For those inclined to spend "warm summer days indoors," Karen Cinecultist has a nice rundown of weekend movies here. For our part, we're most excited about The Saddest Music in the World, too, with the lovely Isabella, a Kids in the Hall alum, and the adorable Maria de Medeiros. We've not yet seen any of Guy Maddin's other films, but he's Canadian! How could a Canadian be bad, Alanis Morissette notwithstanding? (p.s. Ten of our favorite picks for the saddest music in the world are here.)...
There were many feelings that rushed forward after I saw an op-ed from my alma mater's daily newspaper featured on Drudge. All of them required me to take a deep breath as I read the piece, entitled "Pat Tillman is not a hero: He got what was coming to him" When the death of Pat Tillman occurred, I turned to my friend who was watching the news with me and said, "How much you want to bet they start talking about him as a 'hero' in about two hours?" Of course, my friend did not want to make that bet. He'd lose. In this self-critical incapable nation, nothing but a knee-jerk "He's a hero" response is to be expected. Sadly, this was written by a doctoral student in political science -- someone who should be able to write arguments in more complexity than this. When Pat Tillman died, I knew that there would be that chorus of "He's a hero" repeated by many. But I also suspected we'd hear its inverse from an equally single-minded group: "He's not a hero." Congratulations go to writer Rene Gonzalez for being as predictable as the uncritical simpletons he tries to skewer. If this...
The Guardian Online has a great article today using Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as a jumping-off point for looking at both historical and current science of memory. Some recent studies have disputed the long-held assumption that memories can be "fixed" biochemically. Four years ago, Karim Nader and his colleagues in New York showed that if an animal was taught a particular task, and then days later was reminded of it by being put in the same context, the memory became labile once more - that means it could be disrupted by protein synthesis inhibitors. It was as if the reminder not only reactivated the old memory, but resulted in an entirely new memory being formed on top of it. Of course, we can intuitively recognise this; when we recall a past event, we are not recalling the event per se, but our memory of it from the last time we recalled it. This is why our autobiographical memories are being reshaped as we go through life. The article also fact-checks the science in films that use memory as a fictional device, from Hitchcock's Spellbound to Finding Nemo. You've got to love lines like, "Anterograde amnesia is not that...
Cheney and a White House lawyer hold George's hand as W refuses to be a man The wonderful, horrible life of a Williamsburg hipster Escape the boxes How to turn a press release into an article First complaint filed under anti-Spam legislation...
Whose tooth is this in my head? George W. Bush and the human kleenex. Getting laid: it's almost like enlisting! Would Hemingway go low-carb? Wes Clark speaks up for John Kerry Reality TV, New Zealand style....
In case you missed free cone day yesterday at Ben and Jerry's (or honestly, even if you didn't), Baskin-Robbins has their own free scoop night tonight from 6-10pm. When will Laboratorio del Gelato have a free sample night? DG has happily fattened quite a few guests with our own easy ice cream recipe. It's for a semi-freddo, which is Italian for "stays soft as silk while in the freezer and melts perfectly on your taste buds." I usually make it with candied ginger bits in it, but you can exchange the ginger with anything really. The hardest part about this recipe is owning a candy thermometer. Ginger Semi-Freddo Recipe Ingredients: 1/2 cup fine sugar 4 egg yolks 1 1/4 cups heavy cream 2/3 cup candied ginger 1. Stir the sugar and 1/2 cup cold water over low heat until sugar is dissolved. 2. Bump up the heat and boil for 4 to 5 minutes without stirring until the syrup is 238 degrees (F). 3. In a large heatproof bowl, whisk egg yolks until frothy. Place bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk in the syrup, whisking until the mixture is very thick. Remove from heat and whisk until...
Should non-citizens be allowed to vote? Granting voting rights was seen as a way to get newcomers engaged in the civic process. In 1848, Wisconsin established a model that other states soon followed. It simply required residents to declare their intention of becoming citizens before being allowed to vote. Up until the 1920s, when a powerful, antiimmigrant backlash swept the country, 22 states and territories allowed legal immigrants to vote in local elections. "It was a proven pathway to civic education, political education, and citizenship by giving people a stake in their communities," says Ron Hayduk, a political scientist at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. But opponents are unimpressed with the historical analogy. They note that as the nation has expanded voting rights to more and more people, it's also worked to formalize its electoral process. "Things were done in a much more laid-back and informal fashion in the past," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit think tank that favors tighter controls on immigration. "We've made the system much more consistent and predictable, and part of that consistency is an insistence on naturalization before being granted the right to vote." And let's...
