Memo from NYC

In the body politic -- in this city, state, and country, as well as in countries around the world -- there is a constant internal struggle between stability and change. Between wanting to Change vs. wanting to Conserve.

This internal struggle, perhaps, is true of every single individual who makes up any particular body politic.

The People, those sainted masses, say they want change, say they are unhappy with the status quo, say they want things to "get better", say that they want the world to become a better place, and yet, at the same time, have a sentimental attachment to the past -- both real and imagined  -- as well as a strong belief that things were better "then" before "those people" ruined everything and that we just need to "get back" to the way things were through the power of old-fashioned "common sense."

We see this in our politics today.

Since the election of the first black Democratic president, Republicans have yelled and screamed about wanting to "take our country" back from this socialist who wants to destroy America. Democrats don't get it. They wonder, what was so great about the past? What was so great about the time when there was legal segregation, gays were closeted, women died from back alley abortions, and old and sick people died in poverty? Republicans, of course, still wish we lived in that world. Democrats don't. But Democrats also wonder what happened to the middle class, that wonderful post-WW2 institution, which has been dying a slow death for the last three decades. Democrats want to take the middle class back. Republicans, however, are very glad that it is dead.

In short, Democrats always want to improve things, to "change" things or to bring the country back to a certain mythic point in time when the benefits of society were more widely distributed, while Republicans want things to stay the same or take the country back to another mythic point in time when they were huge divisions between rich and poor.

Wanting to change things vs. wanting to keep things the same is the constant ying and yang of our politics. When it comes to elections and the wielding of political power, the burden is higher on Democrats. It is less so on Republicans. Democrats want to win elections so that they can do thing with the power they gain. Republicans want to win elections so that they can keep that same power away from Democrats. When Democrats win power, they think, "Great, let's create policies that help people" and Republicans completely freak out because this is their worse fear realized. When Republicans win power, they think, "Great, how can we keep power out of the hands of Democrats" and who cares about policy?

This internal struggle causes distortions in our politics and public policies. Democrats, liberals, view politics as a means to an end. For Republicans, conservatives, politics is an end unto itself. So Republicans are, for the most part, better practitioners of politics than Democrats (not always but usually).

This article by a former liberal Canadian politician sheds some light on the problem why, as the most recent elections show, people who care more about pure politics as opposed to crafting policy will always have the upper hand. In short, he concedes that the big problem with liberals in politics is that, because they care more about policy than politics, they are ill-suited to the nasty, vicious, ugly realities of political combat. Liberals look down on it. They think it's vile. Conservatives, meanwhile, love it. After all, it's why they're in politics to begin with! His advice to liberals:

"It doesn’t pay ... to pretend to be better than the business you’re in. You can’t succeed in politics if you give too much appearance of despising the low arts by which we govern ourselves. Fastidious distaste for the roughness and meanness of political life may work in a seminar room, but it’s fatal on the campaign trail."

My advice to Democrats after these most recent elections: play rough. Play hard. Go after the Republicans full blast. These are nasty, vicious people and anything less than full on confrontation with them won't work. Don't retreat, don't surrender, don't concede an inch. Don't compromise with them, don't make deals, don't try to get them to like you. Fight, fight, and fight some more. Never stop. Exhaust them. Harass them. Embarrass them at every chance. Most of all, embrace the "dark arts" of politics. Beat them at their own game.

Until the Republicans are fully defeated, Democratic policy goals won't have a chance. Only then will the middle class arise again.

About NYC: Trivial and Profound

Life, as always, is busy -- and so is NYC.

So busy. So endlessly, constantly busy.

It's REALLY hard to find time to sit down and blog about the big doings in this here town. Therefore I'm including a bunch of links about some interesting things, both profound and trivial about NYC in this, the last month of 2014:

Under profound, read this fascinating (and depressing) article by Zephyr Teachout about how hedge funds and big money are taking over the NYC public school system, all under the banner of "reform." As this last election proves, big, unaccountable money is conquering force that can never be stopped.

Another profound but more uplifting story is how, in this age of the digital, a bookstore in NYC is still thriving -- the good old, reliable Strand. Personally, I've never liked the Strand that much -- the people who work there are rude and I've never been bowled over by their selection -- but it's good to know that real honest to goodness bookstore can still survive in the most expensive real estate market on earth.

And finally under Profound, and also relating to books, is an interesting article about writers who live in NYC and can't (like yours truly) ever compel themselves to leave.

And now for something a little more trivial -- although not that trivial. Check out this list of the 60 best New York City songs. Some I like, some I don't, but any halfway decent song about NYC always catches my interest.

