Our Town June 7, 2012

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cRiMe WaTch Your company insurance changed again?

By Rebecca Harris and Amanda Woods

PURse sNaTch A 33-year-old woman was taking a midnight stroll on the way to her East 90th Street home Tuesday morning when three women attacked her, knocking her to the ground in front of 303 E. 90th St. The three fled with the woman’s pink purse, containing her $220 iPhone, her New York State identification cards, credit cards from HSBC and Chase banks and an American Express card. None of the items were recovered.

DUaNe ReaDe Debacle

Another reason to call.

Pregnancy tests were only some of the items two men made off with when they robbed a Duane Reade store on Second Avenue on Sunday at 3 a.m. They made out with $10,747 worth of items from the store, also snatching cigarettes, Motrin, Aleve, Advil and condoms. Police are looking for a 5-foot-10 man

laceration on his mouth.

PUNch aND RUN A man who saw his girlfriend get punched in the face by another young woman was probably not expecting the catfight he was witnessing to turn into a physical assault. The couple confronted a 24-year-old woman in an adjacent apartment with a noise complaint in the East 83rd Street residential building Sunday, according to the police report.

The verbal dispute escalated to an unexpected assault when the perpetrator proceeded to hit the 33-year-old female victim across the face, resulting in a small gash on the victim’s forehead. The woman who threw the punch fled in an unknown direction. The victim required medical attention when police arrived on the scene.

Thief iN DisgUise A robber who impersonated an electric utility worker to enter an apartment Sunday morning stole a

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aPaRTMeNT RObbeRy When a 21-year-old woman answered a knock on her door to two unfamiliar men, it became immediately apparent that they were there to rob her. “Give me the money, this is a stickup,” one of the perpetrators informed her. The men pushed their way into her East 65th Street apartment Monday, using weapons to subdue the victim when she fought back, according to the police report. One of the perpetrators struck the victim on her forehead with a gun, while the other stabbed her with a box cutter, inflicting wounds on her forearm and upper thigh. The men, who wore jeans and baseball caps, fled on foot, taking only a Blackberry cell phone. The victim hailed a cab to the hospital to seek treatment.

who was wearing beige jeans and a black T-shirt at the time of the incident and a 5-foot-9 man who was wearing a green hat and blue jeans.

Taxi aTTack A taxi driver was dropping a passenger off on the northeast corner of Second Avenue and East 89th Street on Saturday at 1:15 p.m. when, out of nowhere, someone struck a blow to his face. Police describe the attacker as a black man with a small Afro who was driving a red hatchback car. The taxi driver suffered a small

lock off a storage trunk—but nothing from inside the trunk. According to the police report, the perpetrator entered the apartment of an 80-year-old woman who does not speak English under the guise of checking the volt meters in her East 83rd Street residence. The fake electrician broke the lock—described by police as an antique Asian lock valued at $50—and stole it, damaging the trunk but leaving its contents undisturbed. There was no description of the perpetrator in the police report and the stolen property has not been recovered.

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feaTURe

An Apple a Day For Dr. Oz’s Daughter Daphne Oz, cO-hOst Of the chew, On healthy eating anD her father’s influence

be able to pursue a medical career, raise a family and do both well.

Her father is extremely supportive of her choice. “Every parent wants their child to be happy and fulfilled every day they go to work,” she said.

By Angela Barbuti One of the motivating forces enabling her to wake up at 5:30 each morning is a t’s before 10 a.m. and Daphne Oz has passion for engaging the younger generaalready eaten a lamb chop and sipped tion. Having tried “every fad diet under a mai tai. As one of the hosts on ABC’s the sun,” Oz knew it was time to make a The Chew, she spends weekdays in the commitment to healthy eating as a senior kitchen, cooking with her co-hosts and in high school. contributing her healthy living advice to “People find it fascinating that I could the new daytime show. have grown up in the family that I did At just 26, Oz, the youngest co-host, and still struggled with my weight,” she describes herself as the show’s “practical admitted. tipster.” She joins co-hosts Mario Batali, As a junior at Princeton University, she Michael Symon, Clinton Kelly and Carla penned The Dorm Room Diet. Published Hall to create a palpable chemistry on the in 2006, it is replete with suggestions for set. Oz says she works in a “really free flowcollege students on having a healthy and ing environment where hosts are encourfun relationship with food in their new aged to enjoy each other.” Her goal as part environment of this team away of foodies “It’s an empowerIng feelIng living from home. is to be the to be able to cook a meal Now Oz spokesmakes her person for for yourself and your “home away all of the famIly,” daphne oz saId. from home” home cooks on The Chew’s who are set at ABC Studios on the Upper West Side. watching.

In the morning, after she wraps up filming “It’s an empowering feeling to be able to for the show’s 1 p.m. airtime, the fitness cook a meal for yourself and your family,” enthusiast runs to Soul Cycle and Pure she said.

Yoga. After a workout and some grocery With Dr. Mehmet Oz, cardiothoracic shopping, Oz is back at her Manhattan surgeon and host of The Dr. Oz Show, as apartment, preparing meals with her her father, she once considered a life in husband, John. Although he works in medicine. However, she said, “To devote finance, he appreciates trying out the new your life to that kind of work, you really recipes his wife has found in Bon Appetit need to be in the hospital and put in the magazine. hours.” She decided that she would not

I

Daphne Oz and the cast of The Chew.

Daphne Oz.

6 • O UR TOWN • June 7, 2 012

For fresh produce, the couple shops at the local Garden of Eden and Whole Foods Market. Now that summer is here, she can be found picking fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers’ markets throughout the city.

“I literally buy dinner every day on my walk home from work,” she said.

Although her diet is mostly plant-based, she does eat the occasional high-quality meat product. Morally opposed to the way in which animals are treated industrially, she sums up her carnivorous philosophy as “meat for treats.” “For me, it’s about never feeling deprived, especially when I’m surrounded by such wonderful chefs.

I want to be able to enjoy their beautiful creations.”

When it’s time for a snack, the epicurean enjoys munching on flatbread crisps dipped in a bean mash. She credits her ethnicity as the reason she favors Mediterranean food.

Her father’s family is Turkish, while her mother’s family is Italian, Irish and Swedish.

“I grew up eating a ton of fish. I have memories of going on vacation with my family and catching whole fish and coming home and cooking them,” she said. A dinner menu at her home may consist of Asian-inspired salmon with a soy sauce, maple syrup and sesame oil glaze or branzino stuffed with rosemary, garlic and lemon.

When asked about her plans for the future, Oz responds without hesitation that she is content to keep her current gig as long as possible. Who can blame her? “I’m being paid to play with friends and eat the most delicious food in the world. Every day I pinch myself that this is my job.”

Watch Oz on The Chew weekdays at 1 p.m. on ABC or visit her website at www. daphneoz.com.

