Kentucky Derby 2010—ever bittersweet

I enjoy the strategy, teamwork and real poetry of a horserace like today’s imminent Kentucky Derby on which I’ve indirectly blogged previously. Jockey Calvin Borel has won me over. This aerial view of his 2007 victory is spectacular and a personal thrill, as is his 2009 victory. I could never tire of watching either. I see great instruction in these races about life, perseverance, odds, and strategy in general. But not without real personal conflict. I do think horses necessarily undergo excessive stresses and abuse. Distanced patrons see nothing of the business or of that leading to the 2 “glorious” minutes of the ultimate race for which the horses’ very conception plus their entire lives have been managed.  Absent humans’ aim at sheer entertainment—as distinguished from fundamental livelihood—they surely wouldn’t be groomed for or in these races and put at the inherent risk.

UPDATE (the sweet): CALVIN BOREL DID IT AGAIN! HE DID IT AGAIN! OH MY!

worthy digressions: visual artist Jack Vettriano

I’m in love. In Jack Vettriano I’ve happened upon a visual artist whose formally untrained hand, Hopperesque utilization of light and smoldering love of women can well pause the breath.

I’m a sun worshipper—plus light sensitive. Natural and diffuse light are a preference in reading, working, photographing and living—I’d fare poorly in a home that faced north.

Sub digression: So oddly, my favorite painting in the whole wide world is Vincent van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters. A dark extinguishing painting where theatrics of shape aesthetically exceed those of light–a genre departure–I linger in it. Nothing has more caught me in impressionism than van Gogh’s renderings of peasant life.

back to light: Vettriano’s use of light also calls up my light tropisms impressively. It’s transformative. He relocates you and instigates a kind of motion picture ideation. Images move. Something’s alive, dynamic, imminent and atmospheric. Vettriano gets light and in so getting delivers aromatic paintings of abject retinal bliss.

I’m glad to learn of Vettriano’s work, I’m glad he was given a first painting set, and I’m glad this contemporary Scot gave up mining engineering to paint.

Enron on Broadway this April (how about the Met?)

So Columbia pictures picked up movie rights last fall and Enron the musical is a hit currently running in London with a slated American Broadway debut in April. Nancy Coyne and Matthew Serino of Serino Coyne, Inc. are of course the contracted marketers. Oh Enron. Why stop there? Surely there’s enough tempestuousness, euphoria, and damnation here for the Met.

I’m all for the succinct but those who reduce Enron to a simple story of greed are wrong. It’s more. Greed is everywhere; Enrons aren’t.

• Enron is a story of how fabulously packaged, visionary, anointed and touted tragic figures can be.
• It’s a story of free market fail—Transparency: FAIL. Board check: FAIL. FASB and mark-to-market accounting: FAIL. Auditor check: FAIL. Street valuations: FAIL. SEC check: FAIL. Corporate law: FAIL. Media check: FAIL.
• It’s a story of the village lie. The awakening to the fact that you’re a cult—he lied, they’re gone and so is all your stuff.
• Like a viral hijack of the host, it’s a story of escalating fever and hype’s displacement of the real. The madness of crowds. The delusion of brilliance and brilliance of delusion. The “fucking” qualifier—as in “I’m fucking smart”, so said Jeff Skilling.
• It’s a story of strippers and Ivy Leaguers not only dining finely but fleeing on just-in-time jets.
• It’s about how to grow monsters: Reptilian-eyed drooling energy traders beautifully dreaming of California blackouts—because when you’re spanked and promoted for stealing from Enron, robbing California is a line extension.
• It’s a story of heartache. Demotions of the right. Promotions of the sick. Homicidal ideation. Nervous breakdowns on New York streets. Heart attacks. Suicidal ideation. Handcuffs. Rises. Foreclosures–of dreams and homes. In-group injury-laden dangerous weekend motorcycle treks. Weight loss. The sublime. Death spirals. Pep rallies. A ride. From Fortune 7 to zero.
• It’s a story of capitalism, a whole modern civilization’s preoccupancy and dream and all the yuck-yuck + hallucinogenics + heroinesque desperation and ultimate sobriety therewith.
• It’s  debacle, human neuroses, unchecked testosterone, legerdemain, and the art of the lie at its modern finest.

Surely that’s worth some librettist’s pen, a score and 200 piece orchestra, a “And I’m Telling You Ken, We’re Screwed” Sherron Watkins aria, steely staging, costumery and heaping servings of Juilliard. By my judgment at least.

Comments from the 28-year-old playwright Lucy Prebble include these:

“When you’re in a bubble, you can actually be quite surreal because that’s what it’s like before it bursts,” says Prebble of the whimsical performances. “We thought we could get away with people breaking into song.”

Is she kidding? She could get away with certified magic tricks. Book-a-minute classics if it was “play-a-minute classics” would condense the whole play to a glass chest box full of money; hover over it with a black curtain and wave a baton; voilà! No money! Repeat.

