Dusty Wright's Culture Catch - Smart Pop Culture, Video & Audio podcasts, Written Reviews in the Arts & Entertainment

Through the Eye, Not with It

Thalia Vrachopoulos — Tue, 12 May 2026 23:06:29 +0000

Through the Eye, Not with It Thalia Vrachopoulos May 12, 2026 - 19:06

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Art Review

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abstract expressionism

A Figure of the Soul, 2025, 122x122 cm, Sculpting on Acrylic Panel, Special Paint

Gong Byung: Density of Emptiness, Light of Presence

Exhibition Tenri Cultural Institute, New York City

April 13^th- 25^th, 2026

As the season nears the threshold of summer, the Manhattan art world undergoes a palpable transformation, mirrored in the city's shifting meteorology. There is a particular resonance this Spring in the way the atmosphere softens, as the Atlantic wind loses its wintry bite and grows progressively warmer. This sense of a hyper cosmic bridge between the primordial and the contemporary is nowhere more evident than in the city’s galleries.

Anastasiya Tarasenko’s solo, Primordial Soup, at Anna Zorina Gallery, emerges as a profound anchor for such a pre- and post-historical mediation. While the title ostensibly references Alexander Oparin’s hypothesis regarding the elemental biogenesis of the planet, Tarasenko transcends the purely biological to offer a spiritualized rendering of this evolutionary sludge. Her Old Master-like canvases deconstruct and challenge evolutionary theory, saturating it with a visceral Boschian grotesque that exposes the raw instincts of human consumption. Amid this material instability, the work channels the sublime mysticism of artists such as Mikalojus Ciurlionis, who was known for translating musical spirituality into turbulent seascapes.

An even more compelling bridge is found in the abstract work of Korean artist Gong Byung with his debut solo exhibition, Density of Emptiness, Light of Presence, curated by Paris Suechung Koh at the Tenri Cultural Institute. Gong’s series is paired with the sophisticated precision of Koh’s curation, where the strategic placement of each piece allows the ambient light to activate the artist's intricate carvings. Gong’s series offers a unique visual synthesis of non-objective abstraction with the Zen metaphysics of emptiness or Sunyata. The thirteenth-century Japanese Zen monk, Dogen, in his celebrated writings, does not conceive of emptiness as a nihilistic void or mere absence of being, but rather as the dynamic interdependence and impermanence of all phenomena. Herein, emptiness and fullness cease to exist as opposites, and reality is understood as an unbroken process of becoming; a generative matrix of boundless potentiality. By systematically carving into the transparent substrate, Gong creates a sculptural idiom where the act of removal becomes the very genesis of form. This density of emptiness mirrors Dogen’s rejection of dualism, effectively collapsing the distinction between the void and the manifest. Simultaneously, light refracts through the engraved trajectories of Gong’s chisel, manifesting a light of presence that captures the fleeting and luminous nature of existence, elevating the industrial to the spiritual and providing a profound encounter with the essential non-duality of being and non-being.

The Eyes of the Soul, 2023, 97x97x5 cm, Sculpting on Acrylic Panel, Special Paint

At first glance, Gong’s circular works A Figure of the Soul and The Eyes of the Soul resemble an immense eye suspended in darkness. The work’s hollow center recalls a pupil as both a physical aperture and a spiritual emptiness. Yet this void is not an absence in the negative sense. Rather, it evokes a condition akin to śūnyatā, empty of fixed substance, yet immeasurably full of cosmic vastness. The radiating lines extending from the center create the impression of an industrialized periphery, simultaneously mechanical and organic, as though the works exist between celestial cartography and engineered precision. The golden surface of The Eyes of the Soul resembles a monumental cymbal caught in perpetual vibration. At the same time, the silver-white expanses of A Figure of the Soul suggest a biomorphic galaxy in continuous expansion, within the infinite flux of the universe. This sensibility resonates profoundly with the artist’s own statement that “time is flow, and living is flow,” and that the layered traces of carving, scratching, pressing, and pouring become material manifestations of existence itself. The transparent acrylic surface, which according to Gong “reveals everything, even the smallest dust and the innermost layers,” functions not merely as material but as a philosophical membrane through which the artist seeks to render “more beautiful and pure forms of the soul, as well as unknown worlds.”

Emotional Loneliness, 2025, 204x122x5 cm, Sculpting on Acrylic Panel, Special Paint

In his monumental work Emotional Loneliness, Gong abandons the centripetal cosmology of the earlier round compositions in favor of an immense horizontal field that unfolds like a haunted threshold between matter and disappearance. The work evokes the spectral atmosphere of an analog transmission slowly dissolving into static; its dense accumulation of vertical incisions resembles both frozen rainfall and electronic interference hovering in vacant nullity. In this sense, the piece possesses a haunting quality: it appears as though the image was caught between memory and erasure, between the persistence of presence and the inevitability of entropy. The lower register, with its fractured crystalline textures and sediment-like accumulations, recalls the abstracted ice landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich, yet stripped of Romantic figuration and translated into a post-human vocabulary of material vibration. Vast, empty, and glacially silent, the composition confronts the viewer with a sublime expanse that resists narrative anchoring, producing instead a meditative confrontation with immeasurable distance and existential isolation.

At the same time, the work extends the transcendental ambitions of Mark Rothko into a radically different metaphysical terrain. Whereas Rothko’s chromatic fields sought spiritual immersion through color and atmosphere, Gong’s Emotional Loneliness approaches sublimity through the ontology of emptiness itself, an abyssal field in which form continually dissolves into nothingness. The acrylic panel, transparent yet resistant, records countless acts of carving, scratching, and accumulation until the surface itself appears fossilized by duration. What emerges is an image that feels simultaneously geological and digital, ancient and post-industrial; a frozen psychic landscape in which silence acquires material density, and where the soul, stripped of all symbolic ornament, confronts the infinite coldness and beauty of emptiness itself.

