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Teen ‘flash mobs’
Re “Teenage ‘flash mobs’: The brighter side,” by Franklin Roberts—
I am aware that BSR is always looking for provocative and controversial reportage. However, this piece completely misses the mark.
As a tongue-in-cheek comment, it lacks any saving graces, such as humor or aesthetic appeal. If it is not a very strained attempt at social satire, it is an insulting and uncivilized take on a phenomenon that is justifiably frightening to many and will very likely deter them from appreciating the charms and pleasures of Center City Philadelphia.
Vince Rinella
Wyndmoor, Pa.
March 24, 2010
That article was trash! Flash mobs are not literate. Flash mobs help none of the local businesses, which depend on tourism for their living. Flash mobs destroy and create nothing new or helpful to society.
Why don’t they all flash to pick up litter and debris? Or to assemble at a site where Habitat for Humanity is building a new home? Or bring food to the homeless? Or just pass out flowers to the tourists to make Philly the fun place to visit?
Roberta Dimond
Lexington Park, Md.
March 24, 2010
This article is a sorry excuse for a society that has lost its moral compass in the face of technology. Why are American adults so apologetic that they can’t understand violence? Kids need leadership: if they don’t get it from their families at home, they’ll find it outside, on the streets.
We have given them a power that we ourselves don’t know how to use. Texting while driving isn’t as cool as staging a flash mob, but it disfigures and kills far more.
Margaret Chew Barringer
Narberth, Pa.
March 25, 2010
I haven’t read enough of this author to know when he’s writing sarcastically. But I hope he means this article in jest.
Jim Rutter
South Philadelphia
March 24, 2010
Franklin Roberts replies: I agree with Vincent Rinella’s adjectives: “insulting,” “frightening,” etc. Having been raised in North Philadelphia, and having attended both Fitzsimons and Gratz public schools, I have chosen to spend every one of my 82 plus years in Philadelphia, the last 50 of which have been spent near the Delaware River, where I have raised my children. I believe that through my lifelong participation in every aspect of the cultural and political life of this city I have earned the right to look at life with a distorted rather than a suburban viewpoint. Come join the diversity and vibrancy of city life, with all its blemishes.
Red Hot Patriot
Re Dan Rottenberg’s review of Red Hot Patriot—
Dan on Molly Ivins is a keeper! My only face-to-face with my heroine (my idea of Heaven is an Izzy Stone wed to a Molly) was in her Berkeley, at a romp celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement. It was her wit that levitated me, like her putdown that day of the “Freedom Fries” twits, comparing them with the morons who banned German dogs in World War I— except, she noted slyly, “Rottweilers.”
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
March 26, 2010
Yours was a quite fine review of the Molly Ivins play. I got to know her via some national Social Security child disability advocacy I did here at Community Legal Services. In 1997 she did a column about me and this issue in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and her syndicated papers.
Jonathan M. Stein
Center City/ Philadelphia
March 26, 2010
Editor’s comment: To read Jonathan Stein’s review of Red Hot Patriot, click here.
"Where wisdom has wit to express it— now, there’s the best orator”— William Penn.
I might go a little further and wonder where have the humorists, as well as those journalists who confronted power, gone? The New York Times could use a Russell Baker, the Washington Post another Art Buchwald.
Joseph Glantz
Levittown, Pa.
March 28, 2010
Editor’s comment: Have you perhaps heard of Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert?
Joseph Glntz replies: Well yes, alas, the humorists have gone to television.
Sex abuse and the Church
As always, I was challenged by Bob Ingram’s column, “Another take on priestly abuse.” Even a topic as difficult as this one was made almost entertaining by his characteristically personal touch.
As a perpetually outraged cradle Catholic, my take on the problem is a bit different from Ingram’s.
The abuse of alcohol by some priests seems to me to be a type of self-medication— attempts at “inoculation” by men who feel guilty and unworthy because they feel the pain of loneliness and lack of human intimacy that an inhumane institution has told them is the price of serving their god.
As for the perceived preference for male sexual partners, perhaps it is simply a question of availability. After all, these poor men, as much victims as victimizers, have been shut up in an unnatural, sexually immature, single-gender world.
Transferring transgressors is only part of the guilty behavior of the institutional Catholic Church. Insisting on an environment that promises more of the same, at enormous human cost, is the more serious.
Ann Gaughan
Charleston S.C.
March 14, 2010
Re “Priestly sex abuse: Why Catholicism?” by Dan Rottenberg (Editor’s Notebook)—
As a born and raised Catholic, I am Biblically a tabula rasa. But my explanation is more secular: Since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, both altar boys and priests have been worked over, making them both hornier and sexually active. Add to that the gays gaily leaving their closets, and you have action.
