By Adam Janos

If you’re a New Yorker with a kid, you may have some cash that’ll be waiting for you in your mailbox, come next autumn. That’s because the state is issuing a $350 tax rebate check to families with at least one child (under 18) whose total household income falls between $40,000 and $300,000 per year. There’ll be no forms for you to fill out; claiming the money will be as effortless as a walk to the bank.

Just in time for the general election.

That’s the claim made by Citizen Action of New York, a grassroots organization that advocates for economic justice and an end to electoral corruption.

“Mailing out checks is designed to make people appreciate the incumbent legislators at election time, because they just got a check in the mail,” said Karen Scharff, executive director. “It’s an election year gimmick… I think it’s fine to make the tax system more progressive. A child tax credit is fine, but we need a comprehensive reform to our tax system; we shouldn’t do one-time rebates that are tied to election cycles.”

State Senator Brad Hoylman agrees, which is why he voted against the bill when it came to the senate floor. But beyond his problems with the gimmick element, Hoylman also believes that the $375 million which will be spent over three years on this rebate is a poor use of taxpayer money, which could go to a variety of programs, including – amongst other things – restoring $90 million in cuts to New York State’s Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD), providing $25 million to start up the Dream Act, and increasing community college-based aid.

“I’m not saying that people need to pay more taxes,” explained Senator Hoylman. “But we need longer term strategies. No one has studied the impact of this rebate check. It came up at the last minute behind closed doors. No constituency was campaigning for it. On the other hand, I had troves of seniors, kids with disability issues, public school parents… all trying to preserve their programs. I mean the New York State AIDS Institute was cut by $5 million. That’s what I find objectionable. The rebate discussion came within the course of a few days without any data or economic information to back it up.”

Hoylman, who served as Vice President at the Partnership of New York City, has some background working in the world of commerce and fiscal policies. However with this tax rebate, his thinking comes less from his experience in the financial sector and more from his philosophy regarding the relationship between the state and its citizenry.

“The basic function of government is to protect the most vulnerable in our society,” said Hoylman. “For families and individuals who have conditions [ranging] from cerebral palsy to autism… they’re left behind in this budget [due to cuts in the OPWDD]. I’ve met with a lot of people who directly benefit from those services, and there’s widespread concern that with this budget, some people will have to institutionalize their family members. That’s a very frightening prospect.”

Hoylman also questioned the exclusivity of the tax rebate: immigrants, senior citizens, and the extremely poor will all be left off the payroll when the checks start getting cut. Meanwhile, at the more affluent end of the rebate bracket, households with $300,000 will be receiving money for their kids. “At the upper scale, it makes no difference,” Hoylman said.

Hoylman is indignant that his colleagues in the Senate and Assembly are trying to buy votes, rather than help advance the greater good; for him, programs like these rebate checks are the seeds from which cynicism with government grows. “One-time feel-good rebate checks are not the answer, particularly when they’re not targeted at the poorest people. There’s a growing income inequality in New York, and to me the better approach is to fix it in a systemic way.”

I was a teenager when Koch was elected to his first term, and I thought his chutzpah, moxie and general bluster was admirable and probably just what the city needed when the collective morale of New Yorkers bordered on outright despair. Edward I. Koch was bold, he was optimistic, he knew New York was better than its financial crisis and crime statistics.

He lifted our city out of its financial woes, embarked on an ambitious public housing program, made some innovative criminal justice reforms and gave New York its swagger back. When I went off to college in upstate New York in 1980, I felt that I was leaving a city on an upswing, with a mayor who was steering us to a better place.

Then in 1982, Koch overreached, and the Greenwich Village pol set his sights on the Statehouse, a job that required living in upstate New York. He stumbled, making an ill-conceived joke about the sterility of the suburbs, and my college newspaper in Ithaca wisecracked in the headline of its endorsement for governor: “Koch for Mayor.”

The people of upstate and my colleagues on the college newspaper editorial board sent the fish-out-of-New York-harbor-water a message: Stay in the five boroughs, where you belong. Koch went on to re-election in 1985, the same year I returned to the city and became the editor of a weekly newspaper, The West Side Spirit, which not only covered the mayor, but had a weekly political columnist, Dick Oliver, who was one of Koch’s chief antagonists.

Koch, in his third term (there were no term limits then) started collecting lots of enemies and critics. His administration was beset by scandal, from the Parking Violations Bureau mess that led to the suicide of Queens Borough President Donald Manes to the imbroglio over Koch’s close friend, Consumer Affairs Commissioner Bess Myerson, whose romantic life with an alleged mobster led to one of the more bizarre scandals in NYC history.

