Monday, May 27, 2024
Falls Church cheers 'Citizens Against Gun Violence'
Friday, May 10, 2024
Oppenheimer's biographer Kai Bird at the Aspen
At a talk at the Aspen Institute earlier this month with Kai Bird, the co-author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, moderator Marie Arana revealed a story she had heard that day after talking with her brother George.
When he was a student at Princeton University, George was sometimes called upon to read to Oppenheimer (1904-1967) during the last weeks of the scientist's life as the "father of the atomic bomb" lay bedridden.
The readings were selected by "Kitty," Oppenheimer's wife who chose selections on ancient history.
Here! Here! The audience cried: There's a book there! We want a book! (Another one.)
But we came to hear Bird talk about his book he wrote with Martin J. Sherwin (1937-2021) and Arana interviewed Bird as part of the Klein Book series.
Kai Bird and Marie Arana at the Aspen Institute, May 6, 2024/By Patricia Leslie
The readings were selected by "Kitty," Oppenheimer's wife who chose selections on ancient history.
Here! Here! The audience cried: There's a book there! We want a book! (Another one.)
But we came to hear Bird talk about his book he wrote with Martin J. Sherwin (1937-2021) and Arana interviewed Bird as part of the Klein Book series.
She said the film "does a good job, but doesn’t do the thorough job of the book."
Bird FOIAed the FBI about Oppenheimer and received 8,000 pages in return while Sherwin received 50,000 pages.
For a long time, he resisted writing the book with Sherwin because “co-authoring is notoriously filled with pitfalls“ but "Marty" kept pushing.
He was "very nice and very funny," Bird said and Sherwin told him that if Kai didn’t help, Sherwin's gravestone would read: "He took it with him."
It was a “wonderful collaboration" and the book came out in 2005, winning some prizes but never making it to the bestseller lists until the movie came out.
It was a “wonderful collaboration" and the book came out in 2005, winning some prizes but never making it to the bestseller lists until the movie came out.
It's an "amazing miracle" what’s happening to this 19-year-old book now, Bird said. It's become an international bestseller.
Bird and Arana have been friends for 30 years, both raised overseas and both, familiar with “”global spin."
Bird said he was a “fugitive" in his own country, ignorant about America but biographies led him to knowledge about the U.S.
The book took him and Sherwin 10 years to write, "a really long time," because "I couldn't stop researching....You get obsessed" with resources. (While he was working on Oppenheimer, he also was working on other books.)
Bird said he was a “fugitive" in his own country, ignorant about America but biographies led him to knowledge about the U.S.
The book took him and Sherwin 10 years to write, "a really long time," because "I couldn't stop researching....You get obsessed" with resources. (While he was working on Oppenheimer, he also was working on other books.)
He gave important details about Oppenheimer's life when the scientist was growing up, but he reserved most of his talk to the "tragedy" that belonged to Oppenheimer.
The "father of the atomic bomb" was a mysterious young man, “very bright" who gave a lecture to the New York Minerals Society at age 10, an age unknown to the group when it invited him but which kept its invitation after learning of his age. The audience laughed.
The "father of the atomic bomb" was a mysterious young man, “very bright" who gave a lecture to the New York Minerals Society at age 10, an age unknown to the group when it invited him but which kept its invitation after learning of his age. The audience laughed.
Oppenheimer was “nerdy," "endlessly mysterious," “awkward with women," and "painfully conflicted" about his achievements.
The McCarthy era did its dirty deeds, stripping him of his security clearance as a suspected spy and accused him of being unfaithful to his wife. He became a broken man, disinvited by universities to speak. The FBI tapped his attorney's phone.
“They destroyed him" who "became the chief victim of the McCarthy era."
The McCarthy legacy has endured, Kai said, because we are still suffering the effects in the person of Donald Trump, an observation which brought approval from most in the audience.
He mentioned Trump's relationship with Joseph McCarthy‘s chief attorney Roy Cohn which haunts us today. Perhaps he was joking when, to audience laughter, he said his next biography would be about Cohn.
To ensure the science in the book was accurate, the authors sought the guidance of Jeremy Bernstein, a quantum physicist and New Yorker writer who corrected language.
The McCarthy era did its dirty deeds, stripping him of his security clearance as a suspected spy and accused him of being unfaithful to his wife. He became a broken man, disinvited by universities to speak. The FBI tapped his attorney's phone.
“They destroyed him" who "became the chief victim of the McCarthy era."
