Art in the Ozarks, Part 1

Not too long ago my chums Martha and Bruce and I decided to go to Bentonville, Arkansas.

That’s right, Bentonville, Arkansas. It was a jaunt to see the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art. The museum—recently founded by Alice Walton (as in the daughter of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart)—focuses on American art. In addition to seeing the Moshe Safdie designed museum and its permanent collection, we’d get to see the State of the Art exhibition, for which curators visited 44 of 50 states to find new work that was outside the NY/LA art scene. Close friends had visited Crystal Bridges and came back with good things to say, so the three of us booked tickets for The Natural State.

The first thing I had to get used to after landing in Arkansas was seeing the initials N.W.A splashed all over the place. Every time I saw them I thought of the hip hop group from Compton, California rather than Northwest Arkansas. Call me a slow learner.

Instead of staying in the United States of Generica, as in a familiar chain hotel with e-z access to the interstate highway, we opted to spend more than we typically spend on lodgings to stay in Bentonville proper at the 21C Museum Hotel. It’s a boutique hotel/art museum, an unusual concept but certainly better than say a boutique hotel slash slaughter house or a boutique hotel slash bowling alley. At least that’s what I thought when I booked our rooms.

Google maps and my rental car led me from the NWA Regional Airport to the hotel with no problem at all. The non-descript modern building is a block from the super cute Bentonville town square. The hotel looked as if it could have been the headquarters of a specialty software firm, one that say, developed a management system for miniature golf courses or sold software used in the mega church industry. There was no porte-cochere, discreet awning, or sign indicating the place was a hotel. In fact, there wasn’t even an indentation in the curb that would indicate you should pull over there. It was hotel as twenty-first century speakeasy: the folks who know know, and the folks who don’t need to know won’t know.

There were, however, Kelly penguins here and there.

 They were the hotel's thing, as it were.

My first inkling that something was up was that you can’t park your own car. There’s just the valet option, at $12/day plus tipping. Even the over-the-top hotels of Las Vegas have a self-park option. But unlike the 21C, there’s nothing discreet about them---they’re out and proud as hotels, welcoming the hoi polloi, that is, as long as their credit cards aren’t maxed out.

The 21C’s lobby was a minimalist loft-y looking space with polished concrete floors, exposed brick walls and high ceilings. The desk clerk stood at something that looked like long slice of a redwood tree, as if George Nakashima did hotel furnishings. Two clerks laptops standing at a big log. That pretty much sums it up.
 

 

The lobby walls are hung with large artwork of the kind I’d associate with hedge fund billionaires, not that I associate with hedge fund billionaires. While it’s obviously popular with some folks, the art was a tad too contemporary for my taste. Don’t stop by if you hope to see a Gainsborough.  

At check in they told me that they’d just had fire in the kitchen—hence the faint smell of a charcoal grill. The restaurant and bar would be closed until further notice.

Ack!!   (That’s a direct quote.)

The last time I stayed in a hotel—let alone a boutique hotel slash museum—that didn’t have a bar was pretty much never. They told me that there were a couple of licensed establishments a block away. And no, they didn’t offer me a coupon for a free drink from my hotel room mini-bar for the inconvenience.  So much for Southern hospitality!

My room was on the second floor. There was a “Pardon Our Dust” sign taped to the wall of the second floor elevator lobby. It briefly occurred to me that it could be art, but my guess was that it was a real sign. I couldn’t figure out where they were working but the hallway plaster was battered here and there and needed a few dabs of paint. I’m all for the 21C’s somewhat minimalist esthetic, but it requires the management to be on its toes maintenance-wise, or else every blemish shows.

The minimalist vein continued in my room which had a view of the roof of the lobby with the Bentonville water tower in the distance.

As soon as I walked in I noticed the stain in front of the credenza as if someone spilled a cup of coffee and the Oxy-Clean was almost, but not quite, up to the task of getting the stain out.

I was reminded of a story told to me by a friend who works in the high end (think the Four Seasons chain) hotel industry. It seems that when rooms are cleaned by the housekeeping staff, a supervisor has to go over them on what they call “pube patrol” to make sure that everything is perfect for the next guest. I looked at the stain and thought, “So much for the pube patrol.”

My bathroom was huge and was tiled beautifully. In addition to fluffy white towels, it was fitted out with the mandatory soaps and lotions of an unknown but expensive sounding brand. There was even a yellow rubber duck for my enjoyment in the shower. It’s obviously meant to be humorous since there was no bathtub, just a shower. I turned it so it faced the wall. I didn’t want any old rubber duck looking at me when I was showering.

