Thursday, January 31, 2013
TV Lena Dunham Has a New TV Show That is Not About Lena Dunham
Posted by Virginia K. Smith on Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 3:00 PM
Well, geez, that was pretty fast. HBO has already put Lena Dunham at the helm of another series, which she'll be writing along with Girls co-executive producer Jenni Konner. And yes, it actually is about shopping.
Art Art Picks From Print
Posted by Paul D'Agostino on Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 1:33 PM
Ersatz pastries of sorts and your plans for Super Bowl Sunday (yes, watching the Big Game at a gallery is an option) in this round of art picks from our 1/30 issue.
Media Facebook is Ruining LiveJournal, My Life
Posted by Virginia K. Smith on Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 12:30 PM
Hey readers,
As if I have any readers, lol... someday... (jk you know I love you guys that actually read). Anyway, has anybody else been hearing about this new thing where Facebook is totally ripping off LJ? I can't even believe it, but also I know I shouldn't be surprised, sigh. I guess the deal is that they're testing out a new thing where you can say "how you're feeling," "what you're reading," "what you're listening to," all that stuff. No mood themes yet, I think, but close enough.
Art Nerds, Come Play the World's First Video Game
Posted by Whitney Kimball on Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 12:06 PM
Meet Spacewar!, the world’s first video game. Similar to Atari’s Asteroids, this two-player space shooting game was played on a 16-inch, circular retro-teal monitor, powered by a refrigerator-sized PDP-1 and a typewriter. Woooah.
Music Watch Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus Perform "I Tried to Quit Smoking" for La Blogotheque
Posted by Mike Conklin on Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 11:51 AM
In yet another beautifully shot clip for La Blogotheque, Titus Andronicus frontman Patrick Stickles performs a solo version of Local Business closer "I Tried to Quit Smoking." Though the band's undying commitment to relentless guitar rock is admirable and refreshing, it's also nice to see Stickles switch things up the way he does here. And make sure you watch all the way to the end, for the awesome guitar loops and the triumphantly mournful guitar solo.
Books Does Simon Rich Hate Brooklyn?
Posted by Henry Stewart on Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 10:45 AM
I heard you don't live in Brooklyn anymore—is that true?
I'm out in California these days, working on some movie projects, but I'd love to move back home someday. I really love Brooklyn, despite having written this hostile take-down of it.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Music The Hudson River Valley, Stage Fright and Wikipedia: An Interview With Widowspeak
Posted by Chris Payne on Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 9:00 AM
Sometimes you have to get away from the structure and the strain of city life to get the creative juices flowing. For their second LP for Brooklyn's now-venerable Captured Tracks label, Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas needed a change of pace, a change of scenery, and a step away from an internet connection, even if it did mean a temporary halt to Hamilton's tenacious Wikipedia habit. With most of Almanac written in Brooklyn, the duo retreated (along with producer Kevin McMahon) to a hundred-year old old barn in the woodlands of the Hudson River Valley. And Widowspeak sound all the better for it, both on record and in conversation. Once coy about singing live and hesitant to make Widowspeak the center of her life, Hamilton, a Tacoma, Washington transplant, sounds more intent than ever to see her band take on new challenges.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Music Many, Many Reasons This New Knife Song Is Just THE BEST
Posted by Jeff Klingman on Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 12:33 PM
It was either an amazingly effective viral marketing campaign, or just a case of several obscure Scandinavian art websites not having their shit together. (Or both!) Anyway, "Full of Fire" has been online reliably for a few days now, and available for prolonged obsessing. And I love it. Listen:
Theater BAM's Secret Socialist History?
Posted by Henry Stewart on Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 11:55 AM
Art Trend Alert: Indoor Plant Art
Posted by Corinna Kirsch on Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 11:44 AM
When gophers overrun a patch of green, park rangers root them out. Art critics aren’t like park rangers; when we see too much of the same type of art, we call it a trend. Then if there’s meaning behind that trend, we call it a movement.
Here are 11 examples of “live plants in galleries” and a couple of close calls thrown in for good measure. As I mentioned in The L Mag last week, everyone’s making indoor plant art, so it’s a trend. But a movement? It’s hard to tell at this point if we’ve grown uneasy with the stolid white cube, or if we just wish art was more like a Chia pet.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Art Frigging Freezing Art Events
Posted by Whitney Kimball on Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 1:54 PM
Shout out to the diehards, who apparently love their art events even more than they hate the cold. This week, Bushwick's screening videos, DIS Magazine's holding a stock photo shoot, and seminal people discuss seminal art.
TV Girls Recap: You're From the Seventies, But I'm a Nineties Bitch
Posted by Kristin Iversen on Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 9:45 AM
Can we all just agree to pretend that this episode never happened? Because, did it even happen? It didn't seem to happen. It didn't, after all, seem real in any way. And I wanted it to seem real. But it didn't seem real. It started off real enough, and then it all went horribly, horribly wrong. It could have gone in such a good direction, what with Hannah finally getting a freelance writing job from Jazzhate.com—which, I guess, Buzzfeed? Vice? xoJane?— and being told to go outside her comfort zone to write something great. And Jazzhate pays $200 for an article? That is crazy money. So, the pay structure isn't exactly real, but at least its relative unreality explains why Hannah would compromise her "weird nasal passages" by snorting massive amounts of coke in order to "make the magic happen." Because, as anyone who has ever done coke or been around people on coke knows, it's pure magic, like newly driven snow that tastes like aspirin going down the back of your throat, making you really thirsty. That kind of snow. That kind of magic.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Film Your Off-Season Weekend at the Movies
Posted by Jesse Hassenger on Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 12:00 PM
Music With Coachella Lineup Announced, A Survey of the Summer Festival Arms Race
Posted by Jeff Klingman on Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 11:42 AM
But who's bringing the most heat?
Art 2013 Bushwick Open Studios Dates Announced
Posted by Corinna Kirsch on Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 11:36 AM
Get ready to get busy for the spring because this year’s Bushwick Open Studios dates have been announced. From May 31st-June 2nd, the city’s curators, critics, and curious will set eyes on Bushwick, and last year’s BOS was its biggest yet; there was even Bushwick Basel, the neighborhood’s first art fair. We here at AFC and The L Magazine will be out there, too. Last year, AFC profiled over a dozen artists in the weeks leading up to the event, spotlighting the neighborhood’s emerging artists.
The 3 Best Brooklyn Dates This Week
Posted by admin on Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 10:38 AM
If you're single and hating it, leave it to your friends at The L to help. We've teamed up with the minds behind HowAboutWe to create Brooklyn Dating, a service that will (hopefully) help change online dating and find you the Brooklynite of your dreams. If you're trying to go on some dates, instead of spending all of your valuable time filling out compatibility tests, just go on some dates. We know this sounds scary, but we make it easy. Just visit Brooklyn Dating, pick the outing that sounds the most interesting to you (or come up with one of your own), make an account (if you haven't already), and go! Just go.
Every week, we'll post three of our favorite Brooklyn dates to aid you in your search for a soulmate. So get off your laptop, (or your iPad or iPhone or iPod or whatever) and go fall in love. Click here to get started, and you can find the three best Brooklyn dates of the week after the jump.
Books In Brooklyn, Even the Trash Piles are Shorter
Posted by Henry Stewart on Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 9:00 AM
What neighborhood do you live in?
I never saw the sky from my last Manhattan apartment, which languished on the second floor of a tall building, just above the trash collection area. Here in low-rise Brooklyn, there’s sky and light all over the place, not to mention smaller trash piles. Much cheerier. I’ve lived in Park Slope now for 20 years.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
News What's Going On With The Attacks on Women in Bushwick?
Posted by Virginia K. Smith on Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 3:46 PM
Back in December, there were a lot of (mostly unverified) reports of a series of attacks on women in Bushwick, mainly focused on a single attacker who "grabs the women in the dark from behind and slams them against a building wall." This, of course, led to a lot of concern among neighborhood residents, but not much clear follow-up.
Sex Sex, Love and Brooklyn: Jeremy's Iron
Posted by Lacy Warner on Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 12:20 PM
Ah, the familiar feeling of cold metal stirrups against my naked, delicate toes. The nurse practitioner congratulates me on the healthy color of my vagina—a pink somewhere between “blush” and “bashful.” She soothingly tells me about the pressure I'll be feeling from the plastic speculum. Visiting the gyno at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in Chelsea is almost as nice as getting your hair done at Bumble and Bumble. They practically give you a glass of wine while you wait for your test results. Not really, but once when I was hyperventilating in the waiting room, the nurse told me to quit the dramatics. “Trust me I've heard worse,” she said. “I've seen a dick stuck in every orifice a human can imagine." Her assurances worked pretty much like a shot of tequila to my soul.
Art Vintage Beefcakes
Posted by Whitney Kimball on Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 11:24 AM
Whether or not you were an early subscriber to homoerotic nudie mags, you've been exposed to the influence of photographer Bob Mizer. A pioneer in the beefcake genre, Mizer began his career in the mid-40s, when imagery of the male nude was banned, and the female nude permissible only in an "art" context. So in 1945, Mizer started the Athletic Model Guild, producing films and photography of scantily-clad men in an "athletic" context.