My Inner Self, 2025, 245x122x5 cm, Sculpting on Acrylic Panel, Special Paint

Similarly, Gong’s My Inner Self, with its dense violet-electric hues recalling the crystalline luminosity of Mikhail Vrubel, intensifies the charged energy of the inner landscape. In this striking composition, Gong moves beyond the earlier themes of silence and loneliness, transforming the canvas into an ethereal field of chromatic vibration alive with metaphysical force. The work evokes, with even greater philosophical tension, Mahāyāna Buddhist ideas of emptiness as a generative and dynamic state of being. At the same time, its luminous interiority suggests certain Vedāntic notions of consciousness, without fully equating emptiness with Ātman. Here, Gong creates a deep panorama of indigo and pulsating magenta that seems to flicker with its own inner light. This chromatic intensity suggests that the emptiness of the self is not a static void, but a charged space of latent spiritual energy. The inner self thus appears as a vast, non-objective expanse in which the carved acrylic substrate serves as a conduit for shimmering otherworldly force.

Relationship, 2024, 152.5x101x5 cm, Sculpting on Acrylic Panel, Special Pai

Gong Byung’s work urges us to depart from mere optical observation toward a more radical mode of perception. As the Atlantic winds carry the promise of summer, his canvases remind us that we must learn to see through the eye, not with it. To see with the eye is to be trapped by the industrial rigidity of the material and the surface-level finish of the acrylic; to see through it is to engage the inner vision of emptiness as a lens of enlightenment. Gong’s masterfully carved substrates act as this very threshold, where the transparency of the medium ceases to be a physical barrier and becomes a conduit for the sublime. Density of Emptiness, Light of Presence forces the viewer into a state of seeing through the physical towards the hyperphysical. Ultimately, the "Density of Emptiness" is revealed not as a void to be feared, but as the primary site of a "Light of Presence," an internal landscape where the soul, unburdened by the dualism of being and non-being, finally recognizes its own luminous continuity within the infinite flow of the universe.

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O The Humanity

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 07 May 2026 19:45:35 +0000

O The Humanity Chet Kozlowski May 7, 2026 - 15:45

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Film Review

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drama

We are fascinated by the workings of hospitals. Evidence every TV show from Dr. Kildare to E.R. to Grey’s Anatomy (now in, what, its 79^th year? Kidding, 22) to the current fave, HBO’s The Pitt. We thrill to dedicated professionals charging purposefully down pristine halls, barking instructions and jargon. So much at stake, so many skills on display. They assess, they race against time, they grieve. We admire them and identify with them.

Medical dramas work best as episodic series. They are a continuum: save some, lose some; there’s always more to come. The new drama Late Shift is self-contained. It feels like it's happening in real time, but crisply distills an eight-hour shift to two. It’s a day in the life of Floria Lind, a nurse, not in the E.R., but nonetheless dealing with life and death.

Floria arrives at the hospital on public transit, the picture of empathy and cool efficiency. She’s cheery and professional, a locus of calm in an understaffed world. We trail her from room to room as she checks in with patients. Most are appreciative, like the African immigrant about to undergo surgery who shyly drops that he has no relatives or friends to stay with him. “I’m your friend,” assures Floria. To calm another, she sings to her.

Others complain: their test results have not come back yet; an ornery patient on private insurance times his services with an expensive watch and declares them mishandled. Inattentive doctors display a lack of humanity. Overworked and losing her cool, Floria’s mantra becomes “there are only two of us on duty.”

Of course, the center cannot hold. The shift wears on, and Floria’s patience wears out. She becomes harried and fed up. She deals with that damn watch. And finally, she turns her attention to the quietest of the lot, a squeaky wheel who hasn’t asked for notice, and whose circumstances turn out to be the most dire.

As Floria, Leonie Benesch is a perfect Everyperson. I’ve seen her in another workplace film on Netflix, The Teachers’ Lounge. She’s extremely watchable. As Floria, she presents as stalwart and natural. We believe in her. We root for her. Ms. Benesch has also been in Babylon Berlin and The Crown.

Director Petra Volpe has several films to her credit. She is as efficient as her protagonist. In her hands, Late Shift is Steadicam heaven: Ms. Volpe’s camera glides and dodges and hovers around Floria, a frenetic witness to the mayhem. The viewer is invested in Floria’s plight: with so many successes, it’s the failures that haunt. The climax is quietly devastating and set to Hope There’s Someone by Antony and the Johnsons, itself a haunting coda. Late Shift concludes as a parable and offers an incisive view of a health care system that is humane yet still imperfect.

Floria faces mortality itself, and we realize that tomorrow, or on her next shift, she will do it all over again.

_____________________________________

Late Shift. Directed by Petra Volpe. 2025. A Swiss and German production, in German with English subtitles. 92 minute

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Give My Regards To Broadway

Robert Cochrane — Wed, 06 May 2026 23:25:32 +0000

Give My Regards To Broadway Robert Cochrane May 6, 2026 - 19:25

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Book Review

Tags

autobiography

GAELYNN LEA: It Wasn't Meant To Be Perfect (Algonquin Books)

It Wasn't Meant To Be Perfect is a book with other books within. A coming-of-age saga where a girl meets a shy boy, a folk 'n' roll road-travelogue, a tract of passionate resolve, a tale of a creative soul and her journey into unexpected limelight. It reads like a well-structured novel, at times joyous, occasionally steeped in pathos, yet always effortlessly funny and engaging.

Gaelynn Lea was born in 1984 with osteogenesis imperfecta. The genetic condition commonly known as brittle bones. Her limbs had fractured many times in the womb, and by the time she had arrived, they'd set in their broken fashion. Another aspect of her condition is being of small stature. Not the start one would necessarily anticipate, but her family, creative souls, worked within their slender financial means, whilst providing immense love and diligent care. Their daughter showed an aptitude for music, and an enterprising music teacher turned her initial limitations around by allowing Gaelynn Lea, perched in her wheelchair, to play a violin like a cello, which had been her pupil's initial instrument of choice, but the economies of scale had other ideas.

The book offers wonderful insights into a soul's fascination with and desire to make music, and this daughter of the town of Duluth, which also spawned Bob Dylan, never allowed the barriers placed before her because of her disability to impede her creative desires. Initially, she simply wished to learn her instrument, then to play, but her passion was fully ignited by her first experience of a live orchestra. Her innate ability initially drew the attention of Alan Sparhawk from the band Low, who gifted her a loop pedal and another small creative piece slotted into place. Then one day, like a bolt from nowhere, she wrote her first song, entering a new phase without quite realizing that she had.

