This Poetry Foundation podcast, distributed by alt.NPR, features an excerpt from a lively 1996 reading by the late poet A.R. Ammons at the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center. In the excerpt, Ammons reads a poem entitled “Still,” in which he determines that there are no hierarchies in nature. Here is the poem:
Still
I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I’ll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:
but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is
magnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:
I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up
and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:
I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:
at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!
Ammons had a background in chemistry, and critics put him in the company of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens in tracing his creative genealogy. Check out the Poetry Foundation’s excellent reading guide to Ammons for more on his work.
The new Poetry Center season will be available online July 31. Season memberships and subscriptions to our Afternoon Night Table series with Walter Mosley, E.L. Doctorow, Cynthia Ozick, Ann Beattie and Richard Wilbur are available now.
Previously, we posted video of award-winning author and radio host Garrison Keillor discussing his latest novel, Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon, for the Afternoon Night Table Series hosted by Roger Rosenblatt. In the audio clip above, they talk about accepting defeat and failure among other topics.
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Subscriptions for the 2008-09 Afternoon Night Table Series—featuring Cynthia Ozick, Walter Mosley, Ann Beattie, E.L. Doctorow and Richard Wilbur—are now on sale.
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An astronomy-minded friend told me there’s a way to study the sun inside Grand Central Terminal that lets you see sunspots. Is he on the level?
Strangely, yes. This advice comes from John Pazmino of Brooklyn, a founder of NYSkies Astronomy, a discussion group for home astronomy in the city:
Don’t look at the sun itself; that’s always dangerous. Instead, take a plain white sheet of paper to the terminal’s Grand Concourse around 2:30 p.m. or a half-hour each way, when the sun shines straight along Park Avenue. (The exact times vary.) The day should be sunny, clear and cloudless.
The southern wall of the Grand Concourse, facing 42nd Street, has semicircular grills high up, with small curlicued spaces like those in a leafy tree. Many of those spaces act like the aperture of a pinhole camera, reflecting an image of the sun that, when it reaches the floor, will be 8 to 12 inches wide. The smaller grill spaces will produce dimmer but sharper solar images on your paper.
Large sunspots, regions of intense magnetic activity that are cooler than the surrounding surface, will appear as dark blemishes on the solar disk. And the edges of the disk will appear darker, because the edges show mostly the sun’s outer surface, which is cooler than the center.
Learn more of the secrets of Grand Central Terminal and how it changed its neighborhood and the city on July 13 with urban historian Gordon Linzer.
L to R: Bill Charlap (photograph by Carol Friedman) and Julian Fleisher
We are pleased to present a new podcast series of the 92nd Street Y, Tell Me Why with host Julian Fleisher. An accomplished jazz singer and New York personality (not to mention son of famed pianist Leon Fleisher), Julian will showcase the lighter side of the heavyweights who appear at the Y and make it one of the leading cultural institutions in the world. Listen to the first episode above where he interviews Bill Charlap, artistic director of the Y's Jazz in July concert series.
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The 92nd Street Y Camps season starts today and counselors are certain to have their hands full. Our committed and caring counselors, who nurture each camper’s individual needs and talents, reflect the quality of excellence of 92nd Street Y camps. Tom Allon, president and CEO of Manhattan Media—which owns local newspapers Our Town, New York Press, City Hall, The West Side Spirit, Chelsea Clinton News and The Westsider, as well as Avenue and New York Family magazines—was a counselor at Camp Yomi in the summer of 1982 and his two daughters and son attended Yomi for several years.
Just in time for summer, Tom offers a delicious cold soup for you and your hungry campers.
Tom Allon’s Mom’s Sour Cherry Soup
“This is my mother’s world-famous Hungarian recipe.”
—Tom Allon
2 tbsp. flour
1 cup sour cream
1 cup pitted cherries
3⁄4 cup of sugar
Place the cherries and liquid in a medium sauce pan. Heat for a few minutes over low heat. In a bowl, mix the flour, sour cream and sugar until smooth. Add some of the cherry liquid from the pot and stir. Add the flour mixture to the soup and simmer for five minutes.
