Imitation of Life is a flawed story: maudlin, unrealistic, shopworn and naïve, but it deals frankly with one of the most basic ironies of U.S. society, and that is the symbiosis between Europe and Africa in our culture: white and black. And at its core is an old primal fear of racist society; Blacks passing for Whites. We may not fear this so much as in the past, but it does make people of all races deeply uncomfortable to talk about. Perhaps that is what gives this story so much power in spite of (or perhaps because of) its glaring flaws.

Baldwin tells the story as a first person narrator, so we tend to identify the main character with the author of the story. But that would be a mistake. David, is not James Baldwin, not a hero or a victim and not able to tell the truth. It is for us to discover that David is, in modern parlance, a d*ck, incapable of caring about the people he hurts, and that he will probably continue to be a d*ck for as long as he lives.

A Christmas tree vendor in Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania. ca. 1994

This playlist is Tango 101, an intro to the musical genre across the decades, starting with the emergence of the international superstar Carlos Gardel in the 1920s through the golden age of orchestras of the 30s and 40s, with Anibal Troilo and Osvaldo Pugliese, to the personalized artistry of Susana Rinaldi and the great Astor Piazzolla to the latest reinterpretations and remixes of our contemporaries, such as San Telmo Lounge and Bajofondo.

It would be foolish to try to represent the totality of tango in one playlist, but let this 5 hour collection serve as an introduction to the century long tradition of this vibrant and heartfelt Argentine addition to Western culture. Enjoy and Disfrutad!

Berlin was where everything began. This city has always been good for new things. Not necessarily for beginners, but for all things beginning. The city had a magical attraction and it still does today, but it has changed. There’s a rather clichéd but nonetheless fitting quote that says Berlin never is, Berlin is only ever becoming. Still dishevelled by the war into the 1970s, unlike any other West German city, it really had become a symbol of survival and alternative living – in more ways than one. It’s now or never, was the motto of the city and its inhabitants, including those newly arrived in West Berlin.

The fascination many of us feel for modern traditions of indigenous inspired Latin American art is due to the powerful interplay of personal biographies, pre- and post-colonial histories, modern desires and temptations, religious traditions and the tragedy and hope of the human condition. That’s quite a lot …. and the richness of this artistic conversation gets expressed in an exuberant display of colors, artifacts, stories and magic.

Guadalupe Maravilla’s exhibit entitled Tierra Blanca Joven, is on view at the Brooklyn Museum until September 18, 2022, and it adds yet another layer of history and personality to the ever growing archive of works of this genre on public display.

‘Painting Abstracts’ by Rolina van Vliet is a great motivator but ‘Originality and individuality must always be your starting point.’ The exercises are a jump start to painting and give you a topic/idea to focus on.

I used the term in the article about Nora Eckert’s memoir Wie Alle Nur Anders, by describing Chez Romy Haag’s famed 1970s Berlin nightspot as a “transvestite club.” I was quickly informed by the local Pride Center, in a pronouncement that “The use of that word is a slur, no different than any other offensive racial, homophobic or religious slur.” My response to that message was “What word should I use instead? Be clear that we are talking about cis men performing in cartoonish “female” costumes for the amusement of straight audiences.”

Spotify playlist featuring many of Maria Tănase’s best known songs, both in her own original version and also as they have been reworked, remixed and covered by other musicians, especially in the recent past. She continues to inspire and to cast a powerful spell on traditional musicians in today’s Romania and beyond. Maria Tănase is the best known singer of traditional Romanian popular music. She passed away in 1963, but her influence on the genre is as strong as ever.

On March 25, 2022 an exhibit of the work of David Wojnarowicz opened at the P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York City. This installation takes a unique approach to his art, through the lens of his relationship with a special friend in Paris. The exhibit is entitled David Wojnarowicz, Correspondence with Jean Pierre Delage, 1979-1982. It includes letters, postcards, photographs and other ephemera that trace the intimate relationship between two young creative minds on opposite sides of the Atlantic and it gives us a new insight into the mind of Wojnarowicz as he refined his own art and struggled with the exigencies of everyday life.

‘Colour: a workshop for artists and designers’ by David Hornung is a comprehensive book organised in 10 parts with lots of beautiful illustrations. The first 3 parts explain colour theory, materials and techniques. Parts 4-9 are workshops with assignments and the last part ‘Colour studies on the computer, offers guidelines for doing most of the assignments in Adobe Illustrator’.

In February, 2021 Naxos Records released a recording of works by Ottorino Respighi as performed by the Chamber Orchestra of New York, which includes the first printed edition of the composer’s Second Violin Concerto “all’Antica.” This was just the latest installment of the Music Director, Salvatore Di Vittorio’s decade long project reproposition of the lesser known works of the great early 20th Century composer in a new way for new listeners.

My first memory of the Brooklyn Museum was that brutally truncated entrance. When I was 12 or so, my older sister had a boyfriend with a car. We would ride around Brooklyn in his Mustang and one day we drove up to the Brooklyn Museum. The Beaux Arts building was certainly awe-inspiring, but what were those forbidding stone walls that rose up out of the concrete sidewalk? Those high Ionic columns that started way up above your head and the statues that perched on blocks of granite as high as a house? Even with my limited experience, I knew something was wrong.

The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov, by Paul Russell, is a fascinating novel about Vladimir Nabokov’s brother, a man who lived a life at least as interesting as that of his more famous brother. Sergey began his life as a member of the St. Petersburg elite in Tsarist Russia, and along with Vladimir, experienced the revolution and exile at an early age. It is a familiar journey from privilege to poverty for this intellectual family, but we find in this fictionalized version of Sergey’s life, that everything takes on a different meaning when seen through his eyes.