Tag: New York

Rikers – Quotes from Oral History

TAMI LEE, retired correction officer, 1989 to 2020: I never smiled for thirty years. I never smiled at that job one time. Sometimes I’d have to think about it—like, “Smile.” I didn’t want to smile so they could think I was playing with them because I was not playing with them.

CASIMIRO TORRES, detained various stints, 1980s to 2000s: I had a girl one time, I used to go to this twenty-four-hour store after I came out of prison, late at night, and after a few times she started calling me Smiley. I said, “Why do you call me that?” And she said, “Because you’ve never smiled.” And it had never occurred to me that I hadn’t smiled in years and years. I had my prison face on wherever I went. It’s something that clings to you, like the smell of shit. You have to really wash it off.

ANNA GRISTINA, detained 2012: I was in the bullpen, waiting at the processing area. There was a woman. These girls were going, “She needs to get to the doctor. She’s shaking on the floor.” A couple minutes later, everyone is screaming. The guards, they are having their lunch. This sergeant with braids, she says, “Shut the fuck up! Mind your own business!”

We were looking and we saw this woman from across the pen, froth coming out of her mouth. She’s having a seizure. She’s vomiting foam. The guard says, “Mind your business. You’re in enough trouble. Keep your mouth shut.” We came back from a lawyer visit, and they had taken her out on a gurney, dead. The guards had denied her medical, and she died. I don’t know her name or her age.

She [the woman who died] had covers over her body when they took her out. She had been screaming for hours for help. She had been half the day in the holding pen with no water, no nothing, having seizures. I’ll never forget the feeling of telling my lawyers a woman died in there and they shrugged their shoulders.

JERRY DEAN, detained 1987, 2003: The last day I was leaving Rikers when I was sixteen, I sat in the corner, they drive me upstate [to the Goshen Secure Center], and I remember somebody said, when you leave Rikers, don’t ever look back, don’t look back in the car or the bus, or else you’ll come back. So I didn’t want to look back.

Rikers: An Oral History
Graham Rayman, Reuven Blau

Decline and Fall of Rudy Guiliani

What would have become of Mr. Giuliani if the attack on the World Trade Center had never happened? At some point he might have run for senator or governor in New York, based upon his strong record as mayor, or perhaps landed the attorney general’s job in a Republican administration, based on his record as a trailblazing prosecutor.

He wouldn’t have accumulated as much cash or achieved worldwide fame. But then again his hero’s reputation is long gone. (“I am afraid it will be on my gravestone — ‘Rudy Giuliani: He lied for Trump,’” he told The New Yorker in 2019.) His political power has evaporated, and his riches have been almost exhausted — he’s been selling personalized video greetings for $325, and he dressed as a feathered jack-in-the-box for the Fox show “The Masked Singer” this spring. Even his accomplishments on the day the World Trade Center was attacked have been tarnished by numerous findings of disastrous mistakes he and his administration made.

Rudy Giuliani Is Alone
Andrew Kirtzman
NYTIMES

Titanic as Musical Comedy

They called “Titanique” the show of dreams. Fever dreams. And it was, it really was.

The off-Broadway cuckoo camp-fest at the Asylum in Chelsea is, by a nautical mile, the funniest musical in town right now and is built on an unsinkable idea: It tells the story of the 1997 movie “Titanic” using the songs of French-Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion.

As the captain, hilariously only referred to as Victor Garber, an Irish-inflected Frankie Grande bops through “I Drove All Night” as he pushes the doomed ship to go faster and faster.

The Unsinkable Molly Brown, played by Kathy Deitch, after surviving the tragedy, belts “All By Myself”: “Those days are goooone!”

The situation has become beyond bonkers by the time Jaye Alexander as the Iceberg wails “River Deep, Mountain High” in a neon blue flapper wig and forces the other characters to “Lip Sync For Your Lifeboats.”

‘Titanique’ the musical review: Off-Broadway ‘Titanic’ parody is what your summer needs
Johnny Oleksinski

HarperCollins Strike – July 20, 2022

More than 200 unionized HarperCollins employees are on strike today following months of contract negotiations, which began in December 2021 and which, they say, have not yielded a fair agreement for workers.

HarperCollins, based in New York City—where the median rent recently reached $4,000 a month—offers a starting salary of $45,000, and unionized workers make an average salary of $55,000. Employees are calling for a pay increase along with more family leave benefits, improved efforts to diversify the company, and “stronger union protection,” while currently working without a contract, according to a press release.

Employees are currently holding a picket line in lower Manhattan, where others have joined them in support.

HarperCollins workers are on strike today
Corinne Segal
Lithub

Shouting at the Screen – Comedian Wyatt Cenac and Musician Donwill

SHOUTING AT THE SCREEN
Hosted by Wyatt Cenac and Donwill. Come early for a DJ set by Donwill in Trees Lounge from 8-9pm.

Back in the days before live-tweeting, the only way to express your thoughts while watching a movie was to yell them out loud to the delight of your friends, and the disgust of some old people a few rows in front of you. Comedian Wyatt Cenac (HBO’s Problem Areas, Bob’s Burgers) and musician Donwill (Tanya Morgan, Adulting with Michelle Buteau & Jordan Carlos) invite you to join them as they recreate the kind of ridiculous, loud mouthed magic that is generally found in movie theaters owned by a guy named Magic.

Each show, Donwill, Wyatt and a guest will present a classic film from the wonderful world of 70’s era Blaxploitation and Black cult cinema. The hosts will be mic’ed up providing commentary, lovingly poking fun at some of these films’ more absurd and problematic moments while also celebrating an important bygone era of Black independent cinema, whether that’s sharing obscure trivia or creating drinking games to highlight a film’s surprisingly large number of wide brimmed hats.

Harvey Fierstein Interview – Village Voice

FP: After downtown celeb Harry Koutoukas’s apartment caught fire, in 1972, you authored In Search of the Cobra Jewels, a show about his attempt to help clean up the mess. You played Koutoukas. Your memoir recounts that Village Voice culture writer Arthur Bell “was arrested for holding another man’s hand as they crossed the street” from the theater. Progress has been made, but with record-breaking trans deaths and a Conservative backlash, are we moving backward on queer issues?

HF: I don’t believe it’s possible to move backward. We must allow each generation to find its way. What we see happening now with MAGA is the death throes of a generation that can’t stop progress. Conservatives want to move back to a time when they felt more comfortable. But that time is coming to an end.

FP: But there’s such a strident push to recreate the past.

HF: There’s a saying in the antique business—“You can’t go broke by selling people their childhood.” Hucksters are selling back to MAGA a picture of America that no longer exists. Think of it as the difference between weather and climate. The weather changes (MAGA arises) but not the overall (political) climate of ongoing, unstoppable change. That makes them all nervous.

FP: Hyperbole abounds while critical thinking skills evaporate.

HF: My “eBay theory” helps to explain. A postage stamp for sale is displayed in a 3-by-4-inch screen image. A Rolls Royce is presented in the same image size. Over time, Internet and social media technologies have us believing all things are equal.

FP: As in, my opinion is as legitimate as your evidence-proven fact?

HF: Yes. The idiot next door is a COVID expert because he says he is. If everything is equal, then what are critical thinking skills for? As the COVID pandemic progressed, we learned new ways to treat, what/what not to do regarding transmission. It’s a constantly moving target. What was true last month may not be true today, so we adjust our perceptions. We evaluate with critical thinking skills. Many have lost the ability to do that.

Harvey Fierstein Cleaned Off His Desk During COVID
The actor, playwright, and screenwriter talks about his memoir, sobriety, women in politics, and what’s next
by FRANK PIZZOLI