Since the restaurant and bar were closed due the fire, I walked into Bentonville to look for a place to eat. I settled on a burger joint. It’s supposed to have NWA’s best burger according to the local magazine. The burger wasn’t that great (as in no threat to In and Out Burger) but the Freedom Fries (Freedom Toast was on the breakfast menu) were very tasty, especially when accompanied by a bit of ketchup from the Paul Bunyan scaled squeeze bottle. Apparently they really like ketchup in NWA.

A bunch of business types in what are now called “dress pants” came in and sat at the table next to my booth. One of them looked a lot like Tony Romo, whom I find strangely attractive when he sports his usual backwards baseball cap look, even if he does play for the Dallas Cowboys. The burger wasn’t that good but the eye candy was excellent.

On my way out, I ordered the small twist cone. It was horrible. I didn’t know that soft ice cream could be so bad. I tossed it into the first garbage can I found. I didn’t need those calories anyway.

I’d scarcely thrown my cone away when a group of about eight thirty something corporate types asked if they could pick me up and take a photo while I held some sort of flower. They were on some sort of team-building scavenger hunt. I said sure.  Unfortunately for them, I didn’t have a business card that started with the letter M, the other thing they were looking for that night.

When M & B arrived at the hotel at 10:45 we made a bee line for a bar suggested to us by the desk clerk. They couldn’t believe we were forking over a pile for a hotel with no bar.

We crossed the town square—complete w Confederate monument—to the nearest licensed establishment. We arrived at that perfect moment between the band finishing and last call. B thinks about 95 percent of live music is too loud.

The handful of people at the bar worked at the place—it was nearly last call after all—and were quite friendly. The guys belonged to the au courant hair and skinny jeans tribe, while the women should have stopped getting piercings a couple of pokes ago. The bartender had a bouffant that would have made Jackie Kennedy proud--when prodded he said he used pomade but didn’t reveal any beauty secrets. Caleb the Dishwasher, who hadn’t cut his hair in three years, was especially engaging. I didn’t think that I needed to ask him if the haircut hiatus included manscaping. He told us the place serves a great breakfast and so we made plans to come back the next morning.

On Friday morning the hotel restaurant was still out of commission. The hotel had put a couple of Keurig coffeemakers on a table in the lobby. They'd also put out a bowl of bananas and apples, and a box of donuts with pink icing and sprinkles. I couldn’t figure out if the donuts were there to be ironic, or if someone really thought the hotel’s guest would want to chow down on some off-brand Krispy Kremes.

After our breakfast at the bar (in theory tasty; in reality cold) we headed out to see architect E. Fay Jones’ masterwork, Thorncrown Chapel, about an hour from the hotel. While we were there to see the Crystal Bridges museum, it was open over the weekend while the chapel wasn’t.

The place is truly spectacular, even on an overcast day. The non-denominational chapel is a glass box whose roof is supported by an elaborate system of small trusses made from what seemed to be 2 by 4s. The chapel’s furnishings are limited to pews, a pulpit, and a piano.

It wasn’t crowded; the two other visitors left shortly after we arrived. The chapel was staffed by a retired pastor. He was engaging and thoughtful, but he didn’t stand up the entire time we were there.  The one sour note—so to speak, was the sound track of music reminiscent of Koch Funeral Home, popular hymns played on the Hammond Organ. How Great Thou Art, indeed.

As we walked to the rental car, we met the property’s handyman. The handyman was itchin’ to chat and we learned all about his snow shovel on wheels. I can’t imagine that it snows much there but he said he was was blessed to have it. I thought he was going to take us to his shed to show it off, but I made sure we said we had to dash before that could happen.

Google Maps told us that Christ of the Ozarks was just a couple of miles away—I don’t know about you, but to me, nothing says Arkansas like a 67’ tall statue of Jesus, so we headed over there right as soon as we left Thorncrown Chapel.

Christ of the Ozarks is on the grounds of The Great Passion Play, a biblical tableau that happens in the summer. The grounds consisted of a bunch of ramshackle buildings, built without benefit of designer, arrayed around a parking lot, built without benefit of contractor. My guess is that the Angel Eddie Joe told some guy in a dump truck to drop concrete blocks and some macadam right there--hence Christ of the Ozarks.

After driving around the parking lot not knowing where to go, we went into the gift shoppe (always open) to ask where the statue was. The two staffers—who by their hair and clothes stopped getting Vogue in, well, um, a LONG time ago, suggested that our very first stop should be the Bible Museum in the back of the gift shop.

Pictures of CHRIST. Look closely.

Interestingly enough it was filled with Bibles and some kooky stuff too.

