NYC Arts Round-Up #4: The Met Museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Credit: Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

~ Visit to the Met Could Cost You, if You Don’t Live in New York

An article in the New York Times caught my attention recently. Titled, Visit to the Met Could Cost You, if You Don’t Live in New York, the article, written by Robin Pogrebin reported that this venerable institution is thinking of charging “…a mandatory fee for non-residents.”

New Yorker’s reading this will be aware of course, that the Met currently has a suggested full priced entrance fee of USD$25. International visitors who have already been to the museum and paid the full price may not have been aware that they could have entered for free—if they had the confidence to front up and ask for free entry.

While comments for the article are now closed, there were many ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguments about the proposal among the 462 contributors, one of whom was myself. Here’s what I wrote: 

Interesting article and discussions. As it happens I live in Australia, but will be visiting New York City for almost three months over the coming summer. In preparation for this visit, just two weeks ago I paid for reduced annual membership to both The Met and to MoMA (each cost US$70 or AU$95.40).

Why? Because I intend to make multiple visits to both institutions during my stay, and paying for membership is the most economical way to enjoy the full range of benefits, along with the events and activities that both museums program across the summer months. Even if I visit each of the museums just once per week over ten weeks, my investment will have more than justified the initial expense. Of course I will miss out on the other nine months of my annual membership, but that’s part of what I call ’the cost of travel’. 

I also paid because I can. I would much rather pay for membership, even though I won’t be able to take full advantage of it over 12 months, if that membership helps those who genuinely can’t afford to visit either of these great museums, to do so for free.

Read the full article here…

A medicine vision by an unrecorded Arapaho artist (detail) ca. 1880 in Oklahoma.

~ In April, my attention was caught by an article by Katherine Brooks writing for the Huffington Post. In her piece; Native American Art Gets Its Rightful Place In The Metropolitan Museum, Brooks writes:

The American Wing of the storied Metropolitan Museum of Art has long held a collection of typically “American” artifacts: portraits of wigged colonial leaders, Tiffany chandeliers, Frank Lloyd Wright chairs, silver owned by Paul Revere Jr., quilts by unknown 19th-century makers.

Together they tell a specific, but noticeably incomplete, history of the United States.
Beginning in the fall of 2018, however, the American Wing will attempt to course correct by including a subgroup of art that has been regrettably missing from the section: Native American art. Thanks to a donation from collectors Charles and Valerie Diker, a batch of 91 works of Native American art will be headed for the American Wing, marking a historic change in the way art is curated at New York’s most famous museum.

While New York City is home to the National Museum of the American Indian (located in the old Customs House opposite Bowling Green), it is surely way past time that Native American culture was better represented at the Met Museum.

Read the full article here…

Making the Most of the Metropolitan Museum

The New York Times also has a very informative feature on how to get the best of any visit to that great institution and its massive collections. Among the highlights, Daniel McDermon includes five ‘Must See’ rooms (Greek and Roman Sculpture Court; the Vermeer Collection; Asian Art; the Impressionists; and the Temple of Dendur). He also writes about the amazing spaces within the museum, intimate treasures, what to see with kids, and much more.

Read the full guide here…

Ellis cartoon courtesy of The New Yorker

If you are looking for even more to do in New York City, the New York Times has several arts sections worth bookmarking and checking on a regular basis:

New York Times Arts…

New York Galleries this Week…

New York Times Arts & Entertainment Guide…

Yidaki: The Sound of Australia

Yidaki, at the South Australian Museum

I have been promoting the Yidaki exhibition currently taking place at the South Australian Museum for several weeks. Now that I have finally found time to edit together footage I recorded at the exhibition, it is time to say more about the show.

Yidaki (pronounced, Yid-ar-ki), is the traditional Australian Aboriginal name for what most of the world knows as the didjeridu—that seemingly impossible to play wind instrument made from the trunks of the Stringybark tree, hollowed out by very obliging termites.

The exhibition, Yidaki: Didjeridu and the Sound of Australia, can hardly be called large. You could walk through the various exhibits in around ten minutes, but if that is all you were to do, you would miss all the most important parts of the show. The exhibition gives visitors the opportunity to explore this iconic instrument through sound, story, moving image and through close examination of rarely seen examples of the instruments on display throughout the exhibition space. While the didjeridu now appears in music venues and concert stages around the world (often played by non-Aboriginal practitioners), it is important to note its origins and its place in Aboriginal culture.

