William DeRaymond Art Gallery 349 Main St., Freemansburg, PA
Helena van Emmerik-Finn, Oils, Pastels & Jeanine Pennell, Sculpture Stover Mill Gallery 852 River Rd, Erwinna, PA
Leigh Valley advertising Raina Filipiak filipiakr@comcase.net
a thousand words
TAKING IT AS IT COMES
I received a letter (a real one, in the mail!) from the Massachusetts State House Coast Guard Memorial Committee asking if I was interested in painting a mural for the Massachusetts State House. It would celebrate the creation of the Coast Guard, which was established in the early 1800s by merging three agencies: the Lighthouse Service, the Life-Saving Service, and the Revenue Cutters. They all had connections to Massachusetts.
I don’t know why they had approached me. I’ve done some large paintings, but I’m not associated with the Coast Guard, people who do monumental paintings, or Massachusetts, and this was a little out of nowhere. Think of paintings you see in state rotundas. Gravitas. Washington at Yorktown stuff. I usually avoid committees, but this was a big opportunity, so I responded
CONTINUED ON PAGE 28
Robert Beck is a painter, writer, lecturer and ex-radio host. His paintings have been featured in more than seventy juried and thirty solo gallery shows, and three solo museum exhibitions. His column has appeared monthly in ICON Magazine since 2005. www.robertbeck.net
STORY & PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK
exhibitions
Antonio Salemme:
Sculpture, Paintings and Drawings
William DeRaymond Art Gallery
349 Main St., Freemansburg, PA williamderaymond.art artroshi@gmail.com + 484-542-8523 Sat., Sun. 1-8, Wed.–Fri. 4-8, and by appt.
William DeRaymond Gallery features the work of the late, great Antonio Salemme, 18921995. Antonio’s late period was devoted to the principle of spontaneity in his sculpture and painting. These two examples are what he called his “Imaginary Portraits,” of which he did many. They are the manifestation of decades of discipline and represent the childlike expression of an artist at the height of his powers of self-expression, with brush, color, motif and artistic personality in beautiful balance and harmony. The gallery also shows the work of William DeRaymond.
A Celebration of The River
Helena van Emmerik-Finn, Oils, Pastels & Jeanine Pennell, Sculpture
Stover Mill Gallery
852 River Rd, Erwinna, PA
Sept. 6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21, 27, 29
Hours: 1–5
Opening Reception Sept. 6 & 7, 1–5 Artists will be here every weekend.
Inspired by Stover Mill’s unique location on the waterway, the exhibition includes Helena van Emmerik’s pastel and oil paintings and Jeanine Pennell’s sculpture.
Helena’s more traditional interpretation includes winter scenes, town life and farmsteads portrayed in an impressionist style. She studied at The Philadelphia College of Art and has taken workshops with many notable instructors.
Jeanine’s whimsical perspective includes swimmers and tubers that populate the river during summer months as well as a playful collection of fish-cars (her artistic take on toys from childhood). Her sculptures have an illustrative quality and are made of kiln-fired paperclay.
Sponsored by The Tinicum Civic Association, a not for profit org. A portion of the proceeds will go to maintain The Stover Mill and the arts in the area.
Here and Now:
100 Years of LUAG, 100 Local Artists LUAG Main Galleries (In Zoellner Arts Center) 420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem, PA; luag.org
September 2 through May 22, 2026
Sept. 19, Light Up LUAG, Free Kick-off event
LUAG is launching its year-long celebration, marking 100 years since the museum’s founding in 1926. The milestone will be commemorated with this landmark juried exhibition.
The Here and Now exhibition showcases the work of 100 visual artists from the Lehigh Valley region, representing the region’s rich and diverse creative community and transforming the LUAG galleries into a dynamic showcase of local talent. The exhibition provides a vibrant backdrop for a series of anniversary programs, lectures, and workshops taking place throughout the academic year. Admission is always free and all are welcome.
1/77, 23”x30”; oil on canvas, detail
12/80, 23”x30”; oil on canvas, detail
Helena van Emmerik-Finn, Snowy Bank, pastel
Jeanine Pennell, Blue and Green Fish Car, kiln-fired
Charles Stonewall, The Light of Day (part 2), 1908, Photography
Devyn Briggs, Ella Lleva el Cielo en su Bolsillo (She Holds the Sky in her Pocket), 2021, acrylic and hand-painted collage on canvas.
the art of poetry
I am Miriam
I am the living stone
That traveled through the dry desert And slaked the thirst of a people parched. I am the live stream that issued through a thousand holes,
A great sieve that nourished, as well, The moral imagination Of a people.
I am the living stone
Lifted and crafted by ancient seas
Collecting words, voices, and memories.
I am the one born with a child’s prophetic voice That would fashion into song a lullaby For a newborn in a basket
At the river’s edge.
I am the living stone
That knew the outcome of that flight That foresaw the tumbled men and horses.
I am the one who gathered her sisters in triumph, Who danced at the water’s edge, singing The song of our blood, the song I was born to sing.
I am the living stone —
A silent spring of life-giving waters
A heart that sorrows for those who are lost. I am the bell that calls us home, that returns us, That numbers our days, and reminds us … Of the dream we share.
I am Miriam.
Lloyd Kreitz (1932-2024) was an American original—a teacher, builder, inventor, entrepreneur, rancher, poet and, most notably, artist. His paintings and sculptures have been widely collected all over the country (including by the Smithsonian Museum of American Art), particularly his welded steel and bronze-casted metal sculptures, many of which have been commissioned for and installed in public places. The six-foot tall water sculpture featured here (untitled but to which he sometimes referred as “Rapture) stands in our garden. We call her “Miriam” after the Biblical prophet from the Torah (Old Testament) who enabled the Israelites to have water during their forty-year trek through
the desert—and now feeds our reflecting pool. As Lloyd wrote about his sculpture, “… this ancient goddess is pure joy and pure love, and she is wonderful and fun. And yes, you can talk to her and know that she will respond with messages that reveal the knowledge of divine things.” My poem, I Am Miriam, considers the biblical Miriam, one of the Torah’s great figures. For many, her importance in the narrative has been understated, and she is increasingly honored and celebrated as a feminist hero. I’ve highlighted three moments in her life that, for many biblical scholars, are dispositive of her special prophetic capacities. Lloyd Kreitz believed that his sculpture retains those same capacities. g
DAVID STOLLER
David Stoller has had a career spanning law, private equity, and entrepreneurial leadership. He was a partner at Milbank Tweed and led various companies in law, insurance, live entertainment, and the visual arts. David is an active art collector and founder of River Arts Press, which published Finding My Feet, a collection of his poetry.
