Have you always been drawn to that aspect of photography?

I have used B&W before, but yes, I have always been attracted to juicy, saturated color.

Do you use digital or traditional cameras or both? Which do you prefer and why?

More and more digital, the better it looks, but I still love film. The immediacy of digital is a big draw. I am not a snob though. Whatever is in front of me, I use. My photography is super lo-fi.

Your book “Frezno”(which came out last year) has a sense of immediacy and intimacy. Since you grew up in Fresno did the subject matter come easily to you? What were you striving for? How long did the project take?

I shot a few days a year for six years when I was home visiting my mother. The place definitely defines who I am and how I look at things, so I guess it came easily in that sense. I did work for it though. I didn't know any people there anymore, and shot almost a hundred portraits in three days on one trip. A project like that never feels finished, but I wanted to tell a story with what I had up to that point.

How did your project “Narcissister” come about? It seems like there is a relationship there to the work of Paul McCarthy and Hans Bellmer. Who are some of the artists who’ve influenced you?

All of that is the genius work of a friend who has fused her art work with burlesque. She's an ex-Ailey dancer who I met at Louise Bourgeois' monthly artist "salon" years ago. I have photographed many of her projects but really fell in love with her Narcissister "alter-ego." She's always creating new pieces so this is ongoing.
I love that you compared this to Bellmer and McCarthy. I love both of their work. Nobuyoshi Araki and Nan Goldin are major influences and to repeat myself again, old album art and vintage smut. Always inspiring.

Where do the ideas for your projects come from?

These are just silly ideas that I latch onto, and run with.

What are you working on now?

I have just finished my second book that will be out this Fall...it's a secret!
But I can tell you that it has a whole bunch of nekkid women in it.

History through the private lens: An interview with Benjamin Patton

2009-07-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Patton spends many of his days sorting through the memories of others, putting the pieces together and rediscovering history through personal reminiscences, both for himself and the men and women he makes films about. But then he’s had a lot of experience with history through a personal lens. He’s the grandson of one of America’s most famous warriors, Gen. George S. Patton, and the son of Major General George Smith Patton, both of whom kept personal histories. Benjamin Patton took time to answer some questions for Look, Read, Listen.

History seems to have been important to your family, both in the private and public spheres, from your grandfather and father’s collecting their own letters and papers to your family touring historical sites. Has this influenced your view of history? Can personal history help to explain the larger
picture of the past?

I think it's incredibly valuable and enriching to be able to experience history through those that lived it. Whether it means reading someone's diaries and letters - such as The Patton Papers (Vol I & II) in the case of my grandfather, or being able to read a copy of Rudyard Kipling's Complete Book of Verse that has been annotated with all sorts of margin notes by both my father and grandfather. History through the lens of another person sort of brings you there to that moment; not only in history, but the moment THEY experienced that history. We visited more than a few battlefields as a family when I was a teen - from Gettysburg and Chancellorsville to Zama (where Scipio Africanus bested Hannibal) and Austerlitz -- This all has left an impression on me that is much harder to shake or forget than simply reading a text book.

As a producer and filmmaker why have you chosen to focus on peoples’ personal histories as opposed to exploring history in other ways?

Again, I feel that experiencing history through the conduit of someone who as there brings it alive in a special way. This is even more important when you are chronicling your own family's history and say, want to understand the great depression more viscerally and personally through your grandmother or great aunt or uncle who lived through it.

You come from a long line of distinguished military men. Why did you choose to follow a different path and was there a defining moment for you when you decided against a military career?

For most of my childhood I was set on becoming a naval officer. Just loved the ocean and sailing and maritime history and that was my focus. But that career plan was made in the context of military being the family business. The pressure to serve in the military wasn't overt, my father was content with any career that would fulfill me - but he, like me at the time, felt this would be something I could excel at. Perhaps the first of many defining moments came when I opted not to attend the Naval Academy Prep School in Newport - an Annapolis feeder program that I had been accepted to. There were many more such moments to come throughout my twenties as I opted not to pursue a military career each time I reached a juncture in my life where I would henceforth lose an options - USNA > ROTC > OCS, etc. In the end, I have come to peace with that decision because I have found another - perhaps even more effective - way for me to express my patriotism while also working in my gifts and following my bliss.

Has being a Patton helped or hindered your career?

Both. Sometimes it's a hindrance, sometimes an advantage -- depending on my age and level of self-confidence and centeredness. As a young adult, it helped to open doors, but when you walk through those doors you'd better know who you are -- and I didn't. Today, I have the family in proper perspective and because I don't depend on it to further my career, it's probably a benefit. The greatest joy of being in this family is being able to help an old veteran reconnect with his own military and combat service by serving as a conduit for them to my father or grandfathers (both of whom were generals also).

Do you feel that the relationship that your grandfather had with your father influenced his parenting style with you and your siblings? How?

Certainly, and I made this point in my June '09 Smithsonian article. My father and grandfather had a good relationship but when my father when away to boarding school at 13, their relationship occurred more at a distance. Keep in mind that my father only saw his father during his leave.

What was it like interviewing Manfred Rommel (the son of German General Erwin Rommel)? I assume you knew him since your father and he were friends. If so did that help in the interview process? What, for you, was the most interesting aspect of your interview?

Certainly interviewing Manfred Rommel was fascinating. I had known since I was about 9 years old - when we lived in Stuttgart, Germany. My dad and he had met in the 50s when my dad was stationed in Stuttgart for the first time. My grandfather had always wanted to meet Field Marshall Rommel - but since Rommel was forced to take poison by Hitler in late '44 and GEN Patton died in late '45, they never met. Once my dad and Manfred met, they quickly bonded and soon, when they realized they shared a birthday of Christmas Eve, we would celebrate it with them whenever we lived in Germany. They would trade memorabilia of their father's - maps, keepsakes, etc. as gifts. It was quite a thing.

How does the editing process come into play in your work? Is it difficult to know what to keep and what to throw away? At the end of the day is it the story line that counts or the accumulation of historical information or is there a happy medium?

