Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010)

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) has died at age 98 in New York. For me the work of Louise Bourgeois is forever associated with my most beloved museum, the London Tate Modern. When it opened in 2000, in the converted Bankside Power Station, one of its magic features was the huge Turbine Hall where artists were to be asked to create installations. Louise Bourgeois was commissioned for the inauguration of the Tate Modern and her exhibition blew my mind.

Many remember it as the first home for the biggest ever version (35 feet high) of her signature steel and marble (that would be the sac of eggs) Spiders, called Maman, and while it was there, it was always fun when meeting up with friends, to agree a rendezvous under the spider’s belly.

But for me, the three steel architectural towers were the most mind-blowing element. Named “I Do,” “I Undo” and “I Redo,” they required viewers to climb up and up and up staircases decorated with fabrics to a platform with chairs and mirrors. The climbs were steep – once, that is, you made it to the front of the very long lines of waiting viewers.

She was merely 88 at that time and I remember thinking: What kind of old woman is this that to enter her creative mind we have to mount these steep steps only to be facing ourselves in her mirrors? It was, unquestionably, a sexual experience – this penetrating the work of a woman who demanded so much from her fans. As the Tate itself said about her, “…she has explored themes of identity, sex, love, alienation and death.”

It was then fitting that in “In 2007, the Tate Modern museum in London organized a major retrospective of Bourgeois’s work which was exhibited October 2007-2008.”

She was born in France to difficult parents who repaired fabrics and tapestries. She studied math and then painting and in the 30s apprenticed to the great industrial painter Fernand Léger. She came to America with her husband, had three children and her art career sputtered. I thought it was interesting to read in Wikipedia that, “It was in the seventies, after the deaths of her husband and father, that she became a successful artist.”

I'm Not the Only One Who Can't Get Over Rembrandt

A researcher at the University of British Columbia has used certain technological measures to determine why Rembrandt's paintings are so riveting. I'm surprised that he didn't site my junior year high school paper in which I was instructed to answer the question: "Does the light in Rembrandt's paintings come from the inside or the outside?"

In those days, as I have often said, Pittsburgh didn't have art museums. It had a huge collection of dinosaur bones and it had shows of molten steel being poured at the steel mills and it had a tasting tour of Heinz. But it didn't have Rembrandts, so for my research I was forced to sit at the library and look at books with reproductions. Even under those conditions I could see that Rembrandt was one exquisitely talented dude.

That summer I made my first visit to New York City and was taken to the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a stirring experience, real art on those endless walls. When I entered the Rembrandt room, I had a happy/tragic epiphany.

On the one hand, wow. Like, wow. His paintings up close and personal were beyond amazing. I had never seen such beauty. And then, shit. Like, shit. I was 16 and I clearly knew nothing and had seen nothing and might never see much more than the landscape from behind the counter of Woolworth's. I felt cheated out of 16 years - seemed like a lot at that point - of access to art. Or rather, access to Rembrandt.

I burst into tears and sat down in that round sectional in the center of the gallery and sobbed. The guard came over and told me not to worry, that it was a frequent occurrence in the Rembrandt rooms. I cried and I looked and I learned that the light is internal to Rembrandt's portrait subjects. And even more moving, many of his subjects were poor people.

A year later I came to college in Boston where in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, my favorite destination in states of altered consciousness, I found his action painting (see photo): Christ in a Storm on the Sea of Galilee. It was so unlike anything else I had seen by him - in life or photo - that I visited it often. I was devastated to learn of its theft in 1990, when I had long been living abroad.

I have since seen many Rembrandt exhibitions and have come to realize how much more than self-portraits and the faces of wealthy burghers he did. I once saw a show in Vienna of his biblical etchings and, again, had to go sit down to deal with a flood of joyous over-stimulation hormones.

So now this scientist has figured it all out, concluding:

“Through these techniques, Rembrandt is essentially playing tour guide to his viewers hundreds of years after his death, creating a unique narrative by guiding the viewers’ eye,” says DiPaola. “This may explain why people appreciate portraiture as an art form.

I'm hoping to get to Amsterdam at the end of the summer to test out his theory at the Rembrandt House Museum and the Rijksmuseum.

And as an aside, funny how I worried that I'd be stuck working my whole life in Woolworth's 5 & Dime, whereas today I'm only sorry the company is no more and that no one is giving jobs to unemployed people my age anyways. Too many artists have something in common with the great man, for Wikipedia says "his later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships."

I Hate Wearing A Bra

My well-endowed friend Mia Anderson (a NYC actor extraordinaire) announced on Facebook that today was the 100th birthday of the bra. Every woman has bra stories – whether she wears them or not. Here are four of mine, stories I’ve told many times:

ONE
When I was 10 we moved up to a “mixed-class” neighborhood – i.e, both skilled and unskilled workers. My mother was always full of airs and graces and there was nothing she liked better than to move up.

We kids played in a lot near my house. It was summer. We were playing dodge ball – most of us only wearing shorts and shoes. My mother appeared – violence and fury radiating from her every pore. I knew the signs of her dangerous melt-downs better than my multiplication tables.

She grabbed my ear and dragged me home. Turns out some neighbor lady who apparently outdid my mother in putting on the Ritz had come round to complain about my playing with her son without a shirt. I believe the word “whore” was hissed and something about lowering the tone of the neighborhood.

Calling my brother to join us, she made me put on a shirt and off we went to Woolworths. I had no tits, not even a hint. In fact, I entirely identified as a kid, not as a girl. Right in the aisle of Woodworth’s she made me try on a “training bra” – the kind with soft stretchy material where a cup should be. I remember very little from my childhood, but I remember that traumatic, mortifying experience because it was the beginning of the end of my ride on the gender-free train.

TWO
The minute I got out of my home and town at 17, I threw away all bras. Even throughout my career as a professional athlete, I avoided bras. There were periodic stories about bouncing breasts causing cancer, but in those days they also said that running long distances disturbs the womb. They said all sorts of crap to keep us still.

One martial arts master under whom I briefly trained insisted that I wear a bra under my uniform. When I refused, he had the men regularly rip open my uniform top during sparring, exposing my, well, my white undershirt. I wore what everyone else wore, but I was the only woman on the mat. Finally, he screamed at me in front of the rest of the students and I told him, “You’re the master. I follow your example in all things. When you start wearing a bra, I’ll do the same.” Only by running did I make it out of there alive.

THREE
In London I became a serious student of Ballroom and Latin American dance. I led in all things Latin – from swing to cha-cha to salsa. But once I partnered with the indescribably graceful Brian, I couldn’t lead in Ballroom. He was so much taller than me that I couldn’t see over his shoulder. So he led the Waltz and Foxtrot. That was such a strange feeling to me, that I couldn’t really hold my form correctly. I felt my chest to be too exposed when I slightly leaned backwards in his arms. Brian and I went to Marks and Spenser and in my 40s I bought my first bra since those Woolworth days. It gave me what felt like a layer of protection. I only wore it to dance.

FOUR
Fast forward to post-menopause, a more sedentary lifestyle, a big weight gain and the first-ever flourishing of my breasts in my 50s. Cleavage, for god’s sake. Sumptuous cleavage. An attribute that on others had always been a magnet for me, was right there on my own chest. As I swelled to at least a C size, I was subject to annoying reactions from strangers. I bought a couple of sports bras and I continue, when I must, to step out wearing this restrictive, strangling garment. It makes for a strange shelf on my front so that everything that ever fell into my lap, now stops mid-chest, leaving butter, tea and meat juice stains on my every shirt.

According to Wikipedia, I’m just part of a trend: “Consumers spend around $16 billion a year on bras. In the last 15 years alone, the average bust size among North American women has increased from 34B to 36C.”

