Red Hook Star-Revue, April 2024

STAR REVUE

Tales of New York –an interview with cartoonist Stan Mack

by Joe Enright

Stan Mack is one of the most prolific story tellers of the 20th century. He’s told over 1,500 tales using thick white paper, a pen and black ink to create comic strips about ordinary people, sometimes in extraordinary locations. A thousand were published in the Village Voice every week for two decades. Now 275 of the best of those will be available come mid-June in a new book, Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies.

Mack rolled into New York at the dawn of JFK's New Frontier, toting a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and a bunch of pens. After becoming art director at the Herald Tribune, rubbing shoulders with no-

PEOPLE OF RED HOOK

by Lisa Gitlin

table proponents of an emerging “new journalism” (Breslin, Wolfe, Steinem), he moved on to the New York Times A few years later, accompanying Style reporter Georgia Dullea on some of her forays into “Nouvelle Society,” he began jotting down quotes along with his

"As it turned out, the word verbatim captured readers’ imagination. It became very much attached to the whole idea of Real Life Funnies."

sketches. Georgia was encouraging and eventually a thought bubble popped over Stan’s head: “What if I combine my illustrations with what ordinary people are actually saying?” He pitched the legendary graphic designer, Milton Glaser, at the Village Voice then, on the idea and the strip was born.

What did you eat today?

“I ate some oranges and a piece of marble poundcake.”

What do you want?

“I’d like for the people around me to be happy and to be in the position where I can take care of them and myself so I can be sure that they can be happy as well.”

—

Eric Tanis

If you ever wondered what life was like in New York during its decline and rebirth, look no further. Sure, historians will note the sexual revolution of the 1970s and some have even written books about it, but only Mack will show you what it was like to hang out with the never-busy lifeguard at the Plato’s Retreat pool, given how it’s you know, impossible to have sex while swimming, ergo the swingers never ventured beyond the shallow end. In addition to Pink Pussycat sex shops, Stan’s strips also took us into Bloomingdale’s, squatter apartments, UFO Club meetings, Broadway casting calls, music video shoots, AIDS’ sufferers bedrooms, a King Kong balloon on the Empire state Building, singles bars, a satirist dressed as a padre pedaling a bike with a portable

What did you eat today?

“I had kettle corn for lunch.”

What do you want?

“I want health and happiness for my daughter, peace for the world – it sounds trite but so needed and health for myself. Tonight I want to go to Jalopy Theater tonight and see some music. They’re still there and they’re better than ever…They worked very hard to get funding during Covid and they’ve kept stuff alive.

The Jackson Lynch band usually plays on a Friday night but he’s not always in town, because he travels,

but if he’s there I’ll see him and see some of my friends and I’ll be excited to tell him how my week was and see how they’re doing.”

“Do you ever go to Sunny’s Bar?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Not quite as much just because I live close to Jalopy’s, but I love to go to both of them.”

—Rachel Serrano

confessional in tow, as well as dreamers, a Don Quixote MD, hustlers and so many other common people, who God must surely have loved, Abe Lincoln liked to point out, because he made so many of them. What follows is a recent conversation we had with Stan, editing out the boring bits.

JE: Stan, when you graduated the Rhode Island School of Design, what did you want to do?

SM: I knew I liked to draw. I liked to draw people. But I wasn’t a serious painter, wasn’t going to paint seascapes on Cape Cod so I headed to New York and took my chances.

JE: Did you have any leads when you got here?

SM: My uncle Freddie knew somebody, and somebody else knew some-

What did you eat today?

“I had coffee. And some peanut butter.”

What do you want?

“I’ll give you an answer I gave somebody else today, about something very similar. I want to kill time before time kills me.”

Paul Kennedy (retired photographer taking portrait photos of customers)

What did you eat today?

“So this morning I had a bagel from my freezer, I had three eggs with the bagel, and I had some yogurt with some muesli and some frozen berries…I microwave the berries

(continued on page 10)

first so they’re soft, then I put everything else on top.”

What do you want?

“Right now I’m searching for new work…I want to feel challenged and pushed in some way that I don’t feel I am right now.”—

Dana McRae

Lisa Gitlin

481 Van Brunt Street, 11AR Brooklyn, NY 11231 (917) 652-9128

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Why did it take me 54 years to go hear the Regina Opera Company?

by George Fiala

Ihappen to love adventures, and unexpected treats are always a highlight of life. However, being surprised at discovering a great evening at the Regina Opera is akin to kids from Manhattan attending an event at the Kings Theater and telling their friend' parents, who grew up watching baseball at Ebbets Field, that they've "discovered" Flatbush. I'm probably the last to know. Brooklyn's Regina Opera company is in the middle of their 54th season. Nino Pantano has reviewed them for us in the past, but he is finally getting past the point where he can get out, so it fell to me to attend a recent performance of Cavalleria Rusticana.

In another life I worked at another Brooklyn paper, The Phoenix. I remember Nino coming by our Atlantic Avenue office telling stories about his hero, Enrico Caruso. That would be in the 1970's. It's a mark of pride for me that he told the same stories in my own newspaper office decades later. Anyway, Nino reviewed Regina way back then, and looking through the Phoenix archives I found a letter from Francine Garber, the same Francine Garber that takes out ads and invited me to the show (and is now the President of Regina Opera). I'm reprinting the letter below, from the July 3, 1986 edition.

Regina Says Thanks

Thank you very much for attending a performance of Regina Opera’s recent production of "Tosca” and for writing a revew of the show for The Phoenix Our staff is always pleased when members of the press take note of the work of a modest- size ensemble such as Regina Opera and give it recognition. The feedback you have provided helps our volunteer Staff and singers to make each production better than the last and encourages us to continue to bring music at an affordable ticket price to

the Community. Since the major part of our operating budget comes from public donations and ticket sales, it is crucial that the neighborhood be aware of the frequency and quality of our performances. Reviews such as yours serve to encourage people to come and support our Company. We at Regina Opera wish you a pleasant summer and hope that you will again be in the audience when we begin our 16th season this Fall. — Francine Garber, Secretary, Regina Opera Company.

Well Francine, let me continue the tradition. I was invited to see Cavalleria Rusticana, which was performed the first two weeks of March. I arrived at the performance space, Our Lady of Perpetual Space Catholic Academy of Brooklyn, on 68th Street on the edge of Brooklyn Chinatown, a bit before three. After being recognized for entry at the front table by a man wearing a blue vest, I went through blue doors

into a large, elegant auditorium with plush red seats and a large, red curtained stage with gold trimming. My mother, who grew up in the old country, was a big fan of opera. The Texaco Metropolitan Opera was on the radio every Saturday in the house growing up. After my dad died, she volunteered at the NYC Opera and also subscribed to the Met.

I'm a big music person, but I never gave opera much mind. I thought I should go with her at least once, and so I did have my one Metropolitan Opera experience, very fancy surrounded by a lot of very sophisticated dressers, but I wasn't taken by the whole pomp and circumstance.

So in my ignorance I wasn't expecting much in the school auditorium. You could pick just about any seat you liked, and I sat near the orchestra. To be honest, I wasn't expecting a full orchestra. Who has a full orchestra in a school auditorium? Regina does, and (please turn to page 18)

A full orchestra accompanied the production of Cavalleria Rusticana, a sad and moving tale about love, foolishness and death. (photo by Fiala)

Usually I spend a month trying to figure out what momentous topic I will be making pronouncement about in this column.

But for this month at least, I'm going to tackle a bunch of possibly less momentous issues that have been on my mind.

Law and Order

My office is inside the warehouses on Van Brunt Street across from Food Bazaar. This means that I am often walking and driving across their entrance.

Above is a photo of that entrance, taken from within the parking lot.

Notice the red sign to the right. In all caps, just like Donald Trump writes online, it says DO NOT ENTER. In addition to that sign, there are yellow arrows in the pathway that leads away from the above entrance, all the way across the lot, to the exit, which is on Conover Street.

More and more, drivers of expensive vehicles are ignoring the sign and

Odds and Sods

by George Fiala

making a dangerous and illegal left turn onto Van Brunt Street.

Back when John McGettrick was leading the local civic association, he would occasionally petition DOT for a stop light. I believe the last one that he had a hand with was on Van Brunt and Pioneer.

That was after a mother and daughter got hit at that intersection (see below photo, courtesy of the Star-Revue photo taken by Steve Farber.

Do we need another heartbreaking event before somebody does some-

thing about this? Food Bazaar? 76th Precinct? Red Hook Neighbors Assembly? Anybody!!!

Multi Modal shipping

A while back the Star-Revue was lucky enough to have the services of Brett Yates, a highly thoughtful and talented reporter. He would come to the office no matter how hot or cold it was riding his bicycle all the way from Bushwick. He introduced me to the idea of multi-modal transportation, his idea of paying a single fare for bicycle rental, ferry trip, subway trip and whatever else, using the most efficient mode of transportation used on the differ-

BY

ent legs of trips.

Jim Tampakis, a local businesman that you have read about in these pages, has been advocating a long time for multi-modal shipping for the last mile warehouses. His efforts are finally starting to bear fruit as the Brooklyn Borough President, in his State of the Borough address, called for just such a thing, using Red Hook as his example, appearing on his slideshow.

A recent issue of the Gothamist detailed an EDC plan to introduce "maritime shipping hubs as a way to handle the booming number of e-commerce deliveries across the five boroughs."

Over the years Jim has showed me and city officials different versions of what he calls "mini-hubs." Instead of using trucks and sprinter vans to both receive and deliver the goods from the last-mile warehouses, small barges would bring small containers closer to their eventual delivery points.

In addition to barging, replacing the delivery vans with electric versions seems to be finally happening.

I took the previous photo driving up Van Brunt Street one day. It is a flatbed truck with two Rivian electric trucks clearly marked Amazon, on their way to the warehouse. It's starting to happen.

Jumping to conclusions

Before I say anything else, get that I am totally against shooting any police officer. The death of Officer Diller in Far Rockaway should never have happened. The immediate hue and cry that was pushed by media outlets such as the NY Post and the NYPD railed against the bail reform laws which are now a scapegoat for any criminal action.

Anyway, here is how I see this, and I fully admit that I could be wrong. What reporting I've seen says that two guys were sitting in their car in a bus stop. A patrol car stopped and all I hear is that the passenger was asked to exit the vehicle, and he resisted. There was a struggle with the door and the officer demanded that the passenger take his hands out of his hood pocket. The result of that was that he shot the officer. Nothing good about that, but was proper police procedure followed? A man is dead, in this case a police officer, in a situation that, before the actions of the police, was not very criminal (parking in a bus stop).

I look forward to the police report and the body cam footage which will hopefully follow.

FUNNY SIDE UP

SHORT SHORTS:

BY STAR-REVUE STAFF

Tampakis to speak on freight by water

New York’s proposed Blue Highways program is designed to decrease the burden of truck traffic on the city’s roads and environment by moving some of its freight by water. The Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center will be hosting breakfast and a discussion of some already existing efforts and ideas on how the city can make better use of its waterways on April 12 from 10-11:30 am at 300 Jay St.

Jim Tampakis, a Red Hook community leader who has pushed for our last mile warehouses to use the water to receive and deliver goods will be featured. The Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center can be reached at bwrc@citymail.cuny.edu.

400 new homes to be built in Red Hook.

Joel Braver, who heads up the Brooklyn construction firm Express Builders, recently filed plans with the Department of Buildings for a development at 498 Columbia St. that will stand 8 stories and 85 feet tall with 371 residential units. It will span about 227,000 square feet and include 10 parking spots and community space on the ground floor as well. It is one of three possible development locations on the large block that once included a laundromat, a

bank, a supermarket and a 99 cent store. Bogopa, operator of Food Bazaar, has owned the land since 2006. Braver filed demolition permits for the 1-story, 60,000-square-foot retail property at the site in late June, city records show. It was built in 1929, according to the commercial real estate database CoStar.

The block is zoned R6, which means no special zoning variances are needed. Our local council member, who recently issued land use guidelines for Red Hook, did not respond to a question for comment.

RHI scores a million from a foundation connected to Amazon

The Red Hook Initiative has been selected to receive a $1 million gift as an awardee of the Yield Giving Open Call. Their project was chosen from among 6,353 applications from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico after a process of multiple levels of review, feedback, and diligence involving peer applicants and an external Evaluation Panel recruited for ex-

NYC DOT will begin a notification campaign ahead of expected closures for necessary repair and replacement work in mid-April to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Brooklyn, including full closures between the Atlantic Avenue entrance ramp and the Manhattan Bridge exit ramp in the Queens-bound direction starting Saturday, April 13 at 2 am through Monday, April 15 at 4 am. The repairs, which build on successful repair work conducted in October 2023, focus on new concrete and reinforcing steels bars being added at spans on the BQE near Clark Street and Grace Court as part of near-term work critical to continuing the structure’s lifespan. These weekend repairs will be followed by a final, similar round of repairs expected to occur on June 1 to 3.

perience relevant to this cause. Founded in 2002, Red Hook Initiative (RHI) believes that social change to overcome social inequities begins with empowered youth.

Since 2014, RHI has reinvested over $1 million annually into the Red Hook community through job opportunities for adults and youth and paid internships designed to empower young individuals to effect positive change within their community. In 2023 RHI contributed $1.8 million back into the local economy, including:

• $1,194,209 allocated towards salaries for adult residents of Red Hook, Brooklyn.

• $249,726 designated for salaries for high school students.

• $54,043 in stipends provided to younger teens.

• $214,663 allocated for salaries for young adults involved in community improvement projects and subsidized workforce readiness internships.

• $146,955 distributed in emergency funds to assist 108 Red Hook families facing financial hard-

Find Sanctuary in the City

We are a parish of The Episcopal Church, a part of the Anglican Communion throughout the world, dedicated to the worship of God and to the care of God’s people. Come share in our mission to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.

Mass on Sundays at 11:00 am

Find us on social media @stpaulscarrollst

Wealthy Gowanus Non-Profit

The New York Landmarks Conservancy has announced the winners of the 2024 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Awards, the Conservancy’s highest honors for excellence in preservation. The Award recipients demonstrate the amazing and challenging preservation projects that occur throughout the City.

Powerhouse Arts will receive the Award at a ceremony on April 10 at The Plaza Hotel in Manhattan

A former power station along the Gowanus Canal, once deteriorated and covered in graffiti, has been converted into an arts and cultural center.

“The ‘Lucy’s’ are a joyous celebration of impressive preservation work occurring throughout the City,” said Peg Breen, President of The New York Landmarks Conservancy. “This is our largest and liveliest gathering.”  Built in 1904, the Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit System was originally a complex comprising a boiler house and turbine hall. It supplied electricity to the railroad and streetcar system. By the 1950s the boiler house was demolished. The turbine hall was decommissioned in 1972, used as a paper recycling center, and then abandoned.

