Fishes, Purple, Tiny... A 60's Tale, page 8
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Montauk Childcare Center is in trouble
I
t was a lively public session of the February 1st meeting of the East Hampton Town Board as a number of parents of children enrolled in the Montauk Childcare Center and employees spoke in the public portion of the meeting to demand help to prevent a threatened May 3 closing of the Center. The Center has been operated by the Economic Opportunity Center of Suffolk, a non-profit organization whose CEO, Adrian Fassett is paid over a half million dollars to run the organization which operates childcare and social service centers throughout the county. Their income, which in 2022 totalled a bit over $22 million, consists of about 60% from program service fees, and the rest from grants and contributions. They have been the operators Montauk Childcare, which resides in the Montauk Playhouse Community Center, 240 Edgemere Street, for 17 years. They claim that they can no longer cover operating deficits, which
by George Fiala
are caused by an insufficient number of students. The reason for the constraint on students, as explained by Kelly Bloss, a Montauk resident and assistant teacher at the center, who spoke first at the meeting, is because the law re-
"A second option would be to give the same amount of money to whichever group comes in to take over as the town gives to Eleanor Whitmore." quires one teacher for every five children, aged 2-5 years. They cannot get enough teachers due to the relatively low salaries as she explained. "Montauk Childcare suffers from staff shortages due to the cost of living in the area. Staff churn is driven by the inability to affordably live here and the inability of sustaining daily commutes from as far west as Shirley." She went on to say that many more parents are interesting in placing their children in the Center than can be accommodated.
Melissa Brennan depends on the Center for survival.
She brought up the fact that the Town of East Hampton subsidizes the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center, on Gingerbread Lane, to the tune of $182,000 a year, and is planning to spend $20 million on a senior center. She and others are asking for equal
treatment, possibly operating the Center themselves, placing the current Director Pilar Prado, in charge. Fallon Nigro, Montauk resident, revealed that the take-home pay for a teacher is only $550 per week, which makes it difficult to find qualified help. She said that Montauk Childcare is the only center from Southampton to Montauk that takes in children less than 18 months old. "While most people would assume the Hamptons is a rich and well-todo area, it is in fact the locals out here that are struggling daily to make ends meet. This daycare is the only way most parents with 9 to 5 jobs are able to sustain their workload," the real estate salesperson said dramatically. She went on to suggest that one option would be for East Hampton make the current workers part of the employee union. "A second option would be to give the same amount of money to whichever group comes in to take over as the town gives Eleanor Whitmore to help offset some of those costs. I think both places are well deserving of receiving help from the town to help its own people and I think matching the $182,000 would be the right and just thing to do." Other speakers included Melissa Brennan, a single mother from Amagansett who lives and works in Amagansett. Brennan mentioned that she must send her 18 month old to the Montauk facility because of her long working hours. To pay the bills she has to work full-time and needs a daycare with extended hours.
"Working families are the backbone of our community, and the best way to support them is to make sure they have access to affordable and comprehensive child care, she continued. David Piacente and Mariah Miltier also spoke on behalf of the Center. But as was pointed out by the Board at the end of the meeting, the law says that they must put out a 90 day Request for Proposal to operate the Center. Speakers complained that this is cutting it to close, certainty is need to know that there will be childcare for the summer season. They also wanted to have more input from parents and teachers, as well as transparency about the RFP process the Board responded that they cannot closely involve Prado due to conflicts of interest regulations and they have to follow the law. It's possible that the Town may end up with a situation similar to Eleanor Whitmore, but it seems the RFP process has to play out first.
Kelly Bloss of Montauk would love for the Center to be able to pay teachers more.
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February 2024
PUBLISHER'S COLUMN
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haven't really expressed any sort of political view in this paper yet, so you probably should know that I feel much more comfortable with a president that has demonstrable skills in governing, combined with experience at the ways of our particular style of government, rather than a showman. I was born during the Eisenhower administration. Ike was a beloved WW2, not particularly interested in being president, but the country asked for him, both parties, if I remember my history correctly, and he became the Republican president for most of the 1950's. Adlai Stevenson, his opponent in both elections, came from a political family, graduated from Princeton, became a lawyer, served in the FDR administration, and was elected governor of Illinois. This from Wikipedia: Journalist David Halberstam later wrote that "Stevenson was an elegant campaigner who raised the political discourse" and that in 1952 "Stevenson reinvigorated the Democratic Party and made it seem an open and exciting place for a generation of younger Americans who might otherwise never have thought of working for a political candidate." It would have been interesting to have him as President, but Eisenhower was just fine, bringing the country toward its slow progression to the 60's, and it gave Nixon eight years of White House experience, as Vice President. JFK also came from a political family, became a Harvard graduate, war hero and served two terms in the Senate. I was still too young to know much about this stuff, but I remember my teachers and my mother crying one
Lyndon Johnson, who took over, was the consummate politician, learning his craft in the Senate, and used the nation's sorrow to pass many of JFK's proposals, including the Civil Rights Act, something that might not have occurred without the assassination. In 1968, both Nixon and Humphrey possessed excellent resumes. The election was basically about center right vs. center left, and either candidate would have probably taken the country on the same course, although perhaps we'd have been out of Vietnam sooner with Humphrey. Nixon's personal demons ended up being his downfall, and another experienced politician, and nice guy, Gerald Ford, took over. However, the country was not going to vote Republican after Watergate, and elected Jimmy Carter, a businessman, a Navy officer and graduate of the Naval Academy, and Governor of Georgia. Both Carter and Ford had excellent resumes. Both ended up leading the US extremely competently, at least in my opinion. Both hired excellent cabinets. It wasn't their fault that America went through a sort of decline in the 1970's. That was because events caught up to us. The defeated countries of World War 2 revived, became friendly and successful economic competitors, and we lost the post war edge that victory gave us.
ed an arms race and transitioned Cold War policy away from détente with the Soviet Union. Additionally, he, fought public-sector labor unions, expanded the war on drugs, and was slow to respond to the AIDS epidemic. Foreign affairs dominated Reagan's second term, including the 1986 bombing of Libya, the Iran–Iraq War, the secret and illegal sale of arms to Iran to fund the Contras, and a more conciliatory approach in talks with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that culminated in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty."
Except for the nuclear treaty which lasted until Donald Trump pulled us out, I felt that these were all things that I and many others didn't like, and possibly helped begin today's toxic division of the country, something that worsened with Rush Limbaugh fueled attempts to kill the Clinton administration with impeachment based on personal attacks on both the president and his wife. One thing that Reagan did during his administration was to deliver a taped weekly address to every radio station. Americans heard him speak person-
ally to them on a regular basis. While doing a lot to kill the New Deal (the Republican Agenda since the Depression), Reagan was a big fan of FDR, and emulated the famous fireside chats, which FDR used to reassure Americans that things were getting better, and we would get through the Depression and the war. I'm highly afraid of another Trump administration for a whole host of reasons. I happen to think that Joe Biden, a lawyer and career politician with many years of experience in the Senate, and eight years as Vice President, has done a tremendous job bringing the country back from four years of Trump. What I see as a failure is his connection with Americans. We need to understand the things that the country faces. He needs to patiently explain why he is doing the things he does. Let us hear from you, Joe, maybe even from in front of the fireplace.
