THE VILLAGE STAR REVUE
INSIDE Christmas in Sweden
by R.J. Cirillo
Election Reflections
It was a sunny Saturday in late November 2020, when the election was called for Joe Biden. People took to the streets of Brooklyn in jubilation. It was like an American Bastille day, with people going by in cars waving and beeping horns. Fast forward to November 5, 204. The election was
by Oscar Fock
Sweden is a place of plenty of holiday celebrations. My American friends usually say midsummer with the fertility pole and the wacky dances when I tell them about Swedish holidays, but to me — and I’d wager few Swedes would argue against this — no holiday is as anticipated as Christmas. Further, I would argue that Swedish Christmas is unlike any other Christmas in the world.
It all really begins on the first day of December. That’s when Swedish Television 1 (SVT1), the primary public service broadcast channel, airs the first episode of the year’s Christmas serial. Every year, the audience — young children before they’re off for school, for the most part, but adults watch, too — get to follow a new wintery Christmas tale in 24 parts. Sometimes, the story revolves around saving the holiday, or the snow, or Santa Claus, but some of the most popular editions have only been tangen-
called for Trump after midnight. The next morning in Windsor Terrace the mood on the street was subdued, and traffic was light. When I got my coffee to go in Connecticut Muffin, I saw several people sitting with their laptops closed, staring out the window. Maybe there was joy somewhere, like Texas or Idaho, but not in this neck of the woods.
I entered Prospect Park sipping a 12 oz Americano for my daily walk around the lake. A woman walking towards me was having an angry blue tooth conversation. Just as she passed, she raised her arms and yelled into the
tially related to Christmas. The most popular of them all, The Mystery at Greveholm, revolves around a family spending the holidays at the Greveholm castle, which turns out to be haunted. Accompanying the TV series is always a regular advent calendar made of paper.
Saint Lucy
Fast-forward to Dec. 13, Saint Lucy’s Day. Originally commemorating Lucia of Syracuse, this Christian feast day is most widely celebrated in Italy, the island nation Saint Lucia, and Scandinavia, including, of course, Sweden. We call her “Sankta Lucia,” and on the morning of Dec. 13, many schools, preschools, retirement homes and churches host a procession led by a young woman dressed in a white gown (Lucia of Syracuse, who became a martyr in the early fourth century, was said to have been a virgin), with a crown of burning candles. Every year, there is a national compe-
cool morning air, “I can’t….I can’t…. I can’t live in this country anymore!”. I could truly say, to quote old Bill Clinton, “I feel your pain”. This column usually consists of an interview/conversation between a local millennial and a boomer (myself). This month I felt the travesty of the next 4 years had to be dealt with. I was somewhat surprised when NO ONE WOULD GO ON THE RECORD talking about the election. Here are a few quotes that will remain anonymous: “The expression ‘I don’t have a fuck left to give’ is my current mantra “ “Today, I am ashamed to be an
tition — as well as local competitions across the country — where people can vote for the woman they think should be Sankta Lucia in the national procession and in their home municipalities. (This display of religion and patriarchal values may surprise some readers, given that many view Sweden as a bastion of secularity and gender equality.) This quite sexist (and racist, as traditionally, only white, blonde women have been able to take on the role of Lucia) routine has received criticism, and it is now more common that schools have one or multiple Lucias, with no restrictions on ethnicity and hair color (or, in a few rare cases, gender). Accompanying Lucia, are women also dressed in white gowns carrying candle sticks, young men in white gowns and cone-shaped hats called star boys (stjärngossar in Swedish), and sometimes nissar (creatures of Nordic mythology, which, for all intents and purposes, look like gnomes) (continued on page 8)
American.”
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R. J. Cirillo
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Oscar Fock
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A possible scenario I
think it's fair to say that not too many people really know what's going to happen in this country after January 19. Some people probably feel that we will become an upstanding Christian nation again, others feel that they will become rich again because we will not be spending money on stupid things like NATO and defending Ukraine and the United Nations and paying money to China and Canada for goods they sell us. Others probably think that they won't have to look at advertisements in languages other than English, and all radio stations will revert to English and religious programs to the Christian faith. A whole bunch of people in various places will expect that the good Lord will smile down upon our little country for choosing to be led by one of HIS children.
Many will be expect that their friends and family will no longer be able to look at what they consider the deep state media, as outlets like the NY Times and the Washington Post and CNN are put out of business in favor of Fox News and the NY Post and Joe Rogan.
And probably there are some who will expect to be led by someone who gets them, who understands that women and others need to be put back in the place they belong, (kitchen/factory/ jail) and who will entertain them with bro humor.
A menu of possibilities
There is another example, available
right now for everyone to see, about what may be in this country's future.
I remember reading around a decade or so ago, probably in Foreign Affairs magaine, about how we need not worry about Russian on the world stage, as their economy had shrunk to basically smaller than California's and that they were no longer a world power.
I'm sure if I saw it, Vladimir Putin saw it as well. Putin took over a country that had gone through a rough time in the 1990's. The Soviet Union had shrunk to being just Russia, lost much of their sphere of influence and the cash that went with it (namely places like Poland, Hungary, East Germany and Czechoslovakia) and unlike Europe after WW 2, was not a beneficiary of anything like a Marshall Plan (the one thing I fault Bill Clinton for not creating for our one-time enemy).
Corruption was way up in the 1990's, as former party leaders finagled ownership of state assets and became oligarchs. Once that class assumed their assets, they needed assurance of a government that wouldn't ever try to re-apportion it to the masses.
As Yeltsin deteriorated, Putin was basically handed over the government.
Things started slowly, but then, the year after 9/11, Putin orchestrated terrorist incidents, including the supposed takeover of a Moscow movie theater by Islamic terrorists (for more information about this read Masha Gessen's 2012 biography of Putin). Instilling fear in the population, he slowly kept increasing his power. While at first he seemed to allow the Russian people a little more freedom, including press freedom, red flags
started to appear. Opponents of the state were being poisoned; after one term out of office (because of term limits) he took over again and changed the rules; press freedoms started eroding, and per capita GDP, after reaching a high in 2015, began declining rapidly.
If there is one thing that can bring down a government, it is a bad economy. If there is one thing that can boost it up, it's a holy war.
Putin has been talking up a return to the Russian Empire ever since his return to power in 2012. He orchestrated a Russia-friendly puppet government in neighboring Belarus.
He tried the same in Ukraine, but Ukrainians resisted and threw out the Yanukovich government in 2013. It was the next year that Russia invaded and Crimea and other parts of Ukraine. I'm sure that the same economic reasons that underpinned the Iron Curtain (namely profits going to Moscow), was a big part of Putin's lust for Belarus and Ukraine. He knows that as long as there's money for his people, his perch at the top is assured. What worries me is what happens here when Trump's stock market crashes. It will be interesting to watch.
New map to detail history of slavery in our neighborhoods
by Phyllis Eckhaus
Slavery in New York? For many New Yorkers, accustomed to associating slavery with Southern plantations, the fact that slavery existed in our city is a shocking surprise.
Yet for much of the 17th and 18th centuries, New York boasted the largest urban slave population in mainland North America. Enslaved people made up one-fifth the population. They built the wall at Wall Street, and cleared the way for Harlem and Route Census figures showed slaves in the state until 1850.
Lower Manhattan City Council Member Chris Marte was just a kid in elementary school in 2006 when the New York Historical Society put on “Slavery in New York,” the groundbreaking exhibit documenting the role of enslaved African Americans in building New York City and State. It blew his mind. Fast forward some twenty-plus years after the exhibit, to when the grownup Marte met Jacob Morris, the ebullient and persevering visionary pushing to create the New York City Freedom Trail. Morris, who heads the Harlem Historical Society and who contributed to the 2006 exhibit, has long been eager to spread the stories not only of slavery in New York, but of New Yorkers’ heroic role in slavery’s abolition.
Morris for hours regaled Marte with history stories. “I gave him a copy of the proposed Freedom Trail map,” Morris recalled. “He was, like, ‘wow.’” The Freedom Trail came to Morris in a dream, as a way to tell the stories of slavery and abolition in New York.
