off the leash

Whatever Happened To? Greg Louganis

Posted on December 15, 2024 by Ken Dowell

Greg Louganis was the greatest diver in American Olympic history. He won two gold medals, one in platform and one in springboard, in each of two successive Olympics, 1984 and 1988. He also was the most prominent athlete of his generation to come out as gay. And that goes a long way toward explaining why he didn’t get the level of adoration and wealth of some other Olympic heroes.

Louganis publicly came out as gay in 1994, though his swimming teammates and those closest to him knew of his sexual orientation. A year later, he revealed he had been living with AIDS.

“He was at the center of an explosive controversy, accused of possibly transmitting HIV to other divers when he injured his head at the 1988 Olympics and bled into the pool. How HIV is transmitted was well-understood by 1995, and the CDC said that chlorine kills the virus, that it was diluted in thousands of gallons of water, and that it can’t be spread to people who don’t have open wounds themselves.” (Alex Bollinger, LGBTQ Nation, March 20, 2019

Scott M. Reid of Freedom News Service (Aug 14, 2009) would later write of Louganis’ post-Olympic experience: “He had spent years trying to build walls around the different parts of his life. Instead, he created a maze, a tortured track through depression, abusive relationships, betrayal, alcohol and substance abuse, certain that it led not to an opening but a dead end.”

One of his problems was an abusive relationship. A story in the Guardian by Chris Godfrey (July 9, 2024) describes that:

“Shortly before the Los Angeles Olympics, Louganis met James ‘Jim’ Babbitt at a bar. They began dating, and before long Babbitt became Louganis’s manager.

“The relationship was abusive. In their seven years together, Babbitt drove a wedge between Louganis and his friends and family. He cheated on him, and Louganis would later find out that Babbitt was a sex worker. In one incident, Babbitt raped Louganis at knife-point at home.

“Towards the end of their relationship, Louganis became suspicious of Babbitt’s handling of his finances. A closer look revealed the extent of Babbitt’s deceit: he had transferred most of Louganis’s earnings into his own name, leaving Louganis with just $2,000. In 1989, Louganis ended the relationship and obtained a restraining order. Babbitt’s response was to threaten to out Louganis as HIV positive. The dispute was settled out of court; when Babbitt finally moved out of Louganis’s home, he defecated in the pool.”

Babbitt died of AIDS related causes in 1990.

A 2015 HBO documentary about Louganis touched on his financial issues.

“… it begins with Louganis dealing with bill collectors, creditors, and a bank that’s about to foreclose on the house he’s lived in for 28 years. He’s broke. Not because, like many former stars, he snorted all his massive earnings or pissed it away on reckless adventures. No, in part, Louganis is broke because he was never really rich. An out gay, poz athlete — and even before that, a teen athlete that was perceived to be gay —Louganis never got the big endorsement deals that Jenner and Mary Lou Retton and other all-American types did, even after he won Olympic gold.” (Diane Anderson-Minshall, hivplusmag.com, Aug. 20 2015)

Louganis himself would later say: “A lot of Olympians, they don’t talk…about how after your Olympics are over and that if you’re successful, you have this high-high, but then you have this low-low. Because it’s the question of, ‘Now what? Who am I? What worth do I have?’” (Scott Collins Aug, 4, 2015, Los Angeles Times)

‘Now what’ for Louganis involved dogs, some acting, advocacy, and eventually finding his way back to the pool. In Chris Godfrey’s Guardian story, Louganis talks about how he went to the dogs.

“‘I’ve always done better with animals than I have people,’ he says. ‘It’s where I felt trust and honesty.’ Behind Louganis is a huge painting of him with two of his late dogs: Nipper, a jack russell terrier, and Freeway, a great dane. ‘Those two are my true-heart dogs. They were the reason I got up when I was going through HIV treatments, and through all that they were right by my side.’

“Louganis is the co-author of For the Life of Your Dog, a comprehensive guide to dog ownership, and trains dogs for dog agility competitions. ‘The dogs love it. They’re having fun. And, yeah, I want to be the best that I can be for them.’”

Louganis had majored in theater in college and he had a number of acting roles in movies and in plays. Perhaps most notably he played the role of Darius in the off-Broadway play ‘Jeffrey’ in 1983, a play about living with AIDS. He had a starring role in another off-Broadway play about gay life, ‘The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me,’ two years later.

