Tuesday Night in Long Island City: Live at the Gantries presents Kimati Dinizulu Organic Duet at Gantry Plaza State Park

This evening we took the G train four stops to Court Street and then walked a long way through the very pretty Hunters Point section of Long Island City to see and listen to the great African music of the Kimati Dinizulu Organic Duet at the stunningly beautiful Gantry Plaza State Park.

This was part of the park's Live at the Gantries Tuesday evenings, which is, according to the website,

a series of free, outdoor performances featuring some of the borough’s most celebrated entertainers, from site specific modern dance to Afro-Peruvian pop, from traditional Chinese theater to anarchic street brass marchers, there is something for people of all ages.

Live at the Gantries starts Sunday June 14 and continues every Tuesday from June 23 through August 18. Every show starts at 7 o’clock and ends with a spectacular sunset at Gantry Plaza State Park, a 2.5-acre waterside oasis between 49th and 50th Avenues along the East River.

We're embarrassed to admit that although this neighborhood is about half an hour away - getting off at Court Street, we probably should have taken the 7 train back one stop to Vernon Boulevard/Jackson Avenue just before it goes into Manhattan to avoid the long walk - we hadn't been there ever.

Nor did we ever suspect that this neighborhood was so appealing or that Gantry Plaza State Park is such a hidden gem. Quite simply, it's the most beautiful waterside park in all of New York City, and that's saying a lot.

We really couldn't shake the feeling that we'd died and gone to paradise as we walked through what seemed like an idyllic setting, like something out of GM's utopian Futurama ride at the 1964-65 World's Fair.

Here's something from the park's website:

Gantry Plaza State Park is a 4-acre riverside oasis that boasts spectacular views of the midtown Manhattan skyline, including the Empire State Building and the United Nations. Enjoy a relaxing stroll along the park's four piers or through the park's manicured gardens and unique mist fountain. Along the way take a moment to admire the rugged beauty of the park's centerpieces - restored gantries. These industrial monuments were once used to load and unload rail car floats and barges; today they are striking reminders of our waterfront's past. With the city skyline as a backdrop and the gantries as a stage, the park's plaza is a wonderful place to enjoy a spring or summer concert or to enjoy the Macy's Fourth of July fireworks display.

As a New York Times Streetscapes article observed,

Anyone who grew up with the mid-20th century parks of the Robert Moses variety may weep on walking through Gantry; it's not that the Moses-era parks were so bad, it's that Balsley's inspired design shows how little extra it would have taken to make them so much better. There are four new finger piers reaching out into the East River. One, the most southerly - it's called the fishing pier - has a stainless steel fish-cleaning table in the shape of an amoeba. It also has a 100-foot-plus-long wooden slat bench, a "wave bench" that rises and falls through its entire length like mid-ocean swells.

Another pier is called the stargazing pier, with soft lighting and, screened from the shore lights, reclined seating - "stargazer chaises." The park goes down to the shoreline, and it is possible to pick your way through the wild grasses and washed-up timbers to poke a toe in the water - a possibility unthinkable half a century ago.

The two float bridges at Gantry have been painted and spruced up, with big red letters spelling "Long Island" legible from across the water. Neither bridge has its original decks with rails, but on one the great, bolted steel hangers extend all the way down to a new wooden deck - but from the side it is obvious that the hangers do not support it but are just tacked on. . .

At Gantry Plaza State Park, the spiffed up ironwork and fresh paint seem in accord with the spacious, open-sky site, partly raw industrial landscape and partly the two handsome neo-1940's apartment houses put up in recent years at the adjacent Queens West development.

There are more buildings now than when that appraisal was written, and more people, too. In a conversation with our dad in Arizona, he asked us what kind of people were in the park. We'd probably say affluent-looking people of all races.

The show had just started when we arrived. Although we enjoyed walking through the neighborhood, we were a little sweaty, as it was a warm and humid night. The peaceful rhythms of the music, along with the waterside breezes, the splendid view and the lulling sounds of the water moving against the shore when we went onto one of the piers and watched the performers from the back, soon blissed us out.

Especially by the water, we felt like we did during our last massage at a day spa.