And finally, the most trivial and most profound thing I've recently stumbled upon: the NYC accent! Oh yes, NYC is home to many accents -- there isn't just once. There are Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island accents, there may even be a Manhattan accents, there are so many inflections, so many pronunciations of the Gotham tongue that to say that someone has a "New York accent" is both to trivialize the person, the accent, and the city. And how we New Yorkers speak, all 8 plus million of us, is something very profound indeed. 

Knowing Me ... Knowing Brooklyn ...

"Dere’s no guy livin’ dat knows Brooklyn t’roo an’ t’roo, because it’d take a guy a lifetime just to find his way aroun’ duh goddam town." -- Thomas Wolfe, Only The Dead Know Brooklyn 

     

Brooklyn has always been a special place. In the greatest city in the world, Brooklyn has an identity all its own -- the New York within New York. Brooklyn obnoxiously "does its own thing" in a city where doing your own thing and being obnoxious reigns supreme. Brooklyn is an odd place, too. Consider ... 

How many places can claim to have been a city? Then a borough? Then a Brand?

How many places have produced both Supreme Courst Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Jay Z?

 How many places in NYC can claim to have a park that's even better than Central Park?

  

If New York City was a rock group, Manhattan would be the lead singer and Brooklyn would be the lead guitarist with mystique -- Manhattan is Mick, Brooklyn is Keith (everybody likes and respects Mick but everybody just loves "Keef"). I guess, taking this scenario to its logical conclusion, the Bronx would bass, Staten Island would be keyboards, and Queens would be the drummer.

 What is it about Brooklyn then that makes it so special? It's hard to say. It's something ineffable, elusive but ... it's there ...   

Perhaps, because, if you aren't a hardboiled native like Wolfe's character, then you can become one. Brooklyn invites all. It's a land of immigrants -- whether it is young hipsters coming in from around the country (think Girls) or foreigners coming to America (think ... uh ... I'll get back to you on that). 

For me, Brooklyn is personal. Both of my maternal grandparents were from Brooklyn, children of immigrants. My grandfather was born in the City of Brooklyn in 1895 and was part of the Brooklyn regiment in WWI. Who I am, for better or worse, it because of Brooklyn. To know me, you need to know the history of Brooklyn and what it means, not just to NYC, but to America and the world.

But that was then. Brooklyn used to be a refuge for the tired, poor, huddled masses earning to be free, the wretched refuse cast upon the teeming shore of the New World. Now it's a place for million dollar glass highrise condos. Lots and lots of condos. 

Of course, Brooklyn is more now than just a place to live -- it's a lifestyle. Heck, Brooklyn has gone international! Go to Europe today and stores and stuff there are all being labeled "Brooklyn" this or that in order to show their "cred." Brooklyn is beyond cool. It's practically redefining the planet.

And yet ... as the glass condos rise ever higher into the Brooklyn sky, taking real estate prices with them, and as the immigrants and hipsters to pour in, making it ever more diverse and cool -- that old world Brooklyn, the "Brooklyn before the Brand", still exists. It exists underground, in the many graveyards of the borough, where the Brooklynites of lore sleep in their eternal rest: Leonard Bernstein, Horace Greeley, FAO Schwartz, John Matthews "the Soda Fountain King", and many others (including my grandparents). There they lie ... gone but never forgotten.

So to know Brooklyn is to know it's people -- past and present. Only then will we know its future. 

"Banksy Does New York"

Review: "The Real Thing"

“I love love. I love having a lover and being one. The insularity of passion. I love it. I love the way it blurs the distinction between everyone who isn't one's lover.” 

There are few greater playwrights in the English language than Tom Stoppard -- Sir Tom Stoppard, that is to you. 

For nearly half a century, he has crafted some of the finest language ever to have crossed the stage. From the balls-out, awesome inventiveness of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in the late 1960s -- a reworking of Hamlet from the perspective of the doomed prince's doomed sidekicks -- to the massive Coast of Utopia trilogy in the mid-aughts -- about, of all things, 19th century Russian intellectuals -- Tom Stoppard finds inspiration in the most unlikely material and brings it to life on stage with words of great beauty and power, the most dazzling language created this side of Shakespeare. Indeed, Stoppard is one of the Bard's true blue successors. 

I've seen some of Stoppard's plays over the years -- Arcadia, The Invention of Love, Jumpers -- and they never cease to amaze me. That was why I was so happy to go to the Roundabout revival of Stoppard's 1980's hit The Real Thing -- the second time it has been revived on Broadway since 1985 and the second time I've seen it stage. This is a very good production with one glaring problem.

