Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.
Brooklyn-based artist Stephanie Costello’s most recent drawing literally sprinted on to the page in a single week, insisting on appearing in brilliant color on her return from this summer’s Rio Olympics where she got to see Usain Bolt run. That might have sparked the exhilaration that brought her Track and Field to life on paper in a way that broke the established “rules” of her painstaking style of pen and ink drawings in black and white. Both would likely have come as a surprise to her and her followers who can see and purchase her work through the Flat-file program at Pierogi Gallery.
She describes her art as inspired by the places she has lived and traveled, citing Italo Calvino as “a special ally.” His book, Invisible Cities, sets a theme she follows, namely, walking the line between real and imagined worlds, between abstraction and representation.
“Rio2016,” pen and acrylic on paper, 16″ x 13,” 2016
A comment on her recent voyage of discovery to Rio described how she fell in love with the visual culture of Rio, and how her time there moved her to try to capture the emotion of triumph and the delicacy of loss in her two most recent works. The friend she accompanied to the city lost his chance to compete in the 100-meter sprint due to a hamstring injury. She captures the complex experience in these words, “I think all cities are visual representations of that dichotomy (between opportunity and deterioration) in the urban environment. The Olympics in Rio were somehow the epitome of everything I’ve been trying to choreograph in my work.”
By contrast to Track and Field, her City Palace, evolved over a period of two months, as she spent 30 hours per week for a total of 200 hours. That work began its life in the Indian town of Udaipur in the Rajasthan region some ten hours from Mumbai. Like much of her work it began with walking the streets sketching and photographing impressions of what she saw as a tiered “Wedding Cake City” with its lake creating the after image of a floating city. But then “Steph” is nothing if not surprising. The story of why that is so is one I learned in a conversation last week that took me to a nearby “urban village” accessed by telephone and the internet and an artist as open to discovery as she is structured in her drawings.
What our conversations suggested is that Stephanie’s artwork cannot, in fact, should not, be seen as separate from the rich tapestry of her whole life adventure.
Drawing in Istanbul, Turkey, 2013
Sensing a fascination with urban subjects, I asked Steph if she considered herself an urban artist. Her answer was as textured and intriguing as her drawings. “I’m not sure if I would describe myself as an ‘urban artist’ I certainly draw much inspiration from the urban environment, but the ‘urban’ label can be tricky. I do not make street art, but I am inspired by the streets, if that makes sense.”
She went on to describe how her love affair with her adopted neighborhood continues to evolve. It moves from an apparent passion to enter into the place where she lives on levels as varied as the places and the people she invites into her life as they invite her into theirs. No artist as island for Stephanie!
“The fact that I am a part-time bartender at a neighborhood spot in Brooklyn, and have managed to create a network of friends and neighbors, has given me opportunities to teach, to create murals, and to commission works of art.” She has done murals for a few Brooklyn restaurants and bars, and last summer, a large project in Las Vegas for a friend (the NBA player and former Brooklyn Net, Alan Anderson).
“If its Magic,” 2015, pen on paper 22″ x 30″
Inspired by the people of her neighborhood of friends, she has created album cover art, custom t-shirts, and painted storefront signage as parts of her portfolio. Her website of side projects includes an intricately crafted drawing of a rhinoceros. Her “well of course” description of the image she created to capture the symbol a Haitian-born doctor chose for his practice includes his hope that the iconic drawing would speak of strength and vitality and incorporate Caribbean and South American favelas. The central symbol of a ring is at the heart of the work she created to celebrate the wedding of two friends in Chicago. A work that I saw as symbolic of her crossing from Manhattan’s lower east side to her current urban village, features a stylized Manhattan Bridge. Its name, If it’s Magic, is from a track in the Stevie Wonder album Songs in the Key of Life.
It is evident that gift and giver are fully interwoven in her work with Bed-Stuy middle school students in an after-school art program. She learned of it from Bed Stuy friends she met as bartender in the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy “urban village” in which she has put down the roots from which her creativity grows. One of the students Steph came most to admire is the one who showed her the other side of her own highly disciplined and structured approach to doing art. What her student taught her was the lyrical approach that gets to a creative breakthrough by seeming always to question whether G to A to D might be even more interesting than a standard A to B to C approach. She might borrow the lyrics from Anna in The King and I and say, “As a teacher I’ve been learning….”