Like a marriage that goes sour after a decade, Koch’s relationship with the city and its various constituencies curdled in his third term. The African-American community attacked him for his racial insensitivity, and Wilbert Tatum, the publisher of the city’s largest black newspaper, the Amsterdam News, put “Koch Must Resign” on his front page every week. For two years.
I was an eager young journalist, in my mid-20s, who was still awestruck to be covering larger-than-life figures like Koch and his ilk. I decided in 1987, two years before his ill-fated third stab at re-election, to write a long cover story: “Can Koch Make a Comeback?”

Unintentionally, Koch taught me one of my most valuable journalism lessons when he refused to grant me an interview because my newspaper— particularly columnist Dick Oliver—had continuously bashed him.

Undeterred, I did a “write around,” interviewing more than 25 people in the administration and in the New York punditocracy, and it became one of my proudest pieces of journalism: a balanced and thoroughly reported picture of a once-mighty mayor on the ropes and hanging on for dear life.
In 1989, David Dinkins dethroned Koch in the primary and unceremoniously sent him back to private life.

In the following years, when well-wishers on the street told Koch they missed him, he would reply: “The people have spoken. And now they must be punished.”

One year after he left office, I decided to write another profile of Koch. My last question in that interview was a throwaway line: “So now that you have all this free time, how do you spend it?”

Koch replied: “I go to the movies two or three times a week.”

The next morning, I phoned Koch.

“Hey, Ed,” I said, “how would you like to be the West Side Spirit’s movie reviewer?”

“What would you pay?” Koch replied.

“How about $50 a week?” I said sheepishly, knowing that I was already committing a high percentage of my weekly freelance budget.

“Fifty dollars a week?! I wouldn’t cross the street for $50 a week!”

“But we’re a small paper,” I said plaintively.

“Well, call me when you get bigger,” he said and then dropped the receiver.

The Spirit had recently become part of a chain of five weeklies in Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and the Hamptons. I phoned each publisher about my idea, asked them to contribute $50 per week for a syndicated movie column—and presto, a critic was born.

“How about $250?” I offered the next day.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll start today. But I have some ground rules: I don’t do openings. I don’t do cinematography. I just tell the reader whether the movie is worth the price of admission.”

For the next 23 years, Edward I. Koch reviewed a movie or two each week, with his trademark + or –, symbolizing his thumbs-up or thumbs-down for the everyman’s film experience.

One night a few months after he started, a friend called to tell me he saw Koch on the Johnny Carson show saying he had seven jobs in his post-mayoralty career but his favorite one was writing reviews for a chain of weekly newspapers.

Now that we all mourn the loss of a colorful New Yorker and a man who relished being called Hizzoner, I take some comfort that a young editor’s gimmicky idea to grab attention in a tough media town gave Koch some joy.

If they serve popcorn in heaven, I hope Koch has found his seat and is taking mental notes on the show unfolding before him.

This time, perhaps he’ll notice the cinematography.

Tom Allon, a 2013 candidate for New York City mayor, is the former editor and publisher of this newspaper.

‘Dancing with the Stars’ heartthrob on learning English from Steve Urkel, Sheepshead Bay and hip-hop

By Angela Barbuti

Now that the season of Dancing with the Stars is over, New Yorkers get to have Val Chmerkovskiy all to themselves for a while. When the 26-year-old came back home to New York after placing third in the competition, he received something of a hero’s welcome. Screaming girls and construction workers alike stopped him to say that they watched him compete on what has become one of the most popular shows on television. Lucky for us, when Chmerkovskiy isn’t performing on DWTS, he is teaching at one of the four dance studios he owns in the tristate area. “There’s a lot of dance still left in me,” he said.

When did you know you wanted to dance professionally?
I still don’t know. I was blessed with parents who put us into many different lanes of creativity. Dance was just one of the things I did, and I’m talented enough to do it well. I translated that into the professional opportunity that it is right now, but I wouldn’t want to limit myself by just being referred to as a professional dancer. I’m very proud of it, but there are a lot of things that I want to do.

How has being on Dancing with the Stars changed your life?
The obvious celebrity—quote, unquote—status. I’m very shy of that word, because I just don’t like it. [Laughs] What I do enjoy is the platform, the voice that it gives me and the ability to meet the people I meet—that’s a huge change in my life. As a performer, no artist is going to shy away from a stage as big as Dancing with the Stars.

What’s it like backstage there?
It’s a lot of fun. The best part is that you’re part of a family. All in all, there are a lot of good people I had the opportunity to work with. In terms of what you really want to know about backstage, not everyone who comes off on television the way they do is like that in reality. It’s Hollywood, and people put on a great show. When you meet people you’ve been a fan of for a long time, you might be disappointed—or inspired—by them.

Who was a star you were excited to meet?
Last season we had Jaleel White. I mean that’s Steve Urkel. When I moved here from the Ukraine, that’s how I learned English—watching him on Family Matters. Now he’s asking me how to do a dance move. It’s surreal in some ways.

You’re back in New York now. Do people stop and talk to you?
Yes—and New Yorkers don’t have time for anybody! In the middle of the country there are a lot of fans, but in New York, it feels much more special. And I’ve had that from screaming girls to big, butch construction workers. They’ll be like, “You’re that dancer, right? We watched you. You did a good job.” Coming back to New York after being away for four months, especially with Sandy, was very warm.

What are your favorite places in New York?
I like the Coney Island area, and Sheepshead Bay, in Brooklyn because that’s where I grew up. I’m up there every Sunday playing ball and then going to this Russian spot—Russian Bath House. It’s more of a traditional thing I do. When I’m hanging out in the city, Meatpacking. My favorite place in terms of music and nightlife is this spot Goldbar in Little Italy.

Tell us about the studio Dance with Me that you co-own with your brother, Max, and Tony Dovolani.
Yes, we have four studios in the tristate area. But our pride and joy is a boutique studio in Soho. It’s such an iconic neighborhood that for us to be there is a huge compliment and responsibility. It’s not a grand ballroom; it’s an intimate space—exactly what I think Soho’s about. There’s a lot of energy—we have people coming in from all five boroughs of New York. Dancing is special because people communicate on the dance floor. We have great social parties, a lot of singles nights.

So if people take classes there, will they see you?
I’m not in Soho every day, but I’m at each of the studios at least once a week—whether it’s practicing on my own, teaching, consulting, or training the staff. I like spending time there, even when I’m not working.

On a typical day, how many hours do you dance?
Unfortunately, not enough. I think I get all of my dancing out of the way during the season of Dancing with the Stars. This last season especially, I went through grueling training, not only as a teacher to Kelly [Monaco], but also as a partner. I would say I dance a good two to three hours a day. I only say that because I teach five hours a day. And I’m not one of those instructors who sits back and points fingers. I’m actually on the floor.

You also rap, and guest-starred on General Hospital. Are those things you want to pursue—singing and acting?
Yeah, music is my passion. I’ve played the violin for 15 years. In terms of hip-hop music, I grew up in New York and that’s how I learned English, through Biggie. For me, that genre is really familiar; I’m attracted to it. As a young kid, I loved poetry, so those two elements came together, and I started writing and creating hip-hop music. In terms of acting, I would love to pursue that as well. These are avenues that people, when they have an opportunity, jump at—and a lot them fail. I don’t want to do them just because I have some sort of celebrity status. I want to do them well.

How long do you plan on competing on Dancing with the Stars?
I have a respect for the show and am very thankful for it. Whatever opportunities I have now, yes, my talent has earned, but Dancing with the Stars opened them up for me. Even if I have other projects, my loyalty will always be to that show. Besides that, I think it’s an amazing show—and clearly millions of people enjoy it as well. So as long as they ask me, I’ll be back.

For more on Val, visit valchmerkovskiy.com

Occasionally The Protagonist briefly profiles the work and life of a local artist; this is one of those times. 

Brooklynite Keara Driscoll waitresses by day and writes poetry…well, whenever she has a spare moment to jot down her thoughts on the scrap of paper she keeps in her pocket.

Driscoll has been writing poetry in some form or another since the second grade. “I think I believed all poems had to be about dogwood trees, or ferns, or deer loping into the woods,” she said, of her “juvenilia.”

Now the 26-year-old has an MFA in poetry, anthologized work and invitations to read at popular reading series throughout the city. Driscoll remains humble, however, about her art. She’ll accept invitations to read, but seems wary about promoting her own work too much.

Perhaps counterintuitively, for Driscoll being busy is crucial to the act of making poetry.

“It makes the periods I save for poetry more productive,” she explains.  ”I know I have only a couple of hours between work and class, a half hour to read during a lunch break, etc. Some days I skip buying lunch and sit in the park and write until I have to go back to work.”

Driscoll says her current lifestyle, dedicated to waitressing and applying to teaching jobs, makes for “the best way to keep a flexible schedule that allows time to write, and provides enough money to live in an expensive city with profound ties to poetry.”

She adds: “It’s also enabled more encounters with whole butchered pigs than a girl could want, and if that’s not poetry I have no idea what is.”

Maybe fittingly, dismembered animal parts often find their way into Driscoll’s work.

Even for the most seasoned poet, writing doesn’t always come easy. All the time in the world can’t make eloquent beauty suddenly manifest on the page.

Of her process, Driscoll says: “Most days, I stare at my notebook for a while, write that email I’ve been putting off, clean the shelves in my fridge, make my bed, organize my desk, text all of my friends and THEN finally write, often starting with the phrase, ‘I have absolutely nothing to say.’”

“It doesn’t matter,” she explains. “I’m doing it.”

***

Ghazal that Confuses Humans with Animals

by Keara Driscoll

Should a harmful force be present a snake could, theoretically, swallow itself

up to the head.

Imagine! You, your own donut, packed safely in your throat, with only skull exposed.

Of course, there is no next step. Close your eyes. Sheath those gooey jewels.

Above all, tell no one about the ecstasy of tonguing your own tail.

Whoever first inserted foot into mouth was briefly on point.

Though s/he failed to recognize that guilt doesn’t stop at the ankle.

More often, it resides in your nose. You’ll have to swab with tree-sized Q-tips.

Know also: the results of your throat culture reveal traces of Whoever The Hell’s progeny

at the top of your tulip.

Culture implores you, don’t swallow your offspring. You are no shark, no serpent.

You are fat-happy heifer, ready to be cleaved for your calves. Low pleasantly

as they collapse in pasture.

Oh, Ahi! Progenitor of greed. We’ve been listening to your swelled midsection—

don’t force our fingers around your windpipe.

Don’t make us cut you open to take the ocean back.

When the ball drops in Times Square and the humans are all out celebrating, your pets are at home reflecting on the previous year and making their own New Year’s resolutions. Here are their top 10 submissions from past years. They are relying on you to help them achieve their goals!

1. I need a checkup! Please remember to schedule yearly health exams with my favorite veterinarian. Both dogs and cats will benefit from a good physical, wellness screening, vaccines and preventative medicine. Many diseases can go undetected, and we want to be sure that I am healthy inside and out. I know that in this economy vet visits can be expensive, but skipping them is usually more costly. Now may be a good time to investigate pet insurance.
2. My breath stinks! If you want my kisses to be enjoyable, learn how to brush my teeth.
3. My human and I are both out of shape! While I love lying next to you watching Family Guy, we need to start exercising. For dogs, this means getting outside and walking. This way I get to expend some energy, socialize with my neighbors and maybe meet that special someone (humans are “mate magnets”). For cats, playing fetch with a catnip toy or feather pole can burn some calories and get that heart pumping.
4. I could improve my manners. Find a dog trainer and teach me some obedience, so I can behave better at the dog park.
5. Lifetime security wanted. What happens to me when you can no longer care for me? Make provisions for my care in your will or establish a Pet Trust. I don’t want to end up in a shelter because you weren’t thinking ahead.
6. When was the last time you gave me a bath? ’Nuff said.
7. Watch my weight. Check nutrition and calorie content in my food and make sure you are feeding me appropriately. Pet obesity has reached an all-time high. I don’t want to be a statistic.
8. Volunteer. Maybe we would make a good pet-therapy team? If not, you should go out and volunteer at a shelter. I am willing to share a little bit of the love you give me with a homeless pet.
9. Donate. I really don’t need another squeaky toy or a sweater. Please donate it to a shelter.
10. Adopt. There are thousands of homeless animals in New York. If we can’t expand our family, maybe we can help get the word out.

Dr. Robin Brennen is chief of veterinary services and program operations at Bideawee.

“Merry Christmas,” I casually wished a guy I’d seen working out at my gym in Prospect Heights as he passed me in the locker room. He stopped with a quizzical look on his face.

“Err, bro, I’m Jewish,” he said.

“Oh, sorry,” I mumbled, shocked. This was the first time in my life I’d been reprimanded for trying to be nice. As if to dispel any hardcore religious significance he may have perceived in my seasonal greeting, I told him that I was not a Christian either, but a Hindu.

At least Hanukkah was on the radar in New York. The gym I attended had both a Menorah and a Christmas tree. As a Hindu, I was disappointed that Diwali didn’t even get a mention outside the Indian community, falling marginally outside the festive season. I didn’t take it personally, but perhaps I should have. I’d moved to the States from my native England a year prior to the gym incident and quickly realized that part of being an American was choosing your spiritual side and sticking to it. A Hindu wishing a Jew a Happy Noel was clearly politically incorrect.

