Friday, August 17, 2001

The Warthog Upstairs

Tom Alan Robbins is Baslow's upstairs neighbor. He has played the role of Pumbaa in the Broadway production of the The Lion King since the beginning of the run. Now the New York Times has published an article about long-term cast members which included several quotes from Tom: No Letup in a Lion Kingdom

Thursday, August 16, 2001

WAITING TO BE BORN

Last weekend NY1, the all-news cable station devoted to metropolitan New York, named Katina Paron their "New Yorker of the Week" for her efforts (all unpaid) to establish a new local kids' journalism organization to take the place of the recently disbanded Children's Express. Baslow's children's can be glimpsed in the course of the feature. Baslow himself has a brief speaking role (with a weird hand gesture thrown in). The focus, however, is on Katina, who richly deserves it. We grow more and more optimistic that, because of her tenacious and indefatigable efforts, the spirit of Children's Express will once again waft through this Metropolis.

Monday, August 06, 2001

RISING FROM THE ASHES

Last Friday, August 3, NPR's All Things Considered ran a piece on the demise of Children's Express. Unfortunately, the piece left the impression that the New York Bureau of Children's Express has been evicted from its office and is now dead. Neither of these is quite true. The reporters, editors, and friends of the New York Bureau have banded together to create a new organization that will carry forward the original spirit of Robert Clampitt's Children's Express and will build upon the work done at the New York Bureau before the collapse. This new organization does not have a name or much money yet. It elected to move out of its current office in August because the rent was more than it could afford. It has found new space in which to store its files and equipment and in which, at the end of August, it will be able to set up new operations. The name Children's Express may be a thing of the past but the remarkable spirit and achievements which that name stood for WILL carry on.