Red Hook Star-Revue, August 2020 by George Fiala

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ed Hook is currently awash in the building of new warehouses. No doubt the biggest is the massive new UPS distribution facility that starts across Valentino Park, extending on the water all the way to the Cruise Terminal.

The package delivery company paid $303 million for the property, which most recently was to be the hub of a new tech center masterminded by the Italian company Estate 4. That project, which never really got started, went belly up a few years ago. The six large parcels were sold at a profit to a leasing company, who turned around and tripled their money with the UPS deal. UPS has been busily clearing the land through the pandemic in preparation to build, but how the company plans to getting their brown trucks in and out of Red Hook are as of today a mystery, which has made some residents anxious. The new facility is the lynchpin to UPS's growth in the Northeast. Once packages are labeled they are sent to a regional sorting facility, which is what the Red Hook facility will be. Usually, if the destination for the package is less than 200 miles away, it will be transported from the sorting facility via truck, and if the destination is further away, it will go by air. The Red Hook plant will be very similar to one recently built in Atlanta. It will use technology to do jobs that previously had to be done manually. That facility is 30-35% more efficient than older ones, which relied more heavily on manual sorting. Atlanta sorts more than 100,000 packages an hour, which is approximately 1,700 per minute. In total, UPS’ average package volume in the U.S. was 17,472 million in 2018. More and more packages are shipped every year, as shopping has been heading more and more online. Similar UPS sorting facilities are opening in the following locations: Dallas and Ft. Worth,

(continued on page 5)

old dog with a new trick

Dylan's new one is a winner by Kurt Gottschalk

Today, tomorrow, and yesterday, too The flowers are dyin’ like all things do Follow me close, I’m going to Bally-Na-Lee I’ll lose my mind if you don’t come with me I fuss with my hair, and I fight blood feuds I contain multitudes

o go the first lines of Bob Dylan’s first album of new songs in eight years. He carries on, in the opening track, to liken himself to Edgar Allen Poe, Ann Frank, Indiana Jones, the Rolling Stones and William Blake, not to mention copping the title from Walt Whitman. He sings—in a wizened rasp that surely by now has outlived the naysayers who say he can’t sing—that he’ll play Beethoven sonatas and Chopin preludes because, why? Because he contains multitudes. It’s a hilarious song, the kind of brash humor earned with age. Dylan here is like the old Commander McBragg cartoons: he’s seen it all, you don’t know enough to correct him, and if you do, how dare you! But it’s more than that. It’s a deep song, rich in subtext. He promises his love half his soul—not all of it, half—and says he’ll drink to the man who shares her bed. He issues a threat to someone else (the man in her bed?) to sell them down the river, put a price on their head, and show them his heart—“but not all of it, only the hateful part.” He

(continued on page 15)

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ed Hook's Jacqui Painter has been helping Red Hook’s vulnerable population out in a variety of ways and it all started due to her connection with the elderly.

Initiative (RHI) to deliver food from the Red Hook Farm directly to residents. Food delivery has been a major part of Red Hook Relief in addition to their two water distributions.

Painter, who is from Red Hook, has been working with the Red Hook Senior Center for the last four years and they were her inspiration to start the mutual aid group that she calls Red Hook Relief at the beginning of the Covid epidemic.

“It was really good to be able to deliver not only food but fresh healthy produce boxes to residents whoe needed them,” Painter said.

She was able to spread the word through her contacts at the Senior Center. Director Maria Sanchez informed her seniors about Red Hook Relief and that they had people who could deliver food. Painter's mission to get volunteers started small. “To make everything more accessible, I called a few people I knew, and we went around and put flyers around the neighborhood to get volunteers,” she said. “Back then, we thought the only people who were safe to go out were younger folks, people with no immunocompromised disorders, healthy able-bodied individuals.”

Every Wednesday, Red Hook Relief delivers food boxes to about 130 homes and on Saturday they do a food distribution in partnership with Redemption Red Hook Church and RHI. They also do a lot of emergency grocery or pharmacy deliveries to residents. They do this to at-risk individuals, which include seniors, people with a disability, or with any health concerns that they should not be outside during this time. “As well as young single parents who need help,” Painter added. “There are a lot of people who are losing their jobs and can’t provide for their family anymore.”

She collaborated with others with large networks to expand the reach of the group. Kiki Valentine helped as did Carlos Menchaca’s office.

They have been raising money through apps like Venmo (@RedHookRelief ) and CashApp ($RedHookRelief ) from people around Brooklyn but mostly from people who live in Red Hook.

They also worked with Red Hook

Getting volunteers has been key and

Painter has found recently a lot of volunteers have been going back to work. “I think that going into the fall especially just trying to get this neighborhood prepared for possibly a second wave, we definitely still need to have this team of people that are able to respond to not only emergency food and emergency things like water, but also as a reliable and sustainable source of help in the neighborhood,” Painter said. Redemption Red Hook Church has proved to be a good partner. “That has been really great because Edwin Pacheco has a lot of contacts in the church and the volunteer community,” Painter said. Pacheco is the lead pastor at the church. Tiffiney Davis, the executive director of Red Hook Art Project has also been involved with Red Hook Relief. “The best is seeing our community really work together and that is how I know that we are going to get through whatever the fall brings to Red Hook because there are too many of us for this to fail,” Painter said To request help, call or text 646-4815041 or email info@redhookrelief. org. To volunteer, go to: https://bit. ly/30dDGJN

Founded June 2010 by George Fiala and Frank Galeano

with thanks to these guys

Page 2 Red Hook Star-Revue

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August 2020

Words by George The new age of local government's benign neglect

n July 27, I got an email from Catherine McBride of the Red Hook Initiative which was pretty different than any I have received at this paper since I started it ten years ago.

(lots of meetings about that but they are still dithering - while nothing seems to happen there, a giant monstrosity is quickly rising on the lot next door.) A quick check in our own archives using the keyword Carlos Menchaca offers more: the renovation of the Senior Center following its post Sandy shutdown; the Thor Equities giant clump of dirt on their Beard Street property; asbestos remediation in the Houses; local pollution problems coming from a roofing business on Van Dyke Street; Coffey Park closure; a renovation of Ickes Park across from the former Chase bank; the possibility of the Red Hook Library being cut up and used for a dance studio; the location problems of the new Ferry Terminal

RHI press releases are generally quite vanilla. they are generally about their Red Hook Hub or else something having to do with their fund raising. This one announced a rally. "Red Hook Houses Local Leaders, Residents and Allies Rally Against Ongoing Hazardous Construction" was the headline. Finally, I thought. I'd been walking through the Houses over the past few months wondering how they could be proceeding with their major construction project without bothering to inform the tenants (or at least, the local paper). And why nobody was letting people know what's going on. I had noticed occasional Facebook postings by persons wondering why hundreds of trees were being chopped down in the housing development, and why all the playgrounds were closed. More recently I heard about water shutdowns (as written about elsewhere in this issue).

behind schedule. Not to mention all the suffering connected with COVID, which may get worse as the local economy is threatened with depression. So Where's Carlos? He was so actively involved in so many threats to the community, bringing residents together with the appropriate city agencies at public meetings he would arrange. His doings were in almost every issue we published. People thought that we were on his payroll with all the publicity we gave him, but the fact is that we write about what's happening, and in those days he was happening. But in his second term we've hardly mentioned him, mostly because there's nothing to write about. I'm not the only one who thinks this, I've spoken to other community leaders. It's not just because of COVID. You could have a meeting outdoors in Coffey Park with a megaphone. RHI was able to have their meeting in the street outside their office. I'm thinking that instead of ensuring good government, term limits are a hindrance. Without the incentive for reelection, lame duck politicians spend their second term looking for their next job, instead of trying to keep doing the job they already have and hopefully keep getting better at.

What is actually going on is a good thing - the FEMA resiliency project that is going to turn the Red Hook Houses campus into a model housing development. I couldn't figure out why such a well-intentioned project with a well publicized beginning (check out Miracle on Mill Street, by Noah Phillips, archived online from 2016), would seemingly go off the rails by antagonizing the community by lack of communication.

Carlos still thinks he's doing a great job. He showed up at the RHI meeting in shorts walking his dog, and given the microphone at an event that decried the seeming abandonment of the neighborhood by NYCHA and other city agencies, he rambled on about the need for transparency.

The release included the following: "The reason this is happening to us is because we are a minority and low-income community and had it been a different community this would not have happened."

I kind of thought that as our elected advocate, it should be Menchaca leading the way to transparency and community from the city agencies - as he often did during his first term.

Actually, I don't find that completely true. The fact is that there are giant construction projects happening all over the neighborhood, the majority and high-income areas as well as the minority and lowincome community. And nobody has come into the any part of the neighborhood to let us know exactly what's going on. At least as far as I've noticed.

But now it seems we have to rely on local volunteers, such as Jim Tampakis, who you can read about on page 5, to force the outside forces to treat us with a little respect.

The BASIS school is surrounded by two huge projects. Fences have gone up on a large lot on Beard Street. The Revere Sugar lot is still a mystery. What's going on the defunct 99 cent store location. And of course there's UPS which we write about in this edition.

(settled to our satisfaction as a result of community action.) Things are still happening in the neighborhood. There's no bank to serve us. Pathmark and Fine Faire supermarkets are gone, with no replacements. The giant construction projects with the potential for murderous and polluting truck traffic. The ballfield and other park renovations are seemingly way

I remember the old days when community meetings seemed to happen all the time, held by Councilman Menchaca, Assemblyman Ortiz, CB 6, the 76th Precinct, the Parks Department, NYCHA, and other city agencies. I was always going to one meeting or another covering things for this paper.