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Secret Histories and the Craft of Thriller Writing

By Allen Houston

F

rom Charlemagne to the Knights Templar to Thomas Jefferson, New York Times best-selling author Steve Berry has explored and unraveled secrets of the past with his character Cotton Malone, a retired elite operative for the U.S. Justice Department and rare book dealer who lives in Copenhagen. Malone is invariably drawn into international conspiracies and alternate histories that he must puzzle out before each novel’s heartstopping conclusion.

Berry, who has sold more than 14 million books, started out as a lawyer—he didn’t pick up a pen until he was 35. It took him 12 years and five manuscripts to sell his first novel, but his tenacity paid off.

Now he regularly tops the best seller lists and ranks alongside other top-notch thriller writers like Dan Brown and Steve Berry.

Harlan Coben.

The St. Augustine resident will teach a three-day intensive writing course at Hunter College June 6-9 and will also moderate the Hunter College Writers’ Conference’s Suspense Panel with Lee Child, Coben, Joseph Finder and Andrew Gross on Saturday, June 9.

He took some time out from his tour promoting his latest novel, The Columbus Affair, to talk about the art of writing thrillers, his foundation, History Matters, and the upcoming conference.

What was it about Christopher Columbus that intrigued you enough to make him the focus of your new thriller?

The great mystery about Columbus is that we know nothing about him; what he looked like, where he was born, how he ended up in the new world—even his diaries that we have are a copy. Everything is legend and myth.

What advice do you give new writers?

A lot of people say, “Write what you know.” I think that’s bad advice. I say, “Write what you love.” If they are the same thing, that’s great. In my case, though, I’ve been interested in history since I was a boy. I’ve also always loved thrillers.

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You struggled for 12 years to get published and received 85 rejections. Was there ever a time that you thought of quitting? What kept you going?

What I tell writers is that I’m living proof that you can do it. After a lot of rejections, I finally caught the break that I’d been looking for. And yes, I probably stopped writing three times, but there was that little voice in my head that all writers have that said, Enough is enough, stop moping and get back to work.

You started History Matters to help communities with historic preservation efforts. What have you learned about the state of preservation that would surprise people most?

What would surprise people most is the horrendous state of preservation in this country.

There are millions of objects, documents and buildings that are crumbling because we’re not taking care of them. So far, History Matters has raised $250,000 for various historic preservation efforts. Last week, I was in Houston and we helped raise money to restore a city of Houston flag.

This guy found it in his garage; it was 200 years old, an original version of the city’s first flag.

At Hunter, you’re teaching a threenight intensive writing workshop and moderating a panel on suspense.

What can people attending the intensive session and panel expect?

The intensive is nine hours on the craft of writing fiction, where I will teach what I’ve learned over the years. During the panel, I’m going to pick the authors’ brains about the state of suspense right now. We’re going to have a great time.

You’ve written seven novels with Cotton Malone. Do you ever worry about running out of fresh things to say or retiring the character?

No. I envision a lot more of good adventures with Cotton. He’s coming back next year with his son Gary to uncover a secret about the Tudors called The Tudor Deception. He’s changed a lot over the novels, and I think there’s a lot more to explore with him.

For more information about the Hunter Writers’ Conference, visit www.hunter.cuny. edu.

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feaTURe

The Rare and the Quirky Shopping for hidden treaSureS on the upper eaSt Side

By Amanda Woods and Megan Bungeroth

C

hain stores, traditional gift shops and well-established brand stores are easy to come by on the Upper East Side, but we set out to find something different: quirky, unusual shops selling something new and different. The stores we discovered range from old-fashioned pharmacies to brand-new designer boutiques. There’s something for everyone in this list—and you’re unlikely to find other stores quite like these.

Tender Buttons

Photos by Andrew Schwartz

143 E. 62nd St., tenderbuttons-nyc.com This shop specializes in the kinds of buttons you didn’t even know you wanted.

Looking for ceramic Peter Rabbit buttons for your kid’s sweater? Sold. Eyeing a few Swarovski crystal- and gold-laden baubles to jazz up an old blazer? There are dozens to choose from. The walls are lined with buttons of every color, size, material and price, and the store caters to everyone from the casual one-button replacer to serious designers.

The store itself exists as much as a place to gain inspiration as a retail operation.

“Spending rainy afternoons in your midst, looking for the perfect buttons to bring out the elegance of a jacket, is one of my happiest memories of eight years spent in New York,” wrote Sumner

Buck House owner Deborah Buck among the many unique items in her shop.

Hargrove, a happy former customer, in an email to the staff as he reminisced from Paris.

Owner Millicent Safro is something of

a button connoisseur and has attracted clients like Calvin Klein, Julia Roberts, Greta Garbo and Kermit the Frog (for his trenchcoat, of course). There are many antique and pricey items in stock, but Tender Buttons also sells classic men’s shirt sets and basic black buttons.

Then there are the coconut shell numbers painted with intricate yet modern floral designs in Italy and the Eskimo scrimshaw collection painted on fossilized walrus tusks. The next time you’re missing a button, rejoice in the fact that you can pick out a new one in a veritable button heaven tucked into an Upper East Side storefront.

Buck House

Shoppers peruse the wall-to-wall selection of buttons at Tender Buttons.

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1318 Madison Ave., buckhouse.com Shop owner and curator Deborah Buck wants to make one thing clear: She’s a painter above all else.

“I like to say that everything here”—she indicated the eclectic mix of European- and American-designed furniture and art—“is an extension of my painting. This is painting in 3-D.” Buck opened her shop 10 years ago after feeling stifled by the life of a painter and

wanting to branch out. A consummate traveler, she began lugging interesting pieces back from trips abroad and fashioned a showroom that combines a funky, fun aesthetic (bright striped walls, a sculpture modeled after an anatomically correct human heart, a 19th-century gold eagle that once adorned an upstate country house) with more ornate pieces, like a glass serving cart from Rome and elegant ceramics and glassware.

“I never buy the same thing twice, ever,” Buck said. “Because that’s not fun for me.”

She calls the shop her travelogue, letting the pieces tell their own stories and arranging them to create new ones. Customers who fall into the comfort of the Danish armchair immediately notice the leather-covered handset phone next to it, and the French settee across from it that Buck reupholstered in patterned fabric she designed from parts of her paintings.

She hopes to create a whole fabric line based on her art.

Buck describes her style as strong and edgy, with an exaggerated sense of color that she said attracts interior designers as well as people in the neighborhood just looking for a unique piece to put on their

NY Press.co m

feaTURe Peru.

One of Sanders’ favorite items in the store is a small Chinese-crafted porcelain pig, hand-painted with flowers and resting on a red pillow.

When locals pass by Extraordinary, they sometimes walk away because they think it’s too expensive, Sanders said. But he said he prices the items reasonably—from $15 for the smallest pieces to $150 for the larger decorations—and residents are surprised by the affordability.

