Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Primo Levi (31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987)

Primo Levi (31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987) was the first writer coming out of the Holocaust that I read (decades ago) who managed to convey its reality without detailing its atrocities. He credited his survival of Auschwitz to his profession as a chemist. Born and raised in Turin, Italy, he returned to Turin after the war where he continued to write until his death in 1987from a fall from the landing inside his apartment building – the suspicion of suicide is hotly contested. I believe I have read more or less every book of his work that was translated into English.

Let me tell you about a few of them. His two books about the concentration camp If This Is a Man and his return to Turin at the end of the war The Truce are often bundled together for an amazing double-whammy. (Skip the movie supposedly based on The Truce.) It is near the top of the list of books I most recommend that people read on any subject.

He was unique among Holocaust writers in the depth of the humanity he found in all of the characters around him, some of whom are featured in Moments of Reprieve. He was devoted to his work as a chemist, which may explain the widespread popularity of The Periodic Table, a collection of short pieces built around the elements which was nominated by the  Royal Institution as one of the all-time best science books. He also had a love of worker and workers – a bit like Studs Terkel. His books Other People's Trades and The Monkey Wrench are full of the generosity and respect he displays throughout his writing.

If you have not yet discovered Primo Levi, I hope my tribute to him today on his birthday will introduce you to one of the greatest of the 20th century writers in my opinion.

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.”
― Primo Levi

Film Review: Fruitvale Station

I’m going to be brief.

• Brilliant film.
• Moving, powerful, sweet, and bitter.
• Amazing acting throughout.
• Not a false note.
• Devastating.

 

Daniel Chester French’s “Chesterwood” in the Berkshires

Whether or not you know it, you are familiar with the work of Daniel Chester French (1850-1931), one of the most acclaimed of America’s sculptors of monuments. His staggeringly successful career spanned two centuries and lasted his lifetime. Have you ever seen the Minuteman statue in Concord, Massachusetts? It was French’s first full-sized figure, done when he was 22 years old in 1875. Have you run into the Angel of Peace sculpture in Jamaica Plain’s Forest Hills Cemetery? French did that in 1898 at age 48. And let’s not forget his most famous work – the statue of Abraham Lincoln, in the Lincoln Monument in Washington D.C., which was finished in 1919 (age 69) and installed - all 28 sections of it in Georgia marble – in 1922.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to be born to not insignificant privilege. When he didn’t last past two semesters at MIT and insisted that he much preferred to whittle, he began to study under Louisa May Alcott’s younger sister May Alcott, the talented local artist in his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts. His family also hung out with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, the latter of whom said on seeing the bust French carved of him, “That is the face I share.” Later, in the Berkshires, he was good buddies with Edith Wharton.

Daniel Chester French’s main residence was in New York’s Greenwich Village, where he rented a number of studios. The very large fees he commanded allowed him to buy land in Stockbridge, MA (for $3,000), and build Chesterwood (1896) - http://chesterwood.org/ - as his summer home. Now managed by the National Trust, Chesterwood includes French’s residence, his studio, his formal garden, and the 120 acres of exquisite Berkshire wilderness through which he cut trails for his only daughter Margaret so that she could learn about nature. Tours are given five times a day. Nancy Sheridan, our knowledgeable guide who skillfully shepherded a group of 15 visitors despite the temperature and humidity being in the mid-90s, has been taking visitors around for over 15 years.

The house is relatively modest, for a man of his income and class, but quite formal and situated for exquisite views of the mountains. With nine bedrooms and six bathrooms (which look much like ours today) it was sufficient for entertaining. French had a strong romantic streak: the living room is a replica of his grandparents’ living room – where he spent happy times as a lad – and he even convinced them to give their furniture to him. He lived there with his wife – a first cousin he married when he was 38 – and their only child Margaret, an artist in her own right.

Built and decorated in an eclectic blend of styles, all the estate’s structures were covered with the stucco he had learned to love during his time trolling the museums of Florence, Italy where he spent two years studying under Thomas Ball. That stucco today is disintegrating, not the least in his handsome, north-facing main studio, now closed to the public while the National Trust tries to find the money to repair it.

