Lisl Steiner 63 Years of Photojournalism

This month Lisl Steiner, celebrated longtime Pound Ridge resident and noted photojournalist, is flying to Vienna to be part of a celebration for the opening of a new exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Vienna. “I’m going for the vernissage, she said, using the French term. “They invited me for the preview party, which is private, and then I’ll stay for the ending party, too.”

Ms. Steiner, who often enjoys breakfast at The Bedford Post where she is on a first name basis with the servers who know to bring her espresso with a dollop of whipped cream in a separate cup, was dodging questions about her 63 year photojournalism career.  

“It’s nice to be recognized before you kick the bucket,” she said, wryly, cutting into a pancake. “But now everyone wants to talk to me, to meet me. I’m forced to go to these events. I’m a victim of my own success,” she joked.

In the course of her many years behind the lens, Ms. Steiner has photographed Henri Cartier-Bresson, Oscar Niemayer, Martin Luther King, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Louis Armstrong, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Pele, Robert Kennedy, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Leonard Bernstein, Cornell Capa, Carmen Amaya, Adlai Stevenson, Franz Beckenbauer, Rod Steiger, Pau Casals, Pablo Neruda, Nat King Cole, Sir Thomas Beecham, Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Erich Leinsdorf, B.B. King, Jorge Luis Borges, Friedrich Gulda ... just to name a few. Ms. Steiner, who was born in 1927 in Vienna, worked as a photojournalist for Life, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, Keystone Press Agency, O Cruzeiro and other international publications. She was featured in the legendary magazine Leica World. Photographic exhibitions featuring her work have been held worldwide.

Some of Ms. Steiner’s more renowned images include Henri Cartier-Bresson waiting for Fidel Castro in a New York street, and Miles Davis on stage playing the trumpet. Emigrating with her family from Austria to Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1938, during the 1940’s she studied drawing privately with Ignazio Kaufman, and was also active in the Argentine film industry, involved, she said, in the production of over 50 documentaries. She was also part of the emerging Arte Madi movement with Gyula Kosice, and in the 1950’s began traveling the world as a freelance photojournalist. In 1962, now living in Pound Ridge, she became involved with the Caramoor Music Festival where she remains to this day their resident sketch artist. In 1999 the Galerie Johannes Faber gave an exhibition of her photography work; the same year, the Austrian National Library began to house her sketches. In 2000 the Leica Gallery hosted a full retrospective of her work. In 2004 her photographic archive was gifted to the Austrian National Library. Today, ever on the move and peripatetic, Ms. Steiner carries on with her pet project, Children of America, comprising images of children from all countries of South, Central, and North America.

“I commute now to Vienna; I’ve been there 3 times now in two months,” she said. Over more coffee she relayed how she had recently met a man she said was obsessed with Robert Capa, the Hungarian combat photographer who redefined wartime photojournalism by climbing into the trenches. “He called me a lost link to his grand research,” Ms. Steiner said, wincing. “I feel like Lucy, Dr. Leakey’s famous elephant.”

The majority of Ms. Steiner’s famous images were made with a 35 mm Leica rangefinder camera, although she has also used a Rolleiflex Automat and the Rolleiflex 3.5F Model 3. At the WestLicht Camera Auction House in Vienna, she recently sold one of her cameras for what she said was a great deal of money. “I didn’t expect anything,” she said, sipping her coffee serenely. The WestLich Photographica Auction has established itself as an important camera auction house, setting record sales for the most beautiful and rare pieces. Money Ms. Steiner made from the sale of one of her cameras she plans to use to underwrite future travel and self-imposed photojournalism projects.

“I’m 86 years old and I don’t mind dying,” Ms. Steiner said. Feisty and eagle-eyed, she seems a long way off from that. “I have lived a good and exciting life. Some people never experience anything. I’ve been in the jungle. I’ve been in the Amazon. I just photographed what happened in Pound Ridge during Hurricane Sandy. I know what to do when you have to improvise.”

Ms. Steiner recently curated an exhibit of photography now on display at the cheese shop in Pound Ridge known as Plum Plums.

“You should go see it,” she said, collecting the check at the Bedford Post. “It’s very good.”

