President Trump or: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Leave the Country

 I woke up early Wednesday morning last week to take my usual “late-nite” pee and made the unfortunate mistake of looking at my phone. I had tried to watch the election returns on TV but by 11pm things were not looking too good for Democrats and I was tired.

“If I don’t watch, things will turn around… Isn’t that what ‘everyone’ is saying?”

Among the stream of updates from The New York Times was the unbelievable. Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States of America!!

“Oh My God!! What have we done!!” was the first thing out of my mouth, then repeated over and over and I hugged myself and tried to calm myself down. But I wasn’t calm. I was afraid. I could not get back to sleep until exhaustion took over around 5AM.

I spent a good part of the day in bed. Thank goodness for Klonopin or I might have become apoplectic with despair!

I have never been what some might call a “proud American”. I find America to be a capitalist wonderland that arrogantly believes we’re the best and that our style of “Democracy” will fill the void of any government that topples. I felt fortunate when traveling in Europe that I didn’t “look American” so I did not have to take the blame for their anger with Reagan or the Bushes. But never before in my life have I ever felt truly ashamed to be an American.

Donald Trump is a savvy entertainer, a shrewd campaigner and a misogynistic, xenophobic Fascist. The fact that he is endorsed by the KKK and other “alt-right” groups just proves the point. His placement of people from these groups into his White House staff solidifies that truth. The United States of America has elected a Fascist for President.

They say that great emotional trauma gets encoded genetically and relayed to future generations. Maybe that’s what causing me to feel this way. Plenty of members of my family were wiped out in the Holocaust and as Jews we are taught to “Never Forget”.

And so I have decided to take action and initiate my exit plan. I call it Amexit!

I have “jokingly” said for years that I wanted a Canadian husband but it wasn’t a joke. I really do. I’d like to live somewhere where people down frown of National Healthcare. I had signed up for Maple Match, a service started recently to match up Americans and Canadians, a while back. My problem has been that they only operate on an iOS system and I use Windows and an Android phone! I do not intend to let this opportunity slip through my fingers so I am enlisting an on iPhone 4 my sister has retired so I can actively start looking for my escape.

I also intend to use my Jewish heritage to look into making Aliyah and moving to Tel-Aviv. Israel? Now!!? At my age?? Well, I feel I’d rather sit out the next four years in a beautiful seaside city with an open and welcoming LGBTQ community then to sit around and watch a group of desperate old white men try to hold on to their patriarchal privilege by tearing down everything that make this country great: the right to live and be who you are, as you please; to observe and practice whatever religion you chose; to love who you love and still be able to enjoy the privilege of unquestionable marriage.

Don’t be fooled by the media. They failed us this past election and they are failing us now. This is not normal. These are not going to be safe time for anyone who doesn’t goosestep to new Trump Reich.

We can wait and see ‘what will happen’ once he’s in but I know that once they start the round-ups I will feel better knowing that my Amexit plan is fully functioning and operational.

After Hurricane Sandy, posters and ads popped up all over the city advising people to have a contingency plan in place for an emergency.

I would advise the same now.

In Honor of #NationalSexDay

Pick-up on Ninth Avenue

As a gay man of a certain age, I’ve had a lot of sex. I don’t mean for that to sound like bragging. I’m sure there were plenty of other who outpaced me, but being products of the “sexual revolution” and early “gay liberation” we reveled in it. As early as my college days I was introduced to the pleasures of the gay bath houses in Manhattan and their fairly anonymous hook-ups. Many guys preferred it that way; most of the married men insisted on it! The city exuded a sexual energy that has been long since dissipated and the Meatpacking District in 1986 was its sexual solar plexus. Our loft sat atop two notorious sites, Jay’s, a gay bar where you could easily give or get a hand or blow job in the bathroom, and The Manhole, a sex club in the basement that catered to a gay and leather clientele. The infamous Mineshaft was two blocks away. A favorite pastime of mine was to sit in our living room and watch the hookers on Ninth Avenue putting on lipstick for twenty, thirty minutes at a time while huddled around a trashcan fire. Sex was everywhere and easily accessible.

So when a trick stands out in your memory…….

