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December 31, 2006
CHELSEA CLASSIC
For many reasons, it can be rare to catch an unobstructed view of an entire building's facade in Manhattan. Traffic, scaffolding, the sheer size of buildings and so on all conspire to obstruct decent views of the city's architecture. That's why I was thrilled to get a shot of the church pictured above. It's St. Vincent De Paul's on 23rd St. between 6th and 7th Aves. St. Vincent is the patron saint of charity, but the reserved and unostenatious nature of the church--likely designed in the spirit of the saint--is now belabored by the level of filth that has accumulated on its facade. It's a shame, because it's an impressive work of classical architecture.
In the spirit of conservatism and spacial conservation, the building features pilasters rather than columns along 23rd St. The spare architrave supports a frieze adorned only with the name of St. Vincent De Paul. If it weren't for the Corinthian-style heads of the pilasters, the dentillation of the pediment's cornice would be almost the only ornamentation on the building. A broken pediment lies across the doorway to the church, with statuary of St. Vincent and a child. I didn't get close enough, but it looks like the doors of the church are bronze. They've weathered to an almost aquamarine patina. The spareness of the building's ornamentation puts its weather-beaten condition in high relief.
While I appreciate the sentiment behind the simplicity of the building's design, I think to let such a structure become so rundown looking is a shame.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 1:09 AM | Architecture | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NOTED WITH APPRECIATION
This past Thursday I swung by the John Stevenson Gallery on 23rd St. to check out the Philip Trager Retrospective. Trager is the architectural photographer I wrote about last week [see TOWERING TALENT, 12/22/06]. The Stevenson Gallery is a nice quiet intimate spot to enjoy some art on the quick and cheap. I mostly had the place to myself as I enjoyed Trager's photographic prints of buildings in France, Italy, NYC, and Connecticut, as well as portraits of modern dancers. Gallery personnel were present in the background behind room dividers, but were more than willing to let visitors browse at their leisure. The exception was the house docent, a patchwork-colored cat who dutifully followed me around the room like it expected me to steal something.
The standout feature of the Retrospective in my opinion is pictured above. It's an artist's proof of one of Trager's prints, fully notated by the artist to outline the compositional details of the picture as well as writing where dodging, burning, and other developing touches were necessary. It was a fascinating insight into what Trager was thinking while practicing his craft.
The John Stevenson Gallery is just a stopover for this particular exhibition. In the spring, the photographs will head to Oberlin College before finally settling in The Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress in DC.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:49 AM | Art | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 27, 2006
UNELECTED BUT NOT TO BE UNREMEMBERED
President Gerald Ford, Jr., the 38th President of the United States, died late Tuesday according to a statement from his family. No cause of death was immediately given, but the former President suffered from heart problems. Ford was the only unelected President and Vice President in the history of the country. He ascended to the office following the resignation of President Richard Nixon. His appointment as Vice President was dependent on confirmation by the Senate, as per the requirements of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. One of Ford's first statements as President would be his most memorable and came during his swearing in ceremony:
My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.
Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.
Earlier, he acknowledged with some humility the circumstances of his taking office:
I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers. And I hope that such prayers will also be the first of many.
Such modesty seems like it would be an unwise invitation to political attack these days, and it unfortunately would likely be taken as such. The AP's obituary of President Ford seems to do the man's life some justice. Obituaries, of course, are generally written some time in advance of their subjects' death. An indication that highlights the fact that Gerald Ford Jr. was the longest-surviving President (followed by Pres. Ronald Reagan) is that the primary author of the AP's obituary, J.Y. Smith, predeceased his subject by nearly a year in January of 2006.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:42 AM | Politics & Policy | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 26, 2006
CHRISTMAS IN HEAVEN
The Godfather of Soul and the Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness, James Brown, passed away Christmas Day from congestive heart failure after being hospitalized in Georgia with pneumonia two days ealier. Despite his illness, doctors gave Brown permission Sunday to perform a New Year's Eve show at B.B. King's in NYC. He was 73 years old.
While younger readers may know James Brown more for what seemed ridiculous run-ins with the law, he was a pioneering musician and performer whose style cut a swath through the landscape of American music. He came from all-too-typical humble roots:
Mr. Brown was born May 3, 1933, in a one-room shack in Barnwell, S.C. As he would later tell it, midwives thought he was stillborn, but his body stayed warm, and he was revived. When his parents separated four years later, he was left in the care of his aunt Honey, who ran a brothel in Augusta, Ga. As a boy he earned pennies buck-dancing for soldiers; he also picked cotton and shined shoes. He was dismissed from school because his clothes were too ragged.
He was imprisoned for petty theft in 1949 after breaking into a car, and paroled three years later. While in prison he sang in a gospel group. After he was released, he joined a group led by Bobby Byrd, which eventually called itself the Flames. At first, Mr. Brown played drums with the group and traded off lead vocals with other members. But with his powerful voice and frenzied, acrobatic dancing, he soon emerged as the frontman.
His incredible work ethic and disciplined performances won out against his hardscrabble origins and his place in history was soon assured.
Mr. Brown led a turbulent life, and served prison time as both a teenager and an adult. He was a stern taskmaster who fined his band members for missed notes or imperfect shoeshines. He was an entrepreneur who, at the end of the 1960s, owned his own publishing company, three radio stations and a Learjet (which he would later sell to pay back taxes). And he performed constantly: as many as 51 weeks a year in his prime.
