'Candelabra' recreates best of times, worst of times

Last night I watched “Behind the Candelabra,” a made-for-HBO biopic about Liberace and his seven-year romantic relationship with Scott Thorson, who was 40 years his junior. Based on the 1988 memoir by Thorson and co-writer Alex Thorliefson, the book was adapted to film by Steven Soderbergh to star Michael Douglas and Matt Damon. I was unable to watch it the night it premiered because I was too busy watching “Mad Men” and “Nurse Jackie,” two cable series that air on Sunday nights, which is, annoyingly, when all the great television happens.

Liberace, who was born in 1919, always seemed like a freak to me. The first time I saw him was on the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s. My mother was a big Liberace fan and eagerly tuned in whenever he appeared on any TV show, for whatever reason. (I should say here Geraldine was also in love with Charo, the singing star and wife of bandleader Xavier Cugat. The “cuchi-cuchi girl,” as she was known, was a sassy Latin sexpot/bimbo who, like Liberace, was completely flamboyant and over the top. In case you don’t remember Charo, there’s a great video of her on YouTube clowning around and dancing and singing with Dean Martin and Danny Thomas on the Dean Martin Show. “Modern Family” actress and Diet Pepsi pitchwoman Sofia Vergara, adorable as she is, is the watered-down version.)

But back to Liberace. Unlike my mother, I was not a fan. He annoyed me when he appeared in a cameo on “The Monkees” and later on an episode of “Batman” with Adam West in which he played a dual role as a concert pianist and his gangster twin. Embracing hippie culture as I did, I hated his sequined outfits and his capes and furs. His chest and hands covered in gold and diamonds looked cheesy and tasteless, while his stage presence and campiness struck me as offensive. I couldn’t watch the few times he appeared on Saturday Night Live. By then I was repulsed merely at the sound of his name, which I associated with all things phony. By the ’80s my main issue with Liberace was his refusal to acknowledge what was obvious to me, that he was a gay man. His refusal to be open about his sexual orientation seemed an insult to all the brave and out gay men I’d met in college and later working in the city who were dying of AIDS.

Right up until his death in February 1987, my mother was one of the legions of Liberace fans who believed the love of his life was Sonja Henie. My mother went to her grave herself a few months later, still believing. In the days following his death, a scandal erupted when the Riverside County coroner refuted Liberace’s physician’s report that the performer had died of heart disease, instead ordering an autopsy based on tissue samples taken from the embalmed body, which told a different story entirely: Liberace had died of complications from HIV. When the news broke, I remember my mother throwing a mini-tantrum, asking why anyone felt the need to besmirch the star’s reputation.

On Facebook, after the airing of the HBO biopic, I posed a question on my forum. I say “my forum” jokingly because, as everyone knows, FB is just one giant forum. My old writer friend Cindy from our mutual 1980s magazine days pronounced Matt Damon’s performance as Scott Thorson “brilliant” and Michael Douglas “surprisingly good in a tough role.” As did several other FB friends, Cindy loved Debbie Reynolds’ depiction of Liberace’s mother. I personally loved Rob Lowe as Dr. Jack Startz, the celebrity doctor who got Thorson started on his addiction to diet pills and other amphetamines, setting the young man on a crash course. Lowe plays Dr. Startz as a stunning dissolute in an Emmy-worthy performance.

“Behind the Candalabra” is a film one can’t soon forget. I remarked on Facebook that I really wished some of my gay friends would weigh in with their comments. For me and other heterosexuals to comment intelligently on a gay relationship that happened 35 years ago seems kind of absurd. The ’70s were heady times for everyone, especially in places like New York, Las Vegas, L.A. and San Francisco. It was the beginning of the great Coming Out. But Liberace thought it would be professional suicide to tell the truth about himself, and Thorson, who at 22 was at the forefront of a new generation, was willing to risk everything for love. Thorson was Liberace’s victim — that’s my takeaway. 

Maid of Honor or Maid of Drama

My son’s lovely girlfriend is a bridesmaid in a wedding this summer. Actually she’s more than a bridesmaid; she’s the maid of honor. Being asked to be in someone’s wedding party is supposed to be an honor, but in reality it’s always filled drama and mounting expenditures.

