Tony Blair, Britain’s former Prime Minister and current Special Envoy to the Middle East, was at 92Y on Monday evening for The Business of Giving with Matthew Bishop, New York bureau chief for The Economist. The two spoke about Iran, Iraq, global warming, the Middle East, Africa, and much more. “Charming to a tee,” said blogger The Brooklyn Socialite.

The Jewish Week covered Blair’s frank comments on Israel and Palestine. “The Arab world today actually wants the issue [the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] resolved,” he said. “That gives us an opportunity.”

According to the Times of London, Blair thought “that it was impossible to predict the outcome of protests in Iran over the landslide presidential election victory claimed by the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” Since then, the government of Iran has made their intentions more clear, with the LA Times reporting that that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be sworn in for a second term by mid-August.

Blair’s most interesting remarks might have been on Globalization and America’s place in it. Vikie Karp at True/Slant wrote:

In his introductory remarks about the future of globalization and achieving justice and equality for all on an international scale, Blair said “We are a global community. And its chief attribute is that no one nation, not even this great nation of America, can do it on its own. In any case, power is shifting East and it is shifting quickly. Countries like India and China will take their rightful place. And it’s galvanizing people, too. Look at Iran today. So that’s my theory, and if I’m right, the countries of the global community must work in alliance with each other, and with equality, and it will work only if there is a feeling of obligation beyond their borders and a real belief that they can share values. If it’s simply a battle of interests, we will fail and the failure will be ugly.

Wondering why, they ask: “is Mr. Ross going to assume more of a role in Mr. Obama’s evolving Middle East policy, particularly in relations with Israel?” David Makovsky, Mr. Ross’s co-author in the just-published book Myths, Illusions & Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East, offered a different possible reason: “Dennis Ross is the Lebron James of Middle East diplomacy.”

The New York Times couldn’t have asked a more knowledgeable person for comment. Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Director of their Project on the Middle East Peace Process, is a seasoned expert on Middle East Policy. He is a frequent Op-Ed contributor on the topic at such outlets as the Wall Street Journal and Huffington Post.

This Sunday on Jun 21, Makovsky will join Les Gelb, former editor and columnist for the New York Times and President Emeritus and Fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations for the talk, Puncturing Middle East Mythologies—focusing on a variety of mythologies that have become obstacles to reshaping foreign policy in the region.

Interestingly, it’s not just the White House that is shuffling around people on their Middle East policy. Dennis Ross was originally scheduled to be with us on Sunday night with his co-author David Makovsky. Now it’s Makovsky and Les Gelb.

Upcoming events:

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is currently working in the Middle East as Quartet Representative, helping the Palestinians to prepare for statehood as part of the international community’s effort to secure peace. He has launched the Tony Blair Faith Foundation to promote respect and understanding between the major religions and to make the case for faith as a force for good in the modern world.

Blair will be at the 92nd Street Y on Jun 22 with Matthew Bishop for our signature series, The Business of Giving. Bishop, American Business Editor and New York Bureau Chief of The Economist, will conduct a rare one on one discussion with former Tony Blair about his range of philanthropic work and commitments. Past guests in this series have included President Clinton, Vartan Gregorian and Eli Broad.

We have just released a few tickets for the event. Please note that tickets are available only via phone at 1.212.415.5500 or in person at the 92Y Box Office. All tickets will be held at will call for security reasons and must be picked up that night with photo ID for everyone in the party. Tickets will not be mailed and cannot be picked up at any point prior to the event. Please have the first and last names of everyone in your party available at time of purchase.

On June 1, Nobel Prize winner in economics Joseph E. Stiglitz, and portfolio manager John Paulson with moderator Matthew Bishop of The Economist discuss how they navigated the recent financial and economic crisis. There was talk about what they may have anticipated that others did not, and their insights into the current situation. Questions raised included “Is there an upside in this downturn for the individual investor?” “How can we as a community find our way towards a more sustainable future?” and “What’s next for the financial sector and the economy?”

Upcoming talks:

You know, when everyone tells you it couldn’t have gone any better, when your agent (who reps among others, the great Michael Chabon) tells you she doesn’t remember a better book event, when someone leaves a message and says she wishes the interview had been three hours rather than an hour and a half, even the self-loathingest alternator in your hard-wiring has to admit that things went okay. And by “you,” I mean Jay McInerney…

It was indeed a great event, and the video above features a few stories that Bill did not include in his recap. One was about an appearance Richard Simmons made on The Late Show with David Letterman, with Richard coming out on stage all oiled up, in his normal outfit of boas around his neck and little shorts on. This was back when Dave still smoked cigars, and Simmons asked in his flirtatious ways, “David, will you teach me how to smoke a cigar?” Skip to 3:50 in the video to hear the punchline that had everybody in stitches.