“Enron” is her attempt to “show the show business of business.”

Yes.

“I had read a lot about Enron and I didn’t really understand it until I read her play.” —producer Laura Ziskin.

Fiction is the lie that tells the truth. So is the stage, but—as Serino Coyne taught me—in a group in the dark. Or if it’s opera, in a group in the dark, via the classically trained perfectionist bastion of the operatic princely, and our finest bitchery, donning furs and tuxes. My personal preference.

be cultured—know this

Today in the U.S. marks the first official day of what’s called Black History Month. One of the best kept (poorly marketed?) African American cultural secrets is the phenomenon of the black college glee club. There’s a reason they are among the few American musical entities that have performed for the Queen of England.  This classical tradition dates back to the earliest founding of many American historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and to their unique artistic microcultures. They can be all female, all male or mixed but in all cases their sound and especially their classical renditions of negro spirituals are among the most unique in the world.  This was enjoyed on facebook when I posted it. It’s a video of the Morehouse College glee club singing their famous rendition of Betelehemu. It’s an effective if scaled down traveling ensemble but with enough of the theatre of the full glee club. And the soloist is excellent.

health and fitness: belly dancing

I’ve worked out since forever. It’s a personal joy. I’ve always worked out hard since I don’t feel it otherwise. Despite my slender size I rarely see females lifting the weight that I lift which makes me think I’m naturally on the stronger side and am enduring workouts that are truly robust. I always end my workouts with a heavenly stint in the sauna at as close to 200 degrees F as possible.

Out of nowhere I’ve discovered a fine amendment to my workout constitution: belly dancing. I never would have considered this but thanks to the unparalleled streamer in the television and to the Discovery Channel’s Fit TV, I think I’m hooked. Belly dancing doesn’t require a partner, is thoroughly demanding physically, is creative, and it relates you very differently to your own physicality than does any weight movement or running. I think it’s great. It’s highly pelvis oriented—which hometown friend, fashion designer and photographer Martin Cooper of the [non-worksafe caution advised] Pelvis series would appreciate—it’s resplendently girly and beautifully meditative. I’m delighted to have discovered it as a workout option. I’m learning to do the basic Egyptian step, hip circles and the Turkish figure-eight. I can’t believe I’ve just discovered something that feels so correct. It’s an excellent start to the new year.

worthy digressions: Sarah Chang

Sarah Chang is my favorite violinist. A virtuoso who auditioned for Juilliard at age 5 and debuted with the New York Philharmonic at age 8, she was at age 9, the youngest violinist to ever record at the time.

It’s that time of year when you look forward to great live performances—like this one of Zigeunerweisen.

1939 American classic auto

You don’t often drive along and just happen upon a flawless 1939 American classic, but that’s what happened to me the other night. Getting hold of my senses I U-turned around the block and popped out to photograph this museum on wheels.

I haven’t been this throttled of my ocular senses since I sailed by Paul Allen’s Octopus, on the Venetian coast.  I felt the same sensation of “What is happening to me?” as the brain frantically searches for previous experiences to explain the current experience and comes up with nothing.  The frontward-narrowing hood reminds me of a tractor I saw on my great uncle’s farm.

The owner had apparently watched me circle back around and approached the car as I took the first picture. He was a businessman who owned a fleet of antiques as I learned, including a 1929 Rolls Royce. I swooned.

He showed me some more of his cars on his phone, including some used for a recent client in Carol’s Daughter. He was the first owner to pop the hood and show me the engine without my asking. He said the car used to run on moonshine and outrun the cops in its day. I love these stories. Like the rest of the car it was spotless. I couldn’t believe it was on the street. So taken with the sight and likely secure in having acquired the owner’s website address, I forgot to inquire of the exact make and model. The website includes a fleet of amazing classic and contemporary vehicles the latter of which the owner indicated he was liquidating due to a decline in demand through his limousine firm, but I couldn’t find this exact classic model.

worthy digressions: Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird Ballet Suite

Italian composers above others have understood strings, by my judgment. In opera, a personal passion, their compositions have grandly showcased the instrument—the violin—and what it was supposed to do more than have works of other composers. They just write differently for first violins. As a previous student of the violin under private tutelage of a talented German teacher and lifelong violin lover, I’ll humbly purport to be a nearly credible judge. It’s no coincidence that Italy is home to both La Scala and the Stradivarius.

I cannot doubt, however, the rapture in this stringed glory by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky whose non-operatic composition The Firebird Ballet Suite struck me like a blunt object upon first hearing. It didn’t help that the recording had been made at the acoustical wonder of the Concertgebouw. I was floored.

Splendidly composed, strings feature prominently. They’re the central nervous system. And they. Are. Magical.

This clip of Stravinsky conducting the Lullaby and Final Hymn, at 83 , is a glorious sample.