- Issue Archive for
- May 13-26, 2009
- Vol. 7, No. 10
Blogs
Mad Men Spoiler! Only Not Really At All!
The people at AMC have not the slightest idea how to act now that they have a successful show.
If You're Going to San Francisco, Be Sure to Wear a Hazmat Suit
How come all of a sudden they're the ones getting blown up, not us? Is New York losing its armageddon mojo?
The Greatest Musician in the World
A fiddle-playing Norwegian youth named "Alexander" has won the Eurovision Song Contest. History is now finished.
Priced to Own: Angry White Men
Starring Michael Douglas as Joe the Everyman.
Something New, Something Old and Something Borrowed (sort of)
Three special theater events tonight offer new comedy, recent musicals and obscure George Bernard Shaw.
Two Readings, Four Women and a Polar Bear
Catch three new plays about global warming, relationships and (maybe) feminism at these free readings.
New Wilco Record Streaming
And there's a guest appearance by Jay Farrar! (No there's not.)
Why Archie Shouldn't Choose
Betty versus Veronica and the death of feminism.
FREE BOOZE! Art Events Tonight
Save a lowly event in Williamsburg and a celebration in Dumbo, tonight's art party calendar is all about Chelsea.
Green Hero of the Week: The London Array
A wind breakthrough.
RunPee.com: This is Why the Internet Exists
I like to go to movies but I also like to binge drink in the presence of Matthew McConaughey.
They Might Be Giants: More Precious Than You Even Realized
Unless you already assumed they were offering to sponsor Little League teams all over the country.
Art Events on a Pier or at a PopRally
Spend the afternoon by the water and the evening getting messy at MoMA.
Book Deal of the Week: The Wisdom of Crowds
Twitter made a book!
Someone Should Have Told Her That He's Not Famous, Talented or Attractive
Scarlett Johansson and Pete Yorn collaborate on an album inspired by Serge Gainsbourg's work with Brigitte Bardot.
Priced to Own: "We've Got to Kill Hitler"
Valkyrie's new on DVD today, but that's not what Cullen's reviewing...
FREE BOOZE! Art Events Tonight
Cover Chelsea and the LES tonight, because you might just spend all weekend in Dumbo at the New York Photo Festival.
The Theater of Tomorrow (and Yesterday) Today
The L's Alexis Clements talks with David Herskovits about his Target Margin Theater company's current lab series.
American Idol: You May Not Have Seen This Coming
Because you never expect anyone to do anything right. But after 88 million votes, well, you done good, America.
Green Hero of the Week: Green Map
Act locally.
Get Your Reps: My Friend Ivan Lapshin
The greatest living filmmaker you’ve never heard of?
Night at the Museum II: Stay Out of Washington
Battle of the Smithsonian loves America, except when it's subverting its values and destroying its treasures.
Sound Smart, Read These: The Secrets of Happiness, Chinese Politics and the Urban Middle Class, Revealed
Also in our weekly articles-of-note round-up: Don DeLillo, Wells Tower, and Eleanor Roosevelt's margarine commercial.
Special Screenings: Shakespeare Ballet and Student Documentary
A Midsummer Night's Dream and immigration woes onscreen tonight.
Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks" Video
In which they resemble a taxidermy indie rock band.
NY Times: "Flo Rida Is So Fucking Emo"
One writer's crazy ideas about who downloads music. (Hint: Only emo kids.)
Cheney Supports Bush for President
Why is Dick all over the place? Seriously, Dick is hanging out, for everyone to see.
Celebrate Art with Lego!
Lego releases Frank Lloyd Wright building kits just in time for your second, artsier childhood.
Our Steins Runneth Over With Stein
Between Soho and Long Island City, Gertrude Stein appears in all her forms tonight.
FREE BOOZE! Art Events Tonight
Tonight's art parties are relatively few and far between, though the LES and Williamsburg are probably your best bets.
Get Your Reps: Ozu's Good Morning at BAM
Today on your repertory film calendar, fart jokes and suburban conformity... from Japan, this time.
Performance Festival Roundup
Keeping up with festivals is like a full-time job right now. Here are six that deserve your valuable time.
A Meadow in Tribeca
New public art installation lets a park grow wild.
Cross Promotion! Northside Festival! (No Idea If This Is Technically Cross Promotion)
In which I shamelessly plug an L Magazine event and show you a pair of sunglasses I want.
