My First Book

The Woeful Lay of the Happy Day is now available wherever fine volumes of narrative poetry are sold.

Set in a world adapting to rising seas and multiplying wildfires, it’s the story of an Air Force cadet who is violently diverted from her career path.

Leaving behind a boyfriend who loves her in spite of himself, she winds up captaining a ferry and plying the pirate-plagued waterways of Gotham.

Until – well, you’ll have to read it to find out.

This little glossy hardback, with beautiful cover art by Stacey Posnett, is now available at your online bookshop of choice for your splurging pleasure.
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The Return of Whisperado

Whisperado is back in action!

Big news: My band, Whisperado, is back in action. After a hiatus, we’ve been booked to play a set of our NEW songs at a NEW venue, Goldsounds in Brooklyn, on June 8 at 7:30 PM. See the Whisperado website for details.

Meanwhile, I’m covering all four of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings” productions at BAM, beginning with Richard II starring David Tennant. In between, I’ve reviewed a concert featuring the great Ute Lemper singing songs from the Holocaust and the Jewish ghettoes of World War II; a wonderful production of Nathan the Wise starring F. Murray Abraham at Classic Stage; a great CD recording of a jazz-band version of Porgy and Bess; and more.

And I’m working, slowly, on my book based on my Park Odyssey blog. Tentative title: PARK ODYSSEY: AN URBAN EXPLORER’S QUEST TO VISIT EVERY PARK IN NEW YORK CITY. I’m up to well over 200 parks, if anyone’s counting. On the blog, not the book. Onward!

The Park Odyssey Rolls On

My blog Park Odyssey documents my quest to visit every park in New York City. There are over 1,700 park properties in the city’s five boroughs. Some – but an unknown number – are playgrounds, sports facilities, or undeveloped properties that don’t count for my purposes. That leaves an uncertain number of hundreds of parks to visit, with new ones being planned or opened all the time too. I’m up to about 180.

Entrepreneur

In today’s business news:

My co-editor Barbara Barnett and I have incorporated as Critical Lens Media Ltd. and acquired the web magazine Blogcritics, for which we have been freelance editors for some years.

Congratulations and/or sympathy gladly accepted.

CD Release Party!

Well, it’s finally done. The new CD from Whisperado, I’m Not the Road, is here, and we’re celebrating Friday March 9 with a big show at Parkside Lounge. I hope to see everyone there.

Meanwhile, visit whisperado.com and check out the video for “Teenage Popstar Girl” directed by Daniel Azarian, starring Mary O’Rourke, Tara Langella, and of course, Whisperado.