Ana Gonzalez 1925-2018

Maria Irene Fornes 1930-2018

Ntozake Shange 1948-2018

and once I again i say donald trump still walks this earth unfair.

Collage October 2018

The Terror 2018

I had never heard of this 3 part series until a friend recommended it to me, and now I’m recommending it to you. Based on a real incident  that took place in the late 1840’s when a Royal Naval expedition of two ships (one named The Terror) set out to find a path to the Northwest Passage via the Arctic it was led by three captains Sir John Franklin, Francis Crozier and James Fitzjames and a crew of about 130 men. The 11 hour series although fact based contains a lot of fictional plot including a monster that attacks at random and is basically a beast of huge proportions and prehistoric heredity. This is not the only danger facing the crew and the expedition, cold, lack of food, illness and conspiracies abound along with the basic problems of getting wooden ships through the freezing artic cold and ice. The cast is made up of superb actors a few I knew and had seen before including Jared Harris, Ciaran Hinds and Ian Hart and in a small part the wonderful Greta Scacchi. The production is lavish, rich and beautifully done and is full of beautiful images but also includes vivid, harsh and disturbing acts of violence and gore so this might not be for everyone especially those faint of heart. The accents are thick and sometimes hard to understand but there are subtitles if needed. This is one that should chill you to the bone.

Fausto Melotti. The Deserted City. Hauser & Wirth

fuck shit piss I pulled a muscle in my leg today. Its probably the damn new sneakers and probably because of all the walking I did in Chelsea yesterday taking in too many exhibitions. However this one is worth pulled muscles. I never heard of this artist the late Fausto Melotti, and I tell you I was knocked out by his work which goes from the 50's to the early 80's and is for now the best gallery exhibition of 2018. The exhibition is ravishing and spectacularly installed as only this blue blue chip place can do, but its the work that is the most impressive. The piece that is getting the most attention is the eye opening large "The Seven Sages" which are 7 mannequins made of white plaster who hover over the exhibition. I also loved his imaginative free standing "towers" made of brass and his small painted teracotta glazed ceramics tableaus set in niches throughout the gallery and his small mixed media pieces. Also something great is the large wall full of his glazed ceramic pieces. This great exhibition is only on to October 27th so you better make a move but don't pull any muscles.

https://www.hauserwirth.com/…/21952-fausto-melotti-deserted…

Endless Enigma

Endless Enigma. Eight Centuries of Fantastic Art. David Zwirner Gallery.

I usually find the shows here a mixed bag of marvelous and lousy, happily if you stick with this large museum quality show you should find much to like. The exhibition takes up two floors at the 20th street space and its by and large a nice eye full until you get to the "contemporary" stuff that is mostly crap. I'm sorry but Lisa Yuskavage, Robert Gober, Polke and Sherrie Levine pale and fade when placed next to the likes of Leonor Fini, Ernst, Klee, de Chirico, Cornell, Dore, Ensor Masson, Moreau ,Titian, Redon and many others. Happily the here and now, the flavors of the moment are kept to a whisper and its the screams from the past that will and should make you swoon. The contemporary follower of Hieronymus bosch with his own "Garden of Earthy Delights is a standout. On view until October 27th.

DAVIDZWIRNER.COM

Endless Enigma: Eight Centuries of Fantastic Art press release | David Zwirner

Endless Enigma: Eight Centuries of Fantastic Art Press Release Location 537 West 20th Street New York Dates September 12—October 27, 2018 David Zwirner is pleased to present Endless Enigma: Eight Centuries of Fantastic Art, a thematic exhibition spanning two floors of the gallery’s West 20th Str...