For more information about Lisl Steiner and her body of work, check out her website, www.lislsteiner.com. Eve Marx 

When Starbucks was exotic

It was Sunday morning and Mr. Sax and I took a drive. Years ago, when our son was a wee lad we called Boy and I had no horse and Mr. Sax did not spend entire weekends tootling on his horn, we took Sunday drives. These drives always ended in food such as fried onion rings and clam strips in Stamford at Dutchess, or lobster rolls in West Haven. With Boy grousing about his boredom, we explored diners and sub shops and pizza parlors all over Putnam and Dutchess. All over the county, we tried to expose him to every variety of local ethnic cuisine, including Italian, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, and Japanese. For a time we kept returning to Port Chester because of the mélange of inexpensive South American restaurants that had sprung up. This was before the hipper than hip BarTaco opened, now one of my favorite haunts. Sadly, Mr. Sax and I only irregularly take long Sunday drives. Many Sundays we make it no further than Mount Kisco, which, crazily enough, has become how I imagine it would be if we ever made it Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Thanks to a new wave of culinary entrepreneurs, Mount Kisco now supports many terrific and entertaining eateries. I love Little Crepe Street, owned and managed by Bonnie Saran, who first opened Little Kabob Station. One short strip of E. Main Street now boasts Mayan, French, and Indian cuisine, as well as first rate traditional bar food, like barbequed chicken wings. Closer to Metro North, there’s BGR Burger and Via Vanti. Only feel safe in a chain? There’s Cosi and Subway. Since Mr. Sax and I are now on constant diets, we are trying (in vain) to cut back on dining out. I pointed out to my husband that the reason restaurant food tastes so good is because it’s drenched in salt and butter. These days, the majority of our Sunday drives end in coffee. Lured by the campaign for Blonde Roast, we decided to give Starbucks a shot.

I haven’t been in Starbucks much since the last remodel, a couple of hurricanes back. I was never a fan of the gas fireplace, but the rest of the décor works. I appreciate the baronial feel of the communal table. I like the chalkboard art. The room seems larger than I remembered and was quite crowded. The atmosphere was urban and somewhat gritty. It didn’t feel or look like a Bedford suburb.

A grown woman driving a white Range Rover came in blowing bubbles from her chewing gum. That was kind of wild. Two very different but extremely tiny and perfectly accessoried Asian women came in for soy lattes. A young Hispanic guy wearing headphones occupied a large wooden bench, studiously ignoring everyone. Nearby, the overstuffed leather chairs were taken with people operating in their own universe.

“Who is that man talking to?” Mr. Sax asked when we’d taken our seats. “I think he’s talking to himself.”

“Nonsense,” I said firmly. “He’s addressing that woman across from him but she’s not listening. See how he keeps leaning forward and trying to engage her, but she’s not having any?”

“No,” my husband said.

Not wanting to stare, I shifted my attention back to my Blonde Roast coffee, which tastes exactly like every other Starbucks brand. The man was now gesticulating and animatedly chattering to no one. “Hmm,” I said.  

I recalled to Mr. Sax what a treat it was to drive to Starbucks when it first opened. There weren’t too many of them back then. In Mount Kisco, before Starbucks, there was a short-lived and poorly conceived place called Coffee Pickers that had very good coffee (the owner was a professional roaster), but the atmosphere was wretched. When Borders opened its café, Pickers immediately went under. Coffee Pickers’ walls were bland beige and the furniture was clumsy and worst of all, the floor was covered in plaid carpet. One day a friend grabbed me and dragged me out just as a lunatic was approaching us with a boiling cup she looked like she was about to launch. The place had no hip vibe at all, even if it did attract a small group of young women from England and Germany and Sweden, back when the local gentry still employed European nannies and au pairs.

“Remember how excited we were about Starbucks?” I asked my spouse. At one time we loved the chain so much we owned stock.

“Yes,” he said, crumpling his napkin. “A lot has changed but the lemon pound cake remains unparalleled and delicious.”  

