The Banksy Museum in Madrid includes some 170 actual-size reproductions of the mysterious British street artist’s works as they appear in locations around the world. The museum has not only copied the art, but also the setting, in some cases including street signs, utility pipes, wear and tear and even a little debris.
The museum is not without some controversy. Purists will point out that it is a Banksy museum without any works by Banksy, all of the art having been produced by unnamed artists. It is, of course, not really possible to have a collective exhibition of Banksy’s art since his pieces appear on buildings, walls and fences all over the world.
Personally I found the Madrid Museum to be a terrific showcase of Banksy’s street art. His notoriety is not, after all, a result of his technical ability, but rather his brashness and ideas. His messages come across pretty clearly in the Madrid museum: his disdain for consumption culture and the moneyed art business world, and his empathy for marginalized people like immigrants and Native Americans as well as the victimized in places like Gaza and the Ukraine.
The day I visited appeared to be a school holiday in Madrid. I enjoyed watching the Spanish families bring their children to see Banksy on their day off and seeing how so many of the children were engaged, pulling out their phones to take pictures and asking their parents about the images.
I took so many pictures of these reproductions that I’m dividing the blog post in two. Part 2 will include works that were created in the UK and EU.
Ukraine
Judo Fight, Borodyanka, just outside KyivYoung Gymnast with Ribbon, IrpinGymnast Balancing on Rubble, RorodyankaOn the wall of a destroyed building in Gorenka
Palestine
One of nine murals Banksy created on the Bethleham Wall, a barrier built by Israel is 2002 separating it from Gaza.Weeping Goddess, GazaInside the Walled Off Hotel in Palestine
U.S.
New York
116 Cedar St.Stillwell and Neptune Avenues, Coney Island233 W. 79th St.110th Street and 2nd Avenue636 W. 51st St.
If you had a desktop computer in the last 10 or 20 or 30 years, you, at some point, were probably running Windows. And if you were running Windows, you needed virus protection. McAfee was the first, and possibly still, the most prominent name in virus protection.
But you might not have been familiar with the creator of that software, John David McAfee. At least not until the story broke in 2012 that he was a murder suspect in Belize. Or, when in 2021, he hung himself in a Spanish prison.
It was 1987 when John McAfee wrote the first commercial anti-virus software. In 1994 he sold the company. The product still carries his name though it lost favor in the eyes of its creator.
“In a profane, drug-filled satirical video he published to YouTube in 2013, McAfee mocked both his own reputation for hedonism and the software’s for being slow, omnipresent and inconvenient.
“’Every time I turn on the f—— computer it’s there looking at me. Something went wrong,’ he says in the video, surrounded by guns and scantily clad women, his face covered in white powder. ‘Fifteen years ago I had some beautiful software and they took it over. I don’t know what they did.’” (Kevin Collier, NBC News, June 24, 2021)
McAfee’s finances were apparently something of a roller coaster.
“He sold his shares in the software company in the mid-90s, and reportedly made $100 million, though McAfee told ABC News his fortune was worth ‘much more.’ But, he added, ‘I wasted it, like everybody who has money.’
“McAfee built nine homes, filling them with expensive art, furniture and oddities, such as a dinosaur skull, and he bought a fleet of planes and antique cars. He created a yoga retreat in Colorado that hosted 200 guests at a time and set up a center in New Mexico for a new sport called aero-trekking.
“But then the recession hit McAfee hard and in 2009, he said he liquidated his assets, and several of his properties and possessions were auctioned off. But he later said he didn’t lose all of his fortune, and had set up the auctions to try to fool the media.” (ABC News, May 12, 2017)
He then set out on something of nomadic course, characterized by lawless, erratic and paranoid behavior. He headed off to Belize in 2009.
A media photographer caught up with him during a visit in 2012.
“In 2012, photographer Brian Finke went to Belize to shoot the erratic tech entrepreneur at his remote compound. He had no idea what he was in for.
“‘He brought his whole crew over that day. Girlfriends, guns, hanging out poolside. Everyone came and went. My impression was that he was a smart guy with an enormous ego, who loved the attention.’” (Eric Sullivan, Esquire, June 26, 2021)
MariaFontoura of Rolling Stone(June 24, 2021) described it a bit more bluntly: “In reality, he was living like a creep surrounded by vulnerable young women with problems.”
This BBC (James Clayton, June 24, 2021) story describes the problems that eventually led to McAfee leaving Belize.
“In 2008, he had moved to Belize, where he ended up living next to man called Gregory Faull.
“In November, 2012, Faull was murdered in his home.
