Life of Pi
Canadian author Yann Martel holds a copy of his novel Life Of Pi.
Photo: Supplied
How do you picture the Life of Pi?
December 17, 2005
Yann Martel introduces a unique competition to find an illustrator for a new edition of his best-selling modern classic.
THE WRITING AND TELLING of stories is an inherently social act. You don’t whisper a story to a glass of water, you whisper it, eventually, into someone’s ear. Stories should be shared.
When Life of Pi, my story of a 16-year-old boy named Pi stranded at sea with a Bengal tiger, won the 2002 Man Booker Prize, I was stunned.
Now that The Times in Britain, The Age in Melbourne and my publishers, Canongate and Text, are launching a competition to illustrate a new edition of Life of Pi, I’m excited: it’s another way of sharing the story.
Once you put the story out there, it’s up to the reader what happens next. How it is interpreted is no longer your affair. I loved the cover picture by Andy Bridge for the first edition as soon as I saw it D, and I told all my foreign publishers that they should take a look at it.Illustrations can only enhance the reader’s experience.
There is a wonderful tradition of complementing literature with dramatic images and I believe that images will complement the imagination of the reader of Life of Pi. They will give the book an added quality, not only the aesthetic of the story but also something visual.
For people reading the future edition there will not only be a platform of words for their imagination to jump from, but illustrations, too.
That’s what is so exciting about the competition, to see what the people who enter will bring to it and how they will see the book.
HOW TO ENTER
The Age and Text Publishing, publisher of Yann Martel’s internationally acclaimed novel Life of Pi, in association with The Times and Canongate Books UK and The Globe and Mail and Knopf Canada, are launching a competition to illustrate a new edition of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel.
ROUND 1
Amateur and professional artists are invited to submit one illustration of a scene of their choice from the book. This can be in any size, format or medium. The deadline for submissions is midnight on January 31, 2006.
From these entries the panel of judges will create a shortlist of up to 15 artists (up to five from each participating newspaper).
The shortlisted illustrators will be notified by February 16, 2006. Their names will be announced and their illustrations printed in The Age (and will also be published online at www.theage.com.au), The Times and The Globe and Mail prior to publication of the book.
•
ROUND 2
The shortlisted artists will then be invited to submit three completed pieces of artwork for final consideration, along with some sketches that demonstrate their vision for the book as a whole.
The final book is expected to feature up to 40 illustrations. Each shortlisted artist (with the exception of the winner) will receive an award of $Cdn500, following receipt of their artworks and sketches and after the final judging takes place.
THE WINNER
The final judging panel will include Yann Martel and senior representatives of the publishing houses and the newspapers.
The winner will be entitled to receive an advance of £5000 against a 2 per cent royalty payable on the British, Canadian and Australian hardcover editions of the book.
The aim is to publish the illustrated hardback edition of Life of Pi in Canada (Knopf Canada), Britain (Canongate Books), and Australia (Text Publishing) to start, with the possibility of publication to follow in other countries. Life of Pi is published in more than 40 territories worldwide.
HOW TO ENTER
Australian entries should be emailed as a JPG file to pi@theage.com.au or sent to Life of Pi Competition, The Age, Locked Bag 14433, Melbourne, Vic 8001. Entries cannot be acknowledged, and will be returned only if requested at the time of submission and if correct return packaging and postage is supplied. The Age is not responsible for any lost entries, nor is Text Publishing. Entries must be clearly labelled with the artist’s name, address and telephone number. Entries must be received by midnight (EST) on January 31, 2006.
Terms and conditions are in today’s Public Notices.
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Nietzsche
Comments Welcome
The signs of corruption.–Consider the following signs of those states of society which are necessary from time to time and which are designated with the word “corruption.” As soon as corruption sets in anywhere superstition becomes rank. and the previous common faith of a people becomes pale and powerless against it. For superstition is second-order free spirit: those who surrender to it choose certain forms and formulas that they find congenial and permit themselves some freedom of choice. Whoever is superstitious is always, compared with the religious human being, much more of a person; and a superstitious society is one in which there are many individuals and much delight in individuality…
Second, a society in which corruptions spreads is accused of exhaustion… But what is generally overlooked is that the ancient national energy and national passion that became gloriously visible in war and warlike games have now been transmuted into countless private passions and have merely become less visible. Indeed, in times of “corruption” the power and force of the national energies that are expended are probably greater than ever and the individual squanders them as lavishly as he could not have formerly when he was simply not yet rich enough. Thus it is precisely in times of “exhaustion” that tragedy runs through houses and streets, that great love and great hatred are born, and that the flame of knowledge flares up into the sky.
Third, it is usually said… that such times of corruption are gentler and that cruelty declines drastically, compared with the old, stronger age which was more given to faith. All I concede is that cruelty now becomes more refined and that its older forms henceforth offend the new taste; but the art of wounding and torturing others with words and looks reaches its supreme development…The men of corruption are witty and slanderous; they know of types of murder that require neither daggers nor assault; they know that whatever is said well is believed.
Fourth, when “morals decay” those men emerge whom one calls tyrants: they are the precursors and as it were the precocious harbingers of individuals… In these ages bribery and treason reach their peak, for the love of the newly discovered ego is much more powerful now than the love of the old, used-up “fatherland”… Individuals–being truly in-and-for-themselves– care, as is well known, more for the moment than do their opposites, the herd men… The times of corruption are those when the apples fall from the tree: I mean the individuals, for they carry the seeds of the future and are the authors of the spiritual colonization and origin of new states and communities. Corruption is merely a nasty word for the autumn of a people.
from Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, s. 23, Walter Kaufmann transl
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Tragedy in Jersey City, New Jersey
Emergency Vehicle Falls Into River Killing Two
December 26, 2005 2:06 p.m. EST
Ayinde O. Chase – All Headline News Staff Writer
Jersey City, NJ (AHN) – Two Jersey City police officers driving in an emergency management services (EMS) vehicle plunged into the Hackensack River Sunday, while crossing an open drawbridge in heavy rain and fog.
The vehicle was crossing Jersey City’s Hackensack River Bridge, also called the Lincoln Highway Bridge, when authorities report the driver made the fatal crossing.
Investigators believe the driver of the truck apparently didn’t realize the bridge was in the up position.
Jersey City police spokesman Stan Eason says the officers had been sent to a call to help direct traffic away from the drawbridge, which was not operating properly.
The vehicle was found 45 feet under water. Jersey City police officials confirmed the two victims were department members, however, have not released their names.
