Magic Milestone!

Thank you 10,000 times for helping us reach this thrilling new milestone! Keep spreading the word, keep visiting and keep urging others to visit.

Just Released!

The Democrats said it best!

The Odor Limits

Last night we visited Philadelphia's University City Science Center where we explored "Odor Limits," the current exhibit at the Center's Esther M. Klein Art Gallery. This unusual tour and reception was sponsored by the Philadelphia Public Relations Association, the Science Center and the Monell Chemical Senses Center.

Odor Limits is a multimedia exhibition that examines the potential of smell to redefine aesthetic experience. The exhibit is presented through a collaboration between University City’s Science Center and Monell Center and showcases four international artists whose work demonstrates how scent can prompt thought-provoking insights into cultural differences, environmentalism, personal identity, spirituality and the philosophy of the body.

Curated by Jim Drobnick and Jennifer, Odor Limits features works by artists Oswaldo Maciá, Jenny Marketou, Chrysanne Stathacos (art work pictured) and Clara Ursitti.

This is not your typical art exhibit. Rather, it is a sensory experience involving sight, smell and touch. Some of the scents which are part of these works of art were easy for me to identify while others were not. I'm not going to give away the scents that are featured. That's for you to discover when you visit Odor Limits, as I hope you will.

BTW: The Odor Limits cell phone tour allows you to hear the curators and participating artists discuss the exhibition and the artworks, as well as listen to scientific commentary from several Monell olfactory scientists.

The exhibit is free and open to the public Monday through Saturday from 9 to 5 at the Science Center at 36th and Market Sts.

Special thanks to Bill Cowen and Metrospective Communications for doing such a fine job of promoting this exhibition which runs through June 28.

The Right Change

From John McCain:
Each American faces a decision this election and the choice between my candidacy and Senator Obama's could not be more clear. This is a change election. But the choice is between the right change and the wrong change; between going forward and going backward.The right change recognizes that many of the policies and institutions of our government have failed. The right kind of change will initiate widespread and innovative reforms in almost every area of government policy from energy to taxes to government spending and the military.The right change will stop impeding Americans from doing what they have always done, overcome obstacles and turn challenges into opportunities.
The wrong change looks not to the future, but to the past for solutions that have failed us before and will surely fail us again. Like others before him, my opponent seems to think government is the answer to every problem. That's not change we can believe in. I don't seek the presidency on the presumption I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need. I seek the office with the humility of a man who cannot forget my country saved me.

Unmatched!

Has there been any star before or since who has matched Lillian Gish?
I doubt it.
In D. W. Griffith's 1919 film Broken Blossoms Lillian Gish plays an abused daughter who lives in the slums of London with her father who's a renegade and a thug. To get away from her father, she (quite accidentally) takes up with a young Chinese merchant who teaches her the true meaning of love and tenderness.
Lillian Gish was 23 years old when she made this movie and she continued to work in motion pictures for another 68 years!
I watched this film last night as Turner Classic Movies featured an evening of Asian images in film. Several of the films (including this one) were from the silent era.
You cannot understand the movies until and unless you study the silents. This is where the language of film was written This is where techniques were developed. This is where and how actors learned to act for the camera. This is where the closeup was born.
All of the elements of film storytelling that we now take for granted were invented and developed during the silent era.
And, working with Griffith, Lillian Gish helped to write the language, develop the techniques and refine the movements, the gestures and, above all the look that would define what it means to be a movie star.
It was hard work - gruelling work that left little room for the sort of egos that get in the way of things nowadays..
Griffith and Gish understood the hard work of their infant business even if they didn't know that they were giving us a new art form.
Where would we be today without them?

Michelle Tape This Week?

From Newsmax:
An untold story lies behind Hillary Clinton’s determination to remain in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination — the possible revelation of a shocking recording of rival Barack Obama’s wife Michelle.
That’s the word from longtime political analyst Roger J. Stone Jr., who writes on his The StoneZONE Web site that the recording purportedly documents Michelle Obama making racist comments in a speech.
According to Stone, Hillary aides are in a race with Republicans to get their hands on the offensive recording.
“On the heels of Michelle Obama’s quote that she ‘has never been proud of her country’ until now, the new controversy could turn the contest upside down, but it more likely” to benefit “John McCain than to boost Hillary Clinton to the nomination — if the alleged recording exists,” Stone writes.
He also asserts that Mark Penn, Clinton’s former chief campaign strategist, has told sources that the bombshell “could come this week.”
Note: Stone is the same guy who tipped people off to Eliot Spitzer's escapades. He's

A Towering Presence

The unexpected passing of Anne d'Harnoncourt represents an incalculable loss to the Philadelphia region and to the entire art world. The esteemed director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art put the Museum on the map and made Philadelphia a premier destination for art.

