July 2008
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn: Keeping Those... →
Oh shut up, you big crybaby. It doesn’t matter if you’re 60. The rules of club-going are as follows (even if you’re going out in Park Slope).
1. Have your ID ready, no matter who you are or who you know. The doorman DOES NOT CARE.
2. Don’t argue with the doormen or bouncers, EVER, regardless of who you are or who you know. They DO NOT CARE, and they are paid not to...
MACKO'S MATERIALS: MGMT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE →
This is, without a doubt, the funniest thing I have read in like, months. My face hurts, I was laughing so hard! It may just be funny to me, though. Quite possible.
I Dream of a Simpler Time: I Dream of Madonna:... →
I’m not sure what made me think of this just now. Probably Cindy’s post below regarding the Confessions photos. That being said, times when it’s inappropriate to mention Madonna are few and far between.
So, about this book. This was an academic process, conceived of by Turner, who I believe was teaching at University of Texas at the time of publication. This came out in...
Fine Points - Status Sneakers, Now in Silver and... →
Oh good lord, white people. The hard stuff that won’t get your ass kicked outside your “funky” pied-a-terre on Classon is available on Fulton from any number of fine purveyors.
Tour Costs Challenge Symphony Orchestras -... →
I wondered briefly about this kind of thing when the financial services sector went into freefall. Most classy arts organizations have some kind of sponsorship from the finserv sector.
Maysles Cinema →
The Maysles Cinema, a new non-profit theater in Harlem, is dedicated to the exhibition of documentary film and video. The cinema extends the Maysles Brothers’ principle that the lives of ordinary people not only deserve, but demand, our attention. We aim to foster a democratic viewing experience by selecting and presenting movies in collaboration with independent filmmakers, programmers, critics,...
“We really like The Year of the Gun. We’re glad that it will create another...”
– Will David Carr’s ‘The Night of the Gun’ Redeem the Memoir? — Vulture — Entertainment & Culture Blog — New York Magazine
I agree in principle, but is anyone really surprised that Carr’s book is the inevitable backlash to the parade of fabricated memiors in recent years?
Bowling for Rockers in Brooklyn as Club Owners... →
Someone just take me out back and shoot me if I ever step foot in Brooklyn Bowl. Seriously. It’s the most ridiculously pretentious temple to hipster mammon ever.
That being said, the second half of the article discusses other new venues around town; I’m partial to Le Poission Rouge and am still waiting to get out to Santos Party House one of these days.
“Right as you walk into the bare concrete alley of a space, your path is blocked...”
– Critical Shopper - Oak Deconstructs Clothing and Puts It Back Together in Perplexing Ways - NYTimes.com
Why isn’t more fashion writing this delightfully hilarious? Carry on Cintra Wilson, I still love you — even if others don’t.
New Museum -- Store -- Lisa Yuskavage Shower... →
(Image NSFW, but it’s art, so … )
Times I wish I had $1500 to blow on something totally, completely, weirdly, uselessly awesome.
“There are few things that bother me more than seeing a man walking with a woman...”
– socialprimer.com
Probably my most favorite new site. Yesterday’s post about how to drink like a gentleman (stick with scotch) is utterly inspired. Read, absorb, apply.
Like the new layout? Thanks to Aja West for...
“Having the actors replay the urgent original group demonstrates how there were...”
– Northern lights - how to make a film about Joy Divison’s Ian Curtis | Music | The Observer
What’s really funny about this comment is that Morley doesn’t realize is that for some of us (ok, me), there’s a third Joy Division: The one he’s written about. The dudes just...
“The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the first analog computer, was...”
– Workings of Ancient ‘Computer’ Deciphered - NYTimes.com
Sweet band name alert: The Antikythera Mechanism!
“Wait, let me revise that headline a little bit: Lindsay and Samantha tried THE...”
– Lindsay and Samantha Try Cock - La Daily Musto - Village Voice
Tee-hee. This is so much more hilarious if a) you walk by The Cock often — which I do and b) if random delightful gay men invite you to go to the Cock with them — which they have.
I’ve never been in, but it...
“I think everybody in the retail business knows if it comes down to gas or...”
– Lobster prices fall in Maine, costing no more than sliced turkey - USATODAY.com
So of course, the mental image conjured here was of people riding lobsters down highways. Lobsters in rush hour! Parallel parking your lobster!
“The real risk here is not that Hirst will alienate his gallerists. Nor is 223...”
– Hirst at Sotheby’s - Finance Blog - Felix Salmon - Market Movers - Portfolio.com
Well, that’s totally true — I want the catalog!
Playlist for Irene Trudel - July 14, 2008 →
In case you missed Shearwater’s live performance on Irene Trudel’s WFMU show, you can stream it here.
“The opera unfolds at Wahnfried, Wagner’s home there, with the prompter’s box...”
– Abroad - Bayreuth Festival and Festspielhaus - History Vs. Modernity in German Opera Season - NYTimes.com
Review of Stefan Herheim’s staging of Wagner’s “Parsifal” at the Bayreuth Festival. OMG, I love the insanity of the German opera scene.
“There are several distinctive features of the way texts are written that combine...”
– 2b or not 2b: David Crystal on why texting is good for language | Books | The Guardian
I’m giggling at the idea of 18th century gentlemen saying “incog” to each other.
“That delightful young lady was positively incog at the masked ball!”
“I’d say a noir story is one of dark fiction. There’s a prominent...”
– Boldtype | Monthly Reviews of Books Worth Reading: Interview with Johnny Temple from Akashic Books
Welcome to Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and... →
I really, really, really want to go see this.
(via Posthumous Fame grows for artist Henry Darger, AP)
George Orwell diaries to be published as blog -... →
Amie Street - The Walkmen's Music Store →
5500:
I don’t know if I’ll ever use this site again, but I was quite happy to pay just £2.56 for the new Walkmen album. Especially when the money goes to charity(?!).
Let’s just hope the record’s better than that last one.
I liked the last album! But I have a soft spot for The Walkmen… (That’s US$5, btw)
“But mostly, I was fascinated by all the Bromance in the room. I’m certain...”
– NPR: Bromantic
Carrie Brownstein on the bromance in the air at Fleet Foxes shows. Is it terrible that the last thing I want in my life right now is a harmony-heavy dude band? Well, it’s true.
Commenters cite other occurences of bromance, which pretty much ends up being a list of bands that...
“The longlist of 13 books, often referred to as the ‘Man Booker Dozen’, was...”
– Man Booker longlist announced: Man Booker Prize news
Predix: Votes for O’Neill and Rushdie will cancel each other out, and the prize will go to neither.
Ligeti: A Sound Odyssey -- Remembering the genius... →
Great way to make sure I won’t read your article: Glaring grammatical error(s?) in the subhead.
(Granted, I am not perfect. I often misspell things in haste … but geez!)
“However, the jig is up: as a design aesthetic, Steampunk is still nascent, a set...”
– Design Observer: Randy Nakamura: Steampunk’d, Or Humbug by Design
I’ll overlook the slight error in this statement (unfortuately, Steampunk has gained, uh, steam over the past decade or so — I certainly wouldn’t call the movement a nascent one. Perhaps to the mainstream?) to...
“There’s a lot in this book to fascinate someone new to the field, and as...”
– The Economic Paradoxes of Contemporary Art - Finance Blog - Felix Salmon -
Oh, come on! I can’t take a book about the valuation of modern art seriously if the author has this attitude. What’s the point, really? It sounds like the book has other problems as well; it’s worth...
Watch(via Radar)
“In the past, our debates were sort of like sumo-style tummy bashes — a...”
– Pop music critics embrace the mainstream - Los Angeles Times
Everyone (or, well,.a few people) seem to be on Powers for … oh, some reason or another, it’s unclear. “Duh,” they all seem to be saying.
That being said, the bit quoted above really jumped out at me for its...
Teaching Online Journalism →
Conflicted. Does the very existence of this blog make me want to burn everything to the ground? Or sell my soul? It’s so hard to tell.
Related: massive Times article on on & offline literacy trends.
mondo cane: kenny mellman's SAY SEABOY, YOU SISSY... →
Mellman’s “chamber musical about homophobia, murder, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and the on again/off again relationship between gay history and the public bathroom.” At Dixon Place through Aug. 9.
“To love Forster is to reconcile oneself to the admixture of banality and...”
– E.M. Forster, Middle Manager - The New York Review of Books
I was all set to froth against Zadie Smith’s essay-thing on EM Forster that is ostensibly a review of The BBC Talks of E.M. Forster — instead, all I’ve come away with is an even deeper conviction that he’s one of my...
“This disjointed grab bag of gossip has its elucidating moments, but as the...”
– Book Review - ‘Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good,’ by Sarah Lacy - NYTimes.com
“I’m going to talk mainly about disco music, but there are two preliminary points...”
– History is made at night: In Defence of Disco - Richard Dyer (via offnotesnotes)
Must-read. From Gay Left, Issue 8, 1979
“The suit moves with its secretary into the hot evening sun, where we can get a...”
– Cary Grant’s Suit | Granta 94: On the Road Again
Perhaps the best only essay about the sartorial splendor of Cary Grant in North by Northwest ever written. (via TMN)
“In the years following Isn’t Anything, a legion of bands scrambled to uncover...”
– Simon Reynolds, in his terrific long-form article about My Bloody Valentine in the new issue of Spin. (Duffy’s on the cover. Incidentally, I have a handful of brief album reviews in the back.)
So yes, if you agree with Reynold’s assessment of late 80s/early 90s indie, and the philosophy driving it,...
“There are always people who don’t want to make changes, who are set in...”
– The man with the musical broomstick | Music | The Guardian
On the to-do list: Les Paul on Mondays at the Iridium Club. (How did I not know about this before now?!? Perhaps the $50 cover would explain it … but, you know — worth it!)
“Snoop Dogg added: “Snoop Dogg’s got love for everybody. I like how the Punjabis...”
– India’s New Partnership - Bollywood and Hip-Hop - NYTimes.com