Sci-fi Renaissance man Cosimo exits National Gallery of Art today (updated)

 

Piero di Cosimo, Liberation of Andromeda, c. 1510-1513, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

 

The work above is featured on the cover of the catalogue* for the Piero di Cosimo (1462-1522) exhibition at the National Gallery of Art which closes today. The rendering shows the mysterious and eccentric Italian Renaissance artist "at the height of his poetic powers," according to the wall label copy. Centered is the sea monster ordered by an angry and jealous Juno to devour the Ethiopian coast after that nation's Princess Andromeda was deemed more beautiful than Juno. 

 

Visitors to the National Gallery may see 44 of Cosimo's 56 known works (a National Gallery spokesperson said the remaining 12 were too fragile to travel) before the exhibition leaves for Florence where a variation will be hung at the Galleria degli Uffizi, a Cosimo show co-sponsor with the National Gallery.  It is the first time the Galleria has co-organized a paintings exhibition with another museum.

 

The last time Cosimo's paintings were exhibited in the U.S. was in 1938 when seven were displayed at Schaeffer Galleries in New York. 

 

 Gretchen Hirschauer, associate curator of Italian and Spanish paintings at the National Gallery of Art, said Cosimo spoke "in a wonderfully strange language all his own," and Giorgio Vasari, writing about 500 years ago in Lives of the Artists, mentioned Cosimo's "strangeness of his brain" who may have lived "more like a beast than a man" who "had by nature a most lofty spirit." Cosimo lived mostly on hard boiled eggs and was so afraid of fire he rarely cooked.  When he was an apprentice in 1481, he helped paint the Sistine Chapel.

 

In six galleries at the National Gallery of Art, his mythological and allegorical scenes, portraits, and altar pieces  capture the fancy of adults and children alike and can serve as an excellent introduction to art history with some bizarre combinations of animals, humans, and religious subjects to spark conversations like,  "What do you think he was trying to say?" and "What does it mean?" Please, sit by me a spell and let's talk about this early Salvador Dali.

Piero di Cosimo, Allegory, 1500 (?), National Gallery of Art, Washington, Samuel H. Kress Collection. 

The wall label copy for Allegory (above) says the winged woman becomes a human form of an idea, "the triumph of virtue over human passion."  Meanwhile, the mermaid at the bottom of the painting is supposedly a symbol of lust.  Is she searching for more victims?  Or, attempting to escape the angel who may overtake the siren? Let's discuss.

Piero di Cosimo, The Finding of Vulcan on Lemnos, late 1480s, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT. 

 

Above is Vulcan, the son of Juno (again!) who has been expelled from Mt. Olympus as a punishment for his mom's meddling in the Trojan War which Homer describes in The Iliad.  (Just in time for Mother's Day.  Welcome, son, to the Garden of Earthly Torments!)

Piero di Cosimo, The Adoration of the Child, c. 1490-1500, Toledo Museum of Art. 

Piero di Cosimo, Detail from The Building of a Palace, c. 1514-1518, Collection of The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the State Art Museum of Florida, Florida State University, Sarasota, Florida

 

Palace (above) was originally brought to the U.S. around 1890 as one of  a collection of 300 works hung in Alva Vanderbilt's "Gothic Room" in her summer residence, Marble House, in Newport, Rhode Island, according to the catalogue.*  Around 1927 the painting was sold to John Ringling whose museum was under construction at the time, rising from its own wilderness in the Florida swampland, and similar in many respects to Cosimo's Palace.  Cosimo was not recognized as the artist until after Ringling's purchase.

Piero di Cosimo, (above, left) Two Angels

c. 1510-1515, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; (above, right) Two Angels, c. 1510-1515, private collection, New York; (bottom) Madonna and Child with Saints Vincent Ferrer and Jerome, c. 1510-1515, Yale University Art Gallery. 

 

The three fragments above, now owned by different museums and collectors, were once part of an altarpiece Cosimo created for the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence.  The National Gallery's display is the first time they have been together in 100 years.  It is believed both sets of angels were separated from the original in the late 18th or early19th century, perhaps to sell to tourists.

