eighties

My first boss is in the Epstein files

~ MaryG ~ 10 Comments

One of my old friends from my first job at the contemporary art museum reached out with news that our old boss is in the Epstein files and has resigned his current position in disgrace.

ArtNews coverage

NYT coverage

I can’t say I’m totally surprised.

David A. Ross is not accused of assaulting anyone in the files, but there’s evidence of him being very sweet and supportive to Jeffrey Epstein, even after Epstein served jail time for felony prostitution in Florida. Clearly, David wanted Epstein’s money for his museum exhibitions (including a very questionable one involving photographs of minors) and an ill-fated magazine project. David claims that he fell for “Epstein’s lie that he was being framed for these crimes as political retaliation for supporting Bill Clinton.”

I did a deep dive and found some other accusations about David from the contemporary art world, one involving another person that I worked with.

So, there you go. One of the biggest personalities from my early twenties—an influential arts leader who helped envision not one but two major contemporary art museums in Massachusetts—was also an unethical creep.

How the mighty do fall.

My old boss (back to camera) chatting with a bunch of guests at an exhibition opening in the late 1980s.

Related post:

1989

A postcard from Verona

~ MaryG ~ 11 Comments

The Winter Olympics end today. And thanks to Alysa Liu and her fellow skaters (but mostly Alysa), they were very satisfying for me. I really enjoyed watching the figure skating “gala exhibition” yesterday, especially the opening with the entire US gold medal team skating together.

Now I know there’s still the little matter of the US v Canada Gold Medal Men’s Hockey game yet to come in about an hour. (I’ll be at church for most of it, but I’m sure my husband will watch intently.)

The last thing I actually care about is the Closing Ceremony in Verona, which starts at 2:30pm EST.

I thought I had been to Verona during my semester abroad in 1985. I had a very vague recollection of wandering around the city thinking about the Montagues and the Capulets. But, unlike Milan, there is no photographic evidence from Verona.

Then I remembered that I started buying postcards, rather than taking pictures, at a certain point during my time abroad. Maybe it was because it was a pain to get film developed and printed in Italy, or maybe I just got tired of always lugging my camera around with me.

Anyhow, I recently located my stack of 41-year old postcards and sure enough there is one from Verona:

The caption means “Verona in the 1800s”

This actually looks like something I would buy if was wandering around thinking about Romeo & Juliet. Very romantic in a 1980s kind of way. Note the shopping bags. This was very much the vibe of a 1980s semester abroad in Italy. We were there to see stuff, buy stuff, meet people, and generally have a good time. Studying was not a priority. Anyone who spent a lot of time studying in their room was missing the whole point of being over there.

So yes, I can confidently say that I have in fact been to Verona when I watch the Closing Ceremony today. (My husband will only be half-listening when I say this, but hey, l’ll only be half-listening while he watches that hockey game.)

Thursday Doors—Milan’s Duomo

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments

With the Milan-Cortina Olympics about to start, we’re going to be seeing many shots of Milan’s iconic Gothic-style Duomo.

This reminds me that I visited Milan in 1985 with my friend Julie during our semester abroad in Italy. We climbed up to the rooftop terraces of the Duomo. Back then, you didn’t need reservations or special tickets to go up.

I love it when photographic evidence of my foggy memories actually exists!

Here’s a photo I took of Julie taking a photo through a doorway atop the Duomo in Milan 40+ years ago. Julie is a great photographer so I’m sure she got a wonderful, artistic shot. But I like my pic too. Her red coat looks cool. And you can see some of the over-the-top decorative elements of the roof. Those endless spires remind me of wet, drippy sandcastles.

Posted for Dan’s Thursday Doors.

Oh Martha

~ MaryG ~ 16 Comments

If you’re an older GenX American woman like me, you have feelings about Martha Stewart.

Maybe you liked her in the 80s and had a few linen skirts that looked just like hers. In the 90s, maybe you started to find her annoying when your friends threw over-the-top wedding showers that made you feel inadequate. Then maybe you were indignant that authorities had the GALL to put Martha in JAIL in 2004 on ridiculous charges and she took it like a champ and helped the other women she met in the slammer.

And maybe after that, you found Martha & Snoop an amusing duo and realized that no matter what she does, you will pay attention because she is Martha Stewart. And you are not.

On that note, I made Martha Stewart’s Cacio E Pepe With Lemon last night. Yes, I was annoyed that the “Grana Padano” cheese she uses is not readily available in stores. The Whole Foods cheese guy hadn’t even heard of it. How very Martha! (I substituted Parmigiano-Reggiano and it was fine.) And yes, I was irritated that I had to grind 4 teaspoons of pepper by hand, because everyone knows that when Martha calls for “freshly cracked pepper” she means it. And finally, NO I did not happen to have a MEYER lemon on hand, but thankfully Martha made it clear that any lemon would do.

The result was good. Very good.

I doubled the recipe so I could use the whole package of spaghetti, rather than half.

Martha Stewart’s “Cacio e Pepe with Lemon”
“Cacio e Pepe” is simply pasta with cheese and pepper and it’s a classic Roman dish.