Next up in our Funny People series is Kate Clinton on Jun 11, when she will be here with Randy Cohen, better known as the writer of The Ethicist column at the New York Times.

Upcoming events:

Ginger Strand, a former fellow at the Behrman Center for the Humanities at Princeton, is the author of the novel Flight and the non-fiction work Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power and Lies. Her essays and fiction have appeared in Harper’s, The Believer (“Selling Sex in Honeymoon Heaven”), The Iowa Review and Orion, where she is a contributing editor. We recently spoke with Strand about the writing life and her upcoming non-fiction workshop at the Y, Place and Prose: Writing Nature, Writing Culture (beginning March 8).

When, and how, did you start writing?
Like a lot of writers, I can’t really remember a time when I wasn’t writing--keeping journals, starting novels, scribbling reams of (bad) poetry . . . I began to take my writing seriously when, because of the work I was doing at the time, I stopped doing it. The unhappiness that resulted told me something about myself. I re-organized my life so I could write, began taking evening classes, and started to take myself seriously as a writer. 

What is your writing routine? Do you write every day?
I do write every day, but that doesn’t always mean taking pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard.) It can also mean traveling somewhere to attend a conference, conducting interviews by phone or in person, or doing research at an archive. Sometimes it means rambling around the city and just thinking hard about something. 

When, and how, did you become interested in the environment, and in the idea of “place” in writing?
I have always been passionate about the environment--even though I’m not much of a nature girl. And place has always affected me strongly; my first book, a novel, was a portrait of place as well as of people.  But I didn’t think of myself as an environmental writer, really, until Orion magazine called me up and asked if I would write for them. I said “I’m not a nature writer,” and they said “Yeah, but you’re an environmental writer.” I thought “Hmmmm, I guess they’re right!”

What made you want to offer a nonfiction writing workshop on place and prose? What can students expect from the workshop?
Just about any piece of writing is in part about place. And yet, I think we so often relegate place to the role of window-dressing--it’s the setting where the characters live and the action happens. To me, place is also a character. It’s part of the human characters and it’s part of the action. So any piece of writing can benefit from having the writer think hard about place, so she can bring it to life with just as much passion as she uses bringing characters to life. I thought it would be fun to try to work together to do that. I like to look at examples of really good writing—work by John McPhee, Annie Dillard and Mike Davis, for example--but in the end, it’s workshopping student work that’s the most helpful thing. To take a piece of writing and say “Okay, this is what the author is trying to do. Let’s see if we can help make it even better.”

On Saturday, November 15, at 8 pm, the 92nd Street Y will present Garrick Ohlsson in a recital devoted entirely to the works of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915), as part of the Y’s Masters of the Keyboard and Russian Evolutions series. In this conversation with the 92nd Street Y, Mr. Ohlsson explains his connections with Scriabin, his attraction to the composer’s music and how he designed the program.

Garrick, you have appeared on the great stages of the world giving recitals of all-Chopin, all-Beethoven, all-Schubert—the great masters of the canon. But all-Scriabin?  Many audience members barely know who he is. Why are you devoting a full evening to his music?
First of all, for me, Alexander Scriabin is one of the great composers. He is indeed part of the Western canon, even if he isn’t played as often as he should be. I certainly have played lots of Scriabin in my life. What’s more, when I was a boy in White Plains, I came into Manhattan to hear the greatest pianists of the century in recital, and virtually all of them played Scriabin–Horowitz, Rubinstein, Gilels, Richter, Ashkenazy. It never occurred to me that Scriabin was something one would not do. Yet, you’re right, he’s become a hard sell now – composers can fall in and out of fashion.

So how did the idea for this recital come about?
Through two people, really. First, while I was at Ravinia, I talked with its President Welz Kaufman about possible projects, and we discussed Scriabin. Then [the 92nd Street Y’s director of music and literary programming] Hanna Arie-Gaifman began enticing me to come back to the Y. I hadn’t been here since 2000, and in our conversations, she mentioned her plans for a focus on Russian culture of 1900.  A Scriabin recital would fit perfectly, so we made plans. Eventually I developed a 2008 recital program with Scriabin plus Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff (for the marquee value), but for the Y, I’m giving a full evening of Scriabin. I think New York audiences are sophisticated enough to handle it.

At the beginning of his career, Scriabin was called the “Russian Chopin.” Why is that, and are those similarities partly why he so appeals to you, as one of today’s definitive interpreters of Chopin?
First, of all, like Chopin, Scriabin wrote almost exclusively for the piano. There are a few orchestra works, Poem of Ecstasy being perhaps the most well known, but virtually his entire output was for the keyboard, which also helps to explain his relative obscurity. He also continually used the same forms as Chopin, such as the sonata, prelude and etude. Definitely in the first period of his career, Scriabin was a classicist like Chopin.  Like Chopin he kept tight control of the structures of his works.  Even the musical language he used was very Chopin-esque.

