Editor's Message From The Editor
The city and the country
It goes without saying that New York City used to be a different place. Throughout most of the 20th century, the rest of the country hated the city precisely because it was so unique—daring and dangerous, New York used to be the site of progressive politics, liberation movements by women, blacks, Latinos, and gays, and a constantly renewing intellectual and artistic avant-garde. For these reasons and many more, red state fundamentalists stoked the hell fires of resentment at the sinful city.
As just one, particularly memorable example, consider the torrent of abuse endured by Al Smith, the pride of the Lower East Side, when he ran for president in 1928. A popular radio evangelist aptly named John Roach Straton declared that Smith represented nothing less than the “forces of hell” emanating from New York City. To wit, these included “card playing, cocktail drinking, poodle dogs, divorces, novels, stuffy rooms, dancing, evolution, Clarence Darrow, overeating, nude art, prize-fighting, actors, greyhound racing, and modernism.” Give me Al Smith’s world over Straton’s any damn day.
Fast forward to the present and near future, and New York City is no longer reviled by the rest of the nation. In fact, the likely match-up for president in 2008 is Rudy vs. Hillary, two New York City-based media celebrities on a first-name basis with all the good folks in the heartland. One hardly expects to hear our city denounced by evangelist knuckleheads from Wichita, but I’m not entirely sure that this sea change in popular opinion is such a good thing. The rest of the nation, perhaps, now loves New York because the city no longer threatens its core values. Yet as the fundamentalists take over the statehouse in South Dakota and the Supreme Court, I think it’s incumbent on all of us free thinkers to make the city once again a laboratory of new ideas and political change—or at least a safe haven for all those who believe in novels, dancing and evolution.
The Rail is pleased to announce our forthcoming publishing partnership with Black Square Editions. Under the direction of John Yau and Phong Bui, Black Square/Brooklyn Rail Press will publish books of poetry, fiction, timely nonfiction, artists’ memoirs, art criticism and interviews. Stay tuned for more details…
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Hell is a Place on Earth. Heaven is a Place in Your Head.
By Kathleen LangjahrMAY 2020 | ArtSeen
As COVID-19 continues to proliferate throughout New York City, forcing all art institutions to remain closed to the public, museums and galleries have been scrambling to convert their programming to an online-only format. A standout example of this adaptation is P.P.O.W.’s current presentation, Hell is a Place on Earth. Heaven is a Place in Your Head.
William Hogarth: Place and Progress
By Daniel PatemanDEC 19-JAN 20 | ArtSeen
William Hogarth’s ‘Modern Moral Subjects’ have been brought together for the very first time, in the former residence of Sir John Soane. Loaned from institutions across the country, these paintings and engravings dramatize the grubby reality of 18th century London, while retaining a contemporary charge, despite their conception some 280 years ago.
New Leadership, and Work, at New York City Ballet
By Susan YungMAR 2019 | Dance
After many months under an interim leadership team of dancers who replaced the ousted Peter Martins, the company announced that Wendy Whelan, who retired from the company in 2014 after 30 years, will be associate artistic director, and ex-principal Jonathan Stafford—who had become the de facto leader—will be artistic director.
Joe Andoe: Jubilee City
By Eleanor HeartneyAPR 2019 | ArtSeen
Painter and writer Joe Andoe offers another glimpse into this alternate reality. In his 2007 memoir Jubilee City: A Memoir at Full Speed, Andoe draws on memories of an unsupervised childhood and drug-fueled adolescence in Tulsa, Oklahoma filled with car wrecks, petty crimes, and maniacal substance abuse.
