A Live Conversation About ‘The Group’ by Mary McCarthy

Welcome to our live discussion of “The Group,” by Mary McCarthy!

Earlier today, I kicked off the conversation with James Collins, tonight’s co-host and the author of the novel “Beginner’s Greek.” (Here are my opening thoughts and his response.) Now, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. EST, we’ll be talking about the book in real time.

Please post your thoughts about the novel and questions for either of us in the comments section below. We’ll respond in the same place.

Women and Sex in ‘The Group’

Our live discussion of “The Group,” by Mary McCarthy. will be 6:30 to 9:30 tonight Easter time. Read Ginia Bellafante’s first post on the book here. A response from James Collins, author of the novel “Beginner’s Greek,” is below.

It’s quite amazing to me that in the early 1960s, Mary McCarthy wanted “The Group” to show a loss of faith in the “idea of progress in the feminine sphere,” when she was speaking right on the cusp of the greatest revolution in the position of women since the (supposed) matriarchies of the late Paleolithic. How could someone who was so incredibly astute seemingly have no sense of what was about to happen

To give a sense of what McCarthy’s own life was like when “The Group” was published, it’s interesting to read a letter that Robert Lowell rote to Elizabeth Bishop in August 1963. Lowell recounted a recent visit with McCarthy and her husband in Paris: “A lovely apartment, William Morris wallpaper, every item clean as a ship, meals planned and worked on for days … everything performed and executed to the last inch. … We had an incredible picnic on the grass of Saint Cloud, with the Spenders, Sonia Orwell, the Life photographer, minor expatriates, minor embassy officials, a 16-foot Polish tablecloth, magna of champagne, Flemish dining room groups of fruit.”

That sounds a bit like McCarthy herself describing one of her heroines, with those long lists. It also makes me think that, whatever her accomplishments, whatever her literary and sexual (and literary-sexual) daring, it was still of great concern for her to be seen as … a lady, and a good hostess, and a person who can choose wallpaper. Not that there is anything wrong with that! But an essential aspect of being a Vassar woman, I think, was being a lady (even during your! first sexual experience). And that’s a value that still seemed important to McCarthy in 1963, which might point to a limitation in her concept of the “feminine sphere.” There are ladylike attainments to which women still aspire, but in the ’60s, McCarthy seemed to have no idea that that sphere would come to include law-partnerships, combat and alimony for men.

This brings us to the inevitable comparison to “Girls,” a show I have, unfortunately, watched too infrequently to count myself an expert on. But what I find so interesting is that the Vassar women of 1933, just because they have gotten an education, something relatively rare for women at that time, all leave school with a sense of purpose. They all want to do something, to make some contribution, even if it is just volunteer work. On “Girls,” in contrast, the characters are drifting, sometimes flailing, in the post-collegiate swamp. As far as I know, none of them arrived in Brooklyn with a job lined up and a plan (wanting “to e a writer” is not a plan). Having gone to college is not a big deal for these characters, and provides no motivation. So, oddly, the Vassar ’33 “women” are more advanced professionally than the Brooklyn ’13 “girls.”

If we go by “Girls,” one aspect of the feminine sphere where there does not seem to have been much progress from 1933 to 2013 is the sexual and romantic one. The “boys” of “Girls” are far different from the “men” of “The Group” (most of whom are absolutely horrible and horribly contrived â€" you often hear of male writers who can’t create female characters; McCarthy illustrates the converse). The modern men get emotional about their “relationships” but, ultimately, just as in “The Group,” heartbreak is a girl thing.

Ginia asks if I think that the 10 years McCarthy spent working on “The Group” were worth it. Well, she actually wrote much of the book in a rush over a few months. To put pressure on her, the publisher started settin! g the man! uscript in type before she had even finished it. I think it reads that way: more like a series a vignettes than a carefully structured novel. It’s striking how little interaction there is among the female characters. For a book with its title, you’d think that female friendship would be central. But the vignettes focus on individual members and, generally, on their relations with men, not to each other.

