The J U N T O

A Message from the President

2012-01-27T17:17:00.000-05:00

What do you want to ask me?

Good afternoon,
Today, I was in Michigan. Yesterday, it was Colorado and Nevada. Before that, it was Iowa and Arizona. The day after I delivered my State of the Union Address to Congress, I took off to connect with ordinary Americans around the country, talk more about our Blueprint for an America Built to Last, and get some feedback.

That's why I'm writing you.

On Monday we're going to do something a little different. At 5:30 p.m. ET, I'll walk into the Roosevelt Room across the hall from the Oval Office, take a seat, and kick-off the first-ever completely virtual town hall from the White House.

All week, people have been voting on questions and submitting their own, and a few of them will join me for a live chat.

What do you want to ask me?

This is going to be an exciting way to talk about the steps that we need to take together at this make-or-break moment for the middle class.

We have to foster a new era for American manufacturing -- rewarding companies for keeping jobs here at home and eliminating tax breaks for those who ship jobs overseas. We have to invest in homegrown energy in the United States -- starting with an all-out, all-of-the-above energy strategy that's cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs. We have to build an economy that works for everyone -- where every hard working American gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and the rules are the same from top to bottom.

I'm ready to get started, but I know you have questions and ideas for ways to help. So let's hear them:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sotu-questions

Thanks,
President Barack Obama

No Fuss, No Fussball

2012-01-25T11:30:00.000-05:00

Just Tailgating a la française

By Don Merlot

[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]
New Orleans

The hardest process in developing a wine taste is to follow your own instinct. And differ with the experts if you dare.

You want to keep learning, but you have to become independent in what you like and what is available when you buy and entertain, you do not want people to cut you off because you become a wine snob. Deciding what you like and what your rules are going to be. This in no way is a standard to judge one who wants to stake out his claim as to what wine to drink with what food and or what wine is in the premier tier and which one is not.

My rule No. 1 is to look for the differences and disregard the similarities. The hardest thing to do is order the wine at a restaurant when there are too many independent wine tastes at my table. But rather than pleasing someone another’s tastebuds, make the choice your choice.

To me one of the most epicurean food and wine events was going to a football game and tailgating with a group of 10 to 12 people. Every time we went, I was in charge of the gastronomic repast.

Being near to Chicago, at the time, this afforded me a chance to buy a variety of wines from Europe and California. One of my favourite stops was visiting The House of Glunz. The senior Mr. Glunz was probably 70 years old, and he let us in and showed us the different wines he imported. He taught us about Sherry, from Manzanilla, Fino, and Amontillado to Oloroso.

We then would go to Bragnos and buy magnums of Beaujolais Village wines, my choice of wine with rib eye roast. We also purchased a white Sancerre to go with the appetizer, a New Orleans shrimp rémoulade.

This country fare was a real treat, and we felt that our meal rivaled as any other tailgate feast. I favoured the Sancerre (Sauvignon Blanc) with the spicy/lemony rémoulade shrimp. Dry Sherry was an option too -- Tio Pepe Fino sherry became the No.1 option. We had loaves of baguettes to go with the slow roasted beef and the Beaujolais was just right for the pre-game lunch. We would make espresso laced with Armagnac and offer a Harvey Bristol cream before marching off to the game. (Great for autumn games as weather cooled off)

I learned in France that serving a wine with a pedigree was not necessary every time you had a great meal. The French felt that Englishmen and Americans get too wrapped up with famous labels and do not look for the Terroire of the region The Terroire is a major French factor that dominates the French appreciation of wine.

In all of my globetrotting, I've learned that the two cultures that focus most on food and taste are the French and the Chinese. In food and wine pursuits they are quite separate and different, but the culture establishes the order of dining process.

When it comes to white wine the less alcohol, the less sweet and younger is first consumed and the progression goes on until the colour is almost amber and golden liquid becomes sweeter. Red also goes from young to old, light in colour to dark, and from young and dry to full bodied and silky tannin. Some think a port is the ultimate end of the process.

In all the French meals I savoured, a beef roast went -- instead of a full Bordeaux or full Burgundy -– with pride from the French with a Beaujolais: I found the favourite was a good Beaujolais Village.

My favourite starter in New Orleans is a shrimp rémoulade. I have it everywhere they served it, but my wife’s grandmother, a Louisiana Spanish Creole from St. Bernard Parish, made the best. It matched perfectly with a Sancerre. We served it as a New Orleans dinner as a starter all the time.

The rib eye roast was laced with garlic and slow roasted the way a the French taught me: Rub olive oil and crushed garlic prepared at room temperature -- a raw roast. Under a broiler char the outside of roast. Bring down to the lowest oven temperature setting and let it sit in the oven 4 hours. I always timed it to start at 10 pm. Finished the prep and charring by mid night and time to over to stop at 0400. We would wrap the roast by 0700 and take off to the game. By 1030 – 1100 we would pull into the parking for the tail gate and set the table up. By 1130 we were eating a feast. By 1230 we walked to the game and took our seats. As the French say, what super souvenirs.

The desserts were found in a Swiss pastry shop and were phenomenal: Italian rainbow cake, cannolis, Napoleons, éclairs

The wine never failed me. And even today we have this combination, and, yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is a great sophisticated tailgating experience with a gourmet meal.

(Don Merlot, AKA Ron Alonzo, is writing a book about his escapades in food and wine).

The J U N T O depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

Public and Private

2012-01-24T22:31:00.000-05:00

Romney:

Mitt in Public

Willard in Private

The Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

newt noun a small lizard-like creature...

2012-01-24T22:24:00.000-05:00

... that can live in water or on land.

The Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

2012-01-19T20:24:00.000-05:00

Armed Renta-Goon
Protects Museum
By Richard Carreño
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]
Philadelphia
I visited the National Museum of American Jewish History, on Philadelphia's historic Independence Mall, earlier this week. As on previous occasions, I was impressed. This museum is, yes, an 'identity museum.' In other words, as other like institutions, it sets to identify, define, and explore its fixed ethnic mandate. There are other similar museums, those for American Indians, African Americans, and the like. When these museums simply celebrate and trumpet their themes, the museums fail as institutions of learning. Read, hagiographic propaganda. This not the case with Jewish museum. While the museum is hardly an institution of 'higher' learning (many exhibits often fall short of true depth), the overall achievement of the museum is first-rate. The museum, at this site and in this new building, is only a year old. During my visit this week, I wandered for more than four hours. I would have stayed longer. But I had another afternoon appointment. On the way out, I filled out a comment card.

And I commented -- on the only real objection I have (other than the museum's unwieldy, tongue-twisting name): the black-shirted, armed, renta-goon that 'welcomes' visitors as they enter the museum's Market Street entrance. Like all museums, the Jewish museum needs security. And, given its special circumstances as a Jewish identity museum, added security is no doubt necessary. But like the most TSA airport security, the armed guard, festooned with a bullet-proofed vest labelled AGENCY, is simply security theatre. (That's AGENCY, as in Acme Security Agency. Hardly, FBI). A crazy, like the nut-case that attacked Washington's Holocaust Museum a few years ago, or a committed terrorist, will not be deterred by the guard. On the other hand, the guard does send a message of another form of terror -- that the museum administration is sufficiently insecure that that it needs intimidate the average museum goer. Hello, hardly kid-friendly. Even the TSA has backed off on scaring children.

Proper security is smart security. Fright wigs aren't the answer.

I was surprised to receive that following thoughtful response:

Mr. Carreno –
Thank you for visiting the Museum and for your note. I’m glad you had a positive experience.

As you can imagine, we must take security concerns very seriously. We are in a highly visible and accessible public location and, sadly, Jewish institutions have frequently been the targets of terrorist attacks and other unfortunate incidents. Our aim is to make our visitors feel safe and secure, which is why we station an armed security guard at the entrance and employ numerous other security measures. Clearly we do not want anyone to feel threatened by our security guards, but we do want those guards to be a visible presence that acts as a deterrent against would-be attackers. We follow this procedure per the advice of some of the leading experts in the security field.

As it happens, yours is only the second complaint or concern about our policy of stationing an armed guard at our entrance since our opening last November. Indeed, many visitors have praised our security measures and told us that they appreciate our attention to that concern.

I hope this answer was helpful and that you’ll visit again.

Sincerely,
Jay Nachman
Public Relations Director
National Museum of American Jewish History
101 South Independence Mall East
Philadelphia, PA 19106-2517

The Arts

2012-01-13T16:11:00.004-05:00

Model Behaviour
The Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

Gallery

2012-01-13T16:01:00.000-05:00

MODERN Times
The Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

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2012-01-12T19:46:00.000-05:00

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The Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

Fashion Report

2012-01-12T13:47:00.000-05:00

Vicky Tiel Clucks
on Chic Chicks

'A great read. Buy this book now!'
Richard Carreño, The Philadelphia Junto

"A naughty girl when that was the best a girl could be, inventor of the mini, Paris couturier at 18, Vicky Tiel tells spicy tales from dressing Kim, Ursula and Miles Davis, teasing Woody Allen, staying up late with Princess Grace and more intimate tales than you thought you'd want to know from her years in the entourage of Liz and Dick. Comes complete with tricks you need: bedroom advice, supermodels' diet guide, how to get men to give jewelry and the recipe for a perfect pink tunafish sandwich."

--Gael Greene, author of Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess

"A delicious romp...her memoir reads like all of the juiciest bits of your favorite gossip magazine, pushing back the curtains of an over-the-top life among the who's who of the '60s-'80s."
--Kirkus Review

The New York Times
'Vicky Tiel’s 40-Year Career in Fashion,' Christopher Petkanas, August 19, 2011
If you are famous for dressed-to-spill goddess gowns beloved by women like Joan Collins and Halle Berry — steel stays radiating pitilessly from the diaphragm — then deciding what to wear to pick up a reporter at a train station in upstate New York might pose a challenge.

Wall Street Journal
'A Miniskirt Started It.'Pia Catton, August 13, 2011
If you have not been frolicking throughout Europe and Hollywood with the rich and famous this summer, you may wish to dive into the memoir of fashion designer and bon vivant Vicky Tiel. “It’s All About the Dress” is a breeze through her 40 years in the worlds of fashion, celebrity, sex and food. Ms. Tiel dressed Elizabeth Taylor, Goldie Hawn and Jane Fonda, and partied with Miles Davis, Warren Beatty and Aaron Spelling. Reading her stories is a grand time all on its own. Read more>

Women's Wear Daily
'Vicky Tiel Releases Tell-All Book,' By Lorna Koski
Vicky Tiel enjoyed remarkable success very early in life — and, unlike many who do so, she’s been able to keep it up. The designer says this is because she’s so driven. When she was just 20, she and her friend Mia Fonssagrives, like Tiel a recent Parsons graduate, launched their own collection in Paris. Life magazine devoted a prominent spread to them in 1965.

Palm Beach Pulse
Vicky Tiel says: If you want your prince to come, get a good dress.(Jan Tuckwood, August 18, 2011)
If you want to discover the power of fashion, persuade a woman to strip down in a dressing room.
Naked women tell the truth, says designer Vicky Tiel.

moderntonic.com
August 8, 2011
IT’S ALL ABOUT VICKY TIEL
'She’s dressed everyone from Goldie Hawn to Halle Berry to Kim Kardashian. She’s bedded everyone from Elvis Presley to Marlon Brando to Warren Beatty. She inspired Breakfast at Tiffany’s, designed a bikini for Brigitte Bardot, and had Elizabeth Taylor for a business partner….”

thegloss.com
August 15, 2011
'Rabbits, Rivers, and Wrap Dresses: 5 Life Lessons from Designer Vicky Tiel,' Lilit Marcus
“Although I hadn’t heard of designer Vicky Tiel before picking up her memoir It’s All About the Dress (which comes out tomorrow), I can now say with certainty that she is a total badass.”

Publishers Weekly
June 6, 2011
It’s All About the Dress: What I Learned in 40 Years About Men, Women, Sex, and Fashion
The original purveyor of the miniskirt and Elizabeth Taylor’s caftan unravels fabulous, chatty tales of her early success in the 1960s as a young American fashion designer in Paris. A student of Parsons School of Design in Manhattan, Tiel became known around Greenwich Village as Peaches LaTour for her original, thrift-store, bohemian look (leather mini, lace stockings, boots), creating sexy looks that delighted her boyfriends but shocked the establishment. Along with a well-connected schoolmate, Mia Fonssagrives (stepdaughter of Irving Penn), Tiel aimed to take Paris by storm, and they did, within a few months of arriving in 1963, with the help of former top model Dorian Leigh (aka Holly Golightly) and fashion designer Louis Féraud. From doing the costumes for movies like What’s New, Pussycat? (“Ursula Andress taught me the power of a dress”) to dressing Elizabeth Taylor for more than 20 years, Tiel was the “it” girl. By turns nutty and tender, she offers priceless anecdotes about Liz and Richard, Romy Schneider and Alain Delon, Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, hippies, and dating married men.

Forget the Oscars

2012-01-12T13:22:00.000-05:00

Baker's Dozen of McGonigle’s
Best-Liked Films of 2011

By Michael McGonigle

CTS, Audio Visual Department/Film Lecturer at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

[Special to Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

The year turned out to be a pretty good; I saw more films I liked than disliked. For me, one major reason for inclusion on this list was the surprise factor. If a film snapped my attention and made me say “Wow!”, I gave it higher marks than others. So this is my personal list of 13 favorites in alphabetical order. I also listed the ones that are currently available on DVD.

1. The Adventures Of Tin Tin

I wanted to hate this movie, but just when you are about to write Steven Spielberg off, he comes up with a gem like The Adventures Of Tin Tin. Tin Tin is a pure, fast paced, action/adventure film that follows our boy hero (played by the wonderful Jamie Bell) as he tries to solve a mystery surrounding a hidden treasure. With Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as a couple of bumbling Scotland Yard detectives, Andy Serkis as an old drunken sea captain who may hold important clues to the mystery provided he can be maintained in an alcoholic fog and the big surprise, Daniel Craig as a deliciously hammy bad guy. This was one of the big surprises for me this year.

2. Brighton Rock

rongly vilified as not being up to the caliber of the 1947 film, let alone the 1938 novel, I’m one of the few people who think this version of Graham Greene’s novel about the doomed relationship between resort waitress Rose and sociopathic crook Pinkie Brown actually benefits by being updated from England between the wars to the beginning of the Mods and Rockers era of the 1960’s. While Sam Riley is a little old to play the teenage Pinkie, he still manages to be alternately frightening and pathetic. With an excellent supporting cast including Helen Mirren, Andy Serkis, John Hurt and Andrea Riseborough as Rose who learns the bitter truth about what the saying “be careful what you wish for” really means. Available on DVD.

3. The Devil’s Double

While this film is not accurate historically, it is still a riveting, often grotesquely hilarious portrait of Sadaam Hussein’s eldest son Uday, that psychopathic nitwit with bad teeth who was so unstable, even his father was frightened of him. In proper terms, the story concerns Latif, a decent Iraqi citizen who has the unfortunate luck to be a spitting image of Uday so he is drafted into the position of being Uday’s “fedai” or body double so when the assassins eventually come, it will be Latif who gets killed and not Uday. Well, we all know how well that worked for Uday. But the major reason to see The Devil’s Double is the dual performance by Dominic Cooper as both the dull, decent Latif and the wildly carnal and excitable Uday. Dominic Cooper, a serviceable actor (My Week With Marilyn, The History Boys and Mama Mia) goes full bore as Uday obviously aiming for the Al Pacino “Chew The Scenery” Award and that is not meant to be a criticism. Cooper’s portrayal of Uday is so operatic, that no matter what level of depravity he sinks to, you can’t help but watch in open-mouthed astonishment. The Devil’s Double shows why all the smart actors would rather play a villain than a hero, it’s just too much fun. Available on DVD.

4. The Illusionist

A delightful animated treasure from the man who brought you The Triplets Of Bellville. This film was based on a screenplay by the great Jacques Tati and believe me, if you don’t like Tati, this film will leave you cold. But if you love Jacques Tati like I do, then The Illusionist is like having Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot reincarnated. Telling the bittersweet tale of a once popular stage magician now unemployable by the shift of the general audience from vaudeville theaters to TV, The Illusionist runs right up to the edge of wistful sentimentality, but never becomes mawkish. The Illusionist contains the most hilarious rock band in history, a sublimely funny clown suicide sequence and the nastiest rabbit this side of Monty Python And The Holy Grail. Why people are fawning all over The Artist and ignoring The Illusionist is something I will never understand. Available on DVD.

5. Into The Abyss

A lot of the criticism against this film was based on what the film was not. Werner Herzog’s documentary looks at the fates of two men convicted for the same triple homicide, one who is about to be executed via lethal injection in a few days and the other who will be in jail for the next 40 years. The film is not a plea for fairness in court trials or verdicts. Nor is it a muckraking crime story about the pathetic robbery of a red car that cost three innocent people their lives. And while Herzog tells us in no uncertain terms that he is anti-capital punishment, Into The Abyss is not a “Michael Moore” like crusade film intended to sway an audience toward a particular viewpoint. No, Into The Abyss is much more unsettling. Both killers are interviewed while in jail and to hear them speak so calmly about their broken lives is disturbing. We also meet the family and friends of the victims and their stories are compelling too. We hear from a former Death Row prison guard who used to escort the convicts to the execution chamber and why this man is now completely against capital punishment. This is all done Herzog style with loopy questions voiced in his bland Teutonic accent, long camera takes and by leaving the camera running after a question has supposedly been answered which then reveals surprising human behavior uncluttered by narrative. The whole experience of watching Into The Abyss is like staring over the edge into a dark territory I did not want to visit, but I could not avert my eyes.