“In fact, asABC News later revealed, Faull had filed a complaint about McAfee’s dogs – saying one had attacked a tourist.
“Whatever the truth, when the police came looking for McAfee, he was not around.
“He was living with a 17-year-old girl at the time and the police discovered a large number of weapons in his home.
“When they eventually caught up with him, in Guatemala, many believed McAfee would be tried for Faull’s murder.
“But within a week, he was released and allowed to fly to Miami – a free man.”
McAfee would later be forced to pay damages to Faull’s family.
“John McAfee has been ordered to pay $25 million in damages over the killing of his ex-neighbour Gregory Faull in 2012.
“The judgement was handed down by a US Federal District judge in Florida, based on a wrongful death lawsuit by Faull’s daughter which claims that McAfee paid $5,000 to have Faull killed.
“’John McAfee’s depraved acts of plotting, financing, and directing Greg’s murder reflect that he has absolutely no respect for life or law,’ Faull’s family said in a statement. ‘Although Greg cannot be replaced, today we are comforted that John McAfee’s evil acts have been officially condemned through the power of civil justice.’” (Adam Shepherd, ITPro, March 21, 2019)
Back in the states, McAfee set up shop in Tennessee and reinvented himself as a crypto currency guru, creating a company called MGC Capital that invested in crypto. In 2019, he authored this tweet:
“I have not paid taxes for eight years… I have not filed returns. Every year I tell the IRS ‘I am not filing a return, I have no intention of doing so, come and find me.’” (Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes, Oct 5 2020)
They did. Not surprisingly, McAfee was soon facing tax evasion charges. Reportedly, he owed more than $4 million.
“…he left the United States to avoid trial, largely living on a megayacht with his wife, four large dogs, two security guards and seven staff.
“The colourful tech founder was detained on Oct. 3 at the Barcelona airport as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul with a British passport, a Spanish police source said at the time.” (Reuters, June 24, 2021)
More charges would be forthcoming. CNN Business reported that McAfee “…has been indicted on fraud and money laundering charges by the Department of Justice, which alleges he and a business partner participated in a scheme that earned more than $13 million by falsely promoting cryptocurrency to unwitting investors.
“FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. said the allegations boil down to ‘an age-old pump-and-dump scheme.’ The DOJ alleges McAfee, Watson and others would buy cryptocurrencies, hype them to McAfee’s Twitter followers, which numbered about 784,000 at the time, to boost prices and then sell for a profit — in addition to promoting cryptocurrency offerings without disclosing they were allegedly receiving payment to do so. (Clare Duffy, CNN Business, March 5, 2021)
McAfee was in a Spanish prison awaiting a court ruling on whether he would be extradited. When the Spanish court ruled that he would be, he allegedly committed suicide.
This post only scratches the surface of John McAfee’s erratic and often irrational behavior. Here a few more examples:
– During his time in Tennessee he “threw his weight behind an ‘unhackable’ crypto wallet – which was then hacked.” (James Clayton BBC, June 24, 2021)
– “he started a company (in Belize) that he said would manufacture plants from the Belize jungle into antibiotics. His lab was raided in May 2012 by the police department’s Gang Suppression Unit on suspicion he was manufacturing methamphetamine.” (ABC News, May 12, 2017)
– “In the documentary ‘Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee,’ a former business partner accused McAfee of drugging and raping her in Belize. McAfee denied the accusation, as well as others presented in the documentary, in a four-part blog series, stating that she had ‘concocted’ her story and writing that he found her ‘unattractive.’” Kevin Collier, NBC News, June 24, 2021)
– “In August 2015, he was pulled over in Henderson County, Tennessee, on suspicion of driving under the influence. He says he wasn’t drunk, but high on Xanax, which he said a doctor had prescribed. He pleaded guilty to a DUI, and has yet to get his suspended license back.” (ABC News, May 12, 2017)
– He briefly moved to New Mexico after selling his company. There “he developed a light aircraft that could fly in and out of canyons. That venture ended tragically when his nephew and another passenger were killed in a crash. McAfee was found negligent to the tune of $5.2 million, but when we talked, he insisted it was a cartel hit.” (Maria Fontoura, Rolling Stone, June 24, 2021)
The latter is an example of something that was consistent throughout his career, his paranoia.
