pt at large

The Gates: An installation by Christo

The Gates: An installation by Christo and Jeanne Claude Christo
Central Park, New York, February 12 – February 28, 2005
February 19, 2005

Want to go to a really big party? Want to see what a multi national, polyglot, block party looks and sounds like while it’s strolling google eyed at 7500 steel and plastic “gates” covered with 1,067,330 square feet of brilliant saffron colored, recyclable, rip-stop fabric and temporarily plunked over 23 miles of NYC’s Central Park trails and paths?

Get in your car, take a bus, hop the train, hitch a ride, just get to NYC to enjoy this wonder. Total strangers start up conversations with each other, passers-by offer to take the photo so you can stand with your family, significant other, or the family pooch, with a magnificent backdrop of billowing saffron shimmering in the breeze.

It’s like an old fashioned love in, now playing in the nation’s grandest city park. And on February 28, poof. It will be dismantled, disappear and become an urban legend. Most visitors will revert to their insular habits, roller-blading and cell phoning their way through the park.

Is it art, is it farce, who cares? Why does it work? Is it the brilliant saffron color; or the immense scale of the project; or the Central Park setting that Frederick Law Olmsted, another visionary, designed in 1858? You’ve got to love that these two artists have been trying to get their Gates installed since 1979.

It’s nothing but nylon, plastic, and steel but it’s turned out to be the best kind of interactive device of this young century, an oasis for the spirit. Thousands of participants are looking one another in the eye, talking to one another, and sharing from some invisible well of good will. That’s art that borders on a divine plan.

for info, photos go to http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/tg.html

The Fever: A one-man show written by Wallace Shawn

The Fever: A one-man show written by Wallace Shawn, performed by Doug Lockwood of The New Repertory Theater
Panel discussion following performance with Lockwood, Directed by Ken Rus Schmoll, Boston Globe critic Louise Kennedy and panel moderator Brandeis Assoc Prof. Andreas Teuber
Presented at The Old South Meeting House, Washington Street, Boston, MA
February 17, 2005

The subtitle of this piece is “A play about the question that could poison your life.” I’ll come back to this in a minute but think about your morning cup of coffee. And it would be a good idea if you had a cup of something bracing before you sit through this 90-minute monologue, which is not monotonous but occasionally tedious.

An affluent, cultured American travels to a third world country that tumbles into a vicious civil war. Violently sick in his hotel bathroom, he proceeds in a Joycean stream of consciousness style to contrast the brutality in the name of justice going on around him with his Manhattan memories of gourmet food, creature comforts and international travel that have shaped his life and world view.

Recollections of freshly laundered linen sheets and genteel cocktail conversation collide with the force of a train wreck with screams of men whose testicles are being crushed and women who are being raped in front of their families.

The narrator’s unexpected turnabout in the middle of the piece reveals our capacity to identify with the oppressor. I was stunned to hear myself agreeing with his specious logic as he makes a case for the ‘appropriateness’ of the distribution of wealth, and the responsibility of the poor masses for their own unfortunate fate.

The narrator uses the example of coffee beans to define what he calls ‘commodity fetishism’. The beans are grown in third world countries, harvested on the backs of workers who make pennies and live in poverty, and end up in our outrageously priced double latte mochachinos, which we sip in comfort. He deftly compares a coffee lover’s whining about running out of sugar with a third world country laborer who often lives in fear death by repressive governments. The poison question? How can we continue to sip lattes and ignore appalling conditions under which the coffee beans are produced.

The months that New Rep narrator Doug Lockwood immersed himself in learning and quietly feeling this story gives it a sense spontaneity. The setting of a chair, table, and rug is simply lit. But even Greek dramas had a chorus to help the play-goer absorb the content. The 90-minute story is a demanding chore for audiences accustomed to dialogue and action; it was a battle to concentrate fully for the play’s entirety.

Writer Wallace Shawn (photo at left) doesn’t offer solutions. He spills the problem of abject poverty and political repression of third world countries in our laps like a bowl of crème fraiche. It’s a mess and he leaves it up to us to clean it up.

http://www.graphesthesia.com/ws/plays/fever.html

DreamingNow: eight mixed media installations

DreamingNow: an exhibition of eight mixed media installations
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University
January 27 – April 24, 2005
February 16, 2005

Installation artists have a knack for stretching the borders of what one might consider ‘art’. In other words, it’s quite possible to feel like a damned fool while taking an excursion through their creations.

The main conceit at Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum’s current exhibition seems accessible enough: use dreams, usually considered quite private, to make comments about the political, cultural, and social world surrounding us. The artists’ intent has been to stimulate us to see that our dreams have as much to do with the world around us as within us. So far, so good.