Where I was coming from, I cannot say. But I was returning home one evening along the Ninth Avenue side of our building and I was coming up from the West Village. The elevator in our building was on that quieter, darker side. It was also the side where many meat trucks parked and it was not uncommon for guys to cruise for sex between the trucks.

And there he has…. In the shadows between two trucks. A man. A Marlboro-type man with a moustache and broad shoulders. He stood between the trucks, facing one, with the stance of a man at a urinal, legs spread, hand on his crotch. If it had been lighter out I’m sure he would have had aviator shades on.

I don’t think we made eye contact at first, but something about this guy just turned me on. I circled around the trucks and looked at him from the other side. He probably saw me but was very dedicated to his fake pissing posture, looking straight forward at the side of a meat truck, rubbing his cock in his pants.

I could have easily just gone up in our elevator at this point, but something about this guy aroused me. I continued to circle around the trucks and when I came to his “alleyway” I took a deep breath and ventured towards him. He still avoided eye contact so I reached out to fondle his crotch. Immediately he reached out with his right arm, put his hand on the back of my head and started to push me down, my face towards his enclosed cock, my shoulders down so I’d be on my knees.

Now I must point out that I’ve never been big on sex out in the open, especially in urban areas. Parks, beaches, out in nature somewhere…. That I get. But I the middle of Manhattan with lots of people passing by…. Not knowing if someone may just “join in” uninvited…. Just not my thing.

“Suck it”, he whispered in my ear.

“You know what”, I said, breaking away from his firm manly hand, “I’m not really that comfortable doing this right here with you. But I live right in this building here. Why don’t you come upstairs where we can get comfortable?”

“Really?”

“Yes, sure, come on.” And I walked him over to our elevator door, unlocked it and motioned for him to join me.

“You sure this is okay?”

“It’s okay with me? Nothing to worry about… See… I’ve got the keys!!”

So Mr. Marlboro followed me upstairs and into my small sparse room, expressing trepidation along the way, me restating that everything was fine, I lived here, not to worry, etc.

He didn’t seem very interested in kissing, but I did get him to take off his shirt so I could enjoy its hairy firmness with my hands and tongue. I finally got on my knees and he did get the blowjob he had requested. I was practically naked and jerking myself off wildly while I sucked him off until he came. I held his cock in my mouth, savoring his semen, while I blew my load all over myself.

I released his cock from my mouth and looked up into his soft brown eye.

“You enjoyed that didn’t you?” he asked.

“Sure I did! Didn’t you??”

“Yeah. That was pretty darn good.” he said as he put his shirt back on.

I remained on my knees as he finished dressing, adding some of my cum to the taste of his in my mouth, basking in the glow of my “triumph”. This hot Marlboro man had wanted to have sex with me!!

“What’s your name kid?”

The question surprised me a little bit. He must have had a really good time if he wanted to know my name!!

“I’m Jonathan!”

“Well, Jonathan”, he said, reaching into his pocket for a business card. But it wasn’t a business card he pulled out. It was a small wallet which he flipped open to flash his Police ID and badge.

“If you ever find yourself in any trouble, ask for Detective Bob at the Tenth Precinct.”

And with that he exited my room, the apartment and my life.

A cop!

I just sucked off a cop! And not just a cop, a detective!! And he liked it!!

That’s when I realized how lucky I was! I sucked off a cop… Oh My God! What if I had done it in the street where he wanted me to? He probably would have booked me!! The neighborhood was notorious for stings like that. That’s why he was so “worried” when I took him upstairs.

But he came upstairs with me and he liked it.

And I will always remember Detective Bob of the Tenth Precinct, one of my hottest pick-ups.

 ©Jonathan Leiter 2016

And THE Worst Book of 2014 Goes To........

The Secret Life of Walter Newkirk by Walter Newkirk

This self-indulgent piece of self-published clap-trap defies redemption. It's author drops names like anti-depressants, has no sense of writing style and is in desperate need of a fact-checker/proof reader. 
You want to feel sorry for this poor repressed queer author but his incessant belief that his psychotic absorption with Fame is relevant to anyone but himself turns him into a real-life shrew.