Sick of politics as usual? Interested in candidates who actually believe in responsible government, and not just lower taxes and bigger debt? Believe in something again: Kerry-McCain 2004! Gusto contributor and official D.C. policy starlet Lisa just launched this site. Spread the word....
You know how libraries always seem to have war memorials? They always seem a bit slap-dash and cheesy; they're usually big stone eagles perched atop a tablet that lists the community's soldiers who gave their lives. For some reason it always seems to be World War 2 that gets top billing. Maybe most of these monuments were built before Vietnam. Maybe people just haven't found a way to properly honor their native sons and daughters who gave their lives for a morally ambiguous war. One of the best things about my old library in Sunderland, Massachusetts, was that it listed its dead on big hand-painted signs inside the library. The paint on the signs was faded and chipping off, but they sat there above the librarian's desk. Going to take out a video of "The Breakfast Club"? Well there's a list of Civil War dead staring back at you. It's a small town so eccentric things like this can happen. Since it was a colonial hub, the list of dead spread from Vietnam all the way back to the French and Indian War. When the Pixies sing about the "valley full o' pioneer" in their song "U-Mass," this is what...
Not only will there be a nasty fight for president this year, the Senate's also up for grabs. And guess what? Democrats are poised to take it back. In recent years, money has been a problem for Democrats in battles for the Senate and House of Representatives. But less so this time, according to Russell Hemenway of the National Committee for an Effective Congress, which raises funds for liberal Senate and House candidates. "They all appear to have enough," he said. " Maybe not enough to match Republicans but enough to wage a real campaign." Go to the DCCC to help the campaign get even more real....
Remember the media brouhaha when Brooklyn's Grocery restaurant received a Zagat score of 28, putting it in league with Manhattan's culinary elite? Grocery's co-owner said "I don't think we're doing earth-shattering food. We're just a really good restaurant." I haven't been to Grocery, but this sounds like a pretty good description of Roberto's Restaurant in the Bronx, too. In a world apart from the stroller-pushing yuppie cool of Smith Street, Roberto's is a ten-minute walk from the Bronx Zoo through Boogie-Down's Little Italy. Manhattan's Little Italy is a safe and tourist-supported stage set of what was once an exciting and vibrant immigrant community. Now neighborhood associations negotiate for its survival. In the Bronx, however, borders aren't clear and things are a bit unpredictable. Red, white and green "Little Italy in the Bronx" flags wave above bodegas and taquerias while drug dealers stand by trash-encrusted payphones. If you follow the razorwire down Crescent Avenue, you'll come to Roberto's at the corner of East 186 Street. At 5pm, there was already a line. The dining room is small, with about 40 seats, and feels cozy without being cramped. The dark wood of the tables and chairs, warm paintings and a nice big...
Today's New York Times has an op-ed piece from Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market. While we would love to think that the Paper of Record's running a piece like this signals a change in perceptions about the incoherent U.S. drug laws, well, we're doubtful. Somebody obviously needs to up Schlosser's dosage of whiskey, Prozac, and cigarettes.......
Why not be a Librarian For A Day? The Woman's Day magazine contest could be the start to a wonderful life of constantly-changing jobs and exciting new challenges with each new day. Unfortunately, the deadline has passed to be Missouri's Agricultural Minister for a Day, as well as for the Healthy Kids Chef for a Day contest. But do mark your calendars for January, 2005, to become Widener University's President for a Day. Haven't you ever dreamed of being "All My Children" star and teen singing sensation Jesse McCartney's Princess for a Day? One lucky fan will win: *Two tickets to Jesse's May 8th show at Taconic High School [in Pittsfield, Massachusetts] * Limousine transport to and from the show (from a hotel or local residence) * Special seating in the "Royal Box" located beside the stage * A princess locket with a photo of Jesse inside * A photo taken with Jesse Please note: Airfare and hotel accomodations are not included. Since when do princesses pay for their own plane tickets? The deadline is today, so get those applications in now!...
--> Yakuza Muraki (Ryo Ikebe) finds himself in an existentialist funk in Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower (1964). Fresh from serving a three year prison sentence for a gangland murder, he feels no connection with the people he sees on the Tokyo streets. He could kill any one and it would not make a difference. The mob he belongs to has joined up with its former rival, all the better to prevent a new faction from Osaka from moving in on their territory. Things have changed in the relatively short amount of time he was away, but Muraki can still count on gambling to help relieve the tedium of his otherwise solitary hours....