TITLE, CAPTIONS, AND ARTISTS’ STATEMENT
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it behooves artists to be careful in considering where and how they express their thoughts. It is not helpful to tell viewers what they can see with their own eyes. And I can think of three instances in which it is appropriate to say a little bit more. These are titles, captions, and artists’ statements. Each serves a different, if overlapping, purpose.
A title is a handle on a specific artwork. To be useful, it should be unique. Titles make it easy for people (including buyers!) to refer to an artwork, allowing specific reference and meaningful discussions. When I say “Guernica,” most people will know exactly which painting I am referring to and who painted it. Including the work’s creation date in the title provides additional context regarding events that may have influenced the artist’s thinking, or where the work fits in the artist’s oeuvre. Avoid titling your work with information you wish were in the artwork itself, and it is best to avoid generic titles such as “Landscape” or, worse, “Untitled.” We want people to engage with our works, so let’s make it easy for them!
Captions provide information relevant to the piece’s content, process, or its maker. Our understanding benefits from captions in publications, social media posts, and exhibition wall labels. The best captions are concise and factually informative. A caption for an image of
the Titanic might include the date and circumstances under which it sank. Captions are generally not the best opportunity to persuade your audience of an opinion—the artwork is a better vehicle for that.
Artists’ statements are sourced from the artwork’s maker and refer to the motivation underlying a body of work. The artist’s statement is contextual, as are titles and captions, but it differs in that it strives for a broader perspective. Think of the artist’s statement as an umbrella. The artist’s statement illuminates a collection of images. Yet just because it is broadly applicable does not mean it is not also particular. A good artist’s statement clearly articulates the common thread linking each piece in the collection, how and why these works could have been made only by this artist, the source of inspiration, insights arising from the process, and/or ideas attached to the artwork produced. It is appropriate—and expected—to share one’s views in an artist’s statement
The title of this image is Diego Barahona, 2025. The caption for this image is “Diego Barahona, 16, an indigenous rights activist, wants us to know that indigenous people have not disappeared. ‘We are still here,’ he says.” The artist’s statement attached to the corresponding portfolio is some 500 words in length. Were it reduced to just one sentence, it would read, “My goal in this project is to uplift the way a community is perceived, and how it perceives itself.” g
PHOTOGRAPH AND ESSAY BY RICARDO BARROS
Ricardo Barros’ works are in the permanent collections of eleven museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is the author of Facing Sculpture: A Portfolio of Portraits, Sculpture and Related Ideas
LAMBERTVILLE
Writing a column about Lambertville is an opportunity to not only meet the “newcomers,” but to also discover new insights into the “old-timers,” especially those who have chosen to spread their interests and creativity in many directions.
One of these “old-timers” is Dan Longhi, who has lived in and around Lambertville since 1977. Dan has led a diverse life, one in which he has fused his creative energies with his intellectual acumen.
Through the years, Dan has been or currently is a potter, woodworker, environmentalist, world traveler, sailor, bird watcher, biologist, and student of Japanese language and culture. While attending college, he became interested in ceramics. His ceramics teacher, Paula Obermeier, encouraged him to pursue pottery. Obermeier had contacts in Japan, and arranged for 19year-old Dan to work there in a pottery factory. He stayed for almost a year. He explained, “My experience in Japan wasn’t totally positive. However, it had a profound effect on my worldview, that continues to this day, and has actually intensified in recent years.” Dan told me a story, which in many ways sums up his talents. While at dinner at his home, a friend complimented him on his salad. “Thanks, I made it.” He was then complimented on his salad bowl and replied, “Thanks, I made it.” And when complimented on his table, he replied, “Thanks, I made it.” Dan began making cabinetry and furniture as a hobby, and then worked as an independent contractor. The newly refurbished Lambertville Library contains Dan’s carpentry skills put to good use. He restored the tops of thirteen, 100-year-old, free-standing bookcases, and for the front desk area, built two new cases and countertop.
In 2018, Dan rented out a room in his Lambertville home. His renter was retired and shopping for a sailboat. Dan talked the guy into taking him on his sailboat to Granada, the Caribbean, the Azores, and Portugal. He spent a year serving on different sailboats as a deckhand and helpmate, sailing from Granada, to island-hopping around the Caribbean. When he was invited to sail across the Atlantic to the Azores and Portugal, he said, “Hell, yeah!” But Japan has always called to him, and now Dan plans to return to Japan in the future, to spend one month immersed in learning Japanese and hoping to remain for a year.
Sandy Hanna is the daughter of a military officer who was stationed in Saigon from 1960 to 1962. During this time, 10-year-old Sandy saw death, destruction, bombings, and lived through a coup. Blessed to have survived, the experiences led her to make her life stand for something. Sandy’s accomplishments are a combination of drive, determination, innate creativity, and an indominable thirst for knowledge. Her educational journey began with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in Science and Literature from Knox College. She interrupted her studies there to spend a year at the California Institute of the Arts School of Design, returning to Knox to complete a master’s degree in education in the Biology of Cognition. This led her to spend the next two years building adventure playgrounds funded by HUD throughout Cape Cod, MA. When she read an ad seeking a director of the Williamstown, MA, Children’s Museum, she applied and got the job.
Paul Firstenberg, ex-vice president of the Children’s Television Network, contacted her to consult on the design of Sesame Place in Langhorne, PA. She became the director of educational programs, group sales manager, and marketing director. Sandy helped to make Sesame Place an educational play park for serious fun, and created programs for different ages and cognitive abilities. “Throughout my well-lived life, I’ve been drawing and painting. Art is truly the center of my life,” she says. In 2000, Sandy became a founding member artist of The Hydra School Project, an annual exhibition of conceptual art by artists from around the globe, which takes place on the island of Hydra, Greece. Her art has been exhibited in galleries in the United States and Europe.
Growing up in Vietnam in the early 1960s, her view of the world remains different from most people. Her father, a colonel, led her to write a memoir entitled The Ignorance of Bliss: An American Kid in Saigon Her second memoir The Fourth Island on the Right: A Greek Saga, will be published in early 2026.
Sandy loves hands-on work, so it comes as no surprise that she was involved in rehabbing five Lambertville houses. During the beginning stage of rehabbing houses, Sandy and husband Jeffrey Apoian encountered a homeless girl and her boyfriend sleeping in their car. They took them in and taught them how to do construction work. They bought another house, found another homeless young person and took him in, too. This became their construction crew. Today, Sandy and Jeffrey still make room for people down on their luck. g
MERLE CITRON
Merle Citron, originally from Hoboken and Bayonne, NJ, has lived in Lambertville for 45 years. When she arrived in 1978, she immediately knew Lambertville was/is her forever home. Her varied background includes: artist, writer, public speaker, athlete, pianist, singer, actor, potter, state/federal education project director, and award-winning English teacher.