When I read the show’s introduction, however, I began to think about Alice’s slippery ride down the rabbit hole. “Withdrawn from an entirely privatized arena and made public, the diverse dream metaphors in DreamingNow shed light on contemporary issues of transnationality, globalization, the distribution of political power, consumer and popular culture, the media, hierarchies of social structures, and gender politics. They also explore the capacity of art as a rich terrain where new links and imaginative thoughts can be mediated, discussed, and tested.” Raise your hand if you followed that.

Without reading the artist’s explanations accompanying the installations, I would have needed mind-altering drugs to guess the metaphorical intent to convey a social or political message. “History of the Main Complaint”, William Kentridge’s five minute animated film on post Apartheid South Africa is an example. There was something violent and troubling going on in the corporate white male’s dream life, symbolic images floated about. Was he passively acceptant, emotionally paralyzed, or part of the problem. Short of ESP, there was no way I could have interpreted the artist’s explanation of his piece.

The Dream Bed installation is the sleeper of the show. The artist Marina Abramovic created a bed in which participants can sign up to sleep in for an hour and consent to record their dream experiences in a log which becomes part of the exhibit. Sure enough, when I entered the softly blue-lit room, there was a man lying in the special zip up “dream suit” for his one hour Big Sleep. I felt like a voyeur as I tiptoed around the room looking at the Dream Bed and the guest dreamer and became part of the installation in spite of myself, wondering what he was dreaming and what I might have dreamt if I’d been in his suit. And did I mention the magnets embedded in the ‘dream suit’, the crystal pillow, and that the wooden sided "bed" looks alarmingly like a coffin? Her statement offers an imaginative explanation.

After the exhibit travels the world for ten years, Abramovic will collect the dream records into a ‘dream library’ that will become “ a barometer of the political and social issues of our time.” I don’t trust the accuracy of self-selecting socio-political barometers but am impressed by Abramovic’s artistic hubris and her sense of scale. I just might return for an hour and to sacrifice myself and my dream world to art.

Ever play cat’s cradle? The entire second level of the Rose Museum and the stairway leading down to it is one massive, spider webby, black yarn cat’s cradle-like installation engulfing fourteen beds. Being the performance artist she is, Chiharu Shiota may occasionally be found sleeping in one of the beds. Depending on your point of view, the encapsulated beds and the dreams we have on them can be cocoon like structures protected from the outer world or prey captured by one tyrannical man eating spider (I cribbed some of this from the artist's statement, part of which actually made sense to me). For the life of me I can’t fathom her notion of how “dreams challenge the western concept of identity” but could, without the pretension I often need to practice in museums, actually grasp her idea of a collective unconscious swirling around the universe. Who knows, maybe there’s a master weaver at work up there somewhere. He’s a bit spastic but that’s the subject for another day.

I could make some guesses about two of the other installations, “falling bodies blanket me” and “Dream” that seemed plausible until I read the artist’s explanatory text. How do they dream this stuff up?

This exhibit is a great opportunity to experience one of art’s classic conundrums: the viewer’s reactive interpretation versus the artist’s intent. How much of the personal can be conveyed as universal?

I don’t know about the “art-speak” notions of “transnationality, globalization, or the distribution of political power”, but The Adventurer will admit that the visit offered him alternate constructs for thinking about his dreams. As with most exhibits featuring installations, this one has its hits and misses and seemed both accessible and dense. But then again, so is our own dream life.

Valentine’s Day shopping at Victoria’s Secret

Valentine’s Day shopping at Victoria’s Secret
February 13, 2005

OK, men, ptatlarge knows that upon passing a showcase window in front of a Victoria’s Secret store your brisk pace slows to a reflective stroll as if you were Socrates walking the streets of Athens in search of an honest man. Your instinct is to stop in your tracks and simply gawk at the pouty lipped, long limbed models showing acres of flesh covered with centimeters of silk.

It takes a certain courage to enter this store, full of black, pink, and red accessories that we, with any luck at all, would enjoy seeing draped or wrapped around the bodies of our significant others. So it came to pass that with trepidation, motivation, and undeniable prurient interest, ptatlarge recently veered into the portals of this naughty franchise in search of a Valentine’s Day present for his sweetie.

Having just returned from this velvety venue, ptatlarge offers manly advice. Take on the exploratory demeanor you customarily display in hardware stores. Even though we men usually know exactly what we want in a hardware store, we love walking the aisles and finding new gadgets and tools. We pick up said items, look them over, often talk to a salesman about the merits of the merchandise, and file the data away for a time when said item will come in handy. So tip number one, make believe you’re in Home Depot.