Designers who visit the store are also impressed, added Chequita Jackson, who dates Sanders and works in the store.

“Every designer who comes in here says what a great eye he has,” Jackson said. “You never know what’s coming out of the box of treasures.”

J. Leon Lascoff & Sons Apothecary

The classic interior of J Leon Lascoff & Son. (Inset) An old drug cabinet on display at the shop.

bookshelf. She’s always happy to help customers find that perfect addition.

“I look at things and see where they want to be,” she said.

Extraordinary 247 E. 57th St., www.extraordinaryny.com For those bored by the selection of decorations and knick-knacks at large department stores and online shopping chains, Extraordinary offers a reprieve.

“My goal is having items that you cannot find on Google,” said J.R. Sanders, 57, the store’s owner, an artist who has designed

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museum exhibits in New York City and Washington, D.C. Tall hand-painted mirrors, an assortment of vases in different shapes and colors, beaded bracelets, animal-shaped paperweights and cork openers, small carousels and music boxes and greeting cards designed by local residents are only part of the inventory. No two items in the store are the same.

“That’s how I see the future,” Sanders said. “Everything is one-of-a-kind and it’s difficult to compete.”

The store sells the largest collection of serving trays in the city. Some have bright blocks of primary colors, while others were created of various types of wood covered in layers of lacquer. Another has a large gingko leaf in the center. Many of the trays were designed abroad, in Mexico, Vietnam and

1209 Lexington Ave., 212-288-9500 It’s rare to find an old-style pharmacy in New York City, but when customers step in to J. Leon Lascoff & Sons Apothecary, it’s like a time warp.

The store was the first licensed pharmacy in New York State, and its founder, J. Leon Lascoff, is known as “the father of modern pharmacy.” Founded in 1899, the pharmacy moved to its Upper East Side location in 1931—but it’s clear that the shop hasn’t left the past behind.

Original preparations and artifacts are on display in the store’s old wooden cabinets that surround the store on every wall.

Some items include a lasco-lyptus candle, a urine collection bottle, senna pods, malva flowers, lavender root and false unicorn root. One cabinet has a small set of rusty drawers that hold pills, covered in stickers reading “do not use after” and “quinine.”

What looks like a shrine to the late Lascoff is displayed at the front of the store by the door. There is a photo of him holding leeches next to his book, The Second Copy of the Pharmaceutical Recipe Book No. II, along with other Lascoff memorabilia.

On the second level of the store, giant arched display windows are accentuated by large green, yellow and blue lights hanging next to them. The ceiling is beginning to peel, adding to the shop’s old-time feel.

A store employee said that some of the items in the store have very limited distribution, such as those in the glass cabinets, but other items stocked on the shelves, including bubble bath and spray shampoo, are still easy to find.

The store offers a glimpse into pharmacy’s past—without entirely ignoring the present.

Fivestory 18 E. 69th St., fivestoryny.com The Upper East Side is the place for

luxury shopping, but a new boutique, Fivestory, which had its grand opening on April 18, puts a twist on that idea.

“We really wanted to create a unique shopping experience for everyone,” said Kate Mester, the store’s press person.

“Shoppers won’t come and see things that are in every retail store in Manhattan.”

The store’s founder, Claire Distenfeld, 26, used to work in art, but soon realized that shopping was her true love.

“When imagining what we wanted Fivestory to be, we used words like ‘maven,’ ‘connoisseurship,’ ‘curated,’ ‘au courant’ and, of course, ‘luxury,’” Distenfeld said in a press release about the store’s opening.

“Fivestory is meant to be unique and exciting, like shopping at Fiorucci and Biba was in the ’60s and ’70s. We’re about uptown and downtown; up-and-coming and establishment; a democratic, fun and newly distinct attitude.”

The store doesn’t cater to online shoppers, and it features designers that can’t be found online, Mester added.

A painted porcelain pig at Extraordinary.

A white sleeveless dress, artistically covered in black lines that have a crayon- or colored pencil-scrawled look, is displayed by itself in a corner of the store’s second floor. The dress is designed by Vika Gazinskaya, a Russian designer. Fivestory is the only store in New York that features her designs, according to Mester.

The store also features shoes by Aperlai and Del Toro and Olympia de Tan clutches made to look like the books La Femme Amoureuse and The Catcher in the Rye. Interior designer Ryan Korban designed the store; the walls are covered in contemporary paintings, the floor is made of Italian black-and-white-grained marble and the doorways are draped in silk. Every piece of the store comes together to create something unique and luxurious.

“We’re not a Barney’s or Bergdorf’s,” Mester said. “That’s what we like about ourselves.”

J une 7, 2012 • O UR TOW N • 9

CRITICS’ PICKS GALLERIES Editorial Eye: Aperture Foundation presents “Delpire & Co.,” featuring a half-century of achievement in the life and career of visionary French publisher, editor and curator Robert Delpire. Through July 19, Aperture Foundation, 547 W. 27th St., 4th Fl., 212505-5555, aperture.org. [Valerie Gladstone]

Edited by Armond White

New York’s Review of Culture • CityArtsNYC.com

CLASSICAL Fiddler with the Phil: Violinist Pinchas Zukerman plays with the New York Philharmonic—and conducts them, too. He will play three concertos. Even if you don’t like his interpretation, you will hear a marvelous sound. June 6-9, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Columbus Ave. at 65th St., 212-875-5709, nyphil.org. [Jay Nordlinger]

Photo by Nathan Johnson

JAZZ & POP Jazz Awards’ Sweet 16: The 16th annual Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards’ New York City Party, with announcement of award winners and performances by Organ Monk quartet, singer Paulette McWilliams accompanied by pianist Nat Adderley Jr. and double-neck guitar whiz Gabriel Marin with electric bassist John Ferrara. June 20, 4-6 p.m.; $100, $60 for JJA members. Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 W. 3rd St., 212-475-8592, jjajazzawards.org. [Howard Mandel]

Pictured L-R: Frank Wood, Annie Parisse, Christina Kirk, Jeremy Shamos, Damon Gupton and Crystal A. Dickinson in a scene from Clybourne Park.

How Tony are the Tony Awards?

‘Clybourne Park’ questions ameriCan and theater history

By Armond White

I

f the award for Best Play goes to Clybourne Park at the June 10 Tony Awards ceremony, will it put the Tonys on “the right side of history”?

That particular aphorism entered popular speech during the 2008 presidential campaign (in a rare Obama reference to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), and its artfulness is part of the verbal gymnastics that distinguish Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris’ drama about the language of race relations.

