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Editor's Letter
"Terror Drills" along Fifth Avenue/Bryant Park, June 2004. Photo ©Brian Molyneaux.
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Send in the Clowns…
A dark cloud looms over the late summer horizon. Like it or not, the Republicans are indeed coming to town. At first thought, exactly what achievements they will be celebrating may seem elusive, but here are my speculations.
Perhaps they will celebrate their robust defense of the city and the nation on 9/11. Or the EPA’s comforting reassurances about air quality in lower Manhattan in the days, weeks and months after the attack. Or maybe the generous tax cuts for the rich that—in true Reagan-style—have been combined with massive increases in spending in order to produce a whopping budget deficit that will provide the rationale for slashing and/or privatizing any remaining social programs. Ok, this last one’s kind of complicated, so it’s more likely that they’ll simplify it to something like "we hate taxes!"
Surely the Republicans will celebrate the stirring success of their elective war on Iraq. Somewhere along the way they may even proudly admit that initially it was a war on the U.N. Maybe they’ll toast to the triumph of crony capitalism in Iraq’s postwar reconstruction. Or to the diligent intelligence-gathering that the do-gooder crowd prefers to call the torture at Abu Ghraib. You can bet that they will hoist a few to Iraq’s grand new sovereign government, even as they acknowledge—only to each other, of course—that in reality it’s just a good old-fashioned puppet regime.
And what will the convention’s host, Mayor Bloomberg, be telling his invited guests during this time? "Get away from me, Ralph Reed!" "I said ‘no photos!’" And "I know at least a couple of people in the Party who don’t want to bash gays!" To critics like Bill Dobbs of United for Peace and Justice, who rightly call him a "menace to the First Amendment," Mayor Mike may say, "So what? The G.O.P. doesn’t stand for the Bill of Rights—no, it stands for Grand Old Party!" Whatever he says, and whomever he throws a party for, you can rest assured that media observers around the city will still treat Mike as just a progressive guy who happens to belong to an ultra-reactionary party.
On the streets outside Madison Square Garden, as well as all over town, I suggest that the rest of us should celebrate one thing, and one thing alone—that we’re not inside the Republican National Convention.
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All of us at the Rail are honored to announce that Jonas Mekas has agreed to serve as our new Film Editor. He brings to us wisdom, exuberance, and a life-long love and respect for the art of making films and much, much more. Welcome aboard, Jonas!
--T. Hamm
Table of Contents
 LOCAL
RNC Turns the Screws on NYC
by Christian Roselund with Michael Carpio
Imagining a Different RNC
by Dan Bell
EXPRESS
in conversation: The Beast with No Name
The Corporation’s Mark Achbar and Joel Bakin
with Williams Cole
The Passion of Michael Moore
by Randy Bob Lewis
Rocks from the Sky: An Internet Hoax
by Rick Karr
in conversation: Jorge Ramos
with Hirsh Sawhney
The Continuous Decline of the West
by Norman Kelley
Liberals vs. the Left: Learning from Identity Politics
by Francois Cusset
Keeping Alive the French and Indian War
by Madeleine Baran
SPOTLIGHT
in conversation: Peter Lamborn Wilson
with Jennifer Bleyer
ART
Ed Ruscha
by Daniel Baird
Artseen: Stillman and Morgan, Chinese Photography and Video at ICP/Asia Society; Brennan, Tony Smith at Matthew Marks and Anish Kapoor at Barbara Gladstone; White, Sarah Beddington and Fritz Welch at Momenta; Stone, Andrea Fraser and Friedrich Petzel; Kalm, South Brooklyn Galleries; Longhi, Robert Ryman at Peter Blum; McAdams, Critics Choice at Black & White; Powhida, WMD at Front Room; Shrier, Janet Cardiff "Her Long Black Hair" in Central Park, The Public Art Fund; Buhmann, Ann Hamilton at MassMOCA; Cox, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art; Oistenau, Modigliani
in conversation: Christo and Jeanne-Claude
with Praxis
Agnes Martin
by Joan Waltemath
Larry Sultan’s The Valley
by Tessa DeCarlo
Hope Kurtz (1959–2004)
by Christina Hung
BOOKS
The Savage Glitter of Downtown
by Daniel Morris
Off the Shelves
by Bookstaff
(Roy, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire; Lanza, Elevator Music; Reed, Queen of the Turtle Derby; Park, La Cucarachas; McDonald, Installations and Self-Portraits)
MUSIC
The Archduke’s Revenge: Franz Ferdinand Takes Williamsburg
by Todd Simmons
TrebleLive Series
by Bethany Ryker
Drumfolk
by David Pleasant
DANCE
Still Falling for the Bad Boy: Mark Morris
by mj thompson
Dancing on the Rail
by Vanessa Manko
THEATER
in dialogue: A Poetics of Terror: Ken Urban
by Jason Grote
The Booth Variations
by Brook Stowe
on the radio: Splendor and Death of Porfirio Rubirosa
by Douglas Singleton
FILM
Los Angeles Plays Itself
by Michael Rowin
Ken Jacobs: Star Spangled to Death
by Jonas Mekas
Two Lone Swordsmen: Hero and Zatoichi
by David N. Meyer
In the Belly of the Beast: The Corporation
by Saul Austerlitz
Docs in Sight: Can Archival Footage Change the World
by Williams Cole
STREETS
The Brooklyn Admirals: Lacrosse in Brooklyn?
by Karen B. Song
The Dreamland Artist Club: Coney Island photos
by Andrew Hodges
FICTION
Never Again
by Doug Nufer
The Belly Dance
by Robert Pinget
POETRY
The Proteins
by Marcella Durand
four short poems
by Edmund Berrigan
Today We’re Going to Conjure a House
by Boni Joi
shortcomings
by Adam Pollock
LAST WORDS
Hank Thompson’s Blues
by Theodore Hamm
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Out now:
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Archives>>
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The Rail invites you to a reading with Jason
Flores-Williams and Brian Carreira, along with musical
guest Steve Strunsky of the Lonesome Prairie Dogs.
Thurs., Sept. 22, 8:30 p.m.
Vox Pop--Flatbush, Brooklyn
www.voxpop.net
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OFF THE RAIL FALL 2005 at the Central Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library - Grand Army Plaza
(718) 230-2100 in the 2nd Floor Auditorium
Tuesday, Sept. 13 from 7 till 9
John Ashbery
Leslie Scalapino
Tuesday, Oct. 18 from 7 till 9
Kenneth Bernard
Lynda Schor
Tuesday, Nov. 15 from 7 till 9
Diane Williams
Christine Schutt
Curated and hosted by the Rail's Fiction Editor Donald Breckenridge
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The Independent Press Association-NY recently honored The Brooklyn Rail with the following awards:
1st place: Best article about Immigrant Issues or Racial Justice--Gabriel Thompson, "One Immigrant's Journey" (September 2004).
1st place: Best article about the Arts*--Amy Zimmer, "The Brownsville Rec. Center" (April 04)
2nd place: Best article about the Arts--Brian Carreira, "Harlem Arts: A Faux Renaissance" (Dec 03/Jan 04).
2nd place: Best editorial or commentary--T. Hamm, "The Issue is Free Speech" (Dec 03/Jan 04).
3rd Place: Best Investigative News Story--Marjory Garrison, "Minimum Matter of Survival" (May 04)
Honorable mention: Best Investigative News Story--Williams Cole, "Housing vs. the RNC" (June 04).
Honorable mention: Best Original Feature--Yvette Walton, "My Life in the NYPD" (Dec 03/Jan 04).
Come to the Brooklyn Waterfront Festival.
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