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Brian & George take a trip
STAR REVUE
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APRIL 2022
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INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM
Grella on JAZZ Quinn on BOOKS Gottschalk on MUSIC Dante on FILM
The Oscars was historic, and yes, Will slapped Chris by Roderick Thomas
I
f you hadn’t seen Will Smith walk on stage and smack Chris Rock on camera, you may have thought it was just a rumor. And if you haven’t seen or heard about the now infamous smack, you may not live on earth. Though the highlights of Oscars 2022 were unfortunately overshadowed by a few minutes of rage from the Fresh Prince himself, here are historic firsts, some wonderful, others unfortunate, all of them memorable:
First Women Trio to Host the Oscars
For the first time in history, the Oscars was hosted by three women–––three very funny women–––comedians and actresses Regina Hall, Amy Schumer, and Wanda Sykes. The three hosts’ comedic skills blended well with each other, delivering punchlines and performing skits throughout the night with natural chemistry.
Lillie Marshall Honored - page 10
All three hosts delivered amazing performances, but Regina Hall was a refreshing addition to a stage
(continued on page 12)
Speaking to the Odessa Journal
T
by Dario Pio Muccilli, Foreign Correspondent
he Odessa Journal is the major English-language newspaper in Southern Ukraine, founded in early Ugo Poletti 2020 by editor Ugo Poletti, an Italian entrepreneur whose aim, as stated on their website, is to cover “culture, economy and historical amenities in Odessa”, the biggest urban area and trading port across the Ukrainian seaside.
about the current invasion, that is causing them so much pain. Moreover, being the main Englishlanguage news provider in Southern Ukraine it became a duty for us not to stop working”.
why Odessa has still not been devasted by massive bombings,” states Poletti, who stresses how, until more or less one year ago, the pro-russian political parties were hegemonic in the local councils.
Odessa wasn’t hit immediately, but the city has now become one of the main goals to achieve for the Russian Army. On March 26th, the day we reached Poletti over a video meeting, the Russians attempted a landing near the city which fortunately failed.
Nevertheless Odessa has become a symbol of the resistance of a nation struggling to survive an infamous attack. Photos of barricades and armed volunteers have jumped from one news agency to another.
But the war, with its overwhelming energy, has cast apart this aim and made the Odessa Journal’s editorial board focus on the ongoing conflict.
“There are many reasons why Moscow pursues the conquest of Odessa. First of all, that would tear apart Ukraine from the Black Sea, so it would cut away any remaining channel for import-export trade. Secondly, Odessa is a city where 80% of people speaks Russian and the area is so linked to Russia that annexing it is sort of a dream for the invader. On the other hand this closeliness is the reasons
“The day before the invasion we were planning to talk about art exhibitions, but as soon as the first bombings occurred early on February 24, we converted into a war newspaper,” says Poletti. “My Ukrainian staff felt the immediate urgency to write
Poletti doesn’t hide the surprise he felt when he saw the great efforts carried to defend the city by its inhabitants, who are, as already said, almost all russian speakers. “Eight years ago (when the Crimea was annexed and the Donbass invaded, ed) roughly half of the population still took a liking to Russia, because of
(continued on page 16)
the red hook
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Last year's festival. Photo by Maike Schulz
Prepare to See Plenty of Pink Petals at Green-Wood’s Hanami Festival by Erin DeGregorio
S
pring is finally here and in the air! And for beautiful, blooming cherry blossoms, look no further than Green-Wood.
RHSR on March 25. “I’m confident that there will be some flowering trees on view for everyone by the time the Hanami Festival takes place.”
To kick off the spring season after a quiet, dormant winter and to honor the beauty of the spring season, the 478acre cemetery and national historic landmark is hosting its second annual Hanami Festival on April 20. Hanami is Japanese for ‘flower viewing,’ which is perfect for Green-Wood, a certified arboretum with more than 7,000 trees and shrubs from hundreds of varieties.
Visitors will be able to walk the winding, tree-lined paths while aromas from sweet and savory Japanese treats and refreshments (including sake samplings) from Japan Village, located in Industry City, fill the air.
“We normally don’t get to hold any festivals or celebrations about the natural landscape here at GreenWood, but this is the one opportunity to really celebrate one tree in particular and celebrate looking at the trees themselves,” explained Brooklynnative Harry Weil, who has served as Green-Wood’s director of public programming for the last five-and-a-half years. There are 172 cherry blossom trees of three different species located on Green-Wood’s grounds. “Right now, you can see that the magnolias—which are some of the earliest ones to blossom—are starting to bud. So that’s really exciting,” Weil told the
Festival goers can also expect to hear Japanese folk songs and Japanese-influenced jazz during their visit. Musical acts performing this year include Zan Zinger Trio and the Columbia Japanese Gagaku Instrumental Ensemble of New York as well as koto, shamisen, and Shakuhachi players who play traditional Japanese instruments. “After so many months of practicing gagaku (Japanese for ‘elegant music’) in our homes and online, Columbia Gagaku Instrumental Ensemble of New York is excited to share this ancient classical court music outside and under Green-Wood’s beautiful trees,” Columbia University Professor Alicia “Lish” Lindsey, who serves as the music associate of the Gagaku Ensemble, exclusively told the RHSR. “We hope that those attending the festival will
experience healing and a renewed vitality through the visual and aural connection with nature and music.” Given last year’s positive public reaction to the inaugural Hanami Festival, which had approximately 350 people in attendance, Weil hopes to build on the momentum and make this an annual Green-Wood staple event. “Just like our Battle of Brooklyn, Memorial Day, and Day of the Dead programs, we’d love for the Hanami Festival to be part of the rotation—mainly because we don’t have any programs that really celebrate the landscape in such a large-scale way,” Weil said. “As mentioned, we’ll be adding more musicians into the mix and will have a different variety of snacks this year, so that there’s something new for people to discover and enjoy.” The Second Annual Hanami Festival takes place Wednesday, April 20, 6-8 pm (rain date Thursday, April 21). Tickets cost $35 for Green-Wood members and $40 for non-members. For more information and how to order tickets, visit green-wood.com/event/ hanami-festival-2/.
The Red Hook Star-Revue is published every month. Founded June 2010 by George Fiala and Frank Galeano with thanks to these guys
Page 2 Red Hook Star-Revue
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April 2022
LETTERS
What about the Star?
The recent New York Times Sunday Metropolitan section article “Brooklyn’s Small Town by the Sea” (Glynnis MacNicol, March 6) missed that Red Hook is one of the few communities in NYC that still has its own local newspaper. The Red Hook Star Revue has proudly served Carroll Gardens, Columbia Waterfront, Gowanus and Red Hook since June 2010. It has covered many local issues and events on behalf of almost 10,000 readers overlooked by the Times, Daily News and Post on numerous occasions. On weekends, starting on March 19th, NY Waterway Ferry will provide free service from Midtown West 39th Street and Pier 11 Wall Street to IKEA and the waterfront, Brooklyn Erie Ba-
I
SEND THEM TO GEORGE@REDHOOKSTAR.COM OR POST ON OUR WEBSITE, WWW.STAR-REVUE.COM.
sin Park. The story also missed a proposal to extend the NYC Transit #1 subway line from the Rector Street downtown Manhattan station to Red Hook Brooklyn for $3.5 billion (a tunnel and three new stations) in 2016 by Senior VP of AECOM Engineering firm Chris Ward. Former Governor Andrew Cuomo endorsed the idea in his 2018 State of the State speech. This subway extension would support a proposed Red Hook economic development project. It would be similar in size and scope to Battery City Park in Manhattan which would have destroyed the neighborhoods local character and turned it into Manhattan by the sea. Six years later, no one has come forward with funding to pay for any planning feasibility study to
advance this proposal.—Larry Penner Editors Note: As regards the AECOM proposal - Thank God!
Risha's movie
Riveting. visually stunning. I was gobsmacked. ran away out of the theater after. because I couldn’t talk.—Lee Williams
The Old Curmudgeon
Are you senile? This is one of the least literate articles I’ve ever read on this site.—Anonymous
Motor on
Wow, the old curmudgeon in Red Hook is really angry about anything that would discourage driving!— Friend of Anonymous
Likes our book reviewer!
What a great review! Makes me want
to read the book for sure. Thank you! —Gail Bergan
The author also!
Thank you for this great review. You really got me and got my book.—Kate Walter
Contrary view
Thanks Joe, I’m ready to join the CLF (Curmudgeon Liberation Front), though my purple has a bit more blues than ‘youse’!—Michael Bennett
Note to Grella
The comment on Billy Strayhorn’s compositions “Lotus Blossom” and “Chelsea Bridge” as having lyrics that do not tell rich stories like LUSH LIFE is in error. There never were any lyrics by Strayhorn for Chelsea Bridge, or Lotus Blossom. The melodies alone
Opinion: Words by George Something is lost in a Zoom world
took the opportunity to cover two events that are written about in this month's paper. The first was the fabulous party honoring Lillie Marshall's service to Red Hook. The second was Nydia Velazquez's ceremony announcing federal grants that she has directed to local non-profits. Miss Marshall's party was inside at the Miccio Center, Nydia's outside in the PS 676 schoolyard. At both events, I got to see and talk to people in our community that I have really missed over the past couple of years. It's actually more than missing that's important here. As publisher of this paper, I used to assign reporters to cover different meetings, but I would also attend, because it would be the personal relationships that would develop by talking to people after the meetings that helped the paper become a stronger voice in the neighborhood. People would tell me about stories that otherwise would just stay with them. Those are the kinds of things that do not happen in Zoom meetings. In Zoom meetings, you see disembodied faces who have to put their little hand symbol up on the screen and maybe they will get called upon to ask a question. You often do not see who is at the meeting, and those personal relationships that bring one's understanding of the community to a greater level do not develop.
Of course, it's not because of a lack of community that Zoom and also masking happened. It's because of the damn COVID. But I'm afraid that Zoom and masking will be here long after COVID is gone. While Zoom started out as a necessity, it is now seen as a better alternative to having to actually leave your house and go to a meeting. Now, you can watch the meetings, mind your kids, answer e-mails, go to the bathroom and even do the dishes, all while still technically at the meeting. Not to mention you can wear pajama bottoms if you like. But all those things that I mentioned at the beginning of this article are lost. Despite the fact that we have gotten to the point that most of the fancy restaurants are now packed with eager diners eating indoors, and the Barclay Center is full of Nets fans, Zoom is still normal for things I used to attend in person, including the Gowanus CAG and Community Board 6 meetings. This is good for politicians, who get to make appearances at 5 or 6 meetings a night, sometimes via their bicycle speeding through the streets, but not good for me, and I suspect not good on a long term basis for community and democracy. All five borough presidents, including our own Antonio Reynoso, signed a statement asking the state to authorize permanent virtual meetings, either
completely, or as an option. The Staten Island Advance reports: "For their part, the borough presidents said they support maintaining a virtual option, because it will allow more people to participate in the process. Typically, community board meetings are held weekday nights, and some members told the borough presidents that they have ongoing health concerns." Believe it or not, at least to me, it turns out that with this I agree with a Republican. The Advance reports: "Guardian Angels founder and 2021 Republican mayoral candidate, Curtis Sliwa, told the NY Post that it would allow officials to avoid public outcry. He says: "Politicians and community board members have to face the fire. This is what America is founded on—the town hall meeting. Government has to be face-to-face interaction," Sliwa told the Post. It does involve some sacrifice to be a concerned community member and put aside a night's normal activities to attend a public meeting. I was never as proud of this community as when dozens of us did that and turned up at a school auditorium to show CB6 how passionate we were against the proposal to build a nursing home facility across from Pioneer Works. Or when we all went to Borough Hall a few days before Christmas to let Eric Adams know how we felt about putting a ferry ter-
TALL GUY, SMALL GUY DiD YOU GeT THAT DATE WITH
HeLEN?