Note to reviewers: Ohh papa toony/We got a loony! - Big Mouth Maybelle

Memento Mori : Sarah Charlesworth

Sarah Charlesworth, Pipe, 2002

JTLR and the Neue Merzhalle are sadden by the news of artist Sarah Charlesworth death. 
We are happy to have this piece in our collection!

L'Chaim, To Life: Adventures in the Holy Land Pt 1

Well, according to a certain "friend" I would be amiss if I didn't come to Israel and the Holy Land for the 10th anniversary of "Gay Pride" there in Tel-Aviv. 

And Pride in Tel-Aviv is certainly an "event". Not one to spend 4 hours in the prime afternoon heat on the beach, I will say the parade itself was festive, manageable and a gregarious mix! In fact, it brought back pleasant memories of what the 10th annual parade was like here in NYC.

Otherwise, Tel-Aviv being a cosmopolitan seaside center, it's not even spitting distance from its sister city, New York where attitude and circuit sisters are concerned! 

But if you are resourceful and curious there were plenty of things to take in without being caught in Pride Fever!

I can't say how happy I was to take an afternoon off and checked out the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art. This mid-sized institution has enough room to provide a derivative history of Israeli art. However, the pleasant surprise here is the strong engaging collection of late-19th and early-to-mid-20th century art. Strong impressionist works are provided by two major donations that combined include important works in Fauvism, Cubism and Abstract Impressionism. 

The great surprise was an excellent survey show of the Berlin-based, Scottish artist Douglas Gordon. The museum dedicated a great amount of space to display an intriguing collection of video installations. It was nice to see some of this artist's major video works played in context to each other. Personal favorites were "24 Hour Psycho" and "Play Dead; Real Time". They also dedicated a large amount of space to large, text-based installations. 

It was also a delight to encounter some queers who weren't in leather and tweaked out of their gourd at the Tel-Aviv LGBT Film Festival. We took in two late night screenings at the beautiful and well-appointed Tel-Aviv Cinemateque; James Franco & Travis Matthews "Interior. Leather Bar." and the fabulous bio-doc "I Am Divine". 

Let's start with the latter which is a charming sensitive biography of Divine (October 19, 1945 – March 7, 1988), born Harris Glenn Milstead, an American actor, singer and drag queen. An appropriate 90 minutes is dedicated to the subject and the film-makers are able to provide some great early material along with intriguing bits and pieces that remind us of what a diverse career "Little Glennie" had! The original soundtrack is also a lot of fun!!

The Franco/Matthews project is much more troubling. Proposing to "reimagine" a lost 40-minute leather bar sequence from William Friedkin's 1980's "Cruising" with Al Pacino, the film dips its toe into the deep-end of the fetish pool, but in typical Aptow-era homophobia dares you to jump in while pointing rudely at you and snickering. Each man, less gay than the next, "opens up" about their heterosexuality and their discomfort with homosexuality. After a while you have to question the sincerity of anything or anyone involved in this film, except for a brief pornographic scene between a genuine gay couple (ooo shocking). Does toeing the homosexual line really make straight men feel more "complete"? Did anyone really think James Franco was going to take off his clothes for this film? Does anyone really care??

Talley Ross-Ho!: or What We Saw in Chelsea This Week

We dropped in on our friend and dealer Daniel Cooney to drop off some work and check his new space at 508 W 26th St. The space is great and a new show of Dan Estabrook's work opens on May 9th. So instead we took in the following shows:

Amanda Ross-Ho, GONE TOMORROW @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash: Ms Ross-Ho continues her exploration of the iconography of girlhood. The show derives its title from the enormous gold earring hanging at the back of the gallery, but the show is dominated by a series of Black Rag pieces, enormous black t-shirts that have been slashed, cut and gathered and each subtitled (I Hate ____ ) where the blank is a day of the week. Four Untitled Still Lifes complete the exhibit and their collaged surfaces help bring the large t-shirts  into art history with photographs that seem to document performances of Yoko Ono's Cut Piece and bring some sobriety to a rather goofy grin of a show. I look forward to seeing more of the artist's work. Open until May 18th.

