Letters to the Mayor

Local

(11-15-11) The argument that it’s the Occupy Wall Street protesters who are the ones violating the First Amendment is a truly novel claim—perhaps even a prize-winning work of legal fiction.

In the Battle of the Open Heart

Local

An old music can be heard in Zuccotti Park that hasn’t been heard around these parts in a very long time—it’s the music of human dignity, solidarity, and individuals being transformed into one.

Capitalism Makes Me Sick

Express

Capitalism makes me sick. I’m not just talking about moral revulsion, nor speaking metaphorically: I am actually sick.

KEN JOHNSON with Irving Sandler

Art

On the occasion of the New York Times art critic, and contributing editor at Art in America, Ken Johnson’s recent publication Are You Experienced? How Psychedelic Consciousness Transformed Modern Art, consulting editor Irving Sandler welcomes the author to his West Village home to talk about his life, work, and more.

RICHARD VAN BUREN with John Yau

Art

After Hurricane Irene prevented them from meeting at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, Maine, where a selection of his sculptures was on exhibition, Richard Van Buren and John Yau met in New York to discuss his work and his upcoming show at Gary Snyder Gallery (November 10 – December 17, 2011).

ROSAMOND BERNIER with Phong Bui

Art

On the occasion of her 95th birthday and the publication of her memoir Some of My Lives (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Rosamond Bernier, founder/editor of L’OEIL magazine (1955–1971) and lecturer extraordinaire, welcomed publisher Phong Bui to her Upper East Side home to talk about her life and work.

JOSEPHINE HALVORSON with Phong Bui

Art

A few days after the opening reception of her exhibit What Looks Back at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. (October 21–December 4, 2011), the painter Josephine Halvorson stopped by the Rail’s headquarters to talk with publisher Phong Bui about her life and work.

Note from the Publisher

We are most grateful to John Yau for his unyielding and selfless commitment and for the vision he has shared with us in the last seven years, and it is with sadness that we announce his resignation as Art Editor.

FICTION
Seven Days in Rio

Books

Before Francis Levy launches into the narrative proper of Seven Days in Rio, a hundred-odd-page bromide-heavy sexual fantasia, an author’s note appeals its case to the reader in a rare, self-conscious nod to the work’s guilelessly inflammatory inclinations; its tack is less conciliatory than defensive, with the vague hint of a threat.

FORESTS OF UNCERTAINTY
The Contentious Nonfiction of Robert Gardner

Film

Since his widely celebrated ethnographic documentary Dead Birds was released in 1964, Robert Gardner has served as a bit of a punching bag for great numbers of anthropologists and nonfiction filmmakers.

“Which side are you on boys, which side are you on?”
Canal Park Playhouse’s revival of Joe Roland’s On the Line

Theater

“As we’ve gone into rehearsal here, the Occupy Wall Street protests have happened almost around the corner,” Kipp Osborne, owner of the Canal Park Inn and Playhouse, tells me. “We never could have planned such a thing, but it’s so connected to it—it’s like the forces of society are wanting to hear this play.”

THIS TIME WE ARE EVERYTHING
Reflections On Clark Coolidge

Poetry

Beginning, for the sake of argument, with Pound, or for sake of argument, with Apollinaire, or with Stein, linearity was exploded. We have lived all our lives with this, and Clark Coolidge is one of our stellar exemplars. In an astounding number of books published since his first in 1966, Coolidge has proven to be restless, consistent, and prolific.

From The Revolution Of Everyday Life

LastWords

Until now tyranny has merely changed hands. By virtue of their like respect for the principle of the ruler, antagonistic powers have always contained the seeds of their future coexistence. (When the organizer of the game assumes the power of a leader, the revolution dies along with the revolutionaries.)