Thursday, December 29, 2005
Step outside and into adventure: Christmas in NYC; analysis of Fra Angelico exhibition
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Having written this in anticipation of a short subway strike, I was not disappointed, although my Bangladeshi cabbie, son of a wily Southeast Asian village politico, warned me that the resumption of service might be a ruse. Clever Mayor Bloomberg may have engineered a truce, to save the Christmas business and tourism; the real thing may come afterwards, when the mediation fails. Nothing daunted, let's be positive.
This is the multi-holiday city, bar none, particularly musically. Just step into the subway: at Union Square, and you may find two plastic-pail drum artists, concurrently, at the IRT and BMT ends, with a Vietnamese duo mid-station playing keyboard and an amplified lute, western tunes with an eastern cast. They alternate with Andean flutists and a doo-wop quartet, In Tune, of four middle-aged men, singing with obvious pleasure and cracking jokes between numbers. Their "oh yes, I'm the Great Pretender" tenor has world-class voice and style, or am I letting the spirit of the season carry me away?
In my rush to get photographically set, I subwayed to Herald Square, then west to B&H photo for SmartMedia magnetic cards, the only source in town. At 34th the BMT features a Caribbean steel drum artist, with an amplifier and tape accompaniment background, quite a step beyond the traditional form. And, surprise, he has a twin in the Times Square BMT station, battling the established Drumaniac, who dominates the large IRT/BMT crossing, surrounded by an octet of like-minded musicians, alternating with squads of hip-hop athletes, Scientologists and Lyndon LaRouche fanatics. Drumaniac was the originator of the current subway drum style, of massacring large white plastic pails.
My real favorite is an Asian operatic baritone, who sings operatic arias while accompanying himself on a keyboard. He was last seen in the 79th Street station of the #6 local, the exit point of visitors to the Metropolitan Museum. We were there to see the Fra Angelioco exhibit, the best loan collection of his works. On the way, we stopped to admire Ferdinando Botero's wicked fat attack cat sculpture in the entranceway of 79th and Park Avenue By the way, note the modern white marble torso with a hole in its stomach, on corner 20th Street and Irving Place, a generous owner's gift for the enjoyment of Gramercy Park denizens and visitors. If you happen to know of the sculptor and the theme, let me know (wally@ix.netcom.com), the building does not return phone calls. And do not forget to visit the local parks, Stuyvesant Square, Union Square, Madison Square, as well as Gramercy and Stuy Town Oval, to enjoy their Christmas and Hanukkah displays. Madison Square was the first to put up a municipal tree with lights, in 1911, a custom that spread through municipalities all over the country in short order (wish I could find my Jane Crotty-inspired article of 1996 on that topic).
On to the Met pleasures. To begin, the long row of parkside art peddlers, 79th to the museum entrance. You can enjoy imitation modern styles, nearly all high quality lithographs (the best is the expensive giclee process). Another picture row, mostly photographs of city view and framed reduced size New Yorker covers, is found parkside at Columbus Circle. Art goods are also in the Holiday Markets, Union Square and Columbus Circle. Noted a seller of autographed literary photos, probably reproductions (the best can be found at the venerable Argosy Books, on 59th west of Lex. but if you want a genuine Oscar Wilde signature, in a limited signed first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, do a search in Abebooks, which lists 60 million books for sale by 12,000 dealers).
To get to the Fra Angelico, finally, you must pass the Met's own Christmas Tree, a venerable institution with its Baroque Neapolitan crèche, decorated with miniature sculpture (until Jan. 8, 20006). The Fra Angelico exhibit (till Jan. 29) is memorable, not just as an assemblage of lifelike portraits of pious virgins (note that the true artist caught the tinge of boredom in the faces of his patient models), fierce bearded martyrs and saints and adult-faced babies, in the midst of which, amazingly, St. Thomas Aquinas looks senatorial, ca. 20th Century. It also exemplifies the transition from the two-dimensional Byzantine art tradition to modern Renaissance, with perspective. The prolific Fra Angelico (1395-1455, beatified 1984) had few challengers, except for the short-lived genius Masaccio (real name Tomasso Guidi, 1401-28), who invented foreshortening (his ground-breaking portrayal of a dead soldier tapers toward the feet) and worked on perspective. One sees how the older Fra, hampered by tradition that made him paint figures in sizes according to rank (note the small angels in front of the large madonnas), bravely struggled to join the movement, sometimes successfully. His best three-dimensionals are of people of equal rank (haloed saints, or mortals struggling upwards to heaven, or in court or at funerals or executions), but buildings other than long hallways receding to a point remained a puzzle. It took a Leonardo, a few years later, to originate chiaroscuro, putting distant objects in a realistic haze.
Holiday greetings to all, go see the Fra.