My ten years at a Catholic boarding school before World War II were totally free from the kind of involvements we read about at upper-class prep schools like, say, Eton. And during three years at a Catholic seminary, I remember only three persons whom I would retroactively construe as gay, chiefly through their patent femininity. And in three years at a Jesuit University, only one teacher was gay, and he surprised us all by becoming a priest! Celibacy has probably exacerbated pedophilia since the ’60s. But the Church’s cover-up attitudes forced abuses underground. I doubt if Eastern Orthodox Catholics are bothered by their priests.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
March 16, 2010
You’re right about the “set-up” that facilitates the priestly abuses of their power. But the issue is in no way confined to Catholics; it rears its head in any “religious” environment where one individual has been invested with seemingly unlimited control over the flock.
Consider Amrit Desai at Kripalu or Rajhneesh for starters in the non-Catholic world of sexual abuse (granted that in both of those cases, the abuses were heterosexual). Perhaps more to the point, however, is the continuing abuse taking place deep in the ultra-Hassidic communities where, like the Catholic world, the rebbe exerts Pope-like control, and rank-and-file parents are terrified to confront the ugly truth about how their kids are being abused by their rabbis.
We all thought that, once the Romans did away with Herod’s Temple in 70 C.E. and Rabbinic Judaism replaced the top-down priestly hierarchy, we Jews had escaped the potential of unvarnished authority. Guess it didn’t work out so well. It seems that our human nature leaves the door open to all sorts of abuses, most of them coming from the folks we’ve entrusted to lead us through the spiritual morass of this physical world.
Bob Rottenberg
Brattleboro, Vt.
March 17, 2010
Editor’s comment: Brother Bob, you raise an intriguing point: Why not restore the priestly hierarchy to Judaism? This might be a terrible idea for most Jews, but it would be terrific for you and me, as DNA-certified direct male-line descendants of Aaron, the first high priest. Think of the fringe benefits: free room and board, absolute power, and an endless supply of virgins to serve our every need. I say: Go for it!
Broad Street Review’s recent articles on the scandal of sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church are quite troubling to read. Well ... they should be. I hope those of us so troubled will take the time to pray that God have mercy on us all.
Craig R. Tavani
Phoenixville, Pa.
March 19, 2010
Minimalist music
Dan Coren’s elegant and impassioned review of the concert of works by Steve Reich made me give thought to minimalism in general. I, too, have long dismissed minimalism as the cul-de-sac of an exhausted tradition, though the minimalist style has clearly seeped into musical language in general.
I have to ask, though: If music simply makes the miles go by as it did for Dan Coren and his wife on the trip he describes, does it connect with the mind as well as the autonomic nervous system?
I can sit attentively through a 30- or 40- minute piece by Beethoven or Bartok because it will challenge the mind as well as charm the ear. How long, though, can one listen to a single unmodulated chord progression without being narcotized? Minimalism seems to me not a continuation of the great tradition of musical narrative that goes back to the early modern era, but a retreat from complexity and intellectual engagement. After a generation of music written solely for the mind by composers who frankly and even programmatically didn’t care what effect it had on the ear, minimalism was perhaps an inevitable reaction. In the long run, though, will it have done anything more than clear the palate for a new narrative, as yet unwritten?
Robert Zaller
Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
March 17, 2010
Editor’s note: To read Dan Coren’s response, click here.
Man Ray, undefined
Robert Zaller’s thumbnail print of Emmanuel Radnitzsky’s curiously unfulfilled professional life as Man Ray is still a marvelous miniature. Rayographs at their best were superb, as was he. Still I don’t see how that puts him in the Top 25, a perhaps meaningless laureate. But then, his own tombstone reflection is a better assessment. And the Lee Miller estrangement is truly sad.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar Germany
March 18, 2010
Romeo, reconsidered
Re Alaina Mabaso’s “Straight talk about Romeo and Juliet”—
I had completely the same reaction when I watched Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet a while back: “What a pair of twits!” Thanks for articulating that more mature response so well.
Judy Weightman
East Falls/ Philadelphia
March 18, 2010
Beyond religion or language
Thanks, Tom Purdom, for mentioning in your Choral Arts Society review that the existence of the universe is at heart mysterious and sacred. How seldom we notice existence rather than the things that exist.
Once I read Thomas Aquinas’s De existencia et essencia. Using Exodus’s I am who I am, he united Plato and Aristotle and presented God as No Thing but pure existence who shares existence with any thing that is. I remembered this when I read Purdom’s comment that at heart existence is mysterious and sacred.
Charles Kelly
Philadelphia
March 21, 2010
Editor’s note: The writer is a former Episcopal priest.
The Hurt Locker and the war
Robert Zaller is absolutely right re the implicit imperial politics in The Hurt Locker, a well-crafted entertainment.
