Oh, Canada

We went to Toronto for the first time on Canada Day Weekend (which intersects with 4th of July weekend, as it happens).  Charmed as hell to see this guy as the plane flew into the city airport.  

This year celebrates Canada's 150th birthday, so recognitions of that were all over the place.

Not content to have one night of parties for such a big milestone, there were concerts and fireworks several days in a row - we caught one incarnation.

Our first stop after checking in was the SkyDome (which is now named after a cell service company, I guess) for a Blue Jays/Red Sox game.  We missed the first inning and change because, well, we were coming to the game from Newark, but that did not spoil our day. The dome was open when we got there, but some rain started a few innings in so they closed it mid-game.

Our next stop was a brewery/restaurant, where we grabbed seats at the bar and got as much info from the fantastic bartender as we could about places to go.  

We walked our asses off, like you do when you're in a city you don't (yet) know well. Great city, many fab neighborhoods, super friendly people, really good food and drink, good public transportation, great street art, robust art & performance scene all around.

On multiple recommendations, we went to the AGO and caught, among other things, a show focusing on Canadian artists, with a particular eye on indigenous artists [as you can imagine, the whole "this nation was formed 150 years ago! Woo hoo!" story plays pretty differently among the indigenous population and allies].  Also caught a retrospective of Rita Letendre, whom I hadn't heard of; the show was an excellent, necessary corrective to that.

So yes, Oh, Canada - you're not perfect, and your dreamboat of a Prime Minister has made some sketchy compromises and gets off super easy because of his disastrous counterpart to the south, but you are a (relatively) open society with an eye on human rights, and what appears to be an open mind about truth and reconciliation with the people who have lived on this continent for millennia.

Plus, Toronto has an airport you can get to via a 90 second ferry ride, which is pretty bitchin.

Adventures in Public Art

Couple items from HyperAllergic, which has fast become one of my favorite sources for news from the art world.

First this, (read it!) about the amazing Carol Highsmith's billion-dollar scuffle with Getty Images over them charging for images THAT SHE DONATED to the Library of Congress.

And then getting even closer to home, this one, about the controversy over some Mr. AbiLLity street art (commissioned street art, mind you) in Jersey City. This is a city dear to my heart, likely the place I'd move to if I were moving to the area today, but which needs to get its ish together stat.

photo: @lifeisamother/Instagram

Between this nonsense at the Newark Ave. pedestrian plaza, and the ongoing obstructionism over at the Loew's Landmark Theater in Journal Square... it hath made me mad.  I mean, ok sure: Getty Images, eff them, what do you expect? (let's hope the courts make them pay richly for their greed)  But Jersey City ought to be a place that looks after the people who live and work there.




I know Mayor Fulop has his hands full fighting with Chris Christie, and I won't argue with that, but come on - this?  Stymying the artistic voices - the local, homegrown or transplanted artists right there in the middle of the living, breathing city - that actually add to the community?  Step it up, JC.

Perspective/Focus

Vantage from one of the days I was shooting The Accidental Wolf.

Channeling Coppola via Columbus Circle.

The night before, I got to drive around Hell's Kitchen with this rig strapped to the passenger door.

Should be a very good series - I'll let you know as things are released...

Trifecta

Three Shakespeare plays over three nights, Thursday through Saturday.  One was free, one pay-what-you-want, and one was the opposite of free.  Each has something unique to offer to this summer's Shakespeare season (made a little extra juicy by this year's commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.)

Troilus and Cressida from the Public/NYSF at the Delacorte; As You Like It from The Cradle Theatre in Prospect Park; The Merchant of Venice, which is the contribution to the Lincoln Center Festival from Shakespeare's Globe.

As I've said before (and will say again), I'm an actor, not a critic; no desire to pick these shows apart.  Dan Sullivan (whom I've known for a while) takes a really good swing at the very tricky pitch that is Troilus.  The curveballs of love and politics, the high heat of war, the secret signals that hold together the batteries of diplomacy and military intelligence.  Homeric Greece and Troy find their way to an Orwellian present of perpetual war.

Rebecca Etzine (whose tumblr I've admired for a while, and whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the show on Friday) delivered an As You Like It that is even more distinctly of today.  A young company of young artists turned a wooded part of Prospect Park into the forest of Arden - a few extra twists of gender and sexuality, plenty of playfulness, and a healthy dose of irreverence result in a show that is compelling, contemporary, and - most importantly - alive.  They're moving camp to Ft. Greene this weekend; check their website.  Cory missed this one, sadly; hey, this heatwave is a real thing, and not everyone's appetite for Shakespeare is quite as bottomless as mine, especially given that on the docket for the next night was...

