Ravels in Review Friday Plus Banana

It's been a while since I did this, so check out a bounty of ravels below. Happy Friday!

• Would you buy Virginia Woolfe's beach or, better yet, my wall?

• Another question: Which is Madame X?

• Stories of Andy Warhol, from the horses' mouths

• Advertising, not street art. Should have known it was too neat and prominent.

• Captions! for Hitchcock's silent Easy Virtue

• Bosch's Earthly Delights are Strange

• A mention of moi? Tres cool.

• Review of Waiting for Godot at the Roundabout

• **The Ensor show at MoMA inspired some visual comparisons**

• News Flash: Artists are poor

• King Lear outdoors courtesy of NY Classical Theater

*It gets stars because I like it best. (Don't tell the others.)

Easy Virtue's Silent Incarnation, Plus Captions!

"Here you are, a beautiful young woman immersed in scandal, about to be divorced. I could find you guilty, or you could come home with me."

Easy Virtue Stats:
Noel Coward writes play 1925
Alfred Hitchcock makes silent film in 1928
Idiots make bad film in 2008

The glib charm of Noel Coward's social comedy must come through better on stage, since the 2008 film blew it. The latest film version with Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, and Jessica Biel had a chance at capturing that charm, but something went wrong. Alfred Hitchcock 1928 film does them one better. Hitchcock's silent film obviously loses the clever dialogue and, instead of a comedy, the film becomes a sentimental melodrama, albeit with a rather emancipated heroine. Yet the framing of the story in a courthouse, the transitions, the theatrical acting and the mooody orchestra pieces all make for a fun watch.

The film might be hard to find, but amazingly there is a website that has 1,000 film stills telling the story scene by scene. I started to wonder halfway through if silent films weren't a perfect opportunity for audience creativity. Like Mystery Science Theater, you could create the words to the movie...


"No, really darling, I only take gin in my teacup."


"Golly--I'm smoking a cigarette. A flagrant sign you're stuffy mother will hate me!"


"Darling--why is your father still holding my hand---I've gotten into scandals over such things."


"How charming. But if you don't get me out of here, I insist on a second divorce."


"If only I could read."


"Wait a sec--she looks familiar!"


"There goes the family reputation. I should have listened to Mother."


"Migraine my ass! I'll dance in my slutty satin gown if I please."


"It's true I shouldn't dance with my husband's friend. But then, virtue is never easy."

Ravels in Review

...huff...puff...sigh--repeat--huff...puff

Oh, is it time for Ravels in Review again? Great, well, in my disordered placement of life's task I'll put this on the top of the heap while simultaneously making coffee with one hand and juggling oranges with the other. Priorities are amazing things, no?

But to the ravels we're reviewing:

Things were junking up the floor of MoMA's atrium, ala Song Dong this time, and I started rethinking my Conceptual art prejudice.

Richard Misrach's large-format photographs are either either calming or unsettling, and I rather think the latter.

Words straight from the art dealer Betty Parson's mouth.

Vanished poet Rosemary Tonks is one of the most exciting things I've come across in a while. She's on my reading list for the weekend.

And then, of course, there was the beautifully-titled OUCH. My hand is fine, by the way. To sum up my thoughts on the newest film version of Easy Virtue--something went wrong when they tried to make it into a movie and Jessica Beil is only the obvious thing.

Stuff happened in other places, and yet no one had any suggestions for me about contemporary Hungarian art? Any links or vague, unformed thoughts?

I'll get the ball rolling: these images are from Peter Forgacs multimedia installation Col Tempo at the Hungarian Pavilion at this year's Venice Biennial.

OUCH

See how stringent our security regulations in airports have become. (Thank goodness my Iphone takes pictures, otherwise my family would never have believed me.)

In other news, Easy Virtue is a better play than movie, at least in its most recent rendition. Hitchcock made an 1928 version of Noel Coward's play--

Excuse me, I seem to have burned the inside of my hand showing my mom how to use her nifty new teapot. If anyone is familiar with glass teapots where you put the loose-leaf tea down a well in the center, and then press a button to open the inside of the teapot up to the hot water outside, let me know.

We're a little confused down here as to how you are supposed to keep holding the button down. (Over the palm of your hand is incorrect.)