Playwright Norris’ inspiration for Clybourne Park came from the 1960 Lorraine Hansberry play A Raisin in the Sun. That landmark drama about a poor black family moving from an urban ghetto to a white suburb used the fictitious Clybourne Park as the symbolic site of racial integration and social mobility just as the civil rights effort was gaining momentum. Norris revisits Hansberry’s symbol five decades later to illustrate how social discourse has changed—

1 0 • O UR TOWN • June 7, 2 012

so much so that Clybourne Park figures to win the Best Play Tony that A Raisin in the Sun lost to The Miracle Worker.

Does this mean theater culture has progressed? Clybourne Park is most interesting in its realization that contemporary discourse, in fact, puts us outside history, mired in the confusions of social fragmentation, political bromides and rhetorical deception.

The deceit of political sloganeering has seeped into the average person’s language. It affects the ability of Norris’ seven characters to articulate their personal and public feelings. A key lines asks, “Can we just come out and say what it is we‘re really saying?”

That question reveals mainstream American theater’s difficulty dealing with experiences that are personal flashpoints before being codified by politicians and sanctioned by mainstream media. It’s why A Raisin in the Sun has still not received its due as one of the finest American dramas (superior to the over-lauded Death of a Salesman), even among reviewers who glibly mention it while praising Clybourne Park; they ignore Hansberry’s deep explication of African-American life, missing the significance of Norris’ historical-aesthetic reference, his invocation.

Why didn’t A Raisin in the Sun win the Tony in 1960? The answer might explain

what makes Clybourne Park this year’s frontrunner: Contemporary Broadway shares the same bias for focusing on white experience as network television. It is the mainstream’s manner to reflect a socially empowered viewpoint—the perspective that always controls what is “the right side of history,” as Frank Rich recently used Clybourne Park to normalize the wildly contradictory political rhetoric of the Obama era.

Thankfully, Norris himself won’t have it; his two-act contretemps omits Hansberry’s deep ethnic and social concerns, deliberately leaving out a third-act resolution. This reflects our modern political delusions as much as it satisfies the current mode for hectoring speech, aggressive posturing and judgmental belittling in our culture. Hansberry’s play derived from the moral and religious roots of social revolution, while Norris’s two-act past/present contrast anatomizes (that’s the pop term) our spiritual amnesia, a very real aspect of the Obama era.

“You can’t live in a principle” says one of Clybourne Park’s bickering personae. That imperative was proven when A Raisin in the Sun was a Tony also-ran and is still accepted even as Hansberry’s classic becomes a theatrical specter—like Norris’ evocation of a dead soldier— that the annals of the Tony Awards ignores.

Blue Note Citywide Jazz Festival: The second annual fest, 30 gigs of broad stylistic range between June 10 and 30 at the Blue Note, Highline Ballroom, B.B. King’s, Henry St. Playhouse, Brooklyn Bowl and the Apollo Theater. Some highlights include Savion Glover tapdancing in duet with drummers Jack DeJohnette and Roy Haynes, June 14-16; McCoy Tyner and Charles Tolliver Big Band playing John Coltrane’s “Africa/Brass” suite, June 21-24; Kathleen Battle with Cyrus Chestnut, Gato Barbieri, Tim Ries’ Rolling Stone Project and Spanish singer Buika. Schedule at bluenotejazzfestival.com/ category/events/2012-06. [HM] Bolero Forever!: Paquito D’Rivera plays Boleros de Chopin, with Diego Urcola, trumpet, valve trombone; Alex Brown, piano; Oscar Stagnaro, bass; Mark Walker, drums; Arturo Sable, percussion. June 12-17, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.; $30-$40. Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Broadway at 60th St., 212-258-9595, jalc.org/dccc. [VG] DANCE Russian Steps: New production of John Cranko’s “Onegin,” with music by Tchaikovsky, based on Pushkin’s great verse novel “Eugene Onegin.” June 4-9; $20+.

American Ballet Theater at the Metropolitan Opera House, 212-362-2000, abt.org. [VG] Dance Picante: Viva la gente! It’s salsa night at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing Dancing 101s. June 13, 7 p.m. David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, Broadway betw. 62nd & 63rd Sts., 212-875-5000, midsummernightswing.org. [VG] Plié in the Sky: Hudson Guild Theatre Company performs a contemporary version of “The Sleeping Beauty” on the High Line, using dusk as a curtain. June 7, 7:15 p.m. The High Line under the Standard Hotel, at 12th St., 212760-9817, hudsonguild.org. [Phyllis Workman]

NY Press.co m

CITYARTS MUSeUMS

Art Profiteer Taryn Simon’S goTcha picS guilT The arT world

By Marsha McCreadie

Courtesy the artist. C. Taryn Simon

O

ne is always suspicious of an exhibit where you have to strain to “get it” by going to the wall text, then to the images, then back to the text, and so on. Such is the case with A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters 1-XVIII by artist celeb/deb Taryn Simon, at 36 the conqueror of the art world with this show at MoMA and a standalone at the Tate.

The artist instructs us how to “read” the riveting photos of the descendants/antecedents of nine families (the full show has 18 bloodlines or chapters), including the related victims of genocide in Bosnia; a tooth represents one, taken from a makeshift grave, and the last living member is a student in Syracuse. Another line descends from Hans Frank, Hitler’s legal advisor (what a journalistic coup to convince some—if not all—to be photographed!)

Also shown are those without roots: Ukrainian orphans. A sign in the orphan-

age’s common room is highlighted: “Those who do not know their past are not worthy of the future”; the text says most end up in the hands of human traffickers.

The “living man” of the title is an East Indian officially listed as dead by distant relatives who lay claim to his property. Is the common thread stark human misery or doomed stoicism? (Yet the very extended family of the Kenyan healer Joseph Nyamwanda Jura Ondijo, his nine wives, 32 children and 63 grandchildren, seems at ease.)

Nearly all of Simon’s subjects stare vacantly at the camera, clearly at her direction.

The Australian rabbits, an example of planned decimation, have Taryn Simon. Chapter XVII from A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII (detail). 2011 it down. Only two of the hundreds of Pigmented inkjet prints., 84 x 241 7/8“ (213.4x614.4 cm). photos carry any other expression: Is the show about chance, being in the #66 and his despite-the-grim-orphange But though she may have an eye, Simon wrong place at the wrong time, genetic goofy grin and #19, Arthur Ruppin, a doesn’t have a vision. predisposition? The viewer must fill in all smiling New Jersey real estate developer, the blanks. Simon’s photographic effort is namesake of the original Arthur RupTaryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead daunting—four years traveling the globe pin sent to Palestine in 1907 by a Zionist and other Chapters 1-XVIII to get just the right bloodlines and families Through Sept. 3, MoMA, 11 W. 53rd St., organization to investigate possibilities for on same-sized pigmented inkjet prints.

Jewish settlers.

212-708-9431, www.moma.org.