The book lacks “incredible scenes” â€" I mean the kind of scenes that a novel builds and builds to until finally X confronts Y and reveals Z. There are no set pieces: no battle, no ball. So, to me, it isn’t really an accomplished literary work. (Dawn Powell covers some of the same territory as a real artist would, I think.) The essential question the story raises, to my mind, is the one Priss asks Norine toward the end: “You really feel our education was a mistake” (“Oh, completely,” Norine replies.) But I don’t think that McCarthy’s tales illuminate that problem particularly well Nor does she make clear, or richly ambiguous, the reason for and meaning of Kay’s destruction. It just happens â€" because she married an awful horrible guy who spells Harald with two A’s

Be that as it may, the vignettes are often brilliant. McCarthy can be incredibly astute psychologically, the long lists are astounding in their precision, there is hardly a bad phrase and many of the images are wonderful. McCarthy is a terrific, clever writer, and “The Group” is a great read.

At the time, though, McCarthy’s friends were harsh. “No one in the know likes the book,” Lowell wrote Bishop. He found things to like himself, but called it “a very labored somehow silly Vassar affair.” Bishop, for her part, found the book dull but made an astute point: “I’m sure those set-fire-works-sex-pieces will insure huge sales.”

Undoubtedly, it was those sex pieces that made the book a phenomenon and at least got people to buy it, if not read it, so that it stayed on The Timesâ€! ™s best-s! eller list for a year and a half. But I wonder what people think of them today. Are they just shocking Would the book be as good without them Or do they serve a crucial purpose “The Group” is much more specific (“There’s a little ridge there”) than “Ulysses” or “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” It’s dirtier than those famously scandalous books, but also more grown-up about sex. In that way, those scenes â€" grown-up writing about sex â€" might actually be McCarthy’s greatest literary contribution.

While always changing, New York never changes. As a native, I feel cheated of the experience of moving there after college to make my way, but all stories of that experience, whenever they are written, feel like the same story (in a good way) â€" whether by Mary McCarthy or Mary Cantwell or Patti Smith or Lena Dunham. The names of the drinks (or drugs) may change; the Village may appear in the form of Greenpoint; Scandinavian furniture may have given way to Italian. But the city’s size, th drunken cab rides home, the thwarted ambition, the sense that New York is the only place in the world that matters, the discovery of new neighborhoods, the sex, the espresso and the foreign films â€" these are permanent.

Finally, I have researched the matter and the Daisy Chain was a kind of May Court: one day each spring the members would process holding daisies. Membership was based entirely on looks and popularity.

World Trade Center Site, 12:19 P.M.

Richard Perry/The New York Times

Yellow Cab Industry Joins City Against For-Hire Vehicle Operators’ Suit

Richard Perry/The New York Times The availability of services like Uber, whose smartphone app can be used to hail for-hire livery drivers, is the subject of litigation in New York City.

A powerful group of yellow taxi fleet owners has moved to join the city’s defense against a lawsuit seeking to bar so-called e-hailing smartphone apps from yellow cabs.

The group, the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, filed as an intervenor in the suit in State Supreme Court on Tuesday, meaning the organization is seeking to become involved in the case â€" even though the yellow taxi industry is not named as a defendantâ€" because the outcome will directly influence its business model.

This month, for-hire vehicle operators sued the city, contending a pilot e-hailing program violates a ban on prearranged rides in yellow taxis.

The Board of Trade’s move places the yellow taxi industry in an unusual position: as an ally of the Bloomberg administration, which it has often vociferously opposed in recent years, particularly over plans to expand street-hail service for livery cabs in boroughs outside of Manhattan.

On the subject of hailing apps, though, their interests seem to overlap. In December, the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission voted to authorize a pilot program to allow passengers and available drivers to find each other using the apps.

The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade said in a statement on Tuesday that “e-hails that are done im! mediately are street hails.” Black and livery cars have themselves used hailing apps in recent years.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, two of the plaintiffs, the Livery Roundtable and the Black Car Assistance Corporation, seemed to brush off the yellow taxi industry’s move, focusing instead on the city government. “Our dispute is not with the taxis,” the groups said. “We are in court because the Taxi and Limousine Commission acted illegally, ignored existing rules, laws and regulations.”

The for-hire vehicle operators are being represented by Randy M. Mastro, a former deputy mayor for operations under Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mr. Mastro also worked to oppose the city in the all-borough taxi case. Last June, Justice Arthur F. Engoron, of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, blocked the administration’s plan to expand street hail service beyond Manhattan.

