Dave Brubeck, 1920-2012

Dave Brubeck, jazz musician and composer, experimenter in time, died yesterday at his home in Connecticut. He would have been 92 today.

The NY Times obit by Ben Ratliffe here
http://nyti.ms/RC2yTY

The wiki bio here
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Brubeck

Egypt Approaching Failed State Status? Mob Rule Threatens the Safety of Women

"It is not a country of law, not a state of law anymore. It has given men a chance to harass women without being accused," said Afaf Marie, director of the Egyptian Association for Community Participation and Enhancement, an NGO.


Some activists fear that women's rights will suffer under the rule of President Mohammed Morsi, who is an Islamist.

Government inaction has allowed the problem to spiral out of control, Heba Morayef, director of Human Rights Watch for the Middle East and North Africa, told NBC News. Police no longer inspire fear as they did before the revolution. In addition, locals say it appears there are fewer police on the increasingly lawless streets -- and often none in Tahrir Square.


"The state is failing to respond,” she said. "Men don’t have to worry about being caught.”

Full article here

A Civil War Christmas at the NY Theater Workshop

Paula Vogel, Pulitzer Prize winner (How I Learned to Drive), has created a colorful, extremely earnest musical about the Civil War that strives to meld history, dramedy and historical and roots music into a sort of new holiday classic.

Despite its exceptionally talented and
equally earnest cast, the play, so hopeful and promising, fails its cast and its audience with what is essentially a dishwater weak pop treatment of a critical era in American history that deserves better- better writing, better story and simply more depth and drama. Yes, in the Obama era we have Spielberg's Close Encounters with Abe Lincoln, Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter, but do we really need Abe Lincoln as Matthew Broderick mugging and singing about the End of the Civil War and the old south. There are some sincere and moving numbers. Sumaya Bouhbsl, K. Todd Freeman Chrus Henry, Rachel Spencer Hewitt, man tawny Hopper, Amber Iman, Jonathan-David, Karen Kandel, Sean Alan Krill, Alice Ripley and Bob Stilman give admirable and powerful performances on role and perhaps against all odds. Colorful and imaginative with bright staging, but the longed for drama, darkness and vision despite the performers best efforts seems wrestled to the ground by the play's uneven mix of real history and historical fiction. Never quite escaping the pull to Earth of the pedantic, A Civil War Christmas for this hopeful viewer never quite comes together and achieves escape velocity into a transporting theater experience.
-Anthony Napoli Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Where the Wild Things Are: Staten Island Edition

View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.

A few years ago when I was working on Staten Island, my colleagues teased me about a deer running in the parking lot. By now, due to urban development and sprawl, deer on the Island are fairly common place. But wild horses and zebra?  As Chuck Berry sang, it just goes to show, you never can tell.
-Tony, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Got Color-Glass Condensate?: Tales from the Large Hadron Collider

Is the Large Hadron Collider in CERN producing new types of matter, perhaps emerging from a post-Big Bang reminiscent Soup? Researchers speculate on ethereal, celestial  technologies. Article from Physics.Org here

Happy Thanksgiving -- and Peace!

It's a day for family and food, swing and standard tubes in the air, turkey of course,and Persian rice with truffles and piseli, quinoa with beans and onion, tempeh with mushrooms and okra and green beans, salad with autumnal roast veges, candied yams, roasted taters, corn bread, corn pudding , biscuits, broccoli soup with potatoes...

Hearing from our oldest daughter, potentially peaceful in Tel Aviv, rockets fall, turkey there among Espats and aliyot .. Wondering what tomorrow would bring...

And For Now -- A Cessation in the Hostilities. How Long? Who Knows.

Washington Post Reports that the Egyptian government announced Wednesday night that Israel and Palestinian leaders in the Gaza strip have agreed to halt hostilities after eight days of Israeli bombardment of the enclave and hundreds of rocket strikes inside Israel. (However, the cease fire falls short of the long-term aggreement both sides were apparently hoping for.)


Standing alongside Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who engaged in intensive shuttle diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr told a news conference that the cease-fire would begin at 9 p.m. local time (2 p.m. in Washington).

Full story here

COLOR RED Phone App provides early warning on attacks by incoming rocket; details here

Twitter "Tweets" between Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas here

A Pre-Thanksgiving Soliloquy

For Danielle and Rami in Tel Aviv Right Now



The Rolling Stones, 1969, on The David Frost Show, perform You Can't Always Get What You Want

The song was recorded at Olympic Studios in London on November 16 and 17, 1968. 

Bon anniversaire also to Nanette Workman (aka Nanette Newman), one of the background singers on the track, a great Brooklyn-born, now Canada and formerly Mississippi based chanteuse who celebrated a birthday on November 20, who recently returned to rock with a powerful blues and roots album, Just Gettin' Started.



