CULTURAL MEDLEY, IT'S ALL ABOUT CHILD'S PLAY(c) By Polly Guerin

There’s more than meets the eye in cultural venues this week; a chance to remember when child’s play was fun then ‘play well,’ and spend the lunch hour at the library. It’s the Best of New York, my friends, the very best of children's venues to entertain and stimulate your senses. Here’s the scoop!!!
CENTURY OF THE CHILD: Growing by Design, 1900-2000 invites you to learn how designers had fun creating toys, furniture, playgrounds and school architecture. The Museum of Modern Art’s ambitious survey of 20th-century design for children is the first large-scale overview of the modernist occupation with children and a growing movement to advance the well-being of children by ending child labor, reforming education and encouraging emotional development through creative play. Hundreds of works on view, from designs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh to elements from Pee-wee’s Playhouse include my favorite: American Modern Play Dishes replicating in miniature melamine play dishes by America’s Best Known designer Russel Wright, “It’s fun to serve your friends in real Russel Wright dishes…just like mother’s,” produced by the Ideal Toy Corp. Screenings include 400 Blows, Bicycle Thieves, The Virgin Suicides. Check schedule at MOMA 11 West 53rd St. Through Nov. 5, 2012. IMAGE: Minka Podhajska ( 1881-1930) (Czechoslovak, born Moravia (now Czech Republic).  Series of Personifications of Childhood Misdeeds, 1930. Painted wood, dimensions vary. Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague.
ORBIS PICTUS: Play Well,transforms the Czech Center gallery into a symbiotic playground of site-specific installations in which artists and children collaborate to create sound and motion and visual installation. Over the course of sixteen weeks adults and children alike will come together to stage happenings, both free form and through a series of events, workshops, and concerts that draw upon the instinctual play’s ability to spark imaginative growth and unite disparate individuals through non-verbal communication. Play Well, the gallery of the Czech Center New York will become an artistic workshop and sonic landscape, where through direct physical contact with the artworks participants will create a symphony of light and sound. At the Gallery of the Czech Center New York, Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd St. through October 17, 2012.
LUNCH HOUR at the New York Public Library “Everything is done differently in New York from anywhere else—but in eating the different is more striking than in any other branch of human economy,” said George Foster, New York in Slices, 1849. He was right on target, the clamor and chaos of lunch hour in New York has been a defining feature of the city for some 150 years. Of the three meals that mark the American day, lunch is the one that acquired its modern identity here on the street s of New York. Nowhere was he change more dramatic than right here in the city where employees were given a fixed time for their midday meal, often a half hour or less. Lunch Hour NYC looks back at more than a century of New York lunches, when the city’s early power brokers invents what was yet to be called ‘power lunch,’ local charities established a 3-cent school lunch, and visitors with guidebooks thronged Times Square to eat lunch at the Automat, a section is replicated in the exhibition. FREE Through February 17, 2013. For information call 917.ASK.NYPL (917.275.6975.
Ta Ta Darlings!!! Take time for child’s play to stimulate your creativity, these exhibits are worth seeing. Fan mail welcome www.pollytalk.com. Visit Polly’s Blogs at www.pollytalk.com and in the left-hand column click on the Blog that interests you from fashion to poetry and visionary men.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, IS A CULTURE CURE TOWN(c) By Polly Guerin

Study for Homage to the Square, Josef Albers

Whether you’re day tripping in New York or staying put in town there’s more than meets the eye in entertainment venues, museums and galleries. I can’t blame you for wanting to improve your mind!!! Here’s the scoop!!!

JOSEF ALBERS IN AMERCIA: Painting on Paper You’ll be seeing squares of a different kind that will tempt your imagination and your usual take on color. At least if Josef Albers has his way. He repeatedly explored color relationships within a similar format of concentric squares. Much less familiar, however, are the painted studies on paper. Although expressively experimental, the works offer a revealing look at the artist’s lifelong investigation of color and form. The profound effect of Mexico’s colors and pre-Columbian architecture and sculpture upon Alber’s work is difficult to overestimate as these places would have a lasting influence upon his work. In 1936, he wrote, “Mexico is truly the promised land of abstract Art. At The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street. Trough October 14, 1012. General information: 212.685.0008.
SAINT-SAENS AND HIS WORK Hop on a bus or train for Annandale –the-Hudson, New York where the 23rd-annual Bard Music Festival focuses on Saint-Saens and his World, treating you to an in-depth auditory tour of Belle Époque France through 12 concerts of works by the composer and his contemporaries. The programs include masterpieces from all of the musician’s expansive oeuvre, from such well-known pieces as his “Carnival of Animals” and Organ Symphony” to his score for the 1908 film The Assassination of the Duke of Guise. There is also a concert performance of his rarely heard grand opera Henry VIII. August 10-29th at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. 845.758.7649.
TRIBUTE: FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S Usonian House and Pavilion In 1953, six years befoe the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened to the public, two of his structures—a pavilion and model Usonian house were built on the future site of the museum to house a temporary exhibition displaying the architect’s lifelong work. From July 27 to February 13, 1913, the Sackler Center for Arts Education at the Museum will present an exhibition comprised a rich selection of over thirty archival objects, including correspondence about planning, sketches, blueprints, and a plot models of the first Wright building erected in New York City. Newspaper and magazine clippings give a sense of the public reception of Wright’s buildings, and photographs range from documentation of construction---Frank L. Wright and David Henken reviewing architectural drawing or Taliesin apprentices on-site—to those taken at the opening. At the Guggenheim, 1071 Fifth Avenue.
CROSSING THE LINE Francophiles, this may interest you. Crossing the Line is a month-long festival devoted to the talents of avant-garde visual and performing artist based in France and New York City. The 2012 edition includes the participation of stage director Joris Lacoste, whose recent work has explored hypnosis as art, and performer, songwriter and radio artist Gerald Kurdian, whose varied projects range from “Je suis putain,” an audio-documentary about female prostitutes in Toulouse, to an “anti-pop solo band” called This is the hello monster! At various venues. Contact fiaf.org
Ta Ta Darlings!!! I went to Annandale to see Bard’s production of Moliere’s, Imaginary Invalid this weekend, which was rivetingly funny. The King in Spite of Himself, a classic comic opera is on the schedule from July 27 to August 5. Fan mail welcome: pollytalk@verizon.net. Polly’s blogs are best accessed at www.pollytalk.com...just click in the left hand column for a direct link to visionary men, amazing women, poetry or fashion.

CULTURAL ESCAPES IN NYC and BEYOND(c) By Polly Guerin

Take a trip beyond the Big Apple to cast your line out for cultural delights that include plays, cabarets and film festivals. Stay in town for Einstein on the Beach, get dotty and spotty, and enjoy a sidewalk dinner al fresco. Here’s the scoop!!!

MOLIERE’s THE IMAGINARY INVALID (le malade imaginaire) The Richard B. Fisher for the Performing Arts at Bard College (pictured left) opens with SummerScape’s, new all-male production featuring Ethan Phillips, best-known for long–running roles on TV’s Star Trek: Voyager and Benson. In this phantom comedy Phillips plays Argan, a housebound hypochondriac who schemes to marry his daughter to a doctor. July 13 to July 22. THE KING in SPITE OF HIMSELF (Le roi malgre lui) In Emmanuel Chabrier’s witty comic opera, this hapless 16th century French noble has been chosen by the Poles to be their king. Poor Henri de Valois is repelled by the weather, the food, and the fashion, and pines for his milieu in Anjou. Farce ensues when he tries to eschew the crown. The production is the first to be staged in New York and the first staged revival of the 1887 version. July 27 to August 1. BARD: Tel: 845.758.7900, fishercenter.bard.edu.                                                                                                                               
MORGAN GETS TOTHE BEACH and You Can too!!! Robert Wilson/Philip Glass: The Morgan Library & Museum presents Philip Glass’s handwritten 62-page score for the ground-breaking 1976 opera “Einstein on the Beach,” united with Robert Wilson’s production storyboards. Also included in the exhibition is an archival film from the production's premieres in Brussels and Paris as well as an excerpt from a New York rehearsal are viewed in the museum’s auditorium. Don’t miss “The Changing Image of Opera,” a documentary about the 1984 restaging of the production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which is being screened throughout the run of the exhibition. 225 Madison Ave., at 36th Street, themorgan.org. Tel: 212.685.0008                                                                                                                        
GETTING DOTTY Yes, you’re seeing spots, but there is nothing ordinary about them. Dots of widely imaginary nature are covering the façade of the Louis Vuitton Fifth Avenue Sore, which in collaboration with the 83-year- old artist Yayoi Kusama created windows and merchandise being sold in the shop covered with her signature dots. My dear, what a gasp! Inside one window a lifelike model of the diminutive artist places herself within her dots. Only in New York, my Friends, only in New York. All this following the Whitney Museum of American Art’s retro-spective exhibition of the Japanese artist.
Polly’s Restaurant Pick of the Week: TONY’S, Di Napoli serves up the best Italian fare al fresco or inside the AC restaurant and bar. Quite simply put the eggplant parmigiano and broccoli rabe melt in your mouth. 1081 Third Ave. at 63/64 Sts. P: 212.888.6333.                                                                                                         
Ta Ta Darlings!!! I’m getting dotty with all those dots, but their fascinating rhythm is worth seeing . Fan mail welcome www.pollytalk.com. Visit Polly’s Blogs at www.pollytalk.com and in the left-hand column click on the Blog that interests you from fashion to poetry and visionary men.

CHILL OUT AT A MUSEUM, DINE ALONE, SAVOUR CULTURE(c) By Polly Guerin

Bergamo Comes to Manhattan and blazing sunsets invite you to cocktails while  we sip away the moments in the cool comfort of cultural sites and beat he heat wave.. Here’s the Scoop!!!

