Gossip Central

Ugo Rondinone at Guild Hall: Here Comes the Sun

Come out of the dark: Ugo Rondinone’s work at Guild Hall lifts us in radiant shots of sunlight. In the two large gallery spaces the walls are bare, lit by fluorescen fixtures. You might be mistaken to think you are in Walmart under this austere light, but the effect on the art is, well, looking in full sun, stunning. In one gallery, a series of graphic yet shimmering circles in gold and yellow are juxtaposed with Guild Hall’s regal space. In another gallery, large hoops made of twigs work as frames, and the few hung on the wall with nails suggest Christ’s crown of thorns, a beatific sight. In a third gallery, hung shingle style, are hundreds of children’s drawings of the sun, some in blazing color. Everywhere at Guild Hall, the suggestion of hope offers a glimpse of a better future.

Remembering D. A. Pennebaker: Through a Beat Lens

Back in 2002, the one and only time I attended the Cannes Film Festival, I was at dinner with D. A. Pennebaker, his wife and film partner Chris Hegedus, and my friend Roger Friedman who had made a film with the documentary team called Only the Strong Survive, an important historical exploration of R&B and soul music that was premiering at the festival. I was attending as a journalist, but Pennebaker knew I was a scholar of the beat generation literati, and as he did with every subject you
could mention, he had a story to tell.

On this occasion, he recounted his having talked to Kerouac about doing a film of On the Road, that is, Kerouac asked him to do it, just as he imagined Marlon Brando starring. Penny, as he is known, was going to start the film with the character of Dean, the legendary “son of a Denver wino” stealing cars, maneuvering them around a parking lot. It was Penny who gave me a new window into the subject I thought, after having written several books on Kerouac, I knew very well: how the newly created highway system in America promoted the fantasy of fast car escapes from the restrictions of society: Huck Finn’s raft supplanted by the automobile. The film never left their machinations.

Annie Get Your Gun at Bay Street Theater: Can You Get a Man With a Gun?

Even before its third show of the season opened this weekend, Bay Street’s revival of the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun was extended. The demand was that great, for Irving Berlin’s classic songbook score, and Dorothy Fields’ clever lyrics for such standards: “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly,” and many more, in a show that on the surface is a show within shows, featuring lead characters who are competitors and who, natch, fall in love. That winning formula cannot be beat: Bay Street’s first-rate production does it proud!

Set against a backdrop of rolling hills with fine musicians nestled in, the play is funny, charming; every song, dance and scene rises above the noise of our current events. When Annie and her love-at-first-sight beau/ foe Frank Butler sing, “They Say It’s Wonderful” in Act 1, I was melting in my seat. A leitmotif for Act 2, their romance holds sway, much because of the talents of the two leads, Matthew Saldivar as Frank Butler and especially Alexandra Socha as Annie Oakley. A coming of age story too, this is her show.

Elvis in Vegas: The King Graces a Surreal City in the Sixties

In Sagaponack, the house Richard Zoglin shared with his late wife Charla Krupp sits nestled on wooded grounds: immaculate, swimming pool, antique adorned, just the way she, a style editor for Glamour and In Style Magazine, left it. By contrast, the subject of Zoglin’s new book, Elvis in Vegas: How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show, which tells “The King’s” story in transforming Las Vegas entertainment, is as much about the place itself in all its tawdry madness: a culmination of Zoglin’s work in his last two books, Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-Up in the ‘70’s Changed America, and Hope: Entertainer of the Century, taken together, his books form a trilogy in the history of American entertainment, well researched and themselves well, highly entertaining.

Mike Wallace is Here: Remembering a Real Journalist

Many who grew up watching 60 Minutes regularly will find Avi Belkin’s documentary, Mike Wallace is Here, a trip down memory lane. And still, this fresh look at a premiere television show, and career we thought we knew, offers many surprises. Wallace worked his charm and good looks on commercials, and other odd acting jobs. When he first came on board for this great show, known for superb reporting, his colleagues thought he would not be rigorous enough. He proved them wrong. And at a recent special screening at the Whitby Hotel, with 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Croft attending, as well as a stellar group of documentarians, Barbara Kopple, Karen Goodman, Katherina Otto-Bernstein, the consensus was, here was a serious journalist, and an impressive, entertaining look at an esteemed part of American culture by an Israeli filmmaker.

