Sigh, as today's weather hints at: summer is nearly over. This means that the outdoor concerts are coming to an end, with the Pool Parties having their last hurrah on the waterfront yesterday afternoon. Brooklyn band Grizzly Bear helped send off the season, providing a soundtrack with sounds from their latest release Veckatimest as well as their previous effort Yellow House.
Lifeguards, sharks, outlaw swimmers... are there any other beach stories one can squeeze out of summer? Yep! The Daily News has published a piece about sand scavengers! One of their reporters recently rented a metal detector and searched for treasure on Coney Island. The rental alone costs $37.95 a day plus $25 for a sifter, and the employee at the rental company told her that she'd likely only find nickels and crushed cans! Indeed, she only dug up $2.07 in beach booty—so much for that bailout (pailout?).
Looking for an end of summer day trip? We suggest avoiding the Bronx Swamp, which Nate Kensinger described as a "flooded railroad line below the streets of Mott Haven" that is home to birds, rats, raccoons, mosquitos and maybe a dead body or two. Even though it's acknowledged as a health risk, and the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene sprays it regularly "with larvacide to curb the spread of mosquitos potentially infected with the West Nile Virus," the photographer still made a journey out there.
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Yesterday, Michael Jackson fans gathered in Prospect Park to celebrate Michael Jackson's 51st birthday, in a celebration thrown by Spike Lee. The party, moved from Fort Greene Park to the much larger Prospect Park, attracted thousands of people who braved the initially dreary weather for a day of music and fun and writer-director Lee told them, "I'm like everybody else - somebody who loved his talent. We're here to celebrate Michael Jackson."
The controversial free Family Day concert scheduled for tomorrow inside a Jamaica public schoolyard, organized by 50 Cent, has been postponed. 50 was originally supposed to put on a secret performance, but was downgraded to just making an appearance after fears arose of chaos or violence at the site close to where the rapper was shot multiple times in 2000. His manager told the Post, "We are postponing it and working it out with police." After Mayor Bloomberg got involved and made a point that 50 would not be performing, the rapper Q-Tip recently spoke out against the mayor and has been tweeting to his followers, telling them not to re-elect the mayor and saying that the idea that the concert would invite violence was "just an old way of thinking about folk, especially black folk. Tip told MTV, "[Bloomberg is] not right for the spirit of the city. 50 Cent is a success story we all should applaud. However you feel about him, you can't deny him." Maybe the show's sponsor, Bette Midler's New York Restoration Project, can just convince 50 to adopt-a-highway, putting the G-Unit back into the Gowanus Expressway.
The New York Transit Museum is presenting a photo exhibit featuring images taken on the last day the Myrtle Avenue El in Brooklyn was in operation, all taken by noted photographer Theresa King. You can revisit the past starting September 29th at the museum (running through the end of February), but here's a sneak peek and a little history.
Click through the gallery for movies playing this weekend, including new releases Taking Woodstock, The Final Destination, The September Issue, Big Fan, Halloween II, Still Walking, and more.
The King of Pop's posthumous birthday celebration will go on as planned tomorrow in Prospect Park (after being moved from Fort Greene). We talked to the Parks Department and they're currently putting up some fencing for the event, which will run from noon to 5 p.m. They say on top of deejays, a jumbotron and Marty Markowitz declaring it Michael Jackson Day in the borough, organizer Spike Lee will be overseeing the day. According to Bloomberg News, around 10,000 people are expected, and Lee put down $11,000 for a permit. And as for the weather, "it's rain or shine—though if there was severe weather, like heavy winds and constant lightning—then the Parks Dept. and/or NYPD could cancel or postpone the event." If you make it over there, be sure to send us your pics or tag them "gothamist" on Flickr! Elsewhere in town there will be a Michael Jackson Tribute show by Rent musical performers at Sullivan Hall, which will take place at 7:30 p.m.; and as pointed out in our newsletter, there will be another birthday bash at (Le) Poisson Rouge at 10 p.m.
After a week of hearing all about these exhibitionists at the Standard Hotel, someone has finally sent us an image. See a much larger version here, and try to guess what's actually happening in this hotel room. Or don't. As Vanishing NY points out, city living has always offered glimpses into stranger's lives; two years ago HBO projected this on the side of a LES building, and before that we had films like Rear Window. The site points out that the Standard's management has created the dullest version of a voyeuristic experience, and "In his direction, the luxury hotelier lacks the depth and nuance of Hitchcock." It's true, but what does one expect from André Balazs? Maybe the residents at the Hotel Chelsea should create an artier version of this.
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The DOT has brought some newly commissioned artwork to the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, unveiled earlier this week and up for 11 months. 1010Wins notes that it features "barrels as seats with birdhouses above"—which sounds like a pretty risky design for the humans! However, the DOT sent us these photos and it doesn't really look like the old wine barrels are made for lounging about. If you wanna give it a shot, however, you can find the Atom Cianfarani installation at Columbia and Halleck streets. We're sure the squirrels and pigeons will are having a field day over there. The NY Post has a photo of another DOT piece that was unveiled in the Bronx, "an abstract sculpture made of plywood and resembling a stack of children's building blocks and star-shaped toys," and they note that three more sculptures will go up this year (on the UWS, Queens Plaza and Lefferts Gardens).
Earlier this year Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara was busted for doodling on the wall of an East Village subway station. Well, as of yesterday, the charges against the multimillionaire have been dropped. The NY Post explains that he "was given an adjournment in contemplation after being charged with making graffiti and criminal mischief and spending the night in jail. That meant if he kept his nose clean for six months, the charges would be dropped." His lawyer says the case is officially over (and "he can get back to wowing the art world with his great art"), but the paper points out the MTA missed out on some easy money by wiping away the doodle that could have easily been sold for $10,000 (the bar Niagara was smarter). Perhaps Nara should donate a sketch to them for letting him off the hook.
Niagara's Nara
Patton Oswalt has built himself up as one of the most well-respected stand-ups in his twenty-plus year career. He is a definitive "comic's comic," always refining and plugging away at his stand-up act—his most recent special being played on Comedy Central. Today marks the opening of his first star turn as the lead role in the darkly comic Big Fan, written and directed by the same screenwriter who wrote The Wrestler. Oswalt carries the film through it's brooding, modernist character study of a Staten Island Giant fanatic who lives with his mother and spends his work days perfecting his night speeches made as a caller to a local sports talk radio show. The film will be a strange experience for Giant fans as the tale it tells inadvertently ended up mirroring the team's Plaxico Burress situation last season in a bizarre number of ways.
Just like he did in PCU, Jeremy Piven has somehow played the role of major slacker who ends up unscathed when an arbitrator today decided that he did not violate his contract by dropping out of Speed-the-Plow after claiming to have mercury poisoning. Following Piven's tearful testimony before a panel in February, the case went to an independent arbitrator who decided that there just wasn't enough evidence against what many saw as a fishy story from the recent host of WWE Raw. Producers of the play issued a statement saying, “While we respect the decision, we strongly disagree with it. We remain eternally grateful to...the many who had to deal with very difficult and trying circumstances.” Piven, who was last heard from threatening the delicate Chris Kattan over a joke about the incident, once again did not hesitate to offer his two cents about the situation, as he has throughout. The Chasing Liberty star said, “All we can ask for is our day in court. I was lucky enough to get it, and the truth prevailed. It’s a beautiful thing...I think our president has shown us, beautifully, that the high road is the road to take and so I’m going to take his lead on this."
At least this underground sign makes more sense than the "Brodaway" tiling spotted on the G platform. The Examiner spotted this one in the Fulton Street station (on the 2/3 platform) pointing towards a train headed to Downtown Breuckelen. This isn't a typo, it's just old-timey! As they point out, "the sign refers to the original Dutch name for Brooklyn. Named after a town in The Netherlands, the Village of Breuckelen was one of the first municipalities in New York State and was founded by the Dutch West India Company in the 1640s."
Typically you hear stories of the Hasids in Williamsburg revolting against the hipster bicyclists, especially those wearing skimpy clothing. But now The Forward reports on a sign that popped up in the neighborhood this month that could bridge the gap between the groups; "On it is a large Star of David constructed out of 50 or so rubber chickens. In the middle of the star, Yiddish text offers a free bike loan to any of the Yiddish-speaking Satmar Hasidim who live in the area." Baruch Herzfeld (himself a Sabbath-observant Modern Orthodox Jew, with two rabbi brothers) is the man behind the sign, and he hopes his efforts will help the Hasids understand their cycling neighbors. The 37-year-old Herzfeld is described as a "neighborhood gadfly/clown/activist/businessman who owns a small bicycle repair shop below the offices of his cell phone company" (it's noted that he loaned out the 1st floor space to Time's Up). He's already had some takers, and he "just received 500 used bikes from Japan that will allow him to expand his program." He says, “The goal is just to make it acceptable. I’m not doing it because I want to change the world—I just think it would be a healthy thing for the whole city if some of these guys got on bicycles."