The process is partly intentional and partly not. That is to say, when a project first comes my way, I have to determine what the center point of the film is - and how does the family want to organize the film - chronologically, or perhaps more creatively say, according to theme. One film I did about a retired General was organized into five areas: family, education, service, faith and integrity. But beyond that initial organization - which is largely client-driven, you simply go where the story is. I typically proceed as though the film is a block of marble, within which the final story lies. The trick is knowing how and which pieces to chip away and discard (on the editing floor) so that you are left with the essence of someone's story. And while there is of course more than one possible final film, I always proceed as if there is only one possible outcome - we just don't know what it is until it reveals itself to everyone and then Voila! It's a fascinating process.

Your company donates five percent of its earnings to various civic organizations. Why do you feel it’s important to give back to the community?

When I was growing up, we were always having to remember quotes 'to live by,' as it were. One that was often told to us was, "He to whom much hath been given, much shall be required." I'm pretty certain it's from the Bible, though I can't recall the exact reference. But it's so true. I was born with a great deal of opportunities that many people just don't ever have. The key is not to waste it - and (another quote), "Leave the world better than you found it."

You are the co-founder of Fred’s teen workshops. Do you feel it’s important to give the next generation a voice and if so why?

Today’s kids live in a video world. Few activities dominate their lives like the time spent watching movies, television or playing video games. This has left many young people with a sophisticated understanding of images but without the critical skills to process these images contextually. At Fred's Experimental Media, our mission is to flip the switch from passive image consumption to active and thoughtful image creation. Educational engagement and connection are understood to be critical aspects of today’s educational experience. With drop-out rates alarmingly high, schools, as well as community and therapeutic organizations, are all looking to deeply engage teens and provide opportunities for deep reflection on self and community. We do our best to make this possible for kids on as broad a spectrum as possible -- and though we are small -- Guess what? It's working.

What are you working on now?

I'm working on several projects right now - 3 or 4 new video biography projects have come to me as a result of my recent Smithsonian article and subsequent interview on NPR Weekend Edition (on Father's Day.) So that's taking up a lot of my time. We have also just finished a teen film workshop for FRED in Denver and start the fourth year of our MA teen film workshop for 35 teenagers next week. Beyond that, I am father to a baby boy - born exactly one month ago. His name is Tiger and he is a happy handful.

Addendum to "A Conversation with Josh Sternfeld"

2009-06-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

"Meskada" writer-director Josh Sternfeld just confirmed that actors Nick Stahl and Rachel Nichols would be playing the leads in his rural police drama set to begin filming Monday in Greene and Columbia Counties in New York's Hudson Valley.
He said that the contracts were signed and that the other roles would be filled in quickly as they head into production.
Stahl will be playing Noah Cordin, a small town police detective investigating the homicide of a young child that occurs during a break-in.
Stahl is probably best known from his role as John Connor in “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” and from HBO’s series “Carnivale” and the 2001 film “In the Bedroom.”
Nichols will be playing Leslie Spencer, a county Sheriff’s Investigator, also working on the homicide case.
She can currently be seen in “Star Trek” and is also starring in the upcoming film ”GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra” set to be released in August.
“I’m very excited to be working with both actors,” Sternfeld told Look, Read, Listen.

A Conversation with Josh Sternfeld

2009-05-14T05:27:00.000-07:00

Josh Sternfeld, a New York writer and filmmaker, is currently in pre-production for his second feature film, Meskada, a rural police drama that pits two towns, one struggling, the other well-off, against each other over the death of a child.

Sternfeld has two short films, “Balloons, Streamers” from 1997 and 1999’s “Colin’s Date” under his belt as well as one feature, “Winter Solstice” (2005), which starred Anthony LaPaglia, Aaron Stanford, Allison Janney, Mark Weber and Michelle Monaghan.

Sternfeld was also part of the prestigious Sundance writers workshop.

He took some time out to answer a few questions for Look, Read, Listen.

Your first three films are set in a suburban environment, why did you choose to delve into the rural world for your newest film?

I felt ready to approach a new environment, one that didn't come from my own upbringing. I was excited for the screenwriting challenge that comes from having to do real research, talking and learning from people whose experience of life was different from my own.

You have thus far mined the territory of the quiet family drama, where the plot is driven by character and circumstance rather than by grand action, so how did you translate this into the script for your newest film Meskada? Was it hard to balance the action with the more subtle aspects of character and place?

Balancing the action/ "plot-driven” elements of the story with the more subtle character work was a real challenge; it took many drafts over a couple years (and definitely many missteps) to get to the finished screenplay. More often than not, it meant doing the action and plot work first, then finding ways to bring in character traits and relationships to the scenes.

If I remember correctly you were a fan of 1981’s Ordinary People, what other films and/or filmmakers have inspired you and why?

My filmmaking influences and heroes are pretty diverse. I'm a huge admirer of Stanley Kubrick, mainly because he brought a singular and personal approach to such a wide array of genres. It takes incredible discipline and focus to work that way - something I hope to do someday. I'm also a big fan of Martin Scorsese (like every other director!)...for his boldness, the passion and energy he brings to the screen. Paul Thomas Anderson is another filmmaker I think is pretty fantastic.

What is it about the inner tensions of families that you seem drawn to exploring?

Well, to be honest, I think there's a universal draw to those themes. However, I hope with "Meskada" and in the future, that I'm changing my approach in exploring those tensions - the idea of the "quiet family drama" is not very exciting to me anymore. I would like to continue dramatizing family tensions, but in more provocative stories.

Your first full-length film “Winter Solstice” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and garnered favorable reviews. Having tasted some success, has there been an emotional struggle to get your next film into production because of this?

Well, it's has been a longer and more difficult struggle than I would have anticipated four years ago. That being said, I think everyone in the arts would agree that it's a long road, with lots of twists and turns...

Your next project is being made on a shoestring budget, do you feel you will be able to tell the story you intended without the major funding and do you feel that perhaps the struggle could enhance the final product?

