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THE NEW VOICE OF NEW YORK "We have a new dystopia to worry about: robot-powered fulfillment centers, operated by an all-powerful megacorporation that looks to control every single retail transaction in the country."
Kings Plaza has staying power
O
by Brett Yates
n television, the Democratic candidate Andrew Yang has for the past year run a single-issue campaign for president in 2020, centering a promised universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 a month for every adult in the United States. His website, however, lists about 200 additional policy proposals, the most novel of which may be the American Mall Act, which aims to find new uses for defunct suburban retail space. The plan pledges public subsidies to spur the transformation of shopping malls into offices, indoor recreation centers, or schools. (In 2014, Highland Mall in Texas became an Austin Community College campus.) Yang explains that, due to the prevalence of e-commerce, 300 malls will likely close in the next four years, leaving behind millions of square feet of blight. The text of the proposal begins in an elegiac tone, describing an apparently bygone era: “Malls used to be a hub for socialization and commerce in many American communities. They were where families would go shopping for school supplies before grabbing dinner and catching a movie. Teens would have their first jobs working retail there and spend their Friday nights with friends.”
In a way, the Yang campaign’s nostalgia for shopping malls is more striking than any statistic about tough times in the Amazon-dominated retail market. Not long ago, these sleek consumerist temples symbolized America’s disquieting future of sterile corporate capitalism. Built on the outskirts of cities, they hollowed out historic, mixed-use downtowns, replacing them with false town squares – reachable only by car – where teenagers, mistaking them for public space, contended with private security forces whenever they asserted their right to exist without buying something. Main streets shuttered; local cultures died. Now we have a new dystopia to worry about: robot-powered fulfillment centers, operated by an all-powerful megacorporation that looks to control every single retail transaction in a country where, thanks to online shopping, going outside and interacting with other humans have become optional. To some, shopping malls feel quaint and communal by comparison.
za – at Brooklyn’s southeast corner, in low-density Mill Basin – operates as a destination unto itself, with a massive parking garage attached. In other words, it doesn’t complement a traditional pedestrian shopping district; it exists instead of one.
Kings Plaza is the largest indoor mall in Brooklyn. In the suburban sense of term, it’s the only true indoor mall in Brooklyn: while newer multi-level urban retail developments like Atlantic Terminal and City Point situate themselves within the cityscape, Kings Pla-
Having not shopped at a mall in years, I visited Kings Plaza to see what one looks like in the year 2019. To my surprise, it looks almost exactly like the shopping malls where I used to hang out as a teenager: eerily so, in fact. It brought back plenty of awful memories
Primark is an Irish-based low cost fashion retailer with a big presence in Brooklyn's only true indoor mall. (Photo by George Fiala)
as I wandered its incomprehensible geography for a couple hours. Alongside the notable additions of European fast-fashion retailers Zara and Primark (which, for instance, sells faux-leather chukka boots for the frighteningly low price of $24), the same old clothing stores from 15 years ago – American Eagle, Aeropostale, Express, Hollister Co. – are still blasting pop music and perfume at adolescent shoppers. The salespeople at Foot Locker are still costumed as referees.
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My pup who danced to the beat of his own drum loved Chicken, Jazz, the Laundromat and Sunny Days. He would often shared a beer with you but only an IPA or a Stout. I adopted Chico at Brooklyn Animal Foster Network one day at Ginger›s Bar (Park Slope). I quickly learned he knew Spanish but not English and loved chicken! He passed on a Sunny afternoon sitting in the grass at Valentino Pier Park, taking one last sip of ocean air. Thank you all and your paws for being a friend to Chico! He loved you, Danie
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November 2019
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Letter of the Year!
We picked up a copy of your paper and were so impressed that we want to get a subscription to it. As far as I can tell, you are only charging $20 for a yearly subscription – doesn’t seem right. But, I’ll go with it. Let me know if my information is incorrect.Keep writing, Mary and Steve
Where are the protest songs?
We got a lot of feedback on Jack Grace's piece last issue. The first one was sent by Jewish rocker Dovid Korner. Great piece. Here are the words to a song I wrote and have been playing around NYC. You can listen to it online. In Germany it all began With a separation plan They sewed a yellow star on every Jew Now fast forward to today When there is a plan in play To separate the nation of the Jews. You can label all her goods And in fact I think you should Just make sure you get it right “From the one democracy In a sea of tyranny Shining like a beacon in the night”. Will you put that on your labels? And forsake your myths and fables? Take a stand for truth come don’t be shy You might lose some misled friends But you should know that in the end You’ll be walking with your head held high. Now those that push that BDS They’ll be the first one’s to confess Their aim to tear down the Jewish state But don’t take it from me Investigate and you will see It’s a movement built on hatred and lies.
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So which path will you choose Well of course that’s up to you But to me it’s clear as black and white I’m with that one democracy In that sea of tyranny Shining like a beacon in the night.
Taking issue with Jack
Bruce Springsteen writes, sings, and plays protest songs to millions. Stevie Wonder does likewise. Marc Ribot writes, sings, and plays protest songs, perhaps not to millions at a time, but certainly to thousands all over the world, and is constantly out on tour, bringing it (and punk at heart, he also has a fondness for playing in small clubs in Brooklyn when he’s home). Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine is still raging and just recently performed a one-man show over several nights at the Minetta Lane Theater in Manhattan, playing his guitar that says “Arm the homeless” on it, just as Woody Guthrie’s said “This machine kills Fascists.” Practically everyone in the annual Vision Festival sings, plays, dances, and otherwise performs or performs to protest music. “Punk” bands everywhere in the world write and play protest songs. Toshi Reagon is a walking, talking, singing and playing protest song, unrelenting, as is her Mom. This is a protest against your article. You’re wrong, Jack Grace. Maybe you need to turn off your “media stream”
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page 34
What ha ppened songs? to all the prot Jack Gr ace won est ders Long Ry de Marti Jo rs, Don Dixo n and nes, High Les Sans women Culott , es and Nick Lo we George Grella on Jaso n Mora n Show
But those are other beautiful examples of smart and talented people fighting the good fight. I am actually out almost every night and sing protest songs and hear them. As far as my media stream goes, I’ll just say your assumptions are likely pretty far off base. But when I view the
"resonate deeper than a third of the songs chosen here. But the 1-2 punch of Stevie Wonder's take down of Richard Nixon in "You Haven’t Done Nothing" and his take on inner city injustice for "Living For City" should be here—somewhere! - Marie Bell
BRETT YATES:
Let's give it a rest with this STEAM thing
T
he latest buzzword in education is the acronym “STEAM,” which refers to science, technology, engineering, art, and math. It’s grown especially popular in New York City, where the Brooklyn STEAM Center, a half-day public technical high school offering internships and professional training, opened in the Navy Yard early this year. Where did this term come from, and why does it so excite the disrupters and futurists in the field of education? A decade ago, public officials, nonprofit leaders, and media commentators spent their time urging students to get into STEM – the “A” had not yet shown up. President Obama poured billions into the Department of Education to expand computer science instruction nationwide. Charitable organizations like Black Girls Code, funded by tech companies, made STEM access a matter of social justice, while anxious journalists reported that America’s universities weren’t producing enough STEM graduates to fill highly coveted positions at Facebook, Google, and Apple.
This turned out to be untrue, as later journalists noted: there were more than enough qualified applicants for Silicon Valley’s jobs. But tech companies had hoped to enlarge their labor pool further in order to pay their workers less, and the rest of us obediently declared a crisis on their behalf. The so-called crisis has never fully retreated. There is always a tension in America’s education system between the liberal arts and workforce development. And workforce development is always winning – which is to say that there are always plenty of people who, surveying the dismal state of the world, decide that
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the real problem is that we aren’t doing a good enough job training our children to be of service to this dismal
"STEAM’s art is not art; it’s design. It’s not, as Oscar Wilde would put it, art for art’s sake. It is not an expression of human feeling. It is not a creative political statement. It’s the attractive packaging for a consumer product dreamed up by engineers. It’s the aesthetic quality that Steve Jobs cherished."
world. This idea, in some cases, comes from a place of real concern: a conviction that, in an economic system that generates massive human suffering as an inevitability, the task of our schools must be to create young people so skilled, so useful, that they’ll never become its victims – but of course someone must be. In other words, kids, go into STEM, whether you like it or not. Not all people liked it. In the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, was there no time, these romantics wondered, for poetry and song? In Obama’s second term, the Congressional STEM Education Caucus introduced in the House of Representatives a resolution designating May 2013 “STEM-to-STEAM Month” to encourage “the inclusion of art and design in the STEM fields.” STEAM entered the common lexicon as a means to soften STEM’s hard edges. In doing so, it not only extended the life of a somewhat idiotic moment in our national pedagogy; it also covertly undertook to alter the definition, in the popular imagination, of the new component term it had generously agreed to include among the academic subjects deserving of neoliberal approbation. Why does art belong in STEM? Why not, for instance, history or philosophy, which are equally useless? The reason is that STEAM’s art is not art; it’s design. It’s not, as Oscar Wilde would put it, art for art’s sake. It is not an expression of human feeling. It is not a creative political statement. It’s the attractive packaging for a consumer product dreamed up by engineers. It’s the aesthetic quality that Steve Jobs cherished. It may
(continued on page 4) www.star-revue.com
November 2019, Page 3
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STEAM
(continued from page 3)
involve both imagination and technical skill, but clearly, a version of the humanities that extends only as far as drawing corporate logos, filming TV commercials, and programming video games is not the humanities. Which is not to say that the traditional humanities in the United States have necessarily had a lot of great ideas lately, either. From what I can tell, most universities’ English departments defend themselves against budget cuts by claiming that great communication skills make great CEOs (or, if they stand in opposition to the business community’s academic dictates, they do so in elitist, reactionary fashion, fetishizing the Great Books of Western Civilization as a bulwark against social change); the same sort of logic has likely infected visual art, theater, and music. To some degree, STEAM happened before the term came about. Why, for example, has the dreamboat of every Hollywood romantic comedy since the Reagan administration been an architect – rather than, say, a painter? It reflects our values: the architect makes gleaming skyscrapers to house corporate offices, not pointless abstract blobs on canvas. He is the pinnacle of STEAM. The most powerful aspect of STEAM, as a cutting-edge phenomenon of the digital age, is that it has glamorized vocational training even among middle-class school populations that might otherwise resist it. Instruction intended to confer job-ready skill sets carries one connotation if the job in question is plumbing; it seems to mean something else if it’s software development. And because STEAM integrates with core academic subjects that every child
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must study, it can begin at kindergarten. Locally, for example, PS 676 has rebranded itself as a “maritime STEAM” school. Far be it from me to find fault in this case – PS 676 has gotten short shrift thus far in the ongoing District 15 rezoning, and if using trendy buzzwords is what it takes to convince white parents in Carroll Gardens that sending their kids to school in Red Hook wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, so be it. I have no doubt that PS 676’s STEAM programming will offer fabulous opportunities for children to take on fun, informative projects and to discover their ingenuity. I’m in no way against science, technology, engineering, art, or math. What I’m against is the anxiety that, in many places, drives the STEAM movement. Like STEM, it regards education as a means to prepare children for “the economy of the future” – a fast-paced, demanding place, where only the strong will survive (and philosophers, presumably, will not) – and, as STEAM, bends the arts toward the same pragmatic mindset. It may be worth remembering that the greatest problems facing the 21st century are not technical but political. In my view, the engineering courses can probably wait till college (my dad’s an engineering professor – it looks hard), and it might be healthful in the meantime to read some fiction and history, but I’m not a teacher and have no strong prescriptions for curriculum. My only layman prescription is one of attitude: yes, we all want our kids to be employable, but please relax a little – enough, at least, to believe that we can afford a moment or two for real art amid our daily mandated training in PhotoShop and Final Cut Pro.
November 2019
Identity crisis: why be black when you can be Afro Latino?
L
atin America is the region of the Americas where countries or territories speak Latin-derived Romance languages like Spanish, French, and Portuguese. The term “Afro” denotes Africanness, African heritage, and in essence, blackness. With this knowledge, the term Afro Latino seems simple enough to understand – a black person from a country in the Americas that speaks a Romance language. Afro Latino as a term has been rising in usage within the Latinx or Latino community. However, much like the POC (people of color) label, Afro Latino appears also to be a convenient and socially acceptable veil for antiblackness.
Census confusion Moreover, the United State’s definitions of race and confusing census race categories don’t help either. Owing to the U.S census, Middle Easterners and North Africans are considered “white” on paper, but not in real life. Similarly, “Latino” has long been treated as a racialized ethnicity but is now undergoing a cultural shift within the U.S. Many Latinos are reclaiming indigenous (Native American) and African/black identities, but who exactly is Afro Latino? My family comes from the Caribbean and West Africa: a tiny French Creoleand English-speaking island called Dominica (not the DR), Sierra Leone, and Nigeria. My father was raised in Dominica and moved to Puerto Rico in his teens. My mother is the daughter of a Nigerian government official and a Sierra Leonean teacher. I was raised in a pan-African household, and if there was one thing my parents did right, it was educating me about my heritage (often indirectly). I regularly heard afrobeat and high life (West African musical genres), Celia Cruz and Belles Combo (Dominican Creole Band). Black was and is expansive yet so distinct. I am black and my family comes from the francophone (French-speaking) Caribbean. I am part of the black peoples of Latin America, right? Yes and no. First, the Latino category is applied and used incorrectly. America has very complex and hard rules for race. Latino and Hispanic, specifically, occupy a confusing space. Latino is a racialized ethnicity similar to being Jewish, but unlike Jewish, Latinos as a group are not categorized almost exclusively as white. In essence, Latino is generally used to identify and categorize, “beige-skinned” Spanish speakers who can sometimes be further classified as white, black, etc. by phenotype, or through ancestry (African, European, etc.). There is a big difference between how Sofia Vergara, Cardi B and Jharell Jerome (When
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by Roderick Thomas
They See Us) are received. Sofia is white, Cardi is the “general beige” Hispanic, and Jharell black. However, all three are Latino. Secondly, the non-Spanish-speaking folks in Latin America – Haitians, and Brazilians for example – rarely get acknowledged in the conversation at all, especially French- and French Creole-speaking folks. Beyond academic settings, you won’t see many French and French Creole-speaking people identifying as Latin American, or Latino more specifically. Simply put, the colloquial use of the term “Latino” is not in reference to them – confusing. Thirdly, there’s quite a bit of unchecked anti-blackness within the Latino community. To name a few: Gina Rodriguez’s (Jane the Virgin) habit of erasing conversations about black women, or Evelyn Lozada’s (Basketball Wives) use of monkey emojis to allegedly attack her black costar, OG Chijindu. Anti-blackness is alive within the Latino community. And unfortunately, Afro Latino is also used as a racism hall pass. Many Latinos who neither identify as black nor come from black-identifying parents feel a welcomed part of the Black American community. Often, Latinos (Northeast US especially) partake in the festivities of Black American culture, while also using their growing acceptance of their own archived African ancestry as a barrier to criticism of anti-black behavior (see George Zimmerman). But my father has African roots, I consider myself Afro Latina, I know where I come from, said Gina Rodriguez and Evelyn Lozada respectively, after receiving backlash for their impudent behaviors toward the community they regard as “family.” I’m not the racial identification police, and I welcome the growing awareness of black or African-descended identity among the Latino community. However, if you’re a self-proclaimed Afro Latino, but feel uncomfortable putting black as your race on your ID, and using Afro Latino and black interchangeably, Afro Latino is not a term for you.
Three Latina singers who might be lumped as Afro-Latina. Concha Buika, Yaite Ramos Rodriguez and Goyo. Photos courtesy of the blog Ain't I Latina?
And though the POC label is used as a unifier for non-white people, it also at times functions as a term of erasure for black people. If you don’t combat anti-blackness, it doesn’t matter what term gets popularized, erasure will occur. Whether we identify as Afro
Latino or are in a space of discovery, we need to prioritize decolonizing our minds of normalized toxic “isms.” Our distinctions are our unique attributes, and they don’t have to be dividers. I welcome unifiers, just not erasure. Strategies for Wealth
DUMBO, BROOKLYN TUESDAY 11/12 6:30 - 8:30 PM Jeannie Jackson
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Where's the respect? I often cringe when lumped into the POC category, even by the most well-meaning of folks. Coupling unchecked anti-blackness with marginally guarded access to black culture creates huge problems. If New York has taught me anything, it is that while proximity may afford people the opportunity to become accustomed to one another, it doesn’t mean they truly understand each other. People often tolerate or even enjoy folks, without actually respecting them. Black culture is enjoyed worldwide (Black American culture especially), but is it respected? Is it revered?
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November 2019, Page 5
New library coming to Red Hook
T
he Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) will spend $15 million to build a new Red Hook branch at 7 Wolcott Street. A Community Board 6 Youth/Human Services & Education Committee meeting on October 23 revealed digital renderings of the forthcoming facility, which will replace the circa-1975 library on the same site. Officials say the demolition will take place in the fall of 2020, and they expect a finished structure by the spring of 2022. During construction, Bookmobiles will stand in for the closed library, with the possibility of additional service through community partners. The New York City Economic Development Corporation has contracted the architectural firm LEVENBETTS for the job. LEVENBETTS previously designed the Brooklyn Heights Interim Library (which will continue to operate at Our Lady of Lebanon Church until the completion of the new branch on Cadman Plaza West), as well as an under-construction branch in East Flatbush. In 2015, BPL organized a Red Hook Library Community Engagement Lab at PS 15 to solicit local input on a possible redesign on Wolcott Street. Many Red Hook residents demanded more comprehensive upgrades than the $3.5 million budget for the project would have allowed, necessitating a delay for more extensive fundraising. Councilman Carlos Menchaca’s office has since chipped in, and the proj-
by Brett Yates
ect will also make use of $135,000 set aside for the library’s garden and multimedia room through Participatory Budgeting in 2014 and 2015. A report derived from the Community Engagement Lab has guided the ongoing work of architects Michael Leven and Stella Betts, who will prioritize “flexible spaces” for “different age groups, from seniors to teens to toddlers.” Leven hopes that the new design will communicate “openness and welcoming” in a way that today’s dark, low-slung brick edifice may not. “We felt that it wasn’t a beacon. People weren’t really seeing the library for what it could be at this critical place in the neighborhood,” Leven said. Glass will figure more prominently into the facade of the new library, alongside gray brickwork that will feature an “in-and-out” pattern to create a play of light and shadow. Greenery and sidewalk seating will replace the current security fence, and the entrance will move eastward to the corner of Wolcott and Dwight to try to draw in passersby at the busy intersection. A reactivated bioswale garden on the west side of the building (which will include an outdoor classroom, accessible from a side door within the library) and stormwater planters in front will help keep the library dry in Red Hook’s floodzone.
As recently as 2014, BPL considered cutting the “underutilized” Red Hook Library in half. If the privatization scheme had gone through, BPL would have leased 3,750 square feet in Red Hook to Spaceworks, a nonprofit that rents workspace to artists at affordable rates, for the sake of the local ballet school, Cora Dance. Locals protested the subdivision, and Spaceworks retreated. The new plan ap-
At the meeting, attendees praised the attractiveness of the renderings but wondered whether LEVENBETTS’s airier design could accommodate a sufficient number of books within the
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footprint of the existing library. Betts acknowledged a challenge of competing demands: the architectural concept, predicated on natural light, will require the removal of some of the library’s perimeter bookshelves to make way for windows. But BPL mandates a particular linear footage of shelf space, and the new design will manage to meet the standard thanks to a number of smaller, freestanding bookcases within the lobby.
pears to mark a victory for Red Hook’s library advocates, who will find technology upgrades and additional community programming at the renovated branch. Red Hook native Nurys Pimentel now works as a circulation specialist at the library she frequented as a child. “I’m very excited for this new design. I think that we don’t have a lot of attendance in certain things,” she admitted. “Out of all the neighborhood community spaces, we’re probably the oldest one, except for the Rec Center.” Pimentel believes that, today, many kids prefer the brighter, shinier environment at Red Hook Initiative, the nearby nonprofit, during afterschool hours. “Sometimes I think that’s what it is. It’s just an old building – it’s ‘the same old library,’” she said. “If we have a reinvention, a reopening, something brand new, it’s more inviting.”
Artist rendering of the updated inside.
