My friend, the fantastic New York photographer Philip Maier, has just released a fascinating book about Union Square.
Phil’s photos capture the past 20 years of New York history in this focal point of Greenwich Village. His artistic vision will touch you with humor, joy, grief, sadness, and his tremendous love of the city and the resilient, creative people who live here.
Scroll down Phil’s webpage to a link to download the book for free. Phil also gives you an option to donate to a charity if you wish.
If you want to purchase a photo from the book, don’t be shy about reaching out to Phil. He’d love to hear from you.
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
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.
Iconic opening shot from Norman Lear’s All in the Family—a show that captivated us the entire decade of the 70s
“Boy the way Glenn Miller played…,” the man sang through his open Pontiac window. “I know what you’re doing!” He yelled, as he sailed past the graveyard and pastel-colored rowhouses.
I was standing in front of a tidy, light blue rowhouse with an American flag planted in the front yard and a year-round wreath on the door. Signs gave a personal greeting of welcome to visitors. This is one of the most famous houses in television history. Can you guess the show?
All in the Family was the background track to my formative years, running weekly right through the ’70s and taking me from childhood through puberty. It showed the turning of the times, and my family was following similar themes. I’m pretty sure my “Old Country” patriarchal father identified with Archie’s authoritarian approach to running a household, while my mother was younger and didn’t take to being called Dingbat. Which my dad did try to lay on my mother, more than once…
The Bunker house at 89-70 Cooper Avenue, in a triangle where the Queens neighborhoods of Glendale, Middle Village, and Forest Hills converge. Though Archie often identified his address as 704 Hauser Street in Astoria, Queens.
As ground-breaking as it was, I didn’t know that at the time. I did know that the consciousness-raising and changing awareness the show depicted seemed utterly natural. It informed my nascent world view, and has percolated through the years as a compass showing the way forward to equality. An interesting fact I just learned on Wikipedia is that Sally Struthers was dissatisfied with how static her character Gloria was, and sued to get out of her contract in 1974. As a result, her character began to grow in subsequent seasons. Life informing art!
This house is archetypal. The image is burned in our collective brain. I used to drive through neighborhoods in Vancouver looking for rowhouses like this.
So this show had an incalculable impact on me personally, but also of course on society as a whole. It expressed the Zeitgeist, and ranked number one in the Nielsen ratings from 1971 to 1976, becoming arguably one of the most influential comedic programs of all time, and certainly of that decade.
St. John Roman Catholic Cemetery with sun smiting the gravestones
When I first came to New York, I wanted to see the iconic house in Queens shown in the opening credits. But it is quite a trek to 89-70 Cooper Avenue. So I didn’t get around to making the journey to Glendale via the M train until February 21 of this year. Covid was in the air, and I felt an internal pressure to see the things in New York I’d been meaning to see before it was too late. I felt that life as I knew it was drawing to a close. There was so much uncertainty politically and with this new virus. I was considering returning to Canada, so on a cool, sunny Friday, I took the M train to the end of the line.
This definitely feels like the burbs. Bushes, parking lots, drive-throughs… And a link to Canada (Toronto Dominion bank).
It felt great to break out of my routine and see a part of New York I’d never been to. Though the show was set in Astoria, the opening credit scene of the camera panning over a row of houses was filmed on Cooper Street in Glendale. Both are neighborhoods in Queens. That image had been burned in my brain and represented something powerful about a way of life and an era, but also of my girlhood and a more innocent time.
Middle Village, Queens, on Cooper Avenue, with the graveyard behind
I didn’t know what to expect, but the neighborhood near the M train station was def the burbs. Small businesses, low buildings, a sense of space and openness. The route along Metropolitan Avenue led through a large graveyard, and I looked with interest at the names and dates on the stones…
Most of the older names in the graveyard are Polish and Italian. This is the Italian section.
At the far side of the graveyard I came to Cooper Avenue, cutting off at a bit of an angle. There was a business on the corner, which I scarcely noticed, and then a small lane, and then the famous row of duplex houses. 89-70 was the second row house. I began to cry as I stood in front of it. Though Google maps says it’s just a 27-minute drive from where I live in Manhattan, in my inner map it is both much closer and much further away.