And Louganis eventually found his way back to the pool.

In 2010, the New York Times reported: “Greg Louganis, a four-time Olympic gold medalist, will make his debut as a mentor to up-and-coming Americans at this weekend’s USA Diving Grand Prix at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center in Florida. His involvement comes nearly 22 years after he defended his gold medals in 3-meter springboard and 10-meter platform at the 1988 Seoul Games.”

In 2011 he was hired by SoCal Divers to coach aspiring athletes. And NBC Los Angeles broadcast this report in 2012. “Now, at age 52, he’s trying to help return US diving to glory. For the first time since retiring from diving after the 1988 Olympics, Louganis is serving as a mentor for American divers.”

Along the way Louganis has continually supported and advocated for LGBTQ organizations and those helping people with AIDS. During a visit to the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center last year, he had this to say about Gov. DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” law that started the right-wing governor’s feud with Disney.

“The schools are exactly the place, Louganis believes, where it’s paramount not to sweep ‘LGBTQ’ under the rug.

“‘It should be discussed,’ Louganis said. ‘That’s causing a lot of pain and suffering for young gay kids who are trying to find themselves. There’s a huge, huge influx of suicides that happen because of this stupidity.’” (Marc Berman, Palm Beach Post, Jan. 28, 2023 )

Berman also noted that “he recently announced he would be auctioning off three Olympic medals (1976 silver, 1984 and 1988 golds) with part of the proceeds going to charity, including the Damien Center — the largest AIDS care provider in Indiana.” You can see the Olympic medals put up for action at https://greglouganis.com/auction-items/.

Eventually the accolades came his way.

In 2013, he was inducted into the California Sports Hall of Fame.

In 2017 he was named Grand Marshall of the Rose Parade.

In 2013 he was inducted in the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame.

In 2016, this long overdue announcement was aired on NPR’s All Things Considered:

“Wheaties announced that Louganis — who is openly gay and HIV-positive — along with two other former Olympians, hurdler Edwin Moses and swimmer Janet Evans, will be featured on the cereal boxes as part of the revamped ‘legends’ series.

“General Mills spokesman Mike Siemienas told NPR he couldn’t provide an answer as to why Louganis wasn’t on the box previously because no one who was involved in those decisions still worked at the company. Siemienas said a committee is responsible for determining which athletes are on the boxes.”

Louganis had this to say in an interview for the Harvard Business Review:

“A reporter in Chicago contacted Wheaties back in the 1980s to ask why I hadn’t been on a box, and the response to him at the time was ‘We didn’t feel that he fulfilled our demographics,’ which was basically a nice way of saying, ‘It’s rumored that he’s gay.’

“‘It’s more meaningful now than it would have been in my heyday, because I’m being embraced as a whole person. I’m 56, a gay man, living with HIV, happily married. Who would have imagined that back in the 1980s? I also did some research and found that General Mills is ranked very high in terms of human rights: They have a diversity foundation, and they do a lot for the LGBT community. So the times have changed. We’ve just come so far.’”

In 2015 Louganis told Rick Bentley of the Fresno Bee: “I was diagnosed with HIV six months prior to the Olympic Games in 1988. And so honestly, I knew those were my last competitive dives because we still viewed HIV/AIDS as a death sentence, and I never thought I’d see 30.

“And then 30 goes by. And then 40 goes by. I’m 55.”

And now he’s 64. Whatever happened to Greg Louganis? “He was a hero for many in the late 1980’s, but in a way, it has taken even more effort and honesty, to become the hero in his own life that he is today.” (David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 2015)

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Note on links in story. No links are provided for stories from the New York Times since these stories are behind a paywall. Other newspaper and wire service stories cited without a link were accessed through newspapers.com.

Whatever Happened To? Art Garfunkel

Posted on December 8, 2024 by Ken Dowell

During the 1960’s Art Garfunkel teamed with Paul Simon to produce some of the most memorable music of their times. Few have forgotten songs like “The Sound of Silence,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “The Boxer,” “Mrs. Robinson” or my personal favorite “America.” Together they earned eight Grammy Awards, including one for lifetime achievement, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But they could never achieve the personal harmony that they could with their voices. By 1970 they were done. Since then they’ve spewed a little venom at each other, vowed to never get back together, then reunited for a handful of special occasions like a 1981 concert in Central Park, a 2003 U.S. tour following the lifetime achievement award and a free concert at the Colisseum in Rome before a massive audience.