"I noticed occasional Facebook postings by persons wondering why hundreds of trees were being chopped down in the housing development, and why all the

Sandy recovery was the subject of many of these meetings, but other issues included the Oxford Nursing Home, the drug rehab that eventually opened on Van Brunt; the threatened giant bathroom that was going to swallow up Valentino Park; the ball field renovations; the ball field renovations

We just had local elections for our NYS representatives. Velmanette Montgomery, a kindly woman who was based in Fort Greene has retired. Her seat, which she held forever (no term limits in State government) was won by a Democratic Socialist, Jabari Brisport. I'm looking forward to interviewing him for our January issue, as he takes over. Felix Ortiz, another longtime representative, was defeated by a tenant activist from Sunset Park, Marcella Mitaynes. I look forward to introducing her to you as well. In the meantime, here's hoping that Carlos will start taking Red Hook seriously again in this, his last year representing us in the City Council. There's plenty of things to worry about. Georrge Fiala is the publisher and founder of the Star-Revue. You can yell at him by emailing george@ redhookstar.com

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Carlos Menchaca decries the lack of water in the Houses. (photo by George Fiala

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August 2020, Page 3

Local group helps with water shortages by Nathan Weiser

Red Hook Relief is a volunteer-led mutual aid group in Red Hook that started during the Covid-19 pandemic. They work with at-risk neighbors, and in collaboration with long standing community members, non-profit organizations, local officials and businesses to leverage community access to resources and engage volunteers within a network of mutual care. Through working directly with local Red Hook organizations like Miccio Community Center, Red Hook Initiative, Red Hook Farms, Red Hook Art Project and Red Hook Container Terminal, they seek to meet the needs of

individuals in the 11231 zip code that are most impacted by Covid-19. Red Hook Relief has more than 75 volunteers who work to deliver hot meals, fresh produce, shelf stable groceries and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) including masks, face shields and gloves to high-risk neighbors who are unable to leave their homes. Their work has been made possible by a collective donation fund. Red Hook Relief had noticed a large drop-off in volunteers as the city has started to open up. To request help, call or text 646-4815041 or email info@redhookrelief.org. The group is entirely funded by community donations. All of the donations go to their emergency grocery fund, which is spent on sourcing groceries for the most at-risk neighbors who are financially and physically un-

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Page 4 Red Hook Star-Revue

able to purchase food. You can donate via Venmo (@RedHookRelief last 4 digits of phone number 1367) and Cash App ($RedHookRelief ). In the end of June, a pipe broke during NYCHA maintenance and unfortunately left 16 buildings (1,050) apartments without water for almost 12 hours. The water was murky and brown once it came back on. According to Red Hook Relief founder Jacqui Painter, the mutual aid group was able to step up during this time and purchase, package and distribute over 600 gallons of water by 4:00 p.m. that same day to help out the residents without water.

Drawing classes

Red Hook artist Krista Dragomer is offering weekly group drawing classes open to adults at any level of creative experience, from zero to professional artists. The classes are designed to facilitate art-making as a skill, practice, and means of observing and interacting with oneself and the world. The weekly lessons delve into relationships between our senses and drawing through exercises, readings, and drawing prompts. Some weeks will be focused on observational skills, while others connect us to our intuitive capacities as a means of exploring ourselves and our creative expression. Working in a group provides an opportunity to draw alongside others, to ask questions, and share your work and thoughts. Please see http://www. kristadragomer.com/classes for more information or contact: studio@kristadragomer.com

Wolcott becomes a Play Street

New York City has added play streets to its open streets initiative. “Young people deserve the chance to play freely in their neighborhoods while staying safe from COVID-19, and Play Streets will go a long way toward easing the burden of a summer unlike any other,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. Organizing Partners will be responsible for setting up barricades and posting signage, as well as restoring the Open Street condition at the end of the programming. A new Open Streets location will be added in Red Hook and it will be sponsored by Good Shepherd Services. The location will be on Wolcott Street from Conover to Van Brunt Street.

Hook Arts Media receives Cares Act funding.

Hook Arts Media (formerly Red Hook’s Dance Theater ETC) has been approved for a $50,000 award as part of the federal CARES Act. Hook Arts Media (HAM) is one of the 855 arts organizations approved for CARES Act funding. HAM’s in-school multidisciplinary programs primarily serve NYC transfer high schools. Also, Hook Arts Media’s community filmmaking programs pay young people as they create films while improving their media literacy. Hook Arts Media has been able to continue their arts and media education by pivoting to online platforms. An example of this is that they launched a free digital dance class via Zoom four days a week, hip hop is offered two days a week and salsa is offered the other two days.

640 Columbia St project grows

The three-story property, which broke ground last summer, will become the first multistory logistics assets on the East Coast. Upon completion, the property will span 337,000 square feet. Each ﬂoor spans around 108,000 square feet to 115,000 square feet, with ceiling heights ranging from 18 to 28 feet. It is estimated that rents will run between $20 to $24 per square foot. (photo by George Fiala)

5/29/2020 2:57:15 PM

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August 2020

A local businessman is trying to mitigate truck traffic (continued from page 1)

Texas, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Indianapolis. None of those facilities are near the northeast, which makes the Red Hook facility very important. While the site is crucial to UPS, a few Red Hook residents are wary of UPS, and how their new facility will change the neighborhood, especially the traffic. Red Hook, always a mixed use community (meaning industry resides along residents), already has problems with trucks getting around the neighborhood. The existing truck route includes Van Brunt Street, which oversized trucks regularaly clog. Jim Tampakis of Marine Spares International and Tamco Mechanical, is the one person who has been trying to convince UPS to think about how to treat their new neighbors. Jim has been in Red Hook for 46 years, his businesses doing ship repairs and supplying spare parts for ships. He has maintained his business despite Red Hook's changes both up and down. “I want to see Red Hook prosper and go in the right direction,” said Tampakis, who works with Resilient Red Hook. That group was formed after Hurricane Sandy. Tampakis’ suggestion is for UPS trucks to create a corridor — an alternative to the existing truck route in Red Hook. The current truck route goes through some of the busiest parts of Red Hook, including Van Brunt, Beard and Bay Streets. Tampakis' corridor would go down Ferris St., Clinton Wharf and Bowne St. and go along the waterfront past Pier 11. Using this alternative route, UPS will avoid overcrowding

Red Hook's residential and park areas. Red Hook residents have repeatedly voiced frustration during Civic Association meetings about trucks waking them up early in the morning, and even causing some homes to shake. “Trucks in Red Hook often come in at very early hours, like 4 am to avoid traffic,” said Tampakis. “A lot of the homes here are old and people can feel the rumbling from the trucks.” If UPS uses the truck routes that are currently in place, that will make the already-difficult situation much worse. There is already traffic stemming from double-parked trucks making deliveries in Red Hook. Using the current truck routes will worsen the issue, while using the corridor would help solve it. The corridor would have other benefits for Red Hook. Van Brunt St. has repeatedly had issues with flooding. “On Friday [July 17,] there were five or six places in Red Hook that flooded including by Fairway on Van Brunt St. and by Valentino Pier Park,” said Tampakis. “A UPS truck actually got stuck because the water was so deep.” In order for the corridor to work, UPS would have to work with the NYC Economic Development Corporation and the Department of Transportation (DOT). Both declined to be interviewed but DOT gave a statement about working with UPS. “The UPS project is in preliminary stages, and as we have only recently started informal discussions with UPS, we do not have any information

Jim Tampakis is taking on a Herculean task in dealing with UPS and government agencies.

to provide at this time,” said Amanda Kwan of the DOT. That statement sounds like the DOT does not know what UPS plans to do and it could be a while before a plan is in place. UPS also declined to be interviewed to answer questions directly but released a general statement. “We understand that traffic issues are important to the Red Hook community,” said Kim Krebs, a public relations person at UPS. “We are still in the process of taking over the property and completing approved Brownfield remediation efforts. These continue to be key steps in the feasibility and planning process. The type of UPS operations established at this location will be finalized further along in the planning phase. Once this is determined, more information about the UPS vehicles servicing the facility will be available. Once the traffic study is considered complete, we will be happy to share details.” UPS said they are working on more specific responses to questions about their truck routes, sent to them by Tampakis at the beginning of the summer. They originally said they planned to have a response by late July but that turned out to be premature.

The proposed corridor (marked in red) would shunt truck traffic away from the center of Red Hook as it goes through the Cruise Terminal and out to the BQE via Hamilton Avenue. Only existing roads are used.

Red Hook Star-Revue

Currently, it seems like UPS has not decided which truck routes they will use, and that means the corridor remains a possibility. If UPS decides to

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use the corridor or waterfront for their routes, it would be beneficial to work with leaders from the Red Hook Container Terminal. “As of now I haven’t spoken to anyone from UPS, but I would be happy to if they have any questions,” said Del Bobish, executive vice president of Red Hook Terminals. While residents are concerned and anxious about what routes UPS will end up using in Red Hook, a decision has yet to be made. That means residents still have an opportunity to voice all of their concerns and try to work with UPS so their input is included in UPS’ decision-making. “A lot of times people just completely ignore the concerns of the people who actually live here [in Red Hook]” said Tampakis. “We just hope UPS will make the effort to work with us.” In addition to the UPS construction, the neighborhood is seeing at least two other giant last-mile warehouses being built. One is next to IKEA, and other next to the still closed ballfields on Bay Street. There have been rumors that one of them might become an Amazon facility. When we asked the office of the local councilman, we were told that since both projects were as-of-right, meaning they did not require any special approvals, there was nothing that could be done about them or their plans.