“He has gone from being known as a multimillionaire tech legend, to making headlines as a ‘person of interest’ in a mysterious killing in Belize, to launching new tech companies, to running to become a presidential candidate, to living in rural Tennessee. The one constant these days is his state of mind — his belief that people are after him.” (ABC News, May 12, 2017)
This excerpt is from a 2019 interview he did with CryptoPotato:
“They’re going against me, but they can’t find me. Nobody can find me in a cage in some unknown place in the world specifically so that I can do what I’m doing: building a distributed exchange that can’t be shut down. Do you understand? This is the world we live in. If you’re going to do things like I’m doing, you’d better be prepared to go underground. You’d better be prepared for the SEC to come.”
In her Rolling Stone story, Fontoura summoned it up like this: “John McAfee was a genius, a scoundrel-criminal, a gun fanatic, a possible murderer, and a man who liked to mix morning tequila sunrises with hands dirtied by throwing mattresses against his windows to ward off imaginary hit men.”
But wait, have we not heard the last from John McAfee? Mashable reported last month that McAfee has re-emerged on X. “In the @officialmcafee’s first post since November of last year, McAfee’s account claimed that he was actually back. In AI form. And he came back as AI in order to drop a memecoin.” (Matt Binder, Mashable, Jan. 23, 2025)
Turns out the McAfee account was being used by his widow Janice McAfee to whom he had been married since 2013. I found her story on AARP: “Janice Dyson was 34, older than most of McAfee’s women, when he spotted her outside a cafe in Miami and paid her for a day and night of sex work. Dyson had worked as a prostitute for more than 10 years; before McAfee, her most steady relationship was with her violent pimp, and she rarely saw her son. She was refreshingly honest when asked if it was love at first sight with McAfee. ‘F— no. … I just saw an opportunity,’ she says.” (Dana Kennedy, AARP, Aug. 26, 2022)
Skeeter Davis was a country music singer from Kentucky who was nominated for a Grammy five times. “The End of the World” was her greatest success, a 1963 crossover song that rose to the top ten in the country, pop, adult contemporary and rhythm and blues charts. She appeared on American Bandstand and toured with both Elvis and the Rolling Stones. She joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1959 and continued to perform on the Opry stage in Nashville until 2000.
The name Skeeter came from her grandfather, “who said she was always flittering around like a ‘skeeter.’” (Judy Morgan, Texarkana Gazette, May 2, 2024) The name Davis came from a high school friend, Betty Jack Davis. The two performed as a duet, the Davis Sisters, until a car crash killed Betty Jack.
Davis once said of herself “I don’t do anything. I’m so straight it’s ridiculous.” (Daily Telegraph, London, Oct 4, 2004). That makes her sound a lot less interesting than she really was.
During the 1960’s, Davis was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, for which she got a good deal of grief from the country music community. She recorded an anti-war song, ‘One Tin Soldier.’ “At the end of the 60’s she was wearing granny dresses and blue jeans on the Grand Ole Opry. Her band was made up of scruffy, long-haired musicians — which displeased Opry management.” (Texarkana Gazette)
Davis was also a vegetarian. That started after an incident while she was on tour in Kenya in 1964. “’The concert organizers had roasted a goat for a banquet in my honor,’ she says. ‘I really connected with that goat, and I couldn’t bear to eat it.’ When she returned home to her tobacco and cattle farm after her African epiphany, she made another major decision. ‘I had to take a real hard look at myself,’ she says. ‘I didn’t smoke and I didn’t eat meat, so I sold the farm.’” (Carol Wiley, Vegetarian Times, June 1991)
“Wholesomeness was Skeeter Davis’ stock-in-trade. A devout Southern Baptist, she took her religious beliefs seriously and refused to perform at venues which sold alcohol.” (Daily Telegraph, London, Oct 4, 2004)
Those religious beliefs once got her suspended from the Opry. “In 1973, a group of young people were arrested for allegedly bothering Nashville shoppers by talking to them about Jesus. When she defended the young people’s actions on the stage of The Grand Ole Opry, the management suspended her from the Opry for one year. And according to Skeeter, her manager quit and she lost her contract with RCA Records because of the incident.” (Texarkana Gazette)
Davis was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1994, then with bone cancer in 1996. She passed away in a Nashville hospice in 2004. Whenever possible, she continued to perform while she was being treated.
Rita Rose of the Indianapolis News (Aug 6, 1999) met her on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry at the Country Time Music Theater in Little Nashville, Ind. She noted, “At 65, Davis is a warm, ebullient, chatty woman who embraces everything in her life: work, friends, family and several pets. And, above all, her faith in God which has carried her through some rough years lately.”
Davis is well remembered in and around Dry Ridge, Kentucky, where she was born and raised. There’s even a highway named after her there.
