James Ensor at the Modern

Finally made it to the Museum of Modern Art, my first visit since it reopened, since the reopening somehow coincided with my new fathershipness. My last visit must have been the Matisse/Picasso show in Queens.

I don't have much in the way of a fully formed reaction to the renovations and new galleries. I like that the helicopter is still prominent. The galleries feel a little confusing, for lack of a better word, in that I found myself having to think a lot about where I was walking next and why. And I have to say I liked the old Matisse room better, which had a window and felt more comfortable than the current Matisse gallery. The current gallery feels a little airless and claustrophobic in comparison and the paintings could use a little more breathing space. Some of the ab-ex stuff hasn't aged too well, I am sorry to say.

A couple reactions to the paintings, though, via my hero Henri Matisse. This time my favorite Matisse was the subtly drab Rose Table. And I found myself thinking about The Dance in a new way, perhaps because I've read Spurling's excellent two volume biography since the last time I was able to visit the Modern's fantastic Matisse collection. Looking at the Dance, I was struck by how he must have felt working on this piece in his studio, how strangely frightening it must have been, working on that scale, with that kind of color, and that simplified drawing and elegant crudity of line. It might have been exhilerating and terrifying all at once to be looking at this big wild thing in your studio.

I am nowhere near as afflicted with studio anxiety as Matisse was [it was almost debilitating for him], but I do feel it often enough to be comforted in knowing that Henri - and another painting hero of mine, Willem de Kooning - had his own doubts in the studio.

So anyway, the Ensor show. A trip and a half. Before this, I had seen only a handful of Ensors, and had not really ever given him much thought. When you've only seen a few in person, it's easy to write him off as a flake and a reclusive eccentric. But the chance to see a larger selection, all at once, that includes the scraped and knifed and darkly colored early work, the trademark masks and grotesqueries, and the beautiful graphic work - both the drawings and the etchings were a real revelation - really helped to make his work resonate with me, especially because of the theatricality, weirdness, and humor of my own b-movie paintings.

I'm not sure how yet, because only work will tell, but I'm looking forward to seeing how Ensor's own obsessiveness, theatricality, weirdness, and humor will affect my work. I know it's time to make some prints again, monotypes, drypoints, and some larger linocuts. And we'll see what happens.

Cooperstown

The drive from the Thruway down to Cooperstown on 28 has to be one of the most beautiful drives I've ever made. And the whole winding road just drips with Americana all the way to Cooperstown's Main Street. On the way, I got a couple texts and voicemails from my sister in Louisville -- she'd used her Slugger connections to not only comp us tickets but set up a behind the scenes tour for us.

The Franchise

On the tour, we saw a number of items close up, a mix of things that had been retrieved for VIPs to see the weekend before, which was induction weekend. A Joe DiMaggio glove, a Babe Ruth jersey and bat, a Jackie Robinson jersey, a Satchel Paige hat, a Lou Gehrig hat, and more. Our hosts were as kind and gracious [and patient with our five year-old] as could be.

We were able to handle some baseball bats as long as we were wearing the white cotton gloves, so we asked for a Mike Piazza bat, my wife's favorite Met. We saw a silver plated Babe Ruth bat, presented to him as a gift. I asked about a particular knob and was told it was one of Sammy Sosa's, and they assured me it wasn't corked; they had checked! A bat had a maple leaf stamped on its handle so I asked about that, and it was one of Alfonso Soriano's [a bigass bat, too], and the stamp simply meant it was made of maple.

Then I was handed a Honus Wagner bat. Wow. It was a big, thick handled, warm brown bat from Hillerich and Bradsby, with some kind of color decal remaining on its barrel. I tried to remember some of the things I knew about Wagner: his big hands which were said to scoop up dirt and rocks along with the ball as he fielded his position at shortstop. I choked up a couple inches and could imagine how it was used to slap and slash the ball around to all fields, the handle end so thick and weighty that his big hands and wrists must have been a kind of fulcrum. I could feel how the tool would fit the swing of an old time ballplayer, how the heavy thick handle would help balance the motion of the barrel making it a natural stick to slap and spray the ball around, a marked contrast to the modern bat of say, Sosa, with its thinner handle and the whiplike all or nothing torque produced by a modern power hitter.

