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Once There Was a Village
Kapralov's work revolves around his years living and working as an artist in New York's East Village in the late 1960's and early 1970's. As Kapralov chronicles the sad and slow deaths of his Slavic compatriots, the exploitation of the naive hippie runaways, the mechanical disintegration of the world in which he lives, his own mental deterioration begins.
"The authentic account of a period by a survivor...Kapralov's background—and gift as a writer—make him the right annalist for the East Village."— The Village Voice
Yuri Kapralov was born in the Caucasus and came to the United States in 1949. He has lived in the East Village, New York City, since 1965. Kapralov has exhibited his paintings, pen-and-inks, and piano constructions in New York and San Francisco, and ran the Sixth Sense Gallery from 1982-87.
"The authentic account of a period by a survivor...Kapralov's background—and gift as a writer—make him the right annalist for the East Village."— The Village Voice
Yuri Kapralov was born in the Caucasus and came to the United States in 1949. He has lived in the East Village, New York City, since 1965. Kapralov has exhibited his paintings, pen-and-inks, and piano constructions in New York and San Francisco, and ran the Sixth Sense Gallery from 1982-87.
164 pages, Paperback
First published July 24, 1998
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April 16, 2022
The first sequence, of a riot in the East Village, segueing into memories of war in Eastern Europe, is brilliant, exciting, and could have been written about strife in the East Village and Eastern Europe over the past two years with minimal changes.
The rest can be a bit repetitive. Kapralov's persona of a genial, all-seeing neighborhood artist is pleasant but not quite interrogative enough to keep up 160 pages, his recollections of various characters plainly written and interpreted through a dated, unthinking regurgitation of mildly bohemian mid 20th-century sexual, racial, class politics. The talk about psychiatry, public safety, substance abuse and relationships shows how even if you think you stand outside the mainstream, with time you'll probably end up looking more or less the same as everybody else. But it's hard not to be swept along by society, especially when so much action is happening on your doorstep. We could only be so lucky to write anything that transcends 2022 in half the way this transcends 1974.
Regardless, it's an invaluable record of the greatest neighborhood in New York (maybe the world) in the middle of the 20th century, the shifting tectonic plates of crime and drugs and bohemians and immigrants. It's a relief to get a cultural history of bohemia that features zero boldface names - it's rare, recognizable, representative. I'm a bit biased, but only in a vague geographic way. It's just the real art life portrayed by a quotidian practitioner thereof, and that's important as well.
Most poetically, of all the East Village institutions referenced - even among the places still there during my 10+ years in the neighborhood - the only one left today is Jarema's funeral home.
The rest can be a bit repetitive. Kapralov's persona of a genial, all-seeing neighborhood artist is pleasant but not quite interrogative enough to keep up 160 pages, his recollections of various characters plainly written and interpreted through a dated, unthinking regurgitation of mildly bohemian mid 20th-century sexual, racial, class politics. The talk about psychiatry, public safety, substance abuse and relationships shows how even if you think you stand outside the mainstream, with time you'll probably end up looking more or less the same as everybody else. But it's hard not to be swept along by society, especially when so much action is happening on your doorstep. We could only be so lucky to write anything that transcends 2022 in half the way this transcends 1974.
Regardless, it's an invaluable record of the greatest neighborhood in New York (maybe the world) in the middle of the 20th century, the shifting tectonic plates of crime and drugs and bohemians and immigrants. It's a relief to get a cultural history of bohemia that features zero boldface names - it's rare, recognizable, representative. I'm a bit biased, but only in a vague geographic way. It's just the real art life portrayed by a quotidian practitioner thereof, and that's important as well.
Most poetically, of all the East Village institutions referenced - even among the places still there during my 10+ years in the neighborhood - the only one left today is Jarema's funeral home.
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