The McCarthy legacy has endured, Kai said, because we are still suffering the effects in the person of Donald Trump, an observation which brought approval from most in the audience.
He mentioned Trump's relationship with Joseph McCarthy‘s chief attorney Roy Cohn which haunts us today. Perhaps he was joking when, to audience laughter, he said his next biography would be about Cohn.
To ensure the science in the book was accurate, the authors sought the guidance of Jeremy Bernstein, a quantum physicist and New Yorker writer who corrected language.
Oppenheimer was "quite handsome in a magnetic way" who attracted women.
His met his wife "Kitty" when she was 27 and married for the third time but horsewomanship on a trip sealed their relationship.
His met his wife "Kitty" when she was 27 and married for the third time but horsewomanship on a trip sealed their relationship.
Their son Peter is now in his 80s, "traumatized by the events of 1964." He never went to college but became a carpenter. Peter has three children and lives in Santa Fe.
Their daughter Tori, born in 1944, is "portrayed very well in the movie," according to Bird. She spoke Russian, French, and Spanish and wanted to become a translator at the UN but the FBI would not give her clearance. She moved back to the family's home on St. John Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands where she built a cabin and committed suicide at age 32 after a fight with her ex-husband.
Their daughter Tori, born in 1944, is "portrayed very well in the movie," according to Bird. She spoke Russian, French, and Spanish and wanted to become a translator at the UN but the FBI would not give her clearance. She moved back to the family's home on St. John Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands where she built a cabin and committed suicide at age 32 after a fight with her ex-husband.
In his homespur and down to earth style, Bird answered a few questions after his talk with Arana.
Years were spent trying to clear Oppenheimer's name from the tainted roster of the McCarthy era, and finally, President Joe Biden's secretary of energy, Jennifer Granholm achieved the almost impossible in December 2022 seven months before the movie was released, when she vacated the revocation of Oppenheimer's security clearance.
Years were spent trying to clear Oppenheimer's name from the tainted roster of the McCarthy era, and finally, President Joe Biden's secretary of energy, Jennifer Granholm achieved the almost impossible in December 2022 seven months before the movie was released, when she vacated the revocation of Oppenheimer's security clearance.
Oppenheimer admired the poetry of T.S. Eliot, a few lines from his poem Gerontion which Arana spoke to close the event:
Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.....
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use it for your closer contact?
I must confess I have neither read the book nor seen the movie and now, can't wait to do both.
patricialesli@gmail.com
Thursday, May 2, 2024
Highly recommended: 'Your Table Is Ready'
Drugs, sex, rock ‘n’ roll… And would you like some food with that?
That pretty well sums up the first half of Your Table Is Ready by Michael Cecchi-Azzolina.
If you can get past the initial soft porn (if that turns you off or on), this is one fascinating, fun book to read, especially if you are a New Yorker and you eat.
Even if you're not a New Yorker, it's still a good read.
It's behind-the-scenes descriptions of what goes on at New York's fanciest restaurants, many managed and run by the author who had first-hand experience how they serve 'em up and save the best seats for the most money and cave to the reviewers.
Everyone knows what the reviewers look like, right? You'd better. Stand guard, everyone, and turn on your earbuds for the first alert..err, warning: They are here!
Who knew there was so much sex in restaurants? Only in New York City? I kept plugging away and gave it a few more pages before my appetite was whet.
Surprise! Advance money makes a difference! Slip the maître d' an easy $100 bill (in the 80s and 90s; better up the ante now) and sit at whatever grand table they seat you.
Who cares about reservations when it comes to money?
The most famous arrived, like the hucksters Cecchi-Azzolina knew: Ivanka Trump, Trump, the mob, the FBI and more.
Many times I laughed out loud at this fast-paced, detailed description of what's happening behind the bar.
Cecchi-Azzolina writes that 98 percent of the guests are fine, but it's the other two percent that "we in the business hate."
Where do you stand?
Sex drugs and maybe some food, too, at New York's finest are what it's all about. Read it and eat!
patricialesli@gmail.com
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Jamie Wyeth at Chadds Ford
Jamie Wyeth in front of Roots, Revisited, at Brandywine Museum of Art, March 15, 2024/By Patricia Leslie
A prize to whomever named the newest Jamie Wyeth exhibition at the Brandywine Museum of Art, Unsettled. It is that and much more.
