Gem of a Play

Syracuse -- Friends and I saw “Gem of the Ocean” on Saturday night at Syracuse Stage. The first act was a bit sleepy, but the second act was strange and powerful and made sitting for nearly three hours (run time) well worth it.
This play marks the start of a 10-play epic about African-American life in the 20th century by August Wilson, a Pulitzer-prize winning playwright who died in 2005.
This particular story is about a group of Blacks living in Pittsburgh in 1904. It focuses on their personal struggles and the lingering effects of slavery, abolished 40 years earlier.
A troubled young man named Citizen shows up at the house of Aunt Esther, an elderly sage who cleanses people of their sins. He seeks forgiveness for a crime; we don’t learn what that crime is until the play's second half, when Esther takes him on an imaginary journey to the “City of Bones,” a metaphor for a slave ship and the sea.
Meanwhile, tension is high in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, where Esther lives. A black man accused of stealing has jumped off a bridge and killed himself; there’s unrest at the local mill; and a fierce black sheriff who has forgotten his roots is terrorizing residents.
This play, directed by Timothy Douglas, is very layered yet tightly woven; you’re never lost. And the characters are richly developed and well cast.
This was my first time seeing a show at Syracuse Stage, and I was quite impressed.
“Gem of the Ocean” runs through March 11.
For information, visit http://www.syracusestage.org/. -- JM

Good Karma

Syracuse – Delicious coffee alert!
For those who are tired of having Starbuck’s pumping through their veins, swing by Laci’s Coffee Café, near Carousel Mall. I had hazelnut coffee, café-au-lait style, and a slice of pumpkin roll swirled with cream cheese. Tasty!
The service was good, too. A chipper gal named Lauren Houck, a senior at LeMoyne College, recently bought Laci’s, which she plans to rename Karma Kafé. (That’s the name of the Hawaiian coffee served there.) Houck and her sister were both working at the café when I stopped by. I felt good to be supporting a mom-and-pop café, particularly one owned by a student.
The place is tiny: five small tables and a wee bar. Beyond great coffee, there are smoothies and inexpensive cookies, scones, muffins and other sweets baked by local Mennonites. There’s also free, wireless Internet.
Laci’s is located in the indoor shopping center on Park Street, next to the regional farmer’s market. Once you have your cup of joe, you might want to peek inside the Mediterranean food shop and deli next door. -- JM.

Grumbling Is So Easy

Syracuse –Wretched, gloomy and unsafe. This is often how I describe Syracuse, the Rust Belt city where I relocated to last summer for graduate school.
Like many who live here, I’m full of gripes: The weather is crummy, the cultural offerings are shoddy and the streets are teeming with abandoned buildings and sketchy characters. Almost weekly, a student is mugged or raped while walking near campus. And my roommate and I just learned that two blocks from our apartment is a halfway house for guys about to be released from federal prison. Awesome!
All of this said, every town has its gems. So for the next four months, until my program ends in June, I’m on a concerted mission to find and experience those intriguing nooks and crannies, whether it’s an amazing building or charming restaurant or stimulating piece of art. Suggestions, anyone? -- JM

Artzybasheff

Syracuse – His illustrations haunt me.
The SU Art Gallery is presenting the work of Boris Artzybasheff, a Russian émigré and artist who illustrated 200 covers for Time from 1941 until his death in 1965. He also worked for Life magazine.
This is an unusual exhibit definitely worth checking out.
Artzybasheff had an extraordinary gift for portraiture. He also was well known for his eerie surreal paintings of machines with human features, and his satirical anti-Nazi paintings.

Arzybasheff’s work is masculine, precise, thought-provoking and often disturbing.
The exhibit runs through March. 11. -- JM

Design Delirium

Syracuse – Go Madrid! And Montreal! And San Francisco!
I just spent 22 hours volunteering at the Society for News Design’s annual competition held here in Syracuse. MY GOD, there’s phenomenal talent in this world.
I assisted the team that judged feature stories and sections. Generally speaking, Europe produced the most off-beat and provocative designs; there were even fornicating chocolate bunnies on one cover page.

I fell hard for the “Metropoli” covers (see colorful spread above ) by the 41-year-old Rodrigo Sanchez, who I’ve since learned is an absolute legend in the industry (“Metropoli” is a weekly magazine inserted into El Mundo, a Madrid newspaper).
Also on the brilliant list:

* Montreal’s La Presse; feature pages that are young, fresh and smart.

* LA Times’ “West” magazine; gorgeous layouts.

* The San Jose Mercury New’s “Eye”; arts & entertainment tab with clever, vibrant covers (see basketball).

* The San Francisco Chronicle’s “Datebook”; a&e tab with diverse, imaginative covers (see black and red typography).

