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June 29, 2006
NOONAN!
Commentator Peggy Noonan hits the nail on the head today, so to speak, arguing that Hillary Clinton's problem as a politician isn't that she is perceived as too soft because she's a woman, but that she is the least human of any popular candidate:
She doesn't have to prove she's a man, she has to prove she's a woman. No one in America thinks she's a woman. They think she's a tough little termagant in a pantsuit. They think she's something between an android and a female impersonator. She is not perceived as a big warm mommy trying to resist her constant impulse to sneak you candy. They think she has to resist her constant impulse to hit you with a bat. She lacks a deep (as opposed to quick) warmth, a genuine and almost phenomenological sense of rightness in her own skin. She seems like someone who might calculatedly go to war, or not, based on how she wanted to be perceived and look and do. She does not seem like someone who would anguish and weep over sending men into harm's way.
That's not something that would go over well in a debate from an opponent, but goddamn that is funny and true.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 6:30 PM | Politics & Policy | Comments (0) | TrackBack
COLLAPSE AND SPASTIC TWITCHING ARE THE BEST EXERCISE
I can't fault DJ Reese, the author of this article on fitness for The Poughkeepsie Journal, because columnists often don't write the headlines for their own pieces. I'd like to have a conversation with the editor about this one though:
"Let fitness be your stun gun of achievement"
Really? When I think of someone getting hit by a stun gun, it involves the recipient flopping around and screaming in agony--okay, I guess that's basically what exercise is. But mostly it involves seeing them peeing themselves. Is this the apt metaphor the editor or author is shooting for? Fitness is the equivalent of a several-hundred volt debilitating shock to your nervous system? That wouldn't seem encouraging to achieving anything to me. That would encourage me to hide in my closet with a bag of doughnuts, Doritos, and a bottle of Coke Classic.
Perhaps DJ Reese is just an unconventional personal trainer, who stands behind his/her clients with an electrified cattle prod for when they start slacking. If that is the case, I'm definitely blaming the editor.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:26 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
BLACK ON BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK, FOR KIDS
The Poughkeepsie Journal, my hometown paper and a daily that I used to deliver when I was a kid, is featuring a photo gallery of Senior Prom pictures. If I was 18 years old, I would be furious if my parents sent my prom pics to the local paper.
The young men above are students at my high school alma mater. What stuck out is how the majority of them are wearing black suits with black shirts. Interesting. I don't think I've seen a lot of that before, but apparently it is de rigeur according to the local tux rental shop attendant. The one exception, of course, is the guy in the center of the photo, who is dressed like the 1920s mafia boss Don Fanucci Robert DeNiro's character killed at the Feast of San Gennaro in The Godfather: Part II. Actually, he also resembles a really comfortable sofa upholstered in damask. Another highlight is the guy on the right who accents the black suit with a silk white scarf. I'm not sure if he looks more like Douglas Fairbanks playing a WWI flying ace or a very young rabbi.
Hope all you kids had fun at the prom! I didn't even go to mine senior year, wanting as little to do with high school at that point as humanly possible, so you're all one up on me there.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:23 AM | Culture & | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 28, 2006
CLEAR WIDE BIG BLUE OPEN
More than 30 years ago, my mother heeded Horace Greeley's timeless advice to "Go West, Young [Wo]Man!", busted out of New Jersey, and hit San Francisco at the apex of the 1960s. Like any sensible person at the time, she was back in NYC in a matter of years.
No, it wasn't an allergic reaction to hippies my Mom was fleeing; it was work related. She'd been transferred by an old-school typewriter company to New York to help work on their fledgling new-fangled punch-card electronic gizmo things. And why not her? She had a degree in mathematics. She was a Systems Engineer before such things even existed.
So in the Chanin Building on 42nd St. down the street from Grand Central Terminal, a young woman, sharing a tiny apartment with one of her sisters, toiled away and somehow still managed to meet her future husband, a fellow [sic] employee. After they were married, she left IBM to raise four exceptionally gifted and beautiful children. They really are magnificent, no doubt in some large part and credit to her efforts. When these kids in question were of a reasonable age, my Mom went back to work for IBM, and she and my Dad confused us to tears over the dinner table with endless recitations of undecipherable acronyms. Perhaps that's why I'm a logorrheaic now. There's nothing that can be said in one acronym that can't be dragged out for a full paragraph.
Nonetheless, this week, perhaps tomorrow, marks my Mom's last day of work at Big Blue, IBM. She's just six weeks short of 25 years at the company and when I asked why she wasn't staying for the proverbial gold watch, she said it was because they would've started a new product launch by then and she wouldn't have been able to leave. That's my Mom; she gets things done and leaves no project unfinished.
It's a long weekend at IBM this week because of the 4th of July. My Mom may not notice, because she will no longer work there. I can't wait to see what she does next, because everything so far has been pretty impressive. I, myself, will be hopefully watching the 4th of July fireworks on the roof of the building she and my Dad lived in after they were married. It's a small awesome world.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:02 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
LE GARCON NIKITA
A friend recently forwarded me this article. It purports to be from CNN. I find its bizareness a little hard to believe.
Putin was shown by state television chatting to graduates of military academies before he took a walk through one of the Kremlin's courtyards, often full of tourists.He stopped and spoke to a young boy who appeared to be aged four or five and turned away shyly when asked his name. (Watch Putin and the boy -- :45)
"What is your name?" Putin asked, kneeling down in front of the fair-haired boy and holding him by the waist.
"Nikita," the clearly shocked boy answered, looking from side to side.
Putin then lifted the boy's shirt and kissed him on his stomach. The Russian president then patted the boy on the head and walked off through a crowd of astonished tourists.
Hmmmm. Having just recently defended myself from perceived insuations of (not that there's anything wrong with it) homosexuality, I'm going to give Putin the benefit of the doubt here (although pedophilia is WRONG WRONG WRONG!) and say that perhaps his lips were parched and he just needed to satiate them on the damp abdomen of a young boy. In short, he's a complete freak.
UPDATE: OK, I just watched the video and it did happen. Who knows? Cultural differences? Bad judgement? Someone could've been speaking off-camera and said "He's got cancer of the stomach! Make him well!" Europeans kiss each other on the cheeks. GW Bush held hands with a Saudi Arabian. All of these seem akward and weird. I'm going to reserve judgement for at least 24 hour hours. Sorry for calling your "a complete freak" Pooty-Poot!
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 5:04 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
MEANWHILE, SOUTH OF THE EQUATOR . . .
Because I'm a solipsist, I will charcterize my friend Sarah's decampment to the South Seas as an abandonment. That is totally unfair; but who said that life is fair? To her credit, she has sent a steady update of photos logging her travels throughout Austrailia, Fiji, Surf School, and on and on and on. Most of these came in the grim months of winter and early spring in NYC, from which she fled and is all too aware of the hardships. If she weren't the sweetest girl I've ever met, the word "bitch" might creep to mind.