For sure, I agree that the budget and spirit of this could make it a better film. Having to be creative and resourceful when you don't have tons of money can be a great thing...but then again, ask me in two months!...

How is pre-production for Meskada going? Who have you lined up as far as actors go and how did the process of casting occur? Did you have anyone in mind for specific roles?

Pre-production is going great; very busy with the locations search, and all the casting decisions. I don't usually write with specific actors in mind...which I guess makes the casting process kind of fun and unpredictable...

Everything is going to be allright: Guido van der Werve at the Hirschhorn

2009-04-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

In Guido van der Werve’s video Nummer Acht, Everything is Going to be Allright, from 2007, we see a small, lone figure walking on a huge expanse of ice with a massive ice breaking ship following close behind. The only sound we hear is the raging wind and shattering ice as the man and ship move forward.

The video follows in the tradition of the early work of such groundbreaking video/performance artists as Vito Acconci and Chris Burden who explored the line between pain, fear and art.

The sense of danger and personal risk connects Nummer Acht to works like Acconci’s Trademark (1970), wherein he bites himself and makes prints from the marks, or Burden’s Shoot—in which he was shot with a rifle in the arm—and Trans-Fixed—in which he was nailed to the back of a VW Bug, from 1971 and 1974, respectively.

But there are two significant differences between the works. While Burden and Acconci close-off the viewer by their acts, using the body in a self-reflective way, Van der Werve’s action is meant to reach out to the world in a gesture that tells us “everything is going to be allright” in a world full of tumult.

The second difference between the works lies in the aesthetics. In Nummer Acht, the image is as important as the act. The video is aesthetically beautiful in the traditional sense.

Acconci and Burden’s early work doesn’t deal with aesthetic issues in the same way as van der Werve’s. The medium is merely meant to document an act and is anti-aesthetical in nature.

Van der Werve, a Dutch artist born in 1977, has worked in several mediums, including painting and performance, and is a classical pianist and chess player, all of which finds its way into his films.

The video is on display until Oct. 11, 2009 at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.

In defense of architectural kitsch or Why we should preserve giant sized Americana

2009-03-28T06:17:00.000-07:00

As a child my family spent many an hour on the highways between Nebraska, where we lived, and Minnesota where my grandfather resided. I remember the miles of cornfields, an endless yellow and green blur, sometimes punctuated by a silo in red and white. Every so often in this landscape of anonymous uniformity a startling, one might say shocking, vision would appear—the roadside tourist trap.

Giant sized Indians, cowboys, corn…and the greatest of them all, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox towering above the landscape. Actually there were and still are two giant Paul Bunyans in Minnesota, one that talked, in Brainerd and the other, which stood mute, in Bemidji. These roadside attractions represent a quickly disappearing art form that is a link to the best and worst of pre-interstate America—an unbounded desire for the new and weird melded with crass commercialism.

This uniquely American art form that combines art, artifice and advertising on a grand scale can be broken down further into two sub-categories. The first is mimetic architecture, buildings meant to resemble a person animal or object, as in the Brown Derby Restaurant—a building in the shape of, yes you guessed it, a brown derby hat—in Los Angeles. The other category consists of giant sculptures with no utilitarian purpose as in the above-mentioned Paul Bunyans. The common trait of all these works are a sense of the naive that can be compared to the paintings of Grandma Moses, that is, the proportions may not be correct, but the work has undeniable vitality and truthfulness.

I’ve found that the most exotic of man-made wonders have been built in places with a dearth of natural ones. Middle America could perhaps be considered the roadside attraction epicenter for this reason. Miles of corn, wheat or barren moonscape seems a natural setting for a giant bull, T-Rex, or an aqua-blue whale. But in the America of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, anywhere people passed through or vacationed was fair game and competition often pushed the boundaries of the imagination.

Henry Ford, by mass-producing his Model T and thereby lowering the cost of the automobile, helped usher in the era of roadside tourist traps. The entrepreneurial of spirit could now fleece the passing motorist in a way that P.T. Barnum never has the opportunity to do. If you weren’t lucky enough to own the rights to some natural wonder like a cave or scenic vista you could always build something big enough or strange enough to pique the interest of a passing motorist.

Route 66 was once lined with both categories of giant sized Americana. A few examples survive today, including the Wigwam Motel in Hollbrook, AZ., and an over-sized space man known as the Gemini Giant in Wilmington, IL., but much has been lost.

When President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 into law, he helped sound the death knell of roadside attractions in America. The law instituted the federal interstate system, connecting the country in a new way, but bypassing most of the tourist traps near smaller highways that no longer saw a large amount of traffic.

All across the country these irreplaceable pieces of America are in danger or are already gone forever. In California, Las Vegas and the Jersey Shore a number of examples of Googie architecture of the 1940s and 50s, which often used mimetic devices, have been torn down and in most cases replaced with designs of modern and post-modern simplicity or ubiquitous boxes lacking any semblance of style.

the Spirit of the Place

2009-03-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

Editor’s note:This is the second interview with Stephen Bergman, a novelist, playwright and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who writes under the pen name Samuel Shem. This interview focuses on his latest work, The Spirit of the Place, a novel of history, redemption and love that is set in a small city in New York's Hudson Valley. The novel was published in 2008 by the Kent State University Press and has been awarded the National Best Book Award for general fiction.

Look, Read, Listen: There seems to be a palpable sense of history—local, national and personal—that runs through the novel, as well as a conflict between past and present; looking back and remembering as Miranda does or blotting out the past, typified by the desire of Milt and Henry to tear down the Worth Hotel. What is the importance of history in your novel and how do these different types of history relate to one another?