Red Hook bus riders fight for new B71 line
On November 12, the MTA will host an open house as part of its Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign program, and a contingent of riders plans to use the occasion to advocate for the return of the B71 bus. Red Hookers can make
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their voices heard between 6 and 8 pm at the Park Slope Library (431 6th Ave.). Budget cuts felled the B71, an eastwest connector, in 2010. The proposed new route would extend from Grand Army Plaza to Red Hook before taking the Hugh Carey Battery Tunnel to Lower Manhattan. - Brett Yates
November 2019
Brooklyn's only true indoor mall still a place to socialize in person (continued from page 1)
Bath & Body Works still sells lotions and candles whose trademark scents bear inscrutable names like “Midnight Blue Citrus,” “Frosted Cranberry,” and “Sweater Weather.” A corner of the mall, carved out by Spencer Gifts and Hot Topic, still belongs to the scenesters and goths, reflecting an “alternative” culture largely frozen in time, commodified as Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and Sublime merchandise. Auntie Anne’s, Starbucks, and Häagen-Dazs remain so tempting to shoppers in need of a sugar or caffeine fix that each operates two separate stands at Kings Plaza. People are still consuming 1,080-calorie Cinnabons. Rolling Cow’s ice cream spirals seem to have replaced Dippin’ Dots as “the ice cream of the future,” but the idea is the same. There is still a shiny new car sit- This is one of at least two Auntie Anne's in Kings Plaza. You can get all sorts of pretzel iterations, heated for you. (photos by George Fiala) ting in the mall lobby as though it were in, but the quasi-public spaces aren’t I entered Kings Plaza thinking that I procure goods but as a source of enterthe stage of The Price Is Right, promisfull of plants and fountains like they might at some point feel moved to pur- tainment. We used to wander around ing a free chance to win. were at New Jersey’s Freehold Mall or chase something, like a new sweater, malls for fun – to look at things. Now How stagnant is our corporatized Menlo Park Mall in my youth: in New but I couldn’t find anything suitable. there’s plenty to look at on Instagram. culture? Nothing much changes. But York City, it seems, a mall can simply Shopping is a skill, and if you stop do- If there’s less reason now to enter the when a small businessperson decides be a concentration of stores – it doesn’t ing it, you fall out of practice. I can type real world for life’s necessities, there’s to rent out a space at the mall, their have to be the whole world. the name of a product into the Amazon also less reason to do so for amusequirkier, shabbier booth – bereft of any Possibly owing to its former life as a search bar, but when I survey the array ment. familiar logo – inevitably carries an air cinema, the Best Buy at Kings Plaza has of goods at a brick-and-mortar retailer, But amid my own relative gloom, I of illegitimacy among its bright mula strange format, where a multitude of I no longer spot items of interest; I only could tell that other shoppers at Kings tinational neighbors. It’s always been discrete showrooms fan out from a cen- feel dizzy. At the mall, there was just Plaza were enjoying successful retail that way. Nowadays, the operators of excursions, to which their handfuls of tral gray box on the mall’s second floor. too much stuff, and I gave up fast. the temporary stalls between permaAs a teenager, I regularly bought DVDs Instead of a sweater, I bought a frozen bags attested. I talked to a few of them, nent storefronts play games on their at my local Best Buy, and the one here beverage called a Strawberry Lem- and they all turned out to be Kings Plaza phones instead of looking forlorn as still dedicates a section to Blu-rays, but onade Frost from Auntie Anne’s (un- regulars. One man said that he comes shoppers pass by. of late the retailer apparently has be- pleasantly grainy, insufficiently tart once a week, another two to three times In the suburbs, malls stand in for all so- gun a process of transforming itself into – though I maintain that the Auntie a month. They both mentioned that cial spaces; they are parks and commu- Sears (a former Kings Plaza tenant), Anne’s pretzel dog is one of the better they prefer brick-and-mortar clothnity centers and destinations not only with much of its stock now consisting fast food inventions of my lifetime). ing stores over e-retailers because they for shopping but for dining and enter- of washing machines and refrigera- Then, for lack of anything better to do like to see how the garments fit before tainment. Kings Plaza offers 2,401,524 tors. Appliances may not be as exciting – and because I knew the virtual reality buying them – it’s such a hassle to mail square feet of retail pleasure, but its as video games, but I suppose they pay demonstration station would make me back returns. An Old Navy employee AMC movie theater turned into a Best the rent. Kings Plaza’s other anchors – seasick – I fed a dollar into one of those on break told me that she likes working Buy in 2010, and it has no restaurants which include JCPenney and Macy’s – big black chairs placed within the mall at Kings Plaza, which has seen “a lot of on the scale of, say, a Cheesecake Fac- are reliable standbys, although the Bur- like vending machines for an automat- new stores” open lately. But it gets “very tory. Some health-conscious elderly lington Coat Factory has changed its ed three-minute massage, which I’d crazy during the holidays.” people use the mall’s climate-con- name simply to Burlington and seems never tried before. Even on a Monday evening, the mall trolled corridors to get their daily steps no more coat-oriented than a TJMaxx. The notion of a massage at the mall seemed fairly busy to me. I had arseemed a little silly, but I’d seen a number of other tired shoppers on the machines. Only after I’d sat down on the vibrating seat did I realize that everyone else had simply been using the chairs – presumably against protocol – as regular chairs, without paying. Now that I’d activated the massage feature, it buzzed and jostled me in a remarkably noisy and noticeable way, shaking my entire upper body as I sought fruitlessly to look casual for 180 interminable seconds. By then, it was hard for me to remember why I’d wanted to spend so much time at the mall as a kid. I think it was because I wasn’t old enough to enter a bar and had nowhere else to go when I didn’t want to be at home. But I wonder whether the majority of teenagers today make the same choice. One might speculate that, for some young people, the internet has replaced traditional shopping not only as a means to
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rived expecting to find rows of empty storefronts, but I spotted hardly any (although Forever 21, which filed for bankruptcy in September, will likely close its two-level shop by the end of the year). Outside, frequent B46 buses disgorged passengers. In the hallways, kids played on electronic rides, and security chased off unruly teens. On the outer edge of Brooklyn, Kings Plaza is still a more convenient destination for more people than any mall in the exurbs, and that may keep it in business after Middle Americans have decided that it’s not worth it to drive 30 miles for shopping. In any case, not everyone has yet acceded to the yuppies’ internet-only vision of delivered groceries and subscription underwear, and perhaps it’s unlikely that everyone ever will. I’m not sure the mall is any better, but for now, it’s the devil we know, and a world without stores is the devil we don’t.
November 2019, Page 7
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n October 5th, Prospect Heights resident Jabari Brisport launched a campaign for State Senate in District 25, which stretches from Bedford-Stuyvesant to Sunset Park and includes Red Hook. A math teacher at Medgar Evers College Preparatory School, Brisport ran for City Council on the Green Party line in 2017, earning 29 percent of the vote, but will now vie for the Democratic Party’s nomination. Brisport’s anticapitalist platform advocates for the expropriation of energy utilities, public investments in housing, and the decriminalization of sex work.
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Five days after Brisport’s entry, rumors that incumbent State Senator Velmanette Montgomery would retire in 2020 gained credence when her former aide, Jason Salmon, announced his candidacy in the Democratic primary, as Salmon has indicated that he would not challenge Montgomery for the seat. By his account, Salmon will fight for police reform and an end to mass incarceration.
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Mitaynes and Brisport belong to a slate of four Brooklyn candidates endorsed by the local Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), alongside Boris Santos in Assembly District 54 and Phara Souffrant Forrest in Assembly District 57. Last year, the DSA sent Julia Salazar of District 18 to the State Senate, where her long-shot Good Cause Eviction bill earned the support of tenant activists before falling short in the Assembly. All four DSA candidates consider the bill a major priority. The 2020 primary for the New York State Legislature will take place on June 23.
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Meanwhile, Red Hook’s State Assemblyman, Félix Ortiz, will face at least three challengers in District 51. Marcela Mitaynes, who works for the affordable housing nonprofit Neighbors Helping Neighbors, began her campaign in September, and last month, tenant organizer Genesis Aquino and Community Board 7 member Katherine Walsh also joined the race.
According to the Brooklyn Eagle, Aquino hopes to strengthen protections for workers and immigrants and provide additional funding for NYCHA. Walsh’s platform focuses on environmental issues and facilitating cooperative home ownership for low-income New Yorkers through a reactivation of the Mitchell-Lama Program.
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November 2019
There are no young Republicans in Brooklyn by Brett Yates
W
hat do Alex P. Keaton, Carlton Banks, and Patrick Bateman all have in common? They’re all Young Republicans. All of them are also fictional. In the real world, in 2019, conservatives below retirement age are sometimes harder to come by, especially in Brooklyn’s hipper enclaves. I live in gentrifying Bushwick, where everyone I meet is a 27-year-old tattooed graphic designer, and if any of them voted for Donald Trump, they sure aren’t saying so. That’s not to say they’re all socialist firebrands, but a certain cultural liberalism keeps them out of the hands of the GOP. That’s why a recent op-ed in BKLYNER by the president of the (seemingly oxymoronic) Brooklyn Young Republican Club (BYRC) caught my interest a few weeks ago – not for the content of the piece, but for the existence of such an organization. Who are these people? Being a Democrat is humiliating enough – what kind of young person would go so far as to become a Republican? I decided to go undercover (sort of ) to find out.
barely larger than a closet. The open bar, as far as I could tell, had four bottles of cheap wine and an adjacent stack of plastic cups. 11 spectators sat in rows of folding chairs to watch the presentation with a handful of club officers lingering in back. Very few of the attendees actually looked to be under 40, and one of the promised panelists failed to show. Evidently, most Young Republicans from Brooklyn – to the extent that such people exist – share a pleadingly benign, genial social manner, presumably because they’re accustomed to having other Brooklynites hate them right off the bat and having to persuade people that, contrary to liberal preconceptions, Republicans aren’t all racists or homophobes. Even so, I tried to avoid contact: the gathering
“show up” even in areas that might not offer immediate returns at the polls; it must listen more; it must engage in outreach; it must put forth diverse candidates. In short, it must use new tactics of persuasion to sell its existing politics. But what Judge – who did an admirable job as moderator – really wanted to know was what the Republican Party could actually do for urban communities: that is, how its political program could better serve people of color, LQBTQ Americans, young people, and other groups that currently tend to believe that Democrats have more to offer them. “What are the problems we need to address?” he wondered.
"They’re accustomed to having other Brooklynites hate them right off the bat and have to persuade people that, contrary to liberal preconceptions, Republicans aren’t all racists or homophobes."
Established in 1880, the BYRC is, by its own account, the oldest Young Republican club in the nation; however, the New York Young Republican Club (NYYRC) – serving all five boroughs – makes the same claim. Lately, at least, the rivalry seems to have taken an ideological turn: the NYYRC has gone all in on the ugliest aspects of Trumpism, hosting alt-right celebrities and white supremacists like Mike Cernovich, Jack Posobiec, and Steve Bannon, while the BYRC has continued to promote a sober, dorky conservatism of “limited government” and “personal responsibility.”
The BYRC doesn’t explicitly oppose the president, but one senses that Marco Rubio would’ve suited its membership better. The club’s inclusive (and bizarrely illiterate) mission statement explains that “America’s potential, a strive for perfection in an imperfect world, always rested on the vision and values of the republic that ‘We the People’ established and freely chose to participate in its sole purpose to realize our founding promises for ALL people in this nation.” In a spirit of curiosity, I signed up to go to the BYRC’s #NextGenGOP Forum on October 17, one of the major events on the club’s 2019 calendar. Because the BYRC had rented out the fourth floor of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce in Midtown Manhattan, I expected a swanky occasion; my $20 ticket promised an open bar and a panel with four guest speakers. As it turned out, the rented room inside the Chamber of Commerce was
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was so small that it felt more like an intimate “safe space” for a marginalized group – which happened to have hired three extra friends to hang out for the night – than a public event with room for outsiders and journalists. Moderated by former BYRC president Jonathan Judge, the panel consisted of Pierry Benjamin, who has worked as an outreach director for the New York State Republican Party; Larissa Martinez, founder of Catalyst PAC (supporting “diverse Republican voices for US Congress”); and Josh Perry, Ted Cruz’s former media director. Their subject was urban voters: at a time when every major American city votes blue, how can the Republican Party’s mission evolve to reach beyond rural and suburban areas? The panelists managed to talk around this question for nearly an hour and a half; they had no answer, perhaps because no answer exists. They all agreed that the disconnect between the Republican Party and urban communities would be a major problem in future elections, but their only recourse was political strategy: for its long-term health, the GOP needs to
The limits of conservatism in the city
More specifically, how can a Republican agenda of austerity help impoverished urban neighborhoods whose residents rely on public programs and services, from Medicaid to SNAP to the MTA? In the end, it’s an impossible question. American conservatism, by its nature, has no additive solutions for vulnerable communities; where its culture wars fail to gain traction, it can only hope to convince people of its myth of empowerment through self-reliance, telling them over and over, against their better judgment, that Democratic administrations’ paltry interventions to mitigate economic inequality within a system otherwise rigged against the working class only serve, through their oppressive unwieldiness, to stifle natural pathways toward flourishing within the free market. It’s hard to talk about what you can give to people when your political philosophy revolves entirely around taking things away. But eventually, the panelists came up with an answer: Republicans can build more charter schools and expand school choice! All children deserve an excellent (preferably privatized) education, but the adults are on their own. Apparently, Republican strategists’ lack of a comprehensive plan for the American inner city registers as a gaping hole most of all to the strategists themselves, who, at the #NextGenGOP Forum, worried that the party would be “relegated to the ash heap of history” as rural areas continue to lose population. They believe that Republican politicians won’t retool their approach until they’ve suffered a devastating loss on the national stage in 2020 or 2024.
The last cool Republican mayor
of the Democrats’ Obama-era demographic optimism, which has failed in the years since to bear fruit: as recently as 2015, it seemed possible that, in an increasingly multiracial, increasingly urban America, the Republican Party was already dead. Have the United States’ antidemocratic political institutions – the Electoral College, the Senate – merely provided a stay of execution for the GOP, or will the Democrats forever fail to secure sufficient turnout from their natural supporters to finish the job? In an era defined by grotesque wealth inequality and the existential threat of climate change, a center-right political program seems obviously inadequate to tackle the big problems of the day. For that matter, so does a center-left political program (which may in most ways be indistinguishable). Consequently, socialism has seen a resurgence, as has a kind of fascism. No one at the BYRC will admit that the latter offers the Republicans’ true best shot to stay in power. As the climate crisis worsens and its body count rises, the promise of a just society may begin to fade – in which case voters will turn to the ruthlessness of the national security state for reassurance. They will vote for the candidate who dehumanizes climate refugees, who pledges the biggest border wall and the strongest military, who has no problem cracking down on domestic civil liberties. The goal will not be to save the world but to turn the United States into a fortress with enough resources to allow certain Americans – the ones with money and power – to survive the global apocalypse without a thought for anyone else, or even with a certain satisfaction at the suffering of their inferiors. Republicans will be the natural leaders in this environment. But they won’t be the tepid Young Republicans from Brooklyn.
Their pessimism is the mirror image
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November 2019, Page 9
T
My take on the hug
he legacy of harsh punishment and imprisonment of black people gives context to the outrage over the hugging of convicted murderer Amber Guyger, by Judge Tammy Kemp. Amber Guyger is the Dallas police officer who entered Botham Jean’s apartment, one floor above her apartment, and shot and killed him, believing that he was an intruder in what she thought was her own home. This was while he was famously on his own couch eating ice cream. The initial outrage over the incident stems from the ongoing frustrations of the black community regarding racial injustice, and the nearly unbelievable spectacle of the case. It’s hard to imagine a reversed scenario in which a black man could mistakenly enter an unarmed white woman’s home, shoot twice, kill her and not be arrested immediately. Botham, an accountant of St. Lucian descent, is, unfortunately, one of the more tragic outcomes of the “while black” scenarios: barbecuing while black, selling lemonade while black and the well-known, driving while black to name a few. Society says to be suspicious of black people, even in spaces they (black folks) call home. In 2009 in a less tragic situation, famed professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested in his own home, for noth-
by Roderick Thomas
ing other than a neighbor finding his presence suspicious. It was yet another “while black” incident that exposed the racial divisions in this country. A then-president Obama responded to the event, by having a meeting with both the arresting officer and Gates. In essence, being found suspicious while in your own home, “while black” isn’t new. However, to be shot and killed for simply being at home is devastating.
The trial was a peek into the lives of some officers, a world of god-complexes and missing empathy. On the day of sentencing, facing jail time on a murder charge for the killing of Botham Jean, Amber Guyger was given a 10-year sentence. Botham’s 1 8 - y e a rold brother, Brandt Jean, took the stand to give his impact statement. The relatively c o m p o s e d teenager introduced sentiments of forgiveness and mercy, citing his (and his brother’s) Christian faith saying, “I’m not going to say I hope you rot in jail. I know I can speak for myself, I forgive you, I don’t wish anything bad for you,” before requesting to hug Guyger.
"It’s symbolic of how religion has been used as a numbing agent for black pain."
On September 23, 2019, the trial began and a profile of Guyger was forming. Text messages revealed a young police officer who seemed to regularly make, at the very least, racially insensitive comments about black people with her friends and co-worker and mentor, Officer Martin Rivera. Adding to her profile was the ongoing sexual relationship between Guyger and her married partner, Officer Rivera – himself tied to a 2007 case were he fatally shot an unarmed 20-year-old, Brandon Washington, over an alleged stolen candy bar.
While this moment can understandably be interpreted as a powerful allegory, it’s symbolic of how religion has been used as a numbing agent for black pain: constantly having to look past trauma and give it to Jesus. As Amber Guyger and Brandt Jean approached each other, her arms stretched upward and around his neck, reminiscent of someone hugging their prom date. The scene was as uncomfortable as it was potentially in-
spiring. The cringe-worthiness of the WWJD (what would Jesus do) antics didn’t stop there. The presiding Judge, Tammy Kemp, then proceeded to give Guyger a hug as well and a bible. I have little to no criticism of the brother: grief is complex – there is no antidote for loss. However, Judge Kemp should have kept her arms to herself. The optics of Guyger, a white woman, receiving so much affection after murdering an innocent man was a vividly disturbing reminder of how society responds to white female fragility. The hug was unnecessary. The definition of forgiveness is “to cease to feel resentment against (an offender).” Forgiveness isn’t the removal and replacement of anger and sadness with good feelings. Forgiveness doesn’t require that you be a model of positivity. Guyger received a 10-year sentence, a slap on the wrist to some, and will be eligible for parole in five years. The case has spawned a renewed interest in the 2007 killing of Brandon Washington, by her former partner Officer Martin Rivera. Most recently, the suspicious death of a key witness, Joshua Brown, has raised eyebrows. Brown, Botham Jean’s neighbor, apparently feared for his safety when coming forward to speak openly during the trial. The case seems to be more complex than what is currently understood. Amber Guyger is the first Dallas police officer to be convicted of murder in 46 years.
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November 2019
On domestic violence, a local view by Khary Bekka
I
n September, Naire McCormick, who grew up in the Red Hook housing projects, was killed by her spouse, who subsequently turned the gun on himself. For the people of Red Hook, this marked the second tragedy within the last year stemming from domestic abuse, where a man has taken it upon himself to claim the life of a woman as his possession. This has opened the door to another session of grieving, another session of questioning and another heavy dose of trauma for several families and a community. How do we begin to discuss the issue of domestic abuse so that we can better understand what gives rise to th form of oppression, which continues to claim the lives of tens of thousands of women worldwide each year? In cases of spousal abuse leading to death, we see acts of passion where inflamed emotions like fear, jealousy and envy fuel a deadly rage. The possessive spouse recklessly believes that he or she has rights and rulership over the partner’s soul in life and death. It took me a little while to feel capable of speaking toward this issue in a responsible manner. I needed to hear women speak first. Some time back, I had written an article on the #MeToo movement titled “Why the Me Too Movement Needs to Go Further.” I received some positive feedback on it, but unfortunately, before writing, I had failed to wipe clean the front window of my paradigm and ended up shifting the accountability to women as I advocated for an end to sexual assault. My initial approach to the issue was in line with what has become the common response to the domestic violence dilemma, where we instruct the woman to acknowledge when she is in an abusive relationship and get herself out of it. This is not an adequate response to the problem, due to several factors in abusive relationships. Often fear is instilled into the relationship to keep the woman in place, and a woman who has a nurturing spirit may believe that she can tolerate and help to change the man, which subsequently keeps her caged in an oppressive predicament. The concept of narcissism being expressed through domestic violence has, over the last year, received significant attention in the media, which has
helped shed some light on the typical abuser’s characteristics. Still, does identifying abusive traits in a partner truly serve to remedy the problem of continuous acts of male dominance leading to the death of a woman? In the case of the narcissism theory, we are merely identifying characteristics that in fact are symptoms of what I need to term the disease of domestic violence. In the search for a greater perspective, men, it is time for us to stand up! If someone desired to do a study on the spirit of a society, I would suggest that they observe people commuting on public transportation – I ride the trains daily, heading to work as early as 5 AM. Here is where you can gauge the mentality of people. As a man, I will be the first to tell you that we have lost our way, where we no longer think to consider applying compassion and courtesy in our interactions. This form of machismo is the way of the world, which expresses itself in several aspects of relationships between intimate couples, neighbors and nations. On the subway, I have seen older women, pregnant women, and disabled women forced to stand due to some lazy narcissistic man who does not feel accountable or obligated to show common courtesy or compassion. What does this have to do with the problem of domestic violence? Our cultural paradigms are often and almost always expressed in the little things we do, which reinforce and maintain the habits in our ethics.
attitude of the domestic abuser who feels as if they have the ownership of their spouse’s mind, body and soul because they are physically or mentally stronger than their partner. We can talk about the various symptoms of “might makes right” — one being domestic violence — all day for the next thousand years and still find ourselves with egregious numbers of female deaths here in America and across the globe. Or we can step outside the box to find answers while reconsidering old, harmful paradigms that affect the way we deal not only with our partners but with people in general. I refuse to allow the tragic deaths of two beautiful women from the Red Hook community who died too young from domestic violence to be just another sad story. This is not a question of a women’s strength to leave an abusive man; it is about a man’s strength and willingness to concede his strength to a greater cause. As men we must now take definitive steps to educate our sons about the dangers posed by notions of male dominance while opening their eyes to a better tomorrow governed by a concept of gender equality. Let’s start doing the little things, such as showing respect, consideration and courtesy to women, which will allow us to build up our strength to fight the disease of “might being on the side of
"A woman who has a nurturing spirit may believe that she can tolerate and help to change the man, which subsequently keeps her caged in an oppressive predicament." right” and work toward changing an age-old world paradigm that has fueled the rapes and murders of women and global atrocities of oppression against mankind. Khary Bekka grew up in Red Hook. He got caught up in the violence here in the early 1990s and served a lengthy prison sentence as a result.
The perspective we gain from exploring the root of domestic violence can lead us to a greater perspective about old world cultural practices. Why do men feel as if we have dominance over a woman? Because we have been habitually taught that might is on the side of right! This concept, which lives within our basic relationships between man and woman, ultimately expresses itself in all our relations, from neighbors to nations. The little nation with no standing army and no nuclear weapons has no prevalence on the world stage. Sorry, you’re not big enough or strong enough to matter. As a matter of fact, everything that you own, grow, produce or create is mine to possess because I’m stronger than you and can impose my will on you. This is the
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November 2019, Page 11
Paul’s dreams of John
I
dream of you often nowadays. I must admit that when the Beatles broke up, I was mad at you. We had spent far too much time together. Like brothers, we slept in the same bed sometimes. We were boxed into hotel rooms, having to take refuge from a world that wanted to steal a piece of us. We wrote songs together. We sang songs together. We ate together. What didn’t we do together? The truth is, I needed room. We needed room. And maybe we shouldn’t have both flung ourselves into relationships and pitted ourselves against each other right after the group broke up. But we were kids. Kids who were spellbound by unimagined success. It’s hard to explain to other people, but I’m just a guy. I’m that same kid from Liverpool, even though I look like an old man. Can you believe that, John? I’m an old man. And you are forever young. Always the one to get the last laugh. You left me standing here a long, long time ago. Ok, I know, you’ll say, there I go again promoting my own songs. But we both did that from the day we met. We both pushed our own songs. We pushed each other. But I was your greatest fan, John. Always. You gave me something that I can’t quite put into words. It was more than inspiration. It was meaning, purpose. Focus. We made each other better. Let me tell you something, John. Remember the excitement we all felt when we recorded “I Want to Hold Your Hand”? Especially you and me. That was something else. I’ll never quite get over it, really.
