A House In Chania

Chania is the largest town in western Crete and the island's former capital, a village more than a city. We were  seven women visitors, ages 50 to 85,  during the last weeks of September, witnessing  a change of seasons with the sirocco winds blowing in  to herald the beginning of autumn.  Our 'perch' above the harbor gave us an unparalleled view of the workings of the town - sights, smells, sounds - throughout the day, into night. What we couldn't see from windows or a roof terrace we easily spied in short trips foraging  in the streets and surrounding countryside.
What makes a village is being able to become familiar with the patterns of people in only a few days.  We were lucky to be staying in one of the old Venetian buildings overlooking the iconic lighthouse and mosque that mark the port - symbols of past centuries. Ruins are everywhere, in progress of being charted. It was a humble reminder of history's broad sweep to see in one of the stately shipbuilding edifices open to the public along the harbor  a copy of a 16th century BC Minoan ship made to order for Greece's 2004 Olympics.

Our perspective was providentially skewed as temporary denizens of Dorothy's Dream House www.dorothys-dream.com, which has a special history of its own. The duplex  available for rental for groups of six (or more) was named for an American woman artist who made Chania her home for decades, cementing friendships with many of the people who still live there. (The mosque one night was the venue for a show of resident artists' works but no longer does a muezzin send out his call.) Back streets, beyond the more overt commercial  byways - surprisingly full of brand names in English - artisans sell their wares in small shops under bougainvillea trees.
 The hills above town are wonderfully forested  - row upon row of olive trees in differing shapes - between open areas where livestock roam. In one  minuscule village we feasted the afternoon away on locally grown food cooked solely on wood in large decorative clay pots. Customers eat what host Stellios and his wife made that day, accompanied by homemade wine. Pork and goat, greens and salad - traditional Cretan fare - served under palapa-like shelters in a hearty breeze.  On hot days we could walk to a town beach only minutes away for a swim in clear waters. Or stay secluded and cool in Dorothy's living room, feasting on a splendid library collection. Other excursions took us to Balos on the island's far western peninsula, where dreamy blue-green waters curling on white sand drew all too many others like us willing to take a rocky hike down to - alas, the all too busy beach. (A curse of sorts: the site is often found on the cover of Greek tourist brochures.) Another time we hiked at one of the area's famed monasteries where we could then buy homegrown oil, honey and wine. Crete is country unto itself, and Chania one of its  treasures.

A Mighty Merger

Merger isn't the most apt word. since what's happening is more of a temporary partnership between two leading arts institutions in the most institutionally minded city in the country. To wit, the National Gallery of Art www.nga.gov and Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts www.kennedy_center.org have combined forces to celebrate  Edgar Degas' iconic sculpture "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen." An original musical based on the piece debuts in Washington (at Kennedy Center) Oct. 25 at the same time on ongoing exhibit is open at the former big league venue.
What lay behind the collaboration is a sequence of largely unheralded events, beginning with director/choreographer Susan Stroman  asking the show's writer Lynn Ahrens "What was she thinking, do you suppose?"
That was five years ago. The woman these two Broadway power women had in mind was the teenage ballerina named Marie van Goethem who first posed for the artist in 1878. The statue (or statuette, the Gallery's term) that Degas labored over for many years may be the only one of his works that never travels, its unorthodox materials a mix of beeswax, clay, metal armature, rope, paintbrushes, human hair, linen, silk and rubber, cotton and silk. She might be brooding or bored but the low forehead, jutting chin, outstretched leg, arms behind her back is a compelling stance.  Stroman and Ahrens couldn't let go of their question. (Marie was dismissed from the Paris Opera Ballet in 1882 and her fate is unknown; long live American musical  as a revival forum.)
Deborah Ziska, NGA's press head, one year ago broached the possibility of timing the current NGA exhibit ('Degas's Little Dancer")  with the  world premiere of the musical (which the Kennedy Center is producing) and rallied the gallery's marketing team along with Dodge Thompson, the chief of exhibits who oversees gallery curators.  Deborah Rutter, Kennedy Center's new president, in describing the musical as "a little bit of history and a little bit of magic,"  hailed the cooperative effort  as "an example of what institutions ought to do."
Let's have more.
The gallery's exhibit runs from Oct. 5 to January 11 and is presented with several other objects from their collection, including an oil painting and a pastel from the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
October 5, 2014–January 11, 2015