Samuel Shem: When I went to college I was pre-med and majored in psychology I thought that history was a worthless subject to study. Now the main thing I read is history and biography. When I heard about the Hudson Bicentennial in 1985 I started to revisit my hometown—my mother and father still lived there at the time—and I became fascinated by what I had never known. As in the novel, I had been taught, "They caught whales in the river." Imagine my surprise when I realized that this was not so, and when Hudsonians shared this view almost to a man/woman. In THE SPIRIT history is a constant deep theme, both in terms of the actual history of the town and of how this impacted and continues to impact the personal history of all the characters, especially the main character. THE SPIRIT actually is one story from a mammoth book I wrote, and in fact via digressions and documents I carry the history of Hudson and its characters all the way back to the Henry Hudson voyage and a devilish man called von Schoonerstroom who jumps ship and is last seen walking in to the woods with the Indians. Stay tuned.

LRL: As compared to your first novel, 1978’s the House of God, your new work seems to have a different sense of depth and pacing (a slow profound unfolding as opposed to urgency). Could this be due to the subject matter, your writing style or the fact that you are writing as a man 30 years older with all the experience that brings with it…or some combination of all these things?

SS: THE HOUSE was forged in the fire of delayed adolescence and dawning medical and personal wisdom; THE SPIRIT began when I was 40 (like the main character) and had a different tether—to understand some very basic things—love, death, betrayal—about my family and my town. The novel is elemental in that you don't have to be a doc to be captivated by the story and characters, the loves, deaths, and breakages of the town. Of all the spirits of the town.

LRL: The main character of the House of God learns the value of not doing too much for patients, while in the Spirit of the Place, Dr. Rose learns from his mentor the importance of being present with patients and the “old-fashioned” type of medicine that is based on practicality (and perhaps psychology) rather than medical science. Do you feel that these are important lesson for doctors to learn? And if so is it possible for this to be taught or does it have to happen organically as it did with both these characters?

SS: One review called THE SPIRIT the "perfect bookend to THE HOUSE OF GOD," in that HOUSE was about medical training, and SPIRIT is how to be not only a doctor, but a doctor/person when you get out. HOUSE was trying to cope with the conflict between the received wisdom of the medical system and the call of the human heart, and the response of the characters is to get out of the line of fire—while not yet knowing how to "be with" patients. Starbuck and Orville in THE SPIRIT place the "being with" the patient at the forefront—as he says, "80% of the time the patients who come into the office have no diagnosable physical complaint." The best way to learn how to be with people is to live your life with people who are caring. Late in the novel, Orville hears the words, "don't spread more suffering around." There is a universal journey of human suffering, and if you go through your own suffering with caring others, you will heal. He came as a doctor to heal the town and the town heals him—by its constant working of its crazy, horrifying, tender breakages on his life, and not letting him leave (his mother's "will")

LRL: Forgiveness seems to be a major theme of you newest novel. Is there a connection between Orville’s exposure to Dr. Starbuck’s kind of medicine and his eventual forgiveness of both his mother and Henry?

SS: Starbuck, like Dr. Harold Levine of my growing up years in Hudson, is a gentle wise, forgiving presence. When Orville got in trouble, Starbuck doesn't say much but takes him around to see patients giving birth, or dying, or whatever. Orville learns that happiness is not an individual matter, and that understanding brings love, and love understanding—and forgiveness. Orville doesn't exactly forgive the town bully Schooner, but he connects with him, at the end giving him the lovebird, Starlight.

LRL: Why did you choose the early 1980s as the time in which you set your novel?

SS: Because the Reagan years were a bloodbath in many parts of the world (Central America) that needed to be brought to light, and Reagan was the beginning of the really sophisticated lying that disguised the blood—which of course is nothing compared to the Bush years which saw it accepted that it wasn't necessary to disguise the fact that you are lying. I started the first draft of the novel in 1983 or so, so that was when it was set.

LRL: In both the House of God and the Spirit of the Place, the specter of the political power structure (Nixon, Reagan) becomes another character in these works. What is the importance of political climate as it relates to the settings of your novels?

SS: I am motivated by "Hey wait a second" moments, when you see or do or don't do something in your daily life and you say to yourself, "Hey wait a second why am I doing or not doing that?" and then you just ignore it and move on. HOUSE was in the Nixon impeachment year; MISERY in the early Reagan years, SPIRIT in the Reagan reelection year. The next novel is set in 2003, in the first "Mission Accomplished" horror of the Cheney/Bush regime. I take history very seriously; it takes us more seriously—witness the relief that W.is gone.

LRL: Would you consider your new book to be part of the Magic Realist tradition or to simply contain elements related to it? Or are we as readers to believe that Dr. Rose is not actually being visited by his dead mother?

SS: Marquez is my favorite modern author, so he influenced me, but hasn't everyone seen their dead mother flying around and having talks with her? Orville Rose is the only one who sees his mother. And he notices, near the end of the novel, the "she wouldn't fly in the face of love," i.e., that when he is in love, she does not appear. That's a clue, not an answer.

LRL: In the Spirit of the Place, Columbia, which is based on the city of Hudson, where you grew up, becomes another character in the book. Was it difficult to balance the truthful and fictional elements of the setting and the characters that inhabit it?
Nope easy. In THE HOUSE OF GOD, and MOUNT MISERY, the sequel to it, it was horrendously difficult to write the doctors and patients without getting sued; Hudson was easy. Almost everything I write is virtually true, and one step off real.

LRL: Dr. Rose faced some difficulties growing up Jewish in Columbia. Did you face similar challenges when you were young?

SS: Yes. Enough said.

LRL: What are you working on now?

SS: I just finished the new novel, SPOOK ROCK VENTURE, which is set in "Columbia" again, but 20 years later. Many of the same characters make an appearance—Orville the town doctor with a new sign in Bill's office: "YES SMOKING—NOT REALLY"), and Miranda and Cray and, yes, Mrs. Tarr who, two decades later, is still leading her oxygen tank around town on a leash. It is my first novel without a doctor at the center. It's the great junkyard novel. Stay Tuned. I'm also working on a nonfiction book with Janet Surrey my wife, and coaxing our play, BILL W. AND DR. BOB to productions in the USA and Brazil and Russia and Paris etc. And I'm a third of the way through my most radical novel yet.

