September 20, 2007
Not Without Notice
R.I.P. Jimmy R.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:46 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
August 27, 2007
Network Synergy––Jailbait Edition
It's nice to see that the network that airs the vigilante program "To Catch A Predator" appreciates both sides of a story when it comes to salaciously coveting scantily clad young teenage girls. NBC aired the Miss Teen USA pageant over the weekend, which basically was a two-hour ogling session of girls as young as 15 posing before cameras for America's titillation. NBC's Stone Phillips will show up at your house and make you want to kill yourself for wanting to have sex with these girls, but the network will happily sell ad time to corporations if you're willing to just fantasize about it.
Miss Teen USA is an all-class production, from the formal gown ceremony to the swimsuit competition. How could it not be top flight? It's presented by Donald Trump! If you'd like to be the next Miss Teen USA, but lack any discernable skills other than frustrating guys at your high school by dating someone much older, that's cool. "Performing talent is not a requirement."
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:30 PM | Television | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
Orientation Week and High Quality T-Shirts
It's orientation week for a lot of schools in New York City, so I wrote a post at the other site about things that colleges and universities are doing to welcome incoming freshmen. They range from the mundane (a class on how to navigate City College's library) to quintessentially 2007 (how to socially network face to face in the age of Facebook and MySpace), which leads me to believe that the freshmen of today might very well be even more socially akward than I was as way back when. Fortunately, I fell in with a good crowd of people almost from the start and everything worked out fine. I bumped into one of that crowd this week on 43rd St. in Manhattan, completely randomly, as we were both rushing off to different destinations.
I e-mailed her today to say it was a nice coincidence, with a link to the post about college orientation, noting that it had been exactly XX years since our orientation. Her reply was a perfect storm of surprise, alarm, denial, and consternation in about a dozen words: "are you serious? that's frightening, i don't know what you are talking about! yikes." My sentiments EXACTLY!
As I wrote her back, I realized that the t-shirt I was wearing was purchased during that orientation week many many years ago; probably the first day, likely with money my parents slipped me after moving me into my dorm. My t-shirt is not as old the class of incoming freshmen arriving at Columbia, NYU, Fordham, and other schools across the country, but it is getting alarmingly close to the point where I will be able to say "I was wearing this shirt before you were born, so gimme your subway seat punk."
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:05 PM | Blogs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
July 27, 2007
Coney Island on the Sly
The boardwalk ballpark that is home to the Brooklyn Cyclones has a special tribute night this Saturday. Coney Island's Keyspan Park is hosting Sly Night, a tribute to Sylvester Stallone. I cannot improve on the promo material:
Stallone has created some of the most long-lasting and legendary characters in pop-culture history, from Rocky Balboa to John Rambo, to Lincoln Hawk, to Marion Cobretti, to Snaps Provolone, to Ray Tango, and more.It's been too long since I've seen Cobra, ("This is where the law stops and I start - sucker! "). If you're concerned that the Cyclones people have forgotten some of his more memorable roles, such as the unfrozen policeman, don't fear; organizers have their eyes on the ball.
20 years since Over The Top. Where does the time go? Tagged:
In commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the 1987 movie Over The Top (in which Stallone plays a struggling trucker competing in a Las Vegas Arm Wrestling Championship, and sporting a New York City Arm Wrestling T-shirt), the New York Arm Wrestling Association (NYAWA) will host over 100 men and women competing that day for the 25th Annual White Castle ‘Kingsboro’ Golden Arm Wrestling titles, featuring a championship match taking place on the dugout during that night's game!
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:26 AM | Culture & | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
July 11, 2007
Movies Love Bald Guys
I used this picture on the other site yesterday. The more I look at it, the funnier I think it is, so I had to post it over here as well. Jen and Jake hosted a party at a lower east side bar for friends of the site Monday and I got to meet some regular readers, including people whose photos I use frequently for Extra, Extra. It was not a disappointing experience. Most were as pleasant in person as they are talented and interesting online. I didn't get to meet the person who took this photo on a subway platform, but I wish I had.
(Untitled photo of adjacent movie posters, by dogseat at flickr)
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:16 AM | Film | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
June 12, 2007
Heads Up For Today on TV & the Web
A new season of "Rescue Me" begins tonight on FX, as viewers are entreated to share in the ongoing travails of FDNY suicidal anti-hero Tommy Gavin, played by Denis Leary. When Tommy's not getting himself or a member of his crew nearly killed rescuing someone at the scene of a fire, he's killing himself gradually with the booze, or women, or complete strangers he goads into beating him senseless. Even when sober, Gavin is haunted by the ghosts of dead friends killed on 9/11, people he couldn't save, and even his own dead son, who was mowed down by a drunk driver when Tommy wasn't paying close enough attention. Sometimes even Jesus and Mary Magdalene drop in to say hello.
"Rescue Me" is one of the things I love about channels like FX, which air programs that could never conceivably be aired on regular network television. The show is raunchy, morose, and usually wickedly funny. Tommy Gavin is the ultimate anti-hero; you wish he could extricate himself from his self-defeating behavior, but at the same time he is so hateful towards himself and others, you kind of wish him the worst.
My favorite character in the show is Lou, Tommy's co-worker at their firehouse (and pictured above). Lou's hounddog visage and slumped shoulders bely the fact that he often gets the funniest lines of the entire show, and his character might be the only genuinely likable one of the lot. One of the people I work with at Gothamist recently got to interview John Scurti, the actor who plays Lou, and that piece will go up later today. I'll provide a link when it's ready. "Rescue Me" returns tonight on FX at 10pm. Here's the interview with actor John Scurti, who plays Lou. It's pretty great.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:48 PM | Internet , Television | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
Typos and Postscripts
I have a considerably greater number of readers at the other site than I do here at Lexiphane.com. Paradoxically, I very rarely have typos or lexigraphical mistakes in my posts here, because I tend to read and re-read my posts over and over looking for any errors. With a high-volume site like Gothamist, I tend to get a post up and then am moving onto the next thing, or reading someone else's post, or answering one of a dozen emails sitting in my Inbox. Simultaneously, there are many readers who I suppose consider it kind of a parlor game to point out solecisms in the Gothamist Comments sections and heap abuse upon the site's contributors, especially Jen. Favored themes tend to be along the lines of
"Hey, you're a big-time professional site! Why don't you act like it?
"Hey, we know you're rolling in cash from all these ad dollars we're generating with our visits, how about hiring a copy editor off of craigslist, or at least hire some writers who've graduated from college?
