My Kind of New York - My Week in New York 3

Here I am at Rodin’s Monument to Honoré de Balzac at the entrance to the Garden of the Museum of Modern Art. Photos by Hal Drucker, unless otherwise attributed.

iArt
MoMA hosts “Talk To Me,” an exhibit exploring interaction through technology.

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. (betwn. 5th & 6th Aves.)
Through Nov. 7

It is my opinion that technology becomes both more ridiculous and more amazing through the years of its development.

Ridiculous because it has achieved heights that long ago would have seemed both impossible and useless—like the Mumbling Hat, on display at the Museum of Modern Art’s Talk To Me. The Mumbling Hat, through its blue felt ear protectors, literally scans the fluctuations of your brain waves and transmits aurally to your ear exactly what you’re thinking. Even if you already know.

Amazing because it is astounding to the extent to which designers and engineers are willing to go to make our lives both easier and more interesting—like EyeWriter, a software system allowing the fully paralyzed to—you guessed it—write or even create graffiti with only their eyes and the program’s fully automated laser pointer.

James with Interactive Neurons: Using a table that allows interactivity with digital neurons.

Technology is what separates our own breed of animal from the rest, in giving us tools to combat the problems in our lives. Nowhere is this process both so evident (or not) than in the cheerfully decorated interiors of Talk to Me. Ranging from the mundane (a poster showing what strokes should be performed in the act of brushing one’s teeth) to the insane (a negatively stimulating metal chastity belt of sorts that mimics both the pain and bleeding of the menstrual period for any male or menopausal who wishes to try it out), technology is what brings us together from all corners of the world as a people. In a way, we’re all like children, crowding together on common ground to exclaim, “Look what I got!” accompanied by friends’ sighs of jealousy.

The Avatar Machine, created by British artist Marc Owens, simulates the video-game-inspired sensation of controlling a character from a few feet behind them. A rear camera attached to the suit allows users to see themselves the same way they’d see a character.

This is why Talk to Me makes so much sense. Not everyone can relate to art (though even the green-tinted Warhol’s Flowers in MoMA’s entryway is greatly beautiful), but in this rapidly changing world, everyone of every age who can relate personally to technology and carries a ready smartphone in his or her hand would be remiss in skipping this exhibit.

One of the most amazing things about Talk to Me is that it's almost a living breathing creature in its technological abundance, responding visibly to the visitor pleasantly holding up an iPhone or the less favorable (at least to this reporter) Android. For one, take an amused look at the exhibit’s entry guardian—a red, cubical, lovable scamp by the brilliantly clever name of Talking Carl. Carl sports a touch screen next to his enormous projection that allows control over his annoyance or satisfaction levels, but it doesn’t always function well. Anyway, the most pleasing experience is to download Carl’s free app onto your iPhone or iPad and poke him repeatedly in the eye on your personal handheld.

Then view with regret the QR codes under each object, which can be scanned from the lowliest iPhone 3GS to reveal a cornucopia of additional, easily accessible information about this new, revolutionary invention. For the smartphone-less, the exhibit slowly devolves into one mass of moving metal after another until one is desperate for interactivity. (To be fair, there is much of this for which no phone at all is necessary in the exhibit.)

Admittedly, as a lowly member of Generation Z, I have long ceased to be impressed by any object of technology that does not offer me godlike powers, so I confess to being unfair. For those of you not so cold, just the sight of such amazing work from geniuses all over the world will be sure to induce gasps—or perhaps laughter. I’d like to finish with this observation. Among all the incredible advances of this century, in the middle of the exhibit lies an ordinary, functioning, peaceful MetroCard Vending Machine. And if that doesn’t unite the last two or three generations into one cooperative group of techies, I don’t know what will.

From Life
The paintings of Frans Hals on display at the Met.

Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA)
1000 Fifth Avenue.
Through Oct. 11

Renowned Dutch author Samuel Ampzing, a contemporary of the influential artist Frans Hals, once said, shortly after commissioning a Hals portrait of himself, “[His paintings] are very boldly done from life.” And this is accurate, for Hals paints without bothering to take the high road. His oils put on display the epitome of realistic prostitution, gluttony, drunkenness and drug addiction, without missing a beat. He is not one to miss the true beauty of that which seems at first not beautiful at all.