The Lexington Herald-Leader had this story on March 14, 1998. “Country music singer Skeeter Davis will be honored in her hometown of Dry Ridge this morning as local officials, fans and Davis herself gather to dedicate a local highway in her name. A section of Ky. 22 from US 25 to Interstate 75 will be renamed Skeeter Davis Highway during a ceremony at 9 a.m. today at Ky. 22 and U.S. 25.”
She was inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame in 2013. And in Williamstown, Ky., there continues to be an annual all-day music festival called Skeeter Fest at the Grant County Fairgrounds. Davis is the only Grand Ole Opry member from Grant County.
In 1993, Davis published her autobiography “Bus Fare to Kentucky.” Lexington Herald-Leader reviewer Judy Jones Lewis (Oct. 17, 1993), had this to say: “…it is so much better than the usual crop of country singer’s autobiographies that it stands as a metaphor for the nation’s rise from the Great Depression to the excesses of the post-war boom years. The story is told with such amazing good humor, the reader comes away with more respect for Skeeter’s tenacity and wit than her singing skills.”
One point of interest in the book is Davis’ comments about Ralph Emery, her second husband, to whom she was married for four years.
“Much of the attention the book is gathering is due to the portrait Davis paints of Ralph Emery, her former husband and former host of the Nashville Network’s popular ‘Nashville Now’ program. In the book, Davis recounts Emery’s mental and sometimes physical abuse during their four-year marriage. She says Emery was an adulterer and didn’t really like country music.” (Wayne Bledsoe, music critic, Knoxville News-Sentinel, Oct. 31 1993)
Davis had been married to a railroad worker Kenneth DePew from 1956 to 1959. She married Emery in 1960. Her third husband, who she married in 1987, was Joey Spampinato, a bass player from the rock band NRBQ. In 1985 she had recorded an album with NRBQ called “She Sings, They Play.”
Her marriage to Spampinato lasted until 1996 and ended after her bone cancer diagnosis. According to Davis “he couldn’t cope with her disease. ‘He didn’t even want to kiss me,’ she said.” (Rita Rose, Indianapolis News, Aug 6, 1999)
In her obit in the Guardian (Oct. 1, 2004), Alan Glayson said “After the break-up of her third marriage, she devoted herself to animal welfare and record releases that focused chiefly on religious material.”
Few people, other than maybe Emery, have anything bad to say about Skeeter Davis. Here’s one example:
“Skeeter is no sophisticate, just a hard-working, hard-driving, Christian woman. That character shines through with a clarity uncharacteristic of entertainment industry hype.” (Judy Jones Lewis, Lexington Herald-Leader, Oct. 17, 1993)
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(Note on sources: Newspaper articles that do not include links were accessed on newspapers.com)
A Review of The Freaks Come Out to Write by Tricia Romano
When I was a teenager in the 1960’s, and later in the 70’s and into the 80’s, if it was Wednesday, I was combing the newsstand (we had those then) for the new Village Voice. It was where I could read about the kind of music I liked to listen to, the kind of movies I wanted to see and the dissident politics I subscribed to. It was at Stonewall, at the epicenter of the feminist movement and the AIDS crisis. The Voice covered off-Broadway, independent film and the downtown club and music scene. Readers of the Times, the New Yorker and the tabloids would find nary a word of any of that. And there were the classifieds, the anything goes personal ads, and most importantly the job and apartment listings. If you were a Greenwich Villager, or wannabe Greenwich Villager, you might find yourself scheming to get an early copy of the Voice to get a first shot at an apartment. Thursday was too late. I once scored a job in the Voice, while on a brief hiatus from college, picking orders in the Grove Press book warehouse on Hudson Street. More notably, Max Weinberg tells of how he got his job with the E Street Band through the public notice music section of the Voice. At least for its first couple decades, the Village Voice was, above all else, a community newspaper for a distinctly unique community.
Tricia Romano was an intern at the Voice, and later a contributing writer. She has put together an oral history starting with its founding in 1955 and going through to the off-again, on-again recent history. We hear the voices of writers, founders, editors, owners and sometimes even subjects. It’s Mailer, Hentoff, Newfield, Christgau, Musto, et al. For some who have passed away she has used surrogates or archived interviews.
There were some surprises. Did you know the Voice was once owned by Rupert Murdoch? Or that Colin Whitehead was once a contributing writer? Here’s one of my favorite stories.
Staff news writer Wayne Barrett offered this description of lunching with Trump crony Roy Cohn:
“I had lunch many times with Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn ate with his fingers. I kid you not. He brought a little glass inside of his coat pocket. He would pop little white pills when he thought you weren’t looking. He was the most satanic figure I ever met in my life. He was almost reptilian”
I forgot that the Voice had a sports section. I loved it and read every word.