100 Year-Old Bacon
Not the latest "slow food" trend, but the latest blockbuster museum exhibition, which opens today.
Music Retailers Getting Too Demanding, Even For the Majors
How ever-growing need for bonus material is destroying the album.
Hitting the Stage: Horror and Jewish Ideas Today, Tomorrow and Beyond
Don't miss these two new festivals about cultural heritage going forward and a meta-narrative horror comedy.
FREE BOOZE! Art Events Tonight
Your art party route is all about Chelsea tonight, with a brief aside at Madison Square Park, where Jessica Stockholder continues to expand her empire.
Hitting the Stage: Lincoln, Shepard and Hercules
Five shows open this weekend, from rep favorites to world premieres, monologues and staged readings. Oh, and one is staged in an East Village apartment.
On Monday: Dollar Beer at Literary Upstart
The L Magazine: Using alcohol to bribe people into attending fiction readings since, what, 2005?
Holy Crap! Times Square Now Slightly Less Awful
Midtown's two megamalls, Times Square and Herald Square, got slightly less hellish when Broadway turned car-free this weekend.
Brian Williams Has Better Taste in Music Than You
Yesterday, I was so busy listening to this song over and over again that I forgot to post about the best news item I�d seen in weeks.
Kanye West: "I Hate the Word Hate, Also Books"
The rapper has written a book, despite proudly refraining from reading them.
Adventureland and the Sack-Smack of Class Warfare
This here recession is in many ways like getting smacked in the balls by an embarrassing childhood friend.
FREE BOOZE! Art Events Tonight
Whether you start your art party cruise in Midtown, Tribeca or the LES, you'll want to end up in Bushwick.
The L Covers the Cannes Film Festival!
By, you know, linking to the few people who can still afford to actually go there.
Get Your Reps: North Korean War-Movie Propaganda
Rare, fervently patriotic films from the only country in the world run by a megalomaniacal movie buff.
A Fireside Chat About Hiroshima, New Jersey
The L talks to playwright Chiori Miyagawa about her newest work, which opens tonight at the Ohio, and continues through May 30.
It's Official: America Hates Gay People
Or tasteless Broadway-inspired rock singers. I can't tell.
It's Raining, Sorta. Stay Inside and Watch TV.
Specifically, the season finales of 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, The Office, and Grey's Anatomy. Just don't tell anyone about that last one.
Hitting the Stage: Lesbian, Rockstar Scientists and Vegetative Astronomers
New shows include The Lisps' musical and a futuristic space opera.
FREE BOOZE! Art Events Tonight
Art takes Memorial Day weekend off too, apparently, so you'll be among the few and proud at tonight's handful of openings.
Green Villain of the Week: The US Senate
The World's Most August Deliberative Body sees no need to curb gaseous emissions.
The Original American Idol: Eurovision Pop Contest Today!!!
Europeans are just as tacky as Americans, so stop being so damn snooty about it.
R.I.P. Jay Bennett
Former Wilco guitarist found dead at his Illinois home over the weekend.
MAY.18.2009 Art Talk
Tonight's Dia Art Foundation lecture sheds some light on conceptual artist On Kawara's date paintings, telegrams and postcards.
Ruined Runs the Obies
The story of exploitation and annihilation in Central Africa sort of sweeps the Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway awards.
Last Night's American Idol: I Hope You Voted for Kris
Because of the six performances on the show, there was only one good one. And it didn't come from Danny or Adam.
American Idol: Kris and Adam vs. Kara
Well, that certainly was anti-clamactic, now wasn't it?
Lost: Who Killed Locke? (Locke's Dead?)
We don't want to type anything here; everyone's really on edge about spoilers this morning.
Your Weeked at the Movies: Not Every Hit Movie Demands a Follow-Up
Do you know anyone who really, thoroughly enjoyed the Da Vinci Code movie?
FREE By Donation Movie Tonight
Exit Art's (practically free) Brazilian film series kicks off its two-month run tonight.
Sound Smart, Read These: Torture, Dementia, Murder, The Peace Corps and Jonathan Lethem
Dark, dark times in our weekly articles of note round-up.
FREE BOOZE! Art Events Today
Open studios in South Slope, book launches in Chelsea and Dumbo, and a really colorful opening on the LES.
FREE BOOZE! Art Events Tonight
Party with students presenting a year's worth of hard work at two receptions tonight.
