VENU Magazine #6 March/April 2011 by VENÜ MAGAZINE

March/April_CT-NY Edition

EXHILARATION & ELEGANCE STARTS HERE

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Showcasing local Arts, Culture, and Style without any contrived formality. VENÜ is published six times a year as a fresh yet discerning guide to art, culture and style throughout Connecticut and beyond. Not too artsy or too fussy, we’re thoughtfully written for the curious, the acquisitive, and those devoted to the one-of-a-kind and hard-to-find.

March/April_ISSUE 6

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Get Featured in Venü If you’re an artist with some work to exhibit, an entertainment coordinator with an event coming up, or a business with some exciting news or a new product launch get in touch. We’re eager to feature interesting content that’s sure to entertain our readers. editorial@venumagazine.com

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Contributors Wanted Artists, designers, photographers, writers, illustrators, etc., if you’ve got it, flaunt it! We’re interested in hearing from all of you that have some great things to share...

... Get in touch!

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Inside this issue: 16 events + gatherings

FCBUZZ in Westport pg.16 Robert Cottingham pg.17 John “CRASH” Matos pg.18 Fairfield Arts Center pg. 19 Jennifer Butler Fashion Show pg. 20 Westport Youth Film Festival pg. 21 Housatonic Museum of Art Great Chefs 2011 pg. 22

42 BUSINESS J.McLaughlin 46 SPORT

Ultraman in Hawaii

52 ART Man in the Mirror pg. 52 Photography and Lens based art pg. 55

26 appetite Jodi Bernhard of Barcelona

60 travel Paris

28 Furniture Fantasy Furniture

66 PHILANTHROPY William D. Rondina

32 motoring McLaren

68 INTERVIEW Who is the real Alan Abel

36 MUSIC John Mayer pg. 36 Seth Adams pg. 40

74 FICTION Perspective 76 STAGE Colchester’s Emerson Theater Collaborative

CORRECTION: In VENÜ Issue #5, January/Feburary 2011, we neglected to credit one of our favorite contiributors. Nancy Helle was author of the article An Artistic Odyssey beginning on page twenty. Sorry Nancy :-)

ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

All good. Contributors Lisa Seidenberg Lisa Seidenberg is a filmmaker and media artist. Her recent experimental work, “Slippery Slope”, premiered at the International Berlin Film Festival, February, 2011. Documentaries include “The Road Taken…The Merritt Parkway”, “Pledge of Allegiance Blues”, “BEING HUMAN” and “I Have Seen the Future”. Twice awarded the Artist Fellowship in Film/Video from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, Lisa was herself profiled in the feature documentary “Women Behind The Camera”. She was also founder/director of the SoNo Film and Video Festival in Norwalk, Ct. from 1999-2003. Earlier in her career, she worked for ABC News and other broadcast television outlets, including shooting the pilot for “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”. As the Soviet era was ending, she traveled to Russia with musicians Billy Joel and Paul Simon, documenting their concert tours and later criss-crossing Siberia while making a film for PepsiCo... This led to a documentary in (outer) Mongolia, “Mongolia on the Edge of Time” exhibited at the Smithsonian and the United Nations. Her website is: www.missmuffett.com. This is her first contribution to VENÜ. William Squier William Squier is EMMY Award winner who has written for television, film and the stage. He is a frequent contributor to Stamford Plus Magazine and the Tribune’s Fairfield County Weekly, where he often covers the theater scene throughout Connecticut. In this issue of Venü, he writes about Colchester’s Emerson Theater Collaborative (emersontheatercollaborative.org). Matthew Sturtevant Matthew Sturtevant is a Christie’s trained appraiser specializing in American, English and European furniture, decorative arts, sculpture and Fine Art from the 16th century the present, and is a generalist in appraising household goods. Matthew has lectured extensively for Christie’s, George Washington University, and The Appraisers Association of America and taught appraisal courses at NYU appraisal studies for certification process. In this issue of VENÜ he discusses whimsical nature and value of “Fantasy Furniture.”

It’s been a very busy couple of months for all of us here at VENÜ. So busy in fact that I thought for a moment that last year was 2011. Oops! Nonetheless, our aim going forward this year in 2012 (just kidding) is to continue delivering our readers and advertisers what they deserve, and have come to expect... ... quality content and superior design. By the way, the feedback we have been receiving is very encouraging and most appreciated. Keep it coming folks, all of you are heard loud and clear (although it may take us some time to respond) your ideas can only make us bigger and better. Enjoy!

J. Michael Woodside Founder, Creative Director

ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

“Day and Night” (detail) 1938 woodcut

M.C. ESCHER Amazing Images

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VENÜ is Connecticut’s premium bimonthly magazine showcasing the arts, culture and style without any contrived formality. Written for the distinguished, the inquisitive, and those devoted to consuming and collecting with discerning taste —Venü’s superior design standard and exclusive content from leading voices associated with art, music, film, theater, fashion and more make Venü a collectible.

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Symphony in G, Oil On Canvas, 36" x 60"

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5 6 March/April_CT-NY Edition

founder, creative director: J. Michael Woodside

co-founder, executive director: Tracey Thomas

editors:

Amy Orzel, Ellen Ullman

senior arts editor: Philip Eliasoph

publisher:

Venü Media Company

art, design & production: Venü Media Company

contributing writers:

Jenna Blumenfeld, Ellen Carey, Cindy Clarke, Tish Fried, Lorenz Josef, Christian McEvoy, Ryan Odinak, Amy Orzel, Bruce Pollock, Lisa Seidenberg, William Squier, Matt Sturtevant, Krystian von Speidel

business development: Shelly Harvey

legal counsel:

Alan Neigher, Sheryle Levine (Byelas & Neigher, Westport, CT)

distribution:

Thomas Cosutto, Man In Motion, LLC

on the cover:

Ellen Carey, “Polaroid Penlights” (2007), Polaroid 20x24 Print. Courtesy of the artist and Jayne H. Baum Gallery (New York, NY). VENÜ’s Krystian von Speidel spends an afternoon with Ellen Carey, talking about her exciting discovery in a Man Ray artwork. Hidden for three-quarters of a century, Carey reveals an insightful blending of text and image from the famously quick mind of Man Ray. Like in her discovery, Carey uses penlights to draw with light in her Hartford studio.

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The small print: No responsibility can be taken for the quality and accuracy of the reproductions, as this is dependent upon the artwork and material supplied. No responsibility can be taken for typographical errors. The publishers reserve the right to refuse and edit material as presented. All prices and specifications to advertise are subject to change without notice. The opinions in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. Copyright VENÜ MAGAZINE. All rights reserved. The name VENÜ MAGAZINE is copyright protected. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted without written consent from the publisher. VENÜ MAGAZINE does not accept responsibility for unsolicited material. This is a bimonthly publication and we encourage the public, galleries, artists, designers, photographers, writers (calling all creatives) to submit photos, features, drawings, etc., but we assume no responsibility for failure to publish submissions.

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events + gatherings

FCBuzz In WESTPORT by RYAN ODINAK

Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County

estport is a community rich in history and traditions that emanate from creativity. It is known as an artist’s community with a wealth of painters, writers, actors and playwrights who have found the quiet, yet stimulating, community— only an hour from New York—to be the perfect getaway or place to call home. Each year, residents and visitors are drawn to the diverse offering of plays, art exhibits, concerts and festivals that uphold and enhance the creative spirit of Westport.

The Westport Country Playhouse is an important artistic anchor for the community. It first opened in a converted barn in 1930 and in 2003 undertook a renovation transforming the summer theatre into a year-round venue. In 2011, the second of a two-year long recognition of the Playhouse’s 80 years in Westport will be celebrated, beginning the season with Christopher Durang’s comedy Beyond Therapy in April. For a different theater option, Jib Production’s Play with Your Food series, which originated in Westport, is bringing new fans to the theatre with their short plays performed during the

Clockwise from left: Charlie Karp at Blues Views & BBQ; Fine Arts Festival; Suzuki Music School; Westport Country Playhouse

lunch hour at various regional locations. Another center of creative energy, the Westport Arts Center has been a vital cultural force in the community since the 1960s. It reaches more than 15,000 people annually through its diverse arts and education programs, including contemporary art exhibits and gallery talks, chamber music, jazz, singer/songwriters, literature, and film. This spring the Center will present a variety of programs inspired by the international community and world cultures’ impact in the arts including the exhibit “Hope in Haiti.” Things heat up in the summer when Westport’s Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts opens and annual seasonal favorites such as the Fine Arts Festival, and the Blues, Views & BBQ festival come to downtown. The Levitt Pavilion, a unique open-air summer music festival, will celebrate its 38th season in 2011. Located on the river in downtown Westport, the Pavilion’s official season begins June 26th offering almost 60 nights of free entertainment. The Westport Fine Arts Festival will also celebrate its 38th year when it opens on July 16 and 17. The outdoor, juried art show features more than 145 artists presenting original works of painting, sculpture, photography, mixed media, watercolor and printmaking. Artists at all levels have lots of opportunity

to develop their skills in Westport. The Suzuki Music School of Westport offers an array of master classes, workshops and family concerts for kids and brings prize-winning and celebrity visiting artists to town to work with the schools’ young students. Music for Children offers early childhood music classes as well. Art About Town (formerly Art by Local) nurtures established artists as well as emerging artists in the spring by displaying work in downtown locations. The Westport Historical Society, dedicated to preserving, presenting and celebrating the history of Westport, stays connected to the town’s creative roots with exhibits in its gallery such as “The Sketch Class: A Westport Tradition” and educational programs like “Art from the Heart.” Write Yourself FreeSM/The Editing Company is creating a writer’s community in the 19th-century carriage house storefront on the Post Road. It offers a variety of writing classes, storytelling and editing services and features a writer’s room available for likeminded creative people to share as well as a place to work. Other creative businesses like Nuartlink Gallery, Amy Simon and Rockwell Art and Frame provide opportunities for artists to show and contribute to the lively arts scene that is Westport’s trademark.

To find out what’s happening in Westport and the other cities and towns of Fairfield County visit www.FCBuzz.org presented by the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County. This arts and culture resource offers ticket and event information for music, theatre, visual arts, history, lectures, literature, kids and families, classes, workshops, social events and much more. For more information contact the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County by emailing info@CulturalAllianceFC.org, or calling 203-256-2329 or visiting our Web site at www.CulturalAllianceFC.org.

ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

COTTINGHAM RULES:

THE EMPIRE THEATER by Philip Eliasoph When Photorealist master Robert Cottingham of Newtown was last heard in VENÜ #2 (July-August, 2010), he wound up our studio conversation with a hint of what was coming down the tracks. ”And there are plenty of new ideas that just now percolating, so I have enough work to do as the journey continues.“ Like one of those ”rolling stock” freight trains he once depicted with such exquisite detail, Cottingham is an unstoppable artistic engine. His current show featuring sublime glimpses of a movie marquee from America history's ”Last Picture Show,” bears more evidence of his visual power—shear rolling thunder. VENÜ readers and droves of Cottingham's devoted fans have been enjoying his ”new ideas” at New York's Forum Gallery in an exhibition titled, “The Empire Theatre“ through April 9th. During last year's studio visit, we were fortunate to preview the

evolutionary process as Cottingham moved through successive stages of graphite drawings, gouache, watercolor and oil paintings. Almost 15 years ago Cottingham was invited to attend his exhibit at the Montgomery Museum of Art in Alabama. Constantly on the look out for fresh material, it was suggested that he survey a crumbling theatre downtown which was built in 1914. Part of Montgomery's history was shared by the site where Rosa Parks was arrested at the location in 1955. Fortunately he photographed the Art Deco stylized neon-marquee, before it was torn down a few years later. Linking past and present, Cottingham has rescued an iconic moment. According to the Forum Gallery's announcement: ”The exhibition includes some monumental size paintings which intensify their dramatic effect as they salute a bygone era. Robert Cottingham is known for imagery that celebrates the history of commu-

Empire, 2008. Watercolor on paper, 18 7/8 x 13 ½

nications in America. The Empire Theater series is an exploration of urban history, and the exhibition is an examination of the artist's consistent process.“

The Forum Gallery, 730 Fifth Avenue at 57th Street. For more information contact: www.forumgallery.com

ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

crash events + gatherings

sprays subways to Southport, zaps ‘American Graffiti’ by Ike van Ghent

Crash: Print Retrospective,

March 4-28th is free to the public at: Southport Galleries, 330 Pequot Avenue, Southport, [203] 292-6124 For more information contact: southportgalleries.com

“Zip those tags” or “freestyle those wraparound bubbles” or “blast” that spray can might not be painterly terms used by Leonardo, Raphael or Caravaggio. Becoming a bona fide “Old Master” takes decades of artistic achievement and a world wide following. An acclaimed living legend of this caliber is the artist “CRASH” – John Matos – who presents his first full tilt print retrospective at Connecticut’s newest art showcase, Southport Galleries from March 4-28. His explosive signature - CRASH – which looks like the name of a Marvel comic character on steroids, was seen in the early 1970s on IRT subway cars while NYC transit cops chased him in and out of tunnels and barbed-wired train yards. Now his works are gracing prestigious walls including the Museum of Modern Art, the Stededelijk Museum in Amsterdam, or the private collections of Enrico Coveri and Giovanni Agnelli in Italy. “I’ve never shown all my print output in one exhibition space,” the South Bronx native explained in an exclusive interview with VENÜ. “Last year I was so honored to see my large scale paintings featured at Fairfield University, but I am now really psyched out to have this opportunity to organize my prints at Southport Galleries. And having my daughter Anna, [a dean’s list art history major graduating this May from Fairfield University] helping me organize the show makes this all the more of an organically driven family project.

ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

I think these prints are a good starting point for young collectors as my subway car designs are now only documented in extinct old Kodachromes. You know, ‘those nice bright colors and those greens of summers’ as Simon & Garfunkel once sang.” “A uniquely personalized yet, at the same time, universal vision is powerfully in play in this suite of original prints by CRASH,” notes Dr. Philip Eliasoph, Professor of Art History at Fairfield University and Curatorial consultant at the gallery. “Each hyper-surreal image deconstructs the pictorial plane creating a visual field of super-heroes and pop references elegantly synthesized into a mind- blowing vortex. Gazing at these images one is almost pulled into a matrixlike-zone between the hallucinatory and being whacked across the head with a rainbow-colored two-by-four. I just adore the infinitely creative subliminal messages packed into each CRASH print image.” If you want to witness how a Puerto Rican kid shot like a rocket to the top of the art world, jump the tracks to Southport and enjoy the solid-gold “American Graffiti.”

