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

Diets & Clean Freaks

There I was, in the customer lounge at my auto’s dealership, waiting to have my brakes done and my oil changed. Not overly a fan of car ownership in general, I find auto customer lounges to be especially dispiriting. To any ex-NYC city folk, even if you haven’t lived there in 20 years, there’s something so quintessentially wretched and suburban about waiting around for your wheels to be serviced. It’s almost worse than the DMV. While the various dealerships make an effort, sometimes even a supreme effort (my own dealership is particularly kind, offering Keurig coffee, TV, and free Wifi), the wait is always long and tedious until your name is called. This time I brought a book but too quickly finished it. Having failed to bring my laptop, I started watching tv.

The tail end of the “Live with Kelly and Michael” was on and their guest was Kevin Bacon. I’m inclined to like Kevin solely on the basis of his name. Besides sworn vegans, who doesn’t like Bacon? Kevin was promoting his star turn in a new cable series, “The Following,” but he also was  charming and chatty about his upcoming anniversary with his wife, Kyra Sedgewick. Her show, “The Closer,” which shot for several years in L.A., has ended, but she said she would miss it (and no doubt the weather). So Kevin revealed that they bought a a small place in L.A. to be their romantic grown up “empty nest” getaway because their home in CT is never empty thanks to their kids. Stuck as I was in the auto customer lounge, I couldn’t tear my eyes off Kevin, who appears to never age, and is even better looking now than he was when he starred in “Diner,” “Apollo 13,” and “Mystic River.” He also seems like the perfect husband, i.e. a subscriber to the adage, “Happy wife, happy life.” For their upcoming significant anniversary, instead of the “Footloose” style dance party they usually have, Kyra expressed interest in renewing their marriage vows. “I don’t really like the idea, but if she wants it, I’ll do it,” Kevin said, manfully.

The Rachael Ray show was next. In case you haven’t tuned in for awhile, Rachael’s not all about cooking now, although there is a heavy cooking component. And I do mean, heavy. More on that in a minute. Rachael kicks off sitting on a couch with her guest du jour, who that morning was a doctor opining how to prevent flu and other dangerous germs from entering your domicile. By the time the guy was through, I couldn’t decide if he was a freakazoid germaphobe or a reckoning into the future. when not only will we all be armed, but we’ll all be wearing plastic gloves and surgical masks. According to this guy, you should never touch an ATM with your bare hands. fingers. You should use hand sanitizer throughout the day, that is when you can’t actually use soap and water. You should spray clean the face of your smart phone regularly, and while out and about, never ever touch a handrail or a door knob. You should never wear shoes or boots inside the house. While he was talking I thought how germy I must be, although I almost never use an ATM, don’t own a smart phone, and gave up taking mine or anybody else’s boots off upon entry.

Sitting in a public waiting room watching all this, I was starting to feel a bit hinky. One of the things the doc said never to do was touch a waiting room magazine. He got quite graphic and gross talking about waiting rooms in doctors’ offices. Of course I realized how all the magazines are touched over and over by sick peoples’ hands. Just as I was pulling my coat around me more tightly as though it could be a barrier to other peoples’ viruses, Rachael switched gears to enter her special Rachael Ray kitchen where she was about to present her recipe for apple cider brined double cut pork chops. The recipe called for making mulled cider first and then soaking the chops in them overnight. After that the chops were dried, dredged lightly in flour, and browned in a pan. Next they were popped in a Dutch oven and smothered with browned onions and then slow cooked for several hours to be served with crispy, thick, potato pancakes, and green beans. After all this talk with the doc about avoiding germs, I was shocked by Rachael’s food, which was high calorie, extremely heavy, and covered and cooked in gobs of fat and salt. And her serving sizes! She must be appeasing the heart, aka “heart attack” land. A single portion was 2 thick cut boned pork chops, 2 enormous potato pancakes, and a quarter cup of green beans. Now I really was feeling sick.

The takeaway from this story is that once they said my car was ready, I drove straight home not to disinfect the house, which is hopeless, but to duplicate the apple cider brine. Rachael said herself it could be used on a whole chicken. I poured a quarter jug of fresh apple cider into a saucepan. To this I added a splash of apple cider vinegar, some fresh garlic, and a couple of bay leaves. I brought this mixture to a rolling boil, and poured it over a washed, fresh killed organic whole chicken waiting in a stainless steel bowl. This went into the refrigerator to rest overnight. In a couple of hours, I’ll take out the chicken, dry it, and pan roast it in the oven. We have broccoli and spinach. My husband would probably love the potato pancakes, but they’re not on our diet.