Although the didjeridu, as an instrument, has also spread throughout Australian Aboriginal communities, it is important to know that traditionally the instrument was originally confined to tribes and clans that inhabited the far northern coastlines of Australia, today referred to as the Top End. More specifically, this exhibition focuses on the place the didjeridu has in Yolngu (pron,Yoll-nu) culture, where the instrument is called the yidaki.

Djalu Gurruwiwi, Yolngu people, Galpu clan. Yidaki virtuoso with yidaki. Image: SA Museum.

For the Yolngu people of North East Arnhem Land, yidaki are not just musical instruments, they are social instruments, instruments of healing, and of spiritual life. The exhibition has been created in collaboration with Yolngu people, particularly with the world’s foremost authority on yidaki - Djalu Gurruwiwi, who with his family introduce visitors to the instrument, and to its power and meaning in Yolngu life.

Djalu is a senior member of the Galpu clan, from the Yolngu people of North East Arnhem Land. Amongst the Yolngu, and around the globe, he is a universally recognised authority and the musical and spiritual traditions of yidaki. A quietly spoken but passionate man … Djalu has spent his life trying to share a profound and reconciliatory worldview that starts and ends with his instrument. This exhibition is an expression of his life’s work to use yidaki in bridging the gaps of understanding between people.

Here is my short video montage:

The heart of the exhibition is contained in the many audio-visual exhibits that are placed throughout the room. I said, above, that you could walk through the exhibition space in under ten minutes, but that would be a waste of your time, effort and money. If you were to sit and watch every piece of video footage, and stand still and focus your attention on the many sounds of the Yidaki that fill the room with an ever changing soundscape, you can easily spend and hour or more learning about this remarkable instrument. The whole point of the exhibition is to give you a glimpse into Yolngu culture, from the Yolngu point of view. As the exhibition guide states: 

“Yidaki without sound are just sticks of wood. So this is not an exhibition about objects, but about what yidaki do, how they speak, and what story they tell. This is a Yolngu story, being told for you in Yolngu ways. There are no labels so you need to stop and listen every now and then. It will be good for you. Yolngu experts and custodians (through sound and screen) will guide you through the exhibition space—inviting you to explore the stringybark forest, voyage with the West Wind and become immersed in the mesmerising power of yidaki sound.”

One of the musicians that features prominently in the yidaki exhibition is William Barton. In the video below he can be seen performing a virtuoso composition of his own which showcases the incredible variety of sounds that a skilled yidaki player can produce on what is essentially a hollowed out tree limb. Note: William Barton’s performance does not begin until just after the 2:30 mark.

If You Go

Yidaki: Didjeridu and the Sound of Australia

At the South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide

Now through until July 16, 2017

Hours: 10am - 5pm daily 

Admission

Adults: $17; Concession: $12; Child (aged 5-15): $5;

Children under 5 - FREE; Family (2 adults + 3 children) $35

Cornish Feasts and Folk-Lore

~ Just in time for South Australia’s bi-annual Kernewek Lowender Cornish Festival comes a recent addition to the website of that great repository of free public domain books, Project Gutenberg. Margaret Courtney’s 1890 book, Cornish Feasts and Folk-Lore—available in ePub and Kindle formats—at Project Gutenberg offers a cornucopia of customs and traditions (both secular and religious), odd little legends and stories, children’s games and rhymes, traditional folk songs and ballads, and other delightful gems from Cornwall. 

But first a riddle…

“As I went over London bridge

Upon a cloudy day,

I met a fellow, clothed in yellow,

I took him up and sucked his blood,

And threw his skin away.”

(What am I?)

Chapter headings in the book include, Cornish Feasts and “Feasten” Customs, Legends of Parishes, Fairies, Superstitions, Charms, Cornish Games, and Ballads. Here is a tiny sampling of some of the contents:

Superstitions 

• Maidens who die of broken hearts, after they have been deceived by unfaithful lovers, are said to haunt their betrayers as white hares.
• The souls of old sea-captains never sleep; they are turned into gulls and albatrosses.
• The knockers (a tribe of little people), who live underground in the tin-mines, are the spirits of the Jews who crucified our Saviour, and are for that sin compelled on Christmas morning to sing carols in his honour. 
• “A ghost at Pengelly, in the parish of Wendron, was compelled by a parson of that village after various changes of form to seek refuge in a pigeonhole, where it is confined to this day.”