Did any of these people ever even see Fame? You wouldn't know it by looking at the outfits they chose for the costume contest that was held last night in conjunction with a screening of the classic 1980 film. This all went down in McCarren Park, where one would wager the audience had way more interesting 80s vintage incorporated into their daily attire than they did for the event. Cut-off tees? Jean shorts? Yawn. Check out the contestants, the winners and the disaffected hipsters, above.
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The story of the stand-up comedian being sued for defamation by her Jewish mother-in-law continues to be gobbled up by media outlets across the nation. Both comic Sunda Croonquist and her lawyer husband Mark Zafrin say they were blindsided by Rose Zafrin's suit. The husband whose firm will represent Croonquist told the Post his reaction to the suit was, "What — are you trying to scare us? My wife's from Paterson!" The black comedienne, whose observational jokes about differences in ethnic customs suddenly became too much for her mother-in-law, says she keeps a kosher house and converted to Judaism (for her marriage, not her career). When asked about the lawsuit by Entertainment Tonight, she said, "I felt sick to my stomach I was sickened. ... I thought maybe a phone call would suffice." She also mentioned to the TV show that she had shows here at Stand-Up NY and Comix this weekend. If this ends up in Judge Judy or Cristina's Court, we think we know who the special guest star will be to mend the parted sea between the two. Croonquist recently revealed that she was inspired her to grab a mic for the first time after being encouraged at a party...by none other than Jackie Mason.
Not too long ago there was some pole dancing for arts sake on the L train. Well, yesterday photographer Zach Hyman (he's like the one-model-at-a-time version of Spencer Tunick) brought his nude subject to a museum. Surprisingly, it seems the MTA is cooler with the naked human form than the Met is!
It may be The Battle of Long Island to England and the rest of America—including Queens—but from Bath Beach, where the Brits landed 20,000 troops, to East New York, where they executed the nifty turn that outflanked the rebels, it's known as the Battle of Brooklyn—if it's known at all. This weekend "Brookland" (as it was known) offers a series of events that promise to show how "the Kinges Countie" became anything but—including a reenactment of the battle itself, redcoats and all, in Green-Wood Cemetery.
Prospect Park West, Amy Sohn's new novel depicting (and picking apart) the people and places in that neighborhood, has fallen into the hands of Smartmom, Louise Crawford. In an incredibly breathy takedown, Crawford comes off as insulted, and maybe a little jealous of the neighborhood author.
When the NY Times wrote about The Hole back in 2004, they said, "It is the closest thing New York has to a border town... an isolated neighborhood that straddles the Brooklyn-Queens line. The five blocks at the junction of Conduit Avenue and Linden Boulevard have all the characteristics of a frontier town in the Old West." Now, years later, Nate Kensinger has visited the almost-ghost town and come back to tell the story with plenty of gorgeous images of the decay. He says, "The Hole is literally a hole. It is 30 feet below grade... sunken down from the busy roads around it. The neighborhood floods often and is only a few feet above the water table, so its homes are 'not incorporated into the city sewer system. They all have cesspools.'"
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In a case that seems suspiciously like a win-win for everybody involved, a Midwood grandmother is suing her stand-up comedian daughter-in-law for "defaming her with racist lies" in her comedy routines. Sunda Croonquist of Paterson does pretty standard comedy club material about her husband Mark Zafrin's family, sharing her experiences as a black woman marrying into a Jewish family, joking that "Jews don't know how to whisper" and having "two kids in two years makes her suicidal, having two kids in one year would make her Orthodox." After years of allegedly enjoying the material, now Ruth Zafrin has apparently taken offense to the barbs she finds "malicious" and "based on hatred towards her." Two other in-laws have signed on as co-plaintiffs and to give the whole affair the ultimate whiff of a hack sitcom pilot, the comedian Croonquist is being represented by her lawyer husband, taking on his mother. Croonquist claims that her in-law and family jokes are not mean-spirited (she also "converted to Judaism" and "keeps a kosher house"), but rather, "natural laugh-getters." In case this all isn't enough free publicity for everyone involved, watch Croonquist's act and decide for yourself after the jump.
Whit Stillman's 1998 film, The Last Days of Disco, has been restored and re-released on Criterion this week. Its ensemble cast includes Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman and Mackenzie Astin. Tomorrow night, Stillman will appear at the Walter Reade Theater for a screening of the film, and a real life disco party will follow in tribute.
Red Hook is getting another big name, but this time it's not a Big Box store. The NY Times reports that the once corrupt waterfront location is getting classed up by Christie's Auction House! They'll be moving into "an enormous, high-tech warehouse with security worthy of James Bond, all to protect the multimillion-dollar artworks, manuscripts, furniture and even rare cars." The luxury storage facility will be housed in one of the former New York Dock Company loft buildings, which is being renovated, and by January "will boast infrared video cameras, biometric readers and motion-activated monitors, as well as smoke-, heat- and water-detection systems," as well as private viewing galleries. This sounds primed for an art caper, Hudson Hawk style. The lofts were originally going to be luxury apartments, but the developer has said, “I still think it will be a fantastic residential conversion, but with the economic climate being what it is today. it may make sense to do a Christie’s-like commercial deal and treat it as a bond—you, know, put it away for 30 years, let my children see what’s happening 30 years from now.”
This week's episode of Mad Men looked at the 4th (and current) incarnation of Madison Square Garden (opened February 14th, 1968) at 7th Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets. The MSG men wanted the Don Draper treatment to spin their campaign and gain public approval for, you know, tearing down the street level portion of Pennsylvania Station; a beautiful Beaux-Arts structure that perfectly backdropped many long farewells during WWII.
A couple of days ago, NY Post columnist Cindy Adams made her opinion of the Times Square chairs be known, saying loud and clear in her headline: "It's Broadway—Not Rockaway!" She went on, saying "the hallway to the Street of Dreams is now Beach 34th Street? What's next? Sand? A boardwalk?" She's worried that the tourists will now only see "Sprawling, bused-in out-of-towners with Coke cans and brown paper bags flat out on camp chairs noshing and burping and snoozing and playing checkers in the center of the capital of the world."
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You may have to suspend disbelief here, but we assure you this is real life; you didn't just wake up in a 1984 Ron Howard film. Somewhat recently there were multiple mermaid sightings off the coast of Kiryat Yam (near Haifa in Northern Israel) which prompted the town to offer up a $1 million reward for anyone who could prove the mythical creature exists. Once this news traveled all the way to New York, the Brooklyn-based Mermaid Medical Association got involved. (Also: there is a Mermaid Medical Association.)
Um, sorry guys, we forgot to give you a heads about the whole "National Go-Topless Day" event in Central Park yesterday. The Daily News called it the "breast day ever" (har har), reporting back that "dozens of semi-nude women gave the city a Double-D eyeful when they bared their boobs in Central Park and then marched through the streets" as Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman" blasted from speakers. One onlooker told the paper, "This is unbelievable—and super. I'm going to tell my wife to join in." The prudes guarded their eyes, and spewed terms like "extreme liberalism," while others hooted and hollered in solidarity. Currently New York is the only state where women can go topless legally (since a 1992 ruling), so really, Go-Topless Day can be every day. Here are plenty of photos from last year's march.
The Wiliamsburg Pool Parties will wrap up next Sunday with Grizzly Bear and Beach House, but in many ways yesterday's blowout with Girl Talk felt like the real explosive climax to the summer. Fifteen minutes before Girl Talk went on, the line to get in stood still from the entrance at N 8th Street and ran well past the corner of N 11th. Parks officers seemed constantly on the run throughout the set as the hordes of people shut out of the fun became unruly and threatened to push through or turn over port-a-potties. One reader left a report of a chaotic scene from the front gates where allegedly hundreds of people cut the line and were allowed in by security just as the set was getting under way.
Today the Wooster Collective posted a few photos of Judith Supine way at the tippy top of the Williamsburg Bridge, hanging his piece titled: "Above the City in a Summer Night Dream." This one seemed like a much more dangerous project than previous pieces (for example the fifty-foot-tall piece he hung over the side of the very same bridge, and two years ago he lowered one off the Manhattan Bridge). Again, we challenge Supine to bring his next piece into the Gowanus Canal.
