VAN GOGH’S CYPRESSES
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Met Fifth Ave.
Gallery 199
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Through August 27, $30 (NY, NJ, CT residents pay-what-you-wish)
212-535-7710 www.metmuseum.org
In his “Illustrated Letter to Willemien van Gogh (Reminiscence of the Garden at Etten),” Vincent van Gogh writes to his sister, about a painting of the Garden at Etten, “Now here are the colors. The younger of the two women walking is wearing a Scottish shawl with green and orange checks and carrying a red parasol. The old one has a blue-violet shawl, almost black. But a bunch of dahlias, some lemon yellow, others variegated pink and white, explode against this sombre figure. Behind them a few emerald-green cedar or cypress bushes. Behind these cypresses one catches a glimpse of a bed of pale green and red cabbages, surrounded by a border of little white flowers. The sandy path is a raw orange, the foliage of two beds of scarlet geraniums is very green. Finally, in the middle ground is a maidservant dressed in blue who’s arranging plants with a profusion of white, pink, yellow, and vermilion-red flowers. There you are, I know it isn’t perhaps much of a resemblance, but for me it conveys the poetic character and the style of the garden as I feel them.”
The 1888 letter is one of several such dispatches in the revelatory show “Van Gogh’s Cypresses,” a collection of nearly fifty paintings, drawings, and illustrated letters in which van Gogh focused on what Met director Max Hollein calls “the artist’s most enduring, expressive motif. . . . This exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to revisit the most famous trees in the history of art.” The centerpiece is MoMA’s The Starry Night; you’ll have to wait in a long line to be able to see it. Most people chat away on the queue until they have their own moment with the painting, snap a few pictures, then walk away. And that’s a shame, because the gallery is filled with small and big gems, familiar masterpieces and sweet surprises, including the glorious Wheat Field with Cypresses right next to The Starry Night, a stunning canvas that so many don’t see as they wander away, checking the photos they just took on their phone.
The show is divided into three chronological sections: “The Roots of His Invention: Arles, February 1888 – May 1889,” “The Making of a Signature Motif: Saint–Rémy, May–September 1889,” and “Branching Out in Style: Saint–Rémy, October 1889 – May 1890.” Drawbridge and The Langlois Bridge offer two renderings of the same bridge; oddly, the pen-and-ink drawing was done after the painting. Still Life of Oranges and Lemons with Blue Gloves, made shortly after his release from the hospital, features cypress needles behind the title objects. There’s a loneliness to Stairs in the Garden of the Asylum, which has no human figures in it, while The Public Garden explores solitude by having three people sharing a bench off to the left and a long path leading to a single person by themselves to the right. Window in the Studio was painted in van Gogh’s hospital studio; the artist used chalk, brush and oil paint, and watercolor on paper to depict a barred window with empty bottles on the sill, loosely drawn paintings on the wall, and a garden outside, all bathed in a yellow-gold tint.
At the asylum, van Gogh told a soldier, “It’s difficult to leave a land before having something to prove that one has felt and loved it.” The master, who died in July 1890 at the age of thirty-seven, proved more than he would ever know with these paintings.
The final two works, A Walk at Twilight and Country Road in Provence by Night, each features a pair of people in the foreground; looking intently at the works, the man next to me wondered which one he would most like to enter.
In order to enter the exhibit, which concludes August 27, you need to first go to the gallery and scan a QR code that will give you the time you can go inside and experience this amazing garden of riches.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Renée Fleming takes viewers backstage at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Renée Fleming’s Cities that Sing: Paris (photo courtesy IMAX and Stage Access)
RENÉE FLEMING’S CITIES THAT SING: PARIS / VENICE (Francois-Rene Martin, 2022/2023)
AMC Empire 25, IMAX Laser
AMC Kips Bay 15, IMAX Laser Paris: Saturday, August 26, $32, 3:00 Venice: Saturday, September 16, $32, 3:00 www.fathomevents.com imax.com/reneefleming
Here in New York City, we’ve been spoiled when it comes to superstar soprano Renée Fleming. The Grammy-winning Rochester native has been performing at the Metropolitan Opera House since her 1991 debut as Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro; this season she appeared as Clarissa Vaughan in The Hours. Fleming has also been on Broadway twice, in Living in Love in 2015 and Carousel in 2018, as well as the Shed in the 2019 drama Norma Jeane Baker of Troy.
Now we get a chance to see another side of Fleming as she visits two of the great international cities, exploring their music and culture in two one-day-only IMAX screenings. On August 26, you can immerse yourself in Renée Fleming’s Cities that Sing: Paris, followed September 16 by Renée Fleming’s Cities that Sing: Venice.
“My career has taken me to stages all over the world singing repertoire that is so virtuosic, so beautiful and enriching, and now I get to bring some of that experience to movie screens through this spectacular pairing of IMAX and Fathom Events,” Fleming said in a statement. “This is an extraordinary combination that allows these two special films to be seen by the largest possible audience.”
In Paris, Fleming, focusing on chamber pieces and arias by such composers as Reynaldo Hahn, Gabriel Faure, Léo Delibes, Jacques Offenbach, Georges Bizet, and Giuseppe Verdi, is joined by tenor Piotr Beczała, soprano Axelle Fanyo, baritone Alexandre Duhamel, pianist Tanguy de Williencourt, and the Orchestre Victor Hugo Franche-Comteat, conducted by Jean-François Verdier, at the Théâtre du Châtelet as they take a musical journey through the City of Lights; she also sits down for a conversation with French couturier Alexis Mabille and Canadian opera director Robert Carsen.
In Venice, concentrating on classic works by such Italian composers as Verdi, Gioachino Rossini, and Giacomo Puccini, Fleming performs at the Teatro La Fenice with tenor Francesco Meli, baritone Mattia Olivieri, mezzo-soprano Paola Gardina, and the Orchestra Del Teatro La Fenice conducted by Riccardo Frizza; she also discusses the City of Canals with Frizza and La Fenice artistic director Fortunato Ortombina.
Renée Fleming guides viewers through the City of Canals in Renée Fleming’s Cities that Sing: Venice (photo courtesy IMAX and Stage Access)
Presented by IMAX, Fathom, and Stage Access, the films are directed by Francois-Rene Martin (Baroque Odyssey: A Birthday Concert in the Gardens of William Christie,Edward Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius) and lavishly photographed and lit by Julien Jaunet as Fleming sings in the gorgeous theaters, visits local shops, takes a gondola ride, and engages in outdoor conversations about art and culture.
“Opera is called grand opera for a reason: It’s larger than life, incorporating every art — instrumental music, singing, drama, poetry — into one major art form that is a wonderful experience on the big screen,” Fleming added.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Lou Reed, Run-D.M.C., Salt-N-Pepa, the Ramones, Count Basie, Beverly Sills, Pat Benatar, Louis Armstrong, Kurtis Blow, Blue Oyster Cult, Joan Jett, John Coltrane, Aaron Copland, Neil Diamond, George Gershwin, Stray Cats, Barbara Streisand, Billy Joel, Taylor Dane, Simon & Garfunkel.
Those are only some of the artists who have been inducted into the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame (LIMEHOF). The next to join that prestigious roster is Robin Wilson, lead singer of the Gin Blossoms, who will be inducted on August 25. Wilson was born in Detroit and raised in Arizona, but he moved to Valley Stream on Long Island more than twenty years ago to spend more time with his son, Grey Wilson, and his ex-wife, Gena Rositano, a longtime stage manager at Saturday Night Live. On Valentine’s Day, 2021, Wilson had a serious fire in his home, forcing him to temporarily relocate to Hicksville, but he returned to Valley Stream, where he played a series of free house shows during the pandemic.
Robin Wilson and Gena Rositano with their son Grey at SNL (photo courtesy Gena Rositano)
I grew up in Malverne but went to high school in Valley Stream with Rositano and have closely followed Grey’s development as a musician in his own right; he is now part of several bands, including the Mercurys, the Afternoon Grifters, and Theo & the London Outfit.
Wilson, fifty-eight, became a Gin Blossom in 1988, one year after the group formed. The band’s major label debut, 1992’s New Miserable Experience, was packed with hits, including “Hey Jealousy,” “Until I Fall Away,” “Found Out About You,” and “Allison Road,” and has sold over five million copies. The follow-up, 1996’s Congratulations I’m Sorry, featured “Follow You Down” and “Til I Hear It from You,” the latter recorded for the 1995 film Empire Records. In addition to performing with the Gin Blossoms, Wilson joined the Smithereens after the 2017 death of Pat DiNizio; he writes songs with the band and alternates on lead vocals with Marshall Crenshaw.
Heavily tattooed and wearing black horn-rimmed glasses, a black T-shirt, and black shorts, Wilson zoomed in from a hotel gym in Indianapolis, where the Gin Blossoms were scheduled to play the penultimate show of their summer tour at the Indiana State Fair that night. After a short break, they’re going back out on the road, stopping at the Paramount in Huntington on September 12.
At the LIMEHOF induction ceremony on August 25 in Stony Brook, Wilson will play a set with a pair of fellow Smithereens, guitarist Jim Babjak and drummer Dennis Diken, along with Joe Jackson bassist Graham Maby and special guest Grey Wilson.
During our talk, Wilson was generous with his answers, giving them careful consideration while being open and direct. Below he discusses fathers and sons, the modern concert experience, cover songs, living in Valley Stream, and more.
twi-ny: We met briefly when your son Grey’s band the Mercurys played the Klub 45 Room in Times Square and you joined them onstage. You played the Gas Giants’ “Quitter,” which was a blast.
robin wilson: It was such a blast.
twi-ny: Grey has also played with the Gin Blossoms. What are those experiences like to have either you jump onstage with him or him jump onstage with you?
rw: Well, it’s a thrill for me because music is the predominant force in my life. And for it to become equally so in my son’s means a lot. It fills me with pride to see him take my lead and to try to follow in my footsteps.
My father was a stuffy Republican accounting professor who wanted nothing to do with me, and we had nothing in common. I never had a moment like that with my dad. There’s no parallel experience that I’ve had with my father. So it means a great deal to me to be able to perform with Grey from time to time.
twi-ny: You went to school where your father taught.
rw: We lived in Tempe. He was a professor at Mesa Community College. Which was nearby. He started teaching there in 1971 when we moved from Detroit to Arizona. And so I grew up on that campus and that was one of my first jobs, working in the cafeteria there. When I got out of high school, I was a student at Mesa. For a long time.
Since my dad was a professor, tuition was free. I went to school there for five years. I never quite got an associate’s degree. For the first few years, I changed my major a bunch of times and kind of floundered around. But by the time I finally found direction, I was studying physics and other of the physical sciences, like chemistry and calculus and geology. And then the band took off, and so I never got to finish my degree. I was very proud to walk into my physics professor’s office one day and say, I can’t finish this semester. Our band is going on tour.
twi-ny: That’s a great excuse.
rw: You know it; it was great. And I remember when I dropped out of college for that first tour, my dad told me, “Robin, you’re a fucking idiot.” [ed. note: After New Miserable Experience went gold, Wilson’s father conceded, admitting, “Robin, I feel like a fucking idiot.”] So I know what it means to my son to pursue music and what it means to dream of a life creating and performing music. I want him to succeed, and I want to give him the tools that he’ll need to accomplish his goal.
twi-ny: I’ve seen Grey play live and on YouTube and Instagram. He’s quite accomplished. He’s got a great stage presence, and he can play that guitar.
rw: Yeah, he can really play. And so I’m always really proud to have him join us onstage with the band. It’s gonna be great to have him performing at the Hall of Fame induction, too.