It is dark, foreboding and one can't help but wonder if it is Wyeth's invitation to the grave. Little hope, enthusiasm or anything resembling "pretty" is found among the more than 50 paintings in this collection which spans almost 60 years (1964-2022). It falls in the manner of Mark Rothko who painted darks, and Van Gogh who painted black birds, both near the end of their lives, but Wyeth has been painting "darks" for decades.
Wyeth's collection represents a lot which is old, decaying, no more.
On March 15, 2024, he attracted about 25 members of the press who came to see his latest exhibition. He seemed shy and disquieted, not eager to talk but agreeable to it, perhaps pushed by his handlers to show up and draw the media, and it worked.
During his talk, he often referenced his wife, Phyllis, who died in 2019. From observations, it seems that they were very close and enjoyed a happy marriage. Jamie Wyeth said he works from four to six hours a day. "I have no hobbies," he said, but if you enjoy it, isn't "work" a hobby? Or is it the other way around?
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2013, Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, South Carolina. According to the label copy, this is a portrait of a ghost of the twin (?) of Jamie Wyeth's friend, Andy Warhol, who died in 1987.
This honors one of Jamie Wyeth's close friends, George A. "Frolic" Weymouth, one of the founders of the Brandywine Museum of Art, and its chairman for almost 50 years. Jamie Wyeth painted this the year George Weymouth died (1936-2016).
Jamie Wyeth (b. 1946), Deo du Pont Weymouth, c. 1966, gift of McCoy duPont (sic) Weymouth. Ms. Weymouth's son, George A. Weymouth, was one of the founders of the Brandywine Museum of Art.
N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), The Mysterious Island, cover illustration, 1918, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Hallock du Pont, Jr. Ceiling lights at the top reflect on the book jacket, many similar covers which N.C. drew to support his family. (For an excellent biography of N.C. Wyeth, read David Michaelis's book.)
Henriette Wyeth (1907-1997), Self Portrait, c. 1928, recent acquisition by the Brandywine River Museum of Art. Henriette Wyeth was trained by her father, N.C. Wyeth and later, at the Boston Museum of Art Academy and the Pennsylvania Academy of the FIne Arts. Her husband was Peter Hurd, chiefly known for his portrait of President Lyndon Baines Johnson who called it "the ugliest thing I ever saw," and rejected it. Hurd gave the portrait to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington with the agreement that it would not be displayed until LBJ left office (1969). You can see it today in the Hall of Presidents at the Portrait Gallery.
Carolyn Wyeth (1909-1994), N.C.Wyeth's Barn, 1974. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Wyeth. N.C. Wyeth was Carolyn Wyeth's father and first art teacher when she was 12, according to the label copy. She gave art lessons to her nephew, Jamie Wyeth, also when he was 12.
Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), Still Life, 1951, Brandywine River Museum of Art.
Looking dapper in stockings and knickers when he met the press, Jamie Wyeth's red sneakers matched the shoe color worn by Amanda C. Burdan, Brandywine's senior curator and organizer of the exhibition.
I have included notable works hanging on other floors at the museum which are not part of the exhibition but some drawn by Wyeth's father, grandfather, aunts and one by Thomas Hart Benton.
From Brandywine, the exhibition travels to:
Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME, July 4–September 29, 2024;
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC, November 27, 2024–February 16, 2025;
Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH, March 15–June 8, 2025;
and Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA, July 12–October 5, 2025
Rizzoli Electa has published a hardcover catalogue about the exhibition ($55).
The museum calls its newest show, "the art of visual storytelling. Fiercely independent in the face of prevailing art world trends, Jamie Wyeth stands apart in a shadowy and strange world of his own creation." Amen to that! Thank you, Jamie Wyeth.
For another post I have written about the Wyeths, please see:
Wyeth's 'windows' closing at the National Gallery of Art, Nov. 28, 2014
What: Jamie Wyeth: Unsettled
When: Now through June 9, 2024. 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Closed Tuesdays.
Where: Brandywine Museum of Art, One Hoffman's Mill Rd., Chadds Ford, PA 19317
How much: $20,adults; $18, seniors (65+); $8, children ages 6-18 and students with ID. Free for children ages five and under and members of the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art
For more information, call 610-388-2700
patricialesli@gmail.com
Saturday, April 13, 2024
Bob Schieffer's art at the Katzen
The artist from CBS and "60 Minutes" and more was there, of course, with his curator, Michael Beschloss, presidential historian, and a packed gallery at American University's Katzen Arts Center.
I can't call it an elbow to elbow crowd; it was more like cheek-to-cheek. You guess.