"Hey, you suck!"
The other week, I actually had a guy email from France and identifying himself as David Sedaris, who said that my grammar was the worst he had ever encountered in an online environment. Maybe it was him, maybe not, but that hurts 'cause he is one of my favorites, I do have a huge crush on his sister Amy, and he was addressing a man who sits all day with a copy of Strunk & White's 'Elements of Style' at his elbow and at the ready. Yesterday, especially, was pretty brutal. But, fair enough.
Today I was doing a post on the filthy bathroom facilities for cab drivers at Newark International Airport that linked to an article from 1010 WINS, the NYC news station. The station's article had several errors. So I decided to add the following to my post at Gothamist:
I thought it was pretty funny, but Jen made me take it out. I guess it's kind of like poking a stick at a nest of hornets. You might have the best poking-stick ever conceived by nature, but it probably won't turn out that great for you all the same. Tagged:
"Postscript: In the article linked to above, we couldn't help but notice, amid all the trademark and copyright information tailing the piece, the following disclaimer: 'In the interest oftimeliness, this story may contain occasional typographical errors.' The disclaimer itself contains a run-together typo! We are frankly and totally disappointed at CBS Broadcasting's shoddy lack of professionalism in this matter. One would think that CBS Broadcasting, as part of the 'Tiffany Network,' would have some more regard for the sensibilities of its readers and would perhaps at least consider hiring a proofreader off of craigslist or something. We plan on letting them know as much via an indignant letter."
Posted by Lexiphane at 9:45 PM | Blogs | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
Just a Few Thoughts on Paris
Paris Hilton, savvy self-promoter and beautiful heiress. I have a friend who went to high school with her (well, before Paris became a dropout) and have been told the dumb blonde role is no act, except for the blonde part. The young woman freaked out her first days in jail, so they let her out. In The Shawshank Redemption, one of the guards beats "a fresh fish" to death for wailing away his first night in prison. Why'd that guard's California counterpart get the night off when Paris reported to jail? A reader wrote in with this Hilton quote regarding her brief jailing:
”I was severely depressed and felt as if I was in a cage,”Wow, she caught on quick didn't she? Kiddo, you are in a cage. It's called jail. She wound up freaking out so much that she was released after three days with a note from her doctor. Now, I thought a note from your doctor was enough to get you out of gym class. Who knew that its power extended all the way to the Califorinia prison system? Can I use a note from my doctor to get out of paying taxes as well?
The medical emergency that Paris Hilton was experiencing was that she wasn't taking her medication (cocaine?) and that she hadn't eaten anything since entering jail. Well, I'm a born skeptic but I suspect there have been many periods when Hilton's gone a lot longer than that without eating.The supposed reason that Paris wasn't eating is that she was paranoid that someone would snap a quick picture of her while she was going to the bathroom. Hmm, I estimate about a billion people around the world have seen a full-length video of Hilton with a penis in her mouth; also, she basically pioneered the celebrity cooch-flashing shot. I doubt a blurry picture of her on a stainless steel toilet snapped with some guard's camera phone would even warrant a $50 bounty from Star Magazine.
I am utterly agnostic on the phenomena that is Paris Hilton. Is she getting treated a little more strictly than the average person caught in the same circumstances? Probably. But then again, by an accident of birth she found beauty, unfathomable wealth, and essentially the entire world handed to her on a silver platter, so "unfair" might be a word she should strike from her already limited vocabulary. And those are my few thoughts on Paris Hilton. Her sister's more my type anyway.
Tagged:
Posted by Lexiphane at 7:14 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
June 2, 2007
Last Chance! Don't Miss It
It's the last performance of an original play, and if you're not up before noon you will probably miss it. I've taken "remiss" to new levels in not talking about this, because there were only three performances, beginning Friday. The Haberdasher Theater Company have been performing "Tom's Dilemma", written by Adam Wier, directed by Arlyn Mick since Friday. Its run is unfortunately short and sweet. I actually know jack about what the content is other than the copy on a handbill I've been given.
Randy hasn't been very good at confrontation
Jezzy hasn't been very good at accepting her past, up until this point
Tom mst make the most difficult choice in life. One that will affect them all forever.
I do, however, know a few of the members of this theater company and have high expectations about the production. "Tom's Dilemma" is being performed for the last time tomorrow at the Times Square Arts Center, at 300 (btw 8th and 9th Aves.) West 43rd St., on the 5th Floor. Sunday's a matinee, so set your alarms and bring $15 for a ticket. Curtain rises at 3 p.m. Believe me, it's rare you ever regret going to these types of things.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:43 PM | Art | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
May 20, 2007
Yanks Can Head Back to the Bronx on a Winning Note
The Yankees at least managed to exit the third and final game of their Subway Series with the Mets with a win and with the help of an unlikely savior. 22-year-old Tyler Clippard was just called up from his Triple-A minor league team to be the starting pitcher in front of a sold-out Shea Stadium crowd against hometown rivals the Mets, in a game that was being broadcast nationally. Worse yet, since it was an interleague game, Clippard was going to be required to bat facing a Major League pitcher, and he probably hasn't stepped into a batter's box since high school.
The young pitcher distinguished himself fantastically: allowing only three hits and one run over six innings, while walking three and striking out six. That is a pretty damn fine performance for any starting pitcher. And unbelievably, Clippard actually hit a double in the top of the 6th inning, so he was 1 for 2 with a sacrifice bunt at three times at bat. As he will probably not return to the plate for some time, Clippard can brag to his new teammates that he now possesses the team's highest battering average at .500.
Mariano Rivera gave up a 9th inning home run, but he and reliever Scott Proctor managed to hold themselves together to give Clippard a 6-2 win. Jorge Posada only managed to hit 1 for 4 with a walk during the game, but his one hit was another homerun, which moved him into 10th all-time among Yankees batters. Jeter went 2 for 4, with an intentional walk. His two hits were a double and a two-run homer.
Odd game note: first baseman Doug Mientikiewicz was hit by the Mets pitcher in the top of the 7th, but homeplate umpire Tony Randazzo wouldn't let him take his base, saying that he had purposefully not avoided a hardcutting curve ball. You don't see that very often.