And what of the role her other avocation, bartending in one of her neighborhood’s magnet locations? I asked if her art is enriched by what some see as the bartender’s access to the revelations associated with psychotherapy? She mulled that over and concurred that her patrons reward her with unexpected insights. She illustrated with a story about how John Ruskin learned of the beauty of the green grass of the English countryside simply by savoring/letting it into his senses of sight and touch. That might match with the bartender’s non-judgmental listening that tends to turn up fresh and honest insights.
And so, every day, the choreography continues!
Opening photo: “Track and Field,” pen, acrylic, and cut paper on paper. 22″ x 16,” 2016
For starters, remember that Manhattan is my urban village and the reason a friend who lives in South Carolina recently said to me when I told her this story, ”It wouldn’t surprise me if you said you had run into Queen Elizabeth II in Bloomingdales on Thursday.” But seriously, a few weeks ago I encountered a remarkable gentleman (and I use that noun as an accurate observation, not simply a conversational platitude.) The encounter taught me two things well worth remembering.
The first one. On the day of the anonymous encounter, I did not recognize the gentleman although he is a person with a considerable public profile. But that was all to the good. It reminded me in a forceful way that impressive people’s power to impress you is at its best when it comes from the simple experience of their presence, or their aura. and not from their resume. (That in turn echoes the brilliant writer David Brooks’ distinction between resume virtues and eulogy virtues described in his book The Road to Character.) But back to the encounter. The gentleman and I had a lighthearted exchange and went our separate ways, chuckling. When the lightbulb went off hours later, I thought to Google the name that had dawned on me might identify the “gentleman.’ It did.
As I read the Google results, I learned that the until-then-unnamed “gentleman” was, among a long list of accomplishments and achievements, a “Polyglot.”
That led to the second thing I learned that day, as I thought, “He’s a what?” There are a number of little used or seldom encountered words that sound vaguely uncomplimentary. Polyglot is definitely one of them. It’s the kind of word that when used in relation to someone you are inclined to admire, you want to say, “He’s a what?” At that point you may (or may not) be rescued by a couple of commas or parentheses. In this case, the designation “polyglot” was followed by the explanation that the “gentleman” has mastered a remarkable number of foreign languages. A polyglot’s “parenthetical” reads like this: XXXX is a polyglot (who speaks 7 foreign languages). So I moved the word from the possibly minus column to the unquestionably plus one. And I smiled as I remembered how many times I had reminded clients of my marketing strategies practice that forming, establishing and repeating their “parenthetical” is at the very heart of their success in branding themselves, their products or their company.
It’s very helpful to make sure you take possession of a designation. For example, “Hymini, the world’s first handheld wind and sun powered generator, can power all your five volt devices.” Or: “Your Finland visit is likely to include Rovanemi, the town designed by Alvar Aalto and postal address for Santa Claus, in the Arctic Circle.”
But, back to the encounter with a thoroughly memorable polyglot. The second thing I learned the day I encountered him is that little used and rarely recognized words depend on their accompanying parenthetical every bit as much as a respected brand of floor coverings or decorative hardware or fine crystal collectibles.
So, if in the future you hear that Tom, Dick or Harry runs an eponymous retail operation don’t fear that the trio are running a family enterprise into the ground. With their parenthetical the trio come out as “Tom, Dick and Harry, (sons of the legendary retailer Selfridge, for example) are reinventing the eponymous London store into a 21st Century success story.
