Tag Archives: Anya Liftig

Roundup: My Mistakes, Canal Park’s Egrets, Compo’s Hook’d …

Posted on May 9, 2025 | 2 comments

Yesterday’s Roundup included 2 dumb errors.

The 9th annual Dog Festival is Sunday, May 18 (10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Winslow Park). I said it was this Sunday; it’s actually a week later. Learn more here.

I also forgot to include the link to Staples High School student Jonathan Dobin-Smith’s powerful (and successful) plea at the Representative Town Meeting, to restore $25,000 to the Earthplace budget. Here is the speech; if it doesn’t start there, it’s at the 1:18:25 mark.

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Save the date. The always popular Staples Pops Concert is June 6 (7 p.m., Levitt Pavilion).

Free tickets are snapped up quickly. Watch this space for info (coming soon!) on how to snag yours.

Meanwhile, the Staples Music Parents Association invites local businesses to buy ads in the program book.

Contributions cover Pops Concert expenses, and help provide resources all year lon for over 400 students in the music program. For details, email  staples.music.parents.assn+ads@gmail.com.

There’s always a full house for the Staples Pops Concert. (Drone photo/Brandon Malin)

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More SHS news: Kids in pre-K through grade 5 are too young to benefit from Staples Tuition Grants.

But they’re old enough to help raise funds, for the organization that since 1943 has helped tens of thousands of SHS graduates attend college.

The 2nd annual Kids Fun Run is Sunday, May 18 (8 to 9:30 a.m., Staples’ Loeffler Field). Registration is $25; visit @STGFUNRUN on Instagram.

The morning includes games, face painting, snacks, and a kids’ run. It’s organized by juniors Will Briggs and Alexis Krenzer.

Last year alone, STG awarded $381,500 to 105 students. To learn more, visit www.staplestuitiongrants.org.

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The weather has been off and on.

But Hook’d is on.

The Compo concessionaire has opened for another season. Let’s hope for many good beach days ahead.

(Photo copyright DinkinESH Fotografix)

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“Egrets” have come to Canal Green.

That’s the name of Westport’s newest outdoor artwork.

On Wednesday, the 7 1/2-foot stainless steel sculpture by Redding artist Babette Bloch joined 3 other sculptures recently placed in town parks by the Westport Art Advisory Committee, in collaboration with the Parks & Recreation Department.

Bloch is nationally known as a pioneer in laser-cut stainless steel sculpture

A celebration — including a short talk by the artist, a tribute by Westport poet laureate Donna Disch and refreshments — is set for May 31 (4 p.m.). Canal Park is at the interseection of Kings Highway North and Canal Street, just east of the Willows Medical Center.

“Egrets” at Canal Green.

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Longtime Westporter and musician Roger Kaufman’s forays into musical history have entertained and educated audiences for years.

He’s back on May 29 (7:30 p.m., The Warehouse at Fairfield Theatre Company).

“Speaking of Music Presents Road Trip to the 5Ms” includes both a presentation and live music.

Author/bassist/Fairfield University Professor Brian Q. Torff opens, with a talk on “Race and Music of the Deep South.

Then comes a 90-minute show by the Old School Revue All-Stars with the Saugatuck Horns, with kick-ass guest vocalists Audrey Martells, Tiffany T’Zelle, Billy Cliff and Billy Genuario.

They’ll perform a great collection of classic soul and R&B tunes, from the legendary recording studios of Muscle Shoals, Memphis, Miami, Macon and Motown.

The Old School Revue musicians have performed or recorded with the Blues Brothers, Steve Cropper, Bob Dylan, Joe Cocker, Aretha Franklin, Steely Dan, Robert Palmer and the Rolling Stones.

I saw their previous show, in August. I give “the 5 Ms” 5 stars. Learn more about the show here.

Old School Revue All-Stars. (Photo/Ted Horowitz)

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A large, curious crowd turned out yesterday, for an “Alternative Device Fair” at the Westport Library.

The event — sponsored by OK to Delay, the group supporting parents who delay giving their children smartphones — featured vendors selling products with the basic functionality of cellphones, but with fewer distractions.

Among the companies represented: Bark, Gabb, Pinwheel, Troomi, Dumb Wireless and Light and Tin Can.

Alternative Device Fair at Westport Library.

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Also yesterday at the Library: Over 50 people helped Kevin Christie and Amy Wistreich launch their campaign for the Board of Selectmen yesterday.

The crowd included Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz, state Senator Ceci Maher, and former state senator Will Haskell.

Kevin Christie and Amy Wistreich (center), with supporters. 

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One more event yesterday worth (very much) noting: On the company’s “Red Day” of service, agents with Keller Williams Realty’s Westport office filled 900 bags of healthy food, for Filling in the Blanks.

The Norwalk non-profit fights childhood hunger — which provides weekend meals to kids in need — has just opened a pantry at the University of Connecticut-Stamford.

Keller Williams agents, “filling in the blanks.”

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The Y’s Women have a special guest on Monday — and the public is invited.

Fiona Davis — author of 8 historical fiction novels set in iconic New York buildings, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Library and Dakota — will discuss fascinating stories behind those landmarks, with veteran broadcast journalist Alisyn Camerota.

The event is May 12 (11:30 a.m., Green’s Farms Church). Non-Y’s Women (and men) can register by email: jildam00@yahoo.com

Fiona Davis

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Speaking of authors: Like any writer (and performance artist), Anya Liftig has seen her share of rejection letters.

Like perhaps no other, she has turned them into a book.

The 1995 Staples graduate — and author of “Holler Rat,” a memoir of her unique youth, balancing her lives in privileged Westport and the hollows of Kentucky — just published “Rejection/Ambition: A 25 Year Performance.”

Both a performance document and text work, it is culled from a quarter century’s “copious collection” of rejection letters.

Anya says, “Read from the Ambition side, it is clear-eyed in its determination for artistic recognition. Read from the Rejection side, it is a text about failure, mistakes, and confusion.”

You can purchase “Rejection/Ambition”on her website.

Anya Liftig (Photo/Stephen Dennett)

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The Green’s Farms Association welcomes a special guest to their annual meeting next Wednesday (May 14, 7 p.m., Green’s Farms Congregational Church).

Outgoing police chief Foti Koskinas will speak. Important topics for the neighborhood group include a police/fire/EMS facility proposed for the Sherwood Island Connector, and traffic.

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Westport native and lifelong resident Loretta Pastore died peacefully on Monday. She was 65.

Like her mother and daughters, she was a Staples graduate. Her family says, “she was known for her kindness, generosity, grace, and unwavering willingness to lend a helping hand.”

Loretta is survived by her sister, Annmarie Pastore Santolini (Tim); daughters Isabella and Gabriella Mikaiel; best friend, ex-husband and father of her children George Mikaiel, and nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be held Monday (May 12, 10 a.m., Assumption Church). A celebration of life will follow at 11:30 a.m. at Pastime Club (59 Seaview Avenue, Norwalk).

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to plant a tree in Loretta’s memory at Compo Beach, one of her favorite places. Donate to that fund here.

Loretta Pastore

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Whitmal Cooper sent a photo, with the caption: “Brant geese on the way to the Arctic at Compo”:

(Photo by Norm)

Who knew that’s where they’re headed?

But I do know it makes a very cool “Westport … Naturally” image.

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And finally … happy 76th birthday to the one and only Billy Joel!

(And so it goes … one more week of “06880” in the books. Thanks for being part of our online community, every day. If you’d like to support our work, please click here. Thank you!) 

 

 

 

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“Holler Rat”: Anya Liftig’s 2 American Lives

Posted on April 28, 2023 | 8 comments

For summer in the 1980s, young Westport girls got fresh haircuts, new Benetton outfits, and headed off to camp.

Anya Liftig did not join them.

“I didn’t feel cool enough,” she recalls. “And it was too expensive.”

Instead, she and her family traveled to Kentucky. “This is your own camp,” her father Robert said.

Anya Liftig, in the 1995 Staples High School yearbook.

Anya’s grandmother’s house was impeccably clean. But it was filled with cousins not much older than Anya, and their babies. She loved to read, but hid her books from her Kentucky kin.

“There was a lot of poverty, sadness and unhealthy people,” Anya says. “They were deeply uneducated, because the schools were so bad.”

Anya’s mother’s people lived in a remote holler, in “hillbilly” country. (Her mother Inez used that term.)

“They legitimately walked 2 miles to the bus, and rode an hour to school,” Anya says.

Her mother was the first family member to leave the area, for a state university and then the Peace Corps. Despite the limitations, Inez had grown up surrounded by encyclopedias and globes.

Growing up in “opulent” Westport — where Robert, who met Inez in the Peace Corps, was a teacher — while spending summers in Kentucky was “confusing,” Anya says.

“I didn’t know who I was. It was 2 worlds, and 2 different philosophies. But I was grateful that both families were very loving.”

That dual existence forms the heart of “Holler Rat,” Anya’s new memoir. It weaves her years in Connecticut and Kentucky with college at Yale, her journey to performance art, a shattering period when everything fell apart, and the self-reckoning that followed.

Her world was the product of 2 very different ones. Anya’s father grew up Jewish. He opposed the Vietnam War; Connecticut politician Abraham Ribicoff helped him land a spot in the Peace Corps.

Anya went to Coleytown Elementary and Middle Schools. In Staples High’s Class of 1995 she joined Players, Student Assembly, Model UN and the Law Club.

Her most important activity was dance. She started at age 6, as therapy after a severe injury. At 15 she joined Martha Graham’s Teenage Ensemble, commuting to New York.

Her major at Yale was English, but she continued to pursue theater. She learned photography and sculpture, earned a graduate degree in studio art, and traveled the world performing, and showing her work at galleries and museums. Film work came later.

Anya Liftig, performance artist.

“Holler Rat” was conceived originally as performance art. But after her divorce (from a “boarding school/Yale guy”), the loss of her apartment and her “breakup with New York,” Anya moved back to Connecticut.

Her life shifted. Writing became both a release, and a way to understand her 2 worlds. Examining both class and culture, Anya asked herself, “‘Why did this happen?’ I excavated my life.”