About the above video: Georgette Gagnon, Deputy Director of the Africa Division for Human Rights Watch, puts forth their proposal for the redirection of Sudanese oil revenues into a Darfur Recovery Fund. Created under a UN Chapter 7 Resolution, the Fund would detract from Sudan’s ability to finance atrocities, pressuring Khartoum to accept the deployment of AU/UN peacekeepers and to end its abuses in Darfur. Gagnon also proposes further mechanisms for accountability, including targeted sanctions and ICC warrants against high-level perpetrators.
Previously, we posted video of Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria and Foreign Policy magazine's James Hoge discussing anti-Americanism and other topics from a May 2008 talk at the 92nd Street Y. In the 11-minute audio clip above, they cover changing aspects of terrorism, world reaction and how the U.S. should focus its strategies.
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Upcoming at the Y: Crisis in Darfur with Mia Farrow and others (Jun 30), Ed Koch in Conversation with Budd Mishkin (Sep 8) and Past and Future in the Middle East: Seven Years Since 9/11 with Noah Feldman (Sep 11)
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Jazz in July Spotlight: The Washingtons (Not Related)
Video: Bill Charlap, artistic director of Jazz in July at the Y, performs with his trio of Peter Washington (bass) and Kenny Washington (drums).
For two weeks this summer, Jazz in July at the 92nd Street Y will swing with the sounds of George Shearing, Billy Strayhorn, Leonard Bernstein and Brazilian jazz. You can witness the thrilling performances of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Dr. Billy Taylor, Kurt Elling, Freddy Cole, Fred Hersch and many others.
Meet drummer Kenny Washington and bassist Peter Washington, both members of the Bill Charlap Trio but no relation beyond New York City’s impressive “jazz family” of the best musicians in the world.
Kenny Washington was born in Brooklyn and attended the LaGuardia High School for Music & Art. He studied percussion with former Dizzy Gillespie drummer Rudy Collins, and in 1977, while still in his teens, he worked with Lee Konitz and his Nonet. Within the next few years Washington would perform and record with Betty Carter, Johnny Griffin, Kenny Burrell, Ron Carter and Frank Wess, and his freelance career would begin. He has now played with many other major artists, including Johnny Griffin, Milt Jackson, Tommy Flanagan, Jay McShann, the Mingus Dynasty, Benny Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, Arturo Sandoval and Benny Goodman, and he is a member of the Bill Charlap Trio. Washington has a discography of over 100 titles, and he has an interest in jazz history, writing liner notes and helping to prepare re-releases by Art Blakey, Count Basie and others. Catch his Jazz in July performances at Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein (Jul 22) and The Shearing Sound: A Tribute to George Shearing (Jul 30).
Perhaps the most recorded bassist of his generation, Peter Washington has a discography of over 350 recordings, and it grows on a near-weekly basis. Born in Los Angeles, he majored in English Literature at Berkeley, and while in San Francisco, he was invited by Art Blakey to move to New York and join his Jazz Messengers. From there Washington became part of two of jazz’s most celebrated trios: the Tommy Flanagan Trio, and for the past ten years, the Bill Charlap Trio. Washington’s freelance work roster is a “Who’s Who” of jazz, including many Jazz in July artists. Among the instrumentalists are Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, David Sanchez, David Hazeltine, Regina Carter and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. He has worked with vocalists like Chris Conner, Mark Murphy, Paula West, and Ernestine Anderson. Catch his Jazz in July performances at Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein (Jul 22), Piano Jam (Jul 23) and Lush Life: Billy Strayhorn (Jul 31).
Previously, we posted video of Emmy Award-winning television pioneer Norman Lear's appearance at the Y with BusinessWeek Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler for the Captains of Industry Series. In the audio clip above, Lear talks about the reaction from the All in the Family pilot by the television networks and Mickey Rooney as a casting choice for Archie Bunker.
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In the video above, London’s Quadrille Club perform Lancers Quadrilles for the delight of visitors at Ham House to show a Regency Christmas dance. This Saturday at the Y, nationally known dance historian Susan de Guardiola will host a special evening of social dance in the same vein, highlighting style from the era of Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Beau Brummell and Napoleon. Come sample the rout cakes and Naples biscuits!
