April 2009
64 posts
from MTA...
ADVISORY: PHOTO OP: Archbishop Timothy Dolan to Bless the MTA’s Launch Site of the 7 Line Extension Tunnel Boring Machines
WHAT: Archbishop Timothy Dolan will greet workers and bless the launch site of the 7 Line Extension tunnel boring machines. He will be joined by MTA Executive Director and CEO Elliot G. Sander and President of MTA Capital Construction Michael Horodniceanu....
hmmmmmm
This Sunday join us at UnionDocs for one of the first screenings in NYC of the new Girl Talk documentary- RIP: A Remix Manifesto followed by a special discussion. RIP: A Remix Manifesto is an open source documentary about copyright and remix culture. This timely and insightful documentary has sparked intense debate on the changing models of art creation and distribution. Web activist and filmmaker...
“In 50 years, when people look back on this period in terms of the tensions between America and the Middle East, it will be noted that a large proportion of the British population liked nothing more than watching people on television, sitting around, doing nothing.”—Phil Collins
Swine flu leaves newlyweds Heidi and Spencer “in isolation,” “full hiding” in Mexico
After faking their first wedding, Heidi and Spencer got married for real on Saturday…Now they’re in Mexico, hiding from swine flu…
Alas, they still have telephones, so they called in to Ryan Seacrest this morning, and Spencer said, “we’re definitely wearing the face masks everywhere we go. We’re not...
The End! →
Just in time for the collapse of the global economy and possibly civilization, Variety reports that the principals have been lined up for a sequel to Oliver Stone’s 1987 film “Wall Street,” which added the phrase “Greed is good” to the American vernacular. Mr. Stone will direct the sequel and Michael Douglas will reprise his role as the covetous financier Gordon Gekko. Shia LeBeouf is being...
“Once, after a particularly mind-numbing soliloquy from a fellow writer at a...”
– Sheila McGrath on Emily Hahn
Gazette--Second hand stores →
It turns out that the new Mitch Hurwitz show (the old one being Arrested Development) is predictably pretty much the best thing on television.
The city, berserk →
Thank the Lord I was not in Greenpoint today. And I had dreaded going into Manhattan this morning! I pray that this is not someone I know and still, it doesn’t matter if I don’t know her—it’s absolutely terrible. My aunt is pregnant and lives on India & Manhattan Ave…. My heart flew out my throat.
If it’s not clear from this article, our team WON the Greenpoint-themed trivia night. It was incredible. Full disclosure: On our team: Greenpoint’s rep to the Parks department, a local real estate developer, the publisher of the only local newspaper and three of his reporters, and the organizer of Town Hall inc. events. Tee hee. I got like, one question.
a very "Cathy" post:
Last night I finalized the future names of my offspring / the two plants I’m buying for my room today:
For boy: Roald
For girl: Flannery
the new monks:
Nerd Identity as a Gatekeeper in Science and Technology Participation (1984) vividly describes nerd self-identity in her ethnographic study of undergraduate men at MIT. In one social event “they flaunt their pimples, their pasty complexions, their knobby knees, their thin, underdeveloped bodies” (196); in interviews they describe themselves as losers and loners who have given up...
On the HG train
Okay, so I’m doing a story this week on the Asian-American backlash against the Hipster Grifter blowup, especially in Williamsburg where Asian-American women feel uncomfortable in bars. And so I’m talking with these people all week who feel that the ONLY reason the story is a big deal is that it turns over stereotypes:
- Asian women are submissive, not agressive
- Asians are...
Orwell:
I gave in my resignation [as an imperial policeman] in the hopes of being able to earn my living by writing. I did just about as well as do most young people who take up a literary career—that is to say, none at all.
"A Eulogy for the Boombox"
“I remember some boxes so big, they required 20 D-size batteries to an already heavy box,” he says. “So these boxes were so heavy that some cats that would carry their boxes all the time, they would develop massive forearms and biceps.”
The boxes were part of a style that included white Adidas and big gold chains. Freddy was a video director and a graffiti artist at the...
The next trend for the vacant lots... →
L train tour, Earth Day →
Greenpoint PR gamble of the month:
Five actors costumed in plush masks will confine themselves to a chicken wire pen at the May 2 party at the beer retailer Brouwerij Lane, in what organizers claim is an attempt to foster kinship between Brooklynites and beasts.
