Vietnam Veterans Plaza

Somehow I didn't realize, or had forgotten until this month, that New York City has a memorial to Vietnam veterans, created in the same era as the one in Washington, DC, the early 1980s. It's a small riverside park on South Street called Vietnam Veterans Plaza. Two days ago, thinking about John McCain, I stopped and spent some time there.

Etched on the glass wall are quotations from writings of New Yorkers who served in Vietnam, including this letter from LT JG Richard W. Strandberg:  "One thing worries me--will people believe me?  Will they want to hear about it or will they want to forget the whole thing ever happened."  And this, from a poem by Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, written shortly before he was killed in action on March 24, 1970:

And in that time  When men decide and
Feel safe to call the war insane . . .
Take a moment to embrace those
Gentle heroes you left behind . . .

Aretha, now

If you happen to see this on August 19, right now, and till midnight, WKCR (89.9) is playing nonstop Aretha.

WKCR 89.9FM NY

Can't tear myself away.

Yes, Karen Finley's back!

But then, she never left.

Brilliant, fearless, and deep, Karen Finley will forever be associated with a 1989 performance, We Keep Our Victims Ready, in which she applied chocolate to her bare torso, while speaking disturbing truths about sexual abuse and the claims of love that accompany it.

Outraged conservatives spearheaded the passage of a law mandating that NEA grants comply with "general standards of decency and respect for all the diverse beliefs and values of the American public," thereby leading the NEA to veto Finley's latest grant application, along with those of three other artists. The NEA Four, as they were called, sued the agency on the grounds that their First Amendment rights were being violated, won in the lower courts, but in 1998--after the Clinton administration elected to continue the appeal--lost in the Supreme Court.

Through the years since, Finley has continued speaking truth to power in performance and in print.
 
Her latest, Grabbing Pussy, is as timely and provocative as the title suggests.

You can catch her Sunday, August 5 and 12, at the Laurie Beechman Theatre at the West Bank Cafe, in New York City, an intimate space that's well-suited for her.

And on September 12, she'll be at the ISSUE Project Room, as part of the Brooklyn Book Festival.

She tours, too.