Monkey Town, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Overspray Magazine

on the 50th Anniversary of Things Fall Apart
Michael Cunningham, Edwidge Danticat, Chris Abani, Colum McCann, Suheir Hammad
Francesca Harper Dance Project
Ha Jin, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Toni Morrison, Leon Botstein, Chinua Achebe

There should probably be no need to explain the importance of Achebe for the standing of world literature, but the truth is it does. That means, there’s no moral prerogative that demands it, no surely not, but it is justified to make such appeal. As the novel was published fifty years ago, it was the first truly African voice that spoke through such a western medium as the modern fictive novel. It catapulted Achebe into literary existence, and like Leon Botstein remarked with cynicism, it is a book whose title is better known than its author. So the literary scene that felt they needed to be there were there, for the man to be revealed.

Michael Cunningham was hired to read the advertisements. Was it embarrassment or humor, was it embarrassing because the humorous intent failed? It was only sympathetic to see Cunningham openly mock his own obligatory presence. But was it more humiliating than Danticat’s reading that dragged out an excerpt of the first chapter of Things Fall Apart? Did she understand the cruel force of the story she was reading as was it melodic love poetry, or was her voice the intrigue of standing on the stage speaking before the eyes of the beholder, Achebe? But any zenith comes about by a slow rise, and I was only impatiently consuming a tasteless appetizer. (more…)

East coast (salty) and West coast (mild) oysters $2.50 a piece, homemade guacamole and salsa chips (best in New York so far). Another enjoyment of this well decorated location is that you are not constantly bothered by waiters asking if everything is fine or filling up your glass of water after every sip as is the horrible custom in New York restaurants (WHY? Just be ready if I wave you over otherwise: let me eat and converse!).

Link:
B-Bar and Grill

The Flying Machine
‘Journey to the End of the Night’ by the Flying Machine
Gene Frankel Theater
Les Pamphlets de Louis Ferdinand Celine publies

I had underestimated the appeal of a free show with free Bass beer from eight to nine, fixated as I was to see Parts and Labor again since their Asterisk house party two years ago. The line in front of the Knitting Factory told it all, I immediately canceled my friends, don’t come, don’t bother, only the first two hundred get in, and I think I am number two hundred and two. Luckily, I felt lucky, and I got in before the show started.

Around nine Stay High from Brooklyn started playing. Two kids with a mixing board and a laptop that chew out old school electronics with a total lack of charisma or at least without the appearance that they enjoy performing in front of a crowd. I have trouble understanding the desire of people to perform who not even once seek to interact with the crowd of spectators. I can only recommend to anyone who does not feel born to be a star, don’t get on stage. The music was mediocre and not once comes close to being interesting. It was terribly boring to listen to Stay High, and the free show-free beer crowd had swelled to a peak presence. Around nine thirty, the word got out that the free Bass was gone. A relief and the gratuitous half of the visitors left within ten minutes.

But, as Parts and Labor, P&L set themselves and the room breathes a space of normality, where ordering a paid beer costs no bothersome effort, I get excited again. P&L is definitely one of my (many) favorite New York bands, they give a good show full of spirit, they have a sense for aesthetics, they think of themselves as icons. I know their songs, so when they started playing, I understand the sound, the atmosphere and the spirit of the moment without hesitation. (more…)

In 2007 Rauch painted a serie of works especially for the mezzanine of the modern art wing at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. This special solo exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum was called “Para.” Rauch explains that he enjoys the associations the word “para” evokes and that his works at “Para” don’t have a particular intention, but that they could signify anything to anyone. His works were painted with the low ceiling and windowless space of the mezzanine in mind, Rauch explains, but this is hard to discover in his works, and the association might be purely existing in Rauch’s own experience.

The nihilist guideline to the exhibition denying any ideological intention is but a blase statement and nothing less than a smoke screen for such a narrative and figurative artist like Rauch who further explains that he believes in being bound by location and time. Such cultural relativist statement are nothing but the bourgeois resistance against a system of cultural and ideological oppression by a ‘labor class dictatorship.’ (more…)

New condo buildings arise amidst traces of old Greenpoint

If brunch is worth waiting for…

New Warsaw Bakery (mpg 4.2Mb)

Most stores in Greenpoint sell bread that is baked in the New Warsaw Bakery, but you can also buy a warm bread for 2 dollars directly at the bakery through the back door, if it’s open at least.