Month: August 2018

Philly Art Day

My husband signed up for a one day conference in Philadelphia this past weekend. In the past when he’s gone I’ve visited a friend who lives there, but she was out of town this weekend. I still decided to ride up with him and figured I would spend the day at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Barnes Foundation.

I realized I’m spoiled by the art museums in Baltimore and DC many of which are free to get into. The Philadelphia Art Museum is $20 and the Barnes Foundation is an outrageous $30. I can’t believe I spent $50 on art museums in one day, but I did.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to the Philadelphia Art Museum. They had a couple of special exhibits going on. One was called Modern Times, which covered American Art from 1910-1950. There was also an exhibit of photographs of artists. That one didn’t do much for me for the most part. There were a few interesting photographs but random portraits of people don’t get me that excited. Same of the section of the museum dedicated to painted portraits of old white guys. No thanks. Enjoyed most of the regular collection of the museum except for the video art, which always creeps me out. I also funnily enough ran into some Baltimore friends in the museum. That I was not expecting. It’s definitely a small world.

After grabbing a quick lunch I headed to the Barnes Foundation, which is somewhere I’ve wanted to go for a very long time but for whatever reason have never actually made the time to go. When I was high school back in the mid-90s I saw a special exhibition of a portion of the collection at the Fort Worth Museum of Art when it was touring. That was a big deal with Albert Barnes who curated the collection and used it as a school was very clear in his will that he did not want the collection separated and he wanted all the art work left in the same configuration he had it in when he died. Whoever controls the estate went before the court to get approval to raise money to keep up the collection. They again got approval from the court to move the collection from its original location in Merion, Pennsylvania to the new building in downtown Philadelphia.

Having never been to the previous location I don’t know how the building layout itself compares, but the artwork is hung as it was in the original location when Albert Barnes died. It makes for a very interesting experience viewing the art as it’s not hung like you would normally see in a museum. There is a lot of art work hung up and down every wall. In a few rooms I would say there was too much. You couldn’t even really process it. There are no labels on the wall like you normally see in museums. Instead in each room there is a booklet you could pick up that would let you know what all of the artwork is. It’s a good thing too because if I hadn’t been looking in the booklet I wouldn’t have looked up far enough to see the Matisse mural in the arches at the top of the room along the ceiling. I had a particular interest in this piece, which I didn’t actually realize was real because it featured prominently in B.A. Shapiro’s book “The Collector’s Apprentice” which is very, very, very loosely based on Albert Barnes and the Barnes Foundation story. It’s a very cool museum and I highly recommend visiting it unless for some reason you hate Renoir. It’s A LOT of Renoir. It’s a very impressive collection for one man to have collected.

Dawes at Wolf Trap with Joseph and Shovels & Rope

Last night my friend and I made our annual pilgrimage to Wolf Trap for a summer concert. We’ve tried to pick one concert to go to each summer for the past several years since we both love Wolf Trap and are willing to make the terrible trek there during rush hour on a weekday. Given some of the traffic I’ve sat in on my way there before last night was pretty easy. This year we picked the stellar triple bill of Joseph, Shovels & Rope, and Dawes. I love when three bands I would pay to see on their own are playing together. That’s only partly true. Sometimes I wish the opening acts were headlining somewhere so they would have more time.

I felt like last night was a family night at the concert. There were a lot more children than I’ve ever seen at Wolf Trap before, but also because of the bands themselves. Joseph is three sisters. Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst who comprise Shovels & Rope are married, and two of the five members of Dawes are brothers. Family all around up on that stage last night.

Joseph was full of beautiful harmonies as always last night. They were all acoustic for this set. They played a bunch of stuff off their I’m Alone, No You’re Not album though sadly not my favorite, Blood & Tears. I didn’t figure I was going to hear it so I wasn’t too disappointed. They have an EP of cover songs that they put out last year and at one point they said they were going to play a cover song and I was hoping for “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” because I adore that song and love their cover of it. Sadly it was “Moonlight Mile” instead. Oh well. They got a fairly generous set for the first of three acts so I can’t complain too much.

Shovels & Rope is always a sight to behold when they play. It’s just two people and they play like every instrument often at the same time. I always imagine them as two different people playing one man band rigs together. I mean at one point he was playing the guitar and the piano at the same time. Who does that? I’m not sure if they were supposed to be co-headliners or the second opening act but they played at least as long as Dawes if not slightly longer. I do enjoy them, but I wish their set had been a bit shorter because Dawes’ set seemed really short.

