Front: Ted Rosenthal / piano, Middle (L to R): Jon Gordon / alto saxophone, Peter Washington / bass, Bill Charlap / piano, Brian Lynch / trumpet, Kurt Elling / vocals, Kenny Washington / drums, Back: Jimmy Greene / tenor saxophone
Last night, the Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall was sold out for an amazing Jazz in July kick-off performance, “Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein.” Vocalist Kurt Elling and a host of other leading jazz musicians performed songs from Bernstein’s West Side Story, On the Town, Candide and Wonderful Town. Don’t miss out on the remaining shows in this highly acclaimed series.
“This was a stunning revelation that I learned just before I left the White House… For me, it was the final moment of disillusionment, when… it came out in the legal proceedings when Patrick Fitzgerald was prosecuting Scooter Libby [that] the President had authorized the Vice President to selectively use some of that intelligence in the National Intelligence Estimate and share it anonymously with reporters. Now, he tasked Scooter Libby to do that… Here we were for years, [we] had been in the White House decrying the selective leaking of classified information. And the President had authorized that very same thing himself.” —Scott McClellan
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is making headlines yet again today for his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on what took place during the outing of former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. In his opening statement, McClellan said, “I regret that I played a role, however unintentionally, in relaying false information to the public about it.”
Above, full video of Dan Rather’s recent conversation with McClellan here at the 92nd Street Y, which aired on HDNet. A full transcript of that interview is also available.
Stephen Spruiell attempts to transcribe some of the conversation from last night’s talk between former White House press secretary Scott McClellan and Dan Rather for the National Review Media Blog:
RATHER: A lot of journalists thought that — let’s set aside present company — that it was pretty well known that if you did tough questioning… that you would expect the campaign to try to injure — if not destroy — your credibility as a journalist. Did you take part in those kinds of conversations? Did you hear those kinds of things?
McCLELLAN: I didn’t directly, I didn’t hear anything like that. [Upper East Side liberals emit sarcastic guffaws.] No seriously, I don’t think I… my focus was on domestic policy moreso than on the, on the broader issues… if that happened, it happened at a higher level than I was at that time, if people were directed to do things [...]
RATHER: Is there a special operation in the White House or in the Executive Office Building next door to it that seeks to orchestrate, perhaps even run some of what’s on the Internet?
McCLELLAN: Certainly there’s a large operation, part of the communications operation is the office of strategic iniatives, working to make sure that… the blogosphere has a tremendous amount of influence, and they just want to make sure that we’re helping to shape some of that narrative…
RATHER: To your knowledge, are there bloggers who are paid by the White House political operation? Some campaigns have —
McCLELLAN: — not to my knowledge, but that was not an area I focused on.
Upcoming at the Y: Bill Moyers in Conversation with Phil Donahue: On Democracy (Jun 10), Drew Westen, PhD, on the Political Brain (Jun 12), Barbara Walters in Conversation with Frank Rich (Jun 17) and Laughs from the Left: A Liberal Dose of Political Humor with Scott Blakeman, Jane Condon and Jeff Kreisler (Jun 26)
There is undoubtedly no one more qualified to pose the musical question, “Did the American Songbook Really End in 1965?” than Andrea Marcovicci. The glamorous diva of consummate grace and wisdom hosted a diverse program of song that suggested the songbook deserved an addenda to the pages that boast the legacies of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, the Gershwins and those other notable composers and lyricists who graced the first half of the last century. Marcovicci, hosting the final concert of the 38th season of Lyrics and Lyricists, made an appreciable argument that an embarrassment of riches topped the best selling charts in the years that followed.
The lineup for the 2009 Lyrics & Lyricists season was just announced—and covered by The New York Times, TheaterMania and Playbill—with Deborah Grace Winer, the series’ new artistic director, guiding us through the American Songbook. Winer will be collaborating with guest artistic directors including Martin Charnin, David Zippel, Robert Kimball, Rex Reed and Billy Stritch. The series will showcase, among others, Mr. Zippel, Richard Rodgers, Mel Tormé and Ira Gershwin’s collaborations with artists like Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen and Kurt Weill. Find more info at www.92Yorg/lyrics2009.
They begin by defining morality. Churchland calls it “a subset of behavior within a larger set of social behavior.” Damasio thinks of it as a collection of rules pertaining to “a set of actions where the actor would be rewarded or punished after the action.” Dennett shakes his Darwinian beard at the two of them and suggests that they both left out the uniquely human aspect of morality. “It’s about what you ought to do—what’s right, not just what’s prudent,” he says. And Hauser offers a question instead of a definition: “Is it morally wrong for someone in their own house to masturbate with a chicken?”