So I take it something changed in the second period?
Yes, indeed. Scriabin kept his structures but began to fill them with perfume and moonlight. His music became magical, even mystical. He became a pioneer in pulling away from traditional tonalities, and his music started to explode in color. It became more and more emotional and exciting – hair-raisingly exciting. As we’ve noted, Scriabin can be a hard sell, and concert sponsors have been wary of programming him.  Yet whenever I include a set of Scriabin works, almost always that set becomes the hit of the night because it is precisely so unexpectedly exciting.

Sounds like a sure-fire crowd-pleaser. Why then isn’t he the success story that his contemporaries Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev are?
For one thing, over time his music became hyper-exciting, hyper-intense, hyper-emotional, some would say hyper-neurotic. That can be thrilling for some, but too much for others. He’s definitely foie gras in a generally meat-and-potatoes world.

His mystical philosophies definitely make some people uncomfortable. His art became increasingly visionary, if not grandiose.  Over time he saw himself as a savior and believed his final work, Mysterium, which was to be performed in the Himalayas, would transform music, if not the entire world. There is also such a dramatic change in his musical language. As I said, he started Chopin-esque, but by the end he was atonal – not along the lines of Schoenberg, but closer to Debussy, Bartók or Stravinsky. So with Scriabin you can never be sure what you’re going to get.

There’s one more reason why his music isn’t performed more often – it’s hideously difficult. Of course, other composers are exceptionally challenging too, even peers like Rachmaninoff. Yet Scriabin requires a particularly exceptional level of pianistic ability, because with Scriabin, you can’t reach the beauty of his music until you’ve gotten past its difficulty. Only after you’ve met the technical challenges can you find the perfume and poetry.

With such a creative range and with so many different works to draw from, how did you decide on the selections for your Y recital program?
I talked with Hanna about this, and we both agreed not to take the scholarly approach, like putting everything in chronological order or outlining Scriabin’s musical development. Instead, I’ve tried to weave a carpet that invites people to discover the language, the poetry and the flavor of his music.

For example, the program will open with a grouping of early works – they’re miniatures, a little brooding, very Chopin-esque, and include the particularly beautiful Second Sonata that I think will draw the audience in. Once I have them, I’ll go right to some of his late works, including Desir.

The key is keeping the flow smooth and interesting. To do that I’ll alternate moods, keys, textures and characters. Sometimes it’s just pure intuition—an indefinable sense of what pieces sound good next to each other. It’s the same care I take with my Chopin cycles:  vary the sound to keep the palate as fresh as possible.

You’ve chosen twelve works. Do you have a particular favorite we should listen for?
Yes, Sonata No. 5, which ends the concert. It’s Scriabin at his purest. No piece is more hair-raisingly exciting for me. Once I get started, the music starts playing me instead of me playing the music.  While you look at me onstage, you may think I’m in control, but inside I’m careening through the music, wondering if I can hang on to the end. That’s why I love Scriabin so much.

[Garrick Ohlsson, piano: 11/15/08]

Lawrence Lessig, the reigning authority on intellectual property in the Internet age, spotlights copyright laws and the newest culture war affecting users of new technologies. In his latest book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, Lessig outlines plans for a “read-write culture,” which allows its users to create art as readily as they consume it. Lessig is a professor at Stanford Law School and founder of the school’s Center for Internet and Society. He is the author of Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, and a columnist at Wired. He’ll be speaking at the Y on November 17 to share his thoughts on “Art and Ideas in the Internet Age.” Here’s a quick Q&A with him to get the conversation started.

Can you define what a remix is, in the context of your new book, Remix? Is it the multiple-creator model of Wikipedia? GPS on cameras that pinpoint photo locations on Google maps? The jackalope?
All of these are remix, as all of them take as their challenge how to engage with the creativity or innovation of others, and add something useful and new to it. Remix is to culture what web 2.0 is to the Internet: a practice of building upon what others have built, with minimized control over how others interact. 

While copyright laws might be hampering creativity and the formation of new technologies, mash-ups and remixes are still abundant, especially online. Why aren’t people frightened about breaking the law?
“People” aren’t frightened because individuals are unlikely targets for prosecution in this environment (such prosecution is limited to filesharers just now). But institutions are fundamentally frightened. How many lawyers advising high schools would permit them to run “creative filmmaking” classes, which encourage kids to remix movies with their own creativity? I know the answer to that: Zero.

Although Disney appropriated works that were in the public domain for its movies, the company, arguably, only achieved massive success by copyrighting these creations. Would global and cultural success like Disney’s be achievable under a more open Creative Commons copyright scheme?
Everyone should be free to copyright the creativity they add. But copyright shouldn’t stop follow-on creators from adding more. For some business models of creativity, that means expressly enabling followon creativity, through licenses such as Creative Commons licenses — science, and education are good examples here. For other business models of creativity, such express freedoms may not be useful initially. But there needs to be limits to the power of the past to control the future.