Frans Hals, a painter born in Haarlem, the Netherlands, whose name is placed alongside Vermeer and Rembrandt in the modern mind, currently boasts the triumph of an exhibit devoted to himself at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Certainly his paintings are—or appear—triumphant, as they glory at the viewers passing beneath them who mean so little compared to them.

Petrus Scriverius, Latin Scholar and Historian; 1626, Oil on Wood, MMA Havemeyer Collection.

In the painting Petrus Scriverius, an elegant gentleman in a ruff reaches out of the frame he’s portrayed behind, as if to say, “What do you know of depth perception, lowly worms?”

The steely gazes of the wealthy socialites in the pictures glide over the room, solitarily or with painterly companionship, with a bit of power disguised in insanity. Hals is a master at portraying what otherwise might seem a cartoonish rendering of life as what it truly is—a horrifying combination of vice, honesty, and the quest for power. Either the men (and they are almost always men, even those who appear to be women) who view us offhandedly from the gilded frames are hopeful or hardened; bawdy or bereft, as they would be in actuality. Hals doesn’t leave anything to the observer but the occasional misstep in his own physical artistry. He knows what we need to know, namely, the emotions of the characters we’re viewing and why they feel that way, and he gives it to us without question.

Portrait of a Bearded Man with a Ruff. 1625, Oil on Canvas, MMA The Jules Bache Collection.

But there is less method to the madness than there appears. The delicate brushstrokes of the undoubted genius who wielded artistic power with a sly smile, leave behind an after-effect of shadow encompassing each and every one of his works of portraiture. The faces of the depressed or else highly intoxicated subjects do not pop, they blur and fade into the background like minor details that matter little. Hals gives less thought to detail than he might, leaving faces smooth and clean where they might have been rougher and more true to life. Occasionally he even slashes his brush across the canvas, as in The Smoker, a 1625 work, in which a smirking debutant ignores his female (not really) worshippers and lights up a long cigarette. Suddenly departing from his previous work, Hals left behind any thought of glossiness and changed the Smoker’s face to a veritable Starry Night of colorful swirls.

As I’ve mentioned, Hals’s problems are not with what he is attempting to satisfactorily represent. They are physical. When he left things blanker than they could have been, it was inevitable that such disregards would pile up unstoppably. Giving everything that can be given to your subject is nothing but essential in portraiture. It’s as simple as that.

If Hals couldn’t keep the quality of detail in each of his paintings consistent, there was one thing he did. Hals seems to paint nothing but portraits. One after another, the same brooding face, the same overused shadow, the same grayish-green background disappoints the viewer, and they hope for more examples like Young Man and Woman in an Inn, rowdy bar patrons in love or lust, depending on the point of view.

Then again, Hals has his moments. In many pictures one begins, as viewing an Impressionist artwork at the strokes, moving out to the red-cheeked faces and unfeeling eyes, then to the whole of the body, and feels liberated, as if one’s taken a journey of incalculable proportions. And in a way, after exiting the short but very sweet exhibit, you have.

The American Museum of Natural History
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024
(212) 769-5000

Three events to bequeath your attention at the famed Natural History Museum.

The Big, the Bad, and the Herbivorous.
The World’s Largest Dinosaurs at AMNH tackles a big question.

Through Jan. 2, 2012

As the special exhibitions at the Museum of Natural History become more and more extravagant, showcasing myths, polar expeditions, and frogs, it’s a relief to see them going back to those which made them famous—impressively enormous extinct lizards.

In the rotunda, in the halls, the highlight of every poster and every logo, dinosaurs line the halls at AMNH. It’s impossible to focus on any flashy link, so the museum went classic—big. And they made the right choice. The exhibit is well thought out and beautifully organized.