August 2020, Page 5

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August 2020

Gentrification and the Black Church

cross the country, gentrification continues to be a sexy political topic for those least vulnerable to its effects, booming in and echoing out of consciousness. Yet, for those most negatively affected by gentrification; lower-income, and long time residents, mostly people of color, gentrification is not just a talking point. The displacement and pricing out of African Americans from their neighborhoods has had a detrimental impact on Black communities and notably, the Black church. Gentrification: The restoration and upgrading of deteriorated urban property by middle-class or affluent people, often resulting in the displacement of lower-income people. Gentrification is not simply the renovation or restoration of a neighborhood, it’s high-contrast classism and the smudging of cultural identity. In an interview with the Star Revue. Pastor A.R. Jamal of Red Hook’s New Brown Memorial Baptist Church discusses gentrification’s impact on his neighborhood and the legacy of the Black church. Reverend A.R. Jamal: “I was a little boy when I first moved to East New York in Brooklyn. My mother and I had to become Catholic because the Catholic church ran the neighborhood at the time, so we became part of the neighborhood. Today, that’s not the case. White people are moving in, but they don’t go to Black churches, they don’t shop in Black stores, so these businesses and organizations eventually shut down. In Brooklyn, a lot of churches are closing because of gentrification and Black people are moving back to the south.” People from all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds seek housing they can afford – that is understandable. However, gentrification cannot simply be defined by the financial motivations of neighborhood newcomers. Black neighborhoods have been neglected, underfunded, and overpoliced for generations, to separate gentrification from this context would be ahistorical. Gentrification furthers the legacy of marginalization of people of color, by building on top of decades of redlining; a process that allowed white families to move into suburbs and attain more wealth via the equity from

by Roderick Thomas their homes while preventing black families from doing the same. Today, the underfunded neighborhoods that never built up sufficient wealth are targets for contractors, whose sole goal is their bottom line.

able housing is a joke. $2,500 for a studio, $3,000 for a 1 bedroom, who can afford that? That’s what they call affordable housing. When will it end?”

The Black church has been a center for community organizing during the hardest times in Black American history. For Reverend A.R. Jamal, marching with Black Lives Matter was not only a priority, it was also in alignment with the historical function of the Black church. Along with other pastors, Reverend A.R. Jamal recently formed the United Christians for Justice, an organization focused on improving their communities through mentorship, classes, and education.

One of the biggest misconceptions about lowerincome neighborhoods is that the residents don’t care about their surroundings or the revitalization of the neighborhood. This is false.

The Reverend went on to discuss the importance of protest and why some questionable ‘allies’ seem more fixated on anarchy than racial equality. “It’s important that young people don’t get drawn into the nonsense, or violence, they need to stick to the cause. I see Black Lives Matter is being treated as just a slogan by some of the folks who call themselves allies,” he says. Jamal continues: “The white folks protesting don’t go to Black churches and barbers, etc. I remember Dr. King discussing agitators and distractors while the FBI was surveilling him. The point is, you can’t scream Black Lives Matter and not care about the displacement of Black communities.” Performative allyship is self-serving and a deterrent to the movement. Anarchist dreams of some young white males, in particular, are parasitic to Black Lives Matter. The movement is not about living out a reenactment of a post-apocalyptic video game. The Reverend’s critiques extend beyond the gentrifiers and ‘allies,’ to New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, who has been called out for the neglect of poorer New Yorkers. According to critics, de Blasio and other city officials repeatedly ignore the ballooning problem of citywide gentrification. Every day new buildings go up, with rental prices that far exceed the income of most residents, and city officials don’t seem to have a real solution. De Blasio’s deals with contractors to provide guaranteed affordable housing, seem to be aimed at aspirational middle-class folks seeking to intermingle with rich folks and not affordable housing.

New Brown Baptist Church is at 609 Clinton Street. Reverend A. R. Jamal is pictured to the right.

Red Hook Star-Revue

Reverend Jamal continued: “De Blasio tries to pretend that he’s down. So what if he has Black children, he’s interested in the money he’s getting from contractors, he doesn’t care about us. Afford-

In reality, folks who live in lowerincome neighborhoods often rent and have no equity in their environment. Often, the few neighborhood homeowners are either targets for buyers, interested in gentrifying the neighborhood, or are themselves, newcomers, to the community. On Sunday, July 26, 2020, I walked into New Brown Memorial Baptist Church to the sound of a roaring praise team during Sunday service. I stood by the door watching the small congregation, all wearing masks and socially distancing throughout the pews. I thought, how could anyone think communities don’t care about their own wellbeing, and their surroundings. Reverend Jamal, begins to preach, “Saints, churches are closing down. It’s not just because of the virus. We’re going to push through. Black people have been resilient for centuries, this virus isn’t going to stop us, we believe in a higher power!” “Last month Oprah discussed one of our brother’s books, King Kong Deacon, by our brother, James McBride. We are full of creativity, there is legacy and history in our communities, so we have to keep pushing.” Homeownership for many people is a distant dream, especially in areas where renting has been the cultural norm. Moreover, many people aren’t knowledgeable about the paths to homeownership that may be accessible to them, and ways to build equity in neighborhoods (see Nipsey Hussle). Without much help from the city government, it seems that divesting from hypercapitalism and investing in ownership within your own communities, ie. homes, apartments, stores, etc. appears to be the most viable way to fight gentrification. Roderick Thomas is an NYC based writer, filmmaker, and Host of Hippie By Accident Podcast. (Instagram @Hippiebyaccident, Email: rtroderick.thomas@ gmail.com, Site: roderickthomas.net)

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August 2020, Page 7

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August 2020

NY Dock Railway once carried our freight

by Joe Enright

n Arthur Miller’s 1955 play, A View from the Bridge, the narrator Alfieri describes our Brooklyn waterfront as “the gullet of New York, swallowing the tonnage of the world.” And the New York Dock Railway was the spoon that kept it fed. We could use such a spoon again, now that United Parcel Service has come to town.

Wharf owned all 16 elevators in New York Harbor. Can you spell monopoly? Ka-Ching! Then there were the “lighterage” laborers offloading and reloading the grain. Ka-Ching! But the coup-de-grace was the delay (double Ka-Ching!) in transferring the grain to railheads for regional distribution.

In 1982 the New York Dock Railway, already awash in red ink, partially financed Ken Burns’ magnificent PBS documentary on the Brooklyn Bridge. A year later the Railway went toes-up. It is little remembered today except among train buffs. But once its tracks interconnected miles of warehouses with a marine railroad that made Brooklyn’s waterfront accessible to the rest of America.

Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston had direct overland connections from their ports to the major rail freight carriers, while Brooklyn sat on the edge of a very long island, separated by two and a half miles of water from the continental railroad terminals in New Jersey. The new NYD management team however, had a plan to make the business competitive again: an expanded marine railroad that could efficiently move goods back and forth from ships to elevators to warehouses – and especially to three float bridge terminals along their 2.75 mile waterfront expanse.

The Railway’s birth pangs can be traced to a warm day inside a Sheriff’s auction hall at 9 Willoughby Street. It was June 11, 1901 and the New York Dock Company had just placed the winning $5 million bid for the holdings of the bankrupt Brooklyn Wharf & Warehouse Company, formed only six years earlier by a combination of 28 independent warehouse firms. There were so many buildings, wharves, piers, bulkheads, elevators, cranes, machines, water rights and franchises being foreclosed, it took the auctioneer a full 50 minutes to read through the list. But aside from a crush of reporters, there wasn’t much of a crowd in the hall that day because there was only one bidder. In fact, New York Dock, or NYD as it would soon start branding everything it owned, was merely a corporate reorganization of the failed company, featuring new forward-thinking managers. The collapse of Brooklyn Wharf & Warehouse – the largest monetary foreclosure and real property transfer in the history of Brooklyn – had been attributed by its fossilized directors to the shipping disruptions of the Spanish-American and Boer Wars (!), and the “utter collapse” of the grain trade. HaHaHa! THEIR RATES WERE TOO DAMN HIGH! For example, an arriving barge or steamer laden with grain had to quickly transfer its rat-tempting cargo to an elevator and Brooklyn

Red Hook Star-Revue

Dock Railway's plans to expedite local shipping

And so, once the Sheriff delivered the voluminous deed, NYD quickly served eviction notices to the Swedish dock workers living along a three block stretch of Furman Street below Atlantic Avenue, then demolished their wood frame houses, cleared the land and built rail yards for a new fleet of freight cars that would service those three terminals. The terminals, known as Fulton (at the foot of Montague Street), Baltic (Baltic Street) and Atlantic (King Street), each featured a float bridge – railroad tracks extending onto a pier at the end of which a pontoon or rail barge with tracks would be loaded with up to a dozen freight cars, nudged forward by a locomotive. Once unmoored, the barge would be steered by a tug to the float bridges maintained by all the major carriers in and around the Jersey City waterfront. The float bridges used winches to lower and raise the end of the pier, depending on the tide, to enable linkage with the car floats. Some of the winch equipment for those bridges would have been provided by Lidgerwood Manufacturing on Coffey Street – given Lidgerwood’s long history of churning out marine winches in the

plant that UPS has now er… remodeled. In 1917 the Hell Gate Bridge finally connected our loooong island to the Bronx, opening a freight train route to the mainland. But even today that path involves a 120-mile trek northward to find a freight bridge that crosses the mighty Hudson River. Then 120 miles south again to reach all the rail heads in New Jersey. Train vets point out such long hauls take an average of 24 hours, often much longer. Madness! A better solution remained: pushing snub-nosed barges loaded with boxcars back and forth across Upper New York Bay, 30 minutes each way.