Kimati Dimizulu is a well-known Ghanaian musician, long familiar to New York audiences. For example, twenty years ago, he closed the Celebrate Brooklyn! 1989 summer performances. He's also worked with Judith Jamison at the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and performed at the 2000 production of for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. He's a composer as well as a performer and has hosted TV specials on Kwaanza and African music.

We wish we'd learned the name of the extremely talented man who played the sax and other wind instruments so beautiful. It was the perfect compliment to Kimati Dimizulu's persuasive percussion.

Here's the promo material from the Live at the Gantries website:

Renowned drummer Nana Kimati Dinizulu makes a rare Stateside appearance with an intimate show. The study of drumming and African culture is a lifetime process for Dinizulu. His encyclopedic knowledge of drums, percussion, and the art of drumming comes from his worldwide travels and studies of the music of other cultures as well as his heartfelt love for music and learning.

Whether performing for dignitaries, patrons, students or children, the high-spirited music of Dinizulu is always completely infectious. His presence, positioned over his eight-foot carved drum with numerous other instruments hanging off of his body is one of the most fascinating images in contemporary music.

Here is a rare drum solo, taken in Japan in the 1990s, of Nana Kimati Dinizulu:

And here's Kimati Dinizulu & His Kotoko Society performing live at the Congo Square stage at the New Orleans Jazz Festival:

There was a quiet but celebratory mood among the crowd. At one point, we plunked ourselves down on the clean concrete close by, next to a mom and dad and two little boys out in their pajamas and slippers.

The only thing we regretted about going to this evening's wonderful performance was that it ended at 8 p.m. But we'll back at the gantries for sure.

Sunday Night in Central Park: Summerstage presents CineFest Brasil & "Se Eu Fosse Você 2" at the Rumsey Playfield

Tonight, on the spur of the moment after the rain had stopped and we suddenly felt like going out, we headed for the Rumsey Playfield in Central Park for SummerStage and CineFest Brasil's showing of Daniel Filho's comedy Se Eu Fosse Você 2 (If I Were You 2), which turned out to be an unexpected delight.

We'd been inside all day, nursing a sinus/ear infection and lying around Dumbo Books HQ. Even when the rain stopped, well, it felt like one of those days. But around 7:30 p.m., we thought we'd feel better if we got out of the house. So we headed to the Rumsey Playfield where the Central Park SummerStage events take place.

We haven't gone before partially because we felt the crowds must be very large and perhaps the wait might be long and we might not even get in - but we figured it would be easier tonight with all the day's rain and it being Sunday.

We took the L and 6 trains to 68th Street/Hunter College and were a bit waylaid watching a brother/sister (super's kids) play "hit the penny" on the sidewalk of East 68th Street between Park and Madison. We used to play that in Rockaway during summers in the 1950s and early 1960s and hadn't realized anyone still played "hit the penny." They had a Spaldeen or a good imitation of one, too.

Going over to Fifth Avenue, we started remembering the summer of 1966, when we were 15, and we worked as a volunteer/intern/whatever for the Parks Department in the Lindsay administration, when New York was "Fun City." We worked in The Armory, for a brilliant young administrator and wonderful man named Courtney Callendar, who we excitedly told our parents would probably be the first black President of the United States. Sadly, this great man died young - or at what seems young to us now, at 47 - but there's the Courtney Callender Playground, named for our beloved boss, at Fifth Avenue and 130th Street in Harlem.

Anyway, here is the scoop on tonight's event from SummerStage:

In this Brazilian-themed night, there will be a screening of If I Were You 2 (Se eu fosse você 2), a popular Brazilian film directed by Daniel Filho, and a performance by Silvia Machete. The natural born carioca is renowned for her trademark little red dress, twirling hoops and sensuous guitar work.

And the press release from Cinema Fest Petrobras Brasil:

Between August 2nd and 7th the most cosmopolitan city of the world will get dressed in green and yellow, when the Inffinito Group presentation of the VII Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil – New York brings the best of Brazil’s most exciting new cinema to the Tribeca Cinema. New York audiences will have the opportunity to experience such films as the internationally acclaimed “Romance” and “In Therapy,” winner of Best Feature Film award at the 13th Brazilian Film Festival of Miami earlier this June.

The opening night of this traditional summer event will once again kick off on Sunday, August 2 at 7:00pm with an extravaganza at Central Park’s SummerStage with a concert by leading singer/entertainer/acrobat/pin-up Sílvia Machete, followed at 8:00pm by a screening of Daniel Filho’s comedy, “If I Were You 2,” the most successful film in the history of Brazilian Cinema.

Sílvia will perform songs from her latest release, “I’m Not a Saint,” in a show that mixes music, circus and theatre performances. At last year’s kick Opening Night event, over five thousand people partied through the day and night, and proved that Brazilian culture is undeniably contagious and wildly fun. It was an opening night to be remembered…until this one, of course!!!

Then for the next six days and nights, the Tribeca Cinema will host five daily screenings showing the best of Brazilian filmmaking, all of them eligible for the 2009 Audience Award.

Among the highlighted films being screened during this annual festival are: the documentary “Simonal – Nobody Knows How Tough It Was,” directed by Cláudio Manoel, portraying the life of the famous 70’s singer; Director José Alvarenga Jr’s, comedy “In Therapy,” deals with the pleasures and challenges of modern life; Actress Letícia Sabatella makes her debut as a co-director with screenwriter Gringo Cardia in the documentary “Hotxuá”, a poetic view of the Indian tribe Krahô, a very smiley group that chooses a high priest of laugh; internationally famous cinematographer Walter Carvalho presents his latest film as a director, “Budapest”, based on the homonymous book by Brazilian singer Chico Buarque.

Many of the filmmakers and cast from the VII Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil-NY film presentations will be in New York to attend the festivities and participate in q&a sessions following the films. The VII Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil-NY is an official event of the Brazilian government, is part of New York’s cultural calendar and is supported by the US government.

We missed Silvia Machete, unfortunately, so have to settle for the YouTube version:

Next time we'll try to be on time. When we got to the Rumsey Playfield, the green tarp or whatever it is on the ground was pretty sodden from the day's downpour, with brown puddles that we had to avoid. There was a good sized crowd, and as we got there a bunch of them were running from their seats in the audience to, we think, qualify for a free trip to Brazil or something equally great, at a booth.

Soon the film was introduced. Since we weren't a VIP, we had to stand, and we figured we'd stay only a while, assuming the movie would be kind of dopey, but it was actually very well-done and quite funny, even though it portrayed very stereotypical gender role models.

According to Variety,

Vet helmer Daniel Filho's "If I Were You 2" was designed to be a local summer hit, extending the joke of a couple who get to know each other better by switching bodies, but before its opening Jan. 2, not even those close to the project could have forecast what was about to happen.
The comedy sold more than 6 million tickets, the highest admission level for a local film since 1978. The B.O. reached a record-setting $23 million, more than any other homegrown pic in Brazil's history.

Thanks to "IIWY2," the total B.O. for local pics in the first quarter of this year jumped 117% over the same period in 2008, boosting Brazilian-made pics' share in the total market to 23.8% in the quarter, up from just 13.3% for the same period in 2008.

Anyway, we ended up staying for the whole thing, moving around a bit when someone with seats in the bleachers in the back came over and said we were blocking people's view of the subtitles. It's a nice, breezy, inoffensive and pleasantly diverting comedy with excellent comic actors.

On the 6 train coming home, a trio of young people with Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil brochures were talking excitedly in Portugese. We usually can make out about a third of what people are saying, something we noticed in 1984 during our humorous run for President when Globo, Brazil's largest TV network, wanted to tape us "campaigning" in midtown Manhattan. Several Globo people, including the reporter and videographer, were on the elevator with us, and we had to interrupt them to say we could understand what they were saying about us. They laughed embarrassedly.

We aren't afraid to be embarrassed in front of Brazilians, even when talking to strangers on subways, so tonight on the train we turned to the guy sitting next to us and his friends standing in front of us and said, "Tony Ramos [sic] simplesmente é um ator fantastico. Sensacional."

After that we nodded a lot.

Saturday Evening on the Upper West Side: Hudson Warehouse presents "Hamlet" in Riverside Park

This evening we went to the Upper West Side, four blocks from where we spent every summer and several autumns from 1983 to 1990, to the north patio of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument at 89th Street in Riverside Park.