At Dinosaurs, size is all that matters. The question here is how did these animals eat, survive, and function day-to-day without perishing beneath their own weight or restrictions, likely crushing most of the surrounding foliage as they fell? The exhibit goes into this in depth. Diet, weight, length, reproduction, respiration, and circulation are discussed at length along the informative notice boards that line the walls, and all questions that could be asked are answered. At some points, the subject veers wildly from dinosaurs and changes simply to size, putting water buffalo, crocodiles, giraffes, tapirs, and even an enormous butterfly up for view. And somehow this makes sense, if only because the elaborate display is planned so thoughtfully. At the very least, it’s simple. That’s why, for the viewer who would almost certainly be flattened by the extent of the information the museum is able to deliver, it’s the safest, and accordingly, impossible to dislike.

Argentinosaurus vertebra
Discovered in Argentina, the Argentinosaurus huinculensis is currently considered the world’s largest dinosaur. This dorsal vertebra—part of the animal’s spine – is almost 5.5 feet tall. ©AMNH/D. Finnin

Even as you enter, the showcase begins its flamboyant display with a bang. A long sauropod’s neck cranes in through the wall, gaping at newcomers confusedly as if wondering why this unknown species has intruded upon its privacy. Continuing to a life-size human skeleton beside a titanic dinosaur’s leg (which almost presses against the ceiling) and a parade of currently living creatures so enormous they would give a prize-fighter pause, but never one of the World’s Largest Dinosaurs, which becomes more evident upon entry to the main arena of the exhibit.

Mamenchisaurus
Here, at last, is the monstrous example we’ve been waiting for! 60 feet from nose to tail, Giant Dino, as this Mamenchisaurus has been so aptly named (you can follow her on Twitter—Giant_Dino), commands such power over the room that for a moment you are perfectly willing to stop and stare. She’s a massive and beautiful specimen, approximately the size of a tractor-trailer. The fleshed-out model of a young adult female, it is distinguished by its remarkable 30-foot neck, featuring on one side, half-revealed muscle tissue, and half-hardened green scale, and on the other side, video projections that provide a look inside the dinosaur’s body. She shadows such instructive information as to make a paleontologist cock his head in wonderment, yet it is presented in a straightforward, undemanding style. © AMNH/D. Finnin

Supersaurus vivianae
This enormous, real Dino leg from the Museum’s collection, belonged to Supersaurus vivianae, one of the largest dinosaurs ever. At its narrowest, the thigh bone was the diameter of a large dinner plate. Photo: Hal Drucker ©AMNH/D. Finnin

Only the fine hand of a talented designer can combine something seemingly complex and elementary at once, and that’s just what The World’s Largest Dinosaurs does. The exhibition either pictorially or literally represents every fact, like the amount of greens eaten shown in a 5 x 5 tank filled to the brim with ferns and greenery. Both children and adults will feel perfectly comfortable and unembarrassed to be at the museum’s latest special exhibition because, they will feel at home absorbing any fact showing their own history, or, in this case, that of a wildly different species that lived so long before our own. Children can become accustomed to the facts through games, or touch, our fossil-digging (all three offered by Dinosaurs), and adults through the relevant literature, but both will inescapably come to the same conclusion. The world we live in is strange, and, in it, some things appear impossible to keep alive by any odd circumstances, but somehow remain. And years later, when we find their remains, it is easy to marvel at their stamina and endurance techniques, but easier still to marvel at the institution who so thoughtfully presents them for the good of the public. Amazement at history is, in itself, an amazing thing.

Come With Me and You’ll Be in a World of Pure Deliberation: A Retrospective
Brain: The Inside Story at the Museum comes to an all-too-brief close.
Final Exhibit Date: August 14, 2011

Exiting Brain: The Inside Story, and finding myself in the ridiculously priced gift shop that ends every special exhibition at AMNH, I found myself ready to weep. (And no, not at the profligate fee on a frankly hilarious shirt that bore the image of a cerebrum and the words, “There is no app for that.”) I was close to tears for the end of such a masterful piece of exhibitory work as that which I had just seen. Packed to the brim with new information and images, my mind seemed to deflate at the image of museum merchandise pressed at the public hot off the rack like exorbitant quiches. Brain provides such insight, such new, wonderful factoids, that I myself was almost woozy at the end of a rushed run to catch a matinee.