DIY Car-4-Sale in Middle Village, Queens
It’s all bound up with countless family dinners in the house I grew up in on Portland Street, in Burnaby, BC, and our ’70s living room with black-velvet flocked wallpaper and orange and green velvet furniture. All the emotions of that time, and a father who is now deceased and forever out of reach. And a mother who is no longer a beautiful young blonde, but a woman in her 70s (still beautiful in a different way) with arthritis and cataracts, who just had a stroke.
Grimaldi’s – The New York Slice
It was quite a long trip, and it seemed silly to just turn around and go home again after a few minutes of singing and being sung to at the Bunker house. I walked back to the corner and noticed a pizza place. The sign said Open, though the place had a bit of a deserted, disarrayed air to it. I walked in and there were tables pulled out blocking the aisle, and I didn’t see a soul.
“Are you open?” I called out. A woman hurried to the door and said, yes, they were just cleaning the windows. The slice is a New York tradition, so I asked her if I could get a mushroom slice. I thought it would be like most pizza places, with some premade, precut pies.
But she yelled, “David!” and a young man came up to the kitchen from the basement. To my surprise, he started building a single-slice-sized pizza just for me. The place was called Victoria G’s Pizzeria, and I found out that this is the latest store opened by the famous New York pizza family Grimaldi’s. Wow, what a fortuitous day!
Colorful ceramic bunny captivates customers at the counter at Vicky G’s
There is no such thing as a hole in the wall, in any corner of the five boroughs, it seems. Every inch of the city is connected to history. I hadn’t heard the story before, but the owner Patsy Grimaldi (Victoria G is his daughter) learned to make pizza at age ten at Patsy’s Pizzeriea, his uncle Patsy Lancieri’s restaurant in Italian Harlem in 1941.
Victoria, for it was she, the eponymous owner, told me tales of the family’s Pizza Wars tangles with other pizza empires while the pizza baked in the coal oven and I sipped on high-end organic specialty white tea. Victoria was a talkative sweetheart, and she gave me another teabag to take home.
Frank Sinatra impersonator JJ Burton, David Grimaldi, and owner Victoria G.
Meanwhile, another guy came out and resumed work on cleaning the windows. This was none other than Frank Sinatra impersonator JJ Burton, who performs every Saturday night at Vicky G’s. He warmly invited me to come back the next night to hear his tribute to Sinatra and other classic rockers. Geez what a nice bunch of people.
And OMG, this was the best pizza I’ve ever tasted! Look at this shape. Completely unique. I’ve never seen anything like it. They use a judicious amount of a home-made mozzarella that’s divine—less chewy and more creamy than the usual. The herbs are heavenly. A smear of tomato sauce, just enough to add some zing. And then a handful of thin, fresh mushroom slices. I don’t eat pizza often so it is always a special treat, but this was something else. A glimpse into a better world!
This custom built single slice is enough for two meals! And so yummy.
It is especially poignant to recount this trip to you now, as this was one of the last carefree days in New York, about a week before our first recorded case of Covid-19 on March 1.
Boy the way Glenn Miller played. Songs that made the Hit Parade! Gee our old La Salle ran great. Those were the days…
We’ve all been missing the sounds of New York bustle. The streets of the city are eerily silent these days, as non-essential activities falter and we cross the road to avoid six feet of contact. If you need your fix of New York noise, from Coney Island to Times Square, check out this YouTube playlist of one-minute soundbites: Another New York Love Affair: Audio Meditations.
The bottom photo is a video still of “New York Love Affair #11 – Times Square Busker.” The top photo is the same shot of the street scene today, with the US Armed Forces Recruiting Station in the background.
The emptiness in Times Square is enough to make a person cry. Though many of my New York friends are starting to adjust to the empty streets and enjoy the spaciousness.
With “The Pause” ending soon as New York began Phase One of re-opening, we’d better take the opportunity to visit all the spots that are usually hopping busy, while we still have a chance! Personally, I can’t wait for the new improved al fresco dining experience that will be taking over the streets of New York.
When I sold my 160-acre ranch in British Columbia, I thought I would never see Starshine Valley again. But my new friends (new at the time—now they are old friends!), Gary and Val, invited me to house-sit for them while they went on a long trip to Scotland. My art project Warhol in the Forest was born as a fun surprise for their return.