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Michael Jackson was not a New Yorker, but that doesn't mean this city isn't trying to make him an honorary one posthumously. Block parties, amusement park rides, and now a tribute underground? City Councilwoman Letitia James wants a plaque in tribute to the performer placed at Brooklyn's Hoyt-Schermerhorn station... and has even suggested "Jackson" be added to station name. Okay, well, he did film his Martin Scorsese-directed "Bad" video there, so maybe it makes sense to put up a dedication, but it seems unlikely that anyone will ever call it the Hoyt-Schermerhorn-Jackson stop. In fact, MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said a tribute of any kind is unlikely. Sounds harsh, but he added that they prohibit station plaques of any kind. Still, James says she's going to start a petition, "Having Michael Jackson visit and moonwalk at this station was a huge deal not only for Brooklyn, but all of New York in the '80s. And renaming this station in his honor would put it on the map and help ensure that people don't forget." If that doesn't happen, maybe we can just all think of the JMZ line (sans Z) as the MJ line from now on.
This Friday both Mamie Gummer and Henry Wolfe Gummer will steal a bit of the spotlight from their mother Meryl Streep; the former hitting the big screen in Taking Woodstock, and the latter taking the stage at Joe's Pub (tickets). You may have already heard one of his songs, "Stop the Train," in the film Julie & Julia.
Not us—see it below in all its NSFW, uh, glory. The "it" we're talking about here, be warned, is artist Jonathan Horowitz's 2008 piece "CBS Evening News/www.Britneycrotch.org," which frames two big digital prints on top of each other: The top image is Katie Couric at her news desk, and the bottom is Britney Spears’s infamous crotch shot, photoshopped to match Couric's upper half. It's the artistic antithesis of a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup, and you can see it at P.S. 1 in Queens with your own eyes (though the museum politely asks that visitors not flush their gouged-out their eyes down the toilet).
The Michael Jackson birthday celebration in Brooklyn that was accused on the New York Times blogs as being "Spike and Marty’s big ego trip" just got bigger—eighteen times bigger. The event in honor of what would have been the singer's 51st birthday is being thrown next weekend by filmmaker Spike Lee and was originally set to be a block party taking place at Fort Greene Park. But now it has been moved to the much roomier Prospect Park after the city became involved when concerns arose over the celebration's growing publicity. The event that the Post uncomfortably refers to as "JACKOFEST" will now take place next Saturday at noon in Nethermead at the center of Prospect Park, with organizers saying they expect a crowd that could reach over 10,000. A Parks official succinctly told the Brooklyn Paper, “There were concerns about the size of the event.” This month also marks the fifteenth anniversary of the HIStory teaser video being shot in Budapest—maybe it's time for an update to Prospect's James S.T. Stranahan Statue.
Click on the film stills above for more on this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which also include Passing Strange, The Baader Meinhof Complex, Five Minutes of Heaven, World's Greatest Dad, Shorts, Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-Itchy Footed Mutha, Fifty Dead Men Walking, X Games 3D: The Movie, My One and Only, Post Grad, Art & Copy, Spaceballs, and Fargo.
This just in: an employee over at Pianos on Ludlow Street has just informed us that the venue suffered some damages from a fire earlier this morning. He tells us, "There was a small electrical fire at Pianos this morning—the sprinklers went off and soaked everything, so we're going to have to close the club tonight. Things will resume as normal tomorrow for the Unisex Salon/Vulture Whale show."
Did anyone actually think a Michael Jackson birthday celebration hosted by Spike Lee wasn't going to be publicized? The free event was set to be held on August 29th in Brooklyn, but The Local reports they're looking to move it after “The mayor’s office has conceded that now that this has been publicized, Fort Greene Park is just not big enough to accommodate the kind of crowds that are foreseeable." The date may also be changed, and incidentally, Jackson's funeral date was also pushed back (originally the 29th and now the 31st).
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Polaroid dead? Not yet! Urban Outfitters has teamed up with The Impossible Project to sell "a limited edition 700 hand-numbered deadstock Polaroid camera kits," which will include the much sought after and nearly extinct Polaroid Instant Film, and the Polaroid ONE600 Classic. These are the last of what's left, and it all goes on sale tomorrow (price is still unknown). The Williamsburgsters are not happy about this. Vintage Polaroid is their thing, Urban Outfitters; you can't just co-opt hipster style and sell it off to the masses. Anyway, one poster says, "I do not think anyone will buy a Polaroid at UO and do anything meaningful with it. There, I said it." Alright, Polaroid is so over, everyone get Lomos now. FML!
Fact: The Brooklyn Library has a vaulted room which holds some of the more "controversial" books. CityRoom pointed out that you can't find a copy of, say, cartoonist Hergé's book "Tintin au Congo" on the shelves, because that book is held in this locked room. (The site published parts of the book, so probably that web page should go in there too.) One librarian told them, “It’s not for the public," and has been locked away for 2 years now after "a patron objected to the way Africans are depicted in the book. In particular, the patron took issue with illustrations that she felt had the Africans 'looking like monkeys.'’’
The handsome host tipped us off that something was a little awry with this urban exploration video. But even if it's part of an ad campaign pimping boots, it's still pretty cool. The short doc "takes viewers on a virtual tour of empty structures that have been part of the NYC cityscape for decades," and they even climb up the Red Hook Grain Terminal.
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The no-pants subway ride people really need to step up their game; photographer Zach Hyman is making them look downright demure, by riding the subway with a young woman who takes it all off, for free. (Not including the $2.25 cost of a subway ride.) Commuters don't even have to get bottle service or stuff a dollar in her G-string, because she's not even wearing one. In June Hyman took some shots on the L train as 19-year-old actress Jocelyn Saldana stripped down to her birthday suit; the 30-second gimmick landed Hyman a nice feature in the Post today, which happens to coincide with his show opening at a West Village gallery. According to the article, most straphangers were "blasé. But one woman started screaming and an elderly man next to her got the shakes." Hyman's series of nudes in public only feature women because, as he explains, "photographing females in public is easier than males. People see a naked woman and they smile. They see a penis and they freak out." Honey, ain't that the truth. We've provided a closer SFWish look at the "striphanger" below...
SFW version of Zach Hyman's photograph
Recently People magazine reunited the cast of Saved by the Bell, but there was one Baysider missing: Screech. They noted that he no longer keeps in touch with his old co-stars, and has since moved on to star in Celebrity Fit Club and a leaked porn video. He's no Mark Paul Gosselaar, is what they're saying. So is it really that surprising to see him on a subway? NYMag reports via a tipster that he was spotted on the N train between 14th Street and 42nd Street yesterday morning. "He was sporting jeans, a white T-shirt, and a sport coat. He is still rocking the Jewfro, a bit shorter in length but still curly, of course. He also still has the goatee with the 'stache. Trying to make sure no one caught on to his stardom, he had a big pair of sunglasses, and was reading amNY." Maybe he was heading out to Brooklyn to see his brother Mike D. Just kidding, he was probably just going to visit with his dad Neil Diamond.
Though it’s not the most glamorous of the environmental issues, colony collapse is a problem. Bee colonies, responsible for pollinating a significant portion of the world's food supply, are slowly dying out. Hell, even Haagen-Dazs is getting behind the issue. So what are three culinarily-inclined New Yorkers to do? Start their own bee colony in Brooklyn! Jon Feldman (general manager at Frankies Spuntino), Brandon Hoy and Eddie Diaz (co-owner and manager of Roberta’s, respectively) have been keeping bees on their roofs in Williamsburg and Carroll Gardens in an attempt to boost their population and beautify the city’s flowerboxes. There’s just one problem: it’s illegal.
Okay, by now you've hopefully watched the season premiere of Mad Men—and if you haven't, consider this your spoiler alert. In it, Bryan Batt's character, art director Sal Romano, finally gets some male lovin' from a hotel employee while on a business trip with Don Draper. Batt has talked plenty about the scene (video after the jump), saying he told his on-screen interest, "Close your eyes and pretend I'm Christie Brinkley." We talked to the actor who played that full-service bellhop, Orestes Arcuni, and he told us a little bit more about being transported to the mid-century set.
