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<\/p>\nOn Tuesday night, Nov. 11, when autumn was finally coming into a New York view, a spirited Irish American Writers and Artists evening was coming together at the Ellington, an Upper West Side jazz bar, restaurant and lounge. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The evening\u2019s host was Myss UneeK, a First Nation Bronx native and award-winning international slam poet who will be re-releasing her poetry collection, \u201cSilence Broken,\u201d on Dec. 28. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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First up was Joseph A. Aquino, reading from his debut book, \u201cMemoirs of a Watch Salesman: A New York Real Estate Story,\u201d which chronicles his rise from Manhattan street peddler to Manhattan real estate broker. From the chapter \u201cTraveling with Faith Consolo,\u201d Joseph spoke of when he and Faith (his boss) were in San Diego as real estate consultants for N.Y.S. Faith said she wanted to go to Tijuana to see the new Ralph Lauren store. After persuading Faith to at least take off her high-end jewelry, they drove to the border, crossed on foot into Mexico, and were immediately greeted by bandits whom the police eventually routed. Hiring a taxi driver who had no idea what \u201cretail\u201d was, the duo arrived at the new Ralph Lauren store \u2014 it was small. This was succeeded by more mishaps, until finally Faith said, \u201cOkay, let\u2019s go back\u201d. And the room clapped for Faith but clapped a bit longer for Joe. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Corinne O\u2019Shaughnessy, a retired New York City public school teacher and published writer who divides her time between the Bronx and Oaxaca, Mexico, read her essay \u201cThe Zumba Hour.\u201d The essay began with a Zumba lesson before turning to the realization of the need \u2014 not the want \u2014 to end a marriage that involved children as well. It then veered back to a Zumba class at a gym the writer had recently joined (while admitting she \u201cis not JLo; she is Olive Oyl on crack\u201d) and then her stretching out her \u201cZumba\u201d body and \u201clooking into a mirror, watching herself trying.\u201d And everyone cheering her on, and on. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Next was John McDonagh, who immediately asserted: \u201cI am responsible for getting Mamdani elected, and it all started with WBAI\u201d. With the help of a laptop, John then streamed his proof: a podcast video he had made with Zohran Mamdani at a diner in Astoria, Queens. Topics covered were Cuomo, freezing rents, city owned grocery stores, and putting working people first. Politico ran the video; and said John proudly, \u201cit\u2019s been viewed over 20 million times.\u201d And the rest is NYC mayoral history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then John spoke about Mamdani\u2019s 15-day hunger strike with New York City yellow taxicab drivers, which followed the death of cab driver Kenny Chow, whose body was found in the East River in May 2018. Kenny\u2019s death was linked to financial stress from a medallion loan, which can be as high as $1 million. John ended with his poem, \u201cSearching for God in the Shape of a Taxi Medallion,\u201d a bittersweet elegy for Kenny and for his wife, who had inherited the loan and died three weeks later. In the room the lights went out, then came back on. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Next was a reading of Sheila Walsh\u2019s one-act, \u201cWinnie and Birdie.\u201d The cast was Marcia Loughran, Lydia Sturner and Sheila herself. The plot involved a woman with writer\u2019s block who gets herself invited into the home of her two women neighbors. They then proceed to tell the writer all things incidental, tragic, comic or simply mundane. The writer goes home to her keyboard while her neighbors ponder whether they have given her enough \u201cmaterial\u201d for her next story. It was a poker hand well played by all. Or, as the playwright said later, \u201cmaybe it was just people helping people.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u00a0Lydia Sturner, Marcia Loughrfan, Sheila Walsh\u00a0<\/p>\n
After a brief intermission, the next presenter was 25-year-old rapper D-Why of N.O.N.C. (Now or Never Crew), a collective of four artists determined to take the music industry by storm. D-Why read in \u201cMalachy\u2019s Words,\u201d a poem he had written from Malachy McCourt\u2019s own words. From its first lines: \u201cResentment\u2019s poison, dark and sly\/ You drink it yourself, while you hope they die,\u201d D-Why\u2019s poem then gave us \u201cA saint\u2019s no angel, don\u2019t be misled \u2014\/Just a sinner cut down, carefully edited,\u201d before its last two lines: \u201cChildhood\u2019s laughter, myth, and play, \/Keep cold regret and death away.\u201d And the listeners applauded loudly, with more than a few suddenly hearing Malachy leading \u201chis children\u201d with \u201cWild Mountain Thyme (Will you go lassie go)\u201d singing joyously in the room one more night. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The playwright Mark Butler then took center stage to tell us \u201cOnce upon a time there was a sweater that wanted to be like all Christmas sweaters, but this sweater was different \u2014 it was ugly!\u201d Mark\u2019s funny, sweet Christmas musical, \u201cUGLY! A Christmas Sweater Story\u201d was also in a cabaret industry showcase at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on Nov. 20 and you can see more of it at the IAW&A\u2019s Christmas salon on Dec. 8 at the Ellington, New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thom Molyneaux, a man with half a century\u2019s worth of experience as a playwright, director, actor, teacher and critic, presented next. Thom read from his work, Hemingway\u2019s \u201cStory: The Sun Also Rises.\u201d In the first part, we meet a struggling Hemingway confessing his physical decline (and he once the big hunter!), and all the emotional wounds \u2014 some healed, some still bleeding. Of how once at an airport, he had tried to walk into a spinning propeller. Last notes for a Lost Generation that never found its way back home. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Then Thom presented Hemingway remembering a woman named Brett and a man named Romero standing in a bull ring where a bull\u2019s hoof is keeping time. \u00a0Then that Hemingway moment where a man is charging a bull and a bull is waiting, and then that man rising up and becoming one with the sky. When Thom said the last word, it was in a room where many were remembering a writer whom they wished had lingered a bit longer at \u201ca moveable feast\u201d with an empty chair. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The night\u2019s last presenter was Gigi McCourt, who smiled, \u201cyes, there is a relationship\u201d, before dedicating the songs she would sing to the memory of her grandfather, Malachy. Only Mine and Friend of a Friend were her own original compositions and lyrics. Her third was the Cranberries\u2019 Linger. Her sound was soft, mellow, and moody. The strings followed, and the audience kept time with a foot on the floor. Then all were smiling inside, a large burst of applause for Malachy\u2019s granddaughter. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Next was goodbyes and hugs all around, followed by a subway turnstile three blocks south, an Uber outside, or, for those lucky few, a walk to a one-bedroom apartment under the stars on the Upper West Side. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday night, Nov. 11, when autumn was finally coming into a New York view, a spirited Irish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,7871,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-53658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-irishecho","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-the-bronx","14":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","15":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}