Fish Stories at the NYPL Mulberry St. Branch
We’ve been really busy soliciting recipes and stories for the Fish Stories Community Cookbook. In the past few weeks we’ve held workshops or shown up to talk with people at the Hamilton-Madison House Senior Center, the fishing clinic at the Lower East Side Ecology Center, the P.S. 184 Shuang Wen School Summer Carnival Fundraiser, the after school program 2 Bridges Kids! at Two Bridges Neighborhood Council, the Loisaida Festival, Family Day at the Vladeck Houses, Weinberg Center for Balanced Living at the Manny Cantor Center, a performance at Pier 42 by Arm of the Sea Theater and, most recently, held a seafood recipe exchange at the Mulberry Street Branch of the New York Public Library.
Wow, we’ve met a lot of great people and received many great recipes. Talking to people one on one is much more effective than directing people to the forms on our website for soliciting recipes, as you might imagine. At yesterday’s recipe exchange Judy Hiller-Schwartz gave me recipes for Gravlox with Mustard Dill Sauce, Gifilte Fish and ‘Jewish Style’ Halibut “Creole.” She also told me about her trials and tribulations starting up a business making knishs. A favorite place of hers to buy fish in the Lower East Side is Rainbow Fish in Essex Market and she suggested talking to Ira.
A very special thanks to Sherri Machlin, the librarian who helped to organize, promote and champion the event. She has a book of her own – American Food by the Decades.
Three walks for the Pier 42 City of Water Day Summer Celebration
On July 18th we animated some waterways in Lower Manhattan with some performative, experiential walks at Collect Pond, tracing the path of Old Wreck Brook to the East River through some interstitial and public/private urban spaces and then on to the ‘CSO theater’ at Corlear’s Hook.Paths to Pier 42: Summer Waterfront Celebration and City of Water Day
Saturday, July 18, 2-6pm
Pier 42
The 2015 iLAB Residency groups, Water & Im/migration and The Urban Backstage, invite you to Pier 42 on Saturday, July 18th, to join in the Paths to Pier 42: Summer Waterfront Celebration and City of Water Day. As part of the Waterfront Alliance’s larger City of Water Day celebration, Paths to Pier 42 will host an afternoon of family-friendly activities including the iLAND events listed below.
2PM The Urban Backstage: Collect Pond Park performance
Location: The performance begins at the southern end of Collect Pond Park
The first of three linked walking and talking performances about the city and its relationship to water. Visit the place where Collect Pond used to be, and imagine the city when it was the primary source of fresh drinking water and a place of leisure and escape.
2:45PM The Urban Backstage: Wreck Brook / East River walk
Location: The walk begins at Foley Square and ends at Pier 42
The second of three linked walking and talking performances: walk the trail of the former Old Wreck Brook from Foley Square to the East River exploring the links between natural and engineered water systems.
4PM Water & Im/migration: Shore of Hope – Part II
Location: Pier 42
Enjoy arts activities for all ages, including a calligraphy workshop, a choral performance by members of the Open Door Senior Citizen Center, and movement sharing to explore the themes of Water and Immigration (for ages 7 and older).
4:30PM The Urban Backstage: CSO Theater
Location: Starts at the Pier 42 welcome tent
The last of three walking and talking performances: travel from Pier 42 to the East River Amphitheater where ideas about what’s hidden–under our city, and in ourselves–take to the stage.
MFJ 61 is here
Amie Siegel. Provenance (still), 2013. HD video, color, sound; 40 min., 30 sec.
Millennium Film Journal #61, World Views, is out and it includes my review of Amie Siegel’s terrific video installation Provenance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Fluid Histories, Neighborhood Practices: Rehearsing a Changing Waterfront
We had a great time at this year’s iLAND symposium: Fluid Histories, Neighborhood Practices: Rehearsing a Changing Waterfront – a gathering around movement, science and the environment in New York City.
Our workshop, The Urban Backstage took people through a series of actions, spaces and prompts (or mini scores) to explore the boundary between performance and backstage, both within the urban landscape and infrastructure and in people’s everyday gestures and emotions. The final presentations of the movements generated from “rehearsing” the series of scores were fantastic.
In the photo of Eric Sanderson of The Welikia Project during his presentation at the panel he is gesturing at Collect Pond, one of our favorite topics.
Fish Stories Community Cookbook
We’ve been commissioned to do a project for Paths to Pier 42, the Fish Stories Community Cookbook. We’re collecting recipes, stories and drawings from residents of the Lower East Side plus ecological info about local fish and the East River Waterfront for a spiral-bound cookbook to be handed back to participants in October. We’re holding workshops and tabling at local events. The cookbook is meant to celebrate local cultures while activating a relationship with the incredible local estuary.
Public events at Pier 42 are May 9, July 18 and October 25. On May 9th we’ll be offering fish drawing for kids and be on site to talk about our project.
Fish Stories Community Cookbook website
Fish Stories Community Cookbook flyer