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Thinking thing on 8/16/14 in Wash Post

So what does constitute an ideal 'urban experience'? Journalist Philip Kennicott raises the question today in the Washington Post by tackling the aesthetics and  effects of a new sterilized downtown 'City Center' complex replacing the old moribund Convention Center site. This one comes with the backing of Qatar money and may be the vision of a British architect (Norman Foster) imagining what Washington is or should be. The upshot does not look good for our fair DC city: bland, impersonal, slick, copycat modernity. Worth a thought or two...

DC VS NYC

The subject is routine: differences in 'quality of life' between Washington, D.C., and New York (meaning Manhattan and/or Brooklyn). From whose perspective, you may ask. Take a genial 35-year-old single man earning minimal income: where is he to find housing in 'hot' neighborhoods in either place? He once lived in the upper reaches - black and Hispanic - of Manhattan and now resides in a decidedly - but probably only temporarily - 'uncool' outlying D.C. neighborhood without a car. He walks 20 minutes to Metro, where previously in New York he sat on the stoop of his close-packed Manhattan dwelling and was the only white man on the block. Compare 'quality of life?" He was never mugged until he came to DC and lived for a time in the still-developing Shaw - and lived through the experience three times, the last time with a mugger who shook his hand after robbing him, saying 'Have a great day.' What does he conclude? That he never feels really safe in DC; that hostility by darker skinned people towards him is much more prevalent in DC. In New York, he actually was warned by his stoop fellows to be careful. In a way, they looked after him, feeling one of them since police assumed he was a downtown whitey coming uptown only for drugs. What explains the disparity? Southern blacks with a more vivid history of slavery in their ones populate DC, where Caribbean natives or offspring are more common in NY? The population density in Manhattan lends  itself more easily to familiarity, hence even family feelings? Who knows...

Ah, Portland

Portland, Oregon -  at last. High anticipation  from one who never had seen the satirical show on TV- or I might otherwise have seen "the city that works'  (its favorite slogan) through cracked lenses (as it were).  I had newbie's eyes wide open, ready to be charmed. Which was easy, given  the first day's sunshine and low humidity, the abundance of cafes and smiles. Chalk one up to the airport bathrooms, first of all: toilet handles painted green with a sign saying they are treated against germs. Handle up for liquid; down for solid waste. What could be more sanitary and efficient and environmentally sound....
Then there was the comfortably solid looking man behind the Info desk in the lobby of the Portland Building, David Muir by name. (Read on to see why this is the one building in Portland I had on my list to visit.) He had received a plaque for being some sort of superior citizen in his role of greeting visitors and directing them around what is a 15-story municipal office building next to city hall and headquarters for the city's service agencies. I wanted the day's New York Times and the newsstand in the lobby was closed for some reason that afternoon. He wasted no  time reaching for the phone and dialing up the nearest  Starbucks, asking them to put aside a copy for me. That led to a conversation about why all the tragedies of the week were being portrayed so graphically on front pages of newspapers.

Ah, Portland, the last holdout of the sanctified.
But it was the sight of a crew in blue on trams marshaling riders in person to see who was a registered voter and, if not, why not - sign right here. Young friendly faces patiently approaching strangers who, like as not, looked up in annoyance. It was a contract job, conducted by FieldWorks (see the web please). Nonpartisan, bipartisan, what have you. The first of its kind I've ever witnessed in any city in the world.
One free bus later my friend and I are deposited outside Portland's famous rose garden: masses of them, even bluish purple blooms, lined up in squares across rolling acres on the north side guarded by tall stately pine trees. Another welcome face, only a bronze statue this time: model of a man called a Rosarian, the official greeters for the city who traditionally turn out in white suits. Why white? Who knows. And the jolly bus driver so willing to put all us tourists straight about the what and why and where. Public restrooms in Pioneer Square, the open center for visitors to mingle or simply rest on stone steps while perusing the next sight on their itinerary. Ok, so back to Michael Graves' magnificently eclectic Portland Building with its landmark status. It cost $29 million to build, opened in 1982, has a green roof installed in 2006 (so goes Portland) but workers there are said to hate the place.  It works on the outside: a colorful range and variety of surface materials and decorative touches that made its mark as one of the early and most successful Postmodernist structures of this century.  Anything but gray steel and predictable straight lines.Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of contemporary blandness. Ah, but there was apparently not enough money to ensure its functioning features. A debate currently rages (as debates are said to do) whether it is a tear-down or a remodeling job. My vote, probably the majority now, is for the latter. Keep Portland green but not boringly so.