BY MARC JACKS0N NOT I CALLeD HER, SHE WAS YET. AND CALLiNG Me BACK.
WHeN WAS
THAT?
minal at the freezing end of Van Brunt Street. The community sacrificed for what we considered a worthy cause. Watching a meeting on TV while doing the dishes is not quite the same thing. The self-help people all say that with no pain there is no gain. Of course, I should not be a complete Luddite, and I'm not. Having Zoom as an option enables those with actual health concerns and real disabilities to take part in community. The Daily News writes "hybrid or virtual meetings offer a critical level of flexibility and greater participation from underrepresented communities." Yes, if we can afford the technology, set up a screen at the meetings so that those who cannot be there can see what's going on. But those people who really care about what's going on should be allowed to decide whether or not they can be there in person. Otherwise, we may all end up in a WallE world.
HMMMN, i WANNA TO SAY
JANUARY?
mj
SiP!
MARCMAKeSC0MiCS.CO.UK
Red Hook Star-Revue
©COPYRIGHT 2022 MARC JACKSON AND WEiRD0 COMiCS #6
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April 2022, Page 3
Comedy Show Celebrates Women’s History Month at Brooklyn Borough Hall by Brian Abate
B
rooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso celebrated Women’s History Month with a comedy show called Laughter is Medicine at Borough Hall on March 24th. Reynoso awarded a citation to Carine Jocelyn, the executive director of Diaspora Community Services (formerly known as the Haitian Women’s Program) after more than 25 years of work in human services. Additionally, Jocelyn established a community health center in Port Au Prince in 2007. Reynoso also awarded a citation to Lorena Kourousias, the executive director of Mixteca Organization which is led by immigrant women. One of Reynoso’s goals for his ten-
ure as borough president is to make Brooklyn the safest place for black women to have babies. “Black women die at nine times the rate of their white counterparts during birthing and that is unacceptable,” Reynoso said. “I want to make Brooklyn the safest place in the world for black women to have babies.” Reynoso went on to say, “I’m also incredibly proud to say that Brooklyn Borough Hall’s current staff is over 50 percent women. It was a pleasure celebrating my first Women’s History Month in this new role by sharing the time with the real people who make up the best place in the world–Brooklyn.” The show featured standup comedy from three female comedians who are all members of the Brooklyn Comedy Collective: Chanel Ali (@ chanelali on Instagram,) Dee Luu (@iamdeeluu on Instagram,) and Meaghan Strickland (@stricklygram on Instagram.) “We just reopened after COVID and it’s exciting to be here at Borough Hall,” said Philip Markle, the artistic director of BCC (Brooklyn Comedy Collective.) “At BCC, we do shows and classes and it’s a place to do
From left to right Carine Jocelyn, Lorena Kourousias, Antonio Reynoso, Dee Luu, Chanel Ali, and Meaghan Strickland at Borough Hall. (photo by Brian Abate)
weird, fun art in Brooklyn.” I also had the opportunity to speak to all of the comedians. “I’ve been in New York since 2017 and have been doing comedy since 2018,” Luu said. “I recently created a virtual set called Trans Moses about my experience as a recently out trans person but I do comedy all over and I’m really excited to be here.” “I always knew I was a comedian when I was a little girl but it took me about 20 years to do an open mic,” Ali said. “I just kept going to open mics in Philly until I started booking independent shows, and then clubs heard of me and invited me to come in and the rest is history.”
and then started doing standup and I’m excited to be here now,” Strickland said. I can’t do justice to their standup here but they did a great job and the crowd loved them. I also asked for their advice for young comedians. “The only thing that makes you good at comedy is doing comedy,” Ali said. “A lot of people think they can write something funny and say it one time and it will be perfect. The reality is you have to say it a bunch of times, and mess it up a bunch of times, and fix it and then fix it again. That’s how you get good so if you want to try comedy, you better get started.”
“I started off doing improv in Chicago
Do You Know NYC’s COVID-19 Alert Level? Current Level: The COVID Alert Levels show the current level of COVID-19 risk and what to do to protect yourself.
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Know our current level and learn more at nyc.gov/covidalert. Page 4 Red Hook Star-Revue
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April 2022
Joe Manchin responsible for a million dollars to local charities
T
he Daily Beast, in an article by their Congressional Reporter Sam Brodey, explained how the Democratic congress has dealt with the failure to pass Build Back Better. Brodey wrote: "Transformational change has taken a backseat to small, hyperlocal wins like new fire stations, rebuilt dams and sewers, improved highways and bridges, better internet, and more vocational programs. Thousands of so-called “earmarked” projects like these, scattered across hundreds of districts, were included in Congress’ $1.5 trillion annual spending bill that passed earlier this month. And Democrats believe they can spin this cash—which was a political liability not long ago—into a viable election backup plan. Earmarks—rebranded as “memberdirected spending”—returned this year for the first time in over a decade, and they couldn’t have come at a better time for Democrats." Those earmarks came to the schoolyard of PS 676/Summit Academy on March 22, as Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez announced that federal resources adding up to $1 million in total will be given to youth organizations in Red Hook and Gowanus. The 11 community groups receiving Federal grants joined Velazquez on stage in the schoolyard. Funding will be given based on their size, and will be administered through Pioneer Works.
by Nathan Weiser
fully transition into parenthood, with access to parenting training, higher education and employment. Brother’s Dream was the next organization. Brother’s Dream wants to help kids follow and pursue their dreams, and to educated and be there daily for the kids. The program is a day-to-day that offers sports, education and career training. Ray Hall’s Red Hook Rise program is another one receiving funding. This organization, which started as a basketball program, was founded back in 1991. “We then created the Books and Basketball program,” Hall said. “We promoted literacy with basketball. We used the basketball as the tool to get the kids to want to read. Literacy is the key.” Casey Fodge, who is the managing director of Cora Dance, spoke about that organization. They offer free and pay-what-you-can programs including dance education training, internships and apprenticeships to the Red Hook youth. “Thank you for having us and it is wonderful to see many of our students here,” Fodge said. “I am sure they are just as excited as we are.” Dawnasia Freeman, who is the vice president of youth development and community programs at Heartshare, based in Gowanus, talked about what they do. Heartshare St. Vincent has
In her remarks, Velazquez told onlooker composed mostly of friends of the organization and some press that these groups provided 4,000 youths with over 2,500 hours of programming including entrepreneurship, media, arts and music education, technology and physical education. “These non-profits serve working class families including at risk youth,” she said. “The initiative will serve public housing residents. Each of the organizations are special and unique. Together this provides a better opportunity and hope to these children. The mission is to take care of our kids in our community.” Each of the recipient organizations said a few words on the stage about their program. Samora Coles, who is the founder and Executive Director of the Alex House Project, was the first to speak. Alex House serves young moms and young dads who are 25 and under living in Red Hook. “This is just another opportunity to bridge the gap,” Coles said. “We want to make sure that our children and our parents get the success and resources that they deserve.” Alex House envisions a world in which low-income families benefit from comprehensive support, and young mothers, in particular, success-
Red Hook Star-Revue
Ray Hall says a few words.
served NYC for over 150 years. “We provide foster care, housing services and most importantly integrated home services and youth development services for six community programs in Brooklyn, one of them being in the Wyckoff community,” Freeman said. “It is inspiring to see all these young people here. Shout out to you for prioritizing the funding.” Martha Bowers, Executive Director and founder of Hook Arts Media, said they have been serving Red Hook since 1990. She helped organize the funding group, which combines all the nonprofits together, along with Pioneer Works. “We have been offering free programs to almost every school and community center from kindergarteners to seniors,” Bowers said. “Some know us
for our annual Red Hook Fest, which is coming back live and in person this year on June 3 and 4. We are so thrilled that this can happen.” Maxine Petry, who is the executive director at Pioneer Works, spoke about what they do. They are a cultural center in Red Hook that serve the youth of Red Hook with STEAM programming. They offer after school programs, school field trips and school programs. Portside is located aboard a Nydia proudly announces the grants from a stage in historic oil tanker, the Mary a Red Hook schoolyard. (photos by George Fiala) A. Whalen, in Red Hook. They connect New Yorkers to their dormant Red Hook Hub. waterfront with a special focus on reaching the underserved. They also Taylor Spitzer, who is the director of have a museum and educational pro- advancement at Pioneer Works, said deciding on the amount of funding grams. being allocated was a collaborative ef“In terms of PS 676, Portside was their fort between the organizations. first maritime programmer and it was our program that inspired them to be- “We talked about the different comcome maritime themed,” said Caro- munity partners and what their needs lina Salguero, the founder and Execu- are,” Spitzer said. “It is being distributed equitably amongst the 11 organitive Director.” zations and is based on the organizaRed Hook Art Project, whose cotions’s budget and needs.” founder and new executive director is Tiffiney Davis, is another organization Martha Powers and Dan Wiley, who is the district director for Southwest receiving funding. Brooklyn in Velazquez’s office, chose “Our mission is to make sure we have the different organizations that the space for the children to create but funding went to. also to learn from each other,” David said. “It means creating spaces that “We have all agreed in advance,” Bownot only people of color but all walks ers said in reference to the funding. of life can share that same space to “We sat down together and agreed based on budget and programming create together.” how much each organization would She said the children in front of the get. We all signed off on it.” stage were all RHAP students, and they participate in other Red Hook “We organized a lot of the non-profits non-profits. She was honored to have and we tried to spread as wide a net them since they are the leaders of to- as possible to include the ones that are really delivering programs for the morrow. youth of Red Hook and Gowanus,” The Red Hook Community Justice Wiley said. Center will be receiving the federal funding as well. The funding will sup- According to Wiley, this model for alport programming around leadership locating funds is different since there development, technology, education is usually a grant for one organization. and entrepreneurship. Viviana Gor- It’s an innovative idea of getting one grant to improve multiple organizadon, Deputy Director, spoke: tions. “Our mission is to transform the criminal justice system to make it fair, ef- Velazquez’s 7th district is expansive fective and humane, and improve as it includes the Lower East Side, public safety in our community,” Bushwick, Williamsburg, Ozone Park Gordon said. “For us, those build- and Woodhaven in Queens and out to ing blocks are with housing and eco- Sunset Park in Brooklyn in addition nomic opportunity. We start with our to Red Hook. She will have nine other check presentations to other organiyoung people.” zations in other parts of her district, She thanked Martha for bringing the but this was the first one. organizations together and Pioneer Works for extending themselves to fa- “I am grateful to Martha, who approached me and said we have been cilitate the funding. having discussions among commuRed Hook's wealthiest non-profit, the nity based organizations in Red Hook Red Hook Initiative, will also receive about creating a collaborative, and I funding. They have after school youth said that is the way to go.,” Velazquez development programs, they create said. “We decided to come together jobs and internships for young adults as a community and work with the and they operate two urban farms. different community based organiThe funding will help RHI do more zations. The groups have different viyouth development and augment the sions but with the same intention.”
