ICON Magazine

2

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

3

contents

ICON

12

ART

EXHIBITIONS

6 | Young, Gifted, and Black Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Collection Lehigh University Art Galleries 2022 Student Invitational and Faculty Show AOY Art Center Creative Continuum Invitational Exhibition New Hope Arts

Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno have, for over a decade, put the best into Best Coast with its alarmingly lush harmonies, haunting lead vocals, a lonely but lively braid of interpersonal lyrics, and neatly arranged melodies ripe with the spirit of their beloved home base, Los Angeles. Something snapped, however, with its fourth studio album, Always Tomorrow, in February 2020. Rooted in Cosentino’s necessary break from the world—of mental health issues, newfound sobriety, heartbreak—Always Tomorrow was Best Coast’s most intense album yet, with its greatest diversity in sound: More metallic.

More rage.

More wisdom.

5|

A THOUSAND WORDS

The intersection of art, entertainment, culture, nightlife and mad genius.

Since 1992 215-862-9558 icondv.com PUBLISHER & EDITOR Trina McKenna trina@icondv.com

ADVERTISING Raina Filipiak Bobb Bruno and Bethany Cosentino. Photo: Eddie Chacon.

16 |

Love on Wheels 8| 10 | ON THE COVER:

14 |

THE LIST

Fake

by Erica Katz

FILMS Nightmare Alley West Side Story France The Matrix Resurrections

Davos Man

by Peter S. Goodman Love Unfu*ked

by Gary John Bishop

CLASSIC FILMS Smiles of a Summer Night Ingmar Bergman

Defenestrate

by Renee Branum Violeta [English Edition]

by Isabel Allende

The Clock Vincente Minnelli The Elephant Man David Lynch

Photo: Rob Loud, 2015.

Page 12

4

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

A Matter of Life and Death Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger

BOOKS Scoundrel

by Sarah Weinman

22 |

23 |

HARPER’S Findings Index

PUZZLE Washington Post Crossword

filipiakr@comcast.net PRODUCTION Gabriel Juarez

Joanne Smythe CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

A.D. Amorosi Robert Beck Jack Byer

Jane Fawcett

Geoff Gehman

Mark Keresman Keith Uhlich

PO Box 120 New Hope 18938 215-862-9558 IReproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. ICON welcomes letters to the editor, editorial ideas and submissions, but assumes no responsibility for the return of unsolicited material. ICON is not responsible for claims made by advertisers. ©2022 Primetime Publishing Co., Inc.

a thousand words

STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK

LOVE ON WHEELS MY FIRST VEHICLE WAS a Triumph motorcycle. It was kept just inside the garage door behind my mother’s Valiant. I would come out in the morning, swing my leg over the seat and rock it upright, engage the choke and fuel valve under the tank, and turn on the ignition. Most often, the engine would start on the second kick. I was sixteen. Just. To this day, when I see someone use an electric starter, I chuckle to myself and stand a little straighter. The exhaust cadence of an English twin, with its cylinder arrangement different from the Harley, will still turn my head.

I don’t have a lot of bike moments on my highlight reel, but I do remember taking Cheryl Baker for a short ride after school one day. It was an out-of-body experience for me. Cheryl was as hot as they come. Way too much woman for me. Think Farrah. Not just that, but she drove a razor-clean 327 El Camino to school. There were only two motorcycles at Central Bucks High, so in retrospect I must have had some cred, but I was a dweeb and a loner. All the cool kids parked behind the grandstand, and I put my bike outside the gym.

>

20

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

5

exhibitions

Dorothy Hoeschen (teaching artist), Last Light.

2022 Student Invitational and Faculty Show AOY Art Center aoyarts.org 949 Mirror Lake Road, Yardley, PA Fri., Sat., and Sun., 12–5 February 5–20, 2022

Chanel Chiffon Thomas, A mother who had no mother, 2018; Embroidery floss, acrylic paint, and canvas on window screen

Young, Gifted, and Black The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art Curated by Antwaun Sargent and Matt Wycoff Lehigh University Art Galleries 420 E Packer Ave., Bethlehem, PA 610-758-3615 Luag.org February 1–May 27 Young, Gifted and Black showcases works in a variety of mediums by emerging artists of African descent, alongside works by established artists who have paved the way for the younger generation.

Artists include: Derrick Adams; Tunji Adeniyi-Jones; Sadie Barnette; Kevin Beasley; Jordan Casteel; Bethany Collins; LaToya Ruby Frazier; Ellen Gallagher; Cy Gavin; Alteronce Gumby; Allison Janae Hamilton; David Hammons; Kenyatta A. C. Hinkle; Lonnie Holley; Rashid Johnson; Samuel Levi Jones; Deana Lawson; Glenn Ligon; Eric N. Mack; Kerry James Marshall; Wardell Milan; Jennifer Packer; Adam Pendleton; Adrian Piper; Paul Mpagi Sepuya; Gerald Sheffield; Lorna Simpson; Sable Elyse Smith; Vaughn Spann; Tavares Strachan; Henry Taylor; Chanel Chiffon Thomas; Mickalene Thomas; William Villalongo; Kara Walker; D’Angelo Lovell Williams; Wilmer Wilson IV; Lynette Yiadom-Boakye This exhibition is courtesy of the LumpkinBoccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art. 6

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

AOY Art Center presents the 2022 Student Invitational and Faculty Show intended to demonstrate the skills of our students and instructors. Faculty have invited their students to participate and showcase their creative visions.

All student work was done in class during the AOY calendar sessions: Winter, Spring I & II, Fall I & II of 2021. AOY Art Center offers adult and youth six-week class sessions throughout the year. The show is curated by James Bongartz, AOY Education Director and presented in the historic Janney House on Patterson Farm.

Dorothy Hoeschen (teaching artist), Catching Light.

Guy Ciarcia, Old Devil Moon.

Creative Continuum Invitational Exhibition New Hope Arts, 2 Stockton Ave., New Hope, PA 215-862-9606 Newhopearts.org January 21–February 28 The Creative Continuum Invitational Exhibition celebrates the creative spark that motivates an artist throughout life and features twelve life-long art-makers and their work. New Hope Arts 20th anniversary season begins by honoring master teachers from January 21 to February 28.

