DEATH OF A STAR

Going quietly into the night, NOHO STAR shuttered its doors forever on New Year's Eve, 2017. There was no fanfare, and the lack of public outcry was disappointing.

I learned of the proposed closing from Ted Coons, a colleague of mine at New York University over breakfast early in December. I was saddened that the owner George Schwarz's son had decided to close both neighborhood fixtures, NOHO STAR and TEMPLE BAR after more than 30 years in order to convert the building to rental property. George passed away December 14, 2016.

Adding to my dismay was that I was scheduled to leave Manhattan for Asia before the closing. I never heard if there was an appropriate wake to mourn the loss of the NoHo Star. I saw many celebrities there during my 30 plus years of using this landmark bistro as my true office, with countless meetings with students, meeting with colleagues, meeting with artists in planning sessions, Many a project was launched over breakfast, brunch, and dinner.

NoHo Star opened after I had been with NYU for about 17 years when NoHo Star opened at 330 LaFayette Street. I saw the transformation of the area south of  Houston Street into SoHo in the late 70s. Before that it was an industrial area filled witth factories and industrial sites, warehouses, and various tradesmen.

This was a block from where I lived, and I watched artists tranform the area by invading on the weekend and using factory spaces to perform and exhibit exper innovations in technology that were experimental artwork, much of it using technollogies begun in alliances with scientist and artists in the 60s in New York, It was a time of Happenings. Everything was free and in the moment. I remember wandering around the warehouses and coming upon works such as a darkened room filled with low and high frequencies and fluctuating projections on the wall. As I grew accustomed to the dark, I saw the artist on the floor hooked up to biofeedback.

I remember how quickly artists were replacing factories and warehouses with lofts and studios. Then, quite suddenly, the area was officially dubbed SOHO, and the area hurtled toward gentrification. Now all the artists have fled and what is left are upscale stores and businesses, with Apple occupying the old Post Office Building on Prince Street.

SoHo --- because it was South of Houston Street, but also it borrowed cachet from the area in London which was also Soho and known as an area for the music, theatre, film, the arts and the pornographic industry.

I always had the fantasy that when George Schwarz acquired the building just north of Houston Street, he dubbed his eatery The NoHo Star, and inspired the christening of those few blocks north of Houston as NoHo.

It is sad to witness the death of an era in NYC which was such a mecca that it drew so many artists from the midwest and around the world, including me. Unfortunately Manhattan has been captured by a strict business mentality where the arts have a place only if they are part of the establishment. The artists have left their strongholds of SoHo and Tribecca and headed to Brooklyn, where there appears to be a renaissance in all aspects of the arts. Yes, there is a revival of young artists in te Lower East of Manhattan that is gathering momentum, even though the city politics and institutions are rigged against them.

The closing of THE NOHO STAR is the dissolution of a giant star. In my small universe, NoHo Star was a massive star, perhaps its debris of a supernova will seed new generations from the many projects and ideas hat were created through casual and not-so-casual meetings of creative people discussing, creating, and launching new ideas over coffee, tea, and the tasty fare from morning on into the night.

CAMELLIA HILL: THE FLOWERING OF ADVENTURE

As it happened during the holidays, the Camiellias of Jeju were reaching their peak. It seemed appropriate to visit Camellia Hill, a wonderful theme park which, because of Jeju's temperate climate, is open year-round with different species of flowers peaking in the changing seasons. Arriving a few days before the New Year, we found the camellias in full bloom, white and red camellia trees lining our path as we wandered through  the thick growth to encounter many surprises along the way.

There were shops, coffee houses, green houses, statues, a Japanese garden, storybook characters and icons scattered throughout the terrain. As we walked I was

reminded of the 19th Century Parks in Europe and England designed deliberately as adventures. Paths would wander and then abruptly turn and you would unexpectedly see a waterfall towering above you. Central Park in New York City was originally designed using that concept. The surprises of Camellia Hill were similar, as the growing shrubs were so thick that many things were obscure until you would enter a clearing and there would be a Greenhouse thoughtfully laid out with many species of flowers and trees and even moss. 

Further on you might see a coffee house and restaurant and then  wander through a Japanese Garden, beautifully sculpted, coming upon an exquisite Japanese Bonsai Tree near a rock formation called Crouching Dragon. The garden invites meditation, maybe a place to return to when there are fewer people. The Crouching Dragon    seems to be sleeping. I noticed that the English sub-title beneath the Korean name was "Couching Dragon,"---a typo or merely descriptive of a lazy dragon in the afternoon sun? The afternoon unfolded like an adventure, perhaps emulating the great English Parks of the 19th Century.

Finally we found ourselves in front of an elegant greenhouse, and on further investigation discovered it to be a coffee house still decorated for the holidays and almost gleaming inside from the afternoon sunlight pouring through the glass.

Here we were in the midst of winter, but on an idyllic adventure that might be typical of a Spring day elsewhere. A few days later I would be waking to see a blanket of snow on the farmland outside my window.

RECONNAISSANCE ADVENTURE TO SUNRISE MOUNTAIN IN JEJU: SANGBANSANG

Just a short drive to the Jeju coast in Seogwipo is the mountain SangBanSang which was once the peak of Mount Halla and was separated by a cataclysmic event that caused it to land by the ocean. Because it was the peak of Korea's tallest mountain, it possesses a powerful energy and spiritual presence that inspired the founding of a revered Buddhist Temple, Sangbanggulsa Temple. 