Robert Moses brings us the trucks But alas and alack, after World War II Robert Moses, who never met a motor vehicle he didn’t like, got busy. Many more tunnels and bridges accommodated Detroit’s trucks rumbling over and under the waters separating us from the continental United States, gobbling up the freight business. The opening of the Verrazano Bridge in 1964 provided the final nail in the maritime coffin. Now there is only one functioning rail float in the City, at the foot of 65th Street near the Brooklyn Army Terminal and there is no connection to it from Red Hook. State funds for an elevated “Brooklyn Marginal” freight railroad had been allocated in 1916 to link the New York Dock Railway with the 65th Street rail yard – and wipe out lower Conover

Street in the process – but the Great War interrupted those plans and the money was later reallocated or pocketed. Take your pick. Today, savvy history buffs can still find vestiges of the New York Dock Company: a stone pillar behind Fairway marking what was once Pier 45 (that’s right, they owned 44 other piers north of there); converted warehouses along Imlay Street with the name embedded in masonry; and a metal plate on a building at the corner of Joralemon & Furman Streets marking the company’s administrative offices, abandoned with the 1983 demise of NYD. Decades later, that decaying three story brick building was handsomely renovated. It now serves as the information center for the Brooklyn Bridge Park, which has replaced all of that once-bustling commercial landscape north of Atlantic Avenue. And the New York Dock Railway was the glue that that held all that commerce together. One final note. An insurance map in 1916 shows railroad tracks extending from Pier 39, at the foot of Vandyke Street, across a vacant stretch of what is now Valentino Park and running along Coffey Street past the UPS Lidgerwood site. Since 1916, car floats have gotten bigger, of course, and can now accommodate 18 boxcars. And one boxcar can hold the equivalent of four truckloads. So, each incoming barge from New Jersey to a new float bridge servicing UPS could eliminate

One of the two Dock Railway office buildings is being converted to condos. The other twin building was leased in 2009 to Christie's Auction House as their warehouse.

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August 2020, Page 9

Page 10 Red Hook Star-Revue

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August 2020

NEWS FROM ITALY

The Waldensians have been a progressive religious sect for over 800 years

taly has always been a Catholic country thanks to the Pope living in Rome. That being said, ever since the XII century in the boot there’s a little Protestant community, called the Waldensian Evangelical Church, which makes a lot of noise in both Italian and European public debate. The Waldensians number only 25,000 in Italy and 45,000 worldwide, of which 5,000 reside in the US. The Church has succeeded in gaining interest for its very liberal beliefs about homesexual couples, abortion and immigration. Waldensian pastors bless same sex couples in church, which is still not commonplace in Italy or Europe, where the Catholic Church is still against LGBT unions, calling them “devilish”. The Waldensian Church has also taken a stand against any kind of racism and spends lots of money per year in order to house migrants coming from Africa, Asia other poorest countries. These are the reasons why the Waldensians are today charged by many people to be liberal, or sometimes leftist. “We don’t complain about how people define us, but what’s not fully understood is the reason why we are liberal, which lies in the Bible” said Erika Tomassone, a female pastor and deputy moderator of the Waldensian Bureau, which is the Church’s executive government. As in every Protestant church, the Waldensian believes that every man has a self responsibility on its action and this led the Church to be tolerant of the differences among the civil society. “Anyone is free to do what he wants, if this does not remove him from God” remarked Tomassone. Maybe the main reason why the Waldensian Church is so open-minded about the rights of the marginal-

by Dario Pio Mucilli

ized minorities lies in the fact that this Church had been itself a marginalized group for centuries, because of its Protestant beliefs.

Founded by Peter Waldo The Church was born in the XII century as a group of preachers thanks to Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant who gave his name to the community. He wanted to preach the Bible in public despite the fact that he wasn't a priest and didn't speak Latin — the only language allowed by the Catholic Church to read the Bible until the 1960s. Waldo and his followers were declared heretics by the Pope in 1184. After that the Waldensians continued to practice alone, under the siege of the Catholic discriminations and persecutions, until in the 16th century Martin Luther and John Calvin finally initiated the Protestant Reform. “Now we are the Church we all know thanks to the Reform, even if, after we joined it, in Italy persecutions had not stopped till the XIX century” remarked the Pastor Tomassone. Even if these events seem to be far distant from today, they are still impacting on Waldensian consciousness, pushing it to champion liberalism and democracy. Indeed every stand taken by their Church is not imposed by a Pope or a Pastor, but decided in a democratic fashion amidst its faithful’s assemblies. In the past, even the Waldensian migrations were organized by the community of faithfuls, who emigrated to USA during the twentieth century, creating new communities in New York, North Carolina, Michigan and Ohio, where the Waldensian American Society has proclaimed the “integration of and advocacy for Third World refugees and immigrants”. Because of positions like this, one of the problems that the Waldensian Church faces today is that many people regard it as a political party more

Statue of Peter Waldo at the Luther Memorial at Worms, Germany

than a Church, because of its moral and ideological values. But yet these values are directly derived by their interpretation of the Bible, read with the awareness of the time when it was written, which is the reason why Waldensians are not against homosexuality, onanism or abortion.

difficult past the energy to help the weakest people and create a better world. Dario Pio Muccilli is the Star-Revue's European correspondent. He lives in Turin, Italy.

Indeed the Waldensians are mainly a religious confession, which believes that all the humans are equals careless of their origins. That’s why we could say that thanks to their religious beliefs they are liberal (or leftist), and not vice versa. Waldensians are also a source of progress in Italy and Europe, because they’ve shown how past traditions should not conflict with changing times. Nowadays this is a lesson that many people need in order to set up a better and more open debate about the relationship between civil rights and traditional values.

Waldensian Church in Valdese, North Carolina. Image Courtesy of Pat Butler

Red Hook Star-Revue

Past and present live together in the Waldensian Evangelical Church, providing a positive example in a time where many mass movements are now questioning the Western historical background, which included slave traders and sexist people. The Waldensians have taken from their

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Mass Burning of the Waldensians in Toulouse in the 13th century, by an anonymous 17th Century engraver.

August 2020, Page 11

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August 2020

Red Hook gets a new Irish Brew-Pub by Erin DeGregorio

espite the pandemic,

Keg

Lantern Brewing

Company opened its second location on 158 Beard Street (behind

Hometown

and

Brooklyn Crab) earlier this summer, following much success at its original Greenpoint location (97 Nassau

er featuring Dutch spelling. Thomson, who has been with Keg for nearly nine years, designed the artwork. “We’re so excited to be part of this great, historic neighborhood. It’s almost impossible not to be inspired by it,” she said. “For me, it was really fun to bring the beer to life and create a visual story with imagery for each beer.” Beers offered in cans include Coastal Kolsch, Loreley Summer Lager, and Transatlantic Lager Dortmunder. The Red Hook location houses their main brewery, allowing customers to see the large foeder tanks as soon as they walk in. The interior design also gives a nod to the waterfront location and gives off a coastal feel.

Avenue) that opened in Canned Crowlers and Commercial Brewing

2014. Neighborhood Reception and Inspiration When owner Kieran Breen applied for a liquor license in May 2017, residents were hesitant to have another brewery open in the neighborhood. However, manager Lizzie Thomson has noticed an “overwhelmingly warm welcome from the neighborhood so far” since opening their doors June 13. Locals were able to stop by and appropriately socially distance that weekend when K&L launched a special line of canned beers. Since can sales for breweries have exploded due to the demand for “beer at home” the past few months, according to Thomson, management thought it would be a great time to launch. “Everyone was really excited to try something new …. [and] everyone that has stopped by has been supportive,” she continued. “This area has definitely become a hub for craft breweries, and I think it’s great that we can support each other.” The artwork on the new cans radiate a nautical vibe, including images of a mermaid, lighthouse, and life preserv-

K&L was the first brewery in New York City to offer canned crowlers (one-time, poured-to-order 32-ounce growlers) back in 2015. Thomson believes selling crowlers for the past five years gave them an advantage these past five months. “People were excited that they could really utilize this to take their beer to go and also keep it fresh for up to a couple of weeks,” she explained. “Restaurants and bars had to quickly switch up their service to take-out only so quickly. Having the crowlers in place allowed us to be prepared immediately.” But what many may not know is how similar commercial brewing is from home brewing. Lyons noted that while scale plays a determining factor – and changes the equipment considerably –the process nearly stays the same. First, Head Brewer Jeff Lyons and the other brewers mill the grain (usually malted barley) to crack it open and expose the starches on the inside of the kernel. Next, they mix the grain with hot water, known as mash, and the temperature facilitates the conversion of those starches into sugars. During the next step – the lauter – those sugars are separated from the grains and sent to the boil kettle. They then boil the wort (sugar water) that they have collected for an hour or more.

Their summer cocktails include a Mango Margarita and the Spicy Grapefruit Paloma.

Red Hook Star-Revue

“This kills any bacteria or wild yeast that was present on the malted grains and allows us to add hops, both to bitter and add flavor and aroma,” Lyons explained. “We then chill the wort on the way to the fermenter, where we pitch yeast and allow fermentation to happen. This typically takes about two weeks for ales and four to six weeks for lagers.”

Lorelei Lager gets a Red Hook setting. (photo courtesy of Keg and Lantern)

Once fermentation is complete, they transfer the finished beer to a brite tank and carbonate the beer. The beer then becomes ready to serve on K&L’s draft lines or is packaged for enjoyment elsewhere. “The different grains and various hops, as well as the amount of hops used, dictate the flavor and color of the beer,” Lyons continued. “We just have to rely on our experience to brew a new beer and achieve the flavor profile that we are aiming for.” The most popular, handcrafted ales and lagers being consumed by Red Hook customers so far are the Hoek Point Pils and the ‘6 Feet Apart’ IPA with citrusy aromas and fruity flavor. “It’s a perfect juicy and hazy IPA for the summer and the name is definitely appropriate for everyone right now,” Lyons said.

dining is allowed, management plans to offer bar seating, an extensive food menu and daily deals with the purchase of a beer – including mac and cheese, half-price wings, and house pitcher and nacho specials. The establishment will also feature a tasting room for customers and televisions and a projector for those who are big sports fans. “One of our favorite things about the Greenpoint location is how much of a neighborhood brewpub we are. And we’d love to emulate that in Red Hook,” Thomson said. Keg and Lantern, 158 Beard Street, Red Hook. Open Fridays 4 – 8 pm, Saturday and Sunday Noon – 8 pm

The Game Plan Though Breen’s plan was to open for business in mid-April, the severity of the pandemic quickly unraveled after a few weeks. “It was clear to us that wouldn’t be an option for us. After a couple of months, we decided to try a soft opening with to-go cans and drinks. It was a nerve-wracking time to be opening a new location amid such uncertainty, but we pivoted our original plan and we’re really glad we did,” Thomson said. “It’s been great to slowly introduce ourselves to the neighborhood and bring some new options for eating and drinking to Red Hook.” While the Greenpoint location is open seven days a week, the Red Hook site is only open on weekends and currently sells to-go crowlers, draft beer, cocktails and food. However, once indoor