James Brown will lie in state Wednesday at Harlem's Apollo Theater with a eulogy to be given by Al Sharpton. He will then be transferred to his native Georgia for a funeral and burial. Fortunately, we'll always have his music to remember him by.
"Christmas In Heaven" is Track 16 off of James Brown's Funky Christmas.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:47 PM | Music | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 25, 2006
EVERY PAGE'S A HOLIDAY
I'm sorry. I really have no excuse for this. Merry Christmas. I'm pulling for good things in the community and the best things for friends, family, and humanity in general this New Year. Still, who else is bringing you Bettie Page, naked, on Christmas Day? No place else but up for us in '07!
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 1:19 AM | Music | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 22, 2006
INTO THE SUNSET
(Photo by Karl Rabe for The Poughkeepsie Journal)
Just yesterday I closed a piece about painter Christine Lafuente [see HUDSON RIVER SCHOOLED, 12/21/06] by writing that I suspected her mother was former Mayor of Poughkeepsie and my high school AP Government teacher Colette Lafuente. I've been informed that assumption was correct and just last week the outgoing County Clerk is retiring. Lafuente ran and was elected County Clerk three years ago after hitting the term limit wall for the number of times one can serve as the Mayor of Poughkeepsie. Now she is retiring to warmer pastures, taking time to travel and spend more time with her family; (her husband unfortunately was killed in 2001 at the World Trade Center).
Lafuente announced her retirement as Dutchess County clerk last month, and the party had been in the works ever since.
"It's not going to be the same," said Stephanie Shaw, a DMV worker. "Everyone's going to miss her."
Only last month Lafuente received Dutchess County's first Athena Award for her professional excellence and commitment to community service. Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, was a protector of her city.
Lafuente's career has run the Dutchess gamut, from school teacher, to legislator and mayor, and finally, to clerk.
"I should have come to the county clerk office sooner," she said.
Her replacement must be appointed by Gov. George Pataki before he leaves office. Whoever he picks, I don't envy them. He or she will have some impressive shoes to fill. I know I'm with Lafuente's staff and the residents of Poughkeepsie and surrounding towns in wishing her well on whatever she plans to do next.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 9:55 PM | Politics & Policy | Comments (0) | TrackBack
TOWERING TALENT
Photography could be described as an effort to capture and freeze the ever-in-motion with a static medium. Nature, people, almost all living and even inanimate subjects are in some sort of motion, albeit of various speeds. One exception is architectural photography; the practice of taking portraits of immoveable objects most frequently with a tool that emphasizes light, dark, lines, shape, and detail.
The small-format camera — 35 mm or the digital equivalent — is terrific for capturing fast moving action and doing it inconspicuously. It is virtually impossible to use a view camera unobtrusively. They are big, maybe 8 inches by 10 inches, with a bellows that can extend for two feet. Because they are heavy, they have to be supported on a tripod. To see the ground glass properly, the photographer uses a black cloth that drapes from the rear of the camera to his waist. But they are ideal for certain types of photography, and one of them — architectural photography — was Mr. Trager's first enthusiasm. (He went on to become an important photographer of modern dance, but for that he used a handheld camera.)
The view camera, because it is fixed on its tripod, allows meticulous framing. The photographer decides with great precision exactly what he wants in his picture, and what he wants to exclude. It favors photographers with a strong sense of composition, Mr. Trager's great strength. The image the photographer sees on the ground glass is upside down and reversed, which gives him a sense of its abstract qualities. (Representational painters will look at a canvas upside down for the same purpose.) The bellows can be adjusted to eliminate parallax, the illusion that the sides of a building are converging. And the large negative size captures an enormous amount of detail. Mr. Trager used all these traits to great effect in his 1977 book "Photographs of Architecture." Six blackand-white vintage prints from it are at Stevenson.
The photographer mentioned above is Philip Trager, a lawyer turned photographer whose work is currently being shown at the John Stevenson Gallery at 338 W. 23rd St. between 8th and 9th Aves in an exhibit called Philip Trager: Retrospective. Some examples of Trager's work is available online at the Stevenson Gallery site here.
The New York Sun ran a great review of the retrospective in yesterday's paper.
Mr. Trager's impulses are not those of a documentarian, or even properly those of an architectural photographer, but of an art photographer. He uses his view camera to make a handsome picture that happens to have this or that house as its subject. His indebtedness to the Walker Evans of "American Photographs" is clear, but so is his difference. The simple two-story wood framed house in "Glastonbury" (1976) is shot head-on, as Evans might have taken it, but from farther away, to give a sense of its placement in a treerimmed field. It is winter and the two large trees on either side of the path leading to the front door are bare of leaves. Mr. Trager shot with the sun low so that the trees cast dramatic shadows on the front of the house and on the lawn, upsetting its symmetry. There is a calculated beauty in the image that careful manipulation of his view camera made possible.
Philip Trager: Retrospective runs through January 13. The gallery is open to the public Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 - 6 p.m.
Posted by Lexiphane at 2:03 PM | Architecture , Art | Comments (0) | TrackBack
DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOUR TREE
(Photo from the Lexiphane Flickr site)
True, Christmas is still three days away, but NYC residents may want to give some thought to what's going to happen to their trees in the week, weeks, and hopefully not months after the Season's over. Every year the NYC Parks Department operates a series of drop-off and mulching sites for Christmas treees around the city.
