City of Smoke

Campaign Lit, Part 1

By William Bryk, on October 2658, 2009

The use of the word “literature” to describe the campaign fliers and pamphlets that fill our mailboxes at this time of year has always intrigued me. Usually, the stuff reminds me of Talleyrand’s observation that language exists to conceal truth. Sometimes, though, the truth will out. Today’s example is a mail piece from the affable Bob Capano, a lawyer, long-time political appointee, adjunct professor, and genuinely nice guy who is presently the Republican candidate for the local City Council seat against the incumbent, who is a Democrat. Like most local Republicans, Mr. Capano strongly supports the re-election of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mr. Capano’s literature complains that local residents are being bled… Read More

On Mamet's Oleanna

By William Bryk, on October 1317, 2009

In the autumn of 1992, when the original off-Broadway production of David Mamet’s “Oleanna” was about to open in New York, my wife, Mimi Kramer, then a drama critic for The New Yorker, was asked by the magazine’s new editor, Tina Brown, to write a puff piece about the play for Brown’s first issue. Mimi had been working for a couple of years on a book about the school of acting that Mamet and the actor W.H. Macy had founded in Vermont in the 1980s. Mamet was not interested in being interviewed any more than Mimi was interested in interviewing him; so she spent the next several months turning Read More

Diploma Mill Redux

By William Bryk, on June 1437, 2009

I have a long-time love affair with the underworld of diploma mills which, in a society overawed by credentials, is an unending source of amusement and entertaining copy. So I was unsurprised to learn that, as recently as February 2007, the New York City Department of Investigation reported that fourteen city firefighters had used bogus diplomas, purchased from St. Regis University (an on-line institution, supposedly located in Liberia) to seek promotion to officer positions such as deputy chief, battalion chief, and captain. This stemmed from a relatively new Departmental policy requiring college credits as well as practical firefighting experience to gain promotion. Four of the… Read More

Requiescat L.D. Knox

By William Bryk, on June 723, 2009

On May 29, 2009, The New York Times published the obituary of L. D. "None of the Above" Knox, 80, a farmer and politician from Winnsboro, Louisiana who had crusaded for over forty years to make "None of the Above" an option on the Pelican State's ballots. In 1979, he went so far as to make "None of the Above" his additional middle name and used it thereafter whenever he ran for office. Read More

Just Say “NOTA”

By William Bryk, on June 501, 2009

From New York Press, Janury 21, 2004 One of my New Year's resolutions was to throw out the old papers piled up on my desk. I'm not a pack rat like the Bronx guy who spent two days trapped in his apartment under an avalanche of his own magazines and newspapers, but I've a weakness for letting interesting documents accumulate. So, late on the afternoon of January 1, 2004, I went to work. One thing I turned up was the New York City Campaign Finance Board's Voter Guide for the General Election of November 4, 2003. I kept it for laughs… Read More

Confessions of a Theme Whore

By Mimi Kramer-Bryk, on May 2049, 2009

It's a big relief to me that the television season has drawn to a close---particularly that there will be no new episodes of House to miss. I'd been having a terrible time since the show moved to Monday nights. I guess I'm not television conscious that early in the week Read More

Pocket Change

By William Bryk, on May 1900, 2009

If you want to find a mirror of a society's ideal---the image of what it hopes and imagines itself to be---public sculpture is as good a place as any to start, and none is more common or readily available than the public sculpture we carry around with us on the Read More

Another Last Hurrah?

By William Bryk, on May 325, 2009

As becomes a citizen, I have occasionally run for public office. As Edouard Herriot, four times Prime Minister under the Third Republic, said whenever he was running for anything, from conseilleur municipal to President de la Republique, "I have placed myself at the disposal of my friends and the Read More

Aurelia Greene, Evergreen

By William Bryk, on April 2645, 2009

Last week, a special election was held for Bronx Borough President, a job which, since the Charter reforms of the early 1990s, is largely ceremonial. The marvelously named incumbent, Adolfo Carrion, had resigned office to accept appointment as Director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs....The Assemblywoman's name rang a chime in memory. She had been Read More

Susan Boyle and the Tigers of the Night

By Mimi Kramer-Bryk, on April 2002, 2009

I’ve read several Google pages' worth of commentaries on Susan Boyle, the middle-aged Scottish woman whose April 11 performance of a song from Les Miserables on the U.K. version of "American Idol," "Britain's Got Talent," millions of people have watched on YouTube. So far, though, I've yet to encounter an article, essay, or blog post that touches on the aspect of the phenomenon that I found most fascinating and moving. Read More