E train, soutbound, this morning
I had to get up and touch the paper before I was convinced everything you see on this ad was original (not grafitti). I suspect that the owners of Manhattan Mini Storage are not big on the war(s). I mean, at the very least this weekend soldier had to give up his digs and put his life in storage for George’s re-election!
Author: jameswagner
Bloomberg challenged to come out (of hiding)
Phil Reed, Chris Quinn, their colleagues and all kinds of friends, in front of microphones and cameras this morning at City Hall
A number of New York City Council Members today called on Mayor Bloomberg to state his position on the issue of same-sex marriages, with Council Member Chris Quinn leading the challenge:
“When Mike Bloomberg ran for office, he said he was going to be leader and not hide behind politics. Today, 793 days into his mayoral administration, we still don’t know the Mayor’s position on this critical civil rights issue.”
Among the speakers at a press conference outside City Hall this morning were Alisa Surkis and Colleen Gillespie with their child Ella, but rivalling their profound impact were the words delivered by Council Member Phil Reed, who described how he first found out that his parents had had to go to Mexico for their mixed-race marriage. If more people understood that marriage didn’t have to be described by superstition and prejudice the institution would be more popular than ever – or in the best of all possible worlds it would simply cease to exist as a legal contract, its important practical ends served better by the application of principles of equity.
Hovering over the speakers this morning were two sets of signs I had hurriedly made on Saturday night and again last night in the hope of clearing the air of the religious fanaticism which so obscures the subject of marriage in this country. [yeah, as if . . . .] One reading, “IT’S A RIGHT”, was to the left of its partner which continued, “NOT A RITE”. The other pleaded, “KEEP MARRIAGE CIVIL”. [Barry came up with the language of the second sign. I really like its gentle alternate entreaty] Some of the questions reporters directed to the Council Members after they delivered their initial statements suggested that there might be the beginnings of an understanding that the discussion of marriage is dominated by religious cant.
Unfortunately we have a lot of work cut out for us on every issue, since in this country every discussion is dominated by religious cant.
People working for the recognition of same-sex marriage in New York will be back at the northeast corner of City Hall tomorrow, this time for a demonstration from 8am until 9:30. They will be supporting the dozens of couples who are expected to enter the Marriage Bureau in the Municipal Building across the street to ask the City Clerk for marriage licenses.
For more information see New York Marriage Now.
Alex Lee
Alex Lee Barbera Face 2 (2004) Dreamland Blue Series, acrylic paint and magazine page in 11″x14″ frame
Alex Lee Ferragamo Face (2003) Dreamland Blue Series, acrylic paint and magazine page in 11″x14″ frame
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Alex Lee Jacobs Face (2004) Dreamland Blue Series, acrylic paint and magazine page in 11″x14″ frame
This is another follow up to my earlier post describing our visit to the Riviera Gallery in Williamsburg. These are images of three of Alex Lee’s works now in the group show there.
Lee has written about an experience which describes some of the inspiration for the imagery he uses:
While I was living in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1996, and staying at friends of my parents’, I noticed that my hosts’ collection of empty frames displayed in their living room and bedrooms. Usually sitting on a buffet or end table, these would be regular desk-size wood or metal frames, pre-fabricated for the mass-market, similar to the kind one would find anywhere at any department and discount stores in the US. These frames would have a plexiglass or glass inside them as well as a sheet of paper on which would be printed a generic stock image, acting as an example for what could be inserted inside of the picture frame. The image would resemble a stock-photograph of kind, depicting a happy couple in embrace, a little boy and his dog, a little girl holding a bouquet of flowers; in short, the archetypes of what the west considers a relevant, joyfull moment fit for remembrance and display in a home or work environment. Upon interrogation, I learnt that what I considered empty frames, they thought embodied the epitome of what the West had to offer, an ideal of happiness and wealth as projected by the image inside of the frame. Just as they would hang auspicious Chinesecharacters calligraphed on red papers in their home, they displayed these Western photo frames, as icons of social wealth.