On the level of personal ethics, consider also the psyche and the motives of Sergeant James, the American hero encapsulated in a bomb suit on a bombsite. He is the reckless big guy who gets high on excitement.
Another kind of hero? The guy who, unlike Sergeant James, sacrifices the chance at personal highs in order to care for his responsibilities to family.
I think of a relative and his wife who have been guardian angels to several dying family members, sacrificing their privacy, their time and their money for their care. Boring, probably. Costly, certainly. Stressful, very. Heroic, yes.
Mary E. Hazard
Center City/ Philadelphia
March 10, 2010
Hail to Professor Zaller, too, for rationally deflating the balloon of Hollywood’s version of the world.
The American populace seems content to let our “leaders” fight endless wars in far-away places with strange-sounding names, as long as they don’t interrupt “American Idol.”
The only long-term hope for an end to this casual madness will occur when the military runs out of volunteers and there is talk of a draft. Then there will again be marching in the streets, singin’ songs and carryin’ signs.
But not until then— and maybe not even then.
Bob Ingram
Cape May Court House, N.J.
March 10, 2010
As we spill like lemmings into the digital world, and wean our children on unprecedented and incalculable amount of televised violence, who cares any more what it means to be a hero? Besotted by testosterone, if talented women like Kathryn Bigelow don’t know, who ever will?
Margaret Chew Barringer
Narberth, Pa.
March 11, 2010
The shallow nature of our film and media has been evident for many years now. I certainly had and have no desire to see that movie and appreciate this article for exposing the truth. Thanks
Jim Bronke
Cassopolis, Mich.
March 13, 2010
A person who thinks all mistakes by his political opponents are lies is a trifle dense.
Thomas Patrick Burke
North Philadelphia
March 10, 2010
Robert Zaller replies: I don’t assume that those I oppose politically always lie. But George W. Bush’s stated rationale for invading Iraq was as credible as Adolf Hitler’s claim that Germany had been attacked by Poland in 1939. Hitler knew the truth of his claim. So did Bush.
Barnes Day in the Inquirer
Re “Barnes day in the Inquirer”—
Once again, Robert Zaller discloses the disgusting sleight-of-law that the movers of the Barnes have used. When the city and the state are not luxuriating in dollars, why must this move from Merion of the Foundation’s art be pursued? A bus from the Philadelphia Museum of Art would be enough to transport visitors to the Barnes— where indeed they would get the aesthetic experience Dr. Barnes intended, not an approximation.
Michelle Osborn
Haverford, Pa.
March 10, 2010
When are you guys going to suck it up and accept the fact that the Barnes is moving? Lower Merion never cared about the Barnes Foundation until the move was pretty much settled, never undertook to assure the integrity of the building or safety of the collection, made it difficult for people to visit, and made it nearly impossible for anyone to visit who couldn’t get there by private car.
(Ever try to get there by bus? Doesn’t go there. Ever wonder about parking along the street nearby? Don’t even think about it.)
Seems like the only thing Lower Merion considered worse than having the Barnes was letting anyone else have it. It’s a done deal! Give it up! It’s a treasure that belongs in the heart of the city.
Carl Anderson
Yeadon, Pa.
March 11, 2010
As a Bala Cynwyd artist, neighbor and “Friend of the Barnes,” I appreciated your recent articles about the controversy over the Barnes Foundation move.
The illustration you used with Robert Zaller’s latest article was one of many I painted of witnesses, lawyers, art experts and museum directors… and of course, Judge Ott, during the many weeks of hearings.
The series of limited-edition prints I’ve created are available to anyone wishing to have a visual record of one of the many complex pieces of the Barnes- Fiasco puzzle.
Bill Ternay
Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
March 10, 2010
Robert Zaller apparently believes that the setting of art is more important than the public’s access to the art. This is nonsense. People come to the Barnes to view the paintings, not the musty old “school” that houses them.
Also, I love how the Friends of the Barnes portray themselves as regular folks fighting against the city elites. For the most part, the FOB are the elites, fighting to preserve an antique, weird setting in the face of a move that will make the paintings far more accessible.
Finally, the only reason the public has the access that it does today came with the threat of the move; before then, the Barnes Foundation and Lower Merion didn’t care whether “working people,” as Albert Barnes called them, could view these paintings or not.
Should the move threat disappear, the Barnes and Lower Merion will go back to their old elitist attitude and limit access again.
David Minnich
Media Pa.
March 19, 2010
This screed, like so much of the personal-attack laden hype surrounding the Barnes is heavy on an especially narrow and convenient reading of history.
The “legal” analysis incorporated herein is especially selective. Why should we believe the legal analysis of a non-lawyer author and reject the analysis of a judge who actually listened to competing points of view?
Oh, wait, I know— because there’s a giant conspiracy of everyone (presumably the conspirators meet every Tuesday at lunch with the Trilateral Commission), and they told the judge what to do.