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Being behind the wheel of a New York City cab can likely supply you with plenty of fodder for a screenplay, especially when you're driving away from a job on Wall Street. Nearly a decade ago 45-year-old Mike Puerto quit his job trading derivatives and got his taxi license. He worked on a script for a Wall Street drama and, according to the NY Post, taped a sign behind his seat that read: "If you are a TV producer or executive, I have a pilot ready to go into production." Well, he's now got himself a producer, director of photography, agent and actors on the ready for his TV project, titled "M&A" (mergers and acquisitions). While networks expressed interest, a solid deal hasn't come through, however; so Puerto found advertisers and his plan is to buy time on Spike TV. The entourage he assembled all work for free (for now), and are convinced that Puerto is on his way to success. Paul Jarrett of Rosetta Films told the paper, "None of these people have been paid anything. It's just that Mike is such a captivating person that we keep coming back to see if he will pull all the pieces together and actually get this thing made." The sign in the cab now has this addendum: "will shortly go into production."
This summer two college kids, Nick and Katharine, were challenged to go see 50 free concerts in 50 days throughout the city. This of course was made more difficult by the never-ending rainy season, but they managed to reach their goal. You can read about the entire experience on their blog. Sounds fun right? Even if it is a rip-off of 100 Bands in 100 Days.
Finally, the dark side of all those seemingly happy Brooklyn couples comes to light. Brooklyn Heights resident and WPIX-TV personality Mark Joyella is also an annoying husband in his spare time! His wife has started a blog centered around the fact, aptly titled My Husband is Annoying (Mark himself is a fan on Facebook). In one post she declares: "My husband likes to talk like a robot. For no good reason, he’ll just bust out the robot voice. It was even in our vows 'I promise to love you—even when you talk like a robot.'” A vow's a vow! She seems to have plenty of stories to regale her readers with, including one about getting a calculator and Five Guys Burgers for her birthday. See, it's not all sunshine and strollers over in Brownstone Brooklyn. [via Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Plans for Michael Jackson's burial have finally been set for August 29th, the same day the King of Pop entered the world, and would have been celebrating his 51st birthday. While the private ceremony takes place at 10 a.m. on the West Coast (in the Great Mausoleum at Glendale Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California), the East Coast will be celebrating his life in a different way.
As mentioned in our newsletter, the NY Comedy Festival is coming to Carnegie Hall for four days this November, and bringing with it the likes of Andy Samberg, Mike Birbiglia, Tracy Morgan, Bill Maher and, er, Dane Cook. Tickets are on sale already, and Ricky Gervais explains in the following video that the best way to get to Carnegie Hall is... with a map. Sensible! He also explained how he'll be getting there—"It's just down the road from my apartment. I can walk to work. (I won’t walk obviously. I'll take a limo. But I could walk if I had to)."
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Mayor Bloomberg has laid down the official word on a rumored concert in Queens by the rapper he calls "50 Cents" [sic]. At a press conference he said the rapper "has no plans to perform whatsoever. He might go, but he's not going to perform." The surprise performance was supposed to take place later this month on Family Day at the P.S. 40 school (just blocks from where 50 Cent was nearly fatally shot in 2002). Prior to the attention this was given in the press yesterday, the rapper did have an ad on his website advertising the performance, which has since disappeared. The NY Post reports that the NYPD "were still under the impression as late as Friday that he would be performing—and had yet to be told otherwise even as of yesterday." When asked if he was going to the concert, the Mayor said, "I did not plan to go to the concert because I wanted to go see 50 Cents [sic] and will not get a chance to do that this time." Perhaps he should head to New Jersey the day before! Since, allegedly, the rapper won't be performing in Queens, the paper notes that he'll "bus neighborhood children to his performance at Six Flags amusement park on August 29th." Aw, underneath that bulletproof vest there's a heart of gold!
Will the pigeon bullying story be a plot line in an upcoming 30 Rock? The NY Post talked to Morgan Pitts, who rescued the baby falcon from the gang of birds in Greenpoint; he's an assistant prop master at the show, and his first course of action was to bring the little one over to Silvercup Studios, where a friend's wife at the Animal Medical Center was called. The American kestrel has been named Alice Cooper for the markings around its eyes (a moniker that's bound to toughen it up), and it's sex is not yet known—one of the vets saying, "I love this bird. He or she is so cute." Agreed.
In 1967, the Public Theater's production of Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical hit the theater world like a martini spiked with mescaline. The show's sensational embrace of the sixties counterculture struck a nerve with hippies and squares alike, and the production ran for four years on Broadway, garnering two Tony award nominations (but losing to 1776, of all things, in both categories). Some four decades, three Woodstocks, and one 40 Year Old Virgin later, the quintessential rock musical is back on Broadway, following a critically-acclaimed run at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park last summer. Judging by the packed houses at the Al Hirschfeld theater, the Age of Aquarius still has considerable cross-generational appeal, and this month the production accomplished the seemingly impossible: recouping its entire $5,760,000 investment, becoming one of the fastest recouping musicals in Broadway history.
Move over Metro and amNewYork, put down that Kindle commuters—there's a new option for underground reading: books. Non-profit group Choose What You Read NY has started a free underground book exchange that encourages folks to recycle used books by passing them on to fellow straphangers. A sticker with the organization's logo signifies where the book came from, and readers are encouraged to bring it back for someone else once they are done. The distribution takes place once a month right now—they say, "You will find us near major subway stations on the first Tuesday of each month." Drop-off boxes will also be on hand, and are currently set up at three other locations as well (Whole Foods, Revival Bar and KGB Bar). Learn more at their Facebook page, and read about the program from the founder herself, Claire Wilson. She says, "This isn’t about being highbrow. We’re not saying we want everyone to read Kafka on the train. If you want to read a tabloid, go for it—but choose one and buy it. Don’t just take whatever is pushed at you." [via Idealist]
Four months after the stairway collapse at 5 Pointz, artists in the Jackson Avenue Studios are in the final stages of vacating. Owners closed the building in July after they were told by the Department of Buildings that a new certificate of occupancy would have to be issued. In a letter to his tenants, Jerry Wolkoff said, "by reason of the requirements of the New York City building code it is both physically and financially impossible for us to obtain a new certificate of occupancy for these buildings."
Tyra Banks is bringing back her talk show this Fall, and declares that this time around it will be more real than ever. Whereas her other show revolves around physical appearance, her talk show will celebrate inner and outer beauty. Today she was in Union Square taping a segment for the show wearing a bodysuit and a scarf on top of her head. (A before-stripping-down photo of Tyra, smiling with her eyes in Union Square, after the jump).
"Superstar rapper 50 Cent is secretly planning to stage a free concert in a schoolyard near the Queens projects where he grew up," reports the NY Post, as they simultaneously destroy any secretive nature of said concert. The performance will be at P.S. 40 in Jamaica (August 30th, 5:30 p.m.), and will be open to anyone—one NYPD officer warning the paper it would be difficult for them to control the area. A worried local added, "Someone's gonna try to make a name for themselves. They're gonna take a shot at him, and they're either gonna hit him or they're gonna miss him and hit some poor, innocent kid or grandmother." But let's be real, grandmas probably won't be front row and center, right?
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Who could have predicted an art caper ending with a stolen piece being returned to the scene of the crime? One of two Russian masterpieces lifted from the walls of an Upper West Side museum has now been mailed back in one piece. The NY Post reports that the Nicholas Roerich Museum staff "were shocked Friday when the mailman delivered the $70,000 painting" (pictured) in a manila envelope where it was pressed between two pieces of cardboard. One employee told the paper, "I thought it was some junk mail. I opened the envelope. Everybody started jumping up and down." The sender even left a name and return address on the envelope (which was mailed from Brooklyn), though there's no word on if it's legit.
If we only have three minutes on a subway platform to skim through The Onion, it's basically going to involve checking the headlines, the editorial cartoon and The Tolerability Index, an infographic of this week's pop culture travesties, as compiled by Amelie Gillette, aka "The Hater." Gillette has a terrific ability to serve as a cultural thermometer—both catching absurd things we might have missed (that Mary Jo Buttofuoco's new book was called "Getting It Through My Thick Skull") or calling out unfamiliar targets that go unchecked (say, Funny or Die videos). She more than earns her Hater nickname with the barbs dished in the Index, but yet also reveals a real soft spot for the absurdity of it all on The Onion AV Club's blog and in her weekly column, Pop Culture Love Letters.
It can sometimes spell trouble when an Off-Off Broadway production features cast members of a certain age; seniors willing to perform for peanuts have been known to sink otherwise competent ensembles with an awkward amateurishness. It's hard to say whether Rae C. Wright is in fact an AARP card-carrier—she's in impeccable shape, for one thing—but her appearance in Tina Satter's sort-of-musical Family initially gave me pause. It shouldn't have. Far from scuttling the show into a community theater morass, she electrifies Satter's enjoyably daffy production with an incisive, intelligent humor, portraying the matriarch (Mum) of a once-prominent family in decline.