Page 12 Red Hook Star-Revue
by Mike Fiorito What stands out most about that song is that we wrote it together in an almost feverish way. It was as if we couldn’t contain the flood of ideas that came over us. And when I listen to that song now, I hear your voice sometimes in the foreground and sometimes I hear my voice. We didn’t plan that. It just happened that way. We were like one mind. One mind wrapped around each other. Our voices trailing one other, one overtaking the other, both voices lost in the singularity of one voice. Like a Bach fugue, it’s hard to tell when the foreground voice steps back, and the background voice becomes primary. It’s hard for even me to untangle our voices today. Of course, there were songs before "I Want to Hold Your Hand." But that song was our announcement to the world. We are here. The Beatles have arrived. It might be one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded. I won’t go through the many other songs. Songs we wrote together; you wrote a part and I wrote another part. But again, like one mind flowing into another. There are some songs that I hear today, and I honestly can’t tell who is singing which part. We sometimes sounded like each other, our voices often blending, sometimes becoming indistinguishable. When does that happen between two people? Never again with me, and not with you. And then you were taken from us. From me. Ripped from my soul. Imagine the pain I had to endure, not even being able to articulate what I was feeling. I was still reeling from our split. But I was some-
how thriving on the anger. Our egos clashed. Who was the real force behind the Beatles? Who wrote what? And blah blah blah. But, of course, it was all of us and let’s face it, it was you and me especially. And then you left me. For Yoko. You left me. But let’s not go into that. And now, I dream of you. I dream of you always. It’s as if my mind is searching for itself and finds you. But then you’re gone. You’re there and then you’re gone. Then I’m not there. I am he as you are he as you are me. And we are all together. See, one of yours. We’re playing in one of the bar halls in Berlin and my bass melts while on stage. Then we’re playing on the Ed Sullivan show for the first time and, suddenly, you vanish into thin air and I’m still playing, bobbing up and down. But I’m alone and all the world sees me. It’s as if the entire world cries because we’re not together. The whole world misses us, John. Not me or you, but us. It’s not only that I miss you. I miss the me I was with you. We were something else. Something that, together, was greater than each of us. Something, one of George’s. When I hear the songs, or see the videos, I know I’m not watching me; I’m watching the us we used to be. Maybe I’m the one who died and you’re just dreaming me. Two of us riding nowhere. Yours again. Two as one. And so, I’ll dream my way to you. Until I see you again. And smile into your eyes and sing the way we used to. The way we sang as kids in Liverpool and as young men in the Bea-
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tles, in a way no two human beings have ever sung. Two of us wearing raincoats Standing so low In the sun You and me chasing paper Getting nowhere On our way back home We’re on our way home We’re on our way home We’re going home
"Two of Us" lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
November 2019
Dante on Film Joker v Parasite: The State of Class War at the Movies by Dante A. Ciampaglia
I
t’s never “just a movie.” No matter the pedigree, quality, or budget, filmmakers use their medium not just to tell stories and entertain but to engage viewers in some kind of sociopolitical-economic commentary, regardless if it’s Steven Spielberg or Jane Campion or Roger Corman or Ed Wood behind the camera. And when some director deflects with “it’s just a movie,” they’re at best being disingenuous. Or, in the case of Todd Phillips, cowardly. The broteur behind The Hangover trilogy and Old School really went for something with his latest film, Joker, a mash note to the 1970s and ‘80s Martin Scorsese filmography masquerading as a dour origin story of Batman’s greatest foe. And for weeks between its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September – where it inconceivably won the Golden Lion top prize – and its theatrical debut in October, the culture reacted with pearl-clutching, fear-mongering takes about the film creating an incel folk hero that would inspire mass murders at opening-night screenings. Joker would leave the nation’s multiplexes awash in carnage and manifestos authored by society’s most unstable (involuntary) loners! By now Joker’s plot is well traveled: Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a mentally-ill rent-a-clown/ aspiring stand-up comedian scrapes by, living in a rundown apartment with his invalid mother, in 1981 Gotham City. Like early ’80s New York, this Gotham is on the edge of collapse and madness, represented by Arthur, naturally, who loses his tenuous grip on sanity when he’s fired from his gig, goes full Bernie Goetz (while in clown makeup) on three finance bros, and discovers sweet, sweet release in murder. Arthur’s killings become a flashpoint and perverse inspiration for a simmering class war, and he eventually gives in fully to his violent side to become some version of Batman’s long-time nemesis. During its pre-release window Phillips and his star were peppered with questions about violence in movies and their responsibility to the filmgoing public. Both ducked all inquiries with some version of: “Hey, it’s just a movie.” Phillips was loathe to ascribe any meaning to anything — except to say they wanted to tell a gritty story that shook up expectations of comic book movies, man. Except it’s a fundamentally vapid film, spending more time pointing huge neon arrows to its Scorsese riffs than demonstrating any kind of understanding of why those Scorsese movies worked, and continue to resonate, in the first place. (In the worst kind of stunt casting, a woefully miscast Robert De Niro, who starred as the imbalanced wannabe comedian stalker-fan of a Johnny Carson-like talk show host in The King of Comedy, shows up in Joker as a Carson-like figure.) All Phillips seems to care about is evoking Travis Bickke’s instability and grime and Rupert Pupkin’s disconnection from reality. That talk of incel folk heroes and IRL violence
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falls flat because Arthur inspires no feeling or empathy in any direction. An excellent Phoenix, channeling a version of his character from Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, is wasted on a character that goes nowhere, emotionally or otherwise. And yet, despite Phillips’s insistence, Joker has a lot on its mind, especially when it comes to class. After Arthur murders those Wall Street types, who happen to work for Thomas Wayne, the beatendown poor begin wearing clown masks (evoking V for Vendetta) in solidarity. Wayne, running for mayor, belittles the poor who don’t appreciate rich Gothamites’ largesse as clowns, inspiring Occupystyle protests, which become full-on rioting after Arthur kills De Niro’s character on live TV. (This, in turn, leads to Wayne and his wife, looking for all the world like Steve Mnunchin’s worse half, being assassinated in front of young Bruce.) Joker is clearly not “just a movie,” and despite its myriad problems it does leave you feeling conflicted: Is Joker inept or merely misguided? Clarity comes from an unexpected place: Parasite, director Bong Joonho’s bonkers reckoning with class in contemporary South Korea, which unanimously won the Palme d’Or top prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Parasite is a vastly superior film
The impeccable film – quality and precision dripping from every frame – is a study in contrasts. The Kims, barely existing in the slums of a South Korean city, slowly ingratiate themselves as servants of the Parks, an uber-wealthy new-money family: poor son, Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi), teaches the rich daughter (Ji-so Jung) English; poor daughter, Kijeong (So-dam Park), teaches the rich son (Hyunjun Jung) art; poor father, Ki-taek (Kang-ho Song), drives the rich tech-executive father (Sun-kyun Lee); poor mother, Chung-sook (Hye-jin Jang), is housekeeper for the rich, aloof stay-at-home mom (Yeo-jeong Jo). We laugh as the Kims hoodwink one Park after another. We cringe as the Kims cook up a fake TB diagnosis to overthrow the Parks’ longtime housekeeper. And we’re emotionally caught between the Kim’s drive to chip a bit of 1% excess off for themselves and sympathizing with the Parks, who seem to have the best of intentions. Bong is no stranger to class war. His 2013 film Snowpierecer imagines a dystopian future where survivors of an environmental disaster are packed into a never-stopping train and create a new kind of offthe-rails society of haves and have nots. Parasite, by comparison, is tame. It still veers in some seriously unexpected directions, though, which must be experienced cold for maximum effect. But unlike Joker, Bong’s film is wholly unpredictable – and quite up front about its point of view. It’s a pointed, essential cry against the unconscionable income gap swallowing up cities and nations, as well as the systems that prioritize the health and comfort of a wealthy few at the expense of the safety and basic human decency of everyone else. And it’s brave in
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all the ways Phillips’s film is not. Parasite is a direct confrontation with the now and the issues impacting people today, from the obscene extremes born out of runaway hypercapitalism to the pointed critique of technology. The Kims rely on, and are in ways addicted to, their devices while the Parks’ lifestyle, paid for with tech money, is relatively tech-free. Joker, on the other hand, is set 40 years ago – perhaps as a way to inoculate itself against claims of political sloganeering – and couches whatever arguments it does make in blunt (and bluntly terrible) dialogue. “They don’t give a shit about people like us,” Athur’s African American social worker tells him as they both become victims of Gotham’s austerity cuts. Well, yeah, of course they don’t. Anyone who has struggled with making rent or tracking down a missed unemployment check knows that. Phillips presents this as some kind of revelatory insight into the way the world works, while Bong treats it as it is: the callous, uncaring system is a source of white-noise existential dread woven into the fabric of the lives of too many people chewed up, spit out, and left behind by the not-so-invisible hand of the not-so-impartial markets. For all his posturing, Phillips didn’t make a film that shakes up comic book movies. That’s an accomplishment that belongs to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther. Rather, he made cinematic clickbait, aggregating and reconstituting other people’s better content with a sensational title slapped on to get us to consume it. (And consume we have! As of October 23, it has taken in more than $747 million worldwide, a staggering sum for a film that cost $55 million and was almost never made.) Bong’s film, on the other hand, is unquestionably original. Its confidence, navigation of wicked tonal shifts, and subtlety – Parasite’s class conflict ultimately turns on Mr. Kim overhearing an offhand, almost neutral observation made by the Park patriarch that his driver smells like an old radish or boiled clothes – belong to a tradition that puts the director alongside Preston Sturges (The Lady Eve), Carol Reed (The Fallen Idol), Wes Anderson (Rushmore), and, yes, Scorsese (Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore). And while it’s Korean, it might be the most important American film of 2019: a take-noprisoners howl against the human and environmental toll of hypercapitalism and class sorting. It’s the kind of urgent work that will resonate well after this moment has passed because it is absolutely, unrepentantly of this moment. Joker might laugh all the way to the bank, but Parasite is the lasting accomplishment. It’s the kind of film future Todd Phillipses will chase for decades in their work because it’s agit-cinema at its best – and it’s never “just a movie.” Courtesy of Neon/CJ Entertainment (Parasite)
November 2019, Page 13
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Page 14 Red Hook Star-Revue
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November 2019
On Film Leonardo: The Works Everybody knows the Mona Lisa. Some have seen the Mona Lisa from behind a rope after queuing up at the Louvre. Only a few have gazed upon it up very close. Now, due to technological advances, all can linger on extraordinary digital presentations of the Mona Lisa along with Leonard’s other paintings, drawings and sketches. We can see the cracks on the faces, the stitches on the clothing and the watery eyes of his very human portraits. Presenting every attributed painting (22 in all) in Ultra HD, Leonardo: The Works is a new film that offers a unique view into the life and vision of this important artist. In addition to the Mona Lisa – The Last Supper, Lady with an Ermine, Ginevra de’ Benci, Madonna Litta, Virgin of the Rocks and more than a dozen other works come to life for the first time on the big screen.
surrounding the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, which prompted most galleries and museums owning Leonardos to embark in advance upon restoration projects. Filmed on location throughout the world, this powerful film provides new insights into the art and mind of Leonardo.
Leonardo: The Works is coming to the Village East, November 7 and November 13, and Symphony Space on November 9.
The score contains recent work by I Fagiolini and some of their new album Leonardo: Shaping the Invisible, which has enjoyed tremendous success. - Michael Fiorito
The movie benefits from the fanfare
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On Art
Renovation, Remix, and Recontextualization: What is MoMA in 2019?
A
s October was here, the time had finally arrived. With the crisp and cool autumn air in my lungs, I set foot in a museum which, like much of the rest of New York’s art-loving public, I had eagerly awaited following its four-month, $450 million, and additional 47,000 square-foot makeover. Would New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, a seminal institution for the collection and display of modern art, in its current location since 1939, continue along the lines of its tried and true curatorial direction, adhering to a linear view of the history of Modernism? This history, involving jumps from one predominantly white, male, and European “-ism” to the next has always featured prominently in the museum’s collection. Furthermore, within MoMA’s main exhibition halls, visual art, design, and architecture were always neatly subdivided, all seemingly within different spheres of existence and influence. The resulting hopscotch between temporary exhibitions and discipline-specific shows which filled the permanent collection’s gaps could often cause traffic jams for visitors. The 2019 MoMA represents a step into the future, one in which we can consider Modernism’s more global and diverse context. It is one where photography, design, and architecture inflect and inform painting and sculpture, and the physical space of the museum allows visitors a more fluid way to enjoy all of the above. Though the main story here is the beginning of the disruption of the institutionalized narrative of Modernism, the seemingly small changes throughout the museum are just as impactful – making this iteration of MoMA more generous to art history and its visitors alike.
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by Piotr Pillardy
"In contrast to New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman, who called it 'sprawling' and 'slightly soulless,' I feel that this fairly static collection of history-changing works has been finally given the room to breathe and be contemplated outside of a structure that has remained functionally unchanged for decades."
Entering the museum from the 53rd Street entrance, I’m greeted by Philippe Parreno’s commission, an installation of algorithmically controlled marquees hanging in the middle of the new lobby. Providing a cleaner entrance and sequence for visitors, the new entrance hall was a great prelude to what would be a reimagined collection of some of the world’s greatest modern art. These ground floor galleries are also now free to all visitors, helping showcase the art to a broader audience. Starting my visit on the fifth floor in the 1880s1940s galleries, I’m hit with the first significant moment in this reimagined Modernism: Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night (1889) (now in a more subdued, period-appropriate frame) sharing a room with Woman with a Veil (1885) by Medardo Rosso, and the innovative pottery of George Ohr from the American South of the early 20th century. Though these artists may never have met in person or encountered each other’s work, they were all pushing the boundaries of art’s conventions in their own different geographic locations. In contrast to New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman, who called it “sprawling” and “slightly soulless,” I feel that this fairly static collection of history-changing works has been finally given the room to breathe and be contemplated outside of a structure that has remained functionally unchanged for decades. Some of the works now showcased within the traditional, “greatest hits” sections of the museum include numerous recent acquisitions as well. Part of this change includes museum infrastructure, like the inclusion of dozens of new benches. The few exist(continued on next page)
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November 2019
ing before mostly served bored teenagers whiling away the time on their phones, but now will truly allow visitors to have that longer contemplative moment with their favorite works. Other additions include more windows in the galleries, which at times provide a much needed visual break from the sometimes overstimulating curatorial offerings of the museum walls and exhibition spaces. These windows furthermore help maintain the connection between the works and their location within the city. Moving into the next room, I was delighted to find a gallery dedicated to photography and film from this era, significant due to this media’s often maligned place within the art historical canon. Featuring early videos of New York City’s subway, silver prints from glass negatives of architectural details, and stereoscopic photographs of World War I, this rooms shows artistic depictions of the time period. Much in the same way, other galleries on the fifth floor, such as one devoted to design, seamlessly transition from rooms filled with paintings and sculpture to a completely intact turn-ofthe-century German kitchen (itself the earliest work by a female architect (Margarete (Grete) Schütte-Lihotzky) in MoMA’s collection). A room filled with models devoted to an architectural history of the skyscraper, The Vertical City, also did not seem out of place within this dialogue on the development of Modernism. Other rooms present a complete curatorial tour de force, such as Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) paired with Faith Ringgold’s American People Series #20: Die (1967). The Picasso piece, a seminal example of the artist’s Cubist
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style and incorporation of European colonial interest in African face masks, and Ringgold’s piece, showing the unrest tied to racial and gender discrimination in America in the 60s and inspired by Picasso’s piece Guernica, engage in a meaningful contextual and visual dialogue. Though these steps in the collection’s curation represent a powerful move away from a prescriptive linear Modernism, the job is only just beginning. However, the museum has vowed to change a third of the entire permanent collection every six months, allowing some of MoMA’s often forgotten treasures and new acquisitions to shine. Some spatial curatorial decisions help vary visitors’ engagement with different rooms, such as the Surrealist room, which now has walls painted dark magenta, dim lighting, and interesting physical arrangement of works. An example is Rene Magritte’s False Mirror (1929), hung well above eye level. The work seemingly follows visitors in the room as well as staring down at them across into a neighboring gallery. Other video works are also projected at this height, creating a dynamic contrast with other works in their respective spaces. Another pleasant surprise was a room dedicated to Henri Matisse’s Swimming Pool (1952) from the artist’s Cut-out series. Acting as a tranquil sanctuary from the city, it is a room where visitors can truly find peace within the fourth floor. Outside of the permanent collection, the museum will of course continue hosting temporary programming, the first iterations of which includes The Shape of Shape (selections from the permanent collection curated by Amy Sillman), a sound/ sculpture piece by artist David Tudor, and Betye
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Saar’s The Legends of Black Girl’s Window, among others. The approach the museum takes does not feel defensive of its own history. On the contrary, it feels like a more meaningful response and dialogue with those who critically consider the role and responsibility of monolithic cultural institutions in 2019. This does not mean shelving or forgetting the Starry Nights of the collection; rather, we can consider the other artistic developments taking place simultaneous with yesteryear’s canonical greats. With this rehang of its permanent collection, MoMA takes a step forward in both showcasing a greater variety of its vast art holdings and also presenting a more inclusive and diverse view of Modernism. Oh, and did I mention the café now has pretzel croissants?
PHOTOS (clockwise from upper left on previous page) : Phillipe Parreno’s lobby commission (from ARTNews) Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) Subway, 14th Street to 42nd Street 1905 Starry Night room Amy Sillman, The Shape of Shape Faith Ringgold’s American People Series #20: Die (1967)
November 2019, Page 17
On Books In the Dream House by Kelsey Liebenson-Morse
C
armen Maria Machado is a queer writer who gained a widespread following from her experimental collection of eight short stories: Her Body & Other Parties; (2017) a finalist for the National Book Award. Machado’s debut is dark, playful and experimental. In “Especially Heinous,” Machado rewrites 300 episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and in “The Husband Stitch,” Machado plays with the idea of masculine control by rewriting the story of a girl with a ribbon tied around her neck to keep her head attached to her body. Her latest work, In the Dream House, explores a different type of danger, this time recalling a violent relationship Machado experienced on and off during graduate school. Not only is her second book nonfiction, but it is deeply intimate, exposing the type of verbal, psychological, and physical violence that can wreak damage upon any relationship. Released by Graywolf Press in November, In The Dream House is a mixture of memoir, vignette, and academic rigor. The plot is simple. Machado meets “the woman” who validates her, provides a brilliant and electrifying sex life but also locks her out of the house, screams insults, and threatens to kill her. But Machado can’t stay away and for every insult there is a moment of tenderness. In the relationship the woman tells Machado she is beautiful and worthy but then repeatedly calls her phone, accuses her of infidelity, slams doors and gets high before meeting
Machado’s family for the first time. The woman’s erratic behavior is enough to drive anyone away and readers will find themselves urging Machado to run. What I found most interesting about In the Dream House was not the content, but the persistence with which Machado reflects on her ex-partner, and her own participation in an abusive relationship. She is honest in her exploration of the relationship and in admitting her own participation in the dynamic. Much of the memoir is tonally similar to the compulsive diary of someone who frequently relaxes with Kahlil Gibran but is also willing to look inward – you get the sense that the memoir was written for catharsis while seeking absolution. There is a manic quality to the book that mirrors the instability of the relationship. As Machado writes, “Sometimes you have to tell a story, and somewhere, you have to stop.” Many lines read like poetry — “...warm blood down the back of your throat; milk, and metal” – and the writing can feel dizzying, lacking the crystalline quality of memoirs I most admire such as Gornick’s Fierce Attachments or Wolff ’s This Boy’s Life. However, In the Dream House is a brave and incredibly painful journey inside the contours of a relationship that feels primarily bad. I found myself desperately hoping that writing the memoir made Machado feel better. The narrative takes a surprising Shakespearean turn and I can rest easy knowing Machado is now safe and happily married. Machado seems most intent on dispelling utopian notions
of lesbian relationships, or any relationship at all. Machado wants to remind us that violence happens everywhere. We must remain vigilant and vocal, and her memoir is a reminder of this necessity for knowledge and advocacy.
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November 2019
On Food Acme Smoked Fish’s humble beginnings and Fish Fridays
I
by Erin DeGregorio
f you live in Brooklyn and have eaten bagels and lox during a Sunday brunch, there’s a good chance that the fish came from Acme. Acme has been distributing smoked fish from its Greenpoint warehouse since the mid-1950s. But the story didn’t start then.
“For me it’s a combination of three things: sustaining our family’s multi-generation legacy in smoked seafood, honoring the commitment to our employees to provide safe, continuous employment, and making a product that becomes part of family celebrations where food is the catalyst for the joys of life,” Caslow said.
A brief history
He also acknowledged that while his detail-oriented grandfather, uncle and father didn’t take many risks, they focused on their core competencies and doing those well, instead. With that said, Caslow attributes Acme’s success to the Brownstein-Caslow family members and to the employees – many of whom are from the neighborhood and have been working there for more than 10 years.
Russian immigrant Harry Brownstein came to Brooklyn in 1905 and distributed smoked fish, purchased from local smokehouses, to appetizing stores throughout the city with his own horse-drawn wagon. Thirty-two years later, in 1937, Brownstein partnered up with Mike Seltzerman to create a smoked fish company in Brownsville. It was the next year that fresh-out-high-school Rubin Caslow came into the picture, becoming a smoked fish jobber; a few years later he married Brownstein’s daughter Charlotte, who worked as a bookkeeper at the company. Family involvement grew after World War I with Brownstein’s sons Joe and Morty later joining the business. In 1954, Brownstein and his sons opened their own plant — called Acme Smoked Fish — that was a rented space at 26 Gem Street in Greenpoint. The name “Acme” was partially chosen because it would be listed first in the physical Yellow Pages directory. When Brownstein died in 1969, he left his family the business and a legacy of tradition. Within the next couple of years, Robert and Eric Caslow, Rubin’s sons, joined Acme and the business itself expanded into the adjacent Williamsburg Steel building where smoked fish packages would be produced. From the late 1970s to late 1980s, Acme focused on its growing line of smoked fish products and packs that were distributed in multiple supermarket chains. Eric’s sons David and Adam, who joined in 1995 and 2006 respectively, currently represent the fourth generation at Acme. Acme co-CEO Adam Caslow told us that he’s executed almost every job there, from cutting fish to driving a truck, in the last 13 years. Those jobs have given him perspective on what it takes to be successful. He provided insight into what personally motivates him to keep the company running, which coincidentally just celebrated its 65th anniversary as a physical location.