Taking advantage of that malaise was someone from the world of entertainment, Republican Ronald Reagan. While a beloved president who used media to charm Americans, he surrounded himself with a Rush Limbaugh styled cabinet that, according again from Wikipedia "implemented Reaganomics, which involved economic deregulation and cuts in both taxes and government spending during a period of stagflation. He escalat-
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February 2024, Page 3
What do bees (and the beekeper) do in the winter
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’m often asked what bees, and beekeepers do in the winter. Most people think that honey bees hibernate in the winter. They do not! When the temperature drops to about 57°, honey bees start to form a winter cluster. Special heater bees warm the cluster by detaching their wings and vibrating their wing muscles, which gives off heat. They don’t heat the hive, just the cluster. The heater bees keep the cluster around 85° when no brood (unborn bees) is present. The Queen stops laying eggs in the late fall, but resumes around the winter solstice. When brood is present, the cluster must be maintained at about 93°. It takes fuel to heat the cluster, so the bees (especially the heater bees) must have access to plenty of honey or winter feed in order to keep the colony warm and fed. And guess what happens when you eat? You have to poop. Bees do not defecate within their hive unless they are sick: they have the most sanitary home in the entire animal kingdom. Honey bees have an expandable gut, so they can hold their poop in for months. When daytime temperatures are around 45 degrees, more or less, the bees fly outside and take cleansing flights. Small yellow plops of bee poop in the snow, or on cars, or anywhere really, is a welcomed sight by beekeepers. We know our bees are alive, flying, and are able to relieve themselves. That’s a glimpse into what bees do in the winter. Beekeepers, on the other hand, are typically pretty busy at this time of year. We treat our bees for Varroa mites, check food reserves and apply emergency feedings, prepare equipment for the upcoming season, make hive products, sell honey and hive products, and attend conferences and trade shows, amongst other tasks. In January I did all of the above!! I attended the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF) Conference and Trade Show in New Orleans where I gave two talks, and entered one candle into their honey show. I won a blue ribbon, plaque, and crystal bowl for my entry! I also attended the inaugural North American Honey Bee Expo in Louisville, Kentucky, and entered numerous items into their honey show. Over 3,281 people attended the Bee Expo, including beekeepers, researchers, students, beekeeping equipment and services vendors, and the American Honey Show Training Council team. The honey show drew 339 exhibitors who submitted a total of 1,161 exhibits into 72 different classes. None of the judges in their 20+ years of experience had seen, nor judged a show this large in North America! The first through sixth place winners in each class were awarded ribbons (1st-3rd only) and points: First place earns 6 points, second gets 5, down to
by Deborah Klughers
sixth place, which gets 1 point. Each entrants’ points are added up and the person with the most points wins the Grand Champion Award, while the person with the second most points wins the Grand Champion Reserve Award. I’m proud to announce that I won the Grand Champion Reserve Award! It was a LOT of work, but well worth it!
A good showing
When you enter honey shows, whether you win or lose, you get written constructive critique on your entries. You can then use that information to “upyour-game” and provide consumers with the highest quality honey and hive products! My dark honey took 6th place, and my natural set took 4th. My ginger-lemon mead was awarded second, and I had a number of candles, confections, food items, lotions, household cleaners, photographs, and even my poetry were awarded ribbons for 1st and 3rd place. So, if you would like high-quality award-winning honey and hive products from a real local beekeeper, you know who to go to! Speaking of real beekeepers, the ABF is working hard to help combat honey fraud on a national level through recent legislation introduced by Congressman Kelly Armstrong. H.R. 4764, the Honey Identification Verification and Enforcement (HIVE) Act, would require the Food and Drug Administration to finally establish a standard
"Small yellow plops of bee poop in the snow, or on cars, or anywhere really, is a welcomed sight by beekeepers. We know our bees are alive, flying, and are able to relieve themselves." of identity for honey and subsequently report to Congress on enforcement actions taken with respect to adulterated or misbranded honey. It would also reorganize the existing US Department of Agriculture country of origin labeling requirements by utilizing the consumer-familiar ingredient labeling criteria. Countries of origin would be listed in order of predominance, allowing the consumer to discern the origin of blended honey. This may help US beekeepers combat the influx of diluted, adulterated, and misbranded honey imports as well as level the playing field for the domestic beekeeping in-
Page 4 Amagansett Star-Revue
A heating cluster of bees keeps the hive warm in winter.
dustry with overseas companies. In the end, the public wins, because they would get what the label states they are getting. Which brings me back to local honey fraud. The HIVE Act does little to combat this plague upon real beekeepers. Interestingly enough, Resilient Long Island is hosting a symposium at Hofstra University about native plants, invasive species management strategies, restoration practices, and more. They also have a poster session that I submitted my research abstract to for consideration. Guess what? They accepted it! My research involved sending dozens of honey samples from colonies located on the east end of Long Island to the Palynology Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University to analyze the pollen content of the honey. The results of the study helped to determine what the foraging preferences of honey bees are right here on eastern Long Island. It also offers insight into actions we can all take to help feed honeybees and other pollinators. And guess what else the results can tell us? They can provide a baseline to show what types of pollen is typically contained in honey that actually comes from the east end of Long Island. These results can be used to compare with “local” fraudulent honey. You know, the honey that beekeeping companies buy from elsewhere and say that it’s from their bees here on Long Island, but really isn’t? I’ll be continuing the study and plan to send additional samples for DNA analysis this season, so stay tuned! If you are or know a beekeeper who would like to be a part of this project, please reach out! The symposium is open to the public and professionals, the latter can earn CEU credits (ISA, CNLP, SAF, LACES, NYSDEC Pesticide). Register via this link. https://liisma.org/ resilientli-2024/ or search for them online. The poster session will be held on March 7th from 5:30 - 8 pm at the
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Seatuck Environmental Association in Islip, while the conference will be held the following day at Hofstra University in Hempstead.
Honey with tea
In February, I’ll be a vendor at Tea Talk, a new series of events sponsored by the Food Lab at Stony Brook Southampton. You will have an informative and fun time learning about food systems and so much more. The fabulous Judiann Carmack is leading the charge, so you know you cannot go wrong with her leadership and amazingly green thumbs! To sweeten things up, I’ll be offering my award-winning honey and hive products during the first Tea Talk on February 6th. There’s (almost) nothing better than honey in tea, and without bees, food would be very boring and way more expensive than it is already. Tea Talk will occur the first Tuesday of each month, and its free, so mark your calendars and sign up! There’s going to be some very exciting events and learning opportunities coming from the Food Lab in the near future, so stay tuned! Remember, you are what you eat from your head down to your feet, and as for bees, they are important only if you eat food or know someone who does. I’ll also be offering a FREE Introduction to Beekeeping Class at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton on Wednesday the 7th from 6 - to 7:30 pm. It will be chock full of useful information for beekeepers and nonbeekeepers alike. There will be door prizes and lots of fun, so buzz on by. Adults only, please register on their website. For everyone ages 2 and up, I’ll be offering my Honey Bees and Honey talk at The South Fork Natural History Museum and Nature Center in Bridgehampton, on Saturday March 30th at 10:30 am. Attendees will learn about honey bees and honey, including the differences between honey bees and (continued on next page)
February 2024
WINTERBEE ACTIVITY (continued from previous page)
other insects, how honey is made, and why honey bees and other pollinators are important. We will explore the simple biology of honey bees and more! For non-members, there is a $15 fee for adults and a $10 fee for children for this program. This fee will also provide non-members with free admission to the museum on a day of their choice. Members can attend for free. Advanced reservations are required please! Check their website to register.
starvation is one aspect of beekeeping that we beekeepers have some control over. My advice to beeks: Check your bees and feed them if they don’t have at least 15 pounds of food. Simple. Don’t let them starve! If you’d like more information, do reach out! You can follow my beekeeping journey and daily antics on Instagram and Facebook as Bonac Bees, and you can also contact me via my website www.BonacBees.com.
Phew. I’m tired just thinking about all this. But wait there’s more! I was able to check about 80 of my colony’s food reserves last week when the weather was in the mid-40s. I’m planning to check the rest of them by the end of this week, since temperatures will be in the upper 40s again. If you are a beekeeper, I highly suggest you do the same. If your bees have made it thus far, don’t think you are out of the woods just yet.
The cruelest month for bees
About half of American honey bees die each year, with March being deemed the cruelest month. Why? The colony makes it through February, and the beekeeper fails to understand that the colony started to expand in late December. There are now more mouths to feed, and they also need to consume more food to not only keep the adults warm, but to keep the brood nest at the proper brood rearing temperature. Avoiding
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February 2024, Page 5
FRAGMENTS OF LIFE stories by Joe Caccamo
THE RACE IS ON
I
moved to Venice yesterday. A woman smiled at me as I walked into Café Gratitude. I bought a pyrite crystal at a yoga center on Lincoln I happened by on my walk home. Pyrite is supposed to be a protective stone, blocking out negative energies and repairing any tears in my aura. I have it my right pocket right now and I swear I feel a little coolness against my thigh … although come to think of it, I feel coolness on both thighs, my arms as well. The chilly fog is in this morning, my first here in Venice, reminding me of San Francisco, of dawn patrol surf sessions at Ocean Beach, sitting in my car, sipping coffee, seeing mystic figures in the distance dancing on an ethereal plane, assessing the conditions as I’d try to conjure the courage to wrestle with a still wet and cold wet suit sitting in a tub in the trunk of my car.
