Ode to New York: A Performance Piece

PUBLISHED: Humans and Nature

TITLE: Ode to New York: A Performance Piece

TAGLINE: Wild thing, you make my heart sing. You make everything groovy. Wild thing.
—Chip Taylor, New York-born songwriter

“How is nature critical to a 21st century urban ethic?

To answer this question, I feel it is only appropriate that I establish a little street credibility (and I just can’t help myself). I’m from New York. Though I haven’t lived there for years, when asked about my origins, I always say New York. Born in Manhattan, raised about a half an hour outside the city on an estate that my parents were responsible for caring for, and spending my 20s in Brooklyn on Ocean Parkway, right next to Prospect Park, my experience of “nature” was directly connected to my urban identity, my black sense of self and my dreams of what was possible in my world.”