“There really aren’t that many petting zoos where you get to experience an animal-human bond,”… Visitors at the party — which will also boast live music and free...
Beijing Days →
Maybe it’s just that my born-again Southern Baptist step grandfather is the least tolerant person I know, but I really loved this column about something really, really obviously hypocrticial that no one seems to have pointed out in a while:
Also, have you noticed how places that pride themselves on being superpatriotic seem to have the most people who want to abandon the country entirely...
Linking to myself again
Profile of a bizzare landlocked fishing supply store
… The store has also seen a funny upswing. What Piskorski calls “People from Bedford” come in and ask for fishing line. “I always ask them what it’s for and they always say, ‘To do a project,’” Piskorski says, aghast. “What kind of project? I don’t know what that means.” ….
“They don’t fish—these guys,” he says. They always...
Cold Stone Creamery attributes sales spike to ice... →
um. @fiatluxemburg ?
At first I was peeved to read...
In a bid to save millions of dollars in annual costs, The New York Times plans to eliminate several weekly sections, with other parts of the newspaper absorbing some of the content, …
OH NO! JOURNALISM = DEAD! read on…
The affected sections include Escapes…
Oh. Journalism very much alive. That was the shittiest piece of shit. Also, the audience—upper middle class...
This is The Best Article Ever
How the Humble Tissue Box Got So Complicated
I’m an easy crier and a frequent sneezer, so I buy lots of tissue. But for years it’s been an exercise in aesthetic resignation. The pastel, flowery boxes always look like they’ve been designed for a 1982 funeral parlor, and I usually settle for what might be called the least worst — a cheap, nondescript, store-brand box. But...
just posting about a panel discussion I went to...
leoncrawl:
art, in order to be good/great, must challenge and expose social injustices and depict the structures that govern our civilization…
My question. How can a work of art be separate from the structures that govern our civilization? The very notion is ridiculous. Every novel is about choice and therefore every novel is about class and society. I find as many challenging depictions of...
Is private space travel the new cryogenics?
From WritersWeekly Ezine:
UniGalactic Space Travel Magazine CURRENT NEEDS: “UniGalactic, LLC is looking for professional and experienced writers to research and write articles on exciting developments in the private space travel and exploration industries.” Pays $100/5-page article (A4 format, 12 point font, double space).
Worst Graphic Ever-Most fun article to write ever →
Deliberate Suffering
I missed the panel on Saturday titled “What Was The Hipster” because I was visiting my younger brother at Oberlin. He wore a shirt with glitter kittens printed on it and we attended an “exco” class that taught Scrabble strategies. At a Jazz recital, we heard a young pianist in a suit play samples from a Mr. T doll. And then we attended a party at “The Punk...
There is nothing new in the world →
iTunes is offering the first movement of Cage’s 4’33” as its Discovery Download this week. Opinion in the comments section is strongly divided. My favorite: “NOTHING more Classical than the sound of absolutely nothing.” Except, of course, for the sound of absolutely everything.
—Via Julia W
“Due to the difficult economic situation, unfortunately, I was no longer able to...”
– Nicolas Cage is selling his Bavarian castle, Schloss Neidstein, and he says it’s because of the economy. [#]
(via fiatluxemburg)
The recession as purge of all that is terrifyingly awful about American culture, anyhow. Example 1.
Heralded Kumar goes to the White House
The world is better than it was yesterday
By far the Best Thing I Have Ever Written
So, after spending six days on a 4,500 word profile, I had one hour before noon to write a quick Greenpoint Gazette story I had quickly reported over the weekend. My mind, sharpened by the 4,500 word calamity, jotted this out. There is nothing I can say other than, it was surely thanks to the easing of inhibitions and the quickened type of my sleep deprived state (My hallucination that the office...
“Rosset picked up a small wooden block onto which a photograph of his East Hampton Quonset hut had been laminated, and told me about how Mailer had bit off a chunk of an actor’s ear while filming at a nearby estate after the actor had gashed Mailer’s head with a hammer. “What was his name? Tony?” he asked Myers. (Rip Torn was the answer.) Myers went over to a cabinet...
When I am writing and I know I need to use a certain sentence structure, sometimes I can’t remember how to construct it and so I think of a quote that used it and go back to dig it up. This Mailer quote is so flawless and can be used for so many sentences of so many meanings that I am reproducing it, below. It has the same structure as a sentence about princesses’ dresses at a ball in...