Tim Hawkinson and Richard Misrach @ Pace Galleries: Be advised! These are two very separate shows but once you're in for one you might as well take in the second. Mr. Hawkinson continues to explore the crossroads of nature and creation  Worth seeing for the enormous foot with roller toes and heel, but dive all the way into the back for Tagalong, a charming poly-resin sculpture of a sea horse with air bubbles. Mr. Misrach has headed back to the beach for more of his large-format aerial view photographs of lone figures on the beach or in the ocean. Even though the isolated figures create the desired sense of alienation, it's the images of just water I found most fascinating. New digital technology has allowed the artist to capture fleeting moments of light and color that become engrossing abstract prints at this scale. Walk up to one and don't see if you fall in! I dare you!! Both shows up until June 29th.

Sara VanDerBeek @ Metro Pictures: I'm very glad I stopped in to see this debut solo show at Metro Pictures. Ms. VanDerBeek's photographs are large, bold and shiny; minimalist studies of the photograph as an object. She then takes that objects and has us question it more through both subject matter and format. The back gallery is turned into a luscious monument, to what exactly is hard to say. The light gray stacks the artist uses throughout the installation harked back to Greek temples, but the large photographs of an oxidized wall that are then mounted under Mirona glass creates an artist's temple to self-reflection. Some delicate smaller works close out the show with subtle elegance. I want to see more! Open until June 8th.

Jannis Kounellis @ Cheim & Reade: Worth a peek. Kounellis is associated with the Arte Povera movement and these works reflect it. I find the choices interesting since they were "sourced" locally in Brooklyn for this site specific installation; large slabs of metal welded together to created "paintings" , many of which are turned into shelving units stocked with glass pieces one might find in a second hand store. I'm not sure if it's all that acreage of old glass, the hard dullness of the sheet metal, the coal, the train tracks or the many, many old Singer sewing machines, but I couldn't help get the impression I was viewing some sort of Holocaust chic. Or is it just a large-scale rehash of work we've seen done better by others? You decide!! Open until June 22nd.

Also seen:

Philip Taaffe @ Luhring Augustine: Philip Taaffe?!? I thought he was dead!! Well, no such luck Virginia, the onion man is still at it. Layers and layers of patterns and patterns. Hats off to the artist for donating the proceeds from the sale of prints covering the rear wall to Visual AIDS! until June 15th.

Tim Hetherington @ Yossi Milo: Gorgeous silver gelatin prints documenting the artist's work with young men and women at the Milton Margai School for the Blind in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Sombre but gorgeous. until May 18th.

Untitled Hybrid @ Robert Miller Gallery: The gallery continues their desire to upscale Lee Krasner's estate by grouping her with a number of contemporary women. Check out Alisa Baremboym's Useless Tool, Communal Cup, and Friends in the front left gallery. until June 1st.

Marisa Merz @ Barbara Gladstone: More Arte Povera from a female perspective. I liked the big flower piece on the floor! Do you have to have a fountain in your work to show at this gallery? until June 8th.

INTERNATIONAL VELVET: NBC & The London Summer Olympics

So..............

They've come. They've gone! 

And...........

What did we think?

Everyone's been gripping about NBC's coverage. But let's face it! They were doomed from the start! London is 5-6 hours ahead of us and even NBC Universal cannot control time! Maybe next time.

But there are other things with which one can take offense. 

And the guilt lies with NBC! 

The English, in their true blue manner, managed to present us with an image of themselves that is quirky and innovative. The Brits, with Shakespeare, Sheridan and Shaw in their blood, returned to their roots: words and theater. 

The two epic productions that book-ended the event this Summer seem to confuse people... Why wouldn't historic figures quote Shakespeare? The over-arching "weirdness" of the opening ceremony was what makes the Brits the Brits!! Hospital nannies (looking remarkably close to Tea Ladies), phosphorescent blankets and multiple Mary Poppins. Music, drama and fashion book-ended the two-plus weeks that the Olympics took in London, a city that has, like in 1948, overcome its past to recreate itself as an international capital all over again!

(London performed this miraculous act over a decade ago, but now its internationally official. I sum it up to the Chunnel!) 