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June 2020, Page 13

“You need a workshop to make leather goods. If you want to make goods you can sell in our store, you can use our machines, use our dyes. My goal is to help people create sustainable businesses.” Erik Frankel

Sunset Park’s Frankel's does a reboot

or all of our lifetimes Frankel's was a great place to get both workingmans clothes, as well as cool clothes for people who fancied themselves in tune with the working class. Sadly, the lights went dark two years ago, as the owner retrenched to New Jersey. But this past June, under the aegis of his son, during a global pandemic, they have returned! Founded in 1890, Frankel’s began by selling clothes and goods to union workmen, such as longshoremen and ironworkers on the corner of Third Avenue and 40th Street. “My father, Marty, named me Erik to sound more Norwegian,” chuckles Erik, great-grandson of the founder. Erik, who spent years living in Hanoi, now lives above the store. “Many people don’t know it, but Brooklyn used to have a huge Norwegian population.” “What kind of things did the store sell?” “Longshoreman gear: Meat hooks, icepicks, peacoats, radios, Levi’s, Wranglers, and insulated clothing. Even until 1963, Brooklyn was a major port. The waterfront was bustling back then. The ships came in from all over the world, there were movie theaters, and bowling alleys, on two sides of the street.” “What happened?” I ask. “The Brooklyn ports closed; that business went to New Jersey. At first, we thought it was over for us. Then we switched our inventory and started supplying construction clothes and work shoes.” “You reacted quickly to the change.” “We made fast changes and were incredibly lucky. At that time, we started supplying items for ironworkers. You could say that our goods were used by the people who built the expressways, the NYC bridges, and the skyscrapers. We are a part of the history that built this city. Even until today, we supply NYC ironworkers,

Page 14 Red Hook Star-Revue

by Michael Fiorito electricians, plumbers, and people of all trades with items like union made Thorogood Boots.” Then, Erik says, a few years ago, his father wanted to open a place nearer to where he lives in New Jersey. “Sometimes, it would take him two hours to find parking. Not to mention the tolls and hardship of travelling back and forth every day. Then he closed the Brooklyn store.” That closing was mourned by long time Brooklynites, but it has lasted only two years. “I decided to carry the store’s traditions forward, so I reopened it. Now we have two stores. But it’s hard for a small business to stay relevant,” Erik says.

Multi-lingual Having lived in Vietnam, Erik speaks Vietnamese. He also speaks Burmese, Thai, and Spanish. Erik tells me that Marty speaks twelve languages. They are a very international family. While in Vietnam, Erik helped local businesses with the operational logistics, such as warehousing, shipping, and bookkeeping. He even started a non-profit, called Arekind which is still active in Saigon. “Now I’m hoping to bring this kind of training back to NYC. Give kids jobs. Instead of just sweeping, the kids could learn things, cut leather, dye, glue stones.” Erik also wants to create a place where craft workers can make leather products — shoelace flags, leather wallets, and bags. “You need a workshop to make leather goods. If you want to make goods you can sell in our store, you can use our machines, use our dyes. My goal is to help people create sustainable businesses.” “It’s more than just money for you. It sounds like you have your hands in many things,” I say.

ey. But here’s the thing. People have an emotional attachment to Frankel’s. Some old-timers come in just to tell stories about my grandfather and great-grandfather. They bring the shoes my grandfather made for them – just to show me. Believe it or not, my grandfather used to cook steaks in the back of the store for customers. He even used to give them drinks – the longshoreman,” he pauses for a moment. “And police, too” he says snickering. “It’s nostalgic; having made such an impact on people’s lives.” “That sounds very cool.” “Then he’d even drive people to the subway. But you know, he wasn’t an angel; he could be a little abrasive, too.” Initially, Frankel’s was across the street from where they are today. “They knocked our original store down to build the Gowanus Expressway.” “You survived it all,” I say. “People come just to buy something – anything. They’ll come in to shoot the breeze and then just buy a pair

Multi-generational Erik responded: “We could just rent out the store and make more mon-

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of socks.” “How do you deal with competition – like from Amazon?” “It’s difficult to compete with Amazon. Next day shipping, unlimited inventory. But now, you can buy our stuff on Amazon, too. They take 15-20%, though.” “But you know,” he adds, “some people like real feedback; they like to try stuff on. And they like to come in person, talk about the construction projects they were on years ago. The bridges and expressways they’ve built. They love to comment on the union stickers pasted up by the workers who’ve bought items from us faithfully over the years. For people who want to talk to a human being when they buy something – see what it looks like in a mirror – there’ll always be Frankel’s,” adding, “and now in two locations.” Frankel’s is located at 3924 3rd Ave, at the corner of 40th St., (929) 478-1546

The new crew at Frankels. Erik is in the orange.

August 2020

DYLAN (continued from page 1)

tells us he carries two pistols and four large knives. He’s a vengeful cuckold, a man of contradictions and of many moods. He contains multitudes. It’s a hard song to get a handle on, but you know just where he’s coming from. He’s been around the block. You can’t set your alarm clock early enough to fool him, because he’s Bob Dylan, he ain’t nobody’s fool. It’s hard even to end one paragraph and begin the next when talking about him. Bob Dylan contains multitudes. With My Rough and Rowdy Ways, Bob Dylan has become the first artist to make the Billboard Top 200 album charts in every decade since the 1960s. The epic, 17-minute “Murder Most Foul” gave him his first Billboard #1 single. Praise has been heaped in much-deserved lots since the album’s June 19 release—his best in years, his best in decades, one of his best ever, one of his most timely. Certainly, it feels good to praise Bob Dylan’s new work as he approaches 80, and it feels good to praise anything in times of disease and corruption. And My Rough and Rowdy Ways absolutely ranks among his best, combining the emotional intensity of Blonde on Blonde with the smooth full-band groove of Street Legal and doing so without looking back. But it’s not just a great record, it’s a record that can’t stop proclaiming its own greatness. It’s an album about greatness that could only be sung from the vantage of top of the heap. Dylan sings to us from on high. He’s not a rapper claiming to be the best while the next 50 rappers queued up in autoplay await their turns to claim to be number one. This is someone who has narrated more than half a century for the masses. That word is important. Dylan is our narrator. He has always and adamantly refused the role of spokesman, of leader, even of activist. He watches from the moon, describing the turmoil or the 1960s and the spiritual quests of the 1970s, defining the search for love and the yearning for solitude. He observes us and defines us, from above and yet as one of us. He’s a narrator for our times. References and namechecks to great men abound across My Rough and Rowdy Ways, and it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that Dylan is claiming his place among them all, among Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Bob Wills, Jimmy

Reed (especially Jimmy Reed), Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson, Stan Getz, Art Pepper, Thelonious Monk, Nat King Cole, Elvin Presley, Louis Jordan, Frank Sinatra, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Ricky Nelson, Carl Wilson, the Who, Burt Bacharach, the Eagles, Lindsey Buckingham, the Allman Brothers, Queen, Billy Joel, Warren Zevon, and Liberace; among William Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Jack Kerouac; among Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Al Pacino and Marlon Brando; among St. John the Apostle and Martin Luther King, Jr., Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, Harry Houdini and Wolfman Jack, not to mention presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, William McKinley, Harry S. Truman and, of course, John F. Kennedy. (While Dylan also namechecks Patsy Cline, Ann Frank, Etta James, Jacqueline Onassis Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Stevie Nicks, his referencing is enormously masculine. Whether that’s understandable, unforgiveable or just unwoke, I’ll leave to others to unpack.) He’s as good as any of ’em, better than all of ’em, but who is he? It took six actors just to depict in Todd Haynes’ brilliantly fanciful biopic I’m Not There (the title suggesting that none of the six quite fill his shoes). If he’s our narrator, should we know who he is? In “Crossing the Rubicon,” Dylan puts himself in the shoes (or sandals) of Julius Caesar, defiantly leading his troops across the Rubicon River, giving rise to the Roman Civil War and eventually his dictatorship. But the subject soon turns to love, that river now redder than a woman’s lips. Blood flows from a rose, the protagonist prays to the cross (jettisoning us at least 75 years after Caesar’s death). He kisses all the girls, then nullifies it all. He cannot redeem time spent idly, he proclaims, lapsing into machismo posturing (violent threats lace his boastful lyrics): “I can feel the bones beneath my skin / And they’re tremblin’ with rage / I’ll make your wife a widow / You’ll never see old age.” By the time the ninth and final verse passes (it’s also an album of many verses and few choruses), our hero feels the presence of the holy spirit while looking for his lost love, having lived, it seems, for centuries. Elsewhere, Dylan calls to his muse, who sings of mountains and military men, while professing his love for another, Calliope, the muse of epic poetry.

It’s a complicated scene, counteracted by “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You,” in which Dylan offers one of the simplest and loveliest love songs he’s recorded. The first disc of My Rough and Rowdy Ways clocks in at under an hour. There was easily enough room on the CD release to include the 17-minute “Murder Most Foul.” But that song is housed on its own disc, with its own cover image of JFK on the flip. Like an old two-for-one dimestore novel, the album has two front covers and no back. We’re meant to consider the last song separately—not as a different work but as a final act, after intermission. On “Murder Most Foul,” Dylan returns to the era which, however much he hopes to disassociate, he will forever be connected, and to one of the defining moments of that decade. It is, in true fashion, an inexplicably brilliant and impenetrably evocative song. It’s clear that, to Dylan, Kennedy’s assassination represents the death of certain dreams. Other events of the decade pale in the lyrics against this one event: the Beatles came to America, but Kennedy was shot; we had three days of peace and music at Woodstock, but Kennedy was shot. Nobody knows how, nobody knows why. The lyric hints at who was responsible (dismissing the lone gunman theory), but we still don’t know. Bob Dylan can’t solve the mystery and he can’t bring Kennedy back to life. All he can do is describe, again, the events of his generation. In his acceptance speech for the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, read at the ceremony by United States Ambassador to Sweden Azita Raji, Dylan humbly wrote that “if someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think that I’d have about the same odds as standing on the moon.” But one has to wonder if he really thinks about standing on the moon. One has to wonder to what, as he nears his 80th year, he aspires. Does he still hope to achieve, or is the hope for one more timeless song enough? Bob Dylan’s new album is important, not because he’s updated the lyrics to “The Times They Are a-Changin’” for 2020. He hasn’t. It’s not important because it’s one of the best records he’s made, even though it is. It’s important because Bob Dylan’s important. That he knows it does nothing to change the fact.

