Posts from Hudson Park Library

Yesterday I went to the independent bookstore Bluestockings for a reading of Lisa Darms' The Riot Grrrl Collection with Johanna Fateman, Ramdasha Bikceem and Molly Neuman.

While I was sitting in the audience I thought about my first encounter with the Riot Grrrl movement. I was thirteen years old when I first heard the song Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill. After hearing that song I knew I wanted more. It lead me to other bands like Bratmobile, Sleater-Kinney, The Gits, Heavens to Betsey, Le Tigre and Team Dresch. Soon after I got into the zines associated with the movement. The music and the literature provided me with a different way of thinking about beauty and 

I have been anticipating for a long time the arrival of the cicadas that were laid as eggs in the year 1996. I can still remember the wall of white noise that their parents produced 17 years ago. Most people complained that it sounded like a jet engine revving up for takeoff but to me it sounded like a gorgeous and intricate symphony.

Make Music New York is a live, free musical celebration on June 21, the longest day of the year. From 10 in the morning to 10 at night, public spaces throughout the five boroughs become impromptu musical stages, dance floors, and social meeting points.

Raymond Chandler did not spend very much time in the Village but he did check into the residential hotel, The Grosvenor, 35 Fifth Avenue, in the spring of 1955 and stayed for a short while.

He also wrote this in a 1954 letter to Hamish Hamilton about imagined neglected authors:

Hart Crane lived for a time at 45 Grove Street (he more famously had an apartment with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge) and his birthday is July 21.

Clement Clark Moore is credited with writing one of the most famous poems in the world, "Twas the Night Before Christmas," also known as "A Visit from St. Nickolas."

This was probably one of the largest engagements fought in the American Revolution. No larger battles occured in the United States until the Civil War. Yet, there is a surprising paucity of books concerning this pivotal event. Why is this so? Monmouth certainly gets mentioned in every history of the Rev War, but in-depth studies are scarce. William Stryker wrote a full length history many years ago, and while its comprehensive, the author's bias is decidedly slanted toward the patriot cause. Stryker does provide a more detailed description of the battle, but with some unfortunate errors. In particular noting that the British attacks upon the Hedgerow and elsewhere were in 

Mary McCarthy is eminently quotable, so I'll let her speak for herself. June 21 is her birthday and she lived at 16 Gay Street.

Mark Van Doren edited and published An Anthology of World Poetry in 1929. Amazingly, this enabled him to buy the house at 393 Bleecker Street. Van Doren was a poet himself and a playwright and a greatly admired professor at Columbia University.

William Styron, like many Greenwich Village writers, came from somewhere else, in this case North Carolina.

June 11 is his birthday and he spent his early writing career living at 45 Greenwich Avenue.

Here are two quotes from Sophie's Choice:

Someday I will understand Auschwitz. This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz.

Von Steuben has been a figure of pop Revolutionary War mythology for too long. This excellent 2008 bio places him firmly within the context of the 1700s. With family connections close to the Hohenzollern Monarchy, Steuben should have been placed to rise pretty high in the Prussian officer hierarchy. He saw active service in the beginning of the Seven Years War and witnessed the bloodshed of the first heavy battles of the war at Prague in 1756. He saw further service commanding Free Batalion Mayer, a unique command that subsequently suited his future employment very well in America.

You still have time to read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace before Hudson Park's next book discussion on Saturday, June 9, at 10:30 a.m.

John Cheever lived at 61 Jane Street when The New Republic published his first short story. His birthday is May 27.

Here are some words from the writer:

Joseph Brodsky was a Russian poet, born in Leningrad, who became the American Poet Laureate in 1991. He lived at 44 Morton Street and his birthday is May 24.

Lorraine Hansberry lived at 337 Bleecker Street. Her birthday is May 19.

A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. Here are some quotes:

Katherine Anne Porter's 1962 Ship of Fools was the best selling novel of the year and assured her financial security. She is generally more admired for her shorter works, however, such as Pale Horse, Pale Rider and her collections of short stories.

Archibald MacLeish was the Librarian of Congress from 1939-1944 as well as an accomplished poet and dramatist. Not surprisingly, he was a huge advocate for libraries. 

I read Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities years before I moved to New York, back when I wrote for community newspapers in my home state of Delaware. Jacobs wrote sensibly, without pretense. She observed things closely, and drew logical conclusions. She obviously cared about her subject passionately, but her arguments were not emotional. They were deductive. I admired Jacobs tremendously.

May Sarton lived a little bit out of Hudson Park's area at 42 E. 11th Street, but still, close enough. She was a poet, novelist and memoirist. May 3rd is her birthday.