Results tagged “vietnamwar”

Two movies set in New York are coming out today, and both are getting a lot of press, promo and opined upon.

Author, critic and journalist Steven Heller started out as someone who, in the words of Paula Scher, "had been more or less oblivious to design," but went on not only to launch the careers of some of our most well-known illustrators, but also to chronicle graphic design in more than 100 books. Heller also has been a contributing editor to Print, Eye, Baseline and I.D., writes obituaries for The New York Times and a column for the Book Review. A Times art director for 33 years, 30 of which he spent at the Book Review, Heller, a New York City native, is the co-founder and co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts (he has lectured at SVA for 14 years). Today, a retrospective of Mr. Heller’s work opens at the School of Visual Art’s Visual Arts Museum.

EVENT: The New York Book Club at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum presents…"Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered New York City". The panelists include "Hal Buell, longtime AP photo editor who put images of the Vietnam War in newspapers across America; Richard Drew, AP photographer who has covered New York events including 9/11; Edie Lederer, longtime UN correspondent and first woman to be the foreign chief of bureau; and Valerie Komor, corporate archives director of the AP."

translated into 13 languages, a third that's in the works, and a development deal with Revolution Studios.

The prolific journalist and author David Halberstam died yesterday in a car crash outside of San Francisco. Halberstam, a New Yorker, was traveling in a car that was broadsided while trying to make a left turn. Two other cars were involved in the crash, none of the drivers were seriously injured. The NY Times obituary notes that Halberstam "was killed doing what he had done his entire adult life: reporting," as he was on his way to interview a football player for an upcoming book.

SCIENCE: The UnCoolKids have done it again, scoping out the science events around the city. Tonight is Café Scientifique:

ART: Running through March 7th at Gavin Brown's enterprise at Passerby is "Radical Living Papers". Some of the passionate writers of forty years ago will have their words become a part of this exhibit, which serves as a snapshot of the Vietnam War era and a history of counter-culture and alt press. Publications (all from the 60s and 70s) include Rolling Stone, The Black Panther, Freep, The Seed and the Los Angeles Free Press.

Maybe it was the umpteenth “F Bush” tag that seen in the subway station. Or maybe it was President Bush’s interview on Sixty Minutes last night. But recent news about the war, troop deployments and civil rights has infused us with feeling like we're in the 21st Century version of the Wonder Years. This is not the Sixties, but it seems like today’s commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. has gotten some of us in that Sixties kind of mood.

The story about Wesley Autrey jumping into the subway tracks yesterday afternoon to save a fellow straphanger at the 137th Street downtown 1 platform gets more amazing. It turns out that Autrey and two other women had helped 20 year old Cameron Hollopeter right before the fall - Hollopeter had a seizure and Autrey used a pen to keep his mouth open. They called for a station agent's help, but Hollopeter got up and stumbled into the tracks before help came.

Jude Narita’s solo show Walk the Mountain, currently running at Theater for the New City, delves into the horrors endured by women who survived the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge. The text of the play is inspired by interviews Narita conducted with Vietnamese and Cambodian women; throughout the performance she plays a wide variety of roles to create a detailed portrait of human suffering.

THEATER: Jude Narita's one-woman show, Walk the Mountain, is about the hellish effects of the Vietnam War. In the wrong hands, this might make for an unbearably ponderous evening, but the Times review puts us at ease: “In dramatizing unspeakably horrific events, must an artist end up brutalizing her audience as well? [Jude Narita] reminds us that it's possible for a performer to treat both her material and her audience with respect.” For Walk the Mountain, Ms. Narita interviewed Vietnamese and Cambodian women who survived the horror and traces the country’s history of resistance back to 39 A.D., when a Chinese invasion was thwarted. L.A. Weekly called it “haunting and heroic.” - John Del Signore

Ed Bradley, longtime CBS News journalist and 60 Minutes correspondent, died today at age 65. Bradley had been diagnosed with leukemia some years ago, but a recent infection made his condition life-threatening.

Comedian Dane Cook has a massive following, from his huge record sales to his zillions of MySpace friends. This weekend we'll see if he can extend the brand loyalty to the cineplex, as his first starring role in ). This flick isn't going to end world hunger or stop nuclear proliferation, but it's moderately amusing and worth $10.75 if you're in the mood for a light comedy.

Almost two years ago, the cornerstone at Ground Zero was placed at the World Trade Center site. But now it's been moved to Hauppague, NY! The NY Times reports that the largely symbolic slab of granite was moved in order to accomodate the new designs for the space, as there's been a new Freedom Tower design in the meantime. Developer Silverstein Properties said the cornerstone "needs to be repositioned to make sense in the new building." But don't fear: It will be on display at Innovative Stone where it was made - you need to make an appointment though. Well, at least people will be able to see it (we're trying to find the silver lining, because it's too easy to complain about anything to do with the WTC rebuilding process).

Recently, there's been a bit of opposition ot the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's World Trade Center Memorial design, which was selected over two years ago, with the main complaints being that the memorial was partly subterranean. Now the LMDC has issued a letter to the complaining families saying that memorial will be built as planned, as construction will begin next month.. The Post received a letter, which has LMDC president Stefan Pryor explaining that when letters about the memorial design were sent to 5,000 family members in 2004, only 400 forms were returned and only one mentioned the "below grade" location. (We wonder if the families would, in turn, say that the forms were not very clear.) Pryor's letter also included the thought, "While we understand that, as is inevitable in a process of this complexity, some of you may still disagree with choices that have been made, those choices were made in good faith." Gothamist still doesn't know how to feel about the WTC Memorial design - it has changed significantly, in order to meet other development issues, since it's initial presentation. The unfortunate thing is that usually people only know how they feel about physical spaces until they are built - we're thinking about the opposition to the Vietnam War Memorial during the pre-construction period.

Gothamist loved this headline from Jay Rosen's Pressthink: From what we can tell, the Internet doesn't enter the mainstream media until at least six months out. Anyway, some wonder if there's a blog backlash in the making (from CBS Marketwatch, no less) and whether or not blogs get the facts straight. Other wonder if this will speed up Rather's retirement plans. The NY Times analyzes Dan Rather's apology, which makes us think of ESPN Page 2's What Was Dan Rather Thinking?, the Dan Rather watchdog site, Rather Biased, and Gawker's Dan Rather Death Watch.

While the purpose of the Times article about selected WTC memorial Reflecting Absence is to explain how landscape architect Peter Walker joined original designer Michael Arad, the real story is about designer and WTC memorial juror Maya Lin. Lin, who designed the Vietnam War Memorial as well as the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL, as well as a dreamy Wave Field at University of Michigan, was a supporter of Reflecting Absence. The article also includes her September 2002 idea for a memorial the New York Times magazine commissioned, which bears a "superficial resemblance" to the winning design, mainly the pools where the towers once stood, though reporter David Dunlap stresses that Lin did not commandeer the jury into choosing Reflecting Absence.

The Fog of War site has an interesting lesson plan (PDF) for teachers that acts as a great way for anyone to brush up on their history.

If it's fall, it must be time for the New York Film Festival. This year, the opening night film is Mystic River, the ensemble drama directed by Clint Eastwood. The cast is ridiculously loaded with great actors: Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins, Laura Linney, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laurence Fishburne. The story is dark, eliciting comparisons to Eastwood's tour de force western, Unforgiven, but its present day setting makes it more wrenching. Sean Penn also stands a good chance of being nominated come Oscar time, based on the buzz of his performance as a father whose daughter is murdered.