Do you love cats or dogs the most? I think it depends on whether you want to adore (cats) or be adored (dogs). Some lovebugs need both.
Here are a few reasons why we love the warm furry creatures of both species.
Let’s Start with Cats!
Andrea’s Bruce in Santa DisguiseAndrea’s Dickie got into the Christmas punch
Tess’s Joan is a classic beauty, aloof and mysterious
On the other hand…
Tess’s Benny (named after Benny Hill) lets it all hang out!
Bruce’s Bengal, Punky, is a gorgeous woodsy cat.My dearly departed Donald (named after Donald Duck) was a city cat—he liked going out on the town in my high heels.
Everyone knows that country cats earn their keep.
Kat’s Lincoln guarding the harvest.
Lincoln’s sister, Princess Peaches, is equally alert.
Dogs Have Their Own Appeal
For example, they can keep you company when you’re working on a jobsite.
Toby the Terror takes a moment to model while Kat transits a site to make sure it’s level.
And then they come home with you and help you chill after work.
Kat’s Rocco after a long day.
Dogs are more likely to have cute friends come to visit.
Rocco’s friend Toby the Terror. He just finished ripping apart the living room.
Some dogs have amazing fashion sense.
Dorothy’s Luther sporting ostrich feathers at a photo shoot.
Then Again
Some people prefer wild cats to domestic.
Val and Garry’s bobcat.
Or they prefer to dress as animals themselves.
After Leopard night at the National Arts Club. That Zebra is toast!
It’s hard to choose, but I think cats are smarter…
This October was chock full of chameleon-like shenanigans all over town.
I costumed for three photo shoots, celebrated at a combination Halloween-birthday party, and attended a 50th anniversary party at the National Arts Club.
I had the chance to become five different people, in addition to everyday Karen!
Harry Potter
Marilyn Monroe
Madcap socialite
Punk rocker
Film noir star
I hope you enjoy this recap.
It’s a Harry Potter Halloween on the Upper West Side.
Dorothy Bishop‘s Halloween show at the Triad Theater was a gas. I loved dressing in drag as Harry Potter. I started reading the series in August, and was psyched to represent Hogwarts on stage! Jessie and Andrew are a deviant dogcatcher duo, and Shawn is the marvellous MC.
Two Marilyns – Amy and me in Chelsea.
There’s a statue of Marilyn Monroe outside Chelsea Guitars on West 23rd Street. I dressed as Marilyn for my October Karen’s Quirky Style column, but Amy rocks the Marilyn look every day!
Standing on the brass rail at the bar, do it! In the West Village.
This is an outtake from a music video I’m working on called “Let’s Do It, Let’s Do Our Nails,” about a socialite who is obsessed with doing her nails all over town. The server at Bar Six looked on, horrified, and moments later told me to put the nail polish away.
Thirties glamour at the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park.
And finally, I was honored to attend Linda and Ralph Zagaria’s 50th anniversary party at the NAC. I knew this gorgeous gown by Engineered by Andrea T would be perfect for the occasion, as Ralph and Linda are living embodiments of the gracious era between the wars.
I learned this tip from my building’s porter. I had some artwork that was taking up space in my closet, and I wanted to give it away to free up both space and energy.
I couldn’t find a buyer, so I was getting ready to bring the artwork to a donation site, but couldn’t get a cab. Jose was putting trash by the curb, and said that if I put the artwork with the trash, someone would take it and put it up in their living room. He had seen this happen with couches, wood furniture, art, and all kinds of household items.
So I stacked one piece on either side of the pile of black trash bags. It was a freeing act, to give up control and let the universe take over. Both pieces had been displayed on the hallowed walls of the Salmagundi Club, and now they were just material objects devoid of the “art” status, broken down into the component parts of wood and glass and paper.
Spank Me, taken at the NYC Pride Parade 2019.
I went to my piano lesson with a lightness in my step. When I came back an hour later, both pieces were gone. Jose thought the man in the white van that was parked by the curb had taken them. He is clearly a discerning art collector!
I wonder where they are now. I hope their new owner is enjoying them. And I like not knowing their fate.
One thing I love about New York is the constant surprises. I woke up Monday morning with no idea of what the day had in store. I read the NYT and stumbled on the fact that Slick Rick was playing at a free Hip Hop concert in the Bronx. I lucked out and was able to get a ticket for the very same day, and plotted my first ever journey to Orchard Beach.
A latecomer to hip hop, as I described previously, I learned a lot about its history at the concert in the Bronx. Hip hop’s beginnings in 1973 are traced to the rec room of DJ Kool Herc, at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. DJ Kool Herc invented hip hop and unleashed it on the world on August 11 at his sister’s birthday party, when he played his “break beat” using two turntables with the same record on each, to extend the most danceable drum section of the track.
I was excited and extremely moved to be at this inaugural NYC Homecoming Week free concert in the Bronx, where hip hop began. It seems all the hip hop pioneers from the Bronx performed. I felt so lucky to be there hearing these master artists spin and scratch their beats, rap their rants, and drop their knowledge.
DJ Hollywood (the ur-hip hop artist from Manhattan, who is reputed to have coined the term hip hop) kicked off the show with rhymes to please. He got the crowd dancing from the first lick on his turntable.
DJ Jazzy Joyce was the only female headliner who performed. Remy Ma was also on the bill but didn’t appear, to the disappointment of more than a few fans. But I really dug DJ Jazzy Joyce, one of the most prominent female rap DJs in America, and a producer on New York City’s radio station Hot 97. Born in the Bronx, she has also worked under the name Sweet Lime Pie.
The crowd was mostly over 40, and probably over 50. Folks who were actually around in the 80s and, as some proclaimed, late 70s, and were there at the birth of hip hop. Obviously a very cool crowd. I was surprised when the audience started booing one of the performers. Most of the acts had a 10-minute limit, and one guy just didn’t want to get off the stage so he launched into a raunchy rap, proclaiming he was a sex star. You wouldn’t think it would be possible to rhyme with something even ruder than anus, but he did it. Folks in front of the stage booed and shook their head and yelled for him to stop. I guess there are limits, and the crowd was there for a family-style concert. I liked that.
Headliners KRS-One (Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone) and Slick Rick capped off the night, followed by a grandmaster jam that Busy Bee hijacked to end the music in the true spirit of hip hop battle rap. Slick Rick didn’t come back onstage for the final jam, and KRS-One dissed him for showing up at the event in a green car that matched his green outfit and eyepatch. Burn!
Busy Bee buzzed around the stage all night, in fact. He did his own set and kept popping up again, ready to battle and relive the glory days. Born in the Bronx, he started in 1977 and was in the first battle royale, one of the most infamous battles in history, against Kool Moe Dee.
In addition to the freaking amazing hip hop performances that made me dance non-stop for six and a half hours, another highlight was when New York State Senator Jamaal Bailey freestyled with brother politician-rapper, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.
U.S. Senator of New York and Democratic Party Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer talked about saving the birthplace of hip hop, and making it a National Place of History. Schumer declared August 11 as National Hip Hop Appreciation Day (this is legit–he passed a resolution on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and Congressman Jamaal Bowman passed it in the House). He presented a plaque to Rocky Bucano, founder of the new Universal Hip Hop Museum, located at 610 Exterior Street, the Bronx.
Manhattan-born Mayor Bill de Blasio showed us that you don’t have to be from the Bronx to throw your X up! The Bronx is back!!
Inextricable from hip hop, maybe, is graffiti art. Artist TatsCru, featured at the top, did live art throughout the concert.
It was an astonishing day. Can you imagine?! Waking up thinking I’d probably spend the day writing on the computer. Instead, I saw over a dozen Hip Hop legends, state senators, mayors, and the DA! I love NYC!!
P.S. In case you haven’t figured it out, throw your X up means you love the Bronx. XXX
This is the piece that the Salmagundi Club selected to include in their most recent open exhibition.
It was a great honor to have my work on display at this venerable institution, which happens to be a mere long block from home on Fifth Avenue. This exhibit on Cityscapes was mostly a love affair to New York, although there were also a few caresses of Venice and Paris. It was a passionate show, illustrating why we all love New York so much.
In addition to the physical exhibit, the Salmagundi Club lists my work on Artsy. Of course, if you are interested in purchasing this picture, you can also reach out to me directly.
The thing I missed the most during the pandemic was live jazz. From that fateful day in March 2020 when New York City shut down, until May 2021, when the city tentatively began to reopen, no jazz clubs could have live audiences.
Smalls on West 10th Street already had a solid tradition of streaming live jazz around the world since 2007, so they were able to keep this going during most of the pandemic. They shut down on March 16, 2020, but resumed streaming live jazz on June 1, 2020. This was a tremendous gift to homebound jazz fans around the world, but it’s not the same as the magic of being in the room.
Fast forward through a dreary year to June 2021. When I heard that Smalls was open again, my heart raced with joyful excitement. I rushed to buy tickets, and was delighted that one of my favorite jazz artists, Wayne Escoffery, was playing on June 4, a Friday night. I texted my friend Tess, and she was instantly on board the jazz train with me.