Boston's in town tomorrow and Mike Mussina's the expected starter for the Yanks. It could not go more disastrously than Boston's last visit to the Bronx.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:46 PM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
May 15, 2007
I WISH SPAMMERS WOULD AT LEAST RESPECT ME ENOUGH TO INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE
Is anyone else getting the impression that email spammers are just phoning it in these days? I receive about 150 spams a day, which is bad enough, without the fact that I feel like my intelligence is being insulted by a marked lack of effort put into what's landing in my Filter Box. My spams used to come dressed up with familiar names and subject lines that would make me think they were part of an ongoing conversation I was having with a friend ("From: Meg, Subject: re: Oh yeah, I almost forgot!"). Now my spam emails come from three different but never varying address IDs: myself, someone offering me oral sex, and someone who self-identifies as a jackass.
What is even the point of this? Am I supposed to be tricked into thinking "Oh yeah! I forgot that I emailed myself 40 times today. I wonder what I sent?" or "I can't wait to see what a guy named jackass is so intent on telling me that he emailed me 110 times in a row?" Here's what "blowjob" couldn't wait to tell me:
Hi guys! Cheak my home page plz... Have pleasure when open it??? I Think
Yes! Becous this is BLOWJOB! It`s The Coolest and THE Biggest site about
Blowjob! The Hotest babes take blowjob! Super sexy!!! Cheak this out and
take it easy ;)
Jackass has been entreating me to enroll in an Italian rehab clinic for the last seven months. The ones addressed from myself are actually just blank IDs that a software forwarder for another address sends me, which is actually even lamer than trying to fool me that I am emailing myself.
Things have reached such a pathetic state that late last week I actually read the entire text (and it was looong) of a message sent to me by a Nigerian who was most excited about undertaking a properous business venture with me. At least I got the impression that he cared about wasting my time.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:39 PM | Blogs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
May 10, 2007
CONGRATULATIONS WIL NIEVES
Yankees alternate catcher Wil Nieves was in for Jorge Posada this evening. Nieves is a rarity on the offensively productive Yanks, in that he is the only player without a hit this season; or was. In the 4th inning and ahead 2-0 in the count, the hitless Nieves was still game to lay down a sacrifice bunt to move Doug Mientkiewicz from second to third and collect yet another out. But every man has his role, and Mientkiewicz wound up scoring on a single from Jeter later in the inning.
Again in the 6th inning, Nieves was the second Yankee to bat following the team's first baseman. In this case, however, Mientkiewicz had just grounded out and the bases were wide open with no one to advance. On a 1-0 pitch, Wil seized his destiny and swung away, connecting and sending the ball into left field. It should be noted at this point that Nieves hasn't just not hit this season, he hasn't been scored with a hit in five years: since 2002 when he played for the San Diego Padres. OK, so here is Nieves, who hasn't had to run up the first baseline in a game for five years, probably giddy with excitement. And damn if he didn't hit that ball deep. He should just round first and go for the double while he's at it. And second base is where he was met by Texas Ranger Kinsler, who was waiting for him after a strong throw from Wilkerson, the Texas left fielder. In spite of his overexuberance in trying to get to 2nd, Nieves was still credited with a single.
Nieves teammates in the dugout were obviously thrilled that he'd finally gotten a hit for the first time in five years. But they appeared to be howling in laughter at the fact that he was tagged out for trying to stretch that hit into a double. The Yanks were up 6-2 at that point in the game, so they could afford a chuckle at Nieves triumph and expense. They wound up winning the game with that score.
NB: Mike Mussina was on his game, giving up only two runs on three hits with one walk and two strikeouts over six innings. Two asshole fans were arrested in the top of the 9th for running onto the field--in separate incidents--while Mariano Rivera tried to close for the win.
Tagged: hits, yankeesPosted by Lexiphane at 8:20 AM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
May 8, 2007
SELLING THE FIRST AMENDMENT
The idea of a museum celebrating the Constitution's first amendment guarantee of a free press seems like a great idea, especially if it's one that highlights the great personal costs that can be associated with exercising that freedom. That sounds like what the new Newseum being built in Washington D.C. might offer:
Time magazine’s armored truck from the Balkans, pockmarked with bullet holes, has been hoisted into place. The laptop used by Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered in Pakistan in 2002, has arrived. So has the vest that Bob Woodruff of ABC was wearing last year when he was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.
Like the modern media that enjoys those hard-fought and costly freedoms, however, it seems like the Newseum is eager to cheapen, trivialize, and whore itself out for a buck as quick as it possibly can. One of the items also on display will be the bedroom slippers of Ana Marie Cox, the original Wonkette, who partnered up with a hooker to make her name as a blogger/journalist while helping the hooker sell her book. So, real classy. And nothing shouts freedom of the press like luxury apartments and a Wolfgang Puck restaurant!
The building’s transparent exterior is meant to convey the idea of a free press and an open society. A mammoth rectangle frames the facade, suggesting a television or computer screen that provides what the museum calls a “window on the world.” Visitors enter through a Great Hall of News, where they can see breaking stories on a giant digital “zipper” before setting out on a 1.5-mile path of displays and interactive kiosks. The building, which has seven floors, also contains 135 upscale apartments, Newseum shops and Wolfgang Puck’s three-story restaurant, the Source.
Remember when people used to bitch about the proliferation or growing size of museum gift shops? That was so cute. This isn't a museum about freedom of the press. This is a museum about the media. A big profitable, self-aggrandizing, navel-gazing window into the world of news as business and spectacle. If I were Marianne Pearl, I would ask for my late husband's laptop back.
Tagged: media, newseumPosted by Lexiphane at 12:02 PM | Journalism | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
IN OTHER WORDS . . .
Special edition of "In Other Words . . ." for you this week; and by special I mean lower quality, shorter, and less inclusive. Jen and Jake's trip out to the west coast was a success, but left me all discombobulated here at lexiphane. That's the excuse I'm using anyway. Long story short: there's been 55 posts over there since the last installment of this feature. I am not linking and captioning each one of them individually. There are a few highlights though:
Images of Old New York
I find a site with a literal treasure trove of historical photographs. The NYC ones alone are worth looking through for hours. Certified Time Waster.
Penny Antics
Race-baiting pol reduce a Chinese take-out worker to tears in front of the media and threatens future jail time to boot. He is called out on his assholery.
Murdoch Bids For Wall Street Journal
NY Post and Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch bids for the most esteemed property in newspaper publishing. We mock up what a News Corp.-owned Journal might look like.
Claremont Academy to Ride Off Into the Sunset
The oldest horse stable in the country, blocks from Central Park, is quickly closed for given reason of overcrowding on the park's bridle trails. Something smells in the stable though, so I suss out the property's prospects for condo development.
