Moondog, he live! He tall!

Now resident at Hard Working Movies.

Lewis Klahr's The Pettifogger: Collaging the crime

Guardian article with images from Lewis' latest film, and Lewis' comments on them.  Lewis Klahr's The Pettifogger: Collaging the crime – in pictures.

The Recipe Project

One Ring Zero's The Recipe Project.

What is The Recipe Project?

"It's a 116 page hardcover cookbook book and full-length CD. The book features recipes, interviews, and essays from Mario Batali, John Besh, David Chang, Tom Colicchio, Chris Cosentino, Tanya Donelly, Mark Kurlansky, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Andrea Reusing, Michael Symon, Aaron Sanchez, Michael Harlan Turkell, Kara Zuaro, Emily Kaiser Thelen, Jonathan Dixon, Michelle Wildgen, Christine Muhlke, JJ Goode, Melissa Clark, and Matthew Amster-Burton. Plus online bonus tracks by Hubert Colson, Dave Wondrich, Jenny Morris, and John Currence.

The CD features recipes from the above chefs, set to music, and sung WORD FOR WORD! (In most cases, the musical styles were suggested by the chef.) Guest vocalists include Claudia Gonson (The Magnetic Fields), Tanya Donelly (Throwing Muses, Breeders, Belly), and Allyssa Lamb (Las Rubias Del Norte)."

Happy Worst Day Ever!

I'm no a dead yet. (I think)

Our friend, Zahra Partovi, has invited us to a screening of her new film,  REM:

Rapid

trEe        

       Movement

Our old, old, old friend, Lewis Klahr (begorah, we're old) was just in town showing films at Millenium, and sad to say, we weren't able to get together.

Our friend, Giuseppe, took us to a raucous birthday celebration for himself at Enoteca Maria in St. George, the county of Richmond, and I had flashbacks to looney times of 30 years ago.  Yowza!

A crisis has struck the family, and we siblings have pulled together as though not a day has passed since we lived under one roof.  It's sad and beautiful.  And we're no a dead yet.

25th anniversary of the destruction of The Garden of Eden

ADAM PURPLE AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HARVEY WANG

FusionArts Museum (Gallery B)
February 2-20, 2011
Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday: 12-6 pm
Friday and Saturday: By appointment only
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 3 from 6-9 pm
57 Stanton Street, New York, NY 10002


NEW YORK, JANUARY 4, 2011 – January 8, 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of the destruction of The Garden of Eden, an earthwork created by Adam Purple that once spanned five city lots on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.  This selection of Harvey Wang’s photographs, for the most part unpublished and on display for the first time, documents the expansion of the Garden from 1978 to 1985.  Rare prints of a few of Adam’s 1975-76 negatives will also be shown.

In 1975, Adam Purple set out to plant a garden behind his tenement building at a time when the Lower East Side was a crime-ridden wasteland.  It was a massive undertaking – the site had been buried in rubble from the demolition of two other tenements. While clearing nearly 5,000 cubic feet of debris using only simple tools and raw muscle power, Adam began to create his own topsoil from materials he found at the site and around the city. In addition to traditional composting, Adam made the seven-mile round trip to Central Park on his bicycle almost every day to bring carriage-horse manure back to the Garden, carrying about 60 pounds on each trip.

His circular design had mathematical and metaphysical meaning: The Garden of Eden grew exponentially with the addition of each new ring of plant beds, and at its center was a double Yin-Yang symbol. By 1986, his world famous eARThWORK had grown to 15,000 square feet. Among the many crops and flowers were 100 rose bushes and 45 fruit and nut trees.

Adam “zenvisioned” the Garden expanding until it replaced the skyscrapers of New York. For Adam Purple—social activist, philosopher, and urban gardener/revolutionary—the Garden was the medium of his political and artistic expression. When the Garden was slated for demolition to make way for a federally funded housing project, many prominent New Yorkers wrote letters and delivered statements of support for Adam and the Garden.  Alternative designs that would have spared the Garden or incorporated it into the new structure were displayed in the 1984 exhibition “Adam’s House in Paradise” at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in SoHo.  Nevertheless, The Garden of Eden was razed on January 8, 1986, and the new housing project did not include an apartment for Adam or space for a new garden.