Managing eye contact is essential. Employ brief, casual glances toward the clientele, and be ready to smile. If you come across a woman in the bra department, under no circumstances should you look at the size of bra she’s handling, then glance at her breasts and start doing mental calculations.Tip number two, do not stare, stay focused on your mission.

In my case, the mission was to find thong panties, an undergarment favored by my honey. In my naive way, I thought I’d find a counter on which these dainties would be displayed, find a cute one in size medium, and casually say ‘wrap ‘em up’. Imagine my alarm to learn from the sales girl that there were three rooms full of thong displays. Upon deliberation, I found this a delightful challenge.

I offer this primer to my male readers: there are low rise bikini thongs, low rise V string pantie thongs, stretch low rise cotton thongs, string bikini thongs, seamless stretch brief bikinis, hip hugger thongs, cotton bikinis, high leg briefs, angel panty thongs, and something called sexy little things. Through what I thought was skillful questioning and close observation, I’d learned that my valentine wore a size medium. I had not in my wildest dreams considered the prospect that size was only the tip of the style and fabric iceberg. Therefore, tip number three, do thorough research before you shop.

Just as in hardware stores, there are employees who know much more than you do about the merchandise. When a sales girl asks you if you are finding what you want, admit ignorance or at least your sense of being beleaguered by how such a teensy piece of material has so completely overwhelmed your capacity to make decisions. These young ladies are accustomed to seeing men sheepishly strolling the aisles, attempting to look worldly and invisible at the same time. Tip number four, exercise humility and agree to be helped.

Decision time. This is the part where blind luck and good judgment intersect. Based on everything you know about your sweetheart’s tastes and the input gained about color, fabric, and style from your friendly, bemused sales consultant, make your selection.If your choices haven't hit the bull’s eye with the accuracy of Cupid’s bow, arrange to return to Victoria’s Secret with your honey and revel in picking through those dainty thongs with her as your coach. And remember, this is research. By the time you depart, a few of Victoria’s Secrets will have been revealed. By then, you’ll have enough confidence for a solo flight to buy your Victoria a sweet nothing for her birthday.

The Art of Japanese Calligraphy

pt at large
The Art of Japanese Calligraphy: 6 PM lecture at Harvard University’s Sackler Museum
February 11, 2005
The lecture coincided with an exhibit entitled “Marks of Enlightenment, Traces of Devotion: Japanese Calligraphy and Painting from the Sylvan Barnet and William Burto Collection” on display until April, 2005.

I know next to nothing about Japanese calligraphy other than the fact that reminds me of abstract impressionism and is often associated with Zen Buddhism. Based on this lecture and the accompanying exhibition at the Sackler, I would say that by following the development of Japanese calligraphy, one could trace the development of religion, history, and culture in Japan.

The exhibit is from the collection of a remarkable pair of Harvard professors, Sylvan Barnet and William Burto, who began acquiring art in the 1960s, and spans the 8th through the 20th centuries. The show aims to offer “an introduction to the religious, literary, and calligraphic traditions of Japan” with “special emphasis on sumptuous, painstakingly rendered Buddhist scriptures and powerful examples of monochrome Zen calligraphy that dazzle viewers with their elegance, simplicity, and expressive force.” It works.

The key to making this exhibit understandable for neophytes like me is the series of informative panel texts (see addendum below) that lead the viewer through the development of calligraphy as a communication and art form in Japan. Without those panels, The Adventurer would have been lost soul as he tried to make sense of early Buddhist scriptures from the 7th to 13th centuries, Japanese poetry which includes text and images, casual writings in the form of diaries and letters writings, portraits called “ink traces” by noted Zen priests, and modern works including a four panel folding screen titled ‘Dragon Knows Dragon’. And who knew that Japanese calligraphy descended from Chinese pictograms and characters of the 6th century?

That boldly brushed, saffron and black colored screen in the last room of the chronologically ordered exhibit stopped me in my tracks. It would be right at home with the abstract impressionist paintings in Harvard’s Fogg Museum right across the street or the Museum of Modern Art.

In a moment of enlightenment that might have pleased Buddha, I sensed the evolution of Japan’s calligraphic styles when I remembered trying to read the original handwriting on the Declaration of Independence, thinking how old fashioned it seemed. The styles of Japanese calligraphy, English and American handwriting, even my own penmanship have continually evolved over time. A perfect lesson for this grasshopper: accept impermanence, embrace change, grow.