The book has moments of utter amusement, wisdom, and callous despair. The scene of Gaelynn's tiny frame being carefully decanted into a rucksack whilst her older siblings planned a sweetshop trip illicitly is comedy gold. Her callous treatment by arrogant doctors, which almost cost her life, or a benefits officer's advice, intent on rescinding all of her Medicaid support after her change of circumstances since getting married, "Get divorced!" brings into sharp relief the casual cruelty meted out by the able-bodied world on those with disabilities.

Happy in her status as a violin tutor, things changed drastically for her when, on the advice of a friend, she reluctantly entered and then won NPR's Tiny Desk competition in 2016. Her tales of life on the road as a wheelchair user are grim, and her gradual sense of advocacy for herself and others in her position becomes an inevitable development. She is disarmingly guileless. When approached to sing with Michael Stipe, she had no idea who he was, though she knew of REM. The same applied to Daniel Craig when she was asked to write the music for the 2024 Broadway production of Macbeth in which he played the lead. She simply took the job and completed the project to much-deserved acclaim.

Gaelynn Lea has pulled off the same feat Quentin Crisp did sixty years previously with his autobiography The Naked Civil Servant. Whereas Crisp exposed a gay world that few had any knowledge of, she allows her readers to experience up close and personal, hers as a creative, disabled woman. It is candid and completely lacking in self-pity, but illuminates aspects the able-bodied are privy to ignore, be that getting into a building or onto a stage, using a restroom, or being treated as an equal.

It Wasn't Meant To Be Perfect is an eloquent introduction to Gaelynn Lea's inner world. A funny, witty, and moving read, beautifully written and effortlessly engaging, I defy anyone who encounters it not to come away with a feeling of immense affection and a change in their assumptions about those classed as the disabled.

It will also, hopefully, widen the coterie of listeners for her exquisite music, her lilting voice, and her hauntingly beautiful songs.

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GRAVITY IS THE MASTER: CAPTAIN BEEFHEART vs. (One of) THE GRUNT PEOPLE

Gary Lucas — Mon, 04 May 2026 00:55:27 +0000

GRAVITY IS THE MASTER: CAPTAIN BEEFHEART vs. (One of) THE GRUNT PEOPLE Gary Lucas May 3, 2026 - 20:55

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Music Review

Tags

avant garde

The mastering of the 1980 Virgin/Atlantic album Doc at the Radar Station, which includes my first-ever appearance on a major-label album, performing the Don Van Vliet instrumental composition "Flavor Bud Living" solo, was a complicated affair.

Mastering is a very important step in the process of realizing the finished black vinyl album, all dressed up in a shiny, attractive cover packaging for sale in the marketplace, and eventually placed lovingly on a turntable by music fans. It’s an end-stage refinement, a goosing of the mixed-down two-track quarter-inch master tape for optimal playback at home, preferably on a good stereo system; basically, a tweaking of the final submitted master tape for maximum oomph in the ear of the beholder. Refinements added in the mastering process include additional EQ, reverb, and volume adjustments, plus compression where needed, with the result next to be inscribed by a cutting lathe digging one big concentric groove into the gleaming surface of a blank lacquer disc — the master template for metal stampers to be manufactured and sent out to the record plant to pump out multiple vinyl album copies. For audiophiles, a well-mastered vinyl album was like, umm, ice cream for crow, boasting crystal-clear sonics that seemed to leap out of your stereo speakers in an almost 3D reproduction of the music on record — and mastering engineers like Bob Ludwig and Bernie Grundman became legends.

In spring 1980 our recording and mixing engineer Glenn Kolotkin, who had toiled for months with Don and the guys to get a really well-recorded album in the can at Soundcastle Studios in Glendale, California, convinced us to take care of this all important mastering job back in Manhattan at CBS Records Mastering Studios —essentially a garage, which at the time was located right next to my place of employmentat at Black Rock on West 52nd Street, where I tolied as a copywriter for CBS Records — and to have this operation done on CBS's spiffy new Discomputer Cutting Lathe, supposedly the state of the art in the field, with micro-adjustments to the abolute sound made by computer.

Don and his wife Jan flew in from the desert, and I rented a car and picked them up at JFK, acting as their chauffeur (another managerial duty — my then wife Ling and I were Don’s de facto managers during that period, as he trusted we had his best interests at heart — which we did). Early the next night, I drove them over to the Mastering Studio, where we met Glenn (a really good guy) and the troll in charge of mastering our album and operating the Discomputer. The dude who handled this critically important operation was literally a middle-aged semi-inebriated "wild and crazy guy" named Stanley, who didn't get the music at all (naturally), laughed incessantly and tortured Don Van Vliet mercilessly throughout the session, who after listening through the album repeatedly began singing "I vent to see da Gypsy Vo-mannn" in a grotesque parody of the Beefheart singing voice, while futzing with the controls of this new disco-contraption.

Stanley set the mastering levels too high on the first pass, and Don’s recorded voice proved too extreme to track during "Hot Head," the first number on Doc at the Radar Station. A "chip fire" broke out midway through the first song, melting hot PVC that piled up all over the diamond-tipped cutting stylus, which jammed at that point in the song and ceased moving, refusing to inscribe the groove further, rendering this first pass useless. (Shades of Don blowing up a ribbon microphone while laying down the vocals for “Electricity” on the very first Beefheart album, Safe As Milk, in 1967 due to the sheer power of his voice. You can actually hear the mic break up and disintegrate near the end of the song, when he sings: “Eeeeeeeeee-lek-triiciteeeeeeee!"

photo by Glenn Kolotkin taken at Sound Castle Studios Glendale for recording of Doc at the Radar Station

Don freaked. He look worried and started sweating, He was normally, imperiously, cool as a cucumber and in control of most life situations unfolding around him (easy when you live in the Mojave Desert) — except when he collided with mainstream music biz functionaries in NY, LA, and London — and now he was at the mercy of this clown, this "human paraquat" (to quote The Dude in The Big Lebowski, who dug Beefheart). We'd put such care into the realization of this album, and this fucker literally did not get Don or his music, couldn't care less in fact, and seemed hell-bent on screwing up the final stage here.