It was a thrill descending the familiar carpeted staircase with the 90-degree turn at the bottom. Even before the show began, there was ecstasy in the room. The rows of chairs had been spaced out a bit, with small tables for each pair. (Room capacity was still reduced at that point.) Everyone in the room was vaccinated.
Introduction. Applause. The first saxophone note piercing the air. No worries, just the joy of giving and receiving, playing, listening, grooving. Magic! The band was ecstatic, the audience was ecstatic, and a love affair happened down in that jazz-steeped basement room.
Playbill
WAYNE ESCOFFERY QUARTET
DOORS OPEN AT 6:30 PM
SMALLS
06/04/2021
Wayne Escoffery / Tenor Sax
Dave Kikoski / Piano
Ugonna Okegwo / Bass
Mark Whitfield Jr / Drums
I am so excited to have my artwork exhibited again at the Salmagundi Club. The theme of the exhibit is Cityscapes.
Stop by the exhibit from June 6 to June 24, 1 to 6 PM (5 PM on the weekend). The Club is at 47 Fifth Avenue at West 12th Street.
Bikes on MacDougal Street by Karen Rempel.
I submitted four pieces, and one was chosen for the Cityscapes exhibition. Here are the other three. I want to save the chosen entry as a surprise for you to see when you visit the gallery, so I’ll put the selected artwork up after the exhibit closes.
Hanging art by Shradha Kochhar, hand spun from Kala Cotton, a miracle crop native to India that sustains completely on seasonal rainfall.
I was strolling through the West Village on a sunny Sunday when I happened to go by Donna Karan’s Urban Zen Center on Greenwich Street. There was a sign outside the exhibit space next to the store that said “Exhibit closes today.” Of course that made me want to go in!
The exhibit was called Emerging Fibers, and showcased the Parsons School of DesignMFA Textiles 2021 Graduate Exhibit. One of the artists, Shradha Kochhar, gave me a tour of the exhibit and described the methods and meaning of the textile artworks. I was incredibly impressed with the complex, intricate, beautiful work. Many of the pieces expressed the inextricability of the personal, familial, and political.
Uyen Tran’s “Mother Shield”
This dress is made from a sustainable material called TômTex. It’s a biobased material made from mushroom or seashell waste and coffee grounds. Designer Uyen Tran aims to establish a complete system of viable, biodegradable materials with zero waste and zero pollution. I would definitely wear this dress!
Hongci Hu created this underwater world from a collection of biomimetic E-textile artworks. She says these soft-robotic-individuals are chatter of conscious thoughts, raising awareness of how beautiful nature is and what we can learn from it. Certainly her crocheted creatures delight and inspire the desire to protect our underwater landscapes. See Hongci Hu’s playlist for more about her work.
I was delighted by the creative outpouring of these fresh, hopeful souls who came to New York to develop their capacities to offer their gifts and vision to the world. Kudos to all of the graduates.
Slick Rick in green eyepatch and monster rapper medallion at Orchard Beach, the Bronx, August 2021. It’s time for Hip Hop in NYC.
I think of myself as a latecomer to rap and hip hop, but last September New York Magazine printed “The City and the Beats: 100 songs that tell the story of New York rap.” It took me a few months but I listened to all 100 songs. I was sorry when I got to the end of the list. Hip hop had become part of my soul.
The Wu Tang Clan’s C.R.E.A.M (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) and Slick Rick’s licks were a couple of my faves on the list that I dial up again and again. Slick Rick’s Children’s Story (1989) and La Di Da Di* (1985) just caught my fancy and I loved this London-born nasal-toned pirate with the biggest bling necklace on the planet.
Here were my other 10 top faves from the list of 100. Click this KQS NYC Beats playlist if you need a lift to your spirits and dance like it’s 1989.
M.O.P. – Ante Up (Robbin Hoodz Theory) – 2000 Broolyn armed
Run-DMC – It’s Tricky – 1987 love it! Obviously a big influence as evidenced by many** who came after.
Salt-N-Pepa – Push It – 1987 this was a cross-over hit that I saw on Much Music in Canada. The dancing, the balls, the rapaciousness. Like I wish you would! And I have to add Shoop – even hotter, and filmed at Coney Island.
Beastie Boys – No Sleep Till Brooklyn – 1986 big surprise for me – I thought they were white wannabies, but they can rap, finishing each other’s lines with a metal backbeat. This one is obviously an homage to Motörhead’s No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith, and Slayer’s Kerry King is guesting on guitar.
Big surprise, most are from the 80s, when I was a metal head. But I guess it’s the era we come up in that creates the music that stirs our soul.
** I still have the 45 of Funky Cold Medina (1989, Tone Loc), which I used to bring to the biker bar in New Westminster, Rockin’ Tonight, and force the DJ to play 5 nights a week!