Julian Schnabel’s Sculpture and other Delights at LongHouse Reserve

Two white sculptures stood grandly erect on a corridor of green, stately gentlemen greeting guests for the annual summer benefit at LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton. In plaster over burlap, the work by the artist/ filmmaker/ sculptor Julian Schnabel fit the earthy yet well-groomed site, a home to art by Yoko Ono and Buckminster Fuller. Schnabel was to be honored that evening, along with fashion designer Donna Karan. At cocktails, Schnabel’s family, his wife Louise Kugelberg, and sons Vito, Cy, and Olmo Schnabel circled Julian as Hal Willner, Zac Posen, Laurie Anderson, and Benjamin-Sainte Clementine gathered and kibitzed before the celebration. Laurie would perform that evening, and Julian brought Ben to perform too, at a dinner hosted by Jack Lenor Larsen. Ralph Gibson, Florence Fabricant, Fern Mallis, and many others wore rose for the occasion, themed la vie en rose.

Hamptons Journal: Mercedes Ruehl at Bay Street, Dancers for Good at Guild Hall, The Antiques & Design Show at Mulford Farm

Oh for the days when “Trigger” was simply the name of Roy Rogers’ horse. In Safe Space, a new play by Alan Fox and under Jack O’Brien’s deft direction, in its final performances at Bay Street Theater, “trigger” is that plucked from the headlines buzzword for inciting a sensitivity—any psychological, cultural, relevant sore spot-- it is safe to say, that boggles the imagination. You just want to scream, “get over it,” as Jenny, an Asian American student at the fictive Alman College, in the name of a student activist group, tries to get a black instructor fired for giving an assignment that, in her trigger-speak, justifies slavery. Huh?

Hamptons Journal: Allman Betts Band at Guild Hall, Tony Oursler, Joel Grey at the Bay Street Theater Gala

Two decades ago, the legendary Allman Brothers Band swept through the Hamptons landing at Montauk’s Deep Hollow Ranch for an unforgettable outdoor concert, the audience poised on haystacks when the crowd wasn’t whooping it up to the great music. It was huge! On Saturday night, their kids, led by Devon Allman and Duane Betts, showed off their talents at Guild Hall. The genes don’t lie. Yes, the concert was part of Guild Hall’s popular guitar series; the rockers gave that big concert feeling inside the intimate East Hampton arts venue, where dancing in the aisles for the “Eat a Peach” classic, “Blue Skies” was irrepressible.

And the thrill of Nashville-based JD Simo joining them for “Purple Rain!” His trio opened the set, bringing down the house with “Mind Trouble,” and his cover of Joe Cocker’s “[High With] A Little Help From My Friends:” “What would you do if I sang out of tune?” he crooned. Trust me, he doesn’t.

Kronos Quartet: A Thousand Thoughts at Guild Hall

A “live documentary” by the filmmaking team Sam Green and Joe Bini, A Thousand Thoughts is a true celebration of collaboration in media ("live documentary") and joyful art-making. At Guild Hall this week, in a production with the Hamptons International Film Festival, Sam Green narrated the Kronos Quartet history in a film, in the presence of the string quartet, performing on violins, viola, cello, and for one selection, water-filled glassware. That’s the live part. The players, David Harrington, John Sherba, Hank Dutt, and Sunny Yang, accompany themselves and the many artists who have worked with them, including Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, and Laurie Anderson, present on this dynamic night.

Rolling Thunder Revue on Netflix, and More: Allen Ginsberg Never Gets Old

Just before his death in 1997, Allen Ginsberg wrote to President Bill Clinton advising him that just in case he was going to name an American poet laureate, this would be a good time to honor him. As we know, that never happened. But look around: Allen, over 20 years after his death, is everywhere. In Martin Scorsese’s documentary of Bob Dylan’s tour, Rolling Thunder Revue on Netflix, the poet is named “The Oracle at Delphi,” giving him some classic, other-worldly stature. Seated Buddha-style he lends a religious benediction to a rock and roll tour that features Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Sam Shepard, Anne Waldman, Ronnie Blakely, and others. Dylan’s great music is of course the star, but Allen exercises his chops. A highlight of the tour that starts in 1975 is a visit to fellow poet Jack Kerouac’s grave, near his birth home in Lowell, Massachusetts. Only recently dead since 1969, Kerouac may have enjoyed Ginsberg and Dylan cavorting and reciting from “Mexico City Blues” and otherwise paying homage to the dead beat.