Fairfield Arts Center hosted CHANGE: An exhibition of artworks by artists with disabilities

introducing

independent artist sale and exhibition

march 17–20, 2011 PIER 92, 55TH STREET AT WESTSIDE HIGHWAY From left to right: An-Ming Truxes (Arts Division Director, Commission on Culture and Tourism) Eileen Carpinella (Executive Director, Young Audiences of CT, a VSA affiliate) Kristin Rasich Fox (Executive Director, Fairfield Arts Council) Judith Mortensen (VSA Program Manager) Sign Language Interpreter provided by VSA

Above: patrons enjoying Musician, Blessing Offor

On January 14, 2011, the Fairfield Arts Center in cooperation with the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism (CCT) and Young Audiences Arts for Learning Connecticut (YAC, an affiliate of VSA, the International Organization on Arts and Disability) hosted the opening of CHANGE, an exhibition of artworks by artists with disabilities. CHANGE is a juried show that showcases the creativity and talent of Connecticut artists with disabilities and was organized in response to the artists’ desire to present their work in a gallery setting. A total of ninety-one individuals responded to a call for entries that was issued by CCT and YAC in February of 2010, the submissions were evaluated by jurors Stephanie Moore, then Director of Visual Arts for VSA, Washington D.C. and Sal Scalora, former Director of the Benton Museum at the University of Connecticut, Storrs campus. The exhibition, in strict accordance with accessibility standards, will offer materials printed in braille and in large typeface, interpretation, audio descriptions and an installation that places the artwork at a comfortable viewing level to ensure access to the arts is provided to all regardless of abilities. FAC executive director Kristin Rasich Fox says, “We are delighted to present CHANGE to Fairfield County and hope that the show will effect a modification in mindset toward people with disabilities who have a voice and who can express themselves using art as a vehicle for doing so.” Of the thirty-nine artists selected for the exhibition, thirteen will be represented at FAC and they are: Jaya Dadlani and Todd Hannon of Stratford, Michael Daly, Alice Dubois, Marc Laizzi and Debra Willis of Trumbull, Tom Gattey, Bob Sexton, and Danielle Shepard of Guilford, Molly Hauser of Fairfield and Marie A. Kerr and Samantha Downing of Stamford, CT. The FAC show is the last in a series of three sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Arts and Disability Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, the previous two exhibitions were held at the CCT gallery in Hartford and most recently at the Cornwall Library in Cornwall, CT.

art + the artist + you

Meet face-to-face the emerging and established talent of The Artist Project New York. Sensations in regional art capitals around the world, these 150+ artists now converge for their first major showing in New York. A rare opportunity to purchase fine art direct from the artists.

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fine art + fine design Continue your experience by viewing the latest in home design ideas and products at the 10th annual Architectural Digest Home Design Show and DIFFA’S DINING BY DESIGN NY —right next door at Pier 94.

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events + gatherings

JENNIFER BUTLER

FASHION SHOW

Clothing designer Jennifer Butler presents her Spring 2011 collection for women, men and girls Friday, March 25th, 7:30 PM at the Delamar Hotel, 275 Old Post Rd. in Southport, with all proceeds to benefit the Fairfield Public Library. Get the first look at Jennifer’s fresh collection in a full runway show, featuring fantastic day looks for work and after hours, sizzling cocktail attire, gorgeous gowns dripping with glamour, and a bridal final featuring a bevy of flower girls. Enjoy cocktails and hors de ovres from Café Lola and Health in a Hurry, tour the rooms and suites of the Delamar, and enjoy an intimate evening with Fairfield’s only madeto-measure designer as she shows her versatile, modern collection that takes you from day to night, meeting to bar mitzvah, brunch to black-tie wedding, all with great style and perfect fit, made from the most beautiful fabrics in the world. Make up by Leslie Atiles, Hair by Hair of Fairfield, Photography by Peter Baker Studios. For more information and to purchase tickets: www.jenniferbutler.com, or call Jennifer’s store at 1326 Post Road in Fairfield, 203-256-5768.

Mural commissioned by the Bridgeport Hospital Auxiliary in honor of the hospital's 125th anniversary, 2003

The Bridgeport Hospital Auxiliary invites you to our Spring 2011 Gala “Building Bridges…Building Community” Honoring Ron Noren, Esq. Saturday, March 26, 2011 The Patterson Club Fairfield, Connecticut Cocktails & Silent Auction Dinner and Dessert Stations Dancing to “Eight to the Bar”

media sponsor

For more information, bhaux.org or contact Co-Chair Wendy Martinenas, wendy@ctgreenrealestate.com or 203.767.3444

ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

Submit Your Film to the Westport Youth Film Festival The Westport Youth Film Festival announces a call for entries for high school filmmakers for its 2011 Festival, to be held on May 14 in Fairfield, Connecticut. The Festival seeks entries that fall into any one of the following categories: drama, comedy, animation, experimental, documentary and music video. In addition, all films produced in the state of a Connecticut will be automatically entered into a special, “Connecticut Category.” The film’s director(s) must be high school age or younger at the completion of filming, and international directors are welcome. Deadline for entry is Tuesday, March 15th at a cost of $25 per entry. For those seeking financial aid, scholarships are readily available for filmmakers submitting one or more films. All are eligible to apply for a scholarship so that they may submit their films free of charge. To apply, please call WYFF Program Director Kate Lupo at 203-222-7070 x112. WYFF’s new, state-of-the-art online submission platform is now open to all submissions; to submit your film online, please go to www. wyff.net, click on the “Submit A Film” tab, create an account, pay the fee by credit card for the respective deadline, and upload your film. To submit your entry by mail, please send your film as a DVD to INDEE. TV with attention to WYFF 2011 Submissions at 1750 Montgomery St. Suite 150, San Francisco, CA. 94111. Team WYFF will screen all submissions; those selected to appear in the festival will be judged in their category by an industry professional. The winner of each category will receive a crystal award designed by Tiffany & Co., as well as a $250 cash prize (courtesy of the Broadcast Film Critics Association). Additionally, all entries will be considered for a “Social Action” award, for which the winner will receive a Tiffany & Co. award and a $500 cash prize, sponsored by the Westport Sunrise Rotary.

WYFF, a program of the Westport Arts Center, is the only film festival in the world produced by teens showing films made by teens. Every year, WYFF showcases high school student films in a professional setting, and provides filmmakers and movie fans with a chance to learn from industry professionals through panel discussions, professional development opportunities, and filmmaker roundtables. Since its inception in 2003, WYFF has showcased over 600 high school student films at the festival, and has received over 2,000 submissions from around the world, including China, Indonesia, India and Israel. For more information, please visit www.wyff.net, or contact WYFF’s Program Director, Kate Lupo, by phone at 203-222-7070 or by email at admin@westportyouthfilmfest.org. The Westport Youth Film Festival is sponsored by individual donations, grants from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, EILEEN FISHER, Newman’s Own Foundation, Westport Sunrise Rotary and local businesses, including Robeks and Wishlist of Westport.

”It's for you,” Conceptual Art and the Telephone This exhibition is supported in part by the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Werth Famiy Foundation. Inspired by the Housatonic Museum of Art’s (HMA) most immediate audience, our students at Housatonic Community College, the HMA has curated “It’s for you,” Conceptual Art and the Telephone. The exhibition is, in part, a response to the wide-ranging use of phones in the hallways and other areas on campus. Each day students text, talk, surf the net, and listen to music on their phones. With this exhibition, artworks that use the phone as an artistic medium or mediator are brought together in an original exhibition curated by Terri C. Smith. The projects range from the late 1960s to today and include sound pieces, videos, and objects that resonate with the functions, technologies, and physicality of the telephone. Artists in the exhibition include: T. Foley, Lukas

Geronimas, Jeremy LeClair, Christian Marclay, Yoko Ono, Rachel Perry Welty, Robert Peters, Pietro Pellini, and Hannah Wilke. Many of the artists in “It’s for you” aim to democratize the artist/audience relationship, a quality that is intricately woven into the history of conceptual art. In “It’s for you” Yoko Ono might call the gallery as part of her Telephone Piece, providing direct contact between artist and “viewer.” Students will work with T Foley, creating their own ring tones as part of her Locally Toned project. Archival materials are also included as a way to represent ephemeral works from the past as with Robert Peters’ Naming Others: Manufacturing Yourself (1993) where the artist asked people to call an 800 number from pay phones and choose which stereotyping phrase described them best. “It’s for You” harnesses the familiarity of the telephone as a way of introducing audiences to a variety of conceptual art practices, which often include a mix of art theory and

On exhibit through March 25th, at the Housatonic Museum of Art

social critique. The exhibition, consequently, endeavors to connect concerns found in contemporary art with the objects, communication habits, and changing technologies in our daily lives. In that spirit, visitors and students will be encouraged to comment on the exhibition using telephone-friendly interfaces such as Twitter.

T Foley, Locally Toned (ongoing), Interactive, ringtone project/workshop with students

Christian Marclay, Telephones, 1995, Video, Duration: 7 minutes 30 seconds, © the artist, Courtesy Courtesy, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York and White Cube

ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

events + gatherings

Great Chefs 2011 Honors Chef Daniel Boulud

Event Benefits Community Health at Greenwich Hospital

ever one to miss a great event for VENÜ, always onthe-go, Co-Founder, Tracey Thomas joined Greenwich Hospital officials and area restaurateurs at the Restaurant Thomas Henkelmann on January 20 as they kicked off the first of many appetizing festivities for the 26th annual Great Chefs fundraiser held on March 4th, at the Hyatt Regency in Old Greenwich. The party started with a celebratory thank you toast to acclaimed Chef Daniel Boulud, guest of honor for the Great Chefs event, whose in-person appearance proved to be a delectable treat for all in attendance. Greenwich residents Kim Blank, Melissa Levien and Amanda Tapiero are chairing the volunteer committee organizing the event. The popular culinary event benefits Community Health at Greenwich Hospital (CH@GH), which offers educational programs, healthcare screenings and support groups to Connecticut and New York residents, said Frank A. Corvino, president and chief executive officer of Greenwich Hospital. ”Last year, Community Health at Greenwich Hospital provided services and seminars in English and Spanish to an estimated 30,000 area residents,” said Corvino. “Greenwich Hospital continues to invest in community health initiatives at a time when other healthcare providers are cutting back or eliminating services.“ Kathy Carly-Spaner, RN, director of CH@GH, said the hospital will continue to support health promotion efforts in Fairfield and Westchester counties, as well as work with community and government agencies to address emerging healthcare needs. Corvino thanked restaurateur Thomas Henkelmann for hosting the media event at Restaurant Thomas Henkelmann in Greenwich in honor of Boulud, a leading international culinary figure. In the tradition of distinguished chefs honored before him, Boulud will

From left: Daniel Boulud, Amanda Tapiero, Kim Blank, Melissa Levien, Frank Corvino, Thomas Henkelmann.

be recognized at Great Chefs, which each year features dozens of restaurants, catering companies and wineries from Fairfield and Westchester counties. Guests enjoy gourmet food, wine tastings, a silent auction and dancing. On Thursday, participating chefs gathered to set the menu for Great Chefs. “It's a privilege to have Daniel as our honored chef this year,“ said Corvino. Boulud is a French chef whose award-winning restaurants include DANIEL, Café Boulud, Bar Pleiades, DB Bistro Moderne, Bar Boulud and DBGB Kitchen & Bar in New York and other establishments in Miami, Palm Beach, Vancouver, London, Beijing and Singapore. His six cookbooks and television series “After Hours with Daniel Boulud“ reflect his distinctive style.

You’re invited to celebrate one of VENÜ Magazine’s favorite “pet” projects… at a festive, tail waggin’ Sip and Shop at J.McLaughlin in Westport Thursday, April 7 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM Indulge your passion for fashion and fun while helping to support our four-footed friends. As we open the doors for a classic New England style barn raising and shopping spree, complete with wine, cheese and other delectable “treats” in support of PAWS. For further information, please call: (203) 557-9275

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15% of all the proceeds from this fundraising event will be donated to PAWS, (Pet Animal Welfare Society) a registered non-profit organization run by a network of volunteers and staff who are dedicated to providing shelter, medical care and affection while finding loving forever homes for homeless and abused dogs and cats. All contributions are tax deductible. For more information on PAWS, visit pawsct.org

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appetite

Top Chef

Jodi Bernhard brings creativity and excitement to Barcelona in Norwalk. Executive chef Jodi Bernhard gets the chills when tomatoes are served only with olive oil and sea salt. Although she often enjoys creating complex and elaborate dishes, Bernhard, the new executive chef at Barcelona Wine Bar and Restaurant in South Norwalk, is a master at elevating great ingredients to a pedestal with simplicity. “When you use regional, local food, it is best to bow down to the inherent taste of the ingredient.” She plans to grace the menu of the popular tapas restaurant with small plates that showcase phenomenal flavors. Bernhard had always regarded cooking as a hobby, but never in her wildest dreams did she envision herself as an executive chef. After graduating college she obtained not a job rooted in food, but a financial job

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on Wall Street. “It was the thing to do at the time,” she explains. But after her company reorganized, Bernhard decided to enroll in the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. “I was sitting in my apartment, dreading the thought of sending out resumes, and Food Network was on my TV in the background. It was an immediate thought.” Before long, she had mastered the fundamental techniques of classical French and Italian cuisine. Bernhard’s first job out of culinary school was a prestigious one: working with Ken Oringer of the restaurant Clio in Boston. An establishment with a lengthy laundry list of recognitions, including several Best Restaurant in Boston awards, Clio jumpstarted a passion for creating imaginative, ingredient-centered food.

Although Bernhard went from making more than $100,000 per year to $8 per hour, she never questioned her career change. And after seven months of grueling work, she was promoted to the sauté station—one of the most difficult, albeit lucrative, sections of a kitchen. It was the Virginia-based Inn at Little Washington, however, that so poignantly shaped her philosophy on cooking. Having received a total of five James Beard Awards and being listed as the #1 Hotel Dining Destination in America by the 2008 Zagat Hotel and Resort Survey, the restaurant allowed Bernhard to hone her skills in eclectic, French-American cuisine. With such dishes as Pepper Crusted Tuna Pretending to be a Filet Mignon and Beet Fantasia: 3 Varieties of Roasted Beets, Beet Mousse and Citrus Salsa, it is clear that the Inn applies a sense of whimsy while maintaining a refined menu. “I definitely picked up on that element of playfulness. I like to put twists on classic dishes and have themes for food,” says Bernhard. She plans on bringing this innovative energy to Barcelona. “Barcelona is one of the only restaurants I have encountered that allows its chefs to pair exceptionally simple menu dishes with more complex ones,” she says. Because the menu changes daily, there is freedom to experiment. For example, on a recent Thursday night, patrons of the restaurant were thrilled to find new tapas

by Jenna Blumenfeld

“When you use regional, local food, it is best to bow down to the inherent taste of the ingredient.” like lobster poached in a citrus-infused cream and finished with toasted hazelnuts. Thickly sliced potatoes were confited in duck fat and fried with jalapenos, and locally grown Brussels sprouts were sautéed with lemon, pimento and sea salt. When faced with the challenge of

devising so many unique dishes, Bernhard often seeks inspiration from photographs, explaining, “Chefs can get severe writer’s block. Sometimes I flip through cooking magazines and look at the pictures, gaining ideas from the colors or the way something is plated. But a good percentage of my

recipes are completely ingredient inspired; I showcase what looks best that day.” Which brings us back to the tomatoes. Perfectly seasoned, fantastically ripe, justpicked tomatoes. Without a doubt, diners at Barcelona South Norwalk can certainly expect to get the chills as well.