 

Among the 40 private collectors and institutions which have loaned art for the exhibition are the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, the National Gallery in Prague, the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, the Louvre, the Superintendency of Cultural Heritage for the cities and museums of Florence and Rome, for Umbria, and the provinces of  Florence, Pistola, and Prato.

 

*A 240-paged color catalogue in hard and softbound is (update:  was) available. (The catalogue has sold out and re-printing at this time is unknown.)

 

What:  Piero di Cosimo: The Poetry of Painting in Renaissance Florence

 

 

When: Today, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. Sunday

Where: Main Floor, West Building, National Gallery of Art, between Third and Seventh streets at Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. On the Mall.

Admission: No charge

Metro stations: Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives, or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: 202-737-4215

patricialesli@gmail.com

On a 'Carousel' ride at the Olney

Carey Rebecca Brown (left) is Julie Jordan and Dorea Schmidt is Carrie Pipperidge in Olney Theatre Center's Carousel/Photo by Stan Barouh

Ladies and Gentlemen, round and round we go on the merry-go-round of life, hopping off every now and then to ponder, maybe make a change or two, and jump back on board to join the circus of life. 

Attention, theatre lovers:  If you haven't seen Carousel, this is a "must," and if you have seen it, you'll enjoy the music and story all over again at the Olney Theatre Center  with its largest ever orchestra (12 pieces, under the direction of Christopher Youstra) and a large cast, too.  (The big ones seem to be the most enjoyable.)

Cast members kick up their heels in Olney Theatre Center's Carousel while a newly departed resident watches from above/Photo by Stan Barouh

Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics) are on stage again, with another grand musical, not following the happy-go-lucky concept of most big-scale shows, but telling a story with a serious message.

Of those he wrote, Rodgers called Carousel his favorite musical, and Jason Loewith, Olney's artistic director and director for this production, says, in program notes, it's the "best musical yet written," a opinion similar to Time magazine's which called it the best musical of the 20th century.  (The Olney show is a celebration of the 70th anniversary of Carousel on Broadway.)

We welcome the enduring songs, "If I Loved You" and "When You Walk Through A Storm" which frame the drama of a carnival worker, Billy Bigelow, in the late 19th century who walks too far on the wild side while pursuing his love who becomes his wife, Julie Jordan, now expecting their first child.  Temptation and necessity lead Billy astray once more. 

Where does he land?

Domestic abuse, likely an unspoken issue when the play was brought to Broadway in 1945, is an underlying subject, skillfully woven throughout the presentation and one we hear plenty about now, with good reason.

With his rich, deep voice and strong presence, 
Tally Sessions was a booming Billy Bigelow when I saw Olney's Carousel, but he has since moved on to New York for School of Rock, replaced by Cooper Grodin, newly off the road as Phantom in, of the Opera). Carey Rebecca Brown is Julie whose delicate voice in many scenes does  not overcome the orchestra.  

Tally Sessions (left) as Billy Bigelow and Chris Genebach as Jigger in Olney Theatre Center's Carousel/Photo by Stan Barouh

 

A couple who play second-fiddle to Billy and Julie are the humorists and marvelous vocalists, Dorea Schmidt as Carrie Pipperidge and Eugenio Vargas as Enoch Snow, who court, marry and reproduce in grand fashion, delivering beautiful melodies and funny lines, which are welcome content.

A bad boy is as bad as his name sounds, Jigger (Chris Genebach), superbly convincing as the conniving scoundrel who tries to thwart one romance by stealing the girl, and enticing Billy to join him on the wrong side of the tracks. Does he succeed?

Tommy Rapley, the choreographer, created exquisite dances, especially the one for Billy and Julie's daughter, Louise (Maya Brettell), whose grace and style at the closing bring hope.

Costumes in beige and muted colors, designed in Victorian/Edwardian styles by Seth Gilbert, are faithful renditions of the time period.