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April 2022, Page 5
TONY SAYS IT'S PIZZA TIME!
Advertise in our award winning newspaper
george@redhookstar.com
Starting September PS 15 will be the Red Hook’s only It’s not too late!for SeatsPre-K are available atKindergarten Public School choice and It’s not too late! Seats are available at It’s not too late! Seats are available at PS 15, The Patrick F. Daly Magnet
The Patrick F. The DalyPatrick MagnetF.School of the Arts is now for the fall term. PS taking 15, Theapplications Patrick F. Daly Magnet PS 15, Daly Magnet th School of the Arts for grades 3K to 5 th DOE website or call (718) 935-2009. You can getArts one for at Myschools School of the Arts for grades 3K to 5th School of the grades 3K on to 5the
please contact the Parent Coordinator We Coordinator promote wellness throughplease numerous on-site We the encourage strong parent participation as contact Parent Coordinator please contact the Parent servicesMs. and community partners such as an inwell as a collaborative and professional partnerCampbell at at organizations that Ms. Campbellhouse at occupational, physical, dental and speech Ms. shipCampbell with community-based therapists from Lutheran/ Langone Health. PSor call address the physical, intellectual, emotional, Mcampbell50@schools.nyc.gov Mcampbell50@schools.nyc.gov or call Mcampbell50@schools.nyc.gov or call 15 thrives on active partnerships with many moral and social needs of our children. Our community organizations including: The Stuinstructional programs enable all children to ensure aCrew, seat for the 347-930-2746 to ensure a performance seat forthat the 347-930-2746 to347-930-2746 ensuredio a inseat for theKids and School, Extreme Young to reach high levels of will Audiences of NY, Brooklyn Chorus, Marquis prepare them to be successful people in the 21st school year!2022-2023 school year! 2022-2023 school2022-2023 year! Studios and Cafeteria Culture among others. Century.
We take a holistic approach to education that nurtures the child by offering a safe and stimulating education for all our students, including students with Disabilities (SWDs), English Language Learners (ELL) and high achieving students; our teachers participate in professional development to offer continuous improvement and ongoing staff development.
We have afterschool opportunities for We have afterschool opportunities for opportunities We have afterschool for grades 3K through 5th! 3K through 5th!grades 3K through 5th! grades Please reach out to Ms. Campbell if you need further assistance. Call 917-669-0508 or mcampbell50@schools.nyc.gov Page 6 Red Hook Star-Revue
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April 2022
Fall Enrollment open at PS 15, Patrick F. Daly School by Nathan Weiser
A
s PS 676 continues its transformation into a maritime themed Middle School, it's neighbor, PS 15, will become the only public school choice for kindergarten starting next September.
Campbell said.
PS 15, located at 71 Sullivan Street is a small 394 student elementary school with a progressive approach to education. They take a holistic approach to education that nurtures the child by offering a safe and stimulating education.
Sibling preference is offered. The DOE will gives preference for families. Campbell would like to max out on the amount of students.
“We are going to have a lot of seats to fill,” parent coordinator Melissa Campbell said. “We wanted to start our enrollment and maybe have families come in two days a week to start our enrollment. I want families to know how important it will be to enroll as soon as possible.” PS 15 will be enrolling students every Tuesday and Thursday from 10 am to 1 pm. The majority of its students live in the Red Hook community and the school is very diverse. “We always get people from outside of the community to apply but it would be good to have people in Red Hook take advantage. We do get people from all over since it is based on a lottery system through the Department of Education,” Campbell said. PS 15 offers a dual language program. It features one class throughout the day in all subjects that is 50 percent Spanish and 50 percent English. By the time dual language program students graduate they are fluent in Spanish, which is a big benefit to them. “It is a great program and gives them priority to other dual language schools for junior high,”
Another program that makes the school desirable is a pre-kindergarten for three year olds. Enrollment is also via a lottery system through the DOE.
At full capacity, the school can have 550 students. For 3K they can take 15 students. For the 4K program, they can take 94 kids and for kindergarten they can take 100 students. The school partners is with NYU Langone, which provides a full service health clinic and dental service for the students. Children have even been able to get their vaccines at the school. The clinic is more expansive at PS 15 than most schools. NYU Langone does physicals for the kids, they do strep tests, the kids can get dental appointments and they can write prescriptions for ear/throat infections. NYU Langone does a lot for the kids and helps parents. “It is so convenient,” Campbell said. “My daughter attends the school and there are days when they wake up not feeling too well you can have them come in and be seen by the nurse, which comes in handy.” PS 15 also offers the ACES program (Academic, Career and Essential Skills), which are for students with an intellectual disability. Principal Julie Cavanagh spearheaded the program which began a few years ago. Seats fill up fast. The classrooms are integrated with non ACES program
students, and goes through the fifth grade. For many years the school has had a partnership with Good Shepherd Services as well as Cora Dance. Through the school’s PTA, they offer a much needed after school programs. Many parents need after school programs since school ends at 2:40. They offer homework help and other enrichment programs like cooking, dance and art instruction. They partner with Street Soccer USA for a soccer after school program. Street Soccer’s model is to provide an alternative for the pay-to-play model of youth sports with a focus on social impact across the United States. The elementary school also partners with Extreme Kids and Crew, which is headquartered in Red Hook. It is an after school program for children with intellectual disabilities. They feature a ball pit and other activities. After school with Extreme Kids and Crew is an arts and play program for children with IEPs (Individualized Education Program) age six and up who attend PS 15. The activities are built on a foundation of creative expression, imaginative play and social emotional learning (SEL). Their program is Monday-Thursday from 2:30 until 5 pm. “A lot of schools do not have that,” Campbell said. “It is really great.” The school also has Meet the Writers. Every month a well known author come to the school, someone who has written a book that the students have read. Students enjoy getting to meet the author and getting an autographed copy of the book.
PS 15 partners with Red Hook's Pioneer Works. Pioneer Works staffers work with the students and families and let them see their evening shows, bring them to events. Another organization that partners with PS 15, also known as the Patrick F. Daly, is Cafeteria Culture. They work creatively with youth to achieve zero waste, climate-smart communities and a plastic free biosphere. An impactful documentary was done with Cafeteria Culture. Through the documentary, which is called Microplastic Madness, students played a huge role in getting rid of foam trays from cafeterias in the NYC public school system. They encouraged everyone to have a plastic free lunch at their school. “They fought and took it all the way to City Hall–it was really nice,” Campbell said. “They were very passionate about it. They explained the affects of the foam trays and how plastic affects the environment. It was a great documentary.” Another cafeteria related organization that the school partners with is Garden to Cafe, which partners with schools that have access to a community or school garden to use that garden’s produce in school lunches. They aim to teach students to grow and harvest produce and to encourage healthy eating. This organization introduces the students to new fruits and vegetables. PS 15 is one of 140 schools registered with the program. Other community organizations that partner with PS 15 include The Studio in School, Brooklyn Chorus and Marquis Studios.
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April 2022, Page 7
George and Brian's Ukrainian Odyssey
L
ast month we did sandwiches. This month we were going to do another food item, but we decided instead, because of the tragic stuff happening in the Ukraine, we decided to take a look at what’s going on in NY’s Russian and Ukrainian neighborhoods. It’s not a perfect view, we didn’t go millions of times, we only went to three neighborhoods, so we will just talk about what we did see. I also bought a lot of Ukrainian flags – and if you would like one just send me an email – george@ redhookstar.com, and I’ll mail you one. We have quite a few, Brian put them together. I think it’s important that we show support. NYC needs to do more to show that we stand with the people that are getting, you know, the shit kicked out of them for no apparent reason. It strikes home because, you know, we have buildings here, we have lives here, we have all our lifetime collections of things that in one second gets bombed up – come on, give me a break. You can’t like Russia after this. Anyway, that’s my own personal opinion and I’m in charge here, right Brian? Brian: Yes Sir!!! George: Although I’m always open to listen to other ideas, right? Brian: Always! George: We decided to start this odyssey in Brighton Beach. I have to say right now that the most imaginative thing that I’ve seen in a long time was that dentist. You remember that dentist? Brian: Laughs. George: His sign said “Brighton Your Smile” Brian: That was one of the first things we saw. We saw a few Ukrainian flags as we were walking to the main street. The Guardian Angel Roman Catholic Church had
a flag. George: On Ocean Parkway. Oh, here the picture of the sign, Brian Dr. Medyedofsky. George: Then we saw a few flyers for a peace march that happened the week before. Brian: We saw flags in windows of some of the stores. George: But not all that many. Then, because I’m always hungry, especially for interesting foods, we stopped at a kind of deli that ended up having sort of of a restaurant in the back. We shared a plate. Brian: Good food! George: We had something like a chicken hamburger. I had an aunt from that part of the world who made that. It wasn’t like a chicken burger at all. She would actually cook a chicken, and throw it into a meat grinder, and turn the crank. And we had kasha, and vegetables, and another kind of meat that I forget. Then I asked for some sauce, and they brought a little silver serving dish with a red liquid in it. It was so different from any taste that I have previously known that I didn’t actually have a word to describe it. Brian: not to mention that we had a little trouble communicating with the waitress since she didn’t speak even a word of English. George: That’s true. In Brighton Beach in general we heard mostly Russian, not much English or anything else. Brian: And they didn’t want to talk about the war at all. Brian: Next we saw a clothing store with all the mannequins dressed in colors of the Ukrainian flag. George: That was my favorite. Brian: We went inside and asked the lady, who was sitting in a chair, her feelings. She said she sends support but didn’t really want to talk about it. George: And she didn’t. I told her we weren’t KGB, but that didn’t make a difference.