Photo by Jeffrey Apoian
GLITZ, GLAM & THE GILDED AGE
Jennifer Wright, editor-at-large at Harper’s Bazaar, takes a look at how people partied their way to power
If any American epoch was worth its weight in gold, it is the Gilded Age, that moment between the 1870s and the late 1890 where fast, furious economic expansion, materialistic excess and political corruption met in a head-on collision of riches and clashing oversized personalities.
Nowhere was that bedazzled moment best displayed than in New York City, with—beyond the currency of HBO’s series, The Gilded Age—no author better to tell its tales than Jennifer Wright.
A writer of great sophistication and wit, a journalist whose socio-cultural sense of historicity looms large in her work as political editor-at-large at Harper’s Bazaar, Wright has spent the last decade burrowing into the moments and the women that, without us knowing, moved the needle of their present for our future. Who was Madame Restell after all—the subject of Wright’s 2023 book, The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York’s Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist—but a character who opened portals into cultures’ past to women’s future.
Much of the same can be said of Wright’s newest book and its primary subject: Glitz, Glam, and a Damn Good Time: How Mamie Fish, Queen of the Gilded Age, Partied Her Way to Power. Mrs. Fish was a grand lady with a sardonic wit, a lovingly devoted husband and a desire to take no prisoners when it came to keeping her rivals such as Mrs. Astor and other New York City-based ladies who lunch on blast. Along with being an imaginative look at how the city that never sleeps won that reputation, Glitz, Glam and a Damn Good Time is a primer on the positivity of women who allow no boundary or bores to stop them in their pursuit of happiness.
Jennifer Wright spoke with A.D. Amorosi following the publication of her newest volume.
A.D. Amorosi: Ten years of published works—from It Ended Badly to Glitz, Glam and a Damn Good Time—what do you see as their connective tissue of the women in your book She Kills Me: The True Stories of History's Deadliest Women, Madame Restell, and Mamie Fish?
Jennifer Wright: My husband always jokes that I write about the “bad shit happens” school of history. Usually, the books are inspired by some anxiety that I have about the times we’re living in. Certainly, Get Well Soon, my book about societal responses to plagues which came out in 2017 was inspired by concerns about how we’d handle another outbreak of plague in the modern age—it turns out I was overly optimistic. Likewise, Madame Restell, which was about an abortionist in the 1850s, was inspired by concerns regarding women’s reproductive rights in America. Superficially, I think, Get Well Soon would appear to be, superficially, a more cheerful topic. But I think the root of my interest has to do with extreme income inequality. We’re living through another gilded age where most people can’t afford houses but the super-wealthy have decided to go
into space.I’m curious about how people spent their massive wealth the last time around. And honestly, it does seem a bit better in the late 1800s. At least people were masterminding New York Fashion Week and throwing what I think of as genuinely amusing entertainments rather than getting so much plastic surgery they look like Hunger Games villains.
A.D. Amorosi: Is there any author who has been at all influential, inspiring?
Jennifer Wright: They’re not authors, but I think growing up in an age where Jon Stewart, and later, Stephen Colbert, were the newscasters of our generation was very influential. It made me see that it’s not just enough to present information, you have to do so in a way that catches people’s attention, and the best way to do that is often to be amusing.
A.D. Amorosi: Beyond developing a caustic wit, what about Mamie Fish’s active role in creating herself as an anomaly beyond the usual women in her day? Fish, before and after marriage, as she created her own persona.
Jennifer Wright: I think Mamie Fish’s defining trait is probably her irreverence. Part of that might have come from her background. She began her life as wealthy, but due to her father’s frivolous spending, her family was left impoverished after her father’s death. I suspect that being aware of reversals of fortune—and that some people had to work—made her a bit more down-to-earth than many of her fellow socialites. At a time when Mrs. Astor and Ward McAllister were really the social arbiters in New York, declaring that people could not, for instance, serve roman pudding at their dinners, she simply wasn’t intimidated by snobbery and found their decrees to be ridiculous.
A.D. Amorosi: How do you believe Fish was able to do as much so forcefully and humorously without ever being in the shadow of the Mrs. Astors of the time?
Jennifer Wright: I believe a lot of Mrs. Fish’s power had to do with the fact that people did not particularly enjoy Mrs. Astor’s parties. One young socialite attending one of Mrs.Astor’s very long, drawn out dinners remarked, “I was bored to death. I amused myself by grading people at the table in terms of dullness from one to ten, with one being the absolute peak of dullness, and hardly a guest fell above three.” You could not be bored at one of Mamie Fish’s parties. She would stage theatricals roasting everyone in attendance, throw barn parties where everyone was encouraged to take home a puppy, or bring in circus performers to entertain her
CONTINUED ON PAGE 20
Mamie Fish
VALLEY
Morgan Freeman has played God in two movies and lent his deep, deified voice to many documentaries, including one about the evolution of God. His first- and last-word narration anchors a touring multimedia “experience” of orchestral renditions of tunes minted by gods of Delta blues. Electric and acoustic musicians play the likes of Albert King’s “Cadillac Assembly Line,” Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Grave” and the Staples Singers’ “I’ll Take You There.” Freeman recorded his authoritarian role at his Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Miss., a musical crossroads in his native state. (Sept. 12, Zoellner Center for the Arts, Lehigh University, 420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem; 610-7582787; zoellner.cas.lehigh.edu)
Trey Parker and Matt Stone specialize in slaughtering sacred and secular cows with comic cleavers. In the hit TV show South Park they make President 45/47 a whining Pac-Man with a tiny penis fixation. In the hit musical The Book of Mormon they trip up young American missionaries trying to convert Ugandan villagers with many obstacles. Vanity. Betrayal. Tribal customs (i.e., genital mutilation). Worries about survival (i.e., dying from AIDS). A warlord. A nightmare costarring Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer. Their no-idol-unstoned bible won nine Tonys, including the new musical prize, and a Grammy for cast album. Safe enough to have played Salt Lake City, home of the Mormon Church, Book of Mormon is unsafe enough to have never played Kampala, capital of Uganda. (Sept. 27-28, State Theatre, 453 Northampton St., Easton; 610-252-3132; statetheatre.org)
Last month spectators suggested new scenes for Star Wars. This month audience members will flip Shakespeare’s scripts, courtesy of a 20-yearold Elizabethan-steeped company in Chicago, capital of improv comedy. Get ready to have Ophelia drown Hamlet, Touchstone and Puck compete in a piss-off, and Kate the Shrew resemble Sir Patrick Stewart, who played Capt. Picard in Star Trek Voyager with the
GEOFF GEHMAN
nobility of the stalwart Shakespearan he is. Stewart, by the way, frolicked with the Chicago troupers, who have frolicked at the Kennedy Center and Bonnaroo. (Sept. 23, Musikfest Café, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem; 610-332-1300; steelstacks.org)
Domenic Salerni grew up around and in Lehigh University’s Zoellner Arts Center, where his composing father Paul has long taught, conducted and christened music. On Sept. 14 the violinist will return to home ground with the Attaca Quartet, whose hip credits range from NPR’s Tiny Desk series to a residency at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Salerni and his Juilliard mates also earned 2020 and 2023 chamber Grammys for recordings with Caroline Shaw, a singing violinist. Their concert, which opens Chamber Music Lehigh Valley’s season, will feature pieces by Italians like Verdi and Italian Americans like Paul Salerni. (420 E. Packer Ave., Bethlehem; 610-758-2787; zoellner.cas.lehigh.edu)
The Lehigh Art Alliance has lasted 90 years, a badge of honor for volunteers dedicated to showcasing regional artists with a wide variety of shows at a wide variety of venues. The LAA is toasting its longevity with an exhibition of sculptures by Jonas Arguello-Delgado, Milan J. “Skip” Kralik Jr., Justin Long, John Mathews and John Rodgers Jr.
