Anyone still wondering what to do this evening? We’ve got you covered uptown at 92Y with Los Romero and a Hustle Dance Party. And 92YTribeca has got you covered downtown with: Sparkle New Year’s Eve at 92YTribeca. The event features 16 performers, video shorts, story telling, performance, and so much more. We have a few tickets left; they are priced at $15. That is approximately $.75 for each act. Sparkle Variety has more info.
The doors at 8pm. Sets at 9 and 11, plus afterparty/show until 4am. See you there, or see you next year.
New Year’s Resolution: Hitting the Gym Twice a Week
Woo boy! 2009 is turning a page, and with it a full decade. We’ll be celebrating with “The Royal Family of the Guitar,” for a champagne concert.
After that, no more procrastinating, it’s time to embrace 2010 and any resolutions made. Staying fit and healthy is usually on many lists, which should make our Open House at the May Center a popular spot on Jan 12. We will have a full day of activities and events, with drop-in classes, fitness demos, prizes and our biggest membership discount of the year. Further, we will offer three free months to the first 50 people who join the May Center at our Fitness Open House!
So go ahead, make that resolution, and let us help you keep it. Browse the day’s activities, (see the full schedule here [PDF]), sign up for May Center Open House, and start the New Year’s off right...with a resolution you’ll probably end up breaking by February. But if you are of the first 50 people to show up and join the May Center, at least your first three months are free!
This Jan 31 brings Guitar Marathon: Bach, a two part concert featuring 14 musicians and works by Bach, Frescobaldi, Handel, Gyan Riley (a world premiere, co-commissioned by the 92nd Street Y) and Weiss.
Below are audio clips from some of the musicians performing that evening.
Nigel North - Suite No 4 in B flat Major Gyan Riley - The Changes Stay the Same Part II Jason Vieaux - Bach - Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-flat Major, BWV 998 Paul Galbraith - Bach - Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-flat Major, BWV 998 [trans. D Minor] Benjamin Verdery - Bach - Gigue from Suite No. 4 for Solo Cello
Brazilian Guitar Quartet - Bach - Ouverture from Orchestral Suite No. 4 David Leisner - Bach Lute Suite No. 1, BMV 996 - Bourrée
Do You Have What It Takes To Perform For David Krakauer?
“Lots of folks play the clarinet, but very few like David Krakauer,” wrote the Classical Voice of North Carolina. “There is little if anything Krakauer can’t do with a clarinet – in any style. He can make it speak with power and delicacy across its range in a variety of foreign ‘languages.’”
David Krakauer, who teaches at the Mannes and Manhattan schools and Bard Conservatory of Music, will be presenting a Master Class on Jan 24 at 92Y. If you would like to perform for Mr. Krakauer, please call 212.415.5580. There is no application fee, and we are requesting a recent recording, updated resume and a cover letter from each master class applicant. You may also attend as an audience member to view the performances.
David will critique the performances, address technical issues, and offer ways to bring out their style. This is a unique opportunity for performers and audience members alike. Those not performing can purchase your tickets here.
“This haunting phantasmagoria of a film—comic, singular, surreal—is not only something no one but the Canadian director could have made, it’s also a film no one else would have even wanted to make. Which is the heart of its appeal.
[...]
It’s part and parcel of the unexpected charm of “My Winnipeg” that it is all but impossible to tell which of these things is real and which is the product of Maddin’s eccentric imagination. The director, however, is so adept at weaving his spell, you don’t even care. “My Winnipeg” is a film to give yourself to, with pleasure.”
--Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Movie Critic, reviewing Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg.
And IFC First Take described it as a “...deliriously layered provocation,” “outrageous, informative and wildly entertaining.”
Jaron Lanier—technology visionary, scholar-at-large for Microsoft Live Labs, interdisciplinary scholar-in-residence at UC Berkeley’s Center for Entrepeneurship and Technology, and author of You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto—has an interesting Q&A on his Amazon page.
Question: As one of the first visionaries in Silicon Valley, you saw the initial promise the internet held. Two decades later, how has the internet transformed our lives for the better?
Jaron Lanier: The answer is different in different parts of the world. In the industrialized world, the rise of the Web has happily demonstrated that vast numbers of people are interested in being expressive to each other and the world at large. This is something that I and my colleagues used to boldly predict, but we were often shouted down, as the mainstream opinion during the age of television’s dominance was that people were mostly passive consumers who could not be expected to express themselves. In the developing world, the Internet, along with mobile phones, has had an even more dramatic effect, empowering vast classes of people in new ways by allowing them to coordinate with each other. That has been a very good thing for the most part, though it has also enabled militants and other bad actors.
Question: You argue the web isn’t living up to its initial promise. How has the internet transformed our lives for the worse?