MulchFest provides New Yorkers an opportunity to bring their Christmas trees to designated sites where they are ground into wood chips. The chips can then be placed in tree pits and gardens. Parks & Recreation encourages New Yorkers to help the environment and their community by participating in this event. MulchFest takes place on January 6 and 7, 2007 from 10:00am to 2:00pm. Participants are encouraged to bring bags to take advantage of the free mulch provided.
Looking at the list of drop-off points divided by borough, it seems that Manhattan residents not living on the Upper West or Upper East Sides could be out of luck when it comes to MulchFest, although NYC Parks will be running woodchippers at Tompkins Square Park and Washington Square Park.
Posted by Lexiphane at 1:43 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 21, 2006
HUDSON RIVER SCHOOLED
(Manhattan Bridge with Reflection, by Christine Lafuente)
While the holidays can be an exceedingly busy time, residents of NYC and visitors may want to take some time to catch an exhibition of a painter who successfully bridges the gaps between urban and natural mise-en-scenes. The Manhattan location of Frost & Reed Galleries is currently exhibiting "Riverscapes and Floating Worlds": a collection of watercolors situated around New York and the Hudson River Valley as painted by Christine Lafuente. From the gallery's description of the exhibition:
Riverscapes and Floating Worlds opening on November 30th showcases Lafuente’s unique vision of city views, riverscapes and still lifes. An award-winning artist and one of today’s leading exponents of American painterly realism in New York, Lafuente is known for the energy and excitement her dazzling brushwork brings to alla prima painting.
In painting directly from nature, Lafuente evokes the essence and the symbolic import of her subject. Her gift for unlocking the poetic potentials of everyday scenes can be appreciated in such works as View Toward Brooklyn Bridge, Winter, 2005 (image to the right) and East River Reflection, 2006 - a striking series of paintings of post-9-11 downtown New York. Views of the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, the East River, Brooklyn waterfront and Manhattan skyline - with their rich color, dynamic shapes and sparkling light, capture the emotions and hopes for the future which pervade in this tremendously vital section of the city.
(Hudson River, Cloudy Morning)
Frost & Reed Galleries is located at 21 E67th St. between Fifth and Madison Avenues. Its exhibition of Lafuente's work runs through January 6, Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. If one can't make it in person, a selection is viewable online here.
As a personal aside, I believe that Christine Lafuente may be a daughter of Colette Lafuente, who taught Civics and my AP Government class in high school. Despite having to teach a class to second-semester seniors during the final period of the day, she always managed to hold my attention. Rightly so, considering that she was simultaneously serving as a multi-term Mayor of the City of Poughkeepsie. She remains one of my favorite high school teachers.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 9:42 PM | Art | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 19, 2006
PAST DUE DATES
The past three entries were all written before the weekend and scheduled to appear on an intermittent basis to keep regular readers entertained while I was away. Thus explains the ambiguous lack of a timely nature for the last few entries' subjects. Hopefully nothing calamitous, fortuitous or otherwise newsworthy has happened since early Saturday morning. Those looking for more up-to-date items should visit one of my favorite sites: Gothamist.com. The -Ist kids are always on the ball. The Gothamist site's Xmas party is where I'll be this evening so a decent plug in return for some free food and drink seems totally fair. Fresh Lexiphane fare should be on the way tomorrow along with--hopefully--some good holiday photos.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 3:23 PM | Lexiphane | Comments (0) | TrackBack
JUST AN ALT-CLICK AND A JUMP
The New York Times is quietly advising online readers of an occasionlly useful new service. A small note at the bottom of an Internet article the other day notified me that further explanations of certain terms in NYTimes' pieces could be reached through the American Heritage Encyclopedia. The Times generally does a good job of hyperlinking terms in its articles where and when it seems appropriate, but readers can always use a little bit of extra help in deciphering the paper's less-than-obvious prose. Here's how it works:
Tips
To find reference information about the words used in this article, hold down the ALT key and click on any word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry.
The service isn't perfect. Clicking on the actor Dan Duryea's name in a movie review gave me an encyclopedia entry on the biblical character Daniel. A Science section article on Pakistanis genetically incapable of experiencing pain, however, prompted me to highlight and then alt-click on "sympathetic nervous system." This is what came up:
Dictionary
sympathetic nervous system
n.
The part of the autonomic nervous system originating in the thoracic and lumbar regions of the spinal cord that in general inhibits or opposes the physiological effects of the parasympathetic nervous system, as in tending to reduce digestive secretions, speeding up the heart, and contracting blood vessels.
That definition may be more meaningful to some than to others, but it sure is a cool and useful feature to add into a news article. The Times may want to consider adding an atlas to this function. If an article references Abu Dhabi or Myanmar, it would be nice to be able to alt-click to a map of those countries' locations on a map.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 1:00 PM | Science & Technology | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 18, 2006
HEADS UP ISAAC NEWTON
I know very little about Apple Computers equity stock. I'm equally ignorant of the company's operations. I do know that I like its products and operating software. That said, a quick read-through of a recent article leads me to think that something in Cupertino stinks worse than rotten fruit.
Apple Computer has delayed filing its financial statements for a second time and said it will restate earnings to account for backdated stock-option grants.
The size of any charge related to the options hasn't been finalized, Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company plans to file its reports with regulators by Dec. 29.
Yesterday's filing was the first confirmation that Apple will restate its results because of the grants.