Barcelona Sono, barcelonawinebar.com, is located at 63-65 North Main Street, South Norwalk, CT. Call 203.899.0088 or email at barcelonawinebar@aol.com

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furniture

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Fantasy Furniture Since man first started to create we, have always strived to recreate what we see, always incorporating, enhancing and rehashing previous designs to suit the modern ideal.

Written by Matthew Sturtevant Photographed by Reid Baker

furniture

n the end, it is nature that rules—either by providing the medium or the subject. Fantasy furniture, also known as “Grotto” design, is just that. In the mid19th century, as the Industrial Revolution hit its stride with assembly lines of mass-produced furnishings (sometimes resulting in poor design), inferior glues and paints and furnishings for the new consumer’s counter movements sprung to life. Designers saw the encroachment of industrialization on nature and fought back with individually handcrafted items grounded in and based solely on nature. Such movements as Art Nouveau in France, Arts and Crafts in America, Liberty in England, and Fantasy and Grotto occurred in Germany and Italy. Some of these movements went as far as manifestos stating their aims and goals; as well organized as they were, none could compete with big business and ultimately changing taste. Much of the designs were very difficult to manufacture and required highly skilled cabinet makers or unusual materials— some very toxic—such as the chlorine baths used by Stickley Brothers to create a color in oak that could be made no other way. To this day, if a piece by Stickley has been cleaned or refinished it becomes, to the collector, valueless. The items illustrated in this article are examples of Italian Grotto furniture. In the case of the writing desk the artisan went as far as incorporating a box in the form of a book inscribed “Dante’s Inferno.” The chair is modeled after asymmetrical tree branches encrusted in flowering vines and so intricately carved that there are veins in the leaves and sections of worn bark. The whimsical nature of these pieces leaves no doubt that there is no other out there like them. The ultimate test of the success of these designers is the fact that these items are sought after by collectors, where as the companies that superseded them through mass production are very rarely on the collector’s list.

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The whimsical nature of these pieces leaves no doubt that there is no other out there like them.

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motoring

McLaren Who? What? The name McLaren isn’t exactly a household word in the U.S. unless, of course, you have a MacLaren stroller for your infants. Don’t get me wrong, the stroller is pretty stylish, but the new McLaren automobile featured here is the ultimate cool ride for adults. Writer: Lorenz Josef

f you are a Formula 1 racing nut, however, you already know that the MP4-12C model about to be launched will be the newest and most exciting sports luxury car on the planet. So who are these McLaren guys and where did they come from? McLaren has been challenging its competition on the track for almost 45 years, since founder and New Zealand native Bruce McLaren started his own Formula 1 team. Over the years, it has been extremely successful, winning 169 races and picking up eight world championships in the process. However, McLaren is no longer content to just beat its racing rivals Ferrari and Mercedes on the track. Now it is pulling out all the stops to challenge these iconic cars on the road as well. The new car is not positioned in the extreme range of performance automobiles: supercars. However, McLaren’s new MP4-12C definitely wants to be the king of the hill in the junior supercar ranks—and that means Ferrari’s new 458 Italia and Mercedes’ recently released SLS are clearly in its cross hairs. American exotic-car aficionados and automobile collectors were treated to a glimpse of the new McLaren when it debuted at Pebble Beach last August. Subsequently, McLaren aggressively rolled out the car to potential buyers via

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private showings in New York, Beverly Hills, Toronto and Chicago, as well as a press-only showing in Detroit. McLaren and its exclusive Northeast Dealer, Miller Motorcars of Greenwich, recently hosted several hundred prospects at a sneak preview in New York, and we were there. Upon our arrival, we were directed to study a complete rolling chassis of the new car. Built around a central carbon fiber tub, the chassis is very well constructed and appears to be extremely rigid, weighing in at less than 80 kg! We learned that this platform is capable of supporting not only the upcoming Coupe, but an open-top model as well, without any further reinforcement (sounds like a convertible is already on the drawing board). The modular front and rear sub-frames are made of beautiful aluminum castings and extrusions and upon closer inspection we noted that even the welds are phenomenal. One guest told us that he wanted to buy a chassis for his man cave. Unfortunately for him, only dealers will have access to a chassis for their showrooms. After some introductory remarks by McLaren’s designer, Frank Stephenson, the cover was taken off the actual car and we had our first look of the new car and it looked great! The body is

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motoring

“The entire undercarriage is flat, ala a Formula 1 car, terminating with a very deep air diffuser under the rear bumper.”

low, sleek, and wide and yet compact; it looked very exotic without being obnoxious. Stephenson called his doors “dihedral,” but to us they opened up in a unique but simple way… like butterfly wings! Very cool, but more important, extremely functional, allowing for unparalleled ease of entry or egress. According to its press releases, McLaren states that every aspect and angle of the body has been subjected to analysis in the wind tunnel to ensure a minimum of drag and to improve down force. The entire undercarriage is flat, ala a Formula 1 car, terminating with a very deep air diffuser under the rear bumper. As the air rushes uninterrupted along the flat bottom of the MP4-12C it expands when it goes through the diffuser, thereby creating a low-pressure 34

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zone that actually pulls the car towards the ground. There is also a formidablelooking spoiler built into the rear deck that serves to increase down force at high speed, but incredibly it also acts as an air brake when the situation calls for extreme braking conditions. Statistically, the car looks very formidable with the McLaren weighing in at 2,886 pounds, thanks to the carbon fiber tub and extensive use of aluminum in the chassis. Interestingly, during the initial design phase McLaren engineers were told to make each component as light as possible. After the designs were completed, they were challenged to find a way to reduce each component’s weight by an additional five percent. This obsession with weight resulted in some ingenious solutions and reduced

the final figure of the complete car by more than 150 pounds, the weight of an average adult. The performance figures for the McLaren have yet to be announced, but we estimate that they will be staggering. Given the power-to-weight ratio, we would not be surprised if the 0 to 60 mph sprint comes in between 3 and 3-1/2 seconds. In addition, while all the automotive journalists to date have speculated it will have a top speed of around 300 kilometers per hour or 186 mph, from what we have seen, we think the top speed will be closer to 210 mph! To achieve its incredible performance, McLaren developed its own small, lightweight, high-efficiency 3.8-liter twin turbo V-8 power plant

with 592 horsepower. Although it can rev up to 8,500 rpm, it already has 80 percent of its power on tap at 2,000 rpm. More important, all this performance comes with an industry-leading power-to-emissions ratio. So, while it cannot claim to be a green car, McLaren is going in the right direction. The MP4-12C’s transmission is unique and is a direct development from McLaren’s Formula 1 engineering team. It is a seven-speed dual clutch Seamless Shift Gearbox (SSG) which, coupled with its amazing engine, allows McLaren to boast its performance claim of “relentless, uninterrupted acceleration.” Gear changes are handled with a pair of unique steering-wheelmounted rocker switches. Drivers can shift by either pushing or pulling the

rocker switch for maximum control. McLaren’s “Pre-Cog” feature senses the driver’s finger pressure on the rocker switch and pre-selects the next gear, which is then engaged when the driver confirms his choice by actually moving the switch. The engine and transmission are mounted mid-ship and very low in the chassis to produce incredible handling that comes without the usual harsh ride of other extreme sports cars. In fact, the driver can instantly select from his dashboard one of three specific ride quality/handling settings to suit his needs. We were told that the authorized dealers will have a car available to show and test drive in the late spring. However, the actual arrival of this new

automobile in the showroom is scheduled for the fall. Initial worldwide production for 2011 will be around 1,000 cars with about one third arriving in the U.S. Not wanting to rest on its laurels, McLaren is also plunging into GT racing with this new model and recently announced that it will prepare a limited number of MP4-12C cars for the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 2012. No matter what happens, this will not be the last performance-car battle. Ultimately, McLaren intends to challenge the other high-performance manufacturers by going both up and down the price and performance ladder, eventually knocking on the door of Porsche, as well as Bugatti’s Veyron. Exciting times! ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

music

Fame Comes to the Block We moved to the block in 1985, only a couple of years after I had been hired as the first editor of GUITAR for the Practicing Musician, a publication that would go on to become one of the most popular music magazines of the decade. My neighbor, John Mayer, was then about eight or nine years old. To me he was just another of the regular horde of neighborhood boys who used the tree in our front yard as second base for their stickball games in the summer and the south end zone marker for their football games in the winter. There were at least six of them in the horde, as I recall, including the three Mayer brothers. My two daughters, aged 2 and 7, were definitely charter members of the sidewalk cheering squad that urged those boys on to even more unseemly acts of male bravado on my front lawn. When the older one got old enough, she invited John to a basement boy-girl party, where John got claustrophobic and wound up crawling out of the basement through the window.

Writer: Bruce Pollock It was several years later that I started hearing the sound of an electric guitar wafting out of the window of the house across the street and two houses down. This was just about the time my wife had decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of learning to play guitar and I had used my influence to get her a discount on a nifty Yamaha FS310 acoustic. But the speed and fluency displayed by our neighbor (we soon learned it was John) as he deftly mastered the pentatonic scale in less than a week-and-a-half proved too much for her as she earnestly plucked her way through Mary Had a Little Lamb for the 90th time. She was his eighth-grade art teacher, for crying out loud. So she sadly went back to painting portraits. It seemed like days later when my older daughter came home to say that John Mayer wanted to know if he could call me to ask for advice about music. Of course, I told her to tell him, heavy-metal

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Photo: courtesy of Indyconcerts.com

maven that I was. The difference, I found, between people who were really serious about getting ahead in the arts, and the mere dreamers, was their ability to identify the people who could give them good information and then go after them, in the process demystifying an otherwise daunting journey. I gave my daughter a GUITAR magazine t-shirt for John, but he never did call. Nevertheless, when John left the block to attend The Berklee School of Music in Boston, we were impressed but not surprised. We were definitely more surprised in the spring of 2001, when word came circulating back to the block that a John Mayer was opening for the Dave Matthews Band on his current tour and was soon to have an album out on Columbia Records! This was a leap beyond our ability to grasp. In this fame-drenched world of ours, where the media leads you to believe that every third person is or has a great

Photo: Steven Magedoff

shot to be famous—if not for 15 minutes then at least five—few people realize that just about anyone they’ve heard of is already in the top 1 percent of all those who struggle daily with making it in the arts. I know. I was one of the perpetrators. In the world of the magazine, where editors routinely bestow fame in the form of giddy headlines and outsized predictions, everybody is a star; that’s where you start. If you’re in a magazine, on TV, on the radio, or even a rumor on the Internet, fame is a given. But to go from the Berklee School of Music to an opening slot on a Dave Matthews tour would be a defining moment of achievement usually reserved for only the most amazingly brazen of fingerpickers. And John was surely not that brazen. It had to be a different John Mayer. But then my younger daughter confirmed through her research online that John had put out an independent CD. Good for him—a

Photo: jason holmberg

great first step. I had to tip my cap to my old neighbor, my beat up GUITAR magazine cap, and run out to my local record store to purchase the CD. Not only didn’t they carry it; I was informed a couple of weeks later by the clerk that they couldn’t even get it. But this is a local kid, I ranted. Where else is he going to sell any records? They were a national chain, the ignorant clerk shrugged. If only he’d come to me, I thought, not for advice, but for a blurb . While I was no longer with GUITAR by then, my career as a blurb writer, though it consisted only of two blurbs, was exemplary. Back in 1973, a quote lifted from my review in The New York Times was used to headline an advertisement for another East Coast legend in the making, Bruce Springsteen. Twenty years later, a similarly zingy paragraph of mine helped to launch John Jackson’s book, Big Beat Heat, into an eventual Ralph J. Gleason Award as Rolling Stone

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music

Magazine’s Book of the Year. Oh well, it was a lesson he’d have to learn, and better early than late. In fact, though there was much I could tell John about the heartbreak of not being able to find your latest work in even the local stores, I was sure he’d rather hear it from a peer. In my then soon-tobe-published book, Working Musicians, Brenda Kahn, who had an album out on Columbia in 1992, spoke eloquently on the subject. “It’s really important to keep fame in perspective,” she said over sandwiches at the Hotel Edison Café. “Fame is like a drug; you can never be famous enough. If you want to get famous, that’s a whole industry networking game. But if you want to be a musician, you get to play music. That’s what you get. You get that experience with the audience. That’s the deal. It took me years and years and years to figure that out.” Of course, in about another minute-and-a-half, the need for such philosophical advice would become moot. That’s when John Mayer appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, looking a little stiff in front of his band, but yes, it was the same John Mayer of the Fairfield, Conn., Mayer brothers, of stickball in the summer and football in the winter, and general mayhem all year round. After that you couldn’t go a day without something else turning up. First it would be a tune buried in the soundtrack of a hip teen show like Felicity or Dawson’s Creek. Then it would be a cut played on WFUV. My daughter started getting Instant Messages from friends all around the country who were listening to John Mayer. Then I ran into a friend of mine in the print music business who said they were bidding on a piece of his publishing. He had an advance copy of the new CD, soon to come out on a subsidiary of Columbia Records! When Mayer’s video started showing up on VH-1 and in the buzz bin at MTV, and Rolling Stone put him in its Hot issue, and Teen People named him ‘Someone to Watch,’ my daughter was heard to proclaim that we had a star on the block. I looked out the window at the Mayer house, visible through the still bare trees. As yet there were no limos outside, no groupies encamped. Was it only a matter of time? A few months later his show at the esteemed Irving Plaza sold out quickly, but my daughter had already purchased her tickets weeks before. Due to some fluke of poor planning, typical of the teenage condition, she wound up having to take her mother as her date. When she was informed that Irving Plaza was a standing-roomonly venue, my wife phoned Mrs. Mayer to see if she had any pull. “Just a pass a note to John,” she advised her. “He’ll come out and bring you backstage.” Veteran of many such stage-door imbroglios, I bemoaned their naiveté as the two set off to the show. “He won’t even get the note,” I scoffed. And yet, not only did they wind up in the V.I.P. Lounge (where there were real couches and a reporter from the Associated Press, as well as a couple of other neighbors), but they sat with the Mayer family: the elderly father, a former principal; the stunned, look-alike younger brother Carl, who probably never forgave me for not giving him a Guitar t-shirt. Near tears the whole show, the father was especially nonplussed that the audience knew the lyrics to John’s songs. Otherwise, he was way out in the ether, along with the rest of the family, John included, who stopped by to say hello after the set, his eyes distant, fixed on the immediate itinerary: Philly, Cincinnati,

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Photo: Steven Magedoff

Atlanta, a basketball team on the road to the Final Four. On the Rosie show, not long after that, Elton John brought Mayer’s name up, out of nowhere, claiming he had “the voice of an angel.” A little while later, Mayer opened for Elvis Costello at the Beacon. Room For Squares went gold. Even my local store had a few copies. Not long after that John caused a near riot when he attempted to visit his old high school. As famous as he’s since become, John has always maintained his outsider’s honesty—something that’s gotten him into trouble in the press more than once. One Halloween not long ago, a neighbor found him handing out treats when he brought his daughter to the door. A guitarist himself, he and John talked shop for a half hour while the daughter vainly urged her father to keep moving. Another time, maybe a year later, John was just standing and chatting with friends on our next-door neighbor’s lawn. Years ago, before the fame, he and the neighbor used to jam in the neighbor’s living room. A few months ago I got to interview John for the first time, when he was one of the centerpieces at a big music business event, talking about his seemingly magical, seemingly effortless career. He went out of his way to ask about the family. “And I always wanted to tell you how much I appreciated that Guitar t-shirt,” he said. About fame there is no longer a question. The question has been answered. And yet, though John’s family no longer lives on the block, I’m not certain the block has ever recovered. I heard my two neighbors have been talking about forming a band. I just hope they don’t divorce their wives and move to Atlanta.