George: Then we saw a big a big Ukrainian flag outside whipping around in the wind, and we took pictures. Actually Brian, you look like you could be one of those Russian stars on the Rangers! Brian: laughs. I thought they had pretty many flags up in public places, but not that many in stores. George: You really would not exactly know that there was any kind of war going on. Brian: We went to the boardwalk and there were a lot of people sitting around on benches, but nobody wanted to talk to us. George: I think they made believe they didn’t speak English. Brian: One woman was selling health products, and seemed to speak good English. George: When I asked about the war, she said to not think about it, because stress is not healthy. Brian: Finally, we saw the Mr. Softee truck. George: I figured that he would be someone good to talk to. Brian: Yes, he’s a neighborhood guy. George: He told us that he has only had two conversations about the war. Brian: The first one was Ukrainian who was very against what was going on over the, and the second was Russian, who was very pro- in favor of the invasion: George: Yeah, he told us she said that they are doing the right thing. And that’s it 50/50, depending on who you were. So even without the Russian propaganda, you can see everything happening here on our TV, she still thinks Russia is doing the right thing. Then, a few days later, we went to the East Village. We parked the car, and the first thing we saw was a sign for the Odessa Restaurant, which I used to go to when I lived there back in the last century. It’s actually the first place where I ever had French Toast Challa bread. I
lived around the corner, and they also sold me whole loaves of the bread, which I cooked for my then-wife in our little apartment around the corner. They baked the bread right there. In any case, that’s neither here nor there – the restaurant is long gone, although the sign remains. We walked up St. Marks and there were a lot of flags all over. Anyway, I was kind of hungry again, that could be a theme of these things, and I remembered the Ukrainian Restaurant from the old days. They used to also own a cool place called the Kiev Restaurant, but maybe that closed with the end of the Soviet Union, I don’t know. The Ukrainian Restaurant is on Second Avenue, right next to the Veselka, which is now very popular. Brian: We looked inside and it was like insane, totally packed even at off hours. George: So at about 3:30 we went to the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant for dinner. We were the only ones there, although it got more crowded by the end of dinner. We ended up having two separate dinners. Brian: I had goulash, which was very good. George: and after a bit of indecision, I settled on the Hunter’s Stew, partly because it is mostly composed of sauerkraut, and I still remember how good the Rueben sandwich was at F & M deli in Red Hook, last month. It might be worth growing up in Eastern Europe just for the sauerkraut! Brian: they had good pumpernickel bread too. George: Brian, your dish came with broccoli. Brian: Yes, the meal had all different colors, just like you’re supposed to have. George: Across the street there was a Ukrainian butcher, which I took a nice picture of.
Note from the Editor: This goes on for another 20 minutes, and we are running out of room here. But you can hear the whole thing for yourself on the George Fiala Youtube page. Just go to Youtube and search for George Fiala.
Page 8 Red Hook Star-Revue
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April 2022
SLAVA UKRAINI!
SLAVA UKRAINI! Red Hook Star-Revue
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April 2022, Page 9
Lillie Marshall Honored by Brian Abate
It was a glorious afternoon at the Miccio Center last month when Red Hook's finest came to celebrate the service of longtime community activist and leader, Lillie Marshall. Nydia Velazquez and Alexa Aviles worked together with James McBride and created a lovely afternoon full of speeches and music and dancing, in person at Red Hook community center. Excellent music was presented by the New Brown Soul, led by McBride, who trains musicians at the New Brown Baptist Church. Happy dancing broke out after a while. Marshall, originally from Georgia, moved to Red Hook in 1966. She served as the president of the Red Hook West Tenants Association and as Vice President of the New York City Tenants Association. She also joined New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in 1968. “It’s not where you’re going, it’s what you do when you get there,” Marshall said. “I love it here, people are very friendly, and I’m still advocating for seniors, children, and families now. I may no longer be the president of the Tenant Association but I still have the same phone number so anything you need, I’m here.” Musician and author James McBride, whose family founded the Church, hosted the event. Everyone in attendance had the opportunity to grab the microphone from him to speak about Marshall. “That woman is no joke,” said Marshall’s son. “She taught me how to be a man, a good person, and how to survive.” A friend of Marshall said, “We’ve known each other for 40 years, and I was a little scared of her at first but she has a heart of solid gold.” Aviles also spoke about Marshall and praised her for continuing to engage with and serve the community even though she is no longer president of the Red Hook West Tenants Association. “From our first conversation together, I knew she suffered no fools, and that she was giving it her all” Aviles said. “We wanted to celebrate and honor you [Marshall] with you here, because this is often a thankless job, and you’ve done so much for the community.” “Let me say to you, Lillie, thank you,” Velazquez said. “You have always been a fighter and you will continue to be a fighter. It’s an honor and a privilege and it has inspired me that real people are bringing communities together and making them stronger, which is exactly what you’ve done.” The music included (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman and then Tito Puente’s Oye Cómo Va, which got everyone out of their seats and dancing. “I started learning from James [McBride] when I was around seven or eight years old,” said Helen Lingaard, the lead singer. “I found out about this from a friend and I always loved music and he helped bring the best out of me. I remember we started off playing drums using buckets, so we’ve come a long way. “I grew up in Red Hook and I’ve lived here most of my life but I moved with my family to New Jersey during the pandemic. It’s a long commute back to the neighborhood but I love it here. It’s a community where people will appreciate you, never judge you, and take care of you. “James has always helped me out when I’m down and so has Margaret [Saunders, who works with McBride,] so I’m really grateful. This was a great opportunity for me to perform and I think this was a great event honoring Lillie Marshall.”
Page 10 Red Hook Star-Revue
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April 2022
Miss Marshall Through the years
Lillie with Bill deBlasio
At a TA meeting
With Buddy Scotto
With John Liu
At a rare joint TA meeting with Mrs. Shields.
RECOGNIZING MS. LILLIE MARSHALL HON. NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ
With the Red Hook StarRevue.
With local dignitaries at a protest at the Flagpole.
Friday, March 18, 2022
With Bea Byrd
At a demonstration
Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Ms. Lillie Marshall who has dedicated much of her life in service to her Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY community. She was born on April 24, 1943, in Sparta, Georgia, to a family of community leaders in education, law and business. Five years out of Hancock Central High School, she moved to Red Hook, Brooklyn. As a proud single mother of four, Ms. Lillie Marshall became known for her no-nonsense approach and commitment to the area children. She advocated for and arranged after-school programs for youth of all ages.
With Felix Ortiz & Charles Schumer after Sandy
With Lorna Montalvo of IKEA & Karen Broughton
When a private school was built in the neighborhood, she served on a committee that successfully secured annual scholarships for qualifying children of Red Hook public housing. She has watched over generations of families for decades.
With Nydia at New Brown Baptist.
You can still call Lillie with problems, at (718) 755-5027
Ms. Marshall fervently advocated for tenants in her twenty-year role as the Tenant Association President of Red Hook West. She met with NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) executive and local leadership alike to give tenant perspectives and amplify their voices. Ms. Marshall also served on NYCHA’s Citywide Council of Presidents as District Chair of Brooklyn South. Listening to the Red Hook Library presentation
Delvis Valdes opening Lorraine St. campaign office
A dedication at Addabbo
With NYCHA head opening NYCHA Farm on Wolcott
Ms. Marshall’s efforts will long be remembered for her Thanksgiving turkey drives for local families, feeding the homeless, delivering meals and PPE to homebound seniors during the COVID-19 Pandemic. She has been a leader at events such as Red Hook Old Timers Day, National Night Out Against Crime and has organized Red Hook Family Day every year.
With Alyce Erdekian at the Red Hook Initiative.
For her decades of leadership and volunteerism, Ms. Lillie Marshall will not soon be forgotten by her beloved Red Hook. Her legacy of lifelong community service has instilled core values and civic pride in her community. Meeting Leroy Branch at C-Town.
Speaking at the Flagpole protest.
With Vinnie Marone of NYPD.
She speaks her mind to Carlos Menchaca.
At a school fair
United Red Hook
Red Hook Star-Revue
Lillie can cook! This was at New Brown Baptist Church honoring Deaconess Virginia Ingram's 100th birthday (picture above). (photos by George Fiala)
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It's always about the children.
April 2022, Page 11
OSCARS (continued from page 1)
of that magnitude. For years, audiences have enjoyed Regina’s playful and slightly raunchy style of comedy in films like Girls Trip and Scary Movie. When compared to the 2021 Oscars ceremony, Hall, along with Schumer and Sykes helped bring in more viewership for the 2022 Oscars by a reported six million more viewers. Unfortunately, the 2022 Oscars was still one of the lowest viewed of all time–––the second lowest in history.
First Oscar Win for an AfroLatina
Ariana DeBose proudly proclaimed both her Afro-Latina and queer identity as she won Best Supporting Actress for her performance in West Side Story, saying, [Thank you Steven Spielberg, you’re stuck with me now! And the divine inspiration that is Rita Moreno, your Anita paved the way for tons of Anitas like me–––an openly queer Afro-Latina who found her strength and life through art.]
First Oscars-so-Hip Hop
From Oscars-so-white, and Oscarsso-what, to this year’s hip hop flavored ceremony. While the Academy of Motion Pictures and Arts and Sciences (the Oscars) is most certainly still an organization run by older, White men, the broadcasted award show (the Oscars) has undergone some noticeable changes in an effort to be more inclusive–––and
to increase the declining ratings.
Nonetheless, hip hop was in the building. Quest Love of the legendary group The Roots, won the best documentary Oscar for his documentary film, Summer of Soul, a documentary about the previously untelevised, Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 –– a massive music festival centered around Black culture, featuring legendary singers like Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, and Nina Simone.
Also present was the world’s most energetic hype man, DJ Khaled, who enthusiastically re-introduced the three hosts as they opened up the award show. In addition, renowned DJ, D-Nice was the Oscars’ DJ for the night. However, the night wasn’t all about the men of hip hop. Rapper Megan Thee Stallion, best known for her hit songs “W.A.P” and “Savage,” became the first woman rapper to ever perform at an Oscars ceremony. Megan Thee Stallion entertained the crowd with an eye-catching rendition of Encanto’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.” The audience looked somewhat stunned as Megan walked through the crowd rapping over horns and percussion, until she arrived at the stage–––Megan’s short interaction with Euphorias’ Zendaya was adorable. Keeping in line with women in music, Billie Eilish won best original song for “No Time to Die,” from the identically titled James Bond film——making her one of the youngest winners for the category–––the second youngest. Though Eilish won the award, her fellow best original song nominee, Beyonce, un-
Formula E returns
mula E’s innovative fan experience area–are $15 and include a dedicated live track viewing area, commentary and broadcast of all the racing action on giant screens and driver interviews from the pit lane.
Tickets are on sale now via www. fiaformulae.com/NYC. Prices start at $95 for Grandstand seating and $15 for the Allianz E-Village.
The E-Village will feature the popular Formula E Gaming Arena offering fans the chance to get behind the wheel of super-realistic simulators and compete to set the fastest time. With true to life renditions of some of Formula E’s historic tracks and prizes up for grabs, it’s not to be missed. Fans will also discover the latest EV prototypes, autograph sessions with Formula E drivers, roaming entertainment, and much more, making this a unique family-friendly festival-of-the-future experience.
NEWSBRIEFS Brooklyn to host fifth anniversary of ABB FIA Formula E world championship NYC E-Prix on July 16 and 17. The double-header weekend will feature 22 drivers from 11 teams in the all-electric motorsport World Championship Red Hook neighborhood.
