“Westwater reminds us that we are irrevocably connected, not merely biologically but also psychologically, to that original ooze and the blunt impulses that lay within it.”
—Tobi Tobias, The Village Voice
On Sunday, October 12, choreographer Kathy Westwater presents the dance preview of “macho” which features four isolated characters, Happy, Strange, Big Freak and Anybody who simultaneously navigate the “unmaking” of the individual’s world through pain and the “remaking” of it through acts of creativity. Peter Kirn composed the original score and offers a sample on his blog:
For anyone interested, here are some of my musical creations for choreographer Kathy Westwater, the sound design I described in our “sound design for imaginary instruments” series. Kathy’s work is Macho, named for the astrological body, as seen at right. (This qualifies as experimental music, so download only if you’re into that sort of thing.) This is a seven-minute version of the score, free for you to download.
Shababa Bakery: Squish, roll and braid your very own challah and take it home to bake.
Sat, Oct 11
Lady Riot’s Costume Ball: The New York Baroque Dance Company, directed by Catherine Turocy and accompanied by musicians of Concert Royal, invites you to an evening of entertainment, ballroom and country dancing from 18th-century London.
Sun, Oct 12
“macho”: Dance preview choreographed by Kathy Westwater; original sound score by composer Peter Kirn; and performances by Abby Block, Ursula Eagly, Megan Flynn and Aaron Mattocks.
92Y Podcast: Gloria Steinem on Women and Presidential Politics
On September 10, 2008 at the Y, Marie Wilson, executive director of The White House Project, talked with activist/writer Gloria Steinem and prominent law critic Patricia J. Williams about women and leadership, the current political climate and the presidential elections on women's issues. In the audio clip above they discuss the prominence of the campaign "narrative" portrayed by the media and the need to incorporate substantive talk on the issues when comparing candidates. Have Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama been treated fairly and the same? Listen for insight.
The fourth issue of Podium, an online literary journal of the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center, is out and marks its one-year anniversary since launching last summer. We have had the pleasure to publish many new writers and well-established authors who have made this literary magazine so exciting for the Poetry Center, its contributors and the community.
Each semester, instructors select students to be published in Podium to display the magic and talent that takes place in the Unterberg Poetry Center’s writing program. For this issue, we selected Brooklyn-based artist Benjamin Edmiston for the cover art. His Blockhead pieces especially tickled us with his wit and imagination. You can view more of his amazing artwork here.
Donors Choose is an organization based in New York that matches the needs of teachers—requests for books, materials and equipment not supplied by their school districts—with potential donors to fulfill them. It’s a personal form of philanthropy that connects you directly with the classrooms you are helping. They’ve just kicked off their 2008 Blogger Challenge and while browsing proposals, we were touched by this one from a teacher in Baltimore:
I teach 7th and 8th grade language arts in a low-income school. My students, although limited in resources and exposure to the world beyond their neighborhood, are enthusiastic learners.
One of my goals as an educator is to provide my students with new ways of understanding themselves and others through exposure to situations, ideas and perspectives that they might not otherwise consider. As an educator, I’ve found that one of the most important tool in shaping my students’ world views is literature.
Last year, I checked out 15 copies of Elie Wiesel’s “Night” from the public library and, sharing the limited copies of the novel, read the book with my 8th grade classes. Most of my students had never heard of the Holocaust. Our culminating activity was a trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.
I hope to teach this book with my new students this year in conjunction with “The Diary of Anne Frank”, and my vision is for each student to have his/her own copy of both novels to take home and read at night. However, I do not have the funds available to purchase class sets of the novels.
Tonight, the 92nd Street Y will be honoring Elie Wiesel with a special VIP celebration with Barbara Walters, Theodore Bikel, Arthur Gelb and many more. If you can’t make it to the Y for this one of a kind event, you can watch the evening program in a free live webcast here.
Bill Clinton and Matthew Bishop Webcast: The Business of Giving in the 21st Century
Please be patient while video loads.
Last night at the Y, Matthew Bishop of The Economist and author of the new book, Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World, hosted former U.S. President Bill Clinton in a one-on-one discussion about The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and the role that philanthropy plays in addressing the world’s pressing challenges. Tom Herman of the Wall Street Journalreports on the wide-ranging interview. Even better, you can watch the full program of the sold-out event above and experience it yourself.
Upcoming Events at the Y
A Day of Humanity and Peace in Celebration of Elie Wiesel: Oct 2
Leaders of the Future?—Individuals, Movements, Governments and Religions with Fareed Zakaria and Anne-Marie Slaughter: Oct 15
Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft on Foreign Policy Priorities: Oct 19
America at the Polls: Winners and Losers with Ralph Buultjens: Oct 26
How Should Jews Vote? With Ed Koch, William Kristol, Jane Eisner, Rabbi Michael Lerner and Aaron Brown: Oct 30
Previously, we posted video of Joan Baez's talk with Anthony DeCurtis at the Y on September 4. In the audio clip above, you can hear more of the preceding conversation about '60s songwriters from the video as well as her playing "There But For Fortune” by Phil Ochs.
Former President Bill Clinton with Matthew Bishop: FREE LIVE WEBCAST
In the first of a series of conversations focused on the themes of his new book, Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World, Matthew Bishop of The Economist (pictured above) hosts former U.S. President Bill Clinton at the 92nd Street Y in a one-on-one discussion about The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and the role that philanthropy plays in addressing the world’s pressing challenges. (Think Bill Gates.)
Specially priced tickets are still available to watch this event on closed-circuit TV from a remote viewing location in the Y. Please call Y-Charge at 212.415.5500 for more information. But if you have an Internet connection (and if you’re reading this, presumably you do), then you can get a front row seat with our free live webcast which will be available here on September 28 at 8pm. It should be a big night, charitably speaking.