Don literally laid it on the line and pleaded with him:

"Sir! Don't you understand that this album may be the LAST FAIR DEAL GOING DOWN??"

I don't think I ever saw Van Vliet desperate like this, ever. Don seemed to have no ability or agency to King Canute-like roll back the rising tide of bullshit that threatened to engulf him at this moment.

The guy just smiled uncomprehendingly at Don as if he didn’t understand what Don was worried about. Glenn quickly intervened and suggested we break for a drink at a watering hole across the street.

So we took Stanley across the street to his favorite bar in an attempt to humor/pacify the guy into cutting the crap and doing his job properly. Stanley knocked back a few more, which seemed to calm him down. And when we got back to the studio, he eventually cut an acceptable master for us on the mighty CBS Discomputer Cutting Lathe.

Saved!

The album came out a few months later to spectacular reviews (thank you, Charles Shaar Murray, among others).

The week of release, though, Atlantic severed its distribution ties with Virgin Records, and the album literally disappeared from retail shelves overnight.

We had a UK and European tour that autumn, which was a triumph, with audiences and critics alike hailing a return to form for Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band--but good luck finding the album at the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street in London.

That was my first taste of hard knocks in the music biz...and it was not going to be my last, not by a long chalk.

They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

I'd had a taste of the poison of show-business — the endless cycle of recording and touring and promoting and publicizing, and then doing it all over again — the whole vampire circus.

And despite the defeat of our superb album ultimately crashing and burning due to a situation beyond our control, I enjoyed the whole experience. I felt alive in contrast to the deadness I felt as an employee of the corporation.

It got me adrenalized, and higher than any drug I'd ever taken — and I wanted more.

“I can't go on. I’ll go on.” - Samuel Beckett, The Unnameable

And I'm still here to tell the tale.

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A Perfume of Life!

Jay Reisberg — Sat, 02 May 2026 21:44:46 +0000

A Perfume of Life! Jay Reisberg May 2, 2026 - 17:44

Topics

Theater Review

Tags

off broadway

Photo by: Maria Baranova

The Door Slams, A Glass Trembles

Written and Directed by Paul Zimet

La Mama - The Downstairs

66 East 4th Street, New York City

www.lamama.org

April 24 through May 10, 2026

Reviewed by Jay Reisberg (revised April 28, 2025)

This play, presented by members of The Talking Band theater company, is one of the most profound theatrical productions I’ve ever encountered.

A grand saga, unfolding in a compact seventy mesmerizing minutes, is about an essential human experience. If our lives are well-rounded, we all encounter it — sometimes with joy, more often with sadness: departure. Whether it is moving away from one’s parents, or to take a new job, or to retreat for healing--or that ultimate parting, death--departure is central (and inevitable) to our growth and life-path. And that seems ever truer in the Modern era, as traditional cultural patterns fray and life becomes more centrifugal. This play, through its structure, stories, and action, foregrounds various kinds of departures within an extended family and their close friends. It heightens the impact of such breakages (as almost all departures entail) by contrasting them with the routines of life, as pictured through carefully choreographed (and most precisely executed), almost balletic movement by this highly skilled troupe.

The play includes elements of coordinated group movement, gestures, tableaux, and dialogue, with unique original music composed by Ellen Maddow (who also appears in the cast), augmented with classical music--and all this set against a backdrop of dreamy video projections of the near wilderness of the play’s locale, and of the sea. The play’s dialogue and flow of action have been powerfully crafted, without a single wasted word or inessential action.

Photo by: Maria Baranova

Let us now introduce the characters and a sense of the play’s tone and phases. It opens and is largely played within a shared house in forested southwestern New York State — and brings forth the cast as they, in precise choreography, repeatedly set and clear the dinner table, and finally sit down for dinner and warm conversation. We encounter a middle-aged couple, Marc (Jack Wetherall) and his wife, Clara (Ellen Maddow); their married son, Norm (Patrick Dunning), and his wife, Jenny (Amara Granderson); Oona (Tina Shepard); and another housemate. They are soon joined by Rick (Steven Rattazzi) and his wife Rita (Lissie Olesker). The conversation brings up an affair Marc had as a young man, from before his marriage, with Ann (Delaney Feener). The gathering progresses into sunset, and the moon's rise is shown in a mood-setting video. Later that night, a faint sound of the sea and a ship's engine is heard, as Clara recalls a sea voyage Marc took on an old freighter.

Marc shares that he relieved his restlessness on board by reading Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain,” which is set in a tuberculosis sanatorium in Switzerland in 1906. There, the patients are lulled into monotony by the treatment routine, meals, walks, rests, etc. — each event at the same time, day after day. Days later, Clara notes that Marc is thinking about the sea again. Later, the contemporary Marc is seated at the table, while on video, Ann and the young Marc (Jesse Koehler) are looking out over a ship’s railing. Ann speaks, and today’s Marc responds with his younger self’s words--and as the young lovers blithely chatter, today’s Marc sings a French tune. Later, Marc, Clara, Norm, Jenny, Rita, and Rick once again set the table and discussed what they’ve been up to. It is revealed that Marc and Clara had been medical research scientists, and they’d done work showing that if mice are infected with tapeworms, their memory improves—and this evolves into a discussion of what’s worthwhile in life. Rick and Rita have begun farming and delivering their produce to restaurants, and Rick starts railing sharply about the evils of capitalism. Rita is now teaching an after-school program, and Jenny and Norm share that they are pondering moving to Montreal---when Rita pipes in with “We could use some fun!” — and with gusto, another time-filling game starts up. Later, Marc continues singing in French to the sound of the sea and the freighter. On video, Ann appears on the deck of the ship, and commences an exegesis on the Greek word “Kairos”, which means the decisive moment for action--and closes with another Greek word: “Eremia”, which here means “the pregnant pause”. Marc takes a breath and declares, “That’s it”, followed by the stage instantly going black.

From this description, it may appear that the play's action is superficial and going nowhere, but we sense that a greater depth is being explored.