In the 2000s, the deteriorated building became a destination for graffiti artists and squatters and nicknamed the “Batcave.” The roof and most windows were lost; leaving the interior open to the elements. The site, like much of the area around the Canal, is heavily polluted and designated a brownfield.

Despite these flaws, Powerhouse Arts saw the untapped potential of the eerie structure. PBDW Architects as the executive and preservation architect and Herzog & De Meuron as the design consultant collaborated on this incredible transformation. Before this project could begin, Powerhouse completed a voluntary remediation process under the NYS Brownfield Cleanup Program.

At the turbine hall, the steel structure was found to be in relatively good condition, and was left exposed, as it had been historically, a reminder of the industrial building’s past. The brick façade was stabilized and restored. The project team matched bluestone trim, mortar and multiple historic brick types, but also kept graffiti intact, ensuring connections with the building’s distant and recent history. New windows were inset in the original masonry openings, informed by the historic window design. A new addition references the lost boiler house in its proportions and red tinted facade.

The extraordinary interior holds a 170,000 square foot art fabrication facility for large scale art production in metal, wood, ceramic, textiles, and printmaking, as well as stunning public galleries and event spaces.

The Powerhouse shows how preservation not only saves buildings but can contribute to elevating a structure to a new public-facing industrial use that enriches the cultural, environmental, and recreational resources of Gowanus and New York City.

The Powerhouse was purchased in 2012 by Joshua Rechnitz, partly as a place to store his art collection. The multi-millionaire inherited his fortune and became a philanthropist, with hefty contributions to health, Jewish, arts and other foundations.

A controversial plan of his that never happened was an idea to build a velidrome in Brooklyn Bridge Park. A velidrome is a giant indoor racetrack, contoured for bicycle and other racing, kind of like a giant skateboard rink. The plan didn't pan out as it was eventually deemed impractical and the Brooklyn Heights Association expressed doubts about it's financial viability.

LETTERS

Likes our coverage

Great article showcasing the need for changes needed in housing laws in NYC and even more so in the entire country. I believe housing is a human right issue that need to be addressed immediately by all stakeholders to grow NYC and the country at large economically. However, the solution should not focus solely on VERY FEW UNSCRUPULOUS LANDLORD. Tenants have responsibilities too. So is the court system and the laws in NYC that allow UNSCRUPULOUS TENANTS, supported by weak politicians to trample over landlord’s right. There need to be an EQUILIBRIUM. Enacting laws that is fair to both landlords and tenants will be a good starting point. Investor are not encouraged to invest heavily in housing, if its going to take them ONE YEAR PLUS to evict a non-paying tenant. Irresponsible tenants are not required by the court to post bond, or come to court with rent. The renters have become PONDS/SOCCER-BALL being played by the politician, and legal aides communities for their own personal gains. Very few actually care about finding TRUE solution to the housing issue. You know why? Because solving the housing issue diminishes their CLOUT/POWER with the renters, which makes up a VERY HIGH VOTING BLOCK in any election.—Olufemi Falebiti, Boerum Hill

Bad news bearer

It amazes me how you try to cause division in the Community. I rather have two groups or four groups helping the community but instead of supporting them you want to speak negative about them. The other group who you call the Original Red Hook Civic Assocation are not new the person who is running it was and still part of it so get your facts straight and he knows his stuff. As for the Library the City Council Woman knew about the closing for 7 Years and yet did nothing. The other Civic Group came up with a solution which they pitched to the mayor. As for the Traffic from the Cruise Terminal you guys already know the issues and how it can be fixed yet your so-called elected official can’t see the solution. As for most and all of the items you listed on so called work in progress has already been mentioned and address, but your so-called council woman already knows the answer she just dragging you along for the ride.- Pamela Wheeler (possibly a pseudonym)

From the editor: The article you respond to is simply a summary of the latest Red Hook Civic Association meeting. We are not seeking to cause any sort of division, we are simply letting you know what's going on. Also, Alexa Aviles has been in office only since 2022—7 years ago our representative was Carlos Menchaca. What you say about the Cruise Terminal is not clear, since Aviles just passed a bill with solutions mandated at the Cruise Terminal. It seems that you are not a fan of Aviles, but your reasons are either vague or incorrect. Again, we are the messenger, we do not try to cause anything in our news pages except to let people know what’s going on around here. Sorry for your amazement.

Earth Day reminder

Let us celebrate Earth Day Monday April 22nd all year long. Besides recycling newspapers, magazines, glass, plastics, old medicines, paints and cleaning materials, there are other actions you can take which will also contribute to a cleaner environment.  For local trips in the neighborhood, walk or ride a bike.  For longer travels, consider many public transportation alternatives already available. They use less fuel and move far more people than cars.  In many cases, your employer can offer transit checks to help subsidize a portion of the costs.

Many employers continue to allow employees to telecommute. Others use alternative work schedules, which afford staff the ability to avoid rush hour gridlock.  This saves travel time and can improve mileage per gallon.  You could join a car or van pool to share the costs of commuting.  A cleaner environment starts with everyone. —

Larry Penner, Manhattan

Calling the Houses a campus

Le Corbusier, who created the concept, called them “towers in parks”. Building upwards allowed the ground to be opened for a green common that provided safe play space for children and social space for adults.

Robert Moses seized the Le Corbusier model to provide park space in a city that did not plan for it. He cleared the crowded “slums” and provided “healthy” parks and green space.

“Parks” in common law are any land that serves as a park, whether they are operated by a parks agency or not. Legal precedent includes a baseball diamond adjacent to a fire house in a rural community being protected. Legal precedent in NYC is far less kind.The use of the word “campus” is recent at NYCHA . It is used to avoid the word “parks” and permit the agency to do anything they want with the land.   “Campus” is also an interesting word. Jefferson believed that higher education facilities should be built on a “common”, a public space that encouraged the free exchange of ideas.

Many American Colleges and Universities were built to this model.

Brooklyn College is a public university built in Federal Revival style on a generous campus. Like many universities, over time, new buildings were needed and the campus was reduced in size. Thus the largest public space in Flatbush became a yard with a fence around it and guards that refused admittance to non students. .

As NYCHA grows the idea that they are real estate developers, let’s not forget the compromise that was made when the houses were built. Crowded communities were torn down to build even more crowded taller communities, but trees, playgrounds, benches, ball courts, etc. would make the communities more livable than what they replaced.

NYC has less parkland per person than any other American city. Should NYC preserve and protect its much needed and too rare public spaces?— Dave Lutz, Carroll Gardens

Alexa Aviles joins family of police victim asking for accountability

On March 2, the family of Allan Feliz and politicians including District 38 Council Member Alexa Aviles gathered outside of City Hall despite pouring rain to demand that Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Edward Caban fire police officer Jonathan Rivera. The officer shot and killed Feliz six years ago after stopping him because he thought he was not wearing a seatbelt.

March 2 would have been Feliz’s 36th birthday. The family members of others who were killed by members of the NYPD also attended and gave their support to Feliz’s family.

Feliz’s brother Samy Feliz said that even though his brother was pulled over for a potential seatbelt violation, officers later admitted that Allan was wearing his seatbelt. Members of the NYPD ran his ID and found he had three warrants against him. They tried to arrest him but he attempted to flee in his car. The police first used a stun gun and as Feliz continued to attempt to drive his car away, Rivera shot him in the chest, killing him.

In 2023, the Civilian Complaint Review Board ruled that police officer Rivera's use of force was improper, as was his threat of force early in his encounter with Allan Feliz.

Participatory Budgeting Vote Week

by Katherine Rivard

Council Member Shahana

Hanif, her staff, several artists from the nonprofit Arts & Democracy Project, and a handful of volunteers all gathered in the Old Stone House in Park Slope on a Monday evening last month. At the start of the meeting, each person introduced themselves and stated their artistic skills, before being assigned a project and getting down to business. The volunteers were responsible for designing posters to represent the projects for the upcoming participatory budgeting vote. The posters will be used to showcase the projects at District 39’s Participatory Budgeting Expo from 2 pm to 4 pm on April 6 at Powerhouse Arts in Gowanus.

Vote week will take place between April 6 and April 14. Anyone over the age of 11 is welcome to vote, regardless of citizenship. To vote in person, attend the expo on April 6, or at the specified locations: the Old Stone House from 11 am - 3 pm on April 7 and April 14, Windsor Terrace Library from 6 pm - 8 pm on April 9, or Kensington Plaza from 12 pm - 4 pm on April 13. Voting will also be available online at vote.pbnyc.org.

For the uninitiated, participatory budgeting may seem like a bit of a gimmick—community members di-

by Brian Abate

Samy Feliz has been fighting for justice for his brother since the shooting took place in October 2017. He previously spoke at an event in the Bronx about the How Many Stops Act, sponsored by Aviles.

That bill makes it mandatory for the NYPD to report on all levels of police street stops and investigative encounters, including where they happen, demographic information on the person stopped, the reason for the encounter, and whether the encounter leads to any use of force or enforcement action. It was passed by the NY City Council earlier this year.

The Mayor vetoed the bill, saying “the New York City Council has taken action today that, if implemented, will unquestionably make our city less safe.”

The Council then overrode the veto and the bill became law.

“You’ve already heard over and over again why we’re here,” Aviles said. “We should not be here today. The charges were substantiated. What Mayor Adams and Commissioner Caban did is an affront to democracy, an affront to public safety, and an affront to their oath to protect and serve.

“Do better. Do right. Do it now. Do the right thing. Deliver the charges. Fire

rectly decide how to spend part of a public budget (at least $1 million in each participating district). But by not participating, power (and the funding) is given to the small group of engaged citizens. Across the city, 30 out of 51 city council members are taking part in this year’s participatory budgeting. Throughout the fall, volunteers and staff worked to collect ideas, then partnered with nonprofit organizations, and city agencies to flesh them out and confirm that each was feasible.

Although District 38, led by Council Member Alexa Avilés, whose district includes Red Hook, Park Slope, South Slope, and Sunset Park, has participated in the past and was even part of the inaugural District Committee when participatory budgeting launched, they are not participating in this cycle: “... I have a deep appreciation for the potential of the program as a civic engagement opportunity for residents to have a direct say in how government allocates our tax dollars. This year, we decided to take a break from the process primarily due to capacity concerns on our end and how challenging it is to secure agency cooperation in materializing projects within a sensible timeframe and within the level of allotted participatory budget funding.”

Despite the challenges, Council Member Hanif’s office has become a model for participatory budgeting. The office’s Budget and Organizing Director Hannah Henderson-Charnow has led the district through three cycles and runs a tight ship. She began community outreach earlier than many dis-

this officer now and fire all officers who kill people and violently abuse their rights.”

In addition to his brother, Feliz’s sister, Ashley Verdeja, his mother, Mery Verdeja, and the mother of his child, Julie Aquino also spoke, many with tears in their eyes.

“It’s not easy to say how good Allan was, but we know exactly how great he was,” Ashley Verdeja said. “Allan wasn’t a party planner. He enjoyed good food and looked forward to time with family and good friends. That was what really mattered to him. Instead of preparing his favorite meal or going to his favorite restaurant,

tricts and has continued to refine how the district conducts the program, engaging volunteers during every step of the process, fostering partnerships with local nonprofits, translating materials to ensure wider participation, and attempting new means of voting outreach, such as the upcoming expo. The projects on the ballot this year include both expense projects (which cost up to $20,000), and more expensive capital projects. The expense projects are focused on four key areas: education, environment, arts & culture, and economic justice, and often focus on providing the “extra” services or programs that government does not prioritize. This year, projects in this area, which were created based on community input, feasibility, and need, included programs like teaching housing policy to youth or creating a street tree stewardship program. Another project on the ballot this cycle is funding for intergenerational cultural dance classes led by a local nonprofit, Dancewave. The classes would be held in public spaces and would build community for people of all abilities, providing both exercise and fun. When city government budgets are cut, services that improve quality of life for residents at all incomes are often the first to be cut. Organizations like Dancewave are more critical than ever. According to Dancewave’s Executive Director Nicole Touzien “Dancewave’s organizational values are aligned with Participatory Budgeting’s emphasis on empowering individuals, and therefore getting involved with these efforts was an easy decision to make. For the past two cy-

we are here pleading to substantiate these charges. It’s been over four years.”

Glenn Carr, the mother of Eric Garner who was killed in 2014 by the police using a chokehold because he was suspected of selling loose cigarettes, also spoke. The officer who killed Garner was fired in 2019 though the other officers who were there at the time have kept their jobs.

“There is no justice,” said Carr. “Justice would’ve been if our children were alive. Now it’s about closure.”

The rally concluded with balloons being released in celebration of Allan Feliz’s birthday.

cles, Dancewave has submitted projects to bring free and accessible intergenerational dance programming to the community. We also help to educate members of our community about Participatory Budgeting, and use the organization’s public communication platforms to help amplify vote week and related events.

Touzien has also served as a participatory budgeting volunteer for District 39: “One of my favorite experiences so far has been to facilitate a discussion among members of the Civic Assembly to help shape and refine community ideas into projects that will appear on the ballot. I felt energized by all of the terrific ideas coming forth from our community, and was inspired by the Civic Assembly members who helped translate these ideas into compelling projects that people across the district can vote on. Participatory Budgeting is such an empowering process, and I am very excited to see how our community will choose to spend our money!”

As the evening of project poster making came to an end last month, a few high school students who were volunteering looked at the finished project posters. One of the proposed projects aims to provide a local school with air conditioning—a proposal that irked one of the volunteers who felt that the school was already well-funded by higher income parents, while other schools were more in need of funding. Just like in every democracy, without an engaged citizenry, power and funding are given to those with the most time or influence.

Alexa Aviles speaking in the rain at the City Hall demonstration (photo by Abate)

City of Yes moves ahead

by Katherine Rivard

It has been a busy year for the Department of City Planning (DCP).

The city has seemed weighed down with budget cuts, constant media attention on crime in the subways, and sexual assault allegations against the mayor, and yet DCP has continued its work, publishing Principles of Good Urban Design for New York City (a tool for creating better neighborhoods) and pushing to reform zoning across the city. The agency’s City of Yes project, which includes three citywide initiatives that would create zoning reform, is in various stages of approval. DCP’s three initiatives include City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality, Economic Opportunity, and Housing Opportunity. The first initiative, Carbon Neutrality, was passed by the City Council last December. The second, for Economic Opportunity, was approved by the City Planning Commission on March 6 and will now go to the City Council for a hearing and final vote. Now, the final initiative for Housing Opportunity is taking front and center.