Grandstand offers a prime view of the 1.44 mile, 14-turn track’s most crucial and dramatic spots. Both races will start at 1:00 PM ET each day on the Red Hook, Brooklyn street circuit against the iconic Manhattan skyline. Twenty-two drivers from 11 teams including TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team, Jaguar TCS Racing and Mercedes-EQ, who are defending their Season 7 Drivers’ and Teams’ titles, will compete. Avalanche Andretti Formula E driver, Oliver Askew, will make his home race debut. Askew is the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship’s first American driver, and was the 2019 Indy Lights Champion, having previously competed in NTT INDYCAR SERIES and IMSA. Askew announced the NYC E-Prix ticket launch at SXSW where Formula E is presenting the first-ever motorsports-focused session in the 35+ year history of SXSW. Tickets to the Allianz E-Village – For-
Page 12 Red Hook Star-Revue
The New York City E-Prix features Rounds 11 and 12 in the biggestever 16-round calendar of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship which features racing on the streets of iconic world cities including London, Berlin, Monaco, Diriyah, Mexico City, and for the first time this season, Jakarta, Vancouver and Seoul.
doubtedly had the best performance of the night. Beyonce performed a colorful and mesmerizing rendition of “Be Alive,” from Will Smith’s film, King Richard.
First On-Camera Slap at the Oscars
The awards went on without any noticeable hiccups, until veteran comedian Chris Rock walked on the stage to announce the winner for best documentary. However, before announcing the winner, Rock would make a light-hearted, but moment-shifting joke at the expense of Will Smith’s wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, for her bald head–––caused by alopecia. “Jada I love you, G.I. Jane two, can’t wait to see it,” said Chris jokingly.
Seconds later, Will Smith walked on stage and forcefully slapped Chris Rock on his face, before walking back to his seat. Though Will Smith would later win a best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Venus and Serena Williams’ father, Richard Williams, in the film King Richard, his long-awaited Oscar win became a sideshow to the slap.
In the moments and days that followed, everyone had an opinion, or reaction to the unprecedented moment (myself included). It’s clear that Will Smith acted out of insecurity and perceived duty to his wife. Many men and women are taught to believe that violence in defense of your significant others’ honor is always justifiable–––which is not the case. Watching the video, you can see a man
on the door at Resident Association office. The Executive Board is also conducting monthly walk throughs of the development with the Office of Recovery and Resilience (the Sandy Recovery construction) to identify issues of concern like rodent infestations, garbage, broken lights, etc.
While alopecia is a sensitive topic, Will Smith’s response was a mismatch for the joke. Chris Rock’s joke wasn’t out of the ordinary for an event like the Oscars, or any comedy show for that matter. The public’s response has been filled with overreactions, not at all appropriate for what occurred. Some labeled Chris Rock’s joke as “violent,” or Smith a career narcissist. Others tried to fit “the slap” into a protect Black women narrative. None of the aforementioned, nor the calls for Will Smith’s career to end, nor Chris Rock to apologize for his “violent” words, are appropriate responses.
Will Smith made a poor decision to do something that sits outside of his known character. Chris Rock is a comedian, and a G.I Jane joke is probably one of the most light-hearted jokes a skilled comedian like Rock could make. Will’s career doesn’t need to end, however he should be disciplined for his actions, and Chris Rock doesn’t need to apologize for doing his job.
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)
state in this bi-state compact has one Commissioner. Unfortunately, both Commissioners must agree to make any substantive changes.
Waterfront Commission future
Edison, NJ – February 10, 2022 - The New York Shipping Association, Inc. (NYSA) and its members who load and unload almost 100% of the containerized cargo in the Port of New York and New Jersey (Port of NY&NJ) as well as vehicles and other cargoes, have sought to modernize the law enforcement and hiring oversight functions over longshore operations in the Port for over a decade.
We hope to resume in-person meetings within the next few months and look forward to seeing all of you when we find a space that can accommodate the meeting safely.
These functions have been performed by the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor (Waterfront Commission) for almost 70 years pursuant to the Waterfront Commission Compact. The Port industry in New Jersey and New York competes with neighboring ports for cargo, which translates into jobs and economic growth for the entire port region (a 31-county area that reaches beyond New York City and northern New Jersey to include parts of southern New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania).
We also plan to have regular office hours where residents can come and get help with issues they have or they can volunteer with the Resident Association once the office space at 428 Columbia St. is ready and we will post hours on social media as well as
The current bureaucratic structure of the Waterfront Commission does not support the needs of the Port industry and region but instead hinders innovation, efficiency, and economic opportunity. Frankly, it is a structure built for gridlock and inertia as each
New from Red Hook West
(Will) struggling to hold on to what he felt, in the moment, was his manhood, and his role as protector. However, had he handled the situation differently, he could have actually protected his family from a media blitz that currently surrounds them.
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Nydia Velazquez speaks at the Alexa inauguration in Sunset Park. With Alexa is her family. (photo by Jim Tampakis)
Alexa Aviles' inauguration
Red Hook's new member in the City Council held her inauguration ceremony on April 2 at PS 24 in Sunset Park - an event filled with dignitaries, including Chuck Schumer, music and high hopes. In her newsletter, Aviles writes: Developers know they can take advantage of industrial-zoned properties to build these facilities “as-of-right” or without petitioning the city. I believe these facilities are distinct from traditional industrial uses as these sites contribute to truck traffic, idling, increased pollution and more dangerous streets for pedestrians. We must address the clustering of these facilities in environmental justice communities like Red Hook, Sunset Park, the South Bronx and East New York.
April 2022
Interborough Express: The Early Years
O
n Monday, March 19, 1877, over 200 Italian immigrant laborers were laying tracks amidst the chilly woods of Flatbush, just yards beyond the southern boundary of the Village of Parkville – an old dirt trail called Foster Avenue. Many more of their crew had been left a quarter of a mile behind to dig a tunnel under the recently completed Ocean Parkway. Their eventual destination would be a ferry landing four miles west in Bay Ridge.
But up ahead, the crew’s foreman could see a lot of men loitering about the tracks of another railroad, running north-to-south along Gravesend (now McDonald) Avenue. And on those rails, he saw a 28-ton locomotive suddenly approach and park itself directly in his path. Within hours all hell broke loose, and therein lies our tale. Two years earlier, a Brooklyn entrepreneur, Andrew R. Culver, had laid those tracks along Gravesend Avenue. His railroad originated at 20th Street and 9th Avenue (today, Prospect Park West), then the sparsely populated southern border of the City of Brooklyn. Why locate a terminal there, when all your customers lived well north of it? Because noisy, sooty, steam-belching railroad locomotives had been banned from operating within the City of Brooklyn since 1861. But after Prospect Park was completed in 1873, Brooklynites began venturing southward, downslope into the rural hinterlands of Kings County beyond the Park: to Flatbush, New Utrecht, Gravesend and most importantly, Coney Island. To serve those travelers who couldn’t ride a horse or carriage five miles along Ocean Parkway, steam railroads sprang up along the City’s border. Yes, bankers in Brooklyn Heights and the hoi polloi in Red Hook would need to take horse-drawn rail cars to reach those belching behemoths–electrified trolleys wouldn’t arrive until the 1890s–but from the City line to the shore took a scant 25 minutes. And Culver’s new year-round 35-cents railroad was an immediate success. Descending from the glacial moraine alongside Green-Wood Cemetery, it ran down the middle of Gravesend Avenue straight to the water, where he built a huge terminal for steam locomotives that would eventually become the home for the electrified Culver (F), Sea Beach (N), West End (B) and Brighton (Q) subway lines. That crew chopping its way west was
Red Hook Star-Revue
by Joe Enright
building the New York and Manhattan Beach Railway. They began laying tracks at a station in East New York, cutting through Canarsie, Flatlands, Flatbush Avenue, Ocean Avenue, and when the workers reached a point near the empty street-grid coordinates of East 16th Street and Avenue H, they paused to build spurs and switches. One gang then peeled off to lay tracks due south through an unpopulated stretch of private lands to an ocean-front hotel. The rest of the workers continued their westward advance through the woods toward Gravesend Avenue. Austin Corbin, a Master of the Universe, created this railway to shepherd what he envisaged to be hordes of Manhattan ferry riders landing in Greenpoint, Long Island City and Bay Ridge to check-in at his new extravagant resort hotel on the eastern end of Coney Island. The railroad, the hotel, and the 500 acres of land surrounding it – which had recently been swindled…er… acquired by Corbin – were all dubbed “Manhattan Beach,” because let’s face it, what Gilded Age high roller would ever want to sunbathe on (UGH!) Brooklyn Beach. Corbin financed his bid to become a railroad tycoon by pioneering the securitization of bundled mortgages issued to Midwest farmers. Some of them sued him for usury but hey, that’s the price you pay to become a Master scumbag. Corbin migrated from the Iowa bank he founded to the Big Apple where he partnered with J. P. Morgan. It helped that Corbin’s cousin was Salmon Chase, a former Governor, Senator, Secretary of the Treasury, and the sitting Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court in whose honor Chase Bank would later be named. But “honor” was a word never associated with Austin Corbin. Described by one contemporary railroad man as a human monster, “a hogshark driven by greed to make war upon the weak,” Corbin was recently ranked by the New England Historical Society as “probably the most loathsome blight New Hampshire ever produced.” And not in a good way. Andrew Culver on the other hand was a Long Island native and mere Master of the Solar System. Culver was a Columbia Law grad and a successful attorney for 25 years before entering the rough-and-tumble world of Brooklyn railroading. No vitriol about him can
be found unless, of course, you happen to read the diaries of property owners along Gravesend Avenue after Culver appropriated the public thoroughfare without so much as a thankyou-very-much to build his locomotive’s path to Coney Island. As the morning dawned that fateful March day, the temperature was just below freezing and would not get much above 40 degrees for the next week. The digging season for builders and contractors usually doesn’t start until April when the ground is sufficiently thawed but Corbin needed to finish his railroad before the summer rush to the shore began. Culver’s men, long anticipating the Corbin approach, gathered around their locomotive at the targeted intersection. Undaunted, the Corbin crew decided to tunnel under the train. As they did so, Culver’s men shoveled the excavated dirt back on top of them. Since it is easier to drop earth into a trench than to throw it back out, the tunnelers soon found themselves choking in dirt. Shovels and fists were brought to bear. More immigrant laborers were summoned from Ocean Parkway and the Bay Ridge ferry landing, but Culver countered with an Irish immigrant horde of his own. Bedlam ensued. Culver, realizing his Irish were outnumbered, called upon the local constabularies to restore order. All of this commotion roused the residents of sleepy Parkville, a farming/horse-grooming community of about 200 souls. Fed up with Culver’s noisy trains, they cheered on Corbin’s combatants. Soon squadrons of police arrived to separate the laborers. The Italians retired to tents erected along the path they’d created, stretching from the combat zone back to the Parkway. The Irish meanwhile made way for train cars crawling in from Green-Wood so the police could pile in to sleep through the nights that followed. On March 21, the attorneys intervened. Injunctions, cease and desist orders ensued until the courts decided that Corbin had the right to cross the Culver line at grade. The two railways then worked out an agreement that Culver’s trains – a year-round operation versus Corbin’s summer-only excursions – would always have the right-of-way as long as they ran on a headway exceeding 15 minutes through what would henceforth be known as Parkville Junction.