Forget School of Rock. Enter L'il Gn'R, The First Ever Guns 'n' Roses Kids Tribute Band, complete with L'il Axl, L'il Izzy, L'il Duff, L'il Steven Adler, and everyone's favorite, L'il Slash. Yes, this is for real, but of course it was conceived by an NY comedian, Mark Malkoff. Read more about Mark's project in this Guardian article. An excerpt: "He finally realised what he had let himself in for when he took Li'l Gn'R to a hotel room for an afternoon. "They trashed it! There was silly string everywhere, chocolate and candy and soda all over the room. They tore up sheets and pillows. It took me and my assistant four hours to clean up." According to the L'il Gn'R website: "Depending on their school and what is on the Cartoon Network, Li'l Gn'r is available to play concerts and private events." Just what you need for your next Bar Mitzvah or wedding reception. (p.s. I hereby promise not to use the word "l'il" for at least another six months.)...
Is there an expression DIT, for Did It Themselves?
The cherry blossoms are blooming, and it's time for all the yinzers to strip down and style up. Need a bag for the beach? Don't settle for that craptastic mass market stuff. It's easy and fun to make your own, or buy one from the many DIY fashionistas who have set up shop online. We're treading into dreaded hipster territory here, but let's remember that androgynous waifs from Williamsburg weren't the first to discover the love in handcrafted goods. Pictured at left is a bag from Bang!, which is the front for a young Argentinian designer who is fond of stripes, polka dots, and retro cuteness. I'm quite fond of a bag at The Walrus and the Carpenter. Even the name, Kiwi-Lime-Strawberry-Chocolate Commuter Tote says delicious, yummy spring. K Adorable is two guys who have a neat subscription service -- you cough up a yearly fee, and you'll get a new t-shirt every month. Having a real-life dog or cat can be a pain. That's why you should buy stuffed animals from Erin McGill. Tina Marie Lockwood at Sparkle Craft rocks out with homemade guitar straps, belts and scarves. Even though the boys haven't caught up with online style, Star...
"And now I'm lying here, I've had too much booze I've been shat on and spat on and raped and abused I know that I am dying and I wish I could beg For some money to take me from the old main drag"...
Although we poor editors of DG are sadly without expanded cable, we have managed to catch some clips from Chappelle's Show on the Comedy Central site. Admittedly, I haven't seen more than a handful of clips from the show, but so far, I don't get why it's so popular. While there definitely are scattered funny moments (the "I Know Black People" sketch, the part on Newports, in particular), every sketch I've seen beats a single idea within an inch of its life, reminding me of the episode of The Simpsons with the comedian at the Improv: Comedian: Yo, check this out. Black guys drive a car like this: doo doo chhh ba doo doo. Yeah but white guys, they just drive a car like this: Badiptdadoo badipta dipta doo! Homer: Ahahah! It's true! Yes, the Rick James sketch was funny, but I defy anyone to make Rick James unfunny! And again, way too long for the concept. I'm also somewhat biased, I admit, by having once seen Chappelle tank on Conan. In addition to brazenly hitting on the even-more-vapid-than-usual model-actress guest, he was just, well, catastrophically unfunny. Even Conan seemed embarrassed for him. Thankfully, I'm not the only dissenting opinion....
I noticed today that Filmmaker magazine ("The magazine of independent film") has a blog -- and it's actually useful and good for all my fellow movie hounds out there. Their entry for today is about a reading of "Up" sponsored by the Sundance Institute. The screenplay was written by Elisabeth Subrin and Evan Carlson, and will be directed for the big screen by Subrin. For those who don't know her work, seek it out now. The Fancy is the only artist biopic that doesn't romanticize its subject or get bogged down in art mythology, and I recommend it as a good place to start. [Disclaimer: Elisabeth Subrin was a teacher of mine, and I worked for her after moving to New York on the video for Le Tigre's "Well Well Well."]...
Morphogenesis. What's it mean to me? In ten years, it might mean the ability to gnaw off my own arm and watch it grow back. There's nothing like fresh arm. (via Chica)...
