The L Magazine - New York City's Local Event and Arts & Culture Guide, The L Magazine

Required Reading: Russian Feminist Punk Band Pussy Riot Arrested For Protesting Putin

Sydney Brownstone — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:02:00 -0500

This is the best thing you will read and/or listen to all day. NPR has the story of a 25-person Russian feminist punk collective named Pussy Riot (brilliant) whose members were arrested after a video of their protest in the Red Square went viral on the world wide web.…

House of Reps Approves Three-Mile Gas Pipeline Through Brooklyn and Queens

Sydney Brownstone — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:14:00 -0500

Oil pipelines have been getting a lot of press lately. That canceled, politically controversial Keystone XL project would have stretched 1,700 miles from the Albertan tar oil sands down to the Gulf of Mexico, if it weren't for those pesky environmentalists and concerned Nebraskans.…

Can An Opera Be Anti-Love and Pro-America?

Henry Stewart — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:25:00 -0500

When Christoph Willibald Gluck's Armide opens, the composer employs sweet major keys for women's talk of love, and ominous minors when their topic changes to war. But the title character is unbound by such convention; when she sings of romance, it's through darkened melodies.…

5 Trademarked Blue Ivy Carter Items We Can't Wait to Buy

Benjamin Sutton — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:47:00 -0500

Jay-Z and Beyonce's daughter's name, which we've been obsessing over for many months, is now trademarked! On January 26 the pop music royals filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to protect the name "Blue Ivy Carter" for future merchandising and licensing opportunities like diaper bags, baby carriages, and other sensible things.…

Which Borough Has the Most Top-Selling Singles of All-Time?

Josh Kurp — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:01:00 -0500

During some pointless, quality time spent browsing the Internet, I came across this page for the Best Selling Singles of All-Time. The list includes every song that’s sold over five million copies, ranging from “Daydream Believer” by the Monkees to “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby, which has sales numbers in excess of 11 million.…

10 Sculptures We'd Like To See in the Met's Revamped Plaza

Benjamin Sutton — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:12:00 -0500

On Tuesday the Metropolitan Museum announced that it will be undertaking the first major renovation of its Fifth Avenue plaza between 80th and 84th streets in over four decades, which could begin as early as this fall, and is scheduled to be completed by the summer of 2014. The new plaza, designed by Philadelphia-based architects Olin—whose past public plaza designs include little things you might've heard of like Bryant Park and the Washington Monument—will feature smaller fountains, much more seating, and new trees but, weirdly, no new space for outdoor sculpture installations.…

The L Mag Questionnaire for Writer Types: Kate Zambreno

Mark Asch — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:25:00 -0500

Kate Zambreno is the author of two novels, O Fallen Angel and Green Girl. Heroines, a critical memoir centering around her obsession with the wives and myths of modernism, will be published by Semiotext(e) in September 2012.…

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Why I Will Always Side With Rape Accusers Before Knowing the "Facts"

Audrey Ference — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:40:00 -0500

Yesterday, prosecutors decided that they won't press charges against Greg Kelly, son of police commissioner Ray Kelly. He was accused of raping a woman—I wrote about it here.…
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Oh Look, Lee Ranaldo's Better Than All the Youngs at the Brooklyn Indie Rock Video Aesthetic Too

Mike Conklin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:18:00 -0500

This song just keeps getting better for me, the lines "Watch me as a I fall, then scrape me off the wall and take me home/See me as I am, just half a man" reminding me of a time not so long ago when my life's relative lack responsibilities allowed me the freedom, if you want to call it that, to be at best half a man. I also continue to be entertained by how handily Mr. Ranaldo is beating the kids at their own game, first with the sort of fuzzed-out indie pop they all like so much these days, and now with a hazy video with cut up footage of, like, trees and the sun. Boy, am I ever excited about his full-length, due our on March 20th.…
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Spikey Air-Cleaning Star Landing in MoMA PS1 Courtyard This Summer

Benjamin Sutton — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:58:00 -0500

Though it's currently home to the Performance Dome—where a new performance series just launched—come June the MoMA PS1 courtyard will host a watery blue explosion titled "Wendy" as the latest entry in its Young Architects Program. The winning architecture firm, Flatiron-based HWKN, follows successive Brooklyn-based winners Interboro Partners and SO-IL.…
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Sparks Notes

Jesse Hassenger — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0500
The Vow leapfrogs its obvious ground-laying Nicholas Sparks adaptation antecedents to be, actually, pretty good for this sorta movie. by Jesse Hassenger The Vow Directed by Michael Sucsy Paige (Rachel McAdams) and her husband Leo (Channing Tatum) sit in a parked car, minding their own business and talking about getting pregnant, as married people do, when a truck, blinded by the picturesque and not particularly blinding snow, rams into their vehicle.…
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Coming Home

Jesse Hassenger — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0500
A familiar indie, a less familiar war story, Return is distinguished by a fine performance from Linda Cardellini, in her first starring film role. by Jesse Hassenger Return Directed by Liza Johnson Going back to her perfect turn on TV's Freaks and Geeks, Linda Cardellini has always possessed a great discontented face—confusion and discomfort float across it with heartbreaking ease.…
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Tumblr Fuck Your Noguchi Coffee Table Hates Your Taste in Interior Decoration

Benjamin Sutton — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:04:00 -0500