The lights slowly come up for a scene set about a hundred years earlier, in the dining room of a Swiss tuberculosis sanatorium, and the video background now shows the Alps. Two players in period attire are extending the dining table to a great length. The lights brighten to normal as the rest of the cast slowly enters, lavishly outfitted in the fashions of the time, and moves with a mannerly, take-your-time gait. They have been transformed to correspond to characters from Mann’s “The Magic Mountain”. Marc is sitting at the table wearing a button-down sweater or jacket. Jenny is Maryusay, a giddy, emotional young woman all in flowing white with a big white bow on her head. Rick is now another patient: Dr. Blumenkohl, a stiffly formal, anxious man, who evidences his illness by a discomfort-inducing cough. Rita takes on the role of Miss Robinson, an English woman, and Norm is Joachim, a soldier in a close-fitting khaki uniform. Oona becomes loud-talking Frau Stohr, and Anne has been transformed into Clavdia, who, majestic in both attire and deportment, flips her hair as she swaggers across the room, with a haughty smile. The group engages in polite gossip. These characters—offering us visions from the past — will appear in several more scenes. One shows them sitting in a tableau: a woman with her huge hands closely listening to Schubert’s song “Der Lindenbaum,” and their last scene is a fete with a party game and waltzing.

Now I’m sure you’re all asking yourselves: “All these characters! — All these snatches of dialogue revealing aspects of their past! — And all these time-bending scenes mixed in! What does all this come to?”

Photo by: Maria Baranova

The fact is that the play’s action and dialogue support a bigger purpose, and just narrating them, scene-by-scene, cannot convey the entrancing mood and movement of the play — and indeed, such telling might make it all seem inconsequential. But the truth is that the audience is getting more than just words and action: as staged, through these fine performances, we are transported toward something profound. We come, movingly, face-to-face with loss and endings--via a range of departures. But there’s also something more: the hints of new possibilities for us all, a perfume of life whose vivid aroma keeps our hearts open — as well as open to quest, gamble, and adventure.

The original engaging music was composed by Ellen Maddow. Anna Kiraly designed the sets for both the contemporary and period scenes, as well as the gorgeous scenic video backdrops and dialogue scenes. Olivera Gajic designed both the modern and period costumes. Her turn-of-the-century hats were set pieces all their own. Choreographer Flannery Gregg created the actors' prominent ballet-like movements. Mary Ellen Stebbings’ lighting designs set the perfect tone for the play's action. The production stage manager was Erica Schnitzer, assisted by Mia Harada.

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Agatha Christie Gets Woolly

Brandon Judell — Sat, 02 May 2026 21:23:50 +0000

Agatha Christie Gets Woolly Brandon Judell May 2, 2026 - 17:23

Topics

Film Review

Tags

animation

Alexander the Great once mistakenly noted: "I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion." Clearly, the conqueror formed this faulty notion because he hadn’t met the ewes and rams grazing on George (Hugh Jackman) the shepherd’s farm in The Sheep Detectives.

But before we get to the woolies, please note that Mr. Jackman, although he is a grand songster and hoofer, has achieved much of his fortune and fame over the years by portraying Wolverine, a presence that could trigger mass heart attacks among any flock of livestock.

Here, with his claws retracted, he plays an agreeable vegetarian, so in love with his sheep, he individually names them, gambols through his fields with their offspring, and daily reads detective stories to his baaing pals. This is all before he is found dead one morning by Lily, the smartest of sheep (voiced by Julia Louis Dreyfus) and Mopple, the most worldly of sheep (voiced by Chris O’Dowd).

Based on a bestselling German novel Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann, with a screenplay by Craig Martin (The Last of Us), direction by Kyle Balda (Minions), and produced by the folks who have given us Sense and Sensibility, The Substance, and Cocaine Bear, one of the main challenges here was to shape an entertainment that wasn’t too cutesy like Shari Lewis’s Lamb Chop or too outre like Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Icelandic Lamb (2021) where an ewe gives birth to a boy with a sheep’s head. I won’t go into details. What happens in Iceland stays in Iceland.

The creators have mostly succeeded. These ovine creatures chatter amongst each other in standard English with varied accents, comprehend the chatter of us fallible humans, and are bigoted against anything born during the winter months. They could be from Brooklyn. Unequivocally, this herd should entertain most adult filmgoers and a whole lot of the prepubescent.

However, be aware that these sheep have been sheltered from what goes on in the outside world, having never left the field.

Checking out George’s corpse, Lily is confounded. She didn’t know “death” was for real. She was brought up believing humans became clouds in the sky just like her mates did. Mopple enlightens Lily on the spot but avoids telling her that recipes exist for “Moroccan-Style Braised Lamb” and “Lamb Patties with Fried Onions and Tahini Yogurt Sauce.”

So how did George wind up as he has? The buffoonish Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun), the lone local police officer in the abutting small town, believes the shepherd had a heart attack. The sheep know better and set out to find their keeper’s killer. After all, they have already been exposed to dozens of murder mysteries. How could real life differ?

There is a happy ending, of course, with a sentimental closing that will have you comprehend Little Bo-Peep’s anguish the next time you hear her rhyme. Also, I was unable to guess the killer’s identity, always a plus.

With a starry cast that also includes Emma Thompson and Nicholas Galitzine, plus the voices of Bella Ramsey, Regina Hall, and Patrick Stewart, The Sheep Detectives has enough charm, silliness, suspense, wit, and lush cinematography to make this a perfect outing for families and singles. Just be prepared to cover your eyes when the wild dogs show up.

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Get In On the Grassroots

Chet Kozlowski — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 22:46:45 +0000

Get In On the Grassroots Chet Kozlowski April 28, 2026 - 18:46

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Film Review

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indie film

Here’s a unique opportunity to participate in the funding of a film. Written and directed by Edna Luise Biesold, Cutting it Short will be about 14 minutes long and bills itself as a comedy about alcoholism. It takes place in real time during one night in a hair salon in which Sadie, played by Casey Killoran, risks relapse and exposure.

From the press pack: “Beneath the humor, the film is a plea for compassion and a reminder that people battling addiction are fighting private wars we rarely see. The United States is facing a significant public health crisis, with roughly 1 in 10 Americans aged 12 and older (approx. 27.9 million) living with Alcohol Use Disorder as of 2024. Despite declining participation rates, alcohol is the third-leading preventable cause of death, according to the NIAAA.”