6. Kaboom

As this film started and I was immersed in a world of night time neon colors filled with androgynous boys and girls for whom sex in any combination is desired and all scored with a cool Indie/Alt soundtrack, I knew immediately I was in Gregg Araki territory. But when our lead character Smith (the excellent Thomas Becker) began to have real nightmare attacks by people in animal masks, along with weird messages on his computer that were just too realistic to be dream or drug induced, the film switched to a horror story about a dangerous religious cult bent on world destruction. I thought, wow, is Gregg Araki really going to go in this plot direction? Oh yeah, he was. And he went all the way with it; just look at the film’s title. Many people were dismayed by this change in the film’s tone, but I give Araki nothing but praise for making the gutsiest movie of the year and Kaboom becomes a further warning that people who believe in religious apocalypse should never be given access to nuclear weapons. Available on DVD.

7. The Man Who Fell To Earth

I know this film is celebrating its 40th anniversary, but it was re-released in 2011 in a new print and once again I was enraptured by the swirling imagery, convoluted plot, hypnotic music and general lunacy that is The Man Who Fell To Earth. No filmmaker today would even dare to make a film as visually overwrought as Nicholas Roeg did back in 1976 when things in the film industry were less corporate and genuine cinematic risks could be taken. David Bowie plays Thomas Jerome Newton, the technologically advanced space alien who comes to Earth with a plan to take our water back to his own drought stricken planet but in order to finance inter-planetary travel he has to interact with us Earthlings and before long, human foibles in the form of money, sadness, love, drink and jealousy rub off on him and ultimately derail his plans forever. Yes, Thomas Jerome Newton fell to Earth, only he didn’t bounce back up. With Rip Torn, Candy Clark, Bernie Casey and Buck Henry. Available on DVD.

8. Margin Call

This complex drama is everything Moneyball wasn’t. Yes, it is mostly made from scenes of people in rooms talking about abstruse numeric schemes that will “change everything” and both films are top-loaded with major actors; but the similarity ends there. Margin Call is highly cinematic, dangerous, deceiving and extremely gripping. This film has one of the most morally egregious sequences in film history when all the sales people begin selling off the firm’s toxic assets to save their company’s bottom line and to hell with the rest of the world. They justify this by invoking “Caveat Emptor”, but just because the buyer needs to beware, that does not mean you have a right to lie, cheat or otherwise misrepresent yourself in order to sell knowingly shoddy products. Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore (remember her) and Simon Baker head the cast and are all excellent, but it is Zachary Quinto as the low level risk assessment manager who shines as a linchpin in the films plot and Stanley Tucci as the just fired Cassandra who shows how it is possible to maintain your dignity while being callously “downsized”. Mark my words, when the financial “Nuremberg” trials finally happen and the financial tycoons justifications for their immoral accounting practices turn out to be variations of the “I only did it to save the company bottom line”, those explanations will ring as hollow as the Nazis who claimed innocence because they were “only following orders”. Available on DVD.

9. Melancholia

What can I say, this film shows the end of the world in the first few minutes. However, this does not ruin the film and is a well-needed slap in the head to those people who pretentiously complain about “spoilers”. In Melancholia we know well in advance the world is doomed and so do the characters, so now we get to see how they handle it. From depression, to suicide to drunken wedding day revels, the characters of Melancholia never fail to surprise us with their anger, stubbornness and humanity. But this is a Lars von Trier film and if you are not into the story by the time the wedding sequence is off and rolling, forget about it, this film is not for you. But for those with more adventuresome tastes (and patience), Melancholia is sublime cinematic art and hilariously funny to boot. Kirsten Dunst won the Best Actress award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival for her role in Melancholia and with a cast that includes Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, John Hurt, Stellan Skarsgard, Jesper Christiansen, Brady Corbet, Udo Kier and the fantastic Charlotte Rampling, it’s amazing they were able to notice her among such a talented group.

10. Senna

I know nothing about Formula One racing. I have never watched a Formula One car race. I only knew about the death of race driver Ayrton Senna on May 1, 1994 because it was reported in all the papers. But Asif Kapadia’s documentary about Ayrton Senna was thoroughly gripping, full of surprises and vastly entertaining. Using only found footage and a few voice over interviews from people who knew the real Ayrton Senna, Kapadia paints a compelling picture of a young man who had an insatiable craving for speed and as natural an ability for driving as anyone can have. And let me tell you, from the sustained POV shots in Senna where you are literally behind the wheel of a car driving at 150 MPH well, let me say, race car driving is not for the faint of heart. Furthermore, Senna immersed me in the strange and fascinating world of Formula One which is filled with its own rules, customs and language and I was never once confused. That didn’t happen when I saw Avatar. Available on DVD.

11. Somewhere

Newly minted film star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) has fame and money, but apparently no soul. He languishes in the Chateau Marmont Hotel when he’s not out driving his new Ferrari in wild circles in the desert or having girls up to his room to pole dance for him, with their portable poles. But when he is suddenly stuck with his eleven-year-old daughter (Elle Fanning) when his ex-wife has a breakdown, the responsibility of parenting begins to change his life. Somewhere is Sofia Coppola’s most accomplished film although its lento pace and seemingly long stretches of inaction might put off some viewers, but this inside look at the world of film celebrities is full of delicious little digs. Like the fact that Johnny Marco can’t stand the leading lady of his most recent film, yet at publicity shoots, they pretend to be good friends. Then there is the box the publicists make Johnny Marco stand on when he’s photographed with other people so he won’t look so short. But my favorite scene is where Marco has to get his face cast for some special effects on his next picture and after the effects technicians cover his head in gelatinate, they leave the room and there we are, stuck with the silent Marco for a very long time in a single shot. That took directorial guts. Available on DVD.

12. The Trip

I have been on long car trips with annoyingly chatty people who are clueless as to how annoying they are and I want to strangle them, so why did I love The Trip so much? That’s easy, the film stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon and was directed by Michael Winterbottom and is the come out of leftfield surprise of 2011. Steve Coogan, an excellent comic actor (Tropic Thunder, 24 Hour Party People) has been commissioned to drive around the English midlands to check out various restaurants and Bed & Breakfast Inns for a magazine story. But when his current girlfriend can’t go, he asks his actor friend Rob Brydon (Oliver Twist, Tristram Shandy) to accompany him on this week long road trip. That’s it. They drive, they eat lunch, they drive some more and then stop for the night at some quaint inn. Then they get up, have breakfast and repeat the same for several days. And all they do is talk and snipe and bitch and moan and complain and make wry observations about anything that comes into their heads and I nearly hemorrhaged from laughter. Many people disliked The Trip because it had no strong plot line, but sometimes, a plot can be an impediment. I read they are currently making a sequel where Steve and Rob drive through Italy . I can’t wait! Available on DVD.

13. Weekend

Sometimes, the most universal truths can be found in the most specific of stories. I imagine most members of the audience would think that the story of two young gay men who hook up for a one night stand, but end up spending a whole weekend together would not have any insight to offer about their own lives. But consider, most of us have experienced something like this, whether it was a gay, straight or bi hook up, we all know the feeling of being unexplainably attracted to someone else and that glorious moment when we realize the other person is attracted back. Then there is the delicate dance of finding out about the other person and the longing feeling you have that maybe, this time, this person is the “one”, but then again, maybe not. Weekend rises or falls on the charm of the two leads and Tom Cullen and Chris New are compelling fresh faces and they are both wonderful. With an insightful script by Andrew Haigh who also directed, be forewarned, Weekend has fairly graphic depictions of sex, so you have to use your own judgment about whether this is something you want to see.

Honorable Mentions:

The Adjustment Bureau, Arthur Christmas, Certified Copy, The Debt, Hugo, The Ides Of March, Le Havre, Midnight In Paris, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Project Nim, Rango, Tabloid, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One, Win Win

Bakers Dozen of McGonigle’s Least-Liked Films Of 2011

When it comes to films I disliked, I generally ignore pedestrian efforts like Transformer’s I –VI, noisy super hero flicks or anything starring Adam Sandler. The movies that really annoy me are pretentious films where the distance between what the filmmaker wanted to achieve and what he/she actually did achieve is so obviously incongruent that they need to be called out on it. But please remember, this is strictly a personal list and these are my own opinions. Here are the films I liked the least in alphabetical order.

1. Another Earth

Ludicrous. And the science is completely wrong. But, even if I accept the premise that there is another Earth hovering in space as visible to us as the moon (with Earth’s albedo at 0.3 average, that’s debatable), I still can’t get past the repulsive morality of Another Earth. Since Earth II is an exact replica of our Earth (including all the people. . .huh?) and is just a short bit behind us in time, our heroine, who killed a family while driving intoxicated figures if she can go to Earth II and this time not drive drunk, and she won’t kill innocent people. Great message there. I mean, why take responsibility for your actions, suffer consequences and then make sincere amends when you can just fly to Earth II and have a do-over like a flunked mid-term. So, aside from uninteresting characters and a weak story, the only advantage I can see for the folks on Earth II is since they are behind us in time by like thirty minutes, they get to sleep later in the morning.

2. The Artist

I can’t understand the appeal of this film. The parts of the story that weren’t ripped off from Singin’ In The Rain, Sunset Blvd. and Citizen Kane are neither original or funny. I smiled once when Valentin pretended to shoot his dog and the playful pooch keeled over. But, the fifth or sixth time this happened, the joke was wearing pretty thin. I liked Jean Dujardin, but no one else stood out for me and gosh darn it, The Artist just doesn’t have the look or feel of an old silent film either, not that I am an expert. I think Mel Brooks’ 1976 silent movie parody called appropriately Silent Movie does this whole story much better and has the advantage of actually being funny. Yet, so many people I respect tell me this film is delightful, but I was bored senseless watching The Artist, or maybe I just haven’t drunk enough of the critical Kool-Aid to appreciate this one yet.

3. Biutiful

One of the films I really hated this year, yet ironically, I can’t name specific parts that annoyed me. It was the whole melancholic gestalt of Biutiful that did me in, as if great cinema comes from presenting a miserable story as miserably as you can. And this from a guy who can watch two Ingmar Bergman films back to back, along with a documentary about dolphin deaths and still finish a second helping of waffles. Biutiful should have been a 70 minute melodrama, but director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu extended the running time to a butt numbing two and half hours; what happened to the savvy filmmaker who made Amores Perros? Of course, it’s always nice to see Javier Bardem in a movie, but he seemed as dumbfounded by the script as I was. It says something about a film when the most lighthearted moment occurs when one of the main characters accidentally gasses several dozen immigrant workers to death. Biutiful is so hopelessly bleak, they won’t show it on airplanes for fear of walkouts.

4. The Descendents

Once again, I was cruelly disappointed by a film I had high hopes for and I’m a huge fan of Alexander Payne. I could not believe that the director who made Citizen Ruth, Election, Sideways and the “14e arrondissement” short in the great omnibus film Paris, je t’aime made this uninteresting film about a marriage gone sour in sweet Hawaii. The story has George Clooney being cuckolded by a nebbishy realtor (yeah, like that would ever happen) and afterwards his wife is injured in a jet skiing accident and spends the remainder of the film in a vegetative state. She’s the lucky one. The rest of us have to trudge along as Clooney and kids try to find the man who was her last paramour. Rainer Werner Fassbinder or Douglas Sirk would have known how to handle this melodramatic story, but Alexander Payne seems tone deaf to the genre. A shame, because I really like George Clooney and I especially liked Matthew Lillard as the real estate sharpie and part-time lothario who seduced Clooney’s wife. You’d be better off just listening to the classic tune Girlfriend In A Coma by The Smiths. Unlike The Descendents, that song is both funny and ironic.

5. Drive

I have rarely seen a film go from excellent to “what the heck” as fast as Drive. After a brilliant opening sequence with Ryan Gosling driving a couple of thieves to safety by NOT running red lights or screeching tires around corners all under the watchful eyes of the police, we then move into a silly story with Gosling as a stunt car driver by day, but escape artist by night? Is this like Flashdance, you know, she’s a welder by day but an exotic pole dancer at night. Drive is almost as ridiculous. And what a waste of Ryan Gosling. One of the most intelligent, articulate and witty actors to come along in years, and he spends most of the film simply grimacing and saying little. Yes, Albert Brooks was good as the bad guy, but overall, Drive left me cold. And another thing, why use an ersatz Tangerine Dream-esque music score when the real Tangerine Dream is still around?

6. The Future

There is nothing but unrelieved tedium in this mediocre paean to remaining a petulant child despite the on-set of physical adulthood. That’s not a bad story idea; a variation of it was used quite effectively in The Tin Drum, but The Future is no Tin Drum. It is however, woozy, mushy sentiment with no bite, no perceivable style and a slow-witted pace that drags every scene out to the point of excruciation. Hey, I like films where people can stop time at will and get answers from the moon as much as anybody, but having this film narrated by an injured cat named Paw Paw on the eve of being put down is not quite in the same league as having William Holden narrate Sunset Blvd. while floating dead in a Hollywood pool. The only good spot was Hamish Linklater as Miranda July’s decent husband because he’s the only one in the film who acts even remotely like an adult when he gets angry at July for cheating on him. I did not laugh once in this supposedly droll comedy, except of course, when Paw Paw finally got euthanized. That was hilarious, which ought to tell you exactly how bad the rest of The Future was.

7. J. Edgar

Does Clint Eastwood even read the scripts for the films he directs? There is no other reason I can come up with to explain the cognitive dissonance Eastwood displays here between his film and Dustin Lance Black’s excellent screenplay. Eastwood treads very lightly about whether J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI chief honcho was a closeted homosexual or not, and that’s fine because there are so many other people around J. Edgar who are absolutely, positively, happy/gay! How else can you explain the scene where J. Edgar (Leonardo Di Caprio) explains to his BFF Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), how the FBI Crime Lab will eventually look. Says J. Edgar, “we’ll show the criminals that the FBI has got something they haven’t got.” “Decorating sense?” comes the perky reply from Tolson. Or the scene where J. Edgar and Tolson get into a fist fight and after a tortured bloody kiss is exchanged, with their eyes swollen with tears and their lips smeared with red, they both look like Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest. I’m not sure Eastwood meant for us to laugh at this film, but I sure did, out loud! So I humbly apologize to those people in the theater who were trying to take this film seriously, but really, that was a hopeless task.

8. Life In A Day

Here was a case of a film that promised much and did not deliver. Culled from home videos made by people all over the world, all filmed on July 24, 2010, this compilation film was to provide a snapshot of all that happens on planet Earth on any given day, which is quite a lot. Organized into rough chapters about birth, sleep, work, eating etc, if it weren’t for the occasional stunningly beautiful shot taken by some amateur, somewhere in the world, this film would be a guaranteed cure for insomnia. Still, the idea was ripped off from the LIFE Magazine series of coffee table books titled A Day In The Life Of . . .The USA or Canada or The Soviet Union, Africa , Hawaii etc. and this film fails because it set out to do a task that probably can’t be done. I hate to bust on people who at least TRY to do something different and worthwhile, but the end result here is a dull, plot-less, mish-mash of great images, but no narrative coherence. It’s the cinematic equivalent of thumbing through a bunch of picture postcards.

9. Martha Marcie May Marlene

A surprise hit amongst critics and the general public and I don’t know why. Just because the filmmakers looked at the difficult subject of women in cults does not mean they treated this subject with the intelligence or cinematic skill it deserved. I applaud the filmmakers for making the attempt, but it’s like throwing a broken life preserver to a drowning man; you mean well, but in fact, you have not helped the situation at all. This is simply a bad film about the subjugation of women in cults. And the cult leader Patrick, played by the very good John Hawkes is without a doubt the worst cult leader in history. He should take lessons from Charles Manson, Jim Jones or Reverend Sun Yung Moon. It seems that Patrick’s main tool for female coercion is playing his guitar, but he’s not killing them softly with his song, he’s boring them to death.

10. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

What a great cast; Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Ciaran Hinds, John Hurt, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch and Mark Strong! What a great story to be had in John Le Carre’s seminal spy thriller! Where did it all go wrong? This film is the very definition of tedious. It’s a spy thriller with no thrills. It’s a complex narrative about how George Smiley (Gary Oldman) manages to work behind the scenes to expose a Soviet mole in the upper levels of MI6, Britain ’s CIA. But even at the finale when the mole is revealed, I challenge you to explain to me how Smiley figured it out. Also the film is dull and dingy to look at, full of rainy, foggy weather as if it were illegal for the sun to shine in London before 1979. The only real surprise this film offers will be finding the odd audience member who’s still awake when the final credits roll.

11. The Tree Of Life

It pains me to include this film on my least favorite films of the year list, but for me this was my single biggest disappointment. While the center section detailing the life of young Sean Penn growing up in 1950’s Texas with his borderline abusive father played by Brad Pitt was involving, I soon began to tire of the rapid cutting and short takes. Director Terrence Malick (Days Of Heaven, The Thin Red Line) used to make films with luxuriant tracking and Steadi-Cam shots, but now he seems to have been afflicted with the same Attention Deficit Disorder that makes Michael Bay ’s films nearly unwatchable. I can’t even begin to explain the latter scenes with the adult Sean Penn walking in a wasteland and I truly don’t know how this all connects with the scenes that take place in the primordial world of dinosaurs who apparently learn how to be compassionate creatures by not eating each other. I have been told by many that I have simply missed the point of The Tree Of Life, but I have also noticed that when I ask them directly “what is the point of The Tree Of Life”, they can only stare at me blankly. I rest my case.

12. War Horse

In this film there is a horse in almost every scene and in some large scale battle scenes, many horses. Yet, try as I might I did not see one bit of horse dung anywhere. A sterling tribute to the AD’s and PA’s who kept the locations clean. However, in terms of story, you won’t find a film as full of horse s**t as this sanctimonious, manipulative and over sentimentalized film. That’s a tribute to director Steven Spielberg who has never seen a pious cliché that he didn’t want to beat an audience over the head with. It’s not enough that Joey the Horse has to plow a rocky field, it has to be the rockiest (and most geologically suspect) field in all of England . . .and he has to do it in the rain! Still, when it comes to directorial talent, Steven Spielberg is not an Emperor with no clothes, The Adventures Of Tin Tin proves that, the real question is why he continues to let his inner child consistently over rule his adult smarts.

