The photo above is likely a not unusual bookshelf among my contemporaries. I periodically pull a book from one of many such shelves and read a random passage. This morning it is Umberto Eco’s, “The Name of the Rose,” first published in Italian in 1980 and in the U.S. in English in 1983. The year …
Attending a Bob Dylan concert is essentially placing a $200 bet against yourself. He’s not Ella Fitzgerald, who gave a masterful performance every time she stepped out on a stage. With Dylan you never know if you’re going to get an on night, an off night or simply something totally inscrutable. You’re betting on the …
We are so overwhelmed by these past weeks, months, this year that sometimes masquerades as a decade. We have gone to sleep fretting over every cough or sneeze, to the sound of helicopters circling, protesters chanting, sirens whirring. We keep our contact with the outside world to a minimum, masks on and at a distance. …
BROOKLYN, NY; Feb.26, 2020—I can’t tell you what a joy it was — and continues to be days later — to have hosted Christine Lavin performing a house concert in our home last Saturday night. We’ve had professional jazz musicians play in the past, typically as background for parties. And a young classical pianist played …
“Ask for Jane” is an important, beautifully made, moving re-telling of the true story of a group of women in the pre-Roe v. Wade 1960s who provided 11,000 illegal but safe abortions to University of Chicago women and others. Made on a shoestring budget by a clearly passionate cast and crew, the writing, acting, and …
BROOKLYN, NY; JULY 19, 2019—Len Chandler — folk singer, songwriter, actor, activist — walked on stage at the Newport Folk Festival late Saturday night July 20, 1969 with a piece of paper in hand. Chandler fumbled with the paper, trying to find a way to attach the lyrics on that sheet to the microphone stand. …
BROOKLYN, NY; February 6, 2019—Israel G. Young, founder and proprietor of the Greenwich Village Folklore Center from 1957-1973, and the Folklore Centrum in Stockholm from 1973 through the end of last year, died Monday at home in Stockholm. He was 90. Izzy was a mentor to this budding writer even before I started contributing to …
It’s the right confluence of events with: • The Village Trip celebrating the arts in Greenwich Village Sept. 27th-30th; • Girl From the North Country, a wonderful Conor McPherson play with a Depression Era theme that is brilliantly enlarged by some 20 Bob Dylan songs having just begun performances at the Public Theater; and …
There hasn’t been a Village Voice like the one that I had the privilege of writing for in the 1970s for many years. As for many writers, The Voice gave me my start as critic and journalist — thank you Diane Fisher, my editor, wherever you are. I’m saddened by today’s announcement that the Voice …
nightmayer 