Adventures in Philanthropy

On WNYC today I heard a person call who explained she lived in Brooklyn. She was commenting on a new venture for her and her friends, every Monday or so they will get together with their children and undertake some kind of charitable deeds. She felt she needed to continue the momentum of goodwill she had been swept away in, like so many others, thanks to the Obama campaign.

I'm not wound up to that degree of spring yet but have a little more tension in the leap than last year. Proof being that we bought tickets to the Progressive Dinner offered by the school PTA. It was the closest I've come to party hopping in, well, I would never tell you how long. We started with cocktails at a newly renovated Brownstone on 8th St., skipped down to 10th for dinner in a house where I mistook a print of a Rothko for an actual Rothko, fool that I am. After that we shuffled to 14th for dessert at a home I mistook for a nightclub. I was afraid I would find the exposure to homes where people take the idea of decor seriously dejecting but found I was really jolly happy to get back to my jolly junk heap of a house. It was a fun night, I'm glad we went, the PTA made a little, and we tramped around the slope like the most ardent trampers.

Like the woman on the radio, I'm excited to pitch in to help my fellow citizens, but first I'm getting used to my own new level of poverty, which in certain respects I love because it narrows my options, simplifying my life. Suddenly cardboard is a freaking fantastic substance, and a large paper cup, when held upside down, a puppet waiting to happen.

I'm sure tomorrow night's concert to benefit the ISSUE project room will be much more of an amazing thing than even the most astonishing paper cup, half empty or half full. I learned of Issues last summer when they sponsored a night of free music under the Brooklyn Bridge which featured the Theremin Society and Jonathan Kane's February, among others. Performers at the benefit will include Moby, David Linton, Charles Cohen, Alex Waterman, Bubblyfish, Talibam, Luke Dubois, Chika and Caspar Stracke. Aside form Moby I don't know any of these artists, but they make a nice list of names, don't you think?

There may be tickets left. More about it here.

Puppets by Nora