I caught up with my dear old pal Mick Rousseau the other day on phone. Mick lives in Seattle with his wife and four children. Four children. MIck was a rather famous alchemist of the good life back in his single days in San Francisco. Smart, country-club good looking with his curly blonde locks, and an irresistible devil-may-care swagger, the guy had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun together … we were a rather formidable team. He told me his life is all about coach-
I
ing his kids’ lacrosse teams, that his wife was away recently doing missionary work for ten days and that he had to execute on getting the kids up, making breakfast, getting them off to school, solving dinner, etc. He told me his son Liam is now sixteen, handsome but not really crazy about girls the way Mick was. Liam likes to buy and sell highend clothes and sneakers online. Last year, he made $24,000. His dream is to live in LA or New York City. Mick told me, much to his wife’s chagrin, the two guys Liam wants to meet the most are me and our friend Jimmy Means, who lives in New York City. Liam thinks me and Jimmy are legends. Jimmy is a 54-year-old man-child like me, recently divorced from a young Russian bride, eccentric as hell. It says a lot about me and Jimmy that neither of us has met one of our dear friends’ oldest sons. I envy Liam. Mick told me Liam doesn’t give a shit about anything, that he’s a big risk taker. The girls love him, but he pays no attention. He’s tall and looks like an Icelandic prince, I’ve seen pictures. I’m sure he is going to kill it, be featured in Vanity Fair magazine, date a super model slash bad-ass designer, buy a decrepit farm house in Provence where he’ll spend summers fucking and conjuring and manifesting creative shit. He has what it takes … a jury of no peers, or if there is, he doesn’t listen, or if he does, he doesn’t give a fuck. I envy Liam. I envy a sixteenyear-old kid.
VALENTINE’S DAY
sit in Los Angeles traffic on W. 3rd Street, heading into my office. It’s 9:31 am.
A car approaches from the opposite direction. I see it from a mile away. I tap the gas. I tap the brakes. It is a red car with a big red heart strapped to the front, emblazoned with red glitter. Red streamers blowing off both sides and the roof. A Nissan Stanza. A 60-ish-looking black lady at the wheel. She is wearing muted
colors, clay, like a dried out South Texas arroyo. There is not a trace of happiness on that face, defiant if anything. But good for her, as long as she didn’t do all of that Valentine’s Day shit for herself. I tap the gas. I tap the brakes.
A 30-ish guy is scurrying down the sidewalk. He holds the string of a helium-filled balloon with a big red heart on it that is blows in a gentle Los Angeles headwind against his
Page 6 Amagansett Star-Revue
I set up shop in my new rental yesterday afternoon, which costs significantly more than my penthouse studio in Tribeca. I was told I’d have the place for five weeks but then received a text from the landlord apologizing that his father-in-law is coming to town and that they can only rent to me for three weeks. This shit wouldn’t happen to Liam, I thought.
The bed is very comfortable, the place is very quiet … but of course, I couldn’t sleep. I thought about a question I had posed to a gal I had slept with the night before during post-coital pillow talk … “Doesn’t it all seem like we’re just on a ride sometimes?” And when I said ride, I meant that we’re pushing forward, but mostly spinning in a circle, playing the same old games, telling the same old stories, living in the same belief system, salving the same old wounds. I’m no different than the sixteen-yearold I was, really. Maybe the difference between me and Mick, Liam’s dad, is that Mick isn’t running in that race anymore, at least not as hard. He got to pass the baton on to his son whereas I’m huffing and puffing in the next lane trying to keep up with a kid who just sprouted pubic hair. The difference between me and Liam is I’ve always given a shit … about girls, about what they think, about what everyone thinks. Because of that, I’ve played it safe. No fuck you house in Provence. Like I said, I’m getting
forgettable face. In the other hand is a bouquet of flowers, wrapped in fancy paper. His hair, combed back and greasy, is seriously receding. It won’t be there for long. He looks like a clerk at a Radio Shack, if they still exist, with his shitty, coarse, white button down shirt, shitty black pants that are too big for his skinny ass, and his shitty black shoes, the ones with the massive soles that sad people who are on their feet all day wear for their shitty service industry jobs. People who wear those shoes should be put on a government list to monitor for purchases of whatever the fuck people buy online to make bombs. I’m not going to look it up online, lest I get put on the list myself. He’s clearly in a hurry to nail that shit down. Go get ‘em bro, I’m pulling for ya! I tap the gas. I tap the brakes.
I’m staring at my steering wheel, Range Rover it says in the middle of it. I roved from New York City to Los Angeles in this vehicle last month to explore a woman, to explore myself with this woman. We met over the summer on a yoga retreat on a carless, careless fantasy island off of Sicily. How could you not fall for something there?
Author Joe Caccamo
kicked out of my rental in three weeks.
Mick told me he was shocked about how much Liam spends on clothes. “You know me,” he said, “I don’t buy anything.” Yesterday, on a whim, I bought a $250 jacket to stuff into my temporary closet with ten other similar jackets. That’s the problem with being single, having no kids. Riding the carousel solo gives no reprieve from being stuck playing the game … with sixteen-yearolds. Oh, and there’s also that experience of loving something more than yourself. I’m suddenly reminded to look online at rescue dogs for adoption. Baby steps for a fifty-year-old.
outside a shoe store says, “You can’t buy happiness but you can buy shoes.” It is written in pink, cursive, girly chalk. A wrapper from some foodstuff clings to an arm of the message board, for three, four seconds, and then loses its purchase and dances down the street. I tap the gas. I tap the brakes.
My friend Alex Gordon in New York once told me, “the hardest thing in life is figuring out what you want because getting what you want isn’t difficult.” Clearly, this is on me. My go with the flow philosophy has provided me a vast palette of colors but the paint is drying in its tubes, some opened, a bit squeezed out and smacked on a board to rot, some opened and immediately recapped, all caked with the paint and dust and debris that has gotten into the grooves and the caps over that son of a bitch called time, making them impossible to open. Stuck. I was really hoping this one would stick. I am terrified of the decision I know I’ve already made. I tap the gas. I tap the brakes.
I tap the gas. I tap the brakes.
I’m driving to work where I get to bury myself in trivial details involving the pushing around of wealth from one individual to another. A message board
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T
Julie Evans
he planet changes daily and in many ways. Our home rock, earth, is under pressure that must be released. Consider the more than two thousand earthquakes that recently occurred in Iceland. This seismic activity led to spectacular volcano eruptions very close to dense population centers and put humans on notice that they are not in control of the planet. In February, Uranus, the planet of sudden change, will begin to gain speed after reversing retrograde motion late last month. The potential to build more earth through the release of volcanic lava is ever present when Uranus shows in Taurus. Powerful Pluto entered Aquarius late last month. Wherever you have this planet in your natal chart you will gain insight into that area of your life, and will begin a great transformation that will last about twenty years. For the planet this means the deep earth metals and minerals may become more accessible. Aquarius is an Air Sign and we are now in an Air Era that kicks in when the New Moon occurs on February 9th at 6 pm eastern time. This will start the Chinese Astrological New Year. It is the year of the Wooden Dragon, known as a year of growth. For those born as lucky Golden Dragons in 2000 your 24th year brings your second Jupiter Return. If you are in a job you will recognise your niche. If you are in school, success is in sight. If you are looking for a job it will suddenly become clear and appear. Behold abundance! Happy Birthday Aquarius! - Mercury, Mars and Venus will Join the Sun and Pluto in your sign throughout the month. A planet pile up occurs and it depends on your natal chart placements to see more clearly how the group will manifest.. This makes February the month to plan out, especially from the thirteenth forward. Valentine’s Day has a potential for aggressive or extreme behavior. Beware of a strong sense of attraction. A better day to celebrate is February 22 when Venus meets Mars for an intimate night out. Put new adaptations in place. Time to rethink patterns of rebellion or non-conformity. You might try going along to get along. China, Iran, Ukraine and Russia are wholly or partly of the Aquarius sign or are countries with strong Aquarius placement. We can expect more aggression from these four countries in many places around the world. Pisces - The Sun enters your sign on February 18th in this leap year. Saturn and Neptune continue to hold steady while piloting the vessel through the fog and stormy waters. Recently the government agencies reduced fishing quotas and allocation for often caught East End fish. This is Saturn placing restrictions on fishermen that will continue to 2026. However there are no clear answers as to the why of the restrictions and science behind them. We can attribute confusing elements to Neptune who considers Pisces it’s Undersea Castle and will be at home until 2026. Restrictions will con-
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tinue to affect the local economy and especially beach tourism. When Mercury enters Pisces on the 23rd, it adds more confusing floating verbal entanglements to the watery mix. Water always wins over structure. Never turn your back on the ocean. Aries - Breathing and healing are still high on your agenda this month but the time spent in contemplation has proved worthwhile. The plan you have made for your future is almost tangible. You might start to implement parts of the plan. Be careful however not to react in anger if someone is not sympathetic to your plan. You will lose support when you need it. I would wait out the week from the thirteenth to the twentieth. There are dangers abound that week. There are planetary configurations beginning to move through your sign relating to increased inflation and economic decline. Taurus - As stable as your sign is, Uranus, the planet of sudden change, is not. With both Uranus and Jupiter in your sign this month, projects, plans and endeavors should be vetted as much as possible. Just so that they just don’t blow up and go poof. The planetary energy of Uranus is hard to contain but can provide more sand to our eroding beaches just as easily as it makes sand disappear. Jupiter’s blessings continue until May 26 so take advantage of any benefits and opportunities since Jupiter will not return for twelve years. Uranus will continue to
bring surprises to Taurus and wherever you have Taurus in your chart. Gemini - Making plans for the coming year should be on your agenda because the great benefactor Jupiter will move into Gemini late May. Jupiter makes things bigger, often better and depending on which house it is in, brings new resources. Are you thinking of selling a home? This transit might increase your selling power this year. Please finish up any big projects first. Market investments to consider would be oil and bitcoin. Treasuries are still a good investment as long as the rate is above 5% and the maturity is less than one year. Thinking ahead two years is too far out and should be avoided. You are able to handle it all. Cancer - Expansion of friends is possible this month. Look out for new opportunities that come through friends. Disputes can have a positive outcome for you this month. Belief systems are questioned and you may begin to see many things differently. Exercise restraint in areas that may present potential conflicts. Issues about the beliefs surrounding death can arise. Your home is your sanctuary so be selective about who you invite in. Leo - Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Pluto are all opposing your sign this month in Aquarius. While these five plants meet there to conference and discuss the future, personal events and world wide events ping off the oppositional aspects that these personal planets make to any of your natal planets in Leo. These pings cause rapid changes that may make your world spn. Keep grounded and lose yourself in peace. Think about deep love that connects to your big heart. Communicating in a humbler way will have more impact than using your enviable roar. Virgo - No one is better at details than Virgo. Look over all the lists again, there may be a structural element missing from the overall plan. You must be flexible enough to move quickly and change direction as we move from Earth issues to issues concerning air. Go with the flow and do not hold onto the river’s edge. There will be a Full Moon in Virgo on February 24th. Events of the week before ramp up emotional responses. Virgo is normally reserved when it comes to emotions, but you may not be able to contain yourself leading up to the full moon.
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Libra - Keeping the balls spinning in the air will be a challenge to control. Your balancing skills are formidable however the timing is off when you are unable to see where the imbalances lie. Take an accounting of the areas of your life that are not working and that need rebalancing. Creating a daily spiritual practice helps everyone focus and takes a few months to make a habit. Meditation is a shortcut to balance. Scorpio - The water signs are now asked to create more structure to their floating schedules. You can create structure yourself or Saturn will impose it on you. For Scorpio this will be a change - giving away some control and in order to free yourself. Seeing your own short term future is not difficult, if you use your intuition to acknowledge the probable outcomes you can then make solid plans. This is not as hard to do as you think. Sagittarius - The year end holidays are behind us but Sagittarius wants to keep going. The only reason to stop the big fun is the lack of funds in the pocketbook. If you want to take a trip and it won’t put you in a financial bind, I say go. Missed opportunities to travel are also missed educational opportunities, since travel is the best education. Just be sure you are headed towards a safe destination and not into war zones. The best trips combine fun and education. Capricorn - Many of you born under the sign of the Sea Goat have had to adapt to Pluto’s presence in your sign since the banking crisis of 2008. Take a deep breath and believe that you have transformed into a different person since then. You survived, we all survived and now Aquarius will receive the deep transformational influence that Pluto brought to Capricorn. What have you learned? If you have questions about the promise of your natal chart please email me at jevansmtk@gmail.com. Please put the word Sun Sign in the subject line. Once again I will give a free reading this month to the first person who contacts me. We are living in difficult, confusing times. Let us try to bring more love to our planet and control the growing hate. Our three o’clock pm communal love meditation continues at the local beaches weather permitting. World wide we are joining together to manifest a new earth where love rules. Copyright Julie Evans Astrology 2024
February 2024, Page 7
BOOK SERIAL: Fishes, Purple, Tiny
Introduction “Fishes, Purple,Tiny…a “60s tale” is a somewhat anthropological snapshot of a time before the digital revolution of computers and cell phones. Today’s reader may find it hard to imagine a world with only 5 tv channels, milk deliveries, and neighbors whom you knew. People of this era would never walk while they drank coffee, they would sit with a cup during what was called a “coffee break”. There was little warning when the 1950s, a conservative post war decade, collided with the “peace and love 1960s.” Many, especially those coming of age at that time were caught in the turbulent zeitgeist. Zak Wozny was one of them.
1 – Meeting Miss Kemp