[images furnished by the artist]
have they killed Kucinich yet?
Dennis J. Kucinich
Just got back from our polling station across the street. Somehow I had absolutely no trouble finding Kucinich‘s name, even though the NYTimes and so many others seem to have lost it. [the name happened to be at the top of the list, as it has been for me all along]
Today’s article about New York’s Democratic voters mentions only Kerry and Edwards (repeatedly). In fact the list of names on today’s New York State ballot also includes Kucinich, Lieberman, LaRouche, Dean, Sharpton, Gephardt and Clark. The only suggestion that there might be other choices for voters is this one oblique reference, in the fourth paragraph, to a larger contest:
The two front-runners [my italics], Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards, spent the final day before the so-called Super Tuesday primary campaigning in other states, leaving New York and the battle for its 236 delegates to surrogates.
Elsewhere in the paper, a lead article on the front page discusses the Capitol Hill non-relationship between the two “front-runners”, once again totally neglecting to mention Kucinich (who also happens to be work in Congress) or of course Sharpton and the others.
Oh yes, to be fair, I have to confess the paper does include one article devoted exclusively to Kucinich, “Kucinich’s Campaign Leaves Hometown Voters Wondering”. The piece never really explains what they are wondering about , other than to suggest that he may have, by the paper’s own account, “. . . distanced himself too much from the hometown voters who have sent him to Congress four times.” One 79-year old interviewed volunteered, “He has done some good locally, but I think he’s gone bananas.” This stellar NYTimes source said she thought [my italics again] she had voted for him in the past. Ok, there is one specific criticism mentioned. A woman described as a Catholic said she would no longer support him because he had reversed his longtime opposition to abortion.
Alright, I’m now giving the Times far too much attention. Bloggy found more interesting stuff elsewhere: For a real look at Kucinich and at what happened to his campaign, see at Matt Taibbi.
[image is from the campaign site, photo by Eric Rife]
Jay Blotcher
The media is keeping Jay Blotcher very busy these days.
He calls the New Palz area his home, and he married his boyfriend in the Village last week. That same week saw the braking of the story of his being fired as a stringer for the NYTimes [they found he had once been part of ACT UP, and I guess that’s somehow a big bad].
Jay hardly ever misses a thing. Jay is a writer. Jay now has a website [set up by bloggy], and anyone interested in these stories will enjoy a visit.
acting like a democrat
The New Yorker‘s Hendrik Hertzberg must be feeling very guilty, because before condemning Ralph Nader to perdition [almost] this week he runs through an elaborate paean to the great man’s undoubted, generous, world-altering accomplishments.
[The list* is magnificent by the way, and it should be read by all of us, whether or not we lived through times which once, incredibly, resisted these obviously good works.]
But Hertzberg then continues his current “The Talk of the Town” piece:
More than any other single person, Ralph Nader is responsible for the fact that George W. Bush is President of the United States.
How does a thoughtful liberal miss the point entirely? If Bush occupies the Oval Office it’s because we were all stupid enough to let him get there – and to let him stay on. Incredibly, the sophisticated weekly’s Editorial Director claims that Al Gore and G.W. Bush are both essentially blameless for the plagues which now lay so heavily on our land, the former because he attracted enough votes to win the 2000 election and the latter because he didn’t. The only villain is Nader.
We’ve all heard the argument before, in one form or another, but for a number of reasons there is no way to calculate the impact of Nader’s candidacy then or now. We can say that democracy has never been defined as a two-party system, even in this damaged republic where the Left was destroyed almost a century ago. We can also say that discouraging the number of candidates and parties (if we must have political clubs) is the practice of dictators and not of free peoples.
In the midst of their internal argument, even the members of the Democratic Party family are not listening to the putative heavy himself. Last week one NYTimes reader offered the best and most succinct explanation of Nader’s decision to run again in 2004 that I’ve heard yet:
Ralph Nader, Roiling the Waters
To the Editor:
Re ”Nader, Gadfly to the Democrats, Will Again Run for President” (front page, Feb. 23):
Ralph Nader’s central thesis is that corporate influence on lawmakers is a greater danger to democracy than even a Bush presidency. In this context, Mr. Nader’s run for president is easier to understand.
ALEXI ARANGO
Somerville, Mass., Feb. 23, 2004
Now let’s all get out there and act like democrats, even if we’re only Democrats. Vote well.
____________________
*Hertzberg’s litany of Nader’s accomplishments:
More than any other single person, Ralph Nader is responsible for the existence of automobiles that have seat belts, padded dashboards, air bags, non-impaling steering columns, and gas tanks that dont readily explode when the car gets rear-ended. He is therefore responsible for the existence of some millions of drivers and passengers who would otherwise be dead. Because of Nader, baby foods are no longer spiked with MSG, kids pajamas no longer catch fire, tap water is safer to drink than it used to be, diseased meat can no longer be sold with impunity, and dental patients getting their teeth x-rayed wear lead aprons to protect their bodies from dangerous zaps. It is Naders doing, more than anyone elses, that the federal bureaucracy includes an Environmental Protection Agency, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and a Consumer Product Safety Commission, all of which have done valuable work in the past and, with luck, may be allowed to do such work again someday. He is the man to thank for the fact that the Freedom of Information Act is a powerful instrument of democratic transparency and accountability. He is the founder of an amazing array of agile, sharp-elbowed research and lobbying organizations that have prodded governments at all levels toward constructive action in areas ranging from insurance rates to nuclear safety. He had help, of course, from his young raiders, from congressional staffers and their bosses, from citizens, and even from the odd President. But he was the prime mover.
red bags at sunset
untitled (East Broadway, 5:19-5:23 pm, February 29)
Musing, as we waited on the platform just before boarding the fire and brimstone train.
but I don’t even want to be married!
[we’ve only been together for 12 or 13 years]
But definitely not a requirement. Marriage. Not for every couple, but it must be their choice only.
The two quickly-improvised signs pictured above were those we held while we were standing behind speakers at a press conference held below the steps of New York City Hall early yesterday afternoon. We were there along with, I guess, almost 300 others [the maximum number of the non-sports-fan public “allowed” to get anywhere near our seat of government at one time, as it turned out*] attesting to the right of all Americans to enter into marriage contracts certified by the state.
Specifically, we were challenging the mayor of the City of New York to tell the City Clerk to issue licenses to any couple requesting them. We maintain, with excellent legal opinion to support us, that the state’s constitution does not restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples.
It seems that victory is inevitable. What is in doubt is when it will happen, and the manner and degree to which individual politicians will shame or honor themselves in the interim.
the media setting up before the speakers arrived
Council Speaker Miller and, starting counterclockwise from his left, Councilmembers Chris Quinn, David Yassky, Tom Duane and Phil Reed
what looked like a group of hundreds of supporters was kept from entering the grounds surrounding City Hall, but they maintained a chorus of protest in the background
* Even long before September 11 Mayor Giuliani had effectively removed the public, and in particular any public with an opinion likely to be opposed to his own, from access to the area around City Hall. Fallout from the World Trade Center disaster and a murder of a City Councilmember in chambers further compromised people’s right of access to their representatives, but something of a compromise has since been worked out under the current, Bloomberg administration. Today’s Newsday story on the Gifford Miller’s press conference made an exceptional reference to this issue.
City Hall’s security detail turned away about 100 supporters, enforcing a rule that allows a maximum of 300 people to attend a news conference. The event was peaceful and there were no arrests, although some who were standing on the street or in City Hall Park, shouted, “Let us in!”
smile addendum
Overheard while we waited for the proceedings to begin: [Two young men behind us were animatedly discussing the Judy Garland biography of films shown on television recently, but their enthusiasm was quickly redirected when they spied a certain great, breezy, white-haired activist as she approached the steps] “Oh, there’s Ann Northrup! Love her!”
Well, she is a star.
New York fails its security test – “disastrously”
Barry and I were stuck underground on the F train of the New York City MTA system for two full hours this afternoon and evening. Apparently a homeless person threw a rebar onto the tracks, hitting the third rail and wiping out a transformer. Fifty minutes after we were first stopped the spectacular fireworks we saw through the windows, and the smoke and fumes which immediately followed, changed everything. The big fuss just outside was pretty impressive – and very fightening if you are effectively sealed in a crowded tube already rendered immobile.
Shortly after, a very frightening announcement was heard over the speakers above our heads, “Everybody please move to the front of the train”. We were no longer just waiting for the train to resume travel. The smoke and fire seemed to be largely just behind where we were sitting, so the suggestion immediately made sense, but it was no less frightening for that. We proceded through the cars and a large number of us ended up bunched at the front of the train. It was like rush hour, but nobody was rushing anywhere. Some people had hankerchiefs over their faces. Some began to cry.
At this point I was thinking, careful not to verbalize it, what was it we did not know, and would cause real panic if we did? We were never given any more information.
One hour and ten minutes after we found ourselves facing the closed door of the train operator’s station, following the crew’s repeated and identical announcements to the increasingly sceptical and exhausted passengers that police and fire department emergency crews were “on their way”, we were finally led out of the crowded train onto a narrow ledge in the tunnel. We walked about 15 feet to an emergency stairway and ascended about three floors into the middle of Greenwich Village. Huh? We had been only steps from freedom all along.
Can someone explain to us why it took so long to rescue hundreds of people sealed in subway cars on account of a mischief somewhat-less-than-extraordinary, and one so easily predictable by anyone charged with emergency planning in a system so extraordinarily vulnerable to such mischief?
So the next question is obvious. Are we all expected to have any confidence in the city’s vaunted security apparatus when it is measured against the threat of real terrorists? These days we can barely walk around our own streets without being assaulted by “security” devices and routines obstensively laid out for our protection and we can no longer readily exercise our freedoms of assembly and speech, yet we are clearly not even prepared for even the ordinary, pre-war-on-terror kind of threat. Real saboteurs won’t give us two hours, or even 70 minutes.
When we finally emerged this evening through a small hatch onto the sidewalk in front of Da Silvano, A-list homosexuals were sitting outside in cafe chairs, seemingly unaware of the drama of the past few hours just below their tables, but clearly absorbed in admiring the firemen helping the dazed folks exit from the subterranean ladder. White-aproned waiters offered glasses of ice water to refugees from the underworld.
Our fellow passengers had been calm and magnificent throughout, behaving as we have come to expect our neighbors to behave when challenged by danger and the unknown.
We love New Yorkers! But we’re very very concerned for New York.
Of course I took pictures, beginning with one from the early, more relaxed period during when we had been told we were only waiting for debris to be cleared from under the cars, and ending with our escape to the gentle ministrations of handsome firemen and cute waiters.
So of course we immediately went to a late lunch, or early dinner, at Home, a block away, for almost all of the comforts of . . . .
When we finally left the restaurant, sometime after 10 pm, we went back to Bleecker and 6th Avenue where we found even more emergency vehicles and personnel [of virtually every description] than we had seen when we left the area hours earlier and five hours after the incident had begun.
Checking the web and NY1 on our return to the real home [after jumping right back on the saddle, this time that of the 1/9 train at Christopher], we were amazed to find there was absolutely nothing to be found about what I’ve just described. Nothing. Absolutely nothing, even when I checked again after midnight. It was as if nothing had happened, but try telling it to the frightened passengers on the late afternoon f train.
What’s that all about?
Hyemi Cho
Hyemi Cho Skin Shed (2004) oil on wood, 30″ x 16″
Hyemi Cho Shed SuperHero (2004) oil and pen on wood, 35″ x 18″
I’m following up my post describing our visit to the Riviera Gallery in Williamsburg with these images of two of Hyemi Cho’s paintings in the group show. Cho is also the curator.
She’s very good. Ultraman would be proud.
[images furnished by the artist]