13. The Way Back

Before seeing this film, it was pure dumb luck that I had just finished reading Anne Applebaum’s Gulag, A History (Gulag is a Russian acronym for Glavnoye upravlyeniye lagyeryey, or Administration of Corrective Labor Camps). Because after reading about the real horrors of these camps, seeing them turned into Hollywood action film tropes seemed almost disrespectful in a way. It’s amazing how knowing the truth about a subject can ruin a fictional portrayal of it. Inspired by a “true” escape story (of dubious verity), the excellent director Peter Weir (Picnic At Hanging Rock, Witness, The Truman Show) errs by trying to include every kind of misery the Gulags offered and in doing so, he waters down the whole horrible experience. And the group that tries to escape from this Siberian camp ends up comprised of the same clichéd characters you would find in an old WWII movie. So, with a cast as varied as Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, Saoirse Ronan, Colin Farrell and Mark Strong, it’s a shame the film is such a long drawn out affair and by the end of the movie, I felt like I too had been in a Gulag for 20 years. Once again, good intentions do not a good film make.

Dishonorable Mentions:

Blackthorn, Incendies, Jane Eyre, Kill The Irishman, Moneyball, Shame, Third Star, Twelve Thirty, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Young Goethe In Love

SAVE OUR SITES

2012-01-12T12:40:00.000-05:00

SOS Sets Lecture

Donovan Rypkema, Monday, January 30, 2012, 8:00 pm, The Ethical Society of Philadelphia, 1906 South Rittenhouse Square

Donovan D. Rypkema is principal of PlaceEconomics, a Washington-based real estate and economic development consulting firm that specializes in services to public and non-profit sector clients who are dealing with downtown and neighborhood commercial district revitalization and the reuse of historic structures. Rypkema has worked with communities in 49 states and 40 countries. He holds a Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation from Columbia University and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania where he received the 2008 G. Holmes Perkins Award for Distinguished Teaching. The title of Rypkema’s lecture is 'The Economics of Historic Preservation, Home and Abroad.'

The Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

Richard's CV in Pictures

2011-12-21T02:05:00.000-05:00

See www.RichardCarreno.webs.com for details

The Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

Mardi Gras

2011-12-20T00:30:00.000-05:00

Despite the Accents

No Bronx Cheer nor Boston

Chowder in Who Dat Nation

Dressed for Excess

By Don Merlot

[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

New Orleans

Once I left New Orleans what was normal for me was not normal to mainstream America. I had to learn another Language, menu, and cultural origins. That is not bad, but sometimes you get tired explaining why we have habits are so different to that of the rest of the States and why we talk funny as if we were from Boston or the Bronx.

Now that the Mardi Gras is upon on it makes me think how much fun it is to be a New Orleanian again. This year the Super Bowl-bound Saints and Mardi Gras all hit within the same ten-day period and what a celebration it will be.

Does one really have to dress to the occasion? Remember that the Fun stops on Ash Wednesday. Lent starts that day, and the one thing one gives up is the partying mode. So when you are partying during Carnival dress for fun, eat for fun, and drink for fun.

So in New Orleans the official start of Carnival is Epiphany, the 6th of January, the day that the three kings visited the Christ Child. In the mind of the French Colonist of la Nouvelle Orleans it was to recognize that its citizens are bidding farewell to winter and getting ready for natures renaissance. Europe did and the colonist should have it too. Social and economic levels were key as to who partied where.

It depends on how much history we took and what we remembered, but the main Mardi Gras tradition started in Mobile (now Alabama). As the French settled there between Spanish Florida and northern Spanish Mexico (Texas today); and that Eastern part of Louisiana that looks like the toe of the boot and Western part of the panhandle from Florida were the line that divided French Louisiana northern border to the English colonies that are today the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast; they are called the Florida Parishes in modern parlance that is where Hurricane Katrina hit.

So In French Mobile the first Mardi Gras in the French American colony started. What is so popular during that yearly event from Epiphany and Mardi Gras is a celebration of dancing, drinking and joviality. The epitome of every party is the King Cake that is cut at the apex of the party and a ceramic doll is hidden in the pastry of the cake at baking time and the lucky person that finds that in their piece of cake which one would drink with Champagne at the noble or high society gatherings, would have to give the next party. Outside of Louisiana, this ceremony is not popular. Yes, in Spanish America and Portuguese America there is Carnival, but in Europe it is linked more to the Roman Catholic practices. English know it as Shrove Tuesday, the Germans as Fasching.

Mardi Gras, the French for Fat Tuesday, is the day one has the last drink (alcohol) and certain foods for Lent, and it is the day before Mardi Gras.

So When we celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans we are enjoying a tradition set up by our French forefathers.

Today the King Cake is enjoyed by all revelers and it is not just washed down with Champagne. New Orleans is also famous for inventing the cocktail. Many rum punches are popular at these gatherings. Today a most favorite is the Pat O'Brien Hurricane.

With the Saints winning the Super Bowl, the party will last until Ash Wednesday: February 17. Remember that New Orleans is now the 'Who dat Nation.'

(Don Merlot, otherwise known as Ron Alonzo, writes about food and dribk for The Junto).

2011-12-19T22:10:00.001-05:00

Jane Irish:
War Is Not What You Think

By Klare Scarborough
[Special to Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

The La Salle University Art Museum and the Connelly Library will present the work of

Philadelphia‐based artist Jane Irish this winter. Irish’s work explores the impact of the Vietnam War and its continuing relevance today. Through her paintings and ceramic vessels decorated with pastoral landscapes, people and poetry, Irish highlights the heroism of the soldiers as well as the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, both of whom fought valiantly for freedom and peace.

Irish has been drawing visual inspiration and historical research contexts from the Connelly

Library’s world‐renowned rare book and manuscript collection, Imaginative Representations of the Vietnam War, for the past ten years. This special collection contains over 20,000 creative items related to the Vietnam War, including novels, short stories, poetry, music, screenplays, graphic art, films, sound recordings, posters, prints, video and board games, as well as literary and visual pornography.

The exhibition will be held simultaneously in two locations. The La Salle University Art Museum will feature Irish’s large mural work, The Conversation, along with several related multi‐media pieces. The exhibition will also include a selection of landscape paintings and ceramic vases. The Connelly Library will feature additional ceramic vases by Irish, juxtaposed with images and texts from its special collection, Imaginative Representations of the Vietnam War.

Irish was recently awarded a prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2011. The artist is

represented by Locks Gallery in Philadelphia, http://www.locksgallery.com/. More information about her life and work may be found on the artist’s website, http://www.janeirish.com/.

On view January 17 – March 29, 2012 at the La Salle University Art Museum and the Connelly Library. Opening reception, January 18, 2012, 5‐7 p.m. at the La Salle University Art Museum.

(Klare Scarborough is the director of the LaSalle University Art Museum).

The La Salle University Art Museum is located on the lower level of Olney Hall on the campus of La Salle University at 19th Street and Olney Avenue. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. The Art Museum will also be open to the public from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, February 4, 2012. Admission is free, though donations are accepted. Please call to schedule group visits. Special tours can be arranged. For further information call 215.951.1221 or visit the website at http://www.lasalle.edu/museum/.

The Connelly Library is located at the corner of 20th street and Olney Avenue, and is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. For further information call 215.951.1293 or visit the website at http://www.lasalle.edu/library/.

Newt-ron Bombs Again

2011-12-19T21:40:00.002-05:00

Newt-ster: The Eyes Have It

Chump Oeil

Junto writer Jackie Atkins proclaims herself as 'an emotionally scarred woman in need of a public outlet' after an unnerving encounter with Newt Gingrich a dozen years ago when the randy former U.S. Speaker of House was on the lascivious prowl in Philadelphia.

Gloria Allred, Esq.
Allred, Moroko & Goldberg
Los Angeles, CA

Dear Gloria,
Please help me. I don’t know where else to turn. You are my last chance.

My nights have been restless: I suffer from sleeping leg syndrome and by head aches in a spinning motion ever time I think about what happened. I need closure. The world should know what this man has done to me.

Oh, it all started in the summer of 2000 when I was eager to be part of history. The Republicans had come to Philadelphia to nominate W. As a loyal Republican, I looked forward to meeting the stars of the Grand Old Party. G.O.P.

So naturally when I had a chance to attend a private cocktail party at the Rittenhouse hosted by U.S. Congressman James C. Greenwood my heart swooned. The invitation stated that the guest of honor would be no other than Newt Gingrich, who, at the time, was a correspondent for Fox TV. More important, I knew him as the one who single handed changed the course of history by wresting the U.S. House of Representatives from the grips of Democrats and pinning down the nation’s hopes for a Republican revival.

I was truly honored to be asked to be in attendance with the great man.

The party was held in a residence on the 22nd floor of the Rittenhouse. I arrived early that summer evening with a friend, Norma. We were standing off to the side sipping our Chardonnay when Newt entered. I must say, for a small man he did full up the room. He's also fat. About twenty people were already there, but everyone almost immediately was paying attention to him.

That’s when what I have never been able to put to rest occurred.

It was a hot summer night, Gloria, so I have always felt that maybe, just maybe, I brought this on. You see, I wore a halter top dress, an Ellen Tracy, actually. It was yellow with white prints. I still have it. I have never worn it since that night, though. I have it preserved in a garment bag hanging in my closet.

Greenwood escorted Speaker Gingrich around, and when he came over to Norma and me my eyes fixated on this cute little round butter-ball-kind of guy in a pin-striped suit.

Newt was also fixating. He had plenty to say to us. By us, I do not mean Norma and me. No, his fixation was my chest. True, the diminutive Newt's his eye-line was sort of aligned with my cleavage. Yet, the guy never looked up.

For twenty minutes or so (it seemed like an eternity), Newt Gingrich conducted a political conversation with breasts. He did the talking.

Gloria, I was visually raped. Yes, raped. Raped by Newt Gingrich. The dude never touched me, well, in that way, of course. He did tell me he liked my dress. He also at one point held my hand, looked into my eyes (the only time he ever diverted from my twins!) and repeated my name.'Jackie,' he said. He wouldn't let go until I called him Newt. I called him 'Newt.' How sweet. Except, I think he might have been drooling. Or, was he just licking his lips?

Try as I might, I cannot get pass this close encounter. Now, whenever I see is this man next to his tawdry blond bombshell third wife I realise, he is not at all what he projects. He is shorter. And fatter. And he still licks his lips.

What Gingrich did to me was totally inappropriate. I want the world to know. Only you, Gloria, have the power to shout this out before it is too late and another woman in a low-fitting, revealing, sexy Marilyn-Monroe inspired dress is battered by a peeping Newt. Yes, the Newt-ster is still on the prowl.

We are talking about character. Right? Do we want a man in the White House -- shades of Bill -- who doesn’t know how to look at an entity, but just at her projectiles? Is this what we want for this country?

I can be reached for further consultation at the number on my attached résumé. I'm also thinking that a press conference is surely in order. And don't forget the suit. Yeah, we got to sue. We need prevent a miscarriage of an election process. But I also need money -- because of all the trauma that two of my three personalities endured that fateful evening. You might also point out that I'm currently unemployed.

Thank you for hearing me out. You are indeed a friend to all manipulated women, and a lawyer extraordinaire for those of us in a financially emotional need. What's your cut?

Sincerely,
Ms Jackie S. Atkins

Worcester Art Museum

2011-12-06T00:55:00.000-05:00

Wall at WAM

Wall at Wam by Charlene Von Heyl, through summer 2012

WAM, Salisbury Street

Soup's On: By Andy Warhol

Who Knew?: Sudio study of Cardplayer by Cezanne at WAM

Junto Photos: Richard Carreño

Gallery

2011-12-06T00:37:00.000-05:00

Higgins Armory,
Worcester, Massachusetts

Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

John Woodhams Higgins: He started it

Higgins' house at 80 Williams St., now part Becker College.

Bill Viola at PAFA

2011-11-20T19:54:00.001-05:00

Bill Viola at PAFA on Friday

New Video Installation Debuts

Bill Viola, a California video artist, last week introduced his new three-screen video installation at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Called Ocean Without a Shore, the installation employs three large monitors revolving single figures emerging from darkness. The PAFA installation is unique to the United States. Other exhibits are now located in Korea and Australia.

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2011-11-17T08:01:00.001-05:00

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It’s all here: This impressively consecutive collection of funny writing by Larry Doyle, the winner of the 2008 Thurber Prize for American Humor, a former writer for The Simpsons, and the author of I Love You, Beth Cooper, brings together an astonishing range of subjects under the umbrella of hilarious—an umbrella that is your free gift if you order right now.

Too late. But you can still take home this enormously entertaining read, featuring writing from the New Yorker, Esquire, and National Lampoon, along with never-before-seen pieces only available in this exclusive offer. Here’s what other happy customers had to say:

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“If Earth ever needs an Interplanetary Humor Ambassador, Larry Doyle’s the guy.”—Washington Post

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Larry Doyle goes by thelarrydoyle on Facebook, Twitter, and in real life. Too much information about him is available at larrydoyle.com.

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Junto's Carreno Cited

2011-11-12T12:59:00.002-05:00

The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins

Walton Inflames East With Collection
By Tracie Dungan/Arkanas Online
[For Writers Clearinghouse News Service]
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2011/nov/05/walton-inflames-east-collection/
In the six years since Alice Walton’s May 2005 revelation that she was buying up multimillion-dollar artwork and building a nationally important museum in Wal-Mart’s hometown of Bentonville, she has spurred a sense of boosterism and high economic hopes at home, while also igniting a broad debate on museums’ public stewardship of the arts.

For Walton, 62, daughter of the late Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton and an heir to his fortune, no particular painting inspired her to want to create Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, but rather a combination of a childhood spent creating art with her mother, the late Helen Walton, and having no other outlet nearby to explore this creativity further.

“I guess it was the experience, or the lack of it, and the love of art, that I had growing up,” Walton said while sitting in a glass-walled board room at Crystal Bridges a little more than two weeks before its Nov. 11 opening.

“I used to draw and do watercolors with my mom. But, you know, we, we really didn’t have any museums. We got to go to the Gilcrease [Museum] in Tulsa, and she made sure to get us to a museum occasionally here or there, but we just didn’t — it wasn’t part of our experience growing up.”

Walton spoke in her demure, deep-throated drawl with reporters at a media preview Oct. 24, appearing radiant and relaxed, leaning back in her chair with her hands folded in her lap for much of the time. Her silver tresses were pulled back and she wore a large, side-swept scarf.

Walton, who is ranked by Forbes magazine as the 10th-richest person in the United States for 2010 at $20.9 billion, is working with the family foundation her father started in 1987. It poured more than $1.2 billion in endowments and one-time gifts into the museum in 2010 alone and $1.3 billion all together.

Opening its doors Friday in downtown Bentonville, the 201,000-square-foot Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art sits in a forested ravine. It is home to two spring-fed ponds flowing around and under its pavilions, designed by the Boston-based architect Moshe Safdie, in the heart of a 120-acre campus with walking trails connecting it to points like the city Square.

Gift to the community

Museum officials expect 150,000 to 300,000 visitors annually.

After deciding to move forward with plans for the museum — sometime in the late 1990s, Walton estimated — Walton and her family described the museum as a gift to the community, and it later was the beneficiary of special state legislation granting it sales- and use-tax exemptions.

Act 1865 of 2005, sponsored by then-Rep. Horace Hardwick, R-Bentonville, provides the exemptions to specific nonprofit museums. Hardwick said at the time that, while other museums could have qualified, he drafted the bill to secure Crystal Bridges for Arkansas, overriding the competitive interests of other states with blanket tax exemptions for museums, such as Tennessee and Texas.

Crystal Bridges will open with a permanent collection of roughly 500 works spanning about five centuries of American art, from the Colonial era through 2010.

Walton and the museum’s advisers and staff have frequented auction house giants such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s, both London-based with prominent New York sales rooms, browsing for art to fill her museum’s galleries.

“I met Alice Walton one weekend in New York and had a grand time with her,” said Barbara R. Palmer of State College, Penn., whose long involvement with philanthropic causes and the Palmer Museum of Art on the Pennsylvania State University campus eventually led to her relationship with those at Crystal Bridges.

In New York, Walton had her art-acquisition advisers with her, including John Wilmerding, as well as Crystal Bridges’ Sandy Edwards, deputy director of museum relations.

“I don’t know what they bought, but I think they were well-received wherever they went,” said Palmer, who donated a sculpture — Angel by Seymour Lipton, 1975 — to Crystal Bridges in honor of Edwards and her late husband, Clay, both of whom she’d worked with on fundraising initiatives at Penn State.

But Walton revealed during the Oct. 24 media tour of the museum that she doesn’t attend the auctions and hasn’t ever bid in person at one.

“I never have,” she declared.

Bid From the saddle

Because the major auctions in New York tend to coincide with her cutting-horse world championships — she lives on a Texas ranch and competes in riding competitions — she has been known to phone in bids while sitting astride a saddle.

“I’m not really given a lot of choice if I want to compete,” she said with a throaty laugh.

Other times Crystal Bridges’ staff members do the honors in person. Walton said the museum’s executive director, Don Bacigalupi, has come to take on the auction deals.

The kind of art collector and connoisseur that Walton is largely depends upon whom one asks.

“I would say she’s one of the most visionary collectors in the field,” said Amy Cappellazzo, chairman of post-war and contemporary development at Christie’s, who works with buyers and sellers including Crystal Bridges.

There are American museums out there with vast, “amazing collections,” but they have been buying artwork for decades.

“Those weren’t assembled by someone seeking to do this in their own lifetime,” Cappellazzo said.

“I don’t know of an equivalent collection of this kind,” she said. “I mean, others have done it. But this one is quite far-reaching in its scope, both back into history and looking at contemporary artists and contemporary works.”

Some East Coast arts journalists and bloggers who cover museums with an eye toward public access, transparency and respect for the wishes of deceased art donors take a different view. They are sensitive to “deaccessioning” — the selling of artworks to raise money for other art or financial needs.

They had plenty to write about as Walton stirred up debates in New York, Philadelphia and Nashville, Tenn., with art acquisition attempts that were, respectively: successful, failed and pending in a Tennessee high court.

The writers also have taken issue with, among other things, the label “world-class museum” that local and national media outlets alike affixed to Crystal Bridges long before its entire permanent collection was revealed.