Art is a tool for sharing, helping, guiding and revealing unconscious motivation in the hands of teachers who use metaphor, theme and storytelling practices as well as technique and formal elements, contributing to the “creative continuum.” The 12 participating artists in this exhibition find an anchor in art. Recent sculptural works of Guy Ciarcia, most created during the past 20 months of Covid isolation, are the centerpiece for painting, photography and assemblage works by like-minded artists.

Gallery hours are Friday, Saturday and Sunday through 2/28. Masks are required and reservations are recommended. Please check newhopearts.org for updates.

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

7

the list

VALLEY

CITY

Traffic jams near Route 22 are easier to swallow stranded by the Scholl Orchards farm stand, a Bethlehem beacon since 1948. Hassles magically untangle just by looking at the neat arrangements of fruits, vegetables and firewood outside a warmly lit, downright homey twodoor garage fronting Bethlehem’s only commercial orchard. Everything—beets, cherries, eggplants, pears, pumpkins, shallots—tastes as good as it looks, a badge of honor from fourth-generation family farmers who treat plants kindly and pests carefully. Gutsy raw honey blasts local allergies with horseradish lustiness. Meatloaf is zinged up by an appealingly sharp, smoky—homemade ketchup sweetened by concentrated white grape juice. A bounty of young apple varieties—Ludacrisp, Rosalee, Sweet Zinger—are delightfully crunchy with delicate floral/tropical notes that blossom and linger. They whisk me to the Scholls’ 80-acre orchard in Kempton, a group of gracefully rolling groves as charmingly folksy as a Grant Wood landscape. (3057 Center St. by Johnston Drive, two blocks south of Route 22, Bethlehem)

There’s always hope and wonder entering a new year, yes? Like, I wonder what the hell lousy can occur in 2022? Even when you had a December of local liberal congresspeople getting jumped, attorneys leaving the DA’s office, record murders rate tallies, and the Eagles head coach getting COVID going into the playoffs?

John Lennon wrote “Julia” on one. Courtney Love unplugged her MTV Unplugged special by smashing one. Eric Clapton wants to be reincarnated as one. All three ones play roles in the Martin Guitar Museum, a splendid shrine to a company renowned for crafting acoustic instruments renowned for playability and presence. Handsome display cases packed with artifacts and art illustrate a two-continent, four-century history of family dynamics, technology bursts, outer-space designs and capitalizing on crazes: the ’60s folk-music boom; the ’20s ukulele revolution; the ’30s Depression, which Gene Autry helped offset by commissioning the unusually big, bold D-45, a popular treasure destined to become Mr. Clapton’s resurrection vessel. The exhibit, a mainstay at Martin’s factory, is impressively balanced between rarities (one of 91 D-45s made before World War II), beauties (a spectacular peacock inlay), curiosities (a 1902 00-45S prototype auctioned by actor/humanitarian Richard Gere to aid Tibetan charities) and oddities (a guitar body copying the apocalyptic cover art for the Louvin Brothers’ album Satan Is Real). All in all the tour is a real tour de force. (510 Sycamore St., Nazareth; 610-759-2837; martinguitar.com) Emmaus has three book stores, a bonanza for a borough of 11,000 or so souls. Behind the Colonial picture window of Let’s Play Books is a cheerful Old Curiosity Shop of new volumes ranging from Louise Penny novels to Clint and Ron Howard’s memoir of growing up actors to a rainbow coalition of tales for kids and parents (i.e., Ben and the Emancipation Proclamation). A staircase painted with evergreen titles—Charlotte’s Web, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—leads to a pleasant third-floor reading room, a lair with flair for wannabe Harry

>

18

—GEOFF GEHMAN 8

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

2022 and January, right? It’s going to be much better? Please.

Starting any year with Jerry Blavat, the Geator with the Heater is always a party with good vibes and great music in the air. You can’t feel bad at a Boss with the Hot Sauce event. To that end, January 22’s Jerry Blavat and Friends gathering on at the Kimmel Center could very well be his best—and that’s saying something knowing well who has trod the stage with Blavat and his large scale live orchestra. Along with the first appearance by his old pal and Philly’s own Frankie Avalon, the Geator welcomes Darlene Love, Little Anthony, Gary US Bonds, Eddie Holman, The Chi-Lites The Vogues, and more to sing their hits, their rarities, and just gab with The Geator. Be there, especially since I have heard nothing about Blavat’s usual annual competition, the Academy Ball happening down the street at the Academy of Music.

Everything Harry Potter. Along with the due-soon SOLD OUT Franklin Institute exhibition of Potter ephemera and the release of the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts, your year commences on the nerdiest, too fantastical note steered by a woman who will forever go down in history as transphobic. Enjoy.

Stellllllllllllllllllllllllllllla. Terrence J. Nolen’s Arden Theatre Company returns to the live-action stages of Old City Philadelphia with the Tennessee Williams’ classic touching on class, mental health, misogyny, feminism, and more. Wait, when was this written?

WWE Raw. January 10 at the Wells Fargo Center. Of all the things that we didn’t miss doing or need to be a part of during the pandemic’s quarantine, wrestling is at the very top of that list. Grrrrrrrrr.

All things David Bowie. After a year of being away due to the pandemic, this city’s David Bowie party—Philly Loves Bowie Week, extended beyond seven days into January 7-16, with the tagline, “Celebrating the City of Brotherly Love for The Starman”—features everything from Ziggy Stardust-themed ice cream eating, art gallery exhibitions, masquerade balls, concerts, beer tastings and more.

I know you hate Roger Waters because he is a blow-hard asshole who shows his disdain for Israel at every opportunity and really does

>

18

—A.D. AMOROSI

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

9

Nightmare Alley

film roundup

Nightmare Alley (Dir. Guillermo del Toro).