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gAlleRIeS CITYARTS

Everything Moves martin Puryear’s universe

By Melissa Stern

M

artin Puryear is a man on the move. In his current exhibition at McKee Gallery, almost all of the pieces refer in one way or another to an act of movement, whether literal, as in the pieces “The Rest” and “The Load,” which are on wheels, or metaphoric, like the stunning piece “Heaven Three Ways/ Exquisite Corpse ‘Heaven.’” Cast in white bronze, it’s an elegant triad of gestures that moves from earth to sky in one majestic sweep.

This is Puryear’s first exhibition since his huge, traveling retrospective, which hit MoMA in 2007. It reflects both a great evolution in Puryear’s work and the continuing dedication to material, form and fabrication that makes it some of the most powerful contemporary art in America.

For Puryear, everything is in flux; everything moves. From pieces on wheels to pieces on giant rolling timbers, the entire show exudes a sense of physical poten-

tial. There are sculptural carts on wagon wheels, sculptures that are paper-thin sheets of Alaskan cedar curving along the walls and a huge field of willow branches that seem to blow in an invisible wind.

Without the faintest hint of cliché, these all evoke a feeling of exploration, new lands and new lives. It is a show that to me expresses a great optimism.

As always with Puyear’s work, there is a tie to our cultural past, our history of making objects by hand. This is a critical element, I think, in keeping Puryear’s work so consistently potent, ethereal yet accessible. Beyond its beauty, there is always a connection to the hand that made it, and by extension to the viewer who imagines in him or herself the potential to be the makers of such things.

It’s a show that offers no easy interpretations, no comtempo art-world irony or bratty high concept. The show quietly and powerfully draws you into Puryear’s exquisite universe and leaves you feeling somehow better for the experience.

Martin Puryear: New Sculpture Through June 29, McKee Gallery, 745 5th Ave., 212-688-5951, mckeegallery.com.

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CITYARTS POP

Reclamation Pop saint etienne exPlore PoP—exquisitely

By Ben Kessler “My momma said don’t go There’s nothing for you there…”

—Saint Etienne, “Heading for the Fair”

I

n James Joyce’s “Araby,” the third story in Dubliners, a pubescent boy shows up late to the eponymous fair, hoping to find a gift that will earn him the affection of a neighborhood girl. But his romantic hopes and dreams don’t mesh with the shabby, depopulated scene that greets him at Araby, and the story ends, “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.”

That Joycean flush of frustrated, outraged idealism is arguably the U.K.’s most important contribution to Western pop culture.

Joyce’s burn— the natural reaction of the creative consciousness constrained by society’s limited scope for sensitivity—can be discerned in Angry Young Man plays, British New Wave cinema, rock, glam, punk and new wave.

By the time British pop trio Saint Etienne came on the scene in the early ’90s, pop music was already developing its own range of responses to this cultural tradition of anguished social protest. Across the spectrum, artists were looking back at “Araby” and asking: How can we comfort this child?

This question produced a split in pop life between protest and succor, political awareness and spiritual sensitivity.

The contradictions might have proved unsustainable had it not been for the suppleness of the pop album form. The new Words & Music by Saint Etienne has been called a concept album (the concept being “love of pop” or “the magic of pop”—you

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All great albums use a folkloric logic— social awareness is dispersed (as if to play dumb for the authorities) among various tracks that have, like Dubliners, a cumulative subconscious effect. The form has an inherent socializing aspect, too. Hearing a beloved single in the context of an album for the first time, you may feel that if this song you’ve played over and over and has come to stand for so much can find its kin, there’s hope for even your most extreme emotions to

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encounter sympathy.

Few artists have marshaled their contradictions as well in album form as Saint Etienne do here. Words & Music’s very first transition—the gentle reminiscence of leadoff track “Over the Border” into the ecstatic “I’ve Got Your Music”—seems to embrace the entire pop experience. Singer Sarah Cracknell’s exquisite refrain (“Love is here to stay”) hangs in the air, a pause just long enough to introduce anticipation intervenes, then “I’ve Got Your Music” announces itself with the brashness of a breaking news headline. The introspective side of pop collides with the side that favors immediacy above all else. The collision makes one aware of the beauty on both sides.

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By Howard Mandel

T

he old-school avant-garde is now! The 17th annual Vision Festival is a seven-night, 37-event assertion by proudly unfettered improvisers that the 50-yearold principles of high energy and exploratory alternatives to traditional and “commercial” jazz still thrive.

Real estate realities have pushed this Fest from its East Village roots to a new stage: Roulette, in Brooklyn, of course.

But the proud DIY esthetic and energizing, raw or extreme generation of sounds that were once shocking and now are less so, a signal the musician puts his all on the line, still apply. See the schedule at artsforart.org/event/visionfestival17/ schedule.

With individualistic multiinstrumentalist (mostly sax and trumpet) Joe McPhee being honored for “a lifetime of achievement”; a revised version of The Gardens of Harlem, the late Clifford Thornton’s 1974 orchestra suite, as its centerpiece; and concerts led by two handfuls of the most iconoclastic sexta- and septuagenarian instrumentalists on the planet—among them Charles Gayle, Kidd Jordan, Connie Crothers, Dave Burrell, Sonny Simmons, Wadada Leo Smith, Elliott Sharp, singer Sheila Jordan and poet Amiri Baraka— the Vision Fest best might seem to be in search of lost time.

But with the participation, too, of up-n-comers including Gerald Clayton, Darius Jones, Matts Gustaffson, Mary Halvorson, Taylor Ho Bynum, Craig Taborn, Jeff Parker, Ingrid Laubrock and Nicole Mitchell, it’s evident that valuing musical expressivity more than musical structure is also attractive to players who weren’t around to hear Albert Ayler and John Coltrane live—they take the thrust of 1960s “free jazz” as seriously as if they had been.

That free jazz movement of the ’60s had

a sociopolitical agenda to demonstrate empowerment, rip away jazz’s deadwood and shake the establishment, as well as to let loose youthful juice.

The mission of the Vision Fest retains a lot of the ancient aura. It was born in the East Village out of a cadre that buzzed around bassist William Parker; Patricia Nicholson Parker, his wife but a force (choreographer/dancer) in her own right, runs the show and the nonprofit producing group, Arts for Art, from an LES office at the “educational and cultural center” Clemente Soto Velez.

Parker believes in grounding her production in critical thinking; I assume that’s why I’m a panelist discussing “Free Jazz/Free Music—Why Then/Why Now?” Thursday, June 14, from 5 to 7 p.m. She also believes in mixing media, so there are visual artists painting the music, videographers, dancers and poets on each program. And she’s big on making music available to all, so on Friday

Joe McPhee.

afternoon, June 15, there are free events in partnership with the New York City Housing Authority at Rutgers Houses, 200 Madison St. Choosing one night, I’d attend June 16 to hear trombonist Steve Swell’s Quintet; French bassist Joelle Leandre with flutist Mitchell and baritone Thomas Buckner; Trio 3 (Oliver Lake, reeds; Reggie Workman, bass; Andrew Cyrille, drums); and violinist-composer Jason Kao Hwang’s Burning Bridge, with Chinese pipa and erhu in the band.