In June, Apple began an internal probe of its options grants, including one to chief executive Steve Jobs, and said in October that it misdated 15 stock-option grants from 1997 to January 2002.
The delayed financial reports, which were due Thursday, are for the company's fiscal third quarter, which ended July 1, and its fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. The company first delayed its third-quarter report in August.
By backdating the grants, executives inflated the options' value by choosing days when the underlying shares traded lower, making it possible for the recipients to sell them at a higher price.
Fred Anderson, Apple's former chief financial officer, resigned from the company's board after the October findings, and Jobs apologized to shareholders. Apple said there had been no misconduct by current management.
Well, that's nice of them to say that they're going to file by the end of December; that is the legal requirement: companies must file their year-end 10-K 90 days after the close of their fiscal year. The fact that they're 10+ days away from that filing deadline and saying everything's kosher is like claiming everyone's going to be okay as you're lowered down the side of the Titanic safely ensconced in a lifeboat. Technically it's true, but hardly encouraging vis a vis the overall picture.
When I followed stocks for a living, I had a general rule of thumb: any company can get mixed up and have to delay filing for a few weeks. A second delay, however, either indicates a lack of internal urgency in solving a problem or hints that there is an accounting problem so monumental that all recent financial statements are called into question and it's time to run away from the stock as quickly as possible.
Apple's statement that there "was no misconduct by current management" following the October shitcanning of its CFO is Clintonian in its fatuous veracity. Like I said before, I admire Apple Computers' software and hardware a great deal. A company that treats its investors like asshole suckers though, is one that will eventually start treating its customers the same. It bodes ill for Apple as a whole and I certainly hope some managerial housecleaning is planned for the near future.
(For God's sake, no investment decisions whatsoever should be made on the basis of the above opinion.)
Posted by Lexiphane at 1:35 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 17, 2006
THE PEN AND THE SWORD
The New York Times had an interesting feature the other day, asking authors their recommendations on books about war. Excerpted:
MICHAEL WALZER,
professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and author of “Just and Unjust Wars.”
J. Glenn Gray, “The Warriors” (1959). A brilliant philosophical reflection on combat. Gray writes especially well about two seemingly contradictory subjects: the enduring appeal of combat and the guilt soldiers feel for the injuries they inflict.
Geoffrey Blainey, “The Causes of War” (1973). A fine piece of historical analysis, which tries to explain how and why wars begin — and why, sometimes, they don’t.
No one asked me, but here are two recommendations I think are indespensible reading:
Tagged:
"Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars And The Rise of American Power" by Max Boot. The author sidesteps the obvious and outlines the United States's almost constant involvement in military interventions around the globe that serve the country's interests. Contrary to the perception that the U.S. has been a historically isolationist and reluctant participator in foreign wars, Boot shows that almost from the nation's inception, America has taken up arms far from home to enforce its will."Martyr's Day" by Michael Kelly. Quite possibly the best piece of wartime journalism ever produced. Kelly eschewed the pool-reporting paradigm of the first Gulf War and headed out with another enterprising journalist in a beat-up sedan across the desert to tally the horrendous toll of war and "peaceful despotism" in the Middle East. The author was lucky to make it back to the States alive, luck that would not hold out through the current war. This small book stands as an enduring testament to the author's talent and humanism in the face of the worst things one hopes to never witness.
Posted by Lexiphane at 1:05 PM | Books | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 15, 2006
IN ABSENTIA
I'll be away from the computer the next few days, as I tend to some holiday-related matters: people I have to see, parties I have to plan and execute, and invitations to events I need to attend. Not wanting to leave any regular readers out in the cold, I'm ante-dating some entries to appear over the weekend and early next week. Don't say I never did anything for you.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:59 PM | Lexiphane | Comments (0) | TrackBack
OUT ON HER ASS, BUT PROBABLY LANDING ON HER FEET
Judith Regan, eponymous head of the ReganBooks imprint at HarperCollins, got the boot from her parent company today in an economically worded two-sentence news release. Ostensibly, the catalyst was the totally botched release of one of the single-most distasteful publishing efforts ever: O.J. Simpson's maybe-maybe not-tell-all on how he butchered his wife and another man before getting away with it.
In truth, however, I bet this was Judith Regan's long legacy of sweeping trash down the halls of an industry that takes pride in its hifalutin nature and legacy, and doing so very profitably.
It is also unclear whether Ms. Regan has been terminated wholly from any employment with the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch’s giant media company, which owns HarperCollins. Over the years, Ms. Regan has gained a growing amount of sway within the corporation because of her ability to generate profits from books and other ventures.
In recent years, she has helped to produce television series and specials like “Growing Up Gotti,” a series about the children of the crime family don John Gotti, which was broadcast on the A&E cable channel. Ms. Regan served as an executive producer of that program and others, including a television special with Jenna Jameson, the adult film actress whose best-selling memoir, “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star,” was published by ReganBooks.
Typical of Ms. Regan’s ability both to enrich and infuriate those who did business with her, Ms. Jameson later sued Ms. Regan over rights to a proposed reality television series featuring the actress.
Porn stars and murderers: it's not exactly timeless literary endeavors over at ReganBooks. I recently read she hoped to recover from the O.J. book debacle with a "liberally detailed" biography of Mickey Mantle.