Allen St. John, a contributor, notes how it differed from other media’
“In the Wall Street Journal, you’re writing about the Yankees, the first reference would be ‘Derek Jeter.’ And the second reference would be the very stilted ‘Mr. Jeter.’ If you were writing about Derek Jeter in the Village Voice, it would be ‘Derek Jeter’ and then the second reference would be ‘Mariah Carey-banging motherfucker.’”
It was chaotic and there was no end of the intrastaff feuding. One notable example being the Marxist feminists vs. the old white guys.
Christopher Street Liberation Day, 1971 (photo by Diana Davies)
This is not necessarily a smooth read. There are dozens and dozens of folks whose voices are included here. If you are the type that needs to know exactly who is talking in each passage, you’ll go nuts going back and forth from the list of participants at the front of the book. Also I found that it wasn’t always clear who the interviewees were talking about. I remember a chapter where everyone commented on “Jack.” I had no idea what “Jack” they were talking about. Lots of discussion about various editors at the Voice which made me think how a bit of a better editing job would have benefitted this book.
Having said that, I still found “Freaks” invaluable. It documents a very notable piece of the history of New York journalism and culture, as well as my own personal history. There is still a Village Voice online, though I don’t know of anyone who reads it. I checked it before writing this review and found hardly anything written since last month.
Romano closes with this obit-sounding bit from former senior editor Joe Levy:
“So, without the Voice, there is one less advocate for the rights of sex workers, or the rights of immigrants. One less outlet hearing those voices. One less place to be noticed as an aspiring playwright, musician, choreographer.”
Exploring Our Connection is this year’s New Jersey Arts Annual. This is a juried exhibit open to artists through the state. The exhibit rotates to different art museums in New Jersey. This year it was in the Montclair Art Museum.
One of the most compelling parts of the exhibit is the artists’ statements that accompany each work. I’ve included some excerpts from those statements in the captions below.
Mom, Copie Rodriguez (Garfield). Rodriguez’ portrait of his mother includes a family tree with family photos. “I wanted to preserve my mother’s memory and our connection to our roots and humble beginnings.”Una historia gringa, Jonathan Yubi Gomez (Bergenfield). A construction crew on the tracks of 86th Street Station in Manhattan. “Two workers gore a klansman, a third holds his hood, and others brandish pikes. Two flags wave gallantly — one representing my motherland, the other my fatherland.”Road Trip, Janice Belove (Montclair).”A few years ago, our family took a three-week cross-country road trip… The mega-mess in the minivan created a record of the family on the go, in the confined space.”La Rogativa, Brandon Bravo (Metuchen). “The imposing figures casting shadows over my cousin symbolize the iconic statue La Rogativa, located in Old San Juan, which commemorates a women-led religious procession in 1797. La Rogativa is a tribute to Puerto Rico’s enduring spirit and a reflection of our collective journey.”The Handshake, Johanna Foster (Montclair). “In this painting, I render a gesture of deep connection between my husband and our infant daughter, an image taken from a nearly 25-year-old photograph…My sister and brother-in-law…together apart!, Susan Sinek (Fort Lee). “My sister and brother-in-law…are posing on a bench in Morocco…very staid and serious…they are both very successful. They are very much together and in their work they are very much apart.”James Oliver Jones, Jr., Grace Graupe-Pillard (Keyport).”I met James Oliver Jones, Jr., on a street in the East Village in 1985. Forty years later we reconnected on social media and I found him as powerful and beautiful a presence now as he was then.”Before Leaving, Meira Pomerantz (Fort Lee). “ The linoleum cut print..presents a familiar image of a mother enfolding and being embraced by her children. It is statement of human emotion and caring between the individuals.”The Global Village Series #1, Mesma Belsari (Guttenberg). “I consider the world a village where families and communities are perpetually in flux. Global Village Series #1 is a continuation of that idea in pen and ink. The pen dreams in ink.”Nido and Smidoo, Ben Goldman (Weehawken). “My two portraits in this exhibition provide a snippet of the great diversity of my Northern Hudson County community. My friend Nido Gula lives in a neighboring town and cleans my home. My friend and neighbor Arthur ‘Smidoo’ Smith is often called the