Last Ride Out of Claremont
Claremont instructors take the stable's horses out for a final ride around Central Park as onlookers cry and cheer, and lo!, the ink is already drying on the stables' sale to condo developers. Readers and riders cry "horseshit!" in the comments section.
Family, Friends, and Co-workers Pay Tribute to Marvin Franklin
One of two subway track workers killed on the job within days of each other is buried in Queens. The track inspector was also a talented artist whose frequent subjects were the homeless. His death, and the recent death of two homeless people in the subway, are a tragic intersection of two stories.
I'll try not to be so slack in the future about updating posts over there back here. In the meantime, a good link one should probably just bookmark is this one. It's a link-list of all my entries at Gothamist.com.
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:10 AM | In Other Words . . . | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
May 5, 2007
HURRAY FOR SPRING WEDDINGS
As much as I love New York City, I wonder if I'll ever know its nooks and crannies as well as my friend pictured above. While many of our friends headed off to the sticks after high school (cities like Boston and DC), this woman made a beeline for NYC, where she spent . . . let's just say many many years. I would come for visits and she would drag me from one end of Manhattan to the other. I would not know where the hell I was half the time. She was my municipal mentor, which is kind of funny considering we grew up around the corner from each other.
Youthful antagonisms can flower into the best friendships, and I believe we still have a good one, despite her decampment to parts practically unknown down south a few years ago; I believe it's called Ball-mor or something, but who can tell with those accents? In the meantime, I feel like I'm holding her an open seat on a crowded subway train up here in NYC. Actually I should be holding two. The gentlemen in the above picture is her husband, who grew up in NYC, so it's a perfect match obviously. They just got married today and, looking at my clock, the west coast reception should be getting into full swing right about now.
Last year, I was on one of my city constitutionals, where I tend to walk for long periods of time with no particular destination, but a vague idea of the types of things I want to see. It was relatively early in the evening, but it was a winter month, so almost dark. I was walking east on 20th St. and saw a pair of people walking towards me as I approached Irving Place. We met right in front of the gates to Gramercy Park, and it was my now-married friends in town from Balmoral(?) to see a small show. Given that they no longer lived in NYC, I was walking in a completely random fashion, and they weren't even near the venue they were destined for, it was very serendipitous. I hope both our paths keep crossing for a long time. Congratulations M&B! Best wishes for a continued wonderful life together.
(M&B rehearsing their performance art piece in which they become anthropomorphosized semaphor flags)
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:44 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
May 4, 2007
NYTIMES PHOTO EDITOR HAS A SICK/SLICK SENSE OF HUMOR
Remember when Newt Gingrich thought we should give laptops to every kid in America as a way to solve . . . .we're not sure what the hell that was supposed to solve, but it sure sounded like a stupid plan to us. High school-aged kids are interested in a few primary things: pornography (boys), gossip (girls), and cheating (all). Universal laptop ownership by teens just facilitates all of those things to the nth degree. Ten years gone, The New York Times takes a look at what a colossal flop such an idea would have been, by examining schools that tried it.
We don't actually care about the article; stupid in the past remains stupid in the present. We do love that the Asst. Managing Editor for Photography, Michele McNally used the photograph above (that we've enhanced for your enjoyment) as the graphic for the story. One's eyes are naturally drawn to the kid using the computer's tshirt. It reads "I'm a Drinker, Not a Fighter". That would've warranted a suspension back when we were in high school, oh so many years ago. What's crazy is the bumper sticker affixed to the laptop. It reads "Gun Control Means Using Both Hands." That's some serious gallows humor at that high school. Given that it's a school-owned computer inside a school in the age of school shootings, however, I bet that kid is suspended now. And McNally is our new favorite reason to read the Times.
Tagged: humor, new york times, photographyPosted by Lexiphane at 7:35 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
May 2, 2007
COMPACT FLUORESCENT DIMBULBS
I hate for this to become a hobbyhorse, but beware when zealots, politicians, and big business decide to get into bed with you, because when morning comes around, you always wind up being the one with a sore ass and pushed onto the floor without a blanket. I rehashed the idiocy of the current state of compact fluorescent bulbs back in January [see NOT THE BRIGHTEST BULB (OR IDEA) IN THE PACK, 1/03/07]. My point then was that maybe big businesses like Wal-Mart should stop trying to cram more-expensive products down consumers' throats by browbeating suppliers, and maybe try using their market presence to encourage the purchase of products people actually want. I mentioned that Wal-Mart execs trying to misguidedly save the world today will find themselves hauled before Congress 30 years from now to explain how they used their market dominance to force consumers to purchase more-expensive products that turned every landfill in the country into a hazmat site.
Consider this story from last week's Financial Post. A woman installing a compact fluorescent light bulb in her daughter's bedroom accidentally broke it. Concerned, she called Home Depot to see what she should do because she'd heard about the danger of mercury to children. Eventually she got passed along to an environmental agency that recommended a hazmat cleanup contractor that sealed off her daughter's bedroom like she was hiding E.T. in her closet and eventually handed the woman a $2,000 bill. For a broken lightbulb.
Let's multiply that by a 100 million households in the U.S. and I can't wait for the fun. Why don't we just decorate our dinner tables with fizzling sticks of TNT and be sure to depart on our post-prandial constitutionals before our dining rooms are kill zones? Better yet, let's have the government mandate that. I frankly think the hazard of a broken fluorescent bulb is probably overblown, otherwise the giant ones we'd always break against a dumpster in the alley behind a store I worked at when I was a kid would've left me brain damaged; but then perhaps it did.
I'll admit that CFLs are good for things like lighting broad areas harshly from places that would make replacement a pain in the ass. Consumers already gladly shell out the extra dough for long-lasting bulbs in such circumstances. If you want their use encouraged and widespread on a voluntary basis, I recommend using 1% of the energy and money spent touting shitty lights as great and encouraging the adoption of fragile household poison bombs, and put it towards building a better product that people might want to buy because it make sense, saves them money, and they actually want them.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:34 PM | Politics & Policy | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
May 1, 2007
The Yanks May Be Cursed
The Yankees may actually be cursed this season. Phil Hughes is the young pitching phenom the team hoped to develop in the minors for a few years, but was called up recently to rescue a team whose starting pitcher staff has been decimated by injuries. The 20-year-old got off to a rocky start in the major leagues with a loss last week, but was fantastic in Arlington, Texas last night against the Rangers. After 6 1/3 inning, Hughes was nearly flawless on the mound walking three and striking out six after 20 batters faced. With two strikes on the Rangers' first basement in the bottom of the seventh, the kid was one strike away from needing to face only seven more at-batters to achieve a no-hitter. But as he came out of his delivery Hughes winced in pain and grabbed the back of his leg. He tried to play cool, but catcher Jorge Posada knew what he saw. He approached the mound and quickly summoned pitching coach Ron Guidry and manager Joe Torre. In the final third of a potential no-hitter, Hughes was yanked from the game. His relief, Mike Myers, managed to get out of the inning but quickly gave up a double and a single in the 8th, allowing a run to score in 1 2/3 innings.
