Friday, August 26, 2011
Food & Drink More than 20 Chefs Descending on Pig Island on Sept. 10th
Posted by Keith Wagstaff on Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 11:06 AM
Film Your Not Idiotic Weekend at the Movies
Posted by Jesse Hassenger on Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 10:29 AM
Food & Drink "Four Kitchens" Author Lauren Shockey Dishes on Cooking Abroad and Her Fave International Eats in NYC
Posted by Keith Wagstaff on Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 9:45 AM
So, which was the most eye-opening experience: New York, Vietnam, Israel or Paris?
wd~50 in New York, because it was really the first restaurant I worked at. I remember walking in the door the first day petrified; I was so intimidated by Wylie that couldn’t look him in the eye. At first I was really slow. Tasks that took the rest of the staff four minutes took me 40. Eventually, though, I learned all of the basics of how to work in a restaurant kitchen: prep, organization, even how to hold my knife correctly.
Film You Won't Be Afraid of the Dark
Posted by Benjamin Sutton and Henry Stewart on Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 8:57 AM
SUTTON:
So, Henry, we could probably piece together the entire plot of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark by citing the various generic precedents from which it draws so joylessly—much as we might've done last week with Conan the Barbarian and every sandy fantasy action movie ever made. Like how its evil little critters are part New York City rat, part Gremlin, or that its creepy Rhode Island mansion alternately evokes The Shining's Overlook Hotel and that British estate from The Others. But for expediency's sake let's just say that Sally's (Bailee Madison) neglectful mother sends her to live with her equally inattentive father Alex (Guy Pearce), who with his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) is restoring a haunted historic house. Rather than bemoan how hackneyed and humorless this remake is, though, it seems to me there's a pretty strong class war subtext here. Sure, the housekeeper and contractor are sympathetic characters, but aren't the hungry furballs basically lower-class-coded monsters? They scurry about in the basement, where servants traditionally worked; they hide in a chimney that, a century earlier, a servant would have kept roaring to heat the richers upstairs; like the proletariat, they're only effective in large, organized groups. What do you think, Henry, should Don't Be Afraid of the Dark really be title "Don't Be Afraid of Your Unstable Class Position"? That's pretty catchy.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Music Oh, Right, So About That Bon Iver-James Blake Collaboration
Posted by Lauren Beck on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 4:19 PM
Instead what we got was the premiere of a song called "Fall Creek Boys Choir" on BBC Radio 1, featuring Vernon harmonizing with his heavily Auto-Tuned self and Blake doing whatever it is that people are constantly praising him for behind the boards. The track itself is old news by now (you can listen to it below), but the overly enthusiastic reactions to it are still mind-boggling to me. There are already 914 "likes" on the Pitchfork post alone. Really?
Sex Today in Sex Toys That Look Like Other Things
Posted by Audrey Ference on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 3:37 PM
This is not the first breakthrough in "discreet" sex toy technology, however. As a fan of Things That Look Like Other Things (for some reason those one-hitters that are disguised as sharpies will forever crack me up), here for your looking (or buying!) pleasure are the very hilarious-est of secret sex toys.
Music Live: What Happens When No-Wave Legend James Chance Plays in a Piano Bar
Posted by Jeff Klingman on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 2:50 PM
Live at the Manhattan Inn, Greenpoint
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
James Chance — punk hero, disco terrorist — stood at the mirror and hairsprayed himself, copiously, to satisfaction. Being at the Manhattan Inn, a cozy, candle-lit Greenpoint piano bar with a sunken floor and a circle of booths around it, and not backstage at a proper rock club, Chance’s aerosol fog dissapated slowly in full view. There was no chance of that pompadour spontaneously contorting itself. (Ugh, sorry.) While this was happening, a non-descript warm-up player killed time behind the back room’s white grand piano, looking super bored. The crowd was far beyond what you’d expect on a typical night, 20-somethings sitting stadium style on the steps between booth and piano level, standing in any natural gaps. But nobody paid the warm-up guy much mind, holding our attention in reserve for what we assumed would be something rather odd.
News Have Hipsters Forsaken Obama?
