City Week: August 20 – August 26
A Selective Listing of Recommended Cultural & Community Events
Compiled by Hannah O’Grady and Shilpa Agrawal
FRIDAY, AUGUST 20
Senior Citizen Jin Shin Jyutsu—Open to senior citizens, this is a peaceful way to start your afternoon. Join Judith Janus, practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu, to harmonize your mind, body and spirit with various exercises. DOROT, 171 W. 85th St., 212-769-2850; 10:30 a.m., $5 (suggested donation).
Summer Salsa—Dance Manhattan hosts this month’s Salsa Social, part of an eight-year-old program open to new and experienced dancers alike. 39 W. 19th St., 5th Fl., 212-807-0802; 9:30 p.m., $5-$10. Read more
City Week: August 13 – August 19
A Selective Listing of Recommended Cultural & Community Events
Compiled by Alice Robb and Reid Spagna
Friday, August 13
Mostly Mozart—The 2010 Mostly Mozart Festival continues with Osmo Vanska, called “a conductor of genius” by The New Yorker, leading the Festival Orchestra in a performance of Mozart’s D-Minor Piano Concerto and Symphony No. 40. Avery Fisher Hall, West 65th Street & Columbus Avenue, 212-875-5316; 8 p.m., $35-$90. Read more
Ben for Shortstop
Yes we can put a true fan of the national pastime on the All-Star team
By Ben Krull
The league bosses have excluded me from the ballot and ESPN refuses to cover my candidacy. But if you join my write-in campaign to play in the 2010 Baseball All-Star Game, we can send a message to the establishment. Read more
One Year, Two Record-Breakers
Inside the main gym at The Dalton School’s athletics building, there is a large banner listing the 1,000-point scorers in the school’s basketball history. The list stretches back decades and includes roughly a dozen entries. But until this year, it featured only one girl, a 2006 graduate named Mia Gliedman. This season, within a month of each other, two girls added their names to the short honor roll.
Steph Lechich started playing basketball with a small, rubber ball when she was 5. She was too small to use a real basket, so her father would mimic a hoop by holding his arms in a circle and allowing her to shoot through it. She’s been draining buckets ever since. Jan. 25, she hit a 3-pointer to pass the 1,000-point mark. Read more
Ride ’Em, Cowboy
Any time bulls come to Madison Square Garden, you usually know what to expect: A walking advertisement for big-and-tall clothing purveyors, some intense above-the-rim athleticism, a healthy dose of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah and, if the past decade is any indication, a loss for the Knicks.
The bulls came to the Garden the weekend of January 8, but they had nothing to do with basketball. And instead of seven-footers, the half-filled arenas got to see 1,600-pounders. The athletes weren’t the Chicago Bulls but rather the bucking bulls of Professional Bull Riding’s fifth annual New York Invitational. Read more
Brief Break from the Courts
Right now, Curtis Roby is enjoying a much-needed break, one that he hopes will help heal his balky shoulder. But it won’t last long. Just like the professional version, the world of college tennis offers little rest during a truncated off-season. After only 10 weeks of recuperation, Roby and the rest of the Dartmouth men’s tennis team will step back onto the court in January.
“The season’s been going well so far,” he said. “We had a great fall. I can’t be more optimistic. We have a great group of guys together, really hard working. I have no doubts that I’m going to come back healthy and play well. We have a great vibe on our team right now, and we’re in a winning mood.” Read more
Hicks’ Lucky Kick
On rare—very rare—occasions, a soccer goalie gets to have a moment of glory on offense. Maybe the keeper is tall and plays well in the air, so he is brought up to play corner kicks. Maybe he is an excellent ball striker and is good at penalty shots.
Dan Hicks isn’t used in either way by the Bowdoin College soccer team, but he still managed to net a goal this season. Playing against New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) heavyweight Trinity Oct. 26, he took a free kick from the edge of his own box. After 80 yards and a deceptive bounce on the wet turf, the ball found its way past the opposing keeper. Read more
My Adult Fantasy League
You may think that turning 50 has made my fantasies about playing Major League Baseball a bit implausible. But I perform like an athlete half my age.
While my studio apartment is too crowded with breakable objects for me to swing a bat like I once did in my spacious childhood bedroom, I still dive on my carpeting, snagging screaming line drives and lay down perfect squeeze bunts using my toilet plunger as my bat. Read more
Kenyon Record-Breaker
Throughout his high school career, Will Smith considered himself primarily a defensive player. He started at shortstop for four straight years at Collegiate. But when he arrived at Kenyon College, he made an important discovery about getting playing time.
“All I really wanted to do was play every day,” Smith said. “I realized that in college if you can hit, you can play.”
He ended up doing plenty of both. By the time he graduated earlier this year, he owned the all-time Kenyon batting-average record with a .410 mark and on-base percentage (OBP) at a .506 rate. Read more
Celebrated Slugger Caps College Career
It’s late March in California, 2006, and Libby Copeland-Halperin steps up to the plate. She’s still a rookie, a freshman playing one of her first collegiate games for a team that will go 30-10. But on this day, Copeland-Halperin proves she belongs with her more experienced teammates. A poor pitch over the heart of the plate, a blur of aluminum as the bat flashes by and the ball takes off like a rocket, not landing until it clears the fence.
But wait! Hold on just a moment! Read more