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Rooney Mara. This remake of the 1947 Tyrone Power-starring noir set in the world of carnies and con artists is clearly a labor of love for cowriter-director Guillermo del Toro. Bradley Cooper plays Stanton Carlisle, a down-and-out drifter who learns the duplicitous methods of being a medium while hunkering down at a traveling sideshow. He falls for the sweet-natured Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara), then runs off with her to the big city where they reinvent themselves as high-society psychics. Eventually they catch the attention of the manipulative psychiatrist Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), who plots with Stanton to fleece millionaire Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins) out of a small fortune. But who is the joke really on? Del Toro has a good grip on the oppressive, tragedy-suffused mood of the piece and he revels in the eye-catchingly detailed production design of Tamara Deverell. Yet there’s some crucial bit of soul missing that makes this feel, in its way, like one of the P.T. Barnum-esque hustles it’s attempting to deconstruct. [R] HHH 10

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

West Side Story (Dir. Steven Spielberg). Starring: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose. Several of the most thrilling sequences in the films of Steven Spielberg have been musical—think of the Busby Berkeley-esque opening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or the transcendent juke-joint-to-church climax of The Color Purple. So it’s a delight to see him tackle a full-on song and dance movie, and of a truly storied property, at that. You know the basics: Two rival gangs, the white Jets vs. the Puerto Rican Sharks. A forbidden love story, riffing on Romeo and Juliet, between Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler).

Music by Leonard Bernstein. Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. All that plus a muchawarded, as well as divisive, 1961 movie adaptation by Robert Wise. Spielberg makes this version his own from frame one, with the pointed thematic help of screenwriter Tony Kushner (who sets the story against the backdrop of gentrifying 1957 NYC) and the visual aid of his great cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, whose camera whirls among the performers (Mike Faist’s Riff and Ariana DeBose’s Anita are MVPs) with its own dancer’s dexterity. [PG-13] HHHH1/2

KEITH UHLICH

France (Dir. Bruno Dumont). Starring: Léa Seydoux, Blanche Gardin, Benjamin Biolay.

Down a shot every time Léa Seydoux weeps in Bruno Dumont’s France and you’ll be plastered within a half-hour. Though France de Meurs, the ambitious and fashionable reporter who Seydoux plays, is initially a steelier sort, tossing barbs at President Emmanuel Macron (via a clever integration of real-life archive footage into Dumont’s heightened fictional context) and smugly hosting an evening newshour that, in its various topical hysterias, wouldn’t be out of place on Fox. A chance accident with a young immigrant opens some new emotional reserves, though it would be simplistic to say they’re entirely compassionate ones. Empathy is just as ruthless a means to an end, and if you’re familiar with Dumont’s cinema, you know that his characters aren’t exactly the repentant sort.

What they are, instead, are icons of ambiguity, their true motives cloaked, like France (character and country), by something provocatively inscrutable. [N/R] HHH1/2 The Matrix Resurrections (Dir. Lana Wachowski). Starring: Keanu Reeves, CarrieAnne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Don’t call it a reboot, it’s been here for years. The Matrix, that is—that virtual penal colony (the subject of a series of big-budget spectaculars made between 1999 and 2003) that uses humanity as an unwitting energy source for sentient machines. This exceedingly fun and achingly romantic fourth installment initially goes the meta route of films like Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, positing the story of sacrificial savior Neo (Keanu Reeves) and his immortal beloved Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) as a real-world work of art that has had a profound effect on society. In truth, it’s all just another version of the Matrix itself, a prison for Neo and Trinity, whose deaths in the third film are rendered moot, though the unfairness and cruelty of their “resurrections” resonate profoundly throughout as they both work hard to be reunited. This is a splashy film of serpentine ideas and earnest emotions, though director Lana Wachowski makes it much easier to embrace than to ridicule. [R] HHHH n

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

11

interview

A.D. AMOROSI

The Reimagining of

BEST COAST An interview with Bethany Cosentino

BETHANY COSENTINO AND BOBB Bruno have, for over a decade, put the best into Best Coast with its alarmingly lush harmonies, haunting lead vocals, a lonely but lively braid of interpersonal lyrics, and neatly arranged melodies ripe with the spirit of their beloved home base, Los Angeles.

Something snapped, however, with its fourth studio album, Always Tomorrow, in February 2020. Rooted in Cosentino’s necessary

Same question I ask anyone returning to a touring situation after so long being away from it: how does it all feel?

I’m really excited. I mean, of course there is some trepidation, stress, and anxiety leading up to it. The world is a very different place now, and Covid is still with us. But, I think that there is a light and an energy that needs to be provided for people who choose to go to shows.

I MOVED TO NEW YORK AT 21 to go to college and stayed for like maybe a year. I REALIZED THAT I DIDN’T WANT TO BE IN NEW YORK or go to college. I WANTED TO GO HOME AND START A BAND.

break from the world—of mental health issues, newfound sobriety, heartbreak—Always Tomorrow was Best Coast’s most intense album yet, with its greatest diversity in sound. More metallic. More rage. More wisdom.

Sadly, due to Covid, Best Coast didn’t have the opportunity to tour or hype Always Tomorrow. The album sat as a beautiful testament to the heights of what Best Coast songwriters Cosentino and Bruno could do when pushed to a newer edge and shadowy outlooks.

Now, in the era of Kanye West’s Donda where no new album is ever truly finished, evolving instead with whim and opportunity, Best Coast has just re-released and expanded Always Tomorrow into a deluxe version with new songs, old songs, covers, and head, finally, out on tour with a gig stop at Philly’s Union Transfer on January 29.

12

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

That they need, we all need.

Yes. I feel as if, by this point, attendees need it all as much as we do. It is such a release and an energy exchange. I’m excited to get out to tour this record even though it is two years old by now.

Well, this is a very different time in your life than when you first released “Always Tomorrow,” and even more different than the circumstances immediately preceding its release. Upon the album’s release, you were honest, even blunt, in your discussion of getting sober and dealing with mental health issues. I also know that Trump’s presidency caused you grief. How does the message of “Always Tomorrow” change now that you’ve changed, life has changed, and politics have changed?

