Lull

just because it's quiet doesn't mean nothing is happening

Shh. Be vewwy vewwy quiet….

Actually? You don’t have to be quiet. No one is around.

This is the basement of the Met. Read on.

I’ve been subsuming myself in various art forms this week (see what I did there?).

With and without the kids, alone and in company. Some of the amusements of the week have been: Days of Wine and Roses the Musical (everyone keeps telling me to watch the movie). I went for Brian d’Arcy James and stayed for Kelli O’Hara - knockout singing, difficult show. I finally also saw Moulin Rouge

(this was my favorite part)

The set and the lights won for over-the-top madness, truly, just walking into the space is worth the price of admission during Broadway 2-for-1 week—although the musical on the night I saw it felt like a depressing final dress rehearsal with pitchy leads—one of whose voice gave out in Act 2—and a bunch of the dancers allowing the costumes to do the sexy part of their dancing. Also was delighted to take a tour of Highlights of the Met (killer tour! love that museum so much, missed Natalie like mad, was hard to walk through the museum with someone else, but so delightful to be in that cool basement again)

I love this guy. I always visit him.

I also went to Philly for the closing of the Marie Laurencin exhibit at the Barnes.

There’s so much to see in this collection that every entrance ticket is good for two days. I desperately wanted to start over again from the beginning after seeing the art to look at how the art was arranged on the walls. I’m not even kidding.

How had I never heard of the Barnes Collection?? My jaw was on the floor. The Barnes is to Renoir like the Hermitage is to gold. You couldn’t turn around without seeing another couple of dozen paintings by Renoir either centered or just hanging around in the corners crammed in amid the Matisses and the Cézannes. Truly remarkable.

Cezanne. See the little name thingy? This guy, Albert Barnes, used little brass plaques like Virgos use label makers. Every single piece of art is labeled with the artist’s name on the frame. I loved it! (this piece is called Young Man with Skull, but I’d say alas, poor Yorick, ending life as a paperweight.)

But the best thing I did was get together with aa handful of other makers, entrepreneurs, founders, and creators over soup. It’s called SOUP and it is a new in-person collective of which I have apparently been selected as an inaugural member. The soup was amazing and the conversation ranged from “after their work takes off, why are artists forbidden from creative transformations” to “what constitutes a sandwich” (the latter topic is a lot trickier than you think, for example, are two pieces of bread with nothing between them still a sandwich? what about just butter? what about an open-faced sandwich is that a sandwich? what if it’s so gloopy it is impossible to pick up without it falling apart?)

See? Complicated. Then we talked about how fun it is to have animated conversations about things that have no weight. If this is fun for you, SOUP might be for you.

---

Writing News:

Is this is writing or writing-adjacent? I got to host an in-person Pen Parentis Literary Salon for the first time since before the pandemic. What a night it was!! Luminary writers like Helen Benedict, Cleyvis Natera, and Dionne Ford mingled with up-and coming writers such as Kristin Vukovic, whose forthcoming novel The Cheesemaker’s Daughter could easily be a runaway bestseller. I loved seeing poet Matthew Thorburn and novelist Jennifer Belle (whose latest book is full of biting humor that I can’t wait to get into). Christina Chiu and I co-hosted with Donna Brodie of the Writers Room - and audience members mostly were published authors (like this one!) Truly a night to remember. Here are a bunch of photos to scroll through on Facebook.

I am not singing Let the Good Times Roll, though I might as well be.

I do not have any other writing news this week. This may be the first week that this blog hasn’t had any writing news! Yikes. I better get back to work!!

---

Random final thought:

Nowhere to go but up.

---