The Yankees offense was phenomenal, clobbering Texas starter Kameron Loe for 10 hits and nine earned runs in just four-plus innings. By the end of the game, New York had come to bat 48 times with 14 hits and 10 runs, winning 10-1. 2nd baseman Cano went 4 for 5 at the plate, with two doubles and three RBIs. Catcher Jorge Posada continued his magic ways with a 3 for 4 performance with two RBIs and a walk. Loe certainly wasn't helped by his defense, who extended innings with two errors; his team committed another in the 9th inning.
It wasn't until after the game that spirits were dampened by worries realized. Phil Hughes' injury was more serious than he was letting on. He could be out of the Yankees pitching rotation until mid-June at the earliest with a significantly injured hamstring. This is a catastrophic development for a team that just thought it had found its young savior.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:24 PM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
April 24, 2007
NEW LEVELS OF GOV'T PATERNALISM
Mayor Bloomberg seems to be looking abroad for his policy proposal ideas recently. His big Earth Day initiative was to timidly raise the concept, and then come out full-bore in favor of congestion pricing in Manhattan. It would involve charging drivers $8 to use Manhattan's busier streets from 6am to 6pm. London started a similar program just two months ago.
Now Bloomberg is down in Mexico studying a program dubbed Conditional Cash, but called Opportunidades south of the border. It involves the government paying poor people for attaining certain goals, like seeing a doctor regularly, making sure your kids attend school, and following proper nutritional guidelines. Actually, only women can receive the money. It's assumed Mexican men will just blow the cash on tequila and cockfights.
If this sounds like government paternalism taken to an extreme, that's because it is paternalism--literally. This amounts to the Mexican government giving its citizens an allowance as long as they've done their chores and eaten all their vegetables. Why is Bloomberg looking for good governance ideas in Mexico, anyway. He's the Mayor of New York City, for chrissakes.
Tagged: allowance, bloomberg, mexicoPosted by Lexiphane at 3:01 PM | Politics & Policy | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
In Other Words . . .
Whew, tough weekend. The Yanks delighted Bostonians by losing three straight in Fenway and in ridiculous fashion. They just lost to Tampa last night because the team's pitching is simply awful. ARod has silenced all doubters in the meantime, slamming another two homers at Tropicana Field. Anyway, a little excitement this weekend as I ran out to pick up the new copy of WIRED. Don't forget I'll be doing double duty this Thursday and Friday while Jen and Jake are in San Francisco accepting accolades. Let's get on with the links:
Early Morning Contest to Light the Empire
Two contractors get up early or stay up late shining test colors and patterns on the upper floors of the ESB.
Extra, Extra - 4/20/07
Firfighters finally get to try out some cool new gear when window washers are trapped outside a highrise, daffodils are the new city flower, and all sorts of other stuff.
Stung By Closure, A Chef Seems Paralyzed to Re-Open
An older french chef's mental mise en place is messed with by the Health Dept. and now he's not sure if he can ever re-open his famous restaurant.
Rose Bends the Mayor's Ear
101-year-old mugging victim Rose Morat gives those two whippersnappers Mayor Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly a piece of her mind and everyone loves it.
Beware of Roommates Installing "Air Cleaners"
A woman sues her roommate, who installed a hidden camera in her bedroom with obvious consequences.
Daniel Radcliffe to 'Apparate' on Broadway Stage
Young girls love Harry Potter and horses, but Danielle Radcliffe plays a character who abacinates a stable of horses and then swings his junk on stage, so leave the kids at home when his play comes to NYC next spring.
Creeping US Out
When are middle-aged men going to realize that it's a horrible idea to cruise the Internet offering young girls cash for sex lessons? That's what the food court at the mall is for. Sheesh!
Bloomberg to City Drivers: Pay Up, You Can Afford It
Mayor Mike can't even wait 'til Sunday's Earth Day address to drop the coy act in regards to the congestion tax that will charge Manhattan drivers $8 to sit in traffic.
McGreevey Divorce Gets Contentious––and More Public
The details of the divorce between the former NJ Governor and current "gay American" Jim McGreevey and his spurned wife, gets dirty and interesting. All in the interest of their young daughter, of course.
Ratner Free to Proceed With Demolition
More legal wrangling over the future of the Atlantic Yards Development project in Brooklyn with the advantage going to developer Bruce Ratner. When I suggested a graphic to Jen, she came back with exactly what I wanted times ten. I love it.
Extra, Extra - 4/21/07
Sharp ears means that Gothamist's the first large online NYC media source to link to a story about an idiot Met fan who tried to blind Atlanta Braves players with a high-powered flashlight. I had to go to Atlanta for a link.
When Co-op Boards Say "No", They May Have to Say Why
Good tips for what not do when showing up for your co-op interview: don't dress like a hooker or with a security detail that suggests you will be an assasination target in the near future.
Boys Town
Downtown Manhattan is like a big frathouse except with huge bonuses and probably hookers instead of date rape.
Tree-mendous Plan for Cityscape
Mayor Bloomberg wants a million trees planted around the city over the next decade. Just pay no attention to the one's we're buzzsawing on 5th Ave. this week.
Day One of a 1000
A look at the boyfriend-girlfriend team that plan on sailing 1000 days straight without landing or stopping for re-supply. The first blog post reveals that the girlfriend has never actually gone sailing on an ocean before.
Adventurer Returns Home
That Indiana Jones-looking guy from the History Channel is actually an Upper East Side native and city kid.
Construction Barriers Are Your Friends
Man leaves OTB in the middle of the day, proceeds to fall into giant hole dug by ConEd crew. Family swears he never drank, but the consensus is that he was doing all his drinking at the OTB.
Extra, Extra - 4/22/07
Hint to prospective bloggers: always finish a daily wrap-up entry with something that engenders fury and indignation. It keeps people warm at night.