New York City is facing a housing crisis, with a 1.4 percent rental vacancy rate and more than half of New York households being “rent burdened” (defined as paying over one third of their gross income for rent). City of Yes for Housing Opportunity attempts to change zoning so that it is possible to add a small amount of housing to every neighborhood. The proposal includes several elements, including: Universal Affordability Preference, a tool that would allow buildings to add

at least 20% more housing if the additional units are affordable; residential conversions, updating rules to allow for commercial buildings built before 1990 (rather than 1961) to be converted into housing; town center zoning, bringing back former policies that allowed housing above businesses on commercial streets in low-density areas; the removal of parking mandates, rolling back the agency’s parking re-

about the zoning proposal, and focused on “missing middle” housing types. After the short presentation, DCP representatives Veronica Brown and John Mangin masterfully answered questions from attendees. Questions came from residents of every borough (interestingly, all but one question came from attendees who were also community board members, though they were not represent-

“This is a city of immense opportunity—if we want to preserve that at a fundamental level, and make it livable for those who aren’t rich, finding out ways to do this is a priority.”

quirements for new developments; accessory dwelling units, allowing homeowners to create additional housing such as basement apartments and garage conversions; transit-oriented development, re-legalizing 3-5 story apartment buildings on large lots on wide streets or corners within a half-mile of public transit; and campuses, allowing residential, faithbased, or other campuses with underused spaces to more easily add new buildings that could bring funding for repairs, new facilities, or housing.

On March 27, the agency held a public information session on Zoom

ing their communities on the call). An attendee from Staten Island was concerned that removing parking mandates would make parking more difficult. The agency noted that Buffalo, Austin, and other more car-centric jurisdictions have successfully removed parking mandates; in neighborhoods where parking spots are critical or highly valued, developers will usually still choose to include parking when creating housing.

Many of the attendees were concerned about more housing changing their communities—from concerns about “three story monstrosities” to

fears about new housing in areas already dealing with flooding. One attendee asked how much more housing the city can have and if there were a limit.

In response to the idea of simply not building more housing, Mangin underlined the critical nature of housing: “As planners, as people who care about the future of the city, that’s just a really scary idea.” He explained that by capping housing while the economy continues to grow, there is more and more pressure on limited housing stock, meaning that people are priced out of the city. The result? A dystopian city that is no longer one of opportunity for immigrants, those in lower incomes, young graduates, etc. “This is a city of immense opportunity—if we want to preserve that at a fundamental level, and make it livable for those who aren’t rich, finding out ways to do this is a priority.”

One of the final attendees explained that, as a father, it was more important to him that his son is able to afford to live in New York City when he grows up, than it is that his neighborhood’s character remain unchanged.

During the call, representatives from DCP noted that a full environmental impact statement will be released in the coming weeks.

The next public information session about City of Yes for Housing Opportunity will be held via Zoom on April 17 at 6:30 pm. To register go to https://bit.ly/3TxFeZq

It's the Battle of Brooklyn revisited at

Many people might not realize it, but in 2006 a British utility bought the Brooklyn company that had been providing gas heating and lighting for the borough since 1825.

Yes folks, if you pay a National Grid bill, you are adding to the profits of a London based company.

Way back in 1776, the British defeated us in Brooklyn when Washington's troops were forced to retreat through Prospect Park on their way to New Jersey, in order to survive to fight another day. It looks like a battle is brewing again as National Grid is girding for a fight with the NYS Dept of Environmental Conservation (DEC).

The eventual outcome of that first battle is known to every American, and in less than 50 years, the Brooklyn Union Gas (or BUG, as it was affectionately called) was founded as a United States company.

As the gas company kept growing they developed a portfolio of environmental pollution that wasn't considered important for a long time. When National Grid bought BUG, they purchased that portfolio as well.

The consequence is that as a "potentially responsible party," the British company is on the hook for much of the cleanup of the Gowanus Canal and its adjacent area. One of the biggest areas of pollution is the land known as Public Place, right around

Smith and 9th Streets, where BUG operated a Manufactured Gas Plant facility where they turned coal into gas, and dumped the highly toxic byproducts right into the ground.

National Grid has spent the past decade or so trying to remediate this pollution as instructed by the environmental agencies, and thought they were done last year, clearing the way for the Fifth Avenue Committee, along with other real estate developers to start building their long delayed Gowanus Green project.

However this past January, the DEC determined that National Grid had more work to do. This was revealed at the latest Gowanus Oversight Task Force meeting, held March 28 at PS 133.

Up until now, these meetings, mandated as part of the recent Gowanus rezoning, which is turning much of Gowanus into midtown Manhattan, were pretty much pro-forma, as committees formed mostly out of the proponents of the rezoning trotted out representatives of NYC agencies to read a script stating how they well they were doing.

But at this meeting, which was focused on all the beauty of the upcoming Gowanus Green affordable housing extravaganza neighborhood, including parks and a school, a shoe was quietly dropped when Patrick Foster, a mild mannered DEC lawyer, presented the slide to the right indicating that National Grid was protesting a Janu-

ary 19th letter from both DEC and EPA "requesting additional remedial work."

I do remember hearing at a recent Gowanus Community Advisory (CAG) meeting, of which I am a member, something about toxins leaking into the air and into some neighboring buildings, but I didn't think anything would come of it, based upon past DEC actions.

As I stared at the slide, it slowly dawned on me that actually might be environmental justice in action. I caught the eye of facilitator Ben Margolis and he called on me first as he opened up the floor to questions.

"Does this mean that the construction of Gowanus Green might be delayed?" I asked.

Unbelievably enough, the mild mannered and genial Foster described a scenario of delays akin to Donald Trump's legal strategy as he replied in the affirmative. Steve Marcus, fellow CAG member, speculated afterwards that National Grid doesn't want to spend any more money especially since Gowanus Green will be totally electrically powered.

I looked over to Michelle de la Uz who was sitting at the podium. She is the Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, and served with the Dept. of City Planning during the time of the planning of the rezoning.

I had seen her having a quite cordial discussion with Foster before the meeting, when I didn't know who he was, and didn't realize he was much more than a lackey for the rezoning. In fact, Foster gave the most professional presentation having to do with Gowanus since the since the retirement of EPA Chief Engineer Christos Tsiamis, who kept the CAG informed of Superfund progress every month.

Michelle was no longer smiling.

That's Ben Margolis, facilitator, with highly knowledgable DEC attorney Patrick Foster on the right, underneath the provocative slide. (Fiala photo)

Cookies for Chips at Food Bazaar

Earth Day suggestion

I appreciated your coverage of the Gowanus Canal Conservancy’s work (“Gowanus Canal Conservancy builds a new garden,” March 12), as this is a group I greatly admire. We need much more of this kind of action but more action will require more money. Right now there is a bill in Albany, the Climate Superfund Act, that would bring $3B a year into the state for repair and resilience in the face of damage from extreme weather. As global warming accelerates, we face ever worsening damage. The Climate Superfund Act would bill big fossil fuel companies like Exxon for the damage they have already caused. It would work just like the Federal Superfund Act, which is right now

cleaning up the Gowanus Canal with money paid by the companies that polluted the canal. Billing international fossil fuel companies, which are currently reaping billions in profits, should be a no-brainer.

So why hasn’t the Climate Superfund Act passed already? The NY State Senate has passed it but the Assembly and the Governor are dragging their feet. Most of our Brooklyn Assembly Members support it. It’s time for them to tell the Assembly leadership to get this bill passed.

Sara Gronim, Brooklyn Sara Gronim is a volunteer with the climate group 350Brooklyn, which fights for environmental justice legislation in New York State.

Members of the Brooklyn Bridge Rotary Club got together at Food Bazaar to decorate hundreds of cookies that were donated the next day at CHIPS food pantry on 4th Avenue. The Rotary Club meets twice a month and are always open to new members. For info www.brooklynbridgerotaryclub.org

STAN MACK

body, and all of them went nowhere. So I started with menial art jobs. Maybe it would have been better if I’d grown up in Brooklyn where, as you know, I was born. But we moved to Providence when I was a little kid.

JE: Well, you landed the art director gig at the Herald Tribune and then moved over to the Times. How did you hook up with the Village Voice?

SM: I did a lot of illustrations for New York Magazine, which Clay Felker and Milton Glazer ran, so I knew them before they took over the Village Voice. I was a freelance illustrator, waiting for the phone to ring, which it did, luckily. But I thought if I could somehow create a combination package of drawing and reporting, then I wouldn’t have to wait for that phone call. So I went to Milton. He was the graphics genius who created a whole new look for the Village Voice. I said, what if I go about town and do a piece listening to people, talking with them, sketching the locations. I didn’t know that Milton had created a page he called Urban Comics, and now he was looking to fill it. And after I pitched my idea, he said, “Comics are circulation builders for weeklies. They’re a big deal but you gotta appear regularly. If you could do this thing every week, I’d put it on that page.” And that’s how it began.

JE: Did you come up with the name “Real Life Funnies” and that tag, “All dialogue guaranteed verbatim”?

SM: No. Milton said, “Whatever you’re gonna do, go do it.” He was a visionary. So I wandered around town, I overheard snippets here and there and delivered it in a comic strip format to the editors, not Milton, who was separate from the editors who put together the paper. “Here you go,” I said, and they said, “What’s this?” I told them what I’d done and they said, “What do you mean it’s true? It’s not real, it’s a comic strip, comic strips are fiction, they always have been.” Or at least as far back as they could remember. I said, “No, no, this is all real. None of the words here are made up, these are all people’s words.” And they said, “Well, this is crazy. Who’s gonna believe that? They’re gonna open the newspaper and see a comic strip and they’re going to assume you made it up.”

JE: Reasonable.

SM: Yeah, so then they said, “How about if we call it Real Life Funnies?”

I said alright, Real Life Funnies. Then they said, “And we’re gonna put your name in the front of it because we don’t want the responsibility for people asking us if it’s real or not.” Then one of them said, “You know, even that might not be enough. Let’s put ‘verbatim’ underneath it, to say this is absolutely people’s words.” As it turned out, the word verbatim captured readers’ imagination. It’s a nice lively punchy word and it became very much attached to the whole idea of Real Life Funnies.

JE: That’s a fascinating origin story.

SM: Since these were word balloons, I might have to cut a word or two to fit the space-as long as I felt it didn’t change the meaning. but that was as far as I ever went. People’s words were holy.

JE: Did you use a tape recorder?

SM: No. I started with a couple of little pads and two ballpoint pens for backup. I needed a way to carry them that was easy to get at. In those days men didn’t carry bags, there weren’t even belly bags. So I bought a grenade bag at an Army & Navy store, which I could wear on my belt, perfect for my pads and pens.

"I’m not a traditional editorial cartoonist commenting on politics. My strips are about people, essentially a bottom-up history."

JE: Perfect for an ex-GI! I saw your video on C-SPAN and you were drawing with what looked to me like just a traditional fountain pen.

SM: It wasn’t a fountain pen, it was a dip pen. It was a little black thing with a metal point which you bought separately. it was crude in a way but also brilliantly sophisticated. Think about Edward Gorey’s drawings [Gorey did the cartoon for PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery]. I went to the Gorey museum on Cape Cod where they displayed some of his tools. Same pens I used. For me, there was something special about the metal point on paper. I’d dip my pen into India ink and the line lasted as long as the ink in the

pen point did, and then you had to dip it again, over and over, which is probably why my arm hurts so much now.

JE: Did you carry around the ink?

SM: The ink bottle sat next to my drawing board. And since I was lefthanded, I had a tube of white paint to paint over my mistakes because I kept smudging the black ink which was still wet, because I was always in such a mad rush to deliver the drawing to the Voice. It was always last minute. I don’t know how to work except on deadline. I used to think of it as a pizza that I was delivering while it was still hot.

JE: How big were the strips you drew?

SM: 14 by 17 inches. That’s why I thought of it as a pizza, it was the same size as the box.

JE: How would you put the strip together?

SM: At first it was like I collected all the words in a dump truck, backed up to the drawing paper, and dumped ‘em. And whichever ones survived was the strip for that week. After a while I began to look for a story with some sort of beginning, middle, and ending. I had a lot of newspaper background at that point. I knew I needed a lede, a first panel that would tell the reader where they were, which was someplace different every week. I’d often draw a funny little guy with a square nose and mustache, the only ongoing character, he was an onlooker whom the reader could identify with. Basically it was me as a cartoon character.

JE: Did you ever follow a politician around?

SM: I covered three national conventions. Some strips from them are in the book. I’ve been complimented on my caricatures of say, Jimmy Carter. But I’m not a traditional editorial cartoonist commenting on politics. My strips are about people, essentially a bottom-up history. I remember a city public hearing where city council

members were meeting to put forward the motion to vote themselves a raise. I just sat among the people watching the politicians on the stage knock down their morning coffees and bagels and doughnuts. Fat cats talking about how they really needed money and not understanding how many in the audience who made far less could even survive in New York. It was a puzzle to them, but it wasn’t going to stop them from voting their own raise, which they went ahead and did. It was political satire from the cheap seats.

JE: Is there any strip in the book that you would pick if you had to be remembered for just one? Or a Top 10 maybe?

SM: No, but there are some which are for me at least great stories and I like them for that reason because they’re more than just that one week. These are strips that have affected the people in them and me, sometimes over the years. Then again, some weeks I’d have a tough time finding any story. I’d have to go to two or three places looking for a story.

JE: So tell me about the UFO group.

SM: In terms of my kind of humor, some strips were easy, like hanging out with believers in visitors from outer space who had great truths to pass on to earthlings. There were pictures of a UFO that might have been peanut butter on the camera lens. As I was leaving, I heard one attendee say to another, “You know. it’s not your usual bunch of kooks here tonight.” And the other said, “These guys are talking the truth.”

JE: Talking about the process of how you actually worked, it seems you were out there with a pen looking for an interesting story you could report.

SM: I was learning as I went. Today they teach visual journalism in art school. Eventually I got a press pass from the Voice that would allow me to go on the floor of a national conven-

JE: Tell me about the strip you did in February 1980 called “Hot Tubs” SM: It must have been a Friday night, everybody had come from work to this showroom in Brooklyn, and the salespeople were trying to sell them on the idea of a hot tub for their apartment or house. There were a couple of women in bikinis hired to hang out in the hot tub. So I just stayed there for a few hours and sketched all the goings on at the tub.

STAN MACK

(continued from page 10)

tion. But even then I was kind of faking it because there were legitimate reporters seriously interviewing important politicians. I was looking for an angle and sometimes that angle was the press themselves, a notoriously thin-skinned bunch.

JE: Well, I guess you could say in some ways you were after the human interest story, the kind they would run for big events, like a delegate from Queens at her first convention.