Zak Wozny spent his first 17 years on a 20 block patch of working-class streets in a Brooklyn neighborhood called Sunset Park, named for the large park in the middle of it. He was a little kid in the 1950’s and a teenager in the sixties. Had eight years of Sisters of St. Joseph at St. Michaels grammar school on Fourth Avenue, followed by four years of black robed Franciscan Brothers, at Bishop Ford High School, which was up the hill next to Green-wood Cemetery. There wasn’t much different between the two except that if you weren’t ready for it, a brother’s slap in the face could land you on the floor. The nuns used rulers and humiliation to keep kids in line. When Zak was scheduled to graduate high school, the last thing he wanted to do was sign up for another four years of college. He was gonna hang out, smoke pot, listen to all the great music that was happening. The Beatles were still together, the Doors were on AM radio! However, hovering over the class of ’69 was the draft, and the scourge of Vietnam. Most of Zak’s classmates wound up going to Brooklyn College – it was cheap, easy to get into – and kept you from being drafted. Zak put off any post-high school plans, just didn’t want to think about it. That changed one day in April. He was standing on his stoop at 451 40th Street, when he saw a ragged looking figure coming up the block from Fourth Avenue. It turned out to be a local guy, Joey Riccardi, who was about four years older. He didn’t look good, nothing like the muscled greaser type Zak remembered. “Hey Woz… I thought that was you.” “Hey Joey.” “How you doing, Woz?” Before Zak could answer, Joey continued. “yeah man… ya know… fuck… I’m livin’ down there now.” He pointed down the block towards the Gowanus Expressway. “Under the highway… fuck.” Joey paused to rub his face. “My parents threw me out… you dig that! Threw me out… say I stole their stereo. You believe that shit… fuck.. .so how you doin’?” “I’m…”
“Yeah, ya know, they don’t know, nobody knows what it’s like over there. Nam… the jungle, never a second to relax. Now I’m down there, with the junkies… fuckin’ animals.” “So how you doin, Woz.” “Uhh…” “Listen, ya got five bucks you could spare?” He gave Joey the seven dollars he had on him. The next day at school, Zak Wozny went to his guidance counselor and told him he was ready to start thinking about college. With his help, Zak got into the city university system. He was too late for Brooklyn College and wound up getting admitted to Hunter College. Hunter was in Manhattan, or as the Sunset Park natives called it… “The City.” The summer of ’69 was a blur, not just to Zak, who was working a few parttime jobs and getting high at night with his friends, but to the whole world. Men walking on the moon, Woodstock Nation, peace and love, Mets winning the world series, and of course Vietnam. The war raged on and on, no matter what the hippies did with sit ins and protest marches. There was a wake for Jimmy Dalton, a local kid who had been drafted earlier that year. Zak, who was friends with his younger brother Tommy, went. The coffin was closed and he stayed in the back. Didn’t stay long, didn’t get high that night. He was feeling something different, something new. What exactly was it? It took a while to figure out, but turning up 40th Street from Fourth Avenue it came to him. It was guilt. Early one morning in September, Zak caught the N train at the 36th Street BMT station. Took it one express stop to Pacific Street, walked through a series of crowded tunnels to connect with the IRT express, which took him to the “City,” the upper east side of Manhattan. On registration day, Zak wandered around the Hunter College auditorium signing up for 101’s at random: English, German, Geography and one class which he thought from the description was creative writing, but turned out to be “English as a second language.” This was the first time in a school setting that he didn’t know ANYONE. He felt strange being out of the little village of Sunset Park. It was a drag, a real drag, and he had to be there by 8 am every morning. The alarm clock his mother bought him would go off at 6:30 with a grinding screech, and since the ‘snooze’ button hadn’t been invented yet, he had to get up right then, cross the room, and shut it off. Coffee, buttered roll, N train to the 4 Train… “Better than ‘Nam’ everybody told him when he’d complain, but to Zak it felt like a slow death. Geography 101, at 1 pm was his last class of the day and the most tiresome of all. Professor Miller would talk for fifty minutes, sometimes using a pointer on a map, explaining the importance of geographic formations
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by Bob Racioppo
on world events and culture. Usually Zak would doze off during these presentations. But not on this day in his second week at Hunter. On this day he decided that the tab of synthetic mescaline in his little jeans pocket, which he was saving for the evening hangout would be swallowed, Now. With a sip from the hallway fountain just before class this was done. Within 15 minutes, Geography 101 became the most mind-blowing, fascinating fount of knowledge and understanding he had ever experienced. Mr. Miller was laying out foundations of universal constructs, illuminations, terrestrial epiphanies. Zak, who up until now had never uttered a word in class, raised his hand. Mr. Miller scanned the attendance sheet for his name. “yes Mr…” “Wozny, Zak Wozny.” “Yes, Mr. Wozny.” “Is it possible that a mountain range separating two valleys, could, over time, create an evolutionary effect upon the developing species that would…” He went on for a while in a mescaline infused rant, at the end of which Mr. Miller replied: “Possibly…” Mercifully for all concerned, the bell rang and the class, mostly kids Zak’s age in jeans and tee-shirts, filed out quickly. Zak, by now stoned, was moving slowly. As he rose to leave, a woman approached him. “Mr. Wozny,” she began, extending her hand. “I’m Susan Kemp.” A mescaline-induced pause later, he shook it and said hello. “I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your observation in class today.” He could only stare, she was so very different from the jeans-and-tee-shirt girls he was used to. She wore a pink skirt and blouse, a matching hat, and kept talking about geography. Zak didn’t do much more than nod and notice that she was wearing high heels and stockings and was pretty, with perfectly straight light brown hair. “Would you like to get some coffee?” she said after a while. Zak Wozny and Susan Kemp walked one block west to a Chock Full of Nuts on Madison and 69th. “May I call you Zak?” Her English was crisp, like the people on television newscasts. “Sure… that’s my name.” Zak wasn’t intending to be funny, but she laughed. “Please, call me Susan… that’s my name.” And she laughed a little more. They sat at the counter. Susan ordered coffee. At this stage of his mescaline high Zak felt no hunger, he could barely feel his body. The fluorescent lights in the restaurant seemed shockingly bright and gave the chewing diners sitting across from him a greenish pallor. The uniformed waiter stood, slightly annoyed, until Zak, realizing he had
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to order something, said “A glass of milk, please.” “And a whole wheat doughnut,” Susan added. “You’ll like it.” Zak nodded. The waiter served Miss Kemp a mug of coffee and placed an empty tall glass in front of Zak. He touched the glass and it was warm, almost hot, having just come out of the dishwasher. The waiter returned with a doughnut and a metal pitcher of cold milk. He then filled the glass, which instantly exploded with a high-pitched cracking sound. Milk and shards of glass were sent flying in all directions. “My dress – my dress!” Miss Kemp began shrieking. Zak, being high, fell into wide eyed laughter The manager came over to apologize and assured them there would be no charge. “No charge?!” screamed Miss Kemp. “What do you usually charge to cover someone in milk and broken glass?!!” And then to Zak, “I have to change. Come with me; I’m just down on Park and 68th.” As they headed east, Zak picked small pieces of glass out of his tie-dye tee shirt. It’s different up here than in Brooklyn, he thought to himself. They came to one of the tall grey buildings on Park Avenue. As they approached the metal grilled door, it was opened for them by a small, middleaged man in a military outfit, complete with a brimmed cap and trousers with red stripes running down the legs. “Good afternoon, Miss Kemp!” he greeted her. To Zak, he directed a dirty look. “Hello Harry – this way, Zak.” She led him down a dim, wood-paneled hallway to an ancient-looking elevator operated by another small man in military garb. He also greeted Miss Kemp with a “good afternoon” and Zak with a dirty look. He pulled shut a shiny brass grilled door, turned a wood handled crank, and took them swiftly up to the eleventh floor. Zak followed Miss Kemp down a silent, plush-carpeted hallway, past faded landscape paintings, to 11 J. While Miss Kemp went to change, he stood in the parlor looking out at the East River. Mescaline high or not, this was an amazing view. Zak had only seen Manhattan, with its glimmering towers shining in the distance, from the top of Sunset Park. Now he was in one of those towers. “I don’t have much to offer you,” she called out from the bedroom. “My parents are in Europe, and I usually eat out.”
Continued Next Month Bob Racioppo is a founding member of the Shirts, a New York-based American punk band that formed in 1975. In addition to music, Robert is an accomplished fine artist. This is his first novel. He is a Brooklynite, grew up in Sunset Park and now lives in Windsor Terrace. To order a copy of the full book text 917 652-9128.
February 2024
Here Now the News
D
oom-scrolling news sites gives me agita. And I hate navigating around all that damn click bait (Daily News: Neighbors fume as Staten Island bagel shop, gift store pushed out for cannabis dispensary, or the Post: 13-year-old accused of killing grandpa on bus because his leg blocked aisle: 'Nobody was there with him during his last breath' ). No sir, I prefer to read a actual tabloid paper in the morning. Paging through it all—the gory news, the op-eds the Times rejected, the letters to the editor transcribed from crayon, the 1940s comics updated to change crew-cuts to buzz-cuts, the incomprehensible weather map, the sports stories/box scores, the endless celebrity crap – serves as my wake-up slap in the face before venturing forth into the muck and mire of another New York day. A day that I know will surely be reported in glorious gory detail tomorrow. Which is why I stopped reading the New York Times. Sure, I could live without the comics. But no gossip, no crime, no leggy females, no horoscopes, no TV listings, and now a sports section with no box scores, no game scores, no standings and no schedules? Are you kidding? Reading the Times feels more and more like a homework assignment. Besides, there’s no way you can read that paper
Football Memories by Joe Enright When I started following football in 1958, there were no Jets – just Giants. And home games weren’t televised because up until the 1970s, a team’s revenue depended entirely on ticket sales. So us kids on Rogers Avenue in Flatbush would watch away-games until half-time, run out and play touch-football for 20 minutes and then return to our tiny black & white screens. And when the Giants were home, we’d play all afternoon with a tiny transistor radio nearby.