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Band Profile:

After the release of Where You Come From in 2008, numerous shows throughout the northeast for the following year and a half, and the release of the acoustic EP Everything Is Something Else in 2009, Seth and company took some time off from performing to work on a new record: a body of work now dubbed Amplify. Amplify was scheduled to be released in the fall of 2009, but after personnel changes, studio switches, and a vocal ailment that prevented Seth from singing for months, the album was delayed.

A critical element in Seth Adam’s music is the passion and impact of the group’s live performances. Seth has assembled a crack line-up of seasoned musicians that bring color from a wide spectrum of musical genres.

“It was a scary time,” explains Adam. “At the end of spring 2009, I was singing better than ever. All of a sudden, I think everything that was going on in my life (college, performing, living situation) simply caught up to me. As much as I tried to correct my vocal troubles, nothing worked, which sent me spiraling into a worse situation. I was starting to think I wouldn’t be able to sing again.”

Seth Adam

ALBUM RELEASE:

Seth & company have finished the sophomore studio album, Amplify. To support the new album, Seth will be performing acoustic and full band shows throughout the northeast. CONTACT INFO: JOEL COBDEN / SOUNDWAVE JOEL@TEAMSOUNDWAVE.COM P. 203.789.1608, F. 203.789.2262 SETHADAM.COM INFO@SETHADAM.COM REVERBNATION.COM/SETHADAM

After seeking the guidance of his vocal instructor, Seth eventually rehabilitated his voice by the following year. “Without being too dramatic (insert laugh), once I re-focused, gave myself space to heal, and put the work in, things got better. I think that losing my voice made me appreciate it much more. I don’t beat it up as much as I used to.” After rehabilitating his voice during the first six months of 2010, Seth and company re-entered the studio to complete tracking the new record, Amplify. The aim from the start was to make a record as true to the live experience as possible. Seth explains, “Our influences are more ‘vintage’ if you will... The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, etc. We’re also quite the fans of Son Volt, Wilco, and Counting Crows. We wanted to make a record like our influences did - that sounded like a band playing together in a room.” “Topically, these are the most revealing songs I’ve written thus far. They are all rooted in personal experience, but are open to interpretation.” A critical element in Seth Adam’s music is the passion and impact of the group’s live performances. Seth has assembled a crack line-up of seasoned musicians that bring color from a wide spectrum of musical genres. These band members, fluent in the language of rock & roll, alt-country, and classic pop, propel the live show and give a modern and forceful lift to Adam’s vintage musical vision. The assemblage (Seth Adam - vocals, acoustic and electric guitar; Gerry Giaimo - lead guitar, acoustic guitar and vocals; Anthony Bianco - drums; and Gerard Bianco - Bass) is a melting pot of talent, a singular unit with a common stride, creating timeless pop-rock music in the Americana tradition. Through performances throughout the northeast, Seth Adam and the band have put together a show of amazing energy. They have opened for artists such as Will Hoge, Alexa Ray Joel, Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers and Chris Barron (former Spin Doctors). These live offerings continue to convert the most unattached, jaded listener into rock & roll believers with liberal doses of brawny electric guitar and sensitive acoustic forays, flooded with emotion. It is no wonder that Seth Adam’s performance caused Roger Friedman of Showbiz411.com to proclaim, “Adam’s appearance last night in New York was a rock revelation.” Since the inception of the project, Seth and company have released several recordings, including the Seth Adam EP in 2006, Live In New Haven 11.8.06 in 2007, the full-length Where You Come From in 2008, and the acoustic EP Everything Is Something Else in 2009. In 2007, Seth’s song “Get Out” was licensed to Volkswagen for their 2007 Sights and Sounds campaign. Now, with the release of Amplify, Seth and company will continue to deliver on the promise of vintage-laced, Americana influenced rock & roll. “I’m not concerned about trends. I’m concerned about making the best possible art that I can,” explains Adam. “I think this record is a great representation of that. I’m proud.” ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

business Words by Cindy Clarke

J. McLaughlin

Adding a touch of color to the town of Westport

The first thing that catches your eye as you pass the classic New England-style barn on Westport’s busy Post Road is the color, a muted turquoise subtly washed with a distinctive chocolate grain. Ahhh, you think to yourself, that is an innovative twist for such an iconic building. After all, barns are traditionally dressed in deep reds or weathered in dark brown shingles. You turn your car around and pull into a spacious lot that speaks more of a country farm driveway than the quick-grab-that-space parking you are used to for a typical retail store. That was too easy, you think to yourself, as yet another preconceived probability goes out the window. What is this place? Coming closer, you see a rustic wooden hay wagon, spoked wheels adding überpastoral charm to the setting. Then you look up and see a sign, handcrafted in vintage metal, individually cut letters to spell out the name, J.McLaughlin… and you get it. Welcome back, old friends This is the new home of the preppy-meetsthe-present clothiers who were a familiar presence on Main Street for some 25 years before they vacated the premises in 2008. Founding owners Jay and Kevin McLaughlin are thrilled to be back in a town that is close to their hearts. Jay, chief merchandiser of the retail chain and avid architectural devotee, is a proud 1970 alum of neighboring Fairfield University. In fact, it’s places like

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“We think classic, then take it out of the box, giving our customers the panache they are looking for, while staying true to traditional ‘preppy’ styling.” Westport—steeped in town-and-country sophistication and laidback glamour—that have become synonymous with the lifestyle brand of this upscale retailer. To date, the McLaughlin brothers, with longtime partner Steven Siegler, President and CEO of the company, have opened 45 stores nationwide including ones in New Canaan, Washington Depot and Greenwich, Connecticut. Each is uniquely designed to seamlessly blend in the communities in which they operate, combining a nod to the architectural integrity and history of the town with their classically inspired clothing line and accessories. That the New Canaan boutique is dressed in colonial raised-paneled woodwork with hand-painted lime and turquoise brick wallpaper is no surprise, given the local character of a town listed in the Official Preppy Handbook as “one of the preppiest places in America.” Or that the intimate Washington Depot shop, tucked into a hidden courtyard in a vacation hamlet renowned for attracting New York celebrities, writers and artists of worldwide

renown, is a study in garden follies for the ultimate shopping escape, and that the Greenwich store, dressed from soaring ceiling to carpet tile in fabulous design riches dramatically suited for a grand ballroom, is a favorite venue for generations of the well-heeled country club set. The unexpected design nuances found in all their stores, unfailingly cheerful, are evident in the products they sell and the happy places they sell from. They are signature hallmarks of the company, and are an integral part of the marketing vision that has put J.McLaughlin on the runway for success ever since it opened its first store on Third Avenue and 74th Street in Manhattan in 1977. As the McLaughlins so refreshingly tell it, they opened their first store on the coat tails of the then hit film, Annie Hall, starring a classically attired Diane Keaton, whose clothes mirrored the merchandise they carried. They haven’t looked back since. “Our parents instilled a love of the old and new in us as we were growing up. They collected antiques and had a great

appreciation for the more classic things, including clothing,” says Jay, who went into the real estate and building business after college and graduate school, renovating and flipping brownstones in Brooklyn’s Park Slope. Kevin, the creative powerhouse behind the brand, found his calling in retail after graduating from NYU’s business school, learning the tricks of the trade from a traditional men’s clothier…and from his mother. “We always liked clothing and we were into a certain level of style. Where that came from I am not sure, but I would give my mom a fair amount of the credit for it,” he says. Mom, it turns out, was not only the inspiration behind those brilliantly colored socks that have warmed the feet of generations of J.McLaughlin patrons (she knit socks for the boys as they were growing up), but she also used to embroider designs on special clothing items, hence the signature embroidered motifs, from martinis to shamrocks to the au courant skull-and-crossbones that grace many of the company’s bestselling pants and shorts for men and women. “Our clothes have personality,” says Jay, who together with Kevin and Steve, rely on their instincts as much as their knowhow for design innovations. “We think classic, then take it out of the box, giving our customers the panache they are looking

for, while staying true to traditional ‘preppy’ styling.” This is a trio of merchants that doesn’t follow trends. They finesse, they update and they interpret. That they love their product is evident. That they’re good at what they do is without question. And that they are rewarded by their efforts is, by all counts, reflected in the relationships they have with their customers, many on a first-name basis. They are quick to point out that their clothes don’t just deal with the good life, but rather with real life. Longtime customers like the way the brand allows them to express themselves, and today it is common to find three generations shopping together in the store. The styles evolve with the wearer, giving him or her a sophisticated look with a touch of sass. Silk-screened patterns on scarves, blouses and dresses—think bold geometric shapes, equestrian themes, nautical images—meticulously applied by hand— have became a mainstay for the McLaughlin set and show off the creative range and

vast color palette of its manufacturing capabilities. Admittedly labor intensive and not the norm in the highly competitive mass-marketing world, these products reflect a steadfast commitment to the “classic” business model. “We put our label on everything, including our stores,” says Jay, who added that the decision to make their line proprietary was incremental to the rapidfire success of the business. “We are lucky to partner with an architect who shares our passion for classical design. Doug Larson of New York-based Larson and Paul Architects has designed all of our storefronts for our 45 stores. His work in Westport reflects three decades of marketing our brand and is truly the embodiment of what J.McLaughlin is all about… a connection to the community, a great love for timeless classics, and a fashion resource that speaks to our customers’ lifestyles.” Says Doug Larson, equally delighted to be a part of the McLaughlin team, “Working with them on their stores is like designing a theatre set, where beach houses, summer

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business

cottages, and weekend retreats take starring roles and the conversation is enlivened with tongue-in-check repartee and always cheerful discourse.” Which brings us back inside the new Westport store, where fresh and fun vignettes welcome patrons and their children with an easygoing layout, complete with a fireplace and living room that invite a relaxed shopping experience. Displays are designed by theme so that customers can easily hone in on the look they are after. There’s an equestrian area, resort shop, urban boutique, nautical nook, children’s corner, and men’s closet. Accessories, including ribbon and embroidered belts, Hermes-inspired scarves, and handbags are artfully displayed throughout the store. To underscore the personal interest the owners invest in their stores, antiques from their own collections grace the floors, the walls and even the rafters, now home to a vintage canoe they found during their travels. There’s a story behind all the collectibles you will see here, as there are tales behind the clothing and accessory designs that lure you in. Happily for us, another new chapter begins the moment you pass by the distinctive blue barn that sits quietly, with attitude, at 1026 Post Road in Westport.

Sip & Shop… and designate 15 percent of the proceeds to your favorite charity Can’t imagine a venue and a shopping experience that comes close to what J.McLaughlin is offering area residents interested in hosting a fabulously fashionable fundraising event. Groups can now reserve the newly renovated 5,500 sq. ft. showroom for an exclusive reception and shopping spree, complete with wine and cheese, tea and scones, or some other delightfully decadent repast that encourages guests to indulge their passion for fashion and fancy that is dedicated to their favorite charity. Owners Jay and Kevin McLaughlin will donate 15 percent of all shopping proceeds to the sponsored charitable organization, as well as providing the store and the appetizing treats at no additional charge. It’s all part of their commitment to supporting the communities where their favorite customers work and live! For more information, contact Samantha Holmes at (203) 557-9275 or email stctwestport@jmcglaughlin.com

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sport

Pedal to the Medal

My grandmother threatened to withhold my Christmas present this year. She was fed up with all the riding of bikes and running and god-knows-what-else-you-do. Why would you ever do such things? In her perception, it was all downhill when I started riding my bike past the end of the driveway. Like on the road, near traffic. Then I was competing in triathlons and marathons, and let’s not mention the time I quit my job teaching in a Catholic school—a Catholic school, Christian—to run across the United States. Then she heard, from my father, of an incident in which I tried to ride my bike all day and ended up passing out and nearly dead.