Unconfirmed reports have the bridge’s warning lights either not working or too dim to see clearly in the stormy weather. A Coast Guard spokesman says the bridge’s hydraulic lift had been elevated to allow a tugboat to pass below when the EMS vehicle was crossing.
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Jersey City, Politicians and The Law
I was also born in Jersey City, New Jersey. My father served as Mayor of Jersey City from 1963 until 1971. I can testify to the fact that my father had a deep and abiding respect for law and order, which is more than I can say about the Justice Department as it was run by John Mitchell and the Nixon Administration.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I AM THE LAW!
By Richard ReevesFri Dec 23, 8:12 PM ET
JERSEY CITY, N.J. — This is where I grew up, and this is where I learned about politicians and the law, so nothing surprises me in President Bush’s declarations that he has the right and duty to ignore laws about spying on his fellow citizens.
Frank Hague was the mayor here when I was in grammar school. He was the mayor for 30 years but, good or bad as he was, mostly bad, he will always be remembered for one thing. It happened when he wanted to get working papers for a couple of 14-year-olds, and an official told him that was not legal. You had to be 16. Said Hague: “Listen, here is the law: I am the law!”
President Nixon said the same thing about secret bombings and burglaries: “It’s legal if the president says it’s legal.”
Now George W. Bush is saying he is the law because he is the only president we have. He has, in fact, become a Nixonian figure, alone in the White House talking to the same people day after day, and fewer and fewer of them. He does not like to talk to members of Congress because he might let slip what he is actually doing in Iraq or listening in on phone calls. He likes to appoint judges, but he does not want to listen to them because they might make him stop doing things he wants to do.
What, then, is the purpose of having judges forbidden to judge? That was the question raised by the resignation of federal Judge James Robertson from the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, the body charged with issuing warrants for electronic eavesdropping on the domestic calls and messages of Americans. He quit after it was revealed, by The New York Times, that wiretapping and other surveillance was going ahead, by order of the president, without warrants of any kind. Robertson’s role, unwittingly, was a cover for breaking the law.
All administrations, in my experience, lie on some matters of national security. Then they lie about the lying, as President Bush did a year ago when he said: “Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretaps, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.”
Not true. Like Nixon, who preferred to be in a circle of one, Bush can’t stand the idea of governance slowed and scrutinized by checks and balances. This president has now broken the silence and some of the deception by announcing that he authorized warrantless eavesdropping — and claims that his deception saved the lives of thousands of American lives threatened by new acts of terrorism.
That may be true. These are times that try men’s souls — and times that are changing at exponential speed. Terrorism is real and frightening, and the president is charged with the responsibility of protecting his people. This is a different kind of war and has to be fought in different ways, particularly when it is waged, on both sides, by exploiting quantum leaps in communication technology.
But the United States cannot win (and preserve the individual freedoms that made this a great nation) by relying on one man or a few dozen. These latest revelations of technique, danger and deception show that the time has come for national debate and dialogue about many dangers, not on more secrecy and lying. The White House, I assume, is doing what it thinks necessary — legal or not — but the Congress is not, either because it is being lied to or is derelict in its duties.
The times call for a robust debate by elected officials everywhere, particularly in the Senate and House, on the checks and balances necessary to fight this war without giving up the freedoms we are trying to protect. Otherwise, the United States will continue its drift toward becoming a lawless police state with regular elections
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December 24, 2005
Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 – The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.
The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries, they said.
As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.
The government’s collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial officials familiar with the program. One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications growing out of the N.S.A.’s surveillance program, is whether the court has legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass through American-based telephonic “switches,” according to officials familiar with the matter.
“There was a lot of discussion about the switches” in conversations with the court, a Justice Department official said, referring to the gateways through which much of the communications traffic flows. “You’re talking about access to such a vast amount of communications, and the question was, How do you minimize something that’s on a switch that’s carrying such large volumes of traffic? The court was very, very concerned about that.”
Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.’s domestic surveillance program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to the monitoring of international phone and e-mail communications involving people with known links to Al Qaeda.
What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation.
The current and former government officials who discussed the program were granted anonymity because it remains classified.
Bush administration officials declined to comment on Friday on the technical aspects of the operation and the N.S.A.’s use of broad searches to look for clues on terrorists. Because the program is highly classified, many details of how the N.S.A. is conducting it remain unknown, and members of Congress who have pressed for a full Congressional inquiry say they are eager to learn more about the program’s operational details, as well as its legality.
Officials in the government and the telecommunications industry who have knowledge of parts of the program say the N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said.
This so-called “pattern analysis” on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.
The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in other contexts has raised strong objections, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system, developed by the Pentagon for tracking terror suspects, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Capps program for screening airline passengers. Both programs were ultimately scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and civil liberties.
But the Bush administration regards the N.S.A.’s ability to trace and analyze large volumes of data as critical to its expanded mission to detect terrorist plots before they can be carried out, officials familiar with the program say. Administration officials maintain that the system set up by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not give them the speed and flexibility to respond fully to terrorist threats at home.
A former technology manager at a major telecommunications company said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.
“All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and shared with them, and since 9/11, there’s been much more active involvement in that area,” said the former manager, a telecommunications expert who did not want his name or that of his former company used because of concern about revealing trade secrets.
Such information often proves just as valuable to the government as eavesdropping on the calls themselves, the former manager said.
“If they get content, that’s useful to them too, but the real plum is going to be the transaction data and the traffic analysis,” he said. “Massive amounts of traffic analysis information – who is calling whom, who is in Osama Bin Laden’s circle of family and friends – is used to identify lines of communication that are then given closer scrutiny.”
Several officials said that after President Bush’s order authorizing the N.S.A. program, senior government officials arranged with officials of some of the nation’s largest telecommunications companies to gain access to switches that act as gateways at the borders between the United States’ communications networks and international networks. The identities of the corporations involved could not be determined.
The switches are some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States, and, with the globalization of the telecommunications industry in recent years, many international-to-international calls are also routed through such American switches.
One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the N.S.A. said that to exploit its technological capabilities, the American government had in the last few years been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international traffic that is routed through American-based switches.
The growth of that transit traffic had become a major issue for the intelligence community, officials say, because it had not been fully addressed by 1970′s-era laws and regulations governing the N.S.A. Now that foreign calls were being routed through switches on American soil, some judges and law enforcement officials regarded eavesdropping on those calls as a possible violation of those decades-old restrictions, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for domestic surveillance.
Historically, the American intelligence community has had close relationships with many communications and computer firms and related technical industries. But the N.S.A.’s backdoor access to major telecommunications switches on American soil with the cooperation of major corporations represents a significant expansion of the agency’s operational capability, according to current and former government officials.