I think a huge takeaway from the whole experience is how much things can change in

a year or even in a month. I feel as if in the time spent since the album came out—since Covid, and since our original tour for this got canceled and we had to come home—I feel as if I have expanded and evolved. When I listen to the new album now or read interviews and see what I had to share then, it’s all still me— just a different version of me. I think that, for a minute there at the beginning, I was sad and depressed. That was really hard for me. I was grieving the loss of making a record, working long and hard on it, and going on our first headlining tour in five years—it’s not a personal attack. It was a universal experience. But it took a lot not to let it swallow me whole. With time, I was able to see that I could be all sorts of people, be one person one month, then another person another month, and that is a very cool and very beautiful experience. Ultimately, this is all it means to be a conscious human being. We’re all constantly evolving, changing. And I don’t know that these changes and evolutions would have happened without the necessity of standing still because of the pandemic .

Touring, recording, doing interviews, and social media—the business of being an artist doesn’t allow for much personal headspace.

Right. With Covid’s quarantine, however, there was no choice for me other than to evaluate all of this stuff.

Considering what you just said, talk about the decision to re-release “Always Tomorrow,” and expand it with additional tracks and musical moments. With that, “Always Tomorrow” becomes more of a living, breathing organism and furthers its feelings.

One thing that has come from the Covid experience for me, for artists in general, is

Bethany Cosentino lead singer and Bobb Bruno jam for fans at the Project Pabst Denver event on May 21, 2016 in Denver, Colorado.

Photo credit: Thomas Cooper.

how to make things work. The album was two years old when we decided to tour in 2022.

There simply isn’t the same spark as when you just finish putting together an album and go out to promote it. So, we thought on our toes. We didn’t want to record a new album yet. But we weren’t ready to let this one get

leased solely for Record Store Day—included in the new package. There’s a cover of Sheryl Crow’s “If it Makes You Happy,” that we recorded during a Sirius XM session; we like to do that song live. It’s stuff from pre-Covid, during Covid, post-Covid, and it all belongs together in a before and after fashion.

band, up through Always Tomorrow, I would write all of the music, then I would send it to him, ask him to finish it off, or make it sound a certain way, give him lists of inspirations and references. During Always Tomorrow, I was struggling with writers’ block. So I asked for help to come up with music and have him

Sometimes IT CAN FEEL DISJOINTED playing a song AS A 35-YEAR-OLD woman that I initially wrote in my bedroom at age 22. But I’m NOT TRYING TO TAP SO HARD INTO WHO I WAS AT 22 or even 34. I DON’T FEEL A NEED TO REPLICATE that feeling.

swept under the rug because of circumstances beyond our control. We didn’t want to forget it. So our label, Concord, is cool and asked us to consider a deluxe edition of Always Tomorrow. There are new songs written during the pandemic while we were in that period of personal revaluation. There are a few b-sides—songs we had recorded and re-

Let’s go back to the start of Best Coast and bring it into the present: what similar spark from your band’s beginning exists between you and Bobb still?

We have an undefinable connection that will always exist no matter what we do together. You can see that in the way we’ve always collaborated. At the beginning of the

send it to me to write lyrics and more melodies. What happened at that moment he was sending me back all the thoughts in my brain and making them work—that’s what I

>

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

18 13

A Matter of Life and Death.

classic films

tending toward pessimistic judgments about human nature. If there’s any hope, it comes via individuals as opposed to societal collectives.

Of course he’d have a place in his heart for David Lynch’s second feature, a gently, though still disturbingly surreal fable about John Merrick (John Hurt), a kind-hearted soul afflicted with severe bodily deformities. Exhibited as a freak in 19th-century British sideshows, he is eventually taken under the wing of Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins), who does his best (and sometimes worst) to introduce him into high society. There’s a disquietingly palpable tension in how Merrick is treated as either a fascinating specimen of study or—as the socalled “Elephant Man” himself screams in the film’s most famous scene—“I am not an animal! I am a human being. I am a man.” Many of the people he encounters succumb to mobrule cruelty, which makes the moments of true compassion resonate even more. (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)

Four classic films taken from Stephen Sondheim’s (RIP) Best of all Time list: faroutmagazine.co.uk/stephen-sondheim-40-favourite-films-of-all-time

Smiles of a Summer Night (1955, Ingmar Bergman, Sweden) The recent passing of composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim was a great loss; he was an inimitable talent. This month’s classics column is a selection of four films from Sondheim’s own personal best-of list. First up is Ingmar Bergman’s sublime romantic comedy Smiles of a Summer Night, which traces the travails of four pairs of lovers who switch partners and allegiances over the course of an eventful Swedish evening. Bergman’s reputation as a forbidding, stone-cold-serious artist is belied by the lightness of touch here, though the film still has all the penetrating insights into human nature that mark his best work. Sondheim was so taken by Smiles of a Summer Night that he adapted it into his great 1973 stage musical A Little Night Music. (Streaming on Criterion Channel.)

The Clock (1945, Vincente Minnelli, United States) 14

KEITH UHLICH

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

Sondheim’s work is frequently concerned with the external pressures of time and circumstance, particularly on people in love (West Side Story being a popular example of this, his controversial Passion a more challengingly idiosyncratic one). It makes sense, then, that he’d be head over heels for Vincente Minnelli’s magnificent wartime melodrama, in which small-town soldier Joe Allen (Robert Walker) and city girl Alice Mayberry (Judy Garland) meet, fall in love, marry, and part all in the span of Joe’s 48-hour leave.

That title is more than apropos: You can feel the tick-tick-tick of some heavenly timepiece in every moment, with all the emotion-stoking ups and downs that that entails. In a mere two days, this pair of lovers seem to live several lifetimes. (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)

The Elephant Man (1980, David Lynch, US/UK) Another key facet of Sondheim is his empathy with outcasts, as well as his perceptive,

A Matter of Life and Death (1946, Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger, UK) Another romance of time and circumstance, though this one literalizes the heavenly machinations. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, that great British filmmaking duo known as The Archers, open this otherworldly love story in space, setting up the stakes as cosmic. Tracking slowly toward our little blue orb, the camera eventually settles on RAF pilot Peter Carter (David Niven), whose plane is crashing, his only companion in his final moments a female radio operator, June (Kim Hunter), talking to him from the ground.