Kick Map Finds Its Way to the MTA
For some reason I thought this was going to be a bit of a non-starter, but was actually hugely popular. It's about a guy trying to develop a new subway map.
DOT Plan For Grand Army Plaza
A crazy overhead photo of just part of Grand Army Plaza's insane pedestrian traffic accomadations. The DOT is taking steps to improve what could be one of the greatest pedestrian spots in all of NYC.
Extra, Extra - 4/23/07
If you hate your job, consider this: after Ricki Lake filmed herself giving birth in the bathtub in her West Village apartment, she told her assistant to clean the tub. Also, Gov. Corzine intends to run NJ by remote control from his bed.
That's all for now! Check back soon for original Lexiphane.com content and more links to my day job.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:30 AM | Gothamist , In Other Words . . . | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
April 23, 2007
MUSICAL INFLUENCES
I was flipping around radio stations the other day and found myself listening to a public service announcement that made me sit up and think "What the . . .?" Usually you know where a PSA is going, so to be surprised by the usual telegraphed anti-drug message is pretty rare. This particular PSA, which can be listened to here, features a girl's voice that has been altered to make it sound digitized, like a computer from 1982 is speaking. As the ad progresses, the girl's voice becomes gradually more human, until the final line, when it's just the voice of a girl. Then a male voice pops in with the punchline, or lesson, I'm not certain. Here is the transcript:
Being popular was all I could think about last year.
I wanted to be, like, cool with everybody.
I listened to music I didn't like and laughed at things that weren't funny.
I programmed myself to be a totally different person to everyone.
But I wasn't myself.
Now I'm not pretending to like indie rock or anything like that, and people think that's cool.
Male voice: Live above the influence––above weed.*
In case you missed it, liking indie rock was used there as a metaphor for being a brainless stoner intent on leading an inherently fake existence. So you kids just drop your joints and back slowly away from the Death Cab For Cutie cds. In fact, just leave your iPods over there by the door on your way out. There's no telling what kind of unhomogenized stoner crap might be on them.
*Brought to you by the slightly misguided and bizarre people at abovetheinluence.com.
NB: Apparently I am woefully behind the times. Either that or have enough sense to never listen to the radio. Pitchfork Media wrote about this all the way back in October of last year.
Tagged: drugs, musicPosted by Lexiphane at 3:35 PM | Music , Total Jackassery | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
GET WIRED
I recommend everyone pick up the latest (May) issue of WIRED Magazine that hit newsstands this weekend. In its 2007 Rave Awards (p.129), the magazine selected 22 individuals who were changing the world. Some of them: The Allen Brain Atlas (team that genetically mapped the entire brain of mice), Alfonso Cuaron (director: Pan's Labrynth, Children of Men), California's Gov. Scharzenegger, J.K. Rowling (author: Harry Potter books), and Jen Chung (Gothamist.com co-founder). The last mention, of course, is my employer; although she certainly doesn't seem like a boss when I'm working with her, perhaps because we've emailed off and on for so many years on a friendly basis. I won't overpraise, lest I be accused of brownnosing. I will say that I enjoy my time at work a great deal and am not at all surprised that Jen, Jake and Gothamist.com are being recognized for their work thus far.
Jen and Jake are heading to San Francisco this week for some Rave Award recognition events. I promised I wouldn't throw any parties while they were away or burn the site down, so expect increased posting from me Thursday and Friday, as well as the now-usual weekend festivities.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 7:59 AM | Gothamist | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
April 20, 2007
IN OTHER WORDS . . .
Highlight of the week: being the first local blog to catch on to Sludgie the Whale in the Gowanus Canal. Lowlight: VTech shooting and Sludgie dying suddenly. Increasing use of the photoshop skills in this week's entries. Let's take a look:
A Little Competition Never Hertz
Hertz stats an hourly rental service in NYC to go head-to-head with Zipcar. I guess that it will probably come down to customer service, like car availability, and the commentors agree with woeful tales.
Extra, Extra - 4/17/07
Staten Island Ferry passengers are tossed by story seas and slamming into the pier, a kid is shot in the neck and no one's talking, and a Chinatown apartment is trashed by hipsters.
Blackberry Jam
RIM's network gets dunked overnight and Blackberry users may have to consider alternate modes of communication, like speaking.
C-eau-ney Island
Downtown perfumer designs a scent inspired by Coney Island, but you can't smell the hot dogs or fried clams.
Clear for Takeoff on the East River
Mayor Bloomberg wants to turn NYC's waterways into runways using and I reminisce about Howard Hughes' 'Spruce Goose'. Some commentors are almost fooled by my photoshopping.
Extra, Extra - 4/18/07
Gondola between Brooklyn and Manhattan via Governors Island is still in the works, the search for the Hamilton Heights rapist-torturer draws closer, and a to-do over naming streets in the City Council.
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:50 AM | Gothamist , In Other Words . . . | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
SCIENCE NOTE TO BACARDI'S MARKETING FIRM, NOT THAT THEY'D CARE
If you're a company marketing your booze in a diet-conscious way, it would make sense that you're looking out for the best interest of the consumer. The thinner your customer looks the better theh bla blah blah . . . I'm sorry. I just got headbutted back to reality. Booze, dieting, and advertising really are a perfect storm of not making sense and, in fact, makes zero, or multiple-zeroes sense. Let's start with the graphic to the right: "0 Carbs 0 Sugar". It is from Bacardi, recommending mixing Bacardi rum with Diet Coke, because the resulting cocktail contains zero calories from carbs and zero calories from sugar. This is redundant, of course, because sugar is a carbohydrate. Sugars are certainly simpler molecules than complex carbohydrates, but when classifying food as either carb, fat, or protein, sugar goes in the carbohydrate column. The graphic to the right is the same as writing "0 Beatles 0 John Lennon".
The impression given by the Bacardi ads touting its zero-level qualities is that a Bacardi and Diet Coke cocktail is a godsend to the weight-conscious or Atkins-minded partygoers planning on drinking so often and in such quantities that the calorie content of their drinks will make a noticeable impact on their waistlines. Let me disabuse those people of that impression.
There's no fat or protein in a Bacardi and Diet Coke cocktail, so let's remove those from the equation. The Bacardi ad people double-emphasized the fact that there are zero calories from carbohydrates in that cocktail. The great unmentioned––and the presumable reason that people would be drinking a Bacardi and Diet Coke in the first place––is that the drink contains alcohol. Alcohol is a different type of molecule than fats, carbs, and protein. It gets a nutritional category all its own, and the alcohol molecule contains seven calories per gram.