The Glory of Rochambeau

http://www.townvibe.com/Bedford/March-April-2013/No-Boundaries/

Just call me Top Chef...for the moment

A week or so ago I was having coffee with a friend. Although she’s someone I’ve grown close to over the past dozen years, due to our schedules, we rarely find the time to meet.

In the middle of our shared (and to my mind anxiety laced) conversation about what’s happening to us professionally (because, just as with your teeth, if you’re not whitening, you’re yellowing, professionally if you’re not moving forward, you’re sliding back) my friend suddenly blurted, “Did you ever think that you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing?” That was interesting. I should say here that my friend is not overly given over to emoting Zen sentiments. She is neither a hippie, nor a yoga student, and, as far as I know, has spent zero time in an ashram. Instead, she is the kind of woman who can tell you the difference between a sports coat and a dinner jacket, and what cutlery to reach for when they pass the cheese plate. So her Zen-like “be here now” utterance came as a surprise to me.   

I went home and thought about her pronouncement for many days. Days spent, I should say, attempting to read, with little progress, Tom Wolfe’s new novel “Back to Blood,” and J.K. Rowling’s “The Casual Vacancy.” For weeks I’ve also been engaged in a furious battle better known as post-holiday cleaning after my son suggested at Christmas I should go back to my cleaning hobby. When I haven’t been wiping, washing, heaving out, and organizing, I’ve been cooking, specifically dinner, six times a week. Sometimes beginning as early as 9 a.m., I’ve been preparing time consuming, labor intensive meals like beef bourguignon and mashed potatoes; whole roasted chicken with parnsips; and rich, rustica pastas you only wish were on the menu at The Blue Dolphin. Oh, and writing. More on that in a bit.

I have a confession. I have been experiencing anxiety. Not the kind of heart pounding anxiety that resembles a panic attack, nor am I having trouble sleeping. My anxiety is all work-related. I pine for the days when nothing more was expected of me than to be the mother of a little kid. My anxiety is the kind brought on by articles I read in the big city daily about how all around the nation, adults in their 50’s are struggling to keep their jobs, or juggling 3 part-time jobs, none of which come with health insurance. These people will never realize a safe, happy retirement. As a self-employed freelance writer, I never planned on stopping work. But I see there might be larger forces out there affecting my ability to stay relevant.

Long ago my husband used to joke that if we got rich the first thing he was going to do was hire a cook. Well, here I am. I can’t even begin to tell you all the food I’ve cooked in past weeks: gumbos, jambalayas, soups, stews, chili, vegan dishes, every kind of roast. I’ve mastered every which way you can cook an egg. My husband is deliriously happy with what’s happening in the kitchen, so happy he’s undertaken the job of going to the grocery store to stock the pantry. Every day I play my own round of Top Chef, concocting elaborate meals out of whatever has caught his fancy. Some nights the main ingredient I have to work with is asparagus, or it could be chorizo sausage, or pork loins, or broccoli. It’s not unheard of for us to have breakfast for dinner, i.e. silver dollar pancakes topped with walnuts and bananas and real maple syrup.

Did you ever think you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing is a constant refrain in my ear. I think of it as I’m swabbing the woodwork with Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, scrubbing the shower with Fantastick Scrubbing Bubbles, and steering the Miele around. One afternoon last week after I painstakingly applied Lexol to all my leather boots, I endeavored to clean my car. You would not believe the mud and grime that accumulates from driving these dirt roads. The more I clean and cook, the more I lament how my attention span for writing has dwindled to crafting Tweets and updating my Facebook status.

One of the bonuses of having less writing to do is I can follow the news. Among today’s most fascinating stories is the news that DNA has concluded that it really is Richard III of England they found in Leicester interred beneath a car park. Shakespeare, who wrote a play about the king, portrayed Richard III as an evil, scheming, tyke killing monster who in his quest to achieve the throne, would do anything. Shakespeare created lines for his villain that are still evoked today, ranging from “the winter of our discontent,” to “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” whatever that means. Richard’s reign, apparently, is overdue for reassessment. Doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing at the time, it might not have been nearly as awful as Shakespeare made it out to be.

A new post of mine published on ThirdAge.com

http://www.thirdage.com/sex/how-to-shape-up-your-sex-life