Lars von Trier/Antichrist
"I am the best film director in the world. I'm not sure if God is the best God in the world."
Holy War
In which we forgive the bait-and-switch of GQ's Donald Rumsfeld piece, because holy crap.
Way 2 Go Gays! New York One Step Closer to Growing Up and Being Mature About Things
The New York Assembly thinks gay marriage is totally cool. Now it's on to the Senate and its bigoted Democrats.
Announcing Summerscreen 2009
The L's free outdoor summer film series — Now with 100% more Bobby Peru! — returns to McCarren Park in July. Mark your calendars.
The Actor That Ate Summer Hours
When production stills attack.
Get Your Reps: Escape from Alcatraz
There's not a prison built yet that could hold Clint Eastwood, Sexual Cowboy.
Savoir Adore Release New Video
And they made it for less money than you're gonna spend on booze tonight.
Green Villain of the Week: The Internet
Ironically, this very blog post is hastening the irreversible degradation of our habitat. Sorry!
This weekend: The Great Greenpoint BBQrawl
What to do if you didn't get invited to Billy Joel's croquet tournament this Memorial Day weekend.
Performance Art, Word!
Georgia Sagri unleashes her unique games of wordplay and gestural trickery on Orchard Street today (and for the next month).
Photos: Holy Fuck at The Music Hall of Williamsburg
If you had pretty keyboards, you'd stare at them longingly too.
Come Get Drunk With Me
(Ha. Psyche. I'm already totally loaded, but you can come to Literary Upstart and watch make an ass of myself.)
Watching, Talking and Drinking Art Tonight
A panel, a performance, a reading and a party inspired by a surrealist film from the 70s.
Good News from the Wing Nut Commentariat?
Shiny new senatorial candidate Charlie Crist is kind of orange, maybe gay, and definitely hated by conservatives.
Spicy Art on Park Ave
Ernesto Neto's gigantic anthropomorphic textile environment opens today at the Armory.
omigod omigod wtf is wrong with google???
First, it started drizzling, and now this. Will it ever end? Will it ever end?
Action Painting in Action
Naoki Iwakawa and Carlo Altomare make art before your very eyes tonight!
Coming to a Museum Multiplex Near You...
Blockbuster season hits New York's museums, starting with major Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Avedon retrospectives opening today.
Your Terminated Weekend at the Movies
Yes, finally, we are actually getting to the part with the robot wars.
Music
Dark Matter, Glorious Mess
Magik Markers' Balf Quarry is a great, chaotic, menacing kick in the ass to the Crosby, Stills and Nash set.
Deradoorian
Mind Raft EP (Lovepump United Records)
Liechtenstein
Survival Strategies in a Modern World (Slumberland)
Hott Tickets!
Animal Collective, Peaches, Iron & Wine and Sunday Best.
Green Day Take Themselves Seriously, And So Should You
How Green Day accidentally made the most timeless record of their long career.
Goodbye 20th Century
Three albums from giants of late-90s hip-hop release records on the same day, only one of them seems the slightest bit relevant.
Fiction
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The Cedar Fire
"I always tried to show Hannah that insects were animals, too — as worthy of compassion as the barnyard critters in her story books."
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The Skin Pulled Tightly Over the Bone
"She is working hard on her project. Something is ripping."
Film
It’s Serious
Steven Soderbergh’s Girlfriend Experience, in a coma.
Tom, Tom, All Grown Up
Experimental film legend Ken Jacobs talks to the L about his latest return to the scene of the crime.
Memento
Olivier Assayas’ moving, modestly masterful Summer Hours observes the tangible signs of life.
Is Steve McQueen Really That Cool?
What if he's really just an antecedent of Matthew McConaughey? (Think about it.) The latest in our series of video essays asking big questions.
Brotherly Whimsy
Sentiment, whimsy and Wes Anderson tableaux in Rian Johnson’s con game The Brothers Bloom.
Bombs Away
Dr. Strangelove, um, drops by Film Forum.
Everyday People
Yoji Yamada's Kabei: Our Mother is a lovely little movie about how life goes on.
The Postman Rings Again
Desperate times call for cynical art; thus, Christian Petzold’s Jerichow
Not Its Own Reward
Noel Coward adaptation Easy Virute evaporates off the screen.
First Name Odd, Last Name Horten
Bent Hamer’s O’Horten is something more than your average Scando-quirk.
Just Because You're Paranoid...
