Franz Molnar’s Heirs Fight Over His Bank Account, And Their Identity

This is an amazing story in this week’s Forward.com– and the local angle is that Randol Schoenberg — whom the Klimt case against the Austrian government is pressing this one on behalf of Molnar’s great-grandson Gabor Lukin

read it here: http://forward.com/articles/108795/

I still miss Warren Zevon

Right now my Ipod is playing “Johnny Strikes up the Band,” and it reminds me that I miss Warren Zevon.

I didn’t know him, but his music was with me (and it sill is). But somehow the notion that Zevon was out there, sober or not, on a rampage, or making music was a comfort — a secret energy source.

So on this fourth of July weekend when we remember America in all its glory, I’ll be remembering one son of this country, Warren Zevon.

Crank him up some Zevon by the Bar-B-Q

The deadly 50s

I have a strong memory of my father being freaked out during his entire fifth decade — He told me that during one’s fifties the chances of having a life-ending heart attack were great — and that if you managed to get through your fifties — even if you had a heart attack you stood a good chance of surviving it.

At the time I dismissed this as my father’s craziness (which is complicated by the fact that he was most likely sux years older than he admitted to being).

Anyhow, reading the obits over the last week, I am struck by how right he was. Not only Michael Jackson, but TV ptichman Billy Mays, Graffiti artist Michael Martin and too many others. YEESH!!!!

I’m not one to get freaked out, but OK, I get it…..

Helen Mirren in Phedre - NT Live

Last night I participated in a grand experiment. The National Theater in London did its first live broadcast to movie theaters all around the world of its acclaimed production of Phedre starring Helen Mirren.

I will say that it was a triumph on almost every level — including the least obvious (and most desired) that it will not replace wanting to see a production in person, rather it creates a greater appetite for seeing live theater.

Phedre is Racine’s great tragedy — written in French and first performed in 1677 — in modern times Diana Rigg performed a memorable version. The current production is based on poet Ted Hughes’ translation from the 1990s and is staged by Nicholas Hytner.

Helen Mirren has been getting raves for her maximalist unrestrained performance.

So when I read that the broadcast was being shown for one night only in Los Angeles at the Mann’s Chinese 6 — I signed up — via movietickets.com . The price was $20 (and a $1 service charge). Compared to flying to London and buying tickets (if you can get them!) — this was truly a bargain.

Now — events conspired to make this one crazy night to go to Hollywood: Not only was Hollywood Boulevard overtaken by Michael Jackson mourners, but Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Mann was closed off for the “Bruno” premiere.

Despite this, the Mann’s Chinese theater one (not the main theater but the first of the side ones in the Hollywood and Highland complex) was full, with the sort of folks you could expect to see at serious theater in LA — the age range skewed high, but there was as much age diversity (if not economic and racial) as you might find at the Mark Taper forum on a good night.

There seemed to be a good amount of people who knew each other or who were conversant with theater and what’s playing in London.

Also in attendance was Taylor Hackford, who is married to Helen Mirren.

The theater filled and we were treated to sight of the National theater in London — the seats there filling, shots of people having drinks on the terrace looking out over London — was that St. Paul’s in the background. All this contributed to the excitement.

Then the program began both with a few minutes intro by Nicholas Hytner about the play and the production including the incredible stage set by Bob Crowley (very stark and dramatic), then a strange loosey goosey interview  with Hytner conducted by a very bohemian looking Jeremy Irons, and then the play began.

It was filmed by five cameras and the idea was to take you where the eye might go in each scene.

Watching Phedre in a movie theater did not feel like watching a movie — it felt more real — in some ways, more dimensional. Also because of the brilliance of the play — you were forced to pay attention to the words, to the language, which is not one’s typical movie going experience — nor is it really what happens when you watch classics on PBS or other TV stations.

That being said, the difference is that you never feel the magic of live performance, the intensity of being in the room when the actor makes it happen for those moment — and missing that — it makes one hungry to see the actual stage production or other stage productions.

Seeing a play in a movie theater is different in other ways — one is less inhibited about getting up and stepping outside — you can bring popcorn, soda and candy inside and munch throughout. Also the audience is less shy about laughing at moments intended and unintended (one can almost imagine moments of watching a play like this with an audience that shouts at the screen).

So it is in some ways a lesser experience, and in others just a different experience. But it is not one without value. Seeing Helen Mirren’s performance — an interpertation of Phedre that bordered on madness and derangement — was incredible. I was also very impressed by Dominic Cooper (he is on his way from pretty boy to leading man), and John Shrapnel’s fine and edgy Theramene.