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Words: Christian McEvoy Photography: Dan Edelstein

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Now I had missed Thanksgiving, and she understood the reason to be that I had carted off to Hawaii to do something no human—at least no American—should ever do. Hawaii, my genteel grandmother explained, is for pina coladas and sunning oneself. Not bike riding. And still no grandchildren. The race in Hawaii was actually called Ultraman, Grandma. Ultraman. It’s even better than Ironman. And yes it was a triathlon around the big Island of Hawaii. It’s a three-day race that circumnavigates Hawaii: 6.2 miles of swimming, 271 miles of biking over mountains and volcanos, and a 52.4-mile double marathon run through the radiating lava fields to finish. Why would you do such a thing? My grandma isn’t the only one asking tough questions. I’ve developed a classic addiction to endurance challenges. I am continually searching for more daunting challenges. Indeed, my grandma’s catalogue was accurate. In 2006, I did run across the United States. And just this past summer, I tried to ride my bike 400 miles in 24 hours, and I passed out around mile 245. I’ve also completed the well-known Ironman triathlon and gone on more triple-digit mile bike rides than I can count. I’ve done things like run the marathon distance on a Saturday—just for fun. So when my grandmother asks why, which she has been doing for years, she is certainly not alone. I could tell you that it is about the challenge, but that would be as much bullshit as it sounds. I could tell you it is about fitness, but the reality is that I probably do my body more harm than good when running double marathons. The truth is I want to be like the real Pheidippides, who bears no resemblance to the Pheidippides you think you know. This is the lie you’ve been told: Pheidippides, an Athenian soldier during the Greco-Persian War, ran from Marathon to Athens to exclaim the Athenian victory over the Persian Army. As the lie is told, Pheidippides arrived in Athens after his roughly 25-mile run from Marathon, exclaimed, “Rejoice; we conquered,” and then fell dead from exhaustion. This story is almost always perpetuated by non-runners in an elaborate warning of the dangers associated with endurance activity, and it supposedly serves as the explanation of distance of the modern marathon. Even my grandmother—check that—especially my grandmother tells this story and starts with: You know… the Greek guy who ran the first marathon died after he ran it. That should tell you something. However, this story is simply not true. And as often is the case with myths, the truth about Pheidippides is slightly more compli48

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cated, yet far more interesting. The truth is this: Pheidippides ran six times farther, and he lived. The real story goes like this. Athens is a new city-state, and the leaders hear that the Persian King, Darius, is attacking Ionia, another city-state. Athens sails its fleet to witness the conflict, not intending to get involved. By the time the small Athenian fleet arrives, the battle is over. Ionia has been crushed. Darius of Persia catches a glimpse of the Athenian fleet and reassigns a servant to complete a simple task each evening before dinner. The task? Repeat four words to him until it “no longer matters.“ The words? “Master, remember the Athenians.” Darius was notoriously violent and vengeful, in case you were still wondering. A couple of years later, Darius, presumably having heard those four words some 2,500 times, set sail with 15,000 men to wage war against Athens at Marathon. His goal was to crush Athens and to leave the city burning. The Athenian army numbered only 10,000, yet it marched to Marathon and prepared to fight. On the eve of the battle, an Athenian general sent a young Pheidippides to run to Sparta, some 150 miles away over rough terrain, to ask for help. He arrived in Sparta 36 hours later, hallucinating and barely standing, but alive nonetheless. The real story of Pheidippides is that of man running not to exclaim victory and not even to save his own life, but rather to save the lives of his family, his friends, and his country men. In that, Pheidippides made running sexy.

On the same night that Pheidippides left Athens, the Athenian army witnessed one of the greatest tactical mistakes in the history of war. Darius, in an attempt to be cunning, split his 15,000 men into two equal groups. The plan was this: The first group would slyly sail around the coast and attack the unguarded women and children of Athens while the Athenian men were occupied fighting the Persian army 25 miles away at Marathon. The plan hinged on the split being undetectable by the Athenians, but the Athenians saw it, and to their credit, they did not panic. Instead of running straight home to defend the gate of Athens, the Athenian soldiers stayed, bested the 7,500 Persians at Marathon, and then ran, without rest, back to Athens in time to meet the second half of the Persian Army at the city gates. The Persians were so startled by the Athenian men, staggering and tousled as they must have been, that they simply sailed home to Persia—defeated and embarrassed. So the modern marathon, 26.2 miles in distance, more closely resembles the path of 10,000 war-battered men racing, in full armor, across 25 miles of battleground to save the lives of their wives and children. Now that inspires me. But when I sit and think about it, the image that sticks a grapefruit in my throat has very little to do with running at all. In fact, it is the almost exactly static image of 10,000 men, upon completion of that run, standing and willing to raise a sword again. I’m reminded that the story of Pheidippides and the Athenians isn’t really about running at all. Pheidippides didn’t die. He ran to save his country, and lived to tell the story. And the Athenian army stood up to a bully with smart tactics and guts. That’s why we run the marathon, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. So back to my grandmother and why I do the crazy things I do. She’s grasped my Christmas envelope, holding my Christmas money, and she’s waving it back and forth as her Christmas-day jewelry clamors. My whole family is laughing, and I can tell this time she’s not going to back down. She wants an answer from her oldest grandchild. Why would you do such things? I step towards her and smile gently as I rest my hand on her arm. This calms her, and in that moment I can see her questioning herself. Is she joking and doing this all for effect, or is she truly upset, only to be calmed by a rational and well-constructed explanation? And it is in that very brief moment of elderly and wise reflection that I explain it all. I change my smile to a grin. I grab the envelope. And run. ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

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Man in the Mirror Interview by Krystian von Speidel

Special thanks to Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Artists Rights Society (ARS) and The Man Ray Trust for permissions to reproduce “Space Writing.”

Man Ray serves a legendary role in the 20th-century avant-garde. One of his most revealing artworks has been upended by a recent discovery: a Man Ray Space Writing finding, found by lens-based artist Ellen Carey. Created during an experimental photo session, only two prints of Man Ray’s Space Writing still exist. Bowdoin College Museum of Art has a cropped image, and an uncropped example resides in a private Italian collection. After a search through 12,000 negatives and 5,000 contact prints, the Pompidou Centre in Paris was unable to locate any more. Since discovering Man Ray’s hidden signature in Space Writing (Self-Portrait 1935), photographer Ellen Carey has fostered acknowledgement for her discovery, introducing fresh insight into Man Ray’s brilliance and suggesting linkage to Abstract Expressionism. Carey is an artist whose work appears in the permanent collections of museums ranging from Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins and Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum to the Whitney Museum of American Art. An associate professor of photography at Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford, Carey has made Connecticut’s capital her base of operations since the 1990s. She recently sat down with VENÜ’s Krystian von Speidel at her studio in the historic Underwood Typewriter building to discuss her discovery and how it remained hidden for more than 70 years. KvS: Merry Foresta, Director of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative, mentioned the work Space Writing to you during a studio visit in 2009. Was it your first time seeing the work? EC: I have a collection of Man Ray books and had seen the show, L’ amour fou at the Pompidou in 1985. He was also my influence when I was an undergraduate and graduate student. Being a photographer who has used the penlight intermittently for 30 years and who has studied photography vis-a-vis the self-portrait, I knew this Man Ray piece. I had seen the image many times, but Merry pointed out the affinities between my drawings and this particular image. I have always considered penlights drawing with light. Of course, when I saw the image, light bulbs went off. I remember telling Merry, ‘I bet if I turned this to a mirror we would see his name, Man Ray.’ It was a quantum leap, when you discover something this exciting. I saw the words as clear as day. The letters M and R just jumped out. I could see it right away. 52

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KvS: Explain drawing with a penlight and how Space Writing was created. EC: In the studio, take a penlight and open up the aperture all the way. I’ve subsequently realized that between the wars there was a fashion for penlights. There’s a famous Picasso example. These are called space writings or light drawings. Anybody can do it. I imitated the drawing and recreated Man Ray’s work and discovered the shutter would have been opened for two to three minutes to create Space Writing. KvS: The original is 3x2 inches. Did you see a larger version? EC: I saw the image in Merry Foresta’s Perpetual Motif: The Art of Man Ray for the Smithsonian. The work is included in many books, often blown-up to 8x10. From the Venice Biennale catalog, the image is uncropped. When I saw the original at the Jewish

Original Image

Original Image Reversed

Man Ray. Space Writing (Self-Portrait) 1935. Gelatin silver print on paper (cropped version of original) 3 3/16 in. x 2 5/16 in. (8.1cm. x 5.87 cm.). Collection of Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, Museum Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund.

Signature discovery

Signature discovery reversed

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art Museum in Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention [which cites Carey’s discovery], I was surprised; it’s quite tiny. The lines are diminutive and not thick and wide as in the reproduced images I’d seen before. So there is delicacy and transparency countered with looping bright spots.

deserves more comment. Space Writing’s significance in the world of self-portraiture is substantial, a sophisticated image. Camouflage and hidden meaning in artwork has been under-researched in contemporary art.

KvS: What influence has Space Writing had on other artists?

KvS: Unknown for years, what does your discovery say about the clinical manner in which historians approach art?

EC: I am putting forth that this image is a precursor to Abstract Expressionism, specifically to Jackson Pollock. This has been substantiated by Francis O’Connor, the Pollock scholar. Photographer Herbert Matter was best friends with Pollock. This image appears to have influenced Pollock through Matter. I hope to show that Matter knew Space Writing and made Pollock aware of it. Photography has had affinities to painting since its invention, so I think it revisits the discourse through this image.

EC: It’s a combination of being prescient and curious about artistic intents and methods. One unemphasized facet is how materials have meaning. How materials are used for the artistic imagination separates great artists from good artists. It might behoove historians to include those creating photography in their research. We need a better dialogue between people who create and those who study and certainly vice-versa. A mutual openness will lead to more discoveries and collegiality among artists and academics.

KvS: The title suggests that Man Ray was in fact writing something. How would you respond that your discovery points out the potentially obvious?

KvS: Will any mysteries be revealed posthumously in your own work?

EC: If it was obvious, why didn’t anyone discover it before? It’s been hidden for more than 70 years. I think people are excited and confounded and perplexed, and there may be a tinge of professional jealousy. This is a beloved member of the avant-garde, so it is amazing that it remained hidden. Surrealists loved to play games, and this is the gamesmanship of the dream and the unconscious. Curator after curator has been astounded by this discovery, indicating the divide between art-maker and art-historian. This fantastic self-portraiture introduces text, one of the first to incorporate the two. The history of photography is loaded with self-portraits, revealing the artist. It’s a tremendously rich image.

EC: I’ve been thinking about it. I’d love to do a portrait series of people based on names. It’s wonderful and certainly something that’s percolating. I feel a very strong signal from Man Ray. The hidden signature is so interesting, a picture truly worth a thousand words. In this case, we have boundless new information about an artist for all time.

KvS: In hiding the text in Space Writing, was Man Ray teasing his audience with something known only to him? EC: As he declared, ‘I have no problems, I only have solutions.’ Man Ray delighted in messages and the mystique of his own name. He was a complex genius who had a keen eye for symmetry and asymmetry. KvS: How does your discovery influence understanding of Man Ray? EC: I hope it will encourage scholars to do more research. 2010 was a year of great artistic discoveries, including daVinci’s fingerprint and Henry Adams’ discovery of an alleged Jackson Pollock signature. I’d love a show around Space Writing and its influence on Pollock, modern and contemporary art. The concept of hidden signatures

Ellen Carey in the Polaroid 20 X 24 Studio, NYC, Photo by Doug Levere.

Ellen Carey (b.1952, US), an internationally recognized lens-based photographic artist, teaches at the Hartford Art School and creates artwork that has been the subject of forty-six, one-person exhibitions. Carey earned her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and MFA from SUNY Buffalo. Carey’s concepts and practices are described by her work series, Photography Degree Zero and Struck by Light. These twin subjects investigate minimalism and abstraction alongside photographic process using the vintage photogram method and the large format Polaroid 20 X 24 camera. Her work is in the permanent collections of over twenty museums such as The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Museum at the Chicago Art Institute,Los Angeles County Museum of Art, New Britain Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian, and the Yale University Art Gallery. Her work is also featured in several private collections, including The LeWitt Foundation, the Grover Photography Collection, and the Linda and Walter Wick Collection. Ellen Carey (www.ellencarey.com) is represented by Jayne H. Baum (NY, NY) and Nina Freudenheim Fine Art (Buffalo, NY). Her work is also featured at the Polaroid Studio (www.20x24studio.com) and the Aperture Foundation (www.aperture.org). A book highlight is “The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography” (Aperture Foundation); exhibition and tour (2009-12) by Lyle Rexer. Rexer, an independent curator and critic, states: “Ellen Carey is among this country’s most committed experimental photographers.”

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Ellen Carey, “Polaroid Penlights”, 2007, Polaroid 20 X 24, Color Positive Prints, 34"H x 44"W (diptych), courtesy of the artist and Jayne H. Baum Gallery (New York, NY).

Photography and Lens-Based Art: Introduction by Ellen Carey

Abstraction in photography and lens-based art presents a contradiction in terms, minimalism a further oxymoron. Well developed in the 20th century in other areas — Abstract Expressionism, Minimal and Conceptual Art — it is still emerging at the close of the first decade of the 21st century. It is here, in the early stages of modern and contemporary art that has roots in photography, that my work has a context. It is important to note these practices are largely based in America and fully aware of this legacy, their tenets are incorporated into my art practice. The American invention of Polaroid 20 X 24 camera/film compliments these breakthroughs in visual thinking with my discovery of the Pull in 1996, producing an abstract/minimal image that is simultaneously photographic/process; it fits under my umbrella concept Photography Degree Zero. Another legacy develops and contin-

ues, the photogram, a technique from the dawn of photography (1834) discovered by British inventor William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877); it parallels my artistic practice and concept calling it—Struck by Light. My art works contain aspects that are conceptually linked and informed through visual characteristics, such as the shadow and silhouette image seen in the object as a negative, referencing this rich history. Formal issues of size and scale, in tandem with palette, create visual impact. The content-laden aspects of my work are weighed in — their echo is

embedded and realized in my choices of method and material — acknowledging that these contain symbols and signs, creating and adding to my art’s meaning. Themes such as mourning, love and loss are seen in muted, monochrome tones, often expressed as site-specific minimal, monumental gridded tableaux. Black, white and grey have aesthetic as well as conceptual value, underscored in the content behind my pictures, giving them a context. This reductive palette can highlight line and shape, the ubiquitous codes of the circle (the camera’s lens) and square (the camera’s body) are ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

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Ellen Carey, “Polaroid Penlights”, 2007, Polaroid 20 X 24, Color Positive Print, 34"H x 22"W, courtesy of the artist and Jayne H. Baum Gallery (New York, NY).

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Ellen Carey, “Polaroid Penlights”, 2007, Polaroid 20 X 24, Color Positive Print, 34"H x 22"W, courtesy of the artist and Jayne H. Baum Gallery (New York, NY).