Through a divine twist of fate (really a bureaucratic oversight on the part of those overseeing the afterlife), Peter survives, and the couple quickly find and fall for each other. Unfortunately, they now must defend their love via trial before the celestial powers-that-be. Chief among the qualities that surely appealed to Sondheim is the film’s profound mix of the personal and the political. With WWII winding to its end, Powell and Pressburger intended the film as pop-cultural bridge between America and the UK. You can see here the seeds of a show like Assassins, Sondheim’s astonishing historical dissection of the U.S. of A as empathetically filtered through the purview of its most famously murderous malcontents. (Available via The Criterion Collection.) n

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

15

books Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free

by Sarah Weinman Ecco, $28.99 In the 1960s, Edgar Smith, in prison and sentenced to death for the murder of teenager Victoria Zielinski, struck up a correspondence with William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review. Buckley, who refused to believe that a man who supported the neoconservative movement could have committed such a heinous crime, began to advocate not only for Smith’s life to be spared but also for his sentence to be overturned.

So begins a bizarre and tragic tale of midcentury America.

Sarah Weinman’s Scoundrel leads us through the twists of fate and fortune that brought Smith to freedom, book deals, fame, and eventually to attempting murder again. In Smith, Weinman has uncovered a psychopath who slipped his way into public acclaim and acceptance before crashing down to earth once again.

Fake

by Erica Katz Harper, $26.99 Emma Caan is a fake. She’s a forger, an artist who specializes in nineteenth-century paintings. But she isn’t a criminal; her copies are commissioned by museums and ultra-wealthy collectors protecting their investments.

When oligarch art collector Leonard Sobetsky appears with an invitation, Emma sees a way out—access to the kind of money she needs to support her unstable and recently widowed mother.

But every invitation incurs an obligation—and Emma isn’t prepared for what’s to come. As she’s pulled further into Leonard’s opulent scene, she will discover what’s lurking beneath the glitz and glamour and wonder how much of her carefully curated life is just as fake as her forgeries.

Davos Man

by Peter S. Goodman Custom House, $29.99 16

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. The most affluent people emerged from capitalism’s triumph in the Cold War to loot the peace, depriving governments of the resources needed to serve their people, and leaving them tragically unprepared for the worst pandemic in a century.

Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative “Davos Men”—members of the billionaire class–chronicling how their shocking exploitation of the global pandemic has hastened a 50year trend of wealth centralization.

Goodman’s rollicking and revelatory exposé of the global billionaire class reveals their hidden impact on nearly every aspect of modern society.

Love Unfu*ked

by Gary John Bishop HarperOne, $23.99 No matter how much advice we get or how much work we do on our “stuff,” nothing ever seems to make the difference. The truth of it is, you’re woefully illequipped for one of the most life-defining things you will ever take on— being in a committed relationship.

Whether you’re currently in one, want to be in one, half in–half out, getting over one, married, single, separated, divorced, or just overwhelmed with the whole thing, let’s cut through the morass of relationship schtick and put you back in charge. No flowery BS, no woo-woo strategies, systems, or techniques, just real talk, for real people who want a real relationship in their life that actually works.

Defenestrate

by Renee Branum Bloomsbury, $26.00 Marta and her twin brother Nick have always been haunted and fascinated by an ancestral legend that holds that members of their family are doomed to various types of falls. And when their own family collapses in

the wake of a revelation and a resulting devastating fight with their Catholic mother, the twins move to Prague, the city in which their “falling curse” began.

There, Marta and Nick try to forge a new life for themselves. But their ties to the past and each other prove difficult to disentangle, and when they ultimately return to their midwestern home and Nick falls from a balcony himself, Marta is forced to confront the truths they’ve hidden from each other and themselves.

Ingeniously and unforgettably narrated by Marta as she reflects on all the ways there are to fall—from defenestration in nineteenth century Prague to the pratfalls of her childhood idol Buster Keaton, from falling in love to falling midflight from an airplane—Defenestrate is a deeply original, gorgeous novel about the power of stories and the strange, malleable bonds that hold families together.

Violeta [English Edition]

by Isabel Allende Ballantine, $28.00 This sweeping novel tells the epic story of a woman whose life spans 100 years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the 20th century.

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics.

Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional. n

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

17

<

8 THE LIST /VALLEY

and Harriet Potters. (244 Main St.; 610-928-8600; letsplaybooks.com) Housed in a house with a wraparound porch, Now & Then Books could be mistaken for the library of a very hungry, very ecumenical bibliophile. Mazes of shelves contain volumes by and/or about the likes of Andy Warhol, Joyce Carol Oates and the Beatles. A room packed with paperbacks is nirvana for fans of Nora Roberts and John Patterson. Domestic bliss is fostered by a poster for an exhibit of works by Kutztown native Keith Haring, doorway shelves filled with “Simpsons” figurines, and books stacked by a sink. (56 S. 4th St.; 610-966-3114) Apport Used Books is named for the paranormal movement of objects, usually during séances. The title is apropos for the power of reading to shift reality. A long, high room, very white and very bright, holds Lou Reed’s collected lyrics and sketches

by R. Crumb, the gonzo cartoonist and obscure-blues caretaker. A vintage rack of vintage paperbacks rotates a fair share of classics, including Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn and Dick Gregory’s From the Back of the Bus. Chalk-and-cheese volumes—Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood; E.L. Doctorow’s Loon Lake—are placed in a whimsical tower of “popular reads with nice prices.” And where else can you find a book store in a block-long 19th-century building with half-moon windows, ornamented like a Spanish galleon? (12 S. 4th St.; 610-428-8994) Lee and Virginia Graver devoted 40-plus years to transforming a summer retreat in Bushkill Township into a nature estate. The Graver Arboretum, their 1994 gift to Muhlenberg College, Lee’s alma mater, is a wondrous sanctuary/lab for recreational walkers, bird watchers, tree lovers and environmental students. A gentle gravel path meanders through a fetching forest with gloriously filtered light, a mysterious Walden-like pond and rhododendrons ringing extinct sawmill pits operated by Lee’s great uncle. A gravel-and-grass avenue splits clusters of enchanting conifers. Nikko fir branches spiral like staircases; the limbs of Western White pines snake like Medusa’s braids. Seemingly imported from the Berkshires, the Graver is a cultivated wilderness that sharpens your senses and gets you lost in plain sight. (1581 Bushkill Center Rd., Bath; 610-342-6783; muhlenberg.edu) n

<

8 THE LIST /CITY

the same material over and over again and carries the inflatable pigs everywhere he goes. But you can’t hate Pink Floyd, and by extension, you can’t hate Pink’s drummer and co-founder Nick Mason, who hits the Merriam Theater with his Saucerful of Secrets ensemble Tuesday, January 25. Mason & Co go for the old Pink Floyd songs long before their days as prog hitmakers, with some truly hard psychedelic instrumentation. Nice.

