Results tagged “nickhornby”

Nick Hornby is the sort of author you find yourself trying to remember, "Is he just super popular or is he actually a really good writer?" You know that the movies High Fidelity and About a Boy were solid, and maybe you could even be charmed into liking the dumb Red Sox movie with Jimmy Fallon if you started dating someone who found it to be an innocuous rental. So it ended up being a pleasant surprise when we picked up his just-published sixth novel, "Juliet, Naked," and found the pages just started breezing by. Hornby is once again dealing with music obsession and the distance that exists in the personal relationships of the obsessive types most of us know, or possibly are.

MUSIC: If you see a lot of guitar-toting ladies and gents around the Puck Building right now, that's because CMJ has officially begun. This means there is a ton of music happening (including at our own Gothamist House starting tomorrow). Tonight we suggest hitting up Brooklyn Vegan's show at Bowery Ballroom: Voxtrot, The Rosebuds, Dean & Britta...and so many more.

The bookstore chain Barnes & Noble confirmed that the Astor Place location will be closed due to high rents. A spokesperson told the Post, "We'd like to stay there, but we really can't afford it."

Yeah, I know what you mean. I think I’m like that certainly. I don’t really play vinyl, though I do collect all these records. But one of the reasons I like to put out these albums is because some of these things have never been available on CD, and once they are then disc jockeys can play them forever. They can’t fade away like the old 45 does that I’ve had in my drawer for 20 years, or 50 years. So basically that’s the main thing, trying to get these songs to a new audience. None of these songs would be played together at one time on the same CD. I’m sort of like curating an art show or something. Trying to show you different styles of music that are all extreme, but all unironic in real life and kind of beautiful. I don’t think any of them are so bad they’re good.

We don't kow whether to cheer or chastise after hearing that a musical of Nick Hornby's book, High Fidelity, will be coming to Broadway this December. We can see it now: A recurring song called "Top Five List," a ballad about Laura, an ensemble dance piece at the end when Rob opens the club. The musical will be set in New York City, which makes it the third stop for the concept (book was in England, movie was in Chicago), which makes us wonder if songs mentioned in the book, like Katrina and Waves' Walking on Sunshine (in both the book and movie) or anything Bruce Springsteen-related, will make it to the Great White Way. The record for rock/pop on Broadway is pretty mixed - for every Mamma Mia or Movin' Out, you've got a Lennon, Good Vibrations and All Shook Up. Hmm, the more we think about it, what with bringing The Wedding Singer to Broadway, it seems like producers are desperately trying to reach the 18-34 - heck, the 25-45, year old male demographic. But will it work?

And in the NYC related part of this story, a Staten Island couple married in Massachusetts were harassed and heckled by a drunken busboy with chants of "Yankees suck!" and threats to beat up the NYC guests. The busboy even banged on the hotel room door of a relative, scaring the relative to take refufe with the newlyweds on their honeymoon night. The groom professes confusion, because the Red Sox had beat the Yankees nights earlier and the groom wasn't even a baseball fan, and is looking for damages. The hotel denies that the incident occured. Gothamist takes this as a cautionary tale of what happens when you're not married by witches in Salem, Massachusetts.

Check out Coolfer's Music Picks for this weekend. And Gothamist's favorite Nick Hornby book is High Fidelity, though Songbook is a nice lazy afternoon book to peruse; the film, About a Boy, is our favorite adaptation.

One variation on the self-centered-person-with-child film that actually works is About a Boy, based on the Nick Hornby novel. And there are tons of TV shows about this, like My Two Dads and A Family Affair.

So, then there's upcoming book, Midlife Crisis at 30 by Lia Macko and Kerry Rubin, which focuses on late 20- and 30-something women's realization that having it all may not be what it's cracked up to be, with pressures of appearances, work, love, and motherhood giving them agita - the Post outlines it all. One NYC psychologist does seem many young female patients and says that "The phenomenon is more grave in urban areas. The more stressful the lifestyle, the more this is salient." After reading the article, Gothamist wondered when we could check ourselves into Silver Hill, because clearly we have some upsetting times ahead. AND Sex and the City ended! Luckily, we have The Book of Ages: 30 to remind us that 30 is but a stop along the way to great things...sometimes.

After being caught in development hell for three years, it looks like Dave Eggers' autobiography, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, is on its way to the big screen. Universal Pictures is picking up rights to the book from New Line, and Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry) will be developing the project. Interestingly, Nick Hornby and D.V. DeVincentis (screenwriter of Grosse Pointe Blank, High Fidelity) adapted the book.

Sometimes, Netflix, as great as it is, is just not the same as heading to the video store, where you can browse through various titles and be inspired to watch something you weren't thinking about. It doesn't deliver on the instant gratification that sometimes a movie needs to bring you. Gothamist's favorite video stores are Movie Place on West 105th Street (237 West 105th Street/ 212-864-4620), Kim's Video (various locations), and the Cinematheque on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope (100B 7th Ave/ 718 399 0860) - places where you're told "We don't carry Day for Night because the only version on VHS is dubbed in English and [insert pained expression] we won't carry it." (This was 1997, mind you; Day for Night is on DVD now.) However, the downfall of having a well-stocked video store can sometimes be the staff. Think about it - Quentin Tarantino used to work at a video store. While our experiences at Movie Place and other stores have been good, some video store staffs bring the trial of deciding on a movie to watch on Friday night to a new level. Our best friend/twin sister Molly tells us about her experience at another Park Slope video store, Reel Life:

The combination of listening to Ani DiFranco's You Had Time and reading Bridget Harrison's latest column (the one night stand question) in the Post totally depressed me. Well, mainly Bridget Harrison still being upset about her breakup depressed me. I think the Ani DiFranco song is lovely, which I was reminded of when I read Nick Hornby's Songbook, which is a collection of essays about songs he loves. (My favorite essays are the ones about Nelly Furtado's I'm Like a Bird and Badly Drawn Boy's A Minor Innocent.)

. About a Boy was one of my top ten movies last year.