SM: I remember I was outside the 1992 Democratic Convention in midtown doing a story on the crazies on the periphery when this guy pedals up on his bike towing a portable confessional for delegates to go to Confession.

JE: Joey Skaggs, the satirist! PortoFess he called it!

What did you eat today?

“I only had an oat milk latte. That’s all I had. Because I’m fasting. Not for religious reasons…”

“And you still look like you have your energy.”

“Yeah, well I had coffee as well. I had a good day too.”

What do you want?

“I would love it if my kids are happy and in a society (where people) support each other.” —George Paul

What did you eat today?

“I had three chicken wings at Hometown Barbecue and a cup of coffee from here.”

What do you want?

“I think I just want to learn more about the history of this community because I just moved here. So I’ve just been hanging out with a lot of the locals and having them tell me stories about Red Hook. I just want to learn about this place more. It’s such a beautiful place… I originally came from Utah. I was living in Williamsburg before this. To go from Utah to Williamsburg was kind of a drastic change. I grew up on a mountain. So I would eat my breakfast on a mountain. So in Williamsburg it was too busy. So I came here. It’s calmer.”

Gemma Grover

###

What did you eat today?

“I had two chocolate cupcakes.”

“That’s all you ate today? Two chocolate cupcakes? Did you have coffee?”

“I had coffee. Coffee, water, and two chocolate cupcakes. …I don’t go by mealtimes. I just go according to how

SM: Yeah, exactly. You nailed it: I was doing human interest sidebars – getting stories from people who weren’t important enough to be inside Madison Square Garden.

JE: Did you get along with Jules Feiffer, the Voice’s senior cartoonist?

SM: I knew Feiffer slightly. He didn’t go into the office regularly. I didn’t either. Feiffer was an essential part of the Village Voice just like the logo itself. He was unique and his voice was amazing. I started what you might call the second wave of cartoon strips. Mark Stamaty followed me and then there were some others. Ben Katchor briefly. In my mind Feiffer’s voice was absolutely true, but he was talking about a segment of society he knew very well, a little bit older than me. Mine ranged across such a wide variety of backgrounds and peoples that it really became something different, and it was also more a documentary. Feiffer’s voice, which so captured the people he was writing about and had

hungry I am. Sometimes I’m super hungry and have a massive breakfast. Sometimes I’ll skip breakfast. It changes.”

What do you want?

“I would love to go to the beach. I’m from Cape Town, South Africa so I used to go for a swim every day.”— Talulah: (“It’s a Native American name. It means “leaping water.”)

What did you eat today?

such perfect pitch, was still coming out of his head. None of my stuff was, except for choosing the place, like the UFO fanatics, Plato’s Retreat, or you name it, that was where my editorial instinct kicked in. But once there, it was those people providing the story.

PEOPLE OF RED HOOK

by Lisa Gitlin

Where we talk to just anyone. This month we hung around the Red Hook Coffee Shop on Van Brunt Street

So I’m sort of dieting but I couldn’t resist (making) one of our house sandwiches… it’s the house prosciutto sandwich…It’s made on a ciabatta bun with a tomato salsa and prosciutto cheese and arugula. We toast the bread, put the salsa on, then put the layers on. It’s so simple and so good. We have soup of the day and then the sandwich. We tried a bunch of different stuff in the beginning which didn’t really take off but the sandwich really took off… I had a bunch of coffee. I like to make myself a cortado. It’s a double shot with an equal amount of steamed milk…I like to spice it up a little by adding just a tiny amount of caramel syrup but today I left out the caramel syrup.

We get our beans from Abbotsford Road Coffee roasters in Gowanus. We get one bean roasted specially for us, so we call it the Red Hook blend.”

(He got busy so I couldn’t ask him what he wants.) — Olav Christensen, manager of the Red Hook Coffee Shop

JE: What did you think of R. Crumb and his ilk?

SM: I was fascinated by them, like the Beatles, like Bob Dylan, like a lot of the illustrator cartoonists I knew of in the '60s who were overturning the values of the '50s and setting new pathways. We were all going through a revolution of one kind or another in the '60s and the idea that Crumb took the comics of my childhood and riffed on them from the underground with the attitudes of the revolution was wonderful. But I was already ensconced in New York as an art director and illustrator, so I was more mainstream— I’d even been in the army. Still, my approach was really off-beat.

Stan Mack will be appearing at the 394th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium. This will be held on Tuesday, May 7, 2024 at 7 pm ET. ONLINE VIA ZOOM. Please email comicssymposium@gmail. com to register for this event. Free and open to the public.

What did you eat today?

“I had a bagel with cream cheese and some soup. Squash soup. And a cup of passion fruit hibiscus tea.”

What do you want?

“Right now I really, really, really want something to drink.” — Samantha (Sam) Richards: Barista, Red Hook Coffee Shop:

What did you eat today?

“I had two pancakes with blueberries inside and strawberries on top. And two eggs with cheddar cheese and bacon. And then for lunch I had (half of) a chicken quesadilla, from a café (in Manhattan.) To drink today I had a large coffee, light and sweet with oat milk…For lunch I had ginger ale. I wanted something bubbly. I like the ginger to give me a little pep.”

And now you’re drinking…

“A flat white. With oat milk. Usually I put in some simple syrup…to sweeten it but today I didn’t.”

What do you want?

“Good health and happiness.” —Zoe Brown (She’s a veteran and high school teacher, Hell’s Kitchen resident visiting a friend in Red Hook)

What did you eat today?

“I ate two fried eggs with toast and strawberry jam. That’s what I eat every morning. And I had a flat white here.” What do you want?

“I want more time off, more free time, on the weekends. That’s what I want, time for myself.”

“Do you feel like you’re working too many hours, or you just want more time for yourself, in general?”

“Probably both, they play into each other. I want more time, like to do this.” (Reading in a coffee shop.)—

Alysha Casnellie ###

Justin R. and Mya B.

(To Justin) What did you eat today?

“Today I just ate chips. What kind of chips?

“Doritos.”

Did you have anything to drink?

“Hennessy.”

What do you want?

“Peace.”

That’s a great answer! (To Mya) Okay now I’m going to ask you –what did you eat today?

“Today I had two blunts.”

Only two blunts? You must’ve gotten hungry after that.

“After that I had some gushers.”

Some what? Gushes?

(Both of them crack up.) “Gushers. They’re like fruit rollups.”

Stan Mack(87) has a new book coming out

Making a dense city more livable

by Brian Abate

Old timers might remember an urban gardener from the last century. Adam Purple, who dressed in purple and drove a purple bike, created a large spiraling garden on the lower East Side which became famous as it was threatened and eventually destroyed by real estate developers.

These days, many community gardens in the city are safe from development due to the city's GreenThumb program. There are 14 community gardens around here. Spring has arrived and that means community gardeners are getting back to work.

Urban Meadow

Mike Golub runs the Urban Meadow, across from the docks on Van Brunt and President.

“I’ve been living in the neighborhood for about 33 years years,” said Golub, originally from Long Island but now a Columbia Waterfront District resident.

“My wife is a native Brooklynite and we were living on Henry St. but our landlord sold the building so we got a little place right down the street.

"She is a gardener, my mother-in-law is a gardener, and I have friends who are gardeners so I learned from them.”

In 1987 the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary parish, where Mother Cabrini once taught, was torn down after a roof collapse. The space where the garden is now became an empty lot that was filled with overgrown weeds. At the start, there were approximately 100 volunteers in the garden, and getting the weeds out was grueling work . Golub and the volunteers kept adding more plants to the garden, which looks like a beautiful jungle when in bloom. In addition to providing a green space, Urban Meadow has been the site of annual Halloween parades, jazz festivals, and even a wedding.

“If anyone is interested in joining, they can call me and it’s $30 to join per year,” Golub said. “Then you get a key. We only have a finite number of boxes [small designated spaces within the garden where people can plant what they please for a little money.] I think we’re up to 13 boxes now.

“The way we approached it when we first started the garden was everyone just did everything because there was so much work to do. More recently, we started developing family plots which has worked out great since it has gotten more people involved and folks like to grow their own flowers, herbs, and vegetables.”

The garden’s Facebook page lists contact information and those interested in joining can email urbanmeadow@ gmail.com or call 917-751-9347.

Dave Lutz, gardener

Dave Lutz is another prominent local garden keeper.

“A garden was being started in the Columbia Street part of Red Hook and since I was the director of an open space organization, it thought I should know more about community gardening,” Lutz said. “I came in and I was absolutely charmed by it. Here’s a group of people starting from a garbage-filled lot making plans to turn it into a community garden. The people felt so empowered by it and they were turning it into this little piece of paradise. That was what got me started.

For the Summit Street Garden, Lutz and other volunteers cleaned up the space. There used to be apartments in the area but they had fallen to the ground so volunteers dug up the bricks from the buildings.

“You look at the Summit Street Garden today and it has beautiful brick walks,” Lutz said.

Lutz gave credit to Claire Merlino, who was “instrumental,” in making

the Summit Street Garden and the nearby Amazing Garden what they are today, and helping create a gardening culture in the community.

“One of the changes to a number of the gardens this year is that GreenThumb has provided us with some help doing some tree care,” Lutz said. “Some of the trees that were loaded with lantern fly were removed and a lot of the trees have been trimmed down a little bit and it also means there will be more light in the garden.”

Lutz also spoke about what makes a community garden unique.

“Gardening is such a solitary activity for most people,” Lutz said. “People go in their garden and get lost in their own thoughts but here in New York City we garden in groups which requires group decisions and group discussions. We have to work together and that’s part of the fun of it.”

Red Hook

While the Red Hook Houses has no community gardens, there is a farm on Wolcott Street and is now run by the Red Hook Initiative, who also runs the Red Hook Farm across from IKEA. Perhaps once the current construction is finished, there can be some gardens created adjacent to other buildings. For examples of NYCHA gardens at other developments, check out this website: https://www.grownyceducation.org/gardensatnycha

GREENTHUMB COMMUNITY GARDENS AROUND HERE

Following is a list of local gardens. Many offer individual plots, Google them for more information. Many have their own Facebook pages.

Urban Meadow 125 Van Brunt St. Open Thursday-Sunday from 6 am to 9 pm in April through October

Amazing Garden 265 Columbia St. Backyard Garden 69 Hamilton Ave. Open 10 am to 3 pm Saturday & Sunday from April through October

Dolly’s Park 503 President St. Open 8 am to 5 pm every day from April through October.

Garden of Union Annie’s Garden 634 Union St. Open Tuesday 5-7 pm April through October

Gil Hodges Carroll Street Garden 534 Carroll St.

Green Space at President St. 222 5th Ave. Open every day except Saturday from 9 am to 5:30 pm from April through October

GreenSpace Native Plant Community Garden 207 4th Ave.

Human Compass Community Garden 134 Sackett St. Open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 9 am to 6 pm from April through October

Lincoln-Berkeley Community Garden 20 Lincoln Pl.

Pirate’s Cove Garden 313 Columbia St. Open Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday from 11 am to 4 pm from April through October

South Brooklyn Children’s Garden 204 Columbia St. Open from 10 am to 6 pm on Saturday and Sunday and 10 am to 2 pm on Wednesday from April through October

Summit Street Community Garden 281 Columbia St. Open Saturday and Sunday from 11 am to 4 pm from April through October

Urban Meadow, next to Cabrini Park on President and Van Brunt, 917 751-8347

Warren-St.Marks Community Garden 623 Warren St. Open 8:309:30 am and 6-7 pm on weekdays, 10 am to 6 pm on Saturday, and 9 am to 6 pm on Sunday from April through October

The Amazing Garden at Columbia and Degraw

Mike Golub standing at the Urban Meadow

Pirates Cove Garden (all photos by Brian Abate)

The Human Compass Garden

Summit Street Community Garden

Behind the stage at the Urban Meadow

A Swedish Baedekar

by Dario Pio Muccilli, Star-Revue EU correspondent

Sweden is to Europe like the Amazon is to South America. It is a land full of lakes and forests that hug you the very moment of your arrival. Getting on the bus to leave the airport you are driven through a nature scenario, with snowy trees extending miles.

If you were sweating in the plane because of your ski jacket, it is likely you will freeze outside when the temperature outside is below freezing.

Småland: a land of farms and motorsaws

I started my journey from the airport of Gothenburg in the south, and then headed north to Jönköping, a small town situated on the huge lake Vättern. It is the main city of the central Småland region, literally Small lands, a name completely unfit to describe the majesty of nature here. Everything is huge, at least from a European point of view.

You can walk kilometers in the forests without seeing anyone but some moose, which are still common despite climate change and hunting. If you are lucky you will encounter several frozen lakes where if you come from a warm place like Italy, you can have fun throwing branches and seeing them not fall into the water.

An interesting itinerary to see all of that is on the route that links Jönköping to Gränna, the city of candies. All over there, hundreds of minor routes may drive you to some little farm in the middle of the several rocky hills where you can start your forest exploration. It is advised to buy some local cheese or meat.

For camping, Swedes are not worried of unknown people occupying their land, as it is even possible, according to local law, to stay in any place for a maximum of two days. Just be wary if you hear a motorsaw: Sweden has a huge problem of deforestation and close to farms the possibility of meeting someone cutting a tree over you increases! Moreover most of the motorsaws around Europe are produced here, in Huskvarna, a nice souvenir to bring back home.

Katrineholm: a delightful anonymous town

Sweden is a very wide land for a very little population. Therefore most Swedes live in a few big cities and the rest in little towns pretty much similar to each other.

Katrineholm is a little city a three hours drive north-east from Jönköping. Na-

ture around there is less amazing, not so many rocks, not so many hills. The town has little to offer, but it is still a powerful representation of Swedish normal. There's a state-driven alcohol store that closes at 19 and a few ethnic restaurants. It is striking to find high level firms even there, but this shows how correct is the fame of richness in Sweden.

If you get bored of the town—there is just a minor Church for the culture nerd like me—you can dive into the surrounding nature and enjoy some delightful decadency. Lots of people should have left this area as there are several abandoned farms where you can still see bikes left, toys of babies and clothes drying since God knows when. But still, every bad feeling will go away when at 18, close to a thrift shop, as tradition wants, you will taste your fika, namely coffee and cake, which is a popular social occasion in Sweden, where the government in the past had to promote this kind of events to replace the country’s bad habit with alcohol.

Stockholm: a modern town

If nature doesn't attract you and you don't have an intellectual taste for decadency, Stockholm may persuade you to come to Sweden.