While attempting to give my son’s girlfriend counsel on the latest bridesmaid clash, I recalled I was a bridesmaid – not once, but four times. My freshman year at college, I was in the wedding party of Candy, a high school friend. While still in college, I was in the weddings of Beth and Carol Ann, two of my college friends. A couple of years out of grad school, I was in Amanda’s wedding. Of the four marriages, only Carol Ann’s made it.  

Depending how you feel about chick flicks and graphic body functions, you either love the movie Bridesmaid’s or you dislike it. Like everybody else, I laughed at the food poisoning scene, but overall felt bad because of all the old rotten memories the film dredged up for me.

Candy’s wedding, and I’ve changed all the brides names here for libel’s sake, was a big bawdy affair held at a popular catering hall in South Jersey. The bride’s father, now deceased, was a celebrity. He was a professional wrestler and later an actor who appeared in David Lee Roth music videos. When Candy was getting married, her dad was a big pro wrestling star. The wedding of his eldest daughter, who was all of 19, was meant to be a showcase. Because I was away at college, I missed the big pow wow at the bridal salon, and had to wear a dress they all picked without me. I completely missed the bachelorette party which took place during exam week, which made the bride upset.  At the wedding, I had to walk down the aisle with the jerkiest and most despicable of the groom’s men, and sit beside him at the wedding party table while he spent the whole evening trying to stick his hand up my dress.

For Beth’s wedding, which took place on a beach on a beach in Cape Cod, as to not upstage the bride, we were told to wear sun dresses and flip flops. Beth and her fiancé fought like cats and dogs; on the afternoon of the wedding, she marched towards the altar with her tiny hands clenched in fists. During the ceremony, one of the groom’s best friends, already inebriated, threw up. Beth’s mother, who was against the marriage, cried noisily from the start.

Carol Ann’s wedding was an eye opener because of her religion. Her family and the groom’s were Salvation Army. Until I met Carol Ann, I thought the Salvation Army to be a band of bell ringers for charity; I didn’t yet understand the organization to be a Christian denomination whose thrust and focus is offering salvation to the poor, the destitute, and the hungry. Their theology is mainstream Methodist, although the Army has its own distinctive practices. Carol Ann’s wedding was proscribed going in. There was no conversation regarding what the wedding party would wear. Someone in the Army made our dresses; hooded, voluminous, long sleeved slate blue tunics that dropped to the floor, tied at the waist with braided rope. And I do mean rope. It was hemp. The dress was really hard to walk in, as there weren’t even side slits. Another bridesmaid joked we looked like monks. There was no liquor at the wedding which peeved me since I’d just turned 21, and no dancing either. The Salvation Army band played songs, but they were all hymns.

Amanda’s wedding in San Francisco was a class act. The wedding was held in The Sir Francis Drake Hotel, which is gorgeous. Because I was working in New York City slaving away at a magazine, once again I missed out on the dress selection and most of the fittings. Three days before the wedding, I flew out to the coast to be immersed in a whirlwind of pre-wedding activities, including an outing to Fisherman’s Wharf. We also had tea at The Ritz and rode a cable car. In between manicure and hair appointments, I was given the job of individually wrapping 250 handmade chocolate truffles to be used as place settings, and bullying Amanda’s cleaning person into ironing Amanda’s honeymoon wardrobe and packing it. The woman, who clearly disliked Amanda, was loath to do it. Amanda yelled at me. “Evie,” she said. “You just don’t know how to talk to servants.”

The piece de resistance to being in Amanda’s wedding was the expensive, ugly bridesmaid’s dress, which was apricot silk with puffed sleeves and a high neck. In 1982, it cost me over $500. At the reception afterwards, I inadvertently let it slip to Amanda’s very WASP-y new sister- in-law a piece of information of which the family was not aware. “Amanda is Jewish?” she said. “How curious. She never said a word.” I was so freaked out by this exchange that my stomach turned to knots. The minute the reception was over, I rushed upstairs to my hotel room and tore off the dress, which I deposited in the trash. In the morning I was on the first flight out. Amanda and I didn’t speak again until a few years later when she told me she was divorcing.

Let that be a lesson to all you future bridesmaids. Being in a wedding sounds fun. Until it isn’t. 

Yes, you can resume intimacy after a devastating illness

http://www.thirdage.com/sex/your-sex-life-after-illness

The Origin of the Donut Booty

.. http://www.record-review.com/record-review/VIEW_FROM_THE_PORCH.html

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/