Let's face it: Anyone that could get Elizabeth II, Queen of England, to not only appear for the whole opening ceremony but enter with 007 via helicopter is alright with me!! It seems Queen Elizabeth II has finally learnt the lesson that Dame Edna Everage tried to teach her over 25 years ago: "Learn to laugh at yourself, otherwise you may be missing out on the joke of the century"! 

As I said earlier, the English are the masters of the theater and spectacle! NBC is not. From the beginning they seem to drop the ball. Why put us through the entire Parade of Nations but cut out Akram Kahn's touching tribute to the victim's of the 7/7 attacks in London to hear Michael Phelps pontificate about his possibilities? It wasn't bad enough that IOC refused to acknowledge it's own history (and hat's off to Bob Costas for even bringing the subject of the Munich Massacre up during the parade), NBC seem to want to refuse any acknowledgement of true feel at all! As major allies of ours, I think all of us felt as strongly during their ordeal as they did during ours on 9/11 and I think NBC made them a major disservice.

And now NBC, answer me this: why, when a preliminary competition was held could you not tell us exactly when we could catch the following broadcasts? Seems like good TV etiquette, no? And why put in two channels dedicated to basketball and soccer then run the same games at the same time on a second family network? And WHY couldn't you take BRAVO out of commission for two full weeks instead of just one!?! WHY!!??!!

Anyway.......

I did rather enjoy the closing event. The Brits are masters of Pop Music and they put up a nice representation. It seems Kate Bush got chopped out of the event and I didn't miss her.  Annie Lennox came through in true-blue divahood and kudos to Jessie J for not one but TWO flesh-colored catsuits in one evening!! Both opening and closing presented a fabulous slice of English music, but it did beg the question.........

WHERE WAS LULU??!!??

A WHOLE LOT OF ACTING GOIN' ON: Pinter's "The Caretaker" with Jonathan Pryce at BAM

In case I failed to mention it, I did take in the current production of Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker" with Jonathan Pryce at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater.

Pryce, Hassell & Cox in "The Caretaker" at BAM

But then comes the question, what can one say about it? Can you ever really know what the heck it's all about? "The Caretaker" was Pinter's first success in the theater and shows the British playwright flexing his artistic muscle. Pinter was never one to be categorized, but you can't help but feel the effects and acceptance of Beckett in this early work. But Beckett's characters begrudgingly honor their humanity even as they stare into the yawning abyss, where Pinter's are perpetually lost in an arid emotionless desert.


In this case we have Aston (Alan Cox) bringing an old geezer, Davies (Pryce), home to his cluttered leaky attic room in a house owned by his brother, Mick (Alex Hassell). There's talk of things being done around the place (a shed in the backyard is on top of the list) but the only work that gets accomplished is Aston's constant repairs on an old toaster. The two brothers are rarely in the same room together and when they are they don't speak. Mick takes a sadistic pleasure in harassing old Davies. Davies sees a weakness in Aston and tries to prey on it which provokes Aston to revoke his invitation. All the talk is about care-taking and growth but no one seems to be able to do any. The set by Eileen Diss adds a claustrophobic tightness that provides additional tension to the drama and the lighting, masterfully done by Colin Grenfell, gives a nice sense of mustiness and passing weather. 


Pryce gives a masterful performance as the old homeless man Davies, part existential vaudeville, part Shakespearean bombast, and kept reminding me of Stanley Townsend's performance as the homeless tramp in Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky", full of gibber and flips and quirky pirouettes. It's a fine line that Pryce walks, a fine, wavering line. Alex Hassell gives Mike a sense of street menace and someone teetering on the edge of mania with the sex appeal of the psychotic. The stand-out performance of the evening is Alan Cox's Aston. Button-downed and soft-spoken, his monologue at the end of Act 1 was equally gripping and harrowing and involves the play's nastiest bit of care-taking, the kind action done out of "love" that kills rather than cares.

At the Harvey Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 651 Fulton Street, Fort Greene; (718) 636-4100, bam.org. Through June 17.