The town spreads through different islands and you can move from one to another by ferry or metro. I strongly advise the first option, that allows you to see a really astonishing skyline. Ancient buildings, like in the middle age island-neighborhood Gamla Stan or the early 20th century Town Hall, overlap with modern skyscrapers and animated ads all over them. Stockholm displays all the advantages of being a Swede: modernity, democracy and transparency, based in a glorious past. Here the Nobel Prizes are awarded in the Town Hall and, not so far, in front of the Parliament, Greta Thunberg held her first strike that revolutionized environmentalism. Stockholm is a dynamic and prolific place for politics, science and art, as the Moderna Museet shows with its collection of the world’s finest contemporary artists.

It is so modern that some relics of the past seem completely out of context. Like the changing of the guard of the Royal Palace, happening every Sunday morning and performed by young male and female soldiers, welldressed but without the coordination you can see in Britain or Greece. Sweden has not indeed a long military tradition, even though it recently joined NATO and reimposed a semi-manda-

tory military service.

Even though Stockholm is modern, you can still feel something that you felt in the two previous locations: homogeneity. If you talk to an elderly Swede he will tell you that Swedes are judging towards whoever breaks social rules. Indeed, astonishingly, there is no massive underground scene in Stockholm, as in other northern European cities like Berlin or Copenhagen, pretty much known for their alternativeness. Here, men wear cool shirts and women have perfect make up to the extent to which you will judge

yourself for not being fancy enough. Sweden is a fascinating country with a spirit which is difficult to grasp, while visiting it seems that what you see is just a surface of a well more extended iceberg. It is clear in the monotony of the colors and the marble modernity that encompasses every town. It is no surprise that here there is the strongest European tradition of noir literature. It seems like they are covering something, maybe trying to hide the true richness of a country which is definitely worth a visit.

WALKING WITH COFFEE

by R.J. Cirillo

Jean-Paul Sartre was right! (maybe)

We’ll skip the millennial interview and let a Boomer rant this month. The main threat to society, from my born in the ‘50s point of view, is the trending reduction in human contact. The millennials I have spoken in the past few months don’t seem to be bothered by this, i.e. the dating apps and the ease in which they scan QR codes to access anything. But I does! Trying to have lunch at an outdoor table on Prospect Park West, I encountered no waiter or waitress, just bunch of black and white squares, cellophane taped to the table. I scanned twice, to no avail. All that kept coming up was a red lettered instruction saying, “Scan for Service’. I wound up getting a scrambled egg and sausage on a roll at the bodega across the street.

In a nearby supermarket (ok Whole Food) I wound up having an argument with a robotic cashier about how many bags I would be using. I did not need a bag and that created a problem. “She” kept saying in that scary/ calm voice we are getting used to, “How many bags how many bags...” I walked out grocery-less to the stares of people waiting for the machine I was on.

OK, I know it’s me. I am an obsolete person ready for the “Soylent Green” grist mill, but my question is this: Why can’t I have a human waiter, waitress or human cashier. Is it just efficiency, a higher profit margin for the owners? Or is it something else? Which brings me to Jean-Paul Sartre. Does anybody remember Sartre!

In 1944 Jean-Paul Satre wrote a play titled “No Exit.” The main point of which was his famous quote, “Hell is other people”. Is that the true reason for the seeming move to non-contact between us humans? Is it that we just cannot stand each other? So, we will upload thousands of years of progress, knowledge and beauty into some super digital cloud brain and disappear? Huh? Is that what we really want!?

K, calm down, get a coffee to go, walk down Seventh Avenue sipping (if you can’t’ beat’em etc). Oh…. wait a second…all these millennials clogging the sidewalks, with kids in hand, and smaller ones in strollers, making lots of noise! Sorry Jean-Paul, me thinks we’ll carry on after all.

Summit Girls Basketball makes history

by Nathan Weiser

Summit Academy’s girls basketball team won its first citywide championship last month as it pulled away in the 4th quarter to win the 1A girls basketball playoffs over Manhattan’s School of the Future, 53-45.

The game at Long Island University’s Steinberg Wellness Center was packed with fans from both teams. In the semifinals at Queensborough Community College, Summit beat No. 4 seed

Inwood Academy by 39 points to advance to the 1A championship game one week later against the No. 2 seed.

Summit dominated during the regular season finishing with a 14-0 league record. Future also had a 14-0 record.

After the game ended, the eight Summit players got championship t-shirts and went up one by one to receive their medals at center court. They became the first charter high school to win a Public School Athletic League (PSAL) city championship in girls basketball. MVP went to Chloe Freeman who had 22 points. Coach Dytanya Mixson got the championship trophy at center court and the team took a picture with the PSAL 1A championship banner. Mixson said winning the championship ranks very high in his life when he reflected after the game.

“Second to having my children, it was the best feeling in the world,” Mixson

said. “I have been working for that for the last 14 years.”

“This is what you live for,” Mixson said. “You want to play in front of all your family and friends. And you want to be the villain for the people that are rooting against you. It was just a great feeling.”

“I was fortunate that some of my former players came from out of state to see this game,” Mixson said. “I have been coaching since 1988 and there were players that I had not seen in over 10 years at that game. It was really great.”

Amerie Santana is a sophomore on the team who lives in Red Hook.

She had nine points, five rebounds and five assists in the championship game. “I was really excited,” Santana said. “I was telling everybody about the game. It felt good to be a champion. We worked so hard to come here.” Their coach thought the team had a good chance to win the A division championship when the season began. “I felt that we were a favorite,” Mixson said. “I told my team if we are as good as we think we are then we need to dominate the division from beginning to end and I think we did that.”

They were the unanimous No. 1 seed in the 1A playoffs (schools with less than 250 students) and ended the year with a 23-4 record.

They were also the number seven seed in the borough of Brooklyn playoffs and won a game in that bracket.

The biggest win in the regular season was in Staten Island against Susan Wagner on January 7.

They are a 4A team, which means the school has more than 1,000 students.

It was a real team effort in the championship game with many players stepping up and playing key roles during the game on offense and defense.

The Summit Eagles scored first in the second quarter as they made a 3-pointer to take a 16-15 lead and then School of the Future scored to take a one-point lead.

Freeman made a layup with two minutes left in the half to give Summit a 20-17 lead. School of the Future was fouled just before the second quarter ended and made two free throws to tie the score at 23 at halftime.

Summit took 33-32 lead on layup by Alana Rivers. Summit took a 35-34

lead on a layup by Freeman at the end of the 3rd quarter right after a free throw by School of the Future.

After a few minutes went by in the 4th quarter, Summit made a corner 3-pointer to tie the game at 38.

School of the Future made a layup to take a 42-40 lead and then Summit outscored School of the Future 13-3 the rest of the way.

School of the Future made a three for the last basket of the game and the A division championship ended with Summit winning by eight points.

“We stayed together in the 4th quarter and did what we had to do to complete the victory,” Mixson said. “We proved that we could win on the big stage

Coach Mixson basks with his team after winning the title (Weiser photo).

The Craft Corner

Turn takeout chopsticks into cute Earth Day puppets!

This year Earth Day is on April 22. Here’s a great activity that’s fun and good for the planet! Follow these instructions to celebrate by making your own craft.

What you’ll need. In addition to your chopsticks, you will need construction paper, scissors, tape, markers, or any other coloring tool like colored pencils or crayons.

Sketch out your shapes. Using a pencil, outline the shapes of your puppets on construction paper (they don’t have to be perfect!). We made a sun, a cloud, an earth, and a recycling bin. After you’ve drawn your shapes, cut them out following your pencil lines.

by Marie Hueston and Sage Hueston

Decorate your puppets. There are many ways you can decorate your puppets. Cut out extra construction paper pieces and glue them onto your original shapes, like we did on our earth. Use markers, crayons, or other coloring materials to add details to your puppets. Don’t forget to give your puppets a friendly face!

Tape your chopsticks. Tape a single chopstick onto the back of each of your puppets. Use two pieces of tape to make it secure. Leave enough of your chopstick out so you can hold your puppets.

Have a puppet show! Once your puppets are done, you can put on a puppet show! Invite your friends over or put on a one man show to celebrate the earth! Have fun!

The Trials of Teaching War in 2024

by Kelsey Sobel

Tim O’Brien’s 1990 auto fictional novel based on his time as a young soldier in Vietnam remains a popular choice in high school curriculum across the country. Teaching at a rural school in northern New Hampshire, which is where I relocated from Red Hook a few years ago, the average student is removed from the horrors of war and mostly, blessedly, from extreme levels of violence.

Although some students do have grandparents who served in Vietnam, their first hand knowledge and experience with war is nonexistent. Yet the absolute futility of war transmits directly to nearly every student through author Tim O’Brien’s masterful and lyrical series of intertwined vignettes. This speaks to the strength of the prose – the genius in which O’Brien is able to embody the emotional turmoil and everlasting guilt that each soldier carries with him long after the war is over is nearly impossible to overlook.  Despite being mildly averse to most assigned reading, students are willing to buy into  The Things They Carried.  This might be partially due to our country’s collective lingering guilt over Vietnam.

I would venture to say this particular war is second in academic focus only to the Holocaust in a standard American public education. Most students arrive at the novel with a basic understanding of the Vietnam war and the countless mistakes made along the way. From my observations, most of my students, who are all born post

9/11, are much more educated in Vietnam history than about the War on Terror. But it’s not just the background knowledge that aids in the success of the book in the classroom. It’s something intangible - the capturing of the human spirit and immense suffering due to the toll of war that resonates with my students on a personal level. They don’t know combat but they know love, loss and sometimes even the first stirrings of regret in their young lives.

In recent class discussions I’ve found myself struggling to explain the concept of war. There is, after all, something that registers as so outlandish - so childish when you zoom out to the big picture. “So kids, a war is where grown men (and women, too) run and hide from one another with the sole purpose of destroying the other and staying alive…” Despite my floundering explanations my students nod knowingly. They might not be able to conceptualize the specific level of combat based terror, however, as teenagers, they can relate to doing something they might feel conflicted about without much imagination. Their understanding doesn’t make my own worry about a clunky and superficial explanation of war any smoother or illuminating.

After all the recent media/internet buzz, I recently watched  Saltburn, a movie that left my husband and I wondering, (like many others) what was the point of those two hours of film? War, it seems, is the extreme human

expression of this existential question. There might be some spectacular moments, and someone, somewhere is surely going to profit in a way that remains obscure to the hundreds of thousands of civilians who are sacrificed and truly, to most of the world left watching. The entire enterprise appears without purpose or function from the untrained outside eye.

But, much like Saltburn, war has a place in our human history and imagination. We can’t seem to do without it and we can’t seem to stop talking about it. Although Saltburn is repulsive, people keep watching it. War, although base, repulsive and morally corrupt, cannot be fully eradicated from our lives. Like bedbugs and taxes, war follows us, determined to continue sucking the world dry.

But, much like Saltburn, war has a place in our human history and imagination. We can’t seem to do without it and we can’t seem to stop talking about it. Although Saltburn is repulsive, people keep watching it. War, although base, repulsive and morally corrupt, cannot be fully eradicated from our lives. Like bedbugs and taxes, war follows us, determined to continue sucking the world dry.

Avoiding the present

During our study of the novel we’ve mostly stayed away from the current events in Russia / Ukraine and Israel / Gaza. I am, after all, an English teacher. The complexity and historical nuance surrounding both of those conflicts are not waters I feel comfortable dipping my toes into. Yet not mentioning these large scale humanitarian crises also feels like a missed opportunity.

But what exactly do I want my students to take away from reading  The Things They Carried? That war is traumatizing? That war breaks you?  They’re empathetic and I can see they understand the emotional and psychological toll of combat on a deep level. I don’t believe this group of students will be the ones to go out and start wars. I’d think the purpose of “teach-

ing about war” would be twofold: empathy and prevention. As we wrap up the book, I think we’ve achieved both of these goals. But our “work” in the classroom doesn’t stop wars from continuing.

In one of the vignettes, Tim O’Brien takes his ten year old daughter back to a field in Vietnam where many years earlier , he watched his friend drown in a field of shit. My classes were divided almost down the middle - is ten too soon to learn about your father’s dead friends? Is it better to lie to your child if you have in fact killed someone? These are philosophical dialogues, abstract intellectual conversations we have the privilege of engaging with from inside the classroom.

Children and parents in Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Gaza don’t have this freedom. Parents all over other parts of the world touched by war, parents attempting to flee their war torn countries and head to safety certainly aren’t allowed the time to ponder - when is war too soon? These people are living a daily reality they can’t escape. Many people don’t have the luxury to consider whether or not ten is too young for the truth.

The weight of teaching students about war feels heavy. I feel unqualified to square with the two conflicts currently raging. There isn’t much I know for certain, but I do know, without a doubt, that from my vantage point war is pointless, tragic and an unimaginable loss of beautiful unfinished human lives. My opinion is shared by many many humans. But here we are. When I teach this book next spring, I wonder what conflicts will have befallen us - what conflicts will remain unsettled.

How many more lives will have been lost before I reopen  The Things They Carried  in a year’s time? Year after year Tim O’Brien’s message remains the same: war is bad. War causes irrevocable damage. You can’t get back what you’ve lost. But this is yet another cautionary tale we can’t or won’t learn from.

A Serious Conversation with Director Vera Drew About the Seriously Wild “The People’s Joker”

by Dante A. Ciampaglia

Nearly two years ago, it seemed like Vera Drew’s debut film was doomed.

Not because it centered on and was made by a trans woman — a twice-over target in this era of escalating anti-trans bigotry — but because it poked a Hollywood giant.

The People’s Joker, billed as a “queer coming-of-age superhero parody,” Jokerizes Drew’s coming out experience. Its main character is a trans version of the Joker; its setting a Gotham City where Batman is a hyper-fascist groomer, comedy is outlawed, and citizens cope with hits of Smylex. Drew’s Joker the Harlequin opens an anti-comedy club in an abandoned amusement park with Penguin, drawing a rogues gallery crowd: Bane, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Mad Hatter, Riddler, and Mr. J, a trans man styled after Jared Leto from Suicide Squad

You can see why Warner Bros., Batman’s corporate daddy, was none too happy about the film. After Drew screened The People’s Joker at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, WB sent a letter arguing her film violated copyright. She ultimately pulled it from the festival.

But that wasn’t the end. Drew mounted a fair use case for the film, arguing it didn’t run afoul of copyright because it’s a work of parody. Indeed, no one could confuse The People’s Joker — the maddest madcap Mad Magazine take on the spirit of the source material — with “official” DC product. Made on a shoestring budget, Drew shot all the scenes with her actors over five days against a green screen, then meticulously placed them into virtual environments, then tossed in animated sequences. It’s a DIY, low-fi, mixed-media fantasia as unclassifiable as it is unforgettable. It’s also littered with riffs, tributes, and references to comic books, movies, and lore. Joker’s transition involves falling into a vat of estrogen at Ace Chemicals, a sly twist on the typical Joker origin. Mr. J, whose name nods at Batman: The Animated Series, combines the Carrie Kelley Robin from The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel, and Jason Todd, the Robin murdered in the comics by the Joker, rolled into the Leto package. Batman drives a pixelated Batmobile reminiscent of the car from Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever, a film that changed Drew’s life. (Drew dedicates her film to Schumacher and her mother.)