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Image: The St. Breok Down Standing Stone

A Cornish Legend

~ While this is not the time or the place to get into an explanation for the many standing stone monoliths that pepper the Cornish hills and valleys, I thought this local legend explaining the origins of the St. Austell Down monolith is worth quoting:

Upon St. Austell Down is an upright block of granite, called “the giant’s staff, or longstone,” to which this legend is attached:

“A giant, travelling one night over these hills, was overtaken by a storm, which blew off his hat. He immediately pursued it; but, being impeded by a staff which he carried in his hand, he thrust this into the ground until his hat could be secured. After wandering, however, for some time in the dark, without being able to find his hat, he gave over the pursuit and returned for the staff; but this also he was unable to discover, and both were irrevocably lost.

In the morning, when the giant was gone, his hat and staff were both found by the country people about a mile asunder. The hat was found on White-horse Down, and bore some resemblance to a mill-stone, and continued in its place until 1798, when some soldiers rolled it over the cliff. The staff, or longstone, was discovered in the position in which it remains; it is about twelve feet high, and tapering toward the top, and is said to have been so fashioned by the giant that he might grasp it with ease.” —Murray’s Guide

Oh, God — Not Rabbit Again!

Then there was the vicar of a local parish who, much to the horror of the parishioner at whose table he was sitting, is said to have offered the following piece of doggerel in the place of the pious grace they were expecting to hear before they began to eat:

“Of rabbits young and rabbits old,

Of rabbits hot and rabbits cold,

Of rabbits tender, rabbits tough,

I thank the Lord we’ve had enough.”

Apparently the vicar had dined out several days in succession, and rabbit had been offered to him at every meal!

How To Catch A Thief Cornish Style

“A farmer in Towednack having been robbed of some property of no great value was resolved, nevertheless, to employ a test which he had heard the ‘old people’ resorted to for the purpose of catching the thief. He invited all his neighbours into his cottage, and, when they were assembled, he placed a rooster under the ‘brandice’ (an iron vessel, formerly much employed by the peasantry in baking). Every one was directed to touch the brandice with his, or her, third finger, and say: ‘In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, speak.’ 

Every one did as they were directed, and no sound came from beneath the brandice. The last person was a woman, who occasionally laboured for the farmer in his fields. She hung back, hoping to pass unobserved amongst the crowd. But her very anxiety made her a suspected person. She was forced forward, and most unwillingly she touched the brandice, when, before she could utter the words prescribed, the rooster crowed. The woman fell faint on the floor, and when she recovered, she confessed herself to be the thief, restored the stolen property, and became, it is said, ‘a changed character from that day.’ ”

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Kernewek Lowender Cornish Festival

~ Given that the book was first published in 1890, one wonders just how many of the customs and traditions recorded in Cornish Feasts and Folk-Lore, are still remembered and repeated today. I suspect there are not a lot. However, you just might hear some of them during the Kernewek Lowender Cornish Festival, which is taking place over the weekend of May 19-21 in South Australia’s Copper Triangle.

Also referred to as the Copper Coast, this geographic region on Yorke Peninsula includes the towns of Kadina, Moonta, and Wallaroo. Copper was mined in the area during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today the three towns at the centre of the region are proud to maintain their Cornish heritage at a festival that is said to be the largest of its type in the world. So put the festival dates in your diary, and make the trip. The Cornish pasties alone should be worth the drive.

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Oh, and the answer to that riddle: An orange.

I'd Rather Have a Passport...

I'd rather have a passport full of stamps, than a house full of stuff.

Good News for Yellowstone’s Bison

Adult bison and calf in Yellowstone National Park. Photo: Arturo de Frias Marques.

Some people travel to kill the wildlife. Others travel to admire the same wildlife living in its natural habitat.

Most readers will surely be aware of the mass slaughter of the American Bison during the 1880s, when bison herds numbering in their tens of thousands were reduced to giant piles of bleached white bones in just a few short years. Thankfully, enough bison survived the slaughter to begin the reintroduction of this magnificent creature to some of America's national parks, including Yellowstone National Park.