Jaron Lanier: The problem is not inherent in the Internet or the Web. Deterioration only began around the turn of the century with the rise of so-called “Web 2.0” designs. These designs valued the information content of the web over individuals. It became fashionable to aggregate the expressions of people into dehumanized data. There are so many things wrong with this that it takes a whole book to summarize them. Here’s just one problem: It screws the middle class. Only the aggregator (like Google, for instance) gets rich, while the actual producers of content get poor. This is why newspapers are dying. It might sound like it is only a problem for creative people, like musicians or writers, but eventually it will be a problem for everyone. When robots can repair roads someday, will people have jobs programming those robots, or will the human programmers be so aggregated that they essentially work for free, like today’s recording musicians? Web 2.0 is a formula to kill the middle class and undo centuries of social progress.
Read more and don’t miss his upcoming talk with Robert Krulwich, correspondent for NPR’s Science Desk and co-host of WNYC’s Radio Lab, on Jan 14 at 92Y.
The following compositions by Haydn will be performed on Feb 25:
Capriccio in G Major on “Acht Sauschneider müssen sein,” H.XII:1
Sonata in G minor, H.XVI:44
Fantasia (Capriccio) in C Major, H.XVII:4
Sonata in E minor, H.XVI:34
Andante and Variations in F minor, H:XVII:6, “Un piccolo divertimento”
Sonata in E-flat Major, H.XVI:52
TONY: The great musical-theater stars from your generation—you, Bernadette Peters, Betty Buckley—have very specific performance styles. That seems to be less true of the younger generations: Almost nobody has a definable persona. What are your feelings on that?
Patti LuPone: That’s charisma, is what it is. It’s star power. It’s sex appeal. How do you develop that? First of all, you either have it, or you don’t. And I think they elevate people to a level of stardom before they develop their craft or their persona—or they don’t have one, but the marketing develops a star. It’s bad for the industry that the people who are in the star positions aren’t qualified to move an audience, to take the audience on a journey. Audiences need actors who are going to relax them when they sit in the seat. And you can’t do that without experience, and you can’t do that without talent. You need certain things to create the environment for a theatrical experience.
TONY:Many actors these days give studied, contained performances that do what they’re supposed to do but don’t risk anything beyond than that. But you seem willing to go to bigger, riskier places. Is that built into the way that you are?
Patti LuPone: Yes. And it’s been a struggle my entire career. It’s not acceptable in this country. Who I am, my face, my persona, if you want to call it that, is at home and comfortable and anonymous in Italy. In America, it stands out, because it’s raw, it’s big, it’s emotional. My face is raw, big and emotional. It didn’t work for the longest time. All my career, I’ve said this: Critics and producers think audiences want actors that only present the silhouette, and hit the points in the silhouette. What I do is too dangerous. I guess it isn’t anymore. [Laughs] I guess it’s okay. Look at the audience’s response in Gypsy! And I’m not holding anything back.
When TONY asked her to complete the sentence, “New York is…” she responded: “…my hometown. My workplace. My breath. My craft. My culture. My education. A lot of my fears. My blood and soul.”
On Feb 14, Patti LuPone and another New York icon, WNYC’s Leonard Lopate, will be here for The Broadway Life, a discussion of her illustrious career as a performer and her roles both onstage and off. Purchase tickets here.
In 2006, Doonesbury cartoonist Gary Trudeau created a blog, The Sandbox, published along with David Stanford, where troops could “report on themselves” in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Sandbox offers soldiers a forum to share “…the unclassified details of deployment—the everyday, the extraordinary, the wonderful, the messed-up, the absurd,” and has since been turned into a book.
“I think the wars are just too remote for people’s minds,” Trudeau told The Nation. “They see two, three minutes on the evening news, maybe, if they don’t look away.”
Last check of the apartment. Didn’t bring much home, think I got it all. A last look around. I like this place. It smells and feels like everything that is home. Down the stairs and out the door. The weather has been mild. I take credit for that. Not too cold in the car. The slightest drizzle in the air and on the windshield. Perfect for the occasion really.
Short drive to the airport. She pulls up to the curb and turns off the car. We have decided that coming in to see me to the gate sounds like a better idea than it actually is. We look at each other. We get out. Hug. Kiss. Cry. Like the drizzle—just a little. Go, so you can come back. And I do. So I can. The last time.
On Jan 25th, Garry Trudeau, David Stanford, and artist David Levinthal will participate in a round-table discussion, moderated by Roger Rosenblatt, that examines the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through the lenses of cartoons, blogs, photographs, traditional journalism and first-hand accounts.
When Paul Schaffer and Glenn Close were here recently, Martin Short was in the audience and spontaneously joined them on stage in song. It was nothing short of incredible. (We don’t have the video to share, so you’ll just have to take our word for it!).
Or...if you’d like to see “Marty” in person, you could come by on Jan 17, when Martin Short and Richard Belzer will share the stage together. We can’t promise you that they will break out in song, but you really never know with Martin. We can however take your questions for them, where we will try and use them during the Q&A. Leave your questions for Martin or Richard here in the comments!