It's happened! The lawn chairs, placed in the Times Square pedestrian plazas to much derision, pain and enjoyment, have been gathered up to make way for more permanent chairs. The Times Square Alliance asked sculptor Jason Peters to create some art from the chairs, and the Post says he used "zip ties to lash about 70 of the chairs together Friday morning in an installation that will stay up until 9 p.m. tonight. Maybe you can say adieu before the public screening of the Mad Men premiere in Times Square at 10 p.m. (details).
Here are some more photographs of the wonderfully chaotic public art event, Those About to Die Salute You, at the Queens Museum of Art. Conceived by artist Duke Riley, we noted yesterday that the event was a Roman-themed naval battle that also involved tomato throwing, baguette battles, watermelon cannon balls, warriors in togas and other museums—the Brooklyn Museum, El Museo del Barrio and the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Oh, and the madness did make the Queens Museum's director a little nervous.
TV on the Radio were meant to be seen live. While they might seem like a fussy studio band with their loops and samples and intricate noises, they captivated the crowd Tuesday night in Prospect Park for Celebrate Brooklyn. Tunde Adebimpe led the crowd in a dance fest, slithering across the stage, his hips hula-ing and arms ejecting from his body in sinusoidal jolts and waves to favorites like “Golden Age” and “Playhouses.” Movements seemed to come easily to all, especially since most of their songs seemed about 50% faster (making “Dancing Choose” almost punk rock in speed). Their show is refreshingly organic, and proved that nobody in Brooklyn is too cool to dance. — Jaya Harrover Saxena
There's a new outdoor exhibition sitting pretty atop the Gawker HQ rooftop called MOM & POPism that you can go check out today. (In fact, it's only open today through 4 p.m., but if you miss out on this public viewing you can make an appointment throughout the month.) We headed to 210 Elizabeth Street yesterday to see the installation for ourselves; it's like a colorful old New York up there! The show was curated by Billi Kid and reinterprets James and Karla Murray's latest book, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York ("a breathtaking visual guide to New York City’s cultural heritage, with special emphasis on the historic streets and ethnic shops that have defined its many neighborhoods").
Click on the film stills above for more on this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which also include Cloud Nine, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, Bandslam, Ponyo, The Time Traveler's Wife, Grace, Earth Days, Spread, My Fuhrer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler , Taxidermia, It Might Get Loud, The Man Who Wasn't There, and Jaws.
Forty years ago this weekend, a now legendary 3-day festival took place on Max Yasgur's 600 acre farm in Bethel, New York (just about 100 miles outside of New York City). Initially around 50,000 were expected to attend Woodstock, however it ended up being more like half a million. This page has some interesting statistics; for example, only 186,000 tickets were sold; 320,000 people left before Hendrix went on; it was just 15 bucks for an ounce of pot, and nearly 90% of those in attendance were smoking it.
We've confronted many an animal on the JFK Airport tarmacs: geese, dogs, turtles. But the area is filled with other adorable beasts just waiting to cause delays. Right now, it's looking like the next enemy could be... the jackrabbit. The City Birder got the inside scoop on the unofficial zoo from Robert Horvath, who's in charge of keeping the runways clear.
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Who knew Queens would make such an amazing stage for an epic Roman battle? Last night museums from all over the city converged on the mock battleground, fighting with baguettes, watermelon and tomatoes (smooshy and rotten, of course). The artist behind the madness was Duke Riley, who told NY1, "We're recreating a roman naumachia, which is when the emperor would flood an arena like the coliseum or Circus Maximus and create a mock naval battle where they would send condemned prisoners to fight on boats to the finish."
From stage to television to film, Joel Grey has acted, danced, and sung in virtually every entertainment medium over the course of his 60-year career. You might know him best as the Master of Ceremonies from 1966's Broadway hit Cabaret and its later 1972 film incarnation, but you've probably also seen him in numerous TV guest appearances on programs including House, Oz, and Star Trek: Voyager, not to mention roles in films like Choke and Dancer in the Dark.
The folks at Inside the Apple remind us that today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 ticker tape parade (following the moon landing on July 20th, 1969). The parade was for for Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins, and "at the time, many claimed it was the largest ticker tape parade New York had ever seen. Though they note this claim is impossible to verify, there were around 4 million in attendance.
Vasily Kandinsky is getting a full-scale retrospective treatment at the Guggenheim next month (the exhibit will run from September 18th through January 13th). The comprehensive survey will include "nearly 100 of Kandinsky’s most important canvases from 1907 to 1942... drawn primarily from the three largest repositories of the artist’s work—the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York, and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau in Munich—as well as from significant private and public collections." There will also be over 60 works on paper, and combined this will be the largest retrospective of the artist’s career in the United States since the 80s.
We haven't been paying much attention to the NYC Prep kids on Bravo's reality show... yet it's still not surprising that one of them, Sebastian Oppenheim, has some scandalous photos that just leaked to Perez Hilton. Blowing right past the standard sexually-driven teen star photos that usually surface, this guy went straight for anti-Semitism—"cruising around in a town car with his buddy, wasting time and tape by making swastikas and fake Hitler mustaches." Classy. Chuck Bass would never pull this sh*t. [via NY Mag]
JC Penney has arrived in Herald Square, leaving locals disaffected and tourists hurling towards a familiar sight. Is Penney's our TGIFriday's of retail? The NY Times reports on the department store's new digs, look and goods with, dare we say, a biting tone that's less becoming than a plethora of polysynthetics. Miss Size 2 reporter guesstimates that 96% of the inventory is made of polyester, and it's nearly impossible to find anything below a size 10. She adds, "it has the most obese mannequins I have ever seen. They probably need special insulin-based epoxy injections just to make their limbs stay on. It’s like a headless wax museum devoted entirely to the cast of Roseanne.” Hopefully there are enough airbrushed magazine covers out there to combat this, lest little girls grow up thinking it's okay to be anything more than a size 2.
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Earlier this month we noticed that the Conor Harrington piece at the corner of 13th and Washington was covered up by an illegal and unpermitted NPA advertising panel. Yesterday the Public Ad Campaign, who targeted the company's billboards during a takeover in April, uncovered the colorful piece of artwork and reclaimed the space... for now.
Yesterday we got a press release about the new Martin McDonagh (The Pillowman) play coming to Broadway in March, A Behanding in Spokane. Intriguiging title, and sounds cool, we thought. Well! The release promised "an all-star cast of four," and now Variety reports that Chris Rock, Sam Rockwell and Zoe Kazan "are all said to be eying roles in the play." The black comedy, McDonagh's first set in America, is described as "a man searching for his missing hand, two con artists out to make a few hundred bucks, an overly curious hotel clerk, and the rest is up for grabs." Whatever, it could be about rollerskating zoo animals and we'd still shell out Times Square ticket prices to watch Rock and Rockwell square off live. And Kazan's not exactly a lightweight, either; she more than held her own alongside an adrift Peter Sarsgaard in The Seagull last season. This would be Rock's first legit run on Broadway, aside from his one-off appearance in the 24 Hour Plays a couple years ago. Could this be our new Passing Strange? We're already obsessed, people. [Via The Playlist]
This was bound to happen, so don't pretend like you'd never hear about her again. Yes, the one and only Hipster Grifter, Kari Ferrell, has returned. She's actually probably still in Utah facing charges, but that isn't stopping the fat cats in Hollywood from capitalizing on her storyline. Gawker hears that "Law & Order has put out a confidential casting call for someone who sounds a lot like Kari Ferrell. The show is said to be seeking Asian females, 25-29, to play a con artist who claims she needs money for kidney treatments. Under the force of her irresistible charms, men fork over cash." Casting gods: please let them cast Kari herself; only one person can come up with and deliver mouth handjob lines with such effortless diction.
You may know Pete Fornatale from his voice on WFUV, but after reading Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock, you'll know him as your personal time machine back to 1969. His book contains plenty of stories from the weekend, as well as original interviews with The Who’s Roger Daltry, Joan Baez, David Crosby, Richie Havens, Joe Cocker, organizers, and fans. Tonight you can get a combination of the voice and the stories, as he'll be reading at Borders in Columbus Circle (7 p.m.); and recently he told us a little bit about the good ol' days... and how they'll never happen again, no matter how many anniversary concerts are planned.
Downtown Alliance's Re:Construction initiative has been going on for a couple of years now, and they continue to use construction sites as canvases. Today and tomorrow, two new art projects—Rainbow Conversation and Botanizing on the Asphalt—are being installed in separate Lower Manhattan construction sites (Louise Nevelson Plaza and Hudson River Park along West Street, respectively).