Small lights which change colors outline large, almost complete circles, one inside the other, to carry the theme of the whirling carousel on which the orchestra, on a level above, plays. For most of the production a darkened stage sets the tone.

Other cast members are David Bascombe as Russell Sunday, Eileen Ward who is Mrs. Mullin, and Delores King Williams, Nettie Fowler.

The ensemble features MaryLee Adams, Ian Berlin, Gracie Jones, Christopher Mueller, Henry Niepoetter, Taylor Elise Rector, Leo Christopher Sheridan, Suzanne Stanley, Russell Sunday, Henry Barartz, Carlos Castillo, Joshua Dick, Simon Diesenhaus, Kevin Grieco, Griffin McCahill, and Nicholas Schaap.
The design team includes Milagros Ponce De Leon, scenics; Jen Schriever, lighting; Tony Angelini, sound; Zachary Borovay, projections; Ben Cunis, fight choreographer; and J. Morgan White, ensemble member and dance captain.

What: Carousel which is based on the play, Liliom, by Ferenc Molnar and adapted by Benjamin F. Glazer

When: Now through May 24, 2015 at 8 p.m., Wednesdays through Saturdays, with weekend matinees at 2 p.m., and a 2 p.m. matinee, Wednesday, May 6.   (Extended. Again.)

Where: Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832

How much: Tickets start at $38, with discounts for military, groups, seniors, and students. Recommended for ages 12 and up.

Duration: 2 hours and 40 minutes with one intermission.

Refreshments: Available for purchase and may be taken to seats.

Parking: Abundant, free, and on-site

For more information: 301-924-3400

For more reviews of Carousel and other plays, go to DC Metro Theater Arts.

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Pulitzer finalist 'Other Desert Cities' on stage in Vienna

Susan d. Garvey (on left), Kathy Ohlhaber, and Patrick David star in Other Desert Cities at Vienna Theatre Company/Photo by Matthew Randall

That Other Desert Cities was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2012 and won five Tony nominations is not surprising.  It's a critic's play.

Which demonstrates in living color that things are not what they seem, folks, even though you may think you know-it-all.

Sometimes a minor character can steal a show. 

Like Jessie Roberts who is Silda, the mother's half-crazed, alcoholic sister, with a personality amplified by her flyaway hair, apparel, and funny lines which bring much needed humor and balance to the somber tone and message heard all night.

What darkness lurks beyond? 

Other Desert Cities is a family affair with father (Patrick David) and mother (Susan d. Garvey) pitted (or so she thinks) against grown daughter, Brooke (Kathy Ohlhaber) whose brother Trip (Jeff McDermott) is along for the ride, to tell his sister just how self righteous she really is.

Their older brother, Henry, is dead, and the negative aftermath of his passing are borne by the survivors who blame each other.  They lash out with mean and heartless words, similar to what audience members may think about saying to their own family members from time to time (well, maybe, not quite so extreme), but refrain from uttering to preserve family peace, or what remains of it.  (That would not happen here, of course, since there would be no show!)

It's Christmastime at Polly and Lyman's, the parents, which adds even more stress to conditions, especially with the holiday arrival of their "me-me-me-me-me, it's all about me!" daughter. 

Would you be surprised to learn it doesn't take long for conflict to erupt? And that Polly and Lyman share conservative leanings which happen to be the opposite of Brooke's?  It's 2004 and the Iraq War is raging.  But, not too much is said about it.

From beginning to end, it's all about Brooke, and how she feels and is affected by the family's tragedy. Never mind offending anyone else.  Never mind considering that she's not the only one. What does that matter as long as her new book gets published that lays out the horrors of her brother's death and how her family deals with it?  "I'm as sorry I'm a writer as you are," she says.  Amen, sister.  She got no sympathy from me.

On this Christmas trip home, you'll observe no pauses, inactivity, or boredom. Just heartbreak and enlightenment about those you love.