From left, Michael Beschloss, the curator; Jack Rasmussen, the director of American University's Katzen Arts Center; and Bob Schieffer/photo by Patricia Leslie, AP 6, 2024
Bob Schieffer, Paradise Lost, 2023 (detail). The label says: "The horrible fire that swept Maui was the perfect example of the new threat that extreme weather now poses."
For 87 years old (! where does time go?), Bob Schieffer paints well, mixing mostly non-fiction subjects in a collage fashion in large-sized works. His colors are bold and brassy; his style is mostly realism with some impressionism (Election Night, 2020 and the celebration in Lafayette Park, my favorite). His portraits of celebrities (a startled Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, John Lewis, Amanda Gorman, John McCain, George Floyd) are unadorned.
Every time I look at his art, I find myself with growing admiration for his talent for it's obvious that he didn't first pick up a paint brush when he retired, but years ago when his grandmother taught him.
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Bob Schieffer, The Bump, 2020: "After Biden won, hundreds of celebrants poured into Lafayette Park to let the world know." 
Bob Schieffer, The Unforced Error: Leaving the Graveyard of Empire, 2021 (detail). Schieffer writes: "Unlike the American experience in VIetnam, Biden envisioned a dignified end to America's longest war. Instead it was a debacle."
It was cheek to cheek for the opening of Bob Schieffer's art exhibition at the Katzen Arts Center, American University/ Photo by Patricia Leslie, April 6, 2024
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Bob Schieffer, The Face of Evil, 2022: "This was the easiest painting to name. I have no idea who first painted it, only that is appeared on hundreds of signs carried by Ukrainians fighting the Russian invaders."
Schieffer has modeled many of his works on notable scenes and photographs, such as his Napalm Girl, a sad token of the 1973 Pulitzer Prize winning photograph, "The Terror of War," by Huynh Cong "Nick" Út. Growing up during the Vietnam War, I hate to be reminded.
Bob Schieffer with Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson with a Schieffer painting: Cassidy Hutchinson: Profile in Courage. Ms. Hutchinson testified before the January 6 Committee about Trump's actions on January 6 and, on another day, she helped a White House valet clean catsup off a wall where someone had thrown it. Who in the White House eats catsup and has temper tantrums?/Photo by Patricia Leslie, April 6, 2024
Bob Schieffer with Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson at the exhibition opening/Photo by Patricia Leslie, April 6, 2024
There's a painting of Maggie Haberman smiling. Maggie Haberman smiles? Since when did she smile? She's spent so much time with Trump, she's become schooled in the Trump Center for Facial Expressions: "Never smile." (He's also pictured scowling in front of St. John's Church.)
Bob Schieffer, Journalism 101 featuring Maggie Haberman
Bob Schieffer, The Irony of War, 2022-2023 (detail) with the label: "Russian and American astronauts returned to Earth after working together for a year in space, something no longer possible back home."
A large crowd turned out for the opening of Bob Schieffer's art exhibition at the Katzen Arts Center, American University/Photo by Patricia Leslie, April 6, 2024
Celebrities at the event included Gloria Borger, Judy Woodruff, Al Hunt, Gloria Bohan, Christine O'Dwyer, Mary Gotschall and Bruce Guthrie.
Most of the women wore Washington Safety Black with the exception of Norah O'Donnell in a matching rose pink jacket and pants, and Cassidy Hutchinson in a spring garden dress.
Jake Tapper reportedly showed up in a Phillies jersey after a game between the Nationals and Philadelphia who won.
Mr. Schieffer laughed (and the crowd laughed with him) about all the talk about presidential candidates being old: He would love to be 80 again!
In the artist's statement posted on the wall, he wrote that his interest in an exhibition started in early 2020: "What I soon understood was that Covid was just the beginning. One crisis after another settled over a society already reeling from the pandemic."
The title of the show, Looking for the Light, originated with Amanda Gorman's poem delivered at President Biden's inauguration. Schieffer: "I found hope in a dark and dangerous time."
On April 20 from 2 - 3 p.m., Mr. Schieffer and Jack Rasmussen, the AU museum director, will give a talk (with perhaps Curator Beschloss on hand; the website is unclear). Go here to sign up at Eventbrite. Signed catalogues will be available.
WHAT: Looking for the Light
WHEN: Through May 19, 2024, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday
WHERE: Katzen Arts Center at American University, 4400 Mass. Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016-8031
ADMISSION: Free!
PARKING: Garage parking is free on weekends and after 5 p.m., weekdays. Paid parking is available, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., weekdays.
patricialesli@gmail.com
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