Best known for inventive and often hilarious photographs of his Weimaraners, William Wegman works in a variety of media, including painting, video and photography. He has been the subject of several major museum retrospectives, most recently at the Brooklyn Museum in 2006 and has created videos for Saturday Night Live, a series of children’s books and books for adults, including Man’s Best Friend, Fashion Photographs and Fay. About those dogs:
It was while he was in Long Beach that Wegman got his dog, Man Ray, with whom he began a long and fruitful collaboration. Man Ray, known in the art world and beyond for his endearing deadpan presence, became a central figure in Wegman’s photographs and videotapes. In 1981, Man Ray died. It was not until 1986 that Wegman got a new dog, Fay Ray, and another collaboration began marked by Wegman’s extensive use of the Polaroid 20 x 24 camera. With the birth of Fay’s litter in 1989, Wegman’s cast of grew to include Fay’s offspring — Battina, Crooky and Chundo — and later, their offspring: Battina’s son Chip in 1995, Chip’s son Bobbin in 1999 and Candy and Bobbin’s daughter Penny in 2004.
Wegman appears at 92Y on Jan 14 for a presentation and conversation with Robert Storr, dean of the Yale University School of Art, in our Artists’ Visions Series.
Koftas are an excellent way to use up odds and ends of fresh vegetables that may be collecting in your refrigerator.
1 ½ cups shredded raw vegetables, squeezed dry (carrots, green beans, zucchini, and/or cabbage), measured after squeezing out moisture
1 tablespoon ground coriander
½ tablespoon ground ginger
½ tablespoon ground cumin
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon dill weed (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
½ to 1 cup besan or gram flour (lentil flour)
Vegetable oil for frying
1. In medium bowl, combine shredded vegetables, coriander, ginger, cumin, garlic, dill weed, if desired, and salt and pepper to taste; mix well.
2. Add enough flour to hold mixture together. With hands, shape mixture into 1-inch balls.
3. In large saucepan or deep skillet over high heat, heat 2 inches oil until hot. Add vegetable balls, a few at a time. Fry about 5 minutes, or until golden. (Reduce heat to medium if oil starts to spatter.)
4. Drain koftas on paper towels. Repeat until all are fried. Serve hot.
Magee Hickey, a reporter for WCBS-TV in New York, was recently profiled by Woman Around Town where she talks about her career (she’s up by 2:30am!) and her new singing hobby:
When the conversation turns to singing, Magee explains that, despite her high-profile profession, her biggest fear is singing into a microphone in front of an audience. For this reason, she tells the group, she’s enrolled in an evening cabaret class. Not only does she want to conquer her fears and learn “how to sing,” but she hopes to perform a few songs at her father’s birthday party in the spring. She tells me, “My husband was confused, he says, ‘We’ve been married for 26 years. I know you’re scared of singing. I can’t believe you’re doing this!’”
Nonetheless, she’s committed to the course, and plans to sing three Cole Porter songs at her class’s live performance on January 16th at the Don’t Tell Mama cabaret club in Manhattan, alongside the eight other students in the course. “The other seven are singers,” she admits, “with big voices… and then there’s me, with a little voice.” She smiles.
Where is she taking this cabaret class? She reveals in a later question:
What You Love About New York: The people, our spirit, resilience and plucky personalities. Practically everyone’s a tough, independent character, tough on the outside but with a mushy heart on the inside. I also love going to movies in the daytime. The noon show at the Lincoln Plaza is always packed. I want to ask, who are these people, and how do they have time to go to movies in the middle of the day? I also love the courses at the 92nd Street Y. Right now, I am taking Cabaret and tap dancing. The teachers Collette Black and Norma Curley are fantastic and so are my classmates. I love that you can stumble your way into a class and find this wonderful community of soul mates.
Tap dancing too! She’s a triple-threat. Her story is a familiar one for so many class experiences at 92Y where you can find a genuinely supportive and fun community of people who share their passions and conquer fears. Explore our class offerings here.
Anyone still wondering what to do this evening? We’ve got you covered uptown at 92Y with 
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“Lots of folks play the clarinet, but very few like David Krakauer,” wrote the 
Jaron Lanier—technology visionary, scholar-at-large for Microsoft Live Labs, interdisciplinary scholar-in-residence at UC Berkeley’s Center for Entrepeneurship and Technology, and author of 
TONY: The great musical-theater stars from your generation—you, Bernadette Peters, Betty Buckley—have very specific performance styles. That seems to be less true of the younger generations: Almost nobody has a definable persona. What are your feelings on that?
In 2006, Doonesbury cartoonist Gary Trudeau created a blog, 
Continuing our 
Magee Hickey, a reporter for WCBS-TV in New York, was 
