What I like about Debra Winger

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Those who know me well might know that ever since I was 13, I have been a huge admirer and fan of Debra Winger. From the time I first saw the 1980 film Urban Cowboy on TV, 11 years ago, I’m still captivated by her performance of Sissy, a spunky cowgirl living in Houston, Texas, and love interest to John Travolta’s Bud Davis, a construction worker by day and cowboy by night. 

Now, I’m counting the days until the December 2nd premiere of The Anarchist, Debra’s Broadway debut. The play, written and directed by David Mamet, revolves around two women: one is a prisoner who was involved with a violent political group, played by the Tony Award winning stage veteran Patti LuPone; the other is a warden played by Winger, and the action has them engaging in a battle of wits. With this cast, I have no doubt that it will be a fantastic show.

 I think my initial fascination with Debra’s character of Sissy was her determination to ride the mechanical bull installed at Gilley’s, a Houston nightclub. I found her character attractive inside and out because I saw something unique and different unlike other Hollywood actresses I knew of at the time. Of course Debra Winger is beautiful, perhaps not in the traditional glamorous way, but it’s a more wholesome and intelligent beauty. ‘Down to Earth’ is the perfect way to describe her.

As I learned more about Debra herself, I was impressed to learn that she had no desire to be a movie star or to conform to or be swept up in Hollywood’s glitz. No--she stayed true to what her real passion was: acting and being able to express herself as other people. In the months after I first saw Urban Cowboy, I made it my business to watch her other works, including her three Oscar nominated roles An Officer and a Gentleman, Terms of Endearment, and Shadowlands, and the 1995 romantic comedy Forget Paris co-starring Billy Crystal, which would be her last film for six years.

One of the greatest moments in my life came when I was 16 and my mom told me that my favorite actress was going to be performing a reading with her husband (Arliss Howard, also an actor) at the New York Theater Workshop in the East Village. 

Tickets were already sold out, but my mom and I went to the theater anyway, to see if there were any cancellations. So we arrived about a half an hour before starting time and waited outside. I was thrilled when my mom suggested that there was a possibility that Debra and the other panelists would enter the theater from a dressing room in a building next door.

Sure enough, I kept my eyes peeled and noticed a small, beautiful woman slowly approaching. Since I was too overwhelmed and shy to introduce myself, my mom approached her and said, “This is my 16-year-old daughter and she’s your biggest fan.” I looked into her eyes and I smiled and said “Hi” and she looked back at me happily and enthusiastically and shook my hand. Since my mom had already introduced her to me, I simply said “Nice to meet you” and she said “Nice to meet you.”

It turned out there were no cancellations and therefore no extra tickets for the show but I felt like the luckiest, most grateful teenager on Earth right at that moment. I had just met my favorite actress, someone I greatly respected and admired for three and a half years who seemed very happy to have met me even though very briefly. I have seen nearly all of her films by now, and thought she was perfect in every one of them.

Coincidentally, it was around the time I became a fan of hers that she went back into films with independent feature Big Bad Love directed by and co-starring her husband Arliss Howard. Since then, for the past decade, she’s appeared in more films including Radio (2003), Eulogy (2004), and Rachel Getting Married (2008) co-starring Anne Hathaway (another brilliant actress who I also had the pleasure of seeing in person briefly on a separate occasion). 

While I am happy that Debra has been acting more since 2001, I still respect the fact that Hollywood doesn’t appeal to her. She is still as beautiful and down to Earth today as she was playing characters like Sissy, or Richard Gere’s love interest in An Officer and a Gentleman, or Shirley Maclaine’s daughter in Terms of Endearment. 

In her most recent appearance in this year’s independent film Lola Versus, Debra wasn’t given nearly enough screen time she deserved as the main character Lola’s (played by Greta Gerwig) mother but I have high hopes that will soon change with her Broadway debut in The Anarachist.

The Women's Caucus for Art comes to New York

This is an article about an exhibition presented by the Women's Art Caucus held from May-June 2012 at an art gallery in New York City's trendy art-inspired neighborhood of Chelsea in Lower Manhattan. The article first appeared on Examiner.com on May 16, 2012, with the headline 'Women's Art Caucus presents environmentally themed show at Chelsea gallery.'

Denise Bibro Fine Art in Chelsea is hosting an exhibition by the Women’s Caucus for Art titled Petroleum Paradox: For Better or Worse? The exhibition offers works from 31 artists that include photographs, collages, prints, videos, and other installations.

While each work in the show reflects each artist’s unique form of expression, each work conveys the same idea and concept. With their works, each artist illustrates in one way or another the importance of balancing and maintaining economic development, environmental, and political stability.

One of the most colorful pieces on display is Elaine Alibrandi’s painting made from aluminum foil titled Outcome depicting a forest of skinny, bare trees against a fiery, red and orange background. Another notable work in the show is a multi-colored mixed media collage of squares and rectangles varying in size titled Drill It, Pump It, Carry It, Bury It by Allegra Davis Burke.

Similarly, Tracy Brown’s digital archival piece titled Massive Pile Up illustrates a symmetrical image on a black background with designs of small, random, colorful objects all jumbled together. The various objects include sneakers, slippers, soda bottles, tubes of nail polish, tubes of lipstick, musical instruments, and outlines of birds in all four corners.

