A Call for Narrative

Local

“Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.” — P.T. Barnum

At a moment when it has become largely irrelevant to the approval of the Atlantic Yards proposal, the New York media has finally noticed some of the real light unfiltered by the Ratner PR projection. Namely, that there is substantial local resistance to the humongous eminent domain-dependent project as was illustrated by the turnout of opposition at the October 18th scoping hearing of the Empire State Development Corporation. And that much of Forest City’s vocal support comes from groups the developer has been funding.

JOHN BERGER’S MOTORCYCLE

Express

I’ve a vivid memory of John Berger, whose latest book, Here is Where We Meet (Pantheon), appeared this past summer: seeing him on his giant black motorcycle. I was about to go walking in the mountains near Sommand and was driving up a narrow road that passed through Quincy, a village of a dozen-or-so houses nestled amidst rolling Alpine pastures. Suddenly, a motorbike overtook me at breakneck speed, but then pulled up abruptly at a lay-by not far ahead. Off came the helmet and the rider’s identity was revealed. I cruised by, staring in wonderment at a fast approaching octogenarian, robust and trapu—as the French might say—with close-cropped white hair. I remember thinking that the English ex-pat novelist-playwright, film scriptwriter-poet, art critic-essayist—how do you classify this guy?—looked like a cross between a portly Batman and C. Wright Mills’ elder brother; yet instead of an urban warrior piling into Columbia University, Berger’s beat is rural Haute-Savoie, France, some 30 miles east of the Swiss city of Geneva.

Roselee Goldberg In Conversation with Praxis

Art

PERFORMA05, the first performance art biennial, will take place this year from November 3-21, 2005 in New York City. A three week program of performances, exhibitions, film screenings, lectures, and symposia, it has been organized in collaboration with a consortium of international curators and artists to provide audiences with an overview of contemporary performance art. With more than ninety participating artists at over twenty venues, PERFORMA05 will articulate a broad range of ideas and sensibilities across disciplines and media.

The Brooklyn Rail spoke with Roselee Goldberg, the Founding Director and Curator of PERFORMA.

Delia Bajo and Brainard Carey (Rail): How did the PERFORMA05 Biennale begin?

James Siena with Chris Martin

Art

The Brooklyn Rail visited James Siena at his compact Canal Street studio on a rainy October morning. The two-room space felt like some archetypal medieval workshop. Recent paintings were glowing like icons on shelves and on the floor. Framed pieces, books, documents, various tools and paints are carefully organized in shelves and cabinets—along with part of his collection of antique typewriters. A beautiful Alan Saret drawing hangs between the two windows.

Suzan Frecon with John Yau

Art

One Sunday afternoon last month at Suzan Frecon’s Hell’s Kitchen studio, Rail’s consulting editor John Yau spoke with the painter about her new body of work which will be exhibited at Peter Blum Gallery from November 17 to January 14, 2006.

The $64,000,000 Pyramid

More than anything else, money has been the determining factor in the most lopsided mayor’s race that, mercifully, will end in early November.

Cracking Movie Gromit!

Film

It was some time early 1994 my brother Mark mailed me this ‘brilliant’ short he’d taped from BBC Ireland. From his description it was a Hitchcockian tale of double identities, sweet-mad inventors, intellectual pets and jewel-thieving penguins – all made in Plastecine. I thought he was daft. Anyway, I couldn’t play the thing – it was PAL.

Night Thoughts

Poetry

It may be that any poem as we read it is only some of the first few spring leaves of the actual poem, whose true unfolding—from deepest root to flower to fruit to recreative seed—is to be found in its proliferating, uttering of itself in us.

Stories by Diane Williams

Fiction

Mrs. White at the Red Shop showed me the beady-eyed garment, but I can’t pay for it. I’m broke! I already own a gold ring and a gold-filled wristwatch and I am very uncomfortable with these. My eyes sweep the garment and its charms.

Richard Ford with James McCloskey

Books

Mr. Ford asks me to meet him for coffee early on a Saturday morning in late September in the lobby of his midtown hotel. When I arrive, I’m initially surprised by the modernity, the sleekness of the décor: mirrored tables and high straight backed chairs, and Japanese fighting fish in bowls on shelves above the couches. Mr. Ford sits towards the back of the lobby, wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt that reads “SEA GIRT” in white block letters. After a few moments of small talk, we begin discussing his experiences with teaching.