Brain was everything Dinosaurs is not—that is, there was nothing simple about it. Children did not read the deep, perceptive statistics posted on the walls, they played with the three-footer’s-eye-level machines as the adults stood captivated. The words of Darwin, the findings of the world’s greatest brain surgeons, and, of course, the knowledge the museum itself has brought to the table, was plastered all along the dividers. Colors, lights, and enormous representations of what otherwise would be neurons one-sixtieth the width of the letters you’re reading now lay scattered about the room. It was, believe me (for of course now you, poor reader, cannot see it) like magic.

Language, love, hate, patterns, and all else that separates us and our minds from the animals shared space in Brain. Affectionate faces taught new phrases in Igbo, Mandarin and Russian from clear, bright video screens. The Mona Lisa, composed of spools of tinted thread, taught optic perception. Massive neurons and cerebral portions amazed you with their detail. There was not a thing to say about mistakes that had been made, due to the obvious fact that there were none. The exhibit was perfect. It should have run for years. It should have run forever. Much like The Book of Mormon, it would be my advice that it run past the time when its housing crumbled to dust, or even its city is nothing but rubble, to remind the unbelievers of what an exhibit should be. But alas, all good things—nay, all great things—must come to an end. (Let us pray, my friends, that the same is not true for the mentioned Tony-winning musical!)

I will be fated now to hold in my memory bank the astounding information predicting neural medicines curing obesity, pain, even aging! The news of bionic ears and eyes that send picture and sound directly to the brain, negating the need for true sight or hearing, thus curing deafness and blindness! The walkway through a neuron superhighway, light jumping from strand to strand fiercely, like an enormous brain’s information truly is going somewhere, and must get there fast! Alack! It is gone! All gone!

But perhaps—note perhaps—I am being melodramatic. It is only a single presentation, after all. And there will be more. There will undoubtedly be more. The museum has far too good a reputation to never re-release an exhibit like this or the equally entertaining Mythical Creatures of a few years ago again. Let me inform you of this, though—things come back. And if this exposition specifically decides to return from the depths of the Museum of Natural History’s basement, and you are looking for a historical or scientific adventure, this one is not one to be missed.

Into the Wild Gray Yonder
Sean Casey’s Tornado Alley plays on at AMNH’s Imax Theater and others around the nation.
Through Jan. 8, 2012

A storm builds slowly in the distance. Bill Paxton’s time-weathered voice gropes its way lazily into hearing distance as the dark clouds come ever closer. Finally, the blue skies overhead turn brown as an enormous twister overtakes you.

It may be a drama, you decide. There’s certainly enough evidence for that. Our heroes, the researchers of the storm-chasing mission Vortex 2, have all the cheeriness that naturally comes before a horrific but stoic fall from the very behemoths they pursue. Sean Casey (who also acts as the director and 1st unit cinematographer), building his gargantuan Tornado Intercept Vehicle—a 10-ton Dodge with bulletproof windows and armor plating—accepts his burden bravely, claiming, “This is my life now.” But no, it can’t be. After all, you can hear Paxton echoing out over the theater like some gritty cowboy’s ghost. You can hear what’s going on. This film, approached so clearly like something akin to the beginnings of a Titanic of tornado obsession, is a documentary.

While visually astounding, Tornado Alley (the film’s title and setting) provides little in the way of information, leaving you instead to watch in amazement as Casey dons a motorcycle helmet and makes his way, with his trusty TIV (short for the mentioned Vehicle), into the abyss. You must view with great hope the Vortex 2 (or V2) team goes forth to discover new ways to find earlier warning times for cyclones. However, there is no great, dramatic ending, just repeated disappointment. V2 never gets up to much of anything at all. They sit around and hope they’ve captured something useful while far, far away from any danger, but you never find out if they have. The film ends with hope, hope, hope, cross your fingers for the team, and that’s disappointing for any film, even a nonfiction one.