The People’s Joker, which Drew co-wrote with Bri LeRose, is a singular experi-

ence of insane creativity and devotion, required viewing for anyone who grew up with Batman or Joker or who struggles with questions of identity. And, fortunately, it won’t languish on a hard drive somewhere. Ahead of a national 63-theater national run that begins at IFC Center on April 5, Drew spoke with the Star-Revue about making The People’s Joker, using the traditionally psychopathic Joker to tell her story, and the midnight-movie future of the film. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What was it about the character of the Joker that made it feel right as the conduit for this story?

I was working on something before this was ever a Joker parody. I had this idea that was like a body horror cult movie, kind of a David Cronenberg, Sam Raimi-type thing. The main character was a drag queen who was physically addicted to irony. It was this story I was trying to tell to process what it was like coming out as trans in comedy.

I’ve been doing comedy since I was 13. I didn’t know who I was for most of my life. I was completely lost. And comedy, particularly improv and sketch, was this space for me where I could explore identity and queerness in a funny way, and then in a safe way. But it also kept me locked in this stage of irony and self-deprecation. I would portray femininity in a very monstrous, aggressive way. Comedy, for me, was this playground for identity, but it was also high-concept self-harm at times. I wanted to explore that and talk about how queerness is integral to alternative comedy specifically. I really wanted to make something that was about comedy, but also about transness and finding identity.

The Joker side of it really came together when my co-writer Bri got involved. We were both really inspired in early 2020 because [Joker director]

Todd Phillips was complaining about woke culture a lot in the press — as is his right. It was funny to us that the director of a movie that made a billion dollars was complaining about being silenced. Bri and I are both queer women who have been doing comedy for most of our lives. I don’t want to say it’s been hard for us because of who we are. But it kind of has. It’s a space where actually talking about having a quote-unquote “alternative lifestyle” or whatever is not really there. It’s starting to be. We’re seeing a lot more trans people in stand up and sketch and improv, and I’m so happy that’s finally happening. But the

"Its main character is a trans version of the Joker; its setting a Gotham City where Batman is a hyperfascist groomer, comedy is outlawed, and citizens cope with hits of Smylex."

world I came up in, the world Bri came up in, wasn’t like that. So I think we just took all these themes that were going into this other thing and said, “Let’s actually make something that’s just a big, fun, colorful comic book movie that explores this stuff.” And Joker has always been a queer character to me. How so? What was your relationship with Joker prior to making this film? I’ve been reading comics my whole life. I particularly like the way Grant Morrison has written about Batman and Joker, that they’re toxic lovers more than anything. They’re two sides of the same coin: Batman as this vigilante agent of order, and Joker is this vigilante agent of chaos. And they can’t kill each other because they need each other. And in Frank Miller’s portrayal, in The Dark Knight Returns, Joker is closer to David Bowie. We’ve never seen Joker explored in that way in a cinematic space. And to me that was the thing that was the fair use parody critique that we could bring to it. Like, let’s actually talk about representation and not in an annoying way. Let’s talk about it in a practical way of how a character like the Joker could be related to the experience of a trans woman. Todd Phillips’ Joker was inspiring to me. It was a comic book movie about a mentally ill person who the system is failing, his family system is failing him. Everything is collapsing around him and he just wants to make people laugh and be himself, and he can’t even do that. People are exploiting him…

I related to that so much as a trans woman and as a comedian. We really wanted to amplify those things. And thinking about the Joker as a mythic figure and the trickster archetype and the jester and all that stuff, in the context of queerness and magick, was very much part of it, too. I don’t know, I needed to mythologize my life to sort of understand it.

Is that why there are two Joker figures in the film? I know that the character of Mr. J is not technically Joker, but he is very indebted in his look and attitude to Jared Leto from Suicide Squad.

I genuinely love Jared Leto Joker, first and foremost. Suicide Squad 2016 is probably my favorite modern comic book movie just because it’s so crazy. And its portrayal of Joker is kind of this weird raver gangster vibe in scummy Hot Topic. It’s a version of Joker I had always wanted to see, quite frankly. So that was the kernel of inspiration. The character of Mr. J in this film is based on an actual relationship I had with a comedian. We were very toxic together, and he was very abusive and [terrible]. So it made sense to make him Jared Leto Joker.

One of the first ideas we had at the script level was the first line in the movie: “From as far back as I could remember, I always wanted to be a Joker,” this idea of a Joker in this reality being a career you could have. It’s a part of their economic capitalist hellscape. So l think it kind of was, like, let’s take this sort of iconic portrayal of the Joker and put a parody, fair use commentary spin on it by casting a trans man, Kane Distler. The idea of having a Jared Leto Joker with top surgery scars, I love it. That’s the stuff in the movie that just got me so excited. And having him as a sort of composite next to Joker the Harlequin, the Joker I’m playing, was there to demonstrate that I was making a new version of this character. Having both of them demonstrates that my Joker in the movie is a new version that you’ve never seen before and is only a Joker that I could make.

That’s true for the look of the film, too. There really isn’t anything that has the aesthetic of The People’s Joker. Necessity is the mother of invention. Writing it, we’d reach a point every five pages or so where Bri and I would turn to each other and go, “I don’t know how we’re going to do this. We just wrote a sequence where two characters are breaking up while a Batmobile is chasing them. And then they crash into

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FILM

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a river and it descends into a whole big final showdown between our parody Batman and all of our parody Batman villains.” The process of writing the script was just, “Let’s not worry about that yet. Let’s just write the story we want to write.” It’s definitely a different type of comic book movie than we’ve seen before, but it really leans into that big sort of epic storytelling and broadness.

I came up in post-production. I’m a visual effects artist and animator. So I kind of just gave myself permission for the movie to be very low-fi and mixed media. I think Natural Born Killers is one of the biggest guiding lights for this movie, besides Joel Schumacher stuff, in that kind of every single shot has a different aesthetic. I really wanted to hover around that idea, and thankfully I was able to pull together a team of incredible artists. The movie really started as a big kind of DIY community art project, and that was always the guiding spirit. Finding the aesthetic was very gradual. We had written it to kind of be set in these parody versions of set pieces and locations we’ve seen in other superhero movies. But it was really just a process of leaning into the fact that, OK, it’s going to be a lot of different styles. And I think it works because the movie itself is about searching for your aesthetic and searching for the solid version of your identity and trying to grasp it. How freeing was it to write a script without any kind of physical or even

OPERA

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they turned out to be unbelievably great. I watched them tune up, then Garber took the stage with some announcements, and finally a conductor picked up a baton and I and the rest of the not so finely dressed but highly appreciative audience paid rapt attention to the first act of the day, which was a musical performance.

They played Mozart Concerto for Oboe in C, K 314. While the full orchestra, which consisted of strings, woodwinds, timpani and all the rest made great sounds, the highlight was their oboe soloist, Ellen Gruber. To get an idea of the caliber of the musicians, I looked Ellen up online. She is a student of oboe at the Manhattan School of Music, and has performed with the Baltimore Symphony, the Symphony of Westchester, and the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra. I got to hear her close-up in a high school auditorium. The music was beautiful Mozart, written in 1777. An article I found written by a William E. Runyon, summarizes the piece as a delightful little concerto, borne in the voice of the effervescent, wry oboe.

Intermission came next, and I found my way to the basement bathroom, encountering men and women in costumes getting ready for their performance upstairs.

Then it became time for the main performance and Francine took the stage again to announce the winners of a raffle, with oddball prizes donated by

temporal realities?

It’s the only way I want to write now. It was very freeing at a script stage. But then the second the script was done, it was like, “OK, I need to storyboard this entire thing.” I made an entire animatic [moving storyboard] version of the movie. And I did that because it’s not as simple as just placing an actor in front of a green screen and saying, “We’ll figure out the background later.” The reason the movie works aesthetically is because we really dialed in the lighting and the looks before ever getting to set. I knew generally what every single frame was going to look like. Again, a lot of our reference points were like… There’s a scene where Joker and Penguin are talking in this alley, and it’s a recreation of an alley from Batman Forever. We recreated the brick walls, we knew where the light would hit them.

local merchants, plus one crisp $50 bill.

How could one not want to donate money to this organization, which creates smiles on the faces of both the audience and the performers.

The lights darkened and the stage lit up in blue as the opening music of Rusticana began.

The whole play takes place on an Easter Sunday in Sicily, around 1890. Things begin early in the morning as a man leaves a woman's apartment. He's not the milkman, rather the lover of the wife of the garbage collector, who I guess picks up the garbage overnight. Did I say the wife's name is Lola?

It's actually more complicated than that, as the guy, whose name is Turiddu, had been going out with Lola, but when he went in the army, she married the garbage collector. So he started going out with a very nice woman named Santuzza, who lived nearby with her mother.

But Turiddu having a girlfriend made Lola jealous and so she did her husband dirty on the sly with Turiddu. Does this kind of thing sound familiar?

In any case a lot of things happen, told all in beautiful song accompanied by the beautiful orchestra, and even though the songs were sung in Italian, the words were flashed way above the stage, in a very artful way, so you could follow along even if you hadn't read the summary printed in the program.

There is lots of ensemble performing, with the ladies of the town and the

So when you’re writing, did you place specific references, like, “Exterior. Batman Forever alley. Night”?

Yeah, I think we did. There were so many versions of the script, and the version that we used on set, pretty much every single actor told me it was kind of unreadable. Nate Faustyn, who plays Penguin, was like, “This is like a crazy person’s idea of a script.” It was written exactly like you said, it had all those reference points in it. And I did that because I also really thought of it, at least in the beginning, like segments, just because of how collaborative the project was.

I had a small army of people helping me make this. I announced I was making the movie May of 2020 on a podcast I used to have, and hundreds of people came out of the woodwork saying, “I want to watch this movie, and I will help you make it.” Most of those people really don’t have aspirations of working in film or TV. They’re visual artists. So it kind of was necessary to have this very non-traditional script. It was like a weird, big, long magic ritual with ingredients rather than a proper screenplay. But that was also the best way to convey what we were picturing. It’s exactly the movie I want it to be. And I’m so happy with it. But it definitely looks a lot different than I thought it would, and it looks that way because of that script. You dedicate The People’s Joker, in part, to Joel Schumacher and you’re explicit about how Batman Forever changed your life. How do you ensure your film stays in front of people so someday

churchgoers (remember it's Easter), but for me the best (along with the oboist in the first half) was Santuzzi, who was also called Santa.

Santa was played by Lara Tillotson at the performance I saw. Remember, I don't know much about opera, but of all the performers, her singing and acting and everything about her stood out. I looked her up online as well for this article, and she's got an impressive website, which includes among much else, a quote from good old Nino, who was struck by her "stunning upper registers" and "burnished lows." She has sang with the Dallas Opera, Fort Worth Opera, and the Opera in the Heights. Evidently the Regina Opera Company's reach goes far beyond Bay Ridge.

I'm not somebody who goes to a lot of romantic movies or plays, and even less do I get that emotionally involved in drama (I'm more of a Curb Your Enthusiasm guy), but by the end of the afternoon, when the inevitable happens at the duel between the garbage man and the stupid guy, and Santa flings herself on the floor in a weeping mess, the lump in my throat grew and it took a little while before I regained my composure enough to walk back outside to my car.

I have seen all kinds of performances in my life - the Kinks, Richard Thompson, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris and much more, but I have to say, believe it or not, that this day stands up against all the rest of my musical experiences. There is more to the season, and I'll be going back on April 7th for their

somebody makes their own movie and dedicates it to you for having changed their life?

That just sent a chill up my spine… I don’t know. Honestly, one of the craziest parts of this experience has been seeing how much this movie already means to people, having had the experience of taking it out to festivals. [There were people who didn’t want me to do that.] But my whole thing was: There are hundreds — and I know it’s not that much compared to the amount of people that could see a movie — but there are so many trans people that are excited about this coming out, who haven’t seen a frame of it and know it’s going to mean a lot to them. I needed to bring this to festivals. And the idea of having all my stoner and shut-in fans be forced to go to a theater to go see this movie was really cool.

Having the experience of screening it, I really got to see firsthand, like, wow, this movie really is emotionally effective. Trans people, anybody who has a complicated relationship with their family, anybody who makes art, anybody who feels left behind by the American dream — I think they can relate to it. That all has been so cool. And very humbling. And very intense. I was not prepared for my first movie to have this level of exposure or for it to mean this much to people. But because of that, I don’t know that our theatrical run is ever going to end. I see this as a midnight movie. It’s a lowfi movie, but it’s got a wide scope. It’s a movie that’s meant to be a communal experience and viewed in theaters on a big screen with your chosen family.

54th Anniversary Concert at 3 pm. In May they are performing Lucia Di Lammermoor on May 11,12,18 and 19th. The MOST EXPENSIVE tickets are just $25. Kids under 12 are free, and they also present completely free shows, the next one May 7 at 7 pm. It seems tickets are available at the door, as well as from the obligatory website reginaopera.org. You can call them at (718) 259-2772.

That's Santa, played by Lara Tillotson, crying to her mother after finding out that her stupid boyfriend is out by the pear trees getting killed in a duel.

(Fiala photo)

Local group renames itself

by Nathan Weiser

The Red Hook Civic Association met on March 26 at the Red Hook Recreation Center.

The March meeting was the group's first anniversary. According to Nico Kean, the April meeting will consist of a special celebration with a party and a progress report, and will be held at the Red Hook Coffee Shop on Van Brunt Street.

A name change for the group was decided upon, to differentiate themselves from John McGettrick's previous civic group.

“We have looked at how we are now as an organization and what our style and philosophy is,” Imre Kovacs said. “We came up with Red Hook Neighbors Assembly as representing who we are.”

Assembly refers to the fact that they are listening and are going to react with activism. The 11 people at the meeting unanimously voted in favor of the new name.

On to business

Finding an interim location for the Red Hook Library, which has been closed for renovations since March 17, 2023, has been a goal.

“We kept our eyes open and noticed zoning would allow an interim library space at 362 Van Brunt Street. The art

gallery that was there moved out,” member Imre Kovacs said. “We spotted somebody showing the property. We checked it out and it looked great.” The library will likely share the space with Red Hook Mutual Aid. “It did not look good for a while, so we made something happen,” Kovacs said. “We are happy about that because now

tle bus to go through Red Hook to the trains at Borough Hall. That would support weekend visitors and possibly operate on Thursday and Friday evenings.