The Rape Of Recy Taylor 2017

I had heard of this doc. and was planning on eventually seeing it. So there it was on the shelf of my wonderful Bay Ridge library and I grabbed it. Saw it last night and of course I was moved and upset by it, but I urge everyone to see it, even though it hurts to see it. Its amazing that what we have been going through of late how this sad story fits right in. It's not only about the horror that African Americans have suffered and especially African American women but also what sexual assault victims have been living with. It hits home. The story is painful and if you think justice was served you should know better, since this is the United States of Donald Trump, even back in the 40's and 50's this place was stinking with a stench that is still with us today in the white house, the senate and the supreme court. Rape is such an ugly word and is used in the title no doubt on purpose to hit us in the face. Attacked and raped by 6 white boys Recy had no recourse to justice even though she had the support of the NAACP who had as one of its investigators Rosa Parks who fought valiantly for Recy and also suffered for her attempts at justice. This is a heartbreaking and wrenching story and film.

Scott Wilson 1942-2018

October 2018 Notebook drawings.

Suspicion 1941

Suspicion was made one year after Hitchcock’s famous Oscar winning movie Rebecca that was based on a famous romantic thriller novel. Hitchcock trying to repeat his success that he had with Rebecca once again adapted a romantic thriller and dusted off Joan Fontaine for the film that has some similarities with R but is not as thrilling or flashy. Instead it sort of plods along using Joan in another colorless role, benign, drab and meek to be sure, but less a damsel in distress than a distress in damsel. This won Fontaine her Oscar which was given to her no doubt because she lost out to Ginger Rogers (yes Ginger Rogers actually won an Oscar, dribble on that fact for a while) the year before and this was her consolation award.  Joan plays the mousy daughter of Sir Cedric Hardwick and Dame Mae Whitney who is as I said so colorless and bland that she almost fades away.
               The film does open swell on a train one of Hitchcock’s recurring settings and we are literally in the dark for a few seconds because the lights on the roaring train have gone out, and when they come back we meet Cary Grant in his first Hitchcock film. He’s trying to sneak into a first class compartment that Joan is in but he doesn’t have the money and so his character’s flaws are set into motion from the start. Our Cary is suave, gorgeous but somewhat off, like milk starting to sour and we’re immediately a little suspicious of him. Joan of course falls heads over heels with the heel, and to the unhappiness of her father and mother marries him pretty much on a spur of the moment.
                 Hitch gives us a tease of what Grant might be up to in a smashing scene on a hill where Grant and Fontaine early in their relationship are having a tussle. Shot from a distance we don’t know if they’re fighting, is she trying to get away from him, is he just trying to get a kiss from her or is he trying to kill her. There is friction between Grant and his new dad in law but off Grant and Fontaine go on a montage whirlwind honeymoon told through travel stickers on trunks and they come back to live in a glamorous large house in London that we soon find out they can really not afford. Grant is a ladies man and doesn’t work for a living, loves to gamble and Joan starts to get really upset and worried. By this point Joan is distressed and suddenly glamorous  and dressed in great clothes and spends her days doing nothing but is slowly getting suspicious of Grant. Is he thinking about murdering her so he can inherit her money? is he cheating on her? There isn’t much chemistry between Grant and Fontaine so we almost don’t care what he’s planning to do. Grant needed spunky hard-edged actress like Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, Ginger Rogers and especially Katharine Hepburn to counter his pretty soft edges with their tough sharp ones.  Hitchcock brings some of his regulars like Leo G. Carroll and Nigel Bruce in the mix and it helps believe me it helps. Also tangy and how the hell did this get by the censors is the very butch Lesbian mystery writer who Fontaine confides in, played by Auriol Lee and there is a tart dinner party where the mystery writer’s lover is dolled up in full men’s drag that will wake you up from your little nap with a snap. And yes there is the famous glass of milk that might be poisoned lit from within but sadly this movie as lush and good-looking as it is is in the end a dud, with a rushed and unconvincing ending that was forced on Hitchcock and untimely us. Still even 2^nd rate Hitchcock is fun and worth seeing. 

New Oddball Magazine Oct. 2018

https://oddballmagazine.com/2018/10/02/poem-by-gale-acuff/

Charles Aznavour 1924-2018