I spent this first weekend of glorious spring weather very productively — I read Plum Sykes's novel Bergdorf Blondes. I couldn't put the idiotic thing down, it completely took over my life for about 36 hours. I have to say I'm glad to be rid of "Moi" the nameless fashion magazine writer and her department store heiress best friend, Julie Bergdorf, but I found our time together illuminating in a few ways. Things I need now to be a real New York girl, apparently: a Bellini at Chip's (that Cipriani's to you mere mortals), a ride in a private jet and a pair of $325 Chloé jeans. Actually, my big problem with this book is not the excess of just-this-moment fashion references and rampant consumerism, that's what I would expect from Plum Sykes. After all one time in the pages of Vogue, she taught me how to order a custom-made Burberry trench coat. No, its the utterly unlike-ability of the main character that you find all over the chick lit genre and is particularly bad in Bergdorf Blondes which raised my ire. Why am I supposed to identify with "Moi" or even smile at her as I stand behind her...
It’s 11:00 pm on April 15th and I haven’t mailed off my tax return. I’m not that much of slacker. Really. How did it come to this? First off, let me dispel a little myth about USPS. They don’t all stay open until midnight on April 15th. In the city of San Francisco, population 700,000+, just one post office remains open beyond normal business hours. Too bad I’m not in San Francisco. I’m in The People’s Republic of Berkeley, wandering the streets in the manner of a lazy fly, following around a guy who says he knows where to find a post office. This is a guy who earlier in the night gave me a xeroxed copy of his business card that has advice on how to take magic mushrooms printed on the back. The advice, by the way, is for the true novice and ranges from the obvious, “Magic mushrooms will alter your sense of reality,” to the puritannical “Mixing magic mushrooms with hash or other drugs will cause a very unpleasant experience.” I’m following this guy with more than a suspicion that he’s tripping on mushrooms at this very moment. Let me back up a bit. For the...
Why write words when you can bask in the sun? I'm going to the park to spend my day off watching dogs, girls, and naughty nephews. In keeping with yesterday's post, I've got to plug Archive.org again. Not only do they keep public domain films online for all to see and use, but they also have old records and music for all to use as they see fit. This is how a culture remains vital, not through corporations and money-hungry relatives keeping perpetual copyrights, but through open source use and reuse. Download "White House Blues," an old bluegrass song about William McKinley's assassination here. Well, Roosevelt's in the White House, doing his best McKinley's in the graveyard taking his rest He's gone, for a long time...
How do misfits and outsiders get into the history books? They assassinate the president, and live forever on the Broadway stage. I saw Stephen Sondheim's Assassins last night. Who would've thought that a musical based on the life stories of nine would-be presidential assassins could be so compelling? The difficulty for Sondheim is to balance his wit and humor without being flip or casual about the deaths of four presidents. The production accents the carnival funhouse of American history and of course that's where Sondheim's clever turn-of-phrases and surprising lyrical ideas really shine (and you can see why Magnetic Fields songwriter Stephin Merritt worships him). Sondheim's lyrics succeed in fleshing out how history bears on marginalized (or just crazy) individuals. There are also some touching moments about the individual assassins' lives. But at the end of the play, this is still a musical about assassins starring Doogie Howser as Lee Harvey Oswald. The weirdness is both its strength and its limitation. The coolest part for me was learning about Charles Julius Guiteau. James Garfield's assassin flunked out of college and then got thrown out of the Oneida Christian commune before conning his way into a law clerkship. While his wife...
Cable news and the networks gave George W. Bush a primetime slot for a press conference last night. Watch it and read the transcript at whitehouse.gov. An interesting moment came when a reporter dared to veer off the script and ask a surprise question about what the President's biggest mistake to date has been. Well, he'll let us know when he thinks of something: Q Thank you, Mr. President. In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you'd made in your life, and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa. You've looked back before 9/11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it? THE PRESIDENT: I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it. (Laughter.) John, I'm sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could have done it better this way, or that way. You know, I just -- I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of...
This past Friday the parents of Weird Al passed away due to carbon monoxide inhalation. Try not to make any jokes or write any parody songs. When I was a kid I loved Weird Al. His song "Fat" was the height of hilarious. And his parents were often part of the act. Read his message for yourself here...
Artist Danny Gregory is back from his vacation in the Dominican Republic and has the sketchbook to prove it. I first discovered Gregory's watercolor sketches on The Morning News, where he spent a day at the Martha Stewart trial and came back with great unexpected drawings. He's also collaborated online with TMN editor Rosencrans Baldwin to draw characters from Baldwin's Brooklyn neighborhood. In his latest book, Everyday Matters, Gregory documents his daily life by drawing the things around him and writing a observations on his life and community....