OUR PANDEMIC ACID TRIP

s we prepare for the long game here in the US, it’s hard to not feel frustrated with everyone that has put us in this situation. It is not a discussion anymore. It is an all out war over telling the truth or believing lies and building a larger grey area in between.

Having Donald Trump as the President of The United States during the corona virus pandemic is epically inconvenient; like being issued a dull, moist flintlock on your musket for The Siege Of Yorktown or holding the Union line in The Battle Of Gettysburg with only a jammed revolver. It’s not only dangerous, but also damned uncomfortable, perhaps like being stricken with relentless diarrhea in the heat of the amphibious landing on D-Day. Yet the whole journey has been long, continually strange and surreal, with conflicting information, exacerbated by a lack of leadership, so perhaps it is closer to being heavily dosed with LSD whilst navigating the dense thickets of bamboo, underneath a triple canopy of jungle, amongst the waist high elephant grass in Vietnam for The Battle Of Hamburger Hill. Yes, we are all deep in a jungle together. But on this acid trip amongst the humid thicket,

Red Hook Star-Revue

by Jack Grace

we are arguing about using basic equipment no less, that has been agreed to save our lives; some of our own infantry and leaders claim it ineffective or are ranting on about it robbing them of their freedom? Yes, Captain Chuck Woolery claims he knows better than our doctors and scientists. But I just heard word…we now LITERALLY have lost our freedom to travel to just about every country in the world. So for now, we are all lost in this jungle together, with possibly a clear way of how to get out, but we are too loaded down with casualties and soldiers wigging out. I just wish this acid would wear off already. The commander’s patchy orange make up is totally freaking the men out. I am getting bad vibes off of that henchman general of his, the neck less one with the glasses? He keeps mumbling over and over that he doesn’t have to pay us anything and he looks and moves EXACTLY LIKE A TURTLE! I’ve got a bad feeling about this. You see it’s about to get dark and buggy and I’m pretty sure we haven’t even peaked yet. I fear the enemy is going to have a field day with us in the dark. I’d radio for help but quite honestly under these circumstances,

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I fear there is no one I can trust. I think we should start concerning ourselves with the chain of supplies. They are beginning to look bleak for the infantry. You know the story…while the generals eat juicy porterhouse steaks and smoke the finest rolled Cuban cigars on fine linen tablecloths. Ok perhaps now I can’t recall where reality begins and how this analogy began. I am running to get out of the jungle. I am almost out of supplies. I am asking for help out there if you can hear me, signal is getting weak…

August 2020, Page 15

Dateline-Saigon remembers the journalists who revealed a dirty war

early 60 years ago, AP reporter Malcolm Browne was sent to Vietnam to report on the conflict between the Communist North and American-backed South. He was soon joined by Peter Arnett and photojournalist Horst Faas, and they found themselves competing with UPI reporter Neil Sheehan and brash NYT journalist David Halberstam as the Vietnamese civil war erupted into an American-led war of Cold War containment. The consequences of that escalation — the protests and culture wars, the draft and the quagmire — were all years away. The reporting those journalists did foretold what was in store. That initial story was eclipsed by Vietnam’s more provocative media moments (My Lai, Agent Orange, Walter Cronkite declaring the war unwinnable on national TV), but it’s resuscitated by filmmaker Thomas D. Herman in his documentary Dateline-Saigon. The film's release comes as the country is more divided than at any time since the '60s. The fault lines are familiar — civil rights, brutal protest crackdowns, state-sponsored attempts to delegitimize the press — and they vibrate throughout the movie. I spoke with Herman about his unexpectedly relevant film and the journalists at the center of it. Following are excerpts of our interview: Dateline-Saigon is built on really great interviews, some with people who are no longer around, like David Halberstam, who died in 2007, and Malcolm Browne and Horst Faas who both died in 2012. When did you start working on this, and why did it take so long to complete? I started in 2003 or 2004, and at the time I didn’t know what the film was going to be. I had been a field producer for CNN and spent time in Vietnam on various projects. While there, I happened upon a reunion of men and women who had covered the war. I heard some amazing stories and met many fascinating characters. As you might imagine, the kinds of people who go to cover those stories are a special kind of person. In my research, I found that there really wasn’t a documentary on the subject of journalists in Vietnam. So I started filming, and it went on over a number of years. At first I didn’t have access to some material in the beginning, like some of those secret White House tapes, which I successfully pushed to have declassified.

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by Dante A. Ciampaglia It took close to 15 years to make this damn thing, in the course of which three of the protagonists died. Fortunately, I was able to get them before that happened. I ended up doing more than 60 interviews: print journalists, newspaper, magazines, wire service, TV journalists, radio, photojournalists, historians, military people, and others. The film emerged out of those many interviews. It is a story that very few people knew about, how these young men, all in their 20s—I think actually Malcolm Browne was the oldest at 30—got sent there when nobody thought it was going to be a very important story. None of the big shot reporters wanted to go, so they sent these young men. They had lived through World War II, they were real Cold Warriors, so their inclination was to support the American effort. What happened to them when they realized the government was lying is the crux of the film. They all went through a crisis of conscience—particularly Halberstam and Sheehan. When they started to report the truth,they got called pinkos or traitors — cut off from information, put on assassination lists, got beaten up, put in jail — all of those things happened. Collections of Vietnam War reporting are fairly common, but we rarely see or hear directly from the people whose bylines are on the stories and rarely get the story behind the reporting. I’ve been told by a number of people that the example set by Halberstam, Sheehan, and the others is a real guide for people covering conflict today. For example, Dexter Filkins covered the war in Iraq. He had gotten to know Halberstam, and he told me that quite a number of his colleagues— whether it was in Iraq or in Syria or in Afghanistan or elsewhere—took Halberstam’s book about Vietnam, "The Best and the Brightest," with them. Dexter spoke at David’s memorial service and spoke of the inspiration these journalists provided. He said that any reporter who has ever tried to hold his government to account learned from Halberstam, Sheehan and the others, that the truth is not a point of view, and it doesn’t necessarily belong to the person with the most power. That’s so relevant to today, and it makes this film about more than Vietnam. This is a film about the importance of a free press, an independent media, holding government to account, speaking truth to

power. When I started making DatelineSaigon, I didn’t know anything more about Donald Trump other than he had a bunch of failing casinos in Atlantic City and an ego that was so large it was difficult to walk for him to walk through a door. I had no idea that he would be elected president and then declare war on the media. How did your estimation of these journalists change in the making of the film?

which is better than nothing but still a form of censorship. You have to go with the troops and you really aren’t supposed to look around independently. We spent about a weekend shooting in Baghdad with Peter Arnett. We did a stand up with Peter outside of some blown up hotel, and he talks about how the information that journalists have access to in Baghdad is much less than they had in Vietnam.

I had read Sheehan’s reports, and I knew that he was the guy who got the Pentagon Papers. I’d read a number of Halberstam’s books. I had been fascinated, even before this film, in the coverage of Vietnam because it is perhaps the most controversial period or case history of journalism in this country.

We went to Baghdad during a really difficult period when it was a very dangerous place. To get military credentials had to sign a whole bunch of forms, among which was a prohibition against anonymous sources. You can’t say “a source,” you have to use his or her name, which is effectively backdoor censorship.

And then I got to know each of these five well. I had multiple interviews with each of them, I got to know them and their families, I spent time with them, and I developed an enormous respect for them.

So, yeah, the experience of Vietnam has, in many ways, set the rules for how government will allow conflict to be reported. I think Vietnam will remain controversial for many years and for many reasons. For example, a significant number of people today still believe that it was the media that caused us to lose the war.

Among the interesting things I learned was that each of these guys had very little experience, very little reputation when they went there. They all went on to win Pulitzer Prizes. Each of them went on to have illustrious, if not legendary careers. To a person, they told me that their experience in Vietnam was the single most important story they covered in their very long careers. Beyond that, they said that the relationships they developed with each other were the most important professional relationship they’d established. I was interviewing them when they were in their 70s. They went in there as competitors, but they became lifelong friends. Halberstam was the godfather for Neil Sheehan’s oldest daughter. Sheehan is the godfather to Halberstam’s kids. Sheehan says in the film that our government realized it had made a mistake allowing journalists to have unfettered access and that was a mistake they would never make again. You’re absolutely right. If you go to wherever they teach Public Information Officers, they call Vietnam the big mistake. “We can’t give journalists unfettered access to what’s going on.” After Vietnam, they didn’t even allow journalists nearby. For example, when Reagan invaded Grenada in 1983, journalists weren’t allowed. What the government then came up with is this idea of embedding,

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I’m hopeful that this a minority viewpoint. But I think another very relevant point, and I think you’ve picked up on this, is that Trump’s war on the press is not the first time the government has done this. The First Amendment is precious to me — freedom of speech, freedom, assembly, all of that — but it’s something that every generation has to struggle to maintain. President Nixon had his enemies list with journalists on it. It happened to a lesser degree in World War I, under President Wilson and his attorney general. Censorship was imposed by Lincoln during the Civil War. Freedom of the press is t’s under attack right now in a way that perhaps has never been previously. We cannot take it for granted. Fortunately, there’s some extraordinarily good journalism going on today and some smart and honorable people who understand the importance of freedom of the press — not only among so-called liberals; true conservatives understand the importance of this, as well. But every generation has to fight for it. Dateline-Saigon is now available on DVD and video on demand from First Run Features. Visit firstrunfeatures.com for more information.

