CURATION
-
from this page:
by Title Holder
Network Node
-
Name:
John Donohue
-
City/Place:
Brooklyn, New York
-
Country:
United States
Current News
-
What's Up?
ALL THE RESTAURANTS: Hand Drawn
I launched this project in New York City on January 1, 2017, inspired by the late Jason Polan’s Every Person in New York and James Gulliver Hancock’s All the Buildings in New York. At that time, according to a New Yorker profile of the critic Pete Wells, there were some 24,000 restaurants in the city. It is mathematically possible to visit all of them in under a year by spending 20 minutes at a stop. Luckily, it takes me almost exactly 20 minutes to draw the façade of each place, working strictly from life, in ink (without a pencil or erasing anything).
In a perfect world, I would have finished New York City in twelve months. Of course, my calculation didn’t take into account openings and closings, travel between each one, sleep, work, outside responsibilities, and coloring and printing. Or black-swan events like the Coronavirus pandemic. So, I have been at it ever since.
Since 2017, I’ve expanded my reach to include Paris and London and (hopefully) beyond as I expect to continue doing this work for the rest of my life—which is precisely the point. I first conceived of this site’s title as intentionally hyperbolic, but it has a deeper meaning. For when I say, “All the Restaurants,” I’m being more aspirational than descriptive. It’s my aim to draw forever, and your support of this project makes that goal achievable.
I draw at least twice a day, and if you are curious about why, details are in the articles below. In a previous life, I was an editor at The New Yorker magazine, where I also published a few cartoons. In 2011, I edited “Man with a Pan: Culinary Adventures of Fathers who Cook for their Families,” a best-selling anthology featuring recipes and essays from Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, Mark Kurlansky, Stephen King, Jim Harrison, and many others. I also used to write about cooking at home on my blog, Stay at Stove Dad.
Life
-
Bio:
I’m an artist and a writer and the founder of All the Restaurants in New York. My articles and cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Barron’s, and other publications.
I’m also the editor of “Man With a Pan: Culinary Adventures of Fathers Who Cook For their Families,” a 2011 best-selling anthology featuring contributions from Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, Mark Kurlansky, Stephen King, and many others.
Contact Information
-
Email:
my-first-name [at] johndonohue [dot] com
More
-
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
“John Donohue is the Rembrandt of New York City’s restaurant facades.”
– Adam Platt, restaurant critic, New York magazine
"If you know someone who’s wild for a special New York restaurant, this is the perfect present.”
– Ruth Reichl, former editor of Gourmet magazine
"John Donohue, a former editor at The New Yorker, has a talent for the visual image, not just the written word."
– Florence Fabricant, of The New York Times
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
Wolfram Mathematics
This technological matrix originating in Bahia, Brazil and positioning creators around the world within reach of each other and the entire planet is able to do so because it is small-world (see Wolfram).
Bahia itself, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place on earth throughout all of human history, refuge for Lusitanian Sephardim fleeing the Inquisition, Indigenous both apart and subsumed into a brilliant sociocultural matrix comprised of these three peoples and more, is small-world.
Human society, the billions of us in all the complexity of our relationships, is small-world. Neural structures for human memory are small-world, neural structures in artificial intelligence are small-world...
In small worlds great things are possible. In a matrix they can be created.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"I'm truly thankful ... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)"
—Nduduzo Makhathini (JOHANNESBURG): piano, Blue Note recording artist
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
Dear friends & colleagues,
Having arrived in Salvador 13 years earlier, I opened a record shop in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for Bahian musicians, many of them magisterial but unknown.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Bahians and other Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix (people who have passed are not removed), then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Recent access to this matrix and Bahia are from these places (a single marker can denote multiple accesses).
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Nduduzo Makhathini
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX