REVIEW: Five Borough Songbook Premiere In NYC’s DUMBO
The Five Borough Songbook enjoyed an auspicious premiere earlier this month at the Galapagos Art Space, in that Brooklyn neighborhood designated as DUMBO, Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Underpass. From twenty of the day’s significant composers, the Songbook gathers twenty songs, each expressing facets of New York City life. As happened, one of the commissioned artists was unable to make the deadline; a twentieth song should be added at the next performance in Queens on November 12. The extant cycle is of conspicuous artistic merit.
The Galapagos Art Space’s interior – with its seating islands arranged over an indoor pool – served as a symbolic representation of New York City’s geography, each borough, at least to some extent, separated from the others by water. Ricky Ian Gordon’s O City of Ships stirringly launched the cycle on its energizing course and then was followed by Christopher Tignor’s more intimate Secret Assignation. Tignor included in the program notes instructions to read silently along, at appropriate moments, with parenthetical unsung passages in Lewis Warsh’s text  — difficult to accomplish because of the dark lighting — yet I believe the requested participatory reading would enhance the listener’s experience of the song. In any event, it is unusual that an audience is asked to participate in a song performance in that manner. Matt Schickele’s Days afield on Staten Island sets a poem by naturalist William Thompson Davis; the music poetically evokes the sylvan scene described in the lyric.
This reviewer needed to take the A train to get to Galapagos but boarded what was actually a D train maddeningly mismarked as an A and so — across at Brooklyn’s Atlantic-Pacific station — had to hop the R back to Jay Street in order to get on the real damned A train and thus was perfectly primed for Gilda Lyons’ delicious “rapid transit.†Soprano Martha Guth and mezzo Blythe Gaissert sat facing one another upon chairs, as though on opposite sides of a subway car and then began soulfully singing “NYC, MTA†at each other a cappella. Lyons’ musical lines do certainly trump train lines; the audience appropriately laughed its approval over the expressively rendered “Expect delays in 2 and 5 service at this time.†Composer Russell Platt and poet Paul Muldoon are real New Yorkers – (both work for The New Yorker) – Platt’s setting of Muldoon’s The Avenue (II) conveys the enigmatic pains of a love affair snuffed by fate or something or other. Tenor Alex Richardson’s virile, compelling delivery of the opening verse – “Now that we’ve come to the end/I’ve been trying to piece it together†– drew the listener in; his skillful handling of the remainder of the song was matched by pianist Thomas Bagwell’s able accompaniment.
F from DUMBO, another of the Songbook’s tributes to the City’s storied underground, has Glen Roven treating Michael Tyrell’s poem with polished pizzazz in a scena that includes a startling line about “The flasher whose dick got caught in the closing doors.†The New Yorkers, with music and verse by Daron Hagen, presents an older married New York couple reflecting on how their expectations of the city have changed over time without ever eliminating their feeling for it. Guth and Richardson sang Hagen’s song from the inside out, meaning, they fully captured and communicated its essence.
Mohammed Fairouz’s treatment of W.H. Auden’s Refugee Blues rises to the historical and emotional scope of the poem – callousness to immigrants’ humanity and desperation, alas, still a topic of no small relevance. Gaissert’s rich, resonant, varicolored tone was aptly suited to Fairouz’s dramatic vocal writing. Richard Pearson Thomas’s The Center of the Universe is a sly take on the transformation of Times Square/42nd Street, from a squalid dump New Yorkers avoided, to a glittery tourist trap that they with snooty pride avoid more fervently still. Here, as each time they sang together, Guth, Gaissert, Richardson and baritone David Adam Moore performed beguilingly in ensemble.
The first half of the Songbook should be allowed meditative space after its end; deplorably, Galapagos rather immediately began blaring canned cacophony to help spoil the intermission. A critic might well reproach the out-of-condition piano used on this occasion for its production of bizarre buzzes and twangy twinges just where the critic least desired them. Bagwell and the evening’s second pianist, Jocelyn Dueck, made a silk purse out of that sow’s rear by navigating around the defective instrument’s eccentricities with increasing aplomb throughout the Songbook.
Fun-loving, musically naughty ingenuity marks Jorge Martìn’s City of Orgies, Walks, and Joys! – the audience was palpably caught up by the song’s honky-tonk-meets-cantus-firmus panache. John Glover’s setting of Matthew Hittinger’s 8:46, Five Years Later takes an intriguingly oblique view of the 9/11 tragedy. Then, modeled on Psalm 137, Julia Kasdorf’s poem On Leaving Brooklyn posits the Borough as the narrator’s Jerusalem. And composer Yotam Haber gives Kasdorf’s verse poignant musical expression. Harumi Rhodes, a violinist, unafraid to dig into her strings, joined the vocal quartet as a fifth voice lamenting for dear King’s County.