Bill Leen, Scott Hessel, Robin Wilson, Jesse Valenzuela, and Scott Johnson of the Gin Blossoms (photo courtesy the Gin Blossoms)
twi-ny: The Gin Blossoms have been together for about thirty-five years now, including four core members who have been together since 1992. What is the secret to the longevity of the group?
rw: Well, it’s a combination of factors, the most important of which is compromise. Knowing when to keep your mouth shut and just do your job. That goes a long, long way in the rock band environment. That combined with the fact that we have really good songs and we can go to any city in America and sell a thousand tickets and people can sing along with our music. It’s just such a gift to have been able to accomplish that sort of commercial success that it would be stupid just to turn your back on it. You’d have to be really, really unhappy and miserable to want to just blow the whole thing up just because you don’t want to go do rock shows.
It’s not easy. Most of what we do is the traveling. There’s at least ten or twelve hours of travel for every hour we spend onstage. But that ninety minutes a day onstage makes up for all the other bullshit. And my bandmates and I have been able to put our grievances behind us for the most part and accept that everyone in the band is allowed to have their own experience. So we just try to do our jobs and stay out of each other’s way, not create trouble. And we’re grateful that we could still do it at this level,
twi-ny: Touring has obviously changed since the band started. What are one or two things that stick out to you that are either better or worse than they were in the late eighties, early nineties? Fans are throwing objects at lead singers for TikTok. Have you encountered anything or like that?
rw: Well, that kind of thing has happened randomly throughout our career, but it’s just a random occurrence. It’s not a part of any sort of trend. The main force that makes it different now than what it used to be is this device that I’m talking to you on, the smartphone. When we first started touring, we didn’t have GPS. We had a road atlas that was about this thick.
twi-ny: I remember those.
rw: And that would go underneath the driver’s seat. When we would pull into a new town, we would have to pull that out and look through a map. You had to be able to read a map and find your way through a new city to get to the gig. There wasn’t a way to just pull up Yelp and find someplace to eat. You had to ask if there was a restaurant nearby or physically drive around looking for somewhere you could eat.
And then, of course, the worst thing about the phone, this new media, is social media. It’s just a fucking cancer. It makes everyone think that they’re the star of their own reality show and that everything is about them. I don’t mind people taking pictures of the band while we’re performing. I don’t mind video of the band while we’re performing. But what I cannot stand is when someone will stand right in front of me and take a selfie of themselves. That’s just so incredibly rude and so self-absorbed, and it takes you out of the moment, you know? Here’s a picture of me not listening to my favorite Gin Blossoms song.
I just don’t get it. And again, it’s just so rude. The way I think about it is, imagine if your child was onstage in the school play and someone stood up in front of your child while they were delivering their lines and started taking selfies of themselves and started distracting your child. How outraged would you be? Because this person is doing that. It would make you sick to see someone do that.
We didn’t enjoy concerts any less in the eighties and nineties before everybody had a camera with them. We enjoyed concerts just as much when we were forced to use our brains to remember them. And these people who say, Well, I’m entitled to capture the moment. Well, capture it with your brain, you lazy asshole. It’s so stupid. So that’s maybe the main thing. Like I said, I have no problem with people taking pictures or video of the band, but it absolutely disgusts me to see people taking pictures of themselves while standing in front of the band.
The Gin Blossoms’ most recent album is 2018’s Mixed Reality
twi-ny: As someone who goes to a lot of shows and often is up front, I can tell you it’s also distracting for the audience. If I’m standing behind someone and they suddenly turn around and their face is in my face so they can take a picture of you behind them onstage, it takes me out of the concert for that split second. And so it’s also annoying on that end.
rw: Yeah. But virtually everything else about the concertgoing experience is the same. I mean, how people react to the music and the performers, what the music means to them, the way it inspires genuine emotion. All of that is the same. The thrill of the light show and the sense of community and all of those things. None of that has changed. The only difference is that everybody’s got the phone, and the phone is a way to take you out of the moment.
twi-ny: Over the years, the Gin Blossoms have developed that real sense of community you just mentioned. Your songs really touch people. And I think that reaching them on an emotional level is really part of what’s kept you guys going so strong. I’ve also noticed on the current tour, you’re playing some great covers: Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ the Night Away,” and then one of my favorite old songs, the Plimsouls’ “A Million Miles Away”; I saw them play that at the Whiskey a Go Go back in the early eighties.
rw: It’s just great music. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed those songs. And those are all certainly songs that I love to play. I like to play cover songs; I wish that we actually played more covers. I don’t necessarily want to do more covers per show, but I wish we had a larger repertoire of covers we could dip into. But not everybody in the band really loves playing cover songs. They prefer to play original music. And I can appreciate that.
And so, again, what I was saying earlier, the most important thing is to compromise and not make it so any one person in the band is absolutely miserable about the way the shows are done. Everybody’s entitled to have some fun during the show. So if one guy doesn’t want to play a lot of cover songs, well, his feelings are very important to me. So we try to keep it to a minimum. We find the place where we can compromise on these types of issues.
twi-ny: Which doesn’t always happen in a band.
rw: Yeah, it’s very, very difficult to find that. And it’s especially hard when you’re a young band and you’re just coming up and you’re on the charts for the first time. But part of keeping a band together for thirty-five years is learning how to communicate with each other and learning how to find those compromises and the middle ground.
twi-ny: Speaking of original songs, your last album came out in 2018. Anything you guys are working on?
rw: Yeah, at some point. We haven’t got a firm date set to record a new record. But I would suspect that we are going to be in the studio sometime in 2024, have something done by the end of the year. You know, we’re not super anxious, but some of us already have songs that we want to record, and we know we can’t really go much longer before we start to feel bad about it. We don’t owe anybody anything.