FishbowlNY interviews Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker and author of The Rest is Noise, shortly after he was named one of 25 recipients of the 2008 MacArthur Foundations Genius Fellowships.
1. What was your initial reaction when you received the phone call?
It took me totally by surprise. The stock market was crashing that day, and a couple of times in the morning I saw this mysterious call coming in from Chicago, which seemed ominous. I thought they were trying to repossess my cats or something, so I didn’t pick up. Finally David Remnick tracked me down at The New Yorker and told me not to move until the phone rang. I was overwhelmed in every possible way and couldn’t think of anything coherent to say. I still feel that way; I couldn’t be more grateful for this huge recognition.
Jenna Bromberg of HotelChatter.com attended last night’s talk “The Future of Lifestyle and Business” with two of the biggest names in the hotel biz, Ian Schrager and Jonathan Tisch (pictured, left to right). She reports:
The two hoteliers took the stage like ol’ pals—and hey, fun fact: both Schrager and Tisch were alumni of the 92nd Street Y nursery school. Who knew? The discussion was formatted as a Q&A, with Tisch lobbing the questions to Schrager. While we knew this was going to be a primarily Schrager-focused talk, we’d have loved to hear a bit more from Tisch, frankly—he seemed like he had a great speaking presence and an awesome sense of humor. We dug him. Nonetheless, Schrager was about as suave, cool and collected as we’d expected him to be…
The first 30 minutes of the talk were pretty much fun background facts about the night club pioneer-turned “father of the boutique hotel”: he originally came from Brooklyn (East Flatbush, to be exact) and has mad love for the borough—though we couldn’t help but wonder why he hasn’t ventured into the BK to add to the growing population of cool, hip hotels there. From the BK, he hit up Syracuse University—of which he speaks very fondly—where he met Steve Rubell, who later became his partner in a little nightclub venture called Studio 54 (perhaps you’ve heard of it?)
The discussion eventually led to how Schrager’s career made a progression from the nightclub biz to hotels because “nightclubs had no discernable product; it was about creating some sort of mystique, some sort of magic,” as he describes it—and he wanted to do something different in an industry full of big-box chains “dominated by the efficiencies of execution.” Interestingly, when asked about why he chose the boutique route instead of rolling out a chain of Mondrians or Delanos, his answer was simple: “I knew we were doing something distinctive. If i wanted to do a chain, there would be 100 of them by now. But I like to do something and then move on.”
Find out about other upcoming Business & Finance Talks including Jim Cramer, Magic Johnson, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Martha Stewart and many more.
I wanted to clarify my remark about how the seeming evanescence of the universe (and other things) fit with my growing sense (not belief, or conviction) that there is no death. I didn’t mean life after death, i.e continuing on in the spirit realm, or passing into another form, or persisting as consciousness after the death of the body, none of which (at least when stated thus baldly) have much resonance for me. I was actually speaking of something like the opposite: that the universe can’t outlive or transcend consciousness.
Here’s how I tried to express it in a letter to my friend T-Ruth (who seems to have put into abeyance her interesting blog linked to herein). I had been having something like mystic flashes of apprehension (as in understanding, not as in creepy expectation). They had me thinking about that experience that some mystic thinkers or feelers call a Moment in Eternity. I wrote:
“It seems to me that if you experience one, then it can never stop—it’s a moment in eternity, which by definition would be as long as eternity itself. So then what would that moment be like to experience? What would the next moment be like? Wouldn’t everything subsequent just be aspects of the Moment in Eternity? And if the mystics are right and the Moment in Eternity is one we all can access and experience, then aren’t we all living in the Moment in Eternity but some of us haven’t figured it out yet? We live as though life were like a candle lit in a room: the candle’s lit, it burns, it burns down, it goes out, but the room remains the same. But it can’t be like that. The room, the candle, the idea of the room and the candle, all exist in the Moment in Eternity. We are prone to thinking that existence can’t go on after our deaths, it seems impossible; and yet we know we’ll die, and everything will go on. Have a Moment in Eternity and you’ll dissolve the paradox. (Not that I’ve had one; I’m just thinking about it.)”
It will readily be seen that this notion is a) unformed, b) doubtful on the face of it, c) open to obvious philosophical objections (solipsism, etc.), and d) possibly a joke; but I felt that the instances of mass evanescence I had been seeing somehow supported it. Lent some kind of credence to it. Maybe. If it is an “it” at all.
Former New York Mayor Ed Koch sat down with NY1's Budd Mishkin at the Y on September 8, 2008 to discuss his recent book, The Koch Papers: My Fight Against Anti-Semitism, as well as current events. In the audio clip above he tells a very funny and warm story about a visit from Mother Teresa.
Related: Koch returns to the Y in October for a panel discussion with William Kristol, Jane Eisner, Rabbi Michael Lerner and Aaron Brown on "How Should Jews Vote?"
You can also download the MP3. [2 MB]
[Right-click and select "Save Target As:" or equivalent to download.]
On July 29, 2008, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi appeared at the Y to launch her new book, Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters, with a candid conversation about the opportunities and choices that have brought her—and our country—to this time and place. In the audio excerpt above, Speaker Pelosi talks with Dr. Gail Saltz about the qualities in women—having intuition and being collaborative—that make them ideal leaders.
FishbowlNY interviews Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker and author of 
Jenna Bromberg of HotelChatter.com attended last night’s talk “The Future of Lifestyle and Business” with two of the biggest names in the hotel biz, Ian Schrager and Jonathan Tisch (pictured, left to right). She reports:
John Crowley, World Fantasy Award winner, 
