The legendary Man Who Made Mayors, David Garth, died yesterday at age 84. He's the political mastermind who helped to elect four of our city's last six mayors.
I blogged about him in 2010. Read it here.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Luvin' NYC - and how!
This week's New York magazine published its annual Reasons to Love New York issue. It's a cute compendium of stuff that is awesome about NYC -- although why this should generate feelings of "love" is another subject entirely.
It's generated some contre temps, however. Namely, Reason #12 tells the story of a Stuyvesant High School student who made $72 million trading stocks during his lunch hours. Pretty unbelievable and, in fact, it shouldn't be believed at all since it's not true. New York has had to publish an apology to their readers. Like New York itself, the reasons to love it are as much hype as reality.
More importantly, it makes you wonder what kinds of kids are being admitted to what is supposedly our city's best high school.
But wait -- there's some good news!
The Lonely Planet travel guide has released its Top 10 US Destinations to Visit in 2015. Guess what the #1 travel destination in the country is?
Queens!
Not NYC as a whole, not specifically Manhattan or Brooklyn -- but Queens. The garden borough, the boroughs of our two major airports, the borough of the 1964 World's Fair, the borough where yours truly lives. Queens is on the rise with massive numbers of people moving in. It's also one of the best places to eat -- in the whole friggin' world. Queens is the biggest secret in NYC hiding in plain sight. It's an amazing place. A city unto itself.
So you gotta love New York -- for whatever reasons, good, bad, true ... or sometimes untrue.
More importantly, it makes you wonder what kinds of kids are being admitted to what is supposedly our city's best high school.
But wait -- there's some good news!
The Lonely Planet travel guide has released its Top 10 US Destinations to Visit in 2015. Guess what the #1 travel destination in the country is?
Queens!
Not NYC as a whole, not specifically Manhattan or Brooklyn -- but Queens. The garden borough, the boroughs of our two major airports, the borough of the 1964 World's Fair, the borough where yours truly lives. Queens is on the rise with massive numbers of people moving in. It's also one of the best places to eat -- in the whole friggin' world. Queens is the biggest secret in NYC hiding in plain sight. It's an amazing place. A city unto itself.
So you gotta love New York -- for whatever reasons, good, bad, true ... or sometimes untrue.
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Landmarking NYC
Interesting conversation on WNYC yesterday about landmarking.
One of the legacies of the 20th century and Robert Moses era was that lots of wonderful old buildings, buildings that told the history of NYC, were destroyed in the name of progress and replaced by ugly monstrosities.
Since then, the city has done an admirable job through the Landmarks Preservation Commission preserving older buildings but it's a constant battle between those who want to retain the past vs. those who want to create the future.
Both should always have a place in NYC.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
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:
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.
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.
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.
Monday, December 1, 2014
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?
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).
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.
Monday, November 17, 2014
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.
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.
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