Frankly, anyone figuring out the money spent on bras should also figure in the collateral costs: strain-removing sprays and replacement unstained tops.

Am I alone in hating bras? I don’t think so and I’d love to hear your rants.

From Mural to Digital in Roxbury and Brookline, Massachusetts

The qualities of a mural painter are being applied to the 21st Century in a project that promises to build community connections in a totally innovative way.

John Ewing used to paint murals. What’s that require? He must be able to imagine and create on a large scale in an urban environment while involving local folks. Next month, beginning on June 9th, his amazing transformation from muralist to digital innovator is going live as Virtual Street Corners. There’s a lot of buzz and press interest already, not the least this piece in The Atlantic.

He has chosen two busy city squares: Dudley Square in Roxbury, a community of color, and Coolidge Corner in Brookline, a community with a large Jewish population, in which many of the older members grew up in the Roxbury and nearby Dorchester areas. Setting up screens outside the popular Nubian Notions (Dudley) and the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith, Virtual Street Corners will enable passers-by from both parts of town to connect with each other 24/7 via cameras, microphones and large screens.

These two communities are only 2 ½ miles apart and are connected by the 66 bus, but there is not a lot of interaction, certainly not a lot of organized collaboration. Members of these communities may know very little about each other and how they live their lives, although there are probably many stereotypes and assumptions floating around.

John Ewing has lined up some talented journalists who are strongly involved in their respective neighborhoods to do pieces highlighting local lives and issues. I am lucky enough to be one of those. I’m going to be interviewing some amazing Brookline personalities, many of them elders with fascinating stories to tell. In another posting, I’ll tell you about some of the other journalists working on this project – a brilliant group of folks.

If you’re in the Boston area, join us for the Grand Opening at one of the two squares on Friday, June 11, 6:00 – 8:00 pm. And check out the website here.

Beauty Queens and Tomboys: Bess Myerson has died

Jan 5, 2015: Here is a blog I wrote to the first Muslim woman to win the Miss USA contest. But even more so, it's a flashback to the spectre of Bess Myerson, the first Jewish Miss America and my mother's idol. Myerson has just passed away at 90. Her particular achievement was, for my mother, proof that Jews had "made it" and were accepted in greater American society, even though at the same time there were neighborhoods and swim clubs around Pittsburgh where Jews and Blacks were excluded. Her affected kind of femininity was a gold standard - but it sure didn't work for me.

May 17, 2010: Rima Fakih is the first Muslim to win the Miss America contest. Naturally all the mainstream news sources are reporting this news about the 24-year-old, using such headlines as this one from CNN: "Arab-Americans react with delight to Lebanese-American Miss USA."

The articles interview all sorts of folks in the community - some who think this is a delicious milestone, some who would prefer that Fakih go get some clothes on.

Bess Myerson was the first Jewish-American Miss America (similar beauty pageant to Miss USA) - in 1945, before I was born. In my home she was held up by my mother as proof that America's streets were paved in gold. If Bess could do it, then damn it, I could do it.

One of the questions my unpleasant mother asked me endlessly was, "What talent act are you going to do at the Miss America pageant?" No matter that I was a total tomboy with a flat chest and a big nose. She lived in hope.

She stashed a book at the bottom and the top of the stairs in our house and every time I went up or down the steps, I had to do so balancing a book on my head in order to develop beauty queen posture. She only had four books - the product of an annual subscription to Readers Digest Condensed Books that some well-meaning relative had bought her. And those poor books lived a brutal life, tumbling down the stairs from my head all the time.

When I got a guitar and started to sing folk songs as an older teen, my mother was visibly relieved that there might be something other than softball that I could display on stage. When I joined the majorettes (a long story, not for today) and learned how to twirl a baton, she was ecstatic. In fact, I believe that one of the Miss America winners during my high school days won the talent section with a fire baton.

My mother herself was full of Bess Myerson-ish affectations, tipping her head coquettishly and matching her accessories, ie: bright orange handbag, pumps, bangles and lipstick.