The earnest conspiracy nuts of New World Order get the sympathetic ear they deserve.
The Vatican Drag
We're told the plot of Angels and Demons centers around "antimatter." You don't say.
The Cinephile Hunt on YouTube and Beyond
While studios and video stores struggle to adjust to new realities, a treasure trove of rare movies live on, on the internet.
Rise of the Automaton Action Movie
Terminator Salvation is Cormac McCarthy for the Transformers crowd.
Food & Drink
House of the Shouting Waiter
The cacophonous roar you hear? That's the staff of new Japanese restaurant Inayaka, greeting you.
Erin Go Blah
The Dubliner is a few notches above your average beer-drenched, Celtic-tinged sports bar.
Homemade Pizza: More Complicated, Worse Results
In which noted bad cook Andrea Rosen somehow manages to screw up pizza.
Ay, Caracas!
Making your own arepas in Brooklyn is as pointless as making your own Mr. Softee.
Art
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MoMA Miks its Match
The installation is the real star at the Modern's retrospective of Dutch video artist Aernout Mik.
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Lower East Psychedelic
Four LES exhibitions deploy crazy colors and textures in different, more or less successful ways.
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Clowns Art Us
Two current exhibitions use the funny figures in colorful costumes to provoke pity, not creepy.
Theater
The Colonists
Dreams of flight and backyard capitalism with puppets and a pumpin' score.
Bushwhacking in Bushwick
The second annual Bushwhack Series brings all manner of multidisciplinary performance to "East Williamsburg."
Theater of Tomorrow Today
The L chats with Target Margin Theater's artistic director David Herskovits about the company's new series, American theater, triple lattes and traveling.
The Writer Who Went to Hiroshima Mon Amour
Playwright Chiori Miyagawa discusses her new play that opens at the Ohio tonight, her favorite New York theater companies, Toni Morrison, Hair, and an especially unpleasant trip to Jersey.
Books
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Yo, Step Off Motherf***er!
Noted bad-ass Ben Greenman talks smack with The L's Mark Asch. (Also, books and music.)
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Selected Poems
August Kleinzahler highlights the work of late Anglo-American poet Thom Gunn.
Sloane Crosley Is Like a Log Flume
This week, The L Mag Questionnaire for Writer Types was told there'd be cake.
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Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey
Gorey's subjects are wildly appealing, yet their theatrically black-rimmed eyes and solemn mouths evoke a shadowy malaise.
Eugene Mirman Has Bad Credit
This week, The L Mag Questionnaire for Writer Types is forged in the furnace of bitter experience.
Horoscope
Columns
Strangest Argument You've Overheard?
New Yorkers argue, fuss and fight in the back of cabs. No kidding.
How Much is Just Enough
Dear Audrey,
It's been, um, a while since my husband and I had sex.
Models Attack!
Is the model as muse a dying phenomenon? (And is that such a bad thing?)
Toward a Kinder, Gentler End Times
The fall of civilization doesn't have to be all about mohawked madmen and their deadly lust for oil.
Eight Fallacies About Contemporary Art
Afraid to talk about art? Intimidated? Feel like you'll look silly? Let Paddy help.
End This Farce: Legalize Steroids
Behold the triumphant return of Tim Bracy's strident new sports column. Topic 1: delicious 'roids...
Obama Has Betrayed Us All! Zut Alors!
Europe is confused about the new president. (Oh, and btw, those torture photos he wants kept secret? Europe has them and already printed some.)
Two Great Shows in Chelsea
Nam June Paik and Jessica Stockholder show us how it's done.
Favre Flips Out
A once-beloved athlete journeys ever deeper into his private heart of darkness.
Special
News & Features
The Vices of the Virtuous
The L sought out virtuous New Yorkers and asked them what vices they indulge in, mainly to feel better about ourselves. And we do. Feel better.
For Every Vice, There is a Virtue
A New Yorker's Guide to Sin and Penance
The Vice Squad
Videographer Marian Lorraine gets New Yorkers to talk about the bad things they do. On camera.
Search for the Gammator: Part II
In which Adam Bonislawski falls in love with teenage girls from the early 1960s.
Dick Cheney Needs More Ass-Play
Is the former Vice-President's constant need to control things overcompensation for impotence elsewhere in his life?
Reverend Billy Takes It Underground
In part three of his L Mag campaign diary, NYC mayoral candidate Reverend Billy hits the subway preaching.