It’s not like we sell a lot of records anymore. But as musicians of a part of a certain generation, we feel like we owe it to ourselves to create new music from time to time to challenge ourselves, to create something that we feel holds up with the rest of our catalog. So we know we’ll do it for our own reasons on our own schedule. There’s no record company hounding us to get it done or anything. We’ll just do it when we feel like it. I suspect that it won’t be too long from now before we get another record done. [ed. note: The Gin Blossoms sold a majority stake in their music publishing rights and artist master royalties in 2021 to Primary Wave.]
Robin Wilson and Willie Nile join Theo & the London Outfit for a Valley Stream house concert under the Arizona state flag (photo courtesy Theo & the London Outfit)
twi-ny: So getting back to August 25, you’re being inducted into the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame. What was it like getting that notification?
rw: Well, it was really amusing. I mean, of course I’m filled with pride and it’s very gratifying. But I’ve had such a contentious relationship with Long Island; my being there, my living there is just such a strange, unlikely circumstance. And it took me so long to get used to it. If you knew what my bandmates have heard me say about Long Island over the years, we’d be laughing as hard as we were when we found out about this, because it was just very difficult for me to get used to being and living on Long Island.
But eventually, it did take, and I’m proud of my home there in Valley Stream, and I’m proud to be the only guy on Long Island who flies an Arizona flag on the front porch. I think it’s really funny when my neighbors come by while they’re walking their dogs and they say, “What is that flag?”
twi-ny: What country is that?
rw: What’s funny to me is, that’s Arizona, that’s the forty-eighth state, you know? So I’m there on Long Island representing my home state of Arizona, which I miss terribly. And now I’ve become a big part of this community.
The company that I’m in with this honor is incredible. It’s humbling and very gratifying. And I’m especially proud for my New York family, the Rositanos, all of my nieces and nephews, my ex-wife and my son, my sister-in-law, my brothers-in-law, and their families. I’m really proud for them, of all the Christmases and holidays we’ve spent together, and now they get to take pride in this, and their pride in this means more to me than anything else about this honor. So I’m very excited for my family, the Rositanos, and I hope they can all be there for for the ceremony.
twi-ny: Is that what brought you to Valley Stream in the first place, family?
rw: Yeah. My ex-wife, Gena, is from Valley Stream. She and I met at MTV. She used to work at MTV.
twi-ny: Yes, I remember.
rw: That’s right. You know Gena. And so she and I met doing The Jon Stewart Show on MTV. [ed. note: You can watch that full episode, also featuring Long Islander Howard Stern, here; Gena was one of the stage managers on the program.]
twi-ny: They just had a reunion, with Jon and everyone.
rw: Yes, that’s right, for the cast and crew. In 1996, Jenna and I had Jon Stewart ordained as a minister, and he performed our wedding ceremony in Valley Stream. It was my connection to Gena and specifically my son, Grey, that kept me there in in Long Island. I could have moved home to Arizona. I always thought I would, but when it came time to actually pull the trigger, I couldn’t leave and I wanted to be there for my son.
And so I’m a Long Island guy now, go figure. And my son, he is in a couple of bands that play around Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens, and whatnot. And then he’s also a DJ on the radio station at Nassau Community College, WHPC 90.3; his show is called “Alternative to What?” It’s Tuesday nights at 7:00, so everybody tune in and hear my son on the radio spinning the alternative hits. That’s 7:00 on Tuesdays, WHPC 90.3.
twi-ny: Excellent. I do want to ask you one other thing, and it has to do with Valley Stream. I was born in Brooklyn and went to school in Valley Stream. And so my wife has listened for decades to all the things I’ve said about Long Island, probably some of the same things that you would tell your bandmates about Valley Stream before you moved there. As a teenager, I couldn’t wait to get out of there to come to New York City. But a lot of my friends still live in Valley Stream and the surrounding area and love it. You’ve really settled in, huh?
rw: Yeah, I really have. You know, It’s a great little town. It’s got tons of great pizza; Ancona’s would be my favorite. There’s really great Pakistani food everywhere. It seems like we have a really large community of really good immigrant cooks everywhere. It’s a very diverse community.
twi-ny: That was not the case when I went to school there.
rw: On my block alone in Valley Stream, there are three families from Guam. You know, I went my entire life in Arizona without ever meeting anyone from Guam. And there on my street in Valley Stream, there are three families from Guam. So there’s something about it. My theory is that these families are moving to America, and they land at JFK with all their bags, and they get out to the curb and they look around and they go, Well, let’s buy a house. And they end up there in Valley Stream.
And I think that’s part of the strength of our community, the diversity and the variety of food and of viewpoints and such. I know that it wasn’t always like that; when I first moved to Valley Stream it was a very different place, in terms of the racial makeup. I very much enjoy how diverse and cool it is now, and how many different cultures are represented just on my block alone.
It’s great to be part of the community. I love my neighborhood. I love all my neighbors. I got to know everybody during the pandemic. I was doing shows for my neighbors during the pandemic; I would be out in my front yard and I would put on concerts. I am really happy. I’m really proud to live there. And so I hope that they can take pride in this honor too.
twi-ny: You recently played a show with Willie Nile and Grey at your house.
rw: Yes, indeed. That was the first one I had done in a while. And so if anyone’s interested in seeing the livestream performances that I’ve done from my home studio or in my front yard, you can go to the Gin Blossoms official YouTube page and see the shows I was doing for my neighbors during the pandemic.
It was the best part of the pandemic for me, performing for my neighbors; it really meant a lot to me that I was able to bring the neighborhood together in a time of isolation. I really enjoyed the pandemic. I mean, obviously it’s not something you would choose to happen, but I managed to make the most of it.