Leave it to starving artists to create a new kind of currency! The Brooklyn Torch Project consists of a group of creatives whose aim is to "create a local currency to benefit the local area businesses and artists" and "bring together both artist communities and immigrant communities in our area to improve integration of social groups and economies and boost our pride." The Daily News reports on the idea today, noting the Treasury Department is totally cool with people printing their own money in the U.S.; it will be subject to the same taxes as the dollar, and the exchange rate will be one to one (though "businesses might provide incentives for shoppers to spend money locally, ultimately raising the Torch's value"). The artists point out that there is a similar program in Ithaca, which began in 1991; “An Ithaca HOUR will generate 30 times more economic activity than [a dollar] will," meaning more money for the community. Expect to see Torch bucks being passed around Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Bushwick by the Fall; currently the group is looking for a design to grace the bills, and you can help!
Hey kids, you can get kicked out of the library and IKEA now too! Meet Bebe Gloton, which translates to Greedy Baby, or more accurately: Creepy Breastfeeding Baby Doll. A Spanish toy company created the toy, which comes with a bra-like halter top featuring flowers where the milk would come from. Allegedly it's "latched on to the petals, where it emits a suckling sound, before it has to be burped to stop it from crying" (as demonstrated in this video). The View ladies discussed the controversial doll, which is currently only sold in Spain, and Elizabeth Hasselbeck admitted that her daughter imitated her breastfeeding. The creator said that they realized girls were, in fact, imitating the action, and the doll garnered a positive reaction amongst them; "Their faces of happiness said it all." Well, breastfeeding is linked to lowering cancer risks. And the world awaits the Park Slope Parents message board thread...
Re-Brooklyn, which hosts images comparing past and present day buildings in the borough, has just posted a cleaner shot of the Norwegian Evangelical Church... or as you may know it: Strauss Auto. The interesting thing here is that if you look at the trim on the side wall, you'll see that the building is the same. An old NYPL image points out the original photo was taken in 1930, and the structure is on 15th Street and 4th Avenue.
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Fashion Week is right around the corner, again, but months afterl the couture is cleared the fashion world will be something for the average man: Victoria's Secret Angels. The winged ones haven't brought their annual "fashion" show here for four years, and The Daily News reports that "runway regulars Marisa Miller and Alessandra Ambrosio, broke the news on the CBS Early Show" yesterday that they would be returning—with Miller stating that New York is exactly "where it belongs." If your front row invite gets lost in the mail, the show airs on CBS in December. Angel Heidi Klum is set to have a baby in October, and told People that "The birth will be very, very close to when the show is. I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk in my underwear quite that fast! We’ll see." Meanwhile, another angel, Adriana Lima (pictured) is due in December, and says she won't be part of the show unless she can hide under a Santa outfit.
The city may never sleep, but there are significantly less people in it during the witching hours. This neat illustration shows just how many people commute in for work only to go enjoy their nights in... Jersey? If you look closely you'll also see that Roosevelt Island's population doubles at night; what exactly is going on over there?
Can you believe it's the 70th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz? New York will get a little taste of Kansas Emerald City this September 24th, when the Tavern on the Green is transformed into the magical land. Here's the full press release, which explains the Emerald Gala, which will take place at Manhattan's historic Tavern on the Green, and will be hosted by its owner and CEO Jennifer Oz LeRoy, granddaughter of The Wizard of Oz producer Mervyn LeRoy. "The entire restaurant and surrounding grounds will transform for a night into the Emerald City, replete with a winding Yellow Brick Road. The Emerald Gala will feature a musical performance by Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter and actress Ashanti, who recently made her theatrical debut as Dorothy in the City Center Encores! production of The Wiz. In addition, Lorna Luft, the daughter of Judy Garland will honor her mother's legacy with a special musical tribute." Here's our favorite scene from the film.
It's the end of an era. Maybe not a great era, but an era none-the-less. Around the time that MTV started shilling to the tweenaged masses, they moved into their 1515 Broadway studios in Times Square. The year was 1997, the Real World cast was in Boston, and the network was only just starting to be criticized for their lack of, you know, music videos.
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Now that everyone is paying attention to Javier Bardem and James Franco as they film scenes in Brooklyn, Gerard Butler's publicist is clearly leaking stories to the press as a reminder that he is also still in the borough making movie magic! The NY Post reports that he set for the new Jennifer Aniston film The Bounty (in which he co-stars) has been surrounded by paparazzi, and one bodyguard "allegedly flipped out and keyed a photographer's car—causing thousands of dollars in damage" to his 2003 Infiniti. The WireImage photographer was the victim of the East Flatbush incident, saying that he was "surprised that the community had my back." The guard was assigned to protect Gerard Butler, who is rumored to be dating Aniston; perhaps he was trying to stop the photog from taking this photo of Butler in flagrante delicto with another woman!
It's been a couple months since we last checked in on the Waterpod, "a sustainable, sculptural art and technology habitat, with 4 artists living on and off it, generating food, water, and power in a contained and self-sufficient environment." The floating experiment is currently in Brooklyn Heights, so if you're nearby check it out on Pier 5 (where it will be docked through August 17th). Visitors are welcome Fridays from 3 to 7 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. While on the shore, you can track the Pod here.
It looks like the Queens Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum are battling it out... on Twitter! It's impossible to say who is winning this publicity stunt war, but the Queens folk had a pretty good burn, posting the above pic and saying they found the Brooklyn Museum on their panorama.
Recently Jack Nicholson was spotted on the French Riviera simultaneously smoking and swimming, as well as shakin' his 72-year-old thang with a significantly younger woman. Typical Jack. It turns out that his lady friend hails from the Bronx, and is the daughter of a former NYPD officer. The NY Post reports that burlesque dancer Dakota Ferreiro's mom spotted her in photos last week with the famous face; she told them, "I opened the paper and read about Jack Nicholson, and I saw the photo and I said, 'Wow, she looks so familiar. That's my daughter!' Jack Nicholson is an icon, and I'm not jealous or envious, but I wish Jack could meet Mama!" Currently Ferreiro teaches Burlesque on the West Coast, as well as appears on Showtime's Live Nude Comedy. Here's a taste of what grandpa Jack got.
Producers have confirmed what the Post's Michael Riedel revealed on Friday: Julie Taymor's big budget Broadway musical adaptation of "Spider-Man"—believed to be the most expensive production in the history of Broadway—has big problems. (Besides being a musical about Spider-Man.) Insiders say Taymor's burning through money at an alarming rate, and the budget for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark could easily hit $50 million. Now work on the production has been suspended because of "an unexpected cash flow problem," and rumor has it that Sony and Marvel are ousting the show's lead producer, David Garfinkle, a showbiz lawyer with virtually no producing experience. With music and lyrics by U2's Bono and the Edge, and direction from the woman who brought you The Lion King, it seems inevitable that the spectacle will debut someday, and a publicist insists it will begin previews as scheduled in February, 2010. But Riedel declares, "If that happens, I'll eat my young."
If you didn't grow up with extended family members partaking in Civil War reenactments, then you always have the annual Civil War Weekend on Governors Island to familiarize yourself. This year's event took place on Saturday, and istolethetv's flickr has full visual documentation, also noting that "the National Park Service, 119th New York Volunteers, The GawdAwful Mess and Battery G of the First Pennsylvania Light Artillery, and the Soldiers of the First Minnesota provided family friendly activities, living history demonstrations, music and other programs designed to introduce people to the men and women of the Governors Island Garrison and Confederates imprisoned on the Island." In the early 1800s Castle Williams and Fort Jay were constructed on the island, and used as defensive structures from the Revolution onward. Also, here is a Tropic Thunder/Guns n' Roses "Civil War" mash-up.
Dilemma! Who does one vote for in a Gwyneth Paltrow versus Real Housewife Bethenny Frankel deathmatch? The Daily News reports that Frankel, who is also a chef when she's not busy being a reality television puppet, doesn't want to see the Hollywood starlet-turned-lifestyle guru get her own cooking show; "I'd rather staple my eyelids shut than watch Gwyneth cook. [She] is afraid to [reveal] who she really is—she's so manhandled by publicists and managers. Her show would be way too boring to watch," she declared. As opposed to watching the Real Housewives of New York, which isn't boring or contrived and is just a delight for everyone watching. If you recall, Gwyneth recently roasted a chicken, which apparently put the fear into Frankel—there have been rumors that she left the Bravo show and is working on her own food series.