(Sarah's the hot one)
No. I'm happy for the updates and glad to see she's having a great time. I heard from her just recently and she was complaining that she was freezing her ass off in New Zealand, where it's currently winter. Hah! Gotcha! 'Cause now it's summer in NYC and I am . . . sitting in my underwear at my desk sweating miserably. Damn!
The southern belle should be heading back stateside soon. And while she doesn't have to continue to reside here, I hope "stateside" involves a visit back to NYC. She is sorely missed. Be warm; stay cool; and you'll always be hot Sarah.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 4:05 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
WHAT TO WATCH (FOR THE NOT FAINT OF HEART)
900 channels and nothing's on. That's a cliched complaint because there is stuff on. Good stuff! Here are this week's two standouts:
Rescue Me (FX)
This show's gotten some heat recently [see the Gothamist.com piece with valuable links here] because its main character, Tommy Gavin, seemed to have raped his wife in an episode last week and also seemed to have appeared satisfied after doing it. Some people characterized this as misogynistic, although it appeared to me that it portrays Tommy in the worst possible light. Here's the comment I left at Gothamist.com:
Tommy Gavin is one of the most depraved/sympathetic protagonists on television. He is so personally corrupt and given to poor impulse control, it's almost a stretch to ID him as a protagonist. Are women portrayed as severely damaged people on the show? Sure, but only in equal measure to how the men are portrayed. Tommy's own brother had a smug smirk on his face as he was bedding Tommy's wife at the end of the last episode--and he seems to be the voice-of-reason character!
Rape is shown on tv all the time, i.e. every other Lifetime Channel movie. Putting it in the context of severely dysfunctional relationships without excusing it is called "drama for adults". I think Leary's and Tolan's efforts to tell their characters' stories without glossing over their sometimes abject ugliness makes "Rescue Me" one of the better shows on tv.
"Rescue Me" is a show about NYC firefighters who almost need to qualify for the job with pathological tendencies. It is disturbing, but it can also be hilarious at times. Leary and Tolan have put together one of the best shows I've seen in ages.
Deadwood (HBO)
I feel hesitant about recommending this show to newcomers because its plot is so labrynthine, it makes the Sopranos look like a Dick & Jane primary reader. I'll save some time by giving you an email I sent to my friend Jenny, who I spent enjoying the season with via long-distance phone calls:
Okay, I don't want to ruin the season for you, so I'm going to leave out any possible spoilers, but good God this is good stuff! I don't think I've ever watched a show with so many variagated plot lines. Hearst (Major Dad) is a total f'ing psychopath that verged on murdering Bullock and raping Mrs Ellsworth and is only interested in associating with people (like his black "Aunt" cook he can completely control), separately, Mr. Ellsworth's counsel to his wife is dead on but he's hampered by his impotence (and fear and unconcealable rage) in the face of Hearst's influence. Swearengen seemed to be playing possum after Hearst maimed him, until Trixie came and told him to get up some balls. Trixie seems like she should be happy, but is bucking at the non-confrontational nature of Sol Star. Farnum just seems to be descending into insanity after taking a beating from Bullock. And Cy Tolliver is completely emasculated after being shivved by the minister and is now bowing and
scraping before Hearst.God, what a great show. You have to get it on dvd as soon as it's out.
Don't get me started on Brian Cox's character. He seems fey, as being an actor seems to imply in dramas, but I bet he's going to turn out to be the most ruthless psychopath the town's ever seen. Trust me, I haven't even scratched the surface.
"Deadwood" started out its season very slow. The dialogue's tendency towards profanity bogged down in the most baroque diction I've ever heard on TV. Combining that with the incredibly complicated plot, and even I had trouble following the premiere episode this season. Recently, however, the pace has picked up, the dialogue has become less obscure, and the violence and tension are mounting. Ian McShane as Al Swearengen is a genius; and the writers have transformed him from an Old-West Mephistopheles to a Savior of the Deadwood camp against the predations of the dead-eyed uber-capitalist Mr. Hearst, who seeks to control all he surveys. Some may think "Deadwood" is overwrought (and overwritten), but I think it's completely compelling drama that deserves attention.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 9:54 AM | Television | Comments (0) | TrackBack
GOOD SHOW I SAY OLD BOY, GOOD SHOW
I went to the Peoples Improve Theater the other night to catch the final performance of "Freedumb", which is a show/troupe of very talented men and women that do sketch comedy. Pictured above is friend Dave Spiecher doing a rap-paean to suicide bombers to the tune of "Bust A Move". That's funnier than it sounds.
Congratulations to Dave Spiecher, Andrea Alton, Allen Warnock, Theron Steiber, Robin Gelfenbien, A.C. Carabello, Jay Duffer, and Marshall York for putting on a kick-ass show. The show was great. You guys are okay.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 9:18 AM | Culture & | Comments (0) | TrackBack
CONFESSION: I AM NOT A "GAY HOMOSEXUAL"
("That dog is a gay homosexual!")
I was just leafing through my last month of entries at Lexiphane.com and wanted to point something out. I really like women. They are the people with whom I would like to be having sexual relations.
"Whoa, too much information!"
Indeed. I feel the need to clarify, however, because I noticed that in the past month two entries about sports were in regard to the fashion of athletes, one entry about tv simply identified a woman I thought was hot as "adorable", another entry indicated my over-fondness for a woman who lives in the West Village in a super-kitschy apartment, I mentioned Mary Tyler Moore, there was a mention of Catholic schooling, I commented on the bad fashion sense of a guy with question marks on his suit and orange clogs, and there were multiple entries that relied heavily on subjects like film, music, and the arts.
What prompted this extrospection? Let me share an e-mail I sent to a friend the other night about a book I've been reading.
Let me ask you if you think this is weird. When I was upstate the other week, [Wonderful Woman] finally got a chance to give me her xmas present from 6 months ago. It's a book called "Magical Thinking" by Augusten Burroughs. Burroughs is an essayist in the style of David Sedaris--very funny yet not afraid to reveal painful things about his life. He's written two previous books in this style: "Running With Scissors" about a very strange and dysfunctional childhood and "Dry", a memoir about overcoming his alcoholism in which he drank away his 20s to considerable negative effect, although he was fairly successful in advertising.
"Magical Thinking" is a series of stories by a guy in his early 30s living in NYC, who seems to have overcome an early drinking problem, an inability to maintain any type of serious relationship, and wants more than anything to be a writer, and how he accomplished that goal to some significant success. Here's the lead blurb on the back of the paperback edition:
"From the #1 bestselling author of Running with Scissors and Dry--a contagiously funny, heartwarming, shocking, twisted, and absolutely magical collection. True stories that give voice to the thoughts we all have but dare not mention. In the words of USA Today's Dan Cryer, 'Burroughs is a writer blessed with an offbeat perspective and a viciously uncensored wit, a delight to read.'"
