Voices Club of Mt Sinai Hosp, Inc

Member of IAL

December 15th, 2019

Dear Members and Friends,

President Saul Silver called the December meeting to order at 1:35 PM. In attendance were the members and friends shown and named in the photos below

Standing: Kenneth Martin, Larry Powers, Saul Silver, Cecilia Wennerstrom, Jay Hauben Editor & Ace Fotog Seated: Erle Raterta, Alden Gipson Gerry Silver

Among those not present were:  Our dear friend and long time member Don McDonagh who passed away on 12/10/2019. His obituary from the N.Y. Times is attached at the end of the newsletter.  Leola Glover who has been in a rehab facility. We were glad to hear that she is feeling better and is back home again. Members present signed a card for her.  Larry Velez who is recuperating at home after a long hospital stay. He is always posting on Facebook and sometimes gets discouraged by the pace of his recovery. Patience, Larry – recovery takes time, but we are all rooting for you and you will get there.

We started the meeting with “A Prayer for Laryngectomees”, read by Larry Powers. We then started our Round Table, led off by Erle Raterta. The Round Table is where everyone present told us about his/her history and latest news.

Erle Raterta said all was well with him. He told us that he and his family went to visit Don McDonagh at the nursing home for Thanksgiving and Don was happy to see them, especially Erle’s girls. Don kissed the girls’ hands. It was hard to communicate with Don because his handwriting had become hard to read.

Kenneth Martin said all was well with him and that he was going on a Caribbean cruise. When he booked the cruise it was scheduled to stop in Havana, but our government wouldn’t allow that stop. Kenneth is going anyway. Bon Voyage!

Nu-Voices Club of Mt Sinai Hosp, Inc

Member of IAL

December 15th, 2019

Larry Powers said he needs to adjust his thyroid medication. His dosage has been reduced by 25 mcg but he probably is still taking too much. He is following up with his doctor to see what further reductions are warranted.

Jay Hauben reports that his situation is still up in the air. He has three lymph nodes in his chest that are suspicious and will have a biopsy tomorrow (Monday). Treatment options are still being discussed and nothing will be determined until the biopsy results are available. Jay spoke about visiting Don weekly and how he will miss those visits. At his last two visits Don was really not up to company.

Gerry Silver said all is well with her and taking care of Saul keeps her busy. She said he comes up with new issues all the time. Never a dull moment. She is looking forward to their scheduled tour of Hawaii in January.

Saul Silver reports that he has a new health issue. Osteoporosis. He will get an infusion of a medication called Reclast to treat it. Also, he has a new InHealth prosthesis, his 1st after about 15 years of ATOS prostheses.

Cecilia Wennerstrom says that she has not been at recent meetings because she had a bad case of pneumonia. She is still weak but is hoping her strength returns soon. She thought her breathing issues were caused by a small stoma, but a chest x-ray revealed the pneumonia.

Alden Gipson reports that he has a hopeful situation. He currently has no means of speaking, but is scheduled for surgery on January 3rd to dilate his esophagus and then will work with Tamar Kotz, SLP at Mt Sinai to speak again.

Dues are due and several members have already paid 2020 dues. Any member who has not should either make out a $10 check to “Nu-Voices Club” and mail it to Saul at the address below or hand $10 to Gerry at the February meeting.

Remember everyone, we will no longer have meetings in January and July, so Happy Holidays to all. Our next meeting will be on Sunday, February 16th, at 1:30 PM in seminar room B on the second floor of 1470 Madison Avenue, between 101st and 102nd.

Saul Silver, President 390 First Avenue, #8F New York, NY 10010 (212) 677-6392, [email protected]

Don McDonagh, Dance Critic and Author, Dies at 87

In his reviews in , he championed experimental choreographers emerging in the 1960s and ’70s.

Don McDonagh near his home in Upper Manhattan in an undated photo. He was a longtime dance critic and the author of critical biographies.Credit...Leslie Getz

By Anna Kisselgoff  Published Dec. 13, 2019Updated Dec. 20, 2019, 6:49 p.m. ET

Don McDonagh, a fervent supporter of experimental choreographers as a dance critic for The New York Times and the author of critical biographies of and Martha Graham, died on Dec. 10 in Manhattan. He was 87.

Min Zhu, his executor and friend, said the cause was cancer.

Contributing reviews and articles prolifically to The Times from 1967 to 1978, Mr. McDonagh was one of the first critics to support the dancemaker Twyla Tharp when she began showing her provocative early conceptual work in the mid-1960s. (She was known to drop raw eggs on the floor during a performance.)

“He was a fair, intelligent supporter,” Ms. Tharp recalled in a phone interview, adding, “This was extremely generous to me as a young person.”

Mr. McDonagh’s biography “George Balanchine,” published in 1983, offered a detailed, analytical study of individual ballets by the Ballet’s founding choreographer while providing illuminating insights to those new to his work.

He used the difference between football and ice hockey to explain Balanchine’s signature style: Traditional ballet relies on the dancers’ visible preparations for steps during a performance. This is like football, with players taking stances at the line of scrimmage before the ball is snapped. By contrast, ice hockey has players moving all the time. This is comparable to the flow in Balanchine’s ballets, which eliminated the old preparations.

Mr. McDonagh had grown up a sports fan, particularly of the Yankees. He would sometimes walk to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx from his home in Morningside Heights in Upper Manhattan.

Donald Francis McDonagh was born in the Bronx on Feb. 6, 1932, and moved to Morningside Heights with his family as a child. His parents, Francis and Winifred (Tierney) McDonagh, had immigrated separately from Ireland before marrying. They opened the Moylan Tavern, a popular restaurant and bar, now long-vanished, near .

The tavern’s convivial atmosphere was recalled by the comedian and actor George Carlin in his mid- 1990s television sitcom, “The George Carlin Show,” in which he played a taxi driver. Most of its scenes were set inside a bar, also named the Moylan Tavern, which he had known while growing up in Morningside Heights.

Mr. McDonagh dedicated his book “How to Enjoy Ballet” (1978) to his parents.

After graduating from Fordham University, he did a stint in the Army during the Korean War and was posted to England. There he met Jennifer Jane Tobutt, a young British theatergoer who was part of a group that frequented London music halls and the ballet. They soon included Mr. McDonagh in their dancegoing. After Mr. McDonagh returned to New York, he and Ms. Tobutt were married. They were later divorced.

His second wife, Leslie Getz, a publisher of dance bibliographies, died in January.

Mr. McDonagh was managing editor of the quarterly Ballet Review from 1969 to 1995.

His other books include “The Complete Guide to Modern Dance” (1976), an introduction to the art form, and “The Rise and Fall and Rise of Modern Dance” (1970), in which he offered a sophisticated view of the 1960s avant-garde. His book “Martha Graham: A Biography” was published in 1973.

He is survived by four daughters from his first marriage, Maitland McDonagh, Ruth Stone, Rachel Chelius and Amy Monegro, and seven grandchildren.