mayor of this block.Code Switching Mask, robin holder (West Milford). “…almost all successful people of color practice code switching. It is an innovative, often obligatory, strategy of successfully navigating the workplace, society, and social platforms that are predominately white, privileged and empowered.”Black Mirror, Kristin Kunc (Atlantic Highlands). “Black Mirror is inspired by the news, media, and complacency. It is a painting of my son, though it could be any child or oneself, and what is colloquially known as the television, aka the black mirror. Rather than go outside and enjoy a beautiful day, we are trapped by our own reflections, our own insecurities, and our own black void of overbearing information and entertainment that we sit silently waiting and watching.”Just Tell the Truth (LOOK!), Lawrence Ciarallo (Hoboken). “I wanted to create a graphic that would address the long and sordid yet passionately determined history of the United States. The multicolored background and flowers are intended to convey that beauty. It has always existed and persevered despite many obstacles.”CITYSCAPE-UPHEAVAL, Grace Graupe-Pillard (Keyport). “CITYSCAPE-UPHEAVAL communicates my visceral response to a world where black lives are ‘obliterated,’ fighting for the very rights that the Constitution bestows upon all Americans.”The Invisibles: Sanctuary City, Karen Cunningham (Princeton). “The Invisibles portrays recent migrant arrivals to New York City, bused in from New Jersey, mixing into the urban landscape with the city’s longstanding homeless population.”Tomas, Danielle Scott (Jersey City). “Tomas is the visual interpretation of the beautiful relationship between Angola and Cuba. Tomas is a depiction of joy, pain, and courage. Tomas is our history. The images behind Tomas are old slave markets in downtown Luanda, Fortaleza de Sao Miguel (where slaves were rolled from the top of the Fort to the bottom landing on Flores street).”4 Fashion Girls, Maria Mijares (Plainfield). “4 Fashion Girls depicts my friends Yvette and Deanna in a fitting room next to framed wall decor 50s looking photograph of two models. The style of the past contrasts the fashion of our day.”
an exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
This Whitney exhibit reinterprets the idea of what is a landscape. In the words of the curators it demonstrates “how political, ecological and social issues motivate artists as they attempt to represent the world around them.” These works are all from the Whitney collection. They were all made after 1960. While the theme strikes me as a bit of a stretch, there are some pretty interesting pieces.
New American Landscapes. Self Portrait: Catching Feelings (Ecstatic), Rafa EsparzaI Don’t Need You to be Warm, Dalton GataIt is our woods, Suzanne Jackson Calentadita, Martin WongHeading In —Lincoln Tunnel 3, Jane DicksonMerman with Mandolin, Munro Mozart29 Palms: Guard, Combat Operations Center, An-My Le (Saigon)
Julio, Jose, and Juanito, Rigoberto Torres
Empire State of Mind/Flaco 730 Broadway, Aaron GilbertNY Skyline on Canvas #1 (Woman Pressing Finger Down), Anita SteckelThree Eagles Flying, Laura Aguilar
Edges of Ailey pays tribute to renowned American choreographer Alvin Ailey. The exhibit includes video, music and some live performances. This post includes images of the art work included in the exhibit. These works represent the life and times of Ailey who was born in 1931 and died of AIDS-related causes in 1989 at the age of 58.
The artists represented included those who Ailey was inspired by and who were mentioned in his notebooks. Some pieces were created for this exhibit. One is the Mickalane Thomas painting below.
Katherine Dunham Revelation, Mickalene Thomas. Sharing the Struggle, Lonnie HolleyHollywood Africans, Jean-Michel BasquiatThe Way to the Promised Land, Benny AndrewsOur Father, Purvis YoungSea Islands series, Carrie Mae WeemsStreet Life, Harlem, William H. JohnsonMigrants, Samella LewisMars Dust, Alma ThomasBeautiful Life, Paul WatersEcstatic Drought of Fishes, Ellen GallagherRevolutionary (Angela Davis), Wadsworth JarrellAfrican/American, Kara WalkerRace Woman Series #7, Mary Lovelace O’Neal
A graffiti exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York
These works were donated to the museum by Chinese American painter Martin Wong. He had befriended many of the young artists who were creating graffiti in 1980’s New York and collected their works. He co-founded the Museum of American Graffiti in the East Village in 1989. Issues with the space, the top floor of a townhouse, caused the museum to close after six months.
Following an AIDS diagnosis in 1993, Wong donated his collection to the Museum of the City of New York. He passed away in 1999.
