You are currently browsing stories tagged with “Art & Performance.”
Last week I was walking home through a snowstorm. Turning the corner toward Fulton I called Cecil Taylor, who lived in the last unrenovated brownstone on that street. We knew each other from back in the 70s. The jazz pianist’s manager James Spicer had been a mutual friend, until the silver-haired impresario ripped off my unemployment checks. “Who’s this?” Cecil [...]
Everything happened quick in CBGB's subterranean toilets. The release of body waste was rivaled by magic-markering a band’s name atop the thousands of previous honorees in the toilet’s hall of fame and while the inhalation of cocaine or heroin in the stalls was more popular than shooting up dope or speedballs, sex within the battered stalls was a cherished memory [...]
For thirty-five years its posture has been folded into a deep curtsy, dormant over a hanger, as if waiting for a curtain call. After that one moment in the spotlight, it’s never been worn again. Unless we consider fleeting fantasies of varying scenarios I’ve had over the decades that flash-forwarded to, well, the age I am now. Sixty. I am [...]
The term ‘generation gap’ was coined during the tumultuous Post WWII years, as the focus of the American media swung from the conquerors of the Axis Powers to their spawn, the Baby Boomers. Bing Crosby gave way to Elvis and the King was deposed by the Beatles, as each succeeding wave of teenagers attempted to assassinate the influence of the [...]
Sitting in the second row of the balcony at the New York City Center ballet, I, sixteen, entranced by the melodies of Swan Lake, watched a tall, muscular sun-god pirouetting and jeteing on the stage. As he soared, I gasped at the height of his jumps and his sure-footed landings. But I had not come to behold his square shoulders, [...]
I’ve been teaching Writing and Literature in New York City’s public school system for almost nine years. This spring, my former building will graduate its final class just shy of reaching the century mark. The school’s phase-out process followed the usual script that no ‘education reformer’ cares to discuss: a decent school declared dangerous, unable to attract new students, chronic [...]
The following sonnets are excerpted from Robert Viscusi's forthcoming book, Ellis Island, which will be published in March 2013 by Bordighera Press. Random arrangements of lines from the 624 sonnets that comprise this epic work can be discovered via the Random Sonnet Generator at ellisislandpoem.com. This is the first time these poems have appeared as written by the author. 1.6 i [...]
N train I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing. N train, two dollars and twenty-five cents. N train; go fuck yourself with your Sunday Schedule. N train you are making me lose my mind. You will never be angelic N train, 40 minutes to Queensboro Plaza! N train you are full of excuses. We passengers don’t have many demands. [...]
Three days after a storm that could have easily been called Gidget or Bob in keeping with the unintended frivolity of its real name – Sandy, two people are sitting on a bench in a dark chaotic lobby of an artists’ residence on the west side of Manhattan. One, a sculptor, is waiting for her son to pick her up. [...]
In the Greater Depression the employment opportunities for a man my age were limited in New York. No company wanted to pay my worth, for a younger man will do the job for a third the wage and his knowledge of labor resistance is zero. However my absolute willingness to work has overcome most obstacles as I labored on the [...]
Last week I officially let go of my faux-boyfriend. The moment of truth happened in a lavender room with a gray sofa and wooden lectern at the Office of the City Clerk on Worth Street. Jamie and Tomoko said, “I do,” and smiled. They kissed each other and thanked the clerk. I waited for something to feel different, but it [...]
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 and travelled up to Seventy-second [...]
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 portraits of the popular soup [...]
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 polish. She becomes interested in [...]
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. After that, he was around [...]
In 1986 I became an international pop music recording sensation. I don’t mean that at the age of 15 I admired and tried to emulate Ad-Rock, a squeaky, strutting third of the fresh hip-hop phenomenon the Beastie Boys—I mean I was Ad-Rock. His band mates—Mike D and MCA—were my homeboys. Sure, there had previously been a Tintin phase and then [...]
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 cars and realized that they [...]
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 in New York’s Lower East [...]
Annie was the whitest, white girl I ever did see. A walking anemic, she looked in perpetual need of a blood transfusion. If she were to walk through the halls of the high school dragging an I.V. pole with a bag of blood hanging off the top, I don’t think anybody would have batted an eye. I met Annie in [...]
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 The Whitney. Upon seeing Barney's [...]
Back in the 1970’s, my girlfriends and I decided to spend a Saturday night without boys at a restaurant in midtown called Jacques. Long gone now, Jacques was a cool, elegant white table-cloth place that stayed open late and served delicious Hungarian food. We looked lovely walking in, in our pretty summer dresses and soft shampooed hair. While the maitre [...]