What has Garfunkel been doing all these years when he wasn’t swearing off or reuniting with Paul Simon? He did a bit of acting, most notably in the Mike Nichols films Catch-22 and Carnal Knowledge. (It was Nichols who had engaged Simon & Garfunkel to do the sound track for his film The Graduate, including the song “Mrs. Robinson.”) He also did a few random TV gigs.

And he read a lot.

“In June 1968, incidentally the year Simon and Garfunkel released Bookends, Garfunkel decided to start listing every book he read. The singer kept this up through his and Simon’s acrimonious 1970 break-up and four reunions over the subsequent four decades.

“It’s fair to assume Garfunkel is still reading as voraciously as ever and logging each title as he goes. However, in October 2013, he let the public in on his little game, listing the shelf-splintering 1195 books he had read over the past 45 years on his website. Fortunately for us, Garfunkel has distilled the list to just 157 favourites.

“It’s still not a bitesize reading list, but one can get a snapshot of the singer’s refined taste in literature. Alongside dense classics like Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and James Joyce’s Ulysses are some more culturally contemporary page-turners like Stephen King’s The Shining and Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James.” (Jordan Potter, Far Out Magazine, Nov. 18, 2023 )

When he wasn’t reading he was walking. The guy who sang “America” would later walk it. Hartford Courant rock critic Roger Catlin described that in a story published Aug. 18, 1994.

“…he has been making more headlines lately for his long hikes. Whenever he can fit it in, he’s strolling across the country in weeklong segments, flying in, walking about 100 miles, then flying home. ‘It’s kind of a freaking out, which I think is very healthy,’ he says. After walking across Japan in the ’80s, he started on the United States. ‘And I’m almost finished now. I’ve gone from New York to Idaho. I just crossed into Idaho a few weeks ago.’”

In an interview with the Guardian (June 24, 2015 ) Garfunkel talked about the people he met on his walks.

“The world is a very friendly place. People mind their own business. They all want to get to heaven in their own quiet way. Gangs do not roam the earth – 99.999% of the earth. I had one incident in Ohio. It was Friday night, and that’s very telling. When the sun goes down on a Friday night, people get a little nutty. There were three guys in a car, they threw a beer can at me, it was three-quarters full and it hit me on the sternum. That was an ouch. I thought I’d broken a bone.

“They didn’t recognise me. They were just assholes being mischievous and drunk. It was an Ohio thing.”

Garfunkel would later set off on foot to cross Europe, starting in western Ireland and ending up in Istanbul.

In 1989, Garfunkel published a book. “Still water runs deep for Art Garfunkel, the high, clear voice of Simon and Garfunkel, and ‘Still Water’ is the title of his new book of prose poems. ‘Does it help to feel better about a painful memory by writing about it? Not really. It doesn’t have anything to do with it,’ he said. Some of the 84 poems in the book concern the suicide of his girlfriend, Laurie Bird, in 1979.” (AP, Nov. 29, 1989)

Twice, while in his 60’s, Garfunkel was busted for pot.

“Singer Art Garfunkel, who pleaded guilty last year to pot possession in upstate New York, was charged again Sunday after a marijuana cigarette was allegedly found in the ashtray of his car, state police said.

“The 63-year-old Garfunkel, who lives in Manhattan, was charged after being pulled over for failing to stop his vehicle at a stop sign, The Daily Freeman of Kingston reported Tuesday.

“Upon approaching Garfunkel’s car, a trooper noticed a strong odor of marijuana and a subsequent search turned up a joint in the ashtray, the newspaper reported. He was issued a ticket and is due back in Woodstock Town Court on Sept. 22.

“In January 2004, Garfunkel was charged with marijuana possession after state police stopped his limousine for speeding in the Ulster County town of Hurley, which is near Woodstock some 55 miles southwest of Albany. During that stop, police found a small amount of pot in Garfunkel’s jacket.