French’s work can be divided between his commissioned public monuments and the pieces he produced from inspiration. The 1880s-1910s was a period of constructing massive public buildings, and he was invited to produce large sculptures. Not only the best-known pieces above, but also a stunning androgynous figure with elements of the masculine, the feminine, and the animal world called “The Genius of Creation” for the 1915 San Francisco Exposition. Only the model remains, exhibited to our delight at Chesterwood. Equestrian statues of generals (he got another artist to do the horses) and other war memorials were the rage, as were grand entrances – the bronze doors of the Boston Public Library are his.

French commanded astronomical fees. His famous piece Memory (1919) of a reclining nude gazing into the mirror she holds fetched $50,000 (before the income tax law). The Lincoln Memorial brought in $87,000. Both of these pieces were translated into Carrara marble by French’s long-time collaborators, the Italian immigrant carvers, the  Piccirilli Brothers. French was known to be generous with artistic partners and of the fee for the Lincoln Memorial, he gave $50,000 to the six brothers.

We also had the pleasure of visiting a special exhibition of contemporary sculptures scattered in interesting places around the grounds. This is the 35th anniversary of these summer shows.

Chesterwood is in a quintessential Berkshire landscape, particularly lush and rich in the summer. It rewards the visitor whose GPS takes them via unpaved roads through the forest that conspire to make this estate a well-kept secret. Just down the road is the Norman Rockwell museum, reviewed here last year, for those hearty enough to venture a double-whammy.

Jacob’s Pillow: Ballet BC and Tere O’Connor Dance

Jacob’s Pillow, founded in 1930 in Becket, MA, is a 220-acre center for all-things-dance that is one of the primary magnets for visitors to the Berkshires. From 50 top professional companies this year to a couple hundred free events (performances, lectures, multi-media, and more), it is a dance world of its own. A visit is both exhilarating and comfortable, even in an unprecedented heat wave. Although only ceiling fans keep the scorch away in the main theater, visitors are treated to free chilled water and handy hand fans.

Rustic buildings spread out on the grounds and wherever you are, restrooms and eateries are nearby. There is a pub, kiosks, and stores to visit as you wander among crowds of dance lovers and dancers, assisted every few feet by young interns and senior volunteers.

I leave time to stop by a couple of amazing photographic exhibitions. “Shooting Stars” includes behind-the-scenes photos by professional dancers themselves; “Dancers Among Us” features amazing large color shots by Jordan Matter of dancers doing magnificent movements in the midst of everyday settings, like a subway stop and street corner. I visit the archives and watch films of past performances, buy an ice cream sandwich for $2.00, and catch part of a lovely amateur performance on the Inside Out stage, perched over a Berkshires mountain view to die for.

BALLET BC
A short pre-performance lecture by one of Jacob’s Pillow’s resident scholars, Maura Keefe, on a deck over-looking the gorgeous landscape, prepares us for the performance of the Canadian company Ballet BC, held at the Ted Shawn Theatre, named for the founder of Jacob’s Pillow. Ballet BC, from Vancouver, is a British Columbian company of 18 dancers which is now led by artistic director Emily Molnar. On the program are USA premieres by three different choreographers.

The first piece A.U.R.A. (Anarchist Unit Related to Art) by Jacopo Godani is danced to the eerie, non-melodic music of 48nord. In androgynous costuming, the movements stem from exaggerated classic ballet lines, stretched into unbalanced distortion. The lighting morphs from dim and mysterious to aggressive stripes of neon descending from the ceiling, as the company creatively combines and disentangles. Here gender is erased – as it is impossible to distinguish among the slender, wiry bodies covered by the same stretchy, spider-webbed costuming.

Emily Molnar choreographed Aniel, commissioning a score from John Zorn based on Klezmer music. Dressed bright contrasting colors, the men wear ties and the women rather matronly skirts. The music is a tuneful and joyous background to playful flirtatious connections and upbeat routines.

The final piece is Petite Ceremonie, choreographed by Medhi Walerski to varied selections from Mozart, Vivaldi, Rodgers & Hart, and others. The women are in black dresses and the men in black suits. They produce a synchronized unity, with rhythmic stepping, adhering to a strictly heterosexual coupling.  It is a humorous piece, including a speech done by a juggler about the difference between men and women’s brains – an approach that while cute was not very intellectually interesting.