This is the first time I’ve seen Dawes since I saw their amazing show at the Ryman Auditorium. That spoiled me a bit since they played for 3 hours. I knew we weren’t getting anywhere close to that last night, but it still went by way too fast. Wolf Trap has a curfew though, so they could only play as long as they played. They didn’t play my favorite song, “Right on Time”, but I didn’t expect them to. Other than that I have to say they played a pretty perfect set. It was really a great retrospective of all 6 of their albums. They played at least one song from each one. They obviously played stuff from their new album Passwords and happily they played the songs I would have picked.

Apparently according to Dawes last night’s show was the largest audience they’d ever played to as a headliner. Obviously they had played to bigger audiences at festival and as openers. That kind of shocked me. I wouldn’t have guessed. But they were super excited to be headlining Wolf Trap and it showed. Shovels & Rope said something to the effect of Wolf Trap and Red Rocks man. There’s a reason why it’s my favorite concert venue (I’ve still not managed to make it to Red Rocks. One day.)

It was an excellent show. It was a perfect summer night of music. Until next year Wolf Trap.

Summer Movie Diary

My husband has been traveling a lot the last few weeks, so I’ve been watching more movies than I usually do to keep myself entertained while he’s been gone. We watch most TV shows together so I am on hold with most of the things I watch. I often have a show I’m binge watching that he doesn’t care about, but I don’t even have one of those right now since I grew bored with Pretty Little Liars and haven’t found anything else that piques my interest to watch at the moment. So while I’m waiting for him to get back to catch up on our TV I’ve been watching movies instead. Plus I’ve watched a few other movies while traveling. Here’s my thoughts.

Paddington 2

I remember when this movie came out I was super skeptical of all the rave reviews it was getting. I think at one point it had a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I was like how can this movie possibly be that good. I’m completely willing to admit that my skepticism was misplaced because this movie is really endearing. I watched the first one in preparation for watching this one, and it was fine but Paddington 2 is really good. It’s funny and sweet and heartbreaking and heartwarming. It’s all the feelings. With so much terribleness in the world, this movie is a great little escape.

Marshall

We wound up watching this movie in a hotel room when we were in upstate New York and there was nothing else on. It’s not something I would have watched otherwise. It covers the work of Thurgood Marshall on one case during his early career as a lawyer. It was entertaining, but it’s not anything earth shattering or something I would say you need to rush out to see, but if you happen upon it it’s not a bad use of 2 hours.

The Kissing Booth

Netflix is bringing back the romantic comedy and I am here for it. I loved this little movie. It’s very reminiscent of 90s teen rom-coms, which I loved and sorely miss. Elle and Lee have been best friends since the day they were born. Now that they’re in high school Elle has developed a crush on Lee’s bad boy older brother Noah. Lee sensing something reminds Elle about one of the long ago rules they made about their friendship that included no dating each other’s relatives. But Elle continues to find herself falling for Noah despite Lee’s protests and her own better judgment. Can she keep Lee as a friend while dating Noah? If you like me love romantic comedies, run don’t walk to watch this on Netflix. I promise you won’t be sorry.

Like Father

Like Father is another Netflix film. It’s not a rom-com and I’m not exactly sure what genre I would place it in. It definitely felt more made for TV movie than The Kissing Booth did though. It stars Kristen Bell as a workaholic who is left at the alter. She discovers that the father, played by Kelsey Grammer, who left her as a small child has shown up to the wedding uninvited and winds up getting drunk with him and then dragging him on her honeymoon cruise where they mend their relationship and Kristen Bell’s character learns to not be like her father was. I could have done with 100% less Seth Rogen, but luckily he’s a fairly minor character. There were also some plot points I would have written differently that I think would have made more sense but no one asked me. It’s an okay movie. A fine watch for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Josie and the Pussycats

I vaguely remember this being a movie when it came out. I was definitely barely going to the movies back then when I was in grad school and working 2 jobs, but if I recall correctly it wasn’t around long enough for me to have a chance anyway. I remember it being fairly well maligned at the time, but it seems to have taken on sort of a cult classic status at this point. I know a number of people who really like it for whatever reason. I definitely missed whatever boat they are sailing on because from where I’m sitting this movie deserves probably almost all the scorn heaped on it. It was not good. I’m not much one for camp, so maybe that’s where people are coming from but I suspect if you’re not already on board with this movie there is no need for you to watch it at this point.