I subsequently wrote about my love of the Campbell’s Soup can, and keep coming back to this theme. The idea of bringing the Warhol project to New York’s Central Park has been simmering in the pot of my brain for a few years now.
Finally, this past Sunday, it was time. It turned out to be a special day, as you will see. Here is the result, my newest art project, “Warhol in the Park.” The original project entailed 28 images—the number of cans of Campbell’s Soup in Val and Garry’s cupboard. This time I’ve upped it to a nice round 30.
Our heroine humbly begins her journey here, on the shelf at CVS. The price in Vancouver in 1999 was $1.19 to $1.69.
Oh boy, the park! First a bite to eat. I was sitting on that shelf a long time.
Now a drink of water.
Aw, such cute friends. They gave me a good sniff, and now they’re ignoring me.
Good view from up here.
Transported to Paris.
I wonder if the park will ever have the budget for repainting.
WWI Mayor Mitchel, this is a beautiful, if unexpected, memorial.
Jigsaw puzzle perfect.
Ah, resting in a gnarly bole.
Hey, looking good! Well thank you, Mayor of Central Park.
What’s going on over there?
It’s the New York Marathon!
Protectors of the realm.
While the cat’s away…
No wait, there’s someone in there. Oops.
On the grid.
This is just so unexpected. An ancient urn with a bull in the forest.
A spaceship? No, it’s the Guggenheim.
Sun is setting in the park.
To the rescue.
I feel like I’ve been running forever. But it’s only 1.5 miles. Or is that 3.08? What the heck does this mean?
Ghostly night runners probably know what it means.
Art inside and out. The Seated II, bronze statue by Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu.
Where did everybody go?
Warhol Splash
Time for a splash. OK, I’m done. Taxi!
Home James, on the M2 down Fifth Avenue.
Thank you for joining us on our day in the park. This 121-year-old can is good until July 18, 2021. She’s going to have some more adventures before the casserole.
I revere Anna Wintour and Vogue magazine. ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ is my favorite vacay movie. But just to cut through the idealization, this time I’m going to take the piss and show how style translates from haute couture to proletariat.
Highlighter hues as seen on the celebs in Vogue.
I ripped this page out of May Vogue for inspiration, when I was in Paris checking out the style in the Fashion Capital.
When I got back to New York, I spotted these highlighter hues everywhere! Taking it to the street…
Delivering laundry & multitasking on the phone.
Strolling on the street with a soda. Girl in foreground is in highlighter pink.
Waiting for the subway at Penn Station, phone in hand. Woman on the bench is in highlighter yellow too.
Unloading a truck on Sixth Avenue.
So you see, you don’t have to be rich and famous to dress like the stars. Just color-match and you’re there!
My NYC block – 6th Avenue and W. 12th Street – moon, Jefferson Market tower, One World tower
July 2018 marks the 10-year anniversary of this blog. I well remember the conversations in 2008 with my friend John Harper, who suggested I start a blog to become the go-to person for ecopsychology. I had just finished my master’s in this subject, and he was encouraging me to share insights about the interdependence and connection between humans and nature. We evolved in nature–part of, not separate from–and when we lose this connection, we get crazy. With over 50% of the world’s populations living in cities now, we are losing our connection to the natural rhythms and cycles of life. I felt passionate about helping people reconnect to wild nature and our inner nature.
I was living at Monkey Valley at the time, and started the blog with a few stories of things that happened on the land, like the entry “An August day at Monkey Valley,” as well as the entry below that, “Wild Women Run”–a landmark moment in my life when I stepped outside of my boundaries to expand into my bigger potential.
Me and my family at Monkey Valley, August 2013 – Kat, me, Kim, Mom, Eli, Alex (missing: Kirsten and Kurt–love you guys! I’m pretty sure Geoff is taking the pic–love you too!)
During the past 10 years a lot has changed in my life (and a lot is still the same). The most obvious change is that I live in the wilds of the West Village of New York now, not the BC wilderness. During the past 10 years this blog has ranged over many subjects as my interests and experiences have unfolded. I found it wasn’t in my nature to keep the focus on one topic (ecopsychology) and be the go-to person for that subject.