A conversation with Samuel Shem

2009-01-29T06:29:00.000-08:00

Editor’s Note: This is the first of two interviews with Stephen Bergman, psychiatrist and author who writes under the pen name Samuel Shem. This interview revolves around his first novel, The House of God, while the second will be concerned with his latest work, The Spirit of the Place.

The House of God, which came out in 1978, was Bergman’s first novel and tells the story of Dr. Roy Basch and his internship at the House of God.
Bergman said that his first novel was the hardest to write, but felt it had to be written. He said it came about from a series of “hey wait a second” moments that “make you stop and think. During my internship I had so many of them.”

The House of God was well received by the doctors of his generation but not by the older generation.
"The older generation of doctors hated it,” he said. “My generation loved it.”

The novel has sold more than two million copies and is required reading in medical schools throughout the world.

Bergman was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford and is a professor at Harvard Medical School. He lives in Newton, MA., and is married to Janet Surrey, with whom he has co-written several works.

Do you consider The House of God a satire, as some critics have labeled it, or a hyper-realistic depiction of your internship year at Beth Israel?

SATIRE, TO ME, IS EXAGGERATION IN THE SERVICE OF POLEMIC. EXAGGERATION? WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS, THE SITUATIONS IN THE HOUSE ARE AT MOST ONE STEP OFF REALITY. IF THAT'S EXAGGERATION, EVERY WRITER OF FICTION IS AN EXAGGERATOR. EVER SINCE I, A NAIVE YOUTH AT HUDSON HIGH SCHOOL, WON THE NEW YORK STATE AMERICAN LEGION ORATORICAL CONTEST, WITH A SPEECH CALLED 'THE CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM'S WEAPON,' I HAVE BEEN SENSITIVE TO POLEMIC. HOWEVER I HAVE EMBRACED RESISTANCE, WHICH IS DIFFERENT. WHAT IS THE DIFF? POLEMIC IS A BRUTAL VERBAL ASSAULT TO IMPOSE CHANGE, A POWER-OVER TACTIC. RESISTANCE IS A NONVIOLENT GROUP ACTION TO BRING CHANGE. SO CALL THE HOUSE OF GOD A NOVEL OF RESISTANCE USING A ONE-STEP OFF REAL STYLE.

When writing the novel did your training as a psychiatrist find its way into the writing? The ghost of Freud seems to hover nearby, especially in the form of the two policemen.

EARLY ON IN MY 30 YEAR BID AS A SHRINK, I REALIZED THAT FREUD WAS CERTAINLY NOT AN ACCURATE PORTRAYAL OR THEORY OF ANYTHING, OR, TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY, FREUD WAS AT BEST FARCE. WHAT BETTER HIGHLIGHTING OF THE FREUD FARCE THAN TO HAVE THE POLICEMEN EMBRACE HIM--DEEP DOWN THEY THINK HE'S AN ASSHOLE TOO.

Sex and death seem to be overarching themes of the novel and can be broken down further into the categories of the frenzied, mindless sex typified by the Runt and the intimate, relationship building sex Dr. Basch shares with Berry. Death, it seems, can also be broken down into good death, i.e. dying when its time, naturally, as opposed to the seemingly everlasting death provided by the likes of Jo. When you where writing the novel did this occur organically or was it something you consciously implanted in the work?

ORGANICALLY. IT WAS ALL IN THE REALITY, AND I JUST WROTE IT. BUT ANY GOOD NOVEL IS ABOUT SEX AND DEATH AND REDEMPTION. A NOVELIST NEVER REALLY KNOWS WHAT HIS OR HER WORK IS ABOUT UNTIL SOMEONE READS IT AND TALKS WITH YOU ABOUT IT.

Why did you choose to use Marcel Marceau’s performance as Dr. Bach’s way back into humanity?

BECAUSE I LOVED MARCEL MARCEAU, AND HAD GONE TO A PERFORMANCE OF HIS RECENTLY. AND ALSO, BECAUSE IT WAS EXACTLY RIGHT. WHAT WOULD THE SHAKESPEAREAN POLICEMEN GO TO SEE AND ENJOY? MAMET? NEVER. THEY'D SEE HOW FAKE HIS 'REAL'', WHICH THEY ENCOUNTER EVERY DAY, IS.

About two thirds of the way through the novel, and probably the internship year, Dr. Basch aligns himself with Pinkus, and by extension, the slurpers. It is obviously a coping mechanism as was the other methods employed by the terns. Did this actually happen to you in some form? And if not can you explain how it found its way into the book.

I NEVER BOUGHT INTO THE PINCUS OR SLURPER WORLD. I SEEM TO HAVE A HIGH DEGREE OF SUSPICION FOR FALSITY--THUS MY TORMENT WITH THE PATHETIC LIAR--AS-PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH--AND MY DESCRIPTIONS ARE INFORMED BY THAT ALERTNESS. AGAIN, THEY WERE THERE IN REALITY, AND I TOOK THEM ONE STEP OFF. (THERE IS IN FACT NOW AT THE BETH ISRAEL HOSPITAL CARDIAC UNIT A 'PINCUS' AWARD, FOR A CHARACTER MOST LIKE HIM IN REALITY)

Who are some of the writers, (besides the Russians, I know they have been important to you) and others, who have inspired you. Did you read Catch-22, for instance, before writing The House of God? I know the two novels have been compared to one another, but in my opinion, they only relate in the sense of the inanity of both systems faced by yourself and Heller.

I NEVER READ CATCH-22 UNTIL AFTER THE HOUSE OF GOD WAS PUBLISHED. I LOVED IT IN PART, NOT AS A WHOLE. THE LITERARY TECHNIQUE WAS TOO LITERARY, AND AS YOU CAN SEE, I BELIEVE IN STORY, NOT SITUATION. ALSO, HE GOT AT LEAST 2 STEPS OFF THE REAL, IF NOT 3. MY HEROES ARE--IN ADDITION TO THE RUSSIANS ABOVE ALL TOLSTOY--SHAKESPEARE, MARQUEZ, FAULKNER, ORWELL--ESPECIALLY 1984--EDUARDO GALEANO (THE MEMORY OF FIRE TRILOGY), AND THEN SPECIFIC BOOKS: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, THE JUNGLE, THE QUIET AMERICAN, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, USA (DOS PASSOS), THE TIN DRUM, THE PRESIDENT (MIGUEL ANGEL ASTURIAS), NERUDA, WALLACE STEVENS, MARY OLIVER. I WOULD CALL ALL OF THEM WRITERS OF RESISTANCE OR NOVELS OF RESISTANCE.