In Fresh Kills, Christina Courtin pays lovely, ironic tribute to the Staten Island landfill, where much 9/11 debris got sorted. The landfill presently is being converted to a park; future generations will need the song’s meaning explained. Renée Favand-See sets the image of a Brooklyn bank clock tower, glowing green, effectively against that of murky thunderheads over New Jersey in her nostalgia-tinged Looking West on a Humid Summer Evening. OuLiPo in the Bronx, Christopher Berg’s mischievously intellectual nod to the northernmost of the boroughs, was brightly sung and articulated by Richardson. Split between the four voices, Lisa Bielawa’s Breakfast in New York is a pastiche of banal lines – (luminously set, tuneful gold from teaspoonfuls of dross) – overheard in various diners around town.
Gaissert paced Gabriel Kahane’s Dunkin’ Donuts-dusted Coney Island Avenue with Broadway-like charisma and put an effective little edge of sarcasm into her voice while singing about “the socialist coffee shop. With the nasty vegan cupcakes.†Rhodes was given to play an onomatopoeic zum-zum-zumming on her violin when insatiable mosquitos were mentioned in Scott Wheeler’s At Home in Staten Island, which Guth sang with an appealing sound and consistently comprehensible diction.
The only subway line not to travel to Manhattan comes in for heaps of good-humored abuse in Tom Cipullo’s G is for Grimy: An Ode to the G Train. The text goes through dozens of repugnant G-words . . . Garbage, Gutter, Germy . . . before climaxing on Giuliani and ending with Gross. Yet all composers contributing to The Five Borough Songbook are Greatly Gifted, the performances were Graciously Groomed, so as for the upcoming performances in Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, well, you really must Go, Go, Go, Go!
New York City-​based novelist and freelance writer Scott Rose’s LGBT-​interest by-​line has appeared on Advocate​.com, PoliticusUSA​.com, The New York Blade, Queerty​.com, Girlfriends and in numerous additional venues. Among his other interests are the arts, boating and yachting, wine and food, travel, poker and dogs. His “Mr. David Cooper’s Happy Suicide†is about a New York City advertising executive assigned to a condom account.
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The White House appears to have tweeted then deleted a “Naughty List” of journalists, including top news reporters and outlets, in an act that is being described as “positively authoritarian” by one legal expert.
The video was posted to X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and the White House’s own website, which reads: “MEDIA OFFENDERS ON THE NAUGHTY LIST,” and “Video unavailable. This video has been removed by the uploader.”
A Google search of the White House’s page shows a video thumbnail consistent with the videos captured by several social media influencers.
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The video includes a Santa Claus chortling “ho ho ho,” and unrolling a scroll titled “Naughty List” that includes MS NOW reporters Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian, CNN’s Jake Tapper, and reporters from CBS News, Axios, and The Bulwark as well. The background music is “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”
The video closes with the message, “Better luck next year,” then the screen reads:
The White House
President Donald J. Trump
An AI generated trending page on X reads: “The 34-second clip, posted Thursday evening, showed photos of journalists pinned to a wall alongside names like The New York Times and The Washington Post. It disappeared from the official account within hours amid backlash comparing it to authoritarian blacklists. Supporters laughed it off as holiday humor, while the White House site already tracks similar outlets in an ‘Offender Hall of Shame’ for alleged bias. The episode highlighted ongoing tensions over media coverage during the Trump administration.”
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“This is a blacklist,” wrote social media influencer The Maine Wonk, saying the video was “quickly deleted…after getting serious backlash.”
“This isn’t a joke. It’s a blacklist,” warned another influencer, Brian Allen. “Authoritarians always start by mocking the press… then labeling them… then listing them. We’re now on step two. History has seen this movie before and it never ends well.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller offered “Huge congrats” to one of the outlet’s reporters who appeared on the list, Adrian Carrasquillo, and commented, “(ooh we are really quaking in our boots on that one nerds).”
Justin Kanew’s The Tennessee Holler called it a list “showing who is doing their jobs.”
Professor of Law, MSNOW legal analyst, and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance commented on the video, writing, “How positively…authoritarian.”
🚨 The White House just posted a government-branded “Naughty List” naming individual reporters and news outlets.
This isn’t a joke. It’s a blacklist.
Authoritarians always start by mocking the press… then labeling them… then listing them.
We’re now on step two.
History has… pic.twitter.com/5JKkJUmnsT
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) December 12, 2025
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President Donald Trump’s efforts to compel Indiana lawmakers to enact a mid-decade congressional map that could have wiped out all of the Hoosier State’s Democratic seats in the U.S. House of Representatives has failed.
“Republicans hold a 40-10 advantage in the state Senate but still rejected Trump’s pressure,” The Washington Post reported. HuffPost called it a “a furious pressure campaign by Trump.”