Meanwhile, Casey is planning to get video footage from inside a tornado with the help of a driver/scientist and a Navy medic. The fact that he’s doing this solely for thrill somehow takes away any connection between you and the filmmaker. He fails in his mission repeatedly, and when he finally succeeds (anchoring the TIV to the ground and crouching at its skylight with a camera), it’s not very impressive. The storm he chose was small and passed over him in under a minute. The footage itself was nowhere near as spectacular as the rest of the film.

And yes, the film is spectacular, optically, that is. Because the tornado in itself is so majestic, one is willing to sit in the LeFrak Theater for 45 minutes solely to be taken in by the breathtaking view. (Tornado Alley is also playing in New Jersey’s Liberty Science Center and other museums around the country—check online for show times near you.) Occasionally you can watch storms approach in time-lapse, and that’s the most beautiful of all. To view the clouds advance like a wave, floating slowly toward the screen is a good time in itself. No one can fault Sean Casey; he is, after all, a great cinematographer, and he can’t help it if his personal story isn’t significantly filmic.

All in all, Tornado Alley is not an informative film, simply a mildly enjoyable one if you go by sight. And while the storm-chasers may not seem to care about the damage the monstrous beings they love do, Casey is compassionate enough to show the aftermath of a horrible squall in a Texas town. This moment is the one in the film where it is shown that perhaps these characters, appearing so flat and emotionless, are empathetic after all. And somehow, to the viewer, that is deeply satisfying.

[Special thanks and praise to AMNH Director of Communications Michael Walker for his unfailing support and direction on behalf of this column.]

Un-Birthday: A Retrospective
Zach Braff’s All New People closes up shop at the Second Stage Theater.

Zach Braff’s credits include two Off-Broadway shows (both of which he wrote), 12 films (two of which he wrote and three of which he directed), and a long stay on the cast of Scrubs, which merely by coincidence is one of the greatest TV shows ever created. Braff directed a few episodes of Scrubs and was its main character for eight seasons and five episodes of the dispensable ninth. He also has two movies, Open Hearts, an adaptation of a Dutch drama (which he will write), and Oz, the Great and Powerful, a prequel to The Wizard of Oz (in which he will play the assistant to the newly-arrived wizard -played by James Franco - and a flying monkey.) Braff is a great actor and writer, and I was expecting great things from his new show, All New People, which shuttered on August 14th but had a deservedly long run.

The brilliantly written dark comedy, juggling twists and turns like Indian Clubs, was gratifying to every viewer, if slightly drug-centric. It begins with Charlie (Justin Bartha, the straight man of The Hangover’sfoursome) a depressed Jewish man staying in his financier college friend’s beach house on Long Beach Island, and attempting to hang himself with an extension cord. Luckily (or unluckily, if you ask Charlie) he’s interrupted by Emma (Krysten Ritter), a British illegal working as a very unsuccessful real estate agent. She’s trying to rent the house to a nice old couple from South Orange, and—either purely for her own benefit, to hide Charlie when the Goldbergs arrive, or maybe because she’s stoned—stays with Charlie, hoping to cure him of his suicidal inclinations.

Naturally, the first thing she does is call over her one American friend, Myron (David Wilson Barnes), the fire chief of the island. Myron’s a former drama teacher who’s taken a career turn to drug-dealing on the New Jersey island. Since it’s December and the island is uninhabited, he has more time for the latter. Then, of course, Charlie’s rich friend delivers a $15,000-a-night prostitute to his door in hopes of “cheering him up.”

Charlie doesn’t need to be cheered up. He’s killed six people—or so he claims—and he just wants some solitary time on his birthday to remove himself in peace. But the three won’t leave him alone, and he must acclimate to his new houseguests if he ever wishes to be rid of them.