Phil Karn, a computer engineer and technology expert at a major West Coast telecommunications company, said access to such switches would be significant. “If the government is gaining access to the switches like this, what you’re really talking about is the capability of an enormous vacuum operation to sweep up data,” he said.
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Irving Berlin
Everett Collection
Irving Berlin at the piano with Fred Astaire, left, Ann Miller and Peter Lawford in 1948
Cary Conover for The New York Times
The town house on Beekman Place where Berlin lived for 42 years. Now the Luxembourg House, it has been the site of an annual sing-along of Berlin’s “White Christmas” since 1982
December 23, 2005
His Manhattan
Dreaming of Irving Berlin in the Season That He Owned
By GLENN COLLINS
Irving Berlin’s New York was a world of Broadway babies, teeming matinees, entrances at the Imperial, exits at the St. James, joyful noise at the New Amsterdam and civic veneration for his great mentor, the showman George M. Cohan.
And it still is.
It’s not just that the 1954 movie “White Christmas,”highlighting Berlin’s definitive musical statement on the splendor of the holidays, is playing – as it must, on Christmas Day – on television. And it is no surprise that a steadfast group of carolers will be singing that classic tomorrow night, as they have done for more than 20 years, outside 17 Beekman Place, the five-story town house that Berlin inhabited for 42 years.
After all, he was the nation’s songwriter, and vestiges of his long sojourn in Manhattan are everywhere, a fact that is celebrated in a sumptuous new book, “Irving Berlin’s Show Business” (Harry N. Abrams). And thanks to exhibitions and a festival, New York will become Berlin Country in the coming months, far in advance of the centennial of the first of his 1,500 songs in 2007.
His enduring prominence may seem improbable, since Berlin, the man who wrote “God Bless America,” “Easter Parade,” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Blue Skies” and “Puttin’ On the Ritz” was born 117 years ago. His six-decade career, from 1907 to 1966, spanned sheet music, the stage, recordings, radio, film and television, and for millions his canon continues to evoke powerful emotions.
“He hasn’t had a hit song since 1966 with ‘An Old-Fashioned Wedding,’ but these days you can’t go to many places in Manhattan without bumping into him,” said David Leopold, author of the new book. “We all know his songs, and they are all part of who we are.”
And so it is the moment for Irving Berlin in the season that he owned.
“This time of year is especially his,” said Mary Ellin Barrett, Berlin’s 79-year-old daughter, who lives in Manhattan and has helped guard his legacy. “His songs evoke so much feeling at this time when we like to be close to our families.” Berlin also comes to mind in a time of war; he has the distinction of having created anthems not only for Christmas and Easter, but also for America itself.
“God Bless America” returned to the Top 10 after Sept. 11, 2001, when Celine Dionrecorded it as the title track of a benefit album; it reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart in October 2001. The following year, the United States Postal Service released a commemorative Berlin stamp.
Even Berlin’s earning capacity seems remarkably undiminished from the time of his unimaginable fame in that era when the piano was the nation’s home-entertainment center. The annual Forbes.com list of the rich and deceased claims that Berlin’s works earned $7 million last year (tying two others among the departed, Johnny Cash and George Harrison). Berlin’s privately held estate has never revealed its revenues.
Beyond this, through more than six decades, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of New York have received more than $10 million in royalties from “God Bless America” and other songs, thanks to Berlin’s donation; last year the contribution was $500,000.
That Berlin was a man of Manhattan cannot be doubted. “My father spent a lot of time in Hollywood, yes, but he always thought of himself as a New Yorker,” Mrs. Barrett said. “The city was in his bones and his blood, and he always returned.”
“Everyone, regardless of age, knows five Berlin songs,” said Mr. Leopold, a 40-year-old independent curator and archivist who has organized exhibitions on the works of Oscar Hammerstein, Moss Hart and George Kaufman, and who also wrote “Hirschfeld’s Hollywood” (Harry N. Abrams, 2001), a compendium of Al Hirschfeld’s film-related art.
Mr. Leopold’s Berlin book is a 240-page visual biography summoning up the songwriter’s legacy in an assemblage of photographs, drawings, posters, set and costume designs, sheet music and album covers.
The book is a companion to three exhibitions curated by Mr. Leopold. “Show Business: Irving Berlin’s Broadway,” organized for the New York Public Library, opened in San Francisco last July and arrives at the New York Public Library for the Performing Artson Feb. 14. This spring, the Film Society of Lincoln Center plans to hold a Berlin film festival.
Another exhibition, “Show Business: Irving Berlin’s Hollywood,” will open at the James Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pa., in May. “Show Business: Irving Berlin’s America” is to open in Washington in 2007 under the auspices of the Library of Congress.
There is no time like the holiday present, however, to take a tour of the New York of Berlin, who emigrated from Russia at age 5, left home at 13 to sing in the city’s streets and saloons, and began his celebrated journey down Tin Pan Alley in 1907. In fact, there is so much extant Berliniana that a comprehensive inventory would make for a punishingly long walk. Perhaps the most amiable place to embark on a tour of some prominent haunts is Gallagher’s Steak House, the Runyonesque hangout at 228 West 52d Street that began as a speakeasy in 1927.
Though favorites such as Lindy’s, Dinty Moore’s and the Cub Room of the Stork Club are all gone, Berlin – a steak fancier – “would have dinner at Gallagher’s, and there was always someone else in the restaurant that he knew,” Mrs. Barrett said.
Thus legally fortified (hidden silver flasks at Gallagher’s are no longer the essential accessories they were during deepest Prohibition), pilgrims might head east to Broadway, turning to salute the Broadway Theater, current home of “The Color Purple” – 1681 Broadway, at 53rd Street. There, in 1911, Will Archie and Helen Hayes sang Berlin’s first stage duet, “There’s a Girl in Havana.”
Stop at 799 Seventh Avenue, at 52d Street, the site of the Irving Berlin Music Company from 1933 to 1944, if only to note that it is now the Sheraton New York Hotel. Back then, Berlin’s office was focused on musicals, including “Face the Music” and “As Thousands Cheer,” and it handled the stunning popularity of “God Bless America.” It remained his New York base when he turned his talents to Hollywood in the 1930′s.
Walk down to 1650 Broadway, at 51st Street. It was the home of Berlin’s music business from November 1944 to 1963, right next to the Winter Garden Theater (now the Cadillac Winter Garden). The current home of “Mamma Mia!,” the theater at 1634 Broadway between 50th and 51st Streets once featured Berlin’s “Broadway Beauties of 1920.” Summon up, for a moment, the frantic hurly-burly of 1920′s Broadway, when 300 shows a year hit the boards, and envision the excitement and sense of occasion that made dressing up for the theater essential. Even in a time when Broadway production has ramped down to a saner pace, and T-shirts and blue jeans are more prevalent than furs, it is still a glorious throwback to walk among the bustling theaters just before curtain time.
Wander, then, down to 1619 Broadway (the Brill Building), between 49th and 50th Streets, which once housed a favorite Berlin diversion: the Trans-Lux Newsreel Theater, a staple of the era that was the cable-news info crawl of its day. Although starting in the 1950′s the Brill Building would be remembered as the center of doo-wop and pop music crafting, the real Tin Pan Alley in Berlin’s early years centered on 28th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway.
Fittingly, the place where the offices of Irving Berlin Inc. were situated from 1921 to 1933 (1607 Broadway, between 48th and 49th Streets) has been replaced by the Crowne Plaza Hotel, formerly the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza. “That hotel chain,” Mr. Leopold said, “was named for the movie ‘Holiday Inn,’ ” the 1942 perennial starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire that, of course, showcased Berlin’s “White Christmas.” Not the least of Berlin’s achievements was that this son of a cantor, born Israel Baline in a Russian village, created an imperishable idealization of a hallowed Christian tradition.
Further south, there is the Palace Theater, on Seventh Avenue between 46th and 47th Streets. Berlin performed there as a vaudevillian during the week of Oct. 13, 1919, and first sang his own “Nobody Knows (and Nobody Seems to Care).”
At the traffic island at West 46th Street in Times Square, you can give your regards to the bronze statue of George M. Cohan. The great showman championed Berlin early, and made him a member of the Friars Club in 1911. Berlin, who had been a pallbearer at the funeral of the man he revered, was the primary force behind the statue, Mr. Leopold said.
The Music Box Theater, at 239 West 45th Street, was the only Broadway house built to accommodate the works of a songwriter, Mr. Leopold said. It was the home of Berlin’s “Music Box Revue” from 1921 to 1925 and “As Thousands Cheer” in 1933. An exhibition in the lobby (closed for the moment) is a shrine to Berlin.
In 1940, Berlin’s “Louisiana Purchase” played at the Imperial Theater, at 249 West 45th Street. It was there, too, that Ethel Merman starred in “Annie Get Your Gun” in 1946; she also headlined there in “Call Me Madam” in 1950. Though Merman’s huge stage presence derived from leather lungs and a powerhouse capacity to deliver Broadway belt, she was grateful to Berlin for roles in these shows, she said, because his lyrics “made a lady out of me” and “showed that I had a softer side.”
Stroll down the south side of West 44th Street, on the way to Sardi’s (where Berlin used to wait for reviews), and look for the bronze plaque commemorating the American Theater Wing’s Stage Door Canteen, a World War II servicemen’s oasis of entertainment and refreshment. Berlin attended the canteen’s opening in 1942, and that year his song “I Left My Heart at the Stage Door Canteen” was designated the organization’s official anthem.
At 214 West 42nd Street is the New Amsterdam Theater, currently inhabited by “The Lion King,” where Berlin’s first Broadway show, “Watch Your Step,” was presented on Dec. 8, 1914. Here, Berlin also contributed to the Ziegfeld Follies of 1916 – and 1918, 1919, 1920 and 1927.
For extra course credit, true Berlin lovers must wander east to the Algonquin Hotel at 59 West 44th Street, that literary landmark where Berlin wrote the lyrics for “Alice in Wonderland” on hotel stationery for his 1924 “Music Box Revue.”
Two blocks to the north, a mostly forgotten little gem of Berliniana adorns the thoroughfare now dubbed Little Brazil Street. At 29 West 46th Street – a six-story building with weather-beaten marble columns over a Twin Donut shop and a Blimpie Base – Berlin lived from 1921 to 1926 in the rooftop apartment with its still-visible buildingwide picture window. For a time, he moved his business office there.
Further north, and a bit to the east, is Paley Park on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, the site of the Cub Room of the Stork Club, a favorite of Berlin’s.
Finally, Berlin’s spectral presence is especially intense at Luxembourg House, 17 Beekman Place (at 50th Street). This town house was home to Berlin and his family from 1947 until he died in his sleep on Sept. 22, 1989, at 101. A plaque notes that Berlin “lived in this house for his last 42 years.”
“I especially remember Christmas and Thanksgiving in that house,” Mrs. Barrett said, recalling that her father “had a movie projector, so he’d have friends for dinner and he’d show a movie. I thought it was so grand.”
As they have there every Christmas Eve since 1982, at 6:30 tomorrow night a hardy band will carol “White Christmas” and other Berlin favorites. The tradition began spontaneously when John Wallowitch, the Manhattan songwriter, pianist and cabaret performer, gathered four other Berlin worshipers in front of the house to sing “White Christmas.”
The house, incidentally, was where Berlin composed “Call Me Madam.” That 1950 musical is a retelling of the commotion attending the appointment of the flamboyant hostess Perle Mesta as ambassador to Luxembourg.
The house was bought by the government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg after Berlin’s death. “It was a complete coincidence, of course, but one we embrace,” said Georges Faber, the consul general of Luxembourg. Mesta “is still remembered fondly in Luxembourg,” he said, continuing, “We like to think that she brought the notion of glamour to our country.”
The carolers have returned to the house every year, and the group has grown. The second year, after the caroling, the singers, to their astonishment, were welcomed into the kitchen, where they were greeted by the 95-year-old Berlin. “He was standing there in his bathrobe and slippers, and it was so touching,” Mr. Wallowitch said. “He kissed all the girls and hugged all the guys and said, ‘This is the nicest Christmas present I ever got.’ ”
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Frosty
http://sillygirl.yafro.com/photos/2005/12/0
Updated: 2:15 p.m. ET Dec. 20, 2005
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – With the help of his kids and neighbors, Billy Ray Powers built more than just a snowman — they’ve dubbed his 16-plus-foot-tall creation “Snowzilla.”
After using up all the snow in the family’s yard, they turned to neighbors’ yards and carried buckets on sleds. They hand-packed the snowman like an ice-cream cone.
“It’s solid ice,” he said. “I put the arms in with my power drill.”
It took a month to complete the project. It was too big to use buttons for its eyes, so Snowzilla gazes over the neighborhood from beer bottles.
Powers says the project took on a life of its own as it got bigger and bigger. Now Snowzilla is attracting plenty of sightseers.
“People stop by, and they’re just flabbergasted,” said neighbor Darrell Estes. “They walk up and knock on it to make sure it’s real snow, not Styrofoam.”
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Friday, December 23, 2005
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Marines in Iraq
Staff Sgt. William Lee, the utilities chief with Marine Tactical Air Command Squadron 28 and a Dawson, Ill., native, stands next to the plastic bottle Christmas tree the Marines of MTACS-28 built at Al Asad, Iraq, Dec. 16, 2005.
Photo by: Cpl. Cullen J. Tiernan
AL ASAD, Iraq (Dec. 10, 2005) — “Twas the night before Christmas, all were asleep, curled up in their racks. I looked all about, a strange sight I did see, no tinsel, no presents, instead a plastic bottle Christmas tree.”
These words, from Andrea Schutz’s version of “Twas the night before Christmas,” bring the traditional holiday poem to the deserts of Al Asad, Iraq. Schutz, the key volunteer advisor for Marine Tactical Air Command Squadron 28, and the families of deployed Marines have been able to participate in the Christmas celebration here by making and sending Christmas ornaments for a water bottle Christmas tree Marines from MTACS-28 built.
The Christmas tree consists of 4,130 water bottles. It stands more than 15 feet high. The entire squadron was involved in the collection of the water bottles. The Marines saved bottles and set up collection boxes throughout Al Asad.
Family and friends made approximately 150 ornaments for the tree. Schutz said having her husband away, particularly during the holiday season, leaves a void and heaviness in her heart. But, she said the tree helps her connect with her husband thousands of miles away.
“Marines were pulling 12-hour shifts, and then coming to help us,” said Staff Sgt. William Lee, the utilities chief with MTACS-28 and a Dawson, Ill., native. “I even had the physical conditioning platoon go on a run and pick up water bottles. After we collected the bottles, we had to cut, clean and peal the labels off them. It may not seem like much, but imagine cutting 2,500 bottles in one day.”
The Marines learned the Commandant of the Marine Corps was coming to Al Asad, and they wanted to ensure the tree was finished and lit in time for him to see it. They said they had a problem getting the last strand to light. But, after troubleshooting by Lee, the problem was fixed and the lights hung just minutes before the commandant arrived.
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/ac95bc775efc34c685256ab50049d458/bad0dcea23e3c4d0852570d90073ba2c?OpenDocument&Highlight=2,christmas
Snagged from:
http://Marcus2427.yafro.com/photo/1033305 |
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Transit Strike Settlement
Roger Toussaint
http://www.straphangers.org/
By CARL CAMPANILE and MARSHA KRANES
Fri Dec 23, 6:00 AM ET
Transit workers put the brakes on their strike only after state mediators covertly huddled with union and MTA officials at the New York Helmsley Hotel in a clandestine tete-a-tete steps away from the Grand Hyatt, where earlier talks stalled.
Over a 29-hour period, the MTA’s chief negotiator and a team of union bigs slipped unnoticed in and out of the hotel, and a series of small rooms that were rented by the three members of the state mediation panel.
There they scarfed down pastrami sandwiches, talked strategy and met separately with mediators to hammer out an agreement that would end the crippling strike.
Negotiators were so determined to keep the secret talks on the down low that when MTA Labor Relations Director Gary Dellaverson was confronted in the Helmsley by a Post reporter, he said, “I’m having an affair.”
The cloak-and-blabber occurred in three “ordinary hotel rooms” — furnished with two beds, a desk and several chairs — on the 33rd and 35th floors, an insider revealed.
The rooms all had a view of the strike-driven chaos below on East 41st Street.
Only when a truce seemed to be at hand — at 1 a.m. yesterday — did the two sides move back into the spotlight, returning to the media-packed Grand Hyatt to resume the first official talks since the start of the illegal strike.
The Post first suspected crucial informal negotiations were under way at the Helmsley when a reporter recognized an MTA security official staked out in the hotel lobby Wednesday night.
Those suspicions were confirmed at 11 p.m., when a weary Dellaverson was seen walking down the corridor on the 35th floor.
After joking with the Post reporter, Dellaverson disappeared into Room 3501, right next to an ice machine, to meet with state mediators.
Shortly after, union chief Roger Toussaint was spied ducking into the hotel with a trio of top advisers — TWU Secretary-Treasurer Ed Watt and lawyers Basil Paterson and Terry Meginnis.
The three spoke with hotel security in the lobby and then took an elevator to the 35th floor.
Soon after, Watt returned to the lobby to pick up food — pastrami sandwiches ordered from nearby Sarge’s Deli by the TWU negotiators.
On his return elevator ride to the 35th floor with the sandwiches, Watt acknowledged that union officials had been meeting with state mediators, and not talking directly with the MTA.
The union negotiators had to order out. Room service had closed early because of the transit strike.
The hotel manager made it a point to tell Toussaint why he wasn’t getting room service — because workers these days needed more time to get home.
“I was starving,” Paterson later told The Post. “We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and you’ve got to keep up your strength during negotiations.”
At one point, Toussaint tried to move his negotiating team down to Harry’s Bar, a restaurant off the hotel lobby, a Helmsley staffer reported.
The union chief asked that a section of the restaurant be cordoned off so he could have complete privacy with his advisers, the staffer said.
Toussaint was given the thumbs-down and told it was a public area, the staffer said.
Dellaverson left the hotel shortly before midnight — along with his security detail.
Toussaint left soon after.
At 1:30 a.m., he was spied returning to the Grand Hyatt, a block and a half away.
Not long after that, it was disclosed that for the first time since the strike, the MTA and union had resumed face-to-face negotiations under the supervision of the state Public Employment Relations Board.
The state mediators checked out of the Helmsley at midday yesterday — after their chief, Richard Curreri, announced that a truce had been reached.
Their use of the Helmsley for high-powered negotiations “was kept very quiet,” said a hotel staffer, who noted, “Even we were kept in the dark.”
The hotel — where rooms are considerably cheaper than at the Grand Hyatt — also was used by the MTA to house its security staffers, a source noted.
The last offer made by the MTA to the TWU called for salary increases of 3, 4 and 31/2 percent over three years — with an additional 1/2 percent available that could be added to one of the three years.
It also made Martin Luther King Day a paid holiday.
The MTA also agreed to keep the retirement age at 55 for union members but wanted new hires to contribute 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions. Employees now contribute 2 percent.
In announcing the truce, the state mediators suggested an alternative — that union members contribute to their health-care coverage instead of the pension.