Housebound in winter with daytime TV as company

I was sick with something recently I hesitate to call the flu. Without going into any nasty details, besides a touch of fever, it seemed more like a bad cold. Two friends recently commented on a strain of pertussis (aka whooping cough) going around. I didn’t get anything like that, knock on wood. I just felt lousy for a few days and was definitely avoiding the mirror; between the pasty skin and unwashed hair, I looked like a witch, or death warmed over.
While I was sick I decided to stay in bed, being a firm believer that when it comes to viruses, rest is best. Antibiotics, you may not know, fight bacteria, not viruses. So I huddled under the covers for an entire day, lacking the concentration to even read. When I wasn’t sleeping, I watched TV. Daytime television is really peculiar. You wonder who watches this stuff. There’s hours on end of various “Housewives” and home shopping and “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.” There’s a lot of “Criminal Minds.” I watched two films made in recent years starring Jane Fonda. One was called, “Peace, Love & Misunderstanding,” and the other “Georgia Rules.” In “Peace,” Jane plays a hippie stoner grandma with long, sexy, curly gray hair who wears a tight, light blue denim jacket and, with a bunch of like-minded old ladies, bangs on drums and howls at full moons. In “Georgia Rules” Jane plays a kind but firm and fiery Midwestern grandmother to Lindsay Lohan’s damaged, destructive and disturbed young woman, not unlike her real self. It was rumored that the two fought like cats and dogs on set. I also twice watched a really terrible movie called “Family Man” with Nick Cage and Tea Leoni. I knew I had a fever because I watched it twice. No one in her right mind should accept Nick Cage as a family man, for heaven’s sake. Those blurry eyes? That hangover expression? His always slightly open mouth? Oy. That is not a look you want to see on a husband. But the movie was so bad it was good. I totally bought into Cage’s palpable anxiety about waking up one day to find himself living a life he never wanted. His trauma and then acceptance and then trauma again struck a certain chord. Haven’t we all imagined what it might be like if we had married someone else, pursued different goals, wound up in another house? The main reason I felt sorry for Cage’s alter-ego character was that while he did get Tea and two lovely children, he got a raw deal on the house. It was an awful house.
Speaking of houses, another show I relentlessly watched was HGTV’s “Love It or List It.” The concept is simple. A couple — always a youngish, relatively affluent couple —has outgrown their starter house. Using a budget of never more than $70,000, the renovation designer Hilary Farr attempts to make the couple love their home again. If they don’t love it and want to list it, real estate agent David Visentin is ready for them. His job is to find the couple another house to buy after they sell their old one.
After watching many segments of this show, which takes place in Canada, I began to wonder at how almost every couple decided not to list but to love. On the show, Hilary won them over again and again. The renovations are only able to go so far, but they said yes to their still-cramped quarters and inferior bathroom situations. They settled for a small wall moved and amenities like new hardwood floors or new kitchen cabinets. Even when David the Realtor pulls out all the stops to find them their dream space (now affordable once they sell their recently improved house), at the moment of truth they balk.
One of the reasons “Love It or List It” is so intriguing is because I’ve fantasized about listing for years. As empty nesters, we do not need this much house. I spend hours daydreaming about a nice tidy cottage in or close to town. But my husband says it makes no sense right now to swap out our current house.
This morning on the Today Show, real estate mogul and business consultant Barbara Corcoran put in her two cents about the housing market. She said that while nationally home prices are climbing, besides the island of Manhattan, big change has yet to hit the East Coast. Still, a strong spring market for this area is predicted, which makes it a good time to list your house. A tool Corcoran suggests for sellers is to have their home inspected and appraised before they list. She said that gives sellers a chance to remediate any problems or adjust the asking price accordingly for something they don’t want to fix. Big surprise, she said cash buyers are king. The toughest situation is having to sell before you can buy. Borrowing rates are low, but in the wake of the mortgage crisis, financing and mortgages for most people have been increasingly difficult to secure.
I think I know the reason why the couples almost always choose to love on “Love It or List It.” Thanks to the designer’s renovations, their present home has gained value. By not selling and buying, they avoid paying fees and closing costs. And even though they have their eye on a specific house the agent shows them, how do they know that house will still be available by the time they are ready to buy? They don’t, and there’s no such thing as bridge loans or contingency mortgages anymore.
It takes a huge leap of faith to make a move. That’s our task now. Should we love it or list it? Stay tuned.