All 64th Grammy Award nominations, logged from recordings released between September 1, 2020 and September 30, 2021, are well-deserved prizes and accolades even if they are, on occasion, not so sensible. But when the January 31 awards ceremony gets broadcast live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, you’re going to want to turn up the volume. There will be a lot of Philadelphia in the room. You can look up specific nominations—and in some cases, such as Philly’s Michele Zauner’s Japanese Breakfast and local Jazmine Sullivan, there are several top-tier prizes to be had—but the list of names up for Grammys from the area is stellar. They include a Best Music Film nod for Questlove’s Summer of Soul doc, a Best Choral Performance for The Crossing, Best Opera Recordings for Opera Philadelphia’s Corrado Rovaris and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, a Best Historical Album for the late great mistress of stately song, Philadelphia’s Marian Anderson, as well as Pink, Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, Kevin Hart, Christian McBride Big Band, the Sun Ra Arkestra (the first nomination for Germantown’s own in 70 years), Elle King, Diplo’s Major Lazer, and Marshmello. Prepare to stay awake for this Grammys, long or not. n 18

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

<

13 THE REIMAGINING OF BEST COAST

mean by undefinable. It’s organic. We care about and respect each other. We don’t see each other much when we’re not working, but we keep in touch with text and funny Instagrams. I think that’s how we’ve been able to sustain a relationship for 12 years and years to come.

You had wanted to be a part of the music business for a long time before Best Coast, but didn’t want to be a pop star, a Taylor Swift. What do you recall about coming into the business of music and keeping true to your values?

When I was really young and started writing music, I was immediately courted by major labels, people outside of my world, which then was very DIY punk. I wanted to hold onto that. I followed my instincts and my feelings which led me to create Best Coast. I moved to New York at 21 to go to college and stayed for like maybe a year. I realized that I didn’t want to be in New York or go to college. I wanted to go home and start a band. I knew Bob, checked to see if he was interested, and two years later, we’re touring the world as Best Coast charting on Billboard and appearing on David Letterman. It all came down to instinct. A very free-flowing, organic experience.

Following a feeling. It was all something that seemingly could change my life. Best Coast would have never happened, and I wouldn’t be where I am today if, at 18, I had taken up with a major label. I always try to nurture that relationship with myself—the one where I find and figure out what is best for me, even if it means falling on my face first. Paying attention to what my inner voice and truth are saying has always been crucial to I am. And we never felt as if we had to be a way that wasn’t us. We go where we take ourselves; 12 years into our career, we are true to our musicians and friends. The music that we made at the beginning had that feel of Phil Spector and the Beach Boys. While some of what I’m writing now has a 90s vibe, having Bob write more means there is an 80s metal feel to everything. Not metal metal metal. But some metal.

Thinking about the past that you’ve been so blunt in discussing, some of which was brutal and unhealthy, is having to perform those Best Coast songs on tour tough on you?

I think there is a disconnect with some of our songs, especially some of the earliest one’s like “Boyfriend,” a perfect example. That’s a track that people demand to hear when we go out live, and we play it. When I sing it, though, I don’t feel like the same person. But I’m an energy person, and the energy that’s conjured up by that song and other early songs of ours—how our audience feels, even how I feel performing it—I can still feel connected to those moments in that way. Sometimes it can feel disjointed playing a song as a 35-year-old woman that I initially wrote in my bedroom at age 22. But I’m not trying to tap so hard into who I was at 22 or even 34. I don’t feel a need to replicate that feeling. I said what I said at that time, and now I can experience all that through different eyes. That’s the cool thing about art. It can evolve and change as you evolve and change. n

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

19

<5

LOVE ON WHEELS

One day Cheryl walked past me as I was getting ready to leave and asked/told me to give her a ride. The next thing I knew she was on the seat behind me with her arms around my waist.

There is nothing I remember about the rest of that experience—I’m guessing those neurons got fried crisp—but there was no grand ending. I dropped her off at the student parking lot and she went back to her circle of friends, never to say boo to me again. I found my way home with a brain reduced to carbon.

I have a few recollections of the less romantic side of motorcycles, such as when I dumped it on those angled railroad tracks at Bristol Road, and putting newspapers inside my jacket on really cold days. I wasn’t about to go through another winter like that, so I sold it and bought the car I’d had my eyes on at the gas station in Chalfont. An Alfa Romeo.

Back then, there were regular cars and there were foreign cars. However, there weren’t many foreign car dealers or places to get them repaired. A 1957 Alfa Romeo Giulietta convertible was a rare sight, and one for sale—$300, if I remember correctly—was irresistible.

The Giulietta was a small, sexy, nimble, Italian sportscar that today would set you back two hundred times what I paid, and that would be in modest condition. But you would have one of the finest sportscars of a golden era. Mine had its issues, but it ran. The Triumph and the Alfa lit a flame that still glows quite brightly. Engine-matching, apex-clipping, catching the rear end—my heritage is German, but the adrenal gland is Italian-English.

T

hat’s a long explanation for how quickly I said yes when I was asked to paint an Alpha Romeo Giulietta as a birthday present for the owner. This one had spent most of its days prepared for competition, but there isn’t much difference between that and the one I had.

The Giulietta is a beauty. Gazing at the fender lines, the proportions, the gauges, the red leather seats nearly flat on the floor, took me on a mesmeric journey to a place more than fifty years and forty pounds ago. It uncorked some wonderful memories from when you actually drove cars, using both feet and both hands. When you had to pay attention. I loved every minute of it, then and now. Painting-days like this don’t come any better.

A friend recently tried to get me interested in a Lucid. It’s an electric vehicle that looks much like all upscale electric cars, only sexier than a Tesla. It has more bells and whistles than you can imagine. You don’t shift—you press the pedal, and it takes off. If you get the top Lucid, that launch happens courtesy of 1,100 horsepower, instantly. I’m sure it has a bunch of sophisticated digital systems dedicated to keeping you from ending up in a ravine.