The chicken pops up again a little later, as the four discuss whether people need to believe in God to act morally. (None of them thinks so; neither does most of the audience, apparently, giving Dennett a thunder of applause when he calls that idea “the most pernicious falsehood spread today.") The problem, Churchland elaborates, is when people think God is telling them what other people should and shouldn’t do. She says, “I don’t mind whether people masturbate with a chicken or whether they believe in God—as long as it’s not my chicken.”
I spoke with Hauser for a while after the forum, and he is one smart, well educated and generous thinker, making the time to delve into fascinating scientific and philosophical topics with little ol’ me.
Next up on the science front: environmentalist and best-selling author of The End of Nature, Bill McKibben. Come meet him on Monday.
What You Missed: Mozart and Schubert With Pipe and Slippers
New York Times music critic Bernard Holland offers no small praise for pianist Paul Lewis’s emulative performance of Mozart and Schubert at the Y on Saturday:
Critics trying to deal with the idea of musical interpretation might keep in the back of their minds what Isaac Babel said, that “if the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy.” Something similar drew me admiringly to Paul Lewis’s evening of piano music at the 92nd Street Y on Saturday.
Listening to Mozart and Schubert was like listening to Mozart and Schubert, not like observing a man deciding how Mozart and Schubert should be played. Seemingly eliminated was the performer as middleman, as the wholesaler who takes goods from the composer’s warehouse and dresses them up for public consumption. Mr. Lewis is more “factory to you,” as the old cut-rate advertisements used to say.
On October 10, 1995, London’s Royal Festival Hall hosted a historic night of readings by three of the world’s most distinguished writers: Umberto Eco from Italy, British-Indian Salman Rushdie and Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru. At dinner afterward, Eco anointed the trio as The Three Musketeers. On Friday May 2, 2008, over 12 years later, the PEN World Voices Festival, in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center, presented The Three Musketeers together again for one unforgettable evening. Each writer did a reading from one of their works, followed by a group discussion moderated by Leonard Lopate. You can listen to audio and browse pictures from the night on the PEN American Center website.
Finally the three sat with the moderator, Leonard Lopate. Lopate himself didn’t have to do very much; with the slightest prodding the three would go off on tangents about writing, language, politics or anything else…
[The] event was amazing. The three authors offered fascinating outsider takes on America and literature, and I think we need more of this type of event. Other mass-media events where authors are interviewed, such as The Charlie Rose Show or NPR, are always more structured and hindered by time constraints. Having three people like this capable of conversing with each other and talking freely about a range of topics was both refreshing and fascinating.
Related: Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Contest Winners read tonight at the Y and now is the time to sign up for summer writing workshops taught by acclaimed writers Rachel Hadas, Emily Fragos, Sigrid Nunez and Myla Goldberg.
What You Missed: Richard Lewis and Keith Olbermann
The “Where is Cassandra?” blog has a detailed write-up of Sunday’s talk between Richard Lewis and Keith Olbermann. On Richard Lewis:
He dispelled the myth of drugs giving artists “creativity.” As he said, (I paraphrase: I didn’t tape it unlike him), he admired Jimi Hendrix very much. Some of the riffs Jimi created in the studio were just out of this world like a UFO. But to be honest and he spoke to a lot of guys who were there in the 60s, his shows were sloppy and he’d hit the wrong notes as often as the right ones, or more often. He, Richard, felt more clear-headed, controlled and that he was doing the best work of his life now that he was sober (for 14 years). He talked about Jonathan Winters, the comic he admired the most, who was still active at the age of 82. Who was sober for 30+ years, and who had survived 2 nervous breakdowns during the time when it wasn’t fashionable to go in and out of rehab.
He told a funny joke about Oscar Levant, to whom he compared his own twitching, “When Jack Paar asked Oscar what he did for exercise, Oscar replied, ‘I trip, stumble and fall into a coma.’”
On Keith Olbermann:
He was very tall. And big. (Speaking as someone who knows one, he has a big head too.) I was very excited and pushed Jeffrey up to him. Keith was surrounded by a tight group of affluent, older, well-dressed women. Jeff was very happy. He approached Keith like a close talker and said, “You’ve been one of my true heroes. Thanks for all you’ve done.” He answered in a clear, deep, broadcaster’s voice, “Thanks very much. Jeff: “I’m a sports fan.” And: “I wish Channel 2, 4 and 7 could report news like you do.” He leaned forward and loudly whispered, “Don’t hold your breath.”
Multiple award-winning pianist Meral Guneyman recently teamed up with the Y’s own legendary Dick Hyman for an album entitled Playful Virtuosity. They also teamed up for a concert here at the Y and All About Jazz has enthusiastic words for both:
Pianist Meral Guneyman appeared to be slightly nervous when she took the stage recently at the 92nd Street Y’s concert “Piano Players: New York Mix.” But after a glowing introduction from the show’s artistic director Dick Hyman, she launched into a powerful solo version of “The Clothed Woman,” one of several Ellington classics she played that evening with strong emotion and arresting dexterity. Later Hyman sat at another piano and they reprised his challenging arrangement of “Solitude,” skillfully filling in each other’s spaces and ending with a touching flourish.
Guneyman’s discovery of some Gershwin tunes arranged by Earl Wild was a driving force behind Playful Virtuosity, a fine collection of duo piano between her and Hyman. With Guneyman’s impressive symphonic resume and the classical elements present in Wild’s arrangements, it’s easy to see why she would embrace them so heartily. Guneyman’s undulating arpeggios and cascading symphonic touches enhance such songs as “Embraceable You” and “The Man I Love,” the latter of which recalls Rhapsody in Blue. Guneyman’s range, however, is not confined to the recital hall. On her tour de force rendition of “I Got Rhythm,” she boogie-woogies like the house player at a juke joint. At the Y concert she weaved the Wild and Hyman arrangements of “Rhythm” together brilliantly and played like a maenad, stamping her foot to keep time and giving the ivories a melodic forearm.
As an Amazon customer review of the disc put it, “Listening to these two musicians embellish on Gershwin standards would make an atheist believe in God.”
Award-winning Anne Carson is “the most exciting poet writing in English today,” said Michael Ondaatje. Carson, an essayist and classicist, is the author of many collections and translations, including Decreation, The Beauty of the Husband, Eros the Bittersweet and Autobiography of Red. She made full use of the 92nd Street Y stage on March 26 for a dramatic reading/performance that has to be seen to be fully appreciated. Fortunately the video excerpt above will do just that. Matthew Hittinger, who recently released a collection of poems called Pear Slip, was in attendance and his description here explains the precisely deliberate action:
The second piece was “Possessive Used As Drink (Me): A Lecture on Pronouns in the Form of 15 Sonnets” and clearly piqued my interest as it was a corona sonnet cycle (oh how I love those!). This piece involved a video of three dancers, two live dancers on stage, Robert Currie sort of subtly cuing and directing, and a panel that consisted of Anne and two other female readers. Some of the poems Anne read by herself out loud. Some were pre-recorded and the three voices would all read, sometimes in unison with each other and Anne’s pre-recorded voice, sometimes staggered beginning and ending at different points, and often at different registers and tones, even singing sometimes, that created this layered, at times ethereal, and definitely a Greek chorus-sounding performance. Another piece that I would need to see in print before I could discuss in more detail, but the performance grabbed my interest, especially the sonic layering.
Upcoming readings include: Andrew Motion and Wendy Salinger (Apr 7), Garrison Keillor (Apr 9), Hermione Lee on Edith Wharton (Apr 13), Imre Kertész with musical performance by András Schiff (Apr 17), Andrew Sean Greer and Meg Wolitzer (Apr 24) and The Poets’ Theatre II: Gilgamesh adapted by Yusef Komunyakaa and Chad Gracia, directed by Robert Scanlan (Apr 28).
The 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center hosted an evening of leading voices in contemporary Israeli literature called “Israel at 60: A Celebration of Hebrew Literature” on Monday, March 24, 2008. Pictured above, left to right: Etgar Keret, Meir Shalev, Zeruya Shalev, 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts Director Hanna Arie-Gaifman, David Grossman and Nathan Englander.
You can read coverage of the event on the Jewish Book Council website: “Speaking to a packed audience, the event successfully wove together some of the diverse threads of Israeli literature, allowing each audience member new insight, and perhaps a new appreciation for the many voices coming out of Israel today.”
Related: Sing Hebrew Without Knowing Hebrew (Apr 2), Israeli Culture through Film, Music and Literature: 1948 to the Present (Apr 17) and more Israel at 60 programs
What You Missed: Romance, the Rat Pack and Carolyn Leigh
Karen Ziemba and Jay Leonhart performing in the Lyrics & Lyricists series at the 92nd Street Y. Photo Credit: Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times.
Stephen Holden leads the round of applause for the most recent Lyrics & Lyricists performance, “I’ve Got Your Number: Romance, the Rat Pack and Carolyn Leigh” in yesterday’s New York Times:
In some ways the show is a sequel to last season’s homage to Rosemary Clooney, a program also conceived by [Deborah Grace] Winer and featuring several of the same performers. This year, besides [Karen] Ziemba, James Naughton and Debby Boone, the roster includes the suave singer and pianist Loston Harris. Once again the musical director is John Oddo (Ms. Clooney’s former conductor), whose inventive swing arrangements for five musicians, including the bassist Jay Leonhart, create a robust big-band sound.
