An Abundant Life - Self Discovery

A number of years ago, I'm not sure what year it was exactly, Michael Warren Powell who was the Artistic Director of the LAB Theatre Company announced that he was casting a performance of a play by Nicola L. I had been a member of the LAB since 1988, having been invited to join after my first year working with the Circle Repertory Company as an intern right out of college. As I've written before, Circle Repertory Company was in my opinion the best theater company in New York City. There were others that had been around as long and others that are still around today that perhaps might be considered more financially successful, but there was something about Circle Rep that I have never found anywhere else. We did plays on a regular basis, reading them, workshopping them, performing in the LAB and on the main stage. When I look back now at that time it was incredibly immersive and phenomenally creative, and I am so grateful to have had that experience at the time that I did.

When Michael announced that he was casting the play by Nicola L., I immediately responded and was immediately cast. It was one of those rare one off plays that was part of the tradition of experimental theater, and though that was a specialty and special love of mine, most of the Actors and plays at Circle Rep were what was termed "Back Porch Realism" or "Magical Realism" if they were a bit off the beaten track. Experimental theater for some reason was part of my DNA, and because of that, not only did I enjoy it but I thrived in it. The play was called "The Black Coat Of Transformation" and it consisted of a series of monologues by historical women who were all enveloped in a large black plastic structure that had places for our heads to go through, but that covered us completely otherwise. When we spoke we put a kind of hand held mask over our faces that had the name of our character on it. When we moved we had to move together, and when the piece began, we were lying on the ground under the black plastic "coat" in a way that made it look like it was trash bags lying on the sidewalk. Nicola had a studio in the Meat Packing District, and she also lived at the Chelsea Hotel, and one performance of the piece had been done on the cobblestones of Gansevoort Street. Our performance was indoors at the West Bank Theater, but I saw film footage of the earlier performance, and over the years as I got to know Nicola I saw and performed in several of her pieces that took place both indoors and out doors.

After performing in the "Coat of Transformation" I kept in touch with Nicola. She told me she had another piece she was trying to cast and produce and I started helping her with that project. We met at her studio and also at the Chelsea Hotel. For me it was a time of incredible excitement. She was French and had been part of the Fluxus movement, and her apartment at the Chelsea Hotel had pieces of her artwork and furniture in it. The people who worked with her on her pieces were all European Artists, and everyone was always speaking all kinds of languages, mostly French with others mixed in sometimes too. The piece I helped her cast and produce was called "Banquet Of The Beheaded" and it consisted of a series of monologues by historical figures who had been beheaded in some way. We got to tell our stories while sitting under a table that had been specially made so that only our heads showed through, sitting on plates. The makeup and wigs for that production were phenomenal, and the concept was brilliant. All together the image was both outrageous and beautiful, and individually the monologues and performances brought these people to life in a way that history books are not capable of. As I look back on it now, that was the beginning of my understanding that I loved to be a producer. The show was cast almost entirely with people I knew and they were perfect. Michael Warren Powell directed again, but the cast was so brilliant that there really wasn't much directing that needed to be done. In a beautiful way some of those performers did some of the most striking work I had seen them do up to that time. Nicola cast me herself the first day we met to discuss the piece, and she gave me Charlotte Corday. She also cast another friend of hers, but the rest of the casting she asked for my input on, and I was able to suggest people I knew who I thought were wonderful. We performed at LA Mama ETC, and we were filmed and photographed for all kinds of media. I was interviewed by a European Art magazine and still find photographs of myself as Charlotte Corday and mentions of that play online to this day.

The last time I saw Nicola she was still living at the Chelsea Hotel. I went to visit with her and she apologized because she said she was losing her memory because of a fall, but she still seemed to have the same beautiful creative energy around her and after I arrived and we began talking she got out some of the books where she kept the memories of her pieces and we went through them together, talking about some ideas she had of things she'd like to do again. I kept in touch, but not long after that she moved into an assisted living arrangement, and last year when I looked her up again I discovered that her time on this earth had ended. Over the years that I knew her, in addition to live theater pieces and videos of her performances there were retrospectives of her furniture and installations, and somehow I feel like her energy is still here helping us all to learn about history and to see and learn about ourselves and others as living works of art.

Nicola L.

At The Chelsea Hotel

In New York City

Sharing Memories With Jannie Wolff

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - A Taste For Community

I've written about the beautiful Mixologist Stephanie O'Neill in these pages before, and she's added so much to my life over the time that I have known her. About a year and a half ago she invited me to an afternoon cocktail tasting she was presenting at Wine Dad's in Hoboken, and when I saw what a really wonderful store it was I asked if I could meet the owner to follow up for a blog post. He's really a great person, and the selection in the store is what you'd always want a wine and spirits store to be. There are interesting choices and a wide selection, but it's curated with an eye and taste of someone who wants people to have a chance to explore and enjoy everything they try.