Bob Maguire
Chester County, Pa.
March 20, 2010
To Bob Maguire and all others who doubt that there has been a conspiracy to break the Barnes Trust, please refer to my March 23, 2010 post at www.phillyartmuse.blogspot.com to find a published excerpt from Barnes’s biographer, Henry Hart, dated 1963. When one learns of the harassment this institution has undergone since Albert Barnes’s death in 1951, it is but a small leap to conclude: “conspiracy.”
Regardless of what lawyers have concluded in Pennsylvania about what is permissible to do with the Barnes, no law says it must be moved. If it can be endowed for $50 million (such as Montgomery County has offered) to stay in Merion, as opposed to $300 million-plus to move to the Parkway, we can preserve a contiguous Foundation with gardens, eligible for National Historic Landmark status.
As for those city folk who can’t find their way to the Foundation, two blocks from the city’s border, I conclude that they cannot possibly be all that interested in the art.
Victoria Skelly
Wayne, Pa.
March 28, 2010
Martello’s Happily Ever After
Re Dan Rottenberg’s review of Mary Martello’s Happily Ever After—
Did we see the same play? First, that was not Snow White in the nursing home. It was her stepmother, the evil Queen.
But Happily Ever After comes in many ways, and it’s what you make it. Martello’s Cinderella hardly seemed “reduced”; she was happy, she was using her talent, she likes her husband.
Beauty was happy in menopause, too.
Your opinion is your opinion and I’ll spare you mine. But I was so glad I caught Happily Ever After while I was in town. And if her voice is “adequate,” may we all strive for such adequacy.
Joy White
Ann Arbor, Mich.
March 11, 2010
I agree totally with the comments above. Did your reviewer see the same show we saw? Maybe it’s a woman’s show? Or your reviewer just didn’t understand it?
I didn’t think the script was weak. I do agree that when Peter Panties does his act I did laugh out loud too. But also, sweet tears seemed to find their way down my cheeks as Peter sang “Neverland.”
“Cute” wouldn’t be my choice of words to sum up Happily Ever After. When I get dressed up and go to the theater, I want to be entertained. That’s what I pay to see, and Jennifer Childs did a great job in directing Mary’s show. I didn’t even notice it was, 90 minutes, because it was paced and very entertaining.
Anne Schwantes
New Hope, Pa.
March 18, 2010
Editor’s comment: You get dressed up to go to the theater? Now, there’s an original idea.
Barone the underappreciated
Peter Burwasser’s review of Marcantonio Barone’s piano recital was brilliant. Barone is not to be taken for granted. It is a real shame that in our day so many quality performers deserving international admiration are hidden in the shadow of stars.
Alla Sherman
Newtown, Pa.
March 12, 2010
Jane Austen’s prose
Re Alaina Mabaso’s “In defense of Jane Austen’s prose,” which responded to my piece, “Jane Austen is ready for her close-up“—
Actually, it’s not Austen’s dialogue that makes me squirm. I love her dialogue. Keep it all. It’s all that stuff in-between— when Austen seems to delight in trying to convince the reader of what a clever phrase-maker she is, and of how twistedly complex she can craft a sentence.
Proust got away with it because he had say so many interesting things to say. Even in the most prominent English translation (Montcrieff/Kilmartin), Proust’s style is irresistible, captivating, charming. By comparison, marching with Austen’s wooden platoon of convoluted strained hyperformal sentences feels like a chore.
Think also that within 30 years we would have Dickens, Poe, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau. Their work next to Austen’s makes her writing seem a century or more behind its time.
Austen’s intellectual canvas may have been smaller due to circumstance rather than any imaginable lack of intellectual firepower on her part. We owe Austen great credit for being a trailblazer for countless women writers for the last 200 years, not to mention working as a wonderful storyteller with an unsurpassed gift for character profile.
Robert Murphy
Drexel Hill, Pa.
March 10, 2010
I was brought up by parents who devoted their lives to the worship of English, to using the language expressively and correctly. My mother especially, who had been the editor of Barnard College’s literary magazine in the late 1930s, venerated the works of British writers to a degree that, looking back at it now, seems a bit extreme for the daughter of eastern European Jewish immigrants. In our household, Jane Austen was revered as one of the high priestesses of English literature.
In my own writing for BSR, I strive to avoid sounding like somebody brought up on George Eliot’s novels, but as you can tell from this paragraph, I do have a thirst to indulge myself with a certain amount of 18th-Century prolixity.
Among my favorite passages in the English language are, first, Alexander Hamilton’s opening paragraphs of the Federalist Papers, and, second, this, the opening sentence of Austen’s Emma:
"Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly 21 years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”
I must admit that the semi-colon grates on my modern inner ear, but the sentence so thoroughly and concisely captures Emma’s character and situation that every time I read it, its elegance takes my breath away.