Nothing exceeds like excess. 21-year-old author Marty Beckerman already has two books under his belt. In an interview with Bookslut, the writer of "Generation S.L.U.T." says without irony that Most (young writers) kind of suck. There are certain authors who are getting contracts when they're 14 years old, for a quarter million dollars, to write their memoirs. A 14-year-old has no perspective on his or her life. I mean, I wrote a book in high school, and it's good for the bitter rantings of a 16-year-old virgin, but it has no real perspective. Clearly when MTV publishes fiction about teen sex written by a 21-year-old they're exploiting the same public fetish that fueled Christina and Britney's videos. I haven't read either of his books yet, so I wonder whether Beckerman's an exception to his own rule about young writers kind of sucking. But when Beckerman, who's barely old enough to drink, slams someone who's not old enough to drive for lacking "perspective," it doesn't bode well....
When Condoleeza Rice testified before the 9/11 Commission last week, she testified about a Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) from August 6, 2001: It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States. [Full Transcript] After a public furor over this document, the White House declassified the PDB and The Smoking Gun was there: FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York. Read the whole August 6 PDB here....
In war-torn 16th century Japan, a middle aged woman and her young daughter-in-law (both unnamed) struggle for existence. Killing samurai who lose thier way in the tall susuki grass, the two women trade the armor and weapons for food and other supplies, dumping the corpses in a deep, dark hole nearby....
Ok. This is brilliant. Jay-Z's vocal hip-hop mixed with Pavement's "Slanted and Enchanted" lo-fi slackercore creates The Slack Album. (via stereogum)...
Chica has watched metaphor-gone-awry surgical makeover show The Swan and lived to write about it so we don't have to: In the end, The Swan has more sympathy towards its premise than it does for its contestants, and its audience is likely to dole out sympathy in the opposite proportions. We may find a woman's long list of physical insecurities disturbing, but far more disturbing is the person who, by eradicating the source of each insecurity, confirms each insecurity as justified....
There were a few good art shows on 57th Street yesterday; fortunately I got there on the last day of one the of the better ones. Kraushaar Gallery showed Leon Goldin's "Five Decades of Works on Paper" (which ended on April 10; work shown left). Goldin's abstract charcoal drawings seem drawn from life, but yet are completely abstract lines and shapes. The one exception is probably the most beautiful and haunting of the works on display. You can immediately understand the trees, horizon line, and pathways in his "Riverside Park" from 1964. Goldin will scratch and rub charcoal into the paper and then erase it so a ghostish gray emerges from the heavily-textured paper. The battle between the neutral grays and blacks of the charcoal and the warmth of the paper keep the drawings vibrant. In "Riverside Park" Goldin the allows the creamy paper to be as strong and surprising as his stout chalky line and foggy erased grays. Goldin's work is about proportion and balance, how to harmonize line, mass and color within a rectangular surface, and how to organize a seemingly random marks with a muscular poise. In the same building at Tibor de Nagy, Jane Freilicher is...
We've seen Larry David bribing a Maitre d' to get a table at restaurants on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and his surrogates on Seinfeld trying to do the same. Gourmet finds out if it works in real life. I've never bribed my way into a restaurant. I've never slipped a C-note or greased a palm. In truth, I've never even considered it. I've assumed, of course, that people do such things. I've seen my share of Cary Grant movies. I've heard — and wondered whether such old-fangled gestures would work in the high-stakes, high-hype world of New York City restaurants. For everyday diners in Manhattan, cracking the waiting list at Nobu is said to be harder than getting courtside tickets for the Knicks. But is that true?...
The Shins get the Q&A from Pitchfork (via Travelers Diagram): The real challenge of writing songs isn’t just writing a bunch of parts -- like a verse, chorus, verse, but making something that flows together, that brings you back. I mean, that’s the thing with progressive rock -- you come up with a million riffs, and you just plug ‘em in!...
Is American arts journalism "shackled by civic responsibility"? Brit Norman Lebrecht argues that our critics fail to challenge artistic institutions because we have so few of them, and no one wants to be responsible for shutting down the show. He says the fiercely competetive British papers produce criticism that is more vital and daring because not only are there more symphonies and museums in London, there are more papers competing with one another. The tone in US arts coverage is uniformly respectful, uninquiring, inherently supportive. When the boss of Covent Garden takes an early bath, British papers roll out weeks of investigation, gossip and analysis. When the head of the Met decides (or is obliged) to step down, as Joseph Volpe did some weeks ago, he does so in a friendly interview with the New York Times which does not once inquire whether Volpe quit because he's pushing 65 or because his box-office has gone dead since 9/11. I know the tone he's talking about. And the sad thing is that unquestioned reverence will only insure the demise of these institutions as the public comes to think of classical music, painting, and theater as stale props....
