the alley Newspaper | News & Views of Phillips Since 1976

THIS IS GOOD OR I”'LL EAT MY CHRISTMAS TREE

Written by editor on 15 March 2011

By Jane Thomson

My first recipe is from 97 ORCHARD , an Edible History of Five Immigrant Families, by Jane Ziegelman. This book interests me because my father grew up in a New York tenement (the word just meant “rental building” at the time; I don”'t know how shabby his family”'s apartment was, but I suspect it was not spacious). The building at 97 Orchard is on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and is now the Tenement Museum. It was built about 1860 and was abandoned after 1935. It has been preserved and restored. The first time I visited the building about 20 years ago, it was left just as it had been found. The tour started in the narrow dark front hall with a dingy frieze painted on the wall, a tin ceiling and rickety stairs going up to the next of several stories. We were then taken to an apartment composed of two small rooms with one window between them and one window to the outside. There were layers of old wallpaper peeling, and numbers on the wall showing the quantity of trousers that had been sewn, as the apartment was also a sweat shop. Since then several apartments have been restored and decorated as they might have been when an immigrant family lived there – one for an Irish family, one for a German family, one for an Italian family and one for a Jewish family.… Read the rest “THIS IS GOOD OR I”'LL EAT MY CHRISTMAS TREE”

The Fighter

Written by editor on 15 March 2011

The Fighter

Howard McQuitter II
Movie Corner
HowardMcQuitterii@yahoo.com

The Fighter

Cast: Mark Wahlberg (Mickey Ward), Christian Bale (Dicky Eklund), Melessia Leo (Alice Ward), Amy Adams (Charlene Fleming), Bianca Hunter (Cathy Pork Ecklund), Eric McDarmott (Cindy ”˜Tar”' Ecklund), Jill Ouigg (Donna Eckund Jaynes), Dendrie Taylor (Gail ”˜Red Dog” Ecklund), Kate O.”'Brien (Phyllis Beaver Ecklund), Jena Lamia (Sherri ward), Cadin Dwyer (Kasie ward), Jack McGee (George Ward). (R) Running time: 115 minutes. Director: David O. Russell.

Boxing for the wards is a family affair. Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg) is an upcoming boxer, his older brother Dicky Ecklund (Christian Bale), a former boxer whose current activity is spent often in a crackhouse, and their mother, Alice Ward (Melissa Leo), is the boxing manager. She organizes Mickey”'s fights and Dicky trains him. Dicky brags he”'s once gave Sugar Ray Leonard a few good licks

Mickey”'s caught in a bind of a possessive mother and five sisters and his idol Dicky sent to prison for crack and an assault on police officers. When Mickey”'s love interest Charlene Fleming (Amy Adams) enters his life, his family attempts to sever their relationship. As such, Mickey”'s boxing career seems doomed much like Dicky”'s.

Like other boxing films of the past such as “City of Conquest”(1040),”Requiem for a Heavyweight”(1962),”Fat City”(1972),the theme is boxer from a white working class neighborhood in crisis.… Read the rest “The Fighter”