In mid-June, Lee Rosenbaum — who blogs as “CultureGrrl” for the online publication ArtsJournal — called into question the label and deconstructed articles on Walton and the museum that appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times.

‘World class’ how?

Atop a photo Rosenbaum posted of one of Crystal Bridges’ outdoor sculptures, a rotund piglet depicted in Andre Harvey’s 2009 Stella, appeared the headline: “Alice Walton’s ‘World-Class Museum’: Does NY Times Know Something We Don’t about Crystal Bridges?”

Rosenbaum opined that with only 70 or so works revealed at that point, the jury is out on how distinguished the museum’s initial collection will be.

Richard Carreno, who blogs for The Philadelphia Junto and Broad Street Review online arts publications, agreed.

“You don’t invent ‘world class’ overnight,” Carreno said in an interview in late October.

Carreno was not necessarily condemning the term: Why would it be used if Walton’s museum is eschewing international art for a focus on American art? Why not “national class”?

“It could be the best museum in Arkansas, or the best museum in the South,” Carreno said, adding there are a number of quality, little-known museums that don’t use boosterism. “They’re not trying to foist any terminology on the public to make themselves seem self-important.”

Carreno was among those in the Philadelphia area who protested Walton’s November 2006 joint offer with the National Gallery of Art in Washington to buy Thomas Eakins’ renowned 1875 painting The Gross Clinic from Thomas Jefferson University for $68 million — said to be the highest price for an American work of art created before World War II.

In January 2007, Carreno blasted Walton as “a bumbling billionairess from Arkansas, the Wal-Mart heiress” who was an unwitting, easy mark for what he contended was an inflated starting bid. “Every heist needs a moneybags.”

But Walton’s chief art acquisition adviser, John Wilmerding, has insisted in interviews over the years that she is a value-oriented buyer who won’t pay inflated prices for art, choosing instead to wait out the market.

In the end, Walton and the National Gallery lost the bid for The Gross Clinic to a Philadelphia fundraising drive.

“In this case, she entered into a sale agreement that contained the bizarre — maybe even unprecedented — caveat that her deal was off if another buyer offered the same $68 million within 30 days,” Carreno wrote in Broad Street Review. “This rider was fantastic on its face. How many of us would buy a house subject to the same proviso?”

Walton’s view: “I could have been smarter about it: Hindsight’s a wonderful thing.” But, she said in the October news conference, the failed bid had a positive outcome.

“I wish we’d gotten it, but I’m also proud of the way the Philadelphia community came together to save something that they thought was very important,” she said.

“I think it’s wonderful when a community and a region is proud of a main artist and wants to keep that work,” Walton continued. “And if they want to come together and figure out a way to do that, then more power to them.”

Walton first caused a stir when it was learned in May 2005 that she and the Walton Family Foundation purchased, from the New York Public Library, Asher B. Durand’s Kindred Spirits, an iconic Hudson River School landscape, for a reported $35 million.

That time, she was on the opposite side of Washington’s National Gallery, bidding against it in its joint bid with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

During the Oct. 24 media preview, Kindred Spirits was among some of the paintings already hanging in the Crystal Bridges galleries and was one of several that had been on loan to other museums.

In both East Coast examples, the paintings were said to be hung in alcoves where they were hard to see or access. And defenders of Walton’s attempts to purchase them have said it’s better for the works to be spirited off to America’s heartland — where the public has access to them — than to be sold into private hands or to overseas museums.

‘Two of every kind’

In a recent interview, Carreno said he’s softened his view of Crystal Bridges’ permanent collection but still sticks by his earlier assertion likening Walton’s collecting style to Noah’s Ark: “two of every kind” from a particular artist.

“I went over the inventory of pictures the museum has, and I’m impressed,” he said. “But it’s not very deep. There’s no depth.”

“Depth,” for curators, either involves showcasing a host of works by a particular artist, he said, or pairing, say, an Eakins painting with a Rembrandt containing a similar element: “You can see how Eakins borrowed from Rembrandt.”

Philadelphians were upset at the prospect of losing Eakins’ The Gross Clinic because he was an early American Realist painter whose themes and locations were mainly Philadelphia-based and spoke to the heritage of the area.

People tend to identify with and empathize with a work that illuminates their history and patrimony, he said.

“When you take an important work and you put it in a small museum that has no context, it loses something,” Carreno said. “It becomes a ‘Las Vegas Eiffel Tower.’”

Walton found herself involved in another fight when she offered the historically black Fisk University in Nashville $30 million for a half-share in its 101-piece Alfred Stieglitz Collection.

The attempt evolved into a protracted court battle in Davidson County, Tenn., Chancery Court that is pending in the Court of Appeals of Tennessee Middle Section at Nashville.

A lower court judge approved a sharing arrangement whereby the collection could be displayed at Crystal Bridges museum on a rotating basis every two years beginning in fall 2013, while still being enjoyed half the time by Nashville residents. The collection was donated to Fisk University about 60 years ago by the late American artist Georgia O’Keeffe along with a “no-sale” condition. O’Keeffe was the widow of Stieglitz, a noted photographer and collector.

Fisk University has said it is financially strapped and must sell the collection to avoid closing.

The case has raised legal questions regarding deaccessioning and whether donor’s wishes can be disregarded after circumstances change.

Carreno said Walton has managed to reignite the national debate over such issues, noting recent efforts of various groups who’ve regretted historical removal of art and have sought to repatriate works to their original homes or, in some instances, owners.

“I’m proud of the efforts we’ve made,” Walton said of her high-profile acquisition deals, in her Oct. 24 news conference.

Win either way on Fisk

Should the museum lose the Fisk case, Walton said it won’t be so noticeable a gap in the collection that it would have been years ago when the court cases first started.

“I don’t think that it’s something we have to have. We obviously have bought many things from probably the same period as the collection covers,” Walton said. “But the offer to Fisk is two-fold. ... I’m very proud of the fact that we’re making an offer and have made an offer that can help strengthen Fisk financially, which it needs.”

“The Fisk collection was going to be broken up before we made the offer,” she said. “And I really felt very strongly that it shouldn’t be broken up.”

The offer, she said, keeps the collection intact and comes as close as possible to O’Keeffe’s wishes.

Walton has bequeathed Crystal Bridges 100 artworks from her personal collection as “promised gifts,” she explained, and said visitors can expect to see some of them occasionally rotated in for exhibits.

Her main goals for the museum are to bring art appreciation to Arkansas and surrounding states and to draw tourists from afar.

Thanks to a $20 million endowment from Wal-Mart, admission to Crystal Bridges will be free to all, but she and others locally expect tourism spending to increase after the museum opens.

“I hope that Crystal Bridges brings widespread access to this whole region,” Walton said of the Ozarks and surrounding areas. “I guess the most important thing to me is, I hope we bring opportunities to people.”

Walton’s family members had to be on board when she went forward with plans for the museum, she said. The museum’s property is on Walton family land that would have otherwise been used for homes for her nieces and nephews.

“It’s been fun, because it’s been a journey for us as a family,” Walton said. “The museum actually fits well within our traditional foundation efforts.”

The foundation’s efforts have been three-pronged: education, the environment and giving back to the region.

It never occurred to Walton for Crystal Bridges to feature anything other than American art, owed to her parents’ patriotism and the way in which art made American history really come alive for her.

“I love American art,” she said. “American art has yet to take its full place, I believe, in the balance of art in the world — in the universe.”

“It’s still a story that’s being told and unfolding, and as a new museum, I think it’s exciting for us to be able to be a part of it and help rewrite and expand some of the research areas that still need a lot of work.”

New Kid in Town

2011-11-08T22:23:00.004-05:00

Mary (Detail)

Met's Loss, PAFA's Gain
By Richard Carreño
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]
Curators, even at the stellar Metropolitan Museum of Art, can blunder. Such was the case early last year when the Met presented at an ambitious retrospective of 19th-century American art that, not surprisingly, drew plentifully and wisely from permanent collections at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Of course, we encountered the usual Philadelphia 'persons' of interest: Thomas Eakins, Charles Willson Peale, Winslow Homer, and the like. But, to my mind, there was a conspicuous omission. Nowhere to be found in the 'American Stories' show was the masterful African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), a PAFA graduate and Eakins acolyte. Some one had dropped the ball.

That oversight is now about to be corrected. Thanks to PAFA. And the La Salle University Museum of Art.

The biggest nod in the new-found Tanner recognition -- call it even a revival -- goes to PAFA, which will launch a gargantuan public meditation early next year on the Tanner oeuvre. That bow to the long-neglected artist (viz the Met show) will be 'Modern Spirit,' an exhibition curated, organized, and brilliantly marketed by PAFA with accompanying publications, lectures, and even a children's book. The show will be at the academy from 28 January to 15 April, then will soldier on later in the year with the Tanner banner to the Cincinnati Art Museum and to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

Why, then, credit to the La Salle Museum? How about Mary (1898), a little-seen iconic Tanner oil that will surely be one of the show's highlights?

In all, 114 objects will be in installed in PAFA's Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building, involving works on paper, photographs, and sculptures. Show-stoppers will include Tanner's arguably most important work, The Annunciation (also from 1898), on loan from the PMA; and a far-flung entry, The Resurrection of Lazarus (1896), one of three from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.

Otherwise, PAFA is being coy about additional loans, noting that paintings will come from private sources as well as public institutions. '...[S]uffice it to say that we that we've been overwhelmed by the support and enthusiasm of Tanner family members, the AME church, and our colleagues at other art museums,' a PAFA spokeswoman e-mailed me.

Will important works from the St. Louis Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum be there? Will The Thankful Poor, owned by Bill Cosby, make it?

PAFA has announced that The Banjo Lesson (1893), the well-known template of Tanner's early African-American genre period, will not be there. The picture is owned by Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. Why it will be missing in action was not explained.

Loans from prominent institutions are nothing new. The PMA is particularly noted for its generous loan policy. But La Salle, a hardscrabble Catholic university in the hinterlands of North Philadelphia? Hmm.

Step forward a newly-launched synergy between the La Salle Museum and Philadelphia's arts community. Indeed, make that the world's. (The museum has also loaned its Tomb of the Virgil at Posilipo, Naples [1784], by Hubert Robert, an 18th-century French academician, to a current show at the Palazzo Te in Mantua, Italy).

For most Philadelphians, the La Salle loans are probably no more surprising than that La Salle University even has a free-access art museum. Especially, one with such world-class treasures as its top-notch Tanner -- and other works by Edouard Vuillard, Rembrandt Peale (Charles Willson Peale's son), Georges Rouault, and, maybe most intriguing of all, by Tintoretto (Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman).

La Salle also has one of few small works in Philadelphia by the brilliant 20th-century Anglo-American sculptor Joseph Epstein, a bust of his daughter Kitty Epstein. (The PMA has Epstein's mammoth Social Consciousness [1953], a not-to-be-missed outdoor work on its West Terrace).

All in all, La Salle's is the only permanent collection in Philadelphia, apart from the PMA's, that includes paintings, drawings, and sculptures from the Renaissance period to the contemporary. In other words, a smallish version of the PMA. OK, real smallish. But even as that, who knew?

For one, Klare Scarborough, the museum's newly-appointed director and chief curator. In fact, turning La Salle's low profile around has been one of Scarborough's principal missions. A former consultant and project manager at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, Scarborough has slipped easily into another new role as La Salle Museum's biggest cheer-leader.

Getting the La Salle Museum on the world stage includes sharing the museum's patrimony 'with people who might never have the opportunity to visit La Salle's campus' off West Olney Avenue, according to Scarborough. (Be forewarned: Finding the museum, located in the basement of a nondescript academic building, can involve a lively search. Another Scarborough mission: Locating a new home for the museum).

Fortunately, Scarborough's brief seamlessly meshed with that of Anna Marley, the academy's curator of historical American art, who cast an uncharacteristically wide net, for PAFA, that is, in retelling Tanner's journey from interpreting black culture in early work through his later growth and stature as, finally, an expatriate artist in Paris.

The upcoming show pulls out all stops, thus also differing from the typical, more modest PAFA exhibit. In fact, 'Modern Sprit' has unabashedly adopted many of the trappings of mega-museum blockbuster. This remember at an institution, despite its high-octane standing, is still a pocket museum, limited in its role as a showcase of America art.

Still, PAFA visitors will not be faulted if they see the imprint of a PMA blockbuster, similar to those once ring-mistressed by the Anne d'Harnoncourt, the late Philadelphia Museum director and impresario. Expect 'the most complete scholarly' Tanner catalog ever, written by experts including PAFA's Marley; an 'array' of educational programs; a 'technical' study of Tanner's materials and methods developed in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution; and a juvenile tie-in in the form of a book written by the well-respected children's author Faith Ringgold.

In fact, the academy has technically already kicked off the show, with a joint-sponsored Tanner symposium that was held 9-10 November at the Musee d'Orsay. Earlier, in October, PAFA jump-started things with a public preview at La Salle.

Despite these bells and whistles, I can't help but think that Marley was really just itching to grab Mary for its artistic and narrative merits. This work, like The Annunciation, captures Tanner in his maturity. By the late 1890s, Tanner was a fixture in Parisian art circles. From African-American genre pictures, new influences in France molded his work, the artist discovering nuances in academic salon painting and even in then-emerging Impressionism. Ultimately, Tanner fully realized himself as a Modern, combining realism and luminous light in technique with themes prompted by mystically-driven Orientalism.

Tanner's religious faith drew him to depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Thanks to funding from Rodman Wanamaker, a rich scion of the Philadelphia department store family, Tanner got to contextualize these biblical scenes on site with visits to the Middle East. In Mary, the infant Jesus and his mother are seated on the floor of a adobe hut, with the baby enveloped in swaddling. Mary gazes soulfully upon her child. The mood is somber. Is Tanner foreshadowing Jesus' death?

In the last 40 years of his life, Tanner returned to United States infrequently. He was celebrated in France, and the Cross of the Legion of Honor, awarded to him by the French government, just hinted at the prestige in enjoyed in his adopted country.

From African-American painter in Philadelphia, born as his native land was just then struggling through the Civil War and its racially-charged aftermath, Tanner found France to be a place where few people had interest in his 'complexion.' In a sense, France allowed him to become a post-racial painter. There, he said, 'I am simply M. Tanner, an American artist.' He died in Paris in 1937.

'Modern Spirit' will be exhibited at the Cincinnati Art Museum from 26 May to September 9; and at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts from 14 October to 6 January 2013. Mary will return to La Salle shortly thereafter.

2011-11-06T11:25:00.001-05:00

Michelle Rhee to Speak at Kimmel Center Monday Night; Rally Planned to Inform Public about Her Dishonest Campaign

by phillystyle71

by Christopher Paslay

Join Monday night’s Michelle Rhee “information rally” outside Kimmel Center on November 7^th from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm.

On Monday, November 7^th at 8:00 pm, former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee will be speaking at the Kimmel Center as part of Widener University’s 2011-2012 Philadelphia Spe akers Series. Although Rhee is billed as a visionary school reformer with a mantra of “putting students first,” Columbia College Professor Shaun Johnson estimated that Rhee’s speaking fees for the last 10 months alone will earn her “between $1 M and $2 M, depending on whether she charged the full $50,000 per event specified in her contract, or the mere $35,000 she charged Kent State.”

Rhee is also knee-deep in politics and her “Students First” organization, which is trying to raise $1 billion to dismantle organized labor, is backed by corporate heads, including Rupert Murdoch, hedge fund manager Julian Robertson and the Fisher Family, as well as the Koch Brothers.

Here are five things Rhee won’t be talking about on Monday night:

1. Rhee put “students first” and charged Kent State University a $35,000 speaking fee to talk to an audience of about 600 people. She also required first-class airfare, a VIP hotel suite, a town car and personal driver.

2. Rhee, unable to control her students during her first year as an elementary schoolteacher in Baltimore, taped her students’ mouths shut with masking tape on the way to the lunchroom. A year later, she grossly exaggerated her students’ gains on standardized tests.

3. When Rhee was chancellor of D.C. schools and improved test scores were tarnished by a cheating scandal, Rhee failed to answer questions from the media or explain the testing aberrations and high rate of erasures.

4. Rhee lacks expertise in the field of education. “Rhee’s ideas about how to fix the ailing school system were largely misinformed,” D.C. native and schoolteacher Rachel Levy wrote in a blog published in the Washington Post, “and it’s no wonder: She knew little about instruction, curriculum, management, fiscal matters, and community relations.”

5. In 2010, D.C. incumbent mayor Adrian Fenty lost the Democratic primary election. Political experts interpreted this as a referendum on Rhee’s unpopular and misguided reign as school’s chief.

Monday night’s “information rally” from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm outside the Kimmel Center will set the record straight, however.

Support hardworking students and dedicated teachers and help inform the public about the real Michelle Rhee. For more information, email phillystyle71@yahoo.com

Fall Issue

2011-10-31T21:10:00.000-04:00

WINTER HEAVES; AUTUMN LEAVES

Lecture & Film November 11

2011-10-27T20:33:00.001-04:00

O'Hara Gets Harrisburg

Home-town Treatment

Friday, November 11th
At the Midtown Scholar Bookstore:

6:30-7:30 PM: “John O’Hara’sHarrisburg”: Christine Goldbeck discusses the best-selling 1949 novel A Rage to Live.

An award-winning writer and artist, Goldbeck is the author of a short-story collection entitled A Tribute to O’Hara and Other Stories (2000). She has lectured on how “All Writing is Regional” at centennial celebrations for John O’Hara, and she developed Pennsylvania high school curriculum materials on how “O’Hara Works Endure Time, Criticism.” The owner of Arts on Union in Middletown, PA, since 1989, Goldbeck received an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. As Executive Director of the PA House of Representatives’ Urban Affairs Committee, she daily tackles issues like land reform, blight, urban planning, housing, and poverty. She has extensively examined how living in Pennsylvania inspired John O’Hara’s stories:

"O’Hara did for northeastern Pennsylvania, and particularly the hard coal region, what writers before him, such as Sherwood Anderson, who wrote “Winesburg, Ohio” had done; he recorded the social history of a place and time. In addition to Schuylkill County, he also wrote New York City, Hollywood, and Pennsylvania’s Dauphin County, home to Harrisburg, the state capital, which O’Hara named Fort Penn, into his novels. His stories are social history lessons that chronicle the lives and times of people in the early part of the 20th century. To read O’Hara is to know, beyond doubt, what people wore, where they worked and how much they earned, to which clubs they belonged, what kinds of automobiles they drove and what games they played."

