January Janie 2025 (part 9)

 

January 17-20, 2025 is a window of time in which I can plan a trip to Cleveland. Southwest Airlines has a tolerable "Wanna Get Away" price on a round trip that has me back in Saint Louis in time for the 1/21/25 Trump Presidential Inauguration in Washington DC celebrations and the College Playoff in Atlanta, Georgia final between Ohio State and Notre Dame. 

The Cleveland trip is full of quality memories in spite of frigid temps and ice and snow that threatens to ruin things. Nevertheless The Cleveland Museum of Art is presenting a wonderful exhibit Picasso and Paper that provides insights into his art life from ages 9 to 90. 

Dan again arranges for me to crash at the Winton Place 19th floor and shuttles me to the museum in time for a 12:00 viewing of the exhibition and Janie agrees to connect for another viewing at 2:00. The show is a fantastic walk through Picasso's lifetime including early years and work of and with his muses: 

Fernande Olivier (1881-1966)

Olga Khakhova (1891-1955) - mother of Paulo (b. 1921)

 

Marie Therese Walter (1909-1977) - mother of Maya (b. 1935)

Dora Maar (1907-1997)

Françoise Gilot (1921 – 2023)

 

- mother of Claude (1947-1923) and Paloma (b. 1949)

Jacqueline Rogue (1927-1987)  

 

The art junky in me is thrilled to get double exposure to the GOAT (Pablo Picasso) with Dan and Janie followed by the Wine Bar on Friday Night with Janie. 

Saturday brings an awesome caucus at Angelo's Pizza in Lakewood with Janie and with Dave and Dianne Brunner, Dave Haas, Mike Blake. (Photo above orchestrated by Dan Morgan). A truly unforgettable reunion with friends going back more than half a century.

An afternoon watching football (KC Chiefs vs Houston Texans) at 22 Brandon Place in Rocky River (Janie's place) allowed me to get acquainted with cats (Frankie and Malbec), "Why don't they cover Travis Kelce better?" Janie wants to know. In spite of her coaching tips from the couch KC won 23-14.  

Sunday I join Dan and Netti at Mass at the Polish Church in Tremont neighborhood followed by a quick treat of coffee and take out from a famously refurbished restaurant in town. Dan treats me to a basketball game at the Public Auditorium between Detroit Motor City and Cleveland Charge at 2:00. (Darius Brown is player of the game as he helps lead The Charge to victory). 

Janie meets me for diner at the Pier W at 6pm and we linger with a wonderful conversation as we continue to gain insights into each other. I just love that woman. We said goodnight in the parking lot with temperatures outside in the single digits. 

Note: Janie was not impressed with Picasso's history involving his "Muses" as the exhibit was loaded with evidence of their influences and partnerships. I guess I need to be a better story teller. 

Janie's Birthday is January 27. 

Thanks to Dan and Cottage of Flowers 

Brushes with Fame

I don't like to disturb people who are famous. I especially don't want to annoy people I admire. That said, I do like to remember fondly those few times I have had special and unique opportunities to see and/or interact with significant figures.    

Perhaps my favorite brush is a time when I found myself in mid-town Manhattan (NYC) with my uncle David on an elevator with Mother Teresa (1910-1997). We exchanged no words but my uncle and I shared a good laugh at being in such a small space with the sister and a couple of her colleagues in an elevator in what was then called the Pan Am Building. It was around that timer I was working for J. Walter Thompson. Mid to Late 80s maybe. 

In college as a student at the University of Miami I caught Gloria Steinem (b. 1934) speaking at a luncheon. Scheduling had here doubling the bill with Ralph Nader. My fond memory of this encounter was an easy joke as I was leaving. I said something like "I enjoyed having lunch with you Gloria." She responded with ease saying. "Yes, we should do it more often." This photo was taken in 1978 which was around the time of that appearance at UM. (Nader was okay too but Gloria...)

Philip Kotler (b. 1931) is a kind of legend among marketing people. His textbooks on marketing often serve as required reading for students. I managed to hear him talk at an event for marketing leaders near TPC Sawgrass in Florida. I was working as director of global communications at Thermadyne at the time, So it was somewhere around 2006 or 2007. I got him to sign a note that said "Wes is doing a great job." Kotler added "I think" to the quote and signed the note.

Arthur Ashe (1943-1993) was a guest at a celebration at Madison Square Garden. Knowing what a fan of tennis my wife was I could not resist passing him a note to sign as if an autograph. The note said "Your husband is a great guy." He added "He put me up to this along with his signature. 

 

I was hanging around downtown at the Toy Building near the famous Flat Iron Building not far from 23rd street. A friend suggested getting a bit to eat at a trendy NYC restaurant nearby, I don't recall the name of the place but I got a smile when I saw inside a group of maybe 7-8 people dining at a long table (or tables pushed together). Andy Warhol (1928 -1987) was there at one end. I didn't want to bother him as he was clearly entertaining or being entertained by this group. I could not resist getting close to the other end of the table and making a clever comment. I said to a guy at the end of the table, "That guy at the other end has been famous for more than 15 minutes." The man smiles and said something along the lines of "I should say so." That little interchange became so much more poignant when years later I noted that Andy died at age 58 fewer than two weeks after that sighting. (Warhol went to the hospital for a routine gall bladder operation and ended up dying from something not related to that surgery.)

Robert Rauchenberg (1925-2008)  has a showing at a gallery somewhere near Key Largo when I was in Miami in graduate school. My aunt Dahlia (married to my uncle Andrew) was keen on checking it out. I don't remember the details other than it was an easy drive to this low key gathering, a sort of wine and cheese art event. I recall with a smile that my aunt (an art scholar) managed to catch up with Rauchenberg with a question. Her carefully worded question was something like. "Can you comment on influence Marcel Duchamp has had on your work?" Rauchenberg just smile and said something like "...awww come on" suggesting that he was not in the mood for heavy art history talk. This would have been  circa 1979.

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is shown in photo above around 1983 which would have been about the time I spotted my hero (and author of Slaughterhous Five). I didn't bother to talk to him but I just love the fact that I caught him midtown around 47th or 48th street studying a chess match which was posted on a wall with a flag on the side that read "white move." It's a memory I hold dear. Just an ordinary event in the life of a writer living in New York City. (He and Jill did live nearby). Vonnegut died in 2007 as a result of Traumatic Brain Injury he suffered as a result of a fall at his Brownstone Apartment in Manhattan.   

Jimmy Carter (1924-2024) spoke to a small group of fellow students at the University of Miami  before being elected 39th president of the United States. I was among those students and I'm pretty sure I wasn't along in wondering about this humble "peanut farmer" from Plains Georgia. It was a rare privilege to catch him.