Given the choice, the wherewithal, and the opportunity, which vehicle would I buy today: the Lucid, the Triumph, or the ‘57 Alfa Romeo Giulietta? The bike is out; those days are gone.

And forget the young, fast, and flashy stuff. I’d get the car you drive. The sixty-five-year-old. In a heartbeat. And just go. Arrivederci. n

Solution to December puzzle, HEAD START.

20

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

Solution to this month’s puzzle, JOB FARE

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

21

harper’s FINDINGS Researchers using the global organology of von Hornbostel and Sachs tracked the extinction of aerophones in South America.

A study of Roman tools at Volubilis found that grain millstones were made from vesicular basalt, olive mills from clastic fossiliferous limestone, and dough mixers from nonclastic limestone. The camel reliefs at the Camel Site were dated to the sixth millennium bc. The vast migrations of Bronze Age Eurasian pastoralists were enabled by the drinking of horse milk. Black layers in Antarctic ice cores were traced to Maori burning practices that constitute one of the largest known preindustrial anthropogenic releases of carbon, which caused phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean similar to those that occurred after recent Australian wildfires.

9

Surgeons cured a man who was ejaculating out of his anus.

Japanese researchers transported freeze-dried mouse sperm via postcard. Scientists injured mice and then massaged their legs with a robotic device, and found that a ketogenic diet in concert with hypoxia impairs the ability of mice to navigate mazes. Rats on LSD running on a familiar track appear to be half asleep and half awake. Having a sense of purpose makes memories more vivid and coherent, and motivated cognition can be socially contagious. Children begin to understand the nature of false belief between the ages of six and seven. The particular light falling on a pregnant belly can affect the psychiatric state of the fetus as an adult. The United Kingdom’s National Pig Association reported piglet culls amid the fallout from COVID-19 and Brexit. Surface water in eastern North Carolina is more likely to contain both human and swine feces than either in isolation. Human infant feces contains ten times the PET microplastic content of adult feces. The International Marine Litter Research Unit found that two-year-old marine ropes shed 720 fragments of microplastic per meter hauled.

Researchers clarified that hermit crabs are excited by and attracted to plastic waste, but not sexually.

9

Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon researchers produced a skillful ten-year cod forecast, ecologists found that the age of a lobster can be determined by its DNA, and paleontologists sought to determine why so few species of mackerel shark are alive today. A tanker arrived in Japan with a dead fin whale on its bow. Llama nanobodies may prevent COVID-19, and a coronavirus found in Laotian bats is much more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than the coronavirus found among horseshoe bats in southern China. In the Namib Desert, three cheetahs who ate the same zebra died of anthrax. Yezo, a novel tick-borne virus discovered in Japan, was blamed for febrile illnesses in two hospital patients. China eliminated malaria. A man buried five thousand years ago on the banks of the Salaca River was determined to be the first known plague victim. The clouds of Venus may be hospitable to life. The nebula Pa30, surrounding Parker’s Star, is likely the Chinese Guest Star supernova observed by Chinese and Japanese astronomers in 1181 ad.

Earthshine is diminishing. n 22

ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

INDEX Portion of Americans who th the summer of 2020 to be average or above avg.: 1/2 Who considered the summer of 2021 to be bad or the “worst summer ever”: 1/4 Chance that an American planning to move in the next year blames natural disasters or extreme temperatures: 1 in 2 Rank of The Villages, a Florida retirement community, among the fastest-growing U.S. metropolitan areas: 1 Amt. W. Virginia will pay prospective residents to move to the state: $12,000 Rank of New Mexico among states whose residents googled the phrase “is Santa real” most often this year: 1 Average weight, in pounds, of a professional Santa: 245 Number of pounds by which the average weight of an adult male in the United States has increased since 1988: 18.5 Factor by which the rate of body mass index growth for U.S. children has increased during the pandemic: 2 Portion of U.S. parents who have noticed their teens’ mental health problems worsen during the pandemic: 1/2 Portion of teen girls who say Instagram has worsened body image issues: 1/3 Number of TikTok videos removed from the platform last year for violating its “minor safety” policies: 55,401,107 Ratio of school psychologists to K–12 students in the United States: 1 : 1,211 No. by which U.S. college enrollment has declined over the past five years: 1,500,000 Percentage of this decline that can be attributed to male students: 71 Adults worldwide who have experienced increased stress in the past year: 7/10 Who describe themselves as “emotionally exhausted”: 1/2 Percentage of U.S. executives who think their workplace culture has improved since the start of the pandemic: 72 Of U.S. human resources professionals who think so: 21 Adults who have not participated in a video call since the pandemic began: 1/5 Who say digital interactions are just as good as in-person ones: 1/5 % of U.S. adults taking virtual exercise classes who plan to continue as gyms reopen: 86 % of U.S. prisoners released in 2008 who were arrested again in the following decade: 82 Portion of those arrests that were for drug-related offenses: 1/2 Amount, in grams, of marijuana the DEA plans to produce this year: 2,000,000 % increase in the amount of psilocybin the agency plans to produce: 4,900 Minimum no. of L.A. County sheriff’s deputies who have been invited to join intradepartmental gangs: 254 % increase last year in the number of deaths by overdose in the U.S.: 30 Rank of 2020 among years with the highest number of recorded deaths by overdose: 1 % change over the past 20 years in the no. of U.S. estates paying estate taxes: −96 Portion of millionaires who worry about leaving “too much” money to their heirs: 2/3 Avg. amount of outstanding student debt owed by U.S. public school teachers: $56,900 Average salary of a U.S. public school teacher: $65,090 Percentage of U.S. families with health insurance that have medical debt: 16 Median amount of debt held by those families: $2,000 Avg. cost of a fake COVID-19 vaccination card on the messaging app Telegram: $250 Minimum number of COVID-19 vaccine doses that have been made available to U.S. zoo animals: 11,000 Percentage change since 2016 in the wild reindeer population: −13 Estimated year by which the woolly mammoth could become de-extinct: 2026 SOURCES: 1,2 YouGov (NYC); 3 Redfin (Seattle); 4 U.S. Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.); 5 Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative (Morgantown, W.Va.); 6 Google (Mountain View, Calif.); 7 National Santa (Babylon, N.Y.); 8 National Center for Health Statistics (Hyattsville, Md.); 9 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta); 10 C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital (Ann Arbor, Mich.); 11 Facebook (Menlo Park, Calif.); 12 TikTok (Culver City, Calif.); 13 National Association of School Psychologists (Bethesda, Md.); 14,15 National Student Clearinghouse (Herndon, Va.); 16,17 Qualtrics (Provo, Utah); 18,19 Society for Human Resource Management (Washington); 20,21 Pew Research Center (Washington); 22 Mindbody (San Luis Obispo, Calif.); 23,24 U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics; 25,26 U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (Arlington, Va.); 27 RAND Corporation (Santa Monica, Calif.); 28,29 National Center for Health Statistics; 30 Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (Washington); 31 The Motley Fool (Alexandria, Va.); 32,33 National Education Association (Washington); 34,35 U.S. Census Bureau; 36 Check Point Research (San Carlos, Calif.); 37 Zoetis (Parsippany, N.J.); 38 CARMA Network (Whitehorse, Yukon); 39 Colossal (Dallas).