Wine Dad's is next to Trader Joe's, and it would be easy to just shop in that same building if I lived on that side of town. Stopping off at Wine Dad's before or after a grocery shopping trip makes perfect sense, but Wine Dad's is also a great destination all by itself. When Stephanie O'Neill was sharing her cocktail knowledge it had an extra flair of fun, but these days it's still well worth the trip. I hadn't been there all these long months of this past year but then a friend who is a Sommelier said he'd just been there one day and he had such great things to say about the selection and how good it was to see the owner that I was reminded that I had never had the chance to write the post.

When I met the owner and told him how much I admired the environment he had created, he told me  that he had wanted to create a place that was a community store, somewhere that people could stop off at when they wanted a bottle of wine for dinner or if they were looking for something special as a gift or for a celebration, while also having a selection that would help people learn about new things. It's places like this that make communities enjoyable, because we can visit and browse and try something new and ask questions or share knowledge without any pretense. During this past year I have been so grateful for the places that are available to me so close to home, and Wine Dad's is one of the gems that makes the community a great one.

A Cocktail Tasting At Wine Dad's

With The Mixologist Stephanie O'Neill

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

       

An Abundant Life - A Life In Pictures

I had heard of Anthony Haden-Guest years before I met him, and because he is such a well respected and admired Artist and Writer, I didn't think that I'd ever have the opportunity to meet him in any very personal way. Perhaps I might see him at an event, or maybe be in an audience somewhere where he was speaking about something very interesting and in-the-know, but it just didn't seem possible that I'd find myself sitting next to him at a birthday party which is what happened one night in Manhattan. I asked him that night if I could meet with him again for a blog post, and we kept in touch. I visited with him on a few occasions and invited him to a private rooftop event and to a more public gallery opening that I was doing publicity for, invited him out to a few events at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, and to have dinner at my favorite restaurant to meet my favorite Chef. And every time he arrived I was always so happy. Not only is it an honor to have someone with his prestige and history be a part of the events and dinners I plan, but I like Anthony very much. He has a wonderful sense of humor and also has excellent taste. It's a joy to speak with him and to hear him talk about art and life and the history he has had in New York and around the world. He knows everyone who is anyone, and they all love him. He has been to every gala, every opening, and every memorable party going back to the years when New York had parties that people still talk about. Anthony Haden-Guest is a cultural icon in his own right, who has written about so many people who have changed the course of history and who have given us new ways to look at the world.

In addition to his insightful art and culture critiques and reviews, Anthony Haden-Guest is also a wonderful cartoonist with a list of collectors that overlaps with his large group of friends and colleagues. Recently I had the opportunity to have a conversation with one of the gallerists who is curating an online show of his work. It was Anthony's 84th birthday in January, and they put together a wonderful evening celebration online with guests calling in to talk and artwork and stories being shared. There is so much that Anthony has stored in his treasure trove of memories, and so many wonderful works he has created. It's a beautiful experience to see some of these pieces, and in the process of this show more work is coming to light, like the pieces a recent auction in London of Cristo and Jean Claude's collection that included some of Anthony's cartoons. The last time I saw Anthony I told him I wanted to go shopping in his files. I love his work so much and love him as a person and I want to have a piece or a few of his for my own collection. He's someone who is so special, and who has touched the lives of so many, and it's an honor to know him and have him in my life.

Anthony Haden-Guest

In New York City

With One Of His Marvelous Cartoons

Online On His Birthday On Zoom

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Love Multiplied

The Love & Plenty project was developed during this past year, starting last March when the restaurants were first shut down. As I wrote last spring in my first post about the project, because of my background teaching nutrition and health workshops in Manhattan and working in low income and food insecure neighborhoods for years, when the restaurants were shut down I knew that we were facing an immediate and long term disaster in the food supply chain and the economy. At the time I couldn't believe that I was the only one who was seeing this, but then I began to realize that unless you've worked as a frontline worker specifically in the areas that I have, there was no way that you could know that on a good day in Manhattan and the boroughs there is not enough healthy food available for people in need. I've worked in soup kitchens and food pantries, shelters, recovery programs, senior citizen centers, schools, after schools and harm reduction centers. I've stood in parking lots in the Bronx during health fairs and in Harlem on 125th Street outside of social services centers handing out information about food stamps and WIC and where to go to find meals and clothing and housing support all while doing hands on education about eating more fruits and vegetables and lowering your sugar and sodium intake. The one constant in every place where I've worked and shared information is that people need healthy food and though there is plenty to go around, somehow it doesn't get distributed equally and the lower the income of the community and the more in need, the less healthy food there is readily available. So when the restaurants shut down, I knew immediately that not only would so many people be suddenly put out of work, but that those people, their families, and the people who the restaurants donated food to would not have a food source they had been relying on. And I also knew that the restaurants not only employed their staff, but they provided business revenue in a direct line to the farmers, purveyors and restaurant suppliers that would abruptly stop and leave food available with no market for it. Because of what I knew and had experienced over the years, I started to think about what I could possibly do to help mitigate the looming disaster, and I began to develop what was soon called Love & Plenty.