CONDITIONAL LOVE: Remembering Donna Summer

I was a teen living in Philadelphia when the phenomena known as Donna Summer began to enter my consciousness. Her first hit single "Love To Love You Baby" was making waves in the media partly for the orgasmic moaning that pervaded the recording, partly because in its 12" format it provided 17 minutes of it! Living in Philadelphia at that time, dance music was very important, especially in the gay community, yet I had a hard time relating to this new "hit". Perhaps it was the the incessant female moaning, perhaps the robotic beat of Giorgio Moroder's synthesizers, but whatever it was it baffled me at the time. But my regard for Summer's voice changed that summer when I was on a youth tour in Israel. There the buses were all equipped with radios. One day while out in the desert, the bus' radio begins to broadcast "Love to Love You Baby". Within seconds, in broad daylight, a bat comes through a window, onto the bus and attaches itself to a radio speaker on the roof and refuses to move until someone took their shirt and literally peeled the creature off the speaker.


There has always been a magnetic quality to Donna Summer's voice. I may have had difficulty initially, but her large mezzo-soprano voice was warm with just a light vibrato. I guess this reflects her roots in gospel, but unlike her fellow recently deceased chorister-cum-diva Whitney Houston, a strong direct quality that helped give her hits the anthemic appeal that singers today can only dream about.

Summer's emergence in the disco era was remarkable but not surprising. For many she WAS Disco. But she was an artist willing to push boundaries. Side A of A Love Trilogy is a single 17+ minute track "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It" that takes it's lyrics from that simple title. As I remember, it came with four calendar pin-ups of Summer and was an excellent choice for sex. Many of her albums were double albums; four full sides of hypnotic music. "Bad Girls" was essential to drunken Friday night parties as well as Improvisational Theater classes with Avery Brooks. 

She also tapped into the feminist movement of the 70's and making it pop, glorifying the "working women" whether sex worker or waitress, and her duet with Barbra Streisand "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)" is the anthem for anyone who has ever been fed up with a lover. By the early 80's, her cover of Jon Anderson's "State of Independence" and her collaboration with Musical Youth "Unconditional Love" shows she was an artist interested in various and diverse sources. By the end of the last century her fame may not have been as glorious as it once was (her unfortunate statement in the late 80's regarding HIV and AIDS cost her deeply and she has apologized), but now, in retrospect, it blazed for us for an incredibly incandescent period.  

Finding videos of her performing live on Youtube today reminded me what a sharp, appealing performer she was. I will always associate her music with friends, good times and general happiness.


Thank you for the joy!!

On The Road Again

So what was one to do over a week in Boca Raton, Florida?

Especially since I had to miss Second Saturday Staten Island this month. Deep Tanks features an amazing exhibit until June 4th; a retrospective of Island artist Arthur Williams. 

Arthur Williams at Deep Tanks, Installation View

Highly graphic, slightly hallucinogenic, this densely packed mini-retrospective includes over 100 works in painting and ceramics. Williams has a Pop sensibility, sometimes crossed with the retro checkerboard styling of the 80s. 

Arthur Williams at Deep Tanks, Installation View

The numerous canvases range from adept to truly surprising. I found myself oddly drawn to the objects over the two dimensional work, but all the works are infused with humor and compassion. 

Arthur Williams at Deep Tanks, Installation View

It will undoubtedly put a smile on your face. The show is up until June 3rd and if this doesn't get you up and off your ass and over here, well.......

I was fortunate to have picked up a copy of Alison Bechdel's "Are You My Mother?" from the New York Public Library before taking off to the sunny South. And could I have picked up a more appropriate book? This graphic memoir by the creator of "Dykes To Look Out For" follows up on her 2006 "Fun House". Where the latter dealt with her relationship to her homosexual, transvestite father, this current volume deals with her relationship with her mother, often focusing on the period of her developing "Fun House".  It is a big story contained in a slim volume, but Bechdel is a veteran of the panel concept and knows how to utilize the format to her advantage. Actually a study of the Mother-Daughter relationship at the turn of the century, the author pursues a multi-threaded approach; the story encompasses the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott and author Virginia Wolff with "sidebars" into the worlds of Sigmund Freud and Stephen Sondheim in a masterful slight of hand.


And I read it in under a week!!


So what DOES one do in Broward County? Well I called Girls' Club in Fort Lauderdale to see if they might be able to open up for me Saturday morning (official hours 12-5 Weds-Fri) on my way down to Miami. And sure enough, they accommodated me! 