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Alas and alack, Corbin scheduled more trains on Sunday July 29, 1877 without informing Culver and WHAM! The collision at Parkville injured scores of Culver passengers (the Manhattan Beach car that the Culver locomotive plowed through contained only a sleeping motorman). Police arrested the engineers of both trains as well as a flagman who was apparently also asleep at the switch. Thirty years later the Brooklyn Grade Crossing Elimination Commission forced Corbin’s railroad to tunnel under those Culver tracks. And seven years after that the Culver line became an elevated railroad, powered by a third rail. And what of the Corbin and Culver legacies? A notorious anti-Semite who publicly warned Jews not to enter his Manhattan Beach resort, Austin Corbin’s long and sordid history of corruption, swindling, bribery, and thuggery ended in 1896 when the horse drawing his carriage decided the 68-year-old tycoon had done enough damage for one lifetime: it shied, tipping over the open carriage and threw Corbin eight feet down an embankment against a stone wall near his Newport, New Hampshire mansion. Perhaps anticipating the Granite State’s eventual disapproval, his family buried him in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. And although Corbin Place marks the street where his railroad terminated for 40 years, today’s Manhattan Beach residents recently decided the name would henceforth commemorate Margaret Corbin, a heroic Revolutionary War combatant and the first female to be awarded a veteran’s pension. As for Andrew Culver, he lived in Brooklyn for 50 years but when his wife died and Corbin gobbled up his railroad in 1893, Culver moved to a Central Park West apartment and died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 73 without much notice. He’s buried in Green-Wood Cemetery. But his name survives in MTA descriptions of the F Train along McDonald Avenue, which is still called “the Culver Line” to this day. Still, Corbin’s old line is much in the news today, owing to the light-rail MTA Interborough Express proposed by Governor Kathy Hochul, and the freight-train Port Authority Cross Harbor Tunnel long championed by Representative Jerry Nadler. Each would utilize the same roadbed. Uh-Oh.
April 2022, Page 13
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April 2022
Portrait of a lady in a world full of dirt. In hindsight, I’m not sure why I’ve been using this space in recent months to demand a new full-length from the voice of conscience for an angry, dying world known in her current form as Shilpa Ray, but I’m willing to take at least partial credit for her crucial, vital, crushing new album. Even before my childish caterwauling commenced, Ray was building momentum with digital singles that held promise of something fierce. Just from the titles alone, “Manic Pixie Dream Cunt,” “Heteronormative Horseshit Blues” and “Bootlickers of the Patriarchy” made it clear that she was turning her sickened gaze past scenesters and on to the wicked world we all live in. Her last album, 2017’s Door Girl, was her fourth full length and her first truly great album (which isn’t as harsh as it sounds given that most musicians make around zero great albums). But now it’s take no prisoners time and, dragging herself out of the years of Trump and #MeToo, Shilpa Ray’s fury’s stoked. Instead of lamenting her place in a noisy, heartless city (“For all the people bouncing through life / So pure and positively / Ever wonder what happens / To people like me?” she sang in “Shilpa Ray’s Got a Heart Full of Dirt”), Portrait of a Lady (out April 29 on Northern Spy) takes on entitlement, sexual abuse, and fake feminism with wit and a sneer. Combining the caustic wit of Bongwater’s Ann Magnuson, the grit of the New York Dolls and the taut pop sensibility of Blondie, Ray deserves a place in the NYC Pantheon of Rock’n’Roll Giants. Truth be told, though, the Pantheon needs a first-generation Indian Jersey girl more than she needs it.
has been working in its current configuration since 2017, but Grind (out April 8 on Bitter Records) is their first full-length and it’s a powerhouse. On the opening track and lead single “Bitter,” bassist and singer Angela Phillips growls through a scream, “six foot, good looks / white of course / it’s bitter to be reminded / of the happiness you’ll never have.” She isn’t scary like some faux Satanist in a black robe, she’s scary like she’ll bite you because she can’t think of a reason not to. The slow strut of “Blemish,” meanwhile, is like watching a kettle boil, fully expecting it to blow up in your face. Where Shilpa Ray has a lot to say about the state of the world today, A Deer A Horse is ready to gash it to ribbons with a barbed wire guitar. They’ve got guests filling out the album’s sound— strings, synths, piano, even what they call the “ADAH choir”—but in no way softening it. They’re riff monsters with Royal Trux vibe and Stooges abandon. And that name? They don’t like it, they say, and they’re open to suggestions. “Rabid Wolverine” could work.
Lies and the lying liars who sing them. Last we heard from Bay Area punks Neutrals was in 2020 with their single “Personal Computing,” a sort of Kraftwerk meets the Undertones tune about tech mag porn. They’re back with a four-song—Bus Stop Nights (March 25, Static Shock Records)—the best of which is the lead track, “Gary Borthwick Says” (look up the claymation video) about a guy who lies a lot. An Undertones undercurrent still rings through (even if singer Allan McNaughton is Scottish, not Irish) in their anthem of petty ire, and it’s just as catchy as they were at their best. Meanwhile, the number one down-under-so-called-“shed rock”-band-with-a-ginger-mulleted-frontman the Chats—who proclaimed in song that AC/DC is the second greatest band in history, after themselves—have a new song from the point of view of someone who was struck by lightning and left a pile of ash on the concrete. It’s hard to buy the story, but the song is almost as good as AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” “Struck by Lightning” seems to be only released as a video, and a fine video it is, even if singer/bassist Josh Hardy apparently has trimmed his backlocks.
Digi flexi Midi. Fans who pre-ordered Black Midi’s Calvacade on vinyl last year got a bonus flexi-disc of the band playing five covers, the best 60% of which they’ve now put online. The set neatly dissected their unpredictable and uneven nature, showing that while they’re quite good at being quite good, they kinda suck at being clever. The two tunes they left out—a snotty cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” that gives Sinéad nothing 2 worry about and a pointless Talking Heads/Police mash-up—are just annoyances. Their cover of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man,” on the other hand, is amped and on point. They tackle Captain Beefheart’s “Moonlight on Vermont” with equally impressive precision, even if drummer Morgan Simpson’s vocal impression is pretty forced (and the U2 interpolation is highly questionable). Their take on Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” is the best of them. They play it pretty straight, showing they respect a well-crafted tune. Overall, it’s a fun little project, even if fun isn’t Black Midi’s best look. Incoming for Ukraine. Bandcamp has made for a fast and easy way to do benefit records and they started going up pretty quick for the people of Ukraine after the invasion. The Coathangers and ..And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead came together for a quick cover of Pussy Riot’s “Putin Lights Up the Fires” with proceeds going to the CARE Ukraine Crisis Fund. Maybe a bit more out of Red Hook earshot is WSPÓLNA SPRAWA (kompilacja dla Ukrainy), released by the Polish label Plusz Tapes. The first 17 tracks are short blasts of fairly rote punk, but bringing up the rear is a nearly 10-minute cut by an outfit called “Kurws.” The song, “Podchody” (or “Income,” according to online translation) is a great chunk of prog punk, reminiscent of the amazing Japanese band Kukangendai, or Black Midi in a breezy moment, for that matter. They have a full album coming out at the end of the month, so watch this space. Proceeds from the Plusz comp go to the Polish Centre for International Aid, earmarked for Ukrainians affected by the attack on their homeland.
A deer is a horse (of course, of course). Brooklyn’s A Deer A Horse has been around since 2013, and
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April 2022, Page 15
UKRAINE (continued from page 1)
networks by the Ukrainian citizens who suffer through the foreign invasion.
a widespread USSR nostalgia as well as for the kinships with Russian relatives,” narrates Poletti, who got to know deeply the nature of Odessa’s society.
“Nevertheless, there are things you may never know, like the true number of deaths in the Mariupol’s theatre bombed on March 16th,” adds Poletti referring to one of the most disputed statistic in the crisis.
But, being a journalist, he has also had to cope with what he agrees to describe as an “irrational media’s attitude.”
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Indeed this war has gained much more visibility than most of the previous (and current) ones. What’s striking is the way news items are launched and then denied in a media chaos that is even worse maybe than that during the Covid-19 first outbreak. Asked about how much we can trust Ukrainian sources who may diffuse propaganda rather than facts, Poletti doesn’t deny that this situation may occur: “At the early stages of the invasion, official governmental sources told that the Ukrainian army had killed five thousand Russian soldiers. I’m fond of military history and I didn’t believe at all that it was possible, so I didn’t report that news. Later the Ukrainian government itself lowered the statistics”. The Editor of the Odessa Journal does believe that there is a way to avoid fake news or distortions of reality and such a way lies in the photos and videos diffused through social
Those media reports are what shapes the policy of Western countries. “In the West the public debate is totally determined by Zelenskyy. It’s his own success,” admits Poletti. But one of the most demanding points in Zelenskyy’s agenda is far from being imposed across the West: the no-fly zone. We asked Poletti about this. “As a resident in Ukraine it is pretty obvious that the Ukranians claim much more efforts from the USA and the European Union. They say ‘we’re fighting for your freedom, why are you not fighting with us?’, they would like Western soldiers to be deployed in Ukraine. As a journalist I may say that Zelenskyy is a master of communication, he raises the stake cause he knows this is the only way to obtain even the smallest aid. But, eventually, as a Western citizen I think the no-fly zone is impossible: it means asking the West to go to war and I bet no western public opinion would agree to send troops against Russia. But this truth is so difficult to explain to Ukranians”.
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April 2022
"Everything Everywhere All At Once" An Oasis of Imagination in a Desert of Soulless Corporate Synergy by Dante A. Ciampaglia Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one with the fewest SpiderMen, And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost wrote “The Road Not Taken” in 1915 as a reflection on self-determination, or maybe a goof on his walking buddy. But, c’mon, he’s clearly got the multiverse on his mind. Two roads, two choices, two lives, two realities, each with their own paths, switchbacks, boulevards, alleys — all forming matrices of universes of possibilities. It’s a potent concept, pregnant with potential for storytellers to plumb the depths of human experience.
Just kidding! The alpha function of the multiverse is to leverage IP (intellectual property) for maximal shareholder return. Alternate timelines, branch dimensions, wild character variants, realitydestroying paradoxes — these used to be the sole province of hard-core science fiction. Today, they’re the narrative backbones of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and some of the most financially successful films of all time. And to what end? Getting out of pesky narrative corners and selling tons of merch, sure. But the black hole at the center, around which everything swirls, is nostalgia: for comics and toys you loved as a kid, for versions of characters you thought you’d never see again, for popular internet memes, even for previous movies in the MCU cycle. It’s a warm, comforting, secure embrace that feels great in these times of alienation, dislocation, and existential crisis.
To wit: Spider-Man: No Way Home, the eighth live-action wall-crawler adventure that, thanks to multiverse shenanigans, saw all three big-screen webheads fighting villains from most of the previous Spider-Man movies released over the last 20 years. It’s the third-highest grossing film of all time, and with it Disney, our economy’s apex conglomerate, reached the summit of monetizing audience’s memories and convincing viewers to buy them back at a steep markup. What hope is there for us nerds who love the multiverse concept but just can’t anymore with cynical, conservative blockbuster cinema?