You can read about the project's early stages in my post of May 24, 2020, and now that it has been nearly a year I thought it was time to give an update because so much that's so good has happened. In the early months I was focusing on sharing resources with restaurants and meal programs to help connect them with food sources and funding, grants, and other programs that could help their businesses stay afloat and put food on people's tables. I reached out to contacts I've had for years in community and faith based organizations that worked in the inner city and in the areas of food and nutrition, and sent information to government organizations and grass roots newletters to raise awareness and ask for guidance. The basic premise of Love & Plenty was to help restaurants get funding to provide meals for people in need, and because I have also worked with Artists for many years, I connected them into the process with the idea that with any work sold, instead of a percentage or fee going to me, it would go to the project to help the restaurants. In the early stages I though that Love & Plenty would need to become a not for profit organization and I contacted people about possible fiscal sponsorship in the process and spoke with business advisors and consultants who I was connected to in the not for profit and business management fields. Then, in a memorable conversation last June, an Artist friend who is also a lawyer with many years of experience in the business world suggested that the business could remain for profit. With that idea, I realized that Love & Plenty could just be a consultancy of my own that I did pro-bono and that I could help a for profit restaurant build a sustainable charitable arm through their regular revenue and create a business model that could be replicated with some variations in any location. At that point I understood that Love & Plenty was simply the crisis mode of a long term project I have been planning since July of 2008 and had started to move forward on in 2018, to purchase a house in Little Compton, Rhode Island that would become a farm to table Chef's table restaurant that would be a training center for youth and adults from challenging backgrounds to learn about the hospitality industry, food and nutrition, farming, agriculture, ecology and sustainability, and that would also be a retreat and residency program for Artists. The restaurant would fund the charitable work, so that there could be free programs and a sliding scale for trainings and residencies.

Last September, when Antique Bar & Bakery reopened, we began to plan monthly wine pairings under the umbrella of Love & Plenty to help the restaurant with added revenue and marketing. Over time, Sommelier and Artist Joel Liscio who selects wine for the pairings has been bringing in ideas that could help the restaurant increase income from wine sales and a targeted wine program. The first of those ideas that was implemented at the beginning of this year was for the sale of Rife wine which has Joel's art on the label. I chose that restaurant because from the beginning of my vision for Love & Plenty, the food available there has been the inspiration. It is my core belief that everyone deserves to have food of that quality and creativity and flavor because it is lifechanging. If we can feed people with the best food, we can begin to help empower them to change their lives for the better.

In recent months Artists have begun to donate work for the pairings and to bring their artwork to be sold with a portion of the proceeds being donated back to the restaurant for the Love & Plenty project. The pairings themselves are exquisite and special afternoons, with special lunch menus that are paired perfectly with the wines selected by Joel Liscio. The tables are seated with food and wine and art lovers, entrepreneurs, Artists, and philanthropists, and there's a spirit of fun and celebration as well as an understanding that we are coming together as a community to help the community. Love and Plenty started as an idea and it has grown organically. When the name came to me, I thought of four additional subtitles, "Love Created, Love Delivered, Love Shared, Love Multiplied", a chain to fill the gap that had been broken when the restaurants were abruptly shut down, and over this past year I've seen the truth of those words come to life.