I enjoyed being home for the first time in my adult life. I enjoyed being home for more than a few weeks at a time. I really enjoyed getting to know my neighbors and performing for them, and spending time with my son. I made a lot of carnitas and I played a lot of video games, and I created a lot of content for the Gin Blossoms YouTube page. That’s really kind of when I truly became a citizen of Long Island, during the pandemic.
So, hi to Gena and Grey and all the Rositanos. I’m looking forward to seeing you guys soon. I’m gonna be home for a couple of weeks, for the first time since last winter. I actually have more than five days off starting next week. So I’m looking forward to spending some time in the studio with my son and riding my bike in Valley Stream State Park, just relaxing and enjoying my home.
twi-ny: Well deserved. And congratulations again on the Hall of Fame. I don’t know who’s going to have more fun, you or Grey, but it’s great for both of you.
rw: Definitely Grey; everything’s more fun for Grey than it is for me.
twi-ny: Thanks, man. This was great.
rw: No, thank you. Peace and love for everybody on Long Island. Rock away!
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]
The end of How To with John Wilson is being celebrated with several special film programs
JOHN WILSON SELECTS
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
August 19-29
212-505-5181 www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
No one captures the minute foibles of everyday life in New York City like John Wilson does. On his HBO series How To with John Wilson, which concludes its third and, sadly, final season on September 1, New York City native and documentarian Wilson incorporates a treasure trove of background shots he and his team have collected over the years into new interviews with New Yorkers as he tackles such subjects as “How To Make Small Talk,” “How To Put Up Scaffolding,” “How To Find a Spot,” “How To Throw Out Your Batteries,” and “How To Find a Public Restroom.” In each episode, the ever cool, calm, collected, and wonderfully deadpan Wilson veers off on fascinating and hilarious tangents that are quintessentially New York.
In honor of the end of the series, Anthology Film Archives invited him to curate “John Wilson Selects,” which runs August 19–29 and kicks off with “John Wilson & Crew,” a collection of short works made by many of his collaborators. “When I started to put together the team for How To, I wanted to hire camera people and editors whose vision I really admired. This program showcases original work by a handful of crew members on the show who are all amazing artists in their own right,” Wilson said in a statement.
The evening consists of Nathan Truesdell’s When the LAPD Blows Up Your Neighborhood, Nellie Kluz’s The Sunken Smile and DD, Chris Maggio’s Even a Broken Clock Is Right Twice a Day, Leia Jospé’s No Delay and Let Me Luv U, Britni West’s Tired Moonlight, LJ Frezza’s Nothing and Is It Us?, Jess Pinkham’s PanoptiJohn, and Wilson’s My Morning with Magic Mike. Wilson and several crew members will be on hand for a discussion on August 19.
William H. Whyte documentary is a major influence on John Wilson
The festival continues with works by filmmakers who have inspired and influenced Wilson, beginning with Mark Lewis’s Animalicious, which Wilson pairs with his own Looner, a college film he made about balloon fetishists in Binghamton. Bruce Brown’s On Any Sunday is the follow-up to the surfing classic The Endless Summer. Les Blank, Vikram Jayanti, and Chris Simon’s Innocents Abroad tracks American tourists on a bus tour in Europe. Bronx native George Kuchar’s Weather Diary 4 has a unique soundtrack; it’s being shown with Kuchar’s Low Light Life and Award. Mark Benjamin and Marc Levin’s The Last Party is a political film in which, Wilson says, “Robert Downey Jr. is insufferable . . . but it still manages to be one of the most beautiful documentaries I’ve ever seen.” Wilson calls Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith’s Overnight “a cautionary tale about creative hubris.”
And William H. Whyte’s The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces might have the most impact on Wilson, who says about it, “William Whyte is a legendary people watcher who likes to study the subtle ways public space is used. I think about this film constantly whenever I’m out shooting. It all feels very scientific but he has a little fun describing human behavior, like when he identifies the ‘girl watchers’ hanging out in a midtown plaza. My favorite part is when he studies the way that people use chairs.”
HOW TO NEW YORK
Rooftop Films
Gansevoort Plaza, 38 Gansevoort St. at Ninth Ave.
Wednesday, August 30, free with RSVP, 7:15 rooftopfilms.com
Rooftop Films is celebrating How To with a special evening in Gansevoort Plaza on August 30, beginning with live music at 7:15, followed by screenings of five shorts at 8:00 and a Q&A. The films begin with an advance preview of the final episode of the series, How To Track Your Package, about Wilson trying to locate a stolen delivery. In Joe Bonacci’s Cat Stickers Trilogy, someone is affixing cat stickers to walls and objects throughout an apartment complex. Alex Mallis and Travis Wood’s Dollar Pizza Documentary is about the prevalence of the ninety-nine-cent slice (which has gone up to $1.50 at some joints). Mike Donahue’s Troy finds a couple who are harassed by a neighbor’s loud sex. And in Jarreau Carrillo’s The Vacation, an overworked Black man wants to do more than just go to the beach with his friends on the last day of summer.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Bella Abzug defiantly makes her case in Jeff L. Lieberman’s new documentary opening at the Quad
BELLA (Jeff L. Lieberman, 2023)
Village East by Angelika
181-189 Second Ave. at Twelfth St.
August 18-24 www.angelikafilmcenter.com
When I was a kid, we often wondered, “WWBD?” — “What would Bella do?,” referencing Bella Abzug, a towering New York City political figure beginning in the 1970s. Today too many people might answer that question with “Bella who?”
Jeff L. Lieberman’s new documentary, Bella! This Woman’s Place Is in the House, lays out precisely who she is and what she did during her roller-coaster career as an ahead-of-her-time advocate for change whose campaign slogan was, in pure Bella fashion: “This Woman’s Place Is in the House.”
