Recent Riffs

The Invite

Vikings Finale

Arts

Road Trip

A three-day art excursion took us to Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio; Greensburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The impetus was the “Manet/Morisot” show at CMA that had been so well received in San Francisco earlier this year. It was exceptional, although too small-scaled to have merited the trip by itself. Fortunately, in the next gallery was a sensational survey of works by Martin Puryear–and, of course, the permanent collection at Cleveland is a pleasure in itself.
The M/M exhibit was unusual in making a case: here, that Morisot was not simply a protege of Manet, but that her experimental art influenced and loosened his later work.

Music

Billy Joel

From the Piano Man album in 1973 through Glass Houses in 1980, with a quick step back to 1971’s Cold Spring Harbor, each Billy Joel release was a marker in time in my Young Adulthood. Piano Man itself was wonderful, and was undoubtedly my introduction, but hearing Captain Jack and Ballad of Billy the Kid first on late-night radio then on my turntable hooked me, just as Bruce Springsteen had earlier the same year with Greetings from Asbury Park. (Living in Westchester County I felt equidistant from Billy’s Long Island and Bruce’s New Jersey.) Streetlife Serenade, Joel’s followup album, was a disappointment,

Movies

The Odyssey

Forgetting for a moment how Christopher Nolan’s movie compares to Homer’s poem, let me react to the film itself. First, it is encompassing–visually, aurally, dramatically. Despite its 280-minute length (with no introductory throat-clearing), I never considered looking at my watch. That said, it could have been shortened 20-30 minutes without losing much. The scenes with the suitors were weak and repetitive . There was one episode in which Odysseus’s men landed on an island and were repulsed by a troop of armored robots that could have been excised completely. The sack of Troy went on forever and maybe was even shown twice. In fact,

Sports

Minnesota Fans

It is well known that Minnesota sports fans expect the worst when it comes down to a big game for their team. Whether this stems from the Vikings’ 0-4 record in early Super Bowls or a general Midwestern lack of self-confidence, I don’t know. Nor do I know whether this defeatism is at all unique to Minnesota or is typical of small-market cities. I do know that, in contrast, New York fans expect championships from their teams, even when the Giants, Knicks and Yankees are clearly performing at sub-par levels. It was, therefore, a rare case of “euphoria,”