Like Unhappy Hipsters before it, the ten-day-old Tumblr Fuck Your Noguchi Coffee Table thinks you're trying way too hard with your interior decoration choices, which it finds pitifully cliché and artless. It all started with "Fuck your Noguchi coffee table"—in reference to a living room's conspicuous display of a small table designed by the late Japanese-American Modern sculptor—and has only gotten more exasperated and annoyed since.…
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Art Thief Mark Lugo Pleads Guilty to Art Theft in New York

Benjamin Sutton — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:20:00 -0500

While we await its big screen (or HBO) adaptation, we've been following the saga of coast-to-coast art thief and former Manhattan sommelier Mark Lugo, who was first caught for swiping a Picasso drawing from a San Francisco gallery last July and was subsequently discovered to be keeping a world-class collection of stolen artworks in his Hoboken apartment. Though he initially pleaded not guilty to several charges in a Manhattan court in December, he's come around and yesterday pleaded guilty to stealing a Fernand Léger from a gallery at the Carlyle Hotel last June.…
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More Day Laborers on Fifth Avenue

Henry Stewart — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:31:00 -0500

The four corners of Fifth and Bay Ridge avenues has long been a congregating space for day laborers, who gather in the morning near the Alpine movie theater in the hopes that a contractor—or, say, some fella who needs to lay some sheet rock but doesn't have a team of able-bodied sons to round up—will give them a day's pay for a day's work. But the number of the job-hopeful has been steadily increasing in recent weeks, the Bay Ridge Journal reports, to numbers that blog hasn't seen since 2008.…
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The Permanent Collection: 4 New Songs You Should Hold on To

Jeff Klingman — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:40:00 -0500

In maybe the most exciting bit of new music news since last time we talked, Koko the gorilla has learned to play the recorder! Somebody alert Damon Albarn!…
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Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon Has A New Clothing Line

Sydney Brownstone — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:52:00 -0500

This isn't the first time Sonic Youth bassist (and, devastatingly, soon-to-be ex of guitarist Thurston Moore) Kim Gordon has tried her hand at fashion design. Back in the early 1990s, Gordon started a riot grrrl clothing line called X-Girl, whose short A-line dresses and ringer tees were modeled by the likes of Chloe Sevigny, Kathleen Hanna and Sofia Coppola.…
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Everybody Loves Birth Control

Audrey Ference — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:40:00 -0500

It's a weird world where there is a group of people whose political stance seems to be both anti-abortion and anti-birth control. I mean, even the most regressive Republicans have to believe that we're past the point of "just keep your legs shut, hussy."…
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When Music Meets the Art World: 6 Multidisciplinary Works

Tobias Carroll — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:03:00 -0500

On Sunday, avant-dance musician Nicolas Jaar performed a five-hour-long afternoon of music and visual art in the museum’s “Performance Dome.” Aided by numerous collaborators, the piece combined recording, sampling, and looping techniques with analogue instrumentation and sound-derived video. Given that Jaar’s more pop-oriented music still hovers around the fringes of the abstract, it’s not surprising to see him making a move in the direction of the art world.…
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Restaurant Playlist: T. Rex, Tom Waits, Cypress Hill and More at Calyer

Kara Zuaro — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:17:08 -0500

"Filtering music for this room was a challenge. It's small, moody and cozy and finding the balance between not-too-bright-and-sharp and not-too-dark-and-heavy took some time," says Calyer's general manager, Virginia Brown.…
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Solving Crown Heights' Crime Problem with Public Art Made of Zip Ties

Lisa Gomez — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:32:00 -0500

The violent shootings and behavior in Crown Heights this past Labor Day resonated with many city residents (perhaps most infamously Jumaane Williams and Kirsten John Foy), including Brooklyn architect-designers Lana Zellner and Kristen Svorka. Disturbed by the events of that weekend, during which 13 people were killed and 67 people were shot, the pair struggled to stay focused on their work.…
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Techies and Futurists Meet, Mingle at Dorkbot

Jennifer Mills — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:46:00 -0500

Tucked behind a curtain in Soho gallery Location One, some of New York’s most up-to-date techies congregate. Some are discussing the transition from “http” to “https,” others are comparing their highest Skyrim score.…
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Megabus' Double-Decker Is Nearly 4,000 Pounds Heavier Than NYC's Legal Limit

Sydney Brownstone — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:59:00 -0500

First it was Megaupload's challenged legality, now Megabus'. According to a report by DNAinfo, the popular bus line's double-decker weighs 39,750 pounds at full capacity, almost 4,000 pounds heavier than the state's legal limit.…
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Darkest Hours

Julia Pasternak — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0500
In Darkness, up for this year's Best Foreign Film Oscar, is a credibly murky Jews-in-hiding drama. by Julia Pasternak In Darkness Directed by Agnieszka Holland Agnieszka Holland's latest Holocaust film, up for a Best Foreign Film Oscar this month, retells the story of Leopold Socha, a Polish man who helped a group of Jews take refuge in the sewers of Nazi-occupied Lvov.…
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Workshopped to Death

Elise Nakhnikian — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:00:00 -0500
Relatable work by Great Gerwig can't quite elevate indie two-hander The Dish and the Spoon past the level of interesting exercise. by Elise Nakhnikian The Dish and the Spoon Directed by Alison Bagnall The light is beautiful, the backgrounds artfully softened, and the actors charming, but The Dish and the Spoon starts to flatline just a few minutes in.…
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