Advert. ---

2011-10-22T13:40:00.000-04:00

O C C U P Y

The J U N T O

Letters to the Editor

2011-10-18T23:16:00.001-04:00

Blowing Smoke
Dr. Albert C. Barnes, founder of the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

Boo Hoo
Darsh Gone, Dr. Barnes
is Still Getting Dissed

(In response to 'Matisse's Revenge,' published in the BroadStreetReview.com and below).

Thanks for your letter. We'll post it soon.
Sincerely,
Dan Rottenberg
Editor

On Oct 17, 2011, at 8:40 PM....

Comments:
I don't understand why so many presumably well informed writers feel it
necessary to slime Albert Barnes and why editors (Dan?) print this trash. In
a comparison of Matisse collections, is it necessary to allege Barnes'
marital infidelity? Do we need to read ONCE AGAIN that Barnes was
"irascible" and etc and etc ad nauseam? The man was an astonishingly
courageous connoisseur who was widely villified by "experts" and yet
assembled the breathtaking collection we all treasure. Show him some
respect!

Donald Eckard
St. Davids, PA 19087

Dan Rottenberg, Editor
Broad Street Review
1315 Walnut St.
Suite 904
Philadelphia PA 19107
Phone: (215) 735-1455Fax: (215) 735-1455
drottenberg@broadstreetreview.com

Lord of Hosts: The Life of Sir Henry Channon

2011-10-18T22:54:00.001-04:00

Chips With Everything

Eccentric Leads Compelling Life
A first-ever and the only full-length biography, Lord of Hosts: The Life of Sir Henry Channon tells of the compelling, animated life of the dynamic and eccentric American-turned-British-politician, 'Chips' Channon. Chips was one of the most famous, outspoken, and controversial Brits of the 20th century who, among many things, got swayed from politics by getting more interested and involved in Guinness beer and it's brewery. If you like politics, drama, history, and want a captivating read, check out the book. Details via www.LORDofHOSTSChipsChannon.webs.com. -- J.T.C.

The J u n t o depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976 Richard Carreño, Editor

Museum Mile: Philadelphia's Parkway Museums

2011-10-14T18:10:00.001-04:00

Philadelphia's Parkway Muses

By Jackie Atkins

[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

Museum Mile: Philadelphia's Parkway Museums

By Richard Carreno

WritersClearinghousePress

180 pp $19.99

ISBN: 978-1-105-14489-9

AT a glance, it's simply a beautiful Philadelphia reproduction of the Champs-Elysée. But for Richard Carreño, it's 'Museum Mile,' the core of Philadelphia's museums and galleries on the city's famed Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

In Museum Mile: Philadelphia's Parkway Museums, Carreño looks deep into this street-scape for its architectural and artistic resources, embodied in the Parkway's venerable public arts and cultural spaces. In all, he canvasses more than a dozen of the city's arts institutions. Sometimes he strays in the name of local insights -– as far afield even as Jerusalem and Nice, France.

The book gets much closer to home with Carreño's sharp and reflective appraisal of changes at the Barnes Foundation museum. Significantly, Museum Mile coincides with the debut in 2012 of the 'new' Barnes, now the on the Parkway's newest cultural jewel.

Not much has escaped the author as he examines and deconstructs paintings with the fervor of an explorer and teacher. The artists whose compositions he describes come under as equal scrutiny as their works themselves. Similarly, administrative and curatorial staff members, and even some of Philadelphia's most prominent arts donors and financiers, never go unchallenged.

Carreño looks 'behind' the canvass. Before addressing the hidden techniques of the sporting art of Alfred J. Munnings, Carreño carefully scrutinizes this English country artist's background to explain the influence of Munnings' life experiences in his portrayals of uncommon horses and their equally uncommon riders.

Carreño introduces Michael Taylor, until recently modern art curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as 'part scholar, part art historian, and part sleuth.' He describes his pioneering shows, and how Taylor singularly captures the importance, need, and workmanship of a museum curator.

Small tidbits make reading Museum Mile informative, substantive, and enlightening.

Not contented with just profiles of artists and the museums that showcase their work, Carreño spins tales of Philadelphia politics and intrigues as they relate the Museum Mile's art world. Neither the controversial founder of the Barnes Foundation, Dr. Albert C. Barnes, nor the film, The Art of the Steal, a screed against the Barnes' move from Merion in suburban Philadelphia to the Parkway, escape Carreño's critique.

Such seemingly mundane issues as the advisability of backpack captivity by the staff at the National Museum of American Jewish History and, more important, often draconian security measures at the Philadelphia Museum of Art get special attention from the author.

Even those familiar with Philadelphia's artistic treasures will come away, after reading the almost forty essays in Museum Mile, with previously unknown insights and, yes, some juicy morsels. From the grandness of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, to the historical roots of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, to the sheer wonder of the Barnes Foundation museum, Richard Carreño informs and edifies the reader in a knowledgeable work.

(Jackie Atkins, a short story and screenplay writer, lives in Cape May, New Jersey).

La Salle University Art Museum

2011-10-07T01:27:00.002-04:00

Sarah Hunter: Collected Curiosities

On view September 22 – December 8, 2011 at the La Salle University Art Museum. Opening reception, September 22, 2011, 5-7 p.m. Artist’s talk, November 15, 12:30-1:30 p.m.

The La Salle University Art Museum is happy to present the work of emerging Philadelphia artist Sarah Hunter this fall. Hunter offers whimsical depictions of toy animals in settings defined by flat planes reminiscent of the spatial arrangement of dioramas. (Hunter has worked at the Academy of Natural Sciences and her interest in the display of scientific “curiosities” is evident in her paintings.) Mammals, birds, and dinosaurs play, fight and roam through natural and urban landscapes. Her work explores the tension between two and three dimensions. Structures, mountains, and animals are flattened and set against shadows that make the surfaces appear as flat as paper placed in a convincingly stage-like space.

This will mark the first solo art museum exhibition for Hunter who has been showing her work regionally in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey in both group and solo gallery exhibitions.

The La Salle University Art Museum is located on the lower level of Olney Hall on the campus of La Salle University at 19th St. and Olney Ave. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday and weekends by appointment. Admission is free, though donations are accepted. Please call to schedule group visits. Special tours can be arranged. For further information call 215.951.1221 or visit our website at http://www.lasalle.edu/museum/.

Letters to the Editor

2011-10-06T12:00:00.001-04:00

My Pal, the Gangsta Scion Walter Annenberg

Oh Yeah, the Author?
That Would Be Me

In response to my article on the Musee Matisse and the Barnes Foundation museum, posted yesterday at the BroadStreetReview.com, BSR received today the following letter from Nick Tinari, a Philadelphia lawyer. The Junto's version of same story is below. -- The Editor.

On Oct 5, 2011,
So rife with inaccuracies and unattributed statements as to be a complete fiction.

First sentence: a first year art student would know that Matisse was not an Impressionist.

Next, the Merion gallery is not a "villa", it was purpose built as a gallery for a school (not a museum) from day one. The author must want to impress readers with his knowledge of touristy sounding words like "villa" and his worldliness at having visited some, but he is completely ignorant of the history of the Barnes Foundation and of architecture in general.

Next, the author cites no source for the statement that Barnes disliked the mural and for the conclusion that the two men parted association. The evidence is to the contrary, since there are Matisse works in the Barnes Foundation that postdate the mural.

I could go on, but I think this is evidence enough that the author is working in the realm of fantasy. Maybe it makes a nice story, but it's not a true story. A true story would be how know-nothings like the author are now running the Foundation and how, thanks to them and the ancient animosity against the foundation of gangster scion Walter Annenberg, the mural will end up in a place the painter and his patron never intended it to be.

nick tinari
jenkintown

The BSR's Editor's Response:

Thanks for your letter. We'll post it soon.

That reference in the blurb to Matisse as an Impressionist was my error; I've corrected it.

Sincerely,
Dan Rottenberg
Editor

No Ifs, Ands, or Buts

2011-09-29T23:55:00.008-04:00

Back in the day, square hole on right was prisoner entrance.
Photo: Richard Carreno/Writers Clearinghouse

Chateau D'If:

Dumas' Island of Revenge

By Richard Carreño

[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

Marseille, France

AMONG some of the most infamous prisons and their equally notorious erstwhile lodgers, say, Lubyanka in Moscow (the dregs of Stalin's purges); or Alcatraz in San Francisco (Al Capone), a 2.5-acre rock island just outside of Marseille harbor here has become what may be the world's most mythic penitentiary of them all -- especially for the prisoner it never held.

Unlike France's other historic houses of, ahem, correction, the iconic Bastille in Paris (the Marquis de Sade); the gruesome Devil's Island off former French Guiana in South America (Le Papillon); and Elba, the site Napoleon's luxurious digs, Chateau d'If, a three-story fortress that rises out of the Mediterranean here, is one of the few historic penal reminders among western democracies when 'throwing away the key' meant exactly that. And also, thanks to Alexandre Dumas, this city's most popular tourist attraction.

Built in the mid-1500s, the castle was originally constructed by King Francis I as a military deterrent to a sea-borne invasion to southern France. It worked. Marseille, now France's rough-and-tumble second largest city with about 1.5 million residents, was never attacked. Not that the chateau would have helped much, according military engineers who took at second look at the fortification about 200 years later. The verdict? The place was jerry-built. 'All the buildings, very crudely done, are ill made,' a scathing report intoned.

Never mind. At the time, the French were still enamored with the prevalent, contemporary view that islands made good, forget-about-it places to exile prisoners, especially violent ones who were already one step away from the guillotine. Or worse, political prisoners who for nefarious reasons of state were best never heard of again. (The French also had Tahiti. But that's another, happier story). The British, meantime, were experimenting with penology of another sort, the whole-sale deportation of undesirables to a really big 'island,' Australia.

For the French, If became a sort of down market Elba. It was already an unlikely place for anyone to linger. Hardly the sun-soaked paradise of the coast-line just east of Marseille. Or, the site of anything like a 19th century Club Med. The rock was wind-swept, and already shorn of its natural vegetation, the yew bushes that had once grown profusely. (If means yew). Once incarcerated at If, according to the Centre des monuments nationaux, the agency that oversees the island, it was believed that the fort's impregnability and isolation made escape impossible. In fact, 'cramped living conditions and a lack of hygiene left little chance of survival.'

Finally losing its cachet as a menacing battlement, Napoleon -- who knew a thing or two about the 'charms' of island living after enforced visits as a British guest on Elba and Saint Helena, where he died --turned the chateau into a kind of mausoleum.

After General Jean Baptiste Kleber -- whose name today is perhaps more renowned for the swanky Parisian avenue of the same name than for any military exploits -- was assassinated in Cairo in 1800, the emperor had Kleber's remains repatriated to France. Sort of. Fearing that the general's tomb might come to symbolize Republican yearnings, Napoleon 'exiled' the dead Kleber to If. There he remained for 18 years until he was buried finally in his native Strasbourg.

Meantime, If also became known as island 'resort' of another kind -- a place of last resort. Replacing the Bastille in the hearts and minds of Frenchmen as the country's most loathed and villainous lock-up, If in short order became the dumping ground for political and religious prisoners, including 3,500 Protestant Huguenots.

Enter Dumas, the fantastically popular 19th century novelist.

Never at a loss for translating French history into a ripping adventure yarn, the author of the Three Musketeers also saw paydirt in spinning a tale that tugged his readers into the If's 'heart of darkness,' rock-lined cells on an island of no return. The result, in 1844, was The Count of Monte Cristo. True to form, the book was romantic, thrilling, and long (more than 600 pages).

It was from that point on, following Monte Cristo's worldwide acclaim, that If became the focal point for journalists, literary tourists, and people with nothing better to do while visiting Marseille. (Marseille is still a place with little to commend it to foreign holiday-makers; its gritty exterior is reminiscent of American ghetto life).

Nonetheless, If has never been short of fans of Dumas and Edmond Dantes, the dashing Count of Monte Cristo protagonist. Over the years, the Monte Cristo saga has inspired numerous film adaptations, the latest a 2002 feature film with Jim Caviezel as Dantes. (It's quite good).

Based on the Dumas story-line, If has also now nudged its way into having a kind of literary distinction as being the embodiment of the 'land of revenge,' revenge being Dumas' major theme in Monte Cristo. (Short synopsis: Dantes is falsely charged and imprisoned at the chateau; loses his fiancee, the beautiful Mercedes, to his dastardly accuser, Villefort; escapes from If; finds a fortune in treasure; buys a title as 'count'; and, dah dum, exacts his revenge against the malevolent Villefort).

Today, visitors take self-guided tours of the chateau, including the stone-cold cell where Dantes languished for almost 15 years. And where he despaired of all hope. 'I have lost all that bound me to life; now death smiles on me as a nurse smiles on a child she is about to rock to sleep; now welcome death!' Dantes remembers thinking. Er, Dumas, actually.

It's a good story. So is that of the 'Man in the Iron Mask,' another Dumas adventure hero in a book of the same name, who was also said to have been under lock and key at If. True, the Man in the Iron Mask was real, a royal prisoner during the reign of King Louis XIV. Not true that he was imprisoned at If. Think Bastille.

Still no lesser personage than Mark Twain, on a visit to the island in 1867, got the 'Iron Mask treatment' from a private guide, and fell for it. (You might now understand why Twain titled the book, in which he recounts the visit, as The Innocents Abroad).

Besides the deceased Kleber, perhaps If's most famous real-life resident was also a real-life count, the Count of Mirabeau, who was also quite alive when he was thrown into If at the request of his father to punish him for libertine ways. Mirabeau made the best of his year-long incarceration between 1774 to 1775, quickly seducing the chateau's 'quatermistress.' In his spare time, he also created another literary legend, of the non-fiction sort. This was his influential essay on despotism, which figured as a motivational tool during the Revolution. How three years changed Mirabeau's circumstances. In 1775, he was holed up at If. In 1778, he was a member of Revolutionary Tribunat in Paris.

On my recent visit, I was getting the eerie feeling that the chateau's fictionalized aura was still being ginned up. Was I about to see the cell that housed Al Capone? Charlie Manson?

Despite the stagecraft, If had a creepy karma, and, frankly, the boat that ferried our tour back to Marseille's Old Port couldn't come fast enough.

Lord of Hosts: The Life of Sir Henry Channon

2011-09-27T23:53:00.003-04:00

Fly on the Wall

2011-09-27T23:37:00.000-04:00

Man takes the first bottle; second, takes the man. -- Japanese saying.

East is East and West is West…

By Don Merlot

[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

I've been experiencing food and wine in major global markets since 1968. Civilization in the west, I learned, had moved from East to West. But I've experienced the movement of food and wine (drink, really) from West to East -– from the New World to the Old World -- as I learned my cultural evolution.

Certainly every time I encountered a new culture, I found local hosts offering me the best the country could offer. Each country that had a vineyard and a spokesperson said their country had the best wine and the best food in the world. There was a feeling that food grown locally and prepared by expert cooks was undeniably the best. Each region and country had a special drink that would marry the food; and in the spirit of learning about a new culture, I was given and shared with my hosts fabulous repasts and beverages. I was perfecting the art of being a novitiate to proven experiences. On my first visit to the Middle East, I was given a multiple of diverse dishes.

I remembered rule No. 1: Spend two weeks in a foreign land and you can write a book; spend two months and you can write ten pages; and spend two years and you will become confused and cannot write anything. When I became confused by the differences in the new cultures, I knew I was becoming a good student. My visit to the Middle East was a total break from the western culture that had nurtured me. Everything was new: food and drink, thoughts and spiritual views.

Rule No. 2 was focus on the differences. On my journey to the Middle East I had fortified myself with Greek food and wine and was prepared for a sabbatical on western culinary delicacies. In Piraeus, I had done the bouzouki -- and broken many plates: consuming Rodytis, Metaxa, Ouzo, Kalamaraki, and Saganaki.... This was the cradle of Democracy, yet history had already left Middle Eastern prints in the food. I had no idea what was in store for me.

By visiting the Greece first, it was apparent that the East/West history had left its mark. I love coffee, and was told that when I ordered the local (in Athenian) coffee I should say Byzantium coffee and not Turkish coffee. So right away I had to put up and antennae that would help me remain politically correct as I crossed into the East. The one that always struck me was the English conversation that said Venetian blinds (that of Italian city state) and in Spanish Persianas (Persians blinds) are the same thing, but in Spanish they're Persian because the Turkish influence of the Moros.

By the time I arrived, the poetry of wine by Omar Khayyam is no longer cherished and long gone. On our way to Kuwait city from Athens we had two bottles of Johnny Walker Black label and would share this with Mr. Al-Rumahi and his bother-in-law in private. They were carefully wrapped in our big suit cases. Protected by clothing so they would not break upon impact with other hard items.

Our host met us as we descended from the flight, and we made a beeline around customs. Had immigration stamp out entry visas. Picked up out bags, and we were taken to a beautiful hotel where we showered and changed.

Westerners from Europe and the USA can drink alcohol in their hotel rooms, and therefore we shared a bottle with out hosts. (There were four of us). Then suddenly, we were off to a private banquet that had been prepared for us at Mr. Al-Rumahi’s home by his chef. Unlike most business banquets, this one only had two guests. Mark and I were both from the same supplier company, and both appreciative of the multi-million dollar business that we did in Kuwait with Mr. Al-Rumahi.

We entered his mansion and met his family. His wife and three daughters. No son. So poor Mr. Al-Rumahi could not use the formality of Abu ('Father of'). The meeting was quite jovial. The main living room was excellent. We were shown into a Western dining room that sat 40 people; two at ends and 19 on each side. Mr. Al-Rumahi sat at the end and we sat next to him and the other spaces remained open.

