much to write about..

after two days work at Friends. Just read about a program set up by the city called Neighborhood Pillars, which is designed to stop the predatory gentrification in its tracks, bu allowing not for profits to buy apartment houses with rent stabilized apartments to keep them away from vicious landlords. Will be helpful, but will it be enough. Also, liked the use of the term "turbo capitalism" to describe a vicious form of aggressive development that does not even remotely take into account the lives and feelings living in a certain neighborhood that developers find attractive.Glad to see that columnist Juan Gonzalez is criticizing the mayor re his housing head and her vision of the city.
 So what else. Well, Wednesday evening, did go to Jack to see my friend Eliza and her "Kip Talk"
Really enjoyed Eliza's opening monologue;  she is becoming a great raconteur.The second part of the evening, a discussion of "local theater" was a little more difficult for me to take---lots of opinions, and some good statements about how theaters like Irondale and Bushwick Starr are integrating young people from the near by neighborhoods--who don't have strong theater backgrounds, into their vision. That was good to hear. Somehow, I was angry when Eliza asked what was "local theater" when no one seemed to understand that the "downtown theater scene" (I don't like the term, but will use it for want of a better word) is made up of mostly artists between 20 and 40, and therefore reflects their vision of life, mostly an upper middle class vision with its strengths and discontents. Why is it so hard for anyone to say that, or to make note of the fact that theater in the last 15 years has undergone a radical transformation in terms of its vision. So many projects now are one group's reactions to already written (mostly major) texts and also the we see the liberation of the actor/actress from auditionee to in many cases, a major collaborator in the vision and text of a piece. Would like to make that statement, is it too obvious? I doubt it, yet nobody could, and I was not called upon. Would a statement like that have made a difference, or would it have been just an indulgence? Don't know, think about it?
  Last night, wanted to go to Abrons to participate in a forum about the changing city, but was too tired, ended up going to the Bunin and seeing The Paris Opera documentary. Just what I needed after two hectic days of work--I could immerse myself into a world of art that I completely understood and enjoyed. A terrific documentary---showed the team work and support that is necessary to make an opera performance work---really good portraits of individual people from choristers to the artistic director of the opera. Really glad I went.
 Tonight, going to Bushwick Starr to see Heather Christian's piece, should really be interesting, tomorrow a blank, as of now. Will report soon.