Roulette is a good bet for Vision 17, Manhattan being too upscale for unvarnished radicalism. Undaunted by age, economics or fashion, the Vision survives.

Reach Howard Mandel at jazzmandel@ gmail.com

NY Press.co m

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The hunter, Chris Hemsworth, and the dwarfs.

Promiscuous Myths New ‘SNow white’ cutS a Swath through culture

By Armond White

W

hy should we be watching commercials director Rupert Sanders’ film, Snow White and the Huntsman, when Romain Gavras’ No Church in the Wild music video for Kanye West begs our attention? Whatever unrest West artfully evokes with Gavras’ references to insurrection and political strife is truer to the temper of modern living than this overextravagant CGI fairytale.

Updating the Snow White legend into a vampire-zombie-cyber-goth fashion show results from commercial calculation more than any credible feeling for the ideas of innocence, selflessness, hope, beauty (and their opposites) that the Snow White story used to instruct. Charlize Theron struts her usual psychotic anger as Ravenna, a vengeful queen lusting for eternal youth and power, while Kristen Stewart as Snow White again anguishes over her obligation and destiny. A Monster and Twilight mashup for no purpose.

SWATH may trigger reflex pretensions about feminism and narcissism (including Chris Hemsworth’s stolid Hunstman), but at the same time it is uprooted from the basic needs of storytelling and deep emotional identification.

So many jumbled motifs occur in Sanders’ SWATH that it resembles the promiscuity of music videos that ransack our cultural heritage out of art directors’ and costume designers’ mad zeal. SWATH plunders the recent melting, morphing history of F/X— everything from that damnable The Lord of the Rings trilogy to Avatar—yet never achieves the exotic originality of such mag-

1 6 • O UR TOWN • June 7, 2 012

nificent Chinese fantasies as Chen Kaige’s The Promise or Zhang Yimou’s Hero and Curse of the Golden Flower, which evoke authentic cultural memory.

Gavras, son of political filmmaker Costa Gavras, supplies similar cultural evocation for West: political consciousness as a form of style, music video as quasi-political Internet communiqué. No Church in the Wild’s only message concerns the amoral panic that SWATH disregards.

West’s current artistic project uses imagination to create new myths; his innovations constantly provoke (though not always successfully, as in his visually striking yet metabolically abrasive Niggas in Paris music video). No Church in the Wild pinpoints the loveless circumstances of modern living that SWATH placates with meaningless fantasizing. West uses the history of cinematic agit-prop to recall its absence/ignorance in today’s media, but SWATH exploits fairytale mythology without the philological intelligence found in Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves.

Although the idea of Ravenna’s vainglorious mirror as a gigantic upright cymbal is pretty good, the half-hour that Theron’s glowering is offscreen allows SWATH’s best moments: the dwarfs, played by reliable British character actors at their eccentric best—Toby Jones, Nick Frost, Bob Hoskins, Eddie Marsan, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane—a dream team.

Little else matches the fantasy quintessence that Walt Disney’s animators found for the 1938 Snow White—that glass coffin simplification was a perfect surrealist abstraction. By the time SWATH pillages Joan of Arc imagery for Snow White’s triumph, then goes inert, the melty-morphy junkpile makes it unignorable that our cultural memory is in tatters.

Follow Armond White on Twitter at 3xchair

NY Press.co m

DINING

Summer, When a Young Man’s Fancy Turns to Thoughts of...Spice?

By Regan Hofmann

I

Healhty Manhattan

t’s a well-worn trope that when the going gets hot, the hot eat spicy foods.

It’s well-worn, sure, but if you’re like 98 percent of the Western world, it’s also totally unthinkable. Spicy foods are hot, right? And when you yourself are hot (a totally flawed linguistic leap of logic—we’ll get to that), the best way to counteract it is with cold things, isn’t it?

Well, yes and no. The primary problem is with that word, “hot.” Spicy foods aren’t actually warmer than others, they simply make you sweat, for a complex set of chemical reasons that have to do with pain receptors and neural trickery.

In the Western cultural repertory of foods, there is no indigenous source of serious spice, so we never evolved a language for dealing with it. The first time someone brought Christopher Columbus a jalapeño, he popped it whole, started sweating like a fiend and determined that witches had made him “hot,” and it stuck.* (*This scenario may not be historically accurate.)

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warmer climes survive summers since air conditioning was a palm frond fan and ice in your drink was a dream. Now that global warming is evening the score and energy costs have us thinking twice about letting the climate control run nonstop for the next three months, it’s a good time to revisit their techniques and, as a wise man once said, give spice a chance.

Thai food may be the second most bastardized food in this city, trailing only behind Chinese in whiteguy-ification. Think of all the ketchupy Pad Thai you’ve been suckered into; the sickly sweet Tom Kha Gai that tastes more of Hawaiian Tropic than tropical climes. Thankfully Thai, like Chinese, is now experiencing a revival that is placing an emphasis on regional differences—and like Chinese, you finally no longer have to go out to Queens to find chefs doing their thing.

At Zabb Elee (75 2nd Ave., betw. 4th & 5th Sts., zabbelee.com), the chefs specialize in

the notoriously chile-laden cuisine of Isaan, the northeastern region of the country.

Some dishes, like Som Tum Thai, green papaya salad, are recognizable in name, but their execution is miles beyond that of your corner takeout. Others, like Gang Som, a sour, coconut milk-less curry, and Khai Jiaw Kratiem Dong, omelet with pickled garlic, are full of flavors you’ve never experienced.

When you order, you will be asked about your spice level preference—be prepared to be assertive when asking for full strength, as every meal there sees at least one bro trying to impress his pals who ends up gasping for water and white rice.

It’s a balanced heat, though; the kind that was designed to get you sweating happily through the summer night.

Miracle of miracles, there is now a surfeit of seriously spicy Sichuan restaurants in New York City. One of the best, and the most reliably spice-happy, is Szechuan Gour-

met (21 W. 39th St., betw. 5th & 6th Aves., szechuan-gourmet.com). Sichuan food uses fierce dried chiles and Sichuan peppercorn, which will numb you faster than a dentist’s novocaine, to achieve ma la, the signature spicy and numbing taste. The combination of the two means you’re never suffering for the sake of it.

For a real summertime treat, get the double whammy of heat and cool with cold dishes like ox tongue and tripe doused in ma la-heavy chile oil, ground peanuts and cilantro, and the spicy cucumber salad, which is like taking a Katz’s deli half-sour and lighting it on fire in your mouth. You’ll leave flushed and tingling, with a buzzing mouth that makes drinking water a sensory delight.