The Recipe

Martha on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue at age 81

Pics or it didn’t happen: 1989

~ MaryG ~ 16 Comments

If you’re GenX like me, about half your life was captured on film only (if at all). Digital cameras were not a thing when we were kids. If you were the third or fourth kid in the family, there may be very few photos of you as a child. This is not the case with me. I am the oldest and my parents were diligent. There are a lot of pics of me as a kid. Later on, I liked taking photos and even took a photography class or two.

Therefore, I’ve got a huge closet full of photo albums, boxes of loose photos, and a folder of black and white negatives in my basement, most of which have not been digitized. These include photos from throughout my life from 1965 through the birth of my second child in 2000. (After that, we went digital.) The photo albums are pretty easy to leaf through as they mostly have the correct year on the spine. And the boxes aren’t too bad because they’re pretty small. Until this weekend, I had ignored the big folder of negatives.

Welp, I finally decided to have a look and it turns out that the negatives are almost entirely from the year 1989–the year I took a photography class at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston. There are apps now for scanning negatives with your phone. I used one called FilmBox. It worked OK. There were a few surprises in those negatives. Things I had completely forgotten or only vaguely remembered were jolted back into my mind through the tiny black and white images.

My three best friends from college and me in Boston’s North End. This was about 18 months after we graduated. I had forgotten that we briefly all lived in the same city.
This was an art exhibition opening at the museum where I got my first job: The Institute of Contemporary Art. I had forgotten about those openings and the cheap white wine we always served at them. I typically invited my friends who lived in Boston.
The woman on the right, Teil, was my second boss at the museum. She taught me so much and was such a wonderful person. I think this is the only picture I have of Teil. It’s appropriate that she has a plastic cup of that cheap white wine in her hand.
I had forgotten that my 80s friend Debbie came to visit me in my first studio apartment in the Fenway. Seeing her in front of my turntable, CDs and record albums (in milk crates) reminded me of how people used to look through each others music collections as a way of sort of figuring out what they were like. At that point, I think our musical tastes were diverging, but we both liked Prince.
In that same studio apartment, I had forgotten that my very bad cat Kimba was SO bad that I had to keep the bathroom trashcan above the mirror or he’d spread it all around the apartment. He was very cute, but a real pain in the neck.
I definitely remember going to the massive March on DC for abortion rights in April 1989, but had forgotten I went with two friends from work—Ann and Bridget. Later that year, Bridget and I became roommates in the North End.
We tried. 😢

Fawn in Snow

~ MaryG ~ 14 Comments

After being a finalist (and not getting) two different paid positions earlier this year, I’m feeling more and more like I actually am retired. My 30+ year career as a fundraiser feels over. It’s not that I couldn’t get some job in the field if I really wanted or needed one, but there just aren’t very many listings that excite me. And I don’t want to work a full-time job that I’m not excited about at this point in my life. I’m going to keep my LinkedIn profile open to recruiters, just in case someone reaches out with the perfect thing, but I’m not holding my breath.

[Side note: I know I’m lucky to have the option to not work at this age. All of my friends my own age are still working. My husband is still working part-time. All I can say is, we have been pretty diligent savers for most of our marriage and we got hooked up with a professional financial advisor early on. Left to our own devices, I’m not sure we’d be in this position. Honestly, my eyes just glaze over when this guy meets with us, but I do trust him. We’ve been with him for 30 years now.]

So, the question becomes: what to do? My daughter doesn’t need much help with my granddaughter and my outdoor summer pool closes Labor Day. I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands soon. I discovered last year that serving on my church’s governing board is not my thing. And my prior level of political activism (when I still thought we could stop Trump) feels futile now.

It seems like I should take advantage of this time and my health to start something new. After considering a number of options (from learning French to getting in way better shape), I’ve landed on something old. Something I used to love as a teenager. Art. I’ve enrolled in one drawing and one painting class for the fall. We’ll see where it goes, but I am excited.

Fawn in Snow, 1980, pastels, 56”x36”

Related:

Drawing

Pink and Green

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments

As my friends and classmates continue to hit the big SIX-OH, it’s a natural time to look back. After all, we’ve most definitely got more years behind us than in front of us now. (Although there was one lady in France that made it to 122.5 years old.)

Another friend posted about going deep into the woods (off the grid) for his big birthday weekend. No party or foreign travel for him. Just weed and contemplation I guess.

When we were all sophomores in high school, Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States. In my mind, this was when the “fringe & ponchos” 70s truly ended and materialistic preppiness became fashionable. We replaced our earth shoes with boat shoes. Brand name labels (Izod, Polo, etc) were everything.

And as every true GenXer knows, the definitive preppy color combo was and always will be: Pink & Green. It’s not a color combo I wear much anymore, but I sure do like it in a garden.

Green on its own is nice too

Next size up, please

~ MaryG ~ 10 Comments

I’ve never been one to wildly fluctuate in weight. I’m tall and naturally thin—or at least I was.