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Visit a used book store and, after about an hour, all the old books will start looking pretty much the same—the pages get yellowed, the edges become ragged, and the binding starts to disintegrate. What you end up with is shelf after shelf of cheap, trashy, tatters, but that's not so with the New York Public Library's collection of its old books. We went back to the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Bryant Park last week to get a closer look at Rare Books Division, a 280,000 volume-strong collection filled with striking, unique works dating back hundreds of years into history, including everything from the first book published in North America to the book in which Ernest Hemingway jotted down his Nobel acceptance speech.
It was nearly three years ago that we booked Cincinnati band Bad Veins for one of our Movable Hype shows, after hearing just a few rough demos—and now, at long last, their much-anticipated debut full length is here! The duo, Benjamin Davis and Sebastien Schultz, just ended their first tour in support of the album, but they'll be heading back on the road shortly (you can catch them next month at the Bell House). Last week, prior to their Mercury Lounge show, they stopped by our offices to play a few songs (and drink some beer, of course)—enjoy the videos from that below, where Ben also tells us all about Gossip Girl, Irene and what it's like to finally have the album out there.
Yesterday was the 27th Annual Dominican Day Parade. The festivities made their way up Sixth Avenue, from 36th Street to 56th Street, with tens of thousands of spectators cheering on the Dominican celebrities, floats, performers, and, yes, politicians (Mayor Bloomberg, City Comptroller Thompson were among those on hand) along the route. NY1 notes, "The event was originally held in Washington Heights, but has since moved downtown as the city's Dominican population grew."
While performing in a Maine summer stock production of As You Like It back in 2006, a few theater buddies noticed a roadside greasy spoon for sale and wondered: Wouldn't it be a gas if a troupe of avant garde performance artists bought the place and turned it into an experimental "dinner theatre"? Three years later, the fantasy has been fully realized as a five course celebration of kooky transgression—they didn't buy the place but took the name (Conni's) and ran with the idea, setting up residency at the Bushwick Starr in, well, Bushwick. But last week they invaded Manhattan for a four night stand at the Ohio Theater on Wooster Street, as part of the Soho Ice Factory Festival.
Not too long ago, writer-director Sophie Barthes had a dream in which she found herself one of several patients at a futuristic doctor's office. Everyone was holding a box, Barthes remembers, even fellow patient Woody Allen. Only after an office assistant told the group that these boxes contained their extracted souls did the patients begin to look inside, but Barthes says she woke up before seeing her own soul in the box. She did, however, get to see the spiritual contents of Woody Allen's box, and it's that moment that would go on to become the inspiration for her directorial debut, Cold Souls.
Yesterday was a gorgeous day to kick off the 2009's season of Summer Streets, the three-Saturday event that closes down a 6.9 mile stretch of roads—along Park Avenue and other connecting streets from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park—to vehicular traffic. As part of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's exploration of the New York, the Dutch consulate's NY400 celebration has 150 orange bikes that bicyclists can rent for free—there's even a photo competition for people to enter and win one of the bikes (details here).
Sometimes slow news days are good when they allow for photos of two of the sexiest men alive. That's right! Javier Bardem and James Franco are both in town filming scenes for Eat, Pray, Love. Check out more images of Mr. Bardem on Smith Street here. According to this Twitter update, they'll both be filming scenes today (and tonight?) at Robin Des Bois restaurant in Brooklyn, along with Billy Crudup and Julia Roberts.
Through August 28th, the Yancey Richardson Gallery is looking at Times Square, then and now, the real and the unreal. The exhibit, titled Glitz & Grime, includes photographs taken in or inspired by Times Square, with both contemporary and classic photographers behind the lens. When traveling from 1945 through 2009 in just a few seconds, it's hard not to miss the old, gritty Crossroads... even if it's nostalgia for a time we never knew personally.
Excuse us for not shedding a tear, but we thought the giant Sony PSP in the sky had been taken down from its Houston Street billboard last year, and even though it was just temporary, it prepared us. Now Bowery Boogie reports on the status of the ad space, and H&M has fully taken over. No more computer glitches, just a girl in a reasonably priced leather jacket. Such a much gazed upon spot should have at least gotten the controversial Calvin Klein kids draped all over it. Will you miss the gaming system?
Looks like lovely weather for the kick-off to the second annual Summer Streets tomorrow! Starting at 7 a.m., the city will temporarily close Park Avenue and connecting streets from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park, displacing motor vehicles and welcoming pedestrians, cyclists, joggers, skateboarders and other non-combustion engine participants. Penny farthing, anyone?
Did you hear the one about the Coney Island Globe Tower? Today the Library of Congress posted a bunch of old New York Tribune covers in their Flickr pool, one displaying the ambitious tower, where the plans for it were announced in May 1906. Inside, investors were offered "a ground floor chance to share profits in the largest steel structure ever erected...the greatest amusement enterprise in the whole world...the best real estate venture." The Globe Tower would cost around $1,500,000 to erect, and the man behind it, Samuel Friede, was looking for the means to make it happen.
Click on the film stills above for more on this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which also include G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Cold Souls, A Perfect Getaway, Paper Heart, Beeswax, Canary, I Sell the Dead, Bliss, Rolling Thunder, The Talk of the Town, Red Dawn, Barton Fink, and The Third Man.
Can anyone really fill the seats of Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel? At the Movies has tried time and again, and their latest effort ousts both Ben Lyons (son of movie critic Jeffrey Lyons) and Ben Mankiewicz as hosts. And look who's finally getting their close-ups: co-chief film critic of The New York Times, A.O. Scott, alongside the Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips. Scott previously wrote about Ebert in the Times, saying, “Though they may not have intended as much, they turned what had been lonely, literary pursuit into a collaborative, antagonistic venture and a spectator sport.” The duo will make their debut on September 7th, and the show's producers believes the move "will take the series back to its roots of one-on-one film debate that was established when the show first began" in 1986. We give this move two thumbs up. And don't feel bad for Lyons, in spite of being part of what EW's Popwatch calls the "Ben-and-Ben fiasco": Back in 2004, he told us, besides sharing stories about Ivanka Trump calling him collect and Angelina Jolie flirting with him, "In five years I see myself living in Bondi Beach, Australia."
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Like every other American raised in the Reagan era and versed in such quotable phrases as "Drinking and driving don't mix, that's why I ride a bike," we were saddened to learn of John Hughes's untimely death yesterday. But now we're also angry, because today's Times obituary fails to make any mention of Hughes's funniest movie, and one of the best comedies of the '80s: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Here's just a taste of comedy gold—anyone recognize that actor playing Owen?
TMZ is reporting that writer and director John Hughes has died at age 59 while in town. The website says he was taking a morning walk during a trip to visit family. Hughes is best known as the writer and director who defined the teen genre and led to the "Brat Pack" phenomenon throughout the 1980s, creating films such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science and Some Kind of Wonderful. Hughes had a background in comedy, getting his start at National Lampoon and continuing to write screenplays for contemporary comedies up until last year's Drillbit Taylor. A majority of the teen films that Hughes shaped a generation with took place in the greater Chicago area in which he grew up, but several of his screenplays were set in Gotham, including Home Alone 2, Maid in Mahattan, and the remake of Miracle on 34th Street. He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Nancy, two sons, John and James, and four grandchildren.
The 66th Street/Lincoln Center stop is currently located in this garage in DUMBO! Unless this is some sort of portal, it seems like Hollywood magic will be trying to transform the quiet cobblestone-laden Brooklyn neighborhood into a more bustling Manhattan.
Despite rumors of animal layoffs, the Bronx Zoo has actually added two new animals: the first hyenas they've housed in 30 years. CityRoom reports that the brother and sister were shipped from the Denver Zoo in May, and are now available for viewing. They note, "The hyenas are also part of a managed program. The 17-month-old twin cubs were born on March 3, 2008, in Denver to parents named Ngozi and Kibo. The female hyena’s name is Kubwa, Swahili for 'Big,' because her head is bigger than her brother’s. The male’s name is Kidogo, Swahili for 'Small.'" They are being housed next to the African wild dogs, who allegedly used to be confused for hyenas by visitors, even though the Zoo curator says hyenas are more closely related to cats. Yes, just think of them as 250 lb, 4-foot-tall cats.
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One Queens FDNY lieutenant is doing something more than posing for calendars and, you know, saving lives; 38-year-old Terry Brody just wrote a romance novel (get a taste of it here)! The Daily News reports singer Shakira was his muse, as he got the idea for the plot when her video popped up on the firehouse television in 2003. Yesterday he was handing out copies in Times Square, and told the paper, "It's a romantic comedy about an NYC firefighter and a pop star and they meet after he saves her life in a fire," and is titled Rescuing Madison. Before you get your hopes up, ladies, this one is married with a kid—but that doesn't mean you can't make up your own romance novel about an FDNY lieutenant/author sweeping you off your feet! Meanwhile, back at the firehouse, Brody says of his fellow firemen, "They break my chops left and right. It's a book for teenage girls for the most part. They say, 'It really brought out the teenage girl inside of me."
