Scott Kettner is founder of Nation Beat and Maracatu NY. He’ll take the stage with both groups at 92YTribeca on September 16 (DJ Greg Caz is also on the bill). Not only will the concert serve as an album release party for Nation Beat’s new record Growing Stone (which comes out on the 13th), the evening will also include the world premier of a Nation Beat video and the opening of a new photography exhibit in our gallery. Purchase tickets to the show in advance and you’ll get $5 off Growing Stone. You can also get a sneak peak of the album on Nation Beat’s website, where the band is streaming a new song from the album each week leading up to the show.
If you were curious, Kettner loves going to the beach, enjoys going to the mountains and being close to nature. He’s also a big fan of the A-Team. We know this because we saw his video dating profile on a local cable channel access channel. Actually, that’s not true. We know this because Scott Kettner is the latest subject of the 92Y Culture Klatsch Q&A series.
Where do you go for news when you start your day?
Usually The New York Times, NPR or the New York Daily News.
How much do you use Twitter and Facebook (or other social networking services)?
I use Facebook everyday but not obsessively. I have my Twitter account connected to my Facebook account so every time I post on Facebook it automatically tweets. This keeps me from having to spend too much time with the social networking thing and makes more time for me to work on my projects and music.
What book are you currently reading (or the last one you read)? Print or digital?
I’m reading the original Peter Pan story and a dissertation on the history of the drum set. I’m also finishing writing a book of my own.
What magazines do you subscribe to?
None. But when I’m traveling I like to read Rolling Stone, Modern Drummer, DRUM! Magazine and National Geographic.
What are your current (or all time) favorite television shows?
“Seinfeld,” “The Wire,” “A-Team,” “Family Guy,” “The Simpsons.”
What’s the last movie you saw? Date Night
What’s the last performance (dance/opera/theater) you attended?
Celebrate Brooklyn! about 2 weeks ago.
What’s the last music purchase you made? BB King Live from Cook County Prison; downloaded it yesterday.
What radio shows or podcasts do you listen to?
I like to listen to WFMU and WKCR. I like Rob Weisberg’s show on WFMU on Saturdays and I also love to listen to Jazzvan’s Brazilian show on WKCR on late Wednesday nights. There’s also the gospel, bluegrass and country show on Sunday mornings on KCR that I love waking up with.
What’s your favorite piece of art on display in your home?
I have some prints from Jorge Borges, a famous print maker from Brazil.
Where do you go / what do you do to “disconnect”?
I love going to the beach and surfing. I surf every chance I get. I also enjoy going to the mountains and being close to nature.
Join Scott Kettner and Nation Beat at 92YTribeca on September 16 for a night of Brazilian rhythms and sustainable agriculture!
Patricia Marx was the first woman elected to The Harvard Lampoon, her first paid job was writing for Saturday Night Live, and she currently writes “On and Off the Avenue” and occasional “Shouts & Murmurs” columns for The New Yorker. She also writes books: the satirical How to Regain Your Virginity, the children’s book Dot in Larryland (with illustrations by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast), and, as of today, the novelStarting From Happy. So we asked her some hard-hitting questions, like who she’s dating, why she doesn’t like shopping, and how to make friends.
Bello, a freelance writer, took Marx’s humor writing class that she’s been teaching at 92Y for years. You can too! Next class starts Oct 27.
Nigel Richards Wins 2011 National Scrabble Championship
He won with words like QAT and JAUP. NPR informs: “The king of American Scrabble has kept his crown, as Nigel Richards spelled his way to the 2011 National Scrabble Championship title and a $10,000 prize.”
Other words played, according to NPR, “were ALEVIN (a young fish), JAUP (to splash), TZIGANE (a gypsy) and QAT (an evergreen shrub).”
Parents are concerned about how to talk with their children about 9/11—what information to include, the message they want to impart, acknowledging the day as a family, and why this conversation is important. 92nd Street Y produced two videos that provide helpful information and a framework to help parents begin the conversation with younger children and teens. The first one, seen above, features Dr. Gail Saltz offering professional advice on how to talk with your young child about that day.
Visit 92Y.org/9-11 to watch the second video with Dr. Ron Taffel, who discusses how to talk with your teen. You can also find information on all events, lectures and programs for adults and children designed to commemorate September 11th, at 92Y.org/9-11.
Writing in The New York Times last week, Joshua Prager reported an interesting story about Ralph Branca (the Brooklyn Dodger pitcher who gave up the famous home run to New York Giant Bobby Thomson) discovering that his Roman Catholic mother was born Jewish, and that his aunt died in Auschwitz.
“When I had phoned Branca and told him,” Prager wrote after researching the topic, “that his mother, Kati, was Jewish and that thus, according to traditional Jewish law, he and his 16 siblings were, too, the loud man was quiet. But when I had told him of the murder of his uncle, Branca had looked for words. ‘Uh, oh, boy,’ he had said. ‘My mother never mentioned this to me.’”
You might also be interested in the January 10 event at 92nd Street Y, The Hidden Jews of the Holocaust. During the Holocaust, many surviving Jews who remained in Poland hid their Jewish identity. Now, a growing number of Poles are rediscovering their families’ concealed Jewish roots. Join members of this re-emerging Jewish community for a fascinating and inspiring account of young Polish Jews reclaiming the heritage that Hitler sought to extinguish.