In a previous post (Ending The Elephant Slaughter), I wrote about the campaign to end the continuing slaughter of this great animal for its ivory. In this post I am reproducing an article from the American Defenders Of Wildlife organisation that fights for the survival of many ever diminishing species on the North American continent, while also championing the reintroduction of threatened species to their former natural habitat.

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It’s getting better all the time for Yellowstone’s bison. 

Under Gov. Steve Bullock, the state of Montana is at last allowing bison that leave Yellowstone National Park to roam free year-round on almost 400,000 acres. And the National Park Service announced in January it is moving forward with a plan to relocate some of Yellowstone’s bison to tribal and public lands rather than send them to slaughter.

Bison wander at will when they stay inside park boundaries. But when snow falls in Yellowstone’s high country and grazing becomes difficult, bison often trek to lower ground outside the park. In the past, they were allowed only a tiny portion of public land during winter when cattle are not present. Not all bison leave the park, but those that did risked being rounded up and sent to slaughter in years when their numbers exceeded an arbitrary cap of 3,000.

Last year, some 900 animals were killed—just for searching beyond park boundaries for food. Defenders has long opposed the slaughter and advocated for wild bison restoration to the Great Plains as a much-needed alternative. 

In recent years, Defenders helped the Assiniboine, Gros Ventre and Sioux tribes of Fort Peck and Fort Belknap Indian reservations bring Yellowstone bison back to their ancestral lands. 

The latest relocation of 130 genetically pure bison (no cattle genes) occurred last year. These bison were the first “graduates” of a 15-year effort to study the feasibility of quarantining and testing bison for brucellosis. This contagious disease originally spread to bison and elk from Old World cattle in the last century. Ranchers often opposed bison grazing outside the park because brucellosis can cause cows to miscarry. However, there has not been a single documented case of bison transmitting the disease to cattle in the wild in Montana. 

“Yellowstone’s bison are our nation’s most genetically valuable bison,” says Steve Forrest, Defenders’ senior representative for the Rockies and Plains. “They are essential in our efforts to restore the species across North America and for too long they have been needlessly sent to slaughter. We are delighted with the governor’s new rule that gives bison room to roam. It finally acknowledges that bison are wildlife, not livestock, and recognizes that their seasonal, age-old winter migration routes know no political boundaries. Further, the park’s proposal is a win-win for bison and for the American public. We are so proud to see all our hard work paying off.” 

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Only select articles from Defenders are available online. To receive 4 issues annually of the full award-winning magazine, click here to become a member of Defenders of Wildlife!

More Information

Defenders of Wildlife...

Surf’s Up on The Weekly Web

I don’t know about you dear reader, but I spend far too much time online. Some of my online discoveries find their way onto this blog in some shape or form, while others make their way to my Twitter feed and Facebook page. I have so many sticky notes cluttering up my desktop that I thought I might try a weekly Surfing The Web round-up of the best items I find online each week, and share them here. Speaking of surfing the web, I can’t think of better way to kick off this post than with an article looking at the beginnings of the internet.

The Life and Times of the World Wide Web

My internet service provider is the source for this Out Of The Archives piece about the origins of the Internet, or the World Wide Web as it was initially referred to by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who had the bright idea to begin the project in the first place way back in 1989. Some much has changed in the few short years since the advent of the internet, that it seems odd to think this groundbreaking, world-shaking service has been around for less than 30 years. 

By the way, the image seen above shows the world’s first internet server. I don’t know what the specs for the computer were, but I suspect they were not all that great when compared to today’s super fast computers with their almost unlimited storage drives, and ultra-sharp display monitors.

Read the full blog post here and make sure you follow the link to the world’s first web page.

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NYC's Racist, Draconian Cabaret Law Must Be Eliminated 

For “the greatest city in the world,” New York has appallingly few places to dance. The next time you find yourself confined to toe-tapping to a tinny Top 40 song in a sports bar, or clutching an $11 Heineken in a booming EDM hall, you can thank the city’s cabaret law, a 90-year-old edict that despite being racist in origin and outmoded in practice, remains a very convenient cudgel for the city to wield against local businesses. Many valiant attempts to repeal it have been made over the years. None have succeeded.

So begins a piece by Lauren Evans in a recent issue of The Village Voice, one of the most venerable of New York City’s free ‘street’ papers. Lauren goes on to report that the law, which dates back to 1926. In its current form, the cabaret law prohibits dancing by three or more people in any “room, place or space in the city... to which the public may gain admission,” and includes “musical entertainment, singing, dancing or other form[s] of amusement.”