“The next month, he pleaded guilty and paid $200 in fines.” (AP, Aug. 30, 2005 )

Garfunkel would later try his hand at a memoir, “What Is It All but Luminous: Notes from an Underground Man.” It got a less than stallar review in the Washington Post (Sibbie O’Sullivan, Sept. 13, 2017 ).

“Garfunkel’s book…is a splattering of 30-plus years of handwritten thoughts, lists, travel notes, bad poetry, confessions, snarky digs, platitudes and prayers gussied up for publication in different fonts and sizes.

“Reading it is like rummaging through a huge junk drawer of the mind. You might find something useful. Garfunkel himself seems doubtful of his endeavor: ‘Maybe my unusual book does communicate.’ Or maybe it doesn’t, which is sad because Garfunkel, the angel-voiced half of Simon and Garfunkel, and a successful solo act, is a talented, educated and seemingly loving man. Unfortunately, the singer — who at 75 continues to tour — is more successful behind the microphone than he is on the page.

Art Garfunkel — 2013 (photo by Adam Schartoff)

“The book is also filled with such gnomic statements as: ‘You can’t discover fuchsia twice.’ ‘Morality played to win is a plate of tin.’ ‘My poetry bits are organs. What is the least connective tissue that sets them in a body?’

O’Sullivan is suggesting, perhaps, that Garfunkel should stick to singing. That is something he never stopped doing, making solo records and touring throughout his lifetime. That is, except for one scary interruption.

“In January 2010, Art began experiencing vocal problems after choking on a piece of lobster at a restaurant. The incident caused him to have a hoarse voice and issues swallowing. After a trip to the doctor, the performer was told that one of his vocal cords was stiff and thicker than the other one.

“’As the weeks ensued, I saw that I couldn’t finesse my singing in the mid-range,’ Art told Rolling Stone in February 2014. ‘I could do the high notes and the low notes. High notes are my stock in trade, thank God. But I couldn’t sing, ‘When you’re weary, feeling small.’ I couldn’t do anything in the middle where you need that finesse. It’s indescribable. I was crude instead of fine.’” (Sanantha Agate, June 1, 2023, Closer Weekly)

He told Bill Nutt of the Central New Jersey Home News (Oct. 9, 2015) “I’ve been singing since I was 5 years old… I have to be a singer.”

Garfunkel did recover his voice and was back on the road touring by 2014. Lately, he has enjoyed being part of a new duo, singing with his son.

“There is a new duo in town: Garfunkel & Garfunkel. If the name seems oddly familiar, well, it is exactly what it appears to be. At the age of 82, the great American vocalist Art Garfunkel has teamed up with his 33-year-old musician son, Art Garfunkel Jr., to record an album of close harmony duets, prosaically titled Father and Son.

“The harmonic blend on Father and Son is gorgeous, as they harmonise and interweave to lush orchestral and band backing on classics of the American songbook, some old 1950s and 1960s favourites of Garfunkel Senior’s by the Everly Brothers and Cat Stevens, and some very effective versions of Eighties pop songs that are favourites of Junior’s (including the first single, an interpretation of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, released today). (Neil McCormick, Chief Music Critic, The Telegraph, Sept. 20, 2024 )

Whatever Happened To?

Posted in Whatever Happened To? | Tagged Art Garfunkel, music, Simon & Garfunkel | 10 Comments

Whatever Happened To? Evel Knievel

Posted on December 1, 2024 by Ken Dowell

Robert Craig Knievel was a small town hustler from Butte, Mont. He once organized a minor league hockey team and managed to get the Czech National Team to play them. Then he absconded with their share of the gate receipts. He started a hunting tour business that lasted until the feds found him leading his customers into Yellowstone. And he once made a big splash working as a salesman for Combined Insurance. He sold 271 policies in one day…..at a psychiatric hospital.

But then Robert Craig Knievel became Evel Knieval, motorcycle daredevil. He was the star attraction of ABC’s popular Wide World of Sports. Ideal Toys sold something like $300 million worth of the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle toy. He became an action figure, a hero to boys throughout the U.S.