Your opportunity: go to the fund sourcing site Seed & Spark and donate. Many of the production goals have been hit, but they’re trying to raise enough for actor housing, etc. Giving is multi-tiered, offering incentives according to the amount of your donation.

Go here to Seed & Spark to check out their sample reel, production decks, and more:

https://seedandspark.com/fund/cutting-it-short?utm_source=Email_referral&utm_medium=socia#story

Shooting is set to happen June 20-23, 2026

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A Minimal Look

Robert Cochrane — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 13:12:28 +0000

A Minimal Look Robert Cochrane April 27, 2026 - 09:12

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Art Review

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photography

Candy Darling

Every artist carries within them an idea of how they'd like to be best remembered, the impact they'd like to leave on a small or wider world. That world has a mind of its own, though, and gifts legacy in an arbitrary fashion, if it gifts any at all. Such has been the trajectory of the New York photographer Laura Rubin; her huge volume of work, from fashion shoots to derelict windows, is like snippets from a dream. Ghostly, elusive, and somewhat unsettling, her tremendously atmospheric images haunt and stimulate, be they architectural subjects, street scenes in grainy intimacy, or the capture of a briefly glimpsed face. They have an abundance of beauty and grace, but with an edginess to their charm that makes them seem much older than they actually are. To those in the know, Laura Rubin is the photographer of the Warhol Circle, a title she never sought, never cultivated, nor much cares for, but like a wonky default setting, it is the regular garland that she is bestowed, a glittering momento mori, for all her subjects, cracked actors, drag queens, the dispossessed, are largely dead—her photographs, their afterlife gifted by the click of her probingly sympathetic lens.

New York-born Laura Rubin first became aware of Andy Warhol in 1964 through an article in Show magazine featuring his monochromatic photographs. A curious and curiouser girl, she was suitably beguiled by his transient apparitional aspects, and his acolytes, little rich girl in a tailspin Edie Sedgwick and the downwardly mobile socialite Baby Jane Holzer. A wish to meet the silver-wigged wonder formulated. Before that, she had been acquainted with personages like the poet Gerard Malanga, whom she met at a folk dancing class in Greenwich Village in 1962, and Ronnie Cutrone, who was an artist in his own right. Both were Warhol's studio assistants. Certain things are likely, and there was an inevitability to her encountering the pied piper of Pop Art and his colorful entourage; circles within circles overlap, merge, and eventually open outwards. In the larger small world that passed for artistic alternative, nobody was very far away in sixties Manhattan.

Rubin recalls, "I liked fashion magazines then and wanted to become a stylist for them. While taking an advertising course at the School of Visual Arts, I was required to study photography. I'd bought a copy of Video magazine, and there was a photo of Andy holding a Bolex camera. He was wearing a striped t-shirt, which was the style for some in those days. Soon after, I saw him in the flesh in Figaro's Cafe in the Village. There was a disco on the lower level on Sunday afternoons. After that, Andy began to appear everywhere. He was suddenly in demand. As the saying goes, 'Andy would turn up for the opening of an envelope.' I was hoping to be in one of his movies, but nothing happened." It seems likely that Laura was just a little too together to be included in and absorbed by Warhol's cavalcade.

Candy Arms Up

On account of her art and her craft, Laura Rubin has largely been an unwitting architect in her own reluctant byline. At a time when drag queens weren't considered appropriate subjects for inclusion in photographs, she immortalized them by rendering these moments elegant, beautiful, and real. The portraits she made have a legendary pull of old Hollywood publicity shoots, steeped in atmosphere, mystery, and rare beauty. It's no surprise that she admits to having a fascination for the intimate starkness of Victorian portrait photography. She made her down-at-heel-in-heels iconic, but never freaky. Over time, this aspect of innovation has been shunted to the margins by successive generations. Still, her take on Warhol icon and Lou Reed muse, Candy Darling, is transcendent, whilst her stark portraits of Holly Woodlawn are reminiscent of Joan Crawford in the 1940s, so vampishly stylish that she seems like a creature from another age. They are beyond drag. The term pioneer springs to mind. And as the sixties and seventies become historic eras entombed in amber, Rubin should be celebrated for being a true, if unintentional, mistress of innovation. In truth, she presented her alternative subjects as how they in part saw themselves, people of beauty who sought but generally didn't receive respect, and usually the wrong kind of recognition.

Laura Rubin didn't set out to be lionized as a photographer of Drag Queens. They populated the fringes and shadows of her Manhattan world, and, as a young, attractive woman with a camera, she was drawn to them like moths to a flame in hopes of immortality. It was their style, flashes and dashes of color and personality that drew her lens to them. She ran into Holly Woodlawn at Max's (a.k.a. Haraldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Dankaki, 1946-2015), a crazy Puerto Rican with a penchant for dramatic poses. On seeing her photos, this resident of the back room at Max's Kansas City wished to be a subject. Rubin's rendering of her is both tragic, dynamic, and sublime. Holly had a way with words, or perhaps they had a way with her, as she proclaimed the end results of their session 'superfalous'—her mash-up of superlative and fabulous. At the time of their shooting, Holly was making the film Trash with Paul Morrissey, hence the ethos of vintage Hollywood so perfectly captured by Rubin.

Holly Broken Goddess

Candy Darling (1944-1974) was also a regular at Max's. Originally from Long Island, she was well on the way to establishing herself as a counterculture icon. Rubin's iconic shots were taken by accident since Candy's friend, Jeremiah Newton, was supposed to be Laura's original subject. Newton had simply asked if he could bring Candy along. He is to be thanked for posterity, as she hardly surprisingly edged into the frames. The photographs furnished Candy, who began life as James Lawrence Slattery, with a Kim Novak-esque tenderness and grace. Candy died in 1974 from cancer, the result of taking illegal hormone shots to assist her in her transformation into womanhood. Rubin's images have helped to galvanize and enhance her legacy as a great beauty, trans or otherwise. She inspired Lou Reed to compose "Candy Says" in his days with the Velvet Underground. He also immortalized her in the ever-popular "Walk On The Wild Side." She appeared in Klute with Jane Fonda and campaigned unsuccessfully for a part in the Mae West vehicle of Gore Vidal's outlandish Myra Beckenbridge. Only twenty-nine when she died, Candy was buried in her favorite dress, and the legendary Gloria Swanson arrived to pay her respects with a gracious wave.