The outstanding set (by Skip Gresko) is what's to be expected of wealthy landowners living in Palm Springs, California.  In their large Western-style house, the living room has a curving beige stone wall with fireplace (into which is tossed a marijuana cigarette that Silda covets) and big windows which look out on a splashy, orangy sunset which changes with the time of day, I suppose, but being hooked on the dialogue, I didn't notice.  (What does that say about the script?)

That the Washington, D.C. area is blessed with great actors is well known, and, under the direction of Rosemary Hartman, the Desert quintet is more proof.  Especially the performances by Ohlhaber, David, and Roberts who seem so natural in their roles, it's hard to imagine them off stage as anyone but Brooke, Lyman, and Silda. 

Vienna audiences always turn out for good shows. I've never attended a production here which did not appear to be a sellout.

With contemporary street talk, Other Desert Cities is not a production recommended for children. 

This will be the last of Vienna Theatre Company's productions for a while at the Community Center since the center's renovation will soon begin, but the theatre troupe will find other places to stage.  You can't keep a good company down. 

Other key Desert Cities crew members are:  Richard Durkin, producer; Gerald Kadonoff, assistant producer; Mary Ann Hall, stage manager; Tigan Hughes, assistant stage manager; Chris Hardy, lighting designer; Benjamin Allen, sound designer and composer; Susan Boyd, costume, hair, and makeup designer; Jocelyn Steiner and Mary Frances Dini, set dressers and props.

What:  Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz

When:  8 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays on April 24 and 25 and May 1 and 2, with 2 p.m. Sunday matinees, April 26 and May 3.

Where: Vienna Theatre Company,120 Cherry Street, Vienna, VA 22180 (Vienna Community Center)

Tickets:  May be purchased online (vtcshows@yahoo.com) or at the box office.

Admission:  $14

Parking: Lots of free parking on-site

For more information: 703-255-6360 or visit the website

To read other local reviews of shows still on the stage, click Other Reviews on DCMetroTheaterArts.

patricialesli@gmail.com
 

Rachmaninoff and Edgar Allan Poe star with the National Symphony Orchestra

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)/Wikipedia

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)/Wikipedia

 

My favorite composers were on the National Symphony Orchestra program Thursday night, and if you rush today, you can hear them tonight.

It was practically an all Russian evening, from the guest conductor, Vassily Sinaisky (who never used a baton), to composers Sergei  Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) and Alexander Borodin (1833-1887), to the vocalists, guest soprano, Dina Kuznetsova, and tenor, Sergey Semishkur.

Other nations represented on the platform, besides Americans who are members of the Choral Arts Society of Washington, the NSO, and Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), were guest tenor, Elchin Azizov from Azerbaijan, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) of Austria. 

Beginning the program was NSO's first performance of Borodin's Overture to Prince Igor, which began solemnly enough but soon gave way to vigorous double bass, building to a climax in a piece whose authorship is uncertain, according to the program.  (By day, Borodin was a professor of chemistry who had little time for composition, but around-the-clock he was an advocate of women's rights, founding the School of Medicine for Women in St. Petersburg.)

A NSO star, Loren Kitt, splendidly played the familiar but always welcome, Mozart's Concerto in A major for Clarinet and Orchestra, K. 622, in an almost nonchalant fashion, totally unruffled by the audience in front of him, and cleaning his instrument before he began, while the orchestra played on behind him.

The best composition of the night belonged to the second half of the program and Rachmaninoff's interpretation of Poe's The Bells: sleigh bells, wedding bells, alarm bells, and mournful bells, following life's trajectory, from childhood to adulthood to the grave, Poe's words augmented by those of Russian poet, Konstantin Balmont (1867-1942) as in "The Silver Sleigh Bells":

And their dreaming is a gleaming that a perfumed air exhales,
And their thoughts are but a shining,
And a luminous divining
Of the singing and the ringing, that a dreamless peace foretells.

From "The Mellow Wedding Bells":

Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of tender passion their melodious voice foretells!