“She came out and screamed about what was going on with women. It really upset the white male power structure, who was being frightened by women coming in and taking over their power. That didn’t stop Bella,” one of her campaign aides, Arnie Weiss, says. “She talked about the issues that mattered to me: women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights, nuclear disarmament, protecting the environment, ending the war in Vietnam,” actress, singer, and activist Barbra Streisand explains. And former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi points out: “She knew that she wasn’t there just for Bella and her generation, that she was there to make sure that the doors were open for what came next.”
Born Bella Savitzky in the Bronx in 1920, the year that women got the right to vote, Bella was a fighter from the start, challenging the traditions at her parents’ synagogue and enrolling as one of only six women out of 120 in her Columbia Law School class. She married Martin Abzug, had two daughters, and then, in 1950, began five decades of battling for minorities and the underprivileged, defending the wrongly accused Willie McGee in a rape case in Mississippi. She railed against Joe McCarthy, befriended Malcolm X’s family after he was assassinated, and joined the “Women Strike for Peace” movement, protesting against nuclear weapons.
After helping New York City mayor John Lindsay get reelected in 1969, she decided to run for office herself, challenging seven-term incumbent Leonard Farbstein in the primary and talk show host Barry Farber in the general election for Manhattan’s 19th Congressional District seat. She was unrelenting, feisty, and loud, adopting a trademark look by always wearing a hat, building up a wealth of supporters as well as plenty of detractors.
“She was called all kinds of names. She was loved and definitely hated,” her daughter Eve, a social worker, says. She had to take “all those barbs and even worse from men who should have known better . . . a real organized effort to create a monster who’s not liked,” Phil Donahue explains. “She went with the hat, and she took off the gloves,” actress and activist Shirley MacLaine emphasizes.
Through archival news footage, home movies, audio diaries, photographs, and new interviews, Lieberman celebrates Abzug’s fierce courage as she refused to allow anything or anyone to get in her way as she sought equality across the board. “To all of us young kids, Bella represented the mother that we all wished we had,” gay rights activist Allen Roskoff says, recalling a night when Abzug campaigned at the Continental Baths in front of a bevy of naked men.
Among those who discuss Abzug and her legacy are many people who were with her in the trenches, including journalist and activist Gloria Steinem, activist and politician Ronnie Eldridge, Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, campaign aide and undersecretary of commerce Eric Hirschhorn, actress and activist Marlo Thomas, press secretary and historian Harold Holzer, activist and author Letty Cottin Pogrebin, political consultant Dick Morris, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Treasury secretary Jack Lew, jewelry designer Lois Sasson, poet and activist Robin Morgan, author and actress Renée Taylor, administrative aide and later literary agent Esther Newberg, and Congressman Charles Rangel in addition to former first lady and senator Hilary Rodham Clinton, New York Times editor Max Frankel, former NYC mayor David Dinkins, Battling Bella author Leandra Zarnow, and Bridgette McGee, granddaughter of the executed Willie McGee.
Lieberman (The Amazing Nina Simone,Re-Emerging: The Jews of Nigeria) tracks Abzug as she argues for the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, runs for the Senate and mayor, shakes up the seminal 1977 Women’s Conference in Houston, and confronts CIA director George H. W. Bush about a file on her, all the while enjoying a loving relationship with Martin. Former traffic reporter Captain Dan Rosenson relates a remarkable story of attempting to helicopter Abzug into a 1971 antiwar protest that had turned violent.
Abzug, who died in 1998 at the age of seventy-seven, was not always successful — she lost several elections, and many of the policies she supported failed to make it into law — but she paved a trail for others to follow. She was so far ahead of her time that it would be fascinating to see how she would fare in today’s painfully divisive America.
“She was just too real,” Steinem says.
“She was just too early,” Tomlin adds.
“I never felt like I couldn’t have it all,” Abzug herself said.
The film passionately reestablishes Abzug’s well-earned credentials and importance to America’s modern sociopolitical history. In 2015, Bank St., where she lived, was renamed Bella Abzug Way; Bella Abzug Park opened in Hudson Yards in 2022; and Mayor Eric Adams has proclaimed August 18, 2023, as Bella Abzug Day, in honor of the world premiere of Bella! in the Village.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]
A co-op board meeting turns to the absurdly ridiculous in Jiří Havelka’s Owners
OWNERS (AKA THE OWNERS) (VLASTNÍCI) (Jiří Havelka, 2019)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
August 18-24
212-255-2243 quadcinema.com
Best. Co-op. Meeting. Ever.
If you’re considering joining your co-op board or just moving into a co-op, you need to first watch Jiří Havelka’s absurdist darker-than-dark comedy, Owners. Nearly the entire ninety-minute film, Havelka’s impressive debut, takes place in a community room in an apartment complex in Prague, where the board is meeting to discuss various important, and not-so-important, issues. The exacting proceedings turn into a kind of residential Twelve Angry Men, except in this case everybody is guilty of something.
Each of the characters sitting around the long, rectangular table come to the meeting with their own baggage, much of which gets unceremoniously unpacked. The chairperson is Mrs. Zahrádková (Tereza Ramba), who has three young children and has only the sincerest intentions to improve everyone’s living conditions by fixing the attic, installing an elevator, putting in safety bars, and making other necessary changes. She is accompanied by her husband, Mr. Zahrádka (Vojtech Kotek), who, after some debate — nearly everything, no matter how mundane, requires deliberation and a vote — is okayed to take the minutes.
Ms. Horváthová (Dagmar Havlová) has a lot to say about noise, water consumption, and pigeons. The virulently anti-elevator Mrs. Procházková (Pavla Tomicová) is subletting space to a group of handsome young African students and is joined by her “administrator,” Mr. Novák (Ondrej Malý), a mysterious jack of all trades who apparently has a company that can perform any task the co-op requires.