At Netroots Nation 2008, you said that “every ten years I am going to throw away all of my intellectual capital and work on something new.” Does Change Congress, your movement to end corruption in the U.S. Congress, have a decade expiration date? What would you concentrate on next?
Yes. And stay tuned.

The Bible is a remix of sorts, with people adding and subtracting and changing text, and that’s created quite a bit of confusion. Maybe the leap here is too big, but is that what we’re in for if we adopt a remix culture?
It is, and it is unavoidable. Authoritarian control has never quashed controversy. It has only ever pushed it underground.

[Lawrence Lessig: Art and Ideas in the Internet Age: 11/17/08]

Earlier this year, Rapture Ready! author Daniel Radosh interviewed The Year of Living Biblically author A.J. Jacobs for Jewcy.com in advance of a talk that Jacobs gave at the Y. Now that they’re both set for a joint appearance at the Y on Oct 19 to discuss their experiences as secular Jews investigating America’s most deeply religious societies with humorist David Rakoff (no stranger to the Y either), we’ve flipped the Q&A table. Here’s Jacobs interviewing Radosh.

I noticed a lot of Christian bloggers loved your book, even though you’re a secular Jew writing a humorous study of evangelical culture. Were you surprised by the positive reaction from the evangelical community?
Sometimes, sure. Like when a radio host told me that God may actually have used me as a vehicle to give Christians a message they weren’t hearing from inside the church. Needless to say, I’m uncomfortable with being cast in the role of prophet — not least because I worry that the Almighty is going to claim a cut of my royalty checks. But in the course of the year I spent researching Rapture Ready! I met enough Christians who harbored their own skepticism of Christian culture to know that there was at least a potential audience for my book among committed evangelicals. What’s really gratifying to me is that a number of Christians who disagreed with my conclusions at least recognized that I came to them legitimately and expressed them respectfully. And they appreciated that I was willing to acknowledge that Christian pop culture isn’t all bad. I even still listen to some Christian rock. For fun.

What are the best Christian bands?
The ones that don’t get played on either mainstream or Christian radio. Actually, the first Christian rocker, Larry Norman, was pretty incredible. His late 60s and early 70s albums have a visionary artistic integrity that holds up quite well. The problem is that for most people, Christian music is still defined by the era of bland, imitative, corporate crap that came next — the Stryper and Amy Grant and dc Talk years of the 80s and 90s. You still hear that on Christian radio today, but there are also a lot of indie Christian bands that reject the notion that Christian music is supposed to be all about either spreading the gospel or providing a safe alternative for church kids. Artists like mewithoutYou, the Myriad, Over the Rhine, Jonathan Rundman, Pedro the Lion, and Derek Webb, to name just a few, write really compelling and enjoyable music that challenges stereotypes about Christian rock in ways that befuddles non-Christians and freaks out other Christians.

What’s the best joke you heard from a Christian standup comic?
There’s a comedian who goes by the name Nazareth who talks about his infant daughter sleeps all day and cries all night. “I’m pro-life,” he growls, “but not at two in the morning.” Actually when I heard him tell that joke in a church full of Christians, I think I was the only person who laughed.

I noticed that certain branches of evangelical Christian have, in their own way, started to embrace certain aspects of Judaism. Including the blowing shofars. Did you get any insight into what is happening there?
There’s definitely a lot of fascination with the *trappings* of Judaism. I went to a Christian theme park in Arkansas where an actor in priestly vestments blew the shofar to announce that one of the rides was starting. There’s a movement among Christians to explore what they see as their Hebrew heritage, and a few savvy Judaica salesmen have capitalized on this by hawking their wares in Christian retail channels, where they have a bigger market and less competition than their peers who foolishly persist in selling Judaica only to Jews.

If this led to genuine cross-cultural understanding I’d be all for it. Unfortunately most Christians still see Judaism through a Christian filter, rather than trying to understand it on its own terms. The fact that Judaism is a living and evolving culture is sometimes lost on them. They’re enthralled by the ancient Hebrews of the Bible and by the role that Jews will supposedly play in the End of Days. They’re less conscious of the 2,000 years in between.

Have you considered writing a follow up book about Jewish pop culture?
Jews always point out to me that we have our own equivalent of what Christians call “Jesus junk.” Not for nothing is shlock a Jewish word. But as much as it might be fun to write about dreidels that play Elvis music when you spin them (that’s a real thing; I actually have one), I don’t think Jewish pop culture is quite as infused with what it means to be an American Jew as Christian pop culture is with American Christianity. Besides, if there is a book to be written on this subject, it’s only fair that I let an evangelical do it.