There’s currently no deductible in their health-care package.
carl.campanile@nypost.com
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Iraq
IRAQ: THE WAR IS COMING HOME
By Richard ReevesFri Dec 16, 8:13 PM ET
LOS ANGELES — There are many costs the United States must pay for blundering into Iraq, and they cannot all be calculated in billions of dollars. Two of them are America’s loss of confidence in itself and a drift back to isolationism more profound than before the World Trade Center attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“Preoccupied with war abroad and growing problems at home, U.S. opinion leaders and the general public are taking a decidedly cautious view of America’s place in the world,” begins the summary of national surveys taken through last month by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in collaboration with the Council on Foreign Affairs in New York.
“Opinion leaders have become less supportive of the United States playing ‘a first among equals’ role among the world’s leading nations. … As the Iraq war has shaken the global outlook of American influentials, it has led to a revival of isolationist sentiment among the general public.”
A striking 42 percent of poll respondents among the general public agreed with this statement: “The United States should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along as best they can on their own.”
That is about the highest number in recent decades for the “isolation” index used in national polling — higher than it was after the war in Vietnam, higher than it was after the end of the Cold War. Among 520 opinion leaders, whose attitudes are traditionally more internationalist than those of the public, the percentage who say they believe America must be the “single world leader” or be “the most assertive of the leading nations” has dropped by 10 to 20 percentage points when compared with polls taken in 2001 — just before Sept. 11.
(The study counts as “influentials” government officials, foreign affairs experts, military, religious, scientific and news media leaders. I was among those questioned for 30 minutes as part of the “influential” section.)
Among the numbers I found significant was this one: 66 percent of the public respondents answered yes to the question, “Is the U.S. less respected than in the past?” Three-quarters of them cited the war in Iraq as a major factor in their answers. Among the influentials, 87 percent said the war in Iraq was essentially the reason the world is losing respect for the United States. The sharpest break in the answers of the public and the leaders was on the question of whether U.S. support of Israel was a major factor in global discontent with American policy. Thirty-nine percent of the public said yes, but the number in the influential group was 64 percent.
A majority of both the public and influentials, however, do agree that bringing democracy to Iraq is a worthy goal. The problem is that more than two-thirds of both groups believe we will fail in that attempt. On the question of torture, “ordinary” folks and elites separate. The public split evenly on whether the use of torture may sometimes be necessary in questioning terrorist suspects. The influentials overwhelmingly answered no to such questions. The public also supports strict use of visas to keep more foreign students out of the United States. Influentials say current restrictions go too far and are hurting the country.
There were many more interesting results concerning public opinion in the surveys: Support for the United Nations is dropping; only 44 percent see free-trade agreements, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement, as being good for the United States, and 84 percent, statistically just about everyone, agreed with the statement that protection of American jobs should be a major and long-term objective of American policy. Pluralities of both the public and influentials results listed “luck” as the major reason there has not been a major terrorist incident in the country since Sept. 11.
All interesting, but the bottom line, as I read it, is that the most important reason for getting American troops out of Iraq as soon as possible is not what is happening on the ground there but what is happening here at home. Good or bad, successful or a disaster, the war is beginning to tear apart our country.
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Top 25 tunes of 2005
WADE TATANGELO
Herald Staff Writer
The writing is on the wall. Actually, it’s being broadcast across the side of a giant blimp hovering over the entire Western hemisphere. The message reads: “Albums are dead!”
That’s right, technology is pushing the music industry back 50 years. Digitally downloaded singles are the 45s of today – long plays be damned. Frustrated music lovers, sick of dropping $18 for an album featuring one hit and 60 minutes of filler, have struck back.
Blank CDs, which consumers use to assemble their own 80-minute listening experience, outsell the discs issued with music and liner notes. Portable MP3 players are the new Walkman. Free downloads can be found on official band Web sites, thousands of semi-legal MP3 blogs and cyberspace hangouts like MySpace.com. Songs can be purchased for approximately a buck each from iTunes, Walmart.com and other online music superstores.
So, in keeping with the times, I submit a list of songs rather than albums. What does Top 25 Tunes of 2005 mean? Simply that these are my favorites of the year. In other words, I don’t care how many times Fergie was heard singing about her “humps” and “lovely lady lumps” – that sickly ditty is not on my list. And Kanye West is overrated . . . There, I said it.
1. “My Doorbell,” the White Stripes
Jack White is upset that she won’t come around. But he expresses his dismay with the dignity of a king. White’s not on his knees. And he’s not singing while gazing at his shoes. He’s got his chin up, chest out, stiff upper lift. The striking combo of piano and drums is the ideal combo to drive the message deep into her heart.
“Take back what you said little girl and while your at it take yourself back, too,” White growls.
Yeah, there are cracks that reveal he’s been saddened, but our hero refuses to beg. He might have blood in his eyes, but no tears.
2. “Push the Button,” Sugababes
As sexy, catchy and smart as Destiny’s Child, the United Kingdom’s top girl group shines like Clark Griswold’s roof on this bouncy shout out to some schmuck who doesn’t realize it’s time to bust a move. “If you’re ready for me boy / You better push the button and let me know / Before I get the wrong idea and go / Your gonna miss the freak that I control.”
3. “Another Sunny Day,” Belle & Sebastian
It plays like a curious potion that goes straight to your head. The vivid, disjointed details, the riddle-like references, the crystal backing vocals . . . It’s a sonic escape that invites the listener to project his own feelings, create his own plot, dictate the overall tone of the piece. What exactly is going on here? I don’t know but it sounds important, perhaps even life affirming; possibly life threatening. It’s a pop song one can return to over and over. Because lines such as “I heard the Eskimos remove obstructions with tones, dear,” never lose their intrigue.
4. “I Found Out,” Nathaniel Mayer
Gritty garage rock with rawhide vocals from 1960s, Detroit-based, soul singer who was rediscovered by the good folks at Fat Possum records. Mayer sounds old, mean and wise on this impassioned cover of John Lennon’s acerbic dismissal of Christianity, Eastern gurus, his parents and hard drugs.
5. “I May Hate Myself in the Morning,” Lee Ann Womack
The sweetest ode to drunk dialing ever recorded, this country tearjerker lovingly recalls Sammi Smith’s version of “Help Me Make it Through the Night.”
6. “Be Mine,” Robyn
Stuttering beats dart in and out of the forefront, razor-sharp strings rise and fall, a woman under the influence of unrequited love struggles to free herself. The spoken-word bridge adds a campy-but-cool cinematic touch.
7. “Are You Sincere,” Bobby Bare
From “The Moon was Blue,” the comeback album of the year, this plays like the ideal soundtrack for a lovers’ slow dancing in an empty, dimly lighted saloon after closing time. The angelic chorus of “Bobby, Bobby, Bobby” that floats through the speaker is priceless.