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Joyful feelings of creativity reflect a discipline where I am digging deeper into color’s mother lode, revisiting terms, such as color processing, in new and experimental ways. Color is subject and object, material with meaning, process within the art.

also used. Stark and subtle, these three are colors, serving as a reference to drawing with light, a historical phrase that points to the medium’s origins in the 19th century. Parallel to this is my work that emphasizes color — that it has purpose and exists for a reason. Joyful feelings of creativity reflect a discipline where I am digging deeper into color’s mother lode, revisiting terms, such as color processing, in new and experimental ways. Color is subject and object, material with meaning, process within the art. Again, this gives my work context in the relatively young field of color photography, itself just over a century old. Art and photography, like music, are universal languages as is color. The end results are innovative and challenging artworks known for their rich synoptic clarity with well-thought out conceptual underpinnings that expand the content in the realm of art and photography by introducing new forms, such as the parabola, seen as a conical loop in my Pulls or the variation of color shadows in my photograms like Push Pins. Feeling and form are juxtaposed, seen in unprecedented, unpredictable ways expressed through methods and techniques, mastered and further developed, within an 58

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array of unusual and striking combinations, using new nomenclature. My tools of choice for creative expression include the 20th century large format Polaroid 20 X 24 camera, one of five in the world. It has been used by myself for close to three decades and has become synonymous with contemporary art. An antiquated cameraless process, from the dawn of photography in the 19th century, known as the photogram, is my other tool. Like paint tubes, I use light, in all its forms, as a common denominator throughout my work. This interdisciplinary approach reflects my creative endeavors and artistic interests in a medium well known and highly regarded for its technical advances, over two centuries, enriching the visual arts and broadening the parameters of our picture culture, all made with Polaroid film/camera or cameraless/ enlarger in my photogram projects in tandem with my experiments, inventions, and applications within a variety of processes/ methods/techniques. A new interest of mine is the biology of seeing and this brings my work into the 21st century. Here a third tool, digital imaging technologies, has begun to be used, especially appreciated is the medium’s ability to introduce scale, a much-

needed formal issue in my work. Its ability to expand an existing palette’s range, through contrast and saturation, is leading to new possibilities; its capacity to reverse and/or manipulate an image presents even richer ones. As a metaphor for the field and myself as the art maker, I begin in the 19th century with black and white, using the photogram, and enter the 20th century through color and Polaroid, reaching the 21st century through the use of digitalization. Experiments include one or more of these, which are needed to create one huge, ink-jet print. A new interest, the biology of seeing, is a perfect match for monumental, digital images. Size and scale are introduced as photograms, revisualized as six gigantic, unique images titled Dings & Shadows or Blinks R/G/B/Y/M/C; the unifying concept doubles as the formula for photographic color theory. This idea has tremendous flexibility and could transfer into other forms and disciplines, such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, glass, film or a site-specific, time-based installation. The development of projects that move freely amongst other contemporary art practices reflects my artistic education and background, while exploring and embracing my cultural and creative interests.

Ellen Carey, “Polaroid Penlights Pulls”, 2007, Polaroid 20 X 24 Color Positive Prints, 60-80"H x 66"W (triptych), courtesy of the artist and Jayne H. Baum Gallery (New York, NY).

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By Philip Eliasoph

L E T T E R F R O M PA R I S “ T h e M o v ea b le F east ” – A n A rtisti c P lat d u J o u r

Like an early Picasso cubist collage of clashing designs, a colorfully mixed palette of fragmented memories by Chagall with surreal images of the Eiffel Tower, bookstalls along the Seine, or bistros dotting a wide boulevard, Paris might be more hallucinatory than real. Reminiscing, Ernest Hemingway wrote in 1950 about his youthful adventures in Paris between 1921-1923:

“If you were lucky enough to live in Paris as a young man then, where you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you–for Paris is a moveable feast.”

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unning in the Jardin des Tuileries on a green metal chair (which magically appears just as one reaches a collapsing moment of fatigue after a day of museum and gallery hopping), finding the right brasserie for a refreshing espresso, or just strolling aimlessly, my time in Paris was dangerously seductive. In the midst of such overwhelming art, beauty, and a state of visual pleasure, strange temptations filtered into my thoughts. Searching to rediscover its mysteries, torn between its mythic fragrance and current daily routine, we spent a few days recently in la Ville Lumière. Celebrating a cluster of life cycle milestones, we intentionally splurged on a few frills. One needs to stop converting currency in your head from mighty Euros into anemic US dollars early in the trip. Unwilling to say “oh I wish we had spent more time in Paris” once the Grim Reaper appears at our doorstep, we decided to live it up. Facing such enchantment, one is tempted to sell the farm, retire early, and—like Gauguin leaving his bank-teller job to go off to Tahiti—opt out and find a little pied-à-terre in the 3rd Arrondisse62

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ment. The absolutely “now” place to live is the warren of crooked streets around the stately Place des Vosges, home of Victor Hugo. Here we find a cluster of hip new boutiques, art galleries, and neobistro eateries. The Marais district offers the Musée Picasso in a 17th-century mansion. Here is where you should spend your first morning to survey the leading edge of the city’s fashion, design, and galleries. Take the pulse of the thriving local arts scene. Defer your marathon museum visits to the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, or Centre Pompidou. The old masters and modern geniuses will be there, but catch the vibe of Paris at street level for your initial plunge. Even more unexpected in the Marais is the brilliant Art Nouveau synagogue designed by Hector Guimard, whose biomorphic designs are the iconic Métropolitain entrance signs. Nearby at 71 Rue du Temple is the newly created Museum of Jewish Art and History, which includes a fascinating set of documents related to the infamous Dreyfus Affair, with original newspapers of Emile Zola’s 1898 heroic headline: “J’Accuse!” Floating throughout this daydream a steady stream of images came into focus. It’s as if history’s headlines have remained etched

into each magical garden, monumental arch, or palais. In October, 1793 the guillotine’s razor edge on Marie Antoinette’s sweet neck sliced through the vast urban space of the Place de la Concorde. Napoleon’s tomb under the soaring dome of Hôtel des Invalides, (ironically, Hitler’s favorite stop on his triumphant victory visit of June, 1940), reverberates with the delusions of emperors and tyrants. Dumbfounded, gazing up at the neo-baroque façade of Charles Garnier’s Opera house, one can strangely appreciate how it was admired and almost imitated for the new masterplan for Berlin’s Third Reich. Completed in an imperial style in 1874 like a souped up wedding cake with more sugary pastry and kitsch hanging from every niche and cornice, it stretches the mind as the cavernous redoubt of its ghoulish Phantom. Meglo-manical and yet awe-inspiring, even the Fuhrer came to understand that no other city– not Madrid, Milan, or Munich - could challenge Paris as the capital of Europe. The netherworld linking the deceased and their living legacies haunted me at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in the 20th Arrondissement. Where else can we find so many cultural legends, including Maria Callas, Honore de Balzac, Eugene Delacroix, Marcel Proust, Amedeo Modigliani, and Jim Morrison? The Crystal Ship’s lyrics “Before your slip into unconsciousness…” is almost audible within earshot of Callas’ tomb, reaching her velvety vibrato towards the finale of Tosca. Through a lens, darkly we can only imagine young Ernest Hemingway’s years of 1921-23 hobnobbing with literary giants at Sylvia Beach’s fabled bookstore, Shakespeare & Company. In this enviable Latin Quarter haunt, with fountain pens and primitive typewriters, a coterie of authors and bohemians—such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Alice B. Toklas, Lincoln Steffens, and Gertrude Stein—banged out a modernist vision transforming the written word. The original shop near the Odéon metro stop was re-invented for the Beat generation of the 1950s by George Whitman who considered its purpose as a literary mecca: “socialist utopia masquerading as a bookstore.” His daughter, pleasant and perky Sylvia Whitman, still runs the cash register today keeping the torch alive. If you are a starving poet, ask her for a bed upstairs and she will expect you to monitor the stacks and greet the international cast of hobos, culturati, and Allen Ginsburg impersonators streaming through the front door. On the more generic tourist route, let me offer a few recommendations. The Paris Open Bus Tour is a “must do” for your first or 10th visit – for about $40 you can tour all the major districts and

Photo Credit: Hôtel Le Notre Dame Paris

monuments from the top of a double-decker bus with an English language earphone. You can jump the bus and get off at numerous locations – and truly “see” the entire city in a day. The tour bushoi-polloi crowds love the corny “Can-Can” dancing at the historic Moulin Rouge or Folies-Bergere. More on the edgy side, is the tastefully produced Crazy Horse Saloon show with stunningly athletic dancers—au naturel—whose erotic dancing reminded me of the silhouetted femme fatales from James Bond classics with Sean Connery peeking through his gun-sights. Don’t go if you expect Betty Friedan or Kate Millet to approve of this risqué night-club scene with Russian petro-czars, Brazilian CEO’s and Saudi sheiks wearing Savile Row suits. Ingres, Renoir, and Modigliani all painted the female figure as the highest creation of nature, but witnessing nine dancers in the flesh in a series of synchronized routines is like watching Cirque du Soleil at an acrobatic nudist camp. It’s easy to blow beaucoup euros on world-class five-star hotels like the Hotel Ritz (where Princess Diana spent her last fateful night) or the Four Seasons George V (if you are a high-roller financier attending your Carlyle Group investment seminar). Or even a grand old dame place like the Hotel Scribe (where I stayed decades ago thinking it was a stage set for a fin-de-siècle operetta), but we searched for a “room with a view.” If Paris is the center of France, this room is a few yards away from the geographic center of the city. Our love nest, 64

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Hotel Le Nôtre Dame (www.hotelnotredameparis.com), was breathtaking but modest; it ran about $300 a night, with a perfect baguette, croissant, and coffee for breakfast included. Exceptionally located on the corner of the Quai Saint-Michel at the end of the Petit Pont, we collapsed in total bliss with this discovery. The psychedelicchic rooms are like Hieronymous Bosch scenes from the Garden of Delights, tastefully appointed by Christian Lacroix. Ask Mademoiselle Julie at the desk for chambre #52 and you can open a set of four windows, putting the 12th-century façade of the Cathedral of Notre Dame at your fingertips. And remember what Audrey Hepburn realized in her ingénue role in the classic film Sabrina: Paris is always a good idea!

Photo by Erin Gleeson Studio, NYC

Philip Eliasoph is Professor of Art History at Fairfield University and the Director/Moderator of the Open Visions Forum, a public town hall current affairs series. As a lifelong wanderer he has slept near sheep in Bedouin tents in the Sinai desert, trekked with sherpas and mountain goats in the Himalayas, and enjoyed the same suite at the deluxe Daniele Hotel with a terrace over the Grand Canal in Venice where Sophia Loren left her fragrance. For over 35 years he has been leading cultural tours through Italy and France with this conclusion: “discovering all of Italy is the purpose of living -- but if you only have a few days - go to Paris.”

The brasserie is a casual place with daily specials and tapas where people meet for lunch, dinner or even just catch up with a friend over a glass of wine and a snack. Our menu is affordable to ensure that we will not only be a place for special occasions, but for every day dining as well.

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philanthropy

Philanthropist and Seasoned Couture Entrepreneur

William D. Rondina A resident of both New York City and Bridgewater, Connecticut, William Rondina is known for his tremendous business success and his generosity. While he is not one to talk about it, anyone in Manhattan’s social circles knows he has long been a big supporter of the Metropolitan Opera as well as the Met, the New York Botanical Gardens, The Park Avenue Armory, Literacy Partners, Sloan Kettering, Cancer Care, and The North West Connecticut’s Weantinoge Heritage Land Trust, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. This is just a short list of the many causes that keep him busy, above and beyond running his couture fashion business well known for brands including the Carlisle Collection and Per Se Collection. His philanthropy doesn’t stop there. Thirteen years ago, in 1997, William Rondina, CEO, chairman and founder of The Connaught Group, had an idea. He approached his sellers across the country and asked which philanthropic cause they wanted Carlisle to support. The response was loud and clear: the fight against breast cancer. So he founded Fabric of Hope, a charitable partnership with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and through this program The Carlisle Collection has donated

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more than $1.7 million to the fight against breast cancer. Each year since 1998, Carlisle’s design team creates a new Fabric of Hope scarf that is made available to its clients. Each Fabric of Hope scarf is designed with a unique pattern and a corner bearing the pink ribbon symbolic of breastcancer awareness. In return for a donation of $125 or more, the client receives the Fabric of Hope scarf as a gift. Rondina gives 100 percent of the dona-

tions directly to Komen for the Cure. This year, a second run of the scarf was required. When Rondina is not selecting the best looks for the latest Carlisle and Per Se collections with his designers, you may find him at board meetings or fundraisers to support his other many areas of interest. We were very pleased to have this interview with Bill Rondina to get a sense of what drives him. When did you start getting involved in philanthropy? More than 25 years ago, I started getting involved with philanthropy when good friends asked me to be involved. From there it was a natural process and a spirit that is part of how I live my life. I’ve been lucky in my life and I feel that it’s my responsibility to be there for others and to give back in meaningful ways. There are millions of charities to get involved with and for me, it started with friends asking for my support. For example, a very good friend and neighbor got me involved in the New York

Botanical Garden and today I’m on the board. Judith Erin and Isaac Stern knew how much I love having music in my life and how important the arts are to me. I was a longtime supporter of Carnegie Hall and they invited me to get further involved. Today I am on that board too. These relationships lead to new efforts, and Elihu Rose (a fellow board member at Carnegie Hall) and his wife encouraged me to get involved with the saving and restoring of the historic Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue Armory. The Seventh Regiment was the first volunteer militia to respond to President Lincoln’s call for troops and those troops were made up of many prominent New York names. Its 55,000-square-foot drill hall is one of the largest unobstructed spaces in New York, and the goal of restoring this building to its former glory days and to use it as a cultural and arts center is one I’m very supportive of. As a result, I’m involved in the effort to revitalize the Armory to allow full public access. Each of the areas I am involved in has come to my attention through people I care for and through causes that I deeply believe in. What is your main passion when it comes to selecting a philanthropy effort to support? Giving to the arts is something I have consistently supported. It’s an area that gets cut first when the economy is stressed, but I’m proud to make it a priority. It is something I personally enjoy in my life and it gives great joy to so many people. Therefore, I keep my support and efforts focused and consistent. The longstanding and new friendships I make through these organizations are very important to me and it’s something that I look forward to. Both the cause itself and the relationships make it all worthwhile. How much time each month do you spend on philanthropy efforts? On average, I attend three events or board meetings a month. Sometimes more. For example, right now

the Weantinoge Hertiage Land Trust requires a lot more of my time and so I expect to be at more meetings in the next few months. I have long enjoyed living in Bridgewater, Connecticut, and Weantinoge Hertiage Land Trust is focused on preserving natural places in Connecticut’s northwest corner from wild habitats, endangered species to working farmlands. It takes a solid and loyal team committed to this effort to make a difference, and if we don’t—in less than a generation—many of our special places could be gone. So meetings and lobbying must take place. That’s the normal cycle with any philanthropy effort. There are natural ebbs and flows that dictate busier times of the year and you just need to plan for that. I encourage our Carlisle showrooms in New York and Greenwich to have philanthropy fashion events to support the local causes near and dear to women in the community. We have events in our showrooms every month that raise money for a variety of important causes associated with the Greenwich Hospital, YWCA, and more. It’s a natural part of our culture to do this and I’m proud that we can support the community in meaningful ways. I make a point to attend these events when I can so I am connected to what matters to the people in the communities where we have our business. We are also committed to supporting the Fashion Delivers Charitable Foundation, which unifies the men’s and women’s apparel and home industries to donate new products to aid victims of disaster and individuals in need throughout the year. Most recently we supported their efforts around Haiti and Katrina, but it is an ongoing area the business supports. In our New York showroom we have created a relationship with Ann Tisch, founder and president of the Young Women’s Leadership Network, a non-profit organization that sponsors a number of all-girls’ public high schools. Through this relationship we have provided the organization’s new college graduates with their first suits as well as networking experiences with mentors in our showroom.