Do you feel that before and during the time you were an intern that it was possible for there to be internal medicine MDs who retained a sense of humanity? Or did they all end up as slurpers?

YES, MEDICINE HAS CHANGED, PARTLY BECAUSE OF THE HOUSE OF GOD, AND THE HOURS THAT PERMIT MORE SLEEP. YES, LOTS OF DOCS RETAIN THEIR HUMANITY. THE LIFE CYCLE IS THAT THEY GO INTO MED SCHOOL WITH IDEALS, THEY GET THEM BEATEN OUT OF THEM IN THE SECOND TWO YEARS OF MEDICAL SCHOOL AND THEN GET HAMMERED TO A PULP IN THEIR SPECIALTY AND SUBSPECIALTY TRAINING, AND THOSE WHO SURVIVE AND GET THROUGH THEIR MID-LIFE CRISIS TURN INTO WONDERFUL DOCTORS, LIKE HUDSON'S OWN DR. BILL STARBUCK IN MY NEW NOVEL, THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE.

Another important element in the novel is Nixon’s downfall. It seems Nixon and the Leggo are linked, at least in the mind of Dr. Basch. After Dr. Basch’s return to humanity he seems to be able to see the Leggo as a person and not merely as a representative of the old-guard establishment. Do you feel there is any relationship to this scene and the nation’s possible sense of catharsis at Nixon’s finally leaving office after the Watergate hearings?

THERE WAS NO CATHARSIS WHEN NIXON LEFT, BECAUSE GERALD FORD PREVENTED IT WITH A PARDON (IN THE SAME WAY THAT WE RISK MORE TROUBLE IF THE CHENEY/BUSH/RUMSFELD/RICE CRIMINALS GET OFF SCOTT FREE). YOU CAN'T LOOK AHEAD UNLESS YOU LOOK BEHIND--AMERICA'S SINGLE GREATEST PROBLEM IS A BLINDNESS TO HISTORY, WITNESS THE UPCOMING 'SURGE' IN AFGHANISTAN, OR THE RECENT NO-SUPERVISION BAILOUT OF THE RICH. NIXON'S DOWNFALL AND LEGGO'S PRESIDENCY OF THE RESIDENCY ARE THE SAME POWER OVER MODEL. THE ONLY MODEL THAT WORKS, LONG TERM, IS A POWER-WITH MODEL. THE DIFFICULTY IN A HIERARCHICAL SYSTEM IS TO KEEP YOUR SENSE OF MUTUALITY AND COMPASSION, WHICH ROY ARRIVES AT AFTER HE'S GONE. THE LEGGO IS A LOST SOUL AND WILL DIE THAT WAY. HIS KIDS WILL HATE HIM..

France, as described in the novel, seems to be a place that drenches the senses and helps Dr. Basch recuperate after the year in the House of God. Why France? What about that country, and the part of France they go to, has the ability to help him, at least in part, to focus on the body/spirit as opposed to the body/anatomy?

AFTER MY INTERNSHIP I WENT DIRECTLY INTO MY PSYCHIATRY TRAINING, BUT I WENT TO THE DORDOGNE AS SOON AS I COULD WITH MY THEN GIRLFRIEND, NOW MY WIFE. IT WAS, AND IS, LIKE ANY NATURAL SIMPLE PLACE, A HEALING SPIRITUAL ARENA.

When you wrote the novel it was a time before television was inundated with doctor dramas such as ER and Gray’s Anatomy. Do you feel that The House of God may have helped spawn or at least laid the groundwork for this? What do you think of these types of shows?

THE HOUSE OF GOD WAS RIPPED OFF FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ABOUT 1980 WITH A SHOW CALL SAINT ELSEWHERE (A TERM I USE IN THE NOVEL) AND I THOUGHT OF SUING THEM BUT DIDN'T. SINCE THEN IT HAS BEEN RIPPED OFF FOR 30 YEARS. I HAVE NEVER WATCHED A SINGLE EPISODE OF ANY OF THESE SHOWS--TO ME THEY'RE WITLESS, BRUTAL, AND CRUDE. OUR DAUGHTER IS IN LOVE WITH HOUSE, SO I TRIED TO WATCH THAT, BUT LASTED ONLY ABOUT 9 MINUTES AND HAVE NEVER WATCHED ANOTHER EPISODE. THERE IS ONE PURPOSE FOR THIS STUFF, TO MAKE MONEY, AND THEY DO THAT VERY WELL BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL GO FOR THE VULGAR AND THE PHONY. MIND YOU, I DON'T HATE ALL SIT-COMS. OUR DAUGHTER LOVES RERUNS OF FRIENDS, AND I LOVE THOSE GUYS. THEY'RE REAL EVEN IF THE PLOTS ARE SOMETIMES NOT.

Humor plays a huge role in the novel. I know that in my own line of work as a crime reporter, humor seems to help temper the ugliness of death. Was that true for yourself and your fellow interns?

EARLY ON IN WRITING THE NOVEL, I HAD A TOUCH OF THE MUSE ON MY SHOULDER: "THIS STUFF IS SO HORRIFIC THAT FOR ANYONE TO READ IT IT HAS TO RIDE ON HUMOR" AND THAT'S WHAT I DID. AND THAT'S WHAT WE DID IN THE INTERNSHIP--HUMOR AND SEX.

A brilliant sunset: art and the atmosphere

2008-12-12T06:26:00.000-08:00

The first time I saw the paintings of Frederic Church I was struck by the brilliant, almost garish colors in such compositions as his Twilight in the Wilderness from 1860. I had always assumed Church, along with the other Hudson River School painters, were exaggerating for effect, much like the German Expressionists had.

