Opinion
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Tarzan
Swingers in the Berkshires
By: - Jun 22nd, 2015A reunion this summer in the Berkshire church that Ray and Alice made famous. This time though I won't be swinging on the rope. Planning to keep both feet on the ground.
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Hook
Abstract Art
By: - Jun 22nd, 2015Cracking the code of complex concepts for most people it helps to have a humanizing hook. What is the anecdote and eureka moment that allows us to connect with daunting aesthetics and technologies? It is the sizzle which enhances the flavor of the steak.
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Cancer
Panic Attack
By: - Jun 20th, 2015My mom, Dr. Flynn, had an instant cure for cancer of the elbows.
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Son of a Beach
Screw Skull and Bones
By: - Jun 19th, 2015Time was when parents bragged about their kids getting into Ivy League Schools then on to law, medicine or an MBA. Not anymore.
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Hosta la Vista Baby
Morning Manta
By: - Jun 17th, 2015Never met a hosta I didn't like; the vinyl siding of landscape gardening. We have a number of varieties. Each spring some of them split to start new ones. Circles around trees and dramatic accents in flower beds. My favorite is viewed each morning over coffee from our dining room window. Last year critters got to it and ruined my summer meditations.
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Under the Apple Tree
Backyard Wedding in East Boston
By: - Jun 17th, 2015We hired our neighbor Ritchie, a chef, to prepare food for our backyard East Boston wedding. The inept students I hired never bothered to turn on the oven. They were too busy being guests. So we served the backup lasagna I made that morning. Then I got dissed by my best man and sister. It was quite the occasion.
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Fireworks
First Kiss Fourth of July
By: - Jun 17th, 2015Circling each other in the art world connected at CAVS event. Came late to my holiday party new house in East Boston. First date and kiss that week. Fireworks then and ever since.
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June
From Town to Country
By: - Jun 17th, 2015Migrant workers. The annual move from loft in North Adams to house in Adams. Summer and winter just minutes from each other. Odd to some makes perfect sense. Seasonal chores of planting flower and vegetable beds. Hopes of harvest and bouquets in the house. Glorious life in the bucolic Berkshires.
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Basment Tapes
Tales from the Crypt of the MFA
By: - Jun 16th, 2015During my recent book launch at The Mount my friend private art dealer Jim Jacobs regaled playwright Mark St. Germain with stories of our time together as interns in the Museum of Fine Arts back in the 1960s. At Mark's suggestion this has now inspired a suite of poems gathered as The Basement Tapes. It is my first attempt to create an extended work an idea which previously was suggested by my poet friend and mentor Stephen Rifkin
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ICA Boston to Survey Black Mountain College
Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957
By: - Jun 16th, 2015When the rise of the Third Reich led to closing the Bauhaus in 1933 the architect Walter Gropius and his wife the weaver. artist Anni regrouped in rural North Carolina to establish a small experimental outpost for advanced art and design Black Mountain College. The faculty and students were intended to build their dorms and studios as well as grow their food and raise livestock. Never having a solid endowment the experiment ended in 1957. Gropius went on to Harvard and the rest of the faculty scattered. The impact on post war American arts was indelible. Organized by former curator Helen Molesworth this promises to be one of the most ambitious and informative exhibitions of the fall season. It will be on view in Boston Oct. 10, 2015 to Jan. 24, 2016 and then travel to LA and Columbus, Ohio.
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Hippy
Stranger Than Fiction
By: - Jun 15th, 2015Old men in the waiting room comparing aches and pains. First thing in the morning appointment for cortisone shot. Checking e mail. Note from a colleague updated on postponed hip replacements.
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Francesco Clemente's Encampment at Mass MoCA
With Jim Shaw to January, 2016
By: - Jun 13th, 2015During the Pluralism of the 1980s the Italian born artist Francesco Clemente was a part of the neo expressionist movement. Having recently reinvented himself the artist who lives in New York and India had a series of glitzy decoratve tents fabricated by artisans. The artist has painted the interiors with provocative, fluid, naive narratives. This imajor installtion in Mass MoCA's vast Building Five has been paired with the cartoon inspired, theatrical scaled paintings of the populist artist./ musician conceptualist Jim Shaw. The work is obviously fun and accessible but skates on thin ice.
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The Mount
Booklaunch at Edith Wharton's Berkshire Home
By: - Jun 10th, 2015On a perfect June evening a booklaunch, my first, on the terrace of Edith Wharton's The Mount in Lenox. Witty exchanges with director Susan Wissler. Reading Gonzo poems from Shards of Life. Elegant gathering with Berkshire friends and neighbors, artists, writers and citizens of the world. Superb food and fine wine. Guests exploring the formal gardens. Signed a ton of books.