Just when I thought John Ashcroft was busy fighting terrorism, it seems like his mind is on naked adults doing things... with objects! In this field office in Washington, 32 prosecutors, investigators and a handful of FBI agents are spending millions of dollars to bring anti-obscenity cases to courthouses across the country for the first time in 10 years. Nothing is off limits, they warn, even soft-core cable programs such as HBO's long-running Real Sex or the adult movies widely offered in rooms of major hotel chains. Couple this with the Michael Powell's FCC fining Clear Channel $495,000 for indecent broadcasts by Howard Stern, and maybe we've got a preview of the Bush administration's domestic priorities for the next ten months. John Hogan, president of Clear Channel Radio, sums up the goal of all these lawsuits and fines: "Mr. Stern's show has created a great liability for us and other broadcasters who air it," said John Hogan, president of Clear Channel Radio. "The Congress and the FCC are even beginning to look at revoking station licenses. That's a risk we're just not willing to take." Can the moralists take back some control of the media? Volokh discusses the difficulty of...
If you haven’t been watching “The Real World” this season, you honestly aren’t missing much. That is, much besides the biggest camera whore on basic cable. Meet Frankie. She started the show by saying that she has cystic fibrosis, while chain smoking. That didn’t get harped on too much though because she quickly showed signs of another disease. The one where you take a drink of alcohol, make out with people, and then can’t remember anything the next day. This brought a lot of tears because she is totally devoted to her long-term boyfriend at home. But there was one episode where she wasn’t the center of attention so she broke up with the boyfriend. So many tears. Then the roommates got a job on a boat, and Frankie came clean about her crippling fear of large boats. It seems to be one of those one-time-crippling-fears since she has been near or on them since and it’s been a non-issue. More and more tears. Then she bought a pet snake that is projected to grow to 220 pounds. While she is on a reality show far from home, she decides that she can take on a large pet responsibility. Mmm...
TMN has a great piece written by a Brooklynite whose building was invaded by The Apprentice. My reality collided with reality TV during episode seven of NBC’s The Apprentice. The premise was a hyped-up competition over real estate. The remaining participants were challenged to renovate and rent one of two ‘rundown’ Brooklyn apartments in 48 hours. One of those apartments was a third-floor, one-bedroom in a brownstone on Third Street, where my family and I live on the first two floors. On screen, the team leaders stood outside our stoop and negotiated for the apartment above us. Off screen, we knew a few things they didn’t. A month before, for instance, the previous occupant and my upstairs neighbor had jumped out the window....
My second home is no more. Yesterday MoMA's Gramercy Theater on 23rd Street bid adieu with a retrospective of Sofia Coppola's films. The ridiculous idea of cannonizing Ms. Coppola after two-and-a-half films fits my sadness, which is for the loss of something that was a temporary home while the museum fleshes out its expanded 53rd Street space. The Gramercy was close to both apartments I've had while living in New York. The screen was the perfect size, and every seat on the floor was fantastic. The experience at the Gramercy was second only to the Walter Reade for optimal viewing. And plus, there were those weird bleachers where you could make out if the movie were right. Because of my corporate slavery, I could get in free with a certain company's ID. The Gramercy made a real classic movie buff out of me as I watched the entire series on Nicholas Ray and Vincente Minnelli. And when the lights came on, you could quickly turn around and see an army of old cotton-topped retirees coming out of their slumber, some slunk back with their mouths open. The 53rd Street theater will re-open November 20, 2004. Here's an Observer article about...
This week's New Yorker features a profile (not available online) of author Madeleine L'Engle. In the profile, the author Cynthia Zarin writes: "When I was in college, I remember a friend saying to me, 'There are really two kinds of girls. Those who read Madeleine L'Engle when they were small, and those who didn't.'" I was the kind of girl who read Madeleine L'Engle. Although I wasn't crazy about the Austin series, I read all of the Murray series -- A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet (perhaps an odd choice as my childhood favorite), Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time -- as well as several of her other books. The O'Keefe series novel A House Like a Lotus was my introduction to the very concept of lesbianism (it was the repressive '80s, and my father was an evangelical minister, so I beg for a slight break on this one). Zarin points out in the New Yorker profile that L'Engle refuses to distinguish between literature for children and adults, and this may be the key to what endears her to children -- she refuses to talk down or pander. In fact, I largely credit...