Read the full article here… 

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Jimmy Breslin: The Last Word

I discovered the writing of Jimmy Breslin less than twelve months ago, and I have been making up for lost time ever since. At last count, I have eight eBooks by Jimmy Breslin on my iPad, and I am working my way through all of them slowly but surely. Sadly, Breslin, who was 88, died earlier this year after long and illustrious career in journalism, which he followed up with an equally illustrious career as an author of (mostly) crime novels, which drew on his many years as a reporter in New York City.

The New York Times’ ‘Last Word’ series are video obituaries of prominent Americans, among them politicians, sportspeople, writers, directors, and musicians. 

Here is an obituary from the New York Times that provide more information about this man. If you are into reading, I highly recommend that you seek out his books in printed form or in electronic form. You won’t be disappointed.

Vancouver Island’s enchanting quarry gardens

Quarries are not generally noted for their elegance, but the glorious Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island show a makeover at its very best. Amanda McInerney paid a visit the Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, off the coast of Canada. The gardens have been developed on the site of an exhausted quarry owned by Robert Butchart. In 1909, when the limestone extraction was completed, Robert’s wife Jenny set about turning the quarry pit into a sunken garden.

Read the full article here…

Australia’s Northern Territory

My one and only visit to the Northern Territory took place in 1983, during a brief visit to Alice Springs and Uluru (previously known as Ayers Rock). Somewhere on my Bucket List is a plan to visit that region of the Northern Territory we call the Top End. Thankfully, Monica Tan, writing for the Guardian, has put together a comprehensive guide to the Northern Territory that has reminded me of my previous all too brief visit, and reminded me as well, that I need to see more of this amazing country.

Read the full article here…

The True Cost of Travel

2017 USA Travel Expenses

First Uploaded: April 30, 2017 |  Latest Update: June 14, 2017

Earlier this month, in the post New York City On My Mind, I wrote that I had begun booking events in advance of my upcoming summer visit to that great city. On April 13, after booking return tickets from Adelaide, Australia to New York City, it occurred to me that it might be interesting to document every expense, no matter how small, that I will incur for this extended three month stay in America, most of which will be spent in the Big Apple.

I plan to account for my expenses across four major departments: Events & Activities; Food & Groceries; Transport & Accommodation; and Shopping & Sundries. Note: All figures in the tables are in Australian dollars. The running tally at the bottom of the screen grab below includes the total U.S. dollar amounts. Here's where things stand as of today ...

Total Expenses to Date: AUD$4916.10  -  (USD$3716.65)

NOTES

Figures are rounded up or down to the nearest five cents. Due to the constantly fluctuating exchange rates between the Australian and American dollar, anyone checking the above figures will almost certainly find their own calculations differ.

New York City Round-Up #5

Hallett Nature Sanctuary, Central Park

The Central Park Edition: I have made many visits to Central Park during my four trips to New York City, and I have still not seen or experienced all that there is to see and enjoy in that magnificent 843-acre green space in the heart of Manhattan. So for this New York City Round-Up, I am focussing on the park, drawing mostly on information from the Central Park Conservancy, the organisation which overseas much of the ongoing work of upgrades and maintenance.

Specifically, I thought I’d look at the park’s three woodland areas—the Hallett Nature Sanctuary, the Ramble, and the North Woods. Public tours of the Sanctuary, and the Woods have now began and continue right throughout the summer by members of the Central Park Conservancy, and I have provided details and links to more information about the tours below.

The Hallett Nature Sanctuary

In 2016, I managed to squeeze in a brief visit to the newly restored Sanctuary, a four-acre section of Central Park that had been closed to the public for many years. Located south of the Wollman Rink, and surrounded by the Pond at the southeast corner of Central Park, the closest street entrance is at Sixth Avenue and Central Park South.

The Sanctuary was originally called ‘the Promontory’, but in 1934 the location was closed to the public and preserved as a bird sanctuary by Parks Commissioner, Robert Moses. It was renamed in memory of George Hallett Jr., a birdwatcher, naturalist, and civic leader in 1986. Last summer—due to ongoing restoration work—there was limited entry to the Sanctuary, but happily this year the site will be open daily from 10:00am until 30 minutes before sunset. 