In terms of his revolutionary ideas about sustainability and living as humble members of the natural world, Adam was ahead of his time. He has not yet been properly recognized as an important environmental artist.  It has been 25 years since The Garden of Eden was destroyed, and this exhibition aims to ensure that Adam Purple and his unique, site-specific artwork are not forgotten.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
To hear an interview with Adam conducted by Amy Brost for the StoryCorps Oral History Project, visit http://www.harveywang.com/podcast.html or download the podcast from iTunes.  For the interview transcript, contact Harvey Wang at (212) 777-5918 or hw@harveywang.com.  A slide show of selected photographs along with audio excerpts from the StoryCorps interview is on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfBvdzgQxY

TO HELP SUPPORT THE EXHIBITION, VISIT KICKSTARTER.COM BEFORE FEBRUARY 2.  Search for Adam Purple on the site or go to:
http://kck.st/ejHJg6

ABOUT HARVEY WANG

In the 1970’s and ’80’s, Wang was a resident of Chinatown and the Lower East Side, an admirer of Adam Purple, and one of several photographers and journalists to visit The Garden of Eden periodically to document its expansion.  His photography career has spanned more than 30 years.  Wang’s books include the critically acclaimed "Flophouse: Life on the Bowery" and "Harvey Wang’s New York." His photographs have been exhibited in museums and galleries across the country, including the Museum of the City of New York, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and the New-York Historical Society.  In addition to his work as a photographer, Harvey Wang is a commercial director and a filmmaker.  His short films, ranging in style and approach from documentary to experimental, have been seen in festivals all over the world. His film "Milton Rogovin: The Forgotten Ones" won the prize for Best Documentary Short at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival, and "Triptych" was chosen as Best Experimental Film at the 2004 Rhode Island International Film Festival.  He recently directed his first feature film, "The Last New Yorker," which had its theatrical release in 2010.
# # #

www.harveywang.com

Why should I care? Who is my brother? What should I remember?

Shameless promotion: Human Rights and Memory.  Coauthored by our friend and neighbor, Danny.  Who's proper form of address is apparently Daniel Levy, Associate Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University.

The Kids Grow Up

I'm reposting this from Lori (Cheatle - hey, Goog, it's Lori Cheatle again, producer of fine feature length docs!)'s Hard Working Movies site.  Hoopla!

The Kids Grow Up opens in theaters

Posted on October 24, 2010

The Kids Grow Up will have its theatrical premiere this coming Friday, October 29th at the Angelika Film Center in New York City. The film will expand on November 12th to Los Angeles, and then will roll out to several cities after that. See today’s Arts & Leisure piece in the New York Times.

The Breaking Winds, in The Lady Gaga Saga

You go, Dakota!

Welcome back

Jah, we back.  But before we was back and we was away we went again to ol' Fore Street where we said to our waitlady hey, we never been back what you didn't put a card on our table what said welcome back!  But she twicky!  When dessert come, look what she did!!

(Took two home cooked dinners, a leftovers lunch, and a bananas breakfast to get the poops back to normal.  And no bottles of wine.  I knew you were concerned about that.)

Thomaston Cafe, Thomaston, ME

This place has become one of our very favorite. Last time we were here was April of 2009. This time around we had the chilled blueberry and banana soup, Lota had the haddock sandwich and I had the halibut Caesar. Hail, Thomaston. (Last time we finished with the coconut cream pie, but having had all we had this time before noon, pie just couldn't make itself happen.)
File under "great food happens wherever someone wants to make it."
Sent via thingy

Andreas Laszlo Konrath: My Generation

Andreas Laszlo Konrath.  A grouping o prints named My Generation, which we say at the Susan Maasch Fine Art in Portland, ME. on the fabulous First Friday of this month.  Another artist who lives in Brooklyn whose work we first saw in Portland.  Odd.

Fabricant Studio

Bumped into our friend, Jon Fabricant, this morning (me moving the car, him walking the dog) and he told me he has this new site for some prints he's working on, fabricantstudio.com, and now I've gone there and I am telling you you need to do the same.  Fabu.  I'm gonna buy a copy of the Bicycle Rider.  Nu?

Can dreams predict the future?