“He successfully jumped his motorcycle 275 times, but crash landed into fame with the 15 he didn’t.” (Jake Nichols. Cowboy State Daily, Sept. 2, 2023)

His most celebrated failures:

“The first of Evel Knievel’s most famous stunts occurred on New Year’s Eve 1967 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The stunt involved an attempted 141 ft. (43m) motorcycle jump over the hotel’s iconic fountain. It did not go as planned, with Knievel coming off the bike on landing and suffering a crushed pelvis and femur, fractures to various bones, and severe concussion. After ABC bought the crash footage and televised it, Knievel’s fame went to a whole new level.

“Other famous failed Knievel stunts include the time he tried and failed to fly across Idaho’s Snake River Canyon in a steam-powered rocket, and the time he tried and failed to jump a motorbike across 13 single-decker buses in front of a crowd of 90,000 at London’s Wembley Stadium.” (Jack Clayton, April 13, 2018, mpora.com)

After the 1975 London stunt, Knievel announced he was through. Sort of.

The meteoric rise would soon be followed by an equally dramatic fall. “Of all the bones Evel Knievel broke through the years, the costliest may have been the left arm of a PR man by the name of Shelly Saltman.” (AP, Dec. 4, 2007). Saltman was supposedly a friend of Knievel’s and was one of his promoters. But in 1977, he wrote a book about the Evel one with some unflattering commentary that infuriated Knievel.

“…the death-defying motorcyclist approached Saltman in the parking lot of 20th Century Fox on Sept. 21, 1977, and suddenly started swinging a bat. Saltman, then a studio executive, raised his arm to protect his head, a move he says doctors told him probably saved his life. His arm was shattered and is held together to this day with a steel plate and screws.” (AP, Dec. 4, 2007)

Saltman would eventually get a $12.75 million settlement.

“During the ensuing trial, Knievel fired his attorney, pleaded guilty and says, given the chance, he would do it again. He’s sentenced to six months in jail for felony assault, served nights and weekends.

“But the end is near. Ideal pulls Knievel toys and cancels all licensing with the aging star. Revenue streams dry up, the wheels come off and Knievel withdraws from the public eye as most of his assets are sold or repossessed.” (Jake Nichols. Cowboy State Daily, Sept. 2, 2023) By 1981 he would file for bankruptcy.

But chaos would continue to follow Knievel.

In 1982, Ed Bouchette, who would later write about the incident in the Athletic (June 9, 2020), found Knievel parked in a motor home outside Keystone Raceway in Westmoreland County, Pa., where a poster announced “Can You Beat Evel Knievel?”

Bouchette’s attempt at an interview went like this:

“In the midst of him regaling me with stories, a thud struck the side of the home, along with a man shouting from outside. A few more thuds and loud angry words and Evel excused himself to see what was going on. I followed. An angry man with a rock in his hand stood outside. He hollered at Knievel, said he had beaten the celebrity fair and square in the match race and wanted his money. Knievel tried to explain that the man lost on some technicality. The angry competitor was having none of it and squared off against Knievel, who once spent six months in prison for beating his press agent with a baseball bat.” Apparently they came to some sort of agreement before things escalated any further.

“In 1986, he was fined $200 in Kansas City, Mo., on charges of soliciting an undercover policewoman for immoral purposes.” (Richard Severo, Dec. 1, 2007, New York Times)

On Oct. 11, 1994, this story appeared in the Carroll County Times (Westminster, Md.):

“Motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel was arrested for allegedly beating a woman companion, police said Monday. Knieval, 55, was arrested Sunday night after police answered a disturbance call at a motel and found a 25-year-old Florida woman with redness and swelling on her face and neck. She said the former motorcycle stuntman had hit her during an argument.”

AP filed this story on Sept. 25, 1995:

“Superior Court Judge William Martin ordered the 56-year-old ex-daredevil (real name: Robert Craig Knievel) to spend 200 hours coaching youngsters on the importance of bicycle helmets. ‘It’s a tough law,’ Knievel told Martin in pleading no contest Friday to keeping a .44 Magnum handgun, a .38-caliber revolver, two knives and a stun gun in his car trunk. Police found the cache last year after his arrest on a charge of battering his girlfriend. Krystal Kennedy, 25, later dismissed their fight as a ‘tussle,’ and was at Knievel’s side in court.”

Kennedy was at his side again in 1999 in Las Vegas.