Sounds good, right? And I read the first few chapters and was really enjoying it. Three-quarters of the way through, however, I'm starting to feel a little concerned. Not by the book; the book is great. But by the giver's intentions in presenting it as a gift. Like David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs is gay; not that there's anything wrong with that. Unlike Sedaris, though, this is not really an incidental part of his stories; it is a central part. In short, every single story in the book has some mention of Burroughs giving or receiving blowjobs, giving handjobs or getting jerked off, sex with priests, blown by cab drivers, getting it on with guys he meets in coffee shops. I'm starting to feel like [Wonderful Woman] gave me a subscription to 'Homo-Writers Quarterly', saying "I think you'll really like this." Just a quick glance through the table of contents makes it pretty clear this is the subject matter. I'm positive that if the book contained an index in the back and
you went to the "b"s, there would be an entry saying "blowjobs, men: pp. 1, 2, 3 , 5, 7-281".
I think I may be bringing a stripper-hooker to the [Wonderful People's] next holiday party if I don't have a serious girlfriend by then. But they'd probably just assume she was a drag queen. Am I being oversensitive or is this kind of weird? I'm finding it weird.
Perhaps I'm just overidentifying with other subject matter in the book and there was no implied message in me receiving it. I have had to deal with this before, however, as an unattached bachelor in his 30s living in NYC. Let me just go on the record to say that I'm not gay. I'm just finicky. Aw goddamnit, that sounds too gay!
UPDATE: I've already one volunteer to show up with me to [Wonderful People's] next holiday party to attest that I'm not gay, saving the cost of a stripper-hooker. Further volunteers may be necessary to create the desired Hugh Hefner effect. I did talk with [Wonderful Woman] tonight on the phone and she thought it was hysterical and refused to apologize, which I didn't ask her to. Straight men don't need apologies. This matter is hopefully settled; I know it is on my part.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 7:26 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 26, 2006
JUST A THOUGHT
EA Sports, the electronic gamemaker, should mix up its product line and produce "Steve Madden NFL 2006". There really wouldn't be too much sports. The game would mostly be huge athletes standing outside of NYC velvet rope clubs arguing "These aren't sneakers. They're Steve Maddens!"
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 9:41 AM | Culture & | Comments (0) | TrackBack
HELP A BROTHER OUT
Well, this makes perfect sense. The richest man in the world, Warren Buffet, is giving the bulk of his fortune to . . . the 2nd richest man in the world, Bill Gates. Should I just shoot myself in the head right now or should I wait for the next subway train to come along and throw myself under that?
Mr. Buffett plans to give away 85 percent of his fortune, or about $37.4 billion, all in Berkshire stock. Of that amount, he will channel the greatest share, about $31 billion, into the Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation, dedicated to improving health and education, especially in poor nations, is already the United States' largest grant-making foundation, with current assets of almost $30 billion. Mr. Buffett's huge contribution may permanently solidify that philanthropy's standing as the biggest and most influential organization of its kind. Mr. Buffett will join Mr. and Mrs. Gates as a trustee of their foundation.
I guess the rich do get richer. While I admire Buffet and his instincts, I hope he knows that most charitable institutions eventually transmogrify into establishments that work fiercely against the wishes of their founding patrons.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:48 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
PESTICIDE AND THEN SOME
The thought of roaches in a bakery gives me the heebie jeebies. I hope this incident doesn't discourage other proprietors from taking the necessary steps to purge their establishments of the ever-present blight:
Six people, including a firefighter, were injured Friday night after an explosion destroyed a restaurant/bakery in Brooklyn's Sunset ParkThose who were injured were transported to an area hospital. The injuries were described as minor, mainly due to flying glass. Two of the people who were injured were inside the restaurant at the time of the explosion, NewsChannel 4 reported.
The restaurant was closed at the time of the explosion.
One person at a nearby sports bar said the whole front of the bakery, located at 5922 8th Ave., was blown out. The persona also said all of the buildings shook from the force of the explosion.
Preliminary indications were that the explosion was an accident. Fire officials said an employee was setting off roach bombs near an open flame on the stove, which they said they believed cased
[sic] the explosion.
There is no length to which one shouldn't go to exterminate roaches, even if it means blowing up your building, or your employer's building with the attendant loss of your job. Those f'ers need to die.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:27 AM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
"PLUMBER MA'AM. CANDYGRAM"
Anyone under the age of 30 or not a fan of old-school SNL may not get the humor of this.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:18 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
FUNICULI' FUNICULAR!
One of the more-fun shows on tv these days is "Globe Trekker", that appears on NYCTV. There's a rotation of hosts that travel the world and do televised travelogues of exotic locations. My personal favorite is NYC resident Megan McCormick, who recently traveled to Hong Kong and did a show. This was a personal double threat for me, as I personally find Megan McCormick adorable and Hong Kong is my favorite city in the world after NYC.
One of the things she did was to take the funicular railroad up to Victoria's Peak. A funicular railroad is like a scale balanced on rails that relies on equilibrium to raise and lower people up and down precipitous slopes. Ascending and descending cars balance each other as they rise and lower. While the properties at the top of the hill afford some of the best views of the city, living at the top of the mountain has some serious costs. Constant mists ruin books and paintings, creating an environment too conducive for spreading mold.
So check out "Globe Trekker", it's a great show. Megan McCormick is its best and cutest host by far, and by God, she's a NYer. The Hong Kong episode and her visit to the New Territories brought back some great memories
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:02 AM | Television | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 25, 2006
COME ON ENGLAND . . . 'S UNIFORM!
The other week I was out watching some World Cup games when a bartender semi-rhetorically asked what the deal was with the uniform of the Netherlands team. I like the Dutch uniforms. They're monochromatically orange. Socks, shorts, jerseys--the full kit. Numbers on the back of jerseys are in a weird black block font that makes it looking like you could be watching a soccer game by a team of six-year-olds from the '70s, before uniforms and silk screening got a little more artistic. I unfortunately had to point out that orange was the Netherland's national color, the House of Orange was the Dutch equivalent of England's House of Windsor, that Dutch royal family led the Dutch to independence from Spain, and William the II led the Glorious Revolution in England. Also, this is why Protestant Unionists in Northern Ireland have orange as their significant color. In short, I am a total goddamn ass who should just keep his mouth shut.
Anyway, my prize for the best uniforms of the World Cup goes to England. Their jerseys feature undersized tapered crosses on their rightht shoulders in the front. The cross is red and the jersey is white. I didn't learn this until a few years ago, but the English national flag is the St. George's Cross, a red cross on a white field. Everyone always associates England with the Union Jack, but that's just an amalgamation of the St. George's Cross with the Scottish flag, which is a blue field with a diagonal white cross.
England's uniform is understated, unsymmetrical, and it looks cool, like they've given up on the concept of "Cool Brittania" and are just saying "Yeah, we're England. We rule and don't care what anyone thinks." Understated confidence. That's the definition a good uniform wants to convey.