Topics have ranged to cougars, pedicures, yoga, running, spirituality, photography, New York City, David Bowie, and much more. One pretty constant thread has been running, which has been my passion and sanity go-to for over 20 years. When I ran the NY Marathon in 2016, in honor of David Bowie, I pushed myself to finish it and vowed I was willing to pay the price. That price is that I’m currently on hiatus from running, while I heal my neck and knee injuries. This has led to a healing journey with other great gifts and no regrets. But I’m a little sad to say that the wild woman doesn’t run much these days. Instead, though, I attend the most kick-ass Barre 3 classes on the planet!
Posing with Giacometti statue at the Guggenheim museum, August 2018
Never stop exercising! I say this to anyone who might be reading this blog today–keep your brain and heart healthy by exercising 6 days a week, for at least an hour a day. Just do it! This is the single most important thing you can do to love yourself and live a happy life.
So, lecture over, I invite you to enjoy these two retro articles from the first year of this blog.
I started the day with a walk up to the top gate at the north corner of Monkey Valley. It takes about 15 minutes to walk up there from the house. The driveway goes past the spot where a faster pitched her tarp a few weeks ago, and just as I meandered by this stretch of dirt road, cup of tea and cell phone in hand, I startled a deer who quickened her pace up the hillside. I wondered if it was the same deer the faster saw, and felt her spirit on the land. As I followed the road up the hillside I heard red-tailed hawk calling out his raspy high-pitched song, and saw him high on a dead tree’s branch. I called back, and we spoke back and forth a few times until he grew tired of the game and flew away to a further tree.
The digital valley
I was walking up to the top gate to get a really strong cell-phone reception for the 7:45 am meeting I call into every morning. Since Telus switched from analog to digital cell signals, the signal doesn’t bounce as far and I don’t get consistent reception down in the valley where the house is. It makes for a more peaceful time here, not having a phone ringing throughout the day. But it also makes me feel like nobody wants me! Anyway, these work meetings give me a great reason to get out early in the morning to see what creatures are wandering around.
Lizard woman
After the phone call I had breakfast on the porch overlooking the creek, with wild raspberries from the bushes growing around the house. Lunch on the porch too, watching birds in the willow bushes, and wondering who was scurrying around under the porch. Chipmunk, it turns out. Afternoon coffee on the top balcony outside the master bedroom, for a view of the reddening woods. The temperature was 41° C this afternoon (106° F)! Beautiful hot summer heat. I took a break to lay in the sun for about half an hour, and felt held, uplifted, and nourished by the land and sun. There’s a good reason my brother-in-law, Geoff, gave me the nickname Lizard Woman!
Wild women run
On a vision fast last year I claimed my big, wild woman self.
But desert ritual is just the beginning of integrating a new identity that goes counter to the training to be my parents’ obedient, pretty girl, smiling for the camera. And counter to our society’s messages about what women are supposed to be: compassionate, loving, quiet, small. There isn’t much room for wild women. But luckily, we have the strength and power to make room. To stand up, speak out. Anyway, I am still learning to let my wild woman run free.
I was at a half marathon on Sunday, and she ran with me. She shouted out “Woohoo, 10K!” at the half-way mark. And I heard a woman behind me tell her female friend “She’s got way too much energy.”
I know suppressive bullshit when I hear it, and this comment made me mad. Mad enough to beat my previous time by 8 minutes. Mad enough to run harder than I’ve ever run. Which is one way to use that energy.
But is this what a wild woman would do?
My wild woman shouted Replacements song lyrics when they popped into her head. At first, when these lyrics arose, she kept it to herself. But after the 10K mark, she’d had enough of suppressing her fun life energy. She shouted out “Take me down, to the hospital!” at the medics in the ambulance at the side of the road. And “Red light, red light, run it. Ain’t nobody watching, run it!”
And each time she broke the rules, stood out from the crowd, let herself express what was moving through her, a new surge of energy propelled her on. Real strength. Real expansion, right through the top of her head. Right into the quiet simplicity of nothingness.
My exploration into what it means to be a wild woman continues. For the record, she did it in 2:00:28!
