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| Editor's Letter A Rail Milestone This is the 25th print issue of the Rail. Such an occasion may prompt one of the following responses: "Dat right dere is a helluva lot of pages"; "Cool, but I still wish I could find it on a regular basis"; "That’s all well and good, but there are far more important things happening this fall." Or it may elicit no response at all. For our part, we are pleased to celebrate how far we’ve come, and ready to move on to further destinations. Over the past few years, many folks have plugged us in print—especially the people at Utne, as well as Holland Cotter, Jerry Saltz, and Mac Wellman—and we’re grateful to all of them. But rest assured that there are naysayers as well. Nattering nabobs of negativism—to borrow a phrase from Spiro T. Agnew—are out there ready to shoot us down, and I would like to take issue with some of their more scurrilous assaults. For example, consider one reaction to a very fine story we published in both English and Spanish by Constanza Jaramillo Cathcart ("Myriam’s Revenge"/"La Venganza de Myriam," May 2004). An unmarked envelope contained only a torn-out page of the Spanish version of the story. On it was scribbled "Dear editor and Cathcart, Take this page and stick it up your ass. I don’t read Spanish." Neither, apparently, does this bloke read English, as the translated version appeared on the adjacent page. In any case, I say "el mundo habla español, el mundo habla ingles," and so on, so deal with it. Just the other day, we received a similarly hostile missive, this one declaring that "the pages of The Brooklyn Rail are just OVERRUN with visual art created by young black/latin men and/or by non-white women" (emphasis original). Now, if bigots don’t like the Rail, then we’re definitely doing something right. Obviously, I would be creating a strawman—and a racist one, at that—if I were to suggest that anyone who doesn’t like us shares such benighted views. My hunch is that there are those who also object to the Rail’s refusal to tow anyone’s party line, be it political, artistic, or stylistic. To this I would say that unlike the city’s current mayor, we believe that freedom of speech and expression is a Constitutional right, not a "privilege" held by some and not others. In that spirit, we’re happy to publish views that we disagree with—indeed, I can assure you that there are opinions put forth in this issue that neither I nor any of the other editors share. To find them, just keep reading. And thanks most of all to you for that. * * * In this issue, we are pleased to welcome some more stellar new additions to the Rail’s staff: the novelist and provocateur John Reed (not the one buried in the Kremlin) is our new Books editor; Priya Jain is our new assistant Books editor; and Gregory Zucker is on-board as the assistant editor of our Film section. We’re all set for another 25 issues, and then some! —T. Hamm Table of Contents  RNCA Home for Elephants? New York City and the Republicans by Williams Cole RNC—a Schedule of Events Mayor in the Middle by Theodore Hamm Republicans: A Prose Poem by Eliot Weinberger LOCAL One Immigrant’s Journey: Chasing the Dream in NYC by Gabriel Thompson In re Atlantic Yards EXPRESS Are Heterosexuals Worthy of Marriage? by Michael Parenti Beggars’ Banquet by Paul Mattick The Strange Odyssey of Pierre Mac Orlan by Andy Merrifield SPOTLIGHT Isaiah Berlin and Meyer Schapiro: An Exchange ART Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective by Daniel Baird Artseen: White, Curious Crystals of Unusual Purity; Buhmann, German Drawings and Prints from the Weimar Republic; Stillman, Karel Funk; Karapetian, Six From the Seventies, Evidence of Impact; Shrier, Counter Culture; La Rocco, Darren Bader; Longhi, Yeardly Leonard; La Rocco, Bush League; Brennan, Joanna Pousette-Dart; Johnson, Field: Science, Technology, and Nature; Kalm, Margrit Lewczuk; Mekas, DoDo Jin Ming; Powhida, Seeing Other People Railing Opinion by Dore Ashton Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance by Megan Heuer in conversation: Rackstraw Downes with Phong Bui A Tribute to Leon Golub (1922–2004) by David Levi Strauss, Clayton Eshelman, and Phong Bui Unbroken Kilometers by John Hawke BOOKS On Michael Lally by Hirsh Sawhney in conversation: Brian Kim Stefans with Mónica de la Torre in conversation: Matthew Sharpe with Erinne Dobson Off the Shelves by Bookstaff (Foer, How Soccer Explains the World; Amerika: How Russian Writers View the United States; Ugresic, Thank You for Not Reading; Isegawa, Snakepit; Raffel, Pure Pagan How the Other Half Lives (web exclusive) by Miriam Parker MUSIC The Thing Itself: The Gram Parsons Tribute Project by David N. Meyer The Rebirth of DJ Spooky by Ellen Pearlman Let the Wave Wash You Over by Grant Moser DANCE The Art of Pure Movement by Rebecca Stenn Dancing on the Rail by Vanessa Manko THEATER RNC: Fight or Flight by Brook Stowe Siting: Six Nights in September by Jason Grote in dialogue: Quincy Long’s People Be Heard by Justin Boyd in conversation: Diane Torr and Rebecca Patterson by Sonya Sobieski Real People in Crisis: Bushwick’s Youth Theater Struggles by Douglas Singleton A Williamsburg Neverland: Straight on ’Til Morning by Emily DeVoti FILM Gillo Pontecorvo’s Burn! by David N. Meyer Telling Time: Essays of a Visionary Filmmaker by Gregory Zucker Docs in Sight: Republican War History by Williams Cole Two Memories of Alexander-Sasha Hammid by Jonas Mekas TV Notes from The Fun Factory by Douglas Cordell POETRY Epistle to Ignatz, Ignatz Incarcerated, Afterwards Ignatz by Monica Youn from Imaginary Journals by Dan Machlin FICTION Deadline by Jonathan Baumbach Elude by Leslie Scalapino Thumbs Up by Peter Spielberg A Visit; Nest by Jessica Treat Untitled by R. M. Berry |
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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 |
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The Independent Press Association-NY recently honored The Brooklyn Rail with the following awards: |