To see how well that very 18th-century sentence can be translated into modern life, take a look at the opening scene of Clueless, the 1995 retelling of Emma starring Alicia Silverstone; without a word of Austen’s prose, it absolutely nails the original’s intent and spirit.
Dan Coren
Queen Village/ Philadelphia
March 14, 2010
Editor’s note: To read earlier letters on this subject, click here.
Dancers in search of critics
In response to Merilyn Jackson’s response to my letter about dance critics (February)—
I too believe reviewers must write the absolute truth of their thoughts/feelings on performances. And I agree— artists need to suck it up and take the criticism. Bad press is sometimes better than no press. Let’s get that criticism out there and highlight what this dance community is doing— the phenomenal, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The artists will learn from experienced perspectives.
But how can dancers entice a reviewer with an original performance when the reviewer isn’t present? What defines a dance performance as being “review worthy”? What causes a reviewer to take an artist “seriously”? What can the dance community do to attract reviewers (besides provide greater originality and/or spectacle)?
Most dancers in Philadelphia are lucky if their dancing provides them a supplemental income— that is, if they make anything at all doing it. And what budding choreographer can afford to pay professional dancers’ salaries?
If Philadelphia dancers waited to get a job that paid them well enough to rehearse and perform, you’d see much less dance. When you see a show, you don’t want to hear, “Well, I couldn’t afford dancers who had good technique. I couldn’t afford to rehearse them well. I couldn’t afford a real venue.”
If dancers can still fight their way through these economic obstacles to put on shows with rising production costs, then someone out there can show up to review them.
Shall we ask our audiences to blog reviews or submit them independently?
Should we dancers ask our professional colleagues to submit reviews of our shows, supporting the community from the inside out?
Write for the reader always, but if you’re particular about only seeing certain performances, are you really writing for the reader, or are you just writing what you want to write about? I think dancers and writers can work together to further each other’s best interests without losing the integrity of either art form.
Amy Bowles
Philadelphia
March 3, 2010
Editor’s note: The writer is a dancer.
I saw the February letter from Amy Bowles asking, “Why all the Streb reviews, with zero for my group?”, which got me thinking. One reason certain performances get reviewed and others don’t is just that no one heard about some of the smaller groups (that lack advertising budgets). I’m on the mailing list for the Annenberg and the Keswick, for example, and have pals in the local tap-dance community. But I’m really not at all hooked in to most of what’s going on in Philly dance.
Now, you obviously don’t want to give arts groups free advertising. But it might make sense for Broad Street Review to create kind of a clearinghouse for arts groups seeking reviewers. Groups could send in information about their coming shows and events. You could then cut and paste this info into a weekly e-mailing, sent to your regular (or semi-regular) reviewers, who could then contact the group directly if they were interested.
Yes, I know how much you appreciate someone trying to add things to your already not insubstantial to-do list. But it might make sense in terms service to the local arts community.
Judy Weightman
East Falls/ Philadelphia
February 25, 2010
Editor’s comment: This is an intriguing idea, albeit one that would cut into my regular full-time job as a busboy at the International House of Pancakes. Would some foundation out there care to fund a part-time assistant for this purpose?
Left and right in Chile
Steve Cohen’s explanation of Chile’s mixed political system is exemplary. I envy my German wife’s and son’s health coverage. Too much of our public health “debate” is mindless wrangling, belying our foolish boasts about being the greatest nation on earth. Bismarck’s insistence on universal values such as social security and health insurance was pioneering of universal significance— to be emulated by all thoughtful regimes ever since.
Our Congress should grow up and walk the walk, not foolish talk false talk.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
March 8, 2010
Barnes architects make their case
Re “The Barnes architects make their case”—
Robert Zaller, I have to hand it to you: You know how to take an issue and make it all about you.
The 800-pound gorilla in your article is the fact that your conjecture of a so-called “unsustainable” Barnes Museum on the Parkway completely ignores (and contradicts) the fact that the Merion Barnes was unsustainable— which is why it had to be moved in the first place. It ran out of money. Hello?
Nobody I know who has ever visited the Merion Barnes likes it. Nobody appreciates the fact that one can hardly see anything in those rooms.
All the half-baked hysteria about how the Parkway Barnes is an example of the elite screwing the rest of us ignores the fact the Parkway Barnes is replacing a children’s prison that once stood like a canker sore at the apex of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, an avenue originally intended to be a center of art and culture for the region’s citizens. That’s a good thing for the city and its residents.
Robert, please enjoy your 15 seconds of fame when the little indie film about it is seen by all 15 of your fellow anarchists, but please also come by the Parkway Barnes after it has opened, and appreciate the fact that one can finally see these paintings and sculptures that have been hidden in Merion all these decades.