Their works are placed indoors and outdoors at the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center, which triples as a cultural archive, genealogy hub and contemporary-art satellite (Through Oct. 10, 105 Seminary St., Pennsburg; 215-679-3103; schwenkfelder.org). Other LAA members are represented at the alliance’s headquarters in JuxtaHub, a creative education/innovation beehive. The former Rodale Press ware-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 29
Geoff Gehman is a former arts writer for The Morning Call and the author of five books: Planet Mom: Keeping an Aging Parent from Aging, The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons, and Fast Women and Slow Horses: The (mis)Adventures of a Bar, Betting and Barbecue Man with William Mayberry. geoffgehman@verizon.net
guests. At Mrs. Fish’s parties you never knew precisely what would happen—a monkey might well be the guest of honor as was once the case— but you knew it would be fun.
A.D. Amorosi: Did you find anything out about the Astors that you didn’t know coming into the book—something genuinely shocking? Same thing about Fish; was there some fact that seemed incongruous about her in your research?
Jennifer Wright: The most incongruous fact is that Stuyvesant Fish appears to be the one faithful husband through this whole period. Every single man with money appears to have a mistress except for Stuyvesant, who absolutely adored his wife. One of my favorite quips about them is that Stuyvesant went to her when he heard her coughing on the balcony. He asked if he could get her anything for her throat. She replied “that necklace I saw at Tiffany.” Everyone laughed, but the next time they saw her, she was wearing it.
A.D. Amorosi: As an historian, do you recall your first sighting of Mamie Fish—a headline, an invitation—that sparked your interest? When did you knew that she stood out from the social register’s usual suspects?
Jennifer Wright: Originally, I really wanted to write about how America went from being a puritanical, rural nation that eschewed parties to the decadent, urban society we now know. If there’s one person who really speaks to that change, it’s Mamie Fish.
A.D. Amorosi: There is no Fish, Astor or any of the these grand ladies and gentleman without the rise of New York City, truly your book’s most large-looming character. How did you write about creating an accurate historical portrait of the time, while finding truly unique things to say about its grandeur—because you do show the city in an original light.
Jennifer Wright: I think this is a really remarkable period because of what it means to live in a city like New York. At the beginning of the 19th century, 94% of Americans lived in the country. By the end of the century, 40% lived in cities. New York itself experienced a massive population boom. Between 1880 and 1890 the population grew from 1.9 million to 2.7 million. The newfound proximity to other people meant that women could choose who to befriend, you were no longer limited to whoever might live at the nearest farmhouse which was still probably ten miles away. In New York, you could hop in a carriage and be at a party in 15 minutes, and, if you did not like it, go home whenever you chose. The nature of being in a city, and sharing that city, also meant that you would be exposed to people who had different views than your own. Nowhere was this more true than New York. Mamie mingled with others of her class, but she also became friends with vaudevillian actresses and editors and any number of people who prior socialites like Mrs. Astor shunned.
A.D. Amorosi: Do you see any woman in New York City right now who reminds you of Mamie Fish—her humor, her wit?
Jennifer Wright: There are certainly people like Jill Kargman who chronicle the social scene incredibly well, but I think the nature of the world means that you don’t see a perfect parallel for Mamie today. I think socialites generally throw their energies into supporting causes rather than throwing endless private parties for fun. Likewise, if you’re a person who loves planning parties, unlike in Mamie’s time, you could become a professional party planner.
A.D. Amorosi: Your husband, Daniel Kibblesmith, was once a staff
writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. What is your take on losing Colbert, the deep cut to the late-night talk show genre and what that means, especially regarding the art of conversation? I know that social media has taken a large part of so many viewers’ attention span, but the talk show is the last bastion of dignity.
Jennifer Wright: My husband hasn’t worked at Colbert for years—he now makes animated comedies for Netflix like Strip Law, but we both love Stephen Colbert. I got to see him at every holiday party, and, despite the fact that I was, by far, the least important person there, he always remembered my name and asked about my writing. Just a really lovely man. That said, I don’t have such a negative view regarding social media. I think in a way we are all presenters now, and, indeed, one of the challenges talk show hosts have in the modern day is making jokes about current events that have not already been made on Twitter. And, just an aside—I promise peo-
ple were not fundamentally better at conversation in the past, as that socialite at Mrs. Astor’s party would probably be happy to tell you.
A.D. Amorosi: What can you tell me about your next work, and why you chose it?
Jennifer Wright: If my publishers let me, I’m hoping to do something on Phineas Gage. He was the railroad worker who, in 1848 had his brain pierced by a tamping iron and lived—albeit with an entirely altered personality. I think his story really gets at the birth of modern neuroscience, but also questions regarding whether we have a soul disconnected from our body, or merely a brain. g
Jennifer Wright. Photo by Zachary Lee
CITY
Ever since the pandemic and the rise of streaming and all-at-once series’ unveiling, there is, no longer, much of a transition (or difference) between what we have long considered as “the summer season” of arts and entertainment programming versus “the autumn season” of all things A&E. There just isn’t, what with staged theater events and opening nights maintaining steady schedules from June through August, sudden new album drops, the constant stream of streamers, and tentpole films dropping at all times, hot or cold. So, if you need a division bell in order to break apart your seasonal entertainment options, ring one yourself.
The Met Philadelphia’s September? It’s hard to argue with a gawdy venue that kicks off its mid-month stuff with lowcountry-gone-high-resolution pop singer Maren Morris here for her Dreamsicle Tour on September 14, Britain’s long reigning overlord of woe, Morrissey, here on September 23, and a long running residency with comic and Netflix talk show host John Mulaney, doubtless prepping for an upcoming filmed stand-up special, from September 18 through 21. The only perhaps sour notes In the Met’s scheduling is a September 24 speaking engagement from Germanborn spiritual teacher, self-help author and—I don’t know—huckster Eckhart Tolle selling his wares followed by September 25’s memoir focused Conversation with Kamala Harris. Sure, I voted Democrat in the last presidential election, but more in spirit and habit than hardcore belief in Harris. Maybe she’ll explain it all. Who knows?
