About Town
“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore!” It’s been 70 years since those immortal words were spoken – and to commemorate that anniversary Warners Brothers released a new, enhanced Blu-Ray version on Sept. 29.
Growing up in the sixties, watching the ‘Wizard of Oz’ was always a hotly anticipated ritual in our home. We were late getting a color television, so we had a routine. Watch the first half at home while eating a Sunday kind of dinner. Then – a quick dash to a neighbor who had the big old fashioned wooden console color television to watch the second half – when Dorothy steps out of her wrecked house into a land where Munchkins and Good Witches and Bad Witches live — and a Yellow Brick Road beckoned to a world of magic.
The new Blu-Ray digitalized version released by Warner Bros. to commemorate the anniversary and shown on a big screen in Central Park Tuesday night after the concert is gloriously vivid and clear.
And with all the clarity, you see how crafty and resourceful that crazy dog Toto was after all. The Wicked Witch is still scary, Glinda still glitters and the Scarecrow is still the Smartest One of Them All.
Seeing it once more – up there in all its Blu-Ray radiance, You fall in love, all over again.
Netflix is offering free streaming of the film on Oct. 3.
The Milkmaid
Noone knows exactly who she was now. A woman ensconced in domesticity, pouring milk — the scene may have seemed mundane. But the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer saw something majestic and sensual — even monumental in the moment. The colors seem translucent. The level of detail makes it seem almost photographic, although it was likely painted sometime during the year 1657- 58. The painting possesses a moving luminosity. Currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through Nov. 28, ”The Milkmaid” is considered the painter’s masterpiece. She was sent over this year — along with other paintings by Vermeer and his contemporaries as a gift from the Netherlands to pay homage to the 400th anniversary of explorer Henry Hudson’s visit to the island, we now know as Manhattan.
To see more of the Dutch influence, check out the exhibit at the South Street Seaport, “New Amsterdam: The Island at the Center of the World.” And through June, 2010, The Holland on the Hudson festival will celebrate the 400th anniversary with events and exhibitions.
The anguish and ecstasy of romantic love are embodied by “In-I”, a theatre-dance piece currently on view at Brooklyn Academy of Music.
French actress Juliette Binoche and British choreographer Akram Khan create a searing portrait of two lovers struggling with sexual and emotional intimacy.
”La Binoche,” as she is often referred to in the French press is all over New York this month and next. A collection of her paintings is at the French Consulate. And there is a book, “Portraits in-Eyes,” which has poems and pictures based on characters she’s played and directors she has worked with. Her new film, “Paris,” opened this Friday.
Finding Magic
Binoche, who has had a spectacular career, working with directors as varied as Kieslowski, Godard, never thought about being a dancer. But at age 43, after answering her masseuse’s question: Do you Want to Dance? — she embarked on this project.
But stretching boundaries is what she is all about.
In an interview with writer Faith Salie for Double X, she said she tries to stay away from labels. “I try not to call myself [anything], because otherwise you get stuck into ideas. Getting into other fields, worlds—it gives me certain freedom, and at the same time it shows me my limits, my pain.
”We have a tendency because of fear or of a lack of imagination to be out of tune with the truthful, magical side [of our bodies,” she told Salie. And I have to say that if I didn’t get through that experience, I wouldn’t have discovered my energy—what the Chinese people call qi, you know the tai chi, the qi gong. I would say it is a sign of what the body has, which is the energy that you can’t see but you can feel.”
Finding Dreams
Fearless would be one word that would describe her.
She posed naked for Playboy at the age of 43 and while she doesn’t think she will keep dancing, she told Double X, she hs been transformed by having had the experience. ” Dancing taught me to go for my dreams. And not to judge my dreams from outside, just to do it.”
“In-I” will run through Sept. 26 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and is paired with a retrospective of her films at BAMCinematek: “Rendez-Vous With Juliette Binoche” through Sept. 30. Her paintings will be on display at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy at 972 5th Avenue through Oct. 9.
Summer Days. Long, languid, when it seems any thing can happen — when La Vie Boheme and Adventure beckon. Shakespeare knew what the End of Summer can do to a person’s psyche. That, along with the Slings and Arrows of Time — could really get a person down.