The play flew by –without intermission, and its sublety and wit and intelligence of the tragedy in all its classical dimension unfolded in a manner that seemed modern — or at least that made us reason that man may have advanced in many ways — but when it comes to character and motivation, when it comes to lust and love — a play from the 17th century can speak as deeply (if not more) than our current fare.

The National Live experiment is part of a trend — The Met and La Scala are broadcasting their productions. Others may follow. Should this trend continue, how great would it be to able to see other great London stage productions or something from the Abbey in Dublin, or regional productions, even a surtitled production from The Comedie Francaise? Globalization may be coming to your local theater — and your local movie theater.

Grumpy Old men

Sometimes one has — I mean I have — an idea percolating in my head and someone beats me to the punch. This happened to me recently when Greg Rodriguez had an Op_ed in the LA Times about Von Brunn, the 88 year old who fired on the US Holocaust museum and the guard there.

What he said, and what I wanted to say, is to comment on how as our population ages and remains so healthy how we have to rethink the danger of these grumpy old men — who may not fear a life sentence in jail or 20 years and who one might otherwise release from jail.

Talking about profiling — we may have to rethink our defintiion of dangerous.

Beyond the Pale

BEYOND THE PALE, a neo-Klezmer Post-balkan jump jive band — there is no good description, has a new album POSTCARDS that is a lot of fun - although the tunes straddle a range of emotions and musical styles in the end making it their own. They recently played at Theodore Bikel’s 85th Birthday celebration at Carnegie Hall. How ’bout that?

Cool art installation

Katie Klapper who seems to have very interesting art and design clients (she’s the publicist who suggested I write about Judith Hoffman and Szalon) just sent me some info on a cool art installation at Fresno States New Henry Madden Library by artist Susan Narduli.

But this is not just an image. It’s a giant video installation on the side of the building. See the video:

ns_madden (Click on this)

To create this special three story high installation special technology was used — I am going to quote directly from the press release:

“to capture these ephemeral images, Susan Narduli employs a unique, stainless-steel architectural woven mesh screen technology called Mediamesh®. The panel is made of linear tubes filled with LED nodes that provide the “pixels” for a large-format display mesh. Only ¾” thick, the mesh panel is 70 percent transparent and incredibly durable.  Distributed by A2aMEDIA, the 700-square-foot digital Mediamesh screen represents the first use of this technology in North America, and its first use in a fine art—rather than a commercial—context.”

Very cool!

The great poppyseed strudel competition

Finding strudel is not easy as it once was, and although occasionally one can find apple or cherry strudel, or even cheese, you have to already been initiated into the habit of poppyseed strudel to even ask for it.

I headed up to the Hungarian pastry Shop on 110th and Amsterdam and ordered a slice that immediately induced a proustian serotonin release.

The pastry shop’s poppy seed strudel was as I remembered it — with some raisins in it, dense, intense, and transcendental. But I found the strudel itself, the pasry shell not so great — a little tough and not flaky enough.

Once upon a time Second in the 80s was host to a whole host of Hungarian stores and restaurants, places like Paprika Weiss, and its competitor Paprila Roth, and Mocca restaurant. But today they are all gone.

However, as Nora Ephron noted in a New York Times Op-Ed piece, a new Hungarian restaurant has opened there — it;s called Andre’s Cafe and it’s a branch of a Queens establishment called Andres Bakery.

I visited it on Seocnd Avenue between 84th and 85th street — it’s a hole in the wall– a long narrow alley of a restaurant — but it serves all the favorite dishes. Ephron has raved about their cabbage strudel. But I was there for the poppy strudel.

The poppyseed was very moist and rich — and the pastry was flaky in the extreme. But If I had to choose between the two, I would have to make a solomonic decision and say that I prefered the popyseed strudel filling at the Hungary Pastry shop, and the covering and whole experience of the strudel at Andre’s.

In either case, I’m guessing that my blood levels now include a high dose of poppy (which reminds me of the Seinfeld where they flunk the drug test because of eating a poppy bagel).

more pics of NY: downtown becomes centra; the WTC seems to have moved further north and east

Here’s a shot of the new Highline — which I took from a terrace at the downtown Standard Hotel — and let me say that corner of New York is still hopping — not sure how much biz the retail shops are doing but with the Chelsea markets and the Gansevoort Hotel, the Standard, and Pastis and the other restaurants — I’m just waiting for the Melrose Place like show set there.