Eric Vincent
Fairmount/ Philadelphia
February 24, 2010
Well-written and, as usual in Philadelphia, we are a day late and $400 million short. And in case it has never been mentioned, those trees on the Parkway were a “War Memorial.”
John Blatteau
Fairmount/ Philadelphia
February 24, 2010
Hopefully, us peasants armed with pitchforks and the other barbarians at the gates that dare to question this steal, will have the needed reinforcements to fight this move after the sold out screenings of The Art of the Steal.
Will the new Barnes become the next Kimmel Center (i.e., a cold boondoggle designed by a starchitect)? Just ask the Pews, the Lenfests, the recently relocated Annenbergs and the other powers that be who are hijacking our cultural heritage for their own ego trips. I say to the Pews: If you’re so powerful, go make your own museum.
Liddy Lindsay
University City/ Philadelphia
February 25, 2010
I have understood that some of that extra 83,000 square feet of space of the new Barnes building was to be designated for “special exhibition” galleries.
The Barnes’s recent hire of an additional curator in charge of special exhibitions further makes a hash out justifying the move to the Parkway on economic grounds. Won’t those marvelous Barnes paintings bring the tourist hordes on their own, just like they did in 1993 in Paris? After this not-so-special building is up and running, will the Barnes, at even greater expense, have to juice up its offerings with “special exhibitions”?
Victoria Skelly
Wayne, Pa.
February 24, 2010
I attended the Barnes in 1950. Dr. Barnes was still alive at that time and even taught one of our classes himself. Of course, Violette DeMazia (with her little silver thumb rings) taught the others. To me every square 1/16th of an inch is meant to be what it is, and I hate the idea of the move.
One thing that never seems to be mentioned is that the stones the building was built (or faced) with were quarried in the Cézanne country depicted in many of his paintings. Is this true, or have I been mistaken all these years?
I have not seen The Art of the Steal, but hope it will move opinion. Thanks for your good work,
Caroline Wingfield Roth
New York
February 24, 2010
Eric Vincent (above) writes, “Nobody I know who has ever visited the Merion Barnes likes it”. I have two responses.
First, my father visited the Merion Barnes some time in the early 1960s, coming from Abington Township. He found it one of the most moving experiences he’d had. I have visited the Merion Barnes on a number of occasions. I have always been astonished and delighted. The same is true for the several people who ‘visited the Merion Barnes’ with me on those occasions.
More important, what possible bearing does the like or dislike for “the Merion Barnes” of those who have “visited” it have on the adjudication of a petition to Orphans Court for an order permitting the breach of the trust terms established by the person whose property was placed in trust for display at “the Merion Barnes”?
Dan Larkin
Merion Station, Pa.
March 3, 2010
Here’s how to enjoy the original Barnes building. Spend as much time as you can in the central hall. Get a docent to explain the hanging of pictures.
On the way upstairs, try to spend time looking at the Matisse in the stairwell without blocking traffic. Look a long time at the lunettes until you really see them. Visit in silence the great Matisse paintings. Also upstairs, find the painting once hung in Mr. Barnes’s bedroom. Make up a story about it.
Go downstairs to the east and start looking at the rooms. There are diamonds in the dreck. Seek out the former. For the latter, try to find the world’s most hideous Van Gogh.
Also, count the number of Renoir nudes. Of those nudes, decide which are successful. If you do this with a friend, you must both agree. Let snarky comments fly. It will refine your taste at Renoir’s expense. Establish a ratio between good and ghastly Renoir pictures.
Visit all the rooms you have missed. From time to time, try to see the method behind the wall arrangements. Attend to the Horace Pippin pictures.
Discuss “Any excuse for Soutine?” Decide, after looking, if you want to know more about Pennsylvania German culture. Do not leave without looking at the major Southwest Native American pots.
If you do this, you will leave exhausted but happy. When you exit, look at the façade. Understand its relationship to the institution and resolve to return in about 18 months.
Arthur Waddington
Wynnewood, Pa.
March 3, 2010
Robert Zaller replies: Thanks John Blatteau for pointing out that the London plane trees cut down to accommodate the Parkway Barnes were part of a war memorial. That’s a novel way to dishonor the dead. Laurie Olin, the Barnes landscape architect, rhapsodized about the remaining trees in his Penn presentation. He didn’t mention there were 28 fewer of them.
To Eric Vincent, who writes that no one he knows has ever liked the Merion Barnes: I wish you a wider circle of acquaintance.