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A conversation with hoaxer Alan Abel (if you can believe it)

Who is the real Alan Abel? If you were in Manhattan in the 1970’s and ‘80s, you might have seen Abel on all the local TV news and talk shows, but as he had so many different guises and dis-guises – hooded Omar, founder of the School for Panhandlers, or the mustachio-ed spokesperson for SINA, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals or the roving reporter in the 1970 classic mondo movie Is there Sex After Death – you still might have missed him, or at least not realized that it was all flim flam from a man who has been called the greatest prankster of our time. Not counting evil Bernie Madoff or Clifford Irving (who faked a biography of Howard Hughes) I suppose, but unlike those venal characters, Alan Abel didn’t harm anyone except in their egos and didn’t stage hoaxes for large sums of money. He did them, oddly enough, for fun. I crossed paths with Alan Abel – literally – around 1998. Leaving Manhattan for Westport, I looked forward to hobnobbing with the legions of writers and artists who populated this fabled colony on the Sound – only to discover that most of them were dead – think F. Scott Fitzerald, Rod Serling, Bette Davis, Imogene Coca – or had been squeezed out long ago by the merciless real estate bubble (you know, the one that would never burst). Despairing of finding kindred spirits, it was with great relief one day that I saw a peculiar sight walking up my rocky country road. Out for a stroll was a dignified man wearing what appeared to be his undignified underwear – bright orange boxers and what may have once been a white tee-shirt – and next to him, an equally eccentric, diminutive blond woman with waist-length graying blond hair, who must have looked at one time very much like Kim Novak . This was Alan Abel and his wife, Jeanne. We subsequently became friends (a big compliment to me as Alan does not suffer fools gladly or at all), and occasional artistic collaborators. He makes an appearance in my 2008 documentary, The Road Taken… The Merritt Parkway recalling that when the three tollbooths on the Merritt were scheduled to be removed in 1988, Abel & his team stood aside the tollbooths handing out tollhouse cookies – confounding the authorities (as usual) and amusing passing motorists. Tollhouses cookies are now gone, too, just like the tollbooths, but Alan Abel continues to wreak havoc. His latest mission is to save forests by reducing chairs to 3 legs, as well as a campaign against bird pornography (“bird-watchers are bird voyeurs”).

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Alan Abel dressed as Omar the Beggar, a man who taught people how to panhandle professionally (1975).

by Lisa Seidenberg There’s an enormous train caboose incongruously perched next to your former house in Westport. It’s the Duluth, Winnipeg & Pacific (DW&P) Train Caboose, which was built in 1911, so in one more year it will be an historical fixture and can be designated as such, which means it can’t be sold for scrap metal. But nobody wants the caboose because it would require two flatbed trucks, a crane and a police escort to move it, which would be prohibitive. How did it get there, and why? Initially I got the caboose when I did a roast dinner for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and it was sitting on a siding in Toronto and they wanted to get rid of it. So I got the Caboose as part of my lecture fee. It was hitched to the back of a ConRail Train—this was 1974—and brought to Pepperidge Farm headquarters (on the Post Road) which had a siding for it. It would cost $1,000/mile to move it the four miles to my house on Crow Hollow Lane. I later got that reduced to $400.

Did the town of Westport have a problem with this? Yes. My daughter, Jennifer, who was four years old at the time, and I went to the Planning and Zoning Board at Westport Town Hall. I told Jennifer that they were not going to let us have it and what should we do? And she said, “I’m going to cry.” And I replied, “Well then, cry and when I tell you to stop, that means don’t stop.” So we went in and they said, “Mr. Abel, this looks like a caboose and not a playhouse; permission denied.” I argued in vain and then Jennifer started crying at the top of her lungs and these guys, who looked like Mafioso, were very embarrassed and they huddled and came out and said “Okay” and boom, we got the permit. Jennifer stopped crying immediately and when we got outside I told her she did a great job, but should have cried a little longer just to look convincing. We then decided to have a train caboose party. We had lots of people—everyone from Al Goldstein, the pub-

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Far left: Alan Abel holding a copy of the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals official magazine (1964). Above: Buck Henry and Alan Abel field question s about the S.I.N.A. hoax during a press conference in New York City (1962). Left: Alan Abel demands that all animals be clothed for the sake of decency on The Dennis Wholey Show (1969).

lisher of Screw magazine; and Dick Wittingham, publisher of Life; a string quartet on top of the caboose; and a Dixieland Band below.

or “Can a person suffocate from fellatio?” and “Is it dangerous to have a wet dream under an electric blanket?” The responses were fantastic; it was hard to keep from laughing.

Around the same time, you made several movies, including Is There Sex after Death, which I believe was banned at the time, and The Faking of the President. Is there Sex after Death was made in 1970. The problem was that the censorship commission wanted to give us an X rating and I appealed that and they said if you make certain cuts…for example, there’s a scene with the “International Sex Bowl” where couples compete for climax before a well-dressed audience with referees and a play-by-play announcer, Larry Wolf. There were many double entendrés, such as “so-and-so has just dropped the ball” and so forth. The ratings committee asked for about a dozen cuts so we could get an R rating. We made all the cuts, gave the film to the board, and got the R rating. Then we took the film and put back all the parts that we’d cut from the movie. The entire feature cost about $80,000 and grossed about 16 million over the years, but most of it was stolen by thievery at the box office. Opening night was memorable. It was at the Director’s Guild Theater on 57th Street in New York City and I had gotten a new French projector called a Hortzon Projector, which could blow-up a 16mm print to 35mm on the screen. The projectionist was 84 years old and screwed up the threading and when it started, the audience saw a fire! My wife, Jeanne, who was the editor on the film, repaired the film while I went down and entertained the audience by telling jokes and offering free vasectomies to the first 100 people. The idea for the film began in 1968, with a script first called The Sexual Revolution. The movie was a pseudo-documentary, a comedy about sex that was not erotic, strictly a joke—if you get aroused, you need psychiatric help. I asked people on the street questions like: “What is the calorie content of male ejaculation?”

The actor Buck Henry (who wrote The Graduate) was brilliant in the film. He played a character called Dr. Louise Manos and improvised a lot of dialogue. I asked him questions like “Where is the world’s largest vagina?” He answered, “In Ireland. It was so huge we had to take aerial photographs of it.” The New York Times would not run the title. They would print it as Is There Blank after Death? or Is there FUN After Death?, but they did call it “the funniest film since Woody Allen’s ‘Bananas.’” People thought it was a dirty movie, but it was really a comedy.

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Should I believe any of this? Of course you should, I was a Boy Scout. That is, until the Scoutmaster invited me into his tent and asked me to look at some nude pictures and then I bolted from the Boy Scouts. Why did a nice Jewish boy from Coshocton, Ohio, become a hoaxer instead of an accountant or a dentist? In my teens, I was a drummer and I played the drums very well because if I didn’t I would have to work in my dad’s general store. I didn’t like selling. One afternoon I was practicing my drumming and I noticed several policemen with guns drawn outside our neighbor’s house, an old German woman. My mother had seen a large photo of Hitler in this woman’s living room and had asked the woman to take it down and she refused. My mother then called the FBI in Cleveland, inferring that she might be a spy. As a result of this episode, my mother made the front page of the local Coshocton newspaper and became a local heroine of sorts. I realized with one phone call you could create a huge ruckus and maybe when I got older I could do something like that

Far left: Jenny Abel and her father, Alan Abel, in front of the White House (1980). Above: An outraged taxpayer challenges Yetta Bronstein’s campaign manager (Alan Abel) while supporters Mimi Miller, Jeanne Abel, and Bill Moran look on (1968). Left: Jeanne and Alan Abel the day that Alan’s book, The Great American Hoax, is published (1966).

and perhaps do some good with it. And that’s how it started. In a way, this was the germ I inherited from my mother and I’ve followed it through my life. I don’t do anything criminal or commit any fraud with it. No money changes hands, although I did have a financial backer for many years, Maxwell Sackheim, who founded the Book of the Month Club. I met him by chance on the subway in 1965. He was laughing at some very funny ads on the subway, and I admitted that I was the ad writer. After that, he offered to back me in many pranks and hoaxes. Didn’t you do a hoax having to do with Idi Amin? Around 1979, the infamous dictator Idi Amin had fled to South Africa after perpetrating terrible crimes in Uganda and was hiding out in a luxurious high-walled villa surrounded by his mistresses. Every week, he would send a private airplane to Miami to pick up champagne and caviar and other goods. The State Department allowed it as the plane had diplomatic immunity, which was outrageous. I came up with a plan to embarrass him by faking his marriage to an American woman. I found an Idi Amin lookalike on the subway who agreed to do it and then I booked the presidential suite at the Plaza Hotel for four nights and filled it with Ugandan flags and other material I had gotten from the Ugandan Embassy by saying I was promoting tourism to their country. My team was assembled and we alerted the news media to this supposed wedding. There were over a hundred reporters as well as the State Department, FBI, CIA, New York State and City Police, and we had our own Pinkerton Guards as security. The First Selectman of Fairfield agreed to perform the ceremony. An actress, Lee Chirillo, played the bride. It was very convincing and a great circus. The story ran all over the world and it took a few days before the hoax was revealed but by that time we had made

a big flap and embarrassed both the State Department and Amin who, reportedly, was furious. What about the Deep Throat stunt? The reporters Woodward and Bernstein broke the Watergate story to the Washington Post about the break-in perpetrated by President Nixon’s cronies Halderman, Erlichman and others. The information came from a secret source called Deep Throat. People were anxious to uncover the true identity of Deep Throat. I came up with this scenario—an actor playing a telephone repairman who had heard conversations with President Nixon in the White House would be revealed as Deep Throat. A press conference was organized at the Hilton Hotel in New York and several hundred reporters showed up. A publishing agent from Macmillan even arrived with a check to buy the book rights for several hundred thousand dollars! In the middle of the press conference, we had our phony Deep Throat faint and he was carried away in a waiting ambulance, which had also been prearranged. It was a slow news day, so we got enormous coverage. How did you piss off Walter Cronkite? Cronkite passed away a few years ago, apparently still upset that he had given seven minutes on the CBS Evening News to SINA, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, a bogus organization I was promoting at the time. Do you feel bad about that? I feel sad that a man of his stature should have been so upset. He should have gotten over it. In 1971, I pretended to be Howard Hughes and appeared as Hughes wrapped in bandages. Hughes was holed up in his hotel and released a statement that a dissident faction was trying to take over his company. So he was bamboozled too.

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Jenny Abel with her parents, Alan and Jeanne Abel, during the filming of Abel Raises Cain (2003).

I was really just promoting my film. He’s dead now. So many people are dead or growing older. What can you do about that? I refuse to give up my toys. What are your toys? I am playing with ideas. Those are my toys and I am using the public as my audience. I have a BS degree in teaching and taught a humor class but I wanted a larger audience and I can have one with my charades. It’s satisfying. I like performance and I don’t have to audition for my own pranks.

Is there money in hoaxing? Not really. I use my skills to help people sell their books or other things they want to get attention for.

Didn’t you enlist your wife Jeanne into your act? Jeanne was a originally an actress and came to audition for a music company I once worked for, Bell Recordings. I kept her talking in the office for 45 minutes and married her nine months later. In the mid-1960s, I enlisted Jeanne to run as a candidate for President. She became Yetta Bronstein, a fictitious grandmother from the Bronx. She looked nothing like that so we could never have her on camera but she did many radio shows. Her slogan was “Vote for Yetta so things will get betta.” I played her campaign manager and usually appeared for her in public since she couldn’t be seen, including a lecture at Johns Hopkins University. We got away with it for a few years.

Every article describes you in a different way. What is the point you’re making? We’re having fun and there is a moral message. Clothing naked animals was not my interest; I wanted to complain about censorship. If we’re going to censure books and movies, then we should put clothes on naked animals. It’s making an extension of an idea and its called allegorical satire.

And later on? In 1986, Al Gore made it illegal to sell body organs. I had my buddy Paul advertise in the Village Voice that he had a kidney for sale. The next day, we had about 40 calls from Oprah, Phil Donahue, and others. At the news conference, Paul said he was not selling his kidney—which was illegal—but he was renting it for 99 years. More recently, I appeared on an HBO Show called Private Dicks: Men Exposed. I answered an ad requesting men who

would talk about their genitalia. I told them I had the smallest penis in the world and of course they immediately wanted me in their program. HBO people were furious when they found out it was really Alan Abel. They identified me as “Bruce Spencer, imposter,” since at that point I was integral to the show and they couldn’t cut me out.

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Have you turned down any roles? I played a drunk once. I wouldn’t do it again.

Your daughter Jennifer made a film portrait of your life called Abel Raises Cain. What was that experience like? It’s a magnificent embarrassment. I remind Jennifer that I could have sold her on the black market for $40,000. Just kidding. Many producers tried to make the film but couldn’t find the hook. Jennifer and her partner Jeff Hockett did a great job and it’s still being booked. It won First Prize at SlamDance (Film Festival), among other awards. How does it feel to have young audiences come out to see this film? What are they relating to? I think they relate to this guy who found freedom and who didn’t surrender to a 9-5 hack job. I’m doing my thing, I’m doing it my way, and I’m doing it legally and having fun. And I’ve already had my obituary in the New York Times, and I came back. A guy who died the same day—he invented the six-pack—he didn’t come back and I did.