The app case was nitially scheduled to go before Justice Engoron as well, but the city has petitioned an administrative judge to have it reassigned.

Dolan Says Papal Conclave Should Be Occasion of Repentance

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan celebrated Mass at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church on East 55th Street on Tuesday. He is to leave for Rome on Wednesday.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan spent the final morning before his departure to Rome to help select the next pope presiding over an intimate service with his clergy and staff in Manhattan on Tuesday, asking them for their prayers and telling them that he hoped the papal conclave would be an occasion of repentance for the church, its cardinals and its faithful.

“All you got to do is listen to the radio, watch TV r read the newspapers to find out how much we need contrition, repentance, conversion of heart,” he said during a Mass at St. John the Evangelist Parish on First Avenue and 55th Street, attended by about 200 staff members of the Archdiocese of New York. “We are all conscious of that Old Latin saying ‘Ecclesia semper reformanda’: The church is always in need of reform. Always.”

The church has been pummeled by reports of new scandal and by innuendo since Pope Benedict XVI announced his retirement on Feb. 11. Most recently, Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Britain announced on Monday that he was resigning amid allegations that he had tried to seduce several seminarians decades ago.

Reflecting on the days to come, Cardinal Dolan noted that he a! nd the other cardinals would sing a penitential psalm as they filed into the Sistine Chapel, “almost in an act of contrition, of a humble admitting of our sins, our imperfections, our scars, so that God will have mercy on us and on his church.” He said he hoped the moment would be one of both pride and humility.

He is to board a flight to Rome on Tuesday evening, he said, to arrive in St. Peter’s Square for Pope Benedict XVI’s final public audience on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, he will attend an informal farewell meeting with the pope and all the other cardinals. And in the following days, he will attend daily morning meetings with the cardinals to decide the details of the conclave and discuss the future of the church.

Cardinal Dolan will stay with the rest of the American delegation at the Pontifical North American College near the Vatican, the seminary that he once headed as rector.

Dressed in purple and golden robes for Lent, Cardinal Dolan smiled warmly at the members of he audience through the service, and told them he was happy to spend his last morning in New York with friends. A dozen priests from the diocese surrounded him, and he was flanked by his second in command, Bishop Gerald T. Walsh, the vicar general, who will be in charge in his absence.

Still, his mood seemed more somber, and more reflective, than usual. There were no references to baseball or jokes about food, though he did tell the staff members that it was probably time they brushed up on their Latin. As for the persistent speculation that he might become pope, he said only that he was praying that he would be back in New York by Palm Sunday. “I’ll be eager to get home,” he said

Revisiting ‘The Group’ by Mary McCarthy

This evening’s edition of the Big City Book Club brings us to “The Group,” Mary McCarthy’s 1963 novel about an octet of Vassar graduates set loose on New York and the world. To kick things off, I’ve shared my first thoughts on the book (and lots of questions) below. Please post your own thoughts in the comments section, and return this evening from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Eastern time, when we’ll be discussing the book live.

Our co-host tonight is the writer James Collins, author of the acclaimed 2008 novel “Beginner’s Greek,” another best seller that rendered Manhattan â€" his native ground â€" in rich social detail. His response to the book will follow later this afernoon. Jim, this didn’t occur to me until after I asked you to join us, but you are the son of a Vassar graduate, so all the more reason you’re perfectly suited to this forum (and perfectly suited to answer questions about campus rituals like the Daisy Chain).

McCarthy had it in her head to write a novel about a group of alumnae of Vassar’s class of 1933 â€" the year she herself graduated from Vassar â€" for a long time. When she started writing in 1952, the idea was to follow the women through the Depression and World War II and into the ’50s. In the end, the novel makes it midway through the Roosevelt years and ends amid fears of the escalating war.

More intimately (and spoilers follow from here) the book ends with Kay’s funeral â€" Kay, the member of the group whose unconventional wedding to a bohemian actor begins and anchors the story. It is not a marriage for the ages. Harald, the husband, immediately arouses suspicions. Jim, as you pointed o! ut to me last week, Harald (spelled precisely that way) was also the name of the first of McCarthy’s four husbands, so I think we’re free to leap to whatever conclusions we may about how much was done to protect the identities of both the innocent and wayward.

It is tempting to say that this is a book about women not getting what they want: things don’t end well for the various members of Vassar ’33. In an interview in The Paris Review in the early 1960s, McCarthy said she intended to show a gradual “loss of faith” in the whole “idea of progress in the feminine sphere.” But I’m left wondering how much faith there was to begin with.

Libby possesses a genuine ambition to succeed in the literary world, and that desire is present on the page. But for a number of the characters, what they really want is a lot muddier. Dottie wants the artist Dick, the young man with whom she has a fling at the beginning of the book â€" but not enough to give up the prospect of marriage to a wealthy rizonan, and not as much as her more liberated mother seems to wants him for her. But how does the pursuit of a complete jerk, essentially on the basis of a single satisfying sexual encounter, represent some notion of “progress,” the abandonment of which we are supposed to mourn

The question, I think: Is McCarthy settled herself on what progress would really look like I don’t know.

This is all sounding more sober and serious than I mean to be. The book’s plus-ça-change factor is really quite amazing. The pressure to breast feed (in three-hour cycles! With the husband doing the pressuring!) could come straight from the message boards of Park Slope Parents. And how many employers sit across the desk from 22-year-old liberal arts graduates thinking exactly the same thoughts as Gus LeRoy: “You are just one of two million English majors coming here hoping to be Maxwell Perkins. Next!” I’m also struck by the fact that 80 years from t! he time t! he novel is set, the magazines in which a young serious person would want to write remain the same: Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Nation.

As many of us do, I get nostalgic for periods in the city’s history that predate me. I’m now left wishing I came of age in the Manhattan of the New York Central â€" specifically, the New York Central’s special weekend ski line to the Berkshires and all its apparent social opportunities. What made you want to time travel The Clover Club I’ve never seen one on a 2013 cocktail menu despite the fact that we’re supposed to be living in the era of the mixologist.

So, Book Club Members â€" and Jim â€" does the novel stand up to the 10-year test It took McCarthy a decade to write. Were these 10 years warranted The book was a huge commercial success but it was panned in the sort of places that would have mattered most to its author, particularly among the New York Review of Books, of which McCarthy was of course a part. (First came a parody f the book and then, as if that weren’t enough, a withering essay from Norman Mailer.) What about the 50-year test Does it provide sufficient insights into our present moment

Take it away!

‘The Velocity of Autumn’ Set for Arena Stage

Eric Coble’s play “The Velocity of Autumn,” which had been announced for a spring opening on Broadway only to be postponed last week, will be part of the 2013-14 season at Arena Stage in Washington, the theater announced on Tuesday. Set to run Sept. 6 to Oct. 20, the production will star the Oscar winner Estelle Parsons and the Tony winner Stephen Spinella, and will be directed by Molly Smith, the Arena’s artistic director. All three had been announced for the show’s Broadway production.

In a news release the Arena describes its run of “The Velocity of Autumn” as a “pre-Broadway production” for Mr. Coble’s dark comedy about an elderly artist (Ms. Parsons) who brricades herself inside her Brooklyn brownstone, where she is visited by her estranged son (Mr. Spinella). In an interview, Larry Kaye, who planned to produce “The Velocity of Autumn” on Broadway this spring, said the show had been postponed because he wanted “a theater suitable for the play and its intimate size.” Mr. Kaye also delayed a spring revival of Beth Henley’s “Miss Firecracker Contest” that he was to produce on Broadway.

Mr. Kaye said that the opening of the show in Washington came about after Ms. Parsons did a reading of it at the Arena about a year ago, and expressed interest in performing it there. The Arena production was “not instead of” a Broadway run, he said.

“When we postponed the play for the spring we continued to plan to bring it to Broadway,” said Mr. Kaye, a Broadway newcomer. “This seems to be a terrific opportunity to work on the play with our two stars, and it fit in perfectly with the Arena season.”

Ms. Smith said the show would benefit from being performed in Arena’s 517-seat Kreeger Theater, as opposed to the much larger Broadway houses that were being considered.

“This is an intimate two-person play,” she said. “It demands a space where the audience can absolutely lean into the story and not see it from a distance.”

Both Mr. Kyle and Ms. Smith said they hoped to bring the play to Broadway at some point, although no firms plans were in place.