In an interview with The Village StarRevue, he observed that Boston has its Freedom Trail, following the freedom of the American Republic from England. And Philadelphia has its trail tracing the birth of the U.S. Constitution. New York City deserves its own Free-
dom Trail, Morris declared, celebrating “the struggle for freedom from chattel slavery. New York City’s role was immense and it’s something to be proud of.”
In September, Morris’ vision came closer to reality, when Council Member Marte, working alongside Queens Council Member Dr. Nantasha Williams, secured the City Council’s passage, 49-0, of legislation aimed to create both citywide and Lower Manhattan Freedom Trails, “walkable tours which mark and commemorate historical sites in New York City that are associated with the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad.”
The law establishes a task force of public officials, scholars and others to conduct at least two public meetings and to submit a report of recommendations within one year of convening. For Council Member Marte, the law launches an exciting opportunity to tell history from a people’s perspective. Writing on Instagram, he observed: “Historic figures like Hamilton or structures like the Brooklyn Bridge suck up a lot of attention when people think of our city’s history. But what’s noteworthy about the Underground Railroad is that it wasn’t an achievement of a particular individual or tied to a singular place. It was a network of resistance, a grassroots movement to liberate people, and a decentralized success relying on people whose names will never be known and locations that are still being uncovered.”
As part of the legislative push, Marte’s office did a fancy mock-up of Morris’ Lower Manhattan Freedom Trail map. Among the sites:
— The “Land of the Blacks,” Minetta Lane and beyond. When the Dutch first settled New Amsterdam, they gave limited freedom and property rights to Africans, whom they encour-
aged, starting in 1643, to set up farms in an area extending north from the wall of Wall Street through Tribeca and the Village. As Morris noted, these Black farms were a “buffer zone” to protect the Dutch from attacks by the Lenape, the indigenous people the Dutch displaced: “If the Indians attacked, they’d have to go through the Blacks first.”
Slave market, Wall Street and Water Street. Established by local law, the slave market was in operation from 1711 to 1762.
The African Burial Ground, 290 Broadway. The African Burial Ground National Monument, which includes a visitor center and an outdoor memorial run by the National Parks Service, commemorates the earliest and largest African burial ground in the United States. About 15,000 free and enslaved Blacks were buried over six acres from the mid-1630s to 1735. Morris recalled how easily the site could have been destroyed during federal construction there in 1991. A construction worker, “troubled” that “the bulldozers are crunching up these bones” placed a 2 am call to the Public Historian at the Schomberg Library, he said, spurring immediate archeological and commemorative efforts.
199 Chambers Street. This former dock site—which Morris successfully re-named Frederick Douglass Landing—is where famous fugitive slave and orator Frederick Douglass landed upon his escape from slavery in 1838.
David Ruggles’ boarding house and anti-slavery reading room, 36 and 76 Lispenard Street. The fearless Ruggles, the first Black bookseller and printer, anticipated Malcolm X in his “by any means necessary” attitude toward abolition and the rescuing of fugitive slaves. A founder of the Committee of Vigilance in 1835, he led Black and white radical abolitionists to establish a network of safe houses,
and take direct action, even boarding ships to liberate captive Blacks.
122 Pearl Street, once the location of the store of Arthur Tappan, attacked by pro-slavery rioters in 1834, in a seven-day melee known as the “Tappan riot.” Arthur and his brother Lewis were anti-slavery activists who financially underwrote the national abolition movement; Southern newspapers offered bounties for their assassination.
Park Row and Chatham Street. At this junction, Black school teacher Elizabeth Jennings was thrown off a trolley car by a white conductor in 1854—spurring her successful lawsuit to desegregate local transit more than a hundred years before Rosa Parks. Beyond Lower Manhattan, there is a rich citywide history to be mined by the task force. Brooklyn in particular was an abolitionist hotbed.
Council Member Marte noted that the Underground Railroad was early mass organizing, and “mass organizing will always be a threat to entrenched power.” He expressed hope that New Yorkers exposed to “this hidden history” can apply “its lessons to modern day struggles.”
Food: A holiday tradition with a long history
by Phebe Du Pont
One frigid afternoon in late December, many years ago, my brother and I hopped on a train headed for Grand Central. Upon our arrival, we marveled briefly at the constellations and the narrow walkways between the high windows, before transferring to a downtown express. We couldn’t stifle our grins and the train couldn’t hurtle past the local stops fast enough. It wasn’t my first time in the city, nor my brother’s, but we were young teenagers and that initial independence is (as I’m sure we all remember) just an incredible rush. Besides, our destination was the annual holiday market at Union Square—a treasure trove for the two of us, armed with our summer earnings. We were eager to be enchanted by tinsel garlands and twinkling string lights, by fresh stroopwafels and hot mulled cider (neither of us could even begin to pass for 21). This little adventure became an instant tradition for my brother and me, and our first stop was always the stall that sold that sweet, spiced cider, the warmth of which penetrated our mittens and made real again the magic of our childhood Christmases, on an otherwise unremarkable winter night. My brother and I outgrew our teenage tradition—or perhaps we merely lost patience with the crowd. But I continue to herald in the holidays with a hot, spiced drink—more often than not, one I’ve mulled myself. Mulling wine, or cider, is easy, fun, and fast—and it satisfies a certain romantic sensibility of mine, a nostalgia that’s unique to the bleak mid-winter. All you need is a large pot, red wine or apple cider, a
MUSIC:
Hi there fellow musical aficionados, it’s your friendly music slut, Medea Hoar, bouncing from borough to borough to bring you the muse-ical highlights as seen by a lowlife. This month your purveyor of prose will be sharing with you her adventures in Manhattan, just a hop, skip and swim across the water from all points east. Now I normally (as if there’s anything normal about yours truly) focus my monthly musical adventures column, Tits Up Brooklyn!, on... well... Brooklyn, but having been asked to bring my many talents to Manhattan, we shall call this “Tits Up Big
handful of spices that can be found at any grocery store, and a heat source. It takes half an hour and there’s hardly any clean up. Trust me; the last thing I want to do on a cold winter’s night is deal with a sink full of dirty dishes. Mulled wine is at once cozy and comforting, sophisticated and timeless. Whether you’re hosting a large holiday party, entertaining s few old friends, or watching Doctor Zhivago alone in bed with your phone set to Do Not Disturb, mulled wine makes the mundane magical. Mulled cider is equally delicious and atmospheric—and, absent alcohol, it boasts even greater versatility. On a cold Sunday morning, confronted by a stack of papers that need grading or a deadline that I haven’t yet met, a pot of mulled cider keeps my head clear while melting my stress away (besides, an empty mug is a good reminder to stretch my legs).
In the United States, most mulled wine/cider is spiced with some combination of cinnamon, cloves, and allspice; nutmeg, star anise, and cardamom often feature, but not always. Thin slices of orange (fresh or dried) and whole cinnamon sticks are flavorful and festive additions. There are countless recipes available to those interested in blending spices from scratch, but I prefer to purchase my mulling ingredients in a pre-apportioned mix—lest romanticism outweigh reason, and my wine turn out quite cloven…
My recommendation, after much research and deliberation, is the house blend at Sullivan Street Tea & Spice Company. It’s a classic mix of cloves, allspice, cinnamon chips, and dried orange peel. Organic and affordable, it’s also lively, warm, sweet but not too fruit-forward, and absent any bitterness. Along with your purchase, you’ll receive a straightforward set of instructions—although the Sullivan Street employees are as knowledgeable as they are friendly, and they have always answered my questions thoughtfully.
Choose your cinnamon carefully
The last time I visited the shop, I learned that there are at least two types of cinnamon sticks and one is better for mulling than the other! My love of cinnamon sticks is a large part of my preference for the Sullivan Street mulling spice mix. Most of the spice blends I’ve tried contain ground
Apple!”, because the muse-ic scene is just too entertaining for one column to capture it all.
