Wednesday, September 30, 2009
News Being Overweight Is Bad For You, and Other Revelatory Dispatches from the Far Side of Scientific Research
Posted by Robert Tumas on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 5:02 PM
Film Daughter of Darkness, Spreading Sexual Terror Across the English Countryside, As You Do
Posted by Cullen Gallagher on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 3:43 PM
Daughter of Darkness casts Jacques Tourneur-esque shadows across the farmlands of rural Ireland and England, distorting the pastoral landscapes into threatening ambiguity. Siobhan McKenna stars as a beguiling Irish maid whose child-like features (alternately coy, innocent, and devilish) have all the men in the village transfixed and all their wives jealous. At times she plays society's scapegoat, at others the local priest must pull her out of an atonal organ-pounding trance, and still at others she allows men to escort her into the woods at night, only to slash their faces with her nails. Booted out of town, she makes her way to a small English farmhouse where she hopes to start life anew, but lustful men, resentful women, and a trail of corpses continue to haunt her wherever she goes.
News Oh Look Here Is an Ad for the Popular Family Board Game Clue, Dating from 1984 and Starring F. Lee Bailey
Posted by Mark Asch on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 3:11 PM
While writing the Banned Books Week post from earlier today, I remembered that, while I was writing my 8th grade research paper on school censorship, I had pulled from my school library's "vertical file" a New Yorker article from 1984, about book banning in eastern Maine.
Do you find that, most of the time, when you're "doing research" in old newspapers and magazines, that you're mostly just looking at all the other articles on adjacent pages, the bylines and the ads, while wondering what your parents had for dinner that night, et cetera? Yeah, me too. For those of you who are New Yorker subscribers, the whole article (by the noted Frances FitzGerald) is heartily recommended; for those of you who are not, I have reproduced the full-page ad that appeared on page 55 of the January 16, 1984 issue of the New Yorker...
Music Kanye Doesn't Understand Why, If There's Chicken, No One Offered Him Any
Posted by Mike Conklin on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 2:54 PM
The rapper was allegedly upset over his not being offered food while in the dressing room backstage. After spotting a man eating chicken, West blurted, "Why wasn't I offered chicken? You want me to perform for free, [and] everyone is eating... why am I not eating?"When the waitress explained that he never asked for food, 'Ye yelled, "Well, I'm asking now!" After receiving chicken, he allegedly proceeded to take a bite and then throw the rest in the trash. Meanwhile, the rapper's beau Amber Rose, stood silent, while other celebrities backstage watched in awe.
If this guy doesn't figure some shit out real quick, he's going to have less fans than the dude from Black Lips.
Art / News Smithsonian Institution Offers All Its Workers Buyouts
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 2:52 PM
Seventy percent of the institution's operating budget is provided by the federal government ($731.4 million in 2009), so presumably the drastic offer stems from drops in endowment, donations and trust fund returns similar to those experienced by public organizations everywhere. Despite the plan to reduce its workforce and operating costs, the SI (the largest network of museums and research centers in the world) is currently expanding, with the National Museum of African American History and Culture slated to open in Washington, D.C. in 2015.
Film At the New York Film Festival: Trash Humpers
Posted by Benjamin Strong on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 1:56 PM
Garbage cans and trash bags are not the only inanimate objects to get dry humped in Harmony Korine’s outrageous fourth feature. Mailboxes and telephone poles are similarly defiled, and periodically random sticks and other indeterminate phalluses are enthusiastically jerked off. These simulated sex acts are not, however, the strangest things you’ll see in Trash Humpers, and they can hardly account themselves for the steady stream of walkouts sure to flee Alice Tully Hall tonight and tomorrow, when the movie has its US premiere, rather improbably, at the New York Film Festival.
Returning proudly to his Southern Gothic-punk roots after the lukewarm reception of last year’s glossier Mister Lonely, Korine has fashioned as crappy-looking a movie as possible.
Art Details of Urs Fischer's Upcoming New Museum Exhibition Revealed
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 1:54 PM
While neither of those pieces will be featured in Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty at the New Museum (October 29-January 31), word comes via Artdaily that the show's retrospective sections will include favorites like his motion activated tongue in the wall (pictured) and melting sculptures both old and new.
Music Sunny Day Real Estate Perform "7" on Jimmy Fallon
Posted by Mike Conklin on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 1:00 PM
Quiet, loud, quiet, loud, quiet, loud, quiet, loud, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome.
Books Happy Banned Books Week!
Posted by Mark Asch on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:51 PM
2008's Most Challenged Book in America, for the third year running, was And Tango Makes Three, a picture book about gay penguins raising a baby penguin together.
Music A Sad, Lovely Anthem for the Borough of Brooklyn
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:33 PM
So, I was in the bar last night, and this song came on, with the following refrain: "Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in./Are you aware the shape I'm in./My hands they shake, my head it spins,/Oh Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in."