8. “Save Me a Saturday Night,” Neil Diamond
A compassionate, schmaltz-free, love song from the man behind “Solitary Man,” “Girl You’ll Be a Woman Soon” and garbage like “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” Thank production genius Rick Rubin for forcing Diamond to finally deliver the goods again.
9. “Touch It,” Busta Rhymes
Sparse yet slamming bass lines courtesy of Swiss Beatz frame hilarious (and highly graphic) flow by Busta. Oh, yeah, and a memorable spoken-word chorus is intoned by what sounds to be the prostitute from the flick “Full Metal Jacket” . . . You know, the line famously sampled by 2 Live Crew on their smash “Me So Horny.”
10. “Not on Top,” Herman Dune
A delicious dose of melancholy from a group of witty French men who sing in English – in fact, the lead singer does this Kermit the Frog thing that actually works, at least to these ears. The protagonist of the song is a 27-year-old who “feels like he’ll never get his (expletive) together . . . There’s 67 better ways to make some sense, yeah whatever.” A sharp, clear, savory guitar lick rings after each verse.
11. “Hollaback Girl,” Gwen Stefani
Stefani’s bratty vocals backed by the sharpest hooks heard in some time – this one actually deserved all the airplay it enjoyed. I actually caught myself singing along to this one in the car one day – apologies to the lady driving next to me.
12. “Tell Ol’ Bill,” Bob Dylan
The hit documentary “No Direction Home,” its Top 20 soundtrack, and the best-selling memoir “Chronicles Vol. 1,” have made this another big year for his royal Bobness. Somehow this fresh recording from the “North Country” movie soundtrack snuck by the masses. “I try to find one smiling face to drive the shadows from my head,” croaks Dylan over an graceful, mountain music melody.
13. “Casimir Pulaski Day,” Sufjan Stevens
A young man buries his girlfriend after she succumbs to cancer and then recalls, vividly, the experiences that defined their relationship. Smart touches include the low-key banjo and poignant trumpet on this graceful dirge that might induce a manly tear.
14. “A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head,” Andrew Bird
The song starts slowly on acoustic guitar, the singer is watching a History Channel round table discussion about “Why are we alive?” This ignites a stirring violin, a Spaghetti Western whistle and we’re swept away through the cosmos of our mind for the next four and a half minutes.
15. “You Owe Me One,” ABBA
It’s right up there with “Dancing Queen,” and who doesn’t love “Dancing Queen?” Originally recorded in 1982 but mysteriously shelved, this forward-thinking production with pop perfect lyrics finally has been officially outed as a bonus track on the reissue of “The Visitors” album. Cherish the line: “I need a rest from our daily little dramas.”
16. “Hung Up,” Madonna
The back beat is a hypnotic shakedown that is causing discotheques worldwide to drip with sweat and sex. Madonna’s stone-cold delivery of the love jones lyrics is good for the libido. But what really sells this single is the swirling electronica effect that recalls the hook to Del Shannon’s golden oldie “Runaway.”
17. “Girl,” Beck
Break dance beats, left-field sonic colorings and lyrics that would make Allen Ginsberg smile. Beck is the man.
18. “Twenty,” Robert Cray
The venerable ax man has become quite the soul singer, especially on this epic swan song dedicated to a soldier killed in Iraq – the ballad burrows deep without sounding like a stump speech, maybe someone should play it for Howard Dean.
19. “You Only Live Once,” The Strokes
Shimmering guitar, danceable bass and a striking opening line – “Some people think they’re always right” – delivered with spot on shades of disdain and ambivalence.
20. “Downpressor Man,” Sinead O’Connor
An Irish firebrand (is that redundant?) covering reggae legend Peter Tosh? You bet. O’Connor’s highly spiritualized rage does this freedom song justice.
21. “The Hours,” Gene Serene
Euro-chic Serene sheds her armor of charms and laments the time she invested in a relationship just to be “the other girl” – dig the icy, ’80s synth beat.
22. “Oh No, Not You Again,” Rolling Stones
Sir Mick delivers a juicy F-bomb on the first verse across kiss-and-run guitar licks by Keith Richards and Ron Wood that make this desirably nasty in an “Under My Thumb” kind of way. The Stones still rock, people.
23. “Some of Us Fly,” Merle Haggard (with Toby Keith)
Hag’s craggy vocals and Keith’s clean baritone are like fine whiskey to fresh water on this autumnal yet unrepentant ballad penned by the country music legend.
24. “O Sailor,” Fiona Apple
“Why’d you do it?” she pleads with the grief of a woman who is hurt – hurt, but determined to persevere. All the while, Apple pounds out a melody of beauty and fortitude on piano.
25. “A Love Song,” Sarah Silverman
People either love or loathe this sexy, plucky and completely politically incorrect comedian. Silverman performs the tune “A Love Song” during her new stand-up documentary “Jesus is Magic,” which played locally at Burns Court Cinema in Sarasota last week.
Wade Tatangelo, features writer/music critic, can be reached at 745-7051 or wtatangelo@
HeraldToday.com. His blog, “In Tune with Wade,” can be found at http://blogs.bradenton.com.
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Thursday, December 22, 2005
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Transit Strike Ends
James Estrin/The New York TimesA transit union member swept the A train subway station at 34th Street after returning to work on Thursday afternoon
December 22, 2005
State Mediators’ Plan Clears Way to Resolve 60-Hour Ordeal
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
and SEWELL CHAN
On the third day of a citywide transit strike that has left millions without subway and bus service, union members began returning to work this afternoon, ending a 60-hour walkout that caused much hardship but also put on display the creativity and resilience of New York commuters.
Union leaders ordered an end to the strike, the first in 25 years, early this afternoon after state mediators brokered a deal with transit officials.
Limited subway and bus service could resume later tonight, though normal service might not be restored until early Friday morning, officials said.
“We have an enormous system,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a City Hall press conference. “It can’t be turned on or off with a flip of a switch.” “This was really a very big test for our city and I think it’s fair to say we passed the test with flying colors,” the mayor said. “We did what we had to do to keep the city running and running safely.” The order to return to work came after executive board of the Transit Workers Union, Local 100, voted 38 to 5 with two abstentions to accept a preliminary framework of a settlement as a basis to end the walkout.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority had already agreed to the framework, which was devised by state mediators after all-night negotiations with the union and the authority.
“We thank riders for their patience and forbearance,” Roger Toussaint, the president of the union, said outside union headquarters this afternoon. “We will be providing various details regarding the outcome of this strike in the next several days.”