There we tremendously enjoyed a sprightly, fast-moving production of Hamlet put on by Hudson Warehouse in its sixth season as "The Other Free Shakespeare in the Park."

Of course, there are by now a bunch of other free Shakespeares in New York City parks (and parking lots and other locations), as these articles in the New York Times and Daily News attest.

We've already seen the Piper Theatre's Hamlet in Washington Park, and while the Hudson Warehouse's Hamlet will end tomorrow night (if it doesn't rain Sunday) and they're starting a new production later this week of Midsummer Night's Dream, we've already seen a version of that comedy from the Continuum Company at Von King Park, with more Shakespeare, including Dreams, to come.

So, if as the Times says, "is crawling with melancholy Danes," what made tonight's production in Riverside Drive special? A lot.

We left Williamsburg at 5:30 p.m. and took the L train to the A train to 59th Street and then the 1 train to 86th Street, our old stop. But there was no time to go by our old digs at "Red House" (350 West 85th Street, near Riverside Drive) as it was getting close to the Hudson Warehouse starting time of 6:30 p.m.

We got there on the dot, and the play started on the dot. Approaching the top of the steps at the monuments' north face, we saw an actor in costume just ahead of us, and heard the first line of the play, "Who's there?"

The Ghost of Hamlet's father, and other characters in the tragedy came through the audience on the levels of steps, making their way miraculously fluidly through a sometimes narrow path of people sitting in rapt attention (as well as drinking and eating picnic food from Zabar's and elsewhere).

Directed by veteran Nicholas Martin-Smith, the production's staging and acting were uniformly first-rate. Sadly, we missed being there when programs were being passed out, and once we made our way to the first level and managed to find a corner of the concrete to sit cross-legged, the play was underway and so we were envious of our fellow audience members who kept looking to see who was responsible for an especially good performance in which role. [Updated August 18: the Hudson Warehouse folks have kindly emailed us a PDF of the playbill so we've revised this post to include the actors' names.]

After the play, following our donation to one of the actors passing the hat around - the actress who effectively played Gertrude [Kathrin Kana], reminding us of a controlled, tight-smiled Hillary Rodham Clinton, we looked for a program in vain - even in the trash cans on Riverside Drive. At home, we looked in vain for a cast list online. So we're sorry we can't single out by name anyone.

Hamlet was mostly played by an intense, handsome young actor who seemed to possess a sense of absurd humor we'd never seen before in this major role. (Yesterday WNYC's Sara Fishko had an amazing eight-minute "Fishko Files" segment featuring different approaches to the role of Hamlet, ending with the "To be or not to be" monologue with alternating lines from numerous famous actors' interpretations.)

We say "mostly played" because this Hamlet had a doppelganger, which confused us at first. The main Hamlet wore a dark sports jacket and a hipster-like V-neck white T-shirt, but there was another guy, also in a dark sports jacket but a black round-neck T-shirt and a more brooding and sober look. He appeared onstage sometimes with Hamlet, off to the side or nearby, and spoke parts of the monologues.
Then there was a tripleganger (made-up word), a mustached, more solid, stolid-looking guy in a colored sports jacket and shirt and tie. We have been unable to find any actual reviews of this production (a shame! because there's no way we are doing credible drama criticism here, as we're not equipped), so we'll just tell you that the debating multiple Hamlets we took to be various sides of the character. To be simplistically psychoanalytical: id, ego, and superego. Or whatever tripartite division of human character there might be. [The three Hamlets were Tyler D. Hall, Chris Behan and Michael C. Freeland.]

This worked exceptionally well, as did the melange of different costumes, from current outfits to the chain-mail garb of the dead king. Claudius [Joe Hamel] and Gertrude's outfits look like today's standard-issue politician suits; the wonderfully effective Polonius [David Palmer Brown]- pompous, dithering, and apparently suffering from acute allergies and constantly blowing his nose, wore almost clownish formal tails and sometimes carried an umbrella (like the Penguin in Batman).