* And, of course, The New York Times, particularly its Sunday magazine and “Style” magazine (see pie); design throughout is consistently striking, thought-provoking, original and flawless. -- JM

Snow. Snow. Snow.

Syracuse – Last week at this time, I was lying in a hospital bed, doped up on morphine and barely able to stand up.
Today, I was shoveling snow.
It’s amazing what the human body can endure. Granted, I’m not supposed to exercise or lift anything over 10 pounds for the next couple of weeks, while my body recovers from losing a kidney. And I was reminded of my “condition” today on two occasions: first, when my abdomen turned very grumpy after I tried to dig my car out a mountain of snow; and second, when I went to climb into a hot bubble bath and suddenly remembered that soaking in water is a no-no for a month after surgery. Apparently, it’s not good for the incision.
Humph.
This is not a good time to be debilitated in Syracuse. We’re getting PUMMELED with snow (two to three feet). It started falling last night and hasn’t stopped. It’s lovely, of course, as long as 1) your heater works properly and 2) you don’t have to leave the house.
On a related note:
For those who’d like a little more winter in their lives, there’s a new exhibit called “Embracing Winter” at Syracuse University’s Warehouse Gallery in downtown. I stopped by to see it yesterday, the day it opened.
I got a kick out of the press release. Here’s what it says: “Syracuse is the perennial winner of the Golden Snowball Award, for the most snowfall in New York State. “Embracing Winter” celebrates this crystallized precipitation as the key to a delightful set of activities, and as an ephemeral filter to make ordinary surroundings new again.”
I suppose delightful activities would include shoveling snow, because one piece features a row of snow shovels purchased at local stores.
This installation was inspired by the early 20th century Dadaist artist Marcel Duchamp, a pioneer of using everyday objects as art (think bicycle wheels, urinals, drying racks). His 1915 piece, “In Advance of the Broken Arm,” was a snow shovel.
In the Syracuse exhibit, you’re invited to rent a shovel for two days. How goofy, I thought. But as it turns out, I might be stopping by tomorrow to do just that.
This morning, once I finally exhumed my car (with a neighbor’s help), I drove off, and I believe I left my house’s communal shovel stuck in a snow mound. It has since disappeared.
The “Embracing Winter” exhibit runs through March 31. Visit www.thewarehousegallery.org. -- JM

Hail To The Kidney

Phoenix – It’s official: My left kidney has taken up permanent residence in my mother’s lower abdomen. And apparently, it’s enjoying its new digs.

The surgery on Tuesday morning went very well, “as perfect as it could go,” the doctors said. My 4-ounce kidney was in tip-top shape – pink, hydrated and full of pep. It didn’t stop producing pee for a second, even while in transit to Mum’s operating table. “It was squirting out urine like a fountain,” the doctor told me.
And it just keeps on chugging. Yesterday, my mother’s catheter bag was full of clear, yellow tinkle. The nurse lifted up the 2-liter bag and exclaimed, “It’s beautiful!”
You hear the darndest things in the hospital.
Fortunately, I was released from the Phoenix Mayo Clinic yesterday, 48 hours after I checked in. Mom is expected home this evening. The care we received there was outstanding.
How do I feel right now?
Well, even though I feel like there’s a knife in my stomach – and my body is puffed up like a blowfish (they pumped air into my tummy during surgery) – I still don't have my head fully around what just happened.
I donated an organ! Woah!
I’m not sure my dear mother has realized what’s happened, either. Last night, while we were talking on the phone, she asked if I could dust the living room furniture today, if I felt up to it. A friend would be stopping by, and she wanted the house to be spotless.
“Mom,” I said. “I can barely walk and I’m taking 8 Vicodin a day. I don’t think I’ll feel like cleaning the house.”
“Well, I just thought if you were up to it…”
“Mom, this is highly dysfunctional," I said. "Nobody expects the house to be perfect. You just had surgery."
I envisioned her making this absurd request while lying helpless in a hospital bed, with an IV in her neck and her catheter bag full of gorgeous urine that MY kidney made. I couldn’t resist: “I can’t believe I just gave you a kidney and you’re asking me to clean the house.”
Talk about dashed hopes! Sure, I love Mom and would step in front of a bus for her, but I thought giving her an organ meant that I was forever freed from obeying her orders.
Damn. I should have drawn up a contract before the surgery. It would have read something like:
“I, Julie Beth McKnight, agree to never ask my middle child, Jenna Michelle McKnight, to do any chores, run any errands or exert any sort of energy on my behalf. Also, she can drive my BMW (as fast as she’d like) and borrow anything from me she wants, without asking! Lastly, I agree to never argue with her and to always accept that she is right.”
Now, doesn’t that seem like a fair trade for a kidney? -- JM