The Spy Who Dumped Me

I never planned on going to see this movie in the theater. I figured if I ever saw it at all it would be at some point after it was released on DVD or streaming. The local movie critic on the Saturday morning news gave it a good review, which made me more inclined to see it but I still didn’t plan on going out of my way to see it. Then one of the movie apps I’ve used to buy tickets through offered me a free ticket to see it. I definitely wanted to see it enough to take advantage of a free ticket, and I’m really glad I did. It was a great movie. It was funny and entertaining. I enjoyed the friendship between Mila Kunis’ and Kate McKinnon’s characters and the plot kept things moving. It was definitely a great summer flick. My only quibble was that I totally did not buy Mila Kunis and Justin Theroux as lovers. They had exactly zero chemistry. He seemed more like her father than her boyfriend, which their large age gap didn’t help. I didn’t buy that they were in love or even that they were ever in any sort of relationship in the scenes that he shows back up in. That’s a very small part of the movie though, so it didn’t detract too much. If you’re looking for a fun diversion at the movies I highly recommend this one.

Eighth Grade

The movie basically follows a girl in her final days of eighth grade. Eighth grade is a super awkward age to begin with and this girl is also very socially awkward so there’s just a lot of awkward. I’ve used that word about a dozen times already, so probably you get it. It made me really glad that I never have to be in eighth grade again and that I grew up before social media was a thing. I thought I would like this movie more than I did in reality. It’s probably because it’s meant to be super awkward which makes for a less enjoyable viewing experience. Also I think I over identified with the character to some degree. I definitely have never been as socially inept as she is, but I too am super shy and quiet and was probably reliving some of my own painful experiences through her. So you know, if you want to relive some of the less pleasant parts of being a teenager this movie is for you.

The Greatest Showman

Given my love of musical theatre I have no idea what made me think I wouldn’t care for this movie when it came out. I’ve had a billion people since then tell me I would love it, but I just never got around to watching it until now. And I should listen to people because I did love it. The story itself about P.T. Barnum is kind of meh, but the musical numbers are fantastic and really make the movie. It really made me jones to get to some live musical theatre. Luckily it won’t be too much longer until our season tickets to the touring Broadway shows start because I am not inspired to go see anything that’s new on Broadway right now. It’s a whole bunch of jukebox musicals and musicals based on movies, none of which I care to see. If they ever turn this movie into a Broadway show, which I feel is inevitable, I would totally go see it.

Newport Folk Festival 2018

This past weekend was our annual trip to Rhode Island for the Newport Folk Festival. It is by far always my favorite weekend of the year and this year was no exception. I know no one really cares to read a run down of every act I saw over the three days of the festival so I’m always trying to figure out a good way to write a review of it. This year I’ve decided to frame it around the Newport Folk Festival mantra shared by Jay Sweet, the festival’s Executive Producer, every morning before the gates opened:

Be Present
Be Kind
Be Open
Be Together

It’s probably a pretty good mantra for life not just for the folk festival.

Be Present

Every year I’ve tried to be more and more present at the festival. I didn’t spend hardly any time on my phone, mostly just using it to keep track of the last minute set announcements. I think I took like 3 photos the entire weekend. I’m not going to lie and say everyone was as consistently disengaged from their phones, but there was definitely a lot fewer people taking photos and videos than I usually see at concerts. It was nice not to be constantly trying to see things through someone else’s phone screen. It allowed me to really be engaged with the music and have experiences like being moved to tears of joy listening to Jenny Lewis play my favorite song of hers, “She’s Not Me”.

I also tried to be present in the sets I was at and not worry about what I was missing on some other stage. Until I can figure out how to clone myself for the festival there are always going to be known conflicts as well as hearing about special moments afterwards that I wish I had been there to witness. This year I just tried to experience and enjoy the moments I was there for and not be disappointed about the things I wasn’t.

Be Kind

The crowds at the Newport Folk Festival are the kindest I’ve ever experienced. Usually you get large crowds and everyone is just out for themselves, but I have never experienced that at Newport. I had people make sure that they weren’t going to block my view on more than one occasion before they moved in front of me. I watched people offer their blanket in the shade to a family with a baby when they left to go to another stage. I saw people returning things that people dropped. And there were obviously so many more examples as I saw an entire thread on Twitter of kindnesses big and small that people witnessed during the festival. There’s a reason why everyone talks about their “folk family” at Newport.