But when my wife and I moved from Brooklyn to Catskill, a small town in New York's Hudson Valley, I realized I was wrong. One day, just after we had moved up, I was driving from the east side of the Hudson River, just outside of the city of Hudson, heading back across the Rip Van Winkle Bridge to Catskill when I nearly drove off the road. The sky looked like it was on fire. It was an explosion of alizarin crimson, eggplant purple, lemon yellow and a hundred shades of orange, with a deep electric blue peaking through in places. The usually brown Hudson River reflected the sky, mellowing the colors and complimenting the scene.

A few months later, my wife and a I were eating at a riverfront restaurant in Athens, on the west side of the Hudson, when we witnessed a similar scene. Just across the river in Columbia County, the tree-covered hills suddenly turned from a dull green to a riot of reds and oranges just as the sun began to set. The shift was so sudden it didn't seem real.

The quality of light and atmospheric fireworks of the Hudson Valley drew a loose affiliation of 19th century landscape painters that would become known as the Hudson River School to the area and ushered in the (arguably) most important contribution to world culture by 19th century America. The attraction to the the land was so great that the two leading painters of the school—Church and Thomas Cole—permanently settled in the area.

The connection between the atmospheric peculiarities of a place in relation to the output of a painter working there is vital to understanding any given piece of art.

One can't look at the paintings of Henri Matisse that were produced in the south of France without understanding that he went there specifically for the light. His time spent there transformed his canvases, altering his palette for the rest of his life. In 1917 he permanently settled near Nice.

The relationship between palette and place extends beyond figurative painting. The later work of Willem De Kooning—one of the great 20th century masters—is a good example. When he left Manhattan in 1963 and moved out to East Hampton, at the end of Long Island, his colors lightened. The forms, as if bathed in light, lost the hard linear quality of his earlier work.

I was recently discussing this subject with an attorney I know, who said he wished that his art professors in college would have explained this to him, since it seems to be a large part of the picture (literally).

Severing the tie that binds: art, politics and the real world

2008-11-09T16:26:00.000-08:00

I'm not a fan of politically motivated art. I feel that as artists we should dig deeper and strive to produce work that deals with humanity's common threads as opposed to surface issues. Great art is often made about intensely personal subject matter, but what makes it great is its ability to go beyond the merely personal to touch upon a universal truth.

The question I've been pondering is whether political art can ever be truly great as well as whether an artist with aberrant political ideologies should be black-balled from the pantheon of great art.

When dealing with groundbreaking artistic work that has underlying racist or propagandistic elements the artistic merit cannot be stripped away from the content.
D.W. Griffith’s (1875-1948) film “Birth of a Nation,” from 1915, is considered by many to be a masterpiece.

The film is a plaudit to the founding of the Ku Klux Clan and presents a skewed history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.
The film was the first blockbuster and is credited with both innovating and solidifying cinematic language.

At best, it can be considered in a historical/sociological context, specifically for its ability to propagate a racist world-view and its effect on the public as well as later Hollywood productions.

Early Soviet era cinema and the films of Leni Riefenstahl made for the Nazi Party are other works that must fall into this category.

I’m focusing on film because of its unique potential as a tool for propaganda. No other art form works in the way that film does because it so closely mimics reality, easily persuading the public that its perspective is a common one.

There is no denying that The Battleship Potemkin (1925) by Segei Eisenstein or Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1934) have influenced later filmmakers, but we should not consider these films as true art but as dogma in the guise of art. The medium and the message are intertwined in these films making it impossible to untangle the two.

I feel there is a difference in the case of artists whose personal beliefs may be shocking or repulsive to most, but whose work doesn't reflect their personal beliefs.

The German Expressionist Emil Nolde (1867-1956) was a Nazi sympathizer and brilliant artist. His work exhibits vigorous brushwork, intense coloration and an exuberance not unlike Vincent Van Gogh's paintings.
Nolde's Nazi affiliations began early, in the 1920's, and lasted well into the 1940's, even after Adolph Hitler’s government banned his work. He publicly made anti-Semitic statements and considered Expressionism as a purely Germanic style.

Nolde's politics and personal beliefs should (obviously) be questioned, but the fact remains that his art has no relation to his politics.

The poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972) and his output follow along these lines as well. Pound's writing is arguably the foundation of the modernist tradition, influencing a generation of later writers.

He moved to Italy in 1924 and later became a propagandist for Benito Mussolini's fascist government. He was also an anti-Semite who spoke publicly against Jews.
But, like Nolde, his work doesn't reflect these views.

I believe that the art and the artist should be considered separately from one another, unless of course, the work reflects their vitriolic personal views or a political agenda, in which case the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater.

The fantastic in the work of JMW Turner

2008-10-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

John Mallord William Turner, the early 19th century British painter famous for his landscapes, also worked in another vein less talked about. Some of his work deals with the fantastic, from images of death riding a pale horse to sea monsters. Also falling into this category are his imagined landscapes of Biblical and historical scenes, such as the Deluge and Rome burning.

The fantastic can be defined as work that deals with the inner life of the artist, including visions, the grotesque and dream states. Artists considered squarely in this genre would include Hieronymus Bosch and William Blake.

Parallels can be drawn between Turner’s fantastical works and those of his contemporary Blake. The main difference between the two is in execution and style. Blake looked back towards the simplified, flat forms found in early Christian illuminated texts, while Turner worked in a more realistic and academic style.

Art historians have generally ignored Turner’s visionary work and focused instead on his role as a precursor to modernism, exemplified by his later paintings that forgo the classic landscape for a technique that borders on the abstract.

This work was an exploration of the atmospheric as shown in such pieces as 1842’s Snow Storm—Steam-boat off a Harbour’s Mouth and Rain, Steam and Speed from 1844.