My wife, a Catholic from Trinidad, had both Christian and Hindu relatives, and from an early age was raised to celebrate all her island’s diverse cultures. She’d been fairly relaxed about marrying someone outside her faith. We had a Hindu wedding ceremony in Danbury, Conn. But when we looked for a church in New York to allow us to have a “blessing of the rings,” we were turned down by several before finding a liberal denomination in Greenwich Village. Would my wife become influenced by U.S. culture and pick her side, too? What about our kids? With the unrelenting marketing muscle that St. Nick wields over other religions in the States, I could imagine all my family joining forces with him and his throng, leaving me a lonely, isolated Hindu. I’d be banished to the outer fringes of ragtag global religions along with Sikhs, Buddhists and Muslims, a kind of shantytown outside the Emerald City of Christianity. Maybe that was why the Jewish guy at the gym reacted so forcefully when I misnamed his holiday. I wondered if Jews feel that they are one overly zealous right-wing Christian president away from joining the rest of us in America’s religious soup kitchen of homeless faiths.

Now I understand the delicate protocol of correctly naming each person’s specific religious celebration. In England, wishing someone a Merry Christmas did not connote a solemn remembrance of three kings being led by a star, a stable and a virgin birth. If anything, it means going down to the pub, eating lots of food, opening presents and time off work. A joke I remember from my childhood, told annually by one of my friend’s parents, was, “The problem with Christmas is that they always have to bring religion into it.”

The U.K. has its issues and may be a long way off from electing a non-white prime minister, but it is a largely secular country. The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, is an atheist, and the leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband, is Jewish (an unheard of combination in the U.S.), and Christmas describes a season more than a religious observance.

My Hindu family, along with my relatives, partook in the seasonal activities of decorating a tree, opening presents and eating a traditional turkey dinner while the Queen gave her annual speech, as did most of England’s multicultural society. It never occurred to us to do otherwise.

When it comes to the festive season, Britain, along with most of Europe, just doesn’t take things that seriously. It’s why many American far-right Christian firebrands believe it’s a continent of socialist sinners. I prefer to see it as a spiritually tolerant place that has enough to worry about without bringing religion into the mix to complicate matters further.

With that said, just in case, I wish you Happy Holidays.

Who are the 100 most powerful people in New York City politics? Of course, the answer is both subjective and controversial. Still, in an audacious attempt to arrive at a ranking that reflects who really are the movers and shakers that drive New York City’s agenda, City & State has solicited the off-the-record opinions of many of the five borough’s most savvy political insiders, poured over dozens of reader nominations and incorporated the results of our online polls. It should be emphasized that the scope of this list has been limited strictly to city politics. It does not judge each individual’s place in history or standing on the statewide, national or global stage. If that had been our aim, we would have arrived at a very different list. Also, though our selectees come from different communities, genders, parties, sexual orientations and religious affiliations, we openly acknowledge that the list does not adequately represent the city’s rich diversity. We do believe, however, that it is an accurate portrait of the distribution of power in city politics at this moment in time—and thus an illustration of how far we still need to go for our government to mirror the demographics and dynamics of its people. With no further ado, we boldly present City & State‘s first-ever New York City Power 100 List. We hope it gets you talking.

To read the full list, please visit cityandstateny.com.

UPPER EAST SIDE DEALER MAY HAVE PLACED STOLEN GOODS IN MUSEUMS AROUND THE WORLD

By Laurence Dylan

There’s no indication that Subhash Kapoor, the 64-year-old owner of Art of the Past gallery, made a fuss when he was arrested at the Frankfurt airport in October 2011. News reports of the event make no reference to a struggle. After all, mistakes like this happen all the time in the antiquities business.

“Anything can go wrong with anybody,” said Kapoor’s brother Ramesh, who, like him, is accused of smuggling a significant number of artifacts from India to sell in New York. Though Ramesh never denied the charges brought against his brother (and wouldn’t address those brought against him personally), he pointed out that provenance is often difficult to determine when selling artifacts from other countries. “If someone ends up with something, it doesn’t mean that he did anything wrong. If a jeweler ends up with a stolen jewel, it doesn’t mean that that person is evil, or a thief himself.”

The Art of the Past gallery on Madison Avenue at 89th Street has an unremarkable exterior. Up and down Madison, there are all manner of antiquities shops that, far from the hot blue-chip market of Chelsea, offer more-sensible interior decoration options that upgrade a room with a taste of the exotic. You could have a Warhol—the way his pricing works, anyone can—but a one-of-a-kind Buddha lends your library an entirely different tone, and it’s easy to see the attraction there. “Come in,” you want to say to your guests, rising as you snap a leather-bound book shut. “I was just reading Kipling.”