Love & Plenty  

Wine Pairing Lunch

At Antique Bar & Bakery

Artisanal Truffles And Chocolates

From Milène Jardine Chocolatier

Artist Stephen Cimini

With Artwork Donated For The Project

The Love & Plenty Logo

Created By 3D Artist Dana Gambale

And The Invitation

Created By Designer Jamison Harvey

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

  

An Abundant Life - Giving Help Where It's Needed

In 2006, when I first began to work on the lower east side of Manhattan as the Director of an after school program on Avenue D, I was introduced to the Partnership For After School Education or PASE as it is known and referred to by those of us who have been lucky enough to meet the wonderful people who are a part of that organization. At the time I had a heart to do the work, but no formal training and very little experience, and because of the excellence of the services available at PASE I was not only able to bring so many wonderful enrichment programs to the youth and families I was serving, but I was given the opportunity to be a part of several high level and highly regarded trainings and educational workshops and career development college and graduate level courses that changed the trajectory of my own career. It's been something that I've thought of often during this past year of challenges due to the current health and economic crisis that has brought about so many changes to all of our lives and the ways that we have been used to work. Since the time that I took my first training at PASE my own work has moved from the lower east side to all over the five boroughs, changing from being the Director of an after school program to teaching community nutrition and health and then onto starting my own community based organization. But through it all, as my own work and life changed and grew, PASE was a constant that was always a valuable resource, adding to and strengthening the experience I was gaining in the field, and appearing often with new ideas, supportive services and information about best practices that have continued to this day to make it possible for me to do the work that I do with to the best of my ability.

Two years ago I wrote about Landit, a women's executive leadership development program that was offered to me through PASE because of other leadership development programs I had graduated from in the past. I knew at the time when I applied for it that it would be a wonderful opportunity because every program I have been a part of through PASE is always so memorable and useful and full of the types of information and resources that help support career growth and knowledge, and it was life changing. During this past year I have been so grateful that I had that opportunity when I did because I have used the information and skills learned in ways that I never imagined that I would have to before the world as we know it changed. Even if we were still living in the time before this current crisis, the insights and skills and tools that were made available through Landit were powerful and empowering. In this current landscape of uncertainty, they have been integral to so much of the work that I do that I am reminded every day of how important the gift of that opportunity was.

Organizations like PASE are so valuable, because they support those who are doing the work in the communities on so many levels. When we measure impact, we can also look at the exponential quality of what the work has the capacity to do, and with an organization like PASE, the numbers of people whose lives are affected for the better because of their stellar and committed daily work to support the after school providers, services and educators in the community can only be measured in stars.

Partnership For After School Education

120 Broadway

Suite 230

New York, New York

https://pasesetter.org

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

       

An Abundant Life - Writing From The Heart

Daniel Damiano has written an extraordinary novel. "The Woman in the Sun Hat" takes us on a journey from start to finish that not only invites us into the world of the protagonist Peggy Bubone, but helps us to inhabit that world with her in all its sometimes uncomfortable, emotionally challenging, earthy and ultimately invigorating glory. At times so deeply moving in its depiction of Peggy's life that continuing to read felt like a personal excavation, this is a novel that begins far away from where it ends and yet somehow brings together the strands of a woman's life in a way that is both breathtakingly beautiful and heart-wrenchingly painful.

I met Daniel a few years ago when I was invited to a reading of one of his plays that an Actress friend was a part of, and at the time I offered to write a blog about him because his writing is excellent. In the process of getting to know him more, I attended a production of his one man show, "American Tranquility," and enjoyed his tour de force performance so much that I returned when it was brought to the stage again a few months later. Writing about him then I noted that the characters he creates have so many levels and layers that they are not only infinitely fascinating, but they are unique and real even in their sometimes hilarious commentary, dialogue and actions. They are also people that we come to deeply care about, as we discover more of what's underneath the surface of their lives, and we find ourselves rooting for them to find whatever the golden road is that they are looking for.

"The Woman in the Sun Hat" is not like any novel I have ever read before. It is also written in such a personally unique style that it was refreshing to experience it. The first time I read it, I told Daniel that though in the beginning the characters were entertaining, I was unable to understand why it was only later that I began to embrace them. I've realized since then that it is because of the arc of Peggy's transformation. As she moves through the story, she becomes many things that in their complexity reveal the deep roots of her humanity. In my second reading of his newly edited pre-published version, though I knew where the story was going I still enjoyed the pure act of reading in a way that is not always the case. I love to read and have since I was a very young child, but I usually gravitate to certain styles and certain authors. This novel is in a way very different from the writing I would normally say was my style, the lyrical romantically beautiful language of F. Scott Fitzgerald, passages of Proust, or the English classics of the Bronte's, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, but though it has its own rhythms and traditions there is a very special something that draws the reader in and makes us want to continue on to find out just where we are going and where we will ultimately end up.

The story is a truly remarkable one, and the writing itself is so skillful, with the kind of language that jumps out at you not because it is trying to prove something but because it is so enjoyable. It's one of those books I found it difficult to put down and also one I wanted to take time over to savor and enjoy and not finish too quickly. To say that Daniel Damiano is a Wordsmith and a Master Craftsman is an understatement. He can do what many cannot, and create a world that is entirely his own that also reaches into our own personal experience and reminds us of those moments which are more powerful than anything, the expressions in a life that come from deep within the heart.