Dave Lutz, who is on the infrastructure committee, said they are working with the Red Hook Business Alliance and council member Aviles to miti-

A name change for the group was decided upon to differentiate themselves from John McGettrick's prior Red Hook organization.

when we talk with other agencies they can know that things can happen in Red Hook.”

The space is in a new building on Van Brunt that is painted and handicap accessible. The library space will have shelves, a row of computers and tables.

The Red Hook Business Alliance was at the meeting and spoke about their Red Hook Second Weekend Initiative. They are trying to get local programming on the second weekends. The goal is to attract visitors to the neighborhood.

They are also advocating to get a shut-

gate traffic problems caused by the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. They are discussing other infrastructure issues like sewer construction. There are also two potholes next to the skate park on Hamilton Avenue.

The effort to get a bus to go through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to Manhattan is also on the Assembly agenda.

A letter recently went out from the organization to civic leaders, elected officials and folks in the MTA advocating for this bus to bring people to work in Lower Manhattan.

The idea is that the bus would make a

few stops along the Red Hook Houses, go down Van Brunt Street and then go to the entrance of the tunnel at the end of Hicks St. They are in favor of the M9 extending through the tunnel and making a loop in Red Hook. It currently goes from East 20s down to the hospitals, the Lower East Side, Chinatown and then ends at the Battery Tunnel.

Mayra Molina, who is a caseworker and field representative in Congressman Dan Goldman’s office, had a few updates. Goldman’s office is sponsoring a 2024 high school congressional art competition. Any student from the district can submit art to the office.

Christina Bottego, who is the legislative and budget director in council woman Aviles’s office, also provided updates. They have been trying to get the Parks Department to respond to the sinkhole at Valentino Pier. She encourages community members to call 311 for complaints like this.

The last topic she brought up was that CB6 in the land use subcommittee will be hearing a proposal for development at 150 Mill Street.

“It has been a contentious project,” Bottego said. “The developer has not had Red Hook’s best interests in mind. They have promised a supermarket with no evidence that the supermarket will ever materialize.”

Women celebrated at the Harbor Middle School

by Nathan Weiser

PS676 Harbor Middle School held a family fun STEM night in the cafeteria for the students and parents.

There was a special focus on women in science as March is Women’s History month. There were also handson math and science activities at tables and outside organizations at the event. There was a women’s history coloring table. A drawing was on one side and then it's significance on the back

Maria Sibylla Merian, who is a famous scientific illustrator, was the subject of one of the sheets. She was one of the earliest European naturalists to document observations about insects directly.

There was a 3D printing table with information about NASA scientists Valerie Thomas and Sonia Diaz and Ana Rodriguez, who are designers of 3D printed prosthetics.

The process of 3D printing varies depending on size. The fastest it could take is about 20 minutes. There was a castle on the table that the kids made with the 3D printer which took many hours.

Katherine Johnson is another female scientist who was highlighted. was born in 1918 and lived to 102.

She excelled at math at an early age

and was able to start high school at age 10 and enrolled at West Virginia State Universityat 14.

She was one of the first African American women to work as a NASA scientist. Her work was key to the success of the first U.S. space missions.

Johnson was responsible for trajectory calculations for the 1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon and was also in charge of checking the math of the new electronic computers at NASA. She worked on vital projects like the Space Shuttle, satellites and plans for a mission to Mars. Two NASA facilities were named in her honor.

Hydroponics grant

The Harbor School recently got a grant from the New York Sun Works organization, which allowed a classroom to be transformed into a hydroponics lab.

They grow lots of plants in the classroom and kale that was grown in the classroom was served in the cafeteria.

On a table there was a big range of flower seed packets. The goal was to have flowers ready in time for Mother’s Day and if not to have them in the garden in the schoolyard.

A free fitness bootcamp from 4-5 pm in the gym was led by Stay Fit Culture. Their mission is to bring communities

together through fitness, education and wellness.

This parent engagement series workshop aims to foster open communication, create a supportive environment for sharing and equip parents with tools to engage effectively in their children’s educational journey.

The bootcamp session was tailored for parents, principals and staff members. There will be another one at PS 15 for both schools on April 4 from 6 - 7 p.m.

what they offer.

Stay Fit Culture stands out due to its focus on engaging in courageous conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion and how these topics affect parent engagement.

Pioneer Works brought 200 solar glasses to be worn to view the eclipse on April 8. They brought materials for the students to design holding cases for the glasses.

Library giveaway

The Public Library had free books by and about women.

The new Red Hook NYU Langone Family Health Center, located at 168 Van Brunt Street, had a table with giveaways and information about

Their services include primary care including pediatrics and family medicine, dental care, behavioral support, women’s health and obstetrics and family support.

They will have a location in the building soon only for PS 676 and Summit students. It will open when it gets clearance from the state.

There is no co-pay or out-of-pocket cost to get care from the school based health program. They offer physicals, dental, vaccinations, prescriptions, screenings and laboratory tests. These services inside school can mean a child will miss fewer days of school and parents will miss fewer days of work with the child being healthy.

Looking at seeds at the hydroponics table. (photo by Weiser)

BOOK SERIAL: Fishes, Purple, Tiny... by Bob Racioppo

Last Month

“Zak Wozny, a laid-back teenager who has spent his whole life in Sunset Park, enrolls in Hunter College in order to make sure he gets a draft deferment to stay out of the Vietnam War. Last month we saw his in Miss Kemp's apartment, who asked him for a strange favor. Afterwards, out on his own on the Upper East Side, Zak learns a few things about the living city.

5 – Back to Brooklyn

With 36 ounces of Budweiser in him, Zak felt good, fuck it, take a piss and back to Brooklyn. He could have gone downstairs and taken the 4 train to Pacific and transfer to the RR, but he didn’t. Instead walked west on 42nd Street to Times Square to catch the N express… the Sea Beach, as it was called. It was stupid, but he still didn’t like the IRT, with its numbered trains. Zak knew and liked the Times Square station, which in 1969 was a mecca of commerce. On the first underground level you could buy records, popcorn, hot dogs and French fries and ice cream. You cold get a haircut, your shoes shined, send flowers, make keys or have a watch repaired. There was a certain smell of sugar and sweat. Top-forty hits were pumped out of the doorless record store, accompanied by the screeching of trains from the level below. Zak had a hot dog and an orange drink in a paper cone, caught the N train to Sunset Park. 34th Street, 14th, Canal, Pacific, and his stop – 36th street in Brooklyn.

6 – 451 40th Street

It was 4 short blocks from the subway to the apartment at 451 40th Street, a six-family tenement where Zak lived with his parents Helen and Frank. In no hurry to get home, he stopped at the bodega on the corner of 40th and Fourth. Pete the owner, a mustached Puerto Rican, had known him since he was a kid.

His mother would send him down with a dollar to buy bread or milk. Pete would put the change in a brown paper bag. After nods of hello, Zak walked past the fat grey cat sleeping on the plantains, got a 16 ounce Bud out of the refrigerator case, and put a dollar on the counter. Pete put the beer in a small brown paper bag and slid back a quarter. Bodega beer was always cold, and with the added slight taste of the brown bag Zak knew he was home. Reaching his stoop, there was still half a beer left.

He couldn’t go upstairs with it and was trying to finish when he heard a voice from across the street.

“Hey Woz!” It was Frankie Nod calling.

“Hey Frankie…”

Frankie’s family owned 452 40th Street, directly across from 451. He had access to the cellar, which had become a much-used hangout spot. Frankie put a finger to his lips and motioned Zak to come over.

“What’s up Frank?”

“Listen,” he spoke in a low tone, “Ben-

nies downstairs, he scored an ounce of kief… breakin it out.”

“Kief?”

“Oh yeah… it’s powdered hash, dynamite stuff.”

“Oh yeah?”

“C’mon down.”

Zak followed Frankie down the weathered stone stairs into the low-ceilinged, concrete-floored basement, past garbage cans and unused coal bins, ducking under a few ancient sewer mains into the back room. There were two old couches, a coffee table, psychedelic posters taped to the stone walls and a mini-fridge. There was a pull down stereo, crates of records, big vinyl albums with covers to stare at and roll weed on – in short, hangout heaven.

Bennie Gooch sat on one of the couches, sprinkling greenish powder onto a piece of Bambu rolling paper.

“Hey Wizard of Woz, just in time.”

“Hey Bennie, something new?”

“Yeah…kief.. hang on… Frankie, give me a cig.”

Frankie took out a box of Marlboros.

“You need a whole cigarette?”

“No, break off half.”

Bennie took the half cig, squeezed out some tobacco on top of the kief. “Yeah, this helps it burn.”

Bennie then licked the paper, rolled a tight joint, licked it again and held it up.

“Got a light, bro?” They lit up and passed it around, Frankie Nod pulled an album out of the milk-crate, his latest purchase, “Electric Ladyland.”

“You guys hear this yet?”

He put it on the pull down stereo, shut off the overhead incandescent and turned on the black light, while Jimi sang… “So down and down and down we go.”

“Heard you was in college now.”

“Huh… yeah, just came from there.”

“Oh yeah, what ya taking up?”

“Taking up?”

“Yeah, what are ya studying?”

“I don’t know… different shit.”

“Like what, ya got books?”

“Yeah I got …. Oh fuck, MY BOOKS!”

Zak recalled the day, he had four textbooks with him to start, had them in Geography 101 – then he flashed back to an extended hand and a woman’s voice saying, “Hi, I’m Susan Kemp.”

7 – Pizza ETC.

Zac Wozny left Frankie Nod’s cellar around 10 pm. Really high, way too high to go upstairs to the apartment. Had to kill at least two hours, make sure his parents were asleep. The lost books, which cost over a hundred bucks, were going to be a problem. Maybe they’d turn up in lost and found, maybe. Either way, he’d think about that tomorrow. Hungry now, he floated up the block to Fifth Avenue, where there was a pizza joint on every other corner. Tony’s, Za Za’s, Johnny Kings, The Royals. Za Za’s on 46th Street had a jukebox, so he took a walk. There had been a light rain while he was down in the cellar. Everything was shining. Well, to him

it was. The stores he passed every day grabbed his interest. A curtain store on 42nd Street with a brightly lit display drew him in. Zak got close and stared at the interlocking threads of color. Blues and yellows, blending into green – and one thin strip of metallic gold weaving in and out. After a few minutes, when the patterns of color began moving and shifting… “WHOA! Too high.” He backed off – time for some food. At Za Za’s he ordered two slices. While they warmed, he went to the back where the jukebox was. Usually there’d be some of the 46th Street crowd hanging out, but it was Tuesday night, he had the red Formica dining room to himself. The “Rock-Ola” gave you three songs for a quarter. Zak’s first was F-7, Sly and the Family Stone. The 45’s were lined up in a rack, an arm slid sideways, grabbed a disk, slid back, slipped it onto a turntable, where a needle came down on the spinning vinyl. First a little hiss, then real loud with heavy bass:

“I want to thank you

For lettin me be mice elf… again!

“Mice elf… cool.” Next pick E-6, was Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” with a lead break by Jeff Beck.. and the lyric “Here comes the Hurdy Gurdy Man singing songs of love…”

He was eating pizza when his third selection came up:

“I was born… in a crossfire hurricane!”

The pizza tasted great, the music was better. About to turn 18 in 1969, Zak felt pretty strange, actually very strange.

“But it’s alright… in fact it’s a gas!”

Zak made his way back to 451; the lights of apartment 2R were all out. He slipped in silently and got into bed after a long day. There was a lot to think about, he’d do that tomorrow.

8 – HUH?

Zak Wozny awoke the next morning from uneasy dreams. He found himself transformed in his bed into a different person. There was a knock on the door and his mother’s voice.

“Zak, it’s 7 o’clock. You’ll be late.”

A voice that didn’t seem to be his answered automatically.

“Yeah Mom, I’m up.”

He lay still in bed thinking. “This is new.” Looking around the room, everything was the same: the dresser, small stereo, closet, bookshelf, desk, window looking out on the fire escape… all exactly as it was, but why did it look so different? His mother’s voice again through the door, “You’ll be late.”

“I’m up, I’m up.”

But his voice was upsetting to him. It was separate, disconnected, on its own automatic pilot. Was he still high? He hoped he was ‘cause if he wasn’t, his brain had split in two during the night, with one half talking, and the other half listening. He dressed quickly. In the kitchen his mother poured him coffee and offered scrambled eggs, which he declined.

“Didn’t hear you come in last night.”

“Oh yeah, I got in late.”

“Did you eat?”

“I had pizza.”

“There’s leftover macaroni if you’d like to take some for lunch.”

“Nah, I gotta get going.”

“Zak, your books.”

“Oh… no, I got a locker now. They gave us lockers, like in high school.”

“Oh, nice.”

“OK, see you tonight.”

9- -?

Zak Wozny, still on automatic, walked down 40th Street, turned right at Pete’s bodega, four blocks to the 36th Street BMT station, where at the top of the stairs, he stopped. The morning rush hour crowd brushed by him. He moved to the side of the green metal subway entrance and leaned over, watching the descending crowd.

“Oh right,” he thought. “This is NYC, the living organism breathing, breathing in people.”

Zak had seen the exhale yesterday at Grand Central, now, the inhale. Was he still high? These weren’t normal thoughts for him. He watched the descent of suits and dresses and, it being Brooklyn, many blue collar work shirts. They moved smoothly down the stairs into the subway tunnel.

“THE SUBWAY TUNNELS WERE THE VEINS… THROUGH HICH PEOPLE FLOWED, LIKE OXYGEN INTO THE HEART – MANHATTAN.”

“Stop! Please stop!” he yelled at the foreign words and ideas bouncing around his head. Zak turned and started back to 40th Street, after a block he stopped and asked himself again, “Where the fuck am I going?”

He couldn’t go home. He felt a tightness in his stomach again, a wave of fear through his whole body. Standing still, he broke into a sweat.

Panic attacks weren’t common knowledge in 1969, but that’s what he was having. It was Wednesday morning around 7:30 in Brooklyn. People were walking by him, going to offices, school, factories – a normal day in the working world. Zak had been part of this. Now, standing on the corner of 37th and Fourth, it felt to him like a Twilight Zone episode. He was suddenly separate and alone in a world apart. Fuck it, he turned and walked back to the subway station, went down the stairs and bought two tokens for thirty cents, went through the heavy wooden turnstile, got back in the flow…. to get inhaled like the rest by the living organism which is New York City.