Over the summer a paper sign on the door of Art in the Past said that the gallery was “Closed for Inventory,” an excuse that, like the best lies, had an element of truth to it. It’s quite likely that the gallery was doing a major survey of its inventory, given that its owner, as of the date of publication, is being held in Tamil Nadu, India, awaiting trial for smuggling charges. Among other accusations, Subhash Kapoor faces charges that he helped illegally export 18 idols from that state, worth a combined $11 million. One of the major pieces was a bronze sculpture, depicting Uma Parvati, valued at nearly $2.5 million, and recently seized by the U.S. government for the trial.

And this may only be the tip of the iceberg. Prosecutors expect to question Kapoor about a variety of other objects. Just this past July federal customs agents raided his four Manhattan storage facilities containing some $20 million in Indian artifacts, some of them, according to photos in the New York Post, as large as a standing man. With characteristic air, the paper declared that the treasure trove of objects “would make Indiana Jones jealous.” Kapoor is accused of using his daughter and his brother Ramesh—who owns his own gallery in the city, Kapoor Gallery—to help him smuggle artifacts, and given that Mr. Kapoor opened Art of the Past in 1974, it’s quite possible that the charges may go very wide indeed.

Kapoor was, until he was arrested, a seemingly upstanding citizen who worked with countless museums and enjoyed a reputation for high-quality works. “I certainly never heard anything derogatory about his reputation,” said Eleanor Abraham, who owns an eponymous gallery that deals in antiquities from the same region. It’s difficult to know the extent of Kapoor’s business, but it’s quite possible that his wares bedeck the desks and bookshelves of your closest friend. Depending on his record-keeping, Interpol may never even know. Welcome to the curious world of antiquities dealing, where the only thing more secretive than the origins of your material are the names of your clients.

The nature of art dealing relies upon finding both supply and demand where they are limited on both sides, which is why the successful dealers are able to add a high premium to their prices. This is true of contemporary art collecting as well, but the field of antiquities is unique in that there are added difficulties in the question of provenance. It’s not early enough for you to simply have an object; one must also be able to prove that it was taken from a country legally.

The problem with dealing in antiquities is that most clients will judge you by the standard set by the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the British Museum, whose collections were mainly acquired in the 19th and early 20th centuries, not periods of overwhelming cultural sensitivity when it comes to far-flung lands. During the 1920s, when Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tut, it was common to simply divvy the loot from a dig after it finished, two big piles: one for the workers, and one for the foreign archaeologists.

“Everybody knew all of these lovely Indian sculptures don’t come from Malibu Beach or Indiana,” Thomas Hoving, the Met’s director from 1967 to 1977, once told the New Yorker. “But people were willing to look the other way.” Modern antiquities laws vary from country to country. It’s illegal to own any artifact from Egypt discovered after 1983, following a law passed that year. Turkey passed a similar law in 1906. It’s safe to say, however, that no country would condone what Kapoor is accused of.

The Times of India alleges that Kapoor worked with Sanjeevi Asokan, described as “a notorious idol thief ” and with him hired two men referenced only by single names, Rathinam and Kaliyaperumal, to steal the goods for him, straight out of the temples of Tamil Nadu. Kapoor is also accused of smuggling Buddhist artifacts out of Afghanistan, and other antiques out of Pakistan. (The Department of Homeland Security and Mr. Kapoor’s lawyer did not return requests for comment for this story.)

“The gallery has sold to some of the most celebrated public and private collections in the world,” read a boastful section of the now offline Art of the Past website. “These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco; The Art Institute, Chicago; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Honolulu Academy of Arts; Musée des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris; Museum fur Indische Kunst, Berlin; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; and the Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore.”

“It is my way of giving back to the field,” Kapoor told Apollo magazine, in explaining why he was so prolific in his work with museums. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt business to have the endorsement of all those museums listed above on your website. The Homeland Security press release on the seizure of Kapoor’s storage facilities makes no bones about it: “Pieces that match those listed as stolen are still openly on display in some museums.” Through acquisitions and gifts, some 240 items now rest in the museums listed above. Following their donation the year prior, the Met put on a show of these drawings titled “Living Line: Selected Indian Drawings From the Subhash Kapoor Gift” in 2009. ( The other major crime in antiquities dealing is, of course, forgery and, amusingly, five of Kapoor’s donations to the museum were in fact forgeries. But they were donated as forgeries, for the museum’s study center, so that they can better judge exactly how forgeries are produced.)