Friday nights in New York City are always a hoot, but Friday’s 11/15/24 show at the Bowery Electric was off the hook! The venue opened its doors for an early show (thank goodness for early bird specials) for the stylings of local favorites Steve Krebs & the Maynard G’s, followed by none other than Steve Conte NYC. Some may remember local guy Steve Conte as a former singer with the New York Dolls, but he’s so much more. The Mommyheads were scheduled for the sweet second slot that night but had to cancel at the last minute due to illness. We send our good vibes to the band and best wishes
cinnamon; this isn’t wrong, but I find that cinnamon is more likely to overwhelm the other spices, and even the wine/cider, when it’s ground into a loose powder. Small chips disintegrate at a slower rate and therefore maintain the balance of spices, even when loose cinnamon sticks are introduced to the equation. When it comes to mulling, there are
"I prefer to purchase my mulling ingredients in a pre-apportioned mix—lest romanticism outweigh reason, and my wine turn out quite cloven…"
no rules; rather, there are and have been so many that one might as well make up a few more. Mulling is an ancient method; its definition has varied across kitchens, cultures, and time. We have textual evidence of human consumption of hot, spiced spirits dating back to the Iron Age. In the tenth book of the Odyssey, Circe serves Odysseus’ men spiced wine sweetened with honey and laced with magical herbs to turn them all to swine. Later, Roman authors discussed wine ad nauseam; while most liked their wine watered down, some preferred it spiced and heated. Medieval kings and queens enjoyed mulled wine in the winter, as did anthropomorphic animals in medieval folktales (Reynard the Fox is a favorite). Spirits, fruit, and spices, somehow combined, are a piping hot staple of ice-cold winters all over the world— many recipes have survived history and remain available to us today.
I have no recipe of my own to contribute to this vast and storied collection, but I can offer some general advice: If you’re mulling wine, don’t worry about the vintage. A cheap red will do wonderfully.
Don’t oversteep your spices! Avoid imbalance and bitterness by keeping
your mulling spices contained: a small square of cheesecloth tied with kitchen twine (no blue dye, Bridget!) is my go-to, but a culinary bag or tea strainer will work, too. Remove the spices from the pot after roughly twenty minutes (you may wish to experiment with the exact timing of this).
The perennial exception to the above rule, at least in my mulling practice, is a handful of cinnamon sticks (and perhaps a few paper-thin slices of fruit). I toss these in when I remove the rest of the spices and serve them, sodden, with the mulled wine/cider. I love watching the tightly-wound cinnamon sticks unfurl in the bottom of my cup; they remind me of me, cozy and carefree.
Finally, please do yourself a favor and pre-rinse your mulling pot. Some amount of spice will escape even the most secure container, in slight but stubborn particulate form. The solution, fortunately, is quite simple! After I pour the final cup, I take a moment to toss out any leftover sticks and slices, give the pot a quick but thorough rinse to dredge up all settled particulates, and then leave it in the sink. I can enjoy those final sips all the more when I know that, come morning, I won’t have to soak, scrub, and repeat.
Outliving the holidays
I am no longer interested in suffering the slow-moving, tourist-laden crowds of the holiday market at Union Square, but I will be mulling cider and wine for myself, and my friends and family, all throughout the holiday season—and well into the new year. Because as much as I associate a steaming cup of mulled cider with a bustling holiday market, or a simmering pot of spiced wine with lastminute, late-night wrapping, I know that mulling will work its magic just as well on the quiet, grey days that inevitably follow our festivities—and that’s when I’ll need it the most. When my little Christmas tree is reduced to fragile kindling and the sun shines bright and unforgiving on the dirty slush that lines the streets, I’ll reach for my cinnamon sticks and arm myself with mulling mix. Spring will come again, someday. And in the meantime, what better way to muddle through than to mull all my troubles away?
Sullivan Street Tea & Spice Company, 208 Sullivan St, New York, NY. (212) 387-8702
for a speedy recovery.
No worries though as Krebs and his crew opened the show and played an extra-long set much to the enjoyment of everyone there. Front man and lead vocalist Steve Krebs and the Maynard G’s (Brian Morgan, Steve Pang, Michael Jung and Marc Rentzer) have been performing in and around Manhattan for-evah and the band is as tight as-evah. You can almost always catch these fellas at Krebs & Simone’s Endless Party at the Parkside Lounge the last Saturday night of every month. Steve Krebs & the Maynard G’s played a great set of originals including some off their new CD “I Don’t Care” (but they do). Dancers tore up the club floor
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Steve Krebs and the Maynard G's last month at Bowery Electric (photo by Medea Hoar)
ART: Jon Tsoi performing and painting for peace
Peace and health – this is my journey as an artist,” Jon Tsoi says. “It’s who I am as a human being.” Tsoi says his art is guided by the Tao, an eastern philosophy meant to harmonize human life with the natural state of the universe. The exhibition is titled War and Witness, running through December 21 at Whitebox Gallery in the East Village. Could anything be timelier, given the current state of international affairs?
Tsoi, who is trained both as an artist and in Chinese medicine, is intriguing to some and baffling to others when he performs. The artist-mariner-adventurer Reid Stowe told me, “The first time I saw Jon Tsoi perform was at the Copacabana. I thought an insane person had jumped onstage.” Dressed in camouflage, blindfolded, shouting “End war now,” or something similar in heavily accented English, that reaction to a Tsoi performance is not unreasonable. Jon Tsoi is different, that’s for sure. While blindfolded, Tsoi sometimes attacks canvases with large rocks (or small boulders), knives, hammers and so on. He is unabashed about people’s reactions. “I perform with a blindfold because it allows the energy of the universe flow through me more freely,” he explains. His paintings, which fit into the continuum of expressionism, are much more approachable. The paintings are the heart of the current exhibition. A number of them incorporate actual money into the compositions. Tsoi says this is to point out the undeniable connection between war and money. The art writer Anthony Haden-Guest is the curator of the exhibition, along with the founder and artistic director of White Box Gallery Juan Puntes.
“Jon Tsoi makes powerful and unusual performances that result in powerful and unusual works of art,” says Haden-Guest. As startling as Tsoi’s performances can be, it’s less than surprising that White Box Gallery, which is a not-for-profit, is hosting the exhibit. It is a hotbed of radical art by a slate of international artists whose art encompasses both performance and visual expression.
White Box Gallery was founded in Chelsea at the turn of the millennium. It subsequently relocated to Chinatown, then Harlem, and then to its current location on Avenue B just
MUSIC
(continued from previous page)
to the sounds of “I Want Nothing to Do With You”, “Gilligan” and “Deep In My Soul.” They filled out the set with a couple of killers covers: “Too Much Junkie Business” (Johnny Thunders & The Heart Breakers) and “Loose” (Iggy Pop & The Stooges). You can listen to more of the band’s glittering golden sounds at www.stevekrebsthemaynardgs.bandcamp.com
by Stephen DiLauro
above Houston Street. White Box was conceived in response to what was perceived as the New York-centric art scene’s lack of emphasis on social, political and international art engagement.
White Box developed a stream of potent site-specific work and survey exhibitions, and became a thriving laboratory for unique commissions, exhibitions, special events, salon series, and outreach programs meant to serve the entire community of New York City, especially underserved minorities, rather than catering to a plutocratic elite. At its current location, as in the past, the gallery offers programs emphasizing youth education in the arts, urban sustainability and emi-
came a doctor of Chinese medicine, following in the family tradition.
“Jon Tsoi makes powerful and unusual performances that result in powerful and unusual works of art,” says Haden-Guest.
grè and ex-pat feminist progressive curatorial programs, according to gallery director Puntes.
Performance art, curated by Yohanna Roa, is presented in three spaces at White Box. Sometimes performances take place on the sidewalk in front of the gallery. Other times visitors can enjoy performances in the actual gallery space. Another favorite is the large courtyard behind the gallery.
It was Anthony Haden-Guest who first introduced Tsoi to the gallery. Soon, Puntes became Jon Tsoi’s champion, so to speak, and over the years has arranged exhibitions for the artist in museums and prominent galleries throughout the world.