I didn't want to be greedy, so I didn't push for more stuff like a kid in a candy store, but later you do wish, 'oh why didn't I think of asking for so and so's bat,' or what have you. It was a little overwhelming and an enormous, undreamed-of treat. My son said his favorite part was turning one of the enormous cranks which move the bookshelves which hold every book ever written on the game. Everywhere you turned there was some fascinating bit of baseball history or lore or just plain quirkiness.

My childhood heroes, the Big Red Machine

So yeah, wow. After thanking our gracious hosts, we moved on to explore the museum and its galleries, and I have to say that the place is worth the trip even without the VIP treatment. The Hank Aaron section is great, as is the section on fans and ballparks, and the sections on the Negro Leagues and Latin America. The staff is great. My son liked the clip of Abbott and Costello, too. And there's a nice feeling as you walk around with all the other baseball fans, most folks decked out in their team's colors. I think we'll go back, and take some more time to explore some of the other attractions in the area.

Also highly recommended: a meal at the Doubleday Cafe, again on a tip from my sis. Thanks again, Sis, and many, many, many thanks to our hosts Jim and Sue. You can tell they love spreading a little baseball joy. And they know that we Met fans need all the joy we can get this year.

Jerry Koosman's jersey from '69

Niagara Falls

The falls themselves are a thrilling sight. To get close on the Maid of the Mist or on one of the tunnel walks is a pretty awe-inspiring experience. I'd advise you to skip the cheesy '4-D' Fury of Niagara CGI movie, though. We also had a lunch up in the Skylon Tower, a massive and strange cement tower with a weird, Battlestarish name, and though the food was nothing special, the view in the revolving restaurant was great. And the elevator ride was fun, too.

We stayed in a crowded camping complex full of tents and RV's and cabins. Kind of like the good camp in The Grapes of Wrath. We had a cabin. I got to cook out most nights, and even succeeded in making a couple campfires. Gotta love fire. We had no plumbing in the cabin, so it was a shortish walk to the toilets and showers. There was also a swimming pool and waterpark, a playground and a small arcade. It was great fun.

A short walk from the Falls is Clifton Hill, a jarring and cheesy stretch of shiny tourist trap amusements, even worse than today's 42nd street. Ripley's, a House of Frankenstein, a Dracula's Castle, Wax Galleries, and so on. I wasn't expecting that kind of stuff, but it's good cheesy fun. We didn't get the chance to spend any money there, which is fine.

A funny mix of small town and touristy junk and natural wonder.

And the drive up was nice, we took 17 to Elmira, then up to Rochester and over to Buffalo. What a great big beautiful state New York is.

kid's eye view

My son wanted to use the camera. This is a five year old's perspective on the Niagara rapids.

the 2009 Mets and W.B. Yeats

See, The Second Coming.

Widening gyres, centers can't hold, things fall apart, rough beasts slouch, etc.

more Falls

night photos

Some vacation pics, taken at dusk or at night, around the cabin where we stayed.

Niagara

Had a great week off. We drove to Niagara Falls.

a few random Met fan thoughts

Is it better to be out of contention early, or to suffer through the last day of the season failures of the past two years? I don't know.

Whenever the bases are loaded, the chance for a grand slam crosses my mind. Last Saturday, with Angel Pagan walking to the plate with the bags full, not even the remotest possibility of a salami crossed my mind. Not the most remote inkling, not the vaguest pie-in-the-sky, fairy godmother granting wish, genie in a bottle, lottery-winning, golden ticket dream entered my weary Metfan soul.