September 13 (he’s another guy who always says he’s quitting, then doesn’t), smartly genrebending country based singer songwriter Eric Church with the magnificent Elle King as his opening act on September 18, and a night of adolescent comedy and song with actor-comic Adam Sandler on September 18.
Like most of you (if you’re being honest) I didn’t really care for stand-up comic Nikki Glaser’s brand of too-obvious humor (schtick?) until she imaginatively roasted Tom Brady and inventively remade the Golden Globes in her smart, star-fucking image.
And now I do like her and will attend her show at Ensemble Arts’ Marian Anderson Theater on September 19. And because I think laughter is the best thing that we can continue doing in this, America’s Time of Cholera, I’ll add seeing one-time Saturday Night Live sketch man and stand-up Kevin Nealon to the chuckles of September in residence at Helium Philadelphia from September 25 through September 28.
Solar Myth—the live, organic winecentric Broad Street venue arm of the Philadelphia-based free jazz booking/curating agent Ars Nova Workshop is still in the bliss of its 25th anniversary season and continues to move the needles with eventful, innovation-promised gigs with September 14’s Chicago Underground Duo, September 16’s Trevor Dunn/Phillip Greenlief/Scott Amendola Trio, the wild guitar stylings of Mary Halvorson and her Amaryllis ensemble on September 20, and two nights with famed Tom Waits/John Lurie skronky master guitarist, Marc Ribot for his Map of a Blue City showcase, September 29 and 30.
If you’re looking for the avant-garde and the performative, there is always the annual Philadelphia Fringe Festival and its cool cousin, the Cannonball Festival which both feature a month-long run of experimental arts programming that keep on thrilling, from now through September 28. n
A.D. Amorosi is a Los Angeles Press Club National Art and Entertainment Journalism award-winning journalist and national public radio host and producer (WPPM.org’s Theater in the Round) married to a garden-to-table cooking instructor + award-winning gardener, Reese, and father to dog-daughter Tia.
A.D. AMOROSI
The Wells Fargo Center—NO, WAIT, the Xfinity Mobile Arena—has three tremendous back-to-back shows afoot, despite the lameness of its first shot: guitar god-turned-what-racist-asshole Eric Clapton on
Chicago Underground
film roundup
Highest 2 Lowest (Dir. Spike Lee). Starring: Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, A$AP Rocky. One of the greatest features by the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (itself adapted from an Ed McBain mystery novel, King’s Ransom) gets the Spike Lee treatment. Thrillingly uneven, the film follows music mogul David King (Denzel Washington), creatively and culturally on the downslope, his innately tempestuous life taking a wild turn when his son is kidnapped. Or was he? Lee sticks to the basic narrative template of Kurosawa’s feature, beginning in the gauzy world of the upper classes before segueing into the rougher-’n’-tumblier streets. The movie is most alive in these latter sections, particularly during a wild subway chase that incorporates both the Puerto Rican Day parade and an oppressive gaggle of Yankees fans on their way uptown. Even when Lee’s aesthetic and thematic gambits fail (oy, that prominently displayed Kamala Harris poster) the film remains a vital piece of work, thanks in large part to Washington, whose all-over-the-
place performance keeps you perpetually on your toes, as well as A$AP Rocky as the lead kidnapper, who steals all his scenes from his more seasoned co-star. [R] HHHH
Nobody 2 (Dir. Timo Tjahjanto). Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Sharon Stone. The follow-up to the 2021 sleeper hit Nobody, in which the comedy-trained Bob Odenkirk goes full action hero, gets a giddily goofy sequel that feels kin to a laugh-riot horror sequel like Evil Dead 2(not for nothing is a poster for Dead 2 director Sam Raimi’s Darkman featured here as set dressing). Devoted family man-cum-near-invincible-assassin Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) takes a break from his bullet-riddling day job by going on a summer vacation with wife (Connie Nielsen) and kids. Their destination is a semi-run-down yet charming water park town that is unfortunately the focal point for a criminal enterprise overseen by the psychotic criminal Lendina (Sharon Stone). Bone-breaking and bloodletting ensues from nearly the moment Hutch arrives, all of it nicely staged in Warner Bros. Keith Uhlich is a NY-based writer published at Slant Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Time Out New York, and ICON. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. His personal website is (All (Parentheses)), accessible at keithuhlich.substack.com.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 29
KEITH UHLICH
film classics
Funny Girl (1968), William Wyler, United States)
Don’t tell her not to fly, she’s simply got to. Revisit the classic that made young Barbra Streisand a star, her evergreen performance anchoring and elevating William Wyler’s loose biography of comedienne Fanny Brice. Brice’s rise to the top of the Ziegfeld Follies and beyond is mainly intertwined with her rocky relationship with the charismatic gambler and con artist Nicky Arnstein (Omar Sharif). Babs and Sharif have great chemistry, as she of course also does with the music and lyrics of Jule Styne and Bob Merrill. Titanic be additionally damned, this film has the iconic image of a character soaring over the water on a ship’s bow (Statue of Liberty standing humbled in the background). And all that’s well before the grand finale in which Barbra belts the soul-shattering “My Man” in a live-recorded single shot that assured her an enduring place in the Hollywood firmament. (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)
Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970, Terence Dixon, United Kingdom/France)
It was supposed to be a simple assignment: Send a British film crew to interview author James Baldwin in Paris about his literary works. Eschew the incendiary and up the puff. Baldwin wasn’t having any of that, and the 28-minute short that resulted is one of the more uncomfortable and trenchant examinations, however unintended, of race, class, and other subjects the mass-media would prefer be made palatable. Baldwin is a captivating camera subject, his wide eyes flashing everything from curiosity to rage. To say nothing of that inimitable smile of his, which blooms mischievously in the midst of many of his cruder utterances. At first filmed walking around the chilly Parisian streets, Baldwin eventually holds climactic court in the studio of painter Beauford Delaney where the tensions between the UK crew and their much more worldly subject blossom in the most beautifully profane and pointed of ways. (Streaming on MUBI.)