The whole fucking bar got a bit quieter, a bit sadder, but in a weird way, too, just a little bit happier.
The song is called "I and Love and You" and it's by the Avett Brothers. It's really beautiful and you should take a moment to listen to it. (The video's alright, I guess, but just try to imagine yourself hunched over a beer in a dark bar on an early fall night.)
Media NY Times: Men are Better Than Women... At Choosing Footwear
Posted by Mike Conklin on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:06 PM
I was at my wit's end by the time I got to work. Because, like, I know that lots of women—like Jessica Simpson, for example—wear those Ugg boots, and they seem really comfortable. But I also know lots of men who wear running sneakers, which are famous for their arch support.
It seemed to close to call, really—until I found this Times piece, which answered the very question I had been struggling with all morning! And let me tell you, ladies, the news is not good.
Politics / News Reading Way Too Much into Bloomberg's Op-Ed Vision of a Parking Utopia
Posted by Mark Asch on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 11:23 AM
Anyway. It is a terribly uninteresting article, and this is a terribly uninteresting election season, but the Op-Ed is something of a window into what the Bloomberg campaign's strategy is, other than "inevitability". It seems that Bloomberg's pro-bike, pro-pedestrian, anti-car attitude towards the urban environment is alienating the Real Americans who liked him when he was shutting down protestors at the RNC. Between the suddenly European take on Times Square (liberal!) and the purchased third term (fascist!), Bloomberg is at risk of alienating the keep-your-government-hands-off-my-Medicare crowd.
Ok, mostly I'm just getting this from one of the (very few) comments on the Daily News website. Take it, "NYC.Historian":
Music Lady Gaga to Perform New Song on SNL
Posted by Mike Conklin on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 10:54 AM
News VIDEO: Who's Your Hero... and Who's Your Villain
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 10:06 AM
Our Heroes and Villains issue hit streets today, so you know who our heroes and villains of NYC are... but we thought we'd send videographer extraordinaire Emmanuel Cruz out on the streets to ask New Yorkers who their heroes and villains are...
Filmed and edited by Emmanuel Cruz
Theater Enron Coming to Broadway
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 9:16 AM
According to Blog Stage, no casting announcements have been made just yet, but the production will feature an all-new American cast. The play has also been optioned by Sony for a feature film that Prebble will adapt herself, and which already has an IMDb page that proclaims a 2012 release date.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Music How Has No One Made a Daniel Johnston Video Game Until Now?
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 5:06 PM
According to his brother and business manager Dick Johnston, Daniel played the game briefly and seemed to enjoy it. According to Daniel himself, though, not so much.
Reached at his father’s house recently after he had returned from a concert tour in the Midwest, Mr. Johnston did not seem to remember much about the game or having played it. Asked what he thought of his work serving as the basis for a video game, he sighed and said, “Just another milestone in Daniel Johnston history, I guess.”But he added that he had come of age when a video game was played with a joystick, on a television screen, usually one encased in a large wooden box with slots for quarters. “If they make it into a real video game, it might work out, I guess,” he said. “I don’t even know what an iPhone is.”
Am I the only one who wonders if maybe, on some level deep down, Daniel's fucking with us just a little bit?
Sex "Well, I was going to have sex with you while my roommate tries to get some sleep, but since it's against the rules..."
Posted by Mark Asch on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 4:52 PM
Certain people who were my roommate freshman year are advised to note that a) handjobs presumably fall under the category of "any sex act", and b) "appears to be asleep" presumably falls under the category of "present".
Having sex on your roommate's bed when your roommate is not around, and then accidentally revealing as much to them about during a particularly heated Never Have I Ever game three semesters later, however, is still allowed. The L has also learned that certain members of the Tufts RLO are pushing to amend the regulation, designating the bathroom as a special "self-love free-fire zone", provided that the door is kept shut and, if the bathroom shares a wall with the bedroom, the faucet is kept running.
Music Flea to Play Bass for Thom Yorke, Everything Starting to Make Sense
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 3:21 PM
Music Q: What Kind of Music Do You Listen To? A: Oh, You Know, Everything, Really. My Favorite is Probably Post-Indie, Though.
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 2:47 PM
I'm still not quite sure what I think of this new Sufjan Stevens song, other than that it's nowhere near as good as this Belle and Sebastian song of the same name. On one hand, I'm a huge sucker for seven-plus-minute pop songs, but on the other hand, it doesn't really count when half of it is spent making noise that never quite turns into anything else, regardless of how badly you want it to, ultimately confirming the hunch you always had that Stevens employs such a huge band more because he thinks it looks really cool and less because he actually has any idea how to use it. Whatever, though. Maybe that's just what "post-indie" is all about, you know?