Mrs. Procházková (Pavla Tomicová) knows exactly what she wants, and doesn’t, in hilarious dark comedy
The stern Mrs. Roubícková (Klára Melísková) makes sure the HOA guidelines are strictly adhered to. The somewhat simple-minded Mr. Svec (David Novotný) is sitting in for his elderly mother, who is ill; he seems more concerned with the cake Mr. Zahrádka made and the bottle of Honey Jack than the numerous disputes. People can’t stop bringing up the sexual orientation of Mr. Nitranský (Andrej Polák), who threatens to sue.
At one end of the table are the well-dressed Cermák twins (Krystof Hádek and Stanislav Majer), attending their first meeting as they decide what to do with the their recently deceased father’s apartment and apparently have connections that can help the co-op with any legal or financial matters. At the other end of the table is the unkempt Mr. Kubát (Jirí Lábus), who refuses to approve any changes whatsoever, preferring the ways things were done under Socialism. In a far corner, one of Mr. Kubát’s tenants, Mr. Sokol (Ladislav Trojan), sits quietly, reading a book, saying nothing.
Near the door is a new couple, Mr. Bernásek (Jirí Cerný) and his pregnant wife, Mrs. Bernásková (Marie Sawa), who look on incredulously without commenting, wondering what the hell they have gotten themselves into. But nobody is allowed to leave; “You’re on the attendance sheet,” Mrs. Roubícková yells whenever anyone tries to exit the madness.
“Does the word solidarity mean anything to you?” Mr. Nitranský asks facetiously.
“Look, this is a ridiculous comedy,” Mr. Kubát says, just about the only statement no one argues with.
Written and directed by playwright, actor, presenter, and theater director Havelka based on his play The Society of Owners (Condominium),Owners is about much more than the power that comes with home ownership. It’s a brutally cynical parable of the political situation in the Czech Republic and the world, as liberals, conservatives, moderates, and extremists fight over the smallest details, resulting in little if anything getting accomplished and making no one happy but the anarchists. It’s like a divisive conversation on social media, with no hope of ever changing anyone’s mind.
“I want something to finally happen or the building will rot away before our eyes,” Mrs. Zahrádková declares, but no one is listening.
Havelka tackles sexuality, race, gender, age, health care, greed, ethics, and more in the film, which was shot in ten days with two cameras by cinematographer Martin Žiaran. Havelka and editor Otakar Šenovský occasionally insert blink-and-you’ll-miss-them snippets of apartment interiors and little problems that represent the crumbling infrastructure of democracy. Anežka Straková’s set design features a large print of Frans Snyders’s seventeenth-century Deer Hunt, a painting of dogs tearing apart a deer that adds a surprise touch of humor that made me bark out loud with laughter.
The film begins and ends in elegant splendor with, respectively, Jan Dismas Zelenka’s Baroque compositions De profundis and Sub olea pacis: Melodrama de Sancto Wenceslao, which translates to “Under the Olive Tree of Peace and the Palm Tree of Virtue the Crown of Bohemia Splendidly Shines Before the Whole World: Melodrama to Saint Wenceslaus.”
You won’t find any olive tree of peace or palm tree of virtue in this co-op, but you will find a hilarious cast of characters who, frighteningly, are often too close for comfort.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Starra Jones (Erica Matthews) and Sidney Brown (Tamera Tomakili) face off against each other in Candrice Jones’s Flex (photo by Marc J. Franklin)
FLEX
Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Through August 20 www.lct.org/shows/flex
“Being a fan is like having a religion,” Matt says in Rajiv Joseph’s King James, a play that ran this spring at MTC at New York City Center about two Cleveland men who bond over their mutual love of hoops star LeBron James, perhaps the greatest player of all time.
Here in New York, basketball itself is a religion. Fans continue to worship the Knicks and pack Madison Square Garden even though the team has won only one playoff series in ten years and has not taken home a championship in half a century; the city went into mourning when former All-Star MVP center Willis Reed died this past March at the age of eighty. Across the East River, the Nets have been in turmoil since they moved to Brooklyn in 2012, going through superstars at the Barclays Center like Halloween candy, with nothing to show for it.
Meanwhile, for those paying attention, the other team at Barclays, the New York Liberty, is having its best season since the Women’s National Basketball Association started in 1997, in serious contention for its first league title.
Basketball lies at the heart of two current dramas in Manhattan, one worthy of a championship, the other, well, in need of significant rebuilding; both conclude their seasons on August 20.
At Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse, Candrice Jones’s Flex is a fast-paced and exciting play set in rural Arkansas in 1998, where five seventeen-year-old Black women on the team known as the Lady Train are preparing for their next big game. Shooting guard Sidney Brown (Tamera Tomakili) is being scouted by major colleges. Point guard Starra Jones (Erica Matthews) is a ball hog jealous of the attention Sidney is getting. Power forward Cherise Howard (Ciara Monique) believes they all need to be cleansed and offers to baptize everyone. Center Donna Cunningham (Renita Lewis) is the most grounded and caring of the tight-knit group. And shooting guard April Jenkins (Brittany Bellizeare) is pregnant but wants to keep playing, despite the strong objections of coach Francine Pace (Christiana Clark).
Matt Saunders’s primary set consists of half a court, with the rim affixed on the top of a barn garage. The floor is actually parquet but we’re told it’s dirt. At the beginning, all five players appear to be with child, but following practice, four of them take out fake pregnant belly prosthetics. It’s a funny moment that instantly shows their camaraderie and support for one another.