Most museums have taken an “innocent until proven guilty” approach to the items in their collection that originated from Kapoor. And, extending the same courtesy to Kapoor, it’s possible that if he was dealing in items that had been incorrectly removed from their countries of origin, he may not have been properly informed. This is a hazard of the business in dealing in antiquities, one that has led some in the business to theorize that the new market will become two-tiered: one for objects with stellar provenance, which would cost more, and another for items where the provenance is a bit sketchier.

“Sotheby’s has a piece with Homeland Security,” Ramish Kapoor added, pointing out that the item in question, a statue whose ownership is disputed by the Cambodian government, has been custody of the department for over a year. “Are they making a museum over there or what?” A number of countries have recently become more aggressive in their attempts to defend artifacts they’ve identified as misappropriated. To return to the two countries mentioned before, Egypt has, in the wake of its revolution, completely re-organized its Supreme Council of Antiquities in a way that may promise to be less friendly to the West. Turkey, for its part, has banned loans to many major museums, the Met and the British Museum among them, until certain disputed items are repatriated.

Healing the wounds of imperialism is never pretty. And neither are Kapoor’s alleged crimes. The case has already taken many twists and turns and it has only just begun. If you walk into a friend’s house sometime in the near future and a beautiful Hindi statue that used to tie the room together no longer rests on his bookshelf, do yourself a favor and try not to ask any questions about it.

Moreover, I am thankful to live in a city that indulges independent coffee shops in all their idiosyncrasies. So that I might find comfort in knowing I will start each day, subtly branded coffee cup in hand, feeling good about what I’m drinking, if slightly worse about myself. So that I might wonder if the gravity-defying beanies that ride so low on baristas’ heads are supported by bobby pins, if guys are now wearing bobby pins, and if with my single origin drip Guatemala Maya Ixil and coffee cardamom bundt cake, I am somehow encouraging this.

I sure hope so. And if anyone ever hands me a duffel bag full of cash to invest in a business venture all my own, I know what I’ll do.

How to open an independent coffee shop:

1. When it comes to designing your logo, less is more.
2. See if you can draw a coffee cup using only two lines. Are you opening in Brooklyn? Try it with one.
3. The logo should be clear and full of reflection, like glass. Seriously, sometimes simply a big, unmarked window will do. Just make sure passersby can see plenty of birch and steel inside.
4. Having a bike rack outside should be a no brainer. But make it a confusingly conceptual one. You should need an engineering degree to get your bike in there.
5. Require that all baristas exhibit two out of three for tattoos, facial hair, and/or beanies. Bonus points if it’s a tattoo of your logo. Extra bonus points if it’s a tattoo of the logo tattooed on a bearded, beanie-wearing barista.
6. Your baked goods should be baked fresh daily, but you should also try making them square. Cookies, bars, and muffins with a slightly squared edge scream PORTLAND. SEATTLE. DETROIT.
7. Speckle them with unexpected herbs and spices. Make sure to qualify all those “ordinary” exotic herbs like Spanish saffron and black cardamom.
8. There should be Pink Himalayan sea salt on everything.
9. If there isn’t Pink Himalayan sea salt on it, there should be bee pollen. Dust, don’t sprinkle.
10. Make your own “Middle America” desserts, but make them so no one in “Middle America” would ever touch them. A Tahitian vanilla Twinkie with rose-scented buttercream? How pretentiously unpretentious!
11. Since they’re organic and baked-to-order, you should charge $8 per Twinkie.
12. Offer a curated list of non-coffee beverages as well.
13. Include one – and only one – juice from a local orchard or farm. Bonus points if it’s something people don’t usually drink. Like cherry juice.
14. Include a brand of bottled water no one has ever heard of. It should be Italian. “Oh that sounds familiar?” But it’s not.
15. Alternatively, you may install a complementary tap, offering still, sparkling, or room-temperature water. This will make customers feel grateful and valued, even if you do charge extra per drink to finance it.
16. Your milk should come from an obscure farm upstate. Extra points if it’s in a glass bottle.
17. If you’re confident enough – or enjoy upsetting picky girls – offer only whole milk. And almond milk. You know, just to show you can.
18. You should only have two options for sugar: raw sugar or simple syrup. Ring the fire alarm if anyone so much as mentions Splenda.
19. Sell Mast Brothers chocolate.
20. Don’t try and get creative here. Like any expressionist painter must first master the classics, you must display Mast Brothers before you can proceed to other more unusual expressions, like “siphon” coffee, or a Japanese ice brew.
21. Use to-go lids so thin and compostable that they do, in fact, compost a little in your mouth with every sip.
22. Teach your staff to practice conditioning behavior. Reward customers who order properly and know their beans. Withhold smiles and friendly conversation from those who ask for flavored syrups. Slap them if they order anything “Skinny.”