Fish Friday tradition While Acme Smoked Fish, Blue Hill Bay and Ruby Bay products are available in local supermarkets and major retailers, you can actually visit Acme’s recently expanded factory outlet and buy fresh fish at close-to-wholesale prices. The outlet is open to the public every Friday, 8 am to 1 pm, at 30 Gem Street. The tradition of Fish Friday was introduced last year as a result of being a part of the local community, according to Acme Senior Marketing Manager Ellen Lee-Allen. Metro US reported last year that Greenpoint was home to the country’s second largest Polish population, second only to Chicago. Lee-Allen explained that a lot of their Polish workers, who happen to be Catholic and eat fish on Fridays, wanted to buy and bring home different fish products.
their fish with salt before naturally smoking them – either through a cold process (for salmon, tuna and sable) or a hot process (for salmon, tuna, trout, whitefish, and many others) – one batch at a time, using a blend of ingredients that have been in the family recipe for generations. Heat doesn’t exceed 85 degrees in the cold smoking process, which can take up to 20 hours in total. On the other hand, fish need to be cooked at 145 degrees or higher, for at least a half hour, during the hot smoking process. Acme produced 15 million pounds of smoked fish – 9 million of which were salmon – last year alone, according to an October 2019 article by Bloomberg. As I patiently waited with those eager to get their hands on smoked salmon, Acme workers carted, stickered and stacked boxes of products that were waiting to be picked up for shipment. Among my fellow customers, there were older gentlemen talking about the latest sports scores, a middle-aged woman who looked like she walked right out of the pages of Vogue magazine, a young couple with tattoos planning out the rest of their day, and kids joining their parents since it was a long holiday weekend. As you make your way closer to the entryway that brings you to the fish selection, there’s a large sign that provides the prices for signature smoked salmon, whitefish, pickled herring, spreads and salmon jerky. There is also Gary’s Fish Friday Special, named after production manager Gary Brownstein, which varies week to week. When I made it to the refrigerated area, Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” played out loud while smiling employees asked customers what they’d like to order and if they wanted to try some samples before making a decision. After providing your order, an employee hand-cuts and weighs the fish and then gives you your number. Once called, you pay for your fresh protein with either cash or credit card and leave to go to your next destination. The gentleman in front of me, for example, spent nearly $155 on a variety of fish and extras. By the time I walked back outside, the line was even longer than it was 40 minutes earlier. Based on Acme’s energy and the line’s length, it looks like Fish Friday will remain popular for years to come.
“In the beginning, we really didn’t sell to the consumer directly,” she said. “Now, it’s more than a neighborhood thing – Acme’s become a destination for the tristate area. People love to come here.” I traveled to Greenpoint in early October to personally experience Fish Friday. If you’ve never been there, try to get there as early as possible because the single-file line does get long and even extends onto Gem Street as the morning carries on. The strong aroma of blended fruitwood chips, which are used to smoke the fish, fills the air. Acme cures
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November 2019, Page 19
On Food
Manhattan’s oldest Italian restaurant is landmarked and looks it
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arbetta – the oldest Italian restaurant in New York and oldest restaurant in the Theatre District at 113 years old — is outfitted in four townhouses that date back to 1874. Its outside is deceiving, given the brownstone façade and shielding trees, and you might pass it by during the day if you don’t carefully look to see the restaurant’s brown-tinted, vertical sign. But when you walk down the two steps to the restaurant’s ground level and enter, it feels like you’ve been transported to a world of old-school European royalty.
by Erin DeGregorio is just one example of her collector’s eye and the authentic Italian style. The chandelier, which dates back to 1775, had actually belonged to the Savoys – Italy’s royal family who ruled from 1861 to 1946 and lived in a palazzo in Turin (Piedmonte’s capital). When the Italian people voted to become a repub-
The parlor floor, which has its own private entrance from the street, consists of the 1881 townhouse’s original dining room, library (now known as the Wine Library) and drawing room (now known as the Rose Room). The original fireplace, as well as the woodwork and period details, is still intact.
The prestigious and highly selective non-profit cultural association Locali Storici d’Italia designated Barbetta a “Locale Storico,” or “Historic Establishment,” in 1991. To be considered for that title, “the premise must have at least 70 years of operations, preserved environments and original furnishings, memorabilia, memories and historical documentation on events and illustrious visits.” At that time, it was the first and only American restaurant to have been given that honor. Now, only Caffe Reggio (located in Greenwich Village) has joined Barbetta in representing the United States. With that said, the restaurant’s interior cannot be altered in any way.
Nobel Prize in the family Laura Maioglio's husband, Günter Blobel, is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who, as young man during WWII, witnessed the destruction of Dresden. In 1954, he fled Eastern Germany because he was not allowed to continue his education at a university. He wrote of his wife, "Laura has introduced me to many artistic pleasures that I had not experienced before. She greatly encouraged me in my work and never complained about the many hours I spent in the laboratory." He donated the entire sum of the Nobel Prize — in memory of his sister Ruth who was killed in an air raid on a train she was traveling in 1945 — to the restoration of Dresden.
Current owner Laura Maioglio, who took over her father Sebastiano Maioglio’s restaurant in 1962, purposely redesigned the interior to pay homage to her family’s heritage and to evoke elegance. This, she felt, would help serve as a backdrop to the food Barbetta served – the cuisine of Piedmonte, Italy’s northwestern-most region that borders on Switzerland and France, where her family’s from. “From a decorative point of view, the style of 18th century Piedmonte was at its height,” Maioglio explained. Though she never worked with her father or behind the scenes in Barbetta before, Maioglio was very cultured and had a degree in art history from Bryn Mawr College. By the time she was in college, she had already been collecting antiques in Italy and occasionally in New York, and knew how to negotiate with sellers. Maioglio realized that, if she wanted this project to succeed, she would have to be precise and find as many authentic pieces as possible.
lic in 1946, nearly a year after World War II ended, the House of Savoy’s rule concluded. One clause stated that the family could never return and another clause stripped them of their wealth, including their properties.
The hanging chandelier in the main dining room
Another big task Maioglio had was finding 180 identical chairs from the 18th century. She visited the Accorsi–Ometto Museum in Turin (Italy’s first decorative arts museum) and found a chair that fit her vision. With the museum’s permission, she reproduced the model chair in Italy and had all 180 chairs shipped back to the United States. Maioglio also obtained a 1631 Francesco Fabbri harpsichord that’s currently on display in the restaurant’s foyer.
“[The government] was selling the furniture in that palazzo, but I negotiated that chandelier for two years [until] they finally sold it to me,” Maioglio said without disclosing how much she spent to purchase it.
Unfortunately, her father never saw Barbetta’s transformation because he later passed away after suffering a stroke. Following his death, Maioglio purchased the two backyards of the adjoining brownstones and combined them in 1963 to make a giant garden. The garden is open during the warm weather and even serves as an outdoor venue for private parties and weddings. It showcases centuryold trees, plus magnolia, wisteria, oleander, jasmine
Page 20 Red Hook Star-Revue
and gardenia plants.
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Laura Maioglio and her Nobel Prize winning husband Gunter Blobel.
November 2019
On Food
Nom Wah owner Wilson Tang talks traditions and Chinese-American classics
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he 200-foot-long Doyers Street in New York City’s Chinatown was infamously known as the “Bloody Angle,” due to the street’s natural sharp bend and the criminal activity and bloodshed that took place between warring gangs in the early 1900s and late 1980s. More recently it’s been recognized in singer Justin Timberlake’s 2013 “Take Back the Night” music video, with Timberlake singing and dancing in front of and inside various establishments on Doyers Street. But along one of the alleyway’s curves is Manhattan’s oldest dim sum restaurant, Nom Wah Tea Parlor. Unbeknownst to many, 11-13 Doyers Street is not its original address – nor did Nom Wah always sell dim sum. Opened in 1920 by Ed and May Choy, Nom Wah was located at 13-15 Doyers Street as a tea parlor and bakery, famous for selling mooncakes that were huge favorites during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Nom Wah lost its lease for the bakery portion in 1968, forcing the family to move into the available space next door, which incidentally had a brand new kitchen.
by Erin DeGregorio to be in the hospitality field and took over the family business from Uncle Wally in 2010, despite a previous failed attempt at opening his own bakery. Wilson expanded the Nom Wah brand, opening another establishment in Philadelphia (on the outskirts of the city’s Chinatown) in March 2015, plus a fast-casual dining spot a year-and-a-half later in Manhattan’s Nolita. The Nolita location features self-service ordering systems, traditional steamed dumplings and dishes that blend classic Chinese flavors with American ideas. Wilson spared some time to discuss how the restau-
Wilson’s uncle Wally, an immigrant from China, began working at the restaurant as a dishwasher in 1950 when he was 16 and became its manager by the time he turned 20. He then had the opportunity to buy the building and the business from the Choys in 1974 – the same year Wilson’s parents immigrated to the US. It evolved, not just staying as a restaurant but also becoming a place for locals and loyal customers to hang out and play card games. Wilson didn’t actually spend much time at Nom Wah growing up. He said he has fond memories of when his family would drive into Chinatown on the weekends for grocery shopping in the ’80s, and that he would visit Uncle Wally and spin on the bar stools. Wilson, who has a bachelor’s in finance, worked in a financial firm in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and managed to escape, as he detailed in Hormel Foods’ Our Food Journey podcast last year. The tragedy led him to reevaluate what he wanted to do in life, including his career. He wanted
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WT: When my Uncle Wally was trying to pitch me taking over this restaurant, he showed me the dining room and said that we could modernize it. I told him that I liked the way it currently looked with the mismatched tiles and swiveling bar stools. Apart from installing new equipment in the kitchen, the restaurant looks the same as it did many years ago. As for the new, there’s the fact that we have a big digital presence, which also gets at your question of where we attribute success. But even with digital, we are careful to pay attention and give credit to the neighborhood and everyone who has carried this restaurant through an entire century. RHSR: What are the most popular items among customers? Any personal favorite item(s)? WT: I think the most popular items among the customers are pan-fried noodles, pork buns and soup dumplings. But for me, I personally love all our rice rolls – nothing more satisfying than slurping them up!
While it remained a bakery throughout the second half of the 20th century, Nom Wah also added dim sum to the menu. “When enough people are asking for specific things, you find a way to make it happen for your customers. Otherwise, someone else will,” said Wilson Tang, the current owner and operator of Nom Wah.
the restaurant?
Wilson and Wally
Since it’s the 150th anniversary of the completion of America’s First Transcontinental Railroad, Tang is currently fundraising for the Museum of Chinese in America. To learn more about it, visit mocaspike150.org/moca-spike-150/. Tang’s donation page is crowdrise.com/o/en/campaign/ moca-spike-150/wilsontang2.
rant recognizes and embraces the past and present as it prepares to celebrate its centennial anniversary. RHSR: Tell me about the importance of having and cultivating ties to not just your customers, but to the local community as well. WT: I’ve often said that I feel like I have my feet in two worlds – part of me is ingrained in Chinatown and the other part of me experiences life as a second-generation Chinese American in the 21st century. The local community is incredibly important to me, as it is where so much has happened for the Chinese in America, particularly in New York. From a business perspective, our vendors are from the immediate area. When we talk about the cultural ties from a personal point of view, it ranges from me running the NYC Marathon to supporting the Museum of Chinese in America to greeting familiar faces when walking down the street [and] taking my kids to Chinese school. RHSR: How do you keep the balance between old and new, tradition and modern day, when running
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Doyers Street's Nom Wah in 1938
November 2019, Page 21
On Food
Sahadi's original Atlantic Avenue store back in the 1930's
Sahadi’s 4th generation keeps it growing
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ahadi’s, the James Beard Award-winning specialty grocery that spans three storefronts on Atlantic Avenue, has become a part of Sunset Park’s commercial fabric after opening in Industry City two months ago. It’s just a few blocks from their production facility, which houses an 18-foot-tall roaster that freshly roasts top quality nuts and seeds, stores thousands of pallets of imported delicacies and supplies accounts across the country. “I think the best part of Industry City has been the terrific collaborations with other tenants and building management. It is a chance for us to showcase all of the things we always wished we could do at [the Atlantic Avenue location],” says lifelong Brooklyn resident and Sahadi’s co-owner Christine Sahadi Whelan. “Each day is fun as we grow into our new space.”
by Erin DeGregorio Middle Eastern customers, according to Whelan. His nephew Wade Sahadi, who emigrated from Lebanon in the 1920s, worked with his uncle and later relocated the shop to Brooklyn in 1948. The move to Brooklyn happened due to the construction of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, which opened to traffic in 1950. Wade’s son Charlie took over the business in 1967, with the help of his wife Audrey and his siblings Bob and Richie. Now, more than a hundred years later, Sahadi’s offers fine grains, spices, freshly house roasted nuts and more as it caters to customers of different eth-
Christine, who grew up roaming around the store, says family and traditions are at the heart of Sahadi’s operations, no matter the site. “At each of our locations on Atlantic Avenue, Industry City and our warehouse in Sunset Park there is always a family member there running the day-today operations,” she says. “Being a true family in a family business helps us to connect to our core values and traditions. Each of our staff and team members know that we are truly one large team and family. Many of our employees have been with us for decades and that adds to the family feel of the locations.” But she notes that the success of Sahadi’s can also be credited to the customers. “One of the unique and special things of being part of a third-generation family business – almost fourth – is that so many of our customers are also third-generation customers. As we have grown and changed, we love the tradition of seeing the children and grandchildren of our customers becoming part of our retail family.”
Located at 34 35th Street, the latest store features a sit-down cafe with 80 seats, a Mediterranean-focused wine bar, house-baked pita bread and made-to-order saj. Saj, the What to expect name of both the type of bread and Whelan tells us that her family is looking the domed griddle used to make forward to working with Industry City’s this super thin and tender concocInnovation Lab and activating an event tion (texture and appearance lies space with classes and themed dinners. somewhere between a crepe and a She is also publishing her first cookbook panini), is particular to Lebanon. – tentatively titled Flavors of the Sun – in The dough is baked atop the dome, Taken at the 1992 Atlantic Antic. Charlie is in the back row, second from the right. January 2020. spread with zaatar and handpicked “We have a lot of great things in the pipetoppings like lamb shawarma and nicities. Their fridge cases have smoked fish, pâline for the next few years and we are excited to put Persian cucumbers, and then quickly rolled and sliced. This is one of the only public and opera- tés and specialty cheeses from around the world. this into action,” she adds. Customers can find 30 dishes like homous, kibben For more information and updates, follow tional sajs in New York City. and kebabs – prepared daily with traditional tech- @sahadis on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. niques and changed seasonally – at the deli and History and family bakery sections. Charlie’s children, Ron Sahadi The store originally had its roots in Manhattan’s and Christine Sahadi Whelan, and her husband Little Syria, with Abrahim Sahadi opening A. Sa- Pat Whelan have been running Sahadi’s since the hadi & Co. on Washington Street in 1895. Back ’90s. then it was a Middle Eastern store with mostly
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November 2019
On Books Zero, zilch, ‘Nada’: left-wing crime doesn’t pay in French classic by Brett Yates
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he cheapest type of movie you can make is a movie that takes place on paper – that is, a novel. Cinema and prose fiction are different art forms with different strengths, but don’t tell that to Jean-Patrick Manchette (19421995), the French crime novelist whose 1972 literary sensation Nada recently appeared in English for the first time, thanks to New York Review Books Classics, which previously published three of his other works.
shotgun blast: “Fragments of bone and brains and tufts of hair hurtled through the air like the grand finale of a fireworks display,” Manchette rhapsodizes (sorry for the image). Why do the anarchists want to kidnap the U.S. Ambassador to France, specifically? We don’t know. As in Bertrand Bonello’s Nocturama, we see the plan-
Nada reads like a Jean-Pierre Melville screenplay with a political twist. Manchette’s career in fiction – which led him to a career in screenwriting – began in the years after the civil unrest of May 1968 in Paris, and as a former activist, he incorporated the revolutionary fervor of his era into the typically fatalistic genre of the hardboiled thriller. Nada tells the story of a gang of anarchists who set out to kidnap the American ambassador in Paris.
Inspired by the stylish terseness of Dashiell Hammett, Manchette’s prose style, as translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, is primarily informational – as when, amid the pain of a character stung by tear gas, the narration nonetheless finds time to identify the weapon, for the reader, as “a green and white cloud of chlorobenzalmalononitrile, also known as CS gas.” But the writing perks up in moments of more gruesome violence, like the aftermath of a
Most of all, one gets a sense of the climate from the sheer number of political actors that populate Nada’s periphery: the author notes that Le Monde’s article about the kidnapping, within the universe of the novel, includes “a special sidebar for the points of view of fifteen leftist groups.” I’m a leftist, and I can’t name 15 leftist groups in the whole United States. In Nada, Manchette never tries to articulate the substance of his own leftism, either implicitly (through story) or explicitly (by editorializing). Even so, he captured the interest of likeminded readers who craved stories about radicals: representation is so important, as the kids now say. “Manchette essentially launched an industry of left-wing thrillers, ranging from a historically minded stylist such as Daeninckx to the brew of crime, porn, and agitprop served up by Editions de la Brigandine in their quickies,” according to Luc Sante’s introduction in the NYRB Classics edition.
The author invokes a certain structural fatalism of his own: he lets us know from page one that the police have won and the anarchists have lost. We can only stick around to find out how the plot went wrong. Readers may associate NYRB Classics with highbrow obscurities from the world of international belles-lettres – even an earlier foray into 20th-century francophone pulp, in a pair of republished novels by Georges Simenon, turned up works of serious psychological inquiry – but Nada is fully a product of commercial art: short and fast with flat characters and plenty of action. Manchette stages his scenes – in cafes, in shabby apartments, and finally in a country hideaway – in the fashion of a workmanlike cinematographer, hoping to convey the events of the story as clearly and quickly as possible.
which pursues our protagonists in a spirit of unceasing recklessness, brutality, and stupidity.
Jean-Patrick Manchette (photo courtesy Paris Review)
ning of the crime from the outside looking in, with a limited frame of reference. The people responsible have names, but Manchette prefers to describe them by shorthand: the Catalan, the alcoholic, and so on. The ideal reader of Nada arrives with a detailed knowledge of French left politics: the difference, for example, between the FTP (Francs-Tireurs et Partisans) and the PSU (Parti Socialiste Unifié). I’m not that reader, but the most striking aspect of the novel remains its suggestion of the intensity of France’s political culture in the early ‘70s. It’s in the rabble-rousing graffiti that Manchette observes, in the fictional riots that he reports, and in his conversations where self-identified libertarian communists scornfully accuse one another of succumbing to Marxism or Maoism. There are even squabbling partisan factions within French law enforcement,
No such industry has ever existed in the United States, where, if a reader wants a thriller with a political backdrop, they have no choice but to hear about the brave exploits of an FBI or CIA agent – or perhaps about the heroic escape of a kidnapped American diplomat (from the diplomat’s point of view). This is the culture that made a hero of Robert Mueller. Which is not to say that the anarchists of Nada are heroes, either. Too late, Manchette’s creations realize (out of nowhere – character development isn’t his strong suit) that terrorism principally serves to legitimate the authoritarianism of the state: it must only ever be a last resort. Naturally, this lesson – a dialing-back of the characters’ earlier position – is unimaginable as the conservative moral of an American story.
"The author invokes a certain structural fatalism of his own: he lets us know from page one that the police have won and the anarchists have lost." Red Hook Star-Revue
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November 2019, Page 23
Caleb's film previews - November Behold: Oscar season awaits. With teens back in school, blockbusters recede from the public landscape, leaving room for more ambitious fare. With new releases from a pair of cinematic giants, Netflix begins its campaign to own awards season and your living room. The major studios continue to test the commercial waters with rebooted IP before rolling out family-friendly fare in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. Check out some of the highlights:
The Irishman 11/1
What it is: After a wonderful grumpy-old-man press tour during which he smeared the state of commercial filmmaking, Martin Scorsese drops his grumpiest-old-man film to date: a three hour, decades-spanning mob epic starring a trio of CGI de-aged film titans. Why should you see it: Scorsese and De Niro collaborated on eight mostly brilliant films in the 20th century, but had not worked together since 1995. Marty and Bob are back, and critics at the New York Film Festival praised The Irishman as a return to form.
Marriage Story 11/6 What it is: A bit of old-school, tear-your-heart-out divorce drama from writer/director Noah Baumbach. Why should you see it: Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Frances Ha) is Hollywood’s premier interpreter of upper-middle class East Coast dysfunction. Also, Adam Driver’s sad eyes will almost certainly make you feel some stuff.
Honey Boy 11/8
What it is: A semi-fictionalized exploration of Shia LeBeouf ’s relationship with his alcoholic and abusive father. LeBeouf wrote the screenplay and stars as his own father. Why should you see it: Honey Boy offers a peek inside the skull of the most publicly self-destructive child star this side of Lindsay Lohan. Voyeurism feels icky, but it also allows viewers the opportunity to build empathy with otherwise untouchable public figures.
Charlie’s Angels 11/15 What it is: A reboot of the Farrah Fawcett action vehicle. Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect 2) directs, and Kristin Stewart returns from a self-imposed indie exile for her most commercial film since the Twilight days.
Why should you see it: The Charlie’s Angels franchise is better known for its encouragement of the male gaze than its feminist bona fides. Can the infusion of nonmale creative talent create smarter spy stories?
Waves 11/15
What it is: A slow, music-driven meditation on parenthood and forgiveness, Waves follows an African-American family as they navigate contemporary American life. Why should you see it: In Krisha and It Comes at Night, director Trey Schultz proved himself adept at building dread despite simple premises and limited budgets. Waves’ more conventional depiction of family dysfunction promises an opportunity to tap into a greater range of emotional tones.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood 11/22 What it is: A biopic about America’s favorite
cardigan-wearer, Mr. Rogers. Tom Hanks, who almost certainly rocks a cardigan at home, stars as the empathetic TV neighbor. Why should you see it: Children and grandparents alike adore Mr. Hanks and the concept of kindness. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood might be the crowd-pleaser that eases Thanksgiving tensions.
Frozen 2 11/22 What it is: You know what it is.
Why should you see it: I feel like you’re kinda in or out on the whole Frozen thing.
Knives Out 11/27
What it is: A family reunion becomes a crime scene after a crime novelist patriarch turns up dead. Rian Johnson wrote and directed this riff on Agatha Christie murder mysteries. The ensemble cast includes Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Lakeith Stanfield. Why should you see it: Knives Out represents a melding of interests for Johnson, who cut his teeth with a string of crime flicks before moving to the glossiest of commercial franchises, Star Wars. Whether Johnson can readjust to smaller films and less toxic fanbases remains an open question, but early reviews indicate that he can.
Queen & Slim 11/27
What it is: A couple goes on the run after little bit of cop-killing spoils their first date. Frequent Beyoncé collaborator Melina Matsoukas directs this update on the Bonnie and Clyde/Natural Born Killers mythos. Why should you see it: Daniel Kaluuya is an honestto-God movie star, one who hasn’t gotten a leading role to chew on since Get Out.
Doctor Sleep- 11/8
What it is: A sequel to The Shining, starring Ewan McGregor as a grown up and psychologically disturbed Danny Torrance. Why should you see it: Stephen King famously hates Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, which diverges significantly from its source material. However, director/screenwriter Mike Flanagan pledged to stay faithful to both Kubrick’s film and King’s 2013 novel. Doctor Sleep could therefore represent a fascinating experiment in adaptation, or a cynical defilement of a beloved classic.