The narrative is divided into four quarters, just like a basketball game. The cast displays its skills right from the opening tip-off, getting into a rhythm. “My first buzzer beater ever! / I finally know I’m just as good as you! / No more Plainnole, Arkansas, dirt courts for me, Mama! / No more dust in my eyes, my ankles, my fingernails. / I’m gonna win regionals, then state,” Starra says to her late mother, who gave up bball for the army. “Ain’t no way you gonna believe this. / But, scouts are coming here, to Plainnole. / You said by the time I got older. / There’d be a girls’ NBA. / You were right. / I’m going to the WNBA.”
Starra’s selfishness leads to major problems when the teammates hang out one night at Sidney’s house, discussing Michael Jordan, sexual abuse, abortion, condoms, and boxers vs. briefs. Soon they’re in an ingeniously designed car, singing Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody,” each of them highlighting individual lines that are particularly meaningful, which include “I’ve been holdin’ back this secret from you / I probably shouldn’t tell it, but / But if I, if I let you know / You can’t tell nobody, I’m talkin’ ’bout nobody.” Secrets keep coming out — or teeter around the rim — as the state tournament approaches and the game plan might involve benching several starting players.
Tony-nominated director Lileana Blain-Cruz (Fefu and Her Friends,Anatomy of a Suicide) guides the action like a masterful basketball coach, smoothly transitioning between offense and defense, knowing exactly who should have the ball at any given moment. The play is in constant motion, leaving no time for slacking. In a brilliant move, the stage crew dress like referees, adding humor and referencing how the players are too often being judged.
While it’s about a lot more than just basketball, Jones doesn’t overplay the metaphors, keeping her eyes on the rock as the action heats up. Mika Eubanks’s costumes range from sweats, shorts, and T-shirts to snazzy uniforms, with Adam Honoré’s lighting and Palmer Hefferan’s sound contributing to the overall tension.
The title refers specifically to a play run by the five players on the court, but it also evokes the Brooklyn street dance known as flexing, a word used for boasting or expressing oneself, and the standard dictionary meaning, to bend, intimating that the teammates have to be flexible if they want to succeed.
The cast, which also features Eboni Edwards as the sixth member of the Lady Train, comes together like a successful team with a legitimate shot at the crown. They face serious issues at school and at home, with boyfriends, girlfriends, and relatives, and with race and religion, but the more they work together, the more their goals are within reach, but it’s going to take more than a buzzer-beating three-pointer for them to win in the game of life.
Demi (Mister Fitzgerald) leads his team on the Battle Field in Inua Ellams’s The Half-God of Rainfall (photo by Joan Marcus)
THE HALF-GOD OF RAINFALL
New York Theatre Workshop
79 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Through August 20 www.nytw.org
Over at New York Theatre Workshop, Inua Ellams’s The Half-God of Rainfall features seven characters on a floor of dirt and mulch, constructed around the game of basketball while being about much more, although precisely what gets garbled like a stalled offense and a defense with too many holes.
The ninety-minute play, a melding of Greek and Yoruba mythology told as an epic poem in chapters, opens with the fine cast introducing themselves, a dose of reality that immediately blurs the fantasy that follows. At the center is Demi (Mister Fitzgerald), a demigod born to Zeus (Michael Laurence) and the mortal Modúpé (Jennifer Mogbock). Observing the proceedings are the River Goddess Osún (Patrice Johnson Chevannes), Sàngó, an Orisha God of Thunder (Jason Bowen), Hera, the Goddess of Marriage, Women, and Family (Kelley Curran), the Orisha Gods Òrúnmilà and Elégba (Lizan Mitchell), and other mythical figures. Because his father is Zeus, the young Demi, called the Town Crier because of his propensity to rain down tears, is banned from playing basketball, which in this world represents war.
Mortals play on a makeshift court known as the Battle Field — “where generals were honored and mere soldiers crushed” — built with telephone poles, tires, fishing nets, and charcoal. “Basketball was more than sport; the boys were obsessed,” Elégba says. “They played with a righteous thirst,” Hera adds. Sàngó: “There were parries, thrusts . . .” Elégba: “shields and shots . . .” Zeus: “strategies and tactics . . .” Osún: “land won and lost . . .” Modúpé: “duels fought . . .” Hera: “ball like a missile . . .” Zeus: “targets locked.”
When Demi surprisingly reveals a remarkable shooting acumen, everyone begins to view him differently. But Demi’s prowess leads to both an NBA contract as well as disagreements among the Gods and a war that takes place with weapons, not a round ball.
Similarly to the young women in Flex, the young men in Rainfall engage in trash-talking and worship Michael Jordan; among the same issues that are brought up are sexual assault, prayer, and competition that extends beyond the court. Whereas the women see basketball as a way to improve their lot in life and form a close group, in Rainfall “Hera rolled her eyes at how mortal Gods could be, how like men to reduce disputes down to sporting feats, but it was done: the stakes, awful, the route to run.”
Characters in Rainfall shift between dialogue and narration, often in the same speech, so it can become confusing whether they’re talking to the audience or the other Gods and mortals. Too much of the action is described instead of playing out on the court, turning the show into a kind of staged reading. Riccardo Hernández’s set contains scrims on three sides where Tal Yarden projects abstract and concrete images that only add to the perplexity. Linda Cho’s costumes and the props at times feel more like cosplay than serious theater.
The thirty-eight-year-old Ellams, who was born in Nigeria and raised there and in England and Ireland, has been playing basketball since he was twelve; he is also a Marvel Comics enthusiast and has written books and performed solo shows. He stuffs too much into The Half-God of Rainfall, which also has problems with its timeline as it ventures between the ancient and the present, particularly when Sàngó mentions which other real-life all-stars are demigods. (How many people in the audience are likely to know who Clyde Drexler is?)
From start to finish, Flex shows that it’s got game, effectively executing its strategy with an expert balance of humor and sincerity as it sets its sights on its championship goals. The Half-God of Rainfall is all over the place, in desperate need of a tactical blueprint if it wants to have a shot at possibly making the playoffs.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]