Jim Brown
Back then, the Giants’ nemesis was the greatest fullback of all time, Jim Brown. Jim was a force of nature on a football field. It took at least three guys to bring him down. After being tackled, he would get up slowly, looking like he might collapse as he stumbled his way back to the huddle, and then explode for a 30 yard run on the very next play. Being new to football, we figured the Cleveland Browns named themselves after Jim. In 1958 the Giants needed to win their last game at Yankee Stadium against the Browns to tie them for first place and force a playoff. On a very cold, cloudy afternoon, with snow expected by the second half, Jim Brown busted loose for a 65 yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage, breaking the record for most TDs in a season. Thereafter Pat Summerall and Lou “The Toe” Groza traded field goals
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by Joe Enright
from front to back and still have time for the rest of your life. But I still get it because I absolutely refuse to do the crossword puzzle on a screen. On a recent Saturday morning I strolled down to the “24 Hour Mini Mart” on the corner, its awning proclaiming: “Breakfast (Kosher & Halal), Lunch, Dinner, Grocery, Sandwich, Cold Beer, Soda, Lotto, etc.” Twenty to thirty years ago, it surely would have listed “Papers” before that “etc.”… Further indication I’m part of a dying breed? Yup. A recent PEW Research Center Fact Sheet found newspaper circulation continues on its sad 20 year decline. And the explanation might lie with this fact: the average time per visit to the websites of the top 50 US daily newspapers over the past eight years has fallen 43%, from 180 seconds to 91 seconds. People today just don’t spend a lot of time reading the news, whether online or in print. The first indication of the bleak future facing the industry came in 2004 when PEW found 21% percent those age 18 to 29 cited The Daily Show and SNL Update as the place where they regularly kept abreast of presidential campaign news, almost the same proportion as those who cited ABC, CBS or NBC’s nightly news shows. Anyway, I scooped up three dailies and the Giants spent the rest of the game tackling Brown, who racked up 183 yards. But Jim’s teammates let him down: two fumbles…a missed chippie field goal by the Toe… Then, in the fourth quarter, after Brown put them down near the goal line, they tried a fake kick that got smothered, giving the Giants a chance as heavy snow started to fall. Frank Gifford threw a couple of halfback passes to tie the score and at that point, we put our football away and huddled around the radio watching the snow fall. After another fumble recovery, Pat Summerall kicked a 50 yard field goal through the swirling flakes and Rogers Avenue erupted. Still, two minutes remained. As Casey Stengel used to say, you could look this up: Jim Brown took the ensuing kickoff and rumbled to the 45 yard line. But after a first down, and with everybody keying on Jim, the Browns relied on lesser lights and their quarterback got sacked for a big loss. It was up to Lou the Toe. His 55 yard attempt fell a couple of yards short. Jim deserved a lot better. To my mind, this was “the greatest game ever played,” not the championship match-up two weeks later that the Baltimore Colts won in overtime. Unfortunately the titanic struggle of Brown vs The Giants happened during a long newspaper strike, so New Yorkers not only couldn’t see this game, they couldn’t read about it either. The only pictures that survive are from the Bergen Record.
Eddie LeBaron
By 1961 I was a teenager, old enough to
and over coffee and donuts devoured the News and the Post. Each was exactly 56 pages. Each adhered to their time-honored credo: if it bleeds, it leads and if there’s pics, it clicks. In tabloid land, you’ll never confront
Reading the Times feels more and more like a homework assignment. a Times-ian front page headline of “Ukrainian Offensive Sluggish, Intel Suggests.” But you will get a steady cavalcade of “Day Care Horror,” “Caught in the Crossfire,” “He Shot Me,” and the like, usually with photos of cops, crime scenes, or instantly erected street shrines for the dearly departed, featuring candles, flowers and inserts of weeping relatives. However, while the News might highlight a “Terror Rampage,” the Post will add more beef to the same story, trumpeting a “Terror Horror Rampage Outrage.” And usually the Post layout illustrates their journalistic style: Editors skewer their selected target in large-font pejorative headlines because the reporters’ stories lack the juicy explicit bias that MAGA ride the #4 train to 161st Street and lay down two bucks of my hard-earned money for a centerfield bleacher seat to watch the Giants play the Dallas Cowboys’ Eddie LeBaron, the shortest pro quarterback ever. The Cowboys were 14 point underdogs. LeBaron, at 5’7” and 160 pounds, looked like a kid compared to the behemoths surrounding him. He was drafted in the 10th round, never had a winning season and his career stats were truly awful. For instance, he threw 104 touchdown passes versus 141 interceptions because he could never see over his linemen. But the man was a battler. As a Marine, he was wounded twice in Korea during the battle for Heartbreak Ridge and his NFL nickname was “The Little General.” He beat the Giants that day on sheer grit.
Sad Sack Titans
In 1962 the Giants, who had become a perennial powerhouse, turned those lousy bleacher seats into advancesale only, so I defected to the sad sack NY Titans, playing right across the Macombs Dam Bridge in the Polo Grounds. It was the third season for the American Football League, the Titans, and their crazy owner, Harry Wismer, a former Public Address announcer for the Detroit Lions. When the AFL was born, Harry scraped together all his savings and joined the owners’ club, negotiating a TV contract for the league that stipulated every team would share equally in the revenue—a ground-breaking concept the NFL would eventually adopt. But the network money was chump
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readers crave. The News doesn’t engage in such vitriolic ad hominem attacks disguised as news stories, although they do manage to come up with headlines for Trump indictments which leave no doubt about their dislike of the antiChrist. But their sports section, once a strength, can’t compete with the depth of the Post‘s coverage. By and large, sports remains a politics-free zone, although one Post columnist, Phil Mushnick, will wax MAGA from time to time; but he files some great pieces, so I give Phil a mulligan. Oh, well. Time to face another miserable day. I’ll do the Times crossword on the subway if I get a seat. And I’m warning you, Gray Lady: if you keep publishing puzzle clues that require me to squeeze multiple letters in the same square as an underhanded strategy to force me online, I’m done. [FUN FACT AT NO ADDITIONAL COST: The word Hooligan originated in the Barbary Coast of San Francisco, where many Irish and Chinese workers on the transcontinental railroad wound up. The Irish were ruffians and many had the surname Mulligan. The Chinese corrupted the M to H and presto, Hooligan became their term of disparagement for the feisty neighbors who got their Irish up.]
change back then. Harry needed to sell tickets, lots of tickets, because he was not independently wealthy like all the other owners. Alas, the Titans sucked in 1962. Watching them lose to the Boston Patriots by four TDs, I had most of the upper deck to myself and yet Wismer announced a crowd of 25,000 – HaHaHa! The actual count was 4,719: Harry always lied about the attendance. In fact the Titans attracted only 36,000 paying customers for the entire season, while the Giants drew over 440,000. Poor Harry went belly up and new owners arrived, rebranded the team as the Jets, and drafted Joe Willie Namath in 1965. He got us a Super Bowl victory in 1969 against impossible odds and then began a cavalcade of bad seasons followed by good seasons ending in calamity. Rinse and repeat. Thus was born the terrible acronym, SOJ – Same Old Jets. It’s been 54 years without a Super Bowl appearance, so enter a quarterback who, like Joe Willie, travels to the beat of a different drummer: Mr. Magic Mushrooms himself, Aaron Rodgers, four-time NFL MVP—one more than Jim Brown. Of course, Jim, heeding Hollywood’s call, only played nine seasons versus Aaron’s 18. And Jim never tore his Achilles in the opening minute of the first game of the season.
A Tip
Finally, if you read this before the Super Bowl, here’s a tip: never bet against Patrick Mahomes. Like Jim Brown, the man is money.
February 2024, Page 9
Back to “Brighton Beach” with Filmmakers Carol Stein and Susan Wittenberg
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uthor Nelson Algren wrote in 1951 about Chicago that, “once you’ve come to this particular patch, you’ll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.” That sentiment could also apply to the Brighton Beach neighborhood filmmakers Carol Stein and Susan Wittenberg captured some 30 years later. Their 60-minute documentary Brighton Beach, released in 1980 and screening this month in a 4K restoration at Anthology Film Archives, finds the community grappling with absentee slum lords, the first notes of housing insecurity, and a tidal wave of Russian immigrants encroaching on “natives.” That’s on top of the systemic struggles facing New York post-bankruptcy.
Stein and Wittenberg (and a small crew that included a young sound guy named Ken Burns) spent four years documenting this hinge moment through the experiences of indelible personalities: Lorraine and Pedro Colon, a married couple in a complex relationship existing on the most frayed fringes of the neighborhood; Asia Gamil, a Russian emigre trying to make sense of her present and future; the regulars and performers at Brighton Beach Baths, now a private condo-complex amenity but then a center of civic life; teenagers playing forgotten beach games; young people at pool halls; boardwalk denizens. Through these eyes we see a challenged community burbling with the angst and racism that defined — and defines — how too many New Yorkers respond to change. But we also find, as Stein and Wittenberg describe, “a corner of gentleness and relief in a tough town.” People gather, mingle, party, gab, gossip, kvetch, boast, mourn, celebrate. It’s a coastal melting pot that could only exist in New York. As one boardwalk Algren says, “I’ve traveled all over the world, and I never found anything as nice as Brighton.”