As if hearing our wails, Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert appear to offer us another road, the gonzo miracle Everything Everywhere All At Once — an audaciously inventive film that, if nothing else, reminds us that Marvel doesn’t own the multiverse. In fact, theirs is only one multiverse in a multiverse of multiverses. (Ka-blooey!) Written and directed by Kwan and Scheinert, who work under the name Daniels and whose previous film was the equally inventive and bizarre Swiss Army Man, Everything Everywhere (EEAO from here on out) is a reality-
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hopping mashup of sci-fi, kung-fu, and superhero flicks, pitch-black comedy, and razor-sharp satire. It’s also a deeply affecting excavation of intergenerational emotional trauma and mid-life regret. Building on and riffing off everything from The Matrix and Office Space to the work of Wong-Kar Wai and Jackie Chan to Adult Swim and philosophical dorm room posters, EEAO leans into the absurdity and potential of the multiverse with a wanton ambition and abandon that’s becoming increasingly rare in mainstream filmmaking. And in so many ways, it’s the movie ideally suited for this moment.
Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is in crisis. She’s under audit by the IRS, threatening the laundromat she owns with her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), who has filed divorce papers, while she cares for her demanding father ( James Hong) and struggles with her headstrong daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), trying to carve out her own life away from the suffocating one her mother has built since leaving China with Waymond in defiance of her father and with big hopes for life in California. But here, in this run-down laundromat, the googly eyes that hopeless optimist Waymond surreptitiously sticks on laundry bags and washing machines wobbling in a kind of goofy judgment, Evelyn’s life has become an abyss that has swallowed her American Dream — her dreams, period.
Sounds as fun as a Cassavetes movie. But then Alpha Waymond takes over her Waymond’s body, shoves a couple of Bluetooth headsets in the bewildered Evelyn’s ears, and gives her instructions — visualize a janitor’s closet, put your shoes on the wrong feet — on how to meet him in a third universe. Suddenly she’s in the thick of a battle against Jobu Tupaki (a sly reference to Pedro Cerrano’s voodoo idol in Major League?), a villain of immeasurable power who has created a multiversedestroying crisis only Evelyn can stop. And suddenly we’re slipstreamed into a film that’s completely bananas and unpredictable. Alpha Waymond, as decisive and physical as Waymond is meek and passive, dispatches a squad of IRS security guards using a fanny pack like a Hong Kong action star. Evelyn and Jobu “verse jump” into realities where they appear as piñatas, crude children’s drawings, and rocks. In one universe, humans evolved to have hot dog fingers — which is both
uproariously weird and disgusting and explained using a homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey where the battle for genetic dominance is won by floppydigited prehistoric man. Jobu kills people by turning their heads into party poppers, which explode as glitter bombs. Her multiverse-eating machine of dread sucks every emotion, hope, and dream into the hole of a black-asnight everything bagel.
The brilliance of EEAO is, partly, in its unpredictability. Much of the fun of watching EEAO is letting go and allowing Daniels to take you on this nutso journey. It wouldn’t work without their massive imaginations and creativity, and the absurdity of the logic underpinning their film makes it impossible to get ahead of them. (Not that you should try.) Every decision we make sets us on a road, creating a new node that continues branching off and forming nodes with each decision we make, no matter how small or inconsequential, weaving a near limitless multiversal network.
EEAO works because Daniels not only strictly follow this rule, they run wild with it. Whenever Evelyn, Alpha Waymond, or other verse jumpers need to acquire skills, they do random, weird things — like getting paper cuts between every finger, sucking on someone’s nose, or performing autoerotic acts that can’t be printed in a family paper — to create a new node that then slingshots their consciousness into another reality where they have increased lung capacity, for instance, or can pull off crazy martial arts.
Just as important is their casting. The film is brimming with top-tier actors, especially Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis, who steals every scene as the sad, power mad IRS agent Deirdre Beaubeirdra. But there’s no EEAO without Quan and Yeoh. Quan, who is perhaps best known as Short Round in Temple of Doom, is a revelation. What he does with his body and voice to imbue so many iterations of the same character with enough differences to be noteworthy but the spiritual similarity to be grounded makes you wonder how Hollywood could have ignored him for so long after he aged out of kid-actor roles. And Yeoh, inarguably one of the most talented actors of her generation, has the opportunity here to utilize so many tools in her kit: the kick-ass martial artist, the glamorous movie star,
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the relatable everywoman, the font of wisdom. It’s a history that shapes not only her performance but all of EEAO.
In each verse jump, Evelyn gets a glimpse of a life she could have had if not for. In one universe, she chooses not to go with Waymond to America, learns martial arts, and becomes a massive celebrity. That Evelyn reconnects with Waymond, who here is a suave Tony Leung-like gentleman of mystery, and when we’re in that reality Daniels’ frames it — from the look and feel to the dialogue and staging — as if it were In The Mood For Love or 2046 — a choice that not only taps into Yeoh’s history in Hong Kong cinema but also proves the perfect canvas for Evelyn to examine the depth of her regret for what she could have had and the blessings of the life (and Waymond) she has. In a similar way, Jobu, unsurprisingly, is a multiversal variant of Evelyn’s troubled daughter, their confrontations avatars for Evelyn and Joy working out their culturally and emotionally complicated relationship as mother and daughter. Everything Evelyn experiences in her bizarre trip through alternate realities, ironically, simplifies the chaos swirling around her, bringing her closer to a clarity that — as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz realizes — the life she wants is there, only in pieces to be assembled. (Is all that verse jumping happening in Evelyn’s mind? Probably, but who cares?) It’s also a commentary on the corrosiveness of nostalgia. It’s easy to look backward and imagine what we had or alternate realities. But when we dwell on what was and might have been, we miss — and squander — what is and could be. (Daniels casting Yeoh, Quan, and Hong — actors with whom we all have long histories — was an especially sly way to make that point.) EEAO reaches moments of true catharsis — for Evelyn, Waymond, and Joy, certainly, but for us too. When Tony Leung Waymond tells Evelyn that his seemingly naive commitment to kindness is armor in a cold, confusing world, that it’s important to be kind “especially when I don’t know what’s going on,” it lands hard after two years of rage, fear, and dread. As does Evelyn’s retort to one of Jobu’s moments of hopeless cynicism that, even in a universe where we have hot dogs for fingers, we learn to get good with our feet. It’s an absurd statement that elicits both laughs and deep recognition.
The same could be said for Everything Everywhere All Once. It’s a vibrantly weird, challenging, and uniquely hopeful film — a gorgeously untrod trail diverging from the rutted road of Hollywood homogeneity. Everything Everywhere All At Once is now playing in limited release.
April 2022, Page 17
Books Quinn on Books: Waiting to Exhale Review of Breath Better Spent by DaMaris B. Hill Review by Michael Quinn
G
o to a mirror. Look into your eyes—the same ones you had as a child. When you look into them, whom do you see?
Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood, DaMaris B. Hill’s new book of narrative poems, fulfills a pledge the author made to not only acknowledge the child within, but “to carry my girl self on my shoulders and celebrate her.” The book underscores the absolute need for love—especially self-love— and emphasizes, as the center of our lives, the importance of storytelling: sharing our own and passing down the ones we know. The stories Hill shares locate her life on a continuum. There are tributes to the women whose shoulders she stands on—many of them enslaved. Then there are “semi-autobiographical” accounts of her American childhood in the 1980s and ’90s, where she looked up to women like Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston. Finally, there are meditations on the grief of the present moment, where young Black girls disappear and people don’t seem to notice or care. Hill’s poems remind us that we are creating our future through the actions we take—or don’t take—now. In a poem that serves as a kind of preface to the collection, Hill writes, “Your first grown-up job / is to keep a secret about /dead people among us.” In other words, don’t talk about slavery, don’t talk about the enslaved. But her girl self is fidgety and curious. Questions pop out. Who were these people? It’s obvious they forged paths for us
The Art of Alice and Martin Provensen Reviewed by Marie Hueston You might know the whimsical artwork of Alice and Martin Provensen without even realizing it. The husbandand-wife illustration team created more than 40 children’s books in a career that spanned the mid- to late-20th century. Some of their earliest works are classics from the Little Golden Books series, such as 1949’s The Color Kittens written by Margaret Wise Brown (one of my favorites as a child), and they worked steadily in the decades that followed, illustrating volumes of fairy tales, myths and legends, picture books, poems, and more. One of their books, The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot, won the Provensens a Caldecott Medal in 1983. Children’s book historian Leonard S. Marcus describes two hallmarks of the
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to follow—and we may follow these paths, without ever thinking about who made them, without ever knowing their names. Hill teaches them to us. She celebrates women like Phillis Wheatley (an enslaved woman who became a well-known poet), Jarena Lee (a domestic servant who became the first female preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church), and Ma Rainey (known as the “Mother of the Blues”).
Hill teaches us her story as well. Born late, but underweight and ravenous, her hunger develops into an insatiable appetite for knowledge. It sets her apart from the other girls—“I am smart and have learned the rewards system that skirts beauty”—but everyone likes to feel attractive and feel like they fit in. Memories of Hill’s childhood conjure jelly bracelets and sandals, fruit-flavored lip gloss, and a “puffy ponytail that is always wiggling out of barrettes.” Her pre-teen body is awkward—belly like “an underripe watermelon,” developing breasts like “daisies”—and puberty is a swamp of conflicting, confusing feelings: “swaying / in Elmer’s glue between good girl and what you think is / grown.” In adolescence, we are often eager to abandon ourselves as children. Yet our adult bodies can warrant attention our child selves are unprepared for. Sometimes they make us feel powerful, as when Hill’s narrator discovers that other girls’ boyfriends desire her. Sometime they make us feel powerless: One minute Hill’s middle-school-aged narrator is laughing and walking down the street with her best friend, the next a stranger grabs and squeezes her breast and runs off. “Bestie tells me to ‘shake Provensens’ style as having an “eye for dynamic page design and a droll sense of humor.” Both are evident throughout The Art of Alice and Martin Provensen, a new title from Chronicle Books that features hundreds of the Provensens’ original illustrations as well as personal photographs, reflections, speeches, and other memorabilia lovingly curated by their daughter Karen Provensen Mitchell. A lengthy interview with Mitchell in the book offers insight into her parents’ partnership and personal life. “My mother said of their collaboration, ‘We thought of ourselves as one artist illustrating,’” Mitchell reveals. When one of her parents became frustrated with their work, Mitchell adds, “he or she would hand the paper over to the other, passing it back and forth, until both were satisfied. They really loved their work, and each other, and they loved to work together.” When they weren’t collaborating on a new project, travel was another of the couple’s passions. The Art of Alice and Martin Provensen also includes their beautifully illustrated travel journals from far-off places. The journal pages are sometimes simple pen and ink, others in full color. Occasionally the artists include handwritten notes, a museum ticket glued to the page, or even playful
it off.’ Tells me ‘it is nothing.’ And that ‘it would happen all the time and over again.’ Twisting my head ‘no,’ I believe her and now I wonder how she knew.” Incidents like these become representative: “personal experiences within a collective Black girlhood,” Hill writes.