August 2020

Books by Quinn Life of Brian (s) Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Modern Womanhood, by Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova

n the tradition of great comedy duos that include Bill and Ted, Beevis and Butt-Head and Abbott and Costello, Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova bring playfulness, nuttiness, and irreverent, off-the-wall humor to the lifestyle and self-help space with Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Modern Womanhood. Trixie and Kaya are the drag queen alter-egos of Brian Michael Firkus and Brian Joseph McCook, who first sashayed across television screens in 2015 on the seventh season of the reality competition series RuPaul’s Drag Race, Capitalizing on the success of both their subsequent YouTube series UNHhhh and their 2017 Viceland series The Trixie & Katya Show in which the two sit in front of a green screen and riff on a given topic (such as “Jobs Before Drag,” “Worst Hookup,” and “Dating”), silliness made side-splitting by some really inventive editing, the two bring the magic of their chemistry from the small-screen to the written page in their first full length book. Alternating between short essays and transcripts of their tangential conversations—dedicated to “all the ambitious female scientists out there”—Trixie and Katya weigh in with thoughts on “Beauty and Style,” “Homemaking,” and “Relationships.” “Television and folk music star” Trixie (the thirtyyear-old Firkus) styles herself after a vintage Barbie, often dressing in pink, yellow, or florals paired with “a chunky white go-go boot” and a big blonde bouffant. Her signature makeup—giant, heavily-lidded panda eyes and extreme brown cheek contours— looks like something “from aisle seven of a terrifying toy store” as she was aptly introduced in the Pee-Wee’s Playhouse-inspired video for her sixtiesmeets-nineties bop “Yellow Cloud.” Katya embodies a fantasy of “the only high-class Russian whore,” as she raps in the bitch track “Read U Wrote U” - blonde hair, red lips, short dresses, and “a high-end deathtrap of a hooker shoe.” Self-described as “a passive-aggressive introvert with no boundaries or shame,” neurotic McCook’s Katya plays the straight man to the more confident Firkus’ Trixie. Beloved for her bonkers sensibility, Katya often has little plastic hands and bird nests sticking out of her wigs, and wanders in her thoughts. Quick-on-her-feet Trixie keeps her from

Trixie Mattel is the winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” season 3 (originally competing on season 7).

straying too far by heading her off with a zinger. The workload of the book has been divided evenly between the two. Katya’s attempts at humor seem more effortful, while Trixie takes a more natural, conversational approach. Katya covers hair while Trixie stresses makeup. In fact, she markets her own line of cosmetics available online and in selected stores. In praise of “cosmeceuticals” (one of three things targeted for rescue in the event of a fire, the other two being a mint in-the-box Malibu Barbie and a can of Red Bull), Firkus draws from experience working at a makeup counter. The tips here are surprising helpful (“Truthfully, your skin needs less makeup than you think”) while still punctuated by Trixie’s brand of humor. “The skin is your largest organ (unless you are my second boyfriend, Matthew—woof!).” In their conversation on personal style (defining it as a point of view), the two express pet peeves (corsets as outwear, blue mascara) and point out that “your clothes can completely tell a story.” Trixie notes, “For dressing in drag at least, there’s such a learning curve of learning your body, and what you have to do to your body to look like this imaginary body,” poignantly evoking the kind of dysmorphia experienced by trans folks, among others. Writing about hygiene (“You can’t get clean off of yesterday’s shower,”) Katya, often describing herself as “rotted,” notes, “The only time in my life when I adequately prepared for an important event was when I bleached my teeth before I appeared on television.” There’s a recipe for vodka lemonade, quizzes about self-love and hoarding (“People are like goldfish. We naturally expand to the size of our fishbowls”), daily affirmations (“There’s nothing wrong with my legs and it’s okay that they’re always wet”), and advice on social media usage and interior decorating (“putting your home in drag”), in which Trixie relates words of wisdom from an older gay room-

mate, such as “Your home should never be louder than you are.” The fun, colorful graphic design by Lorie Pagnozzi features lots of photo shoots of the heavily madeup pair. The smooshed crotch shots of Trixie and Katya in pantyhose evoke the so-wrong-it’s-right sensibility of comedian Amy Sedaris’ ode to entertaining, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. In Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Modern Womanhood, these pretend-women clearly relish their real, sizable audience’s attention, and brandish this mantle of authority like something they never expected to have. It’s like the unexpected catch that wins the game—it makes the victory so much sweeter. There’s humility here, which makes their trademark goofiness so affecting. What makes this duo comedy gold isn’t just the jokes. It’s because the source of that humor comes from an honest place. Their struggles are real and they share them (McCook, in recovery, manages to write about drugs in a way that’s not at all preachy), along with little anecdotes about the women who’ve inspired them, be they a hair colorist in a Wisconsin salon or an eccentric New England neighbor who carpeted her driveway with oriental rugs. While Trixie and Katya obviously poke fun at playing the part of the “modern woman,” in some ways the culture’s moved so much, some women really are taking their cues from drag queens like them. Consider how mainstream drag has become. Drag Race, starting out in 2009 on Logo TV looking like it was filmed in a rec room by a camera with Vaseline on the lens, has since moved to VH1 and won multiple Emmys. Still, it’s the queens that claim in spotlight, not the Brians, at least one of whom admits that “during the day I do not care to stand out, because I get all that attention in drag.” Reviewed by Michael Quinn

"While Trixie and Katya obviously poke fun at playing the part of the “modern woman,” in some ways the culture’s moved so much, some women really are taking their cues from drag queens like them. " Red Hook Star-Revue

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August 2020, Page 17

Jazz by Grella watching jazz as the clubs stay closed by George Grella

MTV

launched in 1981 with a video for the Buggles song “Video Killed The Radio Star,” and the medium of music has never been the same. Most music that is. Music at the edges and in the niches that line mass, popular culture has been little affected by music videos. Opera and experimental Western art music have been working with visual mediums since the 1920s, so MTV was no revolution for them. And though there are the occasional jazz promotional videos, jazz is not well-suited for short form visuals. It is an abstract and non-narrative musical genre, a tricky vehicle for concise sequential storytelling. Yes, jazz can be used to tell stories and for dramatic purposes, but that’s a layer of artifice over the roots. But the visual is all we have during this pandemic, that’s how we’re getting “live” music. This column has already looked at the streaming situation, performances that can be experienced in real time or via archives, which fits into the bell curve standard of some good on one end, some bad at the other, with a bulge of indifference in the middle. There is jazz in the middle of the two poles of live performance and music video, a substantial catalogue of filmic jazz, old and new, that you, the viewer who is kept by circumstances from the live experience, can enjoy from your own home. Most of these are immediately available. Vocalist Sara Serpa has a new album, Recognition, out on Biophilia records. She has made more than just an album. The music serves as the soundtrack to a film of the same name by director Bruno Soares. Serpa is one of the great contemporary singers, her voice has a clear-toned beauty, her delivery is unadorned and opens up the weight of her sound, and, like an instrumentalist, she uses phrasing as her means of expression. That is the classic jazz singer’s resume. Her album, with tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist David Virelles, and harpist Zeena Parkins, is both delicate and dark. Listen to it alone and the sense that it is about something comes through with uncanny force. It is superb accompanying Soares video, which is about 52 minutes long. The director puts together footage of physical labor (including worker bees), with intertitles that create a hard-eyed, critical view of the racist exploitation of African workers. The film sources Serpa’s own family’s Super8 footage, and there is an aching distance between the camera’s eye and these suffering people, now lost to time. This is a hybrid of documentary and art that is more revealing and abrading than any obvious polemic could be. The album is available at http://biophiliarecords.com as a digital download, with an included code to stream the video. More on the standard performance side are videos from saxophonist Kamasi Washington and pianist Fred Hersch. Amazon Prime Video hosts Kamasi Washington, Live at the Apollo Theater, a concert from Washington and his Next Step band that was live February 2019. It’s not a streaming archive, it’s a concert film, so the on-stage scenes are interspersed with still photos, backstage footage, and comments from Washington himself—he sounds like he’s answering questions that have been left off the soundtrack. The music is cooking, he and his musicians are masters of high energy spiritual jazz, and the production is excellent, with full, detailed sound and direction that is anchored on Washington while cutting to the types of details that give you a solid feeling for his musicians’ personalities.

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Sara Serpa with a clip from her movie.