I was 5’ 8” and about 118 pounds as a senior in high school, with a tiny waist and relatively big boobs. I had the ideal 80s body. (I had no ass, but that was fine back in pre-Kardashians America.)

I remember a woman came up to me at a pool where I was lifeguarding once and said “How do you DO that? Like really, how do you have that body? Do you do aerobics or what?” She truly wanted to know my secret. (I had no secret. I did not exercise. And I ate plenty of crap. I was just young and tall.)

Over the decades my weight has crept up—about ten pounds per decade. No big leaps or losses other than during and after my two pregnancies.

Doctors now are never concerned about my weight. I’m well within the normal range for my height and age, but I’m not skinny anymore. I’m average.

Yet…I’ve been clinging to some old clothing sizes. I want to be a medium (not a large) in some basic items like t-shirts and underwear, but I’m not. I’m just not. Large is way more comfortable. I’m a size 10 now in dresses (despite many years of wearing size 6 or 8).

So, at 18 days from sixty, I’ve tossed a bunch of old bras and underwear and replaced them with the next size up. I’m never gonna be that old size again. I put a couple of size 8 dresses on a resale website and bought a new size 10 dress for a wedding I’m going to in July.

I don’t think I look bad, really. I’m just older. I don’t have it in me to exercise like crazy or take one of those new-fangled weight loss drugs. I’m just going to be the size I am now and hopefully stay healthy. And comfortable.

Cheryl Tiegs on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in 1983–the year I was a senior in high school. She was the mainstream beauty ideal at the time.

Come ON ladies

~ MaryG ~ 6 Comments

Occasionally women embarrass me by doing things that seem to play into stereotypes about us. The gold digger, the gossip, the busybody, etc.

Typically I expect better of women than men, especially ones that have been around for six decades or more. They should know what truly matters in life by our age. They should be using their outgoing personalities and superior verbal skills to bring people together, rather than bickering about nonsense.

In my role as an Executive Team member of my church (thankfully ending soon!), I have been unwillingly cc’d on waaaay too many emails this year.

One recent exchange:

Woman 1:

“overkill”

Woman 2:

“rude” “rash” “confrontational” “provocative”

Woman 1:

“Rants” “put downs” “micromanager”

Result:

Awkwardness for the EIGHT people cc’d on the conversation

Relationship effectively ended between the two women

Good GAWD ladies!

This is not how email should be used!

And if I told you what they were arguing about, you would die about how stupid and minor it is.

Honestly, it reminds me of my role as Mrs. Squires in my high school’s production of The Music Man. Here’s a professional version of our big number when all the self-important hens in the town get together to gossip and complain (aka “pick a little, talk a little”):

🤣

And just for fun, here’s me on stage in my high school’s 1983 production of The Music Man:

I’m on the left in the red dress.

Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little

CHEEP

🐓

My gay prom date

~ MaryG ~ 16 Comments

I went to my junior prom with my friend John, who was gay. He was a year older than me and we were good friends and I needed a date, so I asked him. I think I probably knew deep down that he was gay, but hoped he wasn’t. He was so cute!

Back in the early 80s, nobody was out in high school. I had lots of male friends from choir, marching band, church and plays who later came out as gay. Thinking back, John, Jonathan, Adam, Benji, Jamie and Tommy made high school way more fun. One thing they all had in common was their ability to talk to girls. There was no awkwardness. We had so much fun and so many laughs.

I remember going into Newbury Street (Boston’s fanciest shopping street) with John and pretending we were very rich kids (like the Trumps or the Hiltons) and acting like we were about to hop into all the high-end cars. Then we would use our pathetic fake IDs to get served frozen strawberry margaritas at TGI Friday’s. I remember sitting with Jamie & Adam at the local ice cream stand blasting Bruce Springsteen and singing along. Adam was an incredible singer and always got a lead role in the musicals. John was also a fantastic dancer. We had a ton of fun dancing to 80s pop hits. We all liked to dress up and go to screenings of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” in Boston. We’d dance The Time Warp in front of the screen and throw toast at the appropriate line. Benji and I played a husband and wife (Mr. and Mrs. Squires) in The Music Man and we had a lot of fun with it. We named one of our diminutive fellow cast members “Billy” and pretended he was our son throughout the show. Billy Squires—get it? (It was an 80s thing.) Tommy was less flamboyant. He was from a large Catholic family and took church very seriously. He wanted to become a priest.

These guys were some of my best pals in high school, but there was a bit of a necessary separation after graduation. I’m sure their journeys to being who they really were wasn’t easy. Benji died in some sort of unexplained accident shortly after graduation and we all saw each other at his funeral. It was awful. Sadly, I heard that Jamie died of AIDS in the later 80s.

I reconnected with Jonathan at our 20th high school reunion and went to visit him in Chicago. I still see Adam and Tommy on Facebook and they are both married to wonderful men and doing well.

Fortunately, my romantic crush on John was short-lived. I think he tried to like me back, but it quickly became apparent that making out was just not working for us. I have no idea where he is now, but I do hope he’s alive and well and still dancing. God he was a good dancer.