Lovin' That Bourdain!

I've been thoroughly enjoying watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations as well as his new program, The Layover.  Unlike some of the other programs on The Travel Channel and cable in general, Bourdain's is about quality AND quantity.  He embraces life... like his jingle goes, "I write, I travel, I eat, and I'm hungry for more."

He's a talented connoisseur of great cuisine worldwide AND an excellent writer.  He hates cliches, has a wry sense of humor and makes everything about life FUN.  It all began with an article in The New Yorker... and then his first book, Kitchen Confidential: "New York Chef Tony Bourdain gives away secrets of the trade in his wickedly funny, inspiring memoir/expose. 'Kitchen Confidential' reveals what Bourdain calls 'twenty-five years of sex, drugs, bad behavior and haute cuisine.'"

My favorite episode EVER was Cleveland - where he met and ate with the great Harvey Pekar from American Splendor.  When Pekar died last year, Bourdain posted a truly touching tribute to him.

This is one of the rare shows on TV that show you how to discover new and exciting things about life on this planet all the while being entertained and inspired to really go out there and live your life to its fullest.  It's unpredictable, hilarious and deliciously delectable to the last bite!

The Great Dobie Gray Has Passed On

Singer-songwriter Dobie Gray has died in Nashville from complications of cancer surgery, a friend told The New York Times. He was 71. Best known for his hit songs "Look at Me," "The 'In' Crowd" and "Drift Away," the Texas native died Tuesday, friend and fellow songwriter George Reneau told the newspaper.

Gray also penned numerous songs for other famous artists, such as "Got My Heart Set on You" for John Conlee, "Over and Over, Again" for Ray Charles, "If I Ever Needed You" for Julio Iglesias and "Come Home to Me" for George Jones.

Reneau told the Times Gray, who never married, is survived by a sister and a brother. Read more

In 2009, I sent an e-mail to Dobie:

Thank heavens for the Internet... it's the one and only way I could tell you how much I love your music and your voice and how much it has meant to me all these years!  Thank you so much, Dobie, for being so brilliantly talented and making my life so much richer.

To which he replied in August:

Dear Sandy,

Many thanks for taking the time to write to me with your kind words. It's always nice to know that you've had a hand, however small, in someone else's happiness.

Blessings,
Dobie

I told him his music is timeless and great!  R.I.P., Dobie!

Doris Day Resurfaces with New Record

Doris Day, America's sweetheart of the '50s and '60s, beguiled audiences with her on-screen romances opposite top Hollywood leading men Cary Grant, Rock Hudson and Jack Lemmon. She adored and misses them all, says the 88-year-old Day. But her deepest yearning is reserved for her late son Terry Melcher, a record producer whose touch and voice are part of Day's first album in nearly two decades.

"Oh, I wish he could be here and be a part of it. I would just love that. But it didn't work out that way," Day said, her voice subdued. It's a voice rarely heard since she withdrew from Hollywood in the early 1980s to the haven she made for herself in the Northern California town of Carmel, where Clint Eastwood was once mayor.

"My Heart," set for a Dec. 2 U.S. release, has induced Day to edge back to public attention. The CD includes 13 previously unreleased tracks recorded over a 40-year span, including covers of Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful," the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and a handful of standards. All proceeds go to Day's longtime cause, animal welfare.

Doris has devoted herself to promoting the well-being of animals with the Doris Day Animal Foundation, which she created in 1978 and which is the new album's beneficiary. Her own pets, including some half-dozen cats, have it good: She built a glass-ceiling extension off her house so the felines can enjoy the view without the risks of going outside.

Why the attention to animals? "They're the most perfect things on Earth," Day replied. "They're loyal. They love you. And they'll never forget you. ... I think they're put here for us to learn what love is all about." [more...]

American Masters: Profiles Woody Allen

An "American Masters" presentation, "Woody Allen: A Documentary" is a two-part, three-and-a-half-hour feast for all Woody fans and anyone else who is interested in a prolific, persistent artist's creative world. It airs Sunday and Monday at 9 p.m. EST on PBS.