The Real Thing is about a playwright named Henry (Ewan McGregor) who has been having an affair with Annie (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the wife of his actor friend Max (Josh Hamilton). Henry is married to Charlotte (Cynthia Nixon), an actress who is currently appearing in a play written by Henry. It's not giving away much that Henry and Annie run off together. Most of the play is devoted to the complexity of their relationship while Annie tries to negotiate her acting career while at the same time working on the "Free Brodie" (an imprisoned political activist) committee and Henry tries to keep writing while grappling with the challenge of being a divorced dad. Like all Stoppard play's, the plot is a device to encourage a larger discussion on the nature of truth, love, sex, family and how we understand them through the beauty and challenges of ... words. Also, The Real Thing has a big plot twist -- some might even call it a trick -- and it appears at the beginning of the play, not the end. Like all Stoppard plays, not only is the language sublime but so is the plotting.

This production is beautifully staged. The set is very modest and the actors really move around and use it in a way that helps to make the story compelling. There's a lot of music in this production, with the actors even singing along to a diverse number of songs like "Do Run Run" and "Whiter Shade of Pale." And, of course, the acting is great (well ... almost all of it). Cynthia Nixon, as always, is great. As wonderful as she was on Sex and the City, she really is one of the great stage actresses of her generation and is a joy to watch on stage. Josh Hamilton is very good as Max, making the most of the one of the most thankless parts I've ever seen in a play.

The biggest revelation is Maggie Gyllenhaal. Man, she is a GREAT actress. I've seen her in some movies like The Dark Knight and she was good. But on stage, with a great material like Stoppard, she really shines. Her Annie is such a complex, sexy creation that you can't take your eyes off her for a second. She generates so much power from the stage that you leave the theater thinking not just about what a great writer Stoppard is but what a great actress Gyllenhaal is. She inhabits Annie so completely that I'm still thinking about her performance. She's just a joy to watch.

The same, sadly, quite can't be said about Ewan McGregor. He is a very good actor and I loved him in Trainspotting (who didn't?). Also, he was the only decent thing in the Star Wars prequels. But he's a less than compelling Henry. In the play, Henry is supposed to be a great writer and a lousy human being. In fact, he's kind of a prick. That's part of what makes his evolution in the play into a good husband and father so important. But McGregor is just too likeable, too decent, too ... unprickish ... that this evolution doesn't really register with the audience. I will, however, admit a bias: in the revival I saw in 2000, Stephan Dillane (better known today as Stannis Baratheon in Game of Thrones) played Henry and he was incredible (won a Tony for it, in fact). McGregor just doesn't compare. I tried to seperate the two performances in my mind but just couldn't: while McGregor's Henry is passable, it just didn't work for me the same way Dillane's did. 

However, these feelings aside, this Real Thing is a production worth seeing. 

“Words... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more... I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.” 

P.S. This production is appearing at the American Airlines theater on 42nd street. It's a great theater and it has a secret 5th floor bar that is a great place to go during intermission. When the wife and I went there to get a drink during intermission, there were hardly any people but there were lots of tables and chairs plus a beautiful open-air balcony. It's a real gem and worth checking out if you ever go to a show there.

Welcome to the Oculus

In a rare blip of good news, this week marks the opening of the much awaited, much anticipated, much debated Fulton Center. A $1.4 billion gleaming glass and steel behemoth, it's a strikingly bold move into the 21st century for the New York City subway system.

First conceived in 2002, right after 9/11, Fulton Center is a transit hub that pulls together a goulash of subway lines, namely the A, C, J, Z, 2, 3, 4, 5 and R lines. In addition, there will be "improved access" to the 1 and E lines as well as the PATH trains. In the annals of NYC transportation, this is a big effing deal. If you've ever tried negotiating the subway lines of Lower Manhattan, it's generally been a nightmare of ramps and staircases and seedy tunnels -- very often strewn with trash and bottles and reeking of urine. Also, these various subway entrances and connections were a test case in the limits of crowding humanity into tight areas, making Calcutta look spacious, and inducing numerous bouts of "walker rage."

Fulton Center corrects all this and provides subway riders much needed relief with widened tunnels, brand new staircases, and wheelchair access.

But it's the building itself that makes Fulton Center so impressive -- it looks like it has more to do with space travel than underground travel. Its exterior resembles the capital building of some alien planet from an old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (it has a baddass looking dome!). The interior appears to be the hybrid of the inside of a shopping mall and a space station -- a circular atrium, curving staircases, escalators, and numerous screens with dancing images. But the really impressive thing about Fulton Center, some would say the most "magical" thing about it is ... the oculus!

Ah yes -- the oculus!

“The lions at the New York Public Library, the clock in the middle of Grand Central terminal, and now, this jaw-dropping oculus." Thus spake MTA Chairman Tom Prendergast. He has declared that the interior of the aforementioned dome at Fulton Center will fast become one of wonders of NYC. Also called the Sky Reflector Net (no, not like the organization from the Terminator movies), the oculus is composed of 952 diamond shaped reflective panels that draw sunlight into the transit center in good weather and allow people to watch rain dance above them in lousy weather. It brings the millenniums-old natural world into this most cutting-edge example of modern building. And, sarcasm aside, it's really, really impressive.