A few minutes earlier, one of the executive board members, George Perlstein, who said he had voted against the settlement plan, angrily told reporters that the union had not achieved its goals.
“We got nothing,” he said. “Absolutely nothing.”
On its Web site, the union claimed victory and told members to “Hold your head high when you report to work.”
“In the face of an unprecedented media assault, the average New Yorker supported the TWU and blamed the MTA for the strike,” the union said in a statement.
Even as workers began returning to work, Gov. George E. Pataki said penalties against union members and leaders for the illegal walkout would stand. “There is a lesson to be learned from this: no one is above the law. You break the law and the consequences are real,” he said at a press conference at Rockefeller Center.
“They cannot be waived. They will not be waived.”
But a short time later, noting the need for both sides to complete their negotiations, Justice Theodore T. Jones of the State Supreme Court adjourned until Jan. 20 a hearing on possible fines and jail terms for union leaders under the Taylor Law prohibiting strikes by public employees. The hearing was originally scheduled for this morning and later delayed till 4 p.m.
The strike forced New Yorkers, who are heavily dependent upon public transportation, to walk, bike, hitchhike and endure traffic jams as early as 3:30 a.m. to get into Manhattan for work. Weary commuters welcomed the end of the strike.
“I’m relieved,” Jennifer Stephens, 29, a publicist who lives in West New York, N.J., and works in downtown Brooklyn, said at Grand Central Terminal this afternoon. “I can’t believe they went on strike to begin with.”
Ms. Stephens said the strike had forced her to take three days off work, and said, “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t have any more days I could take off.” She added that she had not been able to shop for Christmas. “It was frustrating. It put my life on hold. I wasn’t able to get anything done.”
Workers received word of the strike’s end in the middle of the afternoon.
At the Casey Stengel bus depot on Roosevelt Avenue, across from Shea Stadium in Queens, about 100 picketing workers looked surprised after a union official at the site got a call on a cellphone, then picked up a megaphone and announced that the strike was over. “If you’re on for a 4 o’clock shift, you have to go to work,” the official said.
There was some confusion among workers, who didn’t have their work uniforms with them and had questions about the end of the walkout.
“I feel like we lost if we go back to work without a contract,” said Fazlu Miah, 43, of Queens, a bus driver who works out of the depot.
In a statement, Lawrence G. Reuter, president of New York city Transit, said that restarting the system was “complicated,” and would take between 10 and 18 hours for subways – and “somewhat” less than that for buses.
“As employees report to duty, an assessment is made to determine what level of service can be provided with the personnel available,” the statement said. “By the time the first trains are ready to roll, all 468 subway stations will be opened, but service levels will be ramped up incrementally.”
He said the system would have to undergo thorough safety inspections as well.
Word of a possible end to the strike began filtering out earlier in the day and was made officially announced by state mediators.
“In the best interests of the public, which both parties serve, we have suggested, and they have agreed, to resume negotiations while the T.W.U. takes steps toward returning its membership to work,” Richard A. Curreri, the lead state mediator, said at a news conference this morning.
However, he noted that a final contract agreement would still take some work. “While these discussions have been fruitful, an agreement remains out of the parties’ reach at this time,” he said. “It is clear to us, however, that both parties have a genuine desire to resolve their differences.”
The return-to-work agreement, said several people close to the negotiations who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitive stage of the talks, would give every side some of what it asked for.
It would allow Mr. Pataki to save face because the final negotiations would not take place until the strikers return to work, the people said, and it would apparently allow the Mr. Toussaint, the union’s president, to save face because, they believe, the authority’s pension demands – which are at the crux of the deadlock – have been significantly scaled back.
Mr. Curreri and two other mediators were appointed by the state’s Public Employment Relations Board on Tuesday afternoon, after the union declared a strike at 3 a.m. that day and the authority said the talks had reached an impasse.
Mr. Curreri, the board’s director of conciliation, invited two veteran mediators – Martin F. Scheinman, a longtime arbitrator who has negotiated many labor agreements, and Alan R. Viani, the former chief negotiator at D.C. 37, the city’s largest municipal workers union – to join him.
All three met with both sides for hours at a time on Wednesday and into the night. The authority’s chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, and Mr. Toussaint both participated in the talks on Wednesday and early this morning.
The news was an abrupt change from Wednesday’s developments, when a war of rhetoric surrounding the strike entered a louder and more contentious phase, with Mr. Toussaint demanding that thorny pension issues be removed from the table before the strikers returned to work. But Governor Pataki joined Mayor Bloomberg in saying that the transit workers must end the strike before negotiations could resume, contradicting the M.T.A.’s earlier position that it would talk anytime.
In addition to disagreements over pensions, the union and the M.T.A. have also had a difficult time on health care benefits. The transportation authority had originally demanded that future transit workers contribute 2 percent of their pay toward health premiums. It reduced that demand to 1 percent several days before the strike deadline, then dropped it altogether, just hours before the strike deadline. Current workers do not pay premiums for the union’s basic health plan.
Mr. Toussaint’s union has repeatedly said he would not agree to a contract that treated future workers worse than current workers – on pension or health insurance.
Several people close to the negotiations said they expected the two sides to discuss proposals to have the union agree to have all workers, current and future, pay health premiums
Repeatedly saying that he wants to beat back the wave of concessions demanded by managements across the country, Mr. Toussaint has also insisted that he would not agree to a contract that required all workers to pay health premiums.
Mr. Toussaint had attacked the mayor and the governor Wednesday for what he called the use of “insulting and offensive language,” apparently referring to the mayor’s characterization of the strike by the city’s 33,700 subway and bus workers as “thuggish” and “selfish.”
In a speech that belied the union’s tenuous position – it is already being fined $1 million a day – Mr. Toussaint seemed to cast the conflict in a social-justice context. In describing the struggle of his largely minority union, he invoked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, saying: “There is a higher calling than the law. That is justice and equality.”
The transit strike, the first in a quarter century, began at 3 a.m. Tuesday after negotiations between the union and the transit authority broke down over the authority’s last-minute demand that all new transit workers contribute 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions – up from the 2 percent that current workers pay.
The authority has said it needs to rein in its soaring pension costs. Mr. Toussaint has argued that, under state law, it is illegal for the authority to insist on including a pension demand as part of a settlement.
Reporting for this article was contributed by Steven Greenhouse, Vikas Bajaj, Matthew Sweeney, Corey Kilgannon, Michael Cooper, Janon Fisher, Thomas J. Lueck, Jesse McKinley, Colin Moynihan, Fernanda Santos and Shadi Rahimi.
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