Continued Next Month

Author Bob Racioppo is a founding member of the Shirts, a New York-based American punk band that was one of the seminal CBGB bands. After signing a record deal they toured the US and Europe. In addition to music, Robert is an accomplished fine artist. This is his first novel. He grew up in Sunset Park and now lives in Windsor Terrace. To order a copy of the full book ($15) text 917 652-9128 with your address.

Are you ready for the country? Cowboy Carter, the latest epochal event from Beyoncé, is a culturally defining moment if only because making culturally defining moments is what Beyoncé does. She’s hardly the first Black singer to venture into country music. DeFord Bailey, Ray Charles and Charley Pride were there decades ago. The underrecognized Linda Martell appeared on the country charts more than 50 years ago, and Rhiannon Giddens has become a cultural ambassador for the history of Black American influence in country music. The Texas-born Beyoncé knows all of that, and has Martell and Giddens on her new album, which—as she said in an oft-quoted Instagram post—isn’t a country album, it’s a Beyoncé album.

The best songs on Cowboy Carter (CD, LP and download out last month on Parkwood/Columbia)—the midtempo, slightly vocal-fried pop tune “Bodyguard,” “YaYa,” a rocker that picks up cues from Nancy Sinatra and the Beach Boys, and “Amen,” a gospel that calls back to the cuts Madonna made with Prince for her Like a Prayer album— aren’t even trying to be country. The culturally defining moments come in the covers. Black artists have sung Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird” before (Billy Preston, Sarah Vaughn, Sylvester, Cassandra Wilson, Anderson .Paak) but Beyoncé claims it with confidence. She likewise takes possession of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” flipping and flexing the narrative. Before that cut, Parton herself gives an approving shoutout. She’s referencing the titular antagonist of the song when she says it’s “just a hair of a different color,” but she’s giving her blessing to the entire album.

Country music has become a wide open field in the years since Taylor Swift abandoned it. Snoop Dogg jammed with Willie Nelson, Lil Nas X laid down a track with Billy Ray Cyrus, and Beyoncé herself hit it with the (then Dixie) Chicks, joining them for her “Daddy Lessons” at the 2016 Country Music Awards. But am I the only one

imagining that there’s some longgame vengeance at play here? In 2009, Kanye West interrupted the proceedings as Swift was given the best female video award at the MTV Video Music Awards, announcing that Beyoncé had the best video of the year. Come 2012, Swift was steering away from country radio with her album Red and sealed the deal two years later with the synthheavy 1989 and the chart-topping single “Shake it Off.” Fast-forward a quick decade and Bey is moving into the ground Tay Tay abandoned. Farfetched? I think so. But let’s see who wins the VMA this year, if they still give those out.

But I’ve driven off course. Country music has become a wide open field. Case in point, out of southwestern Ontario comes Nicolette Hoang, a child of immigrants who moved to the city of Guelph and opened an optician shop after the Vietnam War. She studied piano, went to conservatory, taught herself guitar and grew disenchanted with the music profession, then found the passion again in her parents Glen Campbell and Tammy Wynette records. Hitting karaoke nights, she met the fellas who would back her in Nicolette and the Nobodies. Their debut album The Long Way (LP and download from Arthaus) comes out April 12 and kicks some bona fide classic country butt. Lead single “Show Up” glistens with big Linda Ronstadt tears and “Losing More” (with guest singer Paul Weber) calls back to classic Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn duets. The Long Way might have been a long way coming, but it fits like a pair of broke-in boots.

A bit more folksy and rural is the songwriter and stellar guitarist Christopher Paul Stelling, who had a short run on Anti- (sometime home of Merle Haggard, Wynonna Judd, Porter Wagoner and Tom Waits) before turning to self-releasing for 2021’s Forgiving it All and his new Forgotten But Not Gone & Few and Far Between (CD, LP and download out last month). Besides be-

ing his own record label and marketing division, Stelling plays essentially all of the instruments on the new album (he does bring in a violinist for one song) and convincingly so. It’s a long, slow ride, 20 laid back tracks that wouldn’t be out-of-place alongside country-adjacent sides by Bob Dylan and Will Oldham, with a lot of wisdom and arguably more bare heartache than either of them often show. There are flashes of blues rock circa early 70s and occasional bits of psych-out production flourish, but mostly it’s Stelling narrating the dissolution of a relationship. The closer-saveone, “One More Chance,” will make you want to hunt down whomever he’s singing about and shake some sense into them.

On the more esoteric side of Americana, Matt Piper and John von Seggern’s EP A Thousand Miles from Nowhere (released to streaming platforms last month) combines banjo, resonator guitar, zither, percussion, processed beats and electronic effects into a quarter hour of rural ambience. Ever since Brian Eno employed Daniel Lanois’s steel guitar in his 1982 album Apollo: Atmospheres and

Soundtracks, there have been occasional dips into ambient county. William Harper’s 2002 album The Banjo of Death Sleeping is worth seeking out, and more recently, New York band Suss has been wandering the field. Piper and von Seggern bring a bit more rhythm to the mix, to gently pleasing results.

But for a real throwback throwdown, get a copy of the comp Blue Plate Special Vol 2 (LP and download out last month from Doghouse and Bone Records). The French reissue boutique has collected a dozen oddities circa 1968-1973 trying to capitalize on the freaky, funky soul and hippie sounds that were taking over the market. Shirl Milete tries to bring eastern influences into the hard-scrabble tales of his “Big Country Blues.” Bobby Darin is a little too clean to be convincing with his attempted prison farm anthem in “Long Line Rider.” Joe South—who wrote “Games People Play” and “Rose Garden”—fares somewhat better as a moderately bad boy in “Misfit.” If nothing else, the collection proves that Elvis Presley wasn’t the only one having trouble figuring out how to fit in.

Quinn on Books

“THE FREAKS CAME OUT TO WRITE:

The Definitive History of The Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture,” by Tricia

Review by Michael Quinn

Romano

You’re reading this right now, so you likely recognize the importance of The Red Hook Star-Revue. Do you know how lucky we are to have a neighborhood newspaper? It reports on local events, holds our elected officials accountable to their campaign promises and supports our neighborhood businesses through advertising. Who else looks out for us like this?

This paper is reminiscent of one of the all-time greats, The Village Voice. That might have been the place where you found your first apartment or the reason you moved to New York in the first place.

If you think you’re too young to remember it, know that The Voice still exists online and occasionally in print. “The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of The Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture” is an oral history that relives the paper’s glory days. Author Tricia Romano (a former Voice writer) interviewed over 200 people connected to the paper to piece together its fascinating history. She does so brilliantly. The interviews are candid, passionate and insightful. Gossip and grievances make “Freaks” a big, juicy page-turner.

Dan Wolf (editor-in-chief), Ed Fancher (publisher) and Norman Mailer (writer) started The Voice as an independent community newspaper in 1955. It was devoted to downtown (below 14th Street), offering news, social commentary and ads for jobs, apartments and sex (among other things). It soon gained a reputation for taking seriously topics marginalized by mainstream media.

The Voice called out crummy landlords and corrupt politicians. It covered Black rights, women’s rights and gay rights. It also elevated cultural coverage, previously a low priority for mainstream papers, breaking stories on modern dance, experimental theater, independent film, contemporary art and rock, rap and hip-hop.

Wolf recalls his vision for the paper as “a living, breathing attempt to demolish the notion that one needs to be a professional to accomplish something…It was a philosophical position.” Instead of hiring “experts,” they recruited people who lived what their byline was about: people who weren’t necessarily writers but had urgent stories to tell. These people learned to write on the job.

This approach helped spawn new journalism, emphasizing storytelling, an exploration of social issues and the writer’s personal response. Readers not only learned about the world but also gained insight into the person writing about it.

“Freaks” celebrates The Voice’s influence while uncovering rivalries, hostilities and inequities. Just like everywhere else, women, gays and people of color bear the brunt of it. The rise of the internet, particularly Craigslist (which ate into classified ad sales), hastened the paper’s demise.

Romano’s collaged portrait captures what made The Voice great—it wasn’t about one voice with an agenda but about different voices, each with a unique perspective. Romano provides a brief breakdown of some of them in a 15-page cast of characters. Nevertheless, some of your favorites might not have made the cut (shout-out to Toni Schlesinger and her Shelter column!).

The Voice helped reshape our collective understanding of the world, subsequently transforming that world. Suddenly, there was no longer mainstream media and its alternative. There was only media, a spectrum, consuming everyone’s attention on our digital devices. Romano’s account is bittersweet. It might make you long for a more analog world.

Like The Voice before it, The Star-Revue fosters a sense of community among its readers. It reflects the issues that matter and provides a platform for writers (like me) to find and cultivate their voices.

Jazz by Grella

The Mind-Body Problem

by George Grella

Call it “Rhythm Prejudice,” and blame it on Bach.

His genius with harmony and forms like canon and fugue set the foundation of modern Western music and established the keyboard as the basis for both composition and analysis. That has meant that vertical harmony—chords—has been privileged across the board, from garage band rock to academic musicology.

It wasn’t always this way, and it isn’t always that way. Music in the West through the Renaissance used modes (essentially scales as opposed to chords) and had a much more flowing and horizontal way with harmony, preserved and revived at times by geniuses like Gustav Mahler and Miles Davis. But that’s still harmony, and the use of harmony has come to signify musical sophistication across genres. Knowledge of and skill with harmony is also how one gets into advanced composition or analysis/musicology programs—harmony is the gatekeeper.

While harmony can be a true and clear expression of the sophistication of musical thinking, it’s not always. Can anyone seriously say that harmonically simple music like Steve Reich’s isn’t sophisticated? Arvo Pärt’s? The blues? That would be an ignorant claim best left to Twitter. There are other elements that can show equal, if not greater, sophistication: melody and rhythm. Structuring all these together in time, whether composing it on paper of playing it live, is the true measure of sophistication.

For some reason neither is given equal weight as harmony when it comes to musical analysis, even though crafting a great melody or constructing a complex rhythm that has a somatic impact is much, much harder than building a complex harmony (Pärt’s incredible Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem is harmonically static, essentially confined to E-minor for an hour, an imposing challenge that few composers could pull off). It’s as if melody and rhythm are too enjoyable—essentially too popular, i.e. too simplistic—to be seen as sophisticated by theorists and musicologists. What that prejudice misses is so much fantastic music, like that from Swiss musician Nik Bärtsch and his band Ronin.

On paper, Ronin is a standard quartet of reeds, keyboards, bass, and drums. What they play though is both unique and universal. On paper, Bärtsch’s compositions seem like math-rock, with shifting odd-numbered meters and multiple syncopated lines. When the band sits down to play though—like at a blistering live set at Nublu in the middle of March, a few days before they were to appear at the Big Ears festival—what you hear is astonishingly funky and hip. The music uses harmonies so lean they’re barely there and often eschews melody for nothing but rhythm, rhythms, polyrhythms; multiple rhythms

moving in parallel, defining a pulse that goes directly to the body. It’s not an equation, it’s a groove. You can dance to it once you unstick your mind from being boggled by it.

And it’s harder to build a rhythmic structure like this, not just the pure sophistication but the deeply

"putting harmony above the other elements, implicitly saying it has the most intellectual importance, is hierarchical thinking."

flowing, funk feeling of it, than it is to write complex harmonies that have the same pure somatic appeal. Not even Steely Dan, great as they were, hit the mark. Beethoven did, maybe 19th century composer Anton Bruckner did. The privileging of harmony above all other things in analysis is also anti-democratic. Harmony establishes a hierarchic musical form, and there’s nothing wrong with that per se, it’s what songs are, but putting harmony above the other elements, implicitly saying it has the most intellectual importance, is hierarchical thinking.

Rhythm is democratic, everyone has to work together to make it happen, and rhythm is the language with which improvising musicians can respond to each other most immediately. Rhythm is also dramatic. Harmony is obviously a great tool for expressing drama, it’s very function is to establish a tonal home, then build tension through dissonance and modulation before resolving it by return home—tension in harmony is literally suspended. Rhythm does this too, especially in a band like Ronin, where you can hear individual lines move against and toward each other under a universal pulse, and the fleeting moments when everyone is on the same beat are satisfying in the way of watching a superstar gymnast tumble and spin in the air before landing on their feet.

Rhythm is also democratic writ large. Ronin brings together musical ideas that can be heard in Reich’s music, György Ligeti’s Etudes, gamelan music, West African music, and more—Bärtsch has talked about his love of Bill Withers and the rhythmic complexity and funk from that great artist. But Bärtsch isn’t borrowing from these traditions (well maybe once or twice from Reich) but making something organic and original that, because the idea is rhythm, connects

with music around the world that also has always used rhythm as not just a foundation but the primary means and purpose. Some of this music has a specific national or traditional style, some of it doesn’t but it shares the same values so fits together seamlessly. It also fits seamlessly into the human experience. Music, specifically rhythm, is how both dance and military drills work, rhythm is the way humans organize themselves in groups in space and time. Bärtsch alludes to this in his new book, Listening: Music, Movement, Mind (a useless guide to everything), where he weaves together composing and playing with zen ritual (there is a mantra-like quality to his music) and martial arts practice, itself a kind of ritual and absolutely the organization of people in space and time. This grounds the source of music making in basic human movement, which is a profound thing. Although it may not seem, after a Western education, that the body is as complex as the mind, Nik Bärtsch and his rhythms prove it is.

New release to look forward to

Record Store Day is not usually a big deal for jazz heads. As a promotional opportunity for vinyl enthusiasts the special releases (the idea is that they are first available on vinyl, only in person at record shops, before a wider distribution) are heavy on the popular music genres, and light on jazz. But this next one, April 20, is different because of the efforts of Zev Feldman and his associated labels. Called the “Jazz Detective” because of his excellent work in uncovering never-before-heard archival recordings, mostly live ones, he works with the Resonance and Elemental labels, and has his own new Jazz Detective/Deep Digs label and imprint.

Feldman is part of an amazing ten archival releases available on vinyl that day (CD editions will be available April 26), and I’m already looking hard at Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy: The Mighty Warriors Live in Antwerp (Elemental Music), a 1995 concert from one of the greatest pairings in the history of jazz. On Resonance, there’s Freedom Weaver: The 1959 European Tour Recordings of Sonny Rollins, which is exhilarating, and Jewels in the Treasure Box, Art Tatum live at the Blue Note jazz club in Chicago in March of 1953 with guitarist Everett Barksdale and bassist Slam Stewart. And if you need even more riches, Feldman has them on Jazz Detective: Sun Ra at the Showcase: Live in Chicago 1976-1977; Chet Baker & Jack Sheldon - In Perfect Harmony: The Lost Album; and Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Live in France: The 1966 Concert in Limoges. Save your pennies.

Swiss musician Nik Bärtsch