To save you puzzlement and time, here are a few “red flag” words you can know from the start are good news, not bad, when applied to a person you meet or read about. If moved to think he’s/she’s a what?, it could very easily have a happy ending and not a disenchantment. Pigney is a term of endearment for a girl that evolved from the Saxon word for girl. Pernoctation in ecclesiastical usage is a night vigil of prayer and meditation. (But just in case, watch out for an adoption of the term to suggest spending the night together, often not specifically for joint prayer). Ustulate or scorched, used as a $20 replacement for sunburned. An atoraxic, you can be happy to know does not (presumably) suffer from an eating disorder but is that happy human who is unalterably calm and without stress. Plenipotentiary got to be that upon appointment to a position from ambassador to a delegate so you don’t have to wonder if he does magic tricks like a prestidigitator might be likely to perform.
You scrabble players will have many more examples of recently discovered and/or little known words. And I hope you marketers will continue to gain an increasing understanding of the power of the parenthetical. But I doubt that any of you will have the very great pleasure I had this summer in encountering a polyglot whom I know also to be a champion of compassion.
On the first Sunday of August 2016, I made my way to the cul de sac at East 72nd Street to catch a glimpse of a parade that set off in 1844 and was scheduled to pass my viewing point around 10 that morning. For such a rare sight there were very few members of my urban village gathered to watch. But then, there are so many rarities and amazements in our every day. And many of them free to behold.
But first, let me answer the predictable questions in your mind: no it was not the passing of a ghost ship. And no, I wasn’t watching it courtesy of a time machine.
I had come to wave at some neighbors participating in the New York Yacht Club’s (NYYC) 160th cruise from New York City to Newport, RI, with additional stops in Oyster Bay on Long Island, Thimble Islands, CT, Fishers Island off the southeast coast of Connecticut, and Block Island, RI. Because one of those neighbors is as good a photographer as she is a sailor, you can join me here for a few visual/virtual highlights of one of New York’s continuing legends.
The annual custom began in 1844 and, accounting for this year’s being marked as the 160th, there were a few historic interruptions. The website of NYYC lists those as the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, and the assassination of New York Senator Robert Kennedy.
For the week that began this August 7, the participants were 137 yachts that traveled from harbor to harbor, stopping each night at a different location, living on the water. My neighbors explained to this landlubber that the yachts are rafted to each other, or to a mother ship, that provides them with meals, beverages, showers, laundry, clean towels, and other amenities the sea itself does not provide. Dinghies were their point to point transportation.
Some of the photos I saw when they were able to transmit them included two large buildings on green lawns, both of them iconic yacht clubs. The first in Oyster Bay and the second the NYYC’s “home port” in Newport. The modern house on Fishers Island, is owned by the Armstrong family. A friend of my neighbors arranged for them to visit that home’s spectacular gardens. So they had an additional “up close and personal” experience of the twin glories of land and sea.
From my vantage point on 72nd Street, I could not guess all the adventures that lay in store for the “sailors.” And because I was at a high point on land as the first vessels passed, I could not tell whether these neighbors could see me and some fellow urban villagers waving them off. (They could, and did.)
I had been told that the parade that started at the end of “my” island and made its initial way up the East River was arranged with a careful plan to accommodate sailing vessels, smaller and larger vessels capable of using either sail or motorized travel. Since the East River is a salt water tidal estuary with strong currents, all began the parade using motors. In fact, the U.S. Coast Guard requires all boats: sailboats, even canoes and kayaks, to use their engines, motors that allow them to travel at a speed of at least five miles per hour while navigating that river.
To my amazement, a large barge of the sort one sees every day on this river blocked my view as it made its way in the opposite direction, creating what I could only guess was a significant challenge for some of the parade’s smaller vessels.
But one of the things I learned from my “day at the parade” is that sailors are a hardy lot. And I learned too that I want to learn more of the venerable NYYC. I hope we can explore its history as portrayed in the unique West 44th Street Club House with its Beaux-Arts architecture featuring repeated images of a yacht’s stern, its art treasures, and relationship to the iconic America’s Cup.
All photos by Maureen C. Koeppel. Parade map by Brad Dellenbaugh
As Labor Day looms on the horizon it puts a spotlight on the new rules for wardrobe choices, and their correctness (or not) and together with memories of the just-ended Olympics reminds us how little clothing it now takes to be a winner. It seems the right time to take a fresh look at the quaint expression “Sunday Best.” It used to mean the “dress up clothes” you could wear to Church and be more or less assured that you would not stand out like a pesky weed in a garden of elegant predictability. Those whose worship was on a different, designated day of the week have traditionally been tolerant of the fact that the said “Best” was a no less demanding set of requirements for them and their fellow worshippers. A matter more of correctness than calendar, you might say.
Some of the genteel elements of the “Sunday Best” might have included a large hair bow, a collar and tie (remember when those weren’t just for weekdays, minus Friday, at your job in a corporate office that included both bricks and mortar?). Gloves, not the kind you use for warmth but ones made of cotton (preferably white) or kid (Look it up!) or crochet linen were musts. The dresses (unless you were Katherine Hepburn and had been given a pass on wearing skirts) were to be tailored, elegant (not too) and cover the knees. The Shoes were wing tips for him and closed and not too high of heel for her. Crocks were spelled with a K and used for storing pickles and children were definitely not to wear the plastic foot coverings that leave out the “k” as an acceptable “Sunday Best’ wardrobe selection. Hats, presumably were recommended (or not) with a nod to gender. Men’s hats were seemingly synonymous with a range from Fedora to Irish Walking Hat (especially if you were the late, great Patrick J. Moynihan) to Derbys and other styles made of felt. The “Sunday Bests” in this category did not include baseball caps or otherwise designated promotional items that identified you with cause or sporting loyalty.
In houses of worship from which the Aretha Franklins and Mahalia Jacksons of the world emerged into the vocal halls of fame, hats, I believe, remain an absolute requirement. It was not by accident that the musical based on this fashion statement was called “Crowns.” Purses were not to be confused with backpacks or similarly luggage grade carriers suited to accommodating the majority of one’s earthly possessions.
If you are wondering why a mention of Labor Day set off this train of thought, it’s because the rules of costuming have calendar standards that are probably mostly “honored in the breach” of late. Not so long ago, the white shoes that were not to be brought out before Memorial Day were also scrupulously to be retired after Labor Day. The same general rule applied to white trousers as worn by both males and females and suits (unless you happened to be the writer of Bonfire of the Vanities and named Tom Wolfe.) Then there came the vogue for “winter white” and in its fashion wake, all bets were off for the whole universe of white garments.
While waiting to speak with the buyer for a nicely managed super market in my urban village, I observed a note on the bulletin board recommending certain wardrobe choices for the men and women employed there. It included the recommendation to avoid wearing “openwork” denim trousers, see-through tops and other clothing and footwear items. That gave me yet another reason to add to my own puzzlement as to how price tags seem to rise in proportion to the removal of fabric. When, I can’t help but wonder, did deliberate destruction become a winning design inspiration coveted by fashion directors from K-Mart to Bergdorf. I recall when “casual Fridays” emerged as a viable fashion option. At first it might have been that losing a tie was somehow a bold choice. But that predated virtual commuting that made it a matter of no concern as to Friday garb.
Now that exercise regimens have taken on the status of semi-sacred obligations no one should be surprised that what were once referred to as “gym clothes” go with confidence to any and every destination. I need to Google a story reported recently on one of the innumerable electronic modes of communication and be reminded of what it said about the impact of casual clothing on the level of one’s happiness.
Maybe “Sunday Best” refers to mood and not garb. So as Labor Day nears, just smile, and stay tuned.
Don’t take this personally. Remember when that phrase was usually followed by …..but……?
By that point the speaker might have confessed to preferring girls with blonde hair (though yours was black); or to being a total believer in the superiority of the Mets (though you were a loyal supporter of the Bronx Bombers.) These were differences you could live with. They might have created a passing sense of puzzlement but they did not usually engender a sense of insult or betrayal or disdain. Why? As best I can understand, it was because there was a recognizable distinction between what was personal and what was public. But in this past, interminable election season, I look back to that earlier time with feelings ranging from wistful to downright sad.
The bitter voices of accusation, innuendo and disagreement remind me that in a world of compulsive tweeting and Facebook friending and unfriending, and, and, and, personal may well have lost its meaning. Or more accurately it is all too easy to be desensitized to the fact that there is no productive reason for some things to be made public. I recall the comment of a book reviewer who once damned an author with faint praise when he said, “he never had an unpublished thought.”
I turned these musings over in my mind while lamenting the cruel assessments of human beings that confront me at every turn. I wonder if social media and mass and massively interactive communications have robbed us of the luxury of the personal opinion. The one you may hold, measure, weigh, retain or reject. In the course of that process you may seek the advice of a person you deem wise or objective or with a track record of balanced judgment: someone you have reason to admire. Might an epidemic of rush to judgment be setting our society on the path of the lemming rushing to the sea, and so simultaneously to its destruction?
I don’t want to dwell on the morbid spectacle of child and adolescent suicides, seemingly triggered by social media. Too many seem to have resulted from the fact that hasty judgments based on hysteria like that of the Salem witch hunts or the last century’s McCarthy hearings proved to be fatally indigestible. In my own life I have come to realize that until I had some credible level of self-knowledge I was not really able to balance what others thought of me with what I had come to recognize about myself.
Humor can often be the great antidote that prevents being poisoned by judgments about one or other quality or action. That is because laughter is a response to what is incongruous. You just know that it’s laughable to suggest that 40 clowns are getting out of one miniature car. Once you get that straight you recognize the joke. But first you had to understand a couple of real things about clowns and cars and how they relate to each other. Victims of social media bullying might be rescued by catching on to the fact that someone is trying to sell them a bill of goods that doesn’t stand up to a simple reality test. The bully is counting on his or her target suspending common sense and failing to ask, “What are your credentials for passing judgment on me? What exactly do you mean by applying that title to me?”
But back to the world of the so-called grownups. They/we are also at risk. Just this week I heard a word being used that I am betting will show up as one of the “new words’ identified in the Oxford Dictionary’s year-end survey. It was “over-sharing.” Think about it. What is the knife-edge between openness and the absence of standards? What is the timing that needs to be observed between having a thought or impulse and broadcasting it in its instant and unedited form? It seems that the big challenge is to recognize the distinction between the social and the personal. Social media may be exactly the right platform on which to display reactions to what is properly social, namely open to all the members of a society to be noted/or not; embraced/or not; taken seriously/or not. This may be just the setting in which to recycle the old warning, “Don’t take this personally.”
Annette Cunningham’s Street Seens appears every Sunday.
Last week we explored An Ark Built of Respect flourishing in Toronto. Not far from there in the town of Erie, Pennsylvania a name forever associated with a modern miracle of transportation, another Ark had set out in 1972. On November 22, 1972, just eight years after Jean Vanier had established the first L’Arche in France, two similarly visionary planners, Benedictine Sister Barbara Ann and Father George Strohmeyer of Gannon College committed to “do something together for God,” and L’Arche USA was born. They recognized the need and the potential to adopt the model of the shared community to Erie. They brought together Intellectually challenged individuals and those who would assist them to live in the style of a family and this shared home enriched both. Jean Vanier’s dream had been communicated to Sister Barbara Ann in a conference when she heard him describe the power of mutual respect as the basis for a healing community modeled on the family.
L’Arche Home in Atlanta
By 1982, the consummate planner Sister Barbara Ann died at the time of an international gathering of the L’Arche Federation. Jean Vanier had come to the US to address the group and her passing seemed to come as a reassurance to all that the dream would continue. Steve Washek, the current Vice National Director of L’Arche USA refers to the Erie foundation as “the Mothership.”(of L’Arche USA) As he told the story of Sister Barbara Ann’s death it is easy to imagine that she went with a peaceful certainty that the ship was on course to carry Jean Vanier’s dream towards new horizons.
Now in 2016, Gannon has become a University and L’Arche a national phenomenon stretching from Long Island to Seattle, 20 communities comprising 64 homes (57 houses and 7 apartments) in 15 states and the District of Columbia. Each community is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit corporation governed by its own board of directors and managed by a caring professional staff. They are united by their membership in L’Arche USA and the International Federation of L’Arche.