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fiction

by Tish Fried

PERSPECTIVE Last night, Gloria breezed in from LA, dropped her Luis Vuitton luggage with three loud thuds, proclaimed my place “a dump,” then collapsed on the bed in her six-inch Jimmy Choos. “Okay, when can I get the hell out of here?” So much for helping me clean up my father’s mess. She lost no time starting in on me. I reached for the Stoli. “Just sell his shit. The paintings are worth a lot. Sell the whole lot. Stop making a big deal about ‘our past.’” “But it’s his life work.” “So what? Hey Sher,” she got up on her knees, shook her big head of pale hair, raised her glass of vodka and cranberry. “To our revenge. Sell the lot. Take that, you fucker!” “He was still our Dad.”

twirls. And I did whatever else he asked me to do. You remember, don’t you? Don’t you Sherrie? Sherrie? Come on. What do you remember?” She ran out of gas around 2 AM. She was still passed out as I got up and out the next morning. I needed some time alone before I could face picking over our father’s oeuvre with her. And with Pamela, Mom, the not-very-grieving widow. It was bad enough that I was back in T-town, but I also lived only a mile from Pamela’s dithering. I was going to make some money managing my father’s estate, and maybe make peace with this old General Motors company town, maybe exorcize my past—all that bullshit a divorcée will tell herself. But I liked walking down Main Street, past the hardware store with the faded

At 8 AM, the hills on the opposite side were still shrouded in a pinkish October haze, and the breeze was creating little, light-glistening waves on the viridian river. I framed the view with my hands, capturing just the natural world, getting a few branches from overhead for a sense of scale, and looking out at the low angle at the new daylight that bathed and blended sky, fog, water, and the soft hump of the hill across the river in a Turner-esque glow. I wondered if ole Henry Hudson saw some of this beauty through his telescope, if he took a moment to appreciate it as he floated up the greenish Hudson to find the Indies, to discover riches, to test the unknown before his crew mutinied and left Henry and his son adrift, never to be seen again. I dropped my finger-frame, took another sip of coffee, and that was when I noticed the

This morning my rawness was calling for a big cup of Nicaraguan French Roast and throw in two shots of espresso, please. Then, I drizzled a dollop of milk—making its fractal clouds in that amazing way—and I slurped at the steaming cup. Oh yeah. The bitter brew melted some of the vodka slime off my teeth. I needed that. “Some Dad, huh? Leaving us with Pamela while he was locked away in his studio in New York for months on end, probably screwing every art student who batted their big blues at him.” “Like father, like daughter, eh Gloria.” Her eyes narrowed, and I saw that right hand bunch up. “I’m sorry Gloria.” I got up, brought the bottle over, and poured her a few more shots. Even in her outrage the woman was drop-dead glamorous. You know that thick blond hair and tawny skin combo? It’s killer. Slick long legs and the wide-set green eyes. Our father called them “swamp water,” but I noticed him trying to capture the odd hue on his palette. Jealousy was familiar and comforted me. “At least he noticed you.” I swigged from the Stoli. “He adored his ‘Little Ballerina.’” She started to laugh, but it came out like an ugly snort. “Wake up Sherrie, he liked me as long as I twirled and twirled and twirled.” She mimicked Leonard’s nasal twang, “‘Come on, Little Ballerina, I’m almost done either stay perfectly still or twirl!’ So I did.” She gulped her pink elixir. “I twirled. He painted 74

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Greenberg Brothers Paint sign on its redbrick-and-ivied wall. Past the Music Hall that had been a porn house when I was a kid. Now restored, it played jazz and showcased standup comics who blew in from The Big Apple. But best of all was stopping at the new coffee shop where the owner roasted his own—that was a concession to Tarrytown yuppies I could approve of. This morning my rawness was calling for a big cup of Nicaraguan French Roast and throw in two shots of espresso, please. Then, I drizzled a dollop of milk—making its fractal clouds in that amazing way—and I slurped at the steaming cup. Oh yeah. The bitter brew melted some of the vodka slime off my teeth. I needed that. Back out in the October chill, I could see the mighty Hudson brooding there at the bottom of the hill. The river drew me down, walking toward what Tarrytonians laughably call “our beach”—a few grey yards of sand, a cement-and-wood bench, a clearing at the water’s edge. Not exactly Malibu. But still, you’re facing water, nature, an expanse. I stepped up on the bench to get a wider view, a little better angle on the full sweep.

white garbage bag stuck in the sand, swaying in the wind. I looked closer and saw that the sand had been rutted with lines, vaguely parallel connecting at the bag, then running toward the bench; a simple image was etched in the damp surface, it looked familiar... It was a giant penis! And my bench was just a piece of the all-around design. The bench floated like a testicle in the gargantuan ball-sack. The shaft, drawn all the way down to the bag, was wide enough for a big man to lie down in. That white garbage bag, anchored to the tip by rocks, spurted out into the water, ejaculating in the wind. I slumped back down on the hard, scrotumized bench. Nice! And it was just the perfect way to start my day. I tried to keep my focus up and out onto the river, so wide at this point that I could pretend it was an ocean, could pretend the water flowed on and on out to infinity. “Where does the ocean go, Daddy?” I remember asking over and over again on a rare day when my parents drove us to a public beach in Connecticut. My father knelt beside me and squinted

against the summer sun. “It just goes on, Sherrie; like space, the ocean is infinite.” “Infinite?” My five-year-old mind had no clue but I already liked the sound of it. Infinite. “Yes, infinite. That means it has no beginning and no end.” My girlish world opened up, endless, everything new. That sounded just right. “Oh Leonard, don’t tell her that,” my school-marm mother said. “The ocean isn’t infinite. It has distinct boundaries. It covers about two thirds of the earth’s surface, and it surrounds all the earth, all the places people live. And this water here...” she gestured out over the clear waves that were lapping at my toes, “this here is the Sound, Long Island Sound. Even if it doesn’t make a noise. A sound is like a river or a lake that links up to the ocean. And see that smudge of darker blue way over there? That’s not infinite, not even China, that’s Long Island, you know, where your cousins live. “Lonn-Giiiland?” little Gloria mimicked the words, her white-haired head nodding as she dug with her little shovel, then tossed the dirt up in the air. I remember watching the water move as I pushed the word “infinite” around my

the Mexican crucifixion collage. “I gave him a poke or two.” “What? You had sex with Ethan?” “Don’t get all high and mighty on me.” “But he was gross. His beard always had stuff in it. Why, Gloria?” “To piss Dad off. Duh.” Last night, I hadn’t remembered no matter how much Gloria insisted. I could recall walking with a man, but who? Walking with my father? I didn’t remember Ethan at all. Blanked him completely out of my life. But on my bench this morning, fragments are coalescing. Dark, night, summer, but chill, wet slick cobblestones. No, that couldn’t be right. I studied the sand at my feet. I must have been staring at the ground the whole time he was talking, but it wasn’t Dad. Yeah, it was Ethan. Ethan doing the talking. Ethan, older than me but not old, shrouded in a black beard with eyes that never quite met yours. Ethan wasn’t like Dad’s other assistants. He would try to talk to Gloria and me; he acted like he was interested in us, not just the Great Man. And there he suddenly was—in my restaurant—claiming he had come up for a vacation. He wanted to see how Lenny’s daughter was doing. He had a deep

The white bag ripped about in the wind, trying to get free. The pieces of my memory gained color, atmosphere. It hadn’t been nighttime. Now I could see the bright sun and Commercial Street in Provincetown, the ocean between the stores and houses. There weren’t any cobblestones. It was the painting. In my fragmented memory I had confused the event with the painting. Lenny had used Ethan as his model. He made Ethan strip and lie on the cold cement slab of the garage studio for days. Dad said Ethan whimpered and shook, but it was worth it for the painting. I remember its power and my fear. Flesh dominated the frame. Striated slabs of flesh in every shade of red and pink and mold-colored and it was monstrous. The flesh weeping out over glistening cobblestones, embedded, and the naked body surrounded by swirls of black/green night sky. The face, a pale green light showed something like fear in the black eyes. And the beard didn’t disguise all the features; it wasn’t Ethan, my father’s eyes. His mouth. In the corner of the painting, gripped in a meaty hand, a woman’s algaegreen high heel. It sold right away. Maybe Lenny thought it was too much like a Francis Bacon to display it for too long. But I never saw it again. I ran away from Ethan, down Commercial Street,

He accused my father of being derivative, a Howard Hodgkins wannabe. And did I know about the women? He personally arranged dozens of trysts. Or the drinking and the pot? Then there was Gloria. The Great Man didn’t think he had to obey the rules, like the rest of us. mouth and into my head. I held my father’s hand as we walked along the wave-licked edge of the Sound. My coffee was getting cold. I leaned over and pinched some sand, then rubbed the grains in my palms. I didn’t think it could still hurt. I was thinking too much. I felt that hankering for a bottle again. Gloria made me remember. Insisted. “Sherrie, what the hell’s the matter with you. Come on! Don’t pretend. I know Ethan told you everything. Remember when he came to visit you? “ I shook my head; the vodka made a swooshing sound in my brain. “You were 17. Ethan, big guy, dad’s weirdo assistant, black beard. The one you hated, right? Gawd, he really wanted to stick the knife in.” Ethan had come up to Provincetown, my summer job, my own world away from T-town. I was waitressing and partying. And Ethan showed up. “That’s right, that Ethan.” Gloria examined her makeup in one of the little mirrors in

voice, but he swallowed the second syllables like hiccups. I told him that I couldn’t leave work. He’d wait until my shift ended. I remembered hoping he wouldn’t come back, but there he was at 3, waiting for me on Commercial Street. He took my arm, which I thought was weird, and we started walking to the east end of town, to The Point. He said he had a story to tell me, might come as a shock to me, but he thought it would be better, now that I was a young woman, to know the truth about my father. The truth? I stared at the pavement, but he kept talking smoothly, slowly, softly. There was an intimacy to his tone, and I remember the hiccupping sound disappeared. But the words started to all run into each other; a string of nonsense syllables. It was a list. An indictment. He accused my father of being derivative, a Howard Hodgkins wannabe. And did I know about the women? He personally arranged dozens of trysts. Or the drinking and the pot? Then there was Gloria. The Great Man didn’t think he had to obey the rules, like the rest of us.

back to my cheap room in the woods, the shacks where the wait staff lived. The moment the screen door slammed the phone jangled and my dad was all kindness. “Ethan is out to destroy me, pet. It’s that simple. He’s peddling the same story all over New York. It’s nuts!” “But why?” “We had a little falling out. It’s that simple. He asked my opinion and I gave it to him.” “Oh my God, Dad. What did you say to him?” “I told him the truth, of course. He’s just not very original, not really an artist. I can’t lie to the boy. He’ll never be a painter. You know that. I always tell you the truth, my darling.” And then he told me his version, which made perfect sense. Loving Dad. And last night, the truth from Gloria’s hard, beautiful mouth. Which made perfect sense. Loving Dad. I got up, walked down to the water’s edge, kicked the bag free and walked back up the hill to make my sister breakfast. ARTS/CULTURE/STYLE//MAGAZINE

stage

The act of giving back written by William Squier photographS By Jack Ross

ow do you launch a new theater company in a down economy? If you’re Colchester’s Emerson Theater Collaborative (emersontheatercollaborative.org), you begin by pledging to donate any profits that you make to local charities. “We tie every show to a cause,” explains ETC’s president and co-founder, Camilla Ross. One look at the theater company’s first few seasons and you start to see why. ETC was founded in 2008 by Ross and fellow Emerson College alumnus Emma Palzere-Rae. “We got together at Panera Bread and started talking about theater in the region,” Ross recalls. “We didn’t see anyone tackling everyday issues. And we didn’t see a lot of original works being done. So, we said, ‘Hey, let’s do this!’” Since then, the three-year-old company has mounted two or three productions per season at venues in southeastern Connecticut. In line with their stated mission of showcasing works that serve “youth, underrepresented communities and artists with an emphasis on diversity” ETC’s programming has tended toward social relevance. “We’re very message driven,” Ross confirms. “We want to make sure every person has a voice.” Among the more familiar titles that ETC has presented are the Pultizer Prize

winning Doubt, Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Spinning into Butter. Their recent staging of Clifford Odets’ Waiting for Lefty is a good example of the way that Ross says ETC likes to interpret classic works. The play dramatizes the hard times that Odets witnessed in 1935, so the company interspersed Lefty’s vignettes with songs from the period that also described the national mood. Then, to add a present day perspective, ETC included poetry, written and performed by young local actors, which contrasted the Depression era of the play with modern expressions of hope. In addition to producing established plays, ETC has also premiered several new works by New England playwrights. Their first original piece, Introducing Mr. Charles Dickens, was written and performed by Massachusetts based Albert Cremin. “Dickens wrote a lot about the homeless,” say Ross. “So we chose to give the money we made to the Mystic Area Shelter and Hospitality (mashshelter.org).” That play was followed by Harriet2 (aka Harriet Squared), a pair of historical one-acts by Lisa Giordano about Harriet Tubman and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Chestina Vanessa Poulson, Melanie Greenhouse’s memory play about refugees from the Holocaust adjusting to life in America’s Mid-Atlantic states in the 1950s.

For their latest original production ETC debuted the play Gray Matters by Jacques Lamarre, directed by Joshua Ramos, at last summer’s Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York City prior to moving it to Connecticut for a local run. “It deals with brain injury by looking at what happens when an actor loses her ability to remember lines,” Ross explains. “We had auditions in New York, then stayed there for three weeks to rehearse and went up in July.” As a result, cast member April Woodall was awarded Outstanding Lead Actress by the festival for her performance and Gray Matters received nominations for Outstanding Playwriting (Lamarre), Supporting Actress (Kathryn Kates) and Lighting Design (Jon Capozzoli). Jon Capozzoli’s nomination is the one that pleases Ross the most, because it speaks of ETC’s success at community outreach. “We teach kids from local high schools,” she says. “It’s wonderful to take someone who has never done theater before, put them into that element and watch them flourish. Jon is from Stonington High School and one of the most amazing kids I’ve ever met! He’s been with us for three productions and tackles every job in such a professional manner that he puts the professionals to shame! I hate to lose him next year when he goes off the college!” ETC kicks off its fourth year on March 11 when the company begins performances of Living in the Wind by New London’s Michael Bradford. Bradford is the Associate Head of Theater Studies at UConn, Storrs, and Playwright in Residence at the Bated Breath Theater. The season continues with a midsummer production of The Spitting Image by Sophie Klein. And in the fall, ETC will take a creative leap by mounting the theater’s first musical, The Big Bank by Jacob and Daniel Seligmann. It’s a timely piece about a foreclosure officer who falls in love with the owner of a business that he has been send to repossess. Ross reports that ETC has yet to determine which charities will benefit for this season’s trio of productions, but she emphasizes that the donations will continue to be an essential part of the theater’s mission. “Giving back to someone in need is one of the major things that I grew up with,” she states. “It’s how I was raised. And to be able to do that through the theater is wonderful!”

Top photo: Camila Ross in Harriet 2 . Bottom photos from left to right: 1) Matt Gibson and Christine Thompson in Waiting For Lefty. 2) The Cast of Chestina Vanessa Poulson. 3) April Woodall and Steve Sherman in Gray Matters. 4) Krystal A. Livingston in Waiting for Lefty.

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