I also found myself down by the site of the former WTC — I had gone downtown to see the exhibit on Irene Nemerovsky (of Suite Francaise) at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which I found as fascinating as her life was tragic (I am on record as being not a huge fan of her novel, but the exhibit does a great job of presenting the facts on her life and leaving it to the viewer to decide how they feel about her choices and her work.).

Anyhow, a whole new neighborhood has grown in Battery Park and the Financial district has become residential so strollers abound and people shlepping groceries and all of it is quite strange — which led me to being suprised when I came upon the WTC site to find that it now stood north and east of where it resided in my memory (which is to say in my mind’s eye it stood at the edge of Manhattan  but there’s been so much development around it that that’s no longer true.

the 12 step Buddhist

The gym that I work out at (when I work out) is often visited by persons who are in the process of detox or recovery, former strung out dudes and junkie girls.

This morning the girl on the machine next to me was busy reading a book called “The 12 step Buddhist” — can’t say why but that tickled me and I thought I’d share….

Spies, Celebs, Classics and More — Good Reads are Coming Up

Among the most daunting questions I’m often confronted with is: “What should I read next?” Recently, I traveled to the depths of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York for BookExpo 2009, the annual American Bookseller’s gathering, where I crisscrossed the convention floor, Indiana Jones-like, to gather publishers’ catalogues and advance-reader copies of so [...]

Design with a ?Z? (Lajos Kozma and Szalon)

Lajos Kozma. Photo courtesy Szalon Can a piece of furniture convey the story of Hungarian Jewry or reveal the genius of a little-known master? The story of a career undercut by anti-Semitism and cut short by death? This weekend’s “Legends of La Cienega Design Walk” (May 7-9) offers a celebration of design through lectures, panel discussions, book [...]

JEWBALL: From First NBA Basket to Major League Umping

Who knew? Who knew that basketball has a storied Jewish past, or that a non-sports guy like me would ever read, no less enjoy, a book about baseball umpires, Bruce Weber’s “As They See ‘Em” (Scribner, 2009)? Maybe it’s because Passover is a time of miracles - or is that Chanukah? Or Purim? Or the entire [...]

City of Images

Los Angeles has long held a fascination with the visual; beholden to looks, surfaces and images, it is a city where even the buildings seem to strike a pose. So it might seem surprising that until now, there’s never been an institution here devoted to photography. But that all changes this week with the opening [...]

Laud the Life of Sid Grauman, Hollywood?s Gold Standard

Ever wonder how the movie industry went from five-cent nickelodeons in New York to the glamour of Hollywood with red carpet premieres and the highest of artistic aspirations? Or why a certain pagoda-like Hollywood movie theater in whose courtyard rest footprints of actors is one of the most beloved and frequented tourist sites on the [...]

Zap! Pow! Bam!

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s two Jewish kids from Cleveland! The fact that Superman, the defender of truth, justice and the American way, as created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, was not so much from Krypton as, in the words of cartoon artist Jules Feiffer, “from Planet Minsk,” [...]

Holocaust Movies: Winners & Losers

“The Reader” Are Holocaust movies good for the Jews? Or even, for that matter, for society at large? This year’s offerings include “Defiance,” a story of a group of Jews who were heroic resistance fighters; “The Reader,” a story of post-war revelation about a Nazi woman who beds down with a German boy; “Good,” about the moral [...]

Tom is?. (facebook and my generation)

Tommywood is … Tom is … on Facebook. Aren’t you? If you read this column online and are not on Facebook, you will soon be. The Facebook wave has now washed over my generation, the “late baby boomers.” In the last two months, the number of people in my crowd who have just joined or who [...]

?Breakdowns? & The ?Maus? that roared (or Art Spiegelman through the looking glass)

Art Spiegelman, the cartoonist whose graphic memoir, “Maus,” won a Pulitzer Prize, was in town recently to promote a reissue of “Breakdowns,” a collection of his underground comics work first published in 1978. As Spiegelman pointed out to me, his name in German means “Mirror Man” (mine means “Pond-wood”) — and revisiting “Breakdowns,” now subtitled, “Portrait [...]

The Grammy Museum: The Culture We Keep

The Elgin Marbles, the Rosetta Stone, the Venus de Milo, Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” Pete Seeger’s banjo, the handwritten lyrics to Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message.” You might wonder what all these cultural artifacts have in common. But as of Dec. 6, they can all be seen in museums — the last two [...]

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