What the film does well that most of the livestreaming fails at is changing the camera view in a way that shows the interplay between the musicians. Live in the club, you can take it all in with your eyes and ears simultaneously, but the screen chooses for you, and it has to be as jazzy as the music, and for Live at the Apollo Theater, it is. Hersch’s My Coma Dreams is not new, it’s a musical theater work that was released on DVD in 2014, and as of July is now available for free on YouTube (https://youtu.be/f1e-AynJvhk). Hersch has had HIV for a long time now, and in 2008 he was so ill that he was put into a medically induced coma. While in the coma, he dreamt, and for this piece Herschel Garfein shaped these dreams into a book and libretto, along with narration delivered by the character of Hersch’s partner Scott (this is a oneman performance, with singer/actor Michael Winther playing all the roles; Fred’s dreams, Scott, bits about how comas are portrayed in TV shows and movies, and what they are really like, including an upsetting number of tubes that invade the body). The video is a recorded live performance, like that Hamilton movie that you’ve probably seen, featuring multiple cameras, close-ups and long views, peeks in on the musicians—Hersch leads the ensemble and there’s plenty of space in the piece for improvising inside his own score. This is a terrific piece of musical theater that hits all the knowing stylistic notes, with many loving, down-home touches. It stands on its own, and is even more powerful if you know that Hersch had to relearn how to play the piano after he regained consciousness, and is, at least in this critic’s opinion, an even finer musician than he was before 2008. All of the above are worthwhile and cover a lot of jazz ground. The rest are problematic, matching jazz’ own problematic relationship with the movies. It boils down to the question, has there ever been a good jazz movie? There’s been notable ones, but they’re not very good, full of dramatic flaws and unable to make sense of the music. What’s a jazz story after all? Even This is Spinal Tap can be about the rise and fall of the world’s loudest rock band, but no one turns into a star playing jazz, so where’s the story? Correction: Miles Davis became a star playing jazz, and in 2015 Don Cheadle released his movie about Davis, Miles Ahead. It’s about Miles in the

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late ‘70s, when he was in too much pain and on too many drugs to make music, and it’s not good. Cheadle is fine and there are some insightful and intriguing depictions both of historical moments, like Miles in the studio with Gil Evans, and of the man himself, like taking a $20 bill from his date so he could write his phone number on it and give it to another woman. But to make the movie work, i.e. to get it financed, he had to invent a white buddy character, and the plot, which revolves around getting one’s hands on a tape of what Miles has been up to (a real McGuffin in that he hasn’t been up to anything in the movie) devolves into a car chase with gun play. Better to watch the recent Miles Davis” Birth of the Cool documentary, which gives a solid history of the man and his music making (Netflix). There’s also Clint Eastwood’s Bird. That has a fine performance by Forrest Whitaker as Charlie Parker, and features some great details, like Parker and his Quintet (with Michael Zelniker as Red Rodney), playing a bar mitzvah. But it’s misshapen, and it never tells us much about the man, other than his personal failings, or even why he was one of the most important musicians of the 20th century (Amazon Prime). The rest is mainly fictional stories, though those at times feature real musicians, like Louis Armstrong (not as himself) appearing in Paris Blues, a 1961 vehicle for Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier busting down racial barriers and busting open with the beatniks— though it’s not daring enough to pair off Newman with Diahann Carrol and Poitier with Joanne Woodward. Newman plays a trombonist named Ram Bowen, and that’s pretty much the movie (not currently streaming). Kirk Douglas stars as a fictionalized Bix Beiderbecke in Young Man With a Horn (1950). This is a solid drama with solid music, though it’s more Harry James than Bix (it is James who plays the trumpet behind Douglas). There’s a good connection between music and life, and the supporting cast is stellar: Lauren Bacall, Doris Day, Hoagy Carmichael, and Juano Hernandez, and the director is the great craftsman Michael Curtiz (Amazon Prime). Recommended. More fictional, or more archetypal, is Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues, from 1990, with Denzel Washington as trumpeter Bleek Gilliam and Wesley Snipes as saxophonist Shadow Henderson. There’s

August 2020

Kurt's cool Korner Liturgy and the Sacrament of Experimental Metal by Kurt Gottschalk

ext year will mark the 30th anniversary of drone metal pilgrim Dylan Carlson’s first release under the name Earth. In that time, countless bands from all corners of the world have emerged into the new freedom, among them iconic innovators and black copycats. The best of what we might call the New Wave of Experimental Heavy Metal relies, in a sense, on a process of mining the ore from the rock. It’s an aesthetic and an energy born of rock, but since the emergence of Earth, some of metal’s most inventive bands haven’t felt the need to appeal to 12-bar progressions, repeated riffs or tempi anywhere near the human heartbeat. The patron saints of Black Sabbath wouldn’t exist without the masters of rock and blues that came before them and the new breed of metal experimentalists wouldn’t exist without Sabbath, but idols exist to be killed. New York’s Liturgy has been a consistently reliable force in the NWOEHM, noteworthy in no small part for the extraordinary precision in their playing. But their new H.A.Ø.Ø. sets an all new standard for the band, and deserves a place on any NWOEHM essential listening list, if anyone is making such a thing. (And once they do, it will surely mark the end of the era.) Founder and primary composer Hunter Hunt-

Hendrix described the band as “transcendental black metal” in a self-published 2010 essay that led to a lot of dissension and ridicule (in no small part from sectors resistant to intellectualizing or artsying-up the form) but it’s an apt term for the band’s music. H.A.Ø.Ø. (released digitally in November, and still fully streaming on Bandcamp, and on CD and vinyl in July) is unlikely to save the band’s reputation in those guardians of the metal labyrinth, but it’s an exciting, jarring, sometimes beautiful thrill ride that wreaks havoc against more genre delineations than just the trappings of rock. At their best, Liturgy can sting like sheets of rain, and that energy and attack are a big part of the new album. H.A.Ø.Ø. slaps again and again while the listener’s skin is still red from the pounding sleet, but wooden flutes, bell towers, digital glitches, harp, glockenspiel and piano also find their way into the mix. What’s significant, though, isn’t the presence of softer sounds. It’s long been customary for metal bands to do a little moody thing leading up to a snare crack and a rote 4/4 guitar drive. What’s significant here is how they are woven into the arc of the album. Hunt-Hendrix uses the instruments for more than just cheap effect, and employs an impressive array of guest musicians, ensuring that the non-rock elements aren’t just thin passages but rich and integral parts of the whole. The core band is comprised of Hunt-Hendrix (vocals, guitar and electronics) and longtime second guitarist Bernard Gann, along with new members Tia Vincent-Clark on bass and Leo Didkovsky (Kayo Dot, Vomit Fist) on drums. Augmenting the lineup on various tracks are a host of MVPs from the NYC new music scene: percussionist

Cory Bracken (Ashcan Orchestra, IKTUS Percussion, String Orchestra of Brooklyn); soprano Charlotte Mundy (Ekmeles, TAK Ensemble); composer/pianist Eric Wubbels (Wet Ink Ensemble); composer/performer Lucie Vítková; and a small string section. While electric guitars and pounding drums still dominate the music, they’re not the sole inhabitants. That shared occupancy is what makes H.A.Ø.Ø. essential listening for anyone interested in ambitious, poly-genre music. It’s been four years since the last Liturgy fulllength, a long time in the rock world—long enough for interests to wane. But Hunt-Hendrix has had a lot going on. While Liturgy has been quiet, an opera cycle has been in the works, furthering connections to the new music scene. And in May, the enigmatic composer came out as transgender, suggesting a period of personal as well as artistic revelation. It’s unlikely that Hunt-Hendrix will win many new fans with the fantastically eclectic new record but that’s, OK. She’s conquering new worlds.

Lonnie Holley’s Freedom Songs

t’s easy to think of Lonnie Holley as a bluesman. He fits the type: rural, Southern, self-educated, quick with folksy wisdom and deep, dark truth. But Holley is a philosopher poet, more like Son House when he put his guitar down, more like Van Morrison casting ruminations over flowing, nebulous music. Van Morrison had his blues, too, of course. The guy recorded with John Lee Hooker. Lonnie Holley has his blues as well, and his new, five-song National Freedom is his bluesiest record yet. It might be a matter of efficiency. As interest in Holley’s music has grown over the last half decade or so (his reputation as a visual artist well preceded his musical career), he has been playing more and touring more. It would only make sense if he started repeating himself, or if the musicians he plays with needed something to repeat. His musical monologues have evolved into songs and songs suggest form. And the form of National Freedom is a rural, contemporary, free-floating blues. The download-only album (streaming in full on Bandcamp) clocks in at a solid, LP-length 37 minutes, and is a deep well of discovery for the versed or the curious. The opening “Crystal Doorknob” shows the simple pleasure Holley finds in observing the world. “In It Too Deep” displays his metaphysical quest from birth to death. “Like Hell Broke Loose” is a good, swampy, my-baby-left-me grouse. And “Do T Rocker” is almost a feel-good jam, although nothing’s ever that easy with Holley. It’s a shame National Freedom isn’t getting a vinyl release (at least not at present) because it’s a perfectly sequenced album, with each side getting one solo track. Holley’s thumb piano is the only accompaniment on “In It Too Deep,” breaking

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by Kurt Gottschalk up side one. Side two closes (or would close) with the 11-minute “So Many Tears (the First Time).” It’s Holley at his most powerful, crying in the darkness, speaking truth to the void, and is surprisingly delicate. His piano (the big kind, 88 keys and a wooden box) is delicate and nuanced in a way not heard on his various electric keyboards. What’s not to be found on National Freedom is a song with the bite of “I Woke Up in a Fucked Up America” from 2018’s Mith. Given the title, given the times, that comes as a surprise. But the nation in the title isn’t the same nation as the one he woke up in two years ago. He sings of the Nile and the Congo, of other planets and of Martin Luther King. Maybe he’s found a new nation of freedom, somewhere, a better place to wake up—even if it’s a nation of his own imagination.

JAZZ

(cont. from previous page)

some ghosts of the Miles Davis-John Coltrane Quintet inside this movie, but it’s also a prisoner of its era. it comes on the heels of the jazz traditionalist revival started by Wynton Marsalis, and it’s just too respectful of the musicians, there’s little grit, and there’s nothing bluesy about the personal melodramas within (Amazon Prime). The best jazz movie of all, and a very good movie, is currently absent from streaming services: 1986’s Round Midnight, with Bertrand Tavernier directing the great saxophonist Dexter Gordon in the role of Dale Turner, a hybrid

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Lonnie Holley on the cover of Just Before Music, 2012. Courtesy: Dust-to-Digital; photograph: Karekin Goekjian

of saxophonist Lester Young’s and pianist Bud Powell’s personal history. The supporting cast includes Herbie Hancock, Johh McLaughlin, and Bobby Hutcherson as musicians playing with Turner in Paris. The movie shows the integration of life and music, of making art through and out of dissolution, and follows something of the arc of Gordon’s own career, which was almost cut short through drinking and drug addiction—Gordon received an Academy Award nomination for best actor. This is a quiet, loving, and unsentimental movie with a feeling of reality and plangent diegetic music that works as part of the story. It’s worth seeking out until it, hopefully, comes to a digital platform.

August 2020, Page 19

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