Juju dropped a note from the Berkeley hills to ask if that Gorilla Coffee uprising wasn't in our neighborhood here in the Brooklyn slopes, and I had to smile because (a) Yes, (b) we'd bought the silverbacked correspondent Gorilla gear and coffee before and put it in one of the never-mailed packets to him (later broken into for our own drinking, but I see there is still a double X Ike Turner T-shirt there...), and (c) I was just then brewing a little stovetop pot of coffee, not Gorilla because we'd used the last of it a day or two before and were switching to some very nice Italian gift coffee for a while.  This was all on that fine last Saturday, and I was sitting out back, but near the kitchen door and window and I could hear the coffee finishing, but was surprised not to smell it doing so.  Guess what?  When I went to pour, there was no there there.  Someone (!) forgot to add the coffee to the coffee pot.  Pretty sure I'd never done that before, and I had to wait a bit for the heat and vacuum of the Bialetti ease off before I could start again.  So, back out back where (d) I was finishing this decade's reading of Little Big, where someone (!) who had oft described this book as one of his favorites was in the end-throes of being shocked that he remembered the first 50 pages really well, and the last 25 pretty well, and was deep under water in vaguery about most of the intervening 500 or so.  How does that happen?  Why does it keep happening to moi? 

Anyway, I didn't weep over Smokey's death this decade.  I think maybe I've come to wear my own Smokeyness more comfortably.  We'll take another look in 2020 (and see, nyuk nyuk).  (Nyuk nyuk.  Who's there?)

And here's why I'm posting: to say that one of the films Lori (Lori Cheatle!) produced this past year, Amy Hardie's fab The Edge of Dreaming got itself written about glowingly at the Huffington Post, by Karin Badt: Can Dreams Predict the Future? Amy Hardie's New Documentary.

Breaking radio silence for duck confit, G.E. Smith, and David Broza

Which goes something like this:

Feb. 27: Birthday party in Chinatown, sat next to the hostess and on her other hand was G.E. Smith.  Our hostess has been to our place once or twice for our big summer celebrate-the-new-wine and putanesca parties, and has obviously wandered into my little room which is shamefully lined with instruments I can barely play, and she has confused the memory of me owning instruments with the idea that she's heard me play them and that I'm damned good.   She waxes poetic about my playing, while I stare into the eyes of one of the great contemporary studio guitarists and music directors, and I feel my weenie shrinking until it is werry werry smawl.  Mr. Smith is gracious, asks how many ukes I have, and when I say it's an embarrassing number he makes me feel part of the club.

March 1 through March 7: I dip in and out of Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie, and I decide to try my hand at duck confit.

March 8: I go up to Union Square at lunchtime, thinking I'll check out one of the bookstores.  The green market is in full swing - I hardly ever get there on a Monday - and I stumble into the fine people from Hudson Valley Duck Farm.  I don't buy a book.  I do buy 5 lb. of Moulard duck legs and thighs.

On the evening of the 8th I salt and season the duck (clove, black pepper, garlic).

March 9: I take half the day off, come home, wash and dry the duck, and at 1:35 put it in a 190 F stove in a dutch oven.  Goal is to keep it there for 10 hours, rendering all the fat and poaching the meat therein.  At 9 PM we're at City Winery to see G.E. Smith back David Broza.  (Broza has just released an album of songs that are Townes Van Zandt lyrics willed to Broza, that he's set to music - Night Dawn.)  At the end of the concert we boogie out and are home by 11:40.  The duck fat has fully rendered, the meat is tender and delicious.  I weight the meat under a plate to submerge it in the fat, and stick it in the cellar fridge.  Gonna let is sit for a month.  Then we'll crisp it in a hot oven and weep.  Maybe use the rendered fat to do up some taters to put the duck over, Nu?

Thank you, GE.  Thank you, Moe.  Thank you everybody in between.

Dear Diary, Dante and I share a smoke and everything is a little clearer now

Dear Diary, sorry to have been away so long.  I've been spending time with my friend, Lamy Vista, I think I mentioned her before.  You know how it is.  And helping out a bit somewhere else.  Sort of important.

Anyway, I shared a little smoke with Dante this morning and he remindid me I really ought to say something. So here I am:

Last weekend, at our place, after we'd returned home from our sojourns, James Guido, el zorro plateado, or, I guess, really la volpe argentata, cooked a beatiful tuna over carmelized onions and a balsamic vinegar reduction, and broccoli rabe and a dish his mother used to make that's like a pizza rustica without the pastry. Lori made a salad with green olives and sassy almonds and she made a monster goat-cheese cake with a crushed brittle topping, and I made mushroom & fontina pizza for everyone to start with. R&E brought fabu wines & chocolates & a special guest, P&K brought bubbles galore. It was a great night, but here's why I'm really mentioning it: there were fishetarians in the house, so I couldn't put any slices of my cured duck breast on the pizza. Bubububutttt, I'd made enough dough and prepared enough mushroom to make another pizza the next day & did & lavished it with deep dark duck which got deeper and darker after 7 minutes of hot hot hot. And the next day after that I made a side of Brussels sprouts & figs with cubed up little pancetta-like ducky.