Re-Framing The Feminine at Girls' Club, Installation View

"Re-Framing The Feminine" is an exhibit curated by Dina Mitrani, a Miami curator, of almost 50 photographic works from the organization's founder's collection. And it is an impressive collection; leaning heavily in works of the past 25 years, it does pay slight homage to earlier women photographers with unsurprising works by Ruth Orkin and Helen Leavitt. The general slant is the "female" eye but a large majority of the work features the female body. 

Re-Framing The Feminine at Girls' Club, Installation View

The show has a pleasant mixture of the familiar (Tina Barney, Vera Lutter, Sally Mann) and the unfamiliar (Courtney Johnson, Delia Brown, Ania Moussawei) that plays it fairly safe but has some definite high notes that include Lucinda Devlin's interiors of "fantasy" motels, Carrie Mae Weem's charmingly elegiac Untitled photograph, and Delia Brown's sly vamp on the Becher school grid in "Some of My Clothes". 
But where were Catherine Opie, Justine Kurland and Sarah Charlesworth? This may be the downfall of dealing with just one couple's collection when curating a "big" show.


I decided to breakfast in FTL and remembered a place called the Egg and You Diner on Rte 1 in Wilton Manors. I chalk it up to my New Jersey upbringing that made me sense this was a "serious" diner and I indulged in a sinfully delicious breakfast of biscuits with sausage gravy. Sitting at the counter I met other late morning diners who had journeyed 30+ miles just for their poached eggs with cheese sauce!! Yum yum yum!!!

According to friend and curator Dan Cameron, I missed a really good show at the Miami Art Museum while I was down that afternoon, but I did get to visit Scotty's Landing for a leisurely late afternoon meal. Lousy service took some time to acknowledge us, but they did offer Magic Hat #9, a personal hot weather fave. I also experienced my first fish taco!! Featuring fried grouper in a flour tortilla, I did wish the accompanying sides of guacamole, slaw and salsa hadn't arrived in covered #6 plastic containers, but the final composed product was not unsatisfactory.



Speaking of Magic Hat Brewery, I decided to forgo my usual vodka and whatever this trip for a six-pack of their Summer Elder Betty brew. To my luck it's an American Hefeweizen beer with a lovely dark color to it; the elderberries add a dark fruitiness that balances the sharp mustiness of the wheat beer. Nicely done.


Then came Mother's Day when I accompanied my Mother to CHOPS Lobster Bar in Boca Raton so we could split the Dover Sole entree. For high end eating down there it wasn't too shabby. Considering the date, the restaurant was humming but not overwhelmed and the service was attentive without being overbearing. The initial room is a bit dark but the main dining room has a vaulted tiled ceiling reminiscent of the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station and an ample view into the active kitchen. The bourbon ginger cocktail I had as a starter was excellent and set the bar for the rest of the meal. The Caesar salad was creamy and not overwhelmed by enormous croutons as it often is; here they were represented by thin small dark "crisps". The sole was prepared with care table-side and maintained the general level of richness the entire meal had. Sharing a slice of strawberry cheesecake for dessert, we both slowly rolled home remarkably full!!

Judi Dench and Friends in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

What do you do on a rainy Florida afternoon with your Mum? Why not go to the movies? My Mom had been pitching for the new British import The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, so off one rainy afternoon we went to the multiplex. Effectively directed by John Madden (Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown, Shakespeare in Love), a strong ensemble cast featuring Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Penelope Wilton, Bill Nighy, and Maggie Smith as a group of "older" English-folk who find themselves trying to adapt to the ways of the sub-continent in a run-down "hotel" being run by a inexperienced but enthusiastic Sonny (Dev Patel of "Slumdog Millionaire") is perfectly fine. Nothing really surprising unfolds here (the gay character dies and receives a full Hindu burial, the toxic couple separate healthfully, the "desperate" find "hope", Sonny stands up to his Mum, and old codger Maggie Smith ends up liking India!!!) but it is nice to see how competent actors deal with mediocre material. The cinematography does do a nice job of capturing the whirling kaleidoscopic of urban India. If you must.