Tours of the Hallett Nature Sanctuary ($15; CPC Members $10), take place each Wednesday and Saturday, from now through until July, 2017, and beyond.

The Ramble, Central Park

The Ramble

Central Park’s chief designer, Frederick Law Olmsted, described the 36-acre Ramble as a “wild garden.” The area was planned as a tranquil spot where visitors could discover forest gardens rich with plants while strolling along the paths. As you walk through all three of the sites highlighted in this post, I’m sure you will find it as hard to believe as I did that everything you are walking through has been built by the hands of many men and women. The bedrock may be permanent, but the ten of thousands of plantings, trees, lakes, waterfalls, and other park features have each been placed there by hand and machine.

Below, Isabella Rossellini, Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model, shares secrets of the Ramble. Central Park's 36-acre wild garden.

If you are visiting during Spring or Autumn/Fall, look out for some of the 230 species of birds that spend time in the park—which is part of the Atlantic Flyway—as they pass through on their annual migrations.

The North Woods, Central Park

The North Woods

Earlier this month, ABC7 New York ran a story about the restoration of Central Park’s North Woods, a 40-acre forest retreat at the top left of the park, where a man-made ravine meets the Harlem Meer. Interviewed for the television story, Doug Blonsky, of the Central Park Conservancy, said the area was created to mimic sections of the terrain around upstate New York.

“Olmsted and Vaux created areas like this for the typical New Yorker to experience the Catskills or The Adirondacks," he said.

Due to the lack of ongoing maintenance over many years, the North Woods had become overgrown and neglected, but now the Conservancy has returned an open waterway to the area, and put huge boulders of Manhattan schist back in place. 

Check out the ABC7 New York story:

The North Woods renovation was part of the $300 million Forever Green campaign, which took two years to complete. Visit Central Park Forever Green, to learn more about the campaign, including more woodland restorations and the renovations of 21 playgrounds.

If You Go

Central Park: North Woods…

Make sure you check out the 90-minute North Woods tours ($15; CPC Members $10), that are scheduled each Tuesday and Saturday, from now through July, 2017, and beyond.

I have often thought that even if you were to spend five days exploring Central Park, you would still be in danger of missing some beautiful corner of that magnificent site. There is much to discover and appreciate across those 843 acres, and I would urge you, dear reader, to at least allocate a morning or afternoon to discovering some of its many secrets. In future posts I will focus on locations and objects within the park.

More Information
Central Park Conservancy…

Man Cannot Discover New Oceans

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has courage to lose sight of the shore. 

~ Andre Gide

My 52-Book-Year: The Ways of White Folks

 Back in February, in a post titled, Writers From Life’s Other Side I wrote about how over the past few years I have been seeking out writers that have slipped under my radar, despite the accolades they have won for their writing. One of those writer’s is the great African-American author, Langston Hughes.

I have been aware of Langston Hughes for a long time—years in fact—but I had never read any of his poetry, plays, novels or short stories until I read The Ways Of White Folks.

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. He famously wrote about the period that "the negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue”.

The Ways of White Folks is a collection of short stories first published by Hughes in 1934. Hughes wrote the book during a year he spent living in Carmel, California. Arnold Rampersad, in A Centennial Tribute to Langston Hughes writes that the collection is, “marked by pessimism about race relations, as well as a sardonic realism or, contextually: humorous racism,” and adds that the collection is among Hughes’ best known works. 

The Ways of White Folks consists of 14 short stories, including "Cora Unashamed”, “Home”, “Passing”, and “Father and Son.” The fourteen stories cover the gamut of white/black relationships, and Hughes is not shy about using the 'N' word—that is nigger—often, and in all its shades of meaning.

The collection opens with "Cora Unashamed" — described by David Herbert Donald (in a 1996 review for the New York Times), as “…a brilliantly realized portrait of an isolated black woman in a small Middle Western town, who stoically survives her own sorrows but in the end lashes out against the hypocrisy of the whites who employ her.”

Two of the stories, “Home”, and “Father and Son”, end with lynchings. In “Home,” Roy Williams, a brilliant young violinist returns to Hopkinsville, the small provincial Missouri town he left seven or eight years earlier to pursue a successful concert career in Europe (during the years between the two world wars). It is not long before Roy is confronted with the racism he had left behind years earlier:

“An uppty nigger,” said the white loafers when they saw him standing, slim and elegant, on the station platform in the September sunlight, surrounded by his bags with the bright stickers. Roy had got off a Pullman—something unusual for a Negro in those parts.“God damn!” said one of the white loafers.