We also stopped at Cooperstown last week. Highly recommended, and I will spill more on that soon, because, thanks to my big sister, it was a very special visit. Meantime, I will just say that I wish with all my heart that the Tom Glavine Met jersey be removed from display. They don't have to burn it and let Jerry Seinfeld dance on the ashes or anything, but they should take it and fold it carefully and put it somewhere it will never see the faintest light of day again.

Also, why not more '86 stuff? Just Ray Knight's helmet, far as I could tell. Seaver case was great, and the Koosman jersey. And I loved the Big Red Machine display as they were my faves as a kid.

As somebody who has not lost faith in the core of the team, this is going to be a rough end of the season, and an ugly offseason.

Well, let's go Mets, anyway. It's still baseball, and that's good.

Conversation

2009, oil on panel, 12x12in.

photos: fay wray and army man

Some movies, quickly

I don't see movies as much as I used to. But thanks to netflix, I do still see movies. Here's a few quick hits on stuff watched recently, and watched via netflix, unless otherwise noted. In no particular order:

The Visitor. From the same guy who made the terrific The Station Agent a few years ago, this is the same kind of fine, fine movie: thoughtful, funny, with intriguing characters you care about.

Slumdog Millionaire. Liked it; didn't love it. Watched the day after the Visitor, and the differences in characterization were sharp; fast, beautiful, and yes, moving, but not because I particularly cared about the characters, who were pretty generalized. Glad I saw it, but not a movie I'll return to. As far as Danny Boyle goes, my favorite movie is Millions.

Up. Saw this in the theater. Great fun and adventure, maybe a little darker than most Pixar stories, but it was funny and beautiful, and weird as a non-Tarzan Edgar Rice Burroughs novel.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Can't remember the last time I saw a Woody Allen movie, but liked this one well enough, with its Barcelona backdrop and great work from Bardem and Cruz. A little chilly and abstract, especially with the voiceover, but I liked it fine.

To Catch a Thief. Caught this one recent evening on TCM; an overlooked Hitchcock for me. I knew I'd seen it, but couldn't remember the way it ends. So we watched it for the stylish Grant and Kelly and the Riviera, and had a great time. Light as a feather and just as ticklish. Was watching for the float scene, the picnic scene, and the fireworks scene, and stayed on through to the end.

Nine Queens. Really enjoyable little con/heist/caper flick from Argentina. Funny. Highly recommended.

I see from the TV listings that both Rio Bravo and The Princess Bride, two of the most re-watchable movies ever, are on tonight, but I'll be watching the MLB All Star Game. We have them both on DVD, but there's still something special about coming across something you love on broadcast.

Ghost Town. Really enjoyable little film in the screwball tradition with great Gervais, Leoni, and Kinnear. Leoni reminds of Grant in Bringing Up Baby.

Cadillac Records. Some great performances and period detail, but still comes across as a pretty standard Hollywood musical biopic kind of dealie. Great music, of course.

In Bruges. Dark, funny, twisted, over the top. Two hit men hiding in Bruges after a botched job, waiting for orders from the boss. Great work from the three mains.

So there you go, a few capsuley reviews from a sporadic movie watcher.

The spirit of Ed Wood Blogathon

I'm a little late to this, but when I thought about how some of my b movie paintings are based on images from an Ed Wood film, I realized I could take part. I'm not going to break my policy of not naming the public domain films I use, but I will say that this, this, and this all come from a single Ed Wood movie. Bevare, bevare, bevare....

Small Driveway

1998, oil on canvas, 24x32in. Private collection, Cleveland, Ohio.

This was not really a study, or something done in preparation for the larger version, but instead it was something I executed quickly while the larger work was in progress. Even though it's also from memory, it has a more naturalistic, offhand feel than the big painting, so I think it was just a matter of following an urge I didn't follow in the other version.

An old question

"A painting is done when it no longer gives you a pain in the ass."

--Wolf Kahn, in a nice little interview here. I love looking at photos of other artists' studios.

Courtesy, again, of a blog linked to at the right, About Last Night, which I call Terry Teachout and Friends.