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Showing posts from February, 2020

GHOST WALTZ, Volume 1: NYC, Acquainted With the Night, Photo essay by Diana Rivera

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Photo Essay. I love photography that begins where words  leave off.  This work is visual poetry, evoking feelings and sight  below the surface of consciousnes,  while showing what we think we know  in one moment of time. Begin this walk. This is an excerpt of a longer series to be savored some night. S.W. On a Darkened Night, SoHo 2018 GHOST WALTZ, Volume 1: "Acquainted With the Night" by Diana A. Rivera New York City's architecture is full of layers of history. Rabid development continues to destroy historical buildings at an unprecedented rate. My current urban photography series Ghost Waltz was born from searching for New York City's past eras before they vanish. This series explores different neighborhoods and their singular a t mospheres; Downtown’s gritty patrician buildings; Midtown’s unearthly heights; U p town’s broad swathes of recognizable yet hidden historical elegance. With influences such as Brassai ̈ , silent films and spirituali

Pulitzer Winner, THE SHADOW BOX by Michael Cristofer, a triumph at Regeneration Theatre

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THE SHADOW BOX by Michael Cristofer is a Pulitzer-winning play and justifiably so, since it takes on content as difficult as any life lived. This play's focus is on people preparing for the moment when death, abstraction and certainty, will arrive.  Not with the medieval figure in a black cloak carrying a sycthe but in a mythical enclave in California's poconos in the 1970s. In Regeneration Theatre's wonderful restaging, the scene's a mythic "summer camp" with cabins indicated by roofs of wooden triangles and walls with Birchwood branches (set Samantha Cancellarich) . Random furniture fleshes out interiors, though it's dwarfed by the heavenly feel of the invisible Poconos (Lighting Domino Mannheim) . Hikers exclaim about the clean air and difficulty finding the place, as they catch their breath in the clearing. Spirits are high, they might be on holiday but for the travelers they seek, who have already arrived. These loved ones have been told this

https://www.kindstory.org publishes short stories about extraordinary everyday exchanges

https://www.kindstory.org/ I have a story on this site, Caroline Leavitt has one featured that's very good. Site is a small way to counter all the reportage focussed on the reverse of kindness. Adds an experience people might not think about a lot, the exchange of small or large kindness. What does it mean? Anyway here's mine. Leavitt's worth reading on site. SW A guy sits in a folding chair that's chained to a traffic sign, reading. His gloved hands hold a shallow cardboard box containing a book. His hooded face leans down, totally concentrated; a private act on this popular downtown corner. His battered sign says he's in the beginning stages of a debilitating disease. Yet he has good color. His clothes look okay, his eyes sparkle behind thick glasses when he talks about books. A couple feet from his chair is a food wagon. Construction workers, arrayed on the sidewalk, wait for coffee, Danish, egg sandwich on a bagel.  I break the line with my water p