Turner believed that light was the emanation of God’s spirit and in his later years his work focused almost exclusively on the effects of light. His work that presages later art movements comes directly from a mystical belief system that he tried to convey through paint. On his deathbed he supposedly uttered the words “The sun is God.”

Turner’s fascination with the fantastic isn’t strange considering the time and place he lived in. London at the turn of the 18th Century was experiencing a surge in new forms of Christian mysticism and spiritualist beliefs, from the Swedenborgians to Mesmerism.

In “Sunrise with Sea Monsters,” a late work by Turner, a strange fish-like creature sits upon a hazy yellow sea. This painting brings together Turner’s mystical exploration of light and his fascination with the imaginary. The title is a 20th century invention, but never the less Turner’s “sea monster” is an amalgamation of different fish and therefore a creature that came squarely from his fevered imagination.

The longest suicide note in the world: The music of Scott Andrew Poole

2008-09-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

In the song “The King of Nothingness,” from the album of the same name, Scott Andrew Poole sings “I’m writing the world’s longest suicide note, but don’t worry I’m not even half done yet.”

This lyric seems to epitomize Poole’s music, which swings from despair to a glimmering hopefulness, underpinned by a dark humor.The music always matches the lyrical content.

In the song “Amarillo” from his 2002 eponymous album, a mournful acoustic guitar echoes the words of this country ballad that Johnny Cash would have killed to have sung.

The song is about a man riding the range during a cattle drive in Texas with a band of miscreants “who always spoke of innocence” but whose bodies “wreaked of sin.” When the men get lost they turn on each other, but at the 11th hour an “angel from Abilene” in the form of a train arrives. “With their faces turned toward the sky, they shout hallelujah today our souls have been saved,” sings Poole. “But I could not share that sentiment so I shot them where they prayed.”

Born in North Carolina Poole’s wander lust has given him the chance to live in almost every region in the country.

Since moving to New York in 2002 he has put out a number of recordings including a self-titled album, The Gospel of New York, The Vice of Life, and The King of Nothingness.

His sound has changed over the years—from post-punk roots rock with his Austin, Texas band The Relafords, through stripped down Anti-folk to a highly layered and complex sound achieved with producer Jason Kronick.

Poole is a revisionist. Throughout his career he has constantly reinterpreted his own music. Each successive version of a song reflects not just his current fascination, but what he considers to be a better and truer interpretation. The possibility exists that his idea of “better” changes with his current fascination, but never the less, refinement of style and lyrical content lies at the root of his reasoning.

“Snowman in the Summer,” first heard on the Vice of Life as a muscular rock song with a guitar part that both shimmers and hangs on the edge of breaking apart, later appears on Poole’s newest album, The King of Nothingness, in a completely new form. In its current incarnation, Poole reshapes it into a song as fragile as a lullaby sung in a falsetto with deeply layered elements that come close to overwhelming his words. The lyrics are truncated in his newer version, which works within the new framework.

Poole’s sound continues to change, but according to him his next album will be a return to the stripped down acoustic sound of his early recordings. Through each transformation Poole manages to retain something of his past sound, building upon his experiences. So it may be safe to say that even though he may be returning to his roots the sound will continue to evolve.

To hear Scott Andrew Poole's music go to:
http://www.myspace.com/wrongtreerecords

A Coney Island thrill ride

2008-08-31T14:10:00.000-07:00

Coney Island Aesthetics

2008-08-31T05:48:00.000-07:00

When Carol Albert sold Astroland, the largest amusement park on Coney Island, to developer Thor Equities in 2006 it sounded the death knell for a singular aesthetic style.

The Coney Island aesthetic is both organic and completely artificial. It hovers between eras, arching backwards towards the dawn of electric light when Luna Park’s thousands of bulbs were an attraction unto itself, and into the 1970’s when New York City helped give birth to a new urban art called graffiti.

This riot of styles, colors, sights and sounds retains a cohesiveness that marks it as a unique aesthetic, different from other amusement parks in America. Coney Island isn’t a well-planned and minutely detailed corporate entity such as Disneyland or Six Flags. It has come about in fits and starts and has taken over a century to become what it is today.

It also differs greatly from the midways of state and county fairs. I recently spent time at both the Dutchess and Columbia County Fairs where temporary midways are put up each year. Besides a sense of impermanence that you won’t find at Coney Island, the art that decorates the facades of the various rides is strikingly different from that found at Astroland and the other parks.

The airbrushed images of the thrill rides at the fairs I visited had a cleaner, more comic-book graphics edge to them. On closer inspection I found that many of the artists were from California.

At Coney Island the designs seem slightly denser with more detail and imagery condensed into the available space.

The Coney Island aesthetic extends to the characters that inhabit it. The summer before I moved to New York, in 2001, I spent a long lazy afternoon drinking at Ruby’s Bar on the boardwalk. I spoke with the barkers and carnies discussing everything from Cajun music to the history of the Island. Many had lived the lives of itinerant workers, moving from the oil fields of the South to various other jobs around the country before finding a semi-permanent home at Coney Island.

I drank with a man named “Shorty” that day, who I still occasionally see when I go to Coney Island. He is originally from Nova Scotia and came from Acadian stock, the same people who settled the part of Louisiana where I’m from. He was a good representative of the carnie breed. He had a restless energy that seemed to have found its match in the bright lights and endless motion of the carnival. After a life of movement he had found a place that matched his temperament. With the demise of Astroland the old time carnies will probably have to move on, like the artists, cranks, thinkers and blue-collar workers have had to do from successive NYC neighborhoods.

Coney Island may have been the last real place left in New York. Times Square was stripped of any local color and history with its "revitalization" in the 1990's. The Bowery, a working class entertainment haven lined with theaters and bars in the 19th century, later gave rise to the youth oriented Punk scene in the 1970’s. Now it is home to trendy boutiques and a Whole Foods Market.

The question now remains: what will the future hold? Equities’ firm has proposed a multi-billion dollar entertainment complex with hotels, an in-door water park and lots of shopping opportunities. Based on their other projects, I believe the new park will be clean, well integrated and bland—the perfect post-modern American structure.