There. Sometimes it's all about the duck. Because sometimes all the other stories go somewhere else.

Oh - one other thing. The Losers' Lounge 60th Birthday tribute to Karen Carpenter at Joes Pub was (and will be again tonight) absolutely killer. Killer.  Absolutely On Top Of The World.

Songs for Unusual Creatures

Songs For Unusual Creatures - The Robot Show from Michael Hearst on Vimeo.
Hey, clear your calendar for Monday night.  We're all going to Joe's Pub to see out neighbor Michael Hearst perform Songs for Unusual Creatures.  Descrip:

Michael Hearst (One Ring Zero, Songs For Ice Cream Trucks) celebrates some of the lesser-known creatures that roam the planet. From the Australian Bilby, to the deep-sea Magnopinna Squid, the songs are brought to life by a gaggle of bizarre sounds and instruments including theremin, claviola, stylophone, and musical instrument robots.

Song for Unusual Creatures is featuring Michael Hearst (theremin, claviola, stylophone), Ben Holmes (trumpet), Allyssa Lamb (piano), Ron Caswell (tuba), Kristin Meuller (drums), and gaggle of musical instrument robots provided by LEMUR: League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots.

Be there or be square.  Or be there and be square, but very, very happy. 7:00 PM - January 11.

I got the Diagnosis

Finally got to see a performance of Diagnosis of a Faun (I first mentioned here) and loved it.  & we hear Good Morning America is going to air a piece on the piece (or on Greg & Tamar or on Greg) on Christmas morning.  Nyawkers, try to see it.  Three shows left.  Sex & surgery & Sibelius.

Mitch Montgommery's review in Backstage says:

In Rogoff's loose narrative, two lecturing doctors outline possible treatments for their patients. One doctor, played with stammering charm by actual doctor Donald Kollisch, must operate on an injured ballet dancer (Lucie Baker), while the other (Emily Pope-Blackman) is clearly attracted to the bizarre physiology of her unusual specimen, a 5,000-year-old faun (Mozgala). In both cases the culprit is the go-to literary symbol for weakness, the Achilles tendon: The dancer's exploded ankle has robbed her of her defining characteristic, while the same malformed muscles in the faun afford him his supernatural demeanor and allure. The mission statement couldn't be clearer: Rogoff seeks to provide new context in which to consider weakness and strength.

Whereas the NYTimes reviewer (I link not), says, "There seems to be a message lurking in “Diagnosis,” though it’s not very clear what that is. We all have weaknesses?"  Sigh.  Not very friendly. 

Choose your outlook.  (First see the piece.)

Diagnosis of a Faun

Lori has posted about this (and the film she is producing) at her Hard Working Movies site.  In addition to the NYTimes piece, CBS news has done a piece.  Tonight's the opening at LaMama.

From the Times article, Learning His Body, Learning to Dance:

Gregg Mozgala, a 31-year-old actor with cerebral palsy, had 12 years of physical therapy while he was growing up. But in the last eight months, a determined choreographer with an unconventional résumé has done what all those therapists could not: She has dramatically changed the way Mr. Mozgala walks.

In the process, she has changed his view of himself and of his possibilities.

Yes, the fabulous International Notebook Collection of Jennie Maneri!

AND, as if that wasn't enough, the crowning of Miss G Train!!!!

from JM:

Come see my International Notebook Collection on display at the City Reliquary Museum in Brooklyn!! Bring your friends, family and anyone I forgot.

Where: The City Reliquary, Williamsburg, 370 Metropolitan near Havemeyer 

http://www.cityreliquary.org

When: This Thursday, November 19th, 7:00 - 10:00

What: In case you didn't know, I have a huge collection of notebooks from all over the world.

If you haven't been to The City Reliquary, it is truly a unique experience. 

In addition to my notebooks being displayed in the Community Collections front window, the museum is holding The Miss G Train Pageant. So come on over for $3 beers, notebooks and the crowning of the new Miss G Train.