Stewart vs Trump

I have to admit, though I'm not a regular viewer of the late night talk shows, I enjoy Stephen Colbert more than any other late night host since, well, since David Letterman, whom Colbert replaced. And I was mostly a big Letterman fan during the early years of his career, when I was young and inclined to stay up late on a regular basis.
I happened upon the Colbert show last week on a day when he'd invited Jon Stewart, previously host of Comedy Central's daily show (which reminds me, I like Trevor Noah, the new host over there, quite a bit as well) and quite a few other veterans of the Daily Show -- Samantha Bee, etc -- onto the show to have a bit of a love fest for their former mentor. This all happened a few days after there had been some kerfuffle over an off color joke Colbert had made about Trump.
Though I'm not familiar with the joke, I'm sure I would consider it fair game, given all the crude and insulting things Trump has said about other people over the course of his campaign (and career). But Jon Stewart himself came to Colbert's defense rather eloquently, I thought.
"For the life of me, I don't understand why we hold comedians to a higher standard than we hold leaders to," Stewart said. "We can insult. He can injure," he said, referring presumably to Trump.

An Amazing Gala

In a city full of galas and other black tie occasions, the National Sawdust gala stands out as something special. The evening's agenda isn't filled with speeches, exhortations and backslapping. Instead, music takes central stage and some of the best singers, musicians and composers working today keep the audience entertained during a marvelous dinner. Highlights (and there weren't any low points) including performances by Helga Davis (National Sawdust artist in residence), a new work by composer and NS artistic director Paola Pristini, and a closing performance by the band Gogol Bordello.
In addition to providing space and support for music composers, National Sawdust has hosted some compelling collaborations between musicians and writers, including the poet Roger Bonair-Agard.
Below is a photo of Gogol Bordello from the National Sawdust gala.

The Book of the Dead

Speaking of poetry and resistance, the good people at Berl's poetry bookshop in Brooklyn marked May Day with a marathon reading (repeated throughout the afternoon) of Muriel Rukeyser's Book of the Dead, a sort of epic, narrative poem about a lung disease that plagued and killed miners at a West Virginia mine. The silicon particles that infested their lungs and claimed the lives of many workers is vividly described in Rukeyser's poem, which summons outrage on a scale that no journalistic account could muster, though clearly the poem is inspired by investigative accounts of the tragedy.
Though the audience was modest, (I was the only non-reader present during one reading) the event served as a reminder (to me at least) that poetry does make a difference in the world. Sure, many believe that poetry does not make anything happen, but the inspiration drawn from poetry surely can inspire us toward engagement of the kind that can make things happen in the world. A poem sparking outrage against an industrial disease and the governmental neglect toward the working people affected by the crisis seems a particularly fitting choice at this time, with Congress considering legislation to peel away health insurance coverage from potentially millions of low income, older and sick people.