My final question is: Sarah Palin. Discuss.
Sarah Palin is “Becky.” That’s the industry term for the typical Christian radio listener —the churchgoing working mom who doesn’t want to think too hard about anything. She wants programming that affirms what she already believes and that’s safe for the kids in the backseat. Nothing makes it on to the airwaves if it’s going to upset or confuse Becky.

Becky likes to say things like, “God has a plan for your life” and “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” Usually I have no problem with anyone who wants to believe that, because if it helps them keep going when they lose their job or get a serious illness, more power to them. My concern about Sarah Palin is that she really thinks God thinks she’s ready to be vice president, otherwise why would he have put that on John McCain’s heart (to use the Christianese). A more contemplative Christian might have prayed about this situation and been forced to admit that she wasn’t really ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. When Becky prays, she almost always hears the response she wanted in the first place.

[Strangers in a Strange Land: David Rakoff, Daniel Radosh and A.J. Jacobs]

In July, we mentioned that poet Kay Ryan was named the country’s 16th poet laureate and will return to the Poetry Center to host this season’s The Tenth Muse in February. The 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center’s Tenth Muse series began in April of 1989; on more than twenty evenings since then, a distinguished poet has presented readings by three poets at different stages in their careers. Over the years, Tenth Muse curators have included such celebrated poets as Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, Robert Creeley, Jorie Graham and Charles Wright. The Tenth Muse series has provided a forum for the voices of Charles Bernstein, Anne Carson, Cornelius Eady, Marie Howe and Susan Wheeler, among many others. Ms. Ryan will present readings by Sarah Lindsay, who has published three books of poetry, including Twigs and Knucklebones; Kevin McFadden, whose first collection, Hardscrabble, was recently awarded the 2008 Fellowship of Southern Writers’ New Writing Award for Poetry; and Atsuro Riley, whose first book is forthcoming. The Poetry Center recently had a chance to ask Kay Ryan a few questions about her own work.

Where do you typically find the germ for a poem?
The world doesn’t fit me right, so now and then I have to push a new bulge into it or tighten it up someplace. I do this with poems, which can actually create or absorb space.

You are perhaps best known for compact, decisive lyrics. What are your thoughts about longer poems and sequences?
Actually I’m in the process of writing a long poem, or a sequence; I don’t distinguish between the two. It will be made up of all my short poems.

Some of your poems are quite funny. How, if at all, do you think about your audience’s potential reaction when you write a poem?
When one is writing a poem it isn’t the kind of condition in which it’s possible to think about an “audience’s potential reaction.” Later one does, of course, and one thinks, “That’s so funny; I wonder if anyone else will think so?”

What advice would you give to a young writer seeking to establish herself as a poet?
I would advise the young writer to get enough education so that she can secure a job that pays enough so that she only ever has to work part time if she’s careful with money.

[View all Reading Series at the Y]

Joseph Berger, longtime reporter and editor with The New York Times, wrote the acclaimed memoir Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the Holocaust about his family’s experience as immigrants in New York City in the 1950s and 1960s. He has a new book out, The World in a City: Traveling the Globe Through the Neighborhoods of the New New York that he will be discussing with Ari L. Goldman, former Times reporter and current journalism professor at Columbia University, at the Y on October 16. Berger is also the moderator of our Breaking News in the Jewish World and Beyond series. He’s the perfect subject for our New York-focused Q&A feature.

How many years, apartments and what neighborhoods have you lived in NYC?
I first came to Manhattan in 1950 as a five-year-old immigrant and we lived on 102nd Street near Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side. Of course, my parents brought me and my brother, Josh, 3, was there too. In 1955, Robert Moses needed to tear down our building, so we left for the Bronx and settled in a plain brick building on the Grand Concourse, six blocks north of Yankee Stadium, where my sister Evelyn was born. After a few years we were able to exchange a rear apartment for a front one and after about 10 we moved to one of the Concourse’s art-deco gems on 165th Street, sunken living room and all. I moved out in 1967 when I was 22 and returned to Manhattan, spending one year near the Y at 89th Street then moving to the West Side where I as a bachelor in three different apartments (there was also a detour to an apartment in Inwood but it only lasted two years). In 1979, newly married, I moved with my wife to 104th Street and Riverside to an apartment with river views. But in 1991, the city was at its nadir and with a 4-year-old daughter, my wife and I thought it would be prudent to escape to the suburbs. We guessed wrong about the fate of NYC, but like our new town anyway (and it’s only five miles north of the Bronx.)

What era, day or event in New York’s history would you like to relive?
When I was 8 years old my friend, Maury, my brother Josh and I walked from our homes on 102nd Street down to Chinatown and back north to the UN. I’d like to relive the sheer wonder, novelty and innocence of that encounter with New York. I had that feeling many times in visiting some of the changed neighborhoods of New York, but it never quite matched that first sense of childish wonder, something like what Scott Fitzgerald describes in that famous ending of Gatsby where he talks about the feeling the first explorers must have had encountering the New World.