THE FOODIE TALKS ABOUT CELEBRITY CHEFS SETTING HER KITCHEN ON FIRE, HER APPLE-ONION THANKSGIVING STUFFING AND MICHAEL J. FOX

By Angela Barbuti

Rachael Ray is an inspiration to home cooks everywhere, but the fact that she lives downtown gives New Yorkers a definite advantage. Neighbors go so far as to ask her what she’s cooking for dinner when they run into her. The 44-year-old has created a food empire encompassing a talk show, magazine, nonprofit organization and 21 cookbooks. Her newest book, My Year in Meals, hit shelves Nov. 13. When she is not writing recipes for her famous 30-Minute Meals, she is stirring up carbonara sauce for her husband, John.

What is a typical day like for you?
[Laughs] There are no typical days. But if we are taping the daytime show, I will get up around 5 a.m. and head to the gym, then start getting ready for the show. We typically tape between two to three shows during the day. At lunch, I will write some recipes for Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine or for an upcoming book. Then, after taping, I’ll head home and make dinner for John.

Walk us through the process of writing a cookbook.
I keep a notebook with me at all times, and when I have an idea or am inspired, I start jotting down recipes. Then I have to code them—“EDWRR” means it might work for the magazine Every Day with Rachael Ray, while “MYIM” means it would go in the new book My Year in Meals. I code them as the ideas come to me. For the books, I’m always working one or two concepts out so if a recipe doesn’t fit for this cookbook, it could roll over to someplace else. There’s always a home for it.

Your daytime television show, Rachael Ray, launched in 2006. Who has been your most memorable guest?
I can’t pick the most memorable. We’ve had so many seasons of amazing guests. I would have to say it’s a three-way tie between Michelle Obama, President Clinton and Michael J. Fox, who is my personal hero. Oh wait … Hugh Jackman and Ringo Starr were pretty amazing!

Any funny set stories that stand out?
One day the turntable that our audience sits on, allowing them to rotate to different parts of the set, broke down, so all of them had to get up and help us spin it around. There was another time when Emeril and Bobby Flay both set the kitchen set on fire.

What is your favorite dish to cook at home with your husband?
Carbonara—hands down—it’s his favorite.

What area of the city do you live in? What are your favorite places there?
I live below 14th Street and love being downtown. I’m always at the Union Square market and stores like John Derian.

Do people stop you in the city to discuss food?
Yes, all the time. My fans come up to me in the grocery store and say, “Hey Rach, do you know where the canned tomatoes are?” or “What are you making for dinner?”

What are your favorite restaurants and food stores in Manhattan?
My husband and I like eating pizza at Motorino. I love shopping in Chelsea Market where the Food Network is, especially Buon Italia, where I get a lot of groceries.

Where were you during hurricane Sandy?
The daytime show was dark that week, so I was already home with my family upstate.

What was it like to help the victims by working the ABC telethon?
It was great to be a part of it. The folks we were talking to on the phone were so happy to help. It was really empowering to see how people come together in times like these.

You also run a nonprofit, Yum-o! Please describe this organization and let readers know how they can help.
Yum-o! is a nonprofit organization that empowers kids and their families to develop healthy relationships with food and cooking by teaching families to cook, feeding hungry kids and funding cooking education and scholarships. Through our three core work areas of Cook, Feed and Fund, Yum-o! educates kids and their families about food and cooking by offering an interactive website that enables young cooks to get started in the kitchen and try out family-friendly recipes. We team up with partner organizations to feed hungry children, and fund innovative cooking programs in schools and give educational opportunities for kids who are interested in pursuing careers in the restaurant and food service industry. People can help by visiting www.yum-o.org.

You are known for your 30-Minute Meals. Which is your favorite?
That’s like picking your favorite kid!

What will be on the menu for your Thanksgiving dinner this year?
We usually make two smaller birds since they take less time to cook and we can sleep in. We make an apple and onion stuffing and mashed potatoes with parsnips.

You won the Outstanding Talk Show Emmy twice. Where are your awards?
Sitting in my office at the daytime show.

Who are your favorite celebrity chefs?
I can’t choose favorites. I love Mario and Bobby. Emeril is the greatest.

What are your future plans?
I haven’t planned anything to this point, so why start now?

Why do you think you have become so successful?
When you love what you do and work hard, it’s hard not to find success on some level.
To learn more about Rachael, visit www.rachaelray.com