Indie Theater Triple Feature Parasite
Pity me; it is HARD to write criticism about perfection. Parasite follows the Kims, a poor family, as they lie, cheat, and steal their way into the employ of the Parks, a family of wealthy suburbanites. Bong Joon-ho, who directed and co-wrote the film, excoriates South Korea’s encouragement of income inequality and intra-class warfare without sacrificing his usual acerbic wit and narrative cleverness. Bong plays with the traditional upstairs/downstairs dynamic of domestic servitude, using images of stairs and hills to separate elites from Korea’s economic underclass. If this all sounds too heavy, take heart. Parasite is a sharp, pitch-black comedic thriller, and a joy to watch. Bong Joon-ho made a masterpiece. Only a fool would skip it. Parasite is now playing at BAM, Cobble Hill Cinemas, the IFC Center, Cinépolis Chelsea, Nitehawk Cinema, and Williamsburg Cinemas.
4/4 Stars
The Lighthouse
Greener Grass
The Lighthouse is currently playing at Angelika Film Center, BAM, Cobble Hill Cinemas, Williamsburg Cinemas, and Cinépolis Chelsea.
Greener Grass is playing exclusively at the IFC Center.
The Lighthouse, the second film from Robert Eggers, is a bit of an odd duck. Or gull, as it may be. As in his exceptional debut The Witch, Eggers steeps a conventional premise in New England folklore, this time trading isolated Puritan zealots for isolated lighthouse keepers, or wickies. Like The Witch, The Lighthouse leans heavily on period dialogue and colorful profanity to create a hostile, semi-foreign world. Eggers again explores the cleansing nature of work and the repression of sexual desire (and not just for the mermaids that haunt wickies’ dreams). However, Eggers takes greater visual risks than in his debut. He shot The Lighthouse in the boxy Academy aspect ratio, using black-and-white film and limited sources of light. The result is a claustrophobic fever dream buoyed by superb performances from Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe.
3.5/4 Stars Page 24 Red Hook Star-Revue
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Although hardly the first deep dive into a suburban hellscape, Greener Grass ranks among the grossest. Co-written and directed by veteran Upright Citizens Brigade performers Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe, the film owes a greater debt to absurdist comedians Tim and Eric than the likes of David Lynch or The Stepford Wives. In a reflection of their sketch comedy background, DeBoer and Luebbe divide the film into self-contained vignettes, each deconstructing the latent anxieties and petty hostilities of a stifled middle class. Greener Grass also benefits from spectacular costume design, heavily featuring maddening pastels and tucked-in polos. However, despite the occasional brilliant gag, the film feels disjointed and incomplete. Greener Grass commits to the bit, but like every 9-year-old at a parent-teacher conference, it doesn’t quite live up to its potential.
2/4 Stars
Caleb Drickey November 2019
On Film the contradictions of a soccer star
D
iego Maradona, the new film from Academy Award-winning documentarian Asif Kapadia, opens with a car chase. Two sedans speed through the winding streets of Naples, enclosed on both sides by throngs of football fans. As they holler and push against police barricades, adoration becomes indistinguishable from aggression. The sedans accelerate to escape this mass of suffocating love, and they nearly collide. It’s an exhilarating sequence, and the most telling visual metaphor in the film. In one car is playmaking demigod Diego Maradona, and he can only avoid the crash for so long.
by Caleb Drickey turf. Maradona’s beauty came at a cost, both in the form of physical injury and the uncontrolled explosiveness of his private life. Using home video shot by Maradona’s first wife, newscast B-roll, and archival photos, Kapadia paints a portrait of an unraveling home front. Periodic images of an unacknowledged son remind the viewer of his failures as a husband and
However, access comes at a cost. By collaborating directly with Maradona, his family, and his supporters, Kapadia perhaps undermines his narrative independence. Kapadia frames Maradona’s descent into addiction, depravity, and crime as the result of a betrayal by the Italian public, for whom he sacrificed his body and his privacy.
It’s 1984. Maradonna is 23, and already the greatest soccer player in the world. He has escaped the Argentine shantytown of his youth and taken the field for a rich European football club. Now, down-and-out Italian team SSC Napoli has purchased his contract. In Naples, he will attain his greatest professional triumphs and sink to his lowest personal despairs.
This sympathetic, party-line narrative strays into the territory of hero-worship. Kapadia argues that Maradona’s fame stripped him of any shot at normalcy, but this overlooks Maradona’s considerable wealth and agency. Maradona chose to philander, chose to abandon his children, chose to associate with the mafia, and chose to play soccer. Kapadia should have interrogated Maradona’s destructiveness with the same rigor as he examined his brilliance, but chose not to. Kapadia, like so many before him, prefers Maradona the martyr to Maradona the man. It’s a fitting, if disappointing, conclusion to the story of a man who could never escape the weight of his own image.
As with his previous films Senna and Amy, Kapadia attempts not so much as to explain his subject as to immerse the viewer in his life. Kapadia therefore forsakes a traditional documentary structure and its cast of dry subject matter experts. He never cuts away from archival footage to interview aging witnesses; instead, relatives, colleagues, and Maradona himself contribute ambient voiceover that contextualizes on-screen footage. Without the crutch of a talking head to explain Maradona’s brilliance, Kapadia leans on contemporary game footage, most of it shot from pitch level. Unlike television audiences at the time, the viewer sees the intricacy of Maradonna’s footwork, his breakaway speed, the tiny gaps he created in defenses before eviscerating them. Kapadia highlights the grace of Maradona’s game, and reveals how this exercise in controlled explosiveness could move broadcasters to tears and supporters to blind worship. But for every successful feint, pinpoint cross, and miraculous goal, Kapadia includes a shot of enormous galoots knocking the 5’5” Maradona into the
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involves Maradona’s discomfort at his own canonization as a Neapolitan saint. In sequence after sequence, soccer fans crowd Maradona as he eats dinner, trains, and walks to team facilities. Though he pleads for the crowd to stop touching him, they grasp for their hero. Even police escorts clap hands on his back and shoulders. Maradona, Kapadia implies, became a public commodity; an inhuman icon to be seen, touched, and used by an Italian public uninterested in his private thoughts or desires.
Diego Maradona will be screened at Cinépolis Chelsea on November 8 and 12 as part of the DOC NYC festival. It is also available for streaming on HBO.
3/4 Stars a father. Maradona begins wearing gold Rolex watches, gifts from his friends and benefactors in the Italian mafia. Party scenes, initially comical in their joviality, darken when narrators confirm that his sunken eyes and disheveled appearance signal a spiraling cocaine addiction. Kapadia most insightful discovery, however,
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November 2019, Page 25
On Theater
Sitting in Rose's Kitchen by Carly Quellman
There’s always a specific feeling as you enter a space built for performance art. It’s not as casual as a movie theatre, yet not quite as dynamic as an arena. History seems to cling to architectural details, washing over the slick tiled floor. An established sense of pride seems to linger in the air. As I entered The Public Theater on a Wednesday night to watch The Michaels, Tony-winning playwright Richard Nelson’s newest work, I felt this same energy. Yet I also felt a wistful sense of integrity that you may forget exists in the world of theater. Almost as if your presence is part of the experience. And maybe rightfully so. Following The Apple Family and The Gabriels, The Michaels takes place in the kitchen of dance choreographer Rose Michael who is battling cancer, surrounded by family, loved ones, and friends in upstate New York. As stated in the program, the play “encapsulates an intricate, moving snapshot of modern-day America, illustrating the rich humanity within the incidental moments of one day.” Seated in the southern part of The Public’s theater-in-the-round, I watched as audience members glided between levels, finding their seats, chatting, and peering down into the stage, which resembled the interior of a farm-style kitchen, equipped with a running sink, stove, oven, and table and chairs. Production assistant Indigo Sparks said that she considers The Michaels an anomaly. “I don’t know if there’s ever been a play written with the history of modern dance as the primary influence before, but all of the references from Yvonne Rainer to Merce Cunningham caught my attention right away,” Sparks said. Sparks, who is also a freelance dancer and artist, said she felt grateful to be able to have her passion and knowledge of dance recognized as a tool instead of something she had to keep separate
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from work. Sparks worked directly with Nelson to bridge the accessibility margin, specifically for younger artists who couldn’t afford the $60 it cost to attend the show. “Richard recognized from the beginning the need to make the show more accessible in order to reach that audience,” Sparks said. “We collaborated with the marketing team at The Public to create a code so that early career dance artists can access tickets at a discounted rate. We’ve sold over 50 tickets so far and it’s only growing. I really have Richard to thank for his fierce support on the matter.” I agree that The Micheals is an anomaly. The play deliberately focuses on relevant social issues throughout its dialogue. Richard takes a bold approach to his playwriting. Some nights, the playwright and director may even alter the script hours before the show in order to nod to current events while staying true to the time period of the work. As I watched The Michaels, I was moved by the humor of the play. The dancers, Charlotte Bydewell (Lucy Michaels) and Matilda Sakamoto (May Smith) moved beautifully and intricately across the stage, as their dancing paralleled the floorplan of the kitchen, represented as the entirety of the play’s environment. “Charlotte and Matilda are such incredible people and performers,” Sparks said. “More importantly, their characters represent a large community of early career dance artists working in the city while trying to balance our unpredictable work lives with family.” Sakamoto’s character portrays the next generation following Rose Michael, the play’s protagonist. May is a dancer stranded between pursuing her artistic dreams in the footsteps of her aunt Rose, or staying rooted with her mother in Utica, New York.
moto said. “It’s a natural, organic process.” As someone who grew up in the performing arts, I have elsewhere yet to witness current events and politics weaved so fully into a play’s storyline, evolving with our daily social climate. Nelson keeps dialogue exciting while encouraging audience engagement during the play’s 120-minute run time. “Richard’s method suggests there’s even more magic to be discovered when we bring those two worlds together,” Sparks said. “I think it‘s a really great way to keep yourself [as a playwright/director] and your actors engaged in the world.” “When you’ve been rehearsing something for a while, I think it’s easy to feel like there’s a world you’re cultivating inside of the work, while the rest of the world is ‘outside’. I think the audience definitely feels that too, because if you’re up to date on politics it’s almost like being in on an inside joke,” Sparks added. Whether part of an inside joke or part of the family, the connection I felt in the theatre was undeniable. I was a part of the process by being part of the experience. I was part of the dialogue, just by existing. I was moved by the notion that so many of us could relate to – art put on for us, which was also influenced by us. “I hope people walk away wanting to talk about what they experienced, emotional areas they don’t experience on a day-to-day basis,” Sakamoto said. “A little moment in time that they’re never going to experience again.” The Michaels runs from October 19 to December 1. Tickets start at $45.
“What he [Nelson] wants is so different. He’s encouraging, and wants us to push forward,” Saka-
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November 2019
THE MUSIC SECTION Drinking on the job
L
et’s say you get hired as a librarian. You go to your first day eager to please; suddenly they line up a bunch of Jameson shots to begin the shift. Things might just go off the rails. I have a job where that happens. Musicians that play in clubs have an interesting relationship with alcohol; there is not a lot of other work out there where liquor is often included as part of the reimbursement. Per, a favorite bartender at the legendary and departed Rodeo Bar in Manhattan, once proclaimed, “Booze, that is like your [musicians] Gatorade!”
by Jack Grace
a break. The owner got mad, as if getting drunk with me was part of the contract: “Oh so, the Martini Cowboy is drinking club soder t’night! I guess you’re just a poser.” I did not give in that night. It was easy anyway. He wasn’t any fun. But before it was my turn to be the headliner, I encountered an advanced level of drinking on the road that would be hard to top. My first band, Steak, was playing some shows in Colorado and California with The Beat Farmers around 1994. We arrived to the first soundcheck and the staff
It can be a slow and steady seduction. A young musician begins playing clubs and bars and a party often ensues. It is your first gig; all of your friends come out and there are cute girls and guys ready to drink and revel for hours after the show. Then you have that one big show every month and it can be an epic party each time. Soon you have a couple of gigs per month but you still can manage to celebrate with the band, your fans and friends into the wee hours with drinks and inspired plans for what is to come. But as one evolves into a true working musician, playing several times per week at home or on the road, the cracks can begin to show in the “party every show” approach. I understand not every musician struggles with alcohol. I am one of the musicians who have, and I have tested the limits of what my body can withstand on booze, on a 9,000mile tour or playing 25 gigs per month just around New York City, losing count of Guinnesses and whiskeys while headlining a festival in Ireland, losing my mind on the tour bus, trying to slide off the top of it from the pennant flags at a gas station and landing on my head in California. Sometimes it appeared glamorous, and occasionally it actually was. But I also screwed up significant career opportunities, made an ass of myself and played like total crap at times when fans expected better. My band, Jack Grace Band, has released albums with titles like Stayin’ Out All Night and The Martini Cowboy but it all peaked with Drinking Songs For Lovers. On that cover I am guzzling a bottle of bleach in a bathrobe in a supermarket. When I first released it, I was doing some shows with Junior Brown. He gazed at the cover and a crease developed on his forehead. He looked me up and down and cautioned, “Careful with this kinda image Jack, cuz yer gonna have to live it,” and he was on point with his warning. The poster with the Drinking Songs cover on it went over quite well at the venues we played. Suddenly I found fans and club owners with bottles of tequila in hand that they wanted to polish off with me. One night I was just drinking seltzer, it had been several nights in a row of drinking on a long tour and I needed
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For those fortunate enough to be alive, touring and still partaking around 50, it can be a time of reckoning, realizing your body needs a little more care to make it through the next few decades. There are four main choices at this crossroad: 1) Drink to excess and likely accept you may go down with the ship in one form or the other. 2) Create a very strict policy of when and why you drink. 3) Decide you have had enough drink and throw the towel in and see what other pleasures the world has to offer. 4) The Willie Nelson approach – switch to marijuana as your vice of choice. Not everyone is lucky enough to make it to this crossroad. We musicians do see a number of our brothers and sisters go down earlier than in many other professions. I wonder if I will eventually decide on taking the number three route but currently, I teeter between choices one and two. Nowadays on the road, I am often more excited to go to bed after the show than to rally through the night, so that’s some evolution. Several sources (the Washington Post, Forbes, the Atlantic) claim that millennials and post-millennials are drinking less in general. They also appear not to value live music as much as the generations before them that were all but defined by it. I hope that things are evolving to a less destructive path and they can find the adventures and stories without having to jump off the top of the tour bus (turns out those gas stations pennants can’t hold up a two-hundredpound singer).
had covered all of the monitors in garbage bags, we were confused as to what was going on. We played our opening set, and the band members told us how they liked our gags on stage. Then it was time for The Beat Farmers set, and frontman Country Dick Montana began flipping and throwing Budweiser bottles all around, having beer fights with the audience and charming the crowd into carrying him to the bar for a martini. I was mesmerized. It was rock-n-roll, performance art and a Dionysian explosion all in one. Country Dick became a bit of a mentor for me and my bandmate. He taught me to always party in my pajamas back at the hotel (it puts the gathering at ease). He also told us, “You guys are funny, but you hide behind too many time signatures.” It was a really special time. But a little over a year later, Country Dick died onstage of a heart attack at 40 years old. He seemed so much older to me than my 27 years at the time. Five years later, I started the Jack Grace Band, which was decidedly more country (with a little less time signature hiding). I encountered several veterans on the road – some legends, others more obscure – and noticed that many had quit alcohol altogether in part to maintain a better life as the years rolled along as a musician.
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Drinking problems are not exclusive to the musician. Actors often struggle with the same pattern, starting with the big party after their first play. But anyone can become a drunk. You can hide that fifth of vodka in the bottom drawer at almost any job. Many people are expected to drink with their clients and coworkers. Bartenders that make a career of it have to address the same four choices. But strangely it is often true that many bands and writers produced their best material in their heavier party days. Drinking was a factor, but the energy from just being younger plays a role in that productivity as well. I was once invited backstage by Pete Townshend at the Garden in 2001. There was a spread of whiskies and Courvoisier. He waived his arm across it and asked me what I’d like. I took a Courvoisier and asked him what he was having. He looked down, shook his head and said, “I want to. I wish I could, but I just can’t anymore.” Pete had made his choice, but I could tell he still missed his days of reckless debauchery. I tried a new doctor recently. I am always brutally honest with doctors as to how much I drink and what I do (I never understood why anyone should lie to their doctor). When he heard the tales of my lifestyle, he simply replied, “Well, you’re a musician.”
November 2019, Page 27
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Page 28 Red Hook Star-Revue
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November 2019
Astronomy in two hemispheres by Andrew B. White
Now a resident of rural Pennsylvania, Miriam Clancy hails all the way from New Zealand, home of musical luminaries Lorde, Neil Finn, and Flight of the Conchords (and who could forget OMC’s “How Bizarre”?). Clancy has recently released her new album Astronomy after a long creative – and geographical – journey. While developing a musical career, being the recipient of a major music development award and releasing two critically lauded albums in her home country, Clancy set her sights further afield – to reach both a wider audience and work with a heavyweight producer. Like many aspiring artists outside North America, this meant looking toward the US. With that in mind, Clancy and her husband/manager JP Winger reached out to several producers she admired, hoping to find an opportunity to work with one of them. This included Mike Ellis (aka Flood) who had worked with New Order, U2, Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode. He was keen, but due to a busy schedule he wouldn’t be available for another 12 months. The search continued. Another producer who had caught Clancy’s ear was NYC-based Chris Coady, who had worked with TV On the Radio, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Beach House. Coady too was in high demand. After jumping through a few hoops to work out logistics and timing, Clancy, with her album demos in hand, boarded a plane to NYC, and as it turned out, it would not be for the last time on this project. With Coady producing and a tight schedule, sessions for a third of the album were completed at James Iha’s (Smashing Pumpkins) Stratosphere Studios on the Upper West Side before Clancy needed to go back to New Zealand. It would be almost a year before she was able to return to NYC and complete the recordings, this time relocating to Downtown Studios in the East Village with David Tolomei (Dirty Projectors, Future Islands) engineering. Clancy describes the studio as “small but well-loved,” the walls still bearing graffiti by the Strokes from when they had recorded Is This It
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there. Sadly, like many other Manhattan studios, both of these studios have now closed.
ing. No railroading there. He just encouraged me to do what I was doing times 100.”
After completing the recording, Clancy once again returned to New Zealand while Coady started on mixing the album. Shortly after her return, Clancy and her family received the green light to officially relocate to the US, initially landing on the West Coast and making their way to New York City. The move seemed to be in tandem with the album being completed, although there was much work to be done before it could be released via her own label, Desert Road Records. Astronomy, as the title suggests, is an expansive, ten-song album of effected guitars, angular drum machines and textured synths, married to Clancy’s mesmerizing vocals. Think Kate Bush fronting Joy Division and you start to get the picture. Aside from vocals, Clancy plays all of the instruments on the album along with a little help from Peter Hale (Here We Go Magic) and Guy Licata (Hercules and Love Affair) on drums, New Zealander Jol Mulholland on bass, and Chris Coady also contributing.
The finished results coming through the speakers confirm this. From the album opener “The Sound” with its meld of ‘80s synth and ‘90s shoegaze, Astronomy swirls and flows with cinematic pop songs equally absorbing for wide, open-sky treks or claustrophobic subway commutes. It’s a stunning album that deserves your attention. Notwithstanding the travel and time involved in Astronomy’s creation, Clancy and her family also endured a “once in 100 years” flood that swamped her studio and musical equipment at their home on New Zealand’s remote Great Barrier Island. Several of the album’s songs were written on the island and that landscape’s dreamy isolation seeps into Clancy’s music. Luckily, with the help of hardy friends and neighbors, some of the equipment was salvaged, dried out and returned to working use. To this day Clancy is still finding silt from the flood in her guitar pedal board – a constant reminder of Astronomy’s journey.
For the production process, Clancy says she Astronomy is available on all streaming services and on wanted to “create exactly what I was hearing in CD from miriamclancy.com. my head,” and carefully constructed demos of the songs before going into the studio. Some of these demos made their way into the final recordings, notably the vintage drum machines, integral to the album’s overall sound. “I felt like I needed to be very strong with what I wanted, as many a time in recording I would often get railroaded by the guy in the studio. It’d happened before to me so much that I rallied, got fierce and over-prepared. I knew, though, after speaking with Chris and brainstorming with him, that he would shape the sonics in a way that I could trust. And he also gave direction and added some "It might be time to look for a new streaming service." instrumentation that zwas amaz-
Cartoon, by Noah Phillips
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November 2019, Page 29
Grella on Jazz
Ragas Live and Anthony Braxton: jazz (maybe, definitely) at Pioneer Works and Columbia
W
hat is jazz? The question isn’t philosophical, it’s practical—jazz is a practice. Jazz is just about 100 years old, with a giveor-take that depends on when your ears tell you musicians started playing it. The Original Dixieland Jass Band was the first group to record the music, in 1917, but they, and others, had been playing it for a considerable before the sessions at the New York studio of the Victor Talking Machine Company. Jazz was a way to make ensemble music that came out of a mix of other musics, including the blues, ragtime, marches, dance styles like the cakewalk, Tin Pan Alley songs, Afro-Cuban rhythms. This diverse mix of the music of ordinary people, music heard in the streets and the brothels, the saloons and vaudeville stages, makes it the most American of art forms, built like the rest of this nation on the foundation of the racist enslavement of blacks, embraced by waves of ethnic immigrants, always outside the mainstream of establishment culture. Even at the height of its popularity, from the swing era up through hard bop and the modal jazz of the early 1960s, jazz maintained its outsider, hip stance. It’s the only music that started as pop music and then grew, via the bebop revolution, into an art music, without ever abandoning the sensuousness of rhythm and the meaning of the blues. The patricians may enjoy it but it’s a people’s music, more so because despite its absolute American stamp of improvisation and irreverence, it belongs in a global context of music passed through generations by playing, rather than the study of notation, music that uses a few essential organizing principles that create an environment in which musicians can communicate spontaneous ideas to each other and the listener. So that makes the annual 24-hour Ragas Live Festival at Pioneer Works a key jazz event, even though you’ll barely catch a hint of swing or bebop language. This year’s edition, held on the weekend of October 19-20, had a robust live audience joined by listeners around the world (it streamed live on WKCR via radio broadcast and the web), there to witness some of the finest contemporary Indian classical musicians and the jazz and quasi-jazz players who have a natural affinities for the styles and concepts of ragas. The festival was bookended by two hybrid ensembles, Adan Rudolph’s Moving Pictures and Brooklyn Raga Massive. The two groups drew something of a long, rising line through the night and day. Leading from his percussion set up, and also playing the sintir, Rudolph projected a relaxed, internalized demeanor, serious but unobtrusive. His set felt like the aftermath of a yoga session, with centered, fluid energy. Rudolph and his musicians, including the excellent violinist (and festival artistic director) Arun Ramamurthy, and guitarist Marco
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by George Grella Cappelli, tossed out brief solo statements, but this was primarily an ensemble performance, the group maintaining a cool simmer and coalescing around trance-like grooves.
with the basic and powerful pleasures of music, so mixing jazz, Indian music, Persian music, and more was never anything more than natural and intuitive to him, as it should be for all of us.