Anne d'Harnoncourt was art royalty.

But she never acted like royalty. She was warm, engaging, welcoming - down to earth. She had such a magnificent sense of herself and she was living proof that one woman with vision, determination and a keen understanding of the world can accomplish almost anything.

Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a friend and colleague for decades said "There's no question that she was one of the very few people at the very summit to whom all museum directors and curators would look up and consult. She was a very big influence on the international museum group that meets every year. She was just someone who made a difference wherever she went."
"Philadelphia has lost one of the greatest cultural leaders in its entire history," said David B. Brownlee, professor and chair of Art History at the University of Pennsylvania. "Anne d'Harnoncourt transformed the Philadelphia Museum of Art in a way that modeled and contributed to the transformation of the city of Philadelphia. She attracted the best and brightest curators in the world, created with them an ideal collegial environment in which to work and charged them with the task of creating exhibitions and other programs that would change the city and speak to the world."

I was proud to know Anne d'Harnoncourt and wrote about her recently on this blog.

To listen to my podcast interview with Anne d'Harnoncourt click here.

Legendary

He lived in the world of haute couture.

But his real significance came in the way he influenced everyday dress: the clothes we wear, the colors we choose, the patterns we find acceptable, the styles we come to accept.

According to the New York Times: "he was largely responsible for changing the way modern women dress, putting them into pants both day and night, into peacoats and safari jackets, into 'le smoking' (as the French call a man’s tuxedo jacket), and into leopard prints, trench coats and, for a time in the 1970’s, peasant-inspired clothing in rich fabrics."

Through his laser-like focus on fashion he helped to created a new definition and he changed the way we look at the world.

Again, according to the Times, he "often sought inspiration on the streets, bringing the Parisian beatnik style to couture runways and adapting the sailors’ peacoats he found in Army-Navy stores in New York into jackets that found their way into fashionable women’s wardrobes around the world. His glamorous evening clothes were often adorned with appliqués and beadwork inspired by artists like Picasso, Miró and Matisse. .
Among the women of style who wore his clothes were Catherine Deneuve, Paloma Picasso, Nan Kempner, Lauren Bacall, Marella Agnelli and Marie-Hélène de Rothschild. "

Of course, he also lent his name to menswear and to fragrances, linens and home goods. But it was women's clothing that remained the essence of his work and the definition of his art.

He was Yves Saint Laurent and his name was synonymous with a time when fashion actually meant something - when it was more than a fleeting fantasy.

His death yesterday at the age of 71 is a mere footnote to his enduing legacy: his enormous body of work and his boundless influence. He was one of those people who fused life and work in such a way that the words Bigger Than Life immediately came to mind when you thought of him.

And so he remains: Bigger Than Life!

Big Mac Defends Hillary

John McCain has jumped to Hillary Clinton's defense while denouncing the words of Rev. Michael Pfleger.
McCain said,"I have known Senator Clinton for long time. I have always treated her with respect. I respect her and I think that kind of language and that kind of treatment of Senator Clinton is unwarranted, uncalled for and disgraceful.”

Overwrought

Last night a couple of gals who I am thisclose to went to see Sex And The City, the movie, and I went along with them.

To begin with, I've never seen the TV show of the same name.

It was never something that attracted my interest, Besides, I don't subscribe to HBO. Frankly, I think HBO is a total waste: sensationalistic, endlessly huckstered and overrated.

Still, like everyone else I was familiar with the SATC characters. How could I not be? They've been virtually unavoidable for years now. And I was curious to see what all the commotion was about.

Anyway, this flick is basically a two-hour plus estrogen festival.

For about 150 minutes is goes like this: talk, talk, talk, fashion, fashion, feelings, feelings, talk, talk about feeling, talk about fashion, talk, feelings, feelings, [sex] fashion, talk, talk, talk, feelings, feelings, fashion, talk, talk, talk about feelings, fashion, fashion, [sex] talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

I'm always suspicious of a movie that contains lots of narration. This is usually a sure sign of a bad script. The endless narration here (by the Sarah Jessica Parker character) is terminally tedious. Sarah herself is a strange looking gal. You wonder how she came to be this sort of modern-day icon. She's not really pretty and some might say not even attractive.

There is little or no character development in this movie and even less of a plot. Nothing much really happens except a group of women friends travel in and out of each other's lives, try on clothes, talk a lot and (once in a great moon) actually have sex with guys they don't seem to like very much. It's all very shallow.

One might say that this movie will teach you that: 1) Men need women more than women need men; and 2) Women support and nurture one another better than men do. But, hey - I already understood both of these facts and I also understand that this is why women will almost always outlive men. I needed no lesson in this.

Bottom line: Women really are the stronger sex. Don't forget it, guys!