What’s your New York motto?
Never let down your guard. I did recently and got my bike stolen.

Describe that low, low moment when you thought you just might have to leave NYC for good.
I did leave New York in 1991. There were 2300 murders the year before, my car had been broken into three times, and three guests had their cars broken into. There was a terrible sense that no one in the city administration could grapple with the problems of drugs, graffiti, homelessness and other city ills. Finally, there were the repeated frustrations when having to take my daughter to preschools on two West Side buses while carrying a stroller, a briefcase and on a rainy day an umbrella. Of course, we did not envision that the city would turn around. Getting my daughter to school in the suburbs with a car was definitely easier, but I do miss the daily electricity and street theater of the city, though working in the city provides a good dose.

Who do you consider to be the greatest New Yorker of all time?
Saul Bellow. He was born in Chicago and died in Vermont, but in a few years in New York and in novels like “Seize the Day” and “Herzog” he captured the frantic zaniness of the city and the way it worms itself into every soul.

What was your best dining experience in NYC?
An anniversary meal at the first Bouley in Tribeca or any meal at the Second Avenue Deli that included the pitcha.

Of all the movies made about or highly associated with New York, what role would you have liked to be cast in?
The part of Rod Steiger in “On the Waterfront.” Like many New Yorkers, his soft heart betrayed his hard shell.

If you could change one thing about New York, what would it be?
I’d like the new Euro-chic Madison Avenue to be more like what Lexington Avenue is today--idiosyncratic and unpredictable and not dominated by swaggering international brands. But as a suburbanite who sometimes drives in, I also wouldn’t mind building some more underground garages and lowering the parking price.

The New York Times called author Judith Thurman’s Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette “a burnished, historically opulent, elegant, distinguished work.” She also won the National Book Award for a biography of Isak Dinesen. Thurman’s latest book is Cleopatra’s Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire, a collection that spans 20 years at The New Yorker. You can meet the accomplished writer when she comes to the Y to kick off this season’s intimate Critics & Brunch series on October 28. First, she gets cozy with a few questions on her life in New York.

How many years, apartments and what neighborhoods have you lived in NYC?
I’m a native. Born at Lenox Hill Hospital. So: Growing up: Jackson Heights; Kew Gardens Hills (not to be confused with the much tonier Kew Gardens); Forest Hills; (all in Queens); then, post college: the Bowery; West 92nd St (with a relative); West 10th Street (bathtub in kitchen); West 84th St (worst crack block in the city), Water Street, (above a bar—no one else lived there in 1969); Sullivan St; Westbeth—artists’ housing, mercifully subsidized, on Bethune Street; Warren Street (in Tribeca, my first “adult” home, a loft bought in late 1979); East 10th Street (a studio on the block of divorcees); East 84th Street, in an old pushcart stable, and now, in a brownstone one block further west. My maternal grandparents immigrated to Yorkville in the late 1880s, and my mother grew up and went to school two blocks from my house.

What’s your best (or worst) NYC taxi story?
Worst: The Pashtun fanatic with the weird smile who picked me up on September 14th or 15th, 2001—whenever cars and taxis could circulate again—and confided that Osama bin Laden was misunderstood. But there was also a completely drugged out maniac, on meth, I presume, who locked me in the cab for a terrifying ride around the Village spewing paranoia, before letting me out where he had picked me up. He didn’t charge me, however. The best cab ride: the driver who picked me up uptown and drove me to Tribeca, and when I discovered I didn’t have my wallet, shrugged and said, “It happens to all of us. This one’s on me.”

What era, day or event in New York ‘s history would you like to relive?
I know it’s heretical, but I really loved the 1977 blackout. I wouldn’t want others to have to relive it, however. I love the silence and the camaraderie of blackouts, though, I do confess. I would have liked to have climbed a tree with my grandfather to watch the Lindbergh parade (though Lindbergh was later such a menace to democracy.) I would have loved to see Manhattan when it was still mostly rural. Or visit Edgar Allen Poe in his cottage in the Bronx.

What’s your New York motto?
Don’t forget recycling day.

Describe that low, low moment when you thought you just might have to leave NYC for good.
It wasn’t New York, it was America: the day after Bush was reelected.

Who do you consider to be the greatest New Yorker of all time?
Does Jane Jacobs qualify? She stopped the destruction of Lower Manhattan.