Ms. Regan has continued to court controversy even after the O. J. Simpson incident. Publishers Weekly, a trade journal, reported this week that a planned book about Mickey Mantle, the New York Yankee baseball player, was drawing stunned reactions within the publishing world over its questionable content.
The book, titled “7: The Mickey Mantle Novel,” is by Peter Golenbock, a longtime sports author, who referred to the book as an “inventive memoir,” according to Publishers Weekly. An article about the book said that people who had read preliminary copies described it as containing long passages describing sexual activity and other inflammatory episodes told in Mr. Mantle’s voice, but which were not authenticated.
Judith Regan doesn't restrict her trashiness to the books she publishes. Remember back to the immolation of Bernard Kerik as the erstwhile Bush nominee for head of Homeland Security a few years ago. Kerik went down in flames after it was revealed that he was using city funds to maintain a Ground Zero pied a terre in Battery Park more to "entertain" Judith Regan than keep an eye on security and reconstruction.
Fortunately for Regan, she's got her finger on America's cultural and literary pulse, i.e., people love shitty trash with little lasting value. That apparently rubbed some of her former colleagues the wrong way, but she'll no doubt continue to laugh all the way to the bank.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:22 PM | Books | Comments (0) | TrackBack
THE LAY OF THE LAND
The New York Public Library has done a fantastic job of digitizing its historic documents collection over the past decade. The upside is not only that the general public can view extremely rare maps and documents, but the NYPL has also made reproductions of these archival materials available for purchase. As one can see above, even a map from a 1916 Atlas of the Borough of Manhattan holds up well as an incredibly detailed piece of art. But then, I've always been extremely partial to maps as artwork. The image above is a street and building survey of lower Manhattan, with the Battery towards the left, Beaver Street on top, and the East River waterfront at the bottom.
From any of the thousands of images in its archives, visitors can choose whole prints or custom cropped images that will be individually matted and framed for purchase. The prices do not seem at all outrageous for what could be an extremely handsome addition to a living room wall.
With atlases and surveys of all of the city's boroughs available, one could spend years sifting through the Library's collection. It's one of the better facilitations of the Internet in democratizing access to history I've ever seen.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:53 PM | NYC | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 14, 2006
PLAN AHEAD FOR THE INTRA-HOLIDAYS
What, what is one to do in the few fallow days between Christmas and New Year's Eve/Day? Christmas falls on a Monday. New Year's Eve falls on a Sunday. And just like that, everyone's got two Mondays in a row off from work. I don't think anyone's expecting that shortened between-holiday work week to be the most productive on record. Many people may be taking the whole week off.
One might consider heading over to NorthSix in Williamsburg on Thursday the 28th. Americans are on the bill before the headliners Peelander Z. Doors open at 8pm; the show starts at 8:30pm. I've seen the Americans a few times and count myself a fan [see IT'S GOOD TO BE THE AMERICANS, 9/7/06]. NorthSix is just a few blocks from the Bedford Ave. stop on the L Train, shortly past Wythe Ave. While you're in the neighborhood, swing by Relish Diner on North 3rd St. and Wythe. Have a cocktail and a dish of their 5-variety Mac & Cheese before the show.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:20 PM | Music | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 13, 2006
GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DOWNTOWN?
Sometimes the most random walks turn up the most fascinating stories. A couple of weeks ago, when I was gathering pics for my Block Beautiful, [12/11/06] piece, I wandered around in a southwesterly direction, back towards Union Square. Walking down 15th St., I was confronted with an odd site: it was a huge waving flag in the early morning light, flapping in the wind with the logo of the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
Now that is interesting. Why is a mostly southern-based evangelical broadcast channel planting its flag a few blocks east of Union Square? I really have no idea; but coming they are. 111 E15th St. is now in the process of becoming a Trinity Broadcasting Theater, with full production and broadcast facilities.
The dichotomy of this Daniel-In-The-Lions'-Den / Dogooders-In-The-Belly-Of-The-Beast scenario barely scratches the surface of how weird this story gets. The true meat of this NYC story has less to do with a broad cultural division or urban ecumenicism and more to do with NYC.
Let's go to the Real Estate:
It wasn't even until 1988 that 111 E15th St. was recognized as a possibly significant historical building. At that time, the building between Irving Place and Union Sq. West was being used as a travel agency and was being considered for destruction. Then, architectural historians realized that it may be one of the only surviving H.H. Richardson-designed buildings in NYC, not to mention the original site of the Century Association clubhouse.
The Century Association was formed in 1847 as a respectable refuge for men of arts and letters. Famous poets and authors of the day kept their keep there. And with that type of attraction came the rich and influential and those that sought their patronage. Both Roosevelt Presidents were members, as were painters Frederick Church, Albert Bierstadt, and William Cullent Bryant. Mark Twain characterized it as one of those insufferably incestous places where the absurdly rich meet-cute with the ridiculously talented.
The Century Association is now located at 7 West 43rd St. Due to a street re-mapping, many people thought the original location had been destroyed. On the contrary, it's been sitting tight on E15th St. After the tourist agency, the property became the Century Center For the Performing Arts.
The Cushman-Wakefield press release pretty much does the whole transaction justice:
The Century Center for the Performing Arts is equipped with three main theatrical production spaces, including a theater that can seat about 300 people, a ballroom and a studio," said Mr. Rosenbloom. "These unique features will be useful for Trinity Broadcasting Network's production studios."