The film, too, is beautiful. But it has remained mostly unseen for decades. It originally aired on PBS, played some festivals, and in the ‘80s had a TV run in Europe. In 1992, it played at Anthology, where it was praised for delving into place and unpeeling “layers of this bizarre neighborhood; its organized anarchy, its exquisite ugliness, its funny sadness.” And then it disappeared, prints, negatives, and soundtracks sitting in closets and film labs. It was almost lost a couple times. But after four years of work by IndieCollect, Brighton Beach has a new life — looking more lovely and real than ever. Stein and Wittenberg spoke with the Star-Revue about making the film, the people and community, and why the documentary is maybe more relevant to-
by Dante A. Ciampaglia day than it was in 1980. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. How did you come to Brighton Beach as a subject for a film?
Carol Stein: We both studied film in college — I went to Sarah Lawrence and MIT and Hampshire; Susan went to Hampshire and MIT. One of the photographers I worshiped was Helen Levitt. She did a film in 1948 called In the Street and I remember seeing it and thinking, “Oh, my God, I want to make films like that.” My mother was from Brooklyn. I didn’t go to Brighton Beach as a kid, but Brooklyn always held a lot of magic for me. And somehow this all came together and I thought I want to do a real film about this place.
Susan Wittenberg: Remember, in the late ‘70s, it was tough in New York. Manhattan was tough. Brighton Beach was frozen in time. It was like an oasis of calm, and it always felt nice to go there. It was a magnet. When we started the film, some of it was connected to both what was going on in the moment, what it felt like, and memories. My grandparents went to Brighton Beach Baths. I wanted to preserve that. While we were there, after a year or so, the Russians started moving in, and all of a sudden it changed. So the film changed. And we kept staying. We filmed it over four years. That’s why it feels so complex. You don’t get the chance to do that very often and have the luxury of time. And it just seemed like the most special place. We got a chance to be with characters over the years. They got to know us, we got to know them. We were influenced by cinema verité, we were influenced by Helen, and we were influenced by... We love Fellini, and it had that Felliniesque feeling to us: the light, the colors, the sounds. We’re talking about it now, but then we were on our own trip. How did people respond to you? Today, everyone is so aware of their appearance and being photographed or filmed that it seems unlikely you’d ever be able to make something as Levitt-like now.
Stein: We tried our best to be invisible, which is hard with a 16mm camera. Sometimes we’d stand in front of each other and we’d shoot around each other’s shoulders. A lot of people sort of thought it was great that they were being filmed. One old lady, though, did get so mad that I was filming that she hit me with a cane. We were also up on rooftops and running all over the place. But we just tried our best to be invisible. How did you find your subjects, like the Colons, who really opened their lives and home to you? Wittenberg: Lorraine Colon worked in that thrift store, which was on the street. You walk in and start talking to
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people and you just don’t know. You have a lot of attempts that don’t work out. But then you find people who have a story they want to share. That’s why they invite you in. Harry Molbert, who swam in the ocean in the winter; Asia, the Russian woman — it meant a lot to them to be able to talk about themselves. It was dignified, it elevated them. Most — especially people who were very poor — no one was listening to them. So together they brought in all these different perspectives. We loved all the characters in the film and tried so hard during this restoration process to find people. We haven’t been able to. I’d love to meet them again to see what they thought and to see what happened. I keep hoping that will occur. New York today is not the city it was then. I imagine many of the places you captured are gone, but the people too, either because of housing affordability or gentrification or something else that gets called “progress.”
Stein: It’s very different now in New York, in almost every conceivable way. I remember when Michael Bloomberg was mayor and he said [in 2003] New York is a luxury product. At that time, New York was not a luxury product. It was New York. It was a gritty city. So that is definitely gone. But I also see a lot of continuity, like the theme of everybody wanting to close the door behind them to new immigrants. It’s so today, that sort of inherent, I guess, racism or, you know, just stay away from me. It’s just human nature. So, yes, it’s different — it’s now really a Russian neighborhood; all the old Jews who we were like our grandparents at the time are all gone — but also still somehow the same. Wittenberg: Except for Brighton Beach Baths being privatized and the condo complex, it does feel the same. It’s a little rough around the edges, so it’s not like Rockaway, for example, which has been so transformed or redeveloped that you couldn’t go back to some places. Maybe because it’s so removed from Manhattan, you get to these places like Coney Island, Rockaway, the last stop on a train line that it has its own aesthetic. We know they’re different people now; 40 years went by. But somehow there they are. They have the white plastic thing on their nose so they don’t get sunburned. They’re still wearing it. I think that’s amazing. You mentioned that inherent racism, the way people like Lorraine talk in the film about the incoming Russians pushing “locals” out. It’s impossible to watch the film and not think about how New Yorkers are treating arriving migrants right now — or the way people talked about Italians in the 1920s or the Irish and Germans even farther back. Wittenberg: It’s timely. We hadn’t seen it for ages, then in the past two years we’ve seen it 1,000 times because of
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the restoration, and that’s something I realized right away. People are saying the same things. That is both fascinating and disturbing. That’s our reality. It’s ugly. Back then, even though they all felt that way, it was a live and let live neighborhood. They were all mixing up and saying bad things about each other. But now it’s just so deadly and vicious Can the film help guide us to a more “live and let live” mindset? I mean, immigration and changing demographics — these are going to happen.
Stein: Absolutely. To me, that’s the main theme of the film. Stop all this. Stop it. Everybody’s the same. They came here for the same reason you came here, and why should you have it and not them? The first few lines of the film are a woman saying, “Brighton is lovely. I’ve traveled all over the world, and I never found anything as nice as Brighton.” And then someone interrupts her and says, “But it’s a different element altogether.” And then the first woman says, “Yes, it’s different. Naturally, it changes, but it’s still very lovely.” That’s the attitude I wish most people had. You write that the film is about a “corner of gentleness and relief in a tough town.” How so?
Stein: The fact that people with very little money could go there and have such a great time. The ocean and the ocean air and the strolling down the boardwalk — it kind of calms people down, you know? It’s a corner of pleasure. And even though it’s poor, it’s very nurturing. I don’t know so much now, but then... It’s a gentleness that was there for everyone, not just wealthy people, to come and enjoy the ocean, rest, relax, play. Wittenberg: When you walk around in a bathing suit and not a leather jacket and heavy shoes, you make yourself more open to people. And that’s something that draws people from all over the city. That’s what they share with that place, and that’s something that has not changed. That’s why I love going there. I mean, it’s the same ocean down the boardwalk at Coney Island, which is not a corner of gentleness. So there’s something about Brighton Beach that is just fundamentally different. It’s just its own little universe somehow. Right. This is an urban beach, the backyard for apartment buildings, not some resort in Florida or California. Normal people go to hang out in bathing suits that aren’t necessarily meant to be lusted over. It’s an experience in empathy. Yes, they’re open, but you have to be open, too. It’s democratizing. Stein: That’s the word exactly. Some of these characters are so funny. That’s the other aspect to it that we’ve found. We were making this film right out of col(continued on next page)
February 2024
Something in 4/4 time. Late last year, Robert Fripp—the lynchpin between ambient music and prog rock—appeared on an episode of Daryl Hall’s home cooking and barn jam show Live From Daryl’s House. The series has been airing intermittently since 2007 and is generally a pleasure. (All of the episodes can be found on YouTube.) The reason episode 87 matters to purveyors of rock minutiae is that it constituted a revisiting of a great moment that never happened. Long story sorta short, Fripp produced Hall’s album Sacred Songs in 1977, the same year he produced Peter Gabriel’s second solo album and his own Exposure. The three albums were envisioned as a loose trilogy, but RCA sat on Hall’s panel of the triptych until 1980, thinking (probably rightly) that it was too weird for Hall & Oates fans. Fripp’s appearance at Daryl’s House in November was the closest thing to a celebration of the excellent album they made together since its moribund release—it climbed to #58 on the charts with no hit single in the same year Hall & Oates charted with “Kiss On My List,” “You Make My Dreams” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.” Hall’s crackerjack house band shines on several songs from the album, plus David Bowie’s “Heroes” (on which Fripp played guitar) and a blazing version of “Red,” a key composition for Fripp and his King Crimson.
