As the crepe myrtle trees turn from fuchsia to pale pink and then brown, they remind me that it’s time to put away the summer linens and bring out the jeans and boots. Mom used to say, “You never wear white shoes after Labor Day.” But the day may need to be moved back to accommodate the longer summers.
When I first started lobbying in Sacramento several of the senators and lobbyists of a certain age would pull out their white patent leather shoes and white belts after Memorial Day, pair them with a plaid jacket, and retire them in September. “Tacky, I used to think.” Congressman Garamendi, back then a State Senator, wore a lime green polyester leisure suit. But on him it looked good. I found one recently on eBay listed under “costumes.” Fashion evolves. Now women are rocking pastel pantsuits in lime, lavender, pink, and tan, accessorized with pearls. Converse sneakers, white ones, even after Labor Day, are all the rage for some in the halls of power.
Ran into my friend Elisabeth Gulick recently leaving the NY2CA Gallery on First St. breathless with excitement. “You’ve got to see Bodil Fox’s show. It’s much more than an art show.” Intrigued, I walked over the next day and got a private tour of the one-woman show “An Uncommon Thread.” Weaving is the platform upon which Bodil bases her work. Her pieces are complex and many layered, literally and figuratively, often with deeper meanings than are initially apparent, speaking to universal themes of humanitarianism, migration, music, dance, and play.
Gallery owner Vicki Marchand and I must have spent 15 minutes examining the wall sculpture appropriately called “Dances” which teases the viewer to peek under black paper ribbons of intricately hand-cut stencils spelling that name dance crazes through the centuries. Beneath each ribbon is the date the dance was popular. I recognized most of them and even practiced a few as their names were revealed. “I wonder what the oldest dance is?” Vicki found “Friar in the Well,” popular in 1650. I can’t imagine why a man of the cloth ended up in the well but am guessing the dance must have involved a lot of flailing, jerky moves, and even vocalization. Coincidentally, this was also the year Parliament passed the Commonwealth Act which called for the death penalty for adultery. Not sure if there was a connection.
We found the Bump and the Stroll which I remembered from American Bandstand. There was the Lindy Hop, the Black Bottom, the Squirrel, the Turkey Trot, the Kangaroo Hop, the Shimmy, the Mashed Potato (you need leather soles for this one), the Jerk, the Charleston, and the Electric Slide. “Ha, there’s the Macarena!” I still smile when I envision Al Gore stiffly doing his version on a campaign tour. How about a dance-off between the Presidential candidates rather than a debate? Wonder who would win?
We discovered the Bunny Hug, not Hop, which I had to look up — invented at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco in 1911. Partners foreheads touched as they stared into each others eyes while sticking out their posteriors in a contortion that gave me lower back pain just looking at the video back home. The dance caused quite a stir at the time and was banned along with all dances named after animals until Elvis and Ann Margret introduced the Dog.
Delicate bowls that appear to be made of paper with ripped edges and adorned with paint, wire, and copper leaf have an ancient feel to them. They are constructed by applying concrete over balloons and bowls in the manner of paper mache. Displayed next to them are several face masks fabricated out of copper sheeting worked with repousee designs and modeled after the cloth masks we wore at the start of the Covid epidemic. These exotic creations are a nod to the project that Bodil and husband Larnie headed up in 2020 to provide several thousand cloth masks to first responders who were without PPI.
“Door of Knowledge” is a wall weaving that merits closer inspection — a textile of fiber paper, fortune cookies proverbs, and paint. From across the room it looks like a golden wall shimmering with hundreds of black butterflies. You lift the black paper flaps and discover dozens of different fortunes. Bodil and Larnie must have done a lot of Chinese takeout. Examples: “A work of art is a gift not a commodity.” “Life is a one-way street and we are not coming back.” “Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
Do carve out a good chunk of time for this show as the longer you linger before a creation the more you will discover. Through September 29. ny2cagallery.com
My friend Marialee is smitten with royalty even though she’s a die-hard Bernie Sanders fan. She can name all of Henry VIII’s wives, recount Empress Josephine Bonaparte’s fall from grace, and is a scholar on the Windsors and their predecessors, the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the name they dropped like a hot potato after World I.
Over lunch the other day at Sandoval’s M.L., as I call her, casually said that she had gotten a thank you note from King Charles on Buckingham Palace letterhead. It was embossed with his cypher or monogram Charles R (for Rex.)
“I didn’t know you knew His Majesty,” I said. “Well, I sent him a get well card during his cancer diagnosis and got a note back. I also wrote to Princess Katherine and got a card from her from West Kensington Palace and signed Her Royal Highness, The Princess of Wales.” “Wow,” I said. “All I get are the AARP magazine and the occasional mailer from CaliforniaTomorrow.”
“Would you describe yourself as a royalist?” I asked her, wondering if we would have been friends during the American Revolution. “Of course, she said throwing her head back and laughing, “but I prefer a U.S. democracy and would never tolerate an autocrat.” Long live the King! You, too, her Royal Highness.
Letters From Benicia 