He started the dinner by saying he hoped we liked the meal; it was a Middle East feast.

The Mezze started with more small dishes I could imagine. The Lebanese Mezze is a Middle East spread; the cross roads of East and West, and in Lebanon tempered by a splash of French. Bayreuth is called the Riviera of the East. Some of these dishes are my favorites: Tabbouleh, hummus, babbaganoush, Kifte, olives, olive oil, pita, pilaf, Shish kebabs, lamb and rice, vegetables, roasted chicken, fish. As a beverage we were served apple juice and Perrier water -- better known as 'Saudi Champagne.'

This dinner had every Middle East delicacy. On our best behavior we cleaned our plates. We enjoyed the Turkish style coffee. We were quite satisfied.

As the last plate was cleared, Mr. Mr. Al-Rumahi smiled and said he had been worried that we would not like Middle Eastern food, and so he had prepared another dinner -- a European feast for us. It literally went from one end of the table to the other end. We then consumed a five-course meal that was presented to us. It was a formal English meal. Roast Beef, Yorkshire pudding, potato croquettes, vegetables, soups, salad and desserts. And Saudi Champagne. And English tea and American coffee.

We had to do this one 'for the Gipper,' and Mark and I could not move for hours.

It was afternoon prayers, and we were taken back to the hotel and left alone. It was a wonderful welcome and really warned us about expectations: Ours and the local distributors. There is no question that you have to know yourself and your customer.

Believe it or not, we were invited out to dinner that night to a very posh French restaurant. The meal was pre-planned and was quiet and quite European. We smiled and worked our way through it. Saudi Champagne was the hit.

One of the most bizarre parts of my travels was a trip from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain. It involved a 20-minute flight, and we were connecting to a flight to Dubai. We had to be at the airport at 0430 hours, and we were on a 0630 flight under the label of Gulf Air, a Saudi airline. All the crew were English. Of course, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is dry with huge penalties for breaking the law, so we had purged any alcohol out of our suitcases before arriving. The plane was full. Saudi first class was first to board, followed by first class families. Then Saudi and Muslim men were shown economy class, followed by Saudi women and children.

We were traveling economy and were eager to get our boarding passes and passports which the airline ticket agent had taken at check-in. Eventually Americans and Europeans were allowed in to the departure lounge, and all suddenly a big whicker tray with all the passports appears and all was were thrown on to the middle of the floor. Everyone scrambled for their passport: it was chaos. Once we found our passports, we went to the ticket agent who had the boarding passes.

As I left the hall to board the plane, I noticed a continued brawl of men fighting over the passports -- workers, mainly Filipinos, Pakistanis and Sudanese. Once on the plane, we were strapped in and the attendants were dressed as Ali Babba’s harem concubines. Once the plane was locked, the plane taxied for take off. Once we were airborne, an attendant came down the aisles with a cart with stacks of six packs of beer and gave each Saudi male a six pack. By the time we landed, 20 minutes later, the six packs were empty, and the men had changed from their Saudi dress to western suits and ties.

The minute they descended from the plane the men rushed into the airport bar -– which looked like an English pub, and ordered whiskey by the bottle. The men then made a connection on Gulf Air to London. In a period of 25 minutes the men went from one culture to another. Only those traveling on Gulf Air were involved. This was one of the most amazing events I had ever seen.

(Don Merlot is Ron Alonzo and he lives in Louisiana).

Still Complaining

2011-09-26T18:09:00.002-04:00

Hardships of Film Reviewing

Subject: Re: Philadelphia, PA Weekly Film Club Update

What's wrong with you guys? I get a screening pass to review Moneyball last night, and there's a line running into the thousands. I had my own pass. I left. Pls be reasonable. If you have limited seats, say so, or keep passes it at least NEAR that number. If you think you are going to create buzz by having people just show up, you got that wrong. The word on the street -- and on Facebook and in the blogosphere -- is that Landmark sucks. Sorry to break it to you. Richard/The Philadelphia Junto

Hi -
Thanks for writing. I am sorry to hear that you had such a negative experience.
You should know that Sony rented that theatre from us and issued the passes. We cannot control how much they overbook and unfortunately it sounds like they got a little carried away. There really isn't anything we can do in this situation as we are just the venue.
Again, apologies for the bad experience.
Best,Laine

Barnes Connection

2011-09-19T17:54:00.001-04:00

Tributes to Matisse at his gravesite in Nice, France.
Photo: Richard Carreno/Writers Clearinghouse

Matisse's Revenge

By Richard Carreño
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]
Nice, France
Think the Barnes Foundation. For a devotee of Henri Matisse (1868-1954), that shrine to Impressionism in Philadelphia comes readily to mind when visiting the artist's eponymously-named museum here. In many ways, the Musee Matisse, founded in 1963 with donations by Matisse's family and with works earmarked by the artist himself, could well be considered a book-end to Dr. Alfred C. Barnes' more inclusive pantheon of Modern Art greats.

On one hand is the Philadelphia-based museum, the world's finest one-stop bully-pulpit of Impressionism, an amalgam of dozens of its stalwarts, an elite cadre from Cezanne (69 pictures), Modigliani (16), period Picasso (46), to Matisse himself (59), an erstwhile associate of the insatiable American collector. On the other is the artist's equally single-minded effort here showcasing the early-20th century genre, filtered through Matisse's own unrivaled lens of sharply-focused color, light, and line. The result: A rich, solipsistic journey through the artist's life-span.

Both museums, finally, are houses of worship. (Though in keeping with more conventional religious practice, entrance to the Matisse chapel here is free, funded by the French state, the city of Nice, and by private donations).

Some comparisons are superficially interesting. Both galleries are located in provincial capitals. The Matisse Museum is located in Nice's Cimiez neighborhood, an affluent residential area in the hills overlooking this otherwise Cote d'Azur resort city. Until recently, since its relocation to Philadelphia's downtown, the Barnes was even more remote, fixed in its original home in suburban Lower Merion, Pennsylvania.

In addition, both museums are located in villas, more like private homes of grandees than public spaces for artistic treasures. At least, the Matisse still is, housed in the Villa des Arenes, a 17th century home of local plutocrats. Its setting is bucolic, set among Roman ruins and a 17th century Franciscan monastery. Until the Barnes Foundation's move to Philadelphia (the new property on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway will debut in early 2012), its museum collection filled a Paul Cret-designed, purpose-built villa in leafy Lower Merion. Dr. Barnes' living quarters were attached.

Significant, too, the museums are conceptually crafted as singular private domains. The Barnes, of course, driven by the vexing, but brilliant vision of its namesake, the fabulously wealthy patent medicine inventor. Matisse himself, his widow, Amelie Matisse-Parayre, and their children were instrumental in creating their family memorial here. The museum includes, on two floors, scores of works in oils, engravings, and decoupages. (Thankfully, it excludes all the crazy-quilt presentation gimmicks that Barnes favoured).

That said, an even greater twinning -- an almost co-sanguine bloodline -- between the two institutions can be argued, given Matisse's professional and personal relationship with the irascible Barnes (1872-1951) and the artist's intimate knowledge of the Barnes venue in Lower Merion. Enter son Pierre Matisse.

In 1930, Pierre was operating an art gallery in New York. En route to Tahiti (in search of sunlight for his palette and inspiration for his metier), father Henri stopped by. Matisse was on another mission, as well, as a judge at the prestigious Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh. That second journey providently involved a side-trip to the Barnes Foundation, where he was welcomed with open arms by Dr. Barnes in full flower and at his vitriolic best. (Barnes attempted to sabotage a lunch date that Matisse had with a Philadelphia grande dame on the same day of of their meeting. Barnes hated all grande dames. Actually, he hated anything grande).

Despite the meeting being truncated (Matisse, in the end, was hauled off to the swank luncheon), the artist and collector hit it off. Barnes spoke fluent French. No intermediaries were necessary. Their liaison was also fortuitous, in that Barnes on the spot commissioned his new associate (the megalomaniacal Barnes would probably think of him simply as a minion) to contribute a mural to the museum's inner court.The result, of course, was the iconic La Danse. (Early studies are on display here).

The languid La Danse, an archetype of Matisse's interpretation of line and figure, actually comes in two completed versions. The first is at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. That's the one that couldn't fit the dedicated wall space in Cret's villa. Instead of tinkering with this work, Matisse just created another. Well, not just. The effort was time-consuming and arduous. In keeping with his character, Barnes had no sympathy for the artist, though Matisse readily admitted that the error in measuring was his alone.

There was more. Though he allowed the masterwork to be installed, Barnes cattily made it known that he actually didn't like it.

This rejection of Matisse, soon after, was at best odd. (OK, not for Barnes). Only a few years later, in 1933, Barnes and his putative mistress, Violette De Mazia, wrote what may still stand as the most definitive (and seemingly sympathetic) treatise of the artist and his oeuvre. Despite the authors apparent good will to the painter, The Art of Henri-Matisse, published by the Barnes Foundation Press, often serves more as a paperweight of almost 500 pages than a readable analysis. (On doctor's orders, bite-sized samples are recommended). La Danse is never mentioned in the book. Ouch!

Barnes' dissing of Matisse was probably for the best as it allowed the artist to escape the toxicity that Barnes had created in correct art circles in Philadelphia and New York. (Barnes had no shame. In the 1940s, he hired then fired eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell as a foundation instructor. Russell sued the litigious Barnes for breach of contract, and won).

Nice, not surprisingly, was a more agreeable venue. Matisse moved here in 1916, and, for the most part, was a resident ever since. He came in search of light, a warming glow that still washes over the azur-colored ocean of the Baie d'Anges and the Promenade des Anglais.

In a sense, Nice is more than simply a museum mecca. It's more like a Matisse mosaic, a patch-quilt of his former residences, all of which are still standing: From the Hotel Beau Rivage on the Avenue des Etats Unis, overlooking the Mediterranean; to the 1 Place Charles-Felix, where Matisse installed new windows in his top-floor studio. The artist never lived at Villa des Arenes. From 1938, he lived nearby at the still-elegant Le Regina, a former hotel that had been converted into apartments. (They still are).

In 1954, Matisse, 85 years old, died, and was buried in a secluded spot in the Cimiez cemetery not far from his museum. His widow, Amelie, joined in him in the sepulcher 1958.

The horizontal stone slab is modest, citing only the Matisses names and birth and death dates. On top, are numerous commemorative do-dads, pine cones, stones, and memorial messages. I left mine.

Appropriately enough, Barnes has no memorial -- other, of course, than his museum. The only official recognition of his death was the flag draping of a suburban Philadelphia fire house. His body was cremated.

2011-09-15T19:53:00.001-04:00

Ralph Rucci

Photos: Richard Carreno/Writers Clearinghouse

Brilliant Ralph Rucci

Dazzles Fashion Week

New York
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

Ralph Rucci's Spring Collection, on the runway yesterday, took Fashion Week by storm. The following report is from Women's Wear Daily. -- Richard Carreno.

The Chado Ralph Rucci collection was breathtaking — and for many reasons, Rucci’s traditionally incredible fabrics and workmanship certainly being two of them. He maintained their couture quality yet moved toward looks that women will find accessible while still interesting. Other than the abundant presence of plastic, Rucci’s approach was more subtle than ever. Layers were gentle, and embroidery and embellishments never overpowered the already striking silhouettes. For the most part, insets and dramatic seaming had a light touch, as did the python pencil skirt paired casually with a tucked white chiffon shirt. A double-faced lavender wool crepe dress moved over a barely visible tulle skirt. Rucci seemed to have fun with his details, evident on a white wool coat with playful black circles. Even shapes with glitter were kept simple — a lean tunic and skirt in silver paillettes, and the easy, black beaded caviar blouson dress was a knockout. This collection was strong because of its restraint as well as its execution shown in the gorgeous gowns, as in the white glass beaded version with a fuchsia beaded skirt panel in back.

Books Received

2011-09-15T19:35:00.001-04:00

What's Your Number? In theatres, 30 September 2011

What's Your Number?, No Zero

What's Your Number?
Orginally pubished as 20 Times a Lady
By Karyn Bosnak
Harper Paperbacks (ISBN: 9780062062628)
368 pp
$14.99

Available from @philabooks|booksellers specially priced at $9.99

[Special to Writers Clearinghouse News Service]
The hilarious novel 20 Times a Lady is being re-released to correspond with the new Regency Enterprises feature film, starring Anna Faris and Chris Evans, to be in theatres 30 September. What's Your Number? is a debut novel by Karyn Bosnak, author Saving Karyn. When the New York Post runs a sex survey that 'the average person has 10.5 sexual partners in their lifetime,' twenty-nine-year-old single Deliah Darling, renamed Ally in the film, freaks out since her number is already almost double that amount. The article warns that those with more than twenty sex partners risk fiunding true love. Ally is propelled on a quest to find the best 'ex' of her life -- by any means necessary.

Letters

2011-09-15T12:46:00.002-04:00

Touchy, Touchy....
A reader in California writes in regards to our recent notice on a cockup at Marseille restaurant:

I went back over this and it appears that you waited only half an hour, you were actually seated, before you started barking at the maitre.

What is wrong with you, d00d? You had to wait half an hour? Shit, that's like the Oakland Burgertown on a Saturday night. Do we all get so touchy as we age? I know I do, but I stifle it.

And did it take you this long to learn not to fuck with an old white-haired Frenchman with a tinge of power to him? Jimmy, they're the worst kind! Back the fuck away and wait!

Also, there is no way this guy figured you were American. Shit, I'm an American with an aging Boston marshmallow face and a name like six presidents, and half the frogs I run into think I'm at least from Moldava because I am simultaneously less stupid and more stupid than your average American. The white-hair guy undoubtedly thought you were Lebanese diaspora, maybe with a few generations run through Cuba.

Of course I could be wrong about all of this. But, on the other hand, they have been out of line ever since Napoleon.

Save Our Sites

2011-09-15T12:09:00.002-04:00

2011 List of Endangered Sites

[Special to Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

The Philadelphia preservation organization Save Our Sites (SOS) has issued its 2011 list of endangered sites that its members nominated at its Spring General Membership meeting on March 29, 2011. Save Our Sites defines endangered buildings as those that are neglected, unmaintained, vacant, unknown or uncelebrated. They may not necessarily be subject to imminent demolition. They might be worth recognizing because of either their architectural, aesthetic or historic value. The 2011 list includes twenty sites throughout different neighborhoods of Philadelphia such as Francisville, West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, East Oak Lane, Germantown, and Center City.

Unfortunately, just before the announcement of the 2011 Endangered Sites List, the Monastery of St. Clare, formerly number one on the list, was demolished. Although the convent, located at the corner of West Girard and Corinthian Avenues in Francisville, was listed on the Girard National Register Historic District, it was not on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, therefore it was not protected against demolition. The Romanesque, stone chapel of St. Clare was designed in 1919 by the architectural firm Ballinger and Perot. It is flanked by two late-nineteenth century brownstones that housed cloistered nuns from 1918 until May 21, 1977, when they relocated to Langhorne.

Credits for Preparation of Following List:

Alanna C. Stewart, M.S. Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania

Zoe Draper, B.A., Moore College of Art & Design

David S. Traub, AIA, Co-Founder, Save Our Sites

Save Our Sites, 2005 Cambridge Street. Philadelphia, PA 19130

(215) 232-2344

FRANCISVILLE

1. Northwestern National Bank – 1828 W. Girard Avenue (W. Girard and Ridge Avenues)

The Northwestern National Bank was designed in 1886 by Philadelphia architect, Otto Wolf. Wolf served as the vice president of the bank, as well as specializing in the design of breweries (one of his clients being Christian Schmidt). The bank is on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, and is currently being used as the Smith Baptist Chapel. The building is in poor condition, mutilated by placement of glass block in existing windows.

2. U.S. Post Office - 900 N. 19th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19130 (N. 19^th and Poplar Streets)

The United States Post Office was designed in 1936 by architect Victor D. Abel, during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a part of his Works Progress Administration, WPA. Abel was joined by supervising architect Louis A. Simon, and Neal A. Melick, supervising engineer. Some alterations have been made, but the Federal government has neglected the building, and it is in need of an overall renovation.

The PNC Bank: 700 - 702 N. Broad Street (N. Broad Street and Ridge Avenue)

3. The PNC Bank, pictured at left, formerly the Northwestern National Bank, was designed by Philip Merz in 1917, of the New York firm, McKim, Mead & White. In 1929, additions were made by Clarence Edmond Wunder. Though it is currently a PNC bank, it is minimally maintained. This grand building is in a key location at this important intersection, which includes the Divine Loraine Hotel. The full restoration of this building could spark further restorations of this North Philadelphia neighborhood.

NORTH PHILADELPHIA

4. The Macedonia Free Will Baptist Church: 2036-2040 Cecil B. Moore Avenue (21^st and Cecil B. Moore Avenue).

The Macedonia Free Will Baptist Church, previously known as Columbia Avenue Presbyterian Church, was built between 1891 and 1893 by architect J.W. Shaw. The chapel was constructed in 1870 by architect Henry Sims. The Romanesque style building contains stained-glass windows that were manufactured by Tiffany Studios. The church is in a serious state of disrepair, as the group who rents the property does not maintain it. Like many other churches in North Philadelphia, it is not receiving the attention it deserves.

5. Reformed Episcopal Church: 2229 N. 29^th Street (29^th and Fletcher)

The Reformed Episcopal Church was built in 1916. It was designed by architects Stackhouse and Street and was built by the Raymond A. Raff Company. It is currently known as Dauphin Street Baptist Church. This building is extremely unique, with fascinating architectural details such as the immense stone fanlight on the front façade. It has been altered with doors of an inappropriate style, and boarded up windows. It is located in a struggling area of North Philadelphia, and faces serious neglect.