Last and emphatically not least, Jonathan Pryce was Shylock in what is of the most brutal, and certainly one of the best, productions of Merchant I've ever seen.  While the staging and design is firmly in 16th Century Venice, the anti-semitism conjures all-too-current outbreaks in Europe and America.  Never (in my experience) has Shylock seemed so justified, never has Jessica been so disdained (even after her 'voluntary' conversion and marriage to Lorenzo), never has Antonio been such an asshole, and NEVER has Portia been such a snotty, snobby, vindictive prig (while still managing to be the smartest person in the room).  The final, added scene of Shylock's forced baptism was bitterly piercing.

Not much visual stimulation for you today, but here are a couple shots of Shakespeare's birthplace from our trip.  [What?? A side trip to Stratford-upon-Avon when we went to London?  Hey, he'll only have a 400th Deathiversary once.]

A couple exteriors of the gables.

A shot of a little one checking out the signatures scratched into the birthroom window.

And - why not? - a couple shots from Anne Hathaway's cottage, including Rudy, Cory, and Mol checking out the epic garden.

Pride

Pride March this past weekend, with the Anti Violence Project's group, particularly with Cat and Cleo, Cheri & Sadie, and of course Cory.  A good vibrant, loving group of people, and supporters for miles.  

The news reports talked about the somber tone in light of Orlando, and I won't pretend there weren't moments, or that there weren't tears.  But Stonewall had also just been declared a National Landmark, and love is love is love is love is love.

Tonight I was reminded at a screening of Neil Gaiman's exhortation (reminiscent of Bernstein's): in the wake of adversity, make good art.  A gathering like this, with family, friends, supporters, allies of every shape and size, counts as some version of that.

Reading Replacements

Last Saturday night we went to an event at Little City Books in Hoboken - a combination book release/signing, discussion, and concert, all in celebration of Bob Mehr's Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements.

The 'Mats are one of the all-time great bands as far as I'm concerned, and the I-haven't-finished-it-yet-but-so-far-it's-more-than-worth-the-effort book has drawn attention from some pretty fab people.

Michael Hill, who helped the band navigate Warner Brothers.  Or tried to.

The interlocutor was Bob Mehr himself, writer and raconteur extraordinaire.

Glenn Morrow's Cry for Help

Jennifer O'Connor

Freedy Johnson with Dave Schramm.  Take that in for a second.  Dave also answered Morrow's Cry for Help from the sidelines.

More Freedy

The Dead Wicks.

It's not a big place (true to form) but we packed it pretty good.

From what I could tell, they sold all the copies they had of the book, and gave away all the Replacements gear (in exchange for donations to the bands) too.  It was a superfun night; happy to have done it in Hoboken rather than the Strand - though it did mean we had to miss the 75 Dollar Bill/Little Black Egg show.  You can't do everything.

Zaha Hadid

One more image to add to the vast gallery appearing everywhere celebrating Zaha Hadid.

This is from the Guy Fawkes trip a couple years back.

Good Friday

From a bus on West 23rd Street, Good Friday afternoon.

Early Work

Our first stop on our first full day in Barcelona.

Bell Esguard, one of Gaudi's first jobs.

Casa Comalat

Not Gaudí this time.

Casa Comalat was designed by Salvador Valeri i Pupurull

One question possibly worth asking: does your building (painting, photo, poem, music, play, work) make the world more interesting, or less?

Back to Barca

Not a Madrid match or anything, but it was fun to be there.

Do I have true afición for fútbol? It is fair to say I do not.

But we were there in the crowd, we heard the beat of the drum, we saw Messi score.  And although they blew the lead against Deportivo to settle for a loss-like tie, it was well worth the trip to see Barca on their home turf.

Bicycle Chandelier

More Ai Weiwei.  Who knows something about blogs.

Chandelier sculpture from the 2015 exhibition at the Royal Academy in London.

 Constructed from beaded bicycle frames.

 Medium of mobility, not-quite-pedestrian, quotidian symbol of China, dripping with faux crystal.

Snow Falls on Hoboken

The scene this morning. 

Suuuuuure It's not a Gingerbread House

One of the entrance buildings at Park Guell.  Originally used for offices, and a sort of holding area for the customers wanting to buy plots and build residences (customers who pretty much never turned up, as it happened), it is now a gift shop.  Also one of the many dragon motifs that turn up in Gaudi.  

But ain't nobody telling me he wasn't thinking about a gingerbread house. 

Light and Shadow

PALAU DE LA MÚSICA CATALANA

Sunday before the Iowa caucus

Gaudi made a cross out of a quarry.

(Ok, a lot of crosses)

Religious ecstasy has inspired great art, profound ideas, innumerable acts of kindness.  Religion has also been a mask for brutal acts of terror, and churches (or Churches) have bolstered entire repressive governments [talkin' Barcelona blues; the Fascists were backed by the Church from the get-go].

Vote your conscience.  Put some thought into it.  Pray about it if that's your thing.  Don't forget your history.