This week’s Village Voice has an essay by Mac Wellman on why he is hopeful about the state of theatre in New York. He mentions quite a few people I’ve written about here, and others I’ve seen but not written about. These include Anne Washburn, The Civilians, and others. One of the fascinating new groups he mentions was the one I told Paige West to check out when we had drinks on Friday: 13P, which Wellman describes thusly

13P (short for 13 Playwrights, Inc.) has just begun operations with a fine production of Washburn’s The Internationalist at the Culture Project, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll (who also directed Courtney’s Demon Baby). 13P is of particular note because it has been created by playwrights for playwrights on behalf of plays—playwrights who see no point in the whining endemic to the Theater of the Unproduced. Thus, each of the 13 will receive a full production before 2010, and each is expected to contribute manfully to the others’ shows. A fine and intelligent idea in this day of institutional blandness. 13P is made up of Sheila Callaghan, Erin Courtney, Madeleine George, Rob Handel, Ann Marie Healy, Julia Jarcho, Young Jean Lee, Winter Miller, Sarah Ruhl, Kate E. Ryan, Lucy Thurber, Anne Washburn, and Gary Winter. These playwrights remain unawed by the difficulty of pursuing an aggressively non-corporate, non-careerist path.

For more on 13P, check out these articles from The Brooklyn Rail and CultureBot.

We recently saw Anne’s play The Internationalist, having become huge fans after seeing her play The Ladies with The Civilians. The run for The Internationalist has ended, but I hope someone revives it. We saw it the last night, and they were turning people away. We thought it was brilliant, with an amazing cast. See the Village Voice review here. We took Anne to lunch on Monday to get a chance to just talk to her a bit outside of a “you’re great!” chat after a performance at a theatre.

Finally 13P has an interesting deal going right now — the Blind Optimism Package. For $180 you get 2 reserved seats for their remaining 12 plays, to be produced through 2010. We’re going to buy the tickets. If nothing else, it shows my hope that I won’t have to go into exile in Europe after the November election.

An oblong $175 million plaza, flanked by two 43-foot-tall arched gates and 56 granite columns, each holding a pair of bronze wreaths, surrounding an oval reflecting pool with fountains, it is the strangest, ugliest major memorial in Washington.

The new monument feels as if a Fascist architect had designed a food court for the Mall of America, and then accidentally shipped it to Washington, where it was installed on a 7.4-acre plot located on the National Mall between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

on artnet.com.

I’ve already posted my own (brief) comment on the thing.

Last weekend we met several people we only knew online before. On Friday, after revisiting the Whitney Biennial (more on that later), we ended the evening by meeting Tyler Green and Paige West for drinks at The Odeon. We dished about art and those who love it.

On Saturday night we went to dinner at Le Zie with the fabulous Nicole (aka Mac) of Go Fish and many other bloggers. I don’t know if I can go back soon without embarassment, as the attractive Lithuanian waiter was rather popular with some of the ladies. We spent most of the time talking with Nicole, Dana, and Kate. Some photos: here and here.

We picked up a gouache and graphite on paper work by Kevin Christy from his Monya Rowe show:

My recommended openings for today are:

Synapses – group show at Florence Lynch Gallery including William Crow

The Cave and the Island – Group show at White Columns featuring eight Canadian artists

I didn’t realized there was actually a book that uses that horrible neologism “misunderestimated” as a title. When I mentioned it to James, he said, “that sounds like a drag queen!”

There really is a book, titled Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry, and the Bush Haters by a “reporter” for the Rev. Moon-owned Washingon Times.

Hear that sound? It’s the sound of all of our IQs plummeting.

More on the man who cannot speak can be found here. Also an article from The Observer gives us a choice quote from Karen Hughes:

“I remember one time he had mispronounced one of his words,” she said, looming over the podium. “It was not the time he said ‘subliminable’ or ‘strategery.’ This time, it was ‘misunderestimate.’ He said it three times, so I kinda had to point it out to him.” She paused to let the friendly laughter wash over her. “The same morning, he had called the terrorists ‘folks.’ And it fell to me to say, ‘You know, Mr. President, uh, these are trained killers, I’m not sure you really want to be calling them ‘folks.’”

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UPDATED: Here is a nice quote from Condoleezza Rice:

I think that anybody who misunderestimates this president is going to have egg on their face in a few years. People ought to go back and look at Harry Truman, because that’s another president who was misunderestimated.

Brenda Fassie, the South African singer, has died at the age of 39. At some point in the 90s I heard of her and bought a CD. She had a great voice, and a difficult life.

Most people reading this have probably never have heard of her. For several reasons I tend to pay attention to South Africa and its culture. One reason: James lived there eight months in the 70s. Another: we know people from South Africa, such as Gary and Lisa who run Axis Gallery. I think I have always found it an amazing, inspiring story — the end of apartheid without total civil war. I realize it’s still far from perfect, but it is a more hopeful story than one of bombing people into “liberation.”

I remember the 1990 parade for Nelson Mandela in lower Manhattan. At that time I was working on the 100th floor of 2 WTC for Lehman Brothers. Only one person in the whole office left to join me to watch the parade.

Here is an MP3 (5.6MB) of Brenda Fassie’s Sgaxa Mabhanthi (Maestro Mix). Amazon has some of her CDs.

In Chelsea:

Jim Richard at Oliver Kamm.

Kevin Christy at Monya Rowe in her new Chelsea space on 26th Street.

I don’t think we’re likely to hit Williamsburg as well, but if we could, we would also go to Jerry Kearns at Jack The Pelican Presents.

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UPDATED:

I forgot to include one other opening in Chelsea: Marco Boggio Sella at John Connelly Presents. He is in the same building as Monya Rowe (10th floor while she’s on the 5th), so take the elevator to the 10th floor and walk down if the elevator is slow.

Thomas Locke Hobbs manages to snap a photo of a hawk with its pigeon prey.

Ave, 2000
lithograph with collage, 68/230
Kiki Smith

Good things come to those who go to art benefits. The Momenta benefit operates as a raffle — you pick a work among those remaining when your name is called. This time we had three tickets, and one of those was drawn first. We chose the Kiki Smith work pictured above. We also got a painting by Joey Kotting and a mixed media/collage work by Michael Cambre. It was one of our best experiences ever at such an event.

Tomorrow (Wednesday May 5) we’re going to Groundswell‘s benefit. Tickets are $100 or 3 for $250 for the art raffle, or a minimum of $15 to go to the party. You get to a good party with a cool art crowd, and it’s a good cause. Groundswell brings artists and members of a given NYC community together to create a permanent mural in their neighborhood. More info on them is here.

Go see SplitStream (April 30-May 1 at 7pm) at Dance Theater Workshop. It includes Ann Liv Young, of whom I’ve written before, Jonathan Berger, and Antonio Ramos. File under the theater side of “dance theater”, with a heavy emphasis on ‘’Lordy, what was that all about?’’ We loved it.

Go to Momenta‘s benefit, held at White Columns, on Saturday, May 1. It’s one of the great art bargains in the city – a raffle of great art works for a $175 ticket. We’ll be there, so don’t pick any of our favorites if your number gets drawn sooner than ours.

Go see Joe Ovelman at Oliver Kamm, closing tomorrow. Check out the review by Holland Cotter in today’s NY Times. It sounds like he’s wondering what Joe’s up to, but whatever it is, he likes it.