BELLINI, TITIAN, AND Lorenzo LOTTO The Accademia Carrara in Bergamo (northeast of Milan), one of the jewels of Italian museums and a haven for art lovers has loaned the Metropolitan Museum 15 little masterpieces by Venetian and north Italian painters of the 15th and 16th centuries. No need to book a flight to Italy just head uptown to view paintings from about 1450 and 1550 when the golden age for Bergamo local artists were trained in the great workshops of Venice. Lorenzo Lotto seems to be the star of the show which includes three panels fron Lotto’s magisterial alter piece and early poetic, pastoral work by Titian. Every work is a noteworthy and it’s the next best thing to a trip to Bergamo. Through Sept. 3, 2012 Pictured here: Portrait of Lucina Brembati, Venice ca. 1480-1556 Lorenzo Lotto, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo.
DINE AT THE COUNTER in the MET’S Petri Court restaurant with a huge window views of Central Park. No lines, no long wait to get a table. I highly recommend the BTL with a glass of wine.And catch Argentinean artist Tomas Saracento's "Cloud Cities/Air Port City," a futuristic constellation of mirrored modules.
ROOFTOP DELIGHTS Pull up a chair at the Strand on W. 37th Street and watch the glorious New York sunset descend into darkness...head for Pod 39's rooftop terrace that serves up cocktails and sweeping views of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings, then chill out and head for Je & Jo in Hell's Kitchen for homemade ice cream and bakery delights. Need pamper yourself in the summer heat head for Gloria Cabrera's salon on West 23rd Street where Sita's facial will make you glow with youthful vigor.
BASTILLE DAY celebrates oh la la!!! at the Alliance Francaise on 60th Street, Between Madison and Park with entertainments, fancy foods and Parisien music. For an authenic French dinner go to  Mangoire on Second Avenue and 53rd Street, avec some marvelous wine, like Bordeaux Cherie.
Ta Ta Darlings!!! There are so many tempting things to do in NYC.  It is truly a magical place.. Fan mail welcome www.pollytalk.com. Visit Polly’s Blogs at www.pollytalk.com and in the left-hand column click on the Blog that interests you from fashion to poetry and visionary men

ALWAYS SOMETHING GOING ON IN NYC(c) By Polly Guerin

Rain or Shine, Summer or Winter there’s always something going on in the Big Apple, but this summer many free or hardly pay anything events invite you to indulge yourself in cultural and entertainment activities that make summer in the city a ‘fun’ place to be. Here’s the scoop!!!
MIDSUMMER NIGHT SWING is one of New York’s hottest outdoor dance parties and you can join in and hardly pay anything at all. Just off the Lincoln Center Plaza at Damrosch Park kick up your heels to swing, Salsa, Bhangra, Tango and Cumbia. Live music and dancing sets stat at 7:30 to 8:30 and 9 to 10 pm. Don’t be shy about getting on the dance floor. Group dance lessons are held from 6:30 to 7:15. So grab a partner and get into the swing through July 14th at West 62nd St. between Columbus and Amsterdam Ave. Single Tickets $17. Call 212.721.6500.
RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL See Shakespeare outdoors for free at Castle Clinton in Battery Park. New York Classical Theater is performing “Twelfth Night” and invites the audience to move along with the action. The company specializes in ‘panoramic’ theater. So put on comfortable shoes and be ready to surround the actors as they perform this comedic tale of love, identity, separated twins, cross dress and really what else do you expect? That’s right a shipwreck. Through July 22.
ALIGHIERO BOETTI: GAME PLAN The Italian artist’s conceptual complexity starts with his sculptural objects made of everyday materials and postal and map works, creating imaginary places for people in his life. The Museum of Modern Art presents Boetti’s ideas about order and disorder, non-invention, and the way in which his work is concerned with world travel and time. Best known as one of the leading artists of the Arte Povera movement, Boetti worked in his hometown of Turin. Works on the second floor focus on Boetti’s embroidered pieces and women rugs. MOMA is a cool oasis in the city, 11 W. 53rd St.
MORGAN OPENS THE VAULT this summer for an exhibition of 29 exceptional items from its permanent collection, including its noted holdings of important American and range from Noah Webster’s Dictionary manuscript, to revealing letters by Ernest Hemingway and James Madison, to music manuscripts by Mozart, Debussy, Schubert, and Haydn. The items from American history were chosen with an eye toward celebrating the country’s achievements and struggles as the Fourth of July holiday approaches. The original manuscript of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, revels more overt homoerotic passages that were deleted before publication. Don’t forget to order the three-martini lunch in their dining room. It’s a real Lilliputian experience. The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Ave., at 36th St. 
Ta Ta darlings!!! I’m thinking of having a three martini lunch at the Morgan. Fan mail welcome www.pollytalk.com. Visit Polly’s Blogs at www.pollytalk.com and in the left-hand column click on the link to the Blog that interests you including subjects on fashion to poetry and visionary men.