Be Open

I’ve always tried to make being open something I do at Newport. I always go in with a loose idea of who I want to listen to, but things always change. I always want to be open to where the day takes me. That meant staying for Caamp’s entire set because it was so good and missing out on most of Curtis Harding’s, who I had gone in really wanting to see. It meant giving Passenger a chance even though I only knew his one hit song, which I long ago grew tired of and discovering that he is a hilarious storyteller and great songwriter. It meant abandoning St. Vincent’s set, which I was sure I wanted to see going in because I’ve always heard great things and she canceled her most recent Baltimore date that I had tickets to. I realized there was no way it was going to make me has happy as I would be singing along to Jason Isbell’s songs for the third time in a week. It means dropping everything and running over to the Late July Family Tent when you hear Hiss Golden Messenger is going to be doing a set there. It means passing by the Newport Festivals Foundation tent and discovering Valerie June singing with a bunch of kids from local schools the foundation supports. The beauty of Newport is that wherever you wander you fill find something amazing and if you’re open to experiencing new things you will be greatly rewarded. Almost every year my favorite moments of the festival have come from things I originally didn’t have on my schedule.

Be Together

Togetherness is what Newport is all about. I don’t know any other festival where artists playing come together as much as they do at Newport. There is constant collaboration between artists playing the festival. There’s even an unofficial award, “the Jim James Award”, for the artist who sits in on the most sets over the weekend. This year that went to Brandi Carlile, who did have her own set on Sunday, but was there the entire weekend playing with seemingly everyone starting with singing “9 to 5” with Margo Price on Friday afternoon. Lucius who actually had their own set this year came in a close second and probably would have taken the crown again if they hadn’t had to leave for a gig on Sunday. They’ve showed up every year since their first whether they’ve had an official set or not. Hiss Golden Messenger also showed up a ton of places over the weekend. The Lone Bellow were only there on Sunday, but popped up numerous places throughout the day. I know I’m leaving out a ton of other collaborations, but this could go on forever.

And those are just the people who actually had official sets that sat in with others. There’s a whole other long list of people who just showed up to sit in on a song or two including John Prine with Margo Price, David Crosby with Jason Isbell, and all the people who came only for the closing set, “A Change is Going to Come” dedicated civil rights music including Mavis Staples, Chris Thile, and Leon Bridges all who I’m sad didn’t actually have their own sets to play during the weekend.

The Saturday headliner was unannounced. It turns out it was Mumford and Sons. People would have been a lot more excited about them a few years ago. They haven’t put out a new album in a while and the pop music fad they were riding high on has since passed them by. For several years Jay Sweet kept telling people to quit asking for Mumford and Sons because the festival is a small, non-profit and could never compete with the bigger festivals to get them. Their star has obviously fallen some such that Newport was able to get them, though to be affordable they still had to be unannounced due to radius clauses. I heard a lot of speculation about Paul Simon finally playing Newport before he retired (I was shocked to discover he never did) and a lot of people thinking it was going to be Neil Young for some reason. But Mumford and Sons truly made themselves worthy of the festival. Given all the things they have done to support musical collaboration like their Railroad Revival Tour, the Gentlemen of the Road shows they put on, and Marcus Mumford’s participation in the New Basement Tapes I always felt like they live by the Newport ethos and it was a shame they hadn’t played there. Their set was wonderful and exactly one that is the epitome of the Newport spirit. They had so many people out on stage to sing with them. They even took backstage and played back up to Maggie Rogers so she could sing her song “Alaska”. The best part of the set and my favorite part of the entire weekend was them bringing out Mavis Staples to sing “The Weight” with a whole bunch of other people including Brandi Carlile, Maggie Rogers, Phoebe Bridgers, and Hiss Golden Messenger. It may be one of my favorite Newport moments ever.

There’s also just the message of togetherness I felt like I heard throughout the weekend from many a stage. It’s a folk festival so it’s going to get political, but the overwhelming political message I heard this year was the need to bring people back together while still fighting the good fight. I left the festival feeling some hope for humanity for the first time in a long time. There were musical moments just perfectly made for bring people together. I had been waiting since the first time I heard it to sing Brandi Carlile’s “Hold Out Your Hand” with a Newport crowd and the moment did not disappoint. And the festival ended with a giant sing-a-long with a billion people on stage singing “Freedom Highway” fronted by the queen Mavis Staples. We’ll keep marching down freedom highway.