Christianne and Rebecca of Chicago L’Arche
Groups called “Friends of L’Arche” are actively engaged in the process of nurturing emerging communities. Each L’Arche house or community serves the needs of intellectually challenged persons who live and grow along without such challenges in what Steve describes as “honesty, forgiveness and authentic relationship.” Both are similarly transformed by the daily discovery of what can happen when a myopic view of disability is replaced by a wider vision of ability that is based on creativity, hope and mutual respect.
Steve Washek began his L’Arche voyage of discovery as a college student in his native Erie in the Spring of 1980. Like so many, he came to help people living with intellectual disabilities. And as he shared a daily life of the commonplace: chores, decisions, reflection, assessments, meetings and celebrations, concern for each other with a special emphasis on care for the most vulnerable, a job became a life. In 1980, he had met his wife Vicki who shared his commitment to the daring social experiment that is L’Arche and is now a Community Leader. At present, their three adult children exemplify the ideal of living lives transformed by meeting and sharing life with people L’Arche understands are partners in the building of a humane society and not just recipients of care. Jamie is a husband and a student pursuing his Doctorate of Physical Therapy; Meghan, a Mother of four and House leader; and Matthew living and assisting in one of L’Arche’s 7 homes and 4 Life Sharing arrangements.
St. Louis L’Arche at a Cardinals Game
As the population of intellectually disabled becomes older, more diverse and independent, L’Arche is expanding its horizons to integrate single individuals into existing families. Steve and Vicki, for example have invited Leroy to live with them. He will celebrate his upcoming 79th birthday in their home as a member of their extended family.
There has never been any question as to the value of the L’Arche philosophy for any of this Pennsylvania family. The challenge for them, and especially for Steve in his administrative role, is to find ways to ensure that the L’Arche vision is sustainable. Its nonprofit status and respectful relationships with various sources of public and government funding can help ensure that their funding follows members of its core communities. Development programs are designed to capture the imagination and good will of donors who want to support this brave social experiment. All of this converges at a point where people of realism, hope and good will choose in the words of the L’Arche website to become involved in the building of a more humane world.
Have you noticed how the image of Grandma has changed? Lesley Stahl is doing her best to remind you. Gone are the days when Marlene Dietrich was a singular amazement as she morphed the image of the sweet lady on the rocker, slinking on stage in a cloud of beads and furs to the throaty tones of “Falling in Love Again.”
The move from “come sit with me on the front porch” to “meet me at the gym” is pretty much an epidemic as cozy gives place to chic. A dynamic woman with whom I rode the M103 last week was a case in point. Having had both knees replaced in the not too distant past, she declared that she simply wouldn’t allow her grandchildren to feel they needed to take care of her. So, off they went to China. Where, she reported, travelling with children provides perfect assurance that the citizens of your host country will engage you in conversation.
GlamourGram Judy Loeb (bottom, far right) with Aunt Erica (right)
If I needed any reminder of the new world of Granny, it came when ordering brunch at a neighborhood restaurant one recent weekend. Noting our shared taste for french toast, the woman’s husband remarked that for his wife it was a bon voyage as she prepared to set off on a long-planned trip to Paris.
The plan began 12 years before when Judy Loeb became the grandmother of twin girls. Their mother’s name suggested French roots, and so triggered the idea that became a promise: that she would take the girls to Paris one day in the future. The future arrived when a quartet of adventurers were greeted by the owner of the apartment they had selected on the Ile St. Louis.
So when GlamourGram, the twins, and their Aunt Erica, who acccompanied them on the first leg of their journey from California, had enjoyed the very French breakfast their landlady had provided before she set off, their first sight and sounds of Paris happened at the nearby Notre Dame. The beauty of the Cathedral, the stories told in its legendary stained glass and the voices of a visiting choir created an impact that guaranteed that the girls were already in touch with the atmosphere that had moved their Grandmother to happy tears. They “got it.”