In 2017, drawing on his background in Chinese medicine, Tsoi did a four-day blindfolded performance titled “Art Diagnosis and Diagnosis for Art” at the Queens Museum. He used a series of paintings and a process of elimination to diagnose maladies possibly afflicting volunteers from the audience.
“I was one hundred per cent accurate,” he says. “By using art as holistic medicine, we can all benefit from the mystery of art, balancing ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually. Worship the unnamable and unexpected art -
A quick turnover and it was time for rockers the Steve Conte band to tear it up. They played a killer set including “Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked in Tonight.” Love, love the keyboards on this song and the wicked guitar solos. Oh baby, baby, Steve Conte has got some monster pipes. But the drummer, that man was on fire, beating the skins into submission and holding down the background vocals. I like a man that can multitask while keeping that rhythm steady (wink, wink). One of the best surprises of the night was Kiku, the trumpet player, who join the
the Yin - yet embrace and be indiscriminate towards all art - the Yang. Observe the world and one’s outer surroundings, yet trust one’s inner vision and intuition,” Tsoi says, citing his roots in Taoist thought and action.
Tsoi was born in Sichuan province, China. His parents, both doctors of Chinese medicine, recognized and encouraged his artistic talent. But Mao’s repressive Cultural Revolution led to Tsoi being interned on a collective farm after he finished high school. Of his time as a farm worker, he says simply, “It toughened me up and made me able to endure. That harsh environment became a positive force, instilling in me the will to never give up.” Then he adds, “But they ruined the youth for a whole generation.”
Eventually, Tsoi was able to leave China when an uncle arranged a visa for the young man to study art in New York. From his seat in a jetliner descending over the city, Tsoi saw his future brighten. “I saw New York City from that airplane window, and I knew that this place was my destiny. I would be a happy artist here.” That vision of good fortune sustained him over the years.
Tsoi studied at the Art Students League and elsewhere. Eventually, he also be-
band for two tunes, “One Last Bell” and “Decomposing a Song For you”. Unf’ing-believable and I was so grateful to be there.
I gotta let you know, the audience’s ages were 21 – 81 years young and everyone was on their feet. Energy was in the air. If you’ve never been to a club or haven’t in a loooong time, shame! Shame! Shame! You’re never too young or too old to rock n’ roll. This night was totally TUBA (Tits Up Big Apple) approved! If you want even more fun than you can handle, I suggest you head over
His current exhibition at White Box opened on November 26 with a potent, if typical, Jon Tsoi performance. While a soft-spoken American voice read from The Way of the Tao, Tsoi donned a blindfold and attacked pressboard panels covered with collage and red paint. The panels were created during a sidewalk performance decrying war in front of the gallery, on Election Night. “I don’t care about any politicians,” the artist told me that evening. “I care about peace and health.” At the opening of his solo exhibit, Tsoi scraped and pounded the panels until several fell off the wall. This most recent performance could be interpreted in the context of media versus reality – electronic babbling while war rages. It could also be seen as an absence of context, of accepting that there is no context for the current state of the world, in which the lame duck Biden administration – whomever is running things – continues its posturing and escalating war mongering in Ukraine, regardless of the electorate’s indisputable refutation of its policies. Whatever one’s interpretation, Tsoi wants people to reflect and to choose peace. In this context, it’s comforting that Jon Tsoi dares to be different.
The current exhibition, which includes paintings and videos, runs through December 21. Tsoi will perform again during the evening on December 17. For more information, please check the gallery website whiteboxnyc.org.
Jon Tsoi: War and Witness, Through December 21, White Box Gallery, 9 Avenue B
to Otto’s Shrunken Head for Apfel/ Krebs/Simone Presents: Flip Flop & Fly the first Friday of every month. No cover, tiki drinks and a full night of toe tappin’ tasty tunes performed live and local for your listening pleasure. With that, I leave you, my lovelies. Until we meet again on the streets of NYC, I shall remain your wordsmith muse, Medea Hoar. #bkmuses
Parkside Lounge, 317 E. Houston, LES/ NYC; Otto’s Shrunken Head, 538 E. 14th Street, NYC; Bowery Electric, 327 Bowery, NYC, NY
Wearing a blindfold makes artist Tsoi hear the universe better.
A paean to the Village
Story and Photos by Kate Walter
The New York Public Library is really bringing it all back home with its small but stunning exhibit Becoming Bohemia: Greenwich Village, 1912-1923. The tightly curated show, open until February 1, fills two rooms on the first floor of the flagship location on Fifth Avenue. If you love the Village and its history, don’t miss it. I’ve been a resident of the Village for five decades now (22 years in the East Village and 27 in the West Village). I’ve taken guided tours and read many books about the neighborhood, but I learned a lot. The combination of archival material from the library’s vast collections (books, magazines, drawings, photographs), along with the informative notes, brought this vibrant early period to life. I wanted to time travel back there.
I’d be swinging from the rafters at Webster Hall at a costume ball. I’d drop by Polly’s restaurant to attend a secret meeting of Heterodoxy, a women’s club that promoted lesbianism and bisexuality. I’d hear Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger talking up birth control. I’d see the latest Eugene O’Neill play at the Provincetown Players. I’d spend the day shopping for brica-brac in Sheridan Square, relaxing in a tea house then going to a garret for a spaghetti supper. I’d hang out in Washington Square Park reading The Book of Repulsive Women by Djuna Barnes. I’d browse through the magazines at a bookstore on West 8th St. and look for the latest issue of “The Little Review.”
What an incredible time to be living in the Village. The women were bold and uninhibited. Clara Tice, known as the Queen of Greenwich Village, gained notoriety when the vice squad tried to confiscate her series of nude drawings on exhibit in a popular restaurant. This attempt at censorship boosted her career as an illustrator for mainstream publications.
Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven created assemblage art from found objects and paraded around in a trash can bra and a bird cage necklace. According to the liner notes, “Her gender fluid, blatantly sexual public displays are seen as anticipating the feminist and performance arts movements of the mid 20th century.” (I could see her in the East Village les-
bian theatre scene of the 1980s.)
Jessie Tarbox Beals, the first female photojournalist, lived in Greenwich Village from 1917-1920. Wealthy art patron Mable Dodge created her famous weekly salon to discuss the era’s radical ideas. She helped journalist John Reed organize the Paterson Strike Pageant, a large benefit held at Madison Square Garden to benefit the silk mill workers. (That poster jumped out at me, a native of Paterson, N.J. )
I got chills when I saw the 1918 cover of the anarchist journal “Mother Earth.”
The title stated “In Memoriam: American Democracy.” It felt like a scary omen from the past that rings true today.
These free spirits were attracted by cheap rents and the permissive vibes of the neighborhood. They exchanged work with restaurant owners for free meals.
They came to make art, to be queer and to challenge the established social and political norms, advocating for
"Elsa von FreytagLoringhoven created assemblage art from found objects and paraded around in a trash can bra."
many causes: women’s suffrage, gender equality, labor reform, socialism, anarchism, free speech, antimilitarism. The literary scene featured an all-star line-up of poets: Hart Crane fled from Ohio as a gay teen to live an open life.
(Some things never change.) Edna St Vincent Millay, (who was bisexual), arrived in 1917 and moved to Bedford Street. She became the first woman to win a Pulitzer prize.
Marianne Moore arrived in 1918 and became the editor of The Dial, an influential literary magazine. ee cummings arrived in 1916, later moving to Patchin Place. William Carlos William popped over from New Jersey.
But despite the liberal politics of the residents, this environment was not very integrated. The Jamaican born poet, Claude McKay, worked as an editor for “The Liberator” and befriended prominent Village residents, yet the liner notes say, “He never felt entirely at home among the mostly white milieu of bohemia.” (Not surprisingly, the Harlem Renaissance overlapped with this time period).
The wild party started to wind down when the United States entered the World War in 1917 and our government had less tolerance for nonconformists. Also, the IRT extended its subway line downtown in 1918 bringing more curious outsiders.
I loved this show but I was disappointed the NYPL book store did not have a big display table with related materials. I spotted one shelf with a few related books, including John Strausbaugh’s excellent tome The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues: A History of Greenwich Village. (Full disclosure: John was my editor years ago and I’m quoted in his book).