“Indiana’s proposed congressional map goes down in flames in the state Senate, 31-19,” Votebeat managing editor Nathaniel Rakich observed. 26 votes were needed for the new maps to have been adopted.
Politico reported that the “failed vote is the culmination of a brass-knuckled four-month pressure campaign from the White House on recalcitrant Indiana Republicans that included private meetings and public shaming from Trump, multiple visits from Vice President JD Vance, whip calls from Speaker Mike Johnson and veiled threats of withheld federal funds.
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“Not even close to being close,” noted Bloomberg Government’s Jonathan Tamari. “I certainly did not predict the Indiana state Senate as a hotbed of Trump resistance.”
“Trump’s such a lame duck that he is getting his a– kicked by the Indiana State Senate,” remarked former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer.
Journalist Todd Zwillich called it a “Wholesale rejection” of a “threat” from the conservative Heritage Action.
Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), noted that Trump “didn’t just lose that vote, he got blown out.”
“Lesson for national Republicans,” wrote Jessica Riedel of the Brookings Institution. “You don’t have to sell out every principle and publicly worship Trump. Really, you can just do things. And you should ask why it took some state legislators in Indiana to finally stand up for common sense governance.”
“You do, unironically and in earnest, have to hand it to the Indiana GOP for not giving in to the threats on their lives etc.,” declared Everytown Senior Director of Communications Max Steele. “Trump is a duck getting lamer by the day. Hopefully this emboldens others to do what’s right.”
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Image via Reuters
Heritage Action and President Donald Trump are coming under fire after the conservative advocacy organization made a claim that the president threatened to defund the state of Indiana should lawmakers not pass legislation to redraw its congressional district maps.
“President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders: if the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state,” Heritage Action wrote on social media on Thursday. “Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to blame.”
The post ended with, “#PassTheMap.”
While President Trump has publicly threatened to support primary challengers against lawmakers who oppose his redistricting push, NCRM has not found any news reports confirming Heritage Action’s assertion. It is possible the group is relying on information that has not been reported or made public.
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Should Indiana pass legislation to redistrict, it reportedly could pick up only two more GOP-held seats.
Critics blasted Heritage Action, a sister group to the Heritage Foundation, for appearing to support Trump’s alleged threat, and blasted the president as well.
“The president and one of the most influential conservative groups in the country are threatening to deprive all Indiana residents of paved roads, guard bases, and major projects if they don’t pass an extremely gerrymandered map to deprive voters of choice,” noted Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle News. “Awesome stuff.”
“Heritage sure loves authoritarianism,” remarked Media Matters researcher Zachary Pleat.
Calling it “nonsense,” Joel Griffith, a senior fellow at the conservative group Advancing American Freedom wrote: “Appalling to see @Heritage_Action endorse this unconstitutional threat by @realDonaldTrump. The President does not have power to coerce state legislators to redraw congressional maps.”
Others appeared to aim their ire directly at the president.
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“This is the behavior of a madman,” declared Tim Carney, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
“This isn’t conservative. This is fascist,” commented former Republican U.S. Congressman Joe Walsh.
Mother Jones’ D.C. bureau chief David Corn declared the move “dictatorial.”
“This does not sound like an appropriate or legal use of federal authority or presidential discretion,” observed Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias.
“Nothing about this shakedown is conservative,” noted CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Jacob Stewart, the deputy opinion editor for the IndyStar called the move “illegal.”
Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the conservative online magazine The Dispatch, wrote: “I remember when Heritage cared about federalism, the rule of law, separation of powers, and all that stuff. Now it’s all ‘We love Trump’s musk, do what he says (or what Tucker says).'”
“This is called extortion,” wrote former White House correspondent Sam Youngman, also deeming it “illegal.”
“If this comes to pass,” wrote IndyStar columnist James Briggs, “then the story will be that Trump is punishing Indiana citizens for reasons that have nothing to do with them and so-called Indianans will see the punitive measures for what they are.”
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Image via Reuters
‘Where Is Antifa Headquartered?’: FBI Official Struggles Defending Top Threat Label
‘Lame Duck’ Trump Loses Major Battle in Indiana: ‘Not Even Close to Being Close’
‘Shakedown’: Outrage Over Claim of Trump Plan to Defund Indiana in Map Clash
‘Positively Authoritarian’: White House Tweets and Deletes ‘Naughty List’ of Journalists
‘Positively Authoritarian’: White House Tweets and Deletes ‘Naughty List’ of Journalists
‘Lame Duck’ Trump Loses Major Battle in Indiana: ‘Not Even Close to Being Close’
‘Shakedown’: Outrage Over Claim of Trump Plan to Defund Indiana in Map Clash
‘Where Is Antifa Headquartered?’: FBI Official Struggles Defending Top Threat Label
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