While M and I looked at the tchotchkes in the gift shop, Bruce chatted up one of the cashiers who urged him to come back in May, to the amplitheater (her pronunciation) to see the show.
 

The other cashier showed M. and me some pottery made by the now-retired Jesus. It’s a demanding role, playing Christ in The Great Passion Play, she said, “That cross gets heavy!”

The Christ of the Ozarks, erected in 1966 by Gerald L.K. Smith, an associate of Huey Long, turned out to be even better than I expected. It’s one huge piece of whackadoodle outsider art; allegedly the third tallest statue of Jesus in the world.  The work has been described as looking like a milk carton with a tennis ball stuffed on top, and whoever it was who said that, well, they were on to something.

The sign at the base of the statue alone is worth the visit.

That’s where I learned that it cost $6,000 to repair one finger. No, no the middle one.

It's not often that I look at a photo and say, "Ozymandias!"

The sculptor, Emmett Sullivan, went on to do Dinosaur World, which, unfortunately we somehow missed.

After our fill of Christ of the Ozarks, it was time for a bite to eat in Eureka Springs, followed by a tour of the Pea Ridge Battlefield.

In case you're not familiar with the Battle of Pea Ridge, it took place in March 1862. Though Union forces were outnumbered by Confederate forces, the still carried the day, cementing the Union's control of Missouri.  We were the only tourists there, though we did run into a guy who was counting deer as a part of a research project.

Dinner that evening was at the Monte Ne Inn, a restaurant recommended by a friend, but also endorsed by Caleb the Dishwasher. It was one of the coolest places I’ve eaten in eons. There’s no menu. They serve one thing, a fried chicken dinner. And that’s bean soup, followed by fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, cole slaw, and hot bread. And the keep bringing the food until you tell them to stop. If you have room, there are homemade cobblers for dessert. The chicken is someplace between quite possibly the best fried chicken you’ve ever had and a religious experience. Yes, it’s that good. We had a great time talking to the owner, who shared the history of the place and what it’s like to own a restaurant that serves only one thing. He seemed like a good egg, and if you’re ever in NWA, make it a point to go there to eat.

OK, this is getting pretty long, so I'll close right here and save Crystal Bridges, The Walmart Museum, and what happens when your hotel room is across the hall from one of The Real Housewives of Arkansas for the next post.

Live from the Funeral Channel

Some men find their true calling in a factory, or on an oil rig, or serving their country. Others lead more glamorous lives as an astronaut, or professional baseball player, or even Nobel Prize winning scientist. Then there are those who end up as commentators for celebrity weddings, and even better, celebrity funerals.

Should you have tuned in late (no pun intended) to The Funeral Channel’s coverage of The Funeral of Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee—formerly of The Washington Post and Watergate fame—this is what you might have heard as commentators Rick Bryant (as in yours truly) and his colleague Mags Nash wrapped up that day’s special live broadcast from the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

Ben Bradlee

Mags: So, Rick, what are your closing thoughts on today’s service?

Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee in 1971.

Rick: Well according to the Funeral Channel’s Mourn-O-Meter, this is unofficial Washington’s biggest funeral since, interestingly enough, that of Bradlee’s boss, none other than Washington Post publisher, Katharine Graham. Of course, that’s not counting the yearly funeral for the Redskin’s playoff hopes—viewed by thousands of fans at FedEx Field in Landover, MD. That usually happens in late September.

Final wife Marlena and Jack Kent Cooke enjoy a day out in Alexandria, July 1992

M: Speaking of the Redskins, I wish we could have covered former 'Skins owner Jack Kent Cooke’s funeral. That would have been a hum-dinger. Five marriages to three different women, including a former Bolivian drug runner. That’s something out of a novel you’d buy at an airport.

R: There's all this chatter about the Redskins' name now. I don’t give a rat’s ass about the team’s name; though I do understand the concerns of others. I just want them to ditch Daniel Snyder and bring Jack Kent Cooke back as the team’s owner, even if he is technically dead and has been for seventeen years. The score: Jack Kent Cooke three Super Bowl victories; Dan Snyder, Zero. Need I say more?

But back to Katharine Graham.

Katharine Graham, a photo that appeared on the cover of her autobiography, "Personal History".

M: Oh yes, Mrs. Graham’s was a classic. You know it’s a simple equation. Dropping dead before you’re feeble means a crowded funeral. Studies show that funerals for people with dementia are 43% less crowded that those who exit stage left with all their faculties. Mrs. Graham was still going strong and one little fall….Bam!