WEST PHILADELPHIA

6. House at 3619 Baring Street

The Victorian stone house at 3619 was built around 1874 for William C. Eliason. In 1905, a colonial revival porch was built, and a garage was added to the residence during the 1920s. This was also the residence of the Tetlows, the first producers of Talcum Powder. The house was added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places in March of 1963. Although this building is in a serious state of disrepair, complete restoration would serve as a building block for more renovations in this deteriorating neighborhood.

7. Woodland Mansion: 4000 Woodland Avenue

Woodland Mansion was built in 1770, although the land was first purchased in 1735 by Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton. The house was rebuilt into a neoclassical style mansion between 1786 and 1792 by Hamilton’s grandson, William. In 1840, the landscape was transformed into a cemetery. Though this building is not completely under preservationists’ radar screen, it deserves more public awareness, and increased funding to completely restore this historic monument.

8. The Belmont Academy Charter School: 907 N. 41^st Street (N. 41^st Street and Westminster Avenue.)

The Belmont Academy Charter School opened in 1998 in the Mantua neighborhood of West Philadelphia. Its first use was as a dormitory and recreation center for train conductors traveling through the area, and then later used as a church. Although the school has great architectural details, the basement is condemned. The building should be recognized for its historic fabric and context.

9.West Philadelphia Title and Trust Building: 4000 Lancaster Avenue (N. 40^thStreet and Lancaster Avenue)

The West Philadelphia Title and Trust Co. was designed in 1897 by Walter Smedley. The brick and terra cotta building is not listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. Although the massive billboards were removed from the façade of this historic landmark, it is in an extremely dilapidated state, with several convenient stores crammed inside of it. This building is in a key location that should be used as a rallying point to spark preservation further west on Lancaster Avenue.

SOUTH PHILADELPHIA

10. Girard Farm House at Girard Estates (Near 22^nd and Ritner Streets)

Stephen Girard purchased a small farmhouse located on 500 acres in Passyunk Township in South Philadelphia in 1797. He created additions to the building in 1800 and 1825. Although he never lived in the house, he worked on the farm daily, growing fruits and vegetables, and housing livestock. Girard left his estate to the city of Philadelphia, and the money was to be used to start Girard College, a school for orphan boys. The building is still maintained by the city of Philadelphia on a very small budget. However, with greater public interest, this historic site could be brought to its full potential as an important Philadelphia landmark.

11. St. Matthew Baptist Church: 2319-2321 Fitzwater Street (Grays Ferry Avenue and Fitzwater Street)

St. Matthew’s Baptist Church, formerly St. Anthony De Padua Catholic Church, was designed in 1892 by architect Frank Watson. The Romanesque, granite church contains at least thirty stained-glass windows and a striking tall campanile gracing the corner of Grays Ferry and Fitzwater. The owners of the church have put the building up for sale. Given its location in a rapidly redeveloping neighborhood, and in particular being across from the very successful Toll Brothers Naval Home development, it is vulnerable to being purchased by developers who might want to demolish it to make room for new townhouses.

12. Vare Elementary School: 1621 East Moyamensing Avenue (Morris Street and E. Moyamensing Avenue)

Abigail Vare Elementary School is a stone, vaguely colonial revival building. It was designed between 1903 and 1904 by James Gaw, who later added to the school in 1927. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 4, 1986. This building stands as a model for what school buildings in Philadelphia were at the turn of the century. It is in fairly good condition, but mechanical systems are in need of repair, necessitating it receiving heat from a building across the street.

EAST OAK LANE

13. Harry Asbury House: 970 W. Cheltenham Avenue (70^th and W. Cheltenham Avenues)

The Harry Asbury House was designed by Amos J. Boyden in 1892. T. Henry Asbury had this colonial revival house built for his son, Harry. It was formerly one of the King’s View houses, and is now owned by a Korean Church. It is in extremely poor condition. The historic context should be recognized, and full restoration is in order to maintain the value of this historic neighborhood.

Oak Lane Reform Church : W. 66^th Avenue and N. 7^th Street, 19126

14. The Oak Lane Reform Church complex has one remaining building, a Gothic style sanctuary that was designed in 1905 by architect Valentine B. Lee. It is made of salvaged stone from the Fifth Street Reservoir. The church later became the Oak Lane United Church of Christ, which closed in 1984. Although the 1905 addition remains, the earlier structure was demolished, and the building is now neglected and in extremely poor condition.

GERMANTOWN

15. Caroline Elizabeth Cope Farmer’s Cottage at Awbury Arboretum

The Caroline Elizabeth Cope Farmer’s Cottage, built in 1793, is one of twenty-four buildings at Awbury Arboretum. In the 1920s, the cottage was deeded to the City, who in turn sold the buildings to New Covenant Church. The Awbury Arboretum is now in a battle to buy back the building, since it is currently neglected and in very poor condition. There is an old Spring House in the back, which has also been neglected. These structures are in deteriorating condition, and located in a context in which otherwise the houses are well maintained.

16. Industrial Buildings at Wayne Junction

Wayne Junction constitutes an ensemble of various 19^th century buildings gathered around the train station designed by famed Frank Furness, and serves as an important transportation node in Germantown. The group of buildings, mostly in deteriorated condition, has great potential for being turned into residential structures, given their close proximity to public transportation amenities. Among the buildings is the Wayne Junction Trust Company, at 4405 Germantown Avenue, designed by Thomas B. Lippincott.

CENTER CITY/WASHINGTON SQUARE WEST

17. 2023-2025 Rittenhouse Square Street (South 20^th and Rittenhouse Square Streets)

This charming building was a former stable, now used as a car garage. The architect, if any, is unknown. It was placed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places on January 6, 1972. Note the relief sculpture of a horse’s head under the blind arch at the top center of the building. The stable is in deplorable condition, with spalling terra cotta, loose brick and broken windows.

East End of Irving Street (Washington Square West)

18. The east extension of Irving Street comes to a dead end between 11^th and 12^th streets. When the Philadelphia City Plan was created in the 19^th century, this section of the street was not included. The adjacent neighbors have attempted to privatize it, which Save Our Sites opposes. Privatizing this little piece of street will make it more difficult for the public to use and enjoy.

19. Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore (PWB) Railroad (S. 15^th and Carpenter Streets)

The Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore (PWB) Railroad buildings were constructed during the Civil War Era. The station, along with an adjacent hospital, made the intersection of Broad and Washington a major military transport center during the Civil War. The head house was demolished, but the remaining service building pictured here faces possible demolition by neglect. The building needs to be recognized for its potential for furthering development at this important intersection, as well as a landmark commemorating the Civil War.

FAIRMOUNT PARK

20. Hermitage Mansion: 700 Hermit Lane (Fairmount Park)

Hermitage Mansion is located in the Wissahickon area of Fairmount Park. The Rosicrucians, or Hermits, emigrated from Germany in 1694 and were given 175 acres in Wissahickon Valley. After their leader Kelpius died few people remained, including Righter family. The Righters sold the property to Evan Prowattain in 1848, who built the mansion that still exists today. Currently, the Delaware Valley Opera Company is using the mansion, while maintaining the land and the house. The Opera Company continually attempts to raise money, but there is still a lack of funding needed to make repairs to this historic mansion.

Restaurant Warning: Stay Away

2011-09-13T21:12:00.004-04:00

Dissed in France
by Marseille Maitre

The following is a letter I wrote to Jeanne Laffitte regarding my encounter at her restaurant Les Arcenaulx, and arts, literary, and dining complex, at 25 cours Estiennes d'Orves. This is the FIRST time I've been dissed by an onery Frenchman for simply being American. This is also the first time I've refrained in giving a restaurant any credit via the 'star' system. Les Arcenault insteads gets five Freedom Fries.

Subject: Poor Service

PHILADELPHIA | 13 September 2011

Dear Ms Laffitte,

I had an unfortunate, disappointing experience at your restaurant on 7 September, thanks to your maitre d'hotel, a thin, wiry individual with white hair, a sharp tongue, and a short temper. The incident was aggravated in that my partner was also needlessly made to suffer.

At first, all went well, and as would be expected since Aux Arcenaulx came highly recommended from French friends here in Philadelphia. We had also hoped to visit your wonderful bookshop. But we were too late that day for that, and we were leaving Marseille in the morning.

Les Arcenault: Don't Go!

At the restaurant, we were seated promptly and then waited, waited -- and waited. We noticed that others were being served, in a well-paced manner. Finally, more than thirty minutes later, catching the eye of your maitre d'hotel, I asked in French whether he was READY to take our order.

'Boof,' he puffed, pointing inside to the busy inside dining room. 'Don't you see we are busy, Monsieur,' he barked.

He turned to walk away, but I grabbed his attention. 'Well,' I said, 'we're ready to order, and we'd like to. Now.'

'Alors,' he responded, 'I am NEVER ready.'

At this, we walked out.

I still hope to visit the your bookshop when I return in Marseille in January. As for the restaurant, I think I'll skip that 'pleasure.'

Yours sincerely,

Richard CARRENO,
News Editor
Writers Clearinghouse

Save Our Sites

2011-09-13T20:50:00.001-04:00

SOS General Meeting
Set for 21 September

Save Our Sites, a preservation group, will hold its Autumn General Membership Meeting at 7:30 pm, Wednesday, 21 September at the Ethical Society of Philadelphia, 1906 South Rittenhouse Square.

According to David Traub, the convener, the agenda will include the scheduling of an autumn event and tour, general discussion, and a review of the 'demolition epidemic of religious structures' in Philadelphia.

To note your attendance, or for more information, please call 215-232-2344.

October 1 & 2

2011-09-13T20:24:00.000-04:00

Art Show, Painting Demo

Features Leroy Forney

Four Philadelphia artists, including Leroy Forney, will exhibit their oil paintings as part of next month's Philadelphia Open Studios Tour.

The artists will also demonstrate on-the-spot portrait painting as part of the event. The works on display include realistic, abstract, and blended styles: figures, cityscapes, and imagined works. The event will be held in the Community Room of the William Penn House, 1919 Chestnut Street, Saturday and Sunday, October 1 and October 2, from noon to 6 pm. The event is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Forney at leroyforney@gmail.com.

Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront

2011-08-23T20:52:00.002-04:00

The Benjamin Franklin Bridge under

construction over the Delaware River.

But Not Forgotten

By Harry Kyriakodis

[Special to Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

(The following are excerpts from a new book, Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront, published by The History Press).

MIDWAY on Front Street, between Philadelphia's Old City and Northern Liberties neighborhoods, is a set of ancient stone steps leading down to Water Street. This narrow stairwell, on the 300 block of North Front, is a passageway to the lower street on the line of what used to be an alley called Wood Street. The Wood Street Steps are also a passageway back in time, for they are the last of ten or so public stairways on the alley streets from Callowhill to South Streets, built about three centuries ago at the direction of William Penn, founder and proprietor of the province of Pennsylvania and founder of the city of Philadelphia.

Each one of the "Penn stairs" once lay exactly on the Delaware River's western embankment, providing access to the water from the high ground of the city above. Other than Gloria Dei Church in South Philadelphia, this staircase is the only relic of the colonial era along the Delaware in Penn's City of Brotherly Love.

This account began as an investigation into these stairwells. It then broadened into a chronicle of Philadelphia's riverfront between Vine and South Streets-the city's original northern and southern boundaries. It then expanded north to Spring Garden Street and south to Washington Avenue, basically to round out the story. While the book focuses on the two-block strip of the waterfront from Front Street to the river, there are occasional forays inland to Second Street. This study includes an exploration of the caves that Quaker settlers occupied beside the Delaware and the stories behind Front Street, Water Street and Delaware Avenue. Old City, Society Hill and Queen Village are discussed, as are the famous personalities associated with Philadelphia's riverside and the notable creeks that once crossed this zone. Shipbuilding, railroading and military activities on this stretch of the Delaware are considered, as are immigration and employment matters. Plus, extant and long-forgotten taverns, restaurants, hotels, parks, piers and places of worship are covered.

After a look at the early development of Philadelphia's original port district, the narrative proceeds block by block from Spring Garden Street to Washington Avenue. Why north to south? It just seemed better to begin with the area that still has the most remnants of the past so that some tangible evidence of Philadelphia's lost waterfront could be seen. Seeing the little that remains emphasizes how much is gone. For, ultimately, this book is a lament on all that has vanished due to the heartless routing of Interstate 95 through this two-mile-long corridor decades ago.

Contemporary happenings along the historic central waterfront of Philadelphia are highlighted in the final chapters as the narrative returns to Columbus Boulevard and Penn's Landing. It will become clear that recent conflicts concerning the use and enjoyment of the riverfront are as fresh today as they were over three hundred years ago.

GREAT cities have great rivers, and the city of Philadelphia has two of the finest and most historic rivers in the United States: the Delaware and the Schuylkill. Both have played critical roles in the American Revolution of the eighteenth century, the Industrial and Transportation Revolutions of the nineteenth century, and even the Environmental Revolution of the twentieth century. In the early 1680s, William Penn (1644-1718) specifically established his City of Brotherly Love at the narrowest point between these waterways to take advantage of the benefits afforded by them. In a letter to London, he gushed: "[O]f all the many places I have seen in the world, I remember not one better seated; so that it seems to me to have been appointed for a town, whether we regard the rivers, or the convenience of the coves, docks, springs, the loftiness and soundness of the land and the air."

Penn envisioned his colony of Pennsylvania sprawling westward from the river settlement of Philadelphia, which would serve as the colony's seat of government and base of mercantile activity. Philadelphia's geography made it ideal as an inland seaport, and Penn's settlement responded to maritime opportunities quickly. The city became the first major shipping port in North America, so much so that a visitor in 1756 commented, "Everybody in Philadelphia deals more or less in trade." By the onset of the War for Independence, Penn's town was third only to Liverpool and London as an essential business location.

The Delaware River waterfront was the axis of the Port of Philadelphia's maritime, commercial and political bustle for some two hundred years after the city's founding. For a long time, when people outside Philadelphia thought about the city, this lively place was what came to mind -- and not in a bad way. This was where wheeling and dealing went on to encourage local, regional and national enterprise. This was where a good amount of the nation's military forces got their start. This was where transportation advances and other inventions were created and exhibited. This was where terrible urban contagions began. This was where early American capitalists made their fortunes. And this was where the individual American colonies were crafted into a nation.

Philadelphia kept its position as America's greatest trade center until the 1820s, when New York's location and financial strength bumped Penn's City to second place. Still, the city's riverfront remained the heart of town. But as the river district grew increasingly grim and grimy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it started to be taken for granted and then became an afterthought. This change in regard was fostered by Philadelphia's relentless push to the west, first to the deforested area beyond Sixth Street in the 1700s, then to the City Hall neighborhood in the 1800s and then to points west, north and south in the 1900s.

As wealthy residents and merchants left the original part of Philadelphia for greener pastures, the Delaware River's edge became forlorn and unattractive-a forgotten backwater, so to speak, and certainly nothing to celebrate. The river itself practically died before World War II because of pollution, while commerce on and by the water declined dramatically afterward. The mile-wide Delaware, long the city's front door, had shut. An Interstate highway was then run through to seal the deal.

Happily, though, Philadelphia's central waterfront has been receiving attention lately. Exactly three hundred years after William Penn founded his city on the Delaware, work began on refurbishing two abandoned municipal piers at Penn's Landing for residential use. This was the first new housing along the river in over one hundred years. Other activity has followed since then, with multimillion-dollar condominiums and increased recreational, entertainment and dining venues of all sorts drawing money and movement back to this part of town. Penn's Landing has become a citywide gathering place, and even a casino has joined the mix. Philadelphia has finally rediscovered its lifeblood river and the adjoining riverfront.

All told, this is surely the most storied and interesting section of Philadelphia, as it has changed the most -- for good or bad -- over time. A strong case can be made that it has changed more than anyplace in America.

NEEDLESS to say, the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room is Interstate 95. The highway creates an immense physical barrier that separates walkers, bikers and even motorists-not to mention entire communities-from the river throughout Philadelphia. The I-95 divide is psychological in places, so urban planners hope that landscaping and other improvements will help alleviate the problem and get people to cross the highway to the Delaware. But there's no disguising or denying that I-95 brutally severs the waterfront of Philadelphia from the rest of the city, especially Center City, and it makes Penn's Landing underwhelming as a space for recreation.

Yet this is merely the outcome of a much larger, more poignant issue. Simply put: the worst part of an Interstate being built through Southwark, Society Hill and Old City Philadelphia in the 1960s and '70s is that the physical record of almost three hundred years of Philadelphia history was thoughtlessly obliterated. The memory of countless Philadelphians living, working, eating, drinking, shopping, visiting and even dying on the Delaware's west bank during this time has been lost and forgotten. It should also be noted, as a final wistful comment, that the superhighway covers the spot where William Penn, the great lawgiver, humanist and real estate developer, first set foot on Philadelphia soil.

And for what purpose? Just to allow anonymous motorists from parts unknown to pass through Philadelphia in the blink of an eye? This utter lack of respect for Philadelphia's past would be unthinkable if the artery were constructed today. Other options would definitely be explored besides routing a noisy fifteen-lane expressway through such an important (yet admittedly shabby) part of Penn's City. Even the possible submersion or demolition of the highway, proposed as of late, could never restore what is gone forever.

Ultimately, though, this has been an account of how the city of Philadelphia has related to its principal river over time. The story is one of ongoing conflict between various uses of the Delaware and the city's original waterfront, ranging from commercial to transportational to residential to recreational. It began playing out in the late seventeenth century during the time of William Penn and Samuel Carpenter. Later, Stephen Girard and Paul Beck contributed greatly to how the story played out. These and other noteworthy men and women molded the riverbank over time and were intimately involved in what happened along this two-mile-long strip of land.

The continuing saga of the Delaware River's western embankment is more relevant in the twenty-first century than ever as the City of Brotherly Love finally rediscovers and reclaims its historic waterfront.

No. 91

2011-08-18T21:52:00.000-04:00

No. 91 The Junto September MMXI
Meeting @ Philadelphia
'A Charivari of The Lit'ry Life'

Introducing

MUSEUM MILE:

PHILADELPHIA'S PARKWAY MUSEUMS

BY RICHARD CARRENO

Coming this fall from WritersClearinghousePress

Order from bookshops, amazon.com, half.com, and other on-line portals. Immediate 10 percent discount to purchases ordered directly from publisher from its bookshop, philabooks|booksellers.