This was a super-cool New York happening! In conjunction with the David Bowie Is exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, the MTA and Spotify collaborated to put up this tribute to Bowie at the Broadway-Lafayette Subway (the station closest to Bowie’s home on Lafayette Street). I met other people wandering around looking at the pictures who were also profoundly impacted by Bowie, and we strangers shared stories with each other.
I have often wondered what was so compelling about Bowie that made so many people feel a personal connection to him. I didn’t find out how many until after he died and I got the Ziggy haircut, which has prompted dozens of people to share their love of Bowie with me.
Bowie Station 1
I think for me personally, one of things is the androgyny that Lynn Goldsmith mentioned in the quote in the above slideshow. I have always felt that my truest self is androgynous, and that the particular gender I carry in this lifetime is not my deepest self. I believe I’ve been both genders, over hundreds of lifetimes, and this one happens to be female, but can feel what it’s like to be male as well.
For teenagers and folks in their twenties who are trying to figure out what gender and sexuality feels right, Bowie offered the freedom to do that. He was a role model who said it’s all acceptable, and wonderful. I recall the lyric from Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide, where he says “Gimme your hands, ’cause you’re wonderful…” That to me is the epitome of Bowie’s kindness, love, and acceptance.
Bowie Station 2
Then there’s the simple fun of dressing up and putting on a character. Bowie gave us so many fantastic looks and characters to emulate. I don’t know the statistics, but if you Google Ziggy images, you will see dozens of people dressed in various guises of Ziggy. I’ve certainly loved dressing in several Ziggy costumes with full make-up. The year Bowie died, there were several Bowies in the Halloween parade in the West Village. I remember the guy in the Bowie Labyrinth costume. Fantastic! There is a Bowie Ball where people get into Bowie costume–not just in New York but in Vancouver and I’m sure many other cities as well. And I went to a Bowie roller disco in Brooklyn at which dozens of people roller skated dressed as Bowie!
Bowie Station 4
In the musings he wrote in the last image above, he recounted his trip to the Village in the 70s, where he followed the footsteps of his “enthusiams.” I did the exact same thing on my first trip, staying at a hotel where Dylan had stayed, going to the Whitehorse Tavern, and Carrie’s SATC stoop. He followed the same urges to New York, to touch the people who inspired him, and found a life for himself here.
Bowie Station 5
After he died, the first thing I connected to was his creative brilliance. I watched the videos, like so many did, and listened to his music. I was in training for the New York marathon, and listened to his music on the endless long runs through the North Shore mountains in Vancouver. I was so blown away by the body of work he had created during his lifetime. 25 studio albums! Innovative rock videos long before MTV. And so much more.
I listened to his final album, Black Star, and was curious about and moved by what he chose to express on his way off the planet. According to Donny McCaslin, who played sax on the album, Bowie was also very interested in collaboration and hearing what his fellow musicians had to bring to the co-creation. So he had his personal genius, but also a gift of collaborating with others to create something bigger than any one person.
Bowie Station 3
So why do I love Bowie—the phenomenon, if not the person, though I did see him up close and personal a few times! I was right in front of the stage at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, and felt Bowie’s special charisma pour over me. There is something so lovable about him, and I think he makes people feel they are like him, so some of his stardust must be in each of us.
Sept. 20, 2017 – Earlier I told you about my fantastic summer gig at Krystyna’s Place. An unexpected outcome is that Krystyna is an amazing artist and photographer, and she offered to do a photo shoot of me for a model’s portfolio. We spent the afternoon on a glorious sunny day in early September shooting photos up and down Cornelia St. This is a preliminary pic to give you an idea.
Krystyna dressed me in fantastic couture, mostly vintage. The dress pictured above is more recent, from Venice, and is absolutely stunning haute couture. It’s exquisitely rich satin, with asymmetrical details and the pattern is coral roses with grey touches on a white background. Stay posted for more pix when Krystyna finishes processing the shoot. I hope I can give you a full-length shot of the dress later.
I felt like a real fashion model, and had so much fun wearing the gorgeous clothes and striking poses. Passers-by joined in the fun as well, sometimes holding the reflector for Krystyna or commenting on the amazing outfits that Krystyna put together. The green crinoline might look familiar to you from the window dressing that I created as my final masterpiece at the store.