The Twins in front of Monet’s Water Lilies at L’Orangerie
Louis Vuitton. For some visitors to Paris it means shopping. For them it meant the Fondation Louis Vuitton in the Bois de Boulogne with its signature structure by Frank Gehry. The day they visited, the futuristic structure was itself transformed into a geometry of red and green by the artist who overlaid its panels in those colors. Within, there was an exhibition of contemporary Chinese art. But taste was not confined to the visual alone. Before they left the Bois the twins met Angelina, Paris’ legendary cathedral of chocolate, which established an outpost there allowing the visiting Americans to propose a toast to their amazing day with similarly amazing hot chocolate.
At the nearby Jardin d’Acclamation, the twins were introduced to the 19th century origins of the landmark/sometime zoo established in 1860. The trampolines they found there gave them the chance to express exhilaration. But the literal high point of discovery came when they spied the Jardin’s contemporary roller coaster. Having paid the 12-year old’s entry charge and preparing to wave them off on their ride, GlamourGram and Aunt Erica were urged by the attendant to ride along, at no cost. The scary moment of truth could not be avoided. With audible gulps the entire foursome was buckled in. The screams of the adults were equaled only by the giggles of the preteens. Being the foursome they were, you can guess which pair was most grateful to embrace the return to solid ground.
Meals delivered french classics unencumbered by the hauteur of the 5-star premises. They regularly elevated the stature of state of the art french bread and cheese, moutarde and gherkins shared in the “plein air” of the Luxembourg Garden.
Judy Loeb didn’t have to wait for grandmotherhood to become a poster-person for surprising innovation. As the daughter of a respected maker of men’s shirts she created a new blend, putting her college study of design into a successful turn as designer of a fashion-forward line of women’s shirts. This evolved into a career in fashion design.
Marriage and pregnancy brought her a fresh focus. She became a trend setter by creating a fashion T-shirt that featured the word “Baby” in large letters and with an arrow pointing to the evidence that this was a design born of reality. When requests and demands for her bold design increased, not just the baby was born, but also an innovative maternity-wear label called Sweet Mama.
After a brief sojourn in California, Judy returned to her native New York and a career in candidate advocacy with Emily’s List.
The day may come when GlamourGram’s twin girls take it for granted that their father’s mother is the accurate and expected definition of grandmother. But in their hearts, and in their memories of spring 2016 they will probably know better. And I hesitate to guess what surprising memories they will hatch for future children of the later 21st century.
One day soon, I will rush back to the neighborhood restaurant where Skip’s humorous observation about french toast set me on a delightful voyage of discovery. If you have any bright ideas of what I should order, be sure to let me know.
Photo credit: Judy Loeb. Of the opening photo, Loeb says, “Came upon this bakery just at the right moment. Bought pastries and bread here for our picnic in the Jardin Luxembourg.”
Annette Cunningham’s Street Seens appears every Sunday
Compiling an Honor Roll seemed like a fine way to celebrate Fathers on their nationally designated day. But then I started to consider ASCAP, modesty and the fact that Fathers are mostly not chosen by their offspring. (I confess that last point is contested by a gifted actor, playwright and director to whom I have the gift of being related by blood. She makes a beguiling case for the scenario of child as casting director. Seeing the ideal actor. the soon-to-be-newborn makes his or her decision and only then elects to join the cast already in performance.)
So, with a nod to those three principles I set out to compile a list of memorable achievers and over-achievers from the paternal ranks. Some will be named; others will be described by what they did for their children; and then honor will be paid to Fathers who would prefer to be anonymous (even sometimes to their own children.)
Let’s start with the ASCAP Factor that describes, but does not quote. Better music connoisseurs than I have put together lists of Best Songs by and about Fathers and Fatherhood from the points of view of both parent and child. From ionic songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein to Eric Clapton, Johnny Cash George Strait and Judy Collins, I could instantly recognize the reasons songs by these men and women made the lists.
Who could fail to relate to Billy Bigelow seeing himself reborn at his bravura best in “My Boy Bill,” then the change of tone as he faces the fact that “he” might arrive instead as “My little girl.” No such list would be credible if it did not include Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely,” (with special laurels for the version he composed for England’s Queen to celebrate her 60th Jubilee.) Verdi’s O Mio Babbino Caro and “The Old Man” by Ireland’s most recorded musician Phil Coulter get my nod for poignant comments about their Fathers. by a daughter and a son.