Trinity Broadcasting Network offers 24 hours of commercial-free inspirational programming that appeals to Protestant, Catholic and Messianic Jewish denominations. The company reaches every major continent, with 47 satellites and 12,000 television and cable affiliates. Trinity Broadcasting Network currently operates 3,000 television stations globally, and is the seventh-largest broadcast group owner in the U.S.
The Center for the Performing Arts, a historic landmark originally built in 1847 by architect Henry Hobson Richardson, was the original home of the Century Association, a members-only club of distinguished New Yorkers, including former Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt. The building received a complete renovation project in 1996 that faithfully restored the late nineteenth century to its original grandeur.
Two doors down from the Lee Strasberg theater and school, expect broadcasts of bible prophecy and panhandling that's gonna make Eddie Wise reevaluate his non-career choices. On the plus side, continued occupancy retards any efforts by developers to tear down what is a beautiful and historically significant building. Praise the Lord!
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 3:22 AM | Architecture , NYC , Religion | Comments (0) | TrackBack
THOSE AREN'T THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD
The other night I was watching an episode of CBS's "Criminal Minds" program. It's not a particularly good show as it pairs that lawyer guy from "Will & Grace" sorry, "Dharma & Greg" with Mandy Patinkin, who tends to annoy in whatever tv show he's in, whatever his talents. But I digress.
In the frenetic opening sequence of this particular episode, it became difficult to follow what was happening because there was a persistent semi-intelligible muttering accompanying the soundtrack.
I asked my Dad "Is there some type of reverb going on with your TV?"
"No, someone's talking under the show and it's been driving me crazy. I normally turn off shows when this happens."
I thought perhaps it was time to adjust my medication or something. When I was alone in the room in front of the tv, I got up real close to listen to the muttering. Interestingly, it was describing the physical actions of every character on the screen.
"[So-and-so] closes his eyes and turns away"
"His ex-wife steps closer"
Then it struck me: I was listening to closed captioning for the blind. Deaf people can see what's happening on screen and only miss the audible dialogue, so captioning writes it out so they can read it. Blind people can hear dialogue perfectly well, but lack the ability to see what's happening on screen. What I was hearing was a narrator describing stage directions. Fascinating! When the hell did this all start?
A few minutes of research yielded some answers. What we were hearing is called Descriptive Video Services (DVS). Let's go to the FAQs:
Descriptive Video Service (DVS) is a national service that makes television programs, feature films, home videos, and other visual media accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired. DVS is part of the Media Access Group at WGBH. DVS was launched nationally in 1990 by the WGBH Educational Foundation, producer of many prime-time public television programs and leader in the development of accessible media.
So how the hell did I wind up with DVS?
A viewer must live within range of a station that carries DVS and have a stereo TV or a stereo VCR that includes the Second Audio Program (SAP) feature, standard on most newer stereo televisions and videocassette recorders. Inexpensive receivers that convert TV sets to stereo with SAP also can be purchased. Viewers who subscribe to cable or satellite TV should ask the distributor to "pass through" stereo with SAP.
So the same way one can hit SAP to hear a program in a Spanish-language format, many programs utilize that secondary audio format to provide visual stage directions to blind viewers. I'm pretty sure the Hispanic market is larger than the visually impaired market, but kudos to broadcasters for trying to accomodate the audibly abled--and one would have to be audibly abled to catch the low-volume murmurings of DVS.
So we learn something new every day. Yesterday I could've assumed that closed-captioning for the deaf was a broadcast feature aimed at people who wanted to read SportsCenter shows on ESPN in bars while the jukebox blasted. Now I know that even blind people can trump Spanish-speakers when it comes to controlling SAP on everyone's tv sets.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 2:01 AM | Television | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 12, 2006
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! WATCH YOUR BACK
(Hopefully he's just here to cut the cake)
Ms. Mary Davis of the Bronx is celebrating her birthday today by going out to dinner with friends and family. A fire marshal may also be present to supervise the candles on Ms. Davis's b-day cake; she's turning 112 years old. The South Carolina native credits her longevity to faith in Christ and a commitment to vegetables. Praise the Lord and pass the green beans!
I'd be more sanguine about such a happy occasion if it weren't for two other stories I caught this week. Moses Hardy, the world's second-oldest man, oldest surviving black veteran of WWI, and son of two freed slaves, died late last week less than a month shy of his 114th birthday. And then today, the oldest person in the world Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bolden died at the age of 116. Both of her parents were also former slaves in the South.
So it's been a tough week for centenarians-plus. It's interesting that all three characters in this item spent most of their lives in the South, are African American, and at least two had parents that were formerly slaves. I guess that kind of life lends one a certain fortitude regarding life's difficulties and earns one a little bit of God's forbearance.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 7:11 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SPARE SOME CHANGE?
Someone's tin cup overfloweth this week. From WNBC's site:
A Bronx panhandler hit the big payday when he sued New York City for false arrest and was awarded $100,000
[the Daily News says $100,001].
Eddie Wise said he was arrested 27 times for panhandling and he decided to sue. The city admitted in court that it was using a panhandling law that was declared unconstitutional in 1992.
The 45-year-old Wise says he'll use the money to move down south. But Monday, the Daily News reported he was at his usual corner on Fordham Road in the Bronx asking for small change.