Israeli Soldier Killed; Hamas Announces Truce; Israel Prepares for Ground Offensive

Truce

Truce between Israeli and Palestinian forces to be announced Tuesday November 20 at 2 pm EST and goes into effect at 5 pm EST

When Tigers Fight It Is The Grass that Suffers

Gaza operation enters day 5
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/live-blog-day-5-of-israel-s-gaza-offensive-1.478624

How would a cease fire pan out?
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/waiting-to-see-how-a-cease-fire-would-pan-out.premium-1.478838

The Andy Warhol Museum's Eric Shiner to Curate 'Focus' at the Centenniel Armory Show

Exciting news in the Art World. The 2013 Armory Show, which this year will commemorate the centenniel of the original Armory Show in 1913, which was a groundbreaking exhibition credited with bringing Modernism to the United States, has invited Eric Shiner, Director of The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, to curate Armory Focus: USA, presenting a broad snapshot of the country’s contemporary cultural practice.

Armory Focus, the curated section of The Armory Show, highlights the gallery and artistic landscape of a chosen geographic region.


Notes from the Armory Show: "As American artists, galleries, and institutions continue to grapple with and re-position modes of self-reflection, Armory Focus: USA will examine the forefront of artistic practice—the core of our inherited legacy stretching back to the 1913 Armory Show—by showcasing contemporary responses to integral questions of artistic production in the United States. In recognition of our country’s extraordinarily diverse cultural output, [The Armory Show] will offer a select group of galleries from across America the opportunity to present their unique programming, providing a forum for an ever-expanding national conversation at the fair.

Mr Shiner notes, “I am most excited to curate the 2013 Armory Show Focus section and to gauge the pulse of contemporary art production in America today. A celebration of the first Armory Show in 1913—an event that ushered in the avant-garde to this country—next year’s fair will stand as a testament to the fact that the avant-garde took root here and prospered, just as it will highlight the very best artists and artworks available today. Although it will certainly be challenging to give a barometer of what contemporary art from America has become, I hope to put together a witty and far-sweeping Focus section that makes visitors stop and think about America, art, and ultimately their place within it.”

Michael Hall, Creative Director of The Armory Show, says, “We are delighted to announce the appointment of Eric Shiner, whose curatorial insights will craft an exceptional take on the visual culture flourishing in our own back yard. At the helm of a cutting-edge institution in the heart of America, Eric was the perfect choice to lead this section, defining the new avant-garde of the early twenty-first century.”

Noah Horowitz, Executive Director of The Armory Show, states, “America has always been a country defined by its attraction to the frontier, and a century after the original Armory Show gave American artists license to break conclusively with the past, that frontier is increasingly being explored through art that addresses the most complex issues of our time, from the pervasive influence of technology on modern life to the atomizing force of globalization. In Armory Focus: USA, we are proud to survey this artistic vanguard through the lens of our distinguished curator, Eric Shiner.”

Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn is an enthusiastic fan of both The Armory Show and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, which, for the art world in general, and New York City and Pittsburgh, respectively, are the Really Big Shows, and the only games in their home towns.

The 2013 Armory Show will be coming to New York City on March 7-10, 2013, Piers 92 & 94
Twelfth Avenue at 55th Street. For more information visit here

-Anthony Napoli, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Start Me Up: Rolling Stones Play Barclay Center

The Rolling Stones 50 th anniversary mini tour will have a stop off on December 8 in Brooklyn after all..I guess the number's finally worked out.. Is there more of a story to this ?
Details here http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/coldplay-and-jay-z-to-play-barclays-center-on-new-years-eve/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Rehearsing for the Apocalypse

Waiting on a Gas Line. Reflecting on An unrecognizable, perhaps unimaginable, New York City following The Storm. Hundreds of houses burned out in Breezy Point in one of the largest fires in our city's history but now just one painful facet of the hurricane.Thousands of families displaced, homes flooded. Thousands of people still without basic services, electricity, in the region. The scope of the economic impact on the area hard to predict. But it can't be simple to resolve. Drivers in NYC searching aimlessly and often fruitlessly for fuel. Long lines like a failed planned economy. Schools disrupted. Brooklyn Battery Tunnel still flooded and closed. LIRR disruptions.Trying to pretend the return to normal is just a couple of days away but recognizing that for some, there will never be a return to a pre-storm stasis. Folks comparing this to 9/11, which was filled with its own tragedies and fears. But coming on the heels of the recent election, it appears that among the battles fought and won will be a new reality and acceptance that climate change may in fact be well upon us. This was further bolstered by a recent report on our warming planet. Whether it is too late to reverse it and it is now time to erect sea barriers and move further from humankind's original home, at the shore. But for now the days ahead and our ability to rebound and fully cover will no doubt frustrate -- and disclose.
--Anthony Napoli, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn
See climate report link here http://m.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/warmer-still-extreme-climate-predictions-appear-most-accurate-study-says/2012/11/08/ebd075c6-29c7-11e2-96b6-8e6a7524553f_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

...and the Beginning of a New Era: Odd and Even Gas Rationing in NYC

New York City is imposing odd and even day gas rationing in NYC beginning Friday, November 9, at 6 AM.  License plates ending in an even number may only fill up on even numbered days, and plates ending in an odd number may fill up only on odd numbered days.

The Mayor reported that due to power outages and related distribution issues, at present only 25% of the fuel stations in NYC are opened and providing fuel. Details from the NY Times City Room here

Has it really come to this? Apparently it has...