Tuesday, April 26, 2011
News Are Brooklyn's Bowling Alleys Dying?
Posted by Henry Stewart on Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:36 AM
Music RIP X-Ray Spex Singer Poly Styrene
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 9:47 AM
Poly Styrene, lead singer for British band X-ray Spex, died yesterday at the age of 53. She played as integral a role as anyone in shaping the look, sound and politics of generations of feminist punks that would follow, the most obviously indebted to her being the Riot Grrls of the early 90s. Her most recent solo album, Generation Indigo, came out in the U.K. in late-March, but only sees its U.S. release today.
Film Tribeca 2011: In Blackthorn, Butch Cassidy is Alive, But Not So Well
Posted by Henry Stewart on Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:57 AM
Monday, April 25, 2011
Art Anonymous Artist Resurrects Vandalized "Piss Christ" for Easter
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 4:31 PM
In response to the Christian radicals who vandalized New York-based photographer Andres Serrano's controversial photograph "Piss Christ" in France last week, another artist (in league with our own Paddy Johnson) has anonymously launched the artwork/new media/social sculpture/crowd-sourced mashup project The Resurrection of Piss Christ.
News National Guard Gives Up on Another Brooklyn Navy Yard Building
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 3:46 PM
While the National Guard has been steadily lowering expectations that it might actually fulfill its promise to fortify and preserve the Brooklyn Navy Yard's Timber Shed, the only Admiral's Row building it planned to restore has also fallen into an irreparable state.
Sex I Refuse to Make a Bunny Pun: An Oral History of the Playboy Clubs
Posted by Audrey Ference on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 2:59 PM
- Playboy, Vanity Fair
- Sexy ladies? Shiny outfits?
For Bunnies, behavior was codified by a series of Bunny Manuals that read like Federal Trade Commission rulings and dictated how Bunnies could smoke (one small puff at a time, the cigarette then resting in the ashtray, not the hand), how they could sit (on the back of a chair or resting a hip on a banister; this was known as the Bunny Perch), how they could stand (the Bunny Stance: one foot behind the other, hips squared), and how they could address members (“Smile and introduce yourself with the standard Bunny Introduction: ‘Good evening, I am your Bunny _________ (name). May I see the Playboy key, please?’ … Never express your request for a keyholder’s order in a crude and trite phrase such as ‘What’ll you have?’”)
News Brooklyn Cyclist Killed in Gravesend Yesterday
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 2:07 PM
It's the beginning of high season for cycling in the city, and Brooklyn's first cyclist fatality in months came yesterday afternoon around 3pm at the intersection of Avenue T and West 9th Street in Gravesend, where, the Daily News reports, 39-year-old Joseph Granati apparently rode through a red light, was struck by a Nissan and died at the scene.
News Brooklyn Heights Terrorized by Would-Be "Soda Can Killer"
Posted by Henry Stewart on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 1:18 PM
Super-Secret Drink Specials and Previously Unheard Short Fiction at Literary Upstart Next Week
Posted by Mark Asch on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 12:00 PM
If last month's first round is any indication (it usually is), there will be excellent short stories read by a handful of the city's best unknown writers; disconcertingly loud laughter emanating from certain corners of the audience; rampant use of foul language during New York City Literary Trivia; and drink specials from Heineken. At semifinal #2, we're promising a thrilling, double-secret beer special that you'll just have to show up to find out about.
If you'd like to submit your story for consideration for our last semifinal reading, on May 25, please do so by the end of the month, guys. Submission guidelines here.
Art Big Expansion in the Works for Red Hook Gallery Kidd Yellin?
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 10:33 AM
The Brooklyn gallery scene grows (and retracts) in spurts, and with this weekend's reopening of Cinders Gallery in a bigger space and news that Red Hook gallery and studio complex Kidd Yellin has bought a very large building down the block, seems safe to say that we're in one of those periods of expansion.
Art Photos from Cinders Gallery's Resurrection and Reopening
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 9:46 AM
Faced with an immense rent increase Cinders Gallery co-founders Kelie Bowman and Sto left their Havemeyer Street space last December, vowing to reopen in the neighborhood soon-ish. That turned out to be very soon: last week they announced the reopening two corners away at 28 Marcy Avenue, and on Saturday night they inaugurated the big, new space.
News Contaminated Former Gas Station in Williamsburg to Become Diner
Posted by Henry Stewart on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:57 AM
Friday, April 22, 2011
Art / Food & Drink Closure Imminent, Mars Bar Gets Condo Camouflage Photo-Mural
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 4:27 PM
As Mark noted back in December, perennial East Village dive Mars Bar at East 1st Street and Second Avenue will soon shutter so its building can be replaced by a twelve-story condo. With Mars' end approaching (rumors say June), local blogger Roger_Paw noticed yesterday that an artist was pasting the bar's façade with versions of its future self: a giant mural image of glassy condos. More views, with the anonymous artist, after the jump.
Food & Drink / TV Shoot the Geek: Photos from the Doctor Who Premiere Party at the Bell House
Posted by Nadia Chaudhury on Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 3:40 PM
The walls of the Bell House were adorned in fezzes, bowties and Stetson hats and the space looked awfully big (but still crowded) yesterday as Doctor Who fans were invited to the premiere of the show's sixth season, the first episode of which was filmed here in the States—hence the Stetson hats. BBC America and Secret Formula threw a special party, complete with trivia, impersonations, drink specials (anyone in the mood for a sonic screwdriver?), and costume contests, and we were there taking photos of the epic geek-out.
Art British Street Artist Sweet Toof Paints Toothy Mural in Bushwick
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 2:54 PM
The Bushwick gallery Factory Fresh continues to import top-shelf international street art stars. Last year brought Roa from Belgium, and next on the schedule is London's Sweet Toof (not to be confused with Angeleno Shark Toof), who just finished the above contribution to the gallery's mural project on Vandervoort Place.
Art / News Your Earth Day (and Deepwater Horizon Anniversary) Performance Art Video
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 2:07 PM
Ok, so this performance by Liberate Tate happened on April 20th, the first anniversary of the BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon's explosion and leak in the Gulf of Mexico, in the classical sculpture galleries of the London museum (which is heavily BP-branded and -sponsored), but it seems an equally fitting/depressing video for today, which is Earth Day.
Film Tribeca 2011: Iceland Goes for the Protest Vote in Gnarr
Posted by Mark Asch on Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 1:19 PM
Film The French Revolution As Miasmic Noir in Reign of Terror
Posted by Michael Atkinson on Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 12:26 PM
How to characterize this underseen, historical-espionage demi-noir except as the bad seed baby borne from an unholy alliance, after sharp-eyed noiriste Anthony Mann, Satanic-pact cinematographer John P. Alton and crazy arch-modernist designer William Cameron Menzies got together to reinvent the French Revolution and the Great Terror and ended up with something like a mutant Welles movie? Or think of them as the Robespierre, Saint-Just and Marat of B-movies in extremis after WWII, treating history like a guillotinable royal, and restoring noir reflexes to their forgotten Gothic roots.
Film Tribeca 2011: Grave Encounters' Fucked-Up Mindfreak
Posted by Henry Stewart on Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 11:34 AM
Music So So Glo Guitarist Back On the Streets After Brief Arrest
Posted by Henry Stewart on Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 10:42 AM