Having written this in anticipation of a short subway strike, I was not disappointed, although my Bangladeshi cabbie, son of a wily Southeast Asian village politico, warned me that the resumption of service might be a ruse. Clever Mayor Bloomberg may have engineered a truce, to save the Christmas business and tourism; the real thing may come afterwards, when the mediation fails. Nothing daunted, let's be positive.
This is the multi-holiday city, bar none, particularly musically. Just step into the subway: at Union Square, and you may find two plastic-pail drum artists, concurrently, at the IRT and BMT ends, with a Vietnamese duo mid-station playing keyboard and an amplified lute, western tunes with an eastern cast. They alternate with Andean flutists and a doo-wop quartet, In Tune, of four middle-aged men, singing with obvious pleasure and cracking jokes between numbers. Their "oh yes, I'm the Great Pretender" tenor has world-class voice and style, or am I letting the spirit of the season carry me away?
In my rush to get photographically set, I subwayed to Herald Square, then west to B&H photo for SmartMedia magnetic cards, the only source in town. At 34th the BMT features a Caribbean steel drum artist, with an amplifier and tape accompaniment background, quite a step beyond the traditional form. And, surprise, he has a twin in the Times Square BMT station, battling the established Drumaniac, who dominates the large IRT/BMT crossing, surrounded by an octet of like-minded musicians, alternating with squads of hip-hop athletes, Scientologists and Lyndon LaRouche fanatics. Drumaniac was the originator of the current subway drum style, of massacring large white plastic pails.
My real favorite is an Asian operatic baritone, who sings operatic arias while accompanying himself on a keyboard. He was last seen in the 79th Street station of the #6 local, the exit point of visitors to the Metropolitan Museum. We were there to see the Fra Angelioco exhibit, the best loan collection of his works. On the way, we stopped to admire Ferdinando Botero's wicked fat attack cat sculpture in the entranceway of 79th and Park Avenue By the way, note the modern white marble torso with a hole in its stomach, on corner 20th Street and Irving Place, a generous owner's gift for the enjoyment of Gramercy Park denizens and visitors. If you happen to know of the sculptor and the theme, let me know (wally@ix.netcom.com), the building does not return phone calls. And do not forget to visit the local parks, Stuyvesant Square, Union Square, Madison Square, as well as Gramercy and Stuy Town Oval, to enjoy their Christmas and Hanukkah displays. Madison Square was the first to put up a municipal tree with lights, in 1911, a custom that spread through municipalities all over the country in short order (wish I could find my Jane Crotty-inspired article of 1996 on that topic).
On to the Met pleasures. To begin, the long row of parkside art peddlers, 79th to the museum entrance. You can enjoy imitation modern styles, nearly all high quality lithographs (the best is the expensive giclee process). Another picture row, mostly photographs of city view and framed reduced size New Yorker covers, is found parkside at Columbus Circle. Art goods are also in the Holiday Markets, Union Square and Columbus Circle. Noted a seller of autographed literary photos, probably reproductions (the best can be found at the venerable Argosy Books, on 59th west of Lex. but if you want a genuine Oscar Wilde signature, in a limited signed first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, do a search in Abebooks, which lists 60 million books for sale by 12,000 dealers).
To get to the Fra Angelico, finally, you must pass the Met's own Christmas Tree, a venerable institution with its Baroque Neapolitan crèche, decorated with miniature sculpture (until Jan. 8, 20006). The Fra Angelico exhibit (till Jan. 29) is memorable, not just as an assemblage of lifelike portraits of pious virgins (note that the true artist caught the tinge of boredom in the faces of his patient models), fierce bearded martyrs and saints and adult-faced babies, in the midst of which, amazingly, St. Thomas Aquinas looks senatorial, ca. 20th Century. It also exemplifies the transition from the two-dimensional Byzantine art tradition to modern Renaissance, with perspective. The prolific Fra Angelico (1395-1455, beatified 1984) had few challengers, except for the short-lived genius Masaccio (real name Tomasso Guidi, 1401-28), who invented foreshortening (his ground-breaking portrayal of a dead soldier tapers toward the feet) and worked on perspective. One sees how the older Fra, hampered by tradition that made him paint figures in sizes according to rank (note the small angels in front of the large madonnas), bravely struggled to join the movement, sometimes successfully. His best three-dimensionals are of people of equal rank (haloed saints, or mortals struggling upwards to heaven, or in court or at funerals or executions), but buildings other than long hallways receding to a point remained a puzzle. It took a Leonardo, a few years later, to originate chiaroscuro, putting distant objects in a realistic haze.
Holiday greetings to all, go see the Fra.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Be a shelter volunteer for the Homeless
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Although our lives have radically changed as the result of the events of 9/11, one thing remains constant: the need for night shelter for the homeless of our city increases. This neighborhood should feel proud. We are the best, the kindest, the cream. We live in one of the most socially caring and hospitable areas of the city, and we support not only 10 hospitals, 8 methadone clinics, 2 major city homeless shelters and a big welfare office, but also several church- and synagogue-based overnight stay facilities.
These facilities are run quietly, without disturbance to the neighborhood, yet they provide a palpable service to the needy. How do they work? Well, there is an organization, The Partnership for the Homeless, started in 1982. It helps to get the non-vagrant type homeless, men and women, off the streets of NYC, and into drop-in centers, where they are screened and tested (all tubercular persons are sent to therapy), medically cared for, given meals, sent to rehabilitation training and transported at night to shelters, in churches, synagogues and armories.
This is paid for by private donations as well as city, state and federal funds.The Partnership takes care of 1200 men and women, utilizing 10 drop-in centers and it calls on 105 shelter facilities, in all 5 boroughs. Seven of the drop-in centers are in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn and one in Staten Island. The guests in our shelters either have become homeless involuntarily - they were burned out or lost their jobs - or can no longer take care of themselves in low pay jobs, such as dishwashers, kitchen help, casual labor, because housing costs too much. Some have addiction, physical or mental problems. For the rehabilitable our efforts can and do lead to return to the mainstream, for the sick - to eventual permanent housing. The Partnership has located housing for more than 300 individuals and families a year, and provided furniture.
Getting back to the call for action, in this immediate area we have four volunteer-staffed overnight shelters, all non-sectarian, each accepting 8-15 homeless guests a night - Brotherhood Synagogue (Judy Golden, Peggy Keilus 674-5750), St. George's Church (John Hackney 646-541-5830), the Friends' Meeting House (Sylvia Friedman 673-8316) and the Madison Avenue Baptist Church (Melvin Bell 685-1377). Friends' and St. George's shelters are year-round. They all need volunteer workers - male and female - to stay overnight with their homeless guests, once a month or more frequently, or to be part of the welcoming crew. The work is simple, non-hazardous and very gratifying. I shall describe the procedure at Brotherhood.
The guests sign up for a shelter at the drop-in center, and are transported by a city school bus, which delivers them, with a checklist, to the church or synagogue, between 8 and 9 PM. The volunteers, a coordinator and a sexton will have set up cots (fresh linen every night), sandwiches and coffee, and will welcome the guests, who are usually tired, want to wash themselves, have a bite and go to bed after the meal, before the 11 PM lights-out. One or two volunteers - plus the sexton - sleep in the shelter overnight, separate from the guests. The volunteers are there to provide assistance in cases of need. At the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter I recall no more than four instances over 23 years that the volunteers had to obtain help for a guest with a problem during the night, none threatening. Between 6 and 6:30 AM the volunteers will make toast and serve, with tea or coffee. By 7 AM the volunteers will have gone home or to work, after the guests have been picked up by the city and returned to the drop-in center.
Most overnight volunteers, working people, come to work at the shelter at 8 PM in their sweat clothes or dungarees and carry a dress or suit for use next day, if they are going to work directly. They have a full night's sleep, and no one has ever complained of having been ruined for the next day's activities. On the contrary, this has been a heartening experience for the volunteers, an opportunity to do good, hands on. It is not like giving $50 to a charity, good but indirect. Talking with and cheering up people who have less than we gives us an opportunity to assess our place in the sun.
Volunteers come back time and again because doing good feels good. We are not just chessboard figures, we do things, we make good things happen. Call the shelter providers, try volunteering for one night. You will find out what life is like, out there, hear stories that make the listener appreciate one's own life.
Wally Dobelis is an elected member in the Partnership for the Homeless, and for the past 23 years has been the coordinator of volunteers for the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter. He and the T&V family wish you a happy belated Thanksgiving, merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, a glorious Kwanzaa and good health and happiness for the coming New Year.
Although our lives have radically changed as the result of the events of 9/11, one thing remains constant: the need for night shelter for the homeless of our city increases. This neighborhood should feel proud. We are the best, the kindest, the cream. We live in one of the most socially caring and hospitable areas of the city, and we support not only 10 hospitals, 8 methadone clinics, 2 major city homeless shelters and a big welfare office, but also several church- and synagogue-based overnight stay facilities.
These facilities are run quietly, without disturbance to the neighborhood, yet they provide a palpable service to the needy. How do they work? Well, there is an organization, The Partnership for the Homeless, started in 1982. It helps to get the non-vagrant type homeless, men and women, off the streets of NYC, and into drop-in centers, where they are screened and tested (all tubercular persons are sent to therapy), medically cared for, given meals, sent to rehabilitation training and transported at night to shelters, in churches, synagogues and armories.
This is paid for by private donations as well as city, state and federal funds.The Partnership takes care of 1200 men and women, utilizing 10 drop-in centers and it calls on 105 shelter facilities, in all 5 boroughs. Seven of the drop-in centers are in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn and one in Staten Island. The guests in our shelters either have become homeless involuntarily - they were burned out or lost their jobs - or can no longer take care of themselves in low pay jobs, such as dishwashers, kitchen help, casual labor, because housing costs too much. Some have addiction, physical or mental problems. For the rehabilitable our efforts can and do lead to return to the mainstream, for the sick - to eventual permanent housing. The Partnership has located housing for more than 300 individuals and families a year, and provided furniture.
Getting back to the call for action, in this immediate area we have four volunteer-staffed overnight shelters, all non-sectarian, each accepting 8-15 homeless guests a night - Brotherhood Synagogue (Judy Golden, Peggy Keilus 674-5750), St. George's Church (John Hackney 646-541-5830), the Friends' Meeting House (Sylvia Friedman 673-8316) and the Madison Avenue Baptist Church (Melvin Bell 685-1377). Friends' and St. George's shelters are year-round. They all need volunteer workers - male and female - to stay overnight with their homeless guests, once a month or more frequently, or to be part of the welcoming crew. The work is simple, non-hazardous and very gratifying. I shall describe the procedure at Brotherhood.
The guests sign up for a shelter at the drop-in center, and are transported by a city school bus, which delivers them, with a checklist, to the church or synagogue, between 8 and 9 PM. The volunteers, a coordinator and a sexton will have set up cots (fresh linen every night), sandwiches and coffee, and will welcome the guests, who are usually tired, want to wash themselves, have a bite and go to bed after the meal, before the 11 PM lights-out. One or two volunteers - plus the sexton - sleep in the shelter overnight, separate from the guests. The volunteers are there to provide assistance in cases of need. At the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter I recall no more than four instances over 23 years that the volunteers had to obtain help for a guest with a problem during the night, none threatening. Between 6 and 6:30 AM the volunteers will make toast and serve, with tea or coffee. By 7 AM the volunteers will have gone home or to work, after the guests have been picked up by the city and returned to the drop-in center.
Most overnight volunteers, working people, come to work at the shelter at 8 PM in their sweat clothes or dungarees and carry a dress or suit for use next day, if they are going to work directly. They have a full night's sleep, and no one has ever complained of having been ruined for the next day's activities. On the contrary, this has been a heartening experience for the volunteers, an opportunity to do good, hands on. It is not like giving $50 to a charity, good but indirect. Talking with and cheering up people who have less than we gives us an opportunity to assess our place in the sun.
Volunteers come back time and again because doing good feels good. We are not just chessboard figures, we do things, we make good things happen. Call the shelter providers, try volunteering for one night. You will find out what life is like, out there, hear stories that make the listener appreciate one's own life.
Wally Dobelis is an elected member in the Partnership for the Homeless, and for the past 23 years has been the coordinator of volunteers for the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter. He and the T&V family wish you a happy belated Thanksgiving, merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, a glorious Kwanzaa and good health and happiness for the coming New Year.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Republicans are facing dilemmas, and Democrats are not home free -the 2006 New York election
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
This column’s Fearless Election Forecast of the November 8 local results was 100% accurate. The November event was rather a shock to the Republican party, particularly close to home. On Long Island, both Nassau and Suffolk counties, former GOP strongholds, now have Democratic legislatures and executives. Locally, the Vincent Albano Republican Club had expected better results in Patrick Murphy's run for the 4th Councilmanic District, against the Samuel J.Tilden Democratic Club’s ex-President Dan Garodnick.
To give some stability and avoid internecine warfare, Gov. Pataki and former Mayor Giuliani both want to pick the candidates for the 2006 election early, favoring former Massachusetts Governor William Weld and former Westchester County DA Jeanine Pirro to fight the uphill battle against Spitzer and Clinton. While the state Republican chairman Stephen Minarik of Monroe County pushes the idea, he is stepping lightly, and wants to test the waters with the 62 county chairpeople first, in a December 12 meeting, objected to as too early by Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who has his own ideas. Several Republicans, all with credentials but none with funds want to be the sacrificial lambs, presumably because fighting and having lost an unwinnable election gives a candidate future credibility.
The potential candidates’ list has changed, and the current contenders include Tom Golisano, the Rochester billionaire, Pataki hater and founder of Paychex, who ran on the Independence ticket since 1994, and switched to Republicans on October 11, at the advice of Joe Bruno and Congressman Tom Reynolds of Buffalo, himself a potential Gubernatorial candidate. Others include Patrick Mahoney, Assemblyman of Columbia and Dutchess Counties, a conservationist and at 6’ 11’’ deemed the tallest elected legislator in the country, Congressman John Sweeney, whose 200-mile long district runs from Poughkeepsie to Lake Placid, and the former Assembly Minority leader John Faso, all well credentialed in my upstate neck of woods.
Randy Daniels, the former Secretary of State, is the only African-American candidate, very active. A former Democrat (he was part of the Dinkins cabinet), Independent, and WCBS commentator on agriculture and foreign affairs, he was recruited by Pataki, but now has lost the Governor’s support. The party does not trust him entirely, and he will look for support from the Conservatives. But that is a double edged sword, whoever wins their support must pledge to run even if the candidate does not get the Republicans’ endorsement.
But the unity plans has problems. Weld, although relatively free of the carpetbagger label - he is a native New Yorker, and has resided here since the resignation from governorship in MA and the defeat for appointment as ambassador to Mexico (he was stopped by ex-Sen. Jesse Helms of NC, a fellow Republican who hates choice, medicinal marijuana and gay marriage) - also has a credibility problem, although you would not know it from a recent campaign interview by a morning paper. Viewed as an opportunist, with no interests shown in NYS affairs (Clinton, a true outsider, has paid her dues), he has come under criticism as the CEO of Decker College in KY. His equity firm, Leeds Weld, was a minority investor in this private school chain, and when the school came under both federal and state criticism, Weld went down to become the CEO and straighten out things. The criticisms involved false requests of government aid, and unfulfilled program promises for students. The school went bankrupt and Weld left in October, and, although his honesty as a former lawman is impeccable (he was a US DA, with Giuliani), his executive ability is being questioned. Weld has explanations, but the damage will be there, and Giuliani, as of the moment, seems to have left the support group.
The Pirro nomination has cracks too. Joseph Bruno, the Golisano prompter, thinks that Jeanine has a better chance running for NY State Attorney General, energizing the disheartened Republican voters and thus protecting his Senate majority. The A/G race has attracted a powerful list of candidates (Assemblymen Richard Brodsky of Queens and Michael Gianaris of Queens, Mark Lane, Andrew Cuomo, Charlie King, spam-wise Sean Patrick Maloney, Jeff Klein and Denise O’Connell) which Bruno hopes will self-destruct. Hillary has such overwhelming support that running an otherwise electable candidate against her is a waste of talent. Whether Jeanine will eventually agree with him is moot.
The Dems, long satisfied that Spitzer will win the Governorship, have a new problem. Tom Suozzi, Nassau County executive, thinks he has a better chance, as a candidate against gay marriage, and, although not against the Roe v. Wade, as a supporter of late term (“partial birth”) limits. This gives him a better chance with the upstate conservative Democrats and disenchanted Republicans. He agrees with the latter that Spitzer’s support is a “mile wide and an inch deep,” and wants a more midstream approach. Although Suozzi is a Spitzer-type reformer – he cleaned up corrupt Glen Cove, as its Mayor, and has done likewise in the county – Dem leadership looks askance at this late starter, feeling that the 2006 governorship is a done deal without having to court Suozzi supporters at the margins.
Some information on the A/G candidates:
Richard L. Brodsky 92nd AD, NW Westchester, from N Yonkers to Mount Pleasant, is the chair of the committee governing public corporations, MTA, Port Authority and Lower Manhattan Corporation. Formerly chair of Environmental Protection, he issued the Indian Point Nuclear Generating Facility evacuation report that revealed the plants’ weaknesses, and, with Pete Seeger’s Clearvater group, offered regulations to control the pollutants in the plants’ 2 billion gallon daily water intake. He is a former adjunct law professor at St. John’s and Pace.
Michael Granaris, 36th AD, Queens, is a Fordham (summa cum laude) and Harvard Law graduate who entered politics as aide to Congressman Thomas Manton, then to Gov Cuomo, as Queens representative., then as Associate Counsel to NYS Assembly.
Andrew Cuomo, his father’s campaign manager, appointed secretary of HUD by Pres. Clinton, subsequently candidate for NYS Governor.
Charlie King, 1987 NYU Law grad, with Fried, Frank Harris 15 years, now CEO of Praxis, a not for profit housing firm which he rehabilitated. Formed NY County Democratic chair (1992-4), first Black elected to board of ADL.
Sean Patrick Mahoney, with Willkie farr & Gallagher many years, Clinton’s advisor and highest ranking openly gay man on Pres. Clinton’s staff, has years of NYC CB service.
Other candidates:
Tom (Blasé Thomas) Golisano (1942-) is the founder of Paychex, 2nd largest US processor of payrolls. One of founders of the Independence Party in 1994 and its real money backer, his campaigns assured the party’s line in election ballots. In conflict with Independence’s other leader Leonora Fulani who was a Bloomberg backer.
This column’s Fearless Election Forecast of the November 8 local results was 100% accurate. The November event was rather a shock to the Republican party, particularly close to home. On Long Island, both Nassau and Suffolk counties, former GOP strongholds, now have Democratic legislatures and executives. Locally, the Vincent Albano Republican Club had expected better results in Patrick Murphy's run for the 4th Councilmanic District, against the Samuel J.Tilden Democratic Club’s ex-President Dan Garodnick.
To give some stability and avoid internecine warfare, Gov. Pataki and former Mayor Giuliani both want to pick the candidates for the 2006 election early, favoring former Massachusetts Governor William Weld and former Westchester County DA Jeanine Pirro to fight the uphill battle against Spitzer and Clinton. While the state Republican chairman Stephen Minarik of Monroe County pushes the idea, he is stepping lightly, and wants to test the waters with the 62 county chairpeople first, in a December 12 meeting, objected to as too early by Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who has his own ideas. Several Republicans, all with credentials but none with funds want to be the sacrificial lambs, presumably because fighting and having lost an unwinnable election gives a candidate future credibility.
The potential candidates’ list has changed, and the current contenders include Tom Golisano, the Rochester billionaire, Pataki hater and founder of Paychex, who ran on the Independence ticket since 1994, and switched to Republicans on October 11, at the advice of Joe Bruno and Congressman Tom Reynolds of Buffalo, himself a potential Gubernatorial candidate. Others include Patrick Mahoney, Assemblyman of Columbia and Dutchess Counties, a conservationist and at 6’ 11’’ deemed the tallest elected legislator in the country, Congressman John Sweeney, whose 200-mile long district runs from Poughkeepsie to Lake Placid, and the former Assembly Minority leader John Faso, all well credentialed in my upstate neck of woods.
Randy Daniels, the former Secretary of State, is the only African-American candidate, very active. A former Democrat (he was part of the Dinkins cabinet), Independent, and WCBS commentator on agriculture and foreign affairs, he was recruited by Pataki, but now has lost the Governor’s support. The party does not trust him entirely, and he will look for support from the Conservatives. But that is a double edged sword, whoever wins their support must pledge to run even if the candidate does not get the Republicans’ endorsement.
But the unity plans has problems. Weld, although relatively free of the carpetbagger label - he is a native New Yorker, and has resided here since the resignation from governorship in MA and the defeat for appointment as ambassador to Mexico (he was stopped by ex-Sen. Jesse Helms of NC, a fellow Republican who hates choice, medicinal marijuana and gay marriage) - also has a credibility problem, although you would not know it from a recent campaign interview by a morning paper. Viewed as an opportunist, with no interests shown in NYS affairs (Clinton, a true outsider, has paid her dues), he has come under criticism as the CEO of Decker College in KY. His equity firm, Leeds Weld, was a minority investor in this private school chain, and when the school came under both federal and state criticism, Weld went down to become the CEO and straighten out things. The criticisms involved false requests of government aid, and unfulfilled program promises for students. The school went bankrupt and Weld left in October, and, although his honesty as a former lawman is impeccable (he was a US DA, with Giuliani), his executive ability is being questioned. Weld has explanations, but the damage will be there, and Giuliani, as of the moment, seems to have left the support group.
The Pirro nomination has cracks too. Joseph Bruno, the Golisano prompter, thinks that Jeanine has a better chance running for NY State Attorney General, energizing the disheartened Republican voters and thus protecting his Senate majority. The A/G race has attracted a powerful list of candidates (Assemblymen Richard Brodsky of Queens and Michael Gianaris of Queens, Mark Lane, Andrew Cuomo, Charlie King, spam-wise Sean Patrick Maloney, Jeff Klein and Denise O’Connell) which Bruno hopes will self-destruct. Hillary has such overwhelming support that running an otherwise electable candidate against her is a waste of talent. Whether Jeanine will eventually agree with him is moot.
The Dems, long satisfied that Spitzer will win the Governorship, have a new problem. Tom Suozzi, Nassau County executive, thinks he has a better chance, as a candidate against gay marriage, and, although not against the Roe v. Wade, as a supporter of late term (“partial birth”) limits. This gives him a better chance with the upstate conservative Democrats and disenchanted Republicans. He agrees with the latter that Spitzer’s support is a “mile wide and an inch deep,” and wants a more midstream approach. Although Suozzi is a Spitzer-type reformer – he cleaned up corrupt Glen Cove, as its Mayor, and has done likewise in the county – Dem leadership looks askance at this late starter, feeling that the 2006 governorship is a done deal without having to court Suozzi supporters at the margins.
Some information on the A/G candidates:
Richard L. Brodsky 92nd AD, NW Westchester, from N Yonkers to Mount Pleasant, is the chair of the committee governing public corporations, MTA, Port Authority and Lower Manhattan Corporation. Formerly chair of Environmental Protection, he issued the Indian Point Nuclear Generating Facility evacuation report that revealed the plants’ weaknesses, and, with Pete Seeger’s Clearvater group, offered regulations to control the pollutants in the plants’ 2 billion gallon daily water intake. He is a former adjunct law professor at St. John’s and Pace.
Michael Granaris, 36th AD, Queens, is a Fordham (summa cum laude) and Harvard Law graduate who entered politics as aide to Congressman Thomas Manton, then to Gov Cuomo, as Queens representative., then as Associate Counsel to NYS Assembly.
Andrew Cuomo, his father’s campaign manager, appointed secretary of HUD by Pres. Clinton, subsequently candidate for NYS Governor.
Charlie King, 1987 NYU Law grad, with Fried, Frank Harris 15 years, now CEO of Praxis, a not for profit housing firm which he rehabilitated. Formed NY County Democratic chair (1992-4), first Black elected to board of ADL.
Sean Patrick Mahoney, with Willkie farr & Gallagher many years, Clinton’s advisor and highest ranking openly gay man on Pres. Clinton’s staff, has years of NYC CB service.
Other candidates:
Tom (Blasé Thomas) Golisano (1942-) is the founder of Paychex, 2nd largest US processor of payrolls. One of founders of the Independence Party in 1994 and its real money backer, his campaigns assured the party’s line in election ballots. In conflict with Independence’s other leader Leonora Fulani who was a Bloomberg backer.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Dr Mark Podwal gives Rabbi Irving Block Memorial Lecture
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The Third Rabbi Irving J. Block Memorial Lecture at Brotherhood Synagogue on November 18 was different. Instead of scholars expressing their love of Judaism through the Book, law and lore, we heard and saw an artist who makes his Jewish statement with line and color, using metaphor, symbolism, irony, and cruelty, if appropriate.
Mark Podwal, MD, is a Clinical Associate Professor of Dermatology at NYU’s Medical School, and, concurrently, an artist on the op-ed page of New York Times, by choice limiting himself to drawings on topics on which he is passionate. He calls it interested, but passion is what he projects. His is not the crude literal punch line art of the editorial artists of the Post and the News, in the manner of Thomas Nast who portrayed Boss Tweed with bags of money, nor is it the chiseled art of Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury, a more contemporary dialogue-based style. Here we are dealing with a nuanced and symbolic portrayal, metaphors rather than words. I would liken him to the masters, Honore Daumier of the Second Empire, and Goya with his nightmarish allusions, painters beyond mere caricature creation. Podwal is just that, a painter who expresses his beliefs, and he is in a hurry about it, as his presentation of the slides reflects. The subject was “Jerusalem Sky; Stars, Crosses, and Crescents,” a topic dear to the late Rabbi Block, who believed in that same precise concatenation of brotherhood of beliefs, and was buried in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, his gravesite in sight of all faiths. But before we got to the above point, we rushed through Dr. Podwal’s entire history of Jewish experience. Rushed is the word, and my jumbled notes reflect it, so bear with me.
His start was with the NY Times was in 1972, with a picture of the Eiffel Tower dreaming of oil gushers. This was to illustrate the French treachery of not prosecuting the murderers of Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics. Somehow my notes now led into a discussion of his drawing of a Jerusalem artichoke with a mosque growing out of it that was accepted by the Grand Mufti but rejected by a Jewish curator because this vegetable is more like a sunflower, and it had to be exhibited as “untitled.” This was an illustration for a book titled Dracula Cookbook, by a Rumanian actress or princess or sorceress, or maybe it was for Sweet Year, a book that has an olive branch decorated with dreidels instead of leaves. The interleaving is understandable because Podwal has written 10 books and illustrated 18, and in his presentation they all surface in an indeterminate order, a dreamlike sequence, totally enchanting.
Order is restored, when we come to Prague, the city of Podwal’s other passion, and a 1280 synagogue on Maisel Street, morphing into another of 1609, famed because of its Rabbi Loewy, who had to do with the Golem. The synagogue has outside metal spike-like steps driven in its wall, leading the death-defying climber to an upper story, with a hard door, behind which lie unspeakable secrets, or horrors. The author was permitted to see them, but he cannot speak. This is the MittelEuropa world of magic realism, with expectations of Vlad the Impaler or Frankenstein appearing. But we drop the Golem, and go on, to Yassir Arafat as an A-Bomb, with sunglasses. The Times did or did not accept it, the mind reels, but I love the imagery. Subsequent research revealed that the myth has Rabbi Jehudah Loew ben Bezalel (1525-1609) create the homunculus Golem, a man of mud, a kind of Adam concept, but we must move on, Dr. Podwall does not stand still. .
The artist met Elie Wiesel because the renowned author liked an illustration for one of his op-eds, and they went on to do a Haggadah, the Passover prayer book that many artists have made their ultimate challenge. The Haggadah was successful (we saw a Passover Fall moon that was overwhelming), and they continued together, to explore King Solomon’s magic.
When we eventually came to Podwal’s Jerusalem, it was a revelation. The sharp line artist had dissolved into a colorist, living in a pastel dream world. Blue-green aquarelle clouds serenely float over orange domes and cubes, the fantasy land of Mignon’s song transforming into dreams of temples growing out of flowers. In another view the skies turn into mosaic, and the stones into fortresses. The blue, purple and white of Mohammed’s horses charges the magic atmosphere. But the book ends with hope, with three towers, topped by the cross, half-moon and a star of David, standing side by side. If words like overwhelming or enchanting recur here, it is for a reason. Dr. Podwal is a magician, and the grateful audience felt it.
Herbert Block’s tender story of a visit to his father’s gravesite (a film series has been dedicated to Rabbi Block’s memory) and Rabbi Daniel Alder’s introduction and commentary contributed a base under the dream world spun by the artist’s imagery.
The Third Rabbi Irving J. Block Memorial Lecture at Brotherhood Synagogue on November 18 was different. Instead of scholars expressing their love of Judaism through the Book, law and lore, we heard and saw an artist who makes his Jewish statement with line and color, using metaphor, symbolism, irony, and cruelty, if appropriate.
Mark Podwal, MD, is a Clinical Associate Professor of Dermatology at NYU’s Medical School, and, concurrently, an artist on the op-ed page of New York Times, by choice limiting himself to drawings on topics on which he is passionate. He calls it interested, but passion is what he projects. His is not the crude literal punch line art of the editorial artists of the Post and the News, in the manner of Thomas Nast who portrayed Boss Tweed with bags of money, nor is it the chiseled art of Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury, a more contemporary dialogue-based style. Here we are dealing with a nuanced and symbolic portrayal, metaphors rather than words. I would liken him to the masters, Honore Daumier of the Second Empire, and Goya with his nightmarish allusions, painters beyond mere caricature creation. Podwal is just that, a painter who expresses his beliefs, and he is in a hurry about it, as his presentation of the slides reflects. The subject was “Jerusalem Sky; Stars, Crosses, and Crescents,” a topic dear to the late Rabbi Block, who believed in that same precise concatenation of brotherhood of beliefs, and was buried in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, his gravesite in sight of all faiths. But before we got to the above point, we rushed through Dr. Podwal’s entire history of Jewish experience. Rushed is the word, and my jumbled notes reflect it, so bear with me.
His start was with the NY Times was in 1972, with a picture of the Eiffel Tower dreaming of oil gushers. This was to illustrate the French treachery of not prosecuting the murderers of Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics. Somehow my notes now led into a discussion of his drawing of a Jerusalem artichoke with a mosque growing out of it that was accepted by the Grand Mufti but rejected by a Jewish curator because this vegetable is more like a sunflower, and it had to be exhibited as “untitled.” This was an illustration for a book titled Dracula Cookbook, by a Rumanian actress or princess or sorceress, or maybe it was for Sweet Year, a book that has an olive branch decorated with dreidels instead of leaves. The interleaving is understandable because Podwal has written 10 books and illustrated 18, and in his presentation they all surface in an indeterminate order, a dreamlike sequence, totally enchanting.
Order is restored, when we come to Prague, the city of Podwal’s other passion, and a 1280 synagogue on Maisel Street, morphing into another of 1609, famed because of its Rabbi Loewy, who had to do with the Golem. The synagogue has outside metal spike-like steps driven in its wall, leading the death-defying climber to an upper story, with a hard door, behind which lie unspeakable secrets, or horrors. The author was permitted to see them, but he cannot speak. This is the MittelEuropa world of magic realism, with expectations of Vlad the Impaler or Frankenstein appearing. But we drop the Golem, and go on, to Yassir Arafat as an A-Bomb, with sunglasses. The Times did or did not accept it, the mind reels, but I love the imagery. Subsequent research revealed that the myth has Rabbi Jehudah Loew ben Bezalel (1525-1609) create the homunculus Golem, a man of mud, a kind of Adam concept, but we must move on, Dr. Podwall does not stand still. .
The artist met Elie Wiesel because the renowned author liked an illustration for one of his op-eds, and they went on to do a Haggadah, the Passover prayer book that many artists have made their ultimate challenge. The Haggadah was successful (we saw a Passover Fall moon that was overwhelming), and they continued together, to explore King Solomon’s magic.
When we eventually came to Podwal’s Jerusalem, it was a revelation. The sharp line artist had dissolved into a colorist, living in a pastel dream world. Blue-green aquarelle clouds serenely float over orange domes and cubes, the fantasy land of Mignon’s song transforming into dreams of temples growing out of flowers. In another view the skies turn into mosaic, and the stones into fortresses. The blue, purple and white of Mohammed’s horses charges the magic atmosphere. But the book ends with hope, with three towers, topped by the cross, half-moon and a star of David, standing side by side. If words like overwhelming or enchanting recur here, it is for a reason. Dr. Podwal is a magician, and the grateful audience felt it.
Herbert Block’s tender story of a visit to his father’s gravesite (a film series has been dedicated to Rabbi Block’s memory) and Rabbi Daniel Alder’s introduction and commentary contributed a base under the dream world spun by the artist’s imagery.