Of course, if my Scottish friend Carla reads this, she's going to head butt me in the face and then kick me in the nuts before she sics her dog on me, but what am I gonna do? Just kidding. Zeus wouldn't hurt a fly. The head-butting and nut-kicking are still probable though.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:40 PM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 24, 2006
HASSLING THE MAN
There are two cops--sorry, NYPD officers-- that regularly pull up outside of my friend's bar, watching out for trouble and wanting to shoot the shit. They're nice guys and come in when they're off duty. Althought they're no longer partnered, it's always a good time when they show up.
Last night, a radio patrol car--as regular marked NYPD vehicles are identified--pulled up outside of my friend's bar. I was standing outside next to the bartender, and she was talking with her boyfriend and the bouncer was inside, and I knew these guys, so I took it upon myself to go see what they wanted. I leaned my elbows on the edge of their door and poked my head halfway through their window, which is when I realized . . . I had no idea who these cops were, whatsoever.
Well, in for a penny in for a pound. I decided to gut it out.
"How you guys doing tonight? Everything's good?""I guess."
"Not getting into any trouble?"
"Not yet."
"So no exciting stories to tell me yet?"
"Nope, not yet."
"All right, then I'll see you around!"
And then I rapped twice on the hood of their RPC, like I was dismissing them. Unbeknownst to me, my friend Kelly also assumed it was our friends and was flipping them the double bird in the background behind me. I don't think I've ever come closer to being inadverently shot or beaten senseless with nightsticks.
Thank goodness, the police were just kind of slackjawed at my gall. I must have been the commissioner's son or something. No one else would talk to cops like that! There's dodging a bullet and then there's dodging bullets.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 6:16 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 23, 2006
A TONIC FOR SUMMER HEAT?
For the last nine months [9? I'm not positive about that, ed.], the building on the corner of 29th and 3rd Ave. had been boarded up. It was clear that it was being renovated into a bar. A huge bar. Puzzlingly, the place seemed complete, yet unopened for the last two months. According to people I've talked to, the building's rooftop bar was a hiccup in the owner's liquor license approval process. That probably cost them a godawful amount of money in delays. The name of the place is Tonic (east). It's hard to miss. It sticks out like a sore thumb on 3rd Ave. in Murray Hill.
Last night, the owner of Whiskey River, its manager, and I went over to Tonic (with some other guy who's a friend of the owner and lives in the neighborhood and whose name I can't remember. Sorry!) to reconnoiter. First impression: "Wow! This place is huge!" It is huge. Tonic occupies a building that fills a full corner of a block. The interior design adds to the feeling of space by opening the first floor up to the second. What this takes away in second-floor floorspace is worth it thanks to the atrium-like atmosphere it creates. The second floor has another smaller bar, that serves a small dance floor and a number of banquettes. There's a rooftop bar, but that was closed when we got there, but it could be nice, although views of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings are only possible, I imagine.
Would I ever go back to Tonic? Hmmmm. Doubtful. It's a bit glossy, like an issue of FHM with served alcohol and full of scantily clad women. The first-floor bar is a speckled marble, that looks like someone just renovated their kitchen. The music was frankly awful, although the multiple bigscreen projection and plasma tvs would make it a great place to watch a game if they could temporarily transform to a sports bar.
Word on the street is that the owners spent $6 million, not to own, but just renovate and open Tonic. That's a lot of dough. The place has the effervescence of B&T about it, but it's only been open for two weeks and probably needs some time to settle in. If one was going to nail me down me a characterization right now, I would say it's McFadden's meets Joshua Tree, the first on 42nd and 2nd Ave, the second on 3rd Ave and around 37th St.
My friend Kendra hit the nail on the head, noting that the bar really doesn't "fit" in the neighborhood. It's huge. It's loud. It's pseudo-glam. It's kind of a weird sight on 3rd Ave.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:22 PM | Food & Drink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!
Some days pass from being the most momentous of your life to beyond the horizon of your awareness in a matter of years. For example: the last day of school. As an adult, one is barely cognizant of when that day occurs. In college, it's actually kind of a melancholy day when you know it'll be three more months before you're back on campus doing fun college stuff. In high school, it's good, but you have to crack down and start looking for that summer job. Younger than that, however, and the last day of school is like a super-holiday rivaling Christmas, Halloween, and your birthday rolled into one. While all of those days are great, the last day of school is like a supernova of excitement. All other holidays are over within 24 hours. The last day of school is merely a gateway event leading to three months of unadulterated freedom!
I think my sweetspot for those days came between the 1st and 3rd grades, when I was old enough to appreciate the prospects and young enough to be totally unaware that such times might ever come to an end. The last day of school was always a half day, school staffs perhaps anticipating that it would be foolhardy to try to maintain kids' attentions for a full day.
In what was a temporary yearly ritual, my Mom would take all of us into the car and drive us to a park in Bellevue, WA near where we lived. I suspect that she was afraid that we might start gnawing wallpaper off the walls or tear up the lawn in fits of giddiness and hyperactive excitement. She may have been correct on that call. Once at the park, we'd have a picnic and then basically run around like pint-sized hellions, occasionally making eye contact with other random kids and exchanging glances with the wild-eyed telegraphing of escaped convicts that communicates "I may not know you, but I think I recognize you from Cell Block D and we are out baby!"
Does the rest of the summer live up to its initial expectations? Yeah. Sure, I'll bet "Mom, I'm bored" was probably uttered thousands of times by me and my siblings, but my parents took pretty good care of us. We lived near the shore of Lake Washington and the neighborhood had a pool and tennis courts where we took lessons. Trips to the library must have occurred at least twice a week. Pictured above, the Newport Library had a summer reading program for kids and if I read one book I read a hundred every summer at least. And perhaps coolest of all--literally--the backyard had a watering system that involved recessed sprinklers that would pop up out of the ground and spray in intersecting arcs, creating a James Bond training ground-like arena of waterplay. Freaking awesome!
Unofficially, today is my nephew's last day of school. His school is scheduled for a half week of half days through Wednesday, but is moving into a new facility next year, so everything's packed up and they're basically just bagging it at the end of this week. First grade is now over; he is in the sweet spot. The other night at dinner he was excitedly telling me how "Summer's is SO cool, because I can stay up as late as I want!" [that is not actually true, ed.] He was so excited he started gnawing on the pizza crust his mother had just asked him to pick up off the floor after he dropped it. Actually, I think he would have done that anyway, excitement or not, if past behavior is any indication.
Vacation Days: they're not something to be counted, deducted, or augmented by human resource managers. They're the marrow of youth to be sucked out the bones of summer like a popsicle at the beach. And if that's not the most overworked metaphor/simile amalgam you've ever heard, you gotta get yourself into one of those summer reading programs.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:39 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 22, 2006
RESTAURAUTEUR?