After I left the library, I stepped out into the touristy Winter Village in Bryant Park.
I couldn’t wait to hop on the subway and get back to the Village. As I walked down West 12th Street and cut through Abingdon Square Park, I felt so grateful to live here. After the recent election, I think it’s time to repeat what the radicals declared in 1917 at the arch in Washington Square Park and once again proclaim Greenwich Village a “free and independent republic”.
Becoming Bohemia is at the Stephen A. Schwartzman Building of the NY Public Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, and runs now through February 1, 2025.
Unassuming repositories of history
by Michele Herman
Over the years I’ve spent a whole lot of time at our two Village library branches, and as a result I sometimes end up making friends with the librarians. Lately I’ve gotten to know head librarian Emil Allakhverdov, who’s been at Hudson Park since 2017. He’s an Armenian who grew up in Ukraine, and he speaks perfect, lightly accented English, and cares deeply about the place and its history, even though much of his own history occurred far away. I’ve lived in the Village for decades, and lately we’ve been having fun pooling our institutional memories.
One day recently he excitedly walked me over to a showcase in which he’d put an old scrapbook. It’s one of two filled with flyers, press clippings and sign-in sheets from the branch’s very active literary programs, 1987-1996. He has already scanned the contents to create a limited-access resource for scholars and historians, just the start of his plans for these unassuming repositories of history. The book was open to a flyer from the time Maurice Sendak, the revered children’s picture book author, came to talk. Well, it so happens my husband and I were there that night, amid a huge crowd sitting in folding chairs, of course (see: Pierre, in which a folding chair plays a cameo role), all of us hanging on Sendak’s every word. I remember that Sendak talked for a long time. I remember an aspiring illustrator in the audience asking a nutsand-bolts question, and Sendak, who could be crabby, growing downright passionate about his favorite inks and papers. What I remember most was his sad admission: he didn’t set out to write children’s books and didn’t particularly want to, but that’s what came out of him.
Emil pulled out the book and let me leaf through. I ran my eye down a random sign-in page full of Palmer script signatures. There I found an old neighborhood comrade who died years ago, and my grown son’s thirdgrade teacher at PS 3.
Hello, my life, I said to myself, quoting a favorite line from Grace Paley, another author who came to talk at Hudson Park. If you don’t know the reference, Google her very short story called “Wants.” It takes place at the other Village branch library, Jefferson Market; we Villagers are rich in libraries and literature.
I was bowled over in the 80s when I discovered Paley’s hilarious, slightly Yiddish-inflected Village stories. So of course I was there when she spoke, practically kneeling at her feet, wanting desperately to do what she did. What I remember most is someone asking about her relationship to the character Faith, the star of many of her stories. Paley got a gleam in her eye and said: Let’s just say that Faith works for me.
Apparently I saw Paley not once but twice. How do I know this? Because I made a date with Emil to spend more time with the scrapbooks, and in doing so learned a few things about my own history. I don’t remember ever signing a guestbook, I told him. But in the hour or two I spent comb-
etry nights. We have to do this more and more, given our track record. The bottom line is that this place has been an important hub since day one.” The branch already offers poetry workshops and has started a new monthly literary salon.
The scrapbooks are homey analog documents. The flyer glued into the first page is pink, with hand lettering that’s jaunty but a bit amateurish—the way things looked then. It announces the fall season of Village Writers Meet Their Neighbors, 1987, including Calvin Trillin on The Art and Science of Humor, Richard Howard on Translation, Catherine Stimpson on Sex and Gertrude Stein. I was entranced.
As I turned the pages I checked each attendance list. Up popped Margalit
ing through the pages, I was shocked to find my own signature five times: Sendak, Paley, Paley, journalist Ann Banks and tour guide Joyce Gold.
Now that he’s scanned the books, Emil wants to archive and index them and write a blogpost about all the famous authors to draw new patrons to the library. He’s already an avid book collector on the side, with an unusual specialty: publications created by Ukrainians living in displaced person’s camps just after World War II. So it’s not a surprise that he’s envisioning a collection for the library of first editions of books the authors wrote around the time they visited.
“It’s still doable to get signed copies of Sendak’s books,” he told me. He also said that he feels an obligation to honor the library’s important past: “I want to see life: talks, readings, po-
Fox from The New York Times; a writer friend I didn’t meet until years later; Bill Bowser, who was once the chair of the formidable West Village Committee. And always Muriel Mandell, a children’s book author who may have been the creator of the scrapbooks. Emil was surprised I didn’t recognize her name. Later I googled her and, yes, of course I knew her face well. I enjoyed the clippings, too. I cringed at this headline from The Villager, remembering the era when the paper was in serious need of a copy editor: Writer Reflect’s on the Village of Her Youth. I smiled at an account of playwright Israel Horovitz’s “talk”: he brought along an actress and they spent over two hours reading his new screenplay. The article says, politely, it was not everyone’s cup of tea, but those who stayed offered valid criti-
cism. Said Horovitz: “I was very proud of my Village connection once again.” Turns out I know even more of the authors than the audience members, a testament to the intensely literary turn my life has taken: memoirist Vivian Gornick and poet/memoirist Grace Schulman are both closely associated with The Writers Studio, where I teach. Novelist Marcia Golub is a friend. James Lasdun’s poetry collection Landscape with Chainsaw is one of my all-time favorites; one of the poems became an assignment for my memoir students. Author and religion scholar James Carse was the grandfather of my son’s first best friend. Better-known names abound, too: Katha Pollitt, Meg Wolitzer, Nat Hentoff, Eve Merriam.
Me? I published my first novel, Save the Village, in 2022. Paley’s influence is all over it. My main character is a tour guide, like Joyce Gold. Hudson Park has given to me and now I’m in a position to give back. I’ve given multiple talks and readings, proud to pick up where my literary heroes left off.
This page is illustrated with pages from Emil Allakhverdov's scrapbook photographed by Michele Herman
Christmas (continued from page 1)
and gingerbread men (usually boys dressed up in all-brown outfits with white details, like gingerbread cookies with frosting). The procession participants sing Swedish Christmas carols and hand out gingerbread cookies and saffron buns (we call them lussekatter or lussebullar).
But wait! We missed Advent. While the season of Advent is hardly unique for Sweden, it is, I dare say, uncommon for Swedish families not to put up Advent lights at home. A four-part candlestick, the Advent candles are lit one by one, starting on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. The windows of government buildings are usually also adorned with advent candles, bringing light to the dark Swedish winter.
We’re getting close to the main event: Christmas Eve (yes, we celebrate on Dec. 24, not Dec. 25). But, dear reader, we must first make a pit stop on the night before the big day. In Sweden, Dec. 23 is known as dagen före dopparedagen, roughly translated to the day before the dipping day. The word dopparedagen stems from the Christmas Eve practice of dipping bread in
broth made from the Christmas ham (which, to be fair, I don’t know if anyone actually does anymore). On the eve of Christmas Eve, Swedes decorate their Christmas trees (if they haven’t already. I’m decidedly in the camp of doing it early, because, after all, a tricked-out tree is fabulous) and eat baked ham on crispbread. Many families also turn on the TV for Stay Up Night; historically, people stayed up the night before Christmas to get the last details ready, but nowadays, many Swedes instead gather to play bingo on TV4 (a sort of quasi-public service channel).
Time for bed. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.
Now, Christmas Eve in Sweden is both a highly individual and highly communal celebration. Let me, therefore, invite you into my family’s home for a moment. The morning begins, just like in many American homes, with Christmas stockings hanging from the mantel. Once the stocking stuffers have been thoroughly examined, my father gets up on the footrest of our couch, which, for a few minutes every Christmas morning, becomes an impromptu stage. Musician and singer all his life, including many years in an all-men’s choir, he possesses an im-
mensely powerful yet flexible and controlled voice. He turns on the Swedish version of “O Holy Night” and sings along (or tries to, as he’s never bothered to learn the lyrics properly — but hey, it’s the effort that counts!).