From "The Loud Alarum Bells":

Yet we know
By the booming and the clanging,
By the roaring and the twanging,
How the danger falls and rises like the tides that ebb and flow

From "The Mournful Iron Bells":

What a world of desolation in their iron utterance dwells!
And we tremble at our doom,
As we think upon the tomb,
Glad endeavour quenched for ever in the silence and the gloom.

The beauty of The Bells was magnified by the voices of Choral Arts Society (under the direction of Scott Tucker and composed of 130 members, a few more women than men, my count) and the guests performers named above, so eloquent and professional in their deliveries, one could think of no better singers to be hired for such an occasion.

(Have you ever heard of the "celesta," one of three keyboards played in Bells?  Neither has Dorling-Kindersley, Limited, which published the Complete Classical Music Guide (2012) or David Pogue and Scott Speck, authors of Classical Music for Dummies (1997), who all omit the instrument defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as "a keyboard and metal plates struck by hammers (! (editor's addition)) that produce bell-like tones."  To the untrained, it makes sounds like one might imagine a grownup's toy piano would.  Delightful!  What a nice girl's name to bestow. Akin to "celestial.")

Who would have thought the night would become so glorious, and to think I just picked the performance for my #1 love, Rachmaninoff!

(Update:  At a later event I met a Russian scholar who told me if Poe were any other nationality besides American, he thought Poe would have been Russian, based on Poe's temperament. This was a man who said he read Poe's complete works every summer when he visited his grandmother.)

(Questions: Where were the floral arrangements usually found at the end of the aisles at the stage, and why were the first two rows of seats kept empty of concertgoers?)


What:  Borodin, Mozart, Poe, and Rachmaninoff

When:  Tonight, 8 p.m.

Where:  John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C.

Admission:  Tickets start at $10.

Duration:  About two hours with one 15 minute intermission

For more information: 202-467-4600

patricialesli@gmail.com

 

Lincoln assassins' gravesites in Washington and Baltimore

 

In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the death of President Abraham Lincoln,  volunteers on Saturday led tours at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. to the graves of several who were associated with the president's assassination in Washington on April 14, 1865, and his death the next day. A volunteer guide at the cemetery, Steve Hammond, quoted some who claim that because Ulysses S. Grant did not go with President Lincoln to Ford's Theatre that night, it was "one of the reasons Lincoln was assassinated....Grant's wife couldn't stand Mary Todd Lincoln."/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Looking towards the entrance of Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

Volunteer guide Steve Hammond talks about conspirator David Herold, hanged on July 7, 1865 for his role in President Lincoln's assassination.  Hammond said Herold is buried beneath this grave of Elizabeth Jane Herold at Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C., but Wikipedia says Herold has a gravestone at the cemetery:

 

On February 15, 1869, David's mother and 5 of his sisters interred his remains in Congressional Cemetery ( Washington, D. C. ) in an unmarked grave, next to the grave of his father Adam.^[6][7] The gravestone memorializing David now present in Congressional Cemetery was placed there in July 1917, at the time of the burial of his sister Mary Alice ( Herold ) Nelson (October 16, 1837 – July 1, 1917) in the cemetery. Mary Alice was the wife of Frederick Massena Nelson (January 1827 - May 11, 1909) of Pomonkey, Charles County, Maryland/Photo by Patricia Leslie

This is the grave of Charles Forbes, who "was someone who should have been fired," based on his actions (or inactions) on the day of the Lincoln assassination, said Steve Hammond, a guide at Congressional Cemetery, on Saturday.  Supposedly before he shot Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth gave Forbes his business card when he "walked up to Forbes and said something," but Forbes carried the remark with him to the grave. The marker (above) reads:  

 

"Charles Forbes

Died October 11, 1895

Age 60

Margaret Forbes

Died October 26, 1881

Age 53

Charles Forbes Served As

Personal Attendant

to President Lincoln

1861-1865

He Accompanied The

Lincolns To Ford's

Theatre On The Night of

April 14, 1865 And Was

Seated Just Outside The

Box When The President Was Shot. 