All New People was, for lack of a better word, genius. It had flash and power over the audience that could not be rivaled by some of the best plays on Broadway today. I was, frankly very impressed by the work Braff put into crafting such a marvelous piece of dramatic comedy. I found it both moving and hilarious. It’s truly a shame that it closed after only two months. Second Stage, though, is a multi-show institution, and must clear-‘em-up, move-‘em-out as swiftly as possible to make way for the newest production. In this case, it’s The Talls, by Anna Kerrigan, which is already playing. That was fast. Don’t you think we should have some kind of testimonial for its predecessor?

Because All New People deserves one. I respect its playwright too much to say a negative word about it, even if there was one to say. The show was the perfect blend of live showmanship and pre-recorded back-stories, the mark of any director (in this case, Peter DuBois, who has worked with a number of public theaters in New York, California and the Czech Republic in their early years) who knows his stuff. I can’t advise you to see it, as you would find it difficult now that it no longer exists, but only give guidance to flock wherever the name Zach Braff appears. You will not be disappointed.

Over the Moon
Rent returns after a three-year absence from its native city at New World Stages.

For one, I had no idea that Jonathan Larson’s Rent was an opera. Or almost an opera. The music takes over the stage so powerfully you can barely tell if there are smidgens of dialogue in between numbers. I also was surprised to find that Adam Chanler-Berat, who plays the filmmaker Mark (who, in this production has lost his scarf and glasses—so ‘90s), was the original Henry in the spectacular musical Next to Normal. I didn’t know that every song in the show was so overpoweringly good, if a little overwhelming at times, and I didn’t know I’d carry the tunes in my head the next day of songs I’d never known before. (Turns out Seasons of Love is about 30 seconds long. Hmm.)

You don’t need to know anything about the original Rent to love this one, although it helps. When Angel appears in his red dress at the beginning of Today 4 U, the audience roars, and when Maureen Johnson encourages the onlookers to moo with her, they low appreciatively—and loudly.

Yet, it’s likely a whole new generation will get to know Rent in a whole new way, and that’s as a historical piece of theater. When Rent first appeared in 1994, and later appeared on Broadway in ’96, the AIDS epidemic raged around it. It was happening. Now, younger viewers can look back at it with horror and queasiness. The smash hit The Normal Heart was written this way, and Rent, unintentionally, has become the same.

The great thing about the show, though, is that it doesn’t rely on the epidemic for pitying viewers. No, it veers from the topic as often as possible (though keeping it in the background as what can be termed the villain of the piece), branching out to romance and solidarity and withdrawal. This is what draws the audience in now, as it did then—that it can be funny, and loud, and brash, and musically brilliant, without losing the backbone of the performance: that everyone keeps pain within, whether physical or emotional, and that everybody must face up to their own pain in order to survive.

For those of you who don’t know anything about Rent (how has it been living under that rock for these past 15 years?), it’s a modern rendition of the opera La Boheme, about the early bohemians, who aren’t really that different from the artists who squatted in abandoned lots in Alphabet City in the 90s. They took part in many of the same activities (as referenced in the powerful, fun number, “La Vie Boheme”). They each had their problems, and they each solved them in entertaining ways. I guess we’re lucky they do it in front of us, because somehow the show manages to be very entertaining, despite its dark themes. There are bright, bouncy songs enough to keep the mood high. The audience laughs itself into a stupor as it gets ready to cry. The show explores deep enough themes, too, to keep the audience constantly interested throughout. And it is deep, too, because there are almost an unlimited amount of levels Rent can evidence. It is truly a beautiful show, perhaps one of the most beautiful.

How is the new cast, you ask? It’s hard to imagine, for me, Mark as anyone but Chanler-Berat, his performance is so gratifying. However the part of Maureen seems righter for Idina Menzel than it does for Annaleigh Ashford, and there are a few other parts it’s easy to imagine played by other characters. All in all, the cast isn’t overly impressive, but it’s impossible to even consider that a factor in the case of this show, because it would be impossible to make Rent bad. The best musicals don’t rely on their casts. Rent, being one of the best, wouldn’t be left out.

If you were looking for a good time in New York and can’t get Book of Mormon tickets until late 2012, Rent is a desirable and relatively inexpensive alternative. There’s nothing keeping you—unless of course you’re reading this in some frozen part of the tundra, in which case, sorry about that and good luck finding good theater over there!

