City of Smoke » Old Smoke

My Neighbors Got It Wrong

William Bryk — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 02:48:40 +0000

Back on October 30, 2010, I announced my intention to vote for Tom Vendittelli, the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Representative from the 13th District of New York. http://www.cityofsmoke.com/archives/5585 My motives were simple (although I admit a general sympathy for political independents and insurgents of all kinds). The Establishment party opponents, Democratic Congressman Michael E. [...]

When Politics Comes Calling

William Bryk — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 16:36:43 +0000

A neighbor talked with me over the back fence:

I live in the 13th Congressional District, which includes Staten Island and the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. During the last two weeks, Michael McMahon, Democrat-Independence, and Michael Grimm, Republican-Conservative, have barraged my wife and me with the usual meaningless glossy direct mail [...]

Campaign Lit, Part 1

William Bryk — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:22:58 +0000

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 [...]

On Mamet’s Oleanna

William Bryk — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:41:17 +0000

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

Diploma Mill Redux

William Bryk — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:27:37 +0000

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, [...]

Requiescat L.D. Knox

William Bryk — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:13:23 +0000

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.

Just Say “NOTA”

William Bryk — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:11:01 +0000

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 [...]

Confessions of a Theme Whore

Mimi Kramer-Bryk — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:33:49 +0000

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

Pocket Change

William Bryk — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:04:00 +0000

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

Another Last Hurrah?

William Bryk — Sun, 03 May 2009 12:25:25 +0000

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