To Liddy Lindsay: I think I have a good idea for what the new “Barnes” should contain. What about bringing the Annenberg collection back from the Met in New York, to grace Walter Annenberg’s native city? Of course, the collection is protected by an ironclad stipulation that it remain at the Met forever in its own wing, and that its works never be sold, loaned, etc. But the same provisions didn’t stop Philadelphia’s city fathers from figuring out how to break the Barnes indenture. Might as well scarf up Monticello while we’re at it. Didn’t Tom Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence here?
‘A Governor’s Romance’
Re Dan Rottenberg’s lyrics to “A Governor’s Romance” (Editor’s Notebook)—
Dan, talk about hidden talents! You have earned my first “Grampy” award for being old enough and still able to remember that Ricky Nelson tune.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
March 9, 2010
Orchestra’s marketing
Re “The Orchestra’s inane marketing”—
Dan Coren makes many good points. Every time the Philadelphia Orchestra calls me, trying to sell me a subscription, I tell them that they don’t play the music that interests me.
If you’re looking for “the new,” groups like Network for New Music, Orchestra 2001 and Relâche and, for heavens sake, even the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society are where you’ll find more interesting repertoire.
And those lame advertising slogans, and “thematic” programs— as if those things really got people into the concerts.
I do go to the Philadelphia Orchestra once in a while (about four or five times a season). But it’s invariably because there’s a work I really want to hear. Recently they cancelled Martinu’s Symphony, so I surrendered my ticket.
Andrew Rudin
Allentown, N.J.
February 26, 2010
There’s an obvious answer to Dan Coren’s comments on the Orchestra’s “Try Something New” marketing campaign: The campaign isn’t aimed at him. It’s aimed at all the people— including people with college degrees— who have never listened to the Philadelphia Orchestra’s standard repertoire.
There was a time when you could assume an American with a liberal arts degree from a major university had some familiarity with the major symphonies. That isn’t true today and it hasn’t been true for several decades. By the time most Americans reach college age, they have been immersed in popular music since they were children and everything else has been blocked out.
The popular music industry markets its wares as modern and adventurous, when it is in fact primarily appealing to our natural desire to move with the herd. Classical music is portrayed as conventional and stodgy. But most contemporary adults would actually be stepping off the beaten path and venturing into a foreign world if they attended a Philadelphia Orchestra performance of the Eroica or one of the standard piano concertos.
The Orchestra’s marketing campaign confronts them with that basic truth and challenges their sense of adventure. It may not work any better than most marketing ploys, but it makes sense if you look at it from the viewpoint of the audience it’s trying to reach.
Tom Purdom
Center City/ Philadelphia
February 25, 2010
Dan Coren replies: I know that it ‘s common wisdom today that young people are unfamiliar with and/or don’t care about classical music. However, my personal experience is very much at odds with this view. I have sung in choruses at Penn for more than 30 years. In that time— and especially in the past ten years or so— the level of musical interest, knowledge and technical prowess among college students, or at least among the ones I get to observe first-hand, has increased dramatically. More than a hundred students joined the Penn Choral Society this past fall to sing the Mozart Requiem.
The quality of college orchestras has likewise improved many times over in recent years. The Penn Orchestra is a large group that now competently performs challenging standard repertory— Brahms, Beethoven, Mary Higdon, John Adams, etc.— as a matter of course, and I hear anecdotally that orchestras at other Ivy League schools are even better.
If memory serves, only a very small percentage of my high school or college classmates had any interest in classical music back in the ’50s and ’60s.
Second, if the Orchestra is aiming at people who are not familiar with the standard concert repertory, then they’re wasting a lot of postage and advertising money on the wrong people. Both my wife and I received separately addressed copies of the brochure that got my dander up; a close friend who is in fact a current Orchestra subscriber received one too. So I assume that just about everybody who has ever been on the Orchestra’s mailing list got one as well. I’ve heard plugs for the Orchestra recently on Temple’s WRTI during the day, when it is broadcasting classical music only. I’ve heard nothing on, say, talk radio or KYW.
Finally, my observation has been that people who have reached the age of 30 or so without developing an interest in classical music are not likely to have a conversion experience. Some do, maybe, but not enough to support the Orchestra’s wishful thinking, if indeed they are thinking along the lines that Tom claims.
Editor’s note: To read an earlier letter, click here.
‘Picasso and the Paris Avant-Garde’
Re Richard Carreño’s review of “Picasso and the Paris Avant-Garde,” at the Art Museum—
This exhibition does have one marvelous Amedeo Modigliani sculpture of a head, obviously influenced by African art (as were many artists in Paris at that time). I recall that the sculpture is positioned on the floor, visually “beneath” Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase. Perhaps Mr. Carreño missed the sculpture, because he was attempting to find a good vantage point through all those people to view the Duchamp! It is positioned rather high up on a brick red wall along with many other large paintings that compete visually for attention.