R: The next thing you know, Henry Kissinger is treating a overflowing National Cathedral not to mention C-Span viewers at home to the story of when he and Mrs. Graham went to Las Vegas with Edward Bennett Williams and they all got matching tattoos on their kiesters of an elephant and donkey doing the hokey pokey.

Don't forget, you can download highlights of that service at TheFuneralChannel.com.

M: So, now that guests are filing out of the cathedral and are trying to figure out how to use the Uber app while they wait for cabs, let’s talk about the take aways at today’s event. 

R: That's the first time I've ever heard John Phillip Sousa as the recessional!

M:  Yes, but, the Widow Bradlee, otherwise known as the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn did NOT look as though she enjoyed it.  Why do think she chose it? Or did someone else pick that?

R:  For starters, it’s been well known in Washington social circles that she was the decider in that family. Ben Bradlee’s car sported a white oval decal with the letters PW on it for a reason. And it wasn't because he belonged to Presbyterian Women.

M: Oh Rick! 

R: And really, Sally never shies away from “making a statement”.

To someone with more Sousa on his iPod than the most rabid Marine Band groupie, the upbeat opening bars of The Washington Post March were instantly recognizable. And Mags, that tune said to me, let’s skip the interment and head on over to the house for martoonies and nibblies. And perhaps, when the distant cousins leave and they’re down to the hard corps, a game of “Cards Against Humanity”. Wouldn’t you agree?

M: Good point, Rick.

R: The musical choice that I found entirely questionable was the treacle-y opening salvo, Evergreen. Barbra Streisand…really? It was mandatory at every gay man’s funeral in Dupont Circle in the 1990s. I thought the new anti-viral meds not only killed HIV but also that song. Wrong.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein looking terrible.

M: Let’s talk about the audience for a sec. How many folks did you recognize? Six? Eight? Carl and Bob (who both look terrible) Tom Brokaw.

Then there was Vice President Biden and his wife Dr. Jill Biden—who apparently doesn’t own a black dress. I ask you, how can you be married to a guy whose job is to go to funerals and not own a decent black dress? 

R: By decent, Mags, you mean demure and funereal, rather than, something you’d wear when you’d booked a room at the Mayflower after the company Christmas party when your husband just started taking Viagra?

M: Precisely. 

R: Apparently this black dress issue isn’t covered in the West Wing’s employee handbook. Six years into the Obama Administration we now know that fashion-wise, if it’s not in J Crew, they don’t have it.

M: In the sort of second team of guests, there were Secretary of State Kerry, Andrea Mitchell, and interestingly enough, right up front Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Stephen Breyer.

R: But no Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Mags, Do her follow the Tumblr about her, Notorious R.G.B.?

Mags: What’s a Tumblr?

R: Just Google it. It’s a heck of a lot funnier than the jokes at today’s event. 

M: Then there was Martha Raddatz. She used to be married to Ben, Jr. Apparently the apple didn’t fall far from the tree in staying married to your first wife department.

All in all a very poor showing for an illustrious D.C. funeral in the cathedral, no less!  Even worse, I saw empty seats on the sidelines.

R: Washington’s better funeral planners typically prefer to use the deceased’s home church or synagogue for an event like this. You always want to have the house be a little smaller than the audience. First of all, they’re always no-shows—some folks just don’t appreciate a good funeral. And secondly, you wanna make ‘em scrunch up a bit. Nothing like having the person sitting on top of you sniffling to get the tears flowing.

M: Rick, let talk about humor, I know you think that’s an essential part of a good funeral. In fact, you enjoy a knee-slapping eulogy more than anyone I know. At some of those clearly-meant-to-be-funny moments, did you sense well, restrained laughter of the sort you save for a joke you’ve heard your company’s CEO tell at least three times?

R: I thought that was one of the most notable things about today’s event. Sure, there is that faux horror of hearing the word “dickhead” in church, even if it is an Episcopal church. The same thing goes with the old chestnut--Kay Graham’s tit-in-a-wringer story.

But on a more serious note, when you finally cross the Jordan at age 93—after a few euphemistically labeled “twilight years” in nursing home that overlooks the 14th fairway at Burning Tree—your best work is decades behind you. And when those saddled with doing the eulogies are going to do old material, you need to have the delivery of a Johnny Carson or—to bring up someone whose funeral we just covered a few weeks ago—Joan Rivers.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, just because you can meet Deep Throat in a parking garage doesn’t mean you can do a good job with a story that’s already in the Oxford Book of Political Anecdotes.

M:  My feelings exactly. If they were such good friends, they should have told the story about the time that Ben Bradlee mistook Hilary Clinton for Marcia Shemick, who does alterations at Davison’s Dry Cleaners on K Street. He wanted her to measure his inseam.