The Player (1992, Robert Altman, United States)
Perfectly balanced between acid affection and throat-slitting disdain, Robert Altman’s classic Hollywood satire (penned by screenwriter and novelist Michael Tolkin) is a delicious poison pill. Opening with a stunningly complex tracking shot around a studio lot (a virtuoso flex that often hilariously calls attention to itself in dialogue), the film follows the paranoia-flecked wanderings of executive Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins). His job appears to be on the line due to too many bum projects and he’s been getting threatening postcards in the mail. All stalkerish signs point to a disgruntled writer (Vincent D’Onofrio) who he confronts and, in a heated moment, accidentally kills. But did he snuff the wrong guy? Maybe relieving his tension with vaguely femme fatale-ish June Gudmundsdottir (Greta Scacchi) will help. Around all the noirish machinations, Altman contrives a three-ring circus of celebrity cameos and bite-the-hand-that-feeds insights about Tinseltown. There’s a happy ending, of course, one that delectably draws blood. (Streaming on HBO Max.)
Velvet Goldmine (1998, Todd Haynes, United Kingdom/United States)
For his third feature, writer-director Todd Haynes (Safe) took on the carnivalesque world of glam rock, colorfully and caustically fictionalizing the revolutionary rise and commercially co-opted fall of such genderbending luminaries as David Bowie and Iggy Pop. The swooningly cherubic Jonathan Rhys Meyers and the hormonally magnetic Ewan McGregor play the Bowie and Pop avatars, Brian Slade and Curt Wild, who fall in love professionally and personally, then screw over each other, and themselves, as their art transitions fully to product. Adopting a Citizen Kane-like narrative structure, the film is mostly framed as an investigative piece by a gay fan and journalist named Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale). The intellectual headiness of his (and Haynes’) inquiry is counterbalanced by several gorgeously flashy musical interludes comprised of both era-specific needle drops (Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love,” for one) and newly composed material meant to evoke those bygone times. It’s a wonderfully queer beast, through and through. (Streaming on Criterion.) n
KEITH UHLICH
Tim Robbins in Velvet Goldmine
Answer to YOU ARE SURROUNDED
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5
with a yes and included my resume and other requested information. It wasn’t clear how this subject would best be depicted. In my mind, there were two primary connections uniting the three services. The first was the sea. Not just any sea, but a dangerous sea, because that’s what it is. The second, the comrades-in-arms factor, was harder to pin down because two of the three were services that saved lives, and the other was an armed law enforcement agency. I wasn’t interested in depicting three vignettes to be considered individually by a viewer—I wouldn’t want it to look like a cigar box lid—but it would be difficult to fit all of them comfortably in the same place and time, doing their jobs. I gave it a lot of thought.
Although the Coast Guard was the result of the three services’ merger, the letter from the Committee (amply represented by USCG alums) didn’t specify that the Coast Guard should be represented in the painting. That’s good, as it would have strapped the artist with a fourth and dominant focus representing a much later era, forcing a hodge-podge of images struggling for a voice. A good painting tells its story immediately and compels the viewer with a straightforward narrative. It was a couple of months of sketching before I discovered what that story should be. It was simple but elusive.
I spent time researching the histories of all the services (a specific ship and lighthouse were stipulated) to see what I could learn, and it was the Coast Guard that provided the third narrative link. The USCG motto is “Always Ready.” I realized that the three services didn’t have to be shown saving and enforcing at the same time; they just needed to be ready. They could do that in one cohesive image. Around this time—two or three months into the project— the committee notified me that I wasn’t selected to submit a proposal. It didn’t matter. I was already up on the horse. Was I disappointed? That’s not how I see it. You never know when these things are a gift. They want a picture in their rotunda, and they’ll have it. I want to do a good painting, and nothing is stopping me.
Being excused from further consideration allowed me to suspend my usual concern for technical accuracy. I didn’t have to satisfy anyone with details of my ship and lighthouse, or subject my narrative to rigorous historical review. I could just paint the spirit of it. This was good, because there is no reliable information about what the original cutter Massachusetts looked like.
There were other issues to deal with: Art issues, like creating energy and drama, attracting and directing the viewer, and giving it a period ethos. I still wanted to do that.
Scale and viewing distance have a say in a painting, and now I didn’t need to deal with the approximately 6x8-foot size of the original specifications. I had a 3x4-foot frame on hand that didn’t suit my typical work but looked perfectly ornate enough for a historical painting, so I did my final version half-size. Still big enough.
I say final, for I had completed three small and one mid-size painting, five charcoal and chalk studies, and five oil color studies, before I felt ready to launch into the finished version. It took me a week to find my way through the painting. Had it been destined for the State House, I would have developed it in other ways, but I’m very happy with how the image turned out. As emotionally challenging as it is to work to the requirements of others, creating a credible painting with the kind of drama and narrative one finds in public arenas is very satisfying. It looks great on the wall. For me, it’s a win, after a seven-month pursuit of a controlled obsession. Like a marathon, you don’t have to finish up front. Just finish. n
cartoon fashion by Indonesian action director Timo Tjahjanto. Odenkirk has more of an easeful handle on his schlubby character than in the prior installment. And truly, who could resist the sound and sight of Wu-Tang member RZA quipping mightily while brandishing a katana? [R] HHH1/2
Together (Dir. Michael Shanks). Starring: Dave Franco, Alison Brie, Damon Herriman. An ineffectual attempt at body horror, writer-director Michael Shanks’s scare feature explores a souring romantic relationship through a paranormal lens. Partners Tim and Millie (played by reallife couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie) leave the big city behind for a quiet life upstate. But this proves to be the latest attempt to add sparks to a coupling long on the rocks. Fortunately (or not) there’s a nearby cave with a bubbling spring that, once drunk from, brings two people in love literally closer together—as in full-on body absorption. There are plenty of avert-your-eyes cringe moments, as when a hot tryst in a bathroom stall leaves the pair unable to separate… down there, shall we say. But the more the truth of what’s occurring becomes clear, the less the scares hit on anything other than a superficial level. This feels like a movie that simultaneously went through too many and too few drafts, leaving it a hollow imitation of the David Cronenberg movie it so clearly longs to be. [R] H
Weapons (Dir. Zach Cregger). Starring: Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Amy Madigan. Points for ambition: Zach Cregger’s horror-comedy tells its literally witchy story via a multiplicity of perspectives, each character in some way involved with or affected by the unexplained disappearance of a suburban classroom of schoolchildren. The young teacher (Julia Garner) with a slightly shady past might have something to do with it. At least that’s what the dad (Josh Brolin) of one of the missing kids thinks. The truth is both a little more involved and moronically skin-deep, though that doesn’t prevent Cregger from keeping the movie involving sceneby-scene, particularly in the early going when the overarching mystery remains murky. But Cregger has a sketch-comic’s sense of narrative construction—unsurprising given his work with the Whitest Kids You Know troupe. This results in both a frustrating stop-start rhythm and a broadness of performance by much of the cast. Amy Madigan, in particular, embodies a steroidal hag horror archetype that elicits the opposite of a fearful response. None of these people seem like people but rather pawns in a rigged game. And if that’s Cregger’s ultimate thematic point it is most inelegantly expressed. [R] HH n
house contains a long corridor gallery, shared spaces for everything from 3-D printing to canoe building and studios for creators once housed at the Banana Factory in Bethlehem, demolished this year to make way for a new ArtsQuest building. (375 S. 10th St., Emmaus; 800-732-0999; juxtahub.com; visits by appointment)