While this may seem outrageous to some, I think being falsely arrested 27 times constitutes some serious harrassment that merits compensation. It reminds me of loitering laws in the Jim Crow south, where unemployed black men were run out of town or sent to chain gangs simply for being unemployed. Either way, if you need someone to spot you $10 or so, Eddie Wise is currently flush and available up in the Bronx.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 1:04 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
FEDS TO TACO BELL: WHOOPS, NEVER MIND, OUR BAD
I would estimate that about 50% of Taco Bell customers on any given day suffer from gastrointestinal distress within 48 hours of eating the chain's food. Throw a rumor of food poisoning associated with the chain to the public and pretty soon you've got a public health epidemic. Substantiate that rumor with lab tests identifying the E. coli bacteria in samples of Taco Bell ingredients and one can almost hear the lawsuits being filed as every person who got the runs after eating a Seven-Layer Burrito the day after drinking fifteen beers at a college party smells a payday, among other things.
Now that the damage has been done to the chain's reputation, however, it is time for the Feds to admit that they goofed on finding E. coli in Taco Bell's ingredient samples. In fact, the lab NY health officials used admitted they were having trouble even distinguishing between green onions and white onions.
Federal testing has failed to confirm green onions as the source of an outbreak of E. coli that sickened 64 people who ate in Taco Bell restaurants in the Northeast, health officials said Monday.
Over the weekend, Taco Bell officials said they determined that scallions were the likely source of the bacteria. But follow-up federal testing of those samples were negative for E. coli.
''In that context, we have not ruled out any food items,'' said Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer for the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
Meanwhile, health officials in New York said a sample of white onions taken from a Taco Bell restaurant tested positive for E. coli. However, that strain of bacteria hasn't been linked to any cases of illness in the United States anytime in the previous 30 days. The positive sample initially was mistakenly identified as being green onion, Acheson said.
I'm sure once this all gets sorted out, the Feds will go out of their way to publicize the safety and cleanliness of Taco Bell's fare. The media will be just as diligent in clearing the air. Like the article I linked to here, which I found buried in the back pages of today's paper.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:12 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 11, 2006
THE ACCIDENTAL HIPSTER
Just a few weeks ago, a friend gave me a jacket that she thought would fit me and came at the right price, i.e., free. I really like it. It's a dark chocolate micro-suede that's surprisingly warm; there's little-to-no wear; and I don't own another jacket at all similar to this one. So, it became a welcome addition to my closet.
Today, however, I was surfing the Internet, looking up books on Amazon.com, when the site shoved one of those "recommended items" in my face. And damn if the thing didn't look just like my new jacket! Maybe those Amazon.com recommendation algorithms are a little sharper than I thought they were. Then I read the item's name:
Kenneth Cole Reaction Men's Hadley Poly Bonded Hipster Jacket
Oh damn. At first I was hoping it was a "Hipster Jacket" merely because it falls naturally to the wearer's hips, just below the waist. Unfortunately no.
Easy, slick and cool, this Hipster has Ipod/Blackberry inner pocketing system. This is a simple and classic jacket that will meet all of your needs. Point collar, full zip closure as well as adjustable cuffs makes this the perfect jacket.
Alright, I may wear this jacket frequently along with my heavy black-framed glasses, and utilize its inner pockets to store my iPod, which I use to listen to bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wolf Parade, and Bloc Party on my way from Brooklyn to Manhattan and then back to Brooklyn on the subway, but I am no hipster. I barely even get over to Williamsburg. And I didn't attend any of those McCarren Park Pool concerts this summer. Hipster Doofus perhaps, but definitely not a hipster.
I still like my jacket. And if you're a diminutive hipster wannabe, the Kenneth Cole Hipster Jacket is still available at Amazon.com in a range of sizes and colors, as long as the size is Small and the color is Black.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:49 PM | Culture & | Comments (0) | TrackBack
BLOCK BEAUTIFUL
A few weeks ago I wrote about a building I'd come across [see MIDTOWN STUCCO, 11/29/06] that featured some very ornate stucco relief designs on its outer walls. I learned that it used to be the home and office of Frederick J. Sterner, who designed the structure. Sterner was a turn of the century architect who pioneered the "Block Beautiful" movement that sought to beautify the city by breaking the uniformity of row after row of brownstones. The movement's best example is reputed to be the block where it originated and the one-time home of Sterner: 19th St. between Irving and 3rd Ave.
I took a trip down to 19th St. early one morning and managed to snap some pictures that are generally representative of what one can hope to see between Irving and 3rd Ave. To see my whole Block Beautiful set of photos, check out my Flickr site here.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:31 AM | Architecture , Lexiphotos , NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 8, 2006
IN THE AFTERMATH OF A DAY OF INFAMY
Yesterday was the 65th anniversary of the December 7th bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the catalyst for the U.S.'s entry into World War II and what President Franklin Roosevelt described as "a day that would live in infamy." The New York Times' site does the paper, one of its reporters, and readers a great service by making available the six-part, 15,000 word series written by its Pearl Harbor correspondent Robert Trumbull describing the rebuilding of the naval facility in the months after the attack. The six articles are available in PDF format and are as follows:
Salvage Effort Reveals American Ingenuity
Once proud warships were restored to fighting trim.
How the Nevada Was Saved
In a miracle of reclamation and repair, the destroyed battleship returned to life.
U.S.S. California, a Massive Challenge
The sunken Nevada was only a warm-up for the task of raising the giant California.
West Virginia, New and Improved
Yard workers rebuilt the severely damaged West Virginia from the inside out.
Righting the Oklahoma
Through monumental engineering, the capsized Oklahoma was slowly rolled back.
Inside the Hull of the Oklahoma, a Dismal Hell
Robert Trumbull gives a first-hand account of his underwater exploration of the Oklahoma.
The special Times editorial section also includes an audio slideshow of images related to the pieces, telegrams exchanged between Trumbull and his managing editor at the paper, Trumbull's 1992 obituary, and a current piece looking back at Pearl Harbor after 65 years.
Trumbull's series of articles reminds me of William Langewiesche's three-part series printed in The Atlantic Monthly titled "American Ground" that was later published in book form. It told the story of the near-superhuman efforts and accomplishments of the deconstruction of the World Trade Center site following its destruction. It still stands as the longest piece of reporting ever printed in The Atlantic.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:58 AM | Journalism , War | Comments (0) | TrackBack
JOURNALISM, BLOGGING AND GOVERNMENT REPRESSION
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) yesterday released a report detailing various governments' crackdowns on journalists or individuals accused of criticizing their rule.
When Iranian journalist Mojtaba Saminejad was sentenced to two years in prison for insulting the country's supreme leader, it was not for an article that appeared in a newspaper. His offending story was posted on his personal Web blog.
Nearly one-third of journalists now serving time in prisons around the world published their work on the Internet, the second-largest category behind print journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in an analysis released Thursday.
The bulk of Internet journalists in jail -- 49 in total -- shows that "authoritarian states are becoming more determined to control the Internet," said Joel Simon, the New York-based group's executive director.
What is alarming is that many of the so-called offending pieces that landed the jailed individuals in hot water weren't even published in their home countries, but through overseas outlets.
Tao, the jailed Chinese journalist, could have published his notes on state propaganda in the Chinese magazine in Hunan province where he worked as an editorial director. He chose instead to send an e-mail from his Yahoo! account to the U.S.-based editor of a Chinese language Web forum.
Of course, pieces could be filed under a pseudonym or anonymously to circumvent punishment of authors. Such tactics, however, dilute their authority and validity as an author's reputation for veracity and agenda cannot be properly evaluated by his or her audience.
The WNBC story about the CPJ report doesn't note whether or how the organization distinguishes between professional journalists or simply individuals self-publishing on the Internet. It is not an insignificant differentiation, as "the press" usually is afforded certain legal protections and precedents to secure its independence. In my mind, Internet self-publishers, of which bloggers are a subset, seem most historically reminiscent of pamphleteers. Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" was published and distributed in pamphlet form in 1776. The document argued for independence from England and the establishment of a constitutional republic. Incidentally, Paine would later be labeled an outlaw persona non grata in England for publishing anti-monarchist pamphlets supporting the French Revolution. The French themselves eventually threatened Paine with execution for his objection to the execution of King Louis XVI. The former escaped the country with the help of James Monroe, then serving as the U.S. Minister to France. Paine had no prior experience as a "professional journalist." He was a public intellectual. Opponents probably considered him a gadfly, governments an agitator. Attempting to make legal distinctions between the freedoms of ordinary citizens and an established press seems like a poor idea.
I'm not the only one who's given thought to the similarity of Internet self-publishers and Revolutionary-era pamphleteers.
CPJ's breakdown of jailed reporters by country with details concerning each case is available here.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:15 AM | Journalism , Politics & Policy , Science & Technology | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 4, 2006
SHRINKING JOURNAL
After a significant redesign just four years ago, The Wall Street Journal will be slimming down after New Year's Day.
The Wall Street Journal, whose wide pages and text-rich look have long been an icon of the American newspaper business, is about to undergo several changes that include cutting 3 inches off its width.
Along with the size reduction, which is equivalent to about one of its columns, the newspaper will add more color and graphical elements, including greater use of photographs. It also will have fewer stories "jump" inside the newspaper.
This will bring the Journal in line with the width of most other major newspapers and apparently save Dow Jones, Inc. $18 million a year in savings, mostly through printing costs. The cuts were deemed necessary as the paper's ad revenues tapered in recent years.
The Journal has struggled more than other major newspapers in recent years due to a prolonged slump in financial and technology advertising, which are its two mainstays.
The paper has moved to diversify its revenue streams by adding an arts and leisure section called "Weekend Journal" in 1998 and a consumer-oriented section called "Personal Journal" in 2002, which was part of a broader overhaul that also brought more color and graphics to the paper.
The New York Times made a similar concession to falling ad revenues when it discontinued Circuits as an independent section of the paper and folded a reduced version into another area of the paper.
I'm curious to see what the redesign will look like. I personally liked the addition of the Weekend Journal section on Fridays. I'm less familiar with the weekend Personal Journal section as I never received the paper Saturdays.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:49 AM | Current Events , Journalism | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 2, 2006
SEAL OF APPROVAL
Walking down 6th Ave. between 19th and 20th Sts. last Thursday, the image above caught my eye. Rafiqi's hallal food cart features a rather prominent endorsement on its front from Jen Chung, editor of Gothamist.com. A larger version of the photo can be viewed here. The eponymous logo with panda isn't from Gothamist, but from Jen's personal site. I wonder if Jen is aware that her personal lunch preferences pack such a commercial wallop.
If there are any eating establishments that care to use the Lexiphane.com name and logo for endorsement purposes, let it be known that I can be bought very cheaply.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 3:00 PM | Food & Drink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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