"Sparkling Amazons" Sparkles at Katonah Museum of Art

The Katonah Museum of Art in northern Westchester County always mounts enjoyable shows, and now the KMA has opened one that is visually appealing and historically significant. "Sparkling Amazons: Abstract Expressionist Women of the 9th St. Show" highlights the works of 11 women who exhibited at the huge 1951 art show, a small group among the more than 60 abstract expressionists in the show.

"Sparkling Amazons" (the name comes from a 1970s description of them by an art critic) brings together works from those 11 women, ranging from well known to currently obscure. The honor roll:

Lee Krasner
Joan Mitchell
Elaine de Kooning
Helen Frankenthaler
Grace Hartigan
Perle Fine
Anne Ryan
Sonia Sekula
Day Schnabel
Jean Steubing
Guitou Knoop

While the show doesn't duplicate these artists' works from the 9th St. show, it does represent the artists' abstract pieces, ranging from intimate sculptures and collages to enormous wall-covering canvases splashed with color. This afternoon I took an excellent docent tour, which gave a great deal of background on the artists and their times. That's the best way to take in the show. You can easily reach the KMA by taking Metro-North Harlem Line to the Katonah station, then walking about 10 minutes. If you want to make a day of it, a Katonah Art Stroll will take place on two Saturday afternoons starting at 4 pm, October 19 and November 16, on Katonah Avenue, adjacent to the train station.

"Another Mule Kickin' In Your Stall" and Other Blues Wisdom

Oscar Wilde once said "a dirty mind is a joy forever." 'Tis a pity he died before the blues was invented, because his mind would find endless sources of joy. No form of music (in English) gives me a more visceral thrill with its lyrics and music. I've heard a lot of blues over the years, and some lines are like splinters of glass in my brain, stuck in deep and glittering. They speak to my condition with a brutal and at times erotic directness.

Maybe this reflects a particular moment in life, but I've been drawn to Muddy Waters lately, especially his song, "Long Distance Call." It concludes with the lines

Hear my phone keep ringin',
sound like a long distance call
When I picked up my receiver,
the party said another mule kickin' in your stall

What man can't identify with that, at some point in his life?

Then there's B.B. King. He would have turned 94 on Sept. 16 (he made it to 89) and he's got an enormous catalogue. One of my prize record finds came in 1986 when I was in New Orleans for the Jazz & Heritage Festival. Flipping vinyl in a used record store, I found an early album of his that I snapped up immediately. I like that early, less well known B.B. King.

One of his shortest songs is one of my favorites, titled "Nobody Loves Me But My Mother:"
Nobody loves me but my mother,
And she could be jivin' too

Now you know why I act crazy
When you do the things you do.

The Internet provides a great place to find the lyrics to such songs; they can be hard to hear on many albums, where clear enunciation of the Queen's English is not a paramount value.

Like a good-looking bad woman, though, the Internet let me down on one recent lyric quest. I heard a woman singer on a New York station, probably WFUV, and a line really knocked me for a loop -- it was an entire episode of the Maury Povich show rolled into a single line of words. Despite my best efforts, I haven't found anything even close to this song, and I missed the name of the artist. My faulty memory carries at least two versions of the line, with radically different interpretations. Here goes:

version 1: You got the baby, but I got the man.

version 2: You got his baby, but I got your man.

Both version pack a punch like a mule kickin' in a stall.