What was your best dining experience in NYC?
In recent times? Ichimura. But you leave New York when you walk through the door--you’re in Japan. Historically? The first meal I ever had, as a student, in a “real” restaurant. It was called La Cave d’ Henri IV, in the East 50s. I went with some girlfriends from college. I don’t think the food was very good—I certainly couldn’t have judged it—but I had never been any place so sophisticated. I ordered the sole amandine. The lady at the next table was wearing black! And afterwards, my friends and I, a little tipsy (the drinking age was eighteen, then) walked rapturously home through a driving summer rainstorm. But wait: there was also my first real date. We ate at Sloppy Louie’s, or Eddy’s, I can’t remember, in the Fulton Fish Market. There was sawdust on the floor. Very romantic. 

With a nod to Milton Glaser, how much do you really love New York?
Milton is a very good friend, and I would probably love it more if he had gotten some royalties for his logo, even though he never asked for them.

Of all the movies made about or highly associated with New York, what role would you have liked to be cast in?
Countess Olenska.

What happened the last time you went to L.A.?
I stayed in a hip but grungy motel in West Hollywood before moving to a Radisson—I needed wifi—and went to a show of architecture and fashion at MOCA that I was reviewing for the New Yorker. L.A. gets a bum rap from New Yorkers. Lots of people read books there, you know.

If you could change one thing about New York, what would it be?
Summer.

The End of The World is finally happening. What are you going to do with your last 24 hours in NYC?
Reread Flaubert’s The Sentimental Education. No, not really. I wouldn’t tell you, my son might read it. Isn’t that the good thing about apocalypses? Whatever you do, there are no consequences.

[Judith Thurman: 10/28/07]

Doug Varone, choreographer of contemporary dance for the concert stage and opera, is the artistic director of Doug Varone and Dancers which was named this year’s Harkness Dance Center Company-in-Residence, the first at the 92nd Street Y in decades. As a company-in-residence, Varone and his dancers will be calling the Y their home, including being at the Y for company rehearsals, workshops, classes, studio showings, Fridays at Noon performances and the unique opportunity for teens in the Y’s Harkness Repertory Ensemble to work with this master choreographer.

Varone is the recipient of numerous honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for Sustained Achievement in Choreography and, most recently, a 2006 OBIE Award for his production of Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus and Euridice at Lincoln Center. He recently answered some questions from Harkness Dance Center staff for the Y blog.

Harkness Dance Center: How do you hope that this next year at the Y will help you creatively?
Doug Varone: At this particular point in the Company’s life (we are in our 21st year), it will be very satisfying to have a place that we can call home. We have been a bit nomadic in terms of rehearsing everywhere throughout the city and this remains frustrating, as the quest for studio space often overshadows the creative drive. Being able to create new work in one environment will be tremendously healthy for the dancers and our process.

HDC: What is appealing to you about being with us?
DV: I have a long history with the Y and have rehearsed here with the company (and before then even, as an independent choreographer). The energy in the building is remarkable and it fuels creativity. There is SO much going on so many different fronts, like a small city that educates and supports. It’s thrilling to walk the halls and feed off of that.

HDC: What will you be working on going into this season?
DV: I will be creating a new repertory work for my company set to the entirety of Daniel Variations scored by preeminent American composer, Steve Reich. I will take my inspiration directly from Reich’s composition, scored in four movements that alternate between the stories and words from the biblical book of Daniel, an Israelite and advisor to the King of Babylon (located in present day Iraq), and from Daniel Pearl, the American Jewish reporter, kidnapped and murdered by Islamic extremists in Pakistan in 2002. Although the work is steeped in a personal tragedy, there is a universal undertone of defiance in the score juxtaposing the written words of both universes: violence, cruelty, mercy, and compassion. I am hoping that the work ultimately will explore how mercy and compassion in the face of brutality can offer us hope as we struggle with continual and devastating human violence. I am hoping that the inspiration for the piece and the topic of the score will resonate culturally on political and religious levels and generate vigorous dialogue that will attract and engage new and diverse audiences.

HDC: How does Buttenwieser Hall affect your creative work?
DV: It is a beautiful HUGE space steeped in so much dance history.

HDC: This year at the Y we hope to have you work with teens and with seniors – any thoughts or fulfilling experiences you have to share about working with these populations?
DV: I love working with a broad spectrum of people and think that dance can truly be a connector in so many ways. On tour, we regularly work with young people in creative situations and I am always eager to work with seniors. I love hearing about their lives and encouraging movement from their own personal histories. There’s such an amazing wealth of information to glean from smart, passionate adults.

HDC: Anything else?
DV: It will be so wonderful to be part of the Y. I feel as if the work that I explore and create is very much in keeping with the humanistic ideals that the Y represents.

Stay tuned to www.92Y.org/harkness for year-round information about this exciting new partnership with Doug Varone and the 92nd Street Y.

[All Dance Classes and Performances at the 92nd Street Y]

How do you take Makor—until recently, housed in a four-story brownstone on a residential street on the Upper West Side—and create a street-level space for it in Tribeca, on a major thoroughfare (Hudson Street)? Well, you start by calling on architect Michael Kostow of Kostow Greenwood, which specializes in creating spaces for performing and visual arts organizations. The firm has designed or renovated such New York cultural landmarks as the Delacorte Theater, the Brooklyn Tabernacle and the International Center for Photography.