R: Are you sure he wasn’t just hitting on Mrs. Clinton? Talk about a sure sign of dementia! 

Looking at the congregation, my guess was that it was a paid holiday at the Washington Post Company.  The newspaper business doesn’t have many perks but this would be one of them. Presumably all those folks in who are responsible for the supermarket fliers were going back to their desks rather than to chez Bradlee in Georgetown for the big reception.

The late Deborah, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire

M: Today’s funeral is quite a nice contrast with the recent do for the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, don’t you think?

R: You can say that again. Well, no one does a funeral like the Brits. They might have lost all their colonies, but they did not lose sight of how to plant a VIP with style.  And I’m not just talking about that three hanky job they threw for Princess Diana.

Granted, the Duchess was quite a character. And as we say, dull people have dull funerals, and the Duchess was anything but dull.

.

Jessica, Nancy, Diana, Unity and Pamela Mitford in 1935

M: That’s right. While her full name was Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford Cavendish, friends called her “Debo”.  Her father was an English peer and her mother occupied that no-man's land between long suffering and stiff upper lip. Both the parents were, as we say on New York’s Upper East Side,  “emotionally distant”.

The Duchess was the youngest of a brood that included, among others,  the novelist Nancy Mitford, a Hitler groupie named—get this—Unity Valkyrie—and—how apropos, the author of The American Way of Death and well-known out-and-proud pinko, Jessica Mitford. And those are just the siblings you can explain in a sound bite!

Yes, that's Prince Charles and the Missus, who unlike Dr. Jill Biden owns a black dress, walking in the funeral procession.

R: Debo took a show business axiom to heart—always leave ‘em wanting more. Her service, from starter’s orders to the finish line, clocked in at thirty minutes. Ben Bradlee's, however, came in at a bladder busting—at least for us old folks—two hours. And, what’s more, the Duchess’s service featured a recording of Elvis singing How Great Thou Art, a hymn that’s guaranteed to cause a Niagara of tears, at least among Protestants.

Compared to Elvis, Streisand covered by some schmoe is strictly bush league.

 

 

The Duchess’s staffers at Chatsworth, which, by the by, makes Downton Abbey seem like something on Baltic or Mediterranean Avenue, participated in the event, wearing their uniforms and lining the drive between the house and the charming and appropriately small parish church. Truly extraordinary. They knew that without the Duchess’s positively American entrepreneurial spirit, they wouldn’t have jobs.

She rescued the place from a mountain of debt, wrote a shelf full of amusing and erudite books, and still had time to be the grandmother of a supermodel. And, something I know regular Funeral Channel viewers will particularly enjoy, the Duchess was a Kennedy in-law and particular favorite of President Kennedy.

M: I also need to point out the Duchess’s wicker casket covered with a family spray of native flowers. Wasn’t that simply out of this world?

The HQ of Longaberger Basket Company. Yep, that's one big basket.

R: After seeing that, I heard that John Glenn, the astronaut and former Senator from Ohio, asked the Longaberger Basket Company of Newark, OH to create a special funeral hamper so that he could promote Buckeye State products while he’s on his way to his final resting spot at Arlington National Cemetery.

M: Oh! I read that in People magazine while I was getting my roots done, so it must be true.

Looking ahead, Rick, who do you think we have in the pipeline?

R: Well, our oldest former Presidents are Carter and George Bush 41. They can’t live forever, but Carter, as you know, is planning on having his funeral at the Carter Center in Atlanta. He probably wants all the guests to wear lanyards as if they’re at a conference on waste hauling or something. The Carter Center is not exactly an architectural wonder—the Plains Baptist Church, which I understand is in a converted K-Mart, would be an improvement. Don’t look for us to break away from regularly scheduled programming for that.

M: Bush 41, now that should be a good one. Unlike Jerry Ford, his funeral should actually be shorter than his presidency.

And Republicans tend to dress better than Democrats, always a plus. And as a G.O.P affair, you sure as heck know that there won’t be any Barbra Streisand. However, God Bless the USA sung by Lee Greenwood backed up by the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets Glee Club is a definite possibility. Even at a funeral, Rick, there’s something about a man in uniform.

R: And then there’s Ethel Kennedy. Let me just say that if there is a God, she’ll go during sweeps weeks.

M: Ha! You're such a card! You almost made me spit out my coffee!

R: Well that about does it for our special coverage of the Ben Bradlee Funeral here at Washington’s National Cathedral. Receiving Line Horror Stories and the Cremation Chronicles will return next week at their regularly schedule times. 

I’m Rick Bryant.

M: And I’m Mags Nash, signing off for The Funeral Channel.