Star Spangled 200th at LOC

You had to hear it to believe it, the July 3rd tribute to our national anthem at the Library of Congress, celebrating a very rich 200th  birthday. Spokane-born baritone Thomas Hampson was the man in charge, more or less, humorously and tunefully assisted by University of Michigan musicologist/professor Mark Clague ( a former bassoonist, these are really talented men), for a two-hour program - free to the most eager  as most of these things are and, equally free, now on the Web under various headings. Do check especially www.loc.gov/collections/songs-of-america. Our  often-maligned patriotic verses began in 1775 - the music anyway - as a tribute to the sixth century BC Greek court poet Anacreon by members of London's Anacreontic Society (yes, keep reading, it gets better). The  ancient  poet had apparently "entertained his tyrannical patrons with lyrics celebrating wine, women and song" - BUT the society varied its interests, by having two hour symphonic music to head up its meetings. It was a musical society, the tune composed by one John Stafford Smith, presumably a member.
Oh, it gets better. The program of "Poets and Patriotism," included renditions of the anthem in German and Spanish, as well as the Abraham Lincoln 'Letter to Mrs. Bixby" set to music by contemporary composer Michael Daugherty. And anyone wishing to know why this most 'athletic melodies" (i.e. Star Spangled Banner) took root should consult LOC.  History is as complicated as the humans who make it happen. Hampson is a marvel, his voice a miracle of nature. He stood tall and commanding to the end when the entire audience stood for the final rendition, hands over hearts, fronting the University of Michigan men's alumni choir.  I may never have or see a better holiday/anniversary celebration.

New Yawk

Only in New York, you might say (Yawk, Yowhk, etc.), how a lone woman sitting on the stoop in Greenwich Village waiting for the restaurant to open reads intently from a large paperback book. She looks blessedly content. So much so that a stranger also hoping to get an early seat at the restaurant (the impeccably popular Pearl's Oyster Bar, even for people who don't do oysters), can't help but wonder at the title. Aha! It is the latest edition of Moss Hart's autobiography ("Act One"), the title of the dramatic adaptation that just closed at Lincoln Center, the very same book the stranger (myself) holds in her hand. Only my edition is dog-eared, decrepit, undoubtedly a 'first edition' paperback of the classic first published in 1959. "Have you got to the part yet where he joyfully escorts his family out of their old apartment, telling them to 'leave it all behind ...we're rich'"....? she asks me. We settle in together at the bar while she waits for a friend to join her.
Of course, this being The City, the woman could not help herself - she had given away the ending, something of a surprise, towards which Hart had been building throughout its 383 pages. Typically, too (generalization?), his final words: Intermission. Always another saga to come.

Always in this gem of a city, a labyrinthine metropolis, is a Next Best Thing. Sometimes the best is some of the oldest, most venerated - as in the 101-year-old Woolworth Building, sanctified now with landmark status and thus, presumably, a public monument. Only it is not. A developer has in mind to build fancy residences (yes, in that tower!) above the office space now let and the building these days is off limits to passersby. The only way to view its imposing interiors - lobby, basement and mezzanine  - is by signing up online for the Woolworth Building Lobby Tour WoolworthTours.com and pay $45. It's worth it just to see the sculpted face in limestone of Mr. Woolworth himself,  counting his money, just one of the many surprising features available to the quick of eye (though guides explain all this of course). The entrepreneurial merchant from Watertown, NY, grew up enamored of French Renaissance styles and strove to make his headquarters an epic recreation of the European art.