Posted by Henry Stewart on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 2:03 PM
Media New York Press Misspells Former Editor's Name on Last-Ever Cover
Posted by Mark Asch on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 1:28 PM
The last-ever issue of the New York Press (RIP) hit newsstands yesterday, with a cover highlighting many of the reporters, critics, essayists, artists and editors who've contributed over the years, including of course current Village Voice political reporter Harry Siegel, the paper's editor for a few months in 2005 and 2006, before quitting in protest at the publishers. And really, the Press couldn't have gone out any other way:
"Harry Sigel." Many times. (Also weird job splitting up names with the big white names.) Additional head-scratchers and -smackers:
Music L Mag TV: In Conversation With The Handsome Furs
Posted by Sydney Brownstone on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 12:50 PM
News Lower-Income Brooklynites Drink the Most Soda
Posted by Ross Barkan on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 12:10 PM
Only 11.2 percent of those two affluent neighborhoods reported drinking one sweetened beverage a day. On the other hand, nearly half the population—45.7 percent—of Flatbush enjoyed a soda everyday, almost the same as in the South Bronx. The Health Department released the figures yesterday, shocking Flatbush's city councilman, Jumaane Williams. "It's disturbing," he told the tabloid.
Music Watch the Video for "Cruel," Another Track From St. Vincent's Forthcoming Album, Strange Mercy
Posted by Mike Conklin on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 11:20 AM
Whether you're among the St. Vincent fans who are in it primarily for Annie Clark's breathy, beautiful vocals and her consistently smart lyrics, or among those who just sit there waiting patiently for that part in each song where sudden bursts of wildly over-driven electric guitar kick in, well, there's enough here to satisfy on pretty much all levels. Even if you're into seeing people buried alive. Strange Mercy is out on 9/13.
News Brooklyn Bridge Park Needs a Sports Bubble To Winter-proof a Field on Pier 5
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 10:34 AM
While the future of high-end housing inside its boundaries remains partially uncertain, plans for the revamped post-industrial piers jutting into New York harbor from Brooklyn Bridge Park continue more or less apace, and on Tuesday the park released a request for proposals (PDF) for a seasonal recreational structure—aka a sports bubble—on Pier 5.
Art Lower East Side's Timeshare Backyard Gets Exceptional Street Art Show
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 9:45 AM
Though we made gentle fun of the Timeshare Backyard—The Participation Agency's by-the-hour rental lot of picket fence-bordered suburban backyard grass at 145 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side—we're now eating our words as the formerly blighted expanse unveils a small but stellar show of street art, Grassy Lot Show, opening tonight from 6-8pm.
Film On the Cinema Novo Antonio Das Mortes, Screening Tonight
Posted by Elina Mishuris on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 8:57 AM
Antonio das Mortes isn’t interested in your petty politics—at least, not yet. As behooves a figure of such massive, mythic proportions, the eponymous killer of canguaceiros (outlaws and rebel leaders) is in competition and dialogue only with himself. Between his handiwork in 1964’s Black God, White Devil, an earlier film by Glauber Rocha, and this 1967 Cinema Novo touchstone (its original title: O Dragão da Maldade Contra o Santo Guerreiro), he seems to have finished the job, and the canguaceiros, conclusively. So when news of Cairana, a new claimant to the name, reaches Antonio (Maurício do Valle, thick, brooding and dressed for the hunt), he and his gun and machete set out into the Brazilian steppe—the sertão—and toward eventual sea change, free of charge.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
News North Brooklyn Cyclists: Register Your Bike for Free on Friday Morning in Greenpoint
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 4:21 PM
Unless you're one very lucky Craigslist sting operation coordinator, if/when your bike goes missing in Brooklyn your chances of getting it back are nearly nil. But you never know, and it won't cost you anything except five minutes, so why not get an identification number etched onto your bike frame and a security decal applied to it on Friday at Greenpoint's 94th Precinct?
Media For Times Headline Writers, the Night is Young
Posted by Henry Stewart on Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 3:34 PM
Art Brooklyn Sculptor and Acrobatic Elephant Going Head-to-Head for Union Square Public Art Spot
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 2:42 PM
Remember how Brooklyn-based street artist and rogue public sculpture installer Leon Reid IV was planning to transform Union Square's equestrian George Washington statue into "Tourist-in-Chief" for Art in Odd Places' upcoming October 1-10 festival along 14th Street until the Parks Department shot down his proposal? Well in an email this week Reid tells us he's presenting his project to Community Board 5 next week.
Music Here's Why You Should Check out the Band Radiation City Tonight at Spike Hill
Posted by Lauren Beck on Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 1:54 PM
News Aftershocks from Yesterday's Earthquake
Posted by Paul D'Agostino on Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 1:05 PM
- Earthquake on eastern seaboard of US attributed to Qaddafi shitting his pants in a bunker deep beneath Tripoli. Of course, news sources are spinning it a bit differently.
- Facebook accused of causing earthquakes along the east coast of the United States today in order to increase the flow of status updates. When confronted regarding such allegations, a representative, asking to remain anonymous (while noting the irony of his request, given his employer), said, "Look, competing with Google+ has been a real bitch."