While Ballet BC is doing varied and entertaining modern dance, it is neither cutting edge nor challenging. Its greatest charm lies in the high standards of dance demanded of the company’s members and the willingness of the artistic director to incorporate wit. They pride themselves on their contemporary European aesthetic, including the fact that the dancers wear socks in all their performances, something Molnar believes “gives a clean line to the leg,” a bridge between bare feet and en pointe.

TERE O’CONNOR DANCE
The following afternoon, I attend the matinee performance of Tere O’Connor’s Cover Boy, a piece addressing the closeted gay experience. At the entrance to the theatre is a warning I’ve never seen before at a dance show: “This performance has adult content.” And indeed it does. Four men use their bodies, emotions, and voices to explore violent and ubiquitous desire.

Under a roof which makes up the set, created by the design team Aptum Architecture, four men produce what might be called an anti-dance. There are only fleeting moments of recognizable dance steps in between bouts of wild groping, group humping, and the dancers throwing themselves on the ground with stunning abandon.

One group sexual scene in which the object of the attentions of others bursts into painful cries is a wrench to all who are watching. And watching is a theme throughout, for not only are we, the audience, put into the position of voyeurs, so too the dancers watch each other as the embracing configurations mutate and change.

The voices of the four are a crucial element – for they mumble and moan and cry and sing. They call out and they harmonize, they grunt and they gasp. This heightens the viewer’s sense that we are not only watching their pain and their intimacy, but listening in as well. The piece is 62 fraught minutes, without an intermission, and when the four take their bows, they do so in character, disturbed and drained.

Dustin Hoffman Has a Non-Epiphany, in my opinion

There’s a YouTube clip being posted by scads of feminists on Facebook. The women are saying how much this clip moves them. Hoffman is being praised and admired. In the clip (below) Dustin Hoffman talks about playing a cross-dressing character in “Tootsie” and what he learned from the experience. He had asked the make-up and costume departments to do their best so that he could “walk down the streets of NY dressed as a woman and not have people turn and say.. who’s that freak…?” It’s a shame he didn’t learn anything about transphobia.

Despite make-up’s efforts, Hoffman was astounded to see that his character did not turn out to be gorgeous. “I was shocked that I wasn’t more attractive,” he said, getting a bit weepy. He went home and cried. Then he had an epiphany about all the women he wouldn’t talk to at parties [crying] and who he didn’t get to know “because I was brainwashed.”

So that’s the big epiphany that so many feminists are posting. Hoffman seems to have learned nothing about the lives of the women who are ignored or harassed, who starve or binge, who spend money they don’t have on cosmetics, who wear shoes that cripple them in later life, who are the objects of ridicule and violence. Nothing about butch women and muscular, athletic women being treated as “freaks,” or women who don’t get jobs because their face doesn’t fit, or women of color and the distorted sexual lens through which they’re viewed. 

He’s just sorry that he was “brainwashed” – in other words, he was helpless to see women beyond their aesthetic appeal for him personally – and thus missed out on some damned interesting party conversations. His epiphany is that women who don’t turn him on actually might be fun to talk to. Duh. Yes, Hoffman, it’s all about you and your deprivations.
 

Film Review: Unfinished Song

Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp play a couple. She’s an angel. He’s insufferably rude and nasty, but for some reason every woman that comes in contact with him sees some invisible shred of humanity in him and makes huge allowances for his gross behavior. This is a movie about a choir in which the only music is Terence Stamp’s pathetic attempts to sing. In keeping with the theme of inexplicable pampering of this boor, his musical efforts are met with adulation. In short, this movie makes no sense. Add to that the film’s unspeakably condescending attitude toward older people, including wink-wink, titter-titter with each reference to sex. The director Paul Andrew Williams is 40 years old and has apparently never met an actual person over 60. Avoid this at all costs.

PS: Shame on you, Vanessa Redgrave.

SANDWICH ON CAPE COD IN TWO DAYS

DAY ONE
Sandwich was built on glass and has endured in all its elegant charm, just 90 minutes from Boston. Established in 1637, it is the oldest village on Cape Cod. It remained an agricultural community until Deming Jarves, a Boston businessman, founded the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company in 1825 as a way of avoiding British import taxes on glassware. It closed 62 years later. The location was chosen not for its beach sand (insufficiently pure quartz silica that is needed for glass) – silica sand had to be imported from the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts – but for its abundant woodlands that provided the fuel to keep the glass furnaces burning at 2000 degrees 24/7. Of course they literally burned up their trees and later had to import coal from Pennsylvania.