As he departs the station platform Roy hears someone mutter, “Nigger.” His skin burned. For the first time in half a dozen years he felt his colour. He was home.”

Over a few short weeks, the resentment from the ‘loafers’ as Hughes calls them, continues to build until their animosity and envy boils over into uncontrolled rage at this black man, who had the temerity to escape the confines of his home town and travel to Europe, where he played the music of “Brahms and Beethoven, Bach and Cèsar Franck” in the great concert halls of Paris and Berlin.

When Miss Reese, “An old maid musicianer at the all white high school,” invites him to perform for her students, her well-meaning invitation only serves to stoke the anger and resentment from many in the town.

The students went home that afternoon and told their parents that a dressed-up nigger had come to school with a violin and played a lot of funny pieces nobody but Miss Reese liked. They went on to say that Miss Reese had grinned all over herself and cried, “Wonderful!” And had even bowed to the nigger when he went out!

The story ends when Roy takes a late night walk through the town centre, and is set upon by a mob who beat and kick him mercilessly. The final paragraph is both brutal and poetic:

The little Negro whose name was Roy Williams began to choke on the blood in his mouth. And the roar of their voices and the scuff of the feet were split by the moonlight into a thousand notes like a Beethoven sonata. And when the white folks left his brown body, stark naked, strung from a tree at the edge of the town, it hung there all night, like a violin for the wind to play.

Poster from the PBS American Collection
adaptation of Cora Unashamed (2000)

Clearly, Hughes pulls no punches in his depictions of 'white folks' and their foibles, fears, hates, contradictions, and murderous natures. To be black in America, when Hughes wrote these stories, was to live in fear that whites, well meaning and otherwise, had virtually free rein to do and say what they wanted when it came to the lives of the American negro in the years following the Civil War. The truly horrifying thing is realizing that today, in vast swathes of America, little seems to have changed.

All of the stories in this collection are brilliantly realized, and each one examines an aspect of the droll, horrifying, humorous, bizarre, and often mysterious—ways of white folks. The stories are steeped in the violence, and confusion of Depression Era America, and the collection immediately drew me into its orbit of small town Southern life, and big city mysteries.

On May 22, 1967, Hughes died in New York City at the age of 65 from complications after abdominal surgery related to prostate cancer. His ashes are interred beneath a floor medallion in the middle of the foyer in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. It is the entrance to an auditorium named for him. The design on the floor is an African cosmogram entitled Rivers. Within the center of the cosmogram is the line: "My soul has grown deep like the rivers,” from his poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers, which is reproduced here:

The Negro Speaks Of Rivers

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

~ Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes is surely a writer I need to read more of.

More Information about Langston Hughes 

On Wikipedia...

At Poets Org… and Poem Hunter… 

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture…

36 Hours In Zagreb, Croatia

Image by Suradnik13 via Wikipedia

I have only been to Zagreb, Croatia once, and that was way back in 1975—or was it 1976? It was so long ago that today I have trouble remembering exactly when. Anyway, at the time, I and a friend were two-thirds of the way through hitchhiking our way from London to Athens, and found ourselves in Zagreb for the night.

We were befriended by a couple of locals who invited us out to a club for the evening, with the promise of free accommodation in a recently built hotel that was still in the process of being fitted out.

I know, I know. The warning bells were ringing then as well, but to our relief our hosts were as good as their words, and we passed the night without incident before continuing on our way towards Greece.

I’m sure—in fact I am positive—that Zagreb has gone through countless changes since that brief 24-hour visit, not the least being those changes that were brought about by the brutal conflict that tore apart the country once known as Yugoslavia (as it was called when my friend and I passed through back in the 1970s). 

For a number of years, the New York Times has been producing a series of short videos for their 36 Hours In… series of articles. Reading the article, and watching the video, brought back dim and distant memories of that hitchhiking trip, and that overnight stop in the city, and that seemed like as good a reason as any to recall that trip and make the 36 Hours In Zagreb video the focus of today’s post.

Make sure you read the online article that goes along with the video.