If the chicken nuggets shaped like stars weren't enough of an indignity, now Burger King has created an internet chicken slave for the public to boss around. This is the worst thing to happen to poultry since Chixon....
While giving a speech in a Mississippi high school about the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had Federal marshals destroy audio recordings made by reporters. It's unclear whether he was trying to teach the kids what the Constitution protects against....
Back in my day, there was a mini-craze among hipsters for semi-clueless musicians who couldn't hold a note but seemed compelled to perform music from the bottom of their hearts. There was the manic depression of Daniel Johnston and the schizophrenia of Wesley Willis. And now we have William Hung. The current craze for the American Idol reject baffles me. What Hung has in common with Johnston and Willis is a a certain naivite about creating songs coupled with a compulsion to create them. They're all bad singers who don't seem to know it, and that's part of their charm. It's as if they each embody the spirit of Allen Ginsberg: first thought, best thought. The more you edit and question your actions, the more you separate yourself from a primal experience. In this case, it's the simple joy of singing a song. There's an irony in liking something that's as wonderfully bad as Willis' "Rock 'n' Roll McDonalds" or Hung's redition of "She Bangs." That irony is based on a performer's understanding being completely different from the audience's. Willis thought of himself as a rock god; hipsters thought of him as a crazy man singing weird songs. Hipsters' love...
Two movies that have absolutely nothing in common.
In one weekend I saw both “Dawn of the Dead” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” For fun I decided to go to a midnight showing of "Dawn of the Dead” on Saturday night. Midnight shows make scary movies infinitely scarier. I was prepared to watch a good portion of the movie through closed eyes and held breath, or at the very least, to laugh a lot. The opening was really good. Super fast and scary and fun. But after that I can’t remember being scared again. I do remember fearing for the safety of others, as people continued to text message each other INSIDE THE THEATER until some guy yelled “yeah, one more and that phone goes in your ass!” right in time too, because I was about to kill someone. There was also a considerable amount of both pot smoking and making out going on during the film. I can’t say that I understand it but I can also say that I wasn’t surprised. My final thought, see the original and be scared and smoke weed in your own home. Oh, and P.S. Hollywood, you don’t need to do anything else to make pregnancy and child birth...
I forgot to link to this article yesterday about tensions in the British-French relationship. It reminded me of my first French teacher, a young and suave Parisian, who said we shouldn't have any problem learning the language since English is really just a dialect of French....
1942, a small French village. The townspeople begin receiving poison pen letters signed "Le Corbeau" ("the Raven"). The letters shed unwanted light on the locals' secrets, from the underground abortion work of Dr. Remy Germain (Pierre Fresnay), to extramarital affairs, to the corruptness of the mayor. While the first letter seems to be written only to intimidate a potentially unfaithful wife, soon the entire town is in a paranoid uproar over the raven's apparent intention to expose all of the dirty little secrets possible. Henri_Georges Clouzot's Le Corbeau was made during the German occupation of France under the aegis of Continental Films, and its allegorical ties to the then current political situation are strong. The letters completely disrupt the small, tightly knit community. Everything is thrown into disarray as no one trusts anyone else. The suspicion is due not as much to the unknown identity of "the raven" but to the secrets that are laid bare. In one particularly humorous exchange, the head of the hospital (Antione Balpetre) confronts the bursar (Jean Brochard) with a letter suggesting that he has cooked the books. In response, the bursar produces a letter he has received implying that his daughter has been...
Robert Hughes reviews painter Lucian Freud's show currently on view in London, and appearing in New York at Acquavella from April 28 - May 27. The Guardian has a bunch of good stuff for the Freud obsessive -- a short profile, a piece on his horse's ass, and a sneak peak at his portrait of artist David Hockney. One of Freud's models describes what it's like to sit for Freud. Check out the catalog for Freud's first show at that gallery here. (via TMFTML)...
Sometime Gusto contributor and Cinecultist site owner Karen does the unthinkable -- she goes to see Jersey Girl and lives to blog about it. In particular, check out Karen's pull quote from Newsweek where Kevin Smith is [refreshingly or brutally, depending on your own take on Smith] honest about his own abilities and limitations as a filmmaker. Thanks, Karen, for going so the rest of us don't have to....
