Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Music Schoenberg Before He Sucked (And Brahms at His Best)
Posted by Henry Stewart on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 2:03 PM
Music Why Must We Always Ignore Tunnel of Love?
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 1:28 PM
Remember, though: This is the Boss we're talking about, and none of these records is longer than 45 minutes or so, which is somewhere around one-fifth of the amount of time he usually plays. So, what I'm saying is, you'll probably still get to hear "Rosalita," thank god.
Theater Broadway's Next To Normal Wins Innovative Marketing Award
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 1:11 PM
Per Variety, the production beat out corporate heavyweights like Coca-Cola, Sprint, HBO and the recent Star Trek reboot for its innovative use of Twitter to recount the play's entire narrative (as written by playwright Brian Yorkey) and solicit followers' help and suggestions to create a new musical number, which will be performed at a special event next month. The award, handed out by advertising industry mag MediaPost, recognizes innovative and creative uses of digital and web-based technologies in marketing.
Music Mos Def and MF Doom Hangin' Out, Just Cold Freestylin'
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 12:34 PM
This is pretty much exactly what I like to imagine all rappers do when they're not on tour or in the studio: hang out together and freestyle. And as far as rapper buddy freestyle duos go, Mos Def and MF Doom casually rattling off rhymes in what, we must assume, is the former's Brooklyn brownstone, is just about as cool as it gets. (That is, until the day we get a video of Jay-Z, Nas and Black Thought rhyming in Hov's Tribeca loft.) (HipHopDX)
Film Vain, Naked Man Runs Around Naked in Williamsburg, Films Himself
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 11:56 AM
No Thanks to FreeWilliamsburg for calling our attention to the following video of some naked guy ordering a taco from a taco truck. He calls himself the "world's fastest nudist," though he doesn't seem all that fast in this video. And not only does he dangle, but he Tweets and Tumbles. He's a little on the buff side for what I think of as a Williamsburg hipster, and he looks more like Josh Brolin than Devendra Banhart—I guess this would be the frat side of Billburg youth culture. Meh. Just another way to meet girls.
(Not safe for work I guess, I dunno, I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU WORK.)
Media Wall Street Journal Makes Awesome Headline Mistake (Ro-Po Saddened)
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 11:16 AM
Man, Roman Polanski (Ro-Po!) is having a crappy week. Obviously, getting arrested on a 30-year-old warrant is no fun, but then the Wall Street Journal has to go and mistakenly use your murdered wife's name in place of her murderer:
TV Mad Men: We All Need a Fainting Chaise
Posted by Lauren Savit on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 10:39 AM
Sunday night's episode was definitely my favorite of the season, if not ever. It had everything you need to make a classic season three ep: some subtle plot unraveling, Don bonding with a complete stranger two, actually!), a little bit of blood, and a hallucination featuring a disapproving parent, plus some chatter about Vietnam, an appearance by Miss Farrell AND some delightful Roger Sterling quip Also, the narrative structure of the episode was great. I realize not two sentences ago I hailed the subtlety of the episode, but there was also some loud plot movement here, so the starting-with-the-end framing device wasn't really even necessary, as the momentum of the events themselves would been satisfying enough.
News Moving Cyclists from the Brooklyn Bridge Walkway to the Road?
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 10:07 AM
For Sullivan, though, removing bikes from the walkway must be accompanied with the creation of protected bike lanes on the bridge's roadway. Being someone who avoids biking over the Brooklyn Bridge at all costs for exactly the reasons Sullivan cites, this idea strikes me as an ideal solution and one that should probably be applied to most of the city's bridges as ridership expands. Just to be sure, though, Gothamist has put the question to a vote so everyone can chime in on Sullivan's unofficial proposal (which, so far, is winning). (Curbed)
Theater Julianne Nicholson Replacing Parker Posey in Off Broadway Show
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 9:10 AM
Posey, you may recall, was slated to star alongside L Mag favorite Louis Cancelmi in the Off Broadway production until she had to cancel after coming down with Lyme disease (no word yet on how that's working out). All of which amounts to the replacement of an established indie favorite with someone who—given the mostly positive press Hideous Men is receiving—will likely be an indie favorite in no time. Previews of This begin on November 6 and the show runs through December 13 (although expect at least one extension).
Film / Music Tonight, Silent Films by Pioneering Lady Filmmaker Alice Guy
Posted by Cullen Gallagher on Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 8:26 AM
The month-long Crossing the Line 2009 festival at the French Institute Alliance Française may be winding to a close, but there's still plenty of mixed media events going on this week, including the Alice Guy Blaché Film Score Project tonight. Co-presented with the Whitney Museum of American Art (who will also be honoring her in November), the event pairs the pioneering works of Alice Guy Blaché with new musical works by Tender Forever, Du Yun, Tamar Muskal and Missy Mazzoli.
Originally a secretary for France's Gaumont company, Alice Guy became one of the first female filmmakers when she began shooting movies in 1896 to help advertise the company's new line of cameras.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Art Francis Bacon Was an Interior Designer?
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 3:58 PM
Admittedly, I'm not sure what a Francis Bacon interior might look like, but based on the rooms that appear in his paintings (like the bedroom of "Study of a Crucifixion" at right), I feel pretty confident that I don't ever want to be in one.