I nominate the lovely Judy Collins composition, My Father in her early Who Knows Where The Time Goes album. It is all the more touching for the fact that the man whose vision she honored was in fact blind. Carly Simon’s Love of my Life took on a whole new richness when associated with Julie Kavner’s discovery of her daughters’ importance as she worked to establish her career as a stand-up comic in the film This is My Life. And now, from left field: Sondheim’s Nothing’s Gonna Harm You. In Sweeney Todd, the protective promise is not delivered by a Father to his child. But I think it could be. In the mouth of a parent, it is the very sort of promise any child would cherish.
In my own life, the unlikely soundtrack of memory delivers the lyrics of “School Days,” and “My Wild Irish Rose.” In the remembered baritone of my Father these have all the warmth of the most consoling lullaby. After all, it is the singer as much as the song that says, “Don’t worry dearie darling, all will be well.”
Now, to the “modesty” factor. Heroes of Fatherhood will here be honored as anonymous workers of very real and specific miracles. For example: the man whose livelihood as an entrepreneur was threatened in rapid succession by an epic Depression and a suspension of automobile manufacturing for all the years that the war effort took precedence. All this occurred while he and his wife were devoting themselves to securing the best of costly private education they saw as their lifetime endowment and empowerment of their children. Obviously a miracle. But the even more amazing feat was that no hint of fear or anxiety was ever communicated to either of the two age brackets of their children.
Another amazement is the single Father who manages to navigate the hair-raising 21st Century tightrope of special needs and baffling choices with a singular blend of simple faith with a gallows sense of humor. (Note that a wise psychotherapist friend hearing details of his story judged that this Dad would be just fine, because his brave blend of unquestioning belief and unpredictable laughter is “the perfect combination.”
But what about Dimes? Who even uses them these days? Humor me, if you will. As a believer in the unending nature of life I find it to be expected that lives continue to intersect forever. Having passed from life lived on a specific timeline to one liberated from the constraints of the clock and the calendar, Fathers will be given creative ways of saying “I’m here for you.” No spelled out agendas will be delivered. But the message will be as clear as it is demanding of the son or daughter’s own initiative.
For me, the message takes the form of ten-cent coins. Connect the dots from a community leader who was an early champion of the March of Dimes and the evidence of reassurance is clear. Dimes appearing on floors, city sidewalks, previously unoccupied church benches have stimulated realizations and laughter, offered silent applause and sensible cautions. “Get it in writing.” “Don’t sign that new business agreement.” “Take a second look at that person.” “Remember the advice of the man whose face is on the dime that the only thing to fear is fear itself.” Perhaps today there will be a new dime and the message. “Thanks for catching on, Sugar and Happy Fathers Day.”
The annual custom began in 1844 and, accounting for this year’s being marked as the 160th, there were a few historic interruptions. The website of NYYC lists those as the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, and the assassination of New York Senator Robert Kennedy.
Some of the photos I saw when they were able to transmit them included two large buildings on green lawns, both of them iconic yacht clubs. The first in Oyster Bay and the second the NYYC’s “home port” in Newport. The modern house on Fishers Island, is owned by the Armstrong family. A friend of my neighbors arranged for them to visit that home’s spectacular gardens. So they had an additional “up close and personal” experience of the twin glories of land and sea.
I had been told that the parade that started at the end of “my” island and made its initial way up the East River was arranged with a careful plan to accommodate sailing vessels, smaller and larger vessels capable of using either sail or motorized travel. Since the East River is a salt water tidal estuary with strong currents, all began the parade using motors. In fact, the U.S. Coast Guard requires all boats: sailboats, even canoes and kayaks, to use their engines, motors that allow them to travel at a speed of at least five miles per hour while navigating that river.
The Twins in front of Monet’s Water Lilies at L’Orangerie
Meals delivered french classics unencumbered by the hauteur of the 5-star premises. They regularly elevated the stature of state of the art french bread and cheese, moutarde and gherkins shared in the “plein air” of the Luxembourg Garden.