Celebrating Community
As deep winter moves into spring, the already busy New York dance scene gets even more dizzying. Here are upcoming events I’m excited to see. We begin the month with Joya Powell and her MOPDC (Movement of the People Dance Company). I’ve loved Joya’s work since I first saw her company about 3 years ago. A New York native, a […]
In late 2015, I browsed through the sometimes strange, uncharted corners of YouTube (as I regularly do) – laptop on belly, fingers (middle and pointer) on mousepad, I discovered The Grapevine TV, and haven’t stopped watching since. To see long-table conversations with numerous intelligent and expressive young black people, discussing topics with such kitchen-table honesty, for me, was a dream […]
“His longing eyes, impatient, backward cast / To catch a lover’s look, but look’d his last; / For, instant dying, she again descends, / While he to empty air his arm extends.” The legend of Orpheus and Eurydice recounts how Orpheus, the fabled poet and philosopher, violated Hades’ conditions for his dead lover Eurydice’s release from the underworld by turning […]
For better or worse, when visitors come to Red Hook’s Pioneer Works, the first work of art they see – before they even enter the building – is the blue and white fence on the west side of the property. In 2017, Pioneer Works’ tech department invited me to hold a workshop on laser-cut stencils, and I met the organization’s […]
Review of Kevin Baker’s The Fall of a Great American City: New York and the Urban Crisis of Affluence Years ago, I came across a seldom-seen friend on Houston Street. Ranee was sitting on a bench in front of an American Apparel, wearing sunglasses and eating an ice cream cone, looking very self-satisfied. We marveled at the unlikely odds of […]
As all eyes, ears, and hearts prepare for the wild months ahead leading up to November, everyone everywhere is keenly aware of the political climate (hurricane?) that we’re living through. It’s often hard to know how to act, what to do, or how best to be helpful. Gone is the 24-7 in-the-streets mobilization from 2017, as everyone has been forced […]
Red Hook residents no longer have to leave the neighborhood to enjoy New York’s stand-up scene. On the third Wednesday of the month, Hoek Pizza (117 Ferris Street) will host a recurring free show emceed by comedians Candyce Musinski and Meagan Walsh at 8:30 pm for patrons 18 and older. The monthly engagement began in January and continues on February […]
Since the advent of VHS, discerning moviegoers have known that “made for television” and “direct to video” were kisses of death – signals the movie they were about to see, God help them, was the lowliest junk. Nascent cable channels and the dustiest recesses of Blockbuster were where the schlockiest horror, hardest soft-core, and cheapest action flicks were dumped by […]
On November 13, 1854, Alfred Lord Tennyson opened his morning newspaper, eager for word from far-off Crimea. He read about the Light Brigade, the six hundred cavalry troopers ordered to charge a heavily defended fort, and about their subsequent slaughter. Moved by their courage and sacrifice, Tennyson wrote a poem. Tennyson was, of course, an abominable poet. A Victorian to […]
Review of Sleeveless: Fashion, Image, Media, New York 2011-2019 by Natasha Stagg In another era, the worst thing you could be accused of was selling out. But for a younger generation, it’s become the objective: the new version of the American dream. No matter how old you are, the corporatization of our culture makes it common to talk about things […]