Products |
Weekend Butler: Beauty Field Trips (with a little help from my friends). A cool movie (with Bill Nighy). 5-minute Zucchini. A poem you’ll print out.. And more…
By
Published: Jul 27, 2023
Category:
Weekend
INSTANT CURE FOR BAD NEWS? BEAUTY.
The first item on my afternoon call to my best friend was commentary on the death of Sinéad O’Connor, sharing something I read: “This was the first time I heard a DJ cry.” I moved on to the biggest continuing bummer: the weather. We’re talking heat that will feel like 100 degrees here in New York. Icebergs becoming ice cubes. Every one of the 45 beds in the burn center in Maricopa County, Arizona, is full, and one-third of the patients are people who fell and burned themselves on the ground. And the artist who illustrated the next New Yorker cover — the planet in a microwave — says, “I think that in the future we’ll look back on this summer as comparatively cool.”
My friend stopped me cold: “The short essay that leads off the Weekend Butler is your chance to focus on whatever is obsessing you that week. Well, your readers know the news. What they want is… uplift. We all want pointers to beauty and inspiration we might not find themselves.”
Correct. 100%. It’s not like I haven’t, over two decades, announced my intent: Beauty inspires us, beauty gives us courage, makes us strong. Pointing you to the Good Stuff is why I do Butler.
A lightbulb moment followed: As the sun and the news beat us down, I could propose Beauty Field Trips.
I’ll start, with two NYC gems.
THE UNTERMYER GARDENS It’s hard to grasp that this 43-acre park in Yonkers (photo, above) is just 10.8 miles and a 16-minute drive from my Manhattan apartment. This Italo-Persian creation overlooking the Hudson River is considered the most monumental private garden in America. Commissioned by Samuel Untermyer, a prominent lawyer who was reputedly the first attorney to earn a million dollars, it expressed his deepest passion: horticulture. To create the garden, he hired the Rockefellers’ architect and 60 gardeners. On his death, Yonkers took it over. Summer hours: 9 AM to 7 PM, 7 days a week. Admission: free. For directions, nearby restaurants and more, click here.
THE FRICK MADISON The best investment I know of in New York is a $75 membership at the Frick Madison. While the Frick we know and cherish is being restored, the collection is at the Breuer masterpiece, Madison Avenue and 75th Street. The best perk of membership: viewing hours open only to members. For the remainder of 2023, there are three from 10-11 AM and three in the evening (6-8 PM). Last week, my friend Mary and I were almost alone in the galleries, standing two feet from masterpieces. The highlight of our visit: Rembrandt’s self-portrait. From the museum notes: “Executed during a period of constraint and adversity, at a time when Rembrandt had declared bankruptcy, and was obliged to sell his vast collections, this magisterial self-portrait… is the head of an old lion at bay, worn and melancholy, yet conscious of his strength, determined and a little defiant.’” Yes, all that. But it was his eyes that held us: what they saw and what they said. We stood, looking and talking, until we were the last people there. What a privilege! For information about membership, click here.
SINÉAD O’CONNOR Everyone is linking, correctly, to “Nothing Compares to You,” the hit that made her reputation. And it is a gut punch to know that her 17-year-old son killed himself 22 months ago and to read her last social media post: “Been living as undead night creature since.” I wanted to see her joy, and in the duet with Kris Kristofferson — “Help Me Make It Through The Night ”— I found soul friendship and a profound understanding of what matters most. To watch it, click here.
Did I shed a tear? Of course. That’s my acid test for Beauty — it makes me cry. But let me be clear: these are happy tears. Beauty and human connection heal me. In this wretchedly hot summer, I hope they give you some comfort.
I invite you to suggest Beauty Field Trips: overlooked gems where you live, the books, movies, and music that are lifting you up. Please write me at HeadButlerNYC@AOL.com and share your discoveries.
WHY MARCEL MARCEAU NEVER SPOKE
He [Bip] never spoke. Mr Marceau’s father died in 1944 in Auschwitz, and Bip’s silence was a tribute to all those who had been silenced in the camps. It was a recollection, too, of the necessary muteness of resistance fighters caught by the Nazis, or quietly leading children across the Swiss border to safety, as Mr Marceau had done. In one of his acts, “Bip Remembers,” the sad-faced clown relived in mime the horrors of the war and stressed the necessity of love. In another, his hands became good and evil: evil clenched and jerky, good flowing and emollient, with good just winning.
YOUR WEEKLY JAMES BALDWIN
“For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light Fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break Faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”
THE WEEKEND MOVIE
“Their Finest” is set during the time after Dunkirk when the Battle of Britain is turning into The Blitz. The British government is desperately seeking to shore up morale of the general population and make films that get the United States to join the war. But the film unit makes dull, stupid films. Catrin Cole is taken on at the Ministry of Information to write film scripts with a convincing female angle. She does much more than that. With the fabulous Bill Nighy. NY Times: “It has a buoyancy that lifts you and a woman who does, too.” [For the preview, click here. To stream it, click here.]
“Small Kindnesses,” by Danusha Laméris
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”
WEEKEND RECIPE
Zucchini With Shallots
This simple dish from Pierre Franey is light and delicious. It takes only a few minutes and would be a great side dish for grilled beef or chicken or any type of seafood. The bread crumbs added at the end provide excellent texture.
4 servings
1½ pounds small zucchini
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons fresh bread crumbs
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons chopped shallots
4 tablespoons chopped parsley
PREPARATION
Rinse the zucchini and pat dry. Trim off the ends, but do not peel them. Cut into ⅛-inch slices.
Heat the oil in a nonstick skillet and when the oil is hot, add the zucchini. Saute the zucchini over high heat, shaking the pan and tossing gently. Add salt and pepper, and cook a total of 5 minutes.
Add the bread crumbs and butter to the pan. When the crumbs start to brown, add the shallots and cook for another minute, tossing. Serve sprinkled with parsley.