Today it is home to just over 20,000 permanent residents, six beaches, and numerous ponds and museums. I start my visit at one of the most famous museums. The Sandwich Glass Museum (http://www.sandwichglassmuseum.org/) displays a cornucopia of glass of all kinds, mostly produced over the decades by the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company established by Deming Jarves. Besides the exquisite dining items and the elaborate lamps, I particularly love the decorative coin bank (below), few of which have survived since you have to smash them to get out your money, and the bosom shell, displayed in a “ladies’s only!” case (left) in the bathroom, used to protect nursing women’s clothes from leaking breasts.

The Museum offers a real-life glass blowing demonstration every hour on the hour. Our glass-blower Caitlin, who has been working there full-time for eight years, attempts the creation of a fish within a fish and the 40 spectators cheer through each delicate, difficult step along the way. When she fails at the final step of removing the fish-within-a-fish from the metal rod on which she has so painstakingly created it from molten glass, and cracks the tail, there is a stabbing cry of disappointment from the crowd. And when she tosses it, breaking, into the bin, a joint moan of anguish. It is an odd demonstration to be watching, seated before this red hot oven in an air-conditioned museum in the midst of the one of the most scorching weekends of my life, where the temperatures and humidity are near record-breaking levels.

I move to the 21 minute multi-media program featuring the voices and personas of original Sandwich settlers, including an eight-year-old boy, a local woman, and a male tavern keeper. The hologram projections are so effective that I am fooled at first.

Within walking distance is the Dexter Grist Mill (left), established in 1637 and rebuilt in 1702. Try as I might, I can’t think of anyone back home who would appreciate the gift of a $5 bag of freshly ground corn meal they are selling. The Mill sits on the beautiful Mill Pond, at the end of which is the old cemetery. Across from the Mill is the still-operative Town Hall, built in 1834 and recently refurbished. Down the road I stop at the 1848 First Church of Christ (http://www.firstchurchsandwich.org/), known for its spire that is “reminiscent” of Christopher Wren.

I was motivated to visit Sandwich by my ongoing search for the perfect scone in America. Having lived in London for a decade, I find the icing, chocolate bits, and thick triangular lumps of sugary pastry passed off as scones intolerable. Across Mill Pond from the Grist Mill is The Dunbar Tea Room (http://www.dunbartea.com/), featured on the cover of Bruce Richardson's book The Great Tea Rooms of America. Bingo! Dunbar provides a full afternoon tea of delectable salmon finger sandwiches, hearty mango chicken baguette, fruit bread with cream cheese, a spread of fruit, multiple luscious pastries, all topped with an extraordinary plain scone and its accompanying jam and cream (albeit not clotted). The Dunbar is built around a perfectly restored 1740 dark-paneled gentleman’s billiard and smoking room. The owner and talented baker since 2000, Paula Hegarty, is gracious, the service is attentive, and the plates are heaped with heavenly treats. It is a dream come true for Anglophiles in general and scone lovers in particular. Dine in the historic room, the modern room, or out on the newly completed deck in the lush garden. Superb food in such handsome surroundings makes this a gratifying experience.

For some retail therapy as my large meal settles, I stop at a couple of second-hand and antique stores  where glassware is abundant, and out of curiosity duck into a realtor’s office to gauge the market. Condos are available “starting in the 2s,” Shirley told me, “but they move very fast until about $350,000. Houses up to the 5s and 6s linger a bit longer.” A cheerleader for Sandwich, she says, “You can be anyone you want to be here. You can join or not join. It’s nice to be asked to dance even if you don’t want to.”