The film revisits Allen's childhood in the Midwood section of Brooklyn and his first venture as a professional writer: supplying jokes to columnists and comics while still in high school. It covers his growing success in the 1950s and 1960s as a comedy writer for TV, then as a rising standup comic in his own right.

You will see his typewriter, the Olympia portable Woody Allen has used for pounding out everything he's written since his teens. [more...]

Museum Unconvinced by New Van Gogh Death Theory

Two American authors believe Vincent van Gogh was fatally shot by two teenagers and did not die from self-inflicted wounds, but the new theory won a skeptical reception from experts at the museum dedicated to the 19th century Dutch master. A book by Pulitzer prize-winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, "Van Gogh, The Life," concludes that Van Gogh, who suffered chronic depression, claimed on his deathbed to have shot himself to protect the boys. "Covering up his own murder," said Naifeh in an interview broadcast Sunday on the U.S. network CBS's "60 Minutes." Leo Jansen, curator of the Van Gogh Museum and editor of the artist's letters, said the biography is a "great book," but experts have doubts about the authors' theory of his death in 1890. [more...] Watch the 60 Minutes special.

Elaine's Memorabilia Sold

I was always nostalgic about Elaine's, even if my bubble was burst by the proprietor herself.  Once I even photographed the entire mural, which wrapped around the walls of the relatively small space.  Now, it's all up for sale.  I wonder if they ever found the CD I left on the shelf in her collection of memorabilia.

Table No. 1 from the famed New York City restaurant Elaine's has sold for almost $9,000 at auction. An eclectic collection of art and memorabilia from the watering hole on Manhattan's Upper East Side went on the auction block Tuesday at Doyle New York. The restaurant, a longtime favorite of writers and celebrities, shut its doors in May following the death of owner Elaine Kaufman.

Table No. 1 was the most desirable table in the house, where patrons sat to see and be seen. The auction sales totaled $385,000, including a papier-mache carousel horse that hung in the restaurant's window and fetched $4,000. The old-fashioned cash register went for the same amount. Pieces from Kaufman's collection of fine art and vintage Art Nouveau posters also went for big bucks.

Excellent Poe Biography

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this biography. It was easy to read and really humanized Edgar Allan Poe. I don't agree that it's overly sympathetic to him and not objective. It is, in fact, written in such a way that you almost feel like Poe, himself, is telling the tale. Barnes took great care to include the letters, quotes and excerpts of the works that explain his line of thinking and reasons for doing the things he did on earth. [more...]

One Woman Art Show - July 24th in Westbury, NY

Archstone Meadowbrook Crossing in Westbury, NY hosted its first art show: New York Artist, Sandy Frazier, a Mixed Media Expressionist, invited all Archstone residents and friends to a showing of 30 paintings, plus digital photography and more throughout the day on Sunday, July 24, 2011. A reception followed from 6:00 to 9:00pm. See slideshow here.

Cy Twombly dies at 83

Celebrated American painter Cy Twombly, whose large-scale paintings featuring scribbles, graffiti and references to ancient empires fetched millions at auction, died Tuesday. He was 83.

Twombly, who had cancer, died in Rome, said Eric Mezil, director of the Lambert Collection in Avignon, France, where the artist opened a show in June. Twombly had lived in Italy since 1957.

"A great American painter who deeply loved old Europe has just left us," French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said in a statement. "His work was deeply marked by his passion for Greek and Roman antiquity, and its mythology, which for him was a source of bottomless inspiration." [more...]

The Van Gogh Museum Closing for Renovations

AMSTERDAM (AP) — The Van Gogh Museum is shutting its doors for six months for renovations starting next year, its director said Friday, becoming the latest major Dutch museum to close for reconstruction. But dozens of the tormented Dutch impressionist's finest works will remain on public display, moving across the Amstel River to the Hermitage Amsterdam museum during the work, scheduled to last from October 2012 through March 2013.

Van Gogh Museum director Axel Rueger said some 75 paintings and other works will move to the Hermitage, which will be staging an exhibition on impressionism at the same time.
"Art lovers will be able to see a splendid survey of 19th-century art by Van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Hermitage Amsterdam," Rueger said. "This represents a rare opportunity, one not likely to happen again any time soon." [more...]