In its every design and utility, Fulton Center demonstrates that the super-enlightened, super-tech future has arrived in NYC. It's good for the people riding the subways and negotiating the city, and it's a beautiful addition to the architectural splendors of the city.

Sadly, of course, it can't exactly change the behavior of subway riders but, hey, you can't have everything.

Never Leave NYC?

There are many, many, many, many, eighteen-thousand billion reasons why living in NYC makes sense -- namely, that it's the most exciting, dynamic city on earth, that there's so much to do that it's beyond comprehension, that there are eight million incredible potential friends you could make, and that this is the cultural and financial capital of the world. In short, living in NYC is like living in a microcosm of the world.

Then there are a couple of good reasons NOT to live in NYC -- namely, that it costs a bloody fortune to live in no space and your quality of life is always a secondary consideration to all that other great stuff.

So what about these 110 Reasons Why You Should Never Leave New York City created by Buzzfeed? 

I read them over and, quite frankly, they don't make a convincing case. This lists things like: pizza, bagels, fast walkers, numerous places for happy hour and brunch, not having to pay for car insurance and gas, people watching, bodegas, picnics on the roof, and looking at the view from a moving train.

I'll give this list that last one but the other reasons seem weak. Of course, I realize that this list is meant to be fun but it would have been better if it actually was fun -- like, NYC has the world's best tranny hookers, the male-to-female ratio weights on the male's favor, you can see SNL, Letterman, and the Tonight Show here, there are multiple airports here that can take you to anywhere in the world, and that NYC is the world's best food city. But hey, who am I to complain? 

Panic! Or maybe not ...

Just Enough

In 1973 Stevie Wonder released one of his greatest songs: "Living for the City." It's a heart-wrenching ballad about a young black man from Mississippi who comes to NYC to escape his hard upbringing, only to find it replicated in the big city. As the chorus goes, this kid is "living just enough, just enough for the city."

Struggle seems to be the defining characteristic of life in NYC. Life here is tough -- in so many ways. 

Whether it's metaphorically struggling to pay the rent or get and keep a job, or literally struggling to walk the streets and navigate the public transportation system, just getting through an ordinary day in NYC can often seem like a marathon made up of many sprints. Stevie Wonder hit upon an essential truth in his song that the young man of his song -- and so many others in this city -- are doing "just enough" to survive here.

This may be the city where dreams are made, where teaming millions with sweeping ambitions congregate, where fortunes are made, fame is gained, and legends are forged, but, for most of us, just getting here and staying here is a triumph. 

Living in NYC is so hard, getting to that "just enough" is so tough, why then do we stay? 

Because so many of New Yorkers, like yours truly, just "can't quit" this town. There's no sense to it, no rhyme or understandable reason, no train of logic that doesn't have many swerves and detours to explain why so many of us stay here, spend a fortune to live in no space, and put up with noise, garbage, crowds, etc. etc. etc. but ... we stay. Why?

Perhaps this article and this radio segment can provide some perspective. They provide good reasons why so many New Yorkers stay when logic and budgets should send us elsewhere. But, like Stevie, they hit upon another essential truth: for many of us, it's "just enough" to survive in NYC that makes staying here worth it, and most of us would rather do so than thrive anywhere else.   

Jan Hooks RIP

Back in the late 1980s, when I was a kid and started watching "Saturday Night Live", Jan Hooks was part of the cast. It was, in retrospect, one of the great periods for SNL. Along with Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon, Mike Meyers, and Victoria Jackson, this was the time of such memorable recurring sketches as "Wayne's World", "Sprockets", "Church Lady", the first President Bush, Caveman Lawyers, and lots more. Hooks and Nora Dunn had a recurring sketch, the Sweeney Sisters, about two over-the-hill, over-the-top lounge singers which was very funny.

But Jan Hooks stood out as the best female impersonator in the history of SNL. There simply wasn't one female person of note that she didn't impersonate and totally nail: Tammy Faye Bakker, Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton, Sinead O'Connor, Diane Sawyer and, as you can see here, Kathie Lee Gifford. Jan Hooks just dissolved into whoever she was imitating and, sometimes, she seemed more real and believable than the real people. You never got the sense that Jan Hooks was trying to be funny -- she just was funny, naturally, and made it seem totally effortless. She was amazingly talented.

Jan Hooks never had a huge career after SNL -- she was on some sitcoms and did guest roles here and there. It's too bad, because she was as good as any man who came out of that show. It was harder, then, for female comedians to brake out but she paved the way for people like Kristen Wiig and Sarah Silverman who came afterwards. But Jan Hooks was a memorable talent and her death at age 57 is very sad.

But I'll always remember the laughter she gave me as a kid back on those dark Saturday nights in front of the TV. Thank you, Jan.