After breakfast, we make our way to the cemetery to wish our buried relatives a merry Christmas. It is an intimate and emotional tradition, and has grown even more so as I’ve grown older and more of my close relatives have left us.
It is after lunch that individual turns into communal. Because that’s when, at precisely 3:05 p.m. about three million people in Sweden (quite a significant number in a country with a population of just over 10 million) sit down to watch Disney’s From All of Us to All of You on SVT1. Known in Sweden as Donald Duck and His Friends Wish You a Merry Christmas, it is the start of Public Service’s Christmas Eve programming (which, every year, is led by a new Swedish celebrity who sits in a comfortable armchair and welcomes viewers by lighting a lone candle).
From All of Us to All of You originally aired on ABC and is an animated Christmas special featuring some of our most beloved Disney characters, “Santa’s Workshop” and previews of upcoming Disney movies. Jiminy Cricket acts as the host, along with Mickey Mouse and Tinker Bell, and the show is essentially one long compilation of Disney shorts and clips from classic movies like Cinderella, Robin Hood, Lady and the Tramp and The Jungle Book
The first time it was shown in Sweden was in 1960, during a time when SVT1 was the country’s only television channel. Since then, it has aired without interruption every Christmas Eve and is nowadays one of the most viewed programs of the year. The show has not changed much over the sixand-a-half decades it has aired; in recent years, however, some clips — in
particular “Santa’s Workshop” — have been modified so that blatantly racist and antisemitic caricatures no longer are shown to millions of viewers.
I still sit down at 3:05 p.m. to watch Kalle (Donald, for Donald Duck, in Swedish), which it is often called, as do my younger sister; we’re still young enough to be considered children at Christmas, and, therefore, don’t have to help out that much with the food. Admittedly, it isn’t quite as funny now as when I was younger, but there is something uniquely comforting to be greeted by Jiminy Cricket and his magic wand. (And the short of Donald Duck as a photographer in the jungle is still, objectively, hilarious.)
Not all families do this, but we eat Christmas dinner after Kalle. Potatoes, Swedish meatballs, sausages, pickled herring, salads, bread, ham, cured salmon, beer and schnapps aplenty, my family and our close relatives usually sit down around 4 or 4:30 p.m. for a couple of hours of dinner. As someone who’s celebrated a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, I would say the two are reasonably similar.
After that, at 7 p.m., it’s time for Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons Julafton (in English: The Tale of Karl-Bertil Jonsson’s Christmas Eve), an animated short film about the teenager Karl Bertil Jonsson who, inspired by Robin Hood, steals packages from the wealthy and give out to the poor people of Stockholm’s slum. Karl-Bertil, as most of us call it, is also hugely among all age groups, and quotes from KarlBertil and his father (one of the wealthy people from who his son steals a package) make the rounds throughout December in our household.
Conversations continue late into the night, before we enjoy a few days of hefty sales on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
And there you have it: A very Swedish Christmas. Did I get you in the holiday spirit?
THEATER: Weird birds don’t quite stick the landing in Fowl Play: Conference of the Birds
by Oscar Fock
Fowl Play: Conference of the Birds is an experimental play. Let’s get that out of the way before anything else, as without that knowledge, the viewing experience will be quite confusing. Now, Fowl Play is also not a puppet theater. Let’s get that out of the way, too, as, again, without that knowledge, the viewing experience will be quite confusing.
Instead, Fowl Play is an object theater rock opera inspired by Farid ud-Din Attar’s 12th-century Sufi poem “The Conference of the Birds,” as re-told by contemporary illustrator and author Peter Sís. It follows a group of birds trying to choose a leader for the flock. But that’s easier said than done, and the negotiations are followed by infighting, alliance-building and bickering. The birds set out on a journey to find their leader, and along the way, they meet challenges that bring them closer together.
The original poem was written in 1177 by Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar. It’s an allegorical epic exploring the path toward enlightenment and unity. The story begins with birds from all over the world gathering to find a king. One particularly wise bird, the hoopoe, suggests they seek the Simorgh, a mythical bird symbolizing divine uni-
Coffee Corner
The Greatest Love of All...The Relationship Between a New Yorker and Their Coffee.
by Dana Costantino
New York City is known for many things, arts and culture, food, fashion, a diverse population, a fast pace, an ambitious lot of people, and perhaps nothing embodies the caldron of those elements as well as the NYC coffee house. A scene, that ranges from cozy corner spots, to drip coffee only diner counters, to mom and pop roasters, to bustling cafés, NYC’s coffee houses serve as part of the cultural currency that fosters any New Yorker City dwellers creativity, conversation,
WALKING
(continued from page 1)
All very understandable sentiment but we can’t stay here long. The other side is trying to play this as a game-ending tsunami, but it’s not. We lost the round but not the fight. Here’s a quote I read this morning from John Fetterman, Senator from Pennsylvania who went on the record saying democrats should,“Buckle up and pack a lunch, because it’s going to be four years of this.”
I have to admit I was extremely optimistic about the election. Having Kamala was great, a human to vote for instead of that vile fat slob riding a
ty and perfection. (The Simorgh is a benevolent bird from Persian mythology.) To find this legendary creature, the birds travel through seven symbolic valleys, each representing a stage of spiritual awakening.
Along the journey, some of the birds abandon the group for various reasons, and after passing the trials of the seven valleys, only 30 birds reach the Simorgh’s dwelling. To their surprise, they find no external king; instead, the Simorgh is a reflection of themselves. The name “Simorgh” itself is a play on two words in Persian: “si” means thirty, and “morgh” means bird, symbolizing their unity and collective divine essence.
It seems pretty straightforward, but it turns out that when adapting it to the stage, it can get really weird (not necessarily in a bad way).
The weirdness started even before the (figurative) curtains opened; in the foyer, the waiting audience members were joined by the actors dressed sort of like birds, who walked around the room with shopping carts and trash (mostly plastic bottles) hanging around their necks (presumably symbolizing the plastic epidemic humanity has forced upon our feathered friends).
Now, for this next part, remember again that this is experimental theater. The plot of the play follows roughly the story of the original poem. The birds, ten in total, played by nine actors, gathered in a cacophony of cackling as they tried to choose their leader before the hoopoe convinced them to go search for the Simorgh.
But they didn’t really look like birds; rather, the actors wore odd combina-
and community.
The coffee house culture in New York City goes way, way back to the 18th century when coffee was introduced as a popular beverage among the upper class. By the tme we reached the 19th century, coffee houses had becomes popular venues for social gatherings, discussions, and literary readings, laying the foundation for the coffee culture of present time.
In recent decades, the coffee scene in NYC has risen to expansive heights, most specificially with the rise of artisanal coffee shops that prioritize quality and sustainability. From smallbatch roasters to specialty cafés, the emphasis on sourcing high quality product while maintaining an environemental and social impact in a positive way has become paramount. The NYC coffee drinker is more and
golf cart. However it turned out, after watching a candidate pretend to give a blow job to a microphone, 20,000 people filed out of the rally shouting “THATS OUR GUY!!!!”
R.J.- Haaa…..wait, not. One of the millennials EVER mentioned smoking. Joe Ford- Yeah well.
R.J.- In a previous interview it was raised that boomers are “Too old to matter.” What’s your reaction to that.? Joe Ford- I think that being a boomer, a person of this generation, there’s a certain productivity that was expected. There was an America that was on the rise. A lot of things were not told to us that we had to find out for ourselves. In 1968 when we started seeing
tions of feathers, cloaks, illmatching costume pieces and “regular” clothing. It seemed like they had all been asked to go back to their childhood homes and search whatever boxes their parents had kept in their attics because the budget couldn’t accommodate actual bird outfits.
I can’t tell if the actors were allowed to improvise or experiment haphazardly throughout the play, but it sometimes looked like they had rehearsed for about an hour and a half, the morning of the show. The movements, or lack thereof, gave the play the unfortunate appearance of the final project of a beginner’s acting class.