“How dangerous is a nuclear Iran, even if it never detonates a weapon? What are the guiding principles of the Iranian leadership? To what lengths would the regime go to carry out its agenda? How far have Iran’s leaders already gone to fund the world’s most powerful terrorist organizations? And why have American leaders failed to gain the upper hand in relations with Iran during the past 30 years?”
These are questioned raised by the documentary film Iranium, seen in the trailer above. Learn more about the film here.
On November 7 at 92nd Street Y, John Bolton, Ethan Bronner, Richard Perle, Nazie Eftekhari and Alex Traiman discuss the threat of a nuclear Iran, interspersed with clips from the film. Tickets are available here.
Related: God’s Fiddler is a the only film biography of the world’s most renowned violinist. The film opens in New York City at QUAD Cinema on October 28, but you can see it at a special screening at 92nd Street Y on September 18.
Film: Madame X: An Absolute Ruler. Co-presented by Red Channels, an open collective in NYC that engages in radical politics on the left through organizing events, screenings and projects.
Tue, Aug 23
Film: Der Verlorene (The Lost One): For his lone outing as writer-director-leading man, international star Peter Lorre returned to postwar Germany after a nearly two decade exile.
Film: Ride the Pink Horse: In this very rarely screened border noir, Robert Montgomery plays the satisfyingly brusque Lucky Gagin, a vengeful veteran fresh off the bus in a fiesta-distracted New Mexico backwater.
Film: Time Regained: Chilean director Raúl Ruiz adapts the final volume of Marcel Proust’s magnum opus as a magical-realist excursion through memory and regret in turn-of-the-century Paris.
Announcing Facebook “Town Hall” With Randi Zuckerberg And Mandy Moore At Social Good Summit
The second annual Social Good Summit, taking place at 92nd Street Y from from September 19-22, has an amazing lineup of speakers. And today we confirmed a Facebook “Town Hall” with Randi Zuckerberg, former marketing director at Facebook, and singer Mandy Moore, an ambassador for the U.N. Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign. This event will take place September 20th at 4:30pm. In addition to a programming segment onstage, Randi will also be filming backstage interviews, with her interviewing others.
The New York Times Can’t Stop Talking About This Beautiful Life
Helen Schulman’s new book, This Beautiful Life: A Novel, “...the story of the Bergamots, a family of four whose expensive new Manhattan life comes crashing down when 15-year-old Jake forwards to a friend a sexually explicit video made for him, unsolicited, by a 13-year-old girl named Daisy Cavanaugh,” has received a lot of attention from The New York Times. Books Of The Times reviewed it on July 24, followed by the Sunday Book Review, and then in ArtsBeat, where they also provided a podcast from “Inside the New York Times Book Review,” featuring discussion with author Helen Schulman.
92YTribeca’s book group, The Literate Parent, is going to read This Beautiful Life in September. Participants are invited to attend a literary salon with the author, Helen Schulman, where they’ll be able to ask her questions and discuss the book with her directly. More info and tickets are available.
For those who have read the book, what are your thoughts on it so far?
And whether you are here or not, we want your questions for him! Leave your questions in the comments below, and we will submit them for consideration during the Q&A portion of the event.
Emmy Award-winner Kevin Clash, who might be best known as the man behind the beloved Sesame Street character Elmo, is the latest subject of the 92Y Culture Klatsch Q&A.
He’ll be at 92YTribeca tomorrow, August 18, for Employee of the Month, along with acclaimed performance artist Aurelia Thierrée, documentary filmmaker Julia Bacha and host Catie Lazarus.
During the Q&A, we learned Kevin is a man of few words, which makes sense; he’s a busy guy, what with all his traveling and all. And what does he do when he wants to disconnect, he puts “on my robe and just...”
“I could apply and apply for jobs and hear nothing back, but I found I could get informational interviews with just about anyone,” she says.
Thus was born “Employee of the Month,” a “talk show about dream jobs,” where Lazarus, who’s also a comedian and performer, interviews people with enviable careers.
Catie is still looking for a job. “I really just want a writing job,” she told the New York Post. “And I can also do voice-overs.”
Employee of the Month happens August 18 at 92YTribeca and features critically acclaimed performance artist Aurelia Thierrée, documentary filmmaker Julia Bacha and Emmy Award-winner Kevin Clash, best known as the man behind the beloved Sesame Street character Elmo. Plus, music from singer Noam Weinstein. Tickets are available here.
An ultra-funky song cabinet is just one of several pieces of high tech artwork on display at 92YTribeca’s second annual GeekDown, and none of it’s about to pop up in Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel.
“The kind of vision of GeekDown is thinking about new technology specific to computers and digital technology and how does that really meet and combine with creative self-expression. There are sound installations, there’s video art, lots of different things happening in this space,” says Aaron Miller of 92YTribeca.
Among the sound installations is “Tape Translation,” which allows users to manipulate the playback of those old analog cassette tapes, thereby reminding people as to how the endangered species of media works.
92Y Video: Chef David Ritter’s Beet And Goat Cheese Pasta At The 92Y Cafe
The 92YCafe features dairy kosher cuisine under the strict rabbinic supervision of Rabbi Yaakov Neiman, with day to day operations overseen by Chef David Ritter. The video above features a quick demonstration with Chef Ritter as he prepares his delicious beet and goat cheese pasta. This dish is an occasional special served at 92Y Cafe. See the whole menu here: [PDF].
So what are your thoughts on the dish? Does it look delicious, or weird? Let us know in the comments! We can tell you first hand that the dish is scrumptious!
Scott Kettner is founder of 