MR. BELLER’S NEIGHBORHOOD READING SERIES HAPPY ENDING in the Lower East Side Friday, September 23, 8:00 PM A Free Evening of Non-Fiction In The Lower East Side. Reading on September 23 will be: Rob Williams - Bear Patrol Lily Shen - It Is Easy To Speak Chinese Kenneth P. Nolan - Farrell’s Nathaniel Page - Spanked The host is Connor Gaudet - Hung Out About The Readers... Lily Shen [...]
It had always been an in-joke between us. I was the one who hailed the cab. “Let them see that big yellow head of yours,” Tiffany would say. We broke tradition only once, separating at a corner during a light summer rain in Greenwich Village. The ugly truth left me stunned and incensed. The cab, a canary yellow mini-van with [...]
WHAP! The paddle hit my ass. The first time I recall getting spanked, I was four. I had stolen a box of matches and lit a fire behind my house. My father spanked me down the hall. The last time I recall getting spanked, I was 25. I was in Paddles, New York City’s main sadomasochist dungeon. Megan, my spanker, [...]
In the packed playground of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral School, the Friday night social chatter maintains a steady, low-level buzz, as cliquish tribes of girls and boys smoke cigarettes and drink red wine and imported beer from small, plastic cups. One girl wears a floppy, knit cap which, embroidered with a dizzying display of silver sequins, resembles a flaccid disco [...]
In the basement of the Museum of American Indian there was a caretaker’s apartment. You got to it by walking down a side stairwell, beyond the main entrance of the museum, or by going past the work space beyond the gift shop, through a utility room, and then down a side hallway. The door was always locked and the space [...]
Cocaine did not ruin my life any more than video games or an overprotective mother ruined my life. Which is to say, not at all. Whether or not cocaine impaired my intellectual abilities (I am not a member of MENSA) is something I’ll never know but as for my physical development (I’m six foot nine) I’m pleased to report cocaine [...]
My new play, “Asterisk,” recently opened. It was workshopped at The Crucible of American Theater, which planned to produce it in their first season, but went bankrupt after their first production. I had a show fold at The American Theater of Actors, when the director’s wife asked for a divorce, and he lost his job, all in the week preceding [...]
My neighbor is an artist and I’ve been walking my dog Vera past her door daily looking for evidence of how she lives. I’m new here now but no longer young. When I was, I lived in the same neighborhood but it was different, so even though my first address in this city was only a few blocks from my [...]
There are some things you do purely for love. Or I should say there are things you do purely for sex with the one you love. You do things not because you are in love but rather because your significant other withholds sex and bothers you about them so much that finally you simply cave and bend to their request. [...]
On May 20th, while most of the city was watching the Yankees and Mets slug it out for "Best Team in New York Baseball" bragging rights, just beneath their feet, a different sort of battle was being contested inside the Brooklyn-bound J train. The whole car, even when stationary with its doors open onto a platform, was rattling from the [...]
Madison Square Park confirms New York as civilized city. The park is a cultured green in Manhattan's punishing grid: the Flatiron Building to its southwest, Broadway to the west, the century-old architecture, the clock tower to the east, buildings that house Credit Suisse First Boston and some of the globe's most powerful corporations, America's wealth, New York's wealth, and the [...]
A young woman dressed in a leotard was dancing in City Hall Park today. The sun was brilliant and warm, the fountain flowing with water and the soft sound of an alto sax in the background. I felt nurtured in the sun, and great joy looking at the voluminous colors of spring tulips in luscious, full bloom. The young dancer [...]
[When the site first published Ennis Smith's "The Super With The Toy Face," its impact was felt immediately--not just on the site, but on the literary history of the United States. Smith has sent us a revised version of the piece, which we are happy to publish below. We're going to keep the original up, though, in order to see [...]
Harry’s back. It’s Wednesday, the middle of the week, and that means Harry is back to visit Winslow Homer. Harry visits his old friend Winslow Homer as if the two old friends were going to play their weekly game of checkers, as if this congenial game has been going on for fifty years with breaks only for the occasional war [...]
Tan Dun’s new opera, "The First Emperor," which premiered in December at the Metropolitan Opera and included Placido Domingo in the title role, was a complete sell-out for its run. The Met’s new GM, Peter Gelb, created a unique opportunity to expand the audience, by telecasting the WQXR “Live from the Met” broadcast in cities around the country. As one [...]
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