Some kids had to live up to Perfect Miss Older Sister. For me it was: What Would Bess Myerson Do?

I congratuate Rima Fakih for her victory, but even more I wish a short community memory for the sake of all the little Arab-American girls who would actually like to be truckers or community organizers or sloppily dressed geeks.

Who’s Got Women In Their National Parliaments?

My friend Campbell Ex, a British experimental filmmaker and an internet producer, loves clarifying things, so after the nasty elections in Britain she posted this grid on Facebook showing the percentage of women in the national parliaments of 186 nations.

If you need to have a slap across the face with a wet fish, then study it closely. If a mere kick in the gut will do, here are the highlights. But be prepared: the numbers don’t necessarily reflect everyone’s stereotypes.

At the top of the world is Rwanda, followed immediately by Sweden, South Africa and Cuba. I find that combination of high-achievers almost poetic in its diversity.

I mention Iceland (#5) and the Netherlands (#6) with satisfaction because I happen to be planning a trip to them both – as well as to the Czech Republic which limps in at #78.

What about the other countries I’ve lived in. What glorious place do they claim among the nations? To my surprise, they are nestled next to each other. The United Kingdom crawls in at an appalling #62, and Israel follows the former colonial occupier of Palestine at #63. It must be comforting for them, though, to be sandwiched between the Dominican Republic (#61) and Lithuania (#64).

Now try to guess the ranking of the “leader of the western world,” the “greatest country on earth,” the superpower over all superpowers: the USA. There it is, tied with Turkmenistan at #74. At least the States can brag that it just beat San Marino (#75) and Albania (#76), which follow right behind.

And the other superpower? The one that owns the biggest superpower? China ties with Italy at #55, less impressive than Eritrea and Uzbekistan (both #51) but squeezing out, if barely, Cambodia (#56).

Who falls to the bottom of the heap? That group would include such bastions of women’s rights as Belize, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Solomon Islands (all tied at #137), only beating the butt-plugs of women’s representation: Colombia and Tajikistan.

There are many elements to take into consideration: voting systems, imposed quotas, etc. But what we can’t deny is that right across the globe, there is only one country, Rwanda, with more than 50% of its legislative body made up of women. One country. What are the odds?

Willie Nelson and Carole King: Their New Albums

I recently reviewed new albums by two old favorites of mine: Willie Nelson's "Country Music" and Carole King's “The Essential Carole King.” The reviews appeared on Edge Publications and I'll just give you the opening paragraphs. In case you are a fan, click over to the reviews themselves.

The review of "Country Music" begins:

With his gut string acoustic guitar, much-admired vocal phrasing and top-notch country back-up band, Willie Nelson has joined with legendary producer T Bone Burnett - a fellow Texan - to create “Country Music.” It is surprising that as a country performer who has recorded over 100 albums, he insists that this is his first bluegrass album (according to the country music website cmt.com).

Later, I talk about his rendition of "Gotta Walk Alone":

At 77, Willie Nelson’s voice retains that unique quality that caresses and growls at you, while molding the bars with his own finesse. Nowhere is that more engaging than on the cut "Gotta Walk Alone." For a man who has spent most of his life on the road on tour and living in his bus - leaving behind his four wives and nine children - it sums up the way he endures:

It’s a long and lonesome road;
I’ve got to walk alone.
Don’t know where. Don’t even care.
I just keep walkin’ on and on.

The piece on Carole King's double album "The Essential Carole King" starts here:

This recently-released double-CD reminds listeners of why Carole King is one of the most highly respected singer-songwriters in the business. One disc contains her own recordings of 18 songs she wrote. The other disc gives us 15 songs by artists whose careers were enhanced by their opportunity to record a Carole King creation.