This is something that I've been wondering about lately. What, exactly, are the terms and etymology of someone who runs a restaurant? Despite taking six years of French, my first instinct is to always to write "restauranteur" [res-ter-ON-tur]. The apparently more common term is "restaurateur" [res-ter-AH-tur]. Sometimes, however, I come upon the term "restaurauteur" [res-ter-AW-tur]. This would seem to derive from the auteur theory of film championed in the 1950s and 1960s by Francois Truffaut:
The auteur theory holds that a film, or an entire body of work, by a director (or, less commonly, a producer) reflects the personal vision and preoccupations of that director, as if she or he were the work's primary "author" (auteur).
The auteur theory has had a major impact on film criticism worldwide ever since it was first advocated by François Truffaut in 1954. "Auteurism" is the method of analyzing films based on this theory (or, alternately, the characteristics of a director's work that makes her or him an auteur). Both the Auteur Theory and the auteurism method of film analysis are frequently associated with the French New Wave and the film critics who wrote for Cahiers du cinéma.
With the current state of the culinary arts in celebrity status and star chefs owning and controlling their own restaurants, let alone tv shows, it seems like the auteur theory could easily be transferred to cuisine. So where is this term coming from? When did it bridge from film to cooking? Is it an actual term or a simple case of misspelling or confusion by some people?
Whatever it's etymology, the term "restaurauteur" is an incredibly clever neologism, blending two words with very reasonable compatibility into one new word without any mouth-bending or major corruption of the original pronunciation. So does anyone know where it comes from and when it originated? I did some superficial searching online and am getting nothing. My comments section is currently busted, so please e-mail me at the@lexiphane.com if you have any further information.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:39 AM | Food & Drink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
AT HOME WITH AMY
The New York Times profiles her West Village apartment and woman herself--Amy Sedaris--today in its Home & Garden section. While not as well known as her brother David, who is an author, humorist, and public reader in the tradition of Mark Twain, Amy Sedaris starred in her own Comedy Central show "Strangers With Candy", had a recurring role on "Sex in the City", has performed in multiple stage plays, and has written a few books.
Ms. Sedaris, the playwright and comic performer who has long portrayed the oversized, the deformed and the delusional, lives in a small, dark apartment in the West Village with a collection of plaster meats, a few stuffed squirrels, books on skin disorders, some plastic layer cakes, wallpaper made from candy wrappers she procured in Chinatown, sandwiches made out of felt and her celebrated rabbit Dusty, who replaced her celebrated rabbit Tattletail after Tattletail died.As much as her surroundings suggest a personality disinclined toward human fraternity, Ms. Sedaris is, of all things, a people person, and beyond that, a homemaker. Should she meet you and find you sufficiently genial, she will have you over for chili, baked ham or spanakopita (a Greek spinach pie, her mother's recipe), and she will undoubtedly bake.
I love Amy Sedaris. "Strangers With Candy" is one of the most bizarre shows ever to be produced for television. I've seen two of her plays and bought cupcakes from her in the lobby pre-show, when most performers are normally backstage. The first time I met her was at one of her brother's booksignings. The line to get my copy signed was interminable and I was at the end of it. In a sea of empty folding seats, one woman sat by herself in a row and talking to a person directly in front of her. I went over and introduced myself and found that it was, indeed, Amy Sedaris. For fans of "Strangers of Candy", it's shocking to see how beautiful the woman is in person. She was in her early 40s at the time, but wearing a gingham skirt puffed out with crinoline, she looked like she could have been half that age. She was incredibly pleasant, considering I'd just interrupted her conversation, and signed her brother's book "Dave, Pee on me. -Jerri Blank [her 'Strangers With Candy' character]" I loved it, although when I got to the front of the line, her brother seemed peeved that he'd been upstaged, signing "Dave, Pee on me first. -David Sedaris" What a great family!
I hate being a fanboy, but Amy Sedaris is awesome. Her home is filled with plastic models of meats and stuffed squirrels. She is hilarious. She earns extra money by cooking cupcakes and making cheeseballs to sell at her shows. She likes to dress up in fat suits and shows up for magazine photo shoots made up to look like a victim of domestic violence. She is bizarre. What's not to love?
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:03 AM | Culture & | Comments (0) | TrackBack
THEY'VE COME A LONG WAY FROM TIANAMEN SQUARE
(The spirit of Tianamen Sq. now sold out for a fraudulent bill of goods.)
In 1989, the world watched on as as thousands of mostly student demonstrators gathered at Tianamen Square in Beijing to protest against Communist Chinese government opression and demand more liberty for China's people. It was a moving testament to the power of the human spirit, although it ended sadly with a brutal crackdown and the deaths of scores of young people.
Nearly two decades later China is a very different country. Rapidly modernizing with booming cities like Shanghai and the absorbed Hong Kong, China has ironically become a hyper-commercialized society with a cutthroat marketplace. It's students have changed as well it seems. Instead of demonstrating for freedom and democracy, today some Chinese students are rioting for . . . the ability to perpetrate massive academic fraud?
Students at Shengda, a privately run college with 13,000 students outside Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province, say they were assured on admission, and repeatedly afterward, that they would get graduation certificates that would appear identical to those issued by Zhengzhou, the top university in the province.Most Shengda students did not perform well enough on national college entrance exams to enroll at Zhengzhou University itself, where the tuition is about $500 a year. So Shengda's promise persuaded students and their families to pay unusually steep tuition to gain an edge in the job market. What many of them say they did not know is that under a national regulation phased in beginning in 2003, the college is now required to use its own name on diplomas.
When this year's graduating seniors picked up their diplomas on Friday and saw the revised language, the reaction was instantaneous — and incendiary.
"We bought a Mercedes-Benz and they delivered a Santana," said one angry graduate, Wang Guangying, referring to a low-priced Volkswagen sedan made in China. "By that night, school officials had totally lost control."
Beer bottles rained down from dormitory windows, leaving a carpet of broken glass on the walkways. Television sets and washing machines followed, according to students who participated and photos of the post-riot scene.
Groups of students marauded around the campus, smashing cars, offices or any piece of property they felt belonged to someone in power. The front gate and a statue of the college's founder were toppled.
So a bunch of kids whose families paid a private university five times the rate they would have paid if qualified enough to get into a prestigious national university are pissed that that school is no longer allowed to issue phony diplomas of the superior institution. While I can see how this could be viewed as some sort of breach of trust or contract, it is premised on an academic charade.
While I appreciate the market reforms China has undergone since 1989 and the general rise in prosperity is good for the Chinese people as whole, I find something wholly disheartening in the disparity between the protests at Tianamen Square and those of today.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 9:18 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 21, 2006
I KNOW WHERE THE BEEF IS
Where to find that quality burger? Regular readers of the site know that I love a good hamburger; in fact, I tend to belabor that point [see, WHERE IS THE BEEF?]. Which gives me one more reason to love the folks over at Gothamist.com. They're hosting the QBQ (quality before quantity) BBQ event this Saturday at Water Taxi Beach in Queens in a partnership with the people from A Hamburger Today.
