Perhaps the weather will cut down the ridiculously long lines at annual Big Apple Barbecue in Madison Square Park (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Madison Square Park
23rd to 26th Sts. between Fifth & Madison Aves.
Saturday, June 11, and Sunday, June 12, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Admission: free; $8 per plate of barbecue, $4 per dessert
www.bigapplebbq.org
www.madisonsquarepark.org
When it first began nine years ago, we were instantly addicted to the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, in which BBQ experts from around the country offered their delectable delights in a city starving for good ’cue. But soon the crowds became so ridiculous, the lines hours and hours long, that it just wasn’t worth it. And then the Union Square Hospitality Group, which sponsors the event in Madison Square Park, began selling a Fastpass a few years ago, a ticket that allows you to pay extra to cut the line — and then those lines started getting long as well. It all left a bad taste in the mouth, but we’re willing to give it another shot, all in the anticipation of fine barbecue; we’re also thinking that maybe the weather will keep a lot of people away. This year’s pitmasters include Joe Duncan from Baker’s Ribs in Dallas (St. Louis-style ribs), Mike Emerson from Pappy’s Smokehouse in St. Louis (baby back ribs), Chris Lilly from Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur (pulled pork shoulder), Patrick Martin from Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint in Nashville (western Tennessee-style whole hog), the ever-popular Mike Mills of 17th Street Bar & Grill in Murphysboro (baby backs), Raleigh’s Ed Mitchell (whole hog, all-natural whole turkey barbecue), Jimmy Hagood from BlackJack Barbecue in Charleston (pulled pork shoulder), Tommy Houston from the Checkered Pig in Danville (St. Louis-style ribs), Myron Nixon from Jack’s Old South in Unadilla (beef brisket), Garry Roark from Ubon’s Barbeque of Yazoo (pulled pork shoulder), Drew Robinson from Jim ‘N’ Nick’s Bar-B-Q in Birmingham (smoked sausage), and Michael Rodriguez from the Salt Lick Bar-B-Que in Driftwood (beef brisket sausage). There are also several booths from New York City, but we never understand why people would wait two or three hours to get a small plate of food from a restaurant they can go to anytime they want. Bambi Kino, Guitar Shorty, and Dale Watson will perform on Saturday, with Doug Wamble, Those Darlins, and Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears playing on Sunday. Among the free seminars are “Corn: The Great Comrade,” “Dips & Drinks,” “The Raw Deal: Killer Sides from Raw Ingredients,” “Southern Living Fourth of July Feast,” “Kentucky Toast,” and “To Live and Die in Avoyelles Parish.”
In a November 1923 lecture, Austian anthroposopher Rudolf Steiner said, “Perhaps you noticed something about the entire nature of beekeeping, something, I would say, of the nature of an enigma. The beekeeper is understandably interested above all in what must be done. Actually, every human being should show the greatest interest in this subject, because, much more than you can imagine, our lives depend upon beekeeping.” Steiner also predicted that bees would disappear from the face of the earth in eighty to one hundred years. Sadly, Taggart Siegel’s compelling documentary about colony collapse disorder, Queen of the Sun, reveals that Steiner just might be right. Siegel (The Real Dirt on Farmer John) meets with experts around the world, including author Michael Pollan, biodynamic beekeeper Gunther Hauk, philosopher Horst Kornberger, Indian activist and physicist Vandana Shiva, Slow Food International president Carlo Petrini, molecular biologist Johannes Wirz, entomologist May Berenbaum, and such serious, oddball, and quirky beekeepers as Yvon Archard, Michael Thiele, David Heaf, Gunther Friedmann, Massimo Carpinteri, Ron Breland, and Warren Thompson, who talk about how integral bees are not only to the natural environment but to the very future of humanity. They also proudly show off their rather close personal relationships with their queens and hardworking drones as they discuss the hazards of monoculture, corporate migratory beekeeping, pesticide usage, and other factors that have led to the frightening disappearance of millions of colonies. “We could call it colony collapse of the human being too,” Hauk says. The film, which also includes a look at the legal battle over beekeeping in New York City, begins and ends with artist, energy healer, and beekeeper Sara Mapelli performing a ritual dance covered with some twelve thousand bees. Queen of the Sun has built quite a buzz, having won awards at festivals around the world, including the Planet in Focus Film Festival; it opens at Cinema Village today for a one-week run, the perfect prelude to National Pollinator Week, which takes place June 20–26. You’ll never look at honey the same way again.
Douglas Sirk and Thomas Mann would be proud. In Todd Haynes’s wonderfully retro Far from Heaven, Oscar-nominated Julianne Moore is amazing as 1950s housewife Cathy Whitaker, who thinks she has the perfect idyllic suburban life — until she discovers that her husband (Dennis Quaid) has a secret that dare not speak its name. Mr. & Mrs. Magnatech they are not after all. When she starts getting all chummy with the black gardener (Dennis Haysbert), people start talking, of course. Part Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959), part Death in Venice, and oh-so-original, Haynes’s awesome achievement will have you believing you’re watching a film made in the 1950s, propelled by Elmer Bernstein’s excellent music, Edward Lachman’s remarkable photography, and Mark Friedberg’s terrific production design. Far from Heaven is screening at MoMA on June 11 with Tom Kalin’s 1991 short finally destroy us as part of the series “Drama Queens — The Soap Opera in Experimental and Independent Cinema,” which continues with such films as Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (1955), Bette Gordon’s Variety (1984), and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Angst essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul) (1973), many of which are also paired with short works.