Hamlet takes off his jacket and gets his T-shirt filled with blood after killing Claudius; later, when he escapes his sea adventure and death at the hands of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are played effectively for mordant laughs by a duo [Matt Fraley, Lenny Ciotti] who are dressed and behave like boorish college frat boys, Hamlet is wearing a kind of dashingly romantic pirate attire. He and Laertes fight their final battle - in the dark (there's no artificial light as far as we can tell, so that's why the play had to begin at 6:30 p.m.) wearing undershirts, and Hamlet eventually takes off his, revealing a cross around his neck and a large imperial (Danish?) tattoo on his back.

Ophelia always strikes us as a problem role, but the Hudson Workshop Ophelia [Christine Grenier] was one of the most effective we've seen: girlish and prim and silly all at the same time, and devastatingly effective in her mad scene, played in an undone bathrobe with one of her (simulated) naked breasts carelessly exposed. It was a great choice to have the herbs she gives out ("rosemary for remembrance," etc.) to the horrified others and takes herslef not be flowers but pills from a prescription bottle.

With minimal scenery, splendid use of the steps (alerted by the 10yo kids on the ledge by us, we found we could look through the little columns by our "seat" and see the actors' "dressing room" off to the side, but we preferred not to see them preparing to go back onstage, not wanting to spoil the wonderful illusion of theater), a uniformly intelligent cast made the play move surprisingly quickly, especially since this production, unlike the Piper Theater's, seemed to leave the play mostly intact without any shortening.

We could go on and on about what a great production this was. The triple-play most famous monologue was done excellently, with a deliberate false start/rehearsal on the part of one of the Hamlets; the Player King and Player Queen [Tim Mullins, Carrisa Cordes] did the most effective, and comic, interpretation of the play within the play we'd ever seen, with two rival hammy actors trying to upstage each other; and overall, the production emphasized more than any other we're familiar with how ha-ha funny a surprising portion of Hamlet can be.

It was uncomfortable, frankly, to sit cross-legged or in lotus position most of the play (we were able to move up to the steps after someone left), and stuff (pods) occasionally fell from the heavily-leaved trees (we noticed a lot of the audience in front of us had green bits in their hair); there was competition to the actors' clear diction from planes in the LaGuardia flight pattern and M5 buses chugging their way up and down Riverside Drive. But we didn't mind; the play kept us intrigued throughout. (And once the sky darkened, and the play moved inexorably to its mass death conclusion, the fireflies around us seemed to be an integral part of the action.)

And we got the thrill of having the formally-dressed ambassador and Fortinbras, in combat garb, come through the audience and stand almost next to us at the play's end. Along with everyone else, we gave the terrific cast a huge round of applause.

Hopefully they'll get more sophisticated criticism than we can provide and someone will post pics of the production not taken from so far away with a crappy cell phone camera. The fine Hudson Warehouse deserves many accolades for this wonderful production.

We decided to walk across West 89th Street from Riverside to Central Park West, mostly to recall the 1965-66 school year, when we first came to this neighborhood to attend tenth grade at The Franklin School, which was at 18 West 89th Street and had been there since 1912, forty years after the school was founded in 1872.

In that building with the red doors, we read some great books for the first time: in Mrs. Youman's literature class, the novels of Sir Walter Scott, Fielding and Defoe and the plays of Racine and Corneille; in Andres Ramos's Spanish class, the beautiful Platero y Yo by Juan Ramon Jimenez; and Seamus O'Hanlon, our great English teacher, let us do book reports on John O'Hara's Pal Joey and Aldous Huxley's proto-hippie Island.

We also remember the session with our headmaster, the legendary M.C. Spahn, when he told us no student had given him so much trouble since Truman Capote. His son Stephen Spahn, a fledgling young teacher back then, is now chancellor of The Dwight School, which merged with Franklin and now occupies 18 West 89th Street, not far off Central Park West.

The next year we transfered to Midwood High School closer to home, but that year was our introduction to the Upper West Side and a different kind of people than populated the furthest boondocks of southeastern Brooklyn.

Did we mention we first read Hamlet here?

Thursday Night in Williamsburg: SummerStarz movie "The Incredibles" at East River State Park

Tonight we stayed in Williamsburg and walked over to East River State Park for the Summer Starz free movie, The Incredibles.

