MATIS!

Rob saw Matisyahu on sunday night at the Hammerstein in NYC. Matisyahu is the reggae-fueled Hasidic musician known as Matisyahu (born Matthew Miller) scored a surprise success last year with his second album, the concert disc Live At Stubb's. He's maintained momentum with his latest record, Youth, a Bill Laswell-produced collection of high-energy, textured dance-pop. He's living out a boyhood dream, inspiring people with music the way he was inspired by Phish, the band he followed as a teenager while trying to find himself spiritually. The end result of that quest—a conversion from secular Judaism to the strict tenets of Hasidism—has made Matisyahu a novelty in the music business, and has arguably prompted some of his meteoric success. And yet Matisyahu's religion has never been shtick. He's a serious, skilled musician who happens to be devout, not some latter-day version of 2 Live Jew

Markus and Rob Continue German Film Series Nights sponsored by Jagermeister

Markus and Rob went to go see "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser" by Werner Herzog.

This is Werner Herzog's episodic and meditative film chronicling the mysterious real-life story of Kaspar Hauser, a young man apparently raised from birth in total solitary confinement who was suddenly released by his warden back into the civilized world.

Herzog revises the seminal foundling myth as both a withering social critique and an arch-Romantic probing of eternal questions about truth, knowledge, and human identity.

DONE!

Paige Travis Finished her Semester at NYU! 2 More to Go!

Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s

Went to go see the "Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s" at the Met on Saturday

Political, economic, and social turmoil shaped Germany’s short-lived Weimar Republic (1919–1933). These pivotal years also witnessed an incredibly creative period in German literature, art, music, film, theater, and architecture. In painting, a trend of matter-of-fact realism took hold. Disillusioned by the cataclysm of World War I, the most vital German artists moved towards what became known as a Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), in particular, a branch known as Verism. Looking soberly, cynically, and even ferociously at their fellow citizens, these artists found their true métier in portraiture, as seen in the 40 paintings and 60 works on paper featured in “Glitter and Doom.”

The exhibition features gripping portraits by ten renowned artists: Max Beckmann, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Karl Hubbuch, Ludwig Meidner, Christian Schad, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz, and Gert H. Wollheim. German museum collections in Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, Mannheim, Münich, Stuttgart, and Wuppertal have lent works to the exhibition. Additional portraits on loan from museums in Paris, Madrid, New York, and Toronto, as well as from private collections in Germany, Australia, New York, and Chicago, are included.

High Fidelity and Sister Katie

Last weekend Paige and Rob went and saw the musical high fidelity. The musical was suprizingly good, despite what the critics with the AM New York and the Times stated. Paige got the free tickets through her tutoring job and we were both very glad we went. The person playing Jack Black's charactor was also a bit of a scene stealer in a very positive way.
Also, Katie (paige's sister) is in town. Last night we went to see the tree at Rockefeller Center and went out to dinner in the West Village after a long day of making arts and crafts at the Travis-Childs household.