Picasso and Rivera Talk

Really, this is quite unusual, self-portraits talking to each other from a wall on either side of a gallery door. The man on the left, a short muscular brute standing bare-chested, says, “Get out of that frame.” “Okay, as long as you do, too.” Pablo Picasso, cocky at age twenty-five in 1906, steps naked, it…

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Pursuing Frank Romero

On a recent Saturday afternoon, enjoying paintings at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, I hear a security guard say, “Sir, you didn’t pay,” and turn to see him walk fast toward a man in a suit who draws his wallet and says, “Detective Jones, LAPD.” “How can we help you, sir?”…

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Wild Child Plays Like The Doors

Tonight I decide to stay home and watch the documentary Muscle Shoals about many great singers appearing in a small Alabama town to record music. Down in the land of high humidity and slow-talking, Aretha Franklin enlivens everyone with pure and powerful vocals like those of Wilson Pickett and the Rolling Stones and others in…

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