I return to my B&B, one of many charming homes that serve tourists. Cranberry Manor Bed and Breakfast (http://www.cranberrymanorbandb.com/), while right on Main Street, is just far enough from the razzle dazzle to have plenty of parking and a lush, flower-filled back garden, a veritable bird sanctuary. The deck tables seat well over a dozen under generous umbrellas, and the picturesque screened-in gazebo is fine protection from the evening bugs. Heather and Doug, the hosts, have between them all the necessary skill and charm to ensure a welcome respite from the strains of being a tourist. The four guest rooms are designed with Feng Shui harmony in mind. In fact, “bed & breakfast” is a perfect description as they have paid particular attention both to fine bed linen and comfortable mattresses, and to Heather’s remarkable breakfasts. She describes them quite legitimately as “gourmet”, and the homemade food she serves on handsomely set tables on the deck are both lavish and elegant – from the spinach cheese quiche to the baked apple French toast and tangy fruit salads.

DAY TWO
The Heritage Museums and Gardens (http://heritagemuseumsandgardens.org/) is spread over nearly 100 acres, encompassing three gallery buildings, multiple gardens, an outdoor concert stage, a conference center, a maze, an 1800 windmill, and much more. It attracts over 100,000 annual visitors. At the J. K. Lilly Automobile Gallery, I visit the exhibition “Driving Our Dreams,” presenting dozens of concept cars – brilliant innovative creations that were never mass-produced. These include a 1956 Buick Centurion (left) with a clear bubble top and a rear-mounted camera linked to a dashboard screen, eliminating the need for a rear view mirror;  a 1954 Hudson whose doors open with part of the roof for easy access (left below); a car that turns into a plane; and another entirely covered and powered by solar panels. The exhibit highlights the influence of Harley Earl, the designer at General Motors from 1927-58 tasked with redefining a vehicle derived from a horse carriage. He was heavily influenced by Italian style and aircraft design concepts.

It is a long, excessively hot hike to the gallery holding the museum’s famous 1912 Carousel, brought in supposedly as a “women’s attraction.” It is an old fashioned, festive free ride on carved horses and benches. In nearby gallery rooms, engaging examples of American folk art include signage, weather vanes, and carvings. I fall in love with a somewhat stern ship figurehead from 1875.

The heat prevents me from exploring the many gardens, except for the rapturously-blooming gardens I pass through on my way to the Gallery, the irresistible Windmill (below), and a look from a slight distance at the Flume Fountain, inspired by a kind of aqueduct called a flume once particular to New England grist mills.

Sandwich is a town of sea beaches, of ponds, and of creeks – so water activities are a crucial resource. I have contact with two wonderful companies offering an assortment of kayak trips, paddleboard rentals, and other water fun. I speak with Justin, the congenial proprietor of ECOtourz (www.ecotourz.net), who provides all that his kayak tour customers need – from sunblock to bug spray to dry bags for a camera – as he guides them through the marshes and estuaries of Sandwich. The ECOtourz office is very centrally located.

In the afternoon, I feel a desperate need to get into the water. I take a paddleboard lesson from Steve, who works for the other prominent Sandwich kayak company Rideaway Kayak (https://rideawaykayak.com/), run by Mike Morrison. Rideaway offers lessons, camps, and classes, as well as sunset kayak tours. Their East Sandwich office is located near Scorton Creek, which runs from the bay through the marshes where it eventually dissipates. They assure me that my age of 65 would not prevent my mastery of the paddleboard. I do manage to go from kneeling on its knobby surface, to awkwardly raising myself (butt-first) to standing. I even learn to use the angled paddle as I stand upon the water. My companion does a better job than I do, but it all ends with my refreshing and welcome dismount into the Creek.

After a cooling shower and a lie-down back at the B&B, I return to East Sandwich to dine at the crowded Amari Italian restaurant (www.amarirestaurant.com). With décor that can politely be termed over-the-top, it has a traditional American Italian menu. The salad is all it should be, the pizza is crisp and satisfying, and the after-dinner mints quite a special treat. Which makes it all that more groovy when the hostess slips me a handful.

NEXT MORNING
The Sunday traffic is already backed up a mile away from the Sagamore Bridge after my sumptuous B&B breakfast and I pack up and turn towards Boston feeling that I had filled two days full of Sandwich offerings, but well aware that there are plenty of additional attractions to anticipate for future visits. I note that the one upside of visiting on a weekend when everyone is seriously dehydrated from the heat is that I hadn’t had to wait in a single restroom line – there had been no lines! I crank the air conditioning up high in the car, as much for the health of the box of Dunbar Tea Room scones sitting next to me as for my own comfort.

All photos with permission from Barry Hock.