Erin Carlson's I'll Have What She's Having: How Nora Ephron's Three Iconic Films Saved the Romantic Comedy

By Colin Laidley

DEC 19-JAN 20 | Books

The endless parade of anecdotes is intermittently entertaining and interesting. Ephron’s fantasies were painstakingly crafted; “Nora had to completely OK every single look, down to the cut of the shoes,” Tom Hanks recalls. Stories of deciding on certain minor details like Kathleen Kelley’s tousled hair or Harry’s chic bohemian loft provide a window into both Ephron’s vision—troublingly elitist—and her character as a filmmaker—collaborative, but self-assured and obdurate. Unfortunately, they do not get the commentary they deserve, and cumulatively these stories amount to neither a portrait of Ephron nor an appraisal of her legacy.

Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros

By Steven Pestana

SEPT 2018 | ArtSeen

A buxom blonde nude with bright red lips plays joyously atop a white fluffy cloud, stars overhead. Beneath her cloud, crude blue lettering reads, “We are just complicated animals.” This neon sculpture, by Dan Attoe, casts a cool glow through a gallery that was once a farmhouse, highlighting the kind of tongue-in-cheek wit that animates much of Eric Fischl’s own work. In this multi-generational group exhibition, curated by Eric Fischl, representations of mankind’s most basic and everlasting instinct—the compulsion to copulate—waver from existential to carnal in a vein that is often ribbed with humor. While none of Fischl’s own work appears in the show, his taste is everywhere apparent.

Tragedy with a Chewy Comic Center: MADELEINE GEORGE with Matt Longabucco

FEB 2019 | Theater

Madeline George's real ambition to connect with people through writing and stage the conversations that animate her formidable mind, helps show me (and many) what a principled and truly evolving practice can and should achieve.

The Road to Golgonooza

By T. Motley, Mariko Sanchez, and Dorothy and Dashiell Morse

MAY 2020 | Fiction

T. Motley will continue his fake jam comic, The Road to Golgonooza, at Penumbric.com