“At the same fountains where he crashed 32 years ago, Knievel tied the knot Friday with Crystal Kennedy at Caesars Palace hotel-casino in Las Vegas. Knievel, 61, arrived at the ceremony on a motorcycle, then waited for his 30-year-old bride, who was escorted by Caesar and Cleopatra, of course. Knievel, who underwent a lifesaving liver transplant earlier this year, said he wanted to start his new life in Las Vegas, where his career began. ‘Thanks for meeting my beautiful little wife Crystal,’ Knievel said to the crowd of several hundred that gathered to witness the nuptials.” (Victoria Advocate, Victoria, Texas, Dec. 21 1999)

Evel Knievel's station wagon — Evel Knievel’s station wagon

Knievel had divorced Linda, his wife of 38 years, with whom he had four children, in 1997. Kennedy divorced him two years after they were married and got a restraining order against him. But they eventually reconciled and got back together.

By 2007. Knievel was in serious condition. Salon’s Joshua Seftel (Dec. 5, 2007) made this attempt at an interview:

“’This will be your chance to talk about hepatitis C,’ I told him. ‘A way to promote the issue and to help people.’ Evel explained that’s exactly what he wanted to do. He needed a new liver and there was a good chance he would die. He joked that this was his latest stunt, something his doctor liked to call ‘Snake Liver Canyon.’ The problem was, Evel wasn’t joking. As with all his other death-defying stunts, Knievel wasn’t about to undergo liver transplant surgery for free. He wanted to be paid for it.”

One of Knievel’s last encounters was with the artist formerly known as Kanye West. West had released a music video “Touch the Sky” in which he portrays himself as “Evel Kanyevel.”

“Knievel filed a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement relating to his name and likeness, calling the clip ‘vulgar and offensive’ and damaging to his reputation. Keep in mind this is a dude who leaped things on motorcycles for a living.

“‘That video that Kanye West put out is the most worthless piece of crap I’ve ever seen in my life, and he uses my image to catapult himself on the public,’ he ranted at the time.

“’The guy just went too far using me to promote his filth to the world. I’m not in any way that kind of a person.’” (Nathan Jolly, The Music Network, July 27, 2018)

Knievel seems to have put the vitriol aside and the two claimed to have settled amicably. Shortly afterward, Knievel passed away.

On Dec. 1, 2007, the New York Times published this story by Richard Severo:

“Evel Knievel, the hard-living, death-defying adventurer who went from stealing motorcycles to riding them in a series of spectacular airborne stunts in the 1960s and ’70s that brought him worldwide fame as the quintessential daredevil performer, died yesterday in Clearwater, Fla. He was 69.

“Mr. Knievel had been in failing health for years with diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable lung condition. In 1999, he underwent a liver transplant after nearly dying of hepatitis C, which he believed he had contracted from a blood transfusion after one of his many violent spills.”

But the Evel Knievel legacy (and the hustle) lives on through his family. This press release was issued in February of this year:

“DESTIHL Brewery and K and K Promotions Inc (The Evel Knievel Family) are leaping to new heights together with a spectacular beer project. True Evel American Blonde Ale and Evel Knievel Imperial IPA will be making the jump to store beer shelves across the USA in the coming weeks! (https://www.brewbound.com/news/destihl-brewery-and-evel-knievel-family-announce-beer-partnership/)

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Posted in Sports, Whatever Happened To? | Tagged daredevil, Evel Knievel, motorcycle | 5 Comments

The sun, the moon, the beach

Posted on November 24, 2024 by Ken Dowell

Providenciales, Turks and Caicos

All photos taken on the properties of Wymara Resort.

Posted in Travel | Tagged Photography, Providenciales, sunset, travel, Turks and Caicos, Wymara | 5 Comments

The Artists of Newark

Posted on November 17, 2024 by Ken Dowell

Radical Reimagining, an exhibit of the annual Newark Arts Festival at the Newark Museum of Art.