The standard cocktail made with 1 1/2 ozs. of 80% proof liquor contains about 14 grams of alcohol equalling 97 calories. If you were to consume 35 Bacardi and Diet Cokes in an evening you would gain approximately one pound, althought that would be the least of your worries the next morning, presuming you wake up. The next time that you see one of these ads, remember that they are being cut off at the end, like an annoying repetitive drunk by a tired and annoyed bartender. After they tout zero calories from carbs and zero calories from sugar, they are forgetting to add 97 calories from alcohol.
Tagged: advertising, bacardi, caloriesPosted by Lexiphane at 12:20 AM | Science & Technology , Total Jackassery | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
April 19, 2007
A BRIEF NOTE
I have very little to say about the killings at Virginia Tech. It's the sort of horrible occurence that does not bear attention very well. Excessive bathos and disturbing inquisitiveness about the macabre details of events seem to be a pathology of our times. We want to feel tragically sad, but we want to see the brutal fucking details as to what caused that sympathetic sadness, while affected families are experiencing actual grief. It's a sick, schizophrenic, have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too society we live in.
I'm frankly disgusted. Less disgusted with the VT murderer and more with the media for deliberately distributing the A/V propaganda of a killer, thus propelling a self-involved loser into a recognizable figure sure to propel copycats hoping for the same level of recognition. And this is how a new generation of disturbed kids reach out for the outsized recognition they sorely lack and inflicting damage they feel is proportionate in their feeble adolescent brains [sorry adolescent readers, you really will understand later, trust me.] That jackass idiot is dead, of course; no one wants to live up to his greatest achievement when it turns out to be one of pure malice, hurt, and cowardice.
If you're interested in seeing some of the victims of a disturbed pathetic loser, see here. These are some of the valuable individuals that hoped to contribute something to the world.
(I am fully aware that someone in all this was mentally disturbed. That is really horrible for him. It earns him a few iotas of mention in this post, in the third person.)
Tagged: media, murder, virginia techPosted by Lexiphane at 10:28 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
April 17, 2007
IN OTHER WORDS . . .
Wow, that was a quick week, amazing how time flies when one is busy. It seems like everyone survived the great Nor'easter 2007 in okay shape. Houseboats floated, flights were cancelled, a few basements got leaky, but they still ran the Boston Marathon and the Yanks were at McAfee Stadium in Oakland, high and dry so to speak. Shall we get to the links? Yes, lets:
Extra, Extra - 4/17/07
It's a good thing Sharpton got those death threats from deranged Imus fans because he's upped his personal security and has police protection. No offense to Liev Schreiber or Eric Bogosian, but people who love and hate shock jocks don't kill people. Rappers, however, some of those guys'll kill you for real!
Grass To Be Cut In City Parks
Jen threw me this one after I dug up an amusing graphic of Grass perfume by Demeter. I do the math and wonder what the city is thinking replacing grass in city parks with artificial turf when the investment won't break even for 100 years minimum, but probably closer to 150 years.
Reasons To Stay, Reasons To Move
I actually made this graphic myself using PS Elements and used it as the basis for a perennial story about comparing the cost of living: what it takes to live like a Manhattanite earning $100K in different cities. Living like a bum is still pretty much the same everywhere.
Extra, Extra - 4/15/07
A great photo tops a list of stories, including a car flying off the West Side Highway and Trump's son not reacting well to "You're fired!"
It's Not Like Water Falls Out of the Sky, It Costs
NYC's got water problems as taxpayers are gonna have to fork over another $200mn to get their billion-dollar filtration plant built. And Bloomberg is pissed because the city council figured out how to fix the water scofflaw problem is to just raise rates on the people that do pay.
Hunts Point Residents Are Anti-Jail
Who does want to go to jail, anyway? But this is about the Bronx neighbors who don't want a house of D built in the lot they reserve for illegal dumping. The arguments of planners in these cases always strike me as vaguely racist or downright condescending as they explain "We're practically doing you people a service, as you won't have to travel all the way to Rykers to visit your father/brother/sister/cousin."
Arabic-Themed School Generates Controversy
What do you get when a woman wants to open a non-religious magnet school to promote bi-lingualism, cultural understanding, and name it after a Middle Eastern Christian man who grew up in the U.S.? You get called an Islamist nut. Critics say it'll churn out grads with a pro-Arab, anti-American frame of reference. If a NYC public school can churn out graduates who can even locate the Middle East on a map, I say go for it! Hearts and minds is a college-level course anyway.
Woman Rund Down By, Trapped Under SUV
That walk signal is meaningless. Like your mother always told you: look both ways before crossing the street.
Dummkopf
Mostly a lesson in Bronx appreciation after a German Army instructor tries to motivate a recruit holding a machine guy to pretend he's being yomamma'd by a bunch of black guys in the Bronx. Seriously.
Nor'easter Of The 21st Century
Everyone was eyes-open awake the morning I tried to post this and a server switch sent the whole apparatus hobbling on stilts. Fun look back at how differently--or not at all--the city approached impending weather disasters 15 years ago.
Extra, Extra - 4/14/07
I pick on a former pitcher for beating a cat to death and slamming his girlfriends around; consensus: hot guys can do that. The mysterious red pickup and its driver, who started the whole Corzine-crash phenomena is found.
Panama Murder Mystery
A Staten Island woman is found dead, dismembered, and set on fire in a Panamanian soccer field. Local cops correctly figure the butler (female employee) did it.
Keeping Starrett City Affordable
I wonder if Sheldon Silver was thinking "get the hell off my podium!" when U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer hogged the spotlight at an announcement over State Assembly legislation. Hey Chuck, if you want to be a state senator go for it, but they don't get the capital letters.
Sharpton's Death Threats
Sharpton is triumphant in getting Imus booted from the airwaves and now some of the latter's deranged fans want to get all Biggie-Tupac about it.
He-A Culpa
A pun so bad, I emailed the publisher to make sure it was usable, half hoping he'd talk me out of it. Nope.
Metallic Nature in City Park
Just a photo-post of a piece of artist Roxy Paine's installation in Madison Square.
Mill Hil Robbery
You know it's the weekend when not a single commentor writes in to excoriate you for spelling millenium with two n's. Otherwise, it's a crazy story about some tourists from Georgia getting Shanghai'd in a pretty nice hotel downtown.