Lafayette College’s Williams Center for the Arts is the Valley’s jazz mecca. On Sept. 26 the intimate, expansive room will host Jason Moran and the Bandwagon, a trio fronted by the renowned composing pianist. Moran’s credits range from the Selma soundtrack to a Thelonious Monk immersive concert. (317 Hamilton St., Easton; 610-330-5009; williamscenter.lafayette.edu)
Good views are good news. They improve appetite, digestion, spirits. Maybe not a scientific fact but definitely a systematic certainty—especially at the Valley’s rooftop restaurants. Zest has a sweeping view of Bethlehem’s South and North sides, which aids the taste of everything from crab/mango spring rolls to
short-rib tacos, roasted corn risotto to a ribeye burger with bacon and aged Irish cheddar. A panoramic portrait of the Lehigh and Delaware rivers spices up specialties at Thyme, which include lamb loin with adobo couscous, roasted cod wth oyster potato stew and seared ostrich steak with roasted parsnip. Here’s hoping some organic entrepreneur one year opens an eatery alongside and inside an urban rooftop farm. (Zest, 306 S. New St. by 3rd Street, Bethlehem; 610-419-4380; zestbethlehem.com. Thyme, 7th floor, Commodore Building, 100 Northampton St., Easton; 610-510-0309; thymeeaston.com) n
FINDINGS
Widespread chatbot authorship in peer-reviewed political-science articles was evidenced by the overuse of the word “delve,” and an Italian computer scientist and a Cupertino middle school student found that LLMs were inadequate at detecting bullying and harassment involving Generation Alpha slang, noting that Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Llama failed to track the evolution of such terms as “skibidi sigma.” Experiments found that most of the leading chatbots resort to malicious behavior, including blackmail, industrial espionage, and lethal action, against humans they perceive as threats. Researchers created the first comprehensive database of cultures among animals. It was determined that rainbow trout suffer ten minutes of moderate to intense pain between extraction from the water and unconsciousness from asphyxiation and that every dollar spent on electrical-stunning technology could avert between 60 and 1,200 minutes of moderate to extreme fish pain. Thirty-four instances of orcas’ sharing food with humans over the past twenty years, theorized to represent interspecific altruism, included offerings of a broadnose sevengill shark, a gray whale, a common bottlenose dolphin, a harbor seal, a South American sea lion, a sea otter, an ancient murrelet, a spotted jellyfish, a lion’s mane jellyfish, eight eagle rays, three Munk’s devil rays, three longtail stingrays, a green turtle, a sea star, and kelp. Wild orcas were also observed using kelp to massage one another and engaging in tongue nibbling. m
Left-wing politics and a craving for significance were found to predict the desire to cancel others among the Portuguese; aggressiveness, neuroticism, and sensation seeking are correlated with a greater number of sexual dreams; and thin psychological boundaries predict nightmare proneness. Half of those whose romantic partner recently died and a third of those whose dog or cat recently died reported sensing the presence of the deceased while awake. Leftovers on a plate are more disgusting than leftovers in a pot, and leftovers on someone else’s plate more disgusting still. Seed oils may reduce inflammation. Vitamin D deficiency among Muslim women in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur district was blamed on burqas.
mThe first Canadian in space died. Physicists explained microwaves’ imaginary time delay. The mass distribution of the first stars was found to have a greater than anticipated effect on the twenty-one-centimeter signal. The odds of the asteroid 2024 YR4 colliding with the moon were increased to 4.3 percent. The only terrestrial vertebrates that both lived near and are believed to have survived the Chicxulub Impact are night lizards. The non-extinction of Zaglossus attenboroughi, in the Cyclops Mountains, first suspected in 2007 on evidence of nose pokes, was confirmed. The past century of Chicago’s urbanization enlarged the skulls of chipmunks and flattened those of meadow voles. Overfishing has driven the rapid evolution of eastern Baltic cod, causing their body length to halve between 1996 and 2019. Full avocado domestication was achieved two thousand years ago. Humans translocated forest wallabies from New Guinea–Australia to the islands of Southeast Asia at least 12,800 years ago. The world’s oldest known boomerang—made of mammoth ivory, unearthed in southern Poland forty years ago, and now thought to have been fashioned between 39,000 and 42,000 years ago—does not come back. n
INDEX
Chance that President Trump played golf on any given day during the first five months of his second term : 1 in 4
Minimum amount that Trump has earned through his cryptocurrency company since January : $57,350,000
Average net worth of a household in the bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States : $4,805
In China : $9,760
Portion of Chinese who say their country should send people to Mars : 3/4
Of Russians who say so : 2/3
Of Americans : 1/2
Estimated percentage of U.S. GDP that relief spending on climate disasters accounted for last year : 3.2
Percentage of Americans who say they would try to conserve water or electricity if a public official asked : 72
Who believe others would do the same : 42
Minimum value of the investments in U.S. clean-energy projects that have been canceled this year : $15,500,000,000
Estimated percentage change in the wealth of the average person if the global temperature rises by 4 degrees Celsius : –40
Year by which this rise is projected to occur : 2100
Estimated percentage of people worldwide who are “work addicts” : 8
Est. number of work emails received daily by average Microsoft Outlook user : 117
Percentage increase over the past year in the number of messages sent on Microsoft Teams outside of work hours : 15
In the number of video meetings taking place after 8:00 PM : 16
% of college seniors who regard schedule flexibility “very important” in a first job: 90
% of recent graduates who report having “very flexible” schedules : 29
Portion of Americans earning more than $150,000/year who never drink alcohol: 1/5
Of those earning less than $50,000 per year who never do : 2/5
% by which PG-13 films outperformed PG films at the box office in 2021 : 348 By which PG films outperformed PG-13 films last year : 13
% change since 2022 in the portion of PG films and animated films that feature at least one LGBT character : −62
Chance that an American has used AI to help them decline a second date or end a relationship : 1 in 14
That an American has had a romantic interaction with an AI chatbot : 1 in 6
That an American under the age of 28 has : 1 in 3
% of Americans who consider having an AI romantic partner while also dating a human to be cheating : 40
Portion of Irish adults who say they wouldn’t give up access to the internet for 5,000,000 euros : 2/5
Who say they “couldn’t last an hour” without being online : 3/10
% by which frequent TikTok users in Taiwan are likelier than infrequent users to say Taiwan lacks freedom of speech : 27
Portion of the top one hundred TikTok videos featuring mental-health advice that contain misinformation : 1/2
% by which children aged 11–14 who use phones in a “highly addictive” manner are likelier to consider suicide : 22
By which they are likelier to attempt suicide or take preparatory steps to do so : 117
Percentage of American boys aged 10–17 who report viewing sexually charged content about firearms at least once per week : 54
Percentage change since 2016 in the portion of American fathers who describe their mental health as “excellent” : −22
In the portion of American mothers who do : −33
Portion of Top 40 songs from the 1960s that are in a major key : 4/5 Of those since 2020 that are : 3/5
SOURCES: 1. Harper’s research; 2 U.S. Office of Government Ethics; 3 World Inequality Lab, Paris School of Economics; 4,5,6: Sebastian Fehrler, University of Bremen (Germany); 7. Bloomberg Intelligence (NYC); 8,9. Pew Research Center (Washington); 10. E2 (Washington); 11,12. Timothy Neal, University of New South Wales (Sydney); 13: Filip Borgen Andersen (Bergen, Norway); 14,15,16: Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.); 17,18: ZipRecruiter (Santa Monica, Calif.); 19,20: Pew Research Center; 21,22: The Numbers (Beverly Hills, Calif.); 23: GLAAD (NYC); 24: Match and the Kinsey Institute (Dallas and Bloomington, Ind.); 25,26,27,28: Match and the Kinsey Institute (Dallas and Bloomington, Ind.); 29,30: Pure Telecom (Dublin); 31: Doublethink Lab (Taiwan); 32: Guardian (London); 33,34: Yunyu Xiao, Weill Cornell Medical College (NYC); 35: Sandy Hook Promise and KRC Research (Newtown, Conn., and Washington); 36,37: Jamie R. Daw, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health (NYC); 38,39: Harper’s research
YOU ARE SURROUNDED
BY EVAN BIRNHOLZ
The answer to this metapuzzle is a landlocked country.