The center of this middle section is “Born Again and Again.” We know something different and important is happening here because we have to turn the book sideways, like a centerfold. It’s an epic poem that weaves together the story of Hill’s life, her father’s, their ancestors, as well as fictional characters and the writers who birthed them. At age three, Hill’s narrator is killed in a car crash. Her grandmother stands distraught over the little girl’s body in the hospital while “doctors tell her ‘breath is better spent on the living.’” Well, no thanks to them, the poem seems to say, the girl lives—resurrected and kept alive by the prayers of her grandmother. Women keeping other women alive is another theme that emerges in Breath Better Spent. In the preface, Hill acknowledges three groups that have kept her going: Saving Our Lives, Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT), a collective that celebrates Black girlhood; Urban Bush Women (UBW), a dance theater ensemble that spotlights the African Diaspora; and Philadelphia’s Colored Girls Museum, which showcases donated objects that speak to their owners’ experiences of Black girlhood. Throughout the book are touching black-and-white photos of both famous women (Aretha, eyes closed, belting into a microphone) and unknown girls (one has her eyes and mouth wide open, as if happily surprised).
self-portraits placing themselves in the scenes, posing in front of Venice’s Grand Canal, for instance, or sitting on a museum floor, exhausted after a long day of looking at paintings. Anyone who enjoys journaling will be inspired by these pages and may try to capture the small moments of their travels, and maybe even their everyday lives, in this manner. In their Caldecott acceptance speech, included in its entirety in the book, the Provensens describe their work in this
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One of the museum’s exhibits inspired a series of laments by Hill for all the Black girls around the world who disappear without an outcry, as if it didn’t matter that they were ever here at all. These poems hold up a different kind of mirror. Beyond the self, they show us “America.” They show us “who we are as a nation.” And if we don’t turn away in self-disgust, we may look deeper and discover the things about ourselves truly worth loving.
Look in that mirror. Lean in close. Now exhale. “Breath is both individual and profoundly communal—particularly in the form of language,” Hill writes. “Breath is a type of life force. One that is both physical and spiritual.” Every one of us is dependent on the next one, and the one after that, just as our childhood selves are dependent on us seeing them and remembering: Everyone is deserving of love.
way: “We draw and paint to express our joy and excitement in life and to communicate our feelings to children in the most direct and effective way. For children’s book writers and illustrators, there must be a great drive to write and draw for the child in oneself.” Through the artwork and recollections showcased in this book, The Art of Alice and Martin Provensen will provide a walk down memory lane for many, as well an inspiration to a new generation of artists.
April 2022
Jazz by Grella Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus
C
harles Mingus is one of the greatest figures in the history of jazz and modern music. Born 100 years ago this month (April 22) , he’s one of those few musicians who, in the mind of the public and fellow musicians goes by one name: just Mingus, like Miles and Coltrane and Ella and Monk and Duke.
Even rarer, he is the subject of an album by a popular musician, Joni Mitchell’s beautiful, evocative Mingus, and like Monk, Kurt Weill, and Nino Rota, he was honored by one of producer Hal Wilner’s all-star tribute albums (Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus, 1992—a frustrating record that sounds like the parable of the blind men describing an elephant. It’s also hampered by the use of Harry Partch’s microtonal instruments in many of the arrangements, which makes no musical sense and confuses the whole project.). He’s Mingus, one of the greatest bass players and composers and bandleaders, ever, in jazz. By general consensus, two of his albums, Mingus Ah Um on Columbia and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady on Impulse are among the finest jazz discs ever made. His bass playing was both revolutionary and inimitable. He pioneered a new sense of freedom on the instrument, keeping time, yes, but also commenting on what other musicians were doing, adding a conversational feeling, something close to dialogue, inside group improvisation. This wasn’t free jazz —Mingus often scorned the avant-gardeists like Ornette Coleman—it was freedom within the form and structure of the piece the musicians were playing. Maybe Scott LaFaro and Jaco Pastorius have followed Mingus’ example the closest, but there really has been nothing like it since his death in early 1979, from ALS. The great art of it was complemented by his long musical relationship with drummer Danny Richmond. In both studio and live settings the two seem to be playing their own private music, which fits into the overall picture but is like a secret room off to the side that a listener can isolate and explore.
But composing is what I want to get at. Mingus was one of the finest and most important composers in jazz, and I’ve come to think he was in one sense the single greatest and most important. Mingus made jazz composing modern, and he made it beholden to no other criteria than that of his chosen idiom. Monk and Ellington were also great composers, geniuses really. Monk was like Webern, reconfiguring song form into spare but indestructible Buckyballs of music, their structural logic an infinite puzzle to work and rework. Ellington rethought popular songs dance and and turned them into vessels for uncanny melodies, colors, timbres, and deep and complex human feeling. In a way the two are respective analogues of the Classical and Romantic eras in classical music. They also never left the idea of songs behind. Not Monk, certainly, but Ellington’s longer form suites and ballets were extended collections of the forms he worked with for decades. This is where we get into comparisons between genres and their relative status. Ellington especially has been elevated as a modern classical composer, someone to be thought of on par with Beethoven. And that’s not wrong, he is as great and important an artist, but it also misses the point: comparing jazz to classical music is an exercise in social and cultural prestige, it misses the fundamental point of the music. Let jazz be jazz.
The culture business in America is still more beholden to European criteria than it seems willing to admit, and the idea that Europe is the center of status and prestige for art music weighs down the arts in this country nearly as much as it did in the 19th century, despite Charles Ives and despite Ellington and Min-
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by George Grella gus (who is very much a Black, jazz Ives). Ellington never has to be thought of as good as Beethoven, jazz never has to be thought of as good as classical music, because Ellington and jazz are entirely different things, technically sophisticated and aesthetically profound on their own terms, and at as high a level as Beethoven. As I’ve written in these pages, a song is harder to write than a sonata, so when you listen to “In a Sentimental Mood” or “Epistrophy,” you can think, man, Beethoven and Stravinsky are as good as this stuff.
Another extraordinary song is “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” and also “Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,” and also “Gunslinging Bird” and “Better Get Hit in Your Soul.” Mingus was a brilliant song writer, and a brilliant composer who took jazz out of basic song form and made music that is as deep jazz as jazz gets while also developing entirely new structures, especially the discontinuous episodes of “Fables of Faubus.” Modern composers who work in discontinuous forms, from Xenakis to Zorn, are hailed for their sophistication. Mingus did the exact same thing and kept it jazz. Except he did something more. “Fables of Faubus” isn’t just a series of sections laid end to end to make something larger, it is a musical and political indictment of segregation of Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus. And, like other great Mingus works, including “Oh Lord Don’t Let Them Drop the Atomic Bomb on Me,” it’s got lyrics: Oh, Lord, don’t let ‘em shoot us! Oh, Lord, don’t let ‘em stab us! Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!
Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!
Name me someone who’s ridiculous, Dannie. Governor Faubus!
Why is he so sick and ridiculous?
He won’t permit integrated schools.
Then he’s a fool! Boo! Nazi fascist supremists!
Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan).
Name me a handful that’s ridiculous, Dannie Richmond.
was one of the greatest small jazz ensembles there has ever been.
We’re fortunate to have numerous recordings from that tour, and along with the Mingus studio discography, every few years it seems another major archival live recording comes out. This year, for Record Story Day on April 23, Resonance records is putting out The Lost Album at Ronnie Scott’s a three-LP set of a 1972 gig Mingus led at Ronnie Scott’s in London. Mingus was playing as strong as ever, his physical deterioration had yet to appear, and despite his own personal anger he always brought exuberance and joy to the bandstand. And his musical legacy lives, literally, on Monday nights at The Django, where the Mingus Big Band has returned after pandemic hiatus. Mingus lives.
Faubus, Rockefeller, Eisenhower.
Why are they so sick and ridiculous? Two, four, six, eight:
They brainwash and teach you hate. H-E-L-L-O, Hello.
The lyrics clown Faubus, and so does the music. For Mingus Ah Um, Columbia told Mingus he couldn’t record the lyrics, but the instrumental sound of this, the mockery that comes from within confident wisdom and humor, is unmistakable. It’s great protest music that is also great music—unlike the contemporary trend of giving a piece of music a title that is about a political idea then leaving all the political content out of the music itself—and it’s also great modern compositional thinking. That’s the importance of Mingus, making unmistakable jazz—extraordinary jazz—and creating his own modern techniques that opened up compositional possibilities that go beyond AABA song form. He also is one the rare musicians, like Mahler, who could capture irony in music, not just in titles like “All The Things You Could Be Right Now if Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother,” but in the actual notes themselves. And of course, he never left the blues behind. That Mingus sound, everybody together but expressively loose and gutty, is as unmistakable as Ellington’s, and the sextet he brought on tour in 1964
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“Fables of Faubus” isn’t just a series of sections laid end to end to make something larger, it is a musical and political indictment of segregation of Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus.
April 2022, Page 19
Marie's Craft Corner
Turn empty tea boxes into miniature Easter baskets! by Marie Hueston of the paper. Lay the ruler along the opposite side of the box and draw a line along the paper. Cut along the line, creating a strip of paper the exact width of your box.
The size and proportion of tea boxes make them perfect containers for small keepsakes or individual portions of sweets—like Easter candy. Follow these simple steps to create a tiny Easter basket that can be customized any way you like, from the color and decorations of the exterior to the types of candy you put inside. What you’ll need: In addition to an empty tea box, you’ll need construction paper, scissors, a ruler, a pencil, a glue stick, and Scotch tape. Optional decorations include markers, paint, and stickers.
Open up your tea box and cut off the lid. With your scissors, cut off the center lid but leave the side flaps in place. Don’t throw away the lid just yet; you’ll be using it to make the handle.
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Measure out an inch-wide strip in the center of the side flaps. Use your ruler and pencil to measure an inch-wide strip in the center of each side flap, then cut away the area on either side. The center parts that are left will become the base of the basket’s handle.
Build a handle. Take the box’s lid that you cut off, measure an inchwide strip along the long end, and cut it out. Connect each side of this new strip to the inch-wide portion of the side flaps and tape it in place on each side. Lightly bend the handle to make an arch.
your handle. Add finishing touches. Once your
Cover the smaller sides of the box first. Using the smaller piece that’s left over after you cut your construction paper, cover the short sides of your box and glue the paper in place.
Wrap the rest of your basket. Place your box in the center of the construction paper strip that is the same width and wrap the sides up and over the front and back. Glue paper in place and reinforce inside edges with tape. Cover the handle. Cut two strips of construction paper slightly wider than one inch and long enough to span the length of your handle. Glue in place on the top and bottom of
Choose a color for your basket. Pick a piece of construction paper in the color of your choice (pastels work well for Easter). Line up the shorter side of your box with the longer side
basket is finished, you can leave it plain or add decorations. Children can draw or paint pictures on the sides or they can add stickers. If you’re hosting a gathering of family or friends for the holiday, you can even make multiple baskets as place markers and write guests’ names across the front of each one. Don’t forget to fill your baskets with Easter grass and your favorite candy!
HAPPY EASTER!
May Preview: Start saving your plastic iced-coffee and iced-tea cups!
Share your designs with us! Send photos to the editor: george@redhookstar.com
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April 2022