Maria Montez (a.k.a. Rene Rivera, 1935-2016) was a further subject in drag, also Puerto Rican. Montez was a star of underground film, most notably Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures, before evolving to early "Superstar" status in a handful of Warhol movies. It was Rubin's idea to ask him to pose after seeing him perform in a John Vocarro off-off-Broadway play in 1969. Unlike Candy and Holly, Montez never became a regular part of Andy's Factory entourage. There is a real intimacy to Laura's shots of him transforming via the application of lavish make-up and clothes; the exposure within an exposure. Nowadays, Rubin reflects that, "I later did color work of the drag shows, not because I was bothered about drag—there was no agenda in that way—but everything was visual, and they were nice. entertaining people."

Mario Close Up

That aspect of Rubin's vast catalog of work bears only the briefest fingerprint of her true vision, its scope, and its artfulness. Her monochrome shots of her native New York are a strange harlequin confetti of fleeting shards. Images grasped in the blink of a shutter, the impulse to preserve the fleetingness of a thought. They use the transposition of billboards against a building or skyline in a way that makes the eye question what it first thought it had seen. There are strange amalgams of things caught in doorways and shop windows, and the profound starkness of light, the random grace of a passer-by captured and preserved, the sadness inherent but unknown etched across a stranger's face. Yet, as of yet, there is no proper solo publication of this talented artist's work available, nothing for the uninitiated hungry eye to study and peruse. A tremendous oversight, yet a treasure trove for any diligent photography publisher or gallery. There is a single video montage with an appropriately chosen jazz soundtrack that serves as a perfect online entry point. Still, it affords only cursory attention to a talent that has been both celebrated and obscured by its association with the Warhol mythology.

Rubin remains sanguine about the presumptions and secondhand limelight her Warhol threads bring.

Andrea and Geraldine Smith

"Although I found Andy okay as a person, I didn't find him that earth-shaking to dissect. My mistake was not to bring my camera when taken to the Union Square Factory, but my attraction was more '60s socialites, their merging with edgy art chic. My connection with Warhol has perplexing and amusing overtones. One editor came over to my apartment and remarked, 'Oh my God! I thought you would have dark velvet drapes and black-painted walls!' The surprise was my oak flooring and rattan furniture. A minimal look, but to get that from a smart New Yorker! Or people think I'm a junkie!"

Now in her seventies, she has not had all that kind of life. She lost many friends to the AIDS crisis, and like many artists before her, has no health insurance or savings. She does, however, have medical bills from a litany of age-related illnesses. Her friend, the performance artist Penny Arcade, has set up a GoFundMe page (see below) to assist her. Prints of her legendary images are available for purchase. It is a worthy act for a worthy and worthwhile woman whose talents, despite many exhibitions, shows, and mentions, have not secured her in the present or the future.

-------------------------------------------------------

Laura Rubin

PLEASE DONATE TODAY!

Dear friends, 2026 has begun, and I send you all my best wishes. As most of you know for 8 years you have helped me keep a roof over the head of elderly photographer Laura Rubin who lives a very marginal existence without Social Security, Income or savings abandoned by her family suffering from Lupus and other autoimune illnesses That we have been able to keep her fed and with a roof over her head, we a group of strangers, attests to the power of our humanity. Laura lives month to month in fear and anxiety, with much physical pain from bone loss. And without your donations, she would have died from sepsis or been evicted from her apartment. Her immune system is non-functioning due to Lupus. We need to get her January rent paid—she has made an excuse to her landlord, but she is in a critical situation right now. ANY AMOUNT HELPS! There is little reserve in her bank account. She will need an IV to kill the current infection; her white blood cells are 3 times higher than normal. For donations of $225 USA, $275 international (includes FEDX), we have photos of ANDY WARHOL SUPERSTARS: Mario Montez, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Francis Francine, Geraldine Smith, Andrea Feldman, and Penny Arcade.

These are museum-quality, printed on double-weight archival paper. For photo selection, click on Google Drive.

Choose photos here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/10VsRVaWA8Srl_KHjgLq8kriMHQUjyyE1.

Please share with your Facebook friends. Laura is deeply grateful for your support. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-laura-survive

Thank you. Penny Arcade

LAURA RUBIN PHOTOGRAPHER

WHAT AN AMAZING ARTICAL. SMALL CORRECTION: BABY JANE HOLZER LEFT ANDYS FACTORY WHEN IT BECOME A FREAK SHOW. THIS WAS SEVERAL YEARS BEFORE ANDY WAS SHOT. WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME "HOW DID YOU MEET SUPERSTARS"?? I REPOND: "THE QUESTION SHOULD BE "HOW DID THEY MEET MEE"???? MANY WERE FROM BROOKLYN, WE GREW UP TOGETHER.

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Are We There Yet?

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 02:46:21 +0000

Are We There Yet? Chet Kozlowski April 22, 2026 - 22:46

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Film Review

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drama

Endurance is the theme of the new film The North. Physical endurance by way of a 350-mile hike through the Scottish Highlands. Endurance that tests the bonds of friendship. And endurance of spirit, how far will you go with a secret inside you? The walk is, of course, a metaphor, but one that is enthralling and well executed.

Boyhood friends, now approaching thirty, embark on the 30-day trek. All starts out well: they are polite and deferential. Chris (Bart Harder), strapping and red-headed, is married, planning a family, and beset by a business that keeps calling him along the way. Lluis (Carles Pulido) is swarthy, unattached, and more upbeat. “Even a bad day in nature is better than a good one at the office,” he tells Chris. The pair are frequently seen as REI candy-colored specks dwarfed by a vast expanse of green, rolling hills. There is rarely anyone else in sight.

They do run into other hikers, at rest stops and in the few towns they pass through. But mostly they are alone with each other and with their thoughts. For all the camaraderie they don’t talk much about important matters. They walk, sleep in a lightweight tent, go through sun, fog, relentless rain and crippling wind.

Lluis’ knees give out and Chris goes on by himself, left alone with his thoughts and the concern—for Lluis, for his life—shows on his face. Lluis meets up eventually, with maps, insisting that they will fare better without their phones and GPS, like the pioneers did. Fellow travelers comment on their sleeping in the same tent: “You must be really close. Or hate each other.” Lluis casually reveals to one stranger a medical diagnosis he had never told Chris. That startles him; how could Chris not have known?