Ms. Winer, recently named the overall artistic director of Lyrics & Lyricists, is the author of “On the Sunny Side of the Street: The Life and Lyrics of Dorothy Fields.” In examining the life of Ms. Leigh, who died in 1983 at 57, Ms. Winer places her as the successor to Fields, not only because both were women in a male-dominated field but also because both collaborated with Cy Coleman, and both wrote songs from a female perspective. Leigh’s lyrics, Ms. Winer astutely noted, were “Fields’s lyrics put through psychoanalysis.”
Demure and glamorous, Ms. Winer is ideally suited to the delicate task of infusing the long-running series with new energy...and her new show refines a polished blend of scholarship and anecdotal biography.
What You Missed: Economist Jeffrey Sachs, “We’ll Get Out of This Mess”
Michelle Haimoff reviews last night’s talk at the Y between Charlie Rose and economist Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, on ThePanelist.com:
When Rose asked him about the current economic situation, Sachs said, “We’ll wait a few years and we’ll get out of this mess.” Although he doesn’t see it as approaching the severity of the Great Depression, he described the mess as “intentional” and pointed fingers at Alan Greenspan, The Fed (who “didn’t pull the punch bowl away as the party got started”), and an unpopular and weak administration that is “financing a war that nobody supports.” He argued that the behavior was not prudent and that imprudent behavior blows up eventually.
In response to how much the US bubble is affecting the rest of the world, Sachs explained that the weak dollar means we’ll buy less from other countries and that the balance sheets of the banks of these countries might be in trouble. “I think we’ll have a recession. The rest of he world will have a slowdown but a modest one.” He said. “It isn’t true anymore that when we sneeze the rest of the world gets pneumonia.” Later he added that “[the US is] still the biggest economy in the world,” but no longer the sole superpower that everybody fears and admires, the reasons being that we’re making a lot of mistakes and the rest of the world is catching up.
Read more including his push for “weapons of mass salvation” and thoughts on the Fed’s bailout of Bear Stearns.
Update: Dan Brown, teacher and author of the memoir, The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle, was also in attendance and “came away from the event torn with alternating currents of outrage and hope.” Read his report on the Huffington Post.
Earlier this month, the 92nd Street Y’s Simon Center for Adult Life & Learning arranged for our patrons to participate in some of the last VIP tours of Yankee Stadium EVER. In addition to seeing the press box, clubhouse, dugout, field and Monument Park, our groups were given exclusive access to the Club Level, with stops at a luxury box, dining room and the Great Monuments Room.
This tour was added last minute and sold out fast. You can stay on top of newly added “Behind the Scenes” tours and all programs by signing up for 92Y eNews.
Reviews: Tokyo String Quartet, Chamber Music and Brian Brooks
In the photo above from last Saturday night, Catherine Cochran and Hanna Arie-Gaifman of the 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts toast the Tokyo String Quartet backstage on another successful season as the Y’s String Quartet-in-Residence. The upcoming 08/09 season marks the start of an ambitious three-year cycle, in which the Tokyo String Quartet will perform all 16 of Beethoven’s string quartets. Subscriptions are now on sale. Their recent CD of the Beethoven Op. 18 quartets has received glowing reviews.
The Chamber Music at the Y concert on Tuesday night was also favorably reviewed by Steve Smith in the New York Times: “Ms. Josefowicz was a fiery presence; Mr. Tree’s playing was sage and genteel. Between those poles the trio provided a solid foundation: Mr. Laredo and Ms. Robinson offered sweetly spun lines, and Mr. Kalichstein’s contributions were buoyant and refined. Intonation suffered in climaxes, but spirit won out.” More info on their 2008-09 subscriptions is available here.
In the last series of performances for the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, the Brian Brooks Moving Company impressed critics from the Advocate (here’s their preview and photo below) and the Village Voice: “Brooks’s brilliant escalating repetitions call for endurance, not to say heroism, on the part of the performers...But everyone’s running and leaping at once, barely avoiding collisions, grunting and gasping. Smart, utterly unpretentious heroes, they make your eyes water and your spirit soar.”
Brian Brooks, Edward Rice, Weena Pauly, Jo-anne Lee in Acre
New York Times music critic Bernard Holland offers no small praise for pianist Paul Lewis’s emulative performance of Mozart and Schubert at the Y on Saturday:
