A Beisl Burgeons in Brooklyn:
Chef Crosses River, Loosens Tie
Beisl is the Viennese word for “bistro,” and this new restaurant, which opened three months ago across the street from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is as casual and relaxed a place as I’ve been in a while. “I wanted to create a comfortable, Read More
I cannot recommend too highly Martha Clarke’s Vienna: Lusthaus (Revisited) at the New York Theatre Workshop downtown. Based on Ms. Clarke’s landmark 1986 production, this lovely, erotic 70-minute exploration of the unconscious world of Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century is itself a seductive dream. In all of its exquisite simplicity and inconsolable Read More
The early portraits of the Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), which are currently the subject of a mesmerizing exhibition at the Neue Galerie New York, have long been recognized as one of the stellar achievements of the Viennese avant-garde that flourished in the years immediately preceding the First World War. Yet the young Kokoschka, who Read More
Downtown’s Whiz Kid
For the past three years, Ellen Jong, a 25-year-old photographer who lives in Chinatown, has taken pictures of herself urinating in strange locations. Ms. Jong took a photo of herself urinating on the beach during a recent trip to the Philippines; one of herself peeing as the sun set behind a pyramid Read More
Although the Austrian-born painter Oskar Kokoschka
(1886-1980) spent much of his very long life as a tireless traveler and expatriate, his work will forever be
associated with the Viennese avant-garde in the early years of the 20th
century. It was in Vienna in the era of Sigmund Freud, Hugo von Hofmannsthal,
Arnold Schönberg, Adolph Loos Read More
After David Bouley opened Danube last fall, I expected to see chefs around town making free with the pumpkinseed oil and the paprika. But New Austrian Cuisine did not catch on like pan-Latin or Asian fusion. Now, however, Kurt Gutenbrunner, a Bouley alumnus, has opened Wallsé, a bistro in the West Village that serves modern Read More
Fully Committed , the backstage restaurant show beloved by restaurant critics and celebrity chefs, is going strong at the little Cherry Lane Theater downtown. I caught it before swooning over a supper of meltingly triumphant Kavalierspitz with zesty puréed spinach, followed by a Czech palacsintak to die for, at David Bouley’s swirling tribute to fin Read More
Wait a minute, I’m not finished. I was just getting started. I’ve got more awards to bestow for Bests of the Century. I was just warming up last month when I named Pale Fire Best English Language Novel of the Century. In this column, I’m going to address a category I’m particularly fond of: the Read More
Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend , edited by Frederick Crews. Viking, 301 pages, $24.95.
Reading Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend , you can almost hear the tremulous duets rising above the Upper West Side and the Central Village: the whispers of anxious analysands shaken to the core by this anthology of authoritative Read More
First it was Weimar, then Vienna. There is something bizarre about the way certain periods of modern cultural history are suddenly transformed into objects of contemporary yearning and nostalgia. Think of the romance that has been made of Weimar Germany in recent decades. Weimar was the prelude and handmaiden of the greatest disasters of the Read More