The story was also occasionally interrupted by a “scholar” who, bearing a white beard and dressed in a brown gown, provided context to one thing or another; this breaking of the fourth wall didn’t get any explanation and didn’t feel entirely necessary. After a while, however, he stopped appearing, with equally little explanation. This is, I found myself thinking about 20 minutes in, a fundamentally unserious play. To be fair, I think the appearance of being fundamentally unserious was sort of the point and perhaps part of its “genius”; the hodgepodge outfits, the lack of structure, the unexpected song-and-dance scenes, were all a little too obvious not to be at least a little purposeful.
The problem was that even though it’s easy to see that a lot of fun had been had in creating this rather wacky performance and everyone — the actors,
more aware of where their beans are coming from and how the brew is being made.
At a true NYC coffee house one might find art meet ups, acoustic music nights, poetry readings, newspapers and magazines and books available to read, art on the walls. Many of New York City’s most respected artists have honed their crafts over coffee and conversation inside the storied bean brewers of this great City.
NYC’s diverse population is seen in its coffee culture. Within the NYC’s coffee houses one can experience a wide range of styles and traditions. Some coffee shops and cafes in Downtown NYC worth checking out are: Porto Rico Importing Co.
Three locations downtown Instagram @portoricoimportingco
the fire hoses and the Pettit Bridge we began to realize how insulated those of us in the white middle class were, and how tough it was for others. So, our cavalier attitude hadn’t been confronted with defeat.
Then I started seeing older guys on the block going off to Vietnam and coming back quite changed. I just missed getting drafted but Vietnam affected all of us. The Millennials have never been exposed to the horrors of war so it’s really easy to talk big and get radicalized. Saying stuff like “Well I’m a Libertarian and the government is spending too much money defending Ukraine. And in the South China Sea, we should reconsider our impe-
the dancers, the band — did a terrific job creating this illusion of amateurism, it was all a little too distracting to land the core themes of the story convincingly with the audience.
Get high beforehand
Too often, it felt like what was happening on stage didn’t serve the overall narrative. There was no apparent purpose as to why there occasionally was dance, nor what role the scholar played. Some decisions made about the plot — like when the birds went to sleep (or did they die?) and became a new species of fowl, or when they all became communists (at least it looked and sounded that way — and the costumes — why did the parrot wear a cage on its head for part of the play but not all the way through — were perhaps a little too experimental. The music, composed by Brooklynbased Avi Fox-Rosen, was the strongest part of the play.
I don’t know who exactly I’d recommend this for. But as the gentleman beside me in the audience said after, “Get high beforehand!”
Fowl Play, Nov. 22 – Dec 8 ; La Mama ETC ., 66 East 4th Street, 2nd floor
Stumptown
One location downtown and two other area locations: Instagram @stumptowncoffee Blackstone Coffee Roasters: One location downstown Instagram @blackstonecoffeeroasters
There are of course many more, write to me and let me know your favorites! Instagram: @danacostantinonyc Email: danajeanyoga@gmail.com
rialist tendencies.”
I think some of today’s issues can be summed up in the words of the scientist Neil Degrasse Tyson who says: “The problem in this world is that too many people know enough to think they’re right, but not enough to know they’re wrong.”
R.J.- Ok…..how’s the coffee here btw? Joe Ford- (taking a sip) A little weak.
You can check out JOE FORD’s recording and production work @(SouthBrooklynSound.com/listen)
Smart, simple pleasures. On Only the Void Stands Between Us (LP and download released last month by Silver Current Records), Julie Beth Napolin sings of distance and intimacy. She sings quizzically of a fire coming to burn, it seems, those who don’t deserve to survive, and she sings very directly about praying for the living and the dead. In other realms, Napolin teaches and writes about sound and literature, but on her debut solo album, her heart is bare on her sleeve. It’s a ruminative album; Napolin waxes philosophical without issuing a treatise. She takes three of the tracks alone, accompanying herself with guitar and adding flute to the cryptic “Sawdust,” in which she seems to be losing someone to apocalyptic obsessions. The other four feature a handful of guests—including Tom Carter (Charalambides) on guitar and David First (the Notekillers) on synth, but the album is built around Napolin’s present and haunting voice. The closing “Heaven and Earth,” begins with a three-line incantation and carries on for close to 10 minutes with variations on a simple guitar progression, landing somewhere between her time with San Francisco’s Citay and later recordings by high priestess Patti Smith—strong but small within the void.
dream when I was young that I would find people like me.” The setting isn’t his Alabama home but Victorian London, although it feels universal. “The creatures I encounter treat me as equally monstrous. We deploy elaborate, unspoken civility.” Coley’s previous album, 2002’s Landscape Man, was edgier in performance and production, for no better nor worse. With easy, bluesy guitar and ringing keyboards, Mister Sweet Whisper sounds something like a deep south Doors, vamping behind the drawl of his storytelling. It’s a bigger band, though, with sax and vibraphone, and the text isn’t so bloated and grandiose. Coley tells extemporaneous tales with a humility born of alienation that, ironically, invites you in; We’re together in our loneliness. At 74, he speaks with a weary wisdom and an understated humor. In the final “Dancin Like an Assassin,” he finds himself unwittingly employed as a nude dancer at a nightclub, observing his surroundings and the revelry of the patrons while downplaying the unlikely scenario, eventually coming to enjoy his new job. Coley is easy to listen to and easy to like. The Landscape Man was someone with whom you could kill a fifth. Mister Whisper is someone I’d gladly join for too much coffee.
To Glitch is Human. The best way to listen Human Error is to put the mood before the backstory. The 11 instrumental tracks on the self-titled debut (cassette and download from Astral Spirits last month) are heavily syncopated, largely computer-generated and joyful through and through. It’s conceived as an album for youth and comes off like an updating of Gershon Kingsley’s 1969 “Pop Corn”—made famous by Hot Butter in 1972—or Bruce Haack’s 1967 The Way-Out Record for Children. (Haack performed his electronic music for its target audience on a 1968 episode of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood that’s well worth a quick search.)
Human Error is the work of Jeremy Barnes (Neutral Milk Hotel, A Hawk and a Hacksaw) and was developed while teaching music to incarcerated teens at the New Mexico Youth Diagnostic Development Center in Albuquerque and to young refugees relocated from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Tanzania. While his target audience might be a bit older than Haack’s, there’s a similar aesthetic and spirit at play. The music is computer-based because that’s what youth in the detention center have access to. Barnes relies heavily on sequenced patterns and digital sounds, not aiming to sound like acoustic instruments. The compositions and recordings began in a detention cell with mattresses propped up as sound isolation booths, and were later fleshed out (somewhat literally) in Barnes’s home studio. The final results aren’t intended to depict the harsh conditions of detention centers or the trials of fleeing a homeland in turmoil, they’re meant to show how music can uplift. And in so doing, it does.
Readymade pop for cosmopolitan travelers. Vincent Bertholet brings a world of influence under his little orchestra’s tent. Coming out of Geneva’s punk and squat scenes with streetsmarts and rebellious spirits, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp works from a foundation of Afropop rhythms and brass with gritty distorted guitars shooting above. Ventre unique (CD, LP and download jointly released last month by Les Disques Bongo Joe and Red Wig) is the ensemble’s sixth album, with Bertholet being the only constant member. The orchestra here includes bugle and trombone; viola, cello and Bertholet’s bass; and pairs of guitar, marimba and drums. Three singers, plus all of the instrumentalists adding vocals, gives the infectious and furious album a strong collective feeling.