John O'Hara Society

2011-08-18T10:26:00.001-04:00

At Connelly's, from left, Robert Knott, Steven Goldleaf,

Richard Carreno, Jackie Atkins, Brian Maxwell, Jessica Rettig,

Robert Saliba, Jenny Saliba, Joan T. Kane, KC Rice, and Peter Frishauf

Lunch, Screening, Business

at O'Hara Society Meeting

About a dozen members of the John O'Hara Society, (see photo above) shared lunch, comradrie, and hoisting a toast to their favourite authhor at a annual summer meeting in New York. The international organisation celebrates the work and life of the 20th-century Pennylvania author.

The lunch was held Saturday, 13 August, at Connelly's on 47th Street, whereupon thanks to Pal Robert Knott we saw Robert Montgomery's portrayal of Julian English in a television tele-play of Appointment in Samarra. The screening was held at the Paley Center. Many thanks, Robert, for arranging this highlight!

We retreated to a pub -- aptly named Butterfield 8 -- for drinks, coffee, and dessert.

No Bull

2011-08-17T17:48:00.002-04:00

Dry Wine, Sweet Time

Madrid in 24 Hours

By Don Merlot

[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

One of my most exciting days ever was in Madrid when, within 24 hours and accompanied by a friend, I saw a bullfight, ate paella marinara with a magnificent Rioja tinto, and saw a Flamenco show at the famous coral de las Morrerias –- a famous tablado flamenco, club that was owned by a childhood friend.

I left Chicago for Madrid on a Friday night and was met in Madrid by an old friend on Saturday morning. I went to the hotel and napped for a few hours. I wanted to make sure I did not get caught in a jet-lag cycle. And by bull fight time I was ready to go. We went to a tapas place that offered my favourite -- Angulas al Ajillo and had a dry sherry, Tio Pepe. What a way to start a day. We discussed the next 24 hours.

I grew up in Mexico City, and my parents took me often to the bullfights. I appreciate them now, and didn't when I was young. But I did to see 'El Cordobes' do a Mano-a-Mano with Carlos Arruza in the Plaza de Toros de Mexico. As a young, impressionable person, I loved Spain and everything about it, as I loved Mexico and the United States of America. Spain in Mexico was the Madre Patria -– the motherland of Mexico and Latin America. To see the tussle between Spain and Mexico, or Mexico and the USA, and or the USA and Britain was not that transparent when I was growing up. All the countries were equal, and we were proud to be part of their history.

Luckily for me in Mexico City, I went to bullfights often, and did not need to read Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon to enjoy the fiesta taurina. I already had taken many of my U.S. relatives and had to explain the process. I took roommates from prep school and college.

I loved the art form of los toros, and stepping into Madrid’s great plaza that day long ago was a dream come true. My friend Giuseppe had moved from New York to his home town Madrid and had set up a great weekend for me.

Since we already had a relationship from New York that included Italian and French food, I was going to see Spanish culture from a different perspective. From a wine point of view, we know we already liked white and red Bordeaux, and white and red Tuscan reds, but the treat today was exploring the Spanish Rioja reserves (the Tempranillo varietal). We also would savour the dry white sherries: Fino and Manzanilla Sherries that would go with the tapas. The white wine would be the ALBARIÑO and the red TEMPRANILLO; the sherries were key for the tapas. Famous sherries are a dry white that come from Jerez de la Frontera. The digestive drinks of this region such as brandy are mostly not known outside of Spain and Spanish-speaking countries.

There was an unwritten protocol: light first and dark and heavier later. So in this case we started by having light snacks with appetizer food. So the day's feast started with light food and beverages. Sherries can be confusing to some wine-drinking Americans because the white dry sherry is a Spanish Appertivo and the English prefer the Amontillado and Oloroso which is a dessert wine. Giuseppe had been one of my first food and wine mentors, and now he was going to open up the world of food and wine of Spain. I had to remember rule No. 1, do not look for the similarities and focus on the differences. So everything started on the edge of differences, and everyone I talked to avoided saying anything about similarities

A tapas sherry is a Fino or Manzanilla dry sherry, chilled and served from a refrigerator cold bottle and served in a 'chato' glass. Fino is Jerez de La Frontera and Manzanilla is from. Sanlucar de Barrameda. Not to confuse you, these sherries can change over time by ageing and transform into darker colours and nuttier taste. The most popular drink is a Fino or a Manzanilla. A tapas drink involves a shared environment. These small little servings are appetizers. The history must go back in history to the Mediterranean cultures and Arab roots of Spain. Unless one is a tourist as I was that day, there is no formal wine tasting. Just little snacks followed by sherry. And sherry is not required as the only drink, as some have white or red vino de mesa (table wine) or beer. My mentors taught me with sherry fino. The Spanish say, 'Para chupar los dedos.' ('Suck your fingers,' or 'Finger licking good'). Calamares fritos are comparable to the Italian calamari, but also come in servings as charcoal-grilled calamares or mixed in their blood and served with rice as calamares en su tinta, in a meat mixture in the rice.

My favourites tapas are:

Angulas al Ajillo -- baby eels in olive oil, garlic and red chili pod serving.

Gambas al Ajillo -– which are large shrimp with claws, olive oil and red chili pods.

And Pinchos Morruños -– lamb marinated in spicy herbs, charcoaled and served on skewers.

Tapas places specialize in specific dishes. If you are going to dine later after 11 p.m. be careful not to to be too full as dinner can be huge.

We had taxied and walked down to the Plaza de Toros La Venta and were quite eager to get to the bull ring. We had arranged with hotel consejero for seats in the sombra (shaded) section. (Seats are either 'sombra' or 'sol' (sunny). The afternoon sun in Spain can be harsh, but you pay less. Before the start, there is the customary beer, coffee, and or 'cognac,' Spanish brandy, but called after the French Cognac region. We kept cool with beer.

We found ourselves back in the Plaza Mayor (the main square, where every geopgraphical measurement starts in Spain). We had more tapas. We had reservations at the Corral de Las Morrerias, the Moorish center. And were scheduled to have supper at 11 and watch a Flamenco show. We had a beautiful table reserved by the consejero.

We had a white wine with the first course, which was the celebrated Sopa de Ajo. A wonderful potage that simmered with fresh garlic and Spanish bread that looks like French bread. but called pan de agua. This was the first time I had an ALBARIÑO, which is from Northern Spain, Galicia, a Celtic part of Spain. It is a dry white with a citrus component that goes well with garlic (as does Manzanilla sherry). This is not a complicated wine, just dry and citrus and cleans you palate.

We had the national dish of Valencia, paella, but we had seafood (marinara) instead of Valencia (sausage, rabbit, and chicken). The hard-to-get vino tinto, CVNE Reserva 1961 was available and we ordered that. In Spain this was considered Spain’s best red. Of course that old adage is true every country has the best wine, but I must say this wine was exceptional. What is unique about this wine is that it comes from a wine Co-op. in Rioja, a wine district that produces many Greats. CVNE stands for Cooperativa Vinícola del Norte de España. To my amateur tongue this was a great wine. Deep, silky, raspberries and peppery. This will compete with a Cabernet Sauvignon from France, California, Australia, and Chile.

This was a great experience as we waited for the show.

During the show we drank more red wine from a 'bota' (goats hide sewn into boot with a spout) or a porrón. One must squirt the bota or boot like wine container and have the wine shoot into your open mouth. The glass flask is called a porrón and it is considered as a wine container that must be started close to your open mouth and eventually pulled out arms length. I love wine and Flamenco.

The programme for that night came out and I saw that the Flamenco Squad was headed by Lucero Tena. I said I know her! I grew up in Mexico City, and she went to the American School in Mexico City. She is my sister’s classmate and a friend! The show started and lasted an hour plus. I had scribbled a note to the captain to give to Lucero. I told Lucero that I was Susie Alonzo’s brother and here in Madrid on business and I wanted to say hello. At the end of the show, she read the note and came over to the table with her mother and troupe. We laughed and reminisced ever so briefly. At the end she gave us a cassette and vinyl of her music. She offered an after-diner drink –- a famous Spanish Brandy called LEPANTO. This already was one of my favourites, and appreciated tremendously.

The American School in Mexico was a bi-lingual endeavour that prepared students to go back to the United States as if they had gone to school in any American city. As for Spanish, they complied with the law, teaching grade school in Spanish, and everyone had to pass to be certified.

The students came from all over the U.S.A. and from Europe and Asia, and their parents were in the diplomatic corps or in business. Many Mexican students had parents who left Europe before and during the Second World War. It was a great community, and we all felt like a family and related to each other. We were fluent in both cultures and languages. In school, we learned about English and American history and, in Spanish, we learned about Mexican and Spanish history.

Lucero’s family had come to Mexico during the Spanish Revolution when the King was deposed and Franco took power. Spaniards who did not favour Franco left Spain for Cuba, Mexico, Chile, or Argentina. Before going away to school as kids we would go to a Spanish night club in Mexico City to view flamenco and partake in wine.

By 1:30 a.m., the show was over and we called it a night. Great friends. Delicious food, and flavourful wine. Que más quieres? Quieres más?

Fly on the Wall

2011-08-06T17:05:00.000-04:00

Michel, Don Merlot's French dining companion, cringing at Italian food.

Wherein our American Correspondent Encounters
Italian Wine, Russian Song,
and a Cringing French Snob

By Don Merlot

[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]

New Orleans.
One night in Milan, in the autumn of 1979, my host Vittorio tried to make sure I was completing my gastronomic and oenophile adventures, and we ended up at dinner at a wonderful Milanese restaurant. It was de rigueur to follow the tradition of an appetizer, two dishes: first course and a second course and some salad, and a desert. My wine and food exploration was still going strong. Pinot Grigio was the new rage, and it came from the Venezia region. The restaurant was filling up with the after the theatre and opera crowd. We were not a big group, but could see that a big group had reserved a section of the restaurant.

Italians wanted to show me the light, dryness of this new success story –- Pinot Grigio. The French grow the same grape in Alsace under the name of Pinot Gris. We had discussed with the French boss about ordering French wines in Italy, and Vittorio, the Italian managing director, won. So the white wine was the Pinot Grigio and the red wine was a Piedmont wine. Vittorio chose a Gattinara. My French friend Michel was the boss and he was sticky about eating Italian food, even when we traveled in Italy. I noticed when traveling with Michel that he never would eat the local food or drink the local wine. Here I was learning about Europe and Michel was adamant that French wine and food was the pinnacle of the 20th century culinary field.

In New York, my then boss and advertising agency’s Italian creative director (who opened up the Italian Renaissance to me) told me that Catherine di Medici, who married a French king, had asked his brother to send the di Medici cooks to France to teach the French how to make palatable meals. Voila, the birth of French cooking, and Michel laughed this off. But tonight we would have a Milanese feast. We started with Bresaola –- high altitude dried beef from the Alps; a Cartocho -– pasta cooked in a baker’s paper bag with lake trout and a beautiful Bistecca di Vitello a la Griglia. An Italian red was ordered, and Michel cringed.

In terms of Italian wine definition, the King of Piemonte red wines is Barolo, followed by Barbera and Barbaresco. These are strong masculine wines and when young they have a lot of tannin which smoothes out with age. We tried a Gattinara which was more a feminine wine, however strong to hold the flavour and richness of the meat.

Vittorio ordered for all and it was in Italian feast. Since we were in the ice-maker sales business, Vittorio knew all the restaurant owners and chefs. So we were well attended. We started off with a glass of Ferrari Champagne (a name reserved for a region of France using the champagnois methode). To me it was excellent, but to the French, well, argumentative.

As we enjoyed our aperitifs, a large group came in. It was the Russian Opera which had just performed at the Milan Opera. They were loud and festive. The whole mood of the restaurant became loud and festive. As we were served our courses and the Russian troupe drank, a Russian folk song began to be sung by all: KALINKA. It truly was marvelous. Time just seemed to have floated by ,and everyone was treated to the best Russian folk singing and music.

When we checked the time it was 0200 hours. We had consumed the Pinot Grigio, the Gattinara, which was absolutely stupendous -– cherry red, bright, clear, and aromatic, and it went well with the meat and the cheese. The cheese was GRANA, a hard cheese that melted in one’s mouth with the wine. I was introduced to AMARO, a bitter digestif that followed an espresso coffee.

For the first time I had slipped out of the American culture and immersed myself into another culture. I felt myself Italian, of a European culture that was of the non-new world.

I broke away from French wine and found out that other countries have grande vins also.

When I got home to Michigan, I set out to find the 33 1/3 speed vinyl Russian Army album that included KALINKA. I drove my wife, family, and neighbours crazy playing that song.

I found out if Burgundy has its Pinot Noir, Piemonte has its Nibbiolo varietal. The name comes from the cloudy haze the hangs over the vineyards in the foot hill of the Alps and the weather seasons that nurture the grape growth.

Although Italy vineries make more wine than any other country, the famous wine vineyards are not as well known as the French Bordeaux’s and Burgundies and do not have a big following outside of Italy. This was true in the 1970s.

As I learned from my mentors, each country is very proud of its culture and the wine it produces. I also noticed in the European world, European business partners as hosts always selected the meal because they were proud to show off regional specialties.

Americans were not exactly criticized, but the Old World view of Americans was that they had no cuisine, and wines were just beginning to expand off shore. What the British called plonk, or the French, vin ordinaire. Or, what we now call 'table wine.'

(Ron Alzono, a resident of New Orleans, is Don Merlot).

The Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976

My Book Pile

2011-07-26T21:35:00.000-04:00

My Pile

No Waste of Space
By Liliane Clever
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]
I grew up being told not to waste anything. From the food on my plate to my school supplies, waste was a deadly sin subject to frowns and endless lecturing from my parents. This juvenile vestige has stayed with me through my adult life. I am not really thrifty. I can be as impulsive as anyone, but I do try to remain careful, and I hate to waste.

Lately I have been in a midst of a dilemma. Things sort of piled up on me. Specifically, books. More specifically, books I-purchased-at-Borders-during-its-going-out-of-business-sale-in-Philadelphia piled up on me.

At first I had a plan. Afraid that titles from some of my favourite authors would fly off the shelves, I went to the store on Broad Street as soon as the ‘Up to 20% off’ signs were posted in the windows. I was only partially successful. It had been some time since Borders had received any new shipments and replenished its inventory.

I am not an absolute devotee of any particular author so there is always at least one title I have not read. The last time I could claim reading an author’s entire body of work was in my late teens to early twenties when I discovered the writings of Simone de Beauvoir and read every word of it. This included some pretty arduous bits, and I can’t say that I was mature enough to understand it all.

I am a lot less enthusiastic these days, and my attention span is much shorter. I expect a book to grip me by the end of its first chapter. I am not an intellectual. I read mostly fiction and I read for pleasure. I simply want to escape in the next one hundred-plus pages and be entertained.

On my next visit to Borders, as soon as the ‘Up to 40% off’ signs appeared, I looked for authors I had encountered at least once and had enjoyed. It was more difficult as there were fewer books available, but I managed to go home with a bag full.

I simply had to go back at 60 percent off. The shelves were already pretty bare, and the books no longer in alphabetical order. I was impressed by the remaining staff trying to straighten things out. Hard to believe that they would still care. The only way to tackle this was to go through the entire fiction section one book at a time. The picking was even more difficult but I took a chance on authors whose names rang a bell or titles that might have been recommended by a friend at one time.

I had told myself that this was it. I had two fairly high piles of books on my bedroom floor waiting to be read. But somehow I found myself looking through almost empty and quite dusty shelves at Borders unable to resist the huge yellow 80 percent off signs in the windows.

If Borders were willing to ‘give things away,’ how could I go wrong? And surely nobody could accuse me of wasting money. By then the second level had been closed off and all remaining items were crammed together downstairs.

It was actually quite depressing. I grabbed any book that looked promising based on one liner reviews on the covers and a quick scan of opening paragraphs. A system quite flawed indeed that led mostly to one-book-wonders. But why not give them a try? I went home and started a third pile.

My first read from the piles was an easy pick: Mary Lawson’s The Other Side of the Bridge. I had been looking forward to it ever since I spotted it on the shelves. I read Crow Lake several years ago, and absolutely loved it. My high expectations were not disappointed. The Other Side of the Bridge is a beautiful book and a sheer pleasure to read. I highly recommend it.

I knew that Lawson would be a tough act to follow. With her characters still floating in my head, I picked Beautiful as Yesterday by Fan Wu from my 80 percent off pile. One of my so-called freebies. The cover boasts an endorsement from Amy Tan. I always enjoy Amy Tan’s books. But Fan Wu is no Amy Tan. The book is awkwardly written and the story line uninspiring. What was Amy Tan thinking about? I felt betrayed. I forced myself to finish the book just as I finished the food on my plate years ago.

I have since become suspicious of my third pile. I wonder what other disappointing book is waiting in there for me. But surely, I cannot allow any of these books to go to waste. Eventually I will need to decide on the biggest waste: The money I spent on the book, or the time I spend reading it. Hence the dilemma I mentioned earlier.

It is random positive reinforcement that keeps me going. My second pile revealed two very nice surprises: The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli, and The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. Both debut novels are well crafted with story lines that kept me wanting to read on. I recommend these novels as well.

I still have many books to go through. I plan to give each book an honest try. Books that fail to grab my interest will be donated. They may turn out to be somebody else’s cup of tea. As I often do, books I enjoyed will be shared with friends, passed around. Books that I love will be shelved in my home, at least for a while, ready for a possible reread.

Maybe, just maybe, none of the books will go to waste.

No 90 August MMXI

2011-07-26T20:36:00.000-04:00

THE JUNTO

SUMMER BOOK NUMBER

No. 90 August MMXI

Meeting @ Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Junto depends exclusively on reader support. Please help us continue by contributing directly via PayPal, or by contributing editorial content via Writers.Clearinghouse@comcast.net. Empowered by Writers Clearinghouse | S.P.Q.R. 1976