The filmmaking of The North is straightforward and unassuming. Director/writer Bart Schrijver lets the locations speak for themselves, the desolate and unforgiving beauty of the West Highland Way and Cape Wrath Trail, Likewise the acting: Mr. Harder and Mr. Pulido are both understated and naturalistic, an unlikely couple and increasingly sympatico to each other. The trip tests their bond. They show the fatigue of people who are too close for too long.

The smartphone is a player in all this. Technology imposes itself in modern ways. When Lluis ditches GPS, they flail. Poor Chris gets shrill calls from work at the most inconvenient times. Still, the very lightness and stealth of the technology and the equipment used in the filmmaking makes the narrative immersive. We glide alongside the men (interesting shots here of depth of focus), not giving a thought of the camera’s presence. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some shots were done on the phone as well.

Set pieces are subtle and effective; a dark interlude sequestered in the tent as rain pours down; Chris, annoyed, striding along the beach, tosses off his backpack, walks on then thinks better of it and goes back to retrieve it; Lluis’ eventual submission to his pain is heartbreaking exactly because it sidesteps conventional drama.

Director Bart Schrijver’s adeptness at second unit work contribute to his eye here helming a feature. He is known also for Human Nature (2022).

____________________________________________

The North. Directed by Bart Schrijver. 2025. Distributed by Tull Stories. Runtime 130 minutes.

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Girls At Their Best

Robert Cochrane — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 17:39:16 +0000

Girls At Their Best Robert Cochrane April 20, 2026 - 13:39

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Book Review

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new fiction

By the time of her death in November 1999, aged 87, the novelist Kathleen Farrell was pretty much forgotten, and she knew it. Despite penning five witty and elegant novels, by the mid-sixties, all of them were out of print. She was the victim of a sea-change in literary taste. First came the wave of angry young men in the late fifties, and then the dominance of pop culture in the next decade, which rendered her yesterday's news. She ruefully admitted she'd no idea why she'd bothered leaving her copyrights to anyone since her books would never be of interest again.

A handful of short stories appeared in respected anthologies where she rubbed shoulders with the likes of Graham Swift and Salman Rushdie; these kept her name in circulation into the eighties, but being of independent means, she never needed to earn money from her craft. It is no coincidence that her last novel coincided with the ending of her twenty tumultuous years in Hampstead with the mercurial writer Kay Dick, after which she largely fell silent, and Kay didn't publish a new work for over a decade. The pair had been catalysts for each other, and though no longer an item, lived nearby for the remainder of their days in Hove, phoning daily, bickering occasionally, but never quite solo entities. In a fit of pique after a particularly acrimonious row, Kathleen burned her entire correspondence from Kay, a sad loss as they'd known everyone. George Orwell, Angus Wilson, Stevie Smith, and Ivy Compton Burnett, to name but four. So many beguiling literary snippets were reduced to ash.

In 2024, after years of dropping her forgotten name, I managed to interest Faber and Faber in republishing Mistletoe Malice. Farrell's debut novel, which skewered a dysfunctional family Christmas reunion. It garnered rave reviews in The Times and The Guardian, sold seven thousand copies, and remains in print. It was simultaneously translated into Italian and, last year, appeared in French as Un Noël Chez Tante Rachel. Such a luxury was never afforded her in her day, bar a few American print runs. Now Penguin has dusted down her third novel, The Cost of Living, with an astute introduction by the novelist Jane Fallon. The novel is a brittle study of two bedsit-dwelling women, a young artist, Alexandra, who spends her days doing portraits of dogs and unappealing children, and Marianne, a woman in her thirties who types dreadful novels for authors that are unlikely to ever see the light of print.

"By the time I nearly finished the novel, it seemed to get longer and longer towards the end, and sadder too, and much sillier. There was only one woman in it, and she spent most of her time retching and clinging to park railings, and when she wasn't doing that, she was leaning her forehead against the wall in some dark alleyway. Leaning her forehead against the wall was to stop her from being completely overcome by nausea. I can't remember it ever doing that. I wondered how such young men managed to make women feel so sick, so often. And I thought poor young men, how they suffer."

The ladies plan a party to meet men, but it turns out that the mixture of personalities who appear, they could likely have lived better without. There's Donald, a bus conductor with literary aspirations, a bespectacled and twitchy Bernhardt, and a ghostwriter named Marius. A few nondescript Peters add to their number as do the gatecrashers, a glamorously sexy girl called Pisa, and a middle-aged, but loud Mummy. This wasn't quite the plan, but it suggests why Farrell opted for such an apt title for her annotation of the proceedings. It is all rather a waste of the women's meager supply of cheap booze. There's meeting people, and meeting the right kind of people, and then there's the aftermath. It is a near-perfect dissection of female friendship, the listlessness of souls, and a glimpse into the lives of women prior to the pill and the liberation movement.

In Farrell's clipped, precise prose lie echoes of Muriel Spark and Barbara Pym. Her style is one of mannered elegance with an edge of arch cynicism.

She once remarked, "A happy marriage is all very well, but it can be rather boring for a whole evening." Kathleen used to play chess with Quentin Crisp and was friends with Barry Humphries, who'd attempted to assist me in getting her republished years ago, but to no avail. She'd be shocked and privately pleased to see such a positive reappraisal of her talents, and the eye-watering prices her first editions now command. At her request, I was given her sole copy of Mistletoe Malice after her death. It became the one Faber utilized for its republication. A wonderfully circuitous completion

There are future plans for her remaining three books, and hopes that her short stories may be gathered into a single volume. They certainly deserve to be. Kathleen Farrell was a petite and perfectly attired figure, her lack of stature adequately compensated for by a steeliness of soul and her fierce intelligence. Her work retains a profound relevance because she knew what motivated people, even if she was wide of the mark about how her own novels would be remembered.

I adored getting letters and postcards from her. They were often prefaced with words like "Tuesday. I think." She belonged to a world that has now gone. To have caught her somewhere towards the end was both a pleasure and a privilege, and her return to print was a rare reward.

KATHLEEN FARREL

GOOD READ.