As a writer, King’s songs - often done in collaboration with Gerry Goffin (they were married for a period of time) - have remained standards in a number of genres from R&B to pop. As part of the stable of songwriters working for Don Kirshner’s Aldon Music in the legendary Brill Building in NYC, she fed a plethora of singers their hits. From The Shirelles’ "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" in 1959 to "Just Once in My Life" the 1965 hit for the Righteous Brothers to Aretha Franklin’s 1967 hit "A Natural Woman," King has proven herself to be one of the most successful musicians of the last century.

For me Carole King is a flash from the past so it is wonderful to see that her present tour with James Taylor is such a huge success. Willie Nelson, on the other hand, is someone I’ve been consistenly following for a very long time. In fact, I just blogged about him going on Larry King’s show stoned a couple of weeks ago.

Lena Horne: From Pittsburgh to Fame

I have taken Lena Horne’s presence in this world so for granted that I was quite shocked to hear of her death, at 92. Her elegance and carriage could make Grace Kelly look like a bumbler. From the start of her acting career she decided that the only way out of stereotyping was to make her bosses sign on the bottom line. Her first contract with a major Hollywood studio (MGM) specified that she would not be asked to play a maid. No other black woman had even had a serious contract, let alone one that made demands.

Her early film career was hampered in two ways: Because Mississippi didn’t want to have black people in films, she was limited to “bits” that did not intersect with other characters so that she could be easily edited out without compromising the story line. And then, during the “red scare,” she was blacklisted.

She began to emphasize her singing, performing Cole Porter and Gershwin tunes. But as the civil rights movement heated up, she longed to be relevant to the struggle. According to the Washington Post:

In 1963, Ms. Horne appeared at the civil rights March on Washington with Harry Belafonte and Dick Gregory and was part of a group, which included authors James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, that met with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to urge a more active approach to desegregation. Ms. Horne also used her celebrity to rally front-line civil rights activists in the South and was a fundraiser for civil right groups including the NAACP and the National Council of Negro Women.

Looking back, she said her legacy on race was complicated by her ambition. She said she married the white conductor and bandleader Lennie Hayton in 1947 -- her second marriage -- to advance her career because "he could get me into places no black manager could."

"It was wrong of me, but as a black woman, I knew what I had against me," she told the New York Times in 1981. "He was a nice man who wasn't thinking all these things, and because he was a nice man and because he was in my corner, I began to love him.'"

She remained fierce and principled. Wikipedia reports:

During World War II, when entertaining the troops for the USO, she refused to perform "for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of African American servicemen",[8] according to her Kennedy Center biography.

Like me, Lena Horne was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (in 1917 – same year as my dad),. But until I checked Wikipedia, I hadn’t realized that she was born in the same neighborhood as I was:

She grew up in an upper-middle-class black community in the Hill District community of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Thirty years later, I was born in a public housing project in the same Hill District area of town, now pretty degraded; and within a couple of decades, the neighborhood became a no-go zone.

Both her beauty and her ambition endured. Between 1961 and 1995, she was nominated for eight Grammys and won four times. She spent her final decades singing, appearing on both the big and small screens and performing onstage. Her one-woman show on Broadway was, for her, the most honest, powerful project of her entertainment life.

Here’s a remarkable two-part bio of Lena Horne I found on YouTube, including some gorgeous early footage of her first performances, continuing through her blacklisting and on to her final performances. The first part is 4 minutes and the second is 7:40.

Part One

Part Two

Betty White is Funnier Than That

At age 88 Betty White gave Saturday Night Live the viewing bump they just haven't been able to achieve on their own. She also set the record as the oldest host of the show. SNL has been limping along, a sometimes distasteful shadow of its early years. Now everyone is posting clips of their favorite bits of Betty's SNL performance all over Facebook.

Her monologue was pretty sharp and I loved the sparkly twin-set. Of course she thanks the more-than half million people who joined the Facebook group set up demanding that Betty White host the show. And then rags on FB. “When I was young we didn't have Facebook, we had phone book, but you wouldn't waste an afternoon with it." See for yourself:

She appeared in almost every SNL skit - an unusually ubiquitous presence for a guest host. But unfortunately, the writers could not get past two patronizing schticks for her. Every time Betty spoke a sexy or sexual word or even swore - she'd get a big laff. Look at the gray-hair, the writers and audience seemed to agree, ain't it a hoot that she says dirty things?!