And if the lure of freshly grilled meat wasn't enough, there will be a screening of Hamburger America at the event. Chef Harry Hawk of Schnack will have several varieties of burgers including an interpretative homage to burgers around the nation including The Guber
[sic, I think that should be Goober] Burger (1/4 lb burger with melted peanut butter), The Butter Burger (1/4 lb burger topped with butter), The Green Chile Burger (1/4 lb burger topped with...green chilies), and The Motz Burger (1/4 lb burger topped with Schnack Sauce). Also on the menu is the Elk Burger with meat freshly delivered from Idaho. The $9 ticket includes any two burgers and the $16 ticket includes any four burgers. Harry's will also have his regular menu available. It should be noted that having a ticket is substantially cheaper than buying the food a la cart and those without tickets may not be able to try every burger.
You're likely asking, "What the hell is Water Taxi Beach?" WTB is a public/private partnership in Long Island City, Queens, right across the East River from approximately 42nd St. There's sand, bars, restaurants, and summer in the city. Is it a surprise to come upon? Yes. Is it a great idea? Hells yeah!
The QBQ BBQ event is this Saturday starting at 6pm and ending at 10pm. Directions by car, subway, water taxi, and whatnot are available here. Tickets for the event are available here, although one can just show up without guarantee of trying all the burgers.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:44 PM | Food & Drink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
COME ON IRENE
I got an e-mail update today from former ZENtertainment (now unfortunately defunct) editor Sean Jordan noting that he will be on G4's "Attack of the Show" program Wednesday 6/21 (today) that will air live at 4pm PT (that's 7pm for us East Coast people). The topic will be reality TV and he will be appearing with the COO of the Fox Reality Channel and Irene McGee, former Seattle "Real World" housemate.
You remember Irene, right? She came down with Lyme Disease while on the show and was sucker-slapped by one of the male roommates as she was leaving the house. It was the low-ebb of reality television at the time and the point where The Real World stopped being real and just started being total crap.
Irene and I went to high school together, although two years younger, and she was a nice kid. She later joined me down in DC where we went to the same university before she joined the cast of "The Real World." She's currently a public speaker on the college circuit addressing the phenomena that is reality TV.
In Brooklyn and Queens, Time Warner Cable carries G4 on channel 105. You can find your own local listing here.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 2:08 AM | Television | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I AM OFFICIALLY OLD
The other week, my friend Katie got her hair cut. It looks really cute and has a little flip around the edges. And while this may sound like I'm frequenting a gay bar, I'm not. Steve the bouncer and I were commenting on how flattering it looked.
"Yeah, she looks like Mary Tyler Moore, when she was much younger."
"Dude! Are you kidding me? I can't believe that's who you came up with! Mary Tyler Moore? No one is going to know what the hell you're talking about now! It's over for you!"
Aw damnit!
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 1:14 AM | Culture & | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 20, 2006
THE COST AND BENEFITS OF A JESUIT EDUCATION
My comments sections are completely f'd up and I had to to disable them recently to prevent spam-bombing that was going on on a ridiculous scale. One really good comment sneaked in, however, on my piece about the news that Ayman al-Zarqawi had been killed. Frankly, I perhaps was a little too gleeful at the news, but the guy was a son of a bitch and deserved getting a bomb dropped on his head.
A veteran chimed in that perhaps I was a little too harsh, which I don't think I was. Read the whole exchange here.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:14 PM | War | Comments (0) | TrackBack
????????????
I recently talked to a friend of mine who was in DC for a wedding two weeks ago. While they were there, her fiance asked "Don't I know that guy?" when a bespectacled man walked past them. What was it about the guy that was familiar? The hair? The face? Perhaps the bowtie? No, it wasn't George Will. It was this guy.
(Matthew Lesko)
This is the idiot that one occasionally catches late at night on infomercials if you have a sleeping disorder, are plain just up past your bedtime, or have a serious cocaine problem. My friend was trying to describe who he was.
"You know, the guy from the infomercials who wants to get you government money . . ."
"Oh yeah, the guy with the question marks on his jacket!"
"It's not just a jacket; It's a suit! He's got question marks all over his suit!"
He's like the village idiot meta-civil servant cousin of the Joker, I guess. (No knock against civil servants; you people are awesome.) What amazes me is that this guy was not on his way to an infomercial. He actually walks around wearing that suit. And I thought NYC was a freakshow!
UPDATE: In addition to his question-mark suit, I am now informed that Lesko was also sporting traffic cone-orange clogs of the sort bought by old ladies at dollar stores for gardening.
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:53 AM | Culture & | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NICE TO MEET YA!
This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting my older brother's girlfriend Betsy. She's good people and she and my brother seem like a nice match, especially as they both emit the same pheromones that attract attacking flies during a badminton match. I'd see a doctor about that, both of you, or at least restrict yourself to urban areas.
Her only fault that I could detect was a sense of solipsism, asking that I represent her nicely on my site. Like I would write about my brother's girlfriend on my site! Sheesh! Get over yourself!
It was great to meet you Betsy.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:29 AM | Total Jackassery | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 19, 2006
WHOA DADDDY!
Yesterday was a hot one; blazing and brutal. Still, it didn't detract from the fact that it was Fathers' Day. Can you think of anything nicer than having Father's Day coincide with your baby girl's first b-day party? That must be a great feeling. The pictured above are Darren and his just-one-year-old girl Maya "Papaya". I'm a big fan of the ladies; and she might be one of the prettiest I've ever seen.
As they get older, dads have the responsibility of not just looking over their kids, but remaining in the mix of their grandkids' lives, which some do to great effect--like taking them to the beach and football games. Thank you!
Others know how to spin a tale, and regale spellbound grandkids with tales of their youth and where they came from, even fooling them with completely believable tales of Leprachauns leaving Tootsie Rolls in the lawn for us to find. Thank you!
But it was always comes back to Dad. The guy who coaches our sports teams, takes us camping, and wisely knows when to defer to Mom when the situation calls for it. Sometimes, he'll even drive the entire family up a precarious logging road in the Cascade Mountains in order to fulfill a demand to get a tall-enough tree to completely fill a domestic cathedral ceiling. Now that is good stuff. And I shudder to think of ever having to let my own kid behind the wheel of my car when I'm teaching him or her to drive. Let alone lettting them drive off alone once they get their licenses.
Thanks Dad. You're the best.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 4:23 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
ENOUGH WITH THE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION!
I love public transportation. One can passively get to where one is going while getting stuff done, listening to music, reading, or writing. If the case calls for it: napping. But as my previous entry indicates, sometimes it's just too much.
The method of the medium can just be intolerable. The Metro-North Hudson River Line is one of the most pleasant trips one could hope to take. It skirts the eastern side of the Hudson River southward from Poughkeepsie before it jogs this way and that around the northern end of Manhattan. Eventually, it goes underground at 96th St. and enters a subterranean world under Park Ave. that stretches for more than a mile, which in and of itself is pretty cool. I normally enjoy this trip a great deal, even if I am sitting in the most-empty car--the bathroom car--and the stink of that train-blue-toilet-water is horrible.
Last night I took a train from the penultimate northern stop on this line and settled in with my iPod and a book that was a gift from a friends (thanks Debbie and Mike!) and was really enjoying myself. After two stops, the car I was in was filling up. After three it was packed. At the fourth stop, I, and the guy sitting next to me in a three-seat section--middle seat empty to accomodate our bags and some semblance of personal space--were trying to be patently oblivious when a group of seven passengers came in and trundled up the aisle insistently looking for seats. I should have seen it coming. I should have feigned sleep, heroin sickness, or a diabetic coma by spreading empty coke cans around my seat. But I was awake at the switch. She caught me reading a book I couldn't put down. Damnit! Me and window-seat -guy both loaded all of our bags into our laps with barely muted sighs of exasperation.
Fine. I'ts only an hour-and-a-half trip. I can bare sitting jammed shoulder to shoulder with a stranger for that long. I won't like it, but I can do it. Unfortunately all of these people were part of the same group, a crunchy-looking septuplet of, alright, hippies. Almost everything put aside, I have nothing against hippies. I don't agree with them on almost any political or fashion issue, and I think I'd rather have Ted Nugent put an arrow through my eye than have to attend a jam-band concert, but other than that, I say live and let live. Really. I'm not into conflict.
So off we go. I'm listening to music and reading my book and feel I can endure the close enough physical contact of a woman who's not about to take off her shirt and make out with me in a public place. For another hour, I can bear it.
Then something weird starts happening. Every few minutes, the girl next to me starts rising up and craning her neck backwards. The guy directly in front of her starts doing the same. Actually, all seven of them--all seven sitting in front of me--occassionally hop up like prairie dogs, swiveling 180 degrees to see what's going on behind them. It was unsettling. Even absorbed in my music and my book, it was peripherally impossible to ignore this behavior. If it was someone advancing from a rearward car shooting people, I felt like I'd probably be able to hear it, even through my headphones. Perhaps some guy was beating his wife or girlfriend or a policeman or conductor was hassling an innocent citizen.
By the time we got to Yonkers, I have to admit that I started turning around myself, as were others, convinced that something was happening--perhaps on a hypersonic level we all weren't aware of. As we approached the 125th St. stop in Harlem, the behavior of these railroad prairie dogs reached a fever pitch and, frankly, it was freaking me out. I decided to get off and just take the subway the rest of the way. The frantic darting eyes were really getting on my nerves and making it impossible to read and/or relax. I got out of my seat and walked back towards the nearest train exit.
Aha! It all became clear in an instant. The Metro-North Seven, as they shall now be immortalized, had their paranoia revealed the second I got to the train door. In an empty space across from the train's bathroom and right next to the exit, they'd all placed their expensive-looking mountain bikes. The darting eyes, swiveling heads, and collective unease were all because they were paranoid that someone was going to boost one of their bikes out of the train at each stop! That explained the increase of intolerable (to me) excitement as we reached closer to 125th St.
"You know how those blacks can be."
Their latent racism aside, when I was looking at that stack of bikes my first instinct was to think "Steal one. Don't even take it home. Just drag it out the door and leave it on the platform as the train pulls away." I think it would provide some sort of satisfaction to the Metro-North Seven.
"You see! We live in a world corrupted by greed and Bush and false profits! Our paranoiac tendencies and mindset are totally justified! I just hope some underpriveleged kid shorted by the system winds up on my $800 Trek!"
Here's a tip on how to make my train travel more pleasant if you insist on leaving nearly $10K worth of sports gear placed directly across from the door of a train car making multiple stops:
1) Buy a chain. A long chain. Even the cheapest thinnest cable connecting seven bikes together would make moving all of them out of the door of a train impossible in the time that the train comes to a stop, at least without garnering your attention.
2) Don't be such lazy fucks. There are seven of you. Over an 80mn train ride, each one of you would only have to take turns of about 11-12 minutes or so guarding your bikes. No one's going to steal a bike with its obvious owner standing in front it. Don't take seven seats. Take six and rotate.
I wish there was a third tip, but I think two pretty much cover it. It really is that easy. Thanks for ruining everyone's (and my) trip. I know that smoking too much pot can make you paranoid, but that's a side effect you need to keep to yourself. It's called etiquette.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 5:48 AM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 17, 2006
THE SINGLE WORST TRAIN PERFORMER EVER
One of the pleasures/pains of regularly taking the subway are the creative panhandlers. Over the past decade these have often taken the guise of children telling a woeful story about how their sports teams' uniforms were stolen and they need donations to replace them. Based on the number of times I've heard this story, there is apparently a thriving black market trade in stolen McKinley Jr. High Red Raiders jerseys and the like. Sizeable enough and lucrative enough that one third of the second world must currently be attired in the purloined uniforms of inner-city kids. Perhaps an impoverished nation of pygmies exclusively desirous of shirts and shorts sized for ten-year-olds is the end market.
Higher up the ladder are the kids hustling candy. Sometimes there's a fund-raising story attached, but more often than not it's just an honest quid pro quo. Cash for candy.
In addition to the MTA-licensed buskers who perform on platforms and in stations, there are indie troubadors who perform on trains. Some of them are good. I like the Rasta Jimi Hendrix impersonator with the mini-amp strapped to his back. And I always enjoy the band of mariachi dudes.
Today, however, I encountered the Single Worst Train Performer Ever. It was on the 3 Train travelling from Brooklyn to Manhattan. I was in a heat-stroke fugue state, bathed in sweat and attempting to absorb every bit of A/C the car would offer me. My reverie/death throes, however, were shattered by the booming voice of a man who entered my car excruciatingly far from my destination. He wasn't yelling and he wasn't screaming. He was SHOUTING at the top of his lungs.
"EXCYOOOZE ME LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! I AM IN DESPERATE NEED OF A HOT MEAL!
What? Really? It was 90 degrees this afternoon. The prospect of a hot meal was horrifying. If he was desperate for a Slurpee, an ice cream sandwich, a frozen margarita, or a cool fruit cocktail, that I could understand; but a hot meal?
"MY ONLY MEANS OF SUPPORTING MYSELF ARE GAH BLAH YAH BLAH GAH!"
Perhaps what he was making up for in volume was his heavily slurred enunciation. I'm going to assume, however, that the last part about his sole means of making a living was by singing for his supper. And without much ado, he burst into song in a strangled slurred mumbled drunken basso profundo. From what I could make out, it was a Motown standard, but it quickly trailed into a completely unintelligable string of atonal howls as the man ambled through the car.
Again, the volume was extraordinary. If I was telling this story in person I would attempt to imitate the man's performance and you would assume I was exaggerating for comedic or dramatic effect. I wouldn't be though. In fact I don't think I actually could raise my voice to that volume.
I can be a soft touch sometimes, but I was having a real bad day and am ashamed to admit that I fixed the guy with my best NYer never-do-this-on-a-subway-to-a-stranger death glare and silently mouthed "Fuck. Off." when he extended his hand in my direction. Actually, I may have said it aloud. I may have screamed it aloud for all I know. Neither I nor anyone else could a hear a thing over this guy's "singing", however.
You know those sick sociopaths who light passed-out homeless guys on fire? I'll admit that was about two verses away from being one of those guys, mentally cataloguing my possessions on me based on their flammability. Are those mini-bottles of Scope mouthwash flammable? Before I could turn into a psycho-homicidal MacGyver, however, my tormentor passed to the next car full of soon-to-be unfortunates.
Does everyone remember when I got randomly punched in the face by a cracked-out meth-head on the street a few months ago? That was considerably more bearable than the performance by the guy who currently holds the designation of being the Single Worst Train Performer Ever.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:47 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
"IT WAS LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF A WERNER HERZOG FILM"
In a meta-postmodern documentary about a documentary, famed filmmaker Werner Herzog spoofs his own experiences as a director of his own incredibly dramatically/traumatically produced films in 2004's Incident at Loch Ness. The premise of the film is that two documentarians are following Herzog to Scotland to film the legendary icon making another documentary about a separate legendary icon--the Loch Ness Monster--and the obsessive characters that pursue evidence of its existence. That's what I mean when I write "meta-postmodern." The premise is reasonable, as Herzog's specialty is making films about manic people and characters that metaphorically tilt at windmills in defiance of all logic. Herzog is brilliant at this type of work because he identifies with his subjects; his body of work most regularly identified with its Sisysphean difficulties.
This is where Incident at Loch Ness becomes, if not brilliant, fabulously clever and very entertaining in my opinion. And I love Herzog all the more for agreeing to be a part of what, in a sense, is a spoof of his own career. Production of Herzog's ostensible documentary begins to bog down and tensions rise when it becomes clear that the gladhanding producer Zak Penn is literally producing the documentary: manufacturing incidents and installing actors as the supposed obsessives Herzog is supposed to be profiling. The two documentarians following Herzog and his crew document the meltdown in perfect fashion as tempers flare, people quit, and there's quite a bit of yelling.
Against his better instincts, Herzog agrees to continue working on the film, if anything because he is fascinated with the producer's complete lack of ethical fiber and overabundance of duplicity. Plus, Herzog's got points on the profits. At this point, the film descends into hilarious parody when things start happening that makes Herzog begin to believe in Nessie itself. In a blending of The Blair Witch Project meets Jaws, Scotland style, everything goes completely to hell and only the bedraggled surivors are left to recount their tale.
My estimation of Herzog rose a great deal watching the film, because it's fun to watch estimable people making fun of themselves. At one point, Herzog is dressing down the producer of his own film, saying it was one of the most chaotic productions he had ever been a part of.
Zak Penn: At least we're not dragging the boat over a hill...
Werner Herzog: What was that?
Zak Penn: Uh... nothing.
That's in reference to Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo. There is really no serious value to Incident at Loch Ness; no serious themes or interesting insights into the value of documentary filmmaking. It is Herzog and his crew having a blast toying with the medium. I found it incredibly fun to watch. I think most fans of Werner Herzog would find it similarly entertaining.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 7:10 AM | Film | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 15, 2006
AH, SPRING!
I was walking down the street today and came upon a florist trimming her flowers. One particular bloom was fascinating, pink with strands more than petals--it looked like a floral half koosh ball. I asked the florist if I could have one if I promised to give it to the first beautiful woman I saw--after her, of course. She nicely agreed and off I went with my flower, which I distributed as promised.
Ah spring! Romantic foolishness is highly underrated these days. I love NYC.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 5:40 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 13, 2006
FREEDUMB
Upstate hick and marginal half-wit friend--oh yeah, and he's got the boorish manners of a Yalie, alright, he is a Yalie--Dave Spiecher is performing his show with collaborators at the People's Improve Theater this month. It's called Freedumb:
Freedumb blends rapid-fire comedic sketeches dramatic scenes and songs tackling subjects like homosexuality, Christianity, the conflict in Iran, moral values and politics.
Well, the conflict in Iran seems like a non-starter from the get-go since we haven't invaded them yet, but I'm not in this group, nor spell-checking their flyers, so I guess that's none of my business.
I do know that Dave tells a pretty funny anecdote, so I imagine his professional work should be worth seeing. Plus, the show was invited to the Toronto and Chicago Sketch Comedy Festivals, which is pretty impressive.
The televised performance was last week. The public premiere was last night. Two other shows are seeable on the 19th and the 26th of June, 7 pm. I'll be at one, if not both.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:56 AM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SHOWCASE SHOWDOWN
(You're the next contestant!)
It's about time The New York Times adressed the phenomena that is "The Price Is Right." The paper of record notes today the noteworthiness of Bob Barker, his awesome microphone, and, his legendary command to "COME ON DOWN! YOU'RE THE NEXT CONTESTANT ON 'THE PRICE IS RIGHT!'"
Who under 50 — except for those raised by parents who banned television and put rice cakes rather than Ring Dings in their lunchboxes — did not spend dozens of childhood mornings zoned out on the couch, playing along with the Dice Game or screaming at the fool from San Diego about to overbid on a bag of corn chips?
Who indeed? Not me!
It is the democracy of the audience, and the show's theme — how to gauge inflation, essentially — that has sustained its appeal, said Mr. Barker, the show's 82-year-old host (and its executive producer)."Everyone in the United States can identify with our show," he said. "On most game shows today you will see contestants between 20 and 45 who are physically attractive. We have people on 'The Price Is Right' who are between 20 and 45 who are physically attractive too."
"But we have people who, when they became 18, the first thing they did was come to 'The Price Is Right,' " he continued, "and I had a big winner on a recent show who was 95. We deliberately select contestants that are black, white and brown. We deliberately pick contestants from all over the United States. We have fat people, thin, short, tall, you name it."
I will never forget the summer morning in my early tweens when I saw a humongous woman loping down the aisle after being summoned by Bob Barker, hysterically clapping her hands, and practically crying with joy, right before she tripped and bellyflopped onto her face in front of the entire studio audience. There was a pause of disbelief before my brother and I started laughing so hard I thought I was going to throw up. Ah, good times.
It can be dangerous for Bob Barker too.
And while television may worship 22-year-olds and body parts created in the operating theater, Mr. Barker is also part of the show's grand appeal, and he has the X-rays to prove it. One overzealous fan bear-hugged Mr. Barker and broke a rib; several have crushed his toes; and one raced onto the stage and head-butted him in the solar plexus.
I haven't actually watched "The Price Is Right" in years; maybe I should look it up. And don't forget to get your pets spayed or neutered!
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 9:12 AM | Culture & | Comments (0) | TrackBack
HELP ME JESUS! HELP ME JEWISH GUY! HELP ME TOM CRUISE!
OK, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby will not be winning any Oscars. In fact, the NASCAR comedy featuring Will Farrell as a race car prodigy will probably be terrible. Nonetheless, the final scene of the movie's trai