JOB FARE ACROSS 1 6 10 14 17 18 19 21 22 25 26 27 28 29 31 34 37 39 40 41 44 47 49 54 58 59 60 61 62 64 67 69 70

77 82 83 84 85 86 87 91 93 94 95

Start Minor demons Pinterest poster, e.g.

Word after special, black or photo George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff John “July” singer ___ Cyrus “Spun” yarns Fish eggs Reporter of health-related news and research Ginormous amount Single part of a whole Demi Moore, ___ Guynes Abundant in plant life Second-in-command under Lyndon Sum of production Teller’s supervisor Get into again Handled bar ___ a one (nobody) Setting of Rainbow Rowell’s novel “Eleanor & Park” Splinter group Spread site that rhymes with “spread” Advocate for the accused “This Bitter Earth” singer Washington Hold ___ (cherish) “Victoria & Abdul” actor Fazal Three of clubs?

Become genetically altered Packing more punch Mobile program writer Four-time Oscar-nominated actress Moorehead Roger who co-hosted “Sneak Previews” One doing inspections or maintenance work beneath the surface Reacted with umbrage “That’s nice to hear!” ___ versa Dec. hrs. in D.C. Landlocked state with the island city Sabula Light dressing specification Creator of visual advertising content “Millionaire ___” (“The Jetsons” episode) Run-of-the-mill Harvester brand Initial step

by Evan Birnholz 98 Emulates an archer 100 Sports team supporter, of a sort 104 Artisan who may repair a Stradivarius 108 Phishing trap?

112 Put right on the page?

113 “Der Hölle Rache” from “The Magic Flute,” e.g.

115 Big tree climber 116 Mononymous “Chimera” musician 117 It’s used by students at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, briefly 118 Rewards from work, and a hint to this puzzle’s theme 123 Starting point for 127 Across 124 One is equivalent to about 0.028 kilograms 125 Shipmate of Data 126 Speech that may have bleeped-out words 127 Ernie who won the 2012 Open Championship 128 Flaming ___ (temporary name for a TV tavern where Aerosmith played) 129 Soaks (up) 130 Joint that can be affected by gout DOWN 1 Spanish “good” 2 Call things off 3 Video game where you wield an ax and slay?

4 Magazine with a Best Workplaces list 5 Subtle variation 6 With levity 7 Sound during milking 8 Rudd named Sexiest Man Alive

by People magazine in 2021 9 What a topiarist may clip 10 Salt Lake City residents 11 “Blueberries for ___” (children’s book) 12 First name that means “my God” 13 Alter, as one’s thinking 14 Brand of salsa and taco meal kits 15 “... for richer, for ___, in sicknessand in health ...”

16 Watch party?

17 Prudish one’s concern 20 Cause great surprise 23 Left Opposition leader Trotsky

76 TV writer Mike who 24 Govt. org. that submits FISA co-created “The Critic” court requests 78 Striped aquatic predator 30 One who might rob vaqueros 79 Like certain wolves in a western 80 Pour choice?

32 Not be precisely vertical 81 Demonstrate moxie 33 Cause for cramming 87 Reaper’s descriptor 35 ___ beef (Japanese meat) 88 La città con il Colosseo 36 “Family Affair” singer ___ J. Blige 89 Terse online reply that means 38 One-named comedian on “Good “deal with it” Girls” 90 Temple statue, e.g.

41 Track numbers 92 What a frustrated person might 42 Track competition throw 43 Many miles off 95 Fly a fighter jet 45 Business org.

96 “Icicles,” on a Christmas tree 46 Something taken by Dora the 97 Vague, large amount Explorer 99 See 120 Down 48 Target audience for HBO shows 101 Muscat Daily readers 50 Lost firmness 102 Area often shaved by a barber 51 Kagan who was dean of Harvard 103 Short slumber Law 105 Half of IT, briefly 52 Shown to many 106 Settings for IVs 53 Connecting point 107 Hilarious sorts 55 Short slumber 109 Plotting party 56 Got some brunch 110 Cell terminal that sounds like 57 “Have You Seen ___?” (hit by the 53 Down’s counterpart Chi-Lites) 61 Factors to be considered, in a case 111 Female zebra 114 ___-surrealism (artistic genre) 63 “ng” sounds, e.g.

119 Game with 1 cards, aptly 65 Went back, as the tide 120 With 99 Down, some Winter 66 Poetry book section Olympics gear 68 Smashing Pumpkins song whose 121 Alley-___ (“NBA Jam” play) name is a Hindu god without its H 122 “Star Trek Beyond” director 70 Distracting background noise Justin 71 Genre for Alexisonfire 72 Psychology topic from the Latin for “I” 73 Apt to be persuaded 74 U.S. senators, e.g.

Solution to this month’s puzzle on page 20 75 Words you just heard Solution to last month’s puzzle on page 20 ICON | JANUARY 2022 | ICONDV.COM

23