 

The Lincoln Group

of Washington, 1983

/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Peter Taltavull (1825-1881) owned the Star Saloon, next door to Ford's Theatre where John Wilkes Booth stopped for a drink of  whiskey and water shortly before the assassination, according to Taltavull's testimony at the conspiracy trial. After Lincoln was shot, the medical team briefly considered taking the president to Taltavull's saloon before the president was taken across the street to Petersen's boarding house. Taltavull's grave is at Congressional Cemetery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

John Wilkes Booth who assassinated President Lincoln, and two others associated with the assassination, Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Laughlen (O'Laughlin), are buried in Baltimore at Green Mount Cemetery where a chapel sits atop the hill/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The Booth Family plot, Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, MD, where John Wilkes Booth was buried in 1869.  His small unmarked gravestone with Lincoln pennies on top is almost in the center of the photo/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The unmarked grave of John Wilkes Booth in the Booth Family plot at Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, MD, where visitors leave Lincoln pennies/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 

Congressional Cemetery, 1801 E Street, SE, Washington, D.C. 20003, ph. 202-543-0539 

  

Green Mount Cemetery, 1501 Greenmount Ave., Baltimore, MD 21202, ph. 410-539-0641

 

 

 

 

 

patricialesli@gmail.com

 

Easter Sunday at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York

St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue, New York City/Photo by Patricia Leslie

St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in New York City can accommodate 3,000 persons, but on Easter Sunday, it was standing room only at the 10:15 a.m. service.

 

Dollars placed in the collection bags on the crowded day will help the church pay a portion of a massive renovation project estimated to cost $175 million.  The building's exterior and stained-glass windows are being cleaned, and improvements to crumbling brick and marble damaged by acid rain are underway.  Completion of the project is scheduled for this December, and $100 million has been raised. 

 

James Renwick, Jr. (1818-1895), who designed Washington's Smithsonian "Castle" on the National Mall and the Smithsonian Renwick Gallery, is best know for St. Patrick's, which he created in the Gothic Revival or neo-Gothic style.  The church cornerstone was laid in 1858 but the Civil War caused construction to cease shortly thereafter.  It resumed in 1865, and the cathedral was completed in 1878/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 

While an usher collects donations, the Archbishop of New York, His Eminence, Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan, prepares the incense at the 10:15 a.m. Easter Sunday service at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue, New York/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The Archbishop of New York, His Eminence, Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan, spreads the Gospel at the rear of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue, New York during the 10:15 a.m. Easter Sunday service/Photo by Patricia Leslie

St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue, New York/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The clergy takes a left turn at the rear of the church at the conclusion of the 10:15 a.m. Easter Sunday service at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue, New York.  This perspective looks in the main entrance where police blocked latecomers who formed a line for the next service.  Standing on church steps, latecomers had an elevated view of the finery in the Easter Parade underway on the street below. Seen on the right is an unknown Chinese message, one of few handwritten signs observed in the area/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 

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The 2015 Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue, New York

In your Easter bonnet/Photo by Patricia Leslie

With all the frills upon it (Darling, height means everything in the Easter Parade!)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

You'll be the grandest fellow in the Easter parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

I'll be all in clover/Photo by Patricia Leslie

And when they look you over/Photo by Patricia Leslie

I'll be the proudest fellow in the Easter parade (See the giant butterfly?)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

On the Avenue (There's a swan in here somewhere)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Fifth Avenue/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The photographers will snap us/Photo by Patricia Leslie

And you'll find that you're in the rotagravure (?)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Oh, I could write a sonnet/Photo by Patricia Leslie

About your Easter bonnet/Photo by Patricia Leslie

And of the girl I'm taking to the Easter parade/Photo by Patricia Leslie

In front of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue, New York/Photo by Patricia Leslie

In front of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue, New York/Photo by Patricia Leslie

In front of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue, New York.  He forgot his bunny ears/Photo by Patricia Leslie

In front of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue, New York/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A bonnet of recycled magazines/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 

With apologies to Irving Berlin.