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden announced the Greenest Block in Brooklyn today! The contest has inspired locals since 1995 to get creative with their greens and clean up their blocks. Marty Markowitz was on hand at the ceremony this morning, declaring, "Brooklyn’s gardens—and stoops, planters, window boxes, and tree beds—are the greenest!" (And those stoops sure are nice to drink a nice glass of wine on.)
You may have seen a lot of SJP-wannabes yesterday around 18th Street and 6th Avenue, as the extras casting call for the Sex and the City sequel were held. The listing called for "models, celebrity types, upscale socialites, urban clubgoers, gays and lesbians, international types (Middle Eastern, Arabic, Asian, European, British) and professional soccer players" (NYMag has more photos in their slideshow if you can't get enough of what that smorgasbord looked like).
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The Conor Harrington piece that's been up on the corner of 13th and Washington has been covered with a brand new NPA City Outdoor advertising frame and some sweet ads for Steely Dan, and major motion pictures District 9 and 2012. Street artists be warned: when you mess with The Man, you get The Dan!
Allegedly Duane Reade is getting a new look, and it looks like the natives are speaking out against the corporate chain. That's nothing new, but we still found one dissatisfied customer's sign makeover to be amusing. Do you have anything to add to their call for suggestions? Maybe they should go undercover like Starbucks.
The opening line in this Wired article is sort of terrifying: "It's 2020, and cities are so overcrowded that it’s impossible to deliver packages." The megalopolis of the future sounds claustrophobic to say the least, but just how will we get our much needed crap delivered to our doors and desks? Before it breeds post-consumer waste, it'll travel through the sewer systems!
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Dorothy McGivney started jauntsetter after leaving Google, where she worked for almost six years. After spending the better part of a year visiting destinations like Argentina, Japan, India, Nepal, Thailand and Cambodia, she decided to turn her online experience and passion for travel into jauntsetter, a travel site for New York women. It's been a fun and valuable resource since, and you may want to consider following McGivney's Twitter as well, because sometimes she'll drop a last minute deal in there for the spontaneous amongst us. If you're interested in a short journey this evening, jauntsetter is hosting a party in the exotic Williamsburg neighborhood—more details here.
Raise your one-gloved hand if you believe that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, only ever had one portrait of himself done in his entire lifetime. One couple is claiming they hold the one and only painting MJ ever posed for, and CityRoom reports that it's, unsurprisingly, now up for sale. It last sold nearly twenty years ago for $2.1 million, and it's now on display in a Harlem car showroom (at Lenox Avenue and West 129th) after being kept in storage in New Jersey. Classy! Just like the masterpiece itself. The portrait is by Brett-Livingstone Strong, a friend of Jackson's whose other work you can see here, and is currently owned by toy inventors Marty Abrams and John Gentilly. They say the painting hasn't drawn many crowds, because “we don’t put a big sign in the window, ‘Michael Jackson Painting Here.’” Speaking of New Jersey toy collectors with connections to Michael Jackson, under the June 28th entry here, a significantly lesser known musician discusses his dinner with the King of Pop at a toy inventors home in New Jersey.
Earlier today a memorial garden honoring the late actor, writer and director Adrienne Shelly was unveiled in a ceremony at Abingdon Square Park (8th Avenue and 12th Street). Her widower, Andy Ostroy, who is also the Executive Director of the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, was on hand along with other friends and family. NY1 talked to Paul Rudd on the scene, who said "She really was such a fixture in this neighborhood for so many years that it's impossible not to think of her whenever I'm here."
It's good to know the NYPD is totally on top what is surely the most important situation to hit this city in quite some time: Rob Pattinson mania. The Twilight star has caused the biggest stir since Beatlemania, and according to IrishCentral, the police here have declared, "Enough is enough. His security people aren't up to the task of keeping him safe, and they have no idea how to deal with the crowds this guy attracts." The unnamed cop goes on to say that dealing with Pattinson is like "amateur hour" for them (that's called a burn, vampire)—they say they "have celebrities a lot bigger than this guy who can come and go in perfect safety because we know how to take the right precautions. We have presidents and kings come and go. This poor kid can't get in or out of a car without things getting dangerous." But kings don't have what the cops call "Twiheads" following them around, who allegedly have confronted the actor and cut themselves so they can bleed for him. [via Gawker]
Pattinson in Brooklyn sporting fake blood, not fan blood
Outdoor summer concerts are really catching a tough break this year with all this storm business. Yesterday was the final day of the All Point West Festival, and with more rain bursting out of the dark sky, all bands scheduled to play before 4:30 p.m. were canceled. Fearless ticket holders who showed up were treated to sets by Coldplay, Ghostland Observatory, Silversun Pickups, Elbow, Echo & the Bunnymen, and more. The headliner, Coldplay, even performed songs by Michael Jackson (video) and the Beastie Boys (video). And between sets, the mud provided plenty of entertainment.
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On the first non-rainy night in what seemed like centuries, DUMBO Fight Night made its outdoor debut under the recently-reopened Manhattan Bridge Archway. Fighters from DUMBO’s Gleason’s Gym and other corners of the Tri-State area hopped into the red, white, and blue ring for 16 bouts of amateur boxing to raise money for the DUMBO Improvement District.
Remember when, in 2005, Banksy snuck in to museums and illegally hung his own work (video!)? Well, another artist has just done the same, catching up four years later—but at least he hit a different museum: the Guggenheim (Banksy got the Met, MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, and American Museum of Natural History).
Fiasco's name seems to appear on every lineup we're interested in around town, so it's about time we got to know them a little better. Comprised of Jonathan Edelstein (guitar/vocals), Julian Bennett Holmes (drums), and Lucian Buscemi (electric bass/vocals/and yes you know his dad), the trio channels some noisy muses; OMR boils the backbone down to "Sonic Youth's feedback madness, Lightning Bolt's distorted bass messiness, and Shellac's scratchy rawness." They just finished recording a new full-length upstate, tomorrow night they'll play Williamsburg's Death by Audio, and recently they told us about their influences, alien encounters on the subway, and playing Pratt illegally.
Sometimes spending a full day at a summer music festival is all about picking your spots and making do with the best you can get. Friday's All Points West lineup offered a glimpse at transcendence: the sun fighting its way through hours of cloud cover to end the Yeah Yeah Yeahs set with a final bust of light before sundown followed by a rapper headlining a rock show, opening with a cover of the band that most had bought tickets expecting to see. Yesterday's festivities sounded a little more on the aggro side with Tool's Maynard James Keenan overheard barking at the crowd, "You just can't f*** with Jersey...unless you want your ass kicked."
Not shocking: Reality TV show producers heighten the dramatic potential by leaving copious amounts of alcohol around or depriving contestants of sleep! A NY Times article explores the world of tortured reality TV contestants. Contestants on the 2006 season of The Bachelor said that after waiting many hours for a 12-hour party, "there was little food but bottomless glasses of wine. When producers judged the proceedings too boring, they sent out a production assistant with a tray of shots," with one pointing out, "If you combine no sleep with alcohol and no food, emotions are going to run high and people are going to be acting crazy." Perfect for ratings! And on the 2005-2006 season of Project Runway, with "multiple 18-hour days of shooting," Diana Eng was once very startled by a crew, "One morning they scared me so bad I jumped and screamed. They said that wasn’t good, so I had to pretend to wake up again." A University of Iowa communications studies professor sums it up, "The bread and butter of reality television is to get people into a state where they are tired, stressed and emotionally vulnerable." Hear that, reality TV fans? You might be sadists for watching it! Then again, the contestants might be masochists, so it works out.
Ideally every good summer music festival is filled with one or two moments where everyone there can't help but shake off the cobwebs of cynicism and think to themselves, "Now this is what it's all about." It's pretty safe to say that Jay-Z did just that for a few thousand people last night at All Points West, performing the takeover just as the rain cleared to begin his first American festival appearance with a cover of "No Sleep Til Brooklyn." We admit to needing a video like the one below to do just that for those of us stuck listening to APW coverage on rock radio stations suddenly caring about Jay, accompanied by DJs using it as a chance to show off their emcee skills and explain the rapper's importance due to his collaborations with The Killers, Jack White and Linkin Park. Alas, Jigga to the rescue:
HOTTTTTTTTTTTTT.
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