Our tech-dominated society is generous with its glimpses of dystopia. But there’s something especially chilling about the captive audience meetings in the documentary Union, which screened at the New York Film Festival and is currently playing at IFC Center. Chronicling the fight of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), led by Chris Smalls, to organize the Amazon fulfillment warehouse in Staten […]
Arts
An ode to the bar at the edge of the world, review by Oscar Fock
It smells like harbor, I thought as I walked out to the end of the pier to which the barge now known as the Waterfront Museum was docked. Unmistakable were they, even for someone like me — maybe particularly for someone like me, who’s always lived far enough from the ocean to never get used to its sensory impressions, but […]
Quinn on Books: In Search of Lost Time
Review of “Countée Cullen’s Harlem Renaissance,” by Kevin Brown Review by Michael Quinn “Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: / To make a poet black, and bid him sing!” – Countée Cullen, “Yet Do I Marvel” Come Thanksgiving, thoughts naturally turn to family and the communities that shape us. Kevin Brown’s “Countée Cullen’s Harlem Renaissance” is a […]
MUSIC: Wiggly Air, by Kurt Gottschalk
Mothers of reinvention. “It’s never too late to be what you might have been,” according to writer George Eliot, who spoke from experience. Born in the UK in 1819, Mary Ann Evans found her audience using the masculine pen name in order to avoid the scrutiny of the patriarchal literati. Reinvention, of style if not self, is in the air […]
Film: “Union” documents SI union organizers vs. Amazon, by Dante A. Ciampaglia
Our tech-dominated society is generous with its glimpses of dystopia. But there’s something especially chilling about the captive audience meetings in the documentary Union, which screened at the New York Film Festival and is currently playing at IFC Center. Chronicling the fight of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), led by Chris Smalls, to organize the Amazon fulfillment warehouse in Staten […]
Puzzling Times or The Victory of Culture, by Roger Bell
Park Stickney is a harpist who lives in Switzerland and Sunset Park. He played recently in a Sunset Park bar, solo, duet and in trio* all together a set of jazz infused miracles. His banter was almost as captivating as his music, and another of his gifts which he freely shared, The performances were a rich alchemical mix and transformed […]
MUSIC: Tits Up Brooklyn, by Medea Hoar
Hey there Brooklyn! Welcome to “Tits Up Brooklyn!”, the first column about the musical mayhem that is happenin’ in our borough. I am musical maven Medea Hoar, your local music slut. Why music slut you may ask? Well, because, musically speaking, I’ll try anything once, and if I like it, you betcha I’ll be back for more. Summer in the […]
Red Hook Community Cinema Expands to Multi-Day Film Festival, by Dante A. Ciampaglia
Red Hook is long overdue for its close-up. And this month, it gets one. Running November 1-10, the 2nd Annual Red Hook Community Cinema film festival showcases 25 films made in, about, or that feature the neighborhood. The series opens Friday, November 1 with Isaac Dell’s Boys at Twenty at 7 p.m., followed by a costume party at 9. Like […]
Art is all around us, especially this fall, by Roger Bell
This morning I enjoyed a special benefit of my impersonation of an art critic when I attended the press opening of the Brooklyn Museum’s 200 Anniversary Celebration exhibitions, “The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition” and the extensive reimagining of the museum’s ” American Art” collection. The “Brooklyn Artists Exhibition” includes over 200 artists and occupies the ground floor galleries which once held the magnificent American Indian collections. […]
Quinn on Books: Pick a Card, Pick Any Card Review by Michael Quinn
If you value listening to your inner voice, you know there are many ways to access this wisdom. I’ve studied astrology since I was a teenager, meditate daily and keep a dream journal. Now, I’m exploring tarot—not for the first time. Stepping into the unknown (The Fool) I had a brief flirtation with tarot when I first moved to New […]