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Eric Rudd Announces for North Adams Mayor
Artist/ Developer Runs Against Incumbent Alcombright
By: - May 15th, 2015After establishing the former Contemporary Artists Center in the Beaver Mill the artist, Eric Rudd, developed the artists/ loft Eclipse Mill. He is now announcing his second campaign for mayor. The first some time ago was against John Barrett III and now he opposes Mayor Dick Alcombright. It is speculated that Barrett, who after being defeated sat on the city council, may join the race. The artists and potential voters who Rudd appeals to tipped the balance when Alcombright defeated Barrett. In fact he blamed them for running him out of a generation spanning dominance of North Adams politics. This could indeed be interesting.
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Northern Berkshires Blockbuster Arts Summer
From Warhol and Wilco to van Gogh and Inge
By: - May 14th, 2015Now in his final weeks as director of the Clark Art Institute Michael Conforti hosted a media event promoting a blockbuster season for Northern Berkshire County. There were presentations by Joe Thompson for Mass MoCA, Tina Olsen for the Williams College Museum of Art, and Mandy Greenfield for the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Notably absent from the media event were North Adams based arts presenters Downstreet, The Eclipse Mill Gallery, The Rudd Museum of Art and the fall annual Williamstown Film Festival.
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John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden in Metabookâ„¢
New Digital Book Publisher Puts a New Spin on a Modern Classic
By: - Apr 03rd, 2015The publishing conundrum. How to attract readers tied to their mobile devices and induce them to read a book. Ken Siman and his partners Christian and Benjamin Alfonsi have produced a packed multimedia edition of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil for iphones and ipads. Is this the answer to book reading in the 21st century?
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Where Does Grand Opera Fit in the 21st Century
Peter Gelb is Not Answering the Question
By: - Mar 19th, 2015The New Yorker editor and Columbia's Bloomberg professor of business journalism, James Stewart, splendidly describes internal negotiations at the Met last summer as Peter Gelb, the general manager, tried to cut salaries and expenses by 16 % and the orchestra, chorus, stagehands and other smaller unions struggled for their lives. On the larger issue of the Met's survival at all, Stewart falls short.
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A Tale of Two Halides
Empty Calorie, Mineral Deficient, Low Fiber, Nutritionally \Non-dense Food
By: - Mar 03rd, 2015Among other insights our science correspondent reveals that "Forty and fifty years ago, Iodine, in the form of Sodium Iodate, was routinely added to American bakery products, both as a dough conditioner and a nutritional supplement. Then, of course because it was cheaper, Big Food started adding Bromates instead. These not only contain no Iodine, but are also capable of displacing it. Our FDA likes to say that all the Bromates (which are banned in the EU and UK) in dough will become the less-toxic Bromides in the processes of flour “ripening,†rising, and baking.'" It is likely that you didn't know that.
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How We Live
Thinking of Yeats
By: - Feb 18th, 2015Our friend the poet Stephen Rifkin often sends insightful and provocative e mails. It has been an ongoing and absorbing dialogue. I asked if he could expand a recent one into an op ed piece. Looking inward he was inspired by Yeats.
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Euro English
Toward Universal Language
By: - Feb 09th, 2015The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
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Super Bowl Inspired Fast Eddy
Arts Critic Reveals Passion for Sports
By: - Jan 31st, 2015As a critic and journalist New York based Edward Rubin, known to friends and colleagues as Fast Eddy, has a finger in many pies. On the eve of the Super Bowl he reveals a deep and abiding love of sports. Much of this passion was inherited from his sporting father. Hey, who knew?
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The Clark and Mass MoCA Stiff Locals
Negligible Off Season Free Admissions
By: - Dec 18th, 2014As of January One the Clark will no longer be free during the off season. It is offering token free days but adult admission is full freight at $20. Add another $10 to see special exhitions. Which is still more generous than Mass MoCA which has a single annual free day. It sends the wrong PR and marketing message to the local community. What price can you put on being a welcoming good neighbor?
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Words Matter
The Value of Education
By: - Nov 16th, 2014People who make money are successful. They are sometimes well educated, and sometimes not, but they are smart. They are smart enough to be successful in the way most of us value success.
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Boston Mayah Walsh on the Arts
Reply to Larry Stark
By: - Sep 16th, 2014Veteran Boston theatre critic Larry Stark wrote an open letter to Boston Mayor Martin Walsh. He stated his disappointment that campaign promises to the arts community were soon forgotten. We posted his original letter which is linked in this reply from the Mayor's spokesperson longtime arts advocate Joyce Linehan.
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Unexamined Life Isn't Worth Living
But Not By IQ Tests
By: - Sep 09th, 2014Schools used to assign children to classes based on their IQ test scores. Then schools decided it was better for children to be in heterogeneous, or mixed IQ, classes. They would get a better feel for life because many people are not so fast. Now experts may be reconsidering. It is one of the truisms of fashion, and there are intellectual fashions, too, that they change. Here Rifkin again rebuts Zaig.
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