Sabbath or later Roxy Music along the way. While his previous records were built from piano, voice and loops, the slow churns on Bloom come from programmed beats, disembodied voices and other, indistinguishable sounds, along with his own morose baritone. There’s a lot going on for such a relatively sparse album, and it rather remarkably comes together as a gloomy and coherent whole.
It’s well worth watching, but the reason I belatedly bring it up is The Bloom of Performance, the third album by Hudson Valley songwriter Mark Trecka (cassette and download Feb. 23 via Beacon Sound). Its moody melodicism and eerie soundscapes put the album in line with that long ago, temporary realm of Fripp, Gabriel and Hall, although you might hear lines reminiscent of early Black
Trecka says he wanted to make “the kind of record that might alchemize pain and anxiety and madness,” although he doesn’t pinpoint the source of his malaise. Hunter Prueger, on the other hand, couldn’t be more specific. The emotive force behind Tendencies, the remarkable debut album by his band Middle Sattre (CD, cassette and download out Feb. 9 from Sad Tree Records). The album is a direct confrontation of internalized homophobia, ending in his coming out.
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stories resonate today. That’s why I love — and still love — those characters.
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lege and going there on the weekends, and we found it so hysterically funny all the time. There was so much humor there. It’s so kooky and nutty.
Wittenberg: Another thing is that documentaries from that era were very much issue-driven films. That was a big category. Another big one, particularly for women, was personal films, where filmmakers put themselves in the film telling a story. We didn’t want to do that. And it gave women like Lorraine and Asia the voice to tell their stories. That was important then, and the
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Stein: It’s a film with a very feminine sensibility. And feminist. In a gentle, not kind of diatribey kind of way, it’s a very feminist film. In revisiting the film, has it changed? Does anything hit differently 40 years later?
Stein: This isn’t directly answering your question, but the fact that young people dig it makes me very happy and makes me feel like it’s alive today. I still see tremendous humor in it. It just cracks me up. I think it’s entertaining, which is not a word I would have applied to it in the past. I’ve seen images 1,000 times
Prueger grew up in the Mormon church but slowly, and apparently painfully, shed that skin. He studied composition, earning a master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and has scored films, played saxophone in a circus band performing for children in war-afflicted regions around the world. For Middle Sattre, he writes thoughtful, acoustic chamber pop for a band that includes lots of plucked and bowed strings, along with accordion and trumpet and multiple voices. There’s a catchy sophistication to the songs that sometimes calls Paul Simon to mind. Despite the difficult journey the album details, it’s a surprisingly easy listen.
workbench. The digital flipside is an instrumental version, perhaps intended for more personal rumination.
Completing this accidental trilogy of downtempo downers is a bittersweet single by the Columbus, Ohio–based composer Brian Harnetty. “The Workbench” (download out now on Winesap Records) is a somber, 11-minute meditation on loss, using telephone messages from his father. Harnetty doesn’t build the music around the cadences of his father’s voice, nor does he cut the phone messages into verse format. Rather, the everyday updates serve as simple interjections that drive the piece. The elegiac music is scored for piano, violin, cello and bass clarinet, and based on Harnetty imagining sonic memories embedded in the objects her inherited: tools, radios, speakers, a typewriter and the titular
The thrill of the Chaser. But enough of these cold, wet, February listens. Last month, NYC’s Chaser (not to be confused with some skate punks from the other coast) released their second album, and it’s a searing, controlled frenzy. Planned Obsolence (LP, CD, download from Decoherence Records) cuts like broken glass, with eight tracks speeding past in under half an hour, and is good enough to restart once it’s over. The band is made up of musicians who have played together around the NYC improv scene (Dominika Em, vocals; Chris Welcome, guitar; Shayna Dulberger, bass; and Oran Canfield, drums). At least some of them have also played with that arbiter of all that is brutal Weael Walter, who nailed some PR hype for the record: “The band does not conform to previous conventions of ‘noise rock,’ ‘no wave,’ ‘math rock,’ ‘postpunk’ and all that sort of stuff., but they do creep stealthily around all of them in a refreshingly singular fashion.” Em screams along with Welcome’s guitar in an anguished duet. Canfield and Dulberger march in metered clamor. It’s just the album to chase away your seasonal affective disorder and replace it with something worse.
and still think, “Oh, wow, that’s pretty beautiful.” That place, these people, that face, whatever it might be. It stimulates my eyes still.
Stein: I’m having a blast with it coming back and people enjoying it and talking about it. It’s very gratifying. It’s just a wonderful moment for me.
Wittenberg: I love Lorraine and I love Asia. I’m so happy that we filmed them and that their story lives. And I love little tiny things, like on the beach, there are people on a blanket and one of them has a shopping bag that says “Herman Badillo.” So it has the big things, like the characters, and those little touches that if you love New York... I feel like it’s just such a New York Film — not just a Brooklyn film, but a New York Film, and that’s important to me.
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Wittenberg: And having it at Anthology now is just so extra meaningful. It feels like it belongs there. And that’s perfect.
Brighton Beach screens at Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave in Manhattan, February 9-15, with filmmakers Carol Stein and Susan Wittenberg in attendance at select screenings. Visit anthologyfilmarchives.org for showtimes.
February 2024, Page 11
East Hampton's Neighborhood Diner
T
by George Fiala
ucked away in a corner of the Herrick Park parking lot is John Papas Cafe, which as it says on the menu has been serving good food since 1992.
fish and poultry dishes. You can get chicken milanese, boneless pork chops, Black Angus shell steak, and Flounder Francaise, among many other selections.
I've been playing tennis at the park for the past couple years, and before that I hit tennis balls against the now removed wall next to the courts, but I only started having lunch at the diner recently. It's often pretty crowded at dinner time, as it's one of the few places around that you can get a full meal for $20 or so. A burger can be had for around $10, deluxe including fries and coleslaw for another $5.
Pastas, salads, Greek and Mexican specialties, and a kids menu are also options. You can get wine and beer, with a glass of Cabernet available for $9.95. And every day there are specials. The day I went those included swordfish and also ravioli.
I stopped by for lunch, taking a break from delivering these papers (which by the way you can always get on their outside rack). Since I've been writing these reviews, I've been concentrating on seafood, and this day was no different. I started out with one a Soups of the Day—Seafood Bisque. I have nothing bad to say about this soup. A nice light orangey color, hot, full of pieces of seafood and nicely seasoned. I have no idea whether it was homemade, all I can say is that I enjoyed every spoonful, along with the oyster crackers. For my main course, I chose Fish and Chips. The cod was obviously fresh, moist and nicely cooked with a fried batter. Definitely not frozen.
This is not a tablecloth restaurant.It is well lit with friendly service. You can sit and read a book. Maybe it's not the place you might take a heavy date to, but perfect for families and good friends and old folks like me. By the way, as we all know, East Hampton is well known as an upper crust vacation area, but it has great things for the less high-end people who live and work here. For example, Herrick Park, which has just undergone a renovation, offers three world class tennis courts, available first-come, first served for free. There are baseball, soccer and I hear basketball courts are coming. Plus you could run laps along the perimeter. But in case you would like to run on a professional track, a short drive up Newtown Lane is East Hampton High School, where I go to run laps when school is not in session. And there are tennis courts there to use when Herrick Park is full.
The chips were actually french fries, which at my advanced age I try and stay away from, but it's hard, and I felt it in my stomach later in the day. That says more about my stomach than it does about the fries, but I have to remember to ask for a salad substitution next time. I didn't order a dessert, but they do offer a wide array of ice cream choices, including banana split, a simple dish, not to mention pie a la mode and rice pudding with whipped cream. The menu offers extensive meat,
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My lunch of fish and chips
Both East Hampton and Amagansett have clean public bathrooms in their public parking lots. For those for whom money is no object, a short walk from Herrick Park is Citarella, and there is a perfectly fine Stop and Shop right next to the park. John Papas Cafe Address: 18 Park Pl, East Hampton, NY 11937 Open 7 days for breakfast, lunch and dinner, close around 8:30 pm. (631) 324-5400 Menu: johnpapas.cafe
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February 2024