Brooklyn Raga Massive already have an important body of work that extends from jazz—a John Coltrane tribute—to the avant-garde new music of Terry Riley. Guitarist David Ellenbogen, a key organizer for both the band and the festival, introduced their concluding set by revealing that Riley is preparing something new for them, but since it was not yet ready, Ellenbogen and sitarist Neel Murgai made an adaptation of Riley’s In C, a joyous thing they called In D, the tuning pitch for the sitar.
The contrast to all this, not so much unnatural a la Huysman’s Against Nature, but experimentally abstract, was the Anthony Braxton Composer Portrait that Miller Theatre at Columbia University presented on September 25. Braxton is a jazz musician and non-jazz composer, and has long been a controversial figure. The usual arguments around him go back to the first question, what is jazz, and is Braxton making it? But that’s the wrong question.
In between, Ramamurthy played a biting fusion set with bassist Perry Wormtan and the excellent drummer/percussionist Sameer Gupta; Ellenbogen formed part of the quartet Crossroads, a rapturous and beautiful collaboration between Jay Ghandi and West African musician Yacouba Sissoko; and Murgai led his own ensemble with violinists Ramamurthy and Trina Basu, cellist Marika Hughes, and Gupta on the tablas. A hybrid band in every way, they finished the set with “Spaghetti Eastern,” a number Murgai described as being about a “funky, raga-singing cowboy.” There were also sets from the great veena player Saraswathi Ranganathan and the sitar master Anupama Bhagwat, through which the Western listener glimpsed something of the ancient, rigorous, rich raga traditions. But the microcosm of the festival, how it showed the way any musical conversation, raga or otherwise, built on the kind of groove that had many bobbing their heads, rocking in place, or twirling at the back of the crowd speaks across cultures, languages, and geographic boundaries, was the quicksilver duet of drummer Dan Weiss and guitarist Miles Okazaki. Weiss, who studied tabla, plays jazz and heavy metal, is a key member of saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Indo-Park coalition, rounded off by Pakistani guitarist Rez Abbasi. Unfortunately they weren’t on the program for this year, but maybe next. Riley is also a good example of how jazz is such a fundamental way to make music. Again, it may be new, but the thinking goes back thousands of years, with roots throughout Africa, across the Middle East and into the Indian subcontinent. Riley’s great breakthrough, as heard in In C and parsed through Brooklyn Raga Massive, was to connect compositional techniques from the Western art music avant-garde with the universal experience of music not as logical argument but as sensuous experience, especially as eroticized dance and trance (for more on the latter, take a look at Ted Gioia’s new book, Music: A Subversive History, which is fascinating and invaluable). Riley (who will play at Terry Riley at 85, two nights of performances at Pioneer Works, December 20-21) has always been in touch
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There’s no doubt about Braxton’s jazz credentials; check out his Complete Remastered Recordings on Black Saint & Soul Note if you need convincing. What matters is understanding what kind of composer he is. Near a quarter-century teaching at Wesleyan produced a generation of musicians who revere him, and it can be hard to listen past their own influence. The Composer Portrait confirmed what I have always felt about Braxton. His ambition is admirable and important: to reconcile the complexity of spontaneous constructions/improvisation with the formal logic of the Western art music tradition. That was the story of Third Stream jazz, and like that genre Braxton has had a few breakthroughs but has also hit a lot of dead ends, or else produced music that can’t reach the level of his rhetoric (this is especially true of his gigantic Trillium opera project, which combines some strong music with an incomprehensible, hermetic drama). There were the usual exemplary performances at Miller, courtesy of pianist Richard Carrick, JACK Quartet, Either/Or ensemble, and saxophonist and conductor James Fei. But Carrick could not draw anything coherent out of the chattering and discontinuous Composition No. 1 for piano. Composition No. 17 and Composition No. 46 likewise didn’t produce any meaningful logic, though there were many lovely moments, especially in the former, where JACK flicked out the notes like objects gently colliding in zero gravity. The musicians massed on stage for a group, simultaneous performance of Compositions Nos. 17, 18, 40(O), 101, 168, and 358. These are complex works, even more so when mixed, with subgroups of musicians coming together in the moment to realize one piece, while other groups find their ways to different compositions. This was less logic than it was community, or better it was a community of musicians making music based around a shared language. We are music-making creatures, that logic is always there within us, and while a composer can write down rules for realizing it, the best way is just to pick up our instruments and play together. And that’s jazz.
November 2019
A Brooklyn teen’s Appalachia by Mike Cobb
At 14 years of age, Nora Brown is a talented banjo player who sings ballads and traditional music with an interest in eastern Kentucky and Tennessee styles. She uses the clawhammer method of plucking and strumming with her thumb and fingers, resulting in a deep, muddy tone that lends an air of dark mystery and timeless depth to her playing. (In contrast, the Scruggs style utilizes finger picks to produce a brighter, sharper tone more common in popular bluegrass.) Brown has won prizes for her playing, been awarded scholarships to study, has taught beginning and advanced banjo, and appeared at numerous folk festivals throughout the United States. She effectively illustrates the differences between the fretted banjo and a fretless version to show the instrument’s African origins in a performance viewable on TED Talks (https://www.ted.com/speakers/nora_brown). Red Hook’s Jalopy Records has released her first studio album Cinnamon Tree, produced by legendary musician Alice Gerrard and recorded at Studio 808a, an old farmhouse in Floyd, Virginia. The songs, stories and instrumentals on this record draw the listener in. Brown is joined on several songs by award-winning fiddler Stephanie Coleman, whose sunny tone brings a welcome lightness to the album.
This album represents Brown’s journey over the last several years as she has found her voice, developed a distinct and compelling style, and emerged as a wonderful musician. The title of the album itself is emblematic of her musical pilgrimage; at first she heard the lyric as “cinnamon tree,” but today Nora knows that the song lyric is “’simmon tree” – a slang shortening of “persimmon.”
the Jalopy Theatre. For tickets and information, go to http://jalopytheatre.org. To learn more about Nora Brown, find her on Facebook and hear her on Bandcamp: https://jalopyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/cinnamon-tree.
These songs were learned by Brown by listening to old recordings in archival collections and by visiting elder musicians in her hometown of Brooklyn, eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia, and North Carolina – including master banjo player and former coal miner Lee Sexton and scholar and master banjo player George Gibson. About Brown, the late John Cohen said, “In her playing, an intense involvement is revealed as the music appears to wash over her. She sings of experiences way beyond her years, old songs from Appalachian sources, stories that reflect a more difficult way of life.” Cinnamon Tree is available via digital download and on vinyl in a limited first edition of 500 copies, pressed at Third Man Pressing in Detroit, signed and numbered with custom letterpress jackets. The release of the album will be accompanied by a performance at 8:30 pm on Friday, November 8, at
Survivor story: Blake Sandberg's ALIENS attempt second landing
T
he t-shirt Blake Sandberg wears under his leather jacket speaks volumes. The iconic image – a line drawing of a mutant frog-thing with the caption bubble “HI, HOW ARE YOU” – is at least as famous as its creator, the troubled and sometimes revered singer/songwriter Daniel Johnston, who died in September at the age of 58, and the frog-thing’s question is what many who know Sandberg likely want to ask him. How are you? Circling the floor at the Knitting Factory while opener Frida Kill bangs out some old school, three-chord punk, he is on-task if driven by nervous energy. He talks to the sound man, sits down behind the merch table, gets up again, greets some friends, heads out to the bar and comes back to round the room again. There’s good reason for his nervousness. The October 22 set will be the second in five years for his band ALIENS, now a duo with drummer Matt King. It's been a dozen years since his first and only album, Head First, had its moment on the CMJ charts, and times haven't been easy for Sandberg in the interim.
Sandberg relocated from Austin to New York in the 1990's with his eyes on the art scene. While painting was his first interest (the cover of Head First is his work), he discovered a second passion when a friend gave him a guitar. After bouncing around a bit, he was soon making art and making a name for himself in a downtown studio near Broadway and Fulton. Then the world changed. On September 10, 2001, Sandberg took his parents—who had flown in for the occasion—to the opening of a group show that included his work. The next morning, he was working in his studio when hijacked planes were piloted into the World Trade Center towers. His parents were stranded in a hotel until they were able to get out of town and Sandberg sealed up his windows and did his best to survive.
Red Hook Star-Revue
by Kurt Gottschalk
“That stuff was burning for like six weeks,” he said. “The wind was blowing and it just came through my windows. I didn't have anywhere else to go so I just stayed.” In the months and years that followed, little was understood about the long-term effects of breathing the air around Ground Zero, but Samdberg knew something was wrong. Bouts of bronchitis and vertigo, and a metallic taste in his mouth that he couldn't get rid of led him, led him leave the city and head back to Texas in 2005. A new doctor and a hospital stay helped him on the path to recovery and gave him the space to start making art again. Through a small business loan, he was able to rent warehouse space in Austin. He set up separate painting and recording studios and launched a label, Miscellaneous Music. Drawing on connections he had made in New York, he recorded tracks with Johnston and another outsider pop songwriter, Jad Fair, as well as avant hip hop pioneers Ram-Ell-Zee and DJ High Priest. He also recorded three tracks under the ALIENS banner with drummer Hunt Sales, who has played with David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Todd Rundgren, to name a few.
including a raucous take on his personal 9/11 anthem “Survivor Story,” during which it's a bit hard to believe his affirmation that “we are all right now.” Live, the duo foments a certain excitement, direct, urgent, almost pleading. They end with a cover of Daniel Johnston’s “Alien Mind Control.” With a renewed commitment to playing live, Sandberg is ready to give ALIENS another go. Songs are in the works for a second album and he's set up a Bandcamp page (aliensnyc.bandcamp. com) where Head First and other recordings can be heard in full. He's also posted a new EP of three Johnston covers and is planning to play Rocky Sullivan's in Red Hook before the end of the year. “I've been through a bunch of stuff,” he said. “I'm just trying to get out there and play some shows and let people know I'm still at it.” Kurt Gottschalk is a journalist and author based in New York City. His writings on music have been published in outlets throughout Europe and America and he has two volumes of short fiction to his name. He is also the producer and host of the Miniature Minotaurs radio program on WFMU.
Eventually, he made it back to NYC himself, setting up shop in Brooklyn in 2009. When a mutual friend introduced him to drummer King, Sandberg saw a new life for ALIENS. King's setup includes a small drum kit and a cajon hand drum as well as electronics for looping and processing beats, giving ALIENS a much bigger sound than the guitar/drum duo that was in vogue during the band's first life. They hit hard at the Knit, delivering a strong set that went off with, or despite, a few hitches. Sandberg's dirty blond bob and the riffs he grinds out of his guitar belie a certain Kurt Cobain influence, but when King switches from open-palms to sticks, the songs can take on a Ramone-esque immediacy. The set is primarily comprised of songs from Head First –
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(photo by Tom Warren)
November 2019, Page 31
STARTING FROM SCRATCH WITH LITTLE SCRATCH: ONE WAY TO BECOME A RECORD COLLECTOR by Mike Morgan
“We learned more from a three-minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school” – Bruce Springsteen, “No Surrender” In an earlier edition this year of the Star-Revue, Mike Cobb wrote about the welcome revival of record shops in Brooklyn (see “The Return of the Record Store,” February 2019). In his treatise, Mike told of the special relationship that music lovers have with vinyl records. To paraphrase his sentiments, he said something like “You can’t put your arms around an MP3.” He wasn’t pinching a Johnny Thunders line here (the dead New York Doll’s guitarist was talking about a memory, not an MP3). I would add that you cannot roll a joint on the cover of an MP3 either, nor can you spill beer all over one and still listen to it. But you can make associations with records, ones that will never go away. I was born and grew up in Durban, South Africa. My father, whose name was Merlin but who went by the moniker of Mogs, spent a chunk of his life as a beat journalist down there. He worked for the morning daily Natal Mercury, later the afternoon Daily News, and the weekend Sunday Tribune, all Durban papers. He even moonlighted for The Leader, Durban’s independent Indian community newspaper. In these jobs, he wore many hats. At different times, Mogs was the crime correspondent, the shipping reporter, Uncle Bill in the kids’ comic section, the horse racing maven, the man on the spot at City Hall, the test driver of new autos (the Vauxhall Viva), and especially the record reviewer. It was this last brief that had a profound effect on his own kids, my two elder sisters and myself.
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In his capacity as music critic, Mogs brought home a truly bizarre collection of long-playing records. Our house was the recipient of such gems and unique thumpers as Around the World with The Chipmunks (Alvin, Simon and Theodore), One Million Dollars’ Worth of Twang by Duane Eddy, Donald Where’s Your Troosers by the Scottish crooner Andy Stewart, My Fair Lady by the Percy Faith Orchestra, Jim Reeves Sings Afrikaans Country Music Hits, The Theme from the Bridge on the River Kwai by the Mitch Miller Whistlers, Expresso Bongo by Cliff Richard and The Shadows, Connie Francis Sings Italian Favorites, Ivor Novello’s We’ll Gather Lilacs, Jump Up Calypso by Harry Belafonte, Charles Penrose’s The Laughing Policeman, and Flaming Star/Rock a Hula Baby by Elvis Presley, to name a few. There was only one problem. We didn’t own a record player. So Mogs relied on the liner notes to guide his critical voice. A typical review would lead off with a hook like “Move over Frank Sinatra, there’s a new act in town,” or “She has the hips to swivel, and boy can she prove it.” He had no idea what he was writing about, but it came across as convincing. This might have been a different and earlier form of fake news: fake opinions, at least. Finally, my parents purchased a Pilot radiogram, and we had the opportunity to actually play these albums. The Pilot didn’t work too well. The speed on the turntable was wonky, so the Chipmunks sounded like the Kingston Trio, and Matt Monro could have been Alvin of the Chipmunks singing the Japanese Banana song instead of the theme from Born Free or From Russia With Love. It didn’t matter. We listened to everything. Christmas came, and we children all got a sevensingle each as presents. Jenny, the eldest, received Sherry Baby by the Four Seasons, with the Frankie Valli wailing falsetto. Bronwen was given You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two, the Fagin song from the musical Oliver (as an aside, Steve Marriott, the front man for the Small Faces and Humble Pie, was the Artful Dodger in the West End stage production). I wound up with Edward and Gordon from the original Thomas the Tank Engine series by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry, an Anglican cleric and railway enthusiast. The floodgates were open. By the age of eleven years, I had saved enough for my first record. It was Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys. There was no going back. Late 1977, I left South Africa for London in a bit of a hurry and had to abandon my record collection back home. It was fairly formidable, ranging from Frank Zappa to the Zulu Malombo Jazzmen, and a whole lot of in-between. The stranded albums were all in the hands of Durban’s ex-premier record reviewer Mogs, who no doubt immediately dumped the entire shebang on the front doorstep of the local Sally Army thrift store…so much for that. I was broke in London, but always put aside a few
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quid for a trip to Virgin, the HMV record store or the street market vendors down Notting Hill Road or Camden Town way, and so I had accrued another smaller but far more exotic record collection. These ones included artists such as Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Graham Parker and the Rumour, the Welsh wizard Dave Edmonds, the punk poet John Cooper Clarke, and various dub men and women like Tapper Zukie and Althea & Donna. In September 1978, my South African movement work brought me to Brooklyn, New York, USA. The plan was to be in America for a couple of months at the most. That was forty-one years ago. I am still here. So that particular London record collection journeyed straight up the Khyber too, on the path of no return to the khazi (English slang for the outhouse). Here in Brooklyn, I went for a good seven years before I scored a regular monthly wage. Not oddly enough, political activism was a poor breadwinning vocation. We were barely earning enough to pay the rent, drink bathtub gin at home, and occasionally socialize in cheap bars that would literally petrify today’s hipsters. When I finally landed a more reliable gig, I made a promise to myself: I would rebuild the record collection from the git-go. This would involve refilling all that I had abandoned before if I could ever find it again, and keeping up to snuff with what was new that appealed to me. I spent all of my extra cash on this pursuit and going to the boozer. And man, was I in the right place to do it. Saloons stayed open until four in the morning, and stores like Tower Records, J&R Records and Sounds were attractions to me akin to a dung beetle’s jones with giraffe shit. I will no doubt die poor, but I have a wall of records and the liver to prove it. I have no regrets. This is why Mike Cobb’s article meant something. It spoke to the record collector inside of me. And now LPs are back in style. This has to be a music industry initiative, so the motivation behind this latest popularity could well be dubious. It is certainly pecuniary, if the asking prices for new albums are anything to go by. I couldn’t give two hoots about the salvation or growth of the music business, and why the sale of vinyl now makes sense to those executives in suits. Their needs have always fucked people like us anyway, not to mention countless worthwhile musicians. We hang onto certain things because they are meaningful to us. They are ours, not theirs, and this has nothing to do with fixations about private property or ownership. It’s the stories behind the collecting and the listening that matter. Sometimes these memories might be all that we are left with. And we can certainly put our arms around them. Check out your local record stores and start from scratch, if that’s what it takes.
November 2019
PIOTR'S PICKS! Porches
Following the band’s performance at one of Bushwick’s newest venues, The Sultan Room at Turks Inn, on October 1, Porches has released a new single, “rangerover,” featuring Dev Hynes of Blood Orange (also featured on the song “Country” on the last Porches album). Similar to the group’s now stripped-down live performance featuring singer-songwriter Aaron Maine, the single represents a further step toward a more electronic sound which can be seen over each successive Porches release. Check it out on most streaming services.
Alex G
Releasing a new record, House of Sugar, this past September, Alex G has continued evolving his signature sound, further refining his captivating songwriting. Standout tracks include “Southern Sky,” which starts repeating piano melody and transitions to the full band, and “Hope,” similarly starting soft with strummed acoustic guitar leading into the main section. He will be back with his band at Brooklyn Steel on November 14. Check the new album out on most streaming services.
Vagabon
Having recently released an eponymous fulllength, Vagabon builds on the momentum of 2017’s Infinite Worlds. Having seen the band back in December 2017 with Radiator Hospital and Cende at the Bowery Ballroom, I can attest that this not a live act to miss. “Water Me Down” is a standout track on the release, which I find myself coming back to time and time again. Catch them at Brooklyn Steel on their current tour on November 22 and listen to the new record on most streaming services.
Tony Clark
Tony Clark, singer and guitarist of emo/punk rock band Prawn, has released a new record as a standalone project on October 10 called Dyed in the Wool. These songs represent something of a departure from Prawn but are still very in line with the band’s sound. Prawn released its last record, Run, in 2017, so this a great chance for fans to get their fix before any future Prawn releases. Check it out on most streaming services.
Piotr Pillardy received a B.A. in History of Art and History from Cornell University, lives in Manhattan, and plays live regularly with the band Bad Weird.
Grand Opening
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November 2019, Page 33
Lil' Kim returns with a listenable LP by Roderick Thomas
The Queen Bee is back. 9 is Lil’ Kim’s first major commercial release in 14 years. Kimberly Jones, famously known as Lil’ Kim, is a hip-hop legend with a legacy stamped on rap music. There is a time before Lil’ Kim and after Lil’ Kim. Her entrance into hip hop is a marker in the evolution of rap. While other female hip hop artists had used sensuality and confidence in their music, Lil’ Kim raised the bar in terms of women’s sexual expression and media visibility with rap. Her rise to fame began in 1994 as part of the popular rap collective Junior M.A.F.I.A. Lil’ Kim, who was still in high school at the time, made a name for herself through guest appearances on other artists’ songs, as well as her own performances on Junior M.A.F.I.A. hits like “Get Money.” In 1996 Lil’ Kim made her solo debut with Hardcore, and hip hop changed forever. From her raunchy album cover to her multi-colored wigs in her “Crush on You” video, Lil’ Kim changed how femininity and power could manifest themselves in hip hop. To this day her lyrics still give me pause. She was a skilled rapper, girlishly feminine and bold. Lil’ Kim not only changed how unapologetically sexual and confident women in rap could be, but she also broadened what success looked like for women in rap music. Before her second album Notorious K.I.M. (2000), Lil’ Kim had already nabbed deals with many fashion brands, like Versace and Candie’s. Kim’s entrance in hip-hop wasn’t just successful – it was groundbreaking, yet also controversial to say the least. At the time, her music was deemed too sexual and too raunchy for many, some even referring to it as pornographic. Things have certainly changed since the mid-1990s. In today’s context, Lil’ Kim’s music is on par with newer acts as far as sexual content is concerned. Some of her early (and current-day) critics of her cite how dependent on a man’s gaze she was, in
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terms of the type of sexuality she displayed. Nevertheless, Lil’ Kim is verifiably the indisputable, dominant archetype for modern women in hip hop. Every female rapper, particularly every major successful female rapper, can trace part of their success back to the Queen Bee. Kim went on to have more commercially successful albums and singles including 2001’s Grammywinning “Lady Marmalade,” accompanied by Pink, Christina Aguilera, Missy Elliot, and Mya. Now that the Queen Bee has returned, what’s changed in hip hop?
40. While these lists are subjective, it is indicative of how little acclaim is given to the achievements of women who rap. Female rappers have to brand themselves in ways that men don’t. Less is required of men in order to earn acknowledgment. To push back, I would argue that half of T. I.’s list (including himself) is filled with men who have indeed been successful, but not as impactful as Lil’ Kim. To put it simply, few of her male (and female) peers have become an archetypal standard for any lengthy period of time, and certainly not since the mid-1990s.
Currently, women in hip hop are experiencing a resurgence. While there are still only a few women who are considered marquee acts, more women are now receiving opportunities because women in hip hop are seen as profitable. Women command a unique amount of attention in comparison to their male counterparts (see Megan Thee Stallion’s “Hot Girl Summer”).
Lil’ Kim’s 9 album is a reminder of her skill, and why she has been one of the most dominant standards in hip hop. While the body of work isn’t groundbreaking, it is audibly competitive and, undoubtedly, Lil’ Kim. The Queen Bee boastfully roars over beats with her signature deep and punchy vocals – raunchy as ever.