Not enough? Take the phaal challenge at Brick Lane Curry House (235 E. 53rd St., betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves., or 308 E. 6th St., betw. 1st & 2nd Aves., bricklanecurryhouse. com—a true bro dare for the guys at Zabb Elee who managed to make it through and want their photos in a Hall (sorry, P’hall) of Fame. By all reports a British invention, the so-called “spiciest curry on earth” uses 10 or more ground chiles per dish.

Finish it, and you get a certificate of honor and a free beer, while your companions cool off the old-fashioned way, with top-notch curries like Nilgiri Korma, a brightly green South Indian specialty. At least the beer is a guaranteed cooler.

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CAMPS

Choosing a Camp at the Last Minute

By Jess Michaels

S

ummer is in full swing and your children are finished with school.

Now what do they do? Do you regret putting off looking for a summer camp? Don’t worry, there are still some summer camps with availability for your child. And keep in mind that looking for a camp this summer for next year also has many benefits.

mer camp choices. Talking to friends and neighbors is also a good way to find out about summer camps. But families should keep in mind that just because a camp is the right fit for your friends’ child, it doesn’t mean it will be the right camp for your child. Take their suggestions, but make sure to do your own research. You know your child best.

Summer 2013 It’s not too early to be looking for a camp for next summer. Looking this summer gives you the opportunity to go visit camps. “Tours are a great way to really connect with a camp, the campers and the camp’s leadership,” said Sam Borek, owner and director of Woodmont Day Camp in New City, N.Y. “Going on a camp tour

Call the Camp Director If you have a specific camp in mind, call the camp director and ask what sessions are still open and if there is space in your child’s age group. Try to be flexible.

Maybe you had the month of July in mind for camp, but be open to the second session of programAsk the cAmp director About the ming. This cAmp’s philosophy And progrAm. may mean changing does the philosophy of the cAmp around mAtch your fAmily’s? does the cAmp vacation plans or offer A progrAm thAt is of interest trips to see to your child? do you feel thAt the grandparcAmp director is Answering All your ents, but the more questions And is hAppy to do so? flexibility you have, gives you an opportunity to see the activithe better chance you have of finding the ties in action and get a feel for the spirit camp you want at the last minute. and tone of the camp. Don’t be afraid to Even with last-minute camp deciask tough questions and even talk to a sions, parents want to make sure they are camper or two in your child’s age group.” doing their research and choosing the Touring camps allows you and your right camp for their child. Ask the camp child the chance to see what an actual day director about the camp’s philosophy at camp will be like and see the lake, pool, and program. Does the philosophy of bunks and dining hall. Both day and sleepthe camp match your family’s? Does the away camps offer camp tours throughout camp offer a program that is of interest the summer. A camp tour gives families a to your child? Do you feel that the camp good feel about whether the camp is the director is answering all your questions right fit for their child—and if you decide and is happy to do so? You are forming to send your child there the following a partnership with the camp director, summer, he or she will feel part of the so you want to make sure you click with decision process. them and feel comfortable leaving your child in their care.

Rookie Days Be sure to look at the camp’s website with There are many resident camps that your child. Let your child search the site and offer Rookie Days or Weekends, designed see a sample schedule, pictures and what to give future campers a chance to expethe camp menu is like. The more involved rience the camp in session by joining in your child is in the camp process, the more on camp activities before going to camp. successful the experience will be.

While children enjoy the camp activities, parents are taken on a tour of the camp.

Not Sure Where to Start?

Rookie Days are a wonderful way for You can call the American Camp Aschildren and their parents to get a feel sociation, NY and NJ, at 212-391-5208 for what the camp is like and to deterfor free, one-on-one advice on finding a mine if it is the right fit before registering camp. Their camper placement specialfor the next summer. ists can help guide you in your decision and help narrow down the many sum-

1 8 • O UR TOWN • June 7, 2 012

Making kids happy with that last-minute summer camp choice.

Looking Early Can Help You Plan Financially for Camp By touring the summer before and deciding on a camp almost a year before sending your child there, you will be able to plan financially for camp. Some camps offer payment plans for registering early, allowing you to pay over time for the camp.

You can also make camp part of birthday presents and holiday gifts over the upcoming year. Many camps also offer early bird discounts for registering early, giving you a savings on the price. Families should inquire about sibling discounts for register-

ing more than one child.

“Parents should keep in mind that choosing a camp early also gives you time to prepare your child for the camp experience throughout the year,” said Susie Lupert, executive director of the American Camp Association, NY and NJ. “By the time your child goes off to camp the following summer, he or she will be so eager from the excitement built throughout the year.”

Jess Michaels is director of communications for the American Camp Association, NY and NJ.

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A Camp For Every Budget If you’re worrIed about how to afford summer camp, here are some cost-savIng steps to consIder

By Jess Michaels

S

ummer camp is a wonderful opportunity for children to learn life lessons like leadership, independence and self-confidence, as well as trying new activities like sailing, ropes course and waterskiing. It’s hard to put a price tag on your child’s learning and growth experiences, but parents should know that with a little planning and research, there are a number of ways— some perhaps obvious, some less so—to help make summer camp more affordable.

Adam Weinstein, executive director of the American Camp Association, New York and New Jersey, said, “With careful planning, parents can find a camp that works within their families means. When you think about how much it costs to have a child home all summer, with child care and activities, you realize you can be paying a very small premium for a very rich experience.”

Look for camp early—It isn’t too early to look for a summer camp for the summer of 2013. Tour camps this summer while the camp is in action. Some camps offer early bird specials for registering now so you can register soon after the camp tour for savings. Searching for camp early also gives families a longer time to plan financially for camp.

Gifts—Camp can be given to children as part of birthday gifts and holiday gifts and parents can budget for these gifts throughout the year. Likewise, members of the extended family, like grandparents, may also contribute to a gift like camp.

Search camps by cost—There is a camp for every budget. Families can search the American Camp Association, New York and New Jersey’s website searchforacamp.org by cost as well as day/sleepaway, location, activities or single-sex/coed/brother-sister camps. (Therightcamp.com also has a good camp search engine.) Likewise, families can also call the American Camp Association, NY and NJ camper placement specialist at

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212-391-5208 for free, one-on-one advice on finding the right camp at the right price for your family. Keep in mind that some Y camps, in particular, view it as part of their mission to accept a certain percentage of kids from families with modest means.

Assistance offered from the U.S government—The government offers programs that may help families save money on summer camp.

• A Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account—A Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account allows parents to be reimbursed on a pre-tax basis for child care or adult dependent care expenses that are necessary to allow parents to work, look for work or attend school full-time while they are caring for qualified dependents.

Visit the FSA Feds website at fsafeds.com for more information. In certain circumstances, day camp expenses, including transportation by a care provider, may be considered dependent care services.

• Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit—the IRS allows an income tax credit of up to $6,000 of dependent care expenses if you have two or more dependents (up to $3,000 for one dependent). The amount of the credit is based on your adjusted gross income and applies only to your federal taxes. This applies to qualifying day camp expenses as well. Visit the FSA Feds website for more information.

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Talk to the camp director—Parents should talk to the camp director at the camp they are interested in sending their child to. Some camps offer sibling discounts or early bird specials for registering early and payment plans—and that’s just the official policy. If you have your heart set on a camp but can’t afford it, talk to the director to see if he or she would consider a sliding scale rate in your case. You never know.

Hold a fundraiser—I know this might seem like an overly self-serving solicitation, but if you do it in a way that shows spunk and creativity—and your child helps take the lead on it—you’d be surprised how friends and neighbors might be charmed by the idea of an effort to raise money for camp. Even something as old-fashioned as a lemonade stand with good signage about where the money is going might be an attention-getter and profit-maker. But use real lemons. People appreciate authenticity.

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MaNhaTTaN MeDia President/CeO Tom Allon tallon@manhattanmedia.com grOuP PuBLisHer Alex Schweitzer aschweitzer@manhattanmedia.com CFO/COO Joanne Harras jharras@manhattanmedia.com

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exeCutive editOr Allen Houston ahouston@manhattanmedia.com sPeCiaL seCtiOns editOr Josh Rogers jrogers@manhattanmedia.com Cityarts editOr Armond White awhite@manhattanmedia.com staFF rePOrter Megan Bungeroth mbungeroth@manhattanmedia.com PHOtO editOr/editOriaL assistant Andrew Schwartz aschwartz@manhattanmedia.com Featured COntriButOrs Alan S. Chartock, Bette Dewing, Jeanne Martinet, Malachy McCourt, Josh Perilo, Christopher Moore, Regan Hofmann

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advertising@manhattanmedia.com PuBLisHer Gerry Gavin ggavin@manhattanmedia.com direCtOr OF new Business deveLOPment Dan Newman assOCiate PuBLisHers Seth L. Miller, Ceil Ainsworth, Mary Ann Oklesson advertising manager Marty Strongin sPeCiaL PrOjeCts direCtOr Jim Katocin seniOr aCCOunt exeCutives Verne Vergara, Mike Suscavage direCtOr OF events & marketing Joanna Virello jvirello@manhattanmedia.com exeCutive assistant OF saLes Jennie Valenti jvalenti@manhattanmedia.com

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Boys Will Be Boys After All What iS it With boyS and truckS?

T

he fire truck backed up, and West Side parents scrambled with their little boys to where they hoped the line would start to get on board. Almost immediately, there were over 100 people waiting Were there any girls at the West Side YMCA’s Touch-a-Truck event a few weeks ago? Certainly, but as my 2-year-old son and I stood on lines to board the big vehicles, I noticed only a few girls waiting with us; most went to the activities that aren’t stereotypically male.

It seems we haven’t come a long way with our babies.

Boys and girls, certainly with exceptions, do, in fact, tend to play differently with different toys. Apparently, the research backs this up across different cultures, although we’re a long way from settling the nature vs. nurture debate on how much male and female behavior is taught.

Lego took some flack this year for its new line marketed to girls. A change.org petition collected nearly 60,000 signatures protesting things like the pieces’

pink colors and a new emphasis on So Isaac’s fascination with big wheels people over buildings. Girls have been started somewhere else. That’s not to playing with Lego for a long time, but say that dad, mom and others haven’t they apparently appreciate the new line, played a role. Had he been drawn to judging from reviews of the toys posted dresses, dolls and long-haired wigs, I on Amazon.com. don’t think I would have “I was delighted done anything he’d have to that Lego finally came someday tell a therapist, out with something but I’m sure I would not a little girl could get have been as enthusiastic excited about,” was a and encouraging as I am typical comment from a about the trucks. mother who had played Last weekend, at a small with Lego and bought family reunion, my fatherthe new set for her in-law, a devoted grandfadaughter. ther, used much more gas I’m sure I wasn’t the than necessary to drive his spark for my son’s love pickup there for my son and JOsh ROgeRs of trucks. When it comes his cousins. All four preto wheels, I know a lot schoolers had fun playing more about strollers—even though I may in the back of the truck, but the two boys never buy another one, I still check out stayed in longer. the new models and colors. I could tell On our seven-hour drive back, no easy you the type of stroller used by a dozen thing for a toddler, we had the perfect or so neighborhood children, but I hardly scenery on the last leg. The New Jersey remember the cars my friends or relatives Turnpike’s construction work provided drive. enough excavators, cranes and backhoe I now know the difference between a loaders to prevent a meltdown. front-end and backhoe loader, and have learned more about trucks in the last year Josh Rogers, contributing editor at Manthan I ever knew before. hattan Media, is a lifelong New Yorker.

DeWiNg ThiNgs BeTTeR

The Joel Morales Story Stopping hate-filled violence and creating a better Society

of kids tormenting other kids? Well, we need prime-time, front-page stories and outraged editorials and columns—not only about the resulting tragic suicides but the longtime suffering of the majority of these young victims. hat if your two sons The New York Times ran a story June were bullied and, when 1 with three needed visuals. One was transferred to a different Joel’s smiling Facebook school, photo, which, along with the harassment continthe page’s happy messages, ued and your request belied what so damaged his for housing in another life. Another photo showed district was denied? his grieving half-brother, Of course you know Richard Salazar, 25, bending this happened to a over the memorial outside 12-year-old East Harlem the family home. But the one boy, Joel Morales. Fithat needs airing again and nally, this beloved son of again shows Joel’s anguished Lizbeth Babilonia could mother sobbing, “I want not take it anymore and my son back! I want my son hanged himself in the BeTTe DeWiNg back!” family bathroom.

Yes, we need these true Would it were an stories and photos out there in public, isolated tragedy, but you know it is not, as but songs may impress even more. One more and more boys and girls are commitshould be titled “I Want my Son Back” ting suicide to escape hateful harassment and tell the Morales story. by their peers.

But back to his story; only now do we How to overcome this awful epidemic

W

learn how his tormentors, ages 9-12, came to his door and threw sticks in his face. And how these junior terrorists followed him and a friend to a basketball court, and when the boys retreated to the friend’s house, they waited outside. These are just two of many stories that needed to be told publicly.

Ironically, school authorities knew, the little sociopaths’ families knew, everyone knew—including his grandfather, who offered to help with any problems, but Morales was a shy child.

What may have well triggered his final despair were reported taunts about his father, who committed suicide when Morales was a baby. The family kept this from him, and maybe he found out about it the day before his lifeless body was found, by his mother—can you imagine?

Infinitely more needs to be said (and I will) and done to stop this terrible, wrongful loss of young life and its hatefilled behavior causes. Now most young tormentors just get a slap on the wrist—if that.

No more! And we can overcome, if enough of us try! dewingbetter@aol.com

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