Results tagged “opinionist”

At first glance, the premise of Julia Jarcho's American Treasure seems clever; the production evokes film noir and Hollywood western styles to unfold a gossamer-thin "story" about a "Real History Detective," a "vagabond with a harrowing past," a malevolent human taxidermist, and "a paper trail of blood and tears that goes all the way back to this nation’s beginning—or somewhere else." Actors Aaron Landsman and Jenny Seastone Stern play multiple characters, most of them communicating in a style common to parodies of black and white detective flicks. But this affection wears thin almost immediately, and beneath all this minimalist deadpan lurks a heart of inscrutable darkness.

The office—that overly-lit, frigid warren of tedium where many of us fritter away the best years of our lives—continues to be a source of inspiration for writers, who in recent years have mined cubicles for comedy in works like Office Space, The Office, and The Thugs. The latest worthy addition to the canon comes from Ethan Coen, one half of the famously idiosyncratic filmmaking duo. Last season Coen had a hit with his Off Broadway debut Almost an Evening, a funny exploration of existentialism, religion and homicide neatly divided into three short plays. His newest theatrical venture, Offices, uses the same short play format to skewer the competitiveness, anxiety, and alienation of corporate culture. It's the perfect antidote for anyone suffering from a case of the Mondays.

At 7:10 p.m. on Tuesday night, Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain will take a big league mound for the first time as a starter. Whether he succeeds or fails at his new job may very well determine the fate of the Yankees’ season and Brian Cashman’s future with the club. Taking a dominant setup guy out of the back of the bullpen and putting him into the rotation is not a popular decision in some circles, but it is the right one for three reasons.

If you’ve ever spent a day working in an office, you'll immediately recognize Beverly Wilkins, the titular character in The Receptionist, Adam Bock's darkly comic study of corporate culture in the age of Cheney. Beverly, played here with spellbinding hilarity by Jayne Houdyshell, is the polite but potentially nasty gatekeeper for the "Northeast office" who, when she's not gossiping with friends and her coworker Lorraine (Kendra Kassenbaum), puts callers through to her boss's (Robert...

Gothamist friend and occasional Opinionist Andrew Bast has recently pulled off a nice relaunch of his site, The New York Inquirer ("We don't break the news; we put it back together") and in the process put back together some interesting stuff worth checking out. This week, for instance, has focused pretty much exclusively on the diamond trade including a five-part series on the darker side of 47th Street, one of the many hearts of the diamond trade.

The Gothamist mailbag is always an amusing read. Most of the emails are friendly tips, but once in awhile we do get some hate-mail. Remember that silly Opinionist piece we wrote last month about abortion? That one has definitely generated its fair share of negative comment. Take for instance this one, received with the subject line "Jerk!" this morning:

what tourists want to see - they want fakes, not the real thing. This came about because Louis Vuitton, perhaps the most knocked-off brand around (get some brown plasticky material, an "L" and a "V" and mustard dye and you're set!), sued landlords in Chinatown. The NY Times ">profiled a counterfeit inspector from Louis Vuitton, who saw many women carrying garbage bags full of fake LV bags; we love the idea of some spiffily dressed LV suit rubbing shoulders with folks in Chinatown - though he'd probably dress down so as not to be detected. And the Downtown Express noticed how counterfeit handbag vendors on Canal Street are moving the inventory to backrooms , in order to avoid police detection, all while quietly muttering, “Handbag Chanel Coach Louis Vuitton Prada inside.”

Sunday’s Opinionist columns are meant to be snippets and ideas about New York life, but you’ll permit me a slight diversion from topic to discuss something also fundamental to New York life – reading. Get on any subway or bus at any time of day and you’ll find about twenty people with their noses in books. I’d be willing to bet my meager earnings that there are more people that count reading as a daily activity in this city than other major cities in America, and most of that on public transportation. So, as I start my work here at Gothamist as the literature contributor, bringing New Yorkers all the news they can read about reading, I thought I’d start by reviewing a book about, well, reading.

As the country mourned the 2,000 soldiers who have died in Iraq since 2003, Cindy Sheehan, the mother who has turned her grief over her soldier son's death into a public anti-war crusade, is telling people not to support Senator Hillary Clinton. Sheehan told the AP, "I believe that any candidate who supports the war should not receive our support. It doesn't matter if they're Senator Clinton or whoever." Essentially, Sheehan feels that Clinton has made decisions that will be politically tenable, versus of moral conviction, as the junior Senator considers higher office. The NY Times points out that at the same time as Sheehan's comments, Clinton proposed that oil companies should develop alternative fuels, a "politically potent issue." It should be interesting to see which candidates Sheehan does support, especially with midterms coming up next year.