Link: http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/exhibitions/sackler/marks_of_enlightenment.html

George Bernard Shaw: Poet, Playwright, Naked Tree Trimmer

PT’s Excellent Adventure: February 10, 2005
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) exhibit at Burns Library, Boston College, MA

Any man who dies by falling from a ladder, naked, from a tree he’s trimming gets my vote. That George Bernard Shaw was 94 when he was engaged in this endeavor makes me consider putting him on a pedestal (possibly surrounded by a net).

The Adventurer’s visit to a small exhibit at Boston College’s Burns Library gave him an inkling of the immensity of Shaw’s literary and social career. Entitled “Mr. Shaw’s time is filled up for months to  come”, the contents of several glass showcases show the verity of this statement.

The man was a full force writer, journalist, opinionated public speaker, music critic, and intellectual gadfly. He didnt have much of a formal education and yet by the early 1930s, he compiled a thirty volume set of work he’d penned. Not bad for a Dublin lad whose career started as a reader for the British Library.

He began writing plays at age 37 and for the rest of his life didn’t shut up from commenting on world events, literary news, health, and economics. He married an Irish heiress in 1898 and stayed married to her for 45 years. By 1923, he’d already written Arms and the Man, Candida, The Devil’s Disciple, and Mrs. Warren’s Profession, some of which today continue being required reading for English majors. I will confess, as a recovering English major, that the intellectually laced plays were a taxing read.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his play St. Joan in 1923.

He seemed to enjoy heaving literary, cultural, and political hand grenades. As a member of the Fabian Society, he championed socialism. He was a teetotaler and abstained from consuming alcohol and tobacco and preferred water, barley water, Instant Postum (egad), ginger beer, milk, and cocoa. He had strange ideas about clothing and health. He believed that wearing wool right under your skin promoted good breathing and had special woolen vestments made for him.

He certainly lived a healthy life style. He just should have stayed out of trees.

Uncommon Grounds Restaurant

Lunch at Uncommon Grounds, Mount Auburn Street, Watertown, MA
February 7, 2005

The Uncommon Grounds Restaurant is one of those small “we can do a little bit of everything” restaurants that help anchor a neighborhood. Open from 7 AM till 3 PM, this family owned business is right on the edge of East Watertown’s Coolidge Square area, populated by ethnic stores, fruit and vegetable stands, and the venerable Coolidge Hardware Store.

Breakfast lovers have infinite choices of any-way-you-want’em eggs, the usual sides, plus Belgian waffles, French toast, and buttermilk pancakes, as well as smoked salmon bagel sandwiches. The Breakfast Burritos choices include a veggie version for adventurous vegetarians who may wander into the place. And it’s served any time of day. While your reviewer was making his 1 PM decision, a lad who sat one of the counter’s six seats ordered the broccoli and cheese omelet that arrived with home fries and buttered toast.

Since ptatlarge was on one of his lunch review missions, he ordered the $5.95 Knockwurst Special. In due time, two fat, grilled knockwurst were served, accompanied by baked beans and sour kraut. The tangy sour kraut was an appealing match to the slightly sweet flavor of the baked beans (secret recipe courtesy of the owner’s sister in law) and the mildly spicy sour kraut. pt at large felt like a kid as he made a circuit route spearing knockwurst, sour kraut, beans, knockwurst, sour kraut, beans, and letting his taste buds get a work out.

Others in the ten-tabled restaurant were in the midst of devouring generously filled wraps, home made soups, and salads. Want a club sandwich, a Reuben, maybe, or a sub? No problem. Hamburgers, too. And if you’re feeling oceanic, haddock or shrimp dinners are waiting to be dropped into the fryer.

Nothing on the menu is priced over two digits, which could have been a draw for the father/daughter pair, of the young mother with pre kindergartener, or the two college kids sitting in the corner. pt supposes that its Zagat rating doesn’t hurt, either.

With a name like Uncommon Grounds, it is no surprise that two chalkboards were filled with titles of exotic cappuccino, latte, and espresso drinks. Although colorfully painted walls and drop panel recessed lighting is appealing, pt at large wouldn’t come here for an intimate tete a tete or a candid conversation with his accountant as one is fairly privy to the conversations of fellow diners.

If you look hard enough, you can see the shape of the corner gas station that was the previous incarnation of Uncommon Grounds. For the past seven years this family operation has been in the business of offering fuel to the neighborhood, by the plate, not the gallon. With the prices of the food here, customers can afford to fill up with food and have enough change left over for a few gallons of gasoline.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.