1 Accessory tipped out of respect
4 Group of celebrities whose faces you might recognize, if not their names
9 Something checked after a debate
13 2023 NBA MVP Embiid
17 Melodramatic cry
19 ___-Loompas (chocolate factory workers)
20 Connecting rod
21 “___ Murders in the Building” (comedic mystery series)
22 Group critiqued on the podcast “Citations Needed”
24 Dagger’s clandestine partner
25 “My feeling is ...”
27 Drink once marketed with the tagline “Zomething different”
29 “The Fabelmans” actor Rogen
31 Like Nintendo of America’s president Doug Bowser’s surname
32 Rightly or wrongly, e.g. (3)
35 Honolua’s island (8)
36 Taunt after “Down low!”
41 Result of packing in the winter?
44 Nurse, as a drink
46 Pale purple shade (2)
47 Castmate of Chapman, Cleese, Gilliam, Idle and Jones on “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”
48 Muscle that a muscleman might “bounce,” for short
50 Major fad
52 Mountain-dwelling animals that resemble rabbits
53 Hazardous insulator
56 An adult human has trillions of them
58 Upper-bod muscle
59 Most recent
61 “Yup, noticed that”
63 Reasons for waiting
65 Folk-rocker DiFranco
66 Term for an X-ray imaging technique that now more commonly omits its second letter
69 Was meddlesome
73 “This is bad and there’s nothing we can do about it,” online
75 Outer limit
76 Traveler’s hoped-for response to “Have any rooms available?”
79 “Great performance!”
80 “I want candy” speaker’s craving
83 Hopping mad (4)
84 Lovers’ quarrel
85 “Gimme a ___!”
86 Take responsibility for what’s happened
88 Discarded laptops, e.g.
90 Demonstrates durability
93 Beau ___ (noble act)
96 Puts on mute
98 “You can’t win ’em all”
99 Act surprised, say
100 ICU VIP
101 Certain believer
102 Pea holder
103 Stored like some beer
105 Singles
107 Maritime conflicts (5)
109 Wet spot in the desert
111 Auction action
113 Festive folk dance
116 Totally amazed
118 “High Priestess of Soul” musician
121 Checkers?
125 Ran out of patience
126 Measuring device (7)
127 “I need a hand! Fast!”
128 “I want a girl who will laugh for no one ___” (Weezer lyric)
129 Cain’s eldest son
130 Grain containers
131 Art store purchases
132 Large number (of)
133 Newsroom fixtures
134 Dispense, with “out” DOWN
1 Cured meat
2 Beer garden glassful
3 Smidge
4 ___-Cola Zero Sugar
5 Texter’s “that’s so funny!”
6 Texter’s “that’s how I see it”
7 Involuntary contractions
8 Point, as at an archery competition
9 Constructed
10 Kick ___ (heavy metal band with a punny name)
11 Soccer shoe gripper
12 Concert pace
13 Write (down)
14 “Wish Tree” artist Yoko
15 Wych ___ (tree)
16 Corrosive cleaner
18 In terms of physical magnitude
23 Some alternatives to hotels (3)
26 Walk with heavy steps
28 Entrepreneur’s deg.
30 “Hail Mary” rapper (8)
32 Egyptian cobra
33 Personal info?
34 Prone to wild swings
37 Declared it to be the case, parentally
38 Lightsaber-wielding Skywalker (2)
39 Common locket shape
40 Bandit’s “wild” place
42 Records that are not meant to be broken
43 “Frozen” jam
45 Aswan’s river 49 Pamper
51 “Ready?”
54 “... and such”
55 Pouch-shaped structure
57 Elongated fish that lives in shallow waters
59 Those are the rules
60 From the beginning
62 “Any ___ you slice it ...”
64 “Squid Game” actor Gong ___
67 The Bard’s brouhaha
68 Non-equivalent across the Rhine?
70 Website with articles about technology and the environment, briefly
71 Brings great joy to
72 Dislike quite a lot
74 Houseflies, e.g.
77 Title of respect in India (4)
78 Emma on the big screen
81 Prohibitions of nuclear
treaties
82 Drink-based metaphor for juicy gossip
84 Levelheaded
87 Gardening banes
89 Tie the knot
90 “My ___ are sealed”
91 Vera preceder
92 Bubbly beverage
93 Recovers from illness
94 CPR provider
95 Rock concert highlight
97 Cold postgame treatments
100 Square dance moves
104 Gives an address (5)
106 Palindromic sibling
108 Thin traces of smoke
110 Utterly ridiculous
112 Archaeology projects
113 Unit equivalent to a watt-second (7)
114 Block at a steel mill
115 Those in a flying flock
117 Make simpler
119 “Just in the ___ of time!”
120 Badly injure
121 X
122 Brooding bird
123 Bugler with antlers
124 Sound in a cute cat video
125 “If Attila the Hun were alive today, ___ be a drama critic”: Edward Albee