“This is a play that needs to be seen in Washington and in New York,” said Ms. Smith. “If all the pieces come together that would be wonderful. But it also needs to be the right theater.”

“The Velocity of Autumn” is one of 10 shows announced for Arena’s coming season. Other offerings include Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” with Kathleen Turner as the title character; the Tectonic Theater Project’s production of “The Tallest Tree - A Portrait of Paul Robeson,” written and performed by DanielBeaty (“Emergence-SEE!”); a new adaptation of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” directed by Kenny Leon (“Stick Fly”); and new works by the playwrights Charles Randolph-Wright and Lawrence Wright and the choreographer Liz Lerman. More information is at arenastage.org.

Lhota, Hunting for Votes on Staten Island, Urges Hunt for Deer

Photo illustration by The New York Times (deer: Mary DiBiase Blaich for The New York Times; hunter: Bill Becher for the New York Times; Lhota: Michael Appelton for The New York Times). Deer, seen here on a Staten Island golf course in 2007, might want to consider moving out of the city if Joseph J. Lhota is elected mayor.

For years now, wild deer have run rampant across Staten Island, gobbling people’s greenery, littering backyards with droppings and posing a threat to motorists.

But Monday night, Sheriff Joe Lhota rode into town and put the ungulate varmints on notice.

“You do need to do something to control the growth of the deer population,” Mr. Lhota, the former Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief who is running for mayor, said at the Annadale Diner on Staten Island, according to The Staten Island Advance. “The next mayor is going to have to figure out how hunting is going to work.”

Mr. Lhota, a veteran hunter himself, said he favored a bow-and-arrow hunt. It would require legislative action: hunting animals is currently illegal in New York City.

Long, long ago, deer were plentiful across the city’s greenes! t borough, but by the late 20th century, their numbers had been drastically reduced, perhaps even to zero. Then, around 2000, deer began to rear their antlered heads with greater frequency. The city put up deer-crossing signs on the West Shore Expressway. There were reports of bowhunters poaching in the parks.

In 2008, a state survey counted 24 deer. By last year, a survey of a very small part of the island turned up 35 deer, and The Advance reported that “hundreds of deer” were estimated to live on the island.

Mr. Lhota noted that support for a deer hunt within the boundaries of the nation’s most populous city would not be universal, The Advance reported.

“Not everyone believes in hunting,” he said. “So we need to have a public debate.”

It was not immediately clear what impact Mr. Lhota’s proposal would have on the race for the Republican nomiation in Staten Island, where his candidacy has divided party leaders.

Guy Molinari, the power broker and former borough president, dropped plans to endorse Mr. Lhota in favor of the former Bronx borough president Adolfo Carrión Jr. after, he said, Mr. Lhota’s campaign refused to return his phone calls. The chairman of the borough’s Republican Party, Robert Scamardella, who had continued to support Mr. Lhota, resigned suddenly “to put an end to recent public displays of party discord,” The Advance reported Tuesday.

Mr. Carrión was not immediately available to field a question concerning his position on deer hunting.

Newly Discovered Kipling Poems Will Be Included in Three-Volume Collection

Graduation speakers burned out on Rudyard Kipling’s “If” will soon have some fresh options, thanks to a trove of newly discovered Kipling verse to be published for the first time next month.

The three-volume “Cambridge Edition of the Poems of Rudyard Kipling,” edited by Thomas Pinney and released in the United States on March 31, will include more than 50 poems uncovered by Mr. Pinney in recent years, including several found in the papers of a former head of the Cunard cruise line and one discovered during the renovation of a Manhattan townhouse, according to a statement from Cambridge University Press.

The newly discovered poems include cmic verse written during a crossing from Adelaide, Australia, to Sri Lanka (and most likely read aloud to passengers), an 1889 salvo against media intrusion called “The Press” and a Christmas poem called “Across Our Northern Uplands,” written after Kipling had moved to Vermont and “was still full of enthusiasm about life in America,” as the press put it.

The Cambridge edition, billed as the first complete edition of Kipling’s verse, includes more than 500 previously uncollected poems, with perhaps more to come. “There is a treasure trove of uncollected unpublished and unidentified work out there,” Mr. Pinney, an emeritus professor of English at Pomona College, said in the statement. “I discovered another unrecorded item only recently and that sort of thing will keep happening.”