(Artinfo)
Music Minor Threat Played Irving Plaza, Said Lots of Crazy Shit
Posted by Mike Conklin on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 3:15 PM
Almost more interestingly, um, Minor Threat played Irving Plaza?
Film Our Official Stance on La Cause Polanski: Can We Call Him Ro-Po? Ro-Po! Ro-Po! Ro-Po!
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 3:11 PM
For us here at The L Magazine, well, we're not sure yet. The only thing we know is that we really, really want people to start referring to Roman Polanski as "Ro-Po."
Ro-Po, Ro-Po, Ro-Po, Ro-Po! See? It's fun.
(Our little buddy Listicles has a more sobering look at Ro-Po's 12 Most Tortured Characters.)
Film At the New York Film Festival: Police, Adjective
Posted by Henry Stewart on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:38 PM
Many of the films associated with the Romanian New Wave, most notably 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, have been set during the 80s, during the crest of the tyrannical Ceausescu years; to understand what's happening now, those films suggest, we must look back to recent history. But Corneliu Porumboiu's movies go one reflective step farther: they are set in the present, looking back at the past, so we may understand the present. The marvelous 12:08 East of Bucharest examined, 16 years later, the circumstances of the revolution that brought down the Communist government, but it's real purpose was to bemoan the failure of Romania to build a better society from that opportunity. His latest, Police, Adjective, another masterpiece, grapples with a similar idea. It's also about language.
Theater Hugh Jackman Pauses A Steady Rain to Silence a Steady Ring
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:29 PM
During a recent performance of A Steady Rain on Broadway—the play that, you may recall, stars Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig as best buddy detectives who are slowly turned against one another by an internal investigation—a repeat cell phone offender in the audience got a personalized monologue from Jackman. By current ticket price logic, said theater-goer should be made to pay an extra $200 or so for such choice tickets to an exclusive, one-night-only Broadway performance. (Or, you know, just a nice big fine—this isn't the opera, people, turn off your phones!)
Fashion DO NOT WANT: Southampton Cougars Bare Skin for Cash
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 1:44 PM
No it could not.
Politics Republican Hopeful Raffles AK-47 at Campaign Rally, Jesus "Saddened"
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 12:55 PM
And then Angry Jesus came down from the cerulean Heavens and grew to a great and awful height before the cowering Christians and He said, in an enormous, terrible voice as large as the vaulted universe, "Thou hast corrupted My teachings; thou art makers of war and destroyers of peace; thou hast twisted My words and the words of Our Lord, My father, and thou shalt be punished..." And lo they trembled before his wrath, and he turned them gay and made them move to the coasts, where they discovered the pleasures of decent coffee and a night without television, and yea they were happy again, and put down their weapons, and truly began to do His work.
Just kidding.
*Actually, it's just an excuse to post this video from a Al Qaida training session "gun show" in Kentucky, which also makes me sad, but at least has explosions.
Theater The New York Musical Theatre Festival Opens Today
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 11:46 AM
There's also an obligatory vampire rock romance (The Cure), a musical about weight-loss camp (Fat Camp) and something called Gay Bride of Frankenstein, which, obviously, will either be awesome or abysmal. Producer's Perspective has a helpful preview, as does ArtsBeat, or head to the NYMF homepage to make sense of it all (they're still looking for volunteers, if you have the time and want cheap/free tickets).
Music Wondering Whose Side to Take in the Black Lips vs. Wavves Thing? Let Us Suggest the One Who Didn'T Call the Other a Faggot Multiple Times
Posted by Mike Conklin on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 11:11 AM
On Friday night, after a Wavves show at Market Hotel and a Black Lips show opening up for Yo La Tengo at Webster Hall, members of both bands found themselves at Williamsburg bar Daddy's. Black Lips singer/bassist Jared Swilley launched a verbal attack on Wavves' Nathan Williams' after his much-publiced on-stage meltdown back in June, and the whole thing finally came to a head at the bar this past weekend. Bottles were thrown, punches were thrown, blood was shed.
Wavves dude had this to say:
Film If You Bought Your First Pair of Eyeglasses in the 1990s, The Informant! Is the Movie for You
Posted by Mark Asch on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 8:23 AM
I don't quite agree with my colleague Henry Stewart's assessment of Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! as "tonally inconsistent": it seems to me to be a pretty straightforward ironic comedy (though it's glib more often than it's dark, alas, which keeps a low ceiling over the material, and may be attributable to the process-over-product mantra which Henry (rightly, I think) faults for Soderbergh's sometimes less than finished cinema). A corporate intriguer about a whistleblower who ends up doing more jail time than his bosses, The Informant jokes, at times, that it turned out to be a different kind of movie than the people involved might have expected: FBI agents keep reframing their hidden-camera shots to actually pick up incriminating behavior. As bipolar Archer Daniels Midland exec Mark Whitacre, Matt Damon—sporting a paunch, a patchy mustache and a carpet on his head, and playing off stand-up and TV comics in bit parts—makes frequent reference to the Michael Crichton and John Grisham thrillers he is most emphatically not living in.
In fact, those Rising Sun and The Firm references are something like a passkey to the movie's sensibility: The Informant! works best as a satire of the complacent, suburban-sprawling kitsch of Clinton-era America.