New York City Arts Round-Up #3

Getting ready for the 2017 Open Studios program

Open Studios, 2017

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council was formed in 1973. I don’t know exactly when it began presenting its now annual Open Studios arts program, or their other major summer festival, the annual River to River music series, but both events provide much needed exposure to dozens of up-and-coming artists, dancers, writer’s and performers. While the River to River festival line-up is yet to be announced, the Open Studios season is begins this coming weekend (April 28-29, 2017), with Workspace Artists-in-Residence.

This free, two-day event shines a spotlight on the work of over 30 artists who are working across all disciplines and genres from painting and sculpture, to poetry and fiction, to dance and theater. The artists have been working in their studios at 28 Liberty Street since last September. They will open their studio doors to the public for two days only, offering a unique, behind-the-scenes window into their creative practices in the visual, literary, and performing arts. 

The opportunity to meet them and see their work is not to be missed. But this is just the beginning. LMCC will host Open Studios events from April through September—click here to see the full calendar of Open Studios this year—all of which are free and open to the public.

If You Go: Open Studios with Workspace Artists-in-Residence

WHERE: In The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Studios at 28 Liberty, 24th Floor.

WHEN: Friday, April 28, 2017 from 6:00–9:00pm

WHEN: Saturday, April 29, 2017 from 1:00–8:00pm

ONLINE: The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council...

"The Silence of High Noon — Midsummer," 1907–08. By Marsden Hartley

Marsden Harley at The Met Breuer

The Met Breuer presents Marsden Hartley’s paintings of his home state, Maine

Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), was an icon of American modernism, He was born in Lewiston, Maine, and died in Ellsworth. In the early 1900s, he painted the state’s western mountains in a Post-Impressionist style. In his later years, he aimed to do for Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park what Cézanne did for Mont Sainte-Victoire in Aix-en-Provence. For this exhibition, seven painted views, showing seasonal change, close the show and represent the culmination of a lifelong fascination.

In the 1930s, Hartley became increasingly aware of his legacy and strove to not just paint Maine but to “be recognized as Maine’s greatest modern interpreter,” the show’s co-curator, Randall Griffey, writes in the catalog.

The show at The Met Breuer is a hyper-local collection of rivers, hills, churches, logs and lobster traps. The mountainscapes — and logscapes — are characteristically devoid of people, unlike the Fuji views of Hartley’s heroes Hokusai and Hiroshige, which are sometimes peppered with small figures (eight gorgeous prints are on display).

If You Go

WHAT: “Marsden Hartley’s Maine”

WHERE: The Met Breuer, 945 Madison Ave., at 75th Street

WHEN: Through June 18, 2017

ONLINE: The Metropolitan Museum... 

Read more here…

Is Chinatown the next Chelsea?

Is Chinatown the New Arts District?

Lily Haight, posed the above question this week while writing for Chelsea News. 

Chelsea's gallery district has reigned as the heart of the city's contemporary art movement since the late 1990s. But could skyrocketing rents, coupled to the availability of cheaper options in other parts of the city, mean the district is losing some of its cachet with gallerists?

An August 2016 report by StreetEasy found that real estate prices near the High Line had increased by nearly 50 percent since the park's opening in 2011. Longtime Chelsea gallerists have recently made the move to the Lower East Side, and new galleries are skipping over Chelsea altogether and setting up shop downtown.

However, not everyone is happy with the prospect of Chinatown become the new Chelsea. 

According to the Chinatown Art Brigade's ManSee Kong, residents of Chinatown and the Lower East Side are concerned that the influx of galleries will gentrify the neighborhood and raise residential rents.

“Chinatown is a working-class, ethnic immigrant community. Folks depend on these kinds of immigrant enclaves as a social network of cultural and ethnic resources,” said Melanie Wang, who works as an organizer with the Chinatown Tenants Union. “When galleries come in and are displacing businesses that provide those services and those employment opportunities, it represents a significant threat to the fabric of Chinatown's social community.”

Read the full article here…

Untitled. c.1968, by Alma Woodsey Thomas. In MoMA's current exhibition, Making Space. 

Not Only — But Also in April

• NYCGO’s recommendations…
• The Village Voice recommendations…
• From the New York Times, and Art and Museums in NYC This Week
• And finally, The New Yorker magazine round-up of Art, Music, and Broadway Events in New York City…