The exhibition was juried by art critic Eleanor Heartney and is sponsored by the Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) which is an organization founded in 1972 in connection with the College Art Association (CAA). The WCA’s mission is to honor the contributions of women in artistic fields and to provide them with leadership opportunities, professional development, while supporting national and global art activism.

The WCA’s Co-president, Marcia Anneneberg has said that “this exhibit seeks to raise awareness of the imminent danger of uncontrolled climate change, caused by an excessive dependency on fossil fuels... It is our generation that has been called to this task.”

An art gallery debuts in Chinatown with Seattle artist's paintings

This is an article about an art gallery that opened up in New York City's Chinatown neighborhood in January 2012 that debuted with a series of paintings by a Seattle-born painter and graffiti artist. This article first appeared on Examiner.com on January 13, 2012 with the headline 'Klughaus Gallery debuts in Chinatown with Works by Seattle street artist.'

The Klughaus Gallery is the hottest new thing to open up in Chinatown this weekend. The gallery debuts with an exhibition by Seattle based street artist and painter Jesse Edwards. Titled Dialogue of the Streets, the show features Edwards’ recent works on canvas created over the past two years, including the classic landscape and unconventional still life paintings for which he is best known.

The show’s title is a reflection of Edwards’ wild life growing up in the Northwest, where he’s been called “an escapee from a life of crime.” Edwards channeled his energy into his paintings, which illustrate his unique and rather defiant perspective. Over time, he developed a more relaxed and optimistic outlook on life, and began incorporating classic 19th century Impressionist styles to complement his personal interpretations of life on the streets.

Edwards has been compared to Old Masters and Impressionists such as Degas and Rembrandt, while maintaining 21st-century raw, honest, and rather graphic style. Haunting pieces featured in the show include the horrific sight of smoke coming from the collapsing South Tower of the World Trade Center, a still life of spray paint cans with profane messages, and a graphic nude portrait of a young woman. Less blunt images include a still life with a plant with a peace symbol beside it, and an aesthetically pleasing scene of a public park.

Holy Cross Students Get Science Lesson Aboard BioBus

This is a story I covered on children in a Catholic elementary school in New York City who were learning about science through a group that brings hands-on science education to schools across the country. The story appeared in Catholic New York Newspaper on March 21, 2012.

Students and faculty at Holy Cross School on Manhattan’s West Side last week enthusiastically welcomed the BioBus, a mobile research-grade microscope laboratory dedicated to providing students an interactive science education experience.

The vehicle, a converted 1974 transit bus, also offers lessons about the environment. It is 100 percent carbon neutral, operating on waste vegetable oil from restaurants, with solar panels and a wind turbine. A “green” roof cools the bus during the summer and a pellet stove provides winter heating.

The Bio Bus, founded in 2008, has traveled to some 150 schools in New York City, offering students of different grades a visual and hands-on education in science. Operated by the nonprofit Cell Motion Laboratories Inc., the bus and its staff are supported by corporate and foundation grants and individual donations.

The March 8 visit to Holy Cross, which came at the school’s invitation, was the first by the BioBus to the Times Square area. The bus was parked outside the West 43rd Street school, with students from different grades climbing aboard throughout the school day.

“There are two main ways the bus helps kids: one is that they use $70,000 microscopes and can see things (ordinarily) unable to be seen,” observed Ben Dubin-Thaler, founder and chief scientist of the Bio Bus.

“The second thing is that they get to meet scientists,” he said.

Another scientist on board, Sarah Weisberg, showed Holy Cross fifth-graders how to use a microscope to get an extremely close-up view of a tiny creature known as a “daphnia” that operates on its arms rather than legs.

Eva Leclercq, a parent with two children, Dylan, 7, and Liliane, 4, enrolled at Holy Cross, said the BioBus brings “an actual science lab” to students.

“This is not something you’re reading about,” she said. “They’re meeting real scientists, and are able to ask questions.”

Sister Mary Theresa Dixon, O.P., principal of Holy Cross School, said, “The response so far has been really positive, they’re really excited about it. The organization did a wonderful thing in giving them materials ahead of time.”

“You can see the students are asking questions but it’s because they’ve had some background,” she said.

When asked what she thought students liked best, she responded, “We don’t have these kinds of microscopes in school and the fact that they can see something at different angles, different levels and understand how really minute and small a microorganism is when you have the equipment...I think that is one of the biggest joys for them.”

She noted that the parent of a third-grader who owns a restaurant donated waste vegetable oil to fuel the bus.

A fifth-grade student shared her thoughts about what she had learned.

“The BioBus teaches us a lot of new things about animals that we really don’t know about,” said Barinken Mitchell. “It’s very exciting when you look at the animal and its intestines and learn how it’s similar but also different from us.”

Introduction

Hello friends, family, and anyone else out there who is just coming across my first post to my own personal blog. What you will find here are samples of news articles, reviews, and interviews, and even some personal stories that I have produced in the many years that I have enjoyed being a writer. You will find my articles range in a wide variety of topics, such as art, film, travel, health, and world issues to name a few. Please feel free to offer your thoughts and feedback on my entries. I hope you will subscribe to my blog and enjoy what I have to say!