Their previous We’re OK But We’re Lost Anyway was a pandemic project, steeped in desperation. This time around, the Bertholet and co. set out to find commonality and community—but that doesn’t mean they’re content with the world. The French lyrics to “Coagule (Octobre)” translate (in part) as “It’s a rather novel form of sadness/the extinction of the species […] For the moment, we’re coagulating into a single womb, coalescing around a common dream.” Not a cheery message but at least we’re in this together. “Breath (Happy 5)” repeats (in English) over bright horns “I’ve been working so hard, I’ve been working so.” It’s not quite a chorus, more like a cry. And “Color,” the album’s advance track, revolves around a chant that “we” aren’t transparent or neutral while questioning the notion of a “right” skin color. Despite it all, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp manages a small party with a little bit of a carnival going on. Somehow they manage something positive, a defiant optimism in spite of troubled times.
are
People estranged. The first words poet Johnny Coley speaks on his Mister Sweet Whisper (LP and download out last month from Mississippi Records)
“People like me, it was my
Jazz by Grella Best Jazz Albums 2024
by George Grella
This is just one calendar year, which may be sufficient time in the pop music manufacturing industry to spot a trend, but is a far less meaningful span in music that wrestles with its own history—the old is constantly being renewed and incorporated with ideas from other genres—as jazz does, and that is so free of commercial pressures (unfortunately) that there’s no real popular and economic success to imitate. Still, after listening through jazz recording released this year, two consistent things stood out: First, is how many piano trio albums came out, and how many good ones there were—the heavily promoted And Then Again from the Bill Charlap Trio on Blue Note doesn’t even make my extended list. There are five other trios among the extended number (a baker’s dozen) and more on the extended list, with honorable mentions, that you can find at my newsletter site, killyridols. substack.com.
This is notable. The piano trio in jazz history through the end of the last century was kind of a Platonic ideal, with fantastic realizations via Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, and even Cecil Taylor’s Feel Trio, but more imagined than present in the discography. This many excellent albums this year is historically significant, and collectively they cover an enormous range of thinking while also exploring new territory.
Second, this was an unbelievable year for archival releases. There were so many that were packed with superb music. That’s too much of an understatement: these albums have some of the greatest examples of jazz music ever put on record. At the very least, these releases brought tremendous music to listeners—much of which never before heard except in front of the listeners who happened to be there in the moment. At best, these were historically important and opened up new understanding of jazz history and traditions. This is a ranked list, but those rankings are a snapshot and can change through further listening. That being said, everything belongs here, and first on the list is an absolute, a stunning, glorious album from a musician, who, now in his seventh decade, is more compelling than ever.
There’s also the larger context of just what jazz is in 2024. An example of this question is through an album that’s not on here, even though it’s one of my favorites of the year: Ben Monder’s Planetarium on Sunnyside. This is three CDs of extended depth and gorgeousness from a musician who is important on the jazz scene. But though he plays
a standard, it’s so clearly to me a progrock album that I’m going to put it on another list (again you can find all my best-of-2024 lists across multiple genres at killyridols.substack.com).
Best New Releases
2024
Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit (Spiritmuse): El’Zabar has for decades made the argument that Black Americans are constructing their own ethnic heritage in real-time, and this incredible album is yet more proof.
Keith Jarrett, The Old Country (ECM): More music from the Dear Head Inn live appearance, except better than the first release.
Alfredo Colón, Blood Burden (Out of Your Head Records): A blistering, creative, focussed album that in any other year would be the top pick.
Matthew Shipp, New Concepts in Piano Jazz Trio (ESP’-Disk): New concepts in piano jazz trio, and Shipp playing better than ever.
Patricia Brennan Septet, Breaking Stretch (Pyroclastic): Vibraphonist
Brennan finding a considerable voice as a composer and leader.
Tyshawn Sorey, The Susceptible Now (Pi Recordings): New concepts in piano jazz trio, deliberate and deep.
Nicole Mitchell and Ballaké Sissoko, Bamaka-Chicago Sound System (FPE Records): Beautiful meeting of the finest jazz flutist and the great kora player. Tarbaby, You Think This America (Giant Step Arts): New concepts in piano jazz trio, subtle revisions on the tradition.
Joëlle Léandre, INFINITE REBEL (RogueArt): See my article in the September issue.
Lynne Arriale, Being Human (Challenge Records): No new concepts in this piano trio but absolutely phenomenal straight-ahead playing.
Miguel Zenón, Golden City (Miel Music): A powerful suite from a consistently great musician.
Steve Coleman, Polytropos - Of Many Turns (Pi Recordings): All live, full of both funk and intellect.
Darius Jones, Legend of e’Boi (Aum Fidelity): Slicing, searching, and invigorating.
Best Archival
Releases 2024
I want to give credit to one man responsible for the bulk of the archival releases this year, the tireless and driven
independent producer Zev Feldman. Working for the labels Elemental, Resonance, and his own Deep Digs Music Group, in 2024 Feldman released significant and just plain wonderful music from: Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Sun Ra, Art Tatum, Rosetta Tharpe, Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron, Yusef Lateef, B.B. King, and Cannonball Adderley— that is a partial list. That is a larger and/or deeper slate than any label issuing new jazz albums this year, from the independents to the big corporate Blue Note and ECM. A best archival releases list that only had albums on these labels would be a fair and strong one.
and Armstrong.
Bobby Hutcherson, Classic Bobby Hutcherson Blue Note Sessions 19631970 (Mosaic): See my article in the August issue.
The essential criteria with this list is knowledge: does an archival recording add to our understand of jazz? That’s especially critical when it comes to familiar musicians with already extensive discographies. For example, Bill Evans in Norway is fantastic, arguably the finest live Evans recording now in print— yes, it’s that good—but does it tell us anything about Evans that we don’t already know? I can’t say it does, but it’s about the best Evans you’ll ever hear. I do weight on the side of historical significance, so that an album where the music is maybe less enjoyable that the Evans album—which is all but a few of all 2024 releases, but adds significantly to our historical understanding of the music will be rated a little higher. And so:
Charles Gayle/Milford Graves/William Parker, WEBO (Black Editions): This is the most historically significant jazz release of the year. It is no understatement that the label promoted it as “one of the great unrecorded bands in free jazz history.” From Graves’ personal tape library, this trio of monumental musicians played in public only seven times across nearly thirty years, and their legacy only existed in the memories of listeners fortunate enough to be there. This collects two of those nights, in June 1991. No concession for the music making, which is thrilling, and immensely important.
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, Centennial (Archeogroove): King Oliver ushered Louis Armstrong to the word, and thus changed the course of history. His recordings have been know for 100 years, this beautiful set has excellent remastering and a lavish and informative booklet. It also has two CDs that adds the music that influenced Oliver
Bill Evans, In Norway (Elemental): Yes, it’s that good.
Sonny Rollins, Freedom Weaver: The 1959 European Tour Recordings (Resonance): Like Evans, tremendous live appearances from Rollins.
Miles Davis Quintet 1963/64, The Bootleg Series, Voll. 8 (Sony Legacy): See my article in the November issue for the importance of this release.
Phil Haynes’ 4 Horns & What, The Complete American Recordings (Corner Store Jazz): A great band recovered from obscurity.
McCoy Tyner & Joe Henderson, Forces of Natures: Live at Slugs (Blue Note): Hard to believe this album is just now being released—and Feldman had a hand in this one too!
Art Tatum, Jewels in the Treasure Box (Resonance): Live gems from Tatum in a trio setting.
Sonny Rollins, A Night at the Village Vanguard: The Complete Masters (Blue Note): See my article in the May issue. Best for the holidays and for the future to all. Listen to more jazz, it’s one of the best things about America.
Latkes and Jelly Donuts
A cross between a beignet and a jelly donut, sufganiyot are pillowy donuts that are eaten in Israel and around the world during Hanukah. Sufganiyot are traditionally filled with jelly or jam, but if your family or guests do not care for jelly in their donuts, the filling options are limitless: custard, Nutella, pudding, pumpkin butter, apple butter, or dulce de leche are all great options. Sufganiyot are also delicious plain.
Holiday Crescents
Viennese Crescents: These are light, buttery cookies made with almonds and shaped into crescents. They are often dusted with powdered sugar and are a popular holiday treat.
Crescent Rolls: These are flaky, buttery rolls that can be filled with various ingredients, such as ham, cheese, or fruit.
They are often used to make appetizers or snacks during the holiday season.
Hungarian Kipfels: These are crescent-shaped cookies filled with nuts, fruit, or cheese. They are a traditional Hungarian cookie that is often enjoyed during the holidays.
Visit Morton Williams
Stop in anytime to pick up ingredients or ready-made foods for your holiday meals and celebrations. We are always open at the corner of Bleecker and LaGuardia Place. An excellent place to meet your friends for lunch as well, with fresh coffee and baked goods always available.