Stormy Weather Set For Sunday
Basically a PSP (public service post) directing people to online resources for disaster preparedness as the city starts to psych itself up for the nor'easter.
Pols Pay Taxes Too
The Post paws through the tax returns of Gov. Spitzer and SAG Cuomo and we figure, what the hell, count us in.
Hollaback Girls And Then Some
I'm actually very proud of the graphic I created for this post, but the first commentor complains that it's "weak." The only time man-on-woman violence is ever really funny is when it's accompanied by regular use of the phrase "attack of the killer lesbians."
Extra, Extra - 4/13/07
Lucked out with a great black cat photo for Friday 13th. Then late-breaking news that NJ Gov. John Corzine was in a car accident and is seriously messed up. Also, I thought a funny bit about cops and bar owners.
Westward Expansion
Bidding opens for the Hudson Rail Yard, the largest undeveloped bloc of land left in Manhattan. It is real estate bloodsport in the making.
Face-Off!
This was initially much longer, but Jen told me to hack a good portion of it off, which probably made it better.
I'll try to post some more original stuff here this week. Frankly, I'm feeling a little bummed tonight about the VTech shooting. I have no connection to the school or any of the people there; but damn, 32 victims is a lot of dead kids.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 7:24 AM | Gothamist , In Other Words . . . | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
April 15, 2007
THE TRUETH IS OUT THERE
Oh my, I did not realize this. According to the site English-language version of the Russian website Pravda, that whole ruckus over Don Imus was an effective effort by "US War Leaders" to discredit and silence a challenging media voice. Another high-profile public figure who can expect his integrity to be demolished is Charlie Sheen. [Oh God, not little Charlie!, ed.]
"US actor Charlie Sheen is reportedly in talks to narrate an internet documentary that suggests elements of the US government were behind the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre.
Sheen's representatives say he was involved in the production of a new version of Loose Change, a 90-minute conspiracy theory film that has been seen by more than 10 million internet viewers."
The US War Leaders found Don Imus' destruction deceptively easy. With such a sharp and practiced COINTELPRO operator like the Rev. Al Sharpton on their side, Imus never stood a chance. It's not stated in the article, but we know for a fact that N.O.W. has been a virtual harem to Bush and his war cronies for years. Oh you insidious "US War Planners!" How will you ever be defeated? Many thanks to organizations like the Pravda site, that keep criticism of government abuses and excess credible and in the public eye.
(Tip o' the pixel to Mikester for keeping me abreast of the best on the web.)
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:32 PM | Journalism | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
April 12, 2007
IS CONAN MOONLIGHTING AT CBS? OR DOES HE HAVE A YOUNGER BROTHER?
New York's local CBS affiliate, WCBS, just got a new weatherman named Lonnie Quinn. According to the linked-to post, he's a former soap star. Is it me, though, or does Lonnie Quinn look like Conan O'Brien completely maxed out on Botox? Quinn was formerly a Miami weatherman after he left the soaps, so that might explain the tan/fake-tan factor.
I'd love to see the two of them in a room together. It's too bad they're not on the same network, or they could recreate that "I Love Lucy" scene from the episode where Lucille Ball and Harpo Marx do some mimed mirror schtick. In lieu of some old vaudeville though, I'd be content to watch Quinn and O'Brien duke it out in some old-school Irish bare-knuckle boxing. Or as we call it in the real world: a big 'ol sissy slap fight!
Tagged: cbs, conan, lucy, nbcPosted by Lexiphane at 10:59 PM | Television | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
April 11, 2007
IN OTHER WORDS . . .
Sitting here scoring the Yanks game and Moose just left the mound under injurious circumstances, so let's just go to the links from the past two days:
City Dogs Unleashed
A change in the leash laws brings frothing mad commentors out of the shrubbery, on both sides of the issue.
Extra, Extra - 4/10/07
Alright, I only picked the crazy neon monkey photo for this one and let Jen do the rest. She's nice like that.
Reversal of Fortune? Rent vs. Buy Revisited
Up is down; black is white; The New York Times crunches the numbers and finds renters made out better than home buyers over the last two years. This is real estate apostasy in NYC.
Supermarket Sweep: Electoral Edition
Rudy gets stumped by the old "How much does a can of corn cost?" question while campaigning in Alabama. If Rudy told the truth about NYC grocery prices, his campaign would be over as the rest of the country found out how crazy NYers are.
Extra, Extra - 4/11/07
Dogs, Imus, subway accidents: it's all there.
No Extra, Extra from me tomorrow so I'll try to see if I can squeeze something in during the morning.
Tagged: imus, leash, real estatePosted by Lexiphane at 8:50 PM | Gothamist , In Other Words . . . | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Printer-friendly version
April 10, 2007
The Finiteness of Life & Art
Someone forwarded me an email this morning that gave me pause. My first reaction was one of urgency, as in "somebody should do something!" Considering all the circumstances, however, I wonder. The image above was taken on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum in NYC; it's of a piece called Splotch #3 by Sol Lewitt, who died Sunday at the age of 78. From his NYTimes obit:
Mr. LeWitt helped establish Conceptualism and Minimalism as dominant movements of the postwar era. A patron and friend of colleagues young and old, he was the opposite of the artist as celebrity. He tried to suppress all interest in him as opposed to his work; he turned down awards and was camera-shy and reluctant to grant interviews. He particularly disliked the prospect of having his photograph in the newspaper.
Typically, a 1980 work called “Autobiography” consisted of more than 1,000 photographs he took of every nook and cranny of his Manhattan loft, down to the plumbing fixtures, wall sockets and empty marmalade jars, and documented everything that had happened to him in the course of taking the pictures. But he appeared in only one photograph, which was so small and out of focus that it is nearly impossible to make him out. His work — sculptures of white cubes, or drawings of geometric patterns, or splashes of paint like Rorschach patterns — tested a viewer’s psychological and visual flexibility. See a line. See that it can be straight, thin, broken, curved, soft, angled or thick. Enjoy the differences. The test was not hard to pass if your eyes and mind were open, which was the message of Mr. LeWitt’s art.
I loved the post written by Jen Carlson that we ran at Gothamist because it had a large-sized crop of the above photo. It was interesting enough that in Monday's Extra, Extra post, I chose a picture of a young girl embracing LeWitt's art: literally.
So this morning's recieved email was a bit of a surprise, as it described some of LeWitt's wall drawings that exist inside one of the buildings slated for destruction at Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards development project. An excerpt:
644 Pacifi