Are You WAM?

This time - more chat; no fashion.

Yep.  Still on this page.

Last post, People Were Talking About "odd faced" children.  The conversation has moved on to . . .
"The three letters that spell a certain New York milieu: WAM: for wit, art, and money--the possessor of  any one of the three is fairly acceptable, but the possessor of all three is, flatly, WAM. . ." Well, it looks better in small caps, but Blogger won't do it.

WAM did not catch on.  "Ginchy," however - see description of Jane Fonda's bejeweled blouse and hamster-skin skirt on the previous pages - actually was real slang and actually is in the Urban Dictionary - various definitions.  I was simply too lazy to check.  Appalling.  

I am going to Tweet that.  Or pathetically bleat that.  And then I'll delete that.  Tweet Tweet.

Change of subject:  People Are Talking About . . . "The big handsome paintings, eye-startlers by Rufino Tamayo at the Knoedler Galleries . . . " That should have been People Are Still Talking About, But Probably Not Anymore. . . This opened in October 1956.  (And among the announcements in NYT that week:  "Drawings by Ten Americans" at Theatre East Gallery and the more specific  "American Negro Art" at Marino Art Galleries.  Not reviewed by the New York Times, but Jet has mention of the  fourth annual exhibition of "Negro art." (From Google Books - not giving link things found there have a habit of never being found again.)

The opening at the Knoedler Galleries was important enough for the New York Times to run a feature on Mr. Tamayo's house and studio in Mexico.

Oh, my goodness - I knew the Knoedler Galleries sounded familiar.  Fakes.  Lawsuits.  Just closed in disgrace after 165 years of business. . . the mysterious and not at all WAM woman who had all of those  previous Jackson Pollacks sitting around the house - how could they not have been suspicious from the get-go?

Some hunting around yields no clue about which Tamayo paintings were exhibited.  Tamayo has always left me cold.  Here is a colorful painting:

What else are People Talking About?  "Shelly Berman, sitting on his high stool at the Blue Angel, doing small studies in clearly lucid paranoia, often in a happy snarl. . . "

Shelly Berman, whom I remember showing up on all the variety shows in days when there were variety shows on television, is still alive.  Here is his website (but he's not on Twitter).  I can't find any early live footage on YouTube, but Inside Shelly Berman was released in 1959, so let's use that:

And here is Shelly Berman in 2006 - you just wish the young folk would shut up and let him talk.

Next time - People Will Talk About Robert Morse and People Will Insult James Michener.   And we'll just have to see The Magician.