We recently spoke with Michael Kostow about the design for the new space.

What did you want to achieve with your design for the 200 Hudson space?
Creating spaces—especially multi-purpose spaces—that look good and work well is one of our specialties. In architecture-speak, we call it integrating design and functionality. Here our goal was to bring the liveliness of the street inside and to create a comfortable, public, open kind of place that people can easily wander into. We also wanted the look and feel of the space to reflect the activities going on inside so that once people do venture in, all the different programs taking place in this one shared space—performances, films, talks, exhibits—fit and flow perfectly, energizing one another. 

What other multi-purpose spaces has Kostow Greenwood worked on?
We’ve done several, but one local example would be the Brooklyn Tabernacle, which involved converting three buildings into interrelated spaces that would house a school, dining hall, offices, meeting rooms and lobbies. We adapted one of those buildings—what had been the historic Loews Metropolitan Theater, a landmark vaudeville house that had fallen into disrepair and had been divided into small movie theaters before being abandoned—into a sanctuary for the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Now the facility seats over 3,600 and includes state-of-the-art theatrical lighting and broadcast capabilities. 

Another multi-purpose project we worked on in New York was the design of CNN’s New York Broadcast Center at the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. We created recording and broadcast studios, a newsroom and office space, but we also had to make sure there was a route through the various spaces for public tours. For a project in Dallas, a film/video post-production house called Mad River Post, we converted a factory into a state-of-the-art facility with video editing and audio post-production suites as well as offices, a comfortable lounge and meeting areas.

How did you find a way to make 200 Hudson Street a space where many things could be happening simultaneously in close proximity to each other?
We knew we needed to create a screening room, a performance space for music and theater, a lecture hall and classroom space. The trick was to make the spaces flexible. We were able to do that by using modular walls, so that the areas can be divided into a combination of smaller and larger units. The space can also be opened up to allow for big events. 

What are the challenges and benefits of this sort of space?
The main challenge is that with all the activity on one level—not the case uptown—everything is closer together. So you need to keep traffic moving and contain the sound where it needs to be. The plus side is that the proximity of the various spaces makes it easier for people attending one event to be aware of is the other things going on, which channels energy from one area into another.

People who come to Makor like to hang out and meet friends. How do you design a performance and event space that’s also conducive to socializing?
We did a couple of things to provide space for socializing. We separated the café from the bar/music venue and made it a very open space that you can get to right from the entrance, even if you’re not attending an event. We also designed the space with wide hallways along with smaller nooks off the main thoroughfares. That gives visitors lots of areas where they can mingle and chat without “blocking traffic” for folks headed to events. We’re hoping that these people-friendly elements of the design help to make 200 Hudson a downtown destination.

You can take an online tour of Makor’s new location at www.makor.org/move.

The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio has performed the Beethoven Trio cycle many times, including at Lincoln Center—the first ever such cycle presentation there. The upcoming performance at the Y, however, will be their first in presenting it all in one day. For the September 30th Marathon, Shirley Ford of the Y’s Tisch Center for the Arts asked the musicians about this enormous undertaking.

Shirley Ford: I know you’ve played the complete Beethoven Trios many times and even recorded them in a two-volume set, but why the decision to perform them all in one day?

Sharon Robinson & Jaime Laredo: We really wanted to honor and thank our loyal fans as well as our many supporters at the 92nd Street Y for a 30-year partnership. We’ve always wondered what the whole cycle would be like in more or less chronological order. This day-long venture should be an amazing journey. We are probably meschuga to try it!

SF: What about the fatigue factor as the day progresses?

SR: Well, we plan on getting some fresh air between concerts, weather permitting, and I’m able to bring my big exercise ball for some stretching. There’s a plan for a light massage session between one or two of the concerts—rest, refresh and drink lots of water. Fortunately, we have a little time off before the undertaking, so a big rest the week before will help us all, too.

SF: Taking into consideration your separate and individual performance schedules all over the world, what about rehearsals?

JL: Since we’ve played the cycle throughout the States and in several countries over the last 30 years, it’s under our fingers—some of the trios are constant companions in our repertoire, others less so, but we’re always looking for (and finding) fresh ideas and great new insight into Beethoven’s language in our brush-up rehearsals and recording sessions.

SF: Other than the music itself, what is the most challenging aspect of the project?

SR & JL: Having the stamina to keep fresh and focused throughout the day and evening!

Shirley also asked Joseph Kalichstein to give us some insight into the music. Below are excerpts from his comments which will appear in their entirety in the concert programs, along with the program notes of Steven Ledbetter, who also provided the notes for the Trio’s CDs.