Celebrating Community
There isn’t a human life on earth that hasn’t been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. For the first time in human history, there’s no other place to which we can escape. Here in New York City, many of us are quarantined at home. The nesting instinct isn’t natural this time of year when, through our dirty winter windows, we can […]
Everyone knows Jimmy Stewart couldn’t ever play anything but Jimmy Stewart. He never lost the mid-Pennsylvania drawl that’s given rise to thousands of impressions, poor and expert alike (mine’s alright, but see Dana Carvey for a particularly good one). And his narrow, six-foot-three frame lent him a loping, awkward on-screen presence that is a far cry from the preternatural wit […]
A people frozen in fear cried out, “Save us! Our kids need something to watch,” and Bob Iger listened. Disney+ released Frozen II three months in advance of its planned streaming date in response to pandemic-induced anxiety, boredom, and spiritual malaise. We streamed it the day it became available on home media from an undisclosed safe house on Long Island. […]
On the afternoon of Saturday, February 29, the Regina Opera celebrated its 50th season at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The Golden Jubilee Concert presented selections from Verdi’s Don Carlo and Massenet’s Manon, the intermezzo from Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, and a full production of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. Eminent music director Maestro Gregory Ortega began with the […]
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 […]