Debra Winger, three-time Academy award nominee for Best Actress in a Leading Role, just released her first foray into publishing, Undiscovered, a book of poems, memoirs and drawings. She was recently in Houston, where she starred in Urban Cowboy with John Travolta, and spoke with the Jewish Herald-Voice about the book and her Judaism.
Asked whether she finds America to be a death-denying culture, Winger said, “People are in denial of aging. But does anyone think they won’t die? The thought of it just brings some people down. It enlivens others. It includes the messy things about life.
“The panic I’ve experienced is when people get ill for the first time. I’ve discovered that sitting at the bedside of an ill person is a deed for myself as well as for that person. It’s a mitzvah. The Torah tells us to do it. I’m not ultra-religious. I just grew up doing it. It’s the caring for people when they need you that does it for me. At the same time, there’s always a little voice that says: It isn’t happening to me. Part of me felt like that with my mother. There but for the grace of G-d…
“So there’s something very therapeutic about visiting the sick. It’s one of the most beautiful parts of Judaism, as well as the care of somebody after death. Being Jewish would be my choice, even if I wasn’t Jewish. I’m always amazed by the wisdom of Jewish rituals.
A Grammy and Peabody winner, Garrison Keillor is the author of more than 15 books and is the creator, host and writer of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer’s Almanac, heard on public radio stations across the country. This past April, Keillor sat down with Roger Rosenblatt, also an award-winning writer and host of the Afternoon Night Table Series at the Y, to discuss his latest novel, Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon. In the video clip above, Keillor reads from the book and ruminates on insomniacs.
Subscriptions for the 2008-09 Afternoon Night Table Series—featuring Cynthia Ozick, Walter Mosley, Ann Beattie, E.L. Doctorow and Richard Wilbur—are now on sale.
On April 30, 2001, comedian Judy Gold interviewed Grammy Award-winning comic legend George Carlin, who passed away yesterday, at Congregation Rodeph Sholom as part of the 92nd Street Y's Funny People Series. You can listen to the whole program above for many of Carlin's stories about his life and comedy career, including an extended explanation of the "Seven Dirty Words."
You can also download the MP3. [27 MB]
[Right-click and select "Save Target As:" or equivalent to download.]
Subscribe with iTunes or add our podcast feed to your RSS news reader and have future 92nd Street Y podcasts delivered automatically.
Vintage Regency Assembly: Join nationally known dance historian Susan de Guardiola for an evening in the style of the era of Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Beau Brummell and Napoleon.
Kenny Washington was born in Brooklyn and attended the LaGuardia High School for Music & Art. He studied percussion with former Dizzy Gillespie drummer Rudy Collins, and in 1977, while still in his teens, he worked with Lee Konitz and his Nonet. Within the next few years Washington would perform and record with Betty Carter, Johnny Griffin, Kenny Burrell, Ron Carter and Frank Wess, and his freelance career would begin. He has now played with many other major artists, including Johnny Griffin, Milt Jackson, Tommy Flanagan, Jay McShann, the Mingus Dynasty, Benny Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, Arturo Sandoval and Benny Goodman, and he is a member of the Bill Charlap Trio. Washington has a discography of over 100 titles, and he has an interest in jazz history, writing liner notes and helping to prepare re-releases by Art Blakey, Count Basie and others. Catch his Jazz in July performances at Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein (
Perhaps the most recorded bassist of his generation, Peter Washington has a discography of over 350 recordings, and it grows on a near-weekly basis. Born in Los Angeles, he majored in English Literature at Berkeley, and while in San Francisco, he was invited by Art Blakey to move to New York and join his Jazz Messengers. From there Washington became part of two of jazz’s most celebrated trios: the Tommy Flanagan Trio, and for the past ten years, the Bill Charlap Trio. Washington’s freelance work roster is a “Who’s Who” of jazz, including many Jazz in July artists. Among the instrumentalists are Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, David Sanchez, David Hazeltine, Regina Carter and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. He has worked with vocalists like Chris Conner, Mark Murphy, Paula West, and Ernestine Anderson. Catch his Jazz in July performances at Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein (
