New Orleans' eyeglass museum

New Orleans has a wax museum, a pharmacy museum, a Civil War museum, the National WWII Museum, and the Great American Alligator Museum (which seems to be closed but is gorgeous to imagine being open nonetheless based on the sign and window display), as well as two art museums, Louisiana's state history museum and who knows what else.

I know another.  It is the eyeglass museum.  It's not an eyeglass museum in the sense that this place is, but I spent a half hour today examining the collection.  I'll try to stop by tomorrow and take some pictures for the big reveal.  It will be posted on Saturday, I'm afraid.  We are going to the opera tomorrow night: Porgy and Bess at the Mahalia Jackson Theater.  Gershwin.  I love Gershwin.

I've seen Hershey Felder play George Gershwin twice on stage in Hartford, Conn.  If he comes to New Orleans I'll see him again.  If you think that's improbable, I'll tell you otherwise.  The two gents I saw in "The Mystery of Irma Vep" in Hartford are in town at Le Chat Noir at the moment performing the same exact script.  They are great and the play is great, bawdy, quick-costume-changing fun.  Recommended.  We are going to see that too.  See you there.

-WK

A different video version featuring Gershwin on the ivories once removed.  Fascinating stuff.  Don't complain about hearing Rhapsody in Blue more than once in a day.  There's no such thing as too much goodness in the world....

Dial D for deadly dog fighting

The Boston Globe reports on a dog-fighting arena housed in a first floor apartment on Raven Street in Dorchester. Raven Street is a short, dead end lane off Crescent Avenue in the corner of N'orchester a short stroll from the JFK/UMASS station on the Red Line. It is amazing what things are tucked away in the crannies of a big city. Note that the arena was located in the first floor apartment. You think you have noisy neighbors downstairs?

Dog fighting used to be a fairly common amusement in Boston, along with cock fighting and bear baiting. Bull fights are still popular a few thousand miles southwest of the Boston border and a few thousand miles across the Atlanic on the Iberian peninsula. Overall, blood sports have fallen out of fashion in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Boxing is still respected in Boston and the fine art of pugilism has its practitioners and admirers. When a boxer uses his teeth instead of his fists, the public starts to loose its appetite for one-on-one combat, however. Remember what happened to Mike Tyson's reputation. People fighting each other, man-to-man, mano-a-mano, are acceptable for wagering. Dogs? Not in this civilized city, buddy. We have a society that prevents cruelty to animals.

The Ryan Playground is right around the corner from Raven Street, on Dot Ave between Crescent Ave and Romsey Street. You won't find boxing or dog fights there. The sports run more along the lines of dominoes, pinochle, and mah jong. Even then, tempers run high and violence can break out.

Even dog racing is illegal in Massachusetts now. The proprietors of the Raven Street venue must have known they were breaking the law. All future exhibitions of canine combat are presumed cancelled until further notice.

Years of Refusal

Well, the cat is out of the bag and the bag is at the bottom of the harbor. Morrissey will not be playing a local pub tonight. Once again, the only stars Dorchester will be graced by are the ones in the sky and the hundred-thousand-plus points of light that dot and wander the neighborhood's sidewalks. Is there any harm in that? The surf laps the shores of Dorchester, carrying the rippled reflections of sparked halogen and twinkling ambiance. No one is any less wise or proud. The earth revolves on its axis and Dorchester is what it is: not only good, but good enough. Dorchesterites have earned their bragging rights but they don't make a show. Let the wind bluster in March. Dorchester is content overall for no definable reason in every season, every year, decade after decade. You can lay your hand against a puddingstone boulder, but you can't wrap a finger around Dorchester's soul.


A blue collar neighborhood has little need for celebrity. Working folks provide enough tenon and muscle to pull from morning to midnight and then to the next daybreak. It is always darkest before dawn. Dorchester, even when it is at its sleepiest, is full of a high wattage that slumbers waiting for a switch to be tripped. One hundred ten thousand volts, give or take, slumber in Dorchester waiting to make a connection and be fully employed. The neighborhood is electric. Bang! Bang! On go the lights.


Streetlights hum and attract moths but nothing about Dorchester is moth-eaten. It may seem rundown but that is the local custom, keeping properties' tax valuation low. Some people sing songs for money in Dorchester but many more sing out of pure joie de vivre. A spirit animates Dorchester and it isn't exactly the specter of Communism. There is a sense of community. The streets are arteries in this civic body. Let the rest of Boston refuse Dorchester it's place in the sun, but there is a place in the sun for everyone in Dorchester if they have the will to find one. I do believe I have found mine.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

We were privileged to attend the showing of Vox Lumiere's Hunchback of Notre Dame last night at the Cutler Majestic Theater, where the cantilevered balconies are held up by plaster angels. It's a busy show with a lot to pay attention to. This is an attempt to make a silent movie more palatable to a modern audience by adding rock music, live synchronized dancing, interpretive lyrics and parenthetical video displays to the iconic 1923 silent film of the same name starring Lon Chaney. When this show is good, it is very good. When it's not very good you can always watch the movie, which never disappoints. It is considered a classic for a reason.

A caveat: I am a silent film buff. Not a fanatic, but I do seek them out and enjoy them as they were intended. I recently saw DJ Spooky's "Rebirth of a Nation," which attempts much of what Vox Lumiere is trying to do, at the Beehive, but without the live stagecraft. I enjoyed both attempts at trying to make the silent medium attractive to a modern audience. Both attempts had their pros and cons. The pro at the Beehive was dinner and drinks. The con at the Cutler Majestic was a lot happening at the same time.

Toward the end of Act One of Vox Lumiere's show, the kineticism of the dancers and singers subsides a bit and they and the band act more as a soundtrack foil to what is happening on screen. The intent of the show starts to gel around the Court of Miracles depicted in the film: the intent of all these electric guitar riffs is to bring people to appreciate what was crafted in 1923.

Before Act Two begins there an entr' acte performance during which the crew performs without the distraction of the movie playing behind them. This was rousing and cemented the idea that there are layers going on in this show that both have to do with the film and don't. Had there been a similar introduction, the audience would have been better prepared. There was a bit of debate during intermission about what exactly the audience was supposed to be taking away from this spectacle.

Act Two brings everything together in a unique way that shouldn't be missed. Whether the live performance is needed or not as a complement to the film is an open question. The film isn't considered a classic without reasons. It is full of iconic scenes that are more than just wallpaper for music video dance moves. Quasimodo clambering or rappelling down the facade of Notre Dame cathedral, his public whipping, his riding the bells for the sheer joy of it, his bittersweet death, are all worth the price of admission. The star of this show, 80-something years after its filming, is still Lon Chaney, the Man of a Thousand Faces. He is peerless.

I didn't run into anyone disappointed afterwards. If you've never been tempted to see a silent movie this a good introduction. If you want to show a date a good time you will find it here. You'll certainly have enough to talk about afterwards. The show runs until March 29. You can see a short video and purchase tickets here.

Lyric opera

We went to the dress rehearsal of "Les Contes d'Hoffman" last night and are still bedazzled. What a show. Opera is reality heightened through an orgiastic mingling of multiple stage arts to produce a spectacle that will move the mind along with the heart and the senses. Nietzsche and Wagner proposed that opera was the highest of all art forms, best able to appeal to all that is best and basest in human nature. We agree and the Tales of Hoffman confirms that thesis.

Who was that golden, allegoric figure playing the violin? It was none other than Alecia Batson, Boston's hardest working auditionee. Before the show, the audience was informed that the performers were not Broadway singers. There were no microphones. "Our singers are trained sing properly, to fill the theater." We were in the mezzanine and the lyrical notes reverberated like a chorus of professionals, which is good since they were. There is nothing amateurish about this production, from the performers, to the sets, to the costumes, to the lighting to the puppetry at play. This is spectacle. This is why opera was the dominant, most extravagant art form of its day.

No one left disappointed. The cast wrapped its onlookers around its hook and the evening was a magic carpet ride between surreal comedy and poignant tragedy. Color, lilting notes, contralto, basso profundo, and all in French though you didn't need to understand the words to know what was going on. Subtitles were projected on screens for those who wanted to know the poetry issuing from the mouths of the singers. Opera. There is nothing like it and at three hours, this show flew by with each scene trumping the one before.

My companion asked me how we would recognize Alecia Batson. I sang her one word, sotto voce: "Goldfinger." When we spotted our heroine, my companion remarked she was expected something more along the lines of a body-painted go-go dancer than a Quincy Market mummer. Though this show plumbs the depths of eroticism and the human psyche, it is appropriate for all ages.

Another review is here.