 In a reconnaissance maneuver to scout the terrain before winter solstice, I journeyed with friends along the coast leading to SangBanSang, coming upon countless coffee houses and hangouts where any aspiring Hemingway would be honored to linger to observe and write unpretentious masterpieces of humanity encountering the world, inspired by the sun and sea, with a beautiful terrain so breathtaking that one can hardly believe the whole thing is not simply a fantasy. I resolved to sometime return to Zen Hideaway to resume the writing I used to do in the coffee houses of New York City.

Arriving at the foot of the mountain, we found a multilevel approach to Buddha and the Temple, and through some mysterious means found ourselves having tea with the Temple's Buddhist Monk who revealed an inspiring voice as he shared his chants with us.  His voice had such resonance and depth, and I felt as though we were touched by some ancient miracle as he brought the sound into our presence as though summoned from some cherished sanctuary.

All of this was just to see if, indeed, the stories about the mountain being the site of a sunrise vigil to welcome in the New Year were true. They were --- we will return to SangBanSang to welcome in the new year 2018.

WINTER SOLSTICE: LET'S FACE THE MUSIC

Apparently this will be my 81st winter solstice. One might think in all these years some of the mystery would be gone, but the mystery deepens. It deepens because there is no true repetition. The absence of repetition is something we seldom notice because we are so captivated by its illusion. Music delights us when we hear the refrain repeated.... the familiar returning. We scarcely notice the illusion that Time affords us. Each repetition is tempered by time. We are older, even thought it be seconds later, and that repetition invades time as a new entity, stamping the moment with its presence, even as we are shaped by the time that passes. Even though the earth is spinnng its predictable course around the sun, the sun is traveling around the galaxy and is in a new place. Time teeters on the edge of discovery, and we are in a different energy.

We also alter the moments by the space we occupy. Our changes may be subtle or dramatic, but they never repeat the past. As the human race, we share some vision of the future. We see a scintillating panorama of things to come...of machines obedient and serving us like slaves... of an increasing, never ending projection into a future where we control our destiny. But if we are to believe artifacts and remnants from the ancient earth, there were greater dynasties than ours that have vanished...
leaving behind faint echoes of civilizations that once flourished and have fallen to some cataclysmic ending.

Recently I listened to Diana Krall's "Let's Face The Music and Dance," a masterpiece in sound and interpretation.  I detected in the arrangement and improvisation more of an encounter with the universe, with entropy and with a moon that is widening its arc around the world until it spins out of earth's orbit to some distant destiny. There is a sense of cosmic inevitability about the arrangement that moves from a simple beginning to an ending that is like the running down of the cosmos...

Perhaps Irving Berlin meant this simple lyric would mask a deeper meaning... the law of entropy demands we pay the price of existing in time...so before our fling draws to a close, we will have to pay the piper, so to speak. There are no free rides....

Ms. Krall starts with a simple dance rhythm, nice and casual, but then a note of caution, a sustained string sound has a slight foreboding tone:

There may be trouble ahead,
but while there's moonlight and music and love and romance,
let's face the music and dance.

But we try to ignore those signs of impending disaster... the music is playing, and yes, we will have to pay for our putting off the inevitable, but this the time to celebrate while we can... let's get the most from this moment:

Before the fiddlers have fled,
before they ask us to pay the bill,
and while we still have the chance,
let's face the music and dance.

Reality interrupts the party... the universe is running down and the moon is pulling against the earth, intent to follow a different journey... the counter melody moves away from the main melody

Soon, we'll be without the moon,
humming a different toon,

Then the orchestra and improv become more complex in texture, and we hear a kind of wistful orchestra as we become aware that the end may be near:

And then, there may be tear drops to shed.

But we realize we have no control over the future or our destiny:

         So while there's moonlight and music and love and romance,

                 Let's face the music and dance.

        Soon, we'll be without the moon,
        humming a different toon,

        And then, there may be tear drops to shed.
       So while there's moonlight and music and love and romance,

                 Let's face the music and dance.

                           

                          Let's face the music and dance...

                                  Let's face the music and dance.              

                                         Let's face the music and dance...

                                                Let's face the music and... dance.
            

The repetition is incessant and sad, but also resigned to the beauty of the reality that reluctantly all things come to an end...  each repetition becomes fainter and fainter as the universe comes to its treacherous demise...suddenly Ms. Krall abruptly breaks the texture with an almost passionless utterance of "dance!" and the music seems to end teetering on the brink of chaos... a brilliant rendering starting simply and unraveling as time goes on in the song... music can be a comforting companion in a journey through Time.

REPETITION...  "Let's Face The Music and Dance" has been repeated many times over the years since Irving Berlin penned this song 81 years ago when I was born in 1936. All through those 80 trips around the sun, singers such as Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra have charmed fans with their versions which voiced the reluctance of two lovers resigned to an unknown fate... and then the song repeated in a new era, wiser in the understanding of our place in the universe, Diana Krall reminds us that we should relish "our place in the sun" while we can... just Face The Music and Dance...

And so this solstice is our romance with humanity's journey with the sun and our hope that the sun will continue to sustain us for another season... a ritual since before Stonehenge and now in a few days on Sunrise Mountain on Jeju Island.