"The Woman in the Sun Hat"

A Novel By Daniel Damiano

www.amazon.com/Woman-Sun-Hat-Daniel-Damiano

www.danieldamiano.com

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

 

An Abundant Life - At Home

When I first moved to New York I had been accepted into an internship with the Circle Repertory Company. I lived in an apartment on 122nd and Amsterdam because a friend from childhood who lived in New York who I'd contacted just happened to have a room opening up in her apartment when I needed to find a place to stay. Her father was a Professor at Columbia, and she had gone to Barnard, and he had bought her an apartment in one of the buildings that was newly renovated. It was a fifth floor walkup across the street from a school where hip hop Artists hung out and played music on their boomboxes constantly, but to me even with the noise booming on summer evenings I felt like I was in a very special world. My part of the rent was $350 per month. Eventually it went up to I think $390. I found out later that the friend I was renting from wasn't paying any part of that at all. Her father had bought the apartment at an insider discounted price for cash, and the amount she was charging me for rent was her Co-op maintenance. But even at that price it was a stretch in those days. My internship paid me $60 per week and I had to get a part time job just to scrape by. When the friend decided to move in with her boyfriend in another state she found a roommate for me to in her words cover the other half of the rent. That poor guy was a graduate student whose marriage was on the outs, and he not long after moving in decided he couldn't take New York any more. I don't know why my friend insisted that I get another roommate, but she did, and for a period of time I had several different people who came and went. One young actress who came to live with me was a friend of one of my fellow interns. He had met her in London at the London Academy of Dramatic Arts and when she was moving to New York and was looking for a place to stay he introduced us. He had lived with me for about a month or maybe more himself, before finding another roommate situation with a bunch of guys at NYU downtown. The young actress was very much of a party goer, and she had much more money than I did. She put her mind toward going out everywhere she could see and be seen, and one day she started telling me that she had gone to a restaurant all the way downtown on the outskirts of Soho called the Bell Caffe. She couldn't stop talking about the place because it was such an insider hotspot. Only the coolest of the cool went there, and late nights regularly turned into after hours. I forget which hot young actor she met there and shared a table with, maybe Matthew Broderick if my memory is correct. I'm not sure, but I think there may have been many. She was bound and determined for stardom and she found many connections at the Bell Caffe.

A number of years later, when I moved downtown and was beginning to write and produce plays and evenings of theater, I read in the Circle Rep LAB newsletter that Kurt Williams who owned the Belle Caffe was offering the restaurant as a place to host collaborative projects. I called him up and made an appointment and stopped by one afternoon. How to describe the Belle except that it was funky and fun, a vision he had lovingly created from his own Seattle coffee shop background combined with and LA vibe. He'd taken the abandoned garage and gutted it, working with friends to create a restaurant that was full of art and artwork down to the mosaics on parts of the walls. A skilled Chef he created a healthy and eclectic menu that always had something interesting and delicious that somehow was always exactly what you wanted. After meeting that day we planned some events and some evenings of theater, and over the next few years I almost lived there. I cast Kurt in my own plays and he introduced me to his friends, I had my birthdays there, I grieved my father's death there, and my heartbreaks found a place to heal through laughter, creativity, love and art.

After the Bell closed, Kurt and I remained friends. He worked at different restaurants for a time, inviting me to visit with him at places that have such a history in the city but for me have a personal one. His resume spanned some of the best, but whenever I hear their names I only remember visiting with him there. The food, though excellent, was somehow always secondary to the adventure of being with him. I visited him in East Berlin in the earlier days before it became an enjoyable place to live when he was helping a friend open a restaurant, and we spent days in New York City on rooftops, at Central Park Summerstage and one summer he took me to Brighton Beach, an introduction that started me journeying out there with an enjoyment that has lasted to this day.

How do I describe the Bell? When I first walked into Antique Bar & Bakery I felt like I was somehow thrown back in time, not just because of the vintage decor but because somehow it felt like the Bell. Chef Paul Gerard's sense of design and aesthetic are so perfectly put together with everything in its perfect place, but while the Bell had a feeling of bohemian abandon there is something somehow that it similar between the two. Maybe it's the decor, but maybe it's the heart that is in the two very different Chefs. They love to invite people into the spaces they've created and help them feel right at home.

With Kurt Williams

On My Birthday Years Ago

At The Bell Caffe

  

Blessings,

Jannie Susan