The other source of tin-ear humor was, of course, jokes about old age. Not the dry, witty ones Betty lays down in her monologue. For example, when talking about Facebook, she says, "At my age, if I want to connect with old friends, I'll need a Ouiji board." SNL's skit jokes, on the other hand, were too often puerile and full of stereotypes. The bottom line: Betty has been far funnier than she was given a chance to be on SNL.

But there was an upside. It was nearly a girls’ night out. In honor of Betty and of mother’s day, a number of the women SNL graduates were invited back, including Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer. Of course that only goes to remind us of how few women there are on the cast relative to the men. Of the 8 repertory players this season, only one is a woman (!!) – the annoying Kristin Wiig.

White’s riff on the census with Tina Fey was widely shown. I found it a bit less hysterical than others, but then I don’t drink. Here it is:

Perhaps the best aspect of the show was the open affection and adulation of the cast members for Betty White. There’s nothing like a love-fest – especially a deserved one – to make the evening pass happily. Even Jay-Z, the musical guest, sweetly dedicated the song “Forever Young” to "the most incredible Betty White."

My Aunt Flo

I was back up to Vermont this weekend, for our annual May Day celebration. I have been close to some of these folks for 45 years; many of them have been climbing the hill overlooking The Farm - the original commune - for over 40 years. One or two of our stronger specimens hoist the the May Pole on their shoulders while the rest of us grab a streamer made of beautiful cloth. Emily has taken charge of miraculously getting those streamers unraveled each year before our ascent.

Once up the top, the May Pole is steadied into a hole in the ground. Peter plays music and we wind in and out of each other in every direction. Some years the bondage jokes run kinkier than others, but in the end we sit on the grass around the tightly bound Pole and name the names of those who can no longer join us.

On my return from Vermont, the first thing I hear is that due to a burst pipe dozens of communities including my own are receiving pond water and we need to boil any water that is going to touch our hands, our mouth, our food, our dishes, our toothbrush, etc. Luckily, I still recall those skills from my visit years ago to Kenya. I worry about the elders who need to boil so much water when the temperatures are unseasonably hot.

I awake very early in the morning to find an email from Cousin Sandy. Her mother, my Aunt Flo, has passed away. This was not unexpected. That's why Sandy has been staying in Pittsburgh with Aunt Flo, holding her hand and talking about everything, hours after days after weeks.

In the fourth grade my mother and her girlfriends formed a girls club. Except for one or two, they all married Pittsburgh boys and remained in town. Their gang stayed together. The men became friends; the couples played bridge. The families had joint picnics. My mother - the penultimate living member of their group - died a few years ago. Aunt Flo was the last of the aunts I cared about and now she is gone.

Flo was very beautiful and we had a ritual in which she took me out for lunch - just Flo and me - whenever I made it into Pittsburgh for a visit. I loved flirting with her and I think she indulged my admiration. In a niecey-kinda-way.

Sandy is nearly a decade younger than me, so when I escaped my nasty family situation at 17 for college on the east coast, she was just a kid. My mother, though, would report to me - always clucking and shaking her head disapprovingly - that Sandy was up to no good. One day she was living in a tree house; the next she was living in an isolated shack with a wild sculptor in Italy. Naturally, when we re-met, we totally clicked.

Today Sandy is a talented collage painter, creating an incomparable series of women's portraits (four of which you see on this blog). She painted (with paper) the original portrait of Sarah Palin on the cover of my book.

Cousin Sandy and I reunited as adults and now we will repeat the history of our mothers. We may not be living in the same town (or even within many thousands of miles of each other), but we will be together forever. My warmest hug to Sandy, Nancy and Julie, their families and peeps, and all who, like me, were lucky to have loved Flo.

For Flo: