November 8, 2012 First Person Smoke Lingers By Alia Akkam My first encounter with Patrick Swayze was not, like many of my classmates’, in a suburban movie theater, watching his robust muscles seductively grip Jennifer Grey’s tiny pelvis to the sounds of Mickey & Sylvia. The night I met him on the small television in the kitchen, my mother washing dishes in the background, instead of a form-fitting tank top Swayze was wearing the distinguished gray uniform of the Confederate States Army. Before he played the Catskills dance instructor of teenage girls’ dreams, Swayze was Orry Main, a good ole fighting South Carolina boy whose best friend is a damn Yankee, in North & South, the melodramatic 1980s miniseries that reduced one of the country’s most devastating slabs of history to coquettish glances thrown from beneath floppy straw hats and above buxom gowns. At age six, too young to comprehend the definition of secession, much less the horrors of slavery, I watched the scenes of sprawling plantation estates with the same intensity as an afternoon fix of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. It was the first time I heard the words civil war. Years and textbooks later, the intricacies of this defining upheaval continued to compel me more than any other period in our country’s history. Each moment of the war—those first foreboding booms over Fort Sumter, the hundreds of thousands of lives replaced by bloody corpses, Abraham Lincoln’s searing call for freedom—seemed fraught with political, economic, and moral complexity. Patrick Swayze ushered me into this suspenseful drama, Ken Burns’s The Civil War took me deeper, and I didn’t want to leave. Read More
November 8, 2012 Bulletin Defiance: A Literary Benefit to Rebuild Red Hook By Sadie Stein Last week, the waterfront neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn, was one of the areas shattered by superstorm Sandy. On Wednesday, November 14, join host Kurt Andersen; musicians Steve Earle and Stew; novelists Joseph O’Neill, Sam Lipsyte, and Rivka Galchen; nonfiction luminaries Phillip Lopate, Chuck Klosterman, Philip Gourevitch, Meghan O’Rourke, Deborah Baker, Robert Sullivan, and others for Defiance: A Literary Benefit to Rebuild Red Hook. Readings will center on the themes of recovery and rebuilding, drawing on more than two centuries of literature about the historic neighborhood. The event takes its name from Fort Defiance, the revolutionary-era citadel that once loomed over Red Hook, keeping ferry routes clear for General George Washington’s Continental Army. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the evening will be divided between two nonprofit organizations that are leading Red Hook’s post-Sandy recovery, Red Hook Initiative and Restore Red Hook. Learn more and buy tickets here. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
November 8, 2012 Video & Multimedia Happy Birthday, Bram Stoker By Sadie Stein Web surfers will have noticed Google’s celebration of the Dracula scribe’s big 1-6-5 in today’s doodle. But the celebrations don’t end there: Galleycat has rounded up free Stoker e-books, while those across the pond enjoy a Bram Stoker Wedding. Enjoy an excerpt from the 1922 silent film version of Nosferatu: [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
November 8, 2012 Arts & Culture The Other Election By Casey N. Cep Computers, phones, radios, televisions, and carrier pigeons are chirping with talk of Tuesday’s hard-fought presidential election. The election is a time-honored American tradition. But long before there were exercises of democracy to occupy our collective attention, Americans were preoccupied with a different kind of election entirely. The Pilgrims brought their belief in predestination with them to Plymouth, and the Puritans planted the doctrine in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Many are called, they argued, but few are chosen. Those chosen by God for salvation receive mercy, while the reprobate receive the justice they deserve. The question of whether or not one had been elected for salvation filled one’s wakeful days and dreaming nights. Read More
November 8, 2012 On the Shelf San Francisco vs. New York, and Other News By Sadie Stein The bestseller lists from two beloved bookstores show what San Franciscans and New Yorkers, respectively, are reading. (Spoiler: everyone loves Junot Díaz.) But which book about Lincoln? Experts help you narrow it down. Print is dead, and nine other conversations the folks at Book Riot would just as soon, in a perfect world, never have again. Tats inspired by children’s books. Yes, The Giving Tree and Le Petit Prince are represented, but so are Ramona and Harriet Welsh! And you have to love the simplicity of this Narnia ink. The New York Public Library donated the food that would have been served at their annual fundraising gala to people affected by Hurricane Sandy. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
November 7, 2012 First Person Letter from Coney Island By Mark McPherson I spent the night in Coney Island and there are no mermaids on Mermaid Avenue right now, but the machinery of New York’s recovery from Hurricane Sandy is everywhere to be seen. The streets teem with Con Edison and Verizon workers fixing overhead wires. One out of three buildings has some kind of light—from either portable generators or power lines. Relief workers, professional and volunteer, hand out goods to needy residents. A FEMA distribution center in a church parking lot includes a bank of Chase ATMs that shine like blue and white corporate beacons. Police cars sit, blue and red lights flashing, at almost every intersection, on the look out for looters and other bad actors. The weather remains on everyone’s mind—another storm is predicted today, less severe than Sandy but not insignificant, with a four- or five-foot swell. Ordinarily, that would not breach the seawall, but the fear is that the damage from Sandy has left this neighborhood much more vulnerable to another flood. In fact, the FEMA center and the temporary police headquarters packed up and moved in anticipation. Coney Island, the sharp southwestern corner of Brooklyn, was hit hard by Sandy. Read More