James & Tomoko Kawamoto, Public Information Manager for the Museum of the Moving Image in the 267-seat Film Theater: A Movie Palace for the Digital Age.
Photo: Hal Drucker.

It’s Time to Raise the Curtain
Welcome to Jim Henson’s Fantastic World at the Museum of the Moving Image.
35th Ave., & 37th St., Astoria,, NY
718-777-6800
Through Jan 16, 2012

Jim Henson’s characters provided an outlet for the various sides of his sense of humor and personality, and Henson always considered Kermit the Frog his alter ego.
Photo: John E. Barrett, courtesy of The Jim Henson Company. Kermit the Frog (c) The Muppets Studio, LLC.

Jim Henson with Kermit the Frog in 1978 on the set of The Muppet Movie.
Photo courtesy of The Jim Henson Company. Kermit the Frog (c) The Muppets Studio, LLC.

Miss Piggy in Bridal regalia
Photo: Sam Suddaby / Museum of the Moving Image

The past generation was raised on The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock. My own was raised on Sesame Street. The characters are instantly recognizable in any form. Just their parody, Avenue Q, has been running seven years in New York City and won the Tony for Best Musical the year it began. Their creator has been nominated for Oscars and is the father of the proudest and most famed puppet family ever to exist on the planet Earth. I think it’s pretty clear we’re talking about someone with a great deal of talent—and power.

The holder of all this power was, of course, the great Jim Henson, the eccentric puppeteer/graphic designer/writer/director who founded an empire of animation and family-style tradition. He’s the subject of the newest exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image, Jim Henson’s Fantastic World. The museum itself is filled with interesting old gadgets from the early days of cinema, but shares space through January with artifacts from Henson’s life, including some of his puppets. (Miss Piggy in her wedding dress stands, serenely, midway through the exhibit.) It’s thorough and absorbing, but it is a little sparse and not very well organized. The information is without a doubt fascinating, but it’s hard to follow the exhibit when there isn’t enough information, and when there is, it’s not positioned well.

But the layout, obviously, is not Jim Henson’s fault, and that’s who you come to see. Trust me, when it comes to Henson’s work, you will not be disappointed. The exhibition features the filmmaker’s award-winning short film Time Piece playing on a loop, as well as props from many of his original works and some intricately sculpted objects used on the set of The Dark Crystal, Henson’s 1982 work, and Labyrinth, of 1986. It’s enthralling to wander through the world of this visual genius, to think how he thought, to see what he saw, in the drawings and works of art he left behind.

What is even more diverting ,is to follow Jim Henson’s trail from the beginning, to see how he got his start. Henson began in graphic design for the covers of school plays and events, eventually beginning his own graphic arts company and leaving posters around campus. Soon enough, once Henson was out of college, companies began to contact him (and he began to contact companies) about creating commercials for their products. He, of course, gravitated to puppets. He created the La Choy dragon, who cooked beans in “dragon fire” and knocked over an entire supermarket in hopes of selling his product; Wilkins and Wontkins, selling Wilkins coffee as Wilkins blew Wontkins to smithereens over and over for choosing the cheap brand, and even some of what would become Muppets—the Wheel-Stealer, who stole the delicious Wheel cookies, became Cookie Monster. No matter what he did, Henson managed to parody commercialism in his commercials while still successfully selling products. (During his reign with Wilkins coffee, the drink became ten times more popular.)

Jim Henson had always wanted to create some kind of variety show centered around his puppets, and after years of trying, he finally achieved greatness—The Muppet Show, which paved the way for Fraggle Rock and, eventually, Sesame Street. Henson was asked by one of the show’s creators, Joan Ganz Cooney, to populate her educational “street” with Muppets. Henson was glad to. The rest is history.

The greatest thing about this exhibit is nostalgia. No one of my age or older could exit without a smile on his or her face. There’s nothing more fulfilling than looking back for a while.

[Deep thanks to MMI Public Information Manager Tomoko Kawamoto for her astute and enormously helpful assistance.]