Mr. Pinney also predicted a resurgence in the scholarly fortunes of Kipling, who, thanks to such poems as “The White Man’s Burden,” has often been dismissed as an apologist for British imperialism. “Kipling has long been neglected by scholars probably for political reasons,” he said. “His texts have never properly been studied, but things are starting to change.”

Jazz at Lincoln Center Announces Its Next Season

The 2013-2014 season for Jazz at Lincoln Center brings performances, commissions and homages by some of the organization’s regulars and favorites â€" Ahmad Jamal, Dianne Reeves and its artistic director Wynton Marsalis, to name a few â€" but also a noticeable amount of contemporary and experimental jazz, the organization is expected to announce on Tuesday.

There are a few new frameworks for the concerts. One is called “JLCO Hosts,” putting important contemporary bandleaders with the house orchestra in the Rose Theater. There will be two such double-billings: Kenny Garrett and Mulgrew Miller (Feb. 21-22) and Christian McBride and Kurt Rosenwinkel (May 23-24). Another is called “A Side/B side,” booking two contemporary groups â€" some in first-time appearances at Jazz at Lincoln Center â€" as a double bill over the course of a weekend in the Allen Room. Those shows include the guitarist Jim Hall and saxophonist Chris Potter’s Underground Orchestra (Nov. 22-23); the pianist Vijay Iyer€™s trio and the pianist Billy Child’s Jazz Chamber Ensemble (Jan. 24-25); and two groupings of composer-performers: one featuring Reid Anderson, Eric Harland, Carla Kihlstedt, Guillermo Klein, and Bill McHenry; the other, Latin-focused, including Carlos Henriquez, Pedro Martinez, Dafnis Prieto, Yosvany Terry and Elio Villafranca.

The guitarist Bill Frisell has been brought in as guest curator for a “Roots of Americana” series in the Allen Room. Through the season he will present and play in a Gershwin program, including the pianist Jason Moran, the mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran, his wife, and the singer-songwriter Sam Amidon; another focusing on the 1927 “Bristol Sessions,” foundational to country music, including Buddy Miller and Carrie Rodriguez; and a concert called “The Electric Guitar in America,” including Mr. Frisell’s frequent collaborators Greg Leisz and Tony Scherr.

Other concerts include the pianist Mr. Jamal, enfolding his qu! artet within the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to play his music, for the season’s opening weekend (Sept. 19-21); Mr. Marsalis’s 2008 extended work “Abyssinian Mass,” for orchestra and 70-voice gospel choir (Oct 24-26); the South African trumpeter Hugh Masakela (April 4-5); the composer Maria Schneider’s orchestra (March 14-15); the singer Bobby McFerrin (Jan. 24-25); the Andalusian guitarist Tomatito playing flamenco on March 15; The Sun Ra Arkestra, featuring Marshall Allen, observing the centenary of Sun Ra (Oct. 5); a mini-festival devoted to Dave Brubeck, who died in December, including a staging of his jazz musical, “The Real Ambassadors” directed by the pianist Eric Reed (April 10-12); a special quartet, including Jack DeJohnette, Leo Genovese, Joe Lovano and Esperanza Spalding (Feb. 28-March 1); a Dianne Reeves concert for Valentine’s day and a “Big Band Holidays” show near Christmas, with the singer Cecile McLorin Salvant; concerts of Pakistani, Brazilian and Cuban music; an repertory-based programs organized around Ellington, Brubeck,Cole Porter and others. Tickets and information are available at jalc.org.

Morrissey Cancels TV Performance, Citing ‘Animal Serial Killers’

Martin Bernetti/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Morrissey performing in Chile.

Morrissey has canceled an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Tuesday because he considers the other guests, stars of the reality series “Duck Dynasty,” to be “animal serial killers.” The singer and former leader of the Smiths is a well-known animal-rights activist and vegetarian. His views on killing ducks for sport are pretty far from the bushy-bearded duck-hunting gang on “Duck Dynasty,” who manufacture calls and other gear for hunters.

Morrissey â€" his full name is Steven Patrick orrissey but like many pop star he goes by a mononym â€" said in a statement posted on the fan site True to You that he would play the show if the cast of “Duck Dynasty” were removed.