So, with Labor Day upon us, get thee quickly to some Summer Fun. Along with the obvious choices — Beach! Blanket! Bingo! — why not head for Lincoln Center, where the The Metropolitan Opera is offering La Boheme, Orfeo and Euridice and Il Trittico on the Big Screen — in HD, so it feels like you’re watching a life performance — and they’re all free.
The Piece de Resistance will be on Monday night, when Madama Butterfly, directed by the incomparable, late Anthony Minghella will be shown.
With the stars out — and the full moon shining, what could be a sweeter way to say Goodbye to Summer..
SONNET XVIII
“SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER’S DAY?”
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
(William Shakespeare, 1609)
An Appalachian waltz, a Bach partita, a humorous Polka and a haunting Cambodian melody all met last night on the stage of the Ethical Culture Society. It’s all part of Mark O’Connor’s fiddle camp, making its long-awaited debut in NYC.
The acclaimed multi-grammy award winning violinist and composer has brought some of the top string players in the world to come and teach here — and to play. It’s a long-held dream of the softspoken O’Connor, who told the audience last night that it took him five years and much planning to bring the camp — and the artists here. He has other camps as well — one near Nashville and the other in San Diego — but it was NYC that was the Big Dream for him.
Each night O’Connor plays — and then so do his students. Most of them are just kids — but they play like unpretentious fiddle geniuses — mixing Led Zeppelin and old-timey bluegrass with some Bach and jazz mixed in.
Then O’Connor brings out the teachers.
Last night there was Classical Violinist Lara St. John who played a soul-gutting Bach Partita. The cellist Maya Beiser played a piece by a Cambodian composer entitled ‘Four Strings’ dedicated to those lost in that country’s genocide. And then there was Manjunath. He turned his violin upside down like a Cello before his astonishing performance of Ragas mixed in with Led Zeppelin. And just before he did so — he told us — “Music is a Wonderful Thing.’
There are more performances. On Thursday, July 30 — Sara Caswell, Rachel Calin, Daniel Carwile and Yale Strom will perform. On Friday, DBR — a hiphop violinist; Philippe Quint and Kenji Bunch will all be there, starting at 7 p.m — and they are free.
In 1789, the French were Mad as Hell and they weren’t going to take it anymore. Tired of the Absolute and Arbitary power wielded by Louis the 16th’s Ancien Regime, the people decided it was time to storm the Barricades.
To celebrate the day the walls of the Bastille came tumbling down and the words: Liberte! Egalite! and Fraternite! inserted themselves into the lexicon, the French traditionally celebrate Bastille Day on July 14th. In Paris — the Fete de La Bastille is filled with Fireworks! Feasts! and Dancing in the Streets!
Of course, New York will be doing its part. On Sunday, July 12, between noon until 6 p.m., that stretch of land known as 60th Street, between Fifth Avenue and Lexington, will become Parisian — at least for the day. Expect French food, French Wine and that very specific Joie de Vivre found only around Paris.
Brooklyn is also getting into the Gallic Spirit. Their celebration of all things French will take place on Smith Street on Sunday as well, from 12-10.
So, Mes Amis…check it out. At least then, you can say, like the great French singer Edith Piaf, “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien!”
If you’re going to be around this weekend, check out the the Coney Island Mermaid Parade and the MakeMusicNY Festival .
And Now, The Lament.
Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
Virgin Records on Fourteenth Street, closed last weekend — another casualty in this city of a landlord’s lust for dollars. It’s demise seems to mark the end of an era where you could go to a record store just to hang out, peruse the shelves, find someone to talk music with — or just to listen. Yes, there are other places.
But the Big Supermarket atmosphere of a Borders or Barnes and Noble just doesn’t have the ambience, the joie de vivre, the sense of discovery that a great record store could offer. The other Virgin Records closed earlier this year, and Tower Records is gone as well.
These music stores seemed almost like little communities unto themselves — and they are no more. So, with the City losing another little piece of its soul, this speech from Shakespeare’s ”The Tempest” comes to mind:
OUR REVELS NOW ARE ENDED
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare
From The Tempest, Act 4 Scene 1
ABOUT
Dedicated to Celebrating the Soul of New York City, Before It All Just Disappears …