Broken Wings, CrashGreen Kringle in Stereo, Stan 153Untitled, RammellzeeGotham City, Haze
A Life Takes a Life, Lee Quinones
Breakfast at Baychester, Lee Quinones
Forward. Totally Moving in the Positive, A-OneBishop of Battle, DondiEro Rock, Ero
French Dream, Life Below Aerosol, Christopher Daze Ellis
Flow States, a triennial exhibition at El Museo del Barrio in New York
Untitled, Ser Serpas, 2024100 Altars for Roberto Chabet, Norberto Roldan, Philippines, 2014-2020En Tu Mirada (In Your Eyes), Curlies and Aqua para Ti (Here for you), Maria A. Guzman Capron, born in Italy lives in Oakland, Cal., 2024My dick can speak your language (from the project Can geometry be self-exciting?), Madeline Jimenez Samtil, Dominican Republic, 2024I’m the inside out “I’m the alpha, the onega, everything in between” by Nicki Minaj and Plain Jane (Remix) A million leaves folded by the wind all at once. Mitochondria Lacrimosa Lacrimosa lacrimosa, Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, Mexico, 2024
Daughter: Also a Sun, Carmen Argote, born Mexico, lives Los Angeles, 2022
Magic Carpet, Karyn Olivier, born Trinidad and Tobago, lives Philadelphia, 2021
Family Romance, Alina Perez, born Miani lives New York, 2024Suburban Nightscapes, Christina Fernandez, Los Angeles, 2023
A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a Memorial
Viet Thanh Ngoyen
If you read “The Sympathizer” or “The Committed,” one about a Vietnamese refugee in America and the other a Vietnamese refugee in France, you may have wondered how much of those two novels reflected the story of their author Viet Thanh Nguyen, himself a Vietnamese refugee. His memoir “A Man of Two Faces” promises some answers. But they aren’t easy.
Nguyen was four when his parents, whom he refers to collectively as Ba Ma, fled Vietnam after the war. They were model refugees, the embodiment of the so-called American Dream. They built a business, the SaiGon Moi, which I presume is a sort of Vietnamese bodega, worked tirelessly, bought a nice house and put their sons through college. None of that prevented a sign from appearing outside their store that said “Another American driven out of business by the Vietnamese.” Nor did it stop the city from forcing them to sell their property when they decided to build a new city hall across the street.
Most books about refugees focus on the hardships of their lives and challenges they face. Nguyen, while calling himself an ingrate, offers a commentary on the society into which he was placed. What he sees above all else is racism. “The cycle repeats throughout American history: big businesses rely on cheap Asian labor, which threatens the white working class, whose fears are stoked by race-baiting politicians and media, leading to catastrophe for Asians.” You can easily substitute Blacks, Latinos or any other non-white segment of American Society in place of Asians in that sentence.
Amidst the history and social commentary in Nguyen’s story is a lot of family. In particular he writes about his mother. After a lifetime of hard work she faced “13 years of slow erosion, a death inflicted cell by cell on her body and mind.” He describes his own struggles with writing her story.
Why the “Man of Two Faces?” Perhaps it is this:
“In America’s binary of colonizer and colonized, are you, a refugee, the colonized or the colonizer? Perhaps you are both.”
Or maybe this:
“JFK dispatched (the Green Berets) to Viet Nam to save the good, freedom-loving Vietnamese (this means you) from the bad, communist-loving Vietnamese (this also means you.)”
Likely it’s something more personal. He is not afraid to lay out his contradictions and enigmas. His story is at once both proud and self-deprecating. What comes across is a very honest memoir. A read both captivating and enlightening.
Ordinary Human Failings
Megan Nolan
The Greens are an Irish family living in London. There’s a brother and sister, their father, and the sister’s 10-year-old child Lucy. They have any number of ordinary human failings: alcoholism, an unwanted pregnancy, neglectful parenting and an assortment of antisocial behavior traits.
The story revolves around a moment in time when Lucy is suspected of causing the death of another child on a playground.
Throw into this mix a young reporter for one of London’s sleazy, sensationalist tabloids. He sees this opportunity to generate headlines of outrage about Irish immigrants. To that end he isolates and inebriates each family member.
It is within that context that the story of this moment in time is told backwards. The story of how each member of the family came to be what they are. Is the sum total a sensational story in a sleazy tabloid? Or just a mash up of ordinary human failings?
The plot does eventually move forward, and the characters grow. But their past never stops influencing their future. Altogether the author has produced a creative vehicle to tell a story, simple on the surface but with somewhat hidden layers of depth.
Amigoland
Oscar Casares
If you are of a certain age, of which I am, this book is bloodchilling. Amigoland is an assisted care facility. We follow the patient Don Fidencio who doesn’t want to be there, doesn’t want to admit he needs the care he needs, doesn’t want anything to do with the walker he needs to walk. He’s no longer proficient at remembering names so he refers to staffers with names like The One with the Flat Face, and his fellow residents have monikers like The Gringo with the Ugly Finger. An ingenious way to remember who’s who.