However, what hasn’t changed is the misogyny and sexism in hip hop. Hip hop exists within a patriarchal society and while the genre in many ways is an art form birthed from marginalized people, it was never free of sexism. Despite Lil’ Kim being the most dominant archetype for women in hip hop, she’s not as respected as the former statement might suggest. In rap, the idea of the virgin Madonna is also present. The notion that a woman cannot have agency over her sexuality and skillfully and commercially dominate men is a pervasive one. We’ve seen women in hip hop out-rap, outsell, and outperform many of hip hop’s leading men – Jay-Z, Kanye, Migos, etc. – numerous times and not be cited or acknowledged the way their male counterparts do for lesser showings. Recently, on his podcast Expeditiously, rapper T.I. and his mostly male co-hosts revealed a list of what they considered to be the top 50 rappers of all time, based on “impact.” The word impact by definition means “the action of one object coming forcibly into contact with another.” Yet, the rapper controversially saw it fit to put Lil’ Kim at number
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Unfortunately, the production throughout the album seems a bit lackluster, and at some points feels just a few years too late, like “Catch My Wave” (albeit a favorite of mine). Additionally, none of 9’s instrumentals actually match Kim’s best performances. “Found You,” which features the City Girls and OT Genasis and samples Bubba Sparxx and Ying Yang Twins' 2005 hit “Miss New Booty,” falls short of Kim’s best, but she easily outshines her collaborators on the song. 9 definitely possesses some gems, though, notably “Pray for Me,” Too Bad” and “You Are Not Alone.” Lil’ Kim showcases her singing ability on most of the tracks on her latest album, at one point hilariously crooning Michael Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone” on her identically titled track. All in all, 9 is a good listen – it doesn’t outshine her previous efforts, but it is a decent body of work and a solid reminder why Lil’ Kim is affectionately iconized as the Queen Bee. Roderick Thomas is an NYC based writer and filmmaker (Instagram – @Hippiebyaccident). Email – rtroderick.thomas@gmail.com
November 2019
REVUE MUSIC NOVEMBER West Village
Mezzrow, 163 W. 10th St. 11/2 Joe Farnsworth, Spike Wilner & Felix Moseholm, Pianist Jon Davis; 11/3 Ehud Asherie, Paul Sikivie & Charles Goold, Pianist Michael Kanan; 11/4 Hilary Gardner & Bruce Forman, Guitarist Pasquale Grasso; 11/5 Liz Rosa, Misha Piatigorsky, Giliard Lopes & Graciliano Zambonin, Vocalist Vanisha Gould; 11/6 Franck Amsallem, Tim Ries & Johannes Weidenmuller, Pianist Isaiah Thompson; 11/7 Jon Cowherd & Scott Colley, Pianist Spike Wilner; 11/8 Michael Wolff, Ben Allison & Rudy Royston, Pianist Willerm Delisfort; 11/9 Michael Wolff, Ben Allison & Rudy Royston; 11/10 Paul Meyers, Panas Athanatos & Friends; 11/11 Alan Broadbent, Don Falzone & Billy Mintz, Guitarist Pasquale Grasso; 11/12 Michelle Zangara, Niall Cade, Alberto Pibiri & Nobu Yamasaki, Vocalist Naama Gheber; 11/13 Nitzan Gavrieli, Rick Rosato & Francisco Mela, Pianist Julius Rodriguez; 11/14 George Cables, Essiet Essiet & Victor Lewis, Pianist Spike Wilner; 11/15 George Cables, Essiet Essiet & Victor Lewis, Pianist Theo Hill; 11/16 George Cables, Ed Howard & Victor Lewis, Pianist Jon Davis; 11/17 Kelly Green, Alex Tremblay & Evan Hyde, Guitarist Chris Flory; 11/18 Lafayette Harris, Peter Washington & Jerome Jennings, Guitarist Pasquale Grasso; 11/19 Champian Fulton & Hide Tanaka, Vocalist Lucy Yeghiazaryan; 11/20 Joel Frahm, Pianist Isaiah J. Thompson; 11/21 Andrea Domenici, Peter Washington & Billy Drummond, Pianist Spike Wilner; 11/22 Ted Rosenthal, Noriko Ueda & Quincy Davis, Pianist Greg Murphy; 11/23 Ted Rosenthal, Noriko Ueda & Quincy Davis; 11/24 David Oei, Bryn Roberts, Rick Rosato & Mark Ferber, Pianist Michael Kanan; 11/25 Behn Gillece, Rick Germanson & Paul Gill, Guitarist Pasquale Grasso; 11/26 Tardo Hammer, Lee Hudson & Steve Williams, Vocalist Vanessa Perea; 11/27 David Berkman & Dick Oatts, Pianist Tuomo Uusitalo; 11/29 Justin Kauflin, Christopher Smith & Jimmy Macbride; 11/30 Justin Kauflin, Christopher Smith & Jimmy Macbride, Malick Koly “After-hours” Smalls Jazz Club, 138 W 10th St. 11/2 George Coleman Jr. Quartet, Ralph Bowen Quartet, Mimi Jones and The Lab Session; 11/3 Behn Gillece Quartet, JC Stylles/Steve Nelson Quintet, Hillel Salem “After-hours”; 11/4 Ari Hoenig Quartet, Joe Farnsworth Quartet, Sean Mason “After-hours”; 11/5 Justin Robinson Quartet, Abraham Burton Quartet, Malik McLaurine “After-hours”; 11/6 Le Boeuf Brothers, Rob Garcia Quartet; 11/7 Arcoiris Sandoval Sonic Asylum Band, Adam Kolker Quartet; 11/8 Mark Sherman Quartet, Charles Ruggiero Octet, Corey Wallace DUBtet “After-hours”; 11/9 Mark Sherman Quartet,
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Charles Ruggiero Octet, Brooklyn Circle; 11/10 Mike Mullins Quintet, Aaron Seeber Quartet, David Gibson “After-hours”; 11/11 JD Allen Trio, Tivon Pennicott Trio, Ben Barnett “After-hours”; 11/12 Steve Nelson Quartet, Frank Lacy Band, Jon Elbaz “After-hours”; 11/13 Dave Baron Quartet, Ryan Berg Quartet; 11/14 James Austin Sextet, Noah Bless: Slide Appeal, Davis Whitfield “After-hours”; 11/15 Diego Urcola Quartet, Jason Marshall Group, Wallace Roney Jr. “After-hours”; 11/16 Hal Galper Trio, Jason Marshall Group, Brooklyn Circle; 11/17 Grant Stewart Quartet, Charles Owens Trio, David Gibson “After-hours”; 11/18 Ari Hoenig Trio, Joe Farnsworth Quartet, Sean Mason “After-hours”; 11/19 Bruce Williams Quintet, Abraham Burton Quartet, Malik McLaurine “After-hours”; 11/20 Andy Laverne Quintet, Harold Mabern Tribute; 11/21 Alexander Claffy Trio, Nick Finzer Quintet, Malick Koly “After-hours”; 11/22 Eliot Zigmund Quintet, Dmitry Baevsky Quartet, Corey Wallace DUBtet “After-hours”; 11/23 Eliot Zigmund Quintet, Dmitry Baevsky Quartet, Mimi Jones and The Lab Session; 11/24 Ralph Lalama & “BopJuice”, Johnny O’Neal Trio, Hillel Salem “After-hours”; 11/25 Anthony Pinciotti Quartet, Brent Birckhead Quartet, Ben Barnett
Always see Christian McBride when you can. He is at Smalls in the Village on November 29 “After-hours”; 11/26 Steve Nelson Quartet, Frank Lacy Band, Jon Elbaz “After-hours”; 11/27 Itamar Borochov Quartet, Santi Debriano & Flash Of The Spirit; 11/28 David Ambrosio Group, Carlos Abadie Quintet, Malick Koly “After-hours”; 11/29 Christopher McBride & The Whole Proof, George Burton Quintet; 11/30 Christopher McBride & The Whole Proof, George Burton Quintet
Park Slope Freddy’s Bar, 625 5th Ave 11/2 Electric Neil, Crazy Like Wow; 11/3 Karaoke Grand Prix; 11/6 The Push And Pull; 11/7 Phil Brush, Cashank Hootenanny; 11/8 Funk-N-Soul Dance Party; 11/9 Traditional Music Session; 11/10 Sarah Mucho; 11/12 SlamJunk Tuesday, Simple Blues Boy, Noe Socha AKA Blind Selfie; 11/13 Humans Against Music Karaoke; 11/14 Home Brew Opera with Hope
Littwin; 11/15 Johnny Mercier; 11/16 Songwriter’s Deathmatch, Monotone Assassins, Miss Jane And The Morning After Band, Jake Joint Saturday; 11/19 The Eric’nEd Show, Freddy DeBoe; 11/20 Demo DeBaTe’; 11/21 The David Roche Band, Paranoid Larry; 11/22 Srch Party, Touque, Apollo Sounds; 11/23 Fundraiser for CHiPS; 11/26 SlamJunk Tuesday; 11/30 DJ C-Prod Barbes, 376 9th St. 11/2 Curious, Unusual and Extraordinary, Bombay Rickey, Banda De Los Muertos; 11/3 Brandon Terzic, Stephane Wrembel; 11/4 Brain Cloud; 11/5 Slavis Soul Party; 11/6 Andy Statman, The Mandingo Ambassadors; 11/7 High Low Duo, Jim Campilongo/Luca benedetti Guitar Duo, Innov Gnawa; 11/8 The Crooked Trio, The Toomai String Quintet, Los Cumpleanos; 11/9 Zemog El Gallo Bueno; 11/10 Brandon Terzic, Gyan Riley, Stephane Wrembel; 11/11 Tamar Korn and Kornucopia’ 11/12 Slavic Soul Party; 11/13 The Mandingo Ambassadors; 11/14 The Pre-War Ponies; 11/15 Regional De NY, YOTOCO; 11/16 Pedro Giraudo Tango Quartet, Bulla En El Barrio; 11/17 Brandon Terzic, Mike Neer’s Steelonious, Stephane Wrembel; 11/18 Raphael McGregor’s Guitarra De Aco, Locobeach; 11/19 Slavic Soul Party; 11/20 Dida Pelled, The Mandingo Ambassadors; 11/22 The Crooked Trio, Dolunay, Big Lazy; 11/23 Anbessa Orchestra; 11/24 Brandon Terzic, Stephane Wrembel; 11/25 Tamar Korn and Kornucopia, Bulla En El Barrio; 11/26 CAMPOS, Slavic Soul Party; 11/27 The Mandingo Ambassadors; 11/29 The Crooked Trio, Terapia and Verbena; 11/30 Living Language
Lower East Side Drom, 85 Avenue A 11/2 Valence A Cappella Showcase, Mehmet Erdem; 11/3 New York School of Burlesque; 11/5 Lulu Fall “Between Two Worlds” Album Release Concert; 11/7 True Masters, Roller Disco Party; 11/8 Pepito Gomez Sextet Buena, Hot Rabbit; 11/9 CEG Presents Unforgettable Fire, Bahia Connection; 11/10 Tamara Jokic and Menshei; 11/12 Silver Arrow Band; 11/13 Kune * Canada’s Global Orchestra NY Debut; 11/14 El Gaitazo with MV Caldera, Leslie Cartaya; 11/15 BTR from Bulgaria, Soul Trax; 11/16 Showtime, Voyage; 11/17 Terrell T-Rex; 11/19 Silver Arrow Band; 11/20 Sad But True - Nikolett Pankovits Sextet, Lazo from Greece; 111/21 Pericles Kanaris; 11/22 Kalben in New York; 11/23 A Benefit for JDRF; 11/24 Kali Rodriguez; 11/26 Alex Bosxhardt EPl 11/29 The Big Takeover with Aqua Cherry; 11/30 Nasza Sxiana Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. 11/2 Railroad Earth; 11/4 Leslie Odom Jr.; 11/5 White Reaper; 11/6 JPEGMAFIA; 11/7 Dylan
LeBlanc, Night Moves; 11/8 Ben Kweller; 11/9 Phantoms; 11/10 Jordan Rakei; 11/12 Dave: Psychodrama North America Tourl 11/13 Brandon Taz Niederauer; 11/14 Pivot Gang Tour; 11/15 Black Mountain ; 11/16 Elderbrook; 11/17 The Hu; 11/19 SKEGSS; 11/20 Mikal Croninl 11/21 Jaymes Young; 11/22 Black Marble; 11/23 Titus Andronicus; 11/25 Young MA Herstory In The Making; 11/26 Son Little; 11/29 Rising Appalachia; 11/30 KNOWER Bowery Electric, 327 Bowery 11/2 Bad Business Single Release; 11/3 Daisy Raygun, Slugbug, Guilty Giraffe, Drobakid, Pynkie, Choirgirl, Andy Cook; 11/4 Carrier, Benchmarker, Mandi Crimmins, Kiss Kiss Bangl 11/5 Bad, Valiant Vermin, Mumu, Shlee, Nicolas McCoppin, Shymala, Salemni; 11/6 Mark Battles, Paola Gladys, Iva, Luke Domozick; 11/7 The Dog Star, Jules and the Jinks, High Voltage with Mindtrix; 11/8 The Dye, Bad Kitty, Ashjesus, Jigsaw Youth, Grim Straker; 11/9 Junkanoo EP Release; 11/10 Gina Chavez, Rayvon with Derrick Barnett and the Statement Band, and Sugar Bear, Chameleonize, Dodongo, Haewa, Pickle Mafia; 11/11 Dave Drake and Common Ground, Lawernce Qualls and Friends, Suomynona; 11/12 Panther Hollow, Plutoness, Baby Carrots, Cat Lau, Royal Bliss; 11/13 The Flops, Midnight Sun, Jamie Thomas, Yes Please; 11/14 Anna Rose, Granville Automatic, Jennifer Silva, Bathtub Gin; 11/15 Jane Q, Public Lip Service; 11/16 Moon Cactus, Sincere Gifts, Wide Dark, Se’Nor Tadpole, Armen Paul, Peter Fanone; 11/17 A. Graff; 11/18 Boo Riley; 11/19 Katherine Redlus, Jeremy Stoddard Carroll, Mammiferes, Strawberry Launch, Chinese Kitty; 11/21 Pyor, 5!Alive; 11/22 Seth Freeman Band, Stef Shiv; 11/23 Lupo + Lank; 11/24 Lorena Leigh, Lukie Sherman, Giantqueen, Awksymoron; 11/25 Sophie Marks; 11/26 The New Administration, Callaz, Continental Shelf, Hanford Reach; 11/30 Karina Daza Album Release Mercury Lounge, 217 E Houston 11/2 Luke Sital-Singh; 11/3 Ida Mae, Dead Soft; 11/4 Swanky Tiger, The Raskins, Nikki’s Wives; 11/5 Chris Mardini, Minihorse; 11/6 Dayglow, MAE Sun; 11/7 Sammy Wilk, Paul Beaubrun, Vana Liya; 11/8 Satanicide, Magic Sword; 11/9 Point Break, Emo Night Karaoke; 11/10 ToriTori, Tenille Ja’nae, Olivia K., Islima, ria Nadege, Jai Emm; 11/11 Geowulf, Kira Metcalf, Kelly Quigley, Pearl Sugar, Sarah Jordan; 11/12 JJ Wilde, Die Goldenen Zitronen; 11/13 The Coronas; 11/15 An Indie Dance Party; 11/16 Tioga, Dopico, Greg Duffy and the Foxes, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Rope; 11/17 Ava Camille, Nathan Brouillet, Anna Oh, Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum; 11/18 Tones And I, Bernie and the Wolf, And Lucky, Mountain Shallows; 11/19 Ali
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Barter, Peter Bradley Adams, Cartalk; 11/20 Jake Huffman of McLovins, 4th & Orange, Edo Ferragamo, Demi; 11/21 Jesca Hoop, Pinkie Promise, Modern Diet, Grace Ludmila; 11/22 Willie Nile, Witch Taint; 11/23 The Blackfires; 11/24 Lorraine Leckie and her Demons, Genitorturers; 11/25 Moon City Masters, Ashley Strongarm, Logan Richardson presents blues PEOPLE; 11/26 Smith and Thell, Silver Relics, Tall Days; 11/27 Ruen Brothers, Ayo’s Friends Giving; 11/29 A$AP Twelvyy & Friends, HARBER; 11/30 Empire State Social Club
Williamsburg Pete’s Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St. 11/2 Wyler Wolf, Paul Weinfield, Erin O’Dowd, Jen Cork, Jess Clinton, Chaces, Matt Howels; 11/3 Libby Weitnauer, Mary Elaine-Jenkins, Christa Joy and The Honeybees, Myrtle; 11/4 Girl + Gang Live, Jonathan Hulting-Cohen and Dennis Sullivan, Mana Quartet, South by North East; 11/5 Sara Neal, Brady Oh, Alexandra James, Sarah Summer; 11/6 Sebastian Blanck, The Listeners; 11/7 Rosa Tu, Sam Aneson, Samual Campoli; 11/8 Justin Nash Fisher, Andy Hinkley and his Summer Singers, Jeremy Danneman and the Down on Me; 11/9 Shannon McArdle, Chris Moore, Milo Jones, Florence Dore, Jack FU, Villins, Everything Must Go, Autograft; 11/10 The Biryani Boys, Asaran Earth Trio, Aya Safiya; 11/11 Andrea Niane, Cassidy Andrews, Cameron Mizell and Charlie Rauh; 11/12 G.T. Thomas, Catriona Sturton, Sarah Wise; 11/13 Ben Sutin Quartet, Los Crueles; 11/14 Rancho Cowabunga, Pennants, Meal; 11/15 Pantaleon, Sham Sundra, Chatterbox; 11/16 Josh Couvares, Michael Hall, Abrielle
Mary Elaine Jenkins is a modern country singer who will be famous any day now. See her before that happens on November 3 at Pete's Candy Store Scharff, Darryl Rahn, Rebecca Haviland, The Lowliest One; 11/17 Flora Midwood, Nate Qi; 11/18 Evan Tyor, Katie Martucci, Sam Pace; 11/19 The Icebergs, The Daily Fare, Stephen Babcock; 11/20 Rachel Yohe, Annie Nirschel; 11/21 Gadee Levy, Ali McGuirck, Shayna Blass; 11/22 Hallie Spoor, EW Haris, Kia Eshghi; 11/23 Julie Hanse, Camille Thornton, Jon Moore; 11/24 Metagirl, Calvin Rezen, Jenny and Jackie; 11/25 Omer Leibovitz, Casual Male, John Shannon; 11/26 Tavo Carbone,
Leviathan; 11/29 Gregory Stovetop; 11/30 Laura Dance, Gabby Borges, The Library Band Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Wythe St. 11/2 North Mississippi AllStars, Sammy Johnson, Swells OC, Manic Focus; 11/3 The Bad Plus, Tom Morello; 11/4 Descarrilao, Juancho Herrera; 11/6 Chris Jacobs Band; 11/7 Grateful Shred, Nahko & Medicine For The People; 11/8 Grateful Shred, The Octane Accelerator Tour, Slow Jam; 11/9 Grateful Shred, PJ Morton, Just Kanye; 11/12 Yelawolf, Tauk with Jazz is Phsh; 11/13 The Movement; 11/14 Yonder Mountain String Band; 11/15 Billy Strings, Built to Spill, Hilltop Hoods; 11/16 Billy Strings, Fortunate Youth; 11/17 Half Step; 11/19 Emily Rose + Gideon King & City Blog, Marlon Asher, The Retrolites; 11/21 Emerald Quintet ft. Stanton Moore, Scott Metzger, Robert Walter, Andy Hess & Skerik; 11/22 The Motet, Little Brother, FCCMG, Bobby J From Rockaway; 11/23 The Motet; 11/26 Metropolitan Jamgrass Alliance; 11/29 Collie Budoz; 11/30 Talking Heads Tribute Knitting Factory, 361 Metropolitan Ave 11/2 Vacation Manor, Night Traveler, Brother Moses; 11/4 Leon Majcen, Ben Blue, the Bear Stolen Gin; 11/5 Evan Harris, Learning, Aaron Waldman; 11/6 Jason Hawk Harris, Low Roller, Jollymonster; 11/7 Anthony Brown, Jonathan McReynolds; 11/8 Upstate, The Way Down Wanderers; 11/9 HARE with Molly, for Now and Brett Cameron; 11/11 Asian Doll, Miss Money, Natalie; 11/12 American Nomads, More Than Skies; 11/13 The Big Damn Blues; 11/14 Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, The Library; 11/15 Katastro; 11/16 Black Mountain, Ryley Walker; 11/17 Mayday, Wiked Wood; 11/18 Brother Hawk, Howling Giant, Mirror Queen; 11/19 Zion I & Mister Burns, SharpKnel, Googie; 11/20 Fox Stevenson; 11/21 Mungion, Magic Beans, Bushicks; 11/22 Goodnight, Texas, Satin Nickel, Apache Brown Band; 11/23 FM Attack, Unknown Caller, Glitbiter; 11/25 Arin Ray; 11/26 Merkules; 11/27 Acidhead Record Release Show; 11/29 KEY!; 11/30 Birds in the Boneyard, Control the Sound, Katie Ruvane, Ephwurd, ETC! ETC! Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 N 6th St. 11/2 J.S. Ondara; 11/4 Juke Ross; 11/5 Kindness; 11/6 Anthony Ramos; 11/7 Prateek Kuhad; 11/8 JPEGMAFIA; 11/12 Moon Duo; 11/13 Bayside; 11/14 Jordan Rakei; 11/15 Last Dinosaurs; 11/16 No Vacation, Surf Rock is Dead; 11/17 Lil Tecca; 11/20 Alice Merton; 11/21 Tiny Moving Parts; 11/22 Crumb; 11/23 Crumb; 11/25 2019 Dragon King World Tour; 11/27 Vintage Trouble - Chapter II World Tour; 11/29 Role Model Union Pool, 484 Union Ave. 11/3 Office Culture; 11/4 Reverend Vince Anderson and the Love Choir; 11/5 Purple Pilgrims; 11/6 No Swoon; 11/7
November 2019, Page 35
REVUE MUSIC NOVEMBER Drew Citron, Cyrus Gengras, Lope, Dark tea; 11/8 SAMIAM; 11/10 Downtown Boys, Clear Channel, Big Huge; 11/11 Reverend Vince Anderson and the Love Choir; 11/12 Purple Pilgrims; 11/13 Big Sandy and his Fly Rite Boys; 11/14 Jack Klatt, Zephaniah O’Hora; 11/15 Mail The Horse; 11/17 Itasca; 11/18 Reverend Vince Anderson and the Love Choir; 11/19 Purple Pilgrims; 11/20 Sun Seeker; 11/22 Mortiferum; 11/23 NOVEL, Gustaf; 11/25 Reverend Vince Anderson and the Love Choir
Elsewhere Nowadays, 56-06 Cooper Ave 11/3 Ash Lauryn All Day; 11/8 Binh All Night; 11/9 Seltzer and Bambi; 11/10 Musclecars; 11/15 Anthony Napels and Changsie; 11/16 Aurora Halal and Pessimist; 11/17 Honcho and Jacq Jill; 11/22 Will Dimaggio and Central; 11/23 Tygapaw, Russel E.L. Butler and Skyshaker; 11/24 Soul Summit; 11/27 Marcellus Pittman All Night; 11/29 Working Women and Martyn; 11/30 Dee Diggs and DJ Bone Trans Pecos, 915 Wyckoff Ave 11/2 Dog Date, Pleaser; 11/3 Korine; 11/6 Amy O, Yours Are The Only Ears; 11/7 Ami Dang & Lori Scacco; 11/8 Beech Creeps, Weak Signal, Foster Care, Burning Man; 11/9 Friendship, Pearer, Shannen Moser; 11/10 Foxy Dads, Cheem, Cold Wrecks, Winnebago Vacation; 11/12 Begonia, Mia Gladstone, Noia; 11/14 Gouge Away; 11/15 Cones, The Gloomies; 11/16 Guerilla Toss, Lilu & Horn Horse, Slippery Stairs; 11/17 Sunrot, Exhalants, The Austerity Program; 11/21 Mean Spiders, Daddies, Qwam, Hello Mary; 11/22 Eaters, Greg Fox, David Watson, Michael Shea; 11/24 Bethlehem Steel, Ben Seratan, Sinai Vessel, Lightning Bug; 11/30 Jozef Van Wissem Bar Chord, 1008 Cortelyou Road 11/2 Elle Melodies and her band; 11/3 Cortelyou Jazz Jam; 11/4 Songs on Cortelyou; 11/5 Jeremy Danneman & The Down On Me; 11/6 Hope Debates & North 40; 11/7 Outernational; 11/8 The 41 Players; 11/9 Adam Falcon Band; 11/10 Cortelyou Jazz Jam; 11/11 Whiskey Bumps; 11/12 Big Eyed Rabbit; 11/13 Damian Quinones Electric Trio; 11/14 Stanley John Mitchell & His Band of Buddies; 11/15 Officer Friendly; 11/16 Algebra & Friends; 11/17 Cortelyou Jazz Jam; 11/18 Michael Potter; 11/19 Franglais; 11/20 Famous Geniuses; 11/21 Meltron; 11/22 Milo Z; 11/23 Molly Ruth; 11/24 Cortelyou Jazz Jam; 11/26 Flezadoza; 11/27 Michael Louis Solo; 11/29 Descarrilao; 11/30 Ryan O’Neil & The Bandits
The Sultan Room, 234 Starr St. 11/2 Wiki + Mr. Muthafuckin’ Exquire + Lansky Jones, Funk Train with Recloose, Amy Douglas, Steven Klavier; 11/5 Sky White Tiger, Fancy Colors, DJs Prince Rama & Rinsed; 11/6 Laura Escude, Bohemian Cristal Instrument, Stranger Cat; 11/7 Hess is More, Pecas, Heidemann, DJ Daniel Collas; 11/8 Brenna Barbara, Kendra Morris; 11/9 Lusine, Trent Moorman, logan Takahshi, Animal Feelings; 11/12 Negashi Armada, Fit of Body, Isabella Lovestory, Cold Deck, Surf Gang, Cucurucha; 11/13 People’s Champs, Darius Christian, Phantom Vanity; 11/14 Stonefield, The Warts, TVOD; 11/16 The Brother Brothers, Buck Meek, Pearla; 11/17 Lou Tides, Lizzie Loveless, Saadi; 11/18 Kamilah, Sonic + Lohai; 11/20 Suss Album Release, Rachika S.; 11/22 Nites Delights with LE1F; 11/23 Suuns + Preservation; 11/25 Kate Gentle with Matt Mitchell, Kim Cass; 11/26 Kate Gentle with Jon Irabagon, Matt Mitchell; 11/27 M.A.K.U Record Release, Salt Cathedral, DJ Little Dynasty
JAIMIE'S CALENDAR
Welcome to November, the barnacle parade has passed again and the weather is changing quick. Luckily for us, there are a number of shows to warm up with this month. The super talented Joanna Sternberg graces Sunny’s on November 5th, November 14th catch up with Brooklyn Raga Massive at Jalopy theater with special guests Xander Naylor, Tripp Dudley, and Nicholas Jozwiak, and the always deep, always evolving Matana Roberts hits with her newest installment of her Coin Coin chapter at Roulette on November 17th. Smokey Hormel is back every Wednesday at Sunny’s and over at Rockies Alegba has a residency on the 2nd and last Saturdays of the month. Don’t miss Jacolby Satterwhite’s dope installation over at Pioneer Works and his show with Nick Nick Weiss as they perform their new record: PAT: Love Will Find a Way Home. I am over in Europa and am having Red Hook
