Where Am I?

You are currently browsing stories tagged with Art and Performance

Hiding in a Transparent City

by 10/10/2012
Neighborhood: Upper East Side

When I was fourteen, I auditioned for the School of American Ballet and was accepted. The school was too far from my home to travel back and forth everyday, so I lived in the dormitory at Lincoln Center during the week and travelled back to Long Island on the weekends. Every Sunday night, after a […]

Doc Pomus

by 10/03/2012
Neighborhood: Upper West Side

My songwriter friend Robin called me with an opportunity to make some easy money, fast. She gave me the name and address of a friend of hers and, although I was pretty busy kicking drugs and booze, I jumped at the chance of making some money. I hopped the number two express on Seventh Avenue […]

Look Homeward, Brooklyn

by 09/07/2012
Neighborhood: Brighton Beach, Gramercy Park, Long Island

We move the summer before ninth grade from our four-room apartment in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, to a four-bedroom Colonial house with a two-car garage on the south shore of Long Island. A town where every street is a drive or a place or a court. A place where kids play softball in the street and […]

15 Seconds With Andy Warhol

by 06/09/2012
Neighborhood: All Over, East Village, Midtown

When I was a kid, Campbell’s Tomato Soup almost tasted home-made, especially if milk was added as suggested by the directions. Everyone ate it in 1964. The rich, the poor, the in-between and twelve year-old boys like me, so I was pleased to read in LIFE Magazine that a New York artist had painted large […]

The Gift of Tongues

by 05/25/2012
Neighborhood: West Village

It’s 1979 and the grown-ups are out of control. They are getting divorced and either going to law school or Studio 54. They are in therapy; they are smoking pot, taking lovers, coming out and finding themselves. My parents are married, but my mother buys Donna Summer’s Bad Girls and uses my Stagelight blue roses nail […]

An Upper West Side Tragedy Set To Music

by 05/18/2012
Neighborhood: Upper West Side

He always said, “Hello, I’m so glad to see you? How are you?” even when he no longer knew our names. Starting in the last year, he didn’t care about answers. He cherished his long career as an impresario in the world of music, selecting and programming concerts for major institutions in New York City. […]

Lost In Transit

by 03/17/2012
Neighborhood: All Over

It was 5PM on a Friday evening and somehow I was the only person on the train. I may have put the “new” in “New Yorker,” but I was no stranger to the stuffy sardine cans that subway trains turn into during rush hour. I craned my neck to get a look into the adjoining […]

Bento Box Bingo

by 02/26/2012
Neighborhood: Lower East Side

Many things are curated in this day and age. Google will happily refer you to “a curated book,” “curated digital apps,” “a curated list of televised soccer games,” a “meticulously curated” fixed-gear bicycle boutique in Paris, and “a curated set of grooming products.” A curated door, such as can be found at 27 Ludlow Street […]

Looking For Lady Gaga

by 01/04/2012
Neighborhood: Midtown

A Barney’s window display of Lady Gaga’s work has legendary multi-media performance artist Colette’s notorious creations written all over it. Colette, whose seminal performance art and multi-media installations originated out of New York City’s vibrant art scene in the 1970’s has traveled to museums and galleries all over the world; including the Guggenheim; MOMA; and […]

Talking Back: My First Encounter with the Human Microphone

by 12/31/2011
Neighborhood: Financial District, Uncategorized

I first visited Occupy Wall Street on a chilly evening in the middle of October. A few hundred people were gathered near the eastern steps of Zuccotti Park for the nightly meeting of the General Assembly. On the steps a young man was shrieking inaudibly. A few yards away, a jackhammer was being applied to […]

Chola’s Habit

by 11/16/2011
Neighborhood: Williamsburg

My younger sister, Chola, a second grader at Our Lady of Good Counsel, is chosen for a special part in the school play. My sister is real cute and the Sisters adore her. Chola loves Sister Romona and gave her a candy necklace for Christmas. She helps Sister Romona erase the blackboard every day and […]

A Requiem for Secondhand Books

by 07/01/2011
Neighborhood: Greenwich Village, West Village

She: I want to buy you a good book for your birthday. He: What would I do with a book? Buy me a new body! —Conversation overheard between a man and a woman. When I think of second-hand books, I think quite literally of anonymous fingers reaching out to me from beyond the grave. I […]