Bacalhau a Portjuguesa, Lillian Ribeiro — Bacalhau a Portuguesa, Lillian Ribeiro

La Promesa del Campesino and Sombrero Vueltiao, Bryan Montenegro

POPPASHOT, Jahi Kijo Lendor — La Promesa del Campesino and Sombrero Vueltiao, Bryan Montenegro

Jade, Malik Hill — Guardian of Tranquility, Radisha James

Reimagining Radical Soul, Gregg Banks — Black Girl Magic, Kervin Andre

May I Have Your Attention Please? Cathleen Mccoy Bristol

Brown Boy You are the Universe, Not an Unwanted Weed, Danielle Scott — She Who Is, Barbara Minch

Redman, Ron E. A. Powell — Amilcar Cabral, Maria Estrela

Posted in Art | Tagged art, museums, Newark, Newark Museum of Art | 3 Comments

Backyard Bird Cam: Fall Edition

Posted on November 10, 2024 by Ken Dowell

Blue Jay

Northern cardinal

House sparrow

Mourning dove

Evening grosbeak

With House finch

Purple finch

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged animals, Birds, blue jay, cardinal, dove, finch, nature, Photography, sparrow | 11 Comments

By Plane, Boat or Train

Posted on November 3, 2024 by Ken Dowell

Vintage New York City travel posters.

Poster House, New York

New York/Wonder City of the World — 1927 (Adolph Treidler)

New York City travel posters — Vanity Fair, 1925 (Hugh Gray Lieber) Royal Mail Line, 1925 (Horace Taylor) Cunard White Star, 1935 (designer uuknown)

New York par la Transat — 1955 (Albert Brenet)

World's Fair travel posters — 1939 (Sascha Maurer)

Tomoko Miho poster — Wall St., 1968 (Tomoko Miho)

Posted in Art, Travel | Tagged airlines, art, musuems, New York, Poster House, travel | 5 Comments

MFF24 — Stories, Laughs and Truths, Pt. 2

Posted on October 28, 2024 by Ken Dowell

Apocalypse in the Tropics

Petra Costa’s documentary is about a toxic blend of evangelical Christianity and right-wing politics. Nope, not the upcoming U.S. election. This is about Brazil, a country where, according to the pastors in the movie, 30 percent of the population is evangelical.

The documentary covers the rise and fall of Jair Bolsonaro, a right wing president heavily under the influence of a pastor named Malafaia. These guys offered campaign promises like putting a gun in every home and not one bit of land for indigenous peoples. I don’t think that even Project 2525 hit on that one.

This is really a magnificent documentary. Costa gets amazing access to players on both sides of Brazil’s polarized leadership. Her commentary is thoughtful but she doesn’t try to tell the story, letting instead the words and actions of the people she is filming do so.

As an American, you can’t help seeing Bolsonaro as Brazil’s Trump. So what happens when he loses the election to Lula? He refuses to concede, declares fraud and his supporters break into and ransack the Congressional building. Sounds familiar, right?

(Petra Costa was awarded a special jury prize for Apocalypse in the Tropics)

Micro Budget

A laugh out loud movie. And how often do you find a laugh out loud movie at a film festival?

A guy from Iowa heads west with his nine month pregnant wife to make a movie in Los Angeles, which he assumes will sell because, after all, streamers will buy anything. The title reflects the lack of funds he has to work with. So the caterer he hires to feed the staff shows up with mayonnaise sandwiches. And his visual effects guy’s only previous experience is working for off-brand bowling alleys. His lack of funds is matched only by his lack of ability.

There’s also a guy who’s filming the making of this movie. So it’s a movie within a movie, but really no movie at all.

Somehow our director manages to alienate everyone, most notably his pregnant wife. She’s in the movie but also is cleaning, cooking and taking out the garbage at the AirBNB where he’s filming and housing his cast.

The stupid statements, bad decisions and overall incompetence are a laugh a minute. On a side note, there are a number of cameos, most notably Seal. Can’t explain how he ended up in this movie.

La Cocina

La Cocina is in a large Times Square restaurant with an army of waitresses and back-of-house staff. The kitchen is crowded, noisy, messy, vulgar, abusive and violent.

There are a couple of plot lines in the movie. There is an $800+ shortfall in one pay station that leads to a host of accusations and incriminations. And there’s the affair between a cook and a waitress and the unwanted pregnancy that results. But for the most part, the setting is the story. The staff is made up of immigrants, mostly illegals. I’m literally watching this movie at the same time Trump is holding one of his rallies demonizatig immigrants. What I see on screen are people who came looking for a better life, working crappy, degrading jobs and getting bullied besides. One particularly strong scene was of a group of kitchen workers, from Mexico, Colombia, Morocco and Bensonhurst, sitting in an alley smoking on their break and talking of their dreams. They were anything but grandiose.