“As far as my reputation is concerned, I can’t take the risk of being on a show alongside people who, in effect, amount to animal serial killers,” Morrissey said. “If Jimmy cannot dump Duck Dynasty then we must step away.”

Billboard reported that Mr. Kimmel has replaced Morrissey with the Denver band Churchill, who apparently are not squeamish about the taste of duck.

The performance was to have been Morrissey’s first since last month, when he canceled several concerts after being diagnosed with a bleeding ulcer. He is now scheduled to resume touring on Wednesday in San Diego before retur! ning to Los Angeles for a show at the Staples Center.

Morrissey asked the Staples Center to serve only vegetarian dishes at its food stands and restaurants during his show, but the arena declined, saying they will instead add some vegetarian options to the menus of its restaurants. No word on whether duck will be served.

Bike-Corral Debate Exposes Tension in a Brooklyn Community

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times A bike corral in front of a cafe on Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, has become the source of an acrimonious neighborhood debate.

Kate Blumm moved to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in June 2011, seven weeks before her daughter, Zelda, was born. After “falling in love with the merchant community,” Ms. Blumm, and her husband, Michael De Zayas, opened a cafe last March on Franklin Avenue called Little Zelda.

The couple began to notice that bicycle parking seemed to be scarce in an area where bike traffic seemed to be on the rise.

So they did what a handful of other small-bsiness owners in New York had started to do: ask the city to install a bike corral, a new style of rack that accommodates multiple bicycles and is installed in the street, taking the place of a parked car. Ms. Blumm’s request, which followed the procedure required by the Department of Transportation, was approved by the local community board. The corral was installed in front of Little Zelda in November.

But Ms. Blumm and Mr. De Zayas didn’t anticipate what happened next â€" the bike corral set off backlash among many longtime residents and merchants in Crown Heights, who say that they were not consulted and that their parking needs were disregarded.

The Transportation Department says bike corrals alleviate sidewalk congestion and attract more business to a neighborhood, at the expense of only one car parking spot. “We did this thinking that we are contributing so! mething to the neighborhood to make it more accessible to some people,” said Ms. Blumm, who is also the communications manager at Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

But far from being a welcome addition, the corral has led to a petition seeking its removal, a counter-petition in support, heated community-board discussions and acrimonious debates on local blogs. How a 24-foot-by-7 foot rectangle of public outdoor space has provoked such controversy is a question that has many in the neighborhood puzzled.

At the heart of the conflict seems to be a tension between newcomers and longtime residents. “There is a degree of distrust in the neighborhood,” said Constance Nugent-Miller, a nurse who has lived in Crown Heights for 43 years and helped start the petition to remove the corral. “It has divided us.”

In a city where gentrification debates usually involve real estate, the bike corral has emerged as a curious symbol, one that conjures feelings of displacement in some and empowerment in others./p>

Chuck Platt, a graduate student and cyclist who has lived in the neighborhood for one year, says he supports the “subtle ways” the city is making it more difficult for cars. “When you put in more bike-friendly access, it increases traffic to an area for the better,” he said.

But Roger Malcolm, who has lived in Crown Heights for 12 years and is also a cyclist, scoffs at the idea of locking either of his two bicycles at the corral. Mr. Malcolm believes the bike corral, while it is public property, sends an implicit signal that it is only for patrons of Little Zelda. It is an example, he said, of how newcomers are “changing the neighborhood.”

Bike corrals are installed after a merchant or organization gathers signatures and applies to the Transportation Department. If the agency signs off, a corral has to be approved by the local community board. The Crown Heights bike corral was approved through this process.

But some residents believe the board’s vote was not indi! cative of! how the neighborhood feels. At a recent meeting, a resident said that people attend community board meetings only when something has already affected them.

Diana Foster, a longtime resident who is also a member of the board, says she initially voted in favor of the corral not knowing all of the details, including the return of a public bus route that would eat up more parking spaces on the street.

“This is bigger than a bike corral,” Ms. Foster said. “We’re supposed to be a community. The board is supposed to serve the good of the whole community, and not a specific set of people. I’m feeling kind of offended.”