Page 36 Red Hook Star-Revue
separation anxiety, so you all get out and boogie for me and I will see ya back in the hood in December. Happy November, Peace and Love, Jaimie Branch. * critics pick Bene’s RECORD SHOP 360 Van Brunt St. 718-855-0360 call for infor IBEAM 168 7th Street between 2nd and 3rd Ave. ibeambrooklyn.com Shows at 8:30 PM unless otherwise printed. THURS 11/2, 7:30PM Russ Lossing and King Vulture Russ Lossing - piano Adam Kolker - tenor sax Matt Pavolka - bass Dayeon Seok - drums SAT 11/16 Neal Kirkwood Trio Neal Kirkwood - piano Lindsey Horner - bass Michael Sarin - drums JALOPY TAVERN 317 Columbia St. 718-625-3214 jalopytavern.biz
Every Friday Papa Vega and the Rocket 88’s SAT 11/2, 8PM SKALOPY! WED 11/6 Frankie Sunswept & The Sunwrays THURS 11/7 Anna J. Witiuk & Friends WED 11/13 Lissy & The Jacks TUES 11/19 The Honky Tonk Heroes, 8PM WED 11/20, 8PM Charlie Judkins and Miss Maybell! SAT 11/23 Stillhouse Serendade JALOPY THEATRE 315 Columbia St. 718-395-3214 jalopytheatre.org Every Tuesday Night, 9PM Open Mic Night, sign up by 9 sharp! Each performer gets 2 songs or 8 minutes. Every Wednesday, 9PM Roots n’ Ruckus - hosted by Feral Foster. Real deal folk music in NYC. Free! Every Thursday show 10PM jam Brooklyn Raga Massive Weekly: 11/7: Joel Veena and Mir Naqibul 11/14: Xander Naylor, Tripp Dudley, Nicholas Jozwiak* 11/21: 100 Strings Raga Jam: Free entry to musicians who come at 10 and are ready to play! FRI 11/8, 8:00PM Jalopy Records Presents: Record Release for Nora Brown “Cinnamon Tree” SAT 11/9, 9PM
Andy’s Ramble Bluegrass Quartet SUN 11/10 11AM: Rolie Polie Guacamole 3:30PM: Brooklyn’s Oldtime Slowjam FRI 11/15 Anna Tivel and Maya de Vitry SAT 11/16, 7PM Project Main Street Annual Benefit raising money for ALS SUN 11/17 11am: Princess Backpack and Benjamin 1pm: Vocal harmony Workshop with Don Friedman & Phyllis Elkind 5pm & 8pm: Choir! Choir! Choir! FRI 11/22, 9PM Brain Cloud 10th Anniversary Show SAT 11/23, 9PM Ghost Train Orchestra SUN 11/24 11am: Family Fun with Suzi Shelton
LITTLEFIELD 635 Sackett St. littlefieldnyc.com SAT 11/2, 7PM: The Passion & The Power: The Music Photography of Mark Doyle Angelina DelCarmen Project Geyby Aguilar 11PM: Reggae Retro Dance Party THURS 11/7, 7PM Session Americana and Friends “Northeast” Album Release Show FRI 11/8* 7:30PM: The New Negroes LIVE with Baron Vaughn & Open Mike Eagle 10:00PM: Oneida SAT 11/16, 9PM Flynt Flossy and Turquoise Jeep SAT 11/23, 11PM Be Cute Brooklyn, Dance Party SUN 11/24, 8PM Louis Cato & Friends with Jake Sherman PIONEER WORKS 159 Pioneer St. pioneerworks.com All Shows 7PM unless printed. FRI 11/8 Junglepussy Nightfeelings (DJ Set) SUN 11/10 Second Sundays Music: Boy Radio MON 11/18 & TUES 11/19* Luc Ferrari: Stereo Spasms (programs different each night) Tania Caroline Chen, Brunhild Ferrari, David Grubbs, Eli Keszler, Jon Leidecker, Chris
McIntyre, Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rouke (by Skype), Matana Roberts, Keith Fullerton Whitman FRI 11/22* Jacolby Satterwhite/Nick Weiss perform: PAT: Love Will Find a Way Home
ROCKY SULLIVAN’S 46 Beard St. 718-246-8050 rockysullivansredhook.com Every Tuesday Irish Night Traditional Sessions 2nd and Last Saturdays Algeba Movie Mondays Coming Soon! FRI 11/01, 9PM The Minettes, Violent in Black, Altered Native FRI 11/08, 8PM Sweet Thunder, King Dutch, Gravity Dogs, Cardinal Spins FRI 11/15 Tiki Brothers, Dara Carter, Rosdeli & The Martians FRI 11/22 Recalculating, Fury in Few, Xen Model FRI 11/29Kayka Aliens ROULETTE 509 Atlantic Avenue (Corner of Third Avenue) Brooklyn, NY 11217 https://roulette.org/ Shows at 8PM unless otherwise printed TUES 11/5* Astro-Electronics: Tania Caroline Chen & Ikue Mori with Guest Jim Staley WED 11/6 Joel Harrison with Talujon Percussion Quartet: Still Point: Turning World THURS 11/7 Interpretations: JD Parran + Amir Bey SAT 11/9 RBA: L. Shankar, Music of India TUES 11/12 Neil Rolnick: Journey’s End WED 11/13 Folly Systems: A Real-Time Media Festival Night 1 THURS 11/14 Folly Systems: A Real-Time Media Festival Night 2 SUN 11/17* Matana Robers: Coin Coin Chapter IV: Memphis WED 11/20* New Firmament Presents Feast of the Epiphany and Nick Podgurski FRI 11/22* Val Jeanty and Risha Rox: Ritual Merging SAT 11/23
RBA: Hamid Al-Saadi with Safaafir Journey to the Heart of the Iraqi Maqam MON 11/25, 7PM Face the Music: Transformations Youth Ensemble
SUNNYS 253 Conover St. 718-625-8211 sunnysredhook.com all shows 9PM unless otherwise printed. EVERY WEDNESDAY* Smokey’s Round Up EVERY SATURDAY TONE’s Bluegrass Jam Bring your axe! FRI 11/1 The Woes SUN 11/3, 8PM Cheap Tricks TUES 11/5* Joanna Sternberg and Michael Sternberg THURS 11/7 Mark Anselm and his Cellmates FRI 11/8 Brooklyn Boogaloo Blowout SUN 11/10, 5PM Paul Spring TUES 11/12 Jenni Lynn (Della Mae) and Mike Robinson THURS 11/14 The Four O’Clock Flowers FRI 11/15 Brooklyn Boogaloo Blowout Sun 11/17 3PM: Harry Bolick Old Time Jam 6:30PM: Swamp in the City Fundraiser with Joel Savoy & Kelli Jones TUES 11/19 Will Scott THURS 11/21 Ryan Scott and the Kind Buds FRI 11/22 Tubby SUN 11/24, 5pm Danny Weiss and Mary Olive Smith TUES 11/26 Curtis J and Adam Armstrong FRI 11/29 Holy Hive with Kate Mattison SUPERFINE 126 Front St. superfine.nyc MUSIC AT:Noon - 3pm / 6:30 - 8:30pm SUN 11/3 Bobby Blue The Balladeer / Ali Hughs and Curtis J SUN 11/10 The Haggard Kings / Will Scott SUN 11/17 Jack Grace / Beat Kaestli SUN 11/24 La Terza Classe (Naples, Italy) Two Shows! Brunch and Evening
“New Negro” is a term popularized during the Harlem Renaissance referring to Black Americans speaking up, telling their own stories, and affirming their various identities in order to dismantle outdated assumptions and beliefs. Appearing on November 8 at Pioneer Works in Red Hook.
www.star-revue.com
November 2019
In Brief
Gowanus Landmarks approved
On October 29, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to make permanent five architectural fixtures of the Gowanus streetscape: the Gowanus Flushing Tunnel Pumping Station and Gate House (196 Butler St.), the American Can Factory (232 3rd St.), the ASPCA Building (233 Butler St.), the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Powerhouse (153 2nd St.), and the Montauk Paint Manufacturing Company Building (170 Second Ave., also known the Norge Sailmakers Corporation Building). These historic structures join the Coignet Building (360 Third Ave.) and the Carroll Street Bridge as official city landmarks in Gowanus. The Gowanus Landmarking Coalition, a group of local residents and civic organizations, has advocated for the protection of at least 15 significant sites in Gowanus, fighting for attention from the LPC in advance of the Department of City Planning’s Gowanus rezoning, which is likely to replace much of the neighborhood’s old industrial infrastructure with condominium towers. - Brett Yates
District 15 rezoning delayed
The Department of Education (DOE) has put on hold its proposal to change the admissions formula for seven public elementary schools in District 15 (Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, Gowanus, Cobble Hill, and Boerum Hill). The DOE planned to choose one of two publicly discussed rezoning schemes – which would either redraw some of the schools’ catchment areas or implement a lottery system for school assignments – and put it to a vote before the local Community Education Council this month. Instead, the vote will take place in 2020, which means that the decision won’t affect incoming kindergarteners until 2021. According to the DOE, the delay will allow more time for input from parents and community members. The new addition at PS 32, whose potential to relieve overcrowding in the district prompted the rezoning, will open as planned in 2020.- Brett Yates
Brooklyn Bread rises by Brian Abate It looks like Brooklyn Bread might have broken the jinx that affected a string of failed restaurants on the corner of First Place and Court Street, in Carroll Gardens. Their expanded deli looks like a hit! The move was only one block over on Court Street, but was much more significant for the cafe, as it has allowed the cafe’s owners to expand their menu and services. “The new location has allowed us to have an outdoor area, and a seating area inside,” Dimitri Baylis, one of the owners of the cafe said. “We were at the old location for more than 10 years and this was an opportunity for us.” Baylis and Lenny Moyger, both Brooklyn natives, originally became owners of Brooklyn Bread cafe 12 years ago.
Performing at the event was the talented teenage band Control The Sound. The group plays funk, hip-hop, rock, jazz, and blues. They perform originals and covers citing Kendrick Lamar, Vulfpeck,
Red Hook Star-Revue
“I definitely prefer these bagels,” said customer Anthony Johnson. “You can’t find them anywhere else. The ones they switched to… you can find those on every corner.” “I get them every time I’m in the neighborhood,” said Anna Norwood, who’s from Boerum Hill. Baylis said he regretted changing the bagels they used. “That was a big mistake,” said Baylis. “There were some people who wanted the more typical type of bagel so we made the change and it upset a lot of customers. You can’t make everyone happy, but we brought the bagels that we are known for back, based on what our customers have told us.”
Both owners stressed the importance of using high quality ingredients in order to make healthy, tasty food.
In addition to their bagels, Moyger said customers favorites include the Tuna Bella, grilled chicken sandwiches, and anything with prosciutto.
“We always buy the best quality products, from flower to meat,” Baylis said. “We never skim on quality and that translates to regular customers coming back, and new customers trying it out.”
“The Tuna Bella here is the best,” a woman who overheard Moyger said.
“We have bagels that are different from all of the
On September 20th, students, teachers, and citizens attended the Children’s Climate Strike at Coffey Park in Red Hook, Brooklyn, organized by Resilient Red Hook, a committee dedicated to seeking local solutions to the global climate crisis. Together with millions of like-minded people worldwide, attendees expressed their concerns through speeches, poems, and music, including a rousing rendition of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”
After moving, Brooklyn Bread briefly started making the typical bagels found in New York, instead of their own unique ones, and customers were upset about the change.
“We became friends in college and we always wanted a food establishment,” Baylis said. “An opportunity came along 12 years ago and we took it. We’re both foodies and we wanted to have the type of food here that we like to eat.”
Brooklyn Bread has had the same bakers for more than eight years, and they’re all in agreement about the importance of using quality products, and the importance of having unique foods.
Talented teenage band Control The Sound does just that
other places in the area,” said Baylis. “We use a brick oven and our bagels are much lighter and fluffier than other ones. They’re usually very doughy.”
The Red Hot Chili Peppers, James Brown, and the Rolling Stones as influences. Astoundingly, the band members are only 15 years old. The band is fronted by cousins Elijah Frechtman on guitar and vocals and Audrey Frechtman on bass and vocals. They are backed by drummer Carter Nyhan and trumpeter Kai Blanchard. Elijah plays funky, chunky chords and is a strong soloist while Audrey digs deep into low end grooves. Both cousins really know how to rap with impressive rhymes and flow. Control The Sound’s talent has not gone unnoticed. They have opened for the Roots at Brooklyn Bowl and have performed at venues large and small including Barbés, Brooklyn Steel, Rockwood Music Hall, the Shrine, and many others throughout New York. They will be performing with Birds in the Boneyard on November 30 at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg.
www.star-revue.com
Now Baylis and Moyger are looking to improve and expand. They’ve already added six new homemade soups and now offer delivery and catering services. “It took a little while, but we’ve gotten into the groove at the new location,” said Baylis. “Now we want to keep on building off of it.”
For more information on the band, including mp3s and videos, see their website: www.controlthesound.net. - Michael Cobb
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@redhookstarrevue November 2019, Page 37
Talking to a PS 15 parent from Carroll Gardens by Nathan Weiser
A
new school building in Gowanus has exposed rifts between Brooklyn neighborhoods, as the Department of Education has held many meetings to try and find out which students in the local school district should fill the new spots. In short, the Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill public schools are overcrowded, while the two Red Hook public schools have seats going empty. The scuttlebutt is that many parents in the richer neighborhoods are unwilling to send their children to Red Hook, and this is what is holding up the DOE rezoning decision. The Star-Revue spoke with one Carroll Gardens family with two children at Red Hook’s PS 15. Kate Lester lives in Carroll Gardens with her husband and two kids. She has a son who is in fourth grade and another son who is in pre-kindergarten at the school. Her kids are zoned to attend PS 58, but she chose to have her kids attend PS 15 because she liked her first impression of the school, and the small class sizes appealed to her. “When I was touring all the schools for pre-kindergarten, I really loved the school,” Lester said. “Our zoned school was crowded for pre-kindergarten, so I put PS 15 down as an option for pre-K and that is where my son was placed. We were so happy
there, so we decided to stay. It seemed worth the extra mile – literally it is a mile. It still feels worth the trip to go to a different neighborhood to keep him at the school, and now we have two kids. We really like it.” Another thing Lester very much likes about the school is the dual language program. Both of her kids are in this program, even her son in pre-K, and she thinks this Spanish program is terrific and likes the exposure to another language at this young age. “They both really like it,” Lester said. “The little one just started, but he came home today singing the days of the week in Spanish.” Lester was thrilled when she was able to get her older son into the dual language program going into first grade. She was then able to get her younger child into the class because of sibling priorities. “I speak two other languages, and I think languages are so important, particularly Spanish, in this city,” Lester said. “I think if you are able to expand your child’s mind by teaching them a new language at an early age, then take advantage of it. They have had a great experience in the dual language program, but really a great experience in the school overall.” She believes the dual language program speaks to the school’s strengths on the whole. “It’s a school where being inclusive is
important,” Lester said. “I’m glad we got spots because I think it is fantastic for the kids.” The smaller size of PS 15, relative to other schools in the district, also appealed to the Carroll Gardens resident. “For my family and my son, it felt like the right fit,” Lester said. “It has continued to be that. The staff, the administration, everyone is very nurturing and approachable, and they are happy to work with each individual. Whenever I have concerns, people address them right away.” Last year, Kate went on a couple of her older son’s field trips. Among other destinations, the class visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Transit Museum and the Museum of Natural History. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art one was fantastic,” Lester said. “Two of the first-grade classes went, so there were two teachers and a lot of parent volunteer chaperones. A school bus took them there, they brought lunch, and they loved it.” The ACES (Academics, Careers, and Essential Skills) program is another feature that makes the school unique. This is a relatively new program aimed at kids with various disabilities. And in ACES ICT (Integrated Collaborative Teaching) classrooms, a special education teacher and a general education teacher co-supervise a small mixed class, comprised of both neu-
rotypical students and students with disabilities. “In the ACES Integrated Collaborative Teaching [ICT], we have four students with intellectual disabilities, significant disabilities, and then our other students are general education, so they are typically developing,” said Rachel Marks, the special education teacher. “It is an inclusive environment where we are meeting all needs and both sides are benefiting tremendously from the program.” At the school this year there is a kindergarten ACES ICT and a first-grade ACES ICT. According to Marks, PS 15 is the first school in New York City to have an ACES ICT program. This is a pilot program, and the parents and assistant principal both pushed to get it at the school. “A lot of the reason ACES ICT came here had to do with Ms. Cavanagh, our assistant principal,” Marks said. “A couple of the moms in this class and the class from last year worked closely with Ms. Cavanagh to make our dream a reality. It has been a dream. Our kids deserve to be in public schools with their peers and have access to the same curriculum. We are happy to give it to them.”
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The Healthy Geezer by Fred Cicetti
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Many seniors eat a low-fiber diet that causes constipation. Some lose interest in eating and choose convenience foods low in fiber. Others have difficulties chewing or swallowing; this leads them to eat soft processed foods low in fiber. Liquids add bulk to stools making bowel movements softer and easier to pass. People who are constipated should drink about eight 8-ounce glasses of liquids a day. Avoid drinks with caffeine and alcohol, because they dehydrate. Not enough exercise can lead to constipation, although doctors do not know why. If you want to move your bowels, move your body. Some medications can cause constipation. They include: pain medications (especially narcotics), antacids that contain aluminum and calcium, blood pressure medications (calcium channel blockers), antiparkinson drugs, antispasmodics, antidepressants, iron supplements, diuretics and anticonvulsants. Aging may affect bowel regularity because a slower metabolism results in less intestinal activity and muscle tone. Laxatives usually are not necessary to treat constipation and can be habit-forming. The colon begins to rely on laxatives to bring on bowel movements. Over time, laxatives can damage nerve cells in the colon and interfere with the colon's natural ability to contract. For the same reason, regular use of enemas can also lead to a loss of normal bowel function. Most people with constipation can be treated with changes in diet and exercise. A diet with 20 to 35 grams of fiber each day is recommended. Other changes that can help include drinking enough liquids, engaging in daily exercise, and reserving enough time to have a bowel movement. In addition, the urge to have a bowel movement should not be ignored. For those who have made diet and lifestyle changes and are still constipated, doctors may recommend laxatives or enemas for a limited time. All Rights Reserved © 2019 by Fred Cicetti
Red Hook Star-Revue
www.star-revue.com
November 2019, Page 39
As every year since 2013, the Barnacle Parade took over the streets of Red Hook on the evening of October 29. This time, the homemade neighborhood extravaganza took on the theme “Hook-Lantis,” reimagining Red Hook as a fully underwater city, where public submarines – with humans and sea creatures alike as co-passengers – stand in for MTA buses. The event drew a wide range of costumed participants and local children, who followed a band and a massive manpowered float from the corner of Pioneer and Van Brunt to the waterfront and back, memorializing one of Red Hook’s darkest days with joy and humor. A block party followed. - Photos and story by Brett Yates Page 40 Red Hook Star-Revue
www.star-revue.com
November 2019