The movie is artfully filmed in black and white. That added to the dinginess of the setting and the dreariness of the workday.

The kitchen workers called each other chef, just like in The Bear, but compared to La Cocina, the behavior in The Bear’s kitchen is a model of decorum. There is no doubt in my mind that kitchens as toxic as this one are all too common. But I nonetheless felt the movie was a bit overdone, particularly when in comes to the violence and the scope of some accidents.

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MFF24 — Stories, Laughs and Truths Pt. 1

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Apocalypse in the Tropics, film, film festivals, La Cochina, Micro Budget, Montclair Film Festival, movies, reviews | 1 Comment

MFF24 — Stories, Laughs and Truths Pt. 1

Posted on October 27, 2024 by Ken Dowell

Universal Language

The universal language is Farsi, with a little French thrown in. It’s spoken in the movie’s two settings Montreal and Winnipeg. But the audience is kept on its toes by characters who should be in one city appearing in the other.

If you’re a fan of straightforward narrative, Universal Language won’t be your cup of tea. There are a couple subplots to cling to. One a large denomination bill found by two children frozen into heavy ice. And there’s a guy from Montreal heading home to look up his mother.

More prominent is a series of odd scenes that have little to do with either of those stories. Like the Winnipeg tour guy who takes his group to a bland residential building and advises that the residents include an administrative assistant and a fax operator. Or the woman who boards a bus in Montreal headed from Winnipeg and finds the seat next to her has been purchased for a turkey. A live Turkey. Turkeys in fact have a prominent role in Universal Language. Who knows?

I thought of this as Wes Anderson in Farsi. It’s odd, eccentric and unpredictable. But it’s also fun and interesting.

(A Special Jury Prize for Cinematography was awarded to Isabelle Stochtchenko for her work in Universal Language.)

Dahomey

Twenty-six pieces of art from the African Kingdom of Dahomey are being transported from France back to Africa, to what is now the Kingdom of Benin. This is stolen art, plundered by colonialists. There’s royal statues and decorative, spiritual pieces.

The documentary starts with the process. The pieces are secured, crated and transported. They make the journey by air and then we watch as they are “freed” back in their homeland.

For me the most compelling part of the movie was the debate among students in Benin about the artifacts, but in a larger sense about colonialism. There are tears of joy as part of a people’s history is returned to them. But equally tears of rage, 26 artifacts being returned out of an estimated 7,000 that were plundered.

There is an eerie side to the movie as we hear from the statues themselves, speaking in total darkness from inside their crates, wondering, not unlike some of the students, about their identity.

The documentary is a bit slow paced but it is meaningful and provocative. I don’t think you can watch and then go see artworks in a museum that were made in colonized or indigenous lands without thinking about where those works legitimately belong.

Misericordia

The baker in a small French village dies. A former employee comes back for the funeral, which draws the appreciation of the baker’s wife and the ire of the baker’s son. These three are joined by the village priest and a heavy-set disheveled dude named Walter.

Why are the former employee and the son jealous of each other’s relationship with Walter? Why does the son hate the former employee? What was the latter’s relationship to the baker?

All of these relationships are mysteries that unravel during the course of the movie. But not entirely. It is never completely clear who is lying and who is covering up. We also are left with questions about who is sleeping with who and are these guys gay or straight.

There are some beautiful scenes in the French countryside and some very dark bedroom scenes (not sex just uncomfortable conversations). I found it pretty suspenseful albeit a head scratcher.

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MFF24 — Stories, Laughs and Truths, Pt. 2

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dahomey, film, film festivals, Misericordia, Montclair Film Festival, movies, reviews, Universal Language | 3 Comments

Asmundarsafn — The Sculpture Garden

Posted on October 20, 2024 by Ken Dowell

Asmundur Sveinsson was a 20th century Icelandic sculptor. He passed away in 1982. He spent a good part of his life living in Asundarsafn, his home in Reykjavik. It nows serves as a museum exhibiting his work, both in the building and on the surrounding grounds.