Growing up in Westport, she says, friends called her “Kentucky Fried Liftig.” But they did not know much about her life there. Anya never told them about the poverty and sadness in her mother’s family.

“In Westport I could be a nerdy, artsy smart kid,” she says.

But she also felt pressure. Her mother — like Robert, a teacher — had sacrificed so much. “There was unspoken pressure to be academically successful, to do her proud.”

Those summers in the holler were part fun, part strange. Her mother’s family accepted her father “as best as they could.”

Robert, meanwhile — a very outgoing man — was fascinated by bluegrass music and mountain culture.

Anya Liftig, today. (Photo/Stephen Dennett)

“There was never a feeling of ‘here comes the Yankee to steal our Southern belle,'” Anya says. “It was more like oddballs meeting oddballs.”

Robert brought his bagpipes to Kentucky. “That’s his personality,” Any notes. “He was willing to make himself vulnerable. They let him in as much as they could.”

Her father’s scholarly interests in books, history and ancestry were seen as “silly eccentricities.” It took a long time for Anya to figure out those family dynamics.

Along the way, there were “uncomfortable moments. Things were said — not maliciously, but they were said.”

In college, Anya kept kosher. In Kentucky, her grandmother served bacon and sausage for breakfast.

The juxtapositions that had begun years earlier — when Anya’s friends went off to camp, and she headed to the holler — continued.

Soon, we can all read about those confusing, odd years, when Anya had her dancing feet planted in 2 different worlds.

And what it all means to, and for, her today.

(“Holler Rat” will be published August 15. For more information, click here. For Anya Liftig’s website, click here.)

(“06880” scours the world for interesting, Westport-related stories. Please click here to support our work. Thank you!)

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Anya Liftig: In US, It’s OK For Artists To Live In Squalor

Posted on December 6, 2016 | 63 comments

Anya Liftig is a 1995 Staples High School graduate. She entered Yale intending to major in political science. Ahead lay law school and a career in public service. But, Liftig says, “I took the liberal arts mission very seriously. I ended up questioning if that was what I really wanted to do.” She graduated as an English major.

She wandered through Asia with a backpack, and worked on a farm. She came back, and became a paralegal for a white-shoe Wall Street firm. She helped set up offshore entities and made good money. Yet she thought all the lawyers with fabulous apartments were “bored out of their minds.”

She quit and signed on with Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign. Liftig was a tracker, following Rudy Giuliani around with a camera. Clinton kept talking about the need for health care, but did not provide it to her own workers like Liftig.

Disillusioned, Liftig left politics. She studied with Norwalk photographer Joe DeRuvo. Her photos appeared in the New York Times Magazine.

Anya Liftig

Anya Liftig

She reconnected with her old high school boyfriend and moved to Georgia where he lived. A short time later, they broke up. She enrolled in Georgia State University’s master’s in fine arts program. She earned two degrees and became a conceptual performance artist.

Liftig moved back to New York. She knew if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. She’s done other things — tutoring, selling books on the street — and she built out an art space (until her building was condemned, then turned into condos). 

In the aftermath of the horrific Oakland fire — which gutted a warehouse that had been converted into a live/work art space, and killed a Staples graduate — Anya posted her reactions on Facebook. She wrote:

Every artist, especially every performance artist I know, has had experience living, staying, creating, and working in a space like this. We know this building and thousands like it in Detroit, Chicago, Brooklyn, Newark, Cleveland, Portland, Queens, Berlin, New Haven, the Bronx, Yonkers, London, Bridgeport, Oakland, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philly, Pittsburgh et al.

When I moved to Bushwick in 2004 and built out a raw factory space with my partner, this was our reality. The fire exits were padlocked with chains to keep us from using them. No fire extinguishers. There were no fire detectors or working sprinklers. Eventually we were tossed out to make way for another round of artists (read people who could pay more.) Today 17-17 Troutman is a bastion of the Bushwick/Ridgewood art scene — flush with established galleries and artists with the money to pay the exorbitant rent.

This is the legacy that Soho/Tribeca/LES/East Village/DUMBO/Williamsburg/ Gowanus et al is built on. (Lest we forget the women of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.)

At Staples High School, Anya Liftig was part of the O Gallery art collective.

At Staples High School, Anya Liftig was part of the O Gallery art collective.

But it’s not only the artists who are at risk, and artists who suffer. When the FDNY eventually raided our building, we spoke with them and appealed our case. They told us that, surprise!, we were living in a former pesticide factory and that our “landlord” had lied about having a Certificate of Occupancy from the city –and that when fire and destruction eventually came to our building (only a matter of time since people were illegally welding, wiring electricity, etc. in the building) that they would be risking their lives to come and save us. That put it in a new perspective for me.

Blame the developers.

Blame a country that thinks it is acceptable and even chic for artists to live in squalor.

Blame a country that claims to value freedom of a expression above all else and forces its real, honest to G-d artists to always live in poverty.

Blame a national culture that fetishizes “creativity” and “thinking outside the box” only when it serves to line pockets with cash and decorate Louis Vuitton bags.

(Hat tip: David Roth)

 

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