There was a surprisingly small audience of families with kids, young couples, a few hipsters (including mommies and daddies) and a few of us oldsters. But as the sun set and the river breezes cooled us off, it was a really nice, intimate, pleasant way to while away a midsummer night.

The movies that they're showing at Summer Starz are all kid-friendly, from animated ones like tonight's The Incredibles or Babe or Wall-E. Next Thursday is Bend It Like Beckham. According to the postcard we picked up one morning at the Greenpoint Starbucks, the Thursday events start with a children's hour at 6 p.m. (tonight, for example, Rock City Theatrics, a Williamsburg kids' theater workshop, was scheduled) and then live music at 7 p.m. (tonight a Staten Island band Fenix Down, which we've seen described as red-state hard rock with a video game feel) but we didn't get to the park until after 8 p.m., just a few minutes before the movie started.

There were some families at picnic tables, and the kids near us came back to the table with hot dogs, telling their parents, "They're free!" There was free popcorn as well. We moved around a little but mostly sat on one of those little concrete parts, maybe 18 inches high around the perimeter of the concrete. Some families were watching from picnic blankets on the grass to the side.

SummerStarz 2009 is sponsored by Town Square, which says on its website that it's

a volunteer community-based 501(c)(3) organization in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, two neighborhoods experiencing dynamic changes. Founded in 2005, our mission is to build a vibrant community and enrich the quality of our lives through activities that inspire creativity and imagination, teach respect and cooperation, and celebrate the joy around us.

This is the fifth year of SummerStarz, which was previously held in McCarren Park. The big sponsor is The Edge, and the woman introducing the evening's film gestured to the towers looming over the south side of the park. Before the movie, we got to see this ad for the condo on Kent Avenue:

We first saw The Incredibles soon after it opened, on the weekend after the 2004 election when John Kerry lost to President Bush and we lost our race against Florida Republican Congressman Ander Crenshaw. We were living in Davie, Broward County, Florida, and we saw it near our apartment at the AMC Ridge Plaza 8 on State Road 84 off I-595. It made us feel better than and we enjoyed it tonight. A.O. Scott, putting it on his ten best list for 2004, called it "[a]n almost-great movie about the dangers of mediocrity, and a drama of midlife frustration cleverly dressed up as kid-pleasing action fantasy."

The generator on the truck to the side made some noise, but we could hear the action (whenever there were words or subtitles - from a French-speaking villain in the movie, there were Spanish subtitles). The film stopped dead once - "a small glitch, also known as an 'oops,'" said one of the presenters - but it started up where it left off after about seven minutes. (Still, a bunch of families with sleepy kids took that time to leave.)

It was a pleasant evening, and the view of the river, the skyline, the planes and boast going by, made for a nice atmosphere.

Back when we lived in Florida, we went to the movies nearly once every weekend for a matinee back when it cost us six dollars. There were some great theaters in Broward County, mostly the Gateway in Fort Lauderdale and the Sunrise 11 closer to where we lived in West Broward, that then played lots of art, indie, foreign and gay-themed films.

Here in New York the last three years, because of the high prices and our more limited income, we have only gone to regular movies twice. We miss it, but New York offers us other pleasures, and we get to go to a bunch of free screenings from the wonderful School of Visual Arts, where we teach writing and literature to photography and animation major.

We miss going to first-run movies.

(Painting by Mikayla Butchart)

On Monday evening at the amazingly excellent McNally Jackson bookstore in Soho, we'll be reading our piece "The Forgotten Movie Screens of Broward County" from the recently-published anthology Life As We Show It: Writing on Film, co-edited by Brian Pera and Masha Tupitsyn.

Joining us will be Masha and Donal Mosher, the talented Portland-based writer/filmmaker/photographer, who will read from his essay on the making of October Country, which he co-directed with Michael Palmieri and which just had its international premiere at the Locarno Film Festival.

October Country, which documents the multi-generational story of Donal's working-class family - won the SILVERDOCS Sterling Award for best US Feature last month. “We have chosen a film that has resonated with us long after we viewed it,” the Sterling Award Jury said of October in a statement. “It is a film that is subtle and intuitively creative while presenting important social issues in a surprising way.”

We hope you can come to hear us read at McNally Jackson on Monday at 7 p.m.