Support your local orchestra

As I'm wont, I went to see my beloved Florida Orchestra last night at St. Pete's spectacular Mahaffey Theater.

Prior to the performance, the Orchestra played this video on a large screen that rolled down from the ceiling over the stage.




I'm glad to see that the orchestra put together that video but showing it to an audience of your supporters isn't necessarily the best place to show it. I feel like it's my duty to spread it around.

Many times a year, I sit in this theater and get transported for a couple of hours.

I cannot think of an art form that revels in the wonder and joy of what it is to be human as profoundly as orchestral music does. Classical, orchestral music unites an audience in a shared experience and for a couple of hours a couple thousand strangers enjoy something together. The differences that divide people don't matter in a concert hall. In fact, they don't exist.

The Forida Orchestra recently announced its 2011-2012 schedule and there are still single concert seats available for the rest of the current season.

The Mahaffey sits next to the incredible, new Salvador Dali museum in the Progress Center for the Arts along the water downtown. If you're looking for a day of culture and art I can think of no better way to spend it than an afternoon at the Dali and and evening at the Mahaffey.

In a part of the country better known for drink specials and regressive politics, that these kinds of cultural assets exist in the first place is nothing short of miraculous. However, like arts organizations all over the country, their existence is a tenuous one. Public funding for the arts is under attack now like never before and it's up to individuals to keep the arts alive int he United States.

If you live in Greater Tampa, support our Florida Orchestra. While you're at it, the St. Pete Opera Company, the American Stage, the Florimezzo Orchestra, The New American Theater, the Theater @620 and the Palladium cannot make it without your support. We're fortunate to have a host of smaller theater companies, too many to list here and every one of them needs an audience.

The arts contribute to the quality of life in a community like no other asset. I believe that to the very core of my being and dragging my friends to performances is one of my highest callings I'm convinced.

Where ever you are as you sit reading this, arts organizations in your area are screaming for your support too. There is no shortage of artists, but it feels like audiences are getting harder to come by. Make it a priority to see your local symphony and to support your theaters. Don't let these assets go dark.

Benjamin Franklin

via

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten,
either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing
(Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac)

Yet another defense of the residential urinal

Check out the Drop urinal from Hidra.

Hidra developed the Drop specifically for the residential market, they didn't adapt a commercial one for home use. That's how most residential urinals come to be by the way. A manufacturer takes something that's meant for heavy use and scales it back a little bit.

Hidra took another tack though, and the Drop never had an incarnation as a commercial product. To make it easier to fir into existing baths, the Drop has been made slimmer and taller. It's also a pretty attractive piece of porcelain.

For the life of me, I will never understand the widespread rejection of urinals for home use. Having half the population flush 1.6 gallons of fresh, potable water down the drain every time they need to dispose of about a pint of liquid is one of the more absurd practices of modern life. It's a terrible misuse of resources and people continue to do it because of a strange unease around urinals.

Sometimes that unease is warranted but not for the reasons you may think. I was in Spain with my great friend Bob Borson earlier this year and he had encounter with a urinal in Valencia that has to be read to be appreciated.

Anyhow, back to the business of urinals. Think of it this way, if there's a man or men in the house and there's a urinal present, toilet seats can be kept down. That alone would make the divorce rate plummet.

If you're contemplating a bathroom remodel and there are men who will be affected by the renovation, consider installing a urinal in your new bath. The men involved will be thrilled and you'll cut down your water use significantly. At this stage of the game, who wouldn't welcome a lower utility bill?

You can find the Drop and more cool bath stuff on Lazio-based Hidra's website.

I don't get the skull thing

Skull motifs, which were once the sole province of biker bars and pirate costumes, have gone mainstream. Never mind that they should have stayed in the biker bars.

I can't open a catalog or a magazine without seeing them. It's one thing to see an Ofrenda on the Day of the Dead but the mainstreaming of skull decor has taken on an American-ized scrubbing and the result is a complete break with the actual significance of a skull.

They're a warning sometimes and historically, they were a kick-you-in-the teeth reminder of everyone's  mortality.

The whole thing mystifies me. However, the French design studio Pool is going to release the following plastic chair at the Milan Furniture Fair this month.

At first, I chalked it up to a de-contextualized skull to be used by the unthinking around their barbecues but then I learned its name. The name of this chair is Souviens Toi Que Tu Vas Mourir.

Extra points to whoever translates that name. I want one of these for the name alone!

In praise of HBO's Mildred Pierce

HBO is about midway through their broadcast of their incredible mini-series, Mildred Pierce. Without a doubt, it's one of the best period pieces I've ever seen.






Since this is rumored to be a kitchen design blog. I'll start off with a photo of the set for Mildred's kitchen.

Like I said, the production best period piece I've ever seen. Add to the lavish, painstaking authenticity of the set a story line that won't quit and you have a recipe for true greatness.

Three episodes in, HBO's Mildred Pierce is approaching true greatness. Again, because this is supposed to be a kitchen blog, check out Mildred's gas range.

Amazing! I love this series for how different it is from the film noir movie. You see, I have a thing for Warner Brother's 1945 version of Mildred Pierce.

Joan Crawford and Butterfly McQueen chew the scenery in 1945 

In fact, it's one of my favorite movies of all time. Like most people, I saw the original Warner Brothers movie long before I read the novel upon which it's based, James M. Cain's 1941 Mildred Pierce. In the hands of  Warner Brothers and in response to a whole lot of pressure from the Hays Commission, James M. Cain's novel of  eroticism, self-reliance and the Great Depression was turned into a film noir murder mystery. In 1945, murder was preferable to bed-hopping I suppose but the original wasn't a murder mystery. No one dies in the novel (except for little Rae) though I'm sure most of the characters wish they would at one point or another.

As great as that film is (Crawford won her only Oscar for her leading role), it's a very different piece of work from the novel.


James M. Cain's novel from four years earlier is a masterpiece in its own right and I'm thrilled to see it getting the attention it deserves care of HBO. Their mini-series is a painstaking retelling of the original novel as much as it's a nearly perfect period piece.

The last time the US experienced an economic upheaval similar to the one we're enduring now was in the the 1930s. That Mildred Piece's reversal of fortune came at the bust of a real estate bubble makes the story all the more easy to relate to.

James M. Cain was an important novelist and journalist in the early 20th Century. He wrote in what's called the roman noir style, he was all about the hardboiled crime novel. Mildred Pierce stands out in early work in that it's not a crime novel. Rather, it's a novel about perseverance and triumph over adversity. Further, it's the story of a woman and it's told from the point of view of a woman in a time where women's voices and opinions were not heard very often. Add to it that the Great Depression is practically a character in and of itself and you end up with a book that's a Must Read. So go read it. Please!

James M. Cain is one of the great writers of the last century no one's ever heard of but he wrote some important stuff. Three of his greatest works are included the collection I linked to in the last paragraph. The movies made from his novels endure and are some really great films.











As great as the movies are, his novels deserve to be read even more.

In the meantime though, watch the HBO mini-series. The story keeps getting better with each installment (even though I know where the story's headed). If you don't get HBO or live in a part of the world where it's not available, take heart. They spent so much money on this production that it's bound to be released on DVD in a matter of weeks.