Fortunately, the local museumgoer can examine this iconic Duchamp picture more closely when it returns to its normal home in the Art Museum’s galleries. To enjoy the marvelous Modigliani, however, one would have to make a point of seeing it by going back to this show a second time.
Victoria Skelly
Wayne, Pa.
February 24, 2010
Editor’s note: To read an earlier letter, click here.
Vanishing art postcards
Re “The vanishing art postcard,” by Andrew Mangravite—
I used to own a postcard store in Berkeley, California, called Déja Vu. It was arranged somewhat like a library with sections, not only for visual art of different periods, but such categories as kings and queens, flowers, food and so on. Problem was that people would browse for an hour and buy two 50-cent cards.
We closed after a few years, but it was fun while it lasted and gave many a lot of pleasure and perhaps a little education.
Diana Kehlmann
Berkeley, Calif.
February 28, 2010
Andrew Mangravite replies: Well, yes, sadly, I didn’t say that there was money to be made selling art postcards. This is undoubtedly why so many institutions have stopped selling them. But then, if we make money the measure of any thing’s intrinsic worth— what is a college degree in, say, English literature worth? Probably not as much as a truck driver’s license from an accredited trade school. The point of the cards was that they gave folks an affordable taste of art.
Any Given Monday
Re Dan Rottenberg’s review of Bruce Graham’s Any Given Monday—
I took in Any Given Monday a few weeks ago and thought it an entertaining, mildly cynical comedy-drama. It followed a somewhat predictable dramatic arc, but it wasn’t always obvious it was going to, and I’ve spent so much of my life working out plots that I probably see the possibilities a little more than most people.
I didn’t find it odd that Lenny and Mickey were friends. Lenny is a high school teacher, not a college professor. In the American economic and social pyramid, a high school teacher and a subway worker occupy comparable positions. They could easily live in the same neighborhood, have similar childhoods and share common interests like football.
The fact that one is nominally Jewish and the other is nominally Catholic isn’t that unlikely. In the circles I travel in, I have friends who come from families associated with all the major faiths. Words like “non-practicing” and “agnostic” are far too precise for our hazy, undefined relationships with the religious traditions that colored our childhoods.
When I discussed your review with two of my friends, one of them pointed out that we were, in fact, a Catholic, a Jew, and a Protestant.
Tom Purdom
Center City/ Philadelphia
February 25, 2010
Dan Rottenberg replies: I wasn’t suggesting that friendship between a Jew and a Catholic is unlikely— just that such labels seem irrelevant to the plot of Any Given Monday.
Tom Purdom replies: Then I misread you. But I don’t think the childhood associations are irrelevant. People do talk about them. And they do leave a stamp. A Protestant atheist and a Catholic atheist will have different attitudes toward many things— including their atheism. I’ve about decided, for example, that I don’t feel the kind of emotion Catholics and Jews are referring to when they talk about “guilt.”
I’ve listened to so many Catholics and Jews refer to their childhoods that I probably find nun jokes and Jewish mother jokes just as funny as they do. And they seem to be amused by my stories about Southern backwoods ministers.
Editor’s Note: To read an earlier letter, click here.
Tan Dun’s Tea
Re Jim Rutter’s review of Tan Dun’s Tea, by the Opera Company of Philadelphia—
I agree with Jim: This opera was magnificent. Unfortunately, Philadelphians tend to discount anything that is not 100 years old!
Cheryl Familant
Center City/ Philadelphia
February 25, 2010
My tastes are truly bloated by my consumption of magnificent arias and melodies to die for. The patrons of this art form are the final authority as to whether an opera is worthy or not. They spoke in droves by leaving as soon as possible.
I love the sound of water splashing and the beauty of colorful set design as much as the next guy. But to compare this opera to Turandot, or any other opera by the masters, is to make light of what has made opera a great art form.
There is much beauty in this show and talent in the cast, and creativity by the composer. But do not chastise me and my fellow lovers of our art form for expecting glorious music in an opera.
Warren Pasternack
Feasterville, Pa.
February 25, 2010
Jig for my father
Lynn Hoffman’s Jig For My Father touched my heart. I cried more than I laughed. Sounds like a great guy, just like his son.
Dolly Schulman
Wayne, Pa.
February 24, 2010
When poets get drunk
Re Lynn Hoffman’s “Poets drunk”—
A poet need not read on time
Nor stroke his words with sips of wine
But for his scheme to be sublime
Must get his fancy on a line.
To catch my breath I slug away
With tumblers full of Chardonnay;
Merlot, Rosé and Cabernet
Will lead me through another day
Gamays will blossom as I long
To romp in fields of Sauvignon
For who can feel or want to care
When fueled with vin extraordinaire?
Jackie Atkins
Northern Liberties/ Philadelphia
March 2, 2010
Editor’s note: To read Lynn Hoffman’s latest poetic effort, click here.
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