After sitting through a day and a half of jury selection, four and a half days of trial, and two full days of deliberations, my jury in the New York State Supreme Court found Simeon Tlaplanco-Reyes guilty of second-degree assault for stabbing Filiberto Galindo on West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues on July 17, 2003. We found Jose Luiz de los Santos not guilty on all counts. We were given a mass of contradictory evidence and eyewitness accounts and asked to decide whether it was proven that the defendants got into a drunken fight with Galindo in the garment district that culminated in Tlapanco-Reyes stabbing Galindo twice in the back while de los Santos blocked Galindo from fleeing. There were only four eyewitnesses -- the defendants, the stabbing victim, and an occasional friend to the defendants. And here's the conventional wisdom I have to reiterate to defense attorneys: don't let your clients testify. Sometimes a messy case is just chaos and you don't know who to believe and you get a mistrial or acquittal because the state didn't prove its case. But other times, when you have more evidence, you can see the patterns in a messy case...
Sunday's Times has a great article (may require free login) about Conan O'Brien's uncertain future with NBC after the network's extension of Jay Leno's contract for the 11:30 slot until the end of the decade. Throughout, Conan's disappointment is palpable. The article points out that, should Conan choose to stay at NBC until the end of Jay's contract, he will have spent 17 years -- a "television eternity" -- in the less-appealling 12:30 slot. Conan's manager Gavin Polone notes Conan's many alternatives: Fox, which has seriously approached Conan in the past; CBS, in the unlikely event that Letterman decides to step down, or even Comedy Central. Conan's take: None of the outside options seem all that clear-cut to Mr. O'Brien — at least at the moment. "There may be possibilities, but are they viable?" he says. "NBC at 12:30 is still better than a lot of things. Following the `Tonight' show is still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. There is the curiosity to take the show earlier. But if going to another network for more money still means being seen by fewer people, what are you doing? Then it's just an ego thing." In...
Thanks to The Other Page, we discovered this letter written by poet/songwriter David Berman to the Nashville Tennessean: Can't be easy defending Bush day after day To the Editor: How many gallons of Republican Kool-Aid does a Bush supporter have to choke down in order to keep defending the worst president in American history? Just as Alabamans happily say ''Thank God for Mississippi'' when annual ''quality of life'' rankings come out, I suspect Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Pierce are saying, ''Thank God for G. W. Bush'' somewhere in the afterlife. Anyone who even thinks about voting for this man in November should be prosecuted for treason. David Berman Nashville 37212...
Opening This Weekend It's a grim scene this weekend for new movies. Opening this weekend is the Sundance darling The United States of Leland, which has, at the very least, my Hartley darling Martin Donovan to recommend it. Also opening are Hellboy, The Prince & Me, Walking Tall (warning: click on this at your own peril!), and Home on the Range, Disney's last hand-drawn animation feature from its SoCal studios. Rep Houses and Around Town The American Museum of the Moving Image AMMI shows films by Raoul Peck as part of the Haiti on Screen festival. About Peck: When Raoul Peck was eight years old, his family fled from Haiti’s Duvalier dictatorship to the newly democratic Republic of Congo, which was just recovering from the murder of its first elected leader, Patrice Lumumba. Peck has since lived and worked in New York City, France and Germany. Cultural displacement and the relationship between the political and the personal are at the heart of his inventive and lyrical films. Peck's work crosses boundaries, blending elements of drama and documentary, combining rigorous social analysis with a strong sense of dramatic storytelling. Film Forum The Welles festival continues on Friday night, with films F...
I'm So Loathsome I Could Cry, or Five of the Least Loathsome New Yorkers
Following the oft-bandied-about New York Press list of the 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers, we can't help but wonder why a small magazine few people actually read is always so, well, hateful. And while it's certainly easier (and ok, perhaps slightly more fun) to bitch your way into New York's blogland, we prefer to celebrate the best NY has to offer. Without further ado, we present five of dailygusto's Least Loathsome New Yorkers. 5) Ed Grant, host of Media Funhouse on MNN We've mentioned him before, and we'll doubtless mention him again. Although his timeslot is more elusive than Bin Laden, every week Ed brings us the "premier guide to high and low culture" on cable access TV. From the impossible-to-find film clips to the "Deceased Artiste" tributes, Ed is a fount of both useful and useless information delivered in his frighteningly overcaffeinated fashion. For more info on Ed, check out this oldie but goodie article on him for SVA's Visual Opinion, penned by dailygusto's very own J. Mattthew Brauer. 4) Mario Batali Mario could make this list simply by not being the ubiquitous, smirking Bobby Flay. While we at Gusto aren't rich enough to afford Babbo, the antipasti at...
