Back, with updates

How’s your spring going? I’ve been quiet for a couple of months but, as paying Skippies know, not idle. I’m writing two shows, developing a new interview format, succumbing to Knicks fever, and wandering around far-flung parts of New York, musing on all of the above.

I have a few updates for you.

First, the shows. I’m nearing the end of a series of performances about The Power Broker, trying to understand how Robert Moses shaped New York. The project is turning into more than an exploration of Moses and the city. It’s an investigation of Robert Caro, the guy who shapes our understanding of Moses; of me, who’s long held on to anger toward Moses; and of memory, and what history is, and why my hometown is consumed with a builder who died in 1981. I did not intend to dive (slip) down so many rabbit holes when starting the project two years ago, but here we are. The shows help me climb back out.

If you’re in New York: I’m performing what I’m calling Part One and Three Quarters on Tuesday, July 14th at 7 PM at Caveat. Think of it as part refresher, part recap, part deeper cut. If you missed Part One or Two, you can get caught up. If you saw both, there’s new material: Jane Jacobs’ showdown with Moses in Washington Square Park, more on Moses’ strange family life, and one or two things I’ve learned that Caro, our hero, got wrong.

Tickets here. $5 off with code RIVERSIDEPARK. Can’t make it in person? There’s a livestream.

Then in the fall: Part Three, the finale. I’ll perform it twice: Sunday, September 20th at 7 PM at The Bell House in Brooklyn (new venue unlocked!), and Sunday, October 4th at 5 PM at Caveat. Ticket links to follow. I’m excited, and a little scared, to see how the trilogy concludes.

If you want some history before then, I’m conducting live interviews at the Center for Brooklyn History with three historians this summer. The series kicks off June 30th (free!) with Khalil Gibran Muhammad, whose work was the source material for my first Skipped History video, over five years ago. We’ll discuss W.E.B. Du Bois’s “The Souls of White Folk” and talk with the audience about what the essay reveals about how far we’ve come as a country, and how far we still have to go. Come out if you can.

As for the new interview format, I teased it for paying subscribers. The short version: I want to go deeper. Not the what, but the why. Those interviews are coming next month, if all goes according to plan (and what fun would it be if it did?).

- Ben