Part of what ignited the discord, many say, is flawed communication about the corral’s arrival. The first petition in support of the corral was largely kept inside Little Zelda, rather than taken to other stores, churches or apartments on the block. Marcus Roman, a Crown Heights resident and employee of Bella Greens, a nearby shop, says this had the effect of making Lttle Zelda look like “an in-house club.”

“If this is about improving the streetscape, shouldn’t merchants and residents be involved” said Lily Johnson-Dibia, the owner of Lily & Fig, a bakery across the street from the cafe.

The transportation committee of the local community board rejected an initiative to remove the corral but has asked the city’s Transportation Department to assess its value.

And the bike corral is expected to be a discussion topic at a town-hall meeting in March being organized by the Crow Hill Community Association.

“The bike corral is in a lot of ways a trigger for a conversation that had to happen at some point,” Ms. Blumm said. “As naïve as it may sound, we never expected it to become a conversation about anything more than a piece of metal in the street.”

A Musical Pitch to Albany to Raise Minimum Wage

As the battle over whether to raise the minimum wage heats up in Albany, some laborers are pressing their case in a musical fashion.

In a new video on YouTube, restaurant workers stacking dishes, shaking drinks, chopping onions and plating burritos take a moment to lip-sync and dance along to the 1959 Motown hit “Money (That’s What I Want).”

What they want, more specifically, is a $9 minimum wage. That’s what President Obama proposed in his State of the Union address that it be by the end of 2015, with earlier increases made in stages. His plan gave a push to Democrats in Albany who had initially wanted a wage of $8.50 (Gov. Andrew M. uomo last month called for an $8.75 minimum as of July).

The minimum in New York currently stands at $7.25, or about $14,500 a year for a 40-hour week and a 50-week year, and has not increased since 2009. Workers who receive tips have a base minimum of $5 an hour.

The video, created for the lobbying group Strong Economy for All and the worker-advocacy group Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, uses the original recording by Barrett Strong. Tim Murphy, one of the video’s creators, said that permission was not sought and royalties were not paid for the use of the song and recording, but that it was for a noncommercial use.

Memories of a Turkish Nightclub

Dear Diary,

My husband, who owns a small violin shop on the Upper West Side, returned on a recent night from a musical instrument convention in Los Angeles. Drooping with violins, cases and a dozen bows, he shuffled through the Kennedy Airport terminal, waited in the long taxi line and finally settled into a cab.

When the driver turned to ask where my husband was going, he turned out to be an old friend he hadn’t seen in years: the owner of a Turkish nightclub, Fazil’s, long since demolished, where my husband had performed into the wee hours every weekend in a Middle Eastern ensemble with belly dancers while he was a violin student at Juilliard 30 years ago.

How strange: 13,000 taxis, and on a cold winter night his was the one with a warm, familiar face. And in the reminiscence on that long ride back to the Upper West Side, one more miniature history of New York, its constant razing and renewal. The long line of Turkish, Armenian and Greek nightclubs on the West Side (Fazil’s wa one of the last) gave way to offices and condos. Its owners moved on, and at least one bought a taxi medallion when they were a steal.

Conservatory students, orchestra-poor, move on, too, and at least one eventually set up a shop where violins are rented, bought and played with friends. Altered dreams; New York lives. When the taxi finally arrived, Fazil refused the fare.

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In Performance: Ethan Hawke and Dana Lyn of ‘Clive’

In Performance is having a Brecht moment. Last week’s video featured the actor Taylor Mac in a scene from the Foundry Theater’s production of “Good Person of Szechwan,” Brecht’s play about trying to live an honest life in a corrupt society.

This week we look at another new spin on a Brecht classic with a musical number from “Clive,” Jonathan Marc Sherman’s adaptation of “Baal.” Ethan Hawke plays the title character, a charismatic but destructive poet and singer living in Giuliani-era New York City. In this scene Mr. Hawke, accompanied by his castmate Dana Lyn on violin, sings the Civil War-era ballad “Aura Lee.” This New Group production, which Mr. Hawke also directed, continues through March 9 at the Acorn Theater.

Recent videos include scenes from “The Laramie Project” and Will Chase putting a country twist on a number from “The Mystery of Edwi! n Drood.”

Coming soon: Maggie Siff and Jonathan Cake in a scene from “Much Ado About Nothing” and Jenn Harris and Carson Elrod in “All in the Timing.”