Fidencio’s younger brother helps him escape. He is no youngster himself and is well into retirement. He is accompanied by his Mexican house cleaner/lover who is 30 years his junior. She is the voice of common sense through this epic.
The three of them go on a bus/taxi road trip through Mexico in search of Fidencio’s childhood home. It is a journey full of angst, emotions and humor.
This is a tale of identity. The brothers, though living in Texas, are not quite American, not quite Mexican. It is maybe a fact of life living on the border. It’s also very much about being alone. About losing parents or spouses or family and losing a sense of your roots.
This is both an entertaining and insightful read. Casares reminds us of the human issues on the border, not the polarizing political ones. And one more thing, it reminds us that it sucks to get old and watch your body give out on you.
Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy
James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams
Business news stories have been circulating that Paramount/CBS may be on the market. If you read Unscripted you won’t shed any tears for the disappearance of what seems to have historically been a pit of corporate toxicity. If you haven’t had your fill of sleaze following the Trump trials, you could pick up here.
It all starts with the patriarch, Sumner Redstone. The book covers his later years when he is in his early nineties. Barely able to talk and fed through a tube, this obscenely wealthy geezer still surrounds himself with beautiful young women who he showers with dollars, cars and houses. There’s one woman who is brought in from time to time to attempt some sort of sexual acts with him, most likely without success.
Two of the women he courts end up moving in and taking control of his care, or, more importantly his bank account. These two end up feuding with his daughter Shari. It’s a feud they ultimately lose but nonetheless walk away with considerable wealth.
Did Sumner just become cranky, temperamental and vengeful because he’s so old. We can’t tell what a younger Sumner was like from reading this book but my guess would be pretty awful.
Then there’s Les Moonves, CBS’ superstar CEO. Moonves had a track record of successful programming that has boosted the stock. He has also left behind a trail of MeToo moments. Like when he went after a diabetes doctor who was treating him and masturbated in her office. Or when he hired an assistant whose duties included providing oral sex on demand.
Amidst this sea of men behaving badly, Shari Redstone is treated like something of a hero. She would become controlling shareholder of Viacom and CBS and while she runs up against the male dominated culture of the corporation she eventually prevails, largely due to Moonves being exposed. She also seems to manage to hold together the Redstone family.
However disgraceful the behavior of this cast of characters, they all walk away rich. As do scores of lawyers as these people are perpetually suing and countersuing each other.
Unscripted is written by two New York Times journalists. The style reflects that, full of facts and succinctly written. One suspects it would sail through a fact checking session pretty cleanly.
Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World
Yepoka Yeebo
A swindle of colossal proportions. The perpetrator a Ghanaian named Dr. John Ackah Blay-Miezah. Or at least that was the last name he used. And, of course, he wasn’t a doctor.
The con went something like this. It started with a tall tale told about Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first prime minister after it became an independent country. The story goes that Nkrumah hid enormous wealth in the form of gold bars in a Swiss bank. Blay-Miezah seized on that and worked up a scenario whereby he held the keys to recovering this fortune. But he needed some cash to free up the gold held in something called the Oman Ghana Trust Fund, so he offered investors a ten to one return for investments in the fund. Oh how people jump at a get rich quick scheme. Blah-Miezah, working with crooks in Philadelphia and London as well as Ghana, received investments to the tune of billions.
Yeebo paints a picture of 1970’s and 80’s Ghana as infested with corruption. It would be quite a find to come up with a government official whose primary focus wasn’t enriching himself. It seemed like a place where a guy in a bar with a grievance could plot a coup for the next day and have it succeed.
I was fascinated to find that Richard Nixon’s attorney general John Mitchell was one of the crooks surrounding Blay-Miezah. This is a guy who was part of an administration that rode a law and order campaign into power. This is also a guy who went to jail because of his role in Watergate.
This book was exhaustively researched. Surely many of the folks mentioned would have wanted to hide this stuff. Yeebo brings it all out and in the epilogue offers this rather depressing conclusion: “…the story of Dr. John Ackah Blay-Miezah is not just a story about a con man. It is a story about how the world works: about how lies change history, and about how so much of today’s world is built on lies. Blay-Miezah matters because he was not the exception—he was the rule.”
No money ever shows up by the way. And the money investors gave to Blay-Miezah seems only to have enabled one man’s excessively lavish lifestyle.
off the leash 
